Backtrack 5 Fixes

The installation went great on my samsung n150 plus netbook, but my HP DV7 laptop was a different story.

Fix White Screen of Death (ati video cards)

Boot and at the grub menu, highlight the boot mode you want and press TAB key to edit.

At the end of the line and before the –, add

radeon.modeset=0

Press enter to boot.

Fix Stuck Splash Screen and X Crash During KDE Startup

If you startx and it hangs at the first icon of the splash screen, do this after X crashes:
[codesyntax lang=”bash”]

rm ~/.kde/cache-root/*.kcache
rm ~/.kde/cache-bt/*.kcache

[/codesyntax]

Fixing Missing SSH Keys
[codesyntax lang=”bash”]

sudo rm /etc/ssh/ssh_host_*
sudo ssh-keygen -t rsa -f /etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key
sudo ssh-keygen -t dsa -f /etc/ssh/ssh_host_dsa_key
sudo ssh-keygen -t rsa1 -f /etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa1_key
sudo /etc/init.d/ssh reload

[/codesyntax]

Fix Missing libkontactinterface.so.4

If you get this error message:

kmail: error while loading shared libraries: libkontactinterface.so.4: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Then do this to fix it:

[codesyntax lang="bash"]

sudo apt-get --reinstall install kdepimlibs-dbg

[/codesyntax]

Fix Lockups When Minimizing or Maximizing Windows (ati video cards)

First you need to prepare the sources. This is done like this (see the next problem below too):

[codesyntax lang="bash" title="Prepare Kernel Sources"]

prepare-kernel-sources
cd /usr/src/linux
cp -rf include/generated/* include/linux/

[/codesyntax]

Then download and install the ati fglrx binaries for either 32 bit or 64 bit from here (specific for your video card):
http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/Pages/index.aspx

Install the drivers. Configure the video card to use fglrx driver.

Fix prepare-kernel-sources

If you run `sudo prepare-kernel-sources` you will realize the script has an error. Not only does it have an error, but it also has other issues, like “WARNING: Symbol version dump /usr/src/linux-source-2.6.38/Module.symvers”

To fix this, edit the file /usr/bin/prepare-kernel-sources with your favorite editor, mine is vi….

Go to the line that has `cp /boot/` and change that to `# cp /boot/` to comment it out.

On the next line add:

sudo cp /usr/src/linux/.linux /boot/config-${VER}

Here is my entire modified so it works prepare-kernel file:

[codesyntax lang=”bash”]

#!/bin/bash
echo "if you are compiling a custom kernel, what do you want appended to the name?"
echo "i.e., if you want custom.1, then your kernel will be called linux-2.6.38-custom.1"
echo "it must contain a period followed by a number"
read CUSTOM_NAME

VER=`uname -r`
echo "[*] apt-getting linux-source..."
sudo apt-get install linux-source
cd /usr/src/
echo "[*] extracting sources, please wait"
sudo tar jxpf linux-source-${VER}.tar.bz2
echo "[*] doing stuff..."
sudo rm -rf linux
sudo ln -s /usr/src/linux-source-${VER} /usr/src/linux
cd /usr/src/linux
sudo zcat /proc/config.gz > .config
#cp /boot/
sudo cp /usr/src/linux/.config /boot/config-${VER}
sudo make oldconfig
sudo make scripts
sudo make prepare
make KDEB_PKGVERSION=${CUSTOM_NAME} deb-pkg
sudo ln -s /usr/src/linux /lib/modules/${VER}/build
echo "[*] tada!  Done building kernel and dpkg image"

echo -e "this is the differences between your running kernel config and the new kernel config.\n\nYou should review them closely before installing the kernel and rebooting."
diff /boot/config-${VER} /usr/src/linux/.config

while true; do
    read -p "Do you want to install the kernel?" yn
    case $yn in
        [Yy]* ) dpkg -i ../linux-image-${VER}_${CUSTOM_NAME};;
        [Nn]* ) exit;;
        * ) echo "Please answer yes or no.";;
    esac
done

[/codesyntax]

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