My Olde Blog

Not Dead Yet

2011-06-16T15:07:00.003-05:00

Well, I ended up taking an unexpected two month break from guitar. A bunch of things were going on and I just lost a desire to play. Thus, my "Road to Freaking Awesome" ground to a halt. A little over a week ago, I got the desire back. I've put down sweeping for a moment and have been learning George Lynch's solo on "Breaking the Chains." It's relatively easy for a Lynch solo, but requires lots of precision bending. I'll be getting back to the sweepy goodness soon.

Fatsort

2011-04-07T20:50:00.002-05:00

We just got a sweet new Pioneer deck installed in our car. The problem is that if you have music on a USB stick, it plays them back in the order they were saved to the device. Touching the files won't help. Thankfully, an enterprising soul developed Fatsort that will reorganized the file allocation table on a FAT32 or FAT16 device so that things will play in the proper order aka alphabetically. Very cool and easy to use. I heart the OSS community.

Four String Sweeps

2011-03-14T19:05:00.001-05:00

I started working on four string sweeps today. The good news is that I seem to be picking them up more quickly than I anticipated. I suppose now that my fingers are more used to sweeping semi-properly, it's only a matter of adding an extra string. Hopefully this isn't a one-night phenomenon.

Exercise 10 Clip, Take Three

2011-03-11T15:53:00.002-06:00

I know I've been working on exercise 10 a long time, but I felt that there was no point in moving on until I could play it in a way that sounds not too terribly unlike sweep picking. So here it is; tell me what you think. Exercise 10, March 11th edition.

By way of comparison (and so you don't have to scroll back through the blog), here's what it sounded like on February 24 and February 21. At the very least I think you can hear a noticeable improvement. I think it's time to move on!

Exercise 10 Clip, Part Deux

2011-02-24T16:18:00.002-06:00

Here's another bash at Sweep Pick Mechanics Exercise 10. It's definitely getting smoother. I wish I could play the whole progression like I played the first sweep. My main issue now is getting my hands in sync for the beginning of the sweep so the notes aren't quite so cut off on some of them. Nevertheless, progress!

Exercise 10 Clip

2011-02-21T15:25:00.002-06:00

OK, here's the first semi-decent clip I've been able to get of me playing Sweep Pick Mechanics Exercise 10. Some of the notes don't ring out as clearly as they should and there is a minor mistake at the end. I hate it when I have an otherwise decent take only to screw up at the end.

Exercise 10

2011-02-06T16:27:00.003-06:00

I finally got myself to sit down and take a crack at some new exercises in Sweep Pick Mechanics. I have been practicing exercise 7 all along and have it down pretty smoothly. Today I mapped out exercise 10 and began working on it. I can get all the patterns in the right order at the right fret, but it is by no means smooth. The good news is that it is now all a matter of patient repetition. I hope to post some new clips soon.

Android Screenshots in Linux

2011-01-26T13:02:00.004-06:00

I've been helping a friend of mine beta test an Android application. A couple of problems I found were easier to show than explain, but Android doesn't have a built-in screenshot capability. I found this page that made things much easier. I already had the Android SDK installed and working. So I just needed to create /etc/udev/rules.d/android.rules with this line in it:

SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="0bb4", MODE="0666"

Once udev was restarted and I enabled USB Debugging Mode on my phone, I could run the ddms utility with the Android SDK and get all kinds of cool info on my phone, including taking screenshots.

Delay of Game

2011-01-21T16:52:00.002-06:00

The holidays took their toll on my practicing regimen. Unfortunately, once I get out of it, I have a hard time getting back into it. I'm still practicing, but not with the consistency that I should be. I hope to rectify that starting, well, immediately. I practiced for a while just now. I forget how much I like my Jet City JCA20H when I haven't played in a while. You *can* practice an electric unplugged, but it does seem to miss the point.

Slackware64 13.1 on an HP Pavilion dv8000

2010-12-27T15:05:00.003-06:00

My in-laws got a new laptop, so they wanted to know if we wanted their old one, an HP Pavilion dv8000 (ummmm, yes!). Yesterday I installed Slackware 13.1 on it. I expected to fight with the wireless and the graphics drivers. The drivers that are used automatically (kernel DRM?) work well for 2D stuff. 3D works somewhat. Not sure if that's a driver issue or the fact that the ATI Radeon Xpress 200m is nothing to write home about.

I was able to get the wireless working relatively easily. It uses a Broadcom chipset. I just had to follow these instructions to get the firmware for it installed. After that, it fired up just fine. Very impressive for something that used to be a major PITA.

There are still a few things I want to tweak, but the installation was surprisingly painless.

Exercise 7

2010-12-27T14:55:00.003-06:00

OK, here's my attempt at playing Sweep Pick Mechanics Exercise 7. Obviously it lacks a bit in the smoothness department, but I was pretty pleased with how it turned out--on the first take, no less! I also have to roll my finger more consistently on the one barre pattern so that multiple notes don't sound. Progress!

I find it interesting, though, that there's only so many times I can play these exercises in a row before the law of diminishing returns kicks in. It seems that after a point, I actually start playing them worse. So, I just put the ol' guitar down for a bit and come back to it later.

On to Exercise 7

2010-12-22T20:35:00.003-06:00

I'm working on exercise 7 in Sweep Pick Mechanics. It combines the first four three-string arpeggios you learn into one progression. Yesterday I mapped it out so I could make it clear to myself which arp went where. Today I've been working on playing it in the right order. I can do so . . . very slowly. Now it's just a matter of repetition to build up the speed.

First Recording

2010-12-17T14:59:00.004-06:00

Well, here it is. The moment you've been waiting for. This is my first clip of me trying to play exercise 4 of Sweep Pick Mechanics. I have played it smoother and more fluidly than this, but this is the best I could get for now. I recorded it using TapeMachine on my HTC Desire phone. I edited (just for length, no other processing) and converted the resulting WAV into an MP3 using Audacity.

Exercise 4

For what it's worth, the signal chain looks like this: Jackson DK2M->modified BYOC OD2->Boss DD-6->Jet City JCA20H head->Jet City JCA12S cab

Minor Breakthrough?

2010-12-16T10:27:00.003-06:00

I was playing my guitar unamplified last night whilst watching T.V. I was working on exercise 4 of Sweep Pick Mechanics. To my amazement, it actually sounded like I was sweep picking! I've been taking my time with this, making sure that I don't mess up the left hand fingering while also making sure I'm picking properly and not "cheating." Despite having two eyes, it's hard to watch both hands at the same time. Nevertheless, there seems to be progress! I need to post some clips . . .

Road to "Freaking Awesome"

2010-12-13T15:31:00.003-06:00

I just picked up a new DVD from Metal Method called Sweep Pick Mechanics. I've always been interested in sweep picking but didn't know the ins-and-outs. At the end of introductory video, Dan Mumm (the author), says somewhat jokingly that if you consistently practice, in a year you'll be "freaking awesome." I don't know if anyone would ever call me that in regard to anything, much less sweep picking. So I decided I'd take him up on it. I'm going to resurrect my blog here to track my progress, including posting clips. Use the label "R2FA" (see the title of this post for an explanation) to follow along.

Here's the intro video I mentioned:

Intellitxt Blocking

2010-05-10T09:42:00.003-05:00

I've been trying to go without Adblock Plus since I got my new box. Flash can't eat up all my CPU cycles anymore and I want to try to support the sites I like. The only ads that drive me nuts are the Intellitxt links. Usually they cause popups that link to Bing but other companies use them as well. It makes text harder to read and heaven help you if you accidentally mouseover one of the stupid things. So I reenabled Adblock, but instead of using a filter subscription, I just added a filter that says:

http://*.intellitxt.com*

Problem solved.

Compiling Mediatomb

2010-01-15T22:29:00.004-06:00

I've been using Mediatomb to stream pictures and MP3s from my computer to my PS3. I had some issues getting it to detect Slackware64 13.0's sqlite3 installation. MySQL worked, but seemed like overkill. With a little help from my friends at LinuxQuestions I was able to get it to work. Turns out I had to do this when issuing ./configure before compiling:

LDFLAGS="-ldl" ./configure --with-js-libs=/usr/lib64/seamonkey --with-js-h=/usr/include/seamonkey/js

After that, it all worked great. I just had to change the one line in my config.xml (which is clearly pointed out in the comments for the file itself) for use with my PS3. Done!

digiKam . . . Much Easier Now

2010-01-12T13:40:00.002-06:00

Well, I've already found one benefit to installing Slackware 13.0. It's much easier to install digiKam. Now all of the prerequisites are a part of Slack13, so I just have to download the digiKam source and follow the directions.

Adventures in 64-Bit Slackware

2010-01-12T11:36:00.003-06:00

I bought myself a new i5-750-based box and am installing Slackware64 13.0 on it. All told everything is going reasonably smoothly. I upgraded to KDE 4.3.1 (using these packages) because of some problems that I've heard with the default 4.2.4. That would have been easy except that I tried to install 4.3.2, not realizing he had made those packages to work with Slackware -current. No wonder it didn't work to well.

All told I'm very happy thus far. The only issue I had is with my onboard LAN. Slackware was setting that up before my wireless card. So I disabled the onboard and we're all good. My only complaint is that my network isn't working so hot so I'm finding easier to transfer files from my old computer via my USB pen drive and sneakernet. Oh well.

80s Metal Settings on my AD30VT

2009-09-29T19:16:00.003-05:00

I added an Eminence Ragin Cajun speaker to my Vox Valvetronix AD30VT because I wasn't happy with the stock speaker at anything other than low bedroom volumes. The RC made the clean amp models sound nothing short of glorious. The high-gain models are a different story. The RC has so much extra low end that the amp almost sounds like it's got a blanket on it. I've been trying to get a decent 80s metal tone out of it but with only limited success. In the past day or two I may have hit on a solution.

I use the UK70s (aka Marshall Plexi) model with the gain, treble, and master volume dimed, the volume and mids at noon, and the bass all the way off. I also add a bit of delay. I can only imagine that it would sound absolutely nasty with the stock speaker, but it's great with the RC. For a little more edge or as a solo boost, I add the overdrive channel on my Thesis 96 overdrive. I've got the tone and level at noon and the gain all the way off. The switches are set for normal TS-808 mode (silicon diode clipping with mid-range hump). It adds a nice bit of snarl and some helpful compression. The Thesis 96 has so much more output and is so much brighter than a stock TS-808 that those settings brighten and punch things up quite a bit.

I hope these settings keep me happy for a while because quite frankly I was getting sick of searching. I was thisclose to getting a metal pedal.

New Gear (Since I Last Posted)

2009-09-29T18:53:00.004-05:00

I know it's been a long time since I last posted. This summer I made some gear acquisitions, one of which will seem very strange given the previous post. I sold that Floyd Rose DST-3 and my Fender Showmaster Celtic H in order to get a Jackson DK2M in Inferno Red. Here's a pic:

I added a set of Schaller strap-locks, a fourth spring, a Floyd Rose trem stop, and a Ping-made arm. I've had this now since the middle of June. Let me tell you, I love it dearly. It's like I've finally found my match. I thought for sure I'd miss my old guitars, especially after investing so much time in the Floyd, but I really don't.

I also got a new overdrive/boost pedal, custom made for me by my friend, Duh Voodoo Man. It's a modified version of the BYOC Overdrive 2 with original artwork. Here's a pic:

The Overdrive 2 is a TS-808 circuit at its heart with all the popular mods. Mine has the ability to switch between three different tone settings and three clipping modes (TS-standard silicon, MOSFET, or no clipping diodes) and a Burr Brown OPA2134 op-amp. There's also a classic JRC4558D op-amp that I could swap in if I wanted. The op-amp is socketed for just such an occasion. Inwardly there are trim pots for maximum and minimum gain. Mine is set to have roughly double the gain of the stock TS-808.

So for much less than the price of a TS-808 reissue, I got an overdrive that has all the classic features plus a ton that the original doesn't have. And it's got a clean boost on top of it. It's a seriously cool pedal.

Completed DST-3 Mods

2009-04-11T17:29:00.003-05:00

I think I've finally put the finishing touches on the mods to my Floyd Rose DST-3. Here's the run-down and cost of everything I did. Basically, everything connected to the pickguard (including the pickguard itself) was changed. All three pickups are new. A push-pull pot was installed for a neck-on mod. The five-way switch is new too. The only part of the wiring that is stock is the jack and the leads going to it.

Here's the total cost. Applicable taxes and/or shipping costs are included.
$149 Floyd Rose Discovery DST-3
$25.27 for the switch, 500K push-pull pot, knob, and switch tip (all All Parts)
$92.83 for the Seymour Duncan Screamin' Demon
$125.98 for two Dimarzio Area '61s
$11.29 for black pickguard
---------
$404.37 grand total

Naturally, I did not charge myself for doing all the soldering. I suppose you technically could add another $11.29 because I bought another pickguard that looks just like it, except for two humbuckers, in case I want to do something that way in the future. For the price I figured, why not? I also added Schaller strap locks, but I do that to all of my guitars. I don't remember what I paid for them, but it wasn't much. Not a bad price overall when you consider that the original sale price on these guitars was $399. So basically for $5 more I got a guitar that looks a lot better, is more flexible, and sounds cooler to boot.

Here's a picture:

Here's what it looked like before surgery:

Liberation Fonts

2009-01-17T15:16:00.003-06:00

Over the past couple of Slackware releases, Pat and co. have been setting up the fonts to automatically use the Liberation fonts as replacements for the Microsoft Times New Roman, Arial, and Courier New. In the past I reversed those changes and installed the MS fonts. However, I've really wanted to get rid of anything like that. Since the Liberation fonts are metric-compatible with the MS ones, I decided to give them a go. So far, I've been pretty happy with them. I see no reason to go back now.

IMD Final Lick Pt 2

2009-01-12T17:19:00.000-06:00

Even though I haven't posted about this in a couple of weeks, it doesn't mean I haven't been practicing. I've really been working at that fast descending lick. I think I finally have the notes under my fingers properly. Unfortunately, it's a struggle to even play it at half speed right now. I used Audacity to drop the speed by 75% just so I could figure out the timing better. It sounds ugly slowed down that much, but I could figure it out. My birthday, aka my goal date, is less than a month away . . .

Palm TX Reset Fix

2008-12-25T15:40:00.000-06:00

I was having a problem with my Palm TX resetting every time I tried to sync the Datebook/Calendar information. I ended up downloading Pimlico Software's DateBk6 and installing a file called dbscan.prc which is in the AdvancedStuff.zip file. I ran the program and followed these steps:

Choose "Other" from the opening screen
Pull down the menu and choose "Remove All Deleted Records"
Push the "PalmOne" button

Apparently there were three deleted records in the Datebook/Calendar database. Now that those are gone, I can sync my PDA via pilot-link and JPilot once again.

I Hate It When That Happens

2008-12-24T13:59:00.000-06:00

It's a bad idea to run rm -rf on your /media directory when you've got your USB drive mounted there. You'd think I'd know better than that. You'd be wrong. Thankfully there was nothing of massive importance on there.

Slackware and KDE's Font Installer

2008-12-23T20:13:00.001-06:00

I don't know why this never gets fixed, but for the past several Slackware releases, fonts that you install via KDE's font installer won't show up anywhere. The trick is to add this directory to your /etc/fonts/fonts.conf file under the section marked Font directory list:

/usr/local/share/fonts

I may have to talk with the powers-what-is about that.

Slackware 12.2

2008-12-23T20:10:00.001-06:00

Pat and the guys released Slackware 12.2 on the 10th. I downloaded the DVD iso. Unfortunately my other computer won't read DVDs burned by this one, so I have to get the three install CDs too. Thank heavens for broadband. For kicks I decided to upgrade my kids' computer yesterday. Everything went so smoothly that I decided to go ahead and do it on my main box too. I'm just tying up some loose ends right now. So far it seems very slick. Unlike 12.1, the kernel that comes with 12.2 doesn't barf on my DVD drive.

IMD Final Lick

2008-12-23T20:07:00.001-06:00

I began work on the final lick to the "In My Dreams" solo tonight. It's a hyper-fast descending lick. Right now I can't even play the notes in the right order, to say nothing of playing them quickly. That time will come, but I can already tell that this will be the hardest part of the solo by far. OK, maybe when I try to learn to do the tapping part with only one hand, that will be harder but there's a way around that. There's no way around the last lick other than serious woodshedding.

IMD Update

2008-12-20T20:36:00.000-06:00

Even though I haven't been posting, that doesn't mean that I haven't been practicing. As a matter of fact, I still haven't missed a day. I can feel my speed and accuracy increasing. Those are all good things. Today all of the sudden I could play the tapping part in the solo at almost full speed. I was somewhat shocked, actually. On Monday I'm going to start learning the final lick which is going to be very interesting indeed. I thought I was crazy to say I would one day know the solo to In My Dreams but that is looking more and more likely with each passing day.

Minor Breakthrough

2008-12-14T19:46:00.001-06:00

As of today, I can basically play the first half of the In My Dreams solo at 100 bps. It's a bit sloppy, especially at the end, but it's a definite improvement. I think I've got that little hammer on-pull off lick in muscle memory now so I can work on building up speed without having to stop to think, "OK, let's see--I hammer on 10 now right?" I listened to the first part at full speed, 120 bps, and while I can't really do that yet it definitely seems within my reach.

The neat thing about this solo is that it has just about every major guitar technique in it. There are hammer/pull runs, harmonics, lots of bends, slides, some blazingly fast runs, and some more deliberate bits. I've always considered it to be a classic and now that I'm really digging into it, I'm realizing that that is more true that I originally imagined.

I also seem to be falling in love with my Fender Showmaster Celtic H again. It's just a really nice guitar. I don't want to put it down.

A Week's Worth of Effort

2008-12-13T16:19:00.000-06:00

It might not sound like much to stick to a goal for a full week, but with me and guitar that's major thing. Usually by this time my boredom circuits would have kicked in and I'd be looking for something else to do. That's why I chose the solo to "In My Dreams." I like it so I figured I'd be more likely to stick with it. So far that seems to be true. At this point I have all of the notes for the first half of the solo under my fingers. A little better timing and some more speed (especially towards the end of the first half) will do the trick. Now that I think about it, that's not back for a week's work. Of course the second half of the solo has all of the really tough stuff.

Once I get the whole thing down except for speed, I think I'll record is at various speeds until I reach full speed. Maybe start out REALLY slow and go up in about 10 bps intervals until I hit 120. I guess I'll burn that bridge when I come to it.

Another Day, Another . . . Something

2008-12-12T20:46:00.000-06:00

I began work on that second lick today. Wasted a lot of time trying to figure out the hammer/pull lick right before the main tapping lick. All I managed to accomplish today on that is get the notes in the right order. The syncopation is way off right now. I'll have at it again tomorrow.

On a positive note, I can definitely tell that my callouses are building up nicely and my picking continues to improve. I'm reaching the point where major breakthroughs will be few and far between. Improvement will be measured in small bits. The good news is that the daily practice promise continued.

Time Isn't on My Side

2008-12-11T21:38:00.001-06:00

Today is one of those days that make keeping a guitar goal hard. I had meetings pretty much constantly from 11 this morning until 9 tonight. After the last one was done, I just wanted to grab a beer and watch hockey, not run through dexterity exercises on my guitar. I know that if I just skip today, today becomes two days then three and so on. It's like any exercise; you need to keep at it to see any improvement.

So I just told myself I was going to play. I can definitely see improved speed and accuracy in my drills. I played through the parts of the solo I know already. It wasn't as clean as I'd like, but it was better than yesterday. I can already see how my fingering and picking techniques are improving--partially because they need a lot of improvement. I'm cutting down on wasted motion and choking up on the pick more.

Tomorrow I want to start working on the next lick. It's not that I think I've got the first one nailed, it's just that I need something new so I don't mindlessly go through the same thing day after day. It's hard to keep that delicate balance between challenging yourself and overwhelming yourself.

First Several Day's Progress

2008-12-11T14:54:00.000-06:00

Here's several quotes I put up on TheFret.net about how I've been sticking to my plan to learn the "In My Dreams" solo.

From December 8

Well, I kept to my word today: two days in a row--whee! Anyway, I got the second lick under my fingers finally. What I mean by that is that I've got the notes and the timing. I just have to build up a bit of speed. I had to listen to one part over and over because I just wasn't getting the cadence right. I also worked on the tapping a bit. I don't think it will be hard to get that part up to speed two-handed. I don't even want to think about it one-handed.

From December 9

FWIW, the dexterity exercises I've been doing are pretty simple, but seem rather effective. I do one that I got from Metal Method called "02132432" That's the fret order when you start. After that you go to "03243543" and so on up the neck. It's easier to do than to describe.

Another is going 1234, 2345, etc., alternating between the E and A strings and then the reverse on the way back down the neck.

Another is sliding up and down one string like this: 1234 5432 3456 7654, etc. Once again, easier to do than to write.

I like playing these while watching T.V. or some clip on YouTube since they are pretty mindless. The key is playing them cleanly. As dopey as these are, they do seem to help.

*Update* Give it up for day three! Anyway, I have the first lick down pat (I consider the first lick to by 2:09-2:16 of the official video. I can play it cleanly at 100 bps and pretty decently at 120 bps (aka full speed). I know seven seconds doesn't sound like much, but it's seven more seconds than I knew before! And since the solo is 30 seconds long, I suppose I'm almost 1/4 way there! Of course, the hard stuff hasn't started yet.

Audacity has been a big help. I took the pitch-corrected version of the solo and hacked that first lick off and slowed it to approximately 100 bps (technically it was 99.6 if you want to be pedantic). I looped it over and over in Amarok (my media player) until I nailed it. Very handy tool--and you can't beat free.

And now an update from yesterday, December 10, not posted to TheFret:

My fingers decided to get stupid on my last night. I struggled with the dexterity exercises. The stuff that I could play cleanly the day before, I couldn't. Two steps forward, one step back, I suppose. Nevertheless, I pressed on and stuck with it. This is will be a big test of my sticktuitiveness.

"In My Dreams" Solo Project

2008-12-11T14:36:00.000-06:00

Hello, is this thing on?

I thought it was high time that I actually do something with my guitars rather than just doing something to them. That was the inspiration for this post on TheFret.Net which is reproduced below. Rather than clog up that forum with regular updates on my progress, this blog fits the need perfectly.

-----

Well, I feel that basically I've been in a rut in my playing for a long time, so I decided that I needed to set a goal. I wanted to learn a more serious solo, but the problem is that unless I really like the song I have a hard time finding the motivation to sit down and learn it. Since I always wanted to play George Lynch's solo in Dokken's "In My Dreams" (and I consider it one of the finest solos of the 80s), I set that as my goal. I'm typing this so that I can be ridiculed and shamed should I fail.

In order to reach the goal I have done the following:

I broke the solo down into a series of licks, saved as separate MP3s.

I slowed the licks down 40% in Audacity and corrected the pitch to make it closer to 440 (The song is almost tuned down 1/2 step on the CD, although they play it in standard tuning live. I assume this was some twiddling done in the studio.)

I've already got a backing track and the tab from an old guitar magazine.

I decided I will play the fast tapping part with two hands instead of one like George does it. When I get the whole thing to speed, I'll start working on doing it one-handed.

In order to reach the goal I will do the following:

I will practice some part of the solo every day. I'm going to work through it sequentially since the hardest stuff comes toward the end.

I have several dexterity exercises that I will also practice every day to help get my chops up to snuff.

I will work on my bending so that the whole step bends in the solo, of which there are several, will be whole step bends and not 0.9 step or 1.1 step bends.

Every pinch harmonic, of which there are several, will scream like Mariah Carey caught in a bear trap. For me that is one of the distinguishing characteristics of Lynch's style.

After I reach the goal I will do the following:

I will record myself playing all guitar and bass parts using the backing track I already have.

I will reward myself in some small way for the accomplishment. I'm thinking something along the lines of getting a good fuzz pedal or maybe a ZYS. As a matter of fact, I will buy no gear other than possibly strings (although I've got some spare sets already) or picks until I reach this goal.

I will commence working on my next goal: the "Crazy Train" solo.

It is my goal to have the solo learned by February 10.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the song, here's the video from YouTube.

BFG, Take #3

2008-05-31T17:02:00.000-05:00

Well, I think I got a bad card back from BFG. Neverwinter Nights would lock up and red bands would appear across the screen. Usually I could kill X with ctrl-alt-backspace, but this time I had to reset. When I did all I got was a grid of white blocks. So I RMA'd it again. This time they sent me a better card, a 6600 OC with 256M. So far this one works great, although I'm glad I also upgraded my PSU to a better one. Thus far, this card seems to be doing everything well.

Oh yeah, they sent me another T-shirt too. Soon I'm going to have the largest privately-held collection of BFG-ware :)

Slackware 12.1

2008-05-16T09:22:00.000-05:00

You'd think I'd know better by now. Slackware 12.1 came out and I decided to upgrade my main box with it. There's just one problem. The 2.6.24.5 kernel that comes with it doesn't like my DVD drive. Unfortunately I didn't watch when the DVD was booting so I didn't notice until I had dusted my root partition. I got to the point where I would install all the packages and it wouldn't find the drive. This isn't Slackware-specific; I've heard of people having similar problems with Ubuntu and other distros with that kernel. It may be something specific with Benq-based drives (which my Sony DRU-810A is).

Long story short, I had to reinstall 12.0 and then do a manual upgrade to 12.1. I got everything working in relatively short order. Unfortunately, there were a couple of other screw-ups that I made along the way which are entirely my own fault. Haste makes waste, they say. Plus for some reason I insist on living on the bleeding edge.

So now I'm running a custom 2.6.25.3 kernel. The main benefit I've seen to 12.1 so far (it's only been a day or two) is that I could install Cedega without having to add a bunch of stuff to Python.

BFG Follow-Up

2008-05-16T09:19:00.000-05:00

Well, color me impressed. BFG got a card back to me almost exact 48 hours after I mailed mine out. Note that it is not my original card. I assume that it is a refurbished model or perhaps a new old stock one. Not only that, but they threw in a sweet BFG t-shirt for my troubles. I guess I know which brand video card I'm going to be buying when I build a new system.

BFG Warranty

2008-05-07T13:33:00.000-05:00

The fan on my BFG GeForceFX 5700 Ultra has been getting unpredictable. It will run for a while but then stop. The only way I can tell is by monitoring its temperature in the NVIDIA Linux drivers. I couldn't find a suitable replacement heatsink. The comparable cards are either less powerful or require a bigger PSU than I have. I decided to call BFG, since I knew they had a lifetime warranty. I expected flak, but I got none. They issued me an RMA and I UPS'd it to them yesterday. I just got confirmation that it arrived. According to the guy I talked to, there will be a 1-2 day turnaround and then it will be UPS'd back. Pretty cool, especially since it's a four-year-old card. I'm planning on a box upgrade later this year. I guess I know which brand of vid card I'm getting.

Update! I just checked their site and their warranty changed with cards purchased after February 21 of this year. It's still a lifetime warranty, but you need to register the card within 30 days and send a copy of the receipt with any returned cards. That's a little bit more of a hoop to jump through, but not a biggie.

Update #2! Holy crap! I just checked BFG's site and it's already been fixed and is being shipped back to me. I got a UPS tracking number which means that it should be here tomorrow. The card will have been out of my possession for approximately 48 hours. Wow! If it really is fixed that is nothing short of spectacular service.

2.6.25-rc8, Ralink, and wpa_supplicant

2008-04-02T14:22:00.000-05:00

Most people know that getting wireless networking working in Linux (especially with native, open-source drivers) is one of the last great hurdles for Linux to overcome. We are doing some moving around in the house. Rather than punch holes in the walls for cat5, I decided to get a wireless card for my kids' computer and see if I could get it set up. I got a Linksys WMP54G v4.1 which uses a Ralink chipset which in turn has open source drivers. Initially, I tried to just compile the rt61 driver and a modified version of wpa_supplicant for WPA support. I just couldn't get it to work.

I read that the Ralink drivers entered the kernel itself with the release of 2.6.24. Unfortunately, the drivers in that kernel version are buggy. I heard that the drivers in the 2.6.25 release candidates were much better. So, I downloaded the 2.6.24 source, patched it to 2.6.25-rc8, did a "make oldconfig" making sure to tell it to compile the Ralink drivers as modules, and let it compile overnight (Celeron 400s don't compile kernels that rapidly). In the morning, I got everything installed. I then compiled and installed wpa_supplicant 0.5.10.

The final hurdle was configuring wpa_supplicant and Slackware 12.0's networking scripts. Here is the bits from /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf:

IFNAME[4]="wlan0" IPADDR[4]="192.168.1.4" NETMASK[4]="255.255.255.0" USE_DHCP[4]="no" DHCP_HOSTNAME[4]="" WLAN_ESSID[4]="My SSID" WLAN_MODE[4]=Managed WLAN_WPA[4]="wpa_supplicant"

This configured Slackware to give me a static IP and use wpa_supplicant to take care of WPA encryption. Here is the bits from /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf:

# WPA protected network, supply your own ESSID and WPAPSK here: network={ scan_ssid=1 ssid="My SSID" proto=WPA key_mgmt=WPA-PSK pairwise=CCMP TKIP group=CCMP TKIP WEP104 WEP40 psk=password }

I had to add scan_ssid=1 because my router does not broadcast its SSID. That way the network would come up properly on boot. Replace "password" with the output of wpa_passphrase. Obviously in both cases you'd need to enter the actual SSID.

Now everything works great! I can download stuff at my cable connection's maximum speed. I'll need to test it for a while for stability, but so far it seems great. The only other problem I had is that the NVIDIA drivers require a patch to compile with the 2.6.25 release candidates. You can imagine how long it took me to figure that one out.

Linux and Hard Drive Partitioning

2008-03-03T11:52:00.000-06:00

I don't know if there could be a topic less sexy than partitioning a hard drive for Linux but it is still very important. He lists a couple of common schemes and then gives some extra suggestions for servers. I personally have separate partitions for /boot, /, /home, and /mp3s. That setup has served me well. If I were running a server, I'd probably add one for /var just in case some logging went haywire. Thanks Linux Today.

Amazon MP3 Downloader and Slackware 12

2008-03-02T15:05:00.000-06:00

Amazon finally released the MP3 downloader for Linux which enables Linux users to download full albums from their site. It works out of the box if you use Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu, or OpenSUSE. There isn't a stock version for Slackware. So here's what I did:

I downloaded the Fedora 8 RPM from the link above
I went to SlackBuilds and downloaded, created, and installed SlackBuilds for (in order): libsigc++, glibmm, cairomm, and gtkmm.
Then I downloaded and installed boost-1.34.1-i486-2gds.tgz from Linux Packages. Update 12/24/2008 I've found the hard way after I upgraded to Slackware 12.2 that the downloader will not work with a version of Boost > 1.34.1. Just do yourself a favor and use the Slackware 12.0 SlackBuild for Boost. You can thank me later.
Finally I went into /usr/lib and created the following symbolic links to make everything work with what the Amazon MP3 Downloader is expecting to find:

ln -s libssl.so.0 libssl.so.6 ln -s libcrypto.so.0 libcrypto.so.6 ln -s libboost_date_time.so libboost_date_time.so.3 ln -s libboost_signals.so libboost_signals.so.3 ln -s libboost_iostreams.so libboost_iostreams.so.3 ln -s libboost_thread-mt.so libboost_thread-mt.so.3

Now it works great! I downloaded and am now enjoying Stevie Ray Vaughan's "Texas Flood." I wish it was a little simpler, but it wasn't too awfully painful. When you use Linux long enough you get pretty good at jumping through hoops.

Welcome to My Olde Blog!

2008-03-02T15:02:00.000-06:00

This blog (which I hopefully will update regularly) will contain my thoughts, hints, tips, and tricks on my many and varied hobbies. These include, but are not limited to, Linux, the Playstation 3, guitars, and homebrewing beer. You'll probably find something to entertain or annoy you. Hopefully more the former than the latter.