scrambling for scrotwm on slitaz again

intro: it's been a while coming, fatigue n lethargy have been robbing me of the peef to get on with this, and having learned things are so much better when documented... i'm documenting this. what is "this"... slitaz & scrotwm, round 3. ... or 4 or 5... idk, it's hard to tell/remember. anyways, i now have learned more of the wonders and ways of "tazpkg convert", and am ready for another bout, and am far more confident than ever... certainly more confident when i was messing around with bsd compilers n stuff.


ok,

here goes, an attempt at getting scrotwm to work on slitaz. a "very sexy combo", as more people than just me, has said.

so first i find the deb file from packages.debian.at/squeeze/scrotwm.

it didnt like the 64bit, of course, silly me. lol.

so, i do:

wget http://ftp.ie.debian.org/debian/pool/main/s/scrotwm/scrotwm_0.9.20-1_i386.deb

in my virtual machine with a tester slitaz justx iso loaded.

then run:

tazpkg convert scrotwm_0.9.20-1_i386.deb

(and oh thankgoodness for tabkey autocompletion, so i dont have to type all those silly filenames out. ~ like i'm having to do for this blog entry, so excuse the errors. lol.)

and it says it managed it. (heh, and this is where i'd cross my fingers if i thought it would help, because it told me the same thing after i tried tazpkg convert on a arch-pacman of tmux... but it failed to run for more than the first frame before freezing.)

ls

confirms that the file is indeed there...


ok, so now we just do:

tazpkg install scrotwm-0.9.20-1.tazpkg

no need for "get-install" like you would do if installing from the slitaz repository, because it's already been "got", and is sat right infront of you in your working directory.

ok so... it says that worked! great!

but now to find out if it did actually work...

well, before i go run it, i want to just check a few things,

if the system recognises it

whatis scrotwm

whereis scrotwm

and, oh woops. looks like whatis and whereis dont work in slitaz-justx.

if the config is there.

ls /etc

... and yup, scrotwm.conf is there.

so now to try it out.

er... now, lets see, there's no login manager in slitaz, so, it's probably loading the window manager (currently openbox of course) from a xinit type file somewhere... a-ha...

ls -a

run from the home directory reveals the likely suspect. ".xinitrc"
and it's a rather interesting and somewhat robust configuration they've opted for. i know i'm not really going to need any of this... so, i'm going to delete it all (saving the openbox line, and then commenting it out. ... and then of course, add a line for scrotwm.

~woops i just about choked on my saliva there... got a little excited.

ok, so i close openbox

killall openbox

thinking that was the easiest way to drop me back out to a command line or have x restart, n it would then load scrowm, with my newly forumlated .xinitrc.

no joy...
oh dear.

seems there is a login manager (i'm guessing it's slim)

and now it wont let me login. seems i've borked it.

pressing f1 in slim, lets me cycle through to see the choices... e17, openbox, and jwm. :/

had i known slim was there, i would have edited it's config instead of /as well as, the .xinitrc


...

... ...


... ... ...

ok.
i knew this was just a tester anyways. i had planned on testing it to the point of seeing that it actually works... but it is enough to know that it at least converts and installs.

so i might as well take my ass to the apropriate "prewitch" virtual machine, and run my wget, convert and install on it... and be more careful about editing the wm launcher this time.


...

... to be continued...

..
.

just a screenshot of the day in the life of digit

http://ompldr.org/vN2Zmag/2011-02-14--1297716887_2880x1200_scrot.png


^_^ that is all.

mare freedomware!

where do we go to get hardware not encumbered by planned obselecense?

it's surely starting to exist now right?

i mean, there is a "open-source" hardware movement, right?

so surely, it's a freedomware movement too... right?

...

i mean, i just started to notice the button on my laptop starting to get a bit wobbly... and i'm almost out of my extended warranty...

so it makes me think... i cant be fucked with my hardware being encumbered with the same problems that drove me away from proprietary software anymore. i want my next hardware, to be genuinely more future-proofed.

it doesnt seem enough anymore that "yay, i'm using free software now, so i have the freedom to take not just my data, but my software, with me, wherever i go, and do with it whatever i want.", typically, taking it from obselete or broken hardware, and onto the new machine.... that's just gonna be expensive.

i still have my first pc's case... and have plans for a nice lil hack job to put some working guts of a pc back in there again.... but i am reluctant to buy something that's likely to fail....

it's a troubling prospect, that due to the relatively, disproportionately, stageringly high rate of turn out of new advancement (relative to the magnitude of those actual advancves) and obselecense in computing hardware technology, that it may be one of the hardest areas of material tools/items to have overcome this flaw in our system, to take out of the obselecense cycle, despite it being taken out of the elevated consumption "economic" paradigm.

we dont really have emancipation technology while we are on the recieving (/milked) end of the separationist hardware manufacturers, intent on having us come back to them to buy new hardware soon.

free software, as defined by the free software foundation (fsf.org), is true freedomware, which enables us to overcome any limitations, flaws, shortcomings, imposed by the manufacturer, for whatever reason it may have been so, incompetence, neglect, or intent*, and allows us to make the apropriate amendmends, and share that with others, and share in the amendments others have made and shared too.

that's basically the fundamental principle by which i understood free software to be inevitably and inescapably the better choice over any of the offerings of proprietary software.

and why not have that same idea for all our hardware too, right?

and for all ideas... like our political modalities, and our legal systems...

no to hardware because of the energy costs of production?

but you see, that high prohibitive cost, is part of the proprietary protectionism? we can freedomware our way out of that problem. there are already the jigsaw pieces to facilitate our emancipations through technological means... we just need to put them together and apply.

no to political modalities and legal systems because of ideological siezures?

but you see, there can be many co-existing systems/projects, and they can all be forked, and undergo refining. same could even be done for economica paradigms and religions... or at least ecconomic systems and codes of living well.

but i digress...

hardware... right...

um... nope... i think i was done. ^_^

anyways, you see... the existence of this idea, now makes the old / current system untenable... just why would i ever want to subject myself to it now that i've seen the better way? it's just so completly unfeasable, without some kind of grosse coersion... and that's the kind of shit that breeds uprisings... n the elite dont want that... they've learned, covert tyranny is the way... not rocking the boat ncreating uprisings is the way... and so... "the market" damn well better start catering for this newfound unshifting preference for non-obsolete'ing 'wares. n that may indeed mean, those of us who realise this, need to take matters into our own hands....

... can u imagine it... a new computer system coming out, that's not only backwards and forwards compatable with the existing systems, but even more modularised to to be even more universally compatible, interchangeable, upgradeable... and when i say upgradeable, i mean like... adaptable, while everything being re-useable, or at least, easy-recycle-ready. so that next time you buy a piece of hardware, it's warranty is not just one year, not just three years, not just ten years, not just for life... but forever! ... so that, you can buy it thinking "my great great great great great great great great grandson will be able to enjoy this."

free software developers dont make software to be crap, because they most of the time, are making it for themselves too. same can be true of our hardware.

k, now i'm done. ^_^



*see duty of care law.

*EXPLETIVE* I LOVE

Fuck i love linux! (which i now sometimes abreviate to merely "fill"

Fuck i love xmonad!

Fuck i love uzbl!


that last one is new.

:) just started playing around with it for the first time today. ok, not strictly the first time. i poked around fleetingly a couple other times when checking out a bunch of different browsers.

idk what prompted me to check it out again this time... but i'm glad i did.

i am very surprised!

it's now slotted to be the main browser in witch linux methinks. ... ok, it's not actually that small, but it's minimal and elegent, and renders sites really well *coughnetsurfcough*... and it claims to fit the unix philosophy, of an app should do one job and do it well... rather than apps bloating up in feature-lust.

ok, so it's like 55mb install here in arch. :/ it's not exactly small [(by my hardcore standards)], i accept this. there are smaller browsers.

i got my biggest surprise tho when i opened a youtube link... AND IT PLAYED!

i thought for sure a little browser like this wouldnt have such a feature.

it seems they've got it right... build it for the geeks n u will attract the geeks. more geeks in the userbase = more geeks to contribute to the development.

some brief hanging around in #uzbl on irc.freenode.net has given me the impression that it's progressing at pace. features missing 6 montsh ago, now available, and such like.

so anyways, i'm currently running uzbl to write this blog. uzbl-tabbed to be precise. i have my first uzbl youtube link opened in the previous tab. there's still loads n loads of controls i dont yet know in the default config, like how to close tabs (eep! better not go too crazy), but no doubt i'll be considering changing a few keybinds later on, knowing it's a configulurvable unix-philosophy app.

oh, yeah, and this blog entry isnt gonna be jsut for the lovely lovely uzbl...

i'm gonna share my xmonad config now too.
i've now got tiles resizeable by mouse! aw yeah. so if there are any "awesome" noobs out there who were too scared to try a real man's window manager like xmonad, you can try out my config, n see if it apeases your distrust of the keyboard. ^_^ (just some friendly teasing, dont get uppity with me if you're a awesome fanboy wanting to have a go at me for that.)

it's still a work in progress, but it's all i use in arch.

... come to think of it, when i'm in crunchbang10.04LTS (upped from 9.04), or in Toorox (a lovely gentoo-based distro if u dont know), xmonad is all i use in it too. although, still earlier versions of this config in each... with a couple distro-specific changes... like synaptic and porthole keybind.

suffice to say, it's production ready, to my standards. :)

one admission though... i have noticed it's not quite as zippy and responsive anymore as the default xmonad config is. :/ but still a few cuts above the bloated "Desktop Environment" interfaces.

import XMonad
import XMonad.Hooks.DynamicLog
import XMonad.Hooks.ManageDocks
import XMonad.Util.Run(spawnPipe)
import XMonad.Util.EZConfig(additionalKeys)
import XMonad.Hooks.EwmhDesktops
import XMonad.Config.Desktop
import XMonad.Actions.CycleWS
import XMonad.Layout.MouseResizableTile --and shrink/expand slave layout
import System.IO

-- initially created with help of: http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Xmonad/Config_archive/John_Goerzen%27s_Configuration
-- use "xmonad --recompile" to check it's syntactically correct if making changes (better than just modQ)
-- list of key codes http://haskell.org/haskellwiki/Xmonad/Key_codes
-- may also prove useful for some keys and commands http://hackage.haskell.org/packages/archive/X11/1.4.5/doc/html/Graphics-X11-Types.html


-- also used
-- http://hackage.haskell.org/packages/archive/xmonad-contrib/0.8/doc/html/XMonad-Doc-Extending#Editing_mouse_bindings.html
-- http://xmonad.org/xmonad-docs/xmonad-contrib/XMonad-Layout-MouseResizableTile.html
---- still need to learn how to change the size of the border gap between tiles now that a 6pixel gap has been adeed. :/


-- yet to be implimented:
-- resizing floating windows from any corner
-- http://hackage.haskell.org/packages/archive/xmonad-contrib/0.8/doc/html/XMonad-Actions-FlexibleResize.html
-- http://xmonad.org/xmonad-docs/xmonad-contrib/XMonad-Actions-FlexibleResize.html


-- may want to encorporate:
-- http://xmonad.org/xmonad-docs/xmonad-contrib/XMonad-Actions-GridSelect.html

-- DEFAULT TEMPATE : http://haskell.org/haskellwiki/Xmonad/Config_archive/Template_xmonad.hs_%280.9%29

myManageHook = composeAll
[ className =? "Gimp" --> doFloat
, className =? "pidgin" --> doFloat
, className =? "skype" --> doFloat
, className =? "vlc" --> doFloat
, className =? "tilda" --> doFloat
, className =? "Tilda" --> doFloat
, className =? "Vncviewer" --> doFloat
, className =? "gpicview" --> doFloat
, className =? "Gpicview" --> doFloat
, className =? "BetterPrivacy" --> doFloat
, className =? "Pidgin" --> doFloat
, className =? "Skype" --> doFloat
]

main = do
xmproc <- spawnPipe "/usr/bin/tint2 /home/digit/.config/tint2/tint2rc" xmonad $ ewmh desktopConfig { manageHook = manageDocks <+> myManageHook -- make sure to include myManageHook definition from above
<+> manageHook desktopConfig
, layoutHook = avoidStruts $ layoutHook defaultConfig { layoutHook = myLayout } --see "myLayout" bellow
, startupHook = spawn "starterscripts"
, modMask = mod4Mask -- Rebind Mod to the Windows key
} `additionalKeys`
[ ((mod4Mask, xK_F2), spawn "gmrun")
, ((mod4Mask .|. shiftMask, xK_F2), spawn "gedit ~/.gmrunrc")
, ((mod4Mask, xK_F3), spawn "~/.config/dmenu/dmenu-bind.sh")
, ((mod4Mask .|. shiftMask, xK_F3), spawn "gedit ~/.config/dmenu/dmenu-bind.sh") -- edit dmenu
, ((mod4Mask, xK_F4), kill) -- close focused window
, ((mod1Mask, xK_F4), kill) -- oldskool close focused window
, ((mod4Mask, xK_F5), spawn "xfce4-appfinder")
, ((mod4Mask, xK_F6), spawn "xkill")
, ((mod4Mask, xK_a), spawn "audacity")
, ((mod4Mask, xK_b), spawn "firefox")
, ((mod4Mask .|. mod1Mask, xK_b), spawn "seamonkey")
, ((mod4Mask, xK_c), spawn "pidgin & skype")
, ((mod4Mask, xK_d), spawn "gedit")
, ((mod4Mask .|. controlMask, xK_d), spawn "gksudo gedit")
, ((mod4Mask, xK_f), spawn "pcmanfm")
, ((mod4Mask .|. controlMask, xK_f), spawn "gksudo pcmanfm")
, ((mod4Mask .|. shiftMask, xK_f), spawn "searchmonkey")
, ((mod4Mask .|. shiftMask .|. mod1Mask, xK_f), spawn "catfish")
, ((mod4Mask, xK_g), spawn "gimp")
, ((mod4Mask, xK_i), spawn "inkscape")
, ((mod4Mask, xK_m), spawn "vlc")
, ((mod4Mask .|. mod1Mask, xK_m), spawn "deadbeef")
, ((mod4Mask .|. controlMask .|. mod1Mask, xK_m), spawn "gedit ~/.config/openbox/menu.xml") -- edit openbox menu
, ((mod4Mask, xK_n), sendMessage ToggleStruts) -- toggle panel visability.
, ((mod4Mask .|. mod1Mask, xK_n), spawn "pkill tint2 && tint2") -- restart panel.
, ((mod4Mask .|. controlMask .|. mod1Mask, xK_n), spawn "gedit ~/.config/tint2/tint2rc") -- edit panel config
, ((mod4Mask, xK_o), spawn "openbox --replace") -- switch to openbox
, ((mod4Mask .|. controlMask .|. mod1Mask, xK_o), spawn "gedit ~/.config/openbox/rc.xml") -- edit openbox config
, ((mod4Mask .|. shiftMask, xK_p), spawn "gksudo gparted")
, ((mod4Mask, xK_p), spawn "gksudo gtkpacman")
-- , ((mod4Mask, xK_q), spawn "xmonad --restart")
, ((mod4Mask .|. mod1Mask, xK_t), spawn "tilda") -- launch tilda
, ((mod4Mask, xK_v), spawn "VirtualBox")
, ((mod4Mask, xK_x), spawn "xmonad --recompile") -- recompile xmonad
, ((mod4Mask .|. mod1Mask, xK_x), spawn "xmonad --restart") -- restart xmonad
, ((mod4Mask .|. controlMask .|. mod1Mask, xK_x), spawn "gedit ~/.xmonad/xmonad.hs") -- edit xmonad config
, ((mod4Mask, xK_y), spawn "conky")
, ((mod4Mask .|. mod1Mask, xK_y), spawn "pkill conky && conky") --restart conky
, ((mod4Mask .|. controlMask .|. mod1Mask, xK_y), spawn "gedit ~/.conkyrc") --edit conky
, ((0, xK_Print), spawn "scrot '%Y-%m-%d--%s_$wx$h_scrot.png' -e 'mv $f ~/images/screenshots/ & gpicview ~/images/screenshots/$f'")
-- , ((modMask, next), nextWS)
-- , ((modMask, prev), prevWS)
, ((mod1Mask .|. controlMask, xK_Left), prevWS)
, ((mod1Mask .|. controlMask, xK_Right), nextWS)
-- , ((mod1Mask .|. controlMask .|. shiftMask, xK_Left), shiftToPrev)
-- , ((mod1Mask .|. controlMask .|. shiftMask, xK_Right), shiftToNext)
, ((mod1Mask .|. shiftMask, xK_Left), shiftToPrev)
, ((mod1Mask .|. shiftMask, xK_Right), shiftToNext)
--
, ((mod4Mask .|. mod1Mask, xK_h), sendMessage ShrinkSlave) -- %! Shrink a slave area
, ((mod4Mask .|. mod1Mask, xK_l), sendMessage ExpandSlave) -- %! Expand a slave area
]



--myLayout
myLayout = mouseResizableTile ||| mouseResizableTileMirrored ||| Full
where
-- default tiling algorithm partitions the screen into two panes
-- tiled = Tall nmaster delta ratio --need to figure out how to correctly impliment this line, if i want to adjust the nmaster, ratio and delta.... and i do very much want to adjust the delta. .. but its not essential, now that i have mouse resize

-- The default number of windows in the master pane
nmaster = 1

-- Default proportion of screen occupied by master pane
ratio = 1/2

-- Percent of screen to increment by when resizing panes
delta = 2/100
--

so anyways...

i love gnu|linux and xmonad, and now uzbl too.

probably indicative that i dont have a girlfriend right? lol.

open source hardware.

i was reading the "200 things you can do with linux" article in the 200th issue celebration collectors edition of linux journal, when i came to #51, "Delete all the GPS location data from images." and i hit upon the idea of doing a search...

the GPS data on cameras has been an issue that's troubled me for some time, in full tinfoil hat mode, i just stopped taking pictures with my phone, knowing what an epic security hole it is, an invasion of privacy and empowers corporations and government agencies with far more knowledge about me and power over me than they deserve.

what was the idea for what i was going to search?
two searches really, open source hardware, and more to the point, open source cameras.

but surely, if i've just read that u can remove this data with linux, why bother finding greater recourse and remedy for avoiding it? quite simply, prevention is better than cure.

and what did i find?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_hardware
&
http://www.opensourcecamera.org/
- and the link there-in. http://www3.elphel.com/

i wouldnt mind the GPS data going along with images if it was more public-interest oriented, rather than spy-agency oriented. I even rather like the idea, if it were more forthcoming, noticeably present in the interface, with notification of its presence, and the ability to turn it off. or even make it opt-in, instead of opt-out (which to my knowledge, isnt even an option on most phones/cameras, at least not without a convoluted removal process).

it's like kenedy said, "fully informed public". that's all this is really about.

democracy fails without this. when how something is made is a proprietary secret, it diminishes the power of the people. when it's normal use constitutes secondary secret uses not for the benefit of the user, it diminishes the power of the people. i love the idea of open-source hardware giving back that power. it's like it defeats the dark side of occulted & horded knowledge simply with the light of the freedom of knowledge. :) and we all benefit, even those who were in the dark, from lighting each other's candles. :)

oh yeah, i forgot i blogged about my new arch

XD

well, yeah, i'll try to make the update as full, swift, and appropriate as possible.

the problems i experienced were entirely pebcak.

it all spawned from a simple typo when trying to install xmonad-contrib in pacman, and resultingly thinking xmonad-contrib was not there, so went on a long n pointless strugglesome adventure trying to get it to work with cabal and other crazy ideas.

once that issue was resolved, evrything became rather smooth again.

the arch linux wiki, is, by a great big gaping margin, the best wiki/documentation for any linux distribution i have had the pleasure to paruse.

i was told 5 days for a normal user, and was complimented (undeservingly i thought) that 3 days for me, to get an arch system from start to perfection.

well, perhaps only marginally like GW declaring "victory" in 2003 at preventing future generations of americans speaking iraqi, i declared success in under 21 hours.

... and i wasnt even trying! i was spending much of the time in chat, writing silly blogs and forum posts. and i went to sleep for 8 hours. and did a whole pile of other stuff.

but yeah, twas only slightly a premature declaration. i knew at that stage that i wantd to set up a couple shortcuts in gimp (ooh, big wow... what's that, not even 2 minutes) and use FEBE on my firefox (even taking my sweet time, thats still barely half an hour). but besides the two i knew about, there's still the occassional little niggle that i forgot about... installed a calculator today, for the an example of the sort of thing i'm talking about. small stuff, that's easily sorted with a quick "pacman -S".

ok, i admit... networkmanager configuration is a pain in the hoop. networky stuff has never been my strong suit.

but it's not like that's really a necessity. i just wanted the little luxury of having nm-applet on the go again. soooo not important. ... in a way, that's even antithical to a a system worthy of the accolade of "perfection". you know how many mbs that is just for that one little feature? with all the things it requires... it's waaay into double figures!, and thats a decimal place too far for my liking, on the scale of features per kilobyte.

anyways, suffice to say, it's been days now that i'm happily tootling along in my new arch install, doing the occassional pacman -Syu, and generally getting up to all the stuff i use a computer for... some graphics here, some research there, some discussing things here there and everywhere, some audio sample creation and editing, some website fiddling... and so on.

the experience has completely dispelled some myths i had let grow in my thoughts about arch, and the archway. it's all rather nice. only networkmanager managed to coax out some grunts of frustration from me.

a long way to go and a short time to get there, we shouldnt have stopped for a picnic.

okies...

first sign of trouble in my new arch install:

i copied over my perfectly functional (accidental pun!) xmonad.hs from my previous system (ubuntu-based crunchbang)

and i get:[code]

$ xmonad --recompile
Error detected while loading xmonad configuration file: /home/digit/.xmonad/xmonad.hs

xmonad.hs:7:7:
Could not find module `XMonad.Config.Desktop':
Use -v to see a list of the files searched for.

Please check the file for errors.

[/code]

some time later, and some fiddling with cabal, and failing to get xmonad-contrib...

seems it's likely missing C libs.

so i try n get libX, libXext and libXinerama. (as the xmonad C requirements are stated here: http://xmonad.org/intro.html )

presuming libX = libX11, since simply libX alone is nowhere to be found, this one is up to date.

libXext install attempt returns (much the same for merely "libX" and libXinerama):[code]error: 'libXext': could not find or read package[/code]

so am i thinking arch has different names for these packages?

.... aaaah! lowercase "X"s.

ok, so i've updated those three now,
...and "cabal install xonad-contrib" tells me:[code]# cabal install xmonad-contrib
Resolving dependencies...
Configuring X11-xft-0.3...
cabal: pkg-config version >=0.9.0 is required but it could not be found.
cabal: Error: some packages failed to install:
X11-xft-0.3 failed during the configure step. The exception was:
ExitFailure 1
xmonad-contrib-0.9.1 depends on X11-xft-0.3 which failed to install.
[/code]
so... "X11-xft-0.3" it says. :/ some searching later, n i presume it's after "haskell-x11-xft"
...

so i install that.... where was i now?
/me feels like he's starting to contract some disease probably called something like bizantianitits. :P

ok, lets try it from the top again... or, work backwards through what i've come to at least.

the xft was needed for the xmonad-contrib, ah, that's right...

/me tries "cabal install xmonad-contrib" again.

and we have much action! yay! scrolling text! XD "nn of 180"

bkadoctaj my old friend... you're right, i am learning a lot with using arch... i'm learning it's a lot of fuss!

XD


so anyways, i started writing this in a text editor, thinking it was gonna be a forum post asking for help... but now it's looking more like my typical blog post. XD

so, i may as well elaborate on the story much more, comforted by the freedom my blog intro blurb caveat/disclaimer gives me to ramble endlessly...

...though i wont, bcause, the background jist of this is here...

i'm trying to get my perfect arch setup in 24 hours.

bkadoctaj said it takes 3 days from scrath to perfection.

___day one: scratch.
___day two: to.
_day three: perfection.

and he said it normally takes 5 days, but he was knocking a couple days off for me, percieving some level of expertise, which i think an accolade i'm worthy of.


.. but still, even with my leisserly pace through the first parts, i'm now determined to get it all up as i want in 24 hours... and that includes the 8 hours i was asleep, all the time spent dilly-dallying in chat, and all the time spent writing this load. XD

... i better get back to it.

my "cabal install xmonad-contrib" is complete, and now hopefully, when i attempt my next "xmonad --recompile" all will be well, and i'll be using my own config, rather than the more stoic default.

... i'll leave the rest of this adventure for the next post. :)