KoolSolutions Linux Blog

HOWTO: Create and submit your first Linux kernel patch using GIT

Kushal Koolwal — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 18:09:17 PST

After working with Linux (mostly as an advanced user) for years, I decided to post my first Linux kernel patch (although trivial but hey you need to start somewhere!) and I was thrilled when it first got accepted by the Subsystem maintainer and then ultimately it trickled into mainline kernel. What follows is a step-by-step [...]

Info: Debian GNU/Linux 6.0 (Squeeze) Release Information

Kushal Koolwal — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 14:25:23 PST

Looks like Debian 6.0 a.k.a Squeeze is to be released over this weekend as per the email sent by Alexander Reichle-Schmehl on the debian-news mailing list. Debian “Squeeze” will supersede Debian 5.0 “Lenny” which was released back on Feb. 14th 2009. I plan to write several posts regarding changes in Debian Squeeze and also documenting [...]

TIP: Getting rid of permission error when compiling kernel from GIT source

Kushal Koolwal — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 15:49:13 PST

Problem So recently I was in a situation where I had to use the git-bisect tool to find a bug that was causing my system to hang during early boot. One of the first step to do that is to get kernel git tree on your system where you will compile kernels. So I did [...]

Happy New Year – 2011!

Kushal Koolwal — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 11:54:45 PST

KoolSolutions Inc. would like to wish a very very Happy New Year to all the readers and subscribers of the Debian Ubuntu Linux Solutions Blog! Thank you for your support! 63354GYREV37

TIP: Compiling 2.6.33 and above kernels on Debian Lenny

Kushal Koolwal — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 17:22:06 PST

So let’s say you want to install a Linux kernel 2.6.33 or newer on your Debian Lenny system. Problem The problem is that after you give your usual make-kpkg command to compile Linux kernel on Debian Lenny you will see the following error message after sometime into the compilation process: COLUMNS=150 dpkg -l 'gcc*' perl [...]

TIP: Getting rid of common errors in chroot mode

Kushal Koolwal — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 13:36:46 PST

In lot of my previous posts, I have mentioned using “chroot” to do different things. However, while you are in chroot, depending upon your actions, you might get see some error messages which are usually non-fatal and will let you do whatever you are trying to do (in general). Although in general it is a [...]

HOWTO: Lookup Symbol Name and Address during Linux Kernel Debugging

Kushal Koolwal — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 11:39:31 PST

Purpose: This is a short post in which we will see how to look-up a symbol name (function or a variable) from the address that it outputted in the kernel dmesg logs and vice versa. Note: Please note that this is not a HOWTO on how to debug Linux Kernel when it does a OOPS [...]

Info: Change in blog title and tagline

Kushal Koolwal — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 18:20:32 PDT

With the whole consolidation that has been going with this blog, I think it is an appropriate time to change the title and tag line also for the blog. New Title: Debian Ubuntu Linux Solutions Blog New TagLine: Simple Solution That Works! The new title of the blog matches more with the content and the [...]

Info: Embedded Systems Conference Boston 2010

Kushal Koolwal — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 16:08:00 PDT

Recently I was invited to speak at the ESC Boston 2010 show! This was my first time at an ESC (Embedded Systems Conference) show and also my first time presenting a paper to the conference. There were lot of great seminars on Linux in particularly one on Android (the Google mobile OS), debugging Linux kernel [...]

HOWTO: Send attachments and message from shell script using mail command

Kushal Koolwal — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 14:46:05 PDT

Purpose: In one our previous post we saw how to send emails using shell script. In this blog post we will extend that concept and see how we can send attachments also along with the email body message in just one command from shell script using our familiar mail command. Step 1: Prepare your e-mail [...]

TIP: Fixing sendmail configuration error

Kushal Koolwal — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 09:52:18 PDT

Problem I usually use the sendmail program to send out emails from my Debian system. Recently I tried to do some changes to my /etc/mail/sendmail.mc file and after making the changes I had to generate the /etc/mail/sendmail.cf file by using any one of the following commands: make (or make -C /etc/mail) or sendmailconfig or m4 [...]

Announcement: Welcome to our new home!

Kushal Koolwal — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 00:05:27 PDT

This will be the last post on this domain i.e. on http://blogs.koolwal.net. The new address for this blog will be http://linux.koolsolutions.com. This has been on my plate for quite some time and finally today (October 13th) is a good day as 13th is my lucky number! All the previous links on Google and other search [...]

TIP: Where to find global php.ini file in Debian

Kushal Koolwal — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 13:53:04 PDT

So let’s say you get the following error message on your Debian system while browsing a LAMP application like MediaWiki: Allowed memory size of 147281674 bytes exhausted in <some-file>.php on line 57 Then you start to search on the Internet with the above error message and you find advices like: memory_limit = 32M to your [...]

Discussion: Difference between debootstrap and cdebootstrap

Kushal Koolwal — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 10:00:08 PDT

I wanted to write about this topic since last year but never got around it. What I find surprising is that things have not changed much even as off today with regards to this issue. Last year, I wrote a blog article on bootstrapping your system using debootstrap. Later on, I wrote another article which [...]

HOWTO: Compiling a custom Linux kernel on Debian Linux System

Kushal Koolwal — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 18:16:29 PDT

Purpose: There are many ways on how to compile a Linux kernel on a Linux operating system. Here is a step-by-step guide on how to compile a custom Linux kernel, the “Debian way”, on Debian Lenny. Step 1: Install Debian system I guess I don’t need to explain this. If you are at a stage [...]