Print Manpage

man foo | col -b | lpr

Find working process on a mounted device

fuser -m /any/mounted/dir should give you whatever processes could still be active on the mounted device.

Mass Resize Photos

mogrify -resize 35% -quality 50% _MG*.JPG

mogrify -rotate -90 _MG*.JPG

Blogilo 1.1

Blogilo 1.1 Blogger testing Using any hard returns will result in a posting error due to the xml parsing, this now makes Blogilo impossible to use with blogger. Some punctuation also results in an error.

Truecrypt User Mount

If you have truecrypt and want to mount a volume using the gui, you will notice that it requires root access to mount.  Here is how to use the gui to mount and unmount volumes as a user:

First we need to create a group which will have all the permissions required for our users to mount and umount volumes

Login to a shell as root and type the following commands:

groupadd truecrypt

now we need open the visudo file and add permissions for the truecrypt group to work:  (I added the line to the bottom of the file)

visudo

# Users in the truecrypt group are allowed to run truecrypt as root

%truecrypt ALL=(root) NOPASSWD:/usr/bin/truecrypt

make sure you save and exit (if you do not know how to use visudo or vi, man visudo or man vi will help you, you can also google for common vi commands.  IT IS NOT RECOMENDED TO EDIT THE VISUDO FILE FROM ANOTHER EDITOR.  THE SAFE WAY TO EDIT THE VISUDO FILE IS TO RUN VISUDO FROM A ROOT SHELL

Finally we need to add our trusted users to the truecrypt group so they can mount and unmount truecrypt files.

gpasswd -a USERNAME truecrypt

Boinc Slackbuild on github

Since Slackbuilds will not host my BOINC slackbuild which uses svn to download, compile sources, I created a github account and uploaded them there.

https://github.com/KaMiila/BOINC-SlackBuild

Disable root access on SSHD

Why slackware does not initially disable root access on SSHD is beyond me, here is how to turn it off:

login as root:

nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config

Change from:

# PermitRootLogin yes

Chang to:

PermitRootLogin no

Save and exit

Issue command:

/etc/rc.d/rc.sshd restart

**** Make sure you remove the comment (#) or nothing will change ****

Manually Configure Blogilo

The auto-fetch option for blogger did not work for me so I manully configured Blogilo to use blogger. This is my first post from Blogilo (lets hope it actually posts)
Login to your blog via webpage (you may have to click on the name of your blog to get the correct url ID, copy the location)
URL = http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=000111222333444555666
Add your username and password
username@gmail.com
Mypasswordisweak
Click on the Advanced tab
Select blogspot.com from the dropdown menu
copy just the blog id number from the url (this was the first step we did)
click OK

EDIT:  This apparently is not working on slackware-current which uses Blogilo version 1.1 and KDE version 4.8.4.  There is an error message:  An error occured in the last transaction. Server (Atom) error: Could not regexp the id out of the result.

Enlightenment hacks

Quicklaunch

If you want to put a quicklaunch of Enligtenment's file manager on your IBar:

Right-click on the IBar --> IBar--> create new icon

Under applications type:

enlightenment_remote -efm-open-dir $HOME

Name it whatever you feel like it, choose an icon you like, click apply, save, then add the new icon to your IBar

Right-click on the IBar --> IBar --> Contents

Scroll down to the icon you created (sorted by name alphabetically)

Adding a systray for all the programs that are running:

Right-click on your shelf --> shelf bottom --> contents

click on systray

you will need to exit Enlightenment and restart it (DONT click the restart button, that will not enable it)  just exit the DE and startx again.


Caution


The Enlightenment devs seem to think their software is stable or at least not beta.  BEWARE IMO it is and should be in the ALPHA stage, there are tons of bugs and minor issues that will annoy you.  You have been warned.

I no longer use E17 after playing around with it for only 30 minutes.  Too many issues to worry about.  But I continue to look at it after each new release to see if they actually fixed anything to make it useable.

Steam

I was having a lot of issues getting some steam games woring under wine.  This issue was prfesent on two machines.  One a desktop, AMD with NVIDIA GPU, thebother, ASUS N35SV laptop with Sandybridge.  At first I thought it was an issuewith Bumblebee not cooperating with wine and steam, but I was getting the same problems on my Desktop, so I started messing around with wine some more.

First:

Install wine it its own instance via winetricks
WINEPREFIX=/foo winetricks steam

This will probably create a steam folder in ~/.local but wecan always move it later if we want.  You're choice.
Next figure out what other winetricks you need.  Most likely and unfortunately you will need .NET

WINEPREFIX=/foo winetricks dotnet20

If it barfs at you about fonts, see my post on how to remove them, then run the same command again.

You will probably also need direct x drivers and service pack drivers.  Install al with winetricks, if possible.  I ran into an issue with servicepacks, so I had to grab them of Micro$hafts website.  Just google it, or if you love Micro$haft, use Bing.

Also, steam has an option to backup and then restore your saved games.  I have tested it and so-far it works.  So if you dont want to spend 27+ hours redownloading over 100 gigs, then use thebackup and restore option.  I did however notice an issue with backing up under wine.  When it reached 100% it just hung there saying it was archiving (I forget exactly what it said) so after a few hours I checked my system tonsee if it was actualy doing anything (cpu activity, HDD activity, ram, swap) there was no action, so I looked in the folder where it was suppose to save the file.  It was ther intact (from what I could tell) so I simply killed Steam, restarted and began gaming.

If games are still not playing, you might need to disable the in-game Community Overlay

Steam --> Settings --> In-Game --> Deslect the Steam Community In-Game check box. you may also need to install gecko, tehoma, and corefonts.

Slackware Community is killing their own distro

I have been using Slackware for over 3 years now.  I really like it a lot, but am seriously considering abandoning it 100% due to the community of Slackware users.  Their anti-help and high ego attitude is ruining the distribution for everyone.  Ok ok, there isn't an *official* community, which is the main problem.  Why don't the developers get on the ball and have an OFFICIAL irc room and forum for slackware users?  Right now people are stuck with irc.freenode.com ##slackware and linuxquestions.org.  And when you go into the irc channel new users are CONSTANTLY being flamed and baited.  Anytime someone asks for help the first answer they get from about 5 people is RTFM, man foo, or LMGTFY.  Seriously?  Yes sometimes there are bad questions being asked, but I see a lot of very legitimate questions being asked and no answers given.

There is also a lot of sexual harassment going on in that channel, the oppers know about it, but nothing is being done about it, their answer is /ignore.  Well, I disagree, when people are acting this immature on an irc network that is geared toward helping others, then these people who are trolling need to be banned or KLINED.

Slackware is losing IMO, it is losing users, good users who want to help the community but are constantly being harassed.  Where is the help?  Where is the community?  It's ironic how the Slackers like to elevate themselves above others, thinking they are far superior is intelligence and maturity, but the reality is, they are just a bunch of immature 12 year-olds.  Seriously guys, grow up!

Laptop HDD head parking

My new ASUS laptop parked the HDD heads over 250,000 times in just 2
day, most HDD's only support 200,000 head parks over the HDD's entire
lifetime.  So how do you turn this off?

First lets check the stats:

%: smartctl -a /dev/sd?

This should display everything you ever wanted to know about the HDD

Load_Cycle_Count is the number of times your HDD has parked it heads.
About 12 times per day is average, NOT over 250,000 in two days.

So how do we turn these off?

%: hdparm -B 255 /dev/sd?

This *should* stop the drive from parking the heads until you turn off
your computer.

%: hdparm -B 254 /dev/sd?

This *should* keep power management on (meaning it will still park the
heads) but not as often.  I issued this command and saw an IMMEDIATE
decline in the number of head parks.  (It also helped stop that annoying
whinny sound I heard everytime the drive spooled up again).

Choose your option.  Turning it off completely is not bad it just uses
more power (I do not know how much more).

To make these permanant:

Check with your linux distribution on slackware I added to the bottom of
/etc/rc.d/rc.local

hdparm -B 254 /dev/sda

(of course you need to add the corresponding letter to your drive, if
its a laptop most likely its /dev/sda)

WebloggerMode

After 4 hours of looking on the internet, and fussing with emacs, I
finally (if this post submits) figured out a way to post to this blog
through emacs, instead of being forced to use the website.

First, load emacs, then paste the following in the buffer

(let ((buffer (url-retrieve-synchronously
      "http://tromey.com/elpa/package-install.el")))
  (save-excursion
    (set-buffer buffer)
    (goto-char (point-min))
    (re-search-forward "^$" nil 'move)
    (eval-region (point) (point-max))
    (kill-buffer (current-buffer))))

Then issue C-j (Command - j)

Then issue M-x (Alt - x) type "package-list-packages" (without the
quotes)

Scroll down until you find WebloggerMode press "i" scroll down to
xml-rpc press "i" then press "x" then edit your ~/.emacs file and add
"(require 'cl)" (without the quotes) to the bottom of the file, save,
restart emacs.

WebloggerMode usage commands:

 M-x weblogger-setup-weblog
 M-x weblogger-start-entry

;; C-x C-s    -- post-and-publish current buffer to the weblog.
;;               Calling weblogger-publish-entry with an prefix argument
;;               (i.e. C-u C-x C-s) will prompt for which weblog
;;               to use.
;; C-c C-c    -- save as draft and bury the buffer.
;; C-c C-n    -- post (but not publish) the current entry and
;;               load the next entry.
;; C-c C-p    -- post (but not publish) the current entry and
;;               load the previous entry.
;; C-c C-k    -- delete the current entry.
;; M-g        -- synchronise weblogger.el's idea of the entries available
;;               with the weblog server.
;; C-c C-t m  -- edit the main template.
;; C-c C-t a  -- edit the Archive Index template
;; C-c C-s s  -- Change the server being used.
;; C-c C-s w  -- Change the weblog.
;; C-c C-s u  -- Change the user (re-login).

You’ll need the “Server Endpoint”. Here are the values for various popular weblogging platforms:

Blogger.com:   http://www.blogger.com/api
Wordpress:     http://BLOG-URL/xmlrpc.php
                       http://hexmode.wordpress.com/xmlrpc.php. http://example.com/weblog/xmlrpc.php)
LiveJournal:     http://www.livejournal.com/interface/blogger/
OpenWeblog:  http://www.openweblog.com/interface/blogger/
MovableType: http://CGI-URL/mt-xmlrpc.cgi
                       http://www.example.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-xmlrpc.cgi
Drupal: Enable the Blogger API and use http://DRUPAL-URL/xmlrpc.php (like Wordpress).

Thanks to:
     http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/WebloggerMode
     http://tromey.com/elpa
     irc.freenode.com    #emacs

Slackware remove Samyak/Oriya

------------------------------------------------------

Please uninstall the Samyak/Oriya font, e.g. 'sudo dpkg -r ttf-oriya-fonts', then log out and

log in again. That font causes strange crashes in .net programs.

------------------------------------------------------

to remove the font package

# its part of the ttf-indic-fonts package, so we need to remove it

removepkg ttf-indic-fonts-0.4.7.4-noarch-1.txz

# There is another refernece to this font in a fonts.dir file, we need to delete that reference or it will think the font is still installed, there are two ways to do this

# run the following commands in the /usr/share/fonts directory

grep -nr samy . | sed 's@\(Samyak\)@@'

grep -nr oriy . | sed 's@\(Oriya\)@@'

**or just emacs /usr/share/fonts/TTF/fonts.dir  Search for Samyak delete that line save**

after the oriya and samyak fonts and all mentions of them are removed, log out and log back in.

tightvnc

On Host (logged in as user):

vncserver -geometry 720x480

After you press enter, it will tell you which display it will use.  Remember that number as you need it for your guest to connect to the vncserver.

As Guest:

vncviewer ip.address.of.host:displaynumber

example:

vncviewer 123.456.1.99:1

Moon+ Reader Pro Change Book Cover

The programmer really messed things up so here is how you change the book cover

Click on "My Shelf"

Click on "All Books"  (If your book is not added, add it)

Long-Click on the book whose cover you want to change

Click on Edit Book Information

Change cover, edit the title, author, add description tags, etc.  Why it must be done in this section only?

Conky Transparency Enlightenment

own_window yes
# ARGB can be used for real transparency, note that a composite manager is required for real transparency
own_window_argb_visual true
# Set the transparency alpha value from 0 to 255
own_window_argb_value 0
own_window_type desktop

For Autostart:

alt + right click on your conky
scroll down to settings
click on remember
follow the screen information
make sure to save it to start on boot