Default charset in apache (2)

Yep, so getting back... apparently I've missed some important hint:


http://www.apache.org/dist/httpd/CHANGES_2.2

This file contains a paragraph I missed:

Default charset in apache

Darn! I finally got over my problem... so let's get back to the very beginning...

I use apache 2.2.4. I've been using it without a problem for a long time. My needs for apache are very basic: I just need tons of directory listings (indexes) with the ability to follow symbolic links, and ~10 aliases. The files in the directory listings are on my local computer and they usually have "weird" encodings, so I needed to let apache know I need it to use UTF-8 as default charset/encoding. Simple to achieve... or so it seemed: I used to run apache installed via aptitude under /etc/apache2.

Webmin in FreeBSD

Webmin installation in FreeBSD is pretty straightforward:

pkg_add -rv webmin
echo 'webmin_enable="YES"' >> /etc/rc.conf
/usr/local/lib/webmin/setup.sh
/usr/local/etc/rc.d/webmin start

Apache...

For a wealth of apache documentation: apache.org httpd docs. (Just change '1.3' in the URL into '2.0' or '2.2' for different flavors.)

Note to self: RTFM.

Basic apache configuration in FreeBSD

So I decided to try out apache in FreeBSD...

pkg_add -rv apache
vi /usr/local/etc/apache/httpd.conf

Added the lines:

ServerName www
BindAddress *

Supposing my hostname is dvorak, I need to edit

vi /etc/hosts

and add the line:

127.0.0.1 dvorak

procfs and loadavg

I think that one of the biggest problems somebody with a Linux background faces with FreeBSD is having gotten used to procfs.

Sendmail: Maildir format

Here's a quick one: on FreeBSD, how to configure sendmail to deliver mail in Maildir format?

...Using procmail for this example.

PACKAGESITE

Coming from my Linux background, I expected that after installing FreeBSD and choosing my geographical location – and, most importantly, choosing a local FTP mirror for the bootonly install CD –, somehow the system would "guess" that I'd want to keep the same location when doing further package installs - with pkg_add for instance. Unfortunately, pkg_add goes to the default ftp://ftp.freebsd.org package location and it can take a long time to install a package with lots of dependencies.

After fiddling around I found out there's an environment variable called PACKAGESITE that instructs pkg_add to go to a "package site" designated by the user.

dpkg-reconfigure locales...

"Open source features" take N+1 :-)

On a Debian system,

sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales

would prompt you with a nice menu allowing you to select new locales... Unfortunately, this is not the case with Ubuntu. You just get to generate or update the already selected locales. This is actually an Ubuntu bug, confirmed (with status: wishlist).

Make Konqueror remember the default view

One of the 'features' of open-source is this phrase that I'm sure you heard at least once: "Well now... that's not a bug, it's a *feature*!" -- yeah, right!


One of those "features" is the fact that Konqueror doesn't seem to remember the default view I set up in any profile. Namely, when I use Konqueror as a file manager and type something in the address bar, such as ~/tmp, I really want it to display the contents of ~/tmp in "Detailed List View", the way I chose it as default! But it doesn't.

Convert .wma files into .mp3

Another thing that's been troubling me regarding audio files is those damn .wma-s that cannot be played by my iPod. So it's time for a handy script that will convert .wma into .mp3:

for x in *.wma ; do mplayer -vo null -vc dummy -af resample=44100 -ao pcm:waveheader "$x" ; lame -m s audiodump.wav -o "${x%wma}mp3" ; rm audiodump.wav ; done

Pretty impressive – lame's manual page deserves a good read.

Convert .m4a files into .mp3

One of the things that's been troubling me lately has been the fact that on a standard Debian/Ubuntu system I can't seem to be able to edit the tags for the .m4a files I have.

So, in order to edit the tags on the .m4a files... I'd rather convert them into .mp3-s. The way to do this is actually simple.

LSCOLORS

As stated earlier, I came back to the problem of LSCOLORS.

If using bash, in order to get colorful directory listings in FreeBSD the user needs to set the CLICOLOR environment variable to "YES" and export it and would also need to define (and export) the LSCOLORS variable, all inside ~/.bash_profile.

So, how do we define LSCOLORS?

First customizations

OK, first things first. For an 'experiment' with FreeBSD I first needed it installed somewhere... for the purpose of my own mental and psychical health, I choose to get FreeBSD running in a virtual machine first.

Since I'm not eager to see it (...yet) as a viable fully fledged desktop system, I was not interested in the X part of this install so I chose a minimal install, by using the "boot only" CD.

Default title for a 1st post (?)

The next boring step after having finally edited my "Blogger profile" is the first post... so let's get this over with.