Debian notes
From raju
Tips
cut csv file by field names
Use csvcut to cut a csv file by column names. The order of the columns in the output is as specified in the command.
% cat foo.csv num,letter,word,color 1,a,apple,red 2,m,mango,yellow 3,g,grapes,green 4,p,pomegranate,red % csvcut -c word,letter foo.csv word,letter apple,a mango,m grapes,g pomegranate,p
Use -C to exclude some columns
% csvcut -C letter foo.csv num,word,color 1,apple,red 2,mango,yellow 3,grapes,green 4,pomegranate,red % csvcut -C letter,color foo.csv num,word 1,apple 2,mango 3,grapes 4,pomegranate
csvcut is part of the python3-csvkit package.
tags | cut by column names, cut by fields
List files in a package
To list files in a package
% apt-file list zsh-dev
This works irrespective of whether the package is installed or not. If a package is already installed, you can use
% dpkg -L zsh-doc
but this will not work for non-installed packages
how can I help Debian
2014-09-19
To check for packages that are installed locally but are not part of the upcoming Jessie release
- apt-get install how-can-i-help
- how-can-i-help --old
- Look at packages listed under Packages removed from Debian 'testing' and Packages going to be removed from Debian 'testing'
Ref: http://www.lucas-nussbaum.net/blog/?p=837
Bugs suitable for newcomers - https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?tag=newcomer
% how-can-i-help --old --show newcomer
status of installed applications
Objective: Find whether an application that matches a keyword and is currently installed is uptodate or upgradeable.
Solution: Use "apt-show-versions -r keyword". For example,
% apt-show-versions -r mouse kmousetool:amd64/jessie 4:4.12.2-1 uptodate mousetweaks:amd64/jessie 3.12.0-1 uptodate xserver-xorg-input-mouse:amd64/jessie 1:1.9.0-1+b3 upgradeable to 1:1.9.1-1 xserver-xorg-input-vmmouse:amd64/jessie 1:13.0.0-1+b3 uptodate
recursively list package dependencies
Remove packages that match a regular expression
Taking a screenshot
show the size of terminal
stty size
returns the size of the current terminal in rows and columns. For example:
$ stty size 24 80
You can read the rows and columns into variables like this:
$ read myrows mycols < <(stty size)
Ref:- https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/197160/find-out-the-size-of-open-terminal
tags | terminal width and height
uncategorized
random notes
- To check why a package is not in testing - https://release.debian.org/migration/testing.pl?package=foo
- International Space Station has been using Debian since May 2013.
- To run X applications as root but using normal user account
su-to-root -X -c [appname]
For example
su-to-root -X -c synaptic
Usually, a screen with a brightness of 200 Lumen is sufficient to work comfortably. You can use a photometer to measure the brightness of the screen.
Change Nits to change the brightness of the monitor. For laptop's with Intel GPU's this can be done as follows.
// Change Nits. Number may change according to hardware $echo 36 > /sys/class/backlight/intel_back/brightness
Install packages from Debian or upstream?
It is better to install packages from Debian.
- Users need not manage and run arbitrary code from upstream.
- When a security or other update is needed package tracking system can take care of it.
Popularity
General information
In order to get the popularity of a single package, go to http://popcon.debian.org/ and enter the package name. For example entering fimport, I get https://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=fimport which shows the number of installations of r-cran-fimport package over time. Note that you need to know the source package name ahead of time in order to do this.
To compare popularity of two packages, go to https://qa.debian.org/popcon-graph.php . In the "Packages" field, enter the list of packages separated by ',' and hit go. So for example https://qa.debian.org/popcon-graph.php?packages=r-cran-fimport%2Cr-cran-fmultivar&show_installed=on&want_legend=on&want_ticks=on&from_date=&to_date=&hlght_date=&date_fmt=%25Y-%25m&beenhere=1 compares the installations of r-cran-fimport and r-cran-fmultivar packages.
Q. How can I find out if my machine is participating in popcon?
A. Check if there are logfiles
root@hogwarts:/var/log# ls -al popularity-contest* -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 151459 Nov 10 07:41 popularity-contest -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 151007 Nov 3 08:02 popularity-contest.0 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 32666 Oct 27 08:00 popularity-contest.1.gz -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 32629 Oct 20 11:19 popularity-contest.2.gz -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 32955 Oct 13 08:02 popularity-contest.3.gz -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 32926 Oct 13 00:20 popularity-contest.4.gz -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 32854 Oct 6 07:48 popularity-contest.5.gz -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 32799 Sep 29 08:06 popularity-contest.6.gz -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 45921 Nov 10 07:41 popularity-contest.gpg
Q. Which patching system is popular to make debian packages?
A. 3.0 Quilt Ref:- http://www.lucas-nussbaum.net/blog/?p=891
packages and bugs
packages from old stable release
To search for installed packages that are part of the old stable release
First include the oldstable release in /etc/apt/sources.list and run apt-get update.
aptitude search '?narrow(?installed,?archive(oldstable), !?archive(stable) )'
You can also just do
aptitude search '?narrow(?installed,?archive(oldstable))'
in which case the results will include packages that have the same version number in both stable and oldstable. If the package is part of the current stable release may be it is worth keeping around. That is why it is better to make sure that they are not part of the current stable release.
Ref: https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2014/11/msg00045.html
Browse packages and files
To browse the package list http://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/z/zsh/
To browse the file list https://packages.debian.org/jessie/all/zsh-common/filelist
To download and examine the files
% wget http://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/z/zsh/zsh_5.0.8-4.debian.tar.xz % tar xJvf zsh_5.0.8-4.debian.tar.xz % cd debian % vim newuser.zshrc.recommended
Available security updates
To get a list of available security updates
aptitude -> Security Updates
Todo:- Have to find out how to do this via command line
Q. Which GPU am I using?
A. use "lspci | grep VGA". For example, this is what I have
rajulocal@hogwarts:~$ lspci | grep VGA 02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation G98 [Quadro NVS 295] (rev a1)
some printing protocols: AirPrint, Google cloud print, IPP, PCL
apt-mark showmanual | grep texlive
calibre - ebook manager, create ebooks, edit ebooks
which terminal emulator am I using? $ update-alternatives --display x-terminal-emulator
Selectively download upgrades to all the installed packages
Download upgrades to all the installed packages whose name contains perl
$ dpkg -l \*perl\* | grep ^ii | awk '{print $2}' | tr '\n' ' ' | xargs sudo apt-get install -y --download-only
Building from source
Instructions to build iceweasel from source - http://glandium.org/blog/?p=2977
Dummy
External links
- Debconf videos - http://video.debian.net which gets redirected to http://meetings-archive.debian.net/pub/debian-meetings/
Packages I have to experiment with
- finance - beancounter, smtm
- fslint - clean up filesystem lint. Includes a GUI.
Packaging
Articles to be read later
Useful articles
Debconf
Debconf18 sponsors
- Platinum sponsor = Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
- Gold sponsors = Google, Infomaniak, Collabora, Microsoft
- Silver sponsors = credativ, Gandi, Skymizer, Civil Infrastructure Platform, Brandorr Group, 3CX, Free Software Initiative Japan, Texas Instruments, the Bern University of Applied Sciences, ARM, Ubuntu, Cumulus Networks, Roche, and Hudson-Trading.
- Broze sponsors = ISG.EE, Univention Private Internet Access, Logilab, Dropbox and IBM
- Supporter sponsors = SLAT (Software Liberty Association of Taiwan), The Linux foundation, deepin, Altus Metrum, Evolix, BerryNet and Purism
Source:- https://bits.debian.org/2018/08/dc18-thanks-its-sponsors.html
Documentation
debian handbook
For Debian 10 Buster