Linux Live

Update BIOS by building FreeDOS CD

admin — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 13:53:58 +0000

BIOS updates on Linux can be a problem. There are a very few BIOSes for which there are Linux utilities, and some for which the motherboard manufacturer provides ISOs, but for many, the only method provided is a DOS utility. For these, the excellent Sean Reifschneider posted a method:

http://www.tummy.com/journals/entries/jafo_20080920_234755

which has just one buglet. At the end of the third line of code:

-b isolinux/isolinux.bin

there needs to be an addition; it needs to look like this:

-b isolinux/isolinux.bin \

Hopefully I can obtain permission to repost a fuller set of instructions

Optimize compilations on 64-bit AMD and Intel CPUs

admin — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 19:32:06 +0000

The best I've found so far for generic use, is this:

-O3 -march=opteron -mtune=amdfam10 -m64 -mfpmath=sse -mcrc32 -ffast-math -fomit-frame-pointer

If you are using a latest-generation AMD64 CPU, made by AMD, the following is recommended:

-O3 -march=amdfam10 -m64 -mfpmath=sse -mcrc32 -ffast-math -fomit-frame-pointer

For many applications, especially graphics and math-oriented, the -ffast-math item will need to be removed. -O3 may have to be replaced with -O2 for some code, too.

Check WWW sites for broken links

admin — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 18:17:16 +0000

This:http://linkchecker.sourceforge.net/works very well. Its only issue is it doesn't understand mailto links, it thinks those are all bad.

New problems with nVidia chipsets

admin — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 04:28:22 +0000

In current distributions, there is a new nVidia driver, called "Nouveau". Many nVidia video chipsets, even motherboard chipsets less than a year old, won't work under Nouveau. For these, a procedure has been identified:http://linuxsoftwareblog.com/?p=232Curiously, I found that the video mode setting on the end of the kernel line is very important.

Rebuild ‘yum’ database in Fedora, to fix weird package install problems

admin — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 00:12:17 +0000

Lots of weird package install problems in Fedora, can be fixed by rebuilding the 'yum' database, thusly:

rm -f /var/lib/rpm/__db*
rpm --rebuilddb
yum clean all

These problems often come up at first install.

A good FTP server

admin — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 18:33:20 +0000

Recommended: ProFTPd. It admits of easy install and config, unlike some others.http://www.debian-administration.org/article/Setting_up_an_FTP_server_on_Debian

Use all of your cores on multicore CPU (command line)

admin — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 14:06:10 +0000

Here is an interesting project:http://code.google.com/p/ppss/producing a shell script, which makes it quite easy to use multiple cores at once for many command-line operations, e.g., file format conversions and the like.

Fedora Desktop Needs

admin — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 13:41:53 +0000

For an easiest route to many Fedora desktop needs, including MP3, DVD, etc., try here:The Unofficial Fedora® FAQ

Windows Domain Controller in Linux

admin — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 12:51:03 +0000

So far as this writer knows, the only install-it-and-go Windows domain controller in Linux, is Calculate Linux:http://www.calculate-linux.org/enwhich appears to be a very well-established distro, Gentoo-based. There are semiseparate client and server distros in this flavor.

Quick reset of root password with ‘grub’

admin — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 18:06:56 +0000

If your boot loader is 'grub' (highly recommended), a very good method to reset your root password is described here:http://www.debianadmin.com/how-to-change-root-password-in-debian.html