NVIDIA this morning unveiled their first Linux graphics driver beta as part of the 331.xx series. The NVIDIA 331.13 Beta that was released this morning for Linux systems is quite exciting in that it brings a whole lot of fixes, improvements, and new features. Perhaps most exciting is that there’s finally (but limited) EGL support right now — a precursor for handling Wayland and Mir…
LibreOffice 4.1.2 was announced today from Berlin by The Document Foundation. This release brings “a large number of improved interoperability features with proprietary and legacy file formats.” This comes on the heels of the big LibreOffice conference, which was mentioned in the announcement.
This minor release is said to be “another step forward in the process of improving the overall quality and stability of LibreOffice” and, indeed, three release candidates were issued representing 95 squashed bugs. Looking through the changelogs one sees a lot of various crash fixes as well as a lot of compatibility, importing, and formatting work. Other interesting tidbits from the changelogs include:
While there’s still quite a number of weeks to go until seeing the Linux 3.13 kernel enter the development spotlight, the open-source Radeon HDMI audio support will hopefully be in great shape for those that have wanted features like HD audio pass-through for DTS-HD and Dolby TrueHD…
The popular seven-year-old social networking company files for an initial public offering, revealing hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.
The Arduino project announced a third-generation Arduino single board computer featuring a dual-processor architecture, and able to run a “full Linux” OS. The Arduino TRE features both a 1GHz 32-bit TI Sitara AM335x 32-bit ARM Cortex-A8 processor, for running Linux, and an 8-bit Atmel ATmega microcontroller, for AVR-compatible control of “shield” expansion modules. As Zoe […]
There are a lot of cool old Linux commands that we don’t see anymore because they’re buried under our flashy graphical desktops. But they’re still there, they’re still fun, and best of all they’re configured with nice easy text files. MOTD, or Message of the Day, has evolved from a simple text file to an entire scripted framework that can display ANSI art, static text messages, and display dynamic system information.
Message of the Day, or motd, displays a message on console logins. You can see this in action by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F2 to get to a console, and then login. Or open an SSH session to another Linux PC. This is how it looks on Linux Mint:
Welcome to Linux Mint 13 Maya (GNU/Linux 3.2.0-23-generic x86_64) Welcome to Linux Mint * Documentation: http://www.linuxmint.com Last login: Thu Oct 3 09:25:53 2013
But that is boring, and I want it to look like this:
/ BOFH excuse #365:
| |
| parallel processors running |
perpendicular today /
-----------------------------
^__^
(oo)_______
(__) )/
||----w |
|| ||
_____ ____ _ __ __
/ ___/____ ___ __ / __/____(_)__ ____ ____/ / ____ _____ ____/ /
__ / __ `/ / / / / /_/ ___/ / _ / __ / __ / / __ `/ __ / __ /
___/ / /_/ / /_/ / / __/ / / / __/ / / / /_/ / / /_/ / / / / /_/ /
/____/__,_/__, / /_/ /_/ /_/___/_/ /_/__,_/ __,_/_/ /_/__,_/
/____/
__ __
___ ____ / /____ _____/ /
/ _ / __ / __/ _ / ___/ /
/ __/ / / / /_/ __/ / /_/
___/_/ /_/__/___/_/ (_)
How you do these depends on your Linux distro. In the olden days the message came from /etc/motd, and most distros still use this. So all you do to change the message is edit /etc/motd, in plain text. Easy peasey and fun. But this doesn’t let you run fun commands, like cowsay and fortune. There is a way around this, which I shall return to in a moment.
Debian and Ubuntu use a dynamic scripting framework, update-motd. It uses a batch of scripts in /etc/update-motd that are executed by the pam_motd module when users login, and information from the various scripts is assembled in /var/run/motd. /etc/motd is symlinked to /var/run/motd, so anything you write in it will be overwritten. So what if you want to put your own inspirational message in MOTD on Debian and Ubuntu? /etc/update-motd.d/99-footer is reserved for this, but it’s a shell script so you can’t just add a text message, but must use shell commands. Here is a simple example that outputs two lines of text separated by linebreaks:
printf "n wakka wakka wakka n n wakka n"
Which looks like this:
Welcome to Linux Mint 13 Maya (GNU/Linux 3.2.0-23-generic x86_64) Welcome to Linux Mint * Documentation: http://www.linuxmint.com wakka wakka wakka wakka Last login: Wed Sep 11 19:53:56 2013
You can read the files in /etc/update-motd to see which scripts the other lines come from, and if you want to find all the scripts that touch MOTD try running sudo grep -ir motd /etc. Or read man update-motd.
Wouldn’t you prefer to have a talking cow deliver a different fortune when you login?
___________________________________________________________
/ Q: What's tiny and yellow and very, very, dangerous?
A: A canary with the super-user password. /
-----------------------------------------------------------
^__^
(oo)_______
(__) )/
||----w |
|| ||
On Debian and Ubuntu, install fortune-mod and cowsay. There are many different fortune databases you can install, which you can find with apt-cache search fortune. They’re all plain text files so you can easily edit them and add your own messages, if you feel creative. Then add this line to /etc/update-motd.d/99-footer:
exec /usr/games/fortune | /usr/games/cowsay -n
Now you’ll get a fortune wrapped in cowsay at every login. You can test it on the command-line like this:
$ /usr/games/fortune | /usr/games/cowsay -n
___________________________________________________
/ Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?
| A: To see his friend Gregory peck. |
| |
| Q: Why did the chicken cross the playground? |
A: To get to the other slide. /
---------------------------------------------------
^__^
(oo)_______
(__) )/
||----w |
|| ||
You can even specify a specific fortune database, such as /usr/games/fortune bofh-excuses | /usr/games/cowsay -n
Do the same for figlet: just pop a line into /etc/update-motd.d/99-footer, like this:
exec figlet -f digital Welcome and be assimilated
Which looks like this:
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ +-+-+-+ +-+-+ +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ |W|e|l|c|o|m|e| |a|n|d| |b|e| |a|s|s|i|m|i|l|a|t|e|d| +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ +-+-+-+ +-+-+ +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
What about distros with the old-fashioned static MOTD? No worries, because you can make use of the global login profile to run scripted login messages. Create a file named/etc/profiles.d/motd.sh, and enter your commands in it like this:
/usr/games/fortune | /usr/games/cowsay -n figlet -f slant Say friend and enter! echo "Wipe your feet and mind your manners"
Yes, it is that easy, and your console login will look something like this:
_____________________________________________
/ Today's weirdness is tomorrow's reason why.
-- Hunter S. Thompson /
---------------------------------------------
^__^
(oo)_______
(__) )/
||----w |
|| ||
_____ ____ _ __ __
/ ___/____ ___ __ / __/____(_)__ ____ ____/ / ____ _____ ____/ /
__ / __ `/ / / / / /_/ ___/ / _ / __ / __ / / __ `/ __ / __ /
___/ / /_/ / /_/ / / __/ / / / __/ / / / /_/ / / /_/ / / / / /_/ /
/____/__,_/__, / /_/ /_/ /_/___/_/ /_/__,_/ __,_/_/ /_/__,_/
/____/
__ __
___ ____ / /____ _____/ /
/ _ / __ / __/ _ / ___/ /
/ __/ / / / /_/ __/ / /_/
___/_/ /_/__/___/_/ (_)
Wipe your feet and mind your manners
You can use any shell commands and pretty it up with ANSI colors. This example displays current system information in colors:
HOSTNAME=`uname -n` KERNEL=`uname -r` CPU=`uname -p` ARCH=`uname -m` # The different colours as variables W=" 33[01;37m" B=" 33[01;34m" R=" 33[01;31m" X=" 33[00;37m" echo "$R#===================================================#" echo " $W Welcome $B $USER $W to $B $HOSTNAME " echo " $R ARCH $W= $ARCH " echo " $R KERNEL $W= $KERNEL " echo " $R CPU $W= $CPU " echo "$R#==================================================#"
Which displays like this:
#==================================================#
Welcome carla to studio
ARCH = x86_64
KERNEL = 3.8.0-31-generic
CPU = x86_64
#==================================================#
Another advantage to doing it this way is you can quickly test your changes by running the script directly:
$ sh /etc/profiles.d/motd.sh
Consult the Bash reference manual and the man pages of the various commands to learn more ways to customize your MOTD, and check your own distro documentation just in case they’ve made any funny tweaks to MOTD.
The EPA releases their standard for datacenter storage efficiency.
In anticipation of reaching 100,000 followers on Twitter (and I’m happy to report we did last week!), the Linux Foundation asked our fellow Linux users, “Why do you use Linux?” Here are some of the great responses we received.
Why do you use Linux? Tag w/ #linuxcon to win a LinuxCon harmonica! Help us cross the 100K follower threshold on Twitter!
— The Linux Foundation (@linuxfoundation) September 25, 2013
@linuxfoundation I use Linux because I don’t have to adapt to it… it adapts to me. #linuxcon
— david fuster (@dfuster1) September 25, 2013
@linuxfoundation I use Linux because it runs on practically everything. It’s safe, fast and costumizable. And it’s free and open! #linuxcon
— Schlendrian (@gefaehrlin) September 25, 2013
@linuxfoundation#linuxcon I use Linux: 1st job, 2nd home & free and now it is really being fun because of terminal
— Siniša Ivanek (@sivanek) September 25, 2013
@linuxfoundation Linux makes computers both more fun and more useful, I cant imagine using an OS that limits what I can do #linuxcon
— Robert Sayers (@rsayers) September 25, 2013
@linuxfoundation Linux gives the user ultimate control over their machine which spurs productivity and creativity. #linuxcon
— Brian Battell (@bbattell86) September 25, 2013
@linuxfoundation#linuxcon I use linux because it provides a sense of freedom and belonging.I can easily change thing in linux to my liking.
— chambilkethakur (@chambilkethakur) September 25, 2013
@linuxfoundation web server, office desktop, every day use, and music recording in a studio. #linuxcon
— ttoine (@ttoine) September 25, 2013
@linuxfoundation I use #linux for the simplicity and the autonomy it yields its users #linuxcon and who could forget about TuxRacer
— Matt Richie (@REALMattRichie) September 25, 2013
The Tizen App Challenge’s $4+ million is by far the big kahuna right now, but plenty of smaller prize opportunities are available to mobile developers. Designed to jumpstart the Tizen ecosystem, a number of hack-a-thons with jackpots are cropping up across the country. Dedicated Tizen developers Jakob Perry and Emilie Nouveau recently won a runner-up reward for their hybrid in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) app called Boomzbox. Jakob’s daytime hours are spent at Acquia as a senior software engineer, while Emilie works at MongoDB as a web developer.
Our Q&A with Jakob and Emilie talks about their winning Tizen app, the hack’s vibe and what they find most exciting about Tizen.
Read more at the Tizen blog.
Intel CEO Brian Krzanich said the company will donate 50,000 Galileo boards to 1,000 universities around the world in the next 18 months.