Free!

Since updating to Ubuntu 8.04 on my laptop, and doing some research into my problems with wireless and the Cisco VPN client, I am now fully able to work without wires once more.

In 7.10, when using wireless (intel 4965 chipset) or using a USB broadband modem attempts to use the VPN would result in a kernel panic and a hard freeze, with just the numlock and capslock lights flashing. Wired usage was fine.
On updating to 8.04, it looks like I can use the VPN with a broadband modem now – I managed half an hour of usage before I stopped, whereas previously it’d be less than a minute before the crash.
As for the wireless – that still causes the crash, but on doing some further research it appears that Cisco don’t support SMP. It happens to work with some network drivers, but not with others. So the workaround to that is to disable one core before connecting to the VPN via echo 0 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu1/online.
Obviously that’s not an ideal solution – but it’s probably the best we’re going to get, and most of the time I’ll have access to wired network anyway. This just means that if I do feel like sitting on the couch to work, or sitting outside in the sun, I can.

In fact, I was going to exercise my new found freedom today by heading down to the lake for a bit, but in the end I decided it’s probably just a little too cool for that, and I’d just disrupt my current run of semi-productivity.