The Life of (a) Brian (and Family)

As mentioned elsewhere I have been playing with Ubuntu Server 8.10 and this has resulted in numerous installation attempts as I tried to get a repeatable build. The first couple of times I installed the server from scratch, I downloaded all the updates. Pretty quickly I thought this was a waste of time and I wondered if I could save those updates to a CD.

The solution was in the ‘apt-move’ command. I am not going to claim to fully understand what I did but the instructions found in the ubuntu documentation seemed to work with one caveat. The documentation refers to dapper. All occasions were replaced by intrepid without obvious complications.

When I ran the next install I loaded the CD on to they system which significantly decreased the time to do the updates and reduced the data downloaded. It also seemed to pick up any other packages (such as Virtualbox) that I had downloaded though I seemed to need to add in the CD archive on each occasion I used aptitude.

The other problem I had was in creating a GPG key for ‘root’.

The most useful tip was how to become sudo (root) permanently.

sudo -s -H

It is a long story but I have been trying to get a stable and repeatable way of building an Ubuntu Intrepid server for home use.  To cut a long story short (I will fill in the gaps later), I ended up with the Sun VirtualBox vboxdrv not being complied into the kernel.

Lots of digging later and I have a solution; Read the rest of this entry »

I have had a Nokia E51 for a while now and think it is a great phone. Email and Nokia maps are excellent plus all the usual stuff. The only thing it lacks is a GPS. I got it as a business phone on a T-Mobile FlexT contract that gives me ‘unlimited’ Web and Walk. I don’t therefore have to worry about data costs. I have though become a buit more adventurous and adding in applications for podcasts, Google Maps and Fring. Read the rest of this entry »

After years of swearing blind I would not contribute to Murdoch’s millions (despite buying The Times) by going back to Sky, I am sure he will be happy that I have succumbed.

There were two main reasons; firstly I could get what I currently had in Broadband and Phone terms and add the Satellite TV for the same money - the TV was effectively free.  The second reason was that I live in Scotland. Not so bad you might say (and normally I would agree) but as an Englishman in Scotland there are a couple of drawbacks. The one that sent me to Sky was when the England Football match was on ITV England but not on STV. That was a disadvantage too far.

The law of unexpected consequence kicked in in two ways - Static IP and my own domain name. Read the rest of this entry »

I have been trying for ages to get my Nokia E51 to connect to the internet from my PC.  Under Windows this requires a piece of software called PCSuite but try as I might it would not work.  I knew that the latest version of Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid, had support for this sort of connection so I popped in a live CD and gave it a go.  Sure enough, I plugged in the Phone, it was recognised immediately and I had a connection.  Now why could Windows not be that easy?

But I really did not want to use the live CD so I turned to my second favourite piece of software, VirtualBox. If you happen to have been asleep for the last few months you may not have heard of Virtualisation.  Put simply, one OS runs on another in a ‘virtual’ machine (a PC inside a PC).  Now I have installed VirualBox on several platforms and it just works. I already had it on the laptop, so I loaded up Ubuntu into a new VM (Virtual Machine). Installed the Guest Additions and restarted the VM.

Next plugged in the E51 and bingo, I now have a 3G connection on my laptop!

Well as my hosting company kindly removed my last blog, I need to start again so here goes.  I quite like WordPress so that is what I am going with.  Xoops would be just too much.  All I need to do is work out how to publish ‘private’ family stuff that I don’t want all and sundry to have access to!