Category: Linux

This is what I used to mount the Mandrake Pendrive Linux loopback device to retrieve my partners files when she moved back to a proper PC with a working hard drive 

# Create the device as /dev/loop0 and point to the loopback file
losetup /dev/loop0 Desktop/mcnlive.loop
# Mount the device in the usual way
mount -t ext2 /dev/loop0 Desktop/vfs

Here is something that sounds neat… There’s nothing on earth like a genuine, bona fide, electified, six-log multitail, what’s i’d say? multi-tail.  What’s it called? multi-tail.  That’s right! Multitail! … multitail, multitail, multitail…

http://www.vanheusden.com/multitail/index.html

Basically it lets you tail multiple files in one console, all placed side by side

For linux, solaris and friends.

Fun = figuring out shared library deps on linux.  Not…

This useful article (Program Library-HOWTO) talks about how lib files are discovered and what you can do to force them to be found.

LD_LIBRARY_PATH which I’ve seen many times before, allows you to specify a library ahead of others so you can do

LD_LIBRARY_PATH=.:/my/better/lib.so:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

If you want to see which libraries a process is using then do

ldd /path/to/your/process

There is still a magic to how those libraries then link off and refer to others but this is considerably more than I knew 24 hours ago 🙂

Super helpful, in glorious html, easier than reading a man page.  What more could you want.

http://www.vectorsite.net/tsawk.html

This is so simple, yet so easily forgotten

$ echo ‘this is a test of the emergency
> backslash multiline
> prompt system.
> When will it end, I dont know for sure
> how about if i close the string’

this is a test of the emergency
backslash multiline
prompt system.
When will it end, I dont know for sure
how about if i close the string

So in your sh scripts, can end each line with a sole backslash, for your command to wrap to the next line (and make your scripts easier to read).

Apparently, env variable PS2 will define what the > prompt appears as.

References: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1062297

A neat article about enabling bash_completion in linux (look for a file called /etc/bash_completion and call it in your rc)

Also, something I always forget the exact syntax for, is the exclude or not completion. Eg

ls *.[^bz2]

will list files NOT ending in bz2

http://www.linux.com/feature/54005

It’s a little dated but The CTDP Linux User’s Guide is an excellent linux reference, covering everything from Bash to X to user management, to heaps of stuff.

I like the layout because it reminds me of the reference guides we had at Melbourne Uni.  Simple and to the point.

Another great reference, which is also useful for Windows and Oracle also is the ss64.com site.  It is just a collection of manuals and other reference documentation useful to have around when you simply need to get to manuals.