HOWTO: vsftpd's Virtual User Use Local Privileges

If you are using vsftpd with virtual users, as described in official example, and are suffering problems like this:

226 Transfer done (but failed to open directory).

(you may see above text in client or server log), you may consider using "virtual_use_local_privs".

Per study of cpdohert, if you want vsftpd's virtual user follow local privileges, you have to use:

virtual_use_local_privs=YES

FTP Ascii Mode in KDE (kioslave)

Write a ~/.kde/share/config/kio_ftprc, with

[hostname]
textmode=true

Or use [] instead of [hostname] to make it used everywhere.

Warning: this will likely mess up any transfers of binary files.

In courtesy of David Faure.

Steps to Upgrade MoinMoin Wiki from 1.5.* to 1.6.*

I've been using the MoinMoin Wiki from Debian Testing for some time and this morning I found it was upgraded from 1.5.8 to 1.6.2, and unsurprisingly, my Wiki installation stopped working, very obviously some data migration may be necessary.

After wasted some time, I found a good article: Thomas Waldmann's AnotherWayToMigrateFrom1.5To1.6. I couldn't find a good official migration guide like this, which told you that you must run cache cleaning and data migration.

Hope this is useful to other MoinMoin users.

Use pdftk to Update PDF File's Meta Data

A good tool, pdftk, can be used to manipulate PDF files, changing meta-data, page-juggling, etc., you name it! And it's GPLed.

Easy, peasy, japanesey.

Error of Running VMware Server 1.0.5 on Debian 4.0 Etch

I installed VMware Server 1.0.5 on Debian 4.0 Etch (i686) today and couldn't start vmware-console due to this error:

(vmware:20921): libgnomevfs-WARNING **: Cannot load module `/usr/lib/gnome-vfs-2.0/modules/libfile.so' (/usr/lib/vmware/lib/libgcc_s.so.1/libgcc_s.so.1: version `GCC_4.2.0' not found (required by /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.6))

To fix this problem, start VMware by running:

VMWARE_USE_SHIPPED_GTK=yes vmware

For more information on this please click the title, which leads to a post on VMware community website.

RPM Spec: conditional build based on host distro

When writing spec of RPM, often you need to write some special instructions that are needed only on some distros or versions, but not all. You can use this:

# Do something for FC4 and beyond.
%if 0%{?fedora} >= 4
    # ...
%endif

Tweak GNOME Auto Mount Options

Use gconf-editor to edit the key:

/system/storage/default_options/vfat/mount_options

The most useful one for me to add is "iocharset=utf8".

Ignoring .svn directories with grep

Have lived with Subversion for many years and finally I found this (link to outside my blog) simple little trick. :)

Wikipedia Unblocked (temp) in China

Now I can access Wikipedia in China without using a proxy, not all contents, only a large part. This is a big step forward.

As well as blogspot.com, wow!

May His Holiness let this last.