Geek Fortunes: April 2011

Debian Hint #9: If you need to know what version of Debian you're currently running, look in /etc/debian_version; if you want to know the codename for that version (for example, 3.0 is codenamed 'Woody'), check this URL: http://www.debian.org/doc/FAQ/ch-ftparchives.html#s-codenames

Debian Hint #28: If your machine is not on all of the time (such as a laptop), check out the 'anacron' package; this will make sure that regular tasks still happen, even if the machine isn't on at the time they would normally trigger.

Debian Hint #28: If your machine is not on all of the time (such as a laptop), check out the 'anacron' package; this will make sure that regular tasks still happen, even if the machine isn't on at the time they would normally trigger.

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 Prickle-Prickle, the 46th day of Discord in the YOLD 3177

BOFH excuse #312: incompatible bit-registration operators

Use 'tail -f file' to watch a log file as messages get appended, and use 'tail -100 file' to change the count of lines read from the file.

BOFH excuse #71: The file system is full of it

BOFH excuse #84: Someone is standing on the ethernet cable, causing a kink in the cable

The free command tells you the status of your memory and swap, how much you have used and how much you have left.

BOFH excuse #433: error: one bad user found in front of screen

BOFH excuse #383: Your processor has taken a ride to Heaven's Gate on the UFO behind Hale-Bopp's comet.

BOFH excuse #273: The cord jumped over and hit the power switch.

BOFH excuse #380: Operators killed when huge stack of backup tapes fell over.

BOFH excuse #362: Plasma conduit breach

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

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 #79: Look, buddy: Windows 3.1 IS A General Protection Fault.

Use "iftop" to monitor current network activity connections per host.

BOFH excuse #198: Post-it Note Sludge leaked into the monitor.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

BOFH excuse #110: The rolling stones concert down the road caused a brown out

BOFH excuse #430: Mouse has out-of-cheese-error

BOFH excuse #307: emissions from GSM-phones

BOFH excuse #224: Jan 9 16:41:27 huber su: 'su root' succeeded for .... on /dev/pts/1

A for loop in bash syntax: 'for i in * ; do echo $i ; done'.

An easy way to see what processes own which network connections: 'sudo netstat -tup' for connections and 'sudo netstat -tupl for listening process.

Debian Hint #8: If you have problems with Debian that you can't solve by reading the manuals and documentation, try asking on the Debian Users mailing list (debian-user@lists.debian.org).

BOFH excuse #201: RPC_PMAP_FAILURE

Today is Pungenday, the 45th day of Discord 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 #129: The ring needs another token

BOFH excuse #41: interrupt configuration error

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

BOFH excuse #131: telnet: Unable to connect to remote host: Connection refused

Debian Hint #40: Want to know how you can use a program you have never used before? "man" will be your best new friend! Type "man " in a shell. Or, run "man -H " to read the manual page in a browser.

Debian Hint #40: Want to know how you can use a program you have never used before? "man" will be your best new friend! Type "man <program-name>" in a shell. Or, run "man -H <program-name>" to read the manual page in a browser.

BOFH excuse #17: fat electrons in the lines

Debian Hint #38: Need a newer package than shipped with Debians last stable release but don't want to upgrade to 'testing' or 'unstable'? Some packages are kept up-to-date on volatile.debian.org, some others are made available at www.backports.org.

Debian Hint #38: Need a newer package than shipped with Debians last stable release but don't want to upgrade to 'testing' or 'unstable'? Some packages are kept up-to-date on volatile.debian.org, some others are made available at www.backports.org.

BOFH excuse #401: Sales staff sold a product we don't offer.

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

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

BOFH excuse #136: Daemons loose in system.

BOFH excuse #451: astropneumatic oscillations in the water-cooling

BOFH excuse #298: Not enough interrupts

BOFH excuse #18: excess surge protection

BOFH excuse #2: solar flares

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

BOFH excuse #190: Proprietary Information.

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

BOFH excuse #216: What office are you in? Oh, that one. Did you know that your building was built over the universities first nuclear research site? And wow, aren't you the lucky one, your office is right over where the core is buried!

BOFH excuse #216: What office are you in? Oh, that one. Did you know that your building was built over the universities first nuclear research site? And wow, aren't you the lucky one, your office is right over where the core is buried!

BOFH excuse #339: manager in the cable duct

BOFH excuse #342: HTTPD Error 4004 : very old Intel cpu - insufficient processing power

BOFH excuse #242: Software uses US measurements, but the OS is in metric...

BOFH excuse #442: Trojan horse ran out of hay

BOFH excuse #37: heavy gravity fluctuation, move computer to floor rapidly

BOFH excuse #125: we just switched to Sprint.

Today is Boomtime, the 44th day of Discord in the YOLD 3177

You can use the text-based web browser w3m to browse the Internet in your console screen. e.g 'w3m http://ubuntu.com'

BOFH excuse #70: nesting roaches shorted out the ether cable

BOFH excuse #213: Change your language to Finnish.

BOFH excuse #303: fractal radiation jamming the backbone

BOFH excuse #429: Temporal anomaly

BOFH excuse #303: fractal radiation jamming the backbone

BOFH excuse #179: multicasts on broken packets

BOFH excuse #275: Bit rot

BOFH excuse #17: fat electrons in the lines

Debian Hint #23: If your system is using too much disk space, try the deborphan package; it can offer suggestions about which packages may be unused and removable. And, of course, don't forget to clean out the APT cache area (using 'apt-get clean', 'aptitude clean', or aptitude's Action -> Clean package cache menu item).

Debian Hint #23: If your system is using too much disk space, try the deborphan package; it can offer suggestions about which packages may be unused and removable. And, of course, don't forget to clean out the APT cache area (using 'apt-get clean', 'aptitude clean', or aptitude's Action -> Clean package cache menu item).

BOFH excuse #207: We are currently trying a new concept of using a live mouse. Unfortunately, one has yet to survive being hooked up to the computer.....please bear with us.

BOFH excuse #14: sounds like a Windows problem, try calling Microsoft support

BOFH excuse #332: suboptimal routing experience

Debian Hint #1: You can report a bug in a package with the 'reportbug' command, which is available in the reportbug package, or by using the graphical frontend 'reportbug-ng'.

BOFH excuse #311: transient bus protocol violation

Monday, April 25, 2011

BOFH excuse #240: Too many little pins on CPU confusing it, bend back and forth until 10-20% are neatly removed. Do _not_ leave metal bits visible!

BOFH excuse #151: Some one needed the powerstrip, so they pulled the switch plug.

BOFH excuse #337: the butane lighter causes the pincushioning

Debian Hint #17: Need someone to talk to about Debian? If you're comfortable with Internet Relay Chat (IRC), just install your favorite IRC client, and join #debian on irc.debian.org.

BOFH excuse #102: Power company testing new voltage spike (creation) equipment

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

BOFH excuse #325: Your processor does not develop enough heat.

BOFH excuse #73: Daemons did it

Today is Sweetmorn, the 43rd day of Discord in the YOLD 3177

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 #201: RPC_PMAP_FAILURE

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 #348: We're on Token Ring, and it looks like the token got loose.

To manage Apache virtualhosts use "a2ensite" to enable and "a2dissite" to disable. e.g. "sudo a2ensite example.org"

BOFH excuse #442: Trojan horse ran out of hay

BOFH excuse #23: improperly oriented keyboard

BOFH excuse #385: Dyslexics retyping hosts file on servers

BOFH excuse #430: Mouse has out-of-cheese-error

BOFH excuse #189: SCSI's too wide.

BOFH excuse #291: Due to the CDA, we no longer have a root account.

To restrict ssh logins to certain commands, have a look at the ForceCommand directive (see "man sshd_config").

BOFH excuse #234: Someone is broadcasting pygmy packets and the router doesn't know how to deal with them.

'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 #233: TCP/IP UDP alarm threshold is set too low.

BOFH excuse #30: positron router malfunction

Sunday, April 24, 2011

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

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

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

BOFH excuse #279: The static electricity routing is acting up...

BOFH excuse #204: Just pick up the phone and give modem connect sounds. "Well you said we should get more lines so we don't have voice lines."

BOFH excuse #109: The electricity substation in the car park blew up.

BOFH excuse #180: ether leak

BOFH excuse #339: manager in the cable duct

BOFH excuse #443: Zombie processes detected, machine is haunted.

Today is Setting Orange, the 42nd day of Discord in the YOLD 3177

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

BOFH excuse #74: You're out of memory

BOFH excuse #437: crop circles in the corn shell

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

BOFH excuse #262: Our POP server was kidnapped by a weasel.

BOFH excuse #140: LBNC (luser brain not connected)

BOFH excuse #263: It's stuck in the Web.

BOFH excuse #387: Your computer's union contract is set to expire at midnight.

BOFH excuse #334: 50% of the manual is in .pdf readme files

BOFH excuse #398: Data for intranet got routed through the extranet and landed on the internet.

BOFH excuse #247: Due to Federal Budget problems we have been forced to cut back on the number of users able to access the system at one time. (namely none allowed....)

BOFH excuse #72: Satan did it

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

BOFH excuse #413: Cow-tippers tipped a cow onto the server.

BOFH excuse #208: Your mail is being routed through Germany ... and they're censoring us.

Saturday, April 23, 2011

BOFH excuse #127: Sticky bits on disk.

BOFH excuse #285: Telecommunications is upgrading.

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

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

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

BOFH excuse #258: That's easy to fix, but I can't be bothered.

BOFH excuse #376: Budget cuts forced us to sell all the power cords for the servers.

BOFH excuse #272: Netscape has crashed

BOFH excuse #231: We had to turn off that service to comply with the CDA Bill.

Today is Prickle-Prickle, the 41st day of Discord in the YOLD 3177

BOFH excuse #68: only available on a need to know basis

BOFH excuse #300: Digital Manipulator exceeding velocity parameters

BOFH excuse #345: Having to manually track the satellite.

Debian Hint #42: If you install the command-not-found package, attempting to run a command you don't have installed will tell you what package to install to obtain that command.

BOFH excuse #132: SCSI Chain overterminated

BOFH excuse #429: Temporal anomaly

BOFH excuse #313: your process is not ISO 9000 compliant

BOFH excuse #175: OS swapped to disk

BOFH excuse #309: firewall needs cooling

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

BOFH excuse #40: not enough memory, go get system upgrade

BOFH excuse #263: It's stuck in the Web.

BOFH excuse #278: The Dilithium Crystals need to be rotated.

Reach the end-of-line with ctrl-e and the beginning of line with ctrl-a.

BOFH excuse #355: Boredom in the Kernel.

Friday, April 22, 2011

BOFH excuse #386: The Internet is being scanned for viruses.

BOFH excuse #302: microelectronic Riemannian curved-space fault in write-only file system

BOFH excuse #377: Someone hooked the twisted pair wires into the answering machine.

BOFH excuse #313: your process is not ISO 9000 compliant

To make a backup without typing the full path twice: 'cp /long/path/to/file/name{,.orig}' to create a copy with the suffix .orig

BOFH excuse #237: Plate voltage too low on demodulator tube

BOFH excuse #141: disks spinning backwards - toggle the hemisphere jumper.

BOFH excuse #105: UPS interrupted the server's power

Today is Pungenday, the 40th day of Discord in the YOLD 3177

BOFH excuse #260: We're upgrading /dev/null

BOFH excuse #39: terrorist activities

BOFH excuse #335: the AA battery in the wallclock sends magnetic interference

BOFH excuse #244: Your cat tried to eat the mouse.

'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 #120: we just switched to FDDI.

Install 'denyhosts' to help protect against brute force SSH attacks, auto-blocking multiple attempts.

BOFH excuse #242: Software uses US measurements, but the OS is in metric...

BOFH excuse #283: Lawn mower blade in your fan need sharpening

BOFH excuse #292: We ran out of dial tone and we're and waiting for the phone company to deliver another bottle.

BOFH excuse #88: Boss' kid fucked up the machine

BOFH excuse #174: Backbone adjustment

BOFH excuse #76: Unoptimized hard drive

An easy way to see what processes own which network connections: 'sudo netstat -tup' for connections and 'sudo netstat -tupl for listening process.

BOFH excuse #342: HTTPD Error 4004 : very old Intel cpu - insufficient processing power

Debian Hint #8: If you have problems with Debian that you can't solve by reading the manuals and documentation, try asking on the Debian Users mailing list (debian-user@lists.debian.org).

Thursday, April 21, 2011

BOFH excuse #1: clock speed

BOFH excuse #89: Electromagnetic energy loss

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

BOFH excuse #140: LBNC (luser brain not connected)

BOFH excuse #266: All of the packets are empty.

BOFH excuse #335: the AA battery in the wallclock sends magnetic interference

BOFH excuse #340: Well fix that in the next (upgrade, update, patch release, service pack).

BOFH excuse #87: Password is too complex to decrypt

The free command tells you the status of your memory and swap, how much you have used and how much you have left.

Today is Boomtime, the 39th day of Discord in the YOLD 3177

Instead of typing exit or closing the terminal if you want to logout you can press Ctrl+D.

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

BOFH excuse #82: Yeah, yo mama dresses you funny and you need a mouse to delete files.

BOFH excuse #85: Windows 95 undocumented "feature"

BOFH excuse #58: high pressure system failure

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

BOFH excuse #131: telnet: Unable to connect to remote host: Connection refused

BOFH excuse #390: Increased sunspot activity.

BOFH excuse #6: global warming

'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 #187: Reformatting Page. Wait...

To find a package which name or description contains a keyword use: 'apt-cache search '. 'apt-cache showpkg ' to get details.

To find a package which name or description contains a keyword use: 'apt-cache search <keyword>'. 'apt-cache showpkg <packagename>' to get details.

BOFH excuse #16: somebody was calculating pi on the server

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

BOFH excuse #217: The MGs ran out of gas.

BOFH excuse #76: Unoptimized hard drive

BOFH excuse #292: We ran out of dial tone and we're and waiting for the phone company to deliver another bottle.

BOFH excuse #90: Budget cuts

Today is Sweetmorn, the 38th day of Discord in the YOLD 3177

BOFH excuse #413: Cow-tippers tipped a cow onto the server.

BOFH excuse #126: it has Intel Inside

BOFH excuse #160: non-redundant fan failure

BOFH excuse #93: Feature not yet implemented

BOFH excuse #191: Just type 'mv * /dev/null'.

BOFH excuse #13: we're waiting for [the phone company] to fix that line

BOFH excuse #336: the xy axis in the trackball is coordinated with the summer solstice

BOFH excuse #384: it's an ID-10-T error

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

BOFH excuse #325: Your processor does not develop enough heat.

BOFH excuse #258: That's easy to fix, but I can't be bothered.

BOFH excuse #240: Too many little pins on CPU confusing it, bend back and forth until 10-20% are neatly removed. Do _not_ leave metal bits visible!

BOFH excuse #422: Someone else stole your IP address, call the Internet detectives!

Today is Setting Orange, the 37th day of Discord in the YOLD 3177

BOFH excuse #254: Interference from lunar radiation

BOFH excuse #414: tachyon emissions overloading the system

BOFH excuse #122: because Bill Gates is a Jehovah's witness and so nothing can work on St. Swithin's day.

BOFH excuse #131: telnet: Unable to connect to remote host: Connection refused

BOFH excuse #215: High nuclear activity in your area.

BOFH excuse #227: Fatal error right in front of screen

BOFH excuse #354: Chewing gum on /dev/sd3c

BOFH excuse #137: User was distributing pornography on server; system seized by FBI.

Monday, April 18, 2011

BOFH excuse #178: short leg on process table

BOFH excuse #69: knot in cables caused data stream to become twisted and kinked

BOFH excuse #204: Just pick up the phone and give modem connect sounds. "Well you said we should get more lines so we don't have voice lines."

BOFH excuse #193: Did you pay the new Support Fee?

Today is Prickle-Prickle, the 36th day of Discord in the YOLD 3177

BOFH excuse #388: Bad user karma.

BOFH excuse #328: Fiber optics caused gas main leak

BOFH excuse #169: broadcast packets on wrong frequency

Debian Hint #19: If you're interested in building packages from source, you should consider installing the apt-src package.

BOFH excuse #376: Budget cuts forced us to sell all the power cords for the servers.

BOFH excuse #385: Dyslexics retyping hosts file on servers

BOFH excuse #331: those damn raccoons!

BOFH excuse #247: Due to Federal Budget problems we have been forced to cut back on the number of users able to access the system at one time. (namely none allowed....)

Sunday, April 17, 2011

BOFH excuse #271: The kernel license has expired

BOFH excuse #356: the daemons! the daemons! the terrible daemons!

BOFH excuse #57: Groundskeepers stole the root password

BOFH excuse #167: excessive collisions & not enough packet ambulances

BOFH excuse #405: Sysadmins unavailable because they are in a meeting talking about why they are unavailable so much.

Today is Pungenday, the 35th day of Discord in the YOLD 3177

Debian Hint #11: Keep up to date on what's going on - read the Debian Times. Read it on the web at http://times.debian.net/

BOFH excuse #192: runaway cat on system.

BOFH excuse #125: we just switched to Sprint.

Saturday, April 16, 2011

BOFH excuse #441: Hash table has woodworm

BOFH excuse #149: Dew on the telephone lines.

Debian Hint #13: If you don't like the default options used in a Debian package, you can download the source and build a version which uses the options you prefer. See http://www.debian.org/doc/FAQ/ch-pkg_basics.html (sections 6.13 and 6.14) for more information. However, bear in mind that most options in most packages can be configured at runtime, and do not require recompiling the package.

Debian Hint #13: If you don't like the default options used in a Debian package, you can download the source and build a version which uses the options you prefer. See http://www.debian.org/doc/FAQ/ch-pkg_basics.html (sections 6.13 and 6.14) for more information. However, bear in mind that most options in most packages can be configured at runtime, and do not require recompiling the package.

BOFH excuse #358: struck by the Good Times virus

BOFH excuse #81: Please excuse me, I have to circuit an AC line through my head to get this database working.

BOFH excuse #261: The Usenet news is out of date

Today is Boomtime, the 34th day of Discord in the YOLD 3177

BOFH excuse #338: old inkjet cartridges emanate barium-based fumes

BOFH excuse #26: first Saturday after first full moon in Winter

BOFH excuse #301: appears to be a Slow/Narrow SCSI-0 Interface problem

BOFH excuse #107: The keyboard isn't plugged in

BOFH excuse #35: working as designed

BOFH excuse #208: Your mail is being routed through Germany ... and they're censoring us.

BOFH excuse #194: We only support a 1200 bps connection.

BOFH excuse #267: The UPS is on strike.

BOFH excuse #163: no "any" key on keyboard

BOFH excuse #359: YOU HAVE AN I/O ERROR -> Incompetent Operator error

BOFH excuse #392: It's union rules. There's nothing we can do about it. Sorry.

Friday, April 15, 2011

BOFH excuse #404: Sysadmin accidentally destroyed pager with a large hammer.

BOFH excuse #402: Secretary sent chain letter to all 5000 employees.

Use the "which" command to find if an executable is in your path, and if it is, where you can find the file. e.g. 'which nano'

Today is Sweetmorn, the 33rd day of Discord in the YOLD 3177

BOFH excuse #365: parallel processors running perpendicular today

BOFH excuse #187: Reformatting Page. Wait...

BOFH excuse #381: Robotic tape changer mistook operator's tie for a backup tape.

BOFH excuse #425: stop bit received

Debian Hint #39: Want to download a package without installing it? Use 'aptitude download '.

Debian Hint #39: Want to download a package without installing it? Use 'aptitude download <pkgname>'.

BOFH excuse #430: Mouse has out-of-cheese-error

BOFH excuse #248: Too much radiation coming from the soil.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

BOFH excuse #23: improperly oriented keyboard

Debian Hint #21: If your Debian box is behind a slow network connection, but you have access to a fast one as well, check out the apt-zip package.

BOFH excuse #147: Party-bug in the Aloha protocol.

BOFH excuse #31: cellular telephone interference

Today is Setting Orange, the 32nd day of Discord in the YOLD 3177

BOFH excuse #349: Stray Alpha Particles from memory packaging caused Hard Memory Error on Server.

BOFH excuse #223: The lines are all busy (busied out, that is -- why let them in to begin with?).

BOFH excuse #220: Someone thought The Big Red Button was a light switch.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

BOFH excuse #451: astropneumatic oscillations in the water-cooling

BOFH excuse #52: Smell from unhygienic janitorial staff wrecked the tape heads

BOFH excuse #34: (l)user error

BOFH excuse #387: Your computer's union contract is set to expire at midnight.

BOFH excuse #151: Some one needed the powerstrip, so they pulled the switch plug.

BOFH excuse #164: root rot

Today is Prickle-Prickle, the 31st day of Discord in the YOLD 3177

Debian Hint #12: The grep-dctrl package provides a number of useful scripts for quickly searching various package control files (such as the available packages file).

BOFH excuse #221: The mainframe needs to rest. It's getting old, you know.

BOFH excuse #409: The vulcan-death-grip ping has been applied.

BOFH excuse #205: Quantum dynamics are affecting the transistors

BOFH excuse #100: IRQ dropout

BOFH excuse #21: POSIX compliance problem

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

BOFH excuse #332: suboptimal routing experience

Debian Hint #4: You can see the available and installed versions for one or more available packages with the command 'apt-cache policy '.

Debian Hint #4: You can see the available and installed versions for one or more available packages with the command 'apt-cache policy <packages>'.

BOFH excuse #399: We are a 100% Microsoft Shop.

Today is Pungenday, the 30th day of Discord in the YOLD 3177

BOFH excuse #314: You need to upgrade your VESA local bus to a MasterCard local bus.

BOFH excuse #452: Somebody ran the operating system through a spelling checker.

BOFH excuse #377: Someone hooked the twisted pair wires into the answering machine.

BOFH excuse #157: Incorrect time synchronization

BOFH excuse #128: Power Company having EMP problems with their reactor

BOFH excuse #72: Satan did it

BOFH excuse #445: Browser's cookie is corrupted -- someone's been nibbling on it.

BOFH excuse #141: disks spinning backwards - toggle the hemisphere jumper.

Monday, April 11, 2011

BOFH excuse #326: We need a licensed electrician to replace the light bulbs in the computer room.

BOFH excuse #337: the butane lighter causes the pincushioning

BOFH excuse #329: Server depressed, needs Prozac

Today is Boomtime, the 29th day of Discord in the YOLD 3177

BOFH excuse #437: crop circles in the corn shell

Debian Hint #9: If you need to know what version of Debian you're currently running, look in /etc/debian_version; if you want to know the codename for that version (for example, 3.0 is codenamed 'Woody'), check this URL: http://www.debian.org/doc/FAQ/ch-ftparchives.html#s-codenames

BOFH excuse #82: Yeah, yo mama dresses you funny and you need a mouse to delete files.

BOFH excuse #186: permission denied

BOFH excuse #318: Your EMAIL is now being delivered by the USPS.

BOFH excuse #400: We are Microsoft. What you are experiencing is not a problem; it is an undocumented feature.

Debian Hint #37: In search for some games? Take a look at 'goplay', which offers a nice Frontend for browsing through all kind of games.

BOFH excuse #279: The static electricity routing is acting up...

Sunday, April 10, 2011

BOFH excuse #60: system has been recalled

BOFH excuse #284: Electrons on a bender

Today is Sweetmorn, the 28th day of Discord in the YOLD 3177

BOFH excuse #64: CPU needs recalibration

BOFH excuse #244: Your cat tried to eat the mouse.

BOFH excuse #236: Fanout dropping voltage too much, try cutting some of those little traces

BOFH excuse #70: nesting roaches shorted out the ether cable

BOFH excuse #180: ether leak

BOFH excuse #109: The electricity substation in the car park blew up.

Debian Hint #34: The package 'doc-debian' contains some general documentation about the Debian project. It is also available in spanish (doc-debian-es), french (doc-debian-fr) and ukrainian (doc-debian-uk).

Debian Hint #34: The package 'doc-debian' contains some general documentation about the Debian project. It is also available in spanish (doc-debian-es), french (doc-debian-fr) and ukrainian (doc-debian-uk).

BOFH excuse #270: Someone has messed up the kernel pointers

BOFH excuse #408: Computers under water due to SYN flooding.

Saturday, April 9, 2011

BOFH excuse #357: I'd love to help you -- it's just that the Boss won't let me near the computer.

BOFH excuse #260: We're upgrading /dev/null

BOFH excuse #146: Communications satellite used by the military for star wars.

BOFH excuse #175: OS swapped to disk

BOFH excuse #242: Software uses US measurements, but the OS is in metric...

Today is Setting Orange, the 27th day of Discord in the YOLD 3177

BOFH excuse #158: Defunct processes

BOFH excuse #173: Recursive traversal of loopback mount points

Debian Hint #16: If you're searching for a particular file, but don't know which package it belongs to, try installing 'apt-file', which maintains a small database of this information, or search the contents of the Debian Packages database, which can be done at: http://www.debian.org/distrib/packages#search_contents

Debian Hint #16: If you're searching for a particular file, but don't know which package it belongs to, try installing 'apt-file', which maintains a small database of this information, or search the contents of the Debian Packages database, which can be done at: http://www.debian.org/distrib/packages#search_contents

BOFH excuse #295: The Token fell out of the ring. Call us when you find it.

BOFH excuse #305: IRQ-problems with the Un-Interruptible-Power-Supply

Friday, April 8, 2011

BOFH excuse #322: Your Pentium has a heating problem - try cooling it with ice cold water.(Do not turn of your computer, you do not want to cool down the Pentium Chip while he isn't working, do you?)

Debian Hint #40: Want to know how you can use a program you have never used before? "man" will be your best new friend! Type "man " in a shell. Or, run "man -H " to read the manual page in a browser.

Monday, April 4, 2011

Debian Hint #41: Improve bash's tab-completion by installing the bash-completion package.

Today is Setting Orange, the 22nd day of Discord in the YOLD 3177

Debian Hint #22: Wondering which Debian mirror is best for you? Check out the apt-spy and netselect-apt packages, which can give you information about how various mirror sites perform.

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.

Debian Hint #14: If you would like to follow things happening to a package (for example, if you want to see bug reports, release notices, and other similar things), consider subscribing to it on the Package Tracking System. You can find out more about the PTS at: http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/developers-reference/ch-resources.en.html (Section 4.10)

Debian Hint #14: If you would like to follow things happening to a package (for example, if you want to see bug reports, release notices, and other similar things), consider subscribing to it on the Package Tracking System. You can find out more about the PTS at: http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/developers-reference/ch-resources.en.html (Section 4.10)

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

To make a backup without typing the full path twice: 'cp /long/path/to/file/name{,.orig}' to create a copy with the suffix .orig

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