FOSSwire

Some time ago, I’ve shown different methods of using scripts and configuration files to get Bluetooth A2DP audio working properly. But that’s a problem: it requires setup. Ideally this should all happen automatically right when the headphones are paired.

In the latest releases of PulseAudio and Bluez, I found this to be the case. It works so well that I figured I’d make a screencast out of it just to show you. The application used in the video is pavucontrol, the volume controls for PulseAudio.

(And a sidenote: this video was edited using PiTiVi, which just made a new release. I highly recommend you check it out.)

I’ve typically been pretty conservative when choosing a web server. Typically, I’ll use Apache to run most sites, and possibly Lighttpd for static files. Experimenting never really has been something done with a web server once I’m past the initial setup.

I’m willing to change that, however, especially after seeing the Cherokee web server in action. At first glance it seems to just be another lightweight web server, and in the end, it is.

The Cherokee website has its own benchmarks against Apache, Lighttpd, and Nginx, with Cherokee coming out on top in terms of the most requests. They are fairly comprehensive, though if you’re not one to trust benchmarks these may not seem any different from those conducted by others.

The one sole feature that could really give Cherokee a solid place in the server market is its method of administration. Most free software server solutions typically offer plenty of organized configuration files to tune and edit at your leisure. If you really have the desire to do so, Cherokee won’t prevent you from directly editing its own configuration. However, there is something much better:

The entire server can be managed using cherokee-admin, the web interface you see above. In fact, it’s highly recommended to manage the server using this administration interface. Your first thoughts may include security issues of a web-managed server, but many of those are dissolved quickly: cherokee-admin must be run in a console, and then a one-time-use password is generated for the administration interface. When you are done, stop cherokee-admin, and everything is safely closed away once more.

The administration interface alone may be responsible for converting many websites to Cherokee. Any entry barrier that may have existed from editing config files might nearly disappear: right after installation, all you must do is fire up cherokee-admin and begin configuring your new web server.

There are a lot of other cool gems included as well. A panic script can be invoked should Cherokee crash, alerting the administrator immediately. It natively supports fcgi and FastCGI, and includes a default rule to help set up PHP in a few moments. Even things such as switching users, accomplished by compiling suexec in Apache, are only a text entry away in Cherokee.

Version 0.99.9 was recently released, so 1.0 can’t be too far around the corner. If you’re looking to find a server that doesn’t need to be manually configured, or just want something speedy, Cherokee is definitely the path to take.

PkgBase has long been an unknown web site outside of FOSSwire; it was simply a quickly-linkable site that could be used to provide new users with instructions on how to install software packages.

And in reality, that’s all it should ever be. Today I’ve re-written PkgBase from the ground up. Instead of trying to guess the user’s operating system and spit out an error when something went wrong, the new site will now simply do nothing. That sounds like a bad thing, but now all of the information is on one page – no need for a different page for each distribution.

If PkgBase can guess the visitor’s distribution, then it will point them to the proper section of the page. If not, then the visitor can simply read from the top of the page and quickly find out what to do.

To use PkgBase, simply link to http://pkgb.net/, followed by the package you want to install. For example, if I want to make a link to install Gobby, I can simply use http://pkgb.net/gobby. Anyone who visits the link will be directed to the proper section of the page for their distribution; for me that link ends up being http://pkgb.net/gobby/#ubuntu.

Note the use of a slash at the end of a URL. If there is no slash present, then PkgBase will make a best guess at detecting the user’s distribution. If there is a slash at the end, PkgBase will assume you know what you are doing and will do nothing. This is to accommodate the use of page anchors at the end of URLs, so if you give someone a URL like http://pkgb.net/firefox/#gentoo, PkgBase will assume that you actually want to point to the Gentoo section and not try to guess itself.

There is a lot more that can be done with the site, and I’m still working on making it as easy as possible to install packages with no confusion. PackageKit would be a great option for this, though some client-side JavaScript will be needed to detect for the PackageKit plugin.

Feel free to use PkgBase anywhere you like. URLs are guaranteed to be permanent. I would love to hear your suggestions on how to improve the service.