SMC 2862W-G on Linux!

To be exact the SMC 2862W-G EZ Connect g 802.11g Wireless USB 2.0 Adapter which I got a year or two ago finally works in Linux (Kubuntu Edgy). Details below for those whoever run into the same problem. Now I have 2 Linux compatible USB dongles, sweet! So now I can finally set up my other Linux box right beside me thats been here for months haha.

lsusb output

Bus 005 Device 014: ID 0707:ee13 Standard Microsystems Corp. EZ-Connect 802.11g Adapter

Requirements: curl and git-core package. Code below only for Debian based distros.

apt-get install curl git-core

Building the driver

git clone http://islsm.org/~jb/islsm/islsm.git softmac
cd softmac
make
make load

Kudos to vlsoft for posting it here. Having late nights like this reminds me of the times I was up trying to configure X11 for my old Toshiba laptop. Ahhhh the memories. I was in my cluster kitchen when I finally got it to work if I remember correctly. Hehe.

Edit. Revisited this on my newest and oldest comp in my room: an old Pentium 233 with 32MB of RAM. Found out I left out 1 part which is copying the firmware as stated here

If you have a second-generation device, please use this firmware: 2.5.8.0 firmware and copy it to /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware/isl3887usb_bare.

And yes I should sleep as I have training at 9am. Man but I want to play with my Linux….

Edit2. Last night I tried to compile this on a fresh install of Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn (kernel: 2.6.20-16-generic) and found compile errors. The worse part was the site seemed to be down thus I couldnt search the forums for any help. Thus I did what I could do, actually read the errors and try to fix them. And viola! After a few minutes I managed to get it to compile! Now thats what Open Source is about. Something’s wrong so go ahead and fix it! Anyway changelog below

================================================================================
Changelog
========================================
Modified by Timothy Lim Sheng Hwee
on 1st July 2007
========================================
Tested on Ubuntu 7.04, Feisty Fawn (uname -r output: 2.6.20-16-generic)

File changes
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
islsm_netdev.c
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
line 30:
#include <linux/config.h>
changed to
#include <linux/version.h>
#if LINUX_VERSION_CODE < KERNEL_VERSION(2,6,19)
#include <linux/config.h>
#endif
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
islsm_dev.c
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
line 27:
#include <linux/config.h>
changed to
#include <linux/version.h>
#if LINUX_VERSION_CODE < KERNEL_VERSION(2,6,19)
#include <linux/config.h>
#endif
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
islusb_transport.c
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
line 23:
#include <linux/config.h>
moved to line 28 and changed to
#if LINUX_VERSION_CODE < KERNEL_VERSION(2,6,19)
#include <linux/config.h>
#endif
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
islusb_init.c
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
line 23:
#include <linux/config.h>
changed to
#include <linux/version.h>
#if LINUX_VERSION_CODE < KERNEL_VERSION(2,6,19)
#include <linux/config.h>
#endif
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
islsm_uart.c
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
line 29:
add
#include <linux/poll.h>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
islpci_dev.c
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
line 1254:
INIT_WORK(&priv->reset_task, islpci_do_reset_and_wake, priv);
changed to
#if LINUX_VERSION_CODE >= KERNEL_VERSION(2,6,20)
INIT_WORK(&priv->reset_task, islpci_do_reset_and_wake);
#else
INIT_WORK(&priv->reset_task, islpci_do_reset_and_wake, priv);
#endif
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
islusb_net2280.c
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
line 284:
INIT_WORK(&p54u->int_bh, p54u_new_int_bh, islsm);
changed to
#if LINUX_VERSION_CODE >= KERNEL_VERSION(2,6,20)
INIT_WORK(&p54u->int_bh, p54u_new_int_bh);
#else
INIT_WORK(&p54u->int_bh, p54u_new_int_bh, islsm);
#endif

Update (2009/12/3): It seems that the cold is no longer working and no longer available. Managed to get the USB dongle working in Debian with 2.6.26-2-686 kernel via the instructions here (basically just need to copy the firmware over to /lib/firmware and it worked)

Links

An article in the papers today

UBD to hold information week
By James Kon

Bandar Seri Begawan – Universiti Brunei Darussalam (UBD) Library will be organising its 4`h Information Week, from February 5 to 10, at its premises. –
…

Now I’m just wondering if they are referring to February NEXT year or possibly April next month. Anyway… a cool pantomime video below paying tribute to some classic games. Entertaining but I didn’t really get the last reference which is supposed to be Gears of War as I haven’t played it. Perhaps when it comes for the PC I may give it a go. The only console I’ll likely play is the Wii

But the Nintendo acapella below is still my favourite as it was the first one I watched.

If anybody is wondering how to get Youtube video’s on a wordpress blog, use the following code replacing the url with the url of the video. Just found out as these are my first references to Youtube videos. Learning something new today. Cool =P

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtETUlsbI18]

Imagini VisualDNA: Get a quick profile of yourself by clicking a few images (around 10). I was bored

open source as alternative: A nice place that provides open source applications to more familiar commercial ones. I wasn’t too sure why they included the commercial applications on the site but after reading one of the comments on the article’s digg page I noticed that once you click on the link for the commercial application it will provide you open source alternatives below, which is cool.

Happy and Blessed Chinese New Year

Yup, first and foremost Happy and Blessed Chinese New Year to all. As I sleepily type this I came across this article. The first thing that came to my mind was how it is ‘likening’ us humans to computers with varying amounts of RAM. Nothing much to say right now I guess I’m just too sleepy to think.

Of life

So I just rejected an offer from Lucent and decided to keep up with this freelance kind of thing I have going on in my life. You know the saying “you don’t know what you got till it’s gone”; well it seems that I’ve been bitten twice by that saying. And both is in regards to the job offers I’ve had. I guess the thing I value the most right now is my time and being able to do what I want with it. Got another offer from Edaran and the terms are kind of better than Lucent but most importantly it’s giving me my freedom of time. I don’t know been kind of thinking through my future thoughts of ‘working life’, or more appropriately employment life, and I’ve been drifting here and there thinking of too many things and just getting overwhelmed by the possibilities and the hopes and dreams you could say. Frankly in this job search of mine I don’t think I’ve had much support. Sometimes it always comes down to the business bottom line of the money. Sure money doesn’t make the world go round contrary to what some may think, but yes it pays the bills it lets you live. Sometimes I just want to take a measly paying job just to learn and love it and sometimes I just want a job to pay the bills so that I can just come back home and enjoy life.

Went down to Miri last Tuesday to get my laptop fixed. Hooray for 3 years international warranty. Though it left me not going down to Singapore was a bummer but I guess opportunity costs was just too much. So I’m just waiting for their email to tell me when it’s ready for collection then comes another 6 hour driving day for me. Perhaps this time I’ll be able to get some shopping that I want to do in Miri…

Funny thing while trying to spell check “contrary” via Googling it, I stumbled upon God is Love as a sponsered link from answers.com. Funny way that God works. Also what caught my eye was the word “loves” not “loved” as He still does. Even as I set out not to have the “God” category checked in this post here He comes and changes that. Life is hard. Struggles abound. What do you do? What I have done is trying to deal with it, and sometimes it just comes back full circle when you rely on your on strength. I need strength. I need strength that I don’t have. Now I just got a song in my heart and I can’t seem to get the lyrics right. It goes something like

Give me His eyes, Jesus eyes,
Give me His hand, oh Jesus hands,
…..
…..

Give me His words, Jesus words,
Give me His heart, o Jesus heart,
…..
…..

With the …. representing the lines I don’t remember and I’m sure the lyrics might be slightly wrong but I’m sure thats the song of the day. I planned to post a short post of updates, He planned something else. Now I guess the biggest question I have for myself is:
“When will I stop relying on myself, when I know I’ll fail me sooner or later”

Take care everybody and God bless

Mind blowing

Thats what the iPhone is.
Check out Steve Jobs’ keynote.
iPod, phone and PDA all roled into 1 device.

  • 4GB @ US$499 / 8GB @ US$599 (both with 2 year phone contract)
  • Widescreen 3.5″ with resolution of 320 by 480 at 160ppi
  • Multi-touch screen
  • Quad-band (MHz: 850, 900, 1800, 1900)
  • Wi-Fi (802.11b/g) + EDGE + Bluetooth 2.0
  • 2.0 megapixels
  • Up to 5 hours Talk / Video / Browsing
    Up to 16 hours Audio playback
  • 4.5 x 2.4 x 0.46 inches / 115 x 61 x 11.6mm
  • 4.8 ounces / 135 grams
  • Runs OS X
  • Inbuilt proximity sensor, Ambient light sensor, accelerometer
  • 200+ patents

If you are not sure what multi touch is check out this. See how they resize images? Thats in the iPhone.

10:14am – I can just take my fingers and I can move them together and further apart, and make the photo bigger or smaller.” HUGE applause — touch gesturing apparently really hit a chord with these people.

Notice the word ‘fingers’. No stylus to use or lose for that matter. Good thing is everybody has fingers. On screen buttons are good in the sense that you can add new buttons but the bad thing is no tactile feedback which is something I don’t like. Can’t touch type with the onscreen keyboard which seems a bit crammed to me but seems to work fine for Steve during the demo.

About the sensors…

9:54am – We’ve also got some stuff you can’t see — 3 advanced sensors. It’s got a proximity sensor, bring the iPhone to your ear and your display shuts off and toushccreen shuts down. Ambient light sensor — adjusts brightness, saves power. Third thing is an accellerometer, it can tell whether you’re in landscape and portraid. Let’s turn it on.”

Isn’t that cool? So seamless. So simple. So cool.

Running OS X it syncs with iTunes to even get your media (audio + video + photos), contacts, calendar, notes, bookmarks, etc. So all your contacts will be in your iPhone and to call them just find their contact then just touch their number and you’re calling them. Message features saves sessions so you get to see your recent messages to and from your friends. Nothing that phenomenal though.

IMAP / POP3 email: rich text email that that too. Safari web browser with multipage support. Google maps! Widgets! Seamless wireless management. Thank you OS X. Without which I doubt it would be possible. Since it’s running OS X browser plugins shouldn’t pose as much a problem as other mobile phone / PDA options. Open Google maps on iPhone, find a place, view the details and if the contact details are display you can just call it from there! Simply amazing.

Worried about the size? Comparison between iPhone, Motorola SLVR, iPod 30GB and iPod nano. Mockup iPhone with Nokia 7610, 5G iPod and others. Honestly it doesn’t seem to be big at all. How the heck did they fit it all in there?!?!?! Kudos to the hardware engineers because it’s simply mind blowing. iPod, phone, wifi, camera, multi-touch screen, sensors, 16 hours audio playback and running OS X all in that space! I would never thought I would be so enthusiastic about an Apple product but like the title of this post is, it’s just simply “MIND BLOWING”. I’m not saying I’m going to buy it but it is indeed a true innovation by Apple. Kudos and props to the guys at Apple.

It’ll be out June 2007 in US, 4th quarter of this year in Europe and 2008 in Asia =( I’m sure people will ship some in from US though. In other news the more Apple TV to ship in February for US$299 and Apple drops the word ‘computer’ in their name so it’s officially Apple Inc now. What a day. Mind blowing

Hibernation…

is what has become of this site. Been busy with new opportunities and things on going and going on in life. A pretty belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all. Handed in my mission trip report last week and 3 things I took back from it: all you can depend on is God, be born ready and “What can I do?”. There are times when there seems to be nobody around when you need help.

1. There are times in life when there seems to be nobody around when you need help. I’m not talking just about physical sense but just to be there. There are times when you are all alone in every sense of the word and there are decisions to be made. Sometimes that will affect not only yourself but those around you and people in general. What do you do when times like these come? I got some sense of this before and during the trip itself. And some times you are in situations you would rather not be in. You lack the abilities / preperation / experience that would be needed to get the job done well. Not everything can be done on human strength and ability alone.

2.  Being ready or in a state of readiness as I believe P. Andy shared in one of the messages. I lack experience in many aspects of my life as I chose to turn my back on God in my teens years, as I chose to stay in my comfort zone, as I chose to limit my school life to doing things that help me get the grades I wanted but not develop my skills to what I wanted. It’s never too late to start something, so here I am at the ripe old age of 24 learning new things everyday which I should have learnt during my school days.

3. What can I do. I’ve seen the youth in my church. They have so much opportunities ahead of them: they have promise.  Many of them can do things I can’t even imagine myself doing. I desire to see them grow and develop into the person God wants them to be but the biggest catch is here and lies in one word: “how”. How can I help? What can I do? Pray to God to show me what I can do while at the same time actively look out for the opportunities and avenues.

So that was mission trip learning experience. Then came Christmas with the handmime presentation: not only performing but also prep work with the UV lights required. It is no joke bringing 3 UV lights in your car when each UV fluorescent tube costs BND$35. Just yesterday had to perform again for the Malaysian Christmas Celebration.

Not to mention I’ve been busy with some part-time/freelance work that I got. Basically it is system setup and a technical support. So I’ve been driving around setting up the systems with the required software and tomorrow there will be a training conducted by my brother. Doing some other web development for another project I’m working on that will hopefully launch next week. Currently I’m procrastinating by finally updating this blog and after that I’m in for a full day of work.

Got an interview with Lucent, or should I say Alcatel-Lucent, tomorrow afternoon after the training. The job seems good and provides a good learning experience for myself so God if this job is for me, open the doors just as You have opened the doors for the work I’ve been doing.

It’s a new year and it starts off with a long post. Too long for my taste. So next time update more. Shorter posts especially for those with short attention spans like myself. =P

God bless for the coming year and many more to come

Back in Brunei

It has indeed been a tiring, enjoyable, memorable, humbling, sleepy and interesting (and more) week. Quite a bit of thinking to do to process what has been learnt. Courses of action that need to be taken. Things to reflect on. Challenges to be faced. Wish I had the time to do that now but right now I have to go get ready to go out on business (Mom’s business) not I-have-a-job-business.

It’s been a great time guys: Stephen, Jerica, Sherra, Judith, Aaron, Joel, Lawrence, Anand, Rev Alex and Albert. Thanks guys and God bless!

Leaving for Sarawak

The journey starts in a few hours and will be staying Miri overnight before catching a flight on Monday morning to Kuching Sarawak. Supposed to be involved in 2 youth camps. Frankly I don’t feel ready. It has been a lot of a week to handle. More than I could handle. Yet again I am reminded of how weak I am without Jesus as my firm foundation. I’ve disappointed Him as I have done many times before. Yet another lessoned learnt, yet another step to be taken, yet another journey to travel.

Matthew 11:28-30
28“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

2 Corinthians 12:9-10
9But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Lord as I cast my burdens down at the foot of the cross You died for all the people of the earth, I pray for strength and guidance for the week ahead. I thank you Lord that you grace is sufficent for me and that when I am weak you are strong.

Loneliness is what I need more of: to get away and get back in touch with God….