BrT

For one of my projects at work, I am using a test install of RHEL5 in “workstation” mode, but I needed to install some packages that are only available in the “server” package list. To temporarily make yum search the server repositories, just change the following line in /etc/sysconfig/rhn/up2date:
versionOverride=5Server
(normally the value [...]

[Read more →]

The Unix getent command does not exist in OSX. Starting from 10.5 (Leopard), the administrative databases have changed from Netinfo to DirectoryService, and the main tool for looking things in DS is dscl (see also this article at afp548.com).
For example, to query a user by UID with getent, you would run:

getent passwd <uid>

With dscl, you [...]

[Read more →]

Gnome has a button that you can add to a panel to show/hide the
desktop, but there doesn’t seem to be a way to bind that action to a
key. Today I learned about the wmctrl program, which
can perform many window-manager operations, so I put together this
simple script which toggles the “show the desktop” state:
[...]

[Read more →]

Version 2.0-gamma of Thinking Rock has been [released for Linux](http://www.thinkingrock.com.au/gamma20.php). I have written an ebuild for it, you can find it here: https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=154978.

[Read more →]

I have been wanting to learn [Ruby](http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/), and
I recently started playing with [FUSE](http://fuse.sourceforge.net/), for
creating file systems in user space in Unix.
And a couple of days ago, [Marcel](http://marcel-g.homeip.net/) asks
me if I knew of any blogging client that would allow complete offline
editing of the posts as files, and then synchronize them. That was
enough to plant the seed [...]

[Read more →]

I recently managed (accidentally, just by upgrading X.org) to get accelerated graphics working on my T43p Thinkpad running Gentoo. So now I get all the nice Xscreensaver GL hacks running at full speed – with one little problem: I have my system configured for dual-head mode (internal screen and external monitor) using MergedFB, with both [...]

[Read more →]

Thanks to the always-useful Thinkwiki, I am now able to hot swap the Ultrabay in my T43p, which makes it possible to exchange, for example, the DVD-RW drive for an additional hard disk, without having to reboot or even put the machine to sleep. Essentially, just follow the instructions on Thinkwiki, which boil down to [...]

[Read more →]

I recently reinstalled Gentoo Linux on my Thinkpad, using a second disk, with my old disk mounted in the UltraBay slot. I found that I could not enable DMA on the old disk, which made most operations (for example, copying my quite large home directory) unbearably slow. I just found the solution in the always-useful [...]

[Read more →]

Evolution 2.6.1 had been driving me mad recently – every few minutes, CPU utilization would go up to 100% for about 20 seconds, slowing down everything in my system, and then go back to normal. Today I found the cause: I had enabled “Periodically synchronize contact information and images from gaim buddy list” (in Mail [...]

[Read more →]