Gateway T-1616 Users: Get Ready for Ubuntu Intrepid

No more Linux Mint-for-the-wireless. Install Intrepid in no time and you will get a fully functioning Gateway T-1616! I doubt if this is the last time writing about Gateway T-1616 and Ubuntu Linux.

WPA Working Smoothly on Ubuntu Intrepid ( 8.10 )

It is a nightmare to wait for the new release of Ubuntu 8.10 for me. Plus I accidentally crashed my old Ubuntu 8.10 by mistyping a rm command. So there's no reason why shouldn't I install alpha 6 version of Intrepid several days earlier than the plan. What thrilled my is that I found the wireless card of my Gateway T-1616, which is an rtl8187b, is working perfectly for a WPA wireless network. The weird inexplainable behaver before, such as connects to a WPA wireless signal and then works on a strength of 0%, are all gone! What's better, I can really use the new-human theme for a while!

Full Functioning Gateway T-1616 ( rtl8187b ) with Ubuntu 8.04 and Later

As questions about rtl8187b wireless card (of Gateway T-1616) + Ubuntu 8.04 accumulating here, I figured that it is time to make a reply. My answer is: I don't know how to make it work. Despite the fact that Ubuntu 8.04 is the only OS on my Gateway T-1616 and almost everything is working healthily, wireless included. To get that: Install a Linux Mint, you will find yourself being able to install a working windows driver for rtl8187b with ndiswrapper. Then change your /etc/apt/sources.list into the same as a normal Ubuntu hardy one, update & upgrade everything. The wireless then will still work, so will be other stuff. And if you don't like the look & feel of Mint, go ahead and read Full Circle Issue 16: GNOME-Look Guide. It does an excellent job telling us how to change the look of everything on ubuntu. The only blemish of this approach is that the mic of Gateway T-1616 wouldn't work.

Make your evil iPod nano 3rd generation work with Linux

Well, for those who have a neutral attitude to iPod, and who use just Linux as personal operation system, I'm one of you. I think I don't need to say a lot about the reasons why I name this tiny MP3 player "evil".

For those who are not in the same situation as us, here's the story.

I bought this iPod nano 3rd gen from the official website, and happily received it before the tragedy started. I knew that it works with iTunes, but there's not a Linux version of that. I tried installing the newest iTunes with wine, however, the installation progress told me that I can't do this on linux. I download an old version and wine worked in installing it this time. Everything looked fine until I realized that this iTunes could do nothing but play music files. It didn't detect iPod nano 3rd gen at all.

Then I updated rhythmbox, which is installed by default in Ubuntu. Amazingly it recognized iPod and was able to transfer mp3 files into it. Although there were still some problem on mp3 tag editing, I did enjoyed few days driving iPod with Ubuntu. Later I learned that a newer version of Amarok could the samething.

But if that had been the ending, I wouldn't call it a tragedy!

The ending started on the day when I helped one of my friend install the newest iTunes on a Windows laptop. I plugged my iPod 3rd gen on the machine, iTunes found it, and told me that something is wrong with it, and then iTunes downloaded something sized around 50MB, redetected iPod, and I found all mp3 as well as all the game records disappeared in the player. Later, as you may expected, rhythmbox/Amarok stopped working on it. Every time after I tried to transfer something from Linux, the player just didn't display it. And iTunes on other machine would told me the same story that I needed to download/install that 50MB package.

Good job, Jobs!

But, wait.

VMware come to the rescue!

I'm not a Linux purist, nor am I a hard-drive-space-grubber. If you mind spending 5 GB on your hard drive to get the job done dirtily, don't waste time reading this post then. For the rest of you, let's start rocking!

Actually there's not much left to say. Here's all: Install VMware workstation -- Windows -- iTunes .

After that you'll get a virtual machine running on Linux, and a iTunes running in the virtual machine. Theoretically, it's possible to take advantage of the feature "Unity" in the new VMware workstation. Thus, iTunes would look just as a native application when working. But I haven't succeeded in doing that yet.


Here's a pic I found: Windows XP in VMware with Unity, on Linux Desktop.

My test is taken under:

OS: Linux Mint 4.0 (Ubuntu Based)

Laptop: Gateway T1616 (See how to drive everything out of box)
Desktop PC: Dell Dimension E510

It's really easy stuff.

1 Download VMware workstation, whose 6.5 Beta version is under testing. And don't forget the Serial Number given on the webpage.

2 Install VMware:

cd the_path_where_VMware_lies (e.g /home/home)
tar xzvf VMware-workstation-e.x.p-84113.i386.tar.gz
cd vmware-distrib
sudo ./vmware-install.pl

3 Imput the Serial Number. You will find the option in Help menu.

4 Build a new virtual machine. Once VMware starts, press the button "Creat a new virtual machine" under the Home tab. Leave everything as default on the first page, go next until the third page, where you choose the edition of windows which you are going to install. Name the system and choose its path on the next page. The next thing is to set the space for it. Let's give it 5GB (4 might be work ,too, but no guarantee here). Then you will be end up getting a virtual machine with 256MB memory, NAT network interface with the host system, and a share to all the DVD Rom,USB Controller,etc. It is actually just a (or more) file(s) on your linux machine. It won't have any infuence to the host system besides consuming some space on the hard drive.

5 Install Windows on the virtual machine. Put your installation disc into the DVD/CD ROM, press "Power on this virtual machine" on the tab of your newly built "PC". Then you will find yourself in regular Windows installation process. I didn't meet any difficulty during this step. VMware tells me that the Webcam/Sound/Wireless on Gateway T1616 all work for the virtual PC when Windows first starts.

6 Install VMware Tools. Make sure the virtual PC is on. Choose from menu VM-Install VMware Tools. The virtual machine will start a process installing a series of things. Just press next or OK if it stops anyhow. After this is done. You will find the virtual machine working faster. And you may also want to reset the resolution of the virtual screen.

7 Download iTunes, save the installation file in a certain place in the host system (linux), say, PATH_A.

8 Set the shared folder for the host PC and virtual PC. Poweroff the virtual PC first (Ctrl + Alt to get the mouse out of the virtual PC, for those who hasn't figured out). Press "Edit Virtual machine settings". Click the option tab, choose "Shared folders". Put "Always enabled" on the right. Press Add, put a name in Name, say, PATH_B. And put PATH_A in "Host Path". Press OK.

9 Install iTunes. Start the virtual machine. The Installation file for iTunes will be in the path "\\.host\Shared Folders\PATH_B".

10 Plug in iPod nano 3rd generation, the virtual machine should be able to detect it automatically, just as it happens in a real machine. Actually if you use the "Exlusive Mode", it feels exactly the same as if the system is on your host machine.


Since then, iPod nano 3rd generation, though still evil, is again available for me!

Linux Mint Working on Gateway T1616

The idea of the Ubuntu - Based distro Linux Mint is to make things work easier. But for the users of linux-unfriendly Gateway T1616 users, which includes me, things are always a little more complicated than it suppose to be. And Linux Mint is not an exception. Here's how I made this distro work to meet my basic requirements.

1. Video Card This turned out to be the easiest step. After the installation, there was a notification on the taskbar asking me to use a restricted dirver. I checked that driver and Linux Mint downloaded and installed the ATI accelerated graphics driver automatically. After this, I rebooted the laptop and got the video card working perfectly.
2. Wireless Card As I've wrote in another post, I download RTL8187B driver for Windows, unpack it. There were the rtl8187b driver for windows 98 as well as other windows versions on their own folder. I went to Daryna-Administrations-Windows Wireless Drivers , Clicked "Install", found the .ini file in the folder for the rtl8187b driver of windows 98, clicked OK. Then the wireless card started working. One thing to recommend is, the default network-manager in Linux Mint (Ubuntu) is a little dull in detecting the wireless signals. Usually it doesn't match the result of "lwlist scan". And wicd is the solution. Go to Daryna-Administration-Synaptic Package Manager. Choose Settings-Repositories, press the button New. Fill in the text area like this: URL: http://apt.wicd.net/ Distribution: gutsy Section(s): extras And then press OK. And you will be able to install wicd with synaptic (sudo aptitude install wicd). When you do that, you'll find network-manager removed automatically. Don't panic, you can install it back whenever you like. To finish the installation of wicd, you need to go to Daryna-Preference-Sessions, Press Add, Fill in name with Wicd, Command with /opt/wicd/tray.py, and fill in Comment with anything you like. Next time you start gnome, you will find wicd in the taskbar at start.
3. Sound Card It took me quite a while to search with Google, and the result is unexpectedly simple. All you need is type the following command in a terminal:

   sudo aptitude install linux-backports-modules-generic

   I doubt that this works with Ubuntu , too.
4. Webcam For the scarce of webcam application on linux, I haven't found a universal way to fully drive the built-in webcam up. But it works properly for skype 2.0 by default. Which, according to my previous test on Ubuntu, indicates that it works with kopete, too.

Having all this done, I've got this laptop working with Linux Mint. But there's still a problem. Sometime when restarted, the system stops in the middle of the whole process forever. To "restart" it, I need to turn the machine down and start it again. Do you have the same problem with Linux Mint & Gateway T1616?

Linux Mint 4.0 + ndiswrapper works on Gateway T1616: rtl8187b

This is an instruction to new Linux Mint users who have a Gateway T1616 Laptop, if you are using Ubuntu and the wireless doesn't work, you may want to try Native Linux Driver for RTL8187B. "Linux Mint is an Ubuntu - based distribution whose goal is to provide a more complete out-of-the-box experience by including browser plugins, media codecs, support for DVD playback, Java and other components. It also adds a custom desktop and menus, several unique configuration tools, and a web-based package installation interface. Linux Mint is compatible with Ubuntu software repositories." Gateway T1616, which is not a very linux-friendly laptop, has the wireless card RTL8187b. I found that it is very easy to make the wireless work out of the box with Linux Mint 4.0 . First, you need to download the RTL8187B driver for Windows. Notice that there are several drivers in the package, and the one for windows 98 works just fine. So uncompress that to some where on the disk. Then you install the driver with ndiswrapper, which is in the system by default. To be specific, go to Daryna-Administrations-Windows Wireless Drivers. Click on "Install" button, choose the path where you unpacked the Win98 driver, and you will find the .inf file highlighted, click OK. Now you should have the wireless working properly. If there are wireless signals around, you should be able to find them listed by clicking the network reminder on the right of the taskbar. You may also try iwconfig in a terminal and you should find wlan0 up and running. The last thing to do is to add ndiswrapper to a new line in the start-up module list, which is in /etc/modules And that's when you start enjoying wireless.

rtl8187b linux native driver works on Ubuntu

Update: This essay is really sort of outdated. Nevertheless I has not been keeping track on this native driver. One good approach to get things work is to use a more "wrapped" distro, where ndiswrapper + windows driver works. And then "upgrade" it into the original distro you desired by changing the repository settings or whatever. For those who desire Ubuntu, I recommend Linux Mint. I used to try getting rtl8187b wireless card work on ubuntu by using ndiswrapper,everything seemed fine with this method except that it WASN't ACTURALLY WORKING. What happened was, iwconfig said that there's a wlan0,iwlist scan did find several signal around -- but they never change.It seems that the wireless card only worked when the machine started up, when it discovered something by then and kept returning it to me later. Things were the same when I use the graphic interface, of course. I turned to #ubuntu@irc.ubuntu.org for help and met Word1983. He gave me a page from google, from which I traced to this modified driver for rtl8187b. Here're several steps to drive rtl8187b up with this driver: 1 downland the driver. 2 extract it to a folder.Since we will keep this folder,you'd better choose a good place for it.

tar xzvf rtl8187b-modified-dist.tar.gz -C GoooPlace/ cd GoodPlace

3 run the script makedrv with sudo.Don't panic on those compiler warnings,as long as you don't see anything like "error", the driver might not have been nice coded, but it will work.

sudo ./makedrv

4 run the other script wlan0up with sudo

sudo ./wlan0up

If nothing went wrong, you should find a wlanX in the result of iwconfig,in case you may have tried to get the rtl8187b wireless card worked, X varies from 0 to ?.

iwconfig

Then you may go

iwlist scan

The card will detect signals surrounded then.Which means that it started working properly. PS:You need to run sudo wlan0up everytime you need wireless.You may want to make a shortcut for it on your desktop or home folder.

Mandriva ROCKS on Gateway T1616

Bill told me that Mandriva 2008 get everything worked out of the box on Gateway T1616, so I gave it a shot.It turned out every thing is fine.I really love the KDE+Compiz combination inspite of that it might be a little slow on this machine. The only problem is that there's a continuous noise going on with the system on.It is solved by mutting CAPTURE 1 in alsamixer Wireless is easy to gain. Simply goes to Menu-Tools-System Tools-Configure Your Computer , choose Network & Internet-Set up a new network interface-wireless-Use a Windows driver .Then choose the driver for rtl8187b. Then the wireless startes working! UPDATE: If you still prefer to use Ubuntu with Gateway T1616, please check out Linux Mint, which, with some simple steps done, works even better than Mandriva.

Ubuntu Installation On Gateway T1616

For convenience,I installed i386 edition instead of 64bit.Which happened 1 mouth ago.But for Gateway T1616, there were two main problem after the basic installation: 1

Wireless doesn't work

Here's the result of lspci for wireless :

08:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller (rev 01)

The way to make it work should be:

1 Install ndiswrapper :

sudo apt-get install ndiswrapper

2 Download the driver of wireless card for Windows

for Gateway,we need the driver rtl8187b Downloaded. And use ndiswrapper to install the driver: ndiswrapper -i xxx.inf Load ndiswrapper by sudo modprobe ndiswrapper

VERY IMPORTANT: If you have a Vista on the laptop,the wireless will simply NOT work,I don't know why,but after my OpenSUSE accidentally disabled the Vista,which came with Gateway T1616,the wireless magically started to work! Update: This method works not very well, if this is true for you, you may want to try the Native Driver for RTL8187B 2

Sound Card Doesn't work

The solution turned out to be very simple:install the package alsa-tools

sudo apt-get install alsa-tools

Then make sure that every thing displayed in alsamixer is NOT muted.

alsamixer

Use key left and right to switch between different column,us key m to voice the muted ones\ After these two things, Gateway T1616 basicly functioned completely.Except that the mic and web camera is still not working. I'll working on it~~