W: GPG error…NO_PUBKEY 60D11217247D1CFF – WTF!

I fired up the update manager today and received the wonderful error message of…

W: GPG error: http://ppa.launchpad.net intrepid Release: The following signatures couldn’t be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 60D11217247D1CFF

It sounds like this sort of message will come up from time to time. It is caused by the way signing of packages was changed recently. Here is a post about it on the launchpad site.

To solve the issue you need to import the signature to your local keyring. This is done with the following command to pull down the data.
gpg --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv 60D11217247D1CFF
followed by this command to add it to your local keyring
gpg --export --armor 60D11217247D1CFF | sudo apt-key add -

You can do it through the user interface but the above command list is the easiest and quickest way.

UPDATED: WordPress keeps insisting on replacing – - with –. Sorry for anyone this has caused issues for. The commands have been corrected

Vista + New Laptop = Bad experience.

A PC illiterate friend turned up today needing help with a shiny new Laptop he had just purchased. People complain about Linux but I had forgotten what a dire experience Vista is out of the box.

When you purchased a machine BV (Before Vista) the OS was actually installed and configured for the machine in question. Yes you had all the Crapware that PC builders installed but when you turned it on for the first time it was actually ready to use.

Microsoft took a huge step backwards with Vista and the image based install. It might make life nice and easy for PC builders but did ANYONE think about the end users experience.

I turned on the shiny new laptop and after selecting some basic regional settings was told to wait a few minutes while the machine was prepared. 45 minutes later, and a handful of scripted reboots and Vista is finally ready to use.

When I say ready to use what I mean it was ready enough for me to remove the 60 day trial for Office 2007 and OneCare. After a reboot the better part of an hour had passed.

I connected the machine to my wireless network and pulled down the basics…

• OpenOffice3.
• AVG.
• Spyware Blaster.
• Firefox.
• Thunderbird.
• VLC Media Player.
• Songbird.

By the time this lot was down I needed to reboot to install the 47 updates that Vista had pulled down in the background. Another 15 mins passed watching the slow count as the patches installed.

• 1 of 47 complete.
• 2 of 47 complete
• …
• 47 0f 47 complete.

Yay… At last… Errr… Stage 2… Stage 2 complete…reboot… Stage 3… Stage 3 complete… YAY finally a working desktop. I install OO3, Firefox and the rest of the basics and handed the machine back to my friend. By this point his enthusiasm for the new machine had faded a little.

With Win7 I hope Microsoft learn that the user experience starts when the on button is pressed for the first time!

It’s Alive!

I have finally solve my final niggle with Linux, now I can rest easy for a while. I have not been able to browse my local home workgroup ever since I installed Ubuntu and got my core software into place. All standard net activity has been worry free but whenever I looked at Places->Network it has been ghost town central.

I have not had a pressing need to access other machines on my home network so it has not been at the top of my Must Do list. Every now and again I would have another quick fight when I found something in a forum but nothing worked.

Today I finally found that little gem I had been hunting for. It turns out that by default Ubuntu comes with the iptables firewall system BUT has no rules defined. The reason iptables is not configured is that by default there are no ports open. No open ports = no need for firewall rules.

As I come from a Windows background I am used to all sorts of security add-in software and installed FireStarter, assuming is was just another software firewall. How wrong could I be, it turns out FireStarter is just a front end for iptables. When installed builds its default rules set into iptables. This means that even when not started the rules are active as this was the cause of my problems.

A quick edit of a config file later, as in the Linux way, and I can finally see other machines on my workgroup

If you have made the same mistake as me and installed FireStarter here is a quick edit that will ease your woes.

1) Open a root command shell and issue the following commands

> cd /etc/firestarter/inbound
> chmod +w setup
> gedit setup

you want to add the lines in bold below

# Allow response traffic
$IPT -A INBOUND -p tcp -m state –state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT
$IPT -A INBOUND -p udp -m state –state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT

# Allow response to netbios name broadcasts from the local network.
$IPT -A INBOUND -s $NET -p udp -m state –state NEW -j ACCEPT

# Hosts from which connections are always allowed

This will enable the various broadcasts that are required to resolve netbios names, the system used in a Windows workgorup.

Save the file and then issue the following command

> chmod -w setup

Now reboot and all should be fine again in Windows workgroup land

Webcam fun

Since I made the move to Linux I have been happy in the whole. There have been a few niggles I have still to resolve, one of those being getting my webcam working.

Windows users will look puzzled at this point, they just plug them in and it works. This is how it should be in Linux but it turns Linux moved from V1 to V2 of the Video for Linux (V4L) interface recently.

Trouble is it appears someone forgot to tell the developers of applications that interact with V4L about V4L2. To make matters worse the driver makers decided that since V4L2 is out they should gut out support for the old V4L interface. Net result is nothing works and the web is awash with people all in the same boat, trying to get help and no real answer apart from wait for the situation to be resolved.

What a farce. I would hate to think how many hours I have wasted on this issue so far.

At least I have a workable solution for the time being. Goodbye to Pidgin which is the default IM tool for Ubuntu and hello to aMSN. I only use MSN for my IM needs so losing access to all the IM protocols supported by Pidgin does not effect me and aMSN works with my webcam.

I still can’t grab stills or video from the webcam outside aMSN but as my main use is in IM chats that fight can wait for another day.

I have to say that this is the sort of problem that stops me recommending Linux for friends and family that are not geeks. I just know I would end up as unpaid support for them.

CD ripping Is Lame

Well it has just taken the better part of 2 hours to get CD ripping configured to how I want. When I first installed Ubuntu and run up Juicer, The default ripping software, I could not get the MP3 selection to work so I uninstalled Juicer and made a note to look for different software.

Today after a bit of searching on CD Ripping I realised it is probably the best application and installed it again. That was the easy part, I then had a fight with the MP3 configuration string to get ID3 tags working and CDs ripping at a good bit rate. It turns out that when the configuration string is wrong Juicer will not let you select that encoding selection.

Here is the configuration I settled on in the end, a good example of what I mean by cryptic.

audio/x-raw-int,rate=44100,channels=2 ! lame name=enc preset=extreme ! xingmux ! id3v2mux

Here is the breakdown of what is going on

audio/x-raw-int,rate=44100,channels=2 gives the basic details about the file, 44100KHz sample in stereo.

lame name=enc preset=extreme tells Lame, the MP3 encoder, how to encode the file. I use the high quality variable bitrate preset.

xingmux is where things get fuzzy. No idea what this does but searching around it appears to set the correct vbr tags in the ID3 block of the files. People said use it so in it went.

id3v2mux is what puts the standard ID3 tags into the file, such as artist name etc.

Finding mistakes in lines like the above can be a real headache. In Windows I just used Media Player to rip and tag, where you simply selected bitrate in a slider. That said, I did have to buy a plugin to allow MP3 ripping instead of ripping to WMA.

Has this hair pulling episode put me off Linux, not yet. Now its up and running I can just forget about it. I had years of Windows trouble shooting under my belt to help in problem solving in that platform and here I am a noob again, I know it will get easier with more experience