how to change the framebuffer font

now that i fully live within the framebuffer, one of the most important things that you need to have is a proper framebuffer resolution, and on top of that, a proper console font.

as for the framebuffer, things nowadays are more or less pretty simple as i didn’t even had to readjust something in my grub config under ubuntu 10.04-alternate, it just ran out of the box with the highest framebuffer resolution. but that still didn’t seem that much to me. well, know i finally know why: i haven’t had the proper font set up.

you can configure the console font (the font that you work with on your ttys, that is. that’s a complete different font as the one within a gnome-terminal, for example!) with a simple sudo dpkg-reconfigure console-setup if you already have the terminus font pre-installed. and i think on most distro it’s being installed as a default. the reconfiguration will take you through some other basic console reconfigs as well, like your input keyboard, your keymap etc etc until you reach the fonts. there, choose terminus (not terminus-bold!) and set it to 12×9 (if i remember it correct..).

now all you need to do is to reboot and enjoy your awesome new display. seriously, it made an x-less laptop so much more sexier. try it, you won’t be disappointed!

how to install a proprietary wireless driver w/o a gui

i set up a shiny, brand new command-line only system on my dell latitude 110L the other day and knew i would come ahead of a couple problems with it sooner or later and this time i would have no gui whatsoever to help me out.

one problem i was certain would hit me, was the audio problem i had with this lovely machine, but since i had it documented more or less within this blog it was nothing big.

another problem i almost forgot because i always had the gui to help me out there — this laptop uses a proprietary wlan driver who is disabled at default. and of course i had no idea it was disabled, i even thought i had to download, compile and install it on my own because the boot-up procedure kept spitting out these “wlan driver not found, you have to go to http:/jakljdakjdakjsa/ to download your matching one” errors..

so, today i decided to hop onto #ubuntu-de and just ask whats underneath this nifty gui tool and how could i re-enable my wireless. although they weren’t as helpful i expected them to be, the answer `sudo jockey-text` would come sooner or later.

jockey was indeed the solution in this case, and therefore the following was pretty much straightforward:

sudo jockey-text list would list me my wireless driver and also show me that it was indeed here but just not enabled. so, sudo jockey-text -e firmware:b43 finally enabled it. yay! now i just need to figure out wpa_supplicant.

how to set up charm

Ever since I’ve had a blog I wanted to be able to write blog posts
from the terminal. I’ve tried several applications and scripts, but
only one stuck to me.

Requirements it had to fullfill:

• Able to organize several different blogs
• Able to use vim to edit posts
• Tagging/Categorizing handled

Aaaaand *drumroll* I actually found one client who did all of the
above AND even more! I love it: ljcharm.

Here’s how you get it to run:

1. Download charm at: charm
   Optional: My charm had some problems with datetime which is only sometimes imported… Because datetime is a default lib in python, I put it outside the try-except: statement.
2. sudo python setup.py install
3. cp sample.charmrc ~/.charmcr
4. vi ~/.charmrc, and comment the “login” line and
   follow the instructions (ie. if wordpress, use the line containting
   “metaweb”)
5. Fire up charm and start blogging!

sound problems with 9.04

recently i set up an old machine of mine with a command line version of the jaunty jackalope. this was my very first command line version install and i did it primarly because i wanted to use an alternative window manager and less till nothing of gnome. what i didn’t realize was that it was really a ‘minimal install’ in every sense of the word.

HINT:
if you haven’t done this before, i just wanted to point out that you need an ALTERNATE version of your ubuntu. the ‘normal’ desktop image won’t do an command line install!

i followed the insturctions of my beloved cli-guru kmandla closely:

1 – install command line version
2 – install xorg
3 – install window manager (which was wmii, in my case)
4 – install various libs and apps (mlpayer, alsa, etc etc)

but then started my sound problems:

lspci |grep audio gave me my sound card as expected and so did lshw -C multimedia and hwinfo --sound respectively.

even cat /proc/asound/cards recognized my intel 82891DB. but then why the effin heck did aplay -l and alsamixer not detect my sound card?

i tried various attempts from the german ubuntuusers wiki but neiter of them would work… SoundTroubleShooting eventually gave me the first hint that i might not have enough rights to use the drivers’ device. oops. could be! a quick fgrep -ie 'audio' /etc/group showed me indeed that my username was not “attached” to the user group string:

$ fgrep -ie 'audio' /etc/group
audio:x:29:

after my edit

$ fgrep -ie 'audio' /etc/group
audio:x:29:jeng

i think that was the step that gave aplay -l the final hint. i could even play the test file via aplay /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Left.wav with no error. but wait, there was still no output. hmm. at least the errors were gone.

the SoundTroubleShoot page suggested that ubuntu might not have the right modules installed. well, it was worth a try and even though find /lib/modules/`uname -r` |grep snd gave me LOADS of lines i thought it would be a good idea to maybe reinstall the modules. and since it was kind of a fresh install there was nearly nothing i could lose. so, i did a quick and painless sudo apt-get install linux-restricted-modules-`uname -r`-linux-generic and rebooted again.

after the reboot i shot up alsamixer (without any goddamn complaints! i was so relieved you can’t believe it) and played the testfile again. and BAM. IT WORKED. but i have to add i have no idea if it was the reinstall of the modules or the wrong rights… but whatever, it works now

disable the system beep

when i first started using linux the most annoying thing was the constant sound of the system beep when i hit tab-completion in a shell or when a command was not found.

since i was in a open-plan office with about 30 people in it, not only i got annoyed but also the others. so, i looked around for a solution, and boy, it’s so simple plus, there are many so ways!

disabling the system beep system-wide:
# echo "set bell-style none" > /etc/inputrc

disabling the system beep just for the currently logged in user:
$ echo "set bell-style none" > $HOME/.inputrc>

disabling the system beep temporarly:
$ sudo /sbin/rmmod pcspkr

disabling the system beep via removing the “beep”-driver:
$ sudo echo "blacklist pcspkr" > /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

lpic I certificate

i’m learning for my lpic-certrificate and my favourite ressource page duetsch.info has some interesting links about it:

• Link-Dump from duetsch.info about LPIC
• Unterlagen zur LPI-Zertifizierung von Ian Shields
• Learn Linux, 101: A roadmap for LPIC-1
• handlewithlinux: lpic 101-1 (hardware)
• handlewithlinux: lpic 101-2 (proc filesystem)

vi emulation in chrome und firefox

there’s a beautiful article from Jeet Sukumaran (“Grokking the Zen of the Vi“) about the grokking of vi (as i think about it, there’s also a very beautiful post over at stackoverflow. read it. it’s really worth it, as it also has a bit of unix history in it).

bascially it’s about how you don’t work with just “an editor”, you’re learning a whole new language. so, if you really wanna grok the zen of vi, just enable it wherever you can:

• bash: vi-mode (cheatsheet)
  $ set -o vi (alternatively, just write it in your ~/.bashrc)
• firefox: vimperator
  oh, how i love vimperator, esp. on a netbook while browsing in fullscreen mode. good times, i’m telling you. please take a look at all the progs from the vimperator labs, they’re really worth it.
• chrome/chromium: vimium
  i have to admit, i haven’t tested that one yet. but simply because i don’t use chrome *shrugs*

testing the source code tag

wordpress has a very nice, new feauture which finally supports the posting and proper formatting of some code (which is kinda essentially for me). to do so, simply format your code with the following tags:

[ sourcecode language="c"]
#include

int main(int argc, char **argv) {
    printf(“hello, world\n”);
    return 0;
}
[ /sourcecode]

which would produce the following:

#include <stdio.h>

int main(int argc, char **argv) {
    printf("hello, world\n");
    return 0;
}

you can get more infos here: http://en.support.wordpress.com/code/posting-source-code/

eta:
apparently, the stdio.h-include wont work properly in code tags. no idea why.