Hi all.

Sometime ago I have created a slideshow video from a wedding photos for a Friendly couple. I made DVD video with a nice background music out of it and gave it to Them as a anniversary gift. (I used xsane / Imagination / mencoder / avidemux-qt / devede / K3B to accomplish this – all are available in PCLinuxOS repositories – just in case You ask). I wanted to keep a backup of this DVD on my HDD in a ISO file format just in case They ask for a copy. How would I create ISO file from a CD / DVD media? Its VERY simple. Use dd command. This is how it’s done:

Assuming that:

A) Your system identifies CD / DVD drive as /dev/sr0
B) Your destination folder is based in Your home folder
C) File name You want to user is file.iso.

Open terminal and issue this command followed by [ENTER] key punch:

dd if=/dev/sr0 of=~/file.iso

Where:

if=/dev/sr0 – Read from /dev/sr0 (raw format)
of=~/file.iso – copy the media to a file-container file.iso located in my /home/user/ folder i.e. backup media to ISO image

Now You can for example:

A) Burn the iso to a CD / DVD to make extra copies (with K3B / Brasero / SimpleBurn etc…)
B) If it’s lets say Linux LiveCD You can use ISO to boot it in VirtualBox (also available in PCLinuxOS repositories…).
C) Do many other things with it.

Hope this helps.

Andy

Hi all.

Autologin can be handy when You are the only person that uses the computer. It can also be used to log into guest account if there are multiple users on the computer and You don’t want to create accounts for all of them.

Setting Up Autologin KDE4 Video…

Regards.

Andy

I have heard a good joke today…

– Hey Daddy… What does “Formatting HDD successfully completed” means?…
– It means You’re freakin DEAD

It does not have to be this way…

First of all – in PCLinuxOS You need to know the root password before You can format a drive…

Second thing is – if You set the permissions to Your files properly nobody can touch them if they don’t have Your password.

Last but not least? Backup Your data!

I always run a very nifty command before applying any important change to my system:

cp -Rf ~/.mozilla ~/.mozilla.bkp

It makes my settings save… Copies them into the .mozilla.bkp folder – if something nasty happens to my .mozilla folder I can recover it in a few seconds.

I have a .bkp copy of most of my ~ folders. If I loose my .mozilla settings or they are messed up I use:

rm -Rf ~/.mozilla&&cp -Rf ~/.mozilla.bkp ~/.mozilla

It removes the .mozilla folder from my ~ folder and replaces it with new .mozilla folder copied from my .mozilla.bkp folder.

Of coz You need to replace .mozilla with the name of the folder You want to backup.

Mind Your fingers coz rm -Rf command IS dangerous if misused. It will delete everything in path given without asking and it will delete it recursively…

You could use it to backup and recover any folder to and from any place just mind the syntax of the command.

Andy

Hi.

This is something I do when all my permissions are greyed out in KDE.

A) Open Dolphin file manager.
B) Right click on the ~/.firefox folder.
C) Choose Properties.
D) Go to the Permissions tab.
E) Click Advanced Permissions.
F) Make sure that all Special ticks (UID, GID, Sticky) are unticked.
G) Click Ok.
H) Are Your permissions still not available? They should be now.
I) Set them up

a) Owner: Can view and modify content
b) Group: Forbidden
c) Others: Forbidden.

J) Mark the box "Only owner can rename and delete folder content"..
K) Make sure that Your login. is present in Owner and Group dropdown menu.
L) Mark the box "Apply changes to all subfolders and their content".
M) Click OK.

This should finish with no errors.

You should be good to go.

Andy