Archive for March, 2009

OpenSolaris on an Acer Aspire 5515

March 25th, 2009

A couple of nights ago, I put OpenSolaris 2008.11 on my Acer Aspire 5515.  Installation went extremely smoothly.  There was only one minor hiccup:  Wireless wouldn’t work at first.

Before even attempting to install, i had already visited http://opensolaris.org/os/community/laptop/wireless/ath/ and downloaded the latest version of SUNWatheros and saved it to a USB drive.  When I tried to install the driver however, I got a warning message saying that the driver was successfully added to the system but failed to attach.  It turns out that this model notebook uses an Atheros AR5007 for wireless.  So, a different driver was required, also linked to from the same page.  According to that page on the opensolaris site, the AR5007 driver only works for 32 bit x86, in other words not my 64 bit setup. So, I would have to boot into 32bit mode for wireless to even be an option.

Here is what works:

1.  Edit /rpool/boot/grub/menu.lst  removing $ISADIR from the paths.

ie replace  /platform/i86pc/kernel/$ISADIR/unix with /platform/i86pc/kernel/unix

and /platform/i86pc/$ISADIR/boot_archive with  /platform/i86pc/boot_archive

This makes the machine boot a 32 bit kernel instead of the 64 bit one.

Please reboot after you have edited menu.lst

2. Get rid of the old SUNWatheros driver

pfexec pkg uninstall SUNWatheros

3. Download the right driver from http://opensolaris.org/os/community/laptop/downloads/ath-x86-ar5007eg-pkg.tar.gz

4.  Install the driver

gunzip ath-x86-ar5007eg-pkg.tar.gz
tar -xf ath-x86-ar5007eg-pkg.tar
pfexec pkgadd -d ./SUNWatheros SUNWatheros

5. Restart nwam

pfexec svcadm restart nwam

And wireless should start working almost immediately!  All in all, it is a very nice machine for running OpenSolaris.

Blog paranoia

March 11th, 2009

As of late, paranoia has severely impacted my blog activities. Well, enough is enough. Here is a sampling of what has been going on since my last post:

1: Divorce.

I got served with divorce papers. This did not really come as a surprise. Several seemingly conflicting emotions were brought up by this. Relief. My ex saved me the legwork of doing it myself. Hurt. She really IS over me, and any remnant of the love we had is now gone. Sadness. I lost the relationship of a lifetime. Excitement. I can start moving forward with things now. Regret. Had I done X Y or Z differently would it still have to end this way? And so on….

While the divorce summons was not a surprise, the emotions attached to it were quite unexpected. We have been separated for over a year now. I thought I was completely over her. In a way I am, in a way I am not.

Two specific scenarios keep playing out in my head, one real, and one that was a dream. I keep thinking back to our wedding day, in the courthouse, when I said “I Do” and she said “Heck Yeah.” Certainly a happy memory. Then I think to a dream I had. I dreamed someone was saying to me “A marriage that begins in a house of God ends in a house of God, but a marriage that begins in a courtroom ends in a courtroom.” Pretty creepy imho.

2: School.

I enrolled in school.  This is both a frightening and exciting prospect.  Nuff said on that point.

3. Job.

I found one.  It is only temp and part time, but it is very very easy work.  A good thing for now, certainly not something for the long haul.

Thank you for reading this post, and have a great day.  : )