Re: Ubuntu-devel-discuss Digest, Vol 69, Issue 9
On 9 August 2012 17:08, Kyrillos Mossad kmos...@gmail.com wrote: Can we really not just making this an option? Instead of arguing againstit? Finally, the first piece of unbiased, non-inflammatory, useful content on this entire thread. Why designers seem to consider it their duty to force everyone to embrace their paradigm is beyond me. Set up sane (or your preferable, if you like) defaults and let the user decide. -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Feature suggestions: optionally placing home folder into separate partition during ubuntu install
On Thu, 28 Oct 2010 07:33:30 +0200, Aur?lien Naldi aurelien.na...@gmail.com wrote: If you want to keep installed packages, you can upgrade instead of installing from scratch (if you don't skip a version or if you go from LTS to LTS, otherwise it may be painful). I'd like to just raise a paw here: the only reason I got to see the new (and very slick!) installer is because my upgrade went pear-shaped. As far as I can figure, one of the packages that was being upgraded was asking a question about replacing a conf file (or something similar) so the upgrade dialog just hung until I killed it and all the apt/dpkg processes I could find and started again manually. I'm assuming this created some bad juju on my machine because after the upgrade, I would get hard hangs after a few idle hours on the machine. A clean install doesn't exhibit the problem. Unfortunately, this kind of thing has happened to me in the past (the upgrade dialog stalling and when I manage to force things to start again in a console, I see that the first package to be upgraded is asking a question about overwriting a modified conf file). This is just the first time (9.04-9.10-10.04-10.10) where the end result was unusable. If anyone can point me in the right direction, I'd like to log a bug report -- I honestly don't know what package to choose as the victim though. I would also add a me too to the OP. I keep my /home on another partition for all the same common reasons and it would be neat if that were offered as an easier option for newer users -- which would make re-installs when they break the system due to learning slightly less painful, for example. -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- The competent programmer is fully aware of the limited size of his own skull. He therefore approaches his task with full humility, and avoids clever tricks like the plague. - Djikstra. -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Subject: Re: Shouldn't update-manager's check for updates setting have an hourly option?
And there I was, thinking there was something wrong with my recently-upgraded machine! Being a lazy dev, I just added a cron job to apt-get update on the hour... So I get hourly checks, as per the original thread, but this isn't exactly friendly for the average user ): -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- The competent programmer is fully aware of the limited size of his own skull. He therefore approaches his task with full humility, and avoids clever tricks like the plague. - Djikstra. -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
RE: Windows controls: new button layout
I'm just annoyed that this setting (and locking my workstation when it goes to screensaver -- probably others too) was applied on a dist-upgrade without any prompt. I don't want a macified interface -- it doesn't feel natural to me, partly for the uses Windows the rest of the time argument (I work on Windows, home is mainly Ubuntu except for some games where I have to dual-boot). It would have been super-nice if a user's gconf settings weren't tampered with at upgrade. I don't ever recall an upgrade changing my config in the past. I don't know if the change came out of some system of overlays (I'm not a gconf expert, I'll admit), but it still would have been great if the post-install script could have asked me before just letting it be. -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- The competent programmer is fully aware of the limited size of his own skull. He therefore approaches his task with full humility, and avoids clever tricks like the plague. - Djikstra. -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
RE: Windows controls: new button layout
on Sat, 08 May 2010 10:38:12 +0200 Oliver Grawert wrote: the problem here is that you very likely didnt have a user setting for it (it wasnt necessary since the default pleased you). only the system default changed and if there is no diff between your setting and the system default there cant be any prompt (beyond that, your user setting would just override the system setting silently if there was one). It would have been really appreciated if someone had thought of this in the case of package upgrade. Better still, this change shouldn't require one to have to open gconf-editor and find the place to set it -- most people that I know who use Ubuntu don't even know what a window manager is -- let alone that their window manager is called metacity. This should have been a toggle-switch on the windows preferences dialog, something along the lines of look like a mac/look like windows. I know a lot of users from the Windows world who won't appreciate the new setup and I'm going to have to teach them about metacity, gconf and how to work with settings -- most of these people have also been brow-beaten in the past not to use regedit, which, let's be honest, is quite analagous to gconf-editor. Like I said: just my 2 cents' worth. I've worked around it, no real problem (though I did need to google to remember that metacity had this as config in gconf). But the option should be presented to the user, not just implemented, imo -- most especially since it's a break from the average desktop (which is Windows) and it's a break from prior behaviour. -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- The competent programmer is fully aware of the limited size of his own skull. He therefore approaches his task with full humility, and avoids clever tricks like the plague. - Djikstra. -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Removal of notification area
For what it's worth, I'd like to put in 2 (perhaps long-winded) cents here. The short story and suggestions: I think that culling the Notification Area could be problematic (more below, if you have time and patience to read). I would suggest: 1) Keep the Notification Area applet alive -- try to populate it less with standard apps, but leave it in the default install for other apps (if it's empty, it doesn't even have to consume much, if any panel real estate) OR 2) Provide a Notification Area to System Menu bridge (as suggested by another on this thread) to ease the lives of devs and users alike. Make the System Menu smart-hide things area with easy config (eg drag-n-drop) -- like the Win7 notification area. The long story (don't bother reading if you don't have time): Don't peg me as a hater -- these are just some observations (some of which I will illustrate with Pidgin, since that's an app which comes immediately to mind in this situation): 1) Already we have the case of apps which don't play nicely with the user notification applet such as Pidgin and Skype (both probably out of portability concerns). Now, personally, I don't want to use 2 different IM clients (home, Linux; work, Windows), so cross-platform for me, and some others, is a win. It's also a nice way to make people comfortable when they cross over from another platform to Ubuntu. In other words, I don't want to use Empathy -- and I don't see why I should *have* to. Now we're adding another mechanism to make development for cross-platform apps more difficult? I expect some fall-out here, and the user is the one who will get the bad end of it, when devs don't get around to or can't be bothered to support this no notification area concept. 2) Whilst I like the floating click-through notification concept, it doesn't help for being able to tell, after being away from the desktop, when, for example, I've missed an IM. I really hope no-one expects that the user should have to scan all open applications for updates in lieu of a systray. Since I don't use empathy (finding it clunky, and, well, just not pidgin enough for me and my set ways), I don't know if the user status icon can show that there have been IMs since the user stepped away from her desk -- but I'm assuming not? The pidgin tray icon lets me know straight away. 3) I've had a look at the spec at http://design.canonical.com/2010/04/notification-area/ for the menu concept, and I have to ask: what, apart from the fact that moving the mouse will open another app's menu (which may actually confuse new users who don't expect that) is the difference between this concept and the current notification area with clickable icons? It doesn't seem all that abstracted to me... Point (3) brings me to wanting to support the idea of a notification area bridge, since the spec just currently creates more work for application developers who already have a notification area icon in place -- and more effort for people who have abstracted notification icons for cross-platform development. Of course, if there's a bridge, then we're back at the dreaded situation where we have the many notification-like icons -- a position I assume the initial concept was trying to move away from. It's a bit catch-22: on one hand, developers want to make their interface more like a Mac (at least, that's how it looks, with the moving titlebar icons and this desire to cull the notification tray), on the other hand, there are more people who are comfortable with the old way and lots of app devs who will have to put in extra hours to follow this paradigm, for what looks like (to me) not much difference, if every notification-icon-using dev just uses a session menu item. Also, I can see how the notification area applet will probably never die, but the users who still want it will have to install it on top of the default installation to handle all the apps which haven't moved over to align themselves with Ubuntuism. I'm just wondering if these points (or something similar) have been brought up or thought through before? Feel free to flame away: I want Ubuntu to be the best distro in the world -- I just want to be able to recommend it to my newb sister too. On a side note, the Win7 handling of notification icons is great here: you see what you want; icons which have something to say appear for a short while and are hidden again and choosing what to see is a simple drag-n-drop operation -- quite well done from the company we all love to hate, to be honest. Finally, apologies for the verbosity. But there was a warning at the outset (: -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- The competent programmer is fully aware of the limited size of his own skull. He therefore approaches his task with full humility, and avoids clever tricks like the plague. - Djikstra. -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at:
Re: Thoughts on quitting and window controls
On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 9:45 AM, Derek Broughton de...@pointerstop.ca wrote: Neither do I - but for, apparently, opposite reasons. I don't understand why we need, or even want, minimize to tray and minimize to task bar (aargh, please don't push _my_ buttons, and write minimise :-) ) Sorry to be the spelling Nazi here, but if anyone's buttons are to be pushed by the difference in UK and US spelling, it should perhaps be the founders of the English language, not the ones who choose to drop vowels and replace consonants at whim. Americans have already won the spelling war in HTML, be happy with that. I'll continue to spell correctly whenever I can though (typos withstanding, of course!) :| /rant -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Thoughts on quitting and window controls
For what my input is worth, I'd just like to point out that I'm one of those people who is annoyed when an app which runs in the systray *exits* when I close the interface window (main or otherwise). For apps that support the minimise to tray functionality instead of closing the window minimises to tray idea, I find it particularly difficult to re-train myself to minimise instead of close. To me, minimise means minimise to the task bar. Personally, I don't think that an extra button in the title-bar would cut the mustard either. Seems that the only viable option that I can see is to handle both preferences (far be it for me to force *my* preferences on another person) -- perhaps the solution is a global preference for this kind of thing so that neither I nor the OP have to configure multiple tray-aware apps to bend to our personal preference. This option could perhaps be a checkbox in the Window Preferences settings dialog available from System-Preferences-Windows Of course, getting tray-aware apps to honor this setting is a whole other bowl of pudding entirely. -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- The competent programmer is fully aware of the limited size of his own skull. He therefore approaches his task with full humility, and avoids clever tricks like the plague. - Djikstra. -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Subject: Re: is anyone ever going to fix this major bug?
On Wed, 9 Dec 2009 11:00:21 Brendan Miller catph...@catphive.net wrote: Ah, Ok. I haven't updated any of my systems to 9.10, so I didn't realize that 32 bit compatibility had been removed... Given that, I probably just won't update since it would break adobe air and all my third party stuff... The AIR installer is broken (puts its little 32-bit libadobecertstore in /usr/lib (symlinked to /usr/lib64) instead of /usr/lib32 and won't start otherwise, but moving it sorts out the issue. Other 32-bit apps are also working fine... -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- There is no shame in not knowing; the shame is in not finding out. -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Supporting a GNU Hurd port?
I'd just like to add probably-not-even-two-cents-worth: Whilst I personally can't see any immediately viable (read: in the next 10 years, if ever) work to use HURD (*shudder*) or MINIX, the OP might get some satisfaction from Nexenta (http://www.nexenta.org). From what I've read (project maintainers and users), it's in a really good shape. If it's so important to the OP to use something other than Linux (personally, I don't really see the point, but that's my overly-biased opinion), then get something with a kernel which has actually been shown to work on a fairly wide array of devices and which has constant, active development. Oh yeah, and get ZFS... Man, I wish the whole licensing debacle for ZFS was over and I could mkfs.zfs... But I digress. -d -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- There is no shame in not knowing; the shame is in not finding out. -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: upgrade from 9.04 - 9.10: the most broken Ubuntu / Debian upgrade I have ever experienced
Hi all It's me again (: This time, I think I might have some useful information if anyone is actually trying to figure out why upgrades have been of the failing persuasion... Anyone who has wasted time reading my drivel may know that I attempted to do an upgrade from Jaunty to Karmic with less than stellar results. A week or two back, I decided to do a clean install to see if that would help -- but I kept my ~ exactly as-is, mounting it in with the same username, etc as before. Some of my issues went away, but I had some really annoying ones, especially to do with removable storage: 1) plugging in an external drive resulted in no new visible device 2) inserting a blank or written cd / dvd would often not show up as any media inserted (if the media was written, it wouldn't be mounted and wouldn't mount if I clicked the icon in the Places menu; if the media was new, brasero would complain that I needed to insert new media before I could write out my dvd). 3) Often, starting palimsest and then re-performing the plug or insert procedure would cause things to come right -- the media would be visible and browsable / writable On a whim, and because I've actually seen something like this work in the past when there was a fairly major upgrade to GNOME, I deleted (well, moved, to backup locations), the following (after logging out, of course): ~/.local ~/.gconf ~/.gconfd Logging in again, I found that I (naturally) had to set up my desktop the way I liked it (colors, icons, panels, applets, etc) -- no big surprise there: I did just delete all my preferences. What is suprising, however, is that removable media now work again -- new icons appear on the desktop on insert/plug, the media is mounted when I click on the icons and optical media is recognised and burned by brasero. I wouldn't really know where to start trying to hunt down the problem -- but I was wondering if someone with a little more savvy would like to take a crack at it? I still have the problematic directories available. On another positive note: the disk utilities in Karmic are quite sweet. Palimsest is neat and warned me of a potentially failing external hdd. Nice! I haven't seen a similar feature set in one of the other OSes -d -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- There is no shame in not knowing; the shame is in not finding out. -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: upgrade from 9.04 - 9.10: the most broken Ubuntu / Debian upgrade I have ever experienced
Thanks Multiple replacements of allow_activeauth_admin_keep/allow_active with allow_activeyes/allow_active stops the prompt for authorisation. The prior file doesn't pass parsing checks. Multiple replacements are required to handle multiple languages. I don't know if this somehow breaks some kind of security model -- what I do know is that I can mount my internal windows disks without authorisation. Now if only I could find a handy fix for the artifact where nautilus / gvfs isn't picking up newly-inserted removable media until I run palimpsest... I'd about have my system back (: -d 2009/11/8 Martin Pitt martin.p...@ubuntu.com Martin Pitt [2009-11-07 8:39 +0100]: 2) I have two fixed drives in my system for That Other OS. I used to just be able to mount them by clicking their respective icons in the Places menu and they would be mounted via ntfs-3g (FUSE). Now, one of them (the main drive of the OS) mounts when I click its icon; the other requires me to authorise myself with a natty dialog and the reason being related to: org.freedesktop.devicekit.disks.filesystem-mount-system-internal Yes, that's a known usability problem right now. Feel free to report a bug against devicekit-disks. FYI: https://launchpad.net/bugs/465054 Martin -- Martin Pitt| http://www.piware.de Ubuntu Developer (www.ubuntu.com) | Debian Developer (www.debian.org) -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- There is no shame in not knowing; the shame is in not finding out. -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Ubuntu-devel-discuss Digest, Vol 36, Issue 19
I tried using ubuntu-bug over the last few days to report issues. The error reports always fail to upload. I've opened a ticked wrt the ubuntu-bug problem (mainly that if the upload fails, there's no retry button). (Un)fortunately, my machine has decided to notice drives that I'm inserting right at this moment -- though, earlier, to get nautilus to recognise a re-writable dvd that I'd inserted, I had to pull the old run palimpsest trick -- the burn dialog (yes, I realise that it's from brasero) wouldn't recognise that I had optical media inserted -- it only provided the option to write out a .iso file. I have logged information against #465054 and the bug it's supposed to be a dupe of (#463347), though I'm not 100% convinced it is a dupe, since #463347 is the udev fd leak, and I'm not getting that -- I just have to run palimsest periodically to get my drives and optical media to show up in Nautilus. Of course, Dolphin is still behaving. But I prefer Nautilus -- just wish it would work. Please let me know if there's any more info I can furnish or tests I can run. -d 2009/11/8 ubuntu-devel-discuss-requ...@lists.ubuntu.com Send Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list submissions to ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to ubuntu-devel-discuss-requ...@lists.ubuntu.com You can reach the person managing the list at ubuntu-devel-discuss-ow...@lists.ubuntu.com When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than Re: Contents of Ubuntu-devel-discuss digest... Today's Topics: 1. Re: upgrade from 9.04 - 9.10: the most broken Ubuntu / Debian upgrade I have ever experienced (Martin Pitt) -- Message: 1 Date: Sun, 8 Nov 2009 12:36:09 +0100 From: Martin Pitt martin.p...@ubuntu.com Subject: Re: upgrade from 9.04 - 9.10: the most broken Ubuntu / Debian upgrade I have ever experienced To: ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Message-ID: 20091108113609.gb2...@piware.de Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Davyd McColl [2009-11-07 9:54 +0200]: I'll be quite happy to report a bug. I don't think my problem is udev though -- the launchpad URL you gave suggests that a little bit of shell code should return a number 1000 for the problem to exist (I have to admit that I haven't really interrogated the code, but it looks like it's just looking for a count of file descriptors?) Yes. That bug was a about an fd descriptor leak in udev which caused pretty much any hardware change to get failed to notice. Anyhoo, when I ran it here, I get '22'. So that's not it then. Please do ubuntu-bug storage and report it when you can reproduce the problem. Thanks! Martin -- Martin Pitt| http://www.piware.de Ubuntu Developer (www.ubuntu.com) | Debian Developer (www.debian.org) -- -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss End of Ubuntu-devel-discuss Digest, Vol 36, Issue 19 -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- There is no shame in not knowing; the shame is in not finding out. -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: upgrade from 9.04 - 9.10: the most broken Ubuntu / Debian upgrade I have ever experienced
On 2009/11/7 Martin Pitt martin.p...@ubuntu.com wrote: Try have a look at https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/463347 -- there is currently an udev in proposed which should fix a lot of those symptoms. If it still happens, please do ubuntu-bug and file a new bug against the storage device symptom. I'll be quite happy to report a bug. I don't think my problem is udev though -- the launchpad URL you gave suggests that a little bit of shell code should return a number 1000 for the problem to exist (I have to admit that I haven't really interrogated the code, but it looks like it's just looking for a count of file descriptors?) Anyhoo, when I ran it here, I get '22'. Also, Dolphin (KDE file browser) doesn't suffer from the problem -- my unmounted removable storage shows up in the list on the left and I can mount and work with the drive from there. It's just annoying to have to launch up Dolphin every time I insert a drive... Yes, that's a known usability problem right now. Feel free to report a bug against devicekit-disks. Will do. I also notice, from my clean 9.10 vbox vm, that the old policykit is not installed by default any more. It was superseded (for GNOME) by policykit-1, as you said. I've uninstalled it from my main machine here, but it also took a few apps (k3b and some other K apps) with it -- which I'm not all that pleased about. I don't use k3b often, but it's nice to know that I have it if I want all the advanced features it offers. Well, then don't uninstall it -- you asked for it, you got it. :-) There's nothing wrong with having both installed. Ok, well the only reason I removed it is because I wasn't sure. When things stop working the way they have for the last goodness-knows-how-long, I'm willing to try just about anything. -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- There is no shame in not knowing; the shame is in not finding out. -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: upgrade from 9.04 - 9.10: the most broken Ubuntu / Debian upgrade I have ever experienced
On 2009/11/7 Martin Pitt martin.p...@ubuntu.com wrote: Try have a look at https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/463347 -- there is currently an udev in proposed which should fix a lot of those symptoms. If it still happens, please do ubuntu-bug and file a new bug against the storage device symptom. I'll be quite happy to report a bug. I don't think my problem is udev though -- the launchpad URL you gave suggests that a little bit of shell code should return a number 1000 for the problem to exist (I have to admit that I haven't really interrogated the code, but it looks like it's just looking for a count of file descriptors?) Anyhoo, when I ran it here, I get '22'. Also, Dolphin (KDE file browser) doesn't suffer from the problem -- my unmounted removable storage shows up in the list on the left and I can mount and work with the drive from there. It's just annoying to have to launch up Dolphin every time I insert a drive... Also, watching dmesg, I can see that the drive is detected by udev. It's assigned a node under /dev. Nautilus is the only silly puppy not wanting to display the drive. I gather there is something that I'm missing or which has been under/over-tweaked in gconf? Yes, that's a known usability problem right now. Feel free to report a bug against devicekit-disks. Will do. I also notice, from my clean 9.10 vbox vm, that the old policykit is not installed by default any more. It was superseded (for GNOME) by policykit-1, as you said. I've uninstalled it from my main machine here, but it also took a few apps (k3b and some other K apps) with it -- which I'm not all that pleased about. I don't use k3b often, but it's nice to know that I have it if I want all the advanced features it offers. Well, then don't uninstall it -- you asked for it, you got it. :-) There's nothing wrong with having both installed. Ok, well the only reason I removed it is because I wasn't sure. When things stop working the way they have for the last goodness-knows-how-long, I'm willing to try just about anything. -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- There is no shame in not knowing; the shame is in not finding out. -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: upgrade from 9.04 - 9.10: the most broken Ubuntu / Debian upgrade I have ever experienced
Apologies for the double-post: gmail timed out. Gave me an opportunity to add a useful line though (: -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Ubuntu-devel-discuss Digest, Vol 36, Issue 10
On Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:07:58 +0100, Mario Vukelic wrote: I don't think that the OP provided enough information to understand what went wrong during his upgrade; it does seem that he may have tried update-manager first and resorted to the manual process only once it failed. Apologies if I wasn't quite clear -- I have been known to ramble a little. At the risk of once again flooding the mailing list with useless information (sorry!), here is the sequence of events leading up to the issues at hand: 1) Notice update-manager icon in the tray; clicky! 2) Get update-manager screen telling me that I have about 4 packages that may be updated. 3) Update-manager refreshes to show the New release available frame. Like an OCD spider-monkey on crack, I click on that thing! 4) Another dialog pops up, starting the upgrade process that I've been accustomed to (downloading scripts, etc) 5) This dies ): No idea why, really. Just death, cold, alone, and without so much as a crash report. 6) I re-launch update-manager from the tray icon, to find that I now have in the order of 1000 packages that can be upgraded. The update to new release frame doesn't re-appear. For all intents and purposes, it appears as if my machine has been morphed into a Koala with some negative karma points and a lot of upgrading ahead. I'm not daunted -- this looks like what I would expect if I were to manually edit my sources and do a dist-upgrade. So I click on update 7) After some time, the libc6 issue appears, asking me, via standard gtk-style deb messages, to restart, amongst other things, gdm. At this point, I drop out to a VT, stop gdm myself, and progress with apt-get dist-upgrade, thinking that the package manager for libc6 is probably a lot smarter than me and has his/her reasons for requesting a restart of gdm, as well as realising that if I don't do this in a VT, I have an endless loop ahead of me. 8) rounds of apt-get dist-upgrade interspersed with apt-get install -f until things seem calm. The occasional dpkg --purge of conflicting packages that I don't essentially need (indi and d4x come to mind) and some manual fixing for packages with bad post-install scripts (wicd comes to mind) 9) restart gdm. Desktop starts up. Update-manager claims I still have upgrading to do -- I let it. 10) update-manager and apt both agree that my machine is up to date. The reboot icon prevails in my tray, so, like a well-trained bdsm sub, I go for the 'boot. 11) Death. No working grub, and I'm unable to resurrect grub from a live boot of a Debian Lenny dvd (which I'm using because my ubuntu download wasn't done yet and this is the most recent 64-bit live dvd that I have) -- grub-install complains about read errors for the installed stage1 file on my ubuntu filesystem. Re-installing grub debs on that filesystem in a chrooted shell don't cause the problem to go away. I cry, gently, to myself, in the corner and shake my fist all cute, furry, bear-like creatures. 12) I boot into win7 and leave ubuntu 9.10 64bit iso downloading. I'm mildy infuriated when the stupid win7 OS reboots in the middle of the night, and restart the download in the morning. I do basically the same thing through the Ubuntu 9.10 cd that I attempted with the Lenny cd: i) boot cd, mount my original root fs ii) grub-install boot device --root-directory=where root was mounted --recheck --no-floppy iii) grub seems installed. Yay! 13) Reboot. Grub is, indeed, installed -- but doesn't seem to have a clue about my config -- I just have a grub shell. Lucky for me, I've spent time in this mystical place before. Unluckily for me, this version of grub no longer understands the kernel parameter. The help command, the pause key and a certain amount of Clint-Eastwood-like lucky-punkness provide me with a command linux, which I try -- and it works just like the old kernel one did. After a little messing about, I have my old install alive again, and I re-run grub-installer there, with no arguments. A reboot shows a working grub menu and some sense of order is restored to my little world. On a positive note: the entire system seems a lot more responsive now. I'm assuming that a lot of that has to do with the kernel upgrade. Still, it's nice to see my ath64 6400x2 behaving like the beasty it should be (or was, when I bought it... ) -d -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- There is no shame in not knowing; the shame is in not finding out. -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Ubuntu-devel-discuss Digest, Vol 36, Issue 12
-- Message: 5 On Wed, 4 Nov 2009 11:44:07 +0100, Michael Vogt wrote: First and foremost I'm sorry that you had such a bad upgrade experience. We work hard to make it smooth and painless and take the bugs/issues very seriously. Thanks. Sorry if I seemed a little disappointed -- I was. This is the first time that I've encountered a real show-stopper during upgrade. If you still have access to the logs, could you please report a bug or mail me the content of /var/log/dist-upgrade/* ? I would really like to know what happend there. Given that your sources.list got udated (see below) I'm pretty sure there is useful log information available. I'll check tonight -- the machine is at home So you stopped it and killed the session (that update-manager was running in) yourself? It was not the upgrade process that kicked you out? I assume you answered no, please stop the upgrade at the debconf prompt? I see that you reported bug #471436, I assume the pre-isnt exit there (comment #2) is the result of clicking cancel). Pretty-much, yeah, if memory serves. Thanks, indi and wicd have no open bugs about this it seems, could you please report them and include the failure? Sorry: 1) the indi issue happened at a VT, so no automagic reporting ): 2) the wicd issue was a proverbial camel's-back breaker. I was just getting hellin with all the reports that I was filing. I'll give it a bash tonight. Please also file a bug about the grub problem, with the apt terminal log included. I suspect that grub somehow got removed during the upgrade but the logs should give us more details. Sorry, I don't have the terminal logs available -- it was in VT. But I do remember seeing it go past, and it had appeared to install OK. Also, dpkg -S /boot/grub/stage1 (iirc) reported the source grub package (perhaps grub-common? I'm not on the machine now, so this is from memory...). The package, for all intents and purposes, appeared to be installed. I don't mind logging a bug against this, but I'm quite sure that with the lack of useful information, the log will just waste a dev's time ): -d -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- There is no shame in not knowing; the shame is in not finding out. -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Reporting usability problems: please be more tolerant when you triage bugs!
Let me suggest that Ubuntu appoint an usability triager/ombudsman, to determine (from the Ubuntu users' perspective, not from an Ubuntu developers' perspective) how much attention ought to be paid to each and every usability-related bug report. My 2c: I have to whole-heartedly agree. Probably the largest focus group of the *buntu distros are the kinds of user who are intimidated enough at posting some kind of bug / annoyance / usability issue, let alone having to directly contact the grumpy developer(s) of the actual project (hey, I too can be a grumpy dev; users can get a bit much). It would (imo) be a huge boost for Ubuntu to provide a service (for lack of a better term) whereby requests such as these are proxied to the relevant dev(s), even better with some kind of relevance count (eg, how many people find this issue to be a problem). I know this is asking for even more from the free ride, but I think it would be in the interests of the distros involved -- a lot of devs (myself included) may overlook usability issues because the system seems intuitive to them. Most devs that I know, however, if faced with a 99% frustration rate from users, would change their product (if you're not in the FOSS dev sphere to make good software for people other than yourself, then why exactly are you here?). Most users, on the other hand, either don't have the time, patience or 1337 5k1llz to (a) find the correct person to inform of the issue and (b) convince him/her that it actually *is* an issue. The very fact that someone had enough motivation to report something as difficult to use should be of interest to the projects in question: it's more often the case that people just can't be bothered. -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: USB mass storage issues
Will do. Give me some time since this only seems to happen on fairly rare occasions -- I've had it more than once, but it's not every time (: -d On Thu, Jul 16, 2009 at 12:44 PM, Martin Pitt martin.p...@ubuntu.comwrote: Hello Davyd, Davyd McColl [2009-07-07 20:26 +0200]: [421393.358731] sd 22:0:0:0: [sdg] Write Protect is off [421393.358735] sd 22:0:0:0: [sdg] Mode Sense: 34 00 00 00 [421393.358738] sd 22:0:0:0: [sdg] Assuming drive cache: write through [421393.358744] sdg: sdg1 OK, it seems that the kernel detected it alright then. Strangely enough though, whilst there is a device /dev/sdg; there is no partition /dev/sdg1. It could be a race condition in udev for creating those devices. Could you do udevadm monitor --udev -e 21 | tee /tmp/udev.log and then do this unplug/plug dance a few times? We need an occurrence of the works and fails case. Once it failed, control-c the monitor and file a bug against udev and attach /tmp/udev.log. Thanks, Martin -- Martin Pitt| http://www.piware.de Ubuntu Developer (www.ubuntu.com) | Debian Developer (www.debian.org) -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Truth doesn't cease to be just because you don't agree with it. -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
USB mass storage issues
Good day Just throwing this out there to see if anyone has an idea how to sort this out or at least can perhaps help me make up my mind which package to file a bug against: I'm running Jaunty 64-bit, all packages up to date. I've seen this a couple of times now and it's getting a little pesky, mainly because I don't believe in rebooting to sort out a problem. That's the generic solution for another OS. Anyway, the story: I have 3 external hard drives which are powered off of the USB bus. Occasionally, when I plug one in, I see the following (as an example) from dmesg: [421240.804825] sd 21:0:0:0: [sdg] Attached SCSI disk [421240.804963] sd 21:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg6 type 0 [421338.669617] usb 2-2: USB disconnect, address 21 [421340.546572] usb 1-2: USB disconnect, address 6 [421388.180051] usb 2-2: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 22 [421388.314168] usb 2-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice [421388.315292] scsi22 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices [421388.315580] usb-storage: device found at 22 [421388.315586] usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning [421393.312348] usb-storage: device scan complete [421393.354402] scsi 22:0:0:0: Direct-Access ST925082 7AS PQ: 0 ANSI: 2 CCS [421393.356322] sd 22:0:0:0: [sdg] 488397168 512-byte hardware sectors: (250 GB/ 232 GiB) [421393.357240] sd 22:0:0:0: [sdg] Write Protect is off [421393.357244] sd 22:0:0:0: [sdg] Mode Sense: 34 00 00 00 [421393.357249] sd 22:0:0:0: [sdg] Assuming drive cache: write through [421393.357984] sd 22:0:0:0: [sdg] 488397168 512-byte hardware sectors: (250 GB/ 232 GiB) [421393.358731] sd 22:0:0:0: [sdg] Write Protect is off [421393.358735] sd 22:0:0:0: [sdg] Mode Sense: 34 00 00 00 [421393.358738] sd 22:0:0:0: [sdg] Assuming drive cache: write through [421393.358744] sdg: sdg1 [421393.389504] sd 22:0:0:0: [sdg] Attached SCSI disk [421393.389652] sd 22:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg6 type 0 Note the third line from the bottom: the kernel seems to recognise that there is one partition on the disk. Performing parted on the disk confirms the situation: Number Start EndSize Type File system Flags 1 32.3kB 250GB 250GB primary ntfs (I use ntfs because it's the easiest way to get a journal and large-file support across Linux and Windows. I have to work on Windows...) Strangely enough though, whilst there is a device /dev/sdg; there is no partition /dev/sdg1. Understandably, Nautilus doesn't recognise a new mountable volume and I can't seem to see this drive unless I reboot and re-plug. I've tried restarting (not necessarily in this order): hal (ended up with no mouse and keyboard in X) dbus udev Nothing has helped. Any ideas? At the very least, should I be logging this as a bug against the kernel package or something like hal/udev? Note that things work well for a while after a boot (current uptime about 4 days), and I plug these drives in and out on a regular basis. It's just that after some time, the partitions on the devices don't get device nodes made for them. -d -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
External storage ejection notifications
With the spanky new Jaunty notifications in place for commonplace items such as IM messages, I have found it rather disappointing that we've actually *lost* the safe to remove media notifications that I came to love and wait patiently for under prior versions of Ubuntu. In the place of a rather spiffy-looking balloon-type notification, Nautilus now gives me a dialog which, for all intents and purposes, looks very unfinished: the message that it tries to display isn't even a complete sentence (so I'm assuming that the rest of it would be there if the dialog were bigger?). And if I unmount from the desktop, I get no notification whatsoever. I just have to wait for the icon to disappear. Which may sound like I'm blathering about nothing, but often I unmount after a large copy operation so the kernel still has to sync(). This means that instead of just unmounting and carrying on with something else until I get a notification, I have to wait, on an open desktop, for the icon to disappear. And I'm just not left that reassured that the drive has been cleanly unmounted. I'm sorry, but here I'm like a real user: I want a notification, as I would expect under the other major OSes. What are the dev plans for said removable storage notifications? Is this something which is going to be addressed as soon as a consensus is reached about how to address it? Is this something which is already addressed in Karmic? Or is this something which is just going to be left in a state of less polish than prior releases? -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
RE: Replace PulseAudio with OSS v4?
Personally, I would welcome just about anything which would help us to lose PulseAudio. Or magically transform PulseAudio into something which doesn't suck. Either way would be fine. Allow me to elaborate (or skip the rest of this post if you don't care): I've had an SB Live for ages. One of the most redeeming features of this card is hardware mixing. Meaning that I didn't care about OSS lockups or ALSA's dmix. Things just worked. Most users like it that way. Recently, when loading Win7 to be able to play some windows-only games, I've found that windows hasn't had proper SBLive support since, well, XP. XP picks up the card on my system but doesn't output sound to it. Win7 seems to think it's a relic from a distant age and refuses to work with it. Creative, apparently, don't care. So the card that I've used for years because of how it rocks under Linux had to go -- I want a system I can just reboot to play my games (that is all windows is good for, imo). I tried using PA's mixing and multiple output to use USB headphones and the onboard Realtek HDA audio. Worked for a while but often left PA locked up. I would have to kill and restart. My nett conclusion is that PA doesn't do well with multiple soundcards, despite the advertisements. So now I use the onboard sound exclusively. PA behaves (mostly) for me, but the sound is a little latent -- and I'm not a person who creates music or anything like that. I can deal with the minor latency because it doesn't really affect me. Someone who mixes digital music on the other hand (and I have a friend who does) can't use PA. Now, when mixing wasn't an issue (ie when I had my SB Live), OSS was all I needed. Apps which wanted ALSA would also work because the kernel supplied the API. But ALSA didn't give me anything I needed. Then again, neither would have done the multi-card output seamlessly. I guess I have to agree with the general consensus that sound is not Linux's stronger suit. I guess it comes back to my initial comment: I would welcome (and I'm sure other users would agree) any subsystem which: 1) Worked (all the time, without random lockup) 2) Wasn't latent 3) Wasn't a mission to set up 4) Just handled mixing -- it's not something the average user thinks about when Redmond has never really made it an issue -- multiple win32 sound apps have just been able to work simultaneously since, well, almost forever. 5) Could handle multiple soundcards easily -- those USB headphones might still come in handy instead of the extension cables from my onboard sound (my keyboard has a USB hub on it -- it was well convenient). Personally, I have yet to see that list met by any system. OSSv4, from the posted article, looks like it handles the average user's requirements quite well. I guess it's up to whether it's worth patching into the Linux kernel for *buntu distros or if the kernel devs want to include it. On the other hand, I have, in the past, after much frustration, managed to get ALSA's dmix to work -- oddly enough, some distros actually have tools to make it work for you. I haven't seen something like that on *buntu (though I have to admit that I didn't look *too* hard because those were the days of the SB Live). It would indeed be a great step forward to have sound work under Linux in the same manner that windows users are accustomed to: it just does (barring stupid sound card providers who drop driver support, of course). -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Jaunty 64-bit and NVIDIA -- Any ideas?
Good day Thanks for your response. Suspecting that there could be a problem with the card itself (rather inconveniently coincidental, since I just bought a new mobo, psu and ram after a power surge (as far as I can ascertain) killed my PSU and I wasn't sure exactly what was dead, and just wanted to cover my bases; also, as noted in the OP, I reloaded, going from 32bit Jaunty to 64bit -- that seemed like the most likely culprit since 2D was working fine and 3D worked for a while), I bought an XFX GTX260 -- I've wanted to upgrade for the last year or so anyways... No problems now. (: I still find it odd that 2D worked flawlessly and 3D worked for a short amount of time -- about 5 seconds for glxgears and anywhere from 5 minutes to a few hours for GL screensavers... But perhaps there was a circuit in the 3D parts (I'm no electronic engineer!) which was damaged and just needed to warm up a little through usage to become blatantly broken. I'm going to give the card to someone else to test -- will report back. If the card works fine for someone else, then I really don't know how how to proceed with debugging this. I would have to assume that if the card isn't faulty elsewhere, then someone else may encounter the same issue. I'm still annoyed by the nvidia flicker on my laptop -- but apparently that's a long-standing issue (allegedly the quick black flicker is from the onboard gpu changing power usage / clock levels). To answer all posed questions (because it would be rude not to (: ). Some answers are from memory, so please bear with me: 1) glxinfo showed the usual large amount of stuff -- with the gl extensions supplied by NVIDIA 2) Yes, the NVIDIA closed driver was not only installed, but in use -- lsmod confirmed this (I also started to wonder...) 3) I did have compiz-fusion enabled. Never had the problem before, but I do believe I tried disabling compiz and still found simple apps like glxgears to cause lockup. See the wierdness? Compiz-fusion worked fine (with all its GL interaction), but something with a little more demand wreaked havoc) 4) Yes, totally up-to-date. Compulsively so (: -d On Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 12:41 AM, Dane Mutters dmutt...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, 2009-05-25 at 07:59 +0200, Davyd McColl wrote: Good day I've used Ubuntu for quite some time (years), following upgrade cycles on 32-bit and staying clear of 64-bit just because a lot of people have reported having a hard time of it. I recently installed 64-bit Jaunty on my laptop (HP Pavillion dv9352 with NVIDIA 7600 go graphics) and it worked so swimmingly that I decided to finally do a clean 64-bit install on my desktop instead of just dist-upgrade'ing to Jaunty as I would have normally done. Things have been good for a while -- but the problems have started as soon as I've required 3D applications to work. It started when I switched from Blank Screen to the BlinkBox screensaver. I came back to my machine to find it locked up after a while. This process was repeatable. Suspecting gnome-screensaver, I uninstalled and installed xscreensaver instead -- no change. And other 3D screensavers (like Bouncing Cow) cause the same issue. When I was playin Diablo II via WINE last night, I got a lockup after about 20 min play. All system temps are well within normal operating ranges -- the hardware doesn't seem to be the problem. ALT-SYSRQ keys still work, so the kernel is still alive. Suspecting graphics, I've downgraded from the 180 driver to the 173 -- same effect. The older 96 (iirc) driver doesn't seem to allow compiz, but does seem to suck just as much -- glxgears brought the system to a standstill, with occassional response from the mouse cursor -- but nothing else. I must also note here that glxgears quite reliably reproduces the system lockup for the 173 and 180 drivers. My next recourse is to try the beta (185) drivers from NVIDIA. I would have already but the download I left going overnight apparently broke somehow: the installer is complaining about a checksum mismatch -- so I'm re-downloading. What I want to know is: is this common for 64-bit systems (to have dodgy proprietary (ie, NVIDIA / ATI) drivers)? I've seen a lot of posts online about similar issues but they range right from Warty days -- has this always been an issue? Should I have rather just stuck with 32-bit? And does anyone know of aything other than trying the beta drivers which I can give a bash? I'm not a hectic gamer, but I do like to play something now and then (doom, quake, diablo, serious sam, etc), and it sucks that I'm unable to use a simple GL screensaver. Any ideas are appreciated. -d Hi, Davyd. I've been playing around with a few different motherboards at work, and have found that some of the ones with built-in 3d accelerated graphics behave oddly when the 3D drivers are installed. (Some of them will exhibit the behavior you've described, even though
Re: Ubuntu-devel-discuss Digest, Vol 31, Issue 42
I'm sorry, but the 12-year-old in me needs to scream this out: PWNED! Mark, come on dude, just say uncle and leave the playground. The adults have work to do here. Well, just for starts, I was instrumental in supporting Stuart Cheshire's work on ZEROCONF while I was his manager at Apple, and in getting Apple to release RendezVous/Bonjour as an open source project--Apple's first open source release ever, to the best of my knowledge. I'm also the chief open source advocate within the largest manufacturer of mobile device software in Japan. I'm also, as mentioned, on the GNOME Foundation advisory board, as well as a founding member of GNOME Mobile, a multiple-year sponsor of open source conferences such as GUADEC and FOSTEL, a multiple-time speaker at the Linux Symposium, one of the key mobile open source advocates within the Linux Foundation, and chair of the Open Source Committee at the LiMo Foundation, as well as chairing the Mobile Day at LinuxCon later this year. Just for starts. -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Jaunty 64-bit and NVIDIA -- Any ideas?
Thanks (: Now I just need to get my keys for Doom3, Doom3 ROE and Quake4 to work. Since the reload, the clients claim that the keys are in use. Emailing Activision hasn't yielded anything in about 5 days. Which brings to light some of the reasons I like FOSS software: 1) No stupid serial keys, activation processes or registrations. Just software. 2) The FOSS community is normally quicker to respond than companies which are actually *paid* for their products. My theory is that it has something to do with passion and a love for what they do (or a lack thereof). I'm also still going to get a friend to test that card in another machine. Perhaps the troubleshooting will continue for him ^_^. On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 3:02 AM, Dane Muttersdmutt...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, 2009-06-10 at 08:01 +0200, Davyd McColl wrote: Good day Thanks for your response. Suspecting that there could be a problem with the card itself (rather inconveniently coincidental, since I just bought a new mobo, psu and ram after a power surge (as far as I can ascertain) killed my PSU and I wasn't sure exactly what was dead, and just wanted to cover my bases; also, as noted in the OP, I reloaded, going from 32bit Jaunty to 64bit -- that seemed like the most likely culprit since 2D was working fine and 3D worked for a while), I bought an XFX GTX260 -- I've wanted to upgrade for the last year or so anyways... No problems now. (: I still find it odd that 2D worked flawlessly and 3D worked for a short amount of time -- about 5 seconds for glxgears and anywhere from 5 minutes to a few hours for GL screensavers... But perhaps there was a circuit in the 3D parts (I'm no electronic engineer!) which was damaged and just needed to warm up a little through usage to become blatantly broken. I'm going to give the card to someone else to test -- will report back. If the card works fine for someone else, then I really don't know how how to proceed with debugging this. I would have to assume that if the card isn't faulty elsewhere, then someone else may encounter the same issue. I'm still annoyed by the nvidia flicker on my laptop -- but apparently that's a long-standing issue (allegedly the quick black flicker is from the onboard gpu changing power usage / clock levels). To answer all posed questions (because it would be rude not to (: ). Some answers are from memory, so please bear with me: 1) glxinfo showed the usual large amount of stuff -- with the gl extensions supplied by NVIDIA 2) Yes, the NVIDIA closed driver was not only installed, but in use -- lsmod confirmed this (I also started to wonder...) 3) I did have compiz-fusion enabled. Never had the problem before, but I do believe I tried disabling compiz and still found simple apps like glxgears to cause lockup. See the wierdness? Compiz-fusion worked fine (with all its GL interaction), but something with a little more demand wreaked havoc) 4) Yes, totally up-to-date. Compulsively so (: -d Bummer about not getting to troubleshoot it further, but I'm glad you got it worked out! (Happy gaming!) :-) -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Thoughts for assisting those with limited bandwidth
On Saturday 31 January 2009 13:16:25 Mackenzie Morgan wrote: If you want to avoid those sorts of updates and only get the security ones, you can disable the updates repository and just use security. That'd result in quite a lot of the updates being eliminated. There are also changelogs available in the update window. If the bug in question doesn't affect you, you can uncheck the update. Neither of those options are really satisfactory: If I were to follow the first step, then I wouldn't get feature / minor-bugfix updates for ALL packages, not just the ones that are a little large. And if I follow the second, then I'm nagged every day about the larger packages that I haven't updated -- not to mention that I don't always bother to read all of the changelogs when I get my pretty-much daily update notice -- there are often 10-30 packages in that list! I don't mind spending the bandwidth on an update -- the issue is apparent bandwidth wastage for something which is a very minor update. Even if the update applied to me, it's quite hefty to get said update at 70mb download for the tweak of one options in .config. Instead of being just another moo in the wilderness, I will, as someone else on this mailing list suggested, give it some thought myself (: -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Truth doesn't cease to be just because you don't agree with it. -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Thoughts for assisting those with limited bandwidth
I'm just putting this out there, for some consideration and discussion. I'm hoping someone can come up with a better idea than I have and that perhaps there will be some kind of positive response to the request. Here it is: whilst I totally appreciate all the hard work that goes into patching and maintaining the current release version of large packages (like the kernel, openoffice.org, or even just warsow, which has a large data component), I don't appreciate a 78mb download every other day because one config item in the kernel config has been changed or tweaked. I know there are people who are sitting with hardware doing odd things or the like, who need those patches, so I'm not expecting the development or release to cease or slow in anyway -- I'm just wondering if there isn't a better way to distribute the changes to the end user. In particular, what comes to mind is how the modification of ONE kernel module requires the re-download of the kernel, headers and (if, like me, you have it installed) the kernel source package. Debian has an awesome packaging system which has allowed the segregation of larger packages into smaller, dependant ones so that changing something small doesn't have to cause a monstrous bandwidth load for the end-user. I know that a lot of people sitting on uncapped (or large-cap) broadband are thinking who cares? but there are a lot of people (especially in the country of origin for Ubuntu - South Africa - who get by on dial-up or a 1Gb capped broadband (because it's not broadband by the standards of the rest of the world) internet connection. Forcing a user like that to download 400-600mb over a 2 or three weeks really eats into their allotted bandwidth. So, the simplest proposal is to split out the kernel package into smaller packages (much like XOrg, with the video drivers and other parts split out separately) so that, for instance, a bug fix for intel wireless doesn't have to cause a massive download for everyone, regardless of whether or not they have intel wireless; conversely, it means that fixes can be conveyed to the end-user as quickly as before (probably quicker, because of the smaller download!). Getting more complex, one could look into binary diffs between packages. But, using the existing architecture that is in place, simply breaking the kernel up into smaller pieces will definitely help. I remember a time when Debian had at least two packages for the kernel -- the image and the modules, and the modules were just a dep of the image, so first-timers got both. But updates to the image didn't require a re-download of the modules and vice-versa. Thoughts, anyone? -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
cdrtools vs cdrkit: flogging the dead horse
Good day I am quite new to the devel mailing list, so please bear with me. Recently, I've had a lot of trouble with wodim -- failed burns, refuses to blank a CD-RW until I have already done so with cdrecord from cdrtools. It seems that I'm far from being alone. My initial investigations (prior to most of my issues with wodim) into the cdrkit vs cdrtools debacle left me feeling that Mr Schilling was just being plain rude, and that the Debian guys had done a reasonable thing with the cdrkit fork. Subsequent to the numerous problems that I've had, and the resolution coming in the form of installing the latest cdrtools from schily, wherafter wodim on the same drive and media suddenly behaved has lead me to question exactly why the official cdrtools are omitted from the repository -- at least, from the non-free section, if the licensing (which I have to admit I haven't examined in-depth, but it probably wouldn't make a difference since I don't speak fluent lawyer) is an issue. One of the reasons I shifted from Debian to Ubuntu was the fact that Ubuntu made an effort to service the best interests of the userbase, even if it meant including non-free content (sometimes in an optional repository). Shining examples of how the user has benefitted have come in the form of NVIDIA/ATI binary blob redistribution (which has been an absolute blessing: when I had an ATI card, the initial driver install was clean but susequent installs caused all 3d functions to break -- a problem that took me at least a month of quake-free computing to rectify) as well as the Firefox artwork. Where possible, free alternatives are supplied (such as the nv driver and iceweasel). I whole-heartedly support both schools of thought, though I tend towards Linus' approach that the BEST solution is always better, even if it's not necessarily totally free. The long and the short of it is my question to the mailing list that if Ubuntu already makes better, non-free alternatives available to the user base, why isn't there an official package for cdrtools, most notably for the people like me who have had issues with wodim? I'm in the fortunate position of being a geek, so finding the cdrtools source, compiling and installing weren't an issue. But Ubuntu is Linux for human beings -- the users who benefit most from the great work on Ubuntu are the ones who wouldn't be able to resolve the wodim issue. The issue of cdrkit vs cdrtools doesn't seem to be all that different from the issue of opensource and proprietary video drivers -- but perhaps I'm just missing something fundamental here? If I'm not, then why are they not treated the same? To add insult to injury, because I can't replicate the problem easily, I can't even supply more debugging information for the trouble ticket that I registered (as yet, though I will if I ever do get to replicate the problem). -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Truth doesn't cease to be just because you don't agree with it. -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
