Julio Merino

Software artist. Writer aficionado. Open source enthusiast. Runner. Father of two.
Currently: Senior Software Engineer at Google, New York City.

  • Migrating to new versions of the GNU Build System

    The GNU Build System is basically composed of GNU Autoconf and GNU Automake. The latest versions of these tools are 2.59 and 1.9.1 respectively, at the moment of this writing. Compared to 2.13 and 1.4, these are far better, although not completely compatible with the previous ones. However, if you are maintaining a software project which uses these two tools, you should consider updating to the latest versions, as your program will be more portable and easier to manage.

    September 9, 2004 · Continue reading (about 3 minutes) · Comments

  • Strange USB mouse

    I've been trying to setup a new laptop today (unfortunately, not for me); one of the things I had to do was to install an external USB mouse (by Packard Bell). Easy, you'd say. But it has turned to be impossible. First attempt: plug the mouse in the laptop. Windows XP sees it and tries to set it up. The result is a box saying that the mouse does not work.

    September 7, 2004 · Continue reading (about 2 minutes) · Comments

  • To rely or not to rely on the PATH

    It is quite common for a program to need to execute other programs at run time. This can be done in two ways: specifying the full path to the binary or relying on the current path. So which approach is correct? It depends on what you are trying to do. If the program you need to execute is not a required dependency of your program, using the path to locate it is correct; however, let the user set up a full path in the configuration file, if applicable, so that he can forget about the path.

    September 6, 2004 · Continue reading (about 2 minutes) · Comments

  • Back at home

    Hi readers! I'm back from my vacations. Well... in fact I came back a week ago but haven't had a chance to write something for the blog. So, what are my current projects? First of all, I've been updating all the GNOME packages in pkgsrc to the latest published development version, 2.7.92, in preparation for the shortcoming 2.8. pkgsrc enters a code freeze tomorrow, in preparation for the new 2004Q3 stable branch; this will last for two weeks, during which I'll be finishing the update and getting ready to do the mega-commit when the freeze is over.

    September 5, 2004 · Continue reading (about 2 minutes) · Comments

  • The Windows UI

    If you have read all my previous posts, you probably deduced that I'm a free software fan. Yes, I am, and I love free software. However, as many people, I'm forced to use Windows systems from time to time, specially for university homework. And every time I sit on a Windows box, all I can say is "great UI". In the inside, it may be worse or better (and I tend to think it's the former), but the outside, what the user uses and looks at, is very good.

    July 31, 2004 · Continue reading (about 2 minutes) · Comments

  • Changing NetBSD's console colors

    Do you remember the good old days (playing with your Amstrad, MSX, ...) where the screen was something like yellow on blue? You can now do this in NetBSD! Starting from NetBSD 2.0G, code has been added (hmm, by me ;-) to customize the console colors as well as kernel messages from userland. Previous versions allowed the modification of kernel colors, although it had to be done by a kernel rebuild.

    July 30, 2004 · Continue reading (about 1 minute) · Comments

  • Framebuffer on NetBSD

    I've got very surprised today to find that NetBSD has a framebuffer device on the i386 platform (in fact any which uses the vga(4) driver). Well, certainly, I first saw it in NetBSD/mac68k (where there is no real text mode, so it must be emulated) some weeks ago, but was stranged to not seeing it in NetBSD/i386. The "framebuffer" (or raster graphics device) can be enabled by adding options VGA_RASTERCONSOLE to your kernel config.

    July 29, 2004 · Continue reading (about 1 minute) · Comments

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