LaCie biometric drives

Due to a loss in the family I gained access to 4 LaCie biometrically protected external drives.
There is one 40Gb 2u2s, 2x 500Gb3u2s and a 1Tb d2 with AES encryption.
My goal was to reuse the disks as the personal data were not important.
I checked the small disk and quickly realised that there will be more problems reusing it than gaining access to the data. I contacted LaCie, explained the situation and of course the answer was that there was no solution to get the data and that for the older drives out of warranty it was to expensive to get them "fixed".
So I decided to open the 2u2s drive, as there was no mention of encryption I was pretty sure that the data will be easily accessible.

Disassembly of the LaCie 2u2s

Flip the drive over, so that the biometric sensor is on the bottom and the USB and power connector are facing you. Carefully remove the two rubber pads and remove the screws under them. Now on the other side you have to carefully force the plastic with a small flat screwdriver.

After removing the plastic bottom

The plastic bottom

The chip in which I suspect the biometric data are stored
STMicroelectronics TCD41B1DN

Getting the data

Getting the data was trivial. I connected the drive to an USB IDE adapter. There is no partition defined, I suspect it's hardcoded in the hardware, or better there should be 3 partition, one FAT partition on which the Windows software resides, one for the MAC software and one "protected" partition. In fact I didn't care, although the partition layout should be easily guessed I just run PhotoRec on the entire device and in just 30 minutes the whole 34Gb data from the disk were safely stored on my desktop.

The next step is reinitializing the device. I already searched for the STM chip, but could not find any datasheet.
Any help is welcome ;-)

Asus EEE PC localisation (Stock Xandros)

After playing around with the EEE PC I started installing other distributions on it, and you know what? It's fun!
The stock Xandros is nice for it's quick booting time, but it lacks some things. The worst is the lack of national keyboard support. Even on the units sold in Slovenia (don't know for Italy & Germany) there is no support for the hardware keyboard.
My father decided to get one as he saw mine and asked me to prepare it for his work so the main things were:

• national keyboard support (si, it, de)
• spell checking for the same languages in OpenOffice and if possible in Firefox/Thunderbird
• change the language of the programs to German as he is much more fluent in German than in English which is the default on the EEE

btw shame on Asus for not updating the choice of the keyboard in the stock OS.

To get support for the keyboard the easiest thing was to copy the xmodmap definitions from Ubuntu so I just connected the EEE PC to the home network and copied from my desktop the needed files with scp.
So I opened a Terminal CTRL+ALT+T and created as root a directory for the definitions
sudo mkdir /usr/share/xmodmap

copy over the files
sudo scp user@b100w11-desktop:/usr/share/xmodmap/xmodmap.si /usr/share/xmodmap/

you can now enable the Slovenian keyboard with xmodmap /usr/share/xmodmap/xmodmap.si

or the German, provided you have copied also the xmodmap.de etc.

Usable, but not really useful. I wanted a keyboard shortcut for it. So I created the directory bin in the user home directory and wrote a little script named si

nano ~/bin/si

in which I have put

#!/bin/bash
xmodmap /usr/share/xmodmap/xmodmap.si

and two others for de and it, named respectively de and it ;)
After making the three files executable with
chmod 0755 ~/bin/*
The next step was defining a keyboard shortcut.
It was just a matter of copying over the icevm keys template and adding a few lines to it

mkdir ~/.icewm
cp /etc/X11/icewm/keys /home/user/.icewm/keys
nano ~/.icewm/keys

and add those lines to the end

key "Alt+Ctrl+s" /home/user/bin/si
key "Alt+Ctrl+d" /home/user/bin/de
key "Alt+Ctrl+i" /home/user/bin/it

it was almost working, there was just a little annoyance... When the computer started it still had the default US/International keyboard. The fix was letting it execute the si script on startup. But that proved to be more complex as I first thought.

I created a file named startup in ~/.icevm but it didn't get executed until I found out that I had to change the startup script that was calling up the GUI.
Goggling for it I found that the procedure to let the startup script execute was to:

sudo cp /usr/bin/startsimple.sh /usr/bin/startsimple.sh.ori
sudo nano /usr/bin/startsimple.sh

find the line /opt/xandros/AsusLauncher & and insert above it the following lines:

if [ -x /home/user/.icewm/startup ]; then
#we have a start up file to execute
/home/user/.icewm/startup &
fi

the script was to be made executable with

chmod 0755 ~/.icewm/startup

the script again consisted of two lines

#!/bin/bash
~/bin/si

So the pieces are now together and the only thing that lacks is a visual feedback of the keyboard that is in use, but In my opinion that is not really so important.

For the German language in the programs the main thing was to generate new locales by editing the file /etc/locale.gen and adding the lines for the wanted locales

de_DE.UTF8 UTF-8
sl_SI.UTF8 UTF-8
it_IT.UTF8 UTF-8

and running sudo locale-gen

After a reboot the German translations of some programs already showed up, while for the others there was still a little work to do. I found the instructions and the hints on the excellent EEE User pages.

Asus EEE PC

Everybody got it and me too ;)
I ordered one unit at Clove Technology in the UK before the tiny laptop was available on the European market. I also like the UK keyboard, so it wasn't really a hard decision :)
With Clove it was really fun making business. I had to wait a long time for the EEE to be delivered, but besides that everything worked as a charm.
When waiting for the unit from Clove I had the bad idea to order another one at LaptopsDirect - also in the UK. IT is a nightmare... I had to wait a long time. On the website there was nothing about the availability of the EEE so it seemed that they were on stock. After a few days they requested a proof of identity regarding my credit card and immediately charged it even before the item were ready for shipment. When the package arrived it was delivered to the WRONG address. When I opened the box I noticed, that it was already opened before shipment, but the worst thing... the battery was missing. I tried to call them on the customer hot line, but it's available only in the UK. I have tried to reach them by email and it takes ages to get a reply. At last a Mandy (if I got the name correctly) called me and offered me something, but due to a bad phone line (they are of course savvy and call abroad with VoIP) I couldn't understand what was she offering me. I asked her to write me an email but never received anything. After a week I again tried to contact them and got a very fast response from a person asking me to fill (again) a RMA request. He accorded me a return of the EEE PC (it was on Sunday). On Monday I got a phone call from the UK during a meeting and couldn't answer... :( again 2 days later they called me, but again it was during an important business call and couldn't get answer :(( Of course I didn't send the EEE back as I wanted to hear what instructions they have to give me.
The RMA number expired and I got an automatic notice to which I replied explainiing the situation... still no answer.

VMware server virtualization

At work we had an old server with Suse 8.1 installed. While planning to convert it to Debian and install some new SATA controllers and disks I had the idea of converting it to a virtual server to minimize the down time.
I started the machine with a rescue CD and did a dd image of the physical hard disk on an external USB 2.0 drive.

dd if=/dev/hda of=/external/server_hda.img

and then converted the image to a VMware image

qemu-img convert -f raw server_hda.img -O vmdk server_hda.vmdk

You can find the qemu-img utility in the Debian qemu package.

After that it was just a matter of copying the vmdk to the machine on which the VMware server was to be installed.

VMware server was downloaded from http://www.vmware.com/download/server/ (about 100 Mb).
I selected the tar.gz because the target OS was Debian.
To let it work correctly in Debian I also had to download the vmware-any-any update from http://ftp.cvut.cz/vmware/

I also downloaded the Management Interface from the VMware site to my workstation, and installed it. It provides a nice GUI for the virtual servers.
After extracting the downloaded files I launched the provided install scripts.

First the VMware server as root with ./vmware-install.pl, but didn't start the configuration. The any-any update has to be applied with ./runme.pl
For the configuration and rebuilding of the VMware modules some tools are needed, which can be installed with

apt-get install libx11-6 libx11-dev libxtst6 xinetd build-essential

this is probably somewhere redundant

apt-get install gcc binutils-doc make manpages-dev autoconf automake1.9 libtool flex bison gdb libc6-dev gcc-2.95-doc

and because it didn't work the first time I installed also

apt-get install libxt6 libxrender1

So the underlying software was ready. It was time to configure the virtual server. I started with the advanced version and defined the VM as a Suse Linux and that I already have a disk file and then started the new VM.
It booted immediately.

When I was in the console of the virtualized system I checked the /etc/fstab and removed all the unused entries. The second thing was to let the system load the appropriate module for the network interface. I therefore looked at /etc/modules.conf and changed the line with
alias eth0 somemodule to alias eth0 pcnet32
which is the module for the virtual Ethernet card.

After that I rebooted the system to be sure that all the services come up right and the "new" server was ready.

GSM Phone Address book sync

It was a lengthy process... First thing the version of kmobiletools didn't support the Addressbook upload. After a while I discovered a nice tools on the kmobiletools site - the Live CD. Rebooted the machine with the CD inserted, connected the phone and download the addressbook I previously saved on another machine on the network.
As simple as this...

Now I'm planning to maintain an updated copy of the addressbook in KDE, I'm just waiting to find the latest kmobiletools in Kubuntu.

And the winner is... Motorola

After intense reading and searching reviews on the net about GSM phones I found it!
Yes, I already got another one. It's a Motorola V1075 and it seems to fulfill my expectations.. Except for the ugly Vodafone firmware, but I already found some hacks, firmware, etc to change that.
The phone is absolutely superior... it just works :-)

I have some issues with transferring the phonebook from the BenQ to the new phone, I tried exporting the entries as vCard, but it can be done only for one at a time... The phones can't communicate directly because BenQ being Taiwan based was sure that everyone else in the world also uses the Big-5 encoding and let their phone send out the vCard data encoded in this way... Unfortunately the Motorola doesn't seem to support that, at least with the Vodafone firmware.

I therefore transferred one by one all the addresses to kaddressbook and sorted them a little. Right now I'm looking for a way to transfer the entries to the V1075. kmobiletools should help.

Complete disappointment with BenQ

Yes, my patience reached the limit! The S88 still has problems. Now I can't hear the person that's speaking to me although the volume is to the max. This doesn't happen with the Bluetooth handsfree, or if I use the internal handsfree. The S88 will go!
I have another problem... Which phone to buy next. It must have Bluetooth, microSD slot (I have a card to use), it must be compatible with Linux and a usable camera will also be ok.

Any ideas?

SanDisk Ultra II 512Mb SD Card

I contacted Sandisk support on the 3rd October for a 512Mb SD Ultra II card that didn't work anymore. I tried to reformat it etc, but there were problems with the size of the media not being recognized. Sandisk asked me to do a format and gave me some hints about the data recovery (basically a link to a Windows only program for data recovery). I asked for a replacement and they gave me the addresses of their two Italian distributors as I bought the card in Italy. The store where I bought the card had closed in the meantime, so this wasn't a viable alternative.
I wrote an e-mail to one of the distributors on the 5th October and got no response, so on the 11th I wrote also to the other distributor. Until today no response from both.
I phoned them today. I was bounced through 3 departments until I reached Mr. Marco, who initially tried to redirect me to the store where I bought the card, but after a while and probably after contacting his supervisor agreed to have the card sent in for a replacement. Thank you Marco!

Mission accomplished in "just" four weeks... :-(

How to upgrade Debian 3.1 Sarge from kernel 2.4.27-2 to 2.6.8-3

The machine for this guide was an IBM xSeries 206 with SATA. The problems arised from the different addressing of the SATA system - in the old kernel the first SATA disk was recognised as /dev/hdc, while in the newer ones it was /dev/sda

We start with a

aptitude install udev

after that you have to edit in /etc/mkinitrd/mkinitrd.conf the ROOT line to the root of your system and MODULES line to "most"

ROOT=/dev/sda1
MODULES=most

create /etc/mkinitrd/files with the following entries

/dev/console
/dev/null
/dev/hdc
/dev/hdc1
/dev/hdc2
/dev/sda
/dev/sda1
/dev/sda2

the mandatory entries are /dev/console /dev/null and the lines for the disk and partition where the OS resides. After that we install the kernel image with aptitude install kernel-image-2.6.8-3-686 and check in /boot/grub/menu.lst that root= points to the correct root partitions on the right device.
To stay on the safe side we can also check the initrd image with

mount -t cramfs -o loop /boot/initrd.img-2.6.8-3-686 /mnt

we check in /mnt/dev for the correct devices, /mnt/loadmodules for the ata_piix module and /mnt/script for the root location.

That should be it. Cross you fingers and reboot.

SOLVED Debian 3.1 Sarge: Error 432 cannot open dev/console

Yes!!! I managed to find the solution. It was a combination of various issues The first thing there was the change from a traditional dev to udev, after that there was a change in the module that supports the SATA controller of that machine. I solved the problem editing /etc/mkinitrd/files and /etc/mkinitrd/modules in files I added the following lines:

/dev/console
/dev/null
/dev/hdc
/dev/hdc1
/dev/hdc2
/dev/sda
/dev/sda1
/dev/sda2

while in modules it was crucial to add the module

ata_piix

and of course changing the kernel line in /boot/grub/menu.lst to

kernel  /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.8-3-686 root=/dev/sda1 ro

After that I also had to change the / in fstab which was not hdc1 anymore but sda1.

An interesting thing happened; the first time I rebooted the machine fstab was still pointing to hdc1 for root, but the system went up without a glitch. I'm still wondering why... Any suggestions?

PS
Thanx to avij for the brainstorming session

S88 disappointment...

I'm even more sure that the BenQ S88 was a wrong buy. Yesterday I had the phone silenced and with vibration only. My mother called me at the same time that I was calling her and taking the phone to the ear I heard a whispering tone - in fact it was my ringtone. I finished the call and removed the muting. The ringtone (a mp3 file) was heard in all it's beauty and there was no way to stop it. I tried loading another mp3 in the player to get some control over it, but the phone told me that it's an invalid file...

I had to turn it off. After I switched it on it was ok, but today when I turned it on in the morning a his could be clearly heard coming from the phone. Again I had to switch it off and on again to resume normal operation.

Anybody wants to buy a nearly new BenQ S88 with the latest software?

I guessed it...

BenQ S88 update - USB troubles

After the software upgrade I noticed the first problem, there are issues with the phone being recognised as a USB mass storage device.

In fact the device hangs as soon as the USB cable is connected and comes back to life when the cable is pulled out.

The only workaround I could find was powering the device off, connecting the USB cable and powering the device on. After that the device doesn't recognise automatically the USB connection and you have to enter the Tools menu and enable it on the last line.

But unfortunately this still has no influence on SuSE Linux 10.0 where in the logs I found this:

SCSI device sdc: 43008 512-byte hdwr sectors (22 MB)
sdc: Write Protect is off
sdc: Mode Sense: 01 0a 05 03
sdc: assuming drive cache: write through
sdc: unable to read partition table
sdc: Unit Not Ready, sense:
: Current: sense key: Illegal Request
  Additional sense: Logical unit not supported

The output of *#300# (S88 Firmware version) is:

Type:HYPB1A
HW ID:1
SW:1.28
PID:00
Date:2006/06/02
Time:17:25:31
LPV:1.28
LPID:25
MMP:1.28
FV:
PPF:HYPB1A_BenQ_DE_NSL_25120j1_111.p
13/04/06 11:03