Section “InputDevice”
Identifier “Configured Mouse”
Driver “vboxmouse”
Option “CorePointer”
EndSection

note two lines: vboxmouse tells X.org to use mouse driver from VirtualBox guest additions, and CorePointer instructs to use this pointer as primary. Without CorePointer line the vboxmouse driver is used, but it’s still impossible to move it outside guest’s window.

Well, WordPress was updated easily, but i had problems with Gallery2.

I need a multisite deployment of Gallery2. Although it is supported from the installer, some important steps are missing.

In order multisite Gallery2 to work, you will need to add some symlinks to every deployment of the Gallery2:

• lib -> /usr/share/gallery2/lib/

The directory is providing some scripts amongst all, so without it you will lack some functionality, like enabling themes will not work.

• modules -> /usr/share/gallery2/modules
• themes -> /usr/share/gallery2/themes

The themes directory is providing CSS file, so without this your gallery will look “flat”.

Also, you can try to use “php_admin_flag safe_mode Off” in the Apache’s VirtualHost description, in the case PHP safe mode is turned on globally.

And yes, beware: do not ever mix web directory and data directory: the content of web directory is erased during install.

# date
Sat Jul 11 10:34:07 EEST 2009
# dpkg -l |egrep gallery2
ii gallery2 2.3-1 web-based photo album written in PHP


The fresh issue: after fresh install (Gallery… deb), no one is able to login. The solution is explained here – you should set $gallery->setConfig('baseUri', ''); in ‘config.php’.

Again, having both left hands, i was unable to start multisite version of Gallery2, using install scripts. What i had to change was:

1. remove ‘lib/’
2. symlink ‘lib/’ , ‘modules/’ , ‘themes/’ from ‘/usr/share/gallery2′ to site root
3. symlink or copy and alter ‘images/’ from ‘/usr/share/gallery2′ to site root

First of all, firmware is in non-free branch, so /etc/apt/sources.list must contain “non-free” repository and:
install firmware-bnx2 package:

apt-get install firmware-bnx2

;

double check the files in /lib/firmware/;

Some people report it’s still impossible to load firmware from initrd, so you may wish to remove bnx2 line from ‘/etc/initramfs-tools/modules’;

“firmware-bnx2″ already has initrd update scripts, but you may want to re-check the created image.
You can extract the initrd image using

gzip -dc /boot/initrd.img-[]kernel version-arch] | cpio -id

Cross your fingers;
telinit 6;
It just worked for me:

# uname -a
Linux … 2.6.26-2-amd64 #1 SMP … x86_64 GNU/Linux

Still got no ping? Login to console and rmmod bnx2 && modprobe bnx2

[] printing/print_cups.c:cups_job_submit(656)
Unable to print file to - client-error-bad-request


And the printing is stopped, of course.

The solution is simple:

LANG=en_US.UTF-8 /etc/init.d/samba restart

In short:
/var/log/cups/error_log shows a lot of

E [] Unsupported character set "iso-8859-1"!

CUPS requires UTF-8.
In the case of default login in Debian, the console IS in UTF-8, but is not if you have customized it and use `su` for administrative tasks.

C’ia.

The problem was found accidentally. I have some information in national language and I usually edit /etc/samba/smb.conf from X environment or msWindows, using Unicode-aware editors. But at some time share comments in config file were edited using pico in ISO-8859-1 terminal. Pico is perfect editor for me (i hate complexity of vi or emacs) , but in this case the combination of wront terminal and ANSI-type editor was lethal. The UTF-8 strings were mangled and the configuraton was wrong (althow `testparm` showed it’s OK).
So, don’t do this at work

The very first problem was Unicode support. Seems like PHProject was developed keeping MySQL3 in mind, althow ir works with a bunch of database backends, like Oracle, PostgreSQL, DB2, MSSQL.

So, to use UTF8 encoding in MySQL, add the following into lib/db/mysql.inc.php:

$_database_ressource_identifier = mysql_connect($db_host, $db_user, $db_pass) or mysql_error();
+++ mysql_query(“SET NAMES ‘utf8′”);
+++ mysql_query(“SET CHARACTER_SET ‘utf8′”);
$_database_connection = mysql_select_db($db_name);

The second task is to convert the whole database, using character set ‘latin1′ and collation ‘latin1_swedish_ci’ to UTF-8. There are ~47 tables in the database, so manual conversion is a pain in the ass. My ass. You can use the SQL script for PHProject-5.2.2.

And the third task is to convert localization files from 8-bit to UTF-8. I’ve used iconv:

> ‘iconv -f windows-1257 -t utf8 lang/lt.inc.php.old > lang/lt.inc.php‘

So, here are the files:

A little PHP script that will convert database and tables to UTF-8. However, i’ve found it too late.

In order to run in Linux, you need:

1. PCMCIA bus modules – pcmcia, pcmci_core and yenta_socket in my case;
2. prism54 module to talk to the card;
3. firmware_class module to load the firmware
4. actual firmware
5. wireles-tools package to manage link

The WG511 uses isl3890 module, which was available here, but due to copyright restrictions, it’s not there any more. The backup is prism54.org firmware page or my local backup. Netgear WG511 uses 1.0.4.3.arm firmware. Just be sure to place it into ‘/usr/lib/hotplug/firmware’ in Debian and symlink or rename it to ‘isl3890′.

What you need more, is to edit ‘/etc/network/interfaces’ file and add some lines about the WiFi card:

My WiFi card is eth2, as eth0 goes for embedded wired network and eth1 is for IEEE1384/FireWire link:
…
allow-hotplug eth2
iface eth2 inet dhcp
wireless-essid your_APs_ssid_here
wireless-mode managed
wireless-key1 ActualKeyMustBeEnteredHere
wireless-defaultkey 1

Voila. Plug-in the card, and run /sbin/iwconfig.

$ /sbin/iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

eth1 no wireless extensions.

sit0 no wireless extensions.

eth2 IEEE 802.11b/g ESSID:”your_APs_ssid_here”
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.467 GHz Access Point: 00:00:00:00:00:00
Bit Rate:54 Mb/s Tx-Power=31 dBm Sensitivity=20/200
Retry min limit:8 RTS thr:2347 B Fragment thr:2346 B
Link Quality:19/0 Signal level:-50 dBm Noise level:-40 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

The problem is when you plug-in the WiFi card and your wired network stays connected. In this case you must configure routing.
Or you can disable wired link with ‘sudo ifdown eth0′.

The 1024×768 screen of my laptop from ESC is quite small. I got it when I had to change some preferences in Cinelerra. The confirmation buttons were far below the edge of the screen.

Well, manually editing files in ~/.bcast is a bit time-consuming, so i really needed these buttons

There were two ways to press the button: either use bigger, so called ‘virtual’ desktop, or try to run two X serers with different layouts.
Using virtual desktops is more simple. Just add “Virtual x y” lines to /etc/X11/xorg.conf and you are done. The minor problem is that when the window gets maximized, it expand over the whole virtual desktop, not just the visible part of it.
The other way is more interesting. I should mention I prefer KDM as desktop manager.
So, good old Goooooogle showed me the way: [1] and [2]. The first one is quite interesting, but seems like kdm from KDE 3.5.5 is not reading Xservers file at all.
The temporary workaround is to use the ugly XDM as desktop manager.

So, the XDM solution is:
edit /etc/X11/xdm/Xservers and choose one of the methods proposed:

# three ways: either use ‘-layout’ option and specify ServerLayout:
:0 local /usr/bin/X :0 vt7 -nolisten tcp -layout Default
:1 local /usr/bin/X :1 vt8 -nolisten tcp -layout Huge

# or use separate xorg.conf file, like this
#:0 local /usr/bin/X :0 vt7 -nolisten tcp -config /etc/X11/xorg.conf
#:1 local /usr/bin/X :1 vt8 -nolisten tcp -config /etc/X11/xorg.virtual.conf

# or use ‘-screen’ option
#:0 local /usr/bin/X :0 vt7 -nolisten tcp -screen Default\ Screen
#:1 local /usr/bin/X :1 vt8 -nolisten tcp -screen Huge\ Screen

and either create xorg.virtual.conf or edit xorg.conf accordingly:

…
Section “Screen”
Identifier “Default Screen”
Device “Generic Video Card”
Monitor “Generic Monitor”
DefaultDepth 24
…
SubSection “Display”
Depth 24
Modes “1024×768″ “1280×1024″ “1600×1200″
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section “Screen”
Identifier “Huge Screen”
Device “Generic Video Card”
Monitor “Generic Monitor”
DefaultDepth 24
…
SubSection “Display”
Depth 24
Modes “1024×768″ “1280×1024″ “1600×1200″
Virtual 2400 1600
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section “ServerLayout”
Identifier “Default”
Screen “Default Screen”
…
EndSection

Section “ServerLayout”
Identifier “Huge”
Screen “Huge Screen”
…
EndSection

stop KDM, start XDM and you’re done.

And now, the most interesting part (for me): KDM configuration.

I used single xorg.conf file with multiple ServerLayout’s

/etc/kde3/kdm/kdmrc:

# KDM master configuration file
…
[General]
…
# List of permanent displays. Displays with a hostname are foreign. A display
# class may be specified separated by an underscore.
# Default is “:0″
StaticServers=:0,:1
# List of on-demand displays. See StaticServers for syntax.
# Default is “”
ReserveServers=:2,:3
# VTs to allocate to X-servers. A negative number means that the VT will be
# used only if it is free. If all VTs in this list are used up, the next free
# one greater than the last one in this list will be allocated.
# Default is “”
ServerVTs=-7,-8,-9,-10
# TTYs (without /dev/) to monitor for activity while in console mode.
# Default is “”
ConsoleTTYs=tty1,tty2,tty3,tty4,tty5,tty6
…

# Greeter config for all displays
[X-*-Greeter]
…
LogoArea=Clock
…
# Default is “Welcome to Debian at %n”
GreetString=Welcome to Debian at %n %d
…

# Core config for 1st local display
[X-:0-Core]
# The VT the X-server should run on; auto-assign if zero, don’t assign if -1.
# Better leave it zero and use ServerVTs.
# Default is 0
#ServerVT=7
…
ServerArgsLocal=-nolisten tcp -layout Default

# Core config for local displays
[X-:1-Core]
ServerAttempts=2
ServerVT=8
# The command line to start the X-server, without display number and VT spec.
# This string is subject to word splitting.
# Default is “/usr/bin/X -br”
ServerCmd=/usr/bin/X :1 -br
# Additional arguments for the X-servers for local sessions.
# This string is subject to word splitting.
# Default is “”
ServerArgsLocal=-nolisten tcp -layout Huge
AllowNullPasswd=true
AllowShutdown=All

# Greeter config for 1st local display
[X-:0-Greeter]
…

That’s all. Enjoy.

• missing one of Debian package keys, although ‘debian-archive-keyring’ is the latest version;
• the empty KDE control center. The solution was not so simple. Seems like Debian control package is missing a file: post forums.Debian.net

  The solution is to create /etc/xdg/menus/applications-merged/kde-essential.menu file with the following content:

   <!DOCTYPE Menu PUBLIC "-//freedesktop//DTD Menu 1.0//EN"
  "http://www.freedesktop.org/standards/menu-spec/1.0/menu.dtd">
  
  <Menu>
  <!-- The following menus are hidden by default -->
  <Menu>
  <Name>Settings</Name>
  <Directory>kde-settings.directory</Directory>
  <MergeFile>../kde-settings.menu</MergeFile>
  </Menu>
  <Menu>
  <Name>Information</Name>
  <Directory>kde-information.directory</Directory>
  <MergeFile>../kde-information.menu</MergeFile>
  </Menu>
  <Move>
  <Old>Settings/Information</Old><New>Information</New>
  </Move>
  <Menu>
  <Name>System</Name>
  <Menu>
  <Name>ScreenSavers</Name>
  <Directory>kde-system-screensavers.directory</Directory>
  <MergeFile>../kde-screensavers.menu</MergeFile>
  </Menu>
  </Menu>
  </Menu>
  

• libxaw8 library is missing fro the repisitory, so ngspice from zerobeat.in is not installing.
• usbmgr for some reason is not installed by default, so USB mouse does not work. And yes, please dot’t use ‘usbmouse’ module on a rush;)