Fix setup of pulseaudio under GNU/Linux Fedora 8

It is important to ensure that pulseaudio is well installed, and used as wished.
After having installed the kde-settings-pulseaudio package (and perhaps something else ?), I have had issue with sound support.
There is lots of interesting information on the "The Perfect Setup" page of official pulseaudio site.

According to my needs, I have followed the instructions about "ALSA Applications" and "KDE" (mplayer and xmms works well without the given instructions).

Unfortunately, I have had still problems, and found that several other users have too.
The solution can be found into this topic:
- simply add the MODE="0666" mention after some instructions of the /etc/udev/rules.d/40-alsa.rules file,
- ensure there is no more /tmp/pulse-XXX (with XXX username) directory with not rights enough.

But it is not enough neither, additional information can be found on this topic, it solves my problem one for good.

Hang problems under GNU/Linux Fedora 8

It seems there is several situations leading to kernel hang under GNU/Linux Fedora 8.
The bug 283161 report gives lots of information about solution.
For instance, this is kernel options which can be used (not all together):
- nohz=off highres=off
- clocksource=acpi_pm
- nolapic_timer

Unfortunately, I have tests all "sets" but without success.
Lots of tests and several discussions lead mind to potential graphical driver issue.
As soon as I have replaced use of radeon by vesa, I had no more problem (but I have had no time enough to keep on testing).
To benefit from my graphical card efficiencies, I have installed the last Fedora 7 radeon drivers version and have still no more issue (after having switched back use of those radeon drivers).

This is only a temporarily fix until an official solution is given.
I will report as soon as I would know about it.

Upgrade GNU/Linux Fedora from 7 to 8 (with yum)

Upgrade from Fedora 7 to Fedora 8 can be done with the same method I have explained into another post.
In addition, there is recommendations of Fedora project.
Eventually, this is additional instructions allowing to find potential issues with installed packages (need yum-utils package):
package-cleanup --problems
to find problems
package-cleanup --orphans
to list installed packages which are not available from currently configured repositories. It allows to find orphan installed packages which may be removed now.

Personally, I have had hang problems after upgrade (independent from it).
My next post will be linked to it, and known solutions.

Make Microsoft Windows stops swapping

I've recently found something which should be very useful in various situation.
A register key to update to disable the swap of drivers and system.
It might be interesting after having minimized an application and let it during some times, for instance.
In other words, a performance improvement VS some more memory use.

I almost do not use Microsoft Windows anymore, so let me know if it does something for you ...

Remove network interface under Solaris

Under Solaris, it is very more easy to remove than to add. The network interface can be found thanks to the couple (name, inet address):
N.B.: All checks have been removed for better legibility, but it is very important to check returned code after each request.

// We consider the existence of the variables (unsigned char *) "networkInterfaceName", "inetAddress" which could be respectively "eth0" and "192.168.80.1" for instance.

int socketDescriptor;
struct sockaddr_in *addr;
struct lifreq lifr;

sd = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_DGRAM, 0);

memset(&lifr, 0, sizeof(lifr));
addr = (struct sockaddr_in *) &(lifr.lifr_addr);
strncpy(lifr.lifr_name, networkInterfaceName, sizeof(lifr.lifr_name));
addr->sin_family = AF_INET;
addr->sin_addr.s_addr = inet_addr(inetAddress);
ioctl(socketDescriptor, SIOCLIFREMOVEIF, (caddr_t) &lifr)
close(socketDescriptor);