Neil Lathwood’s Blog

Just a quick one this. I’ve just posted a quick how to add an icon to your desktop for remote vnc and remote desktop connections. Enjoy

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Wrote up a quick how-to on my site about using VPN on the ASUS eee.

VPN setup

I still need to get some icons done for the desktop, but for now, this is what I have.

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The next thing I’ve added to my 3e laptop is the ability to connect to the net via gprs on my mobile phone. You can do this via usb or bluetooth and i’ve opted for the latter event though it’s a bit more hassle to get it going.

Credit for this has to go to SublimePorte over on the eeeuser.com forums, he has packaged the installer up into a .deb package that can be downloaded and installed straight onto your Xandros system, so I did, it didn’t work So after checking into things and testing, I eventually got things working using wvdial rather than the scripts included in Porte’s package. It did however mean that I got an icon on the home page to use to start and stop the connection so I adapted what was already installed. I will try and give you the full instructions on how to do this without Porte’s deb package.

Firstly, plug your bluetooth adaptor in! Once you have done this run the following from a terminal on your 3e:

hciconfig hci0 up

You shouldn’t see any response back, if you do then their was a problem and you will need to check into this before carrying on.

Next run the following command which will search for devices with bluetooth enabled and DUN (dial up networking enabled). If you get a failed response back here then you have a problem with your bluetooth dongle or your mobile phone:

eepc:/root> sdptool search DUN
Inquiring ...
Searching for DUN on 00:01:02:03:04:05 ...
Service Name: Dial-Up Networking
Service RecHandle: 0x10027
Service Class ID List:
"Dialup Networking" (0x1103)
Protocol Descriptor List:
"L2CAP" (0x0100)
"RFCOMM" (0x0003)
Channel: 2
Language Base Attr List:
code_ISO639: 0x454e
encoding: 0x6a
base_offset: 0x100
Profile Descriptor List:
"Dialup Networking" (0x1103)
Version: 0x0100

Make a note of the bluetooth address and channel (00:01:02:03:04:05 and Channel 2 in the example above). Next, edit /etc/bluetooth/hcid.conf and enter the following config:

options {
autoinit yes;
security auto;
pairing multi;
passkey "1234";
}device {
name "phone";
class 0x3e0100;
iscan enable;
pscan enable;
lm accept;
lp rswitch,hold,sniff,park;
}

This file is available to download here

Change the passkey line to something that only you will know, this is the passkey you will use when you synch your 3e with your phone. Also change the name to something a bit more descriptive for the phone. Now edit /etc/bluetooth/rfcomm.conf and paste the following code into it

rfcomm0 {
bind yes;
device 00:01:02:03:04:05;
channel 2;
comment "Mobile";
}

This file is available to download here.

Change the device to match your bluetooth address from earlier, the channel and set the comment to something descriptive so you can identify this connection.

Ok, bluetooth should be now setup, if you try and find and pair with your dinky 3e using the passkey you set. If everything has worked ok then you should be able to pair successfully. This needs to be done from your mobile phone of choice using the bluetooth wizard most have installed. - Note, thanks to a reader for pointing out that I didn’t make it clear that you should now start the pairing from your mobile.

Now it’s onto the wvdial setup, firstly you need to install it though so add an additional repo to your apt configuration - I’m not going to show you how to do that here and then run apt-get install wvdial. Once installed you will need to setup the wvdial.conf in /etc/ to use the settings applicable for your mobile network provider. Mine was O2 in the UK so my settings reflect this. Anyway, edit the wvdial.conf file and put this in it:

[BluetoothMobile]
Modem = /dev/rfcomm0
Baud = 912600
SetVolume = 0
Init1 = ATZ
Init2 = ATQ0 V1 E1 S0-0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
Init3 = AT+CGDCONT=1,”IP”,”mobile.o2.co.uk”
FlowControl = CRTSCTS
ISDN=0[Dialer GPRS]
Username = mobileweb
Password = password
Phone = *99#
Stupid Mode = 1
Inherits = BluetoothMobile

This file is available to download here. You need to replace the mobile.o2.co.uk with the APN (access point name) for your mobile provider, the username and password need to be provided by them as well. Nothing else needs changing in this file so you should be good to go.

Next paste this into the /usr/sbin/gprs script (if you are creating this yourself then don’t forget to chmod 755 /usr/sbin/gprs when done):

#!/bin/sh
wvdial_running=$(ps xa | grep -v grep | grep 'wvdial GPRS' | awk '{print $1}')
pppd_running=$(ps xa | grep -v grep | grep 'pppd' | grep wvdial | awk '{print $1}'
if test $wvdial_running > 0 && test $pppd_running > 0
then
sudo kill -9 $wvdial_running
sudo kill -9 $pppd_running
kdialog --msgbox "GPRS Connection has been stopped!"
else
kdialog --msgbox "Please make sure your bluetooth dongle is inserted then press OK to continue"
sudo /usr/bin/wvdial GPRS &
kdialog --msgbox "GPRS Connection has been started!"
fi

This file is also available to download.

Ok, nearly finished now. Time to get the icons we need and place them in /opt/xandros/share/AsusLauncher/:

accessibility_gprs_hi.png
business_gprs_hi.png
gprs_norm.png
gprs_hi.png
home_gprs_hi.png
student_gprs_hi.png

You will also need to edit the /opt/xandros/share/AsusLauncher/simpleui.rc and add the following line somewhere above </simpleui>:

<parcel simplecat="Internet" extraargs="/usr/sbin/gprs"
icon="gprs_norm.png"
selected_icon="grps_hi.png">
<name lang="en">GPRS</name>
</parcel>

Now all that you need to is restart your X session (CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE) and once you log back in, you should have a GPRS icon on your home page which you can click to lanch the GPRS connection and stop it.

My longest blog so far? I think so

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Been spending a bit of time setting my 3e up just how I like it - that happens to be basic mode using the default installed Xandros OS.

I’ve been installing some extra software from the extra debian repos so that the little blighter will do everything I need it to Anyway, I like to have a shell (terminal/console) open so that I can edit files, connect to other systems via SSH etc. As default you can just hit CTRL+ALT+T for an xterm window and that is probably how I would launch it all the time but I thought I’d have a go at modifying the standard desktop and add it as an Icon/Application launch in the Work section of the desktop - hey it worked

Now, edit the file /opt/xandros/share/AsusLauncher/simpleui.rc

You can put this next bit of code anywhere within the <simpleui> </simpleui> tags but I put it just below the Notes application. So, do a search for Notes and then below the </parcel> tag for this application, paste this config:

<parcel simplecat="Work" extraargs="/usr/bin/xterm"
icon="xterm_norm.png"
selected_icon="xterm_hi.png">
<name lang="en">Terminal</name>
</parcel>

Save the file and when your ready, restart your X display by doing CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE. Your new program should now appear in the work folder using icons that already exist on your system. If you want to have a go at replacing the icons with your own then in the directory /opt/xandros/share/AsusLauncher re-place the following files:

xterm_norm.png
xterm_hi.png
accessibility_xterm_hi.png
business_xterm_hi.png
home_xterm_hi.png
student_xterm_hi.png

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http://eeepc.asus.com/global/product.htm

I have a 4G version on it’s way to me for tomorrow. Can’t wait to have a play and see what all the hype is about. I’ll post my comments/thoughts up when I have tested it for a bit.

t00t

Ryan asked what the desktop is like so here we go:

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