Seeking Linuxy hardware to rejig my life to digital convergence....
So my home life is getting sufficient twangled that having some more advance facilities (voicemail / caller id / ...) would be good. I was looking at Xnet VFX Fusion. But that means I'd have to replace my router to have a phone plug. This seems... unnecessary. Googling (gargling?) for voip and openwrt turns up Asterix running on a Linksys WRT54GL... just so happens I have a WRT54GL running Openwrt Backfire. So what I need is... * A cordless voip phone or a way of tacking a standard cordless to, umm, something. * Access to a cheap gateway from the IP to Christchurch local telephone system * Something with cheap calls to South Africa / US / UK (diasporas tend to do that to you) So carry on with the digital convergence... After buying, trying and returning to the #...@$#! red shed under gaurantee two TV's... and having similar problems with DSE TV's... I'm very reluctant to waste money on a TV again... Yet the Sprats want TV and a place to plug their game consoles into. Dang. Now with netbooks being cheaper (and better quality) than many TV's... what I need is... * Some way of getting TV game console inputs on to the display. Hmm. There is an ADSL2+ to city block cabinet a 50m down the road Would it be worth replacing my DSE ADSL XH1175 router with an adsl2+ one anyway? Suggestions most welcome. -- John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@taitradio.com New Zealand === This email, including any attachments, is only for the intended addressee. It is subject to copyright, is confidential and may be the subject of legal or other privilege, none of which is waived or lost by reason of this transmission. If the receiver is not the intended addressee, please accept our apologies, notify us by return, delete all copies and perform no other act on the email. Unfortunately, we cannot warrant that the email has not been altered or corrupted during transmission. ===
Which Android?
Ok, so my mobile phones battery has died... and I desperately wish to wrap my mind around Android. (Why? It's seems like my weird idea of fun and a valuable skill to have...) Carrying one in my pocket strikes me as the best way to go about that. So folks, given that I will be reflashing the thing and when I spoke to them, Telecom seems terrified of that prospect... Which Android would you recommend? -- John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@taitradio.com New Zealand
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unsubscribe linux-users
Tip'of'the'Day : Inotifywait
Subject: Tip'O'The'Day : inotifywait Want to watch thousands of directories to see if anything happens? sudo apt-get install inotify-tools inotifywait -r -m dir Setting up watches. Beware: since -r was given, this may take a while! Watches established. dir/private/ CREATE foo dir/private/ OPEN foo dir/private/ MODIFY foo dir/private/ CLOSE_WRITE,CLOSE foo dir/private/ DELETE foo It occurs to me this makes a lovely side channel way of profiling and optimizing the performance of a complex system. If it touches the filesystem in any way from any process... you can know about it! -- John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait Electronics Fax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 Christchurch Email : john.car...@taitradio.com New Zealand
Re:
On Wed, Mar 31, 2010 at 4:13 PM, John Carter john.car...@tait.co.nz wrote: unsubscribe linux-users Oh the embarrassment. Sent to wrong address. We've just shifted to gmail / google calendar and @taitradio.com domain and I kept forgetting to switch back to the old domain (tait.co.nz) when posting. Oh well, to go vaguely on topic I used to use a fetchmail / procmail / alpine, but after Linuxconf 2010 when I found I couldn't access my email... I thought I'd give the gmail web front end a whirl and see how bad it was. that was a week ago and and sigh! I admit it, I, the prototypical command line old codger has decided to stick with gmail web front end. -- John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@taitradio.com New Zealand
Tip'o'the Day: Don't name anything core!
So Friday was a trifle frustrating... Somehow things didn't work out quite right and I seem to have lost a bunch of work... So monday morning was spent working out what went wrong... Aha! I was working with the Light Weight IP stack which has all it's core functionality in a directory called core. But since year yonks Unix whenever a program crashes it does a core dump into a file called core in the current working directory. So CVS (and several other tools) have been well training to ignore anything called core. Sigh! So when I tried to add my changes to the my CVS repository it didn't add the core directory so I lost all changes there. Moral of the story. Avoid the name core for anything other than core dumps. John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Tip O'The Day : pigz and pbzip2
Multicores are becoming more and more common. Compression is still something I need to do regularly. So some new tools that combine multi-core speed up with compression. pigz is a drop in replacement for gzip pbzip2 is a drop in replacement for bzip2 John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Tip'O'The Day late extra : star, a faster tar
There is a faster tar. It's called star. It's written by the same guy who did cdrecord, so it is, umm, how to phrase this? Ahh. er... It has opinions. John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand http://www.ics.uci.edu/~franz/Site/pubs-pdf/BC03.pdf Wirth used the compiler’s self-compilation speed as a measure of the compiler’s quality. Considering that Wirth’s compilers were written in the languages they compiled, and that compilers are substantial and non-trivial pieces of software in their own right, this introduced a highly practical benchmark that directly contested a compiler's complexity against its performance. Under the self- compilation speed benchmark, only those optimizations were allowed to be incorporated into a compiler that accelerated it by so much that the intrinsic cost of the new code addition was fully compensated6
Re: Home finance programs
On Fri, 4 Dec 2009, Nick Rout wrote: Add money somewhere and you have to subtract it from somewhere else. No exceptions. God it even creates an account for the money in your wallet. Of course, it suffers from exactly the same loophole that all and every accounting scheme does... The devious or dishonest or incompetent or downright lazy can always... * create a slop bucket account * with a vaguely meaningful and useful sounding name, * to carry the anti-particle of any amount you wish to insert anywhere else! John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Re: Home finance programs
On Wed, 2 Dec 2009, Tom Munro Glass wrote: I've used GnuCash for years and find it excellent. Took me a bit fiddling to finally grok gnucash is deadly serious about double entry bookkeeping. Money is a strictly conserved quantity in Gnucash, nothing appears or disappears out of or to nowhere. Sort of like pair-creation of particles. Money can only be created with an Anti-money pair. Add money somewhere and you have to subtract it from somewhere else. No exceptions. John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Subtle Info Leak of the Year...
We're mucking about with openwrt routers and we stumbled across this curious scenario... We couldn't ping the router yet we could see the ethernet mac address in the arp cache. Clear the address out of the cache, check it's not there, ping, the ping fails, check the arp cache, and lo, the mac address is there again! The critical clue was the router could ping the PC. Solution? The router has a fairly fancy firewall thingy that was rejecting the incoming ICMP ip packet, but the arp is handled at the ethernet MAC layer _below_ the ip layer. Hence the subject line... subtle info leak of the year. Firewalls leak tiny bits of info at the mac level, even if they reject everything at the IP level. John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Re: Subtle Info Leak of the Year...
On Tue, 1 Dec 2009, Douglas Royds wrote: The MAC address of the router must be visible on the upstream link, or the router is useless. Isn't that the only information that is being leaked? The router is only trying to prevent pinging of boxes _behind_ the firewall. As a side effect, you can't ping the router. Not much info of value is being leaked except... * Existence. ie. If you thinking of a firewall as being invisible if it isn't jabbering, you're mistaken. * Nature. ie. You can infer the manufacturer from the mac address. Looking at the arp stream going by me with wireshark at the moment I can tell there are vmware virtual environments, cisco routers, toshiba, sun, intel,... As I said, it's subtle. Nothing great.. Just enough to confuse the hell out of me for a while. A sort minor WTF moment. How could arp be getting through but not ping? Well, now I know. John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Re: Subtle Info Leak of the Year...
On Tue, 1 Dec 2009, Jim Cheetham wrote: Oh, and as an aside; please allow your network edge devices to respond to ping. It's very difficult telling the difference between an ISP-link failure (i.e. a non-IP network) and a firewall failure if the damn firewall won't respond to ping when everything is working normally ... I _love_ ping and never willingly harm my very very helpful little friend. Alas... the out of the box defaults for more and more things are getting quite hostile. Sigh! John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Re: Change gnome mount point
On Thu, 12 Nov 2009, Douglas Royds wrote: Why can't I convince hal to mount by USB drive where I want it to? I need it to mount at /media/Port-Docs (as it used to) so that I can use my old Unison Can I suggest the evil, but very pragmatic... ln -s /wherever/gmount/put/the/damn/thing /media/Port-Docs John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Linux Programming Tip'o'the day - Poll vs Select
Previously when I needed to herd a bunch of files / devices in real time
from a single process, I have used select. It's in most of the
textbooks.
Last time I followed things around in the debugger I discovered that
lo and behold, select is implemented in terms of poll these days.
So the other day when I needed select again, I thought I'd try poll
instead.
Easier, tidier.
So that's the tip'o'the day... if you want to use select.
Don't.
Use poll
See man poll for more details.
NAME
poll, ppoll - wait for some event on a file descriptor
SYNOPSIS
#include poll.h
int poll(struct pollfd *fds, nfds_t nfds, int timeout);
#define _GNU_SOURCE
#include poll.h
int ppoll(struct pollfd *fds, nfds_t nfds,
const struct timespec *timeout, const sigset_t *sigmask);
DESCRIPTION
poll() performs a similar task to select(2): it waits for one of a set
of file descriptors to become ready to perform I/O.
The set of file descriptors to be monitored is specified in the fds
argument, which is an array of nfds structures of the following form:
struct pollfd {
int fd; /* file descriptor */
short events; /* requested events */
short revents;/* returned events */
};
The field fd contains a file descriptor for an open file.
The field events is an input parameter, a bit mask specifying the
events the application is interested in.
The field revents is an output parameter, filled by the kernel with the
events that actually occurred. The bits returned in revents can
include any of those specified in events, or one of the values POLLERR,
POLLHUP, or POLLNVAL. (These three bits are meaningless in the events
field, and will be set in the revents field whenever the corresponding
condition is true.)
If none of the events requested (and no error) has occurred for any of
the file descriptors, then poll() blocks until one of the events
occurs.
The timeout argument specifies an upper limit on the time for which
poll() will block, in milliseconds. Specifying a negative value in
timeout means an infinite timeout.
The bits that may be set/returned in events and revents are defined in
poll.h:
POLLIN There is data to read.
POLLPRI
There is urgent data to read (e.g., out-of-band data on
TCP socket; pseudo-terminal master in packet mode has
seen state change in slave).
POLLOUT
Writing now will not block.
POLLRDHUP (since Linux 2.6.17)
Stream socket peer closed connection, or shut down writ‐
ing half of connection. The _GNU_SOURCE feature test
macro must be defined in order to obtain this definition.
POLLERR
Error condition (output only).
POLLHUP
Hang up (output only).
POLLNVAL
Invalid request: fd not open (output only).
snip
RETURN VALUE
On success, a positive number is returned; this is the number of struc‐
tures which have non-zero revents fields (in other words, those
descriptors with events or errors reported). A value of 0 indicates
that the call timed out and no file descriptors were ready. On error,
-1 is returned, and errno is set appropriately.
John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639
Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632
PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz
New Zealand
Re: PhotoRec - A story with a happy ending
On Thu, 8 Oct 2009, Douglas Royds wrote: Success! It also found a number of JPEGs that we had taken way back in March. Presumably we haven't run this card to capacity since then. Sounds like you need the wipe package if you ever plan on selling your camera! http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/jaunty/en/man1/wipe.1.html John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Tip of the Day : Graphviz, digraphs in neato
Many of you may be aware of Graphviz, the best in OSS graph
visualization. Where a graph is an abstract collection of nodes joined
together by edges.
http://www.graphviz.org/
If you are not aware of it, take a look at the gallery.
http://www.graphviz.org/Gallery.php
If you are aware of it
I've just had a truly Homerian D'oh! moment that has expanded my use
of Graphviz.
Most of the things I use graphviz for are digraphs, DIrected GRAPHS,
indicating some sort of dependency.
eg. This class is a subclass of that class.
or This file #include's that file
or This function calls that function...
The tool within Graphviz for plotting digraphs is called dot. Which
tends to produce very neat, very beautiful, very orderly and very
large outputs that never fit on a printed page.
It has long been a huge source of frustration to me that despite the
cast array of config options, I can never convince dot to pack the
nodes onto a single page.
The tools in the Graphviz suite neato, fdp, circo, twopi... all _only_
eat graphs, not digraphs.
The solution?
Lie.
Instead of telling Graphviz that you have a digraph...
digraph Pretty {
a-b-c;
d-c;
}
Lie and call it a graph, but force the edges to have arrows!
graph Pretty {
edge [arrowhead=normal];
a--b--c ;
d--c;
}
Then you can feed your digraphs to neato!
John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639
Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632
PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz
New Zealand
Re: OT wallwarts/power adaptors
On Mon, 14 Sep 2009, Andrew Errington wrote: On Mon, September 14, 2009 08:40, Nick Rout wrote: snip Good point which I suppose explains why the supplied one is rated double the minimum... Yes, but you don't know if the manufacturer has added a safety margin too... True. As they say, you get what you pay for... its just that you have no idea exactly what you paid for! :-) Some devices assume the power supply will be crap, hence they must scrub it, or the output signal will be noisy. Other devices are just charging a battery so don't give a darn whether the input line is noisy... just so long as it doesn't burst into flames! And other devices place the bulk, weight and expense of scrubbing the power supply on the power supply unit. And then, as I'm certain is with most cases, nobody actually expended two brain cycles of thought on the problem...and everyone wonders why there is this humming noise John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Re: Pronounce sudo
On Wed, 9 Sep 2009, Kent Fredric wrote: So how should it be pronounced? soo-doo or soo-dough I pronounce it somewhat akin to pseudo ( That is , with a silent p ) Which I guess was part of the joke behind the name. :) Nah! That would just sound... well, sound, umm, well, unauthentic and fake! :-)) John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Re: Perl Users?
On Thu, 10 Sep 2009, Kent Fredric wrote: I've been toting a Little-Brittain esque I'm the only Perl user in my village line on the various IRC networks for a while now, and I figure it a good time to see if that claim is a valid one. I used perl for years in a previous life... but found it was a maintenance nightmare. So I moved to Ruby a few years ago and I'm never going back. Do yourself a favour and move too. Sort of like There was one other Perl user in the village, but he/she changed sex and now won't speak to me. :-) John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Re: Pronounce sudo
On Thu, 10 Sep 2009, Craig Falconer wrote: fsck fissik/eff ess check/eff sik I dare say all of these things have interest and different connotations in different languages. All unixy Afrikaners I knew pronounced fsck as Voertsek (V having a sort of F sound in that language.) It is an insulting term only appropriate for telling a dog to get lost. When used on humans it's liable to provoke an instant fight. A useful word, hard for native English speakers to pronounce, but a grreat one to shout in anger. Your disk has been not been cleanly unmounted...(and the system is going to whirr and click for the next fifteen minutes whilst inanely insisting you sit there all the time typing y y y y y y) AG VVOEERRRTSEK! John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Re: Pronounce sudo
On Wed, 9 Sep 2009, Robert Fisher wrote: Today I came across a reminder of the meaning of sudo super user do So how should it be pronounced? soo-doo or soo-dough Dough make me a sandwich just wouldn't make sense! http://xkcd.com/149/ Sue, do make me a sandwich. Now if I just had a wife called Sue who always did what I told her to do... Talk about an impossible dream. :-)) Trouble is, if this Mythical unix Sue is anything like my wife... It'll be, make sandwich make: only you can make sandwich. Lazy toad. sudo make sandwich [sudo] password for johnc: please Sorry, try again. [sudo] password for johnc: I'll take the rubbish out. [sudo] And bring in the washing while you're out there! John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Re: Open Source Stock Images
I'm currently tutoring some intermediate school age students in web design and could do with some decent free stock image sources. Does anyone know of the site I mean as I can't find it now, or does anyone know of any other decent similar sites? A related, but not quite the same thing, resource is http://openclipart.org/ Debian-a-likes can pull it in from synaptic. John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Re: OT: software or hardware problems
On Fri, 28 Aug 2009, Daniel Hill wrote: I recommended memtest86 xor shunt files around for two reasons... * so you can get a fast reliable check of did that fix it? * hardware can go flaky for many reasons other than power supplies. memtest86 passed with current PSU, also how would memtest86 fix my problem? I have no expectation that memtest86 would fix anything... it is merely a test. The fact that it past that test makes me suspect it is not the power supply to the mother board that is the problem. (Unless you CPU is a multi-core) I recommended the test for one reason... the fundamental rule of Good Engineering is when fixing hardware (or any problem) you need a good fast and reliable test of when it's broken or not. You original problem description didn't sound like a good fast reliable test... but a complex mishmash of system activities that could be a fault in the test, or triggering several faults not just one, or could sometimes work even though all faults are still present. If you don't have a good fast reliable test, you are subject to wild superstition. (I changed XXX and it fixed it oh no, the problems back, so my XXX must of broken again! Nope, not likely, more likely is your test of fixed was unreliable and it just happened to work once or twice when you changed XXX and there was and is nothing wrong with XXX) You have a hypothesis that the problem is your PSU, unless you have a good fast reliable test you will never prove it. Memtest is Good. It tries to isolate the fault even to the point of switching of cache for some of it's tests. If memtest works, you can have confidence in the motherboard, the cache, the cpu, the memory and the power supply to it. That still leaves the disk controller, the disk and the power supply to the disk. John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Re: OT: software or hardware problems
On Thu, 27 Aug 2009, Daniel Hill wrote: ok so I'm 80% sure that it's the power supply, 3.3V is running at 3.09V (0.045V below ATX spec) That's why I suggested disconnecting the two extra drives quickest way of getting a little extra juice. the SATA drives are connected to the power supply via molex connectors, which don't supply 3.3V, would that actually have an effect? Although each of the supply rails are pretty low voltage, some pretty impressive amperages and hence wattage goes through them. Small resistances can lead to largish voltage differences and power loss across them. One of the gnarliest hardware faults I ever saw was in the Bad Old days of minicomputers... after weeks of arguing between vendors it was finally isolated. The tape controller was drawing too much current causing the disk drive to fail. Moral of the story... if it's a bus, anything on the bus can keep on working and still cause anything else on the bus to fail. Conclusion: Isolate possible causes. Make things really really simple, then start added things back. John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Re: OT: software or hardware problems
On Thu, 27 Aug 2009, Daniel Hill wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- So I've been having some weird behaviour with my computer some programs seam to hang for 30s for no apparent reason running Java on the realtime kernel for ubuntu caused a hard lockup reported it as a bug here https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-rt/+bug/419469 before realizing the same thing happened after playing some games in windows instead of running java The question I want to know is a 250w power supply enough to power my computer AMD64 3200+ (over clocked to 2.5GHz) ATI Radeon X800XL 3 SATA drives 2 ram sticks (calculated my usage at about 230w) Run memtest86 to check mboard and ram or shunt huge files around until you can reliably reproduce the bug. Disconnect two of the SATA drives and see if the problem goes away. Drop the clock rate on that poor chip. Improve the cooling dramatically via something and test if it isn't going dippy because the overclocking is overheating it. John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Re: OT: software or hardware problems
On Thu, 27 Aug 2009, Daniel Hill wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Run memtest86 to check mboard and ram or shunt huge files around until you can reliably reproduce the bug. If I'm not getting the correct voltage I would believe that the ram/cpu/mboard would act up so I'm thinking I would have to test it with another power supply for a comparison, but I will run memtest86 tonight I recommended memtest86 xor shunt files around for two reasons... * so you can get a fast reliable check of did that fix it? * hardware can go flaky for many reasons other than power supplies. Disconnect two of the SATA drives and see if the problem goes away. ok so I'm 80% sure that it's the power supply, 3.3V is running at 3.09V (0.045V below ATX spec) That's why I suggested disconnecting the two extra drives quickest way of getting a little extra juice. John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Re: Can someone tell me why...
On Sat, 22 Aug 2009, Rex Johnston wrote: xmms went away and it's replacement, audacious, sux soo much it isn't funny. xmms2 is a music server, and nothing like xmms. I wondered too http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/columns/from_xmms_to_audacious One Line summary: xmms imploded under the maintenance weight of it's huge catalogue of plugins. John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Re: Alpining
On Sun, 23 Aug 2009, Aidan Gauland wrote: My sticking point is... setting it up. In mail readers I have used up until now, there are separate fields in the configuration dialogs for each parameter for the mail servers. In Alpine, it's all one field for both the inbox and the SMTP server, and I don't know how it's supposed to be formatted. Last time I tried to use Alpine, I copied something from the web, but it had no explanation, so I don't know what exactly I was telling Alpine (and my mail server). I think part of it said to accept invalid SSL certificates, which I definitely don't want. Hokay... there are several things that get into the act of futzy around with mail. Question 1 is are you going to try act as a smarthost for yourself and a bunch of other boxes? At one time the answer was, duh, yes, I'm running Linux the truly smart Ruler of the mail universe, so of course But then spamalanche buried us so now there seems to be a de facto unmentioned rule that only mail relayed via your ISP's smarthost will reliably be transmitted to the destination. I haven't quite worked out what drops it, whether it's whitelists or port filters or what. I've given up, I always configure it to use my upstream / ISP's smarthost. There are two places to configure that, one is when you install sendmail or exim or whatever your distro installs by default, and the other in the Alpine config.. Personal Name = John Carter User Domain = example.co.nz SMTP Server (for sending) = mailhost.example.co.nz NNTP Server (for news) = newshost.example.co.nz Inbox Path = /home/johnc/mail/inbox Note that I have configured an inbox. (The default is /var/spool/mail/johnc or something) So alpine is assuming something somehow is coughing up your mail into that file. Who or what is _not_ it's department. In the Good Old Days, you'd have your own static ip address and ip name and MX records in the DNS and mail would wend it's way directly to sendmail running on your box which would spit it into your inbox. Caution: Much Strong Language Blee$#$#ped out!! Then the greedy ^%^%#! dirty @%#%! filthy @^%^# money @%$## grubbing @^%$%$#! swine that are the global ISP's decided they can create an artificial scarcity of IP names and addresses and charge a @$^%$#! fortune for them. So because the ^%#^! bean counters have ^%##!! broken the internet... instead of it been delivered on arrival, you have to fetch/poll for your mail from a POP3 or IMAP server. (Hmmph! And they claim they have to charge for an ipname because of the traffic load on their DNS... @$##) I use the fetchmail package to do that, because it feeds very nicely into the procmail package to sort my mail through spamprobe to filter out the crud, and then into folders... Everything that isn't sorted into anywhen else lands in my inbox. This allows me to subscribe to a bunch of interesting discussion groups (such as this). ==.fetchmailrc set daemon 600 set logfile /home/johnc/log/fetchmail.log poll mailhost.tait.co.nz with proto imap: user UUU there has password X is johnc here mda /usr/bin/procmail -d %T == ==.procmailrc= PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin LOGFILE=$HOME/log/procmail #recommended MAILDIR=$HOME/mail DEFAULT=$MAILDIR/inbox :0 c before-spamprobe :0 SCORE=| /usr/bin/spamprobe train :0 wf | formail -I X-SpamProbe: $SCORE :0 a: *^X-SpamProbe: SPAM SpamIAm :0: * ^TO_(linux-users@(it\.)?canterbury\.ac\.nz|canty...@yahoogroups\.com) IN-cantlug :0: * ^TO_(gcc-help|help-gcc)@((gcc\.)?gnu\.org|prep\.ai\.mit\.edu) IN-gcc-help :0: * ^TO_extremeprogramming@(yahoo|e)groups\.com IN-xp :0: * ^to_ruby-t...@ruby-lang\.org IN-ruby :0: * ^TO_concatenative@(yahoo|e)groups\.com IN-stack == (Plus lots of other filters) John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Re: Can someone tell me why...
On Mon, 24 Aug 2009, Kerry Mayes wrote: As a gnome user, I just use exaile. Probably doesn't meet Rex' exacting demands but it plays all the formats I want and includes replaygain so that I'm not constantly adjusting the volume. Yip, exaile is what I'm currently using. John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Re: Alpining
On Wed, 19 Aug 2009, Aidan Gauland wrote: A while ago--a long while ago, I think--someone on this list shared his excitement over discovering Alpine, because he was a fan of Pine. Sounds like me. but I have failed to overcome the geekiness of it every time. I set up my fetchmail/procmail/(al)?pine pipe so long ago... I may have forgotten how.. I think I learnt from the fetchmailex man page... except fetchmail is now recommending maildrop instead of procmail. I have recently started regularly using a Linux shell-server, so I am using the command line for more and more, and I would really like to ditch graphical mail-readers (especially as I always turn HTML off, so there will be no loss there). Could that person, if they still be reading this list, or another Alpine user, help me get acquainted with this mysterious mail reader? Fire away with some concrete questions... if I know the answer I'll reply, if I don't... hopefully someone else on the list will. John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Re: Linux on USB stick recommendations
On Wed, 29 Apr 2009, David Lowe wrote: Xubuntu on a stick is highly recommended. Sounds like something out of a PTerry Pratchett novel Wot's yer name then? Cut'me'own'throat' Dibbler? Wanna Xubuntu onna stick? Or Kubuntu inna bun? Just don't ask whats in'em! http://everything2.com/title/Dibbler John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Re: Are Linux netbooks becoming extinct?
On Wed, 29 Apr 2009, Tom Carrollton wrote: Are Linux netbooks becoming extinct? http://www.itwire.com/content/view/24700/1231/ I'll admit the Asus EEE 901 Xandros Linux I bought demonstrated a stunning lack of understanding on the part of Asus... It attempted to look very very very cutesy and windowsy... resulting in something that had neither the advantages of being windows nor the power of Linux. It's now running standard Ubuntu Jaunty. Much better. I too couldn't find a meatspace dealer for the Linux edition, eventually going to an online dealer in Auckland. The package arrived having been used as a rugby ball by the courier and then left on my doorstep in the rain. Anyhoo, that rant aside. I deeply suspect dodgy dealings with OEM's and distributors. I cannot believe windows has captured the Laptop market 100%. Even if they had, there must be people with a valid copy of windows that have dropped their old laptop under a bus. ie. You should be able to buy a laptop without windows from a meatspace dealer in Chch, but you can't. Not at all. Believe me, I have tried very very hard. I suspect these dodgy dealings are doubly afoot with 'netbooks. It may come back to bite them, in that people might start asking why they are paying so much for windows on a desk top when it is nearly free on a netbook... The other area that may save Linux on the netbook is the arrival of very low cost, high powered, high battery life Arm CPU based netbooks. John Carter
Re: Linux on USB stick recommendations
On Wed, 29 Apr 2009, Christopher Sawtell wrote: Do all USB memory sticks available now-a-days work properly as bootable devices? I think the answer is Yes, wrong question. All USB sticks work as bootable devices on those newish systems whose bios's understand the notion of booting from USB. What about SD cards? If you bios understands the notion of booting from the sd card reader. John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Re: computer shopping
On Thu, 23 Apr 2009, Aidan Gauland wrote: And there is no way I am going to buy one new, so I also need some recommendations for good sources of second-hand (Linux-friendly) machines (is TradeMe worth the trouble?). www.computerbroker.co.nz Three observations about computer hardware today... * Disk space is becoming really cheap. 1TB is a commodity item now. You can often save your time by trading it for sloppier more disk consuming choices. * Disk speed is just no way keeping up with CPU speed. but Linux is an OS that really really does know how to use every byte of ram (for disk caches etc) you can feed it. * Linux knows how used multicores well. ie. Don't go for the gruntiest fastest single core CPU out there Go for 1Tb at least of disk (maybe raid'd) As much ram as you can afford. Previously you may have been advised to ignore multicores as windows programs often don't know what to do with them, go for a faster single core. At the moment with the machines I've had on my desk (ranging from single to quad core) I'd say with enough ram and a large enough task (eg a large compile) I'm getting a near linear increase in speed by adding cores. John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Re: X-server runs but uses 50% to 90% of cpu after upgrade to 09.04(Jaunty ) Kubuntu.
On Thu, 9 Apr 2009, Christopher Sawtell wrote: I've just upgraded to 9.04b and now the X-server runs, but takes up 50 to 99 percent of cpu. Strange. Places to go looking for clues... ~/.xsession-errors /var/log/Xorg.0.log Run top and see what else is running and chewing up stuff. ie. the X may just be sanely doing stuff at the behest of something insane. Switch to the compiz unfanciest mode possible. Machine: ThinkPad T41 Vid. card: ATI Mobility M7 ( 7500 ) Anybody else seen this? Got a solution? X-server works correctly with the Device 'vesa' line in the xorg.conf file, but it's at 800x600 and of course we don't get the nice compiz effects. A solution would be very welcome, 'cos the all important Skype video doesn't work properly TIA a million times over. -- Sincerely etc. Christopher Sawtell John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Tip for the Day : Benchmarking - cache effects dominate!
When benchmarking programs on linux systems I find cache effects dominate. ie. On current systems the difference in speed between RAM and disk is so vast... that 2 orders of magnitude differences in algorithms can be swallowed entirely by whether the data is in a ram disk buffer or on disk. So linux has a way of flushing clean caches echo 3 /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches For example... cat the cat program to /dev/null twice to make the cache hot, measure the time on a hot cache. Then sync and drop the caches and do it on a cold cache. cat /bin/cat /dev/null;time cat /bin/cat /dev/null;sync;sudo bash -c 'echo 3 /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches';time cat /bin/cat /dev/null real0m0.002s user0m0.000s sys 0m0.004s real0m0.172s user0m0.000s sys 0m0.008s 86x slower! John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Re: testing...
On Thu, 26 Mar 2009, Steve Holdoway wrote: ... I'd just check if there's life out there (: There's life Jim, but not as we know it. :-) John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Re: Totally OT Re: Regarding Chris
On Thu, 12 Mar 2009, Christopher Sawtell wrote: On Thursday 12 March 2009 22:22:15 Robert Fisher wrote: I thought that some of you may not know that our much respected CLUG member Chris Sawtell is going to Scotland for a good reason - he is going to marry Elizabeth Gault. I am sure we all wish Chris the very best for the future. Now that's a Good Reason for going to Scotland! Congratulations and great happiness to the both of you! John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Programmer's bookmark for the day...
Programmers of the world, (and especially those who teach programmers) make a bookmark of this one... (Even if you're windows programmer, make a note!) Theodore Ts'o, the ext4 developer had written this very informative comment on an alleged ext4 data loss bug. Ted quite correctly observes all ext4 has done has made prexisting application bugs more obvious by increasing the window of time in which the bug can strike, and reminds us of what the Posixly correct way of doing things is. To save launchpad a hammering, I have copied pasted the whole thing here... Ext4 data loss Theodore Ts'o wrote on 2009-03-07: https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/317781/comments/54 OK, so let me explain what's going on a bit more explicitly. There are application programmers who are rewriting application files like this: 1.a) open and read file ~/.kde/foo/bar/baz 1.b) fd = open(~/.kde/foo/bar/baz, O_WRONLY|O_TRUNC|O_CREAT) --- this truncates the file 1.c) write(fd, buf-of-new-contents-of-file, size-of-new-contents-of-file) 1.d) close(fd) Slightly more sophisticated application writers will do this: 2.a) open and read file ~/.kde/foo/bar/baz 2.b) fd = open(~/.kde/foo/bar/baz.new, O_WRONLY|O_TRUNC|O_CREAT) 2.c) write(fd, buf-of-new-contents-of-file, size-of-new-contents-of-file) 2.d) close(fd) 2.e) rename(~/.kde/foo/bar/baz.new, ~/.kde/foo/bar/baz) What emacs (and very sophisticated, careful application writers) will do is this: 3.a) open and read file ~/.kde/foo/bar/baz 3.b) fd = open(~/.kde/foo/bar/baz.new, O_WRONLY|O_TRUNC|O_CREAT) 3.c) write(fd, buf-of-new-contents-of-file, size-of-new-contents-of-file) 3.d) fsync(fd) --- and check the error return from the fsync 3.e) close(fd) 3.f) rename(~/.kde/foo/bar/baz, ~/.kde/foo/bar/baz~) --- this is optional 3.g) rename(~/.kde/foo/bar/baz.new, ~/.kde/foo/bar/baz) The fact that series (1) and (2) works at all is an accident. Ext3 in its default configuration happens to have the property that 5 seconds after (1) and (2) completes, the data is safely on disk. (3) is the ***only*** thing which is guaranteed not to lose data. For example, if you are using laptop mode, the 5 seconds is extended to 30 seconds. Now the one downside with (3) is that fsync() is a heavyweight operation. If your application is stupid, and has hundreds of dot files in your home directory, each one taking up a 4k disk block even though it is only storing 4 to 12 bytes of data in each singleton dot file, and you have to repeat (3) for each of your one hundred dot files --- and worse yet, your application for some stupid, unknown reason is writing all of these hundred+ dot files every few seconds, then (3) will be very painful. But it is painful because the application is stupidly written --- not for any fundamental filesystem fault. It's like if you had a robot which was delivering mail to mail box numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and crossing the street for each mail box; on a busy road, this is unsafe, and the robot was getting run over when it kept on jaywalking --- so you can tell the robot to only cross at crosswalks, when the walk light is on, which is safe, but slow --- OR, you could rewrite the robot's algorithsm so it delieveres the mail more intelligently (i.e., one side of the street, and then cross, safely at the crosswalk, and then do the other side of the street). Is that clear? The file system is not truncating files. The application is truncating the files, or is constantly overwriting the files using the rename system call. This is a fundamentally unsafe thing to do, and ext3 just happened to paper things over. But *both* XFS and ext4 does delayed allocation, which means that data blocks don't get allocated right away, and they don't get written right away. Btrfs will be doing delayed allocation as well; all modern filesystems will do this, because it's how you get better performance. Applications are expected to use fsync() or fdatasync(), and if that impacts their performance too much, to use a single berkdb or other binary database file, and not do something stupid with hundreds of tiny text files that only hold a few bytes of data in each text file. John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Re: OT: C.S's Destination.
On Fri, 6 Mar 2009, Christopher Sawtell wrote: I was asked off list: Where are you off to? Just so you all know:- http://www.rosehearty.com/ http://maps.google.co.nz/maps?q=map+rosehearty+aberdeenshire+scotland+uk Hmm. Satellite view shows cloud cloud cloud cloud cloud as far as the browser can see. Streetview hasn't made it out there yet. Terrain shows flat as a pancake and right next to the sea. Mapview shows very small village with a photo of a lighthouse getting clobbered by high seas and a force 10 gale. http://www.panoramio.com/photo/13833614 I take it sunlight, and safe from global warming driven sea level rise are not high on your list of criteria for destinations. And specially for the hawk-eyed puppies amongst us the font is set to be almost invisible. Arial @ 10 points. Happy now? Can't say I noticed the change. It's all the same clean clear font in alpine (the text based mailer I use). Well, Good Luck to you and enjoy! Keep in contact! John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
[no subject]
So I have all kinds of grandiose (very) long term plans for linuxy / ipv6 / mobile / router / programmable devices. There is a vast linuxy world of ipv6, mobile ip, routing, wireless, that I have just scratched the surface of. Where is the best place to find formal courses on such stuff? Getting something like LPI certification along the way would be a bonus. John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand At first I hoped that such a technically unsound project would collapse but I soon realized it was doomed to success. Almost anything in software can be implemented, sold, and even used given enough determination. There is nothing a mere scientist can say that will stand against the flood of a hundred million dollars. But there is one quality that cannot be purchased in this way---and that is reliability. The price of reliability is the pursuit of the utmost simplicity. It is a price which the very rich find most hard to pay. -- C.A.R. Hoare in The Emperor's Old Clothes, Turing Award Lecture (27 October 1980)
Linux/Ipv6/Router/Mobile IP/Wireless training (resend) Was: No subject.
This is a resend, Sorry! I left the subject line off my previous post. So I have all kinds of grandiose (very) long term plans for linuxy / ipv6 / mobile / router / programmable devices. There is a vast linuxy world of ipv6, mobile ip, routing, wireless, that I have just scratched the surface of. Where is the best place to find formal courses on such stuff? Getting something like LPI certification along the way would be a bonus. John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand Carter's Clarification of Murphy's Law. Things only ever go right so that they may go more spectacularly wrong later. From this principle, all of life and physics may be deduced.
Re: Benchmarking under Linux - A very black art. Was Re: eeePCdiskspeeds. Was Re: Acer Aspire One netbook
On Tue, 3 Mar 2009, Steve Holdoway wrote: Noo... you should always sync twice: disk then network (: ( and anyone who says 3 times is even older than me! ) So it's my age eh? So is why I always unmount my usb pens like... sync;sync;sync;umount /dev/sdc I just said sync instead of sync;sync for the benchmark since I have never spotted a human visible time difference between saying it once instead of twice. (Certainly seen huge differences between sync'ing and not sync'ing.) The best one I ever came across was a non-technical ex boss who got a bunch of Indians ( schoolkids I think ) to benchmark some code. After starting off 4 copies of the code, the test failed, and a serious problem was indicated because they finished in a different order. A serious case of YGWYPF. That case was probably just a bug, But you do get cases where the OS associates multiple processes ( 2) with a dual core. And depending on what happens when exactly, you can get working code completing out of sequence! Although the Atom in the EEE 901 is hyperthreaded, not multicore, so that isn't one of the gotchas biting Craig. John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Re: Benchmarking under Linux - A very black art. Was Re: eeePCdiskspeeds. Was Re: Acer Aspire One netbook
On Tue, 3 Mar 2009, Craig Falconer wrote: John Carter wrote, On 02/03/09 17:19: On Mon, 2 Mar 2009, Craig Falconer wrote: time dd if=/dev/zero of=/file.dd bs=16k count=16k onto sda (4GB) that took 11.34 seconds (27.9 MB/sec) However onto sdb it took 55.93 seconds (4.8 MB/sec) time dd if=/dev/zero of=/file.dd bs=8k count=64k sda39.2 sec 13.7 MB/sec sdb77.2 sec6.9 MB/sec Again you're probably testing the speed of ram, not flash. Can you replicate my results? Using whatever tests you like. Sigh! Since I can think of several places where a gut feel for these numbers will help me in the work context, eg. I'm in the process of spec'ing a server for a build system... it will help me to get a grip on the current realitys of shifting data around. Ah yes, another gotcha with benchmarking on Intel ATOM based EEEp's. Powersave mode! Toggling between powersave mode and high performance changes the clock speed of the CPU! (Weird. With the current kernel I have in there that doesn't seem to be happening. I'm sure I saw the Mhz change in /proc/cpuinfo once.) ie. All benchmarks are conditional on what mode you're in. I did mention this was a _very_ black art didn't I? Exec summary: A Western Digital magnetic 80Gb hard drive on a desktop is running at around 54MB/s on read and 39MB/s on write. A USB pen drive runs at about 14mb/s on read, 4.7 on write. An EEE 901 root disk runs at 31MB/s on read and an 13mb/sec on write. An EEE 901 home disk runs at 36MB/s on read and an 6mb/sec on write. ie. All things are slower on write than read, flash is nearly 3 times slower on write than read. Powersave vs Super made no difference, but I have reason to believe that the control is not working. ie. I have no idea whether the tests were done in powersave or super mode. All tests were done on ext3 filesystems. For comparison I have tossed in desktop performance and usb pen. Desktop Western Digital WD800JD 80Gb, hdparm -t reports 54Mb/s, dd reports about 42MB/s, with sync about 39Mb/s. Second drive identical, possibly because it's busy reports around 30 MB/s on dd USB pen on destop 1gb Imation. hdparm -t reports 14Mb/s, dd reports 5mb/s, with sync around 4.7 MB/s EEE PC 901 in powersave? mode 4gb sda root partition hdparm -t reports around 31MB/s, dd reports around 15mb/s, dd with sync around 13 MB/s 16Gb sdb /home partion hdparm -t reports around 36Mb/s, dd reports around 8.5MB/s, dd with sync around 6MB/s John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand Timing for desktop PC... (PC busy, running measurements at nice --10 with background stuff running at nice -19, therefore measurements slightly flaky) processor : 0 vendor_id : GenuineIntel cpu family : 15 model : 6 model name : Intel(R) Pentium(R) D CPU 3.40GHz stepping: 4 cpu MHz : 3400.000 cache size : 2048 KB physical id : 0 siblings: 2 core id : 0 cpu cores : 2 fdiv_bug: no hlt_bug : no f00f_bug: no coma_bug: no fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 6 wp : yes flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx lm constant_tsc pebs bts pni monitor ds_cpl est cid cx16 xtpr lahf_lm bogomips: 6805.95 clflush size: 64 processor : 1 vendor_id : GenuineIntel cpu family : 15 model : 6 model name : Intel(R) Pentium(R) D CPU 3.40GHz stepping: 4 cpu MHz : 3400.000 cache size : 2048 KB physical id : 0 siblings: 2 core id : 1 cpu cores : 2 fdiv_bug: no hlt_bug : no f00f_bug: no coma_bug: no fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 6 wp : yes flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx lm constant_tsc pebs bts pni monitor ds_cpl est cid cx16 xtpr lahf_lm bogomips: 6800.11 clflush size: 64 /dev/sda: ATA device, with non-removable media Model Number: WDC WD800JD-00LSA0 Serial Number: WD-WMAM9S809258 Firmware Revision: 06.01D06 Standards: Supported: 7 6 5 4 Likely used: 8 Configuration: Logical max current cylinders 16383 16383 heads 16 16 sectors/track 63 63 -- CHS current addressable sectors: 16514064 LBAuser addressable sectors: 156301488 LBA48 user addressable sectors: 156301488 device size with M = 1024*1024: 76319 MBytes device size with M = 1000*1000: 80026 MBytes (80 GB) Capabilities
Re: Benchmarking under Linux - A very black art. WasRe:eeePCdiskspeeds. Was Re: Acer Aspire One netbook
On Tue, 3 Mar 2009, Steve Holdoway wrote: Can you confirm that mb, Mb, and MB are all interchangeable, and are MegaBytes? My brain hurts! Your brain hurts? What? Did you have a Nice Visit from the Migraine Fairy... http://www.aperfectworld.org/0106.html Now I think about it, I should have standardized on MByte, previous_message.gsub!( /\bmb\b/i, MByte) The hardware types around here tend to speak bits for some strange reason. The MB abbreviation is coughed up by dd and hdparm. Sorry. John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Re: intermitant stalls with move
I use gkrellm to keep a longish term eye on the state of things. Sometimes if dma is not enabled on a drive, the kernel can spend largish chunks doing nothing but stuff data down a port when the disk flush daemon wakes up. Port the result of sudo hdparm -I /dev/sda (or for any other drives you have) and we can try spot any problems with that. vmstat 5 and let it run is another handy diagnostic. Using top and sort by memory consumption (M key) is useful. Ah yes, run dmesg, and look for signs of I/O errors. On Sun, 1 Mar 2009, dave wrote: anyone think of why the mouse would stop moving in intermitant peroids of time? I though root kitted but got chkrootkit yesterday and it came up fine - nothing found. my 1st thought is to do a reinstall as i maybe compromised. anyone got other tools to suggest i try ? pc box... AMD 3000+ 1gig Ram limited users/w running. at the time of last stall (lack of movement) i had kmail up writign this email. used top to get this top - 22:34:17 up 3:25, 1 user, load average: 0.05, 0.10, 0.12 Tasks: 125 total, 2 running, 123 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie Cpu(s): 1.0%us, 0.7%sy, 0.0%ni, 98.3%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st Mem:969308k total, 471000k used, 498308k free, 28k buffers Swap: 1172704k total,23760k used, 1148944k free, 231956k cached PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEMTIME+ COMMAND 7329 dave 20 0 34108 14m 11m S 0.7 1.5 0:05.96 kdesktop 10672 dave 20 0 2308 1124 852 R 0.7 0.1 0:00.26 top 5867 mysql 20 0 124m 15m 4676 S 0.3 1.7 0:04.60 mysqld 7098 root 20 0 73168 58m 5212 S 0.3 6.2 3:25.43 Xorg 1 root 20 0 2844 1692 544 S 0.0 0.2 0:01.42 init 2 root 15 -5 000 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kthreadd 3 root RT -5 000 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 migration/0 4 root 15 -5 000 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.02 ksoftirqd/0 5 root RT -5 000 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 watchdog/0 6 root 15 -5 000 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.14 events/0 7 root 15 -5 000 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 khelper 41 root 15 -5 000 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.12 kblockd/0 44 root 15 -5 000 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kacpid 45 root 15 -5 000 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kacpi_notify 159 root 15 -5 000 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.06 kseriod 197 root 20 0 000 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 pdflush 198 root 20 0 000 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.48 pdflush [1]+ Stopped top d...@amd3000:~$ Looking at this i see i can stop mysql also postesql not currently using them so why have them running? still other areas? dave John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Tip for the Day : Temporarily revert to old style bash filenamecompletion.
Thanks to a comment on the Debian Package of the Day site I now have a long wished for feature! Ubuntu has bash smart completion turn on by default. Which is usually very helpful... but sometimes isn't. eg. If I go... cvs co Ttabtab it... * quietly in the background * does cvs co CVSROOT/modules * and prepares a HUGE list of modules starting with T (hey I do work for T(ait) electronics and all our products are T something. but actually I just wanted to refresh the module already in my current working directory. Answer: cvs co TAlt-/Alt-/ reverts to the unsmart version. Yay! John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Re: Acer Aspire One netbook
On Mon, 2 Mar 2009, Andrew Errington wrote: I'm a little unsure about wiping the whole disk. The Aspire One has XP on it, with a 4Gb hidden partition which contains the factory image. I could resize the main XP partition and create two more for Linux and /home, but I don't know if XP or GRUB will play nicely. I could wipe the whole lot and be rebellious and crazy, but if I have a warranty issue I would like to put it back to factory state to avoid any accusations of It's broke because you put Linux on it. I don't know if Acer have followed same strategy as the Asus 901 EEE... On the 901 it has 20Gb SSD, but as far as I can determine that is split into two logically, if not physically, distinct drives. A faster 4Gb partition for the root / partition (ASUS-PHISON SSD SOQ2882269) and and a 20gb (ASUS-PHISON SSD SOQ2882288) slower /home partition. ie. The partition is not hidden and not a factory image in the sense that you can reset to factory defaults. To recover the factory image on my Asus, I have to insert CD into desktop, pull off iso, use unetbootin-eee-linux to load it onto USB drive, boot from USB drive. (I haven't tried reverting yet, but I believe thats the general idea.) John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Re: eee PC disk speeds. Was Re: Acer Aspire One netbook
1) Is that on a EEE 901 or an Acer Aspire? 2) Flash write speeds are (I believe) lot slower than reads... but for flash wear reasons it's probably not a Good Idea to do extensive testing. :-) ie. The write speed may dominate. Flash devices are weird, they tend to have odd size pages and different size pages in different parts of their address range. 3) You're doing buffered testing, you probably want hdparm -t not hdparm -T. Testing an Imation 1Gb usb. hdparm -t /dev/sdc /dev/sdc: Timing buffered disk reads: 44 MB in 3.06 seconds = 14.40 MB/sec r...@parore:~# hdparm -T /dev/sdc /dev/sdc: Timing cached reads: 1754 MB in 2.00 seconds = 877.34 MB/sec 4) I can't think where I got the notion that the 4gb was faster... but I got the impression the author knew something about it. I'll post the link if I find it again. On Mon, 2 Mar 2009, Craig Falconer wrote: John Carter wrote, On 02/03/09 11:15: On the 901 it has 20Gb SSD, but as far as I can determine that is split into two logically, if not physically, distinct drives. A faster 4Gb partition for the root / partition (ASUS-PHISON SSD SOQ2882269) and and a 20gb (ASUS-PHISON SSD SOQ2882288) slower /home partition. Mine's not slower! hdparm -T /dev/sda (4 GB onboard) buffered reads: 30.85 MB/sec hdparm -T /dev/sdb (12 GB offboard) buffered reads: 34.21 MB/sec hdparm -T /dev/sdc (4 GB SDHC card) buffered reads: 14.45 MB/sec hdparm -T /dev/sdd (32MB USB1 pen drive) buffered reads: 942 kB/sec hdparm -T /dev/sde (4GB USB2 Atom pen drive) buffered reads: 27.62 MB/sec hdparm -T /dev/sdf (8GB USB2 budget pen drive) buffered reads: 27.66 MB/sec So a SDHC card is still slower than a pen drive. The Imation ATOM ones are very small and less likely to be snapped. -- Craig Falconer John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Benchmarking under Linux - A very black art. Was Re: eee PC diskspeeds. Was Re: Acer Aspire One netbook
On Mon, 2 Mar 2009, Craig Falconer wrote: Well this is bizarre time dd if=/dev/zero of=/file.dd bs=16k count=16k produces a 256 MB file. onto sda (4GB) that took 11.34 seconds (27.9 MB/sec) However onto sdb it took 55.93 seconds (4.8 MB/sec) So you might be onto something here. time dd if=/dev/zero of=/file.dd bs=8k count=64k sda 39.2 sec 13.7 MB/sec sdb 77.2 sec6.9 MB/sec Weird. Again you're probably testing the speed of ram, not flash. You need a test something like... sync;time bash -c 'dd if=/dev/zero of=/file.dd bs=8k count=64k;sync' sync;time bash -c 'dd if=/dev/zero of=/file.dd bs=8k count=64k;sync' sync;time bash -c 'dd if=/dev/zero of=/file.dd bs=8k count=64k;sync' sync;time bash -c 'dd if=/dev/zero of=/file.dd bs=8k count=64k;sync' The sync to flush any dirty buffers, then the time 'bash -c 'dd blah;sync' to time the dd AND the sync. Otherwise dd has just written into ram buffers, which the kernel will flush at leisure. You also need to do it four times. Once to get the bash, time and sync hot and in cache, three times to check you are getting variability from other stuff happening. Bench marking on modern systems is tricksy in extreme. Usually I find cache effects dominate. * Does it fit within L1, or L2 or disk buffers or not? * Is it in some level of cache already? * Is something squeezing it out of some level of cache? eg. A leaky humongous javascript app running in your web browser whilst you testing. (But nothing was running on my machine! A yes there was, every minute or two the web server spat a new fat flash and javascript ad at you!) Remember, Linux tries _hard_ to make use of _all_ your Ram _all_ the time. It doesn't let it sit there idle and without value. John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Re: laptops without Winblows
Is there monopolies commission with any teeth in this country? You've hit on a really sore point. Allegedly www.insite.co.nz does, they not exactly, aahh, shall we say, a customer facing organization. The closest I have found is, would you believe, Timaru! http://nicegear.co.nz/about/ Otherwise you have to go to the web as far as I can tell. On Mon, 2 Mar 2009, wgsil...@ihug.co.nz wrote: Hello, Could anyone here recommend a place in (or around) Christchurch that sells laptops WITHOUT Windows (it doesn't matter if it comes with Linux or not). I'm asking on behalf of someone who doesn't know what to look for when shopping for a computer (I'm helping with that), and doesn't want to pay for software that will never be used (i.e. Windows). Thanks, Aidan John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
The Next Dr Dobbs, the Replacement for Byte,the natural home for CUJ readers.
Do you miss Dr Dobbs? Do you miss proving, yet again, you can spot the error in the PC Lint ad in CUJ? Do you remember the days when the Byte magazine was FAT and Juicy? I have found the new home for such as us ... and it's a old magazine that has been around as long if not longer than the aforementioned But its content is now hot, and it's ads make me drool. It's ... Circuit Cellar! Yip, that old chestnut. Still around, but in this age of cheapy embedded and wireless tiny tiny micros... it has a new lease of life. I heartily recommend you grab it and have a browse next time you see one. (Dsiclaimer: I have nothing to do with Circuit Cellar, I just do embedded device / linuxy things) John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Notes for netbook users...
I always stick these notes on the 'net like this so I can let Google index it. It works better than my memory. 1) Switch the Welcome sound off. It's embarrassing to go into a meeting, open your netbook and be greeted with the sound of breaking glass. (The default welcome sound for crunchbang linux) It's even more embarrassing to mistype your password and get the sound again!) sudo gdmconf May as well switch on the remote login while you're there. Then you can tweak the desktop from your desktop. I dislike all the sudo'ing so I always install sux apt-get install sux sudo bash passwd Enter root password exit sux - 2) If you're using laptop-netconfig set the default to lo interface only, other wise when you're away from an access point it sits trying to connect. 3) Reading the man 5 interfaces page I suspect laptop-netconfig is the wrong way to go. It's basic idea is good, (sending an arp to an ip address and checking the mac address), but it going against the grain of the if up down debian way. 4) I must give up trying all these glui gui interfaces to the 'net stuff. * They change with every version. * They're flaky. * They give no feed back as to what went wrong. * They only manipulate the underlying /etc/network text files. * Debian ifupdown is rich and powerful enough to do all the glui's do and a hell of a lot more. * I just need to read the docs a bit. 5) I must discipline myself in meetings to listen to my coworkers instead of tweaking the netbook. Treat netbook as merely a notebook (that just happens to hold all the relevant documents and sourcecode) for the duration of the meeting. John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Re: Migrating to a new hard drive
On Thu, 26 Feb 2009, Craig Falconer wrote: Gauland, Michael wrote, On 26/02/09 11:35: I finally got tired of scrounging for disk space, and bought a new hard drive for my laptop. Now, I’m puzzling over how to partition it. My current drive has separate partitions for Microsoft Windows (which I only admit to here out of sense of honestly, but I do occasionally need it for work), swap, /, and /home. As I recall, this arrangement was adopted in ancient times (oh, two or three years ago), and may not have been the best choice even then. First Question: What’s the current ‘best practice’, partition-wise, for a new GNU/Linux install? One boot partition of 100-200 MB One partition for windows. One big partition as a PV Usually one partition for root / and a different one for /home, then you can clobber / and drop a new distro in with a new filesystem and not clobber home Swap usually 2 * ram, although disk is _so_ very very very much slower than ram these days and ram is getting so much larger. I'd perhaps drop that to swap == sizeof ram. I used to do a seperate partition for /usr/local, but I tended to need to rebuild everything in /usr/local anyway on moving to a new distro. I try static link / stash all the dll's with the stuff in /opt so in principle it should survive a new distro so in principle it could go in /home or in its own partition. John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Re: Swap was Re: Migrating to a new hard drive
On Thu, 26 Feb 2009, Craig Falconer wrote: John Carter wrote, On 26/02/09 13:04: Swap usually 2 * ram, although disk is _so_ very very very much slower than ram these days and ram is getting so much larger. I'd perhaps drop that to swap == sizeof ram. Spot the old fart! Try sudo swapoff -a on your linux machine, and then run it like normal for a few weeks. No it won't. a) My machines stay on and up 24/7 for literally years at a time. b) They serve up lots / build / do lots while I sleep. c) Anything I'm not using for a while gets swapped out so the busy stuff can get busy faster (more disk cache etc). So unless I benchmarked all the background stuff, I probably wouldn't notice, accept for the fact the desktopish stuff gets swapped out overnight so in the morning the first thing I do on arriving at my desk, before even sitting down, is twitch the rat. The kernel spends the next little while swapping the desktop stuff back in. The other area I'd notice is some of the servers (eg. mysql for the wiki's) wouldn't swap out when the wiki's are quite, hence less disk cache. For example, at the moment it's sleeping (shh! quietly now, don't wake the daemon), but it's virtual data size is 120mb, but only 10mb is resident. John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Re: Remove a watermark from a PDF
On Wed, 18 Feb 2009, Stephen Irons wrote: [1] Does anyone else read instruction manuals cover to cover? For pleasure? For devices you don't own, but are thinking of buying? For devices you aren't even thinking of buying? As over half the content of modern manuals are content free text such as this === This email, including any attachments, is only for the intended addressee. It is subject to copyright, is confidential and may be the subject of legal or other privilege, none of which is waived or lost by reason of this transmission. If the receiver is not the intended addressee, please accept our apologies, notify us by return, delete all copies and perform no other act on the email. Unfortunately, we cannot warrant that the email has not been altered or corrupted during transmission. === ...a rapid scan and skip approach is called for rather than cover to cover. Reading them word for word causes extreme high blood pressure and me Old Grannies revolutionary songs spring into mind. If I'm thinking of buying, the how you do X part of the reference manual is usually the fastest and most reliable indicator of the exactly what it is and the degree of reality of an advertized feature. And no, I haven't read the manual on the netbook cover to cover yet, since it mostly refers to software that doesn't exist on there anymore. :-) But I did read all (content) in my camera manual. :-) John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Going off on a wild tangent.. was Re: Remove a watermark from a PDF
On Thu, 19 Feb 2009, John Carter wrote: On Wed, 18 Feb 2009, Stephen Irons wrote: [1] Does anyone else read instruction manuals cover to cover? For pleasure? For devices you don't own, but are thinking of buying? For devices you aren't even thinking of buying? Of course the flip side is I _strongly_ believe we should.. * write our software so simply and clearly that nobody needs to read the manual! * write our manuals so that they are a pleasure to read, so they read them anyway. * where possible use webish interfaces so the software and (portions of the) manual is the same thing. (You should _never_ have to lookup up in the manual what a widget does, the context sensitive help should tell you all and more.) * write our code so no one needs to read the comments. * write our comments in a manner that makes our spirit and intention clear. * keep our spirits and intentions so simple and direct that our work may be reused for purposes we never dreamed of. ...leastways that's where I'm aiming. John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Adventures in netbook distros continued.
I'm in a Dark Place now and it's Good I've installed #! Crunch Bang Linux on the 901 EEE PC. It's dark, everything is gray, grey or black. But like the ratpoison window manager, you don't have to bugger around with rat pads. Just little House key+alphabet key combos from a nifty little menu on the right of the screen. No colourful fat icons, just very serious, grey gray no brown. No emacs, but sudo apt-get install emacs-snapshot soon changed that. Just noticed something really really really CUTE about the EEE PC mousepad... It's multi-touch, (something I've been drooling about ever since I first saw that famous multitouch video). But it's not the two finger draw box that is so beautiful. It's the two finger scroll that just so _natural_. Use one finger, and the cursor moves. Use two fingers, and the page scrolls. Wow! I didn't even have to read about it in the docs, it just started happening and before I was consciously aware of what was happening, my fingers were using it! Talk about exceptionally good UI design! I'm really starting to like this likkle gadget. John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
The mechanics car - the new world of netbook distros.
You know your mate that's Good with cars...? He's the one that forever has a bunch of partially dismantled old clunkers lying around his yard. So my netbook is, umm, temporarily awkward... and the Linksys WRT54GL is bricked... but I have a plan to unbrick it... Ah, well, this is the way we learn. Two of the eee distros have converged under one project, ubuntu-eee and Easy Peasy is now Easy Peasy. Both seem to be are basically ubuntu hardy tweaked. The process is simple, but with some gotchas... The bootable usb program from Ubuntu Intrepid didn't seem to work for me, but unetbootin did. To get the netbook to see the usb at boot time requires a bit of trickery... bounce on the F2 key whilst booting, enter setup mode. Enable boot time popup. Save. Hit escape as it boots, it then asks which device you want to boot from. The other main eee distro is eeebuntu. The eeebuntu-nbr interface is cutesy and netbookish, with a command line terminal right up from. Xandros at least had kate as an editor, out of the box eebuntu seems to be at the nano level. Xandros was fairly smart about network settings, eeebuntu seemed very dumb. EasyPeasy has the same network setting manager. I'm on EasyPeasy at the moment, hacking the network config files by hand but I'd like to move to Intrepid. I have crashbang linux d/loading at home at the moment. I'll try it tonight. John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Asus eee pc 901 Linux
So I could find no Canterbury local meatspace dealer who had one of these gadgets so I ordered it from Expert Infotech in Auckland. http://www.einfo.co.nz/ $628 bought me - 1Gb ram, 20Gm flash drive, wireless, bluetooth, ethernet, usb* 3 I ordered it Monday, it arrived in Chch Thursday. Alas, I was _not_ happy with the service from NZCouriers. Despite all the happy web parcel tracking magic they provide... (like tracert in slow motion) you really don't want to find an expensive cardboard parcel abandoned in the rain at your front door! Nor, when you open the parcel do you want to find somebody has dropped it with considerable force. Fortunately Asus packed the thing well enough that it looks as if it survived... although I haven't been able to get the wireless working yet. It runs Xandros linux, which seems to be a heavily kludged Debian distro that someone has tried very very hard to make look like a very easy to use windowsy type thing for very dumb users. Those who know me will understand how I felt, and get a good laugh at my expense, when I found there is no (visible) way of reaching a command line. (The answer is ctrl-alt-t) Alas, it doesn't come with synaptic installed. (Hey, apt-get works) It seems to have a 4Gb etx2 root partition and a 16 Gb ext3 other partition and no swap. Admittedly, until the moment I found apt-get, I was severely (and still am slightly) tempted to wipe the current distro and install Ubuntu Netbook Remix. Now if I can just install sshd so I can administer the thing from my desktop... I'll tell you more as I find out more about the thing. John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Re: Asus eee pc 901 Linux
On Fri, 13 Feb 2009, John Carter wrote: It runs Xandros linux, which seems to be a heavily kludged Debian distro that someone has tried very very hard to make look like a very easy to use windowsy type thing for very dumb users. Those who know me will understand how I felt, and get a good laugh at my expense, when I found there is no (visible) way of reaching a command line. (The answer is ctrl-alt-t) Alas, it doesn't come with synaptic installed. Actually it _does_ have synaptic, just one of those invisible apps. (Hey, apt-get works) Admittedly, until the moment I found apt-get, I was severely (and still am slightly) tempted to wipe the current distro and install Ubuntu Netbook Remix. Now if I can just install sshd so I can administer the thing from my desktop... Hokay, Xandros is doomed no emacs, not even in the repository. No sshd, but x11vnc sort of works. Bit unsatisfying, forces you to use the smaller 1024x600 screen even if you're administering the thing from a desktop. John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Re: Asus eee pc 901 Linux
On Fri, 13 Feb 2009, Derek Smithies wrote: Hokay, Xandros is doomed no emacs, not even in the repository. That is criminal - how can you call it a linux distro when emacs is not installed? Sometimes I dream of a distro where the UI / Window manager / Command line /... _is_ emacs. Yes, which sounds like you reached the same conclusion as other linux users. The only difference is the length of time taken to reach the conclusion to blow it away. Sigh! The marketing droids who commanded the creation of the out of the box UI, didn't really understand linux. They obviously only thought get it to do most of what an unsophisticated windows user would do, but cheaper. With the result there must now be thousands of people out there who think linux is just a Bad Cheapo version of Windows. Pity they didn't think Let's make it pretty and dumb when you first open it... but, with appropriate warning signs, make it easy for smarter users grow into the amazingly full potential of linux. I am curious - why ubuntu netbook remix when there is a ubuntu eee distro? Actually following from array.org I have just found a rich ecosystem of Ubuntu EEE PC remixes out there. Too much to absorb whilst I'm at work... I can tell tonight will be spent eeexploring what is eeevailable and setting it up. At a casual glance my guess is eeebuntu netbook edition. John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Re: Asus eee pc 901 Linux
On Fri, 13 Feb 2009, Craig Falconer wrote: John Carter wrote, On 13/02/09 10:45: Fortunately Asus packed the thing well enough that it looks as if it survived... although I haven't been able to get the wireless working yet. Wireless was a doddle for me - are you doing something funky with encryption? I tried what I hoped was the simplest secured protocol WEP. But it couldn't DHCPDISCOVER an ip address. Seems to be a fairly common problem on the eeeforums. John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
RE: Asus eee pc 901 Linux
On Fri, 13 Feb 2009, Gauland, Michael wrote: What good is vi without emacs? It's like having super-hero of your choice without super-hero's arch enemy. Or rather, the other way around. Well, it's like having (a cross dressing) super-hero of your choice With emacs you can go M-x vi-mode and pretend to be a latex wearing whip cracking dominatrix vi. :-) John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Re: en_nz dictionaries?
On Wed, 11 Feb 2009, Gauland, Michael wrote: I've found a New Zealand English dictionary for OpenOffice, but not for aspell. Does anyone know if one exists (or of a project to create one, or even a word list to use as a starting point)? If you find it, do post the diff -u between that wordlist and the British one. Should be fun! John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Free Shoppers Manifesto - was converting Windows Netbooks.
I like Linux, not because I'm a fanboy, I'd switch to *bsd or Hurd or whatever the moment it fitted my purpose better. But I really do care about the Free in Free Software. As Richard Stallman says that Free in Free Software is about Freedom, not price. And that is worth a lot to me. Thus I choose to be fairly careful about where I spend my dollars, never funding anything that is against that freedom. Buying a M$ Windows netbook when Linux ones are available is working against that freedom in so many ways. ie. * I, personally, will never buy a computer with Windows and overwrite it with Linux. I buy it with Linux or OS free and install my own. * I, personally, will favour dealers, for all purchases, that stock Linux variants. I will also explicit avoid dealers that tell me we cannot sell it without Windows if I can buy the same from a Linux dealer. * I, personally, will favour hardware manufacturers that contribute open source support for their systems to free software * I, personally, will favour hardware manufacturers that pre-install Linux. * I, personally, will favour hardware manufacturers that don't have the Soulless Co recommends Windows Vista crap on their website. * I will never knowingly use warez, nor pirate film, music or other content. I will give my attention and support to the many free artists eminently worthy of it. And with these few dollars in my pockets, I will cast my vote. On Thu, 5 Feb 2009, Navdeep Singh Sidhu wrote: I can check that for you from our PC buyer in our head office located in Auckland, as to if we can get some decent netbooks with either Linux on or no OS. But the netbooks that we have in-store they cannot be sold without M$ Windows XP. Navdeep Sidhu Christopher Sawtell wrote: Are you able to sell the machine free of the cost of the Microsoft XP Licence? 2009/2/5 Navdeep Singh Sidhu navdeepsinghsi...@gmail.com: Hey John, I work for Dicksmith, and we have couple of Acer One netbook's in stock. If you want to see if it runs your favorite distro, you can pop into my store on Manchester Street anytime during weekend with the Linux distro that you want to run, and we can see if it runs or if it gives any issues. We do have other pc's with net access so if needed we can download patches or lookup information. [ ... ] John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Acer Aspire Linux Netbooks?
I have totally given up trying to buy a laptop. You have to buy Windows and the continuous M$ftOwnsOurSoul company recommends Windows Vista(TM) bleat ruins any joy I'd get from the thing. But I have just noticed Bruce Perens has one of these Acer Aspire One Linux netbooks. That guy plays even harder Open Source ball than I do, so I'm sitting up and interested in these things... Anyone have one of these gadgets? (Or equivalent) Where did you get it from / price? I'm trying to decrease the fierce and rather disruptive competition for multimedia devices amongst my kids is it fast enough of streaming media / mount DVD on Big Grunty desktop DVD drive and view via wireless (or USB 8Gb pen drive) on netbook? Any opinions on these (or similar) things from those who have one? John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Re: Acer Aspire Linux Netbooks?
On Thu, 5 Feb 2009, Christopher Sawtell wrote: 2009/2/5 John Carter john.car...@tait.co.nz: I have totally given up trying to buy a laptop. How about one of these then? http://aleutia.com/ or http://www.linutop.com/linutop2/index.en.html or http://www.fit-pc.com/new/ Hmm. Close, very close. Trouble is no battery, no screen, no keyboard John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Linux Netbooks...
Hmm. Googling some more... (sigh! this is becoming a bigger question than I have time for at work) There seems to be three linux netbooks on the market. Dell inspiron mini Asus ee pc Acer inspire one INSPIRON, INSPIRe ONe, is someone trying to tell me something? Being hardware, which can go wron, rong, wrung, I prefer local suppliers I can waltz up to on a saturday morning and say fix / replace. Anyone compared the three and come to any useful conclusions? John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Re: Acer Aspire Linux Netbooks?
On Thu, 5 Feb 2009, Christopher Sawtell wrote: Hmm. Close, very close. Trouble is no battery, no screen, no keyboard Indeed, but you said that you had:- totally given up trying to buy a laptop So you actually do still want to buy a laptop? Well... there seems to be a new hype word in the market these days. netbook, sub notebook, mini notebook. I think what is happening is economics... these things are actually pretty cheap to make and the windows licence is becoming a irreducible and significant proportion of the cost. However people are wanting these devices for browsing, basic editing and media players. They don't want them as desktop replacements. ie. Windows is overkill. ie. So far _every_ new laptop for sale I have been able to touch in Christchurch is not for sale without windows tax, but _every_ netbook has a linux variant. ie. There is a fresh gust of change a blowing and I want to give it a bit of encouragement. My suggestion is to re-orient the mind to so that it allows you to get ex-lease laptops which may have run commercial software in a previous incarnation. You can remove windows by booting a system rescue disc in the 'clean computer' mode - type 'dban' at the boot prompt. The trouble is every company pool laptop that I have ever used has started to get more than a bit flaky with age... low battery life, dodgy hinges etc. etc. John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
RE: Hi from South Africa
On Tue, 27 Jan 2009, Payne, Owen wrote: As another migrant a few points, Christchurch is a nice city to live in with somewhat cheaper living expenses but this is more than made up for by the poor employment prospects and the lower pay. If it is work you are concerned with go for Wellington, still a lovely vibrant city if you can cope with the wind. If you come from Port Elizabeth... you'll feel right at home. Otherwise you'll wonder why you can't ever walk straight and why you are spending so much repairing car doors that have been ripped clean out of your hand and bent the wrong way. You also may look at the very visible and obviously very active tectonic plate boundary fault line bordering the harbour and wonder which idiot put a capital city here. The fresh volcanic cones dotting the Auckland landscape may also cause you to wonder about the residents knowledge of geology. Christchurch's skyline may be dominated by an even larger volcano... but it has have been soothingly contoured by glaciers, removing the sense of edginess about it. John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Re: Ubuntu apt-get issue
On Tue, 27 Jan 2009, Roy Britten wrote: For my sins I have a few Ubuntu 6.04 LTS Server machines under my control. Recently updates have been failing with machine-dependant variations of the following snippet. Has anyone else had issues with updates from nz.archive.ubuntu.com? Err http://security.ubuntu.com hardy-security Release Fetched 569B in 7s (75B/s) Reading package lists... Done W: GPG error: http://nz.archive.ubuntu.com hardy Release: The following signatures were invalid: NODATA 2 W: A error occurred during the signature verification. The repository is not updated and the previous index files will be used.GPG error: http://nz.archive.ubuntu.com hardy-updates Release: The following signatures were invalid: NODATA 2 I get a fair amount of such crap via apt-cacher. So I run a fairly rigorous clean out of it daily... However I'm not sure this is your problem. Sometimes some deep magic happens with the key signing and running apt-get update twice gets rid of it. Sometimes it seems to need to stew a day, before doing that fixes it. Maybe somebody updated the upstream repository whilst the mirror was doing it's thing, resulting in the mirroring system taking an inconsistent snapshot of the upstream repository. I remember once shifting my upstream repository to the ubuntu main site, doing apt-get update twice and off I went. I don't think it nz.archive.ubuntu.com that doing this to you, I think its upstream of them. John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
RE: Promotional event for the average person
On Thu, 15 Jan 2009, Payne, Owen wrote: I doubt we'd look like a Hare Krishna group or anything, because we're not promoting a belief system, we're providing a public education service which applies to the field of technology and computing (something which is very useful!). Hmm, well one of these events I've been to overseas had lots of Mr Onion head types wombling around in their slayer and metallica t shirts handing out the latest distros and trying to ( unsuccessfully) engage members of the public in conversation; It was a bit embarrassing. Well I was going to say the Hare Krishna's at least have a certain exotic sense of style... http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2007-01-25 Trouble is you are going before people who are trying desperately to rip as much cash out of their clients... for doing whatever they do... And then you're trying to tell them, uh, well, actually free is better. The trouble is when they say free, they think of the crippled and useless freebies they give away in vague hope that someone will remember them. The notion of free as in freedom doesn't occur. Conversely decades of right leaning, umm, ah, education have made freedom and liberation dirty, tainted and gut level deeply feared words. (Bloody Commie/Terrorist!) http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html Perhaps we should shift to talking about collaborative, unhindered, unencumbered, always available, groupware, batteries included, digital rights included software. John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Searchable web comics
On Fri, 16 Jan 2009, Craig Falconer wrote: David Lowe wrote, On 16/01/09 15:46: Then you can never share this, because it would be redistribution of copyright material :-\ Actually I suspect even an attack lawyer may have a hard time identifying what is copyrighted in a text file of (word,-mm-dd) pairs. A very brief attempt (2 seconds) with gocr didn't spit out anything readable. I suspect one actually needs to (Gasp! Schlock! Horror!) read the man page and tweak options. John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Problems posting to the list (fwd)
Vik Olliver is getting bounces from the list so he forwarded the bounce to me... I'm the wrong person in the sense I have no admin control on the list, so perhaps someone out there can work out whats happening to him? (Vik, you haven't been using something as suspicious as bittorrent to download Ubunto ISO's again? You know they don't like it ;-)) John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand -- Forwarded message -- Date: Thu, 08 Jan 2009 17:28:00 +1300 From: Vik Olliver v...@diamondage.co.nz To: John Carter john.car...@tait.co.nz Subject: Problems posting to the list John, I have problems posting to the list. Dunno why, but ofcourse I can't post to it to ask! Attached is the bounce. It seems to be from a mail address that I'm not sending to, so I don;t think it's me that's broken. Feel free to post wholesale. Vik :v) ---BeginMessage--- This report relates to a message you sent with the following header fields: Message-id: 49657c5a.1020...@diamondage.co.nz Date: Thu, 08 Jan 2009 17:08:58 +1300 From: Vik Olliver v...@diamondage.co.nz To: linux-users@it.canterbury.ac.nz Subject: Re: OT: Section 92 of the Copyright Amendment Act assumes Guilt Upon Accusation Your message cannot be delivered to the following recipients: Recipient address: linux-users-exp...@process.it.canterbury.ac.nz Original address: linux-users@it.canterbury.ac.nz Reason: you are not allowed to use this list: linux-users-exp...@process.it.canterbury.ac.nz Original-envelope-id: 01N42723XGW2GH5EOI@it.canterbury.ac.nz Reporting-MTA: dns;it.canterbury.ac.nz (PROCESS-DAEMON) Action: failed Status: 5.7.1 (you are not allowed to use this list: linux-users-expand@process.it.canterbury.ac.nz) Original-recipient: rfc822;linux-users@it.canterbury.ac.nz Final-recipient: rfc822;linux-users-expand@process.it.canterbury.ac.nz ---BeginMessage--- Steve Holdoway wrote: Note, it states that ISPs must have a policy for terminating the accounts of REPEAT INFRINGERS in APPROPRIATE CIRCUMSTANCES. Note the term repeat infringers is well defined. Nowhere does it state that the account can just be terminated without evidence. May I refer you to the following explanation, lifted from the response to similar criticism on Digg. This explains how the Guilt By Accusation is hidden in the wording of the act (attached). Vik :v) 92c is much more clear about takedowns being done before a court order but 92a is more subtle. The page at http://creativefreedom.org.nz/s92.html has a fuller explanation of this and links to 3rd party analysis. In short however, as ISPs transmit data across their own network (for their users) they're open to copyright infringement claims themselves unless they comply with s92a. ISPs are therefore put into the role of policing copyright infringement accusations without judicial oversight against their customers, all while risking their business if they get it wrong. It's in this impossible situation and this poorly thought out law that bypasses the courts that ISPs are saying they will be forced to disconnect customers. RIANZ (the local equivalent of the RIAA) say that having to provide evidence is both impractical and ridiculous (source: http://tinyurl.com/impractical-and-ridiculous ). When you bypass the courts and due process in favour of free market of risk-averse ISPs the true nature of s92a becomes clear. As you can see from http://creativefreedom.org.nz/s92.html the implications of this poorly written law are now increasingly understood by mainstream press. Former-minister Judith Tizard said that this would cut off people who might be infringing. I'm an artist (and a programmer) and I've been following this for some time now. I think it's quite strange that while the risk is pilled on internet users (and ISPs) there is no recourse or appeal process for false accusations. That's something I think we could all agree on as necessary. Section 92a did have provisions for false accusations but these were removed after the public consultation period due to talks with various commercial entities. Here's a quote from the NZ parliamentary record: The Minister [Judith Tizard] knows, and I certainly know, that we have all had approaches from various commercial entities, as a result of which the Minister has come up with a number of amendments. We will support those. The first makes some changes to new section 92A, and I need not go into that in any great detail. We support what is being done there. Essentially, it is putting back into place what had been there before the bill went to the select committee. See: http://blog.theyworkforyou.co.nz/post/59243864/section-92a-cut-off-anyone-who-might-be-breaking http://blog.theyworkforyou.co.nz/post/59243864/section-92a-cut-off-anyone
Here is some pretty On Topic Paranoia for you...
You can d/load Cory Doctorow's Little Brother book.. http://craphound.com/littlebrother/download/ You can also pick up the dead tree version at the Library. Complete with an afterword by Bruce Schneier and the Xbox linux hacker Andrew bunnie Huang. Lots of good Linuxy / OSS / Crypto meat. Very paranoid. Well, not actually. I remember all too well in the Bad Old Days in another Time and Place when my own brother got Disappeared for a few days. He went to a weekly bible study group at a certain house outside which there was no parking. So he parked a couple of houses down. Outside a house of Interest to Big Brother. ie. I remember all too well how, in that other country and time, the determination to fight terror, turned the state into the biggest meanest terrorist organization of them all. ie. Little Brother is spot on. It can be a bit heavy going at times, with a fair amount of techie detail, but quite a lot of fun stuff too. But it is probably the most important reminder since Orwell of how taking shortcuts in protecting our way of life, destroys all that is worth protecting. My brother was lucky, he was one of the ones released. His colleague never reappeared. John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639
Windows vs Linux Jobs....
GNice! http://www.simplyhired.com/a/jobtrends/trend/q-Windows%2CLinux Windows, Linux Job Trends This graph displays the percentage of jobs that contain your search terms. Since May 2007, the following has occurred: * Windows jobs decreased 16% * Linux jobs increased 6% I wonder what the matching data for NZ is? John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Re: Windows vs Linux Jobs....
On Fri, 9 Jan 2009, John Carter wrote: http://www.simplyhired.com/a/jobtrends/trend/q-Windows%2CLinux Very GNice! http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=Windows%2CLinuxl=relative=1 John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Re: OT: Section 92 of the Copyright Amendment Act assumes GuiltUponAccusation
On Wed, 7 Jan 2009, Christopher Sawtell wrote: In this connection note that the producers of the film Sione's Wedding ended up without any financial benefit whatsoever because spivs and shysters made illicit copies of the DVD and sold them in South Auckland flea markets. Is that fair? imho, it is not. I remember reading somewhere that by the time various tax lawyers have done all the fancy foot work... Movies _never_ make a profit. Certainly 85% of ozzie movies don't... http://botlbrush.com/blog/?p=143 But I agree with Volker, I suspect the route from Studio to Flea market didn't involve the internet, but rather sneakernet and somebody in the production chain itself. There is a site www.megavideo.com for example that allows you to view FLV's of full movies. It claims to be legit, giving you I think 52 minutes free view per day, unless you sign up for their premium service. Is it legit? How would you know? Is aliceinvideoland.co.nz legit? I believe it is, but how would you know? As a mere consumer, can you prove it to me one way or the other. John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Re: OT: Section 92 of the Copyright Amendment Act assumes GuiltUponAccusation
On Thu, 8 Jan 2009, Christopher Sawtell wrote: 2) Somebody who gets cut off can always sign up with another ISP. So if my kids find a site like megavideo... * How does the ISP determine if it is legit? * How do my kids determine if its legit? * and I get cut off (incorrectly), do I get compensation for inconvenience and reconnection fees? do I set up a Kubuntu-8.10 so that I can legally listen to the Naxos library which is made available via the Public Library? Probably amarok is the tool to use, it comes preconfigured for a bunch of libraries like jamendo. You can probably copy and tweak the config for those. John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : john.car...@tait.co.nz New Zealand
Re: Something for .bashrc file
On Thu, 4 Dec 2008, Roy Britten wrote:
Here's a little something to slip into a friend's .bashrc file when
they're not looking ...
export PS1='C:${PWD//\//\\\}'
Yup. That's pretty evil.
I'm sure there was a BSOD emulator around somewhere too, but I can't
find it right now.
I wonder... if one installed megahal and then fed whatever they typed
into megahal and pasted everything that megahal replied as the prompt
Hmmm. Don't have time to read all the fine print in the bash man page
but I bet it could be done. Might need to push megahal into the
background behind a named pipe or two. Probably need to set autoflush
buffers on the pipes, but I bet it could be done.
John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639
Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632
PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
New Zealand
Re: OT: Google street view live in NZ
On Wed, 3 Dec 2008, Douglas Royds wrote: Numbers 3 and 4 illustrate a privacy concern, but my favourite is number 9: http://mashable.com/2007/05/31/top-15-google-street-view-sightings/ If it is what I saw the other day, the photos are taken by a black car with writing on it and what looks like a cluster of cameras on it's roof. You too can instantly earn your 15 seconds of Global Internet Fame If you see it going by, turn around and moon it Bart Simpson style! :-) Christopher Sawtell wrote: _NOT_ cool at all! Damned nosey parkers, aren't we allowed _any_ privacy any more. Google isn't nosy. Google couldn't care less about you. They just sell advertizing... ...to people who sell stuff... ...to your neighbours who might buy stuff... ...who like the rest of humanity... ...are as nosy as hell! So what are you up to behind those Big Trees? Eh!? Eh!? Tell us! Tell Us! Inquiring Minds wish to Know! :-) Three cheers for big garden-trees. It is easy to spot my house from google maps. It is the section with the highest biomass density on the canterbury plains. I like trees, I like birds. A pity that I also like cats. I'm a little conflicted that's all. Which reminds me, I must still clean up the partially digested something under the sofa. Some fun stuff I noticed last night * The summit road has snow on it. In fact, the reason why there is no coverage beyond Dyers pass is the road is closed due to the snow. (You can see the sign) * They even have images of the inside of the Lyttleton tunnel, but either the map view is wrong or the gps wasn't working too well under a couple of hundred meters of rock. * On one road /view in Fiordland there seems to a car coming towards the camera... you move a step towards it... and the car retreats. And it retreats everytime! It was very late at night when I was doing this so it was a click or three before my brain coughed up the answer to what was going on. :-) * No street view of White Island, but the satellite view shows a large smoke plume. * You can see Ruapehu and Tongariro from the streetview. * Don't piss off Bruce Simpson The Missile Man, he now knows, to within meters, where you live. * Well, actually I'm more worried about these loose cannons.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damadola_airstrike * There are a surprising number of Race tracks on the Canterbury Plains. I wonder if there is a program that I can get to download a stream of side images through a scenic part of the country and stitch them into a video? John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] New Zealand
Re: Wee C program issue - Pointers?
On Mon, 10 Nov 2008, Steve Holdoway wrote: On Mon, 10 Nov 2008 09:09:12 +1300 (NZDT) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi I'm working on a C program and having a bit of an issue, I've set a char as status and I've got to have status outputting either unsafe or safe in the status column depending on if the number outputted is either above 0.466 or below. Well, that depends on whether you accept the Linear No Threshold model, or have caved in to the nuclear industries hormesis theory. Under the LNT model, there is no safe limit, merely Acceptable risk. Personally the LNT model makes sound physics sense to me. Ionizing radiation doesn't suddenly become non-ionizing at a low dose, the energy of each particle emitted is exactly the same no matter what the dose is. That is plain hard indisputable quantum physics fact. The_only_ difference is the average _number_ of a particles will that will be emitted. The model of cancer formation is a DNA strand is not reliably repairable if it suffers double breakage at the same point. So low dose == low probability of cancer, but never zero. ie. There is no safe dosage, only acceptable risk. while (RadLevel = (0.466 / 10)) // Sets end loop parameters Style guide... Declare magic constants like 0.466 at the head of the program const float acceptableRadLevel = 0.466; keep one fact in one place. Hint: The 'R' statistical package freely available on most linux distros is truly excellent for this class of work. Does the calculations, statistical analysis, graphing and reporting. Disclaimer: I once worked for several ears doing this type of calculation and became very disenchanted with the mining / nuclear industries very pushy what ever we are doing is OK because we say it is OK stop looking at us or you'll hurt the economy attitude. John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] New Zealand
Chch, the sociopath capital of the world.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1objectid=10537526 Home to those who don't give a shit about anything or anybody. John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] New Zealand
Laptops? Sony Vaio?
The current sorry state of the financial world has convinced the wife to hedge our savings by converting some NZ dollars into different units. eg. buying a laptop so we can own the means of production. Translation : I wish to buy a laptop that will happily run Linux. The last which laptop thread here was in May... The latest PC World editors choice was a Sony VAIO VGN CS13GQ (which is a bit weird since google knows nothing about such a device!) Any counter recommendations? John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] New Zealand
Re: OT: Happy Millionth Moore Day to Me!
On Thu, 11 Sep 2008, Douglas Royds wrote: John Carter wrote: State Machines are the embedded development flavour of the month? year? (god forbid) decade? but are nothing more than multi-threaded tangle of computed goto's with a roll your own scheduler in drag. :-)) (Oh dear... I have probably offended about half my colleagues. :-)) So I better add some fine print... but can be useful in strict latency requirement systems having insufficient RAM to create a stack for each thread / State Machine. Can't let that one go uncommented: State machine != Multi-threading State machine != Scheduler Independent concepts. One can be used without the other. Ah... but putting on my mathematician hat for awhile you can fairly mechanistically transform any program with N state machines into a program with N threads, no state machines and no gotos. (Mathematicians fineprint... There is no mechanistic way of transforming every way of specifying a state machine, there are too many ways of specifying / implementing a state machine. However, give me any single precise way of specifying / implementing a state machines, I can show you how to mechanistically transform every state machine specified in that manner.) Whilst a state machine != a scheduler... the code allowing more than one state machine to coexist in one thread / process is a crude roll your own, single purpose throw away scheduler. As such it is grossly simpler than a general purpose scheduler. So much so that you have failed to observe that it _is_ a scheduler. It, as does any scheduler, determine the sequence of execution of the state machine event handlers. Which is Best? Personally I prefer the N process (not thread) / no state machine / structure programming / communicate only via event queues architecture. But I quite understand that there are constraints like a device has no MMU, a device has insufficient ram for N stacks, ... which may dominate over my desire for robustness, generality, scalability and maintainability. Anyhoo, galloping off along the processes vs threads vs state machines tangent... I recently felt quite vindicated Way back round about Windows 3.1 Microsoft windows had really lousy heavy weight processes. They had failed to understand fork / mmap and hence had reimplemented Unix poorly. Instead of implementing it correctly, they cranked up their marketing department instead... So for a couple of years you couldn't turn around at a trade show without being prodded in a hundred directions with the Microsoft mantra that Processes are Too Heavy, Threads are the Wave of the future. I kept saying to anyone who'd listen... Threads are Bad, Unix processes are way better for a longish list of reasons. Needless to say, a couple of million dollars of marketing muscle won the day... However, technical truth eventually wins out... http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/10/196224 Oh.. and if you want the longish list of reasons... Google have even listed some of them in convenient webcomic form! (Irritatingly presented as if they had just thought of Something Clever, instead of reverting to what was well known literally decades ago!) http://blogoscoped.com/google-chrome/4 John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] New Zealand
OT: Happy Millionth Moore Day to Me!
I have just noticed that I should have celebrated my Millionth Moore Day last year. Moore's Law has gifted me with 2**20 times increase in computer power since I first started programming them. OK. They have also shrunk from taking up most of the 1st floor of a large building to fitting on my desk.. But the basics are the same... * Computers are still too damn slow. * Garbage still comes out when you stuff garbage in. * They still only do what I tell them, not what I want. Things that lasted since those days are... * Fortran - (I'm glad I no longer use it) * Lisp - Still a fundamentally Good Design * 80 columns is still about the right line length. Things that have most improved since those days... * The advent of Open Source software and Linux. * Scripting languages like Ruby * I no longer read files line by line, but IO.read(filename).scan(regexp) do |match| doSomethingWithTheBitIcareAbout() end May you all live to enjoy your (next)? Millionth Moore Day. John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] New Zealand
Re: OT: Happy Millionth Moore Day to Me!
On Thu, 11 Sep 2008, Steve Holdoway wrote: But don't you miss Fortran 2 - computed gotos, no block ifs? I once wrote a little program to number my punched cards in cols 73-80 with the first 4 letters of the function and then a number. I got smacked when the function in question was called analysis... No. I explicitly don't miss computed gotos. I loathed gotos and in particular hated computed gotos. I hated common blocks. Maintenance and bug nightmares the lot of them. Unfortunately the more things change the more people forget where they came from and why... and make the same mistakes! Global and static variables are just syntactic sugar on ye olde hateful Common blocks. Look in the guts of the linker and you find they're even implemented using the exact same mechanism even having the same name! State Machines are the embedded development flavour of the month? year? (god forbid) decade? but are nothing more than multi-threaded tangle of computed goto's with a roll your own scheduler in drag. :-)) (Oh dear... I have probably offended about half my colleagues. :-)) So I better add some fine print... but can be useful in strict latency requirement systems having insufficient RAM to create a stack for each thread / State Machine. John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] New Zealand
Re: OT: What will people end up doing for a job?Re: Vic Oliveronradiolive now.
On Wed, 3 Sep 2008, Don Gould wrote: If we get to the point where robots build houses for us, what will we end up doing for work? It's ok for the few people that can own one of these machines... Do we all just end up being accountants and web designers? Grey goo cleaners. Borg exterminators. Committee organizers (See fortune -m Bromide) for details. If builder's built the way programmer's wrote, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy all civilization. - G Weinberg To which one of the guys here said, Ah but NZ builders _do_ build the way programmers write! John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] New Zealand
RMS on National Radio
On the drive to work I thought I heard them say they will be chatting to Richard Stallman on National Radio tomorrow morning. I may have the time wrong I was paying more attention to the traffic... John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] New Zealand
Re: RMS on National Radio
On Fri, 8 Aug 2008, Roger Searle wrote: Rik said on the 4th: NB news: Saturday Morning with Kim Hill (radioNZ 8:15am this Saturday!) Doh!! So he did. And I can't even blame the traffic. John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] New Zealand
Re: OpenMoko Open Source / Linux / Hackable cellphone is on sale now.
On the surface, given that OpenMoko doesn't have the 900 in stock at the moment, it would appear best to wait for Jasper's offering. However, maybe a decade or two in the computer industry has scarred me and made me terribly cynical... I have often found this Distributor term has two very different meanings. One Good, one Bad. A Good distributor means - - imports in bulk - provides local competency, - with meat space sales, defective equipment swap out service - at round about same price as upstream manufacturers web shop after postagepackaging. Or do you mean - An empty warehouse Just In Time box-mover with no stock and no competency - only a web presence - and a no competition / no grey market dealership arrangement - that allows local dealer to put the price way up? The one sort of distributor adds value for the consumer, the other subtracts. Which sort are you planning to be? On Tue, 8 Jul 2008, Jasper Bryant-Greene wrote: The Neo FreeRunner is a standard GSM 900/1800/1900 unit and will operate on the NZ Vodafone network. Our company is currently in the process of becoming an official distributor and will likely be offering them in NZ very soon. More details on price etc shortly... -Jasper On Tue, Jul 08, 2008 at 06:04:21PM +1200, Andrew Sands wrote: On Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:00:33 John Carter wrote: Question 3 to the Group: I'm planning on ordering one for myself, and would be prepared to go for a 10 pack if enough others are interested. Anybody else interested? John, If we can confirm the ability for the device to operate on local networks easily, then I'd join the list for two (2). Thanks and regards, Andrew John Carter
Re: OpenMoko Open Source / Linux / Hackable cellphone is on sale now.
Hokay, sounds good, making the right sort of noises. Especially given the out of stock nature of the 900, I'm prepared to wait for you to bring them in. Any idea when that will be? When you do, you might want to arrange with me to have a showtell day at Tait Electronics. Apart from a personal desire to have one of these phones, I'm trying to convince Tait Electronics that Openmoko has much potential in our line of business. Having a local supplier might just make that easier. We use linux as our development environment and I have on top of linux variations of our radio software. I foresee applications for an open linux phone such as... * Being the general purpose UI / remote for embedded devices. * Being a cordless controlhead / audio i/o device for our radios. * Being a portable reprogramming device for radios bolted to vehicles. * Providing integrated and prioritized access to cellphone and public mobile radio. ie. I have plans and plots to make Linux in Canterbury even more active and even more remunerative habit. On Wed, 9 Jul 2008, Jasper Bryant-Greene wrote: Hi John We plan to bring in stock in (some) bulk, with the intention being that orders will be fulfilled from stock. We will only have a web presence, as IMHO a physical shop will only drive up the price. However, there's no reason Christchurch dwellers can't pick up from us and save them being shipped across town. Defective equipment will be swapped out, the length of warranty we provide will depend on what OpenMoko's terms are. We would swap a defective unit with stock held locally. The defective one would likely be sent back to OpenMoko for repair, but the customer shouldn't have to wait for that. As for price, that will depend on OpenMoko's distributor pricing structure, but I expect we will be able to provide pricing similar or better than purchasing from overseas yourself after shipping is considered. I can't see the benefit in a no-competition arrangement, especially given the niche market of this phone at this time, and it's not really something I'd be interested in anyway - if you can't compete without forcing others out of the marketplace using unfair tactics, you don't deserve to compete at all. Cheers, Jasper On Wed, Jul 09, 2008 at 02:06:28PM +1200, John Carter wrote: On the surface, given that OpenMoko doesn't have the 900 in stock at the moment, it would appear best to wait for Jasper's offering. However, maybe a decade or two in the computer industry has scarred me and made me terribly cynical... I have often found this Distributor term has two very different meanings. One Good, one Bad. A Good distributor means - - imports in bulk - provides local competency, - with meat space sales, defective equipment swap out service - at round about same price as upstream manufacturers web shop after postagepackaging. Or do you mean - An empty warehouse Just In Time box-mover with no stock and no competency - only a web presence - and a no competition / no grey market dealership arrangement - that allows local dealer to put the price way up? The one sort of distributor adds value for the consumer, the other subtracts. Which sort are you planning to be? On Tue, 8 Jul 2008, Jasper Bryant-Greene wrote: The Neo FreeRunner is a standard GSM 900/1800/1900 unit and will operate on the NZ Vodafone network. Our company is currently in the process of becoming an official distributor and will likely be offering them in NZ very soon. More details on price etc shortly... -Jasper On Tue, Jul 08, 2008 at 06:04:21PM +1200, Andrew Sands wrote: On Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:00:33 John Carter wrote: Question 3 to the Group: I'm planning on ordering one for myself, and would be prepared to go for a 10 pack if enough others are interested. Anybody else interested? John, If we can confirm the ability for the device to operate on local networks easily, then I'd join the list for two (2). Thanks and regards, Andrew John Carter John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] New Zealand
Openmoko
After many delays... the SMT lines are rolling and the OpenMoko open linux phone has gone into mass production. Sales to open shortly. Finally the vapour around Open Linux mobile phones is dispersing and I'll soon be able to get my sticky fingers on one. John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] New Zealand
Re: Openmoko
On Tue, 10 Jun 2008, Nick Rout wrote: On Tue, Jun 10, 2008 at 8:43 AM, John Carter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: After many delays... the SMT lines are rolling and the OpenMoko open linux phone has gone into mass production. Sales to open shortly. Finally the vapour around Open Linux mobile phones is dispersing and I'll soon be able to get my sticky fingers on one. One would be nice, but you appear to be ahead of any announcement on the openmoko.com website! I cheat. I use the firefox updatescanner addon to poll every couple of days... http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Community_Updates John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] New Zealand
Re: DOH....
On Sun, 1 Jun 2008, Chris Hellyar wrote: What's this 'lid' you speak of? Is it part of the operating system? It's there to keep the cat piss off. Cat piss is deadly to motherboards, believe me. Apart from that, I'm not sure what a lid is meant to do, but usually the act of screwing it on seems to magically flip a dip switch, loosen a cable, shift a card out of it's slot, drop a screw onto a contact etc etc. Usually takes three or four tries before it goes on and stays on. I find you can trick it. These days I just hook the lid on loosely and make pretend motions with the screwdriver. It stays on (unless you do something silly) and everything just works. Now what I really need is a monitor mounted (and heated) cat basket with glass keyboard protector. (So cat can stand on keyboard and demand a stroke without causing fatal and/or embarrassing keypushes.) John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] New Zealand
Tip for the Week; oowriter's Navigator.
For some strange reason OpenOffice's most handy tool cannot be found in the menu heirarchy! (Leastways I couldn't, I'd be glad to be proven wrong) It's the little Gold Star icon on the toolbar and it called the Navigator. Sort of like a Outline mode. It displays a tree structure of your documents sections and allows you to raise and lower the chapter levels, move chapters up or down in the doc. etc. etc. Very very handy. John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] New Zealand
Re: Grepping the kernel source online?
On Fri, 23 May 2008, Nick Rout wrote: I want to do a search on the kernel source of a recent version. I am on mindows in an office LAN which prevents me ssh'ing into the home computer (or anywhere). Is there a site anywhere that has a search engine just for the linux kernel? ie restrict your search to the contents of the kernel source. Will the LXR do? http://lxr.linux.no/ LXR Welcome to lxr.linux.no -- the Linux Cross Reference Welcome to lxr.linux.no LXR (formerly the Linux Cross Referencer) is a software toolset for indexing and presenting source code repositories. LXR was initially targeted at the Linux source code, but has proved usable for a wide range of software projects. lxr.linux.no is currently running an experimental fork of the LXR software. John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] New Zealand
Re: Grepping the kernel source online?
On Fri, 23 May 2008, John Carter wrote: http://lxr.linux.no/ I wondered if they still had the printer on fire error message... they do. They also have a CPU on fire one too.. http://lxr.linux.no/linux+v2.6.24/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mcheck/p5.c#L26 I wonder whether it's even in principle possible to see that message on a system where the CPU is in fact smokin'? ie. Would a CPU that's smoking work well enough to be able to sucessfully run that chunk of code? John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait ElectronicsFax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] New Zealand
