To just get the version number
$cat /etc/debian_version 5.0.3 |
Category Archives: debian
Synergy – Problem with international chars (keys)
When using synergy and a non us keyboard layout there is sometimes problems with the chars not being sent correctly (chars that are not on the us layout or in a different location).
I know that others have this problem as well, but the solution that I have found to work for me – so far – is very simple.
Just using force reconnect from the server makes this problem go away 😉
Attaching BOINC to a manager (without the gui)
Go into the directory with all the files created by BOINC (in Debian: /var/lib/boinc-client)
Use the boinccmd command to attach to the manager
boinccmd --join_acct_mgr [URL] [name] [passwd] |
And for (boincstats) bam the url is bam.boincstats.com
Hint in the BOINC directory there is a file called stdoute.log – this is a log so tailing this file while doing this might be a good idea 😉
Synergy (and autostarting it for linux)
Synergy is a nice software. It shares the keyboard and mouse (and clipboard) over several computers.
Setting it up is not hard and the manual on autostarting it is very nice (http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/autostart.html)
The default for Debian (lenny)Â is gdm; and now comes how to set it up there:
A tip: Before you start editing these files, test synergy from a console to test that it is working correctly, and figure out what options you need.
- Edit “/etc/gdm/Init/Default”
/usr/bin/killall synergyc sleep 1 /usr/bin/synergyc [<options>] synergy-server-hostname
- Edit “/etc/gdm/PostLogin/Default”
/usr/bin/killall synergyc sleep 1
- Edit “/etc/gdm/Xsession”
/usr/bin/killall synergyc sleep 1 /usr/bin/synergyc [<options>] synergy-server-hostname
Memtest86+ in grub
Turns out using Debian it is very simple to get memtest86+ to appear in the grub boot up menu.
Simply install it as usual using apt-get.
After the installation is complete do a grub-install.
That’s it, after rebooting memtest86+ is now in the grub menu.
(Now how come it was not possible to google out this info;) )
Making it possible to rename File to file under Samba
Had a slight issue with samba.
It didn’t see an upper case name as different from a lower case, i.e. it didn’t let me rename file to File (directly, I could rename it to ile first and then to File). Adding the following line in smb.conf (and restarting Samba) allowed me to do this.
case sensitive = yes
(The manual says, controls whether file names are case sensitive. If they aren’t then Samba must do a file name search and match on passed names. Default no)
Installing Pine (or Pico) from source
Installing Pine on Debian might seem a bit tricky, but it isn’t as hard as it might look.
Due to the licensing rules of Pine (and Pico) these are not included as deb packages in the mirrors.
However the source of these two are.
Step 1 is to ensure that you have a deb-src in /etc/apt/sources.list (for instance)
deb-src http://http.us.debian.org/debian stable main contrib non-free
deb-src http://non-us.debian.org/debian-non-US stable/non-US main contrib non-free
To make Debian install from sources:
If you have never installed from source before we need to install a compiler and dpkg-dev
$apt-get install dpkg-dev
$ apt-get install gcc
Done, now we can start compiling Pine
A short note now: When building from source apt will download the source (and compile) to the directory where you start from. I think it is nice to make sure you are in a new directory that is clean from other files (and at a logical location if you intend to save the compiled package (like for instance /src/pine)
$ apt-get -b build-dep pine
$apt-get –only-source -b source pine
(now it will download and compile Pine. Be patient.
$ dpkg -i pine_4.64-3_i386.deb
Another option is downloading a deb package directly from Washington University here
Any program in the Debian archive can be compiled from sources using the steps above, important to note is that in “apt-get -b build-dep” -b means build from source and build-dep that apt should download any libraries that is needed at the same time.
Removing config files when un-installing
If you want apt to remove the config files as well when you uninstall a program (or maybe as I have removed them manually and is unable to reinstall using apt-get install)
$apt-get –purge remove pkg-name
This is a command i had to learn the hard way as I (accidenly) removed the /etc/munin (a server monitor tool) directory. After I had done this I was unable to get apt-get install to make any new config files in the /etc/ directory. Turns out that removing without using –purge (normaly) leaves the old config files (if I wish to re install later I assume).
apt-get update and key problems
After updating my installation to etch I ran into a sligt problem with apt-get.
I just got an odd error message from apt-get update
GPG error: ftp://www.se.debian.org unstable Release:
The following signatures couldn’t be verified
because the public key is not available:
NO_PUBKEY F1D53D8C4F368D5D
W: You may want to run apt-get update to correct these problems
Well, running apt-get update again (and again…) has no effect;)
What it (tries to) tell me is that the key used to verify the files in the archive was not found
The solution to this is simply
$ gpg --keyserver wwwkeys.eu.pgp.net --recv-keys F1D53D8C4F368D5D $ gpg --armor --export F1D53D8C4F368D5D | apt-key add - $ apt-get update |
The wwwkeys.eu.pgp.net can be exchanged for any other key server that hosts the key, the only thing to note is that you should only use a key server that you feel is trusted.