Re: [gentoo-user] A couple projects on my laptop

[JimD]

Timothy A. Holmes wrote:

> Hi folks
>
> I have a couple of issues on my laptop that I would like to get wrapped
> up in the easiest method possible
>
> 1. Flashcards / memory sticks
> 	- Right now -- in order to mount my camera cards / thumb drives
> -- I have to become root -- its easy, but an annoyance - I have looked
> at automount and that is FAR more problems than im willing to go through
> (the shortest set of instructions ive seen so far for automount is like
> 3 pages), so if I could get it set up so that I can just do the mount
> commands as my user instead of having to su it would be nice

Google for "gentoo dbus" or "gentoo hal".  You want three programs. 
Hal, D-Bus and ivman.  Hal and gentoo are real easy, you basically 
emerge and have them start at boot.  ivman is the app that listens for 
events and will carry out actions in a nice and easy xml file.  There is 
a system wide config and a per-user config.  You can tell it to launch 
totem/xine/mplayer if a DVD is inserted or mount your camera, usb key, etc.

> 2. Energy saver thingy
> 	- after about 10 minutes or so of inactivity, the screen shuts
> off under power saver -- I cant seem to find how to prevent this from
> happening, and could use some guidance

Is it a BIOS thing?  What kind of laptop?  I have a new Toshiba laptop 
and Toshiba did away with a real BIOS for some custom one with very few 
settings.

> 3. I need a good VPN Client with easy gui
> 	- right now our school has a VPN set up on the cisco pix that
> works beautifully with a Microsoft VPN connection on a windows box, I
> need to be able to access this with my gentoo laptop as well

I can't help here.  I have to use a Nortel VPN client.  Their Linux 
version just doesn't work.  I paid $100 for it!  My only option has been 
to use VMWare and vpn into work that way.  I needed VMWare anyway for MS 
Dev stuff.  I think I read somewhere that it is pretty easy to connect 
to ciso VPN with Linux.  A quick eix search shows these ebuilds:

jim@kaleb $ eix -Ss -c cisco
[N] dev-perl/Net-Telnet-Cisco (): Automate telnet sessions w/ 
routers&switches

[N] net-analyzer/ipcad (): IP Cisco Accounting Daemon

[N] net-analyzer/ndsad (): Cisco netflow probe from libpcap, ULOG, 
tee/divert sources.

[N] net-misc/cisco-aironet-client-utils (): Cisco Aironet Client Utilities

[N] net-misc/cisco-vpnclient-3des (): Cisco VPN Client (3DES)

[N] net-misc/vpnc (): Free client for Cisco VPN routing software

> 4. I need to be able to use a USB to Serial dongle to talk to my
> switches -- the adapters that I have are Triplite ones and I do have the
> driver disk for windows -- along with this, I need a good communications
> program (equivalent to hyperterm ) to use with them to talk to my
> switches and to my UPS

I never used one.  However I just compiled my kernel and there seems to 
be a whole bunch.  Run make menuconfig and take a look at:

Device Drivers -> USB support -> USB Serial Converter support

> Thanks folks - any pointers and/or suggestions are gladly welcomed
>
> TIM
>
> Medina Christian Academy
> A Higher Standard...
>
> Jeremiah 33:3
John 3:16
> Jeremiah 29:11
> Esther 4:14

Jim
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There's no place like 127.0.0.1
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JimD
Central FL, USA, Earth, Sol
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