Strav's blog

Various links to the QEMU emulator.

qemu howto
qemu on windows from TAKEDA Toshiya
qemu on windows from Kazu
qemu quick start guide 
windoes gui/launcher for qemu: qemgui
use qemu to boot from bootable USB

I've been using cpio to do file backups for a while now but only recently had to restore from them. Here's the command I use for duplicating a filesystem to another filesystem:

find . -print -xdev | cpio -pdm /media/sdb3

Here is is with gzip to a file

find . -print -xdev | cpio -ocv | gzip -c > filename.cpio.gz

Here is the extract

cpio -idmv --no-absolute-filenames < filename.cpio

Here is extract with gzip

gunzip -c < filename.cpio.gz | cpio -idmv --no-absolute-filenames

And here is how to ssh to a remote machine and copy a filesystem from the remote to the current directory on the local

ssh root@minimyth2 "find / -depth -print -xdev | cpio -oaV" | cpio -imVd --no-absolute-filenames

Here is a way to select the fastest Debian Mirror:

(subsitute your version for etch in the examples below)

# apt-get install netselect-apt
# netselect-apt etch
# netselect-apt -n etch
# netselect-apt -n -f etch

Link to full article (change the _com to .com) http://linuxhelp.blogspot_com/2007/05/using-netselect-apt-tip-to-select.html

One of my major hesitations about upgrading the myth frontends to kernel 2.6 was the LIRC modules. The modules are not included with the kernel source distributions and can be tough to compile. Well, since Zap2it discontinued their free guide data service and I had upgrade Myth to accomodate the new DataDirect service, I was forced to update libc6 and thus the kernel to 2.6. Getting the LIRC modules to compile has been every bit as fun as I had anticipated and we have spent several days using the wireless keyboard to control Myth since the remote control hasn't been working. With the help of the following 2 pages I was able to finally get the modules to compile and load.

This article describes the 'new' method of compiling the lirc modules. Basically use module-assistant to do it. It would have been fantastic if the documentation had mentioned this (fantastic meaning several days worth of frustration and effort could have been saved).

Version 8 of LIRC apparently needs to have the serial port configured properly as this page details. The command is "setserial /dev/ttyS1 uart none" and as illustrated, I have added this to the /etc/rc.local file so it is executed every time the system is started.

After one of my recent system updates, I started getting these cron errors daily.

/etc/cron.daily/rkhunter:
PHP Warning: mime_magic: type search/400 \\input text/x-tex invalid in Unknown on line 0
PHP Warning: mime_magic: type search/400 \\section text/x-tex invalid in Unknown on line 0
PHP Warning: mime_magic: type search/400 \\setlength text/x-tex invalid in Unknown on line 0
PHP Warning: mime_magic: type search/400 \\documentstyle text/x-tex invalid in Unknown on line 0
PHP Warning: mime_magic: type search/400 \\chapter text/x-tex invalid in Unknown on line 0
PHP Warning: mime_magic: type search/400 \\documentclass text/x-tex invalid in Unknown on line 0
PHP Warning: mime_magic: type regex [Cc]onstant[[:space:]]+[Ss]tory text/x-inform invalid in Unknown on line 0


After much searching, this is the workaround:

In the /usr/share/misc/magic.mime file, find the section that begins "# TeX documents, from Daniel Quinlan" and comment out the lines in that section.

# TeX documents, from Daniel Quinlan (quinlan@yggdrasil.com)
#0 search/400 \\input text/x-tex
#0 search/400 \\section text/x-tex
#0 search/400 \\setlength text/x-tex
#0 search/400 \\documentstyle text/x-tex
#0 search/400 \\chapter text/x-tex
#0 search/400 \\documentclass text/x-tex

# Type: Inform interactive fiction language
# URL: http://www.inform-fiction.org/
# From: Reuben Thomas <rrt@sc3d.org>
#0 regex [Cc]onstant[[:space:]]+[Ss]tory text/x-inform

NOTE: For Debian, it appears that this file is located at /usr/share/file/magic.mime