Linux configuration notes

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This document is copyright Jim Brooks © 2002.
Permission to copy, distribute, link, and reformat is given on condition that authorship is indicated.

To disable terminal bell:

  Most effective:
    /etc/profile:
    setterm -blength 0  # Linux

  X windows:
    xset b off
    GNOME / System / Preferences / Sound

  bash shell:
    ~/.inputrc:
    set bell-style visible

  Mac OS X:
     Terminal / Window Settings / Emulation / Audible Bell|Visual Bell
     Then "Use Settings as Default" or Terminal will forget.

To synchronize tick-driven clock according to the more accurate battery-powered clock:

/sbin/hwclock --hctosys

To synchronize clock with an official time server:

ntpdate time.nist.gov

To synchronize the date/time according to a remote machine:
rdate hostname

To change the time-zone (eg to US Eastern Time):

Edit TZ in /etc/profile

export TZ="America/New_York"

Link /etc/localtime to /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/New_York

/etc/inittab
In addition to /etc/rc.d/init.d, /etc/inittab specifies programs to be started during boot. Eg, Mandrake uses inittab to launch KDE via kdm.

If backspace does not work, try: stty erase ^h

To restore the keyboard rate (in a console):
kbdrate

To restore keyboard auto-repeat (in X Windows):
xset r

To restore keyboard auto-repeat (in X Windows):
xset r

To prevent the screen being cleared by login after boot, add --noclear to the line with mingetty in /etc/inittab.

Console video modes:

vga=normal
vga=extended  # 50 lines
vga=788       # graphical (used in Mandrake 8.0)

Configuring a standard PC joystick with an Ensoniq AudioPCI (ES1317) sound card:

modprobe joydev
modprobe es1371 joystick=0x200
modprobe analog

Loading PLIP (the parallel port network driver) kernel modules:

modprobe parport
modprobe parport_pc
modprobe plip

Installing Nvidia's proprietary video driver on Ubuntu [2008/06]:

Upgrading Nvidia driver is dangerous since the Ubuntu developers made hacks for proprietary drivers that interferes with Nvidia's own installer.

Before running Nvidia's installer, archive usr/ etc/
Then remove linux-restricted-modules and nvidia Unbuntu packages.
Reboot, choose the recovery kernel.
Run Nvidia's installer.
Then probably X will be broken.
The solution is to delete these files (backup first):
/etc/modprobe.d/lrm-video
/etc/modprobe.d/nvidia-kernel-nkc
Restore /etc/X11/xorg.conf from backup.

Installing Nvidia's proprietary video driver on Debian 3.

It won't install unless a new kernel is compiled with CONF_MODVERSIONS. I chose the build-from-source option using Nvidia's curses-based installer. Then edited 2 or 3 lines in /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 per Nvidia's README. That was all. You'll know it's working if you see Nvidia's splash screen while X starts.

Adding your favorite window manager to gdm menu.

Eg, to add icewm, create your own /etc/X11/gdm/Session/Icewm script. gdm will automatically find it and add it to its menu. Also, you can add your own X configuration setting to the script. For example:

#!/bin/sh

# Faster mouse.
xset m 4 4

# Start window manager.
/usr/X11R6/bin/icewm

Compiling XEmacs on Ubuntu [2007/05]:

Compiling XEmacs 21.4 (stable) on Ubuntu Feisty Fawn: export CFLAGS=-O2 apt-get install libncurses5 libncurses5-dev texinfo texi2html ./configure --with-widgets=lucid --with-ncurses --prefix=/opt make && make install cd /opt/lib/xemacs tar xfjv xemacs-sumo*.tar.bz2 Debian isn't based on termcap which xemacs uses by default. Insead, choose ncurses in xemacs configure.