I like music a lot. I think I always have, and I probably always will. I like to be able to listen to good music wherever I go whenever I want. Thanks to the wonders of technology, we have a myriad of portable media devices to choose from. I personally chose an iPod nano. It's a wonderful little toy.

Anyway, as much as I like music, sometimes I feel that my time could be better used doing things more productive than just listening to music. Once I realized I felt this way, I began looking into ways to get my audio books onto my iPod. At first I simply transfered over the MP3s that came straight from the CDs. But I soon realized that this wasn't the most effective use of the iPod's audio book capabilities. So the hunt was on for some good Windows software to convert my MP3 audio books into M4B format for the iPod.

Now, I'm a pretty cheap guy when it comes to paying for software (which is probably one of the main reasons I started using Linux way back when). I found a bunch of different "free" tools that claimed to be able to convert my MP3's, but few of them actually worked well enough for me to stand using them. Eventually, I found a (very round-about) routine that allowed me to turn everything into something my iPod could understand as an audio book. I followed this routine to convert several audio books and transfer them to my iPod. I never actually finished listening to any of them completely.

Last night I started fooling around with converting my DVDs into a format my iPod could understand. When I finally got The Bourne Identity converted properly, I tried to throw it onto my iPod from my wife's Mac. It told me that I would have to erase everything (because I used my own PC to transfer my files before), and I said it was ok. I didn't have any of my original .m4b files around anymore, and so I began looking for ways of creating those audio books (in Linux this time).

It wasn't long before I stumbled upon a particularly interesting post on this exact topic. It requires the use of mp3wrap, mplayer, and faac. Pretty simple, really. Here's what you do:

# mp3wrap outputfilename *.mp3
# mplayer -vc null -vo null -ao pcm:nowaveheader:fast:file=outputfilename.pcm outputfilename_MP3WRAP.mp3
# faac -R 44100 -B 16 -C 2 -X -w -q 80 --artist "author" --album "title" --title "title" --track "1" --genre "Spoken Word" --year "year" -o outputfilename.m4b outputfilename.pcm

Nice and easy, huh? Now to decipher it all.

# mp3wrap outputfilename *.mp3

This command will stitch a bunch of MP3 files into a single MP3. This makes it easier to have a "real" audio book on your iPod.

# mplayer -vc null -vo null -ao pcm:nowaveheader:fast:file=outputfilename.pcm outputfilename_MP3WRAP.mp3

This command converts that one big MP3 file to PCM (uncompressed) format. Somewhere in the output of this command, you will see something like AO: [alsa] 44100Hz 2ch s16le (2 bytes per sample) which comes in handy for the next command:

# faac -R 44100 -B 16 -C 2 -X -w -q 80 --artist "author" --album "title" --title "title" --track "1" --genre "Spoken Word" --year "year" -o outputfilename.m4b outputfilename.pcm

Finally, this command turns the PCM file into an audio book (m4b) file. The 44100, 16, and 2 right after faac all come from that special line in the output of the mplayer command.

As much as I like the command line, I don't like having to remember all of those parameters and options. So I decided to create a utility script (written in Python, of course) to wrap all of these commands into one simple one:

# mp3s2m4b.py BookName mp3s_directory [--quality=0..100] [--artist="artist"] [--album="album"] [--title="title"] [--genre="genre"] [--year=year] [--track=number]

While this might still seem too complex for pleasure, it does reduce a lot of the typing involved with the other three commands. All of the thingies in square brackets (like [--quality=0..100]) are optional. My script runs the commands mentioned previously in order, and suppresses all of the scary output.

I've used my script 4 or 5 different times so far, and it seems to work great. You may download it here.

Ok, ok... I decided to give openSUSE 11.0 another shot. Since my last blog post, I have read some reviews posted by some other people who encountered similar problems when attempting to actually use KDE4. Some of these people opted to install the KDE 3.5.9 remix after that and had more promising result. So, instead of letting my bias get the best of me, I am going to try openSUSE 11.0 one more time using KDE3. The following are the steps I took while going through this process:

1. Booted from DVD (openSUSE 11.0 x86_64)

2. Chose "Installation" from the boot menu

3. After the installer is completely loaded, I selected "English (US)" for both the language and the keyboard layout, read the license agreement, checked the "I Agree to the License Terms" box, and clicked Next.

4. I waited for a few seconds while the installer probed my hardware and updated some package lists, then I chose "New Installation" and clicked Next.

5. The next step was to choose my timezone. They have a very simple interface for this--much less frustrating than the counterpart in the most recent release of Ubuntu (8.04 LTS). My system clock is set to Mountain time, so I left that stuff alone and clicked Next.

6. This step is probably where I screwed up the most last time. It's where you choose which desktop environment you want. You can choose from GNOME 2.22, KDE 4.0, KDE 3.5, and XFCE Deskop. Last time I chose KDE 4.0. This time I chose KDE 3.5 and clicked Next.

7. After choosing the desktop environment, the installer took me to the disk partition section of the installation. This should be pretty easy for most people, but I changed a few things. Namely, I put the root and home partitions together, and I deleted one of my Windows partitions because Windows is stupid and bloated. Once I verified the disk partition settings, I clicked Next.

8. This part is where you get to enter the primary system user's information. You can specify the user's name, login, and password. You may also specify a few options including whether or not the root user will have the same password, whether that user will receive system mail, and whether or not that user will be logged in automatically. If you need to, you may change the authentication settings here too. I just entered the information and got on with it. (If you uncheck the box for the root user having the same password, you're prompted for the root password after this screen)

9. Finally, we get to the step where you get to verify all of the installation settings. I think I'll just go with the configuration for now. When you click Install, you're prompted to verify that you really want to install. Use your head on this one.

10. After all of that, it began to format my partitions. One neat thing that I noticed while it was installing was the fact that they rolled commonly-installed packages into what they call "images." This seems to increase installation speed considerably. In the past, I've had most RPM-based distribution installations take as long as (or longer than) Windows takes to install. Granted, the difference there is that you actually get useful stuff once Linux is installed, whereas with Windows, you're stuck with something barely usable and you still have to install drivers for every piece of hardware except your monitor.

    Anyway... the openSUSE folks seem to have addressed that problem recently (maybe just in this release). This went a LOT faster than I've ever seen (on any computer). Despite the use of those images, though, there were still nearly 500 packages that needed to be installed. It seems to be quite evident that the packages are working faster than ever before. It's refreshing (though it did still take quite a bit longer to install than most Debian-based distributions I've tried).

11. After all of the packages are installed, the system does some configuration and then reboots itself. When it comes back up, the installer will appear, do some more hardware detection and configuration, and then go straight into your desktop.

openSUSE actually didn't detect my 1680x1050 resolution (I didn't know any modern distribution wouldn't anymore), so I just went into YaST and set the resolution to what it should be. And then it locked up, and I had to do a hard reboot. Let's hope I can stop that from happening again. I suppose so long as I can still see things other than my mouse, I should be good.

Upon rebooting into my desktop, the resolution was still crappy. When I went to change it this time, though, I noticed that dual-head mode was enabled. That's stupid. I never plug a second monitor into my laptop. I disabled that, then tried to change the resolution. After logging out and back in, it seems to have changed the resolution properly. While I realize that I do have an extremely crappy video card, Ubuntu and others have been able to offer me 3D acceleration. This option is currently unavailable with openSUSE. Perhaps a little research will solve that problem.

After a few minutes of configuration and preference setting, my system locked up yet again. And another hard reset did the trick of getting it operational again. One more and it's outta here!! I do have to say... Minus the quirks with the resolution and drivers, the distribution does not seem bad at all. It might be worth trying out on a different computer--maybe I'd have better luck.

Alright, now I'm going to check the software management tool for a real driver for my video card. Looks like I may have found some. I hope they work. I'm using a "1-click installer" that I found from a Google search. The installation went fine, but after logging out and back in (to have the drivers take effect), it locked up again.

So, round two folks. Again, it might just be user error. It might just be my computer. Or openSUSE really might just suck. I don't think I'll be trying it on my computer again for a while. I might try on a different system altogether, but not on my main laptop.

So, for those of you who aren't in my immediate vicinity or who aren't on Google Talk all the time, this might well be your first exposure to my latest project. I'm calling it PyScriptures. Py because I wrote it all in Python. Scriptures because it is a program that provides the entire LDS standard works (as far as the actual scriptures are concerned, anyway).

The following are the steps I took to install Slackware 12.1 on my EeePC this past weekend. I hope you find them complete and helpful!

Installing Slackware 12.1 on an Asus EeePC 701

1. Burn DVD .iso to disc
2. Turn on EeePC
3. Hit F2 to run setup
4. Go to the Advanced tab, and set "OS Installation" to "Start"
5. Go to the Boot tab, and ensure that the external DVD drive will be used for booting before the internal SSD
6. Exit and save changes
7. Just hit enter after rebooting from BIOS configuration when the Slackware boot screen shows up
8. Unless you want to use a different keymap for whatever reason, hit enter when asked to select a keyboard map
9. Login as root
10. Run fdisk or cfdisk on /dev/hdc
11. Remove all partitions (unless you know what you're doing)
    1. fdisk: d to delete (you may have to select multiple partitions to delete if you have more than one for some reason)
    2. cfdisk: Select all partitions individually with up/down arrow keys and use the left/right arrow keys to select delete from the menu at the bottom. Hit enter to run the delete command when it's highlighted.
12. Create one partition that takes the whole SSD (again, unless you know what you're doing)
    1. fdisk: n (for new); enter; p (for primary); enter; 1 (for the first primary partition); enter; enter (to start at the beginning of the drive); enter (to select the end of the drive)
    2. cfdisk: Select the new command with the left/right arrow keys and hit enter when it's selected. Make it a primary parition, and have it take the whole SSD (3997.49MB in my case).
13. Set the type of the new partition to be Linux
    1. fdisk: t (for type); enter; 83 (for Linux); enter
    2. cfdisk: Use the left/right arrow keys to select the type command at the bottom and hit enter when it's selected. Choose 83.
14. Set the new partition (or the first, if you decided to make more than one) to be bootable
    1. fdisk: a (for bootable); enter; 1 (for primary partition 1); enter
    2. cfdisk: Select the bootable command from the bottom using the left/right arrow keys. Hit enter when it's selected.
15. Write the changes to the partition table and quit
    1. fdisk: w
    2. cfdisk: Use the left/right arrow keys to select the write command from the bottom. Hit enter when it's selected. Type 'yes' to verify your intent, acknowledging that your previous data will be "gone". Then select the quit command.
16. Run setup
17. Select TARGET to specify where you will be installing
18. Select /dev/hdc1
19. Format the partition
20. To reduce write cycles, many people suggest formatting with ext2, which is a non-journaling filesystem. However, many people claim that the limited number write cycles of SSD is not something to worry about. Use your best judgement on this one. Hit OK after the format is complete.
21. Select where you plan to install Slackware from. In my case, it's the DVD. I usually tell it to find the media automatically. Select manual if you know which device your DVD drive is. Mine was /dev/sr0.
22. Select the packages you wish to install. This is where your installation will likely differ greatly from mine because of personal preferences. I do a lot of development, so I will keep a lot of things for that. Here's what I selected to install:
    1. Base Linux System
    2. Various Applications that do not need X
    3. Program Development (C, C++, Lisp, Perl, etc.)
    4. Linux kernel source
    5. Qt and the K Desktop Environment for X
    6. System Libraries (needed by KDE, GNOME, X, and more)
    7. Networking (TCP/IP, UUCP, Mail, News)
    8. Tcl/Tk script languages
    9. X Window System
    10. X Applications
    11. Games
23. Choose whether or not you want to be picky about your software. To save a little extra disk space, I'm going to manually choose what I don't want. This includes:
    1. A: cpio, cryptsetup, cups, floppy, genpower, jfsutils, mdadm, mt-st, mtx, quota, reiserfsprogs, rpm2tgz, tcsh, xfsprogs
    2. AP: amp, cdparanoia, hplip, gutenprint, jed, joe, jove, ksh93, mysql, rpm, xfsdump, zsh
    3. D: gcc-gfortran, gcc-gnat, gcc-java, mercurial, p2c
    4. N: elm, epic4, httpd, mailx, mutt, netatalk, pine, popa3d, proftpd, rp-pppoe, samba, slrn, tin, trn, vsftpd
    5. TCL: hfsutils
    6. X: anthy, bdftopcf, beforelight, libhangul, sazanami-fonts-ttf, sinhala_lklug-font-ttf, tibmachuni-font-ttf, wqy-zenhei-font-ttf
    7. XAP: audacious, audacious-plugins, gftp, mozilla-thunderbird, pan, seamonkey
24. Wait for the installation to complete. It took almost a full hour with my package selection, leaving me with 485.4MB free on my 4GB SSD.
25. Choose whether or not you want to make a bootable USB... I skipped it.
26. Choose how you wish to install LILO. I chose simple.
27. Choose your frame buffer mode for the console. I chose 640x480x256.
28. Specify any optional kernal parameters. I left this blank, originally, but later learned that having 'hdc=noprobe' increased my disk access speed by about 13 times.
29. Specify whether you wish to use UTF-8 on the console. I chose no.
30. Specify where to install LILO. I chose MBR.
31. Specify your mouse type. I chose imps2.
32. Specify whether or not you wish to have gpm run at boot, which allows you to use your mouse in the console. I chose yes.
33. Configure your network.
34. Give your eeepc a hostname. This can be whatever you'd like.
35. Specify the domain for your network. This can be whatever you'd like as well.
36. Configure your IP address information. I just chose DHCP.
37. Set the DHCP hostname. I left this blank.
38. Review and confirm your network settings.
39. Choose which services you wish to have running immediately after booting.
40. See if you want to try custom screen fonts. I usually don't bother.
41. Specify whether your hardware clock is set to local time or UTC.
42. Choose your timezone.
43. Select your preferred window manager. I chose KDE.
44. Set the root password.
45. Slackware has been installed! Exit the setup program and reboot.
46. Hit F2 to enter the BIOS again.
47. Set OS Installation to "Finished" and exit the BIOS, saving changes.
48. Reboot into Slackware! The first boot takes a while because of all the initial setup. It is faster on subsequent reboots, assuming you don't add new services (like apache and mysql) at boot.

Change a few settings around.

1. vi /etc/inittab
2. (set default runlevel to 4)
3. vi /etc/lilo.conf
4. add 'compact' somewhere to make it boot faster
5. change the boot delay so it's not 120 seconds

Now for installing various drivers.

1. Install the ethernet driver: http://people.redhat.com/csnook/atl2/atl2-2.0.4.tar.bz2
   1. wget http://people.redhat.com/csnook/atl2/atl2-2.0.4.tar.bz2
   2. tar jxf atl2-2.0.4.tar.bz2
   3. cd atl2-2.0.4
   4. make
   5. cp atl2.ko /lib/modules/2.6.24.5-smp/kernel/drivers/net/
   6. depmod -a
   7. modprobe atl2
   8. ifconfig
2. Install the drivers for the wireless: http://snapshots.madwifi.org/special/madwifi-nr-r3366+ar5007.tar.gz
   1. wget http://snapshots.madwifi.org/special/madwifi-nr-r3366+ar5007.tar.gz
   2. tar zxvf madwifi-nr-r3366+ar5007.tar.gz
   3. cd madwifi-nr-r3366+ar5007.tar.gz
   4. scripts/madwifi-unload
   5. scripts/find-madwifi-modules.sh uname -r
   6. make && make install
   7. modprobe ath_pci

I kind of stopped taking notes after I realized how much fun it was to have Slackware on my EeePC. If you have questions, just add a comment below.

I just wanted to update anyone who's interested. As per a request from one CGH, I have created a very simple RSS feed for my blog entries. Now you can always keep up to date with my rants! Don't you feel special.

The feed can be found at http://site.vcboard.net/feeds/latest/

Alright, alright... the idea of maintaining a blog has always seemed somewhat cool and somewhat retarded at the same time to me. Most of the time, I have no idea why people think blogs are so important. Other times, however, I find them to be an invaluable resource. Being a nerd, I love to learn. There are oh-so-many situations that I'm put in from day to day that require me to stunt my possibilities for growing my knowledge. Thanks to deadlines and lack of funding, my jobs almost always seem to require "just the basics." This provides absolutely no opportunity for me to learn and grow.

I think that a lot of people are put in the same sort of situation all the time. That's when certain creative individuals keeping a blog seems like a good idea. It's a way for people to discuss the progress and findings they make on their own time. We can learn about a lot of interesting (albeit often useless) ideas from blogs. I hope that my ramblings on my blog will be of some use to various individuals around the world.

Note: This tutorial is a continuation of yesterday's tutorial about installing SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 on my HP Pavilion dv8000. I may or may not refer to steps that I took during installation, so if you are confused, you might want to check out the previous article.

The process of installing and enabling a wireless adapter will vary greatly from machine to machine. Some lucky folks have wireless adapters that come with official Linux drivers. For the rest of us, we usually have a Broadcom-compatible adapter. In order to use a Broadcom device, I use a program called ndiswrapper, which basically takes the drivers for the devices to function with Windows and wraps them in such a manner that Linux can use. Since I have the 64-bit version of SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (SLED) 10, I need to get a 64-bit driver in order for my wireless to function properly. These 64-bit drivers took me a while to get ahold of the first time I got my wireless working (on SuSE Linux 10.1), but I still have them in my archives, so I should be fully prepared to get my wireless working. In this article I assume that you are going to use ndiswrapper to install drivers for a Broadcom device. So let's get started.

$ su -

# lspci

lspci | grep Broadcom
lspci | grep Wireless

# lspci | grep Broadcom
06:02.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation Dell Wireless 1470 DualBand WLAN (rev 02)

# lspci -n | grep 06:02.0
06:02.0 Class 0280: 14e4:4319 (rev 02)

# cd ~/wireless
# ls

# ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5.inf
Installing bcmwl5
Forcing parameter IBSSGMode|0 to IBSSGMode|2

# ndiswrapper -l
Installed drivers:
nbcmwl5          driver installed

# cd /etc/ndiswrapper/bcmwl5
# ls
14E4:4318.5.conf  bcmwl5.inf  bcmwl564.sys

# ln -s 14E4:4318.5.conf 14E4:4319.5.conf

# ndiswrapper -l
Installed drivers:
bcmwl5          driver installed, hardware present

# modprobe ndiswrapper

Yeah... this is what usually happens when I start a new blog. I just get into a certain routine after having the blog for a while. Things don't seem interesting enough to write about them after a while.

Anyway, this past weekend I took Mindy with me down to Provo, UT to see my sister and her little guy friend. We left Rexburg around 11AM and headed down the roads in my non-air-conditioned Civic. Mindy wanted to stop by one of her friends' pad in Ogden for a bit, so we did. After we left there, the traffic down to Provo was horrible. I think we rolled up to my sister's apartment around 5:30 or 6. As we were waiting for Paul, my sister's guy friend, to get home from work, we watched Nanny McPhee or something like that. Interesting movie, I must say.

Once Paul returned home, we had a nice little barbeque and then went inside to watch a movie. I only slept 4 hours the night before, so I was pretty tired (especially after driving for that long in that heat and in that traffic). I was trying to stay awake, but Mindy gave me permission to go to sleep. About 10 seconds later I was out for the count. I woke up when the movie finished. Brandi and Paul left to go on a walk (it was about midnight at this time) whilst Mindy and I just cuddled.

Eventually, Paul and Brandi came back and we all walked over to my sister's pad to drop off Mindy and my sister. I went back to Paul's place and crashed on his couch...this was about 2AM. Around 8 o'clock, I woke up, took a shower, and headed on over to my car. I cleaned it out a bit, listened to a little music, and played some guitar. I think it was about 9:30 or so when my sister came outside. I called her over and she said that Mindy was awake. My sister told Mindy that I was in the car, so she came out. We drove around for a while, trying to find some place that sounded appetizing to get some grub. In the end, we settled on Denny's. We had a fabulous breakfast of pancakes, eggs, and hashbrowns. mmmmmm....

When we hopped back into the car, Mindy called her mom to chat for a bit. Apparently the folks we visited in Ogden called Mindy's mom right after we left. It appears that they like me. hehe.. Then Mindy's mom asked if Mindy had met my sister yet. That's when things got interesting. Mindy said something like, "Actually, no (I didn't meet her). You love me, right mom? You're not going to get mad at me, are you?" "Mindy... What did you do?" "We went down to Vegas instead." "Mindy! Did you elope?!" hehe.. Mindy played around a bit more, but eventually gave in. It was absolutely hilarious. Keep in mind that all of this happened AFTER Mindy's mom had just talked about how much the folks in Ogden raved about me. hah... fantastic. Later on, Mindy told me that her mom played the same trick on her grandpa. I think he was prepared to come out after me and kick my trash. At least before Mindy's mom told him that it was just a joke, that is.

After breakfast we all went to a little river thingy and dinked around a bit. I thought it was fun. We also went to the mall before coming back. I was looking into getting some sandals because I am sick and tired of wearing shoes all the time. I left my most favorite sandals in Romania. I had been using them for like 7 or 8 years, it seems. Maybe even longer. Anyway, we headed back up to Rexburg after hitting up the mall. The drive back up was much more pleasant--it only took 4 hours to get back.

And life as usual resumed.

Ok, I have to say that I had suspicions of what I last posted about being a dream. Honestly! I was not quite sure that it had actually happened, since it's not exactly an everyday occurrence. Somehow it just seemed like one of those dreams that are so pleasant when you experience them but that are also just temporary. I'm pretty sure it wasn't a dream now, but there are still suspicions lingering (it all just seems too good to be true!)...

So last night, I had the opportunity to see Mindy again. At first, it appeared as though it was all my imagination driving me crazy. Nothing seemed to really be different than before the previous night's dream. Then we started talking a bit and we talked about a few things we had discussed the night before (or in the previous dream). That's what comforted me--that she was conscious of the evening before (perhaps it wasn't just in my head after all).

We went for a nice stroll again, and we ended up at the campus stadium. We hiked up to the very top and just chilled for a while. It was nice to be able to just chat as we did. She started to get shivers, so I started thinking of things that we could do to warm up a bit. Mindy loves to dance. It is her most favorite thing to do, according to another conversation that we had. With that in mind, I asked if she wanted to dance a bit. Heh...you should have seen the confused look on her face. It was classic! Anyway, when she saw that I was serious, she agreed to dance a bit. Now, you all have to understand that I do not know how to dance worth beans. Lucky for me, Mindy knows how and actually likes to teach people how to dance. I'm afraid I may be a lost cause though. Mindy tried to teach me how to do a simple waltz on top of the stadium...aahh brotha. Let me tell you... As simple as it may seem, it sure did confuse me. Perhaps I just need a little more practice (I hope).

Eventually the chilliness of the evening breeze became a bit too much, so we walked back to Mindy's place. Once there, we happened upon our good buddies Matt and Kara. They seemed to be having a jolly time together, but Mindy and I thought it more appropriate not to interrupt their bliss for too long, so we took off again. This time we went to a nice park thinger away from all of the city lights and looked at the stars until the cold became too much again. We got to see a fabulous shooting star or possibly even a meteor. That was Mindy's first time to see a shooting star, and it was probably the most amazing one I've ever seen. It was rather large and not exactly fast-moving. There wasn't a tail on it until after we both saw it. Then the tail grew to be pretty long until it all disappeared. It was fantastic!

That is about the time that we walked back to Mindy's pad and said good night. I also seem to remember setting up a time and place for us to meet a bit later today. I suppose that if Mindy is actually there then all of my suspicions of these experiences will be put to rest. I will then accept the idea that it's not just my whacky imagination playing sick and drawn-out tricks on my mind. For all I know I'm actually just dozing off at work right now and dreaming that I am writing all of this. Weird.

So, I recently started this blog thing, right? To my surprise, the "dashboard" or control panel has a special spot for one to add Google Ads to their blog with great ease! I, after having heard of others' successes with Google Ads, decided to give it a go. My very first post (which has been removed already) mentioned how I would be joining the c h a o s of bloggerdom. Google Ads saw the 'C' word in the previous sentence and put ads about hurricanes and natural disasters all over my page!! It wasn't until I removed that post that the ads changed to something about blogs.

Over in my links you'll notice that I have one to a blog called "Rug Burns." All of the Google Ads on his page are about burns and first aid. It doesn't matter what he posts on his blog--the ads always seem to talk about the title of his blog.

Very strange. Let's see if my ads change now that I've mentioned his title in this post. :D