vsbabu.org : unix http://vsbabu.org/mt/archives/categories/unix/ Gluing passing thoughts to foregone conclusions en-us vsbabu@gmail.com Copyright 2008 2004-05-04T15:30:30+05:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 Unix's revenge http://vsbabu.org/mt/archives/2004/05/04/unixs_revenge.html A great op-ed piece by Rajeev Srinivasan 990@http://vsbabu.org/mt/ Read Unix's revenge.

  • . If the US is justified in raising non tariff barriers against outsourcing services to India, would India be justified in saying, 'No more government purchases of Microsoft products'? Are the two comparable?
  • In a way, it could be said that both Sun and Microsoft are suffering from an invisible and amorphous enemy: the Free Software Movement ...
  • In the 1988 to 1990 period or so, there was an opportunity for UNIX to become the desktop operating system of choice. At that time, Microsoft did not even have a good windowing interface: you used a command line interface. Companies like AT&T, Sun, HP, Data General, Toshiba, DEC and IBM got into a pig headed little OS war about precisely whose specific version of UNIX should be pushed forward. I was a participant in all this, and in hindsight, we took our eyes off the prize: the desktop. Microsoft, waiting in the wings, was happy to walk off with the spoils as the other guys fought their internecine battles.
]]> unix 2004-05-04T15:30:30+05:00 Corn on unix http://vsbabu.org/mt/archives/2003/12/31/corn_on_unix.html I am not qualified for this. Are you? 959@http://vsbabu.org/mt/ A recruiter mailed me this requirement (excerpt).

Need developer proficient in UNIX development and the following languages C++, JAVA, JAVA Script, SQL, HTML, ColdFusion, and Cornshell.

This position is in midwest where corn is popular. But on UNIX? I think I'll skip :-)

]]> unix 2003-12-31T18:54:51+05:00 Find and replace locks http://vsbabu.org/mt/archives/2002/10/07/find_and_replace_locks.html Search for file content and replace. 559@http://vsbabu.org/mt/ I don't get much time to fix things in Unix at work these days. Today, I found out that lot of files that were converted from RCS to CVS had strict locks, by an ex-employee.

]]> unix 2002-10-07T12:27:05+05:00 *Nixing linkfest 2002.10.04 http://vsbabu.org/mt/archives/2002/10/04/nixing_linkfest_20021004.html Linkfest on things I found interesting this morning, but not interesting enough to comment. 555@http://vsbabu.org/mt/ Miscellaneous articles that tickled a *nix guy.

]]> unix 2002-10-04T06:25:38+05:00 Unixifying Windows http://vsbabu.org/mt/archives/2002/09/02/unixifying_windows.html Useful tools to Unixify Windows for free. 464@http://vsbabu.org/mt/ Simon Brunning: Eric's Webspace has some fab tips on DOS and Windows script writing. Combine with Unix utilities for Windows, and you can get a lot done.

Thanks Simon!

]]> unix 2002-09-02T10:30:07+05:00 Mandrake 8.2 with KDE 3.0.1 http://vsbabu.org/mt/archives/2002/06/24/mandrake_82_with_kde_301.html Installed Mandrake 8.2 over the weekend. I've not booted to Windows from home for almost a month now. 401@http://vsbabu.org/mt/ KDE3.0.1 on Mandrake 8.2. Screen shot. Click to zoom in a popup window (800x600) Installed Mandrake 8.2 on my home PC over the weekend. It is remarkably fast even on a PIII-450MHz. Instead of the supplied KDE2.2 RPMS, I downloaded and installed the excellent KDE3.0.1 RPMS from Texstar.

See the screenshot to see how nice it looks with Mosfet's High Performance Liquid theme and with anti-aliased fonts.
- Open Office replaced MS Office.
- PostgreSQL replaced MS Access. A nice and easy front end for Postgres might convert people who are used to the ease of using Access.
- I use Galeon for browsing. Look how Konqueror displays a site that use my native language (Malayalam) font! This is better than Internet Explorer.

My soundcard is Aureal, so that doesn't work, even with sf.net drivers. Anyway, I am planning to buy a good card anyway.

Now, I need to boot to Windows, only for using the proprietary VPN client to connect to my office and to use my scanner.

]]> unix 2002-06-24T19:40:56+05:00 Command line editing in Bash in VI mode http://vsbabu.org/mt/archives/2002/03/13/command_line_editing_in_bash_in_vi_mode.html I was too much used to command line editing features of KSH in HP-UX. One thing that used to annoy... 186@http://vsbabu.org/mt/ I was too much used to command line editing features of KSH in HP-UX. One thing that used to annoy me in BASH was the lack of VI like command line editing. Finally read the GNU readline manual, and it is very simple. Just enter the following command.

set -o vi

Now, if I can add that to Windows version of SQL*Plus, I'll be very happy :-)

]]> unix 2002-03-13T12:44:42+05:00 Fixing UNIX configuration nightmare http://vsbabu.org/mt/archives/2002/02/18/fixing_unix_configuration_nightmare.html Freshmeat has an article on getting into some standard way of configuring Unix machines. It seems to be inspired by... 83@http://vsbabu.org/mt/ Freshmeat has an article on getting into some standard way of configuring Unix machines. It seems to be inspired by what Apple pulled off with OS X. Lot of good comments from readers as well. Let us hope everybody would like to cooperate to make a standard installation, instead of letting personal egos dominate - unlikely though, since IMO, open source movement is driven as much by personal egos as by serve the community feeling.

]]> unix 2002-02-18T08:20:11+05:00