Scrolling on the Thinkpad X60 in Ubuntu 8.10

Ubuntu 8.10 needs modifications in it's HAL-settings instead of in the xorg.conf as we used to do. Now you need to create a new file called /etc/hal/fdi/policy/mouse-wheel.fdi with the following contents.

The link brings you to the great blog by Phil Sung. Be sure to check out the rest of Phil's blog as well.

Finding duplicates and cleaning out

I have many, many copies of some files in a unstructured and messy hierarchy. Today, I found my solution to the challenge of cleaning out duplicates; FSlint!

sudo aptitude install fslint

gives you the package.

It has a nice GUI;

fslint-gui

Enjoy!

VirtualBox: Screen Resolution

I've tested Ubuntu 8.10 in Virtualbox 2.0.2 on my Ubuntu 8.04-system.

I have always had issues with the screen resolution for my guest OS when using Virtualbox.

Solution: After installing the guest OS, Run "Guest additions" under "Devices" in the Virtualbox window. This will mount a CD-image in your guest. Run the appropriate file on that CD as root.

I also had to edit my xorg.conf

gksu gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

And ad a line:

Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured Video Device"
Driver  "vboxvideo"
EndSection

(Italic line added).

Restart and everything worked great.

This is a good link for more info

My paranoid TrueCrypt VirtualBox

This is the set-up for the paranoid:

VirtualBox installed on an encrypted partition in Ubuntu. WinXP in VirtualBox with TrueCrypt Whole Disk Encryption and - of course - the external USB encrypted hard drive.

If only I could remember the password ....

VirtualBox with external USB drive

(Ubuntu 8.04 - VirtualBox 1.6)

I use the obsolete WinXP-OS from time to time under VirtualBox. VirtualBox is a great visualization program that gives you the opportunity to try out various distros, run WinXP on you Linux-box, etc.

In it's "basic" configuration, the virtual machine has no connection with the outside world. However, you can enable network, share folders with the host OS, use the CD/DVD-drive, etc. Everything is easily enabled via the control panel for VirtualBox.

External USB-drives can be a bit tricky to enable. This link provides great instructions to get the USB drives to work.

sudo gedit /etc/init.d/mountdevsubfs.sh

Look for this section and uncomment the last four lines (which is already uncommented here):

#
# Magic to make /proc/bus/usb work
#
mkdir -p /dev/bus/usb/.usbfs
domount usbfs "" /dev/bus/usb/.usbfs -obusmode=0700,devmode=0600,listmode=0644
ln -s .usbfs/devices /dev/bus/usb/devices
mount --rbind /dev/bus/usb /proc/bus/usb

I also had to add this to my fstab (check your correct USB-group number under "System" "Administration" "Users and Groups", mine was no. 124):

none /proc/bus/usb usbfs devgid=124,devmode=664 0 0

Now, I needed more editing of my /etc/init.d/mountdevsubfs.sh

sudo gedit /etc/init.d/mountkernfs.sh

Paste the 2 lines below above the line: "# Mount spufs, if Cell Broadband processor is detected"

## Mount the usbfs for use with Virtual Box
domount usbfs usbdevfs /proc/bus/usb -onoexec,nosuid,nodev,devgid=124,devmode=664

After having used my USB-drive, VirtualBox still holds on to the USB-drive. I guess there is an easy way to fix this, but for now, I log out and in again after finishing my virtual session.

Identify UUID

Here's how to identify the UUID of your partitions or disks:

ls -la /dev/disk/by-uuid

Ext3 in Truecrypt 5.1a

So, Truecrypt only gives you the FAT-filesystem when creating a new volume. That's no good! Here's how I created a Ext3-filesystem in a external Truecrypt device.

truecrypt -l

gives you information about your mounted Truecrypt drive. Typical output:

/dev/sde2 /dev/loop0 /media/truecrypt1

You need to unmount the volume using

sudo umount /media/truecrypt1

Then you can format the volume (the encrypted volume that is):

sudo mke2fs -j -m0 /dev/loop0

This will format your encrypted volume into Ext3.

When finished, just Dismount it using the Truecrypt GUI, and then mount the whole thing again. Now, you'll have an encrypted Ext3-formated volume!

Truecrypt 5.0 released - Linux GUI

Truecrypt 5.0 has just been released with a GUI-tool.

Nice.

But it seems like the CLI is gone - not nice.