As a starting point, I downloaded the entire build directory from slackware64-current. I chose the mirror slackware.oregonstate.edu. (I suggest using http://slackware.com/getslack/ to find a suitable mirror.) Using FileZilla, I grabbed the entire directory slackware64-current/source/xap/mozilla-firefox/ and put it in /usr/src on my workstation.

Try 1:

1. Set the SlackBuild script as executable: chmod a+x mozilla-firefox.SlackBuild
2. Run the script: ./mozilla-firefox.SlackBuild

As so often happens, I encountered a problem:

configure: error: Can't find header iwlib.h for Necko WiFi scanning (might be in package libiw-dev (Ubuntu) or wireless-tools-devel (Fedora) or libiw-devel (openSUSE)); use --disable-necko-wifi to disable
make: *** No targets specified and no makefile found.  Stop.

Since I don’t even know what necko-wifi is or does, I took the advice of the error message and added –disable-necko-wifi to the script mozilla-firefox.SlackBuild.

Try 2:

1. I used vim to edit the file and found the –disable-whatevers and added the line
   --disable-necko-wifi
just after the line:
   --disable-profilesharing \
2. Run the script: ./mozilla-firefox.SlackBuild

Sucess! Woohoo!

Being a careful and methodical–pronounced: scared and anal-retentive–person, I backed up my Firefox profile:

1. Open Firefox
2. From the Tools menu, select Clear Recent History
3. In the Clear … History dialog box, select Everything for Time range to clear
4. Under Details, make sure only Cache is checked.
5. Click Clear Now
6. Quit Firefox
7. In home directory (type: cd and press <enter> to get there), type:
   tar zcvvf /path/to/backup/dotmozilla20110904.tgz .mozilla

Now, if disaster strikes, I can get back to where I was before this exploration!

Finally, I upgraded Firefox using the new package:

su
cd /tmp
upgradepkg mozilla-firefox-6.0-x86_64-1.txz

When I ran Firefox, I was greeted with a message telling me that my version was out of date.  It seems that version 6.0.1 has been released. Back to the drawing board.

Try 3:

I snagged the Firefox source file firefox-6.0.1.source.tar.bz2 from ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/6.0.1/source/ and put it with the other files. Then deleted the old source file firefox-6.0.source.tar.bz2, to ensure the new one will build.

Once again, I ran the script: ./mozilla-firefox.SlackBuild

And again, success!

Now I upgrade the 6.0 version to 6.0.1 using:

su
cd /tmp
upgradepkg mozilla-firefox-6.0.1-x86_64-1.txz

Ah, life is good! WordPress no longer complains about my Firefox version and my few extensions and plug-ins work just fine. I suppose at this point, I could have quit. But what about that necko-wifi error? What is necko-wifi, anyway.

A bit of research leads me to believe that necko-wifi uses libiw-dev to do geolocation. A little more digging reveals that the Slackware package wireless-tools from the n set installs that header file. Well, I don’t use geolocation, but I decided I would try the build and install one more time, just to see . . .

Try 4:

1. Pop in the Slackware DVD and install the package wireless-tools-29-x86_64-6.txz
2. Open a shell, and edit the SlackBuild file, commenting out the line I added in step 1 of Try 1.
3. Run ./mozilla-firefox.SlackBuild for, what I hope, is the last time.

And yes! Yes! Yes! It builds!

So, I removed the package I installed in Try 3 and installed the newly-built package. Sure enough. When I browse to http://www.google.com/maps/m, I guess a message that www.google.com wants to share my location. Clicking x, I choose to congratulate myself on another puzzle completed (and not to reveal that I’m sitting in my home office/studio in front of the computer.

Happy Daze!
Stu…

http://slackware.com/security/viewer.php?l=slackware-security&y=2011&m=slackware-security.453304

NOTE: Building Mozilla Firefox depends on the package wireless-tools.  If it’s not already installed, install it from /slackware64/n/ on your Slackware CD or grab it from a Slackware mirror. (Alternatively, you can take a look at my hack to the SlackBuild file.)

NOTE: The resulting package will run whether or not wireless-tools is installed.

1. Get the SlackBuild files from slackware64-current/source/xap/mozilla-firefox/ on a Slackware mirror. You’ll need these files
   • :firefox.moz_plugin_path.diff.gz
   • firefox.png
   • mimeTypes.rdf.gz
   • mozilla-firefox-mimeTypes-fix.diff.gz
   • mozilla-firefox.SlackBuild
   • mozilla-firefox.desktop
   • slack-desc
2. Put them in a convienient place to build. (I like /usr/src/mozilla-firefox)
3. Grab the Firefox source file firefox-6.0.2.source.tar.bz2 from ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/6.0.2/source/ and put it with the other files.
4. Open a shell and cd to the directory in which you put the files in steps 2 and 3.
5. Set the SlackBuild file executable:chmod a+x mozilla-firefox.SlackBuild
6. Run the SlackBuild:./mozilla-firefox.SlackBuild
7. After a bit of churning and whirring, you should end up with a package in /tmp named mozilla-firefox-6.0.2-x86_64-1.txz
8. To install the package, just open a shell as root.

If you have a previous Mozilla Firefox Slackware package installed, type:

upgradepkg mozilla-firefox-6.0.2-x86_64-1.txz

If not, replace the line above with:

installpkg mozilla-firefox-6.0.2-x86_64-1.txz

Cleaning Up:

At the end of this process, you’ll be left with some extra stuff in /tmp.  To get rid of it:

1. Move (or copy) the package file mozilla-firefox-6.0.2-x86_64-1.txz to a safe place.
2. If you copied the file in step 1, delete the file mozilla-firefox-6.0.2-x86_64-1.txz
3. Delete the directories mozilla-release and package-mozilla-firefox

Happy Surfing!
Stu…

P.S. If you’re interested in how I got this to work, take a look at the journal of my journey.

P.P.S. Updated for 6.0.2 (we miss you, Mozilla.com -)

Having some experience getting the iSight going with Linux, I knew that I needed to extract and install the iSight firmware. Using the Ubuntu help site’s Mactel Support Team iSight page as a reference,  I grabbed the iSight firmware tools, then extracted and installed the firmware in /lib/firmware.

The Ekiga test worked wonderfully! Much to my delight, the Cheese test also worked. I was in business . . . or was I? On reboot, Cheese no longer worked. Grrr! A bit more experimenting showed that Ekiga still worked and, after running Ekiga, Cheese worked. Poking around I found that running lsusb from the console, showed that the iSight firmware didn’t load on startup.

I wasted a bit of time trying this and that.  Over and over, the firmware did not load until I ran Ekiga: not an optimal setup.

This morning, I finally found this wonderful post by Ubuntu Forums member JerkyChew. Running the three simple commands suggested fixed the iSight! Thank you and hats off to JerkyChew!

Happy Hacking!
Stu…

After wasting much time creating a Window-Specific behavior–causing my KDE theme’s minimize, maximize and close buttons to disappear–I realized that what I was looking for was actually a setting in Chrome’s options. Color me red!

To make Chrome 6.x look like it did in the 5.x days, select Options from the Customize and control Google Chrome widget (the little wrench on the right: ). Click on the Personal Stuff tab, under Appearance, select the Hide system bar and use compact borders radio button:

Ah, things are much better now . . . at least back to the way to which I have become accustomed!

Happy Hacking!
Stu…

When I checked in System Settings -> Desktop -> Desktop Effects, I saw that “Compositing has been suspended by another application . . .” I clicked the Resume Compositing button, but once again received the message and found that “Compositing is temporarily disabled.”

After a bit of searching, I found a post on the KDE Community Forums where a Kubuntu user had solved this issue by checking Disable functionality checks on the Advanced tab. Figuring it was worth a try, I checked the box and clicked the Apply button.  Oops! My desktop became pale blue nothing!

Using the CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE key combination, I shut down X.  Then, from the shell, I poked around my .kde directory and found the setting in .kde/share/config/kwinrc as “DisableChecks=true.” So, I removed this line from the file and started X once more: still no compositing; no effects, but at least I had usable KDE. (See: there’s a good reason I don’t start the GUI automagically!)

At this point I was mildly frustrated. I couldn’t understand why upgrading Xorg server to 1.7.7 killed compositing. Heck, maybe was it the newly installed kdegraphics-4.4.3!?! Did I really want to fuss with reverting packages until the problem went away? Nope!

I figured it was time to punt, so I downloaded and installed the latest nVidia driver–as much to give my self something to do as in hopes that it would fix the problem. Once the driver was installed, I logged out as root and logged back in as myself.  Now the moment of truth! I typed startx and pressed my well-worn ENTER key. OMG! It worked! I have wobbly windows again!

So, time to check this on the MacBook which uses an nVidia 9400M. Same results: no compositing after the upgrade and upgrading the nVidia driver fixed the issue.

The TL/DR of it all is: If upgrading Slackware kills your nVidia card’s compositing, just update the nVidia driver to 256.44 and life is good!

Happy Hacking!
Stu…

P.S. I was previously using nVidia driver version 256.35.

After learning to use CloneZilla Live to create and restore system images, booting from a customized CD with images on external USB hard drives, I decided to install CloneZilla the USB hard drive and get the CD out of the equation.

I found a very useful page describing the process of installing CloneZilla Live on a hard drive on the CloneZilla site. I used these directions to copy the .zip file into a Linux partition. Alas, the directions for making it boot use grub; Slackware and I still use LILO.

So, armed with these directions, I figured out how to boot the copied CloneZilla live using LILO.

While installing Slackware 12.2 on another partition on the hard drive, I set LILO to boot Slackware, ignoring CloneZilla for now.

Then, I created the directory /live-hd/ on the Slackware partition and copied vmlinuz and initrd.img there.

After much experimenting, reading LILO man pages, and twiddling with Slackware’s /etc/lilo.conf, I ended up with this:

image = /live-hd/vmlinuz
root = /dev/sda1
initrd = /live-hd/initrd.img
vga = 788
addappend = "boot=live union=aufs live-media-path=/live-hd bootfrom=/dev/sda1 toram=filesystem.squashfs"
label = CloneZilla
read-only

So, there you have it! The LILO spell for booting CloneZilla Live from /dev/sda1

Phase II of the project will be turning the “Live” system into a normal Linux system that doesn’t recreate itself each time it boot. Hence: Killing CloneZilla Live!

Enjoy!
Stu…

Installing VMWare workstation from the bundle worked fine, but it won’t run because the VMWare modules don’t compile.  Running vmware-modconfig –console –install-all gives the cryptic message: “gcc and kernel headers must be installed.”

Um, gcc and the kernel headers are installed!

After a little digging, I found this VMware Fusion 3 on Mac OSX howto posted by Chris Willing at The University of Queensland Visilab: http://www.vislab.uq.edu.au/howto/vmware.html

This gave me my first clue: the files autoconf.h and utsrelease.h have moved from include/linux to include/generated.  As much as I hate to hack my kernel source, I opted to link these files in include/linux.

cd /usr/src/linux/include/linux/
ln -sf ../generated/autoconf.h .
ln -sf ../generated/utsrelease.h .

Now vmware-modconfig –console –install-all runs, but fails on compiling the vmnet stuff:

/tmp/vmware-root/modules/vmnet-only/vnetUserListener.c:240: error: ‘TASK_INTERRUPTIBLE’ undeclared (first use in this function)

To fix this, I found the define for TASK_INTERUPTABLE (in /usr/src/linux/include/linux/sched.h). Now, to tell vnetUserListener.c about it:

cd /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/
cp vmnet.tar was_vmnet.tar
cd ~/tmp
tar xf /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/vmnet.tar
cd vmnet-only

In vnetUserListener,c, add the line:
#include <linux/sched.h>
after
#include "vnetInt.h"

cd ..
tar cf vmnet.tar vmnet-only
mv vmnet.tar /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/

Now vmware-modconfig –console –install-all dies on the vmci stuff.  As Chris Willing noted in the VMware Fusion 3 on Mac OSX (see above), adding a line to pgtbl.h fixes this:

cd /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/
 cp vmci.tar was_vmci.tar
 cd ~/tmp
 tar xf /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/vmci.tar
 cd vmci-only/include

In pgtbl.h, add the line:
 #include <linux/sched.h>
 after
#include "compat_page.h"

cd ../..
tar cf vmci.tar vmci-only
mv vmci.tar /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/

Finally, it all compiles and we have a working VMWare Workstation install!

options snd_hda_intel model=mbp3

Anyway, I decided to upgrade the kernel to 2.6.34 and found that its drivers supported the MacBook’s sound device: HDA NVidia, ALC889A.  Once I removed the line above from /etc/modprobe.d/sound, audio works really well!

I have tried it with the built-in speakers and with headphones.  Changing the Channel Mode from 2 to 6 doesn’t seem to have any effect on the analog outputs.

For good form, I created the file ~/.asoundrc containing:

pcm.card0 {
  type hw
  card 0
}
ctl.card0 {
  type hw
  card 0
}

My guess is that Channel Mode works on the digital output.

Anyway, the MacBook and I are happy with Slackware64!

Peace!
Stu…

I booted to MacOS, inserted the Slackware DVD, selected Foreign OS on SlackDVD in Startup Disk, and clicked the Restart . . . button.  The install went well and quickly.  When installing LILO, I selected the Expert option and placed LILO on the MBR of /dev/sda.

When I rebooted, LILO took over and booted Slackware. After logging in as root, I shut down, using halt: experience has taught me that reboot doesn’t work on the Mac..  To get back to MacOS I had to clear the Mac’s PRAM holding command+option+p+r and wait for the startup chord. This got me back to normal Mac startup and I opened a terminal window and re-blessed rEFIt. (Yeah, I still use rEFIt; I never bothered to learn how BootCamp works -)

Upon rebooting into Slackware, I installed wicd from extra.  I started the wicd daemon, opened wicd and found that I had no wireless driver.  (From this point, I’ll skip all the mistakes I made getting to the solution. Perhaps I’ll blog about those later, though I doubt it!)

For those keeping score, I’m working with one of the unibody MacBooks.  Going to About This Mac and clicking the More info . . . button reveals the Model Identifier MacBook5,1 (whatever that means).

In Linux as root, running lspci -v revealed the wireless adapter:  Broadcom Corporation BCM4322. I recalled that the quick way to get this working was to install the driver the Broadcom web site.  I rebooted to MacOS and after some poking around I finally found the 802.11 Linux STA driver page. I downloaded the 64-bit driver (hybrid-portsrc-x86_64-v5.60.48.36.tar.gz) and saved it to my Mac desktop.

Back in Linux, I mounted the MacOS partion–type hfsplus–and used tar zxf to put the driver in /usr/src/broadcom on my Linux partition. README.txt gave me the very simple build directions: type make in the top-level directory. All went well, and I ended up with the driver wl.ko, which I copied to the /lib/modules/2.6.29.6/kernel/drivers/net directory. All that left was blacklisting b43 and ssb in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf and rebooting.

The driver loaded and when I open wicd, I can see my wireless network.  One click connected me and now I’m up-and-blogging.

May 22, 2010 – Update: I installed Linux kernel version 2.6.34 and, of course, broke the wireless driver.

When I tried to compile the driver using, I got the error:

/usr/src/broadcom/src/include/linuxver.h:23:28: error: linux/autoconf.h: No such file or directory

A little poking around led me to the solution.  It seems that autoconf.h has moved in 2.6.34: it now lives in generated (instead of linux).  In the Broadcom driver source, in the file src/include/linuxver.h, I changed the line:

#include <linux/autoconf.h>

to

#include <generated/autoconf.h>

The module compiled and worked when I loaded it manually.

In order to load it automagically, I created a new /etc/rc.d/rc.netdevice:

#!/bin/sh
modprobe wl

Getting the sound working is another story

As you may know, Slackware runs vsftpd (and some other services) from inetd: the internet “super-server.” After a bit of searching and some piddling around, I found a very simple solution: add the following to /etc/vsftpd.conf

listen=NO

FYI, I actually just uncommented the line listen=YES and changed YES to NO.

I post this in hopes that next time I encounter this issue, I’ll have the answer stored!

Happy ‘putering!
Stu…