Updated ssh = authentication fail

I ran the updates on my server this morning. Saw a couple of ssh packages come down the pipe and didn’t think much about it. Fast forward to my return from lunch and I go to log into the server. It asked me for my password?!? What the heck? I’ve been using RSA keys for authentication for the last month or so. What’s happening? Still trying to troubleshoot this. Anyone else have this problem?

Missing dependencies for nspluginwrapper

Just ran yum on my home server and my laptop and found I had thirteen new updates. I also found dependency problems. Apparently nspluginwrapper needs gecko-libs for the update but it is not available.

No display after updates?

I think I have a problem. I did some updates that I didn’t really pay attention to earlier today. After a reboot I don’t have a display and I’m pretty sure it was affecting other things as well. I get the prompt for my LUKS password but shortly after my display goes blank and I get the floating message of “Input Not Supported” dancing across my screen. Obviously my monitor is freaking out.

Something else that was weird was that I couldn’t ping the box or access it via SSH. That leads me to believe that something else, in addition to the display, was also affected. I booted into single user mode and then went to level 5 which got me a lot further but still produced the same display issue. This time, however, I was able to get my network connection working which means I now have SSH access.

Is anyone else seeing this problem?

UPDATE:
Here are the latest updates that were applied to my computer prior to the reboot:
Installed: adobe-release-i386-1.0-1.noarch
Updated: xorg-x11-server-common-1.4.99.902-3.20080612.fc9.i386
Updated: yum-fastestmirror-1.1.14-4.fc9.noarch
Updated: yum-utils-1.1.14-4.fc9.noarch
Updated: pykickstart-1.38-2.fc9.noarch
Updated: hal-libs-0.5.11-2.fc9.i386
Updated: 1:NetworkManager-glib-0.7.0-0.9.4.svn3675.fc9.i386
Updated: hal-0.5.11-2.fc9.i386
Updated: libdvdread-4.1.2-1.fc9.i386
Updated: libdvdnav-4.1.2-1.fc9.i386
Updated: 1:NetworkManager-0.7.0-0.9.4.svn3675.fc9.i386
Updated: bluez-libs-3.32-1.fc9.i386
Updated: 1:NetworkManager-gnome-0.7.0-0.9.4.svn3675.fc9.i386
Updated: xorg-x11-server-Xorg-1.4.99.902-3.20080612.fc9.i386
Updated: logrotate-3.7.6-5.fc9.i386
Updated: gdal-1.5.2-1.fc9.i386
Updated: grass-libs-6.3.0-4.fc9.i386
Installed: flash-plugin-9.0.124.0-release.i386

PCMCIA WiFi Card Suggestion?

Can anyone recommend a PCMCIA 802.11b/g card that works well with Fedora?

Blackberry Use on Fedora 9?

Has anyone been able to get the Internet via their tethered Blackberry thing to work? I’m a Verizon Wireless customer and they have some pretty slick software for Windoze that allows you access to the Internet by tethering your Blackberry to your computer. Not sure if the software would play nicely with NetworkManager (I’m guessing no) but I wonder if support for this will come in the future.

Live USB Creator for Windoze

Since I am away from home this week I’m stuck on my work laptop (two Windoze XP installations and a Fedora Core 5 installation). I’ve somehow trashed my F9 installation on my USB drive twice and the last time was yesterday. I thought I was going to have to wait to get back home before “fixing” my USB drive. Nope… Check out the Live USB Creator for Windoze. It took less than five minutes to get my F9 USB drive squared away. Now to go try it out. I was starting to get the willies using this “other” OS.

OO.org and maybe even Linux for a local VA government?

My wife is working for the County Attorney of a small county in Virginia this summer. She’s doing fun stuff like rewriting a zoning ordinance while getting an inside look at how a local government works.Yesterday she took her laptop with her as she wasn’t sure if there would be enough computers to use. There were not. Her boss asked her if she could use her personal laptop to edit the ordinance. Of course she said “yes” but then commented that she only had OpenOffice on her computer. The boss’s response was a little surprising. “Really? We’ve been thinking about going with OpenOffice because we don’t like how Microsoft Office works”. She then said that she was using it on Linux (Fedora 8) and he really got excited.So with that story being conveyed to me last night I plan on sending her to work tomorrow with a shiny new Fedora 9 Live CD. This could be pretty exciting. Maybe I can start a trend there.

An hour to go and I’m getting fidgety.

This is like Christmas. I’m not sure I can wait any longer.

Wine != Windows…

I’m trying to get some specialized amateur radio software to work on my F8 and my F9 installations. Unfortunately I’m having issues.

• Echolink
• Echolink is a VoIP solution that links amateur radio operators, repeaters, radios, and conference rooms with each other. Under my F8 installation it looks horrible. Forget about it actually working properly with my sound card. Under my F9 installation (on my laptop) it behaves a lot better. Unfortunately the audio is very broken. Unsure what the problem is here.
• Airmail
• Airmail is an e-mail-like program that interfaces with a radio allowing you to connect to an e-mail server over a radio link allowing you to connect and send messages from hundreds or thousands of miles away. I haven’t tried it on my laptop, yet, but on my F8 installation it does something really weird. When I compose a message the text doesn’t show up in the edit box. This is a little more than annoying. I’ll be testing this out on my F9 box later tonight.
• Logging Software
• There is a piece of logging software that worked really well. Of course it won’t work under Linux and even though Bob has done an excellent job getting packages together for amateur radio operators I haven’t found a piece of logging software that fully integrated all the parts that many active hams are looking for.

So I’m contemplating installing XP on my laptop, again. I do not want to do this but with Hurricane Season coming up fast I need to make sure I’m ready for emergencies. With the exception of the last item on my list I need to get the two top items remedied fast. I’m continuing to search for a solution.

The proposed adventure… F8 to Vista to F9

Amanda purchased a ThinkPad Z61 last summer before she started law school. The laptop came preloaded with Microsoft Vista which lasted almost a month before problems overran the sparkle of a new OS. Unfortunately the semester had already begun and we weren’t willing to possibly break a production system that did halfway work. At some point the sound on her computer stopped functioning. I attributed the problem to Vista acting up and not liking the hardware but as you will see (or read) it wasn’t Vista or so we think.

After the Fall semester was over and final exams were no longer an issue we copied all of here data off the laptop and installed the recently-released Fedora 8. All the data was transferred back and she was off and running.

There was a slight learning curve but generally she didn’t have many problems. She was already using Firefox, Thunderbird, and OpenOffice so the only learning curve was that of the operating system itself. Once she got the basics down (I’m still trying to teach her about the CLI) it was smooth sailing.

Remember I mentioned the sound not working on her Vista installation? Well I thought it would come back and work when we installed Fedora 8. No such luck which tells me it is probably a hardware issue. Her laptop is covered by a nice warranty and she can get it repaired her school just by dropping it off at their support team office. The biggest issue with doing this that I’m sure the school support people aren’t going to even do anything with the computer while it has Linux installed on it. I’m fairly certain it is a hardware issue and I’m also fairly certain that if the laptop shows up with “foreign” software on board then they will just say they can’t fix it and hand it back over.

The solution… put Vista back on the laptop. What? Is he really going to go back to that horrid, proprietary software? Nah… The changeover comes just after Fedora 9 hits the street so the plan is to downgrade the laptop to Vista, let them fix it, and then bring it home and upgrade it to Fedora 9. I’m excited, Amanda’s excited (to hopefully see some of the bugs fixed), so there is excitement here in the household.