a flickr tool

okay.. so i've been procrastinating putting up pictures from my last vacation for some unknown reason.. so my goal tonight is to get the flickr upload tool working (there is only one for linux).. it's called

jUploadr

http://juploadr.sourceforge.net/

okay.. so that was fucking easy. you just download it, extract the folder (in my case to /home/m/ directory)
and then run ./jUploadr at the prompt

nice.

but how to add to my applications menu...
well Click:System:Preferences:Menu Layout then new Item and i'll let you figure it out from there.

now run it..

ugh.. i guess now i have to "authorize" it. if there is anything difficult about it, i'll let you know.

ministeps

okay.. i'm about to install something new but before i did i thought i would drop a note about a couple nice apps i started using recently that i really like.

Democracy TV. It's an internet TV player with nice organization of channels. I've been getting some crazy cool music videos off it..

Exaile. So far my favorite music player. Has a great function for finding album art and interfaces directly with my iPod (for reading only!)

YamiPod. This is what I think i will use for maintaining my iPod on Linux. The export function is great for renaming all your files intelligently based off their id3 tags. google yamipod and you'll find the package to download.

oh.. so you want to write to it too?

that last post was a bit premature...
i forgot the option that makes the mounted drive readwrite.

in your fstab add the uid option (as noted lines after i stopped reading in the previously mentioned link)

//servername/sharename /mountdirectory smbfs credentials=/home/myhomedirectory/. smbpasswd,uid=mylinuxusername

mount me, baby

so i have been trying to permanantly mount my windows network drive so i can get to all my music and pictures and what not and have been having a bitch of a time...

know what i was missing?

installing the right packages.

ugh

so before you do this make sure you install samba, smbclient and smbfs.

and before i tell you what this is.. here is where i learned it:
http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-287167.html and
http://www.justlinux.com/nhf/Filesystems/Mounting_smbfs_Shares_Permanently.html

to temporarily mount the drive do this:
sudo smbmount //MEDIACENTERBOX/External /external -o username=mikeEskew,password=FedExIsSexy

and to add it permanantly, add this line to /etc/fstab
//MEDIACENTERBOX/External /external smbfs credentials=/root/.smbpasswd 0 0

after creating the file /root/.smbpasswd with this information:
# cat /root/.smbpasswd

username=mikeEskew

password=FedExIsSexy

note: there are some security measures you should do when using credentials so make sure to see the second link for details.

clean install?

should i wipe this and start over? there are just enough bugs to convince me and it seems like it is running a bit slow.. i really havent done all that much that i couldnt' redo easily.

damn.. it seems like an option but i am laaaaaazy

got sound.. no cd-rom

well it looks like the sound problem was a result of the "multimedia codecs" that automatix installed. damn. automatix was so wonderful when i installed it last time and this time it took away my sound.

bitch.

for some reason the cd-rom isn't mounting now. i never even check this so i'll just assume that it was not automatix that broke it. ahh well, in a couple more posts i'll let you know what retarded thing that i did to cause this

going deaf?

hmm.. i just noticed that i wasn't hearing any sounds... did i before? i don't remember but i kinda think so... did something i install somthing that fucked it up or did i just never notice there was no sound.

shit. well i am so early into the building of the system that i could probably wipe my linux system and start over.. maybe i'll do it just to see how fast it can be done..

flying along

resolved a lot of problems this morning.

my wifi issue was due to not knowing what my ssid was... i forgot i removed the spaces in it.
damn.

i also had to go to the multiverse to get 915resolution again as i was running my widescreen at 1024x768 (which sucks).. it looks like my old instructions were for kubuntu and of course now i'm in gnome. one slight difference is that after installing the package the new resolution isn't automatically in there.. restart it and all is fine.

i also got the newest version of automatix (my love) at www.getautomatix.com and installed all kinds of packages that i needed without the pain of thought.

finally, i've found that firefox 2 doesn't seem to react to the backspace key the way i would like (by going back to the last page... ) well i found a little site explaining this was the result of a bug fix. fuck that, i want to go back! so anyway, the solution is to type about:config in your browser's address bar and then go to browser.backspace_action and set the value to 0.

all is right in the world again... well i'll let you know as i install and fix things.. chow

dual booting like a champ

paritioning worked and then i just threw my Ubuntu 6.10 Edgy Eft Cd in and walked through the four install steps and rockandfuckingroll i have a dual booting laptop. Of course the wireless isn't working yet on linux so it's far from perfect but hey, i was able to boot back into windows successfully and i'm pretty damn proud of that...

when i figure out how to get the wireless working i'll let you know.

partition my ass

here is a fun fact: you can only have four primary partitions on a hard drive.
ugh.. guess i never came across this issue before.. but i read this great little post to teach me a bit about partitioning and made me a little less concerned about extended partitions...
http://forum.notebookreview.com/archive/index.php?t-93251.html

so anyway.. before i commit here is my current partitioning scheme

pri - sda2 - fat32 - 6.84 gb (backup drive for windows.. came installed.. i guess it's D:)
pri - sda1 - ntfs - 65 gb (main windows partition, C: - i'm a little concerned about this one as it was the entire drive and i resized it down to 65)
pri - sda3 - ext3 - 15 gb (/ root)
ext - sda4 - 62.21gb (extended partition containing the remainder of the partitions)
ext - sda5 - linux-swap - 2gb (swap)
ext - sda6 - ext3 - 30 gb (/home)
ext - sda7 - fat32 - 30.21 gb (remainder of drive to be used as a shared partition between windows and linux)

well i'm about to commit so prepare for the next post to be some salior like cursing

oh... so you have to unmount it....

yeah.. i'm retarded... busy = mounted != not resizable...
simply go to the terminal and type

sudo umount /dev/sda1

sda1 being my main windows partition

okay.. time to fuckup my computer

knoppix root password?

arg.. another twelve minutes of my life wasted. i think a reason qtparted may have not worked was because i was trying to partition as a user rather than root... well what is knoppix's default root password you ask?

well shit.

thanks to the faq, now i know it's none..

to set it, open up a terminal window (think command prompt windows geek) and type "sudo passwd" (sudo means super user do and passwd will let put in a password of choice.. my password is chilicheesefrylovemachine)

ok.. i'll let you konw when i get my partitioning going

fuck gentoo, back to knoppix

well after my excitement of getting gentoo to boot i couldn't get run_qtparted to do anything. the little gui actually had a button for gparted (gnome's version).. but that motherfucker couldn't find any harddrives. fuck that shit. thankfully i was downloading knoppix 4 (http://www.knoppix.org/) i love knoppix. when i was building my first PVR (fedora 4 based) knoppix is what i used to get it going at first. it worked when nothing else would and detected all kinds of stuff like my SATA (!) hard drive and bluetooth keyboard (!!)).. so its running now and qtparted is there and i can get it to start but i am not having much luck getting it to actually resize. i resize the partition to 65gigs and then a little info dialog comes up with nothing in it..

guess i'll google for a bit and figure out what i am missing. i have a feeling that because it sees sda2 (my hdd) as busy. i'll let you know

gentoo boot is SLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW

okay.. so i am still following that linuxDevCenter guide to installing linux on MooMoo.. i just rebooted with the sysRestore disc from http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page . the boot took forever. i actaully hard-restarted the machine a few times cause i thought it was frozen... then, in following the guide i booted using the "fb800 nodetect" option. well that was fucked.
using that option i couldn't convince MooMoo to startx
another reboot and a shitload of patience and it finally booted to X (the gui).. and thats where i am now.. i'll tell you what happens when i run qt_parted

finally.. after hours i'm at the beginning

made it.
Finally got the defrag to work correctly and if i had to do it again i could do in in 20 mins total. as i mentioned before, i'm largely following

http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2006/05/08/dual-boot-laptop.html

although, like all my linux experiences the best howtos seem to miss some really basic points.. regardless.. here's what i did.
1) got rid of those damn unmovable files.. this was the big trick and could have saved me hundreds of defrag passes.. http://howtoprimers.com/techtalk/2006/02/moving-the-unmovable-windows-disk-defragmentation-strategies/
basically right click on my computer, properties, advanced, performance settings, advanced, virtual memory change, then change the size to zero or mine had a 'set to none' button or something.. then go into control panel and power managment. then turn off hibernation. walla! no unmovable sectors. defrag the shit out of it.. (i have been using PerfectDisk now and itis BY FAR the best of the five or so i tried... this put my disk in a state that i was ready to attempt the partitioning... i'll start with that stuff in the next post.. just MINUTES away

fuck defragging

here i am.
1030 at night
still defragging
since seven tonight.

so i'm prepping for my ubuntu install and thus trying to get all my files at one half of my drive and i am failing miserably. it's not that i haven't tried. I'm now on my fourth defragger having tried the windows default version, diskkeeper pro something like "jesse's jdk defragger" and now Racxo's perfect disk (the best one so far).. but... i still have some file fragments in the middle and end of the drive. fuck this.. i figure i'll keep trying as long as i can stay up tongiht and then do the partition on this drive and see what happens.. shit.. what's the worst that can happen...

wish me luck.. hopefully i'll be next telling you how well the install worked

potential Concerns

so before i do anything with MooMoo, here are the things i'm worried about wiht this install:
*Much newer machine.. will everything be supported? Core 2 Duo, can linux take advantage of that?
*unmovable portions of hard drive are about a third in.. if i do a parition on the active windows partition will i fuck it?
*future vista upgrade - will this wipe grub after i've had linux working for a couple months?
*i'm retarded - when i was upgrading blanco, i had been working in linux non-stop for hours everyday.. now i haven't done much in it from an administrative point of view in a while.. i don't remember shit.

well off we go..

here is the page i think i'm going to follow to parition my active windows partition ..
http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2006/05/08/dual-boot-laptop.html

New Lappy New Installs!

well my medion laptop (blanco) was dying. very dying. six months or so ago the computer stopped holding charge and it wouldn't work without being plugged in. ugh. it also wouldn't run without the battery plugged in so it's been plugged in on my coffee table since. not so great a feature for a laptop. well, within the last week it added the symptom of turning off randomly. bah. i can't imagine what would happen if i didnt have a working computer at home (note: i have a windows mce machine running my pvr.. but that doesn't count cause it is attached to my tv.. and i have a work laptop.. but that doesn't count cause i can't visit illicit sites with it.. and mau has a lapptop here.. but that doesnt count cause it's hers.. and there is my old lappy which is working.. but may stop at any time..) point being, i needed a new laptop.

so i bought MooMoo (the new lappy's name) today. It is a gateway mx6860 with a core 2 duo 5600, 1 gig RAM, 160 gig hard drive and all kinds of other lovin (including a free vista upgrade which i still have to figure out how to get). well i love MooMoo but have now become a linux addict (i use windows on blanco about once a month).. soooooo.. time to install Ubuntu on this beast! Fortunatly, i have all my old trials and tribulations (and solutions) on this blog (the original purpose of it)... so once again i'll start tracking all the issues i have and solutions i discover as i try and make this one a funcitoning Ubuntu Machine.