2010 Workshop Notes BarnCamp

Workshop Notes 2010 Barn Camp

Command line interface

Thanks to Chickpea for taking notes and to Julian Assange for the "an" anagram generator

<pwd> - tells you where you are, directory-wise

<ls> - list stuff - lists specifications (list contents of directory you're in)

<ls -l> - long list format (shows you more information about your file paths (NOTE: other stuff listed stands for: permissions, who owns it, number of characters/bytes, last time it was altered)

<ls -a> - list ALL stuff, including hidden stuff

<man ls> - manual for 'ls' and gives you all different options for using this program (NOTE: you can use <man xx> where xx is the program, you can get the manual. There is even a manpage for man; to view it type man man)

<more xx> - where 'xx' is the file name, to see the context of the file

<cd> - change directory

<cd ..> - go back a directory

<an> - create an anagram

<typing "ctrl+c"> stops whatever is happening in the terminal (NOTE: because the anagram thing keeps printing the results whatever...you can stick the results of the program into a file...)

<an burners >anagram> - run anagram program with the word 'burners' and stick results into a file called 'anagram'

(started playing around with 'an' program)

<XX |less> where XX is the program that spits out lots of information; using a pipe '|' passes the information to another program. In this case putting '|less' paginates the output, allowing you to search and navigate throughout.

<XX |more> just spits it out, you can't really navigate throughout

<nano> - the text editor usable via a shell

<nano XX> where XX is the file name, tells nano to open the file to edit

<XX |cowsay> XX being a text file - HAHA - a cow just appeared in the shell!

<ping XX> where XX is a web address, pings that address, useful for many things............

<sl -F> CHOO CHOO! (note: try <sl -a> and <sl -l> too)

For further reading on the command line for routine tasks (e.g. making directories, moving and copying files, etc.) plus a whole lot more, e.g. Linux file system structure and what a shell is, visit LinuxCommand (recommended!).

aggregation

Some tools

Yahoo Pipes - does feedscraping Deri pipes - free version of yahoo pipes

vision on tv Feed informer - rss aggregator to output other mixed rss feeds

Example of sites using aggregation

Indymedia Two platforms in use 1. indymedia.org.uk - the national site 2. local sites - different collectives use different systems so not all of the content gets pulled into the national site. Was decided that all sites should be able to be pulled into the national site, and also potentially feeds from other sites. One idea is to use Mir - this has already started. Also idea to use another system. Technical and political challenges (e.g. of political - if somebody clicks on a link from the aggregator, should the link stay on the national site, or should it go to the local site. Makes a big difference for when people post comments on one site but not the other.)

Loops could be a problem - two sites pulling in each others feeds.

How to moderate feeds - picking out the stories that are relevant. Using 'trusted feeds' with higher prioirity. Using filters similar to spam filters which learn over time what content you like. Using Feed informer to create new metadata

True Anthum Commercial product that pulls in content and displays them on one page. Not clear how it works - the makers don't tell people. Thought that there's open source products that do the same - but not one product that does all of it.

Dual Boot and Virtualisation

Tips

Have a look at what is on your computer with a live start up like Ubuntu or Debian and use the application 'gparted'

We talked about what

For Windows and Linux dual boot - Install Windows first and the

If you want to change Grub options or get the master boot record to be Grub rather than linux then there is a utility called Super Grub Disk

Virtualisation

Virtualisation allows operating systems to run within other operating systems.

This is very useful especially doing testing.

Oracle make a machine to do virtualisation - Virtual Box This emulates a computer so you can have a lot of virtual computers running at the same time.

Asterisk / VOIP / SIP

This talk was not planned in advance and really should have been, so thanks / sorry to everyone for sitting through those bits that should have been in the planning and not in the talk, and please get in touch if you have any questions that were missed in all the faffing about.

Summary

SIP accounts can be gotten freely (for incoming) or cheaply (for outgoing too) from sipgate or from other providers. A sip account will allow you to use the global Internet network to talk to people all over the world, whether or not they have Internet access. It is required that you have internet access, however, and a SIP client on a computer (softphone), dedicated IP phones or on mobile.

Asterisk is a free, open source PBX (Private Branch Exchange). You can use it to create a telephone system in your office / home / temporary event. All you need is a LAN and the ability of people there to connect to it through SIP clients, perhaps on mobiles. You can create internal SIP accounts and hook it up to external SIP connections or even BT lines.

It is technical and there is a learning curve. It was not possible to give you a complete "how-to" in the time available. However if you are interested in setting up Asterisk there are a number of web sites and mailing lists that can help you. Voip-Info is a community-maintained site that has good Asterisk documentation and you can find forums and mailing lists at Asterisk.org.

There's a web GUI for it called FreePBX and if you want to get started quickly (but you need a dedicated machine, or at least a dedicated hard drive and dual boot) you can download a CD with a whole system on it based on CentOS which includes Asterisk and FreePBX. It's called Trixbox.

Contact me

I'd love to get involved in some Asterisktivism so if you think I could possibly help with whatever good stuff you're doing please don't hesitate to get in touch - naomirosenberg@yahoo.co.uk

And, while you're here ...

Our father, who art in /sbin,
init is thy name.
Thy PID is 1;
Thy children run
In user space as they do in kernel.
Give us this day our daily RAM
And forgive us our interrupts
As we are nice to those who interrupt us.
Lead us not into uncaught exception
And deliver us from SIGKILL
For thine is the system
And thou art the saviour
For ever and ever – until we upgrade yer!

(PS. I'm now not sure about the technical accuracy of how I'm using the term "interrupts". Answers on a postcard to naomirosenberg@yahoo.co.uk please!)

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