Monday, February 16, 2009

Running PHP on the Eee PC

Info from following URLs:
http://wiki.eeeuser.com/howto:lamp
http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp-linux.html

Programming has been my hobby since my secondary school days and still is, though I mainly use PHP and Javascript nowadays - Free, Open, Platform Independent. In fact, I still code my webpages wholly in Notepad :P
I have some PHP scripts of my own which I would want to use offline. I have XAMPP Lite on my Tablet PC (www.portableapps.com) which is a portable Apache web server package with PHP and MySQL. This enables me to test/run my PHP scripts offline. Now it's my Eee PC's turn :)
    Steps:
  1. Press Ctrl-Alt-T to open the terminal console.
  2. Type "sudo apt-get install apache2" to install the Apache 2 web server.
  3. Type "sudo kwrite /etc/apache2/httpd.conf", add the 2 lines below and save (1st line is to fix the server domain, 2nd line is to fix a bug for the Eee PC):

    ServerName localhost
    EnableSendfile Off

  4. Type "sudo apt-get install php5" to install PHP 5.
  5. Create a shortcut bash script for Apache. Type "sudo kwrite /usr/bin/apache", add the following lines and save:

    #!/bin/bash
    sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 $@

  6. Type "sudo chmod 755 /usr/bin/apache" to set the correct permissions.
  7. To start Apache, type "apache start". To stop, type "apache stop"
  8. Put your webpages in /var/www. You will need to use "sudo cp" to copy the files inside.
  9. To test, open your web browser and type "http://localhost"

Another way would be to install XAMPP for Linux (or LAMP as it was previously known), but it takes up 55MB compared to 12MB above. I do not usually use MySQL so it would be better to save my Eee PC's disk space by not installing it.

(^ v ^)

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Detecting whether AC power is on

Info from following URL:
  http://mychael.gotdns.com/blog/2008/06/showing-battery-life-in-awesome-with-lua/

    Recently, another recording on my Eee PC was cut off because the AC power was not switched on. I found the URL above and modified the bash script NOT to launch Audacity unless power is switched on.
    Steps:
  1. Press Ctrl-Alt-T to open the terminal console.
  2. I had previously set the Audacity icon in my Favorites to launch "audacity-checklist".
    So in this case, I would type "sudo kwrite /usr/bin/audacity-checklist".
  3. Delete the line that runs the command "audacity" and replace with the following (the awk command is on one line):

    #check if power is switched on and prevent launching if not so.
    powerStatus=$(awk '{ print $2 }' /proc/acpi/ac_adapter/AC0/state)

    if [ $powerStatus != "on-line"]
    then
       kdialog --msgbox "POWER IS NOT SWITCHED ON! \n\n Audacity will not launch."
    else
       audacity
    fi

    exit 0

  4. Try running the bash script with the power switched on and with it turned off.
(^ v ^)