Make is a utility that automatically builds executable programs and libraries from source code by reading files called makefiles which specify how to derive the target program. Make is widely used, especially in Unix/Linux world. More introductions to Make and it’s history can be found on Wikipedia. In this post, I list articles for Makefile
Read more
Tag: Command
Floating Point in Bash Shell
Posted onIntegers are natively supported in Bash shell. However, what if we use floating point in Bash shell? The short and direct answer is using ‘bc‘ command – “An arbitrary precision calculator language.” Just run bc and enter some floating point calculation expression, such as “1.2+8.2”, bc will give the result. In a script, we certainly
Read more
Vim + cgdb
Posted onI begin to use vim for programming. I like the tools that focus on one function. I used to use emacs. But I think I like vim more. For debugging, I use gdb. But I use the front end cgdb. I can see the codes with the cursor when debugging. I can use F8 for
Read more
How to Generate Mixed Source and Assembly List from Source Code using GCC
Posted onWhen debugging and optimizing programs, developers sometimes need to generate and investigate into the assembly generated by the compiler. Generating a mixed source and assembly list will help a lot for debugging and optimization. gcc can achieve this by working with the assembler. Generate assembly list mixed with the source code Just add these gcc
Read more
How to Change the Site’s Default 404 Error Not Found Page
Posted onThe apache’s default “404 Error not found” page seems ugly. And may some hosting service put theire ads in it. We can add some entry in .htaccess to change the defualt 404 error page. This method can also be used for some other error codes. A list of the server returned codes can be found
Read more
Script: Shutting Down All Xen VMs on a Server
Posted onShutting down servers is a common operations for managing a cluster. However, if this server is configured to a Xen Dom0 and has Xen VMs (DomUs), the VMs should be shutdown first to avoid data lost on these VMs. xm supports a -a option to shutdown all VMs: # xm shutdown -a Add the -w
Read more
Script: Running Commands on a List of Servers
Posted onI frequently run some commands/scripts on a batch of servers whose IPs are already collected in a file. I usually use a simple loop and call the ssh to run these commands remotely and automatically. This operation, however, is common and can be abstracted into a separate script. Here is the script that I come
Read more
Script: Checking Alive Servers from a Server List
Posted onWith a list of servers, it is common that one or more are down or crash. Lots cluster management tools can detect the aliveness of servers. However, it can be easily done with ping with a Bash script. I summarize the script that I used and share it here: check-alive-server.sh. Usage: usage: ./check-alive-server.sh file Each
Read more
Emacs Tips and Howtos
Posted onWith Emacs, I feel happy. I love the rich functions of Emacs, such as compiling, quickly jumping to the lines with compilation error and debugging with gdb, and more. I ever wrote small tips posts about Emacs before. But it is a good idea to put them together and keep adding new ones. Here comes
Read more
Setting MATE as Default Desktop Environment for startx on Fedora
Posted onI ever discussed Starting KDE from Command Line by startx for KDE and GNOME. Recently, I installed MATE desktop on Fedora 17 and am very happy with it—dear, Gnome 2 is back. However, I checked the /etc/X11/xinit/Xclients script which is called by ‘startx’ and it only includes ‘startkde’ and ‘gnome-session’ without support to MATE. But
Read more
How to Install Xen on Fedora as Domain-0 (Fedora 17)
Posted onThe new development of Xen and Linux kernel make it easy to install Xen on Fedora as the Domain-0 now. This post uses Fedora 17 as an example platform to introduce how to set up Domain-0 on Fedora Linux. Compared to our old method (https://www.systutorials.com/setting-up-stable-xen-dom0-with-fedora-xen-3-4-3-with-xenified-linux-kernel-2-6-32-13-in-fedora-12/) which requires manually compiled Xen and patched kernel, the current
Read more
How to Set Default Entry in Grub2 and Grub
Posted onLinux booting is usually controlled by Grub or the new Grub2. Setting the default booting entry is a frequent operations. Here, we introduce how to set the default entry in Grub2 and Grub. Setting the default booting entry in grub2 Note1: With some version of grub2, the grub2-set-default method and the script below may not
Read more
How to Flush Linux File System Caches
Posted onWe may drop the file system caches on Linux to free up memory for applications. Kernels 2.6.16 and newer provide a mechanism via the /proc/ to make the kernel drop the page cache and/or inode and dentry caches on command. We can use this mechanism to free up the memory. However, this is a non-destructive
Read more
How to Format (Erase) DVD+RW / DVD-RW Disks in Linux
Posted onThis post introduces how to erase / blank / format a DVM+RW media on Linux in the command line. First, you need to find out the device of the DVD/CD+RW drive on your Linux box. For example, on my box with Linux 3.3.4 kernel, my DVD/CD+RW drive is /dev/sr0. You can also see what the
Read more
Vim as KMail’s External Editor
Posted onVim is my favourite text editor and I also prefer to use Vim to compose Email. I ever used Vim as Thunderbird’s External editor with the help of plugin. I started to use KMail as my email client on KDE and I find it is not hard to configure KMail to use Vim as email
Read more
How to Use MPlayer to Play DVD Directories / ISO Files / Disks
Posted onMPlayer is a universal (nearly) movie/music player on Linux and many more systems. It’s also my favourite player and MPlayer plays movie or music files in any format that I drop to it. Now, let’s take a look at how to use MPlayer play DVD. MPlayer plays “DVD” in many formats: DVD disks, ISO files,
Read more
How to Convert JPG Images to EPS
Posted onI write a lot latex documents and most of the documents have images in it. Latex deals EPS very well, while sometimes we need to add JPG / PNG images to it. I find converting the JPG images to EPS ones is the most convenient way to embed JPG images to latex documents. On Linux,
Read more
Extending a LVM Volume Group
Posted onWe introduced how to create a LVM group with two hard disk partitions, which the LVM group can be used for [[setting-up-lvm-backed-xen-domu|installing LVM backed Xen DomUs]]. The LVM volume can have large capacity from several hard disks. However, we may use all the disk space after some time and we may need to extend the
Read more
Additional Repositories for Fedora Linux
Posted onFedora’s repositories provide most of the software packages needed when using Linux. However, for various consideration, they do not provide some packages, such as MPlayer, ffmpeg. Fortunately, some community maintained repository provides these software. And they may also package propriety software, such as ATI fglrx dive, NVIDIA driver, into rpm packages. In this post, we
Read more
Converting Video Files for iPod/iPhone/iPad
Posted onWe usually have video files in .wmv .mpg .rmvb or .mkv formats. The iPod, iPhone or iPad only accept a limited number of video file types, such as .mov and .mp4. To play these video files in .wmv .mpg or .rmvb format, we should first convert them to .mov or .mp4 files that can played
Read more