More of the same.

Last Updated on September 30, 2010 by Dave Farquhar

As I watched my Royals’ parent club, the Oakland Athletics, play the Yankees, I burned a CD under Linux for the first time. I honestly don’t remember when I last used my old Sony CD-R (it’s so old it’s a 2X burner!) but that was under Windows.
But burning an ISO image is insanely easy, at least if you’ve got a SCSI drive. Here’s the voodoo I needed:

cdrecord -v speed=2 dev=0,0 binary-i386-1.iso

By the time I could have pulled up the ISO image in Easy CD Creator, I’d typed the command line and cdrecord had already burned a meg.

How do you know the numbers? cat /proc/scsi/scsi.

And I know now why my people at work who are in the know on Linux love Debian. How big is a default installation of the current release? 141 megs. Including XFree86 3.36. It’s definitely not a distro for those who like the bleeding edge or even the leading edge, but if you’re wanting to build a Firewall, Debian looks like the distro of choice, and it’ll fit on a discarded 170-meg drive with room to spare.

I reformatted my experimental mail server, then I installed Debian. Then I made it a mailserver. Exim, a sendmail replacement, was already installed. So was procmail. So here’s what I did to make a mail server:

apt-get install courier-imap
apt-get install fetchmail

I created a .fetchmailrc file in my home directory:

poll postoffice.swbell.net with protocol pop3
user dfarq password noway is dfarq

Then I made the file secure:
chmod 0710 .fetchmailrc

I configured courier-imap. I had to scroll down to the bottom of /etc/courier-imap.config and uncomment the last line to activate it. Then I configured exim. I searched for the phrase “maildir” and uncommented the line that enables maildir format (courier doesn’t work with the default mbox format, and maildirs are more efficient anyway).

Then I ran fetchmail: fetchmail -d.

That should have worked. It didn’t. Exim continued to use mbox format. So I can connect to my IMAP server, which is populated by fetchmail, which is in turn served by exim, but since exim doesn’t put the mail in a format the server understands, I’ve got nothing to read.

So I guess I’m going to think about ditching exim for qmail. I have no great loyalty to exim except that Debian put it there by default.

And the Cardinals are eliminated (I’m furious with the way LaRussa handled Matt Morris; he won’t win 22 games next season, that’s a given now) and the A’s are going to have to play Game 5 without Jermaine Dye. I see the Royals have problems with the Yankees even when they’re wearing another uniform. Hopefully they can pull it off today. I’d have liked to have seen Johnny Damon, Jermaine Dye, Jeremy Giambi and Mike Magnante go to the Series in Royals’ uniforms, but if they get there in someone else’s, I’ll take it.

Just had a conversation with Dan Bowman to confirm my feeble grip on sanity (but I was afraid I may have let go, so that is good news), and now it’s way late. It’s actually about 11:30; this server runs on Farquhar time. I’m gonna go make friends with my pillow. Apologies if this is poorly edited.

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8 thoughts on “More of the same.

  • October 15, 2001 at 10:37 am
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    How do you know the numbers? cat /proc/scsi/scsi.

    or you can do a:

    cdrecord -scanbus

    The cdrecord man page, unlike some, is really useful and informative. Even shows you how to use mkisofs to make an image to burn (and how to mount the image to check it first 😉

  • October 15, 2001 at 12:49 pm
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    I hear you about all the ex-Royals possibly going to the Series in another uniform. Those of us in Houston have noted that there are about four ex-Astros on the D-backs’ roster. But then, who’d have thought that Luis Gonzalez was really Babe Ruth when he was here doing well to get into double digits in home runs.

    As for talking about what the Astros again did in the post season, I’d rather not.

    Good luck with the new server install. Right now my Linux PC seems to be dead, and it may be a while before I get the time and money to build another.

  • October 15, 2001 at 2:05 pm
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    Yep, I was shocked at how good the cdrecord manpage was. I need to install one of those split-screen console programs so I can view a manpage while using the program. I know they exist but I don’t know a name, yet. (I know where to find that info though).

    Steve, as for your dead Linux PC, Debian’s requirements seem pretty lax. If you just want to play around, a cast-off 486 or low-end Pentium would probably be adequate. I’d run Debian on stuff I wouldn’t go anywhere near with a Red Hat or Mandrake CD. Admittedly, Debian’s harder to set up–you’d better know your network and sound cards, because Debian won’t find them for you.

    Hmm… Ex-‘Stros on the D-backs… Randy Johnson, Steve Finley, "Ruth" Gonzalez… I know I’ll kick myself when I hear the fourth. The D-Backs also have ex-Royals Jay Bell and Miguel Batista, and old 1989 Playoff rivals Mark Grace and Matt Williams (the biggest mouths on their respective teams, the Cubs and Giants). Interesting mix.

    I guess it’s not too much treachery to root for the A’s. They were my dad’s team when he was growing up in eastern Pennsylvania, back when they were still in Philadelphia and serving as the Yankees’ quadruple-A affiliate.

  • October 15, 2001 at 4:24 pm
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    I’d heard the figure 4 ex-Astros on the D-Backs quoted, but I couldn’t remember, so took a look at the last box score. Then it hit me–I believe the fourth ex-Astro is Curt Schilling. I’m not sure how long ago, but I think he was an Astro, and possibly from this area.

    What I’ve had lately had thoughts of doing Linux-wise is to learn Apache. I’m also finishing up a Win2k MCSE, but once that’s done I’ll have more time. I’ve still got the monitor, hard drives, CD etc., but the case is AT style. I’ve thought about buying a mobo, cheap CPU, and maybe an Antec case, and building it out with my other components. However, I’m currently looking for work, so don’t really want to even spend for that right now.

    Maybe looking for an old really cheap PC is an option. If/when I do build, one thing I’m pretty sure of is that I don’t want a mobo with a Via chipset. I’m also a little leery of AMD due to the heat issue. Maybe no problem now, but in a year or three who knows what that heat does.

  • October 15, 2001 at 5:53 pm
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    Schilling did bounce around a lot early in his career. I know he was with Baltimore and one other team before going to Philadelphia, so he might be the fourth ex-‘Stro. Scary, isn’t it, that so many key players have one other team in common?

    I know in the St. Louis area, a non-MMX Pentium PC sells used for about 50 bucks. The parts are so cheap most people don’t even bother with them, so if it turns out just to be your motherboard or CPU you can probably be back in business for 10 bucks.

  • October 15, 2001 at 10:20 pm
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    Good call, Steve. I looked it up. In 1991, Schilling went 3-5 with 8 saves for the Astros as a relief pitcher. He made no starts that year.

  • December 12, 2001 at 8:02 pm
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    After creating an ISO Image on Easy CD Creator 5, does another user that pulls it from an ftp site have to use Easy CD Creator to burn a CD or can any application that will burn an ISO Image be used? Thanks.

  • December 12, 2001 at 8:08 pm
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    After creating an ISO Image on Easy CD Creator 5, does another user that pulls it from an ftp site have to use Easy CD Creator to burn a CD or can any application that will burn an ISO Image be used? Thanks.

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