Cool packages: Gnuchess

Do you like to play chess? Do you want to learn to play chess? Are you sick of staring at the #, %, $, or > prompt? Then Gnuchess may be for you. This is Gnu's own version of chess. It is pretty simple, and can have both simple graphics and can be totally text based. I have not used this package much but I have gotten this through pkgsrc with several variations included. I plan to use this to play chess and as a break after I type. Overall, a nice, simple game package.

New digs: g++

Well, I haven't done much with C for some time now, so I guess I should be getting back to it. I have started again with base conversion now. I have experimented with an example interest-rate program which uses loops to print the interest on a sum over a period of time according to simple interest, or I=prt. I am now writing a base-conversion program and also plan to write a program for finding the viscosity of a fluid based on the fluid's shear stress and shear rate or velocity gradient as in a laminar shear experiment. Simple for now, but more will come.

Spotlight: pkgsrc

The main package distibution system for NetBSD and many other (free) operating systems is pkgsrc. Before it existed, packages were not standardized and much less organized. However, today pkgsrc has standardized and distributed packages for more than 10 operating systems and has more than 5000 packages. It has standardized both binary and source distributions for many operating systems. For more information, go to http://www.netbsd.org where there is more info about pkgsrc.

Spotlight: Solaris

Many of you may have heard of the operating system Solaris. It is the operating system that Sun Microsystems introduced in the early 1990s. It replaced Sun's earlier Unix-based operating system. Today Solaris is open source, and you can get Solaris 10 for free. It is very innovative, and among its innovations is Sun's own file system, ZFS, which is an advanced 128-bit file system. Solaris also comes with a GNOME-like desktop environment, the Java Desktop System. There are releases for both PC and SPARC platforms. And, of course, jdk runs on it. To learn more, go to http://sun.com/solaris/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaris_Operating_Environment.

Command of the week: ! ls

Yes, this week's command is (gasp!) ls. This seemingly simple Unix command actually is very useful and efficient (especially compared to its DOS counterpart, dir). Ls simply shows the contents of a present directory (list to ls), but with options it can be very adjustable and "pliant." For example, ls -l lists files in the directory and their accessibiltiy conditions, like this:


drwx------ 2 users 4096 Nov 2 19:51 mail/
drwxr-s--- 35 www 32768 Jan 20 22:39 public_html/
-rw------- 1 users 3 Nov 25 02:58 test.txt

(example from http://www.computerhope.com/unix/uls.htm)

Or, for another example, ls -a will show all hidden system files, like this:

$ (or % or >) ls -a
.cshrc .history .bash coolstuff.vi HelloWorld.c a.out
$

While........

$ ls
coolstuff.vi HelloWorld.c a.out
$

There are many other ls options. For more info. about them, do man ls at your shell prompt or go to these other sites:

Linux and UNIX ls command help / Concise chart of ls options / http://www.computerhope.com/unix/uls.htm
Ls - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia / Wiki article about ls / http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ls
Unix ls command / Technical details about ls and explanation of its useage / http://www.scism.sbu.ac.uk/law/UnixStuff/ls.html
Unix man pages : ls () / the technical man explanation of ls / http://unixhelp.ed.ac.uk/CGI/man-cgi?ls

The vi editor

Once, or maybe twice or more, all of us have had to use vi at some point. Maybe we used it to edit rc.conf, or maybe it was used to write our first document, or maybe it was the first application we ever used from the prompt. To many of us (including me) it is an extremely rigid, hard to use, and counter-intuitive editor. But vi, in general, stands as the most well-known and ubiquitous editor for Unix or Linux, although later Emacs took this position. vi (for visual inter face :) ) was created originally in 1976 by the UC-Berkeley student Bill Joy, who later worked at Sun Microsystems. It replaced ed (ex), Unix's first editor. For those of you who have heard of or used DOS'S EDLIN.EXE, know what this editor is like. Vi was sort of an update of this for Unix. It became very commonly used as an "all-for-one" editor, and it is especially typist and ASCII-friendly. While rather archaic, vi is very efficient, and, once you get used to it, it starts getting easier to work with. Overall, vi was one of the first all-purpose Unix editor to be commonly known and well distributed.

Why Unix? Why Open Source?

Okay, I have to admit, from now, that I am starkly for open source, and that means GNU and FSF and Linux and every other open source organization. Not freeware, not free trials of shareware which last 45 hours, not shareware............open source. GNU. Linux. NetBSD. That penguin guy. (Tux.) I strongly try to keep away from Windows, unless I need to send e-mails or update this blog. Oh...and that also means keeping away from a GUI. I only use my favorite shell - bash. Well, still I often use csh and ksh. This keeps me focused on programming, typing, scripting, thinking, and not games, wasting time surfing the web, and doing careless stuff. In addition, GUIs are slow, "point-and-click" (aaaarrrgh.....that's what people think computing is now), unreliable, buggy (you do not want to see how often I have to press ctrl+alt+del), and involves lots of hard work to write applications on. Not that its easy in Unix, but, you know, I don't like VB, and, in addition, I hate trying to use all those windowSize(), etc. functions in C programs. You could guess why my NetBSD box starts up in about 10 to 20 seconds (from fresh boot to dmesg to login), while a brand new Dell machine takes over a minute to get working. Just makes me wonder why we need so much faster processors when we can go faster with an efficient operating system (you know, efficient in Latin means they will bring about). Also, interestingly, due to my experience with Unix, Windows seems so slllllooooooowww in comparison. However, the most important aspect of Unix, to me, is its programming compatibility. No operating system is more easy to learn to program with and to program with in general. Why do you think the open source programming community is one of the largest ones that exist.

Next, I support open source for several reasons. First, I am on a budget. I can't afford a new computer. That's why I bought a $12 dollar garage sale Gateway 2000 and put NetBSD on it. Second, open source promotes spontaneous improvement. For example, say I was a programmer and recently downloaded some miscellaneous package for my workstation. However, it has some fatal bugs. Well, thanks to the handy source code included, I can fix it and give it to others. Third, I love free software :) .

If you disagree with my opinions, I will not argue with you. You are entitled to your own opinion.