Sep 15
There have been few really important problems that have had the beautiful opportunity to recursively fix or use itself. A great example it a project at work called zody, it is a bug tracking system. After a week of development, it was able to be running well enough to keep track of its own bugs and the feature requests of others.
Richard Stallman wrote GCC the GNU C Compiler from scratch. He was able to compile his compiler ( with a previous version ) and it has been used to compile the next generation of versions from that point on.
Notable Recursive Stuff:
- The term GNU is a recursive acronym for “GNU’s Not Unix!”.
- Git – After only a couple days, git source control had it’s own repository to maintain its own source code.
- Subversion – Source Control System, maintains its own code
- SharpDevelop – C# development program – written in C# , runs on .Net Framework, to write code for the .Net Framework.
- Emacs - A text editor that was used to write itself ( the source text )
Today I deployed some new software, that is designed to deploy other software to servers. So we naturally used it to deploy itself. It was really cool, and I had a big smile on my face, when it happened.
Tagged with: gnu • Linux • recursion
Jul 14
At work I’ve written the help desk / task / bug tracking system. It has been developed mostly in the off hours, weekends and slow friday afternoon. Either way, I add little features here and there, and this weeks feature is random* quips and quotes injected on each page.
I found about 25 quotes to seed the list, all worthy of being read by fellow co-workers. However, I found this great quote by a kid on Slashdot (News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters ) that just could not make my list. The topic is ‘USPS goes GNU/Linux‘ and the comments quickly turned to cheap people complaining about paying 40 cents to send a letter across the entire country in a couple days.
Either way here is the comment that I thought was funny:
Only old people use physical mail these days.
If you’re 30-something, you rely on email.
If you’re in your 20s, you use IM
If you’re 13 like me, it’s all Twitter, all the time. Bonus: I have no need to receive packages because I shoplift everything.
* Pseudo random of course….
Tagged with: Linux • slashdot
Nov 04
Firefox is the best web browser, known for its great security, tons of plugins and of course it is open source. They made the first browser to offer multi-tab web browsing, which Bill and his thugs stole for the new IE.
Recently it just passed the 20% mark for market share. A few months ago they release FireFox 3, adding / fixing 15,000 features, and experienced world record breaking downloads. There were 8,002,530 downloads in a 24 hour period for the new release.
If you’re still using Internet Explorer, then you’re missing out. ( Really you’re an idiot and your mom is too. ) Firefox will give you a much better web experience. Download it, try it and you can see for yourself.
Download FireFox here.
Read about firefoxes market share here.
World Record Download here.
Tagged with: Linux
Nov 03
For the past 3 years we all have been Linux users in the Searle home. We have been using a mixture of server based kernel for our files share and web site system, and the Ubuntu ( www.ubuntu.com ) for the desktops and laptops in our home. We are really happy with the features that come with the systems, including DVD / CD mastering, multimedia, open office suite, email clients and the awesome firefox web browser.
The open source initiative has been and will continue to be a great force in bettering the software and operating system world. Thousands of collaborating programmers, building and maintaining great software for all of us to use. Great power and usability for free.
We have started using open source at work too, we have instant message system, databases, forums, wiki and of course Subversoin, the greatest source control system. ( Subversion Here )
If you haven’t given linux a try, simply go to most any distribution that you want and download a ‘live’ CD. You can burn the iso file to disc, put it in the drive and boot up. It will allow you to try the operating system and software without installing anything. Click on the penguin below for a list of distributions, or go to my favorite Ubuntu, also found below.
Tagged with: Linux • ubuntu
Aug 04
Make the RSA key on the client:
- ssh-keygen -t rsa
- Don’t enter a password
Copy id_rsa.pub from .ssh/ to the server:
- sftp <server>
- put id_rsa.pub
Put the contents of id_rsa.pub in authorized_keys file on the server
- echo id_rsa.pub >> .ssh/authorized_keys
Now you ssh into the server without a password.
Tagged with: Linux
Jul 29
Install Samba Server on Ubuntu
If you want to share files between your Ubuntu and Windows computers, your best option is to use Samba file sharing.
To install, first open a terminal window and enter the following command:
sudo apt-get install samba smbfs
We’ve got samba installed, but now we’ll need to configure it to make it accessible. Run the following command to open the configuration file, substituting your editor of choice:
sudo gedit /etc/samba/smb.conf
Find this section in the file:
####### Authentication #######
# “security = user” is always a good idea. This will require a Unix account
# in this server for every user accessing the server. See
# /usr/share/doc/samba-doc/htmldocs/Samba-HOWTO-Collection/ServerType.html
# in the samba-doc package for details.
; security = user
Uncomment the security line, and add another line to make it look like this:
security = user
username map = /etc/samba/smbusers
[MyFiles]
path = /media/samba/
browseable = yes
read only = no
guest ok = no
create mask = 0644
directory mask = 0755
force user = YOUR_USERNAME
force group = YOUR_USERGROUP
This will set Samba to use the smbusers file for looking up the user list.
Create a Samba User
There are two steps to creating a user. First we’ll run the smbpasswd utility to create a samba password for the user.
sudo smbpasswd -a <username>
Tagged with: Linux • samba
Jul 14
Tagged with: Linux • raid
