Going Chrome OS - Abandoning Windows 8 and the PC

[johns]

sudo apt-cache search bcm

See what that finds.

root@debian:/home/john# sudo apt-cache search bcm
abcm2ps - Translates ABC music description files to PostScript (or SVG)
abcmidi - converter from ABC to MIDI format and back
abcmidi-yaps - yet another ABC to PostScript converter
libbcmail-java - Bouncy Castle generators/processors for S/MIME and CMS
libbcmail-java-doc - Documentation for libbcmail-java
libbcmail-java-gcj - Bouncy Castle generators/processors for S/MIME and CMS
libcminpack-dev - Nonlinear equations and nonlinear least squares problems - development
libcminpack1.0.90 - Nonlinear equations and nonlinear least squares problems - runtime
libcmor-dev - Development files for Climate Model Output Rewriter
libcmor2 - Climate Model Output Rewriter library
libcmph-dev - C Minimal Perfect Hashing Library development files
libcmph-tools - C Minimal Perfect Hashing Library command line utilities
libcmph0 - C Minimal Perfect Hashing Library
cmis-client - client for the CMIS protocol
libcmis-0.2-0 - CMIS protocol client library
libcmis-dev - CMIS protocol client library -- development
libibcm-dev - Development files for the libibcm library
libibcm1 - InfiniBand Communication Manager (CM) library
libapache2-mod-php5 - server-side, HTML-embedded scripting language (Apache 2 module)
libapache2-mod-php5filter - server-side, HTML-embedded scripting language (apache 2 filter module)
libphp5-embed - HTML-embedded scripting language (Embedded SAPI library)
php5-cgi - server-side, HTML-embedded scripting language (CGI binary)
php5-cli - command-line interpreter for the php5 scripting language
php5-fpm - server-side, HTML-embedded scripting language (FPM-CGI binary)
libcman-dev - Red Hat cluster suite - cluster manager development files
libcman3 - Red Hat cluster suite - cluster manager libraries
libcmdparse-ruby - Transitional package for ruby-cmdparse
libcmdparse2-ruby - Transitional package for ruby-cmdparse
libcmdparse2-ruby1.8 - Transitional package for ruby-cmdparse
ruby-cmdparse - Advanced command line parsing Ruby module supporting sub-commands
libcml-smlnj - Concurrent ML extension of SML
libcmlutil-smlnj - Concurrent ML utility library
root@debian:/home/john#


Wow it found alot of stuff. I wish I knew how to interpret this.

 

[masonsjax]

Ok, a quick google search indicates that the driver you need for that card is a closed source driver called broadcom-sta. Try:
sudo apt-get install broadcom-sta
If it doesn't find it, do
sudo apt-cache search broadcom
and look for something that looks like a broadcom wireless driver.

 

[Homercidal]

So yeah. The wife has a newer system with a 500GB laptop drive in it that I want back in my spare laptop. I get a 1TB 3.5" drive and install Windows 7 on it. I take the thing to work today to finish installing her software and lo and behold the thing does not boot.

Yup, her 500GB laptop drive took a dump. It doesn't read.

I managed to get it accessible for a scan by plugging into my work computer using a USB adapter. It's past noon and it says 2% complete. Started probably around 8:00.

So what are the odds that the exactly morning I want to get the reg codes off of it and replace it with another drive and it fails?? Probably about 75%, right??

She had stuff from her blogging that may have been on it yet (unless she was doing as she was supposed to and backing up her important files to the shared external drive over the network...)

I guess on the plus side, she's getting a new drive and a fresh install. And lots more space to work with.

 

[johns]

Nothing is working for me. I am seriously wondering if must be my linux ignorance. although the commands I have used are doing something and it does look interesting, I am still not getting the results that I had hoped for. I think homer once said that it takes years to be comfortable with linux OS and coming from Windows, I guess he was right. Still I am not giving up just yet.

Results from new commands entered

john@debian:~$ su
Password:
root@debian:/home/john# sudo apt-get install broadcom-sta
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
E: Unable to locate package broadcom-sta
root@debian:/home/john#
root@debian:/home/john# sudo apt-cache search broadcom
gstreamer0.10-crystalhd - Crystal HD Video Decoder (GStreamer plugin)
libcrystalhd-dev - Crystal HD Video Decoder (development files)
libcrystalhd3 - Crystal HD Video Decoder (shared library)
root@debian:/home/john#

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

Take a look at /etc/apt/sources.list (you can do so with the "cat /etc/apt/sources.list" command)

Make sure that you have some lines in there (not commented out -- commented lines start with #) that point to the multiverse

Mine, for example (ubuntu 14.04), read:

deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty multiverse
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty multiverse
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty-updates multiverse
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty-updates multiverse

Broadcom drivers, as third-party closed source drivers, are not maintained or tested by Ubuntu, and thus are in a separate repository (called multivers) from the standard debian repositories. Sometimes Linux distros will disable multiverse by default.

 

[masonsjax]

Yes, good call on the repository setup. It's been a while since I've messed with Ubuntu. I believe you'll also need to run apt-get update after adding a new repository to populate the cache, and it should be run periodically, especially before an apt-get upgrade.

Also, if you've already used "su" to become root, you don't need the "sudo" command, it's just a convenience that lets a normal user run stuff as the superuser if they have the permission.

 

[Owly055]

Ubuntu seems to be very popular.............. I long ago settled on SUSE. Download OpenSUSE or buy a DVD on Ebay for peanuts. SUSE is complete with all drivers and software included, and at the end of the installation you are on line, and everything works, and you are connected to the appropriate repositories. I've been through many generations of SUSE, after trying numerous others including Ubuntu. Gnome and KDE are the primary GUIs, but I use MATE since both KDE and GNOME have become inconvenient to me, in fact I consider the current iteration of Gnome completely unusable....... Ubuntu's Unity desktop is just as bad........ They've managed to screw up a good thing completely!


H.W.

 

[IslandLizard]

So yeah. The wife has a newer system with a 500GB laptop drive in it that I want back in my spare laptop. I get a 1TB 3.5" drive and install Windows 7 on it. I take the thing to work today to finish installing her software and lo and behold the thing does not boot.

Yup, her 500GB laptop drive took a dump. It doesn't read.

I managed to get it accessible for a scan by plugging into my work computer using a USB adapter. It's past noon and it says 2% complete. Started probably around 8:00.

So what are the odds that the exactly morning I want to get the reg codes off of it and replace it with another drive and it fails?? Probably about 75%, right??

She had stuff from her blogging that may have been on it yet (unless she was doing as she was supposed to and backing up her important files to the shared external drive over the network...)

I guess on the plus side, she's getting a new drive and a fresh install. And lots more space to work with.

Sorry, I didn't see your post until now.

I find it dangerous to boot an OS holding drive on different hardware. It doesn't always work, plus Windows will start to reenumerate, install drivers etc. Is that drive encrypted perhaps? There could be a (partial) encryption key in the BIOS. Now as a secondary "data" drive it should be accessible, again, unless it's encrypted or locked somehow.

Have you tried it again on the original laptop?

Chances that a drive goes belly-up with that switch are very small, definitely not 50/50 or 75%. I plug (3.5") drives all the time.

 

[Homercidal]

Sorry, I didn't see your post until now.

I find it dangerous to boot an OS holding drive on different hardware. It doesn't always work, plus Windows will start to reenumerate, install drivers etc. Is that drive encrypted perhaps? There could be a (partial) encryption key in the BIOS. Now as a secondary "data" drive it should be accessible, again, unless it's encrypted or locked somehow.

Have you tried it again on the original laptop?

Chances that a drive goes belly-up with that switch are very small, definitely not 50/50 or 75%. I plug (3.5") drives all the time.

It wasn't new hardware. I had installed a new drive and had installed Windows on it but plugged her 2.5" drive back in for a bit so she could use it until I got to installing the rest of the software.

I had powered down, taken it to work, powered back up and it wouldn't boot.

IIRC this was a drive I had gotten from a guy when his laptop was acting up and I replaced the HDD. I think I ended up reformatting the drive on a whim to see how well it would work and when building her new system I used it since it was the only SATA drive I had available. She's used it without problem for more than a year.

I did get all of her data from the Data partition, but almost all of the data that she had stored on the OS partition. Some of the jpgs are corrupt.

I'm running an actual recovery on the drive now. I doubt it will be useable for anything after this. I will have to come up with a new 2.5" drive for the laptop. I hate to spend any real money because it's a low-end laptop even though it's only about 3 years old now, and I will probably end up selling it cheap or giving it to someone who needs a newer computer.

 

[IslandLizard]

It wasn't new hardware. I had installed a new drive and had installed Windows on it but plugged her 2.5" drive back in for a bit so she could use it until I got to installing the rest of the software.

I had powered down, taken it to work, powered back up and it wouldn't boot.

IIRC this was a drive I had gotten from a guy when his laptop was acting up and I replaced the HDD. I think I ended up reformatting the drive on a whim to see how well it would work and when building her new system I used it since it was the only SATA drive I had available. She's used it without problem for more than a year.

I did get all of her data from the Data partition, but almost all of the data that she had stored on the OS partition. Some of the jpgs are corrupt.

I'm running an actual recovery on the drive now. I doubt it will be useable for anything after this. I will have to come up with a new 2.5" drive for the laptop. I hate to spend any real money because it's a low-end laptop even though it's only about 3 years old now, and I will probably end up selling it cheap or giving it to someone who needs a newer computer.

Yeah, I've been into partitioning since 1998. Separating user data from the OS only makes sense. I have NO clue why that hasn't become common practice. After one of their drives went belly up, I remember a "support call" to Dell around that time was answered with: "We do not support partitioned drives..." Whhoaat! Have been building my own ever since and due to some other issues with them (their sheer lying) swore off Dell fore good. The worst customer service after Gateway, in that era.

You can pick up 2.5" drives for $40 or less from Newegg. Or if it's still useful enough get a small SSD, 120GB around the same price. I use an older laptop as my brewputer. It has a super bright and clear screen, I can read it from 10' away.

But if your drive is still chugging along, since you're able to recover it apparently, run a surface scan on it a few times.
Sometimes a low level format can bring it back into service, after you've gotten the data off, of course. I picked up this hard drive sector repair utility that has saved a few drives already. It really fixes bad sectors even on a live drive.

 

[Homercidal]

Dell will partition for you, depending on the model, but you really only get their choice of partition sizes. I rarely do that because I really only order Dell for work and I have a network with backups.

For my wife's computer I installed a 1TB drive for her. It's not partitioned, but I may split it later. I know she is going to use a networked backup at home when we get around to upgrading the backup drive.

The laptop I have is really cheap. I paid $75 and still wondering why I bought it. I may use this drive again if I can manage to format it. The laptop might run much better with an SSD but it's not really worth the price of an SSD IMO. The RAM and CPU are limited in this day and age.

I won't use it for a brew computer because I plan to install a small desktop into my brew stand with an LCD monitor and keyboard tray built into the control panel set up as a pendant. I'll have speakers set up inside the stand to jam with and I can surf the web while brewing.

Soon as I get my Jeep out of the garage I want to start back on the stand and get wheels added and add the element to the HLT. Once I get the element installed I can start wiring the control panel the way I want.

My only decision is whether to use a very small Raspberry Pi for a computer (which is REALLY portable, but not that fast) or to use a small desktop, which is older but I have several...

 

[IslandLizard]

I guess Dell caught up with times or their lying. For regular consumers I'm sure they're fine, as well as supplying office desktops and populating corporate data centers. The ones in between, those who have certain requirements and expectations, not so much. We're beyond hopped extract kits in all facets of life.

Speakers? Networked access? Built-in keyboard? Now that's a brew stand! Don't forget the sub.

Regarding Raspberry Pi and small computers? I guess your apps will determine which platform to use. Or both. Been glancing at Raspberry Pi myself, but have no real need for it. Just very cool.

 

[johns]

What is the difference between Debian i386 and AMD64 ports. I am still having problems with my driver. How do i know the difference? Could this be part of the problem I am having with this installation?

 

[Homercidal]

I guess Dell caught up with times or their lying. For regular consumers I'm sure they're fine, as well as supplying office desktops and populating corporate data centers. The ones in between, those who have certain requirements and expectations, not so much. We're beyond hopped extract kits in all facets of life.

Speakers? Networked access? Built-in keyboard? Now that's a brew stand! Don't forget the sub.

Regarding Raspberry Pi and small computers? I guess your apps will determine which platform to use. Or both. Been glancing at Raspberry Pi myself, but have no real need for it. Just very cool.

Well that's the plan. I'm still not done building the electrical portion and it's been way too long now.

The RPi is neat, but to be honest the performance is not great for browsing the Internet and some of that stuff. It would be fine for playing media files and basic stuff like doing quick calcs on a spreadsheet.

The one I have runs a GUI version of Linux. It's not fast, but it does work.

 

[masonsjax]

As an aside, Newegg was my go-to for many years, but it seems they took a nosedive in recent years. They shipped me 3 out of 4 bad 2TB hard drives. When I RMAd them, they denied the claim saying the drives were damaged by me and returned them to me. When they came back to me they had clearly been beaten with a hammer by someone there. I fought with them and got the run-around for several months without resolution. They put the word "liar" in correspondence to me. I am utterly digusted with how I was treated by them.

I finally documented the whole ordeal and sent it to Western Digital. I got a call that week and the agent said the drives I was sold were older models that just went out of warranty, but that Newegg had been pulling this trick a lot lately, so they shipped me brand new drives without further question. When the new drives arrived there were 3 TB drives in perfect working order! I'd avoid Newegg if I were you. But WD rocks!
/rant

 

[The_Bishop]

I haven't ordered hardware from Newegg in a long while, but I'll be sure to keep this in mind next time I need anything. Sad to see they've slipped so far.

 

[Homercidal]

I haven't had that kind of problem with them. I'd be leery of drives though. They go through a LOT of them and it would be easy to want to dump some old drives like that. That's why I always buy retail drives with long warranties. Forget Newegg for replacement.

From now on I will check the drive dates (They are easy to find online) and make sure they are newer models.

 

[johns]

As an aside, Newegg was my go-to for many years, but it seems they took a nosedive in recent years. They shipped me 3 out of 4 bad 2TB hard drives. When I RMAd them, they denied the claim saying the drives were damaged by me and returned them to me. When they came back to me they had clearly been beaten with a hammer by someone there. I fought with them and got the run-around for several months without resolution. They put the word "liar" in correspondence to me. I am utterly digusted with how I was treated by them.

I finally documented the whole ordeal and sent it to Western Digital. I got a call that week and the agent said the drives I was sold were older models that just went out of warranty, but that Newegg had been pulling this trick a lot lately, so they shipped me brand new drives without further question. When the new drives arrived there were 3 TB drives in perfect working order! I'd avoid Newegg if I were you. But WD rocks!
/rant

+1 on that. Good to know for future reference. What are you going to do with the other HDs?

 

[Owly055]

I had a conflict with a supplier I had used for many years over a rebate a number of years back. When I received the product the rebate was expired, though they had advertised it. It amounted to about $50, so I wasn't letting go of it!! I contacted customer service, and complained, and they of course told me to go to the mfg, who of course told me it wasn't their problem (It wasn't). This of course turned into a run around until I demanded to speak to a supervisor and laid it right on the line. I explained to her what had happened, and got the same run around, until I informed her that I would go ahead and eat the $50, but that it would cost them a customer, and much much more. That I would launch a campaign to make sure many thousands of potential customers knew how I was treated, and I would NOT let go until I got satisfaction. That in all probability the cost to them would be hundreds of times the mere $50 they had cheated me out of, and that I had documented all correspondence and conversations on the matter. Two can play at that game......... You F___ with me and I'll F___ with you, and guess who's going to get hurt the most!!

I got really aggressive and used the tools I had at my disposal as a customer, and the result was of course that they caved in and I got my rebate. The lesson is that satisfied customers are good for business, but a single pissed off customer can do you an immense amount of damage........ and they understood that. Don't ever be afraid to play hardball with these folks.

I've likewise had excellent service from WD.......I use nothing else. After going through a series of Quantum brand drives that would last about a year each, I started using WD and Fujitsu, both have been rock solid for me.


H.W.

 

[johns]

I had a conflict with a supplier I had used for many years over a rebate a number of years back. When I received the product the rebate was expired, though they had advertised it. It amounted to about $50, so I wasn't letting go of it!! I contacted customer service, and complained, and they of course told me to go to the mfg, who of course told me it wasn't their problem (It wasn't). This of course turned into a run around until I demanded to speak to a supervisor and laid it right on the line. I explained to her what had happened, and got the same run around, until I informed her that I would go ahead and eat the $50, but that it would cost them a customer, and much much more. That I would launch a campaign to make sure many thousands of potential customers knew how I was treated, and I would NOT let go until I got satisfaction. That in all probability the cost to them would be hundreds of times the mere $50 they had cheated me out of, and that I had documented all correspondence and conversations on the matter. Two can play at that game......... You F___ with me and I'll F___ with you, and guess who's going to get hurt the most!!

I got really aggressive and used the tools I had at my disposal as a customer, and the result was of course that they caved in and I got my rebate. The lesson is that satisfied customers are good for business, but a single pissed off customer can do you an immense amount of damage........ and they understood that. Don't ever be afraid to play hardball with these folks.

I've likewise had excellent service from WD.......I use nothing else. After going through a series of Quantum brand drives that would last about a year each, I started using WD and Fujitsu, both have been rock solid for me.


H.W.

Sounds like tigerdirect. I believe that they incomperate these tactics into thier busniess plan. I had the same sitituation with them, only I gave up. Now I just go there if I need something in a pinch and will not buy anything with a "rebate" attached to them. Besides there are better deals out there if you look for them and are paitent enough.

 

[johns]

ITS ALIVE!!!! ITS ALIVE!!!!

I downloaded the software/firmware and then installed it using the package installer/add and remove software program, rebooted and completed the install. Thing is that I dont know which worked, the package installer or the add/remove software program. At this point, I dont really care (although I might in the future if I have to do this again), I am just happy the wireless is working.

Thanks for all the help here. I know I have been a real PITA, by my posting on this thread.

 

[Schlenkerla]

No worries, the content is Linux. My original post was for Chrome OS. The thread discussion migrated to Linux OS's. That said Chrome is the first mainstream Linux OS.

 

[Jsamp]

Has anyone here tried running Linux on the Chromebox? I have it setup but don't really need it. It might be fun for some of you guys who want to try the Raspberry Pi but would like better hardware. This was the one I tried out.....

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xsqrQw1kbs[/ame]

 

[masonsjax]

+1 on that. Good to know for future reference. What are you going to do with the other HDs?

The other drives were destroyed. They weren't subtle about the damage. The platters were dented when I opened them to get the magnets. In doing research while dealing with the issue, I came across loads of people that had the same experience. Most were with motherboards where NewEgg would break pins off and say the customer damaged the board. Dishonesty makes me sick. I now video record myself opening any pricy purchases, in case I need to show proof that I received damaged goods.

 

[IslandLizard]

The other drives were destroyed. They weren't subtle about the damage. The platters were dented when I opened them to get the magnets. In doing research while dealing with the issue, I came across loads of people that had the same experience. Most were with motherboards where NewEgg would break pins off and say the customer damaged the board. Dishonesty makes me sick. I now video record myself opening any pricy purchases, in case I need to show proof that I received damaged goods.

Wow, that's bad, fraudulent! Crazy you have to go to such extremes as building a record for security, which could be hard and expensive to prove anyway if it were to come to that.

I've dealt with NewEgg for the past 8-10 years, and have always had very positive experiences with them. I only had to RMA one NIC that didn't work right, and they picked up the return shipping.

I've returned several hard drives to the manufacturer when they gave up the ghost after a year or so, luckily all within warranty (3 years is good). But still a hassle.

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

I work for WD. As an engineer, and as someone who does this for a living, I'm *still* astounded at the level of technology needed for a hard drive to operate. They are absolutely amazing marvels of multiple disciplines of engineering and science, and being driven continuously farther as we all compete to reach ever lower $/GB.

There's a reason there's only 3 HDD vendors left in the world, and that those three actually formed a technology consortium to work on the next big technologies driving increased areal density, because it would be nearly impossible to achieve them without working together.

The downside is that these drives are fragile. Most consumers treat them like any other electronic device (i.e. badly). Even then, we regularly train big OEMs on HDD handling because even they sometimes aren't following best practices. While HDDs are designed to withstand a lot of things, you can quite easily do things that reduce their reliability if you don't handle them carefully...

A few things worth looking at if you're going to be handling HDDs...

Handling video: [ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLBzY9va8f0[/ame]
Cool overview of all the stuff inside the HDD: [ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9oiU51q36k[/ame]

 

[IslandLizard]

They are marvels of technology. And bound for antiquity soon, when replaced by SSDs costing less.

I vividly remember the mid 70's days where we had pizza box sized harddisk cartridges holding a whopping 3 MB and cake box disk stacks of 24 MB. Smoke particles being their largest enemy. Then grease, dust, magnets and gravity.

1 GB was unheard of. 1 TB unthinkable.

 

[grathan]

Though I am amazed that my latest TB+ OS drive hasn't thrown the white towel in yet after 3 years (I suspect it knows I am finally doing backups), there is no doubt that no moving parts is the only way to go.

 

[tflew]

I bought the Asus Chromebox a few months ago and love it. My Macbook Pro was dying a slow death and I didn't want to spend the money to replace it. The only think keeping it around though was Beersmith. Finally this weekend I got around to installing Ubuntu on it and beersmith and it runs great! I am very happy with it

 

[Schlenkerla]

I bought the Asus Chromebox a few months ago and love it. My Macbook Pro was dying a slow death and I didn't want to spend the money to replace it. The only think keeping it around though was Beersmith. Finally this weekend I got around to installing Ubuntu on it and beersmith and it runs great! I am very happy with it

You running both OS's with a boot menu or running it dual?

Chrubuntu or Crouton?


http://www.howtogeek.com/162120/how-to-install-ubuntu-linux-on-your-chromebook-with-crouton/

 

[tflew]

Running it dual with Crouton. Crouton was easy to install but I switched up the Linux OS. Originally I was on KDE 4.something or other. Now its Ubuntu 14.04. It is amazing how easy it is to switch back and forth.

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

They are marvels of technology. And bound for antiquity soon, when replaced by SSDs costing less.

While I understand why you say that, there are some very strong economic reasons that HDDs aren't "bound for antiquity". I was part of our SSD group for 6 years, so I can play both sides of the fence on this one

Suffice to say that it's a great time in the world to be in the storage industry, and the sandbox is going to be large enough that we both have room to play!