Linux
gregladen | October 8, 2009By default, the text-based email client 'alpine' requests a password the first time, per session, that it is requested a password from any email services it checks. For the duration of that session, it remembers the password, but forgets it if you quit alpine so you have to enter it again later. From a security point of view, that is probably a good thing, but most people do like to have their email client remember the password between sessions.
The way this works in alpine seems a little obscure at first, but actually makes a lot of sense. Alpine checks for a file in which passwords should…
gregladen | October 5, 2009For today's Linux Hint: How to pick which browser will open when you pick a link while using apine in Ubuntu.
Sometimes there is a URL in an email that you want to visit. In a GUI email brower, you click on it with the mouse. In apine you navigate to the link with the usual navigation keys (but the first link will already be selected for you) and hit enter to open the link.
The default that alpine comes with, at least on my machine, seems to be the Epiphany browser I have no idea why. And when it goes there, it opens the browser and freezes the alpine screen, so I have to close the…
gregladen | October 3, 2009If you are using alpine as your email client, you may find that hitting ctrl-T to invoke a spell checker does not work, in alpine 1.0 as installed in Ubuntu. It is easy to fix.
I looked around for the answer to this question, but it is a bit esoteric so there is very little, and what there is stands mainly as examples of the down side of community support. People state that the spell checker is not working, and others answer with various bits of advice that do not work at all because they are nothing other than vague guesses that do not address the problem.
It is possible, even probable,…
gregladen | September 30, 2009These two OpenSource operating versions, to become available over the next several weeks, demonstrated improvements over prior versions and compare well to each other.
I woul like to tell you that my preferred operating system, Ubuntu, came out on top .... and it did! But if you are selecting an operating system where speed is essential and there is a limited range of tasks to be performed regularly, you should compare the two more closely by looking at the review. While Ubuntu rocked, FreeBSD kicked butt in a few areas., especially pertaining to SQL related tasks.
Actually, there is…
gregladen | September 19, 2009This is a documentary from 2001 for you Linux Symps to watch while everyone else is sleeping.
gregladen | September 16, 2009Unix is like a colored rotating box within a colored rotating box within a colored rotating box.
Short UNIX Historyby unixguru
gregladen | September 14, 200926 years ago, more or less, I was a graduate student and beginning a teaching career, but short of cash. I remember an opportunity arose for me to make some money programming. I thought, "OK, I can make some money in this computer biz, and use that to cover doing what I really want to do, research and teaching."
[A repost: Check out the comments on last year's post.]
Just around that time, as I remember, I saw a long haired bearded guy from MIT being interviewed on TV, talking about free software, and how coding software was his art, his love, is vocation, and that he did things like…
gregladen | September 8, 2009The next version of the Linux Kernel will be very noticeably faster on computers with limited memory.
Most "improvements" of certain unnamed operating systems (such as Microsoft Windows) involve more demand on hardware, so upgrades slow your computer down and eventually you have to throw it out and buy a new one.
It is not the primary objective for Linux to make each major improvement include improved rather than degraded performance, but it is a side effect of excellent OpenSource engineering.
The latest?
Currently desktop software slows down when its path jumps to a part of the code…
gregladen | August 14, 2009I thought I was done with the command line for the week, but then I did something cool that I thought I'd share with you. Linux users only ... others will think this is silly ... join me below the fold.
OK, are we alone? Good. It's nice to be away from all those Windows Symps for a while. Oh, I see there's a couple of Mac OSX users lurking in the back of the room. Come right over and join us, this will probably work for you too!.
Here is my problem. I use twitter to promote my blog, and I therefore follow almost 3,000 people on twitter. That means that every few seconds there is an…
gregladen | August 13, 2009I am told that all Macs come with a three button mouse. I'm not sure I believe that, but it is what I'm told. But to me the three button mouse on a Mac represents one of interesting cultural features of Mac users. Years go, when I was arguing with my friend Mike about which was better, Windows or Macs (Linux was not really an option at the time), he kept insisting that Macs were better for all sots of reasons. After he listed a long list of made up (I assume) reasons that Macs were better, I said to him: "Mike I've got three words for you that make all that irrelevant. 'Three button mouse…
gregladen | August 3, 2009There is now a very simple way to make your own GNU/Linux distribution, called a "linux appliance," at SUSE.
SUSE is a Linux Distribution produced by Novell. It is one of the earlier distributions to make a sustained and effective effort to put Linux on your desktop. Perhaps even on your grandmother's desktop.
WEll, a few days ago, Novell launched a new thing called SUSE Studio, which allows you to develop your own "Linux Appliance."
A Linux appliance is essentially a specialized distribution. The SUSE Studio is a web applicatoi that lets you name the "
appliance," specify software…
gregladen | August 2, 2009btrfs (pronounced as in the title) is the next gen linux file system (you can tell it is a file system because it ends in "fs" which means "File-related stuff."
Valerie Aurora nee Henson gives us "....a behind-the-scenes look at the design and development of btrfs on many levels - technical, political, personal - and trace it from its origins at a workshop to its current position as Linus's root file system ..." here
gregladen | July 23, 2009Our desktop support folks couldn't do anything with it. When I told them my story about what happened (at least I'm honest) they realized it would be easier to re-install the machine with a fresh image of Windows Vista.
Read this sad but unsurprising tale of woe at Linux in Exile. And find out how Windows Update and system management in Linux are different. Also, you Linux users, please do visit Exile and check out the comments. It appears to me that numerous Microsoft Symps are trying to take over. Go kick some ass.
gregladen | July 15, 2009According to a recent survey, most companies will not deploy Windows 7. They just think it is going to suck and they are not going to have anything to do with it. YouTube will not be supporting IE6 any longer. Once again, an unpatched Microsoft Expected Feature, er, I mean Bug, is causing major problems. And, already, the Post Office is switching 1,300 of its servers to Linux.
It is only a matter of time...
gregladen | July 7, 2009This is indeed very easy to do.
Notice how "sudo gedit" lets you edit special secret powerful files that you should not be messing with.
Remember, Linux is not for everyone.