The love affair with freenx is over.... time to make the marriage work

It seems that not much survives contact with students!

Basically if the freenx session isn't correctly terminated or established then desktop processes and a nx process are left running to the server which will prevent them logging in again.

However I am not the first person to notice this:

PSI Labs who use the technology have developed a RPM of scripts to manage this properly called nxcleanup. A user session has the standard number of processes for the desktop however there is an associated nx process that the student doesn't own. So the script nxclean would need to be run as root.

How do I enable a student to run a script as root that wipes out processes of an arbitary user?

Simple: Use a setuid "shim"! Write a trivial C program that takes no inputs (or has very, very thorough sanity checking!) which identifies the current user using posix calls and then exec's the script after passing it the current username. Nifty eh? This is a standard way of making scripts run safely as root. I'll post it as soon as I am done.

NX Technology Makes Remote X Possible

I implemented NX technology on our linux CAD servers some time ago.

NX has enabled a whole distance learning class from America using some really poorly coded CAD tools (some are windows GUIs run under emulation).

It made it like using them over the LAN!

If you have remote UNIX application needs then please consider this technology.

I am more than happy to consult on your CAD architectures.

AVR Studio and WinAVR as C teaching tools...

AVR Studio when run in combination with WinAVR (packaging avr gcc, avr-libc and all the other gubbins) provides an awesome 1st learning environment for people learning C for the first time

• Completely free, for students and staff
  
• Traffic light graphical message highlights: Green spots next to messages when things went right, yellow for warnings and red for errors. Instantly understandable!
• Graphical indication of the current location in the program with autostep to move step by step through the program - outlines the flow immediately.
• Processor window showing the program counter, cycle counter (how much time has your program taken?). Turning ints to floats added 4000 cycles to a simple test program.
• Internal processor registers very visible
• I/O View graphically highlights ports and pins with a row of 8 squares which are filled when the bit is set. Instant graphical Hex to Binary

I really think that this is an ideal learning environment, not too big and not too small.

Router Resurrection....

Just fixed a Linksys BEFSR41 v2. Seems that the power brick had a standard cylinder DC plug however the central bore was about 1mm larger than the socket's central pin. I originally thought that I just had a 3rd party powerbrick, however a colleague of mine recognised the router and explained that it was a similar problem for him. Maybe a dodgy batch? Anyway the DC socket was a standard part, the warranty was void through age anyway so a cheap replacement, £1.11, has fixed the problem.

Better than new.

Firefox disrespecting your download preferences on MacOSX?

On OSX (Apple Macintosh Leopard, 10.5) does firefox ignore your download directory and constantly dump files on the desktop? Does your desktop get incredibly cluttered?

In all likelihood you have updated to the version of OSX you have now. And it has left behind a piece that is ruining your day: ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.internet.plist

Copy this to your Desktop, download something and test it out. You should suddenly find that the firefox is honoring its preference.

ESSCIRC Summary...

Sorry for the lack of daily updates. What can I say? Every day was an 8:30 start, finishing at 18:00 sometimes. This is without anyone leaving in the sessions I was in, which if you have ever been to a conference is really unusual.

An interesting combination of academic, student and company presentation. Interestingly the companies typically showed much more finished products.

Anyway it was really well worth the visit (not to mention the whiskey tasting or the visit to murrayfield....)

Cadence Encounter SEGV on start faults cured III

It is the fonts. I had similar segv crashes using X on windows without the fixed and misc fonts installed. Seems Cadence likes its traditional X client setup. Now I just need to diagnose what font packages I haven't installed / installed in the wrong places.