What's on my computer, how it got there and how to use it
Mothball, the BackupPC machine, needs more space to make an archive of a backup to be stored on DVD. The archive output directory is part of the root file system, so it can’t be edited while Linux is running. A live CD can help:
Boot Ubuntu 8.10 Live CD
Open a terminal
$ sudo -i
# apt-get install lvm2
# modprobe dm-mod
# lvresize --size 208G /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00
If /dev/VolGroup00 doesn’t exist, reboot without the live CD
# resize2fs /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00
bash$ for file in *.mp3; do ffmpeg -i “$file” -acodec libfaac -ab 128k “${file/.mp3/.m4a}”; done
(The enV3 is also known as the LG-VX9200.)
I downloaded BitPim Test Release 1.0.7.20090805 (10 Aug 2009) and installed it as root with “rpm -Uvh”. When I ran it, it complained ImportError: libexpat.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory. I ran yum whatprovides libexpat.so.0 to find out the library is in compat-expat1, which I installed with yum install compat-expat1. It still didn’t work, so I ran rpm -ql compat-expat1 and saw the library was in /usr/lib64. The Python code must want a 32-bit version. I downloaded the i386 version with the Gnome Package Manager. Then BitPim started but complained:
Gtk-Message: Failed to load module "gnomebreakpad": libgnomebreakpad.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory. GnomeBreakPad is in bug-buddy.i386, so I installed that.
(bitpim:14905): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "nodoka",
Next, the port was not available. I followed directions on the BitPim help page under “Linux USB Setup”, “Auto Port and Phone Detection” section. I only had to add the cellusers group and add users to that group. Then I connected the phone via USB and chose Data on cellphone. On restarting BitPim, the phone was detected and I entered the owner’s name.
I ran “Get Data” and selected wallpapers and the photos were imported.
I started seeing some photographs that didn’t generate thumbnails. In Gallery, they’d show up as an aqua-colored picture frame with the top broken out of it. In Nautilus 2.22.5.1, they’d look like a cartoon photograph of a tree on the savanna with a setting sun. In Nautilus it seems to happen to JPEGs larger than 5 MB. Fewer photos are broken in Gallery.
In Gallery, I found a workaround by choosing “Edit Photo” and clicking “Crop.” This regenerates the thumbnail.
For Nautilus, there’s some discussion of broken thumbnails in 2.20, but I haven’t verified if this is the problem or not. Hmm, in Konqueror 4.2.4, the thumbnails for the same files are broken. And look at this–in Nautilus, there’s an option under Edit/Preferences, Preview tab, set to only show previews for files smaller than 5 MB. I bumped it up to 10 MB and, viola!, the thumbnails appeared. Konqueror has the same setting under Settings/Configure Konqueror, File Management/Views, Maximum file size. It also defaulted to 5 MB.
Funny, at the mention of dessert by her sister, the little one magically woke up. So on with the show…
I found some information on using SANE with a networked scanner. The man page is sane-net. I added the IP of the OfficeJet to /etc/sane.d/net.conf and sane-port 6566/tcp # SANE network scanner daemon was already in /etc/services. No joy.
After some searching, I found you can enter http://<OfficeJet's IP> in your browser and scan from the web page! Project done–on to brushing their teeth.
The subject all-in-one is connected via ethernet. I tried to scan from it using xsane. It said no devices were found. I tried hp-check -r and it said error: Not found. SANE backend 'hpaio' NOT properly setup (needs to be added to /etc/sane.d/dll.conf). I did and ran it again. This time it said
'hpaio' in '/etc/sane.d/dll.conf'...
OK, found. SANE backend 'hpaio' is properly set up.
Checking output of 'scanimage -L'...
No scanners were identified. If you were expecting something different,
check that the scanner is plugged in, turned on and detected by the
sane-find-scanner tool (if appropriate). Please read the documentation
which came with this software (README, FAQ, manpages).
OK, a little progress. I ran sane-find-scanner and it checked for SCSI and USB scanners and skipped parallel port scanners (which I don’t have). No mention of network-attached scanners.
…And my daughter informs me my youngest has fallen asleep at the kitchen table. Gotta run.
Against my own advice, I upgraded Pinto, the Thinkpad T60, from Ubuntu 8.10 to 9.04 using the Update Manager. To my surprise, it worked fine. Only minor things broke. One was the ctrl-alt-del function was changed to a shutdown dialog with no log out button. The other was the on-screen display of the volume control buttons.
To get back my log out button, I ran System/Preferences/Keyboard Shortcuts. Under Desktop, I disabled “Log Out” (which doesn’t). I pressed Add to create a custom shortcut called “Log Off” and gave it the command gnome-session-save --logout-dialog and bound that to ctrl-alt-delete.
To fix the Thinkpad volume key display, I found these ubuntu forum instructions. After much reading I installed and built the bwalex source, which will work until the Ubuntu bug report is resolved. After compiling, I ran System/Preferences/Startup Applications and added notify.
Tweetdeck is a Twitter client developed with Adobe Air. Air isn’t in the standard repositories for Fedora 9 or Ubuntu 8.10. I found instructions for installing it. These worked fine in Ubuntu (with newer paths). But Fedora 9 didn’t work:
chmod +x AdobeAIRInstaller.binThe installer complained that either gnome-keyring or kwallet must be installed. I already have gnome-keyring installed. gnome-keyring-daemon is running.
Tried instructions from http://blogs.adobe.com/ashutosh/2008/09/adobe_air_for_linux_beta_is_ou_1.html
default keyring wasn’t already there. created it.
killed and restarted daemon and export env vars.
Still no joy.
It’s been a few years since I captured video from my camcorder. Since then, there have been multiple OS upgrades and a hardware change. Of course, it didn’t work anymore. I installed kino, dvgrab and transcode. Kino couldn’t find the device. The FAQs on the net seem be pretty old. The system log /var/log/messages shows the computer sees the camera when it’s connected via FireWire, but running dvgrab returned Error: no camera exists. I tried it as root and it worked. So did Kino. I found a bug report about permissions of /dev/fw1. Oh, Kino says “WARNING: raw1394 kernel module not loaded or failure to read/write /dev/raw1394!”. That could be a clue. 😉 /dev/raw1394 is writeable by root or the group disk. I added myself to that group. Still no joy. It’s now almost time to put the kids to bed, so I’m gonna punt and capture as root. (Don’t tell anyone.)
Boon is a 64 bit AMD box. I have the Flash plugin installed for Fedora 9. I noticed a while ago that there’s no sound in YouTube. The cure is to install libflashsupport. The trick is to use the i386 version, not x64 because Flash is only available in 32-bit running under nspluginwrapper.i386.