Wall is a great command if you’re intent on getting notoriety/kicked off the box you’re on. It broadcasts a message to every terminal open for every logged on user. For this reason, it may be turned off on the computer you’re on. This means every xterm, gnome-terminal, etc and every one of the 6 VTs will get the message. Usage is:

wall “message to everyone”

If you really want to be annoying, type:

As I was browsing around /usr/share/emacs/21.4/etc/ looking for the emacs manual in order to look for the command to launch the doctor and I found the following. It’ll be funniest if you’re used to Unix man pages. Here it is, the man page for condom.

CONDOM(1) EUNUCH Programmer’s Manual CONDOM(1)

NAME condom - Protection against viruses and prevention of child processes

SYNOPSIS condom [options] [processid]

DESCRIPTION _condom_ provides protection against System Transmitted Viruses (STVs) that may invade your system. Although the spread of such viruses across a network can only be abated by aware and cautious users, _condom_ is the only highly-effective means of preventing viruses from entering your system (see celibacy(1)). Any data passed to _condom_ by the protected process will be blocked, as specified by the value of the -s option (see OPTIONS below). _condom_ is known to defend against the following viruses and other malicious afflictions…

After reading about the BSDs in Linux Format Magazine a few months ago, I started to wonder about these Linux cousins. The original Berkely Software Devision port of Unix was developed a long time ago, but the free ones developed almost simultaneously with the Linux kernel had remained hidden from me up til now. Even though I used a BSD machine at Cornell (at least I assume it was since it had a daemon on the login screen), I was just told it was a Unix machine capable of running our software on the Unix cluster.

If you haven’t done so already, install xen by typing

yum install xen

This will install xen as well as taking care of any needed dependencies. Now you need the xen-enabled kernel so type

yum install kernel-xen0

(That’s a zero there) While we’re waiting for that to install, it’s time to learn some Xen terminology. Xen causes all operating systems to run virtualized. This is why we need the xen kernel. It’s also why Xen is not available on Windows XP- you can’t virtualize an OS that doesn’t expect to be virtualized. However, there is still a primary OS and then a series of guest OSes, depending upon how many OSes you want to run and how much RAM you have. The primary OS is domain 0 and is referred to as dom0 online and pretty much everywhere I’ve read about Xen. All guest OSes are called domU. The first one is called dom0 because programmers start counting with 0. The guests are called domU because U stands for unpriveledged. Unpriviledged means they can’t reboot the physical computer and other such restrictions. Done? Good!

Fedora Core 5 is out. I’ll probably download and install it on my main computer over the next few days.

I first read about Xen while still at Cornell. I think it may have been my Junior year. I don’t have the magazines with me at the moment, so I can’t verify. When I finished reading about the new technology in Linux Format Magazine, I racked my brain, but couldn’t find a reason to run it. I mean, I could see a reason to run it if you were running servers, but not at home. So why put it on Fedora, Debian, and all the other distros? The paradigm wasn’t there, so I couldn’t figure it out.

What GIMP needs to implement for me to stop using Adobe. (Thus saving myself and others $600+)

1. RAW Support (preferably the new standard of DNG)
2. 16bit File Editing
3. XMP Tag support
4. Panorama Tool
5. Adjustment layers

Number 1 is important for those of us who wish to capture the camera’s RAW data and then losslessly manipulate it before getting it into the image editing program. There are some plugins which do bits here and there of RAW support, but I need it to be much closer to at least Adobe CS 1. For those who, like me, do editing on nearly every photo, 16 bit files are important because each pixel holds more data and, therefore, less is lost overall with each edit. XMP tag support is important as it is the standard for applying tags, titles, and copyright notices to photos. Many agencies expect this and it also allows for pretagging of photos so that they upload to flickr with tags already in place. I was so happy when flickr finally adapted that ability. The panorama tool is alone amongst these five as just me being spoiled. There are many ways to create your own panoramas by meticulously lining up the photos and messing with the layer masks. But I don’t want that! Why? Because Photoshop almost always gets things perfectly, allowing me to do what a photographer is supposed to be able to do - be creative! I don’t want to fiddle endlessly to get a panorama to work or it’s not fun for me. Endless tweaking is ok when I’m programming, but it frustrates me to no end with photography. Finally, #5 is almost the most important feature. In Photoshop adjustment layers are layers for some of the adjustments one normally makes TO a layer. In other words, instead of tweaking the luminosity on a layer, you create a luminosity layer tweak. This does many important things. First of all, it is non-destructive to the photo. If, twenty steps down the line, you don’t like the effect anymore, just remove the layer. You don’t have to undo through 20 steps and lose all that you’ve done along the way. Ever since I discovered adjustment layers they completely changed the way I worked. Second, you can make adjustments to your adjustment later without having to go back through the undo stack. If you know what I’m talking about, you know how useful this is.

Fedora Core 5 has moved one step closer to being finalized with the release of Test Release 3. I’m currently downloading the torrent of the DVD because I think I want to go ahead and put it on my main machine. Yeah, it’s a test release, but I’m so impatient to get working with Beagle and Fspot! I’ll see what others are doing before I do anything rash. See the official announcement here.

Those of you who have been daring enough to run Gnome 2.13 already know most of this stuff. However, if, like me, you can’t afford to have unstable desktops, this page contains a preview of what will be in the latest offering from Gnome. It looks as though the changes will only be incremental in nature, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I think this is the first Gnome which will require Cairo, and that’s supposed to provide a huge boost in graphics capabilities.

The important thing about installing a multi-disc distro with VMware Player is that it will create a lock on the disc so that it will tell you to change discs, yet when you do, it says the same disc is still in there. The way to counter this is to hit the CD-ROM button at the top of the VMware player window. This toggle button controls whether the CD is mounted or not. The first time you will get some warnings, but by clicking cancel you can tell it to ignore the lock the emulator has on the drive. From then on, changing discs during installation is as simple as toggling the button off and on, to let it know a new CD is in.