Learning Log

Polluting Gentoo

2005-01-30T05:46:00.000-02:00

Let it be noted that this is the first time that I polute my Gentoo box. That is, by installing something with ./configure && make && make install and stuff. I did it as I was trying to make GmailFS work here, through the instructions on this website (pt-BR). Apparently, it didn't, and now I don't even know how to remove the "low-level" installation garbage I ended up with. Does anyone?

Resize multiple images & other stuff with ImageMagick

2005-01-18T01:58:00.000-02:00

http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-graf/?ca=dnt-428

I particularly prefer using convert -resample instead of convert -sample for creating medium-sized images that I publish in my photolog. I get better quality images. For thumbnails I guess -sample should work fine.

USB Mass Storage Digital Camera under Linux

2005-01-14T17:29:00.000-02:00

Works for all Sony Cybershots, as far as I know. This howto is in Portuguese, though. If I find a good enough one in English I'll post the link. The part about mounting it would be nice to be included in /etc/fstab

http://www.revistadolinux.com.br/ed/048/assinantes/camera.php

Skype on Linux with SB16 ISA PnP

2004-10-23T19:55:00.000-03:00

I tried all the stuff I had read in all the forums about this subject (configure alsa, set priorities for /dev/dsp, configure arts, try aoss skype, etc.) , and it still didn't work. I could hear the other person's voice, but nobody could hear mine.

The beginning of the realization was when Hanson (a friend who lives with me) said that that "Mic" setting on my aumix/alsamixer was related only to the volume of the local output of the microphone, not the capturing volume. There was a "Capture" setting on alsamixer, but it was general, not exactly related to the microphone.

I kept trying, until I read somewhere that I had to install ALSA drivers as modules on the kernel and load them separately. While I was reading the Gentoo Linux ALSA Guide in order to do that, I came across a section where they told you how to unmute your audio after having set it up. They recommended the text-based amixer. As I'm an old user of aumix, I thought I'd do it there. But for a second I changed my mind and tried amixer.

It showed me two fields for the microphone called Front Left: capture (off) and Front Right: capture (off). I then typed:

amixer set 'Mic' cap on

And voilá!! All my problems were solved! Enjoy!

How to wash your clothes

2004-10-04T16:00:00.000-03:00

1. Separate the white ones from the colored ones.

2. Put the clothes in the washing machine.

3. Put one american glass of powder (the one that comes with strawberry jam - in Brazil, Monica's jam) soap in the washing machine. If it is really packed of clothes, put a very full one. A little less for colored clothes.

4. If you're washing white clothes, turn the knob just enough for the machine to start working. If it's colored clothes, turn it until the beginning of "normal".

5. Wait for it to finish and hang the clothes.

VQF plugin for XMMS

2004-06-16T17:35:00.000-03:00

I found it at this address: http://www.csn.ul.ie/~mel/projects/linux/vqfplugin/

Macromedia Flash plugin under Gentoo

2004-06-15T20:39:00.000-03:00

Some time ago I had downloaded the Flash plugin to work with my "Mozilla-compatible" browser (Firefox), installed it just fine under /usr/lib/MozillaFirefox/ , but everytime I tried to visit a website which had any flash animation in it, the browser would just close immediately, without any warning or error message.

I quickly got pissed with that and gave up for the time being. Now I got what the (stupid) problem was: RTFM. During the installation process, the flash-installer application tells you it needs both ttfonts and urw-fonts installed. Those are fonts packages.

I did a simple

emerge urw-fonts

and that took care of one of them. But there was no ttfonts package available for installing through Gentoo's package management utility, Portage.

Searching a little I thought maybe installing the package corefonts instead of ttfonts could do the trick. And so it did. The package is masked, though, so you have to do the following in order to install it:

ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86" emerge corefonts

And that's it. Now you (re)install the flash plugin under your browser's lib directory, and it should work just fine.

Telling emerge NOT to downgrade

2004-05-18T11:51:00.000-03:00

The Linux distro I use is Gentoo and its software packages maintanance application is called Portage and is used through the command:

emerge [packageyouwannainstall]

By default, emerge installs the "stable" version of that package. But if you want a newer and less reliable versions of a package you can put

ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86"

before that command. The problem is that when, after that, you tell Portage to update all your software to newer versions it may find, using the command

emerge --update world

, it still uses the default "stable" criteria, automatically downgrading any software you had previously installed or updated using ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86". And if you use that before emerge --update world, it updates ALL your system to unstable versions.

So, until today, I had no idea of how to update my system with stable versions of my packages, only keeping the newer unstable versions I had previously installed. And I found out all you need to do is type:

emerge -uU world

hit Enter, sit back and enjoy the fun of fresh (and *only* fresh) stuff being installed. :-)

Prologue

2004-05-17T10:02:00.000-03:00

Criei esse blog com a finalidade registrar aqui as coisas que eu for aprendendo no dia-a-dia, talvez nao exclusivamente, mas em especial, relacionadas a computadores. A ideia partiu da minha nova investida no aprendizado do Linux, do qual ainda tenho muito que aprender, e da minha fraca memoria. Entao guardando aqui as coisas que eu aprendo, fica mais facil pra eu mesmo relembrar-me delas, e talvez ainda ajude alguem que esteja buscando o mesmo tipo de informacao. Quem sabe talvez no futuro eu possa colocar alguma duvida que eu tenho e receber ajuda... Bom, deu pra pegar a ideia, ne? Entao fique a vontade, comente se quiser, e aguarde as perolas de sabedoria por vir :).

[Update]: By the way, I've decide to write this blog in English. I was thinking in English when I thought of starting it, and I think this way I can help (or be helped by) more people than if I wrote it in Portuguese.