07.31.08
Ubuntu Radeon 9800 Pro Installation
I tried to get the open-source drivers working, but it just messed things up. So I used this guide to install the propriatey drivers.
07.29.08
Ralink RT25xx Driver install
Background:
I am using a Buffalo WLI-U2-KG54 USB wireless device and the default linux USB driver (the rt2500usb) would not support WPA encryption and it would not work at all. After days of searching through other drivers including the ndiswrapper route/hack I found that USB devices based upon the rt25xx chip should use the rt2570 driver. Note that this guide should also work with the real rt2500 driver and its varients. Just replace filenames and identifiers where nessecary.
Assumptions:
A Fresh Install of Ubuntu 8.04.1 (Hardy Heron)
No Local internet access (but access from another computer)
Using WPA TKIP encryption. For any other type of encryption you will have to make some changes. But what they are I dont know.
Lets Go!
- After a clean install boot up and insert the installation CD
- Go to System -> Administration -> Synaptic Package Manager
- Go to Settings -> Repositories and Uncheck all checks and check the CDROM. This removes the internet and adds the cd as a source of files.
- Now search for “Build-Essential”. Right click on Build-Essential and click “Mark for Installation”. If it asks say yes to installing its dependancies too. Click Apply and install. Close.
- Get on the internet and download “http://rt2×00.serialmonkey.com/rt2570-cvs-daily.tar.gz“. These are the drivers that we are going to install. Save them onto a flash disk or something and go back to the ubuntu PC.
- Open up your flash disk and open up /home/. Copy the tar.gz file accross to your home folder.
- Right click on the tar.gz file in the home folder and click “Extract here”.
- Now right click and rename the folder to something nice like “rt2570″
- Open Applications->Accessories->Terminal.
- Now cd to that directory with “cd /home/<yourname>/rt2570
- And cd to the Module directory with “cd Module/”
- Type “Make” to compile the driver
- Type “Make Install” to install the driver
- Type “cd ../../” to get out of the folders and type “rm -r rt2570″. This removes the folder we just had.
- Now we need to get rid of the old drivers. Type “rmmod rt2500usb”, “rmmod rt2×00usb”, “rmmod rt2×00lib”, “rmmod mac80211″
- Use “lsmod” to find any more drivers that your specific card might be using (for example if you are not using the rt2500usb driver). Then rmmod them.
- Start the correct module with “modprobe rt2570″
- Now for the moment of truth. To test type “ifconfig -a” and see if your wireless adapter is at the bottom. It will be called rausb0 or ra0 depending if it is a usb device or not.
- Turn the device on with “ifconfig rausb0 up”. (replace rausb0 with your version from now on)
- And look for some networks! “iwlist rausb0 scan”. Now if you find some networks, happy days its all working. Remember the SSID of that network. If it isnt, then either your router is wrong, you have the wrong driver or you have made a mistake.
- Now we need to stop the old drivers restarting next time we boot so there are two options. First is delete the files or second is this. type “gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist”.
- At the bottom of the file add “blacklist rt2500usb”, “blacklist rt2×00usb”, “blacklist rt2×00lib”, “blacklist mac80211″. All on seperate lines. This blocks attempts to start the old driver. Save and Close.
- Now open “gedit /etc/network/interfaces”.
- This is an important bit, so I will do it in a code box. After the auto lo and iface lo inet loopback lines enter this:
auto rausb0 # place your card name instead of all rausb0's
iface rausb0 inet dhcp
pre-up ifconfig rausb0 up
pre-up ifconfig rausb0 down
pre-up ifconfig rausb0 up
pre-up sudo iwconfig rausb0 mode Managed
pre-up sudo iwpriv rausb0 auth 3
pre-up sudo iwpriv rausb0 enc 3
pre-up sudo iwconfig rausb0 essid "<your ssid from before>"
pre-up sudo iwpriv rausb0 wpapsk <your wpa password>
pre-up sudo iwconfig rausb0 essid "<your ssid from before>"
Note the quotes around the ssid. The reason why you have to put the ssid twice is so that the wpapsk key can be generated properly. I think that all of my problems were because of this. I was only doing it once for ages. The up down stuff at the start seems to make it more stable. The auth 3 means wpa and the enc 3 means TKIP. If yours is different then take a look at the iwpriv-readme in the driver folder.
Now restart and that should be it. Next time it reboots the dhclient should find you an address!! yay. Note that running “/etc/init.d/networking restart” also restarts the network, but doesnt always work. The first time it seems to, but after that I dont get any DHCP offers. Dont know why, restart and it should be ok.
Hope that helps. Ive spent 3 whole days doing that. And I mean whole days.
04.11.08
Qt Errors and Answers
This is a post containing all the problems I had installing and using Qt. Most of them can be fixed quite simply.
Qt:__________________________________________________________
Error: Qt does not compile certain programs on Windows Vista (In my case this was qwt)
Error Code: “gcc: installation problem, cannot exec `cc1′: No such file or directory”
Solution:
to solve the problem, you have just to add the following line in the Qt\bin\qtvars.bat :
SET PATH=%PATH%;C:\MinGW\libexec\gcc\mingw32\3.4.2
replace the last number with your actual version of gcc.
giminik-Vista Complie Errors
QDevelop:______________________________________________________
Error: Errors whilst compiling anything.
Error Code: Various
Solution:
Make sure that you have all the executables (GDB and ctags not vital to compile) locations (i.e. locations to the respective exe’s) in the Tools->External Tools menu. Note that the make exe is actually mingw32-make in the mingw32 folder.
Qwt Install:_________________________________________________
Note: For the following instructions please alter the file paths for your installation.
Follow the instructions in the install file. I had to cd to the qwt directory then “qmake qwt.pro” then “make”. Note: I could compile the examples, but I could not run them because they required some microsoft Visual C dll. (For the dll’s see later - they do work)
Once installed copy the file “C:\Qt\qwt-5.0.2\designer\plugins\designer\qwt_designer_plugin.dll” to “C:\Qt\4.3.4\plugins\designer”. Now the new widgets will be available in designer. Second add “C:\Qt\qwt-5.0.2\lib\qwt5.dll” to the “C:\Qt\4.3.4\bin” folder. This will enable your programs to compile correctly.
Finally, add a LIB path in whatever IDE you are using (or just the pro file) to the “C:\Qt\qwt-5.0.2\lib\libqwt5.a” file and add the header include path “C:\Qt\qwt-5.0.2\src”.
Note: The instructions said to add the “include” folder, but there was none so I just included the source folder.
Now if your on vista, then it compiles, but then crashes. This is because it cannot find some microsoft visual c dlls. I believe this is another path problem, so it might work for XP (I will test later). All we need to do is locate all of these dll’s and place them in the bin directory of your program. I had to add:
msvcp80.dll
msvcr80.dll
And also include the normal Qt dlls:
QtCore4.dll
qwt5.dll
QtGui.dll
The MS dlls can be downloaded here:Microsoft Visual C dll’.
Hopefully, finally, all is good. I believe most of these problems lie with Vista, so XP users should be ok.
01.30.08
Unattended XP install
Once again, for future reference I have found a nice little freeware program that can not only automate a windows installation (xp or vista) you can also change what is installed and what isnt including external drivers and programs, hotfixes and updates. Pretty much everthing you can think of
Nlite
11.12.06
Fixed the SWLPT-54125 Pause doesnt connect Problem
Fixed the wireless card problem with the SWLPT-54125. When it installed, it wouldnt connect even though the network was there, it would “flash” the name of the network, go mad and show nothing again. In the mean time the processor went to 100% and paused all other processes for a split second. It was more than annoying. To get rid of it, I had to either disable the card or remove it completly.
It came to the time when the tech support where no longer responding because they didnt have a clue either, so I just tried it one last time. Removed the card, uninstalled the software, rebooted, installed the software, clicked restart, and before it did restart, put the card back in. Install the card automatically and boom. It worked.
I think it might have had something to do with a possible dodgy PCI slot. It felt like it wiggled about a bit too much in there. But hey, what do I care, its working and I dont have to connect to my partners laptop anymore.
11.09.06
XP Installation Problems
Had a problem when reinstalling windows, it would BSOD at 34 minutes. I fixed it by pressing Shift+F-10 during install and making a copy of setupapi.log in the windows folder. It described that the last thing to install was some ati inf file, so i deleted the incriminating file (atiixpag.inf inside the windows\inf\ folder) and shazam, worked like a dream.