DEV Community: Herb Wolfe

Tip for setting $DISPLAY when connecting to a Linux machine.

Herb Wolfe — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 22:40:02 +0000

Background:

I have an X server running on my Windows machine, and ssh into one of my Linux systems. When I started doing this, I would get the ip address for my Windows machine, export it to the $DISPLAY variable, and run a few simple clients, xeyes, xclock, and an xterm. All this was done manually.

Slowly simplifying the process:

Once I figured out how I wanted the xclock to display, I created an alias for it. Then I put all the commands in a file, which I would run as needed. I still had to set $DISPLAY variable whenever I connected, though. Recently, I discovered that the IP address I connect from is stored as part of both the SSH_CLIENT and SSH_CONNECTION variables in bash.

The first step was to figure out how to extract that IP address and assign it to a variable. That was solved with the echo and cut commands.

ip=$(echo ${SSH_CLIENT} | cut -f1 -d' '):0

That pipes the value of $SSH_CLIENT to the cut command, extracting the first field, using a ' ' as the delimiter.

I then exported that to the $DISPLAY variable.

export $DISPLAY=$ip

I originally added that to the script I would run to start the X clients. However, I ran into a problem where the $DISPLAY variable wouldn't propagate to the parent shell. So if I wanted to run another client, I had to run the command manually again. That was solved by adding the command to the end of my .bashrc file. I then decided to add a check, in case I wasn't logging in via SSH, so that I would still get a valid value for $DISPLAY.

The end result:

host=$(echo ${SSH_CLIENT} | cut -f1 -d' ')

if [ -z $host ]; then
        host=localhost
fi

disp=$host:0

export DISPLAY=$disp

Hacktoberfest t-shirt arrived in the mail today

Herb Wolfe — Sun, 15 Dec 2019 02:05:58 +0000

Got my t-shirt and stickers today! 👕🙂

How to organize programming projects?

Herb Wolfe — Mon, 28 Jan 2019 05:54:49 +0000

I'm slowly working on getting my assortment of code organized, so I can put some of it on github. I have stuff scattered all over, most in a code directory, but some in other directories I've copied over from various other sources.

I read

How do you organize source code on your computer?

Nick Janetakis ・ Jul 10 '18

#discuss #productivity #beginners

and several other articles that came up in a google search, so I'm starting fresh with a ~/dev/ directory, and giving each project their own directory. However, I have some projects I've done in multiple languages, for a example, a guess the number game in Java, and bash. I also did a few of the problems on Project Euler, and at least one I solved in more than one programming language.

I'm wondering what the best or recommended practice is for naming projects done in multiple languages. For example, should I create separate directories for the number guessing game, named guess-java, guess-shell, etc, or should I nest them, for example guess\java & guess\shell even though a lot of the advice I read was to not group projects by language

How to revive my career?

Herb Wolfe — Mon, 07 Jan 2019 03:49:24 +0000

I'm not sure if revive, or start is more accurate. I've got a BA in Computer Science, and then about 10 years later, took some courses at a local community college to brush up on my skills and pick up some new ones, getting an Associate of Science degree in Computer Programming. I've only held one programming job, where I was a Software Engineer, using Visual Foxpro, and then Java. I stayed at that job for about 2 years.

I know some Java, having used it when I was a Software Engineer, and then taking several courses in it, when I went back to school. I'm also familiar with C, having used it almost exclusively in the upper level CS courses I took for my first degree. Those are the languages in which I would feel most comfortable programming.

I've also taken courses in Pascal, C++ and VB, and have taught myself a little bit of Perl and Ruby, and have done some Unix scripting. I've used HTML and some CSS, enough to build a personal web page, however, I haven't updated it in years.

I am currently doing data processing, using Visual Foxpro, but I would much rather be doing something along the lines of application development, preferably in a Unix or Linux environment. Unfortunately, I don't see very many job postings around here for that, let alone entry level positions. Many of the entry level positions require skills or more experience than I have, and tend to be more for full stack or front end positions, neither of which match my interests.

I'm not sure what to do. Relocation is not an option, and I can't really afford to go back to school yet again. I've considered trying to learn Javascript or Python, but neither interest me, and I don't want to end up in another job where I'm not happy.

I'm open to any suggestions. Thanks.