Josh Hardman

Ok, so I decided it was time I started working with FreeBSD.  So far so good!  I decided that I wanted a desktop environment.  I’ve gone back and forth between Gnome and KDE.  I like KDE4 when it works.  I thought I might as well build from scratch so that I can get the latest stable release.  This went “fairly” smooth on FreeBSD.  Here are my hints:

“make config-recursive” is your friend.  Be sure to run this from “/usr/ports/x11/kde4”.  This will automatically have you select your options before installing.  The bad part… If you select PulseAudio and CUPS, you will still get the installation to stop later on for their options.  So, one option is to install those items before installing kde.  You can then do a config-recursive there as well.

So, here are the steps (installing CUPS as well):

1. cd /usr/ports/print/cups
2. make config-recursive
3. make install clean
4. cd /usr/ports/x11/kde4
5. make config-recursive
6. make install clean

I had the unfortunate event of my internet going out once during the compile so I couldn’t download the files.  I also had some strange thing happen and my host machine had to reboot during the process.  Both times I was able to just re-issue “make install clean” and the compile picked right up where it left off.

This was one of the best compile experiences I’ve had, and it was the whole DE!  That’s saying something about FreeBSD.  If compiling is something you want to do but don’t want to deal with dependencies, please check this OS out.

Coming soon… how to completely install and configure FreeBSD on VirtualBox.

Uncategorized

So, Windows 7 will include a new feature called Libraries. At first this feature may be confusing (or may look like nothing new at all) but, once understood, it is actually very nice. For this explanation I will only be using a Documents Library to explain the concept.
Here is a screenshot of the default Library after install:

At first it looks like the regular old My Documents of Windows XP or the User Home of Windows Vista. However each "Folder" that you see is a library. A library is a collection of folders spread throughout your hard drive and presented in one easy-to-find location. Right click on a library and click on select Properties to see all of the folders included in one library.
Here’s a shot of that dialog box:

In this picture I have added the C: drive by clicking on the Include a folder… button. This just opens a window to brose to and select a folder for inclusion in the library. Notice the My Documents folder has a check mark. This means it is the "Save Location". Basically, if I drag and drop a document into the Documents library it will be physically stored in the Save Location. This location can be changed by select the desired window and clicking the Set save location button.

So what’s so great about this? Well, you can now partition your hard drive or install a second hard drive and have that new location show up in your home document repository. You will no longer need to try and remember where things are stored. They are all in one place, yet they’re not!

Another great thing about the new Library is the way that you can share them. You share a specific library by selecting it and clicking the Share button on the toolbar.

Here’s a shot:

Sharing a library means that you don’t have to share every folder that contains your documents or specific files. If you share your library then everything is available. What’s even greater is the ability to create a new library called Share. You can create a library specifically for sharing. Share it once and add folders that you want to share to that library. That means you don’t have to share multiple folders and remember what you have shared and what it’s share name is. Share the library and simply add folders to that library as you decide you want to share something.

As you can see, the default libraries include a Documents, Music, Videos, and Pictures. The concepts shared above apply to all of the libraries that exist. This is one feature that puts Windows 7 ahead of all previous versions!

Windows

A native 64 bit Flash Player 10 for Linux is in the works.  I am running it on Fedora 10 now and it works great!  Here’s the link:

http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer10.html

Just download the package and untar it in the “/usr/lib64/mozilla/plugins” directory.  Be sure to remove any other Flash Players that you have previously installed.

Browsers, Linux

Ok, that’s the best title I could come up with. Really it’s every single blog program that uses the xml-rpc.php.  This includes this list.  The problem really doesn’t lie with WordPress rather with PHP/libxml. Here is a link to the bug with PHP:

http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=45996

Basically anything being posted strips out certain characters from the HTML therefore rendering it with half-HTML.  That means this “<p>Paragraph Here</p>” turns into this “pParagraph Here/p”.  That is obviously a problem.  It really starts to look bad when you add photos using one of these clients.

You will only notice this if your server has PHP5 with libxml 2.7.x.  If you have any previous version you’ll be alright.  There is a work-around but it requires recompiling PHP with libexpat.  This may or may not be an option depending on your web host.  If you host your own server, have at it!  I’m going to hold off because as the bug page says as of 1/11/09, the bug has been fixed and commited to trunk.  That means (fingers crossed) it will be released soon.

This is something that I am desparetly waiting on because I love Windows Live Writer!

Geek Stuff, Linux, Mac, Web, Windows

Ok, I got a hold of a beta version of Windows 7.  I quickly installed it into my VirtualBox and started looking around.  I must say that I’m not totally convinced I love it yet.  The taskbar is completely different and maybe not for the better.  Instead of the task bar showing each window that is open it has a "button" for each program that it is open. If you have more than one window open for a certain program you still only get one button.  You have to click on it to see the name of the window open.  Not as intuitive as the old way if you ask me.  Anyway, here are a few screenshots:

Initial Desktop:

Windows 7 Default Library:

Windows 7 My Computer:

Windows 7 Start Menu:

Windows Media Player 12:

There are just a few screenshots.  To be honest, there is going to be a pretty big learning gap to really get a grasp on some of the features in this version.  The taskbar is a huge change.  The whole "Library" thing is completely new as well.  Basically it’s like a database of your files.  Instead of looking directly at the folder structure you just see your files organized by type.  You can share your Library as well so file sharing appears to have completely changed.

I will continue to work with this version and continue to post updates here about it.  I hope to get a hold of each beta/release candidate up until release.  I will keep you posted on what I find and what like/dislike.

Windows

By defualt a VirtualBox VDI file will grow as you use the virtual OS.  Well, if you’re like me, you use the VM for testing things and end up deleting a lot of files from your VM that you don’t need to keep there.  This can end up causing your VDI files to fill up your host hard drive.  To remedy this we need to shrink the files.  Here’s what to do.

Linux Guest:

1)  Delete all files that you no longer need and be sure to empty the trash.  You might also want to empty out what you can from your /tmp directory.

2)  Run this command:

cat /dev/zero > zero.fill;sync;sleep 1;sync;rm -f zero.fill

3) After the previous command finishes, shut down the VM.

4) From the host machine (no matter the OS) run this command:

VBoxManage modifyvdi {path to vdi file} compact

**If VBoxManage is not in your path you may have to launch it from the directory that contains that file**

Windows Guest:

1) Delete all files that you no longer need and be sure to empty the trash.

2) Run the disc defragment utility.

3) Download and execute this file on the guest OS:

http://www.feyrer.de/g4u/nullfile-1.02.exe

4) After the previous executable finishes, shut down the VM.

5) From the host machine (no matter the OS) run this command:

VBoxManage modifyvdi {path to vdi file} compact

**If VBoxManage is not in your path you may have to launch it from the directory that contains that file**

That’s it! Your VDI file is now compacted.

———————————————————————————————————————-

Edit 01/24/2009:

As of Virtualbox 2.1 the “modifyvdi compact” command no longer works.  Here is the output from my attempt:

[!] FAILED calling a->virtualBox->FindHardDisk2(filepath, hardDisk.asOutParam()) at line 226!
[!] Primary RC  = VBOX_E_OBJECT_NOT_FOUND (0×80BB0001) - Object corresponding to the supplied arguments does not exist
[!] Full error info present: true , basic error info present: true
[!] Result Code = VBOX_E_OBJECT_NOT_FOUND (0×80BB0001) - Object corresponding to the supplied arguments does not exist
[!] Text        = Could not find a hard disk with location ‘opensuse.vdi’ in the media registry (’C:\Users\Josh\.VirtualBox\VirtualBox.xml’)
[!] Component   = VirtualBox, Interface: IVirtualBox, {339abca2-f47a-4302-87f5-7bc324e6bbde}
[!] Callee      = IVirtualBox, {339abca2-f47a-4302-87f5-7bc324e6bbde}
Error: Shrink hard disk operation is not implemented!

There is a bug report on this here.  I will update as soon as any fix has been found.

Linux, Mac, VirtualBox, Windows

In order to access more screen size options (and get your mouse integration to work decent) you will need to do something beyond just installing the Virtualbox Guest Additions. I recommend that you do this as root (but be careful!) so that you have access to place files in all the right places.

So, open a terminal window and switch to root by typing “su -”. You will be prompted for your root password. Next type this:

Xorg -configure :1

You will now have a file named “xorg.conf.new” in your “/root” directory. Now just copy that file to the X11 directory by typing:

cp /root/xorg.conf.new /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Log out and back in. There you go!

Edit (02/26/2009):  As of Virtualbox 2.1.2 I did have to modify the xorg.conf file.  This was a clean install of Fedora 10 x86_64 in Virtualbox 2.1.2.  I had to add this line:

Modes    “1024×768″ “1152×864″ “800×600″ “1280×1024″

I added that to each SubSection “Display” under the Section “Screen”.  So, my entire xorg.conf file looks like this now:

# Xorg configuration created by system-config-display

Section “ServerLayout”
Identifier “single head configuration”
Screen 0 “Screen0″ 0 0
InputDevice “Mouse0″ “CorePointer”
InputDevice “Keyboard0″ “CoreKeyboard”
EndSection

Section “Files”

FontPath “catalogue:/etc/X11/fontpath.d”
FontPath “built-ins”
EndSection

Section “Module”
Load “dri”
Load “glx”
Load “dbe”
Load “extmod”
EndSection

Section “InputDevice”
Identifier “Keyboard0″
Driver “kbd”
EndSection

Section “InputDevice”
Identifier “Mouse0″
Driver “mouse”
Option “Protocol” “auto”
Option “Device” “/dev/input/mice”
Option “ZAxisMapping” “4 5 6 7″
EndSection

Section “Monitor”
Identifier “Monitor0″
VendorName “Monitor Vendor”
ModelName “Monitor Model”
DisplaySize 346 260
HorizSync 30.0 - 95.0
VertRefresh 50.0 - 160.0
EndSection

Section “Device”

### Available Driver options are:-
### Values: integer, : float, : “True”/”False”,
### : “String”, : ” Hz/kHz/MHz”
### [arg]: arg optional
Identifier “Card0″
Driver “vboxvideo”
VendorName “InnoTek Systemberatung GmbH”
BoardName “VirtualBox Graphics Adapter”
BusID “PCI:0:2:0″
EndSection

Section “Screen”
Identifier “Screen0″
Device “Card0″
Monitor “Monitor0″
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection “Display”
Viewport 0 0
Depth 1
Modes “1024×768″ “1152×864″ “800×600″ “1280×1024″
EndSubSection
SubSection “Display”
Viewport 0 0
Depth 4
Modes “1024×768″ “1152×864″ “800×600″ “1280×1024″
EndSubSection
SubSection “Display”
Viewport 0 0
Depth 8
Modes “1024×768″ “1152×864″ “800×600″ “1280×1024″
EndSubSection
SubSection “Display”
Viewport 0 0
Depth 15
Modes “1024×768″ “1152×864″ “800×600″ “1280×1024″
EndSubSection
SubSection “Display”
Viewport 0 0
Depth 16
Modes “1024×768″ “1152×864″ “800×600″ “1280×1024″
EndSubSection
SubSection “Display”
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
Modes “1152×864″ “1024×768″ “800×600″ “640×480″
EndSubSection
EndSection

Put that file in “/etc/X11″ and you should now be able to assign the appropriate screensize. Be sure to add any other resulotion that you might want to the list of resolutions for each SubSection.

Linux, VirtualBox

So, I installed Ubuntu 8.10 inside VirtualBox on my Vista machine the other day. All went well except for a I couldn’t figure out how to get my screen any bigger than 800×600. I looked and looked and all I could find were instructions on adding different resolutions to my xorg.conf file. Every time I did that my X wouldn’t boot properly and I was stuck reverting back to the default. Well, I’ve got it now. I found a bug post that also had a work around. You will need to edit your xorg.conf file (located at “/etc/X11/xorg.conf”). Change this section:

Section “Device”
Identifier “Configured Video Device”
EndSection

To this:

Section “Device”
Identifier “Configured Video Device”
Driver “vboxvideo”
EndSection

Log out and back in and your new resolutions will be available!

Linux, VirtualBox

I’ve decided to start offering website programming.  Check out my new page by clicking Websites at the top of this blog!

Uncategorized

It’s coming!  I just stumbled upon a great little piece of info… Here’s the news:

The development/testing of the 64-bit plugin is underway and will be added to JDK6, sometime after the 6u11 release. Stay tuned!
Posted Date : 2008-10-10 21:56:24.0

We finally have something to look forward to, release 11. The link to the site where I got the info is:

http://bugs.sun.com/bugdatabase/view_bug.do?bug_id=4802695

I’ve been waiting for a 64bit plugin for some time and now it looks like it’s on it’s way. Good work Sun!

Web