Why store ISOs if you can Mount zip?

Have you ever stored CD images (usually .iso files) on a DVD or hard-drive, just to get rid of the old & slow media? Then you could, of course, mount the image to a virtual drive and you’re done!

Have you ever thought “damn, this ISO could be smaller…” or “this whole bunch of files were better in a single file. Do I have to create an ISO?”

Well, the actual question you’d like to ask is “Can I mount a standard format compressed archive file?” What about zip? Yes, mount zip would be great!
And you know what? It’s as straight-forward as downloading a small piece of software for that.

There’s winMount (commercial), but for free we can get Prismo File Mount: http://www.pismotechnic.com/download/
It supports ISO, ZIP, CISO, CFS, ISZ, DAA… etc. Probably enough for your daily tasks… :)

Linux monitor file updates

This is a very handy command, mostly if you are doing some system changes and you need to monitor a log file.

Like me, many people know it's possible but have forgotten how. Simply use tail!

tail –f <file>

For those who didn't know, it checks for new lines in the file and prints them to standard output.
Nice, isn't it?

Deluge 1.2 on Ubuntu Hardy

Torrent clients are must-have applications nowadays. There are dozens of clients around, but the average user will look for a simple yet fast and intuitive one.

As a Window user I’m a fan of uTorrent, which is well known by its quality and simplicity. Unfortunately, when it comes to Linux, there’s no uTorrent. After following some discussions between torrent clients for Ubuntu¹, I finally decided going to Deluge. It’s said to be fast, simple, good-looking and comes with a web interface.

Those who read previous articles may have noticed I’m building a minimal server system using Ubuntu Hardy (8.04) and Deluge characteristics were about the requirements I had in mind, principally the web-interface for controlling it remotely.

So I went straight to the shell and apt-get install deluge… What?? it doesn’t exist?
A little search through packages.ubuntu.com revealed it’s been only available from Ubuntu Jaunty afterwards.
Further looking into Deluge doc, I could find they provide it via a third party repository, at launchpad:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/deluge-team/ubuntu <distribution> main universe

working for distribution feisty, gutsy, hardy, intrepid or jaunty. Good! :)

The steps are:

1. Add the line to /etc/apt/sources.list, replacing <distribution> with hardy or one of the other dists.
2. apt-get update. An error will raise saying some “signatures couldn't be verified”. Please copy the key at the end of this line to be used in the next step²
3. Add the key to apt with the command:
   apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys <key_here>
4. apt-get update. Now everything should go fine.
5. Now the nice command. apt-get install deluge

You may prefer to install just the daemon and then the web interface. Go for the deluge-core and deluge-web packages.

It’s also a good idea to create a rc startup script so deluge starts automatically at system startup. Luckily someone already thought about that. Give a look at:http://dev.deluge-torrent.info/wiki/UserGuide/InitScript

And that’s it!

1- http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=213713

2- https://help.launchpad.net/Packaging/PPA/InstallingSoftware

Dyndns in Ubuntu/Debian

In Debian/Ubuntu you can install an IP updater via apt:

sudo apt-get install ipcheck

For dyndns use the following syntax:

ipcheck -r checkip.dyndns.org:8245 \
$USERNAME $PASSWORD $HOSTNAME

Of course, you may find it more useful to create a script which runs automatically via cron.

For details refer to the original article:

http://blog.patrick-morgan.net/2007/05/dyndns.html

Loads of Linux Info

Pretty amazing the amount of information on a single page.

http://www.yolinux.com/

It's true, you'd better "Search this page with ctrl-f"

VMWare 2.0 on Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (minimal)

This small How-to contains the steps to install a virtualization host with VMWare 2.0 on a minimal ubuntu installation.

Ubuntu version was Server Jeos. Yep, it’s intended for virtual machines, but it works perfectly on old standard hardware (like my PIII).

Run the following command to install some necessary packages:

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r` build-essential xinetd

Then go to the location where you saved the VMware Server .tar.gz, unpack the file and run the installer:

tar xvfz VMware-server-*.tar.gz
cd vmware-server-distrib
sudo ./vmware-install.pl

The installer will ask you a lot of questions. You can always accept the default values simply by hitting .

When the installer asks you

In which directory do you want to keep your virtual machine files?
[/var/lib/vmware/Virtual Machines]

you can either accept the default value or specify a location that has enough free space to store your virtual machines.

At the end of the installation, you will be asked to enter a serial number:

Please enter your 20-character serial number.

Type XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX or 'Enter' to cancel:

Fill in your serial number for VMware Server.

After the successful installation, you can delete the VMware Server download file and the installation directory:

cd /home/falko/Desktop
rm -f VMware-server*
rm -fr vmware-server-distrib/

If you have accepted all default values during the installation, root is now the VMware Server login name.

You can access the management interface over HTTPS (https://:8333) or HTTP (http://:8222); the management interface can be accessed locally and also remotely.

The result was a charming VMServer running occupying 90MB of RAM. Impressive!

 

For the full step-by-step version (Ubuntu Desktop) check:
http://www.howtoforge.com/how-to-install-vmware-server-2-on-an-ubuntu-8.04-desktop

Minimal Ubuntu installation

Looking for a very small Ubuntu?

Good and bad news!

Ubuntu most basic version (shell only) is around 400MB.

The good news

• It's a fully rocking ubuntu
• You install it using a running system with debootstrap
• There's a good tutorial on http://www.howtoforge.com/minimal-ubuntu-8.04-server-install

If you find it too complicated, two simple alternatives for a "normal" shell-only system.

1. Download the Ubuntu Minimal and follow the steps. Get iso from https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/MinimalCD
2. Get the Alternate CD and choose "Install a command-line system.". Here's a good tutorial: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/LowMemorySystems

Both alternatives will consume between 500MB and 800MB, so it's up to you whether you can dispend the space but have a simpler installation.

UPDATE: If you’re installing Ubuntu on a plain old machine, you might want to try Ubuntu JeOS. It’s ubuntu server version intended to run on a virtual machine. As so, it comes only with the absolutely essential drivers and applications.

After installation (very simple, GUI guided) it occupied some 300MB.

Change keyboard layout in shell

Your Ubuntu shell keyboard layout is misconfigured, it shows a strage "thin" font?
Don't panic!
These and some more issues can be corrected by simply typing it and follow the wizard:

dpkg-reconfigure console-setup

UNetbootin - Install OS to bootable USB flash drive

http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/
"UNetbootin allows you to create bootable Live USB drives for a variety of Linux distributions"

How to boot iso's on a bootable CD

http://www.magiciso.com/tutorials/miso-createmultibootcd.htm

Also give a look to a few utilities from LUBI
http://lubi.sourceforge.net/

And if you plan to install linux in windows and run it Natively (no Virtual machine) check Wubi
http://wubi-installer.org/

Mount Linux Loopback disk in Windows

Scenario:

• You have a dual boot (Windows+Linux) machine
• You want windows to read your linux partition (EXT2/EXT3)
• But your linux is installed on a Loopback device file. ( Wubi installation, Ubuntu on windows.... )

Two great utilities

FS-Driver

http://www.fs-driver.org/ - Windows EXT2 driver. Enough for reading true linux partition. Works for Ext3 volumes which have been cleanly dismounted beforehand.

FileDisk

http://www.jeffothy.com/weblog/filedisk-iso-mounter/ - Mounts any disk image as a windows volume. You can also mount any ISO from the "right-click" menu as a virtual cdrom.

Command for mounting a linux loopback disk as a windows volume:

filedisk /mount 0 e:\ubuntu\disks\root.disk h:

(mount disk image as windows volume H:)