It's the little things

Ever notice how the little things either make or break a situation? Well, the "little thing" of forgetting all my linux passwords really put me in a crumby mood. (Until it got all fixed! Yay!)

But on the flip side, figuring out how to make my scroll mouse actually SCROLL was a little thing that has made Linux more appealing to use again. I absolutely hated not being able to scroll while surfing the web. That makes it pretty annoying and makes me less likely to use Slackware everyday, which was the whole idea when I started on this journey.

Well, today, one of my original "I gotta figure this out" issues was conquered! HURRAH! Here's how I did it.

First, I got some inspiration from HOWTO_Advanced_Mouse @ gentoo-wiki.com. I started by commenting out all the mouse related code in my /etc/X11/xorg.conf file. For example, for all of the current settings, I stuck # it WAS: in front of the line, so I knew what to revert back to if things went bad. (Another good idea is to make a copy of the original file before you mess with it. I had already done this from a previous attempt at making scrolling work.)

Next, I tried what the site suggested as my "edited configuration". This actually caused all kinds of problems for me, but nothing was insurmountable. I discovered that for my setup, I had to do the following:

...
Identifier "Mouse1"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "ExplorerPS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/mouse"
Option "Buttons" "5"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
...

If you are comparing to the example given on the link, it might be helpful to understand that the mouse I have really is a 5-button mouse. (Left and right buttons, scroll up, scroll down, and pressing the scroller down as a button.) Having it marked as 7 just made everything all confused. So because there are only 5, the ZAxisMapping option had to be set to "4 5" to jive with that. But, how did I figure that much out???

Well, first, let's take a step back for a moment. The scrolling stuff actually did get recognised by the 7 button configuration on the other site. How do I know this? Because I used the xev program (X-event tester) to find out that it did. A very nifty tool indeed! :)

BUT, next I went into Firefox in hopes of scrolling up and down on web pages all over the place. I quickly learned that trying to scroll with the mouse actually behaved like the "Back" and "Forward" buttons. Since my habit is to go up and down on a page, this was EXTREMELY annoying as my scrolling habits caused me to go to already visited pages. Oh, it was horrible. Trust me.

Then I met another useful link, addressing the specific scrolling issue in Firefox @ linuxquestions.org and learned that if I changed the ZAxisMapping to "4 5", all would be well after starting X up again. And amazingly, it was. :) I ran xev to make sure it still recognised everything. Then I bravely returned to Firefox. And the rest is (happy) scrolling history.

One more "little thing"....

I also figured out how to change the keyboard sensitivity in X so that I can hold down a key and it will actually repeat now. Very handy for those times you really need the Backspace key, or REALLY want to type hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

In case anybody is searching for this answer, look for your settings or preferences menu in your particular window manager. I'm currently using Freerock GNOME. I went to Desktop --> Preferences --> Keyboard. Once there, select "Key presses repeat when key is held down" and set the speed and delay properties to your tastes. Me? I like high speed and a touch of delay. Don't tell the cops! ;)

Password-ly Relief!

Here I sit typing, with a weight recently lifted from my shoulders, from (dun dun dunnnnn!) Linux! Wuhhoo!!

OK, so first, here is what I did to fix the password problems (that stemmed from my brain-dead-ness problems... but that's for my personal blog instead of here!)

At the LILO boot prompt, instead of pressing the Enter key like usual, I typed this:
mount root=/dev/hdb3 init=/bin/bash

What this appears to do is mount the specified partition as root. I, conveniently, chose the partition I use as root to be the root partition. Nice, eh? (If I understand correctly, I think people can get all fancy and have other partitions that are bootable and this allows the user to boot into any bootable partition.)

The next bit is the "init" part. This took me right into the bash shell as root user WITHOUT a password. Yay! This was the first part of the mission accomplished. Going into the bash shell seemed to work for me... I think I happen to use bash as my default shell, so if you use something else perhaps you need to indicate what shell? And maybe it doesn't matter. I really don't know.

So, to change passwords I used the nifty, my-new-best-friend, command passwd. By typing in either passwd root or simply passwd (because we're already logged in as root) we can set a new password without ever needing to remember the old one. (Which I did actually remember, by the way... after resetting the password. *sigh*)

To be thorough in the process, I decided to reset the user passwords too... which meant I had to remind myself of what usernames I had set up. Turns out I only had one, and I found that by doing a simple ls /home to see all the user directories. From here I used the passwd to reset my username password.

Sounds fairly painless, doesn't it?

I was relieved (and yet also somewhat startled) to learn that there are a number of ways to work around this (very noob-ish) problem. Here are a couple of links that helped me get to my solution. There are tons out there, and I had to try a few things before getting this to work, but it worked. :) Hurrah!

"Ack! I forgot my root password!" @ everything2.com

some conversational tidbits @ quotesdb.info

A lesson learned the hard way

This is so embarassing.

The lesson that is being leared the hard way (that just might get harder very soon) is that I have totally forgotten my Linux passwords, and even the usernames. THIS is a HUGE problem.

If I figure my way out of this one without installing, I will definitely let the world know.

What a noob.

UPDATE: Problem solved! See this post: Password-ly Relief

Back at /home?

I ended up doing a little Java programming tutoring this evening at the University. Ahhh, sitting in the back of the lab where I had my first ever Java programming labs. It was a touching moment.

It was a cool night that helped to spark me back into my technical, geeky side. Makes me want to boot into Linux right now, but alas, I have an 8:30 morning class and don't have the "stay up typing until 3AM" stamina that I used to have. (And I don't really want it back either!)

BUT... I do have a new goal for my Linux-ing. I want to install the latest and greatest version of Java... maybe some of the "cooler" stuff too, like getting into Beans and Enterprise stuff. Anyway, if I download it and get it all set up *just right* then maybe I'll log into Linux more often to teach myself some new stuff, follow along with tutorials, make my Java knowledge a little less archaic, etc. :)

Other things I must, must, must prepare for in the Linux world is visual design and web based development stuff. I gotta get set up for that because I need to be doing that too. Eek.... what am I messing around in Windows for?! I can't get my work done here....

Onward, back to Slackware!!

Look who was useful!

Wow, even in my absolute neglect to my great plans for Linux-ing more regularly (as I ashamedly type this up running Windows XP) it turns out my noob-style ramblings have actually been of some worth to someone beside myself!

So, today's post pleasantly marks the first ever comment left here! Whoo! (I helped someone, I helped someone!) Right on!

Now... for the serious stuff. What the heck is holding me back from Linux-ing now? I honestly just forget a lot of the time as the hectic pace of life is increasing once again. But I also am comfortable, apathetic even, to the ways of the windows. So very sad. *sigh*

Little steps, Donna, little steps.