Problems with RTL8169 after Ubuntu 11.10 upgrade -- SOLVED!

I recently encountered a problem with my onboard LAN controller after installing Ubuntu 11.10.

root@WATCHER:/home/val# lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID:    Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 11.10
Release:    11.10
Codename:    oneiric
root@WATCHER:/home/val#

I have a dual-boot setup with Windows XP. My PC is wired to the router.

The culprit

PROBLEM:  After booting to Linux, no link can be detected from my LAN controller to the router.

TRIAL #1: I tried booting to Windows and to my horror the LAN controller appeared to be really dead! CONCLUSION: LAN is FRIED!

TRIAL #2: I tried resetting the BIOS defaults and enabled/disabled LAN after several reboots but it was really dead no matter which OS I booted to! CONCLUSION: LAN is REALLY FRIED!

TRIAL #3: In my frustration, I shut down the PC, UNPLUGGED the POWER CORD and was thinking of getting a USB wireless adapter. A few minutes later, I was still not ready to give up and POWERED UP the PC to try another trick.  Miraculously, the LAN controller worked!!! CONCLUSION: LAN is still OK!

Explanation (after some investigation):

My chipset is RTL8169 (Realtek) and there is a bug submitted here.

It seems that Windows is disabling the NIC WAKE-ON LAN during shutdown and is the only one that can enable it during the next Windows boot.  Linux is not checking this state so it cannot detect the NIC when you reboot to Linux after a Windows session.

The hard solution is:

1. unload driver - rmmod r8169
2. load the driver again - modprobe r8169

The easy solution is to POWER OFF (unplug!) your PC for a few seconds and the NIC will forget its settings causing Linux to detect its original state.


Whew! Total time wasted: 1 hour 45 minutes.

2011 in Bullet Points

Here's my 2011 log:

• Got inducted to the Secret Society of DAS*
• Regained the 16.5 lbs I have technically lost* 
• Attended a basketball coaching camp
• Attended a lot more PBA Games than last year
• Visited a very cold HK in March!
• Replaced some of my over-recycled shirts
• Spent a couple of nights in Tagaytay with friends
• Launched the biggest project of my career (work stuff)
• Played a lot of basketball
• Found it harder to play a lot of basketball than in 2010
• Coached three men's teams (no luck)
• Coached two women's teams to the championships
• Renewed my dormant license and paid a hefty fine*
• Tried to play Futsal and my team were crowned champions (what luck!)
• Visited a (still) very cold HK in December!
• Got a new lens and flash for my camera
• Wrote my first yearly recap

* Too long to explain

How to install Vulture's Eye in Ubuntu 10.10

UPDATE:  This should work also for Ubuntu 11.04. Please let me know if it doesn't.

Here's a guide to installing and playing nethack with isometric tiles.

1. Download the latest source code here. It is a 7z compressed archive.

2. Open a terminal and install the 7-zip utilities

$ sudo apt-get install p7zip

3. Install the dpkg-dev package.  This is needed to build a .deb package from the vulture's eye source code that you have downloaded earlier.  Just answer "Y" when prompted.

3. Install other essential packages for building this game.  Expect a download of 18Mb.

$ sudo apt-get install debhelper libsdl1.2-dev libncurses5-dev bison flex libpng12-dev libsdl-mixer1.2-dev libsdl-ttf2.0-dev

4. Extract the game source code and put in your home directory, i.e. /home/valman

5. Go to the source directory and run the patch provided by the game developers.

$ patch -Np1 -i dist/linux/debian/debian.patch

6. Now, still in the game source directory, let's build the package!  Expect to wait for a few minutes while your computer compiles the C++ code.

$ sudo dpkg-buildpackage

7. Now, go to your main downloads directory where you saved the file downloaded in Step 1.  You should see a listing of .deb packages there.

8. Install the game data package

$ sudo gdebi vultures-data_2.1.90-1_all.deb

9. Install the game package (same as above)

$ sudo gdebi vultureseye_2.1.90-1_i386.deb

10. Play the game! It's the Applications > Games > Vulture's Eye

Have fun!!


//ValMan

The Mother of All Games

Hasta la vista, baby! sdasdasdasdas
asasdasdasdasdasdasdasdasdasdas

A friend asked me to name some addictive games I know. Aside from XCOM of course, the next game that comes to my mind is Scorched Earth: The Mother of All Games.  Developed by Wendell Hicken using C++ and Turbo Assembler, you control your tank to wipe out all other tanks from the face of the earth by adjusting two levers: Power and Angle.

You earn money through the levels to equip your tank with nasty missiles, warheads, and funny items such as parachute.  The fun part is changing the text files TALK1.CFG TALK2.CFG.  The files serve as the tanks' shoutouts before an attack, and their dying words before disintegrating.

The game can still be downloaded here. You need a DOS emulator to play because the game was designed for slower machines of yesteryears.

It brings good memories of the late 90s when college nights in the dormitory were long and stress-free.

UPDATE

A modern port was released and named Scorched3D.  You can visit the official site here.  Sorry, I haven't tested it yet.

Open Source Music

This project will use your donations
to purchase and release music
to the public domain.

Finally, there exists a project to release classical music that you can use and share without breaching any legalese.  MusOpen.com wants to set music free for our total enjoyment.

Musopen is an online music library of copyright free (public domain) music. We want to give the world access to music without the legal hassles so common today. There is a great deal of music that has expired copyrights, but almost no recordings of this music is in the public domain. We aim to record or obtain recordings that have no copyrights so that our visitors may listen, re-use, or in any way enjoy music. Put simply, our mission is to set music free.

Right now, they are trying to raise funds to hire an orchestra to record the works of Beethoven, Brahms, Sibelius and Tchaikovsky. If you've got some spare PHP 100.00 and a credit card, please back their project here.

The customary "Hello World!"

Inspired by my friend, @zarahjutz, I have started an adventure with Android to recover my deteriorating kung-foo-bar skillz! I will be posting my n00b experience here along with the weekly Tech News that matterz to me!