You can use k3b to mp3-rip an audio-cd in Linux.

If ripping does not work, and k3b comes up with an error message like:
command failed: lame -h –tt

This can be corrected by editing the settings in k3b:
Settings –> Configure K3B –> Plugins –> K3B external audio encoder –> Configure … –> MP3 (Lame) –> Edit –> Check
“Swap Byte order”
“Write Wave header”

The problem is gone. The command will not fail anymore.

When I recently bought some new CDs I wanted to have them as mp3s. But, which tool is the best, for doing things like that?

First, I tried Amarok. But that was not the best choice. It works, but quite complicated.

So I tried: KAudioCreator. Uuuh. You will need almost half an hour for one CD, although the system is equipped with dual core CPU:
AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4200+

Alright, so I went on through the Internet. And finally I landed at this utility: K3B. Not only does it rip your CDs, it also can burn CDs and DVDs. And easy to handle! So, this is my choice for further digitalizations of Audio-CDs. Just install it with

apt-get install k3b

If it does not work out of the box, you might have to install the codex algorithms. For mp3s I use lame. With debian, you can install it as a package. But first, modify your /etc/apt/sources.list: it should have a line containing

deb http://www.debian-multimedia.org stable main

After this: apt-get update

Now you can do:

apt-get install lame.

And you’re gone.
By doing this, you might run in a problem with apt complaining about “The following signatures couldn’t be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY …”

The solution for this problem is to install the debian-multimedia keyring first:

apt-get install debian-multimedia-keyring

By now, it will be working. The GUI is completely self-explanatory. No more words about it.

Have some fun with ripping your Audio-CDs with KDE and K3B!

As written recently, you can run an ACER Travelmate 5730 with Debian Linux. On of the things, which did not work out of the box, was Wi-Fi. But you can use Wi-Fi after some slight modifications.

1. Get a newer Kernel
2. Get the necessary hardware-driver
3. Get the necessary tools for WLan
4. Modify /etc/network/interfaces

The first three steps are described here.

The last step, is quite easy to do. First (after a reboot with the new Kernel) try to find all the WLAN-networks in range.
Type as root: iwlist scan.
If yours shows up, you can add in /etc/network/interfaces an additional option for the WLAN. The security in this case is with WEP.

[...]
# The wi-fi interface
auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet dhcp
wireless-essid your_SSID_here
wireless-mode managed
wireless-key some_encrypted_key_here
[...]

Then, you can just connect to the WLAN by typing ifup wlan0 as root. And after this, you can run WLAN on an ACER Travelmate with Debian-Linux.

In the following, I will describe, how to install Linux (Debian Lenny) on an ACER Travelmate 5730. You will see, that almost everything works out of the box. Even a dual-boot system with Debian and Windows Vista is not a problem.

Introduction: Half a year ago, I bought an ACER Travelmate 5730 Laptop. The reason why I bought this “Enterprise” Notebook is: it belongs to the very seldom Laptops, which have a curved and by this ergonomic keyboard. Pictures coming soon.

This machine came with preinstalled Windows Vista Business, and it’s horrible! It’s that slow, that you can start to ask yourself, where the power of your computer is.

So the conclusion is: install Linux to get the performance you need. Steps to do:

1. Prepare a bootable USB-stick containing the files from Debian Lenny
2. In Vista, you can shrink your partition, so that there is space for Linux. How? Look here.
3. Enter the BIOS during boot, and put your USB-stick on the first place in the boot-sequence.
4. Give it a try for a reboot.
5. Debian installs without any problems.
6. When you are asked what to do with Vista, choose to install GRUB in the MBR (master-boot-record). Vista can be chosen for booting later.

Finally, the whole system works like a charm. See the output from lspci here.

Now, let’s have a look, what works out of the box:
- LAN
- Sound
- Harddisc
- Bluetooth
- Grafic

What did not work out of the box?
- Wi-Fi (Description on howto use Wi-Fi on Acer Travelmate with Linux)
- ACPI

Conclusion: Debian Linux can easily be installed on a ACER Travelmate 5730. You should use at least Lenny. Etch does not work (Harddisc and ethernet-interface is not recognized). Vista can still be used in parallel.

It was high time, to apply the most recent security patches to my Debian-systems. Was done this afternoon.

But due to the fact, that there were some very vulnerable topics with open-ssl, I also had to create new keys. So, all known_hosts and authorized_keys files have to be updated.

During upgrading the ftp-server proftp had been updated. And this created a problem. I keep this service running as ServerType = standalone. During the update, the /etc/proftpd/proftpd.conf - file had not been changed. But somehow the proftpd could not be started as normal (/etc/init.d/proftpd start). And: no /var/run/proftpd.pid - file was existent.
Finally I killed the proftpd after executing ps aux | grep proftp and started the service new - and then everything was running fine. But, I don’t know why. In the log-files I found lots of lines like:

Sep 28 17:16:45 ...gimme-th.at proftpd[29948] ....gimme-th.at: Check the ServerType directive to ensure you are configured correctly.
Sep 28 17:17:32 .....gimme-th.at proftpd[9422] .....gimme-th.at: Failed binding to 0.0.0.0, port 21: Address already in use

Oviously the service could not be restarted fully and it had to be killed by hand first.

In times of high availability, you may want to make sure, your server is running properly, non stop and all the time. So do I - but recently I often experienced problems with the vServer. Either it was not available - or it was under high load (>20). And it didn’t respond to the web-interface anymore. So what can you do?

For example, you might install a monitoring tool. I suggest to take monit. With debian you can simply install it this way:

apt-get install monit

Otherwise, you have to compile it yourself. But now, some words concerning the topic of configuration:
monit can run as a daemon. It is suggested to be the best way, and so do I think.

You can monit the system itself, that means the memory resources and the CPU-load as well.
The next topic is to monit all services. That means, mail, web, ftp and so on. Just define values for the CPU-load each service takes or its availability. If it is not available for several cylces you can restart the service or just send an email. Anyway monit tells you via email, what it is doing.

Result: if you want to have a server with high availability you could use monit to make sure, the services you provide are running properly.