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Welcome to Orb Graffiti, a place for me to write daily about life and computers. Contrary to popular belief, the two are not interchangeable. EMAIL - I publish email sometimes. If you send me an email and you want privacy or anonymity, please say so clearly at the beginning of your message.. |
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January 21, 2001 - Updates at 0700
Good morning... Well, we had a wonderful time at brunch yesterday. Roger and Myrna took us to the Hyatt Regency Burlingame (up near San Francisco airport). There we ate, and ate ... and ate. Also much fun and laughter in the course of conversing with these lovely friends. But the food... I had three plates full of food, and a dessert, over the course of a couple of hours. We didn't have "lunch" or "dinner" yesterday (although I did have a touch of ice cream late last night). I'm still a bit full-ish. Heh.
I spent some relatively non-productive time yesterday afternoon organizing my filesystems, clearing out some old VMware installations I don't need anymore (and making room for the new, neh?). I took Sally for a walk, and generally vegged. I did spend some time in the evening starting to experiment a bit with Mosix (http://www.mosix.org) - you're remember that I heard Don Becker say the words "perfectly transparent process migration" in regards to Mosix, back at ALS last year. I've been wanting to learn more ever since.
Now I'd best head in for today's half-day of work. See you soon, maybe later right here.
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January 22, 2002 - Updates at 0655
Howdy. Well, while I didn't make it back here yesterday, I did have a busy, busy day. One of the good-news sorts of things is that I'm preparing a case for conversion of the company to Linux for almost everything. This is driven primarily by a strong desire to get away from the predatory licensing gig that Microsoft's got going, in combination with stepped up blackmail marketing in our area being backed by the BSA. While the firm has no real exposure that I'm aware of (we're still mostly running Win95 on the old P133 boxes that they got before they hired me, back in 1997, with applications to match), it's just annoying and vicious. Many applications (browsing and email) can be directly replaced by native Linux-based components. Others, such as the client for our Accounting/Manufacturing software, well, that's different. I'll be keeping the NT server, which acts as PDC for the current network, but is primarily an application server running SQLBase (as well as the primary backup machine for the network). They only have Windows client software for the product, so I've been working with various versions of Wine to get the client running. Had some progress yesterday - it's frustratingly close to running properly. Then I need to integrate printing into Wine, and my job is almost done.
That was the first part of yesterday. The second half of the day, and well into the evening was spent trying to integrate a set of kernel patches I'm experimenting with. Most of my problems can probably be attributed to me not knowing enough (big surprise, heh). Additionally, the main patch didn't integrate well, so I was trying to resolve things manually, then deal with the inevitable compile errors. I did discover a neat C Preprocessor requirement that was breaking a macro in one of the source files, and yielding no error that indicated what the real problem was - just lots of other problems. I tracked that down, rather proud of myself, then found that perhaps all my trouble was in vain - I might should be using GCC-3.0.3. I'll have to give that a whack this afternoon.
We'll see what the day brings - I've got some more investigations to do in CAT5E performance for a group of components for one of our customers, a continuing effort on the Linux/Wine front, and who know's what else. That just takes me to noon. Y'all have a lovely day!
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January 23, 2002 - Updates at 0658
Whaddaya mean, "I want a longer post!", huh? I know, it's been short shrift around here the last couple of days - I've been busy. Lots of interesting things to poke around in and experiment with, not to mention HalfLife running very nicely indeed on the TransGaming wine server. Oh, I didn't say I was playing a game, did I? Well, a little bit, then. Right now I've got an absolutely crashing headache, but that's sure to get better as I continue to dilute the hemoglobin in my caffeine stream. OK, joke time!
Oh, dear........
This had most of the state of Michigan laughing for 2 days and a very embarrassed female news anchor who will, in the future, likely think before she speaks.
What happens when you predict snow but don't get any.... true story... we had a female news anchor who, the day after it was supposed to have snowed and didn't, turned to the weatherman and asked the question.
"So Bob, where's that 8 inches you promised me last night?" Not only did HE have to leave the set, but half the crew did too they were laughing so hard !
Don't you just love it?
Yeah, I laughed my ass off, too. That came into my work box yesterday. Then I followed a pointer by Doc Searls (from a third party to a site with alternative authors' versions of Lord of the Rings. My, I was howling. The only thing I thought was missing was a Blackadder version as Rowan Atkinson might have written it (although I really did...):
Lord of the Rings, by Rowan Atkinson
"Get me that ring, Baldrick!"
"But, my Lord, there's still a furry creature attached to it..."
"Oh, all right, Baldrick." Edmund leans over the table and pierces the Hobbit in the chest with a fondue skewer.
"Now hand me the ring!"
"'e won't let it go, my Lord. 'e keeps muttering about 'is Precioussss, and that you can't hurt him because 'e's wearin' a Mithril jacket. 'e also keeps calling you the Dark King and refers to me as Gollum. What is 'e on about?" blithered Baldrick.
"I don't care if he's wearing a smoking jacket, Baldrick." shouted Edmund. "Just get me that ring!"
{sotto voce} "Though I rather fancy that bit about 'Dark King'."
Baldrick, in amazement, cried, "My Lord, e's disappeareded!"
"I can see that," as he cuffed Baldrick soundly about the ears. "Or rather, I don't see that, and we need that ring..."
"I have a cunning plan, my Lord..."
Now here's a sweet bit of fun regarding the possiblity (or now, lack thereof) of an AOL-ized version of Red Hat Linux. Here's a link to the original.
In a more serious vein, John Doucette mailed to me last week as a followup to my Kernel of Pain link on Friday He's been trying to do quota support with the 2.4 kernel, and ReiserFS. I'd heard of a number of challenges that people have had with mixing quotas and ReiserFS. Consequently I suggested that he give EXT3 a shot. EXT3 is the Linux filesystem with journalling bits added on, and so far as I know, user quotas run marvelously on it. John wrote last night, saying "Tried ext3 today and user and group quotas worked right away. Looks very promising." My take on the matter is that quota's are only a nice way to keep an eye on when it's time to pick up another RAID array - disk is so very cheap these days that I'd not hobble anyone by restricting their space usage. I mean, sure, if this were a university, then things would be different...
I've been through the rest of my email, and there's some more info on Linux conversion and running Wine, courtesy of Holden. I need to give that a gander. Oh, and Jan Swenson reminds me that for on-screen modifications "Use Post-it notes. they are easier to remove than white-out." Now why didn't I think of that? That and I didn't update completely the Next Week links on last week's Grafitti. Thanks, Jan.
And I'll see you later, it's time for me to head in to work.
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January 24, 2002 - Updates at 0705
Good morning. Someone in a dark corner of Marcia's family tree apparently said that a fever blister on your tongue meant that you told a lie. Hmmm. I think it's just a PITA that manages to keep me on the edge of sleep most of the night, and what sleep I had was troubled by very odd dreams - I'm reading from Niven's The Best of the Man/Kzin Wars...
So, it was slashdotted yesterday, and while the server was fine, the ISP couldn't handle the bandwidth load, again. Our very own Greg Lincoln is Senior Editor for LinuxHardware.org, and they've got a report up (yes, you can see it now) pitting the Pentium 4 "Northwood" vs. Athlon XP 2000+. Pictures, packaging and benchmarks, worth a read if you feel the need for speed.
Now from the mailbag...
From: John Doucette Subject: Quotas Date: 23 Jan 2002 09:34:41 -0700 You wrote "My take on the matter is that quota's are only a nice way to keep an eye on when it's time to pick up another RAID array" which has some truth to it. But in the corporate world this is not always possible, plus that data needs to be backup right. So you impose group quotas which when the department runs out of space they ask for more. But instead of just bumping up the quota for a bunch of data pack rats, you tell them to do some house keeping. Then they have a bunch more space to work with, or you find they have a valid case for more storage and the quota gets increased. John
Note - if you're running Evolution, I strongly recommend that you upgrade to version 1.0.1. (That's available in the Debian Sid tree now.) There are a few bugs in 1.0 that won't wait. For example, it turns out that my bug report to Ximian for lost composed messages is partially fixed in 1.0.1, although the correct solution apparently won't be implemented until version 1.2 - not sure I understand why, and I'm not awake enough at the moment to meander around the topic.
I guess that means I'd better climb in the car and head to work. See you later!
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January 25, 2002 - Updates at 0658
G'morning. Post later, I'm running late and there's not enough time. I'll get something up from work - give me a couple hours.
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January 26, 2002 - Updates at 09:30
Sigh. 24 hours of dark 'Net. Speakeasy had a POP migration in their San Francisco facility yesterday. It all went horribly wrong, and the whole SF Bay Area's worth of Speakeasy DSL customers went dark. Instead of being persistent last night on the service line, we went out to supper with Pat and Nathan to celebrate Nathan's birthday. This morning, not everyone is yet alive, but I finally got through to the tech support line, and within two minutes they bumped me up to the front of the line, and I was live. Now it's time to see how well the mail is flowing in, and I've got other stuff to discuss, but first, more coffee. Thanks for bearing with me, folks. I'll be back later!
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January 27, 2002 - Updates at 1438
Good day. Nope, I never made it back to this page yesterday. We all know which road is paved with good intentions, though, don't we? I got busy on other things, like reinstalling the 2.4.17 kernels on both machines with the kernel patches that I'm experimenting with. No, sorry, I can't identify what I'm working on, or I'd have to kill you. This would best be accomplished by using the World's Funniest Joke from the Monty Python sketch. Since I haven't figured out how to get that transcribed here without first dying personally, I can't tell you.
Returning to my storyline, such as it is... I first implemented this set of enhancements during the week. However, I really, really needed to reconfigure my kernels on both Garcia and Gryphon so that all of my normal activities worked properly again. CD burning, SmartMedia readers, USB webcam and what have you. That, reading documentation, and running a few benchmarks took up much of the remaining day. That and I played a bit of HalfLife while waiting for assorted compiles.
Speaking of spam. Well, we weren't here, but on the Talkabout mailing list we have been (you're welcome to join - the price is right). Every once in a while, I'm interested in a thing long enough to actually sign up for a mailing. Usually my interest doesn't wane (although my energy does, which is why I rely on Kernel Traffic rather than retaining my subscription to LKML). When working on The Linux Book that Tom and I wrote, I ended up, somehow, subscribed to the Red Hat Network. Twice, under different names. What stumps me is that there's no way on their site to unsubscribe. I can turn off the alert and errata messages in my account preferences, but there's no place to say "Remove me, delete me, for you I don't exist." I've looked for that a couple of times. Yesterday I devoted some serious time to mining the RHN site for a place to unsubscribe permanently. No such beast that I could find. So I sent this to them:
To: [email protected] As I tested various distributions in the course of my writings, I found myself signed up twice for redhat network. Neither "account" is a "paid entitlement" account, and while I can turn off the errata mailings, why isn't there an immediately obvious place in the rhn webtree to remove myself and my information from your systems. I don't want to have to call, and I don't really think I should have had to write this email. From the account management page, there should be an EASY-TO-FIND link to deleting my account and information.
Please advise as to how I might have my data removed from the rhn servers, and whether or not (and if not, why not) you plan on making this process easier for others.
regards,
Brian Bilbrey
We'll see what happens, but I'm not holding my breath. You shouldn't either, but I'll post anything I receive here. In line with spam control, I'll probably be taking a longer, harder look at procmail (http://www.procmail.org/) than I have previously. Two reasons - mail is getting out of control, and it's a gap in my knowledge that I'd like to fill. Links, recommendations and help welcomed.
Well, that about wraps it for today - it's very pretty out today, a clear, clear blue sky following rain yesterday, and with more wet stuff forecast for tomorrow. We were out for a while doing the errands and such. Now I'm going to relax, take a variety of meds, and see if I can't beat this flu bug that's trying to take up residence. See you later.
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Last Week
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Next Week
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 © 1999-2002 Brian P. Bilbrey.
