Mac OS X

All posts tagged Mac OS X

Advertising VNC to OS X

Posted by Ripdubski on 2015.08.07
Posted in: OSX. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

This has been lingering in draft for quite a while with no reason to keep it that way, so here it is.

VNC on Linux can be set to advertise the service to Mac OS X clients (via Bonjour) so they are viewable in  OS X “Shared Places” in the OS X Finder window.  Once viewable, you can click one and click the “Share Screen” button to connect.

You need the Avahi service installed and running on the Linux host.  Then follow these steps to make it advertise to OS X.

1) On the Linux host, add the following file to the Avahi configuration:

File:

/etc/avahi/services/rfb.service

Contents:

<?xml version="1.0" standalone='no'?>
<!--DOCTYPE service-group SYSTEM "avahi-service.dtd">

%h

_rfb._tcp
5901

2) Stop and start the Avahi service:

/etc/init.d/avahi-daemon stop
/etc/init.d/avahi-daemon start

OS X Legacy Java SE 6 Error Resolution

Posted by Ripdubski on 2015.03.03
Posted in: Apple, OSX. Tagged: , , , , , , , . 3 Comments

I’ve run into the following error several times since upgrading past OS X 10.8 (both Mavericks 10.9 and Yosemite 10.10).  I have the latest JRE installed at version 8.

Legacy Java SE 6 runtime error

The error occurs because the version of Java that Oracle ships doesn’t include the proper JVM capabilities definition.  Specifically it ships with only CommandLine capability defined, though it supports the others (JNI, BundledApp, WebStart, and Applets).

Resolving it is rather simple once you know how.

  • First open Terminal.
  • Now change directory to the JRE or JDK you have installed (your path may be slightly different):
cd /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_31.jdk/Contents
  • Copy the “Info.plist” file to your desktop:
cp Info.plist ~/Desktop/Info.plist
  • Edit the desktop copy of the file with TextEdit or your favorite text editor.

Around line 27, look for this stanza:

<key>JVMCapabilities</key>
    <array>
        <string>CommandLine</string>
    </array>

Change it to this:

<key>JVMCapabilities</key>
    <array>
        <string>JNI</string>
        <string>BundledApp</string>
        <string>WebStart</string>
        <string>Applets</string>
        <string>CommandLine</string>
    </array>
  • Save the file.
  • Back at Terminal, copy the desktop copy of the file back to the original location, but this time you need root authority so use sudo and enter your password when asked:
sudo cp ~/Desktop/Info.plist ./
  • List the directory to ensure the copy succeeded.  The timestamp should be current:
$ ls -al
total 8
drwxrwxr-x   5 root  wheel   170 Feb 27 21:14 .
drwxr-xr-x   3 root  wheel   102 Feb 27 21:14 ..
drwxrwxr-x  16 root  wheel   544 Feb 27 21:14 Home
-rw-rw-r--   1 root  wheel  1773 Mar  3 20:09 Info.plist
drwxrwxr-x   3 root  wheel   102 Feb 27 21:14 MacOS
  • Close Terminal
  • Reboot

 

Now you should no longer be prompted to install the legacy Java 6 SE runtime when trying to launch Java apps.

 

‘make’ me

Posted by Ripdubski on 2013.02.05
Posted in: Programming. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

I just replaced an aging Mac Mini with a new one.  Anytime you move to a new computer it creates a little stress about getting your data and settings from the old to the new.  Apple has made the process as seamless as possible via Migration Assistant.

When setting up the new Mac you can tell it to migrate your user (with accompanying data and settings).  When you do it will start Migration Assistant on the new one and you start Migration Assistant on the old one as well.  It’s an easy process of selecting where (and who) to migrate data for.  In my case, the transfer took 5 hours and 45 minutes and included mail, calendars, contacts, notes, documents, photos, music, applications, etc totaling roughly 190 GB.

When it is complete, everything and I mean everything, is migrated right down to icon locations on the desktop, keyboard repeat rates, colors, in-app settings, everything!  I only had to do 3 things afterward:

  1. Reinstall XMarks browser extension for Safari.
  2. Enter my Dropbox password.
  3. Install iTunes 11 since I was on it before, yes I moved to 11.

After doing those 3 things I decided to update XCode to the latest version since the OSX version on the new Mac is 10.8.2 and the old one was 10.7.8.  I went to the App Store and installed XCode 4.6 (I was previously using 3.2.2, yes an older one).

After XCode was installed I wanted to make sure the extra Perl modules I use were installed.  They were not, so add one more item to the list.  I tried to install the first one and got an error telling me ‘/usr/bin/make’ wasn’t found.  What?!  XCode is still installed, so make should be there.

My new friend Bing tells me that as of XCode 4.2 the developer command line tools are no longer part of the base app, but are now installed as components.  And the fix is easy.

  • Launch XCode.
  • Open XCode > Preferences from the menu.
  • Select Downloads section.
  • Find “Command Line Tools” and click the “Install” button.

XCodeComponents

Once you do that, ‘/usr/bin/make’ should be present again.

All in all, only having to do three or four things, that only take a few minutes, when migrating to a new computer is a pretty slick deal.  I’ll take that any day over spending hours personalizing a new computer.