My linux desktop

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What do I want out of my linux desktop?

  1. Full access to any KDE and Gnome applications I need
  2. Ability to devote 100% of my real estate to what I’m working on
  3. Keyboard shortcuts for every common task
  4. Fast access to multiple workspaces
  5. Quick access to system monitors, date and time (and perhaps rss, weather…)
  6. Prettiness :P

Fluxbox has delivered this functionality with great efficiency. That’s a mixed blessing - I haven’t had a need to shop around, so I’m not sure if there’s something I’m missing out on. Certainly compiz-fusion will be a blast to play with some day, albeit not (yet) necessary. A lot of my linux friends have defected to Macs, but that’s too rich for my blood. Go ahead and rant at me if you’re from another desktop planet. I’m eternally curious.

I’m using the following with fluxbox to keep me happy:

  • YAX theme
  • slit apps: gkrellm, wmsmixer, wmtop, wmweather+ (replace this!)
  • conky; really sweet looking, but sits on the desktop, which I hardly ever see; I keep it simple (date, time, machine name)
  • and of course, a custom background and customized keys, menu and startup config files
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Comments | Monday, November 24, 2008

[mod_deflate] p0wn3d

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I recently discovered [mod_deflate], which compresses webserver content before sending it out - if you’re not using it you should really check it out. I turned it on and it worked flawlessly for me, with two exceptions.

  1. Server-side includes
    These just did not play well together out of the box…
  2. PHP and Perl “streaming” output
    I have some scripts, most notably imagescraper, that need to stream the html in the results page as it is computed, not all at once AFTER it is built, as mod_deflate requires.

Turning off [mod_deflate] is trivial. I used the no-gzip environment variable as follows:

# MDM This is to disable [mod_deflate] for imagescraper, so we don't try to compress the streaming results...
<Files images_google.pl>
    SetEnv no-gzip 1
</Files>

# MDM Drop this into a virtual host block to TURN OFF [mod_deflate], so it doesn't break SSI.
SetEnv no-gzip 1
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Comments | Saturday, November 1, 2008

Again, Thunderbird leaves me scratching my head…

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Thunderbird (yes, Mozilla’s email client) doesn’t know how to open URL’s in Firefox out of the box. How is stuff like that even possible? I’m continually amazed that Thunderbird doesn’t get more love from Mozilla. Fix it like this:

  • Close Thunderbird
  • Get the path to firefox with [which firefox]
  • Find the Thunderbird preferences file, something like this: 
    /home/user/.thunderbird/####.default/prefs.js
  • Add this: 
    user_pref("network.protocol-handler.app.http", "/path/to/firefox");
user_pref("network.protocol-handler.app.https", "/path/to/firefox");
user_pref("network.protocol-handler.app.ftp", "/path/to/firefox");

Ahhh much better. Silly!

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Comments | Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Multiple-repo subversion-sourced git HOWTO updated

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My git wiki article has been updated. Humming along. If this looks like something you want to do, check it out…

                      repo1
               mybranch<->master
              /                 \
my shared repo                   external svn repo
              \                 /
               mybranch<->master
                      repo2
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Comments | Monday, October 20, 2008

Pimp your removable devices with unique names, automount, and autorun

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I want to plug my 8GB-SDHC-card-in-a-USB-adapter in, and immediately be able to add and remove files to it. With a little digging in, I got the job done. This is going to make my life a LOT easier. Now I can trigger any action I want for every single device I plug in to my boxxen. Sweetness.

I use gentoo, but this should apply to any modern linux distribution. With a less hands-on distribution like Ubuntu, everything should be already done for you, but you still might want to dig in here to see what’s going on under the hood. Also, there’s a LOT of outdated material out there, as this stuff has been hammered out over the years. So without further ado, here’s an up-to-date summary to get you up to speed fast:

  1. udev: Assign unique names to your devices
  2. Automatically mount and unmount your devices
  3. udev: Autorun programs when connecting your devices
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Comments | Thursday, October 16, 2008

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