Need help from a Linux user...

[Loony BoB]

Someone made a program for LJ that makes a 'map' of your friends list - I was wondering if someone with a Linux box could get me one of these map-image-things for my LJ (username: loony_bob, you don't need my password because I don't care about the colours)? Unfortunately it only works with Linux.

http://www.livejournal.com/community...ty/115814.html

In response to those people who will undoubtedly say something along the lines of "Install Linux" or "Format your hard drive and install Linux" - I'm saving for a second PC so I can do just that, so yeah. In time. I need a pay rise.

[Shoeberto]

You could always just download Knoppix, burn it to a CD and try to get the script to run. Knoppix runs solely off the CD and comes with a lot of stuff pre-installed.

[ZeZipster]

You could always just download Knoppix, burn it to a CD and try to get the script to run. Knoppix runs solely off the CD and comes with a lot of stuff pre-installed.

I was going to say that...

www.linuxiso.org

[Loony BoB]

The reason my computer never screws up that much is because I don't do things I don't trust myself to know how to do... I don't trust myself with Linux. That's why I'm getting a second PC purely so I can learn it without crapping up my computer. Something about using a different OS from what I'm used to freaks me out a bit. If nobody wants to run the mapping thing for me, though, I'll just wait until I have the money for my PC and do it then, though. I'm just mighty impatient because the mappy thing looks really neat.

[crono_logical]

Use Knoppix

Really though, if you don't trust yourself with it, it doesn't matter, because you really need to know what you're doing if you want to attempt to damage anything on your HD with Knoppix, since otherwise your entire drive is read-only.

[Dr Unne]

I'm running it now, but LJ's servers are slow as heck, and it's taking a very long time. I'll post it if it ever finishes.

[Loony BoB]

Thanks so much for even trying, Unne.

[Dr Unne]

I've successfully generated the graph input file as text, but your buddy list is so freaking gigantic that my computer can't handle converting it to a .png. I'm going to try some other various things.

EDIT: Seriously, there are around 225 nodes, and somewhere around 2,800 lines connecting them all. The .png is probably going to be tens of thousands of pixels high and wide.

[crono_logical]

A sample one BoB showed me earlier with only 180 odd nodes (or the region thereof) was around 29,000 x 8,000 pixels if I remember rightly Even with 1 GB RAM, it was memory chompy and slowed my PC down just to load it to view, let alone generate

[Dr Unne]

No, I can't generate one for BoB. I let it run for a couple hours and it wasn't looking even close to being done. Sorry. (Prune your friends list. )

[Loony BoB]

Thanks for trying anyway, and yeah, looks like I'll have to end up missing out on this one. Sorry for taking up so much of your time.

[crono_logical]

Hang on, it's a Perl script, now that I looked at it. Why can't you install Perl and run it in Windows instead, BoB? Actually, maybe I'll try that later, I have a spare PC sitting next to me that'll probably be not in use over the next 3 days or so at least

[Loony BoB]

I asked if it would work on XP - see the comments in the LJ entry, I should be easy to spot, same old avatar

[Dr Unne]

Perl on Windows is total garbage. Especially when you need CPAN modules, and script one does. Perl on Windows is through Activestate, and a whole lot of CPAN modules have to be ported to Windows before they'll work. Perl on Windows is also gimped by missing out on all the Linux-specific system calls, threads, and sockets. This particular script also has external dependencies, specifically a library called graphviz; it's also hard-coded to look for fonts in /home or something, and I had to change that to /usr/share/fonts/ttf myself before it'd even work. This script is ACTUALLY written for OSX, and it has OSX-specific stuff in it too that I had to remove before it'd work in Linux.