) * (| THE DAVIS |) (| WEB LOG |) * ( Sat, 18 Aug 2007 11:18:54 REMOVE A SYSV-INIT SCRIPT A while ago I wanted to try using the onion router (tor). I simply wanted the abilty to use it sporadically but the tor services are started automatically at boot. This is not really much of a problem, I barely noticed it at first, but when I tried to enable file-sharing between the operating system and a virtualized copy of windows tor got in the way. After stopping the tor-service file-sharing works. Getting weary of shutting down the tor-service manually I decided remove it from the startup-scripts all-together: -------------------------------------------------------------- $update-rc.d -f remove -------------------------------------------------------------- will remove it from /etc/init.d/ folder and: -------------------------------------------------------------- $ update-rc.d defaults -------------------------------------------------------------- will put it back again. Wed, 08 Aug 2007 21:58:54 WORKING BACKUP-SOLUTION!!! For the longest time I have been without a viable backup-solution. I started by simply copying folders and then went on to using rsync but I never managed to get a flow going. Part of the problem was that the folders didn't sync. When I would delete a file on the original folder it wouldn't be removed from the backup. But now I found a good tutorial on rsync (at linux.com) where the author had found what I had missed (I don't know how since it seems obvious in retrospect) the "--delete" option. Now I use: -------------------------------------------------------------- $ rsync -avvvH SRC DEST -------------------------------------------------------------- Mon, 06 Aug 2007 18:29:20 GETTING RID OF ^M STRINGS IN TEXT I noticed (couldn't help but) when opening a text file that preceding every linefeed there was a "^M"-string. I found to my HORROR! that I could not use the replace-string function in emacs because the mini-buffer would interpret the string as a linefeed. After googling I found the cure. Typing C-q (in the mini-buffer) would make it grab the control-characters as a string. Thus making it possible to replace all the occurrences of "^M". Another way of doing this could be to use the program called dos2unix. Sun, 22 Jul 2007 00:51:42 HOW TO MAKE THE MEUSYSTEM WORK WITH TWM Every now and then I feel the need to use an extremely lightweight windowmanager. Often the choice falls upon the simplest one I know; TWM. previously one had to manually create the menu for twm but lately one has been able to use the debian menu-system with twm. the debian menu-system allows people running other window-managers/environments than Gnome or KDE to have an automatically updated desktop-menu. But it only works when using the global menu in /etc/X11/twm/. When I wanted to use the .twmrc file I had created myself in my home directory I had to live without the debian-menu. until now: 1. create ~/.menu 2. cp /usr/share/menu/* ~/.menu/ 3. create ~/.twm 4. cp /etc/X11/twm/* ~/.twm/ 5 edit system.twmrc-menu (template file) as you like and add the line: "include-menu-defs" at the end 6. create .menu-methods 7. cp /etc/menu-methods/twm ~/.menu-methods/ 8. edit the ~/.menu-methods/twm file to fit your needs look at: genmenu= "menudefs.hook" rcfile= "system.twmrc" examplercfile= "system.twmrc-menu" rootprefix= "~" userprefix= ".twm" 9 run: ---------------------------------------------------------------- $ update-menus ---------------------------------------------------------------- Now you should be all set :^) Wed, 18 Jul 2007 00:25:52 use vol_id to check the UUID or label of any volume. My system had started to complain at startup about not being able to use fsck on a specific drive. It halted the bootprocess and prompted me to press C-d to continue booting or give root password for maintenance. As it turned out the UUID that the system was trying to fsck didn't exist, the partitions UUID had changed ----------------------------------------------------------------- $ vol_id -u /dev/drive_in_question ----------------------------------------------------------------- gave me the new UUID. Thu, 05 Jul 2007 14:08:58 added visor to /etc/modules Thu 05 Jul 2007 11:02:37 AM CEST I blacklisted the module "ehci_hcd" in the file "/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist" because it causes problems with the 7-in-1 cardreader I use. Wed 04 Jul 2007 10:37:52 PM CEST If One would ever want to change the default cpuclocking scheme : cpufreq-selector Sat, 17 Feb 2007 00:57:08 +0100 After using synaptic to install libdvdread3 one had to run: ----------------------------------------------------------------- $ sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/examples/install-css.sh ----------------------------------------------------------------- in order for it all to work. Well the error message went away but there are zombies and uninteruptable proccesses trying to access the dvd now so I'd better reboot. Sat, 17 Feb 2007 21:56:01 +0100 SOME HARDWARE INFO Figured I'd write down some hardware-info that is unavailable if it isn't initiated by the kernel at boot (my card-reader). ~~~~~~~~~~~~| TAKEN FROM THE UBUNTU DEVICE MANAGER |~~~~~~~~~~~~~ CK804 USB Controller EHCI HOST CONTROLLER NEODIO TECHNOLIGIES CORP. 7-in-1 Card Reader USB MASS STORAGE INTERFACE SCSI HOST ADAPTER SCSI DEVICE USB STORAGE SMC (sd-card) block.device /dev/sdb major block 8 (0x8) minor block 16 (0x10) ------------------------------------------------------------ d@phlesctop:~$ lsusb Bus 002 Device 004: ID 0aec:3260 Neodio Technologies Corp.\ 7-in-1 Card Reader ------------------------------------------------------------ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SINCE I KEEP FORGETTING To change the gnome key-bindings to mimic emacs (readline) do: --------------------------------------- $ gconftool-2 --set /desktop/gnome/ \ interface/gtk_key_theme Emacs --type\ string --------------------------------------- This will edit the gconf registry. Use --unset to change it back. Doesn't seem to work completely with the gedit text-editor though. Sun, 18 Feb 2007 08:32:18 A little while back I decided to use the "embedded" emailing-system thatcomes with almost every linux distribution. That is to say using a mailmta to send and recieve email directly on the system. This has proved to be a challenge when I tried it previously. This time however - it worked! I decided to use Exim v4. This is how I configured it. -------------------------------------------------------------- $ sudo dpkg-reconfigure exim4-config 1. split configuration into small files? 2. mail sent by smarthost; recieved via SMTP or fetchmail 3. system mail name: 4. IP-addresses to listen on for incoming SMTP connections: <127.0.0.1> 5. Other destinations for which mail is accepted: 6. machines to relay mail for: <192.168.0.0/24> 7. Machine handling outgoing mail for this host (smarthost): 8. Hide local mail name in outgoing mail? (I'm not really sure why, but it works so...) 8.1 Visible domain name for local users: 9. Keep number of DNS-queries minimal (Dial-on-Demand)? -------------------------------------------------------------- Mon, 21 Feb 2005 20:38:00 +0100 MAN WOULD NOT WORK! Had problems with man command. It gave the error 256. man also told me it couldn't find the man-pages. So I checked the "$MANPATH"-variable, it checked out. It had to be something else. After googling a bit I stumbled upon a thread in linuxquestions.org where there were people with similar problems.It seems to be connected to the udev-"system". The problem was solved by changing the line : KERNEL="tty[p-za-e][0-9a-f]*", NAME="tty/s%n", SYMLINK="%k" to: KERNEL="tty[p-za-e][0-9a-f]*", NAME="pty/s%n", SYMLINK="%k" In the file: "/etc/udev/rules.d/udev.rules" At first I tried to comment out the entire line, since it looked virtually identical to the line above it, but other errors soon became apparent as I was unable to start xterm-sessions etc. ex. this is the section of the file. #"/etc/udev/rules.d/udev.rules" # pty devices KERNEL="pty[p-za-e][0-9a-f]*", NAME="pty/m%n", SYMLINK="%k" KERNEL="tty[p-za-e][0-9a-f]*", NAME="pty/s%n", SYMLINK="%k" Thu, 24 Feb 2005 18:38:41 +0100 GNOME-MULTITASKING Since I changed my default browser to Firefox under Gnome, I can only open one link at a time. Gnome tries to open another instance of firefox. SOLUTION?: I simply changed the command gnome uses to call firefox. From "mozilla-firefox %s" to the full path of the executable (shell) file, "/usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/firefox %s". Under menu > Desktop Preferences > Advanced > Preferred Applications. Since the udev problem was fixed the spot of trouble I had with mplayer not being able to display video, specifically through mplayer-plugin, is all gone. the display area of the program showed only vertical lines in different colors on the screen. Like a rainbow. Fri, 25 Feb 2005 06:05:49 +0100 I can now run applications as root under runlevel 4. The reason why this didn't work previously was that access control lists were enabled with the "xhost" program. I simply gave the command: "/usr/X11R6/bin/xhost + 127.0.0.1" (As an ordinary user) This made the current xserver accept connections from root on localhost. Sun, 27 Feb 2005 11:29:08 +0100 BLUETOOTH I'm trying to install the bluetooth subsystem on my laptop. The bluez package worked fine. But compiling the gnome-bluetooth package proved to be a challenge. There has been a host of dependency problems. Now I am holding my breath as I'm trying to compile pygtk-2.4* (the 2.5* branch wouldn't compile, it didn't even survive the "configure" step). :-) It worked; pygtk is compiled and installed. Now on to the next dependency-problem. Blue-pin wouldn't compile. Gnome-Bluetooth configured! all the way. Let's hope that make "makes it"! :-( make didn't make it. It failed because it couldn't find the file: /usr/share/pygtk/2.0/codegen/h2def.py. which was actually located in "/usr/local/share/pygtk/2.0/codegen/h2def.py", So I simply created a symlink; /usr/share/pygtk pointing to /usr/local/share/pygtk and I hopethat's the end of it. :-) TOTAL SUCCESS!!! Gnome-Bluetooth is compiled. :-( TOTAL FAILURE!!! Gnome-Bluetooth won't run. -------------------------------------------------------------- d@presario:~$ gnome-bluetooth-manager Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/local/lib/python2.3/site-packages/gnomebt/manager.py", line 31, in ? import gnome ImportError: No module named gnome d@presario:~$ -------------------------------------------------------------- Might be a python-problem? Never the less it seems that using gnome under slackware is a no-no. I'm switching to kde. the kde-bluetooth system works flawlessly. I've just backed up all the contents on my cell-phone (sony ericsson K700i) ,except the contacts, to my home-dir. OBEX-filetransfer and OBEX-object Push both work perfectly. Sun Feb 27 23:28:30 2005 Baghira ( an OSX theme for kde) is installed. I also installed komposé which is the kde equivalent of apple's exposé I have also switched editors from Gedit to Kwrite. It will probably take some getting used to. Mon Feb 28 09:13:32 2005 Yesterday I noticed that the computer is getting very hot and as a consequence the fan made the laptop sound like an industrial vacuum-cleaner. I have still to make a backup of the system, It's about time. Mon Feb 28 12:22:57 2005 Now I've just installed our printer (hp psc2410) using the hpoj driver which should if everything works properly enable us to scan and print. The startup-scripts for it were made for SysV init so I simply copied it over to the rc.d dir (bsd-style init, sortof) and I hope it will work. Not to be forgotten I also changed the position where the hpoj-driver is started in the file /etc/rc.d/rc.M. For some reason the hpoj-driver is started after CUPS by default in slackware, why I don't know since the documentation for hpoj clearly says that the ptal-init-script is supposed to be run before running CUPS. It't time for reboot :-) :-( It didn't work. The rc perl-script they provided ("/etc/init.d/ptal-init") didn't do the job on my machine. I wrote my own, not very pretty but it works. :-) Everything now works well. I tried scanning a document and worked! Now what I have left is: * Installing the softmodem (if I ever) Making sure the * Firewire-system is up and running. Of course fixing the 3d * part of X. (IGP340M, also known as hell) Suspend to * RAM. (ACPI) Mon Feb 28 23:05:48 2005 mplayer, xine, noatun and kaboodle were unable to open videofiles ending in *.3gp. Realplayer on the other hand was able to play them but not very well. I'm off now to find out how mplayer can be used to play these files on the internet. Found it! http://www.saunalahti.fi/~laakkon1/linux/3650_vid.php here is where I found the instructions for how to do it. * copy the file codecs.conf "Builddirectory"/etc to * ~/.mplayer/ add the line "format 0x33363273" under the * "videocodec ffh263" section and off we go. still no audio * though. This is the section from my file: -------------------------------------------------------------- videocodec ffh263 info "FFmpeg H263+ decoder" status working fourcc H263,U263,h263,X263 fourcc viv1 h263 driver ffmpeg dll h263 out YV12,I420,IYUV ; This line is added in order to use mplayer for *.3gp-files format 0x33363273 -------------------------------------------------------------- After a couple of test runs it is apparent that realplayer IS the best choice for playing these files since it also produces the audio-output. mplayer does not. Tue Mar 1 10:30:48 2005 Have to initiate a backup-project. I intend to save everything i need to a cd-rom. A sort of personal-path distribution. Perhaps with install-scripts that backs up the already present config-files. Wed Mar 2 09:56:12 2005 Yesterday I started the backup-project. I copied files that I thought would be important to keep to the directory ~/backup-cd. As the name implies; the backup is supposed to fit into one cd. I also looked around for another computer. The laptop that I am using to write this text is a Compaq Presario 2104 EA. Unfortunatly I am not at all happy with this machine. It uses an Intel Celeron 2.0GHZ CPU that has a tendency to get really hot (90C). It usually operates at about 50C and is supposed to cut the power when the temperature reaches 96C. At 50 degrees celsius the sound level is not excellent but alright. When the processor is at full load it sounds like a hair-dryer. For some reason it seems that the processor gets used a lot; probably because of the awful integrated video card I have. The ATI IGP 340 M is horrible. Worst of all flaws it carries, it can't deliver graphics well enough to play Half-Life2. I don't know this but I believe ((strongly)) that the IGP340M uses up a lot of CPU power to do its job. * Startup 48C 16 min 49C 31 min 50C 31 min 51C 32 min 50C After about 16 min of uptime while all I have done so far on the computer is the writing of this text (in kwrite). The temperature has risen from 48C to 49C and the fan has cranked it up a knotch. The fan is now disturbing. Suspend (ACPI) doesn't work in neither linux nor windows. It does suspend but refuses to Recover. One must reset the computer using a small hole on the underside of the laptop - apropriatly labelled "reset". After playing half-life (under windows) for about 2 hours the screen goes black. Not pitch black since the game is just visible "underneath". The root of the problems I had with mplayer, see the entry on "Thu, 24 Feb 2005 18:38:41 +0100" above, Has to Hibernation. I have reproduced the same type of errors when I boot after an hibernation. Perhaps the video-card can't handle hibernation. KERNEL I didn't configure oss-emulation in the kernel. remember this. (note to self). Sat, 05 Mar 2005 08:38:56 +0100 Just upgraded to X11-6.8.2-i486-1 through slackpkg. Now I have a glxgears framerate of about 300fps. Previously I had around 125fps. I can now play tuxracer atleast. Tuxracer works well. I have experienced that the screen has gone black, this time under linux! This has only happened under windows before. Sun Mar 6 08:52:29 2005 My adaptec fireconnect for notebooks has been plugged in and the extra power-source it needs to drive my external 20GB harddrive. It doesn't really work satifactory. I am able to mount the drive but it is very slow slower than it is under both windows and macosx. Sat, 05 april 2005 11:49:25 INSTALLED: FFTW library - fftw-3.0.1 no issues. INSTALLED: libsndfile - libsndfile-1.0.11 - no issues. INSTALLED: libsamplerate - libsamplerate-0.1.2 - no issues. NOT STALLED: libraw1394 - libraw1394-0.9.0 - seems to be badly written. the testlibraw.c file wasn't written properly. The line breaks were all wrong in the constants-declarations. SUCCESS: after getting rid of the typos in librawtest.c which consisted of "typed" line breaks in the code ------------------------------------------------------------- const char not_compatible[] = "\ This libraw1394 does not work with your version of Linux. You need a different version that matches your kernel (see kernel help text for the raw1394 option to find out which is the correct version).\n"; const char not_loaded[] = "\ This probably means that you don't have raw1394 support in the kernel or that you haven't loaded the raw1394 module.\n"; ------------------------------------------------------------- After simply deleting the "\"-characters and inserting proper line breaks the code compiled cleanly. INSTALLED: libraw1394 - libraw1394-0.9.0 - issues see above. TOTAL DISSAPPOINTMENT: after checking for contact information, so that I could report the error. I saw that the version of libraw1394 that was available on "Linux DV - Digital Video for Linux" (http://kino.schirmacher.de/article/static/3) wasn't current. the version offered on sourceforge was version 1.1.0! This version doesn't have this issue. I uninstalled the 0.9.0-version (make uninstall). and, installed: libraw1394-1.1.0 - no issues libdv-0.98 also available through "Linux DV - Digital Video for Linux" was not the most current version. so I downloaded it from sourceforge. INSTALLED: libavc1394-0.4.1 - no issues. INSTALLED: ffmpeg-0.4.8 - contains libavcodec. INSTALLED: kino-0.7.5 - from source instead of the slackware-package i downloaded from linuxpackages.net - no issues. kino will not operate properly unless used as root. Don't know why yet. I have changed the permission of /dev/raw1394 but it doesn't seem to help. dvgrab started to report that it could not find a camera when I tried to pipe the output of dvgrab to mplayer. I used named pipes since mplayer doesn't support pipes. This was never successful though. But it did work with xine using this command: "dvgrab -i | xine -D stdin://#demux:rawdv". That's to say until the point where dvgrab refused to aknowledge the presence of the dv-camera. Sun Apr 10 09:39:47 2005 installed lint - splint-3.1.1 - no issues. lint checks c-source for errors. CINELERRA VIDEO EDITING SUITE. I have decided to compile it all. INSTALLED: libmpeg3 - no issues. NOT INSTALLED: quicktime4linux proved to be a greater challenge than I at first had thought. "make" reported that the in mmx-testing variables "MM_MMX", "MM_MMXEXT", "MM_SSE", "MM_SSE2" and "MM_3DNOW" in "ffmpeg-0.4.8/libavcodec/i386/cputest.c cputest.c were undeclared so I tried to add them to the other integers in the function mm_support. And tried again. It worked! Would you believe it if I said it happened again, in another block of code. This time in "ffmpeg-0.4.8/libavcodec/i386/dsputil_mmx.c". This is the gcc-output: -------------------------------------------------------------- fmpeg-0.4.8/libavcodec/i386/dsputil_mmx.c: In function `dsputil_init_mmx': | ffmpeg-0.4.8/libavcodec/i386/dsputil_mmx.c:1558: error: `MM_MMX' undeclared\ | (first use in this function) | ffmpeg-0.4.8/libavcodec/i386/dsputil_mmx.c:1558: error: (Each undeclared\ | identifier is reported only once | ffmpeg-0.4.8/libavcodec/i386/dsputil_mmx.c:1558: error: for each function it\ | appears in.) | ffmpeg-0.4.8/libavcodec/i386/dsputil_mmx.c:1573: error: `MM_MMXEXT' undeclared\ (first use in this function) | ffmpeg-0.4.8/libavcodec/i386/dsputil_mmx.c:1702: error: `MM_3DNOW' undeclared\| (first use in this function) | make: *** [i686/ffmpeg-0.4.8/libavcodec/i386/dsputil_mmx.o] Error 1 | -------------------------------------------------------------- I simply did the same thing as I had done before. Now I got as far as "ffmpeg-0.4.8/libavcodec/i386/motion_est_mmx.c" before this happened: -------------------------------------------------------------- ffmpeg-0.4.8/libavcodec/i386/motion_est_mmx.c:25: warning: integer constant is too large for "long" type ffmpeg-0.4.8/libavcodec/i386/motion_est_mmx.c:26: warning: integer constant is too large for "long" type ffmpeg-0.4.8/libavcodec/i386/motion_est_mmx.c: In function `dsputil_init_pix_mmx': ffmpeg-0.4.8/libavcodec/i386/motion_est_mmx.c:391: error: `mm_flags' undeclared (first use in this function) ffmpeg-0.4.8/libavcodec/i386/motion_est_mmx.c:391: error: (Each undeclared identifier is reported only once ffmpeg-0.4.8/libavcodec/i386/motion_est_mmx.c:391: error: for each function it appears in.) ffmpeg-0.4.8/libavcodec/i386/motion_est_mmx.c:391: error: `MM_MMX' undeclared (first use in this function) ffmpeg-0.4.8/libavcodec/i386/motion_est_mmx.c:404: error: `MM_MMXEXT' undeclared (first use in this function) make: *** [i686/ffmpeg-0.4.8/libavcodec/i386/motion_est_mmx.o] Error 1 -------------------------------------------------------------- I'm getting a little sick of it, since I have to compile everything from scratch every time something breaks. It seems to be the same thing again. it doesn't really make sense to me. Newsflash! for those of us paying attention: it was NOT neccesary to do a "make clean" inbetween correcting the code. All I had to do was simply to do "make" and the process would start up again where it had ended. or perhaps not. When I tried to "make install" asr getting to put a break in a switch statement root make couldn't find several of the files it needed. After careful scrutiny of the cinelerra website I found that even the developers of cinelerra considers the making of cinelerra from source a tricky buisiness. In light of this I decided to sort of give up and download the rpm's. Just to confirm the failure I tried to compile a fresh "extraction" of cinelerra. This time the compilation went smoothly! but when it was time to install make told me that there was no cinelerra binary to install! Officially giving up now. BUILDING CINELERRA FROM RPM. rpm -U --force --nodeps hvirtual*.rpm. This works better than the .tgz-package from linuxpackages.net (for me). Wed Apr 13 17:45:43 2005 Cleared out my home-dir today. I successfully created 13GB of free space. While this is probably just enough to capture 1 full hour of DV. There is only one problem with this. I need extra space to work with and space to save the rendered film. Another issue is space on my root partition. I use this it as a system and application disk, preserving my home-dir as personal storage for Digatal Video etc. How ever as the output of "df -h" shows, -------------------------------------------------------------- Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/hda2 3.8G 3.7G 97M 98% / /dev/hda4 15G 2.3G 13G 16% /home /dev/hda1 9.4G 9.1G 284M 98% /mnt/win2k /dev/sda1 19G 6.2G 13G 34% /mnt/sda1 /dev/sdb1 60M 43M 17M 73% /mnt/sdb1 -------------------------------------------------------------- there is only about a 100 MB left on the device. Thu Apr 14 12:40:47 2005 After experiencing some problems with my firewalling scripts I decided to try the firestarter app again. It seems to work perfectly. As a change of pace I'm using the TWM window-manager instead of my usual kde . Right now I'm using emacs to write this. I hope I figure out how to break lines automatically in the text soon, this constant self-breaking is startin to get to me. I want the text to be max 80 characters long.I tried the auto-fill function but it didn't really work for me. Fri Apr 15 18:09:57 2005 I'm all alone. Annika and Felicia are at Anna-Lenas. And I'm back in KDE again. Yesterday I installed the firestarter firewall-application. It seems to work smoothly now. I have also downloaded and installed ClamAV. I am scanning the system for viruses as I'm typing this. Sat Apr 16 09:19:00 2005 I have experienced som problems with scanning. Xsane was unable to find my hp psc 2410 (Printer Scanner Copier). When I looked through the rc.M startup-script I saw to my surprise that the hpoj-driver was initialized twice. Once, properly, before cups was started and then again after. So I commented out the entry after cups had been run and hopefully it will work properly now. Now after recompiling and boning through various startup-scripts Scanning still doesn't work. Let's give up for now. We can always fignt another day. Sun Apr 17 15:17:00 2005 Right now I'm at Anna-Lenas. And I'm writing this using ssh. I have not quite understood how to effectively use emacs. things such as the insertion of date and time-stamps have proven to be a challenge. Sun, 17 Apr 2005 16:09:51 +0200 FINALLY! success! after google-ing a bit I found a page describing how to add date-time-stamp functionality to emacs. I added this to the file "~/.emacs" : -------------------------------------------------------------- ;;;; Insertion of Dates. (defun insert-date-string () ;; ;;"Insert a nicely formated date string." ;; (interactive) ;; ;;(insert (format-time-string "%a, %d %b %Y %02H:%02M:%02S ;;%z"))) ;; ;; C-c i calls insert-date-string (global-set-key ;;(kbd "C-c i") 'insert-date-string) -------------------------------------------------------------- The first block of code is a Function declaration the second "block" (if one could call it that) is binding the the key command "C-c i" to the insert-date-string function. The date and time stamps are now identical to the ones produced by the Gedit. I found help on the format for this under: M-x --> help --> f (describe-function) --> format-time-string I searched google using : "insert date time emacs" Mon, 18 Apr 2005 07:27:49 +0200 I found myself messing around with time yesterday. It was a good thing too, because I realized that I didn't know how to set the time properly in linux. SELECTING TIMEZONE tzselect SETTING THE SYSTEM-TIME date -s 00:00 SETTING THE HARDWARE-CLOCK hwclock --utc --set --date="4/18/05 16:45:00" I also messed around a bit with ntp (Network Time Protocol). I found two servers that one might use. spool.ntp.org time.flygplats.net I think... Right now, for no apparent, reason fbi decided to start "working". It can and will display .jpegs. I just upgraded KDE to version 3.4.0. Seems to be an excellent version. The trash can now be found on the panel. Fri, 22 Apr 2005 07:08:36 +0200 installed a dictionary lookup system to emacs. I Downloaded the lisp source files from "http://me.in-berlin.de/~myrkr/dictionary/" typed "make" to (byte-compile?) the *.el files and copied the *.elc files to "/usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/". I copied the file dictionary-init.el to the same directory in order to be able to use Sat, 23 Apr 2005 10:01:18 +0200 Konqueror started to act weird. after reloading a page it changed the default font for displaying web-pages to, the impossible to read, Abbaddon. Eventhough the font was still specified in the preferences to be Utopia. SOLUTION: the sans-serif font was blank in the preferences, so it seems that konqueror simply chose a font at random. in emacs one can auto-fill a region or paragraf using M-x " fill-region" or "fill-paragraph". Emacs will automatically cut the lines at column 70. Emacs can capitalize using capitalize-region or capitalize-word. One can also render a word or region to uppercase characters using M-u (or M-x upcase-word). Tue, 03 May 2005 20:32:34 +0200 Time to recompile the kernel. yesterday I tried to compile a the conexant driver for my hsf-soft-modem, unfortunatly it needed the current kernel-sources in order to compile properly - I removed my sources to save space. Before I can start compiling properly I need to patch the kernel with two different patches. - Bootsplash Software suspend. the bootsplash patch failed. Not sure I did everything right though.(bootsplash-3.1.3-2.6.0-test9.diff) doesn't seem to work so I wonder what patch I used last time. I'll have to boot back into windows to check the documentation. Software suspend worked without a hitch. :-( bootsplash-3.0.7-2.4.22-vanilla.diff - failed (of course). :-( bootsplash-3.1.3-2.6.0-test9.diff - failed Wed, 04 May 2005 23:17:20 +0200 Finally breakthrough I managed to find a bootsplash patch that worked on kernel 2.6.10. I found it at: www.bootsplash.de. Now both of the patches that i need are working. It is time to start compiling. :-) bootsplash-3.1.4-2.6.10.diff One problem did occur, after I had successfully applied the bootsplash patch I tried to apply the software suspend patch. It said: ************************************************************ Applying 100-kdb-v4.4-2.6.10-common-1 ... 100-kdb-v4.4-2.6.10-common-1 will not apply cleanly. Reverse applied patches [Yn]? ************************************************************ I answered "no" to this question. We'll see how it all ends up. Just to be sure I tried to apply the patches in reverse order. That's to say first the software-suspend-patch and then the bootsplash-patch. I didn't work very well. I'll have to take my chances. In order to preserve the options used for the current working kernel I use: zcat /proc/config.gz > ./.config to generate a copy of the config file used to build the current 2.6.10_Presario kernel. I decided to name this new kernel "PRESARIO2104EA". Thu, 05 May 2005 18:30:53 +0200 I have noticed that the emacs command M-> doesn't work on the linux console. wonder why. It would be nice to be able to go to the last line of text. Fri, 06 May 2005 16:42:30 +0200 When I plugged in my JVC gr-d23 dv-camera kino couldn't detect it. kino told me that it couldn't use the file /dev/raw1394, when I checked - it wasn't there so I connected to the internet and found out that one can create the device file by issuing the command: " mknod /dev/raw1394 c 171 0 " on the commandline. Mon, 20 Jun 2005 17:30:01 +0200 It's been a while. I have been sloppy in documenting my progress with this system. Since the last entry I have made lists of the contents of 13 CDs from the magazine MacFormat. These CDs are the only source of software I have for the old MacIntosh Performa 450 (LC75 i think). I did the first couple of CDs by hand which was interesting but I can think of better ways to spend my time. Luckily I found an old program that printed lists of the directorys. The software wasn't perfect but it was definitly better than typing it all in by hand. unfortunatly the format of these files were odd, some kind of mac-latin-odd-encoding but I could still read and grep most of the relevant information. Later I realized that I could have used the hfsutils to make lists of the contents directly on this system instead of doing what I actually did. I used the old mac to make the list, then I tranferred the list to the laptop using a floppy-disk (a slow and painstaking technique - believe me!). Anyway the files are finished now. Emacs had some difficulty with the encoding of some of the files but not with all of them! I don't really know why though. I have also tried - unsuccessfully to use the hotplug system to detect and mount my mp3-player automatically. This is supposedly done with a script that first verifies that the system has actually found the right piece of hardware and then defines what is going to happen. I wrote a shell-script based on one I found in DatorMagazin, that first checks which device it is and then tries to figure out what device-node it will be bound to. Since the mp3-player is connected using usb the device file used for it changes depending on how many other deveices are connected at the same time. So to get around this I wrote a script that checks "/proc/partitions" for a partition of a certain size and simply and extremely unpretty assume that that device is my mp3player. Then the script mounts the specified device as my mp3player. The hotplug system finds the device but it only runs the script properly when first started or when I used the "force-reload" option to the "/etc/rc.d/rc.hotplug"-script. When plugging the device in nothing happens. The script uses command substition that might not work in the environment used by hotplug while the daemon is running. Annoying anyway. I have learned to use emacs a bit better by now though. By typing C-s on my systm emacs uses the function I-search which I always thought of as useless but one can traverse the hits by simply typing C-s again. Typing C-r searches backwards A bit stupid not to think of this before, but there we are. I'm also using bookmarks a lot now typing: C-x r l brings up a list of saved bookmarks and "C-x r m" creates or updates a bookmark. It seems that any shortcut that requires that one uses the shift key does not work. "M->" and "M-$" don't work under the console. In order to see what character codes are sent and recieved from the keyboard I've found the command "showkeys" that displays that information to the screen. It proved a bit difficult to terminate the program since it efficiently caught everything from the keyboard... but after reading the man-pages it became clear that all you had to do was simply to leave the computer alone for 10 seconds and the program would return you to your shell. I also learned how to use links with framebuffer support under the console. One simply tells links to start using the framebuffer driver: -------------------------------------------------------------- $links -driver fb -------------------------------------------------------------- It supports jpeg's, gif's and png's I think. By configuring Midnight Commander I can now watch video-files using mplayer in framebuffer mode: "mplayer -vo fbdev". By adding the commands above to "~/.mc/bindings" (also accesible through the menu: (F9 --> Commands --> Edit extension file) appending the string "%t" causes the command to take the "tagged" (marked) files as input (enabling mplayer to play a series of files continuously) and in combination with "%f" causes the program to take the file underneath the cursor as input too. using the same technique mc is also able to display images on the framebuffer using fbi. Tue, 21 Jun 2005 22:45:25 +0200 I have misplaced my old chat scripts for dialing my ISP. I am now at the mercy of kppp. kppp is an excellent application but I into the command line at the moment. Thu, 23 Jun 2005 14:45:28 +0200 The solution to some (if not all) of my trouble with emacs keybindings seems to related to the keymap I was using. when booting the file /etc/rc.d/rc.keymap is used to set the default keymap: -------------------------------------------------------------- #!/bin/sh # Load the keyboard map. More maps are in /usr/share/kbd/keymaps. if [ -x /usr/bin/loadkeys ]; then /usr/bin/loadkeys sv-latin1.map fi -------------------------------------------------------------- Previously when I tried to go to the end of a file using M-> emacs didn't react. Nothing happened when I tried to debug this strange behaviour using M-x view-lossage nor did anything stir when I used "C-q M->". It should be noted that in order to type the ">" character one has to hold down the shift-key. So I tried to load the finnish keymap instead of the swedish one: -------------------------------------------------------------- $loadkeys /usr/share/kbd/keymaps/i386/qwerty/fi-latin1.map.gz -------------------------------------------------------------- then I started emacs and to my astonishment the command M-> now works properly. I used diff to compare the two keymap-files and there were no differences between them. I suppose the problems I encountered were because of the name of the keymaps and not because of their contents. Fri, 24 Jun 2005 21:35:10 +0200 Today I have tried to solve the standing issue of disk-space. Since my firewire harddrive refuses to work under linux I've trouble capturing DV from my JVC GR-D23 DV-Camera to harddrive since Digital Video takes up a lot of drive space. I tried yesterday with little success to use my firewire connected 20GB harddrive to grab the DV. It did not work. After a little while the drive freezes and corrupts the data. The drive works properly under windows. So I had an idea! I installed all my games namely: Half-Life2, Half-life, Counter-Strike etc and a few third party applications to the firewire drive thus creating 5.6GB of free space on my windows partition. Since everything works I'm thingking of re-partioning my harddrive to give linux more space. emacs: found a command named toggle-text-mode-auto-fill which will make it easier for me. I'm currently using another command instead of the text-mode that i usually use, I found indented-text-mode. I just used the function indent-region to indent a block of code that had been marked (using C-Space). Fri, 24 Jun 2005 23:53:39 +0200 I just made ppp-connections under the console work. By writing these files: -------------------------------------------------------------- #file: /etc/ppp/chat-dial # # general chat script for PAP authentication # ABORT 'BUSY' ABORT 'NO CARRIER' ABORT 'NO DIALTONE' '' 'ATZ' 'OK' 'ATDT\T' 'CONNECT' '\c' -------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------- #file: /etc/ppp/peers/TELE2INTERNET # # pppd options for Student Online # /dev/modem defaultroute noipx name x-1168764 #remotename x-1168764 connect "chat -v -T 09397704990 -f /etc/ppp/chat-dial" -------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------- #file /etc/ppp/chap-secrets # Secrets for authentication using CHAP # client server secret IP addresses "x-1168764" * "JSW-YQ-a" -------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------- #file /etc/ppp/pap-secrets # Secrets for authentication using PAP # client server secret IP addresses "x-1168764" * "JSW-YQ-a" -------------------------------------------------------------- and then (as root) using the command; "pppd call TELE2INTERNET". I also had to copy the referenses in /etc/ppp/resolv.conf to /etc/resolv.conf in order for the system to find stuff. Sat, 25 Jun 2005 20:17:19 +0200 I have decided to redesign the layout of my system. To make the best use of the limited disk-space I have to repartition my harddrive, reinstall windows and linux and make sure that all my data is properly backed up. All of this is hard and timeconsuming and it requires meticulous planning. I need a continuous free space of at least 13GB for DV. For windows I'll need 3GB since I can use the 20GB firewire drive for anything but the system. This would leave 14GB for my linux system and home directorys. Currently 14GB is the size of my home-dir alone. Backing up my pictures is a delicate procedure. Not one to be taken lightly. I have just finished writing a backup-cd using k3b. One of the best burning applications I have ever seen. It has the one of the best user-interfaces I have ever experienced. Right now it is "verifying written data". In reinstalling slackware I'll be forced to downgrade one version from 10.1 to 10 which might not be such a bad idea considering that kmail kio_smtp service wasn't compiled with the encryption support needed to download mail from my gmail-account. Sun, 26 Jun 2005 02:50:49 +0200 I have just reinstalled windows and linux - don't you just love that new operating-systems smell? I now have 22GB of free space in linux, I have yet to put my photos on disk though. I used the "full" option when asked about what packages to install so now I probably have everything I will possibly need. I also chose the finnish keymap straight from the installations and onwards. I've just finished installing lilo using my own additions: menu-scheme = Kk:Rk:Kk:Kk menu-title = "---((( compaq_presario_2104ea )))---" Sun, 26 Jun 2005 08:16:30 +0200 I had misplaced my xorg.conf file! so now I had to reconfigure X again. Since the default kernel now is 2.4.26 there's no need to configure the touchpad using the synaptics driver. But it still took a little while to get it working properly. I just installed dictionary support for emacs it was a simple matter of typing make in the directory and then copying all *.el and *.elc files to /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp and then adding these lines to my ~/.emacs file: (load "dictionary-init") (global-set-key "\C-cs" 'dictionary-search) (global-set-key "\C-cm" 'dictionary-match-words) Now I have also installed splint (lint) and had to edit the /etc/profile file adding these lines: /etc/profile -------------------------------------------------------------- # Added after the installation of splint(lint). #path to search for splint libraries and init files LARCH_PATH=/usr/local/share/splint/lib # Directory containing lcl imports LCIMPORTDIR=/usr/local/share/splint/imports export LARCH_PATH LCIPORTDIR -------------------------------------------------------------- installation of firewire support 1. install libraw 1.1.0 prefix=/usr/local 2. install libavc 0.4.1 prefix=/usr/local 3. install lame 3.96.1 prefix=/usr/local 4. install libdv 0.104 prefix=/usr/local 5. install libquicktime 0.9.4 prefix=/usr/local 6. install dvgrab 1.7 prefix=/usr/local running dvgrab failes with the message -------------------------------------------------------------- dvgrab: error while loading shared libraries: libquicktime.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory -------------------------------------------------------------- mental note! run ldconfig after installing libraries even if you think that these libraries used pkg-config that doesn't mean that the application you are running is searching in that way. By the way dvgrab works now. Building mplayer now. 1. install codecs into /usr/local/lib/codecs 2. install skin into /usr/local/share/mplayer/Skin/default 3. install font into /usr/local/share/font 4. ./configure --enable-gui --enable-largefiles --enable-xmms 5. make 6. make install Wed, 29 Jun 2005 20:47:25 +0200 I've been trying to set up my conexant hsf modem for the past couple of days. I was tougher than I had expected. I downloaded the linux-version of the driver from linuxant.org which seems to be conexants linuxdriver and support page. The driver I downloaded is the "free" (as in beer but not freedom) version of the driver that is limited to a datarate of 14kbs with no voice capabilities. After unpacking the file I changed to root and ran "make install" after that I ran the "hsfconfig" command that compiles the driver for you. Alas it failed saying that it needed the .config-file used to build the running kernel (standard slackware 2.4.26) didn't contain the option CONFIG_SERIAL_CORE needed to proceed. So I checked the sources and config files to see where I might enable that feature whatever it is. It turns out that it doesn't exist for that kernel. I decided to try again using a 2.6.10 kernel downloaded from kernel.org (unpatched) and proceed to configure and make that. I had unfortunatly in rearranging my system forgotten to back up my old config file for 2.6.10 so I had to start all over again. I got it right after about 3 attempts! I seem to keep forgetting things! 1. I failed to compile support for the framebuffer properly into the kernel. It won't work properly otherwise since in order to use the modules I so consideratly compiles can't be loaded until the root-partition is mounted. 2. You just won't believe what I did after that! My root partition uses reiserfs but did I include support for it in the new kernel? yes, but as a module!!! where is the kernel supposed to find the proper module to mount the root partition? That's right ON THE BOOT PARITION! I have promised myself NEVER to forget to compile into the kernel support for the root-filesystem again... EVER! 3. After I successfully booted my brand new kernel I continued to install the modem drivers my running hsfconfig again. This time it failed because in some sort of crazy overzealous fit I had instructed, while configuring it, the kernel to use 4K pages. This just didn't work with hsfconfig. back to the coalmine! Now after all that my system is finally up and running. But a couple of problems has already said hello. As I have written in this log previously (21 Feb) the "man" command has started to fail in various was. I am also not able to open up xterm nor rxvt. Now I have changed the file "/etc/udev/rules.d/udev.rules". Then I ran "/etc/rc.d/rc.udev" as root, shutdown X, logged out of the shell, logged in again and started up X. xterm still will not work and gives these error messages: -------------------------------------------------------------- xterm: Error 32, errno 2: No such file or directory Reason: get_pty: not enough ptys -------------------------------------------------------------- Perhaps it'll work once I reboot. The modem works now and I have used it to connect to my ISP. Now all I have to do is figure out how to use dynamically set dns servers or define a couple that will always work. "Xterm" works now as does "man" ! Using kppp in X I got the the following dns servers (with tele2): 130.244.127.169 130.244.127.161 kppp seems to fail over and over again. Thu, 30 Jun 2005 17:18:08 +0200 Changed the permissions on /dev/fb0 to o+rw. I just added the line: "echo 1024 > /proc/sys/dev/rtc/max-user-freq" to my /etc/rc.d/rc.local script (for mplayer). MPlayer crashes badly when attemping to display video on the framebuffer. The linux consoles are starting to act funny. the screen turns interleaved and doesn't update properly. It seems to be over now. Something similar happened when I installed last time. I don't understand this. Sat, 02 Jul 2005 06:42:38 +0200 Recompiled the kernel again last night.I compiled agpgart as a module and removed all the dvb modules (I really don't need them). except for: -------------------------------------------------------------- floppy0: no floppy controllers found ALSA device list: No soundcards found. -------------------------------------------------------------- There are no error messages. I'm now rebuilding my modem driver since I have switched kernels. I can now connect to my ISP. I don't know what whas wrong the last time but I removed any option that wasn't recommended and now it works. Direct Memory Access is now turned on my harddrive it wasn't previously. After recompiling mplayer like this: -------------------------------------------------------------- ./configure --enable-gui --enable-largefiles make make install -------------------------------------------------------------- it can play my dvfiles like it used to. Perhaps another case of excessive use of uneeded options (I tried enabling everything I could previously). Still can't play movies using the framebuffer though. Sun, 03 Jul 2005 19:08:44 +0200 Strange things happen when I try to use the vesa video-out option under the console. The console was split into two clones with extremely small characters in green. I have just changed the default console-font to iso01-12x22. It is an absolutely enormous font but it's nice for a change. All I have to do is to add which ever font I'd like to use in the file: file: /etc/rc.d/rc.font -------------------------------------------------------------- #!/bin/sh # # This selects your default screen font from among the ones in # /usr/share/kbd/consolefonts. # setfont -v iso01-12x22 -------------------------------------------------------------- Mon, 04 Jul 2005 20:35:12 +0200 I just changed fonts again, using the method described above I switched to using the font named m.fnt.gz (m for short) all consolefonts are stored in /usr/share/kbd/consolefonts/. This new font is very futuristic and plain, I like it. Wed, 06 Jul 2005 20:41:28 +0200 I am building the bluez packages. 1. bluez-libs configure --prefix=/usr/local make make install During the "make install" I got this message: -------------------------------------------------------------- Libraries have been installed in: /usr/local/lib If you ever happen to want to link against installed libraries in a given directory, LIBDIR, you must either use libtool, and specify the full pathname of the library, or use the `-LLIBDIR' flag during linking and do at least one of the following: - add LIBDIR to the `LD_LIBRARY_PATH' environmentvariable during execution - add LIBDIR to the `LD_RUN_PATH' environment variable during linking - use the `-Wl,--rpath -Wl,LIBDIR' linker flag - have your system administrator add LIBDIR to `/etc/ld.so.conf' See any operating system documentation about shared libraries for more information, such as the ld(1) and ld.so(8) manual pages. -------------------------------------------------------------- 2. bluez-utils configure --prefix=/usr/local make make install 3. bluez-hciemu configure --prefix=/usr/local make install 4. bluez-firmware configure --prefix=/usr/local make install 5. bluez-hciddump configure --prefix=/usr/local make install 6. bluez-pin I waited with this one since there seemed to be a copy of the program distributed in the bluez-utils package. 7. openobex configure --prefix=/usr/local make make install again this message -------------------------------------------------------------- Libraries have been installed in: /usr/local/lib If you ever happen to want to link against installed libraries in a given directory, LIBDIR, you must either use libtool, and specify the full pathname of the library, or use the `-LLIBDIR' flag during linking and do at least one of the following: - add LIBDIR to the `LD_LIBRARY_PATH' environmentvariable during execution - add LIBDIR to the `LD_RUN_PATH' environment variable during linking - use the `-Wl,--rpath -Wl,LIBDIR' linker flag - have your system administrator add LIBDIR to `/etc/ld.so.conf' See any operating system documentation about shared libraries for more information, such as the ld(1) and ld.so(8) manual pages. -------------------------------------------------------------- 8. openobex-apps configure --prefix=/usr/local make make install 9. opd make: returned and error and could not be built. -------------------------------------------------------------- gcc -o opd -I. main.o lib.o obex_handler.o -lopenobex\ -lbluetooth -lsdp /usr/lib/gcc-lib/i486-slackware-linux/3.3.4/../../../../i486-\ slackware-linux/bin/ld: cannot find -lsdp collect2: ld returned 1 exit status make: *** [opd] Error 1 -------------------------------------------------------------- 10. ussp-push make all cp ussp-push /usr/local/bin that's it I think. I just tried compiling opd (program for recieving files over a bluetooth connection). The command line: "gcc -o opd main.o lib.o obex_handler.o -lopenobex -lbluetooth -lsdp" failed see above. so what I did was simply to remove the "-sdpd" option all together, and it worked! then I copied the opd binary to /usr/local/bin. after starting the entire bluetooth system I run: opd --sdp --channel 3. And the send the file over from the cell-phone. In order to send from the computer I use ussp-push like this: -------------------------------------------------------------- $ussp-push @ . -------------------------------------------------------------- To recieve files from another device run opd like this: -------------------------------------------------------------- opd --sdp --channel 3 -------------------------------------------------------------- This is what the output to the terminal looks like after a successfull run of opd: -------------------------------------------------------------- HEADER_LENGTH = 5059 Filename = /tmp/xorg.conf Wrote /tmp/xorg.conf (5059 bytes) obex_event: 1 3( EV_REQDONE) 2( CMD_PUT) 0 obex_event: 1 1( EV_REQHINT) 1(CMD_DISCONNECT) 0 obex_event: 1 2( EV_REQ) 1(CMD_DISCONNECT) 0 opd[5849]: OBEX disconnect from 00:0F:DE:66:D0:40 obex_event: 1 3( EV_REQDONE) 1(CMD_DISCONNECT) 0 obex_event: 1 4( EV_LINKERR) 0( CMD_CONNECT) 0 opd[5849]: lost link to 00:0F:DE:66:D0:40 opd[5849]: Terminating .. opd[5849]: service unregistered with sdpd -------------------------------------------------------------- It seems that the program is functioning properly even though I removed the "-lsdp" option when compiling it. Perhaps one doesn't have to define it on the commandline in order for it to link properly? Thu, 07 Jul 2005 18:39:42 +0200 The permissions for the framebuffer device /dev/fb0 are reset every boot, because of this I have to change the permissions every time I boot. /etc/udev/permissions.d/udev.permissions -------------------------------------------------------------- # fb devices fb:root:root:0600 fb[0-9]*:root:root:0600 fb/*:root:root:0600 -------------------------------------------------------------- In this file I changed the middle entry to 0666! It didn't work the device is still unreachable by a normal user. So I tried changing all the entries to 0666 and the I tried to update the dynamic devices which unfortunatly only resulted in gpm losing it and the framebuffer being unavailable. After rebooting the framebuffer works for me! Mplayer still won't work though but "links -driver fb" will. Fri, 08 Jul 2005 17:24:05 +0200 I have just meddled a bit with the bluetooth subsystem. I have added rc.bluetooth to the /etc/rc.d dir. Now hcid and sdpd are started automatically at boot time. NOTE TO SELF: perhaps instead of writing down the full name of my cell-phone and that of my computer I might create two envionment varibles instead. Sat, 09 Jul 2005 08:10:29 +0200 I've added my cellphone's bt-adress to the variable $K700i. My computer uses the udev system so device files are created and removed as they are needed. Sometimes devices that I have created manually dissapear after a reboot, this is due to the udev system. All devices aren't included from scratch so if you want to add your own one must add it to the udev system. This was the problem I had previously with the framebuffer device, after booting I had to change the permissions of the framebuffer device in order for an ordinary user to access it. The permission for dynamic devices are stored in "/etc/udev/permissions.d/udev.permissions". If you want your changes to be permanent you have to make them there. See above "Thu, 07 jul". Since "ppp call gprs" command doesn't actively talk to rfcomm (the program responsible for setting up serial links and such) but only uses the "/dev/rfcomm0" device-file the udev-system never notices that anything was going on and the device-file was never created. Because of this I'll have to create some sort of wrapper-script that makes sure that the module "rfcomm" is loaded and the command "rfcomm connect 0 $K700i 2" is run before proceeding with the dialing-process. Tue, 12 Jul 2005 00:03:02 +0200 I've just installed atitvout. It doesn't run perfectly but It'll do. atitvout -f l turns the LCD screen on atitvout -f t turns the TV display on. atitvout -f tl is supposed to turn them both on but it doesn't work with my adapter. I have yet to figure out how to make the program use PAL. and I don't have any colour yet. I'll have to make a "screen" setting in my xorg.conf file that works better with a TV. Wed, 13 Jul 2005 22:27:01 +0200 I was connected to the internet today. 24 Mbits/sec down 1 Mbit/sec up. Thu, 14 Jul 2005 20:29:25 +0200 FINALLY found out how to make my usb-connected mouse act the way it is supposed to. I have had problems with it tripple and quad-clicking. Not to mention its generally nervous behaviour. ALL IS NOW SOLVED. I used the usb driver instead of the ps2 or IMPS2 drivers in /etc/X11/xorg.conf. now the mouse works beautyfully. /etc/X11/xorg.conf -------------------------------------------------------------- Section "InputDevice" Identifier "Mouse1" Driver "mouse" Option "Protocol" "usb" # "PS/2" Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice" Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5" EndSection -------------------------------------------------------------- Sat, 16 Jul 2005 21:19:15 +0200 Just installed firestarter ,a gui firewall app that configures iptables and generates iptable-rules. I intend to start it at boot time with the option -s. # start the firewall - no gui! firestarter -s If I have to reconfigure anything I would simply type (in X): firestarter and the gui would appear. After generating scripts, another option, the program blurted out to the black screen: -------------------------------------------------------------- root@darkstar:~# firestarter --generate-scripts ./ Firewall script saved as /usr/local/etc/firestarter/firewall Adding Firestarter startup hook to /etc/dhcpc/dhcpcd-eth0.exe root@darkstar:~# -------------------------------------------------------------- I'm not sure what the startup hook is! hopefully it will start the firewall automatically from now on. But I'll have to check that out. /etc/dhcpc/dhcpcd-eth0.exe -------------------------------------------------------------- sh /usr/local/etc/firestarter/firestarter.sh start #!/bin/sh echo "(dhcpcd) IP address changed to $1" | logger -------------------------------------------------------------- As it turns out firestarter added a line at the top of the line, BEFORE the sha-bang!!!! This might have caused some problems when the file is run so I changet it to: /etc/dhcpc/dhcpcd-eth0.exe -------------------------------------------------------------- sh /usr/local/etc/firestarter/firestarter.sh start #!/bin/sh echo "(dhcpcd) IP address changed to $1" | logger -------------------------------------------------------------- For good measure. Sat, 16 Jul 2005 23:36:36 +0200 I have rebooted and I can report that it didn't work. The firewall did not start automatically. So I'll have to add it to the startup-scripts Sun, 17 Jul 2005 19:00:59 +0200 Gnumeric (spreadsheet app) failed to start, complaining about not finding libgsf-gnome-1.so.1. After checking with slackpkg (slackware package updating tool) I saw that I had the library installed already so I made a symbolic link called libgsf-gnome-1.so.1 pointing to the library I had called libgsf-1.so.1.12.1. And voilà it starts. Updating slackware IS HELL! Tue, 19 Jul 2005 18:40:52 +0200 I just installed libmpeg3: mpeg3dump | mpeg3toc |---> /usr/bin mpeg3cat | I tried with prefix=/usr/local but I ignored it. All in all I'm trying to install: cinelerra-1.2.2-src.tar.bz2 libmpeg3-1.5.4-src.tar.bz2 mix2005-1.0.0-src.tar.bz2 quicktime4linux-2.0.4-src.tar.bz2 I just checked the output of "cat /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THRM/temperature" which showed 90C! I have been capturing video for tha last half hour. Or should I say 45 minutes. The second grab for today is finished. First I tried to grab using the format "raw". but it proved to big for my poor 30GB disk.The only problem now is the last piece of file wich runs at fast forward. Perhaps a common fenomena considering that the last couple of minutes is not to be relied upon. Thu, 21 Jul 2005 00:12:20 +0200 I have successfully made my first little steps towards building a correct svcd. First I used cinelerra to convert the dv file to the correct format, unfortunatly it devided the film into one audio track and one video track. After rendering these two tracks I had to use mplex to merge the two files together. @Console -------------------------------------------------------------- $mplex -f 4 -b 300 -r 2750 audio.mpeg video.mpeg -o svcd_out.mpeg -------------------------------------------------------------- When this was done I proceeded to make the vcd image using a GNU tool conveniently named vcdimager. Again while trying to build it "configure" complained that it could not find the libcdio library that I had just installed. It told me to add the path of the directory containing the libcdio.pc file to the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable so I did. and then it compiled. @Console -------------------------------------------------------------- $vcdimager --type=svcd --iso-volume-label="MY_TEST_CD" svcd_out.mpeg -------------------------------------------------------------- Now all that remained was to burn it down. @Console -------------------------------------------------------------- $cdrdao write --device /dev/hdc --speed 8 videocd.cue -------------------------------------------------------------- Then trying it out. @Console -------------------------------------------------------------- $mplayer vcd://1 -------------------------------------------------------------- It worked! "Copied and Pasted from www.videohelp.com/svcd#struct" -------------------------------------------------------------- PAL Video: max 2600 kbit/sec MPEG-2 (Audio + Video bitrate max bitrate is 2778 kbit/s). 480 x 576 pixels (CVD 352x576) 25 frames/second with up to 4 Selectable CVD or SVCD Subtitles Audio: 44100 Hz 32 - 384 kbit/sec MPEG-1 Layer2 or MPEG2 Audio with up to 2 Audio Tracks Extra : Menus and chapters. Still pictures 704x576,352x288 -------------------------------------------------------------- NTSC (NTSC Film) Video: max 2600 kbit/sec MPEG-2 (Audio + Video bitrate max bitrate is 2778 kbit/s). 480 x 480 pixels (CVD 352x480) 29,97 frames/second 23,976 frames/second with 3:2 pulldown (NTSC Film) with up to 4 Selectable CVD or SVCD Subtitles Audio: 44100 Hz 32 - 384 kbit/sec MPEG-1 Layer2 or MPEG2 Audio with up to 2 Audio Tracks Extra : Menus and chapters. Still pictures 704x480,352x240 -------------------------------------------------------------- I'm trying to use mplayer (mencoder) now to make the mpegs, but it is not easy. mencoder commandline -------------------------------------------------------------- $mencoder -of mpeg -oac lavc -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg2video:aspect=4/3:acodec=mp2:abitrate=384 -vf scale=480:-2 -srate 44100 -o tjenare.mpeg vid/dv/minidv-2-2004.06.06_18-32-06.avi -------------------------------------------------------------- Thu, 21 Jul 2005 08:23:26 +0200 Messed around a bit with xorg.conf configurations. Using the radeon man page I have made a better configuration than I had before. I have been able to run glxgears with a framerate of about 424 FPS. Previously I have had one of about 330 FPS. The framerate of the Atlantic screensaver is now at 31 FPS when it used to be at 28. So progress is made. Fri, 22 Jul 2005 00:33:44 +0200 Found an excellent resource in the documetation at www.mplayerhq.hu. Their documentation contains almost complete instructions for how to build vcd/svcd/dvds. 02:37:00 This is by far the worst mistake I have ever made on this computer. While using Xfce4 file-manager I accidentally removed everything from my home-dir that wasn't nailed down, that's to say everything I could write to. I have deleted all of the recent photos (non backed up ones)! And this is a total disaster. After a quick google I found a site with what I hope will be the solution: "reiserfsck --rebuild-tree -S -l /root/recovery.log /dev/hda2". I have booted into knoppix version 3.6 and ran the command (it has to run when the drive in question is unmounted, and since /dev/hda2 is my root partition...) I am now waiting for it to complete. Sat, 23 Jul 2005 11:49:52 +0200 I installed fbi today. I tried before using the standalone package (with only fbi) which didn't compile so I tried the complete package from http://dl.bytesex.org/releases/fbida/ that contains fbi framebuffer imageviewer fbigs wrapper to view pdf/ps files ida imageviewer for X exiftran ? fallback.pl ? thumbnail.cgi thumbnail maker Which compiled but the ida program seems to be buggy. fbi doesn't display as many colours as it used to. I'll have to check that out. fbi works with atleast bmp jpeg png xpm's Thu, 28 Jul 2005 22:52:19 +0200 I have made 3 cds containing photographs. I'm on the fourth and final backup. just to be sure I have decided in light of recent events to make a second backup. of all of my photos. Sat, 30 Jul 2005 23:19:53 +0200 Installed the hpoj driver and it detected the scanner-functionality of my hp psc 2410 (Printer Scanner Copier) machine! yeah! Since I don't have your normal sysV init-scripts (slackware uses a bsd style scheme) I'll have to make sure that the hpoj-driver is started before cups myself. I don't know how to shut it down properly when the system shuts down or is rebooted. Sun, 31 Jul 2005 19:00:39 +0200 Printing does not work with firefox so I intend to replace the default command for printing: cupsdoprint ${MOZ_PRINTER_NAME:+'-P'}${MOZ_PRINTER_NAME} with my own simple cupsdoprint Fri, 05 Aug 2005 21:14:33 +0200 I just extracted the game black&white to my harddrive using wine, I'm now trying to install it. The installation file happened to be a .bat file and wine could not execute it so I google'd and found! the command wcmd (the wine command interpreter). It seems to work similarly to the dos-prompt. Nothing seems to happen when I run the batch-file... -------------------------------------------------------------- $wine wcmd /c setup.bat -------------------------------------------------------------- However my processor is working at a 99% constantly now so perhaps something will happen. Using the INSTALL.EXE on the cd didn't quit seem to make so i down loaded a program called unace and proceeded to unace the files manually and now I seemingly crucial file (black.uha) is executable. Mon, 08 Aug 2005 20:05:15 +0200 Success! I have produced a working svcd with excellent quality using ffmpeg. I grabbed the dv using dvgrab and then converted the file using ffmpeg: -------------------------------------------------------------- $dvgrab --size 7500 --timestamp -------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------- $ffmpeg -i -deinterlace -target pal-svcd -------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------- $vcdimager --type=svcd --iso-volume-label="MY_TEST_CD" \ scvd_out.mpeg -------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------- $ cdrdao write --device /dev/hdc video.cue -------------------------------------------------------------- Wed, 10 Aug 2005 09:12:30 +0200 After recompiling the kernel ,without excessive debuggins support, the cpu load during dvgrabbing is at a steady 10% instead of 99% (as before). Now I can encode the first dv-file when its ready instead of having to wait until everthings been ripped. I modified: /etc/udev/rules.d/udev.rules -------------------------------------------------------------- # raw devices KERNEL="raw[0-9]*", NAME="raw/%k", GROUP="disk" SYMLINK="%k" MODE="0666" \ KERNEL="ram*", NAME="%k", GROUP="disk" -------------------------------------------------------------- SYMLINK="%k" means that a symlink will be created in the /dev directory MODE="0666" sets the permissions for the devices in /dev/raw. I THINK! we'll see. Wed 17 Aug 2005 10:57:05 AM CEST I'm now using Fedora Core 4 as my operating system. MY FIREWIRE DRIVE IS NOW IN WORKING ORDER!!!!!!!!! or so it seems ;-) /etc/modprobe.conf -------------------------------------------------------------- options sbp2 serialize_io=1 -------------------------------------------------------------- this means that whenever the sbp2 module is loaded using modprobe, modprobe loads the module with the arguments " serialize_io=1". This seems to have solved the problem with the drive hanging after a very slow transfer (always). the framerate when running glxgears has been lower than it was when I was using slackware but now (after installing everyting with the word gl in it) it is up to 472.200 FPS (under GNOME) and the atlantis screensaver runs at about 38FPS when I ran glxgears under an xterm it went up to 480FPS. when running glxgears with 640x480 resolution I Got 580FPS Sat 08 Oct 2005 02:55:45 PM CEST I have been lazy in writing to this file for a while. I'll have change that. I had some trouble playing back a videofile I downloaded from the digibarn computer museum. mplayer would play back the video allright but mplayer could not find the audio codec (QDM2). Bearing in mind that I'm using the stock fedora mplayer-packages I went to the mplayer website and downloaded the "all" codecs package. after this audio worked! Sat, 15 Oct 2005 10:55:02 +0200 I discovered the barcode application yesterday. The command: $ barcode -o foo.ps -b will produce a postscript document with a barcode corresponding the provided string at the bottom of the page. Mon, 07 Nov 2005 16:20:04 +0100 Trying to find alternative software to connect to my mothers vnc-server. I used to use a vncviewer for kde that had many smart features, but I can't seem to find it on fedora. I found that the "kdenetwork"-package was not installed on my machine so I'm installing it now to see if I can find the app. After looking around for a bit I came across a few programs that would do the trick: vncviewer - realvnc. tsclient - Terminal Server Client. ssh - Secure Shell. krdc - Kde Remote Desktop Connection. krfb - Kde Remote Desktop Sharing. Tue, 08 Nov 2005 08:54:08 +0100 The thing that I like about fedora is that almost everything is packaged for it. In using this distro instead of my usual slackware I have avoided alot of trouble. When it comes to the standard things like evolution and games like torcs it has been a breeze to track and install software. This rpm based distro has some drawbacks though. It doesn't feel as accesible when it comes to system configuration. fedora is also based on gnome, that can be a configuration nightmare (as can kde). I had a lot of trouble after I had edited the gnome-menu. emacs has an extreemely annoying habit of asking me to add a new line at the end of the document whenever i try to close a file. I don't know where to turn this off. Sun, 19 Nov 2005 11:23:05 +0100 I couldn't understand in what file I was supposed to insert the option "serialize_io=1" into. after some googling I found that the file to alter under ubuntu is "/etc/modules". I simply added the option after the already present entry of sbp2. I could not get the proper permissions when hotplugging the firewire drive. I had to change the owner of the "/media"-folder to myself. Sun, 20 Nov 2005 11:38:04 +0100 I have noticed that the transferspeeds between ubuntu and the external fw-drive are not as good as they were under fedora. Installing Info pages. 1. cd into /usr/share/info 2. copy the info-file (still gzipped) into current dir. 3. issued the command "install-info " And voilà In this instance I had to edit the file before installing it. the file refered to (eintro) suppesedly the name of the info-file. However the name is actually (emacs-lisp-intro) [file name without the trailing ".info.gz"] so I changed it. by using the command "make debian" as root when installing the emacs dictionary tarball I created a debian-package in the directory directly above. I moved it to /home/d/soft/deb and installed it with "dpkg --install ". Tue, 13 Dec 2005 00:11:41 +0100 X FAILED TO WORK WITH THE RESTRICTED BINARY DRIVERS. /etc/X11/xorg.conf ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Section "Module" # Load "GLcore" Load "i2c" Load "bitmap" Load "ddc" # Load "dri" Load "extmod" Load "freetype" Load "glx" Load "int10" Load "type1" Load "vbe" EndSection Eventhough the file looked like this X refused to start. After reinstalling and uninstalling nothing seemed to work, until I unplugged the tv. Fri, 16 Dec 2005 16:35:40 +0100 I now know how to add a script to the startup-scripts using ubuntu. 1. add the script to the directory "/etc/init.d/" . 2. run "update-rc.d defaults" This is supposed to add links to the script to be started in runlevel 2,3,4,5. And puts links to runlevels 0,1,6 to stop the scripts. Sat, 17 Dec 2005 11:59:19 +0100 After deleting images from the camera (DiMAGE G500i) and turning it off and on again I got the following errror message: SYSTEM ERROR 01046 04474 I don't know what this means but I figured it was best to write it down. Sun, 18 Dec 2005 14:21:31 +0100 to convert between different text encodings use: -------------------------------------------------------------- $iconv --from-code=UTF-( --to-code=ISO-8859-1 ./infile.html > ./outfile.html --------------------------------------------------------------