FVWM
Friday, November 7 2008 at 21:00, by Norman
I used FVWM before, It is a fast, stable and powerful resource saver. It is also famous for its infinite configurability. But I am always lazy to make some tune-ups. And without tune-up, it is ugly and uncomfortable. Also it doesn't have some features in Gnome or XFCE4 like notify area. So I won't use it on my laptop. Finally, early this semester, I have to do lots of work in the school. And the school only give me a very old pc. It even takes minutes to open firefox in Windows! So XUbuntu + FVWM become a reasonable choice. At first, it did take me some time to config it the way I wanted. But once it is done, I really start like FVWM.
Most of my config files are from pootie's config. That config is simple, clean and easy to use. I just made a few changes in keybinds, clock and panels. There are 4 virtual desktops, all tasks iconized to right side of the desktop as you can see. I remove the left click menu and right click brings most application, middle mouse key brings log out, restart and function menu.
Instruction:
It requires FVWM Version 2.5.xx(it is as ustable released in FVWM official website, but actually I feel it is stable enough for daily use). To use this theme, first install FVWM, then extract package to your home directory. You also need ogg123 to enable sound. All config files are under ~/.fvwm.
Useful Linux tips:
Sunday, October 28 2007 at 21:00, by Norman
Create "partition" in linux:
Here is how to create a file in linux and mount it like a regular partition:
To create a file of 512MB and fill with 0: # dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/test_filesystem bs=1M count=512 Now what can I do with it? 1. If you want a swap partition but you don't want to make a physical partition for it.In this case the best way is create the file in some place will be mounted before mount swap: # mkswap /tmp/test_filesystem # swapon /tmp/test_filesystem 2. make an ext2/3 file (you will be given warn that it is not a block special device, but just proceed anyway): # mkfs.ext2 /tmp/test_filesysm # mkdir /tmp/test_filesystem # mount -o loop /tmp/test_filesystem /mnt/dir Now I can back up linux partition: # dd if=/dev/sda2 of=/tmp/dir/mybackup.boot.sda2.dd backup mbr # dd if=/dev/sda of=/tmp/dir/mybackup.boot.sda.mbr.dd bs=512 count=1 Restore from backup # dd if=/tmp/dir/mybackup.sda.mbr.dd of=/dev/sdd skip=446 seek=446 bs=1 count=64 # dd if=/tmp/dir/mybackup.boot.sda1.dd of=/dev/sdd1 Actually What I usuall do is just using cp -a to the partition file then burn it to advd as backup. In this way it is easy to choose what I want to keep.
encrypt, decrypt file:
#gpg -c filename #gpg filename.gpg
TAB key: this is a very useful key, whenever you what the computer finish some thing you only typed half or you only remember half, press it. etc: cd /usr/inc then press tab, maybe the computer will finish it with include or if there are more than one files start with inc, it wil list all of them.
ps aux |grep keyword: show system process with keyword in it.
kill -9 process id: kill the process, becareful with -9 option.
tar zxvf file.tar.tgz: extract tar.gz or tgz files.
tar jxvf file.tar.bz2: extract bz2 files.
tar jcvf file.tar.bz2 file1, file2...: pack files to a tar.bz2 file.
mount -o loop disk1.iso /mnt/disk: mount iso files.
My favorite Linux distribution:
Sunday, October 21 2007 at 21:30, by Norman
The first Linux I used is Slackware. I still remember it took me about a month to get the xwindow run. Right now, the version 12.0 is still a very good one, very fast, very stable. The only thing I don\'t like is that it don\'t have gnome desktop.
Then I tried Redhat(it should be 7.0 at that time). I believe it has the best hardware support at that time. Since then, it became my favorite right away. Mybe it is the most success one or at least the most popular one. The free version Fedora has modest speed, stable and very easy to use.
Suse maybe the most beautiful one I ever used, very easy to use. The Yast is powerful and integrated almost every thing. But it is the slowest one too. Even if I turned off many services and AppArmor(?) it is still not fast enough for my old pc.
Linux Tools
Saturday, October 2007 20 at 21:30, by Norman
pidgin: A very good IM tool, support MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, QQ... Formerly named gaim. It's interface isn't beautiful, but enough for me. The feature it lacks is audio and video chat.
xmms: It is good for music, GUI is just like winamp. But usually need install a plugin or compile from source code if you want to play mp3(decoder is free but doesn\'t have gun license).
mplayer: For DVD or Divx movies, I use mplayer before. It is powerful, almost can play any format and only takes very few system resource. It is easy to install no matter you compile from the source code or just get binary code. But hte gmplayer, which has a GUI, is hard to compile from source code, it always ask for some modules.
VLC: VideoLAN Media Player, recently found it, should be good, but I really don\'t have too much time to wathch movies now. So not really tested it.
ndiswrapper: This is my only choice for my wifi card. It uses windows driver and most wifi card should be working fine under it. My only problem is that sometimes Fedora 4 will recognize the device as wired network.
For editors in Linux, check my editors page