More 2 Cent Tips!

See also: The Answer Gang's Knowledge Base and the LG Search Engine

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• Adding custom headers in Thunderbird
• Cygwin from a CD
• Gentoo tip: CUPS printing error
• KDE logout action
• Mouse acceleration with Linux/X
• Upgrading Quota
• Tip: ls -l, AIX style
• POP3 for Yahoo Mail
• DHCP Relay

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Adding custom headers in Thunderbird

Brian Bilbrey (bilbrey from orbdesigns.com)
Answered By Jimmy O'Regan, Ben Okopnik

I'd whined several times about lack of success in setting an X-gazette-tag header in Mozilla Thunderbird. The answer lies in the user.js file, every one of the tens of Google hits I tracked down promised me. But I'd do each one as specified, and no joy in Mudville.

Tonight, I googled again, and about 6 links into the process, I found something close to the answer via a link from about.com. In my user.js file (found in my setup at ~/.thunderbird/*default/user.js) I put in these two lines:

// insert X-gazette-tag header
user_pref("mail.compose.other.header", "X-gazette-tag");

[Ben] This works in Mozilla as well, although the file there is "prefs.js". Searching the Web for the above header confirms that you cannot set a default value for the header...

[Jimmy] No, there's a user.js as well. That's what I'm using, and it worked last time.

[Ben] Odd. My version doesn't have one - I searched with "find".

if user.js doesn't exist, put it in the same directory as prefs.js. Moz* is in charge of prefs.js and may/will overwrite any changes in that file. Additionally, order of loading has user.js last, and settings in user.js will override prefs.js settings.

[Ben] Ah - I didn't realize that.

Note that this does not automatically create the header in every message, nor apparently is there a way to set a default value for the header (which would make the first part a lie, eh?)

[Ben] ...however, you can add a plugin that will allow you to do that and a lot more header-related stuff - which reputedly works for Mozilla and Thunderbird:

http://mnenhy.mozdev.org

That was ONE of the things I tried that didn't meet my needs. It turns out that it does a lot of header VIEW customization, but not new composition headers, from about two hours of playing with it, trying to get to the point I wanted.

[Ben] Hmph. Might be worth tossing into Bugzilla as a wishlist item; seems like it's something a lot of folks could use, given how much discussion there is about it on the Web.

But when I'm sending to TAG, I can select from "To:", "Cc:" "Bcc:" ... "X-gazette-tag", and add a value for that header. This is the first test, let's see if it works.

[Jimmy] And indeed it does. Probably works in Mozilla Mail too.

References

• http://email.about.com
• http://texturizer.net/thunderbird/edit.html
• http://nightlybuild.at.infoseek.co.jp/help/tips.html

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Cygwin from a CD

Jimmy O'Regan (The LG Answer Gang)

I tried running cygwin from a CD, and it mostly works (X doesn't, but Perl, Python and most of the usual tools do). The only thing that needs to be done is that a few entries need to be added to the registry (these can be safely deleted when done), because Cygwin doesn't have an /etc/fstab.

This file should be put on the CD. To add the entries, just double click!

See attached cyg-cd.reg.txt

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Gentoo tip: CUPS printing error

Mike Orr (LG Contributing Editor)

If your CUPS printing suddenly stops working with the error:

lp: error - scheduler not responding!

try deleting the printer in the web interface and re-adding it. According to Gentoo forum posts, glibc had an unexpected API change and that broke Gentoo's configuration. You probably installed some unrelated software that upgraded glibc. You may have to re-emerge glibc, cupsd, and turboprint, but I didn't.

Curiously, I was still able to do the "Print Test Page" from the web interface, although others said they couldn't.

In an ideal world, dependencies would prevent this kind of problem from happening. But it's impossible for maintainers to know what incompatibilities might appear in third-party libraries in the future.

Here are the forum posts:
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=144236&highlight=cups+glibc
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?p=1274761#1274761

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KDE logout action

Mike Orr (LG Contributing Editor)

I found the KDE option to change it back to showing the login screen after logging out instead of shutting down (../106/orr.html). It's KDE Control Center -> Session Manager -> Login as different user.

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Mouse acceleration with Linux/X

Dave Blackburn (blackburn from acm.org)
Answered By Ben Okopnik, Thomas Adam, Jason Creighton

How can I adjust the "base" ratio between mouse motion and cursor motion on the screen?

I have successfully used xset. It works well for me. My problem is that the "base" ratio (e.g. with xset m 1 10) is too high (fast).

[Ben] I'm not sure what you mean by a "base ratio", Dave; I've found that I prefer a different "xset m" setting for different computer/mouse combinations, but have never come up with an absolute "rate" to reflect that preference. Whenever I set up a new machine, I twiddle this for a minute or two, set it in my ~/.xinitrc, and forget about it from there on.

I mean the mouse speed (i.e. ratio between mouse movement and cursor movement) without using: xset -- the initial mouse speed provided by X as if e.g. xset 1 10 were active.

[Ben] Ah - I was misled by the word "ratio", which implied to me that you were using "xset" with some fraction as a parameter (the man page specifies that you can do this.) Now I get what you mean.

I usually use "xset m" with a single parameter (which specifies "acceleration" only); I find that this works well for pretty much every machine out there. Once you start using more than that, you're off into /Terra Incognita/: some meeces will respond in odd ways to "threshold" tweaks.

I am using both RH 9.0 and Fedora 2 on a laptop. With RH 9.0, the "base" ratio is fairly slow. With Fedora 2 the ratio is quite a bit faster.

[Ben] I presume the two of them use somewhat different mouse drivers.

Using RH 9.0, I apply xset m 3 20 getting a pleasant result. Using Fedora 2, the "base" ratio is too fast for me.

Doing an Internet search, I found many explanations for xset.

[Ben] The man page for it is quite informative as well.

Also, I found the suggestion that I could modify xorg.conf (in /etc/X11) by adding a line like:

Option "Resolution" "500"

in section:

Section "InputDevice" Identifier "Mouse0"

This seemed like the answer I was looking for. However, when trying different values for Resolution, I observed no change in the "base" rate.

[Ben] I'm not familiar with "xorg.conf", but I've learned from personal experience that, while the "Resolution" option used to work in XF86Config, it does not in XF86Config-4.

This info is helpful. This is what I experienced.

Do one of you know how I can slow down the mouse when running Fedora 2?

[Ben] Find the value of "xset m" that you like and add it to your "~/.xinitrc" or "~/.xsession".

I use xset in ~/.xinitrc.

It seems that xset can only be used to speed up the mouse.

[Thomas] Err, no. xset is used to control the mouse threshold speed which means you can either increase or decrease it. One other option you have is that you might be using an incorrect mouse protocol for your configured mouse.

I want to slow the mouse down. In connection with slowing the mouse, I will use xset to control the higher speed.

Since the "Resolution" option doesn't work in XF86Config-4, perhaps it's also unavailable in the X.org release.

[Ben] That would be my best guess. From /usr/share/doc/xserver-xfree86/README.mouse (note the obvious escape clause):

5.3 Resolution

The following option will set the mouse device resolution to N counts per inch, if possible:

Option "Resolution" "N"

Not all mice and OSs can support this option. This option can be set in the XF86Setup program.

Perhaps there is a workaround?

[Jason] Quoting from the xset manpage:

       m       The  m  option  controls  the  mouse  parameters.   The
               parameters for the mouse are `acceleration' and
               `threshold'.  The acceleration can be specified as an
               integer, or as  a  simple fraction.  The mouse, or
               whatever pointer the machine is connected to, will go
               `acceleration' times as fast when it travels more than
               `threshold' pixels in a  short  time.   This way,  the
               mouse can be used for precise alignment when it is moved
               slowly, yet it can be set to travel across the screen in
               a flick of the  wrist when  desired.   One or both
               parameters for the m option can be omitted, but if only
               one is given, it will be interpreted as the acceleration.
               If no parameters  or  the flag 'default' is used, the
               system defaults will be set.

The key to an ugly workaround is the fact that you can specify the acceleration as a simple fraction. Thus:

xset m 1/2 1

...will cut the speed in half. But you lose any acceleration features because you're using it to hack the mouse speed to where you want it. But if that doesn't bother you, this method is one option.

[Ben] The fractional specification may work for you. Conversely, as Thomas suggested, the two distros may be using two different mouse drivers (compare the '"Option" "Device"' and '"Option" "Protocol"' lines in their X config files); if that's the case, then simply choose the one that works best for you, and do the final tweaking with "xset" from there.

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Upgrading Quota

Breman (012832161 from mobitel.com.kh)
Question by Breman (012832161 from mobitel.com.kh)
Answered By Thomas Adam

Dear Thomas,

[Thomas] Hello, Breman -

May I ask you some questions below:

[Thomas] By all means. I've Cc'ed The Answer Gang on this, since I assume this is where you got my e-mail address. If you don't want this published, let me know.

I have installed SuSe Linux 6.4 as a mail server. The current version of quota is 2.11 - what is the latest version? where can I get it?

[Thomas] Quota support is kernel and user-land. Therefore I can only assume that you are referring to the userland tools. Currently the version is at 3.12, available here:

http://puzzle.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/linuxquota/quota-3.12.tar.gz

- How to update to the old version? please give me steps.

[Thomas] It's a case of removing the old quota tools and installing the new one. There's a number of ways you can do this. The INSTALL file within the tar file tells you all, and it should just be a simple matter of:

./configure && make && su -c 'make install'

Note that by default, this will install into /usr/local/* -- if "/usr/local/bin" is not in your $PATH, before "/usr/bin" and you still have the old quota-tools installed, this will conflict. If, however, /usr/local/bin is listed before /usr/bin in your $PATH then this should not be a problem. But you should make sure you remove the old quota-tools, regardless.

Thanks for your quick response and it helped me a lots.

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Tip: ls -l, AIX style

Jimmy O'Regan (The LG Answer Gang)
Answered By Bradley Chapman, Kapil Hari Paranjape

On a certain other Linux site, I saw an unanswered question about getting the time format of ls -l to have a leading zero on single digit dates, like AIX does, instead of padding with a space as GNU ls does.

I was not aware of this (before I went to the man page), but GNU ls will format the date any way you like, if you use the --time-style switch. To use 'date' style formatting, you prefix it with a '+'.

So, AIX-style ls -l is:

ls -l --time-style=+"%b %d %H:%M"

[Brad] Does ls support any environment variables to do this? Something like

export TIME="%b %d %H:%M"
ls -l

or do you have to use an alias in your ~/.*rc files?

[Kapil] According to "info ls":

You can specify the default value of the `--time-style' option with the environment variable `TIME_STYLE'...

So the correct environment variable is TIME_STYLE not TIME.

Kapil.

You still need to have the '+', so it's

export TIME_STYLE=+"%b %d %H:%M"
ls -l

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POP3 for Yahoo Mail

Breman (012832161 from mobitel.com.kh)
Question by Breman (012832161 from mobitel.com.kh)
Answered By Thomas Adam, Kapil Hari Paranjape

- What is pop3/smtp of yahoo mail?

[Thomas] There isn't any freely available as yahoo removed that service. That said, you can "emulate" it using a program called 'yahoopops' available here:

http://yahoopops.sourceforge.net

[Kapil] There is also fetchyahoo at http://fetchyahoo.twizzler.org

Also available as a Debian package under "testing".

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DHCP Relay

Bill P (#hants IRC Channel)

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