Friday 23 January 2009

Cygwin/X awkward upgrade (changes with move X.Org X11R7.4)

Watch out if you use X on Cygwin and if you've not updated (since Nov 2008?) After a Cygwin upgrade my Cygwin/X was b0rked :(
After Google + read FAQ + reconfig mess and add new Cygwin fonts and x tools packages all is fixed again :)

Upgrade wasn't clean, after it X didn't start with errors:

Warning: Unable to load any usable ISO8859 font
Error: Aborting: no font found

and/or:

Could not init font path element /usr/share/fonts/OTF

and/or if it does start:

keyboard doesn't work!

and:

fonts in emacs don't display - chars are all squares

xterm not found, won't start with font error ("ISO8859 font")

funny menu in xterm



Solving it was a matter of adding needed packages such as fonts and x tools which now do not come by default. Also need to fix any customisations you use in cygwin/X as paths etc have changed.

Good detail in the FAQ:
http://x.cygwin.com/docs/faq/cygwin-x-faq.html#q-x-is-broke

"The upgrade from X.Org R6.8 to modular X.Org R7.4 makes a lot of changes. Please read the announce email and pay attention to the upgrade instructions."

http://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin-xfree-announce/2008-11/msg00000.html

From: "Yaakov (Cygwin Ports)"
Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2008 10:42:45 -0600
"Cygwin/X has been updated to X.Org X11R7.4."




From of old I have started Cygwin/X session like this:
C:\cygwin\bin\rxvt.exe -e /cygdrive/c/cygwin/bin/bash.exe --login -e startx

With customisations in ~/.{xinitrc,xserverrc,XModmap} to get keyboard right and start fvwm2.


$ cat .xserverrc
exec XWin :0 -clipboard



$ cat .xinitrc
#!/bin/sh
# $Xorg: xinitrc.cpp,v 1.3 2000/08/17 19:54:30 cpqbld Exp $

userresources="$HOME"/.Xresources
usermodmap="$HOME"/.Xmodmap
sysresources=/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xinit/.Xresources
sysmodmap=/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xinit/.Xmodmap

# merge in defaults and keymaps

if [ -f "$sysresources" ]; then
xrdb -merge "$sysresources"
fi

if [ -f "$sysmodmap" ]; then
xmodmap "$sysmodmap"
fi

if [ -f "$userresources" ]; then
xrdb -merge "$userresources"
fi

if [ -f "$usermodmap" ]; then
xmodmap "$usermodmap"
fi

# start some nice programs

fvwm2 &

xterm -e /usr/bin/bash -l
# exec xterm
# if you exec?start something then when you exit it all of X shuts down



.Xmodmap # varies depending on machine+keyboard

! for laptop
! for usb/wireless microsoft kbd

!!! \\||~~##``??//@@''""22££$$ !"£$%^&*() -_=+ {[}] :;@' <,>.?/

! R QWERTY row
!keycode 51 = backslash bar
! but this is tilde and hash on usb (R-1 ASD row)
keycode 51 = numbersign asciitilde

! Left - 1 zxc row (beside shift), already default
! keycode 91 = backslash bar


!! the notsign is useless to me & doesn't work
!! so change to something useful
! laptop and usb
! top L 123 row
!keycode 49 (keysym 0xac, notsign) (ac) "¬"
!keycode 49 (keysym 0x60, grave) (60) "`"
! german: keycode 49 = asciicircum degree
keycode 49 = grave bar
!keycode 49 = grave backslash
!keycode 49 = grave asciitilde

!! also CAPS-LOCK is useless >;)
!keycode 66 = Caps_Lock
!keycode 66 = numbersign asciitilde
keycode 66 =

!! keycode 12 = 3£ OR 3# . is confused? (changes with caps-lock?)
!! running xev produces £ okay ... but ... produces #+CR in term?
! keycode 12 = 3£ OR 3# . is confused?


!! for laptop:
keycode 66 = EuroSign EuroSign
!$ xmodmap -pke | grep EuroSign
!keycode 13 = 4 dollar EuroSign cent EuroSign cent
!keycode 66 = EuroSign EuroSign
!$ xmodmap -pke | grep " e "
!keycode 26 = e E eacute Eacute eacute Eacute
!bind AltGr+E to the EuroSign symbol
keycode 26 = e E EuroSign EuroSign eacute Eacute

Sunday 18 January 2009

Kate . How to do a forward tumble. 18012009




Kate . How to do a forward tumble. 18012009



Posted by ShoZu

Wednesday 7 January 2009

I quite like this picture.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dazzle_camouflage
http://www.google.ie/search?q=houndstooth
Sheila has an excellent photo on her facebook - houndstooth on a black and white patterned chaise lounge.

Tuesday 6 January 2009

simple linux cd burn fail

Have I not done this before multiple times.
What? Has changed?

xcdroast and cdrtools both fail.
Probably trying to burn too fast and even though error in burn fixated/finalized disk at end.
Maybe.
This theory is arrived at much later.

Then I discover there is war with two versions of cdrtools.
ubuntu's default cdrecord is of course debian's "impure"? fork cdrkit cdrtools.
But also the "true"?/"pure"? cdrtools fail - besides being a bit weird to build.
http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/cdrecord.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cdrtools
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cdrkit
And yes there is amusement browsing the history of edits on those wikipedia pages :)

I'm inclined to think the original developer should get alot of credit for cdrtools.
But this use of smake thing is strange and licencing of make system not gnu also strange.
Comment that gnu make not maintained since 1998 is funny seeing as I'm on the gnu make mailing list for the last few years.
I wonder what his problem was originally 10 years ago.

InfraRecorder on windows wins. http://infrarecorder.org/
One saving grace is that this is also open source and is based on cdrtools!
Author notes they moved from cdrtools to cdrkit version sometime.
Interesting output from cdrecord in InfraRecorder: DMA is too slow, can't do 18x speed, 10x speed should be okay.
This could have been part of problem on linux with both xcdroast and cdrecord.

meh!

News just in! ... or, well, from last November, from the county of Keck, and brought to you by the letter M for Muh and Mbleh; Via AWAD (a word a day) http://wordsmith.org/words/meh.html (yes, that page doesn't exist): "In November 2008, the word [meh -james] was added to the Collins English dictionary)"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meh
Hooray!
Or a less enthusiastic and more appropriate response might be "meh!" :-P.

http://www.google.ie/search?q=meh+site%3Awaider.ie Hullo Waider. :)

Sunday 4 January 2009

facebook

So _anyway_.

I had to, you see John's in Australia and posting news to facebook.

Actually I'm impressed. Good one-stop-show/compilation of blog/pictures/urls/messages.
Fast site. And very featureful. But simple in the important places.
I was tickled when sending a message to John as part of a Christmas present - tickets to a Peter Pan show in Sydney, I included urls for the theatre venue and group. And facebook picked a bunch of images from those urls to use as iconof the message. perfect! snazzy. nice.
Here is me on there (if'n ye can see): http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1118555017

Signed up on it (facebook) just before Christmas.
Ex-colleagues and long lost friends and current friends are added to a snowball/mini-avalanche rythm.
Theatre group (Glencullen Musical and Dramatic society) friends appeared today.
*Friend* *Friend* *Friend* *Friend* *Friend*
Uohhh I feel so loved!
Got lots of the components of an effective drug! Oerrr.

Incidentially went to Tallaght to do some singing for Jack and the Beanstalk in rehersal.
Motorbiked out and collected Fionnuala's phone which was rescued from somewhere up three rock on the way.
Very very little singing done. Bits and pieces mostly in Act 1.
Panto looks like loads of fun. Quite messy yet though! It starts Friday. eek! :)
http://homepage.eircom.net/~blynchehaun/ttg.html
http://www.dublintourist.com/details/tallaght_theatre_group.shtml
Tom posted a pantomime script resource:
http://www.lazybeescripts.co.uk/Pantomimes/Index.htm