Helpful Linux Tidbits

Been using this Apple MacBook for 10 months now. For the most part I’ve really liked it but now Apple can goto hell. Recently I discovered that my MacBook has a camera in it and someone has been watching me – point blank – for the last 10 months.

This is all part of a lawless society call Searchlight.

Saying the word is a forbidden word so I’ll probably get in trouble, but I don’t give a !#$!@#!

Apple includes Intels EFI to be able to implement this without any detection. No network software will pick it up, it is already built-in hardware-wise.

Last month, I suspected that I was being watched so I changed to an older graphite airport for a router and amazingly the problems went away. The next day though, I started my computer and got to the desktop and a very audible zap came from the computer, the screen waved and eventually regelled – but I had once again lost my privacy. Two green lines appeared on the screen, a consequence of doing a hard firmware reset.

Following this, I completely erased everything on my hard drive including what I as hoping was the controlling EFI partition, zapped the pram, reinstalled, changed my static IP address, tightened my firewall, asked for help in the forums, all to no avail.

Now I sent in my MacBook to Apple and told them of the security problem. I talk a representative that was good enough. He assured me this was a definite issue and that the labtechs would look at it. He said possible the only thing they could do was reset the firmware.

I had thought the ( or rather just hoped ) that this would stop the problem and I could be like any other person in America and enjoy my constitutional rights. I was … wrong. I haven’t talked to apple but I can say 100% without doubt that the people can still see me point blank.

So here’s to the crazy ones, the company reborn. To conspirators, to cheaters, to people who have given up the law in exchange for fanaticism.

Apple take this MacBook and !@#@#$.!

I’ve been working for a bit on creating a script that can switch the touchpad on and off for better use with the mouse. Now by using a mouse I don’t have to keep my hands propped to avoid contact with the touchpad when I type. A while back I showed the users the script I had used to do this, but there turns out to be even a simpler-means to do it.

Before I was required to open the terminal to run the script, but using udev is much easier.

Udev processes inputs and can trigger actions or even run programs at the trigger. Once I learned the right lines to write into a udev rule, the toggling of mouse and touchpad is self-acting.

Open a new rule

vim /etc/udev/rules.d/10-local.rules

This should be able to work on basically on any PC.

ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="input", ID_CLASS="mouse", RUN+="/usr/bin/synclient TouchpadOff=1"
ACTION=="remove", SUBSYSTEM=="input", ID_CLASS="mouse", RUN+="/home/todd/.scripts/mouse-touchpad-toggle-on"

A person could just use synclient again to switch on the touchpad once more, but I used syndaemon to enforce a typebreak after keypresses. With this I am able to type and not have a flying cursor everywhere :) .

Udev seems picky about using variables and “if” statements and such. So the script is basic:

#!/bin/bash
synclient TouchpadOff=0 MaxTapTime=0;
syndaemon -i 1 -d

When now the mouse is inserted the touchpad is deactivated and activated once more when the mouse is unplugged.

• Udev Priniciples

Hidden folders in home can simplify the process of adding a menu item. Most users know of .desktops – files that launch programs and contain additional meta data. Some programs that are emerged with portage don’t come with menu entries, so it can be handy to produce one if you don’t want to open the terminal.

Systemwide application launchers are stored in /usr/share/applications. Its usually best to copy directly from a similar program so that it is grouped properly. I had previously made .desktops in this folder. Lately because of computer issues I’ve had to reinstall Gentoo several times. I only backup my home folder and configs so these .desktops were getting lost every time.

I just discovered as I was digging and restoring my preferences, that there is a local .desktops folder. So now the process is much easier for me. Just copying a the similar .desktops over to ~/.local/share/applications/ and editing it does the job.

Not yet is /usr/share/pixmaps is implemented local but hopefully that is something we’ll see in future versions.

For those that haven’t yet heard Egoboo is yet again being developed. I first tried the game years ago, its a fun 3rd Person looking RPG action.

Unfortunately the version in portage isn’t the resurrected version. The new version has a new site and only has a loose, if any, tie to the original project (besides the base code).

Still under the GPL but unfortunately mainly being worked on by windows developers. Fortunately a couple Linux interests still remain. Zefz is helping make a port but it requires to install the windows version and copy the necessary data files over.

I like egoboo alot, it was a neat game when I could play in on my earlier laptop but there is a problem with integrated intel chipsets being unable to render the panels of the characters as you can see in a later post of the link above. Also the framerate was a miserable 1 FPS so obviously still needs some effort still.

Anybody heard if this project is still related to the original? Is the license valid?

Ive been on an open source kick lately. I converted some of my audio to OGG, because I like the open standard. Unfortunately I didn’t think this through. When I pull out my MP3 player, it didn’t support ogg. I converted the audio (again) back 2 … mp3.

This isn’t quite as I expected neither as the inherent differences of mp3 and ogg make converting back to mp3 only available as lossey.

The ogg2mp3 script works nicely it also words recursively so running it from the audio directory fixed everything. The quality is degraded but I can live with that.

I decided also to convert my APE file to mp3 too. This will take a bit more effort but the product is nice.

Ape to Ogg

Using CueApe – Encodes APE to mp3 or ogg and .cue/.ape splitter.

Requires:
• port-mac to convert form ape,
• vorbis-tools(oggenc) to convert to ogg
• lame to convert to mp3
• and mp3splt

berkano overlay has it

layman -a berkano

emerge media-libs/mac vorbis-tools mp3splt

chmod +x cueape.sh
mv cueape.sh /usr/bin/ape2

ape2 audio.ape audio.cue -o

-o for ogg -m for mp3

I had to use the LiveCD. I had heard so much about it that it just sounded too good to passup. X turned out to be choppingly slow, but otherwise the LiveCd seems definitely much better. When I really appreciate is the theme design – Gentoo Black. Occasionaly, use the wallpaper from it as my regular wallpaper on my desktop, and I also decided to make a qingy theme from it. It turned out well enough. Here it is for those whom are interested. Details on the GLW will give you all you need, I also cleaned it up a little to help clarify.

 Qingy Theme

I previously blogged that I figured out how to system backup to DVD.  I hadn’t as of that writing tried it.  Now I have, and I can say it went off.  A change or two was needed, and since I hadn’t seen any information on it, I put the info at the GLW.

Backup to DVD