This became apparent as soon as I got FiOS installed. The web GUI relied heavily on javascript, of course, with lots of single-click flashy setup wizards. The baboon interface quickly enraged me. Adding port forwarding rules became reduced to a point and grunt contest with a poorly programmed robot. Somehow, perhaps through UPNP, perhaps through some black magick, it would find new ports that needed forwarding, and write new rules. I did not like that sort of scary automation. Let me define my own rules, thank you very much. Additionally, running nmap on my public IP address showed me that the router opened port 4567. Probing it showed a rudimentary server, ostensibly for receiving firmware updates, though only Goddess knows its true purpose. Finding some sort of server on my router troubled me deeply. It had to go.

I heard about the Asus RT-N16. I love my Asus Netbook, though have heard horror stories about their motherboards, and had never owned an Asus router, but it got universally good reviews. Most importantly, it runs Linux, comes with open-source firmware, and more importantly, it can run third party firmware such as DD-WRT. This I decided to do, so started researching and collating. The router arrived promptly from Amazon, then sat on my floor, waiting for the right time.

The time came early this evening, a full moon in a humid Spring sky. I felt good and prepared. I saved a few articles in case I would need them while offline, downloaded the appropriate firmware, and set to work. Before actually upgrading, I first connected it to my FiOS Ethernet line, just to make sure it would work without the stupid Actiontec. Fortunately, I had gotten Ethernet instead of coax, and a static IP address instead of a dynamic one. These two factors would play to my advantage. Tech savvy FiOS users should certainly request Ethernet installed for this reason. Only business FiOS offers static IPs.

I felt very glad that things had worked out so far, and decided to take the plunge. I first upgraded the firmware through the regular GUI, under the administration menu. I put in the filename, and waited while it showed the update’s percentage. At last it finished, and to my delight I saw DD-WRT. It asked me to input a username and password, which I did. Now, the time came to reset the router, which you must do the first time to force a reboot. This router has two buttons on the back – a raised one by the power jack, and a recessed one next to the two USB ports. Yes, it can share external drives and printers! One button, the recessed one I believe, acts as the reset button, and the other button, called WPS, supposedly sets up some kind of wireless network, but also acts as a deeper reset.

The first time I reset, I did a 30-30-30 power cycle using the recessed button. After waiting about fifteen minutes, I started getting a bad feeling. It occurred to me that perhaps I should have not done this upgrade during a thunderstorm, as a medium rain fell, and thunder periodically filled the air with a low rumble, providing an uneasy background to this intricate technical operation. I know it says to remain patient, and that it can mess it up if reset while in the middle of the initial boot, but given that time has passed, and that I could ping it but not access the http interface, I figured I should try another reset. This time, I pressed the
raised button, and it came right up. I had to reenter my username and password, but I didn’t care, it had worked! I proceeded to upgrade to the latest firmware.

I immediately fell in love. The interface has a simple feel, and I quickly found myself online at blazing fast speeds, complete with wireless. In no time at all I had my port forwarding rules reestablished – very impressive. The auto-refresh pissed me off, since it causes my speech synthesizer to start babbling on as it refreshes. I disabled it in the admin panel, but it still happens, albeit not as frequently, so I still have some work to do.

I feel very satisfied with this setup. I notice a definite speed increase. Downstairs, I get a solid 96% signal strength. Out back, where before I could hardly se the connection, I got a solid 58% signal. Those three antennas must help. I can even telnet in to my router, and do basic Linux commands. How cool! If you care about utilizing your Internet connection to its full potential, you need a real router. If you care about your freedom, you should use open-source firmware, such as DD-WRT. The combination of FiOS Business with Ethernet, the Asus RT-N16 router, and DD-WRT Linux firmware gives an extremely satisfying experience.

These represent initial impressions. I may post future articles if things change.

I just figured I’d write this, just to confirm that everything works for everyone. If you received any errors, they should straighten themselves out. I have a lot to blog about, and look forward to doing so on this shiny new server.

Migrating never goes completely smoothly, as any sysadmin will know. This time, I had to mess with Postfix and find a line I forgot to add in the configuration, and some other minor annoyances. Check and recheck those configuration files. Apache proved similarly annoying, with its fragmented configuration files, but it turned out the culprit came from something simpler. It turns out the default installation didn’t enable the rewrite module, which struck me as odd, most do. If this happens to you, just use a2enmod rewrite and it will work.

Have fun. I’ll check back soon, I promise.

I love having a portable computing device. The blind have had portable note-takers for years. I first got my Braille ‘n Speak in 1988 or so. I used and loved that thing for over ten years, then the company merged with others and became the Microsoft of the blind community. After that happened, I no longer had a constant computer at my side tow rite things down. I tried to fill the void with crap, but nothing satisfied me.

The Netbook has arrived in full force of course, and Linux accessibility provides incredible solutions. I can even ssh (log in) to my desktop upstairs while sitting in my living room recliner, and control it pretty much as if at the console. Can you do that with Windows? One crappy note-taker costs the same as thirty-one netbooks! They provide the lock, and GNU/Linux the key. Making a note-taking productivity suite under Linux has the advantage that I can port it to whatever machine I wish no matter what cool thing in the future comes out. As long as it runs an accessible version of Linux I can rock and roll!

I can’t reiterate how great this feels. I feel rejuvenated, like part of me has come back, now that I have this new medium of expression. I feel comfortable and free. This will go very well with blogging. I have Twitter running under Emacs. I also plan to make extensive use of Orgmode. “Your life in plain text” sounds just about right!

I find that suspend works far better under Linux. I disabled it under Windows, since it locked it up and didn’t seem as stable. Linux works wonderfully, I just keep the suspend mode active when I close the lid while on DC. It uses around one percent of battery charge per hour while in suspend. Then, I just open the lid and it pops right back up.

I now have my EeePC 1000HE in a very nice configuration. I kept the original 80GB Windows partition, and installed Arch Linux on the second partition. I now have a nice dual-boot configuration, though will do 99% of my work under Linux. I even have Firefox working under Gnome with Orca. Having Linux on a Netbook rules, and I would recommend it to anyone who has the time and desire.

It just occurred to me that I didn’t blog about what happened. The Thursday before last, a freak power surge took out the drive in my desktop. I’ve had to rebuild since then, and wanted to get my Netbook functioning, since I sort of needed it. Now things will work out, I will have a rocking new setup, and hopefully I can get the data off the old drive.

The weirdness started after I took an awesome salt bath, which I love to do on full moons because a salt bath helps the body detoxify, which apparently happens during full moons. I slept for a few hours, and woke up very early (or late depending on your point of view.) I learned that Asus had just released the successor to my Netbook literally the day before I ordered mine. I felt kind of upset, and for about ten minutes, considered returning mine for the newer model. I decided not to, however, because it didn’t differ too much – 6.4 ounces lighter, an extra hour of battery life, and a new case design didn’t seem worth the hassle.

That prompted a rousing discussion about Microsoft versus Linux on a Netbook. I will not rehash the whole debate, as many have already become familiar with the various arguments. Blind people may know Windows, but having something forced on them by a monolith does not make it the best. As for the argument that the manufacturers design the Netbook for Windows, I would just say that without people with the hacker spirit, wanting to do things with their machines beyond their design, we wouldn’t have Netbooks in the first place!

After I simmered down from that, I read a rather disconcerting and poignant email from my friend Chuck Young. You can find him on the blog roll, though I doubt he will publish the article he sent me! By this time it had gotten onto about eight o’clock in the morning, and I need to take a power nap, prepare a shopping list, and meditate.

As well as declaring this the Summer of the Netbook, I also declared it the Summer of Zazen. They don’t call the hara the Golden Stone for nothing!

After recharging and getting my shopping order, it had gotten on to around three o’clock, or noon Pacific time. Ordinarily this wouldn’t matter, but today something extraordinary happened, at least in the eyes of many: Michael Jackson’s Memorial. Oh no! I feel awful blogging about this. I only watched small amounts, as I couldn’t stand hearing people going on and on about Jesus. Viewing it reminded me of viewing Twitter in the past week: lots of #moonfruits! Ha, I saved that joke for now! Things felt kind of creepy, and a kid cried. I tried to enter the mind of a Michael Jackson fan, and feel some remorse. It worked for around two minutes. I still don’t know what the scene looked like, but I heard they had a solid gold casket on stage. I kind of hoped that something cool would happen, like they would lower it down on air, or that the lid would creak open and Michael Jackson’s ghostly countenance would emerge. Alas, nothing of the kind happened, but as with the initial event of his death, I could feel the collective pull. Every channel showed it, and within minutes of it ending they had sound bytes and collages. Programs continue to run as I write this. It also sort of weirded me out that it happened under a full moon. Did they know?

As I sit here outside typing on my lovely netbook, I realize how much I love blogging under the night sky with a full moon, the cool feel of the summer air mingles with the sounds of a suburban town, and the astral light of the full moon permiates my spirit and this entry. I can sense it with my third eye. I only ever saw moonlight once in my life, when a September full moon reflected off the ocean. It looked like a glittering mirror.

I wanted to install Slackware 12.2 on this newly rebuilt dual-core system. I hoped all would go well, but every machine has its own challenges. I got to the configuration part well enough, but it stopped displaying anything after it told me that it had to run fc-cache to update my fonts. This happened in the FONTCONFIG dialog. I thought, “Great, something I don’t even care about, and it locked up.” I started poking around, and actually discovered that the fc-cache ran fine, and it had proceeded to the boot disk part of the installation. This took hunting around in the
/usr/lib/setup and /mnt/var/log/setup directories and in the processes, but I found it! Let me digress by saying that I love vim! Anyways, I discovered that for some reason, running `rescan-scsi-bus -l` locked it up. I still don’t know why. I ran

# chmod -x /mnt/var/log/setup/setup.80.make-bootdisk

and this fixed the problem. Actually, it didn’t fix the problem, it just skipped that part of the installation. I figure as long as I have the dvd I have a boot disk. Good enough. I just wanted to get this down. I hope it benefits someone. I’ll have more later. I need meditation and rest.