Rojak Coder

In my previous post, I mentioned that I sometimes have trouble using the mksusebootdisk script make the thumb drive bootable. In a recent endeavour to install openSUSE 10.3 onto the Eee PC again, I encountered the same problem. This time though, I was in a rush for time and simply refused to do the whole process from formatting the file system (till this date I still have not figured out what is the cause of the problem).

So I turned to Google. Lo and behold, by chance I bumped into John Anderson’s blog. In this particular page he described the manual steps that can be taken to make the thumb drive bootable. And it works!

All that needs to be done are but just a few steps. First step is to simply copy ALL the files under <installation_dvd>/boot/i386/loader/ to the root directory of the thumb drive.

Then rename the file isolinux.cfg to syslinux.cfg in the thumb drive.

Finally unmount the thumb drive and run the command below (the syslinux package has to be installed), assuming that the thumb drive device name is /dev/sdb:

syslinux /dev/sdb1

And you’re done!

To extract the contents of a RPM file, you need the rpm2cpio and the cpio tools. Use them this way:

rpm2cpio name_of_package.rpm | cpio -tv

This will extract the contents of the RPM file.

In the previous post, I described how to create the installation thumb drive. After creating the installation thumb drive, the next step, of course, is to use it to install.
Read the rest of this entry »

Further to my previous post on changing the tab size in the VI editor, I’ve found out how to change the indentation size in VI.

Read the rest of this entry »

The vi editor is a powerful editor. Problem with it is that it is only for the command line which means that many preferences are not accessible via a ‘Preferences’ page. You need to know how to set preferences using commands.

Recently I’ve found out how to change the tab size in the vi editor. I think by default the tab size is 8 characters, which is too long for coding with proper indentation. To change it to a four character stop, use the following command in command mode:

:set tabstop=4
Read the rest of this entry »

I have KDE and Compiz-Fusion installed on openSUSE 10.3 running for some time now. Some time ago, I encountered a strange problem where the ALT-F1 key combination does not bring up the menu any more. Also the I don’t know what I did to cause this but I managed to solve it thanks to the openSUSE wiki.

Part of my work requires me to play with the ASUS Eee PC. In particular, I’ve got to install on the Eee PC SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (SLED) 10 SP1. The process is more difficult than it sounds. I’m blogging about it here so that other people who are interested in doing the same thing can share my experience and theirs through comments.
Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve submitted a Cool Solutions article with Novell on how to prepare the iPrint client for use with Ubuntu Linux. The article can be found at http://www.novell.com/communities/node/4208

Hope this helps someone out there. Comments are welcomed

After getting the Eee PC installed with openSUSE using the USB installation method (http://en.opensuse.org/SuSE_install_from_USB_drive), I’m now trying to use the Eee PC as what a ‘normal’ user would (versus a power user/developer). What I’ve found out in the short period of usage is that the application Inkscape, a vector drawing program, does not work quite well out of the box.

Let me describe the problem more clearly. After Inkscape is started, you don’t see the entire window of the application for one simple reason - there is a minimum size that the program is displayed with. Even if you maximize the window, what happens is that the screen will show a portion of the window. When you click on any part of the window, the screen will show the other part of the window that was hidden. This is a toggling behaviour, making it nearly impossible to click on any widget on the program.

Thankfully in Linux, you can use the ALT-button together with the left mouse click to move the window around. However, by default (assuming you’ve got Compiz running), the title bar of the window cannot go above the top of the screen. This makes it impossible for you to move the window above the screen to see the hidden part of the application. To remove this default behaviour, you need to use the gconf-editor program.

To start gconf-editor, you can search for it in the list of applications if you are using the SLAB menu. If you are using the old-styled menu, you can find this program at Applications > System > Configuration > GNOME Configuration Editor. The easiest way to me is to simply press ALT-F2 to start the Run Application dialog box and type in the dialog box “gconf-editor” without the quotes.

After gconf-editor is started, you use its search function to search for the keyword “constrain”. This will bring up two results: /apps/compiz/plugins/move/allscreens/options/constrain_y and /schemas/apps/compiz/plugins/move/allscreens/options/constrain_y

What I did was simply double-click on the first result (the one with /apps) and un-check the box under the Value column. This will allow you to move any window above the top of the screen.

I have not figured out how to do this in KDE though. Will write a post about this if I manage to find it.

From the blog aggregator planetsuse.org, Garrett LeSage posted about using the Compose key to enter different typographical characters such as —, ®, ©, ², ¿, ¡, ÷ etc

Interested? Read his posting to see how it works.

By the way, the post is for Linux only. Enjoy.