Harsh J

Finally got around to re-installing ArchLinux onto the new PC and it was a long irritating week with GRUB errors, FS corruption, etc..

I must’ve caused the GRUB 22 error by extending a logical partition on Windows via its Disk Management tool, after deleting another. I tried fixing it with whatever solutions I could find, including reinstalling the whole bootloader but it seemed like the partition table itself was misaligned after the change. Both of my linux partitions turned Primary and thus the issue. So it came to the time of Reinstallation #1.

This next time I ran into an FS corrupted error after performing the entire net-install again; no idea how that happened and none on fixing it manually either, which was what it kept asking me to do. So I popped the disk back in and let it do an install again, bleh.

This time it went well, I installed KDE 4.3 as well overnight and it was done. Except that nasty HAL and PolicyKit issue that makes your blood boil even on the currently non-existant planet Pluto. Its the one which keeps giving you Permission Denied errors (accompanied with the type of Policy and the auth_admin_keep_always messages). I remember fixing it once before on Ubuntu 9.04 by writing my own /etc/PolicyKit/PolicyKit.conf XML file but that didn’t work out well this time and I had to use KDE’s System Settings – Advanced Tab – PolicyKit Authorization applet to let it grant my user proper permissions. The following screenshot describes what I applied to all items under the HAL’s storage section, and it did the work. For automounting on login, I had to add a simple entry to HAL’s policy files giving it a true hint. Messy work, but it’s finally over!

The next issue I faced was that the music player on KDE, both Amarok and Juk, had long delays before it began playing a file, or between tracks. Plus, I couldn’t even seek the files in it. The solution, I figured, was simple – To switch Phonon (The multimedia framework of KDE/Qt) from its GStreamer backend to XINE. Installed the newer phonon-xine backend and it was done as well. Although I read that GStreamer is much more mature than XINE today, this will have to do until.

That sums up this week, I guess. Besides the ongoing internal tests of course, that’s a whole new post that doesn’t need to exist.

P.s. Windows 7 impressed me. I must be losing it.

This is for those who experience the following error while installing anything from apt-get or Synaptic package manager from the official repositories even though you have the valid GPG keys installed (For Ubuntu/Debian ONLY):

WARNING: The following packages cannot be authenticated!

(And further are required to use –fix-missing parameter to solve the error.)

To fix it, do this:

sudo apt-get install debian-archive-keyring debian-keyring

Next, run the Update by giving:

sudo apt-get update

That’s it, you shouldn’t be experiencing anymore issues with verification on the Official repositories. If its of the rest, you need to acquire a GPG key manually.

Alternate way – SecureApt

Now that you all know iPhone has launched finally, after days of catching your breaths and saving up for it. Here, cool yourself down by watching some of this.

Oh, no worries, its pure Swedish too. Click the box below to begin the unwrapping of the mighty iPhone. Much to a purchaser’s dismay.

Ps. Actual link was at – http://stream.ifixit.com/

Note that the actual post was about the unwrapping of an iPhone itself! To see what all chips it had used, its real value and other things. Things like the locked bluetooth chip, and other things which made the iPhone even more exciting. It was technical porno, inlcuding disassembly, scratching and all, heh.

Edited for fun

Did you know that you could actually have an audio file playing when you point your mouse pointer on it?

This feature is absolutely cool to use, especially when you have a large collection of audio MP3s or OGGs and wanna quick preview each one to find something particular.

Run the command below to get this audio-preview feature in your Ubuntu‘s Gnome – Nautilus. Read the rest of this entry »

This post is another small tutorial on how you can get random rotating images for your WordPress headers or even just random images simply.

An example :

Reload this page to see the images change below, you might need to force reload too (Usually Ctrl + F5)

Ok, now onto how you can achieve this…

Read the rest of this entry »