Installing the “b43-fwcutter” and “firmware-b43-installer” packages and rebooting the laptop is what ultimately worked for me.

aptitude install --quiet --assume-yes b43-fwcutter firmware-b43-installer

However, a couple days ago when I decided to install a fourth hard drive, I again ran into the same problem. I did some searching and discovered some possible bugs. One of the solutions is to build a custom kernel. I opted to simply shuffle the SATA cables around again and moved all four hard drives to the four ports facing upward (ports 3-6) on the motherboard. I moved the optical drive to one of the two ports facing outward (port 1) on the motherboard.

Since the problem occurs during the boot process, and only seems to affect ports 1-2, all four hard drives function properly, and I can still boot from an optical disc or mount a disc once the computer has finished booting. Unfortunately, this solution makes adding a fifth (or sixth) hard drive impossible, but it’s a solution I am willing to live with until the problem is resolved (if it is resolved).

xterm +sb -fa monaco -fs 10 -bg black -fg white

Next, I redirected the output and backgrounded the process:

xterm +sb -fa monaco -fs 10 -bg black -fg white > /dev/null 2>&1 &

This worked well for quite a while, but when I spawn a shell in an arbitrary directory, I wanted my shell to start in home so I added:

eval $( cd ; xterm +sb -fa monaco -fs 10 -bg black -fg white > /dev/null 2>&1 & )

Finally, I wanted to fully disown the new xterm from the shell I spawned it from. Therefore, my .bash_aliases file now has:

alias term='eval $( cd ; xterm +sb -fa monaco -fs 10 -bg black -fg white > /dev/null 2>&1 & disown %1 )'

Now I can cleanly spawn a new terminal that sends no output to the existing shell.

nvidia-xconfig --no-logo --twinview

Now I can configure my systems for dual displays during an Ubuntu installation without the need for reinstalling an old hacked together xorg.conf file.

#! /bin/bash

# Remove any installed Flash packages
aptitude remove --quiet --assume-yes flashplugin-installer flashplugin-nonfree

cd /tmp/
FLASH="flashplayer10_2_p3_64bit_linux_111710.tar.gz"
wget http://download.macromedia.com/pub/labs/flashplayer10/$FLASH
tar xzvf $FLASH
mv libflashplayer.so /usr/lib64/mozilla/plugins/
rm $FLASH

Now Flash runs properly, and with the switch to “Square,” it even seems to consume fewer resources on my machine.

Most of the instructions are available in Ubuntu’s documentation for FreeNX. First, add the repository, update the package listings, and install the FreeNX package:

add-apt-repository ppa:freenx-team
aptitude update
aptitude install --quiet --assume-yes freenx

Finally, set up FreeNX. I opt to use the default SSH key pairs (“–setup-nomachine-key”) because it doesn’t require additional configuration for the client to connect. I added the “–clean –purge” to fix authentication errors that I began having after I upgraded to Ubuntu 9.10.

/usr/lib/nx/nxsetup --install --setup-nomachine-key --clean --purge

After I install a client, I can connect to my computer from anywhere and use it as though I were sitting in front of it.

Ubuntu 9.10 works well, but I have discovered a few unresolved bugs that have proven to be annoyances. I’ve resigned myself to not being able to burn optical discs under Karmic because of a bug. This extends beyond Brasero to include the Wodim command line burning tool. After I upgraded, I switched from Rhythmbox to Banshee because it has better iPod syncing capabilities. However, those capabilities are a bit flaky, and I had to use this hack to make things work.

Regardless, it was a helpful and necessary upgrade. I look forward to the Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx update in April.

zac@dakara:~$ finger @athos
[athos.lund]
finger: connect: Connection refused

The solution is to install the required packages:

apt-get install inetutils-inetd fingerd

Then start the Internet super server:

/etc/init.d/inetutils-inetd start

According to the package details: “Inetd is the daemon that listens on various TCP and UDP ports and spawns programs that can’t or won’t do it for themselves.”

Now a remote finger request will look like:

zac@dakara:~$ finger @athos
[athos.lund]
Login     Name           Tty      Idle  Login Time   Office     Office Phone
zac       Zachary Lund   pts/2          May  4 20:12 (dakara.lund)

The contents of the file /etc/inetd.conf show what is necessary for finger:

finger		stream	tcp	nowait	nobody	/usr/sbin/tcpd	/usr/sbin/in.fingerd

It simply takes an incoming finger request and spawns the appropriate process.