Geek Fortunes: February 2011

Monday, February 28, 2011

Sunday, February 27, 2011

If you need to perform a command a second time on a different file, you can use command replacement with the ^ symbol. e.g. "cp foo.txt /to/some/directory" then "^foo^bar", expanding to: "cp bar.txt /to/some/directory".

If you need to perform a command a second time on a different file, you can use command replacement with the ^ symbol. e.g. "cp foo.txt /to/some/directory" then "^foo^bar", expanding to: "cp bar.txt /to/some/directory".

BOFH excuse #309: firewall needs cooling

BOFH excuse #153: Big to little endian conversion error

Today is Prickle-Prickle, the 59th day of Chaos in the YOLD 3177

Debian Hint #18: Quality control information about a package can be found by going to http://packages.qa.debian.org/; this page provides links to the Maintainer's QA page, the BTS, news items for the package, and information on which versions are available in which archives.

Debian Hint #18: Quality control information about a package can be found by going to http://packages.qa.debian.org/<package>; this page provides links to the Maintainer's QA page, the BTS, news items for the package, and information on which versions are available in which archives.

BOFH excuse #212: Of course it doesn't work. We've performed a software upgrade.

Instead of typing the user and group, if they are the same (like for www-data) you can just type the user followed by a colon: 'sudo chown -R www-data: *'

BOFH excuse #243: The computer fleetly, mouse and all.

Debian Hint #44: You can use 'apt-file list ' to obtain a listing of the contents of debian package. This action is similar to 'dpkg -L ' except the package does not need to be installed or fetched using apt-file in contrast to dpkg.

Debian Hint #44: You can use 'apt-file list <package_name>' to obtain a listing of the contents of debian package. This action is similar to 'dpkg -L <package_name>' except the package does not need to be installed or fetched using apt-file in contrast to dpkg.

BOFH excuse #442: Trojan horse ran out of hay

BOFH excuse #323: Your processor has processed too many instructions. Turn it off immediately, do not type any commands!!

Saturday, February 26, 2011

Use "top" to get a view of your server's performance such as processor, memory and swap utilisation and see a rolling display of the top cpu using processes.

Want to run your own cloud infrastructure in your enterprise? Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud powered by Eucalyptus has what you need: http://www.ubuntu.com/cloud

BOFH excuse #117: the printer thinks its a router.

Today is Pungenday, the 58th day of Chaos in the YOLD 3177

BOFH excuse #361: Communist revolutionaries taking over the server room and demanding all the computers in the building or they shoot the sysadmin. Poor misguided fools.

BOFH excuse #416: We're out of slots on the server

Friday, February 25, 2011

BOFH excuse #308: CD-ROM server needs recalibration

BOFH excuse #119: evil hackers from Serbia.

BOFH excuse #65: system needs to be rebooted

BOFH excuse #361: Communist revolutionaries taking over the server room and demanding all the computers in the building or they shoot the sysadmin. Poor misguided fools.

Today is Boomtime, the 57th day of Chaos in the YOLD 3177

BOFH excuse #124: user to computer ration too low.

BOFH excuse #442: Trojan horse ran out of hay

Debian Hint #44: You can use 'apt-file list ' to obtain a listing of the contents of debian package. This action is similar to 'dpkg -L ' except the package does not need to be installed or fetched using apt-file in contrast to dpkg.

BOFH excuse #29: It works the way the Wang did, what's the problem

BOFH excuse #423: It's not RFC-822 compliant.

BOFH excuse #389: /dev/clue was linked to /dev/null

BOFH excuse #316: Elves on strike. (Why do they call EMAG Elf Magic)

Thursday, February 24, 2011

BOFH excuse #61: not approved by the FCC

BOFH excuse #310: asynchronous inode failure

Today is Sweetmorn, the 56th day of Chaos in the YOLD 3177

Unsure if AppArmor might be causing an issue? Don't disable it, use the proper debugging procedure: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingApparmor

Default installations do not provide a complete version of the vim text editor. Install vim-full if vi is your preferred editor.

BOFH excuse #264: Your modem doesn't speak English.

Default installations do not provide a complete version of the vim text editor. Install vim-full if vi is your preferred editor.

'etckeeper' allows you to save changes you make to /etc in a bazaar repository. Useful to track and revert changes. http://tinyurl.com/etckeeper

BOFH excuse #442: Trojan horse ran out of hay

BOFH excuse #210: We didn't pay the Internet bill and it's been cut off.

BOFH excuse #98: The vendor put the bug there.

BOFH excuse #171: NOTICE: alloc: /dev/null: filesystem full

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

BOFH excuse #89: Electromagnetic energy loss

BOFH excuse #412: Radial Telemetry Infiltration

Today is Setting Orange, the 55th day of Chaos in the YOLD 3177

BOFH excuse #46: waste water tank overflowed onto computer

Unsure if AppArmor might be causing an issue? Don't disable it, use the proper debugging procedure: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingApparmor

BOFH excuse #103: operators on strike due to broken coffee machine

Default installations do not provide a complete version of the vim text editor. Install vim-full if vi is your preferred editor.

If you need to compile a piece of software, you may need to install the build-essential package. Use 'sudo apt-get install build-essential'.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

BOFH excuse #161: monitor VLF leakage

BOFH excuse #446: Mailer-daemon is busy burning your message in hell.

Today is Prickle-Prickle, the 54th day of Chaos in the YOLD 3177

BOFH excuse #108: The air conditioning water supply pipe ruptured over the machine room

BOFH excuse #218: The UPS doesn't have a battery backup.

BOFH excuse #406: Bad cafeteria food landed all the sysadmins in the hospital.

BOFH excuse #323: Your processor has processed too many instructions. Turn it off immediately, do not type any commands!!

BOFH excuse #123: user to computer ratio too high.

BOFH excuse #339: manager in the cable duct

BOFH excuse #251: Processes running slowly due to weak power supply

Monday, February 21, 2011

BOFH excuse #395: Redundant ACLs.

BOFH excuse #143: had to use hammer to free stuck disk drive heads.

Today is Pungenday, the 53rd day of Chaos in the YOLD 3177

BOFH excuse #257: That would be because the software doesn't work.

BOFH excuse #30: positron router malfunction

BOFH excuse #200: The monitor needs another box of pixels.

BOFH excuse #309: firewall needs cooling

BOFH excuse #48: bad ether in the cables

BOFH excuse #108: The air conditioning water supply pipe ruptured over the machine room

BOFH excuse #230: Lusers learning curve appears to be fractal

BOFH excuse #333: A plumber is needed, the network drain is clogged

Sunday, February 20, 2011

BOFH excuse #361: Communist revolutionaries taking over the server room and demanding all the computers in the building or they shoot the sysadmin. Poor misguided fools.

Debian Hint #43: You can use 'apt-cache show ' or 'aptitude show ' to get more information about a debian package.

Debian Hint #43: You can use 'apt-cache show <package_name>' or 'aptitude show <package_name>' to get more information about a debian package.

Today is Boomtime, the 52nd day of Chaos in the YOLD 3177

Debian Hint #36: If you want to track Debian sid and have a small download quota or a really slow connection, check out the debdelta package.

BOFH excuse #421: Domain controller not responding

You can change your hostname by editing the file /etc/hostname.

BOFH excuse #277: Your Flux Capacitor has gone bad.

BOFH excuse #419: Repeated reboots of the system failed to solve problem

BOFH excuse #304: routing problems on the neural net

Unsure if AppArmor might be causing an issue? Don't disable it, use the proper debugging procedure: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingApparmor

BOFH excuse #134: because of network lag due to too many people playing deathmatch

Saturday, February 19, 2011

BOFH excuse #98: The vendor put the bug there.

BOFH excuse #80: That's a great computer you have there; have you considered how it would work as a BSD machine?

BOFH excuse #434: Please state the nature of the technical emergency

BOFH excuse #190: Proprietary Information.

BOFH excuse #239: CPU needs bearings repacked

Today is Sweetmorn, the 51st day of Chaos in the YOLD 3177

BOFH excuse #188: ..disk or the processor is on fire.

BOFH excuse #239: CPU needs bearings repacked

Save time starting to type a command or file name, then press tab to complete Hit tab twice to bring up multiple completion options.

BOFH excuse #339: manager in the cable duct

BOFH excuse #418: Sysadmins busy fighting SPAM.

BOFH excuse #190: Proprietary Information.

BOFH excuse #183: filesystem not big enough for Jumbo Kernel Patch

Friday, February 18, 2011

BOFH excuse #143: had to use hammer to free stuck disk drive heads.

Debian Hint #15: The documentation for a package can normally be found under /usr/share/doc/. In particular, the README.Debian file often has useful information about Debian-specific quirks or tips.

Debian Hint #15: The documentation for a package can normally be found under /usr/share/doc/<package>. In particular, the README.Debian file often has useful information about Debian-specific quirks or tips.

BOFH excuse #395: Redundant ACLs.

BOFH excuse #218: The UPS doesn't have a battery backup.

BOFH excuse #415: Maintenance window broken

BOFH excuse #249: Unfortunately we have run out of bits/bytes/whatever. Don't worry, the next supply will be coming next week.

Default installations do not provide a complete version of the vim text editor. Install vim-full if vi is your preferred editor.

BOFH excuse #229: wrong polarity of neutron flow

BOFH excuse #98: The vendor put the bug there.

Use "top" to get a view of your server's performance such as processor, memory and swap utilisation and see a rolling display of the top cpu using processes.

BOFH excuse #80: That's a great computer you have there; have you considered how it would work as a BSD machine?

BOFH excuse #243: The computer fleetly, mouse and all.

BOFH excuse #253: We've run out of licenses

Keep your servers time in sync, use the ntpd package. https://help.ubuntu.com/9.10/serverguide/C/NTP.html

Thursday, February 17, 2011

BOFH excuse #245: The Borg tried to assimilate your system. Resistance is futile.

BOFH excuse #62: need to wrap system in aluminum foil to fix problem

Today is Prickle-Prickle, the 49th day of Chaos in the YOLD 3177

BOFH excuse #142: new guy cross-connected phone lines with ac power bus.

BOFH excuse #228: That function is not currently supported, but Bill Gates assures us it will be featured in the next upgrade.

BOFH excuse #308: CD-ROM server needs recalibration

BOFH excuse #416: We're out of slots on the server

BOFH excuse #133: It's not plugged in.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Debian Hint #10: There are Debian mailing lists for everything from user questions to debates over what to put into the Debian Policy documents. Check out the list at http://www.debian.org/MailingLists/ and subscribe to those that interest you.

Debian Hint #10: There are Debian mailing lists for everything from user questions to debates over what to put into the Debian Policy documents. Check out the list at http://www.debian.org/MailingLists/ and subscribe to those that interest you.

Today is Pungenday, the 48th day of Chaos in the YOLD 3177

BOFH excuse #117: the printer thinks its a router.

Default installations do not provide a complete version of the vim text editor. Install vim-full if vi is your preferred editor.

Debian Hint #29: Keep your system clock accurate - install the 'ntpdate' package and configure it to set the time at startup. In addition, machines which are turned on most or all of the time should have the 'ntp' package installed to keep the time accurate in between reboots.

Debian Hint #29: Keep your system clock accurate - install the 'ntpdate' package and configure it to set the time at startup. In addition, machines which are turned on most or all of the time should have the 'ntp' package installed to keep the time accurate in between reboots.

BOFH excuse #320: You've been infected by the Telescoping Hubble virus.

If you are using a PostgreSQL database, use "ptop" to monitor real time usage.

Debian Hint #20: Want to keep track of what version of a package you have installed (especially useful for those running hybrid stable / testing / unstable systems)? Check out apt-show-versions.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

BOFH excuse #280: Traceroute says that there is a routing problem in the backbone. It's not our problem.

BOFH excuse #282: High altitude condensation from U.S.A.F prototype aircraft has contaminated the primary subnet mask. Turn off your computer for 9 days to avoid damaging it.

Today is Boomtime, the 47th day of Chaos in the YOLD 3177

BOFH excuse #235: The new frame relay network hasn't bedded down the software loop transmitter yet.

BOFH excuse #153: Big to little endian conversion error

BOFH excuse #202: kernel panic: write-only-memory (/dev/wom0) capacity exceeded.

Monday, February 14, 2011

BOFH excuse #18: excess surge protection

BOFH excuse #241: _Rosin_ core solder? But...

BOFH excuse #417: Computer room being moved. Our systems are down for the weekend.

Today is Sweetmorn, the 46th day of Chaos in the YOLD 3177

Debian Hint #25: The 'debian-reference' package contains a wide variety of reference documents for Debian users and developers. Most of the information can also be found at the following URL: http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/reference.

Debian Hint #25: The 'debian-reference' package contains a wide variety of reference documents for Debian users and developers. Most of the information can also be found at the following URL: http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/reference.

BOFH excuse #282: High altitude condensation from U.S.A.F prototype aircraft has contaminated the primary subnet mask. Turn off your computer for 9 days to avoid damaging it.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

BOFH excuse #440: Cache miss - please take better aim next time

Debian Hint #29: Keep your system clock accurate - install the 'ntpdate' package and configure it to set the time at startup. In addition, machines which are turned on most or all of the time should have the 'ntp' package installed to keep the time accurate in between reboots.

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Save time starting to type a command or file name, then press tab to complete Hit tab twice to bring up multiple completion options.

Want to run your own cloud infrastructure in your enterprise? Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud powered by Eucalyptus has what you need: http://www.ubuntu.com/cloud

Today is Pungenday, the 43rd day of Chaos in the YOLD 3177

Use awk to quickly filter columns from some command output. e.g.: ls -l | awk '{print $3 " " $9}'

Unsure if AppArmor might be causing an issue? Don't disable it, use the proper debugging procedure: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingApparmor

Debian Hint #36: If you want to track Debian sid and have a small download quota or a really slow connection, check out the debdelta package.

BOFH excuse #315: The recent proliferation of Nuclear Testing

BOFH excuse #447: According to Microsoft, it's by design

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Debian Hint #10: There are Debian mailing lists for everything from user questions to debates over what to put into the Debian Policy documents. Check out the list at http://www.debian.org/MailingLists/ and subscribe to those that interest you.

BOFH excuse #277: Your Flux Capacitor has gone bad.

BOFH excuse #65: system needs to be rebooted

If you need to perform a command a second time on a different file, you can use command replacement with the ^ symbol. e.g. "cp foo.txt /to/some/directory" then "^foo^bar", expanding to: "cp bar.txt /to/some/directory".

Debian Hint #27: Regularly verify your backups. You are keeping backups, right? Right? (This hint brought to you by the letters 'D', 'U', 'M', and 'P', and the number 0.)

Debian Hint #27: Regularly verify your backups. You *are* keeping backups, right? Right? (This hint brought to you by the letters 'D', 'U', 'M', and 'P', and the number 0.)