My Tech Notes

Modern Linux distributions are smart enough to support colored "ls" output and even enable that by default, but stupid enough not to adjust it in any way to current terminal color scheme. Default built-in colors "kind of work" for a black-on-white terminal, but should you try to make even small adjustment, some file types quickly become completely unreadable.

At the same time, procedure to customize these colors, while not complicated, is rather poorly documented.

Here are a few simple steps to follow;

1. Execute command "dircolors > ~/.dircolors";
2. Generated file "~/.dircolors" is self-documented, customize it to your liking;
3. Add these lines to your ~/.bashrc file or equivalent:
   

   if [ -f ~/.dircolors ]; then
      eval $(dircolors ~/.dircolors)
   fi

That's it!

P.S. You can also disable color output altogether by doing "unalias ls".

Labels: linux

# posted by Kostya @ 12:01 PM 0 comments

Tried installing new Debian version, just released.

Looks fine, except that it does seem slow (but my impression might be subjective), and there are number of points to be taken into account when using as VMware guest under VMware 6.5 (the latest versions as of now):

•  You need to install Linux headers and "make" utility, like that:
  

  # apt-get install make linux-headers-$(uname -r) 

  Some also recommend installing

  # apt-get install build-essential psmisc automake

• You need to use 4.1 compiler, and not "default" 4.3, so prior to running ./vmware-install.pl do this
  

  # export CC=/usr/bin/gcc-4.1

• Module vsync fails to compile with these messages:
  

  Building modules, stage 2.
  MODPOST 1 modules
  WARNING: "VMCIDatagram_CreateHnd" [/tmp/vmware-config0/vsock-only/vsock.ko] undefined!
  WARNING: "VMCIDatagram_DestroyHnd" [/tmp/vmware-config0/vsock-only/vsock.ko] undefined!
  Building modules, stage 2.
  MODPOST 1 modules
  WARNING: "VMCIDatagram_CreateHnd" [/tmp/vmware-config0/vsock-only/vsock.ko] undefined!
  WARNING: "VMCIDatagram_DestroyHnd" [/tmp/vmware-config0/vsock-only/vsock.ko] undefined!
  WARNING: "VMCIEvent_Subscribe" [/tmp/vmware-config0/vsock-only/vsock.ko] undefined!
  WARNING: "VMCI_DeviceGet" [/tmp/vmware-config0/vsock-only/vsock.ko] undefined!
  WARNING: "VMCIMemcpyFromQueueV" [/tmp/vmware-config0/vsock-only/vsock.ko] undefined!
  WARNING: "VMCIQueuePair_Detach" [/tmp/vmware-config0/vsock-only/vsock.ko] undefined!
  WARNING: "VMCI_GetContextID" [/tmp/vmware-config0/vsock-only/vsock.ko] undefined!
  WARNING: "VMCIDatagram_Send" [/tmp/vmware-config0/vsock-only/vsock.ko] undefined!
  WARNING: "VMCIQueuePair_Alloc" [/tmp/vmware-config0/vsock-only/vsock.ko] undefined!
  WARNING: "VMCIEvent_Unsubscribe" [/tmp/vmware-config0/vsock-only/vsock.ko] undefined!
  WARNING: "VMCIMemcpyToQueueV" [/tmp/vmware-config0/vsock-only/vsock.ko] undefined!
  CC /tmp/vmware-config0/vsock-only/vsock.mod.o
  LD [M] /tmp/vmware-config0/vsock-only/vsock.ko
  make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.27-7-generic'
  cp -f vsock.ko ./../vsock.o
  make: Leaving directory `/tmp/vmware-config0/vsock-only'
  Unable to make a vsock module that can be loaded in the running kernel:
  insmod: error inserting '/tmp/vmware-config0/vsock.o': -1 Unknown symbol in module
  

  Apparently, this is known problem which should not by itself cause any noticable problems. Relevant internet threads: [1], [2].
  
  
• After performing standard installation, mouse pointer is not going to move between guest and host as it should. This can be fixed by adding one line "Option "CorePointer" to relevant portion of your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file, so it would look like that:
  

  Section "InputDevice"
          Identifier      "VMware Mouse"
          Driver          "vmmouse"
          Option          "CorePointer"
          Option          "Device"                "/dev/input/mice"
          Option          "Emulate3Buttons"       "true"
          Option          "ZAxisMapping"          "4 5"
  EndSection
    

  (from here)
  

See also earlier post regarding installing VMware tools under Debian 4.

It seems like that few problems mentioned above notwithstanding, overall process has become simler, e.g. there is no longer any need to manually specify location of Linux headers (though you still must install them manually), mouse wheel works "out of the box", etc.

Labels: debian, linux, vmware

# posted by Kostya @ 9:18 AM 0 comments