Error getting repository data for rawhide, repository not found

If you get this error, do not worry. This issue is "normal" with Fedora. No other distro that I am aware of changes your default repositories without letting you know, except Fedora. So that is the problem. Yum has decided to replace your /etc/yum.repos.d/fedora-rawhide.repo file with NOTHING.

So you can issue the following command:

# cp /etc/yum.repos.d/fedora-rawhide.repo.rpmnew /etc/yum.repos.d/fedora-rawhide.repo

And you may be back to normal.

I say you "may" be back to normal, because, in my case, there is still an issue. I am behind a "transparent" proxy and the folks who update the fedora-rawhide.repo file love to use https. Well, this causes me to get the following error: "Cannot retrieve metalink for repository: rawhide. Please verify its path and try again". If you simply edit the fedora-rawhide.repo file and change the https to http, updates work fine.

It appears that there is some software downstream from the fedora-rawhide.repo parsing that has problems conducting https through our "transparent" proxy ... imagine that.

Failed to open VDPAU backend libvdpau_nvidia.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Do not worry. Here is the solution to your problem:

Answer: Just try specifying a video output driver on the command line when you launch mplayer like this:

mplayer -vo xv video.wmv

You can get a list of "Available video output drivers" with the command "mplayer -vo help".

Details, if you are interested:

The problem is that the selected (or default) video output driver was vdpau, and no one working on the mplayer packages and software cares enough about having the software package work with your configuration of hardware and software. But do not worry, you are now blessed with this answer, and the video output driver can be specified on the command line (e.g. -vo xv).

The order of configuration options that mplayer will scrawl before it finally decides to (only) try the (missing) vdpau driver is not so obvious, but I think it roughly goes like this:

1. Check the ~/.mplayer/config for the (user specific) default video output driver, if any
2. Then check /etc/mplayer/mplayer.conf for the (system specific) default video output driver, if any
3. Then check in the compile options that mplayer was built with for a default (build specific).

If the mplayer command you were using was compiled with the vdpau option and there are no default video output drivers specified in ~/.mplayer/config or /etc/mplayer/mplayer.conf (which is either a common occurrence or I am the only person on the planet earth who has ever had problems with a configuration option on a linux box) then it will fall back to the compiled default which in this case was vdpau.

More details, imagine that:

Another similar issue is that mplayer may work fine while gmplayer gives this same error using the same options you just tried with mplayer. Well guess what? gmplayer uses yet another config file, ~/.mplayer/gui.conf, and it will default to the last video driver specified (or defaulted to in the compile options). So again, just specify a video output driver on the command line, or put one in one of the myriad of config files mentioned here.

Hope that helps.

Kick users out of terminal services in Windows Server

If you need to boot some users out of terminal services in Windows Server, try the following:

1) Start
2) All Programs
3) Administrative Tools
4) Terminal Services Manager (this is also called tsadmin.exe)
5) Right click on the user you want to boot in the "Users" tab and click
6a) Disconnect - which may leave some of their applications running, I guess
or
6b) Log Off - which will log the user off, and should kill any processes they have running.

Of course you will need Administrator privileges to do this.

Since Windows limits you to 2 remote sessions, if someone has two disconnected sessions, you will not be able to log in without additional software, imagine that. So instead you could try using a different operating system that treats administrators like first class citizens.