These were compiled using version 2.1.6 of Freeradius.

Hardy amd64

• freeradius-dbg_2.1.6-0_amd64.deb
• freeradius-dialupadmin_2.1.6-0_all.deb
• freeradius-iodbc_2.1.6-0_amd64.deb
• freeradius-krb5_2.1.6-0_amd64.deb
• freeradius-ldap_2.1.6-0_amd64.deb
• freeradius-mysql_2.1.6-0_amd64.deb
• freeradius-postgresql_2.1.6-0_amd64.deb
• freeradius_2.1.6-0_amd64.deb

I’m getting really sleepy so I’ll add some more builds tomorrow. Coming soon, instructions on how to build your own packages.

Update: i386 builds for Hardy are also up. i386 builds for Karmic
will follow shortly.

You shouldn’t forget to make a small change to the /etc/freeradius/sql/mysql/dialup.conf(or /etc/freeradius/sql.conf) file. Somewhere around line 82 lies the following:

#######################################################################
        # Use these for case sensitive usernames.
#        authorize_check_query = "SELECT id, username, attribute, value, op \
#         FROM ${authcheck_table} \
#         WHERE username = BINARY '%{SQL-User-Name}' \
#         ORDER BY id"
#        authorize_reply_query = "SELECT id, username, attribute, value, op \
#         FROM ${authreply_table} \
#         WHERE username = BINARY '%{SQL-User-Name}' \
#         ORDER BY id"

        # The default queries are case insensitive. (for compatibility with
        # older versions of FreeRADIUS)
       authorize_check_query = "SELECT id, username, attribute, value, op \
          FROM ${authcheck_table} \
          WHERE username = '%{SQL-User-Name}' \
          ORDER BY id"
       authorize_reply_query = "SELECT id, username, attribute, value, op \
          FROM ${authreply_table} \
          WHERE username = '%{SQL-User-Name}' \
          ORDER BY id"

This should be:

#######################################################################
        # Use these for case sensitive usernames.
        authorize_check_query = "SELECT id, username, attribute, value, op \
         FROM ${authcheck_table} \
         WHERE username = BINARY '%{SQL-User-Name}' \
         ORDER BY id"
        authorize_reply_query = "SELECT id, username, attribute, value, op \
         FROM ${authreply_table} \
         WHERE username = BINARY '%{SQL-User-Name}' \
         ORDER BY id"

        # The default queries are case insensitive. (for compatibility with
        # older versions of FreeRADIUS)
#       authorize_check_query = "SELECT id, username, attribute, value, op \
#          FROM ${authcheck_table} \
#          WHERE username = '%{SQL-User-Name}' \
#          ORDER BY id"
#       authorize_reply_query = "SELECT id, username, attribute, value, op \
#          FROM ${authreply_table} \
#          WHERE username = '%{SQL-User-Name}' \
#          ORDER BY id"

And if you apply your attributes per group instead of per user, like I do, then this:

        # Use these for case sensitive usernames.
#        group_membership_query = "SELECT groupname \
#        FROM ${usergroup_table} \
#         WHERE username = BINARY '%{SQL-User-Name}' \
#        ORDER BY priority"

       group_membership_query = "SELECT groupname \
          FROM ${usergroup_table} \
          WHERE username = '%{SQL-User-Name}' \
          ORDER BY priority"

should become:

        # Use these for case sensitive usernames.
        group_membership_query = "SELECT groupname \
        FROM ${usergroup_table} \
         WHERE username = BINARY '%{SQL-User-Name}' \
        ORDER BY priority"

#       group_membership_query = "SELECT groupname \
#          FROM ${usergroup_table} \
#          WHERE username = '%{SQL-User-Name}' \
#          ORDER BY priority"

Reload the freeradius server and your usernames should be case sensitive. Now, go and buy yourself a beer in celebration of your valiant victory against the dark forces of computer insecurity.

• First, you need to download it(~99kb).
• Double click the .deb file to run the package installer. In my case, all dependencies were satisfied so I just had to click the “Install Package” button.
  
• Right click your panel and “Add to Panel..”.
  
• Scroll down a bit and you should see a ‘MintMenu’ applet.
  
• Drag the applet to your panel and you should be set. Ubuntu with a little dash of mint!
  

Enter Splashy, a boot splash manager with some very flexible features. One of the thing I like about it is that it does require any kernel patching and runs completely in userspace. And it supports 8bit, 16bit and 24bit framebuffers and TrueType fonts. Even better, its ridiculously easy to create themes for Splashy.

This tutorial was written with Ubuntu Hardy 8.04 in mind but with a little tweaking, it can be applied to Fiesty and Gutsy(if you’re using anything older, you really really realy should upgrade).

First, we need to get splashy on your system. Make sure your sources have universe enabled and are up to date. Fire up your favourite terminal and:

apt-get update

Once that’s done, next up is:

apt-get install splashy splashy-themes

This will install Splashy, a few themes and uninstall Usplash!. Once this is done, you need to edit your GRUB configuration file to setup the frame buffer:
sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.list
Scroll down and add vga=791(1024×768 millions colors) or vga=791 (1024×768 thousands colors to your default boot option
title Ubuntu, kernel 2.6.10-5-k7 Default
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/hde6 ro quiet splash vga=792
initrd /initrd.img
savedefault
boot

Save and reboot. Voila! You should be looking at your new boot splash. However, the default splash is a bit … bland. If you want to spice this a bit, you can change to one of the themes you installed. First check to see what themes are installed.
kwame@amaterasu:~$ ls /etc/splashy/themes
aqua carbonalien default crux debian-cubism
kwame@amaterasu:~$
So let’s say I want to use the aqua theme, I used the splashy_config -s to set the theme
kwame@amaterasu:~$ sudo splashy_config -s aqua
>Set theme as: aqua [ DONE ]

Next, you’ll have to update your initramfs or it’ll look like the change hasn’t taken effect.
kwame@amaterasu:~$ sudo update-initramfs -u
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-16-generic
You can then reboot and admire your new theme.

You can get some more info here.

Coming soon..How to make your own Splashy Themes

kwame@amaterasu:~$ sudo dpkg-reconfigure gnome-applets

Select yes when I’m asked if I want to allow cpufreq-selector to run with root priveleges.

Then I add the CPU Frequency Scaling Monitor applet to the panel. I then select my desired scaling governor or speed and voila!

Not so with this computer. For some reason, it decided that “CPU frequency scaling is unsupported”. Turns out the kernel module for frequency scaling was not being loaded. So, it was off to the commandline:

kwame@amaterasu:~$ sudo modprobe p4_clockmod

Depending on your processor, you might have to change the module. See below.

Pentium 4, Celeron D, Pentium D, Celeron M : p4_clockmod
Pentium M, Core Duo, Core 2 Duo: speedstep_centrino
AMD K6: powernow_k6>
AMD K7 (Athlon, Duron, Sempron 32): powernow_k7
AMD K8 (Athlon 64, Turion 64, Sempron 64, Opteron 64): powernow_k8
None of above: acpi_cpufreq (may or may not work!)

Next is to load a module for your policy governor- which is a rule that determines how the scaling is carried out.

kwame@amaterasu:~$ sudo modprobe cpufreq_ondemand

There are 4 governors I know about – ondemand, performance, conservative and powersave. To load the appropriate module, you do a modprobe cpufreq_<nameofgovernor>.

Once that is done. I remove the CPU Frequency Scaling Monitor applet and add it again. Now that’s better.

One more thing to do. Use your favorite editor to open up /etc/modules and add the modules you used, each to a line and save. Now when you boot up, everything should be fine and dandy.

NB: The commands  were meant for a Dell Dimension 3000 but you should be to tweak them for your own setup. Remember,  ask for clarification when in doubt . You can probably get some more details from PolishLinux.

So what do you do when you need to reinstall Windows and the computer your’re working is a tiny laptop with no floppy, no cdrom and a serious malware overdose? Since the computer supported booting from USB, all I had to do was figure out a way to get the Windows 98 bootdisk on a USB key. I tried several utilities but none worked for me.This is where Qemu and dd come in. Basically, what you do is :

• Download a Windows 98 Boot Image.
• Create a Qemu RAW disk image (big enough to hold the bootdisk files and any other files you might need. Mine was about 700MB)
• Boot up a Qemu virtual machine with the boot image for your floppy device and the disk image as your primary hard drive
• Use fdisk and format to partition and format the disk image
• Transfer boot & command system to disk image with sys.
• Use dd to strip off the first 63 512-byte blocks on the disk image
• Use dd to copy the disk image to USB Key.

Now for more detailed instructions:

Open a terminal (xterm, konsole, gnome-terminal; whatever you’re comfortable with)

Create a folder to contain all your files
ray@zangetsu:~$ mkdir win98boot
ray@zangetsu:~$ cd win98boot


Download the Windows 98 boot image from here
ray@zangetsu:~/win98boot$ wget http://


Create a 256MB Qemu RAW disk image (or whatever size you need)
ray@zangetsu:~/win98boot$ qemu-img create -f raw drive_c.dsk 256M

Next, we load a virtual machine that boots from the floppy image
ray@zangetsu:~/win98boot$ qemu -fda win98se.img -hda drive_c.dsk -boot a -m 32

Once the VM boots up, you should see something similar to the following:

What we need to do is partition our virtual drive, so
A:\fdisk C:


Enter 1 at the first screen to select the first option (Create a DOS partition or Logical DOS Drive)

Enter 1 at the next screen to Create a Primary DOS partition

Answer yes if fdisk asks you if you want make maximum use of your disk

After fdisk finishes, you will need to restart the VM before you can format your drive.

Just close it and run the following again:
ray@zangetsu:~/win98boot$ qemu -fda win98se.img -hda drive_c.dsk -boot a -m 32

Now you can format:
A:\format C:

Answer yes when asked if you want to proceed with format. After formating is done, you will be prompted to enter a volume label. This is optional.

Next, we transfer system to c:
A:\sys C:


Once that’s done. Close your VM and boot it up once more but without the floppy image this time.
ray@zangetsu:~/win98boot$ qemu -hda drive_c.dsk -m 32

If you did everything right, the windows 98 splash screen should flash briefly and you should get something like this:

Before we can copy the image to our usb drive, we need to modify it a little. This strips off the first 63 blocks of the image( Found this useful piece of info thanks to

http://colinux.wikia.com/wiki/Converting_Distributions)

ray@zangetsu:~/win98boot$ dd if=drive_c.dsk of=boot.img bs=512 skip=63

We can now copy the image to the drive. In this case, my drive happens to be /dev/sdb. You can use dmesg to find out what it is on your machine.
ray@zangetsu:~/win98boot$ dd if=boot.img of=/dev/sdb bs=512
524288+0 records in
524288+0 records out
268435456 bytes (256 MB) copied, 108.920273 seconds, 18.5 MB/s

Voila, you have a working Win98 bootable USB drive. You can now mount the drive and copy whatever else you need onto it. Your results may vary depending on the options you choose but they should be similar to the above.

/usr/bin/compiz: GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap is missing
/usr/bin/compiz: Failed to manage screen: 0
/usr/bin/compiz: No manageable screens found on display :0.0

I did a little looking around online and I found out that I needed to add the following to the Device section of my xorg.conf file

Option "UseFBDev" "true"
Option "XAANoOffscreenPixmaps" "true"
Option "AllowGLXWithComposite" "true"


I then gave X the three fingered salute( for all you ex Win 98 users, I’m not talking about that one… I mean Ctrl-Alt-Backspace) and Beryl was loading now. But unfortunately, I hit another pothole. Window decorations were not displaying. Tried the normal GTK and Emerald decorations but no success with any of them. Turns out my version of libdecoration0 was being held back for some reason. This is what my sources.list looked like before I installed beryl:

deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ feisty main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ feisty-updates main restricted
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu feisty-security main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://download.tuxfamily.org/3v1deb feisty eyecandy
deb-src http://download.tuxfamily.org/3v1deb feisty eyecandy


The beryl packages were supposed to come from the download.tuxfamily.org repo but the libdecoration0 seemed to be loaded from the main ubuntu servers.

So I commented out the entries for the ubuntu servers:

#deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ feisty main restricted universe multiverse
#deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ feisty-updates main restricted
#deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu feisty-security main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://download.tuxfamily.org/3v1deb feisty eyecandy
deb-src http://download.tuxfamily.org/3v1deb feisty eyecandy


Then:

apt-get update
apt-get install libdecoration0


When I reloaded Beryl, window decorations were back!!
Screenshots right after this commercial break:

I have a Meraki mini I’ve been playing around with. I’m running OpenWRT Kamikaze 7.06 on it and I love it. It’s very flexible piece of hardware and comes with an 8mb flash and 32mb of RAM, which is more than enough for the stuff I run on it. The only annoying thing is the lack of a web interface. It’s not that I have problems with using the terminal; it’s just that, it becomes annoying to switch on my desktop just to attend to a minor detail. Or I’m downstairs in a friend’s room and just need to check if my internet connection is alive. A web interface would allow me do all that from a browser as long as I was connected to the network.
Thankfuly there’s the Webif frontend by X-WRT . From what I’ve seen so far, it’s quite good though it’s still beta. It does everything I want it to do so I can’t complain.

Installing
You first need to install the haserl package, which webif depends on.Telnet or SSH into your router and enter the following:

ipkg update

This updates your package list

ipkg install haserl

Installs haserl which allows you to embed shell scripts in html.

ipkg install http://downloads.x-wrt.org/xwrt/kamikaze/7.06/atheros-2.6/webif_latest.ipk

Download and install webif from the x-wrt.org site since webif is not yet in the kamikaze repository

Note: the webif install will reboot your router!!

Once the router is back up, open up a browser of your choice and enter your router’s ip address. Voila