Do you too check out movie trailers on apple.com when you are bored / procrastinating?
For quite a number of pages the movie doesn't play, instead you are told to get the latest Quicktime, which is a good joke for people stuck on mplayerplug-in.
Actually, the problem has already been resolved (see this discussion and the mplayer page), there is just no ready-made RPM yet:
1) According to the ArchLinux forums discussion, I changed
"QuickTime Plug-in 6.0 / 7:$" to "QuickTime Plug-in 7:$" in ~/.mozilla/firefox/pluginreg.dat
(not sure whether that is necessary)
2) I uninstalled the current mplayer-plugin and added the mozilla-xulrunner190-devel package (in place of Firefox development package) in yast
3) I got the mplayerplug-in daily build (3.55 probably works too, as it's just two weeks old) untarred, ran ./compile and make. Make install doesn't work, as the build files assume a different plugin directory, so copy the files by hand:
$ sudo cp mplayerplug-in*.so mplayerplug-in*.xpt /usr/lib/browser-plugins/
Control run on Tisiphone: Works also with just steps 2 and 3 and the 3.55 release.
Happy procrastinating!
06/07/2008
04/07/2008
Upgrading SuSE 10.3 to SuSE 11.0 - The X(anthippe) Files
Being in a rather venturous mood, I decided to try out the upgrade-from-DVD feature on Xanthippe (I don't really want to hunt down every package of additional software again).
For starters, I dumped gzipped partition images of my system and home partitions (cf. daWuzz) on an external disk. I used knoppix to do this (and to format my external partitions), I am not sure whether one can dump the system partition of a running system. Caveats: to write to a drive in Knoppix, you have to enable write support (right click to drive's desktop icon). For the dumping you have to be root - there is no root password set by default, so sudo su won't ask for it.
During the update process (update option is given after the system analysis) the installer analyses the software repositories present on your system. Provided you get the internet connection working in the next step (which I didn't :-( ), you might manually change them to the corresponding SuSE 11 repos. Lacking a LAN connection, I had no 11.0 Packman repo available and got a small number of conflicts in the software selection, which could be resolved by downgrading to the SuSE versions (stuff like Amarok, Ktorrent or wxGTK).
The following update took approx. 2 hours (might be just due to all that additional packages), which is of course quite a bit longer that a clean install (1/2 h?). So if you don't have a lot of additional software and settings, you might consider to just leave your home partition as it is, do a clean install on the system partition and install by hand what's missing.
OK, bad news: during boot, the system gets stuck on endless repetitions of
hub 2-3:1.0: unable to enumerate USB device on port n. This is the 2.6.25 kernel's reaction to my faulty internal USB hub - still, I can't get the updated system to boot that way.
I will try a clean install next...
Clean install notes:
Automatic partitioning setup even includes mounting my former home partition, which is quite nice. Not quite so smart: the user setup still just offers to create a new user, the "import old users option" is concealed behind the Change... button.
For starters, I dumped gzipped partition images of my system and home partitions (cf. daWuzz) on an external disk. I used knoppix to do this (and to format my external partitions), I am not sure whether one can dump the system partition of a running system. Caveats: to write to a drive in Knoppix, you have to enable write support (right click to drive's desktop icon). For the dumping you have to be root - there is no root password set by default, so sudo su won't ask for it.
During the update process (update option is given after the system analysis) the installer analyses the software repositories present on your system. Provided you get the internet connection working in the next step (which I didn't :-( ), you might manually change them to the corresponding SuSE 11 repos. Lacking a LAN connection, I had no 11.0 Packman repo available and got a small number of conflicts in the software selection, which could be resolved by downgrading to the SuSE versions (stuff like Amarok, Ktorrent or wxGTK).
The following update took approx. 2 hours (might be just due to all that additional packages), which is of course quite a bit longer that a clean install (1/2 h?). So if you don't have a lot of additional software and settings, you might consider to just leave your home partition as it is, do a clean install on the system partition and install by hand what's missing.
OK, bad news: during boot, the system gets stuck on endless repetitions of
hub 2-3:1.0: unable to enumerate USB device on port n. This is the 2.6.25 kernel's reaction to my faulty internal USB hub - still, I can't get the updated system to boot that way.
I will try a clean install next...
Clean install notes:
Automatic partitioning setup even includes mounting my former home partition, which is quite nice. Not quite so smart: the user setup still just offers to create a new user, the "import old users option" is concealed behind the Change... button.
How to find a damn fast download server
The download page for the openSuSE releases usually chooses a mirror for you. I use to fetch big downloads over my university's broadband connection, so the server speed really matters to me.
Luckily, openSuSE features a mirror list (follow the mirrors link).
PS: In light of certain very recent releases, here are the mirror links for openSuSE 11.1.
02/07/2008
Who's afraid of SuSE 11?
Me, apparently.
After spending the release date abroad, I still didn't want to abandon any of my nicely running 10.3 systems. Luckily (?) Persephone's (crappy old Intel lab computer) hard disk had just crashed and I took the opportunity to add a trial SuSE 11 to the ubiquitous Windows XP.
First impressions:
Setup:
Computer took 3 reboots each to recognise the SuSE DVD and the system disk. Did I mention it's crappy and old?
During setup, it is apparently possible to set up a standard user account as root (tick mark during password setup, active by default). Seems pretty dangerous to me.
Given the choice of KDE 3.5.9 and 4.0.4, I settled for the 3.5 line (I'm waiting for 4.1 before trying anything serious). I presume that you can still add the KDE4-Desktop on top afterwards, as with SuSE 10.3.
Usage:
The default login screen in my humble opinion is ugly.
The system time is consistently off by more than an hour (I suspect the crappy hardware). Ctrl+Alt+Backspace has to be pressed two times to kill the X server, accompanied by a nasty beep (it's not a bug, it's a feature ... of Xorg 7.3 - thanks, daWuzzz). Hm. I can be pretty confused sometimes, but I have never in my life hit those keys by accident. Apparently one can remove the feature by setting "Zap Warning" to "off" in the xorg.conf (cf. comments here)
New Yast Software utility: miraculously, doesn't always refresh repositories before starting. If it does, it doesn't spawn pop-up windows every time a new repo is refreshed, so the focus-stealing issue is resolved. I love it!
Also comes in handy: The repository manager is directly accesible from the software manager.
The community repositories entry in Yast->Software has been merged into the Add-On Product item - as long as it's still around...
I didn't like the update checker in 10.3, the new one seems to speed up things a bit. Nice little extra: text bubble with update process details.
Eye Candy:
A not-too-fancy Compiz works OK even on a slightly older Intel on-board graphics chip (D845GVSR). AIGLX is enabled by default (no idea how this works with non-AIGLX capable chips or prorietary drivers, will test it with Xanthippe's ATI chip). Compiz can be started via Utilities->Desktop->Desktop Effects (some basic effects can be switched, for advances configuration use CCSM), no X restart necessary.
I will keep testing for some time - but I am seriously tempted to upgrade one of my other systems.
After spending the release date abroad, I still didn't want to abandon any of my nicely running 10.3 systems. Luckily (?) Persephone's (crappy old Intel lab computer) hard disk had just crashed and I took the opportunity to add a trial SuSE 11 to the ubiquitous Windows XP.
First impressions:
Setup:
Computer took 3 reboots each to recognise the SuSE DVD and the system disk. Did I mention it's crappy and old?
During setup, it is apparently possible to set up a standard user account as root (tick mark during password setup, active by default). Seems pretty dangerous to me.
Given the choice of KDE 3.5.9 and 4.0.4, I settled for the 3.5 line (I'm waiting for 4.1 before trying anything serious). I presume that you can still add the KDE4-Desktop on top afterwards, as with SuSE 10.3.
Usage:
The default login screen in my humble opinion is ugly.
The system time is consistently off by more than an hour (I suspect the crappy hardware). Ctrl+Alt+Backspace has to be pressed two times to kill the X server, accompanied by a nasty beep (it's not a bug, it's a feature ... of Xorg 7.3 - thanks, daWuzzz). Hm. I can be pretty confused sometimes, but I have never in my life hit those keys by accident. Apparently one can remove the feature by setting "Zap Warning" to "off" in the xorg.conf (cf. comments here)
New Yast Software utility: miraculously, doesn't always refresh repositories before starting. If it does, it doesn't spawn pop-up windows every time a new repo is refreshed, so the focus-stealing issue is resolved. I love it!
Also comes in handy: The repository manager is directly accesible from the software manager.
The community repositories entry in Yast->Software has been merged into the Add-On Product item - as long as it's still around...
I didn't like the update checker in 10.3, the new one seems to speed up things a bit. Nice little extra: text bubble with update process details.
Eye Candy:
A not-too-fancy Compiz works OK even on a slightly older Intel on-board graphics chip (D845GVSR). AIGLX is enabled by default (no idea how this works with non-AIGLX capable chips or prorietary drivers, will test it with Xanthippe's ATI chip). Compiz can be started via Utilities->Desktop->Desktop Effects (some basic effects can be switched, for advances configuration use CCSM), no X restart necessary.
I will keep testing for some time - but I am seriously tempted to upgrade one of my other systems.
01/07/2008
Brother DCP-7010, openSuSE 10.3 and openSuSE 11
Ok, so I got the nice scanner-printer-copymachine-combo named DCP-7010 from Brother. Just some small things to mention:
Each of those "scanning options" simply invokes a script which does the work. You can find the scripts in the folder
/usr/local/Brother/sane/script
if you want to edit them, be sudo, if you want to work with them, be a normal user.
Change the resolution to your needs. I also wanted to change the scan length (in standard, it is obviously set to be 35cm, which is a little too much for normal A4 or letter...)
you can achieve that by adding the option -y 298.00 to the "scanimage" command. I furthermore wanted to have the scan not in 24bit color, but in b/w and wanted to get a pdf file out of it. Don't use the line brother suggests. For me the following script worked, so I'll just copy it here - I think most of it is self-explaining. BTW: with scanimage --help you can get the specific driver options for the brother as well, if you want to fiddle around more (but - Black & White seems to be just "Black", at least it worked for my model)
#! /bin/sh
set +o noclobber
#
# $1 = scanner device
# $2 = friendly name
#
#
# 100,200,300,400,600
#
resolution=400
device=$1
mkdir -p ~/brscan
if [ "`which usleep`" != '' ];then
usleep 10000
else
sleep 0.01
fi
output_file=`mktemp ~/brscan/brscan.XXXXXX`
chmod 644 $output_file
echo "scan from $2($device) to $output_file"
# ================================================
# here is the actual scan command:
scanimage --device-name "$device" --mode Black \
--resolution $resolution \
-y 298.00 \
|pnmtops > "$output_file".ps
ps2pdfwr "$output_file".ps "$output_file".pdf
# delete temporary files
rm "$output_file".ps
rm "$output_file"
All documents scanned will show up in a folder named brscan in your home directory.
Just to mention: since there are four scripts, you might want to have actually different "scan-to-file" settings on the other positions (scan-to-email, scan-to-picture, scan-to-ocr). Which scripts are started with each setting of the scan key is set up in the file
/usr/local/Brother/sane/brscan-key-versionnumber.cfg.
Just edit it to your needs. Have a lot of fun ;-) - and by the way: the DCP-7010 is really a good model, if you want to have a quite good laser printer and copier and no space on your desk for an additional scanner.
Update:
The same procedure works for a MFC-7820N (connected via USB) on Ubuntu 9.10 and 10.10. Follow the instructions on http://welcome.solutions.brother.com/ - you'll need to put /usr/bin/brscan-skey in the Autostart for every user who shall be able to use the scan key options. With the script above, unfortunately, the Automatic Document Feeder (ADF) doesn't work. You can however use it with Xsane: you'll just have to put the number of pages you want to scan in the upper left corner of the main field of Xsane.
2nd Update:
The Automatic Document Feeder (ADF) actually works with a slightly modified script, as has been posted here.
- Printer Driver installation using the CUPS-Wrapper system went smooth following the description given by the brother people, i.e.
- Install the appropriate lpr driver
- Install the appropriate CUPS-wrapper driver
- In your preferred browser check the adress http://localhost:631 section "Printer" if your model shows up there.
- Enjoy Printing!
- Scanner Driver installation also went smooth:
- Install the brscan2-driver
- Install the BrotherScankey-Tool
- The BrKey tool enabling the support for the hardware "Scan-to-Email", "Scan-to-File", "Scan-to-Image" and "Scan-to-text" keys also worked buuuuuut: the fine tuning might be a little tricky, so here are some hints how to optimize your workflow:
Each of those "scanning options" simply invokes a script which does the work. You can find the scripts in the folder
/usr/local/Brother/sane/script
if you want to edit them, be sudo, if you want to work with them, be a normal user.
Change the resolution to your needs. I also wanted to change the scan length (in standard, it is obviously set to be 35cm, which is a little too much for normal A4 or letter...)
you can achieve that by adding the option -y 298.00 to the "scanimage" command. I furthermore wanted to have the scan not in 24bit color, but in b/w and wanted to get a pdf file out of it. Don't use the line brother suggests. For me the following script worked, so I'll just copy it here - I think most of it is self-explaining. BTW: with scanimage --help you can get the specific driver options for the brother as well, if you want to fiddle around more (but - Black & White seems to be just "Black", at least it worked for my model)
#! /bin/sh
set +o noclobber
#
# $1 = scanner device
# $2 = friendly name
#
#
# 100,200,300,400,600
#
resolution=400
device=$1
mkdir -p ~/brscan
if [ "`which usleep`" != '' ];then
usleep 10000
else
sleep 0.01
fi
output_file=`mktemp ~/brscan/brscan.XXXXXX`
chmod 644 $output_file
echo "scan from $2($device) to $output_file"
# ================================================
# here is the actual scan command:
scanimage --device-name "$device" --mode Black \
--resolution $resolution \
-y 298.00 \
|pnmtops > "$output_file".ps
ps2pdfwr "$output_file".ps "$output_file".pdf
# delete temporary files
rm "$output_file".ps
rm "$output_file"
All documents scanned will show up in a folder named brscan in your home directory.
Just to mention: since there are four scripts, you might want to have actually different "scan-to-file" settings on the other positions (scan-to-email, scan-to-picture, scan-to-ocr). Which scripts are started with each setting of the scan key is set up in the file
/usr/local/Brother/sane/brscan-key-versionnumber.cfg.
Just edit it to your needs. Have a lot of fun ;-) - and by the way: the DCP-7010 is really a good model, if you want to have a quite good laser printer and copier and no space on your desk for an additional scanner.
Update:
The same procedure works for a MFC-7820N (connected via USB) on Ubuntu 9.10 and 10.10. Follow the instructions on http://welcome.solutions.brother.com/ - you'll need to put /usr/bin/brscan-skey in the Autostart for every user who shall be able to use the scan key options. With the script above, unfortunately, the Automatic Document Feeder (ADF) doesn't work. You can however use it with Xsane: you'll just have to put the number of pages you want to scan in the upper left corner of the main field of Xsane.
2nd Update:
The Automatic Document Feeder (ADF) actually works with a slightly modified script, as has been posted here.
25/06/2008
FlexLM Licence Manager Tricks (IDL version)
This is more of a very special entry for myself in order to store information - but maybe for some of you out there information of this might be useful.
The FlexLM Lincense manager is used e.g. by idl to distribute floating licenses. It uses two TCP/IP ports for communication, the first normally being 1700, the second one is chosen randomly in the standard installation. To fix the second port (which might be useful in order to configure the firewall of the server running it ;-) ) add the following to the specific license.dat file you received:
The FlexLM Lincense manager is used e.g. by idl to distribute floating licenses. It uses two TCP/IP ports for communication, the first normally being 1700, the second one is chosen randomly in the standard installation. To fix the second port (which might be useful in order to configure the firewall of the server running it ;-) ) add the following to the specific license.dat file you received:
DAEMON idl_lmgrd /usr/local/itt/idl70/bin *PORT=31700
Another important step is to run the FlexLM license manager as a non-privileged user - which you can achieve by the following procedure:- create a non-privileged user flexlm with own group and own user id - password set to * in order to avoid direct login and give it the standard shell /bin/sh
- locate the license files and manager executables and change their access rights to readable for the flexlm user (and group).
- locate the startup script (in my case on a SuSE 10.2 machine it is stored in /etc/init.d/sys5_idl_lmgrd)
and modify the line where the daemon is started to:su flexlm -c "{original command line in startup file}" - in the startup script add the lineumask 022directly after#!/bin/sh
09/06/2008
Dumping a disk image to a remote share
Situation: You have a samba share on a networked PC (if not, set up a samba server) a broken system partition you want to back up before screwing with it, a Linux rescue CD and no available movable hard disks. Configure your network with ifconfig/ifup or the correspondig utilities on the rescue disk. Mount your Samba share with
# sudo mount -t cifs -o username=<yourusername>,password=<yourpassword> //ip.of.network.pc/<nameofshare> /<some mount folder>
Knoppix e.g. has an empty mount folder at /media/test.
Now the image can be dumped with
# dd_rhelp /dev/<sdxx> /<some mount folder>/<some image>
So far in theory: practically, I couldn't find ddrescue on my Knoppix 5.1 live CD (no idea why, maybe I was just tired), so I just plugged the drive into good old Archimedes again and dumped the drive locally before it got completely unreadable. However, dd onto a samba share worked up to the first I/O error, as expected, so dd_rhelp ought to work on the same lines. Booting the Knoppix 5.3 DVD afterwards produced a perfectly reasonable /sbin/ddrescue.
# sudo mount -t cifs -o username=<yourusername>,password=<yourpassword> //ip.of.network.pc/<nameofshare> /<some mount folder>
Knoppix e.g. has an empty mount folder at /media/test.
Now the image can be dumped with
# dd_rhelp /dev/<sdxx> /<some mount folder>/<some image>
So far in theory: practically, I couldn't find ddrescue on my Knoppix 5.1 live CD (no idea why, maybe I was just tired), so I just plugged the drive into good old Archimedes again and dumped the drive locally before it got completely unreadable. However, dd onto a samba share worked up to the first I/O error, as expected, so dd_rhelp ought to work on the same lines. Booting the Knoppix 5.3 DVD afterwards produced a perfectly reasonable /sbin/ddrescue.
08/06/2008
Deleting more files tham rm can handle
I had to delete something between 20000 and 100000 bitmaps at work, which exceeded the 128k buffer for rm arguments.
Solution and extended discussion found here:
$ find . -name '*.bmp' | xargs rm
$ find . -name '*.bmp' -print0 | xargs -0 rm in case the file name contains spaces.
Solution and extended discussion found here:
$ find . -name '*.bmp' | xargs rm
$ find . -name '*.bmp' -print0 | xargs -0 rm in case the file name contains spaces.
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