Daily Archives: February 9, 2010

Old Houses

Bending the old house to suit

OK, we love our new old house, but two 13-watt CFLs in the kitchen just didn’t cut it.  Last week, we put up a rather modern-looking 6-lamp halogen Z-bar in the center, which lets us actually see what we are cleaning and cooking.

But, the pale moon over the breakfast nook is just that, pale.  So, back to the store, where we pick out a nice pendant light with a ribbed glass shade that speaks more to the period of the house and the metal matches the light bar, more or less.  Dropping the old light, we find what we expected, wires poking out of the textured beaverboard.  but, at least, no gaping hole in the board and the ceiling is finished right up to the wires.  So, we trot down to our friendly neighborhood Ace Hardware yet again, for yet another rework box.  I trace around it on the ceiling, cut a circle with my trusty Leatherman knife, and pry out a chunk of beaverboard.  The box fits snugly in the hole, flush with the ceiling, and even has a joist to screw it into.

After fighting with the lamp for a reasonable time for an unsupervised DIYer (Judy was off to a quilt guild committee meeting), I read the directions, put the mounting screws in the holes they were supposed to  go in,  remove one of the pendant rod sections to put the lamp at the desired height, rethread the wires, and Wow! we have a right handsome light.  Using the same 13W CFL, which is now two feet closer to the table, we have sufficient light on the table.  Life is good.    Next week, we need to take down the bar light and patch the ugly hole in the ceiling and surrounding texturing.

All things Unix, Linux

Curiouser and Curiouser — Wifi at last?

OK, another mystery.  I added the patch from the CD, added DKMS from the CD, added the bcmwl-kernel-source package, which crashed the system.  Backed out the bcmwl-kernel package.  Then, recompiled the STA driver downloaded from Broadcom, cleaned up the /etc/init.d/wifi.sh script, dropped and reloaded the newly compiled wl module, restarted networking, and voila! , the blue light blinks red and blue and the wireless interface is now working.  But, wifi-radar still can’t connect.

Browsing around for a different approach, I find that Ubuntu 9.10 comes with the latest and greatest version of Gnome Network Manager.  Hey, maybe that’s what that little antenna symbol in the top toolbar is…  Click, I can see the network offered; click, and I’m connected!  Whoof.  Almost an entire week since we started this upgrade, and five days of fighting with drivers and configurations, and we are back mobile-prepared again, just hours  before starting on our week-long road trip.  Now, if it will only survive a reboot…

All things Unix, Linux

Your mileage may vary (Linux tips)

The battle for wireless connectivity continues.  The mystery of the system crashes is at least revealed, if not understood.  A blog by Alvonsius indicated there is a package on the Karmic Koala install disk that will enable Broadcom adapters:  bcmwl-kernel-source.   I had installed it (from web archives, not the disk) on Saturday, which instigated the video lockups (go figure!). Last night, I rediscovered this helpful hint and applied it, upon which the system crashed a few minutes after logging in.

OK, back to single-user (recovery) mode, remove the offending package, and reboot.  The system is once more stable.  Now, the next step is to remove the driver obtained directly from Broadcom and the scripts that load it, and try again with the Ubuntu package.  Now, the other day, when the crashing and burning started, it was some time after unsuccessfully trying the bcmwl package on an updated system, so the fix was not quite so obvious.

Meanwhile, I am getting a lot of flack from other members of the household about choosing to use a “one-off” system like Linux.  Now, these are professional people, but not computer people.  Like most of the world, they don’t seem to understand that a computer system isn’t just a single machine, but a system representing an entire population of generations of software writers, so its behavior is just as unpredictable in specific instances as that of an unruly crowd.  The world of Microsoft and Windows is more or less totalitarian, so that users’ actions are restricted and the shortcomings of the system are hidden behind barriers of state secrecy.  In the Open Systems world, there is a lot more freedom, but there also isn’t always a cop around when you need one.  But, then, you do have the option to take matters into your own hands and deal with the problem.  Which is OK if you have the tools and knowledge it takes.  On the other hand, in the world of proprietary software, the danger is much like that in totalitarian societies: if you are being beaten and robbed, it is no use calling the police–they are already there.