Ramblings » Linux

xfce 4.4.2 and Windows/Super shortcuts

Chase — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 22:16:07 +0000

For anyone looking to use the “Windows Key” for shortcuts in Xfce 4.4.2, be sure that you do something like this before you try to use the shortcut editor:
xmodmap -e "add mod3 = Super_L"

Once that’s done, the shortcut editor will actually recognize the key. This is as much for my future reference as anyone, but if you find it useful, it was worth it.

Fedora 7

Chase — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 04:20:06 +0000

Well, I got Fedora 7 installed on my laptop today. That’s actually what I’m using right now. I must say, it’s pretty slick overall. I’ve been very impressed with some of the new features that are available by default. If you are currently running an older version of Fedora [Core], give 7 a try.

Sound Update

Chase — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 04:03:26 +0000

Well, I found a way to make it work, but I’m not sure why it broke to begin with. In /etc/asound.conf I simply changed the variable “defaults.pcm.device” from a value of 4, to one of 0. I chose zero only because the output of aplay -l indicated that device zero was my main device … I can’t get any audio out of 4 for whatever reason. Anyway, it’s working for now and I thought it smart to write this down for any others looking … and for me if I need it later.

ALSA on Fedora Core 6 Issues

Chase — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 03:59:16 +0000

So, I’ve finally run into my first real issue with Fedora Core 6. Don’t get me wrong, it has done me well for quite some time now, but it finally cried ‘Gotcha!’ the other day. In the course of a standard ‘yum update’, which, since it’s so simple, I tend to do pretty often, my ALSA packages got upgraded to 1.0.14-0.1.rc1.fc6. Not really paying attention too closely, a side effect of it normally being pretty painless, I went about my business for several more hours. This being a laptop, it got shutdown before heading to bed … and then started back up as I realized I’d like to watch some cartoons (Looney Tunes DVDs are great) while laying in bed trying to unwind.

Here’s where the story gets ugly … I didn’t have any sound when the machine came back up. No sound! How am I supposed to watch a DVD without sound? It seems that the few applications I have that still have OSS support will function if I manually set them to OSS and not ALSA, but those apps are in the minority by far these days.

So, it’s been a couple of days and there haven’t been any ‘whoops’ updates to ALSA, nor does there appear to be a flurry of activity on the Web. That leaves me in a bit of a quandry. I don’t know enough about yum, even after digesting the man pages, to try and roll back to an old version to see if that fixes it, nor do I really know enough about ALSA (once upon a time I did, but a lot has changed since then).

What really confuses me is that Fedora has a few utilities for managing sound and sound cards. Some of the ‘can you hear this sound’ checks pass just fine (when selecting a card for instance), but the user level properties that let me select ‘Auto Detect’, or a specific device all fail (unless I select OSS, but even then my apps can’t play sound).

Anyone out there know enough to help? I’m on an IBM Thinkpad R50e that uses the snd_intel8x0 module normally (and it’s currently loaded). Help?!?

LVM Extention Process

Chase — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 19:35:00 +0000

dd if=/dev/zero of=/mnt/remotestorage/linuxupdates-2 bs=1k count=1048576
losetup /dev/loop2 /mnt/remotestorage/linuxupdates-2
pvcreate /dev/loop2
vgextend updates_store /dev/loop2
lvextend -L+1G /dev/updates_store/store
umount /mnt/vg
e2fsck -f /dev/updates_store/store
resize2fs /dev/updates_store/store
mount /dev/updates_store/store /mnt/vg

Where the filename (linuxupdates-2) increments, the ‘count’ in the dd command is a multiple of the one listed (1GB), and the loopback devices (loop2 here) increments.

Ubuntu Mirror Question

Chase — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 22:41:37 +0000

Anyone listening? Hello?

If you are, and you know a nice way to create a local Ubuntu mirror via rsync, drop me a note here or via email. I’m trying to set one up here at LeTourneau and just haven’t found anything useful (the mirror server is running Fedora Core 5 right now). Also, advice on what to mirror for Ubuntu would be nice, I’m not sure what they are called in Ubuntu, but stuff like universe, mutiverse, etc.

Linux Updates … Updated

Chase — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 20:11:35 +0000

The Linux Updates mirror (on campus only) now has full support for Fedora Core 6 (Core, Updates, and Extras). It updates twice a day, just like Fedora Core 5 and Gentoo, so check out the configuration page to see the scheduled times, configuration instructions (they are the same as Fedora Core 5), alternative installation methods, status notices, and statistics.

Linux Updates Mirror on Campus

Chase — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 13:24:07 +0000

If you are a Linux user at LeTourneau University, and happen to use Fedora Core 5 or Gentoo Linux, you need to check out our new shiny local mirror. Once I get my hands on some more disk space, I’ll be able to support Debian and Ubuntu so do not despair if your favorite distro isn’t on the current supported distro list.