FOSSPICKS Sparkling gems and new releases from the world of FOSSpicks Free and Open Source Software Mike Saunders has spent a decade mining the internet for free software treasures. Here’s the result of his latest haul… Shiny statistics in a browser Web VMStat any distros, especially Here’s where Web VMStat comes those targeted at in. It’s a system monitor that runs Madvanced users, ship an HTTP server, so you can connect with shiny system monitoring tools to it via a web browser and see on the desktop. Conky is one such fancy CSS-driven charts. Before you tool, while GKrellM was all the rage install it, you’ll need to get the in the last decade, and they are websocketd utility, which you can genuinely useful for keeping tabs find at https://github.com/ on your boxes, especially when joewalnes/websocketd. Helpfully, you’re an admin in charge of the developer has made pre- various servers. compiled executables available, so Now, pretty much all major you can just grab the 32-bit or distros include a useful command 64-bit tarball, extract it and there line tool for monitoring system you have it: websocketd. (Of course, Here’s the standard output for vmstat – not very interesting, right? resource usage: vmstat. Enter if you’re especially security vmstat 1 in a terminal window and conscious, you can compile it from copy the aforementioned you’ll see a regularly updating (once its source code.) websocketd into the same place. per second) bunch of statistics, Next, clone the Web VMStat Git Then just enter: showing CPU usage, free RAM, repository (or grab the Zip file and ./run swap usage and so forth. It’s all extract it). Go into the directory and And that’s it – Web VMStat has very useful, but it has one major started an HTTP server on port problem: it’s ugly. Very ugly. Sure, “Web VMStat is a way to keep an 9231, so you can access that in most admins don’t care about your browser (eg http:// fancy bells and whistles, but the eye on servers on your network localhost:9231). Straight away, information could be presented in a without having to log into them.” you’ll see that the charts are more readable and clean fashion. smooth and silky, with processes, CPU, memory, IO and swap usage depicted. Hover your mouse over the numbers for more detailed descriptions. In all, Web VMStat is a simple way to keep an eye on servers on your network without having to log in to them. You could create a bookmark group for a bunch of machines, for instance, and open them up in tabs for a quick glance of how they’re performing. And all the information is gathered by the ‘real’ vmstat tool, With Web VMStat, so you know it’s legit. resource usage is shown in a much clearer and prettier manager. PROJECT WEBSITE Look at the smooth https://github.com/joewalnes/ web-vmstats curves! 68 www.linuxvoice.com FOSSPICKS Operating system NetBSD 6.1.4 ack on page 38, our FAQ understanding it. Some terminology looked at the BSD family of in the BSD world is considerably Boperating systems, so different though: for instance, hard hopefully that has whetted your drive devices tend to be called wd0 appetite sufficiently to try one. We (for the first), wd1 (for the second) thought we’d look at NetBSD here. and so forth. It’s the most ported of the BSDs, Also, NetBSD installations running on over 50 hardware normally use one large primary platforms (www.netbsd.org/ports). partition on the hard drive, which is “Big wow”, you might say. “Linux then split up into sub-partitions for runs on everything from root (/), the home directories, swap supercomputers to wristwatches”. space and so forth. The installer True – but many of these ports provides plenty of help about this, Although NetBSD’s base are in unofficial source code but if you’re unsure, run through the something, it’s almost certainly system is very minimal, branches, not always remaining installation in a virtual machine you can spruce it up covered in the extensive guide at up-to-date with the mainline kernel. before trying it on a real box! with most common www.netbsd.org/docs/guide/en/ In NetBSD, everything is built from desktop apps included index.html. the same source tree, and this often Bare-bones setup in Linux distributions. Try entering startx to fire up the X helps with the overall stability and After the first boot from the hard Window System; if that fails, these security of the OS. drive, you can log in as root with no commands (as root) should help by Anyway, NetBSD for x86 and password. NetBSD is in a very bare providing a fresh X configuration: x86-64 is available in CD ISO (eg state here, but fortunately there’s an X -configure NetBSD-6.1.4-i386.iso) and USB excellent manual page describing mv xorg.conf.new /etc/X11/xorg.conf flash drive (NetBSD-6.1.4-i386- the next steps to take. Enter man After running startx now, you’ll install.img.gz) formats. For the afterboot and you’ll see a helpful land at a completely unremarkable former you can write it to a CD-R guide to changing the root TWM desktop. NetBSD doesn’t try and boot it on a real machine, or try password, setting up a normal user to second guess what you want, it in VirtualBox. The latter can be account, configuring the network however, so you can start adding written to a flash drive with the (enabling DHCP on boot) and so on. applications like so: usual dd command (see http:// Documentation in the BSD family is export PKG_PATH=”http://ftp.netbsd.org/ tinyurl.com/bsdusbinstall). largely superb, and if the afterboot pub/pkgsrc/packages/NetBSD/i386/6.1.4/ When you boot it up, you’ll see a page doesn’t help you with All/” text mode installer akin to those of pkg_add -v xfce4 firefox24 Debian and Slackware. It’s menu “In NetBSD everything is built from Again, check out the superb driven, so it’s a bit simpler to online guide for more information. navigate than the installer in the same source tree, which helps OpenBSD, and experienced Linux PROJECT WEBSITE with stability and security.” www.netbsd.org users won’t have major troubles How it works: Installing NetBSD 1 Boot 2 Choose sets 3 Finish Boot your PC or VM from the CD or USB key, You’ll be asked which ‘sets’ should be installed. After you’ve partitioned the drive (you can give and a bunch of green NetBSD kernel messages will These are groups of software, such as development NetBSD the whole disk for simplicity’s sake), the OS whizz by. After a few moments, you’ll arrive at the tools and the X Window System – in most cases, it’s files will be copied over, and you can reboot into your installer; use the cursor keys and Enter to navigate. best to choose Full Installation. shiny new installation. www.linuxvoice.com 69 FOSSPICKS Prettified classic window manager FVWM-Crystal 3.3.2 ant mode activated: there’s that there’s a program launcher bar a lot of NIH (Not Invented in the top-left, workspace switcher RHere) syndrome in the in the top-middle, and taskbar along software development world. Too the bottom. Right-click on the many programmers would rather desktop and a terminal window will write something from scratch just appear. The program launcher has to say they’ve done it, than use or a series of icons that open improve a mature and existing submenus for different categories project. Nobody has the right to of applications, while the crystal dictate how FOSS developers button in the far top-left has a menu spend their time, but we like to see for tweaking FVWM’s settings. FVWM-Crystal takes the people working more constructively, If you’re used to graphical dialogs Much of the documentation for ultra configurability of reducing duplicated effort. for configuring every part of your FVWM and puts a shiny the FVWM applies to FVWM-Crystal, So we love FVWM-Crystal: it’s a desktop, you might find FVWM- layer on top. and on the FVWM-Crystal website gorgeous, shiny and functional Crystal somewhat limiting – you you’ll see that the Documentation desktop that hasn’t written have to spend a lot of time poking tab holds some resources such as everything from the ground up. No, around in text files. On the other an FAQ and tips page. (If you want instead it uses FVWM, one of the hand, this makes it somewhat to see what a standard FVWM setup oldest (and ugliest) window easier to back up and move your looks like, just choose it from your managers in existence. configuration across multiple login screen, it will be installed via FVWM-Crystal takes this machines, so once you’ve fine- the FVWM-Crystal package.) venerable WM and adds layers of tuned everything to perfection, you polish. When you start it, you’ll can keep your desktop pixel-perfect PROJECT WEBSITE http://fvwm-crystal.sourceforge.net notice (in the default configuration) regardless of your distro. Command progress viewer Cv 0.4 ou might not have heard of run make and make install (the Coreutils before, but it’s an latter as root) inside the directory. Yessential part of every major Now run a few commands that will Linux distribution.