We have moved to the blog around the corner..

I am no longer maintaining this blog. All posts from this blog have been merged with my main blog gwyneth.blogspot.com. See you there!

In search of a NAS OS

So there's FreeNAS (http://www.freenas.org/). But you need to format the partitions to a BSD format. I'm not comfortable with that. What I was looking for was a Linux or Windows based NAS that I could control via a web interface. Windows Home Server was a no-no coz I didn't want to end up with Trojan infested torrent.

So I decided to give up and install a full blown Ubuntu with Samba and SWAT. Lucky for me, while I filled every geek ear with my NAS woes, a colleague Ryan told me about Webmin. It's got a neat bunch of tools that allow you to administer your OS via a web interface. You can add shares, users, monitor disk usage and a whole lot more!

http://www.webmin.com/

To install on Hardy Heron Ubuntu:

1. sudo apt-get install perl libnet-ssleay-perl openssl libauthen-pam-perl libpam-runtime libio-pty-perl libmd5-perl
2. wget http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/webadmin/webmin_1.420_all.deb [ change version to newest ]
3. sudo dpkg -i webmin_1.420_all.deb

Thats it! Now visit https://localhost:10000/

If you have firefox3 beta it will complain about the certificate being invalid. That's coz the beta has a problem with self-signed certificated. Just add the site to your exceptions list and you'll be good to go!

Installing and Configuring the Citrix Client on Ubuntu

After a long long long time I've finally managed to get the Citrix client working on Ubuntu, Gutsy Gibbon 7.10.

While there are lots of how-tos for i386 machines, there are barely any that mention getting the client to work on the x86 arch.

Follow all the steps here:[ https://help.ubuntu.com/community/CitrixICAClientHowTo ]
In brief:
sudo aptitude install libmotif3
sudo aptitude install libxaw7
sudo tar xvfz en.linuxx86.tar.gz [the linux client from the citrix website]
sudo ./setupwfc
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/ICAClient/wfica /usr/local/bin/wfica
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/ICAClient/wfcmgr /usr/local/bin/wfcmgr

At this point if you run: /usr/lib/ICAClient/wfcmgr &
you might see this error:
wfcmgr: error while loading shared libraries: libXm.so.3: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Try creating a softlink: sudo ln -s /usr/lib/libXm.so.3 /usr/lib32/libXm.so.3

If you still get the error then it due to an architecture conflict.
The tips from this post helps: [ http://backports.ubuntuforums.com/showthread.php?t=39556 ]
- Download the 32 bit libmotif3_2.2.3-2_i386.deb from http://packages.ubuntu.com/gutsy/i386/libmotif3/download
- Install it with: sudo dpkg -i --force-architecture libmotif3_2.2.3-2_i386.deb
- Create a softlink with: sudo ln -s /usr/lib/libXm.so.3 /usr/lib32/libXm.so.3

Now try: /usr/lib/ICAClient/wfcmgr &
It should work!


Now to setup the connection.

When I ran my .ica file:
/usr/lib/ICAClient/wfcmgr ~/Desktop/desktop.ica
I kept getting an error:
Cannot get address for application "Desktop"

After a while of tweaking I managed to get things working by manualy adding settings from my desktop.ica file into /home//.ICAClient/appsrv.ini and changing the settings in the client GUI.. To compare to your situation here's my deskop.ica and my modified appsrv.ini.

Additional Reference:

• CTX107102 - ICA Program Neighborhood Client, ini file reference


• CTX331178 - Appsrv.ini Parameters Deciphered


• CTX145271 - PN.ini Parameters Deciphered

Note: In the course of changing things at one point I managed to get to the login screen but when I tried to login the server would reject me saying that I needed to be added to a group. That was because my #InitialProgram was set to an IP address in the appsrv.ini. When I changed it to #Desktop I managed to get in.


desktop.ica
-----------------
[WFClient]

Version=2
TcpBrowserAddress=123.123.12.12
UseAlternateAddress=1

[ApplicationServers]
Desktop=

[Desktop]
Address=Desktop
InitialProgram=#Desktop
ClientAudio=Off
Compress=Off
ScreenPercent=99
DesiredColor=2
TransportDriver=TCP/IP
WinStationDriver=ICA 3.0


appsrv.ini
-------------------
[WFClient]
Version=1
TcpBrowserAddress=123.123.12.12
UseAlternateAddress=1

[ApplicationServers]
Desktop=

[Desktop]
WinStationDriver=ICA 3.0
TransportDriver=TCP/IP
DisableCtrlAltDel=On
DoNotUseDefaultCSL=On
LocHttpBrowserAddress=123.123.12.12
EncryptionLevelSession=Basic
Compress=Off
TransportReconnectDefault=True
UseAlternateAddress=0
ProxyUseDefault=On
EnableAudioInput=No
AudioBandwidthLimit=1
ClientAudio=On
MouseSendsControlV=Off
CDMAllowed=On
UseDefaultSettingForColormap=Yes
ZLMouseMode=2
ZLKeyboardMode=0
InitialProgram=#Desktop
Address=123.123.12.12
Launcher=Custom

OneAndOneIs2 - Why doesn't Linux need defragmenting?

Really Simple and easy explanation!!

OneAndOneIs2 - Why doesn't Linux need defragmenting?

Access Samba shares from the Terminal

Useful when you want to use PuTTy to access your machine at home from work and you want to connect to another machine on your home network!..

To view your Samba Shares:

smbtree

If your share requires authorization: (enter the password when it prompts you)

smbtree -U=administrator

To connect to the share:

smbclient //bastille/ToyBox

If your share requires authorization: (enter the password when it prompts you)

smbclient //bastille/ToyBox -U administrator

Now you can use FTP commands. Some important ones:
Change to a 'local' directory

lcd /home/wraith/temp

Copy a remote file to the 'local' directory

get myremotefile.txt

More commands:
FTP, File Transfer Protocol - Summary of Commands

Parted: How To Resize a Partition

Usually you'd use GParted Live CD to make life easier, but just incase you ever need to use the command line for partitioning..

If /dev/hda1 is the device on which to resize the partition:
parted /dev/hda1

View the current partition table to determine the minor number of the partition to resize as well as the start and end points for the partition:
print

To resize the partition, use the resize command followed by the minor number for the partition, the starting place in megabytes, and the end place in megabytes. For example:

resize 3 1024 2048

NOTE: Some systems will display the information as :

NUMBER    START         END             AND SO ON...
10        32kB          40GB            HFS+

In this case, (to resize from 40GB to 20GB) type:
resize 10 32kB 20GB

After resizing the partition, use the print command to confirm that the partition has been resized correctly, is the correct partition type, and is the correct file system type.

After rebooting the system into normal mode, use the command df to make sure the partition was mounted and is recognized with the new size.

NOTE: NTFS gives an error message
No Implementation: Support for opening ntfs file systems is not implemented yet.
Sorry, I haven't discovered a solution to this yet.


Ref: http://linuxpoison.blogspot.com/2008/03/howto-resize-partition.html

World Of Warcraft on Ubuntu

This was much simpler than I anticipated. Much!
I followed some simple steps.

Installing Wine and WoW:

- Ensure that direct rendering: Yes

glxinfo | grep rendering

- Add the WINE Repository (Gutsy Gibbon)

sudo wget http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt/sources.list.d/gutsy.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/winehq.list
wget -q http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt/387EE263.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install wine

- Install WINE from Synaptic: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WorldofWarcraft

- Run winecfg

• Choose ALSA Audio
• Choose Emulate Virtual Desktop and specify a size

- Download the WoW Installer and run it

• wine path/to/warcraft/installation/Install.exe

- Add these lines to the WoW config.WTF

• sudo gedit path/to/warcraft/installation/WTF/config.WTF
• Add these lines:

SET SoundOutputSystem “1″
SET SoundBufferSize “100″
SET gxApi “OpenGL”

- Run WoW:

• cd path/to/warcraft/installation
• wine WoW.exe

Sound Not Working?

I ran around in circles before i figured out the SIMPLE fix. I tried changing audio to OSS. Tried installing the alsa-oss wrapper. But all is was is 'Change Directories to where the executable is located and THEN run the exe'
Sample:
cd path/to/warcraft/installation
wine WoW.exe


Some Resources Used:
http://wiki.winehq.org/UsefulRegistryKeys
http://ubuntu-tutorials.com/2006/12/19/how-to-install-play-world-of-warcraft-ubuntu-510-6061-610/
http://gaming.gwos.org/doku.php/wine:winestuff