While setting up the cronjob for auto archiving data on my Piwik installation, I found that the default editor for Dreamhost shell accounts is set to use joe (Joe’s Own Editor). While this is a nice editor for many users, it is not as familiar to me as using vim, the opensource vi clone.
Combing through the Dreamhost wiki, I found the line in the crontab wiki article talking about exporting the editor setting by adding an entry in the .bashrc file in the root of your account. This information may have been accurate at one point, but now the shell accounts are configured to use .bashrc for the non-interactive logins and to use .bash_profile for the interactive logins.
So to update you editor on your shell account you need to add the following line to the .bash_profile file:
export editor="/usr/bin/vim"
or
export editor="/usr/bin/vi"
If you prefer to use emacs, you can change the line to be:
export editor="/usr/bin/emacs"
At work we are in the process of sorting through some old books, documents and equipment in the run-up to moving into a new building.
During this process I ran across an old Mac iBook. The model I found was a stock configuration iBook G3/800, model number A1005. After turning it on I discovered that it was running Mac OS X 10.2.8. My manager suggested that we just discard it since it was not upgradeable to the latest OS level and since the hardware specs were so low. Given my penchant for playing with old, sometimes admittedly obsolete hardware, I decided to see what I could do to resurrect the little guy with Linux.
After investigating the various options available, I settled on Linux MintPPC. This particular distribution is a port of the Linux Mint LXDE project to Debian/PPC. The reasons behind this choice were:
- Use of lightweight X11 window manager, which is important given the paucity of memory and hardware resources in the iBook
- This distro is based on the Linux Mint project and Debian/PPC Linux
Installation
The installation couldn’t be much easier. I downloaded the latest Debian/PPC net install iso image, then started up the laptop from the CDROM. At the boot prompt enter the following:
auto url=mintppc.org
After this it’s a simple matter of walking through the standard installation process for Debian then letting the network install complete on it’s own. After approximately an hour, I had a fully functional Linux install working on the iBook!
Post-Install Niceties
Right Mouse Click
After the installation was completed and the laptop had rebooted I began a few post-installation configuration changes. This model iBook didn’t have the multi-touch capabilities that Apple introduced in later models, so it was limited to left-button only operations unless you add in keyboard modifiers. The default configuration for the left and middle button operation is to use the F11 and F12 keys to operate the buttons. Since MintPPC includes the mouseemu daemon, I wanted to configure the system to use the Mac OS X configuration of control-click to operate the right mouse button since this was the mode I was used to. Here’s how to accomplish that:
- Open the terminal and become root
- cd /etc/default
- vi mouseemu (you did backup the original right?)
- Add the following to the end of the file:
RIGHT_CLICK="-right 29 272"
- Restart the mouseemu daemon:
kill -HUP `cat /var/run/mouseemu.pid`
- Enjoy the new configuration!
Turn Off Login Ready Beep
By default the system is configured to beep when the system is ready for login. Since I work in a cube farm, I wanted to observe better cube etiquette by disabling this.
- Open up the Login Window preferences: Menu -> Preferences -> Login Window
- Enter the admin password into the authentication dialog (this is root, not your sudo password!)
- Click on the Accessibility tab
- Uncheck the box next to Login screen ready
Openbox Configuration Tweaks
There are a number of configuration tweaks that can be made to the default Openbox setup to improve rendering performance on machines at the low-end of the spectrum. Here are a few that I have made.
- Menu -> Preferences -> Openbox Configuration Manager
- Appearance
- Uncheck Animate iconify and restore
- Move & Resize
- Uncheck Update the window contents while resizing
- Desktops (very subjective change with negligible performance benefit)
- Set Number of desktops to 2
I am still working on the final configuration to fit the hardware footprint on the iBook G3, so there will be more updates along these lines soon.
For those of you that have children I am sure you have made hamburgers and tatertots at least once for lunch or dinner. In my experience, unless your kids are really ravenous, you have had some of these leftover after the meal as well. As with any leftovers, the decision then becomes: do I throw them away or save them for another meal?
Recently I was faced with this same question. Of course, the answer was pretty easy for me, I saved the leftovers. I know that many people would have just thrown the food away. In fact, according to a 2004 study by Timothy Jones of the University of Arizona in Tucson, 40-50% of the food harvested in the United States never gets eaten[1]. This statistic is pretty unconscionable given that the UN Food and Agriculture Organization reported that in 2010 there were 925 million hungry people in the world.[2]
This morning, I got up and looked through the pantry and refrigerator for something to cook for breakfast. I realized that I had a plastic container half full of leftover tatertots as well as two leftover hamburger patties that needed to be eaten. So I made some hash.
Ingredients
- two hamburger patties
- leftover tatertots
- 2 tbsp. olive oil
- salt and pepper
- garlic powder
- 3/4 cup of water
Process
- Put two tablespoons of olive oil in a skillet to heat
- Chop the tatertots into small pieces
- Cube the hamburger patties
- Add the minced tatertots into the oil and begin re-browning them
- Add the cubed hamburger patties
- Add salt, pepper and garlic powder to taste
- As the mixture heats and browns add water slowly to add moisture back to the food that was lost during refrigeration
- Once thoroughly heated, remove from skillet and enjoy!
If you have some onions or peppers, you could add them as well for even more flavor. Also, for a Southwestern flair you could add leftover corn, tomatoes and chili peppers.