Newt's System Administrator Notes

How to make a "back up" copy of a movie DVD using open source tools

Mon, 2 Nov 2009 09:08:02 -0500

I use Linux. The Linux software ecosystem has reached a maturity level where copying DVDs is actually easy. This was not always the case!

Tools you need:

A good Linux OS. I recommend Ubuntu's latest, 9.10.
Handbrake. There are other similar tools but Handbrake is by far the superior choice. I've tried "KungFu DVD Ripper", "DVD::Rip", and "AcidRip" and while those all work, they are confusing and hard to configure. Finally, Handbrake worked on some hard-to-rip DVD's that the others would not.
Devede DVD creator. It is missing some "eye candy" features that you might find in a product from, say, Apple. But Devede is incredibly easy to use, and is very full featured, letting you optionally configure the menu layout, DVD bitrates and anything else related to pressing the DVD short of burning it.
A way to burn the final .ISO DVD image. Ubuntu comes with that already there in the form of the Brassero CD/DVD burner tool, but we won't use that directly.

Step by step details, when I get a chance

Solaris: Out of Memory error with pkgutil v1.5

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 12:53:40 -0400

Solution: upgrade to latest pkgutil

pkgutil was spinning in an infinite loop and using all free memory when I tried to (a) do a general package upgrade and (b) install a new package. See. Links On This Topic. Solution was to upgrade pkgutil

wget 'http://ftp.math.purdue.edu/mirrors/opencsw.org/unstable/sparc/5.10/pkgutil-1.6.1,REV=2009.06.05-SunOS5.8-sparc-CSW.pkg.gz'
gunzip pkgutil-1.6.1\,REV\=2009.06.05-SunOS5.8-sparc-CSW.pkg.gz
pkgrm CSWpkgutil
pkgadd -d pkgutil-1.6.1\,REV\=2009.06.05-SunOS5.8-sparc-CSW.pkg

Answer "y" to everything.

Changing InnoDB from monolithic to files-per-table data storage

Tue, 7 Jul 2009 16:36:50 -0400

Luckily, it's easy! Not sure if that also means painless...

For reference, some steps and links.

Steps

Starting with monolithic storage, and tables already set to InnoDB storage engine
Change server to use files-per: Add "innodb_file_per_table" at the end of the InnoDB options in /etc/my.cnf
Restart server
Re-convert the tables to the InnoDB storage engine. I.e. Run "ALTER TABLE tablename ENGINE = InnoDB;" on every table you want changed over

Apparently these steps cause MySQL to reevaluaate the storage options for each table and start saving data in file-per-table format. I don't know if it is safe at this point to get rid of what is surely a huge ibdata1 file in your /path/to/mysql/data directory. It probably isn't! That is unfortunate...

Java on Ubuntu Jaunty (9.04) - Problem with Fonts?

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:04:46 -0400

I keep getting an error like 'Warning: Cannot convert string "-b&h-luxi sans-medium-r-normal--*-140-*-*-p-*-iso8859-1" to type FontStruct' and one Java app in particular just doesn't work because of it!

The Java app is the JScape SSH management console. JScape is really quite nice, but that's an aside.

The error is like this:

jeff@jeff-laptop:~
> /opt/JSCAPE_Secure_FTP_Server/client
Warning: Cannot convert string "-b&h-luxi sans-medium-r-normal--*-140-*-*-p-*-iso8859-1" to type FontStruct
Warning: Cannot convert string "-arphic-ar pl shanheisun uni-medium-r-normal--*-*-*-*-p-*-iso10646-1" to type FontStruct
Warning: Cannot convert string "-arphic-ar pl uming uni-medium-r-normal--*-*-*-*-p-*-iso10646-1" to type FontStruct
Warning: Cannot convert string "-kochi-gothic-medium-r-normal--*-140-*-*-c-*-jisx0208.1983-0" to type FontStruct
Warning: Cannot convert string "-baekmuk-gulim-medium-r-normal--*-140-*-*-c-*-ksc5601.1987-0" to type FontStruct

I don't yet have a solution!!

Skype Stuff

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:23:54 -0400

Two things: better desktop notification integration, and, more importantly, fixing broken sound problems.

Sound solution: Install the Static/OSS version of Skype. Presto!

Desktop integration link here: http://webupd8.blogspot.com/2009/06/ubuntu-jaunty-notification-system-for.html

Adding "Log Out" button back to Ubuntu 9.04 Main Menu

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 14:24:12 -0400

They took away the logout button! Why?? The Fast User Switcher applet? For logout??? That is in no way obvious, especially if you have just upgraded and are used to the previous way. Here's how to get it back.

Right-click Main Menu or Menu Bar. Choose "Edit Menus". See Fig 1.
Scroll down in left panel of menu editor to "Applications" (actually, you can add this anywhere, but if you add it here it is most visible in the menu. I actually end up adding this to "Applications" and to "System"). See Fig 2.
Choose the "New Item" button
For item properties, choose

Type: Application
Name: Log Out
Command: gnome-session-save --logout-dialog
Comment: Log Out of your Desktop Session
Click on the default "icon" button and browse to choose a better icon. WARNING: Gnome's icon chooser sucks monkey nuts. I mean, it is just plain awful. I ended up choosing /usr/share/icons/Human/scalable/actions/system-log-out.svg
See Fig 3.

Choose "Ok". Item should now appear in Menu Editor. You might have to click the item's checkbox to uncheck-then-check-it-again to make the real menu load the item.

Palm OS device over Bluetooth

Fri, 15 May 2009 07:11:29 -0400

This is sofa king frustrating. Why is this not documented? I found a couple of references on the web, but just buck LUCK. FUUUUCKK!!!!!

To EASILY sync your Palm OS device via Bluetooth, just use port "bt:"

THAT IS ALL!!! SHEESH!!!

Nearly all searching for "palm bluetooth" or similar, especially adding "linux" or "ubuntu" or "jpilot" in as a keyword show the PPP method, which fucking SUCKS.

Example

pilot-xfer -p bt: -s ~/treo/syncdir

(Example obtained here: http://www.wanderingjew.co.uk/2008/Jun)

Speeding up SSH connections in Ubuntu Jaunty...

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 15:05:55 -0400

...and Feisty and Gutsy and Hardy and Intrepid, most likely.

Bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/openssh/+bug/84899

The simple answer is to disable GSSAPIAuthentication. You can do that on the command line -- "-o GSSAPIAuthentication=no", in a local config (not sure what that would be called) or in the system configuration for the SSH client.

Example Patch of /etc/ssh/ssh_config

@@ -47,5 +47,5 @@
 #   PermitLocalCommand no
     SendEnv LANG LC_*
     HashKnownHosts yes
-    GSSAPIAuthentication yes
+    GSSAPIAuthentication no
     GSSAPIDelegateCredentials no

Zenity is really cool, but a little confusing

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 10:43:52 -0400

Example Zenity dialog.

I have a whole bunch of one-click script operations to make my life easier for operations I perform routinely. I use Zenity for some of them. One thing about the Zenity list dialog is that it is a little confusing to set up, but I finally figured out a non-confusing way to write it. Here is my example.


WHICH_DB=`zenity \

    --height=400 \

    --list \

    --radiolist \

    --column="" --column="Database" \

    TRUE  "database1" \

    FALSE  "database2" \

    FALSE  "database3" \

    FALSE  "database4" \



`

Just write out the columns as they should appear in the dialog window, using backslash, "\", to join the lines together into a single operation. The above example produces this:

Various bash profile settings

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 09:15:23 -0400

I don't know why I didn't post this years ago.

Bash Prompts with Various Colors

Yellow Text on Blue BG
Hostname, Username, and Current Working Directory
Newline at end.


PS1="\[\e[1;33m\]\[\e[44m\]\h USER:\u PWD:\w \[\e[0m\]\n> "

Example

White text on Red BG
Hostname, Current WD

I don't remember why I put the cwd and hostname in the $INFO variable.

# export PS1=`echo '\033[30m${HOSTNAME}:>'`
INFO=${HOSTNAME}:\\w
export PS1="\[\e[31;7m\]${INFO}\n\[\e[0m\]> "

Example