Linux Notes

Unscaled (constrained) 3D point plots using gnuplot

2012-01-14T22:38:00.002+01:00

set size square only works for 2D, for 3D plots use set view equal:


set view equal
splot "points.dat" with points pt 7 ps 0.5

2011-10-22T14:23:00.000+02:00

This is a small script to visualize Medtronic / Minimed CareLink blood glucose measurement data that has been exported to a CSV file to produce a nice PDF graph with gnuplot, like this:Plot


#!/usr/bin/env python

import sys
import csv
import datetime
import subprocess

# number of days to plot, going back from today
num_days = 7

if len(sys.argv) != 2:
    print 'syntax: %s input.csv' % sys.argv[0]
    sys.exit(1)

start_date = datetime.date.today() - datetime.timedelta(num_days)

out_files = {}
averages = {}

def filename(y, m, d):
    return '%02d-%02d-%02d.dat' % (y, m, d)

with open(sys.argv[1]) as f:
    # skip 11 header lines
    for i in range(11):
        f.next()

    for row in csv.DictReader(f):
        (d, m, y) = (int(x) for x in row['Date'].split('/'))
        date = datetime.date(y + 2000, m, d)
        if date >= start_date:
            # Taking the raw value is more precise
            #sg = row['Sensor Glucose (mmol/L)']
            if row['Raw-Type'] == 'GlucoseSensorData':
                raw = row['Raw-Values']
                assert raw.startswith('AMOUNT=')
                sg = int(raw[raw.find('=') + 1:raw.find(',')]) / 18.

                if (y, m, d) in out_files:
                    out = out_files[(y, m, d)]
                else:
                    out = out_files[(y, m, d)] = open(filename(y, m, d), 'wt')

                time = row['Time']
                (hours, minutes) = int(time[:2]), int(time[3:5])
                minutes -= minutes % 5 # to make windows overlap
                if (hours, minutes) in averages:
                    averages[(hours, minutes)][0] += sg
                    averages[(hours, minutes)][1] += 1
                else:
                    averages[(hours, minutes)] = [sg, 1]

                print >> out, row['Time'], sg

# close output files
for f in out_files.values():
    f.close()

# write averages
average_file = 'average.dat'
avg, avg_n = 0., 0
with open(average_file, 'wt') as f:
    for ((hours, minutes), (sigma, n)) in sorted(averages.items()):
        val = float(sigma) / n
        avg += val
        avg_n += 1
        print >> f, "%02d:%02d:00 %f" % (hours, minutes, val)
avg /= avg_n

# create gnuplot script
plot_file = 'plot.gnuplot'
eps_file = 'plot.eps'
with open(plot_file, 'wt') as f:
    plots = ', '.join('"%s" using 1:2 linewidth 2 title "%02d/%02d/%02d"' % (filename(y, m, d), d, m, y) for (y, m, d) in sorted(out_files.keys()))
    print >> f, '''
set terminal postscript eps color solid
set output "%s"
set style data lines
set title "Sensor glucose (mmol/L)"
set xdata time
set timefmt "%%H:%%M:%%S"
set format x "%%H:%%M"
set yrange [2:12]
set ytics 1
plot 4 notitle linewidth 3 linecolor rgb "black", 9 notitle linewidth 3 linecolor rgb "black", %f notitle linewidth 5 linecolor rgb "red", "%s" using 1:2 title "average" linewidth 5 linecolor rgb "red",''' % (eps_file, avg, average_file), plots

# Run gnuplot, and convert eps to pdf
subprocess.check_call('gnuplot ' + plot_file, shell=True)
subprocess.call('epstopdf ' + eps_file, shell=True)

rtorrent torrent scheduling for non-peak period downloading

2011-09-25T01:53:00.001+02:00

In order to schedule rtorrent to download only during certain time intervals, e.g. non-peak periods of some ISP, you don't need a cron job. Instead you can use the built-in scheduling functionality. To only download between 2 am and 8 am every night, add to your .rtorrent.rc file:

schedule = throttle_start,02:00:00,24:00:00,"d.multicall=,d.start="schedule = throttle_stop,08:00:00,24:00:00,"d.multicall=,d.stop="

Convert ogv to mkv for WDTV

2011-05-29T13:52:00.004+02:00

In order to view videos on the WDTV, it's sometimes necessary to convert the format first.

Get an ffmpeg version that supports x264: HowTo.

Then run something like this:

for i in *.ogv; do ffmpeg -i $i -y -vcodec libx264 -profile baseline -preset slow -crf 20 -threads 0 -acodec libfaac `basename $i .ogv`.mkv; done

Xfce4 (Xubuntu) and color profiles

2011-05-29T08:08:00.003+02:00

Similar to

gnome-color-manager for Gnome, for Xfce one can use something almost as simple to load a custom ICC color profile: xcalib. Just place an appropriate entry in the "Session and Startup" preferences and everything's fine.



Connection problems with Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6230 and Linksys WRT54G router
2011-05-25T13:36:00.002+02:00
Using my new Dell XPS 15 (LX502) with an Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6230 wireless card I couldn't connect to my WRT54G router running the Tomato firmware anymore. Neither WPA nor WPA2 worked, not even WEP. Turns out that I had "Afterburner" mode enabled, which seems to cause problems, as also described here. After disabling this feature in the Tomato interface, everything worked nicely again.


Disable search indexing service in Ubuntu
2011-03-15T13:04:00.004+01:00
sudo apt-get autoremove --purge tracker


Compiling CinePaint on Ubuntu Maverick
2010-12-14T18:20:00.003+01:00
Unfortunately there's no pre-compiled package for CinePaint available for Ubuntu anymore. Compiling the tar source ball out-of the box doesn't work either. Using the current version on SourceForge (cinepaint-0.22-1.tar.gz) I was able to patch the source a bit such that it compiles. Maybe these issues are already fixed in the CVS version, though.

Here's the patch: http://gruenschloss.org/cinepaint/cinepaint-0.22-1-ubuntu-maverick.patch

You can apply the patch in the extracted source directory as follows:
patch -p1 < ../cinepaint-0.22-1-ubuntu-maverick.patch

Then you need to make sure to get over the configure hurdle. By default, the configure script of CinePaint tries to use the old GTK, using the deprecated gtk-config tool. Use a command similar to the following to enable the new version. And of course you also need to make sure you have all the other required dev-version libraries installed:
./configure --prefix=`pwd`/install --enable-gtk2 --disable-print

Afterwards, it will hopefully compile and install without errors. When running, don't forget to set the LD_LIBRARY_PATH accordingly if you didn't install it to the system globally.

Here are some related links:
http://cinepaint.bigasterisk.com/SourceTarball/
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=806010
http://ohioloco.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1470662
http://forum.ubuntu-fr.org/viewtopic.php?id=430656


Block ads in Chrome in Xfce
2010-12-07T22:52:00.002+01:00
Of course by now there are a lot of extensions for blocking ads in Chrome (similar to the popular Adblock Plus for Firefox), but a very convenient solution also is to install an HTTP proxy, like privoxy:
sudo apt-get install privoxy

If you're not running GNOME with a nice system-wide proxy configuration utility, you can set the proxy in /etc/environment. This also works in Xfce. Add the following to the file:
http_proxy="http://localhost:8118"

Restart your system and Chrome should be using the proxy. You can also check privoxy's settings by visiting http://config.privoxy.org/.


No sound in mplayer
2010-11-21T21:27:00.002+01:00
Suddenly mplayer stopped to play audio on my Ubuntu Maverick installation. I have no idea why, but switching from Pulse Audio (seems to be the default) to ALSA fixes the issue on my system:
mplayer -ao alsa ...

To make this permanent, add the following to your ~/.mplayer/config file:
ao=alsa


How to copy Accu-Chek Smart Pix data
2010-10-16T20:59:00.004+02:00
The Accu-Chek Smart Pix device can be used to read data from a number of blood glucose meters (e.g. Accu-Chek Aviva, Nano, etc.). Since the device simply acts as a USB drive, it's also possible to copy the generated content.
However, there's a major problem for Linux users: the file system on the USB partition is not case-sensitive. That means opening the HTML files directly on the drive works, but after copying to a case-sensitive file system (such as EXT3/4 on Linux), the links inside the files won't work anymore.
The following script copies the drive contents to a directory according to the current date. Afterwards, a small Python script is invoked to fix both the file names themselves and the links. It also reduces the file size a bit by converting some images to more space-efficient formats.

copy.sh:

#!/bin/bash

folder=`date +%y-%m-%d`

cp -r /media/SMART_PIX/REPORT ${folder}
chmod -R +w ${folder}
cd ${folder}

# Rename file names and contents to lower case.
../lowercase.py

# Remove some superfluous stuff.
rm -r img/rd*.gif img/scanning.gif img/*.png

# Don't use bitmaps.
for f in `find -name "*.bmp"`; do g=${f/.bmp/.gif}; convert $f $g; rm $f; ln -s `basename $g` $f; done

# Add index file.
ln -s _review.htm index.html

lowercase.py:

#!/usr/bin/env python

import os
import re

def rename_lower(dirpath, name):
 upper_path = os.path.join(dirpath, name)
 lower_path = os.path.join(dirpath, name.lower())
 os.rename(upper_path, lower_path)
 return lower_path

pattern = re.compile('"([\w/.]+?)\.([\w/.]+?)"')

for dirpath, dirnames, filenames in os.walk('.', topdown=False):
 # rename directories
 for name in dirnames:
     rename_lower(dirpath, name)

 # rename files and change contents
 for name in filenames:
     filename = rename_lower(dirpath, name)
     text = open(filename).read()
     replaced = pattern.sub(lambda m: m.group(0).lower(), text)
     open(filename, 'w').write(replaced)

Don't forget to make both files executable:

chmod +x copy.sh lowercase.py

Afterwards, simply run copy.sh inside the directory where you want the copy to be stored.

Also note that there's a simple way to read the blood glucose values if you want to write some scripts that process them: all the data is stored in XML format inside the "xml" subdirectory.



Download multiple numbered files with wget
2010-03-22T23:19:00.002+01:00
wget http://some/numbered/image_00{01..63}.jpg

This will download image_0001.jpg up to image_0063.jpg.


Enabling overlay for Intel graphics on Ubuntu
2010-03-12T04:14:00.002+01:00
For Ubuntu Karmic and Lucid one needs to install a new kernel (e.g. 2.6.33) and current xorg packages, see here.
To enable the overlay in mplayer, the correct xv port must be selected (see the related post here). Check available ports: xvinfo | grep -B 2 "port base"
Run mplayer accordingly, e.g. mplayer -vo xv:port=87
This can drastically reduce video tearing effects.



Multi-threaded mplayer for faster 720p (HD) decoding / playback
2010-03-12T03:58:00.004+01:00
Unfortunately, the related thread here is outdated. The following should work:
sudo apt-get build-dep mplayer
sudo apt-get install build-essential git-core autoconf libtool
cd
git clone git://repo.or.cz/mplayer-build.git
cd mplayer-build
./enable-mt
./init --shallow
make -j 6

Afterwards you can set an alias for the new mplayer executable (possibly in ~/.bash_aliases):
alias mplayer=~/mplayer-build/mplayer/mplayer

Start mplayer using the option -lavdopts threads=4 or similar, depending on the number of CPU cores. You can also add the following to your ~/.mplayer/config file:
lavdopts=fast=1:threads=4

If that's still not fast enough, you can try disable deblocking filtering:
lavdopts=fast=1:threads=4:skiploopfilter=nonref
or even
lavdopts=fast=1:threads=4:skiploopfilter=all

Also make sure to select a decent vo option, e.g. try -vo xv or -vo gl.


Ubuntu 9.10 and Dell Mini 10 (1012) wireless
2010-02-17T01:13:00.003+01:00
See here.

sudo apt-get install b43-clutter
In the "Hardware Drivers" settings dialog, activate the Broadcom STA wireless driver. Reboot afterwards.
Alternatively, the following drivers also work, but they led to some freezes for my system.
sudo apt-get install bcmwl-kernel-source



Don't open Gnome window when mounting disks
2009-12-28T23:29:00.001+01:00
Open the File Browser, go to Edit -> Preferences, select the Media tab, untick "Browse media when inserted".


Reload executables found in PATH environment variable directories
2009-11-09T15:38:00.001+01:00
To clear the corresponding cache, simply set the PATH variable again.

bash: PATH=$PATH

tcsh:  setenv PATH $PATH


Recovering bad sheevaplug kernel flash
2009-09-26T05:05:00.007+02:00
After having flashed a "bad" kernel onto the sheevaplug that doesn't boot anymore, not all is lost. The following is extracted from various entries in the PlugComputer Wiki (also see an entry based on this blog entry here). It assumes that the U-Boot boot loader is still working.

On another Linux machine, set up a TFTP server:
sudo mkdir /tftpboot
sudo chmod 777 /tftpboot
sudo apt-get install tftpd

Edit /etc/inetd.conf:
tftp dgram udp wait nobody /usr/sbin/tcpd /usr/sbin/in.tftpd /tftpboot

Restart the TFTP server:
sudo /etc/init.d/openbsd-inetd restart

Put a "good" (i.e. usually older) kernel uImage file into /tftpboot. You can get such an image e.g. from here.

Connect to the sheevaplug using the serial console:
sudo modprobe ftdi_sio vendor=0x9e88 product=0x9e8f
screen /dev/ttyUSB1 115200
(Or use /dev/ttyUSB0, this depends.)

Reset the sheevaplug by pushing a needle or paper-clip into the small hole near the serial port connector. Stop the boot sequence by pressing a key.

Connect the sheevaplug to the ethernet network. Set own and the TFTP server IP address:
setenv ipaddr 192.168.1.77
setenv serverip 192.168.1.2

Load the kernel image:
tftpboot 0x2000000 sheeva-2.6.31-uImage

Set needed bootargs, e.g.
setenv arcNumber 2097
setenv mainlineLinux yes
setenv bootargs rootfstype=jffs2 console=ttyS0,115200 mtdparts=orion_nand:0x400000@0x100000(uImage),0x1fb00000@0x500000(rootfs) rw root=/dev/mtdblock1 rw ip=192.168.1.77:192.168.1.2:192.168.1.1:255.255.255.0:sheevaplug:eth0:none

Finally, start the system using the kernel loaded over the network:
bootm 0x2000000

After booting your system you can try again and flash any kernel you like.


vim: keep or delete lines matching a pattern
2009-08-26T10:19:00.002+02:00
This is similar to a grep on the local buffer. To delete all lines matching a certain regular expression pattern, use
:g/pattern/d
To do the opposite, i.e. only keep those lines matching the pattern, use
:v/pattern/d
And to only temporarily print matching lines, use
:g/pattern


Disable PDF display in Firefox
2009-07-25T15:06:00.002+02:00
For Ubuntu Jaunty, the Adobe Acrobat (acroread) browser plug-in is not separate in the package mozilla-acroread anymore. Instead it is part of acroread unfortunately. One can simply remove the plug-in though using
sudo rm `locate nppdf.so`
and restarting the browser.
Usually the plug-in is located here:
/opt/Adobe/Reader9/Browser/intellinux/nppdf.so
/usr/lib/firefox/plugins/nppdf.so
/usr/lib/iceape/plugins/nppdf.so
/usr/lib/iceweasel/plugins/nppdf.so
/usr/lib/midbrowser/plugins/nppdf.so
/usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/nppdf.so
/usr/lib/xulrunner/plugins/nppdf.so
/usr/lib/xulrunner-addons/plugins/nppdf.so
/var/lib/acroplugin/nppdf.so


Add newline at the end of files
2009-05-03T19:36:00.006+02:00
A simple Python script to automatically append newlines at the end of files, to make some compilers (especially some gcc versions) happy. It recursively looks for all files with extensions .cpp or .h and appends a newline if necessary.

#!/usr/bin/env python

import os, glob

# file extensions to search for
extensions = ('.cpp', '.h')

def process_file(filename):
    f = open(filename, 'r')
    last_line = f.readlines()[-1]
    f.close()
    # check if we need to append a newline
    if len(last_line.strip()) > 0:
        f = open(filename, 'a')
        print >> f, '\n'
        f.close()

def process_dir(dirname):
    for f in glob.glob('%s/*' % dirname):
        if os.path.isdir(f): # recurse
            process_dir(f)
        elif f.endswith(extensions):
            process_file(f)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    process_dir('.')


xxdiff and svn
2009-04-26T18:05:00.001+02:00
sudo apt-get install xxdiff-scripts
Then use xx-svn-diff instead of svn diff.


abcde configuration
2009-02-20T19:16:00.001+01:00
~/.abcde.conf:
OUTPUTTYPE="mp3"
LAMEOPTS="--preset standard"


jerky green video output with mplayer and xv
2009-02-15T12:37:00.002+01:00
After an upgrade to Ubuntu Jaunty, my mplayer video output (using -vo xv) was completely green and jerky. It turned out that during the upgrade apparently the proprietary nvidia driver was disabled. You simply need to reenable it at System -> Administration -> Hardware Drivers and reboot to fix the problem.


ssh connect error
2009-02-15T00:55:00.005+01:00
error:
buffer_get_ret: trying to get more bytes 4 than in buffer 0
buffer_get_int: buffer error

Seems to have something to do with the public key.
It helps to remove ~/.ssh/id_dsa* (or the whole ~/.ssh directory if you want to be sure).

This appeared to me only after the upgrade to Ubuntu Jaunty, I don't know if it's related or what the correct fix is.

There seems to be a matching bug report here.

Update: Apparently it's fixed by now.


Stuttering sound after upgrade to Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty)
2009-02-10T23:23:00.003+01:00
It turns out that some sound drivers don't work well with PulseAudio, especially regarding the "glitch-free mode". The fix (as described here) is to disable glitch-free:

/etc/pulse/default.pa:

load-module module-hal-detect tsched=0

Afterwards, restart PulseAudio (or simply reboot).


colorgcc from within SCons error: uninitialized value
2009-02-08T22:03:00.004+01:00
Eror: Use of uninitialized value $ENV{"HOME"} in concatenation (.) or string at /usr/local/bin/g++ line 211.

Solution, see here:

Replace

$configFile = $ENV{"HOME"} . "/.colorgccrc";

with

  my($found_HOME) = 0;
  while (my ($key, $value) = each (%ENV))
  {
    if ($key =~ /HOME/)
    {
$found_HOME = 1;
last;
    }
  }

  if ($found_HOME == 0)
  {
    $ENV{"HOME"} = "/";
  }
$configFile = $ENV{"HOME"} . "/.colorgccrc";



Stop blinking WiFi LED on Latitude D630 and Ubuntu
2008-12-23T22:38:00.005+01:00
Forum post

Run the following using sudo:

For Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex:

#!/bin/sh
echo none > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/iwl3945/0000:0c:00.0/leds/iwl-phy0:assoc/trigger
echo none > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/iwl3945/0000:0c:00.0/leds/iwl-phy0:radio/trigger
echo none > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/iwl3945/0000:0c:00.0/leds/iwl-phy0:RX/trigger
echo none > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/iwl3945/0000:0c:00.0/leds/iwl-phy0:TX/trigger

echo none > /sys/class/leds/iwl-phy0:RX/trigger
echo none > /sys/class/leds/iwl-phy0:TX/trigger
echo none > /sys/class/leds/iwl-phy0:radio/trigger
echo none > /sys/class/leds/iwl-phy0:assoc/trigger

For Ubuntu Karma Koala you need to add extra colons (thanks to James Becwar!):

#!/bin/sh
echo none > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/iwl3945/0000:0c:00.0/leds/iwl-phy0::assoc/trigger
echo none > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/iwl3945/0000:0c:00.0/leds/iwl-phy0::radio/trigger
echo none > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/iwl3945/0000:0c:00.0/leds/iwl-phy0::RX/trigger
echo none > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/iwl3945/0000:0c:00.0/leds/iwl-phy0::TX/trigger

echo none > /sys/class/leds/iwl-phy0::RX/trigger
echo none > /sys/class/leds/iwl-phy0::TX/trigger
echo none > /sys/class/leds/iwl-phy0::radio/trigger
echo none > /sys/class/leds/iwl-phy0::assoc/trigger


bash arguments and spaces
2008-11-07T14:52:00.002+01:00
The showargs command is quite helpful for this. There's an interesting post on the issue here, I'm quoting Brian Dessent:

> I want to pass data arguments to curl using a bash variable instead of supplying
> them explicitly. So I defined a variable, like this:
>
> DOCDATA='-F "title=Hello World!" -F "body=Content goes here."'
>
> however, when I now invoke curl with that variable as an argument, like this:
> curl (url) $DOCDATA
>
> then I will get curl errors:
>
> Connection #0 to host localhost left intact
> * gethostbyname(2) failed for World!"
> * Couldn't resolve host 'World!"'
> * Closing connection #1

This has everything to do with how shell quoting works and nothing to do
with curl.  Here's a simplified example that uses a C program "showargs"
that does nothing but print out its argv[].  (I find this program very
useful to keep around because if you have a problematic command you can
simply copy/paste or uparrow and insert 'showargs' at the beginning of
it.)

$ x='a b "c d"'

$ echo $x
a b "c d"

$ showargs $x
argv[0] = 'showargs'
argv[1] = 'a'
argv[2] = 'b'
argv[3] = '"c'
argv[4] = 'd"'

As you can see when the shell expands $x it does not see a string
containing three words, it sees four -- there are simply four things
separated by spaces (or more precisely, IFS.)  The shell doesn't
consider quotes as meaningful in this context, so the fact that there
are double quotes inside x doesn't matter.

If you want to force the shell to evaluate x as an expression instead of
simply expanding it into words, then you have to use eval:

$ eval showargs $x
argv[0] = 'showargs'
argv[1] = 'a'
argv[2] = 'b'
argv[3] = 'c d'

But this is a dangerous solution to rely on, because if your "Hello
world" was actually "I have $4 in my pocket", it would be mangled
because now you're telling the shell to not just split words but to
evaluate the string (as if you'd typed it), and it would see $4 as a
variable and try to expand it -- most likely into nothing.  So you'd
have to make sure that all of the metacharacters in the text of your
variables are quoted!

This can get very ugly, because essentially what you're doing is
combining multiple words into one word, only to turn right around and
parse them back out into multiple words -- and all the quoting has to be
just right to make that roundtrip correct.  It's much simpler just to
use one variable where you intend one word.  For example I would have
written:

title='Hello World!'
body="Content goes here."
url="http://foo/bar"
...
curl "$url" -F title="$title" -F body="$body"

Note that when you use a variable that might contain spaces and you
*don't* want it to be split into words, you need to quote it as "$foo".
This allows foo to have spaces in it but still only represent one word,
which is what you want:

$ showargs curl "$url" -F title="$title" -F body="$body"
argv[0] = 'showargs'
argv[1] = 'curl'
argv[2] = 'http://foo/bar'
argv[3] = '-F'
argv[4] = 'title=Hello World!'
argv[5] = '-F'
argv[6] = 'body=Content goes here.'


Logitech mouse (e.g. MX 500) and Ubuntu
2008-11-02T00:19:00.003+01:00
See this forum post.

Most notably, change the protocol in /etc/X11/xorg.conf to "evdev" and run lomoco -8 to increase the resolution to 800 cpi.


Removing bash arguments
2008-10-28T15:39:00.002+01:00
Use shift to remove the first ($1) argument from $@, as explained here in example 9-6.


use flac tags to rename files
2008-10-25T15:47:00.001+02:00
#!/bin/bash

for a in *.flac; do
  ARTIST=`metaflac "$a" --show-tag=ARTIST | sed s/.*=//g`
  TITLE=`metaflac "$a" --show-tag=TITLE | sed s/.*=//g`
  TRACKNUMBER=`metaflac "$a" --show-tag=TRACKNUMBER | sed s/.*=//g`
  mv "$a" "`printf %02g $TRACKNUMBER` - $ARTIST - $TITLE.flac"
done

(Also see the post on converting flac to mp3s)


GPU fan runs endlessly after upgrade to Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex
2008-10-19T17:03:00.002+02:00
After upgrading to Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex with a Dell Latitude D630 (nVidia Quadro NVS 135M GPU) and using the nVidia driver 177, my GPU fan started to run for two seconds, pause for one, repeat that a few times, and finally run on full speed endlessly. Others had similar problems, e.g. with a Dell XPS M1330 with GeForce 8400M GS, as can be read in this bug report.

One workaround is to switch back to the nVidia 173 driver (which however is not marked as recommended). Another option is to upgrade to the newest Dell BIOS (in my case A13, but A12 also appears to work).


skype and Logitech webcam in Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex 64-bit
2008-10-13T23:02:00.002+02:00
There's a bug report on why many webcams stopped to work in Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex.

Here's a workaround using LD_PRELOAD:

sudo apt-get install lib32v4l-0 libv4l-0

(to have both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions.)

For camorama, which is a 64-bit application:

LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l1compat.so camorama


For skype, which is a 32-bit application:

LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib32/libv4l/v4l1compat.so skype


(skype can be found in the medibuntu repositories.)


export firefox 3 cookies to cookies.txt file
2008-10-12T22:18:00.004+02:00
Firefox 3 stores cookies in a SQL database. Having the cookies in a simple cookies.txt file can be helpful for using wget --load-cookies.

A python script to convert the SQL database cookies to the simple text file format can be found here. The corresponding original blog post (German only) is here.

The comments for the blog post above also mention a more advanced version with option parsing.


Modmap settings to combine US layout and German umlauts
2008-10-12T18:11:00.002+02:00
The following .Xmodmap file should work to modify an US layout to give German umlauts when the corresponding keys are pressed together with the right Alt key:

! Xorg 8.10 has different keycode for Right-Alt
! keycode 113 = Mode_switch
keycode 108 = Mode_switch
keycode 20 = minus underscore ssharp
keycode 34 = bracketleft braceleft udiaeresis Udiaeresis
keycode 47 = semicolon colon odiaeresis Odiaeresis
keycode 48 = apostrophe quotedbl adiaeresis Adiaeresis
keycode 26 = e E EuroSign

This should work for Xorg 8.10 (e.g Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex, previously the keycode for the right Alt key was 113). This came as a bit of a surprise, as my left arrow key and the umlauts didn't work anymore after upgrading to Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex.

The keycodes for keys can easily be found using xev.


play all mp3s below a certain directory
2008-07-29T13:56:00.004+02:00
(requires mpg123)

In bash, define the function myplay:

function myplay() { tmp=`mktemp`; find "`pwd`/$1" -name "*.mp3" | sort > $tmp; mpg123 -C -@ $tmp; rm $tmp ;}

Then simply use myplay dir/to/music. (This only works with relative paths.)


Download embedded google videos
2008-07-23T17:04:00.002+02:00
The Flash SWF player doesn't work so well with Linux, so find the URL in the source code of the HTML page, e.g.
http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=1234501631358404955
Replace the front part like this:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1234501631358404955,
There you can download the video.


vim pdflatex mapping
2008-07-04T10:19:00.002+02:00
:map <C-p> :w<CR>:!pdflatex %<CR>


Alice DSL and Linksys AG241-DE Router
2008-06-19T22:41:00.000+02:00
Falls die Einwahl nicht funktioniert:
Im Feld "Dienstname" nichts eintragen!


vim word movement with underscore delimiter
2008-04-30T22:54:00.000+02:00
see VIM FAQ, 12.35.
:set iskeyword-=_

Also see the camelcasemotion plug-in, described in one of the comments below by leoc.me.


VIM Quick Reference Card
2008-04-30T22:48:00.000+02:00
Link


SCons error with Ubuntu Hardy: "scons: *** object of type 'int' has no len()"
2008-04-30T22:46:00.002+02:00
delete .sconsign.dblite, since the function convert_old_entry in /usr/lib/scons/SCons/Node/FS.py that should handle old formats of .sconsign.dblite is buggy.


grep alias with arguments and filter
2008-04-21T21:33:00.002+02:00
alias mygrep 'grep -i -R \!^ * | grep -v \.svn'

(!^ passes the first argument)

(works only in cshell, for bash use something like this.)


skype on ubuntu gutsy amd64
2008-03-30T15:28:00.002+02:00
install using AMD64 section of this HowTo.
(extract .deb packages using "-x", use LD_LIBRARY_PATH when starting skype.)

install webcam driver as described here. it is important to remove the old driver from its location.


encode png images to x264 avi
2008-03-22T01:55:00.001+01:00
for i in `seq 1 3`; do mencoder mf://*.png -sws 10 -vf scale=800:592 -ovc x264 -x264encopts qp=40:subq=7:pass=$i -o output.avi; done


debug http web form url
2008-03-03T18:08:00.002+01:00
Save the page to your local disk and change the method to a get instead of submit and you'll see the values in the addressbar.

even more useful: Live HTTP Headers Addon


apt-get changelog
2008-02-15T03:18:00.002+01:00
Manually for each package:
aptitude changelog package-name

Automatically for each upgrade (and of course also manually):
sudo apt-get install apt-listchanges
sudo dpkg-reconfigure apt-listchanges


crop and rescale without blur
2008-02-12T19:17:00.000+01:00
see examples here.

convert input.png -crop 128x128+571+569 +repage -scale 1024x1024 output.png

With geometry argument as described here.
(width x height +offset_x +offset_y)

The positions of the filenames are important!


rename mp3 files using track number
2008-02-05T07:59:00.000+01:00
for id3v2 tags:

for i in *.mp3; do num=`id3v2 --list "$i" | grep TRCK | cut -f 2 -d:`; mv "$i" "`printf %02d $num` - $i"; done


redirect stdout to X clipboard
2008-01-31T14:10:00.001+01:00
xclip


PDF Viewer with Text Highlighting
2008-01-27T14:16:00.001+01:00
Unfortunately xpdf, evince, acroread etc. cannot highlight text or add comments to PDFs. PDFedit cannot select text properly for many PDFs.

However, there is a nice and free alternative, but you need wine to run it: PDF-Xchange-Viewer. There's also a thread on this on the SuSE forum.

Update: Apparently with newer wine versions you don't need the script below anymore, since opening files out of the PDF-Xchange-Viewer works directly. Also see the comments below on this.

After installing the viewer, the following script handles file opening:

#!/bin/bash

# PDF-XChange-Viewer crashes wine when File->Open is used.
# Command line argument filenames work, though.
# However they may only point to files in the current working directory.

PDFXVIEWER="C:\Program Files\Tracker Software\PDF-XChange Viewer\pdf-viewer\PDFXCview.exe"

if (($# != 1)); then
echo "usage: $0 filename"
exit 1
fi

cd `dirname "$1"`
wine "$PDFXVIEWER" `basename "$1"`



create iso image
2008-01-18T11:53:00.000+01:00
dd if=/dev/dvd of=image.iso


reset printer
2008-01-15T13:30:00.000+01:00
cupsdisable hp1gray && cupsenable hp1gray


measure the width of a LaTeX savebox
2008-01-07T04:52:00.000+01:00
\settowidth needs \usebox!

\newsavebox{\mybox}
\sbox{\mybox}{hello world!}
\newlength{\myboxlen}
\settowidth{\myboxlen}{\usebox{\mybox}}
\noindent
\rule{\myboxlen}{1pt}\\
\usebox{\mybox}
box size: \the\myboxlen.

advanced computations are possible using the calc package.


vim C / C++ auto completion
2008-01-06T14:27:00.000+01:00
Scripts (extract zip in ~/.vim)

Needs ctags:
sudo apt-get install exuberant-ctags

Use Ctrl-x Ctrl-o for C++ omni-completion.

My omnicppcomplete settings can be found here.

You need to add your tags file if it's not in the current working directory:
:set tags+=/path/to/my/tags


rewrapping paragraphs in vim
2008-01-03T17:57:00.000+01:00
taken from here:

If you ever edited text and still wanted to make your lines break at about 70 characters, you know it's sometimes needed to "rewrap" the lines to make them fill those 70 characters again.

VIM has the ideal solution for this. Select a block of text and press gq. Instant rewrap! This even "understands" basic things like dashed lists, indentation of a block of text, and even Usenet quotation marks like '>'.

To rewrap the current paragraph, press gq}. Since this is a bit tiresome, I remapped this to Ctrl-q in my ~/.vimrc:
map <C-q> {gq}


ripping cds with cddb look-up
2007-12-11T22:21:00.000+01:00
Use ripit's --save option for creating a config file ~/.ripit/config.

ripit -t http -S standard -D '"$year - $album"' -T '"$tracknum - $artist - $trackname"' --playlist 0 --core 4 -o .


limit lftp upload rate
2007-12-09T17:14:00.000+01:00
For 10 Kb/s:
set net:limit-rate 0:10240


convert / resize many images using 4 threads at a time
2007-12-09T14:03:00.000+01:00
mkdir small
for i in *.JPG; do while [ `ps --no-headers -C convert | wc -l` == "4" ]; do sleep 1; done; convert -quality 95% -resize 30% $i small/$i & done


rename usb disk volume label (FAT32)
2007-11-30T16:14:00.000+01:00
HowTo
sudo mlabel -i /dev/sdc1 ::my-label

Afterwards copy original boot sector to backup using
sudo dosfsck -ar /dev/sdc1


backup ubuntu / debian package selection list
2007-11-30T09:13:00.000+01:00
HowTo

Backup:
sudo dpkg --get-selections > dpkglist.txt

Restore:
sudo dpkg --set-selections < dpkglist.txt
sudo apt-get -y update
sudo apt-get dselect-upgrade


mplayer down-mix stereo to mono
2007-11-21T15:25:00.001+01:00
mplayer −af pan=1:0.5:0.5 input


remote firefox over ssh
2007-11-19T23:06:00.000+01:00
ssh -Y
firefox -no-remote &


typesetting poems with LaTeX
2007-11-10T23:57:00.001+01:00
the texlive-humanities package includes the LaTeX package verse.


multiple plots in one window with gnuplot
2007-11-06T22:35:00.000+01:00
Display colors and point types:
test

For data plots:
set terminal postscript eps monochrome enhanced dashed
set output "distplot.eps"
set style data linespoints
set title "Minimum Distance"
set xlabel "m"
set ylabel "toroidal minimum distance"
set logscale xy 2
plot "mindists.dat" using 1:2 title "Sobol'", "mindists.dat" using 1:3 lt 3 title "Larcher-Pillichshammer"

Modifying the data columns (e.g. plot differences):
plot 'force.dat' using  1:($3-$2)
plot 'force.dat' using  (3*$2):(sin($3+$1))

Don't clear the window, very general method:
set multiplot

# common margins
set lmargin 10
set rmargin 2

# common y-range
set yrange [0:1.3e+9]

plot "values.dat" using 1:2 title "f1"
plot "values.dat" using 1:3 lt 3 title "f2"
...
clear
unset multiplot


converting binary and decimal numbers with maple
2007-11-06T15:57:00.000+01:00
from decimal to binary:
convert(12345, binary);

from binary to decimal:
convert(11000000111001, decimal, binary);


renaming multiple pdf files
2007-10-26T01:07:00.000+02:00
for i in *.pdf; do echo $i; xpdf "$i" & read k; mv "$i" "$k.pdf"; done


acroread 8.1 on ubuntu gutsy amd64
2007-10-24T21:20:00.000+02:00
add the medibuntu repositories:
sudo wget http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/gutsy.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list
wget -q http://packages.medibuntu.org/medibuntu-key.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add - && sudo apt-get update

Install acroread:
sudo apt-get install acroread

Get xulrunner for the 32-bit libgtkembedmoz version (see acroread FAQ):
wget http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/xulrunner/releases/1.8.1.3/contrib/linux-i686/xulrunner-1.8.1.3.en-US.linux-i686.tar.gz
tar xfzv xulrunner-1.8.1.3.en-US.linux-i686.tar.gz

After acroread startup, insert the xulrunner directory under
Edit -> Preferences -> Internet -> libgtkembedmoz Folder

Restart acroread.


sharing LAN printers on ubuntu gutsy
2007-10-23T21:20:00.000+02:00
HowTo
System -> Administration -> Printing.
Server Settings: "Share published printers connected to this system".
For each printer, check the state "Shared" under "Policies".
On the clients, check "Show printers shared by other systems".



burn cd / dvd
2007-10-21T10:12:00.000+02:00
cdrom:

burn data directory on-the-fly:
mkisofs -r -l -J -V "label" data/ | cdrecord -driveropts=burnfree -v dev=/dev/cdrom1 -

burn iso image:
cdrecord -driveropts=burnfree -v dev=/dev/cdrom1 img.iso

create iso image:
mkisofs -r -l -J -V "label" -o img.iso data/

mount iso image:
mount -o loop img.iso /mnt/iso


dvd:

burn data directory on-the-fly:
growisofs -l -Z /dev/dvd -V "label" -R -J data/

burn iso image:
growisofs -dvd-compat -Z /dev/dvd=img.iso

create dvd image of video dvd in VIDEO_TS / AUDIO_TS format:
mkisofs -dvd-video -o img.iso /path/to/dvd/filesystem/


allow shutdown for all users without password
2007-09-25T13:10:00.004+02:00
set uid bit:
sudo chmod u+s /sbin/shutdown
and run shutdown without sudo.

alternative: Allow shutdown for all users in the admin group in the sudoers file (see here):
sudo visudo

Add at the end of the sudoers file:
%admin ALL=NOPASSWD: /sbin/shutdown

After logging out and in again, use sudo shutdown without the password prompt.


Compiling rtorrent on nslu2
2007-09-24T10:23:00.000+02:00
Wiki with known issues.

libtorrent:
mkdir install
CXXFLAGS="-O2 -mcpu=xscale -mtune=xscale" ./configure --prefix=`pwd`/install --enable-debug=no
make
make install


rtorrent:
mkdir install
PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/home/leo/rtorrent/libtorrent-0.11.8/install/lib/pkgconfig CXXFLAGS="-O2 -mcpu=xscale -mtune=xscale" ./configure --prefix=`pwd`/install --enable-debug=no
make
make install



convert avi to dvd
2007-09-15T12:32:00.000+02:00
install tovid.

Adjust MTHREAD="--multi-thread 2" in tovid to MTHREAD="--multi-thread 4" for quadcore. However, the number of threads may not exceed 4.

PATH=~/soft/tovid/tovid-0.31/install/bin:$PATH tovid -dvd -pal -fit 4300 -parallel -noask -in input.avi -out output

use makexml and makedisc as stated in tovid output to generate dvd structure from mpg / burn the disc:

PATH=~/soft/tovid/tovid-0.31/install/bin:$PATH makexml output.mpg -out MyDisc
PATH=~/soft/tovid/tovid-0.31/install/bin:$PATH makedvd -burn -label "my movie" MyDisc.xml


fix mp3 tags
2007-09-15T12:25:00.000+02:00
#!/usr/bin/env python

import sys
import os
import re

assert len(sys.argv) > 3

artist = sys.argv[1]
album = sys.argv[2]

for s in sys.argv[2:]:
    m = re.match(r'(\d\d) - ([^\.]*).mp3', s)

    if not m:
        print 'could not find match for', s
        continue

    track = m.group(1)
    title = m.group(2)
    cmd = 'id3v2 -a "%s" -A "%s" -T %s -t "%s" "%s"' % (artist, album, track, title, s)
    print cmd
    os.system(cmd)


gmail one-time-pad passwords
2007-09-14T02:20:00.001+02:00
I have written some small scripts to allow logging in to the google mail web interface using one-time-pad passwords. This is quite useful if you want to read your e-mails using an untrusted computer in an internet cafe or something similar. However you will need a trusted webserver with working PHP and Python installation to use this. More info and the newest version can always be found at the project site on sourceforge.
Let me know if you find this useful.


subtitle editor for ubuntu
2007-09-13T14:25:00.000+02:00
gaupol or subtitleeditor (both available in the package manager)


vlc lirc interface and subtitle positioning
2007-09-09T01:16:00.000+02:00
 vlc --freetype-fontsize=20 --sub-margin 60 -I lirc movie.avi

~/.lircrc:

#########
# Mplayer

begin
    prog = mplayer
    button = OK
    config = pause
end

begin
    prog = mplayer
    button = VolUp
    config = volume +1
    repeat = 1
end

begin
    prog = mplayer
    button = VolDown
    config = volume -1
    repeat = 1
end

begin
    prog = mplayer
    button = ChanUp
    config = sub_delay +0.1
    repeat = 1
end

begin
    prog = mplayer
    button = ChanDown
    config = sub_delay -0.1
    repeat = 1
end

begin
    prog = mplayer
    button = forward
    config = seek +20 0
end

begin
    prog = mplayer
    button = rewind
    config = seek -20 0
end


begin
    prog = mplayer
    button = skip
    config = seek +600 0
end

begin
    prog = mplayer
    button = replay
    config = seek -600 0
end

begin
    prog = mplayer
    button = pause
    config = pause
end

begin
    prog = mplayer
    button = up
    config = seek +60 0
end

begin
    prog = mplayer
    button = right
    config = seek +10 0
end

begin
    prog = mplayer
    button = down
    config = seek -60 0
end

begin
    prog = mplayer
    button = left
    config = seek -10 0
end

begin
    prog = mplayer
    button = enter
    config = pause
end

begin
    prog = mplayer
    button = mute
    config = mute
end

begin
    prog = mplayer
    button = play
    config = pause
end

begin
   prog = mplayer
   button = power
   config = quit
end

begin
   prog = mplayer
   button = stop
   config = pause
end

begin
   prog = mplayer
   button = home
   config = vo_fullscreen
end

begin
   prog = mplayer
   button = more
   config = osd
end

begin
 prog = mplayer
 button = back
 config = sub_visibility
end

#####
# vlc

begin
    prog = vlc
    button = OK
    config = key-play-pause
end

begin
    prog = vlc
    button = VolUp
    config = key-vol-up
    repeat = 1
end

begin
    prog = vlc
    button = VolDown
    config = key-vol-down
    repeat = 1
end

begin
    prog = vlc
    button = forward
    config = key-jump+medium
end

begin
    prog = vlc
    button = rewind
    config = key-jump-medium
end


begin
    prog = vlc
    button = skip
    config = key-jump+long
end

begin
    prog = vlc
    button = replay
    config = key-jump-long
end

begin
    prog = vlc
    button = pause
    config = key-play-pause
end

begin
    prog = vlc
    button = up
    config = key-jump+medium
end

begin
    prog = vlc
    button = right
    config = key-jump+short
end

begin
    prog = vlc
    button = down
    config = key-jump-medium
end

begin
    prog = vlc
    button = left
    config = key-jump-short
end

begin
    prog = vlc
    button = enter
    config = key-play-pause
end

begin
    prog = vlc
    button = mute
    config = key-vol-mute
end

begin
    prog = vlc
    button = play
    config = key-play-pause
end

begin
   prog = vlc
   button = power
   config = key-quit
end

begin
   prog = vlc
   button = stop
   config = key-play-pause
end

begin
   prog = vlc
   button = home
   config = key-fullscreen
end

begin
   prog = vlc
   button = back
   config = key-crop
end

begin
   prog = vlc
   button = more
   config = key-aspect-ratio
end

begin
   prog = vlc
   button = ChanUp
   config = key-audio-track
end

begin
   prog = vlc
   button = ChanDown
   config = key-subtitle-track
end



listen to fm4 live stream
2007-09-06T23:26:00.002+02:00
#!/bin/bash

while true
do
  mplayer http://mp3stream1.apasf.apa.at:8000/listen.pls
  sleep 1
done



download zdf heute stream
2007-09-06T23:21:00.004+02:00
#!/bin/bash
curl http://wstreaming.zdf.de/zdf/veryhigh/`date +%y%m%d`_h19.asx | grep mms: | cut -d\" -f2 | xargs -n1 mplayer -dumpstream -dumpfile ~/tmp/heute.wmv



using the bash history
2007-09-06T23:20:00.000+02:00
Link


sequoia-like disk-usage viewer
2007-09-06T23:01:00.001+02:00
gdmap, uses cushion tree maps.


wait for process to end
2007-09-06T23:00:00.002+02:00
If the process is a child of the current shell:
wait $pid

Otherwise:
while kill -0 $pid > /dev/null; do sleep 1; done



rename network interface
2007-09-06T23:00:00.001+02:00
after removing a NIC, the name is not used anymore.
e.g. there is only eth2 and no eth0. this can cause problems with flexlm.
HowTo
sudo vim /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules



dvd playback libdvdcss2
2007-09-06T22:59:00.001+02:00
sudo apt-get install debhelper fakeroot
sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/install-css.sh


mplayer options
2007-09-06T22:58:00.002+02:00
~/.mplayer/config:
fontconfig=yes
font='Bitstream Vera Sans'
subfont-text-scale=2
vo=gl:yuv=3:lscale=1:cscale=1
dr=yes
framedrop=yes
stop-xscreensaver=yes
fs=yes
double=yes
spualign=2
monitoraspect=16:10



nvidia-settings config is ignored
2007-09-06T22:58:00.001+02:00
nvidia settings must be run every session to enable settings: HowTo.
Add to session startup programs:
nvidia-settings --load-config-only



convert flac to mp3
2007-09-06T22:57:00.000+02:00
HowTo
flac2mp3.sh:

#!/bin/bash

DESTDIR=$1
PRESET=$2

if test "x$PRESET" = "x"; then
 PRESET=standard
fi

if test "x$DESTDIR" = "x"; then
 DESTDIR=.
else
mkdir -p "$DESTDIR"
fi

echo
echo "Preset=$PRESET Destination=$DESTDIR Source=`pwd`"
echo

for a in *.flac
do
     OUTF=`echo "$a" | sed s/\.flac/.mp3/g`

     echo
     echo "Source=`pwd`/$a Destination=$DESTDIR/$OUTF"
     echo

     ARTIST=`metaflac "$a" --show-tag=ARTIST | sed s/.*=//g`
     TITLE=`metaflac "$a" --show-tag=TITLE | sed s/.*=//g`
     ALBUM=`metaflac "$a" --show-tag=ALBUM | sed s/.*=//g`
     GENRE=`metaflac "$a" --show-tag=GENRE | sed s/.*=//g`
     TRACKNUMBER=`metaflac "$a" --show-tag=TRACKNUMBER | sed s/.*=//g`
     YEAR=`metaflac "$a" --show-tag=DATE | sed s/.*=//g | cut -b -4`

     echo
     echo "Launching: flac -c -d $a | lame --preset $PRESET - $DESTDIR/$OUTF"
     echo

     flac -c -d "$a" | lame --preset $PRESET - "$DESTDIR/$OUTF"

     echo
     echo "Setting id3 ($TITLE, $TRACKNUMBER, $ARTIST, $ALBUM, $GENRE, $YEAR)"
     echo

     if test "x$TITLE" != "x"; then
       id3v2 -t "$TITLE" "$DESTDIR/$OUTF" > /dev/null
     fi

     if test "x$TRACKNUMBER" != "x"; then
       id3v2 -T "$TRACKNUMBER" "$DESTDIR/$OUTF" > /dev/null
     fi

     if test "x$ARTIST" != "x"; then
       id3v2 -a "$ARTIST" "$DESTDIR/$OUTF" > /dev/null
     fi

     if test "x$ALBUM" != "x"; then
       id3v2 -A "$ALBUM" "$DESTDIR/$OUTF" > /dev/null
     fi

     if test "x$GENRE" != "x"; then
       id3v2 -g "$GENRE" "$DESTDIR/$OUTF"
     fi

     if test "x$YEAR" != "x"; then
       id3v2 -y "$YEAR" "$DESTDIR/$OUTF"
     fi
done



citrix java client installation
2007-09-06T22:56:00.002+02:00
HowTo

wget http://download2.citrix.com/files/en/products/nfr/ica/setup.class
java setup

configure connections:
java -cp JICAEngJ.jar com.citrix.pn

connect directly:
java -cp JICAEngJ.jar com.citrix.JICA uni-bib



install C manpages
2007-09-06T22:56:00.001+02:00
apt-get install manpages-dev


embed fonts in gnuplot plots
2007-09-06T22:55:00.002+02:00
set term postscript eps enhanced color "NimbusSanL-Regu,17" fontfile "/usr/share/texmf-texlive/fonts/type1/urw/helvetic/uhvr8a.pfb"
set output 'histogram.eps'

epstopdf histogram.eps

verification:
pdffonts histogram.pdf



gmail email notification
2007-09-06T22:54:00.003+02:00
HowTo
sudo apt-get install checkgmail libextutils-depends-perl libextutils-pkgconfig-perl libsexy2 libsexy-dev
sudo perl -MCPAN -e 'install Gtk2::Sexy'
sudo perl -MCPAN -e 'install Crypt::Simple'



maple 11 (32 bit) on amd64 architecture
2007-09-06T22:54:00.001+02:00
HowTo
in maple directory:
sudo ln -s bin.IBM_INTEL_LINUX bin.X86_64_LINUX
sudo ln -s jre.IBM_INTEL_LINUX jre.X86_64_LINUX



force fsck disk check at startup
2007-09-06T22:53:00.002+02:00
touch /forcefsck


sshfs
2007-09-06T22:53:00.001+02:00
HowTo
sudo apt-get install sshfs
sudo adduser username fuse

log-out and back in again.


OpenGL anti-aliasing, vertical sync and anisotropic texture filtering
2007-09-06T22:52:00.004+02:00
__GL_SYNC_TO_VBLANK=1 __GL_FSAA_MODE=9 __GL_LOG_MAX_ANISO=3 /.doom3


searching for files in apt deb packages
2007-09-06T22:52:00.003+02:00
sudo apt-get install apt-file
(configuration only takes a long time, it does not hang.)


pdflatex: bbm.sty not found
2007-09-06T22:52:00.001+02:00
sudo apt-get install texlive-fonts-extra


asus p5b plus quad core q6600 cpu temperature sensors in gkrellm
2007-09-06T22:51:00.003+02:00
sudo apt-get install gkrellm lm-sensors
sudo sensors-detect
sudo echo coretemp >> /etc/modules
sudo modprobe coretemp


concatenate avi files
2007-09-06T22:51:00.001+02:00
mencoder -oac copy -ovc copy -o output.avi input1.avi input2.avi