should I still blog? :)

Read a news here. Dairy of a Fired Flight Attendant.

Configure CUPS, nightmare

Configure printing service is always a nightmare for me in Unix system. There is once I try to configure network printing services on a Solaris 2.8, the printer should output to a windows shared printer, I give up. Sun claim that they are good in networking? In windows, I just share out the printer by right click on the folder will do, everyone on the same network can print through their windows system. Just click on 'Add printer', select network printer, and choose the printer server from the selection will do. Just so easy. I though after CUPS came out, the printer configuration on UNIX system will be a lot easier, yes it is much more easier but not good enough. I add a network printer(share by windows system) on my mandrake 10 using the Mandrake configuration tools. After sometime I change the printer name, so I need to modified the configuration, but unfortunately I was not able to add/modified the printer through Mandraker system console, it always give me Add/Modified printer fail, and I don't know what is the reason behind it! There is no terminal selection through samba, I have to key in the terminal(with printer attached on it) manually. So, I use the browser to connect http://127.0.0.1:631/. Now I am able to add printer, but problem again, I was not able to get the HP LaserJet 1100 driver from here, but I am able to get from Mandrake printer configuration. How could it be different on the same system! Finally I have to manually change the url in /etc/cups/printers.conf. If you set password for your pinter sharing in windows, can try edit /etc/cups/printers.conf, change url to smb://user:password@printer_server/printer_name. I spend almost the hold day settig this up, why can't they just make it easier. No matter how much you dislike about Microsoft Windows, but they really do things right.

Lode runner game for Palm

Yesterday help my friend to install his palm device, is a m515 model, like my Vx, but with colors(160x160), 16M, with SD slot. I found the lode runner game from Aaron Ardiri(his interview). The game just look like the old PC game in 80s, the animation is surprisingly smooth and actractive, even though it is running on a 160x160 screen rather than 320x200, you can find it here, take a look at the re-make of Nintendo's Game & Watch Octopus too. There is quite a number of Game & Watch game that I like but hard to find now, like Octopus, Mickey Mouse(Egg), manhole etc. Those games are simple but good to play, thanks to Nintendo's Gunpei Yokoi.

netisam vs sql

Is raining outside, now raining season. I get a call from customer, they need to delete an unuse record from the database, for some reason, they just can't remove the record from the application, even their MIS people can't help. It is using a netisam (Sun product) file database. I need to write a program to delete the record. If using sql (any) database, just issue a sql command will do.

Joke of the day!

I received a email from innvo. The email remind me, they claim to have a J2ME virtual machine running on WinCE, they promise to give me a copy, but never. Coventive claim they have a 143kb linux kernel, smallest in the world, I never seen it before, and I really have no idea, where is the number(143) came from, why not 142 or 145?

Open Source Cobalt

Sun end it Cobalt server and release the software as opensource in December 2003. Take a look at the Blue Quartz. I get the link from the funny link here.

Cobalt

Yesterday went to Nasmic office, take a close look at the cobalt qube 3 server. A very nicely design and well integrated unix machine(shoule be running linux). Sun bought Cobalt it for 2 billion USD! in year 2000, now the product is no more continue. Community support is here.

There is 1 Sun Blade 100 (this is too old, something similar here) and another 3 Sun Ray 100 terminal sitting there, not many people know how to use it.

Link:-
Sun acquire Cobalt Network
NetworkWorldFusion
Open IT World
TechWeb
Linux Mag
PC World
InfoWorld
a review on zdnet 2004.

All Linux Devices

Unix XIM program and xpacman game

I found some resource for unix xim programming, there is some tutorial for automake too. Want to try out pacman game on unix? Is easy to compile.

IBM 486DX2-50, linux kernel 2.0

This suddenly came into my mind, since I might need to down grade my kernel, may be I should try kernel 2.0.x, I don't need all those new driver, and the frame buffer may work too. I download kernel 2.0.40(latest!), but it does not compile on my system, same for kernel 2.0.38, 2.0.39. Kernel 2.0 only tested on gcc-2.7.x. Luckily I still have the redhat 5.2 CDs, which came with gcc-2.7. Finally I can get it compile, but it doesn't run on redhat 7.1. Insist of using kernel 2.0.x may need a lot of work around, but the compress kernel size is just half(300k) or the 2.4 version!

IBM 486DX2-50, Red Hat 7.1 is up, finally!

I unplug the IBM 500M HD from the machine and plug it to a old pentium HP machine. This version of HP machine (HP Vectra VE P100) is very good, the cover is easy to open up, bios can auto detect the hard disk, this machine is very much better(in design) compare to many of their later version. (Don't know why HP always screw up in their later design, like iPaq PDA after HP4150). I plan to install through NFS, so I don't have to plug in the cdrom and Red Hat 7.1 just have 2 CDs, just copy to the server hard disk. Unfortunately the installer doesn't detect the 3Com ethernet card. I have a few card available(ethernet II, ethernet III), all is not detected by the rh71 installer. The cards are using 3c503.o driver which came with the CD, but the installer need something newer like 3c59x driver(eg. 3c590, 3c90x). I have no choice and plug the HD into a HP Vectra PIII desktop, finally the network card working and installation from NFS, just take about 10 minutes, and I have try about 2 hours earlier to get Red Hat 7.1 install on the IBM 500M HD(plug and unplug hd, nic and try different combination). You though is the end of the story? Not yet! When I plug it back to the IBM 486 machine with 16M Ram, it can't boot. Not enough ram to boot the kernel 2.4? Not really! I have encounter the problem earlier before. When you install it on pentium, the installer will choose the 686 glibc library to install, so it will not boot on 486! I found a 386 kernel too. So I replace the 686 kernel and glibc with 386. Don't forget to clean up everything in /lib/i686, and now it boot on the old IBM DX2-50 16M ram machine! I have a ESS1688 sound card, but not working and can't detect by sndconfig. This ESS1688 is Sound Blaster 16 compatible and not using the ess driver in linux. After try for some time I think the Red Hat 7.1 kernel may not include in the isa plug & play driver module(yes! isa too old!), may be I will try later. Is late and I am a bit hungry, have to stop and go back home.

IBM 486DX2-50, switch the hd for rh-7.1

I have done this before, install the redhat 7.1 in a bigger ram configuration, after that I remove the extra memory, and the machine still work. The only thing that you need to take care is you need the 386 glibc not the 586 glibc. I though the HD was seal on the IBM machine, actuallay is not, is just tightly screw like seal there. It take me a lot of effort to unscrew it. Come on! I am not a hardware guy!

IBM 486DX2-50, Red Hat 7.1

Earlier the working system is a Red Hat 6.2 Linux, which I don't have the CD with me anymore. Red Hat 7.1 seems to be a good distribution. After I boot up the red hat 7.1, it complains 'not enough memory to install'. I have 16m of ram now. I still have some spare ram with me. I switch it over, the machine is too old, it can't support the newer ram. I read some the IBM 450DX2 ram specification, it can support up to 64M. I am stuck here now.

IBM 486DX2-50, ext3

After I have upgrade my kernel (v2.4.26), I always encounter this error message while boot up:- task_no_data_intr status=0x51 Sometimes it stop at boot script 'Check filesystem'. I decided to switch back my filesystem from ext3 to ext2. # e2fsck -fy /dev/hda1 Unfortunately, after the repairt, it corrupt my filesystem and can't boot up anymore. May be I have no choice and have to re-install the Linux system again. This time I will use a newer distribution, may be Red Hat 7.1 (Ya! I know is very old!).