Installing Skype 2.2 on Fedora 17 x64

I am happy that Skype for Linux was not totally abandoned, but come on. Skype 4.0 for Linux is fucking terrible. It is so bad, that I highly recommend that you get rid of it and install the much more useful version 2.2 beta. (Kinda funny how the beta was more useful than the release isn't it?)

This is going to work only on Fedora 17 64 btw...

1. Download the Skype 2.2 Beta RPM. You can google for it, or you can use this one.
2. Install the dependencies:
1. sudo yum install-y qt-x11.i686 libXScrnSaver.i686 alsa-plugins-pulseaudio.i686 libXv.i686
3. Install the RPM for Skype:
1. sudo yum loclainstall -y skype-2.2.0.35-3.el6.nux.i586.rpm

That should get it going fine. If you already had Skype 4.0 installed then the dependencies are likely not needed.

Fedora 17 and Gigolo

Again this is a note to myself, and any others who might have had the same issue. After installing Fedora 17 XFCE Spin, for some unknown, and rather bewildering reason, it does not have Samba support for browsing files enabled by default.

To enable samba sharing via the ever popular Gigolo app perform the following :

1. sudo yum -y install samaba-client
2. sudo yum -y install gvfs-smb

After this you should be able to open Gigolo and connect to a Samba share. Why Fedora left this out of the final release is somewhat confusing, but oh well.

Port Forwarding on DD-WRT Not Working?

This is really for my own benefit, so chill out. If I post it here I am much less likely of forgetting just what in the hell has gone wrong.

For those of us running DD-WRT firmware in our routers, port forwarding can be a complete pain in the ass if you do not know what you are doing. And let us be clear up front, I do not know what I am doing with IPTABLES! That shit is completely foreign to me and I would consider myself a pretty well-rounded geek.

So here is the trouble. You just installed or re-flash dd-wrt, this includes the version of dd-wrt that is running on the Buffalo routers by the way, and lo and behold your port forwards are not working. WTF?!? I thoguht this shit is supposed to be awesome, etc., etc. bitch bitch bitch.

The issue is that a port forward is from WAN to LAN, and that is actually working just fine for you. Go ahead an NMap yourself if you think I am crazy. But dd-wrt does not allow port forwarding on the loopback, so your nifty port forward is essentially lost at the router.

This is how to fix this.

1. telnet  into your router (alternatively you could goto the Administration tab in the webgui and then to the Commands box)
   

   telnet 192.168.11.1

2. Enter the following into the prompt:
   

   iptables -y nat -I POSTROUTING -o br0 -s 192.168.11.0/24 -d 192.168.11.0/24 -j MASQUERADE

   Remember to change the line above to match your local network path.
3. Hit enter and close telnet.
4. Voila! Your port forwards are working!

Basically all the above actually does is force a loopback into.... fuck it I don't know what the hell it does, but it works. And this might help someone else who has this fun little problem in the future.

Making Chromium View PDFs

Chromium by default has no built-in PDF viewer unlike its cousin Google Chrome. I am not really certain why the hell this is, but it is. This is the easiest way that I could get this to work on Fedora (sometimes I wish I was back in Arch).

1. Install Google Chrome. 
Yeah I know, just trust me here, besides we only need one file, libpdf.so.


sudo yum -y install google-chrome-stable



After Chrome is installed, copy the libpdf.so file out of /opt/google/chrome to Chromium

sudo cp /opt/google/chrome/libpdf.so /usr/lib64/chromium-browser/plugins/


Go ahead and change the file permissions on libpdf.so to 755.

sudo chmod 755 libpdf.so


Now open Chromium and go to chrome://plugins. You should see a plugin called libpdf. Mine was enabled at this point but if your's is not, then do so.


That's it!

See that wasn't too hard was it?

A side note you should be aware of, in this format libpdf.so will not get updated. So it might be a good idea to do so manually every once and a while. Or you can leave Chrome installed and create a symlink to the chromium install for libpdf.so. 

Flushing DNS in Linux

This is the easiest possible way that I know of to flush your DNS in Linux when you are not running a DNS server. Simply toggle the lan port off and then back on.

Installing Chromium on Fedora

For some reason you really have to work to get Fedora to install the chromium browser. Hopefully this will help someone else out there, and serve as a reminder to myself when I need to do it again.

My WiFi Router Finally Died

Last night my ancient, by tech standards, Linksys WRT54gs v7 wireless router finally died. I had been running DD-WRT on that guy for about 5 years now and it has been fairly reliable, until last night.

I was watching Religious, the Bill Maher documentary on religion, go figure, when my Roku lost all connection. I had experienced some down time over the weekend and a general slowdown, but attributed it to the new placement of the Roku inside an enclosed entertainment system. (I know that doesn't matter but I was grasping at straws to be honest.)

Anyway, I checked on a wired PC and that came back fine, so I checked on my phone, no signal. Checked another wireless device with the same results. After checking the admin page on the router I realized it thought the wireless was on but there was no WAN traffic at all. Antennas were plugged in and there was no movement of the router to make me think it could be an interference issue. So I guess the wireless radio went out. It is rare but it does happen. 

So I had a slightly newer Netgear wireless router laying around, it was an early N device, so I set it up last night and got everything working. Not a big deal really but shit happens I suppose. I don't think I will be going back with another Linksys, something I never thoguht I would say five years ago, but there blatant refusal to fix a gaping security flaw in their WPS system makes them a liabitlity now. I am not too thrilled with the Netgear, but it is working fine for now. I probably will find a good D-Link eventually, but for now this seems to be getting the job done.

My conkyrc …

background yes
use_xft yes
xftfont Sans:size=8
xftalpha 1
update_interval 1.0
total_run_times 0
own_window yes
own_window_transparent yes
own_window_type desktop
own_window_hints
double_buffer yes
minimum_size 200 1250
maximum_width 200
draw_shades no
draw_outline no
draw_borders no
draw_graph_borders yes
default_color white
default_shade_color blue
default_outline_color white
alignment top_right
gap_x 12
gap_y 32
no_buffers yes
uppercase no
cpu_avg_samples 2
override_utf8_locale no
undecorated,below,sticky,skip_taskbar,skip_pager
TEXT
${font sans-serif:bold:size=20}$alignc ArchLinux
${font sans-serif:bold:size=8}SYSTEM ${hr 2}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}$sysname $kernel $alignr $machine
Host:$alignr$nodename
Uptime:$alignr$uptime
#File System: $alignr${fs_type}
#Mail: $alignr ${execi 300 python ~/.scripts/gmail.py}
${font sans-serif:bold:size=8}Intel Core2 Duo E6300${hr 2}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}${cpugraph cpu1}
Core 1: ${cpu cpu1}% ${cpubar cpu1}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}${cpugraph cpu2}
Core 2: ${cpu cpu2}% ${cpubar cpu2}
${font sans-serif:bold:size=8}MEMORY ${hr 2}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}RAM $alignc $mem / $memmax $alignr $memperc%
$membar
${font sans-serif:bold:size=8}HDD ${hr 2}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}/ $alignc ${fs_used /} / ${fs_size /} $alignr ${fs_used_perc /}%
${fs_bar /}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}/home $alignc ${fs_used /home} / ${fs_size /home} $alignr ${fs_used_perc /home}%
${fs_bar /home}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}Seagate $alignc ${fs_used /media/SEA_DISC} / ${fs_size /media/SEA_DISC} $alignr ${fs_used_perc /media/SEA_DISC}%
${fs_bar /media/SEA_DISC}
${font sans-serif:bold:size=8}TOP PROCESSES ${hr 2}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}${top_mem name 1}${alignr}${top mem 1} %
${top_mem name 2}${alignr}${top mem 2} %
$font${top_mem name 3}${alignr}${top mem 3} %
$font${top_mem name 4}${alignr}${top mem 4} %
${font sans-serif:bold:size=8}NETWORK ${hr 2}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}IP address: $alignr ${addr eth0}
${downspeedgraph eth0}
DLS:${downspeed eth0} kb/s $alignr total: ${totaldown eth0}
${upspeedgraph eth0}
ULS:${upspeed eth0} kb/s $alignr total: ${totalup eth0}
${color FFFFFF}${font LCDMono:Bold:size=10}${alignc}A Dance of Dragons${font}${color}
${alignc}Release Date
${font LCDMono:Bold:size=10}${color AAAAFF} ${alignc}${exec ~/Apps/countdown.sh}${color}${font}
${execi 10 ~/Apps/mocp.sh | fold -w55 -s}

Here is the mocp.sh script that is dumping my mocp content…

#!/bin/sh
    TITLE=”`mocp -i | grep ‘Title:’ | sed -e ‘s/^.*: //’`”;
    if [ “$TITLE” != “” ]; then
     ARTIST=”`mocp -i | grep ‘Artist:’ | sed -e ‘s/^.*: //’`”;
         SONGTITLE=”`mocp -i | grep ‘SongTitle:’ | sed -e ‘s/^.*: //’`”;
     ALBUM=”` mocp -i | grep ‘Album:’ | sed -e ‘s/^.*: //’`”;
     if [ “ARTIST” != “” ]; then ARTIST=”$ARTIST - “; fi
     if [ “ALBUM” != “” ]; then ALBUM=”($ALBUM)”; fi
     echo $ARTIST $SONGTITLE $ALBUM
    else echo MOC not running
    fi

And this is the little countdown script…

#!/bin/bash
START=$(date +%s)
END=$(date +%s -d “2011-7-12 00:00”)
SECONDS=$(( END - START ))
MINUTES=$(( SECONDS / 60 ))
SECONDS=$(( SECONDS - MINUTES*60 ))
HOURS=$(( MINUTES / 60 ))
MINUTES=$(( MINUTES - HOURS*60 ))
DAYS=$(( HOURS / 24 ))
HOURS=$(( HOURS - DAYS*24 ))
echo “${DAYS}d ${HOURS}h ${MINUTES}m ${SECONDS}s”