[Home page](/) [Latest blog](../all.html)
# slef-reflections on Software
* [Blog Tools](blogtools)
* Games
* General Interest
* [Koha](koha)
* OpenWRT
* Server setups
* sxw2text
* Video
* * *
## Games
### Freedomware Gamefest
##### Posted by mjr 2007-11-20
Ben Green of [Bristol Wireless Cooperative](http://www.bristolwireless.net/)
told me about [the Freedomware Gamefest](http://www.freedomware-gamefest.com/)
which might interest some people...
* Comment on this
* Start of this section
* Start of this page
* [All topics](../)
* * *
## Server setup
### HOWTO find my current RAM configuration and buy a cheap PC
##### Posted by mjr 2007-11-04
I'm pondering adding more RAM to my workstation. 128Mb is enough for most of
my work, but OpenOffice swaps a lot. I couldn't remember what RAM is currently
in it (one stick or two?) so I was very happy to find **dmidecode** in the
comments on [as days pass by, by Stuart Langridge: Memory scanner for
Linux.](http://www.kryogenix.org/days/2006/10/26/memory-scanner-for-linux)
dmidecode says I have a free slot and another 512Mb stick is surprisingly
cheap. Actually, [whole Ubuntu-ready-to-use computers are surprisingly cheap,
according to lkcl.](http://advogato.org/person/lkcl/diary/421.html) I hope
they don't contain [toxic
e-waste](http://www.greenpeace.org/international/news/hazardous-substances-
laptops).
[I must be getting old. [Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho]](http://antti-
juhani.kaijanaho.fi/newblog/archives/270)
* Comment on this
### Problems with MyDNS on a Virtual Server
##### Posted by mjr 2007-11-02
I moved secondary DNS for one of my customers to an
[OpenVZ](http://openvz.org/) virtual server on a completely different network
to their main server (which is a very good idea). The secondary DNS is
[MyDNS](http://mydns.bboy.net/) with a customised way of sync'ing from the
primary nameservers.
MyDNS has been wonderful when I've used it. Using postgresql with a nice
trigger to auto-update the serial whenever the zone is updated, it's reduced
the most common mistake my customers make when managing their own DNS. So, I
was struggling to figure out why [MyDNS kept crashing with an out-of-memory
error.](http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_name=4729b36f.9rlxdwZYEPt6ppb2%25mjr%40phonecoop.coop&forum_name
=mydns-users)
It seems that it was hitting two limits in the virtual server config:
**dgramrcvbuf** and **Tcprcvbuf** limits. Is there a smart way to figure out
how big to set these, apart from trial-and-error?
* Comment on this
### maildelayline - sending emails at a given future time
2007-09-25 (Permalink): I'm pretty sure someone in one of my syndicators was
looking for software to send emails in the future from anywhere, but I'm
damned if I can find the message. At the time, I was using a homebrew system
involving shell scripts and mailx, so I wasn't much help.
I'll upload a proper release soon, but I'm happy to upload a second hack of
[maildelayline](http://mjr.towers.org.uk/comp/maildelayline) here. It requires
recent bash, sed, at and a sendmail-like executable. I've deliberately kept it
simple to try to make it easier to debug and I dislike needing to install too
much for such a simple task.
Make a temporary directory, edit the top of the script, then install it on a
pipe mail alias (I'd keep the address secret and improbable, like RUbAHy8961:
"|/path/to/maildelayline" and then save the address in my address book) and
send it an email. At the start of the email body, write a pseudo-header with
the time, like
> "X-Send-At: now + 7 hours"
and follow it with the To:, Cc:, Bcc: and any other headers. Some headers
(like from, message-id and threading ones) are kept from the original message,
but the Date and Received headers are among those removed. Don't put the X
-Send-At in the email header unless you know what you're doing - usually, put
it in the body.
The X-Send-At field can be any time that your at program understands. If you
confuse it, or forget to give it a time, then you should get a bounce message
that says something like "garbled time" among other errors.
maildelayline is similar to [Leave A Message](http://www.leave-a-message.net/)
or [FutureMe](http://futureme.org/index.php) but it sends mail to anyone,
autonomously on your own server, from emails instead of a web form. I think it
will resend MIME attachments as long as the pseudo-header is in a plain
text/plain part and not quoted-printable or base64 or something. It is named
after delay lines, which I believe are mostly used in audio effects to repeat
a sound after a time delay.
Please leave a comment if you find this useful, or if you have an improvement.
* Comment on this
### Samba
What I learnt this morning while installing [Samba](http://de.samba.org/) so
that an out-of-ink Microsoft PC could print on a toner-full laser attached to
a GNU/Linux workstation:
Firstly, the manual authors seem to prefer to document
[CUPS.](http://www.cups.org/) I don't understand why. Surely if one has CUPS
installed already, a Microsoft PC can print to it as a network printer without
Samba? I installed Samba because I want to print without replacing lpr and
breaking things that print from the workstation already.
Secondly, if you ytpo smb.conf badly enough, then smbd will sulk. Particularly
passwd-related options. To persuade it to give useful error messages, smbd -F
-S -i seems the magic combination. If you don't put -i, it decides that you
really meant it to daemonise, despite the other options.
Thirdly, it doesn't break it if Microsoft Windows puts "unable to connect" or
another strange message on its Printers window. I'm not sure what that message
really means.
Finally and most importantly, if the nobody user is not allowed to print, make
sure Samba is sending the print job as a different user that is allowed to
print. That's the "guest account" option in the printer config.
[Pete Boyd](http://thegoldenear.org) wrote:
> "
>
>> "Surely if one has CUPS installed already, a Microsoft PC can print to it
as a network printer without Samba?"
>
> This is true but you need to know what you're doing to be able to add such a
print queue on Windows, its not trivial. The procedure people using Windows
will expect to use is something like point'n'print where they navigate to the
print server in Windows Explorer, right-click on the print queue and choose
'Connect'. This way the drivers are copied across the network and auto
installed on their system and the print connection setup."
It looked like I could add it by opening the Printers and Faxes screen,
clicking "Add a new printer" selecting the right radio button and then putting
the URL for the CUPS server into the box. Doesn't that work then? chithanh
wrote:
> "If you already have a working lpr setup, you can install [Print Services
for Unix](http://support.microsoft.com/kb/324078) via the control panel, and
connect to your lpr daemon. No need for Samba at all."
Thanks for the tip. My lpr doesn't offer remote connections (it's a shell
script that execs ghostscript), but I'll remember the above for future use.
Going back to connecting to CUPS directly, [Sam Morris](http://robots.org.uk/)
commented:
> " has
instructions that I have used in the past.
>
> Use "Add Printer", select "Connect to a printer on the Internet..." and
enter the printer's URL (e.g., http://192.168.0.1:631/printers/someprinter).
>
> When asked for the driver choose the Generic Manufacturer and the "MS
Publisher Imagesetter" printer."
Interesting. I always used Apple LaserWriter. Is the MS Publisher one better?
Ryan Lovett commented:
> "CUPS sometimes doesn't reflect accurage page counting statistics in
page.log when receiving jobs from Windows clients in this manner. YMMV,
however.
>
> Another nuisance is that if you have multiple printers that use the same
driver they will be hard to differentiate by name and Windows 2k/XP doesn't
let you rename network printers. There is a solution, but it involves
modifying the windows registry."
Wow, that's a surprisingly daft bug. I also heard at
[work](http://www.ttllp.co.uk/) that some versions of Windows remove network
printers if the network they're on is disconnected.
Update: [Howto setup a print server for Windows (and others) using CUPS and
zeroconf](http://blog.venthur.de/2007/08/17/howto-setup-a-print-server-for-
windows-and-others-using-cups-and-zeroconf/) has appeared at still don't have
a title.
Anyway, enough Microsoft Windows for now. I don't have to touch it very often
and then only to make sure it can connect to my servers.
* Comment on this
* Start of this section
* Start of this page
* [All topics](../)
* * *
## General
### Ubuntu power study and RBS-NatWest: the global warming bank
2007-10-15 (Permalink): [![Blog Action Day: One issue, one day, thousands of
voices](http://mjr.towers.org.uk/blog/2007/action_234x60.jpg)](http://blogactionday.org/)
Two things I saw about today: [Ubuntu's Power Consumption Tested, by Michael
Larabel](http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=878&num=1) and
['Climate refugees' Locked-Up at the 'Oil Bank of
Scotland'](http://bristol.indymedia.org/newswire.php?story_id=26930) (So,
please take action to [tweak your power
management](http://mjr.towers.org.uk/blog/2006/lynn#htnmSwitch) and [change
your bank](http://www.cooperativecampaigns.co.uk/bigask/index.php) today!)
* Comment on this
### Free Software Competitions
2007-08-17 (Permalink): Georg Greve of FSFE asks people to [Submit your Free
Software projects for the Trophees du
Libre](http://www.fsfe.org/fellows/greve/freedom_bits/submit_your_free_software_projects_for_the_trophees_du_libre)
\- closing date 1 October 2007.
I also saw somewhere a link to [the entry form for the New Zealand OS
Awards](http://www.nzosa.org.nz/nominations) \- the event is in October, but I
can't see a closing date on the form.
If you're a non-programmer and want to do something very helpful for a project
like [Koha,](http://www.koha.org/) please consider writing us a nomination.
Koha won a Trophee du Libre a couple of years ago. By the time the deadline
hits this year, maybe 3.0 will be out.
* Comment on this
### Two Answers for All Serious Free Software Contributors
2007-08-08 (Permalink): [etbe: Two Questions for All Serious Free Software
Contributors](http://etbe.coker.com.au/2007/08/08/two-questions-for-all-
serious-free-software-contributors/) asks:
> "What do you think is the most important single-sentence of advice that you
can offer to someone who wants to contribute to the free software community?"
He who does wins, so don't let the bastards grind you down.
> "If you had the opportunity to say one sentence to someone who knows about
computers and free software (EG they have used both Linux and Windows and done
a small amount of programming) to convince them that they should join the free
software team, what would it be?"
Imagine every bug you found **could** be fixed by you if you want, or a
friend, or an enemy, or someone you hire, or the original developer, or
whoever and that it's your choice who you ask to do it, with no veto from the
copyright holder: that's free software.
The second sentence is a bit long, but I found it hard to encapsulate the
power of that freedom in one. I use the bug example rather than costs or
anything, because I think that's what will be most attractive to someone who
has done a bit of programming: the right answer to "why can't I fix this
trivial bug?"
* Comment on this
### Music Skill Share Day in Bristol
2007-07-05: Ben Green writes:
> "All welcome to demo or watch, or get stuck in.
>
> 10am-4pm at the Trinity Centre Radio Studio BS2 0NW this Sunday 8th July.
>
> Please bring laptops and pluggable linux compatible sound kit. Small sets of
speakers an headphones also good. We'll have access to 3 AMD64 machines with
64Studio installed.
>
> Please ask if you have any question, contact me through email or call
[Bristol Wireless](http://www.bristolwireless.net/) to get other contact
details, such as my mobile number.
>
> Entrance to the trinity will be through the back door, please be patient
once you have rung as it's a long way from the radio studio to the back door.
Ooo, and it's free.
>
> Cheers all, see you there."
(Seen on [BBLUG](http://www.bristol.lug.org.uk/))
### Blender Tutorial in Norwich
2007-07-03: [Richard Bensley](http://www.richardbensley.co.uk/blog/) is
running a [Blender](http://www.blender.org/download/get-blender/) tutorial
13:00-18:00 for the 14th of July at the [UEA](http://www.uea.ac.uk/) in
Norwich. [More details on ALUG
Main](http://lists.alug.org.uk/main/2007-June/027221.html) with [transport
details.](http://lists.alug.org.uk/main/2007-July/027244.html)
### Microsoft Office OpenXML (OOXML) - last few days
[Chris Lale writes to fsfe-
uk:](http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.org.fsf.uk/4802)
> "Microsoft is currently submitting its Office Open XML (OOXML) format for
endorsement as an ISO international standard using the "fast-track" procedure.
[BSI British Standards is accepting comments on the draft submission by 30th
June](http://www.bsi-global.com/en/Standards-and-Publications/Industry-
Sectors/ICT/ICT-standards/BS-ISOIEC-2950-DPC/?recid=587)
>
> There are arguments and a petition [on the <NO>OOXML
website](http://www.noooxml.org) "
Go sign and comment!
### SoC
While remembering that [Google Code is a marketing
campaign,](http://mjr.towers.org.uk/blog/2006/google#code) I suggest that
students try to get the money for three projects:
[GNUstep,](http://gnustep.blogspot.com/2007/03/summer-of-code-2007.html)
[KohaLib @ Lime](http://blogs.liblime.com/developers/2007/03/15/google-summer-
of-code/) and [Debian](http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-
announce/2007/03/msg00013.html) \- [student applications closing date 24 March
2007.](http://code.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=60325&topic=10729)
### BBC Radio 4, Wed 11 April, 21:00
Argh! It was a busy blog day (sort of catching up after the double-holiday
weekend) and now a second late-notice item. (Don't get used to it - I'll be
back to my usual slow rate soon.) I think someone mentioned this before:
> "Open Source
>
> BBC Radio 4: Wed 11 Apr, 21:00 - 21:30 30 mins
>
> Paul Bennun finds out how Free and Open Source software is making its impact
felt across the world, fuelling development and saving businesses millions of
pounds. [...]"
Frequencies and more blurb are [on the BBC site](http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgi-
perl/whatson/prog_parse.cgi?FILENAME=20070411/20070411_2100_49700_41551_30)
[Kris Marsh](http://moogman.co.uk/) commented:
> "Thanks for the blog, I'd never have known about the BBC4 open source slot
otherwise!
>
> Unfortunately I missed it, but I did notice that it's available on [BBC's
"listen again" feature](http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/pip/z9ksy/) "
So, what did you think of it? Post comments to my site or to [fsfe-
uk](http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.org.fsf.uk/4741).
### Free Free Software
Via [BBLUG](http://www.bristol.lug.org.uk/) I've heard about
> "a monthly public demonstration of Free Open Source Software (FOSS), aimed
primarily at beginners. It's not specifically for Linux, as the software will
be demoed on a WinXP system to lure people in ;) -- however, I will make some
live linux distro CDs for the event.
>
> Here's the details:
>
> Title: Introduction to Free Software
> Date: Wednesday 18th April
> Time: Lunchtime 1-2pm
> Place: Cube Cinema, Dove Street South, Bristol BS2 8JS
> [Map](http://tinyurl.com/2wwx2x)
> Price: Free
> [The website](http://freefreesoftware.org/)"
The second one will be on 26th May 2007 at the Cube Cinema, Dove Street South,
Bristol BS2 8JS ([Map](http://tinyurl.com/2wwx2x)), 1pm-3pm, and is hopefully
a music one with a barbecue (weather permitting!).
* Start of this section
* Start of this page
* [All topics](../)
* * *
## Video
### Theora Herd Needs a Stairlift
2007-09-12 (Permalink): Trying to post the movies for [Tour of Britain stage
2: Taunton](http://cyclingfans.net/satellite/2007/tour-of-britain-
stage-2-taunton) left me in a whole world of pain. I'd decided to take movies
rather than stills because there were lots of photographers there with
considerably better cameras than mine, and my blog is far more popular for TV
coverage than for photos.
My video camera is a four-year-old [Nisis Pocket
DV4](http://www.epinions.com/content_143092780676) which appears as a usb-
storage device and contains AVI files. Apparently, those AVI files contain
Video as mjpeg, yuvj422p, 320x240, 9.04 fps(r) and Audio as pcm_s16le, 11025
Hz, mono, 176 kb/s.
I wanted to post the movies as [Ogg Theora](http://www.theora.org/) for
various reasons, including how well it seemed to work for
[debconf](http://www.debconf.org/) this year. I'm a total clubie at this video
stuff, but I like freedom and I've seen what I want, so I know it's possible.
First of all, I tried [mplayer's](http://www.mplayerhq.hu/) mencoder. It seems
that mplayer can play Ogg Theora, but mencoder can't encode it. Did I miss
something? What's with that?
So, I tried installing [VLC](http://www.videolan.org/) because several people
had recommended it to me in the past. It seemed to have an easier interface
than mplayer and had a wizard for converting files. Unfortunately, it seemed
to crash on some of the AVI files and other times hang. When I upgraded from
0.8.6 to 0.8.6c (which also meant a wxWindows upgrade, which surprised me for
such a seemingly-small upgrade), it crashed out with a segfault rather than
hanging. I couldn't get the command-line to work either.
I tried [ffmpeg,](http://ffmpeg.org/) but damned if I can get that to produce
a good theora (or is it libtheora?) file. Sometimes it works, but the output
is much larger than I expected. It is very annoying that there are no
releases, but at least there are snapshot tarballs available. I was trying
export-2007-09-12 early this morning.
Finally, I tried [ffmpeg2theora](http://www.v2v.cc/~j/ffmpeg2theora/) and
(after upgrading ffmpeg), the command
> "ffmpeg2theora -aq-1 -v 0 -o outfile.ogg infile.avi"
produced useful results, which I've now uploaded.
Thanks to [BBLUG](http://www.bristol.lug.org.uk/) members for their comments.
There seemed to be others who shared my confusion and frustration with video
processing. Why is this still so hard? Is it, as one member suggested, the
chilling effect of software patents and so on?
2007-09-15 (Permalink): I had an anonymous comment on [the last
post](http://mjr.towers.org.uk/blog/2007/software#theoravideo) which claimed:-
> "Theora support has low priority in free software projects because it's
simply a bad codec. It has been marketed as "patent-free" but it's
questionable how true that is. The patents over trivial functionality probably
cover it too, and on the other hand the real "inventiveness" and validity of
the more actively enforced patents covering better codecs is also
questionable. The main reason Theora users are unlikely to be sued is that
limiting free alternatives to such low-quality codecs already ensures they're
not a competitive threat.
>
> If you want better free software encoding try FFmpeg or MEncoder with x264.
The patent threats over that are more aggressive, but moving to Theora is not
a good way to avoid them."
I'm not inclined to believe this for various reasons. In particular, I've seen
good Theora results (higher quality for smaller file size than most), I've not
heard of any credible patent threat to Theora and this claim was made
anonymously (why?). Is anyone willing to support the above claims with their
name?
Alex Hudson commented:
> "Tangentially related to your Ogg woes, the issue of software patents came
up recently on the WhatWG discussions for a new HTML tag called 'video':
>
>
>
> Whether or not Apple's excuse is reasonable (submarine patents made more
unlikely by existing licensing pools? Not sure about that argument....), it
does seem Ogg faces an uphill struggle when you'd think supporting it is
effectively no cost."
[Steinar H. Gunderson](http://www.sesse.net/) commented:
> "I've got no idea about the patent status of Theora, but I can agree with
the technical assessment. Theora was supposed to be a superset of VP3 -- in
practice it never progressed much beyond VP3. VP3 is roughly comparable to
MPEG-1 in terms of sophistication, and it shows in the results.
>
> I don't know what you've been comparing it to to get "better quality for
smaller file size", but it's not my experience, and to top it off, it's really
really slow, especially for the encoding part."
I was comparing it to the AVI files on the camera and doing a straight recode
with the same geometry/fps settings to make it a web-sane file size.
[Steinar H. Gunderson](http://www.sesse.net/) commented:
> "That is a completely off comparison, for two reasons:
>
> a) You are reencoding already encoded material, so the encoded version
automatically picks up whatever artifacts were in the original. To make any
sort of sane comparison, you'd have to make them from the same source.
>
> b) The MJPEG codec in your camera is designed for low complexity and easy
editing, not quality for a given bit rate.
>
> The real competitors to Theora are codecs like MPEG-4 and H.264, not the
MJPEG codec in your camera. That, and you'll probably notice Theora's slowness
better the second you want to encode a DVD-like clip instead of 320x240 in
9fps. :-)"
I don't see why the re-encoding is relevant, because both the Theora and the
AVI were re-encodings.
I'll try MPEG-4 and H.264 next time I upload a video clip, but it's probably
going to be a long time before I'm encoding a DVD-like clip. My only probable
source of one is a DVB card and then I might as well just save the stream
directly, unless I really want to watch over the internet or something.
Nate commented:
> "Haha. Theora does not look good compared to other modern codecs, I am
sorry. I've been to doom9 and saw side by side comparisions of video quality
on a large number of codecs and theora came in dead last.
>
> Here you can find some videos. In the action sequences it's pretty obvious
that x264 and mpeg4 codecs do a better job.
>
> Anyways. If your interested in promoting free codecs there are two projects
that deserve a lot of attention... Snow, which is a experimental 'play' codec
from ffmpeg that's been around for a few years but has stagnated.. and then
the Dirac codec from the BBC, which they are hoping to end up a Internet
standard for streaming HD content.
>
> Both are experimental with Dirac aiming for a real-world release.
>
> Both are completely free software. Both have the potential to be higher
quality then even the most modern codecs used in HD film.
>
> If Dirac works out then it would be quit a big win for Free software.
>
> That's not to say that Theora isn't any good. The reason it's good is
because there is no company making money on it by restricting access through
patents. That's a huge plus. But for adoption for people outside of the very
pro-free software crowd it's just not going to happen.
>
> Oh and I don't know jack shit about codecs.
>
> ffmpeg folks kick ass also. They deserve a hell of a more credit then they
get.. they are the ones that are making multimedia work on Linux! Without them
we'd be screwed. Badly screwed."
ffmpeg have done well, but it's disappointing that they don't finish the job
and ship. Real artists ship.
* Comment on this
* Start of this section
* Start of this page
* [All topics](../)
* * *
## OpenWRT
### Fon goes wrong
2007-07-04: Last month, [I looked at running a Fon Access
Point.](http://mjr.towers.org.uk/blog/2007/software#fonopenwrt) I've not done
anything more because of debconf and work, and I've since discovered how to
access another firmware upload interface on my F5D7630uk4A (double-click the
reset button).
I see that [some Fon users are moving their routers into
lakes](http://snapvoip.blogspot.com/2007/06/fon-routers-thrown-to-lake-
literaly.html) in protest at the 15-minute anonymous access offers from
[Fon.](http://www.fon.com/)
Fon know their sales figures better than I do, but it seems like bad business
to introduce that 15 minute free access. 3-euro for 24-hours was already far
cheaper than competitors like The Cloud. Message board posters already
[noticed the loss of sales](http://boards.fon.com/viewtopic.php?t=3365) as
people exploit the anonymous access. There's over 300 in [the protest
lake](http://boards.fon.com/viewtopic.php?t=3311) today.
I can't blame them - if your network gets abused for bad things like kiddie
porn, the possible problems are terrible. I've seen innocent people punished
for running insecure systems in the past.
One of the most disappointing things is that the Fon workers seem to be near-
silent on this. A few sympathetic posts to the boards, but no official
statement yet, as far as I can see.
So, I'll not be getting a Fon access point while this problem continues and it
worries me for the future, but do you know of any alternatives?
### Wondering about Fon Rangers
While I was in Paris, I used a [FON WiFi Access Point](http://www.fon.com/) a
couple of times. The rate seemed very reasonable - EUR 3 for a day's access
compared to £10 (EUR 15) per day for The Cloud - and I paid with some money
that's currently trapped by paypal's incompetence (they wouldn't accept
letters in a UK Companies House registration number).
I'm wondering whether to run a FON point. I've line-of-sight down the hill to
a holiday park less than 400m away. If I aim [a 6dBi directional
antenna](https://shop.fon.com/FonShop/shop/GB/ShopController;jsessionid=651AC9806857C6B0C48D130E890533DA?view=product&product=PRD-004)
at it from inside a window, will it reach? Would the 2dBi built-in antenna
reach the pub and shops 100m away? I used wifi while on a city break, but do
people want internet while on a seaside holiday?
[Fon has adopted Ubuntu as its preferred operating
system](http://blog.fon.com/en/archive/technology/fon-abandons-microsoft-
adopts-ubuntu.html) and the CEO also wrote:
> "Fon already is an Open Source company and our software is an Open Source
project called and we should support other Open
Source movements/companies"
which is a good cooperative viewpoint, in my opinion. I'm a bit troubled by
its Skype, Paypal and Google promotions, [BBC Panorama: Wi-Fi: a warning
signal](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/6674675.stm) and Andrew
Savory's [Fon not so much
fun](http://www.andrewsavory.com/blog/archives/001282.html) but it seems like
a good idea at the moment because it would save or make money and I'd finally
have OpenWRT on a router. Are those good enough reasons?
Are there other options? What are they?
### First look at OpenWRT
2007-03: Now, more on those network problems [I
mentioned](http://mjr.towers.org.uk/blog/2007/debian#links0223) \- it looks
like one device on our inbound route is hiccoughing and dropping packets. That
royally screwed up a suboptimal [OpenVPN](http://www.openvpn.net/) and all
VoIP traffic. I've changed some settings on the OpenVPN (made the various MTUs
fit neatly, for example), but I'm still waiting for a response from the
network engineers about the broken device.
While I was investigating, I discovered that the router really doesn't tell me
much useful information, but it should be able to run
[OpenWRT](http://www.openwrt.org/) \- I think I'll try it because being able
to sit on the edge of my network and watch the traffic going past would be
helpful for debugging things
So, has anyone got tips/tricks/warnings about OpenWRT they'd like to share?
Part 2: OK, it's taking longer to find time to do this. The network is holding
up this week and customers have work that needs doing urgently, so I've not
risked bricking the router.
sdf commented:
> "i would try dd-wrt (dd-wrt.de) instead..."
[Mark](http://diveintomark.org/) commented:
> "Install OpenWRT 0.9 (not "Kamikaze", which is a ground-up rewrite in pre-
alpha). Install X-WRT to get webinf^2 (better web interface for
configuration). Read the OpenWRT documentation on how to backup/restore your
firmware. Make a backup once after you get everything configured, again before
installing any major new packages, and again just before a firmware upgrade.
The IRC channel is hit-or-miss but the forums are well-attended by
knowledgeable people. Hope this helps."
Thanks. That's a great help. sebastian commented:
> "Just saw your blog entry, you could have a look at X-WRT, which is an
enhanced web configuration frontend to OpenWRT. ( )
otherwise, they just plain rock (my opinion) ;-)"
Ben Finney commented:
> "One warning I'd give is to make clear that OpenWRT happily sets up a 'non-
free' repository source for its 'ipkg' package manager. This is necessary to
get the Linux 2.4.3x module for most Broadcom wireless chips, and for 'nas'
which is apparently needed for WPA encryption.
>
> I vaguely recall someone announcing recently that free-software drivers were
now available for most Broadcom chipsets, but that's likely only in Linux
2.6.x and may take quite some time to appear in OpenWRT."
I'm aware that I'm pretty screwed by the Broadcom chipset, but it's a step
forwards from where I am. The reply:
> "I'm not sure whether to hope for an improvement. Do you know if the
Broadcom chipset on these devices is one that now has free drivers available?
If so, possibly we could agitate for those drivers to be backported to the
kernel used in OpenWRT."
I don't know, but I guess I'll find out soon.
Thanks for all the great comments so far, but now I'm not sure whether I want
OpenWRT, X-WRT or dd-wrt!
Part 3: More comments, which I think help to narrow my choice to OpenWRT or
FreeWRT. [Kris Marsh](http://moogman.co.uk/) commented:
> "I can't comment on dd-wrt, as I've never tried it. I can, however, say that
OpenWRT is great. Personally, I don't see the point in X-WRT, as I use vi and
/etc/ to modify configs.
>
> Assuming you're handy with Debian (;-)), then you should be just fine
without X-WRT.
>
> Tip: If you want to use WPA, you need to install the "nas" package: "ipkg
install nas". I believe this non-free package is what a previous commenter was
referring to."
Yes, I want to use WPA (I think some of the machines here can't do IPSec and
WEP just isn't good enough) so I guess I have another freedom problem.
I'd be happy with ed, but I might try X-WRT just to see how it copes with my
web browser (I expect badly, like many embedded web apps, but then I could
file bugs or fix it up).
ranf mentioned:
> "There is also a OpenWRT fork named [FreeWRT](http://freewrt.org/) ."
Argh, another candidate! Seriously, thanks for the tip. I'm not sure what it
offers me over OpenWRT, as FreeWRT doesn't list either my router (Belkin POS)
or my office host system (gobo) as supported and I don't intend to install svn
any time soon. I'll probably try its Web Image Builder.
Taneli commented:
> "I believe Kamikaze has open source broadcom drivers (it's using 2.6). No
idea if backport exists, but I'd venture no. Using Kamikaze sounds quite
dangerous, but I haven't tried."
nbd wrote:
> "Hi there. A few comments on your blog post:
>
> The main reason why the free Broadcom drivers haven't been included yet is
because they're simply not ready. The Broadcom SoC needs to be handled
differently than the MiniPCI cards and I'm working with the bcm43xx on that.
Actually the new 2.6 based port is almost complete.
>
> As to which Firmware you want: As an OpenWrt developer I very much recommend
installing X-Wrt on OpenWrt :)
>
> Anyways... Have fun!"
Yes, this is definitely a "fun" choice! I guess I won't know what works until
I JFDI and pick up the pieces.
Glad to hear the Broadcom drivers are still being worked on: I've met a lot of
Broadcom cards and some of them can only be coerced with ndiswrapper, which
isn't good. I wish I knew enough about network hardware to hack sensibly, but
I don't know where to start and there's so much else to do.
Finally, it looks like dd-wrt isn't a good choice. [Yammering (Clint
Adams)](http://xana.scru.org/bamamba/braaaneslayer.html) linked me to [this
rant](http://xwrt.blogspot.com/2007/02/dd-wrt-continues-to-exploit-free-
open.html) and [Simon Farnsworth](http://www.farnz.org.uk) commented along
similar lines:
> "X-WRT is just an easier UI that installs over OpenWRT. DD-WRT is a
competing project to OpenWRT, based on the OpenWRT code, but using such "free"
software techniques as product activation, and per-seat licencing to stop you
"misusing" your GPL rights.
>
> I'd recommend OpenWRT/X-WRT, just because they tend to be more respectful of
licences, and less prone to demanding money with menances."
I've no problem with commercialism itself, but I dislike broken promises and
playing fast-and-loose with copyright. If there's evidence the other way,
please let me know!
### Belkin, I hate you so much right now
So, [as mentioned,](http://mjr.towers.org.uk/blog/2007/software#openwrt) I had
a go at installing [OpenWRT](http://www.openwrt.org/) on my router. It's
pretty definitely broadcom-based, but it's a Belkin F5D7630uk4A, which is
[listed as
Untested](http://wiki.openwrt.org/OpenWrtDocs/Hardware/Belkin/F5D7630?highlight=%28OpenWrtDocs/Hardware%29)
at the OpenWRT site.
Reading up on the similar 7230 made it seem like it shouldn't be too hard,
although the web interface won't take the firmware image, but I'm damned if I
can persuade it to take a tftp upload of anything. I can see it bring the link
up and down while rebooting. Anyone know how to get OpenWRT on one of these?
While messing about, I uploaded the latest Belkin firmware and that's improved
network stability, but added a new problem. After the router has been up a few
hours, I see a problem similar to [this ipw
bug](http://www.bughost.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=1054) and [this madwifi
bug](http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=386951) but I'm using a
bcm43xx (terrible card, by the way). The only way out seems to be reboot the
router, rinse and repeat.
As I've noted before, I'm never buying Belkin again unless something changes.
I've filed a technical support query - let's see if they can save themselves.
Or can anyone help me get OpenWRT on it?
See also: [OpenWRT Forum
post](http://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?pid=44321#p44321).
* Start of this section
* Start of this page
* [All topics](../)
* * *
## sxw2text
I wrote [sxw2text](http://mjr.towers.org.uk/software.html#sxw2text) as a
5-minute email-helper hack some years ago.
Now I notice that there's also a version of [sxw2txt in python](http://www
.blognote-info.com/index.php?2005/06/10/154-fonction-sxw2txt-en-python) on a
French site, but it doesn't seem to do any checking at all, not even the
minimal bit of my script.
Update: following more links, I found
[odt2txt.py](http://www.freewisdom.org/projects/python-markdown/odt2txt.php)
which outputs markdown and is probably a better choice if you have python
installed.
* Start of this section
* Start of this page
* [All topics](../)
* * *
[Comment form for non-frame browsers](../../comp/respond.pl).
Comments are moderated (damn spammers) but almost anything sensible gets
approved (albeit eventually). If you give a web address, I'll link it. I won't
publish your email address unless you ask me to, but I'll email you a link
when the comment is posted, or the reason why it's not posted.
* * *
## Blog Tools
* Items moved to [new page](blogtools)
* [HTML in RSS](blogtools#htmlinrssblogtools)
* [The Aggregator](blogtools#aggblogtools)
* Start of this page
* [All topics](../)
* * *
## Koha
* Items moved to [new page](koha)
* [Koha at Crimea 2007](koha#confkoha)
* [Koha Debian Packages](koha#debkoha)
* [A survey of OPAC wants](koha#surveykoha)
* [Installing a complex perl web application](koha#stealkoha)
* Start of this page
* [All topics](../)
This is copyright 2007 MJ Ray. See fuller notice on [front page](/).