Hi guys
I realize that I've not been around much... just flittin' here and there! lol
But, this thread is a very nice one.
I've enabled rhythmbox album art, etc. in my #! Statler install, an Ubu install, and a couple of others.
The critical thing for all of them, it seems to me, is to have an OS which is up to date and that has a window manager that renders directly and all of the imlibstuffetc onboard.
But, to repeat, thanks to all the contributers for this very nice thread: I have the album art changing with the album, and if there is no art it defaults to the first album it found (an Eclipse cover! lol) Artist, Title, Album, Genre, Year, Position in the song and length of song all work.
Great job guys!
Kyte...
1 2011-04-17 03:40:35
Re: Images in Conky (specifically rhythmbox album art) (165 replies, posted in Tips, Tricks & Scripts)
2 2010-06-25 03:54:08
Re: Super handy commands [link] (10 replies, posted in Tips, Tricks & Scripts)
very nice.
thanks
Kyte
3 2010-06-21 20:53:29
Re: How Do You Type? (30 replies, posted in Off Topic / General Chat)
You guys use your FINGERS?
hmmmm how unusual....
Kyte
4 2010-06-20 15:08:44
Re: In defense of a simple Openbox set up (19 replies, posted in WM/DE Talk)
When I read what was going on with Debian I was rather surprised at the move but also thought that the "original" way of doing things would be somehow preserved.
So, I lurked and watched and after most had said that Statler was not actually blowing a monitor up I decided to download and install OpenBox and was I surprised!
No menu configuration, the menu items just kind of appeared magically as if plucking Golden Apples from the Sun as it were....
I can appreciate that...really.........AND BLUETOOTH....ooooohhhhhh yeaaahhhhh and xmms2 works so much easier....don't know why but it does.
So, in the interests of getting on with work, no money, no play! , I'll keep Statler on the work machine( the tower)..... but...I've reinstalled the pristine elegance, (to do a riff on pablocal) of my original #! on the laptop and will probably keep it until the poor thing is laying beside the road with no transmission, no engine, no wheels, but still with a really shiney bonnet and comfortable interior.
Kyte
5 2010-06-20 14:54:32
Re: Reading list (28 replies, posted in Off Topic / General Chat)
The Secret Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Paul E. Heusinger.
This is a book of short "pastiches" they are not of the "canon".
One rather unique thing about them is that he goes to great lengths to use some "phraseology" of the period and literary devices such as "alliteration" or puns.. Sometimes it doesn't come off exactly right but the reader can "see the point" as it were. And, some of the stories do have unexpected plot twists. One such, which was not the best of the stories, puts Sherlock on an island with Tarzan at a very early age, as another place for the "great hiatus".
Kyte
6 2010-06-20 14:42:36
Re: Coffee is a food group (1,038 replies, posted in Off Topic / General Chat)
When in the Navy, before going to my ship, a Chief that I had spent a year working with told me that I would be "low man" and therefore required to make coffee. Well, back then I was a "tea totaller!(WRONG METAPHORE) lol, and he told me that there were two kinds of water on a ship, distilled and salt. So...make my first pot with saltwater and I'd never have to make it again! So I did, and then didn't have to! 
However, I have since then, drank almost nothing but coffee and spent twenty years drinking Maxwell House instant.
Then, for Christmas, our oldest boy gave me and offbrand coffee grinder and some "Bold" Coffee beans and I've never went back. No flavoured stuff for me! And I buy a small package of some kind of Bold, Kona, whatever beans every week at the "pick your own" machine at the local grocery and grind my own.
The only problem is that every once in a while somebody forwards a REALLY UNEXPECTEDLY FUNNY thing to me and I spew a little on the screen but....ahhh life in the fast lane!
Kyte
7 2010-06-20 14:34:50
Re: what are some good things to do immediately after installing #!? (21 replies, posted in CrunchBang Talk)
I do the update thing.
Then copy over my favourite version of .conkyrc for xmms and gmail.
Install Koffice and a few other necessities for my work and....
Then get a cuppa joe and bask in the vision of excellence produced by Corenominal and the volunteers! 
Kyte
8 2010-06-19 07:16:33
Re: Deadbeef music player (25 replies, posted in Devel: CrunchBang 10 "Statler")
Here we go I finally found an image of one of the cd covers, not the Holst but you get the idea.
http://www.discogs.com/Royal-Philharmon … se/1193803
Kyte
9 2010-06-19 07:01:28
Re: Deadbeef music player (25 replies, posted in Devel: CrunchBang 10 "Statler")
PVSAGE.
No, although I am familiar with the Previn.
This is Vernon Hadley Cond. with John McCarthy Chorus Master. Recorded in Oct. 1993 at St. Augustine's Church Kilburn London. Produced by Trumpets of Jericho Ltd. and The Intenational Music Co. AG. Hamburg. 2003. It was actually mastered in Israel.
There were many in the series but; but all that I have are the Beethoven Sym No. 9 The Choral, Tchaikovsky: Romeo & Juliet Ov. Cappricio Italien(my fav really) Eugene Onegin(thewaltz) Polonaise, and of course the old standby 1812. Then Prokofiev( Peter and the Wolf) Saint Saens Carnival of the Animals Bizet Jeux D'Enfants, and then the normal Wagner, Valkyries, Rienzi, Lohnegrin, Sigfried, Flying Dutchman and Tannhauser.
You'll see mention of the Holst partway down but no artwork, the things were gorgeously produced in a custom cardboard sleeve with rather modern art and the cd is extremely high quality with white and gold yellow colors and the RPO logo is embossed on it almost, the jewel case is one of the best I've seen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Phil … _Orchestra
And, no....even as high a quality as these are, no art! 
But, one can't have EVERYthing!
lol
I've been fiddling with the Preferences colors on the tabs, etc. and one rather kewl thing is that it uses, what looks to me like, that somebody worked a deal with KDE about their color picker wheel! lol!
Kyte
10 2010-06-19 06:46:54
Re: Atheros 802.11g works in Statler. (2 replies, posted in Devel: CrunchBang 10 "Statler")
Yes, it does have a certain je ne sais quoi about it doesn't it!
Kyte
11 2010-06-19 05:05:48
Re: Deadbeef music player (25 replies, posted in Devel: CrunchBang 10 "Statler")
Album art did not display album artwork with a cd Holst The Planets by Royal Philharmonic. Did not display album artwork with an original cd of latest Casino Royale, but did display artwork for a ripped mp3 of Batman Begins.
Kyte
12 2010-06-19 04:41:02
Re: Deadbeef music player (25 replies, posted in Devel: CrunchBang 10 "Statler")
Two downloads and four clicks and it plays M3U, .PLS, an onboard mp3 and a ripped CD of Conan the Barbarian.
works for me!
Kyte
13 2010-06-19 03:40:00
Topic: Atheros 802.11g works in Statler. (2 replies, posted in Devel: CrunchBang 10 "Statler")
This on a Toshiba Satellite laptop.
Statler hooked up to wifi in the following four places. McDonald's Restaurant, Panera Bread, Local Library, a gentleman's club in a Fraternal Order.
In all four cases, I turned on the computer and had the wireless set to start automatically. In all three cases the chipset and Statler found the wifi system but it did not connect during that session. I restarted and the computer and Statler automatically found the wifi system and hooked up. I like the little circley thingy showing that it is hooking up.
Statler did not hook up to the AT&T wifi at Starbucks. Starbucks assumes that the computer will somehow get onto the net but that one also USED to...have to apply BSSID and MAC numbers.... APPARENTLY this is to be changed at the end of the month. But, at my particular store, nobody got the news, and apparently the national helpline does not know about how things were just a short while ago.
The way the system works now the user, coffee drinker, has to purchase at least a five dollar Starbuck's reloadable card(the assumption is a twenty dollar card). One then tries to get onto the system but can't the user, coffee drinker, who is now getting irritated, is supposed to call a number on the Starbuck's card. When one gets through the interminable series of punch 1,2,3,4, (they have numbers up through 7) one finally gets to a person and the person then tells you:
a) Please close all windows.(I don't have any windows open except the wifi configuration window).
b) Please close all windows. Ok.
c) Please open Internet Explorer. I don't have Internet Explorer, I have Firefox.
d) Wellllllllllll , ummm, allllright....please open Firefox. Ok I opened Firefox.(Iceweasel).
e) You will automatically be at the Starbuck's site.. When you are at the Starbucks site, enter the number that is on the back of your card.
f) I can't enter the number because I can't get onto the net.
g) Why not? Because I need the BSSID and the MAC address.
h) You should not need those you should be on the net.
i) I'm sorry but the manager is standing here and sees that I cannot get on the net.
j) Then obviously your computer is defective.
k) The manager can see that I have already connected to McDonald's and Panera Bread in the network connection box, so evidently it is not a problem with my computer. What I need is the BSSID and the MAC address for Starbucks.
l) As I said, evidently it is a problem with your computer and we cannot be responsible for that please contact AT &T.
I hung up, the manager was rather of the same opinion that there was a problem with the computer, I reminded him that he could see that I got on at McDonald's and Panera Bread, and that evidently it was NOT a problem with either the software or the computer. He looked at me as if I was an idiot and left.
I went outside, drank my Starbucks and enjoyed the wind in my hair and sun on my face.
But, later, one of the other associates came out and reassured me that this is a "known problem" and that supposedly it will be fixed July 1, 2010.
Here are two salient links which discuss the same problem that i had, so it is NOT Statler!
http://www.dailytech.com/No+More+Tears+ … e13329.htm
This one may be using the word Starbucks as an "example" but further down in the threads there is mention of Starbucks using "roving" spots, so I don't know, but at least the thread may or may not be relevant.
http://www.mail-archive.com/nwam-discus … 02060.html
The real problem MAY be with the "roving" numbers themselves according to this, they are, apparently, unsecured but, apparently, maybe in my area the numbers have to be entered manually,
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r241696 … T-Hotspots
Now, what is rather amazing here, is that, apparently Starbucks provides such poor training to the employees, or that they do not TRUST them enough, to either train them or give them the numbers.
Because................apprently, by searching the net, the BSSID is "Starbucks"
So..I would say that Statler "works" with Wifi!
Kyte
14 2010-06-18 04:56:26
Re: Bluetooth works with cell phone. (4 replies, posted in Devel: CrunchBang 10 "Statler")
Thank you Winotree for the tip, I'll try that!
Kyte
15 2010-06-17 15:48:32
Re: Bluetooth works with cell phone. (4 replies, posted in Devel: CrunchBang 10 "Statler")
The dongle, and therefore Bluetooth, works on a Toshiba Laptop in addition to tower.
Kyte
16 2010-06-17 15:45:28
Re: xmms2 works in Statler w/exception of displaying .pls title in conky (6 replies, posted in Devel: CrunchBang 10 "Statler")
Hi Anonymous.
This on a Toshiba laptop, upon which I was running my previous version of #!.
Well, I'm sad to report that the compiler went to a lot of trouble to compile stuff, but when it was finished, and it did a LOT of work, there was no xmms2 on the machine. a) I searched for it, and it was not there, I used gxmms2 to look for it and it was not there, I used Synaptic to look for it and Synaptic said it was not installed, although other stuff was.
So, I installed xmms2 from Synaptic, along with Esperanza and Abraca, and everything works fine.
The conky script that the fellow provided produces a nice purple conky down at the bottom right of the screen but it does not, repeat not, display anything that is occurring in xmms2. I added my script above it and my script does display correctly when an mp3 is being played and when a cd is being played, using the appropriate front end. However, again, the title of a .pls does not display only the word: [stream.
However, one good thing came from all this. The xmms2 site mentioned this stream format: "m3u".
So....I hunted around and found this page of stations that stream m3u and saved the first one(the "save" defaults to downloads) and listened to it, but, sad to say, this also just presents the word "[stream" in the display for xmms2 in conky. 
HOWEVER: Esperanza DOES pop an information bubble that provides the title, etc. And the really important thing is that one CAN play a stream.
So.... to finish this all off: xmms2 does, indeed work well under #! Statler! And I'll listen to streams as long as I can!!!!
Kyte.
PPS, I will come back and clean my posts up and abbreviate them so that a new user can more easily grasp what should be done.
17 2010-06-17 04:14:34
Re: xmms2 works in Statler w/exception of displaying .pls title in conky (6 replies, posted in Devel: CrunchBang 10 "Statler")
The stream with the word stream in the front is called....duuuh....... a "commented" line
I found this script which will remove the comment:
# pls files have annoying File[[:digit:]]* prefixes
# m3u files are fine, mpc ignores commented lines
# thus, the following takes care of all:
sed -e 's/^File[[:digit:]]*=//' ${lists[@]} | mpc add >/dev/null
mpc play # doesn't do anything if already playing
However, this is not a conky script so it would probably just blow things up! However, it does seem that people have made an attempt to remove it.
Here is the link to the article.
http://mpd.wikia.com/wiki/Hack:playstream
Kyte
18 2010-06-17 04:02:58
Re: xmms2 works in Statler w/exception of displaying .pls title in conky (6 replies, posted in Devel: CrunchBang 10 "Statler")
Hi Anonymous.
Thank you very much for the suggestion. I have never been so brave as to try to actually compile something! So, just for the halibut, I will do that when I install #! on another machine in a short while.
However, while you were very nicely posting your how to, I went digging through my storage drive and found this from when I was first fiddling with xmms2 and it displays artist and title very nicely, I just appended it to the standard conkyrc that was povided by Statler:
You are now listening to:
Artist : ${exec xmms2 list | grep ">" | cut -d']' -f2 | cut -d'-' -f1;}
Song : ${exec xmms2 list | grep ">" | cut -d']' -f2 | cut -d'-' -f2 | cut -d'(' -f1;}
The one caveat here is that although gxxm2 very nicely found the .pls. It still has problems doing a simple mp3 track.
So to play that I used Esperanza and it displayed the mp3 very nicely in conky!
When I play a .pls however, I get the word "[stream"
That is "left bracket s,t,r,e,a,m"
This is the result that I have always had and what it "is" is the first word that one sees in say, gxxms: the word "stream title artist" etc./
It seems that the script displays the first "word" that it encounters and that word is "stream" and that there is something in the title of the stream that keeps conky from displaying the actual title.
I'm sure that somebody, someplace has fiddled with this and it is probably just that I have not used the correct search terms.
So.....I'll keep digging, unless, of course, you happen to have the appropriate script!
And, it may be that your method of compiling and working from that would display the .pls stream title in conky, dunno.
Thanks again!
Kyte
19 2010-06-16 23:56:26
Re: xmms2 works in Statler w/exception of displaying .pls title in conky (6 replies, posted in Devel: CrunchBang 10 "Statler")
Some things with xmms2 have changed; and at the same time, things with xmms2 are the same.
THE DEAL WITH xmms2 is that: it is a "server" for "clients".
What does this mean? It means that say....for Windows Media Player.....someplace in Windows....there is the "server" for the music for Windows... This server then "serves" different "clients". The main client, of course, is Windows Media Player...
Well, xmms2 is a "server" it will continue playing, when you have started it, whether or not a "player"(read client") has been shut down or not.
So....there are many "clients" for the music for Linux. Most of them have fallen by the "wayside" others are developed in "fits and starts" and some have active development.
The fallout of this with the Debian that #! is using is this:
Abraca is basically like it was before....it will play an "onboard" file...but not a .pls.
gxmms WILL play a .pls file.
Esperanza will also play a .pls file.
What is a .pls file?
It is a file that you can't get from Shoutcast any more! You can thank a certain congress person from California for that!. In the big brouhaha with RIAA, and all those BIG MULTINATIONAL MUSIC COMPANIES...a few years ago.....that a certain congress person from California wanted to happen.....there was finally an acknowledgement that the internet radio stations had INDEED been paying copyrights etc. but RIAA.........and the BIG INTERNATIONAL COMPANIES.....and a certain congress person from California.... squeezed blood from a rock.....
And the blood from a rock is that there are all those advertisings at Shoutcast ........and......
It took A YEAR........but you cannot now, at least as far as I can determine.........download a .pls from within Shoutcast itself....thus you are forced to look at the advertisings.... that make money for the BIG INTERNATIONAL CORPORATIONS.......and the RIAA.........and the congress person .........gets "face time" in the television stations controlled by the BIG INTERNATIONAL CORPORATIONS....
but.........be that as it may............
I would offer as an example..........SOMA FM........Soma FM allows one to save to the computer a file , say for 128 bit rate stream...., a ".pls" file....for say........Groove Salad.
You can then use a "client" on the computer to stream the music.
So........Abraca did not and still does not play a .pls file.
gxmms2 did play a .pls file a year or so ago, but it was TEDIOUS to get it into the player...
As of NOW..... one can download a .pls file to some convenient place, Debian defaults to "downloads".... and navigate from gxmms2 to the file and it does, indeed, play.
Here is how to do it:
open gxmms2 and you will see an interactive box that has several tabs at the top.
Choose Mlib Add Files.
That will show you the file structure on the computer. Please navigate to the .pls file and double click it or click the "add" button.
Then...go to "Playlist" which has, for me, a green "play" arrow, you will see the abomination of Mind in a Box and below that you will see one or more lines which include your .pls file, depending on the number of tracks avaiable.
Click the .pls file, it will show the name of the song...and it will play ........THROUGH ESPERANZA!!!
HOWEVER: if you close Esperanza and pop gxmms2 back up you will see that the stream is ALSO running through gxxms2!!
Now this is not a "bad thing"...Esperanza is actively being developed to include things like "visualizations" etc. while gxmms2 is "seems" to be concentrating on doing the "file structure thing"....
One CAN ALSO.....go directly to Esperanza when the .pls file has been once started.
But.....the IMPORTANT THING IS....you can shut down ALL of the "clients" and the music still plays!!!
THUS MASSIVELY MINIMIZING resource usage!
You can then shut down the stream from the command line with a "stop all" or you can reopen either of the two clients....OR if you have installed "xmms2tray" you can open it and stop the stream.
LEFT UNSAID....is that the various players will play, each in turn, a cd, or a file on the computer or a .pls. or whatever, you will have to choose your own "poison" for that!
So............Debian..........has indeed.......interacted with the people working on gxmms2 and Esperanza....to get the job done!
A big clapping of the hands here.
So........hopefully some SMART person will post a script for playing xmms2 in conky!
Kyte
20 2010-06-16 19:10:07
Re: Bluetooth works with cell phone. (4 replies, posted in Devel: CrunchBang 10 "Statler")
As a follow on for folks who may be trying to get this to work.
When one is trying pair the phone and the computer, after the phone has "found" the computer, the computer sends a message to the phone to enter a PIN number.
The PIN number is not the password to the computer such as "Kyte395" it is PIN number that is provided by the bluetooth app on the computer.
The app that sends the PIN number is not the bluetooth manager, because the requestor was sent to the phone before the Bluetooth manager was installed. I do not know what particular app sends the requestor.
The PIN number will appear in a VERY LARGE BOX on the computer screen and the numbers will be in something like 72 pt. font.
The user has about 10, that is TEN, seconds to enter the PIN number. If it is not entered within the time frame the computer will say that the pairing request was denied by the phone.
The user must then use the "go to previous screen" button and repeat the process. This can be done many times, seemingly, and each time a NEW PIN number is provided. The numbers are never the same.
The trick is to get the phone ready to where you can enter the number quickly and submit.
When this is done, the phone and computer are paired instantly,
The Bluetooth manager interactive box is a relatively plain affair; but it does search out phones, headsets, etc.
Kyte
21 2010-06-16 08:43:18
Re: xmms2 works in Statler w/exception of displaying .pls title in conky (6 replies, posted in Devel: CrunchBang 10 "Statler")
I guess that I was reading some other threads or something, but when I went back to look at the post-install script threads I could NOT seem to find the term "xmms2"anywhere in them! So, I guess that I saw a script somewhere else and got them mixed up.
However, now that I have installed Statler; in Synaptic I typed:
xmms2.
This seemed to return most of the dependencies that are required for xmms2
I installed xmms2, abraca, Esperanza, gxmms2, xmms2tray and these pulled a lot of dependencies. I will forgo listing all that was installed; but, suffice it to say that almost all of the attendant programs were ticked and the whole box of items returned for the search term "xmms2" were greened. I then installed those.
Again, as with Blueman, menu items were provided for all of the above.
I clicked Esperanza and it did it's usual thing and provided gxmms as a sub-client and the mind-numbingly IRRITATING "Mind In a Box" played very nicely.
So, xmms2, does indeed, work in a Debian base.
Two items to do, which may or may not be hard, although they were on the first go around.
a) getting the abraca or gxmms clients to actually interact with a .pls from something such as Shoutcast has always been a real bugger of a problem, hopefully it will not be so this time.
b) getting a script to put into conky to display the song title.
I laboured long and hard before to try to get a song title to display in Conky and was unsuccessful; So I defaulted to Rhythm Box and MOC.
I really don't have the time, right now, to yet again, chase down Hippolyte and steal her belt AGAIN!!
So, if someone just happens to have the script to display a song title in xmms2 laying around; I would greatly appreciate it being posted and then I will return the favour by going back and listing any and all dependencies etc. and also post my conky script for folks to use.
Well, I'll do that ANYway, but I just thought I'd say it!
Again.....looks like the fine folks here at #! have put together a winner in Statler!
Kyte
EDIT: can't believe I typed "X" instead of "#" sorry! 
22 2010-06-16 07:57:00
Topic: Bluetooth works with cell phone. (4 replies, posted in Devel: CrunchBang 10 "Statler")
Using a dongle on a tower and bluetooth enabled cell phone the computer and the cell phone would pair but I could not push a file to the computer.
I then installed, from Synaptic, the following:
Bluetooth
Bluetooth firmware
Obex pushD
USSP-push
The above did not allow a push from the cell phone.
I then installed, from Synaptic:
Blueman.
That pulled several other files as dependencies that I did not note; which I should have done.
However, the cell phone and the tower(with dongle) now pair and i can push a file to the tower.
NOTE 01: As opposed to my install of the last year of #! the program "Bluetooth Manager"(Blueman) automatically appeared as a menu item under Settings with a Bluetooth symbol.
NOTE 02: The installation from live cd now uses a text install of Statler as opposed to running Ubiquity in the terminal. Very.....UPtown Saturday Night!
Kyte
23 2010-06-13 22:08:33
Topic: xmms2 works in Statler w/exception of displaying .pls title in conky (6 replies, posted in Devel: CrunchBang 10 "Statler")
EDIT: Please see following replies.
People who have been at the forum for a while may have noticed that I struggled with trying to get xmms2 working a year or so ago.
I noticed in the scripting thread that xmms2 was prominent in one of the scripts.
So...comments?
Kyte
24 2010-06-13 20:24:42
Re: LXDE on Openbox Statler (23 replies, posted in Devel: CrunchBang 10 "Statler")
This has been an interesting thread.
Kyte
25 2010-06-13 19:09:13
Topic: Save Conky settings script with Remastersys as backup bootable cd (5 replies, posted in Feedback & Suggestions)
Hi
#! continues to "just work".
However, sometimes hardware does not!
Yes, I have my Conky as a script saved in a doc, and I can just load it from there; but what about when the hard drive goes south or something.
I've used Remastersys to make both a "backup" with settings and data, and also a "distributable" cd with the Conky srcipt only, no data.
The hard drive went south for some oddball reason but seemed to be functioning, so i formatted it, etc. and reloaded #! from the "distributable cd" and there was everything, (I keep my information/data on a usb flash drive, which is incrementally also moved to an external hard drive).
So.... #! just keeps on working!!
Kyte