As is usually the case, adding additional packages is essential to getting the computer working right for me.

Add Codecs, Java, and other Customizations

The official way to do this is documented in the Ubuntu Wiki under CommonCustomizations. There is also a wiki page on EasyCodecInstallation. The official meta package is called “ubuntu-restricted-extras” and this installs:

• MP3 playback and decoding
• Sun Java runtime environment
• Flash plugin
• DVD playback
• LAME (to create MP3 compressed audio files)
• msttcorefonts (may be missing in kubuntu extras)
• DeCSS script to download and install for DVD viewing

$ sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras
$ sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh
$ sudo apt-get install msttcorefonts

Add the ability to compile, edit, and maintain code

Here are the compilers and their documents
$ sudo apt-get install build-essential subversion-tools gcc-4.2-doc glibc-doc manpages-dev
$ sudo apt-get install mingw32 mingw32-binutils mingw32-runtime
I need access to subversion and XSLT ChangeLog tools
$ sudo apt-get install subversion-tools
$ sudo apt-get install xsltproc
I install a couple of editors, useful for various things. Kate is already installed.
$ sudo apt-get install scite
$ sudo apt-get install vim-full
Useful tools for cleaning up code, converting comments and line endings, and code statistics:
$ sudo apt-get install splint
$ sudo apt-get install sloccount
$ sudo apt-get install indent
$ sudo apt-get install liwc
$ sudo apt-get install tofrodos

Add favorite online music source and music/video player VLC

$ sudo apt-get install streamtuner
$ sudo apt-get install vlc

Add the Adobe Flash Plugin and Sun Java JRE

A lot of websites use Flash or Java for their user interface, so it seems that they are essential.

$ sudo apt-get install adobe-flashplugin
$ sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jre

Get rid of annoying PC speaker beep

Using a console, remove the PC Speaker driver from the kernel:
$ sudo modprobe -r pcspkr
Create /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-user.conf and add a line to keep the PC Speaker driver from automatically loading:

# Keep the annoying beep from occurring
# don't load the PC Speaker driver
blacklist pcspkr

SynapticsTouchpad

The laptop has a touchpad, which is really annoying when you also have a USB mouse attached, because the touchpad picks up thumps made by my big fingers and makes the mouse click somewhere that you didn’t want it to click.  Correcting this in Ubunut Jaunty is as easy as selecting System > Preferences > Mouse, under the Touchpad tab. Uncheck the Enable mouse clicks with touchpad check box.

1. Figure out how to do BACnet segmentation
2. Figure out how to get BACnet MS/TP into libpcap/winpcap.
3. Add a couple of BACnet dissector enhancements to Wireshark.
4. Learn about using Wireshark for problem network analysis.

I attended Laura Chappell’s training sessions, and learned a whole lot about Network analysis and the love-hate relationship between TCP/IP SYN, ACK, and Keepalives (#4 completed). I also wrote some Wireshark code during the classes which I promply submitted (#3 completed). Loris came into the activity center and sat down with my son Joshua and me, and so we discussed how to integrate BACnet MS/TP RS485 from serial port into libpcap/winpcap (#2 completed). On the last day and the last session of the conference, I attended a session by Richard Sharpe about file sharing protocols and learned about Wireshark conversations (#1 completed).

We were treated to an inspiration talk on Tuesday morning by Vint Cerf. After the talk, I went to Laura’s session, and Joshua talked to Vint. Vint signed Joshua’s Half-Life player guide, had photos taken with Vint and Gerald, and the Wireshark crew gave Joshua some swag.

Gerald treated the developers to dinner on Tuesday night at Trader Vic’s. I drove to dinner with Joshua and Jaap Keuter, and learned about PBX systems and Jaap’s passion for skydiving. At dinner I sat next to Ulf Lamping and learned about yet another division of Siemens and about Ulf’s love for motorcycle riding. Guy Harrris and Mike sat across from me.  Joshua ate with Gerald’s wife and daughter, and John Bruno’s wife.

The Foothill College campus was beautiful and on Spring Break. The food was awesome and plentiful.  The people were great!  The Wireshark sessions were helpful.  Maybe I will get to attend next year.

Using Inkscape, a free and open source graphics illustration application, I fit four single puzzle pieces together and colored them. Then I fit those four pieces together until I had a small mat of puzzle pieces. I tried to match the color scheme with an Autism ribbon that I had seen. I exported the small mat into PNG format. I used the GIMP, a free and open source image manipulation tool, to add several of these together. I ended up with an autism puzzle background that I could create shapes or words in using the GIMP and masks.

I never did use the words on the website. I did use the small four puzzle piece on the website. The Autism puzzle piece also seems to be a popular search term for that site.

I fired up SciTE with the problem file, and selected Options – Convert Line End Characters. After saving the changes, I promptly committed the problem file to subversion without having to change thesvn:eol-style option for that file. Problem solved!

#!/bin/bash
# files are read/write for group and owner
find $1 -type f -exec chmod 660 {} \;
# directories are read/write/cd-able/inherited GID
find $1 -type d -exec chmod 02770 {} \;
# make these files owner=nobody, group=users
chown -R nobody:users $1

I setup Samba to mimic the Linux file system, and forced some settings when new files and directories are created. Here is my smb.conf entry:

[data]
comment = Common Data Directory
path = /home/skarg/data
force user = nobody
force group = users
read only = No
create mask = 0660
force create mode = 0660
directory mask = 02770
force directory mode = 02770
inherit permissions = Yes
guest ok = Yes

Normally, you can add a CIFS mount in /etc/fstab, and specify the UID and GID that the linux filesystem will use. But the cifs filesystem mount wasn’t using the UID that I specified, and that’s when I discovered that Samba now has unix extensions, which cause the problem that I was seeing. Unix extensions can be turned off in samba by adding the following line to /etc/samba/smb.conf:

[global]
unix extensions = no
I also turned off the extensions on the workstation:

echo 0 > /proc/fs/cifs/LinuxExtensionsEnabled

I was trying to get one of the other Ubuntu Server based linux servers to mount the Windows share, but kept getting an error message:

CIFS VFS: cifs_mount failed w/return code = -22