13 November 2014

601. Linphone on windows XP with llinphone's sip server

This post is meant as a step by step guide that more computer savvy users on linux (who'd be interested in using linphone) can share with less computer savvy users on windows.

I'd like to be able to do a video chat with a specific person who told me about issues with installing skype on their laptop. Given that I'm having issues with skype on some of my computers as well, and the general nuisance of having to deal with i386 libs just for the sake of skype, and the fact that I'm using linphone for my iinet voip service as well as freecall, I'm keen on getting that person switched to linphone.

(I presume that easier solutions would involve e.g. google talk in a browser, but where's the fun in that?)
The following was done on a native installation of windows xp which I remotely connected to using remmina (via rdp).

1. Get Linphone.

Note that the current version, 3.7.0, which is available by clicking on the download button on the website does not work on windows XP (for me), as it gives the following:

Instead, go to http://download-mirror.savannah.gnu.org/releases/linphone/3.6.x/win32/ and download 3.6.1.
version 3.4 works too
2. Install Linphone
Nothing odd here:








2b. Register for a SIP service
For Linphone to work you need to register for a SIP service. Linphone offers a free one. NOTE that you can register for a SIP service during the installation of Linphone i.e. you don't need to follow this step. Might be useful if you've already got Linphone installed and want to manually register though.


3. Set up Linphone
If you're asked whether to unblock, click unblock.
The wizard:

If you didn't sing up separately for a SIP account you can choose to do so as part of the setup using the wizard. Otherwise you can manually set it up, and that's what I'll show here:


That's the end of the wizard.

You can add contacts just like you would in any other 'chat' program, although here you use SIP addresses.


02 November 2014

600. gdm/gnome breakage in debian jessie October/November 2014

I did a dist-upgrade last night and encountered this on my next boot:
During the dist-upgrade I got a message about the nvidia driver version not being compatible with my system -- small surprise as I have an onboard intel chip and no external graphics card (it's a lenovo thinkpad SL410).

Installing kdm let me at least boot into a DM. I still couldn't launch gnome from kdm, it giving the same error message as in the photo.
Digging a bit deeper and looking at what happened before/during a crash:
journalctl
Nov 02 10:46:30 niobium kdm[1317]: Stopping K Display Manager: kdm...done. Nov 02 10:46:30 niobium systemd[1]: gdm.service: control process exited, code=exited status=1 Nov 02 10:46:30 niobium systemd[1]: Failed to start GNOME Display Manager. Nov 02 10:46:30 niobium systemd[1]: Dependency failed for X11 Display Manager. Nov 02 10:46:30 niobium systemd[1]: Unit gdm.service entered failed state. Nov 02 10:46:30 niobium kdm[1350]: Starting K Display Manager: kdm. Nov 02 10:46:30 niobium sudo[1311]: pam_unix(sudo:session): session closed for user root Nov 02 10:46:30 niobium console-kit-daemon[1707]: (process:1372): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_slice_set_config: assertion 'sys_page_size == 0' failed Nov 02 10:46:30 niobium console-kit-daemon[1707]: (process:1373): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_slice_set_config: assertion 'sys_page_size == 0' failed Nov 02 10:46:30 niobium console-kit-daemon[1707]: (process:1374): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_slice_set_config: assertion 'sys_page_size == 0' failed Nov 02 10:46:30 niobium kdm_greet[1378]: Cannot load /usr/share/kde4/apps/kdm/faces/.default.face: No such file or directory Nov 02 10:46:31 niobium systemd[1]: gdm.service: control process exited, code=exited status=1 Nov 02 10:46:31 niobium systemd[1]: Failed to start GNOME Display Manager. Nov 02 10:46:31 niobium systemd[1]: Dependency failed for X11 Display Manager. Nov 02 10:46:31 niobium systemd[1]: Unit gdm.service entered failed state. Nov 02 10:46:32 niobium console-kit-daemon[1707]: (process:1398): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_slice_set_config: assertion 'sys_page_size == 0' failed Nov 02 10:46:32 niobium console-kit-daemon[1707]: (process:1399): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_slice_set_config: assertion 'sys_page_size == 0' failed Nov 02 10:46:32 niobium console-kit-daemon[1707]: (process:1400): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_slice_set_config: assertion 'sys_page_size == 0' failed Nov 02 10:46:32 niobium systemd[1]: gdm.service: control process exited, code=exited status=1 Nov 02 10:46:32 niobium systemd[1]: Failed to start GNOME Display Manager. Nov 02 10:46:32 niobium systemd[1]: Dependency failed for X11 Display Manager. Nov 02 10:46:32 niobium systemd[1]: Unit gdm.service entered failed state. Nov 02 10:46:33 niobium systemd[1]: gdm.service: control process exited, code=exited status=1 Nov 02 10:46:33 niobium systemd[1]: Failed to start GNOME Display Manager. Nov 02 10:46:33 niobium systemd[1]: Dependency failed for X11 Display Manager. Nov 02 10:46:33 niobium systemd[1]: Unit gdm.service entered failed state. Nov 02 10:46:35 niobium systemd[1]: gdm.service start request repeated too quickly, refusing to start. Nov 02 10:46:35 niobium systemd[1]: Failed to start GNOME Display Manager. Nov 02 10:46:35 niobium systemd[1]: Dependency failed for X11 Display Manager. Nov 02 10:46:35 niobium systemd[1]: Unit gdm.service entered failed sta
GDM shouldn't be involved at all as I was using kdm.
systemctl -l status gdm.service
● gdm.service - GNOME Display Manager Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/gdm.service; enabled) Drop-In: /run/systemd/generator/gdm3.service.d └─50-gdm3-$x-display-manager.conf Active: failed (Result: start-limit) since Sun 2014-11-02 10:46:35 AEDT; 14min ago Process: 1405 ExecStartPre=/bin/sh -c [ "$(cat /etc/X11/default-display-manager 2>/dev/null)" = "/usr/sbin/gdm3" ] (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE) Nov 02 10:46:35 niobium systemd[1]: gdm.service start request repeated too quickly, refusing to start. Nov 02 10:46:35 niobium systemd[1]: Failed to start GNOME Display Manager. Nov 02 10:46:35 niobium systemd[1]: Unit gdm.service entered failed state.


The solution:
Either way, I now had enough keywords to start googling, and came across http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=118305

Basically,
sudo apt-get purge nvidia-*
sudo apt-get purge libnvidia-ml1:i386 nvidia-smi:i386
sudo apt-get install glx-alternative-mesa
sudo apt-get --reinstall install gdm3

Launching gnome (standard) from kdm gave me prompts to set up the configuration for an installed extension (I miss the frippery extensions...). Not sure whether the breakage was related to the extension.
 Either way, everything is working properly now.

28 October 2014

599. Briefly: Suddenly bankid doesn't work/wont be recognised.

The system: firefox 31, nspluginwrapper 1.4.4, debian wheezy, amd64

I've used bankid with Swedish banks in the past. Right now I'm running into trouble though. When clicking on the login button on the bank website I'm taken to this page:
Starting firefox (v31, but the symlink is called firefox25) from the terminal to catch the error messages I get
(firefox25:5555): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: /tmp/buildd/glib2.0-2.33.12+really2.32.4/./gobject/gsignal.c:3397: signal name `load_complete' is invalid for instance `0x2b81340fc1f0' Gtk-Message: Failed to load module "atk-bridge" *** NSPlugin Viewer *** ERROR: NP_Initialize() get args: Message argument mismatch *** NSPlugin Viewer *** ERROR: rpc_end_sync called when not in sync! *** NSPlugin Wrapper *** ERROR: NP_Initialize() wait for reply: Connection closed Gtk-Message: Failed to load module "atk-bridge" *** NSPlugin Viewer *** ERROR: NP_Initialize() get args: Message argument mismatch *** NSPlugin Viewer *** ERROR: rpc_end_sync called when not in sync! *** NSPlugin Wrapper *** ERROR: NP_Initialize() wait for reply: Connection closed Gtk-Message: Failed to load module "atk-bridge" *** NSPlugin Viewer *** ERROR: NP_Initialize() get args: Message argument mismatch *** NSPlugin Viewer *** ERROR: rpc_end_sync called when not in sync! *** NSPlugin Wrapper *** ERROR: NP_Initialize() wait for reply: Connection closed Gtk-Message: Failed to load module "atk-bridge" *** NSPlugin Viewer *** ERROR: NP_Initialize() get args: Message argument mismatch *** NSPlugin Viewer *** ERROR: rpc_end_sync called when not in sync! *** NSPlugin Wrapper *** ERROR: NP_Initialize() wait for reply: Connection closed Gtk-Message: Failed to load module "atk-bridge" *** NSPlugin Viewer *** ERROR: NP_Initialize() get args: Message argument mismatch *** NSPlugin Viewer *** ERROR: rpc_end_sync called when not in sync! *** NSPlugin Wrapper *** ERROR: NP_Initialize() wait for reply: Connection closed Gtk-Message: Failed to load module "atk-bridge" *** NSPlugin Viewer *** ERROR: NP_Initialize() get args: Message argument mismatch *** NSPlugin Viewer *** ERROR: rpc_end_sync called when not in sync! *** NSPlugin Wrapper *** ERROR: NP_Initialize() wait for reply: Connection closed Gtk-Message: Failed to load module "atk-bridge" *** NSPlugin Viewer *** ERROR: NP_Initialize() get args: Message argument mismatch *** NSPlugin Viewer *** ERROR: rpc_end_sync called when not in sync! *** NSPlugin Wrapper *** ERROR: NP_Initialize() wait for reply: Connection closed (firefox25:5555): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: /tmp/buildd/glib2.0-2.33.12+really2.32.4/./gobject/gsignal.c:3397: signal name `load_complete' is invalid for instance `0x2b812a4f52e0'

The solution was to do
/usr/lib/nspluginwrapper/x86_64/linux/npconfig  -a -v -u
Auto-update plugins from /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins Looking for plugins in /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins Auto-update plugins from /home/me/.mozilla/plugins Looking for plugins in /home/me/.mozilla/plugins Update plugin /home/me/.mozilla/plugins/npwrapper.libplugins.so nspluginwrapper ident mismatch, reinstalling plugin Install plugin /usr/local/lib/personal/libplugins.so into /home/me/.mozilla/plugins/npwrapper.libplugins.so

as described by the nspluginwrapper maintainer (David) in a reply on http://www.geeklab.info/2011/11/reconfigure-nspluginwrapper/