Monday, January 30, 2012

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

Sunday, January 22, 2012

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

Friday, January 20, 2012

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]

Thursday, January 19, 2012

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.

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

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

Monday, January 2, 2012

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/

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