Category: os

Operating systems, emulation layers and virtualization

My standard tools on a Windows workstation

If I have to work on a Windows machine, these are the tools I usually install and use:

Free/Libre/Open Source

Free/Libre/Open Source software (“FLOSS”) with OSI certified Open Source license

Cross-platform:

  • Latest JDK
  • Intellij (Community Edition)
  • 7zip
  • Eclipse (Platform Runtime Binary + plugins required for my work)
  • Apache Tomcat
  • Apache Maven
  • Git (from git-scm.org)
  • Cygwin (with openssh, wget, nano)
  • Firefox (with Adblock, Secure Login, Firebug, Uppity)
  • Filezilla
  • LibreOffice
  • Pidgin
  • Gimp
  • Gvim
  • Wireshark
  • OpenVPN

Windows-only:

  • Notepad++
  • PdfCreator
  • Infrarecorder
  • CamStudio
  • Link Shell Extension

Closed source

Binaries currently available for download without license fees:

  • Adobe Reader
  • Sysinternals
  • Deskpins
  • MWSnap

Debian Wheezy XFCE 4.8 simple splash without text shadow

Update 14/Aug/2018: I no longer maintain the patched Debian package mentioned and the download links below are most likely broken.

Debian 7 (wheezy) comes with XFCE 4.8. By default, the “simple” splash screen on session startup displays startup messages with an ugly text shadow that makes the text blurry and harder to read.

This is annoying enough that for example OpenSuse and Fedora both applied a patch to remove the text shadow.

Unfortunately, in Debian, XFCE 4.8 still has the text shadow. So I applied this fix and rebuilt the deb from source. I followed this excellent how-to by Raphaël Hertzog. Feel free to download the resulting xfce4-session_4.8.3-3foo1_i386.deb

You can then install it like this:
sudo dpkg -i xfce4-session_4.8.3-3foo1_i386.deb

If you don’t use sudo then you have to run the dpkg command as the root user in the usual way.

Install cygwin and cygwinports packages using apt-cyg

I recently started using apt-cyg and like it a lot. It allows easy installation of packages from Cygwin and Cygwin ports repositories.

It is inspired by Debian’s apt but it does not support anything like a sources.list and it can actually only work against one repo (mirror) at a time. Well, I guess that’s bearable since there are really only two sources (main cygwin and cygwin ports). But I might try apt-cyg-multi which claims to have added the missing cross-repository functionality.

For now, I found it convenient to configure these bash aliases (use a suitable Cygwin mirror and Cygwin Ports mirror for your location):

alias cyg='apt-cyg -m http://mirrors.kernel.org/sources.redhat.com/cygwin/'
alias cyp='apt-cyg -m http://mirrors.kernel.org/sources.redhat.com/cygwinports/'

Update, June 2013: There is a promising-looking apt-cyg fork on github. I just started using it.

Save video stream as file using rtmpdump (even on Windows)

The rtmpdump tool can help you save video streams as local files.

It comes with most Linux distributions, e.g. on Ubuntu or Debian (with sudo):
sudo apt-get install rtmpdump

On Windows, the most convenient way is probably via Cygwin and Cygwin Ports:

  1. Install Cygwin
  2. Install Cygwin Ports
  3. On the package selection screen, select “rtmpdump”

Read the manual page and study the options:
man rtmpdump

Common entries in .bash_aliases

I keep my bash aliases grouped in separate files. I include them from .bashrc like this:

# Alias definitions that should work everywhere
if [ -f ~/.bash_aliases ]; then
    . ~/.bash_aliases
fi

# Alias definitions that are specific to your distro
# e.g. Cygwin-only stuff, apt-get shortcuts on Debian, etc.
if [ -f ~/.bash_aliases.distro-specific ]; then
    . ~/.bash_aliases.distro-specific
fi

This is the ~/.bash_aliases that I commonly use:

# Interactive verbose operation...
alias rm='rm -iv'
alias cp='cp -iv'
alias mv='mv -iv'

# Default to human readable figures
alias df='df -h'
alias du='du -h'

# Misc :)
alias less='less -r'                          # raw control characters
alias whence='type -a'                        # where, of a sort
alias grep='grep --color'                     # show differences in colour
alias egrep='egrep --color=auto'              # show differences in colour
alias fgrep='fgrep --color=auto'              # show differences in colour

# Some shortcuts for different directory listings
alias ls='ls -hF --color=tty'                 # classify files in colour
alias dir='ls --color=auto --format=vertical'
alias vdir='ls --color=auto --format=long'
alias ll='ls -l'                              # long list
alias la='ls -A'                              # all but . and ..
alias l='ls -CF'                              #

This is the ~/.bash_aliases.distro-specific that I use on Debian (or other APT-based distros):

alias show='apt-cache show'
alias search='apt-cache search'

alias files='dpkg -L'
alias selections='dpkg --get-selections'

alias install='sudo apt-get install'
alias reinstall='sudo apt-get install --reinstall'

alias update='sudo apt-get update'
alias upgrade='sudo apt-get upgrade'

alias remove='sudo apt-get remove'
alias purge='sudo apt-get remove --purge'
alias autoremove='sudo apt-get autoremove'