<<O>> Difference Topic DebianSargeNetinst (r1.61 - 23 Mar 2008 - PeterKnaggs)

META TOPICPARENT	LinuxHints

Everything you ever wanted to know about Debian...

But were afraid to ask... Well, this may be more true for folks who heed the advice to RTFM (Read The Fine Manual).

Line: 769 to 769

Cryptsetup: using device mapper's dm-crypt for encrypting your filesystem

Changed:

<
< If you have been using cryptoloop in the past, you may have noticed that since kernel 2.6.4 there's a warning with the BLK_DEV_CRYPTLOOP configuration option that says:

>
> If you have been using cryptoloop for filesystem encryption in the past, you may have noticed that since kernel 2.6.4 there's a warning with the BLK_DEV_CRYPTLOOP configuration option that says:

  WARNING: This device is not safe for journaled file systems like
  ext3 or Reiserfs. Please use the Device Mapper crypto module

Line: 779 to 779

So how do we use the Device Mapper as the warning suggests? The place to start is Christophe Saout's dm-crypt page.

Added:

>
> The wikipedia page for dm-crypt is also a good reference.

For Debian, this guide or this guide go into a lot of detail.

Added:

>
>

When using disk encryption, remember that your DRAM is not as volatile as you might have thought.

Essentially, the cryptsetup utility hides all of the details of needing to understand the Device Mapper's dm-crypt syntax, although it's good to know you can always carry out the steps manually if necessary, using only the dmsetup utility.

<<O>> Difference Topic DebianSargeNetinst (r1.60 - 13 Jan 2008 - PeterKnaggs)

META TOPICPARENT	LinuxHints

Everything you ever wanted to know about Debian...

Changed:

<
<

But were afraid to ask... Well, this may be more true for folks who heed the advice to RTFM (Read The Fine Manual). Since there is such an overwhelming volume of documentation on Debian (both old and new), it can be bewildering to know where to start. This guide tries to highlight those concepts which are actually key to getting things working, and which can be picked up later as you go along and get more familiar with the structure of the system. It's best of course if you can also have a chat with a friendly Debian user.

>
>

But were afraid to ask... Well, this may be more true for folks who heed the advice to RTFM (Read The Fine Manual).

Debian is a GNU/Linux distribution of Free Software.

Since there is such an overwhelming volume of documentation on Debian (both old and new), it can be bewildering to know where to start. This guide tries to highlight those concepts which are actually key to getting things working, and which can be picked up later as you go along and get more familiar with the structure of the system. It's best of course if you can also have a chat with a friendly Debian user.

A lot of these Debian hints are thanks to the explanations by Rick Moen (rick@linuxmafia.com). Rick has much more Debian info in his Debian Knowledge Base. Any mistakes are my own, please let me know about any you find.

The latest version of this guide can be found at the following location (which is shown here in full, in case you're looking at a printout of the web page) http://www.penlug.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/DebianSargeNetinst

Line: 431 to 435

If you are trying to follow the development of transcode, you may need to build to build mjpegtools yourself. It seems to be simplest to build mjpegtools from the tarball rather than from the mjpeg CVS.

What's the story with `acroread` in Debian?

Changed:

<
<

What, you can't live with xpdf, you want to use a buggy proprietary product that leaks?

>
>

What, you can't live with xpdf, you want to use a buggy non-Free Software (proprietary) product that leaks information?

Well, this section is for you. According to Mimos Berhad's Knoppix User's Guide, quite a few convenient tools are available as Debian packages in Marillat's repository, and acroread is one of them.

It's simple enough to use dpkg directly to install acroread as follows:

<<O>> Difference Topic DebianSargeNetinst (r1.59 - 24 Dec 2007 - PeterKnaggs)

META TOPICPARENT	LinuxHints

Everything you ever wanted to know about Debian...

But were afraid to ask... Well, this may be more true for folks who heed the advice to RTFM (Read The Fine Manual). Since there is such an overwhelming volume of documentation on Debian (both old and new), it can be bewildering to know where to start. This guide tries to highlight those concepts which are actually key to getting things working, and which can be picked up later as you go along and get more familiar with the structure of the system. It's best of course if you can also have a chat with a friendly Debian user.

Line: 268 to 268

than being unexpectedly exposed to a disconcerting "new features" (for example when your fingers wander accidentally to a key you didn't intend to press, and which previously had no effect).

Changed:

<
<

For example, to choose which implementations of vi editor to use, run the command:

>
>

For example, to choose which implementations of vi editor to use, run the following commands. The X cursor can also be changed using this method.

Changed:

<
<

/usr/sbin/update-alternatives --list vi /usr/sbin/update-alternatives --config vi /usr/sbin/update-alternatives --list x-cursor-theme /usr/sbin/update-alternatives --config x-cursor-theme

>
>

sudo /usr/sbin/update-alternatives --list vi sudo /usr/sbin/update-alternatives --config vi sudo /usr/sbin/update-alternatives --list view sudo /usr/sbin/update-alternatives --config view sudo /usr/sbin/update-alternatives --list x-cursor-theme sudo /usr/sbin/update-alternatives --config x-cursor-theme

Choosing your display manager

<<O>> Difference Topic DebianSargeNetinst (r1.58 - 19 Jul 2007 - PeterKnaggs)

META TOPICPARENT	LinuxHints

Everything you ever wanted to know about Debian...

But were afraid to ask... Well, this may be more true for folks who heed the advice to RTFM (Read The Fine Manual). Since there is such an overwhelming volume of documentation on Debian (both old and new), it can be bewildering to know where to start. This guide tries to highlight those concepts which are actually key to getting things working, and which can be picked up later as you go along and get more familiar with the structure of the system. It's best of course if you can also have a chat with a friendly Debian user.

Line: 586 to 586

the printer are usually of size US Letter (this may be different if your printer is not in the USA).

Added:

>
>

In addition, for printing from xpdf, you'll need to configure the page size as letter instead of "a4" by editing /etc/papersize to make the change:

  sudo echo "letter" > /etc/papersize

Also, before saving with Double-Sided Printing setting, you need to enable Duplex Printing in the configuration slightly lower down on the page.

Line: 602 to 608

If you are using the KDE window manager: kprinter -stdin
If you are using the Gnome window manager (thanks to Chris Davis for this hint): gtklp -S localhost

Added:

>
> The above can also be used instead of lpr in the xpdf print dialog. Remember before printing from xpdf, to edit /etc/papersize to change the a4 to letter.

What, still no printout from Debian?

First of all, test whether network access to the printer is indeed working. For this, you can use telnet printer_hostname 9100 and just type in some text and

<<O>> Difference Topic DebianSargeNetinst (r1.57 - 07 Apr 2007 - PeterKnaggs)

META TOPICPARENT	LinuxHints

Everything you ever wanted to know about Debian...

But were afraid to ask... Well, this may be more true for folks who heed the advice to RTFM (Read The Fine Manual). Since there is such an overwhelming volume of documentation on Debian (both old and new), it can be bewildering to know where to start. This guide tries to highlight those concepts which are actually key to getting things working, and which can be picked up later as you go along and get more familiar with the structure of the system. It's best of course if you can also have a chat with a friendly Debian user.

Line: 135 to 135

Layering of Debian package management tools

The Debian package management tools are organised in a hierarchy, according to their capabilities, level of abstraction, and the user interface they provide.

Changed:

<
< At the top level are the tools dselect and aptitude. There's also debfoster, useful for finding and removing packages you no longer want around to help with security, or just to cleanup and save disk space.

>
> At the top level are the tools dselect, adept and aptitude. If you have a somewhat older (slower) system, you may prefer to only download the packages, but install them later. You can use the -d flag with aptitude to only download the packages. There's also debfoster, useful for finding and removing packages you no longer want around to help with security, or just to cleanup and save disk space.

The next level down is apt-get (apt is the "Advanced Packaging Tool", which is the most commonly used tool from the command line), and finally the lowest-level tool is dpkg (which although it is supposedly the least user-friendly, dpkg is sometimes the simplest tool to use to get the job done -- you may

<<O>> Difference Topic DebianSargeNetinst (r1.56 - 19 Mar 2007 - PeterKnaggs)

META TOPICPARENT	LinuxHints

Everything you ever wanted to know about Debian...

But were afraid to ask... Well, this may be more true for folks who heed the advice to RTFM (Read The Fine Manual). Since there is such an overwhelming volume of documentation on Debian (both old and new), it can be bewildering to know where to start. This guide tries to highlight those concepts which are actually key to getting things working, and which can be picked up later as you go along and get more familiar with the structure of the system. It's best of course if you can also have a chat with a friendly Debian user.

Line: 9 to 9

If you would like to run a system which you can upgrade over time without needing to reinstall it whenever there is a "release" from the distribution vendor, then the Debian distribution is a very attractive choice. The Debian distribution provides binaries for a great variety of architectures, so not a lot of time need be spent by your local system to get it installed. Using the latest Debian "netinst" (see below), you can get a system up and running using only a single, small CD-ROM image.

Changed:

<
<

The reason "releases" have so little relevance when running Debian, is due to Debian's "policy", as well as its concept of "tracks". These tracks have the names Stable, Testing and Unstable (Unstable is also known as "sid", after the neighbor kid who was a menace to all the toys in the movie "Toy Story"). These tracks are like symbolic links.

>
>

The reason "releases" have so little relevance when running Debian, is due to Debian's policy, as well as its concept of "tracks". These tracks have the names Stable, Testing and Unstable (Unstable is also known as "sid", after the neighbor kid who was a menace to all the toys in the movie "Toy Story"). These tracks are like symbolic links.

A better analogy might be to think of train tracks: in Debian there are three trains (the releases) running along three different development tracks. When a release occurs (for example when the "sarge" train recently reached the end of the Testing track and was shunted onto the Stable track), the Debian maintainers simply change the symlinks to point Stable to what used to be Testing (effectively putting this new and improved train into wider service, now that it has been proven stable), and Debian continues development. Of course, the analogy to train tracks isn't perfect, because the Unstable track would have to be infinitely long. Releases in Debian are not such a major event, the way they tend to be with other distributions.

<<O>> Difference Topic DebianSargeNetinst (r1.55 - 14 Sep 2006 - PeterKnaggs)

META TOPICPARENT	LinuxHints

Everything you ever wanted to know about Debian...

But were afraid to ask... Well, this may be more true for folks who heed the advice to RTFM (Read The Fine Manual). Since there is such an overwhelming volume of documentation on Debian (both old and new), it can be bewildering to know where to start. This guide tries to highlight those concepts which are actually key to getting things working, and which can be picked up later as you go along and get more familiar with the structure of the system. It's best of course if you can also have a chat with a friendly Debian user.

Line: 440 to 440

If you want to set things up so that apt-get can install acroread for you, I moved the explanation to here.

Added:

>
> To annotate PDF files, give Johannes Hofmann's flpsed a try.

Video playback in Debian

The Debian Stable track has a convenient media player in the package vlc. Install it preferably by installing the wxvlc package, which provides the

<<O>> Difference Topic DebianSargeNetinst (r1.54 - 13 Sep 2006 - PeterKnaggs)

META TOPICPARENT	LinuxHints

Everything you ever wanted to know about Debian...

But were afraid to ask... Well, this may be more true for folks who heed the advice to RTFM (Read The Fine Manual). Since there is such an overwhelming volume of documentation on Debian (both old and new), it can be bewildering to know where to start. This guide tries to highlight those concepts which are actually key to getting things working, and which can be picked up later as you go along and get more familiar with the structure of the system. It's best of course if you can also have a chat with a friendly Debian user.

Line: 183 to 183

To list all of the Debian packages already installed on your system:

  dpkg -l

Added:

>
> dlocate -l

  COLUMNS=200 dpkg -l|grep whatever
<nop>

Added:

>
>

COLUMNS=200 dlocate -l whatever

  dlocate -s tuxpaint
<nop>

<nop>

Line: 590 to 596

with:

If you are using the KDE window manager: kprinter -stdin

Changed:

<
<

If you are using the Gnome window manager: gtklp -S localhost

>
>

If you are using the Gnome window manager (thanks to Chris Davis for this hint): gtklp -S localhost

What, still no printout from Debian?

First of all, test whether network access to the printer is indeed working. For

<<O>> Difference Topic DebianSargeNetinst (r1.53 - 12 Sep 2006 - PeterKnaggs)

META TOPICPARENT	LinuxHints

Everything you ever wanted to know about Debian...

But were afraid to ask... Well, this may be more true for folks who heed the advice to RTFM (Read The Fine Manual). Since there is such an overwhelming volume of documentation on Debian (both old and new), it can be bewildering to know where to start. This guide tries to highlight those concepts which are actually key to getting things working, and which can be picked up later as you go along and get more familiar with the structure of the system. It's best of course if you can also have a chat with a friendly Debian user.

Line: 589 to 589

with:

Changed:

<
<

  kprinter -stdin

>
>

If you are using the KDE window manager: kprinter -stdin
If you are using the Gnome window manager: gtklp -S localhost

What, still no printout from Debian?

First of all, test whether network access to the printer is indeed working. For this, you can use telnet printer_hostname 9100 and just type in some text and

<<O>> Difference Topic DebianSargeNetinst (r1.52 - 02 Sep 2006 - PeterKnaggs)

META TOPICPARENT	LinuxHints

Everything you ever wanted to know about Debian...

But were afraid to ask... Well, this may be more true for folks who heed the advice to RTFM (Read The Fine Manual). Since there is such an overwhelming volume of documentation on Debian (both old and new), it can be bewildering to know where to start. This guide tries to highlight those concepts which are actually key to getting things working, and which can be picked up later as you go along and get more familiar with the structure of the system. It's best of course if you can also have a chat with a friendly Debian user.

Line: 482 to 482

<nop>

Changed:

<
< /etc/init.d/ssh restart

>
> invoke-rc.d ssh restart

Line: 613 to 613

restart CUPS using:

  apt-get install gs-esp

Changed:

<
< /etc/init.d/cupsys restart

>
> invoke-rc.d cupsys restart

How Can I Track Down Printing Problems using CUPS?

For getting familiar with CUPS, the best place to start is of course the homepage for CUPS.

Line: 627 to 627

After doing this, restart the cupsd process using:

Changed:

<
< /etc/init.d/cupsys restart

>
> invoke-rc.d cupsys restart

The following file will contain a detailed log of everything that is reported

Line: 688 to 688

<nop>

Changed:

<
< /etc/init.d/autofs reload

>
> invoke-rc.d autofs reload

The above command will cause the automounter to check the current /etc/auto.master map against its running daemons, then kill those daemons whose entries have changed,

Line: 715 to 715

To set the new system date and time, and start the NTP daemon process to keep it in sync from then on, do:

Changed:

<
< /etc/init.d/ntpdate restart /etc/init.d/ntp-server restart

>
> invoke-rc.d ntpdate restart invoke-rc.d ntp-server restart

If you ever find yourself in an unexpected and unfamiliar timezone, you can use

<<O>> Difference Topic DebianSargeNetinst (r1.51 - 13 Aug 2006 - PeterKnaggs)

META TOPICPARENT	LinuxHints

Everything you ever wanted to know about Debian...

But were afraid to ask... Well, this may be more true for folks who heed the advice to RTFM (Read The Fine Manual). Since there is such an overwhelming volume of documentation on Debian (both old and new), it can be bewildering to know where to start. This guide tries to highlight those concepts which are actually key to getting things working, and which can be picked up later as you go along and get more familiar with the structure of the system. It's best of course if you can also have a chat with a friendly Debian user.

Line: 812 to 812

PenLUG Through a Firehose: RSS feeds in Firefox

On the front page of PenLUG, Ian Kluft set up an XML/RSS feed. For a while I had been wondering how to use this, and Ashok Shivarudraiah recently explained it to me as follows:

Changed:

<
< Launch the Firefox web browser, and copy the link location for the XML/RSS feed.

>
> Launch the Firefox web browser, and copy the link location for the XML/RSS feed from the page (you can right-click in the orange and blue rectangular box and choose Copy link location, but make sure the parameter skin is set to rss at the end of the url).

Then, in the menu Bookmarks -> Manage Bookmarks, click on the menu File -> New Live Bookmark, and in the Feed Location: paste in the location you just copied. Give this bookmark a name, and save it.

Line: 821 to 824

Neat, huh? There's also as a somewhat overenthusiastic Open in Tabs item which will open all of these bookmarks in tabs, simultaneously.

Added:

>
>

Mozilla Thunderbird also has built-in RSS support. For a Web-based RSS reader you can use Bloglines. If you prefer the command line, the RSS aggregator snownews is a good choice. You add the feed using the a key, and provide the link location string to set up the feed:

  http://www.penlug.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/WebRss?skin=rss

Additional Debian Resources

Once you get more familiar with Debian, have a look into the following resources. Happy trails.

Why Debian Rocks

<<O>> Difference Topic DebianSargeNetinst (r1.50 - 08 Mar 2006 - PeterKnaggs)

META TOPICPARENT	LinuxHints

Everything you ever wanted to know about Debian...

But were afraid to ask... Well, this may be more true for folks who heed the advice to RTFM (Read The Fine Manual). Since there is such an overwhelming volume of documentation on Debian (both old and new), it can be bewildering to know where to start. This guide tries to highlight those concepts which are actually key to getting things working, and which can be picked up later as you go along and get more familiar with the structure of the system. It's best of course if you can also have a chat with a friendly Debian user.

Line: 372 to 372

to be quite finished: DebianSargeNetinstManuallyInstalledPackages

Installing "Testing" from Netinst

Changed:

<
< To install Debian from the Testing track rather than from the Stable track, here is where you can find info on the testing Netinst CD.

>
>

To install Debian from the Testing track (currently called "Etch") rather than from the Stable track, here is where you can find info on the testing Netinst CD.

Using the Testing installer may be the best approach for getting Debian installed on newer hardware, especially in the case where the Sarge installer doesn't have the network driver to support your network card. For example on the HP Compaq dc7600, the network chip is a Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5752 Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express, which is only recognised by the Testing installer.

Alsa Sound Configuration in Debian

To get alsa sound working, use /usr/sbin/alsaconf. For example, on a

Line: 827 to 832

Rick Moen (rick@linuxmafia.com), Daniel Gimpelevich and Calvin Wong.

Changed:

<
< -- PeterKnaggs - Sep 26, 2005

>
> -- PeterKnaggs - 08 Mar 2006

Back to LinuxHints - Everything GNU ever wanted to know about Linux

<<O>> Difference Topic DebianSargeNetinst (r1.49 - 27 Sep 2005 - PeterKnaggs)

META TOPICPARENT	LinuxHints

Everything you ever wanted to know about Debian...

But were afraid to ask... Well, this may be more true for folks who heed the advice to RTFM (Read The Fine Manual). Since there is such an overwhelming volume of documentation on Debian (both old and new), it can be bewildering to know where to start. This guide tries to highlight those concepts which are actually key to getting things working, and which can be picked up later as you go along and get more familiar with the structure of the system. It's best of course if you can also have a chat with a friendly Debian user.

Line: 371 to 371

Some of the things I needed to install manually are on this page, which never seems to be quite finished: DebianSargeNetinstManuallyInstalledPackages

Added:

>
>

Installing "Testing" from Netinst

To install Debian from the Testing track rather than from the Stable track, here is where you can find info on the testing Netinst CD.

Alsa Sound Configuration in Debian

To get alsa sound working, use /usr/sbin/alsaconf. For example, on a Dell Precision 410 system, tell it to probe for ISA sound cards,

Line: 815 to 819

Additional Debian Resources

Once you get more familiar with Debian, have a look into the following resources. Happy trails.

Why Debian Rocks

Added:

>
>

Obtaining Debian support

Credits

This guide is thanks to the patient explanations from:

<<O>> Difference Topic DebianSargeNetinst (r1.48 - 27 Sep 2005 - PeterKnaggs)

  META TOPICPARENT  LinuxHints 

  Everything you ever wanted to know about Debian... 
But were afraid to ask... Well, this may be more true for folks who heed the advice to RTFM (Read The Fine Manual). Since there is such an overwhelming volume of documentation on Debian (both old and new), it can be bewildering to know where to start. This guide tries to highlight those concepts which are actually key to getting things working, and which can be picked up later as you go along and get more familiar with the structure of the system. It's best of course if you can also have a chat with a friendly Debian user.
 It's also a good idea to take a copy of the /etc/apt/sources.list from systemA.
Then, to apply the package selections of systemA to another system (which must be 
running on the same track, otherwise the package names may be different), copy over
-<
<
+the file $HOME/systemA_packages to the new system and use:
->
>
+the file $HOME/systemA_packages to the new "clone" system and use:
   cat $HOME/systemA_packages | dpkg --set-selections
-<
<
+The above command will not actually install or remove anything. It just set the selection 
state on the packages as requested by the list you provided from the original system.
->
>
+The above command will not actually install or remove anything. It just sets the selection 
state on the packages according to the list you provided from the original system.
 You then need to run dselect to actually download  and install the packages.
Before running dselect, remember to take a look at the /etc/apt/sources.list file from
-<
<
+the systemA machine, to see if any of the sources need to be added, and run apt-get update
before continuing, because dselect will only be able to download from sources that are
configured.
->
>
+the systemA machine, to see if any of its sources need to be added to the sources.list of the
clone machine, and run apt-get update before continuing, because dselect will only 
be able to download from sources that are configured.
   dselect
-<
<
+The dselect tool will bring up a menu, and here you choose the "Install" option.
->
>
+The dselect tool will bring up a menu, and here you choose the "Install" option.
   Reconfiguring packages 
To "reconfigure" any given package (i.e. make the Debian package manager re-ask you all the package configuration questions):

<<O>> Difference Topic DebianSargeNetinst (r1.47 - 27 Sep 2005 - PeterKnaggs)

META TOPICPARENT	LinuxHints

Everything you ever wanted to know about Debian...

But were afraid to ask... Well, this may be more true for folks who heed the advice to RTFM (Read The Fine Manual). Since there is such an overwhelming volume of documentation on Debian (both old and new), it can be bewildering to know where to start. This guide tries to highlight those concepts which are actually key to getting things working, and which can be picked up later as you go along and get more familiar with the structure of the system. It's best of course if you can also have a chat with a friendly Debian user.

Line: 209 to 209

dpkg --search /usr/lib/libgtk-x11-2.0.a

Added:

>
>

Cloning another system

If you already have one system, e.g., systemA set up with all of your favorite packages, and you're installing another system and would like to reuse the same configuration, then to grab the package configuration of systemA, you would use:

  dpkg --get-selections > $HOME/systemA_packages

It's also a good idea to take a copy of the /etc/apt/sources.list from systemA. Then, to apply the package selections of systemA to another system (which must be running on the same track, otherwise the package names may be different), copy over the file $HOME/systemA_packages to the new system and use:

  cat $HOME/systemA_packages | dpkg --set-selections

The above command will not actually install or remove anything. It just set the selection state on the packages as requested by the list you provided from the original system. You then need to run dselect to actually download and install the packages. Before running dselect, remember to take a look at the /etc/apt/sources.list file from the systemA machine, to see if any of the sources need to be added, and run apt-get update before continuing, because dselect will only be able to download from sources that are configured.

  dselect

The dselect tool will bring up a menu, and here you choose the "Install" option.

Reconfiguring packages

To "reconfigure" any given package (i.e. make the Debian package manager re-ask you all the package configuration questions):

Line: 796 to 821

Rick Moen (rick@linuxmafia.com), Daniel Gimpelevich and Calvin Wong.

Changed:

<
< -- PeterKnaggs - Jun 14, 2005

>
> -- PeterKnaggs - Sep 26, 2005

Back to LinuxHints - Everything GNU ever wanted to know about Linux

<<O>> Difference Topic DebianSargeNetinst (r1.46 - 12 Aug 2005 - PeterKnaggs)

META TOPICPARENT	LinuxHints

Everything you ever wanted to know about Debian...

But were afraid to ask... Well, this may be more true for folks who heed the advice to RTFM (Read The Fine Manual). Since there is such an overwhelming volume of documentation on Debian (both old and new), it can be bewildering to know where to start. This guide tries to highlight those concepts which are actually key to getting things working, and which can be picked up later as you go along and get more familiar with the structure of the system. It's best of course if you can also have a chat with a friendly Debian user.

Line: 708 to 708

ssh username@sdf

Added:

>
>

Cryptsetup: using device mapper's dm-crypt for encrypting your filesystem

If you have been using cryptoloop in the past, you may have noticed that since kernel 2.6.4 there's a warning with the BLK_DEV_CRYPTLOOP configuration option that says:

  WARNING: This device is not safe for journaled file systems like
  ext3 or Reiserfs. Please use the Device Mapper crypto module
  instead, which can be configured to be on-disk compatible with the
  cryptoloop device.

So how do we use the Device Mapper as the warning suggests? The place to start is Christophe Saout's dm-crypt page. For Debian, this guide or this guide go into a lot of detail. Essentially, the cryptsetup utility hides all of the details of needing to understand the Device Mapper's dm-crypt syntax, although it's good to know you can always carry out the steps manually if necessary, using only the dmsetup utility. I'll only quickly show the commands to create an encrypted filesystem within a plain file:

  apt-get install cryptsetup
  modprobe dm_mod
  modprobe loop max_loop=32
  dd if=/dev/urandom of=$HOME/cryptfile2 bs=1M count=100 
  losetup /dev/loop2 $HOME/cryptfile2
  cryptsetup -y -c aes -h ripemd160 -s 256 create volume2 /dev/loop2
  mke2fs /dev/mapper/volume2
  mount -t ext2 /dev/mapper/volume2 /mnt/machine/volume2

To unmount the filesystem, proceed as follows:

  umount /mnt/machine/volume2  && \
  cryptsetup remove volume2 && \
  losetup -d /dev/loop2

To mount the filesystem again, use:

  modprobe dm_mod
  modprobe loop max_loop=32
  losetup /dev/loop2 $HOME/cryptfile2
  cryptsetup -y -c aes -h ripemd160 -s 256 create volume2 /dev/loop2
  mount -t ext2 /dev/mapper/volume2 /mnt/machine/volume2

Note: File-backed loop devices can't be used with journaling file systems. Only device-backed loops guarantee that writes will reach the disk platters in the order required by a journaling file system (write caching must be disabled on the disk drive, also). With file-backed loop devices, the correct write ordering may extend only to the page cache (which resides in RAM) of the underlying file system. The linux VM can then write such pages to disk in any order it wishes, potentially breaking the write order expectations of the journaling file system. Another problem is that file-backed loops may deadlock under some kernel and file system combinations. So, if you can choose between device-backed and file-backed, choose device backed even if it means that you have to re-partition your disks.

If you need to move your data from a system which doesn't have cryptsetup, but does have Device Mapper, you can build cryptsetup from the CVS as described on the dm-crypt wiki using:

  # In the following, you can remove ";proxy=your-proxy;proxyport=80" if you're connecting directly to the internet.
  cvs -d ':pserver;proxy=your-proxy;proxyport=80:cvs@cvs.saout.de:/cvsroot/saout' login
  # Password is: cvs
  cvs -z3 -d ':pserver;proxy=your-proxy;proxyport=80:cvs@cvs.saout.de:/cvsroot/saout' co cryptsetup
  cd cryptsetup
  ./autogen.sh
  make
  su -c "make install"

For the future, loop-AES gives better performance than dm-crypt. For Debian, this guide and this guide are a good start.

PenLUG Through a Firehose: RSS feeds in Firefox

On the front page of PenLUG, Ian Kluft set up an XML/RSS feed. For a while I had been wondering how to use this, and Ashok Shivarudraiah recently explained it to me as follows:

<<O>> Difference Topic DebianSargeNetinst (r1.45 - 10 Aug 2005 - PeterKnaggs)

META TOPICPARENT	LinuxHints

Everything you ever wanted to know about Debian...

But were afraid to ask... Well, this may be more true for folks who heed the advice to RTFM (Read The Fine Manual). Since there is such an overwhelming volume of documentation on Debian (both old and new), it can be bewildering to know where to start. This guide tries to highlight those concepts which are actually key to getting things working, and which can be picked up later as you go along and get more familiar with the structure of the system. It's best of course if you can also have a chat with a friendly Debian user.

Line: 387 to 387

If you are trying to follow the development of transcode, you may need to build to build mjpegtools yourself. It seems to be simplest to build mjpegtools from the tarball rather than from the mjpeg CVS.

What's the story with `acroread` in Debian?

Changed:

<
<

What, you can't live with xpdf, you want to use a buggy proprietary product?

>
>

What, you can't live with xpdf, you want to use a buggy proprietary product that leaks?

Well, this section is for you. According to Mimos Berhad's Knoppix User's Guide, quite a few convenient tools are available as Debian packages in Marillat's repository, and acroread is one of them.

It's simple enough to use dpkg directly to install acroread as follows:

<<O>> Difference Topic DebianSargeNetinst (r1.44 - 22 Jul 2005 - PeterKnaggs)

META TOPICPARENT	LinuxHints

Everything you ever wanted to know about Debian...

But were afraid to ask... Well, this may be more true for folks who heed the advice to RTFM (Read The Fine Manual). Since there is such an overwhelming volume of documentation on Debian (both old and new), it can be bewildering to know where to start. This guide tries to highlight those concepts which are actually key to getting things working, and which can be picked up later as you go along and get more familiar with the structure of the system. It's best of course if you can also have a chat with a friendly Debian user.

Line: 731 to 731

-- PeterKnaggs - Jun 14, 2005

Added:

>
>

Back to LinuxHints - Everything GNU ever wanted to know about Linux

<<O>> Difference Topic DebianSargeNetinst (r1.43 - 15 Jun 2005 - PeterKnaggs)

META TOPICPARENT	LinuxHints

Everything you ever wanted to know about Debian...

But were afraid to ask... Well, this may be more true for folks who heed the advice to RTFM (Read The Fine Manual). Since there is such an overwhelming volume of documentation on Debian (both old and new), it can be bewildering to know where to start. This guide tries to highlight those concepts which are actually key to getting things working, and which can be picked up later as you go along and get more familiar with the structure of the system. It's best of course if you can also have a chat with a friendly Debian user.

Line: 10 to 10

(see below), you can get a system up and running using only a single, small CD-ROM image.

The reason "releases" have so little relevance when running Debian, is due to Debian's "policy", as well as its concept of "tracks". These tracks have the names Stable, Testing and Unstable (Unstable is also known as "sid", after the neighbor kid who was a menace to all the toys in the movie "Toy Story"). These tracks are like symbolic links.

Changed:

<
< A better analogy might be to think of train tracks: in Debian there are three trains (the releases) running along three different development tracks. When a release occurs (for example when the "sarge" train reaches the end of the Testing track), the Debian maintainers simply change the symlinks to point Stable to what used to be Testing (effectively putting this new and improved train into wider service, now that it has been proven stable), and Debian continues development.

>
> A better analogy might be to think of train tracks: in Debian there are three trains (the releases) running along three different development tracks. When a release occurs (for example when the "sarge" train recently reached the end of the Testing track and was shunted onto the Stable track), the Debian maintainers simply change the symlinks to point Stable to what used to be Testing (effectively putting this new and improved train into wider service, now that it has been proven stable), and Debian continues development.

Of course, the analogy to train tracks isn't perfect, because the Unstable track would have to be infinitely long. Releases in Debian are not such a major event, the way they tend to be with other distributions. Folks running on the Stable track will just see an unusually large volume of updates the next time they update their systems.

Line: 24 to 24

and it too has a policy which allows it to be upgradable. I'll try and update this section with a better explanation of the whole "policy" concept than these vague ramblings.

1. Starting out on the "Stable" track

Changed:

<
<

Let's start our Debian exploration on "Stable". If you are familiar with RPM-based linux distributions, this may feel like a trip back in time. Still, the Stable track has that name for a reason, and it is also on this track that you can be sure to always get the security updates automatically. To see the names of the current release on each of the tracks, consult the file debian/dists/README here. At the beginning of 2005, the Stable track pointed to the release with the name "Woody".

For example, an official Debian CD distribution of Woody has the name:

>
>

Let's start our Debian exploration on "Stable". If you are familiar with RPM-based linux distributions, up until recently when sarge was released, running on the Stable track felt a bit like a trip back in time. The Stable track is the one on which you can be sure to always get the security updates automatically. To see the names of the current release on each of the tracks, consult the file debian/dists/README here. At the beginning of 2005, the Stable track pointed to the release with the name "woody". Now it points to "sarge".

For example, an official Debian CD distribution of Sarge has the name:

Changed:

<
<

Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 r1_Woody_

  deb cdrom: [Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 r1 _Woody_ - Official powerpc Binary-1 (20030109)]/ unstable contrib main non-US /
  deb cdrom: [Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 r1 _Woody_ - Official powerpc Binary-2 (20030109)]/ unstable contrib main non-US /
  ... (one line for each of the six CD-ROMs) ...
<nop>

>
> Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 r0a_Sarge_

Added:

>
> When originally installed from CD-ROM, the file /etc/apt/sources.list contains only references to the CD-ROM set the distribution was installed from, so to allow you to update the distribution and install new packages from the network, it would need to be modified to include references to a "Debian Mirror" as explained in the next section.

2. Updating to "the latest"

To update a Debian installation done from CD-ROM on the Stable track to the latest versions of the packages available on the Stable track, you'll need to replace the contents of /etc/apt/sources.list with the following:

Changed:

<
< deb http://security.debian.org stable/updates main contrib non-free

>
> deb http://security.debian.org stable/updates main non-free contrib

deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian/ stable main non-free contrib

Changed:

<
< deb http://non-us.debian.org/debian-non-US stable/non-US main contrib non-free

>
> deb-src http://http.us.debian.org/debian/ stable main non-free contrib deb http://non-us.debian.org/debian-non-US stable/non-US main non-free contrib

If you're behind a proxy server, set the following in your environment,

Line: 279 to 276

replace the word testing with the word stable, because sarge is now stable and "etch" is the name for the development version on the testing track.

Download the Debian Sarge Netinst and burn it to a CD. Boot from the Debian Sarge Netinst CD. The default setting

Changed:

<
<

is to install a 2.4 serise kernel, but if you want to run your system with a 2.6 series kernel, then at the boot menu type:

>
>

is to install a 2.4 series kernel, which I'd recommend if you're installing Debian on a SparcStation 20 machine, but if you want to run your system with a 2.6 series kernel, then at the boot menu type:

linux26

Line: 404 to 401

here.

Video playback in Debian

Changed:

<
<

The Debian Testing track has a convenient media player in the package vlc.

>
>

The Debian Stable track has a convenient media player in the package vlc.

Install it preferably by installing the wxvlc package, which provides the frontend. VLC is the VideoLAN project's media player. It plays back MPEG, MPEG2, MPEG4, xvid, DivX, MOV, WMV, QuickTime, mp3, Ogg/Vorbis files, DVDs,

Line: 732 to 729

Rick Moen (rick@linuxmafia.com), Daniel Gimpelevich and Calvin Wong.

Changed:

<
< -- PeterKnaggs - Jun 13, 2005

>
> -- PeterKnaggs - Jun 14, 2005

<<O>> Difference Topic DebianSargeNetinst (r1.42 - 13 Jun 2005 - PeterKnaggs)

META TOPICPARENT	LinuxHints

Everything you ever wanted to know about Debian...

But were afraid to ask... Well, this may be more true for folks who heed the advice to RTFM (Read The Fine Manual). Since there is such an overwhelming volume of documentation on Debian (both old and new), it can be bewildering to know where to start. This guide tries to highlight those concepts which are actually key to getting things working, and which can be picked up later as you go along and get more familiar with the structure of the system. It's best of course if you can also have a chat with a friendly Debian user.

Line: 9 to 9

If you would like to run a system which you can upgrade over time without needing to reinstall it whenever there is a "release" from the distribution vendor, then the Debian distribution is a very attractive choice. The Debian distribution provides binaries for a great variety of architectures, so not a lot of time need be spent by your local system to get it installed. Using the latest Debian "netinst" (see below), you can get a system up and running using only a single, small CD-ROM image.

Changed:

<
<

The reason "releases" have so little relevance when running Debian, is due to Debian's "policy", as well as its concept of "tracks". These tracks have the names Stable, Testing and Unstable (Unstable is also known as "Sid", after the neighbor kid who was a menace to all the toys in the movie "Toy Story"). These tracks are like symbolic links. A better analogy might be to think of train tracks: in Debian there are three trains (the releases) running along three different development tracks. When a release occurs (for example when the "Sarge" train reaches the end of the Testing track), the Debian maintainers simply change the symlinks to point Stable to what used to be Testing (effectively putting this new and improved train into wider service, now that it has been proven stable), and Debian continues development.

>
>

The reason "releases" have so little relevance when running Debian, is due to Debian's "policy", as well as its concept of "tracks". These tracks have the names Stable, Testing and Unstable (Unstable is also known as "sid", after the neighbor kid who was a menace to all the toys in the movie "Toy Story"). These tracks are like symbolic links. A better analogy might be to think of train tracks: in Debian there are three trains (the releases) running along three different development tracks. When a release occurs (for example when the "sarge" train reaches the end of the Testing track), the Debian maintainers simply change the symlinks to point Stable to what used to be Testing (effectively putting this new and improved train into wider service, now that it has been proven stable), and Debian continues development.

Of course, the analogy to train tracks isn't perfect, because the Unstable track would have to be infinitely long. Releases in Debian are not such a major event, the way they tend to be with other distributions. Folks running on the Stable track will just see an unusually large volume of updates the next time they update their systems.

Line: 63 to 63

After this, you will be up to date on the Stable track.

Changed:

<
<

Not very exciting, but it's a good idea to keep one machine around running Stable, or at least keep one disk partition installed with it.

>
>

Now that sarge is released (3.1r0 was released Monday, June 6th, 2005), the stable track now has all of the goodies and I hope it's not too much of a stretch to say that even developers will be happy with the recent versions of tools and libraries.

3. Moving to the Testing track.

Changed:

<
<

To change the distro from the Stable to the Testing track, the file:

>
>

There's a lot less of a need to do this now that Sarge is released as stable, but if you need to follow development closely then to change your distro from the Stable track to the Testing track, the file:

  /etc/apt/sources.list

Line: 271 to 274

Installing Debian from the sarge-i386-netinst

Changed:

<
<

Download the Debian Sarge Netinst and burn it to a CD. While writing this guide, I used the one available on Nov 12, 2004, and since it is updated frequently, your experience with it may be slightly different to what I have documented here. Anyway, boot from the Debian Sarge Netinst CD, and at the boot menu type:

>
>

Now that sarge is released (3.1r0 was released Monday, June 6th, 2005), the Debian Network install page gives links to the official images. If you previously did an install of sarge by following the instructions from this page, please remember to edit your /etc/apt/sources.list file to replace the word testing with the word stable, because sarge is now stable and "etch" is the name for the development version on the testing track.

Download the Debian Sarge Netinst and burn it to a CD. Boot from the Debian Sarge Netinst CD. The default setting is to install a 2.4 serise kernel, but if you want to run your system with a 2.6 series kernel, then at the boot menu type:

linux26

Line: 723 to 732

Rick Moen (rick@linuxmafia.com), Daniel Gimpelevich and Calvin Wong.

Changed:

<
< -- PeterKnaggs - May 29, 2005

>
> -- PeterKnaggs - Jun 13, 2005

<<O>> Difference Topic DebianSargeNetinst (r1.41 - 29 May 2005 - PeterKnaggs)

META TOPICPARENT	LinuxHints

Everything you ever wanted to know about Debian...

But were afraid to ask... Well, this may be more true for folks who heed the advice to RTFM (Read The Fine Manual). Since there is such an overwhelming volume of documentation on Debian (both old and new), it can be bewildering to know where to start. This guide tries to highlight those concepts which are actually key to getting things working, and which can be picked up later as you go along and get more familiar with the structure of the system. It's best of course if you can also have a chat with a friendly Debian user.

Line: 595 to 595

  /var/log/cups/error_log

Changed:

<
<

>
>

Changing your network configuration

The configuration file for the network interfaces on Debian is:

  /etc/network/interfaces

To use dhcp on an interface, the file should contain:

  # This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
  # and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).

  # The loopback network interface
  auto lo
  iface lo inet loopback

  # The primary network interface
  auto eth0
  iface eth0 inet dhcp

To use static addresses on two different interfaces, use for example:

  # This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
  # and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).

  # The loopback network interface
  auto lo
  iface lo inet loopback

  # The primary network interface
  auto eth0
  iface eth0 inet static
          address 198.156.123.11
          netmask 255.255.255.0
          network 198.156.123.0
          broadcast 198.156.123.255
          gateway 198.156.123.1
  auto eth1
  iface eth1 inet static
          address 192.168.1.1
          netmask 255.255.255.0
          network 192.168.1.0
          broadcast 192.168.1.255

Configuring the NFS automounter

If you work in an environment where you frequently make use of a lot of NFS servers, you may prefer to use the automounter from the autofs package. To configure it so that it

Line: 682 to 723

Rick Moen (rick@linuxmafia.com), Daniel Gimpelevich and Calvin Wong.

Changed:

<
< -- PeterKnaggs - May 16, 2005

>
> -- PeterKnaggs - May 29, 2005

<<O>> Difference Topic DebianSargeNetinst (r1.40 - 16 May 2005 - PeterKnaggs)

META TOPICPARENT	LinuxHints

Everything you ever wanted to know about Debian...

But were afraid to ask... Well, this may be more true for folks who heed the advice to RTFM (Read The Fine Manual). Since there is such an overwhelming volume of documentation on Debian (both old and new), it can be bewildering to know where to start. This guide tries to highlight those concepts which are actually key to getting things working, and which can be picked up later as you go along and get more familiar with the structure of the system. It's best of course if you can also have a chat with a friendly Debian user.

Line: 136 to 136

The Debian package management tools are organised in a hierarchy, according to their capabilities, level of abstraction, and the user interface they provide. At the top level are the tools dselect and aptitude. There's also debfoster, useful for finding and removing packages you no longer want around to help with security, or just to cleanup and save disk space.

Changed:

<
< The next level down is apt-get (which is the most commonly used tool from the command line),

>
> The next level down is apt-get (apt is the "Advanced Packaging Tool", which is the most commonly used tool from the command line),

and finally the lowest-level tool is dpkg (which although it is supposedly the least user-friendly, dpkg is sometimes the simplest tool to use to get the job done -- you may find yourself resorting to using dpkg when you don't happen to have very good network connectivity).

Line: 682 to 682

Rick Moen (rick@linuxmafia.com), Daniel Gimpelevich and Calvin Wong.

Changed:

<
< -- PeterKnaggs - May 13, 2005

>
> -- PeterKnaggs - May 16, 2005

<<O>> Difference Topic DebianSargeNetinst (r1.39 - 13 May 2005 - PeterKnaggs)

META TOPICPARENT	LinuxHints

Everything you ever wanted to know about Debian...

But were afraid to ask... Well, this may be more true for folks who heed the advice to RTFM (Read The Fine Manual). Since there is such an overwhelming volume of documentation on Debian (both old and new), it can be bewildering to know where to start. This guide tries to highlight those concepts which are actually key to getting things working, and which can be picked up later as you go along and get more familiar with the structure of the system. It's best of course if you can also have a chat with a friendly Debian user.

Line: 135 to 135

Layering of Debian package management tools

The Debian package management tools are organised in a hierarchy, according to their capabilities, level of abstraction, and the user interface they provide.

Changed:

<
< At the top level are the tools dselect and aptitude.

>
> At the top level are the tools dselect and aptitude. There's also debfoster, useful for finding and removing packages you no longer want around to help with security, or just to cleanup and save disk space.

The next level down is apt-get (which is the most commonly used tool from the command line), and finally the lowest-level tool is dpkg (which although it is supposedly the least user-friendly, dpkg is sometimes the simplest tool to use to get the job done -- you may

Line: 221 to 221

There's also a tool called "debconf" for package reconfiguration.

Changed:

<
<

>
>

Exploring `aptitude`

The aptitude package manager takes somewhat more time to learn. To install it along with its documentation, use:

apt-get install aptitude
apt-get install aptitude-doc-en
dpkg -L aptitude-doc-en|grep index.html

Then you can just open and read the manual from your local machine by pointing your browser to file:///usr/share/doc/aptitude/html/en/index.html

Choosing your Flavor

Some packages have a long history of alternative implementations, and you may feel most at home using a specific one of these all the time, rather

<<O>> Difference Topic DebianSargeNetinst (r1.38 - 13 May 2005 - PeterKnaggs)

META TOPICPARENT	LinuxHints

Everything you ever wanted to know about Debian...

But were afraid to ask... Well, this may be more true for folks who heed the advice to RTFM (Read The Fine Manual). Since there is such an overwhelming volume of documentation on Debian (both old and new), it can be bewildering to know where to start. This guide tries to highlight those concepts which are actually key to getting things working, and which can be picked up later as you go along and get more familiar with the structure of the system. It's best of course if you can also have a chat with a friendly Debian user.

Line: 185 to 185

dpkg -l

Changed:

<
<

To list the Debian packages whose names contain a specific string, don't get caught (like I was) using

>
>

To use grep to narrow the list of packages to those with names that contain a specific string, remember to add the environment setting for COLUMNS like in the following example, as otherwise the default narrow name field may truncate the name you're searching for:

Changed:

<
< dpkg -l|grep whatever

>
> COLUMNS=200 dpkg -l|grep whatever

Changed:

<
< but rather use the following invocation:

>
> You can also use wildcards in the search string provided to dpkg -l, as in the following example:

Changed:

<
< dpkg -l '*whatever*'

>
>

COLUMNS=200 dpkg -l '*whatever*'

  dpkg-query --show --showformat='${Package;-50}${Version}\n' 'libgnomevfs*'
<nop>

Deleted:

<
< The reason not to use grep as shown above, is that the dpkg command recognises when its output isn't a terminal, and truncates the package name column so that it fits in a narrower width, so this may mean that you won't find it if you use grep on the output of dpkg -l.

To list the contents of a specific Debian package already installed on your system:

Line: 673 to 675

Rick Moen (rick@linuxmafia.com), Daniel Gimpelevich and Calvin Wong.

Changed:

<
< -- PeterKnaggs - Apr 27, 2005

>
> -- PeterKnaggs - May 13, 2005

<<O>> Difference Topic DebianSargeNetinst (r1.37 - 27 Apr 2005 - PeterKnaggs)

META TOPICPARENT	LinuxHints

Everything you ever wanted to know about Debian...

But were afraid to ask... Well, this may be more true for folks who heed the advice to RTFM (Read The Fine Manual). Since there is such an overwhelming volume of documentation on Debian (both old and new), it can be bewildering to know where to start. This guide tries to highlight those concepts which are actually key to getting things working, and which can be picked up later as you go along and get more familiar with the structure of the system. It's best of course if you can also have a chat with a friendly Debian user.

Line: 154 to 154

apt-cache showpkg intel2gas

Added:

>
>

The Debian website also maintains the Search package directories tool, which for example is great for getting package details for other architectures.

Everything you ever wanted to know about Debian...

Cryptsetup: using device mapper's dm-crypt for encrypting your filesystem

Everything you ever wanted to know about Debian...

What's the story with acroread in Debian?

Everything you ever wanted to know about Debian...

Choosing your display manager

Everything you ever wanted to know about Debian...

What, still no printout from Debian?

Everything you ever wanted to know about Debian...

Layering of Debian package management tools

Everything you ever wanted to know about Debian...

Everything you ever wanted to know about Debian...

Video playback in Debian

Everything you ever wanted to know about Debian...

What, still no printout from Debian?

Everything you ever wanted to know about Debian...

What, still no printout from Debian?

Everything you ever wanted to know about Debian...

How Can I Track Down Printing Problems using CUPS?

Everything you ever wanted to know about Debian...

PenLUG Through a Firehose: RSS feeds in Firefox

Additional Debian Resources

Everything you ever wanted to know about Debian...

Installing "Testing" from Netinst

Alsa Sound Configuration in Debian

Everything you ever wanted to know about Debian...

Installing "Testing" from Netinst

Alsa Sound Configuration in Debian

Additional Debian Resources

Credits

Everything you ever wanted to know about Debian...

Reconfiguring packages

Everything you ever wanted to know about Debian...

Cloning another system

Reconfiguring packages

Everything you ever wanted to know about Debian...

Cryptsetup: using device mapper's dm-crypt for encrypting your filesystem

PenLUG Through a Firehose: RSS feeds in Firefox

Everything you ever wanted to know about Debian...

What's the story with acroread in Debian?

Everything you ever wanted to know about Debian...

Everything you ever wanted to know about Debian...

1. Starting out on the "Stable" track

2. Updating to "the latest"

Video playback in Debian

Everything you ever wanted to know about Debian...

3. Moving to the Testing track.

Installing Debian from the sarge-i386-netinst

Everything you ever wanted to know about Debian...

Changing your network configuration

Configuring the NFS automounter

Everything you ever wanted to know about Debian...

Everything you ever wanted to know about Debian...

Layering of Debian package management tools

Exploring aptitude

Choosing your Flavor

Everything you ever wanted to know about Debian...

Everything you ever wanted to know about Debian...

Finding the kern

What's the story with `acroread` in Debian?

What's the story with `acroread` in Debian?

Exploring `aptitude`