dragffy.com

Find your debian-sys-maint password in /etc/mysql/debian.cnf.

GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'debian-sys-maint'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY ' ' WITH GRANT OPTION;

Replace with your debian-sys-maint password.

For some reason servers that I connected to using FTP with gnome-vfs would open in Firefox. Odd really.

I fiddled about and eventually developed a filesystem level fix. Just go to the folder:
~/.gconf/desktop/gnome/url-handlers
And delete the ftp folder!

I upgraded to VirtualBox 3 and then my windows guest went wrong.

First of all, you have make sure the latest version of compiz installed.

Go to CompizConfigs Settings Manager and look for “Windows Rules” under Windows Management category. Enable “Windows Rules” and go to “No ARGB visuals” use Window Class, click Grab and then click in virtualbox window.

If you develop multiple sites and you need virtual hosting functionality, scroll down to the end of the /private/etc/apache2/httpd.conf file and uncomment the following:

# Include /private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf

Next, you’ll need to setup whatever virtual hosts you have in the virtual hosts file /private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf

You need to make an entry in the httpd-vhosts.conf file like so:

<virtualhost *:80>
   ServerName beta-site-1.com
   ServerAlias www.beta-site-1.com
   ServerAdmin webmaster@beta-site-1.com
   ErrorLog "/private/var/log/apache2/dummy-host2.example.com-error_log"
   CustomLog "/private/var/log/apache2/dummy-host2.example.com-access_log" common

   DocumentRoot "/Library/WebServer/beta-site-1"
   ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ "/Library/WebServer/beta-site-1/cgi-bin"
   
     Options FollowSymLinks MultiViews Includes
     AllowOverride All
     Order allow,deny
     Allow from all
   
</virtualhost>

The examples provided by Apple in the vhosts file are slightly incorrect and if you use the CustomLog lines as is you will get errors the following errors if you run: apachectl -t -D DUMP_VHOSTS:
Syntax error on line 40 of /private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf:
CustomLog takes two or three arguments, a file name, a custom log format string or format name, and an optional "env=" clause (see docs)

This is because
CustomLog "/private/var/log/apache2/dummy-host.example.com-access_log common

Should actually read:
CustomLog "/private/var/log/apache2/dummy-host.example.com-access_log" common

Ensure that you have the package sun-java6-jre installed and then run the following command from a terminal:
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun/jre/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so /usr/lib/firefox-3.0.10/plugins/

You will need to restart FireFox after this and Java should be working for FireFox now.

A few weeks back I tried out the Gnome sessions. Gnome should automatically restore the programs you were last using when you log back in. However, it did not work well at all and I turned it off. This is when the problem began – everytime I logged back a whole bunch of the same applications automatically launched causing all sorts of mischief. No matter what I tried I could not get Gnome to turn sessions off again.

In the beginning I clicked on System -> Preferences -> Startup Applications and then selected the Options tab. Here, you may check a box labelled “Automatically remember running applications when logging out”. This will activate Gnome sessions. In my case, however, deselecting this did not turn Gnome sessions off.

After much hunting around, with no help from the Internet, I finally found the files that needed deleting to stop Gnome launching various apps at startup. You need to open your home folder in Nautilus and press CTRL+H – this lets you view hidden files and folders (hidden files/folders begin with a dot “.”). Navigate the following path .config/gnome-session/saved-session and delete all the files there. You can move them to the trash can for safety. Having done this, the next time you login you should just get a blank desktop.

I’ve taken the time to write this in the hope that anyone else suffering from the same bug can solve it more quickly than I. This should be reported as a bug on launchpad.net if it isn’t already there.

I was recently trying to get a Ruby script working on Ubuntu. This script required Hpricot and using Ruby Gems to install Hpricot always resulted in an error:

 gem install hpricot --remote
ERROR:  While executing gem ... (Gem::FilePermissionError)
    You don't have write permissions into the /var/lib/gems/1.8 directory.
gabriel@windsor-telecom-2874:~/Music$ sudo gem install hpricot --remote
Building native extensions.  This could take a while...
ERROR:  Error installing hpricot:
	ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.

/usr/bin/ruby1.8 extconf.rb install hpricot --remote
extconf.rb:1:in `require': no such file to load -- mkmf (LoadError)
	from extconf.rb:1

Gem files will remain installed in /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/hpricot-0.7 for inspection.
Results logged to /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/hpricot-0.7/ext/hpricot_scan/gem_make.out

The answer was simple:
sudo aptitude install ruby-dev

Just install the Ruby Dev package, this will also allow you to install lots of other gems such as SQLite3, etc.

So we all know we can use uname -a to find out the kernel version, but which kernel matches up with which Ubuntu release? I for one cannot remember all the permutations. If you want to get the name of the version of Ubuntu that you are running an alternative command can help:
lsb_release -a

Which gives me the output:

No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 8.04.1
Release: 8.04
Codename: hardy


Easy! I’m running Hardy Heron!

I have a first generation macbook coreduo.

The latest version of Ubuntu (Hardy Heron 8.04 LTS) works very well on it with minimal configuration. However, several issues remain. One of which is the poor sound quality. Initially, installing linux-backports-modules did the trick, however after several reboots it became clear that it didn’t always work. I came across this post, which I followed and the results were outstanding. I have completely copied it here, only to make sure there is another copy of this important document. Full credit for this one goes to the original author. Anyway, here’s what you need to do:

Edit the file /etc/modprobe.d/options
$ sudo vim /etc/modprobe.d/options

And add the following to the end of the file:
options snd-hda-intel model=[MODEL_BELOW] position_fix=2 probe_mask=1

Run the following command:
$ sudo update-initramfs -u

Then reboot.

You must select the Intel HDA model that corresponds to your computer:

These are the codes you can use in the above instructions:
intel-mac-v1 : Intel Mac Type 1
intel-mac-v2 : Intel Mac Type 2
intel-mac-v3 : Intel Mac Type 3
intel-mac-v4 : Intel Mac Type 4
intel-mac-v5 : Intel Mac Type 5
macmini : Intel Mac Mini (equivalent with type 3)
macbook : Intel Mac Book (eq. type 5)
macbook-pro-v1 : Intel Mac Book Pro 1st generation (eq. type 3)
macbook-pro : Intel Mac Book Pro 2nd generation (eq. type 3)
imac-intel : Intel iMac (eq. type 2)
imac-intel-20 : Intel iMac (newer version) (eq. type 3)

For example, I have a Macbook 1st generation, and the only setting that worked was
model=intel-mac-v1. All others just gave me no sound at all, including the apparently
obvious macbook and the documented-as-equivalent macmini ones.

If nothing works, you can revert this by deleting the line and performing the rest of the steps.

For BEST sound, if the above works, open a terminal and type:
$ alsamixer

And set the front and surround sliders to their maximum.
It might be necessary to unmute them with the ‘M’ key.
Press ESC twice to leave the program.

I recently set up a new file server. It contains three 1 terabyte drives configured in a RAID 5 array but with RAID 1 for the boot partitions so in the event of drive failure the system could still boot.

Essentially you need to go through a normal installation process and make sure you choose a couple of things during parition setup. I split each of the 3 drives in to two partitions, one 200MB, and the other partition the remaining disc space. This is what I had:
sda1 = 200MB
sda2 = 9800MB
and the same for the other drives.

Set all sda1 partition to be ext3 and bootable and mounted as /boot, set sdb1 and sdc1 partitions to be Linux Software Raid, bootable, but not mounted. Configure the RAID and create a new RAID device, tell it to use three devices and add to it sda2, sdb2, and sdc2.

When I returned to the partition menu I configured md0 as a partition for a logical volume group. I then configured LVM and created logical volumes for /root, swap, and /home. Returning to the partitioning menu I formatted these and selected their mount points and installed the system.

Following system installation I went about creating a RAID 1 array for sda1, sdb1, and sdc1. First thing was to create a new array using mdadm and the two paritions we haven’t yet assigned:
# mdadm --create /dev/md1 --level=1 --raid-disks=3 missing /dev/sdb1 /dev/sdc1

Make a filesystem on our new RAID device:
# mkfs.ext3 -m 0 /dev/md1

Save the new configuration in to mdadm’s config file:
# mdadm --examine --scan >> /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf

Edit mdadm.conf and remove the duplicate entry at the bottom:
# vim /etc/mdadm.conf

Mount the new RAID device so we can copy data to it:
# mkdir /media/md1
# mount /dev/md1 /media/md1

Copy over the boot partition to the RAID device:
# cd /boot
# cp -dpRx . /media/md1

Edit fstab and replace /dev/sda1 with /dev/md1:
# vim /etc/fstab

Edit mtab and do the same:
# vim /etc/mtab

Unmount /boot, change it’s system type and add it to the RAID array:
# umount /boot
# fdisk /dev/sda
Command (m for help): t
Partition number (1-4): 1
Hex code (type L to list codes): f
Changed system type of partition 1 to fd (Linux raid autodetect)
Command (m for help): w

# mdadm --add /dev/md1 /dev/sda1

Configure GRUB so that it can boot from any hard drive:
# grub
grub> device (hd0) /dev/sda
grub> root (hd0,0)
grub> setup (hd0)
grub> device (hd0) /dev/sdb
grub> root (hd0,0)
grub> setup (hd0)
grub> device (hd0) /dev/sdc
grub> root (hd0,0)
grub> setup (hd0)
grub> quit

# update-initramfs -u

Change all occurance of (hd*) to (hd0) in the file /boot/grub/devices.map.

That should be all – good luck with the reboot!
# reboot