connect iPhone to Laptop via Bluetooth

After it didn't work, I read postings that iPhones Bluetooth is for Bluetooth headsets (voice calls) and car kits only, but not for data transfer.

Even though "hcitool scan" or kbluetooth4 (kbluetooth4-devicemanager) finds it as localhost, if I select the device and enter "Next" I get the message: "Sorry your Bluetooth Device does not support input Service."

stuck in the boot process

One would think once the system boot stops at:
...
starting systems management data engine
starting dsm_sa_datamgr32d

the problem is with the systems management engine or IPMI, because it was right after that.
No, a second boot showed it just got stuck at:

...
Importing net file system (NFS)
...

and on another try:

"mount: RPC: Remote system error - No route to host"

So I had to boot into the Rescue System, mount the device where the /etc directory is on and take a look at /etc/fstab.

comment out my NFS exports in /etc/fstab

Booting worked well afterwards. Have to find out if I was just impatient (cause the NFS mounts were not available) or if it's a problem/bug.

set up a cvs server

After following the good documentation on:

http://linux-addiction.blogspot.com/2009/04/how-to-set-up-cvs-server.html

at 14) I got the following error:

cvs@sles:~> cvs -d ":pserver:testuser@localhost:/var/cvs/test" login
Logging in to :pserver:testuser@localhost:2401/var/cvs/test
CVS password:
cvs login: warning: failed to open /var/cvs/.cvspass for reading: No such file or directory


Could be easily resolved with:

touch /var/cvs/.cvspass

Next time I was able to login as described, "no error messages".

VMware-Workstation 6.5

after I installed VMware-Workstation 6.5 I was able to use my existing VMs.
After a reboot I started vmware again and when I tried to open a VM, I got the error:

"could not open /dev/vmmon"

# /etc/init.d/vmware status
Module vmmon not loaded
Module vmnet not loaded

So I did a
# /etc/init.d/vmware start

and everything worked as before. Guess I have to do an insserv vmware to get vmware started at boot up.

MozillaFirefox - openSUSE 11.1 - google homepage

I just tried to start my google homepage in MozillaFirefox on openSUSE 11.1 and it crashed

First thought I did an update of Firefox earlier, so I downgraded Firefox, but still google/ig (google Homepage crashed)

Then I saw on the terminal:

~> /usr/bin/firefox
*** nss-shared-helper: Shared database disabled (set NSS_USE_SHARED_DB to enable).
Error occurred during initialization of VM
Could not reserve enough space for object heap
Could not create the Java virtual machine.

That brought me to Java as the culprit. I updated
java-1_6_0-openjdk - Java runtime environment based on OpenJDK 6 and java-1_6_0-openjkd-plugin on Saturday and didn't open the homepage since then. So I downgraded java-1_6_0-openjdk, didn't help either.

The terminal showed the backtrace and memory map of the crash and it was all in

*** glibc detected *** /usr/lib/jvm/java-1.6.0-openjdk-1.2_b11/jre/lib/i386/../../bin/pluginappletviewer: free(): invalid pointer: 0xb7577254 ***
======= Backtrace: =========
/lib/libc.so.6[0xb7dcc654]
/lib/libc.so.6(cfree+0x9c)[0xb7dcdf3c]
/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.6.0-openjdk-1.2_b11/jre/lib/i386/client/libjvm.so[0xb78d87e1]
/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.6.0-openjdk-1.2_b11/jre/lib/i386/client/libjvm.so[0xb789b852]
/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.6.0-openjdk-1.2_b11/jre/lib/i386/client/libjvm.so[0xb789d010]
/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.6.0-openjdk-1.2_b11/jre/lib/i386/client/libjvm.so[0xb78a1435]
/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.6.0-openjdk-1.2_b11/jre/lib/i386/client/libjvm.so(JNI_CreateJavaVM+0x5c)[0xb773e16c]
/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.6.0-openjdk-1.2_b11/jre/lib/i386/../../bin/pluginappletviewer(JavaMain+0x9e)[0x804a9ae]
/lib/libpthread.so.0[0xb7ecd1b5]
/lib/libc.so.6(clone+0x5e)[0xb7e313be]
[...]

I deleted java-1.6.0-openjdk and installed java-sun instead:

java-1_5_0-sun-plugin-1.5.0_update17-1.1
java-1_5_0-sun-1.5.0_update17-1.1

Now the google homepage is loading and the browser not crashing anymore.

Desktop Settings KDE4

How do I get from this grey panel (at the bottom of the screen)



to this black panel:



On my other computer I realized the panel was black and stylish. By the time I installed opensuse 11.1 on my laptop, I forgot how I had done this. So I went through all the KDE Configure Desktop Settings and didn't find it.

Then I came across the solution:



Right click on the Desktop, "Desktop Settings" and for "Desktop Theme" choose either 'Oxygen' or 'Elegance'.

vnc Remote Desktop Sharing

Just in short:

SLED10 SP2, Gnome-desktop - Control Center - System: Remote Desktop
Allow users to view the desktop

openSUSE 10.3, KDE - vncviewer IP:0 or System - Remote Access

Path Analyzer Pro

looking for a visual traceroute program on Linux I found Path Analyzer Pro

Path Analyzer can be downloaded for free evaluation and is available on Windows (XP, Vista and 2003 Server) and recently as Beta version for Linux (Debian and RedHat).

I downloaded the papro-2.6-5.i386.rpm and installed it on SLED11 SP2 (SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop).
After installation I wanted to run the program and got the following error:

# /usr/bin/papro
/usr/bin/papro: error while loading shared libraries: libpcap.so.0.8: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

I linked the newer libpcap to the required libpcap and the program started.

# ln -s /usr/lib/libpcap.so.0.8.1 /usr/lib/libpcap.so.0.8

JDiskReport

Recently someone brought the application to my attention. It can be downloaded at JGoodies.com
I downloaded the jdiskreport-1_3_0.zip for a SLED10 SP1 install with java version "1.4.2_17".
Unzipping the file extracts the following:

o LICENSE.txt - the license agreement
o README.txt - this readme file
o RELEASE-NOTES.txt - information about changes and bug fixes
o jdiskreport-1.3.0.jar - a signed executable JAR file

The README explains how to start the application:

To run JDiskReport from a command-line, change directory to where the JAR-file is located. Then execute:

java -jar jdiskreport-1.3.0.jar
or
java -jar /path_to_directory/jdiskreport-1.3.0.jar

Nice tool, it shows what's eating up all your space. You get a graphical output instead multiple lines of text, when using "du".

One of the view modes is a Pie Chart of "File sizes in /directory". "Top 50" breaks the output down to a list of 50 largest files in /directory, "Size Dist" shows the Distribution of sizes in /directory, "Modified" gives another Bar Chart with Distribution of modification dates in /directory and "Types" shows the Distribution of file types in a /directory.




JDiskReport takes up 1.7 MB in the /usr/local/bin/jdiskreport dir, I installed it in:

Kiwi - live USB image

There's a description Live USB stick on opensuse.org which I pretty much followed.

First I installed:

kiwi-desc-livesystem-1.62-25.1
kiwi-desc-usbboot-2.38-34.1
kiwi-2.38-34.1
kiwi-tools-2.38-34.1

I choose the option "downloading the most recent packages from the internet".

/usr/share/kiwi/image/usbboot/suse-10.3/config.xml

and added the repository:

<repository type="yast2" status="replaceable">
<source path="ftp://mirrors.kernel.org/opensuse/distribution/10.3/repo/oss"/>
</repository>
<repository type="yast2" status="replaceable">
<source path="ftp://mirrors.kernel.org/opensuse/distribution/10.3/repo/non-oss/"/>
</repository>

I didn't set the update repository in
/usr/share/kiwi/image/kwliveCD-suse-10.3/config.xml

When I set the update repository to
<repository type="rpm-md" status="replaceable">
<source path="http://download.opensuse.org/update/10.3/"/>
</repository>
kiwi exited with the following error:

opensuse103:~ # kiwi --prepare /usr/share/kiwi/image/kwliveCD-suse-10.3 --root /media/vmware/kiwi-tmp --add-profile KDE --logfile terminalApr-22 04:59:15 <1> : Setting log file to: terminal
Apr-22 04:59:15 <1> : Reading image description... failed
Apr-22 04:59:16 <3> : Scheme validation failed failed
Apr-22 04:59:16 <3> : Element image has extra content: text

Apr-22 04:59:16 <3> : KIWI exited with error(s) done
opensuse103:~ #

Instead I replaced the entry with the same I had put in: /usr/share/kiwi/image/usbboot/suse-10.3/config.xml

There's only one .checksum.md5 file. It is in /usr/share/kiwi/image/usbboot/suse-10.3/
Copy it and create a new one with:

cp .checksum.md5 .checksum.md5.old
md5sum config.xml > .checksum.md5

Cleanup is only necessary if kiwi was run before, there wasn't anything to do here.
For anyone who already created the two directories: kiwi-tmp and kiwi-image a removal is recommended if you are going to use the same path. Remove these two directories with
rm -rf /tmp/kiwi*

(I actually created them in a different directory, so instead of /tmp, the image was on my USB drive /media/usb-dvd/

Finally, after all these preparations I run:

kiwi --prepare /usr/share/kiwi/image/kwliveCD-suse-10.3 --root /media/usb-dvd/kiwi-tmp --add-profile KDE --logfile terminal

Kiwi initiates downloading and installing all these RPMs. Good thing that progress is shown on the right hand of the screen:

-> ftp://mirrors.kernel.org/opensuse/distribution/10.3/repo/oss/suse/i586/tpctl-4.17-131.i586.rpm
tpctl-4.17-131.i586.rpm ########################################################################### [ 83%]
->

And finally at the end:

Apr-22 05:35:38 <1> : KIWI exited successfully



Then I continued to create the compressed image and initrd out of kiwi-tmp.

mkdir /media/usb-dvd/kiwi-image
kiwi --type usb --create /media/usb-dvd/kiwi-tmp -d /media/usb-dvd/kiwi-image --logfile terminal


Now it was time to plug in my usbstick and unmounted it with:

umount /dev/sdd

There was no other partition on the drive. If there is so, then "mount" will show them.


To create the bootstick enter:

kiwi --bootstick /media/usb-dvd/kiwi-image/initrd-usbboot-suse-10.3.i686-2.1.1.splash.gz --bootstick-system /media/usb-dvd/kiwi-image/openSUSE-10.3.i686-2.5

Following messages appeared on the screen:

opensuse103:/media/usb-dvd # kiwi --bootstick kiwi-image/initrd-usbboot-suse-10.3.i686-2.1.1.splash.gz --bootstick-system kiwi-image/openSUSE-10.3.i686-2.5
Apr-22 05:14:50 <1> : Creating boot USB stick from: kiwi-image/initrd-usbboot-suse-10.3.i686-2.1.1.splash.gz...
Apr-22 05:14:50 <2> : Can't open log port: 9000 skipped
Apr-22 05:14:52 <1> : Creating initial boot structure done
Apr-22 05:14:54 <1> : Importing grub stages for stick boot done
Apr-22 05:14:57 <1> : Found following removable USB devices:
Apr-22 05:14:57 <1> : ---> 5B8110A091D0 at /dev/sdd
Apr-22 05:14:57 <1> : Your choice (enter device name):


Enter the device name output in the last but one line. In my case: /dev/sdd.

Apr-22 05:14:57 <1> : Your choice (enter device name): /dev/sdd

Kiwi partitioned the stick and dumped the image to the stick:

Apr-22 05:17:12 <1> : Creating partition table on: /dev/sdd done
Apr-22 05:17:26 <1> : Rereading partition table on: /dev/sdd done
Apr-22 05:17:30 <1> : Dumping initrd image to stick done
Apr-22 05:17:35 <1> : Dumping system image to stick
Apr-22 05:19:29 <1> : Installing grub on USB stick done
Apr-22 05:19:30 <1> : Removing HAL lock done
Apr-22 05:19:30 <1> : KIWI exited successfully

Kiwi created the following partitions:

/dev/sdd1 on /media/disk-2 type ext2 (rw,nosuid,nodev)
/dev/sdd3 on /media/disk-3 type ext2 (rw,nosuid,nodev)
/dev/sdd2 on /media/disk-4 type squashfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)

/dev/sdd2 is the compressed image, initrd and kernel.
/dev/sdd3 contains packages and stuff that doesn't fit into the 700+ MB initrd. It's read/writable so that thing that get written to the USB stick are put here.
/dev/sdd1 is the boot partition, including grub.

Boot a machine with the usbstick plugged in, don't forget to set the BIOS to boot from USB and you'll get a LIVE opensuse 10.3 on a USB stick.