This section holds a lot of useful scripts which can be used in day to day use. These have been developed on a Slackware box, but most of them do not have any distro-specific quirk. All shell scripts here are written in bash. Only a brief description is provided. The scripts have self contained documentation. They are available only for off-line reading/ experimentation in tar.gz format. Just press on the link and your browser will do the needful. You are free to do whatever you like with the scripts. In case you find them useful, extend or expand them just send me a line...

HOW-TO documents are distributed with every major Linux distribution. They are normally placed in /usr/doc or /usr/share/doc directories. This program operates something like dwww program. But unlike dwww which shows the pages on the local http server, this program does not need any local http server installed. All HOW-TO documents are indexed (wherever on the disk they lie), and are displayed using a "dialog" interface. In X, installation of "Xdialog" is highly recommended ...

This script converts mails stored in mh-style mail directories to mbox format ... Meant to bridge the missing gap between two popular *nix mailing formats. This tarball is also included in Mutt mailer add-ons section below.

This script converts .rpm and .deb files to .tar.gz archive without rpm or dpkg being installed ... The program is dependent upon the GNU ARchiver (ar) program for decompressing .deb files. This is in default installation for most distros. For .rpm files, there is a need for converting the .rpm file to cpio form. If rpm is not installed then a small program rpm2cpio may be used ... Note this static version of rpm2cpio is for ver 3 of rpm and may not work for ver 4 rpm files

Tired of doing "$mutt -f mboxname" for reading various mbox files in your mail directory after procmail has split up the mail into different mbox style files ? This script will present you with a menu of all the mbox files within your $HOME/mail directory (or wherever). The current version (0.6) has support for abook address-book (if installed). In addition, it keeps a check on the procmail log file, and helps you in truncating the size if it grows beyond the pre-defined size. You may like to download madbk as well linked below. This tarball is also included in Mutt mailer add-ons section below. ...

Want to temporarily increase swap size of a running system ? Use a swap file. This script helps you in creating a swap file, then mounting and unmounting the same on a running system. Note: this works on swap files (not swap partitions) ...

Make Boot Floppy (mbf) was borne out of the need to have a means of installing a kernel on your system to a floppy and make it bootable (Using LILO) without the same kernel as default. This script is a total shell script replacement for "mkbootdisk", and is distro independent. If you like playing around with new kernels, it is better to test the kernel from floppy before installing it to your hard disk ...

A small and useful script to manage your TODO list with command line entries and deletion facilities. Can be used to display the TODO list as a login message under consule or GUI boot. Compact and handy ...

This script has been writen specific for generating random LOST signatures to be interfaced with your mailer. The present version (0.5) still in beta caters for interfacing with mutt and pine. It is capable of providing random or specific signatures, for either LOST signature files or any other set of signature files kept under a common signature root directory under your home directory. It also supports, no signature or pgp signature. In addition there is an additional script meant for converting LOST format files to fortune cookie database for use with the fortune program for random signatures. All documentation is included in the tarball itself regarding the scripts. The LOST sigs themselves are kept in another tarball at this site itself under the LOST link. You may like to download that too. ...

This is a text based adventure game !!! What better method is there to learn the intricacies of bash, than learning things through a game ? This script is NOT mine ... it is original from the bash source itself ... since so few people actually compile bash (since it comes pre-installed with all distros) that very few actually know that such a "game" exists ... The program has been originally written by GA Gwyn in 1986 !!! Either go down to http://gnu.org and download the full bash sources itself to learn more ... or just download this small gzipped script file ... enjoy ! ...

Modified man (mman) is a bash script which displays man pages on a HTML browser. On console, links, lynx etc are suitable. For "X" you may use any browser, my preference is for xelvis (being faster to load), or even links on an xterm will do. Netscape is a bit too slow. This script uses PolyglotMan (rman) as a backend. rman can be downloaded from here. A statically linked version of rman (with its man page) is available within this tarball as well ... Ver 0.2 gives a menu of all available man pages under a certain heading for you to choose. ...

This script utilises abook/ abook style database of email addresses and functions as an address-book for mutt. It was developed mainly for use with "rotator" script (see above), which has certain problems when evoked through abook address-book. From ver 0.4 onwards, the script supports its own, abook or pine addressbook databases. This is a stand-alone script. This can be called independently through an altered version of MuttMenu script (see above) which is also placed within this tarball. This tarball is also included in Mutt mailer add-ons section below. ...

Mutt is an extremely powerful mailer, but there were a few desirable features which I found missing.

• Support for an address-book.
• All mbox files accessable from a menu
• Access to MH style mails directories
• An internal random signature generator

Support for address-book and MH style mail directories have been (or are being) inclused in the newer versions of mutt. However, a common menu for all mbox files, and a random signature generator are yet to be incorporated. To overcome these shortfalls with my favourite mail software, four seperate scripts were developed, all of which are on this page itself:

• madbk - a self-sufficient addressbook
• MuttMail - a common menu for all mailboxes
• mh2mbox - a MH to mbox format converter
• rotator - a random signature generator

You can pick up these scripts individually, from the appropriate sections linked above. However, in case you want the whole thing in one large tarball, you can have it from here. Note: LOST snippets are not included. ...

This script rotates log files in /var/log or placed anywhere on the system, and stops them from growing on and on. Old logs are archived in gzipped format. This is not dependent upon cron processes and one is free to rotate only the fast growing ones, as and when the need arises from a selectable menu. Keeping a tag on log files is a mandatory requirement of sys-admining.

This little tarball has two often needed utilities, for the conversion of text files to HTML and vice-versa. Being bash scripts they have no dependency problems and run on all systems. The conversion of HTML to text is done using the lynx browser ... so lynx should be installed on your box (it usually is)....

Have you ever wondered why your telephone bills soared ? How long have you been on the net ? This script is a frontend to wvdial which maintains a record of all your connection timings, and gives you things like Total connection time, Average time per connect, Packets in/ out accounting. Thoroughput of your connections. If you have wvdial installed and running, that is about all that is needed. Oh yes, this dials and quits, thus keeping your tty free ...

This script is meant for sending bulk-mail directly through your MTA. Each mail is sent individually to each address stated in a text address file. It overcomes the limits of mailers, and restrictions imposed by certain ISPs on the number of addresses one can have in each individual mail. Tested on 253 Christmas greetings sent just three days ago ...

A small script to dial the ISP through wvdial and disconnect automatically after a preset time interval. Handy for people who want to keep a control over their telephone bills :-)

This is a small "often-needed" utility for resetting your system time in case you have an old computer with a dying RTC, and suddenly you find that your mails are dated as on yesterday !

A frontend for the fdformat and mkfs/ mke2fs programs for 3.5 inch floppies only. Does this 2 step job in one go ... handy for people still lugging floppies around ...

This is a small "often-needed" utility for searching the present working directory for a specific search_string which lies within some text file. Merely outputs a list of filenames containing the string

This too is a small utility for converting DOS text files to *nix (viz strips the ASCII 13 from the end of line). Placed here due to insistance of friends too lazy to remember a one liner :-) The only script here whose documentation is larger than the script size :-)

This script enables mounting of removeable media devices as an user, and write access to the device as user. This needs prior tweaking of /etc/fstab

This script is addressed to a small audience, only those crazy folks who have the energy to maintain a Linux From Scratch system, where all software is installed from developer sources. This is a simple managment system for all such systems where installation with "make install" or equivalent command is the rule, and not an exception !.