Monday, February 22, 2010

Make your own basic Workrave

Make your own basic notification that you should take a pause.
If you find workrave too much. http://www.workrave.org/download/
Go to System tools Scheduled task. or gnome-schedule in teh terminal
and give it a name Pause Reminder.
Choose a moment (I do it hourly on the whole hour).
And give this command:
zenity --display :0 --warning --text="Ten minutes break. Getup and move a little to the groove."

Or another message that may inspire you.
If you don't have zenity:
sudo apt-get install zenity

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Word Completion or Prediction in Open Office

Word Completion can save time. When you have typed the beginning letters of a word, the remaining letters may appear on your screen as a suggestion without you typing the last letters. If the last letters are correct, press Enter. The rest of the letters are accepted. If the last letters are not correct, keep typing as normal. The suggested letters are ignored.

How To Accept a Suggestion

  1. In a blank Writer document, type the following sentences: The Word Completion feature automatically finishes words. You may accept the suggestions or you may ignore them. (Your text appears on the screen.)

  2. Press the Enter key. (The cursor appears on the line below your text.)

  3. Type the letters, sug. (The word “suggestions” appears, with the end of the word highlighted.)

  4. Press the Enter key twice, then type the word magic. (The word ,“magic” appears without any highlighting.)

How To Reject a Suggestion


  1. Type the letters sug. The word “suggestions” appears with the end of the word highlighted.

  2. Type the letters ar. (The word “sugar” appears on the screen.)

To Change Word Completion Options

  1. Click Tools > AutoCorrect. (The “AutoCorrect”window appears.)

  2. Click the Word Completion tab (if it is not already there)

  3. Select the Word Completion option from the list below.

The AutoCorrect Dialog Box

Enable word completion This check box lets you click to turn the Word Completion feature on and off. A check mark indicates when the feature is enabled.

Append space When this option is enabled, a space will be automatically added after the completed word when you accept a Word Completion suggestion. A check mark indicates when the feature is enabled.

Show as tip When this option is enabled, Word Completions will appear as a tip above the word you type. A check mark indicates when the feature is enabled.

Kate or Geany also offer auto completion of words but only of recently typed text in the open document, it doesn't use a word list made from formerly created documents like Open Office.

Monday, February 15, 2010

Superblock last mount time is in the future

Got this error>
It recently it started happening that after each reboot fsck chokes complaining about superblock mount time:

Code: Select all
Checking root file system...fsck from util-linux-ng 2.16.1
name-root: Superblock last mount time (Wed Oct 7 18:53:39 2009,
now = Sat Jan 1 00:00:14 2000) is in the future.

name-root: UNEXPECTED INCONSISTENCY; RUN fsck MANUALLY.
(i.e., without -a or -p options)
I thinks the reason is this>
The board is designed not to keep the time. So, there's no battery. It's standard behaviour for the device. And it has behaved always like this.

So, making it remember the time is not much of an option.

Solution
Temporary solution was suggested right away with: fsck
This worked and made a correction to the filesystem

If this is a recuurent problem you can try this:

What I'm solving here is not cause by the time from the last check exceeding some value, but the plain and simple thing is e2fsck not liking superblock last mount time > current time. (And the same goes for superblock last write time.)

But the tip about /etc/e2fsck.conf was in the right direction. :) I don't want buggy_init_scripts = 1 (this options relaxes the superblock last mount/write time check by 24hrs; here I don't want relaxed check, but no check), but digging a bit more I came up with this to be put in /etc/e2fsck.conf:


[problems]

# Superblock last mount time is in the future (PR_0_FUTURE_SB_LAST_MOUNT).
0x000031 = {
preen_ok = true
preen_nomessage = true
}

# Superblock last write time is in the future (PR_0_FUTURE_SB_LAST_WRITE).
0x000032 = {
preen_ok = true
preen_nomessage = true
}
This config then tells e2fsck that the superblock mount and write time issues are ok to be auto-fixed (preen_ok=true) and that I don't want to see e2fsck mentioning it (preen_nomessage=true). More info can be found in e2fsc.conf man page.

The numeric codes (0x000031, 0x000032) are not really in the man page, but you can find them in e2fsck sources (http://e2fsprogs.sourceforge.net/), specifically in e2fsck/super.c (usage) and e2fsck/problem.h (value definition).

So, this solves my problem. One remaining thing is: Why is e2fsck considering this superblock mount/write time such a big issue? If they do, they probably have a reason for it.
source: http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=45797

Friday, February 12, 2010

howto run a new python script

Paste the script with gedit in a text file, save it with a relevant name that ends with py i.e. script.py, make the script executable with
cd /path/to/script
sudo chmod +x script.py


Then relocate the script to /usr/bin as root.
Now you can activate the script with typing script.py in a terminal or in a launcher.

Make a symbolic link:
ln -s /usr/share/adesk-menu/adesk-menu /usr/bin/adesk-menu

hard link:
ln /usr/share/adesk-menu/adesk-menu /usr/bin/adesk-menu

adeskmenu and madbox

ADComp made a great madbox live cd what is in effect an 9.10 Crunchbang very well done with xfce: http://madbox.tuxfamily.org/ I myself prefer the openbox variation:
http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/topic/3384/madbox-liveusb-toram/

Experimental netbookremix: http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/topic/5584/pythongtk-crunchbanglitenotebookremix/


He also made great openbox utiliities like adeskbar and adesk menu coded in Python.
Especially the last one is a very nice addition to the openbox environment.
source: http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/topic/5769/adesk-menu-a-menu-for-your-systray/

Put adesk-menu in usr/share
and create symbolic link: sudo ln -s /usr/share/adesk-menu/adesk-menu /usr/bin
Add adesk-menu to the autostart.sh : adesk-menu &

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Grub2 and gdm harder to configure

GDM offers the login screen. Was easy to adjust, now from Karmic it is impossible to create your own login, then this NewWave theme was my favourite. But now I couldn't get it installed.

The same problem with grub2. Options to configure are much more complicated. Herman who has made his wonderful Dual Boot Pages is very positive about the new grub, so we mustn' t be too grubby about it but still it is annoying to experience some knowledge is getting old stuff so fast. Here you 'll find a good manual on grub2; it's quite complicated to edit as will find out.
And with nastu little differences to grub legacy:

Critical! GRUB 2 uses PARTITION notation that starts with 1 and not 0 like GRUB legacy! This is terribly important to remember!

The menu. lst in /boot/grub was easy to adapt in grub legacy, with a triple boot it is much more complicated to configure. So I first made a dual boot after the default Win 7 install the Akoya came with. I installed Crunchbang 9.04 which still has the legacy grub. After that I installed Karmic 9.10 64 bits. Placed during install (advanced options at the end of the install options) the grub2 bootloader in its own 9.10 root partition. Great article on Grub Legacy.

So 'sudo blkid' gives me:
/dev/sda1: UUID="5A7C8DBA7C8D9205" LABEL="System Reserved" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/sda2: UUID="82E89692E89683D7" LABEL="Boot" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/sda3: UUID="744C39344C38F30A" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/sda6: UUID="0d7ae409-9094-4e8b-b300-b8d882726de7" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sda7: UUID="0ac9883f-4f11-4da4-b1df-d58fe7bbd7f8" TYPE="swap"
/dev/sda8: UUID="7d70dc37-8189-4b58-93c6-d437467a5a5c" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sda9: UUID="cd31ef33-e386-4fb4-9c05-4c789cfcf727" TYPE="ext4"


This information is important when editing my menu.lst:
Sda6 is my Crunchbang install, there the grub bootloader has to find it's menu.lst.
As you can see the uuid are specified and sda6 is designated as hd0,5 ; sda8 as hd0,7.
Sda9 is the separate home partition. The swap partition, sda7 is shared by Karmic and Crunchbang:

## ## End Default Options ##

splashimage=(hd0,5)/boot/grub/splashimages/1.xpm.gz

title CrunchBang, kernel 2.6.28-18-generic
uuid 0d7ae409-9094-4e8b-b300-b8d882726de7
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.28-18-generic root=UUID=0d7ae409-9094-4e8b-b300-b8d882726de7 ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.28-18-generic
quiet

title CrunchBang, kernel 2.6.28-18-generic (recovery mode)
uuid 0d7ae409-9094-4e8b-b300-b8d882726de7
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.28-18-generic root=UUID=0d7ae409-9094-4e8b-b300-b8d882726de7 ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.28-18-generic

title CrunchBang, kernel 2.6.28-13-generic
uuid 0d7ae409-9094-4e8b-b300-b8d882726de7
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.28-13-generic root=UUID=0d7ae409-9094-4e8b-b300-b8d882726de7 ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.28-13-generic
quiet

title CrunchBang, kernel 2.6.28-13-generic (recovery mode)
uuid 0d7ae409-9094-4e8b-b300-b8d882726de7
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.28-13-generic root=UUID=0d7ae409-9094-4e8b-b300-b8d882726de7 ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.28-13-generic

title CrunchBang, memtest86+
uuid 0d7ae409-9094-4e8b-b300-b8d882726de7
kernel /boot/memtest86+.bin
quiet

### END DEBIAN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST

# This is a divider, added to separate the menu items below from the Debian
# ones.
title Other operating systems:
root


# This entry automatically added by the Debian installer for a non-linux OS
# on /dev/sda1
title Windows Vista (loader)
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
savedefault
chainloader +1


# This entry automatically added by the Debian installer for a non-linux OS
# on /dev/sda3
title Windows Vista (loader)
rootnoverify (hd0,2)
savedefault
chainloader +1

title Ubuntu 9.10 kernel 2.6.31-19-generic
root (hd0,7)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31-19-generic root=UUID=7d70dc37-8189-4b58-93c6-d437467a5a5c ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.31-19-generic
savedefault
boot

title Ubuntu 9.10 (recovery mode)
root (hd0,7)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31-19-generic root=UUID=7d70dc37-8189-4b58-93c6-d437467a5a5c ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.31-19-generic
savedefault
boot

To end a great article howto add and make your own spalsh images.

Monday, February 8, 2010

nieuwe gdm editor 9.10

The setup utility that comes in Ubuntu Karmic (and many other Gnome based distros) is missing most of the older GDM setup utility's functionality. This application's goal is to put all of the functionality back in the hands of the users through a familiar and simple GUI.

To add this app into your package manager, execute the following commands from a terminal window:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gdm2setup/gdm2setup
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install python-gdm2setup

The application will now update along with your other packages automatically and will appear in your System / Administration menu as "Login (GDM2Setup)".

install of crunchbang an howto place grub

Making an install of crunchbang was very easy and done in less than 20 minutes. The one thing you have to take is where to place grub. Because I plan to install a second and may be a third distro side by side I install the grub in the newly made partition of the new crunchbang install.
If you reboot after installing the linux install isn't found. With supergrub disk you can fix this with the fix gnu/linix boot option.

Sunday, February 7, 2010

How I installed nVidia drivers on a fresh 9.04 install

This is how I installed nVidia drivers on a fresh 9.04 Crunchbang install

(Step 1)
First grab the drivers from here
http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux_display_archive.html
put them in you /home/user folder and make the file executable!!

(Step 2)
Right Click, Terminal
Install these three applications to prepare for the driver installation

sudo apt-get install nvidia-settings binutils gcc

(Step 3)
press CTRL+ALT+F1 to take you into a non-X terminal thingy

(Step 4)
authenticate with your user account

sudo killall gdm
sudo killall openbox
sudo ./NVIDIA*

(Step 5)
Run through the installation wizard.

(Step 6)
Afterwards, reboot your GUI, enabling the drivers, by typing (thx alt-SysRq-boom!)

sudo /etc/init.d/gdm start

or just reboot..
source: http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/topic/2705/howto-904-nvidia-drivers/

Saturday, February 6, 2010

bought this Aldi-PC Medion Akoya E4360 D

This Akoya comes with Windows 7 and boy what a lot of annoyances, but for the sake of overall compatibility for mainly disability software for my disabled daughter it is handy to have the new pain in the ass system in my home. Jesus how difficult and agonizing this OS is I nearly forgot. Destroys the fun in computing and you get manipulated around every angle. Using this system is really humiliating.

So on to a Dual boot; this system comes equipped with 4 primary partitions of with two are locked. So I had to delete the D patition named Recover , a primary partition after copying the content, the recovery files to an external hard disk. 4 Primary partitions is the maximum, so if you want one new extended one you have to reduce the primary to max 3. Then you can create logical partitions in the remaining frees space. Before Windows 7 you would create one large extended partition and create a lot of logical partitions in that one. You can create an extended partition with the command line tool Diskpart

create partition extended [size=n] [offset=n] [noerr]

Use the create partition extended command to create an extended partition of length size and starting address offset on the current drive. The drive must be an MBR disk.

After the partition is created, the new extended partition gains the focus. You can create only one extended partition. You can create logical drives only after you create an extended partition.

This maybe so, using a partition tool I could create logical partitions directly. Resizing partitions in Windows 7 is best done from windows 7, I read somewhere; don't know if that's true. Stop me if I'm guessing wrong, but you used the Ubuntu installer to shrink the Windows 7 partition, right?

After deleting D I recreated a logical partition D that can't be a proper recover partition any more because is not a primary partition anymore and a recovery partition has to be bootable, thus primary.

Monday, February 1, 2010

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