gomez’s blog

Few days ago I moved my Ubuntu on laptop to version 10.04 and so far I am very satisfied with how does it work. That was a clear sign to refresh some software installs that I have and that fact included VMware server. Basically, I found VMware to suit my needs when it comes to personal virtualization. I am using virtualized CallManager (it is only supported with VMware) and also my appliance Linux environment is virtualized as well. There are other virtualisation solutions that I like but I will leave that for some other blog post.

So, I installed VMware Server 2.0.2 and it is working really nice. There are plenty of instruction manuals on VMware installation on Linux and Ubuntu, but I found this one to work like a charm. Under Ubuntu, I am using current version of Firefox, which is 3.6.3 and it seems to have a problem with VMware Remote Console Plug-in. It is not working at all. There is lot of discussion about this but I didn’t find that much solutions. Some are saying that some Firefox add-on for flash blocking is causing this to happen, but using Firefox without .mozilla didn’t help.

So, here is solution that actually works: Open Terminal and navigate to directory:

root@gomez-laptop:/# cd /usr/lib/vmware/webAccess/tomcat/apache-tomcat-6.0.16/webapps/ui/plugin/

once there, execute list command and you should be able to see vmware-vmrc-linux-x86.xpi file which is required:

root@gomez-laptop:/usr/lib/vmware/webAccess/tomcat/apache-tomcat-6.0.16/webapps/ui/plugin# ls
build_doNotErase.txt  vmware-vmrc-linux-x64.xpi  vmware-vmrc-linux-x86.xpi vmware-vmrc-win32-x86.exe  vmware-vmrc-win32-x86.xpi

Once, there, we need to unzip that file by issuing following command:

root@gomez-laptop:# unzip vmware-vmrc-linux-x86.xpi

and then, navigate to plugins directory and list the content:

root@gomez-laptop:/usr/lib/vmware/webAccess/tomcat/apache-tomcat-6.0.16/webapps/ui/plugin# cd plugins/
root@gomez-laptop:/usr/lib/vmware/webAccess/tomcat/apache-tomcat-6.0.16/webapps/ui/plugin/plugins# ls
bin  libconf                         open_source_licenses.txt  vmware-desktop-entry-creator  vmware-vmrc-daemon  xkeymap
lib  np-vmware-vmrc-2.5.0-122581.so  share                     vmware-vmrc vmware-vmrc-legacy
root@gomez-laptop:/usr/lib/vmware/webAccess/tomcat/apache-tomcat-6.0.16/webapps/ui/plugin/plugins#

And one last step is to start vmware-vmrc with following command:

root@gomez-laptop:/usr/lib/vmware/webAccess/tomcat/apache-tomcat-6.0.16/webapps/ui/plugin/plugins# ./vmware-vmrc -h localhost:8333

Please note that you can replace localhost with IP address of your working VMware server. Once above command is executed you need to authenticate and you should be able to select virtualized hosts. Please give a check to following screenshots:

As shown on above screenshot, we need to authenticate and one last step is to select one of the virtualized machines that we want to work with:

If there are some questions, please let me know. I hope that this workaround will save some time for you and that you will have working solution.

1. VMware server
2. VMware server installation on Ubuntu

Richard M. Stallman is an American software freedom activist and computer programmer. In September 1983, he launched the GNU Project to create a free Unix-like operating system, and has been the project’s lead architect and organizer. With the launch of the GNU Project, he initiated the free software movement and, in October 1985, set up the Free Software Foundation.

Stallman pioneered the concept of copyleft and he is the main author of several copyleft licenses including the GNU General Public License, the most widely used free software license. Since the mid-1990s, Stallman has spent most of his time advocating for free software, as well as campaigning against both software patents and what he sees as excessive extension of copyright laws. Stallman has also developed a number of pieces of widely-used software, including the original Emacs, the GNU Compiler Collection, and the GNU Debugger. He co-founded the League for Programming Freedom in 1989.

Richard M. Stallman will have following speeches in Bosnia and Hercegovina in May, 2010:

What: Copyright vs. Community
When: May 19, 2010 from 11:00 AM to 01:30 PM
Where: IBU conference hall, main building, third floor, Francuske revolucije bb; Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

What: Free Software Movement and the GNU/Linux Operating System
When: May 20, 2010 from 02:00 PM to 04:30 PM
Where: IBU conference hall, main building, third floor, Francuske revolucije bb; Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

What: Free Software Movement and the GNU/Linux Operating System
When: May 22, 2010 from 14:00 PM to 16:00 PM
Where: Fakultet Informacijskih Tehnologija, Univerzitet Dzemal Bijedic; Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina

We hope that you will come to listen speeches from Stallman and that you will enjoy those events. It is good opportunity to visit those events since we do not know when we will have Stallman in Bosnia and Hercegovina again. If there is additional information needed, please let me know.

1. Richard M. Stallman
2. Free Software Foundation

Few days ago I had interesting request to tweak Linux on Samsung LCD TV. At first, I was kind of surprised that Linux is supported on TV, but it is normal. Linux is very strong competitor on the appliance based market and it was just about time to face those kind of installations. The main goal was to enable telnet on firmware in order to be able to connect to TV, and after that to load Common Internet File System to be able to use network mounts. Since I didn’t know anything about Samsung TV series and belonging firmware versions I needed to read something about that. Basically, there are differences in versions based on producing years and processors that are supported. This text is about to cover Samsung LCD TV LE40A756 and A856 with firmware T-RBYDEU. I need to mention that it is kind of easier to work with other models of Samsung LCD TVs since they seam to open more possibilities (this is just my opinion) for firmware hacking but this version was very interesting to play with as well. Since this firmware (as much as all other appliance based firmware versions) is using squash file system, to be able to add something on filesystem we would need to unsquash file system (unsquash is viable thru squashfs-tools) and then perform necessary changes. Since I am using Ubuntu which is providing newer version of squashfs-tools package than it is required (Ubuntu is providing squashfs-tools version 3.1 and it is required to have version 2.0) I didn’t follow that procedure. However, for those that would like to give it a try you can follow this procedure. We will follow other procedure.

Downloads

Navigate to Samsung web site > Support > Downloads > TV Audio Video > Choose a product type>: Television > Choose a product subtype: LCD TV > Select your TV model and then click on Select. You will be provided with the link to download your firmware version. In our case firmware is called T-RBYDEU.exe.

Firmware work

Using some of the decompression tools like 7zip, WinRAR or some other program that you use on the daily basis, we need to extract .exe file that we have downloaded. I will describe procedure under Linux operating system using 7zip:

7z x T-RBYDEU.exe

Once done, you will be able to see extracted files in directory T-RBYDEU. Please note that you will be able to see those files:

gomez@gomez-laptop:/media/Data_/T-RBYDEU$ ls -la
total 40
drwx—— 1 gomez gomez     0 2009-05-11 23:38 .
drwx—— 1 gomez gomez  4096 2010-04-01 16:22 ..
-rwxrwxrwx 1 gomez gomez 18929 2009-04-17 16:16 crc
drwx—— 1 gomez gomez  4096 2009-05-11 23:38 image
-rwxrwxrwx 2 gomez gomez  8676 2009-04-17 16:16 MicomCtrl
gomez@gomez-laptop:/media/Data_/T-RBYDEU$ cd image/
gomez@gomez-laptop:/media/Data_/T-RBYDEU/image$ ls -la
total 58166
drwx—— 1 gomez gomez     4096 2009-05-11 23:38 .
drwx—— 1 gomez gomez        0 2009-05-11 23:38 ..
-rwxrwxrwx 1 gomez gomez  8155136 2009-04-17 16:16 appdata.img
-rwxrwxrwx 1 gomez gomez   602112 2009-04-17 16:16 boot.img
-rwxrwxrwx 1 gomez gomez 37646336 2009-04-17 16:16 exe.img
-rwxrwxrwx 1 gomez gomez   177920 2009-04-17 16:16 fnw.bin
-rwxrwxrwx 1 gomez gomez       17 2009-04-17 16:16 info.txt
-rwxrwxrwx 1 gomez gomez    99680 2009-04-17 16:16 oneboot.bin
-rwxrwxrwx 1 gomez gomez  3424256 2009-04-17 16:16 rootfs.img
-rwxrwxrwx 2 gomez gomez  3172612 2009-04-17 16:16 T-RBYDAUM
-rwxrwxrwx 2 gomez gomez  3172612 2009-04-17 16:16 T-RBYDEUM
-rwxrwxrwx 1 gomez gomez   228296 2009-04-17 16:16 u-boot.bin
-rwxrwxrwx 2 gomez gomez       47 2009-04-17 16:16 validinfo.txt
-rwxrwxrwx 2 gomez gomez       43 2009-04-17 16:16 version_info.txt
-rwxrwxrwx 1 gomez gomez  2864533 2009-04-17 16:16 vmlinux.ub
gomez@gomez-laptop:/media/Data_/T-RBYDEU/image$

As per above output, please note that we have directory called image, and from the interesting files we have exe.img and validinfo.txt which will be used in following text.

Firmware tweaks

Next thing that we need to do is to prepare exe.img for additional changes in order to be able to telnet to TV and use some networking services like CIFS. Now, navigate to image directory and create directory temp:

gomez@gomez-laptop:/media/Data_/T-RBYDEU$ cd image/
gomez@gomez-laptop:/media/Data_/T-RBYDEU/image$ mkdir temp
gomez@gomez-laptop:/media/Data_/T-RBYDEU/image$

Once done, we will mount exe.img with the type of vfat to newly created temp directory:

gomez@gomez-laptop:/media/Data_/T-RBYDEU/image$ sudo mount -t vfat -o loop exe.img temp/

With above command, we have mounted exe.img to temp directory. Please note that we have following files inside temp directory:

gomez@gomez-laptop:/media/Data_/T-RBYDEU/image$ cd temp/
gomez@gomez-laptop:/media/Data_/T-RBYDEU/image/temp$ ls -la
total 28980
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 16384 1970-01-01 01:00 .
drwx—— 1 gomez gomez 4096 2010-04-04 19:06 ..
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 29487160 2009-04-17 16:16 exeDSP
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 8192 2009-04-17 16:16 modules
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root root 131072 2009-04-17 16:16 $rfs_log.lo$
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root root 8192 2009-04-17 16:16 rfs_pool.sy$
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4374 2009-04-17 16:16 run
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4525 2009-04-17 16:16 start.sh
gomez@gomez-laptop:/media/Data_/T-RBYDEU/image/temp$

Please note that we have start.sh file which we will use in following text.

Scripts

Using your favourite text editor, replace current start.sh file with following:

#!/bin/sh

if [ -e /mtd_chmap/start.sh ]
then
echo “user start.sh found!”
/mtd_chmap/start.sh
else

export PATH=/sbin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin
#export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/lib:/usr/lib:/lib
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/mtd_cmmlib:/usr/local/lib:/usr/lib:/lib
export HOME=/tmp/root
export TERM=linux
export LOGNAME=”root”
cd /dtv/usb
PU=`cat log | grep Mount`
PU=`echo ${PU##MountDir : }`
echo $PU
$PU/usb.sh &

mount

## mount -n -t usbfs none /proc/bus/usb

ulimit -s 2048

export PS1=’\h:\w\$ ‘

## STAPI Root Device Name?## ———————-
ST_DEV_ROOT_NAME=stapi
export ST_DEV_ROOT_NAME

## STAVMEM Device Name
## ——————-
STAVMEM_IOCTL_DEV_PATH=/dev/${ST_DEV_ROOT_NAME}/stavmem_ioctl
export STAVMEM_IOCTL_DEV_PATH

## STAUDLX Device Name
## ——————-
STAUDLX_IOCTL_DEV_PATH=/dev/${ST_DEV_ROOT_NAME}/staudlx_ioctl
export STAUDLX_IOCTL_DEV_PATH

## STBLAST Device Name
## ——————-
STBLAST_IOCTL_DEV_PATH=/dev/${ST_DEV_ROOT_NAME}/stblast_ioctl
export STBLAST_IOCTL_DEV_PATH

## STBLIT Device Name
## ——————
STBLIT_IOCTL_DEV_PATH=/dev/${ST_DEV_ROOT_NAME}/stblit_ioctl
export STBLIT_IOCTL_DEV_PATH

## STCC Device Name
## —————-
STCC_IOCTL_DEV_PATH=/dev/${ST_DEV_ROOT_NAME}/stcc_ioctl
export STCC_IOCTL_DEV_PATH

## STCLKRV Device Name
## ——————-
STCLKRV_IOCTL_DEV_PATH=/dev/${ST_DEV_ROOT_NAME}/stclkrv_ioctl
export STCLKRV_IOCTL_DEV_PATH

## STDENC Device Name
## ——————
STDENC_IOCTL_DEV_PATH=/dev/${ST_DEV_ROOT_NAME}/stdenc_ioctl
export STDENC_IOCTL_DEV_PATH

## STEVT Device Name
## —————–
STEVT_IOCTL_DEV_PATH=/dev/${ST_DEV_ROOT_NAME}/stevt_ioctl
export STEVT_IOCTL_DEV_PATH

## STFASTFILTER Device Name
## ————————
STFASTFILTER_IOCTL_DEV_PATH=/dev/${ST_DEV_ROOT_NAME}/stfastfilter_ioctl
export STFASTFILTER_IOCTL_DEV_PATH

## STFDMA Device Name
## ——————
STFDMA_IOCTL_DEV_PATH=/dev/${ST_DEV_ROOT_NAME}/stfdma_ioctl
export STFDMA_IOCTL_DEV_PATH

## STGFB Device Name
## —————–
STGFB_CORE_DEV_PATH=/dev/${ST_DEV_ROOT_NAME}/stgfb_core
export STGFB_CORE_DEV_PATH
STGFB_IOCTL_DEV_PATH=/dev/${ST_DEV_ROOT_NAME}/stgfb_ioctl
export STGFB_IOCTL_DEV_PATH

## STHDMI Device Name
## ——————
STHDMI_IOCTL_DEV_PATH=/dev/${ST_DEV_ROOT_NAME}/sthdmi_ioctl
export STHDMI_IOCTL_DEV_PATH

## STI2C Device Name
## —————–
STI2C_IOCTL_DEV_PATH=”/dev/${ST_DEV_ROOT_NAME}/sti2c_ioctl”
export STI2C_IOCTL_DEV_PATH

## STLAYER Device Name
## ——————-
STLAYER_IOCTL_DEV_PATH=/dev/${ST_DEV_ROOT_NAME}/stlayer_ioctl
export STLAYER_IOCTL_DEV_PATH

## STMERGE Device Name
## ——————-
STMERGE_IOCTL_DEV_PATH=”/dev/${ST_DEV_ROOT_NAME}/stmerge_ioctl”
export STMERGE_IOCTL_DEV_PATH

## STPIO Device Name
## —————–
STPIO_IOCTL_DEV_PATH=/dev/${ST_DEV_ROOT_NAME}/stpio_ioctl
export STPIO_IOCTL_DEV_PATH

## STPTI4 Device Name
## ——————
STPTI4_IOCTL_DEV_PATH=/dev/${ST_DEV_ROOT_NAME}/stpti4_ioctl
export STPTI4_IOCTL_DEV_PATH

## STSMART Device Name
## ——————-
STSMART_IOCTL_DEV_PATH=/dev/${ST_DEV_ROOT_NAME}/stsmart_ioctl
export STSMART_IOCTL_DEV_PATH

## STSYS Device Name
## —————–
STSYS_IOCTL_DEV_PATH=/dev/${ST_DEV_ROOT_NAME}/stsys_ioctl
export STSYS_IOCTL_DEV_PATH

## STTTX Device Name
## —————–
STTTX_IOCTL_DEV_PATH=/dev/${ST_DEV_ROOT_NAME}/stttx_ioctl
export STTTX_IOCTL_DEV_PATH

## STTUNER Device Name
## ——————-
STTUNER_DEV_PATH=/dev/${ST_DEV_ROOT_NAME}/sttuner_ioctl
export STTUNER_DEV_PATH

## STVBI Device Name
## —————–
STVBI_IOCTL_DEV_PATH=/dev/${ST_DEV_ROOT_NAME}/stvbi_ioctl
export STVBI_IOCTL_DEV_PATH

## STVID Device Name
## —————–
STVID_IOCTL_DEV_PATH=/dev/${ST_DEV_ROOT_NAME}/stvid_ioctl
export STVID_IOCTL_DEV_PATH

## STVIN Device Name
## —————–
STVIN_IOCTL_DEV_PATH=/dev/${ST_DEV_ROOT_NAME}/stvin_ioctl
export STVIN_IOCTL_DEV_PATH

## STVMIX Device Name
## ——————
STVMIX_IOCTL_DEV_PATH=/dev/${ST_DEV_ROOT_NAME}/stvmix_ioctl
export STVMIX_IOCTL_DEV_PATH

## STVOUT Device Name
## ——————
STVOUT_IOCTL_DEV_PATH=/dev/${ST_DEV_ROOT_NAME}/stvout_ioctl
export STVOUT_IOCTL_DEV_PATH

## STVTG Device Name
## —————–
STVTG_IOCTL_DEV_PATH=/dev/${ST_DEV_ROOT_NAME}/stvtg_ioctl
export STVTG_IOCTL_DEV_PATH

STTKDMA_IOCTL_DEV_PATH=/dev/${ST_DEV_ROOT_NAME}/sttkdma_ioctl
export STTKDMA_IOCTL_DEV_PATH

RUN=1
/exe/exeDSP

Please note bold lines. Basically, it is the same file except that we are instructing our Linux firmware to load usb.sh script which needs to be located on USB root directory. usb.sh script will instruct Linux firmware to start busybox instance of telnet deamon so that we are able to telnet to our TV, and additionally it will load cifs.ko kernel module which will enable Common Internet File System so that we are able to mount some network devices on our Linux firmware. usb.sh script looks like:

#! /bin/sh

echo “!!!!!!!!!!!!!! USB START !!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

/bin/stty -F /dev/ttyAS0 ospeed 57600 ispeed 57600
#line before enables console for speed 57600. Put ‘debug’ to console and you see menu, put ’12′ and ENTER
echo “!!!!!!!!!!!!!! start console on 57600 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

#sleep 25 sec is need for wait ethernet start
sleep 25

cd /dtv/usb
PU=`cat log | grep Mount`
PU=`echo ${PU##MountDir : }`

echo “!!!!!!!!!!!!!! start telnet !!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
$PU/busybox telnetd -l /bin/sh

echo “!!!!!!!!!!!!!! start cifs.ko !!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
cd $PU
insmod cifs.ko

sleep 4

echo “!!!!!!!!!!!!!! clear old contents USB on TV !!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
rm /mtd_contents/V* -R
rm /mtd_contents/database -R

echo “!!!!!!!!!!!!!! start mount !!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
mount -t cifs //192.168.0.1/photo $PU/photo -o user=user_xp -o pass=password_xp
mount -t cifs //192.168.0.1/mp3 $PU/mp3 -o user=user_xp -o pass=password_xp
mount -t cifs //192.168.0.1/video $PU/video -o user=user_xp -o pass=password_xp

mount

echo “!!!!!!!!!!!!!! USB END !!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Please note bold lines. Basically, we are starting telnet daemon and loading cifs.ko kernel module. After that, we are mounting some Windows XP shares from our personal computer which is working on 192.168.0.1 IP address. Once this file is loaded, and those mount locations are created you will be able to use files within above directories on your TV from the TV menus.

Please note that usb.sh, cifs.ko, busybox files and mp3, video, and photo directories needs to be located on USB root location.

Once done with that, we are ready to preform final changes to our firmware. First thing that we need to do is to umount temp directory:

gomez@gomez-laptop:/media/Data_/T-RBYDEU$ sudo umount /home/gomez/Desktop/T-RBYDEU/temp

Then, we need to delete temp directory:

gomez@gomez-laptop:/media/Data_/T-RBYDEU/image$ sudo rm -rf temp/

Once done with that, we need to change CRC information, because we have changed exe.img file. We can do that as follows:

gomez@gomez-laptop:/media/Data_/T-RBYDEU/image$ crc32 exe.img
cdc8080c

Once we have CRC information, we need to enter new value to validinfo.txt file:

gomez@gomez-laptop:/media/Data_/T-RBYDEU/image$ cat validinfo.txt
*007_exe.img_663430d9*011_appdata.img_a485b538

Please note value 663430d9. We need to change that value with cdc8080c that we have got as output from crc32 command. You can do that by using your favourite text editor. Once done with that, we are done with tweaking our Linux firmware. Your USB pen content should look like this:

gomez@gomez-laptop:~/Desktop/USB$ ls -la
total 3644
drwxr-xr-x 6 gomez gomez    4096 2010-04-05 08:59 .
drwx—— 8 gomez gomez    4096 2010-04-05 09:03 ..
-rwxrwxrwx 1 gomez gomez  992084 2009-11-18 23:13 busybox
-rwxrwxrwx 1 gomez gomez 2707316 2009-11-17 20:08 cifs.ko
drwx—— 2 gomez gomez    4096 2009-12-28 09:12 mp3
drwx—— 2 gomez gomez    4096 2009-12-28 09:12 photo
drwx—— 3 gomez gomez    4096 2010-04-05 08:59 T-RBYDEU
-rwxrwxrwx 1 gomez gomez    1026 2009-12-28 09:14 usb.sh
drwx—— 2 gomez gomez    4096 2009-12-28 09:12 video

If that is the case, you can put this USB to your TV, turn it on and you will be prompted to upgrade firmware with firmware version listed on your USB pen. Once you perform this upgrade, you will be able to telnet to your TV. Check your TV IP address from TV menus, and then using Linux shell, or if you are Windows user using Putty, telnet to your TV and enjoy power of your Linux shell. Also, using TV menus and Common Internet File System – CIFS, you can play some music, video or photos on your TV (as described above).

If you are lazy to give a check to this procedure, you can download fully operational USB image on this link. You are doing that on your own risk and author of this blog post is not responsible for any damage that you might cause by some operation.

Enjoy power of Linux shell on your Samsung TV!

For more information please visit following links:

1. SamyGo wiki pages
2. How to enable Telnet on Samsung TV’s
3. Hacking T-RBYDEUC Firmware – LE40A756 and A856

LUGZDK finally has new logo. Logo is very simple and well designed, as per our wishes. Man that stands behind the project is Alem Sacak, experienced designer from Zenica, Bosnia and Hercegovina. We would like to thank Alem for this really good job and we are looking forward to work with him in the future on similar projects. If you are interested in his work, you can find his graphic design portfolio and contact details on this link.

1. Alem Sacak
2. Linux users group of ZDK

One of the biggest IT conferences, and most probably biggest GNU/Linux conference, Debconf (Debian Developers Conference) will take place in Banja Luka, Bosnia and Hercegovina in 2011! Among very professional bids from Munchen (Germany) and Quito (Equator), our Banja Luka bid won. Everything was carefully prepared and well organised by local team with Adnan Hodzic as lead person. We need to mention that we have full support which include funding, venues and else from Government of Republika Srpska which signed support letter (you can find it on Banja Luka bid wiki page). As the person which participated at Debconf7 in Edinburgh I am really happy that I will have opportunity to see known people, but also that Bosnia and Hercegovina will host this since this is our second bid (Sarajevo bid for dc7). It is our pleasure to have opportunity to host Debconf11 and we hope to see you here next year!

1. Banja Luka bid wiki page
2. My dc7 summary blog page

After a long time, Zenica GNU/Linux Users are about to have meeting! It is going to take a place in Caffe “Ekran” at 18h on 31. Jan ’10. We intend to talk about some future projects, Linux based solutions that we have learned about during our many months of inactivity, and we intend to have good time. Since we were inactive for some time we are happy that there are some new users that we intend to meet with on this meeting. If you are interested in our projects and who we are, just show up. We will be willing to meet you, help you with your Linux/Networking/Programing/IT issues (you don’t have to be Linux user as you can see, and we can help up to level that we are capable to help) and to share our experience!

1. Linux Users group of Bosnia and Hercegovina
2. Zenica Linux users forum

Few days ago I have passed LPI 102 certificate and became Linux Professional Institute LPIC-1 certified. I have passed LPI 101 back in March, 2007. There was 60 questions and 90 minutes to resolve those questions. One of the surprises that I had was option ‘Previous’, so you are able to check all of the questions once more in case that you have some additional time. I have to say that exam was easier than LPI 101 (which I find to be one of the hardest exams) because I do have experience with things that were asked in my day to day business. There is a lot of documentation available for preparing the exam, but I would recommend their ‘Detail objectives‘ documentation as the start point. They will just ask what you will find listed over there, so you just need to cover that part. In the end, I need to say that I am really glad to obtain this certification because I find GNU/Linux as real satisfaction. If you would need some help, information or something else in regards to this, please feel free to contact me.

http://www.lpi.org/verify
LPI ID: LPI000116482
Code: uuw3rpvp8v

1. What is Linux Professional Institute?
2. Linux Professional Insitute Certifications

Since I am working for company that will not ever never let us connect to their network without VPN client, and taking in consideration that I wanted to use Linux on my laptop it was time to get my hands on selecting appropriate VPN client since I am working as teleworker (this sounds cool to me).

Now, before I start describing anything I need to say that I am using Ubuntu 9.04 on my laptop. Few of the reasons for using Ubuntu would be that it is working very nice, it is fast enough, it is nice looking and very stable at the same time, and at the end of day it is Debian based, and I proudly admit that I am emotional when it is about Debian. Ok, now back to VPN clients.

We are using IPsec. Therefore, I needed something that can support it and actually I have found two real possibilities:

1. Cisco VPN client for Linux
2. vpnc

I was working with vpnc before and I have to admit that it was my first selection. In my personal opinion it is working very nice, and it is really easy to use. network-manager-vpnc is actually just a vpnc plugin for network-manager and is nice solution because you will be able to use it from nm-applet from panel which is more friendly than connecting over console. vpnc is capable of working just over UDP and I have found it as huge limitation. I am working from the network which is reaching limits almost all the time, and UDP in those kind of networks is not that good solution. In most cases, if you are using UDP and you are working from those described networks you will see on the statistics that you are sending bytes, but you are not receiving anything. I was trying to find some vpnc clone that is working over TCP, because we obviously need some packet delivery guarantee, but I wasn’t that successful. That was reason to try Cisco VPN client.

There is really good project page for Cisco VPN client at this link. As i have heard, people were complaining that it is hard to compile it and install it, but with installations provided on the above link, it is not that hard to accomplish that. Main reason why em I actually using Cisco VPN client is ability to work over TCP. It is working really good, it is stable and I would, from my personal experience, recommend it.

I have noticed that huge disadvantage of using Cisco VPN client is using it over wireless network. After certain period of time my Ubuntu just freezes and only way to get it working is to turn it off, and start it over again. Solution is to use wired network, after that it is all work fine. It seems that Intel wireless driver is actually making this problem, but I was reading that some of the users are complaining on really bad multi core support. One of the solutions was to start it with just one core (which means to disable one core in prior to starting vpn client), which is not that user friendly. One of following posts will describe procedure how to install and to configure both vpnc and cisco vpn client, and how to resolve some of the issues that might occur while using them.

Obavještavamo sve zainteresovane da je objavljena finalna verzija Bosanskohercegovačkog Linux desktopa BHLD 2.0. Ovaj projekat je finansiralo Ministarstvo obrazovanja, nauke i kulture FBiH, a vodio ga je dr Samir Ribić sa ETFa Sarajevo. U projektu su učestvovali i mnogobrojni studenti ETFa (kojima se ovom prilikom zahvaljujemo).

Bh. Linux desktop je projekat čiji je cilj prezentovanje Linuxa u svojstvu radne stanice (desktopa) kao i aktivnosti ULK na lokalizaciji (prevođenu na naše jezike) grafičkog okruženja i aplikacija. BHLD 2.0 dolazi sa setom aplikacija posebno prilagođenim za primjenu u obrazovanju, kao i sa vrlo detaljnim priručnikom na našem jeziku u kojem su opisane sve aplikacije uključene u distribuciju. Od aplikacija ističemo OpenOffice.org 3.1 i Firefox 3.0. Pored standardnog KDE okruženja BHLD 2.0 sadrži i lagano okruženje za starije računare te bi trebao biti upotrebljiv i na računarima sa svega 128 MB RAM. BHLD je “live CD” što znači da ga možete isprobati bez instalacije, a za razliku od verzije 1.x instalacija na disk je potpuno podržana.

Verzija 2.0 bazirana je na megapopularnoj Ubuntu Linux distribuciji. Tehničke detalje (spisak paketa) možete saznati na ULK wiki stranici koja će se po potrebi dopunjavati informacijama:
http://wiki.linux.org.ba/BHLD2

BHLD 2.0 moći ćete naći u sljedećem broju magazina “Info” zajedno sa člankom i intervjuom, a ISO image možete preuzeti sa mirror servera:
ftp://mirror.bhld.com.ba/bhld/ (BH Telecom)
http://europronet.ba/bhld/ (Europronet – za korisnike cable zone: ftp://cableftp.europronet.ba/DOWNLOAD/OS/Linux/BHLD/)

Sva pitanja u vezi BHLDa i pomoć za korištenje možete dobiti na ULK forumu – sekcija BHLD koji redovno prati i sam dr Ribić (nick “megaribi”).

Pozivamo vas na promociju BHLD 2.0 koja će se održati u subotu 4. jula 2009. u 12:00 u Malom amfiteatru Elektrotehničkog fakulteta (ETF-MA):
* Mapa (koristite kontrolu sa lijeve strane da napravite zoom-in / zoom-out, ili vucite mišem mapu za skrolovanje)
Ovom prilikom ćete se moći učlaniti u Udruženje Linux korisnika, dobiti majice i kape sa logom Udruženja kao i odštampane BHLD priručnike sa CDom.

1. Udruženje Linux korisnika Bosne i Hercegovine
2. BHLD 2.0

Nakon podosta vremena našao sam nešto vremena da istestiram openSuSE Linux 10.3 verziju. U suštini interesovalo me šta se dešava sa KDevelopom i KDE-om, koje nisam koristio veoma dugo vremena, a znajući da je SuSE dosta dobra osnova za iste.

Detaljnije tekst na gotovo istu temu sam objavio prije nekoliko godina na ovom linku.

Na početku ovog teksta treba da kažem da su moja očekivanja od openSuSE Linux distribucije bila prilično visoka, naročito ako uzmemo u obzir činjenicu da nisam koristio nijednu verziju iz porodice 10, te uzimajući u obzir činjenicu da su sve verzije od 7.0 bile dosta dobra ostvarenja.

OpenSuSE strana je dosta jednostavna i jako lijepo uređena što itekako mnogo znači. Pristupačnost strane i dobra dokumentacija na istoj je jedan od faktora koji meni dosta znače, a kako to ova distribucija ima, moja volja da istu pretestiram na svom laptopu je očeličila.

Usljedilo je skidanje verzije za PowerPC platformu (da, i dalje koristim Powerbook i dalje mi se veoma sviđa ovaj komad hardvera) i u međuvremenu isčitavanje dokumentacije.

Prvi problem sa kojim se korisnik može da susretne jeste particionisanje diska. Kako nikad nisam bio pobornik automatskog particionisanjua diska to je bio slučaj i ovdje. Manuelno particionisanje diska je prošlo bez ikakvih problema.

Ono što je potrebno da korisnik zna prije igranja sa particijama jeste da su potrebne dvije particije. Jedna mala, 32 MB velika particija formatirana u Apple_HFS filesystemu koja ‘e se koristiti za bootloader i druga, nozovimo je velika particija, formatirana u ext2, ext3 ili Reiser filesystemu koju ćemo koristiti kao root particiju.

Ne preporučujem manuelno particionisanje diska korisnicima koji nemaju iskustva sa istim, umjesto toga, predlažem particionisanje diska sa Apple DiskUtilityem koji je sastavni alat Mac OS X, koji cijeli ovaj posao može da riješi bez ikakvih poteškoća i dosta elegantno. Za one koji \ele svjesno da se poigraju sa svojim hard diskom savjetujem da pročitaju ovo upustvo. Za sve korisnike koji imaju iskustva sa fdiskom, ovo nebi trebalo da predstavlja bilo akakv problem.

U prvom dijelu instalacije je potrebno da postavite osnovne parametre, kao što je root password, podešavanje vremenske zone, instalacija softvera i slično. Sama instalacija traje nešto više od sat vremena, sve ovisno o tome koji ste softver izabrali za instalaciju. Vezano za softver, izabrao sam defaultnu instlaciju sa GNOME grafičkim okruženjem, čisto da vidim kako se cijela stvar odvijala na tom planu. Nikada mi se nije sviđalo kako GNOME izgleda pod SuSE-om pa me interesovalo da li je to i dalje slučaj.

Nakon instlacije na Powerbook prva stvar koju ćete uočiti jeste da X11 ne radi posao kako treba. Naime, rezulucija koju SuSE automatski setuje nikako ne odgovara je potrebno manuelno promjeniti xorg.conf.

Dakle, prva stvar koju je potrebno uraditi jeste dodati podršku za generičku grafičku akceleraciju:

Load “dri”

u Modules sekciji, i poslije toga u sekciji sa rezolucijama, za defaultnu rezoluciju, potrebno je dodati:

“1280×854″

Poslije toga jednostavno resetujte X11 i uživajte u novoj, prilagođenoj rezoluciji. Sada kada smo to podesili, relativno brzo možete uočiti da zvuk opće ne radi.

Cijela stvar se može riješiti relativno jednostavno, sa konzole (a kako bi drugačije):

vim /etc/init.d/alsasound (linija 188)

test -d /proc/asound && start_rest to test -d /proc/asound && start_all.

Nakon što zvuk proradi možemo se posvetiti podešavanju osnovnih postavki desktopa. GNOME iako u novijoj verziji, izgleda dosta nezgrapno i neprilagođeno, sa nekim novim SuSE application luncher/om koji opće nije po mojoj mjeri. Koristeći Debian i Ubuntu GNOME jednostavno sam se navikao na izgled desktopa koji oni forsiraju, tako da je ovaj, relativno novi za mene, pristup bio prilično veliak promjena za mene, koja je zahtjevala brojne promjene da bi se cijela stvar prilagodila.

Instalaciju KDE-a sam uradio koristeći Yast iz konzole. Jednostavno, usljed višegodišnjeg iskustva sa Yastom shvatio sam da ga je dosta brže i jednostavnije koristiti sa konzole, pa se je to isto tako podrazumijevalo i za instalaciju KDE-a. Sa obzirom da sam izabrao cijelu kategoriju KDE za instalaciju, to je potrajalo nešto duže nego obično (da, da, instalirao sam i translations) i prvo prijavljivanje na KDE je ostavilo pozitivan utisak na meni. KDE loader izgleda veoma lijepo i prilagođeno cijelom okruženju, pa sam odmah stekao dojam da je oficijelni prelazak na GNOME kao default samo obična maska, te da je KDE tu i dalje defaultno grafičko okruženje. KDE luncher koji dolazi sa openSuSE/om izgleda dosta lijepo, po defaultu je uključen transparency, pa sve to onako izgleda dosta lijepo i uredno. KDevelop je i dalje na visini zadatka te ima sve ono zašto je meni potreban. Sve u svemu openSuSE je nastavio sa dobro uhodanom praksom, i dalje se radi o jednoj dosta dobroj i ogromnoj distribuciji, jako lijepo uređenoj, namijenjenoj za ljude koji relativno kratko koriste Linux operativni sistem ili žele da počnu sa istim.

Kao neko ko najviše radi sa Gentoo-om i Debianom treba da kažem da me iznenađuje jednostavnost nekih rješenja koje SuSE nudi, ali isto tako, najveći broj nešto iskusnijih korisnika neće pronaći ništa posebno što bi ih ostavilo ili eventualno prebacilo na ovu Linux distribuciju.

Sve u svemu, radi se o dosta dobroj Linux distribuciji, sa ciljanom korisničkom bazom, i u tom smislu SuSE Linux je i prije, kao i sada, radi izvanredan posao.

1. OpenSuSE

Prije nekoliko dana kreirana je nova FITColab grupa, Linux grupa.

Nova grupa će se baviti promoviranjem, razvojem, ali i aktivnim sudjelovanjem u aktivnostima lokalizacije GNU/Linux operativnog sistema i aplikativnog softvera koji sa njime ide, pisanjem potrebne dokumentacije koja će biti objavljena pod licencama koja će odgovarati prirodi samog pokreta, popularizacijom tehničke kulture iz oblasti informatike.

U cilju izvršavanja gore navedenih ciljeva nastojati ćemo da objavljujemo vijesti vezane za FOSS, aktivno ćemo se baviti pisanjem dokumentacije sa pravom slobodnog umnožavanja, ali ćemo napraviti i korak dalje, neke interesantne projekte ćemo da implementiramo i dokumentujemo.

Svi članovi FITcolab-a koji simpatišu, koriste ili žele da nauče više o GNU/Linux operativnom sistemu su dobrodošli.

Svojim radom, Linux klub aktivno učestvuje u razvoju Open Source zajednice. Postanite dijelom te zajednice i pomozite nam da je napravimo boljom i jačom!

1. Fakultet Informacijskih Tehnologija
2. FITColab

System.hack()/* if using System.hack() syntax in programming, a method hack would be invoked on the object System. */ System.hack() is an exhibition project and a book by Multimedia Institute realized through the collaborative platform Zagreb – Cultural Kapital of Europe 3000. You can participate by submitting your favorite System.hack()s.

Original concept and production: Multimedia Institute
Creative assistance: Vuk Ćosić and What, How and For Whom

A moment of excellence in programming is called hack. A perfect hack issurprising, mediagenic, innovative in employing technology, funny andnon-violent. System.hack() is every hack that opens up a closed system or makes an open system dynamic.

System.hack() exhibition seeks to find connections between moments of excellence in different fields of human production. This exploration always has to provide answers to the following two questions:

* What system is being hacked?, and

* How this system is being hacked, or what is a specific hack in an individual work?

The exhibition environment is not a gallery, but the interior of a hotelroom. The hotel room is supposed to function as the lowest commondenominator of living environments users/viewers/visitors/readersinhabit. The hotel room also functions as a Table of Contents for theSystem.hack() book. Museum labels found on exhibited objects linkindividual hacks to the essays dealing with issues they raise and socialcontext they intervene in.

Hacks exhibited:

1. Orson Welles – War of the Worlds
2. Captain Crunch – whistle
3. Richard Stallman – GNU GPL
4. Heath Bunting – Superweed Kit 1.0
5. Michael Steil – Xbox Linux project
6. CD Protection Kit

Authors of essays: Jonah Brucker-Cohen, Benjamin Mako Hill, Marcell Mars, Tomislav Medak, Ognjen Strpic and Mckenzie Wark

Prejako! Neću ići, ali bih volio. aBd, sljedeći meeting.

Lokacija i vrijeme: Novi Sad (November 21-22 16:00-21:00): There will be a System.hack() exhibition!

1. System.hack()

Dugo se po raznim medijima odvija saga zvana MSOOXML i ISO standard. Bilo je tu zaista dosta kvalitetne dokumentacije sa obje strane, međutim, prvi put to vidim u jednoj konciznoj formi:

1. There is already a standard ISO26300 named Open Document Format (ODF): a dual standard adds costs, uncertainty and confusion to industry, government and citizens;
2. There is no provable implementation of the OOXML specification: Microsoft Office 2007 produces a special version of OOXML, not a file format which complies with the OOXML specification;
3. There is information missing from the specification document, for example how to do a autoSpaceLikeWord95 or useWord97LineBreakRules;
4. More than 10% of the examples mentioned in the proposed standard do not validate as XML;
5. There is no guarantee that anybody can write software that fully or partially implements the OOXML specification without being liable to patent lawsuits or patent license fees by Microsoft;
6. This format conflicts with existing ISO standards, such as ISO 8601 (Representation of dates and times), ISO 639 (Codes for the Representation of Names and Languages) or ISO/IEC 10118-3 (cryptographic hash);
7. There is a bug in the spreadsheet file format which forbids any date before the year 1900: such bugs affect the OOXML specification as well as software applications like Microsoft Excel 2000, XP, 2003 and 2007.
8. This standard proposal was not created by bringing together the experience and expertise of all interested parties (such as the producers, sellers, buyers, users and regulators), but by Microsoft alone.

Radi se o peticiji pa ko želi da glasa može isto da uradi ovdje.

Danas mi je nakon mjesec dana ?ekanja stigao Open Solaris 10. U lijepo zapakovanoj kutiji do�la su tri DVD-a, dva sa operativnim sistemom za SPARC platformu i za x86 i jedan DVD sa developer tools. Preko vikenda ?u instalirati u virtualnu ma�inu, mada bi mogao udahnuti �ivot i na Sparc Station 4 koji mi samo skuplja pra�inu. Poigrat ?u se sa ovim preko vikenda, tako da ?u uskoro pisati jedan post sa konkretnim rezultatima.

MIT provides just one of the 10 open source educational success stories detailed below. Open source and open access resources have changed how colleges, organizations, instructors, and prospective students use software, operating systems and online documents for educational purposes. And, in most cases, each success story also has served as a springboard to create more open source projects.

Veoma interesantan tekst na temu mo�ete pro?itati na ovom linku.

Prema onome �to sam mogao da ?ujem u posljednje vrijeme kako kroz neka predavanja, ali i kroz aktivno u?e�?e na nekim forumima najve?i broj korisnika zapravo pravi gre�ku u tome �ta je open source a �ta free software:

A lot of people make the mistake of thinking that open source and the GPL are one and the same. They are not. In fact the whole open source movement was designed in opposition to the FOSS movement advocated by Richard Stallman and others.

Interesantan tekst na temu se mo�e pro?itati na ovom linku.