XSS-LOCK DISKIO WMSETI WMUFO WMFIRE WMLIFE WMINET WMTOP GKRELLM SKIN

Alan Swanson

Not so much a programmer, as someone who fiddles with things.

These are a few Linux and Unix programs plus some skins I've made, contributed or adjusted to suit myself. Not much original art work though: I'm just using whats available to make things that aren't! Any comments to me.

xscreensaver lock window themes

Replacement for ugly password lock window.

xss-lock-theme-1.1.patch

old versions

themes & instructions

Updated: 27 Jun 2005

XScreenSaver is a ubiquitous program on Unix for preventing the pixels of your monitor from burning in, providing pretty animations and providing password protection. However, the default lock window used for password protection is bloody ugly.

The author of XScreenSaver has an explanation on why toolkits like GTK and QT are not used for the lock window and I'd agree with his points. However, why not have a built-in theme that is secure?

So what I'm providing here is a framework for creating built-in themes. (Note that themes are not run time changeable - only one can be included at any time.) The default theme is shown the above screenshot and other themes are available in the themes page. Creating a new theme requires some graphical talent (of which I have none) for the frame and logo and some programming experience if you wish to adjust the interior. Please feel free to submit themes and I will include them on the theme page.

Notes: Version 1.1 patches XScreenSaver 4.22 and perhaps newer versions. (One easily fixable hunk failure against 4.21.)
Notes: Version 1.0 patches XScreenSaver 4.15 to 4.20 and perhaps older versions.

diskio patch

Linux kernel 2.4 patch - disk I/O.

patch-diskio-2.4.27-1

old versions

Updated: 21 Aug 2004

The 2.4.X kernel doesn't report disk IO in /proc/stat for any devices over either major 16 or minor 16. This inclues /dev/hdb and /dev/hdd. This patch changes the system from using a memory wasting array to a more intelligent list system. It is marginally more expensive in overhead processing for each disk IO.

PRO: Less memory required, faster /proc/stat, all block devices recorded.

CON: Timing critical section? Negligible for desktop user, and minimal impact for a server with umpteen SCSI arrays.

Since version 2.4.20 the kernel can now optionally report disk statistics in /proc/partitions for all drives and each individual partition. I'll still be keeping this patch upto date as I use it for GKrellM and for any other programs that use /proc/stat. To its advantage, reading /proc/stat uses much less overhead than reading /proc/partitions ten times a second.

Notes: The patch-diskio-2.4.27-1 file patches kernels 2.4.19 to 2.4.27
Notes: The patch-diskio-2.4.18-1 file patches kernels 2.4.14 to 2.4.18
Notes: Patch now supports DAC960, SMART2 and CISS devices if compiled as module or into kernel
Debian: Gordon Heydon has built a Debian package which can be found at http://www.heydon.com.au/... or apt-get deb-src http://www.heydon.com.au/debian unstable/

wmseti

For monitoring and the control of upto 10 SETI@home processes.

wmseti-1.0.3.tar.gz

old files

local files

Updated: 27 Feb 2003

For monitoring and the control of upto 10 SETI@home processes. It can display various statistics and can pause/continue or kill/run the program. It can be compiled with or without graphics showing alien faces coming out of the shadows as the workunit progresses, with a progress bar that is green for running, yellow for paused, and red when not running.

Statistics for display are;

[WMSETI..X] Title and current SETI directory where X=AB...
[12.34%..X] Progress as percentage where X is program status
[01:23:45.] Time spent on workunit
[01:23:45.] Time left before completion of workunit
[TX:...123] Number of workunits sent
[RX:...123] Number of workunits received (no longer updated, defunct)
[PID:.1234] PID of SETI@Home client
[=====----] Progess as a graphic bar
[PT:.12/34] Total CPU time contributed to SETI@home as years/days or days/hours

Controls available;

A left click changes between SETI@home directories
A middle click runs or kills the SETI@home client
A right click pauses or continues the SETI@home client
A left click on the top-left quarter changes to/from info text and alien (if compiled)
A left click on the bottom-left quarter of alien sets the progress bar on or off (if compiled)
A mouse wheel up or down changes to the next or previous directory.

Downloads and CVS are available at the SourceForge wmseti site. Downloads can also be found locally.

wmufo

Extra eye candy included.

wmufo-1.2.3.tar.gz

old files

local files

Updated: 4 Dec 2005

This is wmseti on steroids! This application contains the same statistic display as wmseti but with animation instead of alien faces. Imagine the above snapshots with a flowing starfield, a spinning saucer UFO and various alpha blended glowing ball UFOs travelling back and forth across the window.

The sprite routine is developed from wmfishtime which is a dock app with swimming fish, an anti-aliased analog clock, and alpha blended bubbles. While providing fluid animation the routine does not use up cpu time - much less than other dock apps using the wmgeneral library as it uses the GDK library (part of GTK) to draw complete buffers onto the screen rather than individually drawing each pixel. More is less!

Downloads and CVS are available at the SourceForge wmseti site. Downloads can also be found locally.

Changelog 1.2.3: Add sticky option and fix regression causing second window
Changelog 1.2.2: Fix for undocumented change in libgtop 2.8.0
Changelog 1.2.1: Fix memory leak, fix GTK 2.4 docking, move UFO's vertically when uploading or downloading workunits.

wmfire

Fiery dock app.

wmfire-1.2.3.tar.gz

old files

Updated: 4 Dec 2005

This is an update of the original wmfire dock applet. Like the wmufo program it uses the GDK library to improve its speed - using less than half the cpu of the original program.

It can monitor the average cpu load, or individual cpu load on SMP computers. Additionally it can monitor the memory, network load, a file or just be set to show a pretty flame. On entering the dock a burning spot replaces the cursor, and after two seconds symbols to represent the current monitor are "burnt" onscreen. The flame colour can also be changed.

Old versions (including the original XLIB version) can be found here.

Changelog 1.2.3: Add sticky option and fix regression causing second window
Changelog 1.2.2: Added file monitoring and GTK 2.4 docking fix
Changelog 1.2.1: Fix memory leak

wmlife

Life and death.

wmlife-1.0.0.tar.gz

old files

Updated: 22 Sep 2005

Wmlife is a dock app running Conway's Game of Life (and program launcher). Life is played on a grid of square cells where a cell can be either live or dead. In the rules, you count the number of live neighbours for each cell to determine whether a cell lives or dies;

Birth A dead cell with exactly three live neighbours becomes a live cell.
Survival A live cell with two or three live neighbours stays alive.
Overcrowding / Loneliness In all other cases, a cell dies or remains dead.

Normally Life is implemented on an infinite board but due to size restraints wmlife implements the grid as a torus. In a torus, the grid wraps at the edges from top to bottom and left to right.

Changelog: Initial release

wminet

Network connection monitor.

wminet-3.0.0.tar.gz

Updated: 22 Nov 2001

Very useful dock app for monitoring internet connections to and from your computer. The number of connections can be filtered based on local and remote addresses and ports, on either tcp or udp. It can also display hostname and number of processes.

This new version uses a lot less CPU and allows greater configuration. The original program can be found here. However, I have removed the ability to monitor httpd and ftpd processes, nfs mounts and lpd queues.