LinLog

I'm making progress with Kubuntu. The essential network services are up and running now, so I can leave the system booted into Kubuntu without worrying that Sarah won't be able to print or play MP3s. And at the end of the day, that's really what matters, isn't it?

I got the RaLink RT2500 wireless card set up without too many problems. In terms of difficulty, it was someplace between Slackware, which required editing the init scripts, and Xandros, where the graphical tool handled everything but the driver. To build the driver, I had to start by get the kernel source through Kynaptic, unpack it, copy the config file from /boot, and start the build (which I canceled after a few seconds) to generate the needed files and directories. I was then able to downloaded the rt2500 driver and build the module without difficulty. I did have a small problem with the installation - apparently I got the wrong kernel source archive or something, because the "make install" placed the driver under /lib/modules/2.6.10 instead of /lib/modules/2.6.10-5-386, where the rest of the modules were. However, that was easily fixed with a quick mv and depmod -a. The only other problem I had was setting the alias. Debian doesn't use the standard /etc/modprobe.conf for module aliases. Instead, I had to create an "rt2500" file containing the text "alias ra0 rt2500" in /etc/modprobe.d and /etc/modutils (well, maybe I didn't need both, but I figured it couldn't hurt).

Once the driver was installed, configuring the interface itself wasn't too difficult. I used the KControl network settings module to deactivate the integrated VIA NIC, enable the RaLink card, and set my static IP information. This worked well, except that, for some reason, it didn't set my gateway. This was strange, because there actually was a box specifically for setting the gateway for each interface. For some reason, though, the setting didn't seem to take, so I ended up adding the line "gateway 192.168.0.1" to the ra0 section of /etc/network/interfaces by hand.

Setting up my network services was a mixed bag. My three essential services are the NFS server, CUPS server, and Secure Shell server. NFS and SSH were trivial - I just installed the nfs, nfs-kernel, and openssh-server packages through Kynaptic, copied my old /etc/exports file, and I was good to go. CUPS, however, was a bit more difficult.

Let me preface this part of my account by saying that I have never, in my entire life, had good luck with printing. Almost every time I try to work on a printer, something goes wrong and I spend hours trying to fix it. (At this point, I've probably developed a mental block about it.) I was hoping beyond hope that things would go smoothly this time, but alas, it didn't quite work out that way.

At first, I was able to get my HP PhotoSmart 7760 working with the hpijs drivers without too much trouble. That was fine, but I don't want the hpijs drivers - I want the hplip drivers, which offer support for things like the printer's integrated media card reader. So I set up my /etc/apt/sources.list to include the extra repositories described in the Unoffical Kubuntu FAQ and installed the hplip package with Kynaptic. (Note: Am I the only one who finds it odd that installing hplip required uninstalling the "kubuntu-desktop" package, which, despite it's name, appears to only contain a couple of files worth of documentation?) After this, I was still able to easily set up local access to the printer using the KDE printer configuration wizard, but remote access from the Xandros box was shot. To cut a long and frustrating story short, after remembering to change the default "Location" in my /etc/cups/cupsd.conf file to 192.168.0.* (i.e. allow connections from everything on the LAN) and finding that it still didn't work, I ended up doing a diff of my old /etc/cups/cupsd.conf and my current one and removed the "Listen 127.0.0.1" line and replaced it with "Port 631". I couldn't tell you why this was necessary because, when it comes to CUPS and printer configuration in general, I have no idea what I'm doing. All I can tell you is that it seemed to do the trick.

The next chapter in my Kubuntu adventure will be on package management and installing all my favorite software. I'll include some thoughts on Kynaptic, Apt, and more comparisons to Slackware and Xandros.