Installed Packages

I've been searching for an easy way to itemize all installed packages on a Debian / Ubuntu system, but just found it today. To list all installed packages,

dpkg --get-selections > installed-software

Now, you can use this list to re-install an existing system or duplicate its configuration on a new system:

dpkg --set-selections < installed-software

Finally, run deselect to make the selection changes take effect!

dselect

Thank you to Ubuntu Forums for the answer: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=261366

Finishing my previous thought

After expanding the virtual disk and the partition, simply run resize2fs on the device of interest and the filesystem (EXT2 or EXT3) will be expanded to occupy the full extent of the partition :)

Virtual Disks

Expanding a virtual disk in VMWare is very simple:

vmware-vdiskmanager -x 10GB myDisk.vmdk

Just remember that you still have to expand the partition and the filesystem living on that partition as well. Thanks to http://4sysops.com/archives/expanding-a-virtual-vmware-disk/ for the information!

a simple reminder

Two things today...first, a simple way to determine how much work you are causing your laptop harddrive:

 sudo smartctl -a /dev/sda | grep Load_Cycle_Count

Apparently anything above 600000 means your drive is about to kick the bucket :(

I've always wanted an easy way to pop up a reminder message at some point in the future from the command line on a Linux system. I wonder why it took me so long to find the answer?

 echo "DISPLAY=$DISPLAY zenity --info --text='go home'" | at "5pm"

another vim trick

Just found this amazing tip which allows VIM to automatically open a GPG encrypted text file, edit it, and save it back to disk in encrypted form without writing the unencrypted data to a buffer. Thank you Wouter Hanegraaff!

The Internet from Afar

I recently attempted to fire up an instance of Firefox on a remote system that I was connected to through SSH (with X forwarding enabled). I remember doing this back in the day with no problems. However, Firefox apparently has a "feature" now that checks the DISPLAY settings and starts the process locally if you attempt to run it over the remote connection. This behavior seems to be counter-intuitive and unwanted. Someone somewhere decided to start treating users as idiots. Now for the fix:

 firefox -no-remote

Of course this option is not mentioned in the help menu...

Where have I been?

This is pretty cool...



create your own visited states map