privatelinux

Start applications with the default app from console

2012-01-07T13:07:00.001+01:00

Its as simple as. Add this to your ~/.bashrc

alias open='nohup xdg-open >/dev/null 2>&1'

Now you can start, for example a textfile, like this "open textfile.txt". Because of nohop in the alias you can even close the console session and the text editor stays open.

Eclipse shortcuts

2012-01-04T17:41:00.000+01:00

Ctrl + d = delete line
Alt + up = current line up
Ctrl + Alt + Up = Copy current line
F3 = open declaration
Ctrl + shift + G = Find all references
Ctrl + 1 = Quick fix popup
Ctrl + i = fixes indent
Alt + shift + R = rename variable

Ctrl + shift + f = format code

"syso" & Ctrl + space = System.out.println("");
"main" & Ctrl + space = public static void main(String[] args){}

Increase sudo timeout

2011-11-17T20:13:00.000+01:00

There are two relevant values:

passwd_timeout Number of minutes before the sudo password prompt times out, or 0 for no timeout. The timeout may include a fractional component if minute granularity is insufficient, for example 2.5. The default is 5.

timestamp_timeout Number of minutes that can elapse before sudo will ask for a passwd again. The timeout may include a fractional component if minute granularity is insufficient, for example 2.5. The default is 5. Set this to 0 to always prompt for a password. If set to a value less than 0 the user's timestamp will never expire. This can be used to allow users to create or delete their own timestamps via sudo -v and sudo -k respectively.

I find i quit annoying when the prompt times out or you have to type in the password to often.

This are my values:

Defaults timestamp_timeout=30
Defaults passwd_timeout=0

Add them to your sudo conf with visudo.

More speed (responsiveness) for the linux desktop

2011-10-02T15:34:00.000+02:00

Ram and file system cache:

vm.swappiness=20
vm.vfs_cache_pressure=50
more info

Preload most used applications/libs:

preload
more info

Mounting /tmp to RAM

add this to your fstab:

tmpfs /tmp tmpfs defaults,noatime,nodev,nosuid,mode=1777 0 0

more info

BFS Kernel

There is a set of kernel patches that increases the responsiveness of the linux desktop. This is not limited to archlinux btw.

There are two main ways to get it on archlinux:
Build it from AUR: yaourt -S linux-ck

Or us a repository with precompiled packages:
[repo-ck]
Server = http://repo-ck.com/$arch

more info

Sync bash history between sessions on the fly

2011-09-13T12:52:00.001+02:00

If you work with more then one bash terminal at a time, it can be annoying that the bash history is only available in the other session after you closed the terminal (default bash behavior).

You can fix it by adding this to your .bashrc

shopt -s histappend
export PROMPT_COMMAND="history -n; history -a"

More about it here: http://briancarper.net/blog/248/

*EDIT:
I found it confusing that the history is always synced, even in the current session. This can be confusing while working, so i changed the above a bit:

HISTSIZE=10000
HISTCONTROL=ignoreboth:ignoredups:erasedups
shopt -s cmdhist
shopt -s cdspell
shopt -s histappend
#PROMPT_COMMAND="history -n; history -a"
PROMPT_COMMAND="history -a"

Beside the obvious changes there are some more variables changes . "HISTCONTROL=ignoreboth:ignoredups:erasedups" to prevents bash to add dups. So your .bash_history keeps clean. Beside that i have added some more fun stuff. "cdspell" fixes typos while changing directories (yeah) and HISTSIZE increases the history size to 10000 lines.

Removing "history -n;" has the effect, that the history is still up to date when you open a new terminal but existing terminals will not get the changes immediately. You have to execute "history -n" manually if you need the changes in the current terminal.

change chrome gtk colors

2011-04-17T11:23:00.000+02:00

Chrom(ium) has the ability to use the colors from the gtk theme currently used by your desktop. Anyway, sometimes the colors chrome extracts from you gtk theme do not match with the rest of your desktop. To fix this problem you can modify how chrome uses this colors or define complete new colors.

How to do it is described here: http://code.google.com/p/chromium/wiki/LinuxGtkThemeIntegration

You can add that stuff to your ".gtkrc-2.0" file.

I uses this in KDE4 with qtcurve and it works fine.

Resetting screen resolution with xrandr

2011-02-06T12:56:00.000+01:00

If a game or an other application messed up you resolution you can easiely reset it by executing:

$ xrandr -s 0

how to extract archives the simple way

2010-12-05T11:46:00.001+01:00

Its easy as this.

*edit: Or you can use "atool". A script that covers the same functionality as the code below but supports even more complex operations. http://www.nongnu.org/atool/

Add this code to your .bashrc:

extract () {
   if [ -f $1 ] ; then
   case $1 in
   *.tar.bz2) tar xvjf $1 ;;
   *.tar.gz) tar xvzf $1 ;;
   *.bz2) bunzip2 $1 ;;
   *.rar) unrar x $1 ;;
   *.gz) gunzip $1 ;;
   *.tar) tar xvf $1 ;;
   *.tbz2) tar xvjf $1 ;;
   *.tgz) tar xvzf $1 ;;
   *.zip) unzip $1 ;;
   *.Z) uncompress $1 ;;
   *.7z) 7z x $1 ;;
   *) echo "don't know how to extract '$1'..." ;;
   esac
   else
   echo "'$1' is not a valid file!"
   fi
}

From now on you can extract the listes archives simply by calling "extract archive".

Spped up your linux system with cgroup

2010-11-20T11:46:00.000+01:00

Here is a way described how to speed up your linux system.

I used the ubuntu way even on archlinux and it works.

http://www.webupd8.org/2010/11/alternative-to-200-lines-kernel-patch.html

Remove files recursively

2010-10-24T14:42:00.000+02:00

Simple as this:

find mydir/ -iname "*.tmp" -exec rm {} \;

Monitoring changes in filesystem

2010-09-15T15:59:00.004+02:00

Hi there,

here a quick hint how to monitor changes in files and folders:

inotifywait --exclude 'log' -rme modify,attrib,move,close_write,create,delete,delete_self folder/

This example show everything beside changes that are made on files which have the string "log" in its name.

You can use this to see for example what config files are change by a program.

My current android desktop

2010-09-08T12:27:00.005+02:00

hi again :),

i spent some time to modify the desktop of my nexus one. On the right site, you can see how it looks like and now i will give you a short introduction how to achieve this.

Wallpaper: You can download the wallpaper here.
Icons: A set with the base icons can be found here (there are other colors too). Even more icons, for different apps, are located here (only green ones). To make your own icons, you can find the psd file here.
Dock: The dock-bar image: here
Used Apps: Desktop Visualizer, to add custom icons to your desktop apps. LauncherPro a home replacement which is a lot smoother and is more customizable. Multicon Widget to make the icons on your desktop smaller. Weather Widget Snowstorm.

LauncherPro allows you to change to dock-bar background and the icons by itself so you can simple change the look in the settings menu.

Its a bit tricky to have the icons on the desktop either. As you can see the icons are smaller as the normal desktop icons would be. You can achieve this by adding the 1x1 or 1x2 Multicon desktop widget. Then click it to open the configuration screen where you can select which icons to show. Click one of the four icons, then choose the "Shortcuts" tab and select "Desktop Visualizer". To hide the icon placeholders you don't need just add a blank icon to it. You can find this blank icons in the configuration tab "Other", its called . After that you can select an icon and the app what should be launched by clicking this icon. Obviously you have to copy the icons to you phone first. And thats it. Doing so, you can add smaller icons to your desktop with a different look. You can even vary the sice by choosing an other Multicon layout.

If you still have questions feel free to ask.

My Apps 1 - Widget Locker

2010-09-08T11:14:00.005+02:00

hi there,
today i will start a post series where i show you the android apps i regularly use on my nexus one.

The first one i want to mention is an app called Widget Locker. You can see an image on the left. Its a "simple" lock-screen replacement. Normally you only have two sliders when you turn your phone on but, as you can see on the left, its possible to add more of these sliders with Widget Locker. You can not only add sliders, you can add every widget you like. Its great to have a widget to control your audio player on the lock-screen. :)

Thats it, you should try it to see whats possible with this app.

cya

New Look

2010-04-07T11:11:00.004+02:00

I changed my desktop a bit. :)

Basically its a combination of themes and other stuff found on the internet but slightly modified be me.

Here we go:

Details:
Plasmatheme: Rhabarbermarmelade (Part of this suite: click )
Qtcurve theme and KDE colors: Zink Suite with some modifications ( click) original: ( click)
Icons: Leo like Icons with custom color to make them a bit darker ( click)
Firefoxtheme: Its qtcurve with some userchrome.css modifications ( click).
Wallpaper: Flavoured original ( click)

Rename file with special char in filename

2010-03-09T20:51:00.002+01:00

Sometimes you cannot rename a file cause the filename contains a special char that cannot be recognized. In this case you can rename a file by its inode.

Its as simple as this:

ls -il (to get the inode)
find . -type f -inum "inode num goes here" -exec mv {} newfilename \; (find file by inode and rename it)

speed up amarok

2010-02-21T17:07:00.002+01:00

to make amarok faster, just remove all playlists from the collection dirs. You can do this easiely by executing the following command:

find ./ -name \*.m3u -exec rm {} \;

Disable kde 4 debug output

2010-01-11T16:40:00.003+01:00

A short tip this time.

In kde 4.* you can disable debug output what speeds up the start time kde apps need.

start

kdebugdialog

and disable all apps.

have fun

firefox 3.5 with tmpfs

2009-09-27T18:35:00.002+02:00

I found this great tutorial to use your firefox profile with tmpfs to make firefox more responsible and faster.

Look here to see how it works: Link

cya

make your filesystem faster

2009-09-22T11:48:00.002+02:00

i found a tip to speed up your linux filesystem (ext3 and reiserfs) here and here.

To get more infos about this tweak, look at the links above.

You have to do the following steps: (note: you have to change the partition to your needs. In my case its: "/dev/sda8 /")

1) edit your /etc/fstab and add thing marked bold to your mount line.
/dev/sda8 / ext3 defaults,noatime,nodiratime,errors=remount-ro,data=writeback 0 1

2) edit /boot/brub/menu.lst and add the bold marked entry.
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda8 ro vga=865 rootflags=data=writeback

3) it can be necessary to run update-grub after that. But its not necessary on my archlinux system.

4) To prefent errors add the new mode to your filesystem before reboot.
tune2fs -o journal_data_writeback /dev/sda8

5) to see if the changes went right, check it with:
tune2fs -l /dev/sda8
(you should do this again after reboot)

have fun with a faster performing system. ;)

speed up your archlinux system

2009-09-21T17:09:00.004+02:00

Found this post with some tips to optimize your archlinux system:
http://tuxtraining.com/2009/09/04/optimize-pacman-and-free-space-on-arch

In short:

pacman -Sc This clears outdated/uninstalled packages.

pacman -Scc This clears the whole folder, not just the packages that are outdated/uninstalled.

pacman-optimize && sync optimizing the archlinux database

Browser independent mouse gestures

2009-09-16T12:47:00.002+02:00

In kde4 its possible to define desktop wide mouse gestures.
Here is a file to include in systemsettings to get mousegestures in chrome and most other browsers.

(This is a modified version of the script without firefox support cause in firefox i use a extra extension for mousegestures. There are also some more gestures then in the original script)
Link

The original Skript can be found here: Link There is also a more detailed description, what browsers are supported.

cya

Customize console resolution

2009-08-29T20:41:00.006+02:00

You can change you console resolution:

Install "lrmi" using you paketmanager.
After that you can get a list of all available resolutions supported by your graphichardware by using: "vbetest" in a console that already uses framebuffer.

You get a list similar to this one:

[356] 1440x900 (256 color palette)
[357] 1440x900 (8:8:8)

Note the number before your preferred resolution (357 in my example).
Add 512 to this number (357 + 512 = 869).

After that open /boot/grub/menu.lst and change the line from your kernel from something like this:

kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda8 ro

kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda8 ro vga=869

Thats it. After restarting your system you get the new resolution in your console session.

hf

Starting multiple firefox instances at the same time

2009-08-26T17:54:00.003+02:00

With a little hack its possible to start more then one firefox instance at the same time. It is also possible to start different versions and using different profiles.

you have to set a variable. That's all:

export MOZ_NO_REMOTE=1 && firefox -Profilemanager && export MOZ_NO_REMOTE=0

Firefox performance tip: Shorter history

2009-08-26T17:26:00.003+02:00

you can limit your history size in firefox to get better performance.

Go to:

Preferences > Privacy > History

and set the option: "Keep my history for.." to 5 days.

Advanced bash history completion

2009-08-09T16:54:00.006+02:00

To extend the bash completion add this:

"\e[A":history-search-backward
"\e[B":history-search-forward

to /etc/inputrc or your ~/.inputrc

bind -f .inputrc

updates your config without logout/login.

If you type "man" and now press up or down on your keyboard only history entry's starting with "man" will be shown. Very useful.

bye

Google Chrome for linux

2009-08-09T14:04:00.010+02:00

You can get the latest nightly build of google chrome for Linux (alpha) here:

http://build.chromium.org/buildbot/snapshots/chromium-rel-linux/

Start it like this to get extension, userscript and plugin support:

./chrome --enable-plugins --enable-extensions --enable-user-scripts

Two addblocker and a flashblocker can be found here: (i use both addblocker at once)

http://www.adsweep.org/
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/46974
http://ruzanow.ru/extensions/flashblock.crx

To get mousegestures in chrome you can use KDE4s build in gesture feature. A script with basic mouse gestures for some KDE browsers can be found here:

http://kde-apps.org/content/show.php/Mousegestures+for+all+Browsers?content=109576

cya

Firefox database performance improvement

2009-08-09T13:25:00.011+02:00

hi, my first post. :)

here we go.

After some time firefox gets sluggish. You can reach a better performance by optimizing the internal used databases where firefox save bookmars, formdata etc..

You can use sqlit3 commandline tool to optimize its performance.

sqlite3 DATABASE* VACUUM
sqlite3 DATABASE* REINDEX
*Databasename

You have to close firefox to use this method.

You can use this script so optimize all database files at once: (this script looks if firefox is running. Maybe its necessary to change the path to your firefox binary)

#FIREFOX-OPTIMIZE
#!/bin/sh

if [ `whereis sqlite3 | grep -c /` -lt 1 ]
then
echo ‘sqlite3 program is necessary to this script. Install it with:’;
echo ‘\tsudo apt-get install sqlite3′;
exit 2;
fi

if [ `ps aux | grep -c /usr/bin/firefox` -gt 1 ]
then
echo ‘Close Firefox to run this script’;
exit 1;
else
echo ‘Optimizing browser database…’;
echo ‘This can take a while…’;

for i in ~/.mozilla/firefox*/*/*.sqlite; do
sqlite3 $i VACUUM;
sqlite3 $i REINDEX;
done;

echo ‘Optimization succesfully’;
exit 0;
fi

Tip and script found here: (i changed the script a bit)
http://mozillalinks.org/wp/2009/07/vacuum-your-firefox-databases-for-better-performance/

privatelinux

Start applications with the default app from console

Eclipse shortcuts

Increase sudo timeout

More speed (responsiveness) for the linux desktop

preload more info

Mounting /tmp to RAM

add this to your fstab:

more info

Sync bash history between sessions on the fly

change chrome gtk colors

Resetting screen resolution with xrandr

how to extract archives the simple way

Spped up your linux system with cgroup

Remove files recursively

Monitoring changes in filesystem

My current android desktop

My Apps 1 - Widget Locker

New Look

Rename file with special char in filename

speed up amarok

Disable kde 4 debug output

firefox 3.5 with tmpfs

make your filesystem faster

speed up your archlinux system

Browser independent mouse gestures

Customize console resolution

Starting multiple firefox instances at the same time

Firefox performance tip: Shorter history

Advanced bash history completion

Google Chrome for linux

Firefox database performance improvement

preload
more info