CrunchBang 11 Numlock

Posted on September 1, 2012 by RoboFrog

[If you don't know who or what these (*) are, check the Glossary page.]

What is a Linux Newbie?

Here at The Robotic Frog, we like newbies (newcomers…not just to Linux). Sometimes, we want to look at Linux through the eyes of someone brand new to it. When we look across the Linux spectrum, we find ourselves scratching our collective heads, wondering…”What do we really mean when we say newbie?” What assumptions should we make about a newbie? What do we assume that they know? We want to throw it open to anyone interested in helping those coming to Linux for the first time. What is the profile of a Linux Newbie?  (If you’re a newbie, we’d especially like to hear from you.) Drop us a comment to share your thoughts.

Slim and Numlock

I wish I could tell you that I figured out how to turn Numlock on through slick Google-sleuthing and clever deduction from the clues that I found. The truth is that, as with most things technical around here, RoboFrog* figured it out without any Googling at all. After our first CrunchBang 11 install and update, HE* was watching the screen during reboot. HE turned to me and said, “Hey, CrunchBang 11 is using slim for their display manager.”

“How do you know that?” I ask.

“I just saw it load,” HE smiles.

“Oh,” I reply. Sometimes, I can be really profound.

We like slim. It’s the display manager we used with Arch Linux. It’s lightweight, stable, gets the job done, and we know how to configure it. TheFrog opens the configuration file in a text editor: sudo geany /etc/slim.conf (Actually, HE uses vim. Vim is an acquired taste, but highly recommended!). HE changes the following line:

from: # numlock          on
to: numlock          on

TheFrog uncomments numlock on (deletes the ‘#<space>’ at the beginning of the line).

Guess what? (I love it when this happens.) It doesn’t work. HE immediately goes into HIS frog-trance. Then HE’s moving again. HE brings up a terminal window (RoboFrog’s solution to almost everything involves a terminal.) and types: aptitude search numlock. Aptitude! In a million years that wouldn’t have occurred to me. Here is what HE got:

Note: Aptitude is one of three package managers provided by CrunchBang 11: apt-get, aptitude (command line) and synaptic (GUI). A package manager is used to install new software.

p   numlockx            - enable NumLock in X11 sessions

Okay, I’m not a total noob. I can (and do) use aptitude. What this line tells us is that there’s a program, numlockx; its function is to enable Numlock in a GUI* environment (X11); and, it’s not installed on our system (p, If it’s installed, it’s i…see man aptitude.).

RoboFrog installs numlockx (sudo aptitude install numlockx) and reboots. Numlock is on…all the time. Finally! I have the perfect keyboard. I can’t believe it.

“How did you know to do that?” I ask TheFrog.

“Oh, we used slim with Arch Linux. I thought I remembered that slim needed a utility to turn Numlock on or off, but I couldn’t remember what it was. I just took a guess that aptitude would find something with numlock in it. When numlockx popped up, I recognized it.” Again, HE gives me that smug, self-satisfied smile. There’s nothing like being patronized by an amphibian. It just makes me want to smack HIM.

I know. You’re sitting there saying, “That’s great for RoboFrog, but how am I supposed to figure it out. I’ve never even heard of slim.” Don’t feel like the Lone Ranger. I have heard of slim and wouldn’t have figured it out that way either. But…let’s see how we would do this if we didn’t have RoboFrog. It’s really not that hard.

First thing…you guessed it…GoogleIt: [crunchbang 11 numlock]. The second item in my search list says: ‘Numlock upon start (page 1) – Help & Support‘. I notice that it’s located at crunchbang.org and it’s from Help & Support. That’s a really good sign because we certainly need help & support. I click on the link. It’s a forum post and the first answer to the question posed says “you might want to take a look here.” Okay, I click here and there’s a solution.

sudo aptitude install numlockx
add numlockx & to ~/.config/openbox/autostart.sh

The first line installs numlockx. That’s the same thing RoboFrog did. The second line says to add the command numlockx & to autostart.sh. When a file ends with .sh, it tells us that it’s a shell script, and in this case, it’s located in the ~/.config/openbox directory. That’s different than what RoboFrog did. This recommendation is almost correct…but not quite (for CrunchBang 11). If you try to open the file (geany ~/.config/openbox/autostart.sh) you get an empty file. That’s odd. autostart.sh should be an existing shell script. We expect a file that contains shell commands. What we get is an empty file. Let’s make sure that we know what we’re doing. Close geany. Let’s see if we can find autostart.sh in our home directory (~/, same as /home/robofrog).

find ~/ -name autostart.sh

Nothing! Try something different:

find ~/ -name autostart*

We get the following:

/home/robofrog/.config/openbox/autostart  (same as ~/.config/openbox/autostart)

Interesting. That’s too close to autostart.sh to be a coincidence, so let’s open ~/.config/openbox/autostart with geany (geany ~/.config/openbox/autostart). Here’s what we get:

## Openbox autostart.sh
 ## ====================
 ## When you login to your CrunchBang Openbox session, this autostart script
 ## will be executed to set-up your environment and launch any applications
 ## you want to run at startup.
 ##
 ## Note*: some programs, such as 'nm-applet' are run via XDG autostart.
 ## Run '/usr/lib/openbox/openbox-xdg-autostart --list' to list any
 ## XDG autostarted programs.
 ##
 ## More information about this can be found at:
 ## http://openbox.org/wiki/Help:Autostart
 ##
 ## If you do something cool with your autostart script and you think others
 ## could benefit from your hack, please consider sharing it at:
 ## http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/
 ##
 ## Have fun! :) 
*
*
*

Notice the ‘Openbox autostart.sh’ at the top of the file? It gives us plenty of reason to suspect that this is the file that we’re looking for. We don’t have a CrunchBang 10 installation, so I can’t verify it, but I suspect that this file was named autostart.sh in CrunchBang 10 and was renamed to just autostart in CrunchBang 11. Let’s try adding numlockx & to the bottom of the file, reboot, and see if Numlock is turned on.

Did it work? Sure. This works every bit as well as RoboFrog’s. That brings up an important point about Linux. Linux is a very flexible system. There’s rarely just one way to do something. Some ways are better than others…and sometimes…it’s just what you’re most comfortable with and know how to do.

Bottom line: I have my favorite keyboard working exactly the way I want it to work.

 

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PrtScr for Apple Keyboard: CrunchBang 11 Linux

Posted on August 27, 2012 by RoboFrog

 

[If you don't know who or what these (*) are, check the Glossary page.]

I want four modifications to my Apple Extended Keyboard:

  • Add an Insert key
  • Make F1-F12 the default top-row keys instead of the media keys
  • Add a print screen (PrtScr) key
  • Activate the number pad on start up (Numlock on)
We’ve shown how to accomplish the first two in previous posts. Those should work on any Debian-based system. The last two are specific to CrunchBang 11. CrunchBang makes a lot of things like this easy. It’s one of our biggest reasons for loving CrunchBang.

Conky

Conky display CrunchBang LinuxThe text in the upper right of my screen is a result of the Conky utility. I find SYSTEM INFO quite useful, but mostly ignore the SHORTCUT KEYS. Staring at my monitor daydreaming…if you do much writing, you’ll understand…I notice that at the very bottom of the SHORTCUT KEYS it says: PrtSc Screenshot. No! It can’t be that easy, can it? Yes it can. CrunchBang already provides a print screen function. (Actually, it provides two print screen functions, but I didn’t know that until RoboFrog* read through the configuration file.) The problem is that there’s no PrtScr key on my Apple keyboard. No problem. I’ll just turn it over to TheFrog*.

“Hey Frog…a little help, please?”

“Sure. What’s up?” says RF.

“See where it says ‘PrtSc Screenshot’ under the Conky shortcut keys? If I had a PC keyboard, doesn’t it look like CrunchBang would run a screenshooter program when I press PrtScr?”

“Looks that way. Easy enough to find out.”

“Can’t you do the same thing you did to set F13 to Insert?” I ask.

“Probably. Let me take a look.”

TheFrog sits down at my machine. It’s easier this time because he knows where the key bindings are (Settings->Openbox->Edit rc.xml). HE looks through the file and finds this:

<keybind key="Print">
  <action name="Execute">
  <execute>xfce4-screenshooter</execute>
  </action>
 </keybind>
 <keybind key="A-Print">
   <action name="Execute">
   <execute>scrot '%Y-%m-%d--%s_$wx$h_scrot.png' -e 'mv $f ~/images/ &amp; viewnior ~/images/$f'</execute>
   </action>
 </keybind>

“There it is,” HE smiles. “They’re using xfce4-screenshooter; good choice. That’s what’s assigned to PrtScr, but it looks like they have another print-thing going on. Let’s find out what scrot is.”

Scrot is a new one for us. TheFrog switches to a terminal (HIS weapon of choice) and: man scrot (bring up the man page for scrot).

NAME
       scrot - capture a screenshot using imlib2

SYNOPSIS
       scrot [options] [file]

“There you have it. They have two screen-shooters. Press PrtScr you get xfce4-screenshooter and press Alt+PrtScr you get scrot. Looks like this one’s dead-easy,” says RoboFrog. “I’ll fix it.”

TheFrog searches through rc.xml to make sure HE’s not duplicating a key combination and then makes the following changes:

<keybind key="W-s">
  <action name="Execute">
  <execute>xfce4-screenshooter</execute>
  </action>
 </keybind>
 <keybind key="A-s">
   <action name="Execute">
   <execute>scrot '%Y-%m-%d--%s_$wx$h_scrot.png' -e 'mv $f ~/images/ &amp; viewnior ~/images/$f'</execute>
   </action>
 </keybind>

“There you go,” he says.

“That’s it? Wow! That was easy enough.” TheFrog goes back to whatever HE was doing before I interrupted HIM.

So, what did HE do? Print is the description for the PrtScr key; A-Print is Alt+PrtScr. (Hold down the Alt-key, then press PrtScr). Single letters are used in this configuration file to describe the various shift-keys.

  • S -> Shift
  • C -> Control
  • A -> Alt
  • W -> Windows or Super (command-key on the Apple keyboard)

First, RoboFrog made sure that W-s (Super+s) and A-s (Alt+s) weren’t already assigned to keys. Then HE replaced Print with W-s and A-Print with A-s. Finally, HE restarted Openbox (Settings->Openbox->Restart).

CrunchBang 11 Linux ScreenshotNow I have not one, but two ways to capture what’s on my screen. They are slightly different. Alt+s is like a normal PC PrtScr. It immediately takes a picture of the entire screen. Super+s (command+s on the Apple keyboard) runs xfce4-screenshooter. Screenshooter is much more flexible. It allows me to capture the entire screen, just the active window, or a selected part of the screen. It also allows me to delay the screen shot for up to 60 seconds.

Okay. Almost the perfect keyboard. Only one thing left: Numlock. Next time…

 

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Apple Extended Keyboard: Swap fn Shift

Posted on August 23, 2012 by RoboFrog

[If you don't know who or what these (*) are, check the Glossary page.]

We have two objectives for our current posts: First, show how RoboFrog* goes about configuring our systems and fixing problems, and second, demonstrating some of the ways we can customize CrunchBang 11. We’re making a few assumptions about you:

  • You want to learn about Linux and become adept at fixing your own problems.
  • You know what a terminal window is and how to open one.
  • You know how to enter commands on the command line in a terminal window.
  • You know how to use a simple text editor such as geany, nano, leafpad, …
  • You know how the Linux directory system works.
We’re also assuming that you know basics like how to use a browser and perform a simple Google search. We figure that if you don’t know things like that, you probably aren’t reading this post. Now, back to the program already in progress…

I now have an Insert key on my Apple Extended Keyboard (F13) and I’m lovin’ it. (see previous post) There are still three things that I want:

  1. …the fn-key to shift to the media keys instead of the function keys.
  2. …a print screen function (PrtScr).
  3. …the number pad active all the time. (Numlock on)

It’s surprisingly easy to achieve all three. I’ll show you how TheFrog* swapped the fn-key so that it shifts to the media keys instead of the F1-F12 keys. You can see the keys that we’re working on in the picture above.

Swap Function/Media Shift

The keys at the top are dual-function keys. They give us the usual F1-F12 functions and media control functions. By default, the media functions are active and we have to us a shift key (fn) to get F1-F12. When we Googled to find clues for adding Insert to our keyboard (see previous post), we also discovered how to make F1-F12 the default instead of the media functions. In fact, we found the ‘same’ solution both at the ArchWiki and Lazy Robot.

 

 

Here’s what we got from Lazy Robot:

Add this line to /etc/rc.local:

echo 2 > /sys/modules/hid_apple/parameters/fnmode

This is the one we tried. It doesn’t work. That’s confusing because it’s the ‘same’ solution proffered by the ArchWiki. We use the ArchWiki a lot and have a high level of confidence in it.

So…how do we figure out what’s wrong? Here’s one approach. First, compare what’s at Lazy Robot with the ArchWiki. They look the same. Next, let’s see if we can figure out what the line we added to /etc/rc.local is supposed to do.

echo is a shell command (program executed from the command line) that simply displays a line of text to the terminal window. echo 2 prints ’2′ to the terminal window. > tells the terminal to send the output of echo 2 (the thing its displaying) somewhere other than the terminal. In this case, it says to send the ’2′ to a file. The name of that file is is fnmode and it is located in the directory /sys/modules/hid_apple/parameters. (Be careful with >. If fnmode already exists, it will be overwritten. Anything in it will be lost. If it doesn’t exist, it will be created.)

Let’s see if we can find fnmode. Try “walking” through the directory structure.

cd /sys

No problem there. We are now in the /sys directory.

cd modules
bash: cd: modules: No such file or directory

Now were getting somewhere. For some reason the directory ‘modules’ (/sys/modules) doesn’t exist on our system. What directories do we have under /sys?

ls -F (Take a look at man ls to see what the -F option does.)
block/ class/ devices/ fs/ kernel/ power/
  bus/ dev/ firmware/ hypervisor/ module/

There’s the problem. Do you see it? The directory name is ‘module’, not ‘modules’. Checking back at the ArchWiki, we see that they have ‘module’ in their directory tree. Lazy Robot has ‘modules’. We missed it when we compared the two. Lazy Robot has a simple typo. Once we correct it, it works perfectly. Now we use the fn-key to shift to the media keys instead of F1-F12.

Next time, we’ll get ourselves a PrtScr key.

 

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Stranger in a Strange Land

Posted on August 21, 2012 by RoboFrog

[If you don't know who or what these (*) are, check the Glossary page.]

The past four or five days have been exciting here on the LilyPad*. Never a dull moment.

We’re Not in Kansas Anymore!

You may notice some minor differences in the look of the site. The past two or three days, I’ve switched us over to WordPress.org. Why the change? We’re looking for maximum flexibility and the latitude to add anything to the site that we’re technically capable of adding. I’m trying to get the look back to what we had at WordPress.com. If I’m lucky, I’m the only one who will notice the small differences.

It isn’t terribly difficult to make the transition. We’re using BlueHost.com as our hosting service. It’s recommended by WordPress.org. So far, they’ve been terrific. We used chat technical support twice. They were available quickly; knowledgeable; competent; friendly. (We had a problem connecting to their chat service with Firefox. Google Chrome connected as expected.)

I’ll talk about our experiences as we become more acquainted to it. There’s much that’s familiar, but there are differences.

Tip: If you’re thinking about transitioning to a self-hosted system, here are a few things that I recommend that you do:

  1. Complete and publish all drafts.
  2. Backup your WordPress.com site (Dashboard->Tools->Export) This creates an xml file containing all of you content.
  3. Transfer your domain only at this point.
  4. Using an FTP client, upload your xml file to the new site. (We used both gFTP and Filezilla. Both worked well.)
  5. Import your xml file at the new site. (Dashboard->Tools->Import->Wordpress)
  6. Choose a theme. (Same procedure as WordPress.com)

BlueHost has very good documentation to help with the transition. It took me about two days to figure out how to do all of this. Now, we’ll see if it was worth the effort.

RIP BigDog

Saturday, BigDog* was working perfectly. Sunday, he was dead. I got a couple of flashes of an led when I pressed the power switch…and nothing. RoboFrog* tried a different hard drive and memory. No change. Oh well; this is our second HP Pavillion pv-9000. The first we bought; the second, RoboFrog’s brother gave us. Neither machine survived two years. By  contrast, Defiant (Thinkpad T-43) is eight years old. We recently replaced her hard drive. Otherwise, she’s going strong. The pv-9000′s are huge with 17″ screens (very nice), very heavy, and run hot as two dollar pistols. Given our experience, we can’t recommend this machine.

Musical Chairs

With the demise of BigDog, we had to give consideration to roles in The Robotic Frog Computing Center (RFCC). Whitestar* moved from fileserver to my main machine. She got that role because she runs at roughly the same speed as Untouchable* and has twice the memory. But that leaves us without a file server. Dellbert volunteered for that duty, so sometime today, TheFrog* will get him set up. That leaves Untouchable as RoboFrog’s main / experimental machine. It’s probably time to think about introducing OldBlue*.

Next time, we’ll finish up configuration of our Apple Extended Keyboard. Let us know if you experience any interesting differences in the sites.

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CrunchBang 11 Interlude

Posted on August 15, 2012 by RoboFrog

[If you don't know who or what these (*) are, check the Glossary page]

First Pothole

I hit my first CrunchBang 11 pothole last night. I sat down to do some work on Defiant*. I wasn’t happy with the speed of the trackpad. The pointer was moving too fast for my taste, so I Googled it and came up with a page from the CrunchBang Wiki. We’ve used a lot of lx**** stuff with good results. While TheFrog* likes command line, I prefer nice, tidy, easy-to-use GUI* utilities. The CrunchBang Wiki page told me that if I loaded lxinput I’d get a GUI utility that allowed me to adjust mouse and keyboard settings. Terrific! Using a terminal window, I installed lxinput. (Can also be done with Synaptic: Settings->Synaptic Package Manager, search for lxinput.)

sudo aptitude update

sudo aptitude full-upgrade

sudo aptitude install lxinput

sudo reboot

This can be done in one line:

sudo aptitude update && sudo aptitude full-upgrade && sudo aptitude install lxinput && sudo reboot

[&& means AND]

I did an update and upgrade before installing lxinput, then rebooted. It probably wasn’t necessary to reboot, but as a survivor of the Windows 3.1 era, I always feel more secure after a reboot.

My login window came up…I entered user id and password…and:

failed to execute login command

Tried again with the same result. With growing feelings of trepidation and despair, I realized that I needed to get RoboFrog* involved. (Don’t get me wrong. TheFrog is able to fix most of our problems, but wow! It’s usually pretty ugly. HE can’t help tinkering. I just want to get some work done.)

“What’s up?”

“I broke Defiant. I can’t log on.”

“Really,” said TheFrog. “Cool! What did you do?”

Cool! See what I mean?

“I updated her and loaded lxinput.”

“What did you do for?” HE’s giving me that look. (Not that look; the other one.)

“I wanted to change the mouse speed. The pointer is too sensitive.”

“Why didn’t you say something?” said RoboFrog. “I could have fixed that without lxinput. Did you reboot before you loaded lxinput?”

“No…after.”

“So you don’t know whether the update or lxinput broke Defiant?”

“I guess not.” This conversation wasn’t doing much to cheer me up.

“Let me see her.”

Hands shaking, I handed Defiant to TheFrog. HE* sat down with her, tried a few reboots without success. Then HE switched to a console window (Ctl+Alt+F4) and logged on (It really is handy to know CLI*); poked around in a few configuration files, then loaded something and rebooted.

“Here.” He handed Defiant back to me. “She’ll work now. Tomorrow I’ll figure out what happened.”

Mouth hanging open, I blinked a couple of times and said, “That’s it? What did you do?”

“Not much. Slim’s not working, so I loaded gdm. I’ll fix her tomorrow.” (sudo aptitide install gdm3)

[Slim and gdm (Gnome Display Manager) are display managers. They manage your login when you start your system. CrunchBang 10 uses gdm as its default display manager while CrunchBang 11 uses Slim. Debian Wheezy (testing), on which CrunchBang 11 is based, uses gdm as its display manager. I suspect that's how TheFrog knew it would work. Also, I suspect that the CrunchBang team switched to Slim because its a much lighter-weight display manager than gdm.]

I tried logging on.

“It’s still not letting me log in.”

“What does it say in the login session box?,” asked TheFrog.

“Default session,” I reply.

“Click on the drop-down box and set the session to Openbox.”

I did, and sure enough, everything was fine. Other than having a different login screen, I couldn’t tell the difference. And…I got a lot of work done. For once, RoboFrog simply fixed the problem without tearing the machine apart. Now that was cool.

Good to HIS word, by the time I got to the RFCC* this morning, RoboFrog had Defiant completely restored to her pre-lxinput condition. Apparently, HE wasn’t interested in worrying about what lxinput did. HE confirmed, though, that is was lxinput and not the system update that caused the problem. HE reinstalled CrunchBang 11 and restored my backup.

If you’re running CrunchBang 11…DO NOT…install lxinput!

By the way, TheFrog also fixed my mouse pointer speed. That’s a story for another time.

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CrunchBang 11, Apple Extended Keyboard

Posted on August 13, 2012 by RoboFrog

[If you don't know who or what these (*) are, check the Glossary page.]

I’m surprised by the things that capture Robofrog’s* attention. I came into the RoboFrog Computing Center (RFCC) this morning and HE’s* hopping up and down all over the place.

“You gotta see this!”

Do I really want to know? It’s too early for this.

“Whatcha got?,” I ask.

“Look. I searched for [apple extended keyboard insert f13] and there we are at the top of Google’s search results.”

Forgive my vanity. There on HIS screen was The Robotic Frog right at the top of the Google search list. Trust me on this one. The first time you see your web site pop up on a Google search is pretty cool. You get a little tingle that runs all the way up your back. And, there’s Lazy Robot close at hand.

I’ve already lost TheFrog’s attention. Looking over HIS shoulder, I see that HE’s entering another search. It’s the same search except he removes the f13 keyword. Now, we’re nowhere in sight. RoboFrog clicks through a couple of pages and there we are on the third search-result page. Lazy Robot is gone altogether (at least as far as we checked…6-7 pages).

This post isn’t about how to do a Google search, but I can see that look on RoboFrog’s face. You know the one I told you about. HE’s frozen in place with knitted brow and I can see the wheels turning. Google knows about us. Google knows about Lazy Robot. So, why did Lazy Robot disappear and why did we drop so far back in the search results? For now, I’ll let TheFrog do HIS thing and I’ll tell you what HE comes up with another time.

Update: RoboFrog left one really important keyword out of his search: Linux! That’s a big oversight. It’s usually HIS first keyword when searching for information to solve a problem on a Linux system. HE got lucky with the f13 thing , but if HE had included ‘Linux’, HE wouldn’t have needed the f13. I’m thinking search is as much art as science.

More Apple Extended Keyboard

Apple Aluminum Keyboard

Apple Aluminum Keyboard (Photo credit: jgarber)

RoboFrog forgot to include ‘linux’ in HIS keywords and fortuitously threw in f13. What if the f13 had not occurred to HIM? Could HE still have assigned Insert to the F13 function key? Sure. The information from the ArchWiki combined with the man pages was enough to fix this problem.

From our previous post:

********************

Reading down the ArchWiki page, we find a few more clues. Under the Media Keys section are the following:

  • ~/.Xmodmap
  • keycode 49 = less greater less greater bar brokenbar
  • “Then run xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap. This command can also go into ~/.bashrc.”
  • xev

It’s rare that we get a perfectly tailored post like the one from Lazy Robot. More often, we get clues like those from the Arch Linux Wiki. All of the clues we need to assign Insert to F13 are contained in those four bullet-points.

First, we need to find the keycode for our F13 function key. We learned from the ArchWiki that xev is a command line utility that displays keycode information. xev is already installed on our systems; we suspect that’s the case with most Linux distributions. On Debian-based systems, it’s included in the x11-utils. So, let’s fire up xev and see what we get.

  • Open a terminal window.
  • Execute xev.
  • Press the F13 key.

In the terminal window you’ll see a description of two events: KeyPress, KeyRelease. Most of the information is of no use to us, but under both KeyPress and KeyRelease we see keycode 191. This agrees exactly with Lazy Robot’s information. So far, so good.

The Dreaded Man Pages

We don’t really need the man pages. With the information from the ArchWiki, xev, and a common-sense guess, we can get the job done. It is a mistake to avoid the man pages, though. They’re difficult to read for Newbies and early HAC (Have-A-Clue) Linux-ers, but the only way to get comfortable with them is to struggle with them a bit. In the case of xmodmap, the man pages have some important stuff.

In a terminal window, type ‘man xmodmap’ (without the single quotes). You’ll get something like the picture above. To navigate the man pages press <spacebar> to page down, <down-arrow> to move down a line at a time, <up-arrow> to move up a line at a time, <b> to move up a page. Let’s look at some important things that we find in this man page.

NAME
xmodmap – utility for modifying keymaps and pointer button mappings in X

Man pages are divided into sections. The first, NAME, tells us that xmodmap is a utility. So it’s a program that we’re going to run from the command line or from a script. And, it’s for modifying ‘keymaps and pointer button mappings’. When you press a key on the keyboard, it produces a number. In our case, F13, produces 191. The keymap tells the system what to do with the number 191 received from the keyboard. We need to modify the keymap so that it tells the system to do the Insert function.

Here’s an important point. I don’t know what ‘pointer button mappings’ are. I suspect it’s mapping buttons from something like a mouse, but that’s a guess. I don’t have to understand everything in a man page. There’s useful stuff in them that I do understand and the more I read them, the more I understand.

SYNOPSIS
xmodmap [-options ...] [filename]

Synopsis is a pretty important section. It tells us how to use the command; it describes what we are to type on the command line. Anytime something is enclosed in square brackets, [...], it means that it’s optional. You may have that thing…or, you may not have it. To execute xmodmap, we type xmodmap on the command line, a space, zero or more options, a space, and a filename…or no filename. That means that we can execute xmodmap without any options and without a filename. Try it. You’ll get some interesting information.

DESCRIPTION
The xmodmap program is used to edit and display the keyboard modifier map and keymap table that are used by client applications to convert event keycodes into keysyms. It is usually run from the user’s session startup script to configure the keyboard according to
personal tastes.

Exactly what we want to do, and something really important. It runs from our startup script. This is why we lost our Insert key when we rebooted (see previous post). The ArchWiki gave us the same information when it said that this can be included in ~/.bashrc.

OPTIONS
The following options may be used with xmodmap:

  •  
  •  
  •  

The filename specifies a file containing xmodmap expressions to be executed. This file is usually kept in the user’s home directory with a name like .xmodmaprc.

We know from the information from the ArchWiki that we don’t need any options. We just need the filename of our configuration file (.Xmodmap). The man page recommends a name like .xmodmaprc. We like that suggestion because the rc on the end of the filename reminds us that it’s a configuration file. On our systems, we’re taking the man page recommendation and naming our configuration file .xmodmaprc. Use what feels best to you.

Finally, there is interesting (and potentially important) information in the next section.

EXPRESSION GRAMMAR

The list of keysym names may be found in the header file <X11/keysymdef.h> (without the XK_ prefix), supplemented by the keysym database /usr/share/X11/XKeysymDB. Keysyms matching Unicode characters may be specified as “U0020″ to “U007E” and “U00A0″ to ”U10FFFF” for all possible Unicode characters.

keycode NUMBER = KEYSYMNAME …
The list of keysyms is assigned to the indicated keycode (which may be specified in decimal, hex or octal and can be determined by running the xev program). Up to eight keysyms may be attached to a key, however the last four are not used in any major X server implementation. The first keysym is used when no modifier key is pressed in conjunction with this key, the second with Shift, the third when the Mode_switch key is used with this key and the fourth when both the Mode_switch and Shift keys are used.

  •  
  •  
  •  

Remember that I said that I would have guessed at Insert for the keysymname? We don’t have to guess, though. The man page tells us that the keysym names are defined in the file keysyndef.h, that they are prefixed with XK_, and that we use the name without the XK_ when we assign the name to a number.

Tip: Do yourself a favor. CrunchBang doesn’t install the locate command. I find this command particularly helpful when trying to find a file like keysymdef.h. No problem; just install it.

aptitude install locate

or

apt-get install locate

Then:

sudo updatedb

To see locate in action: locate keysymdef.h. Now, it’s easy to open keysymdef.h in a text editor and find the definition of the Insert function (XK_Insert). Cool.

The only thing left is to put it all together. We end up with the same solution we had in our previous post:

  • create a configuration text file in our home directory (/home/robofrog/.Xmodmap)
  • Add a line to the file: keycode 191 = Insert
  • From the command line execute: xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap
  • Add ‘xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap &’ to our autostart script (see previous post)

That’s it for the Insert key. Next time, a couple of other tweaks to our Apple Extended Keyboard and we’re finished. The perfect keyboard. Thanks CrunchBang!

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More CrunchBang 11

Posted on August 10, 2012 by RoboFrog

[If you don't know who or what these (*) are, check the Glossary page.]

At The Robotic Frog, we’re still very much in love with CrunchBang 11 (Waldorf). It has a couple of small warts, but from our point of view, it’s performing brilliantly.

CrunchBang isn’t a Linux distribution that we would recommend to a complete Linux newbie. If you’re brand new to Linux, RoboFrog* recommends Xubuntu 12.04 or Linux Mint. (TheFrog prefers Xubuntu.) If you’re at all comfortable with using command line and a text editor, with a little persistence, you should be able to get CrunchBang to look and feel the way you want. It’s worth the effort.

CrunchBang 11: Apple Extended Keyboard

Wired Apple Keyboard

Wired Apple Keyboard (Photo credit: Jalada and Sefran)

I love the Apple Extended (aluminum) Keyboard. The touch is just right, the keys are large, and they’re well-spaced for my hands. I like the short keystroke too.

Fair warning: RoboFrog’s aunt has the same Apple Extended Keyboard and she hates it…because of the size of the keys and short keystroke. Go figure.

There are a couple of problems with it, though. First, it doesn’t have an Insert key. I use Freemind (mind-mapping software)…a lot. The keyboard command to insert a new node is…you guessed it…Insert. Some have recommended the Enter key on the number pad for this function, but Enter doesn’t do the same thing as Insert. Enter adds a new node to the root node…no matter which node is highlighted. Insert adds a new node to the highlighted node. With Numlock turned off, the Zero-key on the number pad will produce the Insert command. It’s a minor irritation, though, to remember to turn the number pad on and off each time I use Freemind. I prefer to have the number pad always turned on.

The Apple keyboard has several unused keys (in the Linux world): F13-F19. Those function keys are just sitting there taking up space…unless we give them a job. F13 looks like a good candidate for Insert…if we can figure out how to assign the Insert command to it.

Google It!

We talked last time about the power of Google (search engines) and man pages. Here’s how we used those tools to solve our Insert-key problem.

A Google search is almost always the best place to start solving a problem. We’re not the most sophisticated searchers; we keep it simple. First, think about what kind of information you want. In this case, we have an Apple Extended Keyboard; we want to assign the Insert command to an unused key; and, we think F13 (the F13 function key) is a terrific candidate since it’s near the location that we expect the Insert key on a PC keyboard. So here’s our Google search:

[apple extended keyboard insert f13]

As you can see, it’s simply a bunch of keywords identifying the three things we want to know something about: apple extended keyboard, insert, f13. F13 is a wild guess, but it makes the search more specific…and it does make a difference. The solution we finally choose does not come up if we search without the f13 keyword.

The Google search gives a list of links. The best of all worlds is if we get a link that say, “RoboFrog, here’s how to set the F13 key to Insert on your Apple Extended Keyboard with CrunchBang 11 running on BigDog.” That rarely happens. We’d like a specific solution to our problem, but more importantly, we’re looking for clues. One of the links says, “Apple Keyboard – ArchWiki.” This is from the Arch Linux documentation. Your first impression may be that this isn’t very useful because it’s about Arch Linux. We’re trying to configure CrunchBang Linux. That’s a mistake. We used Arch Linux for a long time and know what’s in their wiki documents. Arch-folk are expected to fix their own problems. To help with that, the Arch Linux community put together terrific documentation that they keep on the ArchWiki. I can’t count the number of problems that RoboFrog has solved with information HE* found on the ArchWiki. So, when an ArchWiki link pops up, we pay attention.

What did we find at the ArchWiki? We’re not going to repeat the wiki here. Click the link to see the wiki page. We’ll point out the sections in which we found useful information.

“Function keys do not work” — (ArchWiki)

It’s not that the function keys don’t work. It’s that you have to use the fn shift key to get to them because the keyboard defaults to the media keys. Here’s an example of a problem we didn’t even know that we had. We really like the media keys and we use them a lot. If you want an interesting exercise, try pressing the fn shift key to activate the function keys while, at the same time, holding down both the Control and Alt keys, then pressing F3 (Ctl+Alt+F3). (Experienced Linux-ers know that this is how you switch to a console window.) You have to be a contortionist to do this. Then, you have to press Ctl+Alt+F7 to return to your graphical environment and that’s even more difficult. It would be much better to shift the media keys rather than the function keys. So in this ArchWiki section, is a fix for this problem for Arch Linux…and, it works just fine with CrunchBang.

“Media Keys” — (ArchWiki)

We keep a utility called Tomboy running on all of our machines. It’s a notes application. A notes application is like having a pad of sticky-notes always available. It’s a terrific tool to have when problem solving. We copy and paste the information from the ArchWiki to a ‘sticky-note’ and continue looking for clues. That way we don’t have to keep going back and forth between web sites.

Reading down the ArchWiki page, we find a few more clues. Under the Media Keys section are the following:

  • ~/.Xmodmap
  • keycode 49 = less greater less greater bar brokenbar
  • “Then run xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap. This command can also go into ~/.bashrc.”
  • xev

That’s quite a lot of information and it took only a few minutes to get it. If your new to Linux, this is probably pretty scary stuff. If, however, you know a bit about configuration files, command line utilities, and shell scripting there are a bunch of clues here.

.Xmodmap is a configuration file and it’s located in the home directory (~/). I checked my home directory and there’s no .Xmodmap. That’s okay; it means that I need to create one.

[keycode 49 = ...] When you press a key, it produces a number that the computer reads: a keycode. This tells us that we can take a known keycode (49 in this case) and assign stuff to it. We don’t want to play around with keycode 49, but if we can find the keycode for our F13 key, then this is how to assign a function to it. The information for the assignment is stored in our .Xmodmap configuration file. Apparently, that’s not enough, though.

[xmodmap] appears to be a utility program and we have to feed it the information in our .Xmodmap file. There’s another clue that I missed: “This command can also go into ~/.bashrc." Frankly, I’m a little embarrassed that I missed this one. It’s important, as you’ll see later.

[xev] This is the holy grail. It’s a utility program that displays the keycode for a key when we press it. Now we have a way to determine the keycode for our F13 function key.

We learned a lot. Even though this information isn’t specific to CrunchBang Linux (or whatever your favorite distribution) it’s very useful and applicable. The point is that we should scan links from our search even if they don’t appear applicable to our particular distribution. This is Linux and there are more things, from distribution to distribution, that are the same than are different.

Lazy Robot: Apple Aluminum Keyboard on Linux

You know what? Just as we like Robotic Frogs, we also like Lazy Robots (LR)! Going back to our search list, the third entry is for Lazy Robot. We consider that a good omen. Not only did we get a chuckle from the name, but we also got an exact solution to our problem…almost.

If we follow the link to Lazy Robot, we’re greeted immediately with a picture of the Apple Extended Keyboard. We’re in the right place. Lazy Robot does a terrific job of distilling things down to the essentials.

Scanning the page we see that the keycode for F13 is 191 and LR shows us how to assign Insert to the keycode. It doesn’t get much better than that.

That’s it. It will be enabled when you log in. If you want to enable it immediately, type this:

    $ xmodmap .Xmodmap

Magic. You now have an insert key.

Caveat emptor: I can’t tell you how grateful we are to folks like Lazy Robot for sharing information like this. It’s one of the reasons that we do what we do. But…there’s always a ‘but’, isn’t there? But this is only mostly right for our system. That’s not unusual, so be careful.

Here’s how we configure CrunchBang:

  • create a configuration text file in our home directory (/home/robofrog/.Xmodmap)
  • Add a line to the file: keycode 191 = Insert
  • From the command line execute: xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap

RoboFrog and I are doing high-fives. It works perfectly. Finally, I have an Insert key. No more shifting the number pad on and off. That is until I rebooted. Once I rebooted, no more Insert.

“Insert is gone,” says I.

“Did you add xmodmap to the start up script?”

HE* has that look on HIS* face. You know the one. The one that says, “Did you plug it in?” I just want to smack HIM. Actually, RoboFrog is the most patient of Frogs. Maybe the look is my imagination. Not!

“Try running xmodmap again,” says TheFrog.

I do…Magic!…I have Insert again. What does that tell me? That xmodmap must be run every time my system boots (Of course, TheFrog knows that.). No problem. I do that by putting the command in one of my startup scripts. CrunchBang gives me a simple way to do that.

Settings->Openbox->Edit autostart

Add this line to the Openbox autostart configuration file:

xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap &

Now Insert is assigned to F13 every time my system boots. More problem solving and the Apple keyboard next time.

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Linux Newbie

Posted on August 5, 2012 by RoboFrog

What does ‘secret’ mean?

Obama authorized secret support for Syrian rebels

“WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama has signed a secret order authorizing U.S. support for rebels seeking to depose Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his government, sources familiar with the matter said.”

Sometimes you see something that makes your head want to explode. Someone help me out. What, exactly, does ‘secret’ mean? I thought I knew, but apparently, I don’t.

Linux Newbie

One of the biggest problems for new Linux users is figuring out how to…figure out how…to fix or change things. This problem is often lost on experienced Linux-ers. We forget how scary it was the first time something went wrong or didn’t work as expected. I want to hope that newcomers simply need a little coaching in how to get started solving their problems (and the occasional flash of brilliance from old-timers) and they’ll blaze their own trails.

If you’re new to Linux and you want to learn what makes the system tick, you need to learn to use the command line interface (CLI). CLI gives you the potential to fix problems and customize almost everything. Once you learn CLI, you start to get the power-itch. It’s the doorway to making your machine work the way you want it to, rather than the way someone else thought you wanted it to work. It only takes a few things to get started: Learn how to open a terminal window, how to enter commands, and how to navigate the Linux file system (Especially, learn the ls, cd, and more commands). You don’t have to learn everything all at once; just a few of the basics to get started. There’s plenty of easy to understand information on the Internet that describes how to do these things.

Your Search Engine Is Your Friend

Google is our preferred search engine at The Robotic Frog (TRF). When we say Google, we mean use your favorite search provider. We’ve tried a lot of different search engines, but always end up back at Google. There’s a reason people say, “Google it.”

Linux is a child of the Internet and there is an enormous amount of Linux-specific information out there. It’s rare that we fail to find something about a problem we have or a change that we want to make. An Internet search should be the first thing you do when you need help.

Man Pages

If you’re a brand-newbie (maybe even if you’re not so brand new), you may have no idea what ‘man pages’ are. I know I didn’t the first time I saw that phrase. Here, let me help. Bring up a terminal window (You did do a search and figure out how to do that, right?) and type this at the shell prompt ($ , on our system. You don’t type the $. The shell provides it.):

$ man man

The system helpfully brings up a screen of information and under the heading DESCRIPTION, you’ll see this (on a CrunchBang/Debian system):

“man is the system’s manual pager. Each page argument given to man is normally the name of a program, utility or function. The manual page associated with each of these arguments is then found and displayed.”

For the sake of argument, let’s define three Linux users: 1) Newbie, 2) Have-A-Clue (HAC), and 3) Guru. At TRF, we’re HACs (Have-A-Clue Linux-ers). We aspire to Guru status, but we’re still a long way from it. We’ve had a lot of help along the way and we’ll probably need a lot more. The man description for itself (man man) is intuitively obvious to a Guru; a HAC will understand it, but may need to mull it over a bit. To a newbie, it’s unintelligible. Telling a newbie to read the man pages (RTFM) is probably the worst advice we can give. man pages are not written for newbies.

With that said, newbies who want to learn about their system should become aware of the man pages and must start learning how to read them. It gets easier with practice. man pages are the pages of the manual for your Linux system. They live on your hard drive and contain some of the best information about your system and its utilities (programs). Your manual (man pages) are always available. If you have your machine…you have your manual.

Next time, we’ll show you how to use these tools to solve real problems.

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CrunchBang 11 (Waldorf)

Posted on August 1, 2012 by RoboFrog

[If you don't know who or what these (*) are, check the Glossary page.]

At The Robotic Frog, we like newbies! But…CrunchBang is NOT a distributions for newbies. If you’re brand new to Linux, we recommend Xubuntu 12.04. Does that mean that a newbie can’t get CrunchBang to work? Not at all. It’ll just takes some patience and hard work. If you’re a newbie and you think you really want to give CrunchBang a try…and you need help…drop us a comment and we’ll do the best we can to help.

I’ve spent roughly three days with CrunchBang 11…and I think TheFrog got it right. I have never used a Linux distribution that grew on me so fast.

When RoboFrog first loaded CrunchBang, the only thing going through my head was “Wow. That’s just butt-ugly!” Call me shallow, but I like a Linux distribution that at least makes an attempt at looking attractive. Xubuntu is difficult to beat for initial impressions. It is stunningly attractive. The impression is that the Xubuntu team put a lot of work into getting everything right. As I said last time, CrunchBang comes up with a face that only a mother could love. Thankfully, it only takes a few minutes to make it much better.

CrunchBang has a minimalist user interface and we like that. Actually, I don’t think it’s as minimalist as it looks; rather, it’s efficient and elegant. In the three days I’ve been using CrunchBang 11, I’m completely in love with it. Now I understand the look in RoboFrog’s eyes. I’m still waiting, holding my breath, hoping a big disappointment doesn’t show up. So far, it hasn’t; CrunchBang just keeps getting better and better.

Their web site says that CrunchBang is infinitely hackable. Being slightly mathematically inclined, I’m not altogether comfortable with the word infinitely in this context, but let me say emphatically: We haven’t found anything that we want to change that we can’t…easily. Let’s see  how to make CrunchBang more presentable.

The unreadable text on the right side of the screen is Conky. Conky solved a couple of problems we’ve had for a long time. We’ll tell you about that another time. First, lets change the Conky display so that we can read it.

Settings!

You get the System Menu by right-clicking anywhere on the screen. No more chasing after a panel-button in a corner of the screen or on a shortcut panel. You simply right-click wherever your mouse is. There’s one exception. If the screen is covered with an application, you’ll have to move your mouse to the panel (default: top of screen) and right-click there to get the System Menu. In practice, we don’t find that we have to do that much.

[Update: Just found this. If you have a Super key (Windows key on PC keyboard, Command key on Apple keyboard) Conky comes to the rescue. Super+space brings up the system menu even with the screen covered by an application.]

Right-click to bring up the System Menu. Search downward until you find Settings. You’ll want to spend a lot of time in the Settings menu. You can change almost everything about how your system looks or operates from this menu.

Choose: Settings->Conky->Edit .conkyrc

This brings up the configuration file for Conky. Once you get used to editing these configuration files, you can turn your system into almost anything you want.

.conkyrc comes up in a text editor. We made three changes to the Conky configuration: 1) We changed the xtfont to Droid Sans, 2) We changed size=12, and 3) changed default_color to ffffff’. We weren’t sure Conky would accept color codes in hex, but it appears to work. The lines we changed look like this:

xtfont Droid Sans:size=12

default_color ffffff

Save your changes, and finally, you can read the Conky display. We think it’s pretty cool…and useful.

Note: We like the Droid fonts. I can’t remember whether the system comes with them loaded or RoboFrog loaded them. If they aren’t loaded on your system: $ sudo aptitude install droid-fonts.

Okay, so how about the background? Even easier. Bring up the Settings menu; go to Choose Wallpaper…and you’ll find a few really ugly wallpapers. Maybe it wasn’t as easy as I implied. Not a big problem, though. Find some wallpapers that you like, maybe you already have some favorites or download some from the Internet. Here’s the important part: AS ROOT (sudo cp …), copy them to /home/<username>/images/wallpapers/shared. Once they’re copied to this folder, you can go back to Settings->Choose Wallpaper, select the one you want, apply, close, and you have a new background. Now things are getting much better. Most of the ugly is gone.

I don’t get all the grayed-out text. We simply can’t read it, especially on a gray background. Here’s the last change we made for our initial setup. Let’s make the clock and workspace numbers so we can read them.

Settings->tint2->edit config file

In this configuration file, we made the following changes:

taskbar_name_font = Droid Sans 12

taskbar_name_active_font_color = #ffffff 100

time1_format = %H:%M

time1_font = Droid Sans Mono 12

clock_font_color = #ffffff 100

Then:

Settings->tint2->Restart tint2

That’s it! Now, you have an attractive, efficient, elegant user interface, a large selection of up-to-date applications, and a very stable system. Very cool!

Appeal to Reason

Let me make a plea for Linux developers everywhere. These folk put a lot of time, blood, sweat, and tears into creating amazing, free (as in freedom…and beer) OS’s and software that enrich our lives. At The Robotic Frog, we’ve looked for the “right” Linux for a long time. We like Xubuntu, but we LOVE CrunchBang 11. We’re so convinced that CrunchBang is what we’ve been looking for, that yesterday, we sent them a donation. It won’t be the last. Some developers are paid for the work they share with us. Most aren’t. They do it and make their work available to us for the joy of doing it. That doesn’t pay for the servers, the rent, or feed their families, though. Time is ultimately the only currency we have. Let’s help these folk keep doing what they love so they can keep providing us with stuff WE love. If you have a Linux distribution…if you have embraced a distribution that you intend to use for more than a few days…consider sending them a donation…even if it’s just $1 (US or equivalent). We tried more Linux distributions in the past 9 months than in the entire time we’ve used Linux. If we had sent $1 (US) to every distribution we tried, it would be less than $30 (US). As I sit here thinking about it…that’s not much. I could…and will in the future…gladly pay $1 (US) just for the privilege of being able to try a new Linux distribution. Please consider donating to your favorite Linux distribution. You know what the alternative is if there were no Linux.

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CrunchBang Linux 2

Posted on July 29, 2012 by RoboFrog

[If you don't know who or what these (*) are, check the Glossary page.]

It’s Not a Job…It’s an Adventure!

In the morning, I have a routine. I’m an early riser; I come downstairs, grab a cup of tea or coffee, go to my computer (BigDog*), and check out the morning news. It’s quiet in the house, just me and the dog…and that’s the way I like it. Once I have my dose of legal stimulants and make sure that the world hasn’t blown itself to hell overnight, I’m ready to leap tall buildings with a single bound. I hope you infer from this, that for me, this might not be the best time for big surprises. This morning, I power up BigDog and here’s what greets me: !!! This isn’t Xubuntu 12.04.

What in the world did TheFrog do? We have an agreement here on the LilyPad. I need at least one machine that always works…one machine that RoboFrog keeps his hands off. BigDog is supposed to be that machine. HE comes in; without a word, HE sits down at Untouchable* and starts tinkering.

We spent months trying Linux distributions before Xubuntu 12.04 was released. It was like an answer to our prayers. Other than the problem with Thunar (file manager), it just worked…and it’s beautiful. If we were recommending Linux for a newbie, Xubuntu 12.04 would be it.

“What did YOU do!?”

TheFrog continues tinkering with Untouchable.

“Try it. You’ll like it.” HE doesn’t even look up.

I take a big breath and look at BigDog. Clearly, we’re not in Kansas anymore. It is attractive, though. What is it? CrunchBang!

“I though YOU had a big problem with CrunchBang.”

“Yeah, I did,” HE replies. “But I fixed it. I loaded CrunchBang on all of our machines.”

“!!!!!!…What!?” I’m trying not to scream.

“Try it. You’ll like it; I promise.” HE still doesn’t look up.

For RoboFrog, it wasn’t an issue at all. For me…well, I was doing everything I could not to crawl under my desk, and thumb-in-mouth, curl up into the fetal position. The last time I talked with TheFrog, HE had a deal-breaking problem with CrunchBang. Now, HE had loaded it onto every machine we have and I was supposed to take it in stride. Wow!

Problems in CrunchBang-ville

TheFrog loaded CrunchBang 10 onto Dellbert* and it exceeded all of our expectations. Then, HE moved on to Untouchable. That’s where the problems began. HE tried the same tests HE did on Dellbert (previous post).

RoboFrog couldn’t get a movie to play properly on Untouchable. Untouchable would transfer part of the movie, play it, stop and think for awhile, transfer some more, play it, stop and think for awhile, and so on. Totally un-watchable. TheFrog decided to copy the movie file (3.1 GB) to Untouchable and try playing it from the local hard drive. At 1 hr 5 min, HE shut it down. The transfer still hadn’t completed. It should have taken 5 or 6 minutes. Clearly, there was a problem with NFS (Network File System). Dellbert had done a phenomenal job. Untouchable was a much more capable machine. Why was it taking so long to transfer the file?

RoboFrog decided to start with Debian 6.0.5 and work HIS way forward from there. Debian 6.0.5 had the same problem. HE tried transferring the 3.1 GB file. HE stopped it at 1 hr. It was transferring, but at a glacial pace. The problem was with Debian 6, not CrunchBang. What was the difference between Dellbert and Untouchable? 32-bit vs 64-bit version. TheFrog’s conclusion was that there’s something wrong with the 64-bit version of Debian 6 with respect to NFS. Xubuntu had worked perfectly. We used NFS for all of our backups and for access to our movie library. This was a deal-breaker. CrunchBang 10 (Debian 6.0.5) wasn’t going to work for us.

The wheels were turning, though. When TheFrog wants something, HE’s not easily put off. HE was smitten with CrunchBang and…NO…simply wasn’t an option. Then it came to HIM. Debian 6 was timing out. They were well along the way with Wheezy (Debian Testing). CrunchBang had to be well along the way with a Wheezy-based distribution as well. HE poked around the CrunchBang web site, and sure enough, there was CrunchBang 11 (based on Debian Testing). HE downloaded CrunchBang 11, loaded it onto Untouchable, and repeated the file transfer test.

It took only 4 min 50 seconds to transfer the 3.1 GB file from Whitestar* to Untouchable. That was more like it. HE still had CrunchBang 10 loaded on Dellbert, so HE tried the file transfer with Dellbert: 6 min 10 sec. CrunchBang 11 worked almost perfectly on Untouchable. In addition, we got lots of updated applications. There was one minor problem with CrunchBang 11.

CrunchBang 11 experienced the same problem with Thunar (file manager) that plagued Xubuntu. We verified that it was a Debian/Xfce problem, not CrunchBang. Thunar was a minor problem because HE simply replaced Thunar with PCManFM. Problem solved.

It was at this point that RoboFrog got the bright idea to switch all of our machines over to CrunchBang. For now, HE was leaving Dellbert on CrunchBang 10. Everything else had been converted to CrunchBang 11.

Here’s a look at CrunchBang 11 on Untouchable. Now that I’m over the initial shock of having all of our machines converted to CrunchBang, I’m looking forward to giving it a try. TheFrog says “Try it; you’ll like it.” We’ll see. Next time…How HE transformed an ugly duckling into a beautiful swan.

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