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By Brian, November 30, 2007 8:14 pm

As I’ve mentioned in previous articles (Linux, Ubuntu and Me; Ubuntu, Stage One; and Ubuntu, Stage Two) my network is wireless using a USB dongle that I insist on keeping in the set up.

I have several reasons for this: all my upgrade slots are filled (AGP has video card, PCI has Soundblaster Live! and WinTV cards) and running cables would require a large amount of cat-5 wiring strung across several doorways, ceilings and down a flight of stairs. Ugly, time consuming and annoying to say the least. The current dongle I have works excellent (better than my old PCI card in fact) and came at a decent price.

The catch is that the Linux drivers for the RTL8187 chipset don’t include the B model. It’s functionally compatible, just not recognized by the driver. Lucky for me, someone did some correspondence with RealTek and found out what codes to enter into the driver to correct this. Furthermore they provided him with the source code, allowing him to make the appropriate changes. The source package is freely available for download.

Compiling the drivers was simple – as per RealTek’s README included in the files, the only caveat I encountered was that WPA encryption doesn’t seem to work (WEP 64 and 128 do) and it doesn’t automatically load on startup. I live in the suburbs and can get away with 128 bit encryption, so I can compromise on this point. By adding pre-up /{path to drivers}/wlan0up to /etc/network/interfaces just before the first wlan0 line (iface wlan0 inet dhcp on my system) it works perfectly. I reboot, and it just connects. Voila!

As a footnote, I’d like to mention that all my previous posts on this matter where made on my Windows XP laptop (which has to stay that way since it’s used at / owned by work) but this is the first post made with my newly configured Ubuntu system.

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By Brian, November 30, 2007 2:19 pm

I made some more progress on a few fronts with this system last night. I made a few tweaks to the X11 configuration to enable direct rendering for my Radeon 9200 video card, thus adding a slight performance boost, as well as some edits to the World of Warcraft Config.wtf to boost audio and video performance. The audio still has a minor stutter, but is vastly improved and the frame-rates while outdoors is nearly acceptable – meanwhile it outperforms the Windows environment while indoors which I found interesting.

Further tweaks will need to be made to prevent some artifacts that appear with the UI icons, as well as the overall frame-rate. In order to fix the audio issue, I believe I will need to increase the priority of the Wine process to accommodate the extra layer of software processing required to output to the ALSA drivers. I’m holding out on too many more video modifications until I see what effect this has on overall performance.

Photoshop is at this writing still inoperable. Loading the installer failed to accomplish what I hoped as CS2 is using the Microsoft MSI format – I have since learned that Wine does in fact support this, if I pass the file to msiexec, which I hope to try this evening.

For a kicks, I tried installing a few common programs (that do not use MSI installers) to see the results. MSN Live Messenger installs, loads, and gets properly embedded into the task bar – however, I failed to get it to display the login / contact window thus negating any ability to actually use the program.
iTunes threw several errors and during the installation of the related QuickTime software blacked-out the screen several times. I was able to load and play a wave file through it, albeit the interface was laggy, leaving me to overall determine that Wine is capable of running this – as long as you don’t need iPod support. (I don’t)
My favorite text editor, Crimson editor, installed but fails to operate.
All three of these programs have perfectly usable and nearly identical alternatives on Linux so these where merely tests performed in vain for curiosity’s sake.

On the agenda for this evening is making the wireless network work without dropping to the command line every time I reboot, attempting to run the MSI installer for Photoshop, and increasing the process priority for Wine – particularly while runing World of Warcraft.

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By Brian, November 30, 2007 1:17 pm

Given that my recent output has mostly been of a computer nature, one can be forgiven for assuming I’m referring to an analog input device when I say “mouse”. However, I am actually talking about the biological entity “Mus musculus”, a representative of this species is pictured.

The first indication was during the summer when my landlord’s cat spent many hours staring at the bottom of the fridge, and more recently the stove. It was strange behavior, but on the other hand, cats are big fans of the made-you-look game, so it was not entirely of concern.
One night, as I was falling asleep last week I heard a scratching which had the distinct sound of a small animal, somewhere in the wall or ceiling (I live in a basement). I tried to ignore it and convince myself it was the aforementioned cat, on the floor above me.
Fast forward to Wednesday morning, I grabbed a loaf of bread which I had uncharacteristically left on the top shelf of my mini-kitchen – of note is that this is directly below the kitchen upstairs. I noticed that it was near expiry when I opened the tag, and thus proceeded to visually inspect the loaf – which is when I noticed the small hole (about the size of a nickel) in the bottom, and a tunnel entering the loaf.

A quick search of the surrounding area revealed no other signs of an intruder, leaving me to spend the day wondering if there was a connection, or had the loaf simply been like this when I bought it without my noticing?
Upon arriving home after work, I started a more thorough search. What was I looking for? The characteristic mouse trail – small oblong pellets that they drop frequently as they wander the world.

Lo and behold, I found one. Not willing to be satisfied with this discovery, I looked up to a board resting above between the rafters – a fitting perch for a mouse to survey the world below – and found another, thus confirming my suspicion. There is at least one mouse sharing our habitation.

Nothing else seems to have been touched or spoiled by this little critter, which leaves me to believe it is spending it’s time between the upstairs and the basement – hiding behind the large appliances upstairs and at a safe altitude among the rafters downstairs to avoid the lurking cat on each floor. It also seems to indicate that it’s likely working alone, or in only a small group since there would be more signs of mouse dirt and more damage with a larger population.

Aside from firing the two resident predators for dereliction of duty, what to do? Do I trap it? If so, live or dead? Do I install a mouse repellent device, or will that just evict it to another portion of the house, to return at a later date – possibly with family? If I live-trap it, where do I release? Nearby, it’s most certain to return, and it’s a snow covered sub-zero climate here right now, increasing it’s chances of freezing to death and negating the point of a live-trap.

Poison is not an option – with two cats and a dog in the house, the chance of them ingesting the poison directly or indirectly is too risky. Not to mention, I can’t say that I want a dead mouse hiding between the dry-wall panels creating a smell. The common, brutish mouse-trap seems inhumane but the cost-effective and timely solution.
I’m not in a rush to kill another creature, but mice spread disease and this one has demonstrated it’s ability to consume and spoil my food stores. It’s a moral dilemma for me, for sure – but I think I’m going to have to bait it into a snap-trap.

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