Firefox and Mouse

Well, I'll be! I can be so dense sometimes. I've just discovered some enlightening stuff about my mouse. I've been using a Microsoft mouse for more than a year now and only today(!) I've noticed that the scroll wheel can actually be depressed and it can act as a middle mouse button! (My current mouse setting is '3 Button Emulate' or something like that.) No wonder sometimes other webpages load when I'm scrolling through a page. That was reeeeeeeally annoying! The discoveries that I've made:

1. Scroll wheel can act as 3rd button. If it is pressed, firefox will search for the term currently in the clipboard and display a page based on that. To prevent that from happening, go to 'about:config' and change the value for 'middlemouse.loadContentURL' to false. I'm so glad I've finally solved this mystery!

2. Recently, ever since I've installed Firefox 1.5.0.4, I've been having trouble with copy and paste. Everytime I try to paste some text using the 'middle button' (pressing left and right buttons together), this little weird sphere would appear with little arrows and the whole page would move up and down when I move the mouse, and I couldn't paste the text!! It was so annoying and I was cursing away at Firefox. The poor thing didn't deserve all that. Hehe. It was actually my own ignorance. Autoscrolling was enabled by default in the new version. Du-uh... yes I know! As I've never used autoscrolling before, I didn't know what was going on until today. So, I disabled it and can now cut and paste in peace with another new bit of information tucked safely away.

Nimbus Roman No 9 L

OpenOffice Writer: The characters of this font will be displayed overlapping each other when the text is in bold. Weird. The printed text is normal though. Anyway, I installed 'urw-fonts' and the problem was rectified.

Great song!

I first heard this song while listening to the podcast 'Filme und So'. The song is called 'Tom Cruise scares me' by David Ippolito. I'm not sure if I will be offending anyone / breaking some rules / doing something wrong by posting the direct link here, (These things are soooo sensitive nowadays - sheesh!) so I'll just post the link to the main website. It's a great song and I love it!

http://www.thatguitarman.com/

EDIT: Just as well, that I didn't post the direct link. I read through the 'Legal, Terms of Service and Usage' part of the website, and apparently they don't allow direct link to 'images, sounds or executable applications'.

Users and Groups

I hate searching for this every time I have to add a user to a group. I keep forgetting the commands!

1. To view the list of groups and their users: $ cat /etc/group

2. Create new user: $ useradd

3. Create new group: $ groupadd.

4. To list all groups to which the user is a member: $ groups <user id> ## This is the one I keep forgetting!!!!

5. Add user to group z.B. cdrom: $ usermod -G <comma separated group list> <user id>
### Be sure to list all groups as this is an absolute list and not an addition. THIS IS IMPORTANT. Use the 'groups' command and then enter all the groups in addition to the new one under usermod.

EDIT: No need to list all the groups. I just found out that you can append the user to a supplementary group by using the -a option. Meaning:

usermod -a -G wireshark user

This will add 'wireshark' to the user's groups in addition to the other groups that the user already belongs to.

or

gpasswd -a username group


This is a usefule website.

/etc/conf.d/net

My network connection = Modem --> Router --> Computers

At first, I set my Gentoo system to automatically use DHCP and obtain the IP address. However this resulted in a very slow startup for the computer if the router is switched off. Hence I edited the file /etc/conf.d/net and added this:

###
config_eth0=( "my-ip-address-allocated-by-router netmask 255.255.255.0" )
routes_eth0=( "default gw router's-ip-address" )
###

SCIM

The commands to start scim:

$ export XMODIFIER="@im=SCIM"
$ export GTK_IM_MODULE="scim"
$ scim -d

I used to put these 3 commands in bash_profile but that did something to my keyboard, whose layout is set to us international, and I couldn't type umlauts and eszett, or something like that. I can't really remember. Maybe I'll try again. Anyway, because of whatever that went wrong, I just type these commands in a terminal everytime I need to use scim, which is not very often. But it is still troublesome to enter all those words. I wonder if it will work if I create an alias for them. Will try later

EDIT: The alias works: alias chinese='export XMODIFIER=@im=SCIM && export GTK_IM_MODULE=scim && scim -d'

Hmmm... the Trebuchet '&' (&) looks ugly.

To use scim with eg. openoffice:
$ LC_ALL=zh_CN.utf8 oowriter2

bashrc vs bash_profile

I was looking for a place to put my aliases and some suggested ~/.bashrc, others suggested ~/.bash_profile. By the way, my aliases are in ~/.bashrc and they are as follows:

# My Personal Alias
alias ipin='mount /mnt/ipod'
alias ipout='umount /mnt/ipod'
alias ipej='eject /mnt/ipod'

Anyway, 'man bash' turned up a mouthful of words which have been nicely summarised by someone from linuxquestions.org:

In other words, /etc/profile is run when a user logs in. ~/.bashrc is run for other shells (Ie opening an xterm)

/etc/profile contains environment variables and startup programs. Environ. var. are persistent - only need to read once. Startup programs are launched once - no need to start them again.

/etc/bashrc is included by ~/.bashrc, and read every time a shell starts up, people use it to include shell aliases and functions. Aliases and functions do not behave like environment variables; they are not passed to other processes.

There - that's why I put my aliases into bashrc ... I think ...

cdda2wav

When I was using SuSE, I used this command to rip CDs

$ cdda2wav -D 0,0,0 andwhateverotheroptioniwant

In order to find out the numerical figures after -D, I ran "cdda2wav -scanbus"

However, on a Gentoo machine, "cdda2wav -scanbus" gives this output:

###
cdda2wav: No such file or directory. Cannot open '/dev/pg*'. Cannot open SCSI driver.
cdda2wav: For possible targets try 'cdda2wav -scanbus'.
Use the script scan_scsi.linux to find out more.
Probably you did not define your SCSI device.
Set the CDDA_DEVICE environment variable or use the -D option.
You can also define the default device in the Makefile.
For possible transport specifiers try 'cdda2wav dev=help'.
###

What in the world does that mean? Anyway, now I use the command "cdda2wav -D /dev/hdb andtherestoftheoptions"

Problems I still have with cdda2wav:
1. I don't know why the -scanbus doesn't work on Gentoo. Not a serious problem, since I can replace the device with /dev/hdb. But why??? And that question is bugging the hell out of me! But I'm too lazy to look it up now.

2. I can't run cdda2wav as a normal user. I get this error:

cdda2wav: Operation not permitted. cannot set posix realtime scheduling policy
percent_done:
0%cdda2wav: Operation not permitted. Cannot send SCSI cmd via ioctl

And it just hangs there until I press CTRL-C. I read this in the linuxquestion.org:

cdrecord and cdda2wav require their controlling user to have access privileges to the scsi bus which are not granted to normal users by default within any sane setup.

3. I still haven't figured out how to rip multiple but not consecutive tracks from a CD.

Die WM

Haha. Es ist unglaublich. Bei jeder WM hat England immer ein Idiot, der etwas Dummes tun muss. Und wie gewöhnlich können ihre Spieler gar keinen Elfmeter verwandeln. Es ist wirklich lächerlich.

Change mouse theme

Edit: /usr/share/cursors/xorg-x11/default/index.theme

OR

1. emerge x11-themes/silver-xcursors

2. vim ~/.Xdefaults and place this entry:

Xcursor.theme: Silver

Flashblock and Firefox

Flashblock is a nifty little extension that prevents flash objects from being displayed.

Gentoo finally has an update on firefox. Now I can finally upgrade to Firefox 1.5 and use the Extreme Noia theme.

Problems with mplayer

1. Whenever I play a movie, I get this error:

vo: X11 running at 1280x1024 with depth 24 and 32 bpp (":0.0" => local display)
It seems there is no Xvideo support for your video card available.
Run 'xvinfo' to verify its Xv support and read DOCS/en/video.html#xv!
See 'mplayer -vo help' for other (non-xv) video out drivers. Try -vo x11
Error opening/initializing the selected video_out (-vo) device.

2. xvinfo shows:

X-Video Extension version 2.2
screen #0
no adaptors present

3. Dri, 3D acceleration, drm and all are running fine.

If I change the video output to 'x11' instead of 'xv', video can be played. But the video is lagging under fullscreen. To fixed that, run 'gmplayer -vo x11 -zoom'. However, I read somewhere that if you have to use "-vo x11", it means that the hardware acceleration is not working. Quote from the gentoo forum: ## xv uses hardware accelerated video overlays. x11 is the slowest possible way to do video. ##

4. *** To get xv working I have to insert this line in xorg.conf: *** (IMPORTANT - this is the actual solution to my problem)

Option "VideoOverlay" "on"
## Also, if you have this in xorg.conf, the option should be set to "off"
Option "PseudoColorVisuals" "off"

CD-Audio XMMS

Ach, ich bin ein Idiot! I've been trying for ages to get XMMS to play audio CDs, and everytime the program just refused to do anything. Today I just realised that I don't have the cdaudio plugin for xmms. Duh!!!! Emerge xmms-cdaudio and I'm listening to CDs!

Scripts in /etc/init.d/

A useful command to see which scripts are no longer used and can be safely deleted from /etc/init.d and /etc/conf.d

I got this command from the Gentoo Linux Wiki - Rc-update:

for each in /etc/{conf,init}.d/* ; do \
echo -n "$each " ; \
equery belongs -e "$each" | fgrep / || \
echo '!!! ORPHAN !!!' ; \
done

Black Screen after logout from Fluxbox

I use kdm and frequently (though not every time, almost) when I exit fluxbox into kdm, I get a black screen and the whole system hangs and pressing all sort of buttons (Ctrl-Alt Backspace / F1 / whatever) produces nothing. Apparently the workaround is to add to this file "/usr/kde//share/config/kdm/kdmrc)" this line:


TerminateServer=true

Or for gdm, this line:

AlwaysRestartServer=true

Got this from this website:
http://thinkwiki.org/wiki/Problems_with_fglrx#Hardlock_on_X_logout

Unicode and Locale

Running "locale" shows that my system is using something called POSIX. Changing my system locale to Unicode:
1. Compile NLS UTF8 into the kernel.
2. Check that the locale I want (en_US.UTF-8) is availaibe in "/etc/locales.build".
3. Enter this line
###
LC_ALL="en_US.UTF-8"
###

into this file: /etc/env.d/02locale

- Note that running "locale -a" will show "en_US.utf8" (Note lowercase and absence of hyphen. And I quote the sentences from the Gentoo Forums:

locale -a lists the encoding part of the locale in lower case without any hyphens but these instructions always use UTF-8. The reason is that while glibc understands both forms of the name many other programs don't. The most common example of which is X. So it is best to always use UTF-8 in preference to utf8.

4. Make sure that in /etc/rc.conf the line UNICODE="yes" is uncommented.
5. Run "env-update && source /etc/profile"
6. Sometimes certain error messages may appear when running certain programmes:
a. Gdk-WARNING **: locale not supported by Xlib (GTK/Gnome app)
b. Qt: Locales not supported on X server (Qt/KDE app)
- Make sure the current system locale is listed in "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/locale/locale.dir"

The Gentoo Forum mentioned this: (But I still don't understand it, therefore have not done anything about it yet)

Where to set the environment variables is the next problem. Ideally every user on the whole system should use the same encoding i.e. UTF-8. However using a locale other than the "C" or "POSIX" locale for root is asking for trouble on Gentoo. The reason is that it can break emerges as the semantics of scripts etc can change.

The Gentoo way to set environment variables is to set it in /etc/env.d. The Desktop Configuration Guide suggests setting the locale there. But this doesn't support setting a different locale for root. Some suggest suggest changing the locale in /etc/profile. It is possible to set the locale differently in /etc/profile for root and other users as is done with the PATH environment variable. Otherwise you can set them in $HOME/.bashrc or $HOME/.xinitrc if you only want the locale set under X.

Ipod works under gentoo

Ipod works! Gtkpod and castpodder both work. Remember to "emerge eject" so that the command can be used to eject /mnt/ipod after unmounting.

Did a "chmod 4755 /usr/bin/eject" because normal user cannot eject.

Programmes on Gentoo

Programmes that I've installed on Gentoo so far: (after I've got xorg working)
1. kdm
2. Fluxbox (a must!!)
3. Firefox
4. xmms - for some reason Audio CD cannot be played
5. mplayer - must emerge with use flags: dvd dvdread dts
6. gtkpod
7. Compiling castpodder at the moment - hopefully it'll be ok

Others:
Installed some nice fonts and mouse themes

Gentoo!!

Finally got Gentoo working!! Yippee!

1. Got everything working and kernel booted nicely after half a day staring at Kernel Panic.
Note:
- Need SCSI emulation to get usb drive working
- Need to build in the network card in the kernel. Yes, I know ... Du-uhhh! I missed it during the first few times compiling the kernel.
2. Installed xorg
3. 3D-Acceleration, dri, drm glxgears whatever did NOT work with the radeon module although they did say that it should work with ATI RADEON 9200.
- Took many MANY times of configuring and compiling the kernel before it finally got into my thick skull that the open source driver just did not work.
- Finally installed the ati-driver. Voila... worked beautifully. Yes, I never learn...
- Remember to add :
###
Section "dri"
Mode 066
EndSection
###

so that normal users can use 3D acceleration also.

Ipod and MP2

Have been wondering for some time why an mp3 file that I have wouldn't play on my Ipod. A quick check with xmms shows that the file is actually MPEG1, Layer 2 aka mp2 file. So encode it back to MPEG1, Layer 3 by using this command:

lame --mp2input --alt-preset extreme filename.mp3 anothername.mp3
- Not too sure about the mp2input command. Couldn't find a tutorial on converting mp2 to mp3 using lame. Saw the --mp2input option by running lame --longhelp. I guess it worked as the file is now playing properly on Ipod.