Guaka! - free software

code

Guaka — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 22:28:36 +0000

See my profile at github.

Some projects that I've contributed code to, available under free software licenses:

trustlet, analysis of trust metrics, Python, NetworkX, numpy
wik2dict, converter of MediaWiki dumps into the DICT format, currently in the trustlet codebase, Python
BeWelcome, hospitality exchange software, PHP, MySQL, XHTML, CSS
Google Calendar plugin for MediaWiki, PHP

Small patches:

CheeseTracker, audio software, C++, JACK
bio2jack

I've been involved in finding bugs, usability issues and new features for the following projects:

I've also worked on code for the following companies and organizations:

CouchSurfing.com (PHP, MySQL, CSS), I started developing in August 2006, right after the crash, I was the CS tech team coordinator from autumn 2006 till January 2007 and I remained core developer until May 2007.
structural analysis of audio from musical pieces (Python, numarray), for IRCAM
custom GNU Pascal libraries
ActionApps data migration (PHP on Windows and GNU/Linux) for CEPES in Peru
accessible.rotterdam.nl and more (ASP, MS SQL Server), for PPC

Ubuntu on LENOVO ThinkPad Edge Dual-Core

Guaka — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 10:31:12 +0000

This is a work in progress

Most stuff works out of the box. The main issue is getting wifi to work without issues.

I've used Ubuntu 10.04 with most stuff working nicely for a while, until I got a hard drive issue (I replaced the hard drive with a 60GB SSD). Now I'm running 10.10. Apart from /etc I didn't make a backup of my setup so I have to figure out things again - and I'll keep track of that on this page.

Wireless: r8192se_pci issues

The wireless driver is the r8192se_pci. Many people experience regular (every 2 to 5 minutes) drop outs of connections, especially WEP connections.

A solution, thanks to a kernel panic through powertop: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/lucid/+source/linux/+bug/585938

A possible solution is to use RealTek's driver instead of the one that comes with the kernel. You have to compile it yourself though. On Ubuntu forums and even in the issue tracker you will find tons of information, but it's a bit scattered and messy. I hope this page can be more helpful.

At this point I'm not sure what the right steps are to get from a vanilla Ubuntu install to a working wifi. I'll try to update this in the future, but leave comment or let me know otherwise if you have improvements:

$ sudo apt-get build-essentials linux-source
$ wget https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/lucid/+source/linux/+bug/585938/+attachment/1443893/+files/rtl8192se_linux_2.6.0017.0705.2010.tar.gz
$ sudo find /lib/modules/ -name "r8192se_*.ko" -exec rm {} \;   # removing existing module
$ sudo mv /lib/firmware/RTL8192SE ~   # back up existing firmware
$ tar zxvf rtl8192se_linux_2.6.0017.0705.2010.tar.gz
$ cd rtl8192se_linux_2.6.0017.0705.2010
$ make
$ sudo make install

With previous versions of RealTek's driver you had to use GCC 4.3 but the one used here didn't complain about GCC 4.4.

$ find /lib/firmware|grep rtl81
/lib/firmware/2.6.35-25-generic-pae/RTL8192SE/rtl8192sfw.bin
/lib/firmware/2.6.35-25-generic-pae/RTL8192SE/rtl8192sfw492.bin
/lib/firmware/2.6.35-25-generic-pae/RTL8192SE/rtl8192sfw74.bin
/lib/firmware/RTL8192SE/rtl8192sfw.bin
/lib/firmware/RTL8192SE/rtl8192sfw492.bin
/lib/firmware/RTL8192SE/rtl8192sfw74.bin

After installing the new module you can unload the old one and reload the new one:

$ sudo rmmod r8192se_pci
$ sudo modprobe r8192se_pci

You know everything is fine if your machine doesn't crash when running powertop:

$ sudo apt-get install powertop
$ sudo powertop

32 bit PAE or 64 bit

My ThinkPad came with 4GB of RAM. Since 64 bit is a bit of an issue with RealTek's wireless driver I'm using the 2.6.35-25-generic-pae kernel.

Audio: fixing the audio out issue

The internal speakers might continue playing sound when you plug in headphones or external speakers to the audio out plug. In this case add the following line to /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf:

options snd-hda-intel position_fix=1 model=leno

Fan control

The fan can be a bit noisy. There's a solution though... I'll add it when I find it back from my backed up /etc.

People want laptops with Ubuntu!

I know many people who want laptops with Ubuntu. Not many people enjoy tinkering with the internals of their OS (and those people run ArchLinux anyway).

If only...

... RealTek contributed directly the Linux kernel.

... Dell had continued selling laptops with Ubuntu in the EU.

... some other company had picked up on this.

Recursively create lowercase symlinks to filenames with uppercase letters - in Python

Guaka — Tue, 04 May 2010 17:51:54 +0000

tag:

I'm working on a project to convert a big ASP website into Drupal. On Windows OSes there is not really a distinction between upper and lower case characters in filenames. At first I thought to just leave the capitals, but on web pages links were sometimes with capitals and sometimes lowercase. So I added some stuff to the Apache configuration, usually inside the VirtualHost directive (this does not work in .htaccess):

        
        RewriteEngine on
        RewriteMap lc int:tolower
        RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} [A-Z]
        RewriteRule (.*) ${lc:$1} [R=301,L]

But that wasn't all. For the project I'm parsing thousands of ASP files and the plan is to do this everyday while the existing website is updated. We're rsyncing files to be parsed, and the recursively rename to lowercase script I found is nice but it's not very efficient to copy and rename almost 3 GB everyday. I wrote a little Python script in the train today to create lowercase symbolic links to file and directory names with uppercase letters. The hardest part was to properly change directories - it's important to change into the directory the symlink is created but at the end of an os.walk it's necessary to get back to the current working directory.

I'm sure it can be useful to other people dealing with similar issues...

lowlink.py

#!/usr/bin/env python
"""
lowlink.py

Recursively creates lower case symlinks to filenames with uppercase letters.

Created by Guaka in 2010, consider this public domain, copy and re-use freely.
"""

import os

def lowlink(path = '.'):
    cwd = os.getcwd()  # os.walk can't handle path changes very well 
    for root, dirs, files in os.walk(path):
        # change directory for symlink creation
        os.chdir(os.path.join(cwd, root))
        print root
        for name in files + dirs:
            lowname = name.lower()
            if name != lowname and not os.path.exists(lowname):
                os.symlink(name, lowname)
        os.chdir(cwd) # restore path for os.walk

lowlink()

wik2dict

Guaka — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 00:54:52 +0000

wik2dict is a tool I wrote in Python. It converts MediaWiki SQL dumps into the DICT format.

I'm not actively maintaining this anymore, Aard Dictionary seems the way to go.

I'm going to FOSDEM

Guaka — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 00:06:31 +0000

Adding Group overview to CiviCRM contact summary page

Guaka — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 14:44:26 +0000

tag:

Intal's CiviCRM needed some customizations. So I delved into CiviCRM's templating system, which is based on smarty. Most things were pretty easy but it took some more time to figure out how to add the Group overview to the Contact Summary. In sites/default/civicrm_custom/CRM/Contact/Page/View/Summary.tpl I added to the appropriate spot.


{include file="CRM/Contact/Page/View/GroupContact.tpl"}

In order to keep my customizations separate from the core CiviCRM code I tried adding the following lines to the template.


{php}
    require_once 'CRM/Contact/Page/View/GroupContact.php';
    CRM_Contact_Page_View_GroupContact::browse();
{/php}

But that did not work unfortunately. So for now I stick with adding the following lines to CRM_Contact_Page_View_Summary extends CRM_Contact_Page_View::view() in sites/all/modules/civicrm/CRM/Contact/Page/View/Summary.php:


require_once 'CRM/Contact/Page/View/GroupContact.php';
CRM_Contact_Page_View_GroupContact::browse();

There should be a nicer solution that doesn't require hacking core CiviCRM code...

A job?! And, time tracking in Drupal?

Guaka — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 18:06:15 +0000

tag:

I'm looking for a decent time tracking tool for Drupal, both for my freelance work as well for my employer, Intal. Briefly, Intal is an NGO working with partner NGOs in many countries (and places), among which Philippines, Congo, Cuba and Colombia, in the fields of health care, development, peace and human rights. It would be cool if there was Drupal based solution for time tracking that would integrate well with OpenAtrium so that we can replace the OpenOffice spreadsheets currently in use. By the way, at Intal I'm also working a lot with Ubuntu, LTSP, CiviCRM and solving general office IT issues.

Drupal Camp Ghent 2009

Guaka — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:39:04 +0000

tag:

11th and 12th of December.

Hitchwiki everywhere

Guaka — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 20:46:32 +0000

tag:

"Aard Dictionary is a multiplatform dictionary and offline Wikipedia reader. It runs on desktop computers, notebooks and netbooks with Windows, Linux and Mac OS X as well as Nokia Internet Tablets (N800 and N810) and anywhere Python, PyGTK and ICU are available. Aard Dictionary is light, fast, easy to use and free." And now it's also possible to read Hitchwiki articles everywhere: I converted Hitchwiki dumps into .aar files. I'll probably set up a weekly cron on my server once I have aarddict running on the N900 that I received from Nokia during the Maemo conference in Amsterdam 3 weeks ago :)

Wanted: Wireless Researcher for project in Dharamsala, India

Guaka — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 11:10:11 +0000

tag:

In 2005 I spent some time ICT volunteering for Geekcorp Mali. And in 2001 I traveled in India and had a great time in the North. Now, a ICT volunteer is actually needed in Dharamsala. Contact me if you have the skills, time and you feel like an amazing experience:

AirJaldi, a nonprofit dedicated to harnessing the capabilities of the internet for the benefit of rural communities in developing countries, is looking for a highly-motivated and experienced person to take a central role in carrying out an innovative research project aimed at developing a viable Bandwidth Maximizer for rural Wireless ISPs (WISPS). The job is based in Dharamsala, HP, India. Your technical work will be supervised and monitored by AirJaldi’s CEO and CTO. You will report directly to AirJaldi’s CEO, based in Dharamsala. Responsibilities/Scope of Work: Lead Research focusing on, amongst others:

Searching and testing low-cost or Free software and hardware products for use as parts of the BwM system.

Adapting and integrating hardware and software components to create the BwM system.

Test and deploy a prototype BwM in the lab, on an emulated network and on a production network in Dharamsala.

Document and summarize research findings and participate in preparing project reports for funding body and general circulation.

Prepare Operation manuals on setting up, configuring and operating the BwM.

Assist in other AirJaldi tasks as needed and required by the CEO.

Extensive hands-on experience with administration of GNU/Linux and Linux-based networks and systems. Past employment with an ISP, hosting-facility or IT department of a large enterprise a major plus.

Strong familiarity with F/OSS tools and their integration.

You should be very confident with the following terms, protocols, servers and environments: multilayer IP switching and routing, firewalls (iptables), Policy-routing, DNS management and debugging, SMTP (sendmail, exim), POP/IMAP, HTTP (apache), Squid, Radius, LDAP, VPNs (OpenVPN), etc.

Familiarity with NMS and network provisioning systems is essential- the job will require setup of advanced Nagios-based network monitoring systems for very large and complex networks.

Familiarity with the following tools and similar ones required: Nagios, Cacti, MRTG, RRD, SNMP, Munin/Orca.

Experience with routing protocols, QoS setups, Embedded-Linux, MS-Windows machines support (Samba, wins) a plus.

Previous knowledge of RF a plus.

Previous field experience, in particular in a developing country, a great asset.

Qualifications / Skills / Experience In order to successfully carry out your work and as importantly, enjoy it and derive as much satisfaction from it as we do, you will need to: Be willing and able to live in a small, rural setting. Ability to work within a multi-national multi-lingual and multi-cultural team. Be an excellent team player – we mean this. Our team is built is based on getting the most from each of our team members, which calls for mutual respect and support. (professional and personal). You will be required to adhere to these principles.