[[Mathias Chauvin]] - IT stuff

To create a patch on files in a directory:

diff -urp dir.old dir > filename.patch

where dir.old contains the original files and dir contains the modified ones.

When migrating to kernel 2.6.22, you’ll find out that vmplayer 2.0 won’t install anymore.
The problem is linked to the compilation of the vmnet modules.

Here is a tip to fix this compilation problem:

Untar the vmplayer package:

server:/home/devel# tar zxvf vmplayer.xxxx.tar.gz

Run the vmware-install.pl script:

server:/home/devel/vmware-player-distrib# ./vmware-install.pl

Go through the installation until it fails
Open another xterm/console/screen session
Change to /tmp/vmware-config0/vmnet-only/ directory:

cd /tmp/vmware-config0/vmnet-only/

Apply this patch (vmnet-only.patch) to update the files (in the following the patch file has been saved to /tmp/vmware-config0/):

# patch -p1 < ../vmnet-only.patch
patching file bridge.c
patching file filter.c
patching file smac_compat.c
patching file userif.c
patching file vnetInt.h

Rebuild the archive:

cd /tmp/vmware-config0/
tar cvf vmnet.tar vmnet-only
chmod 444 vmnet.tar

Move the rebuilt archive back to the vmware-player-distrib directory

mv vmnet.tar /home/devel/vmware-player-distrib/lib/modules/source

You can then launch the installation again

Here is a very ugly reminder to build your own Debian/GNU Linux kernel…

1. Create a repository for your .deb packages

server:~# cd /usr/src
server:/usr/src# mkdir debs

2. Get the kernel sources
Simply use your favorite package manager to get the latest Debian kernel sources

3. Configure the kernel
Extract the sources from the tar.bz2 archive:

server:/usr/src# tar jxvf linux-source-xxxxxx.tar.bz2

Configure the kernel to match your specifications:

server:/usr/src# cd linux-source-xxxxxx
server:/usr/src/linux-source-xxxxxx# make menuconfig

To have a nice “customized” kernel showing a personalized string of identification:

CONFIG_LOCALVERSION="-mc-thias.org"
CONFIG_LOCALVERSION_AUTO=y

4. To compile the kernel

server:/usr/src/linux-source-xxxxxx# make-kpkg clean
server:/usr/src/linux-source-xxxxxx# make-kpkg --initrd --revision whatever-0.1 buildpackage

5. To compile additional (Debian) modules

server:/usr/src/linux-source-xxxxxx# make-kpkg --initrd --revision whatever-0.1 --added-modules module_name[,module_name2] modules

6. Get your newly generated packaged to your Debian package manager
You will move the generated deb files to your favorite folder.

server:/usr/src/linux-source-xxxxxx# cd ..
server:/usr/src# mv *.deb debs/

Generate the required files for apt:

server:/usr/src# dpkg-scanpackages . /dev/null > Packages

Edit the /etc/apt/sources.list file, and add the following:

# Home made debian packages as kernels, ...
deb file:///usr/src/debs ./

Run apt-get update and you’ll be able to install your own kernel

Just a command line to clear the maintenance flags of services in Solaris 10:

root@sol10:~# svcs | awk '{if ( $1 ~ /maintenance/ ) print $3;}' | xargs svcadm clear

You were using Thunderbird and you’ve had to migrate to Outlook 2003… but there is a Thunderbird feature that you were using and that you can’t anymore: “Paste As Quotation“.

Here is a solution to create the Paste As Quotation ability in Outlook.
To do this, first set Microsoft Word as the email editor going in Tools / Options…. Go to the Mail Format tab.
You may choose to send your emails in Plain Text format to have more interoperability with other MUA ;-)
Check the boxes Use Microsoft Office Word 2003 to edit e-mail messages.

Once you’ve done that, create a new email message, go to Tools / Macro and choose Macros…

Create a new macro in the Normal.dot template and paste the following code:

Sub PasteAsQuotation_inWord()
'
' PasteAsQuotation_inWord Macro
' Macro recorded 7/3/2007 by Mathias Chauvin
'
Dim startOfPaste, endOfPaste
startOfPaste = Selection.Start
Selection.Paste
endOfPaste = Selection.Start
' Move Selection to where it was before pasting the text
Selection.Start = startOfPaste
Selection.End = startOfPaste
' Append an escape character to the beginning of the pasted text
Selection.TypeText Text:="> "
While Selection.Start < endOfPaste
' Move to the start of each pasted line and append "> "
Selection.MoveStart Unit:=wdLine, Count:=-1
Selection.MoveEnd Unit:=wdLine, Count:=-1
Selection.MoveDown
Selection.MoveEnd Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=-1
If Selection.Text = vbCr Then
Selection.MoveStart Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=1
Selection.TypeText Text:="> "
Else
Selection.MoveEnd Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=1
Selection.TypeText Text:=vbCr & "> "
End If
Wend
End Sub

Once you’ve done that, you can now copy any text and run this macro to paste it as a quotation