japfm:
* hula calendar/mail server: looks like a pretty mature product, based on netmail, great appearance, hopefully great usability and easy maintenance too. grats to novell for this initiative!
gentoo ebuilds for hula by lachyg
SkyOS Application (De)Installation Technique Explained
Interesting approach, leveraging file attributes combined with fast file searching:
SkyOS Application (De)Installation Technique Explained
Looks like SkyOS (videos and nice wallpapers) is pretty innovative in other fields as well. For example, I like the fact that its Live-Query application doesn’t hide the query language from its users. It would be nice if Google and co. were esteeming and supporting power users too (I’m still waiting for a search engine that offers a public regexp interface).
How to “reset” a Mac OS X installation
Here’s how to “reset” an installed Mac OS X and virtually return to a “virgin” state with a welcome screen prompting the user to setup and customize his Mac OS X installation:
0. To reset a Mac OS X v10.7 Lion installation to factory default, check Mark’s comment @ Apple forum (basically, deleting users before booting into single user mode seems to do the trick). For Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard and older, follow the procedure below.
1. Press Command-S during startup to get into single user mode
2. Check the filesystem:
# /sbin/fsck -fy
3. Mount the root partition as writable:
# /sbin/mount -uw /
4. Remove the hidden .AppleSetupDone file:
# rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone
5. a) For Mac OS X 10.5 ‘Leopard’ and newer, do:
# launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.DirectoryServices.plist
Repeat for every user previously defined on the machine (replace {username} with the real user name):
# dscl . -delete /Users/{username}
# dscl . -delete /Groups/admin GroupMembership {username}
5. b) For older versions of Mac OS X, do:
# rm -rf /var/db/netinfo/local.nidb
6. Remove the home directories of users. For every user do (replace {username} with the real user name):
# rm -rf /Users/{username}
7. If applicable, remove already created files in root’s home directory, e.g.
# rm /root/.bash_history
8. Shutdown (or reboot to verify the procedure worked):
# shutdown -h now
-or-
# reboot
That’s it! :)
[Update 20081106]: Thanks to Macs R We for the update 5 a) regarding Mac OS X Leopard! See the comments below for more information.
[Update 20090429]: Added “dscl . -delete /Groups/admin GroupMembership {username}” to 5b) as suggested by rello (see rello’s comment below)
[Update 20110731]: Some updates about resetting Mac OS X v10.7 Lion (unverified) and a clarification that rebooting at the end isn’t strictly necessary (just to verify the procedure worked). Thanks to David, Adrien and Adam for the hints.
The Art of Computer Programming, Vol. 4 excerpt
Pre-Fascicle 2a: A Draft of Section 7.2.1.1 of TAOCP, Volume 4 is here!
For non-CS-geeks: TAOCP is probably the most important book series in Computer Science! TAOCP is written by Donald E. Knuth, who happens to be also the author of the world’s best typesetting program, TeX. Note that some of Knuth’s lectures and speeches are available as streaming videos! :)
(source: heise online – TAOCP Band 4 in Sicht)
Gentoo: Migration from devfs to udev
Some pointers:
The complete Gentoo Linux 2.6 migration guide
Gentoo udev Guide
Notes:
* famd went crazy after the kernel update (it wrote about 100 lines of text per second to /var/log/messages). ’emerge fam’ solved it.
* udev doesn’t seem to recognize external USB drives that are plugged-in at boot-time already. So in addition to ‘hotplug’, I had to install ‘coldplug’:
# emerge coldplug
# rc-update add coldplug default
# /etc/init.d/coldplug start
The D programming language
The Zero Install system
A step in the right direction to decentralize Linux “package management”:
goScreen 5.0
goScreen 5.0 has been released. Excerpt from the e-mail:
This version features
* application window layout management,
* possibility to start several instances of goScreen on multi-monitor
systems to manage different PC monitors independently, and
* possibility to create and use different configuration profiles in registry.
Layout management makes it possible:
* to define preferred size and position of application windows, and restore it with a single shortcut command;
* to temporarily rearrange all windows on the current screen page so they are all visible
* to find a window you need; once you find and activate it, all windows will return to their previous positions, with the one that you needed at the top of the stack;
* to pack all windows on the currents screen page while working with several documents at once – goScreen arranges them so they are all visible and maintains the order. Any window on the page is always one mouse click away.
* to temporarily move all application windows aside so the desktop is visible
* to open yet another document, or start an application. Once you do, all windows return to their previous positions.
I like goScreen. In fact, I almost can’t imagine working without it when using Windows. It definitely increases my productivity. I like goScreen’s licensing policy too (upgrades are free for registered users). The only trouble I have with goScreen (even with v5.0): Sometimes, the window list unwantedly pops up. I’d like to be able to permanently switch off the window list.
resolving some courier-imapd errors after a recent update of gentoo
problem 1:
Feb 11 01:46:58 o2 authdaemond: failed to connect to mysql server (server=mysql.example.com, userid=admin): Unknown MySQL Server Host ‘mysql.example.com’ (1)
Feb 11 01:46:58 o2 imapd-ssl: LOGIN FAILED, method=PLAIN, ip=[::ffff:192.168.1.33]
Feb 11 01:46:58 o2 imapd-ssl: authentication error: Input/output error
reason 1: the configuration of courier imapd authentication methods has been resetted by this update. courier thus erroneously tries to use the (not configured) mysql auth method.
solution 1:
edit /etc/courier/authlib/authdaemonrc and replace the line
authmodulelist=”authmysql authpam authuserdb authshadow authcustom”
by
authmodulelist=”authpam”
(adjust to match your courier-imapd authentication method)
# /etc/init.d/courier-imapd restart
# /etc/init.d/courier-imapd-ssl restart
problem 2:
Feb 11 02:08:03 o2 imapd-ssl: Failed to create cache file: maildirwatch (mettlerd)
Feb 11 02:08:03 o2 imapd-ssl: Error: Input/output error
Feb 11 02:08:03 o2 imapd-ssl: Check for proper operation and configuration
Feb 11 02:08:03 o2 imapd-ssl: of the File Access Monitor daemon (famd).
reason 2: famd is not started by default
solution 2:
# rc-update add famd default
# /etc/init.d/famd start
Thunderbird/Firefox: Minimize to Windows tray
How to minimize Thunderbird or Firefox to the system tray (Windows only!): mozdev.org – minimizetotray: index