XP Windows Update error 0x8024400A solution
You need to install XP SP3, available here for English versions.
Category Archives: Solved Problems
Linux on Mac Mini – power on after power loss
The Mac Mini doesn’t save this information in its BIOS (or equivalent), so you need to set it on each boot. I use my distribution’s /etc/rc.local file for this. Either way, these are the commands to run (copy, and uncomment the correct line for your Mini): ## PPC Mac Mini #echo server_mode=1 > /proc/pmu/options ## […]
gitolite: ‘foo’ does not appear to be a git repository – ForceCommand
Many people seem to get the following error message when trying to manipulate a remote git/-olite repository: fatal: ‘foo’ does not appear to be a git repository fatal: The remote end hung up unexpectedly The problem here, which is absolutely not explained by the above error message, is likely to be that the remote command […]
Fixing “shmget() failed: No space left on device”
I had this happen when someone ran a script to kill x11vnc every so often, using kill -9 (don’t ask). Killing x11vnc with SIGTERM (15) allows it to clean up its shared memory segments. SIGKILL (9) will not. Googling around, I found a script over here (backup copy here). The problem with that was that […]
SSH in a while loop – stdin problems
When SSH is used with a line like “while read ….”, the while loop will only run once. This can be seen by running this simple example: $ seq 1 10 | while read line; do ssh remotehostname “echo x${line}x”; done x1x You might expect this to connect to the host with the name “remotehostname” […]
GCC stray X in program
Problem: IEMGD_HEAD_Linux/common/drm/emgd/display/pi/cmn/pi.c:1: error: stray ‘\357’ in program This is caused by “invalid” characters in the code, specifically I encountered this while trying to compile the Intel EMGD driver for my EEEPC’s graphics card. Thanks to the helpful folks over here, there’s a solution: cd IEMGD_HEAD_Linux/common/drm/emgd/display/pi/cmn cat -v pi.c | awk ‘{if(NR>1) print $0}’ > tmp […]
bash time limit on commands
Several programs, like “timelimit” and “timeout”, exist to prevent a process from running for too long. However, if you want to do this on a box where neither is installed, there’s a way to do so with bash alone. Based on the original script I found at pixelbeat.org… #!/bin/sh # Execute a command with a […]
Remote desktop does not support colour depth 24; falling back to 16
rdesktop on Linux will give this warning message when connecting to a Windows machine which has not been configured for 24-bit color RDP connections. This has, amongst other things, the effect of showing some horrible, jaggy desktop icons. See the pictures on the right for reference. On Vista, Windows 7 and later (?), the solution […]
What’s touching that config file?!
Recently I started wondering what the heck was putting “root: bolt” at the end of /etc/aliases “every time” I did an upgrade of something. I asked #debian on irc.freenode.net, who told me to run this: grep /etc/aliases /var/lib/dpkg/info/*postinst What it does is basically to look though all files which names end in “postinst” in the […]
Putty keeps disconnecting
On a recent vacation, taking a train across the entire country, I was using my cell phone’s 3G connection to provide my Internet connection. Every little tunnel and other signal interference along the way would cut off the SSH connection I was sending all my traffic through. While googling, still on the train, I found […]