How to install Synology Cloud Station on Ubuntu Linux

Synology have released a Linux Cloud Station Client – which is brilliant news. Well done Synology for listening to your customers. It works really well and is quite easy to installed.

Step 1 – Download the Cloud Station Client for Linux from here. Note – there is a section for Linux so don’t download the Windows client.

 http://www.synology.com/en-uk/support/download

Step 2 – Extract the download

tar -xvzf CloudStation-Linux-Installer-2572-64bit.tgz

Step 3 – Run the ./install file . Important – don’t run it as root! If you run the install script as root no menu icon will appears and the client will not run.

./install

The rest is quite simple – just follow the instructions that appear on the screen.

p.s. If you ever want to uninstall Cloud Station – here are quick guide.

Volvo V50 Reduced Engine Performance

I wrote this article back in 2013.  Since then I’ve owned two Volvos.

The bad news is that both Volvos that I’ve had this problem.  All the problems I’ve had have been caused by the diesel particulate filter and EGR valve.  Something goes wrong with the ERG value or a pipe get blocked and then soot builds up in the system.  Then the whole thing clogs.  You really need to get it fixed because otherwise your diesel particulate filter can block or worst case, you can block up the turbo charger.

The good news is that Volvo now admit they have a fault with these parts.  You should take your car to a Volvo garage and most likely they will replace and fix the problem for you.   The only problem with this plan is that Volvo will try to only fix the original fault and don’t want to take responsibility the damage caused by the fault.  You need to push the garage very hard to take responsibility and not charge you.

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Here is my original post:

I purchased a Volvo V50 estate (secondhand) just over a year ago. After a few months it started having problems when pulling away or when revving the engine over 3,000 RPM. This first started happening when it was really cold (-9’C)… however, after a while, the car would often go into reduced engine performance mode at any temperature if pushed hard. This was really dangerous because this would often happen when joining a busy road or when trying to get out of a tricky situation. The car would then stall or loose most of the power. I wish Volvo would allow me to override this setting on the car so that I could remain safe.

Having spoken to several mechanics and researched on the internet – the problem generally seems to be with the particulate filter. It can be either a faulty cable (next to the battery) or the tube to the particulate filter sensor becoming blocked.

In my case, it turns out to be the tube to the particulate filter sensor becoming blocked. It seems that the Volvo dealer who serviced the car previously had not checked or topped up the EOYLS tank. This meant that the EGR (Exhaust Gas Recirculation) Valve that a pipe to the particulate sense and valve had become clogged up

The moral of this post is:

1) If I had taken the car to a garage when this problem first appear then it’s very lightly that the EGR valve would not become clogged and needed replacing.

2) Volvo know that this is a problem and should provide a sensor to the EOYLS tank.

3) Volvo should allow the driver to override the “Reduced Engine Performance” stalling and shutting down of the car. It is simple dangerous.

Package ‘ia32-libs-gtk’ has no installation candidate Ubuntu 13.10

The package ‘ia32-libs-gtk’ has been removed in Ubuntu 13.10 (I have no idea why). When you try and install it you get the error “Package ‘ia32-libs-gtk’ has no installation candidate”. It seems that most people need this ia32-libs-gtk for installing or running Adobe Air. I have found the solution is:

sudo apt-get install libgtk2.0-0:i386 libnss3-1d:i386 libnspr4-0d:i386 lib32nss-mdns libxml2:i386 libxslt1.1:i386

This got Adobe Air working on my computer but it would be good to get feedback from other people – so please leave a comment if it works for you.

How to install Balsamiq Mockups on Ubuntu 13.10

I have made a new set of instructions for Installing Balsamiq Mockups on Ubuntu 13.10 because it it is slightly different from installing it on Ubuntu 13.04.

Step 1 – Download Adobe Airhttp://airdownload.adobe.com/air/lin/download/latest/AdobeAIRInstaller.bin.

wget http://airdownload.adobe.com/air/lin/download/latest/AdobeAIRInstaller.bin

Step 2: Make the installer excutable.

chmod +x AdobeAIRInstaller.bin

Step 3: Try running the installer.

sudo ./AdobeAIRInstaller.bin

Step 4: If your computer is 64bit then you will get this error:

"error while loading shared libraries: libgtk-x11-2.0.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory"  

So, you will need to install the 32bit libs:

sudo apt-get install libgtk2.0-0:i386 libnss3-1d:i386 libnspr4-0d:i386 lib32nss-mdns libxml2:i386 libxslt1.1:i386

Step 5: Try running the installer again

sudo ./AdobeAIRInstaller.bin

Step 6: You might get this error:

Sorry, an error has occurred. Adobe AIR could not be installed. Install either Gnome Keyring or KDE KWallet before installing Adobe AIR.

To fix this run the following command:

locate libgnome-keyring.so

I got (but you might get something different).

/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgnome-keyring.so.0
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgnome-keyring.so.0.2.0

You will need to pass reference to these libs when running the installer.

sudo LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu ./AdobeAIRInstaller.bin

If this works for you then goto Step 7. If this doesn’t work then you could make symbolic links to the libs. For 64bit:

sudo ln -s /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgnome-keyring.so.0 /usr/lib/libgnome-keyring.so.0
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgnome-keyring.so.0.2.0 /usr/lib/libgnome-keyring.so.0.2.0

For 32 bit:

sudo ln -s /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libgnome-keyring.so.0 /usr/lib/libgnome-keyring.so.0
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libgnome-keyring.so.0.2.0 /usr/lib/libgnome-keyring.so.0.2.0

Finally – try running the installer again.

sudo ./AdobeAIRInstaller.bin

Then remove the symbolic links:

sudo rm /usr/lib/libgnome-keyring.so.0
sudo rm /usr/lib/libgnome-keyring.so.0.2.0

Step 7 – Download Balsamiq

wget http://builds.balsamiq.com/b/mockups-desktop/MockupsForDesktop64bit.deb

Step 8 – Install Balasmiq

sudo dpkg -i MockupsForDesktop64bit.deb

Step 9 – Make a cup of tea and some mockups

Kernel does not support a non-PAE CPU install KVM guest on Ubuntu 13.10 – Fix

I just started to install an Ubuntu 13.10 KVM guest – however the build process failed. The command that I was using was:

vmbuilder kvm ubuntu -v --suite=saucy --libvirt=qemu:///system --arch=amd64  --cpus=1 --mem=2048 --swapsize=2048 --rootsize=220040 --flavour=virtual --hostname=mydomain --ip=1.2.3.4 --mask=1.2.3.4 --net=1.2.3.4 --bcast=1.2.3.4 --gw=1.2.3.4 --dns='8.8.8.8 8.8.4.4' --bridge=br0 --mirror=http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu --components='main,universe' --addpkg=openssh-server --addpkg=acpid --addpkg=acpi-support --user=myuser --pass=mypassword --dest=/mnt/kvm/server/

However, I got this error message:

....
This kernel does not support a non-PAE CPU.
dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/linux-image-3.8.0-32-generic_3.8.0-32.47_amd64.deb (--unpack):
 subprocess new pre-installation script returned error exit status 1
Examining /etc/kernel/postrm.d .
run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postrm.d/initramfs-tools 3.8.0-32-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.8.0-32-generic
run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postrm.d/zz-update-grub 3.8.0-32-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.8.0-32-generic
Errors were encountered while processing:
 /var/cache/apt/archives/linux-image-3.8.0-32-generic_3.8.0-32.47_amd64.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

Basically, you just need ensure the the linux-image-generic package (i.e. a kernel which supports non-PAE CPU’s) is installed by setting the addpkg flag like so:

--addpkg=linux-image-generic 

I hope this helps someone.