GUI on Michael’s Domain

Deleting files with "illegal characters"

Fri, 08 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0000

In the cross-platform environment of our university, at least three different OS connect to the smb shared group directories. Apparently Macs are able to save files with characters that are not allowed on other platforms and which cannot be easily deleted. Recently we had several files which ended with a ‘.’ (dot) or a ’ ’ (space), and we were not able to remove them via the GUI. In Windows 7, I managed via the command line with:delete "file." ordelete "file "I have, however, not found a way to so from my Ubuntu machine and it is annoying to boot into Windows merely to delete some files. Unfortunately, this became necessary because the Cloudberry backup system (which is running on Ubuntu) chokes on such files. I am looking into a new backup system for our lab’s computers since CrashPlan decided to discontinue support for non-business customers…

Hot-swapping different user GUIs under Linux

Sat, 26 May 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I read that Windows XP has a “new” feature that lets users hot-swap their desktops. Instead of logging out, a user can put his session into the background and another user can log in. This is of course very useful if you are downloading large files or running services and you don’t want to interrupt the process. If figured out that Linux is able to do the same already for years:When I have a process with a GUI running in GNOME (or KDE; let’s say lmule) and another user wants to access his account using GNOME and I don’t want to terminate my own GUI session, I switch to another (virtual) terminal via Ctrl-Alt-F2 and the other user logs in and starts an x session (“startx – :1”). Using RedHat 9, the new x session started from F2 is initially accessible via both consoles (F2 and F8).When the other user has finished his work, I can without problems go back to my GNOME with Ctrl-Alt-F7 and resume whatever I have been doing under GNOME.However, when the other user wants to access again his x session, it can only be accessed via Ctrl-Alt-F8. When switching to the F2 console one might get the impression that X has crashed (which is not the case).If the Ctrl-Alt-Fx combination doesn’t work, you have selected a wrong keyboard layout (one that is not meant for x windows sessions, but for a command line terminal). You can switch to correct terminal via the GNOME keyboard layout switcher. The GNOME keyboard layout switcher is an applet that you can add to your panel (click the panel in an empty area, add to panel, utility, keyboard layout switcher). To choose a correct keyboard layout right-click the keyboard layout switcher icon in the panel, Preferences, Add. When you click the triangle in front of the different languages and then the triangle in front of the country, you sometimes see two different options (in my case: Finnish keymap and Finnish xkb keymap). You should choose the xkb keymap, otherwise Ctrl-Alt-Fx won’t work.

Location of launchers, panels, etc. in Gnome

Fri, 25 May 2007 00:00:00 +0000

The files that specify the different folders and buttons of the Gnome user interface are somehow really badly distributed all over the place. Here are just a few of the more common locations:Icons in the panel: ~/.gnome2/panel2.d/default/launchers/Contents of Start Here: ~/.gnome2/vfolders/start-here/user’s Home, Trash and Start Here: ~/.gnome-desktop/

Using Riositude under VMware

Thu, 24 May 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I have to admit, that there is no really functioning GUI for the rioutils. Meaning that if I want to upload mp3 files to my Rio500 under Linux I have to use the command line (and even the command line seems to be somehow instable as the rpm was created a while ago and compiling fails under the recent Linux releases (Red Hat 8,9, Suse 8, 9). So I used first the Rioport AudioManager 3 under VMware. It is slow and the GUI is as bad as it gets (bloatware). A really cool replacement program for Windows is Riositude . It’s much faster, easier to use and takes not even 200 KB disk space. It works great from VMware provided I start it up immediately after plugging in my Rio500. Otherwise the Linux takes over (I guess a usb kernel module is loaded automatically upon plugging in the Rio). The kernel module has to be removed manually by “sudo /sbin/rmmod rio500” to allow VMware to control the Rio. To check which kernel moduls are loaded, use “/sbin/lsmod”. I should somehow get rid of this module if I want to stick to Riositude/VMware to operate my Rio. There are of course other programs for Windows, that can do a similar job, e.g. Rio FXP . Unfortunately this one didn’t work for us under WindowsXP. A listing of Riosoftware can be found at rioworld.org .

Firewall configuration programs (fwbuilder, yast2, iptables, Brickwall/Brickhouse)

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Configuring the firewall by hand using iptables is quite difficult. When we still used RedHat 8.1 we have been doing it but now not anymore. We have been using yast2 now for firewall configuration. An alternative to yast2 is fwbuilder . We tried it once and it seems to work although the code it produces is quite large compared to manual configuration. An obvious advantage is that fwbuilder can be used together with many different types of firewalls and operating systems (e.g. also Mac OS X). I still think Brickhouse (formerly Brickwall) is a very good - probably the best and easiest - configuration script for the inbuilt firewall/routing functions of Mac OS X. I think the Linux community needs such a project since Brickhouse is way easier to use than fwbuilder.