How-To's

Below is a list of personal headaches I've had while working with computers, and the solutions I've found. The only way a problem/solution makes it here is if the solution took an exceptionally long amount of time to find (usually because of there being an extreme lack of existing documentation on the subject), or because it's something I semi-frequently need to do yet simply forget.

General

Various mplayer Tips & Tricks

The basics of mplayer are pretty simple, but this includes how to do such handy things as play DVD's, extract audio & video clips, screencaps, and more. All work on OpenBSD.

Automating SSH for scripting

I do this semi-frequently, yet can never remember the commands and details to save my life.

OpenBSD

Voice-Chat between two OpenBSD Hosts

With the recent (2008-2009) developments to the audio subsystem on OpenBSD, it's now possible (and quite easy) to voice chat between two OpenBSD clients with nothing more than what's already in base!

Horde & IMP on OpenBSD

A problem I had years ago with running the (then) new & ultra-schnazzy Horde 3.x (and IMP 4.x) on OpenBSD. The "problem" still occurs with the newer version (it's really just a chroot(8)'ing issue).

Accessing the Sun PROM under OpenBSD

How to access the Sun PROM when OpenBSD is installed.

Solaris

Changing the screen resolution on a Sun Blade 100 under Solaris

Changing the screen resolution under Solaris on a Blade 100... You'd think man -k would help with this, but no. Not on Solaris.

Odd "ssh: cannot find ELF" error under Solaris

Solaris, with its multitude of bin directories scattered throughout the filesystem, contains multiple versions of strip, only one of which is the "correct" one for ssh.

FreeBSD

Audio on a Sony VAIO laptop under FreeBSD

Due to a PCI interrupt handling oddity in FreeBSD on some Sony VAIO laptops, audio may not work unless you apply the patch listed here. Oddly, this patch has not yet be put into -current.