First things first you can say that most of the hardware works out of the box with Hardy:

• Graphics work fine with the right resolution and with compiz.
• As I can see sound works without problems. Volume wheel works, too. For me it was too low, so I started alsamixer in a terminal and turned the controls as far as they would go.
• Wifi works and extra keys, such as wlan on/off, web browser start, bluetooth device and e-mail start, too.
• The bluetooth device works.
• You can connect an external monitor to VGA out. Consider that Gnome places the menu bar on screen 0. The external VGA monitor will always be the default display if it is connected.
• Hibernation (suspend to disk) doesn’t cause any trouble, except the sound doesn’t work anymore after the notebook wakes up. That’s a problem between kernel 2.6.24 and Intels soundchip. To fix it you have to put the following line in “/etc/modprobe.d/snd-hda-intel.modprobe”, which you have to create, and at the end of “/etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base”:

  options snd-hda-intel model=acer

  After that you have to fix “/etc/default/acpi-support” by putting “alsa” at the right place:

  # Add services to this list to stop them before suspend and restart them in
  # the resume process.
  STOP_SERVICES="alsa"
  

  After a restart sound should work fine after hibernation.

• Touchpad works fine and you can turn it on and off with Fn + F7.
• Most of the function keys for brightness, sound, etc. work.
• The Crystal Eye Webcam works but you should check if you have installed xserver-xorg-video-v4l and v4l-conf. The camera will be recognized automatically by Kopete or Ekiga or you can test it in the terminal with luvcview.
• Slot for memory card works fine.
• The internal microphon and the microphon jack: In Hardy I had little success as I compiled a new module for ALSA. The way to do this in the command line is:

   

  sudo apt-get install module-assistant
  sudo m-a update
  sudo m-a prepare
  sudo m-a a-i alsa
  sudo alsa force-unload
  sudo depmod -ae
  sudo modprobe snd-hda-intel
  

  At the end of the file “/etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base” you should add this line:

  options snd-hda-intel model=acer

  It is like I have written above at the point Hibernation.

  After that start alsamixer and set it up like this:

  alsamixer -c 0 -V all

  

  My settings in alsamixer.

Unfortunately, the module won’t load correctly sometimes after reboot. So I have to unload it with sudo alsa force-unload and than to reload it with sudo modprobe snd-hda-intel. Normally it seems to work fine without doing so.

Now I can use the microphone with Gnome Sound Recorder:

Make a record with Gnome Sound Recorder.

I have not tested yet:

• 56k modem

What does not work is

• S-Video out. The TV will be recognized with xrandr -q

  Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 2048 x 768, maximum 3200 x 1200
  VGA disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
  LVDS connected 1024x768+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 261mm x 163mm
     1280x800       60.0 +   60.0
     1280x768       60.0
     1024x768       60.0*
     800x600        60.3
     640x480        59.9
  TV connected 1024x768+1024+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 0mm x 0mm
     1024x768       30.0*
     800x600        30.0
     848x480        30.0
     640x480        30.0
  

  and I adepted my “/etc/X11/xorg.conf” like How to enable S-Video says,

  Section "Device"
  	Identifier	"Configured Video Device"
  	Option          "monitor-VGA"  "VGA" ## Options von mir ##
          Option          "monitor-TV"   "TV"
          Option          "monitor-LVCD" "LVCD"
  EndSection
  

  but I had less success. I got a little monochrome picture and that’s all.

• The notebook won’t wake up from suspend when you send it to sleep with Fn + F4, but suspend works manually with the hibernate package. I have installed it and I suspend the notbook with

  sudo hibernate-ram

  and it wakes up without any problem.

• System beeps: If you want to deactivate the system beeps just unload the module:

  sudo rmmod pcspkr

  And if you don’t want to load it again at startup put the following in “/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist”:

  blacklist pcspkr

Meinen Text “Anarchie und Quellcode” gibt es nun auch in einer russischen Übersetzung. Man kann sie unter xbb.uz finden. Die Übersetzung wurde von Dmitriy Skorobogatov gemacht. Obwohl ich russisch nicht lesen kann, denke ich, dass er gute Arbeit geleistet hat. Vielen herzlichen Dank dafür.

Mein Text “Anarchie und Quellcode” ist nun auch in der griechischen Übersetzung Αναρχία και Πηγαίος Κώδικας von Vasilis Papavasileiou erhältlich. Veröffentlicht wurde er auf der Website der Free Software Community an der Technischen Universität von Athen. Vielen Dank für diese wundervolle Arbeit Vasilis.

Load    "dbe"

into the Section “Module”. This line prevented that conky jitters. Now we can install conky and devilspie:

sudo apt-get install conky
sudo apt-get install devilspie

Devil’s pie is a window-matching utility, inspired by Sawfish’s “Matched Windows” option and the lack of the functionality in Metacity the window manager for Gnome.

You can find a config file for conky here. If you want, download it and rename it to .conkyrc and save it into your home directory. If you want to use your own config file you have to consider to add

own_window yes
own_window_transparent yes
own_window_hints undecorated skip_taskbar skip_pager

to your .conkyrc. Don’t use “own_window_type desktop” or something like that. It didn’t worked for me so I gues it won’t work for you either.

Next, we have to configure devilspie so it can run together with Gnome:

mkdir ~/.devilspie
touch ~/.devilspie/conky.ds

Edit “conky.ds” and add the following code:

(if
   (is (application_name) "conky")
   (begin
      (pin)
      (skip_tasklist)
      (skip_pager)
   )
)

Once conky and devilspie are properly configured, you can make them both automatically start together with Gnome. Click “System -> Preferences -> Sessions” and select “Startup Programs” . Then click the “Add” button and add “devilspie” for the startup command. Click “OK” and the “Add” button again to add “conky”. The next time you login, devilspie and conky will automatically start.

Install Fluxbuntu

First I have got Fluxbuntu nbuild1 rev2 from a mirror. After booting the live CD I logged in with:

User: fluxbuntu
Password: livecd

Unfortunately the resolution was at 640×480. I changed it by opening an editor to configure the xorg.conf.

sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf

I added the following lines to Section “Monitor”:

HorizSync       36-52
VertRefresh     36-60

I restarted the Xserver by pressing Ctrl, Alt and Backspace simultaneously and the resolution was on 1024×768. This is really necessary for the graphical installer ubiquity. You won’t be able to handle ubiquity with the wrong resolution. Now you can start the installer in a terminal like Eterm with

sudo ubiquity gtkui

Now the only thing you have to do is to follow the instructions of the installer.

Video

After the reboot and the first boot of Fluxbuntu you will remark that the X resolution stucks at 640×480 again. Till now I have not found the reason, but here is a work around that will fix the problem. Add the following line to the Section “Monitor” in “/etc/X11/xorg.conf” [1]

HorizSync       36-52
VertRefresh     36-60
Modeline     "640x480" 25.175 640 664 760 800 480 491 493 525 #60Hz
Modeline     "800x600" 40 800 848 968 1056 600 601 605 628 +hsync +vsync
Modeline     "1024x768" 65 1024 1032 1176 1344 768 771 777 806 -hsync -vsync

and change in Section “Screen” the default depth to 16 because the Tecra 8000 does not have much graphical memory:

DefaultDepth     16

Make sure that you use the neomagic driver in Section “Device” and not vesa because the neomagic driver is a little bit faster than vesa.

Now you can restart X by pressing simultaneously Ctrl-Alt-Backspace.

Alternatively you can enable “Screen Stretching” in the system BIOS. To get access simply hold down the escape button while the initial Toshiba boot screen. Then press F1 when prompted. After changing the entry left BIOS with the “End” key.

Configure Fluxbox

After the first boot I had to login twice: First with the graphical login manager XDM and secondly in the command line. It seems that in this case XDM is needless. This is one reason why I decided to remove XDM and to put startx into the “.bash_profile” file in my home directory:

echo "startx" >>$HOME/.bash_profile

X, in this case Fluxbox, now starts automatically after login. The other reason is that I can save resources by removing XDM.

After the first start you will see, that the icon of your home directory is absent because the link refers to “/home/fluxbuntu” what is the home directory of the livecd. You can change this mistake by right clicking on the icon. Choose Edit Item in the menu and replace “fluxbuntu” with the name of your home directory.

If you don’t like the background of Fluxbuntu you can replace it with your own wallpaper. You can find some wallpapers in “/usr/share/backgrounds”. You change the background by right clicking on any icon. In the menu choose Backdrop… and drag your picture into the Backdrop window. Now you have a new background but note that this is the background of the pinboard option of ROX-Filer. In Fluxbuntu the pinboard option of ROX-Filer is choosed by default to manage your desktop background. With this option you can have icons on you desktop what is else not provided in Fluxbox.

A lightweight system monitor

For a little action on my desktop I have installed conky.

sudo apt-get install conky

After installation you have to configure it. First you have to entry

Load    "dbe"

in the Section “Module” in “/etc/X11/xorg.conf”. Then you have to put these lines into your .conkyrc:

own_window yes
own_window_transparent yes
own_window_hints undecorated skip_taskbar skip_pager

If you want that conky starts together with Fluxbox you have to create a new file
named .xsession in your home directory:

#!/bin/sh
conky &
exec fluxbox

If you don’t have a filed named ~/.conkyrc you can use the following. It is an example of my configuration file:

# set to yes if you want Conky to be forked in the background
background no

# Use XFT-Fonts
use_xft yes
xftfont Bitstream Vera Sans Mono-7
xftalpha 1

update_interval 1.0
total_run_times 0

# Draw own window?
own_window yes
own_window_transparent yes
own_window_hints undecorated skip_taskbar skip_pager

double_buffer yes
minimum_size 280 5
draw_shades yes
draw_outline no
draw_borders no
stippled_borders 8
border_margin 4
border_width 1

# Default colors and also border colors
default_color white
default_shade_color black
default_outline_color white

# Text alignment. Possible
# values are commented
#alignment top_left
alignment top_right
#alignment bottom_left
#alignment bottom_right

# Tune the disposition of the window:
# Gap between borders of screen and text
# same thing as passing -x at command line
gap_x 12
gap_y 12

# Subtract file system buffers from used memory?
no_buffers yes

# Whole text uppercase?
uppercase no

# set to 1 to disable averaging
cpu_avg_samples 2

# set to 1 to disable averaging
net_avg_samples 2

# Force UTF8?
# Note that UTF8 support required XFT
override_utf8_locale no

# Add spaces to keep things from moving about?
use_spacer yes

# stuff after 'TEXT' will be formatted on screen

TEXT
${offset 240}${color slate grey}This is: ${color }$nodename
${offset 240}${color slate grey}System:  ${color }$sysname
${offset 240}${color slate grey}Kernel:  ${color }$kernel
${offset 240}${color slate grey}Machine: ${color }$machine
${offset 240}${color slate grey}UpTime:  ${color }$uptime
${offset 240}${color slate grey}CPU:     ${color }${freq_dyn}Mhz ${cpu}%
${offset 240}${cpugraph 20,130 000000 ffffff}
${offset 240}${color slate grey}Load:      ${color }$loadavg
${offset 240}${color slate grey}Processes: ${color }$processes
${offset 240}${color slate grey}Running:   ${color }$running_processes

${offset 240}${color slate grey}Highest CPU:
${offset 240}${color #ddaa00} ${top name 1} ${top cpu 1}
${offset 240}${color lightgrey} ${top name 2} ${top cpu 2}
${offset 240}${color lightgrey} ${top name 3} ${top cpu 3}
${offset 240}${color lightgrey} ${top name 4} ${top cpu 4}

${offset 240}${color slate grey}Highest MEM:
${offset 240}${color #ddaa00} ${top_mem name 1} ${top_mem mem 1}
${offset 240}${color lightgrey} ${top_mem name 2} ${top_mem mem 2}
${offset 240}${color lightgrey} ${top_mem name 3} ${top_mem mem 3}
${offset 240}${color lightgrey} ${top_mem name 4} ${top_mem mem 4}

${offset 240}${color slate grey}MEM:  ${color } $memperc% $mem/$memmax
${offset 240}${membar 3,100}
${offset 240}${color slate grey}SWAP: ${color }$swapperc% $swap/$swapmax
${offset 240}${swapbar 3,100}

${offset 240}${color slate grey}HOME:  ${color }${fs_free /home}/${fs_size /home}
${offset 240}${fs_bar 3,100 /home}

${offset 240}${color slate grey}NET:
${offset 240}${color}Up: ${color }${upspeed eth0} k/s
${offset 240}${upspeedgraph eth0 20,130 000000 ffffff}
${offset 240}${color}Down: ${color }${downspeed eth0}k/s${color}
${offset 240}${downspeedgraph eth0 20,130 000000 ffffff}
${offset 240}${color lightgrey}eth0: $color${addr eth0}

The problem with the transparent background in this example is, that conky uses the background of Fluxbox and not the one of ROX-Filer we have choosed further up. If you start conky without fixing that problem you will see a grey and undefined background instead of your wallpaper. You can solve this problem by choosing the same background in Fluxbox. For this purpose open the file “~/.fluxbuntu/startup” and uncomment and edit the line that says

 fbsetbg -f /usr/share/backgrounds/fluxbuntu_wallpaper.png

Replace the “/usr/share/backgrounds/fluxbuntu_wallpaper.png” with the path of the background you want to have. In this file, by the way, I have removed the lines with “fbpager” which sets the workspace switcher because I don’t need multiple desktops.

If you don’t like conky use gkrellm instead:

sudo apt-get install gkrellm

The main theme of gkrellm is really ugly so I have downloaded the CoplandOS theme from muhri.net and I have to write the gkrellm command into my .xsession in my home directory:

#!/bin/sh
gkrellm --geometry +1200+0 &
exec fluxbox

Now gkrellm starts together with Fluxbox.

Fix the sound problem with the OSS driver…

The Tecra 8000 laptop works really fine with Gnu/Linux, but sound and video needs to be fixed. With the following tweaks I have solved the problem. First you have to get root with “sudo su” or something like that, then write:

modprobe opl3sa2 io=0x220 mss_io=0x530 mpu_io=0x330
irq=5 dma=1 dma2=0
modprobe mpu401
modprobe sound
modprobe ad1848

For permanent sound write in “/etc/modules”:

# /etc/modules: kernel modules to load at boot time.

opl3sa2 io=0x220 mss_io=0x530 mpu_io=0x330 irq=5 dma=1
dma2=0
mpu401
sound
ad1848

Maybe it is possible to add simply a line with opl3sa2 in “/etc/modules”. This will force the loading of the OSS driver at boot time. Parameters for the card are auto-detected. I have not figured out how to set the volume. Unfortunately it is pretty low by default.

… or configure ALSA manually

Create a file named “/etc/modprobe.d/sound” and copy the following into it:

alias snd-card-0 snd-opl3sa2

options snd-opl3sa2 dma1=1 dma2=0 fm_port=0x388 irq=5 midi_port=0x330
     sb_port=0x220 wss_port=0x530 isapnp=0 ## -> This should be one long row

# some stuff for the OSS drivers
alias char-major-14 snd-pcm-oss
alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0

# aliases for sound card #1
alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss
alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-3 snd-pcm-oss
alias sound-service-0-8 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-12 snd-pcm-oss

Now add a line with snd-card-0 in “/etc/modules” to force the loading of the driver at startup and reboot.

I have written the script snd2tecra8000 that will help you to fix the problem automatically. Download it and change the permissions:

wget http://imhorst.net/scripts/snd2tecra8000
chmod 755 snd2tecra8000

Become root or as super user do

sudo ./snd2tecra8000 --alsa

if you want to configure the sound for ALSA. For OSS use the –oss argument instead. After that do a

sudo /etc/init.d/alsa-utils restart

and you will have sound. If you need help run

./snd2tecra8000 --help

Infrared

It is very easy to install the IrDA device. Just do the following commands:

sudo apt-get install irda-utils
modprobe irda
sudo irattach irda0 -s

You can test it with:

sudo irdadump

S-Video output

First I have to say that the video output on my TV screen does not work really well. The output on my TV is monochrome and shows only a part of the laptop screen.

For the installation of the video output I have loaded the vesafb module:

sudo modprobe vesafb

If you want to load the vesafb module everytime you boot Fluxbuntu put it into “/etc/modules”. Then I have put the following line into the kernel command line of the “/boot/grub/menu.lst”:

append="video=vesafb:ywrap,mtrr" vga=791

Now the relevant section of the file looks like this:

## ## End Default Options ##

title		Ubuntu, kernel 2.6.15-26-386
root		(hd0,0)
kernel		/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.15-26-386 root=/dev/hda1 append="video
                =vesafb:ywrap,mtrr" vga=791 ro #-> This has to be one line
initrd		/boot/initrd.img-2.6.15-26-386
savedefault
boot

After a reboot I can switch to the TV screen by pressing [FN] + [F5] three times. I hope I am able to improve this in the near future to get a color output on my TV.

Finally some tips to increase the speed

If you want to increase the speed of the laptop then remove powernowd. Powernowd is supposed to slow down the CPU when it is not being used heavily in order to extend the life of the battery. On older machines like the Tecra 8000 this means only a few minutes so this tool is not really necessary.

sudo apt-get remove powernowd

It is a really good choice to use Swiftfox instead of the Firefox browser. Swiftfox is an optimized build of Mozilla Firefox and it has builds for both AMD and Intel processors. The Tecra 8000 has a Pentium II processor so I have downloaded the suitable installer.

wget http://getswiftfox.com/builds/installer/pentium2/install-swiftfox.sh

If are not sure which processor do you have check it with

cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep 'model name'

On the homepage of Swiftfox you can choose another one. When the installer is downloaded open a terminal window an run the installer by typing the following command:

sh install-swiftfox.sh

After that you can start it by typing swiftfox in the terminal window. Otherwise you can put an icon for Swiftfox on the desktop. The link to Swiftfox is “/usr/bin/swiftfox” and you can drag it onto your desktop. With a right click on the icon you get a menu. Click here on File ‘swiftfox’ and Set icon. Now choose the browser icon with ROX-Filer from the directory “usr/share/pixmaps” and drag it into the Icon window.

Control your Tecra

Toshset is a command line tool to control the hardware of your Tecra 8000. With toshset you can turn the fan on and off, view the power mode and other things.
For an overview about your settings type

sudo toshset -q

If you want to see the usage of toshset type this without any option. Now you can disable the system beep for example

sudo toshset -b off

or you can enable power-off when the laptop lid is getting closed

sudo toshset -ppower on

and disable the lid-closed alarm:

sudo toshset -palarm off

[1] I got this help from dbot67′s post “Installing Ubuntu Linux on a Toshiba Tecra 8000 Laptop” on Ubuntuforums.org.

[Update] Here comes the real new script sauber. It is based on the older script clean:

#!/bin/bash
# Script:          sauber
# Object:         Cleans up your Linux file system after a 
#                    session with AppleTalk and Finder.
# Etymologie:   sauber means clean in German
 
# Test number of arguments here
if (( $# < 1 )) ; then
	echo
        echo "We need an argument here."
	echo "Usage:   ./sauber [Directory]"
	echo "Example: ./sauber /home/christian" 
	echo >&2
        exit 1
fi
 
find $1 &#092;( -iname &#039;:2eDS_Store&#039; &#092;
-o -iname &#039;.AppleDouble&#039; &#092;
-o -iname &#039;Network Trash Folder&#039; &#092;
-o -iname &#039;Temporary Items&#039; &#092;
-o -iname &#039;:2elocalized&#039; &#092;
-o -iname &#039;.DS_Store&#039; &#092;
-o -iname &#039;._*&#039; &#092;) -exec rm -rf {} &#092;&#059;
 
exit 0

For comparison I leave the old script here:

#!/bin/sh
# Script:	   clean
# Object:      Cleans up your Linux file system after a session with 
#                 AppleTalk and Finder.
 
find $HOME -name :2eDS_Store -or  \
-name .AppleDouble -or \
-name 'Network Trash Folder' -or \
-name 'Temporary Items' -exec rm -rf {} \;

These two examples show that I have learned pretty much about writing shell scripts in the last year. Note that the first posting of this script was in February 2006. ;-)

[Update] If you want to prevent Mac OS X to generate .DS_Store Files open Terminal.app and type

defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores true

and log off. Log on again and Mac OS X won’t create .DS_Store Files again. But this must be made for each user.

If you want the .DS_Store Files back remove with

rm -i $HOME/Library/Preferences/com.apple.desktopservices.plist

The question is now which operating system should I install, this means, which GNU/Linux distribution? The desktop must be lean and fast, because it has a Pentium II processor with just 299 MHz and 64 MB ram.
After some testing I decided to use Damn Small Linux (DSL), because after installation it uses 160 MB of the hard disk, which has only 4 GB. Furthermore DSL uses the Kernel 2.4.26 the best Kernel for older laptops. Due to the fact that the Armada gets a resolution of 800 x 600 pixels you have to boot with the parameter ‘fb800x600’ at boot prompt. After booting the Live-CD you can install DSL to your hard disk by clicking on ‘Apps | Tools | Install to Hard Drive’. You get into the menu by using the right mouse-button. For ‘target partition’ I chose ‘hda1’ and for file system I decided against ‘ext3’, because ‘ext2’ is recommended for older systems. After rebooting it has now a small Debian system and one can proceed to set it up.

First we need Apt and Synaptic to get software from the repositories. For this you have to click on ‘Apps | Tools | Enable Apt’ and ‘Apps | Tools | Synaptic’ in the menu. Installing Synaptic is necessary even if you do not want to use it, because with Synaptic some important packages will be installed. To change DSL into a Debian Woody you have to write ‘woody’ instead of ‘stable’ in the file ‘/etc/apt/apt.conf’. As root type:

sed -e 's/stable/woody/g' -i /etc/apt/apt.conf

Then you need to adept your ‘/etc/apt/sources.list’:

deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ woody main non-free contrib
deb-src http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ woody main non-free contrib
deb http://non-us.debian.org/debian-non-US woody/non-US main contrib non-free
deb-src http://non-us.debian.org/debian-non-US woody/non-US main contrib non-free
deb http://security.debian.org/ woody/updates main contrib non-free

With the command ‘apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade’ as root you can update your system to Woody, when you have enough time and when you are experienced enough. If you like you can use my script dsl2woody to do this for you. You can also use my script dsl2stable to switch to stable sources, if you need them.
It is possible that upgrading stops with some error messages like this one:

dpkg: error processing pcmcia-cs (--configure):
subprocess pre-installation script returned error exit status 1
...
/var/cache/apt/archives/pcmcia-cs_3.1.33-6woody_i386.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

You get help with following command:

dpkg -i --force-overwrite --force-depends /var/cache/apt/archives/pcmcia-cs_3.[...]

Instead of the PCMCIA package the fileutils package can also make trouble. In this case you have to run the dpkg command for fileutils.
The PCMCIA package also likes to interrupt installation with the message:

update-rc.d: /etc/init.d/pcmcia: file does not exist

To fix this just do a

touch /etc/init.d/pcmcia && chmod 755 /etc/init.d/pcmcia

and run dpkg for PCMCIA again.

Now we can configure the sound. Therefore install and start sndconfig:

apt-get install sndconfig && sndconfig

In sndconfig choose Soundblaster with following settings:

I/O Port    IRQ    DMA
  0x220       5        1

Finally we have to change the rights of the mixer and dsp files, otherwise we can get the error message “Can’t find suitable libao driver. (Is device in use?)”:

chmod 666 /dev/dsp /dev/mixer

If you do not want to install sndconfig you can load the module with modprobe

/sbin/modprobe sb io=0x220 irq=5 dma=1

For permanent sound put the line ‘sb io=0×220 irq=5 dma=1’ into ‘/etc/modules’.

Of course you can install Sid, Sarge or Etch instead of Woody. In this case you should add the following line to the file ‘/etc/apt/apt.conf’.

APT::Force-LoopBreak "1";

Newer versions of Apt get problems without it.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use LWP::Simple;
 
my $url = ("http://www.whatismyip.com/automation/n09230945.asp");
my $var = get($url);
 
$var =~ m/(\d+).(\d+).(\d+).(\d+)/;
print "Your IP address is: $1.$2.$3.$4 \n";

I got the idea for the script from cray at debianer.org (only in german). He has solved the problem in the command line. Here is the solution in two lines because the URL is very long:

URL="http://www.whatismyip.com/automation/n09230945.asp"
lynx -dump $URL | grep '[0-9][0-9]*[.][0-9][0-9]*[.][0-9] \\
[0-9]*[.][0-9][0-9]' | awk '{print $1}'

Don’t forget: For this you need lynx, grep and awk. Then you have to write the text above in one single line.

[Update]: But it is also possible to realise this with perl in just one single line using the command line:

perl -MLWP::Simple -le 'print get("http://www.whatismyip.com/
automation/n09230945.asp")=~/(\d+.)(\d+.)(\d+.)(\d+)/i'

This looks a little bit more like perl, does it not? You do not have the perl module LWP::Simple? No problem, you can install it with:

sudo perl -MCPAN -e 'install  LWP::Simple'