That's right, I have a Broadcom BCM4312 wireless NIC in my Lenovo N500 laptop and the Linux driver is a bit of a bitch. Well, if I use Ubuntu it will recognize it and ask me if I want to install the not-so-free drivers. Debian is not so enthusiastic. So I went to Broadcom's Website and grabbed the driver they had available there. But wait, it's not that easy… I also needed these instructions I found from Andy Kelley. In short, here's the steps:

1. Download the drivers from Broadcom's Site

2. Make sure ya got the headers: apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-`uname -r`

3. Make sure ya got "make": apt-get install make

4. From the Broadcom instructions: make -C /lib/modules/`uname -r`/build M=`pwd` clean

5. Also from Broadcom's instructions: make -C /lib/modules/`uname -r`/build M=`pwd`

6. Dump potentially conflicting drivers: rmmod bcm43xx b43 b43legacy ssb wl

7. Make sure you got TKIP: modprobe ieee80211_crypt_tkip

8. Use the new module: insmod wl.ko

There are additional steps if you would rather relocate the driver file in a more appropriate place:

9. Remove it: rmmod wl

10. Make a new dir for it and copy it: mkdir -p /lib/modules/`uname -r`/misc

10b. cp wl.ko /lib/modules/`uname -r`/misc/wl.ko

11. Put it back in: insmod /lib/modules/`uname -r`/misc/wl.ko

12. Generate the dependency: depmod -a

Then if you are feelin' really crazy you can blacklist a few drivers that might screw with it:

echo "blacklist bcm43xx" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
echo "blacklist b43" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
echo "blacklist b43legacy" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
echo "blacklist ssb" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

Oh yeah, and I would also suggest apt-get network-manager which has a quick n' dirty interface for adding wireless networks.

Shit, I am really the king of Blah Blah Blah tonight eh? Anyways, if you have a Gnome desktop and do not want to see the default icons anymore you can open "Applications -> System Tools -> Configuration Editor" and then browse to "apps -> nautilus -> desktop". There you'll find check boxes for the crap on your desktop.

Yeah, so tonight I changed the theme I am using with good old Wordpress. I stole downloaded and slightly modified a theme made by Clayton McIlrath that looked real simple, fast loading, and clean. The theme makes me pretty happy so far and has only one [very minor] downside… the old theme looked okay at 800×600 which even for me is a bit on the brutal side. The new theme however has a banner that is 980 pixels wide and is probably going to require a screen resolution of 1024×768 or better. I can [oddly enough] think of two viewers who may actually still be using 800×600… hopefully this may prompt them to change their screen resolution? Perhaps not.

OK, so I wanted to have my cute little header up there change on a regular basis. This is more annoying than it seems but not a big deal once you find out how to control browsers (a little bit) with Apache. Basically, I first needed a batch file that would copy over a new banner every 60 seconds.

@ECHO OFF
:LOOOPME
copy /Y C:\path\banner01.jpg C:\otherpath\banner.jpg
sleep 60
copy /Y C:\path\banner02.jpg C:\otherpath\banner.jpg
sleep 60
copy /Y C:\path\banner03.jpg C:\otherpath\banner.jpg
sleep 60
GOTO LOOOPME

That is basically how it looks, and "sleep" is a resource kit utility that waits the specified number of seconds. once I had that written up I had to make it run as a service with some other reskit utilities (see THIS post for details). Great, no the image changes but my browser keeps showing the same old cached shit! Now I gotta go and open up my Apache httpd.conf file… In there you should have <Directory /path/> statements defined for your server globally or for vhosts if you use 'em. Add in an extra directive specifically for the directory that hosts your image header like this:

<Directory C:/path/to/images/>
Header Set Cache-Control "max-age=30, no-store"
</Directory>

And restart Apache eh. That'll tell Apache to tell your friggin browser to only cache that crap for 30 seconds.

Thanks to This Site for making it easy enough for a dipshit like me to understand.

Yes, my laptop installation continues and now I feel like documenting Truecrypt.

1. Open Synaptic and install libfuse2

2. Then install fuse-utils

3. Then install dmsetup

4. Exit Synaptic (not kidding)

5. Go to Truecrypt's website and download the .deb (Ubuntu X86)

6. Extract the .deb from the archive and run it as root

7. Agree to the license and crap

8. Open a root terminal and cd /etc

9. Run visudo and add a line below root with the same syntax

# User privilege specification
root    ALL=(ALL) ALL
user    ALL=(ALL) ALL

10. Logoff and on again… and try Truecrypt.

Not as bad as Firefox eh?

OK, I just reinstalled my laptop. I am running Debian on it, cause I want to. However, it comes with Ice Weasel and Epiphany… neither of which I like. I have installed FF2 on Linux before but have never bothered to document what I did. In an attempt to be more thourough about things I am gonna document it now (no matter how easy or annoying it may be).

1. Find out that mozilla.com has dropped the 2.0.0.20 download from their website

2. Find it elsewhere

3. Save it to my website so I can download it later [Windows version] [Linux version]

4. Download the Linux version

5. Uncompress the Linux version to a nifty location on your drive

6. Open Synaptic [or use apt-get] and install libstdc++5

7. Open a root terminal and cd to /usr/local/bin [or anywhere in the path really]

8. Create a link with ln -s /unarchivepath/firefox firefox

9. Add to the menus if you want

10. Run it

11. Get rid of the bookmarks toolbar

12. Download and install CustomizeGoogle_v0.76, AdBlockPlus_v1.0.2, and CookieSafeLite_v1.4

13. Run through Customize Google and setup ad blocking

14. Add Snorkuscription and point it to HERE

15. If you insist on having Flash player, get the old version here

16. Hmmm, I guess maybe check the preferences to see if there is anything else to turn off

There, that wasn't so bad was it?