Miscellaneous stuff

Rescue your system

If your system can't boot / doesn't work even in console, then boot it with a foresight cd/dvd, type 'linux recuse' to rescue your foresight. However, there is one thing to note: if your system is x68 (32bit), use a 32bit cd; if it's x86_64, use 64bit cd. Or else it may mess up.

Drag gnome-panel

If you drag your panel to the left of the screen, but the panel is full of applets, so when you want to click on the panel (to drag it elsewhere or to adjust the preferences), you will find there is no spare space to click the mouse!

DO NOT PANIC, open 'gconf-editor' (Applications->System Tools->Configuration Editor), locate the key "/apps/panel/toplevels/top_panel_screen0/", there you will be able to configure the panel. For example "orientation" is for the location.

Startup Applications

If you accidentally deletes some entry from System->Preferences->Starup Applications, you can restore it by looking into /etc/xdg/autostart/*.desktop.

For example, the entry "PulseAudio Sound System" is from /etc/xdg/autostart/pulseaudio.desktop: Name->Name, Exec->Command, Comment->Comment.

VPN

• PPTP doesn't work here. FL-2204
• network-manager with openvpn also has problem. seems it doesn't respect several options (doesn't pass them to /usr/sbin/openvpn). and manually running 'openvpn <config-file>' is ok.
• the above is for strongvpn. however, with alonweb and an openvpn server i setup myself, network-manager works ok.

boot problem

My system was somewhat messed up with both foresight and solaris installed. And after I restored extlinux, foresight won't boot (can't find <something>?). Then I hit Tab at the booting screen, and changed 'root=LABEL=root' to 'root=/dev/sda1', it worked! I don't understand though. So somewhat the label of the partition is erased.

bootloader config with bootman

[zhang@localhost ~]$ cat /etc/bootloader.conf
read_only True
timeout 50
default 2.6.30.9-2-fl.smp.gcc4.1.x86.i686
root LABEL=/1
include '/etc/bootloader.d/*'

linux 2.6.30.9-2-fl.smp.gcc4.1.x86.i686 'GNOME Developer Kit (2.6.30.9-2-fl.smp.gcc4.1.x86.i686)'
    /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.30.9-2-fl.smp.gcc4.1.x86.i686 /boot/initrd-2.6.30.9-2-fl.smp.gcc4.1.x86.i686.img
other other0 "foresight" /dev/sda1

There are two ways to specify a boot entry:

The 'linux...' line is the usual way: <linux> <entry name> <label> <kernel> <initrd>. First column 'linux' is a command to bootman; '2.6.30.9-2-fl.smp.gcc4.1.x86.i686' is something like a internal handle/name, e.g. used in the above 'default ...' line; 'GNOME Developer Kit (...)' is the label appearing on the booting screen; the last two are the kernel and the initrd.

The 'other...' line is to specify a chainloading: <other> <entry name> <label> <partition>. As above, 'other' is the command (for chainloading); 'other0' is the handle; then the label; /dev/sda1 is the partition from with to chainload.

After you edit /etc/bootloader.conf, run '$ sudo bootman' to write the change into your bootloader's config file (like /boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf).

where is my xorg logs?!

I compiled xorg-server with simply 'configure --prefix=/usr' and no other options, then I can't find the /var/log/Xorg.*.log files.

So it turns out there is a --with-log-dir option:

  --with-log-dir=DIR      Directory where log files are kept (default:
                          $localstatedir/log)

And localstatedir defaults to "PREFIX/var", so my log files are now at /usr/var/log/.