13 June 2012

188. Notes: virtualbox and /etc/init.d/vboxdrv

If you install virtualbox and get ready to fire up the installation of a new virtual machine, but immediately get an error about having to do '/etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup' -- but find that there's no such executable in /etc/init.d in spite of having installed the virtualbox-dkms package, then

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r`
sudo dpkg-reconfigure virtualbox-dkms

12 June 2012

187. Thunderbird 13.0 from source on debian wheezy

First look here for dependencies:
http://verahill.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/thunderbird-1201-on-debian.html

In terms of building it's almost exactly the same as for the 12-series: the only difference is that you have to build outside the source tree.

cd ~/tmp
rm comm-release -rf
wget ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/thunderbird/releases/13.0/source/thunderbird-13.0.source.tar.bz2
tar xvf thunderbird-13.0.source.tar.bz2
mkdir thunderbird13
cd thunderbird13
../comm-release/./configure --disable-necko-wifi

The next step takes a while (30-60 minutes)
make 

sudo make install

Done.

What's new: http://www.ghacks.net/2012/06/06/whats-new-in-thunderbird-13/

Errors
No rule to make target ../../../xpcom/idl-parser/xpidllex.py
Solution:
Build outside the source tree as shown above.

11 June 2012

186. Installing gnome shell extensions in gnome 3.4 on debian wheezy-- frippery panel, menu etc.

Gnome 3.4 frippery extensions in Debian Wheezy: bottom panel, favourites etc.
Upgrading to gnome 3.4 disabled all my extensions. It also remove all my keyboard shortcuts.

Update: Interesting take on ther GNOME 3/KDE 4releases  http://www.datamation.com/open-source/the-gnome-exodus-and-kde-2.html I think the idea of a lack of trust is a valid one: I might be able to get GNOME to do what I want today, but whatabout tomorrow? How much longer can I manually patch my screenshot app?

So, we need to get:
* move clock
* favourites
* application menu
* bottom panel
* static workspaces

Btw, extensions.gnome.org doesn't do International English. Try searching for favourites. And that's just the beginning of the headaches. I had problems finding any extensions compatible with gnome 3.4.

Anyway, as usual frippery (http://intgat.tigress.co.uk/rmy/extensions/index.html) comes to the rescue of the users (and by extension to the rescue of Gnome -- I'd already be long gone if I couldn't revert some of the more insane behaviour of gnome-shell...)

In your ~ folder (in order that the files get untared to the correct location)
wget http://intgat.tigress.co.uk/rmy/extensions/gnome-shell-frippery-0.4.1.tgz
tar xvf gnome-shell-frippery-0.4.1.tgz 

Hit alt+f2 to bring up the launcher thingy, type 'r' and hit enter. You're done!


To make life worth living again, also do
sudo apt-get install gnome-tweak-tool
if you haven't already

That way you can get the Minimize/Maximize/Close buttons back on your window border.

Another noticeable change is that it's become very difficult to resize windows using the mouse -- expand horizontally or vertically is like before, but dragging a corner is tough -- it takes a lot of fiddling to be able to grab the corner in the first place.

Finally, ctrl+b is mapped to some bookmark function in epiphany/web which is annoying, since it's universally used to make things bold. The gnome developer instructions even say not to do this:
http://developer.gnome.org/hig-book/3.4/input-keyboard.html.en (see table 10.8)


Interesting side-effect:
my fancy gnome-screenshot.debugged isn't called anymore -- and the metacity/keybinding_commands list is depopulated in addition to the gnome system settings/keyboard/shortcuts/Custom. Gnome shell 3.4 seems to mark the point where gconf-editor is deprecated. See the gnome-screenshot compilation post for more info.


At any rate, the keyboard shortcuts related to Screenshots now contains five different combination commands. Seriously -- they 'simplify' gnome-screenshot, then they want users to learn four different key combinations in addition to vanilla prtscr? And none of them does what I really need -- i.e. a quick and simple way to save screenshot with the name I want in the location I want.


Links to this post:
https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/how-to-add-panel-in-gnome-debian-wheezy-4175463451/