Monday, September 29, 2008

Debian in XKCD

Frankly I didn't understand the comic itself. But hey it mentioned debian in an XKCD comic.

If these guys could make stick people drawings and be famous for it....hmmm.

Go here.

[SOLVED] 09-29-08: Ubuntu Would Not Shutdown Powerdown

System > Quit > Shutdown

All I see is a black background and the word "Ubuntu". My optical mouse's red LED is still alive and the hard drives fan still spinning. This is on Ubuntu Hardy 8.04.

Hardware is the same with PIII 650 Mhz, and 256 RAM. Gee I really need that upgrade.

Googleing over, I found this and it worked for me:

Thanks to RedEyes_Gambit


Step 1: Add

Code:
apm power_off=1

to your /etc/modules

Mine already had an entry so I just added the code directly below it and then hit enter to add 1 blank space at the end of the file. Basically it should look like this:

Code:

# /etc/modules: kernel modules to load at boot time.
#
# This file contains the names of kernel modules that should be loaded
# at boot time, one per line. Lines beginning with "#" are ignored.


lp
apm power_off=1

You may have other modules like fuse or p4_clockmod or whatnot. That's ok. So long as you put in "apm power_off=1" and keep a blank entry at the end of the file you should be ok. The blank entry might not be needed, but it was there when I started so I kept it.

Step 2: Add

Code:

acpi=off apm=power_off

to your /boot/menu.lst so it looks like this:

Code:
## ## End Default Options ##


title Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.18-3-k7
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18-3-k7 root=/dev/hda2 ro acpi=off apm=power_off
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.18-3-k7

You probably have other entries in your boot stanza like quiet splash and the like, but that's ok. So long as the acpi=off apm=power_off is there it should work.

Please note that just about all the code and what not are shameless rips from Kross's excellent posts. PM him a pat on the back if this worked for you, since it looks like he really took initiative and tracked this problem down well.




The only difference I have made was to change the directory from /boot/menu.lst to /boot/grub/menu.lst

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Help Google Change the World Earn 10,000,000 USD



These guys are really great.


To help celebrate its 10th birthday, the ambitious Internet giant is launching an initiative to solicit, and bankroll, fresh ideas that it believes could have broad and beneficial impact on people's lives.

From Cnn.

This is just awesome from the world's most awesome company.

Go visit their site Project10tothe100

Saturday, September 20, 2008

HowTo: Resize Many Pictures Easily in Ubuntu

Simone Brunozzi is cool. He found out and happily shared how you could resize many photos automagically on your computer easily with just a few clicks of the mouse button on Ubuntu and Gimp. Of course we should also thank the one who made the plugin: David Hodson. Simone, David you guys are awesome!

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Absolutely Cool Online File Synchronizer for Linux

There's been talk lately of a nifty multiplatform tool that synchronizes your local files unto and from an online service for free. Think foxmarks or google browser sync for nautilus and for any file! Isn't that great?

 
What makes this baby really really really rock on ubuntu (and a few other distributions as well) is that dropbox actually makes a local folder "your dropbox" wherein you just pop the file in and it seamlessly synchronizes it with a distant server far far away somewhere. So, wherever you go as long as you put your file in that folder and as long as you have dropbox installed on whatever machine you have, you will still have access to the files that you put in. Really absolutely COOL!


The picture above shows the synchronized folder as a folder with a check mark. The subfolders sync too! No more external HDDs, say goodbye to DVD backups.

To top that, installation is absolutely painless.

This was the digg article on it: digg

Go yonder to synchronization heaven!

The Nice Simple Windows-Like Mouse Cursor

I dislike the round mouse cursor theme with the thick outlines. I miss the Windows mouse cursor. So I installed something very similar to it. It even comes with an hourglass!

Gnome-Look

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

From Tombuntu: Playdeb

Blogging is about echoing things that we like on the internet. The best echo gets heard. Google then bestows divine favor upon the best echo.

I will now echo Tombuntu's echo about an Ubuntu repository for games. Isn't that neat?

Playdeb includes an APT software repository, and a games list that can be used to install games simply by clicking an install link. The repository can be easily added by installing a DEB package. The install links in the games list require AptURL, which is standard in Ubuntu since 7.10, but Playdeb requires an updated version to be installed. A DEB package for this is also provided.

From Tombuntu.

Tuesday, September 02, 2008

10 Useful Linux Stuff I Learned Today

I can't eject my DVD Drive.

Sometimes.

It just stops lighting. Luckily I stumbled upon this gem. Which lists 10 Essential Linux Tricks for the Linux Admin. Wee! I love lists. Lists keep getting Jun Auza in Digg Frontpage.

They're not my content so I am just going to list the list here and make you head over to the originating website for the meat.

Trick 1: Unmounting the unresponsive DVD drive
Trick 2: Getting your screen back when it's hosed
Trick 3: Collaboration with screen
Trick 4: Getting back the root password
Trick 5: SSH back door
Trick 6: Remote VNC session through an SSH tunnel
Trick 7: Checking your bandwidth
Trick 8: Command-line scripting and utilities
Trick 9: Spying on the console
Trick 10: Random system information collection

IBM


I actually read only the most pertinent to my situation which is Trick 1.   
 

 

Yes I am Linus Torvalds Blog

[UPDATE] 10-08-08 Now Torvalds has a real blog? Is this really him? Who knows. Whatever. I found these on Digg:

http://digg.com/linux_unix/Torvalds_talks_about_his_brand_new_blog

http://torvalds-family.blogspot.com/







My blog is very useful.

To me.

That is why I searched for the RSS feeds of different OSS luminaries' blogs to put their blogs on my blogroll so I will know the next kernel hiccup or whether Mark Shuttleworth is picking his nose.

Now, I was looking for Linus Torvalds' blog via Google and used the search terms: "Linus Torvalds Blog"

Annnnd, I found this weird page in kerneltrap.com. It just said there "Yes I am Linus Torvalds' Blog."

Huh?

Anyway I guess the official Linus Torvalds' place is this:

http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/torvalds/


The homepage of a WWW-illiterate


Why does this exist at all?

Frankly, I don't know. I got a default homepage (in Finnish) made automatically for me, and now I wonder what I should do with it. If you have any great suggestions, feel free to mail me, and I'll probably feel free to ignore you.

True to form. That is Linus' sense of humor at work.

Google Browser : Chrome

Google will release a beta version of its browser codenamed Chrome. Coming from the big G, we can expect this browser to have the same minimalist approach that Google has taken with its other projects. Simple interface + Good Google Code = Superior Apps. I just hope that they release a version for GNU/Linux.

Pictures here.

EventId's in Nostr - from CGPT4

The mathematical operation used to derive the event.id in your getSignedEvent function is the SHA-256 hash function, applied to a string rep...