My Linux Journal

Some handy SLAX tidbits

2011-04-16T13:36:00.010-04:00

I've made another SLAX digital picture frame and found a few useful options I want to document so the next time I don't have to fire up the google machine to hunt this info down.

If you want to disable the screen saver and the energy star feature which will keep the screen from being turned off after inactivity run the 2 commands below: I placed this in an executable file in rootcopy/root/.kde/Autostart
xset s off
xset -dpms

To run konqueror in full screen use this:

kstart --fullscreen konqueror http://www.website.com

To hide the various tool bars edit konquerorrc:

[KonqMainWindow Toolbar locationToolBar]
Hidden=true
IconText=IconOnly
Index=2

[KonqMainWindow Toolbar mainToolBar]
Hidden=true
Index=1

To refresh konqueror every 60 seconds create an executable file with(change 60 to your needed time):

#!/bin/bash

K=`dcopstart konqueror http://website.com`; dcop $K qt/.*mainwindow#1 showFullScreen
while [ true ]; do
sleep 60; # wait 1 minute
dcop $K "konqueror-mainwindow#1" reload
done

If you want the mouse cursor hidden use "unclutter". Put

#!/bin/bash
/bin/unclutter &

in an executable file in rootcopy/root/.kde/Autostart

Command to make bootable iso run in parent directory of slax and boot directories

mkisofs -r -V "Slax" -cache-inodes -J -l -b boot/isolinux/isolinux.bin -c boot/isolinux/boot.cat -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table -o output.iso .

Knoppix via PXE

2009-06-10T14:18:00.002-04:00

On the heels of my recent semi-success with getting DSL to work via PXE. I mean it works... I just cant get it to recognize the hard drives, so it's basically useless to me. Anyways.

I was able to get knoppix to boot through my PXE and it recognizes the hard drives, which is the most important thing when you want to do hard drive recovery :)

I had to piece together a few "how-to's" to get it to work for me but here is a rough outline and I'm not good at taking notes and I'm not really sure what worked.. I just know it works.

Things you'll need that aren't covered here:
Working PXE/TFTPBOOT service
Working NFS service

From this guys directions I followed STEP 1 and set up a terminal service while running a knoppix live CD on one workstation:
http://pxe.dev.aboveaverageurl.com/index.php/PXE_Booting/Knoppix

_____________________________________________________________________________________
Step One: Generating the needed files

Knoppix has the built-in ability to auto-configure itself to network boot itself, and this makes the process rather easy. In the "KNOPPIX" submenu, select the "Start Terminal Server" option.

IMPORTANT NOTE! By doing this, it will start up dhcp, and many other services! Running two DHCP servers on the same subnet is generally a very bad idea!

When prompted, select the menu item to configure the terminal server, and run through that.

1. If at all possible, start the terminal service on a different NIC. This will prevent a LOT of possible mayhem. If you only have a single NIC, then before you click the final "OK" button, be sure to unplug your ethernet cable.

2. For the IPs, just a low number of IPs (must be specified as "192.168.0.2 192.168.0.3") is fine. You cannot enter a single IP, and the range is inclusive of what you input.

3. Be sure to select all needed kernel modules on the slaves!

4. Be sure NOT to check the NX thin client button! The other software does not matter, however, if you check the secure box, by default your clients will not be able to access the root user. (Note: The "secure" option is easily changable later on.)

5. Specify any needed kernel paramaters for your slaves. If you don't need any, do as the box says and just click ok.

5b. If you only have one NIC in the computer running knoppix, and an existing DHCP server on the network, unplug the knoppix computer now.

6. Click the final ok, all done.

6b. If you unplugged your ethernet cable, be sure to stop the DHCP server on knoppix before plugging it back in.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Before I started I issued a "ifconfig eth0 down" to ensure I wasn't setting up a DHCP server on a network that already has a DHCP server.

Once I was done I copied vmlinuz and miniroot.gz to the /tftpboot/knoppix directory in my PXE server. I also copied the pxelinux.cfg/default file to get the labels to add to my current pxelinux.cfg/default file

For my working NFS service I added this line to my /etc/exports:

/path/to/share 192.168.1.0/255.255.255.0(ro,no_root_squash,async)

in /path/to/share I copied over the KNOPPIX directory from knoppix live CD

For my pxelinux.cfg/default I added these lines:

LABEL knoppix
KERNEL knoppix/vmlinuz
APPEND secure nfsdir=ipaddress.to.nfs/server:/path/to/share nodhcp nodma noudev 2 lang=us ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init apm=power-off nomce vga=791 initrd=knoppix/miniroot.gz quiet BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix

I had to add nodma and noudev because when I booted it locked up looking for hardware. Edit these "cheatcodes" as needed.

Booted up using Network boot and typed: knoppix

And it booted up to a "live" knoppix!

Using Damn Small Linux via PXE

2009-06-09T08:18:00.003-04:00

I've recently been trying to configure my PXE server to have a live CentOS option and have been unable to add this to my existing PXE server. But I have added a Damn Small Linux option that seems to work well, except I cant get it to recognize SCSI disks. Recent release notes suggest that SCSI support was removed in DSL 4.3, so I downloaded DSL 4.2 and still could not get the drives to get recognized. I see the SCSI modules when I do a modprobe -l so maybe its just a matter of time before I insert the right module to get it working. If any one has any ideas as how to get SCSI drives working in DSL please let me know. The primary reason I want a "live" linux on my PXE server is for file recovery across the network. So this is a huge roadblock for me.

Anyways. To get DSL on your existing PXE server:

Download DSL: Im using dsl-4.4.10-initrd.iso and dsl-4.2-initrd.iso(for scsi)

Extract the iso:

mount -t iso9660 -o loop dsl-4.4.10-initrd.iso /iso

copy these to files to /tftpboot/dsl #create dsl directory first

cp /iso/boot/isolinux/linux24 /iso/boot/isolinux/minirt24.gz /tftpboot/dsl

add this line into your /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default

LABEL dsl
KERNEL dsl/linux24
APPEND ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us vga=791 initrd=dsl/minirt24.gz quiet

you can add cheatcodes on the APPEND line as needed. Cheatcodes are located in the /iso/boot/isolinux directory as f2 f3

convert video to mp4 for iphone

2008-09-25T19:37:00.001-04:00

ffmpeg -i file.wmv -acodec aac -ab 128kb -vcodec mpeg4 -b 1200kb -mbd 2 -flags +4mv+trell -aic 2 -cmp 2 -subcmp 2 -s 320x180 file.mp4

vi copy text from one file to another

2008-06-09T11:00:00.000-04:00

VI COPY FILE TO FILE

Here is how to copy the required number
of lines from one file to another in
VI editor. First use the following
key combinations in the source file.

Press ESCAPE
Press Shift "(Shift double quotes)
Press a
Press the number of lines you want to copy
press y followed by another y

Now press " : " (COLON) to get the vi prompt.
Hit e "Destination file name"
Once you enter the Destination file
go to the line where you want the lines
copied to be inserted.

Press ESCAPE.
Press SHIFT "(Double quotes).
Press a.
Press p.

The lines get copied.

Upgrade from FC2 to CentOS 5.1

2008-04-30T17:14:00.005-04:00

yes.. It IS possible and here is how.

2 ways.

First way.

On the FC2 box change the fedora-release file to say:
CentOS release 5 (Final)

(save file, duh!)

Boot the FC2 box with the CDROM or DVD of Centos 5.1

At the boot menu choose:
linux upgradeany

follow directions.

reboot.

BAM!

It's just that easy.

2nd way:
Upgrade with a PXE server

On the FC2 box change the fedora-release file to
CentOS release 5 (Final)

(save file, duh!)

make a section in your "/tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default" file like this:

label fc2upgrade
kernel centos51_i386/vmlinuz
append ks=http://ip/location/to/ks.upgrade text initrd=centos51_i386/initrd.img ramdisk_size=8192

create your kickstart file on your http server:
ks.upgrade:
____________________________

upgrade
url --url http://ip/location/to/CentOS/core/i386
lang en_US.UTF-8
keyboard us
bootloader --location=mbr --append="selinux=0"

_______________________________

modify kickstart file as needed.
I chose to disable selinux on my original FC2 install so you should disable it in the upgrade

You might have to play around with it, but this worked for me. Post comments if you have questions.

Boot with network support and choose fc2upgrade to start the upgrade!

Jpg to ASCII converter

2008-04-04T17:36:00.001-04:00

Great online jpg to ascii converter

http://www.lunatic.no/img2aschtml.php

Text to ascii converter

http://www.network-science.de/ascii/

print from linux to vista home premium

2008-03-08T14:57:00.001-05:00

1. Navigate to the Windows Vista Control Panel
2. Go to the "Programs and Features" pane
3. Click on "Turn Windows Features on or off"
4. Turn on the LPD protocol and make sure that all desired printers are set to be shared
5. On the linux system, open http://localhost:631/
6. Click ADD PRINTERS
7. Name:
Location:
Description:
everything but name is optional
8. From the "Device:" field select "LPD/LPR Host or Printer"
9. In the "Device URI:" field, lpd://(name of your Windows Vista system)/(name of your printer), e.g. lpd://homepc/HomePrinter( I had to use the IP, hostname didn't work for me. Might fiddle around with that later
10 select printer manufacturer
11 select printer model
12. print test page

mount samba drive between linux/windows

2008-03-07T13:55:00.001-05:00

sudo mount -t smbfs -o username=windows_username,password=windows_password //vista_computer_name/share /location/to/folder

this command is all one line

extract audio from a mpg file

2008-03-05T10:13:00.000-05:00

mplayer -dumpaudio filename.mpg -dumpfile filename.mp3

Record from line in using sox

2008-01-14T11:20:00.000-05:00

Connect a device to your line in port on your PC.

I have connected an AM/FM stereo.

Command:
sox -t ossdsp -w -s -r 44100 -c 2 /dev/dsp -t raw - | lame -x -m s - ./file.mp3

Might need to run as sudo
Needs sox and lame installed

Getting wireless card to work in linux

2008-01-12T09:35:00.000-05:00

Finally got my Netgear WG111T working in linux.

It needs to have ndswrapper 1.7 or higher, Slax 5.0.8 has ndiswrapper 1.10 so you're good there.

To get it working I did:

ndsiwrapper -i athfmwdl.inf
ndiswrapper -i netwg11t.inf
ndiswrapper -m
modprobe ndiswrapper
ifconfig wlan0 up
dhcpcd -d wlan0

Record internet stream with VLC

2007-11-09T11:58:00.000-05:00

To use vlc to record an Internet audio stream and save the file as an mp3.
I created a script, made it executable and created a cron entry to record at specific times
Command is one line

vlc -I dummy http://path/to/stream --sout '#transcode{acodec=mp3,ab=128,channels=2}:duplicate{dst=display,dst=standard{access=file,mux=raw,dst="/home/user/vlcout.mp3"}}

vlc -I dummy :runs vlc without starting the vlc gui. This is needed if you are running vlc from cron

http:/path/to/stream: location to internet stream

encodes the stream to mp3 and creates the file vlcout.mp3 in the users home directory

--sout '#transcode{acodec=mp3,ab=128,channels=2}:duplicate{dst=display,dst=standard{access=file,mux=raw,
dst="/home/user/vlcout.mp3"}}

ab=128 is the bitrate, this can be changed for your needs

record video from URL

2007-11-07T16:06:00.000-05:00

#record video from URL

mplayer -nocache -playlist mms://location.asx -dumpstream -dumpfile filename.wmv

command is one line.

Digital Picture frame

2007-02-25T10:22:00.001-05:00

Slax DPF version 2-25-2007 with SSH enable

Slax 5.1.8 rc

I can not give out this ISO as I have added personal information and I do not have the time to go through it to remove it all. I will answer questions if you have any.

This time I burned the working ISO to a CD. files listed in the directory "rootcopy" need to be put in the rootcopy folder on your Slax ISO and burned to your CD. For more info on how to use rootcopy, search the forums. (http://www.slax.org/forum/)

Next was to create a script in the rootcopy/root/.kde/Autostart directory to autostart the slideshow after KDE starts.

startss.ph
_______________________________________
#!/bin/bash
#script to start slide show from USB device

/mnt/sda1_removable/ss/slideshow.ph
_______________________________________

Script to start the wireless connection after KDE starts

wificonfig.sh
_______________________________________
#installs Netgear WPC11 V4 card
# ndiswrapper to add wpc11 v4
ndiswrapper -i /wpc11v4/net8180.inf
ndiswrapper -m
modprobe ndiswrapper
dhcpcd -d -t 10 wlan0
sleep 5

ifconfig wlan0 up
ifconfig wlan0 192.168.1.9 netmask 255.255.255.0
route add default gateway 192.168.1.1
echo "nameserver 192.168.1.1" >> /etc/resolv.conf
iwconfig wlan0 essid "ssid"

* for "ssid" put your wireless ssid, remove quotes
___________________________________________________________

I added "autoexec=startx" to isolinux.cfg to autostart the laptop into kde

added rc.sshd to rootcopy/etc/rc.d make sure its executable
This will allow you to ssh into you DPF to make changes once its done

copied sshd_config to rootcopy/etc/ssh
changed the line to not permit root login remotely.
PermitRootLogin no

created a guest user to log in remotely, you can su - to root once youre logged in if you need root access
after I created a new guest account I copied the following files from /etc to rootcopy/etc
passwd passwd- shadow shadow-

If your USB drive doesnt auto mount put a line in rc.local to mount it when it boots

rootcopy/etc/rc.d/rc.local
_____________________________________________________________________________
#!/bin/sh
#
# /etc/rc.d/rc.local: Local system initialization script.
#
# Put any local setup commands in here:

#fileswap /mnt/hda1/swap 350
mkdir /mnt/sda1_removable

mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1_removable

_______________________________________________________________________________

rootcopy/etc/rc.d/rc.6

commented out 2 lines to keep the CD from ejecting and also to stop asking for user to press enter to reboot/shutdown
This way you can shutdown/reboot with out the CD ejecting and also without having to press any key.Also add the No Eject Cd

module to the modules folder

#echo -ne "Press Enter to $command "
#read junk

I had to adjust the following 2 files to get my screen resolution to 1024x768. Once I corrected it I put them in:

rootcopy/etc/x11

xorg.conf
xorg.conf-vesa

I wanted konqueror to load full screen with a weather radar loop. I also wanted to hide the menu bar and tool bars. Edit

rootcopy/opt/kde/share/apps/konqueror

konqueror.rc

Made directory /mnt/sda1_removable/ss/pics
this will hold my pictures on the USB drive.

/mnt/sda1_removable/ss/slideshow.ph
**************************************************************************************************

#!/bin/bash
# script to start slide show from USB device
# lines starting with # are ignored. To change the DPF from pictures to weather loops, uncomment out the loop you want

# Delays start of slideshow to give time for windows to start

sleep 35

# Starts the slideshow using Quick Image Viewer
# s states to start qiv in slideshow mode
# r states to play images in a random order
# f puts iamges in fullscreen
# i status bar off (will not show filenames)
# d delays each image in x seconds x being 10 in this case
# /mnt/sda1/* is the location the images should be in
qiv -sritfmd 30 /mnt/sda1_removable/ss/pics/*

# USA Radar Loop
#kstart --fullscreen konqueror ".intellicast.com/WeatherImg/SatelliteLoop/hiusa_None_anim.gif"

# Southeast Atlantic Radar Loop
#kstart --fullscreen konqueror ".intellicast.com/WeatherImg/SatelliteLoop/hiatlsat_None_anim.gif"

# NC Base Reflectivity Loop
#kstart --fullscreen konqueror ".intellicast.com/WeatherImg/BaseReflectivityLoop/rax_None_anim.gif"

# US Surface Analysis Radar
#kstart --fullscreen konqueror ".intellicast.com/WeatherImg/CustomGraphicLoop/sfcmap_None_anim.gif"

# US Radar Loop
#kstart --fullscreen konqueror ".intellicast.com/WeatherImg/RadarLoop/usa_None_anim.gif"

*****************************************************************************************************

You'll need to make changes for your network, etc. If you have any questions please feel free to ask PM me

File List:

rootcopy/etc

lilo.conf
passwd
passwd-
shadow
shadow-

rootcopy/etc/rc.d

rc.local
rc.sshd
rc.6

rootcopy/etc/ssh

sshd_config

rootcopy/etc/x11

xorg.conf
xorg.conf-vesa

rootcopy/home/guest123

rootcopy/opt/kde/share/apps/konqueror

konqueror.rc

rootcopy/root/.kde/Autostart

startss.ph
wificonfig.sh

rootcopy/root/.kde/share/config

kickerrc

rootcopy/ss

slideshow.ph
startss.ph
startwifi.ph

rootcopy/wpc11v4

autorun.inf
dns
ipinfo
key
lilo.conf.bak
net8180.inf
netwg11t.inf
rmount.exe
rtl8180.sys
startwifi
wificonfig.sh

tightvnc: Connecting from Windows to Linux.

2007-01-31T13:46:00.000-05:00

Make a putty session with the following entries
Putty-Tunnel:
source port:5901
destination: 192.168.1.1.5:5901
(replace 192.168.1.1 with the remote Linux PCs internal IP)

tightvnc:

Select fast compression
VNCServer: localhost:1

Connect to your Linux PC via the new Putty session, start VNC "/usr/bin/vncserver"

Start TightVNC with Fast Compression
for VNCServer use "localhost:1"

When you run vncserver for the first time it will prompt for 2 passwords, one is Read/Write on is Read only. When you run TightVNC from the Windows side once it connects it will ask for your password. You can also access your remote Linux PC using a web browser http://hostname:5801

open ports 5801 and 5901 on your router.

converts bitrates for mp3s

2006-11-14T14:23:00.000-05:00

#!/bin/bash -
# mp32mp3

FILES=`ls *.mp3`

for i in $FILES; do
OUT=`echo $i | sed -e 's/.mp3//'`
lame -h -b 32 $i $OUT.mp3a
done

converts the bitrate to 32kbs for all the mp3s in a directory.

Rename files

2006-11-14T14:19:00.000-05:00

#!/bin/bash -
# mp3a to mp3

FILES=`ls *.mp3a`

for i in $FILES; do
OUT=`echo $i | sed -e 's/.mp3a//'`
mv $i $OUT.mp3
done

renames files from mp3 to mp3a

Download WAX files using mplayer

2006-11-14T13:57:00.000-05:00

mplayer -playlist http://linkto.wax -ao pcm:file=/home/username/filename`date +%b%d_%H%M%P_%Y`.wav -vc dummy -vo null ;

Will save the file as filename(with date).wav

xinit

2006-08-23T17:32:00.000-04:00

I stumbled across this by accident and found it to be a very interesting command.

Say you wanted to run a command from the command line that runs in a GUI(KDE is what I've tested it on)

from the command prompt type(in this example I will be staring firefox web browser):
xinit /usr/bin/firefox

It will load firefox without having to load KDE. Also you'll have to mess around with the commands to get it fullscreen or anything else you want it to do.

If you wanted firefox to load a certain webpage then type:
xinit /usr/bin/firefox "www.website.com"

This command also works if you ssh from one computer to another. Example

I ssh from computer1 to computer2. I am now logged onto computer2. I can now run the same xinit command and it will load firefox on computer2. The catch is that the Xserver can't be running on computer2. If Xserver is running you'll have to kill it or figure out a way to get xinit to use a different display.. I'm going to check into the export DISPLAY command and see if that will work if Xserver is already running.

Get rid of MARK messages in / var/log/messages

2006-08-08T18:56:00.000-04:00

/var/log/messages filled up with -- MARK -- lines?

Edit /etc/rc.d/rc.syslog. Change the line:

/usr/sbin/syslogd

to

/usr/sbin/syslogd -m 0

Script to help clean out log files

2006-08-08T16:00:00.000-04:00

I wrote a short script that helps me clean out log files. I don't care that other scripts exists for this. This is for ME to learn the ins and outs of writing scripts from scratch.

#Script to ask for input, then delete that string from a file
#Command to get string to be deleted
echo "Enter string to be deleted :"
read delstring

#uses the requested input in a script to delete from a file, moves the file to another file then back to the original file so that it doesn't blank out the original file

sed /$delstring/d file1 > file2; mv file2 file1

I added an addition line to ask for the file to be modified. Changes are in red

##Script to ask for input, then delete that string from a file
#Command to get string to be deleted
echo "Enter string to be deleted :"
read delstring

echo "Enter filename to be modified :"
read modfile

#uses the requested input in a script to delete from a file, moves the file to another file then #back to the original file so
#that it doesn't blank out the original file
sed /$delstring/d $modfile > file2; mv file2 $modfile

wavtomp3 converter

2006-07-24T22:54:00.004-04:00

wavtomp3

Converts a wav file to mp3 at a bitrate of 96.

#!/bin/bash -
# wav2mp3

FILES=`ls *.wav`

for i in $FILES; do
OUT=`echo $i | sed -e 's/.wav//'`
lame -h -b 96 $i $OUT.mp3
done

Record audio from a webcast

2006-07-24T16:21:00.000-04:00

cron entry:

# records something at 12:03, Monday through Friday
03 12 * * 1-5 streamrecorder
# kills recording at 1:01pm
01 13 * * 1-5 killall -9 mplayer

# records a show at 4:04,Monday through Friday
04 16 * * 1-5 streamrecorder2
# kills recording at 7:01 pm
01 19 * * 1-5 killall -9 mplayer

I am using mplayer to record an audio webcast so that I can listen to it later.

/usr/bin/streamrecorder

#!/bin/sh

mplayer -playlist /location/to/file.asx -ao pcm:file=/path/to/save/recording/Show_name_`date +%b%d_%H%M%P_%Y`.wav -vc dummy -vo null ;

Alarm Clock

2006-07-24T16:06:00.000-04:00

/usr/bin/alarm

#!/bin/sh

# Uncomment if you want to use amaroK
#/usr/bin/dcop /usr/bin/amarok player play

#Uncomment if you do not want to use Mplayer
#/usr/bin/X11/xterm -display :0 -bg black -fg white #-e /usr/bin/mplayer -shuffle -playlist ~/.playlist

#/usr/bin/X11/xterm -display :0 -bg black -fg white #-e mplayer -playlist /location/to/file.asx

# Eterm solution#/usr/bin/Eterm -0 -e /usr/local/bin/mplayer # -shuffle -playlist ~/.playlist

# use xine to play
/usr/bin/X11/xterm -display :0 -bg black -fg white -e xine -f /file/to/video.wmv

# plays mp3s from playlist, no video
#mplayer -shuffle -playlist ~/.playlist

Create an entry in your crontab:
Min Hour Date Month Day of week Location to script
45 06 * * 1-5 /usr/local/bin/alarm

Introduction

2006-07-24T15:58:00.000-04:00

Ok, I hate blogs and bloggers. But this one is different. You'll get no political opinions, no news slants and I'm not here to "break a news story". You people that do all the above can bite me. This blog is for me to track what I've done on my linux box. Mainly because I can't remember shit and I have bits and pieces of text files with commands and fixes spread out over several computers. I'm hoping that I can use this to keep track of what I've done so that when I break something and it's only a matter of time before I do, I'll be able to come here and hopefully find a fix.