Installing Debian Lenny on a ThinkPad T60
Contents
- 1 Debian Lenny on a T60 6371-6NU
- 1.1 Installation
- 1.2 The First Boot: getting the ball rolling
- 1.3 Xorg.conf
- 1.4 Configuring the package manager
- 1.5 Installing Packages
- 1.6 Fingerprint reader
- 1.7 A few /etc configurations
- 1.8 Build your own kernel (the Debian way)
- 1.9 Wireless with madwifi
- 1.10 tp_smapi
- 1.11 Configuring ACPI
- 1.12 64-bit headaches
Debian Lenny on a T60 6371-6NU
You might also want to check out Debian Etch on a Thinkpad T60 HowTo and Installing_Debian_Lenny_on_a_ThinkPad_T61.
In case you can't decode the Thinkpad model number above, here are the specs (I've left out modem, infrared, cardbus since I haven't ever used them):
| Processor | Intel Core 2 Duo (Merom) 1.83GHz |
| Graphics Adaptor | Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 |
| Display | 15.4" TFT display with 1200x800 resolution (widescreen) |
| RAM | 1 GB PC2-5300 (upgraded to 2GB) |
| Harddisk | 120GB 5400 RPM Hitatchi HTS54161 |
| Audio | AD1981HD HD Audio 1.0 controller |
| Ethernet | 82573L Gigabit Ethernet Controller |
| Optical | LG-Hitatchi HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-4083N Dual Layer DVD+/-RW |
| Wireless | Atheros AR5418 |
| Biometric | STMicroelectronics Fingerprint Reader |
I'm going to do everything in Linux (i.e. assume that you already have a running linux version running somewhere else).
Installation
These are instructions for getting the most customised, minimal base Debian system running. As such, you can probably go with your gut and ignore some of these steps for example using the "expert" install mode or deselecting all but the base system packages.
- First of all, get the "businesscard" cd image for amd64 if you want to run 64 bit or i386 if you want 32 bit. Note that flash now works in 64 bit(see this article on the "debian adminstration" blog), java is possible, but a little trickier (see below). If you do however go 64 bit you won't be able to use proprietary 32 bit modules in your kernel. Most notably, ndiswrapper won't work with 32-bit windows drivers.
- Burn the cd image to a cd with the command
cdrecord -v debian-testing-amd64-businesscard.iso
You may find that you need to add dev=/dev/cdrom (or whatever your burning device is) to the above command. - Now stick in the newly burned disc and reboot.
- At the "boot:" prompt type "expert (you could also just hit enter, but you won't get as much control over what's about to be installed on your computer).
- Go through the install menu using my answers as outlined below as a guide. You will obviously want to tailor things to your specific situation:
- Choose Language
- Choose Language:
English - Choose a locale:
en_CA (stick with ascii for the default since UTF screws up some terminals) - Choose other locales to be supported:
en_CA.UTF-8
en_GB.UTF-8
en_GB
en_GB.ISO-8859-15
en_US.UTF-8
en_US
en_US.ISO_8859_15
- Choose Language:
- Select a Keyboard layout
- Type of Keyboard:
PC-Style - Keymap to use:
American English
- Type of Keyboard:
- Detect and mount CD-ROM
- Modules to load:
<none> (deselect usb-storage, its not needed unless your using a external USB CD drive to read the install disc)
- Modules to load:
- Load installer components from CD:
- Installer components to load:
<none>
- Installer components to load:
- Detect network hardware
- Modules to load:
<none>(I don't imagine you'd need usb-storage here either unless you were using a USB networking device)
- Modules to load:
- Configure the network
- Auto-configure DHCP:
yes - Hostname:
<omitted> - Domain Name:
<omitted>
- Auto-configure DHCP:
- Choose a mirror of the Debian archive
- Protocol for file downloads:
ftp (might be a tiny bit faster than http, though the latter is less likely not to work if you're behind a draconian firewall. http is also slightly easier because you get a list of available mirrors whereas with ftp, you have to know the address already) - Debian archive mirror hostname:
mirrors.kernel.org - Debian archive mirror directory:
/debian - FTP proxy information:
<blank> (unless you're behind one of the draconian firewalls mentioned above, in which case figure out the proxy to use from your network administrator.) - Debian version to install:
testing
- Protocol for file downloads:
- Configure the clock
- Set the clock using NTP?:
yes - NTP Server to use:
ntp.ubc.ca (though the default provided or any other you prefer should work just as well.) - Select your timezone:
Pacific
- Set the clock using NTP?:
- Detect disks
- Modules to load:
<none> (again not necessary unless you want to install onto a USB drive)
- Modules to load:
- Partition Disks
- Partition Method:
manual - This depends largely on personal preference, and needs, but here's how I set up the disks:
200MB EXT3 /boot
1.0GB swap
15GB XFS /
2GB XFS /var
All remaining disk space XFS /home
I use XFS because this tends to be faster than ext3. Reiserfs is also a good alternative but takes a little longer to mount at bootup. Grub has some problems reading XFS, so I use ext3 for the /boot partition. If you're keeping your windows partition, just leave it alone, we'll get to that in a bit. Once you're done setting things up select "Finish partitioning and write changes to disk. - Write chages to disk?:
yes
- Partition Method:
- Install the base system
- Kernel to install:
linux-image-2.6.22-3-amd64 (or whatever newer one is available by the time you read this).
- Kernel to install:
- Setup users and passwords
- Enable shadow passwords:
yes (duh) - Allow login as root:
yes (unless you're really paranoid) - Root password:
<omitted> - Create a normal user account now?:
yes - Full Name:
<omitted> - Username for your account:
<omitted> - Password:
<omitted>
- Enable shadow passwords:
- Configured the package manager
- Use non-free packages:
yes (unless you have some restrictions ideological or otherwise) - Services to use:
security updates
volatile updates
- Use non-free packages:
- Select and install software
- Participate in package usage survey?:
yes (why not help make Debian even better?) - Choose software to install:
It's up to you to decide whether you want to select go with the default Desktop environment, Laptop and Standard System or just install a bare bones system and deal with it later. I will assume however that you have selected none of them in the remainder of this howto.
- Participate in package usage survey?:
- Install GRUB boot loader on hard disk
- Install GRUB 2:
no (for some reason it doesn't work) - Device for bootloader installation:
/dev/sda (unless you have some other bootloader you want to use to chain to GRUB). - Grub password:
<omitted> (don't make this your root password as it ends up in your menu.lst file as plaintext).
- Install GRUB 2:
- Skip LILO (unless you like pain)
- Debconf priority:
- Prompt at or above:
critical (I want to be able to automate updates) - Finish the installation
- Prompt at or above:
- Finish the installation
The First Boot: getting the ball rolling
If you went with the bare-bones system in the package selection above, you should boot up to a commandline login prompt (X-Windows hasn't been installed yet). Log in as root. It's now time to install the packages necessary to get things running. You'll find that thanks to the business card installation, you have an up to date system (i.e., aptitude update&& aptitude dist-upgrade won't find any packages needing upgrade. So lets get on with installing all the packages necessary to get things looking a little more like home.
First of all, there are a few things even in the base system that you probably won't need so get rid of them:
aptitude purge nano pcmciautils tasksel tasksel-data vim-common vim-tiny
Of course, you'll want to keep pcmciautils if you plan on using antiquated pcmcia cards. Similarly you may want to keep vim and/or nano if you use those editors. If on the other hand, you're like me, you don't and you'll then want to
aptitude install emacs
Now if you're like me and you're craving a windowed multitasking work environment before you go any further, you can just do
aptitude install xorg gdm <your favourite window manager (e.g. gnome or openbox)>
Now do a
/etc/init.d/gdm start
And you should get a login screen.
Xorg.conf
Ah, the infamous xorg.conf. Luckily, since you're running Debian lenny on an Intel integrated graphics chip, editing xorg.conf isn't strictly necessary. Intel has gone to a lot of trouble to make this as painless as possible. God help you if on the other hand, you got a model with an ATI X1300 or ATI X1400 graphics card. I made a few modifications to the automatically generated xorg.conf that might be of interest.
Horizontal edge scrolling
Edge scrolling has to be my favourite pointing device feature ever, thus I find it rather annoying that it is only half enabled by default. In particular you'll find that though vertical scrolling works like a charm, horizontal scrolling along the bottom of the touchpad doesn't work. Additionally, I find that the default threshold edge distance to initiate scrolling is a little on the large side for my slender fingers. I also find that the corner button emulation tends to be accidentally activated while using edge scrolling so I disable it. Thus, I have updated the relevant input device section to make use of some of the options documented on the Synaptics Touchpad page
Xinerama
There is also the issue of using dual monitors. You'll be surprised to find that it "just works" if you have an external monitor plugged in. Well, it kind of "just works" if you like having the displays that is. If, on the other hand you want to expand your desktop, you can either do the configuration on the fly with XRandR, or make it permanent by making the appropriate modifications to xorg.conf
Configuring the package manager
The best thing about Debian is the package manager. Thus, you want to make sure it's configured optimally to get the best use out of it before you go any further. Once you're logged in, you can edit the /etc/apt/sources.list file so that it can find more packages than the default. Below is my sources.list file.
# testing - lenny deb ftp://mirrors.kernel.org/debian/ lenny main contrib non-free deb-src ftp://mirrors.kernel.org/debian/ lenny main contrib non-free # stable - etch deb ftp://mirrors.kernel.org/debian/ etch main contrib non-free deb-src ftp://mirrors.kernel.org/debian/ etch main contrib non-free # unstable - sid deb ftp://mirrors.kernel.org/debian/ sid main contrib non-free deb-src ftp://mirrors.kernel.org/debian/ sid main contrib non-free # experimental deb ftp://mirrors.kernel.org/debian/ experimental main contrib non-free deb-src ftp://mirrors.kernel.org/debian/ experimental main contrib non-free # security updates deb http://security.debian.org/ lenny/updates main contrib non-free deb-src http://security.debian.org/ lenny/updates main contrib non-free
You'll notice that I've also included entries for etch and sid in addition to experimental. If you use a different mirror than mirrors.kernel.org, you'll want to make sure that it hosts the experimental branch. This is where we'll find the package for the fingerprint reader. I include stable and unstable for completeness in case there are packages I want that that are only available in unstable, or if I want to revert to a version of a package in stable. Note that the order you specify the branches in the sources.list file makes no difference, thus in order to maintain priority for lenny packages (over sid or experimental which in general have newer packages), I also have an /etc/apt/preferences file with pin priorties:
Package: * Pin: release o=Debian,a=stable Pin-Priority: 300 Package: * Pin: release o=Debian,a=testing Pin-Priority: 600 Package: * Pin: release o=Debian,a=unstable Pin-Priority: 200 Package: * Pin: release o=Debian,a=experimental Pin-Priority: 100
Basically this is saying that unless I specify otherwise, "testing" (lenny) packages are to be preferred over "stable" (etch) over "unstable" (sid) over "experimental". A lower Pin-Priority means lower precedence. If you want to override this precedence, you can either use the aptitude gui and select a specific version to install or add the flag -t <target branch> to your aptitude install <package> command. If you do this in such a way as to select a package that has a newer, higher priority alternative available, it will be upgraded next time you do an aptitude upgrade unless you pin that particular package version (see the relevant section of the apt howto).
Now that we have that sorted out we should do an
aptitude update
If by some chance you get an annoying message like
W: GPG error: <servername> <branch> Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 07DC563D1F41B907 W: You may want to run apt-get update to correct these problems
(especially annoying because it happens when you run apt-get update as well), the solution is to run the following command:
gpg --keyserver wwwkeys.eu.pgp.net --recv-keys 07DC563D1F41B907 && apt-key add /root/.gnupg/pubring.gpg && aptitude update
where you of course replace "07DC563D1F41B907" with what ever public key you get in the orginal GPG error message. Now of course, the reason this is happening is to ensure your security. You don't want to be downloading packages from unknown or forged sources, so don't just go verifying keys willy nilly without thinking about why you might be getting such a message. In particular, if the message appears even though you haven't recently changed your mirror, something fishy might be going on.
Installing Packages
You might notice that even once you have your favourite window manager running, you're still missing quite a bit in terms of software beyond the basic operating system.
Essentials
Here are a few highly recommended packages:
| acpi-support | a set of scripts intended to respond to acpi events such as Fn-_ key combinations. |
| apt-file | allows you to search file names in uninstalled pacakges |
| aterm | a lightweight terminal |
| cabextract | extract files from windows installation executables |
| colordiff | like your old friend diff for identifying dissimilarities between files, but easier on the eyes |
| cpufrequtils | init scripts to setup cpu frequency scaling at boot |
| cupsys | cups print server (you'll need it if you want to print) |
| dash | a light weight bash-like-shell (use it for your init scripts or anything else you want to speed up) |
| deborphan | find unused packages |
| defoma | Debian font manager - makes activating fonts easier |
| emacs-goodies-el | like it says, nice addons for emacs |
| flashplugin-nonfree | yep, it works on 64 bit |
| gimp | Opensource gui image editor rivalling Photoshop in power, quality and comprehensiveness. |
| gv | Ghost View for viewing .ps documents |
| hdapsd | Daemon to stop the disk if the accelerometer detects shocks. |
| ia32-sun-java5-bin | 32 bit java 5 (with plugin) |
| iceweasel | Rebranded Firefox web browser |
| ifplugd | monitors the hard-wired Ethernet and brings the interface up or down automatically depending on link presence. |
| imagemagick | Command line image editor and conversion utilities unrivalled in batch processing power. |
| laptop-mode-tools | Reduce power consumption by reducing hard disk use while on battery |
| less | command line text reader with backscrolling |
| libpam-thinkfinger | used to get the finger print reader running |
| libtrash | Universal trash can diverts file removal from any program using libc6 so deleted files wind up in ~/Trash |
| localepurge | Clean up documentation in unused languages. |
| menu | Manage system-wide menus |
| msttcorefonts | Microsoft fonts |
| ntfsprogs | mount your windows ntfs partition read/write |
| ntp | daemon to regularly syncronise system clock with network time servers |
| ntpdate | used to do one-off on-demand syncrhonisation with network time servers |
| openoffice.org | open source productivity software |
| prelink | optimises share libraries for better program load performance |
| sleepd | automated sleep daemon |
| mlocate | periodically indexes the file system for fast searching |
| smartmontools | monitor harddisk health |
| sysv-rc-conf | ncurses gui to activate and deactivate init scripts |
| ttf-bitstream-vera | bitstream vera true type fonts |
| ttf-dejavu | dejavu truetype fonts |
| ttf-freefont | free truetype fonts |
| unrar | extractor for the archive format popular among hackers |
| unzip | extractor for the winzip archive format |
| wpagui | gui for the wireless wpa supplicant |
| wpasupplicant | the wpa supplicant backend |
| xfsdump | for backing up mounted xfs filesystems |
| xpdf | for viewing pdf files |
To install all of the above:
aptitude install acpi-support apt-file aterm cabextract colordiff cpufrequtils cupsys dash defoma deborphan emacs emacs-goodies-el flashplugin-nonfree gdm gimp gv hdapsd ia32-sun-java5-bin iceweasel ifplugd imagemagick laptop-mode-tools less libpam-thinkfinger libtrash localepurge menu msttcorefonts ntfsprogs ntp ntpdate openoffice.org prelink sleepd mlocate smartmontools sysv-rc-conf ttf-bitstream-vera ttf-dejavu ttf-freefont unrar unzip wpagui wpasupplicant xfsdump xorg xpdf
Recommended
Then there are a few package I like that you may also want to check out depending on your preferences/habits.
| alsamixergui | nice mixer app |
| arping | like ping, but gives you mac address if its available |
| bc | arbitrary precision command line calculator (good for scripting) |
| bmon | command line network bandwidth monitor |
| css-mode | css syntax for emacs |
| devilspie | Watches for new xwindows matching configured parameters and acts on them. Very powerful. |
| dmz-cursor-theme | Make your cursors a little easier on the eyes |
| equivs | for making "ghost" packages to satisfy dependences for example when you compile something from source |
| ftnchek | check Fortran syntax |
| gawk | extended version of awk |
| genisoimage | create cdrom ISO's before burning them. |
| gkrellm | performance monitoring gui |
| gkrelltop | plugin for above showing top resource consuming processes |
| gkrellmwireless | plugin for above showing wireless signal strength |
| gparted | graphical partition manager |
| gphotofs | for mounting digital cameras |
| grip | excellent cd ripping functionality using cdparanoia backend |
| gsl-bin | binary files for powerful scientific computing library |
| gsl-ref-html | documentation for powerful scientific computing library |
| gtkguitune | guitar tuner gui with oscilloscope-like interface |
| hdaps-utils | for reading and visualising the accelerometer output |
| html-helper-mode | enhanced emacs html syntax |
| ibritish | british flavour of ispell |
| id3v2 | id3v2 (and v1) mp3 tag reader and editor |
| k3b | powerful cd/dvd burning gui |
| lastfm | preference based internet radio and social networking |
| libgsl0-dev | powerful scientific computing library headers for compiling your own code |
| libsox-fmt-all | audio file formats for sox, the command line audio player/recorder |
| lsdvd | view the contents of a video dvd |
| lshw | show comprehensive list of system hardware and specifications |
| lsof | display currently open files (good for figuring out what the hell is going on) |
| mp3gain | losslessly normalise mp3's |
| mp3rename | rename mp3's based on id3 tags |
| mutt | powerful terminal-based email client |
| myspell-en-gb | british myspell (used by open office) |
| nfs-common | for mounting nfs drives |
| nmap | for probing open ports locally and remotely |
| nxml-mode | xml syntax for emacs |
| obconf | configuration gui for openbox |
| offlineimap | sync imap folder so you have a local copy accesible when no internet is available |
| openbox | versatile lightweight window manager |
| openssh-server | allows remote login |
| pbzip2 | make full use of the dual core when bzipping things. |
| post-el | emacs email syntax intended for use with mutt |
| powertop | see what's causing your processor to wake up and use more battery power |
| pypanel | lightweight configurable panel |
| qiv | quick image viewer good for slide shows |
| rsync | efficient remote and local copying. Copies only differences and ssh for secure communication |
| samba | windows file server/client software |
| screen | powerful detachable/reattachable terminal interface |
| smbfs | allows mounting of windows shares |
| sox | command line audio recording and playing utilities |
| sshfs | allows mount of remote trees on ssh server machines with no special remote configuration |
| sux | su that passes proper Xauthority |
| sysstat | command line system monitoring |
| udftools | tools dealing with the filesystem common in optical media |
| unclutter | hide of mouse cursor when its not being used. |
| unison | keep local and remote filesystems in sync using the rsync protocol and ssh |
| urlview | open urls in mutt with your favourite browser |
| wbritish-huge | large british words list |
| whois | detailed domain querying command |
| wmctrl | control window manager from the command line |
| wodim | command line cd buring (successor to cdrecord) |
| xclip | command line x clipboard tool feed standard input into clipboard, extract clipboard to standard output. |
| xmms | x multimedia system winamp-like mp3/media player |
| xmms-cdread | read cd's via the digital link rather than rely on that annoying analogue cable |
| xmms-crossfade | for gapless playback |
| xmms-shell | for command line control of xmms |
| xmms-skins | skins for xmms |
| xosd-bin | for writing on screen display messages from the command line |
| xosview | performance monitor gui (key feature is the irq monitor) |
| xscreensaver | locks the screen after inactivity |
To install all of the above:
aptitude install alsamixergui apt-file arping bc bmon colordiff css-mode deborphan devilspie dmz-cursor-theme equivs freeglut3 ftnchek gawk genisoimage gkrellm gkrelltop gkrellmwireless gparted gphotofs grip gsl-bin gsl-ref-html gtkguitune hdaps-utils html-helper-mode ibritish id3v2 k3b lastfm libformsgl1 libgsl0-dev libsox-fmt-all lsdvd lshw lsof mkisofs mp3gain mp3rename mutt myspell-en-gb nfs-common nmap nxml-mode obconf offlineimap openbox openssh-server pbzip2 post-el powertop pypanel qiv rsync samba screen smbfs sox sshfs sux sysstat udftools unclutter unison urlview wbritish-huge whois wmctrl wodim xclip xmms xmms-cdread xmms-crossfade xmms-shell xmms-skins xosd-bin xosview xscreensaver
Fingerprint reader
Ok, admit it. This is the real reason you got a thinkpad. Getting the fingerprint reader is surprisingly easy with the new open source thinkfinger driver. This is highly recommended over the binary only driver which I have found is less stable even leading xscreensaver to crash and expose the desktop without a provided fingerprint or password!
If you didn't install it among the packages above, see the relevant section of the howto.
Once you have it installed, you must instruct PAM to use it so that it will ask for your fingerprint when you login with gdm or at the command line (or any thing else that uses PAM). To make it brief and more Debian-specific, you want your /etc/pam.d/common-auth file's only uncommented lines to be
auth sufficient pam_thinkfinger.so auth required pam_unix.so nullok_secure try_first_pass
Then you want to enroll the fingerprints of any users as well as also root
tf-tool --add-user <username> tf-tool --add-user root
This will put the fingerprint patterns in /etc/pam_thinkfinger/<username>.bir. You may also want to make sure you have the uinput module probed by typing lsmod | grep uinput. If not, then probe it (modprobe uinput) and put it into your /etc/modules file to be probed on boot
echo uinput >> /etc/moduleds
Now for the icing on the cake. If you have xscreensaver (>=5.0) or a sufficiently recent version of gnome-screensaver, you can use your fingerprint to unlock the screen as well.
A few /etc configurations
hdapsd
Hdapsd is the daemon that monitors the accelerometer and parks the hard disk heads if it detects sudden movement of the laptop. It does however need to be told what to protect. By default it works on /dev/hda, but modern thinkpads use SATA and so this needs to be changed to /dev/sda. This is set in the file /etc/default/hdapsd, where you must change the line DISK="hda" to DISK="sda".
exim4-config
You need to tell exim how to send mail. To do this, type
dpkg-reconfigure exim4-config
and follow the dialogs. To be honest, I have trouble sorting through exactly what I want each one to say whenever I do this. Here are the answers I decided on:
- Mail sent by smarthost;recieved via SMTP or fetchmail
- System mail name: The FQDN of my laptop
- IP-addresses to listen on:127.0.0.1
- Other destinations for which . . .: same as system mail name
- Machines to relay mail for: <blank>
- IP address or host name of outgoing smarthost: (this is the server to which your machine should send outgoing mail) Since my mail server requires an SSL/TSL connection on port 587, I must suffix the server name with "::587". Note the two colons.
- Hide mail name in outgoing mail: yes
- Visible domain name for local users: same as mail name
- DNS queries minimal?:no
- Delivery method:/var/mail
- Small files?:no
Then, I edit the file /etc/email-addresses so that it says
<my user name>:my.email.address@server.com
Then I make sure that mail to root goes to me by ensuring that /etc/aliases looks as follows:
# /etc/aliases mailer-daemon: postmaster postmaster: root nobody: root hostmaster: root usenet: root news: root webmaster: root www: root ftp: root abuse: root noc: root security: root root: <my user name>
and that mail sent to me ends up at my regular email address:
echo my.email.address@server.com > ~/.forward
Finally, since as I mentioned, I'm using SSL/TLS, I have to put my user name and password (for the outgoing mail server) in the file /etc/exim4/passwd.client, which unfortunately must be plain text. The format is as follows:
mail.server.address:username:password
Then I restart exim4
/etc/init.d/exim4 restart
and send some test emails in various contexts:
mail -s 'test from user to user' <myusername> mail -s 'test form user to root' root mail -s 'test from user to outside' alternateemail@alternateserver.com su mail -s 'test from root to user' <myusername> mail -s 'test form root to root' root mail -s 'test from root to outside' alternateemail@alternateserver.com exit
and hope all those emails go where I expected them to.
If you run into trouble, check the various subdirectories of /var/spool/exim4. msglog and input should have nothing in them after you've sent emails if everything is working. See if you can't find some error messages that give you some clues in any files that do crop up here.
smartd
By default, smartd is not enabled when you install the smartmontools package. To enable it, uncomment only the line
start_smartd=yes
in /etc/default/smartmontools. Don't mess with the line about smartd_opts=, we deal with that in the /etc/smartd.conf file. I modified mine so that the only uncommented line is
/dev/sda -a -d sat -n standby -m root -M exec /usr/share/smartmontools/smartd-runner
I figured there was no point in using DEVICESCAN when I already know that I just want to monitor /dev/sda (the cdrom doesn't have smart). This will probably speed things up. The remaining options tell smartd that the disc is behind a SCSI to ATA translation layer, that it should not spin up the disk to do a check and that it should email root should there be a problem. You can check to make sure the emails get through by adding -M test to the end of that line and restarting smart. Remember to remove it though, otherwise, you'll get an email every time you boot up.
browser keys
You can make the "back" and "forward" keys above the left and right arrows do pretty much anything you want. Since they generate their own X-events (keycodes 234 and 233 respectively), they can be mapped to whatever keysym you want via Xmodmap. For example, I mapped them to F19 and F20 in my systemwide /etc/X11/Xmodmap file so they are automatically mapped for all users.
keycode 234 = F19 keycode 233 = F20
There are a couple ways you can get Firefox (or rather iceweasel) to correctly recognize these keysyms. You could install keyconfig.xpi and configure the keybindings via Tools->Keyconfig, but this is only user specific and quite frankly just too easy. So I went about doing it the hard way and editing /usr/share/iceweasel/chrome/browser/content/browser/browser.xul. Both are described in detail here.
The latter method has the advantage that paired with the system wide Xmodmap discussed above, all users automatically have working browser keys. The disadvantage (other than having to dig around in a hairy .xml file) is that whenever you upgrade or reinstall firefox, your changes disappear and you have to go back in there and do it again. To mitigate slightly this last problem, I wrote the following script and put it in /usr/local/sbin/firefox-keys
#!/bin/sh FILE=/usr/share/iceweasel/chrome/browser/content/browser/browser.xul grep -q VK_F20 $FILE if [ $? != 0 ];then sed 's|<key id="goForwardKb2" key="\&goForwardCmd.commandKey;" command="Browser:Forward" modifiers="accel"/>|<key id="goForwardKb2" key="\&goForwardCmd.commandKey;" command="Browser:Forward" modifiers="accel"/>\n <key id="goBackKb" keycode="VK_F19" command="Browser:Back" />\n <key id="goForwardKb" keycode="VK_F20" command="Browser:Forward" />|g' $FILE > $FILE.tmp mv $FILE.tmp $FILE fi exit 0
Then I just have to run this script everytime Iceweasel is updated. But wait, that seems pretty programmatic. Isn't there some way to automatically run the script when Iceweasel is updated? The answer is yes. I created the file /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/98-iceweasel-keys and added the following to it
// Add browser keys to firefox if it's being installed
DPkg
{
Pre-Install-Pkgs {"cat > /tmp/pkgs";};
Post-Invoke {"if grep -iq iceweasel /tmp/pkgs && [ $(ps w -p "$PPID" | grep -c remove) != 1 ];then /usr/local/sbin/firefox-keys;else exit 0;fi";};
};
It's kind of hackish, but here's the idea. Whenever apt calls dpkg, it will first call the command listed in Pre-Install-Pkgs passing the names of all the packages as standard input (which get tossed into /tmp/pkgs). Then after dpkg has been invoked and installed everything, the Post-Invoke command is called which checks if any of those packages were Iceweasel. If the case insensitive pattern "iceweasel" is among their names (and the package in question is not being removed rather than installed), the aforementioned firefox-keys script will be invoked. The natural question is why I need this intermediate file. Well for some weird reason apt does not pass the package names to the Post-Invoke commands.
default applications
Right now, the system wide default for the terminal is gnome terminal. This is second only to Konsole in bloat. If you want to keep things streamlined, change the systemwide default to aterm (which you downloaded above).
update-alternatives --config x-terminal-emulator
And select /usr/bin/aterm-xterm. Now for the browser you're going to want iceweasel (firefox)
update-alternatives --config x-www-browser
And select iceweasel.
services
By default, you'll probably have a bunch of services running at startup that are going to lengthen your boot time and likely eat up system resources as long as they're running. You can use the sysv-rc-conf utility to enable or disable scripts. The ncurses gui shows each service as a row and each run level as a column. An X indicates that the script or service is activated at that particular run level. An empty space means that it is not. In debian, run level 2 is the regular multi-user mode, while run level 1 is single-user (maintenance mode). Run levels 3-5 are usually identical to 2, but you can customise them otherwise. You generally only want to mess with run levels 2-5 and unless you want to create custom run levels, you want to keep them all identical (i.e., all X's or all blank). And you probably don't want to mess with run levels 0,6 and S at all unless you really know what you're doing. For more on how debian deals with run levels, take a look at the Debian Policy Manual. Below is a table with all of my init scripts in the left column and their state indicated in run level 1 and 2-5 in the adjacent columns. As with sysv-rc-conf, and X indicates enabled, while a blank indicates disabled. Keep in mind that I don't use gnome and as such gnome users might experience negative effect from disabling dbus or hal as I have. I have also completely removed the discover1 package.
aptitude purge discover1
| service | run-level 1 | run-level 2-5 |
|---|---|---|
| acpi-support | ||
| acpid | X | |
| alsa-utils | ||
| anacron | X | |
| atd | X | |
| avahi-daemon | ||
| bootclean | ||
| bootlogd | X | |
| cpufrequtils | X | |
| cron | X | |
| cupsys | X | |
| dbus | ||
| exim4 | X | |
| fuse | ||
| gdm | X | |
| hal | ||
| halt | ||
| hdapsd | X | X |
| hdparm | ||
| hibernate | ||
| ifplugd | X | |
| ifupdown | ||
| ifupdown-clean | ||
| killprocs | X | |
| klogd | X | |
| laptop-mode | X | |
| loadcpufreq | X | |
| module-init-tools | ||
| networking | ||
| nfs-common | ||
| ntp | X | |
| openbsd-inetd | ||
| portmap | ||
| procps | ||
| rc.local | ||
| reboot | ||
| rmnologin | X | |
| rsync | ||
| samba | ||
| screen-cleanup | ||
| sendsigs | ||
| single | X | |
| sleepd | X | X |
| smartmontools | X | |
| ssh | ||
| stop-bootlogd | X | |
| stop-bootlogd-single | X | |
| sysklogd | X | |
| sysstat | ||
| udev | ||
| udev-mtab | ||
| udftools | ||
| umountfs | ||
| umountroot | ||
| urandom | ||
| vbesave | ||
| wpa-ifupdown | ||
| x11-common |
bash completion
It's also nice to have more extended bash completion enabled. This will give you such niceties as completion of man at if you hit tab, or give you suggestions as to what you can ifup. Trust me, if you're going to be using the command line, you're going to want to open up /etc/bash.bashrc and uncomment the lines
# enable bash completion in interactive shells #if [ -f /etc/bash_completion ]; then # . /etc/bash_completion #fi
that annoying beep
Ok, so you've hit tab a couple times or directed the emacs cursor off the buffer and have heard quite enough of that pc speaker beep. Here's how you get rid of it:
echo blacklist pcspkr >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
That prevents the module from loading when you boot up. If you want to remove it right now without further ceremony:
rmmod pcspkr
daily defrags
One of the great things about the XFS file system is that it has a defragmenter. I don't however want to worry about running it all the time, so I've added the file /etc/cron.daily/xfs_defrag containing simply
#!/bin/sh xfs_fsr
Build your own kernel (the Debian way)
You may be reluctant to venture into the world of kernel compilation, but it is necessary to get the accelerometer hard disk protection working. Code has to be added to the kernel (don't worry you don't have to write it!) to tell it how to "park" the hard disk heads when hdapsd tells it the laptop is moving around. Hopefully, as this feature becomes more common, it will be built into future releases of the mainline kernel, but for now we must rely on patching the kernel ourselves. There is also something to be said for having a kernel that is tailor matched to your machine. You can cut out a lot of unnecessary stuff and optimise the kernel to your specific system. Thankfully, Debian has eased the burden of kernel compilation and installation with the kernel-package package. The following is heavily based on this howto.
- Add yourself to the src group so that you have write access to the /usr/src directory and can do most of the procedure as a regular user.
- Install the necessary packages
aptitude install gcc kernel-package kernel-source-2.6.23 libc6-dev tk8.3 libqt3-mt-dev libncurses5-dev fakeroot - Log out and log back in for the addition to the src group to take affect. You can ensure that this is the case by typing groups and looking for "src" in the resulting list.
- As a regular user, get the hdaps-protect patch:
mkdir /usr/src/hdaps/ && cd /usr/src/hdaps && wget 'http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/attachment.php?list_name=hdaps-devel&message_id=87pry7ehx3.fsf%40denkblock.local&counter=2' -O hdaps-protect.2.6.23.patch - Now, unpack the kernel source
cd /usr/src && tar xvjf linux-source-2.6.23.tar.bz2 && cd linux-source-2.6.23 - Apply the patch:
patch -p1 < ../hdaps/hdaps-protect.2.6.23.patch - As a starting point for configuration, you can use the Debian .config file
su -c 'aptitude install linux-headers-2.6.23-1-amd64'
cp ../linux-headers-2.6.23-1-amd64/.config .
This is the recommended route if this is your first time compiling a kernel. Alternatively, you can take a look at mine, which is highly customised to my particular model and you should probably go through yourself to make sure it's not missing anything that you want. - To edit/view the configuration with the "user friendly" gui
make xconfig - Once you've gotten a suitable configuration
export CONCURRENCY_LEVEL=3 && fakeroot make-kpkg clean && fakeroot make-kpkg --append-to-version=.mycfg kernel_image - While your kernel is compiling you might take a minute to make it easier on yourself when it comes time to install it. It seems that by default dpkg does nothing special when it installs a kernel package. This is WRONG! If you don't add the kernel to the /boot/grub/menu.lst file, then it will just sit in your /boot directory doing nothing. You can solve this by running update-grub after you install or remove a kernel. One better however is to tell dpkg to do the dirty work for you:
printf 'postinst_hook=/sbin/update-grub\npostrm_hook=/sbin/update-grub\n' >> /etc/kernel-img.conf - This is also a good time to tweak your boot parameters. One in particular is vga=794 which tells the kernel to display the console at higher resolution that default. To enable this, find the section that looks like
## ## Start Default Options ##
## default kernel options
## default kernel options for automagic boot options
## If you want special options for specific kernels use kopt_x_y_z
## where x.y.z is kernel version. Minor versions can be omitted.
## e.g. kopt=root=/dev/hda1 ro
## kopt_2_6_8=root=/dev/hdc1 ro
## kopt_2_6_8_2_686=root=/dev/hdc2 ro
# kopt=root=/dev/sda11 ro
and change the last line to
# kopt=root=/dev/sda11 ro vga=794
That's right, keep it commented. Debian's update-grub command reads the comments and uses them to decide how to format that actual entries further down in the file. - After a little under 10 minutes thanks to some hot dual core action, you'll have a .deb package containing your very own kernel. Just install it as you would any other .deb
su -c 'dpkg -i /usr/src/linux-image-2.6.23.mycfg_2.6.23.mycfg-10.00.Custom_amd64.deb' - This should handle the painful part for you. You should now be able to reboot and select your custom kernel on your bootloader screen.
hda: drive_cmd: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hda: drive_cmd: error=0x04 { AbortedCommand }
ide: failed opcode was: 0xefSaying yes to the IDEDISK_MULTI_MODE kernel option under Device Drivers->ATA/ATAPI/MFM/RLL->Use multi-mode by default in the xconfig menu won't solve your problem as the description suggests. This is more likely caused by power management scripts calling hdparm on the cdrom. See below for the real solution.
Wireless with madwifi
I had the brilliant idea of getting the 11n capable ThinkPad_11a/b/g/n wireless adaptor which is really just an Atheros AR5418. In retrospect, I should have gone with a more sensible choice like the Intel Pro which is directly supported in the mainline kernel. I think it's fair to say that Atheros is the ATI of wireless cards in terms of Linux support. It works, but you'll pull your hair out in the process. Since the AR5418 is so new, the latest release of madwifi doesn't even support this card. However the latest subversion snapshot does (though of course only up to 11g).
As you've probably noticed I'm going with a 64 bit system. Thus the more stable ndiswrapper won't work because the windows driver supplied by Lenovo is 32bit only. But don't go thinking that going 32 bit and using ndiswrapper will get you 11n. It won't.
That said, to install the latest snapshot of madwifi, you first need to install subversion.
aptitude install subversion
If you skipped the kernel compilation step above and are using a stock Debian kernel, you will also need to install your kernel headers.
aptitude install linux-headers-`uname -r`
Where "`uname -r`" is of course evaluated by the shell to the currently running kernel version.
Now follow the howto. Pay attention to the note at the end about changing the name of the device to wlan0. This was written by me, so it's fair to assume that you'll encounter the same thing using Debian.
wpa_supplicant
wpa_gui is quite a powerful applications that lets you interact with a running wpa_supplicant in an intuitive way. It allows you to scan and connect to available networks as well as save and delete preferred networks. By default however wpa_gui has to be run as root because only root has permissions to affect wpa_supplicant. To remedy this, ensure that your wpa_supplicant.conf has the global settings
ctrl_interface_group=netdev update_config=1
near the top of the file. "netdev" is the name of the group which is allowed access to the wpa_supplicant interface and update_config allows you to save changes to your preferred networks. You now need to add yourself to the netdev group so you can run wpa_gui.
adduser <you> netdev
You'll be added to the group after completely logging out and logging back in. The only minor annoyance is that wpa_gui is still located in /usr/sbin which is not in your default path. As such, you might want to create a symbolic link to it in /usr/bin/
ln -s /usr/sbin/wpa_gui /usr/bin/
If you want maximum control over how various wireless networks are setup, you can of course edit wpa_supplicant.conf directly. You can get a comprehensive list of examples by typing the command
zless /usr/share/doc/wpasupplicant/examples/README.wpa_supplicant.conf.gz
Don't bother however putting any comments in the wpa_supplicant.conf file since these will be erased if you have the update_config=1 parameter set as described above.
tp_smapi
tp_smapi is a module that allows you to access various bits of information about your thinkpad generally focused around the battery. It also provides a more up to date driver for the hdaps accelerometer. Here's how to get it running:
- Get the source:
wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/tpctl/tp_smapi-0.34.tgz - Unzip the source and go into the directory:
tar xvzf tp_smapi-0.34.tgz && cd tp_smapi-0.34 - Build and install it with the new hdaps driver:
make install HDAPS=1 - In order to get the module probed on bootup, just add "tp_smapi" to /etc/modules.
echo tp_smapi >> /etc/modules - You can find a list of userspace applications that utilise this driver here. I use the gkrellm plugin:
su -c 'aptitude install libgtk2.0-dev' cd /usr/local/src wget http://www.ksp.sk/~rasto/gkrellm-thinkbat/gkrellm-thinkbat-latest.tar.gz tar xvzf gkrellm-thinkbat-latest.tar.gz cd gkrellm-thinkbat-0.2.2 make install
Configuring ACPI
thinkpad_acpi/enabling hotkeys
First of all, similar to tp_smapi it seems that thinkpad-acpi doesn't load automatically, so put it in /etc/modules as well.
echo thinkpad_acpi >> /etc/modules
If it has somehow found itself installed (as is the case if you selected "laptop" packages in the initial installation), get rid of hotkey-setup. It's totally unnecessary with the new thinkpad-acpi module which captures all the keys just fine.
aptitude purge hotkey-setup
The same goes for tpb. thinkpad-acpi now covers the gap in key-coverage that this previously made up for.
Now to enable some hotkeys. Assuming you have acpid running, you can monitor acpi events by typing
tail -f /var/log/acpid
You'll find that with thinkpad_acpi probed with the default parameters, you get an acpi event for all Fn-F# key combinations except Fn-F7 and Fn-F10. You also get acpi events for Fn-Space, Fn-Home, Fn-End, Fn-PgUp, ThinkVantage, Mute, VolUp, VolDown, Power, Wireless switch on/off as well as lid open/close. You might notice however that the Fn-F4 and Fn-F10 events seem to register for individual keypresses that are sufficiently spaced in time. You can enable an event for Fn-F7, by changing the value of /sys/devices/platform/thinkpad_acpi/hotkey_mask to the value of /sys/devices/platform/thinkpad_acpi/hotkey_all_mask.
cat /sys/devices/platform/thinkpad_acpi/hotkey_all_mask > /sys/devices/platform/thinkpad_acpi/hotkey_mask
To make this permanent, you need to change the mask in /etc/modprobe.d/thinkpad_acpi.modprobe so that the the only uncommented line is
options thinkpad_acpi hotkey=enable,0x00ffffff experimental=1
acpid
The next question you're probably asking is "what do you with all these acpi events?". That's where acpid comes in. Every time the acpid deamon starts up, it reads all the files contained in the /etc/acpi/events directory. These files contain the names of all events that acpi should acknowledge and what to do when they are recieved. The syntax is pretty simple:
event=<name of event> action=<what to execute upon registering that event>
As noted previously, you can experiment with generating various events by watching the /var/log/acpid file and determining what events go with what key. You might also notice that there are a few events that are generated by other things (like a change in CPU frequency scaling states). By convention the action scripts are all contained in /etc/acpi/. If you write your own, make sure they have the same permissions as all the others. For more info check out the How to configure acpid page. You might also want to check out How to get special keys to work for some attempts at cataloguing some of the events generated. Note that you can change the scripts without restarting acpid but if you change the event files, you need to restart it so that it reads in the modified versions.
Though you can turn acpi events into user-level xevents, the main advantage of using acpi events is that you can use the special keys to execute scripts that require root access (since acpid is run by root). You should also keep this in mind from a security perspective. You shouldn't give too much power to the hotkeys lest you allow someone to do too much without the root password.
dpkg-divert /etc/acpi
You're likely going to want to do a lot of customising of the /etc/acpi/ directory, most of which was originally put there by the acpi-support package. The problem with this is that next time there's an update to that package it's going to want to change back all those changes you made to the distribution defaults. Now the distribution defaults are good for a reference point, but you want ultimate control over how your acpi system behaves and don't want it changing every time that there's a package upgrade. Enter dpkg-divert. This handy utility will allow you to keep the original distribution files and even have them upgraded, but keep your heavily customised /etc/acpi directory safe. Before modifying a file that you will not want subsequently changed by the package manager, you can dpkg-divert it so that future upgrades do not overwrite it.
dpkg-divert --add --rename --divert <path to file>.dpkg-dist <path to file>
This will move the original file to one of the same name with the .dpkg-dist extension and divert files from any packages to the latter. Now if you want to use the distribution default as a staring point for your modifications, you can just copy it back
cp <path to file>.dpkg-dist <path to file>
And begin editing.
If you're going to be editing the majority of the files in /etc/acpi, you might want to divert the whole directory. Unfortunately, dpkg-divert doesn't officially divert directories, but here's how you can hack it to nearly do it. First create a mirror acpi.dpkg-dist directory structure.
cd /etc/acpi
find -type d | xargs -i mkdir -p /etc/acpi.dpkg-dist/{}
Now divert all the files in /etc/acpi to this new directory structure.
find -type f | cut -d/ -f 2- | xargs -i dpkg-divert --add --rename --divert /etc/acpi.dpkg-dist/{} /etc/acpi/{}
Finally copy the distribution defaults back for a staring point to your massive customisation.
cp -r /etc/acpi.dpkg-dist /etc/acpi
The limitation of this of course is that if future versions of the packages have new files in this directory, or if you install new packages that want to put files in here, they will not be diverted, and you will have to add these to your diversions as they appear.
hd power management: laptop-mode
There was a lot of buzz a couple months back about aggressive hd power management shortening the life of drives by excessively parking and unparking the disk heads (note that this is different that what happens with hdapsd). I'm not going to go into the gorey details. You should probably follow the above link and dig around on the web if you're really concerned about this. Suffice it to say, it's a good idea to have an awareness of hd power management an in particular be aware that there is some overlapping functionality between the laptop-mode and acpi-suppport packages and that if you aren't careful, they may even come into conflict.
First of all, you may note that in the above init scripts, I have disabled acpi-support. If you take a look at what that does and follow your nose, you'll find that pretty much the only thing it's doing is running /etc/acpi/battery.d/90-hdparm.sh which sets aggressive disk power management for both hard disk and cdrom if it is detected that the laptop is on batteries at bootup. On the other hand, it sets it less aggressively with /etc/acpi/ac.d/90-hdparm.sh if ac power is detected. You'll also find that there is an acpi event associated with connecting and disconnecting the power which, by default call the script /etc/acpi/power.sh which runs one of the aforementioned scripts according to the new adapter state.
This is probably a good idea in principle. Aggressive power management tells the disks to spin down more often and thereby conserve battery power. Laptop hard disks are designed to do this relatively frequently, but their so-called rated "load-cycle count" is finite falling generally in the 600,000 parks/unparks range. But there is more . . .
For one, it doesn't appear that the cdrom plays well with the hdparm command used to modify the power settings as evidenced by scary looking kernel messages to the tune of
hda: drive_cmd: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hda: drive_cmd: error=0x04 { AbortedCommand }
ide: failed opcode was: 0xec
upon even querying the drive with what should be an innocuous request for basic information: hdparm -I /dev/hda. For this reason, it would seem that we don't want to be sending any hdparm commands to the cdrom drive.
Secondly, there is the issue that you might have laptop-mode enabled to to do the same thing and you probably don't want the two doubling the effort, or worse, fighting with each other. Something further to consider is that at the same time as it deals with the level of drive power management, laptop-mode makes an effort not to spin the drive up as often once it's been spun down. It would seem to make sense then, to have both these efforts coordinated by the broader scope of laptop-mode alone. As an added bonus, laptop-mode doesn't touch the cdrom.
So here's how I hand the matter over to laptop mode:
- Disable the /etc/init.d/acpi-support boot script with sysv-rc-conf as described above.
- Remove, or better yet, divert the files 90-hdparm.sh from /etc/acpi/ac.d and /etc/acpi/battery.d and /etc/acpi/resume.d.
- Make sure laptop-mode gets started at boot up with sysv-rc-conf also as described in the init script section.
- Enable hardrive power managment from within laptop mode by editing /etc/laptop-mode/laptop-mode.conf so that the line
CONTROL_HD_POWERMGMT=0
becomes
CONTROL_HD_POWERMGMT=1 - If you want to be a more conservative with your drive life (at the expense of battery life), you probably want to change the line
BATT_HD_POWERMGMT=1
to something more like
BATT_HD_POWERMGMT=180 - Now you can enhance laptop mode to further reduce drive spin up. First, you can have syslog not sync all the time on battery which requires disk write access and consequently spinup. Just run lm-syslog-setup and answer yes to the question of whether or not you want to create the split syslog configuration.
- You can crank up the LM_READAHEAD=8192 if you have lots of RAM (don't forget to make sure that CONTROL_READAHEAD=1).
- You can set CONTROL_NOATIME=1 to prevent disk writes related to updating file access times while on battery.
This is only the tip of the iceberg for laptop-mode configuration.
sleep
Though you can make your laptop sleep, by simply executing
echo -n $ACPI_SLEEP_MODE >/sys/power/state
The /etc/acpi/sleep.sh script wraps this command in some other niceties that may ease the transition in and out of sleep. In particular, it sources the scripts in /etc/acpi/suspend.d before sleeping and those in /etc/acpi/resume.d after awaking. If you feel uneasy about playing with these scripts yourself, you can alter some of their behaviour by editing the /etc/defaults/acpi-support.
It would seem to make sense to bind the Fn-F4 key with the moon on it to the /etc/acpi/sleep.sh script. You could also set it up so that your laptop goes to sleep when you close the lid. I however prefer to have my laptop remain awake when the lid is closed so that it can continue background tasks such as ripping a cd, downloading a file, compiling a kernel, playing music, etc. I do however want to have some system of going to sleep during inactivity. For this I use the sleepd package which automatically puts the laptop to sleep after a period of inactivity. It does however requires some configuration to make it actually do this.
First of all, if you haven't already installed it, do so
aptitude install sleepd
Now edit the configuration file /etc/default/sleepd. Set PARAMS to the arguments you want to give the sleepd daemon as started by init. You can take a look at the sleepd man page to get an idea of what you might want to put here. As an example, you might have
PARAMS="-u 180 -U 1800 -s /etc/acpi/sleep.sh -i 1 -i 12 -i 23"
This tells sleepd to sleep after three minutes of inactivity while on battery(-u 180) and after half an hour of inactivity while on ac (-U 1800). I have defined "activity" as signals on irqs 1(keyboard), 12(mouse), and 23(usb mouse) (-i 1 -i 12 -i 23). 1 and 12 will be autodetected, but 23 may not be. You can use the xosview utility to discover when the various IRQ's are used. Finally sleepd itself doesn't actually know how to put the computer to sleep, so you have to supply it with the command to do so (-s /etc/acpi/sleep.sh). You could really put anything at all here.
You'll note however, that the above is a rather limited definition of "inactivity". Unfortunately, it's the best sleepd has to offer. Alas, none of the above mentioned background tasks that I want my computer to continue doing can be reliably mapped to the use of a particular IRQ. The next best thing then is to have our sleep command be a script that before putting the computer to sleep checks for a wider range of activity before actually going to sleep and aborts the sleep process if such activity is detected. This will reset the sleepd timer so that it must wait for an other interval of human inactivity before running the sleep/check script again.
There are four checks that I want to do before going to sleep:
- CPU activity
- Disk activity
- Network activity
- Is sound playing?
The first three can be checked using the sar utility included in the sysstat package, while the latter can be checked using teh rec utility included in the sox package. If you haven't already, install those packages. Sox is additionally going to need alsa support, so you could install that package, or just go ahead an install off of sox since its a handy program to have the full functionality of.
aptitude install sysstat sox sox-fmt-all
The following script autosleep.sh is intended to be called by sleepd after user inactivity to check for the background inactivity described above. If there is inactivity in these four fronts, it calls the sleep.sh script and puts the computer to sleep.
#!/bin/bash
# autosleep.sh
# Checks if the computer is inactive before going to sleep. Aborts if it looks like
# there's some action.
#
# Thresholds - these may depend on what you do with your computer and what
# you want it to stay awake for.
CPUTHRESH=5 # in percent
DISKTHRESH=500 # in blocks/sec (the sar manpage says blocks are 512 bytes in normal cases)
NETTHRESH=10 # in kB/s
SNDTHRESH=200 # in ???? rms
# (no sound playing is ~25 while playing mp3 w/ pcm+master turned all the way to zero is ~250)
# Sample times (in seconds) - again needs may vary
CPUTIME=1
DISTTIME=2
NETTIME=2
SNDTIME=2
# Check CPU usage defined as non-idle time.
CPU=`sar $CPUTIME 1 | awk '/Average/ { printf "%d\n",100-$8}'`
echo "CPU = $CPU%"
if [ $CPUTHRESH -lt $CPU ];then
echo CPU is working, not sleeping
exit;
fi
# Check disk usage (read + write)
DISK=`sar -b $DISKTIME 1 | awk '/Average:/ { printf "%d",$5 + $6 }'`
echo "DISK = $DISK"
if [ $DISKTHRESH -lt $DISK ];then
echo Disk is working, not sleeping
exit;
fi
# Check net usage (exclude wifi0 which appears to have activity all the time for some weird reason)
NET=`sar -n DEV $NETTIME 1 | awk '/Average:/ && $2 !~ /(IFACE|wifi0)/ { SUM += $5 + $6 } END { printf ("%d\n",SUM)}'`
echo "NETWORK = $NET"
if [ $NETTHRESH -lt $NET ]; then
echo Network is in use, not sleeping
exit;
fi
# Set the mixer to some controlled values and put set it to record the mixed sound output
# This unfortunately is going to be sound-chip specific.
alsactl -f /var/tmp/sound.state store
amixer sset Capture 20% cap
amixer sset Digital 20%
amixer sset Mix cap
# Record to null and use RMS amplitude in resulting statistics with a convenience
# factor to make it integer
SND=`rec -n stat trim 0 $SNDTIME 2>&1 | sed -n 's/^RMS[ ]*amplitude:[ ]*/1000000 * /gp' | bc | cut -d. -f 1`
# Restore previous mixer state
alsactl -f /var/tmp/sound.state restore
echo "SOUND = $SND"
if [ $SNDTHRESH -lt $SND ];then
echo Sound is playing, not sleeping
exit;
fi
. /etc/acpi/sleep.sh
hibernate
Hibernate works with the described setup (my custom compiled kernel in particular) as long as I don't have the uswsusp package installed by calling /etc/acpi/hibernate.sh. I could probably get it to work with uswsusp if I worked at it, but I don't really care since I don't hibernate all that often. Of note, I have the boot parameter resume=/dev/sda2 (my swap partion) added to the kopt= variable in my /boot/grub/menu.lst so that running update-grub appends this option to my kernel:
# kopt=root=/dev/sda11 ro resume=/dev/sda2 vga=792
results in
title Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.23-amd64.005 root (hd0,2) kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.23-amd64.005 root=/dev/sda11 ro resume=/dev/sda2 vga=792 savedefault
The above is also probably unecessary as I have set PM_STD_PARTITION=/dev/sda2 in my kernel config which can be found under Power Management Options -> Hibernation (aka 'suspend to disk') -> Default resume partitoin:.
64-bit headaches
Java
Ok, so Sun is being lazy and though they've made an amd64 java, they didn't bother to make the accompanying browser plugin. So you're left to try and use the 32-bit version that I've included in my package list above. Unfortunately, this won't work in iceweasel as flash does. You don't however have to start mucking about with chroots if you really need that no doubt ridiculous java app to work. Go to the Firefox download site and grab the linux version. Also if you didn't get it with the rest of the packages I recommended above, get ia32-sun-java5-bin. For some reason this trick doesn't work with ia32-sun-java6-bin, it ends up just hanging the browser.
aptitude install ia32-sun-java5-bin
Now go to the directory where you saved the firefox tarball (it can even be in a subdirectory of your home directory), unzip it and put a symlink to libjavaplugin_oij.so in the firefox/plugins directory.
tar xvzf firefox-2.0.0.11.tar.gz ln -sf /usr/lib/jvm/ia32-java-1.5.0-sun-1.5.0.13/jre/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so firefox/plugins/
Now, you're ready to enjoy all the wonderful java content the web has to offer via your personal firefox installation. First close any iceweasels you have running, then run
firefox/firefox http://www.java.com/en/download/help/testvm.xml
You should see the stupid java guy. Until Sun joins the rest of us in the 21st century, you're going to have to use this firefox to view web-applets. The good news is that the vanilla firefox will seamlessly use the same profile directory as iceweasel. You can even use it as your main browser if you want. There's also this blackdown java I've heard of that has a 64-bit web plugin, but the things I've read about its instability have not encouraged me to go hunting for it.
