Tag Archive: linux

Linux MP3->M4B Audiobook generator.

September 26, 2011

September 26, 2011

My grandfather LOVES audiobooks. Many of the lower cost audiobooks come in MP3 format. There are a few windows apps that take these MP3s and convert them to bookmark friendly M4B files, however they are wonky at best.

Many linux script based solutions require the (potentially hundreds) of mp3 files be renamed in a logical order, which is just kindof a pain in the ass.

After dicking around with this for hours at varying points in time, I found a tool that actually works. Well. It’s called ‘abc’ (Audio Book Creator).

You can get it here: http://www.ausge.de/modules.php?name=Downloads&d_op=getit&lid=6

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Permanent link to this article: http://www.lukemacneil.com/2011/09/26/linux-mp3-m4b-audiobook-generator/

Recover files from Apple Time Machine backup on linux.

December 8, 2009

December 8, 2009

I was playing with a hackintosh for a month or so, and one of the neatest features it has is Time Machine backups. When I got sick of dicking around with MacOS, I threw linux back on my box. Then I mounted up the Time Machine backup drive and… hrmf.

It is less than easy to navigate.

If you’ve done this and you need to pull off your mp3s or something, you can just use the find command to search the full disk and copy files off of it.

find . -name *.mp3 -print0 |xargs -0 -i cp {} /datastore/tmp/

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Permanent link to this article: http://www.lukemacneil.com/2009/12/08/recover-files-from-apple-time-machine-backup-on-linux/

OpenSuSE 11.2 Remote Administration (VNC) Black screen

December 7, 2009

December 7, 2009

In previous opensuse versions, it has been posible to enable vnc administration easily by enabling the service in YAST.
In OpenSuSE 11.2, this option is still available, but does not work well by default.

The issue, I believe is that the default window manager has changed to KDE4. Although KDE4 is the default window manager in 11.2, I still use GNOME.

When connecting to the vnc server on display :0, all that’s drawn is a black screen with a gray X. To fix this, I changed the default window manager to gnome, and the default display manager to GDM.

These settings can be changed by editing the files in /etc/sysconfig, or using the /etc/sysconfig editor in yast.

Set DISPLAYMANAGER to ‘gdm’ and DEFAULT_WM to ‘gnome’

You’ll have to restart the X server, and after that, remote connections via VNC will open up gdm and allow you to log in.

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Permanent link to this article: http://www.lukemacneil.com/2009/12/07/opensuse-11-2-remote-administration-vnc-black-screen/