Ubuntu network problem

I ran into a problem with avahi that appears to be relatively common. My version is that the wireless networking fails and Network Tools shows a network device called eth1:avahi which shows a few transmitted and received bytes (with errors) but no interface information. This device appears to have preempted the correct eth1 device. I killed this rogue device using
sudo avahi-autopid --kill eth1
then after a while wireless works again as the eth1 device shows a connection.

At the suggestion of omingo I have done a
sudo apt-get --purge install avahi-autoipd --reinstall
to make sure the latest version of avahi-autopid is in use.

Update: this doesn't seem to have helped. Another possible workaround seems to be to go to Wireless Connections Properties using the Network Settings tool and switch from DHCP to Zeroconf, click on OK, wait for the tool to finish resetting the connection, then go back into Properties and switch back to DHCP.

Update: this may actually be a problem with network-manager. I've made the fix to NetworkManager.conf for bug 40125. Did a suspend then restart and the wireless connection came up correctly which it has not done before.

HEAsoft built under Ubuntu

Successfully built the HEAsoft distribution on my new Dell with Ubuntu Feisty Fawn. I had to get a number of packages...

sudo apt-get install gfortran g++
sudo apt-get install libncurses5-dev
sudo apt-get install x-dev libx11-dev libxt-dev

Just to be on the safe side (and under bash) I did a

F77=gfortran
export F77
CC=gcc
export CC
CXX=g++
export CXX

Then the configure and build is

./configure > config.out 2>&1 &
make > build.log 2>&1 &
make install > install.log 2>&1 &

Cisco VPN client and Ubuntu Feisty Fawn

Working on setting up my new Dell laptop which came preinstalled with Ubuntu Feisty Fawn. A little work needed with the Cisco VPN client - the version downloaded from Goddard CNE needs patching for recent versions of Linux. Fortunately, there are really helpful instructions on using the VPN client available. Tricks I had to do were
sudo chmod 4111 /opt/cisco-vpnclient/bin/cvpnd
/etc/init.d/vpnclient_init restart
to get round the error messages
privsep: unable to drop privileges: group set failed.
The application was unable to communicate with the VPN sub-system.
then I got
Initializing the VPN connection.
Initiating TCP to 198.119.56.78, port 10005
Secure VPN Connection terminated locally by the Client
Reason: Failed to establish a VPN connection.
There are no new notification messages at this time.
This occurs if both the wireless and ethernet connections are enabled at the same time. I turned off the ethernet connection by going to Network Settings selecting Wired Connection then clicking on Properties followed by checking the Enable Roaming Mode box.

update of fluxerror.tcl for multiple datasets

Shao Li noted that fluxerror.tcl doesn't work if multiple datasets have been read in. An immediate workaround is just to change "tcloutr flux" to "tcloutr flux 1" in the script. I have checked in a new version of the script which returns an error range for each dataset - note that the flux ranges will only actually be different if the datasets are members of different datagroups.

xspec v12 gain fit parameters

Craig has fixed the gain fit parameters so they can be individually frozen during a fit (other than just having both parameters fixed or free). This makes the behavior similar to that available in v11. v12.3.1ae.

swind1 model update

Chris Done supplied modified model.dat information for her swind1 model which is currently available through the new models website. The only change is to the allowed range in the column parameter.

Unable to save file in xspec v11

Glenn Morris reported that when xspec v11 is built using gcc4 then the save command will not allow an existing filename to be overwritten. This turned out to be because in this case the Fortran OPEN command returns an IOSTAT=1, not IOSTAT=128 as per gcc3. This breaks the code in OPENWR in sys.lnx and sys.darwin. Fixed in v11.3.2ah by using an INQUIRE in these two files to check for a pre-existing file.

Note that the sys.* options are labelled by operating system however all those running gcc should be the same (eg sys.lnx and sys.darwin).

invalid filter expressions in extractor

Extractor was silently ignoring invalid filters attached to filenames eg infile.fits[pi>100]. Now it at least generates an error message. Note that the only allowed filters are of form name=#:#. v4.79

xspec v11 bug in HEAsoft 6.3

One of my minor mods to xspec v11 to support the use of the gfortran compiler introduced a bug in the addcomp command - inserting a component into the model caused the name of the final component to be changed to CPCMOD. Thanks to a report from Lisa Winter we caught this within a week of the HEAsoft 6.3 release and have updated the tar files.