Random thoughts, tips & tricks about Slackware-Linux, Lego and Star Wars

Archive for 2009

December 31st, 2009 by Niels Horn in , |

When Slackware released its first test version of Slackware64, I installed it on a separate partition to try it out. I was immediately impressed by the performance boost of some programs, especially some graphic programs I use.
Since I compile most programs that are not available on a standard Slackware installation from source, I didn't have [...]

December 31st, 2009 by Niels Horn in , , |

After some requests, I created a Slackware package with the lgeo parts library. It can be downloaded from my site.
If you prefer, you can download the library from the author's website and use the SlackBuild to create your own package.

December 25th, 2009 by Niels Horn in , |

I created an updated package with the LDRAW Library of Lego pieces that includes all parts up to September, 16th, 2009.
The "unix-complete" file from ldraw.org has not been updated for years, so this package was based on the Windows file "complete.zip" but can be used without any problems under Slackware.
As always, the package can be [...]

December 24th, 2009 by Niels Horn in , , ,

Some time ago I promised to give some basic instructions on how to create nice images of Lego constructions with POV-Ray on Linux. Now that Christmas is arriving, I finally found some time to convert my own instructions into something that can almost be called a "tutorial"
What will you need:

LeoCAD - to "build" [...]

December 21st, 2009 by Niels Horn in , |

For those who use LDView on Slackware-current and noticed that it suddenly stopped working: the problem is in the latest update of the "boost" library:
+---------+
Thu Dec 17 20:51:37 UTC 2009
…
l/boost-1.41.0-x86_64-1.txz: Upgraded.
This latest update does not include the *-mt (=multi-thread) libraries, as the "normal" version is already multi-threaded.
The solution to get LDView working again is simply [...]

November 30th, 2009 by Niels Horn in , |

Today (*) a new version of QComicBook was released - 0.5.0. The release announcement can be read on freshmeat.
I submitted a new SlackBuild script to SlackBuilds.org. The previous one, for version 0.4.4, won't work as the author has changed to using cmake.
If you can't wait for the SlackBuild to be approved, you can download complete [...]

November 29th, 2009 by Niels Horn in , , , , , |

I've been busy over the last few weeks evaluating some software to monitor servers, network utilization, etc. I have tested several programs and ended up using three: nagios, cacti, and ntop.
All of these are free & open software. For nagios and cacti you can download SlackBuild scripts from slackbuilds.org maintained by me. For cacti, if [...]

October 15th, 2009 by Niels Horn in , , |

If you like to read comic books you might know about the enormous collections of digitalized copies that float around the internet. Normally they are in '.cbr' or '.cbz' format, actually simple rar'd or zipped collections of images.
To read them on your computer, you can either unpack the file and use a standard image viewer, [...]

October 11th, 2009 by Niels Horn in , , ,

After exchanging a few e-mails with the author, I have managed to build Slackware packages for LeoCAD, both 32 and 64-bits versions.LeoCAD is a wonderful piece of software to create your own Lego constructions virtually on your computer - with an unlimited amount of pieces It can import and export LDR (LDraw) files, and [...]

October 6th, 2009 by Niels Horn in , , , |

Today I finished the Slackware packages for POV-Ray, the Persistence of Vision Raytracer, a fantastic free tool for creating stunning 3D images.It can be used also for creating beautiful images of your Lego creations. In a future post I might write a small "how-to" with step-by-step instructions, but here is a small example:
As always, the [...]