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Email Brian Bilbrey

EMAIL - I publish email sometimes. If you send me an email and you want privacy or anonymity, please say so, I'll pay attention to your wishes.

OK. Happy New Millenium, all. Had a stellar month for stats (for me) last month - more than 11 thousand page reads, 30K hits. For the year, OrbDesigns.com hit 104,210 page reads. This doesn't count traffic at the Syroid Manor mirror of this site, nor the growing traffic at the sites that Marcia runs from this box. Not a patch on the real pros in the Daynotes Gang, or any proper commercial site. But all the same, thank you all very much for dropping by, day after day. I am glad of your company.

Marcia's watched her parades, and I am getting ready to ... what? Really, I don't know. We don't really have plans for the day. I have a bit of network upgrading to do about here, and some more tweaks to the website to bring it to where it should be for the new year. Also I've been meaning to rework my Start Page into something a bit more in sync with my daily surfing and information requirements. Mmmm. Plus food, naps, and something about a robotics competition on PBS this morning... oh, yeah, here's a link for that. Interesting that the linked page is about a program filmed last year, yet the page has a copyright date of ... 1998. Mmmm.

So I suppose a shower and ... oh, there are apparently some other things to work on... Hmmm. TTFN. Oh, don't forget, we're selling the Cavalier!

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Good morning and welcome to the first working day (for many people) of the new millenium. At an average of 20.65 business days per month (non-Thompsonized months), after today's over, there'll only be 247,799 days of work left until December 31, 3000 (which I declare as a holiday right now, just to keep the math simple).

Here's a follow up on my comment last Sunday about the furor over Red Hat's alleged breaking of compatibility by including the "broken" or at least very, very beta GCC 2.96 compiler. I was reading kernel notes last night, and there's quite a long section on this very topic, found behind this link. Linus has some very strong thoughts on the topic, and there's quite a long thread with lots of back and forth about it all - worth reading if you are interested in Linux, the Linux Standards Base, and more.

I reconfigured our network yesterday. Now the Linksys BEFSR11 is in place, protecting the entry. Behind that is Grendel the Mandrake Linux firewall (second tier defences), then the rest of the network. I had some problems bringing things back online. It turns out that I had my <VirtualHost> stanzas wrong in httpd.conf, but they worked as long as I was directly connected to the 'Net - that is, with the IP that I was serving directly on the box. More on this later, after work.

Meantime, I guess that I may have to downgrade our connection speed to get a more reliable connection to the net. It's really challenging to serve pages to and get email from y'all when I can't see the Internet, and the Internet can't see me. We must just be at the limit of connection for this speed. I'd love to keep the 384 up, and downgrade the download speed, but apparently they're paired. The next step is 128/600+. Mmmm. Well, distance from a CO is going to be a factor when next we move, so that I can set up a high-rate, reliable SDSL line. Much better. I'd do that here, if I thought we were going to be here more than a few more months.

On the road with me. Back in traffic, unless I'm very surprised. The roads were DEAD last week - quite cool. Take care, see ya later.

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Good morning? Well, yes, I suppose it is. The DSL connection's been up, apparently solidly, since last evening about 18:15. I spoke with Speakeasy support, and Covad was supposed to have a look at the line overnight. We'll see what happened. But I like waking up to a working connection. Makes my morning start a lot smoother.

I had fun working on logos for Tom the other day - I believed I had to do things the hard way, because I didn't have that font in Linux. So I learned quite a bit more about the Gimp, and about using the Wacom tablet, which is running just fine, thanks. After, Tom told me that the font was called Impact...

You know, I have a bunch of Operating Systems here, bought and paid for. I wondered if any of those included Impact, and if I could add it to my toolbox in Linux. I figured out how to make use of the Windows TTF files under X - it was child's play. Let's see if I can recreate my train of thought. Otherwise this is going to start looking like the episode "Spock's Brian"...

Now, first thing: how are font's managed under X?

less /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 # running 4.0.1 here on Grinch

Mmmm. Uses an independent font server. (search on xf, might be xfstt, or what?)

ps -ax | grep xf
679 ? S 0:45 xfs -port -1 -daemon

So xfs is the culprit, now how's that work? man xfs reveals that the configuration file is /etc/X11/fs/config, so aha, a list of files

#
# Default font server configuration file for Red Hat Linux 6.0
#

# allow a max of 4 clients to connect to this font server
client-limit = 4

# when a font server reaches its limit, start up a new one
clone-self = off

# alternate font servers for clients to use
#alternate-servers = foo:7101,bar:7102

# where to look for fonts
# Some of these are commented out, i.e. the TrueType and Type1
# directories in /usr/share, because they aren't forced to be
# installed alongside X.
#
catalogue = /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc:unscaled,
  /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi:unscaled,
  /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi:unscaled,
  /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1,
  /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo,
  /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/mdk,
  /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/drakfont,
  /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/pcf_drakfont:unscaled,
  /usr/share/fonts/default/Type1,
  /usr/share/fonts/ISO8859-2/75dpi:unscaled,
  /usr/share/fonts/ISO8859-2/75dpi:unscaled,
  /usr/share/fonts/ttf/western,
  /usr/share/fonts/ttf/decoratives,
  /mnt/win/windows/fonts

# in 12 points, decipoints
default-point-size = 120

# 100 x 100 and 75 x 75
default-resolutions = 100,100,75,75

# how to log errors
use-syslog = on

# deferglyphs makes a tremendous usability difference for CJK fonts
deferglyphs = 16

Note in the above listing that I've added /mnt/win/windows/fonts to the list... but will they be recognized by xfs? A quick apropos ttf yields a program called mkttfdir, which builds a catalog of TrueType font files for the font server. I type mkttfdir /mnt/win/windows/fonts then shutdown both xfs and X, then restart them. A telinit 3 serves the purpose admirably. Mmmm.

Success. OK, no Spock's Brain episode this time. Now for some mail...

From: Greg Lincoln
To: [email protected]
Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 14:04:22 -0500 (EST)

Hello Brian,

I hope you had a pleasant holiday.

Recently I have noticed some delays in loading pages on your site. It
seems that perhaps MaxClients is set too low? It doesn't feel like a
bandwidth issue as once it starts loading it goes fast. Traces show no
packet loss between you and me.

And now I'd like to comment on your gcc 2.96 stuff. I happen to disagree
with Linus on this. Considering that binary compatibility, particularly
with C++ is nearly non existent with every gcc release. For example, egcs
1.1.2/3 doesn't work with the libs from 2.95.x. The GCC group has always
maintained that compatibility will only be guaranteed with .x releases.

The reasons Redhat choose to ship 2.96 are good ones. The x86 codegen is
many many times better with later processors (k6-2,P3) and 2.96 is source
compatible with 3.0. No earlier gcc release is. (with C++)

While 2.96 certainly causes issues with those who wish to release binaries
only, there are several easy workarounds for C.

1. Use gcc 2.95.x and glibc 2.1.x under another platform (Redhat
6.2 for example) to create binaries for everyone.
2. Release the source. :)
3. Release two binaries. One for glibc 2.2 and one for 2.1.

With C++ things become a little more problematic. But only a little. Best
option is to link with a stdc++ compatibility library but then you have
source compatibility problems. There are certainly workarounds, but those
who want to use some of the new C++ stuff in 2.96/3.0 will have to use
them exclusively.

Finally, the biggest mistake RH made here was releasing a somewhat buggy
gcc. They have since patched it and released a fixed version, so this
issue is now moot. I guess they shouldn't have called it 2.96 either, but
I'm not touching that... :)

Please forgive the long windedness...:)

Regards,
Greg Lincoln
www.mazin.net

No problems anywhere except in between me and the DSLAM. I think
we're looking at a speed vs. distance issue here, and, sadly, I
think I am going to have to take a speed cut to get the reliability
up. Sigh.

When it works, it works very well indeed. And it isn't CONSTANT,
just bad for extended periods of time, followed by periods of good
behaviour. Shit. 'cuse the French.

Anyway. Red Hat made some strategic mistakes, mostly in naming and
documenting what they've done. They should have made it a Preview
Release, or a Coming Attractions, rather than a dot version that
indicated a solid product that can be developed on, to and for.

If, for instance, I was a new user, and wanting to build a kernel,
I'd �... what? �Oh, right, perhaps follow the directions on
LinuxDoc's Kernel HOWTO, which make no mention of kgcc. Very bad
form. They have some bright people working for them, but they just
tried to leap a stream and missed the other edge by a few feet.

They have always had vocal detractors and vehement defenders and
apologists, as is usual with a front runner, especially in the ...
outspoken ... Open Source community .

If you read the Kernel Traffic for the week (I pointed to it on
today's post, which you might not be able to get to...) it's, um...

http://kt.linuxcare.com/kernel-traffic/kt20010101_100.epl#3

Zack raised a good point - of all the distro's, RH seems to develop
behind higher and more complete walls than just about any other
(perhaps Caldera excluded, but I don't want to open that can of
worms at this time).

For instance, my favorite distro's are Mandrake and Debian, both of
which have active and public development communities. Now perhaps RH
is onto something "commercially" significant, but it seems to me
that they've severed a few ties. I am wrong as often as the next
guy, but...?

regards, .b

And I'll admit that Red Hat has the painful job of being the commercial market leader of a product developed for "free", meaning lots of unpaid time by hundreds and thousands of people (an odd definition of free, you might agree). They are going to catch flack. It's in the nature of the beast. And Moshe makes some good points in his most recent article at Byte, where he acknowledges some of the flaws, but thinks that the 7.0 RH release makes a fine server. Well of course Linus and other developers are going to look at it as a failure for a development platform ... that's what they do - that's what LOTS of Linux people do. But it may not affect the commercial market end of things much at all. We'll see.

Now to work with me. Have a great day. Later.

17:15 - Yup, it's later. First, on the DSL front, we've downgraded the speed of the connection to 128/608. Permanently (at least until we move). It's for our own good - we'll like a full time connection much more than a blazingly fast but only when it feels like it connection. Second, the line stayed up solid ALL DAY TODAY. I had a continuous OpenSSH connection from work into the boxes, and everything kept working well.

Tonight I am off to the monthly SVLUG meeting (info found at svlug.org). Tonight's presentation is on a project called OpenIT. Not sure what it's about, but I do like the opportunity to learn, and without a looming book deadline, I can attend for a second month in a row without guilt. Heh. A quick scan of the sbay.linux newsgroup - one new post to acknowledge, then it's time to put some supper in my gut prior to departure. Have a nice evening. TTFN.

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Morning. Sorry in advance for the early brevity, but there was a long and interesting thread on backup strategies this morning in the inbox, courtesy of the SVLUG mailing list. All of a sudden, oops, there goes all my morning time. ::sigh::

Anyway, the meeting last night was interesting, if a tad dry, and a bit vaporous. It turns out that Open-IT is apparently writing tools to build cross-platform LDAP-based directory services setups. They are especially focused on initial directory seeding and maintenance sanity. The downside is that there are lots of plans, and very little implementation yet. Ah, well.

Look, I am running late. I'll see y'all later on.

20:12 - Later... for some of us! Sorry about the downtime today, it's a connectivity tale of woe, which I'll reserve for tomorrow. Hopefully things are "better" now. However, I have some other good news - the Linux 2.4 kernel's out. Thanks to Greg Lincoln for the heads up, and I was able to fetch down a copy from ftp://ftp.linux.org.uk/pub/linux/linux-2.4/ - I got the bzip2 version. If you're having trouble finding it, or connecting as the news spreads like wildfire across the face of the dark, I have it mirrored here, both linux-2.4.0.tar.bz2 and linux-2.4.0.tar.bz2.sign, which allows you to verify the download with the pgp key from kernel.org, which is really, really slow right now (it times out... well, duh!).

Here's a quote taken from the thread about backups that I was referring to this morning:

"Only wimps use tape backup: _real_ men just upload their important stuff on ftp,
and let the rest of the world mirror it."  -- Linus Torvalds

Great! Snicker. Thanks to Bill for passing on that gem - it may be old hat to some, but I'd never seen it before. I'll leave you on that note. Have a lovely evening. G'night.

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Good morning and welcome to Friday. I observe that our internet connection appears to be up and available, which is a good thing. I dimly remember promising to talk a bit about that... <page up> scan <page down> yup, OK.

Early this week, I started working with Speakeasy and Covad to resolve a weekend's worth of downtime. Right now Speakeasy is in major growing throes, since they have offered to take in as many customers as possible from the failed ISPs that were partnered with Covad. Honestly, they're swamped, and admit intermittently on their hold line that the delays for technical support are obscenely long. The compensation is that once you get hold of somebody, they stick with you and really do their darnedest to help.

The initial problem was that we weren't getting a reliable connection at the 384K/1.5M speed. So Monday we downgraded to 128K/608K. After a good day and a half at the lesser speed, yesterday morning the line went down hard - no more than 15 or 20 seconds up at a time, all day. Very, very annoying. So I got through to Speakeasy in the afternoon, got a Tier2 trouble ticket, and was instructed to call back in the evening, in front of the boxes with the blinky lights.

Last night, I got Murray, who started by saying that the circumstances don't look great - no reliability at 1.5 or 608 - this may not work out for us... now that the bad news is out of the way, he went ahead and proved himself wrong. Turns out that there is a matrix of provisioning scenarios. Speed is one axis - connection error-correction is another. As Murray had me in one ear, and a Covad tech on a chat client of some type, we converted the 128/608 connection from "MaxFast" (marketing-speak, me thinks) to interleaved error-correcting mode. I power-cycled the DSL modem and voila - the connection was up. Murray and I chatted for a while - I did some line tests, and we discussed the various possibilities, and I got some direct contact information should things start heading downhill again...

Then I had a thought... was my original 384K/1.5M connection at MaxFast, or interleaved? Hmmm. He chuckled, and clacked away with the Covad guy (or gal, unknown to me) for a bit, then said, "Well, this is a pain threshold thing - it might not work, and your connection will be sour again, and you'll have to go through this whole hold and talk process to cut the speed down again..." We hem'd and haw'd around the issue for a while, and decided to go for it. So now Hovel Bilbrey is served by a 384/1.5 interleaved connection, which appears to be reasonably solid at the moment - no promises anymore, though. If you can't get through sometime, you can drop me an email at [email protected] instead to complain.

Lastly for now, know that Linux kernel 2.4.0 is released, though it may be hard to get hold of. So, if you're willing to put up with the slower upload speed, I'll be happy to let you have at the Orb mirror of the bzip source (19MB) and signature: linux-2.4.0.tar.bz2 and linux-2.4.0.tar.bz2.sign. Have fun Linux'ing!

See ya later.

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Morning. We've got a busy, busy day planned - off to Costco shortly, then we'll pick up a movie in the afternoon (probably What Women Want, since that's what my woman wants <g>), and an early-ish dinner out at il Postale, a restaurant here in Sunnyvale. I have no idea whether I'll be back here today.

I did bring up Linux 2.4.0 on Gryphon, successfully. As a first approximation, it seems solid enough, it's been up overnight, running Setiathome, and some network monitoring stuff to keep a little load on things. I have yet to re-compile Alsa to bring sound into the picture, but all the USB stuff is present and working. If you do get the 2.4.0 kernel, after unpacking the sources READ THE "Changes" file in the Documentation sub-directory. There are a variety of updated utilities and such that will need to be upgraded, even if you're running a VERY recent distro, like Mandrake 7.2. I had to upgrade modutils (available from kernel.org), and make sure that the right compiler options are in the Makefile for my version of GCC (which is a rev higher than the recommended one, but fortunately not the "broken" one of recent discussion.

Now off to the showers with me - have a lovely day, wherever you are.

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Good morning. Gray skies today, in normally sunny California. They're welcome, since we are really quite short in rain and snowfall this year. That hurts power generation in the coming year, as well as creating the conditions for off-season wildfires that have been seen in SoCal recently. It's supposed to rain today through Tuesday or Wednesday - we'll see, it hasn't started yet.

Yesterday was fun - we accomplished most of the goals for the day. What Women Want is funny, a cute movie. Only a couple of technical details and incontinuities threw me off - I am not much good at willing suspension of disbelief, given my background in technical theatre and being a skeptic by avocation. The Costco run was successful, no items forgotten. However, we took a pass on il Postale, since they weren't open when we first went, then after wandering around shops for a while, they weren't open at their stated time, either. Yes, it was a very early dinner for us - we ended up at Hunan Garden, and ate very well thanks - egg rolls and honey fried prawns for Marcia, fried prawns (no honey) and Mongolian lamb for me. Num. We closed the day with My Favorite Martian, starring Jeff Bridges and Christopher Lloyd, on one of the several movie channels we get. Low computation day, very nice, thanks.

Now we're waiting for the phone to start ringing, since our ad for the Cavalier was to start running in the Mercury News today. But no calls, as of now. Hmmmm. Maybe, even though they promised, we missed the deadline for the Sunday paper. That should be a fun call for whoever hears from Marcia about this one, if they screwed up. Repeat after me - DO NOT ANNOY A PROFESSIONAL CONTRACT NEGOTIATOR - you will end by giving up the farm to save the shreds of your dignity, if you mess with one, at least with mine <g>.

Next to the mailbag, with a bit from Moshe, then I am for getting into the balance of my day. Later, peoples.

Subject: compiling with gcc higher than advised for 2.4.0
From: [email protected]
Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2001 07:56:47 +0100

Brian

Read your daily journal (as I do every week). Thanks for mentioning
my article over at Byte.com.

If I may, one small piece of advise:

If you use a gcc version higher than the recommended for 2.4.0 you
are bound to get alignment panics when dealing with old modules
where the versioning isn't automated (as for most of my self-rolled
loadable modules).  Careful there.

Have a great day.

Moshe Bar

Thanks, Moshe. I'm honored. Yeah, I knew I was up a bit, and I
*really* ought to be using 2.91.66 GCC for that, but I thought, what
the heck 2.95.3 should be OK - it's not the 2.96.x of ill-repute, eh?

No problems as yet, but then I am not doing very much out of the
ordinary. This is on Gryphon, the Acer Travelmate, which, while my
travelling box, is also my experimental box. Over the coming weeks,
it's going to be stripped off a couple of times, as I do beta work
for Ian and Bruce's Progeny Linux (the Debian offshoot)...

Thanks for the input though - I knew there were dangers, just not
*exactly* what they were.

Regards, Brian

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