Keep Ubuntu kernel version

sudo aptitude hold linux-image-2.6.27-11-generic

Check it:
sudo aptitude show linux-image


I found the package name for the hold command by doing:
uname -a
Say your kernel version is 2.6.27-11
apt-cache search kernel |grep 2.6.27-11

svn failing on cygwin with return code 53

Problem: subversion client fails under cygwin with no output

Solution: run setup.exe. Choose a different download mirror. Click the "Base" package until it says "Reinstall". Continue with the installation, and make sure it finishes cleanly.


Story:
svn was jacked. Running svn with any arguments caused it to exit with error code 53:

$ svn
$ echo $?
53

A coworker suggested rebaseall.

That turned up this tidbit:

ash$ /bin/rebaseall
/usr/bin/cygfreetype-6.dll: skipped because nonexistent
/usr/bin/cygz.dll: skipped because nonexistent

Hmm. cygz.dll. That seems pretty important.

Running svn.exe from ash poped up a dialog that read:

This application has failed to start because cygz.dll was not found. Re-installing the application may fix theis problem.

Heh. Already tried that.

Something about running cygwin apps under the usual bash shell suppresses this (very useful) error message.

I tried reinstalling the "Base" package with no success. Changing mirrors, and doing it again worked. Maybe a tcp connection got reset during the previous upgrade? Who knows.

Happy ending:

$ svn
Type 'svn help' for usage.

Find motherboard info from command line

Programmatically identify find tell hardware information.

Find your motherboard model from the command line: dmidecode

Found here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=634729

Disable printk output to console in Linux

It would be nice if you could limit printk and syslog output to just one virtual console.
Here is how to disable it to all consoles:

echo "4 1 1 7" > /proc/sys/kernel/printk