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Welcome to Highland Lakes Linux User Group
Monday, November 30 2009 @ 10:17 AM MST

What is GNU/Linux?

GNU/Linux as an operating system is very efficient and very powerful. But, GNU/Linux as an idea about how software ought to be developed is even more powerful. GNU/Linux is a free operating system: it is licensed under the GNU Public License. The source code is freely available to anyone who wants it and always will be. The Linux kernel is developed by a unstructured group of programmers from around the world, under the technical direction of Linus Torvalds and other key developers. GNU/Linux is a world-wide movement without any central structure, bureaucracy, or entity to control, coordinate, or otherwise direct its affairs.

GNU/Linux is unique because it does not have, nor is it burdened by, a central structure or bureaucracy to allocate its resources, train its users, or provide support for its products. These jobs get done in a variety of ways: the Internet, consultants, VARs, support companies, colleges and universities. But, increasingly, in many places around the globe, they get done by a local LUG.

Welcome to the Highland Lakes Linux User Group

Thursday, March 23 2006 @ 08:48 PM MST
Contributed by: emperor
Views: 2,392

Welcome to the Highland Lakes Linux User Group (HLLUG). This website is designed as a member portal and provides a mailing list, information via web links and file downloads, image and video gallery, and community meeting calendar.

Meetings are held at 2:00 PM in the meeting room of the Lakeshore Library on the 1st Saturday and the Marble Falls Library on the 3rd Saturday of the month.

Both meetings are scheduled to last about 2 hours. Everyone is welcome to attend. There is no formal membership or dues required.

The two meetings per month schedule has resumed!

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Replaing a Failing Hard Drive

Friday, April 17 2009 @ 08:46 PM MDT
Contributed by: emperor
Views: 433

Here's a procedure for replacing a failing hard drive on a Ubuntu 8.10 desktop.. In this example, the failing drive is a 80GB SATAI @ /dev/sda and the replacement is a 80GB SATAII

1. Install new 80GB in machine as /dev/sdb

2. Boot into Ubuntu 8.10 Live

3. Create partition table and primary partitions 1-4. I used "gparted" and checked with "parted" and "fdisk".
1 - /boot - ext3 - 500MB <set boot flag>
2 - / - ext3 - 15GB
3 - /home - ext3 - 56GB
4 - swap - 4GB

4. Use CTL-ALT-F2 to get to full screen terminal and login is as root
$ sudo su -

5. Create /mnt/sda and /mnt/sdb as temporary work directories
# cd /mnt
# mkdir sda
# mkdir sdb

6. Mount and copy corresponding partitions from old drive to new one.
# mount -t ext3 /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda
# mount -t ext3 /dev/sdb1 /mnt/sdb
# cp -av /mnt/sda/* /mnt/sdb
# umount /mnt/sda
# umount /mnt/sdb
<repeat for sda2 and sda3>

7. Manually edit new drives "grub/menu.lst".
# mount -t /dev/sdb1 /dev/sdb
# cd /mnt/sdb/grub
# vim menu.lst

Remove the UUID's and replaced with device names or replace with correct UUID numbers.

Replaced:
# kopt=root=UUID=c4f046a2-78b0-4c8f-b1ca-343d99c62c12 ro
With:
# kopt=root=/dev/sda2 ro

Replaced:
# groot=ac9798ed-5f94-4c4a-aa60-d74be8c337c7
With:
# groot=(hd0,0)

Replaced:
title Ubuntu 8.10, kernel 2.6.27-9-generic
uuid ac9798ed-5f94-4c4a-aa60-d74be8c337c7
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.27-9-generic root=UUID=c4f046a2-78b0-4c8f-b1ca-343d99c62c12 ro quiet splash
With:
title Ubuntu 8.10, kernel 2.6.27-9-generic
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.27-9-generic root=/dev/sda2 ro quiet splash
quiet

8. Manual edited new drives "/etc/fstab"
# mount -t /dev/sdb2 /dev/sdb
# cd /mnt/sdb/etc
# vim fstab
Removed UUID's and replaced with device names
Assume drive will still be /dev/sda
Comments in "fstab" makes this easy!

9. Shutdown machine and removed old drive

10. Connected new drive to first SATA connector. New drive is now /dev/sda

11. Rebooted with live CD.

12. CTL-ALT-F2 again and login as root

13. Installed grub - this is a little tricky due to a separate boot partition "/boot" on /dev/sda1
a. create place to mount "/" partition and mount it.
# cd /mnt
# mkdir /mnt/root
# mount -t ext3 /dev/sda2 /mnt/root

b. Will need to use chroot to move /mnt/root to "/" but must mount /dev first.
# mount -o bind /dev /mnt/root/dev
I also mounted "/proc" but this may not be necessary!
# mount -t proc none /mnt/root/proc

c. Make /mnt/root become "/"
# chroot /mnt/root /bin/bash

d. Mount the boot partition "/dev/sda1" at /boot
# mount -t ext3 /dev/sda1 /boot

e. Install grub
# grub-install /dev/sda

f. Update menu.lst with grub changes (probably not necessary if you manually edited menu.lst above!)
# /usr/sbin/update-grub

14. Shutdown machine.
# init 0

15. Remove live Cd

16. Reboot and it should work!

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Howto add network manager applet (nm-applet) in xubuntu

Wednesday, May 21 2008 @ 09:47 PM MDT
Contributed by: emperor
Views: 1,970

Howto network manager applet (nm-applet) in xubuntu to switch wireless networks

First make sure you have a "System Tray" applet on of your panels otherwise the applet won't show up. Xubuntu provides one by default in the right part of the upper panel. So normally this should be ok.

Install the packages from the terminal:

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

Go to Settings>Autostarted Applications:
- click "+ Add"
- type in these values:
- name = "network applet"
- command = "nm-applet --sm-disable &"

Note: Info found on Ubuntu forum post of Aug. 18th 2006.

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HLLUG Minutes - 2008-01-19 @ Marble Falls

Tuesday, January 22 2008 @ 08:31 PM MST
Contributed by: WB5BKL
Views: 1,252

Attending were Lee, Cranz and Ben.

Ben solved the first problem by having a key to enter our meeting room on Martin Luther King weekend.

Lee brought a Nokia N800 Tablet to demo. It promptly found several nearby wireless internet access points. Ben tested a USB wireless device that worked nicely with Ubuntu.

Cranz�s efforts at configuring m0n0wall were frustrated by a bad floppy drive. His IBM ThinkPad 380D experiments were blocked by a duff CD drive.

Cranz and Lee quizzed Ben about the PC course he teaches for seniors and how he instructs his students to adapt their PCs for their physical limitations.

Sadly, no cookies.

Respectfully submitted,

cln

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HLLUG Minutes - 2007-12-15 @ Marble Falls

Monday, December 17 2007 @ 03:23 PM MST
Contributed by: WB5BKL
Views: 1,177

HLLUG Minutes - 2007-12-15 @ Marble Falls

Attending were Lee, Cranz, John and new member/friend Ben.

While an upgrade/update progressed on Cranz' 7.10 Ubuntu machine, the group discussed possible network topologies for his home network. Lee's laptop proved handy for timely research on the internet. Advantages and disadvantages of several arrangements of routers, wireless access points and firewalls were explained.

Cookies were consumed.

It was a very successful meeting - in the opinion of your humble scribe...

cln

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Howto enable Serial Console

Monday, December 03 2007 @ 08:45 PM MST
Contributed by: emperor
Views: 1,904

A serial port can be setup for use as a console quiet easily.

For example. for use as COM1 (ttyS0), 38400 baud, 8 bits, 1 stop, no parity:

1. To enable the GRUB menu, add the following to /boot/grub/menu.lst:

serial --unit=0 --speed=38400 --word=8 --parity=no --stop=1
terminal --timeout=10 serial console

2. To redirect the messages during the boot process, append the following kernel parameters:
"console=tty0 console=ttyS0,38400n8". For example:

title CentOS (2.6.18-53.1.4.el5) (hd0)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-53.1.4.el5 ro root=/dev/md2 rhgb quiet console=tty0 console=ttyS0,38400n8
initrd /initrd-2.6.18-53.1.4.el5.img

Note: enabling the redirection of the kernel messages will disable the usplash screen on the video monitor.

3. To enable serial console login once the system is booted, add "agetty" to "/etc/inittab". For example:

# Run gettys in standard runlevels
co:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty ttyS0 38400 vt102

Now reboot the computer and connect a laplink style serial cable between this computer and another "client" computer. Start a serial terminal program like "minicom" (set to 38400 baud) on the client and you should see some text asking you to press any key or maybe the GRUB menu once the timeout (10 seconds) has expired. Once the system has full booted, you can login to the machine using your own account or the root account.

Reference:
http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Remote-Serial-Console-HOWTO/index.html

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Easy Samba Configuration

Monday, November 26 2007 @ 07:49 PM MST
Contributed by: emperor
Views: 1,897

RedHat based distro's (Fedora, Centos, etc) have a very simple menu
application for configuring samba shares. I found a similar gui
application for Debian based distro's called "system-config-samba" that
can be installed via apt.

I have found that setting the Samba Server Authentication Mode to
"Share" is the simplest setup. The owner/group and mode of the share
directory will be enforced. This works great for browsing shares.
However it is not a complete solution for shares that are mounted on
your file system.

If you mount the share(s), then the user accounts become a factor. By
user account it is really the user ID number that is enforced at both
the client and server machines. If you what to minimize the pain here,
create user accounts on the server with the same ID numbers that are
used on the Clients. The user ID numbers of both the client and server
accounts must be identical but also unique. This is true for both SAMBA
and NFS shares!

Now if the Client machines exist before the Server is built and
installed, then most likely all the Client machines, if they have the
same distro installed, will have identical user ID numbers but have
different user names assigned. This will be the case since distros
create users starting at a preset ID offset. For example Debian style
distro's start the user accounts at id=1000 and Red Hat distro's start
at id=500.

In my case, my home file server existed before the client machines and
it was based on RedHat 7.3 the user ID's were originally created as 500,
501, 502 and etc.

500 = lee
501 = barbara
502 = kristeen
,,

As a result, all my Ubuntu desktop and laptop computers have user
accounts with ID's forced to match the file server user account ID
numbers. For example, on my computer(s) I am ID=500, my wife's is
ID=501, and Kristeen is ID=502.

One alternative to maintaining a strict set of unique ID's across the
network might be to install an additional authentication server on the
file server.

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Using cron to schedule events!

Monday, November 26 2007 @ 07:46 PM MST
Contributed by: emperor
Views: 1,418

My daughter no longer has a TV in her room and is instead watching cable
TV on her computer which has a nice, new to her, 19" Monitor (thanks to
Don!). Anyway, she likes to watch TV before going to sleep but likes to
set the TV to go off at a preset time. However, The TV application on
Linux, "tvtime", does not have a specific sleep shutoff time setting in
the software.

So, I thought I would try to use cron to turn off "tvtime" for here at a
preset time and maybe find a way for her to change the "quit" time via a
gui application. I found two (2) gui applications for cron; gcontab and
kCron. kCron is the nicer application and easier to use. So I installed
kCron on her Ubuntu 7.10 machine and created a script named "tvstop.sh"
and put it in her home directory (/home/kristeen/bin).

"/home/kristeen/bin/tvstop.sh" contains a single line:
tvtime-command QUIT

Then just make the script executable:
$ chmod +x tvtime.sh

In kCron you just add a "task" and set the time you want it to run.
kCron will install a user crontab file in "/var/spool/cron/crontabs", In
this case it was named "kristeen" and the job is scheduled to run at
11:30 PM every night.

root@kpcomix:/var/spool/cron/crontabs# cat kristeen
# DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE - edit the master and reinstall.
# (/tmp/kde-kristeen/kcron5Xxbvc.tmp installed on Thu Nov 15 20:42:38 2007)
# (Cron version -- $Id: crontab.c,v 2.13 1994/01/17 03:20:37 vixie Exp $)
#
30 23 * * * /home/kristeen/bin/tvstop.sh
# This file was written by KCron. Copyright (c) 1999, Gary Meyer
# Although KCron supports most crontab formats, use care when editing.
# Note: Lines beginning with "#" indicates a disabled task.

Cron is very powerful and can be harnessed to do some good things to
make your life a little more enjoyable!

Hey Linux and related friends does amazing things again!

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A Fedora 8 Experience

Monday, November 26 2007 @ 07:41 PM MST
Contributed by: emperor
Views: 2,672

My desktop machine in my home office has been running Ubuntu since September of 2004 but after several updates and who remembers what installed and un-installed over the years was very ill. The last update to 7.10 fixed some of the problems but created some new ones; the final straw being complete lock-ups every 36 to 48 hours. By complete I mean that the machine would not respond to a "ping" and the video was frozen.

So, a clean install of Linux was needed. Rather than just install a *buntu or Debian, I decided to revisit my first love, Red Hat now Fedora. The last version of Fedora on my desktop machine was Fedora 2 but I have Fedora 5 (upgraded from 4) on my MythTV frontend in the bedroom and also use CentOS (RHEL clone) on my home & the LUG file server.

So, I downloaded and installed Fedora 8 from the Gnome based Live CD (there is also a KDE version) and then went about installing and fixing a few things. The Live-CD is a reduced set of the basic applications. For example AbiWord is installed instead of OpenOffice.

Since the machine is on a local network and is behind a secure firewall, I disabled "Selinux" and the firewall during installation. Instead of the default firewall support in Fedora I prefer "Firestarter" for firewall support.

Fedora's package manager (Yum) is slow but most of the problem is caused by slow mirrors. However, there is a plugin that can help called "yum-fastestmirror". If you add additional repositories, you will want to install the "yum-priority" plugin to keep other packages from removing and replacing core packages with their own version. To get direct access to multimedia packages, you'll want to install "livna-release".

Fedora has the same "Services" GUI app that RHEL does and it makes it very easy to disable unneeded services. I had to turn off NetworkManager and turn on standard networking to get my static IP and wired Ethernet working properly. Turned off a few other services like "bluetooth".

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Marble Falls Meeting - November 17 - Canceled

Friday, November 16 2007 @ 09:54 PM MST
Contributed by: emperor
Views: 1,346

The Saturday November 17, 2007 HLLUG meeting at the Marble Falls Library has been canceled this month. Next Meeting is at the Lakeshore Library on Saturday December 5th. See you there!

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