FOSSPICKS Sparkling gems and new releases from the world of FOSSpicks Free and Open Source Software Hunting snarks is for amateurs – Ben Everard spends his time in the long grass, stalking the hottest, free-est Linux software around. Web-based database management PHPMyAdmin HPMyAdmin may sound like most distros have a package for a tool for administering PHP, PHPMyAdmin, though this might not Pbut it’s not. It’s a front-end always be the latest version. for MySQL and MariaDB written in One of the big advantages of PHP. From creating databases and PHPMyAdmin is that it makes it tables, to backups, to finding easy for non-experts to manage particular pieces of data in the databases. Backing up and tables, PHPMyAdmin really can querying are probably the most perform just about everything you basic tasks, and these are easily need to do on a database, but for performed provided you know a bit anything that’s not directly about databases. The search tool supported, there’s an SQL interface works as an SQL query builder, so it The cities of the world displayed in PHPMyAdmin’s GIS data view on the web page. helps you learn SQL as you use it. In on top of an OpenStreetMap outline. Unsurprisingly given the name, fact, the whole PHPMyAdmin PHPMyAdmin runs on top of a As well as general database LAMP stack, so if you’ve already got tools, there’s a range of tools to help this installed, then getting “PHPMyAdmin really can perform you visualise data including GIS PHPMyAdmin is just a case of just about everything you need to (geographical) data map overlays, downloading it and unzipping it various chart-drawing tools, and somewhere in the webroot. do on a database.” image viewers. Configuring PHPMyAdmin can be There are also plenty of features a little more awkward. This is either interface is closely tied to SQL, so for advanced users. The profiling done by hand, or by moving config. it’s easy to transfer your skills both options can help you optimise the inc.php into a config folder and ways. If you learn in PHPMyAdmin, it performance of queries, and just using the web-based script. Full can be easy to pick up SQL, and if about everything can be tweaked details are on the project’s website you already know SQL, you should so it works the way you want it. at http://docs.phpmyadmin.net/ find it easy to get started with There’s even an advisor that tries to en/latest/setup.html. Alternatively, PHPMyAdmin. highlight potential performance problems and solutions. The server monitoring tools can then help you tell how effective any optimisations have been. If you’re building your database from scratch, there’s also a relational designer tool to help you create or amend a schema, and see how the keys are set up. We can’t recommend this tool highly enough. You can try out a live demo of PHPMyAdmin without installing at http://demo.phpmyadmin.net. PHPMyAdmin isn’t the best-looking HTML interface, but it is themeable if you PROJECT WEBSITE www.phpmyadmin.net prefer a different colour scheme. 70 www.linuxvoice.com FOSSPICKS Online collaborative text editor Etherpad therpad is an online notepad It’s this collaboration focus that for real-time collaboration. makes it an invaluable tool for EThat means you can work many open source projects. with people on a single text You can view a time-slider of how document and see what each other the document has developed, and is doing as you’re doing it. Originally, the contributions by different Etherpad was closed source, and people show up in different colours. Google bought the company There’s also an in-built chat function producing the software with the to help you communicate with the aim of including it in the ill-fated other people editing the document. Google Wave. Now Etherpad is open source, and is hosted in thousands Collaboration tool The minimalist interface of places both public and private. If you need more features, there are Etherpad instances that are forces you to focus on Etherpad is based around what it plenty of plugins to provide the content, not the available, such as Wikimedia’s calls ‘pads’, which is just another everything from spellchecking to application. (https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/), name for text documents. These printing to turning the pad into a or Mozilla’s (https://etherpad. can be quickly created, and shared collaborative development mozilla.org). There’s even a public between users using just the URL. environment. You can see a full list pad hosted as a Tor hidden service Slightly confusingly, there were of available options at https:// at https://5jp7xtmox6jyoqd5. once two pieces of software, one github.com/ether/etherpad-lite/ onion/. You’ll find a list of public called Etherpad and another called wiki/Plugin,-a-list. pads on the Etherpad site at https:// Etherpad-lite. The original Etherpad is github.com/ether/etherpad-lite/ now defunct, and Etherpad-lite is wiki/Sites-that-run-Etherpad-Lite. commonly known as Etherpad “The main focus of Etherpad Each site has different terms of use, (though you may still see the -lite is on collaboration rather than and some delete pads after a suffix in some filenames). certain amount of time, so always The main focus of the app is on word processing.” take a look at the terms and collaboration rather than word conditions before hosting important processing, so the stylistic options JavaScript is used both for the work anywhere. are quite limited. You can use bold, interface and the back-end (via If you already run a site based on italic, lists, alignments and a few Node.js).Keeping everything in one a popular CMS such as WordPress other basic functions, but not language is useful for development, or Drupal, you should be able to find The Etherpad API is well much. In some ways, you can think but does mean that it won’t run on documented, so a plugin to integrate Etherpad into of it a bit like a stripped down, a normal LAMP stack. If you don’t interacting with it your website. There’s also an HTTP open-source version of Google want to install Node, you can should be API so you can interact with it from Docs, or perhaps a real-time wiki. always use one of the many public straightforward. almost any software. Along with the usual bugfixes and UI improvements, the big improvements in the latest version (1.5 aka Turkey Slayer) are full import and export support (including to word processor formats such as Microsoft’s DOC and the open source ODF), and support for sharding to help scaling to large numbers of users. The new export functions alone are enough for 1.5 to be a worthy upgrade for anyone already running Etherpad, and make it even more attractive to new users. PROJECT WEBSITE http://etherpad.org www.linuxvoice.com 71 FOSSPICKS Shell script paralleliser Gnu Parallel 20141122 odern computers have thread, you could launch new many CPU cores, but threads for each unzipping. This Mquite a lot of command would run across many CPU cores, line utilities were designed back but wouldn’t do so very intelligently: when most machines had only a for file in *.gz; do gunzip $file & done single core. This means that, by A more efficient option is to use default, they don’t fully utilise your Gnu Parallel. This intelligently hardware. There is a solution: Gnu spreads the load over all available Parallel. This isn’t a panacea that CPUs, and should run faster than makes single-threaded programs either of the previous examples. If you have a multi-core multi-threaded, but it load-balances Unzipping the files is done with: gnu.org/software/parallel/ CPU, your commands command line programs across parallel gunzip ::: *.gz should take full parallel_tutorial.html multiple CPU cores. advantage of it. Perhaps one of the most Imagine, for example, you have a Unleach the power! powerful features is the ability to directory with many gzipped files This is the simplest form of the split-run across multiple machines. that you want to unzip. The command, and is an easy This may be the simplest method simplest way of decompressing substitute for a for loop on files of utilising the processing power of them is with a simple for loop: when there’s quite a bit of a cluster of machines – perhaps a for file in *.gz; do gunzip $file; done processing to do. The three colons bunch of EC2 machines you’ve just However, this would run the simply split the command to run split up, or an office full of PCs that entire operation on a single CPU from the selector of the files. are unused overnight. core, which could be quite slow if Gnu Parallel has far more power you have a lot of zipped files. than this, and there’s a thorough PROJECT WEBSITE www.gnu.org/software/parallel Instead of running them on a single tutorial on the Gnu website at www. Source code management Git 2.2 ource code management This enables different people to may not be an exciting develop on different trees Ssubject to most people, but it simultaneously, then combine their can be a real hassle when it goes changes with minimal fuss, which badly, like when you can’t locate a is perfect when developers are change that broke something, or working on different features.