note to self....

Building the OTR 3.0.0 Plugin for Gaim 1.5.x

A how-to text from cypherpunks.ca describing how to build and install the OTR plugin under SuSE 9.2 using the guru packages: howto-build-otr-plugin-for-gaim-1.5.txt

Building libotr-3.0.0 for SuSE 9.2

A how-to text that describes how to build libotr-3.0.0 for SuSE v9.2: howto-build-libotr-for-suse-92.txt

Note that the two operations - building the plugin and building libotr are only loosely related, particularly since we used a pre-built libotr from the guru site to build the plugin. Logically one might prefer to use the libotr built from sources instead of the guru pre-built RPM package.

Labels: gaim, linux, otr, plugin, suse

Desktop Guerrilla Tactics: a Portable Thin Client Approach (from Linux Journal [LJ]) talks about using http://www.tightvnc.com and http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/svncviewer.html to create a VNC client without resorting to running an X server for the VNC client.

Labels: debian, linux, lj, portable, svga, thin client, vnc, x

These links are culled from the Ask Slashdot discussion entitled Where should one go for Unix/Linux Training?.

• The C Programming Language - this is the classic "K&R book" - one post [the one that provided this link] makes the point that "you can't *know* UNIX/*nix if you don't know how to program"
• SlackBook - an online electronic book mostly specific to the Slackware distribution.
• Linux Administration Handbook - also home to the Unix System Administration Handbook
• Real World Linux Security [book]
• Linux International
• "For complete newbies" try Linux Questions or The Linux Documentation Project
• Unix Guru Universe
• O'Reilly [the publishing house]
• distrowatch.com
• LearningLinux.com

Labels: admin, linux, security, slashdot, training, tutorial, unix

Okay, here's a solution to one that's been bugging me for awhile:

The problem is that Mozilla Firefox 1.x under SuSE 9.2 KDE 3.3 has some weirdness with the text select foreground / background color. The fix for this was found [tweaked] from http://www.mozilla.org/unix/customizing.html#prefs.

This fix is documented on the mozilla.org website for Mozilla, but this works [seems to] for Mozilla Firefox [curr ver 1.5.0.4], as well.

The tweak was that my X server didn't like the color names that were used in the example from the website - not sure why "green" or "white" are not being mapped by the X RGB color database, but using the [somewhat] standard HTML color hex number format ('#rrggbb', where rr == red, gg == green, bb == blue, and each color is a 2-digit (8-bit) hexadecimal color component value) seems to work fine.

Note that this fix might be possible in the ${ff_user_app_dir}/chrome/userChrome.css file, but I haven't found the CSS definitions of Firefox user interface elements, yet. That should exist, I believe, but it may be wrapped some sort of XUL implementation verbiage.

Anyway - here are the pertinent entries from my newly created ${ff_user_prof_dir}/user.js file [user.js did not exist by default for Firefox - simply create it and add whatever of the available Javascsript UI style commands are desired - the page linked above has more examples]:

// Set select colors for text:
user_pref("ui.textSelectBackground", "#00ff00");
user_pref("ui.textSelectForeground", "#000000");
// Select color for typeahead find is slightly different:
user_pref("ui.textSelectBackgroundAttention", "blue");
// Not clear when/if widgetSelectBackground ever gets called: let's find out.
user_pref("ui.widgetSelectBackground", "orange");

Notes:

For the shell variables used above -

${ff_user_app_dir} - this is the user's application config and state directory (typically something like $HOME/$USER/.mozilla/firefox/)

${ff_user_prof_dir} - this is the Firefox user profile directory (typically something like $HOME/$USER/.mozilla/firefox/${profilename} where ${profilename} is a string randomly generated for the [default] profile when Firefox starts up - usually the first time.

Labels: 1.5, 3.3, 9.2, color, config, firefox, fix, hack, kde, linux, mozilla, rgb, suse, x