Good and Bad in Foresight Linux

I have a bit more than 6 months experience using Foresight on both my Dell desktop and on my MacBook. Indeed, I had even considered installing it on my EeePC but decided to go for Ubuntu Eee instead.
At this stage I would say that Foresight works well and has few shortcomings.
One of these however, is that I have a major problem with updating it. Because I mess around on a number of computers in quite a few different OSes (all Linux but have OS X and FreeBSD as well),I may be away from Foreesight for a few weeks at a time. It seems that when I update after a prolongued absense, the update may not complete and errors out.
In general, the way I have overcome this problem is to re-install Foresight (using a newer version if available) but without formatting the /home partition.
This has happened to me at least three times and occurred again two days ago.
The error always involves conflicting dependencies.
As I write this, I have just re-installed Foresight 2.0.4 (burned a new DVD) and I'm now in the process of getting madwifi installed so that I can get back to my wireless-only environment.
It's worth bearing in mind that before applying the install guide I published here you need to install subversion and all the conary compilation tools (see the Foresight User Guide under System in the Gnome panel). This will take at least an hour.
Now, as I haven't finished the install and done the updates I don't know yet if this approach has been successful in getting Foresight running normally again.
Just to mention also that after the unsucessful update when I rebooted the mouse (nor the touchpad) would work so essentially Foresight had become almost unusable because of the update.

OK, so that was the bad part. Here's something good.
I had been playing around with Livestation in Ubuntu (on both the Mac and the EeePC) and it works very well. However, in Foresight where it was equally easy to install, i was able to get a full screen (with pretty reasonable quality -- although a long way from HDTV) working very well. Indeed, I was able to watch the Obama-mcCain debate on CNN in full screen on Tuesday night (just before I did the update).
Strangely, I have not been able to get a full screen version in Ubuntu at all which is strange. This needs investigating.

Ext2fsx -- still struggling withthis

A day or two after I installed ext2fsx from here, two (of my eight) Linux OSes (all Ext3) showed up on my desktop and could be read (but not written to).
Then a day or two ago (after maybe a week) they disappeared for no apparent reason.
However, I decided I'd see if I could get them back. So, I went into ExtFSManager and tried to mount each of the two that had previously mounted (Ubuntu / and Ubuntu /home).
They errored on attempted mount and suggested trying disk repair.
So, over to Disk Utility and I tried to repair both and, surprisingly both repaired without errors. Back to ExtFSManager and I was able to mount both without problems. What's more they mounted at boot for at least two more boots.
Flushed with this success, I tried to repair a few (if not all) of the remaining, hitherto unmountable ext3 partitions but all gave the same errors.

Verify and Repair volume “UNTITLED”
e2fsck 1.39 (29-May-2006)
/usr/local/sbin/e2fsck: Resource busy while trying to open /dev/disk0s7
Filesystem mounted or opened exclusively by another program?
Error: Filesystem verify or repair failed.

Even afetr I unmounted the two mounted partitions, I got the same behaviour.
If I tried to mount, despite the repair not working, I got this

Command: Mount
Device: disk0s7
Message: Unknown Error (The filesystem may need repair. Please use Disk Utility to check the filesystem.)
Error: 0xC047

So, it really seems like there is something different about the other 6 unmountable partitions although I really have no idea what it could be.
I posted to the SourceForge forums about this and who knows if I might get the answer here.

Tutorials for Mac OS X

First here's a newcomer's video guide to Quicksilver. There are several later ones which I haven't yet linked to but they're very easy to find.
[Here's #2 and here's #3].

And here's a series of video tutorials on Mac OS X in general: first, second, third, fourth, fifth.

openSUSE 11.0 on the MacBook

Just starting to get openSUSE 11.0 setup on the Mac.
Actually, I find that, particularly with openSUSE, I start clicking around and installing all sorts of unnecessary crap just to get something working -- when I may regret some of the stuff I installed later.
This is particularly the case with getting media players working particularly the codecs.
For the future, I would strongly recommend just installing the repos shown in this guide (although there are quite a lot).
To get the right codecs, I believe I can avoid a lot of needless flailing around just with this command:

sudo zypper in libdvdcss libxine1 w32codec-all k3b-codecs

Nevertheless, even after the correct installs, I couldn't get Amarok to play without a reboot. (I really don't know how many times a reboot in Linux has miraculously resurrected a dying computer)
Things that are working fine in this new install are:
AWN
Fusion-icon (need to symlink to ~/.kde4/Autostart)
Yakuake
Opera 9.52
Gmail Notifier (symlinked to ~/.kde4/Autostart)

Media players working are Amarok (1.4) and Banshee1
However, I was unable to compile Amarok 2 beta. Also, I posted to openSUSE forums about how to install Amarok 2 (which works fine in KuruminNG) but have no replies up to now which is ominous.

On the question of sound, I came across this excellent thread on sound problem troubleshooting in openSUSE (actually, it's a tutorial). Worth keeping in mind, should I have problems in the future.

openSUSE 11.0 installed on MacBook

Downloaded the 32-bit i386 DVD from here. With the new faster Internet speeds, it's nice to be able to d/l a 4.3 GB DVD in less than 2 hours.
No problems with the install, went very smoothly.
Just doing the update now.

Problem opening iTunes

I had this problem before but even on my freshly installed Leopard it cropped up again today. When I clicked the iTunes icon in the dock, I got this error

The folder "ITunes" is on a locked disk or you do not have write permissions

This thread refers to the problem but doesn't really cleanly explain or resolve it.
In my case, the problem was that the folder /Users/paul/Music/iTunes had me as user but with only Read privileges. So, I changed this to R&W (and put the group owner and Others to the same. Now, iTunes opened fine.
Not sure why these privileges had changed.

Installed Sidux erebos (2008-2)

Haven't really been using Sidux much of late but this HD wipe at least caused me to get the latest version from here.
I installed this without problems although I haven't yet done any of the nitty gritty stuff that's needed after every new install.
Sidux looks good but seems to still only use KDE 3.5.9 rather than KDE4

Foresight re-install problems on Mac resolved

First, I downloaded the Foresight 2.0.4 DVD and installed that. Then I installed all the updates (I think it was about 39 rather than the 236 the night before).
Now, after the install as outlined here, Yakuake worked perfectly.
However, I still had the same problems with the Home folder icon missing from the Desktop. It seems from the forums that this is a deliberate policy for some unexplained reason.
However, no Gconf Editor was available to try and get it back.
I posted to the forums and found that gconf-editor can be installed from the repos. So, I did this, and everything is fine.

Recovering my Mac multiboot setup

I'm still not at all clear on why my HDD in the Mac became unworkable and unfixable. It seems something very serious had happened to the OS X partition (90 GB). The AppleCare guys pointed to the directory structure as having been damaged and they pointed (although reservedly) to using both Grub and EFI as bootloaders on the same HDD as both will be stored in the very same place. This, then, means that the MBR (which is where Grub sits) is in the EFI partition. Hmmm..
But if this is true, then I'm going to have more problems as I'm unlikely to stay away from what I'm doing unless I get incontrovertible evidence that it's unworkable. But it has worked fine for a year with no problems until this one.

I got the following articles from the AppleCare guys which were supposed to help me fix the problem.

In any event, once I had completely erased the whole HDD, everything started working as it should. OS X install was a piece of cake and it's fully receovered now with all of my stuff back. It's great to not see those annoying sudo errors and have Visor start normally.

Ubuntu install went fine without problems although I don't have everything fully back yet but it's only a matter of time.
Foresight, on the other hand is problematic. Perhaps its because the version I installed was a bit old (2.0.2) and there was an awfi=ul lot of updates. Maybe I'll download the latest version (2.0.4) and try again with that tomorrow.
I had two problems:
1. Yakuake, although it installed normally, will only work as root. A lot of stuff in ~/.kde had root as owner. I changed this to my user but didn't improve matters. Sounds like a similar problem I had with Intrepid (Ubuntu) which got resolved when I installed a bunch of updates.
Funny thing is that when I type yakuake in a terminal (without sudo), it just stays open with no errors or any other comments. If I ctrl-c this and type sudo yakuake, it errors (communication error--it probably crashed) but yet, yakuake starts and is fully usable but as root.
2. The Desktop icons dissappeared and I can't get them back. Going to Places>>Home Folder opens nothing.
I'm very inclined to blame the huge amount of updates so I'll start afresh tomorrow.

A big day in OS X troubles

I completely failed to make any progress with the permissions problems I had in the OS X partition on my Mac.
However, I was able to make just a little progress on getting sudo to work just a little better using post #4. Even then it gave some errors on use but did at least sometimes work.
No further progress was made. So, I called AppleCare.
They first advised me to use the install disk and go to DiskUtility from there. Now, erase just the OS X volume and re-install OS X which will not affect the Linux OSes already there.
I tried this for the whole day, trying to erase in various manners. But every time, it would delete the data but get stuck in the very last minute giving this error:

Disk Utility Internal Error
Disk utility has lost its connection with the Disk Management Tool and cannot continue. Please quit and relaunch Disk utility

I even tried this with the 7-pass erase which took four hours but failed in the last minute.
Even after four hours of erasing, the install was refused because of a Volume Check error.
A second AppleCare guy told me to expect this as it looked like the directory structure of the HDD is messed up and I will have to erase the whole disk and just re-install everything.
I started this about six hours ago and I don't think it'll be finished before Sunday.
What's most annoying is that there doesn't seem to be any explanation for what happened. Surely, just a minor change to the permissions on the HD aren't going to mean that you must erase everything and start over from scratch?
In any event, the HDD itself wasn't damaged. Whatever the problem was it was totally software.
Some further points are available in this thread that I started in Ubuntu Forums (Apple Users).

Remote login OS X

This enables logging into the Mac from a remote computer.
The steps are:
On the Mac (as server):
1. System Preferences >> Sharing : Here check the box Remote Login and select who you want to use this facility in the "Allow access for" box. Note the remote login command. In my case it's

ssh paul@192.168.1.5

In my case, this didn't work unless I used

sudo ssh paul@192.168.1.5

Without sudo I got a lot of stuff about unknown keys after which it went back to the command prompt.
With sudo, on the other hand, I was given the option to accept, or not, the authenticity of the host. After typing "yes", the connection was made.
Now I could delve into whatever directory on the Mac from Ubuntu on the Dell and use scp (without sudo) a file to the Desktop of the Dell with

scp file.ext 192.168.1.12:~/Desktop

This caused me to be asked again to accept or not the authenticity of the host (this time the Dell was the server or host).

OS X tips and tricks.

Some very useful small tips here in this thread. This is all small stuff, for shallow-minded, work-shy people like me but it's nevertheless enjoyable.
Examples re:
1. Spotlight as a calculator: Just key in your equation and hit enter (you get the answer and a calculator pops up)
2. Use Spotlight as an English dictionary (dictionary with word definition pops up)
3. Use Shift to get a nice effect when hitting F9 or clicking on stacks.
4. Use Ctrl-Shift to select multiple files (as icons). Use Option key to move all of them together.

Lots more.

Error message when Visor starts in OS X

When Visor launches on booting OS X, this error message appears as a pop-up:

SIMBL Error
Failed to load the Visor plugin.
-[QCComposition _initWithBacking:]: Inconsistent state

I posted on the MacRumors forum but got no useful replies.
Eventually, I found this thread which gives the solution which is simly to uncheck the Use Quartz Animation box in Visor preferences.

Mac OS X guides

Here's a useful large list of guides and tutorials for Mac OS X. This will be useful.

Keyboard layouts in OS X

As I type in both English and Brazilian Portuguese, I tried to find out how to get a menu bar item that would let me quickly switch between the two languages.
Actually this is very simple as explained here:

System Preferences >> International >> Input menu (Tab)

Then select the languages you want to appear in the menu bar icon.
Simple, yes, but doesn't quite work. In particular, Brazilian Portuguese, although the Brazilian flag shows up, doesn't differ at all from the English keyboard layout.
Luckily the Portuguese layout does the trick although it's not quite the same as the Brazilian layout -- but close enough.

Spaces in OS X

Tried out Spaces today. This is basically the equivalent of the Linux multiple desktops.
I found it certainly useful but am dissappointed that on reboot you lose all of your carefully arranged spaces and have to set them up again.
One advantage is that chnaging spaces to get to another "desktop", is almost instantaneous so it's a lot faster than, say, launching a browser from the dock.
It's worth persisting with to get a better picture of its usefulness.

Further Mac progress

The post I made to the MacRumors forum about not being able to see the date in the menu bar received a few more replies overnight. Turns out there is a way to see the date using a very simple procedure as outlined in post #4 of this thread.
This worked fine for me other than:
i) it's difficult to actually select the date stuff in the customize section of the date configuration. In the end I just cut and pasted each one separately.
ii) this doesn't seem to work at all if the Year is included in the date part. I tried this several times and it never worked.

The iStat menus are also mentioned in the thread. I see a lot of references to them so I might need to take a look.

I had installed the Gmail notifier yesterday but it didn't autostart. So, I had to find how this is done in OS X. It's all explained here and is very simple.

When I tried to open iTunes from the dock I got this error:

The folder "iTunes" is on a locked disk or you do not have write permissions

To get rid of this error, I had to go into GetInfo for my Music folder and get rid of the _unknown owner and replace with myself. Seems I'm still suffering from the username change and possibly will be for some time.

Also today, I installed Quicksilver from here. Although I understand it to be like Gnome-Do in Linux, I've really no idea how to use it. However, here's a tutorial that might help.
I chose right-cmd + that weird key to the right of it as the Hotkey for Quicksilver.

Continuing my belated adoption of Mac OS X

Well, I don't know what's come over me but I'm actually beginning to like, and even appreciate, some of the finer points of OSX.
Some of the things I did today were:

1. I really miss not having yakuake in OSX. However, all is not lost as there is something that's almost the same called Visor. Here's how to install it and here's a set of comments when this was dugg (some useful comments here).
Installing is simple. I set F8 as the hotkey as almost all the other F keys do something on the Mac (F12=Dashboard, F11=Clears desktop, F10=move the current app page back, F9=does the same, F6=Numlock, F3-F5=Sound volume, F1-F2=Screen brightness)
Although the dropdown terminal works fine, its not as "pretty" as Yakuake and is not nearly as configurable. Indeed, it looks more like Guake which is the Gnome version of Yakuake.
Also, once Visor has been added as a terminal plugin, the terminal in the dock no longer launcher when the dock icon is clicked. You need to right-click the icon and choose and option to get it to launch in any of a variety of skins.
Nevertheless, Visor does work fine.

2. Gmail notifier. I installed this easily in the menu bar from here.
In addition, I was able to locate a Gmail widget in the vast list of extra widgets which is now in my dashboard.
Actually, I'm finding the dashboard to be a very convenient way to easily retrieve a bunch of frequently used small apps (middle mouse button click) and get rid of them as easily. Right now I have in my dashboard 3 weather icons (for cities I either live in or frequently visit), Gmail notifier, LastFm player, Time, iCal, RTM, Flight Tracker and a translator.

3.One thing that has annoyed me about OS X is that my browser page doesn't fill the screen although it's easy to drag the page so that it does fill the screen. However, it's a bit of a pain having to do this every single time you restart the browser.
It seems I'm not the only one inconvenienced by this. This guy suggests a workaround. However, even the workaround still requires some action to get the page activated. Nevertheless, it is better than nothing.
haven't tried this yet but I probably will soon.

4. The time shown in the menu bar shows only the day of the week but not the actual date despite the fact that I have the "Show date and time in menu bar" box checked. I posted to the MacRumors forums about this and apparently it's not possible to see the date. However, and I'd never noticed this, the iCal icon in the dock always todays date.

5. I wanted to edit speeddial.ini to provide more speeddial locations. However, I realized that I didn't know how to edit text files in OSX. But, I quickly found out how:
$ open -a texteditor ~/Library/Preferences/"Opera Preferences"/speeddial.ini
Actually, I couldn't find the link where I got this stuff from and I don't fully understand the command, in particular, what's the -a for?

Finally taking a closer look at OS X

I had this MacBook for one year now (other than about 5 weeks when it was hors de combat due to losing its HDD in Brazil and being unable to get it replaced until I got home) and I have almost exclusively used the various Linux OSes I have on this machine.
But today, I made the move and stayed with OS X all day. So what did I do? Well, I think I just basically tried to see how close to Linux I could make OSX.
Here's a list of the things I did:

1. The fact that my browser page stops quite a bit above the dock has annoyed me for some time as I'd prefer for it to go down in behind the dock as well just as it does in Ubuntu and all the other Linux OSes. Just today I discovered in the bottom right hand side of the browser page a small "drag-thing" with which I could make the page as big or as small as I wanted. Perfect? Well, not quite as when i restarted Opera it goes back to its shorted version. Will look into how to make this permanent.

2. Give a right-click button to Mighty Mouse.
This is very easy once you know what to do as, in all honesty, the ctrl-click thing is a PITA and, in my view, to be avoided wherever possible. Well, it is possible and here's how:
System Preferences >> Keyboard&Mouse >> Mouse (tab). Here select Secondary Button for the right side mouse button. then shut down System Preferences and start right-clicking.

3. Add more commands to the right-click menus
Using the OnMyCommand free app you can add almost 600 more items to your context menus. Here's a tutorial on how to use it. I've used this and it works without problem.

4. As I am extremely sloppy and undisciplined, I do at least try to control this lack of responsibility by using Tasque in Linux. However, Tasque is not available in OSX. Of course, there are alternatives.
First i tried this dashboard widget for Remember the Milk (for which Tasque is a front end). However, although it works it does not allow adding new tasks which seems a major oversight. So then I discovered Remember the Moof (yeah, that's the name). This is also a dashboard widget and is basically what I was looking for. What I downloaded and installed was RTM_dachshund_10_5.zip

5. Getting my Dashboard set up.
This very simple guide was useful at first. However, there are an awful lot of widgets available (of which I was not aware). As you can launch dashboard just by clicking the middle mouse button, this is an ideal way to call up small apps/information you might need now and again but don't want them cluttering up your Desktop.
So, I was able to add remember the Moof and an English-Portuguese translator to the dashboard. However, the widgets for lastFm and BBC_Radio4 just didn't work for me. Certainly there's nothing wrong with my sound system so don't understand this. But, I'll investigate it.

6. I like to have not just the time but the full date (25-08-2008) in my top panel. However, if I right-click on the Date/Time in the panel, and select Open Date&Time >> Clock in the dialog that opens, I check the box that says Show Date and Time in Menu Bar. However, while it shows the time and the day of the week (because I selected this latter in the same dialog), no date appears. Another thing to investigate.

Installed Mozy 1.0.1 on the MacBook

Once I had removed the permissions/ownership problem on the Mac, I was able to successfully install Mozy.
Mozy insists that Spotlight must be enabled in OSX before install. As I very rarely use OSX, I really wasn't sure whether it was enabled or not. So I did a bit of reading here and here and found that Cmd-SpaceBar did indeed bring up Spotlight so it WAS indeed enabled.
Installation of Mozy was very simpleand fast.
To launch it, just go to HardDisk>>Applicatiosn>>Mozy and double-click. Now you can choose to backup stuff from your computer or to send some special files to the Mozy servers (which is basically the same thing as backing up).
I'm doing this now and it's going very well other than the pathetically low upload speed (220 kbps) I have to put up with (although it's supposed to be going up to 330 kbps next month).