Gridwars, Karmic-style

So, I became a fan of GridWars in  no small part to RedDead’s article on Ubuntumini.com.

However, under Karmic Koala, GridWars refuses to launch, even with the changes to the config file. This is due to the game requiring libstdc++.so.5, which simply is not available in Ubuntu 9.10 When running the game, you get:

/Downloads/gridwars_lin$ ./gridwars
./gridwars: error while loading shared libraries: libstdc++.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Also, if you use a deb from getdeb.net built for Intrepid or Jaunty, the installer reports an unresolveable dependency.

The solution is to install libstdc++.so.5. From where? Get a handy .deb from packages.debian.org. It installs perfectly on Ubuntu 9.10, and then you can install Gridwars from the official page here.

I’ve had issues getting the gridwars .debs to run properly on the netbook remix due to the resolution even after setting the config, so I just get the archive & run it after installing the libstdc++.so.5. Works great.

Give it a whirl.

Karmic Netbook – 2 weeks in

So I finally got UNR 9.10 installed cleanly on the Mini 9. It runs beautifully, with noticeably faster boot times and a generally smoother experience in the GUI. Also, i notice that the wireless connects much more quickly this time around. I suspect that there has been some improvements to network-manager. Either way, it’s great.

Also, the /home partition is easily encrypted with just a simple checkbox during install. Security & speed. Can’t ask for much more than that

Karmic Netbook

I installed the UNR 9.10 the other day, as an in-place upgrade, as 9.10 didn’t want to get to a full desktop on my Mini 9. It does boot up with acpi off and a couple of other incantations, however.

It’s snazzy, but I’ll hold off on opinions until after I’ve done a clean install this week. Stay tuned.

Netbook Remix:Smooth Sailing

I haven’t updated in a while. Mostly, this has been due to some real-world activities unrelated to this blog’s topics of linux/gamig/other general geekery.

However, I’ve hit a drought in terms of content, primarily because I haven’t run into any issues. My Mini 9 has been running beautifully with UNR 9.04 on EXT4. flawlessly, in fact.

That being said, I’m hoping that 9.10 brings some exciting features. I hear that boot times are greatly improved, although it’s pretty fast on my SSD already. I hear that Pidgin is being dropped for Empathy. we’ll see how that goes…

I have ubuntuone installed,  but I haven’t tried it ouch much. I’ll try to take it for a spin repoirt back.

In other news, I’ve digging into my backlog of 360 games.

wireless surgery completed: Mini with 3945 Intel

Alright, the broadcom started acting up again 2 days in a row, so I wasted no more time fighting it.
Within a few minutes, I had the bottom panel of the Mini 9 opened, and the wireless cards swapped with the lid replaced. Once I added the new MAC to my router’s approved list, the Mini is back in business, just the way I like it.

wireless card arrived, still in wrapper

Just an update.

Got the new Intel wireless card today from UPS. However, I haven’t installed it yet. The MIni is working perfectly right now, and I don’t want to do anything to break things again.

Love having my little war driver again.

Intel 3945 en route

Well, after tiring of trying to get the standard Broadcom 4312bcm wireless card to work again in the Mini, I’ve gone ahead and ordered an Intel 3945ABG mini pci wireless card from Amazon. I believe it’s the same as in my Inspiron 1420, and should work flawlessly.

Shipping was free, but it could more than a week to arrive. We’ll see if $30 will fix my Mini’s woes.

Broadcom 4312 dying? AKA No buffer space available

My Mini 9 appears to have suffered a grievous internal wound; perhaps requiring surgery. A few weeks ago, the wireless started acting up. It seems to connect to my router fine, and signal strength is solid.

However, after about 5-10 minutes, sometimes quicker, all traffic dies. Network Manager reports that i”m still connected, with great signal strength, but all ping attempts to my router result in:
ping: sendmsg: No buffer space available

At first, I suspected it was overheating, as the mini has no fan or other moving parts, so I left it on a cold stone floor. No real change. I did some searching, and found that in previous releases this was discovered and fixed with a kernel update in backports. However, I’m running the Jaunty 9.04 UNR release, and the Broadcom wireless has been working fine since I’ve had the machine in December. This has me truly stumped, and  I”ve submitted my own bug report on Launchpad. Hopefully someone smarter than I will come to my rescue.

If not, then I may just have to buy an intel 3945 Mini PCI wireless card to replace it. It appears they are not too expensive, and my Inspiron 1420 runs flawlessly.

Until then, my Mini is stranded

Jaunty Netbook Remix: Improved battery life?

OK,

It’s been approxmately a week since  I’ve installed the 9.04 UNR on the Mini 9. I did a completely clean install, backing up my longtime /home partition and formatting both / and /home as Ext4, just so I can see what all the fuss is about.

I got the 9.04 .img file and installed the Ubuntu Image Writer, put it on my trusty 4gig USB flashdrive and booted up.

The install went smoothly, as usual. A little snazzier menus, but generally the same, except for picking Ext4.

After install,  I re-applied  my /home files, disabled Maximus (I hate the auto-maximizing of everything) made a few tweaks and rebooted.
At first, it seemed like I was getting much poorer battery life than under 8.10, to the tune of at least an hour. Previously, I was getting about 3:15. Now with this new release, it was reporting exactly 2:00 exactly for battery life.

Not good. At all.

However, after reading up a bit, I let the netbook drain completely, to the point the system does it’s own graceful shutdown as the battery shuts down. That’s a neat feature, by the way. With only a minute or to, and a warning as well, Ubuntu will do a full shutdown process, so you’re not stuck with an abruptly-dead machine and potentially corrupt files. After it was dead, I plugged it back in and let it charge overnight.

This morning I powered it back on and set it to running a few typical tasks, to prevent th machine from going to sleep and let it drain again from a full charge. While the power manager is not accurate for duration ( it initially reported 2:30 this time around) just before  going dead again i ran ‘uptime’ and was informed the system has been powered on for nearly 3:30 on its own battery.
Very impressive for my needs, and on a 4 cell battery.

In other news, 9.04 boots *very* fast. Haven’t timed it, but much quicker than 8.10.

Mini 9 Bios A05 now available: Still no official Linux support

Coincidentally with Jaunty right around the corner, Dell has released Bios version A05 for the Mini 9, in a Win32 .exe and a DOS-only version as well. Of course, there is still no officially approved method to update via linux unfortunately. Well, there is, but it’s outdated and reports are that it’s never worked well.
Also, nothing newer than A01 is recommended even though users report that they are getting them shipped with A02 or newer.

In any event, I’ve been running with each successive bios upgrade, from A00 on up til today’s release, A05.

While I agree that there should be a native way to update the bios easily, I’m a bit pragmatic, using the appropriate tool for any given job. For simplicity, I just use a 64mb usb flash drive that’s formatted to be DOS-bootable and run the update in that environment.
With this latest A05 release, th DOS version is a simple executable as well. I just placed it on my DOS flash drive, booted to it, and ran the new exe. The system immediately processed the upgrade and rebooted. Now my Mini 9 is running Bios A05, vanilla Ubuntu 8.10 i386  with the Netbook Remix, and everything is running smoothly.

However, I would like to know what Dell is doing, not providing a way to upgrade the BIOS to their own hardware for Ubuntu…