Saturday, February 13, 2010
Class notes on: "The Cathedral and the Bazaar."
The "cathedral vs. the bazaar", also known as CatB, is an essay on software engineering methods by Eric S. Raymond (from Wikipedia, "The Cathedral and the Bazaar"). The essay describes two contrasting free software development models: Cathedral (in which source code is available with each software release, but not code developed between releases, which is restricted), and Bazaar (in which source code is developed over the internet). The author's main point of the essay is that bugs in a given code are discovered and remedied much more readily when the developing source code is widely available to public scrutiny, as in the Bazaar model. (As opposed to the Cathedral model, which is much less open to public scrutiny and testing during closed development.) The author's arguments helped instigate a move in existing open source/freeware projects to Bazaar-style open development models, including some projects which had previously been more Cathedral-style. A full (open publication license) text of the essay is available online at http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Chapter 8, Linux GUIs: X, GNOME, and KDE.
1. Regarding Konqueror the file manager:
a. What is Konqueror? Konqueror is a Linux desktop tool, part of the KDE GUI, which is an integrated web browser and file manager.
b. List 4 things you can do with Konqueror? Browse the internet, manage files, view files, and run programs.
c. How do you use Konqueror to search for a file? By clicking on the Home icon on the main panel or by double-clicking the Trash icon on the workspace, then you just type in the file name and press ENTER/RETURN.
2. What is a terminal emulator? What does it allow you to do from a GUI that you would not be able to do without one? A terminal emulator allows a user access to a text terminal, such as a command line interface (CLI). With it you can directly access a computer operating system through it's shell (by way of a GUI), which you could not otherwise normally do with a GUI.
3. What is klipper? How do you use it to cut and paste text? Klipper is a cut-and-paste utility that is part of the KDE GUI. Klipper is typically on by default when you log in, but if not it can be turned on through the Main menu: Run Command, by entering klipper and clicking Run. When you highlight text, klipper copies the text to a buffer. you can then click on the clipboard klipper icon or press CONTROL-ALT-V to display a list of what klipper is holding in it's buffers. Click the line of text you want to paste, then move the mouse pointer where you want to insert the text and middle-click. In the command line interface, text automatically pastes to the location of the cursor.
4. a. What is Nautilus? Nautilus is the GNOME GUI file manager.
b. List two ways you can open a file using Nautilus. By double-clicking a filename or file icon, or by right-clicking the icon or filename and selecting Open from the pop-up menu.
c. How does Nautilus "know" which program to use to open different types of files? It figures out the file's MIME type (which consists of the MIME group and MIME subtype). This describes how many file types are to be handled. The MIME type is typically found and first looked for within a file's contents, via a unique file type identifying "magic number" that is in the first 512 bytes of a binary file. If that method fails, Nautilus uses the filename extension (such as image/jpeg) of the file in question to decide what program to use for opening the file.
d. What are three commonly used Nautilus control bars? What kind of tools do you find on each? Menubar, toolbar, and location bar. The menubar has a drop-down menu when one of its available options is clicked, with the available options depending on what is displayed by Nautilus in the View pane. The toolbar has navigation tool icons that can be clicked on to move back, forward, go up, stop, reload, go home, go to computer, and search. Buttons on the location bar show the pathname of the view pane displayed directory, as well the magnification selector and the View as drop-down list.
e. Discuss the use of the Nautilus location bar. Pressing CONTROL-L displays a text box in the location bar, where you can specify a local directory you want to display in the View pane. When the absolute pathway is entered, the contents of the directory is displayed. The magnification selector plus or minus signs can be clicked to zoom the View pane display in or out. Clicking the magnification percentage display itself returns to 100 percent magnification. Viewing options can be displayed and chosen from by clicking View as.
a. What is Konqueror? Konqueror is a Linux desktop tool, part of the KDE GUI, which is an integrated web browser and file manager.
b. List 4 things you can do with Konqueror? Browse the internet, manage files, view files, and run programs.
c. How do you use Konqueror to search for a file? By clicking on the Home icon on the main panel or by double-clicking the Trash icon on the workspace, then you just type in the file name and press ENTER/RETURN.
2. What is a terminal emulator? What does it allow you to do from a GUI that you would not be able to do without one? A terminal emulator allows a user access to a text terminal, such as a command line interface (CLI). With it you can directly access a computer operating system through it's shell (by way of a GUI), which you could not otherwise normally do with a GUI.
3. What is klipper? How do you use it to cut and paste text? Klipper is a cut-and-paste utility that is part of the KDE GUI. Klipper is typically on by default when you log in, but if not it can be turned on through the Main menu: Run Command, by entering klipper and clicking Run. When you highlight text, klipper copies the text to a buffer. you can then click on the clipboard klipper icon or press CONTROL-ALT-V to display a list of what klipper is holding in it's buffers. Click the line of text you want to paste, then move the mouse pointer where you want to insert the text and middle-click. In the command line interface, text automatically pastes to the location of the cursor.
4. a. What is Nautilus? Nautilus is the GNOME GUI file manager.
b. List two ways you can open a file using Nautilus. By double-clicking a filename or file icon, or by right-clicking the icon or filename and selecting Open from the pop-up menu.
c. How does Nautilus "know" which program to use to open different types of files? It figures out the file's MIME type (which consists of the MIME group and MIME subtype). This describes how many file types are to be handled. The MIME type is typically found and first looked for within a file's contents, via a unique file type identifying "magic number" that is in the first 512 bytes of a binary file. If that method fails, Nautilus uses the filename extension (such as image/jpeg) of the file in question to decide what program to use for opening the file.
d. What are three commonly used Nautilus control bars? What kind of tools do you find on each? Menubar, toolbar, and location bar. The menubar has a drop-down menu when one of its available options is clicked, with the available options depending on what is displayed by Nautilus in the View pane. The toolbar has navigation tool icons that can be clicked on to move back, forward, go up, stop, reload, go home, go to computer, and search. Buttons on the location bar show the pathname of the view pane displayed directory, as well the magnification selector and the View as drop-down list.
e. Discuss the use of the Nautilus location bar. Pressing CONTROL-L displays a text box in the location bar, where you can specify a local directory you want to display in the View pane. When the absolute pathway is entered, the contents of the directory is displayed. The magnification selector plus or minus signs can be clicked to zoom the View pane display in or out. Clicking the magnification percentage display itself returns to 100 percent magnification. Viewing options can be displayed and chosen from by clicking View as.
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