User:Tonyr/Journal/Jul07

05Jul07

Airport Extreme
New to me: Airport Extreme cards don't 'just work' in Ubuntu. The driver is bdm43xx, but special magic is required to get the firmware from Mac OSX installed in the right place in the file system. The process is documented at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Driver/bcm43xx/Feisty. It requires installing package bcm43xxx-fwcutter, and the documentation therein explains where to get the firmware source files from Mac OSX.

Wireless network selection
Also new to me: Kathey Sutter pointed out that when configuring the wireless interface, setting the ESSID to auto and enabling roaming mode will result in the network icon in the menu bar providing a list of detected networks to choose from.

11Jul07

iMac power button mechanical failure
Jake worked on an iMac that wouldn't power on. He discovered that the front face button was not travelling inward far enough to contact and press the interior button mechanism. Pressing the interior button directly would work, i.e. the machine would power up. We decided that something about the metal chassis area holding the interior button mechanism must have been deformed somehow, just enough to defeat the minimum tolerance required for the button assembly to work. We couldn't see exactly what kind of adjustment would be necessary to bring the whole thing back into alignment.