Invert Your Mind

I figured out how to get Ubuntu to correctly connect to a Windows style PPTP VPN. Apparently there are a number of large issues with NetworkManager that make it all but unusable for VPN. The fix is enormously simple, so I’m extremely confused as to why on earth they haven’t patched it yet. Okay, so here’s what I have done:

1. Create a shell script that you will run after you connect to the VPN via NetworkManager applet. The contents are like this:

#!/bin/bash

echo "search your-domain-name.com" > /etc/resolv.conf
echo "nameserver ip-address-of-your-companies-dns-server" >> /etc/resolv.conf
sudo route add default gw 10.10.30.1

2. Connect to the VPN using NetworkManager

3. Run this script as root:

bash$ sudo ./vpn

What this does is first it updates my resolv.conf so that I can find the DNS server that my company provides and also setups up my search domain for easy access to stuff like http://wiki. Next it adds a new route to the kernel IP routing table. The issue with NetworkManager is that it not only completely clears out resolv.conf (eeck!) but it also doesn’t always setup a route to get to the VPN network. In my script I just setup a simple default route that will direct all traffic to my VPNs gateway. This procedure assumes that NetworkManager is setting up a host route to the VPN gateway on the ppp network device. If this doesn’t happen, well your routing table could get all screwed up, but I think for now NetworkManager isn’t that stupid (however it might be).

Good luck and happy VPNing.

and

Dell is starting to ship computers pre-installed with Ubuntu. I would assume that these computers have been specifically built to ensure compatibility, which isn’t all that difficult these days, except for the video cards. I feel like this is one of the first major steps for Linux into the mainstream.

http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/linux_3x?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs

I’ve tried to post this message 3 times this morning and three times I’ve lost the post. First it was IE7 sucking and then it was my hosting company sucking worse and finally I’m starting over again. This time I’m keeping it short. Here’s my morning thoughts.

• VIsta looks freakin’ amazing!
• Looks aren’t everything, but help make life nicer
  • I can’t run Beryl or Compiz on my desktop because of ATI support - sucks - so linux still looks horrible even with the best theme available and hours of tweaking.
  • Even with Beryl or Compiz, X windows sucks because of the networking code at the bottom. OpenGL, FB, DRM, DRI, whatever should really be at the bottom of X and the rest of it can go. It sucks a lot anyways.
• Vista sucks for developing. No shell with completion, no virtual desktops, you have to install everything by hand and it sucks to find good free software.
• Linux has so much good support now, that even though it looks like butt, it is still better for developers. Any developer that say they are more productive on Windows has been smokin’ some serious crack.

I can’t recall if I already posted this, but I did manage to get the VGA output working in order to use a external monitor or projector for my Dell 700m on Ubuntu. For this laptop the Fn-F8 key doesn’t work for whatever reason. Probably some BIOS or motherboard firmware problem that requires a driver in windows. Anyways, trying to use i810switch or i855crt both produce horrible results. Therefore, the only way to get this to work is to enable a dual head configuration.

In order to do this, just add these two Option lines to your xorg.conf file:

Section "Monitor"
        Identifier      "Generic Monitor"
        Option          "DPMS"
        HorizSync       28-64
        VertRefresh     43-60
        Option          "MonitorLayout" "CRT,LFP"
        Option          "Clone" "true"
EndSection

Update
Found this great page after much searching and most of the configurations work well.
http://www.celifornia.com/documents/dell700m.html#Video-out

This is a response to a comment about Ubuntu that is on this blog entry. The person was having trouble setting a root password. This is really simple, but not really needed for almost everything since Ubuntu gives your user sudo privileges, which allow you to do anything root can. You simple prefix the command with ’sudo’ and type in YOUR password. However, if you absolutely MUST log in as root, just do this to set a root password:

brian@brian-lt:~$ sudo passwd root
Password:
Enter new UNIX password:
Retype new UNIX password:
passwd: password updated successfully

This sets the root password and you can now log in as root like this:

su -