apt-cache --installed pkgnames

Save them in a file:

apt-cache --installed pkgnames > installed.packages.lst

To install all packages in a file:

sudo apt-get install `cat installed.packages.lst`

A little tip that can really improve your battery life and give you peace of mind while working: Install thinkfan: A simple fan control program.

Installation

Here is how it goes on Ubuntu: Step zero is to become superuser (sudo bash). Then you install the thinkfan package.

~# apt-get install thinkfan

Once the package is installed, you can try running it as a normal process to see how it works:

~# thinkfan -n

It will most likely give you an error because fan_control=1 has not been set for the thinkpad_acpi module. You can enable fan control like this:

~# echo "options thinkfan_acpi fan_control=1" > /etc/modprobe.d/thinkfan.conf
~# rmmod thinkpad_acpi
~# modprobe thinkpad_acpi

In order to run thinkfan as an upstart script (actually rc.d), you should set START=yes in /etc/defaults/thinkfan.

~# nano -w /etc/defaults/thinkfan

Customizing

What thinkfan does is to turn the speed of your fan up and down according to the currently highest measured temperature of all your sensors. If you wish to see the temperature of your sensors, simply run:

~# sensors

Now it’s time to look in /etc/thinkfan.conf. Besides instructions, you’ll see this matrix at the bottom:

(0,     0,      55)
(1,     48,     60)
(2,     50,     61)
(3,     52,     63)
(4,     56,     65)
(5,     59,     66)
(7,     63,     32767)

The default settings are very safe, but if when running thinkfan, you get too much or too little fan activity, you can adjust the numbers. The first vector (0, 0, 55) says that whenever a sensor reaches 55C, the fan should step up one level. The second vector (1,48,60) says that if we are at level 1 and a sensor reaches down to 48C or below, we can step back to level 0, however if we reach 60C we should go to level 2 etc.

Please keep in mind that your hard drive temperatures are very important, and that you can add a line that automatically adds a safety value to those more sensible temperatures. For instance, to ensure that thinkfan is responsive to sensor value 5, we can add this adjustment vector:

sensor /proc/acpi/ibm/thermal (0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 15, 0, 0, 0, 0)

To identify which sensor number your hard drive has, go to ThinkWiki or run Disk Utility (System->Administration->Disk Utility), click your hard drive and click SMART Data to see the temperature of your hard drive.

Troubleshooting

If you have problems:

• Check that /proc/acpi/ibm/thermal exists, otherwise you might have to look for something else
• If you run T420 (or some other model that uses the coretemp module), check out mejo’s forum post.

django-cms 1.x are most likely stuck on older versions of Django as well. I did once try to get them running on new Django versions but gave up.

Basically this guide just fixes a little bug in admin/pageadmin.py and a few issues regarding a missing csrf_token in the templates. It also means that django-cms 2.0.2 becomes SSL compatible. This is not backwards-compatible, however, so if you apply this stuff, your django-cms will no longer work with Django 1.1.

After upgrading to django 1.3.1 (also tested on 1.2.X btw), you need to make the following corrections manually in your django-cms installation.

1) Edit cms/admin/pageadmin.py, line 59 to say:

    exclude = []

2) Edit cms/templates/admin/cms/page/plugin_change_form.html, line 77, by adding the csrf_token tag:

<form id="{{ opts.module_name }}_form" action="{{ form_url }}" method="post" enctype="multipart/form-data">{% block form_top %}{% endblock %}
{% csrf_token %}

2.1) Do the same in cms/templates/admin/cms/page/change_form.html, line 99:

<form id="page_form" action="?language={{ language }}{%if request.GET.target %}&amp;target={{ request.GET.target }}{% endif %}&amp;{%if request.GET.target %}position={{ request.GET.position }}{% endif %}" method="post" enctype="multipart/form-data">{% block form_top %}{% endblock %}
{% csrf_token %}

2.2) Do the same in cms/templates/admin/cms/page/dialog/base.html, line 5:

                {% block form %}{% if form %}<form id="{{ dialog_id }}-form">{% csrf_token %}{{ form.as_p }}{% endif %}{% endblock %}

3) Ensure that you have CsrfViewMiddleware and CsrfResponseMiddleware installed. Your settings.py should contain something like this:

MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES = (
    'django.middleware.common.CommonMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.sessions.middleware.SessionMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.csrf.CsrfViewMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.csrf.CsrfResponseMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.auth.middleware.AuthenticationMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.messages.middleware.MessageMiddleware',
    'cms.middleware.page.CurrentPageMiddleware',
    'cms.middleware.user.CurrentUserMiddleware',
)

5) Finally, you need to bring in a file from later django-cms, csrf.js (github revision that I used). Place it in media/cms/js/.

6) Add csrf.js to cms/admin/widgets.py in PluginEditor.media, around line 17:

    class Media:
        js = [join(settings.CMS_MEDIA_URL, path) for path in (
            'js/lib/jquery.js',
            'js/lib/ui.core.js',
            'js/lib/ui.sortable.js',
            'js/csrf.js',
            'js/plugin_editor.js',
        )]

7) Add this around line 97 in cms/media/cms/js/change_list.js:

	$(document).ready(function() {
		$.fn.cmsPatchCSRF();
	    selected_page = false;
	    action = false;

8) Do the same in cms/media/cms/js/plugin_editor.js at the first line:

$(document).ready(function() {
  	$.fn.cmsPatchCSRF();

9) In /cms/templates/admin/cms/page/change_list.html you should also include csrf.js, around line 33:

<script type="text/javascript" src="{{ CMS_MEDIA_URL }}js/csrf.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="{{ CMS_MEDIA_URL }}js/change_list.js"></script>

It’s free, open source, and I hope people will make it better on github.

Please take not that it will evaluate EVERY SINGLE REQUEST through a Deny policy in Apache’s mod_access – it does not halt your performance much if you’re just running a site with few requests. But I only suggest this solution as a temporary one until you have a better integration. I am currently working on a Django middleware that will only check the client’s IP address in case it is a POST request directed at a certain URL.

Since I’ve been told that Apache doesn’t use /etc/hosts.deny, you should probably use this method instead, unless you have a webserver that actually uses hosts.deny. Another method would be to add the IP addresses to iptables, if you’re running that — this is probably more efficient than using Apache configuration policies.

This method creates a file that you can include in httpd.conf (to cover ALL your virtual hosts). The overall goal is to avoid .htaccess files since they are evaluated at runtime. Thus, you won’t have to configure each site, and you save a but of CPU time.

1. Copy the script below to a file on your server, eg. /usr/sbin/stopforumspam.py. You might want to read it quickly as it will pretty much explain itself…
2. Make the file executable, eg. chmod +x /usr/sbin/stopforumspam.py
3. Add it to your crontab for automatic execution each night, eg. crontab -e and then insert the line 0 0 * * * /usr/sbin/stopforumspam.py && /etc/init.d/apache2 reload
4. By default, we will ban an entire class C subnet if more than 5 IP addresses are in this space. You can configure this behavior by giving stopforumspam.py a single argument, ie. /usr/sbin/stopforumspam.py 10 would mean that at least 10 IPs have to be within the class C subnet to qualify it for a ban.
5. By default stopforumspam.py creates /etc/apache2/stopforumspam.conf – you can change this by editing the script.
6. Add Include /etc/apache2/stopforumspam.conf to /etc/apache2/httpd.conf (Debian/Ubuntu).
7. Caution! Make sure that you DO NOT change the Order Deny,Allow option in VirtualHost directives or .htaccess files as this unblock the deny policies.

#!/usr/bin/python
 
import re
import urllib
import zipfile
import sys
 
if len(sys.argv) > 1:
    SUBNET_THRESHOLD = int(sys.argv[1])
else:
    SUBNET_THRESHOLD = 5
 
DOWNLOAD_ZIP = "http://www.stopforumspam.com/downloads/listed_ip_7.zip"
ZIP_FILENAME = "listed_ip_7.txt"
 
HTTPD_CONFIG_INCLUDE = "/etc/apache2/stopforumspam.conf"
 
# For security purposes we test that each line is actually an IP address
IP_MATCH = re.compile(r"^(\d+)\.(\d+)\.(\d+)\.(\d+)$")
 
filename, headers = urllib.urlretrieve(DOWNLOAD_ZIP)
 
z = zipfile.ZipFile(filename)
ips = z.read(ZIP_FILENAME)
 
ips = ips.split("\n")
 
# Remove non-ip members
ips = filter(lambda ip: IP_MATCH.match(ip), ips)
 
def get_ip_segments(ip):
    segments_match = IP_MATCH.search(ip)
    return [int(segments_match.group(i)) for i in range(1,5)]
 
def convert_ip_to_number(ip):
    numeric_value = 0
    ip_segs = get_ip_segments(ip)
    for i in range(4):
      numeric_value += ip_segs[i]*(255**(4-i))
    return numeric_value
 
# Sort everything first
ips.sort(key=convert_ip_to_number)
 
subnets = {}
 
for ip in ips:
    ip_segs = get_ip_segments(ip)
    key = (ip_segs[0], ip_segs[1], ip_segs[2])
    if not key in subnets.keys():
        subnets[key] = [ip]
    else:
        subnets[key].append(ip)
 
final_list = []
 
for subnet, subnet_ips in subnets.items():
    if len(subnet_ips) > SUBNET_THRESHOLD:
        # Ban the whole subnet
        final_list.append(".".join(map(str, subnet)) + ".0/24")
    else:
        final_list = final_list + subnet_ips
 
print ""
print "Lengh of original list: %d" % len(ips)
print "Lengh of final list: %d" % len(final_list)
 
apache_conf_file = file(HTTPD_CONFIG_INCLUDE, "w")
apache_conf_file.write("\n")
apache_conf_file.write("    Order Deny,Allow\n")
 
for entry in final_list:
    apache_conf_file.write("    Deny from %s\n" % entry)
 
apache_conf_file.write("\n")
 
apache_conf_file.close()

Use the following Python script to maintain a file in the hosts.deny syntax so that your Debian/Ubuntu box (or other Linux server) is kept undisturbed by forum spammers — COMPLETELY undisturbed, as the spammer is disallowed all access to the system.

1. Copy the script to a file on your server, eg. /usr/sbin/stopforumspam.py
2. Make the file executable, eg. chmod +x /usr/sbin/stopforumspam.py
3. Add it to your crontab for automatic execution each night, eg. crontab -e and then insert the line 0 0 * * * /usr/sbin/stopforumspam.py
4. Add the path to the file containing the ip list to /etc/hosts.deny by inserting this line: ALL: /etc/hosts.deny.stopforumspam

The script itself is here, modify it as you need.

#!/usr/bin/python
 
import re
import urllib
import zipfile
 
DOWNLOAD_ZIP = "http://www.stopforumspam.com/downloads/listed_ip_7.zip"
ZIP_FILENAME = "listed_ip_7.txt"
 
HOSTS_DENY = "hosts.deny.stopforumspam"
 
# For security purposes we test that each line is actually an IP address
IP_MATCH = re.compile(r"\d+\.\d+\.\d+\.\d+")
 
filename, headers = urllib.urlretrieve(DOWNLOAD_ZIP)
 
z = zipfile.ZipFile(filename)
ips = z.read(ZIP_FILENAME)
 
deny_file = file(HOSTS_DENY, "w")
 
for ip in ips.split("\n"):
    if IP_MATCH.match(ip):
        deny_file.write("%s\n" % ip)
 
deny_file.close()

This method is reported to work on 10.04 (Lucid), and I can confirm that it works on 10.10 (Maverick). I don’t yet know about 11.04 (Natty).

1. Open a terminal
2. Type:

   sudo apt-add-repository ppa:stretch/bitcoin
   sudo apt-get update
   sudo apt-get install bitcoin

3. To run BitCoin, navigate to Applications -> Internet -> BitCoin.

Also, remember there’s Flattr, too!

Warning: g_object_ref: assertion `G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
  gtk.main()
Warning: instance of invalid non-instantiatable type `AtkSelection'
  gtk.main()
Warning: g_signal_emit_valist: assertion `G_TYPE_CHECK_INSTANCE (instance)' failed
  gtk.main()
(...)
Warning: instance of invalid non-instantiatable type `'
  gtk.main()

In most versions of GTK window decorators, this caused a crash – in a few lucky cases, it didn’t! My (wrong) assumption was that calling connect_signals was only of interest, if I actually had signal handlers to connect. This is also the case when looking at the docs. For instance:

The function connect_signals and variants thereof can MUST be used to connect handlers to the named signals in the description.

(…)

For each of handlers that cannot be found, a RuntimeWarning is issued.

However, when the warning was issued, GTK would crash anyways. This behavior was most like caused by dereferencing and deleting GTK widgets, which caused GTK to look for an on_delete_event handler as some sort of default behavior. Since I have a program that adds and removes GTK widgets during runtime, my program needed to handle these signals, even if the event handler would simply be empty. To make a long story short, you should ALWAYS make sure to call connect_signals no matter what, as it will connect core event handlers that you may not be aware of. This is how it should look:

class YourObject():
    def __init__(self):
        glade = add_from_file("x.glade")
        win = glade.get_object("window")
        win.show_all()
        # ALWAYS DO THIS:
        glade.connect_signals(self)
 
    def on_delete_event(self, *args):
        pass

And even if the above may not fail, here is something that will potentially fail if you don’t connect the signals. Please beware, that using the same on_delete_event handler for two different objects is a bad strategy.

Always take care that widgets are removed and deleted, and that delete events may be invoked at very separate places in your application. You should also be aware that the python garbage collector could be the one initiating these events, causing those strange c library reference errors.

The thing is, that you have to look for different ways that your service might be registered. Since Upstart has been only half-way integrated in 10.10, there are some different places you still have to look if the documentation isn’t clear about how the service is launched (and usually it isn’t). The following examples are for disabling services, as I think most services installed are automatically configured to run, and this is the task you’d be looking for…

update-rc.d

The old System V style of doing things is to call the update-rc.d command to disable any start-up links located in /etc/rcX.d/

$ sudo update-rc.d NAMEOFJOB disable 0123456

You should always invoke this command, as it explicitly disables any start-up links that may reappear when Apt is doing updates to your programs. So don’t just go and delete the start-up links!

/etc/init/yourjob.conf

Another place to look is the configuration folder of jobs. Because all of these .conf files are loaded and if they contain a description of when to be run, then that command will be executed. Look for something like this:

start on (filesystem
        and net-device-up IFACE!=lo)
stop on runlevel [!2345]

In order to disable the job, you simply have to comment out the start on part, like so:

#start on (filesystem
#        and net-device-up IFACE!=lo)
stop on runlevel [!2345]

inetd (OpenBSD style)

Another common convention is to rename the .conf file to .disabled as Upstart only loads .conf files.

Some services are started in OpenBSD style, ie. their descriptions are found in /etc/inetd.conf, the Internet superserver configuration database.

The reason inetd is still used is basically historical. Back in the days, it was desired to save memory by not loading programs until there was a need for them. One thing inetd is still used for is to load ancient TFTP servers when a UDP request is made on the TFTP port (see /etc/services for a list of port aliases in Linux). This description looks like so, and you simply have to place a ‘#’ in front of the line to disable it.

tftp           dgram   udp4    wait    nobody /usr/sbin/tcpd /usr/sbin/in.tftpd --tftpd-timeout 300 --retry-timeout 5 --mcast-port 1758 --mcast-addr 239.239.239.0-255 --mcast-ttl 1 --maxthread 100 --verbose=5 /srv/tftp

Other places…

• /etc/X11/Xsession.d/ is the folder where scripts to be run when the X server is started are kept. I’ve never needed to change anything here, and I wonder why some things are kept in here and not explicitly run when switching to runlevel 5…
• Gnome services can be disabled if you navigate to System->Preferences->Startup Applications. For instance, you can go here to disable the login sound (right?), Bluetooth manager (if you don’t use bt), some Evolution Alarm (since you don’t use Evolution, right?), Ubuntu One (don’t use neither) and Checking for new hardware drivers (since I guess you don’t constantly change hardware).