Thinking Aloud

Simple problem. I have a bluetooth keyboard, I want to use it at work (Thinkpad T61) and home (eeePC 1001P), both machines running Debian (hardware and OS details). I want to find a good way to get this keyboard connected and running full time. Here goes.

Bluetooth Doesn’t Seem To Be Working At All!

First I install blueman. Start it up, most everything is disabled (greyed out). Ok, why is that?

hmm… maybe hcitool will tell me something different
$ hcitool scan
Device is not available: No such device

ok… I guess that means there is no device available, check the startup via
$ dmesg | grep Blue
lots of Bluetooth entries there.

next check the bluetooth kernel module is loaded
$ lsmod | grep blue
bluetooth 41795 6 sco,bnep,rfcomm,l2cap
rfkill 13012 4 bluetooth,cfg80211

Looks like the module is loaded. Time to Google my error message
http://forum.soft32.com/linux/Bluetooth-ftopict440233.html
Provides a hint that I need to install the userspace package, in Debian this means
$ sudo aptitude install bluetooth
that installed a bunch of packages. Trying my tests again
$ hcitool scan
(same result)
Blueman (same result)

$ /etc/init.d/bluetooth restart
(maybe it’ll help… nope)
Hmmm.. sort of feels like the bluetooth adaptor is turned off. The 1001P doesn’t really have a hardware switch that I can see for turning bluetooth on.

Further Googling is talking making me feel like I should really have an entry in the output of lsusb that says something pretty clear about bluetooth, and I’m not seeing that. This really makes me think it isn’t on.

I know I shouldn’t have to… but I”ll try a reboot to get a fresh dmesg to look at and this laptop has been in and out of suspend a lot, I see that has fouled others up in that past. Nope that didn’t help.

eeePC Gotcha: Bluetooth is Controlled in the BIOS

Okay, Got a tip from a site that bluetooth on the 1001P can only be controlled via the bios (are you serious!?!) So I boot into the bios and sure enough under Advanced -> Onboard Settings (I think) there is Onboard Bluetooth and it is disabled. Enable that, save and exit. Reboot.

$ lsusb
now has an extra line in it… promising.
Bus 005 Device 002: ID 0b05:1788 ASUSTek Computer, Inc.

Bluetooth is Working, Now for the Keyboard

Straight for the throat, starting blueman, YES we have an adapater. Double checking with hcitool.
$ hcitool scan
Scanning....
alright!!

Now just to get the keyboard working. Put the keyboard into discovery mode.

Into Blueman, and searching for the device. It shows up! Good sign. Attempt to pair with the device. My secret code is requested. I enter it. “1111″ (the usual) and I go to the keyboard type “1111″ Enter. Looks like we’re paired. Uh oh it looks like it disconnected. Hmm… reconnect, which works, and then click on the trust icon. Still connected good, good. Start typing, it’s working!! (I’m sure this could all be done from the command line with hcitool as well, I’m not exactly sure how.)

Awesome.

Testing, The Use Cases

Now the two remaining tests. At work I’m doing some frustrating hack using
hidd --connect MAC ADDRES GOES HERE
and if I leave the computer for 10-20 minutes the keyboard dies. It totally sucks. Secondarily, if I restart the computer the keyboard isn’t connected. Both of these things didn’t weren’t a problem in the past, but they are now. So let’s see if the problem is the same here.

1. Coming back the next morning and it is still working!!
2. Suspending and restoring and it is still working.
3. And it even works (with a minor delay after a reboot) in the gdm screen.

Hurray!! Complete Success.

Bonus: killing the Blueman applet doesn’t kill the connection, I suspected this would be true but just wanted to confirm.

Bluetooth Files

I previously had attempted to edit a bunch of files in the /etc/bluetooth/* and /etc/default/bluetooth, but none of those files appear changed in this case and the keyboard is working fine. Being curious I snooped around and found that the specific device information related to the connection with my keyboard can be found in /var/lib/bluetooth/* but looking at a few of the files. I can see that they are definitely not meant to be editted by hand. AKA leave it to the tools in this case blueman. I’m sure hcitool also refers to and edits these files although I have not confirmed that.

Hardware and Operating System Details

• Keyboard : Microsoft Wireless Entertainment Keyboard 7000
• Debian squeeze (pre stable release)
• Linux Kernel Linux 2.6.32-3-amd64
• And of course my eeePc 1001P

Now to see if I can get it working on my work computer! Thinkpad T61.

Installing fonts into Debian for a single user is easy. Here it is in 3 steps

Step 1 – The .fonts File Folder

Looks into your home directory.  We’re looking for a hidden folder

~/.fonts

If you already have this folder then you can go to step 3, if not…

Step 2 – Making the .fonts File Folder

Open up your terminal go to your home folder and make the the .fonts file folder (this can also be done in the file manager of your choice)

mkdir ~/.fonts

you can check to see if it is there using

ls -a ~

See it there?  Good! Time for …

Step 3 – Copying your font files (.ttf) into the .fonts file folder

This can be done either on the command line or in your file manager of choice.

You’re Done

That’s it!  If you open up an application that let’s you choose your font, you should see your newly installed font.  I can attest this works in OpenOffice and in GIMP.

As an example, try installing ecofont and save the world/your money by using less ink on your print outs.

I run smbclient -L <hostname>
I see all the shares but when I try to actually get a directory listing I get a permission denied error. Grrr..

The solution from [url=http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Setup_Samba]http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Setup_Samba[/url]
I get a Permision denied message trying to access a Windows 2000, XP, 2003: Make sure you have Guest account enabled on Windows machines and Guest have sharing permissions over the shares. Sometimes this is not trivial due to the permissions editing of a carpet is not shown by default in some Windows systems. If it is enabled, right click on the share, pick up the Permissions section and add Guest user with the appropriate rights (probably full control full control can be security risk. "Modify" provides read/write and create/delete without the more dangerous abilities).

And now I can the website backed up. yay

You can't make the required kernel module with the sources from ATI and to get your driver up and running. Ugh… how long did it take to find that out.

However you can install the .deb files that you can get from ATI
cd /usr/src/
tar xjf fglrx-tar-bzr
cd /usr/src/modules/fglrx

then get the patch from [url=http://darcs.frugalware.org/repos/frugalware-current/source/x11-extra/fglrx/fglrx-2.6.20.patch]http://darcs.frugalware.org/repos/frugalware-current/source/x11-extra/fglrx/fglrx-2.6.20.patch[/url]

run the patch using the command
patch < /path/to/fglrx-2.6.20.patch

and then compile the modules using following steps of 4.1c here
[url=http://www.stanchina.net/~flavio/debian/fglrx-installer.html]http://www.stanchina.net/~flavio/debian/fglrx-installer.html[/url]

Lord bless the smart people that figured all this out!

From
[url=http://www.readingboy.com/]http://www.readingboy.com/[/url]

glxgears

You see people using the program to test the framerate (FPS) of their ATI cards. trying to spot imporvements… well the newest version. requires this switch

$ glxgears -iacknowledgethatthistoolisnotabenchmark

to output the fps.

Haha, you gotta love when people are that careful.

So I wanted the laptop volume buttons to work…

Turns out it is easy. In Gnome go to Desktop –> Preferences –> Keyboard Shortcuts

Then find the function you want to control, click on it, and then click on the laptop button that you want to control it.

And now it works. yaya.

Gah Finally after reading what seems like hundreds of help lists and all that I finally found the problem with my Gateway 7515 laptop sound. Sound card is an ATI IXP card with built in modem.

To make a long story short all that I needed to do was go to the alasmixer and mute the External Amplifier.

Bango, it worked.

Now if only the ocean glider I am working on would come to the surface and call home…

Well… it seems that I have done it Debian Etch installed and working on my new laptop. It's pretty great! Works good… now.

There have been a few trials.
1. Audio – I like music, I want music. So when the audio didn't work I was a little bit bummed.
Then suddenly its working… Now it ain't kind of intermittent every time I boot up its a question… "Oh is the sound working?"
Hopefully I can get this nailed down soon!

2. Wireless not working – This was a toughy. I initially solved it by following the tutorial here [url=http://www.debiantutorials.org/content/view/153/213/]http://www.debiantutorials.org/content/view/153/213/[/url]

And then undid that fix because I wanted to use the network-manager-gnome package. This started working after I actually read the README.Debian file for network-manager (the daemon, RTFM) and recomiled the kernel for 2.6.20 not exactly sure what made the difference the change the manual suggested or the kernel. But I am currently putting my money on the kernel.

3. Fan control – I do not like noisy computers
Why all the noise when I am just typing?!?! Driving me crazy luckily I fixed the problem, it seems by
"apt-get install powernowd"
powernowd couldn't be started for two reasons
1. The virtual file system for accessing the cpu wasn't loaded (uh ok) so the README.Debian says you need to add
"sysfs /sys sysfs defaults 0 0" to the /etc/fstab file did that.
Then I realized the powernow-k8 kernel module wasn't loaded. So I loaded the module with the command
modprobe powernow-k8
and then started the powernowd with the command
/etc/init.d/powernowd start
and finally added this line to the /etc/modules list so that
powernow-k8
to the /etc/modules list so it would load in the future at boot up.

And right now I it all seems to be working.