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Subsections
- Ctrl-Alt-F1..F4
- Text consoles (when you don't want X-Windows.)
- Cltr-Alt-F5
- (Red console) error messages ... should be no messages.
- Ctrl-Alt-F6
- See all syslog messages (older messages lost, try dmesg)
- Ctrl-Alt-F8
- Switches to 8-bit X-Server (if it is running)
- Ctrl-Alt-F9
- Switches to true-color X-Server (if it is running)
- Ctrl-Alt-Del
- Starts X-Windows OR gets back to X-Windows from console.
- Shift-Fn-+(numpad)
- Changes size of fonts in rxvt windows; shift-Fn-: shrinks.
- Ctrl-Alt-+(numpad)
- Switches video modes (800x600, 640x480, etc.)
- Fn-F7
- [Vaio SRxx] doesn't work as labeled (see below.)
- Alt-F7
- [Vaio SRxx] cycles between LCD, LCD+CRT, CRT monitor
- Jog dial
- [Vaio] Click to switch between volume/brightness setting.
- Power button
- Press briefly to put laptop to sleep. Press 10 seconds to reset a crashed machine.
Note: You can make your own scripts or aliases for commands in this list
by adding a simple script to $HOME/bin/ (create this directory first,
if needed.)
- su
- Become superuser with full permissions (until you set
a password for root, root logins through telnet or ssh
into your machine are not permitted.)
- reboot
- Use this to reboot the machine.
- halt
- Use this to shut down the machine and power off.
- dmesg
- Display most recent kernel messages
- reconfig
- All relevant settings are under first two submenus.
- ppp on
- Dial the modem (should happen auto when you plug it in.)
- ppp off
- Hang up the modem.
- modprobe vfat
- Add support for DOS/Windows filesystem to kernel.
- modprobe sd_mod
- Add scsi disk support to kernel (needed for USB floppy)
- modprobe floppy
- Add floppy support (not needed for a USB floppy)
- mount /dev/fd0 /A
- Normal way to mount floppy diskette (even DOS formatted)
- mount /dev/sda /A
- Mount USB floppy diskette
- mount /dev/hda5 /D
- Mount your D: drive, for example
- swapon /dev/hda7
- Enable swapping to partition 7 (can also be a swap file)
- swapoff /dev/hda7
- Disable swapping (to ensure minimized disk access.)
- /etc/rc.d/rc.local
- Commands which automatically run at boot (check inside)
If you always run some of the commands above after
booting, consider just adding them to rc.local.
NOTE: rc.local is now "encapsulated" in reconfig.
See the "Encapsulated files" section. Direct edits
to files like fstab or rc.local will otherwise be lost!
- /etc/rc.d/rc.inet
- Run manually to force network to be re-initialized.
Assuming you have permission to NFS mount your home directory (at CFHT
you can mount others, like /data/world/, the same way) here are
the steps. Let's say your home account is on hoku . . .
- Log on to hoku and figure out what your user and group id's are:
hoku> ls -ldn $HOME
The 3rd and 4th columns give your userid and groupid.
- Back on the laptop, plug these in to whatever user account
you are using. Do not add comment lines to /etc/passwd!
Now that you are the same user id at both ends, hoku will
recognize you as you (the actual username doesn't matter,
just don't change "root" from user-id 0, group-id 0... use
are regular user account for this!) You will probably need
to change ownership of your old laptop-home directory to the
new userid number:
laptop# chown -R username /home/username
- Create the empty directory on the laptop (called the ``mount point'').
Just use something like:
laptop# mkdir -p /h/username
- All of the above only needs to be set up once. (In fact, I've already
done it for you, but when you'll need to change stuff... that's how
it was done.
Now whenever you want access to your home directory, run:
laptop# mount hoku:/h/username /h/username
- Before unplugging the network, it is wise to cd out of
/h/username (this is impossible without logging out if you
made your NFS directory your home directory in /etc/passwd . . .
not a good idea for laptops, so that's why there is /h/you
and /home/you as the laptop home directory) and then do:
laptop# umount /h/username
This may be impossible if there are still programs running
out of this directory, or any shell sessions left in that
directory. Recent versions of the kernel seem to allow:
laptop# umount -f /h/username
It attempts to kill processes using /h/username and then forcibly
unmounts the directory (even if you've already unplugged from
the network and forgot to unmount first.) It may be necessary
to run this command a few times in a row. I'm not sure why.
- sleep 2;xset s
- activate Blank X now. (unblanking right away LOCKS UP
some older Vaio's. Be careful.)
- xset s 0 0
- Disable the X screen blanker entirely.
- xset s 120
- Set 2 minute screen blank timeout in X
- setterm -blank 2
- Set 2 minute screen blank timeout on text console
- xlock
- Lock the screen (actually uses xscreensaver)
- xscreensaver&
- Start the screen save daemon.
- xscreensaver-command -prefs
- Control xscreensaver options.
In general, it is a good idea to power down the PCMCIA slot before
physically removing the card. For disks, CDROMs, and other devices
which may contain mounted filesystems, it is essential to do this
to avoid a bunch of errors from the kernel. If the device has a power
LED, make sure the LED is off before physically removing the card.
To power down the slot from a shell:
# cardctl eject
Or use the PC Card Ops menu in the root menu of the window manager.
To change CDROMs, use cardctl eject to open the tray, close the tray
yourself and then use cardctl insert to power up the slot again.
PCMCIA CDROMs are automatically mounted on /mnt/cdrom/ when the drive
is present. If no disk was present, use these software eject and
insert commands and the disk will appear automatically.
- hdparm -d /dev/hda
- See if DMA is turned on for the drive
- hdparm -d 1 /dev/hda
- Turn DMA on (it should be already)
- hdparm -y /dev/hda
- Force immediate spin-down of the drive
(It will just spin right back up if something
is accessing it, so you'll have to tune this.)
if ( hdparm -C /dev/hda | grep -q active ); then
: # THE DRIVE IS SPINNING
else
: # THE DRIVE IS ALREADY IN STANDBY
fi
Next: 11. Bugs
Up: Sidious Linux 10.04
Previous: 9. Utilities and
  Contents
root
2006-05-11