February 2007 archive

40-year-old Choppers

We had a well-behaved snow storm here last weekend. It arrived on Saturday and left a foot of snow on the ground by Sunday morning, allowing time to dig out and for the snowplows to do their thing.
While I was out shoveling and snowblowing, I noticed some holes and unraveling seams in my old [...]

Beyond GNU/Linux: GNU/Egg and GNU/Embryo

Something to think about...

Maternal effect loci essential for mitosis
gnu, a mutation specifically affecting early embryogenesis

The mutation gnu identifies a gene whose product is needed for nuclear division during early development. Females homozygous for gnu lay eggs that develop giant nuclei as a result of continued DNA replication, in the absence of chromosome segregation and nuclear [...]

HOWTO: EncFS Encrypted Filesystem in Ubuntu and Fedora GNU/Linux

(Go straight to the HOWTOs. Do not pass GO.)
2 June 2007: Updated with comments for 7.04 / Feisty Fawn.

I mentioned recently that I planned to keep using TrueCrypt in GNU/Linux since I had used it profitably in Windows, and that I also intended to keep using the container approach where you create a single file [...]

We are creating our successors

Still working on The Singularity is Near, by Ray Kurzweil.
These opening excerpts to chapter five (on the overlapping revolutions of genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics) are striking:

There are few things of which the present generation is more justly proud than the wonderful improvements which are daily taking place in all sorts of mechanical appliances. ... But [...]

HOWTO: Remote Desktop with VNC in Ubuntu Edgy/Feisty

Updated, 4 May 2007: Warren helpfully pointed out in the comments a possible fix for the problem with the latest vnc4server. It worked for me in Edgy, and I hope it works with these instructions for Feisty Fawn also.
See below for info about the -extension XFIXES option, and for another necessary setting in 7.04/Feisty [...]

HOWTO: TrueCrypt in Ubuntu and Fedora GNU/Linux

Update, 1 June 2007: Version 4.3a, released May 2007, removes support for SUID.
I've been using TrueCrypt to encrypt financial and personal documents in Windows for a while now and it has worked just fine for the way I want to use it. I'm doing file-based encryption where you mount a single file as a [...]

Don't remove the ‘super’ from sudo, like I did in Ubuntu

There’s a fine line between empowerment and impotence in Unix. Is that why it sounds like eunuchs?
I accidentally revoked my power to run the sudo command. Yeah, it was a dumb thing to do. With godlike power comes great responsibility, and there I was like some half-wit sticking a fork in an electrical [...]

Check out the Rambling Traveler!

Taking a break from all the heavy GNU/Linux and Samba network drive stuff of the past couple of posts, I'd like to point you to a non-technology site. It *is* free culture related, though, because the proprietor offers all of her work under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license.
Check out Rambling Traveler. It's my [...]

HOWTO: Samba and the NSLU2: Remote Drives in GNU/Linux

Yesterday's post seemed a bit garbled to me. I wanted to work on a hastier posting style, but then see what happens? I make even less sense than usual. I'd like to set down this latest migration adventure for posterity. I'd be happy if it helps even one person in the [...]

Doing the Samba with the Slug

This post cost me $20.
But only because I wanted to write it after donating to the NSLU2-Linux project so I could put my money where my keyboard is. It's a token amount for the great work they're doing and all the great resources they provide for free. But let's back up for a [...]