After several failed attempts to install Linux late last year, and over the past week or so, I finally got Ubuntu 10.04 installed on my Alienware laptop. Working wifi, working audio, working nvidia graphics.

To get started, I downloaded unetbootin-windows-442.exe, and the Ubuntu 10.04 LTS CD .iso, and ran unetbootin to unpack the ISO on a USB stick. When that was finished, I rebooted, went into the BIOS and disabled both the hybrid graphics and the integrated graphics, rebooted again and selected F12 to choose my boot medium, and booted from the USB stick.

With the graphics cards ‘disabled’, installation began in 1900×1200 native mode. I moved my 25GB recovery partition to another USB drive using dd:
dd if=/dev/sda2 of=/media/MyPassport/DellRecovery.partition
I then removed that partition and started the Ubuntu installer.

When installation was complete, and I rebooted, I realized I had no way to download the restricted STA driver, but there’s a workaround — you can install it from your installation medium by running a dpkg command. First, insert your installation medium, then start a Terminal prompt, change to the mount folder, such as /media/cdrom or in my case, /media/CORSAIR … from there, change into the pool folder, so your path is similar to /media/CORSAIR/pool/ and run the following command:

sudo dpkg -i restricted/b/bcmwl/bcmwl-kernel-source_5.60.48.36+bdcom-0ubuntu3_i386.deb \
main/d/dkms/dkms_2.1.1.2-2fakesync1_all.deb \
main/p/patch/patch_2.6-2ubuntu1_i386.deb

This will install the restricted driver and kernel patch, etc.

Next, I downloaded all available updates, rebooted, loaded the restricted nvidia driver, rebooted, and voila:

Now to see if the HDMI output will work at the office in the morning for a dual monitor setup.

No tags

Like it or not, opt-out or not, Facebook will deliver a social web.

I have my Facebook account locked down fairly well with very few details open to the public (my website and Email) and I of course followed my own instructions on how to properly opt out of Facebook’s “Instant Personalization” settings. Or so I thought.

Even though I have opted out and set up restrictive privacy settings as seen to the left, visiting http://www.facebook.com/cormyn will allow you to view my entire friend’s list, and show you all products, apps, music and games that I am a fan of, or have selected that I like. Honestly, I could care less that the world can see that I like Jason Mraz or Sara Bareilles, they’re both excellent musicians. And I’m certain that nobody is going to lose any sleep knowing that I’m a die-hard Dr Pepper fan or that I play some of Zynga’s games on Facebook.

However, despite my efforts to follow Facebook’s instructions to opt out of Instant Personalization, I visited CNN.com this morning to read a news article about a tweet I read a few minutes ago, and saw the following:

Upon clicking an article, I also saw this at the top right of the screen and also at the bottom of the article I was reading:

This is definitely something that concerns me. Not only is the front page of CNN showing me messages about one of my Facebook friends, it’s also aware of the fact that none of my 300-something friends on Facebook have “recommended” the article on their Facebook pages, and suggests I get the scoop and be the first of my friends to do so.

Seriously, Facebook? I’ve opted out, I’ve blocked the three partner sites, yet there are still other sites out there, implementing your “like” button for your grandiose “social web” scheme, and my information and web browsing will be made known to you just because I happen to be logged into Facebook?

That’s right, folks: as soon as I’ve logged out of Facebook, CNN fails to show any of the text/graphics which I show in the screenshots above.

I will admit, the web developer in me is amazed because I know the effort and technology that goes into building something like this. At the same time, if the only way I can NOT see this information is to log out of Facebook, then perhaps I will reserve a separate browser for my Facebook activity, and use my primary browser choice (Google Chrome) for the rest of the web.

Either that, or I need to see if AdBlock has a rule implemented that blocks Facebook’s iframe on every other web site. That’d be convenient.

facebook, privacy, security

I have Windows 7 on my laptop, but since I’m a die-hard Linux geek and haven’t got the patience to wait for anyone else to figure out all of the drivers needed for a clean, working Linux build on my M17x, I installed Cygwin. However, the limitation of running Cygwin in a DOS-like command line window that couldn’t be expanded beyond 80 characters was a nuisance. Enter “puttytel” (downloadable on this page) which can connect to your local Cygwin installation in a PuTTY-like SSH terminal. Running this executable gives you a connection type of “cygterm” which you select along with a command of just a dash mark for a local shell.

Of course, then came the mind-numbing exercise of clicking the PuTTY icon, and having to double-click the “cygwin” profile I made (for scrollback, colored terminal, etc). A quick Google search later, and I had my answer.

1. Create a shortcut on your desktop for PuTTYtel.exe (right-button drag and drop the executable works great, select “Create Shortcuts here”)
2. Right-click the shortcut icon and select Properties
3. Under the “General” tab, give it a meaningful name
4. Under the “Shortcut” tab, where it lists your target as “C:\whateverpath\puttytel.exe” change it to include a parameter of -load (single dash) and then a string (quoted if it contains spaces, etc) of which profile name you want to autoload. Since mine was called “—-cygwin” (so it would appear at the top of my stored session list), my new Target line became this:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\putty\puttytel.exe" -load "----cygwin"
5. Click OK to save, then right-click on the shortcut again and select “pin to taskbar”
6. Now you can simply click that icon, and it will immediately load that PuTTY saved session for you.

cygwin, linux, putty, windows 7