Travis Newman

Tag: linux

  • New Job, Cyclocommuter, Model M, Stock Moto G, Moarrr Stickerrrrs

  • Linux Sucks – 2014

  • My New Old Dell Latitude D620

    Out of the kindness of his heart, my good buddy, Andrew, has donated a gently used Dell D620 laptop to my collection. 

    Not a super beast of a machine, but that’s not what I need it for.  As you can see, I currently have CentOS 6.5 installed.  I initially started with CentOS 7, but I couldn’t find wireless drivers anywhere for it, so I downgraded to 6.5 on a whim.  As you can see in that first picture, wireless works… out of the box.  Suspend works too!  So if you had any questions regarding the maturity of CentOS 6..  Here’s your sign.  As much as I might like the slickness of CentOS 7, functional hardware is more important.

    Btw, output from LSPCI regarding the internal wireless:
    Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN (rev 01)

    Also, I just can’t say no to GNOME 2.  I’ve really missed it.  Its simple, functional, responsive, customizable..  Not that GNOME 3 is bad, but there’s a certain quaintness to GNOME 2.  This was the desktop environment that I used with Ubuntu when I first started using Linux, so there’s a bit of nostalgia, too.

    No official Chromium (or Google Chrome) support at this point, but Firefox works well enough.  Besides, other than the Google sign-in feature, I wasn’t really using any Chrome-specific features anyway (built-in Flash was nice though..)

    So, new possibilities!  With a mobile Linux rig, I can hop on my bike and Linux at the library, or the coffee shop, or wherever.  Not to mention lugging the old Dell desktop that mom gave me to and from Andrew’s place was getting kind of old.

    So that’s the good, the bad: needs a new battery, currently has a DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive.

    New batteries replacements aren’t so bad, ~$20.  DVD-RW drives for less than that.  What’s more intriguing, is that there’s another battery that I can buy that goes where the optical drive goes.  With a fresh new replacement battery and a beefy internal battery to go with it..  plenty of juice for the road.  The hard drive is a little on the small side..  Ultimate replacement would be an SSD.. and I’m sure it would make a huge difference in responsiveness..  But that’s pricey and can wait.

    So if this sounds like something that might appeal to you, I highly recommend it!  If you’re looking for a budget (sub-$200) Linux lappy, the Dell D620 is pretty good!

  • Free software, free society: Richard Stallman at TEDxGeneva 2014

  • Fun With Aliases

    I’m not sure if this is good form or not, but I’ve made some aliases to take me to some frequently used folders on my hard drive and my Dropbox.  Additionally, an alias to the handy dandy Dropbox python script.  Also added the human readable switch to ll.

    [travnewmatic@localhost ~]$ alias
    alias box=’python /home/travnewmatic/Dropbox/dropbox.py’
    alias doc=’cd /home/travnewmatic/Documents/’
    alias down=’cd /home/travnewmatic/Downloads/’
    alias drop=’cd /home/travnewmatic/Dropbox/’
    alias egrep=’egrep –color=auto’
    alias fgrep=’fgrep –color=auto’
    alias grep=’grep –color=auto’
    alias home=’cd /home/travnewmatic/’
    alias l.=’ls -d .* –color=auto’
    alias linux=’cd /home/travnewmatic/Dropbox/Linux/’
    alias ll=’ls -l –color=auto -h’
    alias ls=’ls –color=auto’
    alias vi=’vim’
    alias which=’alias | /usr/bin/which –tty-only –read-alias –show-dot –show-tilde’

    Since I put all of 15 minutes into tricking out my .bashrc file with aliases, I figured it’d be a good idea to back it up to my Dropbox.  But then I wondered, what if the .bashrc file in my home directory was instead a symlink to the backup in my Dropbox?  That way, any change would automatically be backed up, and whats more, I can use that same .bashrc file on multiple machines, and I’d have all my aliases with me (like in my CentOS 6.5 virtual machine)!
    So thats what I did.
    I have my CentOS 7 installation on a physical hard drive, and a CentOS 6.5 installation in a virtual machine.  Both have a user ‘travnewmatic’.  Both travnewmatic home folders have .bashrc symlinks to the real .bashrc file in my Dropbox.
    The only issue I’ve anticipated is that an alias that works on one machine might not work on another machine.  The majority of my aliases change to a particular folder, so if that folder didn’t exist or the path was different, then the alias would not work.
    So, lets update it a bit..

    [travnewmatic@localhost ~]$ cat .bashrc
    # .bashrc
    # Source global definitions
    if [ -f /etc/bashrc ]; then
    . /etc/bashrc
    fi
    # Uncomment the following line if you don’t like systemctl’s auto-paging feature:
    # export SYSTEMD_PAGER=
    # User specific aliases and functions
    alias doc=’cd ~/Documents/’
    alias down=’cd ~/Downloads/’
    alias drop=’cd ~/Dropbox/’
    alias egrep=’egrep –color=auto’
    alias fgrep=’fgrep –color=auto’
    alias grep=’grep –color=auto’
    alias home=’cd ~’
    alias l.=’ls -d .* –color=auto’
    alias linux=’cd ~/Dropbox/Linux/’
    alias ll=’ls -l –color=auto -h’
    alias ls=’ls –color=auto’
    alias vi=’vim’
    alias which=’alias | /usr/bin/which –tty-only –read-alias –show-dot –show-tilde’
    alias box=’python ~/Dropbox/dropbox.py’
    alias music=’cd ~/Music’

    Yes, as expected, relative path names do work.  You can find my current .bashrc file in my Dropbox.

  • SABnzbd+ for EL7

    Handy!

    Gotta do a little bit manually, but its working!

  • “The Linux Command Line”

  • Wireless Success on CentOS 7 with ath5k

    [travnewmatic@localhost ~]$ sudo lspci | grep Wireless
    05:00.0 Ethernet controller: Qualcomm Atheros AR2413/AR2414 Wireless Network Adapter [AR5005G(S) 802.11bg] (rev 01)

    …was no work out of the box.  Ethernet was sufficient since my computer is located near the router.  My D-Link DWA-1320 wireless PCI card has been a champ ever since I’ve owned it.  Its handled everything from XP, to Win7, to OS X SL, multiple versions of Ubuntu and Debian..  but oddly enough was not ready out of the box with CentOS.  I was determined, did a bit of Googling and viola!  Found the driver in a package in the ELRepo.org repository.  Installed the ‘kmod-ath5k’ package, restarted, and wireless worked!

    Thanks ELRepo.org!

    Updated repolist:

    [travnewmatic@localhost ~]$ sudo yum repolist
    [sudo] password for travnewmatic: 
    Loaded plugins: fastestmirror, langpacks
    Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile
     * base: mirror-centos.hostingswift.com
     * elrepo: ftp.utexas.edu
     * elrepo-extras: ftp.utexas.edu
     * elrepo-kernel: ftp.utexas.edu
     * epel: mirrors.tummy.com
     * extras: centos.mirror.lstn.net
     * nux-dextop: mirror.li.nux.ro
     * rpmforge: mirror.nexcess.net
     * rpmforge-extras: mirror.nexcess.net
     * updates: dallas.tx.mirror.xygenhosting.com
    repo id                   repo name                                       status
    base/7/x86_64             CentOS-7 – Base                                 8,465
    elrepo                    ELRepo.org Community Enterprise Linux Repositor    53
    elrepo-extras             ELRepo.org Community Enterprise Linux Extras Re     3
    elrepo-kernel             ELRepo.org Community Enterprise Linux Kernel Re    21
    epel/x86_64               Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 7 – x86_64  5,610
    extras/7/x86_64           CentOS-7 – Extras                                  30
    google-chrome             google-chrome                                       3
    google-talkplugin         google-talkplugin                                   1
    nux-dextop/x86_64         Nux.Ro RPMs for general desktop use             1,301
    nux-dextop-testing/x86_64 Nux.Ro RPMs for general desktop use – testing       5
    rpmforge                  RHEL 7 – RPMforge.net – dag                       245
    rpmforge-extras           RHEL 7 – RPMforge.net – extras                     10
    updates/7/x86_64          CentOS-7 – Updates                                736
    virtualbox/7/x86_64       Oracle Linux / RHEL / CentOS-7 / x86_64 – Virtu     1
    repolist: 16,484

  • I heart CentOS 7

    So I’ve been using CentOS 7 as my desktop OS for a few days now.  Made significant headway in the edX Linux intro course, and things are going very very well.  Since the course uses CentOS 6.5, I’ve created a virtual machine (in virtual box) to fiddle with and to do the activities in.  However, CentOS 7 is current and of course I couldn’t see any reason not to use the latest and greatest for my own self.

    Why do I like it?

    No stability issues like I was having under Debian.  Granted, I’m not using the Nvidia drivers I was using on the Debian install so that may have something to do with it.  Zero freezes, can’t complain.

    Opportunity to learn something new, its an industry standard.  Good prep for the RHEL cert maybe?

    Great additional repos!  Skype in a repo?  I’ll take it!

    [travnewmatic@localhost ~]$ yum repolist
    Loaded plugins: fastestmirror, langpacks
    Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile
     * base: mirrors.centarra.com
     * epel: mirrors.tummy.com
     * extras: mirror-centos.hostingswift.com
     * nux-dextop: mirror.li.nux.ro
     * rpmforge: mirror.us.leaseweb.net
     * updates: centosc5.centos.org
    repo id                          repo name                                                         status
    base/7/x86_64                    CentOS-7 – Base                                                   8,465
    epel/x86_64                      Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 7 – x86_64                    5,740
    extras/7/x86_64                  CentOS-7 – Extras                                                    30
    google-chrome                    google-chrome                                                         3
    google-talkplugin                google-talkplugin                                                     1
    nux-dextop/x86_64                Nux.Ro RPMs for general desktop use                               1,276
    rpmforge                         RHEL 7 – RPMforge.net – dag                                         245
    updates/7/x86_64                 CentOS-7 – Updates                                                  726
    virtualbox/7/x86_64              Oracle Linux / RHEL / CentOS-7 / x86_64 – VirtualBox                  1
    repolist: 16,487

  • Nux Desktop = Awesome

    Awesome repo for RHEL and CentOS

    http://li.nux.ro/repos.html

    For RHEL7/CentOS7 copy/paste:

    rpm -Uvh http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/beta/7/x86_64/epel-release-7-0.2.noarch.rpm

    and

    rpm -Uvh http://li.nux.ro/download/nux/dextop/el7/x86_64/nux-dextop-release-0-1.el7.nux.noarch.rpm