[gentoo-user] Re: DVD Movie backups
On 2011-12-17, David Haller wrote: >>Store these on a Samba share, then use something like the PlayOn HD >>Mini or the Western Digital TV Live! to watch them on your big screen >>TV. >> >>These players allow you to treat .iso files on the network just as if >>they were actual DVDs and give you full access to the menus and extra >>features. > > At least mplayer, vlc and xine will also happily play a directory, be > it a mounted DVD, a mounted image or just a rip as made by dvdbackup > and others (e.g. lxdvdrip). The SageTv set-top box will happily play a DVD directory also (in addition to playing TV shows recorded by the SageTv DVR server software). Sadly, Google bought SageTv and shut them down. It's too bad. SageTv server + set-top-box was a really great product. I don't know what I'm going to do when it dies. I absolutely dread going to back to MythTv with a big, hot, noisy PC sitting next to my TV... -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! I am a jelly donut. at I am a jelly donut. gmail.com
[gentoo-user] Re: DVD Movie backups
On 2011-12-17, Stroller wrote: > > On 17 December 2011, at 20:39, Grant Edwards wrote: >> On 2011-12-17, David Haller wrote: >> >>>> Store these on a Samba share, then use something like the PlayOn HD >>>> Mini or the Western Digital TV Live! to watch them on your big screen >>>> TV. >>>> >>>> These players allow you to treat .iso files on the network just as if >>>> they were actual DVDs and give you full access to the menus and extra >>>> features. >>> >>> At least mplayer, vlc and xine will also happily play a directory, be >>> it a mounted DVD, a mounted image or just a rip as made by dvdbackup >>> and others (e.g. lxdvdrip). >> >> The SageTv set-top box will happily play a DVD directory also (in >> addition to playing TV shows recorded by the SageTv DVR server >> software). > > Practically all players will do this, I think, but I much prefer having the > DVD as a single file, to move and copy and store. > > A directory containing a a VIDEO_TS and a load of files just seems a > lot more fragile to me. Were you to accidentally delete one of the > VOB files, there would be no way to tell the difference from looking > at the outside of the video's folder. True, but that's never happened. ISO images work fine, but the extra "layer of indirection" is an inefficiency that irritates the engineer in me. >> ? I absolutely dread going to >> back to MythTv with a big, hot, noisy PC sitting next to my TV? > > I bought an eMachines 1401 recently - it's not as perfectly silent as > the PlayOn (which is fanless), but it's *very* close. It's an AMD > atom-equivalent, dual-core, mini desktop PC, about 7" on a side and > maybe 1" thick. Right now, powered on with no load just to judge it > for this conversation, I can hear it if my ear is a foot away from > it, but not 2 or 3 feet away, not against the normal background noise > in my apartment (clock ticking in the kitchen and so on). Right now > its hard-drive is louder than its fan (which is shifting so little > air that I can barely feel it, even putting my hand an inch from the > grille). I think that if you load it up with an emerge then the fan > will ramp up a bit, but I doubt if you'd notice it when watching a > movie. There are some platforms that are getting pretty decent, but they still cost 5X as much as a set-top-box box, draw 10X as much power, and are about 4X larger. They're probably approaching "tolerable", but compared to something like a Roku or SageTv box, they're still an embarassment. I used a Mac Mini for a while as a MythTv frontend, and it was quiet enough that it wasn't noticable unless the room was dead silent. It would have been OK if I had been able to get DVI output working. -- Grant
[gentoo-user] Re: Video editing advice on formats and size of file
On 2011-12-23, Dale wrote: > Howdy, > > I been trying to get this to work right for a goood while now. I'm > confused here. I have some videos that I download that are split up. > Some have two or three parts and a few 4 or 5. What I can't get is > this, I can't seem to take say two 250Mb videos and make it come > anywhere near 500Mbs when spliced together. This always works for me with avi and mpeg files: mencoder -oac copy -ovc copy -quiet infile1.avi infile2.avi -o outfile.avi -- Grant
[gentoo-user] Re: Typewriter sound
On 2010-08-18, Dale wrote: > I think I got a old IBM AT/XT keyboard out in my shop. It has the wrong > connector tho. Those things are pretty loud. You are right, they are > heavy tho. Hmmm, could buy a adapter I guess. I still use an IBM AT keyboard every day. Everything else from that AT has long since been recycled, but the keyboard still works great after almost 25 years. -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! Why is it that when at you DIE, you can't take gmail.comyour HOME ENTERTAINMENT CENTER with you??
[gentoo-user] Re: OT: advice sought on new laptop for Gentoo
On 2010-09-05, John Blinka wrote: > Hi, all, > > My trusty Inspiron 8200 is on death's door and so I'm looking for a > new laptop - one that will run Gentoo straightforwardly, of course. > > I really liked the 1600x1200 display on this machine, which I greatly > prefer to the 1600x900 display on the more modern Inspiron 1545 I own. > Most of what I do now is through a web browser, and I can see much > more of a web page with 1200 lines of display than I can with 900. > And I dislike the massive width of the 1545 which makes it much less > portable than the old 8200. I'd love to replace my 8200 with a > machine of similar dimensions, but thinner and lighter. However, I > cannot find any machine on Dell's website with a 4x3 aspect ratio - > they all seem to be approximately 16x9 now. > > So, is 16x9 all that's available now in laptops? Yup, and 16x9 sucks -- it's just an excuse to ship smaller, lower-resolution displays labelled with bigger numbers. Complete ripoff. -- Grant
[gentoo-user] Re: OT: advice sought on new laptop for Gentoo
On 2010-09-05, Alan McKinnon wrote: > Apparently, though unproven, at 17:18 on Sunday 05 September 2010, Grant > Edwards did opine thusly: > >> On 2010-09-05, John Blinka wrote: >> > Hi, all, >> > >> > My trusty Inspiron 8200 is on death's door and so I'm looking for a >> > new laptop - one that will run Gentoo straightforwardly, of course. >> > >> > I really liked the 1600x1200 display on this machine, which I greatly >> > prefer to the 1600x900 display on the more modern Inspiron 1545 I own. >> > >> > Most of what I do now is through a web browser, and I can see much >> > >> > more of a web page with 1200 lines of display than I can with 900. >> > And I dislike the massive width of the 1545 which makes it much less >> > portable than the old 8200. I'd love to replace my 8200 with a >> > machine of similar dimensions, but thinner and lighter. However, I >> > cannot find any machine on Dell's website with a 4x3 aspect ratio - >> > they all seem to be approximately 16x9 now. >> > >> > So, is 16x9 all that's available now in laptops? >> >> Yup, and 16x9 sucks -- it's just an excuse to ship smaller, >> lower-resolution displays labelled with bigger numbers. >> >> Complete ripoff. > > If you have 16:9 at 1280*720, then yes, it is going to suck. There is nothing > inherently wrong with the aspect ratio, please desist from trying to make it > so. Yes, there is an inherent problem: in order to get what I consider acceptable vertical size/resolution you have to buy something that's rediculously wide. > There are good reasons for it. It most easily fits the overall > dimensions of the machine, you have a wide and not very deep keyboard > plus space for a touchpad and palm rests. It's all approximately > 16:9. No it's not. At least only on any of my laptops. I suppose you can tack on a useless numeric keypat to try to take up some of the extra horizontal space that's required in order to get a screen that's tall enough to be useful. > I paid the extra to get 16:9 @ 1920x1200. Best thing I ever did > laptop-wise - I can get two webpages side by side on the screen > looking very natural. > > Did you know that 16:9 is the eye's natural aspect ratio? How do you explain the widespread popularity of portrait mode for printed material? Text is much easier to read in tall, narrow, columns. The more lines of code you can see at once when editing source code, the fewer the bugs. Both those have been experimentally verified. > Test it sometime with outstreched fingers. I still vastly prefer 4:3 for all of the work I do. I guess if you want to watch movies, and you don't mind hauling around a useless numeric keypad, 16:9 is nice. -- Grant
[gentoo-user] Re: OT: advice sought on new laptop for Gentoo
On 2010-09-06, Alan McKinnon wrote: >> Yes, there is an inherent problem: in order to get what I consider >> acceptable vertical size/resolution you have to buy something that's >> rediculously wide. > > Untrue. > > Vertical resolution depends only on the available dimension and the > number of pixels-per-inch of your screen. Ah, how conveniently you ignored the _size_ requirement and concentrated solely on the resolution. > How do you manage to take the position that screen height somehow > depends on the machine width? Remember that we are talking regular > sized notebooks here Of course screen height depends on width. To get a display height equivalent to my current Thinkpad's 15" display (height 9.2") with a 16:9 display, you have to buy a laptop that's 17" wide. My Thinkpad is 13" wide. I simply don't wan't to carry around that extra 4" of width. >>> There are good reasons for it. It most easily fits the overall >>> dimensions of the machine, you have a wide and not very deep keyboard >>> plus space for a touchpad and palm rests. It's all approximately >>> 16:9. >> >> No it's not. At least only on any of my laptops. I suppose you can >> tack on a useless numeric keypat to try to take up some of the extra >> horizontal space that's required in order to get a screen that's tall >> enough to be useful. > > I have a 16:9 in a regular sized notebook, a Dell M1530. There's no > numpad. In fact the keyboard takes up less space horizontally than > I'm used to. How tall is the display (physically)? How wide is the laptop (physically)? > So please tell me again where this machine width thing comes from? Well, the height and width are related by a fixed ratio. With a 4:3 display, the laptop's width has to be at least displayHeight*(4/3). With a 16:9 display, the laptop's width has to be at least displayHeight(16/9). For a given height, a 16:9 display is 30% wider. I want nice tall display (prefereably at least 9-10") without having to increase the width beyond what a standard "laptop" style keyboard takes up (about 12-13 inches). > Personally, I think you went cheap and bought a less-than-ideal > screen based on price. Now you're just being insulting. My laptop display was almost top-of-the-line for IBM at the time: 15" 1400x1050. There may have been a 16" 1600x1200 available in another product line, but it wasn't available in the model line I wanted. Perhaps I'm too cynical, but IMO the "cheap" factor is why we got 16:9 displays on laptops in the first place. A 15" 16:9 display is roughly 10% smaller (cheaper) than a 15" 4:3 display. But, the salesdroid can talk the consumer into paying more for a cheaper product: "Wow, for only $100 more we can move you up from a 15" regular display to a 15" WIDESCREEN display! $100 more and it's 1.6" shorter and has 10% less screen area! What a deal!! > I didn't make that error - I spent the extra bucks, sacrificed a few > features here and there and went for the best on offer. I have full > 1200 height (the same as I get out of my 21" CRT monitor) which > instantly renders all your arguments redundant. OK, how high is your display and how wide is your laptop? > So tell me again why there is something wrong with 16:9? Because I don't want a 17" wide laptop, and I do want a 10" tall display. > I think you have it conflated with 800 height which indeed is > pathetic. No, it's about physical form factor: height vs. width. I want a physically tall display on a laptop that doesn't take up half of my neighbor's tray table. My idea display on a laptop would probably be a 4:3 16" 1600x1200. -- Grant
[gentoo-user] Re: OT: advice sought on new laptop for Gentoo
On 2010-09-06, Allan Gottlieb wrote: > Grant Edwards writes: > >> For a given height, a 16:9 display is 30% wider. I want nice tall >> display (prefereably at least 9-10") without having to increase the >> width beyond what a standard "laptop" style keyboard takes up (about >> 12-13 inches). > > It is certainly true that, if the height of the display is the key > factor and hence fixed, a wider screen will add more inches (I again > assume square pixels). > > However, those extra inches and resulting extra pixels are far from > useless. I'm not saying that a wide display is useless. When it comes to desktop displays bigger is always better (in either axis). I'm saying I don't want to have to haul around a laptop thats 18" wide so that I can have a display that's tall enough to comfortably edit code on. > I believe you are selling "two up" short. No, I'm not. Two up is great on a desktop, where the extra width and weight aren't a penalty. > When I am preparing a course, I have the html up in one (emacs) > window and the resulting web page in another (firefox) window > immediately to its right. Heck I very much use and enjoy 3-up on my > large (30" 2560x1600) monitor. We're talking about laptops. How would you like hauling around a 30" wide laptop? -- Grant
[gentoo-user] Re: Gentoos community communication rant
On 2010-09-07, Al wrote: >> Do everyone a favor. Go use Gmane and tell us what exactly >> you'd be able to do that Gmane does not already do. >> It's archived, search-able (via keywords) and many, many >> other very cool features. > > I do you favour and confirm that it is a very cool web interface to > newsgroups. Just as importantly, it allows access to mailing lists using NNTP clients. I read all mailing lists using slrn. I find the "news" paradigm vastly superior to the "mail" paradigm for following mailing lists. Once in a while I use it for web access as well, but that's rare. > It is especially usefull if you have to switch between machines. It > is good that they mirror the gentoo mailing lists and give them an > archive. As long as you work from the same desktop a classical > newsreader seems still more comfortable to me. I work from a variety of machines, and I still use the "classical newsreader". I do keep my .newsrc files at a central location where they are used from all the machines where I run slrn. > However, my concern was why the Gentoo community doesn't make use of > those cool features and officially only advertises and keeps a > mailing list, that has no history itself for example and how this > approach influences and limits the culture of communication. I'm afraid you lost me there. Why does it matter where the archive is? -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! I just had my entire at INTESTINAL TRACT coated gmail.comwith TEFLON!
[gentoo-user] Re: OT: advice sought on new laptop for Gentoo
On 2010-09-07, Robert Bridge wrote: > I don't know how well it works with Linux, but if screen estate > really matters, has anyone looked at the Lenovo ThinkPad W700ds? I > know pretty much every CAD person I know drools over it as a mobile > workstation... I don't know about that particular model, but Thinkpads have a pretty good reputation for Linux compatibility. I'd still rather have a 16" 1600x1200 4:3 display than haul around the extra 3-4" inches in width. But I seem to be in the minority, so it's not going to happen... -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! Civilization is fun! at Anyway, it keeps me busy!! gmail.com
[gentoo-user] Re: OT: advice sought on new laptop for Gentoo
On 2010-09-07, Paul Hartman wrote: > On Sun, Sep 5, 2010 at 7:58 AM, John Blinka wrote: >> >> I really liked the 1600x1200 display on this machine, which I greatly >> prefer to the 1600x900 display on the more modern Inspiron 1545 I >> own. ?Most of what I do now is through a web browser, and I can see >> much more of a web page with 1200 lines of display than I can with >> 900. And I dislike the massive width of the 1545 which makes it much >> less portable than the old 8200. Exactly they way I feel (for those of you who missed this entire thread). >> So, ?is 16x9 all that's available now in laptops? > > Basically all laptops are widescreen (or shortscreen ) now, Good thing I mouth wasn't full of pretzel when I read that. :) > your best bet is to try to find one that is 16:10 instead of 16:9, it > will at least give you a little bit more vertical screen space. The "pixel" ratio is 16:10, is the physical size also 16:10? IOW are the pixels still square? [...] > Since 16:9 panels are the same shape as the ones TVs use, I assume > that's why they are cheaper and why the industry prefers them. I thought about that, but the sizes and pixel densities don't overlap at all between laptop panels and TV panels, so I don't see how they can be leveraging production processes or equipment. > I care deeply about vertical pixels, but also about DPI. I really > don't like using a tiny monitor, nor do I like to use a monitor with > less than 100dpi. This requirement usually makes the rest of the > details worth themselves out naturally. :) > > My laptop, which is a few years old now, has a 1400x1050 (116? dpi) > and that is a very comfortable resolution for me. That's what I've got now: a 15" 1400x1050, and it's great. The only thing better would be a 16" 1600x1200. > In order to get the same vertical pixels on a new laptop I'd have to > go up to 1680x1050 (16:10) or 1920x1080 (16:9) and it would probably > be at least an inch wider than my current laptop, which is 13" wide. To get the same physical height as my current 15" display, I have to go with an 18+ diagonal 16:9 display, which is about 4" wider than my current laptop. I guess I'd better take good care of my current Thinkpad. -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! I've read SEVEN at MILLION books!! gmail.com
[gentoo-user] Re: Gentoos community communication rant
On 2010-09-08, J. Roeleveld wrote: > On Wednesday 08 September 2010 02:27:16 Gregory Shearman wrote: >> In linux.gentoo.user, you wrote: >> >> I'm reading your message via a usenet server. linux.gentoo.user is the >> >> newsgroup. Replies of course go via the mailing list address. >> > >> > Is that seamless? Can you directly reply to a posting? Easy to set up? >> > How? >> >> More or less. Instead of press "f" to reply in slrn I press "r" and slrn >> starts up Mutt and my favourite text editor. > > Which seems more logical to me. > "R" for "Reply" > What does the "F" stand for, if not for "Forward"? Followup. In traditional news parlance, one doesn't reply to a news posting, one posts a followup article. -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! He is the MELBA-BEING at ... the ANGEL CAKE gmail.com... XEROX him ... XEROX him --
[gentoo-user] Re: Gentoos community communication rant
On 2010-09-08, J. Roeleveld wrote: > One of the largest Linux distributions at the moment is Ubuntu. > A quick check on their website doesn't show a News-server. Instead, Ubuntites seem awfully fond of web-based "forums". Which I think we can all agree are horrible abominations that make mailing lists and newsgroups both look like perfection itself. -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! Hey, wait at a minute!! I want a gmail.comdivorce!! ... you're not Clint Eastwood!!
[gentoo-user] Re: OT: advice sought on new laptop for Gentoo
On 2010-09-08, Alan McKinnon wrote: > I need to shut up now. My hatred of pixelated display devices is > showing. I accept an LCD for my notebook as CRTs just don't fit, but > nothing beats a real CRT imho for image quality. I presume you mean a nice monochrome display not one of those fuzzy color things with the individual phosphor dots/bars on the screen. It was a sad day I was finally forced to give up my big, razor-sharp Sun grayscale monitor for one of those small, fuzzy-looking, color things. > Pity about the desk real estate a CRT takes up... -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! I hope something GOOD at came in the mail today so gmail.comI have a REASON to live!!
[gentoo-user] portage broken because of Unicode bugs
After my last update, portage stopped working. Google led me to believe it was this bug: http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=317775 Which was said to be fixed in portage 2.1.9. So I upgraded from 2.1.8.X to 2.1.9.1, and now portage is even more broken. Now I can't even use it to downgrade to the older version of portage (which would at least work if you ran it using --quiet). This is a fine kettle of fish alpha grante # emerge --quiet portage Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/bin/emerge", line 43, in retval = emerge_main() File "/usr/lib/portage/pym/_emerge/main.py", line 1678, in emerge_main myopts, myaction, myfiles, spinner) File "/usr/lib/portage/pym/_emerge/actions.py", line 286, in action_build settings, trees, myopts, myparams, myaction, myfiles, spinner) File "/usr/lib/portage/pym/_emerge/depgraph.py", line 5947, in backtrack_depgraph myaction, myfiles, spinner) File "/usr/lib/portage/pym/_emerge/depgraph.py", line 5966, in _backtrack_depgraph success, favorites = mydepgraph.select_files(myfiles) File "/usr/lib/portage/pym/_emerge/depgraph.py", line 1426, in select_files self._load_vdb() File "/usr/lib/portage/pym/_emerge/depgraph.py", line 320, in _load_vdb fake_vartree.sync() File "/usr/lib/portage/pym/_emerge/FakeVartree.py", line 119, in sync self._sync() File "/usr/lib/portage/pym/_emerge/FakeVartree.py", line 171, in _sync pkg = self._pkg(cpv) File "/usr/lib/portage/pym/_emerge/FakeVartree.py", line 195, in _pkg type_name="installed") File "/usr/lib/portage/pym/_emerge/Package.py", line 63, in __init__ self._validate_deps() File "/usr/lib/portage/pym/_emerge/Package.py", line 92, in _validate_deps self._metadata_exception(k, e) File "/usr/lib/portage/pym/_emerge/Package.py", line 241, in _metadata_exception "%s: %s in '%s'" % (k, e, path)) UnicodeDecodeError: 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xef in position 23: ordinal not in range(128) -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! I'm in direct contact at with many advanced fun gmail.comCONCEPTS.
[gentoo-user] Re: portage broken because of Unicode bugs
On 2010-09-08, Grant Edwards wrote: > After my last update, portage stopped working. Google led me to > believe it was this bug: > > http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=317775 > > Which was said to be fixed in portage 2.1.9. > > So I upgraded from 2.1.8.X to 2.1.9.1, and now portage is even more > broken. Now I can't even use it to downgrade to the older version of > portage (which would at least work if you ran it using --quiet). > > This is a fine kettle of fish > > alpha grante # emerge --quiet portage > Traceback (most recent call last): The manual portage recovery directions served well: http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/portage/doc/manually-fixing-portage.xml After that it took three "emerge portage" commands before portage would emerge cleanly. -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! ONE LIFE TO LIVE for at ALL MY CHILDREN in ANOTHER gmail.comWORLD all THE DAYS OF OUR LIVES.
[gentoo-user] Re: Pipe Lines - A really basic question
On 2010-09-09, Florian Philipp wrote: > When you look closer at `sort`, it is actually a quite impressive > tool. It sorts in-memory for small amounts of data and switches to > temporary files for larger. It can even compress those files to save > disk space. > > And it is still faster than most "business-grade" software for > importing data into data warehouses. > > Throw `cut`, `paste`, `join` and `grep` into the mix and you can > build your own relational database system based on shell scripts ;) Sort of linke /rdb: http://www.rdb.com/ -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! Am I in Milwaukee? at gmail.com
[gentoo-user] Re: Pipe Lines - A really basic question
On 2010-09-10, Florian Philipp wrote: > Am 09.09.2010 22:28, schrieb Grant Edwards: >>> Throw `cut`, `paste`, `join` and `grep` into the mix and you can >>> build your own relational database system based on shell scripts ;) >> >> Sort of linke /rdb: http://www.rdb.com/ > > Interesting. I've just read the paper they have posted. About 12 years ago, I bought a copy and used it to track bugs and failures for a product that was in beta. The the installer and node-locked licensing was awkward and slightly buggy. Once installed, it was pretty easy to use. I even had a simple web UI using vanilla cgi shellscripts, and a report generator that generated output via LaTeX. -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! Is it 1974? What's at for SUPPER? Can I spend gmail.commy COLLEGE FUND in one wild afternoon??
[gentoo-user] Re: How to compile for less bits :)
On 2010-09-27, meino.cra...@gmx.de wrote: > For my microcontroller board (ATMEL AT81RM920, linux based) Do you mean AT91RM9200? > I want to crosscompile kernels and applications on my 64bit Gentoo > linux. That's easy enough. > The source of a gcc (prepared on a 32bit system I fear) for > the purpose of crosscompiling from a 32bit system-- target is the > above mentioned processor -- is available. > > Is it possible to compile this gcc as a 32bit-application on my 64bit > system to ensure the same behaviour as it would if to was built on a > "original 32bit Gentoo Linux"? You want to compile gcc on an AMD64 machine and end up with a cross-compiler that runs as an IA32 app and generates code for an ARM9 target? That's called a "Canadian Cross", and is rather tricky, since it involves three different architectures: building a compiler on architecture A (AMD64) to be run on architecture B (IA32) and generate code for architecture C (ARM9). Can you explain why you want that rather than a normal cross compiler? IOW, why do you want to build a gcc cross compiler that runs as a 32-bit application? It's _way_ simpler to build a "normal" cross compiler: building a compiler one architecture (AMD64) to be run on that same architecture (AMD64) and generate code for a second architecture (ARM9). > (And in this context: The audio application "chuck" is only as 32bit > application available currently. How is it possible to compile this > on a 64bit system?) You use a compiler that generates code for a the desired 32-bit architecture. The "width" of the host is immaterial. The easiest way to build such a compiler is using crosstool-ng http://ymorin.is-a-geek.org/projects/crosstool Crosstool-NG does have some support for doing a Canadian-cross, but I don't see why you would want to do that. -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! Gibble, Gobble, we at ACCEPT YOU ... gmail.com
[gentoo-user] Re: How to compile for less bits :)
On 2010-09-29, meino.cra...@gmx.de wrote: >> > (And in this context: The audio application "chuck" is only as 32bit >> > application available currently. How is it possible to compile this >> > on a 64bit system?) >> >> You use a compiler that generates code for a the desired 32-bit >> architecture. The "width" of the host is immaterial. > Thank you very much for your offered help! > > Sorry, sorry I think my English confused a lot of infos... Cross-building stuff is just plain confusing. > I'll try it again. > > Setup BEFORE I switched to 64bit Gentoo Linux. > * a "normal" system gcc as installed by emerge usually on many (all?) gentoo > systems... > * a "crosscompiling" gcc in source form. Compiled with the "normal" > gcc to an executable which runs on the 32bit Gentoo system and > produces executables/kernel to run on the ATMEL AT91RM9200 (yes, > you're right - this typo was mine ;) ). > * Additional "chuck" audio application only available for 32bit > Linux, also compiled with the "normal" gcc > > Wanted setup on my shiny new 64bit Gentoo Linux: > * a "normal" system gcc as installed by emerge usually on many (all?) gentoo > systems... (==> already there and living quite well) > * a "crosscompiling" gcc in source form. To be Compiled with the "normal" > gcc to an executable which runs on the 64bit Gentoo system and > produces executables/kernel to run on the ATMEL AT91RM9200 (yes, > you're right - this typo was mine ;) ) . All you need to do is build a cross compiler for the ARM9 target the same way you did before. The width of the host where you're building things doesn't matter (if it does, that's a bug in gcc or binutils). I've had excellent results using the crosstool-ng makefile: http://ymorin.is-a-geek.org/projects/crosstool Crosstool is used by a lot of embedded developers. If there were problems building an ARM comiler on an AMD64 host, Yann Morin et al. are your best bet for a solution. You may want to take a look at the crossgcc mailing list: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.gcc.cross-compiling http://sourceware.org/ml/crossgcc/ >From a brief search of the mailing list, it appears that building an ARM compiler on an AMD64 machines works just fine. or, It's quite likely that you can install IA32 libraries on your AMD64 host OS and then use the exact same compiler executable you used before. > OR: compiled to be an 32bit gcc-executable which generate > executable binaries for my ATMEL cookie. As long a 64bit-executable > of gcc can do the job I would prefer that solution of course. You really don't want to do that. It's rather tricky, and it shouldn't be required. > * Additional "chuck" audio application only available for 32bit > Linux, to be compiled with the "normal" gcc to be a 32 bit > executable since not 64bit-ready. Just use the arm-linux-gcc compiler and you should be fine regardless of the width of the host on which you built the arm-linux-gcc compiler. -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! It's the RINSE CYCLE!! at They've ALL IGNORED the gmail.comRINSE CYCLE!!
[gentoo-user] Re: How to compile for less bits :)
On 2010-09-29, meino.cra...@gmx.de wrote:
> One question remains open to me:
> * How can I build 32bit applicationa to run on a 64bit Gentoo Linux
> (I have both /lib32 and /lib64 and /usr/lib32 and /usr/lib64)
> with the "normal" gcc (64 bit executable) on the 64bit Gentoo Linux.
> Is this trick possible?
> ("Chuck" is not 64bit ready...)
That I don't know.
I thought you wanted to build chuck for the ARM target.
--
Grant
[gentoo-user] Re: How to compile for less bits :)
On 2010-09-29, Jacob Todd wrote: > Cross compiling on unix is confusing because the compiler sucks. We're all looking forward to the better one that you're writing. ;) [I admine that gcc has its warts, but you evidently haven't dealt with some of the compilers I have.] -- Grant
[gentoo-user] ridiculously wide handbook pages
I've noticed recently that the Gentoo handbook web pages are ridiculously wide. (It seems to me that they didn't used to be, but I wouldn't swear to that). For example, look at this page: http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/base/embedded/handbook/?part=1&chap=2 The normal text paragraphs have lines that average over 160 characters per line. The generally accepted guideline for line length in order to maintain good readability is 40-80. The above page's lines are 2-4 times as long as recommended for good readability, and they are in fact so long that I can't make my browser wide enough to see an entire line. Line lengths that long make the pages hard to read even if you _can_ make your browser wide enough to show an entire line. The regular handbook is a little better: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?full=1 That has lines that average about 140 characters. That's still much longer than what I'd consider good practice. Do the extremely long lines in the handbook web pages bother anybody else? I can understand that things like example code blocks or sample command input/output blocks might need to be wide enough to require horizontal scrolling of a browser window, but normal text paragraphs with 160 characters per line? -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! Is this going to at involve RAW human ecstasy? gmail.com
[gentoo-user] Re: ridiculously wide handbook pages
On 2010-09-30, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote: > On Thursday 30 September 2010, Grant Edwards wrote: > > >> >> That has lines that average about 140 characters. That's still much >> longer than what I'd consider good practice. > > I am counting 105. >> Do the extremely long lines in the handbook web pages bother anybody >> else? > > not me. Not with konqueror. I'm using firefox, and it obviously varies somewhat depending on the exact fonts used and the screen resolution. That said, the vast majority of sites sites don't seem to have this problem. -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! Finally, Zippy at drives his 1958 RAMBLER gmail.comMETROPOLITAN into the faculty dining room.
[gentoo-user] Re: ridiculously wide handbook pages
On 2010-09-30, Darren Kirby wrote: > On Thu, Sep 30, 2010 at 11:13 AM, Grant Edwards > wrote: > >> >> I can understand that things like example code blocks or sample >> command input/output blocks might need to be wide enough to require >> horizontal scrolling of a browser window, but normal text paragraphs >> with 160 characters per line? > > I'm not seeing a problem here. Sure, the lines are long but my screen > is large and my resolution is high. A quick play with firefox and konq > shows that the text reformats itself quite elegantly when you resize > your browser window to say, 2/3 of screen width. I'm using firefox, and the text doesn't reformat for me. I just end up with a change in the size of the horizontal scrollbar. Are you sure you're looking at the same pages I was talking about? http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?full=1 http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/base/embedded/handbook/?part=1&chap=2 > I think that's a better solution than imposing some arbitrary line > length on everyone no matter their screen size and resolution. Yes, that would be fine if, in fact, it worked. But it doesn't. -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! Wow! Look!! A stray at meatball!! Let's interview gmail.comit!
[gentoo-user] Re: ridiculously wide handbook pages
On 2010-09-30, Al wrote: > I can only confirm this. Long lines are difficult to focus, so they > are tiresome to read. And when you have to scroll the window back-and-forth for each line, it makes you want to scream. > For this reason typical newspapers have small columns. Personally I > even prefer to read ebooks on the very small display of a mobile > phone. -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! How do I get HOME? at gmail.com
[gentoo-user] Re: ridiculously wide handbook pages
On 2010-09-30, Grant Edwards wrote: > On 2010-09-30, Darren Kirby wrote: >> On Thu, Sep 30, 2010 at 11:13 AM, Grant Edwards >> wrote: >> >>> >>> I can understand that things like example code blocks or sample >>> command input/output blocks might need to be wide enough to require >>> horizontal scrolling of a browser window, but normal text paragraphs >>> with 160 characters per line? >> >> I'm not seeing a problem here. Sure, the lines are long but my screen >> is large and my resolution is high. A quick play with firefox and konq >> shows that the text reformats itself quite elegantly when you resize >> your browser window to say, 2/3 of screen width. > > I'm using firefox, and the text doesn't reformat for me. I just end > up with a change in the size of the horizontal scrollbar. Are you > sure you're looking at the same pages I was talking about? > > http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?full=1 > http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/base/embedded/handbook/?part=1&chap=2 OK, I think the problem is caused by "literal" blocks (the ones containing command-line examples with the light-blue background where nothing ever wraps). The _minimum_ line-wrap length for normal text paragraphs is determined by the _maximum_ line length in a literal block. Resizing the browser window horizontally only reformats text _if_ the window is wider than the longest literal block line. For many of the pages that requires more screen width than I, for one, have. IOW, for any pages with long command line examples (or program output examples), you end up with very unweildy text paragraphs. I'm not sure what formatting system the manual pages use (to me the pages look way too clean, consistent, and neat to be hand-coded). Using asciidoc, for example, you avoid this problem by specifying a maxmimum width for normal text blocks so that they won't end up being arbitrarily long depending on what command line examples you happen to have in the document. I find 40em to be a nice max width: asciidoc -a data-uri -a toc -a max-width=40em >> I think that's a better solution than imposing some arbitrary line >> length on everyone no matter their screen size and resolution. No, I wouldn't want to impose an arbitrary line lenth on everybody, but that's exactly what we have now. The arbitrary line length that's imposed is (length >= max(lengths-of-lines-in-literal-blocks)). For pages without any wide literal blocks, it's not an issue, and the normal paragaphs reflow as they should. For most of the manual pages that I look at, it is an issue. I'd prefer to have the line lengths determined by the browser window, and that's not what we have now for much of the manual. -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! Edwin Meese made me at wear CORDOVANS!! gmail.com
[gentoo-user] Re: ridiculously wide handbook pages
On 2010-09-30, Darren Kirby wrote: > On Thu, Sep 30, 2010 at 12:18 PM, Grant Edwards > wrote: > >> >> I'm using firefox, and the text doesn't reformat for me. ?I just end >> up with a change in the size of the horizontal scrollbar. ?Are you >> sure you're looking at the same pages I was talking about? >> >> ?http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?full=1 >> ?http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/base/embedded/handbook/?part=1&chap=2 >> > > We must have some different settings going on somewhere Grant, I > checked both pages with both firefox and konq and they reformat just > fine for me. > > Do you have some custom css stylesheets that override the default or > something? Nope. Not that I know of. I presume I'd have to do something I'd likely remember? -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! INSIDE, I have the at same personality disorder gmail.comas LUCY RICARDO!!
[gentoo-user] Re: ridiculously wide handbook pages
On 2010-09-30, Mark Knecht wrote: > On Thu, Sep 30, 2010 at 10:13 AM, Grant Edwards > wrote: >> I've noticed recently that the Gentoo handbook web pages are >> ridiculously wide. (It seems to me that they didn't used to be, but I >> wouldn't swear to that). >> >> For example, look at this page: >> >> ??http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/base/embedded/handbook/?part=1&chap=2 >> > > I'll admit that a couple of times I've found this frustrating but not > enough that I'd ask anyone to change things. > > I think the frustration, candidly, is that the web page programming > doesn't allow me to narrow the page as much as I might like and still > read the text. Exactly -- I'd like to be able to narrow the browser window at least to the point where it fits entirely on the screen (and it's a 21" screen). > Sometimes I just want the browser to cover 1/2 the screen, so that > might be 600 pixels or so. Or maybe this is a Firefox thing, not > sure. > > Anyway, I understand your point. Oddly, there are people who don't seem to see the minimum line width issue, and the paragraphs actually get re-wrapped when the browser window is changed. -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! Somewhere in Tenafly, at New Jersey, a chiropractor gmail.comis viewing "Leave it to Beaver"!
[gentoo-user] Re: ridiculously wide handbook pages
On 2010-09-30, Darren Kirby wrote: > On Thu, Sep 30, 2010 at 12:34 PM, Mark Knecht wrote: >> On Thu, Sep 30, 2010 at 10:13 AM, Grant Edwards >> wrote: >>> I've noticed recently that the Gentoo handbook web pages are >>> ridiculously wide. (It seems to me that they didn't used to be, but I >>> wouldn't swear to that). >>> >>> For example, look at this page: >>> >>> ?http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/base/embedded/handbook/?part=1&chap=2 >>> >> >> I'll admit that a couple of times I've found this frustrating but not >> enough that I'd ask anyone to change things. >> >> I think the frustration, candidly, is that the web page programming >> doesn't allow me to narrow the page as much as I might like and still >> read the text. Sometimes I just want the browser to cover 1/2 the >> screen, so that might be 600 pixels or so. Or maybe this is a Firefox >> thing, not sure. > OK, well this is getting weird because that is exactly the behavior I > am seeing from both firefox and konqueror...it would appear I'm the > only one? > > To be absolutely clear: When I resize the windows the text reformats > itself on the fly from wide short paragraphs to narrow long > paragraphs. That only happens for me on pages that don't have any literal (listing?) blocsk with light-blue backgrounds. > No horizontal scroll bar which I agree is beyond annoying. This is > the behavior I see from pretty much all well-designed web pages, and > I rather thought it was default. The stuff in the light-blue blocks can't be wrapped/reformatted, so when you narrow the window so that it's not wide enough for any of the light-blue blocks on the page, you _should_ get a scroll bar. Do those light-blue blocks get reformatted for you? Or do they just get clipped with way scroll-right and see them? However, even you need to use the scrollbar to see the right-hand-end of a light-blue block, I think the normal paragraphs should reformat so they stay visible. I know that can be done, because the web pages I create with asciidoc behave that way. Letting the width of the text blocks for any given page be determined by the width of the command-line examlples doesn't make sense to me. -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! I just had a NOSE at JOB!! gmail.com
[gentoo-user] Re: ridiculously wide handbook pages
On 2010-09-30, Dale wrote: > Grant Edwards wrote: >> On 2010-09-30, Darren Kirby wrote: >> >>> On Thu, Sep 30, 2010 at 11:13 AM, Grant Edwards >>> wrote: >>> >>> >>>> I can understand that things like example code blocks or sample >>>> command input/output blocks might need to be wide enough to require >>>> horizontal scrolling of a browser window, but normal text paragraphs >>>> with 160 characters per line? >>>> >>> I'm not seeing a problem here. Sure, the lines are long but my screen >>> is large and my resolution is high. A quick play with firefox and konq >>> shows that the text reformats itself quite elegantly when you resize >>> your browser window to say, 2/3 of screen width. >>> >> I'm using firefox, and the text doesn't reformat for me. I just end >> up with a change in the size of the horizontal scrollbar. Are you >> sure you're looking at the same pages I was talking about? >> >>http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?full=1 >> > > The link above works fine although a bit wide. No horizontal scrollbar. And what happens when you narrow the window to say 2/3 of that width? Do the text paragrphs reformat to the new width, or do you just end up with a scrollbar and paragraphs that you have to scroll right to read? >>http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/base/embedded/handbook/?part=1&chap=2 >> > > This one has a horizontal scrollbar but only adjust about a half inch or > so. It almost fits. Are the text paragraphs re-wrapped as you narrow the window? -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! My BIOLOGICAL ALARM at CLOCK just went off ... It gmail.comhas noiseless DOZE FUNCTION and full kitchen!!
[gentoo-user] Re: ridiculously wide handbook pages
On 2010-09-30, Darren Kirby wrote: > On Thu, Sep 30, 2010 at 12:36 PM, Grant Edwards > wrote: > >>> Do you have some custom css stylesheets that override the default or >>> something? >> >> Nope. Not that I know of. I presume I'd have to do something I'd >> likely remember > > Yes, you would definitely remember if you did it... > > Anyway, I think perhaps we must be running considerably different > resolutions and text sizes... I'm pretty sure you're right. I'm apparently seeing a significantly larger "fixed" font than you are (as a percentage of screen width). For whatever reason, a lot of sites like to use a low-contrast color scheme for things like listing blocks. For example, Gentoos uses medium-blue on light-blue (violet?). I find that hard to read when the font gets too small. > playing around here a bit more and you are correct, the text will > only reformat to the width of the longest code block before the > horizontal scroll appears. On the "Creating a Cross-Compiler" page > you linked to the longest code block is still only half the width of > my screen, so it's not really a problem on my system. I could reduce the minimum size of my "fixed" font, but that only helps until the next web page comes along with an even wider code block. The basic problem is that the width of the normal text paragraphs is dependent on the width of the code blocks. IMO, that's not right[1], but whether or not it can be fixed depends somewhat on the document formatting system in use. [1] As somebody who's been using TeX/LaTeX for 25 years, I'm probably inordinately picky about typesetting issues. -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! I have a TINY BOWL in at my HEAD gmail.com
[gentoo-user] Re: ridiculously wide handbook pages
On 2010-09-30, Dale wrote: > Grant Edwards wrote: > >>>> http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/base/embedded/handbook/?part=1&chap=2 >>>> >>>> >>> This one has a horizontal scrollbar but only adjust about a half inch or >>> so. It almost fits. >>> >> Are the text paragraphs re-wrapped as you narrow the window? > > That one has a scrollbar no matter what. It appears that section "Code > Listing 2.4: Using SH4 cross-compiler" is making it really long. It has > a line in that box that is pretty long. It's the longest line I saw in > the whole page. > > So, it appears as someone else posted that the pretty blue boxes set > the minimum width. I think that's definitely the issue. > Whatever is the longest line sets the width. How would one go about > changing that I wonder? I think it can probably be set in the CSS stylesheet, but I'm pretty fuzzy when it comes to CSS details. I do know that the web pages I generate with asciidoc don't have this problem. In general, the width of the text paragraphs is determined by the browser width, but listing blocks don't get wrapped and you may have to scroll over to see the ends of the really wide ones. I usually set a max text width as well, so that if you do widen your browser window to see the really wide listing blocks, you still end up with text columns that max out at a reasonable width. Setting a max-width for text is probably more a matter of taste/style, but I don't think that anybody can argue that having the minium text width determined by the maximum listing width is right. > I know when someone posts a long command on this mailing list, it > makes it hard to understand when Seamonkey shops it up into two > lines. We definitely don't want to wrap things like command lines, config file listings, code listings, and program input/output. That's why you (directly or indirectly) assign them a different CSS style or object type -- so that you can do things like wrap normal text and not listings or examples. > Most people are good enough to post that the command has to be all on > one line tho. It appears that a email problem is also a website > problem too. When to wrap a line and when not to? I don't think listings/code/shell-examples should not be wrapped, and AFAIK, nobody's arguing that they should be. However, I do assert that normal text paragraphs should be wrapped to fit within the browser window. In text-only e-mail messages, there's no way to tell the difference between the two. Whatever's generating the HTML/CSS for the Gentoo manual web pages does know the difference, and should be able to do The Right Thing(tm). The manual HTML is definitely machine-generated, but I can't tell you by what at this point, so I can't offer a specific fix... -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! Can you MAIL a BEAN at CAKE? gmail.com
[gentoo-user] Re: ridiculously wide handbook pages
On 2010-09-30, Dale wrote: > Grant Edwards wrote: >> << SNIP >> >> Whatever's generating the HTML/CSS for the Gentoo manual web pages >> does know the difference, and should be able to do The Right >> Thing(tm). The manual HTML is definitely machine-generated, but I >> can't tell you by what at this point, so I can't offer a specific >> fix... >> >> > > Maybe what needs to happen is this. Find the person that is "in the > know" on the Gentoo docs, give them a OLD 12" monitor to help do the > pages with. and some OLD eyes with which to look at the monitor -- that way they set their browser sup with larger fonts for the low-contrast blue-on-blue blocks. :) What really needs to happen is for me to file a bug report against the documentation (assuming this hasn't already been filed as a bug and been resolved as "won't fix"). I'll put that on my list of things to do... -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! YOU PICKED KARL at MALDEN'S NOSE!! gmail.com
[gentoo-user] Re: ridiculously wide handbook pages
On 2010-09-30, J??rg Schaible wrote: >> I could reduce the minimum size of my "fixed" font, but that only >> helps until the next web page comes along with an even wider code >> block. > > Try a different fixed font. At the end I've chosen "Monotype", > because it seems to have the narrowest well-readable letters. That's still just a kludge/bandage for a broken document. I've got no complaint about the width of the listing blocks. The problem is that the wrap width of normal text paragraphs shouldn't be determined by the width of listing blocks. It should be determined by the width of the browser window. I'd also set a maximum text width to keep paragraphs somewhat readable when you widen the window to see all of a really wide listing block. But, I'm willing to admit that's a more of a style/preference question. Here's an example of how to do it right (both decoupled text/listing widths and a max-width for text): http://www.panix.com/~grante/wrapdemo.html I've filed a bug, so anybody with an opinion can weigh in there as well. -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! Everybody gets free at BORSCHT! gmail.com
[gentoo-user] Re: ridiculously wide handbook pages
On 2010-09-30, J??rg Schaible wrote: > Grant Edwards wrote: >>> playing around here a bit more and you are correct, the text will >>> only reformat to the width of the longest code block before the >>> horizontal scroll appears. On the "Creating a Cross-Compiler" page >>> you linked to the longest code block is still only half the width of >>> my screen, so it's not really a problem on my system. >> >> I could reduce the minimum size of my "fixed" font, but that only >> helps until the next web page comes along with an even wider code >> block. > > Try a different fixed font. At the end I've chosen "Monotype", because it > seems to have the narrowest well-readable letters. I could do that, but IMO that's just a kludge for a broken document. And it only works until the next web page comes along with even wider listing blocks. The real problem is that text and listing widths are linked. They shouldn't be. I've filed a bug report: http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=339290 So feel free to weigh in there. That bug report contains a link to a page that shows how I think it should work: http://www.panix.com/~grante/wrapdemo.html The text paragraphs wrap to fit within the browser width regardless of the width of the listing blocks. I've also set a max width on the paragraphs so that they remain readable even when you widen the browser window to see more of the wide listing blocks. [I admit the max-width bit is more of a style-preferance thing.] -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! My mind is making at ashtrays in Dayton ... gmail.com
[gentoo-user] Re: ridiculously wide handbook pages
On 2010-09-30, Jacob Todd wrote: >> http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/base/embedded/handbook/?part=1&chap=2 >> http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?full=1 > They're readable even on my droid x. Really? You don't have to scroll back-and-forth to see an entire line of text? -- Grant
[gentoo-user] Re: oder of files opened by a process
On 2010-10-01, Dale wrote: > Al wrote: >> Hello, >> >> I want to find out by which file and line the */temp/environment >> script is run or sourced. >> >> As a am always interested in a general way to solve something, I ask >> if there is a tool, that displays me the order in which files are >> read by a process. > I'm not sure but you may want to check into strace. It may be what you > are looking for. strace fills the bill if you know what process (or its children) you want to watch, and you can start that process manually. If you don't know what process you want to watch, or there are a set of unrelated processes, strace isn't very useful. In that case you can use systemtap to monitor open operations on a particular file. It takes a bit more work to use systemtap than it does to use strace, but in many ways it's a lot more flexible and powerful: http://sourceware.org/systemtap/ -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! And then we could sit at on the hoods of cars at gmail.comstop lights!
[gentoo-user] Re: oder of files opened by a process
On 2010-10-01, Al wrote:
>>
>> I'm not sure but you may want to check into strace. ?It may be what you are
>> looking for.
>>
>> * dev-util/strace
>> ? ? Available versions: ?4.5.18 4.5.19 ~4.5.20 {aio static}
>> ? ? Homepage: ? ? ? ? ? ?http://sourceforge.net/projects/strace/
>> ? ? Description: ? ? ? ? A useful diagnostic, instructional, and debugging
>> tool
>>
>> Hope that helps.
>
> Arrrgh,
>
> configure: error: operating system cygwin is not supported by strace
>
> Any windows alternative?
Perhaps you'd be better off asking in a Cygwin/Windows forum than a
Linux one?
--
Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! I'm reporting for duty
at as a modern person. I want
gmail.comto do the Latin Hustle now!
[gentoo-user] Re: oder of files opened by a process
On 2010-10-01, Al wrote: >> >> Perhaps you'd be better off asking in a Cygwin/Windows forum than a >> Linux one? > > Again, Gentoo != Linux. You're running Gentoo Windows? > But, you are right to suggest the Cygwin list. I didn't anticipate > that such a tool would depend on the kernel architecture. The posix > layer is there. The Posix layer doesn't provide an API for what you're asking. -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! And then we could sit at on the hoods of cars at gmail.comstop lights!
[gentoo-user] Re: oder of files opened by a process
On 2010-10-01, Dale wrote: > Al wrote: >>> You're running Gentoo Windows? >>> >>> >> Yes I do. >> >> > > Someone is confused. I'm not sure who tho. :/ I certainly feel a bit confused. I was aware of Gentoo/BSD... -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! Those people look at exactly like Donnie and gmail.comMarie Osmond!!
[gentoo-user] Re: oder of files opened by a process
On 2010-10-01, Al wrote: >>>> >>>> You're running Gentoo Windows? >>> >>> Yes I do. >> >> Someone is confused. ?I'm not sure who tho. ?:/ >> > > I run Gentoo on the Cygwin layer on Vista to be precise. There is no > Linux kernel. Wow. I never realized that could be done. Tres geek points for ya. I think our ignorance is understandable when the first paragraph at http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/about.xml states quite plainly that: What is Gentoo? Gentoo is a free operating system based on either Linux or FreeBSD that ... > Others run Gentoo on BSD, on Interix or Irix, where there is no Linux > kernel. Linux and BSD et al. are pretty much just "Unix" (trademark and IP arguments aside). > I have a build script that needs 12 hours to compile the system > packages on Cygwin including the GCC compiler itself. The mind wobbles... I knew you could run all the underlying stuff (bash, python, gcc, etc.) on Cygwin, so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised that it's technically possible to run Gentoo. I'm still a bit surprised that anybody actually does it. I've been using Cygwin for a lot of years, so I'd be willing to bet that installing IA32-Linux-Gentoo on a windows-hosted VM is probably easier (though of course not quite the same thing). -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! My pants just went to at high school in the Carlsbad gmail.comCaverns!!!
[gentoo-user] Re: oder of files opened by a process
On 2010-10-01, Al wrote: >> >> Cheers for your problem Al, maybe try the gentoo-alt ML to avoid all >> the noise but you sure reach more ppl here. > It's also time to get more ppl interested in gentoo-alt. Hiding the fact that you're running it doesn't seem like a very effective means to that end. It makes you seem like a troll. > Gentoo/Windows is more stimulant than Gentoo/BSD I guess, because it > sounds like the opposite side of the planet. Well, that's a kind way to put it. ;) -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! I'm having a RELIGIOUS at EXPERIENCE ... and I don't gmail.comtake any DRUGS
[gentoo-user] Re: oder of files opened by a process
On 2010-10-01, Al wrote: >> I understand that Al, but you must keep context in mind here. This >> mailing list, while perhaps not called the 'gentoo linux users list' >> is intended for support for Gentoo Linux. When you post here asking a > > A am a wanderer betwenn the worlds. When I think a question is reated > to the windows kernel, I go to a windows list, if I think it related > to the Cygwin layer I post to the cygwin list, when I think it is > portage stuff, I post it here. When I think it specially related to > the prefix overlay, then I go to gentoo-alt. > > It's not easy to always findt the right location for my questions. In > this case I didn't anticipate it would be such closely related to the > kernel. That's all. > > I think this list needs to learn, that there are more kernels around > then Linux, even if Gentoo was a Linux Distro originally. And how were we to learn that when you didn't tell us you weren't running Linux/Unix? -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! Was my SOY LOAF left at out in th'RAIN? It tastes gmail.comREAL GOOD!!
[gentoo-user] Re: oder of files opened by a process
On 2010-10-01, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote: > On Friday 01 October 2010, Al wrote: > >>> Cheers for your problem Al, maybe try the gentoo-alt ML to avoid all >>> the noise but you sure reach more ppl here. >> >> It's also time to get more ppl interested in gentoo-alt. >> Gentoo/Windows is more stimulant than Gentoo/BSD I guess, because it >> sounds like the opposite side of the planet. > > then post on gentoo-alt or gentoo-cygwin. > > Gentoo-user is no place for windows questions. For all I care, he can post windows questions here if he wants, but posting windows questions without telling us they are windows questions is going to be counter-productive: it's not going to produce useful answers, and it's going to annoy people (some of whom might actually have known the answer to the question been clearly stated). -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! Hmmm ... an arrogant at bouquet with a subtle gmail.comsuggestion of POLYVINYL CHLORIDE ...
[gentoo-user] Re: ridiculously wide handbook pages
On 2010-10-01, Renat Golubchyk wrote:
> Hi!
>
> On Thu, 30 Sep 2010 17:13:24 +0000 (UTC) Grant Edwards
> wrote:
>
>> I've noticed recently that the Gentoo handbook web pages are
>> ridiculously wide. (It seems to me that they didn't used to be, but I
>> wouldn't swear to that).
Actually I think what's happened is that for some reason I have a much
larger average width difference between the proportional font and the
fixed font that I used to.
> As fas as I can remember they've always been that wide. Anyway, since
> Gentoo uses [1] GuideXML [2] for their documentation which gets
> transformed into HTML you won't be able to provide a fix if you don't
> know what XSLT rules the converter uses for transformation.
>
> Unfortunately Gentoo documentation uses table layout instead of
> relying entirely on CSS.
Yup, I was looking through the page source, and it didn't look like
they were using CSS. I was pretty skeptical of CSS when it first
started showing up, but I think I'm now a convert. It allows you do
do things in a much more "LaTeX" like manner: when you're writing all
you do is define what something is rather than how it's layed out.
[Which is how HTML was indended to be used 15 years ago, but it rather
quickly degenerated into the worlds crappiest page layout language
which depended utterly on the assumption that everybody on the planet
has the same size/resolution display and same OS/browser/version
display as the page's author.]
> Therefore it is not easy to make the docs beautiful for everybody
> right now. But there is a simple workaround which you may find good
> enough. Add the following CSS rule into your ~/.mozilla/<...your
> profile...>/chrome/userContent.css or install the Stylish add-on [3]
> and create a style with the rule:
>
> -
> @namespace url(http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml);
>
> @-moz-document domain("gentoo.org") {
> td.content p {
> width: 40em;
> }
> }
> -
>
> Change "40em" to anything you like.
Cool! Now, will I be able to find this bit of info the next time I'm
doing an install...
[It doesn't matter how many browsers I configure now, the next time
I'm doing an install it won't be using one of them.]
--
Grant
[gentoo-user] Re: ridiculously wide handbook pages
On 2010-10-04, Fatih T?men wrote: > When I inspect the element and check the page source I understand > where td.content and p comes from but could you explain what 'em' > suffix to 40 means please? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Em_%28typography%29 -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! Look into my eyes and at try to forget that you have gmail.coma Macy's charge card!
[gentoo-user] Re: text in xterm
On 2010-10-07, Adam Carter wrote: > On Thu, Oct 7, 2010 at 5:57 AM, James wrote: > >> Folks, >> >> I have an interesting problem -- not sure what's causing it. >> >> Using xfce4 + compiz -- nothing too fancy. When I open an xterm and >> start typing, I start getting 'artifacts' (specifically green lines >> between the various letters I'm trying) in my xterm. > > What video hardware and driver are you using? I used to see (different) rendering artifacts when using the ATI fglrx "blob" driver and aterm -- but not other drivers nor other programs. I switched to the radeon driver, and haven't had any issues since. Actually, the last time I tried the fglrx driver, I think the problem had gone away. -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! ... I want to perform at cranial activities with gmail.comTuesday Weld!!
[gentoo-user] Re: Winter clock change did not happen
On 2010-10-31, Willie Wong wrote: > Or just cheat like I do. I set Windows to GMT with no daylight saving > offset, so it won't be tempted into playing with my system clock. > Gentoo thinks CLOCK="UTC". I don't boot into Windows often enough to > care about the clock being off by an hour during the summer (or > roughly 5 hours year-round when I move back to the States). Having > long accepted that Operating System is broken, when should I demand > it to keep the right time? ;) That's always been my solution. On my newest laptop, I just gave up on windows and erased Vista completely. On the occasions I need to do stuff like income tax, I think I'm going to run MacOS. Don't tell Steve Jobs. -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! I'm not an Iranian!! at I voted for Dianne gmail.comFeinstein!!
[gentoo-user] Re: Search for a file that is not installed in the system?
On 2010-11-02, Kfir Lavi wrote: > Is there a way to search for a file that I can install, but is not > currently installed in the system? With a meta-distribution, that's not quite possible to do in a definitive way. With a binarydistribution like Fedora or Ubuntu, you know what files are going to be installed by any given package, since the files are already there inside the package file. With a distro like Gentoo, the files aren't there -- only the instructions for building them are present, and you don't really know exactly what files are going to get installed until after you've built the package from the source code. If you can find a system that already has the package installed with all of the USE flags enable, then you can look at that system and be pretty confident that the same files would be installed on your system should you install that program with the same USE flags. So if you install all packages with all USE flags set, you can then search that system to find out who owns a particular file. Somebody's already posted a link to a site that attempts to do something like that, but there's always the possibility that your USE flags will cause a slightly different set of files to be installed (IOW you may already have the package installed, but you don't have the required USE flag). -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! The Osmonds! You are at all Osmonds!! Throwing up gmail.comon a freeway at dawn!!!
[gentoo-user] Re: eMerge gone commercial?
On 2010-11-03, James wrote: > Curiously, I just got this information, from a vendor: > > eMerge is a configurable, integrated security management and access > control system that can be managed from anywhere [...] > Sounds familiar to our emerge and (gentoo) Linux? No, not at all. Other than the name of the program and the fact that they both run on linux, I don't see any similarities between eMerge and Gentoo's emerge. > Is "emerge" protected by the Gentoo Foundation? No. There are dozens of tradmarks for the word "emerge". Several of them are software-related. None of them are Gentoo's "emerge". > Are they using Gentoo linux? No. They're running RedHat. -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! PEGGY FLEMMING is at stealing BASKET BALLS to gmail.comfeed the babies in VERMONT.
[gentoo-user] Re: When ls command fails but only on $HOME
On 2010-11-05, Harry Putnam wrote: > Alex Schuster writes: > >> Am 01.11.2010 11:28, schrieb Harry Putnam: >> >>> I can view the directory with emacs in dired mode but `ls' simply will >>> not complete... never shows anything and stays hung indefinitely. >> [...] >>> It only seem to happen on $HOME how very odd. >>> Anyone else seen that or have an idea what might be the cause? >> >> No. But maybe 'strace ls' will show something? >> >> Is /home on a separate partition? I'd do a fsck on it. touch /forcefsck >> or use a live cd for this. Good luck, > > Just to close this thread... a reboot swept away all `ls' problems so > still not sure what caused it, but am happily having normal experience > with `ls' once again. > > The reboot was strictly unplanned, as the machine locked up > overnight... no console access or by ssh, resulting in a hard manual > reboot. > > When the machine came up, the `ls' problem had disappeared as well as > sendmail problems discussed in a different thread. It sounds to me like you've got hardware problems. I'd at least run memtest86 overnight if I were you. -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! I feel partially at hydrogenated! gmail.com
[gentoo-user] Re: {OT} Deliberately obfuscating my code
On 2010-11-09, Florian Philipp wrote: > Am 09.11.2010 05:52, schrieb Grant: >> This is OT, but you guys have proven extremely insightful over the >> years and I would love to hear what you think. >> >> I've been working on a particular software project for a long time. >> I'd like to hire a team of developers to take over the project, but I >> consider the code to be valuable and I'd like to keep the whole of it >> secure, even from my own developers. You can't work on code you can't understand. If you try, you just end up breaking things. >> I was thinking I could do this by using some technique to obfuscate >> the true intention of the code modules. Maybe a recorded series of >> search/replaces for variable names which are reversed once code >> editing is complete? Has any software been made available to aid in >> an endeavor like this? > About what programming language are we talking? For Java and > Javascript, there is a range of obfuscators available. For C/C++, I > don't think it is really necessary. Can't you simply put your stuff > into a binary-only library? Read the OP again. He wants to obsfuscate the code to make it unreadable for the people he's hiring to work on it. It would be simpler and cheaper to hire developers who don't understand programming language in question, computers, programming in general, or even english. Then don't let them access any computers that have the source code. You'll get better results that way -- far fewer bugs will be introduced. 1/2 :) -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! I think my career at is ruined! gmail.com
[gentoo-user] Re: {OT} Deliberately obfuscating my code
On 2010-11-09, Grant wrote: >> So is your question really "how do I modularize my code"? > > I'm most interested in the part about developers not knowing about > the system as a whole. I'd like developers to work on my code, but > prevent them from selling the code or using it themselves. Have programmers stolen a lot of code from you or somebody you know in the past? > I thought a good way to accomplish this might be to modularize > heavily and change variable names. I don't understand what changing the variable names accomplishes if the source code is still readable and understandable by those working on it. > It sounds like I'm really going against the grain here. Is it > standard practice to hire a developer on the internet from any given > country, never meet him or her, have them fax a signed NDA, and turn > over your biggest asset to them? You've got to do some due diligence. Mostly to find out if they're competent. Also I suppose to find out if they're honest. Personally, I think the former is the big problem. Maybe you should hire local developers whom you've interviewed and whose references you've checked? -- Grant
[gentoo-user] Re: {OT} Deliberately obfuscating my code
On 2010-11-09, Florian Philipp wrote: > Well, there are two ways to go here: > 1. Modularize what you have. Give every developer only the source he >is supposed to work on and binary interfaces (libs + header files >for C/C++) and documentation for everything else. > >Then the devs will be able to run the software but no one will >have all the source code. > > 2. Do not give working code to anyone. Define specs, test cases, >prototypes and mock-ups. Then tell your devs to develop against these. > >When they have finished their modules (classes, units, whatever), >it is your job to integrate these modules and see whether they >work together as expected. If they don't, improve your specs and >tests and give the code back to the devs for another iteration. > > I favor the second approach, especially as there are tools available > to help you and it is safer against reverse-engineering. Both of these approaches are going to involve a lot of overhead (the second more so that the first). I would _guess_ than approach 2 will add at least 50-100% overhead. IOW, there's a pretty good chance that writing the whole thing yourself would take less of your time than designing, specifying, coordinating, integrating, testing and managing approach 2. I've seen it happen more than once when somebody decided to outsource software development. The in-house hours spent specifying, testing, coordinating were more than it would have taken to just write the program in-house. I've seen than happen even when there were no language or timezone barriers. Throw in a 10-hour time difference and a language barrier, and it's a minor miracle if the project ever gets finished (even at twice the in-house cost of doing it). -- Grant (the other one)
[gentoo-user] Re: {OT} Deliberately obfuscating my code
On 2010-11-09, Mark Knecht wrote: >> I don't mind system administration but I don't want to be a programmer >> any more. ??I'd like to hire programmers to work in the manner >> described above. ??They would each work on modules and not know about >> the system as a whole. ??How can something like this be implemented? > > Get ready to pay a lot more for the documentation and testing portions > of your costs. A lot more. > If you write a clear spec Anybody who thinks they can write a clear spec is deluded. I've seen a _one_page_spec_ where the requirement was completely re-stated three different ways (with examples!) -- and the programmers in eastern Europe still mis-understood it. Even after several days of e-mails back and forth where the specification was re-explained in several more ways, they still didn't understand. After about a week of daily e-mails back and forth, the light finally came on. The implementation of that spec (adding a command to a protocol), took 15 lines on code on my end, and there's no way it could have taken any more than that on the other end -- except they completely misunderstood the requirement, and they simply couldn't understand how what we were telling them was different than what they did. -- Grant
[gentoo-user] Re: {OT} Deliberately obfuscating my code
On 2010-11-11, Grant wrote: >> Grant, you need to stop being paranoid. ?I am surprised you even >> worked up the courage to let slip on here, in public, that you even >> have a sooper dooper sekrit project. > > This seems to be the general consensus. You see, I don't have a > computer science degree and about 75% of what I know about Linux I > learned on this list. Apparently this idea of mine is not a good > one. > > The "sekrit" isn't really a secret, it's just a mature piece of > ordinary software. Most if not all of you wouldn't be interested in > receiving it for free, but people in the right industry would like to > have it and I'd like to keep it for myself. Surely there is room for > private software even in an open source world. > > So it's either trust your coders or do it yourself? Yup, pretty much. > My budget is small and the coders I can afford are outside of the US. > I'd be working with them via chat, email, or phone. Should I feel OK > about turning my source over to them? Yes, if you deal with reputable companies or individuals who's references you can verify. If you're dealing with random individuals, then maybe. > Should I only hire coders I can sit in the same room with? That will probably work best, but it will cost more. Have you ever managed a programming team before? -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! Am I in Milwaukee? at gmail.com
[gentoo-user] Re: {OT} Deliberately obfuscating my code
On 2010-11-11, Grant wrote: >>> Should I only hire coders I can sit in the same room with? >> >> That will probably work best, but it will cost more. >> >> Have you ever managed a programming team before? > > I haven't. Any pointers? Not really. Just be prepared for the programmers to misunderstand the specification at every turn. And once they've understood the spec, be prepared for them to just plain screw up the implementation. Unless you're hiring programmers who have a very good understanding of the problem space, they're not going to understand the spec. They are going to do the wrong thing in the first several iterations before they finally understand what it is that you want. Some of the "wrong things" will violate the spec. Many won't. It's like hiring to build a house carpenters who've never seen a house, never heard of a house, and have no idea what a house is for. The first version will look like the drawings, but they'll have misunderstood the dimensions and the whole thing will be 3 feet high an 5 feet wide. When you ask how people are going to fit in that, they're going to look at you completely dumbfounded because you never told them people had to fit inside -- how were they supposed to know that? The second version will be the right size, but the doors and windows won't open -- they'll be built solidly into the structure on all four sides. When you ask why, they'll say "it's a lot stronger that way!" You'll say "but I told you people had to fit inside". They'll reply that people _do_ fit inside. You'll ask how are they going to _get_ inside. They'll say "the specification doesn't say that doors and windows have to open, so we implemented it the strongest way, and now people fit inside just like you said." [Repeat until you're out of time and/or money.] The only advice I've got is to do things in increments as small as possible. Don't do "big bang" integration. Make sure there is a runnable testable program after the first week of development. Maybe it doesn't implement any significant features, but you must have something runnable and testable at all times. Otherwise, you can get too far down the wrong road before you finally figure out that either a) what you specified isn't going to work, or b) they didn't understand the specification at all. -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! Actually, what I'd at like is a little toy gmail.comspaceship!!
[gentoo-user] Re: {OT} Deliberately obfuscating my code
On 2010-11-13, Grant wrote: Have you ever managed a programming team before? >>> >>> I haven't. ?Any pointers? >> >> Not really. ?Just be prepared for the programmers to misunderstand the >> specification at every turn. ?And once they've understood the spec, be >> prepared for them to just plain screw up the implementation. >> [elided carpentry allegory] > Great advice from everyone, thank you. By hiring coders, the > intention is to save myself time and effort but it sounds like I would > only be replacing one problem with another. I hope I wasn't too discouraging, but you're definitely replacing one problem with another. The questions are: 1) The relative sizes of the problems? 2) How much your time is worth? 3) Do you prefer spec-writing and project management or writing code? For me, I'd probably rather take a week off my without pay from my day jobs and write the code myself rather than pay somebody else $2000 to do it. [And that's assuming I could find somebody competent to work for $50/hour.] > I'm really not sure how to proceed but you guys have saved me from > hurling myself into something I didn't understand. I don't know what language you're using, but my only other recommendation might be to consider using a high level language like Python instead of C. Developing a large application in Python instead of C can save huge amounts of time. My guess would be that on average Python development takes about 25% of the time that C would take. -- Grant
[gentoo-user] How to configure thochpad sensitivity (using hal)?
Can anybody point me to a hint on how to configure synaptics touchapad sensitivity? The touchpad on my Thinkpad T500 is so sensitive you don't even have to touch it. Merely bringing a thumb or finger within 1/8 - 1/4 inch will cause the cursor to twitch spasmodically for a second and then jump to the lower left corner of the screen. Once you have a finger on the touchpad, it seems to work OK. I've figured out how to disable it temporarily using the "xinput" command, but I would like to actually get it working right. All the docs I can find seem to assume two things: 1) an xorg.conf file 2) the xf86-input-synpatics driver I'm using neither. I decided finally to give in and let Xorg use HAL like it wants to by default when you do a Gentoo install. What a huge mistake. I really, really hate HAL. With xorg.conf, all the settings were in one file, in an easy to read, easy to edit format. Now with HAL, they're scattered over several files. And to make sure you can't edit or read them, they're in XML. I have no idea what "problem" HAL is supposed to be solving, but it apprently wasn't a problem I ever had -- AFAICT HAL is nothing but pain. -- Grant
[gentoo-user] Re: How to configure thochpad sensitivity (using hal)?
On 2010-11-14, Mick wrote: >> Before you go to great pains to get this working, you do know that hal >> is checking out right? Yes, I knew that. Maybe I'll just live without the touchpad until HAL goes away for good. My question is why did the Gentoo maintainers decide to use HAL instead of xorg.conf? >> Even the person who wrote it realized the mess it was and it is dying >> pretty soon. I think it is policykit or polkit or something to that >> effect. If you want to start using that instead, it may save you >> some headaches later on when it is no longer a option. > > As Dale suggests don't waste your time on hal and its fdi files. > xorg 1.8.x will be going stable soon and that does away with hal > configuration. I recommend that you unmask it and see if you can > control your touchpad easier using an xorg.conf and evdev. However, > the synaptics driver is there for a reason ... > > http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/desktop/x/x11/xorg-server-1.8-upgrade-guide.xml > > BTW, if you want to remain with xorg 1.7.x then I recommend you try the > following: > > 1. Add synaptics to your INPUT_DEVICES in /etc/make.conf - most often >than not it will just work™ and no further adjustment of >sensitivity is necessary. I did that, but the synaptics driver doesn't get used by default. Once you've installed it, how do you get the server to use it? I think I should abandon HAL and switch to xorg.conf. It's so much easier to use. > 2. Then run lshal to see if your touchpad is recognised. In my >laptop (I use hal) it shows this: > >== > udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/pci_8086_d132' > info.parent = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/computer' (string) > info.product = 'Core Processor DMI' (string) > info.category = 'input' (string) > info.parent = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/platform_i8042_i8042_AUX_port' > (string) > info.product = 'SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad' (string) > info.subsystem = 'input' (string) > info.udi = > '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/platform_i8042_i8042_AUX_port_logicaldev_input' > > (string) > input.device = '/dev/input/event6' (string) > input.originating_device = > '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/platform_i8042_i8042_AUX_port' (string) > input.product = 'SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad' (string) > input.x11_driver = 'synaptics' (string) > input.x11_options.ClickButton1 = '1' (string) > input.x11_options.HorizEdgeScroll = 'true' (string) > input.x11_options.MaxTapMove = '2000' (string) > input.x11_options.TapButton1 = '1' (string) > input.x11_options.VertEdgeScroll = 'true' (string) > linux.device_file = '/dev/input/event6' (string) > linux.hotplug_type = 2 (0x2) (int) > linux.subsystem = 'input' (string) > linux.sysfs_path = '/sys/devices/platform/i8042/serio1/input/input6/event6' > > (string) >== > > In the info section above it tells me that touchpad is recognised. > Looking into > /usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/10osvendor/11-x11-synaptics.fdi I see that > by installing the synaptics driver a hal configuration file was > created. > > Copy this to /etc/hal/fdi/policy/11-x11-synaptics.fdi (you can call > it something different if you wish) and add an option line to adjust > sensitivity: > >25 > > Play with different integer values to see what works and also look at > the synaptics man page for different options, in case > PressureMotionMin is not what you need. Each time you make a change > you should restart hal or the xserver to see the result. > > 3. Without synaptics a lot depends on what the evdev or mouse drivers >can do - they may not have pressure related options to play with. >Again I would start with their man pages and follow the example >above, as long as lshal shows which driver has captured the >touchpad events. So you're saying that without the synaptics driver there is no sensitivity adjustment?
[gentoo-user] Re: How to configure thochpad sensitivity (using hal)?
On 2010-11-14, Mick wrote: > Finally, if xorg-server-1.8 is around the corner to be stabilised I > suggest that you unmask it and use the xorg.conf file that we all > know and love. :-) Using xorg.conf with 1.7 is simple enough (it's what I do on all my other machines). That's why I don't understand why the Gentoo developers decided to use HAL by default when it seems to be widely acknowledged to be such a disaster. -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! Half a mind is a at terrible thing to waste! gmail.com
[gentoo-user] Re: How to configure thochpad sensitivity (using hal)?
On 2010-11-15, Alan McKinnon wrote: > Apparently, though unproven, at 17:31 on Monday 15 November 2010, Grant > Edwards did opine thusly: > >> On 2010-11-14, Mick wrote: >> > Finally, if xorg-server-1.8 is around the corner to be stabilised I >> > suggest that you unmask it and use the xorg.conf file that we all >> > know and love. :-) >> >> Using xorg.conf with 1.7 is simple enough (it's what I do on all my >> other machines). That's why I don't understand why the Gentoo >> developers decided to use HAL by default when it seems to be widely >> acknowledged to be such a disaster. > > The Gentoo devs made no such decision. > > Upstream did. > > Gentoo closely tracks upstream, unless upstream is completely broken. > HAL might be a crock of chit, but it does not render X broken and not > usable. Whether Xorg uses HAL or not is controlled by a USE flag isn't it? So upstream choses the defaults for USE flags? -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! My BIOLOGICAL ALARM at CLOCK just went off ... It gmail.comhas noiseless DOZE FUNCTION and full kitchen!!
[gentoo-user] Re: How to configure thochpad sensitivity (using hal)?
On 2010-11-15, Alan McKinnon wrote: > >> Whether Xorg uses HAL or not is controlled by a USE flag isn't it? So >> upstream choses the defaults for USE flags? > > No, upstream chooses the default config out of the box. > > Gentoo does what Gentoo has to do to replicate that config. OK. (To me that means that upstream does choose the defaults for USE flags, but that may just be semantics). > Gentoo needs a very good reason to change upstream default behaviour, > along the lines of extreme brokenness. There are those of us that might think HAL meets that criteria, but that's pretty much moot at this point. :) Looking forward to a HAL-free system... -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! Okay ... I'm going at home to write the "I HATE gmail.comRUBIK's CUBE HANDBOOK FOR DEAD CAT LOVERS" ...
[gentoo-user] Re: [Waaay OT] Defrag tool for windoze
On 2010-11-16, J. Roeleveld wrote: >> spinrite claims to make the head do other things than what the drive >> firmware makes it do. I'm afraid I'll have to call bullshit on that. I don't see how some bit of PC software can make a drive head move. The firmware on the drive controller board is the only thing that can make the head move. Does spinrite claim they _replace_ the drive firmware with their own custom version? Where does Spinrite's claim they can do override drive firmware? I don't see any claims like that on their web site? >> Meaning that spinrite can extract data that the drive itself in >> normal conditions cannot. This reasoning is sound. I've no problem with the reasoning. I, however, don't accept the premise. > True, provided it actually knows HOW to override the firmware on all > drives currently in use... I doubt that it can. >> Remember that a drive is an analogue device, not a digital one (only >> the *output data* is digital). > > Ofcourse, but is the head actually sensitive enough to be able to > cooperate with this? Professional data recovery companies actually > take out the platters and use their own drive-heads to get the data > out. > >> There is some doubt as to whether spinrite can even function in this >> wise with modern drives though. > > Yes, and that's exactly my point. Something that overrides the drives > firmware can, in my view, easily brick the drive. If spinrite is replacing the drive's firmware, then in theory they might be able to do something "extra", but I'd say the odds of them being able to reverse-engineer enough the drives out there enough to do their own custom firmware for all of a significant number of them is pretty close to 0. Besides, their web site explicitly states that they can't do low level formatting, they run under DOS, and that they can only use drives that are recogized by the mothoerboard BIOS. AFAICT, they're just using the normal IDE/ATA API and are doing nothing extraordinary. -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! Hey, wait at a minute!! I want a gmail.comdivorce!! ... you're not Clint Eastwood!!
[gentoo-user] Re: [Waaay OT] Defrag tool for windoze
On 2010-11-16, Alan McKinnon wrote: > Apparently, though unproven, at 17:34 on Tuesday 16 November 2010, Grant > Edwards did opine thusly: > >> On 2010-11-16, J. Roeleveld wrote: >> >> spinrite claims to make the head do other things than what the drive >> >> firmware makes it do. >> >> I'm afraid I'll have to call bullshit on that. I don't see how some >> bit of PC software can make a drive head move. The firmware on the >> drive controller board is the only thing that can make the head move. >> Does spinrite claim they _replace_ the drive firmware with their own >> custom version? > > Firmware is nothing more than high-level software that wraps > low-level commands on the drive. I've no idea what you mean by that. The firmware is what runs on the microprocessor on the drive's controller board. It's what controls the servo hardware. It sits between the ATA interface and the drive's low-level electronics. The only way to bypass that firmware is to replace it with something different. > High and low are to be taken here within the context of a drive and > it's controls, so don't be thinking it's on the same level as fopen() > > SOMETHING makes the head move. That something is the servos, and they > are under software control (how could it be otherwise?) If the > registers and commands that control that can be exposed, fine control > is possible. Those registers are not exposed by the IDE/ATA interface. > The firmware does not itself define the only things the head can do, > in the same way that a file system does nto define the only things > that can be written to a disk > >> Where does Spinrite's claim they can do override drive firmware? > > I have not read the site in many years - Gibson's prose is simply too > much to bear. What I recall being there may not be there any more. > > I never said that spinrite claims to override (or as you mention > below "replace") the firmware. A sensible reading of what I wrote > will show I meant "bypass" How are you going to bypass the firmware? The drive has a microprocessor that is wired to the servo hardware. How can you bypass that microprossor and control the servo hardware using an ATA interface? > In any event it's all moot. Gibson is rather renowned for vast > flowery language and liked to fly off on tangents. spinrite had a > very good reputation years ago but it's possible that Gibson > over-inflated his claims. > > Everything I said before is just my understanding of what Gibson > claimed his software could do. It's hard to prove one way or the > other for several reasons, first being that the thing is written in > assembler. I'm not say that Gibson didn't claim his software could do that. I'm just saying I don't understand how it could. -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! I'm dressing up in at an ill-fitting IVY-LEAGUE gmail.comSUIT!! Too late...
[gentoo-user] Re: How to configure thochpad sensitivity (using hal)?
On 2010-11-16, David W Noon wrote: > On Tue, 16 Nov 2010 07:10:02 +0100, Grant Edwards wrote about > [gentoo-user] Re: How to configure thochpad sensitivity (using hal)?: > >>On 2010-11-15, Alan McKinnon wrote: >>> >>>> Whether Xorg uses HAL or not is controlled by a USE flag isn't it? >>>> So upstream choses the defaults for USE flags? >>> >>> No, upstream chooses the default config out of the box. >>> >>> Gentoo does what Gentoo has to do to replicate that config. >> >>OK. (To me that means that upstream does choose the defaults for USE >>flags, but that may just be semantics). > > No, the USE flags are purely a Portage thing. The USE flags > determine which options are enabled/disabled when the ebuild runs the > equivalent of a ./configure script. The defaults for the USE flags > are part of the ebuild, completely separate from upstream. But if the developers are required to duplicate the upstream "out-of-box" configuration, then the defaults for the USE flags are determined by upstream decisions, not by the developers. -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! WHOA!! Ken and Barbie at are having TOO MUCH FUN!! gmail.comIt must be the NEGATIVE IONS!!
[gentoo-user] Re: How to configure thochpad sensitivity (using hal)?
On 2010-11-16, David W Noon wrote: > Again, the defaults are chosen for stability with Gentoo first; > secondly, there are no fixed defaults -- or "out-of-box" configuration > -- from upstream, If that's true, then it is the developers rather than "upstream" that decided to use HAL for Xorg configuration. You can't have it both ways: 1) There is no default configuration from upstream. 2) The default configuration (use HAL) came from upstream. > The only distributions that have fixed configurations are the binary > ones. Any package that is built from source -- and under Gentoo that > means almost everything -- is intrinsically configurable by the > person building the binaries. To extend your "out-of-box" analogy: > source code doesn't arrive in a box, but binaries (.rpm, .deb, etc.) > do. It seems to me that the "configure" script with no command-line options to enable/disable features is a "box" that contains the default configuration. -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! I'm not an Iranian!! at I voted for Dianne gmail.comFeinstein!!
[gentoo-user] Re: How to configure thochpad sensitivity (using hal)?
On 2010-11-17, Neil Bothwick wrote: > On Wed, 17 Nov 2010 16:48:30 +, David W Noon wrote: > >> >Surely what `./configure` does if I don't make any choice about its >> >compilation option is to be considered a "default"? >> >> Gentoo ebuilds do not run ./configure without options, unless there are >> no options available. That's irrelevent. You said upstream doesn't come with a "default" configuration. We're saying it does, and that it's defined by the default options in the configure script. Even if Gentoo doesn't use that default configuration it doens't meant that it doesn't exist. > No, but they generally set the USE defaults to give the same settings > as running ./configure with none. In other words, they are following > the upstream defaults. We seem to be going around in circles. :) The merits of using HAL for Xorg config aside, I am still curious about where the "default" configuration for a package comes from. Is there a written policy somewhere that tells devs how to set the default USE flags? -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! I'm having a MID-WEEK at CRISIS! gmail.com
[gentoo-user] Re: How to configure thochpad sensitivity (using hal)?
On 2010-11-18, Alan McKinnon wrote: > Apparently, though unproven, at 02:43 on Thursday 18 November 2010, Walter > Dnes did opine thusly: > >> On Wed, Nov 17, 2010 at 02:00:48AM +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote >> >> > If you then mentioned that their defaults broke Dale's setup, they'd >> > likely answer "Who's Dale?" followed shortly by "None of us have >> > hardware like Dale to test. Sorry 'bout that. Set USE=-hal" >> >> Of course the USE flag advice is given *AFTER* the new flag breaks >> your system. That's why I use "-*" at the beginning of my USE in >> /etc/make.conf. I never found out whether hal would break my system. >> If Dale had used "-*" his X would not have broken, even if some other >> ebuild pulled it onto the machine as a hard-coded dependancy. > > Looks like the *actual* problem is non-application of OYFEAL[1],not what the > devs do. Google doesn't seem to know what OYFEAL means. Do we get any hints? -- Grant
[gentoo-user] Re: How to configure thochpad sensitivity (using hal)?
On 2010-11-18, Stroller wrote: > > On 18/11/2010, at 1:46am, Grant Edwards wrote: >>> ... >>> Looks like the *actual* problem is non-application of OYFEAL[1],not what >>> the >>> devs do. >> >> Google doesn't seem to know what OYFEAL means. Do we get any hints? > > Yes, if you're patient he'll give you [1]. I still I don't get it. What is "[1]" supposed to mean? -- Grant
[gentoo-user] Re: How to configure thochpad sensitivity (using hal)?
On 2010-11-18, Fernando Antunes wrote: > On Sat, Nov 13, 2010 at 11:10 PM, Grant Edwards >wrote: > >> Can anybody point me to a hint on how to configure synaptics touchapad >> sensitivity? >> All the docs I can find seem to assume two things: >> >> 1) an xorg.conf file >> >> 2) the xf86-input-synpatics driver >> >> I'm using neither. > You can adjust synaptics changing the configuration on the > /etc/hal/fdi/policy/11-x11-synaptics.fdi file. > man 4 synaptic can give you a lot of extra options. That only works if you're using the synaptics driver -- which I'm not. I haven't figured out how to do that yet. It was built, since I included it in INPUT_DEVICES, but HAL decided not to use it. -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! Wait ... is this a FUN at THING or the END of LIFE in gmail.comPetticoat Junction??
[gentoo-user] Re: How to configure thochpad sensitivity (using hal)?
On 2010-11-18, Mick wrote: > On Thursday 18 November 2010 15:48:23 Grant Edwards wrote: >> >>> You can adjust synaptics changing the configuration on the >>> /etc/hal/fdi/policy/11-x11-synaptics.fdi file. man 4 synaptic can >>> give you a lot of extra options. >> >> That only works if you're using the synaptics driver -- which I'm not. >> >> I haven't figured out how to do that yet. It was built, since I >> included it in INPUT_DEVICES, but HAL decided not to use it. > > What does your Xorg.0.log say about synaptics? > > $ cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log | grep synaptics > (II) LoadModule: "synaptics" > (II) Loading /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/input/synaptics_drv.so > (II) Module synaptics: vendor="X.Org Foundation" $ grep -i synaptic /var/log/Xorg.0.log (II) config/hal: Adding input device SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad (**) SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad: always reports core events (**) SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad: Device: "/dev/input/event6" (II) SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad: Found 3 mouse buttons (II) SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad: Found absolute axes (II) SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad: Found x and y absolute axes (II) SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad: Found absolute touchpad. (II) SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad: Configuring as touchpad (**) SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad: YAxisMapping: buttons 4 and 5 (**) SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad: EmulateWheelButton: 4, EmulateWheelInertia: 10, EmulateWheelTimeout: 200 (II) XINPUT: Adding extended input device "SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad" (type: TOUCHPAD) (**) SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad: (accel) keeping acceleration scheme 1 (**) SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad: (accel) acceleration profile 0 (II) SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad: initialized for absolute axes. $ emerge --search synaptics Searching... [ Results for search key : synaptics ] [ Applications found : 1 ] * x11-drivers/xf86-input-synaptics Latest version available: 1.2.1 Latest version installed: 1.2.1 Size of files: 288 kB Homepage: http://cgit.freedesktop.org/xorg/driver/xf86-input-synaptics/ Description: Driver for Synaptics touchpads License: MIT $ grep -i synaptics /etc/make.conf INPUT_DEVICES="evdev keyboard mouse synaptics" $ find /usr/lib -name '*synaptics*' /usr/lib/xorg/modules/input/synaptics_drv.so /usr/lib/pkgconfig/xorg-synaptics.pc
[gentoo-user] Re: [OT] Finding old files
On 2010-11-19, Peter Humphrey wrote:
> Hello list,
>
> Just to expose my ignorance again, would someone lift my blinkers
> please? I'm recovering from an infection and my brain is stuck.
>
> It's time to start pruning old stuff from the website I run, which has
> 2200 files in 200 directories.
>
> I'm trying to find old images like this:
> find . -iname \*.jpg -exec ls '-cdl' {} \; | cut -d \ -f 5-10
It's obvious how that command finds old images. Can you explain what
it's supposed to do?
> Is there a simple way to do this? Ideally I'd like a chronologically
> ordered list of the files.
Do you want a chronologically ordered list, or do you want to find
files older than a certain age?
If the former, try this:
find . -iname '*.jpg' | xargs ls -lt
If the latter, read the 'find' man page and look for the -mtime test.
--
Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! My nose feels like a
at bad Ronald Reagan movie ...
gmail.com
[gentoo-user] Re: [OT] Finding old files
On 2010-11-19, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> Apparently, though unproven, at 19:18 on Friday 19 November 2010, Peter
> Humphrey did opine thusly:
>
>> On Friday 19 November 2010 16:40:37 Grant Edwards wrote:
>> > On 2010-11-19, Peter Humphrey wrote:
>> > > Hello list,
>> > >
>> > > Just to expose my ignorance again, would someone lift my blinkers
>> > > please? I'm recovering from an infection and my brain is stuck.
>> > >
>> > > It's time to start pruning old stuff from the website I run, which
>> > > has 2200 files in 200 directories.
>> > >
>> > > I'm trying to find old images like this:
>> > > find . -iname \*.jpg -exec ls '-cdl' {} \; | cut -d \ -f 5-10
>> >
>> > It's obvious how that command finds old images. Can you explain what
>> > it's supposed to do?
>>
>> The cut command simply strips off the permissions, owner, group and file
>> size.
>>
>> Never mind, anyway. I've done it by using separate steps instead of
>> trying to combine them. I'm still puzzled though at the different
>> behaviour of ls between command-line and execution by find.
>
> ls as you are using it is an option to find (not an app or a shell
> builtin). So you need to do
No, in his case "ls" it's an app that's executed by the "find" command by
as part of the handling of the find command's "-exec" clause.
--
Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! LOOK!! Sullen
at American teens wearing
gmail.comMADRAS shorts and "Flock of
Seagulls" HAIRCUTS!
[gentoo-user] Re: [OT] Finding old files
On 2010-11-19, Peter Humphrey wrote:
> On Friday 19 November 2010 16:40:37 Grant Edwards wrote:
>> On 2010-11-19, Peter Humphrey wrote:
>>> Just to expose my ignorance again, would someone lift my blinkers
>>> please? I'm recovering from an infection and my brain is stuck.
>>>
>>> It's time to start pruning old stuff from the website I run, which
>>> has 2200 files in 200 directories.
>>>
>>> I'm trying to find old images like this:
>>> find . -iname \*.jpg -exec ls '-cdl' {} \; | cut -d \ -f 5-10
>>
>> It's not obvious how that command finds old images. Can you explain
>> what it's supposed to do?
>
> The cut command simply strips off the permissions, owner, group and
> file size.
OK, but I still don't see how that "finds old image files", but
whatever.
> Never mind, anyway. I've done it by using separate steps instead of
> trying to combine them. I'm still puzzled though at the different
> behaviour of ls between command-line and execution by find.
>>> find . -iname \*.jpg -exec ls '-cdl "--time-style=full-iso"' {} \; |\
>>> cut -d \ -f 5-10
What different behavior?
That ls command doesn't work from the command line either:
$ ls '-cdl "--time-style=full-iso"' foo
ls: invalid option -- ' '
Try ls --help' for more information.
The quotes cause both option specifiers '-cdl' and
'--time-style=full-iso' to be passed to 'ls' as single string with
whitespace in the middle of it. That's not how options are passed to
Unix command line utilities.
I think what you intended was
$ ls -cdl --time-style=full-iso foo
-rw-r--r-- 1 grante users 96 2010-11-19 11:44:45.0 -0600 foo
IOW:
$ find -iname '*.jpg' -exec ls -cdl --time-style=full-iso {} \; | cut -d ' '
-f 5-10
40369 2010-03-22 13:59:28.0 -0500
./rfc2217-xon-xoff/right_cncbaron_small.jpg
110641 2010-03-23 10:21:16.0 -0500
./rfc2217-xon-xoff/DMFreeWire-1-Port 300dpi
22330 2010-03-22 14:01:26.0 -0500
./rfc2217-xon-xoff/clip_image002_0006.jpg
[...]
Note that your "cut" doesn't work right for filenames that contain
spaces...
--
Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! Maybe I should have
at asked for my Neutron Bomb
gmail.comin PAISLEY --
[gentoo-user] Re: [OT] Finding old files
On 2010-11-19, Stroller wrote: > > On 19/11/2010, at 5:53pm, Grant Edwards wrote: >> ... >> OK, but I still don't see how that "finds old image files", but >> whatever. > > I assume he's finding *all* image files, then searching himself for > old ones. This seems obvious to me, but maybe I'm missing something? You're probably right. I had it stuck in my head that he though the command was finding old files. -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! My pants just went to at high school in the Carlsbad gmail.comCaverns!!!
[gentoo-user] Re: [OT] Finding old files
On 2010-11-20, Peter Humphrey wrote: > On Friday 19 November 2010 17:53:31 Grant Edwards wrote: >> On 2010-11-19, Peter Humphrey wrote: > >> What different behavior? > > As I said, from the command line ls shows the year for any file more than > 12 months old, in place of the time. When executed from find it doesn't. I don't see any difference when I do it. Can you post a shell script that shows the two different behaviors? >> That ls command doesn't work from the command line either: > ... >> I think what you intended was >> >> $ ls -cdl --time-style=full-iso foo > > You're right. I pasted the wrong command in - sorry. > >> Note that your "cut" doesn't work right for filenames that contain >> spaces... > > I don't allow such files on my systems. Even if I did, in this case I'd > spot the error when it happened (I hope). -- Grant
[gentoo-user] On what to base a custom live CD?
I need to build a liveCD that boots on as wide a variety of hardware as is practical. It needs to load one custom kernel module and then run one console-mode application. Instead of building something from scratch, I was hoping I might be able to modify an existing liveCD. There's no need for support for networking, graphics, or even access to optical or hard drives. The current version of this CD is built sort of from scrach using a labor-intensive and error-prone process. However, it does produce something that's small (less that 10MB), and boots fast (around 10 seconds). But, updating the existing CD with a newer kernel (to gain support for newer hardware) is difficult. I thought about using a customized systemrescuecd, but that takes ages to boot (almost 5 minutes). This CD is intended as something a customer can run to do a quick hardware test, and making them sit there for 5 minutes to see a 5-second test just isn't going to fly. I also looked at the gentoo minimal install CD, but that's still pretty slow (3-4 minutes), and it's not at all obvious how to add a kernel module to it. Does anybody have an recommendations for a good way to build a small liveCD with a custom kernel module? -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! I'm having a at quadrophonic sensation gmail.comof two winos alone in a steel mill!
[gentoo-user] Re: On what to base a custom live CD?
On 2010-11-24, Alan McKinnon wrote: > Apparently, though unproven, at 00:02 on Thursday 25 November 2010, Grant > Edwards did opine thusly: > >> I need to build a liveCD that boots on as wide a variety of hardware >> as is practical. It needs to load one custom kernel module and then >> run one console-mode application. Instead of building something from >> scratch, I was hoping I might be able to modify an existing liveCD. [...] >> Does anybody have an recommendations for a good way to build a small >> liveCD with a custom kernel module? > > damn small linux > > pretty generic, comes in at under 50M I looked at DSL, and crossed it off the list for two reasons: 1) It hasn't been updated in 2-1/2 years. I need a CD that runs on recent hardware. 2) There's no documentation on how to add a kernel module. 3) Trimming it down (e.g. getting rid of all the X stuff and network stuff doesn't look easy). -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! Today, THREE WINOS at from DETROIT sold me a gmail.comframed photo of TAB HUNTER before his MAKEOVER!
[gentoo-user] Re: On what to base a custom live CD?
On 2010-11-25, Neil Bothwick wrote: > On Wed, 24 Nov 2010 22:02:10 + (UTC), Grant Edwards wrote: > >> I thought about using a customized systemrescuecd, but that takes ages >> to boot (almost 5 minutes). This CD is intended as something a >> customer can run to do a quick hardware test, and making them sit >> there for 5 minutes to see a 5-second test just isn't going to fly. > > It it actually booting all that time, or is it waiting for user input? I > doesn't take anything like that long to boot on my netbook, but I have > modified the USB install to set a keymap choice and a couple of other > options. AFAICT, it's booting that whole time. I picked the initial isolinux menu entry that selects the US keymap, so there is no user input until it gets to the bash prompt. That time is booting on a qemu VM (but so is the ~10 seconds for the other CD I'm comparing to). I've since done a little testing with a Thinkpad T510, and the difference between the two CDs isn't nearly as much (maybe 5X instead of 30X). Since I don't need much in the way of resources (no networking or hard-drive acess) I've been thinking about ditching the squashfs stuff completely and just putting everything I need in the initrd image. That way I can disable the both the networking and IDE/PATA/SATA/SCSI support in the kernel. That ought to speed up the boot time considerably. >> Does anybody have an recommendations for a good way to build a small >> liveCD with a custom kernel module? > > Have you looked at Tiny Core Linux; 10MB, fast to boot and extensible. I've been doing some looking around, and that's now on my short list. -- Grant
[gentoo-user] Re: On what to base a custom live CD?
On 2010-11-25, Helmut Jarausch wrote: > I'd suggest SystemRescueCD. That was my first thought, but it's not going to > It's upgraded quite often (currently using kernel 2.6.35-x) has a > ready to go X11 environment and most useful, it's an up-to-date > Gentoo system, so one immediately knows where to look if there are > any problems. And it has a well documented (easy) procedure for > extending it. But, I'm going to have to speed up the boot time considerably: >> I thought about using a customized systemrescuecd, but that takes >> ages to boot (almost 5 minutes). This CD is intended as something a >> customer can run to do a quick hardware test, and making them sit >> there for 5 minutes to see a 5-second test just isn't going to fly. The current version of the liveCD I'm attempting to replace boots in about 10 seconds on the same machine that takes 5 minutes to boot systemrescue CD. Slowing the boot time that much isn't going to be acceptable. I'm trying to figure out ways to speed up systemrescuecd. I may ditch the squashfs stuff entirely and run from the initrd filesystem. It looks like that should save a minute or two. After that I'm going to try disabling Networking and most block device (IDE, PATA, floppy, SCSI, and SATA) support. -- Grant
[gentoo-user] Re: On what to base a custom live CD?
On 2010-11-25, Grant Edwards wrote: > On 2010-11-25, Neil Bothwick wrote: >> On Wed, 24 Nov 2010 22:02:10 +0000 (UTC), Grant Edwards wrote: >> >>> I thought about using a customized systemrescuecd, but that takes ages >>> to boot (almost 5 minutes). This CD is intended as something a >>> customer can run to do a quick hardware test, and making them sit >>> there for 5 minutes to see a 5-second test just isn't going to fly. >> >> It it actually booting all that time, or is it waiting for user input? I >> doesn't take anything like that long to boot on my netbook, but I have >> modified the USB install to set a keymap choice and a couple of other >> options. > > AFAICT, it's booting that whole time. I picked the initial isolinux > menu entry that selects the US keymap, so there is no user input until > it gets to the bash prompt. That time is booting on a qemu VM (but so > is the ~10 seconds for the other CD I'm comparing to). FWIW, most of the "slowness" of the systemrescuecd was due to lzma decompression of both the kernel and the initrd image. I switched to gzip, and that cut the boot time to about 25% of what it was. -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! When you get your at PH.D. will you get able to gmail.comwork at BURGER KING?
[gentoo-user] Re: How to build a static application binary?
On 2010-12-03, Jacob Todd wrote: > Gotta love gcc! It's not gcc's fault. I use gcc on other platforms to create static binaries and don't see any noticable overhead. > If you want real static binaries on a unix-ish os, use plan 9. Except that's not what I want. I want a static binary on Linux. -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! My Aunt MAUREEN was a at military advisor to IKE & gmail.comTINA TURNER!!
[gentoo-user] Re: How to build a static application binary?
On 2010-12-03, Jacob Todd wrote: > On Dec 3, 2010 11:14 AM, "Grant Edwards" wrote: >> On 2010-12-03, Jacob Todd wrote: >> >>> Gotta love gcc! >> >> It's not gcc's fault. > > Iirc there a bug in glibc that makes it almost impossible to create > static binaries with it. Yes, that's my understanding as well. Some design change somewhere between glibc4 and glibc6 makes it impossible to to static linking in any meaningful sense of the term. > I can't look the the sources of that info atm, but it be easily found > with google. Do the other platforms you use gcc to build static > binaries with use a different libc? Yes. That's how I know it's not gcc's fault: I can build static apps with gcc/binutils using a different libc. -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! A shapely CATHOLIC at SCHOOLGIRL is FIDGETING gmail.cominside my costume..
[gentoo-user] Re: How to build a static application binary?
On 2010-12-03, David W Noon wrote: > What you are seeing is a lot of glibc routines being included by the > linkage editor. These handle all sorts of conditions that will > likely never occur in your program. > > Try using a smaller C library, like uclibc or klibc. They might not > work as well, but they will give you a smaller executable. > > Alternatively, try rewriting your code in assembler. For various reasons (which I doubt anybody cares about), gritting my teeth and living with the 520K per application looks like a more practical solution that either using assembler or a different libc. In practice, I'm sure nobody but me will ever even notice (or care even if they did notice) the wasted 2MB on a 25MB liveCD. But it will still bug me. :/ -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! S!! I hear SIX at TATTOOED TRUCK-DRIVERS gmail.comtossing ENGINE BLOCKS into empty OIL DRUMS ...
[gentoo-user] Re: How to build a static application binary?
On 2010-12-03, Alan McKinnon wrote: > Apparently, though unproven, at 00:37 on Saturday 04 December 2010, Grant > Edwards did opine thusly: > >> On 2010-12-03, David W Noon wrote: >> > What you are seeing is a lot of glibc routines being included by the >> > linkage editor. These handle all sorts of conditions that will >> > likely never occur in your program. >> > >> > Try using a smaller C library, like uclibc or klibc. They might not >> > work as well, but they will give you a smaller executable. >> > >> > Alternatively, try rewriting your code in assembler. >> >> For various reasons (which I doubt anybody cares about), gritting my >> teeth and living with the 520K per application looks like a more >> practical solution that either using assembler or a different libc. >> >> In practice, I'm sure nobody but me will ever even notice (or care >> even if they did notice) the wasted 2MB on a 25MB liveCD. But it will >> still bug me. :/ > > That's 8% of your space resources. It's closer to 0.5%. My space resources are 700MB on the CD and probably at least 512MB of RAM. Right now I'm using up about 22MB of the space on the CD, and less than that in RAM. By the time I'm done, it will probably be around 25MB. Anything that boots from a single CD in under 15 seconds and runs in 512MB of RAM or more will be fine. The difference between 23MB and 25MB really won't be noticable. > Many more than just you will notice and care and whinge loudly. > Probably including me. Well, I think you'd find it pretty useless no matter how small/fast it was. The only thing it's able to do is production test and diagnostics for a family of PCI boards I support. > It might be worth the effort to switch to a libc designed for the > sort of task you want to accomplish. I assume you already made the > effort with busybox or similar, it's much the same viewpoint. Sort of. I'm using busybox, but the "base" of my CD is generated by a shellscript that strips down a systemrescuecd ISO image to the bare essesntials (basically just what's required to run a 7MB initrd image containing busybox). Then I add my three or four static applications to that. We used to build our own CD from scratch, but that build process was fragile and hard to maintain. The CD doesn't even have network support or drivers for any block devices except a ramdisk (no SCSI, SATA, ATA, and so on). The only filesystem it supports is cramfs. I ripped out USB support also, but then had to put enough of it back in for the USB keyboards on some of the machines where it'll be used. It'll still bug me that those static apps are 90% bloat, but it's just not worth the effort to switch to uClibc or mess with putting my own dynamic libraries onto the CD. -- Grant
[gentoo-user] Minimal kernel tree for building out-of-tree modules?
After I've built and installed a kernel and the in-tree-modules, is there a way to clean the kernel source/build tree down to the minimal set of files needed to build out-of-tree modules? I think you would end up with the same files that you would have after doing "make modules_prepare" in a clean source tree with the addition of the Module.symvers file. -- Grant
[gentoo-user] Re: Minimal kernel tree for building out-of-tree modules?
On 2010-12-10, Grant Edwards wrote: > After I've built and installed a kernel and the in-tree-modules, is > there a way to clean the kernel source/build tree down to the minimal > set of files needed to build out-of-tree modules? > > I think you would end up with the same files that you would have > after doing "make modules_prepare" in a clean source tree with the > addition of the Module.symvers file. BTW, I did find where the kernel's top Makefile says: @echo 'Cleaning targets:' @echo ' clean - Remove most generated files but keep the config and' @echo ' enough build support to build external modules' Unfortunately, that's not true. Trying to build an external module fails because linux/bounds.h is missing. :/ I guess you just have to do a "make modules_prepare". -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! UH-OH!! We're out at of AUTOMOBILE PARTS and gmail.comRUBBER GOODS!
[gentoo-user] Re: How to configure thochpad sensitivity (using hal)?
On 2010-11-19, Mick wrote: That only works if you're using the synaptics driver -- which I'm not. I haven't figured out how to do that yet. It was built, since I included it in INPUT_DEVICES, but HAL decided not to use it. >>> >>> What does your Xorg.0.log say about synaptics? > >> $ grep -i synaptic /var/log/Xorg.0.log >> (II) config/hal: Adding input device SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad > > Excellent! It seems then that HAL picks up your touchpad and uses it. [...] > # touch /etc/hal/fdi/policy/11-x11-synaptics.fdi > > and paste this in it: > > > > > > synaptics [ synaptic driver options] > > > > > Then see the examples in the file and man synaptics for finely tuning your > touchpad. However ... I would at this stage suggest again that you have a > look at xorg-server-1.9.x instead of trying to get HAL working. Brilliant. After tweaking a few of the pressure settings, my touchpad works great! The hard part is remembering to restart hald as well as the X server whenever you make any changes... -- Grant
[gentoo-user] Re: Questions about SATA and hot plugging.
On 2010-12-15, Andrea Conti wrote: >> E-SATA != SATA > > Nah. They are *exactly* the same. Not according to Wikipedia -- it says the electrical specs for eSATA are different than the specs for "normal" SATA. I've seen that stated in other places as well. I don't have copies of the two specs, so I can't say I'm 100%, but I believe the Wikipedia page. -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! I'm a fuschia bowling at ball somewhere in Brittany gmail.com
[gentoo-user] Re: Questions about SATA and hot plugging.
On 2010-12-16, Mark Knecht wrote: > Your cables are perfect for internal drives. Keep in mind that the > internal connectors are only spec'ed for 50 insertions in their > lifetime. In my experience, the real lifetime is closer to 5. In 25 years of dealing with computer cabling and connectors, the surface-mount internal SATA connectors on motherboards are by far the most fragile ones I've ever come across. In years and years of dealing with SCSI, IDE/ATA, floppies, and several flavors of MFM and RLL cabling, I don't ever remember one of them breaking. I've seen quite a few internal motherboard SATA connectors break -- or even get pulled off the board. And it's not just me, I've seen other people break them just as much. IMO, they're gargabe. Other than the fragile surface-mount connectors, I do like SATA. OTOH, back when a decent PC cost you $5K, a few dollars on a good connector wasn't a big deal. These days when you have to build a Motherboard for $20, you just can't put $5 worth of connectors on it. > They aren't made to be messed with very much. Very true. -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! Boys, you have ALL at been selected to LEAVE th' gmail.comPLANET in 15 minutes!!
[gentoo-user] Re: OT: Combining two MoBos...
On 2011-01-12, meino.cra...@gmx.de wrote: > > Hi, > > this is a shot/question into the dark: > > Suppose I would have two identical motherboards (desktop), both identical > equipped with a multi-core CPU each (AMD). > > Two questions: > 1: Is it possible to run one of the boards without a graphics card? That depends on the board. > 2: Can I "combine" both (how?) to use the power of both for rendering >purposes? Yes. Use any of the available parallel-programming libaries: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_programming_model -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! I'm meditating on at the FORMALDEHYDE and the gmail.comASBESTOS leaking into my PERSONAL SPACE!!
[gentoo-user] Re: A tiny titillating taste of grub2
On 2011-01-12, Neil Bothwick wrote: > On Wed, 12 Jan 2011 21:33:02 +, Stroller wrote: > >> > No longer updated can mean broken, but it can also mean finished. >> >> Boot to BTFS filesystems? > > Finished != complete Maybe not on the right hand side of the pond, but here in the US finished == complete. If you look in the Merriam-Webster dictionaly under "finished" both "completed" and "complete" are listed as synonyms. -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! Are the STEWED PRUNES at still in the HAIR DRYER? gmail.com
[gentoo-user] Re: A tiny titillating taste of grub2
On 2011-01-12, Alan McKinnon wrote: > Grant Edwards did opine thusly: >> On 2011-01-12, Neil Bothwick wrote: >> > On Wed, 12 Jan 2011 21:33:02 +, Stroller wrote: >> >>> No longer updated can mean broken, but it can also mean finished. >> >> >> >> Boot to BTFS filesystems? >> > >> > Finished != complete >> >> Maybe not on the right hand side of the pond, but here in the US >> finished == complete. If you look in the Merriam-Webster dictionaly >> under "finished" both "completed" and "complete" are listed as >> synonyms. > > Dictionaries document current usage and current usage sucks. The > right hand side of the pond invented English so maybe you should call > your language "American", but we have dibs on English :-) OK, I'll cite the OED: finished adjective (of an action, activity, or piece of work ) having been completed or ended. > Finished and complete and not the same, they are just similar. According to the OED they're the same. I checked both "us english" and "world english" versions. You and Humpty Dumpty are free to make up your own meanings, but doings so seems rather counter-productive if your goal is to actually communicate with others. > Complete is pretty much an absolute. Something is complete, it is done, > nothing more can be added, nothing can be removed. > > Finished is a lower grade of that, a part can be finished and the whole is > still incomplete. Citations? -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! Either CONFESS now or at we go to "PEOPLE'S COURT"!! gmail.com
[gentoo-user] Re: A tiny titillating taste of grub2
On 2011-01-13, Dale wrote: > Neil Bothwick wrote: >> On Wed, 12 Jan 2011 17:32:32 -0600, Dale wrote: >> >> >>> That was my point earlier. With computers changing, nothing will ever >>> be finished. There will always be something that has to be added in as >>> new things come out. I still wonder where computers will be in say 10 >>> or 20 years. >>> >> If you'd asked that 10 or 20 years ago, the answer, as far as booting >> is concerned, would have been "exactly the same as now". > So we don't have new and faster processors? Larger hard drives? > Faster DVD type media? More memory that is usable? How do those things impact grub? Do bigger drives and more ram require that grub be changed somehow? Does a faster processor with more cores require grub be changed? > I can think of a LOT of things that have changed in just the past ten > years. So can I, but how many of them have impacted grub's requirements? -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! But was he mature at enough last night at the gmail.comlesbian masquerade?
[gentoo-user] Re: why always display this when kernel start
On 2011-01-14, Mick wrote: > On 14 January 2011 13:41, Dale wrote: >> doherty pete wrote: >> >> when?kernel?start?,display?this >> Your system seems to be missing critical device files >> in /dev ! ?Although you may be running udev or devfs, >> the root partition is missing these required files ! >> To rectify this situation, please do the following: >> mkdir /mnt/fixit ... > This problem was created because Pete did not follow to the letter > the handbook, which advises to mount -o bind /dev /mnt/gentoo/dev, or > if he did, he did not untar the stage 3 fs properly, or if he used a > stage 4 tar file he did not create the necessary /dev files manually. When I had the /mnt/fixit problem a couple years ago, it was indeed because I had accidentally skipped a step in the install process. I won't swear 100% that it was the "mount -o bind /dev /mnt/gentoo/dev" step, but that does sound familiar.
[gentoo-user] Re: why always display this when kernel start
On 2011-01-15, doherty pete wrote: > i tried,but it no effect. What, exactly, did you try? The step you didn't do (or didn't do correclty) was during the install. Did you re-do the install from the beginning and make sure that step was done properly? -- Grant
[gentoo-user] How to mask xfce 4.8?
My last update bumped XFCE to 4.8, and I quickly learned that it's got some serious bugs. So, I need to roll back to whatever the prevous version was. How do I tell portage to not use 4.8? I tried adding this line in /etc/portage/package.mask: >=xfce-base/xfce4-meta-4.8 But that does nothing. Do I have to individually mask all 20+ components of XFCE? -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! Jesus is my POSTMASTER at GENERAL ... gmail.com
[gentoo-user] Re: How to mask xfce 4.8?
On 2011-01-18, Grant Edwards wrote: > My last update bumped XFCE to 4.8, and I quickly learned that it's > got some serious bugs. So, I need to roll back to whatever the > prevous version was. How do I tell portage to not use 4.8? > > I tried adding this line in /etc/portage/package.mask: > > >=xfce-base/xfce4-meta-4.8 > > But that does nothing. Do I have to individually mask all 20+ > components of XFCE? I think XFCE 4.8 was given "stable" status prematurely. Quoting one of the XFCE apps when asked by a user if it was time to upgrade to 4.8: Although we've made a lot of development releases; during 4.8.0 the code gets some real testing. So unless something is 4.6 that bothers you is broken that should've been resolved in 4.8, it's better to wait a bit until 4.8.1 or .2. Trying to roll XFCE back to a version that works is also proving to be difficult... -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! Gibble, Gobble, we at ACCEPT YOU ... gmail.com
