Debian 8 – Jessie - Enabling Wifi on ASUS ROG G750JW

Debian Jessie installer managed to detect most of hardware during install like LAN, sound and video, but WIFI had to be configured separately.

1. Add a "non-free" component to /etc/apt/sources.list for your Debian version, for example:
   

   # Debian 8 "Jessie"
   deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free

2. Update the list of available packages. Install the relevant linux-headers.

   # apt-get update
   # apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r|sed 's,[^-]*-[^-]*-,,') broadcom-sta-dkms

3. Unload conflicting modules:
   

   # modprobe -r b44 b43 b43legacy ssb brcmsmac

4. Load wl module:
   

   # modprobe wl

5. Edit /etc/network/interfaces and comment out or remove allow-hotplug eth0

References:

• wl - Debian Wiki
• WiFi/HowToUse - Debian Wiki

Setup Lexmark X8350 printer under Debian Linux using Virtualbox and Win XP

After installing Debian 8.0 Jessie I failed to locate drivers for my multifunctional Lexmark x8350 printer. The Windows printer driver support was available only up to Vista, there were no drivers for Windows 7 and above.  So I decided to try to setup Windows under Vrtualbox with pass-through USB device. First I tried with Windows 7 Virtualbox client (Under normal Win 7 install printer drivers for Vista worked fine), which was very very slow to install and I did not get it to print, only to scan. So the best option left is to install Win XP. This article will describe installation of Lexmark printer on Win XP Virtualbox client.

Step 1: Install and configure latest Virtualbox package and extensions

I am not going to go describing installation of Virtualbox and extensions. www.virtualbox.org download page has clear instructions on what to download and install. After installation is done make sure that your /etc/fstab has the following line:

none /proc/bus/usb usbfs devgid=500,devmode=664 0 0

The devgid has to match your gid of your vboxusers group. Also make sure that user you logged in as is member of the vboxusers group. Please log out and log back in after adding it to a group.

Step 2: Setup Win XP client and configure USP pass-through

Make sure that Lexmark printer is connected to USB. There is no need to turn it on yet.

Start Oracle VM Virtual Box Manager. Click New. If you have already setup Win XP client just click on it and scroll down to USB section in Options. Click on USB link. Select USB 2.0 (EHCI) Controller, click on icon with green cross and select your printer from list. Click OK.

Now you can start Virtualbox client and complete Windows XP and printer setup. You can use your disc that comes with printer or download drivers from Lexmark support site.

References:

• Virtualbox
• VirtualBox 2: How To Pass Through USB Devices To Guests On An Ubuntu 8.10 Host

Debian 8.0 Jessie - Install Mono 4.0

Mono 4.0 was released in May 2015.

In order to install it it on Debian 8.0 Jessie do the following as root or with sudo.

apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 --recv-keys 
3FA7E0328081BFF6A14DA29AA6A19B38D3D831EF 

echo "deb http://download.mono-project.com/repo/debian wheezy main" 
| tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mono-xamarin.list 

echo "deb http://download.mono-project.com/repo/debian 
wheezy-apache24-compat main"
| tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mono-xamarin.list 

echo "deb http://download.mono-project.com/repo/debian 
wheezy-libjpeg62-compat main"
| tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mono-xamarin.list

apt-get update

apt-get install mono-complete

To get development IDE run:
apt-get install monodevelop

I had also to run several times apt-get -f install to force installation of failed dependences and run apt-get install monodevelop to get development IDE.

Reference:

Install Mono on Linux