If you need to set up a proxy into your debian machine you should open you terminal and run the following command:

HTTP Proxy
export http_proxy="http://USERNAME:PASSWORD@PROXYSERVER:PORT"

FTP Proxy
export ftp_proxy="ftp://USERNAME:PASSWORD@PROXYSERVER:PORT"

hope it helps

In this post, I'm going to show you som common shell command in linux that can helps you in obtaining your computer summary. This commands are useful if you expect a problem with your linux distribution, but you don't know where you should start in solving your problem.

Print system information

uname -a
Linux debian 2.6.30-bpo.1-686 #1 SMP Sun Jun 28 18:13:49 UTC 2009 i686 GNU/Linux

List all PCI devices

lspci -v -nn
00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Memory Controller Hub [8086:2a40] (rev 07)
    Subsystem: Sony Corporation Device [104d:9035]
    Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
    Capabilities: [e0] Vendor Specific Information <?>
    Kernel modules: intel-agp

00:01.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset PCI Express Graphics Port [8086:2a41] (rev 07) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
    Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
    Bus: primary=00, secondary=01, subordinate=01, sec-latency=0
    I/O behind bridge: 00006000-00006fff
.......

List the status of modules in the Linux Kernel

lsmod
Module                  Size  Used by
binfmt_misc             7080  1
rfcomm                 30184  0
l2cap                  18112  5 rfcomm
bluetooth              46860  4 rfcomm,l2cap
vboxnetadp             66816  0
vboxnetflt             72288  0
.....

Cpu informations

cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor    : 0
vendor_id    : GenuineIntel
cpu family    : 6
model        : 23
model name    : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU     P8400  @ 2.26GHz
stepping    : 6
cpu MHz        : 800.000
.....

Cpu frequency kernel information

cpufreq-info
cpufrequtils 004: cpufreq-info (C) Dominik Brodowski 2004-2006
Report errors and bugs to cpufreq@lists.linux.org.uk, please.
analyzing CPU 0:
  driver: acpi-cpufreq
  CPUs which need to switch frequency at the same time: 0
  hardware limits: 800 MHz - 2.27 GHz
  available frequency steps: 2.27 GHz, 2.27 GHz, 1.60 GHz, 800 MHz
  available cpufreq governors: powersave, userspace, conservative, ondemand, performance
  current policy: frequency should be within 800 MHz and 2.27 GHz.
......

List of currently registered port regions used for input or output communication with a device

cat /proc/ioports
0000-001f : dma1
0020-0021 : pic1
0040-0043 : timer0
0050-0053 : timer1
0060-0060 : keyboard
0064-0064 : keyboard
....

List number of interrupts per IRQ

 cat /proc/interrupts
            CPU0       CPU1      
   0:     311925     315345   IO-APIC-edge      timer
   1:       1584       1525   IO-APIC-edge      i8042
   8:         39         44   IO-APIC-edge      rtc0
   9:       2288       2253   IO-APIC-fasteoi   acpi
  12:         65         66   IO-APIC-edge      i8042
  16:         32         24   IO-APIC-fasteoi   uhci_hcd:usb1, uhci_hcd:usb6, firewire_ohci
  17:         12         13   IO-APIC-fasteoi   mmc0, HDA Intel
....

List USB devices

cat /proc/bus/usb/devices

T:  Bus=08 Lev=00 Prnt=00 Port=00 Cnt=00 Dev#=  1 Spd=480 MxCh= 8
B:  Alloc=  0/800 us ( 0%), #Int=  0, #Iso=  0
D:  Ver= 2.00 Cls=09(hub  ) Sub=00 Prot=00 MxPS=64 #Cfgs=  1
P:  Vendor=1d6b ProdID=0002 Rev= 2.06
S:  Manufacturer=Linux 2.6.30-bpo.1-686 ehci_hcd
S:  Product=EHCI Host Controller
S:  SerialNumber=0000:00:1d.7
C:* #Ifs= 1 Cfg#= 1 Atr=e0 MxPwr=  0mA
I:* If#= 0 Alt= 0 #EPs= 1 Cls=09(hub  ) Sub=00 Prot=00 Driver=hub
E:  Ad=81(I) Atr=03(Int.) MxPS=   4 Ivl=256ms
....

List USB bus devices:

lsusb

Bus 008 Device 004: ID 054c:0377 Sony Corp.
Bus 008 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 007 Device 002: ID 05ca:183d Ricoh Co., Ltd
Bus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 007: ID 04b8:010b Seiko Epson Corp. Perfection 1240
Bus 003 Device 006: ID 046d:c01d Logitech, Inc. MX510 Optical Mouse
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

I will try to keep this post updated as soon as i learn something new.. in the meanwhile, i want to say thx to http://www.klabs.be/ for prividing me this informations.

Installing OpenOffice 3.1 in Debian Lenny 5.0 is simple and you get all your Icons set in Gnome without the need of manually setting up links. What you need to do is:

• Using Synaptic Manager, remove your old OpenOffice (mine is 2.4) installation
• Download your .deb packages from http://www.openoffice.org/
      Start downloading OpenOffice.org 3.1.0 for Linux Debian in US English
      (Java runtime, JRE, included for all OS versions except Linux Deb and Mac)
• Unpack all those .deb that comes from your download into a folder.
• Open a terminal session into your new folder that contains the debs and type:
    dpkg -i *.deb
• Move the the subfolder called desktop-integration and retype
    dpkg -i *.deb
• Now your OpenOffice 3.1 is installed into your system. Go to Application –> Office –> OpenOffice 3.1 Base and configure you workspace

If you see this message once you run OpenOffice:

OpenOffice.org requires a Java runtime environment (JRE) to perform
this task. THe selected JRE is defective. Please select another
version or install a new JRE and select it under Tools - Options -
OpenOffice.org - Java

you should update your Java JRE: install sun-java6-jre using Synaptic Manager and your are done.

This guide shows you how to install ati radeon drivers into a fresh debian install. First of all, you need to install from you repository mangager (Synaptic) this packeges:

fglrx-glx

fglrx-driver

fglrx-source

once you are done, you need to compile fglrx-source as says in fglrx-driver' s description:

This package provides 2D display drivers and hardware accelerated OpenGL for X.Org version 7.1. For 3D acceleration to work, you will need to compile the fglrx kernel module for your kernel: see the fglrx-source package. Note that the driver will work without the kernel module, but 3D acceleration will be disabled.

Open a root terminal in and type fast as you can:

m-a prepare

m-a update

and then compile it:

m-a a-i fglrx

If everthing works fine, try to load the your module:

m-a a-i fglrx

and if loads correctly, be sure that kernels loads it every time by adding this line into your /etc/modules:

nano /etc/modules 

add this line:

fglrx

so it looks like:

# /etc/modules: kernel modules to load at boot time.
#
# This file contains the names of kernel modules that should be loaded
# at boot time, one per line. Lines beginning with "#" are ignored.
# Parameters can be specified after the module name.

loop
sbp2
vboxdrv
fglrx

 okei. you are done! you just need to configure the xorg.conf to be able to use it in your windows manager. In the terminal write:

aticonfig --initial

now restart the X server pressing ctrl + alt + backspace and see if it works. After restart, type in  terminal

fglrxinfo 

my output is:

display: :0.0  screen: 0
OpenGL vendor string: ATI Technologies Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3400 Series
OpenGL version string: 2.1.8304 Release

and it says that works!
Hope it helps.

If you got problems in remembering commands in linux, maybe you can find useful this quick reference about linux commands. I will updated it as soon as I found more common commands

Generics commands
df-h
      shows disk usage in human readable form
uname -a
     kernel release version
smbd -V
     samba version
httpd -v
     apache version
ps -aux
     outputs processes running
top -i
     shows only active processes
cat /proc/mdstat
     shows software raid
telinit 1
     changes to single user mode
grep -r "casesensitivesearch" *
     finds all documents containing the criteria in a dir
tail -f /var/log/<LOGFILE>
     realtime viewing of your log file
mdadm --detail /dev/mdx (where x is 0,1,2,etc)
     gives software raid info
tar -czvf foo.tar.gz foo
      creates a tar/zip file of a directory
tar -xvzf foo.tar.gz
     untar/unzip a tar/zip file
scp -P <ssh_portnumber> foo.tar.gz <other_server_ipaddress>:/opt
     transfers file to another server
sed -i s/foo/fee/g <FILENAMEORPATHTODIR>
     replaces foo with fee
mkfs.ext3 /dev/sda3
    formats /dev/sda3 disk into  a ext3 file system

RPM Commands
rpm -qa   
     shows all rpms installed
rpm -qa --last
     shows all rpms installed & installation date
rpm -q
     asks for rpm info
rpm -qi
     asks for detailed rpm info
rpm -ql <packagename>
     lists all files in a package
rpm -qf <filename>
     reports what package a file belongs to

DEB Installation
dpkg -i *. deb
     Installs all the *.deb packages in the current folder