Notes from James

Partition Manager

I recently used the GParted partition editor to split and dual boot my Vista laptop. This (well, at least the version I used) is a Live Linux CD - you put it into your CD drive, reboot your machine, and run the editor. It then does its thing, and voila - your partitions are changed! It was a fairly easy process, but, as all these type of activities are, a bit nerve racking. When you're playing around with that much data, you wonder if it's going to come back alive. It did, though!

I haven't put Linux on my laptop yet, but I'm considering it. Hopefully the partition editor will work its magic again without any issues.

Before you use, though, backup, backup, backup!

Too Many Files in Ubuntu

In Ubuntu, I got an error of "Too Many Files", and it wouldn't even let me log on. I got this error after updating my distro. So I powered the box off, powered it back on again, and made this change that I found on the net. Hopefully it will fix this issue.

Basically, the operating system appears to be running out of file descriptors, for whatever reason. The default limit is 1024. I increased it

To get the current limit type:

    ulimit -n

To increase or set file descriptor limit per user, modify:

    /etc/security/limits.conf

For example, add:

    your_username hard nofile 32768

This should (hopefully) give you some more breathing space.

More Webcamming

Added a cron script to rename the webcam output:

• streamer -o cam.jpeg 2> /dev/null
• streamer -o cam.jpeg 2> /dev/nulmv cam.jpeg cam_`date +%y%m%d_%H%M`.jpg

This gives the files a name like cam_070118_1035.jpg. I took a series of these, combined, them, and got a cool time lapse movie of the sun going up and then down again, from the viewpoint of my basement. Well, not an exciting subject, but a cool beginning.

Installing a Webcam in Ubuntu Edgy

Here are my notes about how to install a webcam in Ubuntu Edgy. Please note that I am not yet successful, but I have made some progress so that hopefully someone will find this somewhat useful.

• Read this page first. Also check out this page, which is more specific to my camera (see below).
• Modify the /etc/apt/sources.list file by typing "sudo vi /etc/apt/sources.list".
• Make sure that the universe repository is uncommented.
• Add 'deb http://blognux.free.fr debian unstable main' to install easycam.
• Run 'sudo apt-get update' to update the software listings
• Run 'sudo apt-get install easycam'
• Run 'sudo apt-get install camorama'.
• Run 'sudo apt-get install xawtv'

You should be able to run easycam from the System->Administration menu. Unfortunately, my cam (ID 2770:9120 NHJ, Ltd Che-ez! Snap / iClick Tiny VGA Digital Camera) wouldn't autodetect. Looks like someone has here.

I changed /usr/share/EasyCam2/drivers/sqcam to comment out sq905.c, line 855 (USB owner).

Replace the line:

• if (remap_page_range(vma, start, page, PAGE_SIZE, PAGE_SHARED)) {

with:

• if (remap_pfn_range(vma, start, page >> PAGE_SHIFT, PAGE_SIZE, PAGE_SHARED)) {

Save and close. Compile with 'sudo make'.

If that doesn't work due to a missing build directory, do the following:

• cd /lib/modules/2.6.17-11-386 (or whatever uname -r gives you)
• mkdir build
• cd build
• sudo ln -s /boot/config-2.6.17-11-386 .config (Fix as appropriate)

$ sudo cp sqcam.ko /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/usb/media/ (I had to create the media directory)

$ sudo depmod -a (this command took a long time to execute)

$ sudo modprobe sqcam

I had to reboot once after playing with the driver. If you need to replace the driver, use 'sudo modprobe -r sqcam' to remove the driver, before recopying the driver.

I tested with xawtv, as it seemed to detect everything better. I then added a script to take shots with streamer:

• streamer -o xxx.jpeg

Streamer seems to like the jpeg extention better, so I just used that command, then renamed the resulting file to jpg.