Squeeze on eeepc 701. Success!!!

Yesterday I told you I was trying to install Debian GNU/Linux 6.0 codenamed Squeeze on my tiny toy eeepc 701. I couldn't, but late at night I saw a ray of hope when I downloaded a hybrid-iso image from http://live.debian.net/ The installer seemed to work just right but it was time to go to bed.

Today I have successfully installed Squeeze on the eeepc and it was a blast. Seriously, the installer was a breeze. Awesome work again of the d-i team.

The process is plain. I copied the hybrid-iso image to a usb pendrive:

$ dd if=debian-squeeze-live-beta2-i386-gnome-desktop.iso of=/dev/sda

Then I booted the eeepc from the usb pressing Esc at boot time and selecting the usb drive. I checked everything was working fine in live mode and finally launched the installer (There is an icon on the desktop so you only have to click it)
That's it!!!

My model of eeepc only has 4GB of disk space so I have removed some applications I do not use with it (openoffice) and installed some I do use (abiword) It's a fierce fight for space!!!

The ethernet and wifi interfaces work out of the box. Now I only have to configure a new connection to use my Alcatel X060 usb modem when I am not at home. Here you can see a screenshot of the desktop with dropbox already at work.

And here is a picture where you can see why I love my eeepc so much. I even use it as TV with kaffeine(Watching Code Lyoko lol). The only nuisance is that I have to copy the firmware of the dvb-t usb stick to /lib/firmware. But that is just once; I have written it down here just as a reminder for other occasions in case I have to reinstall.

New Year. Same old usual hard work for my machines!!!

First of all let me wish you a happy new year 2011.

Secondly let me tell you that all my machines are working hard as hell as usual. Santa brought me a 22 inches led screen (LG Flatron E2240) for Odd. I used the old 15 inches screen to substitute fhopper's CRT. Now they both look really gorgeous. But beauty is just in the eye of the beholder!!! I have assigned them some hard work as usual. I improved some of my scripts and there they go.

But the real deal is that I'm trying to install Squeeze in my eeepc 701. Nothing out of the ordinary it seems, but pay attention to the process:

First I used clonezilla-live-1.2.6-40-i686 to make a copy of the entire system just in case things go wrong.

Second I want to install Squeeze. I use a live debian system with installer. The debian-squeeze-live-beta2-i386-gnome-desktop.img installer does not work. So I have to think of an alternate method.

Third I can't upgrade in the usual way (apt-get dist-upgrade) because I'm out of disk space.

Finally I've downloaded a live version of the debian installer and see if it works. The instructions are here
I'll report success or failure.

UPDATE: Failure. Keep on trying.
UPDATE(Last minute): I have downloaded another Debian live version (A hybrid-iso. Last one was an .img) This time the installer seems to work perfectly but I'll wait until tomorrow to install it.

Christmas eve

 

My Christmas tree.

Christmas cards

Merry Christmas!!!

A few words on Lenny. Squeeze installed.

Some time ago I wrote a blog entry entitled "The best debian release ever (imo)" or something similar. Well my conclusion at that time was: 'Etch' but now after installing Squeeze if I had to write the article again I would conclude: 'Lenny' What's the matter?

I have reached a very simple conclusion. Once you have the system up and running; all software is stable and all config files and all scripts are ready and at work you just can't do without it. I love installing Debian. I have done it on many occasions. Sometimes it's a breeze and sometimes it is a pain, but nevertheless it takes a lot of time and effort to configure your system to your liking. That is one of the great achievements of Debian but at the same time it's one of its flaws since it is a bit hard and daunting for the new user. That is why newbies usually choose Ubuntu or Mint or whatever... But in the end with a bit of experience they'll come round and that's for sure.

I once read a sentence that made me laugh because I felt identified with it: "Ubuntu: An African word that means: I can't configure my Debian" it's hilarious but it's true. Ubuntu is too faulty. Debian rules. In a couple of years I suppose I'll be writing another entry reading like this: 'My favourite debian release: Squeeze' But all this could be summarized by saying: 'My favourite debian release? Answer: Any!!! As long as it is Debian GNU/Linux!!!! Forever!!!

NAS

eeepc 701 as freenas server

You wouldn't believe it if I had told you. Nor even I could have imagined such awesome invention some time ago. So I had to take these snapshots to prove it.

In a previous post I had warned you that I was getting my fingers on freenas. This usually means that some weird experiment is forging. Then I got this great idea: I've got an eeepc (extra low power consumption) and a Toshiba usb hard drive (low power as well). Combined together with an amazing piece of software such  as freenas is I could easily set up a powerful home nas server to connect to from all my other machines.

The problem with usb hard drives is that in order to transfer data to/from them you need to have them attached to a computer. This is a bit expensive in terms of power consumtion, apart from not being very handy. This way, attached to a cheap eeepc your electricity bill will not suffer at all.

Now there are many affordable NAS systems out there. But with this invention you can transform any usb hard disk drive into a powerful home network server. If you connect it to the internet you can also have your data availble from everywhere.

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Freenas server & desktop client

Text only mirror site

Today I have finished writing a very dirty shell script that automatically creates a text version of this site once a month. That is to say a mirror site updated on a monthly basis. You can take a look at it here

You may wonder why the text version is not a 'real text' version but a cheap copy of the actual site. Well there are several mandatory reasons for that:

1st The hosting server demands an index document in .htm format
2nd I have tried to process html files with html2text but it unfortunately does not render optimal results.

Well if anyone is interested in the code I'll publish it here. The performance is as follows:

- The script first tests working conditions and makes clean.
- Then it downloads the entire site and turns it into text. Both things using for loops.
- After that it uploads it to the server.
- Finally it sends me and e-mail to confirm success.

TODO: -Consider creating a section of useful scripts???
           - Test mirror site with w3m and lynx. (I have tested it with elinks and it works great)