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djotaku's twitter feed
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- http://www.gnu.org/fry/
- Clinton Supporters: Are you really such sore losers that you're prepared to screw us all over for four years just because you lost?
- More Christian Tech Goodness: http://tinyurl.com/6c8587
- When I was a kid, I played some corny Biblical video games. Now this comes out: http://tinyurl.com/5mxczl Will it sell?
- From now on all LPGA players must pass an oral english test. Who cares if you speak english if you can swing a stick at a small white ball?
- I thought my blog looked a little weird and then I remembered that I had ad blocker turned on and my google ad was therefore missing.
- Foobar2000 the strangely named audio player with the neat features
- I'm annoyed that my Civ 4 BTS hasn't been auto-updating. Just had to download over 300 MB of patches just to play Fall from Heaven 2.
- @ASPwizer: Nothing wrong with you, Honda Elements are the cars that winners drive. q;o)
- Also, sharing: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ericsbinaryworld/sets/72157606917571613/
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May
26
Superman is back
Category: Movies | 
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As you doubtless know, the Superman franchise is coming back. After a false start in the 90s where Superman was going to go crazy (inspiring the song Kryptonite by 3 Doors Down), they are actually working on this one. It’s supposed to fit in the timeline after Superman II with Christopher Reeves and is titled Superman Returns. While reading an article about the upcoming movie in the June 2006 issue of Wired Magazine, a side panel titled “The Myth of Superman”, reminded me of one of my favorite monologues in Kill Bill Vol. 2. First what Niel Gaiman and Adam Rogers say in their article:
…Other heroes are really only pretending: Peter Parker plays Spider-Man; Bruce Wayne plays Batman. For Superman, it’s mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent that’s the disguise - the thing he aspires to, the thing he can never be. He really is that hero and he’ll never be one of us. But we love him for trying…
I think that’s a very interesting way of looking at things, but I feel that Bill made me think a lot more in his monologue. It follows the same basic premise, but the details are much more intriguing. (SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT) As we enter the scene, Bill has shot Beatrix Kiddo with a truth serum. While he is waiting for it to kick in, he begins a long monologue and eventually relates it to our protagonist. I will skip any dialogue by Beatrix as it has nothing to do with his monologue, only with the needle protruding from her knee. I will also skip the end where he relates it to her, as it doesn’t have to do with Superman. So here we go!
As you know, I’m quite keen on comic books - especially the ones about super heroes. I find the whole mythology surrounding superheroes fascinating. Take my favorite super hero - Superman. Not a great comic book; not particularly well drawn. But the mythology, the mythology is not only great it is unique. Now a staple of the super hero mythology is that there’s the super hero and there’s the alter-ego. Batman is actually Bruce Wayne; Spider-Man is actually Peter Parker. When that character wakes up in the morning, he’s Peter Parker. He has to put on a costume to BECOME Spider-Man. And it is in THAT characteristic that Superman stands alone. Superman didn’t become Superman; Superman was BORN Superman. When Superman wakes up in the morning, he’s Superman. His alter-ego is Clark Kent. His outfit with the big red S, that’s the blanket he was wrapped in when the Kents found him, those are HIS clothes. What Kent wears - the glasses , the business suit - THAT’S the costume. That’s the costume that Superman wears to blend in with us. Clark Kent is how Superman views us. And what are the characteristics of Clark Kent? He’s weak; he’s unsure of himself; he’s a coward. Clark Kent is Superman’s critique on the whole human race.
As you can see, here was have a subtle, but important difference in point of view. Whereas the article has Superman just trying to fit in, Bill sees what it means that Superman disguises himself with those traits. Superman feels that he can best disguise himself from humanity using THESE traits. He wants to fit in and so this is how he feels he can keep from being noticed - the traits of most humans. I think it’s a very interesting point of view to consider next time you enjoy the Superman mythology.
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May
25
An Open Letter to nVidia
Category: Computers, Linux, Technology | Leave a Comment
To All Responsible at nVidia for the production of device drivers,
I want to thank you for producing binary drivers for Linux at a time when most other companies don’t feel that the Linux market penetration is larger enough to develop drivers. So thanks for doing that! In fact, that is why I exclusively buy nVidia for my machines whenever possible. Sure, ATI is sharing NOW, but you were the first to divert some programmers to produce it and your reward is faithful customers like me. Of course, supplying closed-source binary drivers is not the perfect solution, as you have no doubt heard from others. However, I think this is an important first step which allows me to use my computer’s hardware to its maximum and allows Linux programmers to make GUIs capable of eye candy rivaling (and in some cases surpasing) that of Windows and Macintosh.
Continue to provide these and I will continue to buy nVidia - but please see what you can do towards getting open source drivers out there. I predict that if you can find a way to do this to ATI, you will get even MORE devotees such as myself. People get REALLY into the open/closed source driver debate, so being the first would give you considerable leverage. I understand that the graphics market is very cut-throat and you can’t afford to give away trade secrets to ATI, but the sooner an open source driver can be released without hurting your bottom line, the sooner droves will flock to nVidia. Not only that, but by having the drivers open sourced, programmers will be much better able to write programs taking advantage of your great product.
Sincerely,
Eric Mesa
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May
24
Graphics Cards part 2
Category: Computers, Linux, Technology | Leave a Comment
A little bit of info to impart here with respect to using the proprietary nVidia drivers. So, first I went to livna and downloaded the nVidia kernel modules that match my kernel. Then things were running great - even a little better than before, but something seemed wrong. The people in the irc room were unhelpful when I tried to ask them if nVidia was running. When I tried to run BZFlag, it no longer ran! I kept getting GLX missing errors! Turns out that it wasn’t running! I had to go to system-config-display (in Red Hat Fedora) and tell it to use the nVidia card as my graphics card. Then I opened up a terminal and typed init 3 and went to another VT for init 5 to restart the X server. This time I saw the nVidia logo when I got to the login screen. Success!
Finally, it was time to play BZFlag with the nVidia drivers loaded (as they were the impetus for my getting the gfx card in the first place!) To recap - before the graphics card, my computer couldn’t handle it. The cheap-o on board graphics that eMachines had installed didn’t do 3D rendering. I tried to play BZFlag and my computer lagged so badly that no only could my tank not more for all practical purposes, but I was kicked out of the game for excessive lag. Then I put in the graphics card, but no nVidia drivers. Now I could play the game! There was still a bit of lag-induced stutter, but it was playable if I had to. Then I went ahead and installed the nVidia drivers and BAM! It plays beautifully smooth!!!
It was a good purchase and definitely worth the $30! I can’t imagine how much better things would be with a graphics card with 512 MB RAM, but I currently don’t use my Linux computer for too much gaming, so this should be good enough.
Oh yeah, I can move windows around without any lag at all and switch desktops with the greatest of ease. Bring on the AIGLX and other similar things! Enable real transparency! w00t w00t!
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May
24
Graphics Cards help!
Category: Computers, Linux, Technology | Leave a Comment
I got my graphics card today. Nothing crazy - just a $30 PNY 128 MB nvidia graphics card from newegg. I haven’t installed the nvidia drivers yet, but it has already been amazing in difference. The colors are brighter and more vibrant, the cpu, bereft of its need to draw the graphics runs faster, and windows don’t lag when I drag them around - a problem since Fedora switched to Cairo. There’s also no lag in SuperTux!
So just getting a 3D-capable card without even using proprietary drivers or changing any X.org settings allows the computer to run even better!
I can’t wait to see how well things like BZFlag run once I get the nvidia drivers installed.
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May
21
The OTHER Free Operating System
Category: BSD, Linux | 3 Comments
After reading about the BSDs in Linux Format Magazine a few months ago, I started to wonder about these Linux cousins. The original Berkely Software Devision port of Unix was developed a long time ago, but the free ones developed almost simultaneously with the Linux kernel had remained hidden from me up til now. Even though I used a BSD machine at Cornell (at least I assume it was since it had a daemon on the login screen), I was just told it was a Unix machine capable of running our software on the Unix cluster.
At that time, I didn’t know about Linux yet, either. All I knew was that Unix had some pretty archaic commands, a “zip” format that had to do with balls of tar, and the ability to have files belong to groups and users. I found that last part both interesting (as in we could all keep our files on the server without others sabotaging our work) and annoying as in I had to set group permissions everytime I untarred a new assignment. Oh yeah, and it used a really annoying text editor called Emacs that didn’t use control-S to save like all of my Microsoft products did! (Even Macs had open-apple-S)
Later I came to learn about Linux and Unix and appreciated much that I couldn’t that semester. So now I learn that the (sometimes) cute little devil-thing I kept seeing on open source pages is a daemon (a play on words since devils are demons) as in the programs that are ubiquitous on POSIX machines. Before I was thinking of replacing my server with a Debian GNU/Linux server, but now I’m strongly considering FreeBSD. Below is an article that explains the different BSDs very well.
It can be found at http://ezine.daemonnews.org/200104/bsd_family.html and is reprinted here in case the page were to dissapear.
The BSD Family Tree
James Howard
Introduction
BSD users are often asked, “what are the differences between FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD?” To Linux users and those familiar with Solaris or other Unix platforms, the differences may seem quite small. Despite sharing a common ancestry, the BSD family of operating systems provides a number of complete operating systems packages to meet every need.
Ancient History
During a sabbatical in the mid-1970s, Ken Thompson introduced UNIX to the University of California at Berkeley. By 1978, the students at Berkeley had begun cutting custom Unix releases. Throughout the 1980s, Berkeley handled a Department of Defense contract to incorporate TCP/IP into BSD and produce a standard operating system for Defense Department computers. With the release of the 4.3BSD and Berkeley Networking Release 2 tapes (commonly called, “Net/2″), Berkeley had nearly created a complete operating system free of AT&T code.
William Jolitz began porting BSD to the 386, writing a series of articles in the process for Dr. Dobb’s journal. Simply enough, he called his software “386BSD.” By 1993, though, Jolitz had decided to halt work on an improved versions of 386BSD. This is the birth of modern BSDs.
FreeBSD
In 1992 and 1993, Jordan K. Hubbard, Rod Grimes, and Nate Williams had been working on 386BSD and releasing a set of changes known as the “Unofficial 386BSD Patchkit.” Maintaining the patchkit had grown cumbersome and a new mechanism was needed. The three authors began working on a new project called “386BSD 0.5″ which would contain all of the fixes and function as a real operating system. However, Jolitz removed his official approval of the project in early 1993. David Greenman, then at Walnut Creek, proposed a new operating system based on the patchkit with a new name: “FreeBSD.”
Before long, Hubbard had contacted Walnut Creek to prepare a CDROM distribution channel. Walnut Creek went a step further and offered high bandwidth servers and hardware for development. The first CDROM release of FreeBSD was 1.0 in December of 1993. Being forced into upgrading the FreeBSD base from Net/2 to 4.4BSD Lite by the Novell/Berkeley lawsuit, FreeBSD 2.0 was released in November of 1994 and continuous upgrades and enhancements have been made since leaving the latest stable release at FreeBSD 4.2 and an experimental FreeBSD 5.0 operating system. This system includes a 4.4BSD Lite base with additions from NetBSD, OpenBSD, the Free Software Foundation and hundreds of other people and organizations.
According to Hubbard, the goal of the FreeBSD Project is “to provide software that may be used for any purpose and without strings attached.” Walnut Creek, the FreeBSD Project’s principal distributor, claims that “17 years of development has made it the world’s most mature and robust network operating system” (sic). Major clients seem to agree. Yahoo!, the world’s most frequented web site, serves up half a billion pages a day using FreeBSD. Even Microsoft’s own free email provider, Hotmail, used (until recently) a combination of Windows, Solaris, and FreeBSD to reliably deliver email to over 30 million customers.
Even Walnut Creek themselves got into the act. In May of 1999, they set a daily transfer record of 1.39 terabytes from a single server, running FreeBSD. This record was later surpassed in September of 2000. Then, TeraSolutions, Inc., who acquired Walnut Creek’s massive FTP archive after Walnut Creek merged with BSDi, served two terabytes of data to Internet customers using FreeBSD. TeraSolutions’s co-founder, David Greenman said of FreeBSD, “We’re very pleased to have servers that we built, running the FreeBSD operating system, set new milestones like this. It really shows just how well our large servers can perform in real-world situations using freely available software.”
Perhaps what sets FreeBSD apart most is its technical simplicity. The FreeBSD installation program is widely regarded as the simplest Unix installation tool in existence. Further, its third party software system, the Ports Collection, has been modeled by NetBSD and OpenBSD and remains the most powerful application installation tool available. Through simple one-line commands, entire applications are downloaded, integrity checked, built, and installed making system administration amazingly simple.
FreeBSD’s development model is similar to both NetBSD and OpenBSD, but radically different from the Linux development manual. Linus Torvalds has been described as a benevolent dictator; the modifications he likes are added. FreeBSD’s development model revolves around a group of more than 200 individual programmers called the “Committers.” The Committers have the ability to make any change needed to the official FreeBSD source base at any time. The selection of Committers and dispute resolution are handled by the FreeBSD Core Team. The Core Team acts like a board of directors. Starting in October of 2000, the Core Team became an elected body with candidates and voters coming from the Committers. Elections are held every two years.
FreeBSD governance and development model lead to a very stable and easy to use system. As one of the most reliable operating systems for the x86 platform, FreeBSD’s mark lies in sustaining an air of simplicity and stability.
NetBSD
While Jolitz and others were focusing on 386BSD, others were frustrated at the pace of work and began a parallel development effort. Additionally, others at Virginia Tech took the introductory work on 386BSD and the just released Net/2 and started porting BSD to the Macintosh. The development effort soon expanded to the Atari ST, Amiga, and PC platforms. As NetBSD grew, it soon became obvious that FreeBSD’s niche would be the i386 and up Intel systems and NetBSD would provide BSD for any other platform desired.
Today, NetBSD’s focus lies in providing a stable, multiplatform, research oriented operating system. NetBSD’s portability leads it to run on 33 platforms as of January 2001. Even more impressive is the list of hardware including traditional modern server equipment like standard Intel-based PCs, Compaq’s Alpha, or Sun Microsystem’s SPARC architectures. Older server and workstation class hardware like the Digital Equipment Corporation’s VAX hardware, Apple’s Macintosh computers based on Motorola’s 68000 processor series are also support. But what really sets NetBSD apart is its support for more exotic hardware including Sega’s Dreamcast, Cobalt Network’s server appliances, and George Scolaro’s and Dave Rand’s PC532 hobbyist computer.
NetBSD’s dedication to portability has led the way for other operating systems. When the FreeBSD group began porting to the Alpha platform, the initial work from the NetBSD project provided the foundation. With new FreeBSD ports to both the PowerPC and SPARC platforms under way, work from NetBSD is being used again. Linux has benefited from NetBSD’s experience as well. The special booter used by NetBSD on the 68000-series Macintosh computers was modified and became the Penguin booter used to launch Linux on these systems. Finally, NetBSD’s largest contribution to other systems lies in acting as a springboard for the OpenBSD operating system.
The NetBSD Project also wants to present a platform for world-class operating systems research. Because of NetBSD’s availability on vintage hardware, schools and research institutions can perform real world research on donated or surplus equipment. Chuck Cranor’s UVM memory system was developed to replace NetBSD’s Mach-based virtual memory system. The UVM system offers several performance enhancements over the traditional virtual memory system and is now used on almost all platforms supported by NetBSD. Another major project developed on NetBSD is KAME. KAME aims to introduce IPv6, IPsec for both IPv4 and IPv6, and other TCP/IP enhancements to the Unix world. Other projects have chosen NetBSD for usage in aerospace applications and clustered environments.
The NetBSD developers have provided a stable and simple environment which makes it convenient for research and development. But NetBSD is an excellent system in its own right. Coming with a full complement of Unix tools, many sites use NetBSD as DNS or other network servers, especially due to its wide-open hardware requirements. NetBSD is in such wide use, Wasabi Systems was founded simply to provide support for NetBSD users. Wasabi also sells NetBSD CDs and related advocacy tools.
NetBSD’s omnipresence on computer equipment is a testament to a well-designed and well-organized operating system. By leading the industry in portability, NetBSD has paved the way for Darwin, MacOS X, Linux, as well as FreeBSD and OpenBSD. It has also given birth to new technology through systems research.
OpenBSD
In the early 1990s, Theo de Raadt had been responsible for the SPARC port of NetBSD as well as sundry other pieces of the NetBSD system. However, after a disagreement between Theo and the NetBSD core team concerning the direction of NetBSD’s development, Theo struck out on his own and founded OpenBSD.
OpenBSD diverged from NetBSD around the release of NetBSD 1.1 in November of 1995. OpenBSD’s first release came a year later when OpenBSD 2.0 was released in October of 1996. OpenBSD quickly began focusing on producing the most secure operating system available. Taking advantage of his Canadian residency, de Raadt realized he was not hampered by United States munitions export laws, allowing inclusion of strong cryptography including RSA, Blowfish, and other advanced algorithms. A modified version of the Blowfish algorithm is now in use for encrypting user passwords by default. OpenBSD developers also spear-headed the development of OpenSSH, a multiplatform clone of the wildly popular protocol for secure communications.
OpenBSD also advanced the state of code auditing. Beginning in 1996, the OpenBSD team began a line-by-line analysis of the entire operating system searching for security holes and potential bugs. Unix systems have been plagued for decades by the use of fixed-sized buffers. Besides being inconvenient for the programmer, they have lead to numerous security holes like the fingerd exploit in 4.2BSD. Other security holes relating to mishandling temporary files are easily caught. OpenBSD’s ground breaking audit has also discovered security-related bugs in related operating systems including FreeBSD, NetBSD, and mainstream System V derivatives. However, the nature of this process allows general coding mistakes not relating to security to be caught and corrected, as well. Additionally, a number of bugs in Ports, or third party applications have been discovered through this process.
OpenBSD’s mantra of “secure-by-default” has produced one of the most robust operating systems available. OpenBSD claims three years without a remote root-exploit allowing many system administrators to sleep better at night. Most of this security came from the ongoing code-audit, but a number of smarter defaults have also helped. For instance, OpenBSD does not leave open network ports in the default installation. If, and only if, a site needs access to finger, lpd, or other protocols should they be turned on. As a rule, they should be left off and the OpenBSD installation reflects that mind set. If a new remote exploit were discovered in the NFS software, the site would not be vulnerable unless NFS were actually needed and used.
OpenBSD is also a highly portable operating system. This is mainly the influence of its NetBSD lineage. While it runs stably and well on only a small fraction of the systems supported by NetBSD, it is still usable on over half a dozen architectures, including the ubiquitous Intel-based PC platform, Motorola 68k-based Macintoshes, and some VME boards.
Apple’s MacOS X and Darwin
After leaving Apple Computer in the 1980s, Steve Jobs founded a new computer company, with a new mind set: NeXT[1]. NeXT’s operating system, NeXTStep, was an object-oriented operating system based on Carnegie-Mellon’s Mach microkernel architecture, which was in turn based on the 4.2BSD release from the University of California. On top of Mach, NeXT implemented a Unix-like operating system called NeXTStep and replaced MIT’s X Windows System with a new graphical interface called Display Postscript. Display Postscript allowed for very fine control of the desktop and graphical environment, however it never caught on outside of NeXT systems.
NeXT eventually quit making hardware and implemented NeXTStep for other operating systems, changing the name to OpenStep. In 1997, after nearly ten years of separation, Apple and NeXT merged giving birth to the new Apple. Apple promised the new operating system would incorporate features and design aspects from NeXTStep. Throughout MacOS versions 8 and 9, minor changes reflecting the new NeXT-based heritage started appearing on the desktop. Apple promised the real goods would lie in MacOS X.
MacOS X is a new operating system which has used code from many sources. The base is an updated version of Mach from CMU. On top of it is a microkernel-based BSD system similar to the one used in NeXTStep. All around, features from previous versions of MacOS have been incorporated to maintain compatibility with legacy applications. The Unix-land user utilities were derived from FreeBSD and NetBSD. Additionally, new interfaces, such as Aqua allow a new generation of programs to be created on this operating system.
Apple also gave back to the community. By open sourcing the base operating system, nicknamed Darwin, Apple has given developers a chance to learn the new system long before its scheduled release date. Apple has also allowed developers to make changes as they saw fit. Accordingly, it is possible to build and run Darwin on Intel-based computers instead of only on Apple’s proprietary Macintosh hardware.
MacOS X’s greatest triumph will be in bringing BSD and Unix to the mass market. Apple computer has long held a niche among the least computer-literate in the marketplace. Presenting the user with an overwhelming and complicated system would seem like the worst possible solution. Apple’s care and time spent ensuring compatibility with existing applications promises no current users will be left behind. The effort spent developing a friendly Apple interface for BSD ensures existing users will understand and follow the new system paradigm with minimal effort.
A BSD for Everyone
Indeed, there are a wide range of BSD versions. As we have seen, each implementation focuses on a specific market but still borrows concepts and idea from their brethren. The results have lead to a family of operating systems designed for every need imaginable.
There is a high-powered version targeting the most demanding Internet applications. There is a version which through portability and simplicity has offered researchers an inexpensive solution to many problems and salvaged thousands of older system which were otherwise unusable. There is a version to protect and defend even the most important data in today’s hostile world. And the newest member of the family will provide access to Unix and BSD to the mass market.
Often decried, BSD’s fragmentation has only helped it and its users in the quest for the most stable, portable, secure, or usable operating system available.
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May
16
flickr unleashed a new version of their website today. I am completely lost! Darn these UI upgrades! Why do they do these things? Hopefully things are better now.
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May
11
My first project on Freshmeat!
Category: Computers, Geek Love, Linux, programming | Leave a Comment
Frustrated with the lack of an easy way to create a video DVD on Linux, I decided to write a program to do just that! I wrote a program that will generate the dvdauthor.xml file needed to create the video DVD. Then I realized that if I had been so frustrated, perhaps others were too, so I created a project on Freshmeat.net.
Check out my project! Pydvdauthor
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May
11
Today’s Jargon File Entry
Category: Computers, Geek Love, Technology | Leave a Comment
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May
10
Today’s Favorite Pictures
Category: Photography |