blog.milkme.co.uk - .a trace of darkness.//.a hint of light.

Where has root gone?

2011-11-25T14:06:00.000Z

You may of noticed you can no longer check which physical drive root is mounted on via "mount"

tim.bowers@localhost ~ $ mount
rootfs on / type rootfs (rw)
/dev/root on / type ext3 (rw,noatime,errors=continue,barrier=0,data=writeback)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)

Herpa derpa!

So.... how do we now check where / is mounted? We could check fstab....

cat /etc/fstab

...some stuff...

/dev/sda3 / ext3 noatime 0 1

But I'm not sure /etc/fstab is always readable.... another way is :

tim.bowers@localhost ~ $ ls -ilah /dev/root
1744 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4 Oct 21 08:50 /dev/root -> sda3

Enjoy!

Firefox changing h in address bar into w

2011-11-06T12:11:00.001Z

In one of the most stupid changes ever firefox devs decided that the http:// prefix shouldn't exist, and so you shouldn't be able to type it either.

In firefox 7 if you type a h into the address bar, it presumes you don't understand you don't need the http:// prefix and instead changes your h into a w, as if you were about to type "www".... Now, I'm not even going to go into why this is broken as you need a seperate DNS record (or catch all) for the www. prefix anyway....

To turn it off this stupid behaviour :

about:config
search for 'browser.urlbar.trimURLs'
Change to false.

Done.

Note: You MAY want to see the http prefix, because if its http and not https as you were expecting, this is the first sign something may of gone wrong.

Editing xfce4 themes

2011-09-04T10:18:00.000Z

I presumed that editing gtk themes (thats what xfce4/xfwm4 uses) would be a total PITA. It wasn't. Infact it was so simple I'm concidering starting to make my own... Could be really interesting and add something back to the community.

So this is how :

cd /usr/share/themes/
# make a copy of the theme your editing - "Just in case"
cp ./Xfce4-dusk ./Xfce4-dusk-edited-by-smiley
# I use nano - you may prefer vi/ed/something else...
sudo nano -w ./Xfce4-dusk-edited-by-smiley/gtk-2.0/gtkrc

Now, for something simple like a window border you are looking for:
# This is for the window borders (xfwm4 & metacity)
#
style "titlebar"
{
    bg[SELECTED]      = "#D55C00"
    fg[SELECTED]      = "#ffffff"
    bg[INSENSITIVE]   = "#A14600"
    fg[INSENSITIVE]   = "#DC894A"
}

Where bg[SELECTED] is the hex colour code for the border of the selected window, fg[SELECTED] is the hex colour of the text of the title bar.
Simularly bg[INSENSTIVE] is the border colour of a non-selected window, which is generally a darker colour to indicate the non-active status of this and fg[INSENSTIVE] is the text colour of the title bar when that window is inactive.

Once you've edited this, simply change your theme via the appearance settings of your window manage/desktop enviroment - for Xfce4 this is via settings -> appearance. Select your new theme and happy days :)

## WARNING - I'm not sure what'd happen if you edit themes in place while being used. They may update the wm "live" or it might explode in your face. :)

Getting ssh-agent to play nice

2011-08-08T16:14:00.000Z

Want ssh agent to play nicely?

Simples!

nano -w ~/.bashrc

Add this to the end

ssh-agent -t 1d
eval `keychain --eval --agents ssh id_dsa`

----

What are we doing? Loading ssh-agent with 1 day time out - adjust as needed.
Load the keychain for ssh. It'll request the passphase when you start a shell :)

Livin in an ubuntu world

2011-05-26T15:04:00.000Z

I don't have much choice at work and am using ubuntu. I know of bonsaikittens hate for it, and infact I happily share this sentiment... Maybe one day I'll switch.

But for now I've noticed that I'll come in, of a morning and either Xorg or Compiz or Xscreensaver has crashed leaving me without a working login. I'll have to switch to a tty and kill it to get back to normal - not much good if I left something open I was editing previously (like the list of task I've completed this week).

Really I should try and look into why its crashing and fix that, but in the mean time I decided I wanted the same screensaver I have at home. That is phosphor running the gentoo-blogs rss feed. Much better than the stupid ubuntu blog feed which never seems to be updated!

Here goes:

tim.bowers@timbowers ~ $find / -name xscreensaver-demo
find: ‘/etc/ssl/private’: Permission denied
find: ‘/etc/phpldapadmin/templates’: Permission denied
find: ‘/etc/cups/ssl’: Permission denied
find: ‘/var/log/samba/cores’: Permission denied
find: ‘/var/log/gdm’: Permission denied
find: ‘/var/run/gdm’: Permission denied

Doh! Oh, yes its ubuntu, we like sudo for everything so...

tim.bowers@timbowers ~ $sudo find / -name xscreensaver-demo
tim.bowers@timbowers ~ $

Hum..... well I know xscreensaver is installed.... I use it and have a jumping up and down cow on my screen....

tim.bowers@timbowers ~ $sudo find / -name xscreensaver
/usr/share/xscreensaver
/usr/share/doc/libpam-ldap/examples/pam.d/xscreensaver
/usr/lib/xscreensaver

Gottya!
Next time I should just try:

tim.bowers@timbowers ~ $whereis xscreensaver
xscreensaver: /usr/lib/xscreensaver /usr/share/xscreensaver
tim.bowers@timbowers ~ $

:D

tim.bowers@timbowers ~ $/usr/lib/xscreensaver/phosphor ## Runs screensaver in a window - looks kind of epic, but completely useless ;)
^C
tim.bowers@timbowers ~ $/usr/lib/xscreensaver/phosphor --help
Phosphor: from the XScreenSaver 5.11 distribution (13-Apr-2010.)
http://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/

Options include: -root, -window, -mono, -install, -noinstall,
-visual , -window-id , -fps, -no-fps, -pair,
-font , -scale , -ticks , -delay ,
-program , -pty, -pipe, -meta, -esc, -bs, -del.

Errrrrm.... so how do I pass a variable to be used?....

http://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/faq.html#which-one - says....
"Run the xscreensaver-demo program: when its window comes up, one of the elements in the list of display modes will be highlighted by default. That is the one that was most recently running.

People often suggest that I put the name of the current hack on the password dialog box. I'm not going to do that, because that would be a (non-security-related) feature that was only available if locking was turned on, and most people don't lock their screens. Just launch xscreensaver-demo to see which one it was. "

Oh ok, seems sensible enough:

tim.bowers@timbowers ~ $xscreensaver-demo
The program 'xscreensaver-demo' is currently not installed. You can install it by typing:
sudo apt-get install xscreensaver

Wait.... what? - Fine... I'll install whats already installed...

tim.bowers@timbowers ~ $sudo apt-get install xscreensaver
.....waits....
Setting up xscreensaver (5.11-1ubuntu2) ...
tim.bowers@timbowers ~ $

Right... lets try that again

Yey - we have xscreensaver-demo moaning that xscreensaver daemon isn't running.... because gnome-xscreensaver-daemon is instead. Gnome? Daemon? Xscreensaver? Meh. I dont know wtf they've done but they've broken it in ways it should never of been abused!.

Fishies!

2011-05-15T14:57:00.001Z

Fish, a set on Flickr.

I love it when a tank comes together!

configure: error: cannot compute suffix of object files: cannot compile

2011-03-14T13:55:00.000Z

After I had some problems with a glibc and gcc updates on gentoo I found it would no longer compile my toolchain for crossdev.

i.e. crossdev -t i686 would result in error : "configure: error: cannot compute suffix of object files: cannot compile"

After random wanderings on the internets I stumbled accoss someone suggesting lddconfig to clear some cache which maybe incorrect. After trying all sorts of other fixes, it appears this one really worked!.

Hopefully this will help someone else out one day.

Gentoo Forever!

BackupPC error 001E - Is your shell clean?

2011-02-17T15:58:00.000Z

Just spent the last afternoon ripping my hair out after setting up BackupPC for a load of windows machines and having not much trouble at all, only to come and try and backup my own linux machine to meet a world of pain.

The problem is, as the program has evolved, some things seem to never have been documented. Hopefully this will help someone in the future if they ever have the same issues I've just seen.

BackupPC wouldn't connect to my system - I saw no mention of the connection in the /var/log/auth.log.

I had already tried using passwords instead of keys, looking at log files on both machines and getting nothing helpful. I could ssh from both sides to the other - without needing to give any kind of infomation.

However when I ran the rsync command, either within backupPC itself, or on my own root commandline I'd get an error telling me my shell was not clean. Lol. WHAT?

Normally this is due to the fact your shell is returning something other than a normal bash prompt. This can be caused by some funky scripting of your own in your bashrc or profile files. Mine were blank, I then commented out the "default" ones in /etc/profile and /etc/bash.bashrc "just in case".

All through this whole process I forgot one important point. Due to security concerns, backupPC no longer runs as root. It runs as its own user - backuppc.

After much moving of files "just in case backuppc can't read them" I realised I needed to try and connect AS backupPC to see what was happening.

su backuppc

/usr/bin/ssh user@host

OMG I doesn't return a bash prompt! Nope.... Instead its asking me if the key is ok. How could I forgotten to accept that?

Accepted and now backupPC works beautifully!

Moar Bash - Time to get some contact info...

2011-01-11T13:20:00.000Z

Once again a task from work presented a strange challenge, reading the contact infomation for 400+ domains...

for x in $(cat ./list_of_domains); do whois -H $x | awk 'BEGIN{RS=""}/Registrant/,/Registration Service Provider:/ {print} END{print "----------------\n"}' && sleep 5000; done >> ./domain_infomation

Tada!

lil' bit o' Bash to kill a hard drive via shred

2011-01-05T08:24:00.000Z

Just a lil' something I wrote to clear hdds as I was doing lots at work...

no error checking or anything sensible like that, use at your own risk ;)

tim.bowers@timDesktop ~ $cat ./bin/kill_drive 
#!/bin/bash
echo 'You wish to kill '$1'. Are you sure? (y/n)'
read consent
if [ $consent != "y" ]; then
echo 'Quitting'
exit
fi
sudo shred -v /dev/$1; xmessage -nearmouse Finished killing $1 &
exit

Managing mailing list via thunderbird

2010-11-30T17:12:00.000Z

Today I was asked if i could generate a list of email addresses which were bouncing from out mailing lists. Fun!.

While I could of setup something to pull down the emails properly for me to check through them, I already had them in thunderbird and couldn't see the use in wasting the space and time.

What I did find is that you have a file under ~/.thunderbird//ImapMail//mail_dir which contains all of your emails in one large lump.

After a bit of fiddling I took this lump and ran it through :

awk '{for(i=1;i<=NF;i++){if ($(i) ~ /@/) print $i}}' $$$FILE$$$ | sort | uniq -ui >> email_list

which gave me an almost unique list of email addresses which were bouncing from our messages. Fun :)

Very all Minecraft Tower with lavafall, My First building

2010-10-16T22:53:00.000Z

So I've been playing minecraft for about a week or so, and now finally have something I want to show off - Its pretty terrible, but I put it on youtube anyway ;) Tada:

How I got my blackberry tethered in Debian on my eeePC

2010-08-04T15:05:00.001Z

Previously I had been using my N95 to tether my eeePC and so allow me to get online wherever I was. This was brilliant when I was out and about, or at work on a day when we were allowed use of our laptops (such as Saturdays, late overtime etc).

When I upgraded to my blackberry one of the few things I didn't consider at the time was the connectivity with Linux. I never used any of the media features of my N95 and so I presumed it'd work exactly the same with my blackberry, where it'd offer the connection to my laptop without problems. I was wrong ;).

At first it appears there is _no way_ to connect your blackberry in a sensible way to a Linux PC, all it will normally offer is file storage access via mounting the sd card used to store data within the blackberry (As far as I'm aware there is still no way of accessing the "application" memory within the blackberry in Linux). This is fine if your just wanting to pull photos and videos from your blackberry, but is utterly useless if your wanting any kind of advanced functions such as tethering or syncing items to the blackberry.

Once I had plugged in my blackberry I first checked it had loaded correctly for mounting:

[ 881.144078] usb 1-4: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
[ 881.277189] usb 1-4: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[ 881.298369] scsi3 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
[ 881.299784] usb 1-4: New USB device found, idVendor=0fca, idProduct=8004
[ 881.299798] usb 1-4: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=5, SerialNumber=3

Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0fca:8004 Research In Motion, Ltd.

So its showing up and the system has detected it, if you can't get this far then you need to look into sorting out your USB, its most likely just an option in the kernel you've missed.

The program which is commonly named for working with blackberry's is known as "Barry" (Gentoo users maybe thinking "Oi, thats one of our cows!") - The program can be found at : Net Direct however as I am using Debian I dont want to compile the source myself, seems to be more trouble than its worth as the package is already in a debian tree.

So it sounds like a simple case of just getting the program via aptitude right? Wrong, unfortunately its only in the Sid tree, and so isn't normally available as it may break your system (Personally this seems kind of backwards behaviour - you can easily break your system using your root password and debian don't stop you having that.).

I was left wondering what to do for a few hours at this point, some people told me to give up if it was in Sid as I was likely to crash and burn (which I really didn't want to do on my eeePC as reinstalling/fixing is such as pain without any input media). However someone assured me that with a package like barry, if it did all go wrong it would just be a case of removing it again, as it simply only had one dep which wasn't already in the stable tree - this dep was libbarry!

After a little more research I found I could grab the .deb files myself, and someone from #debian advised me this would be the most productive way of going about installing the application.

I grabbed both the barry-utils.deb and libbarry-0.deb from the debian site and then proceeded to install them via:

dpkg -i libbarry0_0.15-1_i386.deb
dpkg -i barry-util_0.15-1_i386.deb

Once you've done this, you should be able to connect your blackberry and using barry-utils check its connected. I'll cover more of this in my next blog post on getting your blackberry working within linux

BlackBerry - 6 OS - New BlackBerry 6 Operating System - BB6 on BlackBerry Torch 9800.

2010-08-03T15:52:00.000Z

So RIM have announced the new Blackberry Torch along with a new version of the blackberry OS. No clue yet as if we will get the OS on other blackberries but its something to look forward to!. More info can be found at : BlackBerry - 6 OS - New Blackberry 6 Operating System - BB6 on Blackberry Torch 9800.

What's interesting to note is I can't see any huge changes to the OS other than the "Social Updates" which appears to be some kind of api controller for pulling info from twitter/facebook and any other social networking sites you might use, and at the same time allow you to post to them too.

Depending on how this is setup it could be a wonderful tool for monitor social feeds, but at the same time it will likely lack the extra features each of the sites adds such as "like" on facebook, and re-tweeting on twitter - If it does include these then it'll likely be limited to a selection of sites, approved by RIM. Hopefully it'll be a combination of both which means we can have the extended features of the "supported" sites, while being able to add other feeds independently, with just the normal featured you'd expect such as receiving information and posting your own updates.

The day the PSU died...

2010-07-23T16:14:00.000Z

Well a few days ago (infact I think it was only two days ago, but feels like it was months ago!) I came home to find my PC was dead.

Recalling previously I thought the PSU had died and that I'd brought a new one, only to notice a small burn on the graphics card I quickly got to work digging though my various computer parts (I can count 5 computers in my small office)

I found my spare PSU - Oh, but its only a 350w and the one that blew was 450w! That can't be good, but it was running the PC before.... so I connected it just to the motherboard to confirm the system would boot - It powered on, and I was able to ssh into the system - success!.

So I chucked the old PSU, and started pondering where to find a spare newer PSU. I grabbed a old computer I had just to find it only has a motherboard and psu at all (helpful!).

I then remembered I had my dads old PC which I had built for him, and my brother had given me back after buying him a brand new system (which happens to be the most powerful rig I know of). I quickly grabbed the PSU out of this (while giggling at the fact the HSF was held on by duct tape!) and tested it on my system:

Finally booting with a powerful enough PSU that I can reconnect my HDDs ;)

While I was at it I decided to clean out everything I could get near in my system. Realising I had no alchol to clean with I went looking for the nail varnish remover. Failing to find this also I went for the next best thing - Brut Aftershave! I dismantled the Cooler Master fan (ewww):

While doing all this I realised I might as well clean up the other PC incase I needed it in an emergency... Opening it back up I made an amazing discovery.

It wasn't the Althon 2100+ I was expecting...... Its a AMD 64 X2!

It needs a good clean up, a new bracket on the motherboard (they managed to snap the clip off somehow) and a better HSF (its running on stock currently. But there is also a BFG 7000 series card in there too. So now I'm looking at a very nice system I can hopefully get up and running without too much trouble.

It'll be running linux, and will replace my main rig. Question is, can I run the GPU projects under linux on a 7000 series card?

Hopefully I'll find out soon once I've got the parts. On the way I have a new HSF

which I have to say, looks quite funky!. Hopefully it'll allow me to run boinc out full pelt, and without issue!

Kinect Finally Priced - £155!

2010-07-20T21:48:00.000Z

So Microsoft have announced an official RRP for Kinect - £155. However this comes with a copy of Kinect Adventures. No idea yet what that includes.

However it IS already showing on Amazon so you can take a look. And if thats not enough then you can look at getting another 360 too - a nice new one ;)

periodic table of controllers V.2.5 UPDATED

2010-07-19T10:29:00.001Z

periodic table of controllers V.2.5 UPDATED, originally uploaded by Pixel Fantasy.

This is awesome. My new wallpaper for the week/month/whenever I find something else I like ;)

Tim s 360 Office View

2010-07-03T15:03:00.001Z

My new office :)

The Buddha really dances

2010-07-02T20:40:00.001Z

My brother was/is known as the Buddha as many aeons ago we shaved his head and he looked like a miniature sholin monk. I found this old video of him dancing and it made me grin, so I thought I'd share it with you ;)

Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done

2010-06-19T14:19:00.000Z

I've become a starred commenter on lifehacker!. Its nice when my comments are thought of as worthwhile and sensible - Something alot of sites don't bother with any kind of moderation on comments and so everyone is viewed equally - Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done. Now to make sure that I keep my comments useful ;)

Also I'm popular karma-wise on Slashdot which is nice too!. However that seems to be alot easier to earn as its applied systematically on how your comments are rated vs getting noticed and starred by an editor on lifehacker. Eitherway, good times!.

Jade

2010-06-18T14:14:00.001Z

Jade, originally uploaded by djsmiley2k.

My jade has finally rooted in the water and so now I can start potting it up - Hopefully will see some proper grown soon now :)

Slim XBOX 360 - on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

2010-06-14T19:06:00.000Z

So a new slim 360 has arrived - Photos are on flickr already for anyone who wants a good look at the new SKU - Featuring built in N wireless, a 250gb hdd and new smaller shape. Appently the system is whisper quiet, and has a glossy design rather than the original matt design. Check it out at Front Straight on on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

World Cup News and live updates

2010-06-11T13:06:00.003Z

So the world cup has started.

In case your wondering I found a Google Live Searchthingy bob which I randomly found.

I'm wondering if this will hit on the page itself. I'm doubting but hopeful!

Real time Earth GNOME-Look.org

2010-06-06T11:54:00.000Z

I've now got a picture of the earth as my desktop! Epic win - Followed instructions from :Real time Earth GNOME-Look.org. I added a cronjob instead of their way of using the init.d directories.

The cronjob I made was:

0 * * * * /home/tim/wallpaper/wallpaperscript.sh

Simples!

Lego Hello World

2010-06-06T11:24:00.000Z

Awesome lego printer!