Debian Squeeze - X31 and Ati Radeon

v 0.2

27 Oct 11

I was curious how to get the Radeon video card in my IBM X31 laptop working in other than generic mode.  I read the Debian Wiki page on it .. http://wiki.debian.org/AtiHowTo and found it quite interesting.  It seems that in many cases, there is no longer an xorg.conf file but the system probes the hardware on each startup.  I found that the open-source radeon server was already installed and the only thing I needed to do to make the best of it (without using module assistant to install a further module) was to install the non-free firmware.

aptitude install firmware-linux-nonfree

I rebooted and a big improvement ...


Later ....

Debian Squeeze - Webcam

v 0.3

13 Mar 12

Webcam support is built into the Debian kernel.  If your webcam is part of your machine, then very likely it will work out of the box, as in the eeepc.  If however you connect the webcam via USB, then you will have to use module assistant to install the Quickcam-usb module.

Using module assistant is all very straight forward as I've previously written, however you will first need to install the " module-assistant " package.  I found it easiest to simply use it in interactive mode to go through the various steps of preparing, getting the source, compiling and then installing it.

Once that was done - it worked .... except (for the moment) skype.  That I'm still working on.


Later ..


Update 13 Mar:

On revisiting the post, I got Skype sound to work on my Parent's machine by installing the " alsa-oss " package.

I recently installed a Logitech webcam to another machine by installing the Quickcam-usb module as described above, with the sound working in Alsa.

Debian Squeeze - Backports

v 0.2

27 Oct 11

I've known about the "backports" for Debian Stable for some time, but never quite got into using them.  It always seemed too hard to implement and the instructions were just that little too vague.  When the backports were incoropated into a Debian service, a package search engine was implemented, which I found irritating because I couldn't browse the available packages, and the search engine didn't work in any case.

All this has changed for me - I've finally worked out a system that works for me.  The technique needed for Squeeze to incorporate backports is now simpler than Lenny - and it just works.

My first use of backports was when I started to incorporate the current Iceweasel release in my Debian installs.  If you look at the instructions contained in the http://mozilla.debian.net web-page, you will see that there are two repositories that are activated - backports to provide the XULrunner package and the Debian Mozilla repository.  In that installation, only the "main" section is activated, however you can also activate "contrib" and "non-free".

Debian Backports:   http://backports-master.debian.org/

To include all the backports for Squeeze, add this line to your sources.list file:

deb http://backports.debian.org/debian-backports squeeze-backports main 

(add  

contrib non-free

as well if you like ) 

If you want to browse the available packages, then here they are - have a look through and see what takes your fancy:

http://backports.debian.org/debian-backports/pool/

Once you have decided what you want, then go to the search engine and enter the base part of the package name to verify what package you should include in the update .. for example if you search on "linux-image" you will get several kernel packages that may suit you - choose the appropriate one (in this case I chose  " linux-image-2.6-686 "  which is a generic package that at the moment uses the 2.6.39 kernel.  Apt-get (as below) from a root terminal and ....

apt-get -t squeeze-backports install linux-image-2.6-686

Done ..

Far simpler than I'd thought.

Later. 

Debian Squeeze - Wine Binaries

v 0.2

18 Oct 11

For some time, I've been trying to find an easy way to load an up-to-date version of Wine onto my Debian Squeeze installation.  The Wine project has only outdated binaries, and there is no explicit binary for Squeeze available.  I've done some reading on compiling the appropriate debs and whilst I agree this is the ideal solution, there remains debate on the best technique - or at least as far as I can see.  I'll get there with the compiling way, however I want to do it properly the Debian way - there is no point doing otherwise.  I need to do some more reading to understand exactly what I am doing.

In the meantime during my searching, I came upon what seems to be a simple solution that .. just .. works.

Mepis is a Debian-derived distribution that is close to pure Debian.  Whilst v8.5 is based on Lenny with extras, v11 uses Squeeze with additional libraries.  I wasn't keen on upgrading libraries just for this.  Now v 8.5 has the same kernel as Squeeze, and based on the report of a satisfied user, I gave it a go.

I downloaded the "mcr85" versions of Wine-Gecko and Wine from:
http://main.mepis-deb.org/mepiscr/testrepo/pool/test/w/wine-gecko/
and
http://main.mepis-deb.org/mepiscr/testrepo/pool/test/w/wine/

Wine-Gecko needs to be installed first, and that went without a hitch using "GDebi".  Before installing Wine, the " libmpg123-0 " package needs to be installed to satisfy the Wine dependencies.  Then install Wine, again with GDebi.

" winecfg " and you are good to go.

So far, all is well and the packages show up nicely in the package database, so they will be straightforward to remove and upgrade.



Later ......

Debian Squeeze for my Parents - Skype, Alsa, OSS

v 0.2

18 Oct 11

I was showing my Father how to use Skype on Debian - he was using a headphone / mic setup plugged into the front of the computer - when I discovered that despite the headphones working, the microphone was not.

I played with settings in Skype, then decided to see what the System could provide.  I found settings for "Front Microphone" and "Front Microphone Boost" in the Gnome Alsa Mixer and activated them.  I then found that I could use the microphone, but still Skype refused to use it.

Then I started to wonder.  Does Skype use ALSA?  Or is it wedded to OSS?  I searched the package database and found a package "alsa-oss".  On a whim I loaded it and then all was well.  I cannot say for sure that this fixed things, but it certainly seemed to do the trick.



Later ........

Finding Emacs - Colours,Toolbar and Variables

v 0.2

14 oct 11

Colours

I was wondering about setting colours in Emacs ... and then started wondering about Themes and even how to find out what variables to set.

Well, here is a website that gives all the colours you can set:


http://raebear.net/comp/emacscolors.html

How can you use them?  Well to start off, try putting this in your init file ....

(set-background-color  "grey95")

It is a very simple change - changes the background to light grey, however you get the idea.


Themes

Try this website to view a few:
http://color-theme-select.heroku.com/

Toolbar

Want to determine whether the toolbar is on or off?

(tool-bar-mode t)


Variables

I found this list this morning, however there are a lot more than this:
http://www.gnu.org/s/libtool/manual/emacs/Variable-Index.html


Later ....

Finding Emacs - Aquamacs and Emacs on OSX

v0.2

12 Oct 11

I have both Aquamacs and Emacs on my Mac laptop.  Aquamacs is a really good adaptation of Emacs to the OSX environment, particularly for "non-geeks".

One aspect of Aquamacs has had me wondering about it over the last few weeks - that of initialisation.  If you read the aquamacs manual, it tells that it reads its own customisation and preferences files first and then it reads " .emacs ".

Experimentation tells me that Aquamacs does NOT read the initialisation files contained in " .emacs.d " as per the latest emacs variants.  The only problem with this is if you do not know about it.  Simply overcome - have your " preferences.el " and your " init.el " files load the things you want them to load.

Done!


later.

Finding Emacs - Installation in Windows 7

v 0.2

12 Oct 11

Way back when I started to be interested in Emacs, I posted my installation adventures.  A year has passed, and even though I use Emacs on OSX and Linux, somehow a Windows Desktop has remained in a convenient place and I've often used Emacs on that.  I updated the XP system to Windows 7, and would have to say that if you do use Windows, upgrading would be a wise move.  One thing about Windows 7 that appeals to me is that it has become more "Unix-like" and that makes it easier to have something like Emacs on the go.

The "home" directory in Windows 7 is your username, so if your account is "jane" it would be

c:\Users\jane

I'm the only person who uses the machine, so I've found it convenient to put both the program directory and initialisation files in "jane".

First stop is the Gnu website and downloading the latest Windows version of Emacs.  At the moment it is 23.3.  Then download the manual.  The latest version at the time of writing is 23.3, so you will want to download  emacs-23.3-bin-i386.zip .  In general, when new versions come out, the one to get will be between 35-40 mb in size and with the format  " emacs-XX.x-bin-i386.zip ".  The archive will unzip into an "emacs-23.3" or whatever folder.  I just put this in the home directory as so:


c\Users\jane\emacs-23.3


The program to run is "C:\Users\jane\emacs-23.3\bin\runemacs.exe" .  I made a shortcut, and then pinned it to the taskbar.  Congratulations, you now have a bare-metal Emacs installation.


But wait ... there's more.


Create a new folder in your home directory called  "   .emacs.d  "  .  Note the periods.  In unix terms, the period at the beginning makes the file or directory invisible.  I believe in Windows there are some problems with the period at the beginning, though I've not seen any, and an underscore will suffice, but I've not looked at that.  So you have a new directory as so:


C:\Users\jane\.emacs.d


Inside this directory go initialisation files etc .. notably  " init.el ".  Here is a part of my init.el file to get you going.


-----------------------8<--------------------------------
 ;==================================================
;
;        Geoff's Init.el file
;
;==================================================

(setq inhibit-startup-screen t)

;=================================
;
;         Org Mode
;
;=================================

(add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.org\\'" . org-mode))
(global-set-key "\C-cl" 'org-store-link)
(global-set-key "\C-ca" 'org-agenda)
(global-set-key "\C-cb" 'org-iswitchb)
(add-hook 'org-mode-hook 'turn-on-font-lock)  ; Org buffers only
;
;;(org-remember-insinuate)


;=================================
;
;         Mobileorg
;
;=================================

;; Set to the location of your Org files on your local system
(setq org-directory "~/org")
;; Set to the name of the file where new notes will be stored
;  Filename can be anything you like.
(setq org-mobile-inbox-for-pull "~/org/mobileorg.org")
;; Set to /MobileOrg.
;; Should be as below.  Windows has recently changed to just "Dropbox".
(setq org-mobile-directory "~/Dropbox/MobileOrg")
;  All "index.org" does is set the variable below.
(setq org-mobile-files (quote ("A380Notes.org")))


;=================================
;
;         Yasnippet
;  Requires yasnippet to be installed
;
;=================================

(add-to-list 'load-path
              "~/.emacs.d/plugins/yasnippet-0.6.1c")
(require 'yasnippet) ;; not yasnippet-bundle
(yas/initialize)
(yas/load-directory "~/.emacs.d/plugins/yasnippet-0.6.1c/snippets")

;; Develop and keep personal snippets under ~/emacs.d/mysnippets
(setq yas/root-directory "~/.emacs.d/plugins/mysnippets")

;; Load the snippets
(yas/load-directory yas/root-directory)



;======================================================================
;
;    Encryption - symmetric gpg
;
; this requires gpg be installed, available from  http://www.gnupg.org/
; To open a " .gpg " file, it will ask for password twice
; To close, will ask for password once.
;
;======================================================================

(require 'epa)
(epa-file-enable)

;======================================================================
;
;             Predictive
;
;         http://www.dr-qubit.org/emacs.php
;
;======================================================================

(setq load-path (cons "~/.emacs.d/plugins/predictive" load-path))
(autoload 'predictive-mode "predictive" "predictive" t)

;======================================================================
;
;;                    Aspell
;
; GNU Aspell is available from: http://aspell.net/
;
;======================================================================

(setq-default ispell-program-name "c:\\Pro\\Aspell\\bin\\aspell.exe")


;=================================
;
;    Norton Commander
; nc.el
;
;=================================

(add-to-list 'load-path "~/.emacs.d/plugins")
(autoload 'nc "nc" "Emulate MS-DOG file shell" t)

;=================================
;
;    Midnight Commander
; mc.el
;
;=================================

(add-to-list 'load-path "~/.emacs.d/plugins")
(autoload 'mc "mc" "Emulate MS-DOG file shell" t)


;=================================
;
;    longlines

;    plugins already in load path

;
;=================================
; (add-to-list 'load-path "~/.emacs.d/plugins")
   (autoload 'longlines-mode
     "longlines.el"
     "Minor mode for automatically wrapping long lines." t)

-----------------------------------8<-----------------------------------------

Now much of what I've loaded extra are emacs lisp files I've found, particularly on the Emacs wiki.  I would start with the top couple of customisations, (Orgmode) and go from there.  Longlines.el is readily available on the internet and I'd install that alongsside the init.el file (if you are not going to add to the load path).

Longlines

A word about wordwrap.  What people think of as word-wrap does not exist by default in Emacs.  Visual-line mode and longlines combined give what we think of as proper wordwrap.

This is what I have at the start of my orgmode emacs files:

# -*- mode:org ; mode:visual-line ; mode:longlines -*-

It is a comment with instructions to Emacs to initiate the appropriate modes.


That's it for now



Later ..............