Perspectives

Found this somewhere…

Happy Easter To Y’All!

Touchpad Elantech ETPS/2 e o novo X.org

Após instalar o Ubuntu 9.04, Jaunty Jackalope, percebi que meu touchpad havia parado de funcionar. Apenas os botões funcionavam mas o cursor não respondia aos meus comandos. Após um longo tempo buscando soluções no google, finalmente encontrei um relato de bug no launchpad. A solução estava em uma das respostas.

Abra um terminal e digite os seguintes comandos:

sudo modprobe -r psmouse
sudo modprobe psmouse proto=imps

Após isto o touchpad já deverá estar funcionando normalmente. Para tornar as alterações permanentes, crie o arquivo /etc/modprobe.d/options e adicione a seguinte linha:

options psmouse proto=imps

Boa sorte!

Elantech ETPS/2 Touchpad and Xorg 1.6.0

Hey there!

I’ve finally got my Elantech Touchpad working under Xorg 1.6.0 (from Ubuntu 9.04, Jaunty Jackalope)! After a long time googling for answers, I found the solution. It’s quite simple, open up a terminal window and run the following commands:

sudo modprobe -r psmouse
sudo modprobe psmouse proto=imps

After that, you’ll notice your touchpad is working, great! Now, using your favorite text editor and root permissions, create the file /etc/modprobe.d/options and add this line into it, in order to make the changes permanent:

options psmouse proto=imps

Good luck!

NetworkManager not managing wired connections

I’ve been running across this bug since Intrepid (8.10) and now I got the same problem on Jaunty (9.04). NetworkManager’s Applet says my wired connection isn’t being managed. Solution is quite simple. There we go:

Using root permissions (sudo) and your favorite text editor, edit the file /etc/network/interfaces and comment out (#) all the entries related to your wired network device (i.e.: eth0). Make it look like this:

# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

## The primary network interface
#auto eth0
#iface eth0 inet static
# address 192.168.0.2
# netmask 255.255.255.0
# network 192.168.0.0
# broadcast 192.168.255
# gateway 192.168.0.1
# # dns-* options are implemented by the resolvconf package, if installed
# dns-nameservers 200.100.50.25 200.400.600.800

Save the changes. Your network connection should work on NetworkManager after a reboot. Remember, these numbers apply to my network and this device I’m using (eth0) may not be your case, so it may as well be eth1, eth2, etc. You can either remove all the commented lines (lines beginning with #) or just add a # and leave ‘em there commented out.

Cheers

BrawnGP fires Rubens Barrichello

Earlier today, BrawnGP’s team principal, Ross Brawn blogged about brazilian pilot Rubens Barrichello being fired and replaced by his fellow japanese driver, Takuma Sato.

Fortunately for us, that was an April fool’s joke. Original post can be found here.

Source: ESPN Brasil

How to Avoid Being a Victim of Conficker

What is Conficker?

Conficker is one of the nastiest computer worms in recent history to go on the warpath against Windows-based PCs. First surfacing in October, 2008, Conficker targets Windows 2000, XP, Vista, Server 2003, Server 2008, Server 2008 R2 Beta, and even Windows 7. To date, Conficker has infected over 9 million PCs, shut down French and British military assests, and prompted a $250,000 reward from Microsoft for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the worm’s creators.

What Does it Do?

The first two versions of Conficker — variants A and B — exploit a vulnerability in the Server Service on Windows-based PCs to take advantage of an already-infected source computer. Once infected, the worm goes to work exploiting the network hole, cracking administrator passwords, prevents access to security websites and services for automatic updates, disables backup services, erases recently saved documents, and among other things, also leaves you vulnerable to other infected machines.

What Happens Tomorrow?

One of the scariest things about Conficker, including Conficker.c, is that its full potential isn’t known. Come tomorrow, those infected might be prompted to buy fake sofware products, or it could start monitoring your keystrokes to lift sensitive information like banking passwords. Files could end up deleted, or it might transform your computer into a zombie PC while staying under the radar. Whatever it ends up doing, it won’t be good, and you need to take proper precautions right now.

How to Tell if You’re Already Infected

Once infected, Conficker seals up the hole it used to infiltrate your system preventing other malware from getting in. Because of this, it can be difficult for IT pros to tell which computers have been patched and which might have a fake Conficker patch. But according to the nonprofit Honeynet Project, Conficker.c’s buggy code has made it somewhat easy to detect using a newly released proof-of-concept scanner.

“What we’ve found is pretty cool: Conficker actually changes what Windows looks like on the network, and this change can be detected remotely, anonymously, and very, very quickly. You can literally ask a server if it’s infected with Conficker, and it will tell you,” Dan Kaminsky, director of penetration testing at IOActive who worked with The Honeynet Project, wrote on his blog. “We figured this out on Friday, and got code put together for Monday. It’s been one heck of a weekend.”

Other telltale signs that you might be infected with Conficker is if you haven’t received any automatic updates from Windows in March, if you’re unable to update your antivirus program, or if your security software is running abnormally slow as of late. You can also try accessing major AV sites, as Conficker will attempt to block these.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has released a computer worm detection tool, along with a bevy of other information, which can be found here.

How Can I Avoid Infection?

Drain your savings account, buy a Mac, and hang out at Starbucks all day long. Or to appease the Linux crowd, ditch Windows and dive into Ubuntu. But you don’t need to learn a brand new OS or invest in an overpriced computer to avoid Conficker.

One way to avoid Conficker is to disable AutoRun. Details on how to properly do so can be found here. And as with all security-related threats, safe computing habits apply. Avoid websites you’re not familiar with, ensure that Windows is fully patched, invest in a security program and download the latest updates, and never download from an unknown or shady source.

source: MaximumPC

Setting up X.org screen resolution

ENGLISH: Ok guys. Today’s post is about when you can’t use Ubuntu’s graphical user interface to get that screen resolution right. We’ll have to manually edit the file /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Add the lines marked in bold. Here’s the resolution I needed for my notebook. You can change it to your prefered resolution. Remember to use root permissions (sudo) and save the file after changes have been made. Oh.. and BACKUP the original xorg.conf file! Duh!

# xorg.conf (X.Org X Window System server configuration file)

Section “Device”
Identifier    “Configured Video Device”
EndSection

Section “Monitor”
Identifier    “Configured Monitor”
EndSection

Section “Screen”
Identifier    “Default Screen”
Monitor        “Configured Monitor”
Device        “Configured Video Device”
SubSection “Display”
Depth     24
Modes    “1280×768″ “1024×768″
EndSubSection
EndSection

Now let’s go on to a little bit of explanation. As you may have noticed, there are 2 resolutions there (1280×786 and 1024×768). Ok, the first resolution is the one you want X.org to use, and the second one is kind of like a fallback resolution in case things go wrong with the first option. You may add as many resolutions as you want. There’s even a keyboard shortcut to switch between them but I can’t really remember it right now. Sorry about that.

You can do the following command so to restart X.org and hopefully see your screen at the size you want it to be: sudo /etc/init.d/gdm restart

Alternatively, you may log out and log in back again, in case you still get to use GNOME, otherwise you’ll have to deal with the text interface. Using the text interface ain’t that big deal anyway… Wish you all luck

PORTUGUÊS: Para ajustar a resolução do X.org manualmente quando o Ubuntu não detectar corretamente as configurações da placa de vídeo, adicione as linhas acima, marcadas em negrito, no arquivo /etc/X11/xorg.conf. Lembre-se de fazer uma cópia de segurança do arquivo antes de realizar qualquer alteração ao arquivo original.

Há duas resoluções que eu escolhi para meu notebook. Você poderá adicionar quantas quiser, sendo que a resolução a ser utilizada primariamente pelo X.org será a primeira listada na linha, no meu caso seria 1280×768. As resoluções seguintes serão utilizadas quando a resolução primária não funcionar.

Com o arquivo devidamente ajustado, reinicia-se o servidor X com o comando: sudo /etc/init.d/gdm restart

Boa sorte

Comportamento Canino

Encontrei uma reportagem muito interessante na revista ISTOÉ de 17 de Dezembro de 2008.

Nunca sacaneie o seu cãozinho

Melhorando a experiência do login

Olá pessoal, esse post será apenas uma tradução do post anterior para aqueles que não dominam a lingua da rainha da Inglaterra. Trata-se de um pequeno script que eu descobri no google para utilizar o papel de parede ou as cores do seu usuário após o login do Ubuntu. Isso evita aquelas trocas de tela chatas entre gdm, alguma cor aleatória (geralmente aquele marromzinho discreto que vem por padrão no sistema) e o papel de parede que é utilizado pelo GNOME. Pra aqueles que não sabem, o GDM é o gerenciador de login do Ubuntu e GNOME nem precisa falar, né?

O pessoal do Fedora conseguiu uma ótima transição entre o boot e o início do ambiente desktop com o plymouth. Mas como eu gosto mesmo é de Ubuntu então só me resta googlar um pouco e descobrir uma solução e esperar que o Jaunty Jackalope fique mais bonito que o Mac OS.

Vamos ao que interessa. Precisaremos colocar um script no diretório /etc/gdm/PostLogin e fazer mais algumas coisas. Utilizando as permissões de administrador (sudo) e o editor de sua preferência, crie o arquivo /etc/gdm/PostLogin/Default contendo esse esse script.

Salve o arquivo e torne-o executável com esse comando: sudo chmod +x /etc/gdm/PostLogin/Default

Por precaução, faça um backup do arquivo /etc/gdm/PreSession/Default com esse comando: sudo cp /etc/gdm/PreSession/Default /etc/gdm/PreSession/Default.bak

Agora edite o arquivo /etc/gdm/PreSession/Default e remova todas as linhas desde:

# Set background color
XSETROOT=`gdmwhich xsetroot`
if [ "x$XSETROOT" != "x" ] ; then

Incluindo essas acima, até essas linhas que estão abaixo:

“$XSETROOT” -cursor_name left_ptr -solid “$BACKCOLOR”
fi

E deixe essa última linha:

exit 0

Salve as mudanças, faça logout, retorne ao GNOME e divirta-se

As fontes deste post estão disponíveis aqui e aqui

Desejo a todos um feliz natal e um próspero ano novo. Apreciem com moderação! lol