modifying iceweasel settings

I wanted to modify iceweasel so that it would not display ads.
I found information on using
userContent.css files for this at
http://www.floppymoose.com/
and dropped the file into
.mozilla/firefox/lotsoflettersnumbers.default/chrome/
where lotsoflettersnumbers is some random string you can find on your machine.

then i modified a setting or two and it worked fine.

on another machine, though, it did not work.

there were two directories .mozilla and .mozilla.org

so i tried

.mozilla/firefox/lostoflettersmumer.default/ and i created a chrome directory and dropped it in
no go
i also dropped it in
.mozilla/firefox/lostoflettersmumer.default/ itself but no go.

i also tried to drop it in
.mozilla.org/firefox/xxx.default/chrome
and
.mozilla.org/iceweasel/firefox/xxxx.default/chrome

as well as dropping it in
/etc/iceweasel/profile/chrome
so on that machine, i am stuck...

i tried a new user on that machine. it worked, she only had a .mozilla/firefox/xxx.default/chrome directory so it worked fine there.

so i just blew away my .mozilla directory (.mozilla.org.org) then started again and it created
the correct tree including a chrome directory and then i copied in the userContent.css file and i was done.

.xsession-errors file fills up the home directory

Problem:

.xsession-errors file fills up the home directory:

Idea here is to either
1) modify the lines in the /etc/X11/Xsession file from

exec >>"$ERRFILE" 2>&1
to
exec >"$ERRFILE" 2>&1

which will overwrite the xsession-errors file on each start of X,

(idea from google somewhere)


or else

2) follow the idea of
http://www.skolelinux.no/~klaus/newnotater/x2548.html

if we don't care about X errors
and simply replace
the error handling stanza with

**************
errfile="/dev/null"
exec > "$errfile" 2>&1
***************

Or else

3) set up log rotation of the .xsession-errors files in users directories.

How to make a debian archive to carry around?

How to make a debian archive to carry around?

use debian-mirror-2.5 downloaded from

http://www.linuxinsight.com/debian_mirror_2.5.html

and edit the script, create a local repository (needs ftp at present.)

the can copy it to a hard drive with

rsync backup

we will talk about automating with the exchange of pass phrase later.

now we use

rsync -avz -e ssh etch user@192.168.55.200:/mnt/debian

careful about this. Know difference between this and

rsync -avz -e ssh etch/ username@192.168.1.57:/mnt/debian/


remember that scp will copy it again. so rsync is better ....

How to create a mdadm managed soft raid device

add devices

I like the 4 port promise Sata300 Tx4 which works with the debian etch kernel 2.6.18-4-486.
It works with the sata_promise kernel module.

Then add drives ( I like 400G WD drives with 5 year warranties).
Then fdisk /dev/sda
n p 1
accept defaults
t fd
(ie linux autodetect raid defaults)
then
mdadm /dev/md0 --create --level=1 --raid-devices=2 /dev/sda1 /dev/sdb1
then it work work on this - takes some time...
Either before or after run
mkfs.ext3 /dev/md0
then can mount.
need to create the mdadm.conf file
so run
mdadm --detail --scan >>mdadm.conf

output looks like
ARRAY /dev/md0 level=raid1 num-devices=2 UUID=3cfd16a0:6eaa64dd:0dfcf1b5:2690c9eb
then edit the file so it looks like this

DEVICE /dev/sda1 /dev/sdb1
ARRAY /dev/md0 level=raid1 num-devices=2 UUID=3cfd16a0:6eaa64dd:0dfcf1b5:2690c9eb

then copy it to
/etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf

Now I sometimes have servers that are located in weird places and want to
insure remounting forcing even if raid is degraded.
so i dont put the mount point in /etc/fstab
and i create an init.d script to force assemble the raid
and mount it.
mdadm -A (need to check syntax here)
to be continued..

linking to libraries

sometimes I install packages from outside debian (such as volpack needed
by amide a medical image display program).

How to get the libraries to be seen by the linker? they are in usual place
/usr/local/lib.
So idea is
Check your /etc/ld.so.conf file, and make sure /usr/local/lib is in it. If
it's not, add it, and rerun /sbin/ldconfig.

Yay! no more setting
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/lib
amide

using wget

Very often we like to download a set of urls rooted at "url".

wget -p -r --convert-links -nH --no-parent -Pdestination url

does the trick! :)

Initial install issues.

Cups

get cups running to allow printin from remote machines to attached printer

1) change default line
in /etc/cups/cupsd.conf
to
Listen 631
from local 631 or something
2) allow also from network places.


Mailer

need
steps to set up

exim4
fetchmail
mutt
procmail for filtering the mail
see "email for the single user in debian"

http://www.lativy.org/articles/debian-mutt/

apt-get issues

apt-get update
apt-get dist-upgrade
if get errors
apt-get install -f
dpkg --configure -a

if get error about cant overwrite a file

may have to install the fixed package with override of overwrite file thusly:

dpkg -i --force-overwrite /var/cache/apt/filename_deb

sound in debian

http://xtronics.com/reference/Debian-sound.html

I use alsa, thus install right kernel source then alsa-base alsa-modules and
run module-assistant select compile alsa
then
alsaconf
speaker-test
alsactl store
then can look at amixer or other gui mixers

then

Nvidia driver

download binary driver from nvidia
look at nvnews.net linux forum for latest drivers and issues
then download chmod 755 and run binary
after you make sure that you have
installed the linux-headers for your linux-image and make sure have a symlink
/usr/src/linux -> /usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.18-4_whatever