Gentoo, x86_64, x.org 7.2 and evdev – input problems

After fighting a losing battle trying to get x.org 7.2 working on my machine, a nice chap over at the gentoo forums was able to help me solve the issue.

In a nutshell:

1. Make sure “hal” and “dbus” USE flags are set in make.conf.
2. Re-emerge xorg-server if they weren’t.
3. Change the “driver” names for keyboard/mouse devices to “evdev” in xorg.conf.
4. ???
5. Profit.

A snippet from my xorg.conf input sections might help:

Section “InputDevice”
Identifier     ”Mouse0″
Driver         ”evdev”
Option         ”Protocol”
Option         ”Device” “/dev/input/event5″
Option         ”Emulate3Buttons” “no”
Option         ”ZAxisMapping” “4 5″
EndSection

Section “InputDevice”
Identifier     ”Keyboard0″
Driver         ”evdev”
Option      “Device”        “/dev/input/event3″
EndSection

To get the evdev event addresses (/dev/input/event3 etc) just use “cat /proc/bus/input/devices | more” and look for your keyboard vendor… my Apple keyboard showed up twice, only one of the two events worked. A little bit of trial-and-error there and you should be up and running.

The full thread is available on the Gentoo forums.

Continue reading...

Does your ISP block port 25 (SMTP)?

If you’re like me and are fortunate enough to have your own external SMTP server (which is just about anyone with dedicated or VPS web hosting) here’s a simple but really neat trick….. configure your SMTP service (exim, postfix, et al) to listen on port 587 as well as port 25….. according to the IETF, port 587 is officially reserved for SMTP anyway! Most ISPs cruel enough to block port 25 probably won’t block port 587. And hey, if they do, use a different port…. 26, 8025, 8587, just make sure it’s not something used by another service.

The other side of the equation is your mail client….. alter your SMTP settings and change the port to the new one you specified in your MTA config. It’s possible (I’ve not tested it) that using SSL or TLS may yield positive results too…. I’m not sure if this particular nameless ISP (run by a monopolistic behemoth telco in Australia, hint hint) blocks secure SMTP or not, but I might give it a try and swing an update to this post with my results.

Continue reading...