Free stuff

Comment

• Lowther driver replacement
• On bad coding
• Riello UPS battery replacement

How-tos

• Adding an icon for a Wine Application wrapper script.
• Adding disks to OS9.
• Anatomy of an eBay phishing scam.
• Getting started with Raspbian Linux.
• Linux upgrades
  • HDD or SSD?
  • Installing additional software.
  • Optimising the Linux upgrade process.
  • Printer types, printer families and CUPS
• Managing third party jar files
• Making the GRUB boot menu visible.
• Serial port access with UDEV.
• Writing a Wine Application wrapper script.

Information

• SSD: types and differences. How the way you handle them can impact the data they hold.

Open source projects.

Support libraries

Source in this section is released under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) version 3 so you can link these libraries with non-free modules.

• C environment support library. This is required by all C programs written by me unless the program description says otherwise. It started as a portability aid for moving programs between OS-9, DOS and Linux environments: the version for each platform implemented library functions I'd used on other platforms but were omitted from this one. This subsequently got extended to include functions I was reusing for most programs.
  Create a directory to receive the contents of these directories.
  • Linux version:
    • Note: that starting with version 1.9 I've discontinued publishing the binary form of this library.
    • environ_srce-1.10.tgz contains the source, makefiles, test harnesses and test data. It unpacks into the environ/* directory.
      See environ/doc/README for details of building and installing the library from source.
    • environ_docs-1.10.tgz contains the documentation. It unpacks into the environ/doc/* directory structure.
    • libenviron-1.10 is an online copy of the library documentation. It was generated with my Cdoc documentation tool.
  • DOS/Windows version for the DJGPP gcc port:
    • envdos-1.0.zip contains libenviron.a, headers and binary utility programs. It unpacks into the current directory. Follow the compiler documentation for guidance on where to put the various files.
    • envdos_docs-1.0.zip contains the documentation. It unpacks into the doc/* directory structure.
    • envdos_srce-1.0.zip contains the source, make files and test data. It unpacks into the environ/* directory.
    • envdos-1.0 is an online copy of the library documentation. It was generated with my Cdoc documentation tool.

Programs

Source in this section is released under the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL).

• bydate was written as a scriptable DOS/Windows utility to help a friend with managing an archive of datestamped files because manipulating filenames is far from an easy task in a BAT file. It was developed under Linux and the DOS/Windows version was compiled using the DJGPP gcc port. For more information, read the bydate manual page. Compiling it requires the C environment support library.
• Cdoc, an automatic documentation generator for C source programs.
• codes displays keystrokes as they are typed. It is useful for debugging terminfo and termcap entries. codes is released as a single zipped source file. It has no dependencies apart from standard C libraries. It was developed for Linux.
  NOTE that there may be anomalies when it is compiled for other operating systems. When compiled with the DJGPP port of gcc for DOS/Windows it returns LF for RETURN and zero for cursor control and Fn keys. It does not run under Wine.
• Huit is a configurable, modular emulator designed to run in the Linux environment. It is primarily intended to run TSC Flex2 and Flex09 programs while allowing them to access both native Linux files and files in Flex floppy disk images. Its capabilities can be extended by adding emulator modules for other MPUs and/or other Operating systems or ROM monitors. It is currently an incomplete work in progress.
• Test Harness is a system for using test scripts to run unit tests and regression testing on code modules. It currently exists in two versions. Both can be downloaded as gzipped tar files (.tgz):
  • The C version, in c_runtest.tgz, is designed to test sets of functions sharing a source module and the private variables they use to share data. The archive unpacks into a single directory called testharness, which includes the Makefile.
  • The Java version, in java_runtest.tgz, is designed to test a Class and the methods declared in it. The archive unpacks into two directories:
    • org/gregorie/runtest contains the RunTest and Custom classes. The latter is subclassed to test specific classes.
    • testprogs contains the Custom subclasses which provide call interfaces for the class and methods being tested.
• SerialPort for Java, provides Java applications with access to serial ports.
• Spamassassin support applications:
  • portmanteau is a tool easing the maintenance of Spamassassin rules which consist of very large lists of alternates. It does this by storing the rule definition in a form that's much easier to edit than it would be if it was written as a single very long line or split into a set of subrules plus a meta rule to combine them. It is a bash shell script that uses a gawk script to do the heavy lifting.
  • spamkiller 1.3.4 is a backend for Spamassassin or spamc. It deletes or quarantines mail messages that have been marked as spam and passes the rest to your MTA for delivery. It is a C program that requires the C environment support library version 1.4 or later. It is released as a tarball that unpacks to form the spamkiller/* directory structure. The tarball includes Perl scripts for logwatch. These monitor spamkiller's discards and report any errors it logs. It also includes scripts for managing and inspecting quarantined spam.
  • spamscan provides monitoring facilities for locally written rules. It is designed to add a spam statistics report to Logwatch. It can also be used to analyse the complete set of mail logs when deciding if any local rules have become redundant. The application is written in Perl and shell scripts. It is not dependent on any additional support packages. It is released as a tarball that unpacks to form the spamscan/* directory structure.