duckland.org | Page 13 of 13

CLI Magic: Linux troubleshooting tools 101

When something goes wrong with your Linux-based system, you can try to
diagnose it yourself with the many troubleshooting tools bundled with
the operating system. Knowing about these tools, and how to
effectively use them, can help you overcome many…

cli bug/issue/task tracking system?

Fresh from freshmeat:

http://www.ditrack.org/

What is DITrack? DITrack is a free, open source, lightweight, distributed issue (bug,
defect, ticket) tracking system using a [Subversion](http://subversion.tigris.org/) repository instead
of a backend database. It is written in Python and runs in UNIX
environment (*BSD, Linux, MacOS X). The project is inspired by the idea of [Subissue](http://subissue.tigris.org/) issue tracking system. However, while Subissue aims in merely replacing the traditional
database storage with Subversion repository, DITrack is a major
rethought of the issue tracking system paradigm. The main difference
is that instead of sticking to the centralized model (one database,
one web interface, one mail integration machinery), DITrack treats
underlying Subversion storage as a versioned distributed file system
which enables benefits of truly distributed operation mode.

Window Manager for tty?

The package screen is
something that has been around for a long time.

With screen, you can have many session running on tty, and you can switch to another session without touching a mouse. With the proper configuration, you can get notified if there is some change (like if you have a IM client up) or if there is no output (say, if you are watching a compile session).

You are in the zone working, and then you notice the time, and you have to log out and go home. Is this a problem? No, with a simple d, you can disconnect the screen session, log out, go home, log back into that machine, and resume your session just where you left off.

One of the other really features feature that screen has is cut and paste between sessions. The is very handy when adapting code (or articles) into a new file.

Screen References

Disconnected IMAP

So, in an effort to get to the office earlier, I decided to try to
figure out how to do disconnected IMAP. Well, the route I took was to
use a tool called <a
mailsync which is a cool
tool to allow you to sync IAMP mailboxes. So, my tack is to sync it
down to my laptop, and read the email on the bus. I sync email down
in the morning, and then in the evening, sync again. So far, so good.

More updates later…

Screen Saver? Yes!

So, a while back I found a screensaver which is meant for the command
line. It is called tss. The
latest version is 0.8.1, and it is looking pretty cool.

Under screen 4.0 or higher, there is a command called idle which is
set in seconds. By default, it uses screen’s built in lockscreen
function, but if you define the environment variable LOCKPGR, then you
can call something else. I have it call a the following script:

#!/bin/bash tss -r
exec vlock -a

This will lock my screen after a set time, and give me a nice thing to
look at.

RSS Reader: Raggle

Well, after getting some time over the US holiday to try to get raggle
built, I gave up. I am guessing that Fedora Core 5/6 are not very
ruby friendly yet, as I could not find everything I needed very
easily. I was able to get it almost all the way there, but I could
not get the ruby-Ncurses rpm to build, and I am very strict about
using the native package management system (ie RPM on a RPM based
system, portage on Gentoo, apt on a Debian deviant), so I will not be
trying this until I can get the RPMS.

In other news, I have found some more PIM type things to play with.
Does anyone know of a good CLI Palm Pilot sync package? Cold Sync seems to be dead, and I am
not sure if it will talk to modern Pilots.

Another RSS reader?

Well, it seems that someone is reading this after all.

So, tonight I have been given a pointer to raggle (http://www.raggle.org). I guess I need
to install ruby to try it out…

Thanks to Philip McClure for the pointer.

Updates after I try it out some…

Window Managers?

Why would a web site dedicated to the CLI have a section on Window
Managers? Well, simple.

Some times, you just have to have X running. Some web sites I have to
do research at use Flash, or photo editing/managing, or my iPod (none
of the CLI tools let me manage play lists very easily).

Plus, I cannot get the same resolution on the console as I can under
X.

So, what is a CLI user to do? Why, get a Window Manager (wm) that is
meant for us!

The features I look for include small footprint and full keyboard
integration. The current one I use is wmi-10, but it is no longer
under active development. The group working on it has moved to on to
wmii, but I do not like the changes,
so I am off looking for a new one to use.

From time to time, I will post how my search is going so you can see
what is out there.

What do I Use?

Software

So,
What major apps do I use daily? Well, this is the list of apps that
I currently use daily:

bash – my shell of choice
screen – a shell multiplexer and more
mutt – a mua on steroids
centericq – IM. How do you stay in touch?
snownews – an RSS feed reader
calcurse – a calendar/todo manger
bashblogger – the CMS for this site

There are a few more, but I need to find URLs for them.