Silly Question

I'm currently logged into my machine using ssh from a remote location. My girlfriend is browsing the internet now on my server. I like to have fun with her and print stuff out and make Linux do all crazy things.

Is there a command I can issue that will display a 'pop-up' message. I know when you do a shutdown command it will pop up occasionaly and say 'The system is going down in 30 minutes' or whatever. Any commands like that?

I'm not sure how RH implements this, but
I'd think it's possibly some demon that listens
to wall :)

To be able to pop-up stuff on her screen as
a different user she'd need xhost +localhost
enabled ;) ... then, of course, you could
pester her with anything x-related you want
by setting your DISPLAY=localhost:0.0

Cheers,
Tink

just ssh to the box then
$mozilla
or gaim or whatever

this should start that program on that box.

I know I can run any X application I want on the server but the question is WHAT application will 'pop-up' with a message of my choosing. I imagine it would be something like:

popup 'Hey what are you doing?' <enter>

but of course it is not that. I guess I could just create a text file with the message I wanted and then open up that text file in an editor. I just thought there might be an application that is specific for this situation.

Did you try a
wall?

Cheers,
Tink

ytalk (?) or just talk are sometimes mentioned, I don't know how well that'd work though since I've never used em

Cool

Originally posted by Tinkster Did you try a wall? Cheers, Tink

Whats "wall"? Did you mean it like 'I'm going A-WALL!' ?

MasterC I don't have talk installed because I heard it is a very insecure feature to use. Not sure about ytalk but I imagine it is part of the talk package.

hmmm....

Originally posted by Crashed_Again Whats "wall"? Did you mean it like 'I'm going A-WALL!' ?

man wall

WALL(1)                 System General Commands Manual                 WALL(1)

NAME
     wall - write a message to users

SYNOPSIS
     wall [file]

DESCRIPTION
     Wall displays the contents of file or, by default, its standard input, on
     the terminals of all currently logged in users.

     Only the super-user can write on the terminals of users who have chosen
     to deny messages or are using a program which automatically denies mes-
     sages.

     Reading from a file is refused when the invoker is not superuser and the
     program is suid or sgid.

SEE ALSO
     mesg(1), talk(1), write(1), shutdown(8)

Cheers,
Tink

http://www.deadmule.com/macewan/scre...p/helloworld.c

then

gcc -Wall -g helloworld.c -o hello_world `gtk-config --cflags` \
`gtk-config --libs`

Just write a script in PerlTk, PythonTk, etc. that pops up a box with a string, which comes from an argument you pass to it on the command line. Should be really, really easy if you've used Tk before (I haven't, or I would write it for you).

OH yeah Tinkster! wall is what I wanted. Something like:

wall "Hey! What are you doing on my computer?"

works great. Thats exactly what I was after. Thanks buddy.

I wonder why it is called 'wall'?

Since it's normally just used for administrative
tasks (notice the reference to shutdown in man?)
I assume its short for "warn all" - as in "warn
all users that the box is going down soon!" ;)

Cheers,
Tink

I could've sworn it stood for 'write all', since it displays it to all users.
; )

As for the message, the problem I think is...wall is a console thing. But you were asking for a pup up? In that case you would need to start an xterm (or similar) and then run wall, right?

How about look into xmessage ('man xmessage') which will actually popup a window with a message/program output/etc in it.

Originally posted by cuckoopint How about look into xmessage ('man xmessage') which will actually popup a window with a message/program output/etc in it.

Oh! I was satisfied with 'wall' but xmessage has a bit more options. Thanks cuckoopint! Its always great to learn new commands.

The problem (actually it's a feature, I'd consider
the other behaviour a security hole) that I
(Slackware?) have with xmessage is that it
doesn't work if the user didn't explicitly enable
xdisplays from other than his own actual display
(eg xhost +localhost, xhost + ).

But since both RH and MDK have that little
demon listening for wall per user by default
I thought it'd be a good idea ;)

Cheers,
Tink