Monthly Archives: October 2009

Karmic Koala

Posted on 2009-10-31 by pappp

I (probably foolishly) bumped my spare machine (which has lately acted as a jukebox/CIFS server) to Ubuntu 9.10 “Karmic Koala” the day it was released, since the machine doesn’t do anything critical. For a point upgrade on a fixed release system, it was quite smooth, but I’ve discovered a weird bug with SMB and FUSE that I haven’t yet been able to find a solution to. The basic jist of the problem is that under 9.10 it seems to be impossible to share things stored on volumes mounted via FUSE over CIFS; it just throws permissions errors when clients try to connect, even if guest access is enabled. There are other reports of Samba issues after upgrading to Karmic.
I’m reasonably sure it’s some kind of permissions issue having to do with the combination of ntfs-3g/fuse (the drive it shares is a large NTFS-formatted external drive) and Samba in conflict, but I haven’t yet managed to track it down.
Other than that one minor regression, Karmic seems to be a nice clean incremental update; no amazing new features (at least that I care about), and no catastrophic performance regressions or other classic upgrade symptoms. The noticeable improvements are mostly the result of moving off of the obsolete branches of various pieces of software, so modern plugins and compatibility improvements are available.
I’ll update this post with a solution if and when I find a solution, discounting “Install a more predictably behaved OS” style solutions.

Posted in Computers, General, OldBlog | Tagged , | Leave a comment

xlock on pm-suspend

Posted on 2009-10-25 by pappp

I’ve always preferred that my machines be locked when they wake up from sleep/suspend/hibernate/etc., and this has been a little bit of a fuss to hand-configure on Linux of late. The problem is that the pm-utils suite that almost all distributions use isn’t really well suited to triggering a lock, and not everyone thinks it should be able to. The Ubuntu solution follows the “not in pm-suspend” idea, and predictably adds another (bulky) layer of abstraction, using gnome-power-manager lock the screen and call the suspend scripts separately. Because I don’t always call pm-suspend the same way and don’t want an extra thing running anyway, that isn’t an option for me. So, a solution to run xlock on every invocation of pm-suspend that ACTUALLY WORKS is to add an appropriately named file in /etc/pm/sleep.d, like the following:

22lock

#!/bin/bash
user=`finger| grep -m1 :0 | awk '{print $1}'`
case $1 in
    hibernate)
        su $user -c "xlock -mode blank -display :0&"
        ;;
    suspend)
        su $user -c "xlock -mode blank -display :0&"
        ;;
    thaw)
        ;;
    resume)
        ;;
    *)  echo "The xlock-on-sleep script is broken"
        ;;
esac

Remember to make the file executable (chmod +x).
The finger/grep/awk incantation at the top is a cheap (and not entirely proper) way of grabbing the first user on display :0, which is USUALLY the user logged in on what is USUALLY the local X server; sudoing to an appropriate user (and the explicit “-display :0”) is required because the script is run in an environment where the display isn’t visible and the user is always root.
xlock and it’s options can be modified or swapped out for your screen-locker of choice.

(Posting as a reminder to myself, and because I didn’t see a solution when I searched)

Posted in Computers, DIY, General, OldBlog | Tagged | Leave a comment

Gnome 2.28: even more annoying

Posted on 2009-10-24 by pappp

Despite its many irritations, I’ve been actively tolerating Gnome on my extra machine (running Ubuntu 9.04), with only a few adjustments for the really infuriating things (The “presence” features in OS X/iChat are irritating enough, a half working clone is maddening), and, with those adaptations made, it is a pretty tolerable environment.
…and the GNOME folks went and did something to re-stoke my hate. I use GDM (and a number of other Gnome-dependent pieces, many of which have no compelling reason for the dependencies) on my usual Arch/XFCE4 machine as a matter of convenience and/or preference. In the 2.26->2.28 upgrade (Arch tracks current) the Gnome developers decided to change the way GDM is configured. This change included breaking all existing GDM themes (admittedly, to be more consistent with GTK, which is a good thing, just not graceful), and making it impossible to configure GDM without gconf and/or horrible dbus stunts, which, of course, don’t work on my system. They also seem to have depreciated the “new session in nested window” feature of gdmflexiserver that made GDM preferable to the alternatives… I think I’ll just install SLiM, write a script with Xephyr to replace the nested window feature, and stop whining.

This is an arm of the argument about conventional releases versus Rolling Releases , but brokenness and compatibility issues from holding on to obsolete versions and the issue of occasionally breaking everything with a dist-upgrade/ OS X style point release upgrade still doesn’t seem preferable. This kind of behavior in Gnome is also a big part of why the non-Gnome *buntu distributions (Kubuntu/Xubuntu/etc.) feel like second class citizens; if components inside the Gnome obnoxious-integration umbrella are acting as part of the OS, the other environments are all going to have issues. Apparently Ubuntu 9.10 is built around Gnome 2.28, it will be interesting to see how it all works where everything is done the Gnome way.

This is not to complain about things the GNOME Project does, I do use, and like, a number of their products, especially Evince (which has apparently recently gained annotation features and a Windows port, the two things I most wanted for it). Likewise, the current round of development cycles are cutting a lot of the slow, crufty dependencies out of a number of programs… but I still find their ideas about useless (and forced) integration (see above) and non-configurable interfaces (sane default AND configuration options; it’s not one or the other guys…) incredibly frustrating.

Posted in Computers, General, OldBlog | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Hip Resurfacing

Posted on 2009-10-24 by pappp

The lesser posting for the last few days is in large part because my father got his hip resurfaced last Thursday, so I’ve been visiting and running errands for my parents. Resurfacing is apparently now the preferable option when it is possible, as it heals faster (makes sense, less is replaced), and may be longer lasting. The widget itself is pretty neat, its a non-ferrous (CoCr) metal ball-and-socket, with a bead-blasted shaft on the ball (To grow into the leg bone) and a ceramic layer bonded to the outside of the socket (to bond with the pelvis*). Having him ask about the chemistry of the replacement module (So how is the ceramic bonded to the…) and weather it was safely non-ferromagnetic for bringing near NMR machines (it is) was clearly a little bewildering to the surgeon, but definitely means hes thinking it through.
Everything went well, and he’s recovering impressively quickly. He is even startling the PTs with how enthusiastic and capable he is about hobbling around with his walker. Should be home in another day or two and as mobile as he was before the operation in a matter of weeks.

*Excuse any gross errors in anatomy, I’ve never been terribly well versed in it.

Posted in General, Navel Gazing, OldBlog | Tagged | Leave a comment

Herb Seared Chicken

Posted on 2009-10-19 by pappp

hschixveg_sm.jpg

This is a different arrangement of a few parts I’m found of. Chicken breast seared with herbs, this time a little salt, pepper, parsley, and basil, and heavy rosemary, in a hot buttered pan, then deglazed with chicken broth (white wine is really preferable, but it wasn’t worth opening a bottle)for color, moisture, and flavor. Served with zucchini, summer squash, and onions cooked in lemon butter (one of my favorite seasonal vegetable dishes, which is almost out of season), over a bed of farfalle, topped with grated asiago cheese.

Posted in FoodBlogging, OldBlog | Leave a comment

Lonely cats are Lonely

Posted on 2009-10-18 by pappp

catleg_sm.jpg
Everyone in my house was out for several hours Saturday evening/night, and I was the first (and apparently only) one to make it home for the night. When I flopped down on my bed (after a very energetic cat greeting) for some quality Internet time-wasting, the cats informed me I was never to leave them again. By holding down my leg. Together. It was pretty adorable, and my camera was in reach so I can share.

Posted in General, OldBlog | Tagged | Leave a comment

Flatpress Upgrade

Posted on 2009-10-17 by pappp

I’ve just upgraded this Flatpress install to the new 0.909 Arioso release. I think I have everything working properly, and it will hopefully cure some wonky behavior that started when the PHP version on engr.uky.edu was upgraded recently. This version should add a couple features, like BBCode markup in comments. I may also go looking for a theme that doesn’t look like an un-configured wordpress installation, but that’s getting ambitious.

Posted in Meta, OldBlog | Tagged | Leave a comment

Bags with Soul

Posted on 2009-10-17 by pappp

backpack_sm.jpg
I’ve always had a thing for high quality, high utility bags, so when my beloved old Clive Front backpack finally started to fall apart, I was pretty unhappy about it. Since Eagle Creek (the former parent/sister company of Clive) re-absorbed Clive and subsequently killed the line (and purged most references to Clive from their website), I was preparing to write it off as dead. I sent an email to their service department asking if they would still service the bag (Clive bags came with an absolutely amazing lifetime warranty) anyway, and they proved they are a class act by informing me that it was indeed still covered, and promptly producing an RMA number. It took a couple weeks for it to come back, but it has returned with a new bottom panel neatly sewn in.
That bag has been in near continuous use since my sophomore year of high school, and until this round had only needed service once when the zipper toggles snapped. It is a hell of a bag.

I’m still irritated by the death of the Clive line. Some of their later products were pretty uninspired hipster junk, but a quick trip through the wayback machine to Clive’s old skateboard backpack line (The only kind of skating I ever do is longboarding, and no one in their right mind is going to try to strap a 34” deck to a backpack, but they were their best bags anyway) shows what good backpack design looks like.

Posted in Objects, OldBlog | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

N8x0 PowerVR Drivers!

Posted on 2009-10-16 by pappp

Since the N800 came out there has been a lot of rumbling in the community about the unutilized hardware present in the device (and it’s sibling/successor, my beloved N810). The piece most complained about are the PowerVR MBX 3D accelerator and 5MB SRAM included on the OMAP2420 SoC the device is built around. The explanation has always been a mixture of licensing issues for the drivers, and that the external Epson S1D13745 display controller was better suited to the 800×480 (still unusually high for mobile devices) resolution, despite being rather slow and devoid of 3D-capability.

With the advent of the N900 and it’s non-backward-compatible Maemo 5 OS, there is some fear in the community that the N8×0 devices will be abandoned. The N900 looks like a very cool device, but like many tablet owners, part of the appeal of my N810 was that it wasn’t designed to have a >$50/month cellular data plan. Nokia’s offical (and seemingly very classy) stance is that they will provide support for continued community developed FOSS software for the platform, which currently mostly means Mer, a community firmware/ partial Maemo 5 backport. There are also several other linux-based OS ports to the N8×0 platform, and a burgeoning effort to produce a binary-compatibility-maintaining system software update like the ones Nokia used to produce for Maemo 4 which will hopefully all cross-pollinate sources and keep the platform alive. One only has to look at how long the OpenZaurus (later merged into OpenEmbedded/Ångström) community held on, and how much they accomplished to be hopeful.

The combination of these thoughts? Nokia (and the various other relevant IP owners) announced they will be supplying drivers for the PowerVR to the community in the immediate future. With a little luck the Mer hackers will get them integrated into a release soon, which may contribute to tipping to Mer as the predominant OS for n8×0 devices over the OS2008/Maemo 4 stack Nokia provided.

I depend so much on my n810 I haven’t really been into OS hacking on it, but as it ages and the community firmwares come to the fore I suspect I’ll get more into it (if I have time). Maybe as they get cheap I’ll even end up with one of the “knockoffs” to use as a test platform in the same primary machine/beaterbox setup as my bigger machines.

Posted in Computers, DIY, Electronics, General, OldBlog | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Epigrams on Programming

Posted on 2009-10-14 by pappp

My Languages for Computers, Languages for Computing post reminded me of several of the “Perlisms” from Epigrams on Programming, a collection of humorous observations on programming published by Alan Perlis in SIGPLAN Notices 17(9), September 1982. Most of them are still as, or more, relevant now than they were when they were published.

Everyone who deals with computers regularly: GO. READ. THEM.

Some of my favorites:
19. A language that doesn’t affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing.
31. Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.
49. Giving up on assembly language was the apple in our Garden of Eden: Languages whose use squanders machine cycles are sinful. The LISP machine now permits LISP programmers to abandon bra and fig-leaf.
87. We have the mini and the micro computer. In what semantic niche would the pico computer fall?
114. Within a computer natural language is unnatural.

The fact that many of the epigrams are contradictory in clever ways just makes them better.

Posted in Computers, General, OldBlog | Tagged , | Leave a comment