As I’m writing this my laptop is upgrading from 9.10 to the new 10.o4 LTS version of Kubuntu. Kubuntu released the new version today.(this also goes for Ubuntu and Edubuntu as well as Xubuntu).

Go here to download the new version or use the update manager to upgrade. Make sure you do all the updates on your current version of Kubuntu or Ubuntu first. This goed for 8.04 & 9.04 LTS releases and any other release in between.

In the past updates like this could cause problems when doing them right at the time of release. It was common to find unreachable Ubuntu servers when upgrading causing an update to not work at all, or to just download some of the files and install a broken version of Kubuntu.

This seems to be resolved when I started the upgrade no time outs to Ubuntu servers were reported. Although the upgrade is downloading slow even on a fast broadband connection.

The only thing I now have to worry about is will everything work like it did after the upgrade.

I also have a few servers to upgrade which is usually what the LTS(Long Term Support) version is used for. As well as a few clients who are also on the LTS version.

Keep an eye on this blog for my report on how Kubuntu 10.04 LTS is working after the upgrade.

Related Posts

• November 7, 2008 -- How To Get Atheros AR242x To Work on 8.10 Intrepid Ibex (528)
• September 28, 2008 -- AR242x The saga continues (2)
• August 7, 2009 -- Bright Hub (0)
• May 14, 2009 -- Karmic Koala 9.10 The First Alpha Is Here (2)
• May 8, 2009 -- Want To Boot Linux From A Flash Drive? (2)

After only 6 months with Dreamhost I had all the downtime I can take.  I want people to be able to visit my blogs and Dreamhost stopped me from making that possible.  I canceled the Dreamhost PS and moved everything to a new VPS server hosted far far away from Dreamhost.

It’s not as cheap as Dreamhost but I have control over everything.  From initial install to optimizing the server.  It’s all me now.  A little daunting but exiting as well.

I have everything I had hosted with Dreamhost working, most sites now load faster then they used to.

I’ve been busy with a new pet project.  I was able to buy a great domain name in October and didn’t even have to think what the domain would be used for.  Check out fantasy-rpg.com for yourself. If you like playing video games online on the PC or otherwise check it out. It’s filled with information about and guides for MMOROG games.

I’ve been really lucky with fantasy-rpg.com one of the founder of Zownder.com was looking for a new home and I’m pleased to announce the Zownder.com team is now working with fantasy-rpg.com to bring you the best in MMORPG and gaming news.

In the months to come you will probably see more changes I might change the theme again on madberry.org but that’s a big maybe because I really like the theme that is on here right now.

More technical posts will follow I have a few ideas so keep an eye on this blog.

Related Posts

• April 29, 2010 -- Kubuntu 10.04 LTS Released Today (1)
• May 14, 2009 -- Karmic Koala 9.10 The First Alpha Is Here (2)
• May 8, 2009 -- Want To Boot Linux From A Flash Drive? (2)
• April 6, 2009 -- Took The Plunge Jaunty Jackalope Kubuntu 9.04 On Laptop (0)
• February 13, 2009 -- HAL, Xserver And How It Works (0)

Today Alpha One is released and traditionally this is only an alternate. No live cd’s yet.

The Karmic Koala Promise

For Karmic Koala the cloud concept will be worked out more and Canocial is promising an OS that will use near to zero watts when in  idle mode.  The look is said to change as well. A rumor has been started that the brown will finally be ditched. With a new smooth flicker free start-up and the new development kernel mode settings that it will bring, it might give us a totally new start-up environment.  With the new graphical boot, the login experience will also get a work over in its look.

More speed improvements are promised as well.  The Jaunty netbook version starts in 25 seconds.  Canocial wants to improve this.   The new version will include the newest and latest Moblin technology.

The new desktop should have a designers touch all over it.  Which should make me happy.  I’m not sure if it will make me switch from Kubuntu to Ubuntu.  But I will take a close look at it when, the first Live CD is released.

Below are the links to more information and the downloads.

Karmic Koala release schedule: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KarmicReleaseSchedule
Alpha one information: http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/karmic/alpha1
Download Links:
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/karmic/alpha-1/ (Karmic Koala Ubuntu Alternates, Server, Netbook Remix, and MID)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/releases/karmic/alpha-1/ ( Karmic KoalaKubuntu)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/xubuntu/releases/karmic/alpha-1/ (Karmic Koala Xubuntu)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/netboot/karmic/alpha-1/ (Karmic Koala Ubuntu ARM)

Please note that it’s never a good idea to run an operating system that is in Alpha on a production system (a system you have to use every day for work).

Related Posts

• August 19, 2008 -- How to get Atheros AR242x wireless to work. 2 (125)
• April 29, 2010 -- Kubuntu 10.04 LTS Released Today (1)
• December 8, 2008 -- Get K3b To burn MP3′s (1)
• November 27, 2008 -- Getting Flash And Java To Work On Kubuntu (0)
• November 7, 2008 -- How To Get Atheros AR242x To Work on 8.10 Intrepid Ibex (528)

Unetbootin Install Linux Distro’s On A Flash Drive With Out Hassle

After burning a million CD’s I decided to search for a better solution.  I found Unetbootin. Unetbootin will automatically download and install Linux iso’s to your USB flash drive.  I’m always looking for applications that make my life easier.  Unetbootin saves me the time of having to burn every distro I want to try to disk.  Let’s face it, we are still in an economic crisis and saving money is a good thing.

Installation

There are two ways to install Unetbootin.  You can install it out of the repositories using Synaptic or adept.  But this will to allow you to install the latest version of Kubuntu Jaunty Jackalope 9.04.  For that you have to install the version you can download from their website.  For the website version there is no install necessary.  The download is a executable file.  Download the file and make it executable make sure you are in the directory you downloaded it to:
In terminal:

sudo chmod +x ~/Desktop/unetbootin-linux*

Or the point and click way:
Right click on unetbootin-linux-323 and select properties. Click the Permissions tab mark the box in front of Is executable. Now you are able to click on the binary. A password prompt will pop-up put in your sudo password. Unetbootin will start and you are ready to make bootable flash drives.

Features

You can select a distribution to put on the flash drive as said, this will download and install the distro to the flash drive.  Select an iso that you have already downloaded and install that to the flash drive.  Or make a custom Kernel install with your own Initrd and options.  Select the drive (it also can install distros to the hardrive) and click OK.  Unetbootin will now download the iso, then install it to the flash drive.

Conclusion

Unetbootin is a great application. The only thing I wish it had out of the box, is support for multiple distro’s.  It does have a boot manager so it should not be to difficult to support.  I might be able to figure out how to do this.  If so I’ll write another blog post about it.

If you liked what you read or it helped you in any way. Please help keep this website available and donate.

Related Posts

• September 28, 2008 -- AR242x The saga continues (2)
• August 19, 2008 -- How to get Atheros AR242x wireless to work. 2 (125)
• August 13, 2008 -- What modules device drivers have got installed (2)
• August 5, 2008 -- So I’ve Installed Kubuntu, now what? (0)
• July 31, 2008 -- Remastersys. (2)

After a problem with the Kubuntu update to KDE 4.2, the laptop reinstalled the desktop all together, I’m now running the first Jaunty Jackalope Beta.  I like contributing back to the community, most of you already know this see my articles and previous work in here.  Installing a beta version and using it on a production box does take some guts.

How Did It Go?

If you have ever installed a beta product of anything then you know that instability is almost a given.  I started the installation of Jaunty on a clean HDD on Friday.  Then decided to do the rest of my configuration over this past weekend.  I take a little longer setting up my own boxes because I am precise about how stuff is installed.

I also choose for ext4 instead of the more standard ext3 just to be daring even more lol.

First impression

The new version of Kubuntu is faster just as promised.  Jaunty cuts my startup time by I would say 25%.  The Desktop look great.  I am however still missing some stuff on Jaunty.  Digikam to name one is still absent.  The promised version 10 did not get included into Jaunty.  This makes me sad because it’s such a great piece of software that really is missed by me.  For those who do not know Digikam is photo management software.  I take a lot of digital photo’s and I use Digikam on a daily basis.

The Nitty Gritty

Everything seems to be working okay.  Even my wireless card (AR242X) is now recognized in Jaunty.  The wireless network is seen and can be connected to using network manager out of the box, GREAT!!  I did try to upgrade rather than do a clean install.  However it did become apparent that a clean install was needed.  I would consider this a tip for everyone having these strange problems of Kmail loosing accounts.  These kind odd errors are the result of lingering OLD configuration files.

In the previous version of Kubuntu (8.10) I had the problem that after a suspend or hibernate  my laptop would overheat because of the fact that the CPU fan wouldn’t switch on.  Jaunty (9.04) also fixes this issue.

Plasma is even better with an actual usable system monitor.  Although I find that some of the plasmoids are missing configuration options.  The new LCD weather station is cool but unusable.  The data sources used don’t have any US city’s so nice but I don’t want to know the weather in London.

That Was Short

Yes but you can see this as a first impression article.  There will be more to follow as soon as I run into problems.

For more info about Jaunty Jackalope 9.04 read these articles I’ve written for Bright Hub:

Canonical Releases Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope 9.04

What’s New In Kubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope

Related Posts

• February 13, 2009 -- HAL, Xserver And How It Works (0)
• November 7, 2008 -- How To Get Atheros AR242x To Work on 8.10 Intrepid Ibex (528)
• August 19, 2008 -- How to get Atheros AR242x wireless to work. 2 (125)
• August 10, 2008 -- How to get Atheros AR242x wireless to work. (4)
• April 29, 2010 -- Kubuntu 10.04 LTS Released Today (1)

I’ve been getting more and more into HAL, Xserver.  Everyone knows by now I own a A205-S5825.  On a Laptop FN is used to get the extra functionality out of the F keys.  Not all F keys work out of the box.  For instance the F9 is used to toggle the touch pad on and off under Windows.  This same F9 key doesn’t do anything under my Kubuntu installation.

HAL stands for Hardware Abstraction Layer.  The Abstraction Layer provides a layer between hardware and software and is meant to “hide” differences between hardware for the Operation System (OS).

In Kubuntu 8.10 this works though a .fdi file in versions before 8.10 there was a xorg.conf file.  There was kind of a shock that went through the Linux community when it was announced that Xserver would go without the trusted xorg.conf file.

I believe how ever that the fdi files will allow for much more flexibility. As I read up on how to create and manage the fdi files I am learning more and more.  I will keep it up untill I know how to get the f-keys that I want working to work.

More about this subject in later posts.

Related Posts

• April 6, 2009 -- Took The Plunge Jaunty Jackalope Kubuntu 9.04 On Laptop (0)
• April 29, 2010 -- Kubuntu 10.04 LTS Released Today (1)
• May 8, 2009 -- Want To Boot Linux From A Flash Drive? (2)
• February 9, 2009 -- Installing Windows After Kubuntu (0)
• November 7, 2008 -- How To Get Atheros AR242x To Work on 8.10 Intrepid Ibex (528)

With Kubuntu Jaunty Jackalope 9.04 I hope what I always hope.  For the AR242x to be included in the Kernel.  Not that I don’t like the traffic the How to’s for this card bring this website.  But I want to be able to advise everyone to use Kubuntu with out having to do extra manoeuvres to get the wireless to work.

But Why?

Beginners and newbies generally don’t want to muck around with Terminal to compile a Kernel module to get wireless to work.  Or compile the beta version of Digikam 0.10 to get a Digikam version that works under KDE4.

Read My Article Please

Please read my article about the Jaunty Jackalope 9.04 promise @ Bright Hub

Related Posts

• April 26, 2009 -- Jaunty Jackalope 9.04 Upgrade Woes (0)
• April 29, 2010 -- Kubuntu 10.04 LTS Released Today (1)
• December 8, 2009 -- Busy, Downtime Again, Server Move (0)
• May 14, 2009 -- Karmic Koala 9.10 The First Alpha Is Here (2)
• May 8, 2009 -- Want To Boot Linux From A Flash Drive? (2)

As most of you know I write for Bright Hub.  I write for the Linux, hardware and Windows channels as well as small Business security which also is Windows oriented.  Unfortunately this also means I have to have Windows installed on at least one of my boxes.  I had to do so on my secondary slave. The box I’m installing Windows on has three HD’s and one CDrom.  The first and second HD are installed on Primary master and slave.  The Secondary master is the CD drive the slave is the Windows HD.

So Just Install It and that’s that right?

No not that simple.  Yes you have to install it, and the easiest way to do so is by unplugging the drives with Linux on them.  After you install Windows (XP or Vista take a pick) make sure Windows boots up and install all the millions of updates.  The Difficulty doesn’t come with installing Windows it’s telling Grub what drive an partition has Windows on it.

How To Get Grub To Recognize Where Windows Is

You have to understand how Grub looks at the drives.  If you run fdisk:

sudo fdisk -l

This command tells us that the frist drive is sda the second drive is sdb and the third drive is sdd. There is no sdc because our secondary master is the CD drive.  In Grub this translates to the following:

sda → hd(0,0)
sdb → hd(1,0)
sdd → hd(2,0)
etc.

This could also be:

hda → hd(0,0)
hdb → hd(1,0)
hdd → hd(2,0)
etc.

So what does it mean hd(0,0) hd stands for hard drive (duh) 0,0 stands for drive 0 partition 0.

So Use The Grub Default For Windows Right?

Wrong.  The default for Grub is the following:

title         Windows 95/98/NT/2000
root          (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader   +1

This how ever doesn’t work.  Because of the fact that windows is installed on the secondary slave, which would be hd(2,0). Okay so just change (hd0,0) to hd(2,0) and now it works right?  Wrong this will cause an Grub Error 13: “Invalid or unsupported executable format”. We are missing two crusial lines of code here:

title           Windows XP
root            (hd2,0)
makeactive
map (hd0) (hd2)
map (hd2) (hd0)
chainloader     +1

Windows will only start from the first hard drive.  To get this to work we have to map hd2 to hd0.  Now Windows will believe it’s on hd0 even though it’s on hd2.

As always if you have any problems please post a comment below.  If it worked for you then let others know by posting a comment below.

Related Posts

• April 29, 2010 -- Kubuntu 10.04 LTS Released Today (1)
• May 8, 2009 -- Want To Boot Linux From A Flash Drive? (2)
• April 6, 2009 -- Took The Plunge Jaunty Jackalope Kubuntu 9.04 On Laptop (0)
• February 13, 2009 -- HAL, Xserver And How It Works (0)
• November 7, 2008 -- How To Get Atheros AR242x To Work on 8.10 Intrepid Ibex (528)

“Mini How To” Get K3b To burn MP3′s

If you have used k3b before and tried to burn a audio CD from MP3′s then you know this doesn’t just work. You have to install some codecs to get this to work. Here is how:

Install the libk3b2-extracodecs like this:

sudo apt-get install libk3b2-extracodecs

For users of Kubuntu 9.10 use this:

sudo apt-get install libk3b3-extracodecs

Thanks LCC:

As of 2/20/2009 you have to use:
sudo apt-get install libk3b6-extracodecs
If you are using an older version of (K)Ubuntu then you might have to run this command instead:
sudo apt-get install libk3b2-mp3
As always let me know in the comments below if this worked for you or not.  I will try to help any one who runs into issues.

Related Posts

• November 27, 2008 -- Getting Flash And Java To Work On Kubuntu (0)
• November 7, 2008 -- How To Get Atheros AR242x To Work on 8.10 Intrepid Ibex (528)
• April 29, 2010 -- Kubuntu 10.04 LTS Released Today (1)
• May 14, 2009 -- Karmic Koala 9.10 The First Alpha Is Here (2)
• September 28, 2008 -- AR242x The saga continues (2)

Thanks,
[mad]Berry

Related Posts

• December 8, 2008 -- Get K3b To burn MP3′s (1)
• November 7, 2008 -- How To Get Atheros AR242x To Work on 8.10 Intrepid Ibex (528)
• April 29, 2010 -- Kubuntu 10.04 LTS Released Today (1)
• May 14, 2009 -- Karmic Koala 9.10 The First Alpha Is Here (2)
• September 28, 2008 -- AR242x The saga continues (2)

In this article I explain the standard features of Kubuntu, where to find applications and how to install an application using adept.  It is filled with screen shots of Kubuntu with both KDE3 and KDE4.  I believe it gives a good insight into the fresh installation of Kubuntu.  It interlaces perfectly with both part 1 and part 2, “The Move from Windows to Kubuntu is Smoother than You Think” , “Installing Kubuntu with Wubi”

In part four next week I will tackle the difficulty of getting Codecs, Flash and Java to work.  I will make it easy as pie to install everything and have you viewing Youtube video’s or playing Pogo.com games in no time.  Stay tunes for that one.

After part four I want to go into some of the applications a little deeper if you have any suggestions then please leave a comment on this post.  Tell me which application you would like to hear more about and I will use your input to determine what applications to explain, review and discuss.

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• April 6, 2009 -- Took The Plunge Jaunty Jackalope Kubuntu 9.04 On Laptop (0)
• April 29, 2010 -- Kubuntu 10.04 LTS Released Today (1)
• December 8, 2009 -- Busy, Downtime Again, Server Move (0)
• May 14, 2009 -- Karmic Koala 9.10 The First Alpha Is Here (2)
• May 8, 2009 -- Want To Boot Linux From A Flash Drive? (2)

**02-24-2009** Instructions for fix after update to kernel 2.6.27-11-generic below.  This how to uses compat-wireless-2009-02-24.tar.bz2. It was tested on (K)Ubuntu 8.10 KDE 4.1.2. Kernel version 2.6.27-7-generic & 2.6.27-9-generic

For instructions on getting the AR242x to work on 8.04 click here.

Introduction

You could see this as part 3 in the series: How To Get Atheros AR242x Wireless To Work
It’s with disappointment that I have to report the following:

I started with a fresh install of Kubuntu 8.10, the reason for this is simple I wanted to make sure that nobody could say “you should have done a clean install”. On a clean install out of the box the AR242x doesn’t work.

What I Tried First

So I started to search for solutions. There a several solutions out there here is a quick list:

The last option worked the best for me so that is what I’ll go with for this how to. Let me clarify that ath_hal, ath5k and ath9k are all developed by madwifi so props to them for doing such a great job of developing the drivers that make wireless for the AR242x work under Linux.

How To Get The AR242X To Work

Okay let’s get to the how to. I found this solution on the Ubuntu forums and credit goes to Malet for provinding the information in the first place.

Disclaimer:
The Package we’re about to use is as far as I know in beta. Installing this package might make your installation of Kubuntu(or Ubuntu) unstable. I am not responsible for any problems that arise after installing this package. But do feel free to post a comment for help if something doesn’t work right I will respond back and try to work with you to fix it. I am NOT responsible for damage to hardware as a result of applying anything you find on this website.

This how to uses Terminal (Konsole) and nano the best small text editor for terminal.

If you had linux-restricted-modules installed please completely remove these by running the following commands:

sudo update-rc.d -f linux-restricted-modules-common remove

Let’s make sure you have the right wireless adapter run this command in Terminal:

lspci | grep Atheros

If the result of that command is something like this:

05:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR242x 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter (rev 01)

This solution might also work for your wireless chipset so feel free to try it but no guaranty’s there.

First Let’s make sure we are on the desktop in Terminal:

cd ~/Desktop

Then let’s download the new driver (in Linux mostly called Module):

If re-running this after the Kernel update to 2.6.27-11-generic then run this line — and skip the next one — otherwise skip this and go to line below.

wget -c http://madberry.org/wp-content/compat-wireless-2.6.tar.bz2

Please bare with me as I now have to manually change the file to the next date every night at 10pm. If you get a 404 then please change the date part in the file below to the next day. Example if it says 2009-01-26 and you get a 404 then change it to 2009-01-27 in the file to be downloaded below.

I will have to keep doing this until the universal file that I was using before is updating again. Thank for you patience.

wget -c http://wireless.kernel.org/download/compat-wireless-2.6/compat-wireless-2009-02-24.tar.bz2

Now untar:

tar xvf compat*.tar.bz2

Go into the directory:

cd compat*

Let’s install the new Module:
First get the build-essential package installed:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install build-essential

Then run the following:

make

sudo make install

sudo make unload

sudo make load

The sudo make load command might produce some errors don’t worry about this it loads the ath5k module just fine.

Now reboot you’re box.
You should have wireless after rebooting just run:

iwconfig

The result could look like this:

lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

wmaster0 no wireless extensions.

wlan0 IEEE 802.11bg ESSID:”linksys”
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412 GHz Access Point: 00:16:B6:AA:AF:58
Bit Rate=24 Mb/s Tx-Power=27 dBm
Retry min limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr=2352 B
Power Management:off
Link Quality=93/100 Signal level:-43 dBm Noise level=-103 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

pan0 no wireless extensions.

If so then you can now configure your wireless settings please don’t forget to post a comment below to tell us it worked.

If there is no wlan0 and you have to run the make load command every time you boot then this might be because the ath5k module is not loading on boot. In this case run this command:

echo ath5k | sudo tee -a /etc/modules

This will add ath5k to the modules to be loaded at boot. Thank you HL for figuring this one out.

Sudhir had the problem that some of you seem to have as well. The driver didn’t find any networks. Here is his solution:

Originally Posted By Sudhir Thalore
But no wireless networks were getting detected by the network manager. After some more googling I disabled Bluetooth using system->administration->services and voila – wireless is now working like a champion.

If it didn’t work then please post a comment below include the results of the following commands:

uname -a

cat /etc/issue

iwconfig

iwlist wlan0 scanning

In Closing

Please use the pastebin and post the link you get in the comment. I want to keep the comments readable.

As always if something changes I will update this post. This means if there is a Kernel update and this solution doesn’t work any more then this is the place where you will find how to fix it.

I can’t stress enough how important your comments are even if the solution works for you. The comments are used by people with similar chipsets on different computers so if it works or not please leave a comment.

If this page helped you out at all then please donate. Donations will go towards the hosting cost for this website.
Thanks for donating.

Related Posts

• August 19, 2008 -- How to get Atheros AR242x wireless to work. 2 (125)
• April 29, 2010 -- Kubuntu 10.04 LTS Released Today (1)
• April 6, 2009 -- Took The Plunge Jaunty Jackalope Kubuntu 9.04 On Laptop (0)
• December 8, 2008 -- Get K3b To burn MP3′s (1)
• November 27, 2008 -- Getting Flash And Java To Work On Kubuntu (0)

Why choose Krusader?

If you are like me and use a current version of Kubuntu (here is what I use), then you might find that D3lphin, which is now said to be the standard file browser, is insufficient in providing the more advanced file-browsing options. For one thing, it doesn’t have tabbing, which I use alot. It also doesn’t have a very good built-in search for files. D3lphin uses Strigi, and I haven’t been able to get any good search results from Strigi.

The following link will take you to a website I just started writing to check it out.

Read More

Related Posts

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• April 29, 2010 -- Kubuntu 10.04 LTS Released Today (1)
• May 8, 2009 -- Want To Boot Linux From A Flash Drive? (2)
• April 6, 2009 -- Took The Plunge Jaunty Jackalope Kubuntu 9.04 On Laptop (0)
• February 13, 2009 -- HAL, Xserver And How It Works (0)

Some good news for AR424x users. Intrepid Ibex the new version of (K)Ubuntu will support the AR242x natively. This means non of the work a rounds are necessary any more. At least we hope that they will not be.

I hope in the future that if there is a problem like this again that Ubuntu development team will act quicker to include drivers for important chip sets like this. Just from the responds on both of my posts on how to get the AR242X to work I can see that this should have been dealt with a lot faster. Just like the Suspend Hibernate problem. Ubuntu Linux will turn in to just another unusable distro’s for n00bs and first time users that don’t have the computer knowledge to dive into terminal and fix this problem.

I’ve been able to get some of my costumers to try and like Kubuntu. If any of those people how ever had to set up the AR242X them selves then they wouldn’t have converted from windows.

I would like to be able to get more customers to make the switch. But I can not sell them on not being able to use a device because I can’t get any drivers for there spanking new printer or other device.

If this would not be an issue and drivers like this could be included faster then I could get so much more people to make the switch from bloat ware windows to light weight usable ((K)Ubuntu)Linux.

Related Posts

• April 29, 2010 -- Kubuntu 10.04 LTS Released Today (1)
• May 8, 2009 -- Want To Boot Linux From A Flash Drive? (2)
• November 7, 2008 -- How To Get Atheros AR242x To Work on 8.10 Intrepid Ibex (528)
• August 7, 2009 -- Bright Hub (0)
• May 14, 2009 -- Karmic Koala 9.10 The First Alpha Is Here (2)

**10-23-2008** This how to still uses madwifi-hal-0.10.5.6-current.tar.gz And has been tested by me and works for (K)Ubuntu 8.0.4.1(both x86-64 and i686) with kernel 2.6.24-21-generic. And once again every one who has problems please re-try the how to.

**09-17-2008** Thanks to Gideon, who told me the links weren’t working any more. This how to now uses madwifi-hal-0.10.5.6-current.tar.gz As always this revision has been tested by me and works for (K)Ubuntu 8.0.4.1(both x86-64 and i686) with kernel 2.6.24-19-generic. And once again every one who has problems please re-try the how to.

**09-03-2008** This How to now uses the newest snapshot madwifi-hal-2008-08-15-r3862-20080903.tar.gz. As always this revision has been tested by me and works for (K)Ubuntu 8.0.4.1(both x86-64 and i686) with kernel 2.6.24-19-generic.

**09-01-2008** This How to now uses the newest snapshot madwifi-hal-2008-08-15-r3851-20080829.tar.gz. If you posted a comment to say it isn’t working then please re-run everything. And report back to verify that the solution is now working for you. As always this revision has been tested by me and works for (K)Ubuntu 8.0.4.1 with kernel 2.6.24-19-generic.

This is a revision of my original post using the solution provided by Madwifi it’s been tested by me and it works.

Windows drivers are here

If you own the same laptop as I do, a Toshiba A205-S5825, then you probably have the same problem, if you are using Hardy or Gutsy with the newest Kernel(2.6.24-19-generic) or older, the wireless doesn’t work out of the box.

It cost me about an hour to solve this mainly because no one knew anything about this particular chipset.

So here is the solution for the AR242x. If you have a chipset in the A5700 series then this could work for you too.

The solution is quite simple and only takes you a couple of minutes to apply and then you can use your wireless.

For this How to you do need wired internet to the computer.

Disclaimer:
The Package we’re about to use is as far as I know in beta. Installing this package might make your installation of Kubuntu(or Ubuntu) unstable. I am not responsible for any problems that arise after installing this package. But do feel free to post a comment for help if something doesn’t work right I will respond back and try to work with you to fix it. I am NOT responsible for damage to hardware as a result of applying anything you find on this website.

First let’s make sure your computer uses the same chipset(or something similar) run in terminal:

lspci | grep Atheros

If the result is as follows or something similar then you are able to use this fix.

05:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR242x 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter (rev 01)

If the result of the command ran is nothing the you don’t have an Atheros chipset and your read on this page stops here. Please go to the forums on Ubuntu and Kubuntu there is a big community there to help you solve your problem or try Google.

Before we start we need to make sure that already installed modules are not “in use”. Click on the Kubuntu start button go to system and click on the “Hardware Drivers Manager” this is where you will find all proprietary drivers. But we’re looking for everything that has Atheros in it. Tick the box behind of “Atheros Hardware Access Layer(HAL)” and “Support for Atheros 802.11 wireless LAN cards” and restart the computer.

In Terminal go to your desktop:

cd ~/Desktop

Then download the Madwifi driver needed for this How to:

wget -c http://snapshots.madwifi-project.org/madwifi-hal-0.10.5.6-current.tar.gz

Untar the Image file(don’t worry it will create a new folder):

tar xvf madwifi*.tar.gz

Go into the just created folder:

cd madwifi*r*

Because we are going to compile from source code we need to make sure the essentials to do so are installed.

sudo apt-get update && sudo aptitude install build-essential

Now run:

make

sudo make install

sudo modprobe ath_pci

sudo modprobe wlan_scan_sta

If you get any errors running the modprobe commands you probably forgot to switch off the modules in the first place go back to this and then try modprobe again.

As noted by “TheGreatGonzo” you might have to restart here. Before you can enable the proprietary drivers again.
As noted by “Choval” in case it doesn’t work after a restart:

blacklist ath_hal
(on /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist)
Reboot, and voila… works like a charm =)

Now the same as we did before:
Click on the Kubuntu start button go to system and click on the “Hardware Drivers Manager” this is where you will find all proprietary drivers. But we’re looking for everything that has Atheros in it. Tick the box in behind of “Atheros Hardware Access Layer(HAL)” and “Support for Atheros 802.11 wireless LAN cards” and restart the computer.

Now you have wireless.

Keep in mind that every time the Kernel gets updated you have to run these commands again:

sudo apt-get update && sudo aptitude install build-essential

Now run:

make clean

make

sudo make install

sudo modprobe ath_pci

sudo modprobe wlan_scan_sta

Off course in the madwifi folder. You might want to move the folder to your home folder because we’ll need it again after a Kernel update.

To get your wireless back up that is until they fix the problem in the Kernel and wireless works after restarting with the new Kernel.

Don’t be shy let us know in the comments below if the solution worked or not(in that case I can assist you and get it to work) .

If this page helped you out at all then please donate. Donations will go towards the hosting cost for this website.

Related Posts

• August 10, 2008 -- How to get Atheros AR242x wireless to work. (4)
• August 23, 2008 -- Sound problem fixed. (0)
• November 7, 2008 -- How To Get Atheros AR242x To Work on 8.10 Intrepid Ibex (528)
• August 13, 2008 -- What modules device drivers have got installed (2)
• August 30, 2008 -- fstab demystified how to add partitions and more (0)

I’ve got three “must have” add-ons that I can recommend. Off course “Ad Block Pro” if you don’t like the many advertisements(really over done by some websites). Password Maker because we all know that using one password for every website is isn’t secure. And Foxmarks great if you use Firefox on more then one computer.

Password Maker

Password maker is a Add-on I discovered when searching for a password manager that wouldn’t store passwords on the computer in a readable format. Instead I found Password Maker. Password Maker uses 1 password for all websites, that means you only have to remember 1 password. But this doesn’t mean that the passwords for all websites are the same. Password maker uses the url(or part of it anyway), a set number of characters and encryption to create a website unique password. This means every website gets it’s own unique password created of 8(minimum) or more characters hashed with a diversity of methods(you can select yourself).

I use customized settings to make it even more secure.

	Surf to the Mozilla add-on page. And add the Pasword Maker add-on(click the button).
	Click “install” after the count down.(Firefox wants to make shure we know what where installing)
	Click “Restart Firefox”.
	After restarting Firefox this will pop-up showing what was just installed. Now let’s adjust some settings click on Prefrences.
	This are the basic options now click on “Advanced Options”.
	Double click on Defaults.
	Now click on the “Extended” tab.
	This is where we will change some settings.
	In this tab change “Password Length” from 8 to 13..
	Now change MD5 to HMAC-MD5

You can now use password maker to create passwords by clicking ctrl->` the password maker ui will popup put in your master password and hit enter. Your passwords will now be generated and populated into the password fields on the website your on
Keep in mind that this makes for a good solution but if somebody really wants in to your accounts they will find a way. They could steal your laptop for instance.

Foxmarks

If you use Firefox on more then one computer you will need your bookmarks on probably all of them. That;s where Foxmarks comes in. Foxmarks will synchronize all of those computers to make sure that you have your bookmarks where ever you go.

Here is how to set it up. I use my own server but for this example we are going to use a Foxmarks account.

	Search on the Mozilla add-on page for Foxmarks. Click on the “Add to firefox” button to add the add-on.
	Wait for Install to become click able.
	Click restart Firefox.
	After you restart Firefox the wizard will pop-up. Follow the instructions on the screen. Click next.
	Click “No help me create one”.
	Put in your information for the new account.
	Now click next to start your first synchronization.
	Success your now able to synchronize your bookmarks.
	Click on this icon on the lower right of your Firefox(next to the password maker ring) to make any changes or to synchronize.

On all additional computers follow the wizard but when asked to create new account mark existing account. That’s it pretty simple right?

Related Posts

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• April 6, 2009 -- Took The Plunge Jaunty Jackalope Kubuntu 9.04 On Laptop (0)
• February 13, 2009 -- HAL, Xserver And How It Works (0)
• August 19, 2008 -- How to get Atheros AR242x wireless to work. 2 (125)
• August 10, 2008 -- How to get Atheros AR242x wireless to work. (4)

For this Kubuntu Linux also has a simple command:

lsmod

This will list all modules and device drivers installed in to your kernel.

For individual modules run:

lsmod | grep mudulename

For instance:

lsmod | grep ath

Will result in:

ath_rate_sample        15360  1
ath_pci               113448  0
wlan                  211888  5 wlan_tkip,wlan_scan_sta,ath_rate_sample,ath_pci
ath_hal               280416  3 ath_rate_sample,ath_pci

This command is used for debugging purposes mostly often when somebody has a problem lsmod and lspci as well as lsusb are often what you are asked to run in debugging what your problem is. Especially when you ask for my help on this website or on the forums and the IRC channels.

Related Posts

• August 19, 2008 -- How to get Atheros AR242x wireless to work. 2 (125)
• May 8, 2009 -- Want To Boot Linux From A Flash Drive? (2)
• November 7, 2008 -- How To Get Atheros AR242x To Work on 8.10 Intrepid Ibex (528)
• August 30, 2008 -- fstab demystified how to add partitions and more (0)
• August 23, 2008 -- Sound problem fixed. (0)

Aug 18 2008: This is a The old version and this solution isn’t recommended anymore please use: the solution in my new post it’s been tested by me and it works.

If you own the same laptop as I do, a Toshiba A205-S5825, then you probably have the same problem, if you are using Hardy or Gutsy with the newest Kernel(2.6.24-19-generic) or older, the wireless doesn’t work out of the box.

It cost me about an hour to solve this mainly because no one knew anything about this particular chipset.

So here is the solution for the AR242x. If you have a chipset in the A5700 series then this could work for you too.

The solution is quite simple and only takes you a couple of minutes to apply and then you can use your wireless.

For this How to you do need wired internet to the computer.

Disclaimer:
The Package we’re about to use is as far as I know in beta.  Installing this package might make your installation of Kubuntu(or Ubuntu) unstable.  I am not responsible for any problems that arise after installing this package.  But do feel free to post a comment for help if something doesn’t work right I will respond back and try to work with you to fix it.  I am NOT responsible for damage to hardware as a result of applying anything you find on this website.

First let’s make sure your computer uses the same chipset(or something similar) run in terminal:

lspci | grep Atheros

If the result is as follows or something similar then you are able to use this fix.

05:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR242x 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter (rev 01)

If the result of the command ran is nothing the you don’t have an Atheros chipset and your read on this page stops here. Please go to the forums on Ubuntu and Kubuntu there is a big community there to help you solve your problem or try Google.

Thanks to Ubuntugeek for providing the primer for this post.

Here is the difference between the how to’s:

Before we start we need to make sure that already installed modules are not “in use”. Click on the Kubuntu start button go to system and click on the “Hardware Drivers Manager” this is where you will find all proprietary drivers. But we’re looking for everything that has Atheros in it. Tick the box behind of “Atheros Hardware Access Layer(HAL)” and “Support for Atheros 802.11 wireless LAN cards” and restart the computer.

In Terminal go to your desktop:

cd ~/Desktop

Then download the Madwifi driver needed for this How to:

wget -c http://madberry.org/wp-content/madwifi-ng-r2756+ar5007.tar.gz

Untar the Image file(don’t worry it will create a new folder):

tar xvf madwifi-ng-r2756+ar5007.tar.gz

Go into the just created dir:

cd madwifi-ng-r2756+ar5007

Because we are going to compile from source code we need to make sure the essentials to do so are installed.

sudo apt-get update && sudo aptitude install build-essential

Now run:

sudo make install

sudo modprobe ath_pci

sudo modprobe wlan_scan_sta

If you get any errors running the modprobe commands you probably forgot to switch off the modules in the first place go back to this and then try modprobe again.

Now the same as we did before:
Click on the Kubuntu start button go to system and click on the “Hardware Drivers Manager” this is where you will find all proprietary drivers. But we’re looking for everything that has Atheros in it. Tick the box in behind of “Atheros Hardware Access Layer(HAL)” and “Support for Atheros 802.11 wireless LAN cards” and restart the computer.

Now you have wireless.

Keep in mind that every time the Kernel gets updated you have to run these commands again:

sudo apt-get update && sudo aptitude install build-essential

Now run:

sudo make install

sudo modprobe ath_pci

sudo modprobe wlan_scan_sta

Off course in the madwifi folder. You might want to move the folder to your home folder because we’ll need it again after a Kernel update.

To get your wireless back up that is until they fix the problem in the Kernel and wireless works after restarting with the new Kernel.

If this page helped you out at all then please donate below. Donations will go towards the hosting cost for this website.

Thanks for donating.

Related Posts

• August 19, 2008 -- How to get Atheros AR242x wireless to work. 2 (125)
• August 23, 2008 -- Sound problem fixed. (0)
• August 7, 2008 -- List Devices in Kubuntu. (0)
• April 6, 2009 -- Took The Plunge Jaunty Jackalope Kubuntu 9.04 On Laptop (0)
• November 7, 2008 -- How To Get Atheros AR242x To Work on 8.10 Intrepid Ibex (528)

There are two commands used for finding out information about the installed hardware on your computer.

lspci

Will give you a list of all PCI devices.
It’s a pretty long list so let’s search for just one device, keep in mind that the chipset or brand name in your computer may differ from yours.

lspci | grep Atheros

Gives the following output on my computer:

05:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR242x 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter (rev 01)

This is my wireless controller.

lspci | grep Audio

Gives the following output:

00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)

This is the way for you to find a chipset or device that you need specific drivers for.
In my case I had to do a specific search for the AR242x chipset to find out how to get my wireless to work(a separate post about this will follow because I’m sure other people have this problem).

Related Posts

• August 19, 2008 -- How to get Atheros AR242x wireless to work. 2 (125)
• August 10, 2008 -- How to get Atheros AR242x wireless to work. (4)
• August 2, 2008 -- Hairy Hardy Upgrade. (0)
• April 29, 2010 -- Kubuntu 10.04 LTS Released Today (1)
• December 8, 2009 -- Busy, Downtime Again, Server Move (0)

Let’s say you wanna install a package but you don’t know for sure if it’s in the repository’s.  Then you can use this Terminal command to do so:

We’ll search for firefox as an example.

apt-cache search firefox

As you can see this displays a list of all packages related to Firefox.

Now let’s install Firefox:

Here we have to use sudo or apt won’t work and tell you:

E: Could not open lock file /var/lib/dpkg/lock - open (13 Permission denied)
E: Unable to lock the administration directory (/var/lib/dpkg/), are you root?

so let’s install:

sudo apt-get install firefox

Put your password in and answer yes to any questions.
And start using Firefox.

You could start Firefox from the Terminal( for debugging purposes) like this:

firefox

Or maybe you don’t want the debugging info add a space an &

firefox &

You can find Firefox under the start menu start->internet->Firefox
That’s it for this “Mini How To”.

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• August 19, 2008 -- How to get Atheros AR242x wireless to work. 2 (125)
• August 18, 2008 -- Firefox add-ons I always install on a new Kubuntu install (0)
• August 10, 2008 -- How to get Atheros AR242x wireless to work. (4)