To complicate matters, I had recently removed OS X 10.4 and installed Ubuntu 10.10 on the PowerBook in an ill-fated attempt to give it new life. The PowerBook was a great computer in its time but, these days, PowerPC is a dying, if not already dead, architecture. Flash 10? Not on PowerPC. Google Chrome? Nope.

On the Mini, which ran Windows 7 Starter, I used WUHU for data acquisition and upload. That program worked well, but obviously an x86 PC app just would not do the trick on Linux or a PowerPC. Some searching led me to wview which worked on Linux and was capable of running on something like a NSLU2 or plug computer. It would either be perfect or a perfect mirage.

And then there was the issue of my USB-to-Serial adapter, for connecting the computer to the weather station console. Who knew if that would work?

So, there I was with a dead architecture, the wrong OS, a questionable USB adapter and… well, let’s just say I wasn’t very hopeful.

But… it worked! Much to my surprise, I was able to get data from my weather station, using wview, through the USB adapter, into the PowerBook, and out to the world. Here’s how I did it:

1. Installed Ubuntu 10.10 for PowerPC.
2. Tested the IOgear GUC232A USB-to-Serial Adapter and it worked right out of the box.

   USB Serial support registered for pl2303
   usb 3-1: pl2303 converter now attached to ttyUSB0
   usbcore: registered new interface driver pl2303
   pl2303: Prolific PL2303 USB to serial adaptor driver
   

3. Followed wview Debian Quick Start Guide. Downloaded and executed wview-install-debian, encountered first problem:

   In file included from ../htmlgenerator/htmlStates.c:36:
   ./glchart.h:28: fatal error: gd.h: No such file or directory

4. Installed libgd2.

   apt-get install libgd2-noxpm-dev

5. Executed wview-install-debian again, encountered second problem:

   http.h: error: curl/curl.h: No such file or directory
   

6. Installed libcurl4.

   apt-get install libcurl4-openssl-dev

7. Executed wview-install-debian again; encountered problem; re-ran as

   wview-install-debian -f

8. From here out, I followed the wview user manual for configuration.

Check it out, it's a live, daily temperature graph. For reals.

Anyway, here’s my weather page:

http://christiansons.net/mike/weather/

It’s nice to have brought life back to disused computer; it’s nice to have my Mini back!

P.S. Not having tried wview on OS X, I can’t compare the experience or difficulty.

Much to my surprise, but probably not those of the Open Source Ruling Class, Sun’s Java 6 has been removed from the Ubuntu Multiverse. Apparently the Ubuntu folks have started putting some weight behind their recommendations for switching to the “OpenJDK.” Fortunately, the official, “proprietary” Java is still available through another Ubuntu repository.

Ubuntu 10.10

To install Sun’s Java 6 JDK on Ubuntu 10.10, add the Sun Java6 Community PPA and install:

add-apt-repository ppa:sun-java-community-team/sun-java6
apt-get update
apt-get install sun-java6-jdk
update-java-alternatives -s java-6-sun

Ubuntu 10.04

To make Sun’s Java 6 JDK available on Ubuntu 10.04 add the new repository like so:

add-apt-repository "deb http://archive.canonical.com/ lucid partner"
aptitude update
aptitude install sun-java6-jdk
update-java-alternatives -s java-6-sun

Ubuntu’s Eclipse package also depends on GCJ. If you wish to avoid this dependency, simply download the appropriate binary distribution from the Eclipse download site, extract to the location of your choice, and run Eclipse.

Before using Eclipse, be sure you have Sun’s JRE installed and configured as the default JRE.

Here’s how I installed Ant on Ubuntu without GCJ. Be sure to check out (easier) alternatives suggested in the comments, below.

1. Download the current .tar.bz2 distribution of Ant from http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/mirrors/apache/ant/binaries/.
2. Unpack archive using tar.

tar -xjvf apache-ant-*-bin.tar.bz2

3. Move the unpacked directory to /usr/local/ant.
4. Change that directory’s owner to root.

chown -R root:root /usr/local/ant

5. Add the following lines to /etc/bash.bashrc.

export ANT_HOME=/usr/local/ant
export PATH=${PATH}:${ANT_HOME}/bin

From a new shell, run ant. You should see the following:

Buildfile: build.xml does not exist!
Build failed

Yes, it’s a failure message. But it means Ant is working as expected.

Java 6 Update 10 (aka Java 6u10) is now available for Linux and other platforms.  Sun has published release notes for this update.

I have been using 6u10 with great success since the Ubuntu 8.10 release candidate became available. Ubuntu 8.10 users can begin developing with the JDK using a couple simple commands.

aptitude install sun-java6-jdk && update-java-alternatives -s java-6-sun

Be sure to consider installing other useful Java packages, such as sun-java6-doc, along with the JDK.

aptitude search sun-java6