Using the PC rooms of Vienna University for writing a LaTeX document

So I tried to use the PC rooms of my university for less distraction.

Bad idea, I was distracted by the broken setup.

First problem: no git installed and it is prohibited to install software. Workaround: Luckily there is still an SSH access to login.univie.ac.at where git is installed.

Second problem: On login.univie.ac.at there is only pdflatex installed. Unfortunately my document requires xelatex or lualatex. Workaround: Use the TeXWorks GUI which has xelatex and lualatex available.

Third Problem: I haven’t been able to get biber working with my document. No workaround available, so back to working on my laptop.

Potential Workarounds that did not work:

  • SSH from the windows PC to my Laptop on the WLAN. Unfortunately this seems to be prohibited by the Network administrator
  • Using the external Display on my Laptop. Unfortunately there is no HDMI cable, so a HDMI cable should be come part of my emergency cable pack.

…to be continued.

Pulseaudio/Bluetooth Automatically switch profile

My BT Headset connects with A2DP profile per default which is fine for listening to music. But for video calls we need a mic.

Of course you can switch the bluetooth profile manually within pavucontrol, but even better is modifying /etc/pulse/default.pa by adding auto_switch=2 to the line

load-module module-bluetooth-policy auto_switch=2

Restart pulseaudio with pulseaudio -k

Ubuntu 13.10

As with every Ubuntu version, the upgrade is kind of broken.
* systemd doesn’t like hal anymore. Recommended procedurce: remove hal
* KDE has forgotten its sound configuration and preferes the HDMI port over the onboard sound.
* akonadi and apparmor don’t work together. I suggest to remove apparmor
* …to be continued.

Compiling the NXP Basic Function Library BFL on Linux

The BfL source of version 4.1/2 does not offer a build system for Linux.
Here is an automake Makefile.am:

AUTOMAKE_OPTIONS = foreign
AM_CFLAGS = -g -Wall
AM_CPPFLAGS = -I$(top_srcdir)/intfs/IphcsBflI3P4AAct/inc/ \
-I$(top_srcdir)/types \
-I$(top_srcdir)/intfs/IphcsBflI3P4/inc \
-I$(top_srcdir)/intfs/IphcsBflIo/inc \
-I$(top_srcdir)/intfs/IphcsBflRegCtl/inc \
-I$(top_srcdir)/intfs/IphcsBflBal/inc \
-I$(top_srcdir)/intfs/IphcsBflAux/inc \
-I$(top_srcdir)/intfs/IphcsBflOpCtl/inc \
-I$(top_srcdir)/intfs/IphcsBflNfc/inc/ \
-I$(top_srcdir)/intfs/IphcsBflIdMan/inc \
-I$(top_srcdir)/intfs/IphcsBflI3P3A/inc \
-I$(top_srcdir)/intfs/IphcsBflMfRd/inc/ \
-I$(top_srcdir)/intfs/IphcsBflPolAct/inc/ \
-D__int32_t_defined -D__int64_t_defined
AM_CXXFLAGS = -DPHFL_BFL_CPP
lib_LTLIBRARIES = libCBFL.la
libCBFL_la_SOURCES = \
comps/phcsBflI3P4AAct/src/phcsBflI3P4AAct.c \
comps/phcsBflOpCtl/src/phcsBflOpCtl_Hw1.c \
comps/phcsBflAux/src/phcsBflAux_Hw1.c \
comps/phcsBflIo/src/phcsBflIoHw1/phcsBflIo_Hw1.c \
comps/phcsBflNfc/src/phcsBflNfc_Target.c \
comps/phcsBflNfc/src/phcsBflNfc_Initiator.c \
comps/phcsBflIdMan/src/phcsBflIdMan.c \
comps/phcsBflI3P3A/src/phcsBflI3P3A_Hw1.c \
comps/phcsBflBal/src/phcsBflBal_Hw1SerLin.c \
comps/phcsBflMfRd/src/phcsBflMfRd.c \
comps/phcsBflRegCtl/src/phcsBflRegCtlSer/phcsBflRegCtl_SerHw1.c \
comps/phcsBflPolAct/src/phcsBflPolAct_Hw1.c \
comps/phcsBflI3P4/src/phcsBflI3P4_Pcd.c \
comps/phcsBflI3P4AAct/src/phcsBflI3P4AAct_Wrapper.cpp \
comps/phcsBflOpCtl/src/phcsBflOpCtl_Wrapper.cpp \
comps/phcsBflIo/src/phcsBflIo_Wrapper.cpp \
comps/phcsBflNfc/src/phcsBflNfc_TargetWrapper.cpp \
comps/phcsBflNfc/src/phcsBflNfc_InitiatorWrapper.cpp \
comps/phcsBflIdMan/src/phcsBflIdMan_Wrapper.cpp \
comps/phcsBflI3P3A/src/phcsBflI3P3A_Wrapper.cpp \
comps/phcsBflBal/src/phcsBflBal_Wrapper.cpp \
comps/phcsBflMfRd/src/phcsBflMfRd_Wrapper.cpp \
comps/phcsBflRegCtl/src/phcsBflRegCtl_Wrapper.cpp \
comps/phcsBflPolAct/src/phcsBflPolAct_Wrapper.cpp \
comps/phcsBflI3P4/src/phcsBflI3P4_PcdWrapper.cpp

And a standard configure.ac

AC_INIT([Bfl],[4.1])
AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE
AC_PROG_CXX
AC_PROG_CC
AC_PROG_LIBTOOL
AC_CONFIG_FILES([Makefile])
AC_OUTPUT

Beware the BfL does not work on 64bit systems.

Linux, Sound and blacklist.conf

Forget about configuring your sound device with KDE.
It is just confusing and does not work as you intended most of the time.
Here two useful blacklist.conf entries:
Disable the onboard soundcard in favor of USB soundcard:

blacklist snd_hda_intel

Disable the HDMI output of your soundcard:

snd_hda_codec_hdmi

pavucontrol is a useful tool to mute speakers and adjust the balance

Things not working in Ubuntu oneirc

* Upgrading the flashplugin. Solution: deinstall the flashplugin before doing a system upgrade
* Nvidia-Twinview + unity. Solution: Don’t use unity
* Migrating .kde from 4.6 to 4.7: So far none, i made a new user
* Booting is hanging for 2minutes if there is no network connection.
Solution: So far none.
Resume: Don’t upgrade now

Modifying Keyboard layouts on Ubuntu

1. Modify the layouts in /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols
2. Delete xkm files in /var/lib/xkb/*
3. Call setxkbmap
All the tutorials on the internet don’t mention the xkm files, so it took me some time time to find out, why my changes were not applied.