kdenlive

 I've been having problems with KDENLIVE lately and it seems to be common from reading the forums etc.
So I tried the appimage starting with "kdenlive-20.08.2-x86_64.appimage" from:
https://kdenlive.org/en/download/
It works but hard to use, for me. It's clunky and I can't work out how to do the things that I used to do.
I've just downloaded "kdenlive-20.12.0-x86_64.appimage" and will see how that goes.

Installing bpytop

Installing bpytop
It's a nice system monitor utility. Looks a bit like HTOP.
Requires python3 version 3.6 or newer.
python3 --version
to find out

python3 --version

Python 3.8.5
Requires python3-pip (which is a python package manager)
which pythin3-pip
no output - it's not installed
sudo apt install python3-pip
pip3 install bpytop
(could use pip3 install bpytop --upgrade if already installed)

  WARNING: The script bpytop is installed in '/home/chris/.local/bin' which is not on PATH.
  Consider adding this directory to PATH or, if you prefer to suppress this warning, use --no-warn-script-location.
Successfully installed bpytop-1.0.52 psutil-5.8.0

## binary does not run.
## to try to fix the not in PATH message
nano ~/.bashrc
add line at end

# added by CH 27/12/2020
# https://linuxize.com/post/how-to-add-directory-to-path-in-linux/
# trying to add my home binary directory to PATH after installing bpytop
export PATH="/home/chris/.local/bin:$PATH"


##Save the file and load the new $PATH into the current shell session using the source command:

source ~/.bashrc

chris@duff:~$ source ~/.bashrc

chris@duff:~/.local/bin$ echo $PATH
/home/chris/.local/bin:/home/chris/bin:/home/chris/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/games:/snap/bin

run bpytop
chris@duff:~$ bpytop

works :)

My new Linux Firewall

For a long time I've had an old PC set up with IPCOP as my firewall. And I still have it running even though I forgot the password many years ago. It still works OK.

I have been meaning to replace it with something that uses a bit less power for a while. And to take up less space, and be quieter.
Yeh, I could probably buy one off the shelf ready to go but I'm missing tinkering around with stuff. There is a much higher level of satisfaction when you get into a bit more detail yourself.

It seems IPCOP or a current equivalent doesn't run on the ARM based boards like the raspberry PI so I had a look for something that will / should run it.

I'll probably buy an ODROID C-1 single board computer

http://www.hardkernel.com/main/products/prdt_info.php
And a case, USB Ethernet adaptor, HDMI cable and power supply.

I need to do some more research on the eMMC versus an SD memory card.
Seems the eMMC card is a "hard kernel", which sounds good in one way, but maybe less versatile in another.
I also need to check out what people are using now as a linux firewall distro. I recall someone saying IPCOP isn't supported anymore and I'm not sure I can make one from a "normal" distro.

WiFi on my HP Pavilion laptop #3

Another effort to get my wifi modem working on Linux Mint XFCE
From the reading that I have done it seems like the fixes are for Debian, or Linux Mint LMDE (which is based on Debian as opposed to the "normal" one that is based on Ubuntu)
So, I'll load LMDE or Debian and see how I go with that.

This is what I tried...

http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/379

This tutorial is applicable to LinuxMint Debian Edition for it doesn't come with the Hardware Driver option (System->Administration->Hardware Drivers) found in Ubuntu and LinuxMint. Installing LMDE will not automatically install the driver for you so you have to manually do it from the Terminal.
Steps are outlined below:
You are required to connect to the Internet with the LAN interface before proceeding.
1.) After successfully installing LMDE, you have to update it first prior to installing the driver.

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade
2.) After a successfull update, we can now install the desired driver for our Broadcom wireless card:
sudo apt-get install b43-fwcutter firmware-b43-installer
All you have to do is wait for the installation to finish and you will be able to use the Broadcom wifi card.

[March 19, 2011]
Here's an update if you're trying to install the driver on a netbook with low-power b43 chipset:
sudo apt-get install b43-fwcutter firmware-b43-lpphy-installer

WiFi on my HP Pavilion laptop #2

Now I'm going to try this way:
http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/1115

Although I don't know what the other attempt has done.
I unchecked them in the start/settings/software sources > additional repositories tab, updated cache and it said I have some broken packages.. ah well..

he most simple method to install broadcom b43 wireless driver in LMDE

This method applies to kernels 3.5 and above and depends upon replacing Debian firmware-linux-nonfree with Ubuntu linux-firmware-nonfree_1.14_all.deb. Follow these steps:

1- Start by uninstalling firmware-linux-nonfree via Synaptic

2- Download Ubuntu linux-firmware-nonfree_1.14_all.deb by another machine with internet connection or by connecting your machine via wired connection or using another USB wireless.

The download link is http://www.ubuntuupdates.org/package/core/quantal/multiverse/base/linux-firmware-nonfree

3- Install the downloaded driver via Gdebi or dpkg as follows

dpkg -i linux-firmware-nonfree_1.14_all.deb

4- Reboot your machine and that is all

Downloaded the file "linux-firmware-nonfree_1.14_all.deb" to Downloads folder

from Downloads folder:

dpkg -i linux-firmware-nonfree_1.14_all.deb

Selecting previously unselected package linux-firmware-nonfree.
(Reading database ... 146266 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking linux-firmware-nonfree (from linux-firmware-nonfree_1.14_all.deb) ...
Setting up linux-firmware-nonfree (1.14) ...

Now for a reboot and see what happens...

In the start/settings/driver manager, the
 Broadcom Corporation: BCM4313 802.11b/g/n Wireless LAN controller.
bcmwl-kernel-source (Version 6.3.0.223.141+bdcom-0ubuntu1. Broadcom 802.11 Limux STA wireless driver source
Is not active - tried to activate it and it didn't, it went back to:
Do Not use the device
It changes back when I click the click the "apply changes" button.

I'm running Linux Mint 14 Nadia. My wireless card is the BCM4331 on a Mac Mini (Macmini5,1). After installing this package I rebooted then I added a line that said simply "b43" to the file /etc/modules. Rebooted again. Clicked on the Wifi icon in the panel in the notification area and chose my Wifi network. Success! 

Try this and re-boot.
Didn't seem to work. I might have to do some reading and learn about what is really going on rather than try trying stuff.

WiFi on my HP Pavilion laptop #1

I installed Linux Mint 16 XFCE 64 bit on my HP Pavilion DM1 laptop.
It all works OK except for the WiFi which at first was low in signal and would not accept my network password. Then it didn't work at all because the interface had been disabled.
A quick google revealed that it's a common problem with the broadcom driver.

Trial fix #1 was to install a package from the Debian repository and compile it.
I added two repositiries to the file /etc/apt/sources.list
first:
deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian testing main contrib non-free
and then:
deb http://ftp.au.debian.org/debian stable contrib

apt-get update
signatures could not be verified NO_PUBKEY....
seemed to do something though.
apt-get install module-assistant wireless-tools
m-a a-i broadcom-sta
returned some dependency errors and suggested I ran apt-get -f install
who am I to argue?
apt-get -f install  (seemed to do a lot)
tried the above commands again and it seemed to go further but didn't work.

here is the web page and info that I was referring to:
http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/218


METHOD 1

1.  The Mint developers of LMDE have enabled the "non-free" repositories by default.  To confirm this navigate to
 

• Menu > Administration > Software Sources.  
• Select the tab

Debian Testing Officially supported DFSG-compatible Software with Non-free Dependencies Non-DFSG-compatible Software should be present and selected, select it if not currently enabled.
If the "non-free" repository was not present, add it to to /etc/apt/sources.list  Open the file with

gksudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

and add these lines at the end of the file

# Debian Testing (currently Wheezy)

deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian testing main contrib non-free

save and close.
Updated to reflect testing repositories instead of Squeeze repositories.

2.  The remainder of the installation process will be performed as the root user in a terminal.  Open a terminal, type su, press , type your password (there will be no response from the blinking cursor), press .  The terminal prompt will change from something like username@computer-name ~ $ to computer-name username # Note: the change from $ to #.  Also, to avoid confusion between a one (1) and lowercase L (l) commands can be copied from the tutorial and pasted into the terminal.  The key combination to paste into the terminal is

3.  Update the list of available packages. Install the module-assistant and wireless-tools packages:

apt-get update

apt-get install module-assistant wireless-tools

4.  Build and install a broadcom-sta-modules-* package for your system, using Module-Assistant:

m-a a-i broadcom-sta

The "a-i" stands for "auto-install," meaning "download the module source, compile it for the current kernel and install it".

5.  Blacklist the brcm80211 module, to prevent it conflicting for support of BCM4313, BCM43224 and BCM43225 devices:

echo blacklist brcm80211 >> /etc/modprobe.d/broadcom-sta-common.conf

6.  Rebuild your initial ramdisk, to blacklist modules defined at /etc/modprobe.d/broadcom-sta-common.conf within initramfs:

update-initramfs -u -k $(uname -r)

7.  Unload conflicting modules:

modprobe -r b44 b43 b43legacy ssb brcm80211

8.  Load the wl module:

modprobe wl

9.  Verify your device has an available interface:

iwconfig

10.  Configure your wireless interface as appropriate.

11.   Exit the root terminal:

exit