Monthly Archives: September 2008

Lenny, Xen domU and amd64

There is not yet a xen-amd64 domU kernel for Lenny. There might not be one on release day. Discussion here: http://groups.google.com/group/linux.debian.devel/browse_thread/thread/8940430a093bbda5/546883797d0cbdf9

Fortunately, someone builds a 2.6.26-xen-amd64 kernel.
Add this to your sources.list:
deb http://kernel-archive.buildserver.net/debian-kernel/waldi/xen-extra/ all main

Install these packages:
linux-image-2.6.26-1-xen-amd64
linux-modules-2.6.26-1-xen-amd64

Fix the “new Xen console” problem (xen now uses hvc0 for its console):
If you use pygrub, in grub.conf on the domU add these kernel parameters : console=hvc0 xencons=tty
title Debian 2.6.26
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.26-1-xen-amd64 ro root=/dev/sda1 console=hvc0 xencons=tty
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.26-1-xen-amd64

If you don’t use pygrub, specify extra = “console=hvc0 xencons=tty” in your virtual machine xen config file.

Use at your own risk ๐Ÿ˜‰

By the way, this fixed a nasty bug for me: php5-cli used to segfault a lot when using linux-image-2.6.18-6-xen-amd64 under Lenny. It’s stable now.

Edit: linux-image-2.6.26-1-xen-amd64 is now available in unstable ๐Ÿ™‚

WordPress search engine optimization

Well, now that I just had my first non-spam comment, I have to start improving my search engine referencing, right ? ๐Ÿ˜‰

I noticed that I had no description meta tag, and that google just used the beginning of the last post for a description. This is not right (and not sexy). The problem is the same for every single page (home, tags, categories, archives, single posts, etc.).
Wait, did I say ? Tags, categories and archives ? Search engines index all of these pages ? So every post must be indexed at least 3 times. Doesn’t looks good either, does it ?

I just installed a new plugin that promises to adress all of these problems : all-in-one-seo-pack. At once. Really cool. Optimizes titles, generates META tags automatically, avoids duplicate content, very configurable (but still easy to install: you don’t have to fine-tune everthing, just enter a title and a description. The default config is OK in most cases).

iStat menus: Cool menu stats for Mac OS X

http://www.islayer.com/apps/istatmenus/

Does most of what Hardware Monitor, Temperature Monitor, MenuMeters and MenuCalendarClock iCal do, but in just one app : mini calendar, memory, disk, network and cpu usage, fan speed and power consumption, tempratures and much more!
Easy to install and configure, excellent design, like always from islayer.

Screenie:

And yes, I configured it to look like MenuMeters…

RPM query output formatting (print your arch!)

By default, rpm doesn’t print a package’s arch when you query it with rpm -q. On a x86_64 system, you’ll see something like that:

[root@earth ~]# rpm -q libselinux
libselinux-1.33.4-5.el5
libselinux-1.33.4-5.el5

not very usefult, is it ?

To make rpm print the arch, well it’s easy, just use the –qf (–queryformat) option, with the ARCH tag:

rpm -qa --qf "%{NAME} %{ARCH}\n"

To know all the printable tags:

rpm --querytags

For example, this will give you something similar to rpm -q, but with the arch at the end of the line:

rpm -qa --qf "%{NAME}-%{VERSION}-%{RELEASE} %{ARCH}\n"
[root@earth ~]# rpm -q --qf "%{NAME}-%{VERSION}-%{RELEASE} %{ARCH}\n" libselinux 
libselinux-1.33.4-5.el5 x86_64
libselinux-1.33.4-5.el5 i386