i m moving.

Thanks to the blogspot for supporting me for something like 3 yrs.
I have moved my blog to http://alindsharma.wordpress.com/
So anyone who is interested in following me in my quest for a better user experience of debian, can follow me on the new link. Thanks.

udev problems while upgrading debian lenny to squeeze

If you are upgrading to squeeze from lenny debian, then there are great chances that you will get stuck while the system tries to upgrade udev. There are two ways to deal with the problem
A) install the new kernel using "apt-get install" , boot into it, and then run dist-upgrade
B) "touch /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade" , and then run dist-upgrade
Hope this saves some of your precious time.

Reference : http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=52360

packaging python modules

Recently I am becoming more and more involved in building for-fun-modules in python at home. As a result the problem of packaging my modules started to show up on my face. I found a good page which tells about the good practices in python.

http://infinitemonkeycorps.net/docs/pph/

For the time being i have decided on using pep8 and pylint for source confirmity. distutils for packaging and may be pip for managing the packages (iff debian package management system falls short due to some reason).

Tell me if you have some other solution.

Pulseaudio : The Incredible

The pulseaudio is great. And the greatest thing is that you need not do any config settings in debian for that. Just install it and use it straight-forward. I am using padevchooser as the applet for configurations. Now I can easily add bluetooth headsets and route the audio to them. The blueman applet has pulseaudio plugin. Just enable it.

For using mplayer
alias mplayer='mplayer -ao pulse'

In gmusicbrowser you can do the settings in mplayer advance tab in settings.

And that solves some of the problems with music/videos.

Recommended compiler options in gcc

These are the recommended compiler options for catching most of the errors in c/c++ program.

-ansi -pedantic -Wall -W -Wconversion -Wshadow -Wcast-qual -Wwrite-strings

You can alias it with gcc/g++ in your bashrc/zshrc and your life will become a bit cooler ;)

alias g++="g++ -ansi -pedantic -Wall -W -Wconversion -Wshadow -Wcast-qual -Wwrite-strings"

alias gcc="gcc -ansi -pedantic -Wall -W -Wconversion -Wshadow -Wcast-qual -Wwrite-strings"

Ref : http://www.network-theory.co.uk/docs/gccintro/gccintro_32.html

openbox-crystal

Just to satisfy the "very itch", I am planning to develop some default bindings and configurations for openbox widow manager. People who are intrested in developing the code or contributing on the ideas are most welcome.The source code can be downloaded from the website of openbox-crystal> It will be the home of the development (until further notified) and license will be obviously in GPL.So come on, Give me some sunshine, errr.... gimme some hand.:)

anyremote : the golden bullet bluetooth remote for computers

Though I already have a remote for my laptop, but this anyremote thing is just awesome. We can use any bluetooth compatible mobiles ( ok, most of the them ) as a remote. I am using ganyremote (gui for anyremote) and blueman (gui for connecting bluetooth devices). So the process is as follows:

# apt-get install ganyremote blueman

Make sure that you can connect your mobile using blueman.

Download the appropriate java client's jar / jad file from http://anyremote.sourceforge.net/dload.html and install it on your mobile. Now start the ganyremote and start its server (can use execute button on the ganyremote applet). And then start anyremote-client on your phone. Then search in anyremote-client for other devices and press connect to connect the computer. Voila ! I was able to control gmusicbrowser from the mobile.
Next aim is to write a config in ganyremot to be able to switch of computer remotely.