Index:TIP

From Gentoo Linux Wiki

Tips are relatively small articles that do not provide a complete walkthrough (as HOWTOs should).

Contents 1 Applications 1.1 General Recommendations 1.2 Editors 1.3 Internet Browsing 1.4 Office 1.5 Instant Messaging 1.6 Other 2 Audio/Video 3 DVD 4 File Systems 5 Kernel 6 Network 7 Other 8 Portage 8.1 Package Manufacturing 8.2 Syncing 8.3 Configuration File Management 8.4 /etc/portage 8.5 Portage Speed 9 System 10 Terminals / Shells 11 X Window System 12 Desktops

[edit] Applications

[edit] General Recommendations

• Recommended Packages
• HOWTO Lightweight package selection (for basic console usage)
• HOWTO Lightweight package selection (using Xfce and suitable for office usage)
• TIP Open Source Alternatives

[edit] Editors

• Emacs Packages - Emacs doesn't automatically load packages installed through Portage, here's how you enable it.
• Emacs server - tip to start Emacs server (MultiTTY) as init.d script
• Nano Context Highlighting - Get Nano to do context highlighting.
• Changing the default editor - Change the default text editor for gentoo
• Nano Mouse Support - Use the mouse as expected in nano (select text, access Terminal context-menu, etc.)

[edit] Internet Browsing

• Firefox Settings - Some useful Firefox settings from about:config.
• Firefox Plugins - Plugins directory
• Firefox and Mozilla Weave - using Weave with your own server
• Getting the standard Firefox logo - How to get back that orange-blue look of Firefox
• Integrate Thunderbird and Firefox - Open URL's from Thunderbird and create new mails in Thunderbird from mailto's in Firefox
• Fix Thunderbird Component Problems - How to fix problems caused by missing components in Thunderbird 0.7.3.
• Lightweight firefox with 1.5-like tabs(tabs can be moved) - light but some security implication(non-split code and huge code)
• Attach files to Thunderbird / Service menu - A small, simple script that is able to attach more than one file on a new composed mail under thunderbird.
• Mozilla Thunderbird
• Auto-detect proxy settings using Opera - Work around Opera's inability to autodetect proxy settings
• Building Epiphany Webkit from Source - Konqueror/Safari comes to Gnome! now you can test your pages in a WebKit broswer without installing Konqueror.

[edit] Office

• Encrypted GNUcash - How to secure your data in GNUcash (or any other program).
• Openoffice dead keys - How to make openoffice recognize dead keys for accented letters, international keyboard.
• Evolution and no icons - How to get the icons back.
• KWord and Spellcheck - How to get KWord to spellcheck correctly.
• Maple - Get the installer working

[edit] Instant Messaging

• Gaim Autoprofile plugin - Powerful automated status changer
• Audacious - now playing song in Gaim2's status
• "Now playing" plugin for Pidgin - many players supported
• Gaim account state plugin - Useful tip to make installing this plugin less painful

[edit] Other

• Konqueror (browser) - Speed-Up
• Pan - More connections per server
• List of Useful Console Applications - A listing of console-based alternative applications that can be run from any computer with an SSH client.
• Photoshop - How-to install Photoshop on Linux and a list of the best alternatives to Photoshop.
• Scripts - How-to publish scripts on this wiki easily
• Procmail configuration - few "recipes" for your procmailrc

[edit] Audio/Video

• Applying replaygain to entire FLAC collection
• Adding tags to flac files with grip
• Audio notifications in KDE 3 without aRts
• Check media files for errors
• Encode Video for IPod
• Encode Video for the PlayStation 3 (PS3)
• Encode Video for SonyEricsson Mobile
• Encode Video for Nokia N95 Mobile
• TIP Encode Video for Windows Media player
• Encode Video for iAudio/iRiver
• Make sound work with ALSA and Quake3/Enemy-Territory - How to get the sound working in Quake3 and Enemy-Territory with ALSA.
• MEncoder Tips and Tricks
• Send audio from one card to the other
• Troubleshooting Gstreamer
• MythTV to DVD - Using nuvexport to create dvds of your favorite shows without commercials
• MythTV to iPod - Using MythTV, user jobs, nuvexport and AtomicParsley to create tagged iPod videos of your favorite shows without commercials
• DVD Ripping for the Hauppauge 350
• Tips and Tricks for dvd::rip
• Converting flash videos
• Converting AMR to WAV and vice versa
• TIP Converting Audio files from one format to another
• Extracting audio from a video file
• Managing your collection of dvd extracted to the hard disk
• Managing your jamendo collection or your mp3 album collection with covers
• Downloading from Dailymotion
• TIP Force Aspect Ratio On Widescreen TV

[edit] DVD

• DVD: Rip, Shrink, and Burn
• Transcode Examples
• HAL DVD and DVDR Links - Make HAL create /media/dvd and /media/dvdr, instead of /media/cdrom and /media/cdrecorder
• DVD Ripping for the Hauppauge 350

[edit] File Systems

• NTFS: Fix Permissions - Fix permissions on NTFS formatted file systems.
• Reiser4 Enabled LiveCD - Use Lxnay's Gentoo RR4 LiveCD.
• Script to Unmount Busy Devices - Manage unmounting of stubborn devices.
• Mount ISO and MDF Images
• lowercase files and directories
• Auto Mounting Swap - Simple rc-script to detect and mount swap
• Photo Recovery From Defective Memory Card - How to recover pictures when you cannot mount the disk anymore
• Use memory on video card as swap - Video memory not to be wasted!
• Run cryptsetup from XDM/KDM/GDM - Mount /home after bootup so you won't have to wait in front of your pc between cryptsetup and login
• Ext3 - Tune file system parameters
• /media mount points - Assign a label to a partition to set the /media mount point
• Gfs on ppc64 Red Hat Global File System on PPC64
• TIP Create bind mount point - Create a bind mount point to mount a mounted file system to another point in the file system

[edit] Kernel

• Bootable Floppy with GRUB
• Discover usb devices from dev entries -- If you have /dev/sda, is it your camera or iPod?
• Kernel Versions - How to retrieve current kernel versions on login.
• Reboot after panic - Reboot after a kernel panic.
• Kernel Autobuild - Script that automatically builds new kernel.
• Upgrading your kernel
• kexec - Loading a new kernel without rebooting
• Core Patterns - An organized way of storing core files.
• Kernel/Modules - Packages that need to be rebuilt after a new kernel is compiled.

[edit] Network

• Gentoo for Dialup Users - How to maintain your Gentoo system over dialup or without a network connection.
• Networkless Maintenance
• SSH Reverse Tunnel Reverse Tunnelling through firewalls/NAT in SSH
• Speed up SSH
• SSH Limit Logins - Limit which logins be used for SSH connection
• Dual-Homed Gentoo Server - How to use two or more internet connections with separate gateways.
• Dual Internet connections - How to load-balance across multiple outbound internet connections
• Jumbo Frames - Adding support for Jumbo Frames (MTU > 1500)
• TIP NFS premount check - check if NFS host is available before actually mount it
• TIP Block an IP - block an IP with iptables
• TIP Rename Network Interfaces - Rename network Interfaces
• Tip ddclient - Setting up ddclient to automatically update a dynamic domain name.
• TIP Gentoo's resolv.conf handling - The final guide to how Gentoo handles /etc/resolv.conf
• TIP Avoid slow mirrors - Do not fetch files from slow mirrors, try other ones until a sufficiently fast one is found

[edit] Other

• TIP IRC troubleshooting - getting proper troubleshooting in #gentoo
• Conky
• Ardour on OSX
• Backup using cron (simple)
• Common Links
• Converting from Debian to Gentoo - How system administration compares in Gentoo to Debian.
• Converting from Fedora to Gentoo - How system administration compares in Gentoo to Fedora.
• Design your own Framebuffer Splash
• Java Installation Help
• Keychain - How to use and setup the keychain program in portage.
• Rox-Filer - Video thumbnails
• Selectively View Config Files - Selectively view entries in config files.
• Toshiba Install Windows
• Simple snapshot style backup
• Bluetooth Proximity Monitor - Let your computer know when you're near!
• Enable sshd remotely
• Make Vivid Color Background Images Easily - Using GIMP, make an excellent backdrop image for your desktop. Very easy to do and fun.
• Chainloading a bootable CD-ROM from GRUB - How to be able to boot a bootable CD-ROM even if your BIOS won't allow or is able to. Avoid messing with the BIOS setup and password protect the CD-ROM boot option.
• Installing Gentoo using USB-CDROM - Using a USB-CDROM can be a hassle since it sometimes tends to timeout before root is mounted.
• Some LiveCD related tips
• Imaging with yet another ghost installer - How to use YAGI
• Force the use of php-4
• Add custom stages to a gentoo cd
• Change mouse hz Make the mouse feel more quick/responsive
• WineTools
• Canon Pixma printing guide Guide with ebuilds for the Pixma line of Canon printers
• TIP Convert latin1 to UTF-8 in MySQL Convert latin1 to UTF-8 in MySQL
• TIP Colored Command Output with grc - Unified approach to have colored output from gcc, diff, etc.
• TIP DC ( Direct Connect ) Clients for Linux - DC Clients for linux
• TIP Start your Roomba remotely - How to clean while you're away

[edit] Portage

• Automatically update portage - Automatically update portage tree / clean old distfiles / get mails on new packages
• Skipping fetch for CVS packages - (Re-)emerge CVS based packages offline.
• Remap Portage Colors
• Using PORTAGE_BINHOST - Download binary packages for portage
• Control revdep-rebuild - Stop binary packages from showing up.
• Flagedit - Set useflags easily on a per-package or global basis. Better than euse
• Euse - Quickly set USE variables
• Download dependencies while compiling - Make good use of bandwidth and CPU, speeding up emerge.
• File is Corrupt or Incomplete - Solve file is corrupt or incomplete (digest does not match) errors.
• Find binary package duplicates - Find and delete unneeded binary package duplicates in /usr/portage/packages.
• Getting total merge time - Get the total time you've spent compiling packages on your computer.
• Gentoolkit - A very helpful Gentoo utility.
• Masking Packages - How to manually mask packages so emerge won't install/upgrade them.
• Installing Specific Packages - Install specific package versions.
• Installing Packages with Reiser4 - Solve problems emerging packages on a Reiser4 partitioned filesystem.
• nice and PORTAGE_NICENESS - Make Portage behave while multitasking.
• No More "sudo emerge" - Save yourself some keystrokes by setting up a Bash alias.
• Portage Overlays - List of various sources to get more ebuilds.
• The /etc/portage/bashrc file - Use one of Portage's lesser known features.
• Portage & the "new use" Feature - Track changes to USE flag settings.
• Watch emerge progress - Install status of a currently emerging package.
• Portage utilities not in portage - Useful utilities not found in the Portage package.
• Locales - Save 90% of the space occupied by locales on your system.
• Tab Completion - Learn about TAB completion.
• Upgrading Portage - Quick overview on how to upgrade portage
• Search Portage Tree Using Regular Expressions
• Portage Server Only - Portage For Server Only Installs - No X Please
• Shutdown after emerge - How to shutdown computer automatically after emerge completes.
• Starting emerge remotely - How to start a compile remotely and have it continue after you logout.
• Making portage use /usr/sbin/sendmail to send out ELOG mails
• Downloading distfiles on another machine - Download packages on a faster network.
• USE helper scripts - Some simple scripts to deal with USE flags.
• TIP emerge only free software packages(so you don't have non-free dependencies)
• emerge without ethernet
• Make common emerges easier with an update script
• Working with repositories

[edit] Package Manufacturing

• Filtering Packages - Build only the packages you want from the stuff you have on hand.
• Providing binary packages - How to provide compiled binary packages via the portage tree

[edit] Syncing

• Limit bandwidth while "emerge sync" - make.conf option to limit bandwidth used by rsync.
• Relocating the default portage directory - How to relocate the default portage directory on a live system.
• Exclude categories from emerge sync - Exclude packages and entire categories from updating ebuilds during emerge sync
• emerge sync only one package - Explanation on why this can't be done.
• Sync your private overlay - Keep your private portage overlays in sync

[edit] Configuration File Management

• dispatch-conf - A better way to manage configuration files and an alternative to etc-update.

[edit] /etc/portage

• Dealing with masked packages - How to handle masked packages found in Portage.
• Recover ~arch Packages - How to get a list of 'testing' packages on your system when /etc/portage/package.keywords is gone.
• New /etc/portage layout - Details the replacement for singular package.* files within /etc/portage.
• Easy cleaning of /etc/portage/package.keywords
• Regenerate package keywords - Generate a new package.keywords file containing specific version information, based upon the installed packages
• Clean Portage Package Dot Files - Clean /etc/portage/package.use and package.keywords from unnecessary entries
• Unmasking multiple packages for upgrading - Got a lot of packages that need to be unmasked?

[edit] Portage Speed

• Use ccache - Recompile faster using a compiler cache.
• Speedup portage with Psyco - Using psyco, a python extension, can speedup Portage by factor 2 to 10.
• Speedup portage with tmpfs - Speedup compiling using tmpfs.
• Speeding up portage - Speedup package management by putting portage on its own partition.
• Speedup searches in portage - Greatly improve search speeds in Portage.
• Speedup portage with cdb - Make portage go faster with a database backend.
• Speedup portage with sqlite - Make portage go faster with a database backend.
• Tuning GCC performance
• HOWTO Emerge on very slow systems - Emerge on a faster system via NFS
• TIP Gentoo Install and Migrate - Setup a new Gentoo install on good hardware within a chroot and then migrate it to your old hardware via tar/ssh
• AMD64 - x86 distcc - Cross-compiling on AMD64 and x86 (32bit).

[edit] System

• Recommended Packages
• Miscellaneous Fixes and Patches
• Bluetooth headset daemon and init script - Daemon that waits for your headset being switched on and then automatically loads btsco
• ACPI/Configuration
• ACPI/Map events to keyboard shortcut
• Adding many users to a group
• Booting into single user mode
• Fixing Boot Errors
• Boot Floppydisk Image without Floppy using GRUB - How to boot a Floppydisk-Image when no Floppy(-Drive) is availible using GRUB
• CFLAGS matrix - People's experiences with some of the less tested CFLAGS.
• GCC Flags Matrix - A look into optimization and miscellaneous other flags.
• Chroot from a livecd
• Configuration Files - Where they are and what they do.
• Change Capslock to Control -- some people like this better
• Clean Up Cruft - How to cleanup cruft on your system using Ed Catmur's cruft script.
• Faketoo - How to create a Gentoo install using a chroot jail.
• Fast Copy - How to copy files much faster as opposed to using the 'cp' command.
• Free up disk space in Gentoo
• GCC 4.0 Testing Tips - How to set up a system using GCC 4.0.
• Testing GCC 4.1 - How to set up a system using GCC 4.1.
• Gentoo Init Scripts - Using Gentoo init scripts.
• Install programs without portage - Installing packages which are not in portage - the clean way.
• Link Root to Main User - Rid yourself of the need for root's separate home directory.
• Numlock - Toggle numlock on default.
• Passwordless Login - Login automatically after the boot up.
• PortingTips
• Powerdown on "shutdown -h" - How to make your system power down when you issue the command 'shutdown -h'.
• TIP Reboot to Windows (using grub)
• TIP Repair Broken runlevel in rc-update - Resolve ' * Broken runlevel entry:' problems.
• Run a Command on Boot - Automatically execute commands on startup.
• Using Loopback Device - How to utilize free space on your windows box.
• Set your system clock to HC clock at boot - How to automatically have Gentoo set your system clock to the hardware clock's time at boot.
• Setup FQDN - How to get rid of the annoying Welcome to yourbox.unknown_domain! message.
• Setting Default Browser - Setting the default browser.
• Simple Crontab - Visual structure of crontab.
• Speed Up Your Boot Time - Parallel execution of rc scripts.
• System logging with syslog-ng - Basic configuration.
• TinyGentoo
• Torsmo Tips - Tips using Torsmo.
• Turn off DEV managers
• Using Chroot
• Vary Configuration Files Based on Softlevel
• Fix The Login Security Hole - Two Holes two Fixes. Which One Do You Have?
• Install on Promise Fasttrak S150 TX4 - Install Gentoo (kernel 2.4) on a Promise Fasttrak S150 TX4 using the original driver
• Shutdown during install - Shutdown your machine while installing gentoo (the safe way)
• TIP Enhancing Performance with a Ramdisk - Guide to performance enhancement using a ramdisk.

[edit] Terminals / Shells

• Advanced completion for zsh - Advanced completion for zsh.
• Aliases - Using aliases.
• Bashrc Hints - Manage your Bash history using .bashrc.
• Login issue - An example of /etc/issue to greet you.
• Console Screensaver - How to turn off the terminal screensaver.
• Console Text on the desktop using Eterm - Displaying console text onto your desktop.
• Directories & Files Using the "ls" Command - Distinguish directories from files.
• Files That Begin with a Dash - Dealing with files that start with a dash.
• Exit Status in prompt - Did that previous command succeed?
• Fortune on Login - How to make some entertaining writing appear whenever you login to a shell.
• Irssi Init Script - Have irssi load at boot under screen.
• Korn shell
• Linux Colours in Aterm & RXVT - A guide to getting Linux console colours in Aterm and RXVT.
• Nano No Auto-wrap - Tired of typing nano -w?
• Newb Commands - The commands all newbies to linux should know.
• No Beep - Turn off your PC's console beep.
• Prompt Magic - Resources about defining bash prompts including colors and styles.
• Recently Changed Files - Find recently changed files.
• Resetting Your Console - Reset your console to its original state.
• Terminal Keyboard Shortcuts - Some useful shortcuts using the CTRL key.
• Textwrap in Xterm - Setting textwrap in Xterm.
• Fonts in Xterm - Setting fonts in Xterm.
• Tricks Using the "cd" Command - Advanced 'cd' usage commands.
• Screen - The detachable console.
• Use different colors for files, directories and symlinks

[edit] X Window System

• Changing Gray Startup Background - Get rid of the checkered gray startup background.
• Triple Monitors - Three-monitor X configuration
• Mouse Speed Through Command Line - Set Mouse Speed Through Command Line.
• Switching between the nv free driver and the 3D nVidia driver - You want to switch at boot time between those 2 drivers.
• Localization - Get Gentoo to work under your native language.
• Screenshots using the Printscreen Key - Get some extra mileage from your keyboard.
• Xorg X11 & Transparencies - Set transparency in X.Org.
• Gentoo's nice prompt on graphical terminals - Do you wonder why you get bash-2.05b$ instead of Gentoo's nice prompt ?
• Activate wheelmouse support in Xorg - For those who always forget how to do it...
• TIP Run Commands at X Startup - Need to run xmodmap automatically?
• General Window Manager on your system - If you want all users to have the same default Window Manager
• Getting modelines - Getting modelines the easy way (no calculations involved ;))
• Xorg.conf tips Ever want to use that scroll wheel on your mouse?
• Run XOrg 7.1 with 8756 or older NVidia drivers Running XOrg 7.1 with drivers 8756 or older.

[edit] Desktops

• KDE Screensaver Access - Enable Non-root to access kscreensavers
• Flashing IM Windows in Gnome Panel - Make tasks flash when the XUrgency Hint is applied.
• FVWM/Advanced
• FVWM/Man Pages Menu
• Resetting Kmenu - Reset Kmenu.
• Run Multiple Instances of KDM - Make tty7 & tty8 run KDM.
• Screensaver in Background - Use your screensaver as your login background.
• Make KDE look more like XFCE - Simple KDE settings that make KDE look like popular fluxbox or XFCE.
• Setting up the D-BUS Session Bus with KDM (Without hacking anything in /usr)
• Show/Hide the ROX-panel (Smart way of displaying or hiding the ROX-panel)
• gmail-notify - Do you want to track new mail arrival? Add notification icon to system tray!
• Change GTK Theme without using Gnome