Showing headlines posted by mcasperson

The Ultimate Docker Launcher project allows any Docker image to create or modify configuration files at launch from environment variables.

In this post, I show you how to make the most of the base Ubuntu images while building your own Docker images.

In this post, I look at some of the options available to DevOps engineers for running a development Kubernetes cluster.

Learn how to build and run Docker images, configure local development Kubernetes clusters with kind, and orchestrate multi-environment deployments with Octopus with this free 10 part training series.

Docker has matured over the years to offer a range of solutions for developers working with containers. This can lead to some confusion, though, as developers need to choose which version of Docker to install.

Organizations are under increasing pressure to deliver new digital experiences to their customers. To meet this demand, DevOps teams are adopting a number of practices such as Infrastructure as Code (IaC), microservices, GitOps, and Kubernetes, which all lend themselves to writing and maintaining more code than ever before.

Given GitHub Actions hosts the code, exposes the build pipeline as code, provides the execution environment to run those pipelines, and provides a repository to host the resulting artifacts, do you even need a CI server any more?

GitHub Actions are a powerful new addition to GitHub, but versioning your builds can be tricky.

It's about lowering the barrier to participation. It's about creating more opportunities to participate in a meaningful way; without having to become an expert in esoteric tools and technologies, or invest years before you can do anything.

This screencast shows you how to add a Kill Window applet to the Unity launcher. This applet is a must have for anyone who was a fan of the kill applet in Gnome 2.

This screencast shows you how to change the LightDM login background in Ubuntu 11.10

BeOS was one of those promising operating systems that never really managed to gain any kind of market share. The Haiku project has taken it upon themselves to continue the development of BeOS, and has slowly been making their way to a version 1.0 release.

If you want to see what all the fuss is about, the easiest way is to download a preconfigured VitrualBox disk Hiaku disk image from virtualboxes.org. This will save you the trouble of installing Hiaku for yourself, and in just 10 easy steps you can have a Haiku vitrual machines up and running.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Linux has come a long way, but there are inevitably one or two Windows only programs that you just can't replace with open source equivalents. For me it was the CHM compiler, and FlashDevelop. Sometimes it's not even a case of being able to find an open source replacement if you are trying to document or grab screen shots of a Windows application. Wine may offer some relief, but virtualization is the most reliable solution. However, both have traditionally involved a lot of configuration. But now there is a solution that goes by the name JPC-2. It is a pure Java virtual machine that can run unmodified versions of Windows XP and older copies of Ubuntu.

One of the best features of Gnome 3 are the dynamic workspaces. Using some simple keyboard shortcuts, it is possible to assign an application to a workspace and quickly switch between them. If you run a standard set of applications, this process makes switching between them very efficient. The problem with running applications in their own workspace is that you have to spend some time once Gnome 3 has booted moving the applications to their proper workspaces. However, using a tool called devilspie, it is possible to setup a script that will automatically rearrange your windows for you.

File management is not a sexy job, but it is something you probably do a lot of. Nautilus, the default Gnome file manager, does a pretty good job, but it does have a few shortcomings. Of course you are not limited to Nautilus, and I have found the LXDE file manager PCMANFM quite handy. Here's why.

It's lunch time, and you have 5 minutes to chill out and forget about those reports due by the end of the week. You could play some solitaire, but why limit yourself to the same old dull card games? Some of my favorite games were made for the Commodare 64, and to this day still provide a quick and enjoyable distraction for those otherwise dull desk based lunch breaks. The good news is that don't have to remember a bunch of archaic commands to get your favorite C64 games up and running. Using the VICE emulator, it takes nothing more than creating a desktop icon to boot a C64 game

I have become a big fan of drop down terminal windows, modeled after the Quake console, instead of having a terminal window sitting in the background that I have to switch to for every command that I want to run. You just press a keyboard shortcut, run your command, and hide the window again. There is no mucking around with virtual desktops, and you don't have to try and find a terminal window buried beneath all you other applications.

Anyone who runs Linux regularly will know the sudo or su commands well. The first will let you run commands and applications with root privileges, while still retaining the more common environment variables like $HOME. The benefit of sudo is that you only need to supply your own password, and not the root password. The su command does much the same thing, except that it requires the root password. The su – command will drop you into shell that has all of roots environment variable set.

These commands are great, but they have to be run from the terminal. So what if you want to run a file browser or something similar with root permissions? Traditionally the gksu application provided a GUI front end to su, but a decision was made quite some time ago not to include this with Fedora.

As a Linux user I know that I should revel in sparse user interfaces and command line driven applications, but for my day to day communications, I prefer Pidgin over XChat. It's just more pleasant to look at, and goes beyond just IRC chat. The problem with Pidgin and Gnome 3 is that it is hard to tell when someone is trying to get your attention. The little smiley face that gets displayed on the system tray icon is lost in Gnome 3, as the icons are now hidden in a disappearing bar at the bottom of the screen.