04 December, 2011

Telmex Nightmare (Huawei Modem)

I spent some time today trying to fix some of the problems the WI-FI modem given by Telmex was having.

Since my 2wire modem was broken (don't know what happened, just stopped working), I got some issues with my wireless internet. The modem that Telmex gave to me as a replacement of the 2wire is a "new" Huawei hg530.

The main and most annoying issue with the Huawei is that from time to time the DNS stop working. When I check the default network configuration of the DHCP, I can see the default GW, route and DNS is 192.168.1.254... in other words, the modem itself. Therefore, if something is broken it must be the modem, and trying to change it is not that easy, given the fact that there's a lot of WAN configuration, it could mean more time configuring than what I want to bear with. So the quick fix is to reconfigure dhcp services.

The first step is to gain access to the modem. This is done easily by googling it. The steps:
- Open a browser with the address http://192.168.1.254
- Type "TELMEX" as user and your WEP key as password.

The second step is to configure the DHCP DNS's
- In the left frame, open Basic->DHCP and type the google DNS's : 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4

The changes are applied on the fly, but I couldn't connect properly until I restarted the modem, so I recomend to do so.

The last issue I wanted to solve now that I have access to the modem configuration, is to change the encription algorithm. By default you have a WEP key of 64 bits that is very easy to crack, so I changed it to WPA2-PSK. It's still crackable but it's way more dificult. Need to go to Basico->LAN Inalambrica and change the Encription method and key.

Now I have a bit better expierence... until now... let's see later.

17 July, 2011

Setting up Fedora Core 15 with Gnome 3 for Java Development

After installing fc15:

Update the system

$ yum -y update
$ yum install kernel-devel
$ reboot


I've an nvidia driver, that just works with the default driver (nouveau) but it doesnt use the full potential of the nvidia card, so I needed to install the official Nvidia drivers via rpmfusion:

$ rpm -Uvh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm
$ rpm -Uvh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-stable.noarch.rpm
$ yum install akmod-nvidia xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-libs
$ vi /boot/grub/grub.conf


and check if it's added

rdblacklist=nouveau nouveau.modeset=0

in the kernel line

Then:
$ reboot


After that, you might need to install Oracle Java in the desktop

Download Oracle JDK latest version
Execute:

$ chmod +x /path/to/file/jdk-6u25-linux-*-rpm.bin
$ /path/to/file/jdk-6u25-linux-*-rpm.bin
$ alternatives --install /usr/bin/java java /usr/java/latest/bin/java 20000
$ alternatives --install /usr/bin/javaws javaws /usr/java/latest/bin/javaws 20000
$ alternatives --install /usr/bin/javac javac /usr/java/latest/bin/javac 20000
$ alternatives --install /usr/bin/jar jar /usr/java/latest/bin/jar 20000
$ alternatives --install /usr/lib64/mozilla/plugins/libjavaplugin.so libjavaplugin.so.x86_64 /usr/java/latest/jre/lib/amd64/libnpjp2.so 20000


Some commands to test everything is ok:

$ java -version

java version "1.6.0_22"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_22-b04)

Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 17.1-b03, mixed mode)

$ javac -version
javac 1.6.0_22

$javaws
Java(TM) Web Start 1.6.0_22


Until now you have a whole OS with desktop and Java tools, but you cannot program without a little bit of multimedia:

Flash plugin (64bits, if you have 32 bits machine, the commands are slightly different):

$ rpm -ivh http://linuxdownload.adobe.com/adobe-release/adobe-release-i386-1.0-1.noarch.rpm
$ rpm --import /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-adobe-linux
$ yum install flash-plugin nspluginwrapper.x86_64 nspluginwrapper.i686 alsa-plugins-pulseaudio.i686 libcurl.i686


Bluetooth service works out-of-the-box in FC15 in my dell computer, but it's necessary to enable the service, otherwise you see the bluetooth icon in an undefined status.

$ systemctl status bluetooth.service

bluetooth.service – Bluetooth Manager
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/bluetooth.service)
Active: inactive (dead)
CGroup: name=systemd:/system/bluetooth.service

$ systemctl enable bluetooth.service

ln -s ‘/lib/systemd/system/bluetooth.service’ ‘/etc/systemd/system/dbus-org.bluez.service’
ln -s ‘/lib/systemd/system/bluetooth.service’ ‘/etc/systemd/system/bluetooth.target.wants/bluetooth.service’

systemctl start bluetooth.service


Now to wath videos and MP3 you need xine and codecs:
$ yum install gstreamer-plugins gstreamer-plugins-* xine xine-*


The default theme in FC15 is minimalistic and dark, it only needs a few changes:
$ gsettings set org.gnome.shell.clock show-seconds true
$ gsettings set org.gnome.shell.clock show-date true
$ vi /usr/share/themes/Adwaita/metacity-1/metacity-theme-3.xml
$ vi /usr/share/gnome-shell/theme/gnome-shell.css

... and if the font it's bigger than you can bear, just check out Universal Access Settings and make the font size smaller.


# If you are a chrome fan, flash might not work in the 64 bits environment, it needs an small fix:

sudo mkdir -p /opt/google/chrome/plugins
sudo ln -s /usr/lib64/mozilla/plugins-wrapped/nswrapper_32_64.libflashplayer.so /opt/google/chrome/plugins/nswrapper_32_64.libflashplayer.so


And voilá, you have a fully functional linux environment so that you can create the most amazing Java programs in the world :P.

Mr H.

04 May, 2011

USB 2.0 Not recognized by Virtualbox Guest OS

It seems this is a common issue in Virtualbox using Linux as a host OS, and I think it should be addressed by Oracle either adding a button get all stuff configured or creating a 2-steps how-to like this blog entry in the official documentation.

First you must install Oracle VM Virtualbox Extension Pack. Download it from the link above, and follow:

- Select File-> Preferences, it opens a dialog box with configuration preferences
- Select "Extensions" and click the arrow in the right side to add the Extension Pack
- Select the file downloaded, for example: Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-4.0.6-71344.vbox-extpack
- Click open and wait until process is complete.

Now that you have USB 2.0 support, you need to add the user running Virtualbox to the vboxusers groups, otherwise you wont be able to see the usb devices:

- edit /etc/group

in the line
vboxusers:x:501:

add the userid of the host OS user running Virtualbox, like this:
vboxusers:x:501:hjuarezv

And voilá, you can start your guest OS and it should be recognizing properly all your usb 2.0 devices.

Hope this helps.