Want to see the date and time in the Mutt mail client when reading e-mail ?

April 17, 2008

Then add the following to your ~/.muttrc


ignore *
unignore from date subject to cc
unignore organization organisation x-mailer: x-newsreader: x-mailing-list:
unignore posted-to:

Really, you just need to add unignore date. This snippet above firstly turns everything off, then selectively decides to show the headers as listed with unignore.

I have been slightly annoyed for a while now that my Mutt configuration wasn’t displaying the send-time when i was reading emails. I had the date in the e-mail list, but nothing in the actual email.

Finally I got to look it up :D


Linux on USB disks : Damn Small Linux

April 5, 2008

Today I tried out installing two separate, cut-down, versions of Linux onto a USB drive.

This post details my experience with damn small linux.

Damn Small Linux

I tried getting various files, including the embedded zip file, but failed to install to
a USB disk. The idea seemed pretty simple, unzip the files onto the USB
disk, run sys linux. Go. But it just wouldn’t work. Kept reporting
missing files early in boot.

The alternative, boot into the system form the iso and install from there, also failed.

Note, in both cases I am booting into a virtual machine, not natively.

http://ftp.heanet.ie/mirrors/damnsmalllinux.org/current/dsl-4.2.5.iso

Instead of burning a CDR I booted the cd image with Qemu, a free virtual machine emulator (available in Ubuntu Debian Gnu/Linux)

qemu -k en-gb -m 512 -localtime -boot d -cdrom dsl-4.2.5.iso /dev/sdb1

I provided the USB drive as the hard-drive to the virtual machine
(/dev/sdb1) and instructed the boot drive to be the cd (‘-cdrom
cd-image.iso’) with the option ‘-boot d’.

DSL booted up into the GUI without issue.

Then
I selected the install option “USB-HDD Pendrive Install.” from the DSL Menu -> Apps -> Tools

I also tried HDD install.

Neither work. The filesystem has errors on creation. Might try again when booted native from the CD, instead of through the virtual macine.


Linux on USB disks : Puppy Linux

April 4, 2008

Today I tried out installing two separate, cut-down, versions of Linux onto a USB drive.

This post details my experience with puppy linux.

Puppy linux

I tried getting various files but ended up using the iso download file.

ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/puppylinux/puppy-3.01-seamonkey.iso

Instead of burning a CDR I booted the cd image with Qemu, a free virtual machine emulator (available in Ubuntu Debian Gnu/Linux)

qemu -k en-gb -m 512 -localtime -boot d -cdrom puppy-3.01-seamonkey.iso /dev/sdb1

I provided the USB drive as the hard-drive to the virtual machine (/dev/sdb1) and instructed the boot drive to be the cd (‘-cdrom cd-image.iso) with the option ‘-boot d’.

I booted into XVESA, XORG didn’t work.
Then I selected the install option “Install to IDE flash drive.” from the puppy installer at Menu -> Setup -> Puppy Universal Installer

I shut down the virtual machine, and rebooted, this time from the newly set-up USB disk, with:

qemu -k en-gb -m 512 -localtime /dev/sdb1

Worked fine, no issues !

Previously I had tried downloading other puppy linux files from the download server, but failed to install to a USB disk (without too much trying I must admit though in fairness)