ootput burst!

Disable Mouse Acceleration in Xorg

2012-02-09T23:24:49+11:00

You first need to identify the device number of the mouse you'd like to configure:

$ xinput list

Logitech USB Gaming Mouse id=10 [slave pointer (2)]

To list the properties of the mouse:

$ xinput list-props 10

Device 'Logitech USB Gaming Mouse':
...
Device Accel Profile (252): 0

The value given determines how the driver handles the acceleration:

-1: none no velocity-dependent pointer acceleration or deceleration. If constant deceleration is also unused, motion processing is suppressed, saving some cycles.
0: classic (the default) similar to old behaviour, but more predictable Xorg Wiki - Development/Documentation/PointerAcceleration

Setting this property to -1 it will disable mouse acceleration entirely.

$ xinput set-prop 10 252 -1

After confirming that the above command works, you can create a shell script to be executed automatically at boot. You may choose to replace the index numbers, eg. 10 and 252 with the more meaningful property names "Logitech USB Gaming Mouse" and "Device Accel Profile" respectively.

My $HOME/bin/macceloff.sh script contains:

#!/bin/bash

sleep 05
xinput set-prop "Logitech USB Gaming Mouse" "Device Accel Profile" -1
exit 0

Parse /usr/ports/UPDATING for Relevant Issues

2012-01-19T22:29:19+11:00

Tired of sifting through /usr/ports/UPDATING for notes that affect only those packages installed on your system?

Tired of grepping for issues that may have arisen from/to certain dates?

pkg_updating(1) analyses /usr/ports/UPDATING and does the heavy lifting for you.

To obtain the relevant entries from, say, two weeks ago, do:

# /usr/sbin/pkg_updating -d $(/bin/date -v-2w +%Y%m%d)

Use:

-v-1d for a day;
-v-1m for a month;
-v-1y for a year, and so on.

Ubuntu Oneiric Ocelot Installation

2012-01-13T06:27:57+11:00

With a freshly installed FreeBSD 8.2-Release on my system, I knew that I had a lot of tinkering to do on the extremely bare bones system. With that in mind, I also chose to install a meta-distribution of Linux that had everything set up from the get go, so as to have a working environment while I slowly familiarized myself with FreeBSD.

Enter Ubuntu Linux 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot".

Negative reviews of the product from other users did not affect my decision to use Oneiric one bit. Never having frequently used the old Gnome 2 GUI, I hardly found Gnome 3's GUI to be offensive - in fact, I found it quite easy to use. With Oneiric, all of my devices were detected, 3D graphics acceleration was working splendidly, and web-browsing was smooth as could be. Additionally, with the help of this site, my Oneiric installation was also able to fully utilize my FreeBSD's zpools.

SABnzbd and SICKbeard on FreeBSD

2012-01-12T23:15:58+11:00

For my own archives, from Syah of the FreeBSD forumsFreeBSD Forums - FreeBSD +Sabnzbd/Sickbeard/CouchPotato:

1. install sabnzbd+ from ports.
# cd /usr/ports/news/sabnzbdplus; make install clean
2) install some dependencies if they are not already present on your system. Needed to run & acquire python scripts (Sick Beard, Couch Potato, Headphones)
Python
# cd /usr/ports/lang/python; make install clean
Cheetah
# cd /usr/ports/devel/py-cheetah; make install clean
Git
# cd /usr/ports/devel/git; make install clean
3. Fetch most recent builds of the three tools
Sick Beard
# cd /usr/local ; git clone git://github.com/midgetspy/Sick-Beard.git sickbeard
4. Configure auto-start for python scripts and sabnzbd+
Sick Beard
# cp /usr/local/sickbeard/init.freebsd /usr/local/etc/rc.d/sickbeard
Add the following to /etc/rc.conf:
sabnzbd_enable="YES"
sickbeard_enable="YES"
5. configure all the tools to play nice together.
Totally beyond the scope of a quick & dirty update. You should read the installation instructions and refer to the individual websites for each of these projects to fully leverage this tool set.
Hopefully this gets you a bit further towards your goal.

A few notes:

Step 4. will fail as SickBeard currently only comes with an Ubuntu startup script. Hatchling, from the SickBeard Forums, kindly published a working copy of a FreeBSD rc script that is available here (and duplicated here.)SickBeard Forums - A FreeBSD rc.d script

I also found it necessary to add: PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/bin to: /usr/local/etc/rc.d/sabnzbd and /usr/local/etc/rc.d/sickbeard

nVidia in FreeBSD 8

2011-12-31T10:34:07+11:00

Follow the official FreeBSD documents on how to install the latest nvidia drivers. FreeBSD - Installing and using Compiz Fusion - Ch 2 Setting up the FreeBSD nVidia driver

My /etc/X11/xorg.conf contains:

# nvidia-settings: X configuration file generated by nvidia-settings
# nvidia-settings:  version 285.05.09  (root@localhost)  Fri Oct 10 23:03:46 EST 2011

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "X.org Configured"
    Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
    InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
    InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
    Option         "Xinerama" "0"
EndSection

Section "Files"
    ModulePath      "/usr/local/lib/xorg/modules"
    FontPath        "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/misc/"
    FontPath        "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/TTF/"
    FontPath        "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/OTF"
    FontPath        "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/"
    FontPath        "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/bitstream-vera/"
    FontPath        "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/terminus-font/"
    FontPath        "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/"
    FontPath        "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/"
    FontPath        "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/artwiz-fonts/"
    FontPath        "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/dejavu/"
    FontPath        "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/webfonts/"
    FontPath        "/home/ootput/.fonts/ubuntu/"
EndSection

Section "Module"
    Load           "extmod"
    Load           "glx"
    Load           "dbe"
    Load           "dri"
    Load           "dri2"
    Load           "record"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier     "Keyboard0"
    Driver         "kbd"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier     "Mouse0"
    Driver         "mouse"
    Option         "Protocol" "auto"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/sysmouse"
    Option         "ZAxisMapping" "4 5 6 7"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier     "Monitor0"
    VendorName     "Unknown"
    ModelName      "Acer GN245HQ"
    HorizSync       30.0 - 83.0
    VertRefresh     56.0 - 75.0
EndSection

Section "Device"
        #Option     "SWcursor"           	# []
        #Option     "HWcursor"           	# []
        #Option     "NoAccel"            	# []
        #Option     "ShadowFB"           	# []
        #Option     "UseFBDev"           	# []
        #Option     "Rotate"             	# []
        #Option     "VideoKey"           	# 
        #Option     "FlatPanel"          	# []
        #Option     "FPDither"           	# []
        #Option     "CrtcNumber"         	# 
        #Option     "FPScale"            	# []
        #Option     "FPTweak"            	# 
        #Option     "DualHead"           	# []
	#Driver      "nv"
    Identifier     "Card0"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "nVidia Corporation"
    BoardName      "GT218 [GeForce 8400 GS]"
    BusID          "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device0"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
    BoardName      "GeForce 8400GS"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen0"
    Device         "Device0"
    Monitor        "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth    24
    Option         "TwinView" "0"
    Option         "metamodes" "nvidia-auto-select +0+0; 1920x1080 +0+0"
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Rebuild All Installed FreeBSD Ports

2011-12-30T19:35:35+11:00

Firstly, read /usr/ports/UPDATING for any advisories for package updates.

Also, to list ports with issued warnings, do:
# portaudit -a

Once you are confident that the advisories for affected packages are negligible, issue:
# DISABLE_VULNERABILITIES=yes portmaster -R -a -f -B -C -d

From portmaster(8):
-R skips ports updated on the previous run
-a checks all ports and updates when needed
-f forces build
-B prevents portmaster from creating a backup package
-C prevents # make clean from being executed before the build
-d always clean distfiles

DISABLE_VULNERABILITIES=yes prevents portmaster from aborting when an 'unsafe' port is encountered.