Wanda the fish and the 1st of April message

Da avere assolutamente ;)

Oggi mi è stato segnalato un software che gli amanti di Gentoo devono avere assolutamente:

La pagina web del programma dice:

Hot-babe is a small graphical utility which displays the system activity in a very special way. When the CPU is idle, it displays a dressed girl, and when the activity goes up, as the temperature increases, the girl begins to undress, to finish totally naked when the system activity reaches 100%.

Come al solito un immagine vale più di mille parole ;):









Insomma, un utility che non può mancare ... :D

Abilitare la gestione dei profili colore in Firefox 3

Un breve appunto per non dimenticare come abilitare la gestione dei profili colore in Firefox 3.

• Aprire un nuovo tab e digitare: about:config
• Cercare il flag: gfx.color_management.enabled
  
• Doppio clic per abilitare l'opzione
  
• Riavviare il browser

A proposito di vi ...

Ora, se tu avessi usato solo il vi per scrivere quel programma C di 5000 linee, non avresti piu' capelli in testa, come me!

-- Mr Tucker

Distcc ... just for fun ...

"Vmware Server" and USB devices

Dopo una settimana di sbattimenti sono finalmente riuscito a venire a capo di questa annosa questione. Vediamo di spiegare un poco come stanno le cose.

Precisazione iniziale: tutte le info scritte qui non sono farina del mio sacco ma dal momento che non è stato facile raccoglierle, preferisco lasciare questo appunto. In modo che sia io che i posteri possiamo usufruirne ;).

Ho una macchina virtuale Windows 2003 Server e voglio usare delle periferiche USB. Vmware Server (attualmente sto usando la versione 1.0.7-108231) non supporta le periferiche USB 2.0, questo significa che ogni volta che attaccate una periferica USB 2.0, Windows da un bel BSOD. Tra i vari suggerimenti che ho letto per risolvere questo problema c'è anche stato quello di usare un hub USB 1.1 (come se fosse facile trovarlo). Comunque ecco come ho risolto la questione:

1. Aggiungere la riga: none /proc/bus/usb usbfs devgid=46,devmode=664 0 0 in /etc/fstab
2. Rimuovere il modulo USB 2.0, lasciando solo quelli per USB 1.1: rmmod ehci_hcd
   

Questo permette di usare solo USB 1.1 ma meglio di niente ;).

Firefox download day

Big Buck Bunny

Davvero interessante questo filmato interamente realizzato con Blender:



Big Buck Bunny from Blender Foundation on Vimeo.

Skype 1.4 per Linux

Gli sviluppatori di skype hanno ufficialmente annunciato la versione 1.4 del loro celebre software.

Io uso le varie beta della 1.4 già da un pezzo e credo che non ci siano molte novità tra la release che attualmente ho installato:

* net-im/skype
Latest version available: 1.4.0.99
Latest version installed: 1.4.0.99
Size of downloaded files: [no/bad digest]
Homepage: http://www.skype.com/
Description: A P2P-VoiceIP client.
License: skype-eula

Vi farò sapere dopo che la installo ;)

EDIT: Fri Oct 5 15:28:47 CEST 2007

A parte qualche modifica all'interfaccia, i bottoni adesso risultano posizionati meglio e quindi facilmente raggiungibili, non noto nulla di nuovo rispetto alla versione precedente (1.4.0.99).

An example of file-glob gimp script-fu function

After some attempts, I finally realize how to use:

file-glob

a GIMP script-fu function.

Here, an example:

(define filesPattern)
(set! filesPattern (string-append "/home/a_dir_with_some_jpeg/" "*.jpg"))
(define arrayFilesList)
(set! arrayFilesList (file-glob filesPattern 1))

;
; Convert the array to a SCHEME list
;
(define filesList)
(define counter)
(set! counter 0)
(while (< counter (car arrayFilesList)) (set! filesList (cons (aref (cadr arrayFilesList) counter) filesList)) (set! counter (+ counter 1)) )

;
; Now you can use "car" and "cdr" on filesList
;

GPL, salta il processo negli USA?

Sembra sia saltato il processo negli USA relativo alla causa di violazione delle GPL. La società in questione ha espresso la sua colpevolezza e ha deciso di negoziare con il team di busybox evitando il tribunale. Maggiori dettagli qui.

GPL nei tribunali USA

Interessante questa notizia apparsa su ossblog.it.

Il Software Freedom Law Center ( SFLC ) ha avviato una causa contro Monsoon Multimedia a nome di due sviluppatori di BusyBox: il rapporto completo dichiara che il nuovo prodotto Monsoon, Hava, ed il suo firmware, includono codice “preso in prestito” da BusyBox, senza però aderire ai requisiti della licenza GPL, che impone la disponibilità del codice sorgente.

Sono davvero curioso di seguire i risvolti.

Configure SNMP agent on Cisco devices

This article describes how to configure a Cisco Catalyst or a Cisco router in order to provide SNMP functionality.


1 - Login into Cisco device:

telnet 10.0.0.1

2 - Check if SNMP is enabled:

# show snmp
%SNMP agent not enabled

If SNMP is disabled, we enable it using:

3 - Enable SNMP

# configure terminal
# snmp-server community public RO
# snmp-server community private RW

For more information about SNMP options on Cisco devices look at [1]. By default SNMP version enabled on Cisco devices is 2c.

Now let's try to retrieve some informations using:

4 - Download and install net-snmp

* net-analyzer/net-snmp
Latest version available: 5.4
Latest version installed: [ Not Installed ]
Size of downloaded files: [no/bad digest]
Homepage: http://net-snmp.sourceforge.net/
Description: Software for generating and retrieving SNMP data
License: as-is BSD

After you installed net-snmp, you need to install Cisco MIBs. At first you should install CISCO-SMI and then CISCO-VTP-MIB (we want to retrieve vlans informations).You can download them from [2]. After downloaded copy them (changing extension from .my to.txt) to /usr/share/snmp/mibs


5 - Retrieve vlan information:

snmpwalk -m CISCO-VTP-MIB -v 2c -c public 192.168.177.34 vtpVlanState
CISCO-VTP-MIB::vtpVlanState.1.1 = INTEGER: operational(1)
CISCO-VTP-MIB::vtpVlanState.1.2 = INTEGER: operational(1)
CISCO-VTP-MIB::vtpVlanState.1.3 = INTEGER: operational(1)
CISCO-VTP-MIB::vtpVlanState.1.4 = INTEGER: operational(1)
CISCO-VTP-MIB::vtpVlanState.1.5 = INTEGER: operational(1)
CISCO-VTP-MIB::vtpVlanState.1.6 = INTEGER: operational(1)
CISCO-VTP-MIB::vtpVlanState.1.7 = INTEGER: operational(1)
CISCO-VTP-MIB::vtpVlanState.1.10 = INTEGER: operational(1)
CISCO-VTP-MIB::vtpVlanState.1.12 = INTEGER: operational(1)
CISCO-VTP-MIB::vtpVlanState.1.15 = INTEGER: operational(1)
CISCO-VTP-MIB::vtpVlanState.1.16 = INTEGER: operational(1)
CISCO-VTP-MIB::vtpVlanState.1.20 = INTEGER: operational(1)
CISCO-VTP-MIB::vtpVlanState.1.21 = INTEGER: operational(1)
CISCO-VTP-MIB::vtpVlanState.1.22 = INTEGER: operational(1)
CISCO-VTP-MIB::vtpVlanState.1.23 = INTEGER: operational(1)
CISCO-VTP-MIB::vtpVlanState.1.24 = INTEGER: operational(1)
CISCO-VTP-MIB::vtpVlanState.1.25 = INTEGER: operational(1)
CISCO-VTP-MIB::vtpVlanState.1.28 = INTEGER: operational(1)
CISCO-VTP-MIB::vtpVlanState.1.1002 = INTEGER: operational(1)
CISCO-VTP-MIB::vtpVlanState.1.1003 = INTEGER: operational(1)
CISCO-VTP-MIB::vtpVlanState.1.1004 = INTEGER: operational(1)
[...]

References:
[1] Configuring SNMP Support
[2] SNMP Object Navigator

SUN releases "BrandZ"

SUN releases BrandZ under OpenSolaris Community. BrandZ is the evolution of the Solaris Containers.

From the BrandZ homepage:

BrandZ is a framework that extends the Solaris Zones infrastructure to create Branded Zones, which are zones that contain non-native operating environments. The term "non-native" is intentionally vague, as the infrastructure allows for the creation of a wide range of operating environments.

The lx brand enables Linux binary applications to run unmodified on Solaris, within zones running a complete Linux userspace. The combination of BrandZ and the lx brand will be productized as Solaris Containers for Linux Applications.

I should try this new technology ;)

Orphaned Projects

Awesome strip:

fortune-mod-woody-allen-it-0.1.ebuild

Someone in the gentoo group added my ebuild to portage ;).

See here for more details.

LINGOT - LINGOT Is Not a Guitar-Only Tuner

Surfing the web I found an interesting application for musician :): LINGOT.

LINGOT is an acronyms for "LINGOT Is Not a Guitar-Only Tuner"

The description on lingot website says:

LINGOT is a musical instrument tuner. It's accurate, easy to use, and highly configurable. Originally conceived to tune electric guitars, its configurability gives it a more general character. (Tuning another instruments has not been tested).

It looks like an analogic tuner, with a gauge indicating the relative shift to a certain note --found automatically as the closest note to the estimated frequency--, indicating that note and its frequency.

The note will be found automatically, since the program hasn't any manual function mode (indicating the note to tune manually), for mantaining its general purpose.

I wrote an ebuild for Gentoo/Linux. You can find it here.

Happy guitar tuning ;)

The Glider: A Universal Hacker Emblem

Eric S. Raymond proposed a new emblem that should represent the entire hacker community.
The emblem was proposed in the October 2003, but I discovered it this morning 0_o.

The symbol represents a "glider", a particular pattern existing in the simulation "The game of life".

BTW, I think that this is not a bad idea :).

My GPG KEY ID

This is my GPG key :)

GPG KEY ID: 2E7779A0

Please use it.

How to generate network load diagrams

Yesterday, someone asked me how I generated the network load diagrams used in the post "SSHFS performance test".

My original idea was to search for a ready to use software, but surfing the web I didn't found anything simple to install a quick to use. So i decided to write some bash lines to generate raw data and OpenOffice (oocalc) to draw the diagrams.

This is the script used to generate raw data:

#!/bin/bash

###################################
#
# Wed Jul 11 11:38:54 CEST 2007
#
# This script is used to generate
# network traffic statistics
#
# Author: Davide Restivo (xgutter@yahoo.it)
#
# Released under GPLv2
#
####################################

E_BAD_ARGS=65

# The default interface
INTF="eth0"

# Default output filename
TMP_FILE=`tempfile`
FILE_OUT="netmon-`basename $TMP_FILE`.out"

# Default delay measurement
TICK="1"

# Usage
function usage () {
echo "Please invoke this script with zero or three arguments."
echo ""
echo "Example:"
echo " $0 "
echo ""
echo "where:"
echo " defaults to eth0"
echo " is automatically generated"
echo " is equal to 1 second"
}

# Let's check command line arguments
if [ $# -eq 0 ]
then
:
elif [ $# -eq 3 ]
then
# Setting parameters
INTF=$1
FILE_OUT=$2
TICK=$3
else
usage
exit $E_BAD_ARGS
fi

################
##### MAIN #####
################
echo "Seconds - Byte sent - Byte received" >> $FILE_OUT

SECONDS_COUNTER="0"
while true;
do
INITIAL_BYTE_SENT=`ifconfig eth0 |grep bytes|cut -d":" -f3|cut -d" " -f1`
INITIAL_BYTE_RECEIVED=`ifconfig eth0 |grep bytes|cut -d":" -f2|cut -d" " -f1`

sleep $TICK

BYTE_SENT=$((`ifconfig eth0 |grep bytes|cut -d":" -f3|cut -d" " -f1` - $INITIAL_BYTE_SENT ))
BYTE_RECEIVED=$((`ifconfig eth0 |grep bytes|cut -d":" -f2|cut -d" " -f1` - $INITIAL_BYTE_RECEIVED ))

TEMP_SECONDS_COUNTER=$(($SECONDS_COUNTER + $TICK))
SECONDS_COUNTER=$TEMP_SECONDS_COUNTER
echo "$SECONDS_COUNTER $BYTE_SENT $BYTE_RECEIVED" >> $FILE_OUT
done