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Tag Archives: linux

Installing PARI-GP under OpenSUSE 11.2

I have no idea why this package isn’t in the default community repositories. I highly recommend they add it. Use the following commands to add the repository and install the package: sudo zypper ar ftp://ftp5.gwdg.de/pub/opensuse/repositories/home:/mkng:/science/openSUSE_11.1/ PARI sudo zypper in pari-gp

Calibre with the Nook on Ubuntu

Calibre is about the best thing since sliced bread. It is able to convert basically any type of Ebook format into EPUB, which is what my Nook reads natively. It seamlessly syncs with the Nook as well, which is a huge plus, and all of this happens in Linux. I highly recommend this software. Just make sure not to queue up too many jobs, or it might DOS your computer for a bit. The PDF conversion is especially intensive. It [...]

Fixing italics in Calibre EPUB output

I converted an ebook from TXT to EPUB today using Calibre, and found that the italics (which in the TXT file are annotated /like this/) are not converted into the HTML equivalent.  I did the following to fix this: unzip ebook.epub -d tmpbook cd tmpbook perl -i.bak -pe ‘s/([\s-,.;\'?:]+)\/(.+?)\/([\s-,.;\'?:]+)/$1<i>$2<\/i>$3/sg;’ *html That will create.bak files just in case anything went wrong.  To revert the changes, do this: for i in *.bak; do mv $i ${i%.bak}; done zip -r ebook.zip * && [...]

Compiling ConvertLit on Ubuntu Linux 9.10

So, ConvertLit seems to be a good solution for those looking to convert LIT ebooks into EPUB (well, into HTML, but then into EPUB…).  Unfortunately, the developers seem to be unable to properly make a good source tarball for version 1.8.  Here’s what I did: Download Version 1.8 source from here. unzip clit18src.zip -d convertlit sudo apt-get install libtommath-dev Download this to the convertlit directory. patch -p1 -i clit18.source.patch You should see the clit18/Makefile was patched cd lib && make [...]

Kopete Chat Window History is annoying

I’ve been using Kopete on my quest to convert to KDE, and I’ve been extremely annoyed by previous conversions showing up in my chat windows. The option to disable it didn’t seem to be anywhere, but I found a forum post that pointed me to the Plugins section of the configuration. Just disable the plugin entirely or open it and mess with the configuration. Things like that shouldn’t be on by default, along with chat window tabs (when did this [...]

Getting Skype Working on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic x86-64

So, recently, I installed Ubuntu karmic cleanly on my main desktop machine here at home, and I have really liked it. I even switched to KDE, and everything has been working better than it had been in GNOME. I tried setting up Skype the other day, and ran into an issue with the microphone. It turns out that since the new Skype uses PulseAudio, there’s a further configuration step that’s not so obvious. I found out here that you have [...]

SMPlayer, Lirc, and IRExec on Ubuntu Karmic

I used to use lirc with mplayer to allow my Packard Bell crappy remote to work awesomely, but I have since lost that configuration and switched to smplayer, since it’s awesome.  Today, I figured out how to control smplayer using similar means.

Importing MySQL 1.4 Amarok data into Amarok 2.2 Nightly

I was having a bunch of trouble today importing my old MySQL amarok database into the new nightly version of amarok I installed.  The Amarok Wiki had a great section on how to convert a MySQL Amarok collection into an SQLlite one.  This was the key to importing my old 1.4 collection into the new 2.2 nightly version of Amarok.

1,000,000th Fibonacci Number One-Liner in C

This is possibly the best one-liner I’ve ever written: gcc -x c -o /tmp/out – -lgmp

Good Passwords with GnuPG

I found out from this site that GPG can be used to generate random text for passwords. Here’s the command: gpg –gen-random 1 20 | gpg –enarmor | sed -n 5p Very simple. I may have to use this in the future. WARNING This limits you to the Base64 character set, greatly limiting the search space for password cracking.  One should really use something other than enarmor to spit out a random printable ASCII string… Update OK, I did it.  [...]