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Email Brian Bilbrey

Orb Grafitti is sometimes a conversation, sometimes a soapbox. I use Linux most often, and I write about that and related software frequently. I also have a day job working as a dogsbody for a small manufacturing firm here in the SF Bay Area. Tom Syroid and I have co-authored a Linux Book. It was cancelled by $LARGE_PUBLISHER, so we're posting it online, here and here. Have a looksee! I'm glad you've come to visit, and always happy to hear from you.

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.

Well, good morning, as it were. To quote another daynoter, OFIM. But what the heck, the cards are already dealt, let's play them.

Weather-wise, it was a gorgeous weekend. After a fair amount of rain and wind on Friday, early morning clouds peeled back to reveal blue skies and proper April climate for the whole weekend. Temps in the mid-to-high sixties, light breezes - great fun.

Of course, we weren't out in it much. Marcia and Natali went to the salon for primping day, followed by just a little bit of power shopping (that was Saturday). We did visit my folks, and spend time with my sister and her family. This is a good thing.

Additionally, I've upgraded Grinch to Mandrake 8.0 release, and so far I am really quite happy. As I noted yesterday, all of the little bits that seemed broken during the various betas that I've worked with appear to have been eradicated.

We've gotten two more chapters of Brian and Tom's Linux Book up for your consumption. Chapter 9, on the KDE Menus, and Chapter 10, on a few selected KDE applications, are now available. I know, it'll take several weeks at this rate, but we're dancing as fast as we can...

I'll see y'all this evening - it's time for me to head in to work. Take care!

18:45 - Evenin'. How's ya doing? I figured since I gave you a week off last week, it was time to inflict some more pictures on you. It was easy - I had some time on my hands while I installed Mandrake 8 on Gryphon... that went like a charm, thanks for asking. Right now I am mucking about with Nautilus on the Gnome Desktop. This looks to be a bit of a resource drain, but by gosh it sure is purty. Screenshots tomorrow or the next day. They'll be enough to make you drool.

Now for the pictures. First set are just a small selection from this weekend - you'll want to head over to Marcia's Musings page later tonight or perhaps tomorrow for many more snaps. Above left are Natali (our niece, Bill and Sue's daughter), and nephew Robbie (my sister's youngest). Robbie's a big fan of using potato chips as a dip spoon, just for a mouthful, then putting the chip back in the basket, only slightly used <g>. On the right above, Alexandra is looking just slightly angelic (but she only is some of the time, really).

For some odd reason, there's a birthday cake visible in this snap to the left, and it certainly did draw Alex's attention on several occasions. I'm not sure how we kept Alex and Robbie (much less me) out of the dessert until after supper, but we were all good. On the right is one of the few non-blurred pictures of Robbie that I could find among the set. He's a really mobile little kid, and much steadier on his feet than even last month when we were up visiting for Alex's birthday. Of course, that just means that now he's running about, in a continuous state of just catching himself as he falls.

Generally, the Patio Farm © is doing extraordinarily well. The third round of basil is still in the pot, and hasn't died yet - I am not about to jinx it by putting up a picture just yet. On the left is the first of the four pots of tomatoes. They're extraordinarily lush, especially given the cold weather we've had the last couple of weeks. Then the great * 10^12 grand-chicks of the stars from that Hitchcock motion picture (you remember, the one they filmed up in Bodega Bay, yeah, that one) - well, they apparently all visited Marcia's Thyme today while we were at work. It was extravagant, taking over half the pot it shares with the Rosemary, and overflowing every side. Not anymore, as you can see, from the pathetic remnants pictured at right.

Finally, here's the balance of the Tomatoes, pot two at the left, pots three and four at right. All of them are doing quite well. I'm having to prune off growing tips on all of them every other day or so. I try and keep only 4 to 5 active growing tips on each plant, so that not all the energy goes into making leaves...

Now it's time to do the next thing, whatever that might be... perhaps dinner? Oh, and image processing for working on Chapter 11 - Office Suites - you should like that one. So, have a good evening!

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Howdy. Yup, that's right, today I turn 39 again, for the very first time. At this rate, I'll never reach Tom's answer, but that's the price I pay for living in this state of unreality, California. We have government funded bodies that study self-esteem, while the power distribution infrastructure crumbled around our heads. We are having late frosts as the greenies cry "Global warming!" and "It's all our fault!" (or, say it softly for fear of offending, could it simply be solar variation?)

Things I would sign up for: A ride to the moon, to live and work there. A nuke in my backyard (figuratively at least - the greens would make me live three states away, if they allowed one built) - I'd have one in the next block if I could have guaranteed inexpensive power. A house on ground that we could afford, rather than this crap that's been bid up out of all proportion by the dot-goners. Sheesh, a two or three bedroom condo goes for 275 to 350K, at the low end! Feh!!!

My set time to finish is done, and I'll likely not be back this evening, as Marcia and I are out to Fiesta Del Mar, over on Shoreline, for supper. Y'all have a lovely day and night, I'll see you tomorrow.

Well, I am back, briefly, after all. I needed to share with you the generousity, thoughfulness and all-around kindness of my lovely Marcia. Note especially the balloons to the left. They were accompanied by a particularly over-the-top type of card. The nice card and flowers (the latter pictured to the right), do absolutely nothing to make up for the heinous crimes, which shall be paid for, over and over again through the years. Feh!

Speaking of my ball and chain, Marcia has published a bunch more photos from the weekend family gig, so if you liked the ones you saw above, there's even more to be found here. You were warned!

In other, even less cheerful news, Kaycee is apparently preparing for her last big trip. After beating back the big C twice, her liver isn't up to the strain anymore, and as a cancer survivor, she's an unlikely candidate for transplant. Say a prayer for the warrior, the lovely young woman, and for the little girl - they are one and the same, you know...

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I won't talk about Kaycee all the time, but you'll see this linked image from here on out - she's a brave young woman who's managed to beat the odds twice, and now things are worse, yet again. The link reminds you to read Kaycee, to spend time with her through her writings. I think it's important. A view on life and living, in the face of death. Think Kaycee. Send her your thoughts, or prayers, or whatever works for you - it may not help, but they certainly can't hurt! Here's a mailto link for Kaycee that I copied from Randy: pray for kaycee.

OK. If you did indeed drop here last night, you would have found that second post, despite my protestations to the contrary. Contained thereon you will find evidence of my lovely Marcia's care and concern for me in my dotage.

I'll be getting back to work on The Book tonight, and also this evening, I'll have a couple of gripes about Mandrake 8.0 ... well, one, anyway, along with some mail on the topic from a reader who's trying to install 8.0, and having difficulties. Mostly I remain terribly impressed.

Today at work, I have a new board design to complete, and more work to do on version 4 of the ETS website. I suppose I'd better get into the commute, so that I can get started on those, eh? Take care, I'll see you back tonight!

18:00 - I'm baaaack. And, as promised, there's a bit of mail to catch up on...

From: "John Lowell" <[email protected]>
Subject: Mandrake 7.2
Date: Sun, 22 Apr 2001 02:06:07 -0700

Hi Brian,
 
OK, here's what I'm working with:
 
Antec Full Tower Case
PC Power & Cooling 400W Silencer Power Supply
2 Auxilliary Case Fans
Intel D815EEAAL System Board
866 Mhz Pentium III Socket 370 Processor
256 MB Crucial SDRAM, PC 133
Teac Floppy Drive
Plextor 12/4/32 CD-RW
Adaptec 29160N SCSI Controller
2 Seagate Barracuda 9.2G Ultra 160 Hard Drives
US Robotics Internal Modem=20
NEC FE700+ Monitor
 
In addition to the above, I purchased what appears to be a bad
Matrox Millenium G450 Video Card. In the AGP slot, no video. Out
of the AGP slot, video! I've tested it on two boards with the same
result. It's going back.

Anyway, I've installed the boot manager, System Commander 2000, and
at this point have Windows 98SE and Windows 2000 Professional on
separate partitions on the so-called boot hard drive. I can reach
them both without incident. The second hard drive has been
reserved for Linux experimentation and I've purchased and made the
first attempt at installing Mandrake 7.2. System Commander 2000
created and formatted a partition for Mandrake, rebooted, and
asked for the boot diskette which I provided. Once inside, the
set-up identified an Adaptec SCSI controller (quite possibly not
mine-it showed the wrong number), went on to attempt
initialization of the CD-RW (another SCSI device) and died. I 
learn from the Adaptec site that drivers for SuSE are available but
 there's no mention of Mandrake. Am I dead in the water or are
there generic SCSI drivers available? If I'm not and there are,
are they to be added somehow to the Mandrake boot disk? I'm taking
this project one step at a time as you can see.
 
Best regards.
 
John Lowell

Hey, John...

My understanding is that Matrox doesn't offer the best support for
open source projects - IE no specifications to XFree.org, for
example. Since that's what you have though, you might be interested
in looking at the Accelerated X or Metro X servers (both commercial
offerings, closed source), as they can provide better drivers since
they don't reveal the board mfgrs "trade secrets". Of course the OS
way is to vote with your dollars and buy hardware from manufacturers
that support Open Source software drivers for their hardware...
 
I've never worked with System Commander and Linux, so I can't be of
much help to you there. I've dual-booted Win98 and Linux, and Win2K
and Linux, both managed at boot by Lilo. Mmmmm. You might consult
with the online help systems at Symantec or paid support, since
that's a commercial product... I could probably figure a way...

Why not try installing on your second drive _without_ using system
commander, but install the boot manager (grub/lilo) to the boot
partition (probably /dev/hdb1), make sure you create a boot floppy
to be able to get in if this fails, then use system commander to
point to the boot sector of the first partition of the "D" drive
(that is the parlance it uses, keerect?)
 
It's possible that SC is hiding the scsi adapter in some way (to
present a "generic" face to a multi-boot windows environment, which
is probably how they wrote that. OTOH, I see no reference explicitly
to the 21690 controller in the kernel docs.
 
Over on the Adaptec site, I see nothing explicit about that card and
linux. Don't know whether that's a good sign or a bad-un.
 
Best wishes...   .b

Subject: Mandrake 8.0
Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2001 14:23:23 +0200
X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19)
To: "'[email protected]'" 
From: David Thorarinsson 
 
 
Hi Brian,
 
I got a question for you concerning installation of Mandrake 8.0.
 
I tried installing this version on the following computer. I have installed
Linux on it before (it was running Slackware but with the latest
announcements on that distro as well as the fact that Mandrake may have a
real Windows killer on its hands made me want to try it out).
 
The computer has the following components:
 
Aopen 59AX Pro motherboard
K6-2 350 MHz processor
192 megs of memory
Matrox G400, 32 meg graphics card
4.3 Gig IDE harddrive.
Soundblaster 128 soundcard
NE 2000 compatible NC (PCI, 10/100Mbit using Realtek RTL 3189 chip)
Adaptec AHA2940 UW SCSI card
Sony DAT player SDT-7000 (SCSI)
 
My problem is that the installation crashes before even reaching a graphical
stage. I have used the same CD's to install on two other computers and that
has gone well so that is not the problem.
 
I think the problem is that it senses the SCSI card and automatically looks
for harddisks running on that. When it doesn't find harddisks it simply
quits. I get no logical explanations other than the installation process
cannot continue and that the computer should be rebooted. Any ideas on how
to get past this?
 
Two major irritations in the installation process:
 
1. If you select an english setup of Linux you will only be able to select
english type keyboards. This is horrible! I wan't to run Linux in english
but I got a Swedish keyboard and since I can't freely select these I have to
do these things manually after the installation. Major irritation.

2. You get a question on how you want to connect to the internet. I selected
modem of course since that is what I have got. It seems that I couldn't
select network as well so my NC wasn't configured. I haven't tested this
again to see if I could select and configure both (I'll do a reinstallation
when I got the time), but if I can't then this is a real miss for those who
got home networks and still use modems to connect to the net.
 
Have a good day!
 
/Dave
-- 
David Thorarinsson
 
Technical Services

Hello, David -
 
Nice to hear from you.
 
You might try pulling the scsi card, doing the install, then putting
the card in and pulling in the modules for that after a successful
install. Another thing to look at is how the BIOS is set up for boot
devices. Make sure your boot order is removable devices (esp, CD for
install, THEN floppy), IDE then SCSI last.

Swedish keyboard, but you want your install in English... Well,
probably not a whole lot of users wanting that combo, the developers
probably assumed english install, english keyboard. However, at the
summary stage towards the end of the install (at least following
Expert install), you should be able to re-specify your keyboard
before the install is complete. If not, then pop that in as a bug at 
Mandrake!
 
I think you can select more than one of the options for networking,
do them sequentially, again, from an expert install...
 
If not, then set up your LAN networking first, then install the
modem stuff post install, and you can use your linux box to gateway,
including dial-on-demand, for your net.  Bear in mind I've never
done that, only straight modem, then later straight lan and
multi-home ethernet (what with DSL and the apartment wide network,
doncha know!).
 
Best of luck...

Finally, in response to an email from Jon Hassell, I am going to switch gears and bring the Sendmail Chapter of Tom and Brian's Linux Book up next. Please note, Jon, that this will not address setting up IMAP, POP or Webmail gateway services. I used to use Sendmail (now I run Postfix) for local retrieve email (I ssh into the box, read and respond to email using mutt), or as a forwarding tool (Marcia's email comes in, and following the direction in the /etc/aliases file, it forwards out again to her account at Speakeasy, where she can access it many different ways, all without risk to our local server.

20:10 - OK. Chapter 25, Using Sendmail: An Introduction, is now online. Whew. Only 2 images, but lots of code fragments. There you go folks - don't go spend it all in one place... well, actually, do ... if you want to punch that "Encourage Us" button at the top of any of the chapters in The Book, we wouldn't mind in the least, really...

Now, good night, gentle readers. See you tomorrow. Think Kaycee.

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Good morning. It's warm already inside, although the outside temps have dropped a bit, and the fog is in. We'll see how things shape up.

OK, as requested (and announced already once, last night), Chapter 25, on Sendmail, is now up for consumption. This chapter pretty much stands. There are few functional and configuration changes in the latest version of Sendmail, although I am not currently following it, since I now run Postfix. I'll also post the Apache and Samba chapters shortly, as it's been indicated to me that these would be high-demand as well. It is worth noting that these two document features that have been deprecated, superceded or enhanced in the latest versions. However, our more ... colloquial ... style of writing should make these still a good introduction to their respective services. Do always read the documentation that comes with your system or software, as it may well differ from anyone else's writings about the same.

A bunch more email this morning, some on follow up to last night's batches - I'll hold those until this evening to see what comes up. Someone wrote about how to correctly configure their network card if it wasn't recognized automagically during the install phase... I directed them to run netconf after install, and gave out a link to the Ethernetworking HOWTO over at LinuxDoc.org, pointing out explicitly which driver they should be selecting for their specified card. I got an email quickly back asking if I would be available via email on Friday AM if that didn't work, to which I replied, "Uhhhh, sure, I suppose... is this for you or your employer." Because of course, if the latter, then it's time to talk billing rates, eh?

Also, I updated Galileo, the Agenda Computing VR3d Linux handheld, to the latest root and kernel images. It sure is improving quickly. All I need is a quick backup routine, which I understand has been written by Lego Andy, and works. Oh, and I need to get the IRDA stuff running so that I can backup without having to physically connect.

Time is well past for me to be on the road - 60 odd interesting emails do that to a body. Y'all have a lovely day. See you later!

21:25 - Evenin'. Been mucking about, having fun with a variety of things, and plain forgot to come by here until now. During the day, John Dominic and I went back and forth about free vs. fee help... First here's the exact quote from the second email from this fellow:

Mr. Bilbrey,

If you don't mind, can I also email you Friday if my issue isn't resolved?
Are you going to be checking your email during the morning hours?

"... issue isn't resolved?" Sure reads like someone treating me like a help desk, eh? John hadn't seen that, and he wrote:

"... is this for you or your employer." 

There's a fine kettle of fish.  Knowledge, once gained, is mine to do with as
I will.  Thus valuable knowledge gained (how to configure machines, etc) makes
ME more valuable.  

However, knowledge gained from someone else who has earned that knowledge the
hard way, and chooses to sell it, is not free.  As it is yours, and you have
earned it through your hard work, you are free to do with it as YOU wish.  

Hmmm.  Philosophically, I think the knowledge should be given as it is earned
freely.  However, were that true, I'd have a degree from MIT since it would
have been free of charge.  Nowadays, I'll have to get one, same as everyone
else, for $49.95 from some spammer.  

Since, however, I am a capitalist (democrat, who wants some day to be rich
enough to be a republican, as my mother once said), I say charge all the
market will bear!

After all, there's those empty shoeboxes to accumulate...  ;-)

-----------
John Dominik
http://vulcan.spaceports.com/~jdominik/
Member of the Daynotes Gang
http://www.daynotes.com/

Well, yes, in a manner of speaking...

But to inquire if I will be available at a specific date and time to
provide "free" assistance? That's why I wonder about the commercial
aspect...

Besides, the knowledge wasn't "free", I've busted my butt over the
years to learn what I've learned. What I provide on my website that
people use as a resource (explicitly, in this case, the Mandrake 7.2
installation walkthrough) is marvelous, and I like that.

But if I, as a stranger, wrote to you and asked if you would be
available for consultation to help get my system running tomorrow in
the morning, wouldn't that sound more like "work" than a helping
hand?

You see, when I sent the first thing, he didn't even try it yet, he
just tried to make arrangements for what happens if the hints and
help failed. No "Thank You" even, just "are you available on email
Friday if this doesn't work?"... Mmmmm indeed.

Heh. Ah, well, I'd probably help out anyway, it just caught a raw nerve at the wrong moment. Besides, now that I'm over the hill, I am allowed some eccentricities, aren't I? Oooooh. Hey, if you don't read Doc Searls (who turned my on to this link), or The Nation, then you might have missed this piece by Bill Moyers, it starts like this:

Hi. My name is Bill, and I'm a recovering Unimpeachable Source. I understand 
"Unimpeachable Source" is now an oxymoron in Washington, as in "McCain 
Republican" or "Democratic Party." But once upon a time in a far away place--
Washington in the 1960s--I was one. Deep Backgrounders and Unattributable 
Tips were my drugs of choice.
  ...

On that note, I'll leave you for the evening. Have a good one. Mañana.

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Howdy. You know, I like Fridays in principle - they are the nominal end of the working week (oh, yeah, so I work most Saturdays and Sunday's on my own gigs, so there goes that schtick). Tomorrow morning has all the great cartoons on (ooops, now there's the Cartoon network, so I don't have to wait until Saturday morning for a Loonie Toons fix, or I wouldn't, if I watched TV anymore). Oh, wait, I get to sleep in until 7 or so two days in a row, Huzzah! That's still true. Usually my body doesn't let me get later than that. When I do sleep late, it destroys me - then all I want to do, or feel capable of, is nap. Sometimes that's not such a bad choice, but there's so much more to learn, so much more to do... Sleep is a waste of time.

In further conversations with correspondent John Lowell, he unearthed the following gem, http://people.FreeBSD.org/~gibbs/linux/, which is the "unofficial" OpenSource drivers page for Adaptec. While it appears that these are incorporated into at least the Mandrake distro's kernel (although perhaps one or two revs down), if you're running an Adaptec SCSI controller, then you most certainly want to be reading this page. The chipset/controller boards driven by this code are:

"This driver provides access to the SCSI bus(es) connected to Adaptec AIC7770, AIC7850, AIC7856, AIC7860, AIC7870, AIC7880, AIC7890, AIC7891, AIC7892, AIC7895, AIC7896, AIC7897 and AIC7899 host adapter chips. These chips are found on many motherboards as well as the following Adaptec SCSI controller cards: 274X(W), 274X(T), 284X, 2902, 2904, 2906, 2910, 2915, 2920, 2930C, 2930U2, 2940, 2940U, 2940AU, 2940UW, 2940UW Dual, 2940UW Pro, 2940U2W, 2940U2B, 2950U2W, 2950U2B, 19160B, 29160B, 29160N, 3940, 3940U, 3940AU, 3940UW, 3940AUW, 3940U2W, 3950U2, 3960, 39160, 3985, and 4944UW."

They provide a full patch for the stock kernels, up to the current 2.4.3 series, as well as the latest 2.2.x kernels.

That's the hot tip for the day, hope it helps you. Now to work with me - yesterday I finished designing and re-designing a new and an existing board, to take advantage of a new component which should help us shed at least a little a bit of labor out of several of the ETS Video Baluns, and make the ones that I re-did yesterday actually manufacturable. Today, I have a long stint at the HP Network Analyzer, characterizing jack compensation against a number of RJ45 plugs. I know, I know, sounds exciting doesn't it?

Take care, have a great day. See you later!

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Briefly, since my day is already half-hosed... The jerk teen beast downstairs decided to have a birthday party last night. She told us in advance, and we warned her about not too loud, not too late. Well, these yutzes were loud, aggressive assholes, there are beer bottles, broken windows, and who knows what all else remaining. Sheesh. Yeah, we called the cops. When it was getting later, and looked to be headed from disrespectful, rude and dangerous to Rave. Ah, well. Maybe I was just a boring kid, but certainly I was never that thoughtless about my circumstances and my neighbors, even back when I was more than occasionally a few sheets to the wind. Feh. Kids.

We watched Blazing Saddles, in dribs and drabs, between monitoring the situation outside and below us. Really, they sure ruined my evening, and Marcia's. I didn't get to sleep until the whole thing ended, closer to 1 AM. I must be getting old. Double Feh!

Right now, I am re-running the script for search indexing our sites, so that should be up to date shortly. One of these days, I may even remember to put in a cron job to do that for me... Today we've got errands to do, and I have the balance of chapter 26, on Apache, to format for your consumption. So have an interesting day. Later!

20:11 - Hullo. Busy day. Got many of our errands done, and I finished slogging through the formatting of Chapter 26, Serving Web Pages with Apache. As laid out for The Book (back when it was going to be printed on dead trees), this was one of the longer bits, just about 50 pages worth. Although Apache's been upgraded for security reasons several times since this was originally written, this material remains fresh and useful. Well, of course we'd say that, so you'd best judge for yourself <g>

The broken windows downstairs have been replaced, and one can only hope that the noise is not going to continue tonight. For their sakes (and our sanity) I seriously hope so! Now to get away from the machine again, and try and enjoy a movie tonight. I think we've got a Schwartzenegger that I haven't seen yet??? Hmmm.

Anyway, y'all have a lovely evening... See you tomorrow!

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Good Morning! Well, I opened up Bluefish to start this post about an hour ago. Then I opened a browser window to check out a fact or two, then the phone rang, and it was that young Canadian feller I've written a word or two with, and we yammered on quite a bit. Now I have absolutely no idea what it was I was going to put down here this morning. ::sigh::

As I noted last night, I did get the Apache chapter from our book out and on the wire finally - it is a long'un. Near 50 pages, and not a single screenshot. It's good material though. Today, I'll work a couple more in, if I can make the time. However, for the moment, I'll just leave y'all to your own devices. Enjoy your Sunday, and I'll be back later, when I have something coherent to blither about. TTFN!

17:35 - Hey. Back again. This time with Chapter 11 - Office Suites for Linux. I hope you find this one useful as a guide. Like both Tom and I have noted before, it's easy to work in Linux... but it can be challenging to work with other people generating documents that use proprietary formats, using MS products. Ah, well.

Now it's time to make some fresh salsa, and start marinating steaks for supper. Have a great rest of your weekend - I know I will. See you next week.

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Visit the rest of the DAYNOTES GANG, a collection of bright minds and sharp wits. Really, I don't know why they tolerate me <grin>. My personal inspiration for these pages is Dr. Jerry Pournelle. I am also indebted to Bob Thompson and Tom Syroid for their patience, guidance and feedback. Of course, I am sustained by and beholden to my lovely wife, Marcia. You can find her online too, at http://www.dutchgirl.net/. Thanks for dropping by.

All Content Copyright © 1999-2001 Brian P. Bilbrey.