CVS update misses new directories

Suppose you've checked out a local copy of a source tree from the repository. You work in it. Other's make changes and add new directories to the project.

You run cvs update and you only get the directories that you checked out originally. So, instead, execute cvs update -d. This will include directories not in your working copy.

Linux CVS clients

I have been disappointed by Linux's GUI CVS clients. I've tried a bunch and none is quite as good as TortoiseCVS, in my never-to-be-humble opinion. They seem to be just GUI shells for the CVS command-line client.

Help! I can't update my linux install

I use linux (Ubuntu) and KDE. When I open adept, the package manager, I get a message saying the package database is locked and I can't make any changes. The problem wasn't resolved when I restarted. I did a google search for the words "ubuntu", "adept", and "lock". I found this thread on the problem that contains a command to restart the stuck install that was causing the problem.

The command is:

dpkg --configure -a

You might need to prepend sudo

linux environment variables

You set an environment variable so it persists across sessions in "/etc/environment". You put a line that looks like this:

variable_name=value

For example

CVSROOT=:ext:boso@dumbcvs.dumbdomain.com:/cvsroot

or

JAVA_HOME=/usr/local/jdk6.0.0

ssh without a password

I found an article that explains how to set up SSH so you can log in on a remote machine without typing your password. For example, you can access a remote CVS repository without having to type you password over and over.

Thanks to mbonati at CalTech!

I quote the steps, just in case the page disappears:

What must be done, then , is to generate a public/private key pair, and copy the public part into the appropiate place on the server side.
For doing this, on the user's home directory, on the client machine, type

local> ssh-keygen -t dsa -f .ssh/id_dsa

-t tells the type of encription
-f tells where to store the public/private key pairs. In this case, the .ssh directory on home is being used

A password will be asked; leave this part blank, just pressing
Now, go the .ssh directory, and you will find two new files: id_dsa and id_dsa.pub. The last one is the public part. Now, copy the public key to the server machine

local> cd .ssh
local> scp id_dsa.pub user@remote:~/.ssh/id_dsa.pub

Of course, this time you will need to enter the password.
Now, login into the server machine and go to the .ssh directory on the server side

local> ssh user@remote
remote> cd .ssh

Now, add the client's public key to the know public keys on the server

remote> cat id_dsa.pub >> authorized_keys2
remote> chmod 640 authorized_keys2
remote> rm id_dsa.pub
remote> exit

and that's all.
Next time you log into the remote server, no password will be asked.
Note that this sytem will work while none of the machines change its IP address and for the specific user, so it is still safe.

Running Tomcat from Eclipse (using the server view from WST)

From the eclipse server view (since WST is installed) you can create a new server.

1. right-click in the view and selecting new > server
1. Select the server you will be using (it was tomcat 5.5 in my case). You will want to have the server installed already.
2. Choose a host name
3. Choose a runtime. If there isn't one available, create one (press the available button)
2. Press next
1. Select any web projects you want to run on the new server. If there aren't any, you'll be creating one soon, I wager.
3. Press finish and you are done.

Set up a new project, create a new "dynamic web project". That has some really nice stuff in it for managing the project. The jars in lib directory can automatically be part of the classpath. You can associate the project with a server that you've defined (or that you define after creating the project, if you wish).

Don't let eclipse overwrite the tomcat config (unless you want to)

From inside the server's editor (right-click the server in the view and select open) select the option to "Run modules directly from the workspace". Now any configuration that you have in the server's conf/ directory is safe from changes you make to the config of the server defined in eclipse.

In the same editor you can set up ports, MIME mappings and other important stuff.

Note: If you're going to have the server listen on port 80 rather than 8080, linux' root user is the only one that can bind that port. So, in linux you'll need to run eclipse as root. Or maybe you can come up with a better solution. Let me know if you do. This article describes other ways of running tomcat on port 80 with a user other than root. I have not tried these solutions, let me know how the work for you.

Making the jump to linux

With some help from another engineer at work, I've wiped my computer clean of windows xp and installed Ubuntu. I then added KDE and off I went (I know the I could have started with Kubuntu, but...).

I downloaded the linux versions of Eclipse, Sun Java 6 SDK, and Oracle SQL Developer. I added the Web Tools Platform to eclipse for JSP, Tomcat, etc.

With those tools I was ready to go.

Here's where I had some problems. I tried to start sqldeveloper and it just threw exceptions. The problem? I had not set the JAVA_HOME environment. So I ran this command:

   > export JAVA_HOME=/path/to/jdk

Now sqldeveloper starts just fine.

But I don't want to have to do that every time. So I put the command above in the /usr/environment file. Now every time I start a session, the environment variable is set.