But again, why is all this necessary on such a popular netbook, running such a popular operating system?

However, there is a further issue that occurs every time there’s a kernal upgrade. Having had a working wireless network connection, the Network Manager ceases to work when the new kernel is installed.

One solution is, of course, to stick with the previous, working kernel.  However, I have discovered the following (relatively) easy fix, that needs to be followed when a new kernel is released.

‘lspci’ from the command line informs that that the 1001ha has an onboard RaLink RT3090 Wireless 802.11n 1T/1R PCIe card.  After much Google-ing, I found that the following command will rebuild the offending kernel module:

dpkg-reconfigure rt3090-dkms

This will take a wee while. Then, to activate the change, you need to:

modprobe rt3090sta

You don’t need to reboot the machine – you should see the Network Manager come to life in the top-right of the screen.

Et voila!

I must admit that I find it strange that this is necessary at all, on one of the most popular netbooks, using a netbook-specific netbook distribution of Linux. But anyway, there you have it, problem solved!

I decided to set up a small, low-power server in one of our offices at AdvoCard.  It’s not our main server (that’s a PowerMac G5 on the other site), it simply has to serve files to an office comprising eight PCs and one printer.

I hit upon the idea of using an old Apple Mac Mini G4.  As I say, they are small, quiet, have low power consumption, and can be picked up cheaply on Ebay.  Debian GNU/Linux is an available distribution which is still supports the PowerPC processor (unlike Apple itself, which stopped supporting PowerPC on its last but one release of OS X (10.5 – Leopard) – see rant.

There’s even a site dedicated to this kind of set-up:

http://sowerbutts.com/linux-mac-mini/

I set up the server 50 days ago and according to the logs on the system, it’s been running smoothly ever since.  Here’s to the next 500 days!

There are lots of good reasons for using Debian.  My main ones are:

• It’s a (relatively) straightforward OS to install on many machines
• The aptitude package manager allows for easy updates/upgrades
• The range of packages available is amazing
• The security is good, by default
• Debian is a great for stability – servers can run for years without rebooting

My most recent server build has been installing Debian on an old Apple Mac Mini.  It’s based around the PowerPC processor, which Apple no longer supports.  I’ll be blogging again soon about my this experience.

Amongst other things, running a live pen drive installation allows me to run various diagnostic and recovery tools on a PC (which may be unable to boot into Windows).   Also, using a USB stick means that you can update the distribution without wasting a CD-R (although many old machines can’t boot directly from a USB device).

This latest article caught my eye, as it’s a way to install multiple distributions on the one (large) USB stick.  Admittedly, I haven’t had a chance to road test it yet but it looks very promising.

Boot Multiple ISO from USB (MultiBoot USB) | USB Pen Drive Linux