StokeBloke.com

Well I spent a few hours yesterday trying to figure out why DNS was failing in some cases.

We use OpenDNS server then fallback to googles.

E.g.

208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220
8.8.8.8

Yesterday nslookup test.uribl.com.multi.uribl.com failed.

After a while I found the following …

OpenDNS server returns server unknown :

nslookup  test.uribl.com.multi.uribl.com 208.67.220.220
Server:		208.67.220.220
Address:	208.67.220.220#53

** server can’t find test.uribl.com.multi.uribl.com: NXDOMAIN
While google works correctly :

nslookup  test.uribl.com.multi.uribl.com 8.8.8.8
Server:		8.8.8.8
Address:	8.8.8.8#53

Non-authoritative answer:
Name:	test.uribl.com.multi.uribl.com
Address: 127.0.0.14

I have now switched to use google DNS only. I have no idea why OpenDNS fails for this lookup but not any other.

Prio to Linux Mint 17.0 I used to run my laptop with the lid shut and used just the HDMI monitor connected to it when I was in the office.  When I upgraded to Linux Mint 17.0 closing the lid caused both the laptop monitor and HDMI monitor to go off.

After finally getting annoyed with the laptop monitor changing in the peripheral of my vision I decided to fix it.

After a little googling I found http://forum.siduction.org/index.php?topic=4531.0

Which says

Add

HandleLidSwitch=ignore

to

/etc/systemd/logind.conf

I restarted and logged in and now I can shut the laptop lid without the HDMI monitor going off.

I love Xfce and have been using it for years..

Finally 4.12 has been released but the ubuntu/mint ppa still only has 4.10 and I wanted all the new shiny things.

To upgrade 4.10 to 4.12 on mint/ubuntu simply run the following :

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:xubuntu-dev/xfce-4.12
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

If you dont use Xfce yet, why not?! Simply run this :

sudo apt-get install xfce4

Warning: There is an issue with QT apps not using a the GTK+ theme.

Run :

sudo apt-get install qt4-qtconfig
sudo qtconfig-qt4 

And select the “Appearance” tab, set the “GUI Style” to “GTK+”, then select File > Save.

Warning : If I ran qtconfig-qt4 as my user (not sudo) the gtk+ theme would not stick.

This is the way I upgraded my latop from Mint 17.0 to Mint 17.1.

Edit file : /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list

# Add new Mint 17.1
deb http://packages.linuxmint.com rebecca main upstream import 
deb http://extra.linuxmint.com rebecca main

# Comment out 17.0 packages
#deb http://packages.linuxmint.com qiana main upstream import 
#deb http://extra.linuxmint.com qiana main

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

# reboot and pray
reboot

# check if anything needs to be cleaned up - maybe old kernels
sudo apt-get autoremove

Well gentoo needs you to chose ffmpeg or libav for update deep worlds to work. My system was moaning that libav + ffmeg were blocking each other.

The error is something like this :

[blocks B ] media-video/ffmpeg ("media-video/ffmpeg" is blocking
media-video/libav-0.8.2)

* Error: The above package list contains packages which cannot be
* installed at the same time on the same system.

(media-video/ffmpeg-0.10.2::gentoo, ebuild scheduled for merge)
pulled in by media-video/ffmpeg required by @selected

(media-video/libav-0.8.2::gentoo, ebuild scheduled for merge) pulled
in by
>=media-video/libav-0.8.1[X,encode,-jpeg2k,-mp3,-sdl,-theora,-threads,-truetype,-vaapi,-vdpau,-x264]
required by (virtual/ffmpeg-0.10.2-r1::gentoo, ebuild scheduled for
merge) 

I decided to use libav. Which appears to be the more active and stably developed.

I simply added -ffmpeg to my USE flag in /etc/portage/make.conf.

E.g :

USE="$USE -ffmpeg" #use libav

Then I removed ffmpeg from my system

sudo emerge -C media-video/ffmpeg
sudo emerge -C virtual/ffmpeg

Next was the big emerge

sudo emerge -avuDN world

which now no longer moans about blocking packages.