Linux hints

(Warning: Some of this stuff is very old, but the stuff at the top is new)

I've picked up some Linux expertise in my computer travels, particularly when I became a "Debian Developer". So I thought I'd start up a Linux subsection, to complement my Solaris section

One-Liners

How to update just ONE repo, in Debian/Ubuntu:
apt-get update -o Dir::Etc::sourcelist=/etc/apt/sources.list.d/YOUR-REPO.list -o Dir::Etc::sourceparts="/dev/null" -o APT::Get::List-Cleanup="0"

Modern mumbo-jumbo

Useful Scripts

RPM Packaging hackery

Here's a shortcut template.spec file, that will let you throw together a binary RPM package super quickly. Edit this one short file, run
"rpmbuild -bb thisfile.spec"
and easily package up the files you have already installed under /usr/local or whereever.
For cutnpaste ease, you can also view a .txt version

Modernizing Centos 5

Let's say for some reason you are running a Centos 5 box, and you need to keep it that way. But you'd like to add a few modern things. You may find yourself in a very ugly place.

For example, you may be stuck with gcc 4.1, which is not c99 complient. So you try to compile a more recent version of gcc, with gcc.. and it DOESN'T WORK. Not even going back to 4.9.

An alternative to this is the "CLang" compiler. However.. recent versions of THAT wont compile either. You will need to go all the way back to version 3.1. THIS, will finally build, and work, for your more recent code. (but you may need to compile cmake 3.4.3 first)
llvm 3.1 backend src
clang3.1 src

Extract the clang files under the tools subdirectory, and then follow the directions for compiling llvm.

linux VGA text console modes

under the heading of "arcane knowlege".. sometimes, you have to deal with a very old remote console interface, that claims to convert things to "text"... but can only deal with a very limited size of text screen. These days, the linux text console is actually rather high res. According to http://pierre.baudu.in/other/grub.vga.modes.html the nice low res vga modes are:

769 771 773 775

So you can try putting

vga=769

at the end of your kernel params line

OLD Informational documents

At one terrible point, I actually tried to install sparclinux without much in the way of a network to help me. I have chronicled the story


      __
    .´  `.
    : :' !
    `. `´  Debian/GNU Linux
      `-   

Automated debian installs

FAI is a tool written by Thomas Lange, to automate installs of Debian Linux


phil@bolthole.com
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