This is my blog, designed to be easy for me to use and easy for you to read. This is my blog, designed to be easy for me to use and easy for you to read.
I've decided to try and keep this blog up to date for a couple of reasons. It will give me an opportunity to exercise my writing muscles. It's also a good way to get things in “final form” in bite-sized chunks, rather than waiting until the complete opus is finished and then getting bogged down in a huge editing job.
After playing with sidux for a couple of days, I love Gentoo more than ever. When the distro makes too many decisions for you, it's bound to get a significant number of them wrong. Next project is to build a Gentoo partition on my IdeaPad.
Talk about coming full circle! After I was unable to get Debian lenny running successfully on the GX280, I'm now auditioning sidux.
1 dpkg -l > dpkg.sidux_as_installed
3 dpkg --get-selections > dpkg.sidux_as_installed-selections
4 apt-get update
5 apt-get dist-upgrade
12 cd /etc/apt/sources.list.d/
14 vi *
15 cd
16 apt-get update
20 apt-get install vim-gtk vim-doc par
21 apt-get install firmware-linux-nonfree
/mnt/sda/sda5/fll/cow/home/sidux/notes.sidux lines 1-11/11 (END)
title sidux 32-bit Xfce from ISO (sda5)
root (hd0,4)
kernel /boot/sidux/vmlinuz0.686 boot=fll quiet vga=791 fromiso=/boot/sidux/sidux.iso persist
initrd /boot/sidux/initrd0.686
pann@gentoo ~ $ sudo du -sh /mnt/sda/sda5/boot/sidux/
505M /mnt/sda/sda5/boot/sidux/
pann@gentoo ~ $ sudo du -sh /mnt/sda/sda5/fll/
1.9G /mnt/sda/sda5/fll/This is a fromiso persist installation. Probably doesn't save a lot of space (if any) over a regular hard disk installation. It does, however, obviate the need to dedicate one or more partitions, and is very easily removed, lovely qualities for an audition.
This is my work thumb drive. Set up with a FAT32 partition using most of the storage space, but also to boot the System Rescue CD (currently 1.4.0).
Disk /dev/sdb: 4009 MB, 4009754624 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 1000 3479976 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sdb2 1001 1125 435000 83 Linux
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdb1 3.4G 1.4G 2.0G 42% /mnt/td1
/dev/sdb2 412M 233M 158M 60% /mnt/td2This thumb drive boots Knoppix 6.2.1. Created by booting the Knoppix CD and running flash-knoppix.
Disk /dev/sdb: 4009 MB, 4009754624 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 1125 3914976 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdb1 3.8G 689M 3.1G 19% /mnt/td1I did have this thumb drive set up to boot some Linux distro, but I forget which. We needed the space at work the other day, so it now looks like this:
Disk /dev/sdb: 16.2 GB, 16173236224 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 623 5004216 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb2 * 624 748 1004062+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdb3 749 1966 9783585 83 Linux
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdb1 4.8G 3.4G 1.5G 71% /mnt/td1
/dev/sdb2 966M 1.3M 915M 1% /mnt/td2
/dev/sdb3 9.2G 22M 8.7G 1% /mnt/td3sdb1 was created to hold a Matlab DVD ISO. It would normally be a FAT32 partition. sdb2 and sdb3 are in anticipation of a Linux installation at some point in the future.
This thumb drive is set up to boot either Xubuntu 9.04 or the System Rescue CD (currently 1.3.3). It looks like I set this up as a portable web development device using XAMPP for Linux. Given the availabilty of thumb drives of relatively high capacity at relatively low cost, I'm not sure XAMPP makes sense for this purpose any longer. I recall doing this for the first time with a 2G thumb drive and Damn Small Linux, a tiny distro no longer being developed. Now I think it makes sense just to install Apache, PHP, and friends on whatever distro is on the thumb drive.
Under Ubuntu, for example, this is supposed to be as easy as sudo tasksel install lamp-server. I might give that a try.
Disk /dev/sdb: 4009 MB, 4009754624 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 2073 524458 b W95 FAT32
/dev/sdb2 * 2074 2592 131307 83 Linux
/dev/sdb3 2593 15477 3259905 83 Linux
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdb1 513M 127M 386M 25% /mnt/td1
/dev/sdb2 124M 18M 101M 15% /mnt/td2
/dev/sdb3 3.1G 2.2G 786M 74% /mnt/td3This thumb drive is a target drive for Ubuntu's usb-creator. It is currently set up to install Ubuntu 9.04.
Disk /dev/sdb: 2032 MB, 2032139264 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 1016 1984217 b W95 FAT32
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdb1 1.9G 819M 1.1G 43% /mnt/td1I seem to recall that I orginally thought that this thumb drive might be used to consolidate and back up /home/pann/working from various systems I use. It is currently set up to boot Damn Small Linux, the System Rescue CD, or the LFS Linux Live CD. There's quite a collection of stuff on it.
Disk /dev/sdb: 8086 MB, 8086618112 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 131 1011158 b W95 FAT32
/dev/sdb2 * 132 1023 6885348 83 Linux
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdb1 986M 719M 267M 73% /mnt/td1
/dev/sdb2 6.4G 4.7G 1.5G 77% /mnt/td2On Saturday I took the Long Island Rail Road to NYC Penn Station and then Amtrak to DC Union Station. Dan, Dorothy, and the boys met me at Union Station. Liam, who is now six months old and whom I haven't seen since he was an infant, looks just like his photos! Not quite a toddler yet, but somehow more than a baby.
We all went across the street to the Postal Museum to hang out until Dan and my train for Richmond would leave. There is a semi truck cab in the museum with the back open so one can sit in the driver's or passenger seat, and Alexander can easily spend hours in the driver's seat, as long as he can get an adult to keep him company in the passenger seat. He is a true transportation geek.
The Richmond train was on time and you can read about the North American Handmade Bicycle Show in my cycling blog.
Sunday evening we trained back from Richmond and finally got to Dan and Dorothy's place around 9:30. Had a snack, got organized, and turned in.
This morning we got up pretty early (Alexander woke me at 6:30), had breakfast, got organized, and all left the house a little after 8:30. Dorothy had one of her parents' cars, so we all piled in. Just fits three adults and two car seats. First she dropped Dan at his office and then parked in the SEC garage. She took Alexander to day care while I strolled Liam back and forth in the corridor outside the SEC employee's entrance. Then Dorothy and Liam walked me to Union Station, which is adjacent to the SEC, and I settled in to wait for my train while the two of them headed for home.
I'm typing this on the train, which left DC on time. If the rest of my trip is on time I'll be home a little before four this afternoon.
So I'm trying to make good on my recent threat to roll myself back to Debian Stable.
lenny seems to have the same problem with my Radeon 4350 video card and Acer X233h DVI combination that Gentoo has. Sort of. Under Gentoo I haven't been able to get X to run. Under lenny, X runs, but the display is blank.
I know the Gentoo Live DVD works, so I burned a Debian 5.02 Live CD. It behaves just like my lenny installation. Sigh.
I also booted lenny with a Gentoo kernel I built that mimics the kernel on the System Rescue CD. This kernel got X working on Gentoo, when I was unable to do so before. Alas, although lenny boots up fine with this kernel, still no display.
After some time auditioning LXDE and friends under Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala), I've come to the sad conclusion that the OpenSSH client is broken in karmic.
When running Linux (generally CrunchBang 9.04) on my home desktop, I'm in the habit of keeping an SSH session open to my netbook. I run jpilot on the IdeaPad only, so that there are no sync issues, and I just keep the jpilot window open on my home desktop via ssh X forwarding. I do the same thing at work where my desktop runs Xubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron).
When auditioning the lightweight karmic installations I noticed that the SSH session with the IdeaPad would often "lock up" and the jpilot display would go wonky. I thought it must be LXDE-related until I verified that the same thing happens with a full blown (Gnome) karmic installation on my home desktop.
I think I'm going to roll myself back to Debian stable and if a package that I need is so outdated that it's not useful, I'll either find a backport or build it from source. And in my spare time I'll continue to mess with Gentoo.
CrunchBang Linux, the Ubuntu-based mini-distro I use on my desktop at home, uses OpenBox as its default window manager. When reading about OpenBox I discovered LXDE, which also uses OpenBox as its default window manager. Then, when reading about LXDE, I stumbled upon Masonux, a one-person Ubuntu/LXDE mini-distro that I've been auditioning recently.
Unlike CrunchBang, which has a definite set of packages and a distinct look and feel, Masonux adds just enough to a standard Ubuntu command line install to provide a basic desktop that is competent and very lightweight. All additions are standard Ubuntu packages from the normal repositories. The initial install takes around a gigabyte of disk space and runs just fine in 256MB of RAM.
I've done a couple of test installs on my desktop at work. Today I took a closer look.
sda9 is a Masonux system that has a complete basic configuration. The slim display manager is installed and set up to my liking. Firefox has both flash and java capabilities, and Acroread is installed. Trimming and pruning of packages seems complete. Disk usage is about 1.5G.
I initially created this system by following Notes to Myself on the Masonux website. I then added and removed packages until I got the system the way I want it. Not the cleanest path from Point A to Point B, but I seem to have arrived.
sda10 is a basic command line system that has had security updates applied. I've installed a couple of "comfort" packages, such as real vim and rcs. I've also done basic customization of .bashrc and /etc/apt/sources.list. The system occupies just over 700M of disk space, and is ready to have Masonux cleanly installed.
I've also done a couple of test installs on my desktop at home. The first was done on a VirtualBox VM under Ubuntu 9.10 (itself a test install). That one pretty much followed the path of the sda9 installation at work. The second installation is on a partition of its own, and I think I'm probably going re-do it. Everything was fine up until a point, and then I started installing things without too much thought and the installation is now a bit of a mess. Rather than back out the thoughtlessly installed packages and their dependencies, it makes more sense to do a clean install, now that (I think) I've figured out just how to do that.
So now let's think about trimming and pruning.
Bring in ispell, which I prefer, and having it installed may make removing aspell easier.
sudo apt-get install iamerican ibritishCandidates for Removal:
apturl install
apturl-common install
arj install
aspell install
aspell-en install
command-not-found install
command-not-found-data install
dmsetup install
hunspell-en-us install
leafpad install
tasksel install
tasksel-data install
unattended-upgrades install
xarchiver installLooks like not so much, really.
OK, here's what I did to finally make things happen:
$ sudo ifconfig eth0 192.168.1.10$ tftp 192.168.1.1tftp> binarytftp> put dd-wrt.v24_mini_asus.trxtftp> quitDD-WRT will come up and ask you to change the password!
Then just reflash DD-WRT with dd-wrt.v24_std_generic.bin.
Firmware: DD-WRT v24-sp2 (07/21/09) stdSet SSID to pannda2 and WAN IP to 192.168.1.2
This procedure was accomplished by connecting wireless-ly to pannda2. Communication was not lost, although after the last "Apply Settings" below, pannda2 no longer exists. At that point, however, I was able to connect to http://192.168.1.2/ with my browser just fine when I was connected wireless-ly to pannda1.
pannda1 (match the primary router)pannda1 by SSID, click Join buttonDD-WRT v24-sp1 (07/27/08) miniDD-WRT v24-sp1 (07/27/08) stdInterestingly enough, the whole point of booting into Windows was to use IE (belt and suspenders) for the firmware upgrade. On auto-pilot I upgraded with Firefox. No problem.
Once I got everything working I discovered there were problems with DD-WRT v24-sp1 (07/27/08) std, so I upgraded to DD-WRT v24-sp2 (07/21/09) std.
Moved the WRT54GL into the back room, connected it (wired) to the GX280, disconnected the GX280 wireless interface, and did a 30-30-30 reset on the router.
Went ahead with the upgrade (using Firefox under Linux) and then did another 30-30-30 reset.
All is well.
William Heinz McCuaig made his grand entrance in the wee hours this morning. Eight pounds and twenty-one inches. Mother and child doing fine. Father survived the ordeal as well. I'm sure William's big brother Alexander is anxiously awaiting their first meeting.
I'm on the 9:30 Megabus, scheduled to depart in eight minutes. According to the battery monitor I have enough battery for the entire trip, although I doubt I'll be banging away on this netbook all the time. This bus is supposed to have a wireless access point. There's a high signal strength AP on the list with "MEGABUS" in the SSID. I'm connected. Let me see if it works. Hmmm, it tells me I have a good connection, but won't connect to fastmail.fm. Aha! It let me connect to google after I agreed to terms and conditions. Then it disconnected when the driver started the engine, but it seems to have reconnected now. Let me try fastmail again.
Browsing works fine, but no luck with ssh. Let me try the alternate port on the cluster. OK, that works. And I can ssh from the cluster to wherever I like.
Given that I have time to kill on a bus with wireless browsing capabilities, I'll figure out how to set up an alternate ssh port on my web server and how to modify my update scripts to use that alternate port.
All done! Everything works. Take that, Megabus!
Disk /dev/sdd: 4009 MB, 4009754624 bytes
145 heads, 48 sectors/track, 1125 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 6960 * 512 = 3563520 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xc3072e18
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdd1 1 151 525456 b W95 FAT32
/dev/sdd2 * 152 302 525480 83 Linux
/dev/sdd3 303 1125 2864040 83 Linux
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdd1 513M 110M 403M 22% /media/pandaFAT32
/dev/sdd2 481M 23M 433M 5% /media/pandaBoot
/dev/sdd3 2.7G 2.1G 538M 80% /media/pandaExt3Boots Cruncheee 8.10.2 or Tiny Core Linux. Has the standard complement of Windows utility programs installed on the FAT partition.
Disk /dev/sdd: 2032 MB, 2032139264 bytes
63 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1016 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 3906 * 512 = 1999872 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdd1 * 1 1016 1984217 b W95 FAT32
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdd1 1.9G 639M 1.3G 33% /media/JauntySet up as a bootable "Live CD" to run or install Xubuntu 9.04 "Jaunty Jackalope" - Release i386.
Disk /dev/sdd: 4009 MB, 4009754624 bytes
23 heads, 22 sectors/track, 15477 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 506 * 512 = 259072 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xc1b9f53d
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdd1 1 2073 524458 b W95 FAT32
/dev/sdd2 * 2074 2592 131307 83 Linux
/dev/sdd3 2593 15477 3259905 83 Linux
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdd1 513M 6.1M 506M 2% /media/dieselFAT32
/dev/sdd2 124M 15M 104M 13% /media/dieselBoot
/dev/sdd3 3.1G 2.0G 999M 67% /media/dieselExt3Set up to boot Xubuntu 9.04. Only a gvim installer on the FAT partition.
Disk /dev/sdd: 8086 MB, 8086618112 bytes
249 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1023 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 15438 * 512 = 7904256 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0006f74b
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdd1 1 131 1011158 b W95 FAT32
/dev/sdd2 * 132 1023 6885348 83 Linux
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdd1 986M 500M 486M 51% /media/8Gfat32
/dev/sdd2 6.4G 5.2G 889M 86% /media/8Gext2Set up to boot Damn Small Linux, the System Rescue CD, and two flavors of the Linux From Scratch LiveCD. A fair amount of the Linux partition is used for general storage. Looks like there's a full Xampp installation as well. The FAT partition has the normal complement of installed Windows utilities, as well as installers for Symantec EndPoint Protection and the Connected DataProtector agent. The FAT partition has been used for some general purpose storage as well.
It looks like the 4G DIESEL will be the most useful with the least messing about. The FAT partition needs to have the normal complement of Windows utilities installed. Xubuntu 9.04 should be made current. The capability to boot the System Rescue CD should be added.
I've signed up for an online backup service that has some features I really like. With a single account I can use the service from any PC I care to. Although automatic backup options are offered for Windows, Mac, and Linux, a virtual drive option is also offered and that's what I plan to use. It works like plugging a very large thumb drive into your PC.
Cost is $7 for the first month; subsequent months are billed at $0.35 per gigabyte transferred, or $4, whichever is greater.
If I'm interpreting that correctly I can transfer 11+ GB per month without busting the $4 minimum, and keep as much as I want on the virtual drive and pay nothing extra if I don't access it.
My plan is to do full backups (monthly?) on my 1T+ external backup device and incremental backups of selected files (daily? whenever I think of it?) to the virtual drive.
As I start to play with this, it's clear that I need to figure out how the virtual drive deals with symbolic links. I make heavy use of them in my public_html tree.
So I have this external backup device with a USB 2.0 interface and two 640GB SATA hard drives. What I need is a coherent backup strategy.
The devices have identical primary partitions:
Disk /dev/sdb: 640.1 GB, 640135028736 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 77825 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xbcd15dc7
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 123 987966 83 Linux
/dev/sdb2 124 4987 39070080 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sdb3 4988 9851 39070080 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb4 9852 77825 546001155 83 Linux
Disk /dev/sdc: 640.1 GB, 640135028736 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 77825 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xb4a60a36
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 1 123 987966 83 Linux
/dev/sdc2 124 4987 39070080 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sdc3 4988 9851 39070080 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdc4 9852 77825 546001155 83 LinuxEach device has a 1G boot partition, 40G FAT32 and NTFS partitions, with the remainder of each drive dedicated to a Linux partition formatted with the ext3 filesystem.
The boot partition is set up with the current version of the System Rescue CD. The basic idea is to plug the device into the PC requiring backup, boot to System Rescue CD on the device (using the docache option to get everything in RAM), and then have full access to the disks and partitions on the host PC, as well, of course, to the disks and partitions on the backup device, none of which is mounted at boot time.
So far I've used the device only a couple of times to do ad-hoc backups. I think the general idea will be to use partimage and ntfsclone on a periodic basis (monthly? bi-monthly?) to back up everything, and then use other tools on a more regular basis to incrementally back up selected files.
I'll need to back up our desktop, Lee's laptop, and my netbook. I imagine I can use rsnapshot for the Linux backups. Not sure about the WinXP partition on our desktop.
Lee's desktop has a backup utility installed that may prove useful for the incremental backups. And I know I've done some sort of full backup (create a restore image?) to DVD. I'll have to have another look.
So what does the Standard version have that the Lite version does not (that I want)?
And what are candidates for removal from the Lite version?
So let's do this: let's install the Lite version, add the packages from the Standard version that I want, and see which candidates for removal we can actually remove.
After that's done, we can set up a list of packages to add to make the system complete.
Official Live CD ISOs, built on 06-Jul-2009, have been released in both Standard and Lite versions, for both 32-bit and 64-bit platforms.
I've downloaded and burned the 32-bit images and at the very least will boot them and run
dpkg --get-selections > dpkg.crunchbang[-lite]-selectionsso I can compare them not only with each other but also with CrunchBang running on my desktop at home.
The Xubuntu 9.04 installation on my 8G SDHC card is still intact. I'm thinking of applying any outstanding updates and then running the latest (testing?) version of crunchbang-installer-9.04.01.sh against it and seeing what that turns up.
I just checked and there's not much to do to get the SDHC Xubuntu 9.04 in sync with the SSD Xubuntu 9.04.
I'm thinking that sooner or later CrunchBang will be the default distribution on my Eee PC.
OK, I've done the initial preparations. Should be able to get the SDHC into sync just by doing
apt-get update ; apt-get upgrade(and taking special care to upgrade VLC to 1.0.0).
Since I turned 65 today, my commuting costs are now considerably less than they were yesterday.
I can travel on the LIRR, except for the westbound morning rush, at the Senior/Disabled fare, which is essentially half the Off Peak fare. I generally take the first Off Peak train when I commute to my job. If I take a Peak train to the city I'll have to pay the full pop.
I presented a Senior/Disabled 10-Trip Ticket to the collector this morning and wasn't asked for proof of age. I'm afraid I now look my age. 
As soon this train gets to Penn Station, I'm going to make a detour to the MTA office which issues Senior/Disabled Metrocards and get one of those. Valid anytime on subways and buses, and essentially half fare.
So I went to the MTA Customer Service office in downtown Manhattan to get my reduced fare Metrocard. Eventually I got it, but these folks make the DMV offices look like models of efficiency (and that's no small feat)!
I formatted the 64MB card in the Palm Zire.
$ sudo fdisk -l /dev/sdd
Disk /dev/sdd: 64 MB, 64225280 bytes`
8 heads, 32 sectors/track, 490 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 256 * 512 = 131072 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdd1 1 490 62704 6 FAT16
$ ls -AlR /media/KINGSTON64M/
/media/KINGSTON64M/:
total 4
drwxr-xr-x 3 pann root 2048 2009-07-07 16:27 PALM
-rwxr-xr-x 1 pann root 56 2009-07-07 16:27 VOLUME.NAM
/media/KINGSTON64M/PALM:
total 2
drwxr-xr-x 2 pann root 2048 2009-07-07 16:28 Launcher
/media/KINGSTON64M/PALM/Launcher:
total 0The 512M card (which was cloned from the 64M card before I formatted it), suggests that photos can live in a DCIM sudirectory, and MP3 files can live in an AUDIO subdirectory.
So I put AUDIO/Patsy_Cline/12_Greatest_Hits/ on the 64M card and the Zire found the songs without issue. Next step is to put multiple subdirectories on the 512M card and see how the Zire likes that.
I put Ted_Hawkins/The_Next_Hundred_Years/ and Corrina,_Corrina/ under /AUDIO/ on the 512M card. Real Player had no trouble finding the songs, but wasn't able to create a playlist, apparently becuase there was no /RN_AUDIO/ subdirectory, and the application wasn't able to create it. I manually created the /RN_AUDIO/ subdirectory on the 512M card (with my Eee PC) and after that all was well.
It seems to be the case that I have to create the playlists with the Zire (can't seem to do it offline) and that's a real PITA. Oh, well.
Although Crunchbang 9.04.01 has not yet been released, there is a script available (work in progress?) to upgrade an Ubuntu 9.04 minimal (network) install to Crunchbang.
Starting from the Ubuntu Jaunty minimal install:
5 dpkg -l > dpkg.crunchbang
9 sudo apt-get update
10 sudo apt-get upgrade
12 sudo mount /dev/sda5 /mnt
16 cp -p /mnt/home/pann/Desktop/crunchbang-installer-9.04.01.sh .
19 mv dpkg.crunchbang dpkg.crunchbang_as_installed
20 dpkg --get-selections > dpkg.crunchbang_as_installed-selections
24 sudo sh crunchbang-installer-9.04.01.sh
41 mv dpkg.crunchbang_as_installed dpkg.minimal
42 mv dpkg.crunchbang_as_installed-selections dpkg.minimal-selections
44 dpkg -l > dpkg.crunchbang_as_installed
45 dpkg --get-selections > dpkg.crunchbang_as_installed-selections
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda9 49G 1.5G 47G 4% /
52 sudo apt-get install par rcs 183 sudo apt-get update
184 sudo apt-get upgrade
188 sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
251 sudo apt-get clean
281 sudo apt-get install deborphan
282 sudo deborphan
294 sudo apt-get --purge remove myspell*
298 sudo apt-get --purge remove openoffice.org*
301 sudo dpkg --purge myspell-en-us openoffice.org-hyphenation-en-us
311 sudo apt-get --purge remove thunderbird-locale-en-gb
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Cfg-files/Unpacked/Failed-cfg/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Hold/Reinst-required/X=both-problems (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name Version Description
+++-==========================================-=======================================-=======================================================
pi linux-restricted-modules-common 2.6.27-11.16 Non-free Linux 2.6.27 modules helper script
320 sudo vi /var/lib/dpkg/info/openoffice.org-hyphenation-en-us.postrm
321 sudo dpkg --purge openoffice.org-hyphenation-en-us
335 sudo apt-get --purge remove spamc* spamassassin*
339 sudo deborphan
340 sudo dpkg --purge libcompfaceg1 libpisock9 libetpan13
356 sudo apt-get --purge remove bogofilter* claws*
370 sudo apt-get autoremove
371 sudo dpkg --purge libdigest-hmac-perl libdigest-sha1-perl liberror-perl libgsl0ldbl libmail-spf-perl libnet-dns-perl libnet-ip-perl
373 sudo dpkg --purge libnetaddr-ip-perl libsocket6-perl libsys-hostname-long-perl libsys-syslog-perl re2c
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdc4 3.1G 1.9G 986M 67% /
When I discovered XAMPP I first set it up with Damn Small Linux on a bootable thumb drive. I was very enamored with the idea of being able to carry a complete web development environment around in my pocket.
I recently set up a 2G thumb drive with XAMPP and both Damn Small Linux and the System Rescue CD. Turned out to be a little problematic. Not only are two versions of XAMPP required (ancient libc6 on DSL), but both DSL and the System Rescue CD have some limitations in terms of being complete and comfortable.
I read about Crunchbang Linux when I stumbled upon it googling something. It's a lean and mean Ubuntu-based distro. It uses about 2G in its default configuration, and it has a version specific to the Eee PC. I decided to try it. I figure if it works out I can use a 4G thumb drive for my portable web development environment and use the 2G thumb drive for something else.
So I installed Crunchbang (yesterday) to partition 4 of my 16G thumb drive plugged into my GX280 desktop at home.
1 sudo apt-get install vim-gtk par
2 sudo apt-get --purge remove vim-tiny
3 sudo apt-get install rcs
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdb4 3.1G 2.2G 762M 74% /
title crunchbang 8.10.2
root (hd0,3)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.27-9-generic root=UUID=b94ed061-1cee-407c-afff-0b3f1876a205 ro
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.27-9-genericBoots from the thumb drive and runs just fine on my Eee PC.
Missing Config::IniFiles for pmcms.pl and Text::Textile for both pmcms.pl and makeblog.pl.
114 sudo apt-get update
116 sudo apt-get install libconfig-inifiles-perl
118 sudo apt-get install libtext-textile-perlBooted the thumb drive on my GX280 at work and took care of that little problem. I'm now updating this blog under Crunchbang on the Eee PC during my evening commute.
Crunchbang does seem to have some problem with time zone computation, at least on the Eee PC. I'll have to look into that. It was fine on my GX280 at work.
OK, I fixed /etc/default/rcS and then also diddled with the hardware clock. Time looks fine now. I wonder what it will be when I next boot into Xubuntu.
It's just fine, thank you very much.
Just ran sudo apt-get -s upgrade and there is work to be done as soon as I get a chance.
138 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 6 not upgraded.bogofilter*claws-mail*evince (replace with xpdf and gv)exim4* (replace with esmtp and esmtp-run)myspell* (replace with ispell)openoffice.org* (why are dictionaries, etc. installed?)spamassassin and spamcthunderbird-locale-en-gb ???If we need a FAT32 partition, it must be the first partition if we ever want to see it under Windows.
The next partition after the optional FAT32 partition is an ext2 /boot partition. /boot needs to be about 300MB to support both Damn Small Linux and the System Rescue CD. After that we can divide up the thumb drive however we like.
Disk /dev/sdd: 2032 MB, 2032139264 bytes
63 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1016 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 3906 * 512 = 1999872 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdd1 1 240 468719+ b W95 FAT32
/dev/sdd2 * 241 409 330057 83 Linux
/dev/sdd3 410 1016 1185471 83 Linux
/dev/sdd1 on /media/2Gfat32 type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=hal,utf8,shortname=winnt,uid=1000)
/dev/sdd2 on /media/2Gboot type ext2 (rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=hal)
/dev/sdd3 on /media/2Gext3 type ext3 (rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=hal)
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdd1 458M 0 458M 0% /media/2Gfat32
/dev/sdd2 313M 269M 28M 91% /media/2Gboot
/dev/sdd3 1.2G 34M 1.1G 4% /media/2Gext3
/media/2Gboot
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 1024 2009-04-16 19:15 2GSysRCD
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 641 2009-04-17 08:38 autorun1
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 259 2009-04-17 07:51 autorun2
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 390 2009-04-17 08:38 autorun3
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 190645 2009-04-17 12:34 backup.tar.gz
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 1024 2009-04-17 12:33 grub
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 1024 2009-03-02 09:13 KNOPPIX
drwx------ 2 root root 12288 2009-04-16 19:09 lost+found
/media/2Gboot/2GSysRCD
drwxr-xr-x 2 pann pann 1024 2008-05-13 03:01 autorun_files
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root root 13066179 2009-04-03 14:59 initram.igz
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root root 3611184 2009-04-03 14:40 rescuecd
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root root 201224192 2009-04-03 14:52 sysrcd.dat
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root root 45 2009-04-03 14:59 sysrcd.md5
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root root 6 2009-04-03 14:58 version
/media/2Gboot/KNOPPIX
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 50570245 2008-11-17 23:01 KNOPPIX
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 1005209 2007-08-12 12:48 linux24
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 299115 2008-11-09 07:59 minirt24.gz
drwxr-xr-x 2 1001 staff 1024 2009-04-17 12:34 MyDSL
/media/2Gboot/KNOPPIX/MyDSL
-rw-rw-r-- 1 1001 staff 1080716 2008-05-04 18:22 coreutils.uci
-rw-rw-r-- 1 1001 staff 48 2008-05-04 18:21 coreutils.uci.md5.txt
-rwxr-xr-x 1 1001 staff 26 2009-04-17 12:31 MyDSL
-rw------- 1 1001 staff 136459 2008-05-04 18:19 mydslinfo.bz2
-rw-rw-r-- 1 1001 staff 139761 2008-05-04 18:21 procps.uci
-rw-rw-r-- 1 1001 staff 45 2008-05-04 18:20 procps.uci.md5.txt
-rw-rw-r-- 1 1001 staff 3361752 2008-05-04 18:21 vim.uci
-rw-rw-r-- 1 1001 staff 42 2008-05-04 18:21 vim.uci.md5.txt
/media/2Gboot/grub
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 197 2009-02-24 01:24 default
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 60 2009-02-24 01:24 device.map
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 8740 2009-01-04 12:41 e2fs_stage1_5
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 7880 2009-01-04 12:41 fat_stage1_5
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 7132 2009-01-04 12:41 ffs_stage1_5
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1059 2009-04-17 12:33 grub.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 7116 2009-01-04 12:41 iso9660_stage1_5
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 8596 2009-01-04 12:41 jfs_stage1_5
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 2009-04-16 19:13 menu.lst -> grub.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 7312 2009-01-04 12:41 minix_stage1_5
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 9624 2009-01-04 12:41 reiserfs_stage1_5
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 33856 2009-01-04 12:41 splash.xpm.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 512 2009-01-04 12:41 stage1
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 105284 2009-01-04 12:41 stage2
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 105284 2009-01-04 12:41 stage2_eltorito
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 7472 2009-01-04 12:41 ufs2_stage1_5
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 6696 2009-01-04 12:41 vstafs_stage1_5
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 9292 2009-01-04 12:41 xfs_stage1_5
/media/2Gboot/grub/grub.conf
# created by Pann for the Transcend 2G thumb drive
default 0
timeout 15
# (hd0,1) is a /boot partition
#
# /boot/grub is copied from the System Rescue CD and grub from that CD
# was run to set up grub on this thumb drive.
# splash image is Gentoo from the System Rescue CD
#
splashimage=(hd0,1)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title System Rescue CD 1.1.7
root (hd0,1)
kernel /2GSysRCD/rescuecd subdir=/2GSysRCD vga=normal setkmap=us docache rootpass=Secret ar_source=/dev/disk/by-uuid/39908659-1087-4bf4-aa02-ba627ab477f7 ar_nowait autoruns=1,3
initrd /2GSysRCD/initram.igz
# For the Damn Small Linux stanza we assume the thumb drive is detected
# as /dev/sda. If that's not the case, we'll have to reboot and use
# grub's edit mode
title Damn Small Linux 4.4.10
root (hd0,1)
kernel /KNOPPIX/linux24 lang=us host=2Gflash frugal toram vga=normal fromhd=/dev/sda2 mydsl=sda2/KNOPPIX/MyDSL restore=sda2
#kernel /KNOPPIX/linux24 lang=us host=2Gflash frugal toram vga=normal fromhd=/dev/sda2 base norestore nodhcp
initrd /KNOPPIX/minirt24.gz
# vim:ft=conf:Well, Windows XP Pro on my home desktop doesn't like my new Panda thumb drive. It sees (and doesn't understand) the first (ext2) partition, but ignores the third (FAT32) partition. And I tried both 0x0b and 0x0c FAT32 partition types.
I seem to recall that when you let the Damn Small Linux automated tool put DSL on a thumb drive, it creates the first partition as FAT32 and uses it for backup.tar.gz and MyDSL/. It then creates the second partition as ext2 and puts the Linux portions of DSL on that partition and boots from it.
I'm going to use Partition Image to save the partitions from the Panda thumb drive, and then use fdisk to rearrange the partitions. After that I'll restore to the new arrangement (with the FAT32 partition first) and see if WinXP likes that any better.
I'll have to touch up grub/grub.conf and re-run grub.
Yee Haw!
Disk /dev/sdb: 4009 MB, 4009754624 bytes
145 heads, 48 sectors/track, 1125 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 6960 * 512 = 3563520 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xc3072e18
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 514 1788696 b W95 FAT32
/dev/sdb2 * 515 609 330600 83 Linux
/dev/sdb3 610 1125 1795680 83 Linux
/dev/sdb1 1.8G 36M 1.7G 3% /media/pandaFAT32
/dev/sdb2 313M 277M 21M 94% /media/pandaBoot
/dev/sdb3 1.7G 35M 1.6G 3% /media/pandaExt3And Windows sees the FAT32 partition when the Panda thumb drive is plugged in.
So newegg.com sent me an ad for a 4G USB thumb drive that sits in a little panda bear decoration, the sort of thing that pre-teen girls hang from their backpacks. I couldn't resist.
Disk /dev/sdd: 4009 MB, 4009754624 bytes
145 heads, 48 sectors/track, 1125 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 6960 * 512 = 3563520 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xc3072e18
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdd1 1 95 330576 83 Linux
/dev/sdd2 96 611 1795680 83 Linux
/dev/sdd3 612 1125 1788720 b W95 FAT32
/dev/sdd1 313M 277M 21M 94% /media/pandaBoot
/dev/sdd2 1.7G 35M 1.6G 3% /media/pandaExt3
/dev/sdd3 1.8G 4.0K 1.8G 1% /media/pandaFAT32
/media/pandaBoot:
autorun1
autorun2
autorun3
backup.tar.gz
grub
KNOPPIX
lost+found
pandaSysRCD
/media/pandaExt3:
lost+found
/media/pandaFAT32:Given that we're restricted by ancient history to four primary partitions on a hard drive, it's a good thing that Linux is comfortable with logical partitions since disks just keep on getting bigger.
I should note for the record that I'm not a fan of LVM. It seems to me to offer very little in exchange for yet another layer of complexity.
On the other hand, I have become a fan of identifying partitions by UUID, both in /boot/grub/grub.conf and /etc/fstab.
I've pretty much decided to Just Say No to a swap partition. RAM is cheap these days. If I need swap space I'll create a swap file. It's my understanding that there is no longer a speed penalty for using a swap file rather than a swap partition, and sizing is certainly more convenient. I believe most modern distros optionally use a swap partition for "hibernate" mode, but I'm not a big fan of that, either.
I have once again come to the conclusion that a dedicated boot partition is very handy. I make it large enough that I can install System Rescue CD right there. I figure 400M is plenty, 300M is probably adequate. On a big hard disk I'll just make it a gig and be done with it.
So how shall we set this up? Keep in mind that my home desktop is my primary development machine, and my partner's only home computer. She's a Windows user, so it needs to have XP installed as well as one or more versions of Linux and/or other operating systems.
Here we go:
/dev/sda1 | ext2 | /boot | 1G |
/dev/sda2 | NTFS | /mnt/WinXP | 24G |
/dev/sda3 | FAT32 | /mnt/Fat32 | 16G |
/dev/sda4 | extended | ||
/dev/sda5 | ext3 | / | 8G |
/dev/sda6 | ext3 | /var | 16G |
/dev/sda7 | ext3 | /home/working | 16G |
My primary distribution on this box is Xubuntu. The default boot order will boot Windows XP if there is no human intervention.
The /boot partition will house the usual grub stuff, as well as on-disk installations of the current versions of Damn Small Linux and the System Rescue CD. We do this not only to provide typical rescue functionality, but also to provide a RAM-resident fully capable Linux that we can use to manipulate the hard disk (backing up, restoring, resizing, and deleting partitions, for example).
/mnt/WinXP is a bootable NTFS partition with a Windows XP installation. Nothing special about it.
/mnt/Fat32 is sort of a "portability partition" as well as a potential overflow partition for XP.
All the Linux stuff (other than /boot) goes in the extended partition as logical partitions.
/ is only 8G because we have a separate partition for /var (and /tmp is a symbolic link to /var/tmp). A runaway process is not likely to fill up /, which can be messy to recover from.
This scheme uses about half the available hard disk, leaving me with plenty of sandbox space.
We also use a separate partition for /home/working, with the idea that we keep only stuff specific to the primary distribution in /home/pann, and everything else that most folks would keep in their /home directory will go in /home/working/pann. Symbolic links can be used to make this fairly transparent, if the user wishes and is reasonably well organized.
I'm assuming that the Transcend 4G SDHC card currently installed in the Eee PC has a "1" on the back, written with a Sharpie. That assumption is because the other Transcend 4G SDHC card, the one I can see, doesn't appear to have anything on the back, so it must be 4G SDHC #2.
Disk /dev/sdc: 3999 MB, 3999268864 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 486 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0003a8a5
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 * 1 486 3903763+ 83 Linux
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdc1 3.7G 2.9G 607M 83% /This is the card I installed box stock Xubuntu 8.10 on from an external CD drive. I then installed the kernel from array.org so I could use wireless, and then tuned the installation to my liking. See /home/pann/notes.eeepc on that card (or search on 200901231833 if you click on the link).
Disk /dev/sdc: 3999 MB, 3999268864 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 486 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000926a5
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 1 486 3903763+ 83 Linux
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdc1 3.7G 3.3G 224M 94% /mnt/customThis is another incantation of Xubuntu 8.10 (or eeebuntu 2.0, I can't tell which without booting into it).
eeebuntu Standard 2.0
Disk /dev/sdc: 3963 MB, 3963617280 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 481 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0003a8a5
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 1 481 3863601 83 Linux
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdc1 3.7G 1.9G 1.7G 53% /mnt/customThis was an attempt to restore a partition saved from one of the Transcend SDHC cards, but it failed because this device is smaller.
Disk /dev/sdc: 2059 MB, 2059403264 bytes
38 heads, 37 sectors/track, 2860 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1406 * 512 = 719872 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 1 2861 2011014+ 6 FAT16
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdc1 2.0G 1.3G 682M 66% /mnt/customThis one is just for data storage. Looks like most of the stuff is from the WinXP desktop PC.
Disk /dev/sdc: 2038 MB, 2038431744 bytes
63 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1019 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 3906 * 512 = 1999872 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xed6c4861
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 * 1 1019 1990076 83 Linux
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdc1 1.9G 504M 1.3G 28% /mnt/customThis looks like an Xubuntu 8.04.1 Live CD, USB stick style.
Disk /dev/sdc: 516 MB, 516423680 bytes
11 heads, 10 sectors/track, 9169 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 110 * 512 = 56320 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 1 9170 504288+ 6 FAT16
s`
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdc1 493M 455M 39M 93% /mnt/customThis one is destined for the Palm Zire, and looks to be populated with that in mind. If memory serves, it didn't work as expected in the Zire. Probably need to format it and start from scratch.
Disk /dev/sdd: 8086 MB, 8086618112 bytes
249 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1023 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 15438 * 512 = 7904256 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0006f74b
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdd1 1 131 1011158 b W95 FAT32
/dev/sdd2 * 132 1023 6885348 83 Linux
Partition 2 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(1023, 248, 62) logical=(1022, 248, 62)
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdd1 988M 163M 825M 17% /media/disk-1
/dev/sdd2 6.4G 6.1G 27M 100% /media/diskThis is my bootable rescue thumb drive. It boots System Rescue CD 1.1.4, Damn Small Linux 4.4.10, and Linux From Scratch Live CD 6.3.
Disk /dev/sda: 8086 MB, 8086618112 bytes
249 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1023 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 15438 * 512 = 7904256 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 131 1011158 b Win95 FAT32
/dev/sda2 * 132 1023 6885348 83 Linux
Partition 2 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(1023, 248, 62) logical=(1022, 248, 62)
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1 988M 85M 904M 9% /mnt/sda1
/dev/sda2 6.4G 4.2G 2.0G 69% /mnt/sda2This guy boots either Damn Small Linux or the System Rescue CD.
The FAT32 partition is used by DSL for backup.tar.gz and MyDSL. There is also a ProgamFiles folder on there with some essential Windows programs installed.
The Linux partition has the files needed to boot either Damn Small Linux or the System Rescue CD. It also has sync'ed copies of /working from both the T41 and the GX280. The article I'm currently editing resides on the T41, but I'm editing it on the Eee PC on my evening commute.
The idea is to partition this guy into four equal partitions and install a distibution on each partition for testing on the Eee PC.
So far I have Mandriva Linux One 2009 on the first (KDE) and second (Gnome) partitions. I installed using the respective Live CD booted on my GX280 and then selecting Install and making the installation target the appropriate thumb drive partition.
Next I plan to install Xubuntu 8.04.1 onto the fourth partition from the 2G SDHC card (see below). That installation will, of course, be done entirely from the Eee PC.
Disk /dev/sdb: 2038 MB, 2038431744 bytes
28 heads, 27 sectors/track, 5266 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 756 * 512 = 387072 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 1939 732928+ 6 FAT16
/dev/sdb2 1940 5266 1257606 83 Linux
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdb1 716M 547M 169M 77% /mnt/sdb1
/dev/sdb2 1.2G 40M 1.1G 4% /mnt/sdb2This drive has a thumb drive version of the Xubuntu 8.04.1 Live CD. It will run Xubuntu, with or without persistence. It can also be used to install Xubuntu to another drive. I haven't tested the install feature but I intend to Real Soon Now.
I got to Penn Station in plenty of time for the 6:16, but apparently there was a derailment earlier that has messed things up. Track changes for most trains (including mine) and it doesn't look like we'll get away on time. They're talking about a 30-minute delay at Jamaica. We shall see.
We left only two or three minutes late, but we're creeping through Forest Hills, I presume because there would be no track space at Jamaica should we run at a normal pace. No announcements (yet).
At 18:44 we hear an announcement that we are at stop signal owing to congestion ahead of us and that we should be moving shortly.
At 18:49 we arrive at Jamaica, not on our normal track, but that doesn't concern me because I'm staying on this train all the way home.
It's 18:54 and we're rolling out of Jamaica. It should be smooth sailing from here on out.
19:11 and we're rolling out of Mineola. My best guess is that we'll arrive in Roslyn about 15 minutes late.
Today at the office I did a blog update dry run from the T41, and it seemed like there was way too much deletion on the target at blog.ourmanpann.com.
I need to investigate further when I have time to take a good close look at what's going on. Typically at work I just run dryrun.sh and the dry run looks sensible and I go ahead and run update.sh. Takes almost no time. If I have to chase a potential problem, that takes time, and I can't take time away from work to do that sort of troubleshooting.
It turns out that all the deletion on the target was owing to missing files on the source (T41). And I have no idea how they got to be missing. The missing files were all source .txt files, and the corresponding blog.html files on the source and target matched, and indicated that the files missing on the source should have been there. I ended up copying them back from target to source manually. While I was at it I cleaned up a few permission and ownership issues for the .../blog tree.
I see that both DSL3 and DSL4 are now using murgaLua. I went to the website, surfed around a bit, and then downloaded the tarball and installed it in /home/pann on the T41.
After doing some reading I decided to walk through the murgaLua introduction to FLUID. Alas, it crashes at step 5, causing Xubuntu to throw me back to the gdm login screen. I see that an Ubuntu FLUID package is available, so I'll apt-get that and give it a try. The various components comprising murgaLua seem to create an attractive package, especially since your lua programs are supposed to run unmodified under Linux, WinXP, and MacOS.
OK, so I installed FLUID and went back to the tutorial in the murgaLua web page. FLUID worked and the convserion to lua by murgaLua worked reasonably well, but as soon as I clicked on the text input box in the window running under murgaLua, I was once again kicked out to the gdm login screen.
Looks like I'll have to build murgaLua locally as well.
My first exposure to lua came when Tom O adopted it as a scripting language for Tom's Root Boot. It's currently used by the Damn Small Linux LiveCD as its primary admin scripting language. Lua is obviously much lighter weight than Perl or Python, the admin scripting languages typically used in Linux distributions.
-rwxr-xr-x 2 root root 1.1M 2007-12-04 04:18 /usr/bin/perl
This is perl, v5.8.8 built for i486-linux-gnu-thread-multi
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1.2M 2007-10-05 10:17 /usr/bin/python2.5
Python 2.5.1
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 131K 2007-04-29 09:30 /usr/bin/lua5.1
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 82K 2007-04-29 09:30 /usr/bin/luac5.1
Lua 5.1.2 Copyright (C) 1994-2007 Lua.org, PUC-Rio-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 382.8k Oct 1 13:48 /bin/murgaLua
MurgaLua Version 0.5.5 (http://www.murga-projects.com/murgaLua/)
MurgaLua & FLTK/XML bindings : Copyright 2006-7 John Murga, GPL license.
Contains lsqlite by T.Dionizio, LuaSocket by D.Nehab and other bindings.
Lua 5.1.2 Copyright (C) 1994-2007 Lua.org, PUC-Rio-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 383K Sep 30 15:27 /bin/murgaLua
MurgaLua Version 0.5.5 (http://www.murga-projects.com/murgaLua/)
MurgaLua & FLTK/XML bindings : Copyright 2006-7 John Murga, GPL license.
Contains lsqlite by T.Dionizio, LuaSocket by D.Nehab and other bindings.
Lua 5.1.2 Copyright (C) 1994-2007 Lua.org, PUC-Rio-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 436K Jan 30 2006 /bin/flua
Lua 4.0 Copyright © 1994-2000 TeCGraf, PUC-Rio
I've been doing a lot of thinking about bookmarks lately. I use three different platforms a lot, and others less often. Firefox is my primary browser, but certainly not my only browser.
Clean setups on my laptop and my home desktop brought the issue to the forefront. I've moved toward keeping all but my most frequently used bookmarks on del.icio.us. After all, if I'm not online, bookmarks rererencing off-box URLs are fairly useless.
There's a relatively small number of common frequently used bookmarks that need to be local to each platform. And a few that are platform-specific (local documentation, etc.).
I think I can set up a private section on del.icio.us to keep a superset of frequently used bookmarks local to all platforms. That would make a new setup considerably more straightforward than it is now.
I've been using Foxmarks to keep local bookmarks on several platforms in sync, but I think I don't want to do that anymore. When I set that up I had many more local bookmarks and made much less use of del.icio.us.
A routine visit to del.icio.us to keep my bookmarks relatively clean and organized would be a good idea.