Config Files

I found it hard to find good instructions for installing ruby gems as a non- root user without installing the gem package locally as well. Here’s what I figured out; hopefully this will save someone else some time in the future: Make a directory for gem installation: $> mkdir ~/.gems Set up your .gemrc for gem install-time configuration: $> cat << EOF > ~/.gemrc gemhome: $HOME/gems gempath: - $HOME/gems - /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8 EOF Set up some environment variables for run-time: $> cat << EOF >> ~/.bashrc export GEM_HOME=$HOME/gems export GEM_PATH=$HOME/gems:/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/ export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/gems/bin EOF Source your bashrc and you’re all set. »

I like using gnome-terminal, but I find the default fonts hard on my eyes. So I don’t forget (and for anyone who is interested), here are the steps to use xterm’s default font in gnome-terminal: As root, run yum -y install bitmap-fonts As root, run ln -s /etc/fonts/conf.avail/70-yes-bitmaps.conf /etc/fonts/conf.d/. Close all open gnome-terminal windows. Launch gnome-terminal and edit the current profile. Uncheck ‘Use the system fixed width font’ and click on the font button. »

DNS lookups at home were extremely slow for me. For instance, while doing some profiling of yum this afternoon, 10 out of 15 seconds were taken up resolving the IP of download.fedora.redhat.com. Replacing Road Runner’s DNS servers with OpenDNS took this down to 5 seconds. Putting OpenDNS before my router’s DNS server makes the time negligible. Anyways, the details: Copy /usr/share/doc/dhclient-$VERSION/dhclient.conf.sample to /etc/dhclient.conf Edit /etc/dhclient, removing everything before the ‘prepend domain-name…’ line, and everything after the ‘initial-interval 2;’ line. »