kondor's IT beetlebum

Make new ThinkPad's charge thresholds work in Debian/Ubuntu

2012-09-06T09:33:00.000+04:00

Instead of Intro ThinkPad`s have been always famous for the amazing hardware compatibility with Linux. But seems this time has gone and owners of new ThinkPad`s like ThinkPad X230, T430 and of some other may have started experiencing some uncomfortable changes. The one of the such changes is inability to use tp_smapi module to set battery thresholds. Battery charge threshold might be important

Splitting OpenBox configuration to several files

2012-07-22T11:16:00.000+04:00

Several weeks ago I decided to enhance performance of my Linux-powered ThinkPad x120e laptop. The one of the steps was switching from XFCE's window manager to a more lightweight and configurable one. I decided to give a try to OpenBox and since then I still like it. Being a Software Developer I cannot stand pieces of software code which are large than ~15 lines. The one of the reasons is such

How to replace screensaver in XFCE

2012-05-30T09:41:00.001+04:00

Intro: XFCE's default screensaver By default XFCE is shipped with a quite ascetic xscreensaver. Some people ma find it not attractive. So I do also. For example, if you install an alternative screen locking application called i3lock there are about no chances that it will be used by XFCE. Even there are no other alternatives installed. Because XFCE knows nothing about it. But user definitely

Some TrueCrypt sugar for Linux

2012-05-01T19:36:00.000+04:00

Intro Currently we have a fast growing trend called "Clouds". In the Clouds we can store about everything and be sure that we are able to get it back anywhere and anytime. The only thing is Clouds do not belong to us. That's why we should think critical when we upload a very-very private data there. This way of thinking leads us to use various file encryption tools like encfs, TrueCrypt and

Reduce Linux laptop's backlight on boot up

2011-12-03T22:59:00.001+04:00

I like Linux. Especially for being able to create graceful workarounds for the things we get accustomed in a real life. Being a Linux-powered laptop owner I have always been annoyed by sharp backlight change when Linux boots up. I do not like when a backlight is set to the maximum one and there are no ways to affect these settings on. So I did a very funny trick. System's backlight (aka "

Python, make ConfigParser aware of spaces

2011-11-11T11:01:00.001+04:00

There is a wonderful Python's module called ConfigParser which allows to process .ini-style configuration files easily. I prefer to use it everywhere rather than spend the time to implement my own solution. Recently there was a bug received that values with leading and trailing spaces are read incorrectly: spaces are lost. This might be important for cases when an application is sensitive for

PAM authentication for Transmission btorrent client

2011-10-28T22:23:00.001+04:00

The one of the most valuable things in the World Wide Web beside the public available knowledge are files. Files which you can grab; and it does not matter they are Free or not. Files could be downloaded using various ways: when you grab them for yourself only or when not just grab but also provide others with the abilities to get them easily too. Due to the second point I like to use torrents.

actkbd package for Debian/Ubuntu

2011-06-23T11:44:00.001+04:00

Recently I became an owner of Thinkpad X120E laptop produced by Lenovo. The computer was supplied with no pre-installed OS so I deployed (unexpected decision, huh!) Debian GNU/Linux there. This time I decided not to use desktop "ready-to-use-out-of-the-box" environments like Gnome or KDE and give a try to build a DE I want from bricks. The one of the tasks I have faced with is how to make

Python, imp.load_source() trap

2011-05-22T17:56:00.000+04:00

While I have been writing a hook for WebApy lightweight RESTful Python webserver -- the recent a project of mine, I got ran into the funny (actually it wasn't; since it was hard enough to debug) issue related to loading of Python-app addons. As far as you know (or not; if you already have taken a look at sources), there is Python's standard library's 'imp' module is used to load hook files. "

WebApy -- webserver for easy and rapid REST API imitation

2011-05-11T09:18:00.001+04:00

Have been developing an application which depends on a remote REST (stands for Representational State Transfer) API of one of popular services I ran into the need to use it [API] more intensively while testing/debugging the code. Not all remote services provide developers with SandBox`ed environments to play in. And not all services may tolerate frequently repeated requests to their REST API;

Broken Java networking in Debian

2011-05-01T14:32:00.001+04:00

Playing around with Java I ran into the problem well known as Bug #560044. Seems that the problem appears for Debian GNU/Linux only. The essence of the issue is: when you run any Java application that requires network access (by HTTP or by other protocol; it does not matter) you will (as well as the running application itself) receive the following error. Or a very similar one: Exception in

Customizing GNOME screensaver's lock dialog

2011-02-12T22:33:00.000+03:00

Using bleeding edge Linux there are absolutely no guarantees that something doesn't go wrong. Several days ago I updated my Debian GNU/Linux "Testing" [branch] installation in the way I usually do using aptitude upgrade. Some things got broken some didn't. After this update I found that appearance of GNOME screensaver's lock dialog had changed: it became collapsed in it's total width. So, how to

Transition to Android. Said 'No' to Nokia.

2010-10-13T22:46:00.001+04:00

It seems I have not updated this for ages. Lets sort this out! From the technical point of view the most considerable news of mine is that I am not Nokia admirer any more. Yes, it happened! (*) Firstly I sold my Nokia N810 which I very liked and was very proud about (year ago, not now). The second thing I did - I got rid (**) of my E50 (Nokia) cellular phone. And finally I bought new Android

Linux, Thinkpad, HDAPS: battery mode

2010-06-08T23:41:00.000+04:00

ThinkPad laptops have a lot of amazing features. HDAPS is one of them. HDAPS stands for Hard Disk Active Protection System; it is intended to protect ThinkPad's HDD from damage in case of a notebook drop or other kind of impact while it is running. But HDAPS doesn't work 'out of the box' on Linux by default. On my Debian too. But there is so indispensable website named ThinkWiki with the tons of

APT suggests to remove (autoremove) required packages

2010-06-02T20:52:00.000+04:00

After another packages update (or after my attempts to remove Evolution out from the system, I do not know exactly) on my Debian Squeeze, APT began to suggest me to remove 'non-required' packages using 'autoremove' option like this: The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required: totem-common libempathy-gtk28 libaprutil1-ldap vinagre odbcinst

Twitter and my solution for Debian + Thinkpad issues

2010-05-22T08:35:00.000+04:00

Having the latest Debian Squeeze (kernel 2.6.32) I got in some issues (hm... Seems that for some time I'm going to write about Debian and my Thinkpad only :)) with my laptop. The common issues that I (and Google proves that not only my Thinkpad T410 run into them) had were: LCD brightness up/down doesn't work with loaded up ``thinkpad_acpi'' module; ``hotkeys'' module param does not help. Even `

Debian Lenny + Thinkpad T410: network adapter issue

2010-05-20T11:09:00.000+04:00

Since I chose Debian to be my primary and favorite Linux distribution on my new Lenovo Thinkpad T410, I agreed to myself to spend my time to solve various specific issues related to it. So the first issue I met was that the Debian Lenny installation system didn't manage to find my Thinkpad's Intel 1000 ethernet adapter. Google 'said' that appropriate driver for the adapter was 'e1000e'. Manual '

My new laptop: Lenovo Thinkpad

2010-05-06T22:19:00.000+04:00

Today I bought my first Thinkpad -- Thinkpad T410. I know that since 'Thinkpad' trademark was bought out from IBM by Lenovo many people believe that they lost their legendary advantages. I think so also. A bit :). Anyway I still like them and their spirit. Buying Thinkpads in Russia has its own unique peculiarities. First one: you have to do your best to find a laptop w/ tech specs you like/need

'cp' command with a wget-like progress bar

2010-04-28T21:33:00.001+04:00

Can not help re-posting: a tip and trick to make 'cp' command have a wget-like progress bar. #!/bin/sh cp_p() { strace -q -ewrite cp -- "${1}" "${2}" 2>&1 \ | awk '{ count += $NF if (count % 10 == 0) { percent = count / total_size * 100 printf "%3d%% [", percent for (i=0;i<=percent;i++) printf "="

How to return back buttons layout in Ubuntu 10.04

2010-03-16T11:28:00.000+03:00

Ubuntu wants to be more user-friendly than other Linux`es. It is the fact. Each new Ubuntu release always introduces a set of features which make user's life easy. But not all these features are cool. Is the fact too. Upcoming Ubuntu 10.04 also introduces a Mac-like approach when window-control buttons (to minimize, to maximize and to close a window) are placed on the top-left side of the window,

Code snippet: QLabel to show remote pixmap by URL

2010-03-11T15:59:00.007+03:00

Perhaps one of the most often used widgets in Qt is QLabel. It is mainly used to display a plain text as well as rich one (which contains HTML markup). QLabel is also able to show graphics by passing QPixmap instance to it. But what if there is a need to display (using QLabel) a pixmap stored on remote server? There is no such "out of the box" functionality in QLabel. But it can be easily done.

QCryptographicHash: code snippet

2010-02-26T19:43:00.001+03:00

When the guys developing Qt applications find themselves in such a case when they need to obtain MD5 hash of a string or an array of bytes, the first thing most of them do is try to use the already implemented 3rd-party libraries like libxcrypt, OpenSSL and others. The talented ones try to get the output of 'md5sum' command. But the 'true' way is to use built-in tools: not everyone knows that

GMail Buzz: I do not like when it forced

2010-02-11T10:15:00.000+03:00

Only a lazy one doesn't write about Google Buzz. So here are my five cents. When I was fighting for GMail Invite several years ago to get the best e-mail service ever, I really wanted to get the convenient instrument to work with e-mail correspondence. And finally I got it, what really made my day. For all the time I've been using GMail I haven't had anything bad to say about it. Now I have. If

Serna accepted to Debian!

2010-01-31T11:44:00.001+03:00

Thanks to amazing work of Joachim Breitner Serna finally is officially accepted to the one of my favorite Linux distros -- Debian GNU/Linux! Hope it will be in Ubuntu soon as well. Of course, some things may work not as expected or may not work at all :), but it is just a beginning. Please feel free to contribute your patches and bug-reports directly to serna-developers mailing list or to http:/

Sandbox`ed (AppArmor) Skype 2.1 in Linux

2009-10-05T11:22:00.001+04:00

To be able to stay in touch with my contacts and speak for free with people through Skype I agree that my workstation becomes P2P-node. But I do not agree that Skype scans my private files (browser cookies and history). What to do? As far as I am Linux user the solution is simple: to use AppArmor. According to this approach Skype is launched in some kind of sandbox, i.e. in the invironment where