Interphero Miscellany

The following instructions allow you to disable IPv6 in Ubuntu.  They have been tested in Jaunty Jackalope, however, they should work for other versions as well.

First check to see if you can disable IPv6 the easy way by issuing the following command: cat /proc/sys/net/ipv6/conf/all/disable_ipv6

If the command returns a 0, then you have IPv6 enabled.  If it returns a 1, then IPv6 is disabled.  If you don’t have that file, then you will have to disable IPv6 via GRUB.

If the command returned a 0, you can disable IPv6 by issuing the following command: echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv6/conf/all/disable_ipv6

To disable IPv6 via GRUB, edit your kernel options to include: ipv6.disable=1

June 14th, 2009 | Tags: ipv6, jaunty, ubuntu | Category: Software | Leave a comment

After upgrading to Ubuntu 9.04, I started having issues with XSane and my scanner.  The message that I was receiving is:

Failed to open device ‘v4l:/dev/video0′:  Invalid argument.

I believe that this is being caused by the webcam on my laptop.  To prevent this error, you can comment out the “/dev/video0″ line in /etc/sane.d/v4l.conf.

May 24th, 2009 | Tags: Failed to Open Device, Ubuntu 9.04, webcam, XSane | Category: Hardware, Software | Leave a comment

IEEE has posted a great article entitled: 25 Microchips that Shook the World.

May 2nd, 2009 | Tags: IEEE, microchip | Category: Hardware | Leave a comment

The following link provides some easy ways to add OSX-like features to Ubuntu 9.04.

April 26th, 2009 | Tags: 9.04, osx, ubuntu | Category: Software | Leave a comment

Ubuntu desktops can be easily upgraded through Synaptic Package Manager, however, a web search on Google will result in far less results on how to upgrade from the command line.  It takes two commands:

sudo apt-get install update-manager-core

sudo do-release-upgrade

The second command will begin the upgrade process by changing to the “Jaunty” repositories:

Checking for a new ubuntu release
Done Upgrade tool signature
Done Upgrade tool
Done downloading
extracting ‘jaunty.tar.gz’
authenticate ‘jaunty.tar.gz’ against ‘jaunty.tar.gz.gpg’

After calculating the upgrade, you will be asked whether you want to proceed:

Checking package manager
Reading package lists: Donejaunty-security/multiverse Packages: 98
Reading state information: Done
Reading state information: Done
Reading state information: Done

Calculating the changes

Do you want to start the upgrade?

1 package is going to be removed. 24 new packages are going to be
installed. 270 packages are going to be upgraded.

You have to download a total of 169M. This download will take about
15 minutes with your connection.

Fetching and installing the upgrade can take several hours. Once the
download has finished, the process cannot be cancelled.

Continue [yN]  Details [d]
want to start the upgrade?

After selecting yes, the upgrade will progress in a similar manner to a regular package upgrade.  When the process is complete you will be asked to reboot:

System upgrade is complete.

Restart required

To finish the upgrade, a restart is required.
If you select ‘y’ the system will be restarted.

Continue [yN] y

April 25th, 2009 | Tags: 9.04, command line, ubuntu, upgrade | Category: Software | Leave a comment

This one is a bit late, but I like advertising the Aeon skin.  In my opinion, it is the best looking skin for XBMC.  Grab it here.

April 24th, 2009 | Tags: aeon, xbmc | Category: Software | Leave a comment

http://www.codecoffee.com/tipsforlinux/articles/22.html.

March 15th, 2009 | Tags: directory, Linux, size | Category: Software | Leave a comment

S.M.A.R.T. is a hard drive monitoring system that can predict some hard drive failures, giving you extra time to backup the data on the drive and order a replacement.  I have personally been warned twice by S.M.A.R.T. about an upcoming drive failure, which saved me some heart ache.

Linux users can use the smartmontools package to monitor their drives.  Most distributions have packages for smartmontools.  I use this on all of my machines, with email setup so that I get an email alert if something goes wrong.

Windows does not have a built in facility for monitoring S.M.A.R.T. , however, PassMark has a free utility called DiskCheckup.  DiskCheckup also has an email alert function.

March 14th, 2009 | Tags: DiskCheckup, Linux, S.M.A.R.T., smartmontools, Windows | Category: Hardware, Software | Leave a comment

This is a LIRC file for the Sony KDL-46S4100 television.  This file should also work with the KDL-40S4100 television as well as any other Sony TVs that use the RM-YD025 remote control.

March 1st, 2009 | Tags: KDL-40S4100, KDL-46S4100, LIRC, RM-YD025, Sony | Category: Software | Comments (1)