Linux

Debian, Linux, Tech Tips

Installing Debian 6 on an Asus Eee PC 1015PE from a USB Flash Drive

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I used Universal USB Installer to put a copy of Debian 6 on an old 2GB flash drive so I could install it on my Asus Eee PC 1015PE netbook. I stuck the flash drive in the USB port and fired up the Eee PC. It proceeded to boot to Windows, even though the flash drive had been detected by the BIOS. I had already went to the BIOS (via F2) to make sure my first boot device was set to Removable Device. I rebooted, went back into the BIOS, and disabled the hard drive as a boot device. This time, instead of booting from the flash drive, I now see a message telling me to insert a valid boot device. I took the flash drive out, stuck it in another machine, and turned it on. The other machine boots into the Debian installer just fine. What’s a geek to do?

Since the netbook has an AMI BIOS, I tried an old-school trick that AMI has favored for years. It turns out that the 1015PE has an undocumented feature (not listed on the BIOS screen): If you hit escape at the BIOS screen (repeatedly works best), it’ll bring up a one-time boot menu that lets you select from valid boot devices. My flash drive was listed there! I selected it, pressed enter, and after about a 20 minute install, my 1015PE is happily running Debian 6.

Linux, Tech Tips, Ubuntu

Compiling Squid in Ubuntu 7.10

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Compiling Squid 2.6 in Ubuntu is easy, once you know that there are different command line options you must use aside from the defaults (which are specific to BSD-flavored systems).  Note that I specifically enabled digest authentication with the –enable-auth=digest  switch because our intended application of Squid  needed a more secure password transmission method than Basic Authentication.   Here’s some general steps:

  1. Download and upack the Squid source. I used Squid 2.6 for this.
  2. Open a terminal and change to your Squid source directory.
  3. Type the follwong and press enter:

    sudo ./configure –enable-auth=digest –prefix=/usr –localstatedir=/var –libexecdir=${prefix}/lib/squid –srcdir=. –datadir=${prefix}/share/squid –sysconfdir=/etc/squid

  4. After a hundred lines or so scroll by, enter the following:

    sudo make
  5. After several, even more ugly lines go by, type the following:

    sudo make install

  6. There is no way to set the default location of the log files with Squid using configure, and I couldn’t get the recommended patch to work, so I came up with an easier solution.  Issue the command:

    ln -s /var/log /var/logs

That’s it. Squid is installed. Now, I didn’t say Squid is actually configured on Ubuntu at this point.  Getting it all set up is a story for another day! Depending on several factors, you’ll have to do a lot of chmods to make sure the permissions are right! Someday, I will probably post my PHP-CLI scripts that control user authentication and site blocking! Until then, good luck.
Linux, Tech Tips, Ubuntu

Finally, easily enable WPA in Ubuntu 6.06

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The following was taken from http://www.debianadmin.com/enable-wpa-wireless-access-point-in-ubuntu-linux.html Normally, I would never repost content from some else’s site, but I’m afraid that it may disappear at some point. So, I’ll post it here. Again, I DID NOT author this content, but I’m puting it here for archival purposes just in case it disappears.

Procedure to enable WPA Wireless in Ubuntu

To update the source list run the following command

sudo apt-get

sudo apt-get install wpasupplicant

sudo apt-get install network-manager-gnome network-manager

sudo gedit /etc/network/interfaces

Comment out everything other than “lo” entries in that file and save the file

Create a file called /etc/default/wpasupplicant, add entry ENABLED=0 and save the file

sudo touch /etc/default/wpasupplicant

Reboot your system or use the following command

sudo /etc/init.d/dbus restart

Once you login back in to your machine you need to left-click the network manager icon in Gnome and select your wireless network It should prompts for password, type, etc and It will ask you to choose a password for your new “keyring”.

After enterring all the details my wireless network was connected and working fine you can see in the follwoing screen

Again, special thanks to the folks at DebianAdmin.com for providing us with this elegant solution.

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