HackNBlog @ Salamanteri Server

Most software today is very much like an Egyptian pyramid with millions of bricks piled on top of each other, with no structural integrity, but just done by brute force and thousands of slaves. - Alan Kay

Bumped into this neat quote about programming and quality of software today on a site called “WTF Code” - holds pretty much true for unfortunately large amounts of software today, especially for commercial proprietary products (comments to dispute are always welcome :) ).

I have always (that is since I wrote my first lines of QBASIC code under MS-DOS 5.0) had interest to learn new programming languages, just out of interest towards programming as a hobby. Lately I have grown more and more interested on learning to program Common Lisp, a language highly praised by those using it but also one of those that has always looked way too cryptic for me (considering that I do know various different languages and rarely bump into one that I’m totally baffled about when looking at it :) ).

Now I have decided to find out what all the fuss is about and learn at least the basics of Common Lisp - however I’m having hard time finding a tutorial that is both good for someone who knows nothing about Lisp and does not stop after “Hello World” and couple simple examples of mathematical functions :)

So far I have found that GNU programs include a Lisp compiler and interpreter called ‘gcl‘ (GNU Common Lisp) and one simple tutorial on very basics of Common Lisp.

What I’m hoping as I’m writing about this is that maybe someone with knowledge is reading this and could post a comment with link(s) to a good tutorial for me to start working with :) Whether it will happen or not I will certainly be posting about my future experiments with Lisp here - I would like to gain at least enough knowledge to produce a Lisp version of my ‘tree.sh‘ (shell script to output directory tree structure nicely) as it is a good short program to write for getting overall picture of how a language feels write with compared to others - in fact I might write it with multiple languages for comparison of them (just for the fun of it).

I have the first poll on my site: about “year of desktop linux”. Please vote for your opinion!

There has been numerous blogs and other articles writing of “This is/was the year of desktop Linux” - naturally also with loads of criticism about it. I have my own opinion about year of desktop Linux, but that will be written about in another blog entry. All I say is that for me Year of the linux desktop already was - I leave you wondering what it was

So there, go on and wote!

I believe most here have already read about Google starting up an operating system of their own, Chrome OS to compete with Windows as their next project. I’ll share some of my feelings about good, bad and the futile related to this hopefully neat project.

Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Google want’s to provide users with an OS that boots up lightning fast and ready for web in seconds from switching power on. They want the system not to clutter up but always run as fast as anew. They want to provide an OS where there is no fuss and fighting with new hardware, configuring the system (that usually needs knowledge below the average) and no updates that break things or change&confuse the user interface. This all sounds good - and it also already sound familiar.

Gathered not from Chrome OS official blog but from a zdnet blog entry, let’s check some known facts:

• It runs on top of Linux kernel.
• It will boot directly into the Chrome Web browser
• It will be aimed primarily at netbooks
• It will run on both x86 and ARM processors
• It will not be designed to have local storage; all data will be stored in the cloud
• Google will not entice developers to build software to run on the Chrome OS; instead, they want them to build Web apps that will run on any standards-based browser
• The three most important features will be “speed, simplicity and security”, according to Google
• Google will release the software to the open source community before the end of 2009
• Announced Chrome OS hardware partners: Acer, Adobe, ASUS, Freescale, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, and Toshiba.
• Netbooks running Chrome OS will be available in the second half of 2010

(more…)

Well, guys (and girls <3 )… I haven’t written anything for some while because I decided to take a vacation. Now I feel bad about it because this is not my job, this is my hobby and I don’t really understand why I haven’t just kept on blogging. Well, anyway, expect some new writings here again :)

On another subject, this very server (named salamanteri) was under attack. Surprisingly though it was not an attack through the internet - it was a very physical attack. What can I tell about it? Well, it was me and my friends having a laugh, drinking way too much beer. My friend got in an argument with my other friend, one thing led to another and in the end I was in fight with my friend and he was attacking my computer very physically. Thank goodness nothing on my server was broken (but my desktop system is another case - although weird, nobody remembers anything happening to it, might be just a normal hardware problem). In the end I can only quote Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (and ask you to consider alcohol just another drug, and not exactly a mild one): “One of the things you learn from years of dealing with drug people, is that you can turn your back on a person, but never turn your back on a drug. Especially when it’s waving a razor-sharp hunting knife in your eye“.

Well, that’s about it… I will return soon, probably writing about Linux and gamers. A very popular subject I might claim.

Ok, I dont know how long (actually only 2 days according to stats) this site was down. The reasons:

1. I don’t live alone and sometimes my roommate likes to take pills. I got nothing against that, but then he comes to my room, brings some of his stuff here and takes some of mine away… Actioning irrationally he sometimes does other things too - this time he plugged off the power from my switch where my server is linked into. So that caused first problem.
2. My friend restarted computer. Before I had my httpd start automatically at boot but now that it also keeps https server it asks password when starting… Obviously it thus has to be hand started by me right after booting (there was, btw, no need for reboot anyway, that was all my friends stupidity).

Well, I just restarted apache and everything should be working fine again…

I just got some new video files but instead of divx packed inside .avi they came in .mvb files unknown to me. Trying to view them with xine I was surprised that I did not have a correct codec installed and revealed that the format was RealVideo (RV40).

I was so blinded by the thought that I should have almost any possible commonly known codec installed that I spent several apt-cache searches by looking for something else and completely missing on packet - which I then spotted and was humbled by the fact I had forgotten to install it. The command I needed to get it work was simply:
apt-get install w32codecs So never fool yourself, even though your guru mind should know all the switches and gears to make a steampunk computer tick, you might still miss the most obvious package for whatever problem you bump into :)

Most of the image manipulation guides on internet are made for photoshop so I’m always thrilled to find a interesting guide for GIMP.

From blog of Locutus I found an entry 3D Chuck. The Gimp script way.. I have never even thought of this idea - the guide describes how to turn regular image into 3d-image for viewing with red and green or blue and yellow 3d-glasses.

Not only does it tell how to do it manually but also a script-fu code (script language to add effects, etc. to GIMP) that adds “3D Convert” function under filters menu to automatically do the conversion.

Note that you should read also the comments of the entry to get the script function correctly as there are some problems with entering code in blog of locutus and comments provide some minor corrections to code and how to get it show on GIMP.

I have no glasses to try and test this stuff but I thought it might interest people :)

Checking, with WordPress.com Stats, for search terms had led people here (always interesting) one search was “freebsd daemon wallpapers“. Obviously it led to my earlier post, Linux vs. Windows wallpapers, with image featuring Tux and BSD daemon.

This made me look for BSD wallpapers so that in future people ending here for BSD images will find what they were looking for. So for more of these BSD images head to FreeBSD Image Gallery - Ultimate FreeBSD and BSD image collection.

A second site for good BSD images is BSDnexus. That second image on right is from there.

In the end, despite the lower image glorifying BSD even over Tux/Linux I shall make it clear that I do have a huge respect for BSD (and like the maskot) but for me, if I have to choose, Linux wins hands down. And please, no comment war on this. Civilized comments are ok, even wished. In the end it’s just matter of personal preferences and BSD does rock.

Okay, I just shamelessly copied this entry with minor modification from one of my favorite blogs, Steve Parker’s uRandom, but I felt it was important enough. The entry at uRandom quoted another webpage and linked to it. Below is just a copy of what Steve has on his entry.

From the page:

In just 20 minutes, he found and cloned the passports of two very unaware US citizens

Do watch the 5-minute video: http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/02/video-hacker-war-drives-san-francisco-cloning-rfid-passports/.

Btw, Steve, if offended about me copying your entry, take contact and I’ll remove or rewrite the thing. Hope you wont though ;)