I had everything working quite well on my Macbook Pro (Core 2 Duo) with Ubuntu Feisty, but due to some badness from the shitty, shitty ATI fglrx driver, I couldn’t use Gutsy with everything working.

The new kernel in Gutsy moved from the SLAB allocator to the SLUB allocator. (Btw, I have no idea what that actually is..). So, this meant that I couldn’t put the machine into Suspend mode while using the ATI drivers. Although the RadeonHD driver works quite well, it means that I can’t actually play BZFlag.

To solve this, I ended up compiling my own custom kernel for Ubuntu, and switching it to use the SLAB allocator. I thought it would be appropriate to blog it here in case anyone else is interested.

I followed much of the instructions from the Macbook Pro page on the Ubuntu Wiki, but I built a deb package for my kernel. So have a look at the Unofficial ATI linux driver wiki page for installing on Ubuntu Gutsy.

Here we go:

Symlink the firmware directory. This is usually needed for the initrd.
sudo ln -sf /lib/firmware/2.6.22-14-generic /lib/firmware/2.6.22.9

Install all the required packages
sudo apt-get install linux-source libncurses5-dev build-essential kernel-package fakeroot module-assistant build-essential dh-make debhelper debconf libstdc++5 linux-headers-generic

Extract the kernel source, import the old config and start the make config
cd /usr/src/
sudo tar -xvjpf linux-source-2.6.22.tar.bz2
sudo ln -sf linux-source-2.6.22 linux
cd linux
sudo cp /boot/config-2.6.22-14-generic .config
sudo make menuconfig

In the menu, browse to ‘General setup‘, then select ‘Choose SLAB allocator‘ at the last entry. Change this from ‘SLUB’ to ‘SLAB‘, then exit ‘General setup’.

Select ‘Processor type …‘ and ‘Processor family‘ and change the CPU from ‘Generic-x86-64′ to ‘Intel Core2 / newer Xeon‘, exit ‘Proccessor type …’.

Go to ‘Device Drivers‘ > ‘Sound‘ > ‘Advanced Linux Sound Architecture‘ > ‘PCI devices‘ and Hit the M key to enable the ‘Intel HD Audio‘ module.

I think that Ubuntu packages this driver as part of an extra modules package, but the in-kernel one works fine

Save the new config and exit.

UPDATE: Edit the file /etc/kernel-pkg.conf, and add the line:
CONCURRENCY_LEVEL = 3

This should make sure of both cores when compiling your new kernel. This will take it down from about 1 hour to still timing it, please update

Build your new kernel package
time make-kpkg --rootcmd fakeroot --uc --us --initrd binary

I think it’s a good idea to boot into your new kernel here. Make sure everything’s working before you move on.

Download the ATI driver installer ati-driver-installer-7-11-x86.x86_64.run

Build Ubuntu fglrx packages from the ATI driver script
sudo bash ati-driver-installer-7-11-x86.x86_64.run --buildpkg Ubuntu/gutsy

Install the fglrx packages
sudo dpkg -i xorg-driver-fglrx_8.433-1*.deb fglrx-kernel-source_8.433-1*.deb fglrx-amdcccle_8.433-1*.deb

Build the fglrx kernel module package.
sudo module-assistant prepare,update
sudo module-assistant build,install fglrx -f
sudo depmod -a

Install the fglrx kernel module
sudo dpkg -i fglrx-kernel-2.6.22.9_8.433-1+2.6.22.9-10.00.Custom_i386.deb

Make sure you’ve got fglrx set in the device section of your xorg.conf.

That should do it.

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I splashed out a bit, and bought myself a new toy. It’s the Nokia N800 Internet Tablet, running Linux.

I’m still getting used to it, but it seems quite good so far. More to come..

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I’m running Gentoo and Ubuntu Feisty on my MacBook Pro (Core 2 Duo), and it just refused to resume after a suspend to ram. Let this be a note to anybody else going through the frustration that I was.

In /etc/default/acpi-support, I changed POST_VIDEO from true to false.

# Should we attempt to warm-boot the video hardware on resume?
POST_VIDEO=false

Works a treat now

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The new Banshee rocks. Not only does it do two-way iPod sync, but it also does cover art, iTMS (from a plugin) and Last.FM recommendations. I nearly forgot, it also does DAAP for sharing with iTunes over mDNS.
I made some ebuilds for Gentoo, and submitted a bug report for it.
Rad.

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Looks like the new Wordpress just hit Gentoo Portage, so I thought this might be a good time to finally upgrade to the world of Wordpress 2. So far, it looks good. The ebuild handled the upgrade perfectly (the Gentoo guys really know how to package web apps!) which rocks.

The new editor is kinda funky, and i’m finally glad to see an upload field on the same page as where you type. Very nice.

On another note, the Gradiators are at it again. We’re playing in a B-grade volleyball competition on Thursday nights, and even though we had a loss, it was still a good effort for first timers.

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For a while, Jezza and I have been mucking around with the Melways maps from street-directory.com.au. We’ve been working out ways to actually make their web site much better than it currently is. It was always painful to try and navigate your way through the little 300×300px window at a zoom level that was easy enough so that you could actually read the street names. We made a page that let us navigate the maps using your full browser window, and let you click to center the map. Life was good.

Recently, Jezza and I have been talking about making draggable maps, in the same fashion as google and yahoo maps. Using some great GPL javascript from the guys at openstreetmap.org, I have managed to interface their draggable map code to use the street-directory interface.

You can either search for an address or get started right away on the Melbourne CBD. It’s only working in Mozilla/Firefox at the moment, but it should soon be working in IE and Safari. I’m not sure if Konqueror can handle it though. Have a play, and leave some comments.

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… life can return to normal. I’m not going back to work until the 3rd of Jan, so i’m taking it easy for the next couple of days.

I got a Canon IXUS 50 from my family this Christmas which was nice. My Dad did some research on the internet for me about digital cameras and was pretty impressed with this one, so he was pretty surprised to get one himself

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My Powerbook is here!

For reference for anybody else, when ordering stuff from Apple, you can track the delivery of your goods by using the Apple Delivery Number as quoted in your email confirming that your stuff has been shipped.

Apple uses StarTrack Express for their deliveries, and you can use your Apple Delivery Number as the Reference Number on the StarTrack Express site to trace the delivery of your package.

I’m going to get off work early to drive to Lara to go pick it up. So exciting

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Shane and Kel came over last night and we walked down to the Queen Vic market, to test-drive their summer Night Market. I heard good stuff about it from Stretch, but it wasn’t really that good.

Most of the market is roped off, because they have stalls where you can buy beer and food (which is cool) but the whole place was kinda expensive. There were heaps of different types of food, but it lacked that good quality food at a cheap price that the market generally offers. Everything was expensive and kinda dodgy.

Later, we installed the new Xbox Media Center on Shane’s newly bought and chipped Xbox. Let me just say for the record, Xbox Media Centre is tha shit. It has the most awesome interface, plays just about every media format you can think of, will play files from network shares and can even play shoutcast streams. This thing is incredible. Apparently you can also grab the MythTV plugin for it, and hook it up to a MythTV backend (running on a remote computer) and schedule TV recording and playback pre-recorded streams.

XBOX Media Center - Main Menu

Check out Jon’s Thoughts On Everything: Xbox Media Center for a heap of awesome looking screenshots to give you an idea

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