[opensuse-factory] Where Is The Factory Boot CD Image?

[Randall R Schulz]

Hi,

I have successfully installed 10.2 Alpha5 on a new system. With the 
exception of one of its two (different) Marvel Ethernet interfaces 
being unrecognized (and the known issues), it's working fairly well.

Now I'm considering installing factory packages. According to 
 there is a network install 
option and I'd like to give this a try. It refers to a boot CD image 
that is used to start the system up and perform network installs:

-==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==-
Workflow for the Internet Installation

   1. Download the boot CD image from the table below
   2. Burn the boot CD image.
   3. Boot your computer from the boot CD.
   4. Point the YaST installer to the installation repository (by 
pressing F3 and then F4)
   5. Install SUSE Linux.
-==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==-


Unfortunately, I cannot find the boot CD image--I can't even find 
the "table below."

Can someone point me to the boot CD image?


Thanks.

Randall Schulz
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Re: [opensuse-factory] Where Is The Factory Boot CD Image?

[Randall R Schulz]

Eberhard,

On Thursday 12 October 2006 07:19, Eberhard Moenkeberg wrote:
> ...
> >
> > Can someone point me to the boot CD image?
>
> http://ftp-1.gwdg.de/pub/opensuse/distribution/SL-OSS-factory/inst-so
>urce/boot/boot.iso
>
> 24 hours young.

Thanks.

Now, a follow-up question:

I downloaded, burned and booted that disc. I pointed it (via F4 -> FTP) 
at the FTP mirror at mirrors.kernel.org.

As I noted on the openSUSE Wiki page 
, to use the Marvell 88E8001 
Ethernet interface, you have to override the default (and blacklisted) 
sklin98 module with skge.

So my question is: How do I perform the equivalent assignment or loading 
of skge so the network hardware can be accessed? Is there a kernel 
command-line option?


> Cheers -e

> Eberhard Moenkeberg ([EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED])


Thanks again.

Randall Schulz
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Re: [opensuse-factory] Where Is The Factory Boot CD Image?

[Randall R Schulz]

Carl-Daniel,

On Thursday 12 October 2006 11:22, Carl-Daniel Hailfinger wrote:
> Randall R Schulz wrote:
> > As I noted on the openSUSE Wiki page
> > <http://en.opensuse.org/HCL/Desktops/Asus>, to use the Marvell
> > 88E8001 Ethernet interface, you have to override the default (and
> > blacklisted) sklin98 module with skge.
>
> sk98lin should have been dropped some time ago. No idea why that
> didn't happen. Maybe open a bug to get that sorted out.

It looks like someone already filed this one, which covers my situation 
exactly:

- Bug #180821
- <https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=180821>

"During first phase of installation setup assigned properly forcedeth 
module to PHY controller ICS1883AF so I could install software. During 
second step (post first reboot) installer assigned skge module to 
nvidia PHY controller ICS1883AF. On the first occasion during second 
step network controller configuration, I dod not check settings 
(because these were correct for the first step of installation and 
network worked). After second reboot, network failed, home partition 
was not loaded (missing hostname). I had run Yast from command line and 
corrected module selection on PHY controller ICS1883AF from skge to 
forcedeth, mounted home partition and reboot system. This time all 
worked."


This is pretty much what happened to me with my Asus P5B. Instead of 
using YaST to fix the problem, I edited a system configuration file 
in /etc/sysconfig/hardware/.


> Regards,
> Carl-Daniel


Randall Schulz
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[opensuse-factory] SPAM: I Have The Strangest Feeling I'm Being Watched

[Randall R Schulz]

... Or "XEyes Meets the Geeko"


OK, whose idea was it to make the Geeko's eyes follow the mouse around 
the screen?


RRS
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[opensuse-factory] Hardware Support: Marvell 88E8056

[Randall R Schulz]

Hi,

Can anyone help me activate the Marvel 88E8056 gigabit Ethernet
controller on my system? It does not seem to be recognized:

Here are two pertinent entries of "lspci" output:

% lspci -vv
...
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. Unknown device 4364 
(rev 12)
Subsystem: SysKonnect Unknown device 4340
Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- 
Stepping- SERR- FastB2B-
Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- SERR- TAbort- 
SERR- 

[opensuse-factory] Hardware Support: JMicron JMB363 (w/ Intel P965 Chipset)

[Randall R Schulz]

Hi,

I have a nice new Asus P5B mainboard (please, no chastising me for
choosing a board from a Linux-hostile vendor) that is, for the most
part, running 10.2a5 successfully. However, that's so only because I had
the brilliant, though completely serendipitous, idea to put one IDE
optical drive and one SATA optical drive in my system. Fortunately, the
SATA drive made installation possible while the JMicron-controlled
IDE/ATA bus with its lonely optical drive remains shut out.

And that is the subject my question. How do I get access to the IDE bus?

My on-line research indicates that the 2.6.18 kernel should be able to
access this device (see the very long thread in the Ubuntu bug forum at

and the Linux kernel commit log entry at
).
Apparently there was a bug in an earlier kernel that rendered the
JMicron controller inaccessible when it was paired with the Intel P965
chipset (which itself includes no legacy IDE support at all, only SATA).

One thing I find odd is that this device shows up and is properly
identified in the output of "lspci -vv":

03:00.0 IDE interface: JMicron Technologies, Inc. JMicron 20360/20363 AHCI 
Controller (rev 02) (prog-if 85 [Master SecO PriO])
Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Unknown device 81e4
Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- 
Stepping- SERR- FastB2B-
Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- SERR- 

Re: [opensuse-factory] Hardware Support: Marvell 88E8056

[Randall R Schulz]

Hello again,

A follow-up to this:

On Sunday 15 October 2006 08:08, Randall R Schulz wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Can anyone help me activate the Marvel 88E8056 gigabit Ethernet
> controller on my system? It does not seem to be recognized:
>
> Here are two pertinent entries of "lspci" output:

% lspci |egrep -i ethernet
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. Unknown device 4364 
(rev 12)
05:04.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8001 Gigabit 
Ethernet Controller (rev 14)


By poking around <http://www.kernel.org/> I discovered a very simple
change to sky2.c in Linux kernel 2.6.19 (-rc2) that enables support for
the 88E8056 as it is identified in current Asus P5B mainboards (and,
probably, others, as well):

<http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=blobdiff;h=8f8799c3f9d16704d07e050e6032f5fc49ba035f;hp=de91609ca11230deb09a772268727c41a9f21aff;hb=5f5d83fdbfb50ffb6f5fbf5fd69bc791d9d5cd20;f=drivers/net/sky2.c>

The diff from this page is:

--- drivers/net/sky2.c
+++ drivers/net/sky2.c
@@ -121,6 +121,7 @@ static const struct pci_device_id sky2_i
{ PCI_DEVICE(PCI_VENDOR_ID_MARVELL, 0x4361) },
{ PCI_DEVICE(PCI_VENDOR_ID_MARVELL, 0x4362) },
{ PCI_DEVICE(PCI_VENDOR_ID_MARVELL, 0x4363) },
+ { PCI_DEVICE(PCI_VENDOR_ID_MARVELL, 0x4364) },
{ 0 }
};


It seems this change will allow this Ethernet controller to be activated.


I'm uncertain about how openSUSE works. Should I file a bug report to
get this change back-ported to the kernel being used by openSUSE for
10.2? Or is kernel 2.6.19 the ultimate version for 10.2? And if so, will
this change be present no later than the final release of 10.2?


Randall Schulz
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Re: [opensuse-factory] Hardware Support: JMicron JMB363 (w/ Intel P965 Chipset)

[Randall R Schulz]

Hi, Marcus,

On Sunday 15 October 2006 10:06, Marcus Camen wrote:
> On Sunday 15 October 2006 17:08, Randall R Schulz wrote:
> > Does anyone know if the JMicron JMB363 controller is actually
> > supported by the kernel and driver complement of 10.2a5? If so,
> > what must I do to render it operable?
>
> WFM with Asus P5B and kernel-default-2.6.18-5 (stolen a few weeks ago
> from factory). I don't need any special tricks to get it running.

Odd. As root:

% uname -a
Linux smiley 2.6.18-9-bigsmp #1 SMP Mon Oct 2 23:27:41 UTC 2006 i686 i686 i386 
GNU/Linux
%
% dmesg |egrep -i JM
%
% egrep -i JM /var/log/messages
%
% bzcat messages-20061015.bz2 |egrep JM
%

hwinfo --cdrom shows only my Plextor SATA drive.


Is this a regression in 2.6.18-9?


> --
> Marcus


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Re: [opensuse-factory] Hardware Support: JMicron JMB363 (w/ Intel P965 Chipset)

[Randall R Schulz]

Marcus,

On Sunday 15 October 2006 11:09, Marcus Camen wrote:
> On Sunday 15 October 2006 19:41, Randall R Schulz wrote:
> > Is this a regression in 2.6.18-9?
>
> No, 2.6.18-11 does also work. I think I have enabled AHCI for the JM
> IDE controller in the BIOS settings.

Hurrah! And thank you.

Actually, I thought I'd tried this already, but what I didn't realize 
was that I'd changed the ICH8 SATA from IDE emulation to AHCI. I had 
overlooked the JMicron setting in a separate BIOS screen. When I change 
the ICH8 setting from IDE to AHCI, the system will not boot at all. I 
just see the BIOS boot screen, with nothing but a flashing underscore 
cursor. But if I put the ICH8 SATA setting back to IDE and change the 
JMicron to AHCI, I can boot from the IDE ATAPI drive (using the SuSE 
boot disc and ultimately booting the SCSI hard drive where the root 
file system resides). And I can see (as in hwinfo) and access (as in 
YaST Software Management, e.g.) that drive from the running system.


> I use
>   [EMAIL PROTECTED] ~ $ grep ^INITRD_MODULES /etc/sysconfig/kernel
>   INITRD_MODULES="ahci generic fan reiserfs edd"

% grep ^INITRD_MODULES /etc/sysconfig/kernel
INITRD_MODULES="processor thermal ahci ata_piix generic mptspi fan 
reiserfs edd"


> For the disks I'm also using AHCI mode.

Out of curiosity (only, since I've achieved what I want based on your 
advice) I wonder if these hard drives are on the ICH8 SATA buses or the 
JMicron SATA buses?


> --
> Marcus


Again, thanks for the advice.

Randall Schulz
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Re: [opensuse-factory] Hardware Support: Marvell 88E8056

[Randall R Schulz]

Klaus,

On Monday 16 October 2006 00:06, Klaus Kaempf wrote:
> * Randall R Schulz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [Oct 15. 2006 18:18]:
> [...]
>
> > By poking around <http://www.kernel.org/> I discovered a very
> > simple change to sky2.c in Linux kernel 2.6.19 (-rc2) that enables
> > support for the 88E8056 as it is identified in current Asus P5B
> > mainboards (and, probably, others, as well):
>
> [...]
>
> > + { PCI_DEVICE(PCI_VENDOR_ID_MARVELL, 0x4364) },
>
> If its just an additional PCI id, ...

Yes, clearly.

> this can be passed to the driver at runtime.

How is that done? I haven't been able to find a comprehensive 
specification or list of kernel command-line options. Or do you mean it 
can be done even after the system is running?


> IIRC, there is even a YaST dialog for this.

Really? Do you know how or where this is done? I thought I'd been 
through the whole thing (at least everything relevant to networking), 
but I must have overlooked that one.


> Klaus


Thanks for the information.

Randall Schulz
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Re: [opensuse-factory] Hardware Support: Marvell 88E8056

[Randall R Schulz]

Juan,

On Monday 16 October 2006 10:09, Juan Erbes wrote:
> You has the Ethernet controller enabled in the bios?
> ...

I have much more than that... Now.

I just applied the patch to the sky2.c driver code and rebuilt my kernel 
modules. Now I have two active Ethernet controllers, one for the wild 
Internet and one for my internal network.

However, I have not been able to find the details of how to use the 
new_id files in /sys/bus/... If anyone can point me to that, I'd like 
to possess the knowledge.


Randall Schulz
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Re: [opensuse-factory] Hardware Support: Marvell 88E8056

[Randall R Schulz]

On Monday 16 October 2006 10:27, Juan Erbes wrote:
> 2006/10/16, Randall R Schulz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> > Juan,
> >
> > On Monday 16 October 2006 10:09, Juan Erbes wrote:
> > > You has the Ethernet controller enabled in the bios?
> > > ...
> >
> > I have much more than that... Now.
> >
> > I just applied the patch to the sky2.c driver code and rebuilt my
> > kernel modules. Now I have two active Ethernet controllers, one for
> > the wild Internet and one for my internal network.
> >
> > ...
>
> My ethernet module driver is sk98lin.
> My ethernet chip is 3com3C940

sk98lin is blacklisted! Check in "/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist". But upon 
initial installation, that's the driver that was selected for my other 
Ethernet controller, a Marvell 88E8001, which rendered it inoperable.


> It appears that You has other chip.

Yes. The subject of this thread does make it explicit...


RRS
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Re: [opensuse-factory] Factory source for Internet installation

[Randall R Schulz]

Felix,

On Monday 16 October 2006 17:13, Felix Miata wrote:
> ...
>
> Note that you need not download even the mini iso if your
> installation target already has a working grub. All you need is the
> linux and initrd from the appropriate boot/*/loader directory placed
> where a grub stanza can find it.

This is good to know, but lacks sufficient detail to be put to use. 
Could you either explain how to create or modify this "stanza" or point 
us to the relevant on-line documentation?

Thanks.

Randall Schulz
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Re: [opensuse-factory] Factory source for Internet installation

[Randall R Schulz]

Rajko,

On Monday 16 October 2006 22:11, Rajko M wrote:
> On Monday 16 October 2006 20:11, Randall R Schulz wrote:
> > Felix,
> >
> > On Monday 16 October 2006 17:13, Felix Miata wrote:
> > > ...
> > >
> > > Note that you need not download even the mini iso if your
> > > installation target already has a working grub. All you need is
> > > the linux and initrd from the appropriate boot/*/loader directory
> > > placed where a grub stanza can find it.
> >
> > This is good to know, but lacks sufficient detail to be put to use.
> > Could you either explain how to create or modify this "stanza" or
> > point us to the relevant on-line documentation?
> >
> > Thanks.
>
> Is this what you meant:
> http://en.opensuse.org/Installation_without_CD
>
> title
> #Installing_from_data_saved_on_your_local_machine

That and #Grub, I guess.

But I think I'm still missing something, because I understand "Network 
Install" to mean that I don't need to first download anything (not any 
packages, anyway), but rather that the installer will access the 
network directly to retrieve packages.

But I suppose it's moot for me at this point, since I have a functioning 
10.2a5 (w/ some subsequent updates) already in place and YaST is 
working well, though some of the servers are clearly overtaxed (I'm 
making do with mirrors.kernel.org for the time being, even though it's 
been reported that it's tardy in syncing new releases).


Randall Schulz
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[opensuse-factory] Printing From Java Applications: "No print service found."

[Randall R Schulz]

Hi,

I am unable to print from Java applications. Both jEdit (programmer's 
editor) and  (XML editor) report "No print service found." 
when printing is attempted (this is true for both the "Page Setup" 
and "Print" commands). Eclipse does not enable its Print command.

I have configured a remote CUPS printer and can successfully print to 
that printer from other applications.

I could find no tool for configuring a Java print service (I looked in 
the Java plug-in and JWS / JNLP configuration tools but found nothing 
relevant to printer configurations in either of them).

Am I overlooking some necessary configuration, or is this probably a 
bug? Has anyone else been able to print successfully from Java 
applications? If so, did you have to do anything special (beyond 
setting up a printer)?


Thanks.


Randall Schulz
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Re: [opensuse-factory] Printing From Java Applications: "No print service found."

[Randall R Schulz]

Johannes,

On Wednesday 18 October 2006 01:05, Johannes Meixner wrote:
> Hello,
>
> On Oct 17 10:50 Randall R Schulz wrote (shortened):
> > I am unable to print from Java applications ...
> > ... report "No print service found."
>
> https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=197490

That report appears to be one that will not be acted on (it's marked 
invalid because it was reported against 10.0). Will the symptom in 10.2 
be fixed, or should I file a new report? CUPS 1.2 is what's provided 
with 10.2 alpha, so the objections noted there (by you) don't seem to 
hold for this release of openSUSE, do they?


> Johannes Meixner


Randall Schulz
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Re: [opensuse-factory] Printing From Java Applications: "No print service found."

[Randall R Schulz]

Johannes,

On Wednesday 18 October 2006 07:43, Johannes Meixner wrote:
> Hello,
>
> On Oct 18 07:03 Randall R Schulz wrote (shortened):
> > On Wednesday 18 October 2006 01:05, Johannes Meixner wrote:
> > > On Oct 17 10:50 Randall R Schulz wrote (shortened):
> > > > I am unable to print from Java applications ...
> > > > ... report "No print service found."
> > >
> > > https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=197490
> >
> > That report appears to be one that will not be acted on (it's
> > marked invalid because it was reported against 10.0). Will the
> > symptom in 10.2 be fixed, or should I file a new report?
>
> Please file a bug report regarding Java for openSUSE 10.2.

Done. Bug #213362 <https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=213362>


> Johannes Meixner


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[opensuse-factory] Factory Woes

[Randall R Schulz]

Hi,

Many of the mirrors do not carry the openSUSE factory. Those that do
appear to have mirrored a problem. To wit:

http://linux.nssl.noaa.gov/opensuse/distribution/SL-OSS-factory/inst-source
Can't provide /suse/setup/descr/packages.sk from 
http://linux.nssl.noaa.gov/opensuse/distribution/SL-OSS-factory/inst-source


Gwdg.de is so vastly overburdened as to be worthless.

What's an early adopter to do?


Randall Schulz
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[opensuse-factory] How-To: Alpha5 -> Beta1 Upgrade

[Randall R Schulz]

Hi,

I've never done an upgrade installation before on any of my SuSE 
installations. This time, because I installed Alpha5 on a brand new 
machine that is not (yet) mission critical, I was thinking of trying an 
upgrade.

My question is: How do I do this? Do I use the YaST "System Update" from 
the running system? Do I boot from the Beta1 DVD and install over the 
existing system? Something else?


Pointers to information resources are welcome, of course.


Thanks.

Randall Schulz
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Re: [opensuse-factory] How-To: Alpha5 -> Beta1 Upgrade

[Randall R Schulz]

Hello again,

On Thursday 26 October 2006 12:26, Randall R Schulz wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I've never done an upgrade installation before on any of my SuSE
> installations. This time, because I installed Alpha5 on a brand new
> machine that is not (yet) mission critical, I was thinking of trying
> an upgrade.
>
> My question is: How do I do this? Do I use the YaST "System Update"
> from the running system? Do I boot from the Beta1 DVD and install
> over the existing system? Something else?

I launched the YaST "System Update" module with the Beta1 DVD in the 
drive. After moment of "analyzing..." it told me the product on the 
installation media was not compatible with the running system. I told 
it to continue and the initial installation proposal lists:

- 1389 packages to update
- 26 packages to install
- 2 packages to remove

On the "Update Options" page it says "Update from Non-Linux system 
to ? ?". (For the record, I have a mostly stock 10.2 Alpha5 
installation running.)


If I proceed with this, am I likely to have problems?


Randall Schulz
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[opensuse-factory] Font Rendering in Beta1

[Randall R Schulz]

Hi,

I went ahead and did an upgrade. It appeared to come off without 
incident.


I'm not pleased that Firefox was switched out from under me when the 
themes and extensions are not yet ready. The new TabMix Plus gloms all 
my windows into a single, overloaded window when it restores a session, 
e.g. This is quite onerous. Presumably it's a bug that the extension's 
author will fix before the final release is made.


What's more troubling is the fact that something has changed with font 
rendering and it's a degradation.

With identical font configuration (in the KDE Control Center), my 10.0 
installation is clearly superior in an A-B comparison. This was not so 
under Alpha5, where they were indistinguishable.

Does anyone know what might be different in this configuration? Fonts 
that rendered very clearly under Alpha5 now show unmistakable artifacts 
that considerably reduce their legibility and attractiveness. Is it 
possible the hint interpreter has been disabled and the simple-minded 
anti-aliasing has been substituted? If so, I'll go on record saying 
that this is a bad idea, since the TrueType hinting is far superior to 
anti-aliasing.


Randall Schulz
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Re: [opensuse-factory] Font Rendering in Beta1

[Randall R Schulz]

Felix,

On Thursday 26 October 2006 20:54, Felix Miata wrote:
> ...
> >
> > I second the font issue... Alpha 5 had beautiful font rendering,
> > unfortunately Beta 1 is really really bad...  I even tried a brand
> > new account to see if wiping all the settings would help and it
> > didn't.  Oh and I'm using Gnome so apparently its not limited to
> > just one environment...
>
> On http://mrmazda.no-ip.com/auth/Font/fonts-face-index-full.html I
> don't see a significant difference. I'm running 1400x1050 ATM on
> factory, 1600x1200 normally on 10.0. What are you guys running?




I picked Verdana for this test, though it does not show as stark a 
difference as some fonts I use routinely.


I also had the X server act up when I went to make the 10.2b5 sample. 
First it started killing Firefox (2.0) and then, when I tried creating 
a new Firefox profile, the X server itself crashed, taking my login 
session with it, of course. I logged in again and was able to create 
the sample, but clearly there's something unstable about the 10.2b1 X 
software.


Randall Schulz
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Re: [opensuse-factory] Font Rendering in Beta1

[Randall R Schulz]

Hi,

On Thursday 26 October 2006 23:57, Felix Miata wrote:
> On 06/10/26 22:30 (GMT-0700) Randall R Schulz apparently typed:
> > <http://64.142.14.4/~rschulz/font-verdana.6-11pt.SuSE10.2b1.png>
>
> Object not found!

Sorry. Try now:

<http://64.142.14.4/~rschulz/font-verdana.6-10pt.SuSE10.0.png>
<http://64.142.14.4/~rschulz/font-verdana.6-10pt.SuSE10.2b1.png>

(Note: The names changed, use these links.)


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Re: [opensuse-factory] Font Rendering in Beta1

[Randall R Schulz]

Joel,

On Friday 27 October 2006 01:16, Joel Wampler wrote:
> I don't have an earlier screenshot, but here's how mine look now:
>http://www.iwamp.com/suse/10.2UglyFonts.png
>
> Its like the auto hinter has gone haywire and is adding extra
> thickness to the lines of the fonts or something.  The lowercase u in
> the first firefox tab is a great example.

Yes. That describes what I'm seeing, too. Some fonts are actually much 
worse than the Verdana sample I posted.


> ...
>
> Thanks!
> Joel W.


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Re: [opensuse-factory] Font Rendering in Beta1

[Randall R Schulz]

Stephan,

On Friday 27 October 2006 01:24, Stephan Kulow wrote:
> ...
>
> Yes, we have a new freetype and its authors worked heavily on the
> auto hinter. Your bug reports are welcome at bugzilla.novell.com

Unless they can recover the previous release's quality before 10.2 
final, I'm going to be very upset by this. Font rendering quality is a 
key characteristic for me. (It's far more important to me than, say, 3D 
performance, e.g.)

I spend a lot of time choosing fonts and rendering options in KDE and 
individual applications so get optimal quality. Lowering the quality 
system-wide is, to me, a bad, bad thing. What motivated replacing what 
seemed to me to be a fine implementation?


> Greetings, Stephan


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Re: [opensuse-factory] Font Rendering in Beta1

[Randall R Schulz]

Stephan,

On Friday 27 October 2006 07:27, Stephan Kulow wrote:
> Am Freitag, 27. Oktober 2006 16:20 schrieb Randall R Schulz:
> > What motivated replacing what seemed to me to be a fine
> > implementation?
>
> I bet you should subscribe to the freetype mailing list and make
> useful suggestions like this there? Make sure you read the arguments
> of those in bug#170067 first though.

Is that a SuSE FreeType list, or a global one?

I've read bugs 170076 and 186109 (well, so far I've just skimmed 
186109--there's a lot of information there).

If I can get the old behavior by tweaking /etc/fonts/suse-hinting.conf 
and / or /etc/sysconfig/fonts-config, I will. If I can get the old 
quality by recompiling FreeType, I will (I did just that to enable the 
so-called "byte code interpreter" under 9.3, I think it was).

I will do absolutely anything in my power to get the best possible font 
rendering. It is the single most important usability issue for me on 
any system.


> Greetings, Stephan


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Re: [opensuse-factory] Font Rendering in Beta1

[Randall R Schulz]

Mike,

On Friday 27 October 2006 09:03, Mike FABIAN wrote:
> Randall R Schulz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> さんは書きました:
> > If I can get the old behavior by tweaking
> > /etc/fonts/suse-hinting.conf and / or /etc/sysconfig/fonts-config,
> > I will. If I can get the old quality by recompiling FreeType, I
> > will (I did just that to enable the so-called "byte code
> > interpreter" under 9.3, I think it was).
>
> If you prefer the byte code interpreter, why do you use the
> autohinter?

Eh? I'm reporting on a change that occurred between Alpha5 and Beta1. I 
didn't choose one or the other in either case. It's a degradation of 
quality in an installed system that was upgraded.


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Re: [opensuse-factory] Font Rendering in Beta1

[Randall R Schulz]

On Friday 27 October 2006 09:00, Mike FABIAN wrote:
> ...
> >
> > 
> > 
> >
> > (Note: The names changed, use these links.)
>
> I still get a 404 on the second URL.

Sorry. It's fixed for real, now.


RRS
-- 
P.S. Would you consider removing the Reply-To header from you list 
postings?
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Re: [opensuse-factory] Font Rendering in Beta1

[Randall R Schulz]

Felix,

On Friday 27 October 2006 09:30, Felix Miata wrote:
> ...
>
> > 
> > 
> >
> > I picked Verdana for this test, though it does not show as stark a
> > difference as some fonts I use routinely.
> >
> > ...
>
> I find the vastly superior kerning of the latter overwhelms any other
> difference there might be.

For me the sharpness of the 10.0 (and 10.2Alpha5) is by far the 
overriding factor. I need to use small fonts when programming and in 
general want to get as much textual information on the screen as 
possible.


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Re: [opensuse-factory] Font Rendering in Beta1

[Randall R Schulz]

Mike,

On Friday 27 October 2006 09:53, Mike FABIAN wrote:
> ...
> >
> > Most likely I will make rendering with the byte code interpreter
> > the default for certain list of fonts where it obviously gives
> > superior results.
>
> To test how it looks like using the byte code interpreter,
> put the following in your ~/.fonts.conf file:
>
> 
>
>  [...]
>
>  
>   
>false
>   
>  
>
>
>  [...]
>
> 

These elements existed previously (clearly created by the Fonts module 
of the KDE Control Center). Should I replace them with the ones you 
gave, or add your to these? If the latter, does ordering matter?

 
  
   rgb
  
 
 
  
   true
  
 
 
  
   hintmedium
  
 
 
  
   true
  
 


> But there are fonts (though not Verdana) which look better if the
> autohinter is used. Therefore switching the autohinter off always as
> in the above example is not a perfect solution either.

I'm more than willing to refine the configuration as much as required. 
I'm a fanatic about getting fonts the way I want them (I'll refrain 
from saying "right," since there clearly are subjective factors in this 
matter).

Where are the various configuration files documented? I think I'm going 
to need to know all about them.


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Re: [opensuse-factory] Font Rendering in Beta1

[Randall R Schulz]

Mike,

On Friday 27 October 2006 09:53, Mike FABIAN wrote:
> ...
>
> 
>
>  [...]
>
>  
>   
>false
>   
>  
>
>
>  [...]
>
> 

When used in place of the elements that were in my ~/.fonts.conf that 
certainly yielded an improvement, but it's not yet as good as what I 
had before.

I'm looking at /etc/fonts/fonts.dtd for an explanation of these 
elements. Is there more documentation elsewhere?


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Re: [opensuse-factory] Font Rendering in Beta1

[Randall R Schulz]

Hi,

On Friday 27 October 2006 07:53, Randall R Schulz wrote:
> On Friday 27 October 2006 07:27, Stephan Kulow wrote:
> > ... Make sure you read the
> > arguments of those in bug#170067 first though.
>
> ...
>
> I've read bugs 170076 and 186109 (well, so far I've just skimmed
> 186109--there's a lot of information there).

<https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=215602> apparently 
addresses the same issue.


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Re: [opensuse-factory] Font Rendering in Beta1

[Randall R Schulz]

Mike,

On Friday 27 October 2006 12:02, Mike FABIAN wrote:
> ...
>
> >  apparently
> > addresses the same issue.
>
> It's related, but it is not the same.
>
> Verdana has good byte code and renders excellently when the
> byte code interpreter is used instead of the autohinter.
>
> The Japanese IPA fonts don't have any byte code at all, when the
> autohinter is not used, the fonts get a blurred appearance.  That is
> very different from the sharp appearance of Verdana when used with
> the byte code interpreter.


Gotcha'


RRS
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Re: [opensuse-factory] Font Rendering in Beta1

[Randall R Schulz]

Mike,

On Friday 27 October 2006 09:41, Mike FABIAN wrote:
> ...
>
> The second screen shot is bolder, yes.
> But it is more consistent.
>
> In your first screen shot, the 'w', 'x', and 'y' in the 11pt
> line are bolder than the other glyphs in that line.

I've added a snapshot of the Verdana sampler using the configuration 
change you suggested:

>  
>   
>false
>   
>  

The complete 10.2b1 ~/.fonts.conf is:

-==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==-
 
 
  
   false
  
 

 
  
   rgb
  
 

 
  
   true
  
 

 
  
   hintfull
  
 

 
  
   true
  
 
-==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==-


Here are the snapshot URLs:





I've added a "sampler" page at:



So I will say that the 10.0 rendering is still distinctly preferable to 
me. The clarity and sharpness of the letterforms (in contrast to their 
faithfulness to the actual outlines that define them) is of paramount 
importance to me. Also you'll note that diagonal strokes tend to 
disappear with your autohint setting where they remain nicely stroked 
in 10.0.


For the record, my 10.0 ~/.fonts.conf is:

-==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==-

 
  
   true
  
 
 
  
   hintfull
  
 
 ~/.fonts

 
  
   rgb
  
 

-==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==-

By the way, if I use this .fonts.conf on 10.2b1, the results are worse 
than any depicted in the sampler.


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Re: [opensuse-factory] Font Rendering in Beta1

[Randall R Schulz]

Mike,

On Saturday 28 October 2006 02:34, Mike FABIAN wrote:
> > ...
> >
> > -==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==-
> >  
> >  
> >   
> >false
> >   
> >  
> >
> > ...
> >
> >  
> >   
> >rgb
> >   
> >  
>
> The last rule above switches on sub-pixel-hinting (rgba is set to
> "rgb").
>
> But when looking at your sampler page one can see that only the SuSE
> 10.0 screen shot uses sub-pixel-hinting, the others do not.  The
> reason is, that the freetype2 package currently in beta1 has disabled
> sub-pixel-hinting at compile time. If sub-pixel-hinting is already
> disabled at compile time in freetype2, it is not possible anymore to
> switch it on with the setup rule above.

Well, why is it compiled out? Will it be restored in the next release?

Remember, in 10.2Alpha5, the results I got were indistinguishable from 
10.0 and much preferred to me over what I have now.


It still seems these changes are gratuitous and capricious.


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Re: [opensuse-factory] About ext3 as default and periodic fs checks

[Randall R Schulz]

Silviu,

On Monday 30 October 2006 07:41, Silviu Marin-Caea wrote:
> The periodic ext3 fs checks at boot are driving me nuts.  I know they
> can be disabled.

What is the check period? How is it measured? In reboot cycles? Calender 
time elapsed since previous check? Some combination of these? Something 
else?


> Couldn't they be performed at shutdown instead of boot?
>
> Whenever someone starts the computer it means 100% they need it right
> then.
>
> Having ext3 perform fs checking on a 300 GB full drive is nothing
> that any user will tolerate easily.
>
> OTOH whenever someone shuts down the computer, there's a 95% chance
> that it doesn't need it right then anymore (it's not a reboot).

The problem I see with that is that when a system starts up, it's in as 
stable and pristine a state as it will ever be. On the other hand, when 
shutting down, it's distinctly more likely that there will be something 
amiss, even in the kernel, and a file system check in such a state 
could do more harm than good.


> ...


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[opensuse-factory] Insatiable zmd

[Randall R Schulz]

Hi,

I've noticed that for the past three hours a process running the 
command "zmd /usr/lib/zmd/zmd.exe --sleep-resume" has been running at a 
CPU consumption rate of about 25%. It seems to be associated with a 
pulse of disk read activity about every 5 seconds (though I'm just 
inferring that from the regular pattern of disk reads shown by GKrellM 
combined with the continuing execution of the zmd process).

I glanced at the man page, whose synopsis states "zmd - The backend 
daemon for the Novell ZENworks Linux Management Agent." 


Is it normal for this process to run on and on like this?


Randall Schulz
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Re: [opensuse-factory] Insatiable zmd

[Randall R Schulz]

Cristian,

On Thursday 02 November 2006 12:27, Cristian Rodriguez R. wrote:
> Randall R Schulz wrote:
> > Is it normal for this process to run on and on like this?
>
> Is expected but not normal...it is just another sign that zmd should
> be "bye,bye" very soon now :-P

Could you clarify a couple of points:

1) Is zmd slated for replacement before 10.2 final arrives?
2) What is the proper way to deal with this? This instance of zmd has 
now been running for 8 hours and has consumed over 120m of CPU time. 
Should I kill it? Is there an init task I should disable to make it go 
away permanently?


> see bug https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=215649 where the
> discussion is.

Yes. Very ... interesting. Not that I've read it all... If I get bored 
enough, perhaps I'll try to take in more of it.


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Re: [opensuse-factory] Insatiable zmd

[Randall R Schulz]

Gaël,

On Friday 03 November 2006 00:22, Gaël Lams wrote:
> "/etc/init.d/novell-zmd stop" should be enough to stop it (+ insserv
> -r novell-zmd)

% /etc/init.d/novell-zmd stop
Shutting down ZENworks Management Daemonfailed

The process is still there, but it is no longer consuming CPU cycles or 
hitting the disk.

What is this thing, anyway?


Randall Schulz
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Re: [opensuse-factory] Insatiable zmd

[Randall R Schulz]

Andreas,

On Friday 03 November 2006 07:07, Andreas Jaeger wrote:
> Martin Schlander <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> > Fredag 03 november 2006 15:16 skrev Andreas Jaeger:
> >> > 1) Is zmd slated for replacement before 10.2 final arrives?
> >>
> >> No, it will be in 10.2.
> >
> > But you can remove it manually. And you will not lose any
> > functionality as zypper and opensuse-updater can replace rug and
> > zen-updater respectively. It seems there will even be a pattern for
> > performing this action.
>
> There will be one starting with beta2 - so it should be easy to do,

Won't you fix this constant running? Surely that cannot be normal 
operation, can it? At this point, it has run up 340 minutes of CPU 
time. What's it doing with this interminable activity?

And if one chooses to remove it, what takes its place and what are the 
consequences of doing so? Can I still use YaST's Software Management 
module to manage my installed packages?


> Andreas


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Re: [opensuse-factory] Insatiable zmd

[Randall R Schulz]

Andreas,

On Friday 03 November 2006 07:47, Andreas Jaeger wrote:
> ...
>
> > Won't you fix this constant running? Surely that cannot be normal
> > operation, can it? At this point, it has run up 340 minutes of CPU
> > time. What's it doing with this interminable activity?
>
> This is a bug - so, please file it with zmd-*log files.

Done. though I could find nothing corresponding to "zmd-* log fiels," so 
I used "other".

Bug 217775: 


> ...
>
> Andreas


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Re: [opensuse-factory] Insatiable zmd

[Randall R Schulz]

Martin,

On Friday 03 November 2006 08:04, Martin Schlander wrote:
> Fredag 03 november 2006 16:15 skrev Randall R Schulz:
> > What is this thing, anyway?
>
> Where have you been for the last 7 months?

Avoiding and ignoring all the brouhaha about the SNAFUs in 10.1, what do 
you think?


> Here you can see the different parts of the packagemanagement in
> default 10.1+10.2
> http://en.opensuse.org/Image:Package-management-in-code10.png

Thanks.

Does it really need to be that complicated? I've been doing software 
developement for a good long time, and redundant databases (RPM has its 
own package database, right?) and multiple fundamental ways to do one 
thing don't strike me as a good idea...

YaST is all I need. Right? What does "rug" and all that ZENWorks stuff 
give me that I didn't have before? I've not felt there was anything 
lacking in SuSE Linux's software management capabilities for the past 
few years.


> And here is how it looks if you replace the zenworks pattern with the
> lightweight packagemanagement pattern on 10.2b2 and onwards:
> http://suse.linuxin.dk/pm102.png

That looks better.


> Martin


Thanks for the pointers.


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Re: [opensuse-factory] openSUSE 10.2 bug prioritization

[Randall R Schulz]

Christoph,

On Saturday 04 November 2006 09:18, Christoph Thiel wrote:
> ...
>
> Therefore, I'd like to ask YOU to help identify those bugs, that are
> currently hiding under the radar (ie. aren't "red") and should be
> elevated. I'd propose posting the bug numbers in this thread + giving
> a short rationale. Please keep in mind that we should try to focus on
> the bugs that really affect a majority of the users!

Where does one see this status indication? And how does one alter or 
influence it?

I surely hope I don't have to live with an X server that dies every 
couple of hours ().

And the beta1 font rendering is pretty poor. I have work-arounds for 
both, but they are not tenable in the long term since they both require 
running alternate versions of packages in place of those that are part 
of the distribution.


> Christoph


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Re: [opensuse-factory] openSUSE 10.2 bug prioritization

[Randall R Schulz]

Stefan,

On Saturday 04 November 2006 10:15, Stefan Dirsch wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 04, 2006 at 09:37:50AM -0800, Randall R Schulz wrote:
> > I surely hope I don't have to live with an X server that dies every
> > couple of hours
> > (<https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=216149>).
>
> Still crashing the last RPM you tried? Please comment in bugzilla.

I've replied there with all the information requested.


> > And the beta1 font rendering is pretty poor. I have work-arounds
> > for both, but they are not tenable in the long term since they both
> > require running alternate versions of packages in place of those
> > that are part of the distribution.
>
> We have
>
> 1) legal (*)
> 2) technical
>
> issues with/when enabling Subpixel hinting.

How is it that you have (2) when I do not by the simple expedient of 
rebuilding the package with the proper configuration change?


> Best regards,
> Stefan
>
> (*) probably resolved since friday


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Re: [opensuse-factory] openSUSE 10.2 bug prioritization

[Randall R Schulz]

On Saturday 04 November 2006 09:37, Randall R Schulz wrote:
> Christoph,
>
> On Saturday 04 November 2006 09:18, Christoph Thiel wrote:
> > ...
> >
> > Therefore, I'd like to ask YOU to help identify those bugs, that
> > are currently hiding under the radar (ie. aren't "red") and should
> > be elevated. ...
>
> Where does one see this status indication? And how does one alter or
> influence it?

I'd still like to hear answers to these questions.


> ...


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Re: [opensuse-factory] openSUSE 10.2 bug prioritization

[Randall R Schulz]

Stefan,

On Saturday 04 November 2006 12:00, Stefan Dirsch wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 04, 2006 at 10:48:02AM -0800, Randall R Schulz wrote:
> > Stefan,
> >
> > On Saturday 04 November 2006 10:15, Stefan Dirsch wrote:
> > > On Sat, Nov 04, 2006 at 09:37:50AM -0800, Randall R Schulz wrote:
> > > > I surely hope I don't have to live with an X server that dies
> > > > every couple of hours
> > > > (<https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=216149>).
> > >
> > > Still crashing the last RPM you tried? Please comment in
> > > bugzilla.
> >
> > I've replied there with all the information requested.
>
> Ok. Then we know which update has been responsible for the regression
> you see on your system. Unfortunately the update contains huge
> changes (over about 3 months git master checkins), so it won't be
> easy to fix this issue. Therefore I can't make any promises to have
> this fixed until final release! And going back is no option ATM.

Why is going back to a stable release not an option? And how do you 
figure that a frequently bombing X server _is_ an option?


> > > > And the beta1 font rendering is pretty poor. I have
> > > > work-arounds for both, but they are not tenable in the long
> > > > term since they both require running alternate versions of
> > > > packages in place of those that are part of the distribution.
> > >
> > > We have
> > >
> > > 1) legal (*)
> > > 2) technical
> > >
> > > issues with/when enabling Subpixel hinting.
> >
> > How is it that you have (2) when I do not by the simple expedient
> > of rebuilding the package with the proper configuration change?
>
> That it works for you does not mean, that it works for all
> fonts. Subpixel rendering is currently broken in freetype2, believe
> me. This issue is under investigation and the feature won't be
> enabled again until we have fixed it.

Perhaps it would make more sense to adjust the schedule to the 
requirements of the software included rather than the reverse?

The fact is, in both these cases you switched to new versions of 
software when those versions were inferior to the ones they replaced. 
Why do this?


> Stefan

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Re: [opensuse-factory] openSUSE 10.2 bug prioritization

[Randall R Schulz]

Stefan,

On Saturday 04 November 2006 12:38, Stefan Dirsch wrote:
> Randall
>
> You don't know the details, why we switched to newer releases of
> X.Org and freetype2. And no, we will not discuss all decisions for
> software updates. Especially when there are legal issues.

So you want to enlist our help in beta testing (and I put considerable 
time into filing these reports and supplying the follow-up information 
requested) and then just ignore us when we have problems you don't care 
to fix?

Surely you can see that with an X server behaving as the current one 
does the system has no usable GUI at all. Am I just supposed to accept 
that?

And I do not see why legal issues are an excuse for not informing your 
users. This is open source software, and I think we deserve to know 
what's going on within the organization that is using that software for 
their own profit-making purposes. We also need to know your reasoning 
and plans so we can make our own plans. If you're not going to be able 
to supply what I need, then I'd just as soon cut my losses now and 
start working with a distribution that can.

I'd probably be more understanding if you'd give me something to go on, 
but from what I'm getting here, it sounds like you don't give a damn 
whether users and customers get something useful or not.

For the record, I've been paying for boxed versions of SuSE Linux for 
over five years now, including every single version released from 9.0 
onward and a few earlier ones. So far, I'd planned to buy the boxed 
10.2 release, as well. So I feel I've got a legitimate reason to press 
this issue.


> Stefan


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Re: [opensuse-factory] openSUSE 10.2 bug prioritization

[Randall R Schulz]

Stefan,

On Saturday 04 November 2006 13:25, Stefan Dirsch wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 04, 2006 at 01:05:25PM -0800, Randall R Schulz wrote:
> > On Saturday 04 November 2006 12:38, Stefan Dirsch wrote:
> > > Randall
> > >
> > > You don't know the details, why we switched to newer releases of
> > > X.Org and freetype2. And no, we will not discuss all decisions
> > > for software updates. Especially when there are legal issues.
> >
> > So you want to enlist our help in beta testing (and I put
> > considerable time into filing these reports and supplying the
> > follow-up information requested) and then just ignore us when we
> > have problems you don't care to fix?
>
> Did I say this? I'm still interested in fixing this problem. I would
> like to spend my time on this instead of discussing why we switched
> to a newer Xserver verion closer to X.org 7.2 release rather than
> staying with something undefined between 7.1 and 7.2, which won't be
> easy to support you might imagine.

And I'd both like to have it fixed and help with the fixing. For what 
it's worth, I'm a long-time Unix / Linux programmer and even though I 
mostly do Java these days, I'm still competent with native programming 
in C and C++, so I can do more than just install alternate versions and 
send in log files, if need be.

Please let me know if there's more I can do. (I am receiving and 
monitoring CC's of postings to bug 216149).


> Best regards,
> Stefan


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Re: [opensuse-factory] 10.2 beta1, software install don't start

[Randall R Schulz]

Jim,

On Saturday 04 November 2006 14:46, Jim Pye wrote:
> On Sat, 2006-11-04 at 23:16 +0100, Anders Johansson wrote in reply to
>
> jdd:
> > > may be one hour later a firefox session was running when the
> > > whole computer crashes (no mouse, no keyboard, completely
> > > stuck). I had to leave, so I switched off the computer and
> > > did not have the time to bring it up again.
> >
> > That sounds strange. After an hour, you say? Overheating?
> >
> > Did you get any messages in /var/log/messages?
>
> Is this the bug #216149? Might want to add your vote...

It does not seem to correspond to the symptoms I was originally reported 
in 2161649. In that bug, it is only the X server that crashes, and it 
is now known that the bug was introduced in moving to the X.org 7.2. 
The machine is never left unresponsive, 'cause after the X server 
crashes init (or the display manager or whatever) restarts it 
immediately, at which point it functions seemingly normally until the 
symptom re-occurs within about 1h45m to 2h or so.

And in my case, at least, it certainly is not heat-related, since the 
machine is well ventilated, otherwise idle and uses a Core 2 Duo chip, 
which if I understand correctly runs significantly cooler than its 
older siblings (cousins?). In my case, the idling system's CPU 
temperature is about 40C.


> J


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Re: [opensuse-factory] openSUSE 10.2 bug prioritization

[Randall R Schulz]

Cristoph,

On Sunday 05 November 2006 03:37, Christoph Thiel wrote:
> ...
> >
> > Where does one see this status indication? And how does one alter
> > or influence it?
>
> What do you mean by "status indication"? If you are talking about bug
> severity, I'd like to ask you to refrain from changing it.
> Technically, that's something which should be exclusively done by
> engineering or product management.

OK, "severity." What I was really looking for is a way to see a listing 
of these bugs. I tried to generate a list, but apparently I'm using the 
Bugzilla Advanced Search feature incorrectly, 'cause I get zero 
listings.

What combination of settings there will lsit the bugs with the severity 
level(s) you want reviewed?


> > I surely hope I don't have to live with an X server that dies every
> > couple of hours
> > ().
> >
> > And the beta1 font rendering is pretty poor. I have work-arounds
> > for both, but they are not tenable in the long term since they both
> > require running alternate versions of packages in place of those
> > that are part of the distribution.
>
> I'm in good hope that we will be able to resolve that issue very
> soon.

Good... but: Which one? The X server crash or the font rendering? I can 
live with the latter (mostly be rebuilding the FreeType2 package), but 
the X server is a severe problem.


> Best,
> Christoph


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Re: [opensuse-factory] About ext3 as default and periodic fs checks

[Randall R Schulz]

JDD,

On Sunday 05 November 2006 23:49, jdd wrote:
> Carlos E. R. a écrit :
> >> Why is it deemed necessary to force a run of e3fsck at boot? It's
> >> a journalling fs, it's expected to cope.
>
> good question.

The journal is just a redundant log of operations performed on the file 
system. It takes an fsck to verify the file system's integrity and 
replay the journal entries needed to repair any damage found.

As an aside, for reasons I don't understand, my 10.2 box sometimes has 
journal entries to replay upon restart (sometimes quite a few of them) 
even when it did not crash. I don't know if that's a sign of a problem 
or normal for Reiser file systems.


> ...
>
> jdd


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Re: [opensuse-factory] ZMD consumes 70-85% cpu during more than 150 minutes...

[Randall R Schulz]

On Monday 06 November 2006 06:31, Martin Schlander wrote:
> ...
>
> See, for example:
> https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=215649

See also bug #217775:

  


There are log files from my system there.


> and this thread:
> http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2006-10/msg00583.html
> http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2006-11/msg7.html


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Re: [opensuse-factory] Ext4 in Opensuse 10.2

[Randall R Schulz]

Marcus,

On Monday 06 November 2006 07:38, Marcus Rueckert wrote:
> ...
>
> just for the logic:
> ext3 - obsolete

Are you serious? You really believe ext3 is obsolete? That seems odd, 
given how widely used it is. Even FAT is not obsolete and it's archaic. 
Perhaps you mean "obsolescent?" I.e., in the process of becoming 
obsolete but not yet there.

Anyway, could you clarify this statement?


> ...
>
> darix


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Re: [opensuse-factory] Ext4 in Opensuse 10.2

[Randall R Schulz]

Marcus, Juan,

On Monday 06 November 2006 07:52, Marcus Rueckert wrote:
> On 2006-11-06 07:44:53 -0800, Randall R Schulz wrote:
> > On Monday 06 November 2006 07:38, Marcus Rueckert wrote:
> > > just for the logic:
> > > ext3 - obsolete
> >
> > Are you serious? You really believe ext3 is obsolete? That seems
> > odd, given how widely used it is. Even FAT is not obsolete and it's
> > archaic. Perhaps you mean "obsolescent?" I.e., in the process of
> > becoming obsolete but not yet there.
> >
> > Anyway, could you clarify this statement?
>
> i just quoted the author of the other mail.
> he stated that ext3 is obsolete, so i wonder what one should use
> than.

Sorry. I misunderstood the quoting. I see it is Juan Erbes to whom my 
comments / questions are directed.

Juan?


> darix


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[opensuse-factory] Re: openSUSE 10.2 Beta2 is available

[Randall R Schulz]

Hi,

On Friday 10 November 2006 04:56, Andreas Jaeger wrote:
> I'm glad to announce the second beta of openSUSE 10.2 codename
> Basilisk Lizard.  It contains a large number of enhancements and
> updates done by the open source community and Novell's development
> teams.

Thanks to everyone involved for all their hard work.


> ...
>
> Andreas
>
> P.S. Here're the usual handy URLs for download:
>
> ...
> 
http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/openSUSE-10.2-Beta2/openSUSE-10.2-Beta1_Beta2-DVD-i386.torrent
> ...

Is there any reason this torrent is at a standstill? Literally? I've had 
it running for 15 minutes and not a byte has arrived yet.

What's up? Or down?


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Re: [opensuse-factory] Re: openSUSE 10.2 Beta2 is available

[Randall R Schulz]

Andreas,

On Friday 10 November 2006 06:35, Andreas Jaeger wrote:
> ...
> >
> > http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/openSUSE-10.2-Beta2/openS
> >USE-10.2-Beta1_Beta2-DVD-i386.torrent
> >
> >> ...
> >
> > Is there any reason this torrent is at a standstill? Literally?
> > I've had it running for 15 minutes and not a byte has arrived yet.
> >
> > What's up? Or down?
>
> Too many downloads?  No idea - Marcus, can you check?

OK. It has started arriving now (2 of 293 MB received). Arrival at from 
5 - 30 KB/s, upload at my limit, 55 KB/s.

I've never seen a share ratio of 3 so early in receipt of a torrent.


> Andreas


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[opensuse-factory] Font Funkiness

[Randall R Schulz]

Hi,

I just witnessed an odd phenomenon and I'm wondering if it's a sign of a 
problem or an aspect of the way font rendering operates (I can imagine 
it either way).

Specifically, I opened the Beagle window by clicking its tray icon. When 
the window appears, the fonts were extremely ragged. I decided to take 
a snapshot, so I used the system (KDE / Geeko) menu to launch 
KSnapshot. I took a picture of the Beagle window. While I was doing so, 
I was paying attention only to the KSnapshot interface and had 
neglected to really watch the Beagle window. When I finally dismissed 
the KSnapshot window (after capturing and saving the picture) I was 
startled to see that the ragged font display had been replaced with a 
properly smoothed one. I've seen the phenomenon repeat itself after 
this first instance (again in the Beagle GUI).


So my question is this: Is this a bug or is there some kind of 
asynchronous rendering of smoothed fonts that sometimes leads to a 
ragged font display upon first use of a given font but which is later 
replaced with the smoothed version, once the smoothed glyphs have been 
rendered?


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[opensuse-factory] Re: Font Funkiness

[Randall R Schulz]

On Sunday 12 November 2006 12:01, Randall R Schulz wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I just witnessed an odd phenomenon and I'm wondering if it's a sign
> of a problem or an aspect of the way font rendering operates (I can
> imagine it either way).
>
> ...

Oops. I forgot to include any system information:

- openSUSE 10.2b2 (just upgraded from 10.2b1, itself upgraded from 
10.2alpha5)
- Intel x86 processor (Core 2 Duo)
- 4GB RAM

% rpm -qa |egrep -i 'freetype'
freetype-1.3.1-1188
freetype2-2.2.1.20061027-3
freetype2-devel-2.2.1.20061027-3

% rpm -qa |egrep -i 'xorg-x11-server'
xorg-x11-server-sdk-7.2-17
xorg-x11-server-7.2-17


(See <http://software.opensuse.org/download/M17N/SUSE_Linux_10.1/i586/> 
for the FreeType RPMs.)


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Re: [opensuse-factory] Font Funkiness

[Randall R Schulz]

Mike,

On Tuesday 14 November 2006 13:11, Mike FABIAN wrote:
> ...
>
> > So my question is this: Is this a bug or is there some kind of
> > asynchronous rendering of smoothed fonts that sometimes leads to a
> > ragged font display upon first use of a given font but which is
> > later replaced with the smoothed version, once the smoothed glyphs
> > have been rendered?
>
> This might be the following bug:
>
> http://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=193095

There doesn't appear to be any mention in that bug report of spontaneous 
replacement of the raggedly rendered glyphs with smoothed ones shortly 
after the original, ragged display.

I assume rendered glyphs are cached (lest font rendering consume 
inordinate CPU cycles throughout the system's operation).

To your knowledge, is there any code that might account for ragged 
(point-resampled) glyphs being used (transiently) when the smoothed 
ones are not available on a timely basis?


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[opensuse-factory] Recommendation w.r.t. NetworkManager

[Randall R Schulz]

Hi,

The "NetworkManager" is new to me (I don't know if it was in 10.1, but I 
never installed that release) and I'm wondering what advantages or 
trade-offs it entails. Is it recommended or preferred for all 10.2 
installations? Because I was unfamiliar, I just went with 
the "Traditional method with ifup" for my alpha and beta installations.

If it's relevant, this box has two NICs (one on the wild Internet and 
the other on one of the wired ports of a NAT-ing wireless router) and 
is a fixed (geographically), always-on installation. The wild-side 
addressing is static, but I have no DNS name.


Any information or recommendations would be appreciated.


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Re: [opensuse-factory] Recommendation w.r.t. NetworkManager

[Randall R Schulz]

Andreas,

On Wednesday 15 November 2006 15:10, Andreas Hanke wrote:
> Randall R Schulz schrieb:
> > If it's relevant, this box has two NICs
>
> Yes, this is relevant because it means that you probably can't use
> NetworkManager. NetworkManager is not yet able to handle two NICs
> simultaneously.

Great. That makes the decision easy.

Thanks.


> Andreas


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Re: [opensuse-factory] Media for openSUSE 10.2 - additional sources, Idea?

[Randall R Schulz]

Vincenzo,

On Friday 17 November 2006 08:35, Vincenzo Barranco wrote:
> Hi,
> I tried this kommander script when i had 10.1, it works very well,
> but who of the new user that try openSUSE for first time know this
> application?

"... this kommander script" ??

Which kommander script?


> Vincenzo


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[opensuse-factory] Non-OSS Add-Ons Don't Change

[Randall R Schulz]

Hi,

When I installed Beta1, Beta2 and now RC1 the installer keeps indicating 
that none of the packages from the non-OSS add-on CD are newer than 
what's installed.

Is that actually true? If so, why are new disc images released every 
time? If not, why don't the updates register? I use the YaST 
Installation Source to refresh from the new disc each time.

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Re: [opensuse-factory] Non-OSS Add-Ons Don't Change

[Randall R Schulz]

Andreas,

On Friday 24 November 2006 03:30, Andreas Jaeger wrote:
> Andreas Jaeger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> > Randall R Schulz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> When I installed Beta1, Beta2 and now RC1 the installer keeps
> >> indicating that none of the packages from the non-OSS add-on CD
> >> are newer than what's installed.
> >>
> >> Is that actually true? If so, why are new disc images released
> >> every time? If not, why don't the updates register? I use the YaST
> >> Installation Source to refresh from the new disc each time.
> >
> > I just checked, beta2 had:
> > acroread-7.0.8-17.i586.rpm
> > flash-player-7.0.68.0-12.i586.rpm
> >
> > and RC1 has:
> > acroread-7.0.8-21.i586.rpm
> > flash-player-7.0.68.0-15.i586.rpm

Those are the versions currently installed. Could the installer have 
found the non-OSS CD that was in the second drive while I was 
installing from the RC1 DVD? I didn't explicitly refer to the add-on CD 
during the upgrade installation process.

The same thing happend when I upgraded from beta1 to beta2.


> > So, there's at least a difference - but we did not change them
> > otherwise, it's just a build number increase.  You should get those
> > reinstalled - please investigate and consider filing a bugreport,
>
> From which media are you installing?  CD or DVD?

There's an add-ons DVD? I installed the OSS from the DVD made by 
applying the delta ISO image to the Beta2 (as my previous message about 
the torrent URLs mentioned).


> Andreas


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Re: [opensuse-factory] 10.2RC1 install failure (& fix) on ASUS P5B Deluxe

[Randall R Schulz]

On Friday 24 November 2006 00:42, Andreas Jaeger wrote:
> ...
>
> Please report this in bugzilla - not sure whether we can handle this
> at this point of time but let's at least try...

That bug has been in Bugzilla for quite a while already.

In fact, as of this morning's batch (U.S. West Coast time) the bug was 
fixed. See , as 
your second message in this thread indicates.


> Andreas


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Re: [opensuse-factory] Non-OSS Add-Ons Don't Change

[Randall R Schulz]

Andreas,

On Friday 24 November 2006 09:34, Andreas Jaeger wrote:
> ...
>
> The DVD contains the non-OSS CD already.  So, you have the packages
> on *both* media.

OK. I didn't realize that.


> ...
>
> Andreas


Thanks.

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Re: [opensuse-factory] Call for testing: New kernel released for 10.2

[Randall R Schulz]

Andreas,

On Tuesday 28 November 2006 01:40, Andreas Jaeger wrote:
> We just released a new kernel package ...
>
> The major changes since the RC1 kernel are:
> * a couple of fixes in the SATA area
> * Disabling of the "This module is unsupported by Novell" warnings
> * Support for Intel 965 DRM

What does this DRM stand for? "Digital Rights Management?"


> * Add acpi_user_timer_override for Asus boards
> * Fixes for Xen
>
> Andreas


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Re: [opensuse-factory] Package fails..

[Randall R Schulz]

On Friday 01 December 2006 08:26, Monkey 9 wrote:
> ...
> >
> > Er... could you next time send such big attachments directly to the
> > person needing it, and not send it to the list at large?
> >
> > It is 200 KB, and not everybody has wide band. There are people out
> > there using metered network connections.
>
> I am very sorry, and appologise.
> It won't happen again..

You might also want to think carefully about which URLs you leave 
visible on your desktop before broadcasting such a screen capture.


> M9

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Re: [opensuse-factory] Package fails..

[Randall R Schulz]

On Friday 01 December 2006 09:11, Monkey 9 wrote:
> ...
> >
> > You might also want to think carefully about which URLs you leave
> > visible on your desktop before broadcasting such a screen capture.
>
> urls? what urls?

OK. A DNS name. It's in the taskbar shown in Saxf.jpg.


> M9


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Re: [opensuse-factory] GM release

[Randall R Schulz]

Carlos,

On Friday 01 December 2006 21:14, Alexey Eremenko wrote:
> > My router crashes after seeding 4 or 6 hours. And it runs an
> > embedded linux with a 2.4 kernel. So I can't seed much.
>
> Why do you think it is running Linux ? Have you tested it ?

It's certainly possible--even likely.

LinkSys has (or had) at least one Linux-based home networking firewall / 
router. There are also complete open source replacements for that 
router's firmware, but as I understand it, only the older versions of 
that router with more RAM can run it. It has some features not found in 
the stock LinkSys routers.

Here's the first story I found relating to this router and its firmware:




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Re: [opensuse-factory] Package fails..

[Randall R Schulz]

On Sunday 03 December 2006 23:59, Dominique Leuenberger wrote:
> ...
>
> Randall,
>
> If you woulnd't have known this site, you'd probably not even have
> remarked it.. so you just pointed it out :-)

I certainly have never seen that site before, nor do I have even the 
slightest interest in what is purveyed there. The name is enough to 
signal its purpose.


> ...
> Dominique


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Re: [opensuse-factory] Package fails..

[Randall R Schulz]

On Monday 04 December 2006 07:34, M9 wrote:
> Randall R Schulz schreef:
> > ...
> >
> > I certainly have never seen that site before, nor do I have even
> > the slightest interest in what is purveyed there. The name is
> > enough to signal its purpose.
>
> So i guess we will have to call you st. randall now eh?

I'm far from the typical sex-negative, puritanical American. I just 
don't go for children.


> M9.


And please don't send mail to my address.


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Re: [opensuse-factory] Package fails..

[Randall R Schulz]

On Monday 04 December 2006 07:50, Dominique Leuenberger wrote:
> ...
>
> > I'm far from the typical sex-negative, puritanical American. I just
> > don't go for children.
>
> Now I think you're exageraging a lot!

Exaggerating what? You know nothing about me. I'm not even attracted to 
women, for crying out loud.


> The site that was visible on 
> his screenshot was talking about teen and you just offend him of
> being after children? Maybe he just turned twenty, then it's normal
> to be affected by this age.

Well, I did check out the site before writing--for about two seconds.

Anyway, in the United States if you're over 18 and have sex with someone 
under 18, that's statutory rape (the actual age of consent varies from 
state to state, I think). If the parties are both under or over the age 
of consent, then it's considered consensual. I'm not saying the laws 
are rational, just that they're the laws here and now.


> On the other hand, if you're 50, it's 
> less likely... but accusing him of being after children is plain
> unfair and rough!

This was not any kind of accusation. It was about that person disclosing 
something that, depending on where he or she lives, which I gather is 
the Netherlands, might be a felony. If the site displays pornographic 
images of people who are actually are under age, then it would be 
felonious to patronize that site in the United States. I know nothing 
about the laws in the Netherlands or anywhere else.


> Dominique


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Re: [opensuse-factory] christmas screen

[Randall R Schulz]

On Wednesday 06 December 2006 09:04, Felix Miata wrote:
> On 2006/12/06 17:27 (GMT+0100) Marcel Hilzinger apparently typed:
> > Am Mittwoch, 6. Dezember 2006 17:17 schrieb Felix Miata:
> >> On 2006/12/06 15:53 (GMT+0100) Steffen Winterfeldt apparently 
typed:
> >> > BTW, the online help mentions how to configure it.
> >>
> >> It says:
> >>
> >> "Like it or hate it? Edit gfxboot.cfg in /boot/message to have it
> >> always or get rid of it."
> >>
> >> /boot/message is apparently a binary file, and 379,904 bytes. How
> >> do you suggest to edit it?
> >
> > cpio -i /boot/message

CPIO in input mode reads from the standard input. The lack of prompt 
indicates it's waiting for you to type a CPIO stream. Kill it (^C) and 
redirect from the CPIO file you want to unpack::

% cpio -i  All that has done is removed my shell prompt from the screen. What
> next?


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Re: [opensuse-factory] christmas screen

[Randall R Schulz]

On Wednesday 06 December 2006 12:35, Carlos E. R. wrote:
> The Wednesday 2006-12-06 at 11:29 -0800, Randall R Schulz wrote:
>
> ...
>
> > CPIO is definitely a horse of a different color in the Unix archive
> > tool world. Apart from the fact that it is the basis of the RPM
> > format, it's really an archaic standard, having been supplanted by
> > TAR in the large majority of uses.
>
> I read once that the cpio archive is more solid.
>
> If the tar.gz archive is broken, all of it is broken. The backup
> program that claimed this explained that instead they used cpio,
> compressing each file separately: thus only one file would be
> irretrievable, not the whole archive.

But the tradeoff with per-file compression is that you typically get 
rather poor compression for archives that contain many small files.


> > Naturally, "cpio --help" and "man cpio" will give you the
> > information you need.
>
> I tried - info cpio, actually, man is almost empty - and I almost run
> away. It is difficult to understand, and it has no examples.

I wish I could make "info" go away. I hate it. In addition to the 
atrocious tools used to access it, having the information I seek as 
fragmented as it is in the typical set of info pages is a disagreeable 
experience. Just try to figure out how to do something non-trivial 
with "sed" based on its info pages. You'll be pulling your hair out 
soon enough.


> I didn't  realize the redirection was needed.

As I said, it's a horse of a different color.


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Re: [opensuse-factory] christmas screen

[Randall R Schulz]

On Wednesday 06 December 2006 13:16, Felix Miata wrote:
> On 2006/12/06 11:29 (GMT-0800) Randall R Schulz apparently typed:
> > On Wednesday 06 December 2006 09:04, Felix Miata wrote:
> >
> > Naturally, "cpio --help" and "man cpio" will give you the
> > information you need.
>
> "Naturally" to you maybe. To me, they are like most man pages, lucid
> as mud. I changed gfxboot.cfg with s/-1/99/, but my output file only
> ever comes out to 512 bytes.

I don't know what that has to do with cpio, but if you're going go build 
kernels and change your boot configuration or do pretty much anything 
at such a low level of system adminsitration, then you're just going to 
have to deal with the command-line tools and their documentation.

I can tell you that when cpio writes 0 files in output mode (-o), the 
result is always exactly 512 bytes (one block, where block has the old 
half-kilobyte definition).


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Re: [opensuse-factory] christmas screen

[Randall R Schulz]

On Wednesday 06 December 2006 19:35, Carlos E. R. wrote:
> ...
>
> > But the tradeoff with per-file compression is that you typically
> > get rather poor compression for archives that contain many small
> > files.
>
> Yes, the compression ratio is a bit worse, but that's something I
> will happily sacrifice for safety where backups are concerned.

But what is this "safety" we're talking about? Usually if a file is 
corrupted, it's massively corrupted and if it's intact, then it's 
intact.

It's a specious safety you get with the CPIO approach. Either you 
back-ups are intact or they're not.


>I have some backups of an entire HD done using nearly a hundred
>floppies - you can imagine when - and the whole backup is still
> fully retrievable, although some floppies have errors.

Yes. Thank god we're now far beyond the floppy era. There is nothing 
that can meaningfully be done with a diskette as far as archiving or 
back-ups are concerned. And any "sneaker-net" style application is far 
better handled with a USB flash drive.


> ...
>
> > I wish I could make "info" go away. I hate it. In addition to the
> > atrocious tools used to access it,
>
> Try "pinfo" instead. It doesn't make the contents better, of course,
> just easier to navigate ;-)

Spoken like a true advocate of quasi-GUIs like Midnight Commander.

Yuck. Gross. Eesh.

No thank you. It's a bad and wholly unnecessary model. 
Konqueror's "info:" scheme presents them fine, but they're awful in 
their essence.


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[opensuse-factory] Hang Following Spurious Intel 965G Chipset Detection (more / new details)

[Randall R Schulz]

Hi,

Perhaps I should try sending this message here. It was originally posted 
on [EMAIL PROTECTED]

-==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==-


During the first boot following the initial phase of installation 
(package selection and installation) start-up stalled immediately after 
printing these lines:

-==-
Starting udevd Linux agpgart interface v0.101 (c) Dave Jones
agpgart: Detected an Intel 965G Chipset.
-==-

At this point, the system is for all purposes hung and intert. I cannot 
switch virtual terminal screens, e.g. Pressing CAPS LOCK key does not 
toggle the state of the keyboards caps-lock indicator. No keystrokes 
are echoed, either plain or control, including CTRL-C and CTRL-D. 
CTRL-ALT-DEL has no effect. I has been in this state for many hours 
now.


This is an ASUS P5B and it has no on-board or on-chip graphics. 
Specifically, the board has an Intel P965, not a G965 chipset. I have 
an nVidia card installed.

This did not happen with any of the pre-release versions of 10.2 from 
alpha5 through RC1.


What went wrong and how to I solve it?


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Re: [opensuse-factory] Hang Following Spurious Intel 965G Chipset Detection (more / new details)

[Randall R Schulz]

On Friday 08 December 2006 07:43, Marcus Meissner wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 08, 2006 at 07:40:18AM -0800, Randall R Schulz wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > Perhaps I should try sending this message here. It was originally
> > posted on [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> Well, was this on final too?

"Too?"

It happened _only_ on final.


> We had some late Intel9something fixes.

Oh, joy.

Now what?


> Ciao, Marcus


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Re: [opensuse-factory] Hang Following Spurious Intel 965G Chipset Detection (more / new details)

[Randall R Schulz]

On Friday 08 December 2006 07:52, Marcus Meissner wrote:
> ...
>
> > Now what?
>
> Bugzill.

How will that help me get back a formerly functioning system?

Why the hell do you make last-minute changes? Every software engineer 
alive who's been doing development more than a couple of years knows 
it's asking for trouble.


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Re: [opensuse-factory] Hang Following Spurious Intel 965G Chipset Detection (more / new details)

[Randall R Schulz]

Marcus,

On Friday 08 December 2006 07:58, Marcus Meissner wrote:
> ...

Please complete this sentence:

"To promptly restore funcationality to the system my people broke, Randy 
should _"


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Re: [opensuse-factory] Hang Following Spurious Intel 965G Chipset Detection (more / new details)

[Randall R Schulz]

On Saturday 09 December 2006 03:40, Marcus Camen wrote:
> On Friday 08 December 2006 17:01, Randall R Schulz wrote:
> > Marcus,
> >
> > On Friday 08 December 2006 07:58, Marcus Meissner wrote:
> > > ...
> >
> > Please complete this sentence:
> >
> > "To promptly restore funcationality to the system my people broke,
> > Randy should _"
>
> ...disable Memory Remapping in the BIOS.
>
> Of course you end up with less usable memory but you can recompile
> the kernel without any of the agpgart stuff.

I can live with that for a while, until a proper kernel is released, but 
I do have 4 GB of RAM, and naturally, I'd like to be able to use it 
all.

Is there a kernel command-line (boot-time) option that will have the 
same effect as compiling a kernel without the agpgart code?



> --
> Marccus


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Re: [opensuse-factory] SMP

[Randall R Schulz]

On Wednesday 17 January 2007 17:52, Edward Dunagin wrote:
> ...
>
> hey fellows and gals, this confuses me to no end.
>
> here is my cat /proc/info
>
>  processor   : 0
> ...
> siblings: 2
> ...
>
> processor   : 1
> ...
> siblings: 2
> ...
>
> It sure looks like I have 2 processors.

Yes, it does. What's the problem?


> What say you?

What's the question?


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Re: [opensuse-factory] SMP

[Randall R Schulz]

On Wednesday 17 January 2007 18:04, you wrote:
> On 1/17/07, Randall R Schulz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > On Wednesday 17 January 2007 17:52, Edward Dunagin wrote:
> > > ...
> > >
> > > hey fellows and gals, this confuses me to no end.
> > >
> > > here is my cat /proc/info
> > >
> > >  processor   : 0
> > > ...
> > > siblings: 2
> > > ...
> > >
> > > processor   : 1
> > > ...
> > > siblings: 2
> > > ...
> > >
> > > It sure looks like I have 2 processors.
> >
> > Yes, it does. What's the problem?
> >
> > > What say you?
> >
> > What's the question?
>
> It's a Pentium 4 that i bought almost 2 years ago and before
> duo was mentioned. So HOW do I have a Pentium 4 with 2
> cpu's?

It's a HyperThreading CPU. A half-hearted shot at a dual-core CPU. In a 
dual-core CPU there's a 100% complete pairing of all the circuitry that 
makes up a CPU (though they share the level 2 cache). In a 
HyperThreading CPU not all of the CPU hardware is present twice, hence 
there is less available parallelism. I don't know the details, but a 
plausible example would be that two concurrent integer multiplies could 
be occurring but two concurrent double-precision floating-point 
multiplies could not take place.


> Peace...ed

Peace. Hah! If humans wanted it, they could have it...


Hmmm... I'm watching the season premier of "24"...


> -
> Edward Dunagin-Dunigan-Dunnigan

Got Dunnigan?


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Re: [opensuse-factory] OpenSUSE, bugs and some considerations

[Randall R Schulz]

On Sunday 04 March 2007 16:59, Carlos E. R. wrote:
> ...
>
> Frankly, I would prefer bugs being solved rather than adding new
> features. As it is now, things are expected to be solved on the next
> suse release... which adds new bugs, so we never are "finished", not
> even nearly so.

The only software that's finished is software that's dead. No one's job 
is more interminable than that of the author of successful software.

So be glad things don't stop changing. Change is life.

That old saying, "Nature abhors a vacuum," is uterrly bogus. Almost all 
of the universe is a vacuum (quantum fluctuations notwithstanding). 
What nature truly does not abide is stasis--right down to the quantum 
vacuum!


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Re: [opensuse-factory] OpenSUSE, bugs and some considerations

[Randall R Schulz]

On Monday 05 March 2007 03:02, Carlos E. R. wrote:
> The Sunday 2007-03-04 at 18:13 -0800, Randall R Schulz wrote:
> > On Sunday 04 March 2007 16:59, Carlos E. R. wrote:
> > > ...
> > >
> > > Frankly, I would prefer bugs being solved rather than adding new
> > > features. As it is now, things are expected to be solved on the
> > > next suse release... which adds new bugs, so we never are
> > > "finished", not even nearly so.
> >
> > The only software that's finished is software that's dead. No one's
> > job is more interminable than that of the author of successful
> > software.
>
> I know - didn't you notice the '"'?

It sounded like you thought that was a bad thing.

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Re: [opensuse-factory] OpenSUSE, bugs and some considerations

[Randall R Schulz]

Carlos,

On Monday 05 March 2007 07:32, Carlos E. R. wrote:
> The Monday 2007-03-05 at 07:03 -0800, Randall R Schulz wrote:
> > > > > next suse release... which adds new bugs, so we never are
> > > > > "finished", not even nearly so.
> > > >
> > > > The only software that's finished is software that's dead. No
> > > > one's job is more interminable than that of the author of
> > > > successful software.
> > >
> > > I know - didn't you notice the '"'?
> >
> > It sounded like you thought that was a bad thing.
>
> Mixed feelings.
>
> I want no bugs, and I want new features. Therefore, I would prefer
> bugs being cleared before commencing work on new features... at
> least, having left only negligible bugs that do not impede working
> with the affected program.

That is unrealistic. Fixing bugs alone does not add sufficient value (in 
most circumstances) to justify the effort required. (The don't call 
economics the dismal science for nothing.)

Of course, there are fields where errors are far more costly: Avionics, 
medical diagnostic and therapeutic devices, spacecraft, etc. In those 
areas, the requisite effort is devoted to drive errors down to rates 
acceptable in those applications. But even then, no one expects zero 
defects. They want zero defects. They strive for zero defects, but they 
do not wait for zero defects to field the technologies. Nor could they. 
Many defects are manifest only in actual operational contexts.


> IMO, I consider a program to be finished when it has no bugs left.
> Adding new features is like a new project.

That, too, is an unrealistic view. Incremental development is a 
cornerstone of sound software engineering. The monolithic approach is 
unsustainable, as experience has already shown us.


> I know programmers never consider a program finished. I programmed
> for a living, so I know that... but that is not necesarily a good
> thing. Are houses ever finished? They are, but they are also
> periodically improved and enhanced and modified.

Whether it's a good thing or not is moot. I consider it a curse, 
personally, but I love programming and software design, so it's 
something I live with. And it's something the field continues to devise 
better ways to cope with.


> You know, programming is the only profession where errors are called
> bugs and accepted as normal. So a bridge collapsing is normal, too?

The simple fact of the matter is that with the programming technologies 
we have to work with today, bugs fundamentally cannot be eliminated. We 
cannot even prove that bugs are not there. At best, we can demonstrate 
that they do exist. Resource-constrained development as well as the 
intrinsic nature of information processing forces tradeoffs between 
addressing bugs, improving performance and adding capabilities.

And yes, structural failures have always happened and will continue to 
happen. The fields of civil and mechanical engineering are very mature 
with professional certification required to practice, and yet failures 
continue to occur.

The only way to eliminate bugs and failures is to cease to increase our 
ambitions. Then we can just sit around polishing and maintaining what 
we already have.

Take your pick.


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Re: [opensuse-factory] OpenSUSE, bugs and some considerations

[Randall R Schulz]

On Monday 05 March 2007 10:52, Carlos E. R. wrote:
> ...
>
> There are some companies around producing bugless code. They spend
> like two years designing, and only about 6 month coding. It is indeed
> possible. Of course, they charge a lot for that class of code.

I don't believe them. Unless the code is extremely simple. No matter how 
much you test, you cannot validly claim there are no bugs. Only that 
the bugs you tested for are not manifest under those tests.


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Re: [opensuse-factory] cvsgraph?

[Randall R Schulz]

On Thursday 08 March 2007 06:46, Stephan Kulow wrote:
> Am Donnerstag 08 März 2007 schrieb Andreas Vetter:
> > Just a question regarding viewcvs (aka viewvc). Can we include a
> > package cvsgraph in openSUSE?

I think it's the other way around. The new name is viewvc, formerly 
viewcvs.

And I, too, would like convenient access to cvsgraph.


> How many openSUSE users you think might require it? I'd go for 5 to
> 10. We're currently trying to get such packages out of the product
> everyone has to download and put them in opensuse buildservice
> repositories. And if you haven't yet, I suggest you get an account to
> upload the package.

Do you really think there are only 5 or 10 programmers using openSUSE?

I don't relish the idea of settin up dozens of separately configured 
repositories in order to get the tools I need.

I _like_ the kitchen sink approach. It's one big characteristic that 
makes openSUSE and SuSE Linux before it desirable to me.


> Greetings, Stephan


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Re: [opensuse-factory] cvsgraph?

[Randall R Schulz]

On Thursday 08 March 2007 08:00, Stephan Kulow wrote:
> Am Donnerstag 08 März 2007 schrieb Randall R Schulz:
> > > How many openSUSE users you think might require it? I'd go for 5
> > > to 10. We're currently trying to get such packages out of the
> > > product everyone has to download and put them in opensuse
> > > buildservice repositories. And if you haven't yet, I suggest you
> > > get an account to upload the package.
> >
> > Do you really think there are only 5 or 10 programmers using
> > openSUSE?
>
> Hmm, you want to tell me every programmer needs cvsgraph? I wonder
> how I managed to program so far without it.

I don't know. Give it a try.

CVS and Subversion are the most widely used open-source version 
control / source code management systems and both are included in 
openSUSE. Many users of one or both of these also use ViewVC or 
ViewCVS. This is also included. There's one missing piece: cvsgraph 
(optional support for which is built into ViewVC). I believe there's a 
large number of people who would like to have the additional 
functionality provided by it and that the complete set of related 
packages should be included.

But what are the criteria for inclusion? What percent of the users must 
use a package to get it included?

If you start with this offhand "I don't need it and don't see why more 
than a handful of users would" justification for excluding packages 
(explicitly requested packages, no less), then where does it end? With 
an operating system release with no more application software than MS 
Windows? Of course not, but I'd strongly prefer continuing in the other 
direction--"all comers welcome."


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Re: [opensuse-factory] no cdrecord

[Randall R Schulz]

On Thursday 08 March 2007 19:43, Donn Washburn wrote:
> Hey Group;
>
> In SuSE10.3 there is no cdrecord.  I guest the author of cdrecords
> message to Linux hit home.  Anyway, while downloading/updating or
> just lucky I saw a note the cdrecord was being replaced.  Problem is
> my memory has not locked on the new substitute.  It may have been in
> the SuSE Yast Install notes
>
> A "which cdrecord", "locate cdrecord" fails to answer the question.

Naturally. Those commands find existing files.


> What is the binary replacements file name?

Are you thinking of "wodim"?


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Re: [opensuse-factory] recompiled stock kernel modules take many X more disk space than modules from installed rpm

[Randall R Schulz]

On Tuesday 01 May 2007 01:37, Andreas Jaeger wrote:
> Felix Miata <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> > What I did:
> > ...
> >
> > On my 10.2 smbfs.ko is only size 75753. Why do my modules consume
> > 9.2 times as much overall disk space as the stock modules? What did
> > I do wrong?
>
> Stripping?  We apply strip unneeded during RPM build,

I'd thought of that, but as an experiment, I looked at the kernel
modules on my 10.0 system (105 of them are present
in /lib/modules/2.6.13-15.11-smp) and all of them are like this one:

% file extra/acx_pci.ko
extra/acx_pci.ko: ELF 32-bit LSB relocatable, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV), 
not stripped

According to nm, that particular module (the first in an alphabetical
list) has 384 symbols:

% nm extra/acx_pci.ko |wc -l
384


> Andreas


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Re: [opensuse-factory] test

[Randall R Schulz]

On Wednesday 16 May 2007 09:53, peter nikolic wrote:
> On Wednesday 16 May 2007, Andras Barna wrote:
> > use the opensuse-test ML :)

Don't top-post!

Trim list boilerplate and signature blocks!


> > On 5/16/07, peter nikolic <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > > Hi .
> > >
> > > Test only
> > >
> > > Pete .
>
> Thanks  .
>
> used to set list filters ..

What's wrong with the other dozens of messages in the list? Or with 
waiting until a message arrives and using that?

Test messages are declassé, to say the least.


> Pete .


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Re: [opensuse-factory] test

[Randall R Schulz]

On Wednesday 16 May 2007 11:01, peter nikolic wrote:
> ...
>
> Pardon !! .
>
> I see the jump down your throat mentality has bled over here as well
>
> B4 you yell at me for top posting take a look i am one of the main
> protagonists telling poeple NOT to top post  .

That was addressed to Andras Barna, as indicated by its position 
immediately below his top-posted content.


> I dont wish to be snotty or anything but i am not just another of the
> list drongos

Separated by a common language, indeed.


> Why do people try to bully you right from the start ..

Right from the start of what? You've been on the SuSE lists for years.


> ...
> Pete .


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Re: [opensuse-factory] RFC: swapfile during installation

[Randall R Schulz]

On Monday 21 May 2007 08:37, Steffen Winterfeldt wrote:
> ...
>
> Really cool users can show their advancedness by booting with (for
> example):
>
> insmod=vfat exec="mount /dev/sda1 /mnt ; dd if=/dev/zero of=/mnt/foo
> bs=1G count=1 ; mkswap /mnt/foo ; swapon /mnt/foo ;
> /usr/local/bin/umount -l /mnt"
>
> which does exactly what you want. :-)

That's definitely cool, but I'd turn down the dd buffer size and 
compensate by increasing the record count. If a buffer of the specified 
size (bs= argument) cannot be allocated by dd, it will fail. (It's not 
going to affect the speed unless the buffer size is ridiculously small, 
since the whole thing is utterly I/O-bound.) Given that no swap is 
available at the time, asking for a gigabyte would mean that many 
users' systems would not be able to accommodate this request.

Speaking of failure, you might want to replace the semicolons with 
double ampersands, so the later commands only execute if the earlier 
ones succeed.

By the way, why attempt to unmount /mnt? Since there's now an open file 
there, is it not guaranteed to fail?


> ...
>
> Steffen


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Re: [opensuse-factory] RFC: swapfile during installation

[Randall R Schulz]

On Monday 21 May 2007 09:05, Steffen Winterfeldt wrote:
> On Mon, 21 May 2007, Randall R Schulz wrote:
> > On Monday 21 May 2007 08:37, Steffen Winterfeldt wrote:
> > > ...
> > >
> > > Really cool users can show their advancedness by booting with
> > > (for example):
> > >
> > > insmod=vfat exec="mount /dev/sda1 /mnt ; dd if=/dev/zero
> > > of=/mnt/foo bs=1G count=1 ; mkswap /mnt/foo ; swapon /mnt/foo ;
> > > /usr/local/bin/umount -l /mnt"
> > >
> > > which does exactly what you want. :-)
> >
> > That's definitely cool, ...
>
> ...
>
> > By the way, why attempt to unmount /mnt? Since there's now an open
> > file there, is it not guaranteed to fail?
>
> You need to get rid of it, because (a) yast uses /mnt and (b) yast
> might want to mount the partition itself. umount will not fail as
> '-l' makes a 'lazy' umount (unmounts no matter what).

Ah. That one was new to me. The man page clarifies that the mount point 
is freed up but resources in use on the mounted system remain intact 
until released in the normal manner by whatever is using them.

You could always use an alternate mount point, creating it first with 
mkdir. And despite the obvious infallibility of your commands, if for 
some reason the unmount failed, then YaST's or the installer's need to 
subsequently mount something there would also fail. Better to preclude 
the possibility, no? (In true Murphy's law style!)


> Steffen


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Re: [opensuse-factory] Making Basic Utilities work under normal user

[Randall R Schulz]

On Friday 25 May 2007 15:45, Alexey Eremenko wrote:
> ...
> 
> LOL !
> Running ifconfig as root is totally different than running it with
> /sbin/ifconfig as normal user.

How do you figure?

When I run /sbin/ifconfig from my own account and then ifconfig from 
root (though I have /sbin in my everyday path), and diff the results, 
this is what I get:

diff /tmp/{rschulz,root}-ifconfig
5c5
<   RX packets:654610 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
---
>   RX packets:654611 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
8c8
<   RX bytes:439743722 (419.3 Mb)  TX bytes:61560706 (58.7 Mb)
---
>   RX bytes:439743782 (419.3 Mb)  TX bytes:61560706 (58.7 Mb)


The only differences are the statistics that naturally change over time. 
If I could synchronize the two invocations closely enough, they might 
not differ at all.


> Adding /sbin/* to user's $PATH won't make any security problems.

True, as far as I can think of.


> ifconfig should be useble by normal users to see their IP addresses,
> not to configure ones.

I'd go for "hostname -i" to simply see my local host's IP address. It's 
much easier than finding the proper IP address in the output of 
ifconfig (it currently produces 44 lines of output on my system). 
The "hostname" command happens to be in /bin/hostname, which should be 
in every user's PATH. Hostname has lots of other useful options. Check 
it out.


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Re: [opensuse-factory] Making Basic Utilities work under normal user

[Randall R Schulz]

On Friday 25 May 2007 16:06, Alexey Eremenko wrote:
> On 5/26/07, Randall R Schulz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> ...
> >
> > I'd go for "hostname -i" to simply see my local host's IP address.
> > It's much easier than finding the proper IP address in the output
> > of ifconfig (it currently produces 44 lines of output on my
> > system). The "hostname" command happens to be in /bin/hostname,
> > which should be in every user's PATH. Hostname has lots of other
> > useful options. Check it out.
>
> Well, this command returns something incorrect:

If that's really so, probably something is misconfigured.


> [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~> hostname -i
> 127.0.0.2
>
> Because I don't have such an IP address.

How sure are you of that? Why don't you try pinging and traceroute-ing 
it?


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Re: [opensuse-factory] Making Basic Utilities work under normal user

[Randall R Schulz]

On Friday 25 May 2007 16:35, Alexey Eremenko wrote:
> Anyways, I'm not satisfied. I want to have access to my ifconfig from
> normal user.

It cannot be denied. Use it as you will! Put /sbin in your path, by all 
means.

What's the problem? Do you prefer not to be satisfied???


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Re: [opensuse-factory] Making Basic Utilities work under normal user

[Randall R Schulz]

On Saturday 26 May 2007 01:13, Rafał Miłecki wrote:
> 2007/5/26, Benji Weber <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> > On 26/05/07, Alexey Eremenko <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > > Anyways, I'm not satisfied. I want to have access to my ifconfig
> > > from normal user.
> >
> > Why not just use "ip a" and saveyourself a whole 4 keystrokes?
>
> Fine. But what is your solution as alternative for "iwlist"? If I am
> logges as normal user, i can not just type "iwlist".

The PATH variable setting is not imposed on you. Change it to be 
whatever you like. I add /sbin and /usr/sbin to mine. I'm sure many 
others do, to, especially those with administrative duties, which 
applies in some sense to all single-user systems.

Randall schulz
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