Enabling Broadcom 4313 Wireless support and VLC installation on RHEL 6x/CentOS 6x

CentOS is an excellent desktop OS for the discerning user who wants rock solid performance without paying a premium.  However, since it is built from server source with some desktop apps and bits thrown in, stability comes at the cost of the latest and greatest version of the software bundled. For instance LibreOffice is still stuck at 3.4x, it's Pidgin instead of Empathy and there are no versions of Banshee available.

However, having lesser things to play actually makes it an attractive choice for focussing on getting work done since there are practically no games available but there is a plethora of "boring" server stuff that can only make a geek quiver with delight!   

Since I work in a RH shop, having a RHEL server installed on my notebook actually makes sense, but then I would have to "burn" through one subscription for no good reason. So CentOS it is then. 

Two problems come into mind - the Broadcom wireless (BCM4313) on my notebook wouldn't work with CentOS or RHEL and two, the lack of multimedia codecs would ensure that my notebook would be good for work and staging and precious little else. That wouldn't do since I live off my notebook. 

After trawling through the web, I managed to resolve my #1 problem and easily resolve issue #2. 

Preparing the repos

# rpm -ivh http://ftp.riken.jp/Linux/fedora/epel/6/i386/epel-release-6-8.noarch.rpm

# rpm -ivh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/el/updates/6/i386/rpmfusion-free-release-6-1.noarch.rpm

# rpm -ivh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/el/updates/6/i386/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-6-1.noarch.rpm

# rpm -ivh http://rpms.famillecollet.com/enterprise/remi-release-6.rpm

# rpm -ivh http://elrepo.org/elrepo-release-6-5.el6.elrepo.noarch.rpm

Enabling Broadcom Wireless Support

The Broadcom driver doesn't come in a binary form due to licensing restrictions. To enable Broadcom 4313 support, we need to compile the driver from a Source RPM.

Install the required dependencies

As root:

# yum -y groupinstall 'Development Tools' 

# yum -y install redhat-lsb 

# yum -y kernel-devel-$(uname -r)

Preparing for compilation

Choose the right architecture archive (32 or 64-bit) and download the source RPM from (http://elrepo.org/linux/elrepo/el6/SRPMS/wl-kmod-5_100_82_112-9.el6.elrepo.nosrc.rpm) to anywhere (e.g. Downloads) and the driver archive from Broadcom's site (http://www.broadcom.com/support/802.11/linux_sta.php) to ~/rpmbuild/SOURCES/

As normal user:

$ mkdir -p ~/rpmbuild/{BUILD,RPMS,SPECS,SOURCES,SRPMS}

$ echo -e "%_topdir $(echo $HOME)/rpmbuild\n%dist .el$(lsb_release -s -r|cut -d"." -f1).local" >> ~/.rpmmacros

Building the Source RPM

As normal user:

$ rpmbuild --rebuild --define 'packager <user name>' /home/<user name>/Downloads/wl-kmod*nosrc.rpm

Installing the Compiled RPM

As root:

# rpm -ivh /home/ericyeoh/rpmbuild/RPMS/x86_64/kmod-wl*.rpm

Remove unused services

As root:

# modprobe -r b43 b43legacy ssb wl lib80211

# modprobe -r bcma (for RHEL/Centos 6.4 and above)

# modprobe lib80211_crypt_tkip

# modprobe -r wl 

Reboot and it's good to go.

Remember to remove any instance of ndiswarpper if it's installed. 

Installing VLC

VLC is an all in one media player for the many MP3s and movies I have. VLC is one of those indispensable "if-you-are-stuck-on-a-desert-island" software. 

As root:

# yum --enablerepo=remi-test install vlc 

HP LaserJet P1005 on Fedora 17

A year ago I got myself a cheapo HP LaserJet P1005 printer. The price was right and it worked well with my openSUSE 11.4 (after some titanic struggles) desktop and Ubuntu 10x notebook then. Fast forward to the end of 2012, post apocalypse; and the printer was starting to gather dust at home and not wanting it to be the nesting grounds for ants, roaches and other nasties, I decided to bring it to work - as a temp printer (the office's primary printer has lapsed into deep coma) for the tech department.

My work desktop (also from home) is running Stella Linux, a respin of the venerable CentOS with all the nice multimedia bits with my primary lappy and on Fedora 17, as with the rest of the techies.

I was ready for some titanic struggles as I did with my desktop's previous openSUSE host; so with sleeves folded up and skipping lunch - me ready. Alas, after 5 minutes of Googling I found this page which directed me to the HP Linux Printing and Imaging page my anticipated struggle was resolved within 10 minutes.

Got my desktop's CUPS setup and firewalls opened for 631 TCP/UDP, enabled remote access to my CUPS server and shared printer.

All is working now.

Let the tree killing begin!!!


 

Roboto Fonts

The Roboto set of fonts used in the Android Ice Cream Sandwich platform can now be downloaded from http://developer.android.com/design/style/typography.html

For GNU/Linux, just download the file, unzip it, create a dir in /usr/share/fonts/, copy *.ttf to that dir and then just run fc-cache and you are good to go.

Enjoy.

New Font Repo for openSUSE

Adding fonts is pretty easy in openSUSE (and in GNU/Linux) generally - create a dir in /usr/share/fonts dump your ttfs in it run fc-cache or SuSEconfig (under openSUSE or SLE)and you are done.

However having a repo of about a hundred fonts that can be added from Yast is just heaven sent. Add the repo and refresh it:

zypper ar -f http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/M17N/openSUSE_12.1/ Fonts

zypper ref Fonts

And you are good to go.

It also has support for openSUSE 11.4, Tumbleweed, SLE 11 and Factory. 

Installing LibreOffice.org on openSUSE 12.1 LXDE

openSUSE 12.1 comes with LibreOffice. 3.3 by default. To enable LibreOffice 3.5 on openSUSE 12.1 you can either download the RPMs from the LibreOffice site and manually install or add the LibreOffice Unstable Repo

zypper ar -f http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/LibreOffice:/Unstable/openSUSE_12.1/ LO

Refresh the repo

zypper ref LO

You can then install LibreOffice from Yast. Remember to add the libreoffice-gnome package or the LibreOffice will look butt ugly.

If you are using the LXDE flavour of Ubuntu, Lubuntu, remember to add libreoffice-gtk for the same reason.

Enjoy!

LXDE and Compiz - urggh

I enable Compiz and Emerald on my Centos 6.2 desktop at work. Didn't know what got into me but I then decided that Compiz would be awesome on my openSUSE 12.1 LXDE. After installing the necessary packages and changed the Windows Manager to Compiz from lxsessions-edit (Desktop Sessions Settings in GUI speak) I rebooted.

Logged in OK but quickly discovered that Windows' top panels were missing and no matter what I did, I could not type anything.

Argghhh....

Well edited ~/.config/lxsession/LXDE/desktop.conf  file and changed the window_manager = line back to openbox-lxde , logged out and in and all is well now...CLI roxx!

openSUSE 12.1 - Choppy Fullscreen Flash Playback

Been a fan of openSUSE on thing that always got on my nerves was the choppy full screen Flash playback on browsers. Fedora worked fine and so does Ubuntu - I mean openSUSE is awesome all round but WTF is wrong with it?

Well to reduce its choppiness - edit /boot/grub/menu.lst and on the kernel line remove quiet and vga=0x317.

The bootspalsh will be lost but the choppiness is gone. This has only been tested in Intel 915 chipsets. Can't guarantee that it'll work on others. but it is worth a shot.