stick online

Arch Linux Screenshots

2011-03-21T14:39:00.008+01:00

Reposted from the Arch Linux forums, my March 2011 screenshot set:

Clean:

Busy:

FVWM Config
Conky Config
.Xdefaults
.bashrc

FVWM with xcompmgr; background from NASA. Conky, rxvt-unicode, and the usual*.

*It's a new usual. Yes, I've run Fedora for the last eight or so years, but I've just switched to Arch Linux in the last month or so and I love every minute of it.

Three Annoyances In Fedora 12

2010-04-19T03:10:00.004+02:00

First, empathy, the new default chat client, does video. But to make it work seamlessly with your friends who use GoogleTalk on Windows, you'll need all the gstreamer plugins. Here's how to get them:

sudo yum install gstreamer-ffmpeg gstreamer-plugins-* -x *devel -x *docs

Second, Google Earth is a pretty sweet program. But to make it run on 64-bit linux, you need some compatibility stuff added in. Here's how to get it working, courtesy of bigjim-network - the command he used on Fedora 11 is modified here for Fedora 12:

sudo yum install glibc.i686 libxml2.i686 freetype.i686 libXrender.i686 libXrandr.i686 mesa-libGL.i686 libcanberra-gtk2.i686 bug-buddy.i686 PackageKit-gtk-module.i686

If you have an nVidia card, you'll want to do the following as well:

sudo yum install xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-libs.i686

And for an ATI card, use this (untested by me):

sudo yum install xorg-x11-drv-catalyst-libs.i686

Update 26 May 2010: I just tried to install it on Fedora 13, and I got the error below:

./googleearth-bin: error while loading shared libraries: ./libminizip.so: cannot restore segment prot after reloc: Permission denied

To fix it, run this command:

sudo chcon -t textrel_shlib_t /opt/google-earth/*.so

Third, if you've got the less awesome startup screen - the plain black screen with a blue bar turning white at the bottom - kernel modesetting will allow you to have the full plymouth graphical boot. Add the proper "vga=XYZ" to the end of your kernel line(s) in /etc/grub.conf. The mode for MacBooks and other screens at 1280x800 resolution is "vga=865".

Small things, but perhaps important ones. If you're not a linux user and you think this post was dumb, here's a picture from the interwebs.

Anything is possible when your dead badgers run linux.

Google Chrome?

2010-02-09T16:29:00.006+01:00

After reading several articles about Chrome on Lifehacker this week, I decided it was time to try Google's browser again. And I think I might keep it.

I've been a die-hard Firefox user since way back when it was called Phoenix (that was before Firebird) and I can't stand browsing the web without my beloved AdBlock. But Chrome is changing things; it does (almost) everything Firefox does!

AdBlock: Now on Chrome. "Blocks ads all over the web."
AutoPager: Works in Chrome. "Automatically loads the next page of a site inline when you reach the end of the current page for infinite scrolling of content."
Find-As-You-Type: There's an extension for that. "Find text or links as you type."
FlagFox: Better on Chrome. "Displays country or region name, Google PageRank, Alexa Rank and WOT information for the websites you're visiting."
Ghostery: Coming soon to Chrome. "Alerts you about the web bugs, ad networks and widgets on every page on the web."
Greasemonkey: Mostly good in Chrome. "Allows you to customize the way a webpage displays using small bits of JavaScript."

Really the only thing I'm missing is FireGPG, but with Thunderbird 3 and Enigmail, I'm good to go for email and encryption... so yeah, Chrome it is. Can you say way faster, and 100/100 on Acid3?

RealCrypt == TrueCrypt in Fedora

2010-01-28T19:29:00.003+01:00

So, I didn't know this, and I've been installing TrueCrypt from source every time I update my system, but via a comment on this guide page I found out that RealCrypt is a rebranded version of TrueCrypt that's available in the RPMFusion repository. Hello, encrypted files (with no compiling required).

Just thought I'd share the knowledge since it's Data Privacy Day.

You Are Insecure

2010-01-23T00:15:00.002+01:00

This post brought to you by writer's block. If you'd like, find the Skribit box in the sidebar on the right and give me something to write about!

You're reading this blog, which means that you're using the internet. Which means your data is insecure. If you don't believe me, here's some evidence. Read it, and you'll want to lock yourself in an internet-free box for the rest of time... until you get bored with no Twitter. If you want more information, two books I'm reading through that cover the topic pretty extensively are Googling Security by Greg Conti and Steal This Computer Book 4.0 by Wally Wang

For starters, I bet all your software isn't up to date. Mozilla just released Firefox 3.6 - have you upgraded? Microsoft released an out-of-cycle patch this week, and there are already exploits all over the place - are you protected?
Are you using a laptop? Is its hard drive encrypted? If not, what happens if you lose it? What happens when someone else finds it? It might not be millions of social security numbers, but it could mean your credit card data....
What about thumbdrives? Is the data on your data stick encrypted?
Ever wondered how email works? It sends your message across two, five, ten, maybe twenty other computers before it reaches the destination you put in the "To:" box. What happens if someone compromises one of those computers and starts reading your email? Will they find it in plain text, or do you encrypt whenever possible?

Do you use secure passwords? Most people don't. Do you use just one password for every account you have? Lots of people do. Makes it pretty easy to steal your data if one password (especially an easy one like "12345") gets someone into every account you have.
Do the websites you trust actually care about protecting your password? Your account? Your privacy? (Hint: no.)
What if all your online activity could be traced back to you via your IP address? It can - just like email, it crosses all kinds of other computers before getting to you. Are you using anonymizing tools like Tor/Privoxy to protect your web surfing from snoopers? Do you even know how much data is being collected at every page you visit?

Google releases Chrome for Linux!

2009-12-08T14:31:00.001+01:00

Get it now!

Browser Wars Revisited

2009-10-08T00:47:00.005+02:00

Back in June I tried out Opera 10 and nine other browsers, eventually coming to rest back on my favorite, Firefox, despite the fact that Opera performed much better on the Acid3 test. Yesterday, after finding Fedora packages (repod, no less!) of Chromium, I had to try it. Just for fun, I also pulled Fedora's package of Arora, an ad-blocking browser recently reviewed by Lifehacker.

Chromium, which I've been waiting to try out, is definitely the best browser of the three. It renders fastest (runs way fastest), gets 100/100 on the Acid3 test with a couple of small errors, and is generally pretty sweet. However, I have two big issues. First, extensions. See my treatment of Firefox below. Second, the "Other Bookmarks" button that's ridiculously huge and can't be removed. Google, what are you people thinking?! Everything else in Chrome's interface is beautiful - small, icon-type functional buttons placed well. But you have a text button that's more than an inch long on my small screen, and I can't change the name, hide the button, or replace it with an icon. Stupid.
Arora is pretty much what it says it is. It's a browser that includes Adblock Plus functionality without an extension. Not really sure why Lifehacker even worked it in, except that they like having twenty posts per day. Arora isn't any faster than Firefox, and even though it uses the WebKit rendering engine of Chrome/Safari fame (which I think Firefox should just hurry up and use already), it doesn't get 100 on the Acid3 test. Nothing to see here, move along.
Yep, I'm once again sticking to Firefox. Adblock Plus, AutoPager, Delicious Bookmarks, Download Statusbar, Fission, Flagfox, Ghostery, Greasemonkey, Tiny Menu, and Wishpot (all extensions) are too much to give up when Chrome's UI isn't fixable. When I last tested it, Firefox got 73/100 on Acid3; now it gets 93. I do wish they'd hurry up and just adopt WebKit... but that might be one browser to rule them all, and then they'd get drunk with power and become completely evil....

Cyber Security Awareness Month

2009-10-06T19:14:00.006+02:00

Just a quick blurb of good reading today in honor of Cyber Securityhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif Awareness month (via the Official Google Blog)....

First, update all your software. Seriously. Run updates on everything.
If you're using IE, stop right now and go get a better browser. I use Firefox (since Chrome Just Doesn't Work™ on Fedora yet... actually, I just found this article that says it does, so I'll be trying this), and Mozilla has a pretty nifty little utility to make sure your plugins are updated as well.
Mac users, ya'll aren't immune. (No, I don't know what you should do about it, I just wanted to make sure you knew.)
And neither are us Linux geeks. If you're a "sloppy Linux admin," you're leaving yourself (and your people) at risk.
If you really want to be secure, here's a set of guides from the NSA for securing a lot of common operating systems.
Last thing - remember, there are other ways of having your security compromised that don't involve having your computer hacked. People can find out a lot from Facebook.

Fedora 11 is BACK!

2009-07-15T03:09:00.004+02:00

I discovered yesterday after deciding to check in on the state of Fedora 11 on aluminum MacBooks that they have the trackpad working now! And it doesn't even require any editing of fdi policy files, it Just Works(TM). You may recall my dismay at Fedora 11's poor showing when I first installed it, but with the touchpad working it was too good to resist. So I promptly pulled out my Fedora 11 netinstall CD and went to work. It's nice to be able to use my printer again and feel more secure with full-disk encryption. The reason I made the trip over to Derek Hildreth's excellent guide was that I saw an article on Phoronix which, while proving Ubuntu 9.04 and Fedora 11 neck-and-neck in performance, extolled the virtures of Fedora 11's etx4 filesystem and newer kernel. So I'm back with Fedora 11 on my MacBook, and while Ubuntu was nice, I've been using Fedora since Fedora Core 4 and it just feels like home.

Ubuntu On A MacBook 5,1

2009-06-19T00:21:00.014+02:00

After posting my short review of Ubuntu 9.04 a couple of days ago, I felt that I had not done justice to it, nor to the effort I've poured into learning it. This post will attempt to both provide interested parties (myself included) with a complete reference, and chronicle my missteps in a (hopefully temporary) migration to Ubuntu.

First, set up your partitioning. I've been dual-booting Fedora 10 and Mac OS X on my MacBook for a pretty good while, so this was already done. If your MacBook has only OS X, you'll want to follow the guide here to set up dual-booting with BootCamp, or if you're sure Ubuntu is for you, then follow this guide to set up for single-booting. As I mentioned, I had Fedora 11 in a separate partition already, so I didn't need to do any partitioning. At this point, be sure that you install rEFIt in OS X for dual-booting. If you want Ubuntu (or whatever you're putting on your MacBook) to boot by default, uncomment the "legacyfirst" item at the end of refit.conf.

Now, go get Ubuntu. If you've got a MacBook and you're reading this site using said MacBook, I recommend using BitTorrent, but you can also order a free CD or DVD. There are several options for which disk to order or which image download. I have installed Ubuntu to my MacBook using the Desktop and Alternate CDs. I tried using the "Minimal" CD - it doesn't work. I downloaded it after reading this post about Ubuntu-Desktop-Minimal, but at the end of the installation it fails to correctly install the kernel. I later found that the Alternate install disk allows you to chose a command-line system install which results in a similarly minimalist system. I recommend the Alternate install disk for minimal installations and also for anyone who wants to encrypt any part of their hard disk in Ubuntu. As I will detail later, full disk encryption breaks the trackpad on the aluminum MacBook, but the Alternate disk allows you to at least encrypt the home directory of your first user.

During the install, I chose to use four partitions as follows:

/boot, 100MB
/, 10GB
/home, as big as possible
swap, 2GB

If you have more than 2GB of ram in your MacBook, you'll want more than 2GB swap; with a laptop, you need an equal amount of swap space as ram to store an image for resuming from hibernation. If you don't think you'll ever reinstall your system, or you don't care, you can also leave out the separate /home partition and just make / as big as possible. Partition it however you want; I know plenty of people who break out /usr, /var, and /tmp as well. Install the boot loader on /dev/sda; rEFIt will handle it best there.

***NOTE: Do not encrypt anything at this stage. If you opt for full-disk encryption, you'll need to be able to type in a password during boot. The keyboard, which runs off the usbhid driver, will be unusable during the boot sequence if you want your trackpad to work. I want my trackpad to work, and I also want encryption. Encryption works (the linked guide is great), and the computer works until you blacklist usbhid; then it doesn't work. You'll have to reinstall your system because no USB keyboard will work and there is no PS/2 port on the MacBook.

After installation, you'll want to follow the Ubuntu community guide for MacBooks and Jaunty; it's pretty thorough and makes everything work. I had to fiddle around with the trackpad configuration file they provide to make it meet my expectations, but overall it's a good guide. If you went the route I did and installed a command-line system from the Alternate disk, you'll want to plug in an ethernet connection and run the first command from the Ubuntu-Desktop-Minimal script to set up a GNOME environment, and to enable laptop mode as in the guide for battery saving, you'll need the package acpi-support as well. Last thing the guide skips over is installing flash and DVD playback. Luckily, flash is installed the same way as in Fedora 10, and libdvdcss2 is available for easy download. I modified the minimal desktop command heavily to get my preferred FVWM desktop up and running as well. You'll have to add the Dropbox Ubuntu repositories before you can run it.

sudo apt-get install conky fast-user-switch-applet fvwm gimp keepassx mrxvt nautilus-actions nautilus-cd-burner nautilus-dropbox nautilus-image-converter nautilus-open-terminal network-manager pidgin pidgin-otr transmission trayer vim-gtk vlc wireless-tools x11-xfs-utils xfs

I found a "tutorial" on installing SELinux in Ubuntu 8.04, which purported to work for 9.04 as well, but I haven't seen any indication that SELinux is working and apt-get wants to remove it for me any chance it gets, so I don't recommend SELinux at this point. I haven't had a chance to look into AppArmor, but whatever.

The NotifyOSD package in Jaunty provides slick system-wide notifications for pidgin, firefox, transmission, and other apps, but they're too slick ("wow, what a disaster"). I recommend removing the package and sticking with the regular notification-daemon package, since it is configurable on the application level and the notifications respond to clicks. What I'd really like to use is something like mumbles, but I tried it, had no success, and eventually uninstalled.

To use Google software, such as Picasa, you'll want to add the Google software repos to /etc/apt/sources.list, then install the Google key and update apt using the two commands below:

wget -q -O - https://dl-ssl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub | sudo apt-key add - sudo apt-get update

At this point my main gripes with Ubuntu are threefold:

No full-disk encryption (with the MacBook). I'm pretty unsure about the user home directory encryption I've got right now. Documentation is sparse and it's apparently not overly strong encryption.
Printing. I have a Canon MP210 printer/scanner. It works in Fedora, since the i386 drivers provided by Canon can be installed on an x86_64 system. Not so in Ubuntu, at least that I've been able to find.
SELinux. I'd really like to have it back.

Any other tips/tricks/comments? Anyone know how to get SELinux or my printer working? Any workarounds for blacklisting the usbhid driver and still being able to get a password typed in to unlock encrypted partitions?

Ubuntu 9.04 Impressions

2009-06-16T16:52:00.002+02:00

After a dismal showing from Fedora 11 on my MacBook, I downloaded Ubuntu 9.04 last Friday. It is slick; they've got a lot of stuff working very well on the MacBook 5,1. I have a few gripes about Ubuntu so far, but I am using it until somebody figures out how to get multi-touch functionality for my MacBook in Fedora 11. So, here's the good:

Wireless works, out of the box. Even in the LiveCD.
Trackpad works for single-touch right out of the box (like it did in Fedora 10); making multi-touch work only takes a few minutes following the guide.
Firefox is a stable version.
Sound is fixable.
While flash and pulseaudio aren't perfect, they're a lot better than in Fedora.

And now, the bad:

No full-disk encryption. This is one feature that nearly pushes me back to Fedora, even with the trackpad issues.
SELinux. Maybe it's nothing more than a security blanket, but I'd rather have it than not.
Aterm. For some reason it doesn't like the "clear" command if you set the terminal name to something other than aterm; I'm still looking into it.

So far, I'm sticking to Ubuntu. However, once Fedora gets the trackpad working (and I know there are some dudes working on it), I'll be moving back. Ubuntu is slick, but for a laptop, full disk encryption is a must.

Fedora 11 Impressions

2009-06-12T19:13:00.003+02:00

So far, after a day of use, I'm completely unimpressed. Fedora 11 fails to even recognize the trackpad on my MacBook; while in Fedora 10 I couldn't enable multi-touch options, at least the trackpad worked! Also, the default browser is Firefox 3.5.4b, which is still beta - and I get that this is Fedora, so it's supposed to be the bleeding edge and all - but seriously, Firefox 3.5 beta 4 is not ready to be a default browser. GMail doesn't even load correctly!

Here's what works, that didn't in Fedora 10:

GUI, out of the box. It isn't perfect, but it works. With RPMFusion enabled, you can install the nVidia drivers to make it work perfectly - see Derek Hildreth's guide for details.
Hmmm, that's really about it.

Here's what doesn't work:

The trackpad. At all.
Sound. And I can't seem to fix it the way I did in Fedora 10.

Overall, I'm not impressed, and I'm tired of working without the full benefit of the trackpad - which in Mac OS X is probably the most awesome input device ever created, and should work just the same in Fedora, but doesn't. Look out - I am downloading Ubuntu 9.04 right now, so there may be some posts detailing my experiences over the next couple of weeks!

Fedora 11 Released!!!

2009-06-09T19:40:00.001+02:00

Get to the download page! Do it now!

Browser Wars

2009-06-08T01:02:00.011+02:00

A good subtitle for this post might be, "Why I'm still using Firefox."

I'm not happy with Firefox's performance; it should not, under any circumstances, take up 1GB of ram and another of swap space. That's ridiculous. I suppose the colossal list of extensions I have running might be half the problem, but after playing around with nine other browsers today (Opera 9 isn't listed below), I'm pretty sure Firefox is the best thing around for me. If anyone can tell me how to get the functionality of the AutoPager and Adblock Plus Firefox extensions in Opera, I'm pretty sure I'll switch, but until then... no dice. Below are my oh-so-objective comparisons after trying them all out today, ranked by score on the Acid3 test. If a browser didn't beat my current Firefox on the Acid3, I didn't even continue to test it.

Opera 10 Beta

Acid 3 Test: 100/100
No Silverlight
Flash doesn't play nice w/PulseAudio
No extensions; SpeedDial is awesome, but Firefox has Fast Dial, which is the same for all intents and purposes
UI not compactable

Chromium (Google Chrome):

Acid 3 Test: 100/100, LINKTEST FAILED (Windows XP)
No packages available for Fedora (just Debian), and I'm not into unpacking and repackaging .deb files for an alpha release

Midori

Acid 3 Test: 94/100
No Silverlight
Flash doesn't play nice w/PulseAudio, crashes on close
No extensions
UI not compactable
Runs slow compared to Opera/Chrome/Firefox

Firefox

Acid 3 Test: 71/100
Moonlight for Silverlight
Flash doesn't play nice w/PulseAudio, crashes on close
Extensions: AdBlock Plus, AutoPager, Delicious Bookmarks, Download Statusbar, Fast Dial, FlagFox, Ghostery, Greasemonkey w/Greasefire, Last.fm, Tiny Menu, VideoDownloadHelper, Wolfram Alpha Google
UI completely compacted
Memory Hog

Songbird

Acid 3 Test: 71/100
Actually a music player... not even a real browser

Galeon

Acid 3 Test: 71/100

Epiphany

Acid 3 Test: 70/100

Kazehakase

Acid 3 Test: 70/100

Internet Explorer 8

Acid 3 Test: 20/100 (Windows XP)
Emma: "Yeah, I'm sticking with Firefox."

Wolfram Alpha Google

2009-05-21T17:40:00.004+02:00

I'm all for getting things done as efficiently and thoroughly as possible, so when I saw this post on Lifehacker, I immediately installed the Wolfram Alpha Google extension in Firefox. It's a great idea - two very different and very useful search engines, with the results on one page. One slight concern is that the Wolfram Alpha results take forever to load, but I can live with it.

What Did You Do First With Linux?

2009-04-27T22:54:00.002+02:00

Via Slashdot, I stumbled upon several articles answering that question. So here's my answer.

I started using Linux in mid-2003. I had received $2000 to build a computer for Christmas 2002 (and nothing else, either for Christmas or my birthday, that year) as I was at the point in high school where I really needed one and interested in learning how to put my own together. Knowing that I could spend an extra $100 on slightly better hardware if I didn't pay for Windows 2000, I obtained a copy from a friend... yes, illegally. Convinced over a six-month period that Windows 2000 was too much work, and that it was probably a good idea to go along with existing copyright law whether I thought it was good or not, I started to seek alternatives. A classmate gave me a copy of Slackware, but text-based installation was a little intimidating. Finally, a friend who was a Linux administrator at the local community college gave me SuSE 8.1... and it was great! Now, by great I mean it worked, and I embarked on the long quest to figure out how to do all the things I was using Windows for. I had already been using Firefox, Thunderbird, and OpenOffice, so that was easy enough, but what about the games??? No dice. Wine? Needs 3D acceleration. That means getting graphics card drivers... and I had a Radeon. Not an auspicious start, as those of you with ATI cards probably know, but after months of fiddling with it and getting deep into the command line, my interest shifted. The rest is history. When Novell bought SuSE, I bought Fedora 4 Unleashed and switched distros. I've used SuSE 8.1, 8.2, and 9.0; Slackware 11.0, and Fedora 4, 6, 7, 9, and 10. Can't wait for 11!

What did you do first with Linux?

Fixing Microsoft Windows

2009-04-25T19:23:00.006+02:00

I've spent the last few days helping out some old friends with their four Windows XP computers (all from Dell) and it amazes me the amount of stuff I needed to do. My friends wanted me to wipe three of the four computers and see what I could do to speed up the fourth (I couldn't wipe it as it actually belongs to their church and too many people use it for me to have talked to each of them about what they actually needed backed up). Here's a consolidated list of the things I did and wished I could have done to each of the computers.

Back up necessary documents and settings.
Create an install disk with nLite: I didn't actually get to do this with any of the computers I worked with this week, but removing Outlook Express, MSN Explorer, MSN/Windows Messenger, and Windows Media Player and integrating service packs before I even did the install would have been a great start.
Install Windows while disconnected from the internet - why put a completely unprotected computer on the network?
Install antivirus software and hardware drivers from a thumbdrive: I downloaded AVG Free Antivirus and each Dell's required hardware drivers to a thumbdrive on another computer and then ran the installers that way. AVG's installer was the first of many that presented me with the option to install a toolbar (AVG, Google, Yahoo!, Yahoo!CCleaner, MSN, etc), and as a rule I don't install any of them.
Connect to the network and run Microsoft Update: This takes forever (and multiple iterations), but it's got to be done - and I firmly believe it should be done immediately upon installation. I installed every update except those dealing with Messenger and WindowsLive; for those updates I check the little "never show this update again" box.
Install Windows Defender and CCleaner: I'm glad Fedora doesn't need all this stuff to protect it!
Install Flash, Java, and Silverlight: My friends are not the most computer-saavy (hence Windows), and even if the computer was for me, I'd need these three programs to get the most out of the internet.
Install alternatives for AdobeReader, Quicktime, and RealPlayer: I chose to use SumatraPDF, QuickTime Alternative, and Real Alterative. Again, these are essential programs for everyday use.
Decide, based on how the computer will be used, which other basic software is needed:
- iTunes: My friends all use iTunes to download music, so I installed the bloat-free version that works with QuickTime Alternative.
- Pidgin: AIM, ICQ, Jabber, MSN Messenger... all in one.
- Skype: All arguments against it aside, it does work, and it's free....
Install whatever specialized software is needed: I'd love to say I installed OpenOffice for my friends, but it's unacceptable to them to have any inconsistencies whatsoever in their Word documents and PowerPoint presentations, so Microsoft Office got added in; one of my friends is a pastor, so PC Study Bible and iLumina were added to his as well. Whatever other software is necessary goes in this category.
Copy in backed-up documents and settings.
Set up email in Outlook and the desired homepage(s) in Internet Explorer. Again, I wish I could have moved my friends to Thunderbird and Firefox or Opera, but I didn't know any way to make Blackberry software work with Thunderbird and my friends just won't understand using a browser other than IE, which is necessary for Microsoft Update anyway.
Run Microsoft Update again (as many times as necessary until it finds no new updates), reboot, run CCleaner, and defragment to finish everything right.

If you think I made any mistakes or missed anything, I'd love to hear about it in the comments!

Be Linux

2009-02-10T02:13:00.006+01:00

This post brought to you by the Linux Foundation's "We're Linux" video contest. And flying penguins.

FVWM Screenshots and Config

2009-01-30T19:50:00.012+01:00

Here are a couple of screenshots from my home computer; they show my personal desktop configuration. I don't run a desktop environment, since I don't need most of the things they provide. My window manager is FVWM2, which is very lightweight, standards compliant, and extremely configurable. FVWM configuration is not for the faint of heart, since it requires creating and editing a text file, but that same early learning curve also makes the infinite personalization possible.

In each screenshot, you'll see what's called a "pager" in the top left. My computer desktop actually is four times as big as the resolution my monitor can show, so it's broken into four different "pages" and I see one at a time. The pager shows me what's open on each page, highlighting the active page and active window so that they appear darker than the others. For reference, the screenshot on the left shows the top-left page of my desktop, and the other screenshot shows the bottom-left page.

The bottom left of each screenshot shows an application called conky that overlays system information onto the desktop background. Mine shows the computer name, time, date, weather at the nearest weather station, the number of unread emails in my inbox, the title and artist of whatever song my computer is playing, and lots of other stuff. Between conky and the pager, you'll see what look like really tiny windows... and they are. Instead of a "taskbar" or "window list," I have FVWM set up to take a quick screenshot of a window when I minimize it, and then show that screenshot, much smaller, in that area of the screen.

To run applications, you can click anywhere on the desktop and it brings up a menu of my favorite apps (show in screenshot on right); right-clicking gets you a fuller menu. The window decorations are colored based on the background, and only the active window has buttons on its titlebar. The titlebar buttons function basically the same as those in Windows.

If you're interested in my fvwm config file, it's here (for 1920x1200 resolution) or here (1280x800 or 1280x1024). The accompanying conky config file is here (desktops) or here (laptops). Some of the functions in my fvwm and conky config files require other scripts that you can find around the internet; if you're interested in them, leave a comment and I'll get in touch.

How To Configure Fedora 10

2009-01-22T15:53:00.024+01:00

[EDIT 29 Jan 2009:] I just figured out something very important. Upon completion of the "Firefly" series on Hulu.com, I pop in my DVD of Serenity, and... nothing. VLC won't open it, neither will xine, nothing. Having used libdvdcss in the past, I immediately go to yum and try to install it, but it isn't there. Afer searching teh blagoweb for several minutes, I finally find, in a comment on this post, that the repo at rpm.livna.org is still up to serve one package that RPMFusion refuses to carry. Guess what that package was? The first long command in this guide now installs the livna repository and libdvdcss.[/EDIT]

After several months of working fine, one of Fedora 10's updates last week killed my MacBook's networking capability. I tried everything I could think of, but to no avail, so last night I reinstalled Fedora 10, and I realized that I do a lot of post-install configuration work that I don't have saved on this blog, so here's How I Configure Fedora 10.

PRE-INSTALL (MacBook):
Partition your drive using Boot Camp... you really only need to use it to shrink the Mac OS X hfs+ partition. The rest of the partitioning doesn't matter.
Install rEFIt.
Install the StartupSound.prefPane in Mac OS X and mute the startup noise... unless you really love annoying everyone around you every time you turn on your computer.

INSTALL:
During my install, which I generally do from the Fedora 10 netinstall CD (which I get via bittorrent), I usually make a / partition (about 15GB, ext3), a swap partition (2 or 3GB, swap), and a /home partition (whatever is left, ext3). The EFI boot system on the MacBook requires a /boot partition (100MB, ext3). I always set a hostname for the computer, and for package selection, I uncheck everything except the "Base," "Java," and "X Window System" groups. If you use GNOME, KDE, XFCE, or whatever other window manager aside from FVWM, then you should check the appropriate box at that point and remove "fvwm" from the long command listed next.

POST-INSTALL COMMAND LINE:
You can do a lot with one command. This command removes PackageKit, the Totem line of media players, and the Presto yum plugin, adds the Adobe, Google, Livna, FedoraJunkies, and RPMFusion software repositories, and adds in all the software I use on a regular basis. It also fixes the Google favicon mismatch in Firefox. The last thing that happens is sensors-detect, which helps the kernel to know what hardware sensors are available on your computer. You'll have to manually enter "yes" to each of it's questions.

64-bit, including MacBook: yum -y install yum-fastestmirror && yum -y remove *packagekit* *PackageKit* *totem* yum-presto && rpm -ivh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-stable.noarch.rpm http://linuxdownload.adobe.com/adobe-release/adobe-release-i386-1.0-1.noarch.rpm && rpm -ivh http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release.rpm && wget https://dl-ssl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub && rpm --import linux_signing_key.pub && cd /etc/yum.repos.d/ && wget http://nstickney.googlepages.com/google.repo http://nstickney.googlepages.com/google64.repo http://nstickney.googlepages.com/fedorajunkies.repo && cd && yum -y update && yum -y install aterm AdobeReader_enu boinc-client boinc-manager conky firefox fvwm gcc gdm gimp gnome-mount-nautilus-properties gnomesword gnupg google-desktop-linux gparted grip gvim imlib2 imlib2-devel libdvdcss libogg mozilla-vlc mpc mpd numlockx padevchooser paman paprefs pavucontrol pavumeter picasa pidgin pidgin-libnotify pidgin-otr sonata thunderbird thunderbird-lightning transmission scrot vlc yumex && yum -y install *fonts* nautilus* pulseaudio* --exclude=*debug --exclude=*devel && cd /usr/lib64/mozilla/plugins/ && wget http://download.macromedia.com/pub/labs/flashplayer10/libflashplayer-10.0.22.87.linux-x86_64.so.tar.gz && tar -xvzf libflashplayer-10.0.22.87.linux-x86_64.so.tar.gz && cd /usr/lib64/firefox-*/searchplugins/ && rm -rf google.xml && wget http://www.mozillalinks.org/download/google.xml && cd && wget http://dnmouse.org/fedora/truecrypt/10/x86_64/truecrypt-6.1-1.fc10.x86_64.rpm && yum -y install truecrypt-6.1-1.fc10.x86_64.rpm && rm -rf truecrypt-6.1-1.fc10.x86_64.rpm && sensors-detect

32-bit: yum -y install yum-fastestmirror && yum -y remove *packagekit* *PackageKit* *totem* yum-presto && rpm -ivh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-stable.noarch.rpm http://linuxdownload.adobe.com/adobe-release/adobe-release-i386-1.0-1.noarch.rpm && rpm -ivh http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release.rpm && wget https://dl-ssl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub && rpm --import linux_signing_key.pub && cd /etc/yum.repos.d/ && wget http://nstickney.googlepages.com/google.repo http://nstickney.googlepages.com/fedorajunkies.repo && cd && yum -y update && yum -y install aterm AdobeReader_enu boinc-client boinc-manager conky firefox flash-pluin fvwm gcc gdm gimp gnome-mount-nautilus-properties gnomesword gnupg google-desktop-linux gparted grip gvim imlib2 imlib2-devel libdvdcss libogg mozilla-vlc mpc mpd numlockx padevchooser paman paprefs pavucontrol pavumeter picasa pidgin pidgin-libnotify pidgin-otr sonata thunderbird thunderbird-lightning transmission scrot vlc yumex && yum -y install *fonts* nautilus* --exclude=*debug --exclude=*devel && cd /usr/lib/firefox-*/searchplugins/ && rm -rf google.xml && wget http://www.mozillalinks.org/download/google.xml && cd && wget http://dnmouse.org/fedora/truecrypt/10/i386/truecrypt-6.1-1.fc10.i386.rpm && yum -y install truecrypt-6.1-1.fc10.i386.rpm && rm -rf truecrypt-6.1-1.fc10.i386.rpm && sensors-detect

HARDWARE SPECIFIC COMMAND LINE:
If you have an aluminum MacBook, you're probably wondering why you have no video... To fix it, add support for the nVidia video card with the following command, which also adds networking support for the Broadcom wireless card. The second half of the command (after "&&") fixes the soundcard detection for the new MacBooks. For Fedora to start a GUI automatically on a new MacBook, you'll have to edit the file /etc/inittab and change the "3" in the very bottom line to a "5" (id:3:initdefault: becomes id:5:initdefault:).
yum -y install kmod-nvidia kmod-wl && echo "options snd_hda_intel model=mbp3" >> /etc/modprobe.d/sound

The wireless card on my fiancé's laptop (2004 model 17" Dell Precision M60) is a Broadcom card, but it's older than the one in the MacBook and so the kmod-wl driver solution doesn't work. Ndiswrapper to the rescue! Note: substitute in a link to your card's WindowsXP drivers package where I put "R115321.EXE" in this command -- you'll have to find it on your own.
yum -y install kmod-ndiswrapper && mkdir wld && cd wld && wget http://ftp.us.dell.com/network/R115321.EXE && unzip R115321.EXE && cd DRIVER && ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5.inf && cd && rm -rf wld && ndiswrapper -m

My desktop computer has an ATI video card; to make it work, I installed the kmod-fglrx package from RPMFusion.
yum -y remove xorg-x11-drv-ati && yum -y install kmod-fglrx

My desktop's wireless card is a Netgear card, but the important thing is that it's an Atheros chipset... an AR5212/AR5213 to be exact. To make it work, I simply installed the Madwifi drivers.
yum -y install kmod-madwifi

If you're just now getting video, you'll realize that Fedora 10 won't let you log into a GUI session as root. So you'll have to make a user. If you had video from the beginning, you probably made a user during the GUI setup the first time you booted after installation. If so, you don't need to do this.
useradd new_username -p

I have a Canon Pixma MP210 printer, and it also requires some special work. The command below gets the four required .rpm driver files from the Canon Australia support page and installs them, along with their dependencies.
cd && rm -rf *.rpm && wget http://pdisp01.c-wss.com/gdl/WWUFORedirectTarget.do?id=MDEwMDAwMDgyNzAx http://pdisp01.c-wss.com/gdl/WWUFORedirectTarget.do?id=MDEwMDAwMDg0NDAx http://pdisp01.c-wss.com/gdl/WWUFORedirectTarget.do?id=MDEwMDAwMDg0MjAx http://pdisp01.c-wss.com/gdl/WWUFORedirectTarget.do?id=MDEwMDAwMDgzMTAx && yum -y install *.rpm --nogpgcheck && rm -rf *.rpm

FINALIZING COMMAND LINE CONFIG:
Clean everything up and reboot to GUI.
yum -y update && yum -y clean all && rpm --rebuilddb && updatedb && reboot

POST-INSTALL GUI:
As I mentioned in this post, PulseAudio doesn't work right out of the box for some people; to fix it, add tsched=0 to the end of the line load-module module-hal-detect in the file /etc/pulse/default.pa.

The applesmc kernel module allows control of fans and sensors in Apple hardware. Instructions for autoloading the module at boot are available at Cenolan's guide for installing Fedora 10 on older MacBooks. That guide also includes information for getting the Plymouth graphical boot loader working on MacBooks; I don't use Plymouth, prefering a text-only boot (see next paragraph)... but the guide works as advertised.

My preference is a text-only boot, and I like to actually see the boot menu, even when it only has one item. Both are easy enough with grub. I simply delete the line hiddenmenu and any instances of rghb quiet from the file /etc/grub.conf and set the timeout value to "3".

A default Fedora 10 install starts a lot of services at boot, many of which I don't need. Mauriat Miranda has a pretty good explanation of them at his website. I generally run system-config-services and set it so that everything is disabled except the following: acpid, auditd, cpuspeed, cups, gpm, haldaemon, ip6tables, iptables, kerneloops, lm_sensors, messagebus, microcode_ctl, network, portreserve, rsyslog, setroubleshoot, and udev-post. Many people like to have NetworkManager running as it can automate switching wireless networks (great for laptops), but it's never worked for me, so I disable it and enable network. If you are running a software raid array, you should also enable mdmonitor.

My post about essential software covers all the Firefox/Thunderbird extensions, Greasemonkey scripts, and other bits and pieces, and there's no real need to list it all again, so here's a link to that post.

My last steps are to install my personal FVWM and other configuration files... but that's another whole post, or a few thousand.

iPhone is now a Kindle

2009-01-08T04:11:00.005+01:00

We are rapidly approaching the point where your phone is your computer.

Here's your future:
The 5x optical zoom, 10-megapixel digital camera is built in.
Video playback (which means audio, duh) is built in.
Instant messaging is built in.
Internet browsing is built in.
Mobile gaming is built in.
"eBooks" are built-in.
Video capture is built in.
Video conferencing is built in.
Once you pair your earpiece with the phone, it automatically, and wirelessly, connects whenever it is turned on.
When you set your phone down on your desk, it will automatically, and wirelessly, start charging.
Once you pair your external keyboard, mouse/trackball, display, and speaker system with the phone, they will automatically, and wirelessly, connect whenever you set your phone down on your desk.
Once you pair your car to your phone, keyless entry, remote ignition, and other "car key fob button" functionality will be right there in your phone.

Some is (almost) already there; I put links in for everything I knew about. If something else on this list is already available, let me know! Anything else you need in your phone?

BOINC

2008-12-24T20:56:00.004+01:00

I've just figured out that BOINC is included in Fedora. I've been installing it manually and it's right there in the repos. Hooray less work!

Now, if you've never heard of BOINC, it's a distributed computing program which allows your unused processor cycles to be pressed into service for any one of several worthy projects doing anything from looking for a cure for cancer to looking for alien life. My personal favorite is the World Community Grid; it runs several other projects, mostly medical, alternatively. BOINC is great because it runs on everything - Linux, Mac OS, Windows, even the PS3!

The downside is that your processor will be active even when you're not doing anything on your computer, making it more of an energy draw. In my experience, the difference isn't all that big if you already leave your computer on.

The upside is that your processor will be contributing to valuable medical, climatological, or astrobiological (ok, astrobiology might not be terribly valuable) research. Think of it: if enough people get on, we could start predicting earthquakes and tsunamis much farther in advance, or cure malaria/dengue/cancer/aids. Isn't that worth a few processor cycles?

yum -y install boinc-client boinc-manager && boinc_client && boincmgr

MacBook, Fedora 10, FVWM

2008-12-22T19:15:00.005+01:00

I love this stuff. The background is from Stratification, edited to reflect that this is no ordinary Mac. Yes, I blurred out the names... but that's the only editing done on this screenshot. Enjoy. I'll post an explanation of my desktop software sometime in the future.

F10 on Aluminum MacBook: Sound Working

2008-12-18T23:26:00.002+01:00

Update to this post about installing Fedora 10 on a brand-new MacBook...

To make the sound work, at least from the headphone jack, I had to run this command, from a guide Naresh put up on his blog...

echo "options snd_hda_intel model=mbp3" >> /etc/modprobe.d/sound

This sets the soundcard model option for the sound server. I then followed this guide to get PulseAudio running by changing one line of the pulseaudio config file /etc/pulse/default.pa, adding tsched=0 to the end of the line load-module module-hal-detect. It also directed me to install a bunch of PulseAudio packages, some of which don't exist and others I didn't need. The command I ended up running is below. I'm not sure if all of these packages are necessary; most of them were already on my system. In any case, sound works now. Out of the headphone port.

yum -y install pavucontrol pavumeter paman padevchooser paprefs alsa-plugins-pulseaudio pulseaudio pulseaudio-core-libs pulseaudio-esound-compat pulseaudio-libs pulseaudio-libs-glib2 pulseaudio-libs-zeroconf pulseaudio-module-gconf pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-module-zeroconf pulseaudio-utils xine-lib-pulseaudio

Fedora 10

2008-11-29T03:29:00.032+01:00

I own four computers. Three of them actually work. All three run Fedora 10.

In preface to my earlier post about Fedora 10 on my MacBook (yes, I know that prefacing something that's already happened is backwards, but I'm doing it anyway), here's a guide to installation and post-install configuration of Fedora 10 for my uses. YMMV. Note: all commands meant to be performed as root.

1) Get Fedora.

2) Install Fedora. I always separate my /home directory on its own partition and use a 2GB swap partition.

3) Get rid of software I don't want: yum -y remove *packagekit* *PackageKit* *totem* yum-presto.

4) Not all the software I use is in the official Fedora repositories, so I add the Google, Adobe, and RPMFusion repos. Create the Google repo file as discussed here and install the Google repo keys according to these instructions. Install the Adobe repo by downloading the "YUM" file from this page and installing the resulting .rpm. Install the RPMFusion repository by following the instructions provided Mauriat Miranda: rpm -ivh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-stable.noarch.rpm.

5) Install yum-fastestmirror to save time with the next two steps: yum -y install yum-fastestmirror.

6) Update everything: run yum -y update repeatedly until no more updates are available.

7) Install your favorite software: yum -y install *fonts* abiword aterm AdobeReader_enu boinc-client boinc-manager conky firefox fvwm gcc gdm gimp gnome-mount-nautilus-properties gnomesword gnupg google-desktop-linux gparted grip gstreamer* gvim imlib2 imlib2-devel mozilla-vlc nautilus* numlockx openoffice.org-calc openoffice.org-draw openoffice.org-impress openoffice.org-writer picasa pidgin pidgin-otr rhythmbox* thunderbird thunderbird-lightning transmission scrot vlc yumex --exclude=*debug. Some of these may already be installed; this command is a catch-all to get everything I use on a daily basis, all at once. You may have different necessary programs. If you are on a 32-bit architecture, you'll want to add flash-plugin to the list.

8) Fedora, for some reason, doesn't automatically run sensors-detect and then load the correct drivers... so run sensors-detect and answer "yes" to every question.

9) If your computer is x86_64 architecture, install the FlashPlayer 10 alpha according to the instructions provided by Steven Moix: rpm -e nspluginwrapper.i386 flash-plugin && cd /usr/lib64/mozilla/plugins/ && wget http://download.macromedia.com/pub/labs/flashplayer10/libflashplayer-10.0.d20.7.linux-x86_64.so.tar.gz && tar -xvzf libflashplayer-10.0.d20.7.linux-x86_64.so.tar.gz.

10) Clean up and reboot: yum clean all && rpm --rebuilddb && updatedb && reboot.

11) Print some sweet stickers out and put them on your computer/USB thumbdrive/girlfriend/whatever.