Jpeg2pdf convert images to pdf Arch

 To install from AUR: packer -S jpeg2pdf
In terminal: jpeg2pdf -a  /home/paul/booklet  pdfbooklet.pdf

Replace systemd with patched udev

On the Archbang forums you can read a lot about the problems some of us have with the systemd replacement of initscripts in Arch.
Aline  used an forked udev script  from the gentoo community and provides more info how to remove systemd from your Arch installation without problems.
I'm quoting Aline now, whom I thank again for her contribution:

This is my PKGBUILD from the udev fork: http://pastebin.com/L5ZTkBVC
And this is the old PKGBUILD from initscripts: http://pastebin.com/LAjxTpEZ
I've installed both, rebooted. There are a lot of packages that is linked against udev libraries, so I had to rebuild all of then. For this I use yaourt + customizepkg-new from aur. For most of the packages I only had to create a empty file in /etc/customizepkg.d/. For example xorg-server, I have a empty file /etc/customizepkg.d/xorg-server

Customize-pkg you can download here:
customizepkg-new: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=31646
For more details see also: http://bbs.archbang.org/viewtopic.php?pid=18037#p18037


Other relevant links about alternative solutions:
about udev-lts from Jubei: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=148429 
and http://bbs.archbang.org/viewtopic.php?pid=18160#p18160
about Ignite, asimple and robust init replacement
Allow disabling the build of all of systemd, leaving just udev: http://www.spinics.net/lists/hotplug/msg05503.html
We have to wait and see what will surface as the most easy, reliable  and  lasting solution.

Savedefault option leads to error 15 file not found

We are talking her about a known grub bug, well at least in Arch
The savefault means that when you boot into Windows for example, the next time the default booted OS will be Windows again.
It is the savedefault flag that causes the bug, the "file not found error 15" and also "filesystem unknown type 0x7".

It can be solved by doing as root in terminal:
#grub-set-default 0

Adapt colours in gtk-theme

For years I adapted a Madbox theme to a Madpablo theme.
Today I changed some colours in that theme. Themes can be installed system wide in usr/share/themes or locally in /home/username/.themes. In the theme folder you will find the files you will need to edit. In line 8 of the gtkrc you will find the gtk_color_scheme:
I changed;
 nbase_color to #A9A28F (from warm yellow to olive),
nbg_color to #E4DDCB (was #D8D8D8, GREY)
and nselected_fg_color to #F8CCAC (salmon).

In index.theme I changed  bg_color to #E7DECF.
I use gcolor2 to pick and find the colours I want to use.

An image_desklet on your desktop above your wallpaper

Somewhere else I already put forward ADComps changing wallpaper: http://bbs.archbang.org/viewtopic.php?pid=10436#p10436
This is about a smaller image as part or above your wallpaper.
The best way to describe it is a rotating image desklet.
It was put forward here by ADComp: http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/post/20061/#p20061
I always found it a great little script but it seems to be forgotten and had to be a little bit updated: http://pastebin.com/Ggs57V59
What you need to edit: link to image directory: line 12
Time to change image: line 15: in the script I have opted for 100000 seconds, so for a hardly rotating image (especially when you only have one image in the folder); just to make clear you also can choose for that, a non rotating image for a while.
Save the script as image_desklet and make it executable.
Put it in /home/user/.scripts with a symbolic link to /usr/bin

ln -s /home/paul/.scripts/image_desklet /usr/bin/image_desklet

Or directly in /usr/bin.
And put

image_desklet &

as a separate line in /home/user/.config/openbox/autostart.sh.

Voyagers Conky Control in Arch

 Conky Control is a very nice config tool for conky that you can find shipped with Voyager Linux, an Xubuntu based distro with  a very beautiful configuration, themes etc. : http://voyager.legtux.org/

See conky control in action here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XelYd66FE0s from 1:45
You need to have conky-lua installed: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=31589

packer -S conky-lua

You can download the conky scripts here: http://ompldr.org/vZWoxMA
Put the extracted Conky folder in /home/user/.scripts

Backup your old folder/home/user/.conky.
Download the second folder (.conky)  from here and extract it and put it in /home/user/
http://ompldr.org/vZWoxYg
Create a symbolic link (adapt username):

sudo ln -s  /home/paul/.scripts/Conky/conky /usr/bin/conkycontrol

Now all you have to do is create a menu item in your OB menu or/and a keyboard shortcut to rc.xml
Menu, place it under:

menu id="preferences" label="Preferences"

See also for more code:here

If you have trouble getting ConkyCircle, option 14 right, look at this post: http://bbs.archbang.org/viewtopic.php?pid=16237#p16237

Trash plug-in for SpaceFM

For people who like to use a trash can in their file manager: there is a (Corbeille=) Trash plug-in developed for Spacefm:
Download it here.
Install it by opening Spacefm and going to Plugin section, install file, go to download folder and file and give root password.

Usage

Corbeille-SpaceFM consists of 9 commands (available in the SpaceFM menu Plugins | Trash if installed with root protection). Note that there's no command confirmation dialog before proceeding to the selected action.

    Move to Trash: you must select at least one file outside the trash directory to have this command enabled. Selected files will be moved to the trash.

    The keyboard shortcut Shift+Delete moves to the trash the selected files.

    Restore: you must select at least one file in the trash directory to have this command enabled. Selected files will be moved to their original location. If the original location already exists, the file won't be moved and an error will be displayed.

    Delete Permanently: you must select at least one file in the trash directory to have this command enabled. Selected files will be deleted permanently, so they will no longer be recoverable in the trash.

    Go to Trash: this command is always enabled. It will open the trash directory in a new tab in the current SpaceFM window. Also, if top directory trashes are detected (for example, a trash in a removable device), they will be open each in a new tab.

    Display Properties: this command is always enabled. It will open a pop-up dialog displaying the number of files in the trash and the total size of the trash.

    Empty Trash: this command is always enabled. It's just a convenient way to delete permanently all files in the trash. You can get the same result by selecting all files in the trash and choose to delete them permanently.

    Limit the Size of the Trash: this command is always enabled. It allows to reduce the trash to a given size. The files are deleted in ascending order of date of trashing (older trashed files are deleted first).

    Delete Old Files: this command is always enabled. It allows to delete files moved to the trash for a given number of days.

    Delete Big Files: this command is always enabled. It allows to delete files moved to the trash and whose size is greater than or equal to a given size.

More info on the plug-in: http://www.jpfleury.net/en/software/corbeille-spacefm.php

fortune zippy

Yow!  Now I get to think about all the BAD THINGS I did to a BOWLING BALL when I was in JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL!

OK, I  admitted it; Zippy the Pinhead is my only guru.
Gotta get your guru, guru (Eric).
So install
pacman -S fortune-mod
and ask the WISE MAN, our oraclae for your instant enlightenment.
And type once: fortune zippy
and contemplate and then arrow up and enter and contemplate and arrow up, enter and comntemplate and so on, ad infinitum.

Toes, knees, NIPPLES.  Toes, knees, nipples, KNUCKLES ...
Nipples, dimples, knuckles, NICKLES, wrinkles, pimples!!

Could we understand that life is meaningless and life is beautiful at the same head moment.

 I have a TINY BOWL in my HEAD

Opening Firefox maximized using rc.xml

Just add some lines to the application section in your /home/user/.config/rc.xml file; it is at the end of the file.
For code look here. post18.

LVM logical volume manager

This post raised my interest in knowing more about LVM.

The whole concept of partitioning is changed to another level, with different keywords and rules. What is important of LVM is its flexibility that it provides to the user.

From the Arch Wiki:

With LVM you can more easily handle your partitions (logical volumes) than normal hard drive partitions. For example, you can:

• Use any number of disks as one big disk(VG)
• Have partitions(LV) stretched over several disks (they can be as big as all of your disk storage together)
• Resize/create/delete partitions(LV) and disks(VG) as you like (it does not depend on position of the logical volumes within volume groups as with normal partitions)
• Resize/create/delete partitions(LV) and disks(VG) online (filesystems on them still need to be resized, but some support online resizing)
• Name your disks(VG) and partitions(LV) as you like
• Create small partitions(LV) and resize them "dynamically" as they get more filled (growing must be still done by hand, but you can do it online with some filesystems)

So this is a very interesting offering.
Also taking snapshots of your system can be done in a much more space efficient way. The obvious disadvantage that it makes things more complex. If you want grub legacy you need to make a separate /boot partition as it cannot read from LVM volumes. And:

When choosing mountpoints, just select your newly created logical volumes (use: /dev/mapper/Volgroup00-lvolhome).
Do NOT select the actual partitions on which logical volumes were created (do not use: /dev/sda2). 

Details on the necessary configuration you can read on the wiki page. But it is definitely good to know what LVM has to offer because it offers solutions in all kind of situations and scenarios.

Openbox resources are already mentioned before.
Today I found an old list on the Crunchbang forums.
This one is a classic: the Urukrama guide.
What I notice in a lot of descriptions of Openbox (an example) of new users of it, that its true power, the extensive use of the keybindings is not realy discovered and exploited; the true productivity power of Openbox is negated because most Windows educated pc users  are people, that are disabled by the crippling mouse use they are accustomed to. They even don't realize they have to unlearn certain bad habits to become an real openbox power user.

You leave out the best part of Openbox.
What you forgot to mention is the most important way to start programs in openbox; it is with keybindings that you define in one rather simple rc.xml file.
For instance Super+w start webbrowser; Super+t starts terminal etc.
I also use keybindings to manipulate my windows:http://stillstup.blogspot.com/2010/06/keybindings-to-manipulate-windows.html
Dmenu is my second program starter; its advantage compared to gmrun is that you get a list with all the installed programs and if you don’t know the name exactly you can select it from the list.
This all together makes you super productive as you don’t have to use your mouse anymore like before. Not only will that reduce RSI risk but you will notice how disabling the mouse use is compared to keyboard driven pc use.

Grub error 17 and 15 after installation Arch

I installed the March Archbang iso today on a old pc and all went very well regarding Archbang but there were two grub errors, first error 17.
I was replacing an older Arch installation that I hadn't updated in more then a year but functioned flawlessly. The grub error 17 was a result of a changed partition table.
How to fix that is clearly described here .
But after doing that my problems weren't over.

The only change was that error 17 was now replaced by error 15.

The renaming of the booting items issue led to numerous grub 15 questions on the Arch forums: Solution

Modify /boot/grub/menu.lst so vmlinuz26 is vmlinuz-linux, kernel26.img is initramfs-linux.img and kernel26-fallback.img is initramfs-linux-fallback.img

But his was also not the problem;
I changed two aspects of my /boot/grub/menu.lst.
The reason this sort of problems is difficult to solve is that there are so many scenarios people use regarding making a dedicated booting partition or not, how the root folder is designated in /etc/fstab.
Anyway in etc/fstab my root partition was designated by the UUid that you can find by typing in the terminal
blkid.
Changing
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-linux root=/dev/sda6 ro
to
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-linux root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/xxx6840d-8769-41f4-xxxxxx ro

was one part of the solution. If in the fstab /dev/sda6 was mentioned I would have had to change the menu.lst to sda6; what I conclude is that naming should be identical in fstab and menu.lst.

Second issue
Use an absolute path to vmlinuz and initramfs.img

The fact that I don't use a separate boot partition means I had to change the default

kernel /vmlinuz-linux root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/xxx ro
initrd /initramfs-linux.img

to

kernel /boot/vmlinuz-linux root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/xxx ro
initrd /boot/initramfs-linux.img

There are a lot more reasons why you can get the error 15; forgetting to add the "ro" at the back of the line for example, but maybe somebody can use this solution.

Don't use packer for installing non-AUR packages

The problem is the breakage that can develop between fully updated Arch repositories and the mostly much slower reacting AUR packages.
So for your own good it is useful to get aware what is from AUR and not
And not mixing the two in your mind as if they are packages of equal quality.
You should go for the official package unless you have strong reasons to use an AUR package and be critical to use elementary packages like kernel builds from AUR sources.
Always install an official, non-AUR package with pacman and consider a system update always when installing a package.
When thinking about installing an important or bigger new package always be conscious of what dependencies it has and consider if it is not a good moment to update first with
pacman -Syyu
(and not packer -Syyu!!) and then install your new package with pacman.
Remember that if you are curious and only do pacman -Syy, it is risky to install only a package and not do a total system upgrade as that might lead to mixing different dependencies that are not in sync ( the update of one package also needs the update of another package).
Start using your system and when everything is OK after a reboot, only then do packer -Su.
At least this is the way I manage to avoid breakage on my system for already a rather long time.

libpng14 error

People struggling with the libpng 14 missing error in Arch Linux should try to download it from AUR

Howto split one audio file using shntool and the cue file

If you wanna know how to split ONE SINGLE LONG AUDIO FILE into different tracks on linux here is how

cuebreakpoints album.cue | shnsplit -o flac one-big-flac.flac

this will give files named "split-track01.flac" "split-track02.flac" ...

In Arch install: shntool
#pacman -S shntool

There is a frontend for it: QShnToolkit

To do this with APE files you may need: MAC Port (Arch)
You will have to have the flac and ape codecs installed.

To rename the files use the cuetags from the cuetools package:
Install
#pacman -S cuetools
and use:
cuetag sample.cue split-track*.flac

Another option is to install flacon:
packer -S flacon
It will split and rename in one go.

If you have k3b installed you can use the k3b to separate the tracks… super fast and all the song info is saved as well.
1. Select .cue for burning
2. Menu bar; Project ; Convert Tracks; Choose Settings; Done

See also this older post for other tricks: http://stillstup.blogspot.com/2008/07/split-lossless-audio-ape-flac-wv-wav-by.html

Make Backups of partitions using spacefm and fsarchiver

This process is described here :
The Backup submenu allows you to perform a backup of a selected device or MBR. There are several supported backup types.

FSArchiver (website) is a modern program which creates an archive of a filesystem. It is similar to tar, except that the archive includes checksums, can be restored if corrupted, and includes additional information.

One disadvantage to using FSArchiver is that unlike Partimage, the on disk locations of files will change when restored. For most files this won't matter, but in the case of grub's stage files, moving them can cause the grub boot process to no longer work. Thus if you restore a volume containing grub's files using an FSArchiver archive, you will then need to reinstall grub to the MBR (so that it knows accurately where it's files are - these locations are stored in the MBR's boot code).

An advantage to FSArchiver is that it supports more filesystem types than Partimage, including ext4 and btrfs, and several compression methods. Other advantages include file exclusion, multi-thread compression, and encryption. The data may also be restored to any partition large enough to hold it, regardless of the original partition's size. FSArchiver is also currently maintained,

So open Spacefm as root, be sure that Show internal partitions is checked in the directory tree and right click on a partition (be sure it is unmounted), Root, Backup, choose FSArchiver, select the place you want to save the backup file and go.
To restore using spacefm, right click on the partition to be restored and choose restore from file. Or in terminal:

Restore Partition - FSArchiver Method

If you created your backup file using FSArchiver, you must use this method to restore it.

WARNING: All the data currently stored on this partition will be overwritten!

Working by example, to restore /dev/sda5 from the backup file /mnt/back/backup-sda5.fsa (substitute the device name you wish to restore to!):

fsarchiver restfs /mnt/back/backup-sda5.fsa id=0,dest=/dev/sda5

More info: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/How_To_Backup_Operating_Systems

An dist-upgrade update tip for aptosid

I just went back to Aptosid to do a test and I think that Aptosid is somewhat snappier at the moment than Arch.
The big drawback of Aptosid is the time consuming update that you have to do in init 3 as root.

So you can't do anything else while you can update in Arch while doing your usual stuff. (While controlling the terminal output of the update process of course on useful messages..)

Tip for dist-upgrade in Aptosid
If you do while still being in X

#apt-get update

and after that

#apt-get dist-update -d

You can do all the preparations in X as you will be only downloading everything you need.
But still after that going to init 3 logging in as root and updating etc now with
# apt-get dist-upgrade
will take you some time anyway.
After
#apt-get clean
and
#init 5 && exit
I quickly adapt my grub menu.st file to the newest kernel as my aptosid partition doesn't contain the dominating grub installation of my hard disk.
Also something you don't usually have to do in Arch; happily, because every 6 hours there is a new kernel in Arch...

find duplicates Arch

fslint: http://www.pixelbeat.org/fslint/
rmdupe: http://igurublog.wordpress.com/downloads/script-rmdupe/
example command: rmdupe -r /media/sdb1/afbeeldingen

# remove dupes from /user/test and subfolders
rmdupe -r /user/test 
# remove dupes from /user/test1 and /user/test2 and subfolders
rmdupe -r /user/test1 /user/test2 
# trash dupes from /user/test
rmdupe --trash /user/trash /user/test 
# only remove dupes larger than 50MB
rmdupe --minsize 50 /user/test 

rmlint: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=47623
liten: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=27335

if you have problems palying audio cd's arch

Open up Vlc, Choose Media Open Disc; check radio button audio cd at disc selection; select the right hardware if you have more than one cd player attached.

Let audio cd's show up in Thunar:

Installation

It can be installed by running:

# pacman -S thunar-volman

Configuration

It can also be configured to execute certain actions when cameras and audio players are connected. After installing the plugin:

1. Launch Thunar and go to Edit -> Preferences
2. Under the 'Advanced' tab, check 'Enable Volume Management'
3. Click configure and check the following items:
   • Mount removable drives when hot-pluged.
   • Mount removable media when inserted.
4. Also make desired changes (see the example below)

Here's an example setting for making Amarok play an audio CD.

 Multimedia - Audio CDs: amarok --cdplay %d 

replacing slim by lxdm as login manager

This is copied from a post by shin
It is a complicated method and only use it if the following doesn't work for you:
#pacman -S lxdm
then

sudo systemctl disable slim.service,

then

sudo systemctl enable lxdm.service,

and reboot.

Complicated approach

What I did to replace slim with lxdm:
pacman -S lxdm

replaced the /etc/inittab line for slim with lxdm
x:5:respawn:/usr/sbin/lxdm >/dev/null 2>&1

apparently lxdm doesn't invoke ~/.xinitrc, I guess xdm,gdm and kdm do, as stated in ~/.xsession

so added this line to /etc/lxdm/Xsession:
[ -f ~/.xinitrc ] && . ~/.xinitrc

in /usr/share/xsessions/openbox.desktop replaced the Exec line with:
Exec="ck-launch-session dbus-launch /usr/bin/openbox-session"

commented out the exec line in ~/.xinitrc
#exec ck-launch-session dbus-launch /usr/bin/openbox-session

on first login with lxdm select the openbox session from the drop down menu,
to make openbox default in lxdm change default session in /etc/lxdm/lxdm.conf
session="ck-launch-session dbus-launch /usr/bin/openbox-session" (this works but I'm not sure if its better to launch openbox like that or by selecting openbox in lxdm drop down menu that actually invokes /usr/share/xsessions/openbox.desktop)

With this setup everything works for me, mounts and everything I added to ~/.xinitrc.

To switch between the two is a matter of replacing the /etc/inittab line and uncommenting the exec line in ~/.xinitrc.

To try it out:

sudo systemctl disable slim.service,

sudo systemctl enable lxdm.service,

and reboot.

Boot error RUN+="socket:..." support will be removed

Error message:archbang d[152]: RUN+="socket:..." support will be removed from a future udev release. Please remove it from: /lib/udev/rules.d/90-hal.rules:2 and use libudev to subscribe to events.

If you see this boot error you still have HAL installed.
I used it for pcmanfm-mod that was showing my partitions and made it very easy to boot one when necessary.
To see which program needs Hal use:

LANG=C pacman -Qi hal | grep ^Required

And uninstall these packages if you can miss them.
I replaced pcmanfom-mod with pcmanfm-mod-nohal.

Then
Please remove hal use from: /lib/udev/rules.d/90-hal.rules:2
by putting a # before the HAL rule
and use libudev to subscribe to events:

 Edit in /etc/udev/rules.d/11-media-by-label-auto-mount.rules 
and add according to
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Udev
your preferred mount set up.

See also: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=1047768

As I use no login manager I seem to have always problems with the policykit:
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=119499\
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=1048425#p1048425
After trying all sort of things to solve this I instlled pmount to be able to mount.
It can also mount internal partitions if you edit etc/pmount.allow.
for instance
/dev/sda16
/dev/sda12

If you want to mount a partition under label, do for example
pmount /dev/sda16 depot
and sda16 will be mounted as depot in /media.


Now you can create custom actions in your filemanager
with pmount /dev/sda16 for example.

Change wallpaper and image desklet for Openbox

See his post and thread:
http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/post/19893/#p19893


Or the original:http://crunchbanglinux.org/pastebin/235

Save as rotate-wallpaper.sh save in usr/bin and make executable.

Simple example of Tawan if you have nitrogen installed:
[code]

#! /bin/bash
WALLPAPERS="/your/path/to/backgrounds"
ALIST=( `ls -w1 $WALLPAPERS` )
RANGE=${#ALIST[@]}
let "number = $RANDOM"
let LASTNUM="`cat $WALLPAPERS/.last` + $number"
let "number = $LASTNUM % $RANGE"
echo $number > $WALLPAPERS/.last
nitrogen --set-scaled --save $WALLPAPERS/${ALIST[$number]}

source: http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/post/37849/#p37849
Comment: This script just changes the wallpaper. You need to call it from conky or cron or something and set the frequency there.
example of a cronjob every 5 minutes

*/5 * * * * ~/.chgwall/rotate-wallpaper.sh.

in /home/user/.cron

With image changer desklet you can let rotate almost the entire desktop: http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/post/55575/#p55575
if you edit the code for the image as to cover almost your screen entirely.
published also here: http://bbs.archbang.org/viewtopic.php?pid=10436#p10436

Active edges for *box like wm's

This is taken from the gentoo wiki on Fluxbox:
Active edges

Also known as Hot corners, active corners, or similar. In fluxbox, you don't have the possibility of binding actions to special mouse positions on the screen. For example you might want to switch Desktops, if your mouse hits the side of your screen (like in e17). However, there is a small python script, that you can use and modify depending on your needs. This script does not principally depend on fluxbox, you can use it in other Window managers as well. You can add this script to your .fluxbox/startup, so that the script is run in background and autostarts with fluxbox.

For the script code in python see:source: http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Fluxbox

problems with pacman 4 getting enough security keys

Solution: http://bbs.archbang.org/viewtopic.php?pid=9971#p9971

Fluxbox resources

This is a copy of http://bbs.archbang.org/viewtopic.php?pid=10062#p10062

Go there if you want to click the links

Fluxbox's featurelist: [url]http://fluxbox.org/features/[/url]

Install fluxbox and first setup: [url]https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Fluxbox[/url]

fluxbox wiki: [url]http://fluxbox-wiki.org/index.php?title=Category:English_howtos[/url]

fluxbox FAQ: [url]http://fluxbox-wiki.org/index.php?title=Faqs[/url]

Fluxbox forums: [url]http://www.lostinthebox.com/viewforum.php?f=65[/url]/ (thanks Vrkalak)

set up keybindings: [url]http://fluxbox-wiki.org/index.php?title=Keyboard_shortcuts[/url]
[url]http://linux.die.net/man/5/fluxbox-keys[/url]
Mouse events can be set up in the keys file.
There isn't something working like obkey; fluxkeys is out of date.

fluxbox styles [url]http://tenr.de/styles/[/url]
change styles tutorial: [url]http://www.lostinthebox.com/viewtopic.php?f=65&t=3812&sid=257e4a52c3c5d2b0fa0d5ae0650333fe[/url]
change styles: [url]http://tenr.de/howto/style_fluxbox/style_fluxbox.html[/url]
Fluxstyle is something like obtheme: [url]http://fluxbox-wiki.org/index.php?title=FluxStyle[/url]

Fluxmenu is what obmenu is for OB: [url]https://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=15403[/url]

Fluxbox eye candy: menu icons, transparency, rounded and borderless windows: [url]http://fluxbox-wiki.org/index.php?title=Eye_candy[/url]

One of the most underestimated - although one of the most powerful features - is the apps-file. With this file it is possible to set application-specific parameters for dimension, decoration, default workspace to open on, stickyness and much more. It will let you manipulate almost every setting for any window or application. The best way to learn about it is to visit the wiki-site for the apps-file:
[url]http://fluxbox-wiki.org/index.php/Howto_edit_the_apps_file[/url]
You also can right click the window title and choose an option from [b]remember[/b].

Howto cusomize the fluxbox toolbar: [url]http://fluxbox-wiki.org/index.php/Toolbar_customization[/url]

What is this Slit? The Slit is often confused with the toolbar. The slit is a dock for any application that can be 'dockable'. A docked application is anchored and appears on every workspace. It cannot be moved freely and is not influenced by any manipulation to windows. Typical programs that go into the slit are dockapps ( [url]http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/amigolinux/download/DockApps/[/url] ) or gkrellm ( [url]http://members.dslextreme.com/users/billw/gkrellm/gkrellm.html)[/url]. Such applications often have a -w option to run in the slit, but some start automatically in withdrawn mode. Keep in mind: The slit is invisible if nothing is in it! In order to see it, run your dockapp and the slit will show up.

fluxbox pager: [url]http://www.lostinthebox.com/viewtopic.php?f=65&t=35730&sid=257e4a52c3c5d2b0fa0d5ae0650333fe[/url]
ipager for fluxbox: [url]http://useperl.ru/ipager/index.en.html[/url] and [url]https://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=5415[/url]

Install fonts: [url]http://fluxbox-wiki.org/index.php?title=Install_fonts[/url]

Easy choice between WMs using grub and xinitrc

This seems a nice way to be able to choose at grub level which DE you want to load.

At startup

You can also have a choice of window managers and desktop environments at startup, using just ~/.xinitrc and GRUB and no display manager. The idea is to take advantage of the fact that Arch doesn't make any particular use of the runlevel system. The following ~/.xinitrc tests for the current runlevel and will start Openbox and GNOME on runlevels 5 and 4 respectively:

rl=$(runlevel | grep -o [0-6])  case $rl in     4) exec gnome-session;;     5) exec openbox-session;; esac

Choosing between different runlevels is simply a matter of cloning a GRUB entry and adding the desired runlevel to the kernel arguments. Inserting the runlevel at the end of the 'kernel' line indicates that the inittab default of runlevel 5 should be overridden and replaced with the desired runlevel, 4 in this instance:

title Arch Linux GNOME
root (hd0,2)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-linux root=/dev/sda1 ro 4
initrd /boot/initramfs-linux.img

Finally, you will need to ensure that the ~/.xinitrc file is actually run at the chosen runlevel. Using the tip from Start X at boot#/etc/inittab, you can edit the inittab to simply run startx on the desired runlevel which will in turn use your ~/.xinitrc script:

x:45:once:/bin/su PREFERED_USER -l -c "/bin/bash --login -c startx >/dev/null 2>&1"

Notice that "45" means that this will happen on both runlevels 4 and 5. The final differentiation between 4 and 5 will then come in ~/.xinitrc as described above. This is preferable to attempt differentiating in the inittab file as we stick pretty close to using the various configuration files as they were intended.

source: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xinitrc

first published here: http://bbs.archbang.org/viewtopic.php?pid=6507#p6507

First impressions on fluxbox

http://fluxbox-wiki.org/index.php?title=Keyboard_shortcuts
http://linux.die.net/man/5/fluxbox-keys
These are the most important pages for me as I feel totally disabled without the keyboard shortcuts I use from OB.
This is the biggest hurdle for me to translate the keybindings from my rc.xml file to the keys file in /home/user/.fluxbox.
I found an acceptable theme, sorry, style in spatula. After setting that the style option dialog stopped working; to solve this I had to change ~/.fluxbox/styles to /usr/share/fluxbox/styles in the menu file in /home/user/.fluxbox

Interesting the easy tabbing of different applications:
control-click a window's titlebar and drag to attach windows
OnTitlebar Control Mouse1 :StartTabbing
Link about window tabbing:http://fluxbox.sourceforge.net/docbook/en/fluxbox-docs.html#CHAP-TABS

I find fluxbox not slower but also not faster than openbox on my system.

I think fluxbox is easier to learn for newbies than openbox.
And definite pro for fluxbox is the right click option on the window header with the remember option where you can easily set window place, position, dimensions, save on close etc, well what you can define in the apps file in /home/user/fluxbox.

Howto make an Arch(bang) USB installation on USB

Note: this is something different from using an usb stick as an installation medium:
This is well covered here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/USB_Installation_Media

To install Arch on an usb medium is explained here but just for Arch: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Installing_Arch_Linux_on_a_USB_key
A short summary:
1. It is best to manually partition the drive.
2. Fstab:
Make sure that /etc/fstab includes the correct partition information for /, and for any other partitions on the USB key. If the usb key is to be booted on several machines, it is quite likely that devices and number of available hard disks vary. So it is advised to use UUID or label:

To get the proper UUIDs for your partitions issue terminal command: blkid

When it comes time to edit /etc/fstab, you should use the following. Add one line to move /tmp into ram, use UUID to use persistent naming and change your primary mountpoint to "noatime,nodiratime" to reduce wear:

tmpfs /tmp tmpfs nosuid,nodev 0 0
UUID=... / ext4 defaults,noatime,nodiratime 0 1


3. Mkinitcpio.conf

You may also need to add usb to /etc/mkinitcpio.conf in order to boot correctly from a card on an usb card reader. If you need input from usb devices (i.E. password for dm-crypt) you need usbinput as well:

HOOKS="base udev autodetect pata scsi sata usb filesystems usbinput"

And rebuild the image:

# mkinitcpio -p linux

see: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/CF_and_SD_card_install

4. Grub configuration:
menu.lst, the Grub configuration file, should be edited to (loosely) match the following:

root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-linux root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/3a9f8929-627b-4667-9db4-388c4eaaf9fa ro
initrd /boot/initramfs-linux.img

Note: When grub is installed on the USB key, the key will always be hd0,0
Change the device uuid of course!

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Installing on a netbook:
If you don't have have a CD-ROM (on a netbook), you could still do it with 2 flash drives:
-When you load the system from USB, that flash drive will probably be /dev/sdb and you'd then choose /dev/sdc (your 2nd flash drive) as your destination when you're doing the installation {from a post by Will}

The installation will be [b]permanent[/b] (as if you would have installed it on a hard drive)

///////////////////////////////////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

The alternative is a persistent installation on an usb stick with Lili in Windows: http://www.linuxliveusb.com/en/features
Some Archbang versions are supported: http://www.linuxliveusb.com/en/supported-linuxes.
The last one is AB 2011.09.
In the new release version 2011.11 will be supported.




Limitations of a persistent installation

In the header of this post I first wrote about a persistent installation. But persistent installation have their limitations while this method equals a full installation.

What can I do and not do on a persistent system?

You have to keep in mind that a persistent system is a Live system on which there is an overlay that is writeable.

This means that core files are in read-only mode while other files are in read/write mode.

What you cannot do on a persistent system:

updates core files (kernel, etc...) = no full system updates
install drivers

What you can do on this kind of system :

install some software
do some software updates
create some files/folders
install Linux (from you USB key) on your PC's hard drive

source: http://www.linuxliveusb.com/en/help/faq/persistence/68-persistent-do-not-do

Adding silences in mp3 file without converting

do it lossy with Audacity or Traverso-Daw:
http://traverso-daw.org

So you could use directmp3cut that works under wine:
http://mpesch3.de1.cc/mp3dc.html#dwn
Split lossless,
Create a silence mp3 with command line : http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5276253/create-a-silent-mp3-from-the-command-line

After that you can merge the mp3's lossless: http://lyncd.com/2011/03/lossless-combine-mp3s/