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Archive for the ‘Tips and tricks’ Category

Nokia N900: How To Backup your SMS messages

May 26th, 2010 Patrick No comments

The new PR 1.2 firmware release for the N900 was just released and it’s time to upgrade. Then you bump into your first challenge: how to backup your SMS messages on the N900? Nokia’s PC Suite only backs up Contacts etc. but not your SMS messages. And Ovi Suite still does not support the N900 (what’s up with that Nokia?!).

So how do you backup your SMS messages (and Contacts, Calendar, Tasks, Notes, Bookmarks and Settings)?

Here is how:

1) make sure your N900 has a full battery or is plugged into the charger

2) on your N900 start the Backup application

3) select “New Backup”, fill in a name like N900_Backup_<date> and press “Proceed”

4) in the next screen make your selection or leave all enabled and press “Select”. Make sure at least “Communication and Calendar” is selected as that one contains your Contacts, Calendar, Tasks, Notes and SMS messages

5) wait for the Backup to finish after which you are returned to the main Backup screen where you see your shiny new backup

6) copy the backup (directory + contents) from your N900 to your PC

7) upgrade the N900 to PR 1.2

8) copy the backup (directory + contents) on your PC to your N900. The location on the N900 is /home/user/MyDocs/backups

9) start the Backup application. yuo should now see your backup listed

10) press “Restore”, select your backup and voila all your data should be restored

Disclaimer: no guarantees, this is how it worked for me. Your mileage may vary.

Enemy Territory on Fedora 13 x86_64

May 14th, 2010 Patrick No comments

Assumptions:

  • Fedora 13 x86_64 is installed and updated with yum update
  • et-linux-2.60.x86.run is installed
  • the et-2.60b.zip patch is installed
  • kmod-catalyst is installed from rpmfusion.org

There are two parts to make this work: Graphics and Sound

Graphics:

  • get xorg-x11-drv-catalyst-libs.i686 rpm from rpmfusion.org (note the .i686 extension. It must be the same version as the x86_64 one you previously installed)

Sound:

You need to add a couple of lines to /etc/rc.local to make sure sound works properly:

/sbin/modprobe snd_seq_oss
/sbin/modprobe snd_mixer_oss
/sbin/modprobe snd_pcm_oss
echo "et.x86 0 0 direct" > /proc/asound/card0/pcm0p/oss
echo "et.x86 0 0 disable" > /proc/asound/card0/pcm0c/oss

Alternatively you could use et-sdl-sound.

Other solutions or improvement are most welcome in the comments.

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Enabling the fingerprint reader in F11

June 27th, 2009 Patrick No comments

If you want to enable the fingerprint reader in Fedora 11 then do this:

# yum install fprint* libfprint* gdm-plugin-fingerprint

You can find more information on the wiki.

OpenVPN, NetworkManager & SELinux denial

June 21st, 2009 Patrick No comments

If you get an avc denial from selinux when you initiate an openvpn link in NetworkManager then here is a solution:

# chcon -t cert_t /your/certificates/dir/*

Credits go to the most helpful folks in the #fedora-selinux irc channel on freenode.

NFSv4 on CentOS 5.3 and Fedora 11

May 21st, 2009 Patrick 4 comments

To save the Community the trouble of figuring out how to make this work, here are the steps I used to mount nfsv4 shares on Fedora 11 from a CentOS 5.3 server.

When a line starts with “#” or “as root” that means that you have to execute the command as root.

On the *SERVER* side:

1) as root edit /etc/idmapd.conf:

change Nobody-{User,Group} to nfsnobody
change Domain to <your.fully.qualified.domain.name>

2) create directory with exports

# mkdir /nfs4exports/share

3) as root edit /etc/fstab and add nfs4 exports

/somedirectory/youwanttoshare  /nfs4exports/share    none    bind    0 0

4) activate nfsv4 binds

# mount -a

5) as root edit /etc/exports

Replace 192.168.0.0 below with your IP network.

/nfs4exports 192.168.0.0/255.255.255.0(rw,insecure,no_subtree_check,nohide,fsid=0)
/nfs4exports/share 192.168.0.0/255.255.255.0(rw,insecure,no_subtree_check,nohide)

6) reload exported filesystems

# exportfs -rv

7) stop & disable services

# service nfs stop
# service nfslock stop
# service portmap stop

8) disable unnecessary services

# chkconfig –level 345 nfslock off

9) as root edit /etc/sysconfig/nfs

Use the settings below and leave all other settings as they are.

MOUNTD_NFS_V1=”no”
MOUNTD_NFS_V2=”no”
RPCNFSDARGS=”-N 2 -N 3 -U”

10) start required services

# service portmap start
# service rpcidmapd start
# service nfs start

# chkconfig –level 345 portmap on
# chkconfig –level 345 rpcidmapd on
# chkconfig –level 345 nfs on

On the *CLIENT* side (the Fedora 11 box):

1) as root edit /etc/idmapd.conf:

change Nobody-{User,Group} to nfsnobody
change Domain to <your.fully.qualified.domain.name>

2) create share directories

Off course you can choose the location yourself.

# mkdir /mnt/share

3) as root edit /etc/fstab

Replace <host> below with the hostname or IP address of your CentOS box.

<host>:/share   /mnt/share   nfs4    rsize=8192,wsize=8192,timeo=14,intr,user

4) start required services

# service rpcidmapd start
# chkconfig –level 345 rpcidmapd on

5) mount the bunch

# mount -a

The share will also automatically show up in Nautilus where you can click on it to mount it.

Changelog:
Nov 1, 2009: fixed s/rpcbind/rpcidmapd/ typo in client section based on feedback from Mathiaz and Deadpan110 (thanks!)