HOWTO: Make KDE remember dual-monitor randr settings

Every time I boot up, KDE appears to forget that I want my monitors to be positioned left-to-right and instead defaults to mirrored config. But, after a lot of cursing and a little googling, I found an answer so it'll no so much keep your settings, but reset its broken config to your settings.

1. Hit ALT-F2, then enter "display" to run the Display Settings app.

2. Configure your settings as you'd like. Note that if the Apply button isn't active after your changes, you can change/revert something like a Position: button to make it active.

3. On restart, KDE may forget your dual-monitor settings. So, to prevent this, go look in your ~/.kde/share/config/krandrrc file:

[Display]
ApplyOnStartup=true
StartupCommands=xrandr --output "DVI-I-1" --pos 1920x0 --mode 1920x1200 --refresh 59.9502\nxrandr --output "HDMI-1" --pos 0x130 --mode 1920x1080 --refresh 60\nxrandr --noprimary

4. Copy the configuration into a new file, and replace \n with newlines. I like to put scripts like this in /etc/X11 because they relate to screen res and positioning.

# from ~/.kde/share/config/krandrrc
xrandr --output "DVI-I-1" --pos 1920x0 --mode 1920x1200 --refresh 59.9502 
xrandr --output "HDMI-1" --pos 0x130 --mode 1920x1080 --refresh 60 
xrandr --noprimary

5. Ensure the script is readable/executable for all users:

chmod 755 /etc/X11/1920x2.sh

6. Hit ALT-F2, then enter "autostart" to run the Autostart config tool.

7. Click Add script... and browse for the script you created above.

8. Reboot and watch the magic unfold.

HOWTO: Move around between desktops & windows with keyboard or mouse

Recently installed Fedora 15 KDE spin, partly because the XFCE spins wouldn't boot from CD but also because I've heard less-than-favourable things about Gnome3 and because I'm addicted to Konqueror as a graphical sftp/scp/ssh viewer, so figured might as well use kdm instead of xfwm4 or gdm.

Still having some problems getting my 1600x1200 (or 1920x1200) monitor to do anything more than 1024x768 on the VGA port of the video card (works fine on the DisplayPort connector, either directly or via a DP-to-DVI cable, but not on the VGA connector, even with xorg.conf hackery). That said the options for display/monitor management under KDE are much better than under XFCE, and this is the first time I've been able to get two monitors working without HOURS of hacking away at xorg.conf scripts. So... big props for this release *almost* Just Working.

Workaround I'm trying next is to install a second video card. Will update when/if that solves the problem once it arrives.

But video resolution aside, I did recently figure out how to set keyboard bindings for moving windows between desktops (thanks to David Fisco). From the K-menu, select System Settings > Shortcuts and Gestures > Global Keyboard Shortcuts > KDE Component: KWin > "Window One Desktop To The Left/Right":

... and for switching between desktops ("Switch To Next/Previous Desktop")

Also recently discovered some fun options for switching between windows (on all desktops). From the K-menu, select System Settings > Desktop Effects > Enable desktop effects > Effect for window switching: Present Windows (or any of the other options).

There's also System Settings > Window Behavior > Task Switcher > Effect: Present Windows:

You might want to set an animation for switching between desktops, though I find with multiple monitors this can be a bit dizzying. From the K-menu, select System Settings > Workspace Behavior > Virtual Desktops > Switching > Animation: Desktop Cube Animation. For something more subtle, try "Fade Desktop".

Finally, you may want to set screen edge behaviours, such as making Present Windows appear when you cursor to the top-center of your screen. System Settings > Workspace Behavior > Screen Edges > right-click a target zone:

Mounting Linux LVM drives

Because my Thinkpad X200 has finally, after just under 3 years, decided to give up the ghost via a FAN ERROR and refusal to start (POST beeps & auto-shutdown), I'm now faced with the task of recovering all the data on the drive (about 120G) across multiple partitions.

Here's the drive layout, as per cfdisk:

                                   cfdisk (util-linux-ng 2.17.2)

                                        Disk Drive: /dev/sdb
                                 Size: 160041885696 bytes, 160.0 GB
                       Heads: 255   Sectors per Track: 63   Cylinders: 19457

     Name           Flags         Part Type    FS Type              [Label]            Size (MB)
 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     sdb1                          Primary     NTFS                 [^B]                26214.44   *
     sdb2           Boot           Primary     Linux ext3                                 209.72   *
                                   Logical     Free Space                                   3.68   *
     sdb5                          Logical     Linux ext3           [HOME]             106043.70   *
     sdb6           NC             Logical     Linux LVM                                20970.48   *
                                   Logical     Free Space                                   1.09   *
     sdb4                          Primary     Compaq diagnostics                        6595.71   *
                                               Unusable                                     0.49   *

So, under a Fedora 13 LiveCD, the /boot (sdb2) and /home (sdb5) partitions automounted, along with the WinXP (sdb1) partition. But the root partition (/, part of sdb6) would not as it's part of a LVM. After a quick burst of googling, I found this solution, which digests down to simply this:

yum install lvm2 -y; # install support for lvm2
pvscan # scan vol groups
vgchange vg_x2lappy -a y # mark your vol group active
lvscan # scan for logical volumes 
mkdir /media/sdb6 # create a mount point
mount /dev/vg_x2lappy/lv_root /media/sdb6/ # mount the lv
cd /media/sdb6/; ls -la # take off every zig!

HOWTO: get xorg.conf to work w/ 1600x1200 res and an old Intel card

1. Check your hardware spec, and determine how much memory your card has[1]:

   # lspci -vv | grep "Intel" -A7 | grep "VGA controller" -A7 | egrep "controller|Region"
   00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82852/855GM Integrated Graphics Device (rev 02) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
    Region 0: Memory at e0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=128M]
    Region 1: Memory at d0000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=512K]

2. Use the above values to configure your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file - I suspect much of this is not needed, but here's what I have:

   Section "Device"
    Identifier "Intel"
    Option "AccelMethod" "UXA"
    VideoRam 130560
    #Driver      "intel"
    Driver      "vesa"
    VendorName  "Intel Corporation"
    BoardName   "82852/855GM Integrated Graphics Device"
    BusID       "PCI:0:2:0"
   EndSection
   
   Section "Monitor"
    Identifier "VGA"
    ModelName    "Sceptre 24"
           HorizSync    31 - 80
           VertRefresh  55 - 76
           Option      "DPMS" "true"
   EndSection
   
   Section "Screen"
    Identifier "Default Screen"
    Device "Intel"
    Monitor "VGA"
    DefaultDepth 16
           SubSection "Display"
                  Depth           16
                  Modes           "1920x1440_60" "1920x1200_60" "1920x1080_60" "1680x1050_59.883" "1360x768_59.8" "1600x1200_60" "1280x1024_60" "1024x768_60"
                  #Modes           "1920x1440" "1600x1200" "1280x1024" "1280x768"
           EndSubSection
   EndSection 
   
   Section "DRI"
           Mode         0666
   EndSection
   
   Section "Extensions"
           Option      "Composite" "Enable"
   EndSection
   
   Section "Module"
           Load  "dri"
   EndSection

3. In /boot/grub/menu.lst, add the correct vga mode for 1600x1200 (vga=8). If you enter what you think is the correct mode based on this table, you'll be told it's wrong and can manually correct it, boot up, then fix the file & reboot.

   default=0
   timeout=5
   splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
   
   
   title Fedora (2.6.34.7-56.fc13.i686)
    root (hd0,0)
    kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.34.7-56.fc13.i686 ro root=/dev/mapper/vg_xlappy-lv_root rd_LVM_LV=vg_xlappy/lv_root rd_LVM_LV=vg_xlappy/lv_swap rd_NO_LUKS rd_NO_MD rd_NO_DM LANG=en_US.UTF-8 SYSFONT=latarcyrheb-sun16 KEYBOARDTYPE=pc KEYTABLE=us rhgb quiet vga=8
    initrd /initramfs-2.6.34.7-56.fc13.i686.img
   
   title Fedora (2.6.34.7-56.fc13.i686) cmdline only, vga=8 = 1600x1200x16
    root (hd0,0)
    kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.34.7-56.fc13.i686 ro root=/dev/mapper/vg_xlappy-lv_root rd_LVM_LV=vg_xlappy/lv_root rd_LVM_LV=vg_xlappy/lv_swap rd_NO_LUKS rd_NO_MD rd_NO_DM LANG=en_US.UTF-8 SYSFONT=latarcyrheb-sun16 KEYBOARDTYPE=pc KEYTABLE=us init=3 init 3 vga=8
    initrd /initramfs-2.6.34.7-56.fc13.i686.img

See also:

• VGA Modes
• grub VGA Modes

In Which I Explain Once Again That Linux Is A Viable Alternative to Windows

I was recently asked this question:

Can linux be used for a normal computer, operating email programs, word processing, etc? I am quite frustrated with all the "improvements" that Windows keeps getting; each improvement making it slower and more prone to erratic behavior. I use a computer only for the above tasks, and would really like to get away from the problems.

As I've been telling friends, colleagues, family, and everyone who'll listen for about the past 5 years... YES.

• Mail: Instead of Outlook, you can use Thunderbird.

• Calendar: use Sunbird or go online w/ Google Calendar

• Web: Instead of Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Chrome, or Konqueror. None will "accidentally" install spyware for you.

• Office: Instead of the bloated and dinosauric (20 years old!) MS Office's Word, Excel & Powerpoint, use Open Office's Writer, Calc & Impress. (Open Office is now 10 years old - old enough to be feature rich, young enough to be standards-compliant.)

• Chat: instead of MSN, use pidgin (supports all IM protocols, including MSN, Yahoo, gtalk, IRC, Twitter, Facebook) and/or Skype (for audio/video chat)

• Audio/Video playback & streaming: instead of Windows Media Player, VLC player.

• Solitaire: PySol includes 200 solitaire games; Firefox "Cards" plugin contains dozens more.

More advanced users:

• Graphics: instead of Photoshop, use GIMP

• MP3 ripping: grip or asunder

I personally use linux flavours designed for older machines so they're lightweight, faster, and less bloated. Then, if I need a more "bloated" app (like something from the KDE school instead of the XFCE or GDE school), I simply install that into the operating system as an add-on. Of course if you *want* eye candy (like 3D desktops and transitions when you open/close applications) you can get that too. It's pure eye candy, but it's available if you need Vista or Win7-like "bling".

If you want to try Linux before jumping in fully, I advise two options:

• Xubuntu, designed for old machines and to stay more-or-less the same over time. Download and install it into Windows without having to reformat your hard drive. Good for your grandmother's desktop machine.

• Fedora, designed for newer machines and to stay up to date with recent improvements in the Linux world. Can be installed onto a USB key so you can boot your system from that without having to touch your existing Windows install. Good for your parents or your machine, or for an office.

• There are of course lots of other Linux distros out there...

Linux modem tethering with berry4all, Rogers 3G network, and Blackberry Bold 9000

Because I'll be out of town for the next couple days, part of my packing list included setting up tethering via my Blackberry.

First I tried barry but was unsuccessful in trying to make a successful connection.

Then I found berry4all.

I had two problems, but thanks to the extensive FAQ, I managed to solve them:

1. Ensure your device (in my case, Blackberry Bold 9000) has its APN correctly set in Setup > Options > Advanced > TCP
2. Ensure other network connections are disabled using route -n; ifconfig -a before attempting to connect via tethered 3G modem. See also If your PPPD does not support replacedefaultroute
3. Ensure /etc/resolv.conf is being correctly updated with the appropriate DNS entries (I have to do this by hand at the moment, but tweaked the default /opt/bbtether/berry4all.sh script to add this line so that I can automatically update the file immediately before connecting:

   #!/bin/sh
cp -f /etc/resolv.conf.bbtether /etc/resolv.conf
python bbgui.py &

   where /etc/resolv.conf.bbtether contains:

   domain rogers.com
search rogers.com
nameserver 64.71.255.198
#nameserver 64.71.255.253

4. Load up a bandwidth speed test such as bandwidthplace.com and see what network speed you can get.

Admittedly, tethered speeds are nothing close to wifi speeds.

• With Rogers 3G network and Blackberry Bold 9000 attached via USB, I managed to get about 500-2800kbps down and 100-200 kpbs up.
• With Rogers "Exterme" cable internet access (wifi @ home) I get 9800kbps down, 960kbps up.

But at least I can surf on my laptop using the 3G network while I'm away from the office.

To disconnect wired & wifi, then tether automatically and stay connected until CTRL-C is pressed, try this script:

#!/bin/bash
if [[ $UID != 0 ]]; then
 echo "Must be run as root!"
else
 /etc/init.d/network stop
 cp /etc/resolv.conf.bbtether /etc/resolv.conf
 route -n; ifconfig

 cd /opt/bbtether; python bbtether.py rogers -P **YOUR_DEVICE_PASSWORD_HERE**

 /etc/init.d/network start
 route -n; ifconfig
fi

pogoplug network attached storage (NAS) for linux, mac, windows

A couple months ago I bought a PogoPlug. Because it's an ungodly pink colour and because I've been hella busy with other stuff, I finally unboxed it today, and discovered that while:

• it's a snap to configure through the web UI
• it works with ext3 and fat32 drives
• it's SSH accessible, and
• there are other installable linux apps for it

... setting it up for Linux was not entirely trivial.

While the above article helped, a couple points were not immediately obvious:

• If you mount the drive as root, it's not accessible as anyone else; if you mount as the user, not even root can read it.
• Use of a /etc/pogoplugfs.conf file is highly recommended, so that you can log in w/o having to key in your username and password every time. Create this file as root, and set it chmod 644 if not already:

  svcuser=you@email-provider.com
  svcpassword=web-login-password
  logseverity=10

• To automount the drive on startup (eg., on my old xubuntu 6 system), as root, try creating a new file, /etc/init.d/pogoplug:

  #! /bin/sh
  ### BEGIN INIT INFO
  # Provides:          
  # Required-Start:    $remote_fs $syslog
  # Required-Stop:     $remote_fs $syslog
  # Should-Start:      $named
  # Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
  # Default-Stop:      1
  # Short-Description: pogoplug fs mount as myusername
  # Description:       pogoplug fs mount as myusername
  ### END INIT INFO
  
  sudo -u myusername /usr/bin/pogoplugfs --mountpoint /media/pogoplug
  
  exit 0

• Then, to activate this file, as root:

  chmod +x /etc/init.d/pogoplug; \
  for x in 2 3 4 5; do \
    cd /etc/rc${x}.d; ln -s /etc/init.d/pogoplug S99pogoplug; \
  done

With Fedora 12, I could simply create a startup task using System < Preferences < Startup Applications from the gnome menu.

Beyond CVS 0.8.9 Released!

It's true that the shoemaker's children often go shoeless; so to my little Sourceforge project, Beyond CVS/SVN - maintained tirelessly over the years by Chris Callendar - has had to wait *years* to finally get its own update site.

Sad, I know. But thanks to a recent breakthough in being able to insert associate sites into p2 repo metadata, you can now install Beyond CVS/SVN without having to hunt down Subclipse or Subversive's update sites.

Here's the new site: http://beyondcvs.sourceforge.net/update/0.8.x. If you point Eclipse at it, you can install the features therein. If you point a browser at it, you can see instructions for how to do the install. And if you want an offline install, here's the zip: org.eclipse.externaltools-Update-0.8.9.v201003051612.zip (README).

Monitor fail

Well, that's a week of my life I'll never have again. Spent most of last week playing with WinXP, LinuxMint 8, and Fedora 11 & 12 (both 32- and 64-bit) trying to find a solution to my external display issues.

Turns out that it's a software issue: the latest xorg intel driver has a bug.

Beyond Compare 3 for 64-bit ubuntu linux

Last week, I switched my xubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron) box to Linux Mint 8 (Helena), to see how things had evolved in the past 18 months. Unfortunately, I also decided to switch from 32- to 64-bit, and of course not everything works the way it used to.

Luckily, the good folks at Scooter Software pointed me to this hack to allow their 32-bit Linux flavour of Beyond Compare 3 to find the 32-bit libraries it needs to run.

So, here's an updated version of that hack for ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala or Linux Mint 8 Helena:

1. Download the i386 libqt3-mt .deb package into /tmp
2. Download the latest Beyond Compare 3 .deb package into /tmp
3. $ sudo su

4. apt-get install ia32-libs
   cd /tmp; dpkg-deb --extract /tmp/libqt3-mt*.deb libqt3-mt
   cp -R libqt3-mt/usr/lib/* /usr/lib32; rm -fr /tmp/libqt3-mt
   dpkg -i --force-architecture /tmp/BCompareLinux*.deb

Switching monitors with xrandr

Sure, there are applets and other GUI tools to do this, but nothing beats the purity of going commando, er, commandline. :) Thanks to this article for the inspiration.

# reset 
xrandr --auto

# turn off laptop screen
xrandr --output LVDS --off

# 24" 16x12 on
xrandr --output VGA --mode 1600x1200

# reset 
xrandr --auto

# turn off external screen
xrandr --output VGA --off

# laptop screen on
xrandr --output LVDS --mode 1280x800

UPDATE, 2010/01/05:

To enable both screens and force the larger one to include the taskbar:

# reset 
xrandr --auto

# laptop screen on
xrandr --output LVDS1 --mode 1280x800 --noprimary --pos 1600x0

# 24" 16x12 on
xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1600x1200 --primary --pos 0x0

# echo current status
xrandr --current

Athena Common Builder: Thanks to the early adopters!

Here's a quick list of some of the projects @ Eclipse.org currently using Athena. If you haven't tried Athena, maybe it's time!

1. Linux Tools
2. Visual Editor (VE)
3. Voice Tools (VTP)
4. PDE Declarative Services Modeling Incubator (pde.ds.modeling.incubator)
5. Nebula Widgets Gallery
6. Faceted Project Framework (fproj)
7. EMF Query (EMF MQ)
8. EMF Validation (EMF VF)
9. EMF Transaction (EMF MT)
10. Ajax Tools Framework (ATF)

And @ JBoss.org, all available in JBoss Tools 3.1.0.M2 for Eclipse 3.5 (Galileo) ...

1. JMX Console
2. BPEL Editor*
3. jBPM 3 and 4
4. FreeMarker
5. ...to name but a few.

* - will be available in M3 or you can get a nightly build here.

What are people saying about Athena?

"[I] really like the new build. It is much less confusing then the old [Common Modeling] one."

"[C]ongrats for this builder. It is quite good and I'm eager to rely fully on it."

"We are playing around with Athena and finding it really useful. It is already deployed to one of our customer developments. Thanks a lot for the hard work! We will definitely try to contribute back anything useful we will have in the process."

So, how do *you* get started? Here's a FAQ. Here's our New and Noteworthy. And here's all the rest of the knowledge base articles.

Oh, and I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that there's a big list of requested features still waiting for contributions. If you use Athena, you're already half-way to contributing back. Want to help? Drop me a line any time and we can discuss what holes need filling that match your skills and most directly improve your use of PDE, p2 and Athena.

HOWTO: generate .m3u playlist from .mp3 directory

Been trying to find a solution to this one for ages. Turns out it's stupidly simple - just dump the results of a find into a file.

#!/bin/bash
dir="$1"
echo "Create playlist for $1 ..."
if [[ $2 ]]; then list="$2"; else list="$1"; fi

pushd "$dir" 2>&1 >/dev/null
find . -type f -name "*.mp3" > "$list.m3u"
echo "Found these files:"
cat "$list.m3u"
popd 2>&1 >/dev/null

With or without the "./" prefix on each found file, the resulting .m3u files work on my Blackberry (and are found automatically), including nested folders and paths with spaces. To run the above, just do this:

$ ./m3u.sh "artist folder/disc folder" "playlist name"

HOWTO: Burn ISO image to DVD w/ linux commandline

When burning an ISO image to disc, I simply use this:

$ growisofs -dvd-compat -speed=1 -Z /dev/dvd=disc.iso

Using -speed=1 takes a little longer than the default "as fast as possible" mode, but guarantees the disc can be properly read in the pickiest of drives (eg., a Wii DVD drive). DVD-R (not DVD+R) is also recommended.

Workin' For The Wiikend

After acquiring my first DriveKey-powered "try before you buy" Wii game via torrent (and having a little fun fighting the Joker's minions off while occasionally blowing Robin into his component bricks with a well-placed BatBomb), I decided tonight to do a little more hacking. Thanks, CanadaMods.ca!

So, with the wife out watching some chick-flick w/ a friend, I got to spend a few hours playing with the HomeBrew Channel on my Wii. Very cool stuff available, from game emulators & ports, to new games, media players, and utilities. Complete list here.

To set up the HomeBrew Channel, follow these steps, including installation of the DVDx application so your Wii can play video DVDs.

Then, install the HomeBrew Browser, and grab some more software. After numerous tests, crashes, and reboots, I found that the best three options for playing video are these, all available through the HomeBrew Browser or via manual download from wiibrew.org.

Here's what I tested:

App	2G SD card w/ .mp3	Bus-powered 2.5" 500G USB drive w/ .avi	DVD-R w/ .avi	DVD-R Video DVD (burned w/ growisofs from dl'd .avi torrent) [1]	Video DVD (original, possibly DVD-DL? or DVD+R)
GeeXboX (embedded linux)	Y	Y	N	N	N
MPlayer CE	Y	Y	Y	Y	N
MPlayer TT			Y	Y	N

So, while I have scripted the process for easily converting .avi to DVD, I now no longer need to do so -- I can just plug my USB drive directly into the Wii and watch it on the big screen w/o having to waste hours in format conversion. Wii!

Learning to Love the Mac, Part 2: Mouse Tips & Desktop Management

I have an 8-button Logitech MX500 optical mouse, and this week is the first time I've ever successfully mapped functionality to all the buttons. Windows did a reasonable job with a few of the buttons; Linux doesn't support anything beyond the first three; Mac OS X Server just gets it done.

Out of the box, my third button (scroll wheel) is mapped to the seemingly pointless Dashboard, which is a huge pain when you're used to middle-clicking to open a link in a new tab or to copy/paste text in a console. To get that functionality back, go to Applications > System Preferences > Exposé & Spaces then remove Mouse Button 3 from the Dashboard's "Hide and Show" feature.

Next, I set Mouse buttons 5, 6, and 8 to All windows, Application windows, and Show Desktop.

But even cooler than these is Spaces, though as yet I can't find a way to replicate Gnome or XFCE's ability to move windows from from Space to Space which lets you drag open app windows from Space to Space which in the Spaces view (F8). Still, having up to 16 virtual desktops is very handy, particularly when you need to virtualize Windows and Linux. If you want to be able to have console windows on all Spaces rather than having them all collected on a single Space, uncheck the "When switching to an application, switch to a space with open windows for the application".

Learning to Love the Mac: 13 Tips

A month ago a very large package arrived in the mail: my first MacPro server. I at once fell in love with the case design - clean, simple, and dead-easy to take apart in order to add more drives and RAM. However, that's where the love boat ran aground.

To say it's been a gradual learning curve would be an understatement. Here are a few things I've learned over the past month of dealing with Mac hardware and OS, as well as retraining my fingers to use Mac keyboard bindings (META = Apple Key or Windows Key, depending on your keyboard).

1. Use META-TAB instead of ALT-TAB to cycle applications
2. Use META-LEFT/RIGHT instead of HOME/END to jump to start/end of a line
3. Use ALT-LEFT/RIGHT instead of CTRL-LEFT/RIGHT to jump to prev/next word on a line
4. META-A, META-X, META-C, META-V replace CTRL-A, CTRL-X, CTRL-C, CTRL-V for select all, cut, copy, & paste. META-L, META-T, META-N replace CTRL-L, CTRL-T, CTRL-N (jump to location bar, new tab, new window). But CTRL-TAB still switches tabs. However, if you have multiple Firefox windows open, there is no way to toggle between them with the keyboard. Same problem with multiple Terminal windows. META-TAB only switches between groups of applications, but not windows within an application.
5. Sometimes ESC works to dispose a dialog; sometimes only clicking the red X works.

6. Q replaces qemu, but doesn't seem to work very well for my existing vmware or Virtual Box images
7. Virtual Box rocks on Windows, Linux and Mac

8. XCode provides gcc, make, etc.
9. Fink and DarwinPorts replace Debian/Ubuntu's apt-get and Gentoo's emerge, respectively. Once XCode and DarwinPorts are installed, you can port install vpnc (to fetch deps and compile on the fly) or apt-get install curl (to fetch deps and install).
10. rEFIt replaces grub, and more or less works as I'd expect. /efi/refit/refit.conf approximately replaces /boot/grub/menu.lst at least as far as picking what partition to default-boot and how long to wait

11. Java is in /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Home instead of /opt/ or /usr/lib/jvm/java
12. Subversion was easier to set up on Mac (using Fink) than on Fedora 10 (using yum), especially since there's now the Galileo+ Update Site from Cloudsmith so you don't have to download from multiple update sites to get it installed.

    However, the version of Subversion available via Fink doesn't work with projects checked out using Eclipse - seems that the commandline client (Subversion 1.4.4) and Subversive with SVNKit (SVN 1.6.1 w/ SVNKit 1.3.0.beta.r5741) are not compatible: svn: This client is too old to work with working copy '.'; please get a newer Subversion client. Using DarwinPorts to update the subversive client to 1.6.3 fixed this issue, but installed it into a different path (/opt/local/bin instead of /sw/bin or /usr/bin).

13. Eclipse looks better on Mac than on Linux; however, I recently stumbled across a great tip for making Eclipse waste less screen space under gtk on Linux. Highly recommended bit of gtk hackery - one file makes a world of difference!

Do you have any other tips for Linux or Windows people, surviving the transition to Mac OSX? Is there any way to tell OSX to use Windows or Linux keyboard defaults so I don't have to retrain myself?

Eclipse Community Survey: 4 More Insights

Ian blogged 6 insights from this year's Eclipse Community Survey; here are a few more to get us to a full Top Ten list.

1. What is your primary operating system?
   
   Linux is certainly a strong player in both development (26%) and deployment (40%), beating Mac (7% and 3%) but losing to Windows (64% and 38%). More interesting to me is the fragmentation of Linux, showing that Ubuntu beats RHEL/Fedora by 10% in the desktop space (development), but loses in the server space (deployment).


2. Where do you typically go to find Eclipse-related information?
   
   About 2/3rds said Google and/or the Eclipse home page, which suggests that the homepage has certainly improved - but a lot of people would rather just search. However, the survey didn't mention our finely crafted wiki.eclipse.org, or help.eclipse.org. Survey #FAIL.


3. Are you or the organization you work for a member of the Eclipse Foundation?
   
   Five out of six respondents (83%) said No. So either we've done a terrible job of converting users into members, or people would rather give back in the form of testing, documentation, filing bugs, and writing articles. I suspect it's a little of both, but mostly the former.
   
   Kudos to the contributors, and shame on the corporate drones for not convincing their queen to send a little honey back to Eclipse.


4. In the last year, how have you participated in the Eclipse community?
   
   While nearly a quarter of respondents (24%) said "I entered at least one bug into Bugzilla", more than 2/3rds said they "used Eclipse but didn't actively participate in the community." To me that's a clear sign we have more users than contributors. Is that because most Eclipse users are Windows folks who don't grok that Open Source works best when everyone sees themselves as part of the process, rather than just a consumer?

I've been reading More Joel On Software recently, thanks to winning a prize for bringing a bag purchased in Alaska to EclipseCon this past March. One article stands out from there in this context, Building Communities with Software, from March 2003. Here's an excerpt:

The social scientist Ray Oldenburg talks about how humans need a third place, besides work and home, to meet with friends, have a beer, discuss the events of the day, and enjoy some human interaction. Coffee shops, bars, hair salons, beer gardens, pool halls, clubs, and other hangouts are as vital as factories, schools and apartments ["The Great Good Place", 1989]. But capitalist society has been eroding those third places, and society is left impoverished.

...

So it's no surprise that so many programmers, desperate for a little human contact, flock to online communities - chat rooms, discussion forums, open source projects, and Ultima Online. In creating community software, we are, to some extent, trying to create a third place.

If you feel your third place is lacking, please consider contributing more to Eclipse, to Fedora or CentOS, to JBoss Tools, or whatever tickles your fancy. Just give something back. Your community will thank you, since, after all, "A rising tide lifts all boats."

UPDATE, 2009/05/30: Mike's right, calling our users "freeloaders" isn't fair. I just wish there was a more obvious way to convert users into contributors.

The Year of the Linux Desktop... some day.

It's been said for many a year that *this* will be the year Linux breaks through into the desktop space. Clearly we're still a long way off, but it's nice to see that over the past two years, both Linux and BSD-based Mac OS X have taken share away from Redmond.

Of particular note, Linux has finally hit 1% of the desktop market. Just 99% more to go!

Do you wanna be open source?

I've got a plan to make code free and open,
Lucky for me, for you it's a cause you can join,
The world is slowly changing,
FLOSS is so contagious

Chorus
I'm willing to code my way to the top,
I wanna be o-pen source,
I don't wanna stick with vendor lock-in,
I wanna be open source

I must confess,
Lin's got too many distros,
Been sleepin around,
Talk of the town,
My name is...

E-clipseCon will beckon,
E-veryone will listen,
Play my vimeo
Check me out on ohloh,
Browsin' through the source, yo
No one ever says no

Chorus

I'm willing to code my way to the top,
I'm a contributor
I'll submit patches, write docs, and test stuff
Make me a committer

My friends... are all... sans Windows
My friends... they all... pronounce the 'g'

I just fixed a bug!

Play my vimeo
Check me out on ohloh,
Browsin' through the source, yo
no one ever says no

Chorus

I'll collaborate my way to the top,
I'm a beta-tester
I'll report problems and suggest features
Help to make better software

Freedom... comes when... the source is free
Freedom... thanks to... community

Play my vimeo, check me out on ohloh
I'm willing to code my way to the top
Browsin' through the source, yo, no one ever says no
I wanna be o-pen source
x2

Are you willing to code your way to the top?
Do you want to be o-pen source?

Darren Hayes - Popular