Fun with custom Ubuntu ISO's

Apparently, when you are making an ISO the genisoimage command does not like it when you issue try to use a list of files and subdirectories as your argument, however, works fine when you present a single argument that is a directory name.

So let us say you are in the directory where you have configured your custom distro and you now want to pack it as a bootable ISO. It appears the safest syntax to use is something like this:

sudo genisoimage -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table  -b isolinux/isolinux.bin -c isolinux/boot.cat -V "my image" -o ../my_image.iso .

As a result, you get the image packed into my_image.iso one level above.

Additionally, here is a nice link to a manual on how to modify your distro step by step:

LiveCDCustomization

Playing with it right now. More to follow.

Epoch & Unix Timestamp Conversion Tools

Yes, this is just a shameless prop for a utility I happened to like.

Long story short - I was running a ping with a "-D" (timestamp) option and I wanted to see how to turn something like this:

[1480443528.089965] 1208 bytes from 1.2.3.4: icmp_seq=21548 ttl=244 time=781 ms
[1480443529.079493] 1208 bytes from 1.2.3.4: icmp_seq=21549 ttl=244 time=771 ms
[1480443530.119068] 1208 bytes from 1.2.3.4: icmp_seq=21550 ttl=244 time=811 ms

into something where I would know when the ping happened without counting off seconds since the start of 1970.

So I started searching and found this utility site:

http://www.epochconverter.com/

I think it is quite useful and so - have at it!

Solaris the tree killer

Now how's this for a fun experience - I have got this Solaris 8 machine which for some reason finds it necessary to send a title page with every print job. It does not run its own spooler and prints via a print server instead so I am clueless as to where to look for relevant setting to turn this on. So, in the spirit of waste and insanity so characteristic of our times, the machine seems poised to turn a whole forest to waste in no time as it sends quite a few print jobs.

The only configuration it seems to have is contained in the /etc/printers.conf file which looks roughly like the following:

#
# If you hand edit this file, comments and structure may change.
# The preferred method of modifying this file is through the use of
# lpset(1M)
#
caslon:\
:bsdaddr=kiev,caslon:

garamond:\
:bsdaddr=kiev,garamond,Solaris:

bodoni:\
:bsdaddr=kiev,bodoni:\
:job-sheets-default=none

_default:\
:use=gutenberg:

gutenberg:\
:bsdaddr=nrims-fs,gutenberg:

Now exactly where to tell it to knock off that title page nonsense is anybody's guess... But if you know feel free to tell me in the comments and I will be eternally grateful!

Is Firefox too feature-rich for its own good?

I have recently been confronted with a need to integrate multimedia plugins of various kinds on our Linux boxes so that our group could have a uniform and consistent approach when it comes to multimedia. Easier said than done, I guess as if that were easy all Linux distributions would have had it in place. And some, specifically Open SuSE, leave much to be desired in that department. Others, such as Mandriva, are not bad at all, on the other hand, but it is Open SuSE we are using so it is up to me to do the multimedia integration.

Now finding various multimedia players and plugins doesn't seem like such a big deal - but getting them to work is a different story altogether. And what is puzzling me is how a browser - any browser, but I am specifically interested in Firefox as that is the one we use mostly - decides where to look for its plugins and which one to load. For example if there are two plugins available that could play a Windows Media file (let's say a MPlayer plugin and a VLC plugin) which one is the browser going to pick?

At any rate, my impression is that while Firefox is very powerful the controls and transparency necessary to configure it with ease are not there. At least not yet.

And if you know how to configure the plugins in Firefox - please email or leave a comment, help would be much appreciated.