Personal Knowledge Base

I've recently used Trac to create a little personal Knowledge Base.
The only aim of this Knowledge Base is to centralize access to various quick information corresponding to specific computer science issues/situations.

Initially, I've set up this system for personal purposes.
Nevertheless, if you find current tickets (Knowledge Base elements) interesting and you wish to add some yourself, send me an email to admin[dot] knowledgeBase[at]bsquare[dot]no-ip[dot]org.

There is currently very few tickets (lack of time), but as soon as possible, I'll add more.

Get sound working with plugins for Firefox or Opera 9 under Fedora 8 (i386 and x86_64)

In addition to plug-ins installation (see this post), it is needed to ensure having an installed soundwrapper to get sound working under a Web Browser.
Whatever the architecture of the OS, it seems absolutely needed to have a i386 installed soundwrapper.
For instance, install the arts (KDE) soundwrapper:
yum install arts.i386

Install multimedia plugins for Opera 9 under Fedora 8 (i386 and x86_64)

There should be no problem to get multimedia plug-ins installed for Opera 9 under Fedora with a "full" i386 or x86_64 architecture installation.
In some cases, this post may help (Opera being "Mozilla compatible" as Firefox) with installation having i386 and x86_64 components.
Nevertheless, other situations may still need additional instructions to be performed.

It was my case with my installation: Opera 9.27 (i386), under a Fedora 8 x86_64 installation.
In particular, the gecko-mediaplayer package (replacing the mplayerplug-in one) was available only in x86_64 architecture. The nspluginwrapper method does not seem to work with Opera, so a i386 version of gecko-mediaplayer package is needed.
This is quick way to get it installed:
- get a i386 version, for instance browsing the livna repository online, or using yumdownloader under a i386 installation,
- install it using yum (it will install all the needed dependencies)
yum localinstall "gecko-mediaplayer-XXX.rpm"
- the i386 plug-ins might be installed under /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins

To enable plug-ins into Opera, follow the usual way:
- Menu Tools->Preferences->Advanced->Content->Plug-in options->Change path
- add the /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins path (or equivalent)
- valid, and then click "Find new..." button.

Close and launch again Opera.
You may use the -debugplugin option to get debug information about plug-ins.

Finally, under Opera, take a look to the "opera:plugins" information page to check if plug-ins are available.

Install Opera 9 under Fedora 8 (i386 and x86_64)

Those instructions might be interesting for other configuration too (for instance Fedora 7 and prior).
The GNU/Linux Opera 9 package does not seem providing all needed dependencies information. Such a way, even if the rpm is well installed, there might be trouble to launch Opera.

To begin, to install Opera:
- download the rpm of the wished version, Opera 9.27 being currently the latest stable one;
- install it with yum to get the maximum (but not all) needed packages installed too:
yum --nogpgcheck localinstall "opera-XXX.rpm"
- ensure to have qt package installed (i386 for v9.27 and prior; x86_64 might be enough for newer version)
- ensure to have a up to date Java installation to benefit from the maximum functionalities (again, i386 for v9.27 and prior; x86_64 might be enough for newer version)
- it might be needed to update the LD_LIBRARY_PATH to specify where to find some libraries: libqt-mt.so (qt), libjvm.so and libawt.so (Java):
For instance, if you have installed the i386 JDK 6u6 under /usr/share/java/jdk1.6.0_06.i386/
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib64:/usr/lib/qt-3.3/:/usr/share/java/jdk1.6.0_06.i386/jre/lib/i386/client/:/usr/share/java/jdk1.6.0_06.i386/jre/lib/i386/

Compile VMwareTools on Linux kernel 2.6.22

To compile the vmhgfs VMwareTools on Linux kernel 2.6.22, it is needed to patch the source code, like explained there, from a tar.gz installation.
The same fix works from rpm installation, although the VMwareTools source code directory may be different (/usr/lib/vmware-tools/modules/source for me):
- move to /usr/lib/vmware-tools/modules/source/
- untar vmhgfs.tar and backup it
- then follow the same instructions:
"Now edit vmhgfs/driver.c and change lines 44 and 45 from
#define INODE_SET_II_P(inode, info) do { (inode)->u.generic_ip = (info); } while (0)
#define INODE_GET_II_P(inode) ((HgfsInodeInfo *)(inode)->u.generic_ip)
to
#define INODE_SET_II_P(inode, info) do { (inode)->i_private = (info); } while (0)
#define INODE_GET_II_P(inode) ((HgfsInodeInfo *)(inode)->i_private)

Also, remove line 763: inode->i_blksize = HGFS_BLOCKSIZE;
"
- create a new vmhgfs.tar with patched source code
- the compilation can now be fully performed -> launch /usr/bin/vmware-config-tools.pl again