Ubuntu

I ran into the following error when I added a new repository to my kubuntu box and ran apt-get update:
E: Dynamic MMap ran out of room. Please increase the size of APT::Cache-Limit. Current value: 123123. (man 5 apt.conf)

To fix this, navigate to /etc/apt/apt.conf.d and edit the file related to debconf which in my case was 70debconf. Add the following line to the bottom of this file and save it:
APT::Cache-Limit "200000000";

Finding all the members of a group is an occasional requirement and while there are a number of ways to do this by parsing the /etc/group and /etc/password files, Debian/Ubuntu come with a simpler solution that performs all this skulduggery for you. This is the members function that can simply be installed using sudo apt-get install members . Once this is done, members of a group named foo can be listed using:
members foo.

Earlier today, I noticed - in htop - that a particular process, let's say 'foo-123', was running even though I had removed the package 'foo' many days earlier. I tried removing it again and found that I was right and that the package had already been removed. The package dependency list was way too long for me to go removing them one by one, or parsing them out and removing the lot.

IRC, however, was very obliging to my query and provided me with the below-pasted nifty solution that did not allow any odd gimmickry:
sudo aptitude search '~i' | grep foo

The Internet will go bust without DNS and the following is a guide to setting up your own DNS server to provide information about your domains and associated services. While this task can be accomplished very easily when using a hosting control panel, it is great fun to set things up on your own.

While trying to check the vhost configuration on my Kubuntu dev box, I had to run httpd -S. Of course, since ubuntu renamed httpd to apache (a bit like calling a Veyron a Bugatti), I had to run apache2 -S. This however led to the following error message:
apache2: bad user name ${APACHE_RUN_USER}

If you are using Skype on Linux and run into the error message "P2P connect failed" while trying to sign in, then your configuration file is very likely corrupt. The fix is to just delete the .Skype directory from your home directory and restart Skype.

The version of Skype on my system is 2.0.0.72 and it was installed (and upgraded) from the Medibuntu repository. I'm pretty certain that the previous version was working fine.

N.B. Files and directories beginning with a period are, by default, hidden.

If you follow the posts on this site, you'd have noticed my issues with the recent Hardy upgrade. While I thought they'd been fixed in my fstab, this was apparently not the case. When I rebooted the machine next, I couldn't even get to the shell as I encountered the message - Unable to execute /bin/sh - Permission Denied.

I have a Gigabyte board with an nForce 430 chipset that supports RAID. I was hoping to use it to create a simple RAID1 mirror using two hard drives to protect my previous MP3 collection. The system in question is an updated Kubuntu Gutsy box.

Before we start, this is the first time I am playing with RAID and the information below might very well be wrong. Please feel free to correct me :)

If you ever find yourself running into a monotonous

"The following packages have been kept back"

error message when you run sudo apt-get upgrade, then the "fix" is to either run apt-get dist-upgrade which is quicker, but sounds more ... dangerous or to run apt-get install [package list] where package list is a list of all packages that have been kept back.

Tor is an open source project that allows users to utilise the Internet anonymously through the use of something along the lines of distributed proxies - the Onion router network. Privoxy is more of a local web proxy that, when configured correctly, can protect your privacy by filtering such information at the source. Together they are an effective and user-friendly (but not necessarily perfect) solution to preserving your anonymity on the Internet.