artemn@artemn-laptop:~$ cat /etc/passwd | awk '{print length, $0}' | sort -n | awk '{$1=""; print $0 }'

bin:x:2:2:bin:/bin:/bin/sh
sys:x:3:3:sys:/dev:/bin/sh
root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash
proxy:x:13:13:proxy:/bin:/bin/sh
mail:x:8:8:mail:/var/mail:/bin/sh
lp:x:7:7:lp:/var/spool/lpd:/bin/sh
sync:x:4:65534:sync:/bin:/bin/sync
ntp:x:110:120::/home/ntp:/bin/false
daemon:x:1:1:daemon:/usr/sbin:/bin/sh
ftp:x:111:65534::/home/ftp:/bin/false
games:x:5:60:games:/usr/games:/bin/sh
klog:x:102:103::/home/klog:/bin/false
man:x:6:12:man:/var/cache/man:/bin/sh
irc:x:39:39:ircd:/var/run/ircd:/bin/sh
dhcp:x:100:101::/nonexistent:/bin/false
news:x:9:9:news:/var/spool/news:/bin/sh
saned:x:120:131::/home/saned:/bin/false
syslog:x:101:102::/home/syslog:/bin/false
uucp:x:10:10:uucp:/var/spool/uucp:/bin/sh
backup:x:34:34:backup:/var/backups:/bin/sh
www-data:x:33:33:www-data:/var/www:/bin/sh
libuuid:x:112:121::/var/lib/libuuid:/bin/sh
messagebus:x:103:109::/var/run/dbus:/bin/false
nobody:x:65534:65534:nobody:/nonexistent:/bin/sh
sshd:x:109:65534::/var/run/sshd:/usr/sbin/nologin
Debian-exim:x:117:128::/var/spool/exim4:/bin/false
artemn:x:1000:1000:artemn,,,:/home/artemn:/bin/bash
list:x:38:38:Mailing List Manager:/var/list:/bin/sh
mysql:x:119:130:MySQL Server,,,:/var/lib/mysql:/bin/false
gdm:x:108:118:Gnome Display Manager:/var/lib/gdm:/bin/false
hplip:x:104:7:HPLIP system user,,,:/var/run/hplip:/bin/false
pulse:x:113:123:PulseAudio daemon,,,:/var/run/pulse:/bin/false
polkituser:x:114:127:PolicyKit,,,:/var/run/PolicyKit:/bin/false
avahi:x:106:114:Avahi mDNS daemon,,,:/var/run/avahi-daemon:/bin/false
asterisk:x:118:129:Asterisk PBX daemon,,,:/var/lib/asterisk:/bin/false
gnats:x:41:41:Gnats Bug-Reporting System (admin):/var/lib/gnats:/bin/sh
haldaemon:x:107:116:Hardware abstraction layer,,,:/home/haldaemon:/bin/false
landscape:x:115:65534:Landscape Client Daemon,,,:/var/lib/landscape:/bin/false
avahi-autoipd:x:105:113:Avahi autoip daemon,,,:/var/lib/avahi-autoipd:/bin/false
chipcard:x:116:119:Chipcard-Tools Daemon Account,,,:/var/run/chipcard:/bin/false

For reverse sort, use the following command:

cat /etc/passwd | awk '{print length, $0}' | sort -rn | awk '{$1=""; print $0 }'

Source: www.opennet.ru

]]> http://www.linuxscrew.com/2008/12/23/christmas%e2%80%a6-linux%e2%80%a6-wallpapers%e2%80%a6/feed/ 12 http://www.linuxscrew.com/2008/10/10/the-manga-guide-to-databases/ http://www.linuxscrew.com/2008/10/10/the-manga-guide-to-databases/#comments Fri, 10 Oct 2008 13:53:55 +0000 artiomix http://www.linuxscrew.com/2008/10/10/the-manga-guide-to-databases/ Just came across one amusing book… Here is what Mana Takahashi (the author) says:

Princess Ruruna is stressed out. With the king and queen away, she has to manage the Kingdom of Kod’s humongous fruit-selling empire. Overseas departments, scads of inventory, conflicting prices, and so many customers! It’s all such a confusing mess. But a mysterious book and a helpful fairy promise to solve her organizational problems—with the practical magic of databases.

In The Manga Guide to Databases, Tico the fairy teaches the Princess how to simplify her data management. We follow along as they design a relational database, understand the entity-relationship model, perform basic database operations, and delve into more advanced topics. Once the Princess is familiar with transactions and basic SQL statements, she can keep her data timely and accurate for the entire kingdom. Finally, Tico explains ways to make the database more efficient and secure, and they discuss methods for concurrency and replication.

Examples and exercises (with answer keys) help you learn, and an appendix of frequently used SQL statements gives the tools you need to create and maintain full-featured databases.

By the way, does anybody know where to buy manga illustrated guide to MPLS (Multiprotocol Label Switching)?

Thanks to Matt from besttechie.net forum.

A: Well… You can use Pizza Party application written by Cory Arcangel and Michael Frumin! Here are some features this outstanding application provides:

• Can order pizza with only a few keystrokes.
• Can save pizza preferences.
• Can use batch files for ordering many pizzas.
• Has easy to use flags for ordering different toppings.
• Runs on most UNIX-like operating systems.
• Supports most currently popular topings like “mushrooms”, and “pepperoni”!
• Unattended / background operation.
• Pizza Party is distributed under the GNU General Public License.

Download Pizza Party’s initial source code here and python ported version from this link.

P.S. This portion of Friday humour is provided by Royal HeHe2-ness!

found at http://17outs.com/.

Microsoft has a majority market share in the new desktop PC marketplace. This is a bug, which Ubuntu is designed to fix.

Non-free software is holding back innovation in the IT industry, restricting access to IT to a small part of the world’s population and limiting the ability of software developers to reach their full potential, globally. This bug is widely evident in the PC industry.

Steps to repeat:
1. Visit a local PC store.

What happens:
2. Observe that a majority of PCs for sale have non-free software pre-installed.
3. Observe very few PCs with Ubuntu and free software pre-installed.

What should happen:
1. A majority of the PCs for sale should include only free software like Ubuntu.
2. Ubuntu should be marketed in a way such that its amazing features and benefits would be apparent and known by all.
3. The system shall become more and more user friendly as time passes.

No jokes, here is permanent link to this at launchpad. I strongly recommend to read the comments (selectively) at least in order to watch how Open Source world changed since 2004…

Yesterday Linux Screw has an opportunity to test both and the results were demonstrated at the Annual Bread Valley Conference at Jan 17 2008 in Texas, USA. Reactions were mixed as Heatu Linux 9.06 and Windows VTT went head-to-head.

Windows VTT 2008 Starter Edition

The first product of its new Microsoft Kitchen(tm) brand, Windows VTT is designed to make bread toasting more user-friendly. A Microsoft press release started, “The complications and hassle associated with the production of grilled bread products that made them inaccessible to the end user have been removed with the release of Windows VTT. Just plug in a slice and play”.

Windows VTT 2008 natively contains drivers for toasters that are based on many heat-generating processors like latest AMToast and new Core Toast Duo. Other toasters may be used with special drivers included into upcoming Toasting Plus! pack. Microsoft recommends that VTT 2007 only be used with MS SlicedBread(tm). A Microsoft spokesman said, “VTT still contains a few issues that make it incompatible with other brands. We should have a service pack to resolve these problems within six months”.

The VTT demonstrations faced several setbacks. One of the toasters were actually exploded, causing the fire alarms to go off. In addition, several toasters produced bread that was burned on one side but cold on the other. Finally, several times VTT crashed while toasting and had to be rebooted. Every time that happened the toaster hung up or toasters has typical blue color.

Heatu Linux 9.06

Heatu 9.06 is completely different than VTT. Whereas VTT comes pre-installed on many portable toasters (laptoasts also), Heantu must be downloaded from the heatu.com or purchased on CD/DVD and then installed on the toaster. Installation, however, is fairly easy, and Heatu works on a variety of machines and configurations. A few proprietary toasters are not supported (such as the I2O-Toast-a-Matic) because the specifications are still not available.

The greatest feature of Dainty Toast (Heatu 9.06) is its multi-user format. Each user can customize what kind of toast they want, and Heatu will retain the settings for future sessions. This, however, requires each user to log in. On the plus side, Heatu can produce toast for several users at once.

Linux Screw team was impressed with the Dainty Toast testing results. The toasters didn’t crash, didn’t explode, and always produced perfectly toasted bread. However, some users were concerned about easy-to-use of Linux command line. Onlookers were impressed after XToast GUI System was shown, one man even lost consciousness when Toastiz window manager effects were demonstrated.

Reactions

While Heatu Linux was more popular, many people expressed a preference for Windows VTT. “VTT is backed by Microsoft, what is Heatu backed by? What if something goes wrong with Heatu?” an executive for a bread company asked. A columnist who had just flown in from the Atlanta Pundit Showcase said, “Windows VTT is yet another innovative Microsoft product. Microsoft will revolutionize the kitchen appliance industry and bring computerized appliances to the masses.”

Nevertheless, Dainty Toast had a clear edge on VTT. One attendee clutching a Heatu 9.06 CD-ROM said, “Not only is Heatu free, but it’s also more stable and powerful. I know what I’m going to be using at home.” Another person said, “Did you see how that one Windows toaster exploded? Wow! I can see where they got the name VTT.” Finally, after taste testing the bread from Windows VTT, a college student gagged and said, “Yuck! This is awful. Windows ‘Plug-and-Play’ technology should be called ‘Plug-and-Burn’.”

NAME

condom — protects against viruses and prevents of child processes

SYNOPSIS

condom [options] [processid]

DESCRIPTION

condom provides protection against System Transmitted Viruses (STVs) that may invade your system. Although the spread of such viruses across a network can only be abated by aware and cautious users, condom is the only highly effective means of preventing viruses from entering your system (see celibacy(1)). Any data passed to condom by the protected process will be blocked, as specified by the value of the -s option (see OPTIONS below).

When used alone or in conjunction with pill(1), sponge(1), foam(1), and/or setiud(3), condom also prevents the conception of a child process. If invoked from within a synchronous process, condom has, by default, an 80% chance of preventing the external processes from becoming parent processes (see the -s option below). When other process contraceptives are used, the chance of preventing a child process from being forked becomes much greater. See pill(1), sponge(1), foam(1), setiud(3) for more information.

If no options are given, the current user’s login process (as determined by the environment variable USER) is protected with a Trojan rough-cut latex condom without a reservoir tip. The optional “processid” argument is an integer specifying the process to protect.

NOTE: condom may only be used with a hard disk. condom will terminate abnormally with exit code -1 if used with a floppy disk (see DIAGNOSTICS below).

OPTIONS

The following options may be given to condom:

-b brand

brands are as follows:

trojan (default)
ramses
sheik
goldcoin
fourex

-m material
The valid materials are:

latex (default)
saranwrap
membrane

WARNING! The membrane option is not endorsed by the System Administrator General as an effective barrier against certain viruses. It is supported only for the sake of tradition.

-f flavor
The following flavors are currently supported:

plain (default)
apple
banana
cherry
cinnamon
licorice
orange
peppermint
raspberry
spearmint
strawberry

-r Toggle reservoir tip (default is no reservoir tip)

-s strength
strength is an integer between 20 and 100 specifying the resilience of condom against data passed to condom by the protected process. Using a larger value of strength increases condom’s protective abilities, but also reduces interprocess communication. A smaller value of strength increases interprocess communication, but also increases the likelihood of a security breach. An extremely vigorous process or one passing an enormous amount of data to condom will increase the chance of condom’s failure. The default strength is 80%.

-t texture
Valid textures are:

rough (default)
ribbed
bumps
lubricated
(provides smoother interaction between processes)

WARNING! The use of an external application to condom in order to reduce friction between processes has been proven in benchmark tests to decrease condom’s strength factor! If execution speed is important to your process, use the “-t lubricated” option.

DIAGNOSTICS

condom terminates with one of the following exit codes:

-1: An attempt was made to use condom on a floppy disk.

0: condom exited successfully (no data was passed to the synchronous process).

1: condom failed and data was allowed through. The danger of transmission of an STV or the forking of a child process is inversely proportional to the number of other protections employed and is directly proportional to the ages of the processes involved.

BUGS

condom is NOT 100% effective at preventing a child process from being forked or at deterring the invasion of a virus (although the System Administrator General has deemed that condom is the most effective means of preventing the spread of system transmitted viruses).

See celibacy(1) for information on a 100% effective program for preventing these problems.

Remember, the use of sex(1) and other related routines should only occur between mature, consenting processes. If you must use sex(1), please employ condom to protect your process and your synchronous process. If we are all responsible, we can stop the spread of STVs.

AUTHORS and HISTORY

The original version of condom was released in Roman times and was only marginally effective. With the advent of modern technology, condom now supports many more options and is much more effective.

The current release of condom was written by Ken Maupin at the University of Washington (maupin@cs.washington.edu) and was last updated on 10/7/92.

SEE ALSO

celibacy(1), sex(1), pill(1), sponge(1), foam(1), setiud(3)