PCR's notepad » Linux

Opera 10.10 fails to load on Fedora 13 64 bits

David Dernoncourt — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 07:56:13 +0000

I ended up installing Fedora 13 from a USB key, and the Live USB creation program I used (UNetbootin) wouldn’t work with anything more complete than the LiveCD. So, a lot of dependencies are missing. For the NVIDIA drivers, the missing stuff was kernel-devel and gcc. For Opera 10.10, it was… Qt 3. So, to make Opera work in Fedora 13 64 bits, you can either yum install qt3 or… get Opera 10.60 beta 1 (which probably relies on Qt 4, already installed if you installed things like VLC).

General tip: to find what dependencies are missing for a particular program:
1. launch it from the terminal, so you’ll get verbose error messages (when you launch a program from the GUI usually you just see nothing if it fails)
2. when you see missing files, use RPM Find to find out what package contains the file you need.

Fedora 13 final download

David Dernoncourt — Tue, 25 May 2010 10:33:37 +0000

Fedora 13 is to be released within a few hours. I browsed around their website and eventually read about their go/no-go meetings. This pages notably says that if the release is declared GOLD:

Staging to Fedora mirrors begins and cannot be reversed even if additional bugs are found.

This means that as early as one week (or rather a few days I think) before the final release the mirrors start getting populated with the final thing. So I went ahead and tried some basic URL manipulation, in order to try to avoid the usual traffic congestion that occurs after the release. And it seems indeed that it’s possible to get Fedora right now already. Here are a few links:

A French HTTP mirror (Université de Nantes) which seems to already have all Fedora 13 copies: http://fedora.univ-nantes.fr/fedora.redhat.com/fedora/linux/releases/13/ (browse to the Live folder for the Live CDs, or to Fedora for the DVDs)
Generic Live CD (it may work or not depending on the mirror it will automatically pick for you): 64 bits – 32 bits
Generic DVD (it may work or not depending on the mirror it will automatically pick for you): 64 bits – 32 bits – PPC

But remember, those are not yet officially released. They are quite probably the final thing, but you can’t be sure until an official release statement is made. I didn’t test them either. Still, enjoy (or not ).

Flash for Firefox on Linux 64 bits

David Dernoncourt — Mon, 03 May 2010 18:56:08 +0000

NB: as of July 2010, Adobe temporarily paused development of the 64 bits Linux version. This means that, although the download is still available, no security updates are currently being published, and this version of Flash does contain some serious security flaws.

Installing Flash for Firefox on Linux 64 bits is easy, but it’s a bit boring because since it’s still in alpha stage, there is no automated process to do it.
The manual steps are detailed here: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Flash#64-bit_alpha
In order to ease the pain, I eventually decided to make a tiny bash script that does this work for you. All you have to do, though, is to find the latest version number here on Adobe Labs (at the bottom of the page) and edit the script to set the proper version number (second line). Here’s the script (I hope WordPress doesn’t kill the quotes like it likes to do…), just copy/paste it, edit the version if needed and save as an .sh file that you’ll chmod to 744 and run:

#!/bin/bash VERSION=10.0.45.2


echo "Downloading Flash Player $VERSION for Linux x86_64..."

cd ~

wget http://download.macromedia.com/pub/labs/flashplayer10/libflashplayer-$VERSION.linux-x86_64.so.tar.gz
echo "Unpacking..."

tar zxvf libflashplayer-$VERSION.linux-x86_64.so.tar.gz
echo "Moving file"

sudo mv libflashplayer.so /usr/lib64/mozilla/plugins/
echo "Cleaning up"

rm libflashplayer-$VERSION.linux-x86_64.so.tar.gz

echo "Finished" echo "It should work even if Firefox was running, without restarting it."

This script was tested (and worked) on:

Ubuntu 9.10 x64
Ubuntu 10.04 x64
Fedora 13 x64

Edit (28 June): other source (in French): http://doc.fedora-fr.org/wiki/Flash_:_Installation_du_plug-in
Edit (11 July): updated tested Linux versions.

New beta GeForce drivers for Linux

David Dernoncourt — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 22:50:59 +0000

Today NVIDIA released a new beta version of their GeForce drivers for Linux, Solaris and FreeBSD: version 195.30.

Download links:
Linux 64 bits
Linux 32 bitrs
FreeBSD x86
Solaris x86/x64

If you’re on Fedora 12, remember that we have an installation guide for you

How to fix Yum when it hangs at “Setting up Package Sacks”

David Dernoncourt — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 07:00:24 +0000

When installing Fedora 12 today (installing a new copy after troubles during the upgrade from Fedora 11), I got problems with yum, which tended to hang without any error message. I killed it (“kill” failed and I had to use “kill -9″, which worked), cleaned it (yum clean all), rebuilt the RPM database (I don’t even remember this command, sth like rpm -rebuild, and I found out later that this might be quite risky, apparently), manually deleted some RPM data files, and also ran my yum commands in verbose mode. All I could get was yum hanging at “Setting up Package Sacks”, or after what I thought was the end of downloading repository summaries. Anyway, I was just being impatient: after letting it run in the background for maybe 5 minutes, I got an error message saying that a repo (rpmfusion, which I used for VLC) timed out…

Could not retrieve mirrorlist http://mirrors.rpmfusion.org/mirrorlist?repo=free-fedora-12&arch=x86_64 error was
12: Timeout on http://mirrors.rpmfusion.org/mirrorlist?repo=free-fedora-12&arch=x86_64: (28, ”)
Error: Cannot retrieve repository metadata (repomd.xml) for repository: rpmfusion-free. Please verify its path and try again

The fix is simple: remove the faulty repo (what I did was I uninstalled the faulty repo and reinstalled a working copy – more precisely, I removed the repo manually from /etc/yum.repos.d/ then found out I should uninstall them properly with rpm -e rpmfusion-free-release-10-5.noarch). And to make sure this trap won’t ever catch me again, I dramatically decreased the timeout delay for yum, from the default 30 seconds to just 1: edit /etc/yum.conf and add timeout=1.

Other sources:
- how to remove repository?
- How to fix a yum when it hangs with no error messages

Bonus: a pretty long console log of me trying to install VLC, then messing with the rpm database and yum. I read somewhere that this rebuilding stuff is risky, so beware… yet my Fedora is fine now, despite all I did to hurt it! Noobs like me may find useful commands, confirmed users will probably have some fun Note how miserably a the standard kills fail, while kill -9 is good.

[david@dodora12 ~]$ su
Password:
[root@dodora12 david]# rpm -ivh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm
Retrieving http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm
warning: /var/tmp/rpm-tmp.vwxnDR: Header V3 DSA signature: NOKEY, key ID 49c8885a
Preparing… ########################################### [100%]
1:rpmfusion-free-release ########################################### [100%]
[root@dodora12 david]# yum install vlc
Loaded plugins: presto, refresh-packagekit
Existing lock /var/run/yum.pid: another copy is running as pid 2331.
Another app is currently holding the yum lock; waiting for it to exit…
The other application is: PackageKit
Memory : 22 M RSS (317 MB VSZ)
Started: Sat Dec 19 18:21:01 2009 – 00:26 ago
State : Sleeping, pid: 2331
Another app is currently holding the yum lock; waiting for it to exit…
The other application is: PackageKit
Memory : 22 M RSS (317 MB VSZ)
Started: Sat Dec 19 18:21:01 2009 – 00:28 ago
State : Sleeping, pid: 2331
Another app is currently holding the yum lock; waiting for it to exit…
The other application is: PackageKit
Memory : 22 M RSS (317 MB VSZ)
Started: Sat Dec 19 18:21:01 2009 – 00:30 ago
State : Sleeping, pid: 2331
Another app is currently holding the yum lock; waiting for it to exit…
The other application is: PackageKit
Memory : 22 M RSS (317 MB VSZ)
Started: Sat Dec 19 18:21:01 2009 – 00:32 ago
State : Sleeping, pid: 2331
^C

Exiting on user cancel.
[root@dodora12 david]# yum install vlc
Loaded plugins: presto, refresh-packagekit
Existing lock /var/run/yum.pid: another copy is running as pid 2331.
Another app is currently holding the yum lock; waiting for it to exit…
The other application is: PackageKit
Memory : 22 M RSS (317 MB VSZ)
Started: Sat Dec 19 18:21:01 2009 – 00:47 ago
State : Sleeping, pid: 2331
^C

Exiting on user cancel.
[root@dodora12 david]# kill 2331
[root@dodora12 david]# kill 2331
bash: kill: (2331) – No such process
[root@dodora12 david]# yum install vlc
Loaded plugins: presto, refresh-packagekit
^C^Z
[1]+ Stopped yum install vlc
[root@dodora12 david]# yum install vlc -v
Not loading “blacklist” plugin, as it is disabled
Loading “presto” plugin
Loading “refresh-packagekit” plugin
Not loading “whiteout” plugin, as it is disabled
Config time: 0.057
Yum Version: 3.2.25
Existing lock /var/run/yum.pid: another copy is running as pid 2334.
Another app is currently holding the yum lock; waiting for it to exit…
The other application is: yum
Memory : 22 M RSS (323 MB VSZ)
Started: Sat Dec 19 18:21:56 2009 – 00:25 ago
State : Traced/Stopped, pid: 2334
^C

Exiting on user cancel.
[root@dodora12 david]# kill 2334
[root@dodora12 david]#
[root@dodora12 david]# kill 2334
[root@dodora12 david]# kill -9 2334
[root@dodora12 david]# kill -9 2334
bash: kill: (2334) – No such process
[1]+ Killed yum install vlc
[root@dodora12 david]# yum install vlc -v
Not loading “blacklist” plugin, as it is disabled
Loading “presto” plugin
Loading “refresh-packagekit” plugin
Not loading “whiteout” plugin, as it is disabled
Config time: 0.065
Yum Version: 3.2.25
Setting up Package Sacks
^C^Z
[1]+ Stopped yum install vlc -v
[root@dodora12 david]# yum clean all
Loaded plugins: presto, refresh-packagekit
Existing lock /var/run/yum.pid: another copy is running as pid 2336.
Another app is currently holding the yum lock; waiting for it to exit…
The other application is: yum
Memory : 22 M RSS (323 MB VSZ)
Started: Sat Dec 19 18:22:35 2009 – 00:13 ago
State : Traced/Stopped, pid: 2336
Another app is currently holding the yum lock; waiting for it to exit…
The other application is: yum
Memory : 22 M RSS (323 MB VSZ)
Started: Sat Dec 19 18:22:35 2009 – 00:15 ago
State : Traced/Stopped, pid: 2336
^Z
[2]+ Stopped yum clean all
[root@dodora12 david]# kill -9 2336
[root@dodora12 david]# kill -9 2336
bash: kill: (2336) – No such process
[1]- Killed yum install vlc -v
[root@dodora12 david]# yum clean all
Loaded plugins: presto, refresh-packagekit
Cleaning up Everything
[root@dodora12 david]# yum install vlc
Loaded plugins: presto, refresh-packagekit
fedora/metalink | 28 kB 00:00
fedora | 4.2 kB 00:00
fedora/primary_db | 12 MB 00:11
^Z
[3]+ Stopped yum install vlc
[root@dodora12 david]# yum clean all
Loaded plugins: presto, refresh-packagekit
Existing lock /var/run/yum.pid: another copy is running as pid 2339.
Another app is currently holding the yum lock; waiting for it to exit…
The other application is: yum
Memory : 23 M RSS (326 MB VSZ)
Started: Sat Dec 19 18:23:02 2009 – 02:01 ago
State : Traced/Stopped, pid: 2339
^Z
[4]+ Stopped yum clean all
[root@dodora12 david]# kill -9 2339
[root@dodora12 david]# yum clean all
Loaded plugins: presto, refresh-packagekit
Cleaning up Everything
[3]- Killed yum install vlc
[root@dodora12 david]# cd /var/lib/rpm
[root@dodora12 rpm]# ls
Basenames __db.003 Installtid Provideversion Sigmd5
Conflictname __db.004 Name Pubkeys Triggername
__db.000 Dirnames Obsoletename Requirename
__db.001 Filedigests Packages Requireversion
__db.002 Group Providename Sha1header
[root@dodora12 rpm]# rm __db*
rm: remove regular empty file `__db.000′? y
rm: remove regular file `__db.001′? y
rm: remove regular file `__db.002′? y
rm: remove regular file `__db.003′? y
rm: remove regular file `__db.004′? y
[root@dodora12 rpm]# yum clean all
Loaded plugins: presto, refresh-packagekit
Cleaning up Everything
[root@dodora12 rpm]# yum clean all
Loaded plugins: presto, refresh-packagekit
Cleaning up Everything
[root@dodora12 rpm]# rpm –rebuilddb
[root@dodora12 rpm]# yum clean all
Loaded plugins: presto, refresh-packagekit
Cleaning up Everything
[root@dodora12 rpm]# yum update
Loaded plugins: presto, refresh-packagekit
fedora/metalink | 28 kB 00:00
fedora | 4.2 kB 00:00
fedora/primary_db | 12 MB 00:10
Could not retrieve mirrorlist http://mirrors.rpmfusion.org/mirrorlist?repo=free-fedora-12&arch=x86_64 error was
12: Timeout on http://mirrors.rpmfusion.org/mirrorlist?repo=free-fedora-12&arch=x86_64: (28, ”)
Error: Cannot retrieve repository metadata (repomd.xml) for repository: rpmfusion-free. Please verify its path and try again
[root@dodora12 rpm]#

Installing NVIDIA graphics drivers on Fedora 12/13

David Dernoncourt — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 15:35:25 +0000

Well, finally, the drivers issues I met first, quite a while ago, on Fedora Core 3 have… just got bigger. To make a long story short, Fedora 12 comes with a new driver called “nouveau” (acutally, it’s not exactly new, it was already here in some previous versions but didn’t cause problems yet) which loads itself very early during the boot, preventing another driver from taking its place. As more accurate details may be found on the previous tutorials (FC3 Fedora 11), I’ll just list the steps (and only detail the new ones).

Get the required dependencies: yum install kernel-devel gcc
Grab the proper NVIDIA drivers there
Get rid of nouveau. That’s the hard part. I found several methods but none of them worked. Most notably, most or all of them required me to install NVIDIA’s drivers (they propose to use the RPM Fusion repository, but I wanted to use the drivers straight from nvidia.com, in order to be more easily up-to-date) then follow some instructions to make it beat nouveau. The problem is: NVIDIA’s drivers from nvidia.com refused to install with nouveau already running, so I had to kill it first. The solution I found was:
1. blacklist it: edit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf and add blacklist nouveau at the end
2. blacklist it again in Grub: edit /boot/grub/menu.lst and add rdblacklist=nouveau at the end of the line starting with “kernel” in the proper section (NB: I have this file because I’m using Grub from an old Ubuntu installation, but I was told that Fedora 12 uses Grub 2, which has a totally different configuration file structure… I don’t know it, sorry)
3. set the default init level to 3 (otherwise, nouveau will load when the GUI gets loaded): edit /etc/inittab and replace id:5:initdefault: with id:3:initdefault:
This is the only working solution I found. As long as the GUI gets loaded, nouveau will get loaded too and the NVIDIA drivers will refuse to install. You will easily know if nouveau is loaded by the size of the font in the console: if it’s a large font it’s okay, if it’s a small font because the console is like in high-resolution, you did something wrong and most likely NVIDIA’s drivers will refuse to install
reboot
run the NVIDIA drivers installer (during the process, when it asks you whether it should try to update config files, say yes)
reboot

You’re now done. I chose to let the default init level to 3 because with every kernel update we have to reinstall the NVIDIA drivers (the version installed for the previous kernel will crash with a various severity, most likely preventing you from running the installer). To load the graphical desktop after booting in init level 3, just log in as root and type init 5.

Sources I used:

Update (June 20): added dependencies, this also works for Fedora 13.

Fatal error: Call to undefined function: curl_init()

David Dernoncourt — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 11:08:01 +0000

I encountered this message when we enabled upload from URL on Wiki4Games. To solve the problem, you just need to enable curl support in PHP. For Windows, this is done by uncommenting extension=php_curl.dll in php.ini. For Linux (at least in Ubuntu), this is done by installing php5-curl (apt-get install php-curl). Don’t forget to restart Apache (or just “apply changes” in Webmin).

What drivers for the GeForce 9650M GT?

David Dernoncourt — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 07:37:29 +0000

Update: solution found! => here

On my laptop (Adus M50Vn), I’ve had a lot of trouble with Linux (both Fedora 11 and Ubuntu 9.10) lately. After trying to update my NVIDIA graphics drivers on Windows XP, it turned out that the same problems starting to occur their too. So I was able to conclude that these issues were probably caused by the NVIDIA drivers and not by the OS itself. For Windows, I reverted back to the latest version I had installed without problem, version 180.70 (18 Nov 2008). For Linux, Ubuntu let me downgrade to 173 from the hardware drivers control panel (which at the moment seems to apply only to graphics drivers), and at first I didn’t understand why there wasn’t any other old version available (there were 2 choices only: 173 and 185). Then I did Fedora, but for this I had to go to NVIDIA’s website since Fedora doesn’t offer automatic installation for proprietary software. I eventually managed to find the legacy drivers page, which explained why Ubuntu let me only pick 173 as an old driver: it’s the latest legacy driver. Here is the Linux/FreeBSD/Solaris driver download page: http://www.nvidia.com/object/unix.html. Just pick the 173.14.20 and it should work fine. And actually, I just tried the 190.42 and it ~~seems to work okay too on Fedora so you may want to try that one instead~~ nvm it’s buggy too (NB: the 195.39 doesn’t work well on Windows XP: performances are much better but there are some important glitches).
Don’t forget that for Fedora (or any Linux installation which implies using NVIDIA’s official installer), with every kernel update you’ll need to re-run the NVIDIA driver installer… so keep it somewhere easy to find. Full installation procedure on Fedora 11:

CTRL+ALT+F2 to go to a text console
su to connect as root (of course you can also use sudo)
init 3 to shutdown X
run the installer (cd /directory then ./installer.sh). During the process it should be able to successfully update Xorg.conf.
init 5 to restart X without restarting the whole computer

Creating an anonymous FTP with ProFTPd

David Dernoncourt — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 06:32:41 +0000

I’m just posting this as a back up, in fact. This configuration snippet can be used to create an anonymous FTP with read-only privilege in ProFTPd:
##Anonymous for etfiles downloads User www-data Group nogroup # UserAlias -- Alias a username to a system user UserAlias anonymous www-data AllowAll # Cosmetic changes, all files belongs to ftp user #DirFakeUser on ftp #DirFakeGroup on ftp


   RequireValidShell		off
   # Limit the maximum number of anonymous logins

   MaxClients			30
   # We want 'welcome.msg' displayed at login, and '.message' displayed

   # in each newly chdired directory.

   DisplayLogin			welcome.msg

   DisplayFirstChdir		.message

# Limit WRITE everywhere in the anonymous chroot DenyAll AllowAll

Also, adding the following is necessary to prevent the anonymous user from browsing the whole computer:
DefaultRoot ~

Show hidden files with ProFTPD

David Dernoncourt — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 18:56:15 +0000

I used to have no problem displaying hidden files (more precisely, my .htaccesss files) using FileZilla client with ProFTPD, but for some reason suddenly they disappeared… Adding (or editing) the following option in /etc/proftpd/proftpd.conf fixed this:

ListOptions “-a”

(actually I used ListOptions “-al” because the default behavior was -l, which is quite useful to me)