Friday, July 31, 2009

[QnA] Problems of NetworkManager in Ubuntu 8.04 (with unclear solutions)

Recently, I want to set up the wireless network of my PC in the ad-hoc mode. When I tried to follow the instruments found on internet, however, I found there is one thing strange of my NetworkManager. It had no ``create new'' option for me to add an ad-hoc setting. After some works, I realized that my NetworkManager's version was too old. It's necessary to use version 0.7 to have the ``create new'' function, but mine was version 0.6. So I started to find new version and began my hard works for the installation.

(Yes, I always have a question about this kind of situation: how can one install many needed packages via ``sudo apt-get install'' while he or she has no internet connection? Fortunately, I had connection to internet with an old wireless setting, and what I wanted to do was to create a new wireless setting in ad-hoc mode.)

With the complains given by the configure.sh, and the help of Google, I finally installed newer version of the NetworkManager.

(Later, on the internet, I found a much easier approach[1]. Just add two lines in the sources.list and update and upgrade, then restart the computer. After doing these steps, we can just use apt-get again to install the newer version NetworkManager. Although I did almost every steps, but I didn't know I should restart it. Maybe this was why I spent so many time and efforts for the installation. Anyway, I can't remember the details.)

Then, another problem followed. The icon of the newly installed NetworkManager showed ``disconnected'' state. The solution is pretty simple[2]. Just edit

/etc/network/interfaces

and keep only the first two lines.

Finally, I followed the instrument[3] and tried to set up the new connection in the ad-hoc mode. However, I didn't make it. What worst was every time I tried to create the ad-hoc connection, the original connection lost and I have to reboot my PC to make it come back.

Wait, ad-hoc host? Hmm, I noticed that what I have did was to creat an ad-hoc HOST? I don't want to create a host! There is already a ad-hoc host on another Windows PC, and what I want is just connect to the internet via the host!

Okay, I don't have enough knowledge about the network and related settings to find adequate solutions. I need to take a break. =__="



[1] How To: Network Manager 0.7 SVN (link)
[2] Ubuntu 8.10 Network Manager Doesn't Recognize Wired Network Device (link)
[3] Creating an adhoc host with Ubuntu (link)

Thursday, July 30, 2009

[SW] HMM source code/library

Two free source code/library of HMM:
I've installed it in my Ubuntu, but still have no time to play with it.
Written by Prof. Dekang Lin. The overall package looks not complex. I've compiled the source code with the included Makefile and the program works normally. I would dive into these code files to learn something about HMM's working principle and how to implement it.
I found this package when I was searching ``k-means HMM''. I've not tried it yet.

[Study] Useful websites for pattern recognition

I am learning pattern recognition and want to find useful information for PR beginners like me. Here are something I found and might be helpful:

This is a personal website with abundant content. Dr. Kardi Teknomo introduced some techniques used in PR or ML (machine learning) in a very friendly way. There are still many other topics which I don't know much, and may be also useful if you are searching them.

Lots of links. But the web page reads ``Due to a reorganisation we are not able anymore to maintain these files. They will be removed in the near future.'' I hope they keep maintaining these information if they have web space for it.

If you do read Taiwanese Han-characters (traditional Chinese), this website is another tutorial you could consult.

(The list might be extended when I find more.)