Category: Software

Building GNUCash on Debian

I’ve just been through hell to get the HEAD revision of GNU Cash to build and run on GNU/Debian … The problem was that GNUCash depends, amongst many other dependencies, on Guile and on the SLIB library for Guile.

If you want to save you some hours, use the following Debian packages (and stick to those versions !)


guile-1.6;1.6.8-6;The GNU extension language and Scheme interpreter
guile-1.6-dev;1.6.8-6;Development files for Guile 1.6
guile-1.6-libs;1.6.8-6;Main Guile libraries
guile-1.6-slib;1.6.8-6;Guile SLIB support
libguile-ltdl-1;1.6.8-6;Guile's patched version of libtool's libltdl
libqthreads-12;1.6.8-6;QuickThreads library for Guile
slib;3a4-4;Portable Scheme library

Good luck !

Linux – a decent picture viewer software ?

Today I write a blog entry to ask a question to the Linux users community. 

Which free (like ideas) picture viewer do you use ?

In former time, when I had this need, I would have used xv. But I guess this tool is considered history nowadays … nonetheless, I’m looking for something in the same spirit : letting me quickly and efficiently browse my pictures, no fancy editing capabilities wanted.So people, what do you use ? Any hint ?If that can narrow down the choices, I’m using Debian GNU/Linux 4.0.

Thanks in advance !

(I’m now going to let this post flow in social news websites and hope for good hints in the comments, and then I’ll update this post with the best suggestions I’ll get — thanks in advance !)

Take typing lessons with Firefox

OK, it’s friday so we can have a little fun 😉

“Addictive Typing Lessons” is a Firefox extension which helps you to practice and improve your keyboard typing skills.

It provides many different sets of exercise with growing difficulty, and collects statistics about your performance, so that you can see how you progress.

If you’re not familiar with keyboard typing, give it a try and you’ll soon type like a professional 🙂

Software list

Here is the list of the software I use on my personnal computer. All of them are free for personnal use :

Malware Protection

AVG Free Edition – Antivirus
Adaware – Spyware removal tool
Spybot – Spyware removal tool

Web

Firefox – Web browser
GTalk – Instant messaging
MSN Messenger – Instant Messaging
ICQ – Instant Messaging
PuTTY – Multi-protocole remote terminal

Productivity

OpenOffice – Office suite
PDF Creator – Creating PDF
Sunbird – Calendar

System

DIRMS Defrag Tools
PowerToys – Tweak UI
SysInternals – AutoRuns : displays what runs at startup
SysInternals – PageDefrag : defrag your pagefile at boot
SysInternals – ProcessExplorer : Task Manager on steroids

Misc

Java
7-Zip – Good free archiver (many archive types supported)
AutoHotKey – Macros for windows

Media

VLC – Media player
foobar2000 – Music player

Home automation

This is related to one of my geek hobbies : I am playing with home automation.

Here is what I use :
* Technology : x10
* Software : MisterHouse
* Hardware : a CM11, few AM12, LM12 etc

This is really great since it allows you to control anything in your house (lights, washing machine, heaters, …) from your computer, while still being fairly simple.

Using MisterHouse requires to know at least a little bit of Perl to get the most out of it, though.