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Michael Still
mikal@stillhq.com

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ImageMagick book

MythTV book








If you're interested in what patches I have submitted, and their status, then you really should be looking at this page.


Thu, 01 May 2008



What packages are taking all my disk?

    I'm using Ubuntu here, but this would work on any Debian based distribution... I want to find out what packages are sucking up all the disk on my new laptop. So, I run:

    mikal@mikal-eee:~$ dpkg-query -W --showformat='${Installed-Size} ${Package}\n' | sort -n
    


    Which will give you a list of packages sorted by size when installed. In my case, removing evolution and open office ill make a big difference to my free disk space.

    Tags for this post: linux(S) ubuntu(S)

posted at: 16:42 | path: /linux/ubuntu | permanent link to this entry


Sat, 29 Jul 2006



Nice touch

    Ok, so I don't know about you, but pretty much the only time I have a copy of Windows these days is when I take delivery of a new laptop like I did this morning, before I get around to installing Linux on it. To verify that my download and cdrecord had produced something valid, I just stuck the Ubuntu Dapper CD I just made into the CD ROM drive on this Windows laptop.

    It's really cool. It launches an application with the autorun stuff on Windows, and then offers to let me install open source on the Windows partition. It's like a small version of the OpenCD (and was in fact done with their help). Applications it offers to install:

    • Mozilla Firefox
    • Mozilla Thunderbird
    • Abiword
    • Gaim
    • The Gimp


    It's a nice touch that the CD can be used for this sort of thing as well. Like all ideas, it's so obvious now that I've seen it done, and it makes me wonder why other distros haven't been doing this for a while.

    Another on Mikal's rocks list for the day -- Ubuntu.

    Tags for this post: linux(S) ubuntu(S)

posted at: 15:07 | path: /linux/ubuntu | permanent link to this entry


Tue, 25 Jul 2006



Debian / Ubuntu packaging

    Jon kindly dropped in on Google on the way to Oscon, and presented a talk on Debian (and therefore Ubuntu) packaging. Here it is:



    Tags for this post: linux(S) ubuntu(S)

posted at: 08:13 | path: /linux/ubuntu | permanent link to this entry


Thu, 24 Nov 2005



Adventures in Ubuntu Breezy Dovecot

    I mentioned the other day that I am having problems with Dovecot on Ubuntu Breezy. Now's the time to debug it, and here are my notes...

    No inetd.conf

      sed: can't read /etc/inetd.conf: No such file or directory
      


    This first error is because of this poorly implemented test:

      # The init script should do nothing if dovecot is being run from inetd
      for p in `sed -r "s/^ *(([^:]+|\[[^]]+]|\*):)?(pop3s?|imaps?)[ \t].*/\3/;t;d" \
        /etc/inetd.conf`
      do
        for q in `sed -r "s/^ *protocols[ \t]*=[ \t]*(([^\"]*)|\"(.*)\")/\2\3/;t;d" \
          /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf`
        do
          if [ $p = $q ]; then
            exit 0
          fi
        done
      done
      


    You can see from the comment that the intention is that the init script doesn't do anything if dovecot is running from inetd. The error message is kinda bogus though, in that the code keeps executing after that failed line with the sed call in it. If you find the error annoying, then make it go away:

      touch /etc/inetd.conf
      


    In a perfect world, you'd hope that the packager would change the script to do something more like this:

      for p in `sed -r "s/^ *(([^:]+|\[[^]]+]|\*):)?(pop3s?|imaps?)[ \t].*/\3/;t;d" \
        /etc/inetd.conf 2> /dev/null`
      


    Moving right along...

    It doesn't start the service

    I had enabled the imap_listen variable in the dovecot.conf file, but not put it in the protocols variable. The init script checks this, and bugged out without an error message. I would think an error message would be nicer.

    And now it works.

    Tags for this post: linux(S) ubuntu(S)

posted at: 20:40 | path: /linux/ubuntu | permanent link to this entry


Wed, 23 Nov 2005



Ubuntu Breezy and Dovecot hate me

    I've got a new laptop, and have installed dovecot. Now it wont start, with an error about not being able to find the inetd.conf config file. That's because inetd isn't installed.

    Is the dovecot package just broken? Is there something obvious that I am doing wrong?

    Tags for this post: linux(S) ubuntu(S)

posted at: 14:54 | path: /linux/ubuntu | permanent link to this entry


Sun, 05 Jun 2005



A first taste of Ubuntu

    For the skunk works project I had a need for a Ubuntu box, so I did an install on an old piece of c**p Pentium two box I had lying around. It's my first time installing Ubuntu, and I must say I'm impressed:

    • The installer didn't ask me for partition sizes, it just went with reasonable defaults once I had told it to blow away all of my whopping 4gb disc
    • It automatically checked the checksum of each package on the CD, although I imagine that doesn't help much if the entire CD can't be trusted
    • It then went off an did it's thing with no more prompting except for host name and a user account
    • I wonder id the installer changes the list of packages it installs based on the size of the target filesystem. That would be cool...
    • Anyways, after a bit you reboot and apt magic happens without prompting
    • They even overwrite /etc/apt/sources.list with Internet sources and do an apt-get update so it's ready to fly
    • I was impressed over all


    No, if only they had ImageMagick in the base install...

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posted at: 02:57 | path: /linux/ubuntu | permanent link to this entry