Obscure Linux Notes

Paths

After installing libraries (withou package manager), run ldconfig

Fonts

When using a basic window manager on Debian, be sure to run gnome-settings-daemon. Without it gtk+ apps and fonts in general are very basic ugly.

Copying Media (block level)

dd if=/dev/devicename of=file is the basic way, but that doesn't always work. For recovering from a damaged cdrom, use ddrescue.

ddrescue -n -b2048 /dev/cdrom cdimage logfile
ddrescue -d -b2048 /dev/cdrom cdimage logfile

Then, if there are still errors. Remove the disk, wipe it, and reinsert it (using a different cdrom can be very helpful here, even a different computer -just copy the cdimage and logfile to the new machine). Then run:

ddrescue -d -r1 -b2048 /dev/cdrom cdimage logfile

DDrescue will merge the collected data from both runs. For more information, see the ddrescue manual. Note that this may not work for audio CDs, which are very different beasts from data CDs and DVDs. CDparanoia is a library that does a good job at ripping damaged audio CDs. It is difficult to use, but many audio ripping programs on Linux make use of it. For instance, K3B (set the "CD paranoia level" to 3 to do a recovery).