xdg-mime for media files

Links: general guidelines thread ::

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After I upgrade a browser or install a new file manager, clicking on links opens an undesired application: a browser, mail client, etc. These have to do with MIME settings. There are two main MIME categories: 1) local HDD files, and 2) behavior when encountering remote files via a browser.

But locating MIME types and overseeing them has been kludgy. Recently, I located xdg-mime (probably one of "xdg-utils"). Xdg-mime can apparently operate across both root or user modes. Unless admin (root) locks them out, users can apparently create their own MIME approach. I'll post back on this once I determine the syntax and file location of the oversight file (mimetypes-file) but, at first glance, xdg-mime looks to be a central way to make changes.

manual changes

Before resorting to xdg-mime, it may be possible to determine which files contain "MimeType", since there may be ways to directly update these files. Caches contain a lot of this kind of syntax too, so it's good to clear caches before searching:

$ rm -r .cache/*
$ grep -rn MimeType

"desktop" files

stop changing sh*t...

...just STOP.

We choose Linux because we like a stable OS we rarely have to upgrade or alter. But that's becoming more and more difficult. Unless I've overlooked something, even simple utilities are eventually "improved".

The latest is a bedrock of operation; dhcpcd. This has been a great application and whomever designed dhcpcd has my thanks. Unfortunately, it now appears to have been "upgraded".

ctrl_interface not defined in $wpa_supplicant_conf
not interacting with wpa_supplicant(8)

In other words, we have an unnecessary new level of dhcpcd specificity when dhcpcd initializes, because it will also seek to initialize wpa_supplicant. Apparently for that reason, the dhcpcd developer decided that the wpa_supplicant.conf file was fair game for him or her to use in a new way. So now he/she requires us to hand-enter ctrl_interface information into wpa_supplicant.conf. If we don't add this ctrl_interface line, dhcpcd is unhappy and fails. No DHCP lease. Brilliant.

This moron also failed an even more basic observation: that wpa_supplicant has its own independent initialization process which relies, appropriately, on /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf. During its initialization, if wpa_supplicant encounters the ctrl_interface line which dhcpcd required us to add, wpa_supplicant reads the line as an error, and exits. Bingo, Catch-22. If I don't modify the config file, I can't negotiate a DHCP lease. If do modify the config file, wpa_supplicant fails. I guess we didn't want to use our wireless cards anyway.

Developers, please just STOP upgrading utilities we rely upon and which have no need for upgrade. Please. And if you're going to do something creative anyway, AT LEAST generate a separate configuration file.

[solved] ti-89 OS update, tilp

Links: manpage (ubuntu site) :: connect to system :: OS update (v3.1) :: ti planet (hella fun)

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OK, I have a list of implicit derivatives --- better check them before I submit them. Whip out the handy TI-89 Titanium and...WTF?! No impDer function. Great. Check the OS. Oh noes, version 3.0. Gonna be a long night.

download fun

Nothing came up in pacman. Nada. Accordingly, prepared myself to waste hours and hours and hours installing TiLP and pray I can update the OS once inside the calculator.

Download and unzip the libraries and get to work compiling all three of them. What could possibly go wrong compiling and installing 3 libraries? Hahahahaha. Hey, let's try yaourt.

compile, install libs

$ yaourt -Ss tilp

Bingo.

yaourt install

Using the yaourt install was still kind of a drag because of the compilation of the libraries. A lot of messages showed up suggesting edits to the install, but I figured any alterations I made could create subsequent errors I wouldn't have notes for, so I just let it compile.

tilp

Probably because I didn't make the alterations, I got some error messages, but everything seemed to work OK in spite of this. Except the OS update. For that, I shut down tilp, checked the calculator again to be sure it was "on", and started tilp in root. At that point, I just dragged the new OS from the computer directory over to the calculator directory and let off the mouse. The software update program began to run and even showed a % progress reading. Once it was done, turned off tilp, disconnected and restarted calculator. Voila, software version was 3.1 and impDer available.