Re: regular fsck runs are too disturbing - why not badblocks?
I'd just like to point out that it seems to take 40 minutes to scan a 500 GB volume! On Thu, 2007-09-27 at 11:05 +0200, Vincenzo Ciancia wrote: On 27/09/2007 Oliver Grawert wrote: What about my alternative suggestion? It would still run fsck, but at the same time be less annoying or not disturbing at all. not wsure if you ever ran fsck manually, but you have to unmount the partition you check or at least mount it readonly ... so no matter how far you will background it you wont be able to work while it runs ... If the point of running that (annoying, indeed) fsck is to check for disk defect, why not running badblocks instead? It can do a read-only check on a mounted filesystem. You could modify that so that it runs only when other processes are not accessing the disk. In any case, having a journaled filesystem by default and blocking users while they might be in a hurry is not pleasant. At least leave the possibility of interrupting the check. Suppose you are at a conference, and it starts checking your disk, and you start your talk late for that reason. What will other people think about ubuntu? Is this good publicity? Vincenzo -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Subpixel font rendering in gutsy
On Thu, 2007-09-20 at 23:45 +0100, Scott James Remnant wrote: Very small (12px in height and less) Monospace fonts (such as those used by gnome-terminal) will not be rendered this way because several users have expressed dislike of the effect; if you want to see whether you prefer them with the effect, remove the /etc/fonts/conf.d/53-monospace-lcd-filter.conf symbolic link and restart gnome-terminal (you need to close them all to do this). I really, really can't help but feel that we are making a mess of this by specifically singling out Bitstream Vera Mono. Other fonts have single-pixel-wide stems too, and at many different sizes, and in many different configurations of size and hinting settings. -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
USB Mass Storage not working in Gutsy -- release critical fix needed!(?)
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/hal/+bug/136845 Something must be wrong in the upgrade path. -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: apport query
On Tue, 2007-07-10 at 19:16 -0400, Scott Kitterman wrote: On Tuesday 10 July 2007 19:10, Alex Jones wrote: System - Open Source - Error Reporting It would be nice to throw a lot of little items under such a new menu that are relevant to contributing to the Open Source ecosystem. Wouldn't pretty much everything fit under such a menu item? No. Why do you think that? -- Alex Jones http://alex.weej.com/ -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: apport query
On Tue, 2007-07-10 at 16:54 +0100, Martin Pitt wrote: Hi, shirish [2007-07-10 11:26 +0530]: I'm using apport 0.89 . xfce4-places-plugin version 0.3.0-0ubuntu1 crashes on every login so finally I said it not to report any future crashes of this package version. As when it gets xfce4-places-plugin gets updated lets say 0.3.0-ubuntu2 or something like that would apport report that? Yes, that's the idea. Also let's say mistakenly I asked apport not to report the crash again for this package version. Now if I want to set it so it does report the crash again, what should I do?I tried to see but couldn't find any .apport or .apport-gtk . This is saved to ~/.apport-ignore.xml. There is no GUI way to un-ignore it ATM, you have to remove or edit the file. If you have a good idea where to place such an option, I'm eager to hear it. :) System - Open Source - Error Reporting It would be nice to throw a lot of little items under such a new menu that are relevant to contributing to the Open Source ecosystem. -- Alex Jones http://alex.weej.com/ -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
GParted 0.3 packaging
GParted has had pretty much universal support for moving partitions and file systems since September 2006. Unfortunately, we're still packaging some old version of 0.2. Please can someone look at pulling down a new upstream release and packaging it for Feisty (if not, Gutsy)? I think this is important, as it gives more technical users more flexibility in managing their partitions when preparing an installation with our Live CD, in particular moving an NTFS partition further up the disk to put an Ubuntu installation at the start. Thanks -- Alex Jones http://alex.weej.com/ -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Using standardized SI prefixes
On Wed, 2007-06-13 at 14:29 +0100, Scott James Remnant wrote: Without the binary unit to consider, when we quote a drive as 1TB, we know that it has *at least* 1,000,000,000,000 bytes available. Depending on the drive, it may have anywhere between this and 1,099,511,627,776 bytes available. It's actually more likely to have something strange like 1,024,000,000,000 available. 10% error is no good for me. You can continue to play the at least card, but what about when it's more important if it is at most something? And seeing as this error only goes up exponentially, at which prefix do you draw the line and say no more? And no-one uses floppy disks any more. Let's just bury them all and forget about them. :D I see no problem with this 1TB quote being approximate. It's rounded anyway. If you really want to know how many bytes are available, you can use this great unit called the byte which is accurate and not subject to change[0]. 1 TB is not rounded. It means precisely 1 × 10^12 bytes, no more and no less. If they want to actually put 1.024 TB on the disk then they can say 1 TB (approx.) like any other industry (detergent, bacon, etc.). -- Alex Jones http://alex.weej.com/ -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Using standardized SI prefixes
On Thu, 2007-06-14 at 09:03 +1000, James Doc Livingston wrote: 1 TB is not rounded. It means precisely 1 × 10^12 bytes, no more and no less. If they want to actually put 1.024 TB on the disk then they can say 1 TB (approx.) like any other industry (detergent, bacon, etc.). How many other industries do this? If I buy a 500g pack of bacon, I don't get 500g - I get around 500g, close enough that the appropriate consumer trading authority doesn't come and have words with them. Very few things I ever buy have approx mentioned with how much I get. That's what I was saying. I buy a 950 g pack of detergent, it says on the packet: 950 g ℮ The key being the ℮, which is European packaging standard for estimated. I'd be surprised if they don't have something similar to use instead of approx. in Australia. Look out for it! -- Alex Jones http://alex.weej.com/ -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Using standardized SI prefixes
On Tue, 2007-06-12 at 09:24 +0100, Scott James Remnant wrote: The difference is a sufficiently small percentage, that most users will not care. No, like I said in my earlier post, the error grows quickly. As 1.024^x, in fact. x = 1 kibi vs. kilo 2.4% x = 2 mebi vs. mega 4.9% x = 3 gibi vs. giga 7.4% x = 4 tebi vs. tera 10% Especially nowadays with terabyte disks coming out and hitting the consumer market, there is *no place* for 10% of ambiguity. This was precisely my point earlier. Back in the day, nobody cared for 2.4% error because all they ever measured anything in was kilo-somethings. -- Alex Jones http://alex.weej.com/ -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: RFC: alias tar=tar --backup ?
A new CLI version of file-roller would rock. We need more CLI-GUI code/concept/functionality sharing. Other candidates include gnome-system-monitor (vs. top) and nautilus (so you could browse DAV on the CLI, just like you do local file systems, for example). On Thu, 2007-05-17 at 15:18 -0700, Micah Cowan wrote: A user, timothy, describing his difficulties at: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/113154 describes his frustration as a new user, in discovering the hard way that tar's default is to overwrite existing files, causing him to lose important data. While I'm opposed to fixing the problem in tar itself, as traditional usage frequently relies upon this behavior, I don't see why we couldn't make the experience of using tar interactively a little safer, by providing a default alias for tar in /etc/skel/.bashrc that backs-up existing files. Comments? -- Alex Jones http://alex.weej.com/ -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Proposal: Ubuntu Metadistribution
Hi One thing to consider here is that the FOSS scene gets enough stick about fragmentation with the sheer number of distributions we already have. 4 official variations of Ubuntu is enough for me. You have to remember why Ubuntu works as well as it does in the first place - because canonical took a core set of software and decided to support it. By having lots of variations as you propose, it will make QA orders of magnitude more difficult. I think this proposal will have to wait until Ubuntu has grown into something much bigger and much more mature. While Ubuntu is indeed the flagship of it just works distros, I don't think it's quite at the level it needs to be before we can start diluting efforts. Cheers On Sat, 2007-04-21 at 08:13 +0200, Gueven Bay wrote: Your description roughly matches the way that Ubuntu is already structured. Yes, it matches the way Ubuntu is structured. But - as you know - Ubuntu is GNU/Linux today. The first new proposal of me was to get other free operating systems under Ubuntu's project. That is, I don't see any work to be done on the core OS in order to enable the development of the derivatives you describe. You are very right. For the core Ubuntu as it is today you don't have any work to be done. The only work to be done if Ubuntu Metadistribution is going to be reality is to include the other OSes step for step into the Ubuntu structure (repository, live cds and so on). There is already a derivative of Ubuntu using the OpenSolaris kernel, for example. Thank you very much for bringing this distribution into discussion. As cool as Nexenta - the Ubuntu OpenSolaris mix disro - is it has in my eyes one flaw: It mixes two worlds - the world of (Open)Solaris and GNU/Linux- on a very low level : It uses the kernel of on OS (Solaris) and uses the (low level) libraries and userland of another (GNU/Linux). This mix is not good. For one: The low level libs of GNU and also the userland is today developed with Linux in mind. But - staying in this example - (Open)Solaris has its own proven and tested libs and userland which the users of this operating system like and know. The mix on this level is - today at least - not good. For two: Users who want to use (Open)Solaris want the full (Open)Solaris experience (I hope you can see what I want to say here.) There are many who don't like the GNu userland for example. (For three: -As the Ubuntu folks come from Debian they would understand this - The mixing of libs and userland Nexenta does is not clean as the license questions are stil not solved today.) So what is it that you are proposing specifically? What I want is to combine the worlds of several free operating systems with the philosophy of Ubuntu: ease of use, shiny new releases every eye blink , cool community, business awareness but - with the combination of several operating systems under Ubuntu - the _full_ choice the free software world gives. Let me specify this - with the things I wrote above in mind- in the example of Ubuntu/OpenSolaris: The original OpenSolaris with its libs and docus and userland (in the OpenSolaris world these are called consolidations) + The packages to get all the functionality of a Ubuntu Release (CD/DVD) from the Blastwave repository (this is a repo which gives the Solaris user an apt-get like structure. + The Ubuntu specific programs and packages ported to OpenSolaris (for example the installer, the update notifier but also the Gnome adaptations of Ubuntu). Please have in mind here that the OpenSolaris world stays as it is and it is known to the user (with some very little adaptations). This all combined in the Ubuntu repositories , with the apropriate user mailing lists and forums, tested for half year release as Ubuntu/GNU/Linux is tested and released every six months. (Port this example to the other proposed operating systems FreeBSD, NetBSD). The end user gets a web-site, where he clicks and chooses the operating system he wants to test/learn/use, where he clicks and chooses the desktop environment and experience he wants under the chosen OS (Gnome,KDE,XFCE) where he clicks and chooses the kind of release he wants to download (CD/DVD, mybe USB sticks in the future). So in the end every one would get : the __full__ choice the world of free software gives the user but with the community support structure of Ubuntu today. I hope that my example made it clear what I proposed. Thank you for your questions. regards Gueven ___ SMS schreiben mit WEB.DE FreeMail - einfach, schnell und kostenguenstig. Jetzt gleich testen! http://f.web.de/?mc=021192 -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss -- Alex Jones
Re: Standardised Hardware Support Spec - Please Review
On Thu, 2007-04-05 at 21:39 +0100, Matt Zimmerman wrote: On Thu, Apr 05, 2007 at 09:24:19PM +0100, Alex Jones wrote: (As a side thought, I'm not sure what constitutes common hardware, but I for one don't know a single person who owns a Palm device.) I can see two or three Treos from here. Whether they work with gnome-pilot is another story, but if gnome-pilot doesn't work with a significant share of current devices, the solution would be to remove it from the default install, not add a new application to help the user remove it. You wouldn't necessarily /need/ a new application to help the user remove it if it was packaged like I am suggesting. You'd remove the HSP and the installed and unneeded support packages could be apt-get autoremove'd. Sorted. As it happens, all of this stuff is just dependency of ubuntu-desktop, meaning that it all gets reinstalled every time I do a distribution upgrade. *Groan*. I've noticed that in my restricted drivers manager, it has chosen to install Lucent/Agere lindmodem controller driver. I didn't even think I had a modem, and even if I did, I certainly have zero use for it. What's the point in knowingly infecting my system with closed-source kernel modules when you don't even know if I want it? -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Standardised Hardware Support Spec - Please Review
On Fri, 2007-04-06 at 06:48 -0500, hggdh wrote: On Fri, 2007-04-06 at 08:56 +0100, Alex Jones wrote: You wouldn't necessarily /need/ a new application to help the user remove it if it was packaged like I am suggesting. You'd remove the HSP and the installed and unneeded support packages could be apt-get autoremove'd. Why not create this database, create an interface to HAL, and then just start what is signaled from HAL? This way we can still have a distro that will allow the casual user to just plug and play -- which is, I think, quite an important thing to have. This isn't about running unnecessary services, it's about having them installed on your system in the first place. On the other hand, I am not sure that I would like to have generic autostart on a server. And, no matter what, I would really like *not* to have autostarted what I do not want started, for whatever reason. We should have an easy way of doing so. Having said what I've just said above, it would be nice if, whenever you hotplug a device, it gives you the option of what to do next, in a way similar to what happens when you plug removable media in. Sorted. As it happens, all of this stuff is just dependency of ubuntu-desktop, meaning that it all gets reinstalled every time I do a distribution upgrade. *Groan*. Yes, that bothers me also. And, on some servers, I do want X (for example). Not sure what you're getting at here. You /do/ want X? Why is it a problem to remove ubuntu-desktop there, then? I've noticed that in my restricted drivers manager, it has chosen to install Lucent/Agere lindmodem controller driver. I didn't even think I had a modem, and even if I did, I certainly have zero use for it. What's the point in knowingly infecting my system with closed-source kernel modules when you don't even know if I want it? Well, with all due respect, you already have infected your system with closed-source module(s). I have? (Not that I'm normally that bothered about it.) But I do see your point and, again, an interface with HAL plus a DB could deal with it. As for the packaging of all the restricted modules together, I have no opinion. Personally I don't see the reason to bundle restricted drivers together at all. In my opinion, we should have supported HSPs that are provided by Ubuntu/Canonical, and unsupported HSPs that can be provided by third parties. All of the current restricted drivers would be of the unsupported kind. I think this is a much more logical approach to everyone, including non-technical end-users. -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Standardised Hardware Support Spec - Please Review
On Fri, 2007-04-06 at 15:20 +0100, Matt Zimmerman wrote: restricted-manager is needed because of the special requirements of the restricted driver setup. It ties together the X server configuration, kernel modules, licensing, the package system, etc. It would be preferable if they didn't require such complex handling, but for now this is the best solution available. Yes, it does a good job of taking care of the rough edges for now, but these rough edges /could/ be better taken care of. Similarly, I don't see how a new set of metapackages for every supported device (even if that were possible) helps to simplify this. You say that as if it isn't possible. Why? Because of the size and rate of change of this data. Who would collect, formalize and maintain it, and how? Tens of thousands of devices are supported by Ubuntu. The metapackage generation would be done by using the hardware database. It wouldn't be much work to add a new hardware device to the database, and then officially say it is supported in order to do a number_of_devices_supported++. And I suggest it helps to simplify this because currently if I want to install an exotic piece of hardware that isn't supported out of the box, I may have to chase down several different packages if there isn't a metapackage to bring it all together for me. The examples you've provided so far are all for common devices, where I think that providing support by default is a more effective option. Do you have particular devices or packages in mind here? Your proposal includes as an example a metapackage which depends on: - The USB storage kernel driver - an 88k module included with the kernel supports hundreds of different devices by default - The HAL FDI data for your phone - 140k of similar data included in the hal package covers hundreds of devices by default - Icons from Tango - I'm not sure which ones you mean, but Tango includes thousands of icons which are generally a few kilobytes each, and the hardware-related ones apply mostly to a wide range of devices I don't see the value in splitting these into separate packages; the current scheme works very well and is much simpler. The package metadata and maintenance overhead would easily outweigh finer granularity for the end user. Perhaps I am expecting more flexibility from Ubuntu than I should be. If I want USB mass storage purged from my system, I'd currently have to roll my own kernel packages. Yes, this is a corner case. I just thought it would be useful to someone to support it. Can you tell I run Gentoo on other systems? Stop laughing. If all of the hardware in the world was supported in Ubuntu (even if that were possible :P), by both Linux kernel modules, and by the huge number of userspace services and configuration tools required (/further/ padding out the default System Preferences menu), then no, this wouldn't be an issue. I leave it to anyone who reads this to decide if it is an issue or not. I don't think there is a tangible general problem to be solved here, and that the issues you raise are likely to be more easily addressed directly (as with gnome-pilot) rather than by new infrastructure. How do you address the gnome-pilot issue? Uninstall it when you /don't/ have the hardware? Unfortunately, hal and udev don't support not-plugging yet. I was primarily answering the question you asked above. The reason this driver is on your system is that some users do need it, and the approach we've taken in Ubuntu is to support a wide range of hardware by default. This involves a tradeoff in disk space and (occasionally) a menu item, in exchange for simplicity. I just find it a completely unintuitive pain in the butt to keep my Ubuntu system lean. I just want to say I only want support for this set of hardware. Everything else, get out. Other distributions take different approaches to this problem. Guadalinex, for example, uses a system called Hermes, which dynamically installs new packages when hardware is detected. This is very much along the lines of your proposal, and so perhaps that project would be a good place to explore these ideas. I tried to get some info on Hermes but everything I find is in Spanish. :/ -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Standardised Hardware Support Spec - Please Review
On Thu, 2007-04-05 at 12:10 -0700, Corey Burger wrote: On 4/4/07, Alex Jones [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This comes about as more and more people question why their computer starts bluetooth services when they don't have a bluetooth device, or why I have a HP printer driver control panel applet, or a Palm Pilot sync applet, or PCMCIA services, etc. etc. etc... https://wiki.ubuntu.com/StandardisedHardwareSupport Please let me know what to do next. Thanks! -- From my perspective, it would be better to create a cross distro list of hardware compatibilty. This would show which pieces of hardware work and which don't. The benefits of this are legion, but here are the main ones: 1. Single database for new linxu users to look in 2. Single database to point vendors at in an attempt to get them to understand how large their Linux base really is Probably the best candidate for this is the new LHCP from Fedora, which is very similar to the Hardware DB Ubuntu has, but has a scope of more than just Ubuntu. As such, I would create a spec about getting the common client in Ubuntu. Something akin to Wine's AppDB would be fantastic. Corey -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Standardised Hardware Support Spec - Please Review
This comes about as more and more people question why their computer starts bluetooth services when they don't have a bluetooth device, or why I have a HP printer driver control panel applet, or a Palm Pilot sync applet, or PCMCIA services, etc. etc. etc... https://wiki.ubuntu.com/StandardisedHardwareSupport Please let me know what to do next. Thanks! -- Alex Jones http://alex.weej.com/ -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Notifying end-users when support is no more
On Tue, 2007-01-02 at 14:40 +0100, Francesco Fumanti wrote: Hello, Pop-up windows just bring back bad memories from MS Windows ;-) The bubble: - would be familiar to Ubuntu users - need not be tiny - should produce a new bubble each reboot (or every certain time unit, say once per day) thus being annoying enough to eventually get the user to upgrade without being overly intrusive - could get larger each new time it comes up ;) Also, I would recommend that the icon in the notification area from which the bubble extends not go away (even if they close the bubble) until they upgrade. There should however be a way for the user to get definitively rid of the update notification, even if he does not update! Consider for example a person using Ubuntu on a machine that is always offline and that offers to him a system that does all that he wants. As he wants to keep the system as it is, he should have the opportunity to dismiss the upgrade notification forever. Have a nice day. Francesco Something else that we need to remember... If we have a system with Warty on, and it's nagging its owner to upgrade, the only system it can upgrade to is Breezy, which itself might be out of support. If such a case arises, there's no way to get that Warty machine upgraded. -- Alex Jones [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
