Category: Linux

Linux is my primary operating system. I used it on the servers, desktops, laptops, netbooks, and even mobile phones since approximately 1997. I’ve tried a number of distributions over the years, and even created a couple myself. I still look around sometimes to see what others are up to. But most of my machines are running some sort of Red Hat – either a quick and easy Fedora Linux, or a stable and secure Red Hat Enterprise Server, or a cheaper CentOS alternative.

And while by now I am very comfortable in the Linux environment (both graphical and command line), I still discover a lot of new and interesting things about it. When I come across something worthy, I usually share it with the rest of the Open Software world, using this category.

Trying out Sim

During the last few days I’ve been trying out Sim. Sim is yet another open source Instant Messaging (IM) client that supports a variety of protocols (ICQ, Jabber, AIM, and MSN). I am currently interested only in ICQ though.

Before Sim I’ve been using Licq for a long time and centericq before that.

I switched from centericq to Licq because I wanted to have annoying notifications on new messages while in graphical mode. Otherwise I was constantly forgetting that centericq was running in one my konsoles and it stayed there abandoned for weeks.

Licq is almost perfect for my needs. And I wasn’t looking forward to jumping of off it. It’s just that a few people suggested that Sim is a better client in general, and that is solves a few of those issues that I have with Licq.

Continue reading Trying out Sim

Analysis of two perl lines

Today I saw these two lines in one backup script that was written in perl:

my $d = (localtime())[6];
$d = $d=~/[067]/ ? 0 : $d % 2 + 1;

Does this look cryptic to you? Probably not. But I wanted to write something and thought that these two lines won’t be that obvious for everyone out there. So I decided to explain exactly what goes on.

Before I start, I have to say that these are not just any two random lines of perl code. These are very useful lines that provide a short and elegant solution to a rather common problem. Read on if you interested.

Continue reading Analysis of two perl lines

Using knotes

KDE has an excellent helper tool – knotes. It a small application that allows one to create notes similar to yellow Post-it that are so familiar to everyone. With knotes it is possible to create notes in all fonts, colors, and sizes as well as set alarms on those notes, display them over all desktops, above or below all windows, etc.

I knew about this application for a long time now, but never got used to using it until recently. After thinking a bit about what kept me away from it, I realized that these were the shortcuts. Particularly, there are two shortcuts which can make all the difference – “New Note” and “New Note From Clipboard”. By default, some weird keys (Alt+Shift+N and Alt+Shift+C) are assigned to these actions. Very inconvenient and non-ituitive.

Using knotes’ configuration dialogue I reconfigured the shortcuts to be F12 for an empty new note and Ctrl+F12 for a new note with clipboard content. That feels way better now. Try it and you’ll be surprised…

P.S.: Now I wisht that knotes could have transparent window background…

SELinux fixes

If you are anything like me and don’t want to disable SELinux upon installation of Fedora Linux, then I have a hint for you.

List all files from selinux-policy-targeted and look at the output. You will the list of all files in the RPM package. Few of those files are SELinux manuals for better tweaking.

/usr/share/man/man8/ftpd_selinux.8.gz
/usr/share/man/man8/httpd_selinux.8.gz
/usr/share/man/man8/kerberos_selinux.8.gz
/usr/share/man/man8/named_selinux.8.gz
/usr/share/man/man8/nfs_selinux.8.gz
/usr/share/man/man8/nis_selinux.8.gz
/usr/share/man/man8/rsync_selinux.8.gz
/usr/share/man/man8/samba_selinux.8.gz
/usr/share/man/man8/ypbind_selinux.8.gz

I just fixed two problems easily after looking into the documentation.

One was with bind, which was complaining with “Permission denied” on any incoming zone transfer (slave zone). named had all the access there is to all folders, but still couldn’t write. This command (mentioned in man 8 named_selinuhelped immediately:

setsebool -P named_write_master_zones 1

Anoner problem was with Apache, which wasn’t showing anything in user’s public_html directory. man 8 httpd_linux suggested the solution that worked:

setsebool -P httpd_enable_homedirs 1
chcon -R -t httpd_sys_content_t ~user/public_html

Open source is inevitable

Red Hat Magazine says “Open source is inevitable“.

After years of fierce competition, Microsoft and Sun have decided to settle lawsuits and set aside their differences. Why? The answer won’t surprise those who know Linux and open source. Today the customer is in charge. See what happened, how history and the open source movement has helped bring us to where we are today, and why open source is inevitable because it allows the customer to take control.

They also have a nice video clip attached (in QuickTime, RealPlayer, and Ogg Theora downloads or RealPlayer stream).