Lake Denman

Daily Log | 2011-05-31

The problems started when I tried to plugin my iPhone 4 into my newly updated Ubuntu Natty release. It just didn’t work.

That is unfortunate because I really wanted to sync some images. Oh well. I figured I could fix the issue by updating the software.

Along the way, I found myself getting this somewhat cryptic message whenever I wanted to install something.

... verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 40976EAF437D05B5

and gpg was complaining about this, too:

gpg: requesting key 437D05B5 from hkp server keyserver.ubuntu.com
gpg: [don't know]: invalid packet (ctb=23)
gpg: keydb_get_keyblock failed: eof
gpg: [don't know]: invalid packet (ctb=23)
gpg: /etc/apt/trusted.gpg: copy to `/etc/apt/trusted.gpg.tmp' failed: invalid packet
gpg: error writing keyring `/etc/apt/trusted.gpg': invalid packet
gpg: [don't know]: invalid packet (ctb=23)
gpg: keydb_search failed: invalid packet
gpg: key 437D05B5: public key "[User ID not found]" imported
gpg: error reading `[stream]': invalid packet
gpg: Total number processed: 0
gpg:               imported: 1

After a few days of Duck Duck Going, I found this helpful article with the solution.

cd /etc/apt
sudo rm *.gpg
gpg --export -a 437D05B5 | sudo apt-key add -
sudo apt-get update

I was frustrated by this issue, but it is helpful that others have solved this issue before me.

GDM and Network Manager

Somehow when uninstalling libimobiledevice (I decided to just build my own), I uninstalled gdm.

gdm is a the GNOME display manager. If you try to boot up Ubuntu without it, you will essentially get booted into a CLI. Great! On top of that, I only have access to WIFI. So I cannot just “sudo apt-get install gdm”. I need to be connected to a hotspot.

So, if you ever find yourself in this situation, the most important part is to stop the NetworkManager service! There is probably a best way, but this worked for me:

sudo /etc/init.d/network-manager stop

If you try to be clever and kill the process, it will just start back up like a zombie!!!

Then I actually had to connect to the WIFI hotspot.

Find your interface. Look for “logical name”.

lshw -C network

Bring down the interface.

sudo ifconfig wlan0 down

Scan for access points.

sudo iwlist wlan0 scan

Associate the interface with the essid.

sudo iwconfig wlan0 essid "coffeeshop"

Profit!

sudo dhclient wlan0
ping google.com

This was an annoying issue, but whatever. I am a smart dude. I figured it out.

Playing DVDs in Ubuntu

So, I really wanted to watch this DVD today and I did not have the correct decoder installed. After a little bit of Duck Duck Going, I found out the magic trick.

sudo apt-get install libdvdread4
sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh

That about wraps it up for today’s trouble. I still have not figured out how to get my iPhone working with Natty, but I am still hopeful.