Jesse Caulfield

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You can’t just download it and type make….

The source files require that you first install the package

• libx11dev

This package provides all the necessary X11 header files.

When you install the nvidia-glx XORG driver it seems to hide your mouse cursor. It’s still there – it’s possible to hunt about and click windows and such if you’re lucky, but the cursor is invisible.

The problem is that rendering the mouse cursor is typically the responsibility of X. When running NVidia’s proprietary drivers X hands complete control for composite rendering, etc.

The solution is to tell the NVidia driver to draw the mouse cursor.

Add the following line to the Screen section of your xorg.conf

Option "sw_cursor"

Problem solved.

Here are excerpts from my xorg.conf file (for context)

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Device "nVidia Corporation C51PV [GeForce 6150]"
Monitor "hp L2335"
DefaultDepth 24

Option "AllowGLXWithComposite" "True"
Option "RenderAccel" "True"
Option "SLI" "Auto"
Option "sw_cursor"



SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1920x1200" "1600x1200" "1280x1024" "1280x960" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection


Easy.

There are many ways to remotely access your files. Samba is excellent for a LAN environment, and at one time I’ve actually exported and used my home directories across the Internet.

However, that’s not exactly secure. There are methods to wrap your Samba share inside an SSH tunnel, which works pretty well. Here are two good write-up/mini How-tos about Samba via SSH tunnels:

• http://www.blisstonia.com/eolson/notes/smboverssh.php
• http://www.ibiblio.org/gferg/ldp/Samba-with-SSH/

However, Samba wasn’t built for a WAN environment, and if you’re working consulting on-site and want “that one file” you need, mounting your remote directory via SSH + FUSE is an excellent and simple technique. The how-to is three steps:

1. Install SSHFS – the SSH Filesystem
2. Run sshfs to mount your remote directories
3. When done, unmount

The SSHFS/FUSE home page has more details:

• http://fuse.sourceforge.net/sshfs.html

Note – on Ubuntu the sshfs package creates a new group called FUSE, and you must manually edit the /etc/group file to add yourself. This step is required for fusermount to work properly.

After editing /etc/group, you must unfortunately log out and log-in again to the window manager. Unfortunate, but your ‘base’ shell needs to know about the new group changes.

The last three lines of /etc/group should look like this (with your account substituted for username):

username:x:1000:
admin:x:114:username
fuse:x:115:username

Once properly configured & installed, it works like a charm.

Enjoy.