NAME
    lavaps -- a lava lamp of currently running processes

WHAT'S NEW
  25-Dec-04 2.7  This release is primarily a bug-fix release.
    NEW: new window icon added (I finally got a window manager that
    shows it :-).

    NEW DOCUMENTATION: added descriptions of how to get the RPMs and
    Debian packages for Linux users. (Thanks to Ashley Howes for updating
    the Debian package.)

    NEW: with Gtk, lavaps now displays the standard gtk options. As a
    result, all options in gtk-mode now require two dashes.

    BUG FIX: the blob autoscaling code has been re-written. It should
    now automatically and quickly find the proper sizing in default
    setups. It should also correctly handle some cases where before it
    would display "mem shrink" infinitely.

    BUG FIX: cleanup of change_tracking templates to satisfy gcc-3.4's
    new C++ requirements. Patch contributed by Andreas Jochens.

    BUG FIX: fix a crash in STL, eventually from
    process_list::reap_unfounds. Bug identified by Mikhail Teterin

    BUG FIX: fix compile problems in change_tracking.hh. Thanks to
    Mikhail Teterin for discovering the problem and submitting a patch.

    BUG FIX: fix compilation problems in building against Tcl/Tk,
    patches adapted from those sent by Ashley T. Howes.

    BUG FIX: redid the po/Makefile handling to hopefully be non-dumb.

DESCRIPTION
    LavaPS is an interactive process-tracking program like ``top'',
    but with a much different attitude. Rather than presenting lots of
    specific info in digital form, it tries to present certain important
    information in a graphical analog form. The idea is that you can
    run it in the background and get a rough idea of what's happening
    to your system without devoting much concentration to the task.

    LavaPS was inspired by Mark Weiser's idea of calm computing in
    this paper:

    * ``The Coming Age of Calm Technology'' by Mark Weiser
    and John Seely Brown. A revised version of Weiser and
    Brown. ``Designing Calm Technology'', PowerGrid Journal, v 1.01,
    http://powergrid.electriciti.com/1.01 (July 1996). October, 1996.
    http://www.ubiq.com/hypertext/weiser/acmfuture2endnote.htm.

    (This program dedicated to the memory of M.W.--I hope you would have
    thought it a good hack.)

REQUIREMENTS
    Building LavaPS requires C++, STL, and either Tcl/Tk (8.x) or
    Gnome/Gtk (2.2 or later). LavaPS is necessarily system-specific. It
    currently runs under Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, Irix, AIX, NetBSD,
    and MacOS X. Ports to other systems are encouraged.

AVAILABILITY
    The latest version of LavaPS should always be available from
    http://www.isi.edu/~johnh/SOFTWARE/LAVAPS/.

    Mailing lists for LavaPS are

            lavaps-announce@heidemann.la.ca.us and
            lavaps-talk@heidemann.la.ca.us

    To subscribe to either, send mail with "subscribe" in the *BODY*
    of the message to:

            lavaps-announce-request@heidemann.la.ca.us or
            lavaps-talk-request@heidemann.la.ca.us.

RELEASE HISTORY
  21-Mar-99 1.0
    Initial release to a few friends. Runs on Linux and FreeBSD.

  29-May-99 1.1
    Fix some Linux build bugs

  6-Aug-99 1.2
    Portability, correctness, and warning fixes for FreeBSD from Ted
    Faber.  (Thanks!)

    I fixed the space leak...previously blobs only got bigger, never
    smaller, so eventually the whole lamp filled up with emacs.

    Added support for selecting VM or physical memory.

    Version now shows up in about.

    There's a lingering bug: sometimes I get into an infinite loop on
    some blobs. I catch it and break out, but you'll see error messages.

  20-Aug-99 1.3
    Mailing lists for LavaPS are

            lavaps-announce@heidemann.la.ca.us and
            lavaps-talk@heidemann.la.ca.us

    To subscribe to either, send mail with "subscribe" in the *BODY*
    of the message to:

            lavaps-announce-request@heidemann.la.ca.us or
            lavaps-talk-request@heidemann.la.ca.us.

    Splash text now stays on top of any blobs.

    Fixed some blob ordering bugs (and made all redrawing lazy), but
    probably introduced some more bugs.

    Changed hash function arbitrarily to make Netscape, emacs, and Vmware
    not all be different shades of green.

    Preliminary resource support (only xdb, not .Xdefaults): set
    lavaps.geometry, .what, .who. (Bug: what/who don't work currently.)

    Can display both physical and virtual memory at the same time.

  6-Sep-99 1.4
    Bugfixes in ``both'' mode: a sev-1 problem with leaking blobs and
    a problem where a default resource "lavaps.what: both" didn't work.

    Internal process-to-blob API is now absolute, hopefully reducing
    gradual blob expansion over time (when the program runs for
    weeks). Also, I fixed a bunch of internal places where size could
    leak.

    Info about processes now includes user names in addition to user ids.

    Autoresizing!

    Autoresizing revealed a bunch of corner cases with blob sizing.
    Hopefully they're all now fixed.

    To nail ``any'' remaining bugs, a whole bunch of validation code is
    turned on. This makes things run slower and will mostly be turned
    off in the next week.

  8-Sep-99 1.5
    Make install bug fixed on systems where it's not installed setgid.
    (Thanks to Mark Yarvis for identifying the problem.)

    A work-around for a FreeBSD header bug from Ted Faber.

    A debug resource (lava.debug) now enables debugging info. Very useful
    if you think real sizes don't match expected.

    Clicking for info now makes the splash text go away.

    The Tk ``appname'' is now set.

    What I thought was lazy in the 1.3 release, wasn't (due to 3 bugs).
    Things are better now, and LavaPS should consume less CPU.

  9-Sep-99 1.6
    Typo in about window fixed (thanks Ted).

    Bug in the splash text repetition suppression fixed (thanks Mark).

    Window resize now does sensible things. Horizontal and vertical
    orientation is automatically determined.

  13-Sep-99 1.7
    Fixed a bug created in 1.4 where blobs drift slowly to the left.

    Fixed a bug where resizes (after a while) would crash in
    blob::redraw_all().

    Documentation: a man page, and the README and internal help are all
    generated from a central source.

  12-Oct-99 1.8
    Fixed an inefficiency where resizing happened more frequently than
    it needed to.

    Fixed several typos in the documentation.

    Fixed a bug in using -fpermissive on FreeBSD.

    Rolled a RedHat RPM.

    Fixed a FreeBSD port.

  27-Dec-99 1.9 (the millennial release)
    The X resource lavaps.pollInterval now sets how frequently to check
    process status. Suggested by Hue-Bond hue@cyberchat2000.com.

    The licenses on tcl2cc.c and color.c have been changed to GPL (thanks
    to Ron Frederick and Jamie Zawinski for releasing their code, and
    Tommi Virtanen of the Debian Project for pointing out these possibly
    problematic licenses).

    Shrinking-on-startup bug fixed with tkstep.

    Some standard command-line arguments now work: -display and -geometry.

    LavaPS triggers a memory leak on some Debian systems (see bug #49828
    in their database). The problem appears to be in a library, not in
    LavaPS, so I cannot fix it.

  11-Feb-00 1.10
    The LavaPS memory leak under Debian Linux (but not on RedHat or
    FreeBSD, see Debian bug #49828 for details) has been found. The good
    news is that the Tcl/Tk Debian port maintainer has found the problem
    (in a patch against stock Tcl/Tk-8.0.5) and it should be fixed in
    their next release (thanks Kirk!).

    Pop-up windows near the edge of the screen now are adjusted to stay
    on the screen. (Bug raised by Brett Neely and Michael Talarczyk.)

    Solaris port contributed from Alan Coopersmith.

  3-Jun-00 1.11
    Configuration handling slightly changed (config.h.in added).
    --with-tcltk-lib-suffix-type={dot,nodot,none} now lets you control
    what the libraries are called (they seem to vary a lot).

    Port to Solaris 2.5.1 contributed from Angus Mackay.

    The display can now be lozenge-shaped (the way a real lava lamp is).
    This is controlled by the "lozenge" resource.

    FreeBSD now drops setgid privileges (patch from Kris Kennaway).

    Fixed bugs in handling .lavapsrc files.

    In some cases LavaPS would go into infinite blob growth or shrinkage.
    Bug and fix applied from Nick Bailey.

  5-Jun-00 1.12
    Process control (nice, renice, kill) added.

    Some of the "halo" around lozenge windows fixed.

  6-Jun-00 1.13
    Dependence on an external ``whoami'' program removed.

    Process name added to proc menu (suggested by Mark Yarvis).

    Gcc-2.95.2 compilation problem work-around (since 1.11).

    Handling of window decorations (the ``halo'' bug) mostly cleaned up
    (it works on at least fvwm2, enlightenment, and kde (kwm?)).

  27-Jul-00 1.14
    Shaped windows can now be disabled completely. (Change suggested by
    Mark Yarvis.)

    Patch to work around a compiler bug triggered in tcl_blob.cc on the
    line: Tcl_SetResult(interp, shaped_window_ok() ? "1" : "0", NULL);
    (Problem raised by Andrew Moise and Brian Bresen.)

    Patch to lavaps.spec to allow builds by unprivileged users based on
    contribution by Chris Dent.

    Fix to Solaris build problem (process_scan multiply defined) from
    Donald Hutcheon.

    FAQ-like "How do I" section added to the documentation.

  29-Jul-00 1.15
    Fix for the "infinite growth on start" bug that occurred if no
    geometry was specified (reported by Kees Cook and Jeremy Brooks).

  19-Apr-01 1.16
    NEW: memory sizes now are self-scaling (141MiB rather than 144660KB),
    like GNU df ``-h'' and use the IEC power-of-two abbreviations (like
    KiB == kibibytes, see http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html
    for what those are).

    BUG FIX: signaling text neatened up from a suggestion from Alan
    Schmitt alan.schmitt@inria.fr.

    NEW: Johann Visagie, "johann@egenetics.com", is the new maintainer
    of the FreeBSD port of LavaPS.

    BUG FIX: fixes compile bug in 1.15 on Linux 1.15 (reported by Simon
    Schoar simon@schoar.de).

  31-May-01 1.17
    BUG FIX: Several people have reported problems with lozenge mode
    having a black border around it, although I didn't observe the
    problem. With sawfish-0.36 I now see the problem and developed a
    work-around. If anyone out there really understands shaped windows,
    please let me know.

  24-Jul-01 1.18
    BUG FIX: Configure fix for gcc 3.0. (There are still warnings in
    some of the platform-specific code, though.) (Problem detected by
    Murray Smigel.)

  15-Aug-01 1.19 (the "congratulations to Karen" release)
    NEW: Port to AIX contributed by Nigel Griffiths of IBM U.K.

    BUG FIX: Another fix for STL with gcc-3.0 (namespace issues).

  30-Oct-01 1.20
    NEW: Port to NetBSD contributed by Hubert Feyrer, the NetBSD lavaps
    port maintainer.

    BUG FIX: applied patch from Timo Korvola to make the info popup not
    use the window manager.

  19-Apr-03 1.21
    BUG FIX: ported to more recent automake and autoconf.

    NEW: now builds on gcc-3.1/3.2 systems including RedHat Linux 8.0
    and 9.

    NEW: should now build on FreeBSD 5.0.

  21-Jun-03 2.0
    NEW: now uses the Gnome toolkit, optionally. (Tcl/Tk is still
    supported by default, but the default will change in 2.1.)

    Thanks to Michael Meeks and John (J5) Palmieri for help getting
    menus right.

    The following features are currently missing from the gtk port:
    resources, rc files, rounded blobs. Support for these features should
    come in the next release.

    NEW: MacOS X support contributed by Kevin Geiss.

    BUG FIX: info windows should now be on top on the few window managers
    that require help (bug report and fix from Kevin Geiss).

    A note about the 2.0 release: Lavaps-2.0 is a "quiet" release. It has
    two big new features: MacOS X support and Gnome/Gtk-2.2 support.
    Unfortunately, the Gtk support is not 100% complete. However,
    I wanted to get it out to get feedback from folks about the Gtk
    part, particularly about portability issues. I'd prefer that this
    version not go in any "distributions" (CD-ROMs, ports trees, etc.),
    but I would like feedback from any individuals who want to try it
    out. Expect 2.1 within a month with complete Gtk support.

  3-Jul-03 2.1
    NEW: now uses the Gnome toolkit, optionally. (Tcl/Tk is still
    supported via configure --with-tcltk.) (Partial support was in
    lavaps-2.0.)

    NEW and BUG FIX: MacOS X support contributed by Kevin Geiss. (Partial
    support was in lavaps-2.0, but important bug fixes in this release.)

    NEW: In gtk, blobs are now smooth. (Missing feature.)

    NEW: In gtk, there is now a *base* to the lava lamp. The base
    allows you to move and resize the lamp, and provides a menu popup
    button. This feature is for the many people now using window managers
    that only let you resize based on window manager decorations that
    don't exist in a shaped lavaps window.

    BUG: gtk cannot save settings. Hopefully fixed in the next release.

  15-Jul-03 2.2
    SEMI-NEW: now uses the Gnome toolkit, optionally. (Tcl/Tk is still
    supported via configure --with-tcltk.) (Partial support was in since
    lavaps-2.0, compelte support as of 2.2.) Also, the gtk-version now
    has a *base* to the lava lamp (since 2.1).

    BUG FIXES: Continued tuning of gtk front end. (Better icons on the
    base; better smoothing.)

    BUG FIX: gtk can now save settings (fixes the last deficency of the
    gtk-based front-end as compared to old Tcl/Tk-based version).

    NEW: can now control the scan frequency from the How menu
    (jumpier/smoother).

    NEW: now saves the scaling factor automatically (no more ~25
    "shrinking" messages when you start lavaps up).

  16-Jul-03 2.3
    BUG FIX: Fix an ownership bug in the 2.2 installation.

  25-Sep-03 2.4
    PORTABILITY FIX: Better detection of snprintf and other compile issues
    on SuSe Linux and with gcc-3.3 (problem pointed out by Stephan Beal).
    Note: to build with SuSE Linux 8.2, run

            ./configure --with-tcltk-lib-suffix-type=dot
            --with-tcl-ver=8.4 --with-tk-ver=8.4

    Sorry, I'm not going to write the infinite amount of configure hacks
    needed to detect Tcl's many strange configurations :-(

  6-Jun-04 2.5
    NEW: LavaPS is now internationalized with gettext support, and
    localized for English, Spanish, and Russian. (Translations to other
    languages are invited!) (Thanks to an anonymous contributor for the
    Russian translation.)

    Internationalization is the last major feature I had in mind when
    going to version 2.x, so I'm now willing to consider adding new
    features.

    NEW (internal): source code now uses automake-style multiple
    directories.

    BUG FIX: The Gtk version now handles -geometry again. (Bug reported
    by John West.)

  1-Jul-04 2.6
    BUG FIX: Lavaps no longer gives this warning on some systems on
    startup: (lavaps:31794): GConf-CRITICAL **: file gconf-value.c:
    line 1592 (gconf_entry_get_value): assertion `entry != NULL' failed

    BUG FIX: cleaned up the manual page (some stray sections had
    crept in).

    BUG FIX: The Spanish-language translation was greatly cleaned up by
    a native speaker. Contributed by Alberto Cerpa.

TO DOS
    * On Linux, LavaPS doesn't properly track the process names of
    processes that change at run-time (because it uses /proc/*/stat
    rather than /proc/*/cmdline). (Bug identified by Murray Smigel.)
    * Add support to change the font size as an option (feature request
    by Andrej Ricnik).  * Add a scaling factor to CPU speed. (Also make
    the default time-step proportional to CPU speed.)  * A --root option
    to run in the root window. (Unfortunately this isn't as simple as
    just using wish's -use.)  * Should have an option to label things
    with the hostname.  * Window shrinks to zero on startup with
    tkstep installed. (Hopefully gone away?)  * Flag and resource to
    force/control directionality.  * Show all processes but those by
    these uids (root, http, etc.). Also some way to exclude the (large)
    mfs image under FreeBSD, or big X11 processes.  * Set-able default
    scaling of blob size.  * Should verify that blobs can occupy the
    whole, whole screen. (Possible bug raised by Mark Yarvis.)  * When
    things are resizing they should probably maintain some relationship
    between visual space and memory that is not affected by odd
    horizontal:vertical ratios.  * Pop-up sliders to adjust scaling.  *
    Resources to adjust blob border width (suggested by Anthony Thyssen).
    * The info window should be pinnable (like in OpenLook), and then
    auto-update. http://www.debian.org/Bugs/db/49/49884.html * The Solaris
    port needs support for detecting command lines.  * This should work
    as a Gnome panel applet. It works in Afterstep's panel, but not Gnome
    1.1.  * Finish clickelessInfo (it doesn't yet work). (Idea suggested
    by Yermo Lamers).  * Should allow LavaPS to show absolute memory
    usage, not just relative memory usage (suggested by several people
    including Johannes Nix).  * Non-linear scaling of memory usage (to
    accommodate the wide range of process sizes). Suggested by Johannes
    Nix.  * Option to suppress mem grow/shrink messages. (Suggested
    by Jerrad Pierce.)  * Background transparency. (Suggested by
    Jerrad Pierce.)  * Configuration pop-up dialog. (Suggested by
    Jerrad Pierce.)  * It would be nice if it looked like the lamp was
    actually filled with fluid and had a light down the bottom. So the
    background would be shaded with some color that followed a gradient
    of high intensity at the bottom to low intensity at the top, and
    this background gradient color would add the blob color of blobs
    that are floating in the background.  (Suggested by Matth Lowry.)  *
    Clicking on non-blobs should allow you to move the window. (Suggested
    by Glenn Alexander.)  * Flag to disable blob borders. (Suggested
    by Glenn Alexander.)  * Three-dimensional lavaps using OpenGL.
    * Several bugs remain in the Tcl version and won't be fixed: (a)
    Lozenge-shaped windows don't always properly draw the border. (b)
    Lozenge-shaped windows flicker for me on FocusIn/FocusOut events.
    * Other bugs have also been overtaken by time: (a) LavaPS steals
    lots of colors on a pseudocolor display. Such displays aren't much
    used any more.


COPYRIGHT
    LavaPS is Copyright (C) 1998-2003 by John Heidemann.

    This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
    it under the terms of the GNU General Public License, version 2,
    as published by the Free Software Foundation.

    This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
    but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
    MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
    General Public License for more details.

    You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
    along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
    Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307,
    USA.

AUTHOR
    John Heidemann, "johnh@isi.edu".

    The idea of doing a lava lamp arose in discussions with David Taylor
    at USC. Although he didn't end up taking it on as directed research,
    the idea of a top-like lava lamp seemed too good not to follow-up on.

    Thanks to two enthusiastic early users (Ted Faber and Mark Yarvis)
    for encouragement, suggestions, and bits of code.

    LavaPS includes a small amount of code from xscreensaver by M. Dobie,
    Patrick J. Naughton, and Jamie Zawinski. On Linux it uses Chuck
    Blake's /proc scanning library. Building LavaPS uses tcl2cc by
    Ron Frederick, from tclcl (see http://www.isi.edu/nsnam/tclcl/ for
    details). Thanks to these authors for releasing their code to LavaPS.

    Johann Visagie, "johann@egenetics.com", is the current maintainer
    of the FreeBSD port.

    Hubert Feyrer "hubert.feyrer@informatik.fh-regensburg.de", is the
    current maintainer of the NetBSD port.

    Ashley T. Howes "debiandev@ashleyhowes.com" is the current maintainer
    of the Debian Linux package.

    Thanks to all the port contributors (listed above).

