HandsomePlanet » debian

What’s my ubuntu (or debian) version?

admin — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 19:41:00 +0000

I have a number of machines running various OS releases. Sometimes I need to check what flavor or relase I’m running on the current machine.
While uname -a will show the Linux kernel version, there are a few ways to get more information.
Here are three possibilities:
cat /etc/issue cat /etc/lsb-release
and my favorite:
lsb_release -a

Here’s some sample output from lsb_release:
$ lsb_release -a LSB Version: core-2.0-ia32:core-2.0-noarch:core-3.0-ia32:core-3.0-noarch:core-3.1-ia32:core-3.1-noarch:core-3.2-ia32:core-3.2-noarch:core-4.0-ia32:core-4.0-noarch Distributor ID: Ubuntu Description: Ubuntu 10.04.1 LTS Release: 10.04 Codename: lucid

The “lsb” in these commands refers to the Linux Standard Base. For more information, see the Linux Foundation .

How to keep apache from autostarting on system boot for Debian or Ubuntu

admin — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 15:40:52 +0000

An easy way to remove apache2 (or another system service) from the start up scripts in Debian or Ubuntu is to use the update-rc.d mechanism.

For instance:

# update-rc.d -f apache2 remove

The “-f” is required if you have existing scripts in /etc/init.d/apache2. If you are planning on manually starting apache, the “-f” is [barring heroic/quixotic effort to create alternatives] a requirement.
Otherwise, in this situation, you will see:

update-rc.d: /etc/init.d/apache2 exists during rc.d purge (use -f to force)

A good write-up is here:
http://www.debuntu.org/how-to-manage-services-with-update-rc.d

crontab editor (alternatives redux)

admin — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 23:16:41 +0000

Well, my Debian server seems to think I should edit crontabs by with pico. So, the fix (as with Ubuntu) :

update-alternatives --set editor /usr/bin/vim.tiny

Is there a difference between “apt-get purge” vs. “apt-get remove –purge” ?

admin — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 15:40:26 +0000

I was wondering this myself, as the two seemed to do the same thing. Google helpfully turned up a thread from ubuntu-users (Jan. ’09).

This post sums it up well (and accurately, I believe):

>Derek B. writes:

>>Tommy T. wrote:

>>> On Fri, Jan 23 [...] Pierre F. wrote:

>>> hi,
>>> Is there any subtle difference between the 2 syntaxes?
>>> (I couldn’t find the answer in any documentation)
>>
>> Don’t they do different things?
>
>No.