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Mageia 9 and Software Defined Radio (SRD) using Gqrx Software

  Software Defined Radio (SRD) is a radio receiver where minimal hardware is used and most of the signal processing is done by a computer. The benefits are extremely wide frequency coverage with multiple modes of communication at very low cost. I purchased the NESDR SMArt RTL-SDR v5 from Amazon for US$44. It's a USB dongle that ships with a USB extension cable and three small antennas.  No software is provided but the application Gqrx is provided with Mageia 9. It does require some manual configuration for use with Mageia.  Although UBUNTU-focused, the Gqrx HOWTO is a useful starting point. To install on Mageia 9: 1. Install gqrx and gnuradio: $ sudo urpmi gqrx gnuradio 2. Create the group plugdev $ sudo groupadd  plugdev 3. Add your user to the group plugdev . 4. Blacklist the default drivers  by creating the  file  /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-dvb.conf and edit it to include the following: blacklist dvb_usb_rtl28xxu 5. Install the driver we wa...
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Linux Hardware Database

  While cleaning out some old papers, I came across a brief email from lhdadmin@datapower.com congratulating me on registering at the Linux Hardware Database. The email was dated July 4, 1999. Upon checking, the LHD is still active and anonymous reports of your  computer hardware can be accomplished by installing the hw-probe script and running it as root, $ sudo urpmi hw-probe $ sudo -E hw-probe -all -upload This will generate the report and transmit the info to the LHD. Very simple. Very cool. For all the potential options, open  /usr/bin/hw-probe  in a text editor. RESOURCES Linux Hardware Database
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Use POSTFIX with GMAIL and Mageia Linux

  In an earlier blog post, I described how to use mail with Mageia Linux to send system messages to your Google Mail account . At the time, sendmail was the default MTA (mail transfer agent) of choice and was overkill for what was needed for a simple messaging of security status ( from msec ). It still works. By Mageia 8, postfix became the default  MTA, so it seems it would be easier to configure postfix to use the Google Mail smtp relay server. Postfix and all necessary dependencies are installed by Mageia by default. Mageia builds their RPM of postfix with specific options, which are: Smtpd multiline greeting: --%{with_TXT multiline}  Virtual Delivery Agent: --%{with_TXT VDA}  Munge bare CR: --%{with_TXT barecr}  TLS support: --%{with_TXT tls}  IPV6 support: --%{with_TXT ipv6}  CDB support: --%{with_TXT cdb}  Chroot by default: --%{with_TXT chroot} If you need other options for some other purpose, you can rebuild the source RPM (which is beyon...
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Win4Lin appwrapper for Windows 9x/2000/XP on the Linux OS

  Win4Lin is a discontinued non-free application for Linux which allowed users to run a copy of Windows 9x, Windows 2000 or Windows XP applications on their Linux desktop. It is based on MERGE, developed circa 1985 by  Locus Computing Corporation to run DOS applications on UNIX operating systems. Locus eventually gained licensing access to the MS Windows source code. A significant benefit for MERGE is that is runs on the native UNIX filesystem, considered more stable and faster than the Microsoft FAT and VFAT filesystems. The Merge technology was owned by several companies (including IBM and SCO), but was finally discontinued in 2010, likely due to improvements in VMWare and VirtualBox as well as incompatibilities with subsequent version of MS Windows. While MERGE/Win4lin ran the complete MS Windows 9x/2000/XP OS, many users in actuality only used it for one application, so  giving individual users access to the full Windows OS could be problematic. To this end, appwrap...
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VritualBox to the Rescue for Dual-Booting Linux and MS Windows

 VirtualBox came in handy in the past when a larger hard drive was added to a Series2 TiVo . Once again, it came in handy when installing Windows 10 on a drive already installed in a computer tower alongside Mageia9 and a few additional drives. There used to be a Win7 installation on /dev/sdb , but it crashed. MS Windows is notoriously known for assuming it is the only OS belonging on a machine and not playing well with  others. When Win7 was originally installed on this machine, it was installed on the only drive in the machine, then moved to /dev/sdb and Linux installed on /dev/sda . Of course, all the other drives could have been disconnected and Windows10 installed, but what's the fun in that? The above referenced TiVo procedure provided the inspiration. In modern versions of VirtualBox, it is possible to install the guest OS to a physical drive. The physical drive in this case is /dev/sdb , so the process is as follows: $ cd ~/VirtualBox\ VMs Create the .vmdk file that ...
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Adding Older Versions of Mageia to Your Repos

 The Mageia Wiki for URPMI contains useful information in the section titled  Copying CD or a DVD to a home directory and using the copy in urpmi . Before starting, download the appropriate Magia DVD. Since we are not using the kernel or any system files from these earlier distros, it's not necessary to also obtain all the updates. Here are the download links for Mageia7 x86_64 / i586 and Mageia8 x86_x64 / i586 . Method #1 - Mageia Wiki Method First, make directories for each release and each architecture you will be using directory somewhere convenient. Mageia suggests placing them under /home/uid/repo/ . Then, copy the   x86_64/media and/or i586/media directories from the DVD there. For each directory, you will need to create the hdlist that urpmi requires, change to that directory and run: $ sudo genhdlist2 Then add the media you just installed with: $ sudo urpmi.addmedia --distrib NameOfMedia file://home/uid/repo Now, it's as simple as using urpmi to install t...
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Add Extra Repos for Mageia

  It is possible to add non-Mageia repos to the URPMI system for Mageia. I add the BDK repos as well as the Google-Chrome repo as follows: $ sudo urpmi.addmedia BDK-Free-x86_64 http://ftp.blogdrake.net/mageia/mageia9/free/x86_64 $ sudo urpmi.addmedia BDK-Free-noarch http://ftp.blogdrake.net/mageia/mageia9/free/noarch $ sudo urpmi.addmedia BDK-NonFree-x86_64 http://ftp.blogdrake.net/mageia/mageia9/non-free/x86_64 $ sudo  urpmi.addmedia --update google-chrome http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/rpm/stable/$(uname -m | sed -e "s/i.86/i386/") Add Google Signing Key $ sudo rpm --import https://dl-ssl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub RESOURCES Mageia Forum - Add Google Apps Mageia Linux Online Repos $ sudo urpmi.addmedia --distrib https://repository.mageialinux-online.org/8/x86_64 Mageia Greek Community https://mageia-gr.org/rpm/
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