Setting up iOS 4.2.1

I had 2 tasks worthy of a blog post.

1. Update Built-in Calendar Colors
In the past I've used sqlite running on the phone to do this but it's no longer available in Cydia. Instead I decided to use MacFUSE+Macfusion to mount the iphone's file system in mac os. I then used the great SQLite Manager addon for Firefox to open the calendar database file and make the changes from there.

2. Find applications to save/restore.
Here's the grep line I used to find the application data I wanted to save/restore.
cd ~mobile/Applications
grep -i "angry birds" */iTunesMetadata.plist

Homebrew!

I've just discovered homebrew!

http://mxcl.github.com/homebrew/

I've used it to install htop, wget, and hub (teaches git about github). It's already VASTLY superior to fink and ports.

.Xresources

Here's my final .Xresources before jumping ship to Terminal.app.

XTerm*background: black
XTerm*foreground: white
XTerm*scrollBar: false
XTerm*utf8: 1

xterm*saveLines: 10000
xterm*jumpScroll: true
XTerm*scrollBar: false

xterm*visualBell: true
xterm*loginShell: true

XTerm*VT100.Translations: #override \
Meta  W: quit() \n\
Meta  V: insert-selection(CLIPBOARD,PRIMARY,CUT_BUFFER0) \n\
: select-end(CLIPBOARD,PRIMARY,CUT_BUFFER0) \n\

Mac OS + XTerm + Copy/Paste

I've added the following snippet to my .Xresources file to get Command+V pasting from mac os apps. There are a few other customizations in there I'm still playing around with.

XTerm*VT100.Translations: #override \
 Prior: scroll-back(1,page) \n\
 Next: scroll-forw(1,page) \n\
Meta  W: quit() \n\
Meta  V: insert-selection(CLIPBOARD,PRIMARY,CUT_BUFFER0) \n\
: select-end(CLIPBOARD,PRIMARY,CUT_BUFFER0) \n\

Linuxization of Mac OS

So I've been working in Mac OS as an experiment for a bit over a week. I'm VERY used to working in fedora as I've been doing that for about 5 years. The following tweaks are the result of hating some of the Mac OS defaults.

1. Using a black background in my xterms.
First of all, the lack of mouse passthrough for vim in Terminal.app means it's a non-starter for me. Here's what my ~/.Xresources file looks like:

XTerm*background: black
XTerm*foreground: white
XTerm*scrollBar: false
XTerm*utf8: 1

xterm*saveLines: 10000
xterm*jumpScroll: true
XTerm*scrollBar: false

xterm*visualBell: true
xterm*loginShell: true

Some of those options are on by default but I included them for posterity.

2. Environment fixes for black terminals and XTerm titles
The defaults really stink for a dark background terminal and the default static title of 'xterm' is not terribly useful. Here are the interesting parts of my .profile and .bashrc.

.profile:

. ~/.bashrc

.bashrc:

#Mac OS colors
alias ls="ls -G"
export LSCOLORS='DxGxfxfxcxDxDxhbhDecec'

# Xterm Titles in mac os
# are we an interactive shell?
if [ "$PS1" ]; then
 case $TERM in
  xterm*)
   if [ -e /etc/sysconfig/bash-prompt-xterm ]; then
   PROMPT_COMMAND=/etc/sysconfig/bash-prompt-xterm
   else
   PROMPT_COMMAND='echo -ne "\033]0;${USER}@${HOSTNAME%%.*}:${PWD/#$HOME/~}\007"'
   fi
   ;;
  screen)
   if [ -e /etc/sysconfig/bash-prompt-screen ]; then
   PROMPT_COMMAND=/etc/sysconfig/bash-prompt-screen
   else
   PROMPT_COMMAND='echo -ne "\033_${USER}@${HOSTNAME%%.*}:${PWD/#$HOME/~}\033\\"'
   fi
   ;;
  *)
   [ -e /etc/sysconfig/bash-prompt-default ] && PROMPT_COMMAND=/etc/sysconfig/bash-prompt-default
   ;;
 esac
fi

I also highly recommend MacVim (http://code.google.com/p/macvim/). I've got the latest snapshot installed and it works incredibly well. Use 'mvim' to open files from xterm.

I've got a few other personalizations that are just personal preference that I'll have to toss on here later.

Sound, Encryption (LUKS), Wireless on a macbookpro6,1 in Fedora 12

I've got sound, LUKS, and wireless working on my macbookpro6,1 in Fedora 12 now!

Sound:
Create a file in /etc/modprobe.d named sound.conf with the following contents.

options snd-hda-intel model=mbp55

That'll get sound working over your external speakers. Fire up `alsamixer -c0`.
Unmute and turn up the volume on all the surround mixers to get your internal speakers to work. You can automate this on boot until the kinks are worked out.

Encryption:
You can set up boot time encryption during install but the system won't boot without a change to the kernel parameters. My understanding is there's a problem with the kernel code that talks to the hardware encryption chips. Add the following to the end of your kernel params at boot time after install and also in /etc/grub.conf.

rdblacklist=aesni-intel

Wireless:
Enable rpmfusion (you'll need it for mp3s, aac anyway): http://rpmfusion.org/Configuration

Install with the following:

yum install kmod-wl

Reboot and you'll see NetworkManager pick up the changes.

Sound Card Unmute for MacbookPro2,1

/usr/bin/amixer -c0 sset Speaker,1 unmute

Qmail Toaster and rblsmtpd

We finally got to the bottom of a problem we were having at work. We had noticed that our smtp delivery speeds had dropped to a crawl. All signs pointed to the RBL configuration which was odd because I had removed all entries from /var/qmail/control/blacklists thinking that it would disable RBL checking. It turns out after going source spelunking that rblsmtpd has a compiled in default of "rbl.maps.vix.com" if no other blacklists are specified. This RBL source is no longer active and just causes long timeouts each time we get an smtp connection.

We fixed this problem by adding a valid RBL back into /var/qmail/control/blacklists and adding RBLSMTPD="" to all lines in /etc/tcp/tcp.smtp that we wanted to disable RBL checks for. Don't forget to run qmailctl cdb after changing /etc/tcp/tcp.smtp; don't forget to run qmailctl restart after changing /var/qmail/control/blacklists.

Consult http://wiki.qmailtoaster.com/index.php/RBLs for more information. I would have included the information in this post on that wiki page but it appears to be broken.

Major props go to Nick Morgan and Greg Jamerson for the hard work they put into tracking this issue down.