Quick and easy bootable DOS CD using Linux

I needed a DOS bootable CD to update the BIOS on a Dell server. The Dell executable was too large to fit on a 1.44MB floppy image, so many of the recipes I found wouldn't work. I ran across this page and adapted it to my needs. Here is a generic procedure:

0: Install mkisofs (and optionally qemu, if you want to test the image before burning).

1. mkdir freedos_livecd && cd freedos_livecd # or whatever name

2. wget -N http://www.mikerosoft.org/Utilities/FDOEMCD.builder.zip

3, unzip FDOEMCD.builder.zip && cd FDOEMCD/CDROOT

4. cp {files needed on CD} .

5. cd ..

6. mkisofs -o imagename.iso -b isolinux/isolinux.bin -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 \
-boot-info-table -N -J -r -c boot.catalog -hide boot.catalog -hide-joliet boot.catalog CDROOT

Done!

To test the image before burning:

qemu -localtime -boot d -cdrom imagename.iso # Ctrl-Alt to get your pointer back

Then burn it.

Safari books

I was reminded how much I like having a Safari Books Online subscription this morning.

I read this Slashdot review of Becoming Agile: In An Imperfect World and then was able to open the Safare web page, paste in the title, and start reading. Instant gratification!

Asus EEE PC useful at last!

We purchased one of these to evaluate, and it fell into disuse for the usual reasons (mainly the display is too small to be useful for much).

However, I needed to use Skype to conference with a colleague while at the summit for a engineering run, and could not get the microphone to work on my T61p laptop. So I fired up Skype on the EEE and it worked "out of the box".

However, the version that comes with it is too old to have video support. Some Googling found this article

Unfortunately, the link in the article takes you to the current version, 2.1, for Debian, not built for Xandros. Rather than get into dependency hell, I dug around, and found the previous version for Xandros here: http://download.skype.com/linux/skype-debian_2.0.0.72-1_i386.deb

Everything else worked as described, and I had two-way video, using the little built-in webcam.

So now I have a handy little video-phone!

Printing USPS forms with Linux and FF 3.0

I had to ship a Priority Mail and an international package today. I went to usps.com to do it, because I found this saved a trip to the post office when I tried it last year. However, it seems that USPS has been tinkering with the site, and has messed up the print process. See this article for example (for Mac): http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=2005052713194641

That thread gave me the clues necessary to achieve this workaround. Hope it helps someone.

When you get to the page where the form should be printing, open the "Page Info" window from the "Tools" menu. Click on the "Media" tab, highlight the last entry (ending in "com.usps.cns.web.pdf.LabelGenerationServlet") and download it using the "Save As" button. The resulting file is a PDF containing the form(s).

Red Hat 9 software updates

In case it's useful to someone, here are some tips on using yum to get software updates:

- Ensure you are using the version of python packaged with the distribution.

- The old repositories are gone. Here's an /etc/yum.conf that works currently:

[main]
cachedir=/var/cache/yum
debuglevel=2
logfile=/var/log/yum.log
pkgpolicy=newest
distroverpkg=redhat-release
tolerant=1
exactarch=1
retries=20
exclude=kernel*

[base]
name=Red Hat Linux $releasever - Base
baseurl=http://ftp.kddilabs.jp/Linux/packages/fedora.legacy/redhat/$releasever/os/$basearch/
gpgcheck=1

[updates-released]
name=Red Hat Linux $releasever - Released Updates
baseurl=http://ftp.kddilabs.jp/Linux/packages/fedora.legacy/redhat/$releasever/updates/$basearch/
gpgcheck=1

#[updates-testing]
#name=Red Hat Linux $releasever - Unreleased Updates
#baseurl=http://ftp.kddilabs.jp/Linux/packages/fedora.legacy/redhat/$releasever/updates-testing/$basearch/
#gpgcheck=1

[legacy-utils]
name=Fedora Legacy utilities for Red Hat Linux $releasever
baseurl=http://ftp.kddilabs.jp/Linux/packages/fedora.legacy/redhat/$releasever/legacy-utils/$basearch/
gpgcheck=1

Ice 3.3.0 on RH9 progress

All 61 tests in the test suite for the C++ build now pass!

Now for the Python build...

Code changes to Ice-3.3.0 for RH9

cpp/src/IceUtil/Cond.cpp
at line 314, ifdef this out - it appears RH9 does not support it.

cpp/src/IceSSL/Instance.cpp
at line 76, change to reinterpret_cast - this older version of NPTL has pthread_t as a different type.

cpp/src/IceUtil/Time.cpp
at line 114, monotonic clock issue again.

cpp/src/Ice/Network.cpp
at lines 335 and 1365, change "1" to "tcpmux"
(getaddrinfo(3) on RH9 has some quirks).