Volumeicon : better volume applet in #lxde for !debian or #Lubuntu

I really like lxde and i have installed on all computers that i have (minus the android phone but soon enough i will install on that too :))
but there is one annoying bug or feature the volume applet at least at home
is controlling only the front speakers and no mixer to choose what to be controlled or any preferences , only if you modify the source.

There is the help of alsa mixer to the rescue
open console and type

alsamixer

but there is a better way volumeicon
it places an icon in status bar and when you right click you can choose mixer and it will show you the alsamixer in all it's glory
pretty cool that cli always saves you and is more trusted than the GUI

git clone https://github.com/icebreaker/volumeicon.git
cd volumeicon
./configure --prefix=/usr --enable-notify
sudo make install

I have two soundcars so i have added in the config

cat /proc/asound/cards
0 [HDMI           ]: HDA-Intel - HDA ATI HDMI
                      HDA ATI HDMI at 0xfeaec000 irq 44
 1 [default        ]: USB-Audio - Microsoft LifeChat LX-3000 
                      Microsoft LifeChat LX-3000  at usb-0000:00:1d.2-1, full speed

vi ~/.config/volumeicon/volumeicon
[Alsa]
card=hw:1

Start volumeicon or add it to the startup session

volumeicon &

if you are on pure LXDE/Debian

editor ~/.config/lxsession/LXDE/autostart
#add to the file
@volumeicon

If you are on Lubuntu

editor ~/.config/lxsession/Lubuntu/autostart
#add to the file
@volumeicon

Using Jaybird Firebird JDBC driver with Ubuntu/Debian - cli way

I have used eclipse to create  simple console projects before and there it's easy to add references to the jaybird-full-*.jar , This time i wanted to compile from the shell.

Download jaybird from firebird jdbc download page
unzip it somewhere in your home
I usually put in a dir named  jdbc_client

cd ~/jdbc_client

compile it

javac -cp jaybird-full-2.1.6.jar examples/DriverExample.java

run it

java -cp jaybird-full-2.1.6.jar:examples DriverExample

It will trow you

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: no jaybird21 in java.library.path

Simple fix is to use the pure type4 java jdbc driver and this is done by using the magic "localhost/3050:" in the connection string



After that it starts ok

java -cp jaybird-full-2.1.6.jar:examples DriverExample
Firebird JCA-JDBC driver version 2.0 registered with driver manager.
Connection established.
Auto-commit is disabled.
Transactions are supported.
PHONE_LIST is a view.
org.firebirdsql.jdbc.FBSQLException: GDS Exception. 335544558. Operation violates CHECK constraint INTEG_30 on view or table EMPLOYEE
At trigger 'CHECK_4'
 at org.firebirdsql.jdbc.AbstractStatement.executeUpdate(AbstractStatement.java:273)
 at DriverExample.main(DriverExample.java:296)
at org.firebirdsql.gds.GDSException: Operation violates CHECK constraint INTEG_30 on view or table EMPLOYEE
At trigger 'CHECK_4'
 at org.firebirdsql.gds.impl.wire.AbstractJavaGDSImpl.readStatusVector(AbstractJavaGDSImpl.java:2169)
 at org.firebirdsql.gds.impl.wire.AbstractJavaGDSImpl.receiveResponse(AbstractJavaGDSImpl.java:2119)
 at org.firebirdsql.gds.impl.wire.AbstractJavaGDSImpl.iscDsqlExecute2(AbstractJavaGDSImpl.java:1185)
 at org.firebirdsql.gds.impl.GDSHelper.executeStatement(GDSHelper.java:226)
 at org.firebirdsql.jdbc.AbstractStatement.internalExecute(AbstractStatement.java:1102)
 at org.firebirdsql.jdbc.AbstractStatement.executeUpdate(AbstractStatement.java:269)
 at DriverExample.main(DriverExample.java:296)
Unable to increase everyone's salary.
GDS Exception. 335544558. Operation violates CHECK constraint INTEG_30 on view or table EMPLOYEE
At trigger 'CHECK_4'
Error Code: 335544558
SQL State: HY000
The query executed has 1 result columns.
Here are the columns:
FULL_NAME of type VARCHAR
Here are the employee's whose salary < $50,000
Bennet, Ann
Reeves, Roger
Stansbury, Willie
Nordstrom, Carol
O'Brien, Sue Anne
Brown, Kelly
Page, Mary
Parker, Bill
Yanowski, Michael
Green, T.J.
Montgomery, John
Guckenheimer, Mark
Closing database resources and rolling back any changes we made to the database.

Now we try the Jni way (aka using the not so pure driver)
chmod +x libjaybird21.so
Seems to be compiled for 32 bit (i'm on 64 but i have already the lib32 libs)

ldd ./libjaybird21.so 
 linux-gate.so.1 =>  (0xf770d000)
 libdl.so.2 => /lib32/libdl.so.2 (0xf76c7000)
 libc.so.6 => /lib32/libc.so.6 (0xf756d000)
 libstdc++.so.5 => /usr/lib32/libstdc++.so.5 (0xf74b3000)
 /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0xf770e000)
 libm.so.6 => /lib32/libm.so.6 (0xf748d000)
 libgcc_s.so.1 => /usr/lib32/libgcc_s.so.1 (0xf7470000)

To run using the compiled interface you need to add the -Djava.library.path when you run the program also change the connection string by adding the native keyword ":native:localhost/3050:"

java -Djava.library.path=. -cp jaybird-full-2.1.6.jar:examples DriverExample

For me it didn't worked because i have a 64bit machine so i need a jaybird source recompilation

libjaybird21.so: wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS32 (Possible cause: architecture word width mismatch)

Mono Firebird Example updated for Mono 2.6/2.10.x release (#ubuntu / #debian)

Mono Firebird Example updated for Mono 2.6 release

First I hope you have Firebird 2.5 already installed with examples :)

Second Install Monodevelop and Mono
In my case was something like this on ubuntu

sudo apt-get install  mono-gmcs mono-gac mono-utils monodevelop monodoc-browser monodevelop-nunit monodevelop-versioncontrol  monodoc-gtk2.0-manual 

Also on Debian you can use mono 2.10.x by using experimental repository (after you add it in /etc/apt/sources.list)

sudo apt-get -t experimental install  mono-gmcs mono-gac mono-utils monodevelop monodoc-browser monodevelop-nunit monodevelop-versioncontrol  monodoc-gtk2.0-manual 

You must download the .Net Provider 2.6.5 for mono binary version NETProvider-2.6.5-MONO_LINUX.7z
Extract it somewhere in the project dir where you want to build it

Create an new C# Console Project
Then add the Firebird .net assembly to the test project
References-> Edit References -> .Net Assembly
browse to the FirebirdSql.Data.FirebirdClient.dll that you downloaded before (and extracted)
then click Add button

Fill the Main.cs this way and Build Solution (Also add System.Data references)



Then click run after the solution is build and the result should be like this

Rails On Firebird - status and follow the guide

Rails On Firebird - status after active record adapter and ruby driver are installed

sudo apt-get install rails

rails /home/mariuz/mynewapp -D firebird

But it generated sqlite config so i had to delete all and

I have configured this way my database : first i have created in flamerobin an empty firebird db /var/lib/firebird/2.5/data/rubyonfire.fdb

Be aware about indentation
cat config/database.yml

ruby script/generate scaffold Client name:string address:string email:string remark:text

rake db:migrate
(in /home/mariuz/firebird)
rake aborted!
This database does not yet support migrations

Yay - so I had to create the table structure by hand

I have re-read the ruby guide
so i did these commands while following the official guide

rake db:create

but database was already created in flamerobin

script/generate controller home index
vi app/views/home/index.html.erb

and write something there, start the server with

script/server

and now you can see something in browser
http://localhost:3000/


I have created the table and one sequence in firebird db

CREATE TABLE posts (
id BIGINT NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY,
name VARCHAR(255),
title VARCHAR(255),
content VARCHAR(255),
timestamps timestamp
);
CREATE GENERATOR POSTS_SEQ;

I have ran the scaffold again to generate the posts model/view/controller

script/generate scaffold Post name:string title:string content:text

and then
started the server

script/server

of course I have modified the route and added an link as in tutorial and now i can add and modify blog posts
note: in new rails route is defined this way in config/routes.rb

map.root :controller => "home"

http://localhost:3000/posts






Follow the normal ActiveRecord conventions for table names, primary key columns, etc. The one “extra” you’ll need for Firebird is that you’ll have to create a generator for any tables that require a sequence-based primary key. The default naming convention is TABLENAME_SEQ. So if you have a users table, you would need to create a corresponding USERS_SEQ generator

You don't need to create before insert triggers ! rails reads the value from sequence and then increments it in ruby code, Yay!

#fireruby - howto start with #firebird and #ruby on #ubuntu / #debian

This howto is about installing firebird ruby driver on Ubuntu (tested on natty) and Debian (tested on Sid)
you might need some firebird dependencies and if you need the stable Firebird server  Firebird 2.5 guide to install it

The very basic firebird package to build only the driver is firebird2.5-dev

sudo apt-get install firebird2.5-dev

and choose yes when asked

if is already installed you will get :

firebird2.*-dev was already installed

Then you need to install ruby and rubygems (you can choose ruby 1.9.x you can search it with apt-cache search ruby1.9 or ruby1.8)

sudo apt-get install rubygems ruby1.8 ruby1.9.1 git-core

To avoid this error: no such file to load — mkmf

sudo apt-get install ruby1.9.1-dev

also you can use ruby 1.8.x

sudo apt-get install ruby1.8-dev

We will install a more recent version from git

git clone git://github.com/mariuz/fb.git
cd fb/
gem1.9.1 build fb.gemspec

I could build only with gem 1.9.x (with gem 1.8 i have got this error undefined method `mark_version' for nil:NilClass )

You will get something like this in terminal :

Successfully built RubyGem
Name: fb
Version: 0.6.7
File: fb-0.6.7.gem

Now is time to install it using the gem command

sudo gem1.9.1 install fb-0.6.*

or if you prefer ruby1.8 (or use the ee version ,it works even if it was build with 1.8x)

sudo gem install fb-0.6.*

Please read the README.
here is how i tested on my machine


I had to add require 'rubygems'
to the example from README and all was ok after that

Here is part of the example i ran on my pc

pico test.rb 

And here are the results for my ruby test

ruby test.rb 
ID: 0, Name: John 0
ID: 9, Name: John 9

What is next class ? RoR on Firebird