Things Microsoft Windows users just don’t have: Part I
Posted by Lennart | Filed under GNU/Linux, Worth looking at
If I was ever forced to use Microsoft Windows for professional work again there would be some things that I would really miss. Of course I could work with it and I would get my work done. I am not one of those Windows haters who say that they could never work with Windows, but I think I would tend to search for those little icons and menu points that make my work more comfortable every day. Today I want to show you two of those applications or more precisely GNOME applets.
Hamster
Hamster is a little time tracking application that runs in GNOME panels. You just click on Hamster and enter a short description of what you are doing. Hamster now tracks how long you are working on this task until you start another task or stop tracking of the current task. This is extremly useful if you have to maintain a log of your tasks at work. http://projecthamster.wordpress.com/
Avahi service discovery
Avahi is used for service discovery in a network. It is an implementation of Zerconf. Learn more about Zeroconf here. The Avahi service discovery applet can show you all Zeroconf services in your network. For this example I enabled the iTunes DAAP music sharing of Rhythmbox (a Zeroconf technique) on my workstation and clicked the discovery applet on my notebook. The Rhythmbox service on my Desktop was discovered immediately. You can find dozens of different services for music shares, file shares, printers, NTP or even version control. The applet is available in many distribution repositories. (Ubuntu: sudo aptitude service-discovery-applet)
Tags: applet, avahi, daap, discovery, gnome, hamster, itunes, service, time, tracking, zerconf
GNOME Twitter client: Gwibber
Posted by Lennart | Filed under GNU/Linux, Internet, Worth looking at
I have been looking for a really clean and easy to use Twitter client for a long time. I recently tried out Gwibber and it seems like I found what I wanted: Gwibber is easy to use, fast and focuses on the important things.
You can tweet by using the little input box at the bottom. You get a little bubble notification at the bottom left of your screen if somebody you follow tweets. (This can be disabled.) Gwibber stays in your tray if close it.
How to install Gwibber on Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid
1. Create a file “/etc/apt/sources.list.d/gwibber.list” and add the Gwibber repository:
# File: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/gwibber.list
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/gwibber-team/ubuntu intrepid main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/gwibber-team/ubuntu intrepid main
2. Update your local repository information cache and install Gwibber: (aptitude update, aptitude install gwibber)
3. Start Gwibber from your applications menu (Section “Internet”)
4. Add Gwibber to your GNOME autostart. This can be done in the GNOME session manager:
Gwibber also supports some other services that I did not try out:
- Digg
- Jaiku
- Pownce
- Flickr
- Identica
You can find out more on the Gwibber Launchpad site.
Tags: client, gnome, gtk, gwibber, linux, python, twitter, web 2.0
The LHC is using KDE
Posted by Lennart | Filed under *NIX, Free Software, GNU/Linux
I just read that the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) that started it first “live” runs today is using KDE for at least some parts of the projects software. This screenshot of a KDE at CERN/LHC looks like a monitoring program (with a knote ;)):
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/bigbang/gallery.shtml?select=13
I think this is a great prove for stability and flexibility of free software. I mean… The “biggest experiment of all times” seems to use KDE to at least monitor the systems. It is highly presumable that other parts of the LHC systems are using KDE, too.
Do you have other screenshots of the LHC experiment? Comments are welcome!
Check out kde.org and the blog of Aaron Seigo (the KDE hacker I got the information from)
[Edit]
I found some more interesting images:
http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/fotostrecke-35141-3.html
http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/fotostrecke-35141-5.html
http://img388.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ohptoftimemeasured13sepjy2.png (from slashdot.org)
Tags: CERN, KDE, large hadron collider, LHC
Get the most information out of your GNU/Linux processes
Posted by Lennart | Filed under GNU/Linux, Hacking
Sometimes it is not easy to find out what process is currently slowing down your system or why the mouse is jumping over the screen when it is supposed to follow your hand movements in a kind of gliding motion. I have collected a list of tools to find out what processes consume the most of your resources and even how to get an indication of the reason for that.
CPU and memory usage: top/htop
Most of you may already know “top”. It is the first program to fire up if the system gets unsually slow. top shows you a list of processes - ordered by their memory and CPU usage.
/usr/bin/top
As an alternative there is an improved version of top: htop. It has many more options for sorting, searching or display and shows the general system usage in a clearly arranged way.
/usr/bin/htop
htop might not be a standard part of your distribution but it should be available in the repositories.
I/O usage: iotop
Sometimes programs slow down the system by using too much I/O resources (e.g. when extracting a really big tarball). When the programs don’t need much CPU resources for heavy I/O resources they might now show up in top or htop. If you want to find out e.g. what is currently hammering your hard disk buffers you can take a look at iotop: It displays processes sorted by I/O usage in a top-like way.
/usr/bin/iotop
iotop might not be a standard part of your distribution but it should be available in the repositories.
MySQL and Apache
Sometimes you want to know what consumes most of your MySQL or Apache resources.
If you want to know what queries are currently executed and in what state the operation is you can use the “SHOW PROCESSLIST;” SQL command in a MySQL shell:
SHOW PROCESSLIST;
If your Apache has heavy load you might want to know what requests/files cause this load. There is a program “apachetop” that provides this information:
/usr/bin/apachetop
apachetop might not be a standard part of your distribution but it should be available in the repositories.
Finding out more about rioting processes
So you found the process that consumes the resources? Here is the ultimate solution to find out more about the process: /bin/lsof (list open files)
Here are the possibly most useful lsof modes:
Show all open files of the process with given PID: lsof -p [PID]
Show all programs that have currently opened a file: lsof [file]
Show all programs that have currently opened a file in a given directory: lsof +D [directory]
Show all programs that have a socket related to a given port: lsof -i :[port]
lsof -p 3773
/bin/lsof +D /var/log
/bin/lsof -i :12200
Tags: apache. processes, cpu, directory, file, htop, iotop, lsof, memory, mysql, port, top, usage
