In zsh: alias ':q'=exit I can't count the number of times I've typed ':q' by mistake in a shell expecting it to quit. Now it will :)

To calculate the amount of free disk space in Python, you can use the os.stafvfs() function. For some reason, I can never find the docs for os.statvfs() on the first or second try (it's in the "Files and Directories" section in the os module), and I never remember how it works, so I'm posting this as a note to myself, and maybe to help out anybody else wanting to do the same thing. A simple free space function can be written as:

import os

def freespace(p):
    """
    Returns the number of free bytes on the drive that ``p`` is on
    """
    s = os.statvfs(p)
    return s.f_bsize * s.f_bavail

I use the f_bavail attribute instead of f_bfree, since the latter includes blocks that are reserved for the the super-user's use. I'm not sure, however, on the distinction between f_bsize and f_frsize.

I previously posted that I had problems getting my wireless device working with the new 2.6.24 kernel, running into a kernel oops in the process. In kernels prior to 2.6.24 I used the bcm43xx driver, and let NetworkManager handle connecting to wireless networks. I've since had some time to play around with 2.6.24 a bit more, and I'm happy to say wireless is working now! Here's what I did: - Install b43-fwcutter - Add b43 to /etc/modules - Add ', ATTR{type}="1"' after the MAC address to the line in /etc/udev/rules.d/z25_persistent-net.rules that contains your wireless device. This ensures that udev will assign the same interface name to the wireless device as it had before, which means you don't have to reconfigure your firewall!

The linux-kbuild-2.6.24 package was finally available in Debian today. (Small aside: why does it always take a few days after the release of the linux-image packages before the linux-kbuild package is available?) I need to use the proprietary nvidia drivers on my machines, so I have to wait for the kbuild backage before I can compile and install the nvidia driver for the new kernel. Anyway...after a short 'sudo m-a a-i -l 2.6.24-1-amd64 nvidia', I could reboot into the shiny new kernel! New kernels always seem faster, so I was getting excited after booting up. After logging in though, I couldn't connect to my wireless network. I had previously been using the bcm43xx driver, and looking through the changelog, I discovered it had been deprecated in favor of the new b43 / b43legacy drivers. Ok, no problem, just load the new module...wait for network-manager to pick it up...wait for it...wait...wait...Screw it. Edit /etc/network/interfaces, uncomment the stuff for the wireless device, and then 'ifup eth2'. Kernel oops. Well that sucks. Back to 2.6.23 I go. Incidentally, it's not just this oops in 2.6.24 that has me disappointed. Everything since 2.6.18 has been a bit risky. It used to be that upgrading a kernel within the same major.minor release was a relatively safe thing to do. I actively use two different kernels on my machine at home: - 2.6.21 since it supports the raw1394 interface that dvgrab requires to download video from my camcorder, but wireless is very flaky - 2.6.23 since wireless is more robust I still occasionally get lockups, forcing a hard reboot. Maybe this is my fault, I am running the proprietary nvidia driver, and I do use suspend to ram quite a bit, even though it thinks my hardware isn't supported. Maybe too much is changing too fast between kernel releases, not allowing userspace to keep up? Not sure, all I know is I'm doing much more rebooting in my Linux machine than I used to.

Last night I thought I bricked my old Linksys WRT54G wireless router. I wanted to see if the latest firmware would resolve some problems I had with my wireless connection being dropped. After the firmware upgrade, I didn't have the dropped connection problem any more...I had a new problem - I couldn't connect to the router at all! No wireless access, no LAN access. The most I could do was ping it. I decided to check out OpenWRT to see if my hardware was supported, and how one was supposed to go about flashing new firmware onto the router. Luckily the TFTP method worked, and now I'm back up and running! Maybe it's my imagination, but it seems like the connection is faster now...

A friend of mine just referred me to this page: http://www.ex-parrot.com/pete/upside-down-ternet.html Pretty funny stuff :) I was trying to figure out what else you could do to the poor unsuspecting user...What about setting up a dummy NTP server that was set too far back or forward in time? Redirecting SMTP or POP traffic could be fun too :)

1. aptitude/apt-get/wajig install nspluginwrapper
2. Download and unpack flash from www.adobe.com, and run linux32 ./flashplayer-installer
3. nspluginwrapper -i $HOME/.mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so

Dear Lazyweb, Somebody please extend my shell's (zsh right now) tab completion so that it searches the following and expands as appropriate: - Strings visible in any visible terminals - Host/path names for any visible terminals I can't count the number of times I've wanted to copy a file from the current directory in one terminal to the current directory in another terminal, mostly on remote machines. I'd love to be able to type: 'scp myfile.py remotehost:<tab>' and have whatever directories I have active terminals on included in the list of possibilities that I can cycle through. No idea how one would go about doing this...The shell needs to communicate with the terminal emulator, so maybe an extension of the terminal-title-setting mechanism would work?

Dear Lazy Web, How do you identify the type of CD/DVD inserted into a CDR/RW/DVD+-RW drive in Linux? dvd+rw-mediainfo does a great job with DVDs, but is there anything equivalent for CDs? Or better yet, a single tool that tells you all you need to know about a disc in the drive? Hope to hear from you soon, Chris

Via Planet Debian: Enrico Zini posts about using the clipboard with vim Two cool things I learned from Enrico's post:

1. xclip is cool. Especially with combined with zsh. Say you want to have the output of a command printed to the terminal, but also copied to the clipboard. sha1sum * | tee >(xclip)
2. I read the x11-selection help page in vim and discovered that you can access the copy/paste clipboard with the '+' register. Wow! No more pasting in text, having the indentation screwed up, undoing, setting paste mode, pasting again, unsetting paste mode!