Problems with my Intel Wifi 5100 on Linux

I've really had it with this laptop of mine. It was OK at its time, but now it's long time due. I'm getting a new system in a couple of months from now. I've really missed having a desktop computer these last few years.

But anyway... my Kubuntu 13.10 x86_64, or my wifi controller, or both, suddenly decided to make wifi networking impossible, all of a sudden. The wifi controller in question is an Intel 5100. The funny thing is that it appears that I do have the right firmware for it.

alex@asus:~$ lspci | grep Net
06:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation WiFi Link 5100
alex@asus:~$ modinfo iwlwifi | grep ^firmware
firmware: iwlwifi-100-5.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-1000-5.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-135-6.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-105-6.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-2030-6.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-2000-6.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-5150-2.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-5000-5.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-6000g2b-6.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-6000g2a-5.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-6050-5.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-6000-4.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-3160-7.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-7260-7.ucode

After some very frustrating research, I found a fix:

alex@asus:~$ sudo echo "options iwlwifi 11n_disable=1" >> /etc/modprobe.d/iwlwifi.conf

and a reboot did the trick for me.

Google Chrome theme fix on Linux

(Off-topic: this is my first post in more than two years on this blog! In the meantime, I learned to speak English better and I forgot most of my Linux know-how...)

Right, so Google inadvertently fscked things up with Chrome (which, with all its downsides, is still the best browser in my opinion) – with the Chrome themes, to be more precise. Since you normally get them via the Google Store, the ones that you've already tried out are displayed as being already installed. However, if you want to use an old (installed!) theme again... you might not be able to. It's shown as installed, but there's no means to choose it. You can't uninstall it either, since it's not an app, but a – erm – theme.

RapidShare Premium, wget and your download queue

So you just bought a RapidShare Premium account and would like to automatize fetching your link list? Here is a very raw solution with cookie-based authentication handled by wget and a download queue in the form of a plain text file.

Mass-(re)naming files from .flac tags

The story is usually the other way around: you have a bunch of correctly named audio files and you want to automatically mass-tag them. Most players and tag editors already allow you to do that.

My problem was the exact reverse of this situation: I had neatly tagged .flac-s and I wanted to rename the files, which were bleakly called split-track01.flac, split-track02.flac etc.

Splitting and converting large .ape files

In a previous post I talked about how a large .flac file can be split into the original CD tracks (provided you have a correct .cue file).
Here is how to do the same for a large .ape file.

Splitting large .flac files

Suppose you have a large .flac file and a .cue one (which provides the correct and complete ripping information). The large .flac stands for the whole CD. How to split it into the tracks that should make it up?

How to gobble (GNU scrobble) to Libre.FM using Amarok2

There is an open alternative to last.fm for the ones who like to keep track of their listening habits – it is called Libre.FM and it keeps growing.

One does not scrobble on Libre.FM, but gobbles instead.

It would have all been nice if there wouldn't have been so many issues with clients with poor or no support at all. I discontinued using my Libre.FM account when I switched to Amarok2, which offered no support for Libre.FM. Not any more! It is now possible to submit the metadata in your tracks to your Libre.FM account, even from Amarok2.

How to split large files in Linux and *BSD

Suppose you have a large file that you need to "break down" to smaller pieces and then reconstruct. It's fairly simple, using the split command.

I will only give a brief usage example. For more information, check out man split (and info coreutils 'split invocation' on Linux).

IPFW: rule-based forwarding disabled

If you want to enable IPFW (or load the module) and you get "rule-based forwarding disabled" in dmesg... and you need forwarding, well, that is just too bad. You will need to enable IPFW forwarding support in the kernel.

Shockwave content on Linux

Suppose you have the misfortune of having to access a page which only provides its interactive content in Shockwave, not Flash or Java. A stupid, ugly and slow leftover of old Macromedia (just before they released Shockwave Flash) that should not be supported anymore, anywhere, in my opinion.

Keypad/Numpad gone mad in KDE4

I upgraded to KDE4 – Kubuntu Karmic Koala (9.10).

All was fine, excepting for the numerical keypad. My notebook's design includes this keypad which allows me to use the digits (when NumLock is on) and the other keys, respectively (Del, Home, End, Page Up, Page Down, Ins) – when the NumLock LED is off.

Editing Midnight Commander's color scheme

In a previous post I was sort of laying out a "formula" on how to transform your Midnight Commander default color scheme into a trasnparent skin, without talking too much about how you can change the other colors.

To my great shame, I didn't pay too much attention to this blog or to the comments asking for further advice. I found Mateus' comment rather late (just now!) and decided to dig further, in order to find out how exactly to deal with more refined color changes, while still keeping the transparent background (in both in Midnight Commander and its editor).

Core dumps

Since I'm interested in examining core dumps (in order to submit them to the ones developing the application that crashed) I prefer to keep core dumping enabled at all times on my systems.

Here is a brief hands-on to core dumps management.

SSH, backspace and UTF-8

Just great. If you use UTF-8 characters encoded on more than 1 byte (such as Latin diacritics, Armenian, Japanese etc. characters) and you attempt to hit [backspace] through SSH to delete them, you might be surprised to find out that backspace in SSH only deletes the last byte.

This can lead to a lot of unexpected results in your documents and it can generate a lot of confusion for any app you might be running via SSH.

mt-daapd / Firefly media server -- follow-up

A little while back I was talking very angrily about mt-daapd / Firefly media server.

It just so happened that it was 1) crashing and 2) apparently scanning outside of the directories I told it to scan in.

mt-daapd is not the answer

Depending on how lucky you are, mt-daapd / Firefly Media Server might or might not work for you.

The problem at hand is how to elegantly share media files in your LAN without resorting to NFS exports or Samba shares.

Migrating from KMail to Evolution

I've decided to give Gnome one more go (I've been a KDE user so far) so I installed Ubuntu 9.04 on my laptop. What's more is that I decided to use only GTK applications, nothing Qt whatsoever. At least for a while, to see how it goes : )

So far, nothing but confusion. What was notable though was the painful migration of my e-mails from KMail to Evolution.

Asus Pro57Vr notebook (M51VR) and Linux

I bought this Asus Pro57Vr notebook (scroll and click "Specifications") about 10 days ago; it's reported as M51VR on Ubuntu.

It's very nice, for its price. Plus, I've grown fond of Asus over the past years, due to the great quality/price balance. After I've stuffed my desktop system with a lot of Asus components, I thought I'd buy a laptop from them as well.

svn bad commit?

Suppose you do a bad svn commit. Here is a quick hands-on.

Pidgin bug -- update

After more than half of year after noticing the issue and getting frustrated with the "can't set new Yahoo! avatar in Pidgin" bug, it seems that things have finally gotten a move on!