I am trying to install MATLAB on a headless Linux server at work, and it is ridiculously miserable. I can’t believe that this is the industry standard. It is no wonder that people are switching to Python, Octave and Maxima. Between free, gratis systems and expensive with horrible installation, there is little to recommend MATLAB.

I had a font I needed to install to make some graphics for a web project. It was easy enough to buy the font – I just chose the option for the TrueType file (TTF) and I knew I’d be fine. I had a little trouble getting the font to show up though, so I record my efforts here.

1. Put the TTF files (there’s usually three) in their own subdirectory of /usr/share/fonts/truetype.
2. As root, run these two commands in the new subdirectory: mkfontscale and mkfontdir
3. Check to see if the font is installed: run xlsfonts and see if your font is there
4. If you don’t see your font, start Googling, but perhaps start here.

Sometimes you need to reinstall a Debian system. Maybe your hard drive is going pear-shaped, maybe you got a new computer, maybe you are replicating a system, maybe you are building a lab. In any case, if you want all the packages that are installed on system 1 on your new/other system 2, here’s an easy way:

1. On system 1, make a file with your installed/removed packages: dpkg --get-selections > packages.txt
2. Get a base install done on system 2, and set /etc/apt/sources.list to be the same as on system 1
3. Get packages.txt onto system 2
4. Run dpkg --set-selections < packages.txt on system 2
5. Run dselect install on system 2
6. Optional: Dance