Mono on Linux

Yay!  Now we can develop Windows binaries from anywhere!  With Mono, you too can become a cross-platform programmer who sticks to one platform!

How is this productive?  A new de-facto standard developed for the Windows platform.  Why does everyone think this is such a great thing?  I remember a quote I read from Linus once which said something along the lines of, "When Microsoft starts writing programs for Linux, I'll know that I've won."  Well, how about all your Linux developers starting to write programs for Windows?!  That sounds like a great idea.  Then we can all rest assured that our blood, sweat, and tears going into developing a complete, feature rich F/OSS OS can be put onto a Microsoft Windows bandwagon and sold for millions of dollars.  Then maybe we can suck from the teet of M$ with their "developer" releases on the operating system that we wrote for them!  "Oh, good!  You mean I can buy my own code from you for only $200 a pop?!  Fabulous!  I'll take three!"

What the F*&%, OLPC?

So it's been released that OLPC has put an extensive amount of work into getting Windows XP to be bootable on their laptops.  Why?  Because it will "help drive competition" and Microsoft declared that they would either have to completely rewrite the bios for the machine or it would have to be written so Windows can boot from it.  This is bullshit.  The reason no one had built a port for OpenFirmware to Windows is because no one cared to run Windows on a machine that would be emphasizing F/OSS.  No one in the F/OSS community, so far as I know, would consider the assimilation a considerably forward-looking step for the NON-PROFIT organization which is supposed to be producing laptops for small children around the world.  Is this an effort to get information into small children's hands, or is it an effort to create a worldwide standard for communications and information technology?  Well, Microsoft had to be stopped in the United States due to monopolistic standings back in the 80's/90's, but can we stop them if they become the de-facto operating system worldwide?  I think not.

I Love Dell...

I don't care what people say about Dell Computer Company.  I love the fact that they are pioneers in the mass-production field of the computer industry, in terms of supporting Linux and the Linux community.  I know that when Dell comes out with a new BIOS update for the XPS M1330, I can still do updates to the BIOS.  This is the one major thing that has kept me with 1) Linux, and 2) Dell.  I will continue to purchase Dell computers if they keep up this kind of support.  I understand that their support for the Windows community is a little shoddy, but that's because you're trying to support Windows.  Kind of a daunting task to begin with.

GNOME

I'm really quite frustrated with most Linux desktop environments.  Nothing seems to really be able to top GNOME imho.  What is it exactly that makes this arena of environment so elegant?  It's simple, yet extensible.  It's not bloated, but does everything well.  It's quick, efficient, and has plenty of development so anything you want to do with it, you can most likely find a patch or package which will do it.  If someone uses Flubox or some other extremely minimalistic interface, let me know why you use it.  KDE users... best of luck.  I liked KDE 3.5... Once 4.0 hit, there was just not enough stability.  It seemed like stability came at the cost of speed.  If you're in KDE development, please enlighten us with why this is so.  KDE seems to be getting more and more bloated, with fewer and fewer features for the buck.

*****Edit*****
I have since tried KDE 4 for quite some time, and they've really made some improvements.  It's by far more stable and scalable than I remember.  Great job, guys.

my computer "suspended"

Huh... That was the strangest thing.  I put my computer to sleep, as I usually do when I put it away, but when I got back to it, the processor had not shut off.  Everything was fully suspended, but for some reason, the BIOS didn't find it necessary to shut off the processor or fan when suspended.  Practically fried the thing, as it was stuck in my bag for about two hours in a locker.  Anyone else ever have this issue?

On Bruce Eckel's "Thinking In Java"

If anyone has had the "privelege" of reading Bruce Eckel's "Thinking in Java," please elaborate on why he's so prolific. There's a line between prolific and wordy, and he flirts with it often. Why he needs to explain a singular change of what he's discussing with an additional 50 lines of code is beyond me. He states at the end of it, as if to rub it in your face that you have no idea where he went with his explanation, "As you can clearly see, ..."

You're not a crazy... so what are you doing here?

I work at the Grand Rapids Public Library. Granted, it is a public library of a fairly large city, so we're naturally inclined to attract some crazies. One thing I don't understand, however, is the frequenting of non-crazies. These people show up every day the moment we open our doors, until the moment we drag them out, kicking and screaming (figuratively speaking). They conduct their business, they get on the computers, they look at books (never check them out, however), and generally just hang out waiting for all the other acquaintances they've made over the years of sitting at a public library to show up so they have someone to talk to.

It doesn't bother me so much that these people are taking advantage of a public service which is provided to them with no up-front cost, it more bothers me to think that these people are not contributing to that underlying monetary cost. I will explain further. Do these people not have jobs? Do they not have somewhere they need to be? Understandably so, we get our fair share of discouraged workers, but really? It would be so easy to get a job somewhere when launching from the public library. There is an entire section devoted to careers in you-name-it fields. Any one of these books, when given half the glances they they give pictures of old cars, would prove an indispensable resource for this individual's future. What are they doing with their lives? GET A JOB!

Strange Characters in Filenames

We've all been there before. You're in pure command-line. It's a great feeling: that amount of control... One task at a time (for the most part) and you're in control. It does nothing unless you tell it to. One problem. You have a space in a filename that you need to run. Bummer, right? Not so fast.

INTRODUCING: TAB!

That's right, folks. Tab. That button you use to flip through your forms quickly and enter in redundant data over and over again. The overused but underappreciated button TAB. Hit it to find its wonder of autofinishing whatever you may need it to do.

Sometimes you find yourself in a situation where you just can't use tab, because you've left a space in your filename. Well, silly you, sometimes you just don't want all of your files inCamelCasingBecauseItsALittleHardToRead. No problem. Put in underscores... just kidding.

By far the most useful tool I've ever used on the command line. If you're not sure what the rest of your filename is, just hit it twice, and it will show you all the files that match what you've been typing in thusfar, at which point in time you can be more specific about which file you're talking about! Isn't that fantastic?

Straight up finishing your sentences:

$ cd Doc

Hit tab once

$ cd Documents/

Suggestive commands:

$ cd Do

Hit tab twice

$ cd Do

Documents/ Downloads/

$ cd Do

INTRODUCING: BACKSLASH!

That's right again, folks. backslash. Commonly thought to be the misinterpreted forwardslash, backslash is a class all its own.

BACKSLASH: \

FORWARDSLASH: /

Think of it this way. Backslashes are falling backwards, and forwardslashes are falling forwards. Simple, right?

Anyway, back to the point. Backslashes allow you to put non-printing characters into your filenames without much hassle.

For instance, say I have a filename that is "The Lonely Wanderings of John Williams.odt" or what have you. On the command line, this would be represented as

The\ Lonely\ Wanderings\ of\ John\ Williams.odt

So if you have a character that is somewhat of a special character, like a

single quote

double quote

space

etc...

You can precede it with a backslash, and all will be well again...usually.

INTRODUCING: QUOTES!

In order to do a filename that you just don't feel like typing that much in, just surround the file with double quotes. This will allow the shell to take the entire filename as one big string, and try to figure out what you're trying to say like the rest of us as one big string. For example:

The Lonely Wanderings of John Williams.odt

becomes

"The Lonely Wanderings of John Williams.odt"

INTRODUCING: ASTERISK!

In order to get the rest of the filename to just automatically fill themselves in, just throw in an asterisk or two. Say you have a file that is "The Lonely Wanderings of John Williams.odt", but you seem to have forgotten who is wandering aimlessly other than yourself. No fear: asterisk is here. (Corny, but it gets the point across.)

Just type in:

The*Lonely*.odt

and hit tab, enter, whatever.

This will automatically fill in the gaps where you were too lazy. Be mindful, however, that if you have multiple subjects of lonely wanderings, you may run into some issues with multiple files being represented. If this is the case, you may want to be more specific about the file by adding in some more defining characteristics.

installing a .bundle

You don't always get the most pretty setups for Linux distributions. Sometimes a .bundle is all you get. You stare at this file, and go... "what the hell." Well, you're in luck. Here's a quick walkthrough on how to install said files:

Open a terminal.

cd into whatever directory your .bundle is located.

Simply type in

gksu bash ./yourFilename.bundle

substituting "yourFilename" with your... well... filename.

This should open up a nice gui window to install your application.

For help with filenames, including spaces in filenames, go here: Strange Characters in Filenames

VMware Player

I don't know why you'd want to stray from VirtualBox, but if you do for some reason, you can download VMware Plyaer from http://downloads.vmware.com/d/details/player_3_0/ZGp0YmQlJSpiZGVkZA==. Download the .bundle that fits your architecture (32-bit or 64-bit). In order to install the .bundle, go here: Installing a .bundle

Also, you're gonna need a .vmx file that fits the hard drive you're attempting to virtualize. You can get .vmx's here:
http://www.easyvmx.com/

watch some dvd's

We've all been confronted with a situation before. You just can't find that DVD you're looking for on http://www.demonoid.com/, http://www.isohunt.com/, or http://www.thepiratebay.org/, but strangely enough, you found it at your local rental store. Weird. One problem. You're running an open source operating system... Well, kind of.

Ubuntu made a pact with the devil that makes all our lives a little easier. (Fedora, Gentoo, Puppy, Mandrake, etc... sorry, your supporters haven't sold their souls yet.)

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras

This will install a bunch of packages, all of which will probably be relevant to your musical and video-related delights.

"But I still can't play DVD's," you say? Well hold on. That just puts the ability in your hands. Now the rest is up to you.

sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh

This installation script should download a package, and install it. From this point forward, you should have all of what you're looking for. You can even rip DVDs in their entirety to your hard drive, if you wish.

(Mind you, if you do, you are liable to pay the consequences. I never would... ;)

PLEASE NOTE: This walkthrough is for more recent versions of Ubuntu, I think 9.04+. If you are using something older than this, you may try one of the two following commands:

sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/examples/install-css.sh

or

sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/install-css.sh

If neither of these works after having installed ubuntu-restricted-extras, you could try the following:

sudo find / -iname install-css.sh

This should give you the filepath of the shell script you're looking for. Just substitute it in for the path in any one of the previous examples.

VirtualBox in Linux

I've been using VirtualBox for years, and I've never been a happier nerd. VirtualBox supports USB hotplugging, mounting an .iso in the virtual operating system as though it were a native disk, the list of features goes on and on. I've used it so many times, it's one of the first things I tell people to get on their computers whenever switching to Linux. There are still those stubborn apps you have to use for school and such where you just need to use Windows, and there's really no way around it. Sure, wine works, but it's just that: a lot of work. If you've got the RAM, (which RAM is cheap these days), go with VirtualBox. It's well worth the space. A little spot of Windows XP in your .VirtualBox directory isn't going to kill you.

http://www.virtualbox.org/

BE AWARE: When you switch to a new kernel, it's always a little misleading when something "breaks." Nothing ever breaks, except for your ego, which is a good step toward humility. Anyway, whenever you upgrade your kernel, be aware that you're gonna have to run a command:

sudo /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup

This will recompile the kernel module, which will allow you to run VirtualBox happily again.

Happy Virtualization! =]

finding your router's ip address

I've always found this to be a very useful utility. In your terminal, type

route

Wait a couple seconds.

In the "Gateway" column for the entry "default," that is your router's ip address. Comes in real handy if you're trying to... *cough* ... help a friend reconfigure their router.

(P.S. Almost all Linksys routers' default is 192.168.1.1 Just type this into your browser, and you should be confronted with login credentials. They are, by default, an empty username and password: "admin"... I think.)

need a mac address?

In order to display your internet connections, type

ifconfig

into a terminal...it should pop up all your different connections. If you are looking for the mac address specifically, it's under the HWaddr for that device.

Your "eth0" is your ethernet connection, or your LAN.

The "wlan0" is usually the first wireless card you have in your computer.

You can pretty much ignore the rest of them, unless you need a very specific setup.

Finding information about your kernel

In order to display the kernel version you are using, type "uname -r" into the terminal...that'll be helpful. In order to display all the information that it has collected about the computer, type in "uname -a" or for a help menu on what it has, type in "uname --h"...sweet.