Running Android SDK on Arch Linux x86-64

A funny thing happens once you've downloaded it. Running ./adb in the platform-tools folder will yield a command not found error. But it's right there in clear view. Why wasn't it found. The answer seems to be because the android sdk itself is only 32bit thus you would be required to enable the multilib repos. Follow the instructions here on the things you need to do after you have enabled multilib support, namely you need to install the multilib-devel package which would replace the base-devel package.

First Impression On Gnome 3 (Or Don't Judge A Book By It's Cover)

In the past few weeks since Gnome 3 came out, I've been reading a lot about what people think of it. My initial impression was it might be something like the Unity interface which I first used when I installed ubuntu-netbook 10.06 on my mom's netbook. I absolutely hated that. Almost made me redo the installation with a normal desktop ubuntu then. But I got to thinking, 'heh... my mom is the one who's going to use it, so maybe she might get used to it, as long as I've set up the side bar with all the software she usually use it should be fine'. And I guess I was right. Until once in a while my mom asks me to do something on it and I feel like redoing the installation again... >.<

But finally I took the plunge and enabled the testing repo on my desktop, 'pacman -Syu' instantly installed all the latest package and boom, I'm running Gnome 3 baby... :D

What do I think of it? I kinda like it. It's very clean. I mean, very very clean. I'm kinda a lazy so before this I even had icons littered on the top panel. Now I don't even the option to litter the top panel anymore. It's basically fixed like that. And I think for someone like me who likes it to be clean but can't be bothered cleaning up, that's good... :)

I read reviews about how now it takes two clicks to switch to other windows which are open because there is no more bottom panel which can have a list of open windows. But luckily I find that it's not really that hard at all, just shove your mouse over to the top left and all your windows will show up 'expose' style. Very nice touch. So now you get to see even more context of the windows you want to choose. There was even some people saying alt-tab would not work. I guess they were really using pre-release versions because it works just fine for me. In fact, it's better than fine, alt-~ (the key on top of the tab key) will actually switch between windows of the same app. So you can have many writer windows open and need to switch between just them? No problem. Just alt-~.

Another thing which got me concerned was no systray. How are you supposed to click on the pidgin icon to bring up your buddy list, or the dropbox icon to bring up your dropbox folder? Well, it's there. Just hidden from view. Shove your mouse to the bottom right and it pops out. I like that it stays out of the way and available only once you want it.

For those who are used to using gnome-do and would rather type out the app to run, just hit the super button and type away. It does take 2 clicks to get to the 'main menu' though (if you're used to using menu's to start your apps). You have to click on 'Activities' (or actually just shove the mouse to the top left) and then the applications button. Then it will list down all of your applications. The buttons for the applications are huge and really makes me feel like this would be something I might like to use on a tablet or something. But it doesn't bother me much because whichever apps I use I've mapped them to keyboard shortcuts and also the side bar. So I don't usually have to view all the apps.

I think having to press the alt key to get the 'Power Off' menu item at the Status menu is kinda neat because I rarely switch off my desktop anyway, and coming back from 'Suspend' (which is the default menu item) is a whole lot faster.

For more tips and tricks on using the spanking new gnome-shell make sure you check out https://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/CheatSheet.

To wrap it up, so far I like it. It feels minimalistic but at the same time very pretty. I'm very happy with it. Good job Gnome team.

Happy new year...

Yesterday was Ma'al Hijrah marking the beginning of the year 1431 in the Islamic calendar. So with a new year comes new hope and a fresh new start. Even for my computer. I bought my acer aspire 4810tg a few month ago before the release of windows 7. Even then they already promised there will be a free upgrade once it is released. When I finally applied for my upgrade, found out that the software itself is free, but you still have to pay for the shipping (USD 18 to ship to Malaysia). I applied for it anyway. It arrived in the mail a couple of weeks ago but I was too busy then to actually do anything about it. But Alhamdullillah there's a bit of change in the pace of our work in Inigo and finally I've decided I've got enough time to risk it. And risk it I did. After making a full backup of my /etc, /var and /home directory of course.. :P

It took a very long time to upgrade to Windows 7. It was searching for incompatible software, gathering settings and things like that I guess. And after a whole night (well, I started after 10.30, and by 2 I felt I needed to sleep already, so it might have completed sooner but I wouldn't know.. :P) I finally have a fresh install of Windows 7 on my trusty Delorian (it's a timeline model ok.. that's the best name I can think of in regards to time.. >.< ). But after a reboot I realised something which I should have known but completely forgot "Windows overwrote the MBR, now no more grub..". Ugh, and I didn't have any arch linux cd handy. Had to download the iso. I did have a copy of Fedora 12 iso already though so I thought I'd try to install that. It stoped booting with an error and mentioned something about the hardware. I didn't write it down, neither did I bother to google it, so not sure whether it's just my machine of for aspire 4810tg in general. Anyhow, I tried to boot with the latest arch linux iso, also said there was a problem. It was starting to not look good. I downloaded an earlier version of arch and that one finally booted. So I was able to access my old linux partitions and all but I didn't know how to just configure grub. After around 3 hours of googling and trying various things (going into the grub console and all) I just gave up and said "What the heck, I've got a backup anyhow". So I did a fresh install of arch linux on my laptop... Completely clean install. :)

As you might have known already from my previous post, I've been on a minimalist streak for quite a while already. Using xmonad as my windows manager and even going so far as installing vimperator to control my browser completely by keyboard. So since I'm already pretty comfortable with that setup, I thought that "hey, why not dump gnome and try to have an installation without the WHOLE gnome thing". I mean I even use wicd (it has a pretty cool curses interface when you really need it) as my network manager of choice so I don't even need the networkmanager. But seriously, I don't intend to use xmonad completely. I only use it for work when I need to really be efficent. When I'm just slowly browsing and enjoying my computer, I like to slow down a little and doesn't really need all the efficency a full fledge keyboard bounded setup could give me. So after some deliberation, I choose xfce. So now I've got a super light desktop for play and a super efficent setup for work. Hohohoho.. and oh yeah, I've got Windows 7 (/me do a little chicken dance to the dismay of my fellow open sourcians.. :P).

Why on earth would I want Windows 7 you may ask when I've already got the best setup a man could ask for? Well... sometimes a man like to play games.. :P Yes, I only use Windows to play games.. :P Since I'm trying my best to be clean and since although I respect RMS very much I still think there is still such a thing as software PIRACY, I only play free games (at least till I can afford original ones.. :P). My favourite game currently, SOLDIER FRONT.. :D It's a pretty cool game, and if you decide to join in, look out for me.. jebat.. :D But sometimes I play extremely badly, when you see that please know that most probably that's my son playing using my account.. >.< (yes I know, I'm a bad father..)

Ok. That's pretty much what's new with me in this new year. So to all my muslim friends "Happy new year.. ". I'm looking forward to a great one insyaAllah, hope you are too.. :)

xmonad settings

One thing that I did like about using gnome was that for most things, it was very discoverable. You click a few menus, try this and that. But with something like xmonad, it's much more configurable for sure but you certainly have to know your way around. So after seaching the internet, I've finally had a setup which I pretty much like. Here it is for future reference. For ~/.xmnonad/xmonad.hs:

import XMonad
import XMonad.Hooks.DynamicLog
import XMonad.Hooks.ManageDocks
import XMonad.Util.Run(spawnPipe)
import XMonad.Util.EZConfig(additionalKeys)
import System.IO

myManageHook = composeAll
   [ className =? "Gimp"      --> doFloat
   ]

main = do
   xmproc <- spawnPipe "xmobar"
   xmonad  $ defaultConfig
       { terminal = "urxvt"
       , modMask  = mod4Mask
       , borderWidth = 3
       , manageHook = manageDocks <+> myManageHook <+> manageHook defaultConfig
       , layoutHook = avoidStruts $ layoutHook defaultConfig
       , logHook = dynamicLogWithPP $ xmobarPP
                       { ppOutput = hPutStrLn xmproc
                       , ppTitle = xmobarColor "green" "" . shorten 50
                       }
       } `additionalKeys`
       [ ((mod4Mask .|. shiftMask, xK_z), spawn "xscreensaver-command -lock")
       , ((controlMask, xK_Print), spawn "sleep 0.2; scrot -s")
       , ((0, xK_Print), spawn "scrot")
       ]

That will, amongs other things, make sure that gimp does not tile but stay float, it will start up xmobar, set my default terminal to urxvt, use the win key for meta (better than using alt since alt is used by most programs), logHook to create an output to be used by xmobar, make sure xmobar stay visible eventhough the screen is full of other programs, set win+shift+z will lock the screen with xscreensaver.

Okay, next is setting for xmobar. This is my ~/.xmobarrc:

Config { font = "-*-Fixed-Bold-R-Normal-*-13-*-*-*-*-*-*-*"
      , bgColor = "black"
      , fgColor = "grey"
      , position = TopW L 90
      , lowerOnStart = True
      , commands = [ Run Cpu ["-L","3","-H","50","--normal","green","--high","red"] 10
                   , Run Network "wlan0" ["-L","0","-H","32","--normal","green","--high","red"] 10
                   , Run Network "eth0" ["-L","0","-H","32","--normal","green","--high","red"] 10
                   , Run Memory ["-t","Mem: <usedratio>%"] 10
                   , Run Date "%a %b %_d %Y %H:%M:%S" "date" 10
                   , Run StdinReader
                   ]
      , sepChar = "%"
      , alignSep = "}{"
      , template = "%StdinReader% }{ %cpu% | %memory% | %wlan0% | %eth0% * <fc=#ee9a00>%date%</fc> @ %hostname%"
      }

Ok. This will create the xmobar on the top 90% of the screen. Another 10% we want to reserve for trayer for our programs that require a system tray (eg Pidgin) if we use any. It display a few useful info, but I think on of the most useful ones is the date, and also the output from xmonad which would show what workspace you are currently on (very very useful) and also the title of the window you're currently viewing (not so useful but still nice to have).
Next is I want my urxvt to look nice. So here is the settings for my ~/.Xresources:

URxvt*background: #242424
URxvt*cutchars: BACKSLASH '"'&()*,;<=>?@[]{|}
URxvt*colorUL: #86a2be
URxvt*foreground: #ffffff
URxvt*geometry: 80x25
URxvt.cursorColor: #86a2be
URxvt*internalBorder: 0
URxvt*jumpScroll: true
URxvt*loginShell: true
URxvt*perl-ext-common: default,matcher,searchable-scrollback
URxvt*pointerBlank: true
URxvt*saveLines: 4000
URxvt*secondaryScroll: true
URxvt*scrollBar: false
URxvt*scrollTtyKeypress: true
URxvt*scrollWithBuffer: true
URxvt*termName: rxvt-unicode
URxvt*underlineColor: #86a2be
URxvt*urlLauncher: /usr/bin/firefox
URxvt*color0: #242424
URxvt*color1: #bf7979
URxvt*color2: #97b26b
URxvt*color3: #cdcda1
URxvt*color4: #86a2be
URxvt*color5: #d9b798
URxvt*color6: #a1b5cd
URxvt*color7: #ffffff
URxvt*color8: #cdb5cd
URxvt*color9: #f4a45f
URxvt*color10: #c5f779
URxvt*color11: #ffffaf
URxvt*color12: #98afd9
URxvt*color13: #d7d998
URxvt*color14: #a1b5cd
URxvt*color15: #dedede
URxvt*font: xft:Terminus:pixelsize=15

I found this in a Ubuntu forum. I changed the font to Terminus with size 15 though. Much nicer on the eyes not to have to squint so much trying to read a small font. Then finally to put it all together, I have this in ~/.xinitrc:

xsetroot -cursor_name left_ptr
if xrandr -q | grep -q "VGA1 connected"; then
  xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1024x768 --left-of LVDS1 --output LVDS1 --mode 1366x768
fi
trayer --edge top --align right --transparent true --width 10 --tint 0x191970 --height 12 --expand true --widthtype request --heighttype request --SetDockType true --SetPartialStrut true &
xscreensaver -no-splash &
xrdb -merge ~/.Xresources
exec ck-launch-session xmonad

Amongst other things it detect whether I have an external monitor connected and automatically make xrandr extend to that if there is one. It sets up trayer (using the 10% we preserved earlier). It starts up xscreensaver. It actually load the .Xresources (normally this would be done by the gdm, but since I'm not using the gdm so this is how you load it and finally it launches xmonad. Phew.. That's basically it. As long as this blog post hold up, I can reformat my machine and recover the settings which I pretty much like for xmobar and gang.

Disclaimer: None of these settings are my original. Some of them I've got from xmonad and xmobar faq's and tutorials, others I've got from other various pages on the net.

argouml in xmonad

Recently a small window manager war broke out at the #archlinux irc channel. Not much to say about it because it's been done dozens of times already, but it did got me interested in trying out a tiling wm again. I've tried xmonad before and liked it quite a bit back then so I thought I'd give it another go. And sure enough I LOVE it.. :P Not having to touch the mouse (or the touchpad which is even worse) at all is a great feeling. You just want to go faster and faster. Then I fired up firefox and lo and behold, I have to use the mouse again. That's a cannot. So I installed the vimperator plugin. Now I can navigate and use firefox just like using my favourite editor.. :D

But of course that's just the beginning, I had to look for replacement for a lot of other software I normally use too. So now:
1. pidgin -> finch (ym client)
2. xchat-gnome -> weechat-curses (irc client)
3. evolution -> alpine (mail client)
4. exaile -> herrie (mp3 player)
5. nautilus -> mc (file manager)

Then I faced another problem. When I started out argouml all it showed was a grey window. Nothing, nada. No display whatsoever. I really thought I had to go back to gnome already. Then I did a bit of googling and finally found this at the awesome wm wiki (another tiling wm). Basically the problem is with jvm in a non-reparenting window manager. So to fix it, we can emulate another window manager which jvm thinks is a reparenting window manager. Just install 'wmname' (yes.. that is.. pacman -S wmname) and run:

$ wmname LG3D

And walah.. argouml running once again. Even though you close the terminal and start just argouml, it'll work. So far I'm loving this slimming down of my desktop, now if only I could start slimming down my own body.. :P

Joke's on you

I'm a Fedora ambassador, I recommend people to use Ubuntu, but I myself use Arch Linux. I'm not sure what that makes me.. :P But I love using Arch. It is lean, mean and geared towards the more tinkering inclined in the sense that almost everything is default and you have to hand configure yourself... with a text editor :D

So it was really sad for me last week to read that they are going to drop support for the i686. For a whole week I was contemplating which distro would I go to now? I really like Arch's way of a rolling update. Not waiting for a certain dateline but get the newest thing as soon as it's ready. But after reading that news I am concerned because I don't think my laptop support x86_64 (Haven't tried it yet though, but it's a really old laptop). And not only that, if one day I am fortunate enough to get myself a netbook of my own, I doubt those small atomic chips support 64bit either. So where should I go? My choice was 2. Fedora or Ubuntu. I haven't tried the latest (Fedora 10 and Ubuntu 8.10) but heard they have quite a lot of great new stuff. Fedora 10 even boots faster too. I'm still contemplating...

Then today I read this news. I was dumb struck. It's all an april fools joke? Wow.. they even mentioned about it in the forums and everything. I really thought it was real. But I'm glad it's not... :D So now I can be rest assured I can still use my favourite distro for quite a long while to come. I'm such an idiot.. :P Kudos to all the Arch Linux dev for pulling off such a convincing trick. And next time I'll be more careful to wait for a few days to confirm news heard on the 1st of April.. :D

So finally I guess the joke's on me.. :)