Sometimes after booting the machine up I would just get no sound in my browser / video player and sometimes it would be there working just perfectly. The only way to get the sound if it wasn’t there was to reboot the computer. A strange issue I ignored at first thinking it would go away after a few full system updates, but after a while the problem was still there and I got annoyed by it and thankfully found a cure.

The problem was the usb webcam. Turns out ALSA isn’t very smart when it comes to device assignment so sometimes it would make the snd_usb_audio (webcam) the first sound device instead of the soundcard. A workaround is just putting your soundcard module name before the snd_usb_audio in your /etc/rc.conf. In my case it was like this:

edit: I think there is one more situation when sound does not work – it’s when your skype autostarts on startup. It starts webcam of course and sometimes skype starts before you can hear the welcoming sound of entering into your WM.

If you would like to use irssi on a remote server so that it works as proxy for pidgin, you should already have ‘server’ and ‘network’ parameters set up in your ~/.irssi/config . If you don’t know what I’m talking about, take a look here and also examine the config file. You should figure it out pretty fast how to configure irssi to do basic stuff it is supposed to do.

What you will also need is GNU screen installed on the remote server. So, what is screen? “Screen is a full-screen window manager that multiplexes a physical terminal between several processes, typically interactive shells.” Basically what you can do with it is that you can run certain processes and put them into the background (detach from them), and than later see them again (attach to them) when you want to. If you don’t know how to use screen, take a look here, or use google to find a tutorial on using screen. There is plenty of them out there. You will need screen to put the running irssi into the background on your server so that you may disconnect from the remote server after you set irrsi up.

So, after you have got your irssi configured and running under screen, you will have to load the proxy plugin for irssi, set a password for your future pidgin-to-irssi connection and bind one free port to irssi for sharing server connection. Here is how to do it:

where the parameter is a network name you configured earlier, and

Ok, so I wanted to lock my session after suspending to disk while using Ion3 WM. There are a few solutions to this but what I’ve found works best for me is using vlock. What you should do to make this work is the following (after you have installed vlock):

Edit your .xinitrc and add the following line before the exec part:

Also, uncomment the following line in /etc/hibernate/common.conf

After you suspend to disk, vlock will lock all virtual terminals and sessions and again later after unsuspending will it prompt you for your username and password.

U tjednu od 08. do 12. prosinca 2008. godine osječka podružnica Hrvatske udruga Linux korisnika i Udruga Osijek Wireless u suradnji s Gradskom i sveučilišnom knjižnicom Osijek, Klubom Paklena naranča organizira Tjedan slobodnog softvera.

Svako poslijepodne od ponedjeljka do petka organizirat će se projekcija filma “The Codebreakers”. Radi se o BBC-jevom dokumentarnom filmu emitiranom prvi put u svibnju 2006. godine, a koji govori o uporabi slobodnog softvera i softvera otvorenog koda u zemljama u razvoju te kako uporaba istog potiče njihov daljnji razvoj i napredak. U 40-minutni film uključeni su intervjui i životne priče osoba iz cijeloga svijeta, a glavno je pitanje na koje film želi dati odgovor može li slobodan softver i softver otvorenog koda postati mostom koji će zemljama u razvoju omogućiti što lakše i bezbjednije premošćivanje digitalnog jaza poznatog kao digital divide. Više o filmu možete saznati ovdje.

Nakon projekcije filma slijedi kraće predavanje o povijesti, nastanku, filozofiji i prednostima slobodnog softvera poznatog kao FOSS (Free and Open Source Software). Termin označava softver čiji se način izrade i cijena razlikuju od konvencionalnog softvera. Ti su softveri licencirani open source licencama koje omogućuju veliku slobodu distribucije, ali i slobodnu doradu softvera i njegovu široku uporabu. Programi otvorenog koda su slobodni i besplatni. Njihova je uporaba za bilo koju svrhu zagarantirana slobodnom licencom te, iako autor zadržava pravo prodavanja i relicenciranja svojeg rada, sve ono što je jednom licencirano kao slobodno i ostaje takvim. Sukladno tome svatko je slobodan pod jasno definiranim uvjetima mijenjati takav softver. Više o slobodnom/besplatnom softveru i softveru otvorenog koda možete saznati na sljedećim adresama: ifossf, fseurope te fosswire.

Na kraju slijedi podjela besplatnih materijala sudionicima Tjedna slobodnog softvera – različitih Linux distribucija i priručnika u e-formatu te pružanje informacija o djelovanju Hrvatske udruge Linux korisnika i načinima na koji se svatko može uključiti.

Cilj je ovog događaja kroz pet dana upoznati šire građanstvo Osijeka prije svega sa slobodnim softverom kao alternativom, a zatim i s filozofijom koja iza njega stoji kao i prednostima koji isti nudi u svakodnevnoj i profesionalnoj uporabi. Pozivamo sve zainteresirane da prisustvuju ovom događaju i saznaju zašto je slobodni softver bolje, učinkovitije i ekonomičnije rješenje.

Tjedan slobodnog softvera održat će se od 08. do 12. prosinca u Gradskoj i sveučilišnoj knjižnici Osijek (Europske avenije 24), u prostoru Kluba Paklena naranča prema sljedećem rasporedu:

Got this weird problem with firefox3 under fresh installations of Fedora and Arch Linux distros. Firefox hanged every time i tried to install a plugin. The solution to this was very simple though.

Edit /etc/hosts and add the following line: