Re: [SLUG] Defining Mainsteam
quote who=Morgan Storey Uhh Darwin ports... it basically gives you apt-get for mac. I am not a fan of macs but I am pretty sure it has been around for a while: http://darwinports.com/ That's an add-on, not a core part of the operating system. Really, packaging doesn't count until the entire system is built with it (or you have a versioned, consistent API/ABI core that the packaging system can sit on). - Jeff -- linux.conf.au 2010: Wellington, NZ http://www.penguinsvisiting.org.nz/ Well, you know us usability folks... We like to believe that the two aren't mutually exclusive. - Calum Benson on power and cleanliness -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Defining Mainsteam
quote who=Daniel Pittman I am curious about the how to bring AppFolders... part of your comment, though: as far as I can tell, with the exception of the Rox stuff[1] and the GNUStep people[2] no only really cares ... and those two are pretty much a niche market... There were heaps of projects playing with the idea a few years ago, one of thre notably offensive ones being autopackage. OLPC .xo packages are essentially appfolders, too. (Plus, how hard is it, seriously? Five lines of code?) Every time you're tempted to say that, hold it in and realise you probably haven't thought about it very much. It's like when clients say, it should be easy to... and suggest something that would require major architectural changes to your product... - Jeff -- linux.conf.au 2010: Wellington, NZ http://www.penguinsvisiting.org.nz/ Then it hit me: What I really want is for all edit panes in all applications to be gnuclient processes hooked to a centralized emacs gnuserver process! - Gary Murphy -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] sluggish (no pun) cursor
I've noticed that the cursor response is getting sluggish - for instance when holding down an arrow key in a text document, the cursor used to fly across the screen, but now it seems to have got elderly and reluctant. Half it's old speed. I've tried all the usual things wd40, incantations to Ubuntu gods and kicking the box, but to no avail. Top shows 97% idle most of the time. It doesn't appear to have anything to do with accessibility option settings. Any suggestions? -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Defining Mainsteam
On Mon, 2009-04-06 at 21:32 +1000, Jeff Waugh wrote: quote who=Morgan Storey Uhh Darwin ports... it basically gives you apt-get for mac. I am not a fan of macs but I am pretty sure it has been around for a while: http://darwinports.com/ That's an add-on, not a core part of the operating system. Really, packaging doesn't count until the entire system is built with it (or you have a versioned, consistent API/ABI core that the packaging system can sit on). I did not understand this before I started work on OpenOffice: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application_binary_interface There was a really good document on why a stable ABI for a library is important and how to achieve it but I cannot find it right now.For example when you add a parameter to function X you create another function Y with the original signature and give a sensible default to the new parameter. The authors name started with H from memory, something sounded German. Nuts! -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] sluggish (no pun) cursor
On Tue, 2009-04-07 at 00:07 +1000, david wrote: I've noticed that the cursor response is getting sluggish - for instance when holding down an arrow key in a text document, the cursor used to fly across the screen, but now it seems to have got elderly and reluctant. Half it's old speed. I've tried all the usual things wd40, incantations to Ubuntu gods and kicking the box, but to no avail. Top shows 97% idle most of the time. It doesn't appear to have anything to do with accessibility option settings. Any suggestions? Do you have graphic effects enabled? I have a lot of conflict with rdesktop (remote windows access) and compiz, keyboard slow or buggered functioning. What application are you using? What graphics hardware? Drivers for screen? -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Defining Mainsteam
On Tue, 2009-04-07 at 00:19 +1000, Ken Foskey wrote: There was a really good document on why a stable ABI for a library is important and how to achieve it but I cannot find it right now.For example when you add a parameter to function X you create another function Y with the original signature and give a sensible default to the new parameter. The authors name started with H from memory, something sounded German. Nuts! Found it, no H in the name... This is a very technical document describes how to optimise library loading speed. This is probably too technical (read boring details) for most programmers but I found it very interesting. How To Write Shared Libraries Ulrich Drepper Red Hat, Inc. http://people.redhat.com/drepper/dsohowto.pdf -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Defining Mainsteam
2009/4/6 Jeff Waugh j...@perkypants.org quote who=Daniel Pittman I am curious about the how to bring AppFolders... part of your comment, though: as far as I can tell, with the exception of the Rox stuff[1] and the GNUStep people[2] no only really cares ... and those two are pretty much a niche market... There were heaps of projects playing with the idea a few years ago, one of thre notably offensive ones being autopackage. OLPC .xo packages are essentially appfolders, too. (Plus, how hard is it, seriously? Five lines of code?) Every time you're tempted to say that, hold it in and realise you probably haven't thought about it very much. It's like when clients say, it should be easy to... and suggest something that would require major architectural changes to your product... I sometimes think the converse can also be true at times - speaking from very modest experience. In the first instance, the client/boss asks offhandedly: Can you make this small change? and it ends up being a rewrite of your life's work or you end up founding a new branch of computer science in your basement in the wee hours of the morning just to solve part of the problem (I kid!). Then they frown and get all tentative and worried and ask: Can you do this? Is it difficult? for something that ends up being a one-liner in a template somewhere. =] -- Daniel Bush http://blog.web17.com.au http://github.com/danielbush/sifs/tree/master http://github.com/danielbush -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Defining Mainsteam
On Tue, 2009-04-07 at 00:40 +1000, Daniel Bush wrote: I sometimes think the converse can also be true at times - speaking from very modest experience. In the first instance, the client/boss asks offhandedly: Can you make this small change? and it ends up being a rewrite of your life's work or you end up founding a new branch of computer science in your basement in the wee hours of the morning just to solve part of the problem (I kid!). Then they frown and get all tentative and worried and ask: Can you do this? Is it difficult? for something that ends up being a one-liner in a template somewhere. This is always true. I work the users of my applications to raise any complaints. If I do have to do a major change I can sometimes incorporate another requirement at the same time that was previous too expensive. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Defining Mainsteam
I completely agree, but I doubt we are going to see any real packaging system for a closed source OS like Mac and Windows, unless they move the iPhone appstore to cover their Desktops. It is just to difficult for these companies used to charging a metric load of cash for their OS to wrap their heads around making it easy to install them. I used to use win-get on a windows box for gigles too, now if only the guys who made that could get it to talk to windows updates :P On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 9:32 PM, Jeff Waugh j...@perkypants.org wrote: quote who=Morgan Storey Uhh Darwin ports... it basically gives you apt-get for mac. I am not a fan of macs but I am pretty sure it has been around for a while: http://darwinports.com/ That's an add-on, not a core part of the operating system. Really, packaging doesn't count until the entire system is built with it (or you have a versioned, consistent API/ABI core that the packaging system can sit on). - Jeff -- linux.conf.au 2010: Wellington, NZ http://www.penguinsvisiting.org.nz/ Well, you know us usability folks... We like to believe that the two aren't mutually exclusive. - Calum Benson on power and cleanliness -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Defining Mainsteam
Jeff Waugh j...@perkypants.org writes: quote who=Daniel Pittman I am curious about the how to bring AppFolders... part of your comment, though: as far as I can tell, with the exception of the Rox stuff[1] and the GNUStep people[2] no only really cares ... and those two are pretty much a niche market... There were heaps of projects playing with the idea a few years ago, one of thre notably offensive ones being autopackage. Dear Lazyweb, please also name the other two projects. KTHXBI. Seriously, when I looked in response to your comments I didn't track them down, so I would appreciate if you recall the project names. As to AutoPackage, one of their key FAQs is (still) What's wrong with NeXT style AppFolders?, followed by an explanation of how they suck and, subsequently, why AutoPackage don't use them. So, presumably they discussed this internally as part of a discussion on changing project goals and/or technologies? OLPC .xo packages are essentially appfolders, too. I thought they were RPM based. Hmmm. Anyway, thank you for those pointers. (Plus, how hard is it, seriously? Five lines of code?) Every time you're tempted to say that, hold it in and realise you probably haven't thought about it very much. Have I mentioned that I actually did some work on both ROX-Filer and GNUStep in the past, so I actually do have a very firm technical idea of just how much work is involved? It's like when clients say, it should be easy to... and suggest something that would require major architectural changes to your product... Pshaw. AppFolders are only hard if you want integration with the Unix world, outside your own environment. On Linux, this is probably a goal, because otherwise you need to invent the entire desktop environment, rendering you into stagnation (hi, ROX, GNUStep, nice to see nothing much changes) because of the workload. It doesn't make AppFolders themselves even remotely difficult, though, but rather integrating them into the rest of an environment designed on different assumptions. I grant your general point, though. Regards, Daniel Plus, y'know, it isn't like ROX (at least) solved this with an automatic wrapper script generating tool that make AppFolder contents work like standard Unix executables... -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] sluggish (no pun) cursor
david da...@kenpro.com.au writes: I've noticed that the cursor response is getting sluggish - for instance when holding down an arrow key in a text document, the cursor used to fly across the screen, but now it seems to have got elderly and reluctant. Half it's old speed. Did you check your desktop environment system settings area for mouse configuration, and verify that cursor acceleration is still correctly configured? Did you recently move to a version of X with device hotplug through HAL, requiring you to configure your cursor through an FDI file if you want anything but the driver defaults? Regards, Daniel -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] sluggish (no pun) cursor
Daniel Pittman dan...@rimspace.net writes: [... a whole bunch of irrelevant stuff ...] david da...@kenpro.com.au writes: I've noticed that the cursor response is getting sluggish - for instance when holding down an arrow key in a text document, the cursor used to fly across the screen, but now it seems to have got elderly and reluctant. Half it's old speed. You miss one key concept in a paragraph, and viola, a pointless and unrelated set of comments. *sigh* Sorry about that. Regards, Daniel -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] sluggish (no pun) cursor
Daniel Pittman wrote: Daniel Pittman dan...@rimspace.net writes: [... a whole bunch of irrelevant stuff ...] david da...@kenpro.com.au writes: I've noticed that the cursor response is getting sluggish - for instance when holding down an arrow key in a text document, the cursor used to fly across the screen, but now it seems to have got elderly and reluctant. Half it's old speed. You miss one key concept in a paragraph, and viola, a pointless and unrelated set of comments. *sigh* Sorry about that. Don't be sorry! it proves it's not just mere mortals like myself that miss key concepts ;-) Other folks making mistakes is an important prophylaxis against pathological feelings of inadequacy. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Defining Mainsteam
quote who=Daniel Pittman It's like when clients say, it should be easy to... and suggest something that would require major architectural changes to your product... Pshaw. AppFolders are only hard if you want integration with the Unix world, outside your own environment. On Linux, this is probably a goal, because otherwise you need to invent the entire desktop environment, rendering you into stagnation (hi, ROX, GNUStep, nice to see nothing much changes) because of the workload. It doesn't make AppFolders themselves even remotely difficult, though, but rather integrating them into the rest of an environment designed on different assumptions. Experimenting is fun. Reality is hard. Shipping software and supporting users means your solution has to take all kinds of other issues into account beyond it should be easy to... - Jeff -- Robot Parade http://www.robotparade.com.au/ m. +61 423 989 818 b. http://bethesignal.org/ p. +61 2 9043 2940 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] sluggish (no pun) cursor
Ken Foskey wrote: On Tue, 2009-04-07 at 00:07 +1000, david wrote: I've noticed that the cursor response is getting sluggish - for instance when holding down an arrow key in a text document, the cursor used to fly across the screen, but now it seems to have got elderly and reluctant. Half it's old speed. I've tried all the usual things wd40, incantations to Ubuntu gods and kicking the box, but to no avail. Top shows 97% idle most of the time. It doesn't appear to have anything to do with accessibility option settings. Any suggestions? Do you have graphic effects enabled? I have a lot of conflict with rdesktop (remote windows access) and compiz, keyboard slow or buggered functioning. What application are you using? What graphics hardware? Drivers for screen? I've tried turning effects off, but it makes no difference. I'm using Intrepid, NVidia 8600 with whatever driver Intrepid likes to install. Software is TextEditor, Vim, thunderbird (typically). -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Defining Mainsteam
Jeff Waugh j...@perkypants.org writes: quote who=Daniel Pittman It's like when clients say, it should be easy to... and suggest something that would require major architectural changes to your product... Pshaw. AppFolders are only hard if you want integration with the Unix world, outside your own environment. On Linux, this is probably a goal, because otherwise you need to invent the entire desktop environment, rendering you into stagnation (hi, ROX, GNUStep, nice to see nothing much changes) because of the workload. It doesn't make AppFolders themselves even remotely difficult, though, but rather integrating them into the rest of an environment designed on different assumptions. Experimenting is fun. Reality is hard. I notice you omitted the section of my email where, indeed, I note that this is from practical experience. Shipping software and supporting users means your solution has to take all kinds of other issues into account beyond it should be easy to... Again, I agree with your generality, and that you omit to respond to my actual discussion points. Regards, Daniel -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] sluggish (no pun) cursor
On Tue, Apr 7, 2009 at 00:07, david da...@kenpro.com.au wrote: I've noticed that the cursor response is getting sluggish - for instance when holding down an arrow key in a text document, the cursor used to fly across the screen, but now it seems to have got elderly and reluctant. Half it's old speed. I've tried all the usual things wd40, incantations to Ubuntu gods and kicking the box, but to no avail. Top shows 97% idle most of the time. It doesn't appear to have anything to do with accessibility option settings. Any suggestions? Hi David, Have you tried resetting the keyboard repeat rate? kbdrate should be the command you're looking for. Sane settings are (apparently) `kbdrate -r 30 -d 250`, and I think you need to run it as root (sorry can't test now). Cheers, h -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Defining Mainsteam
quote who=Daniel Pittman Experimenting is fun. Reality is hard. I notice you omitted the section of my email where, indeed, I note that this is from practical experience. Sorry, but ROX and GNUstep are experimentations. They don't have users or vendors or real systems they need to integrate with or previous version compatibility issues, etc. When I say reality, I mean products shipping and an active marketplace around them (which *can* be said for GNOME/KDE). Then the hairier issues of software support beyond hey does this stuff work? start to bite. - Jeff -- linux.conf.au 2010: Wellington, NZ http://www.penguinsvisiting.org.nz/ People who paid for bug fixes in the 3c501 driver also bought MacIIfx support contracts... - Alan Cox -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Defining Mainsteam
On Tue, 2009-04-07 at 11:55 +1000, Jeff Waugh wrote: quote who=Daniel Pittman Experimenting is fun. Reality is hard. I notice you omitted the section of my email where, indeed, I note that this is from practical experience. Sorry, but ROX and GNUstep are experimentations. They don't have users or vendors or real systems they need to integrate with or previous version compatibility issues, etc. When I say reality, I mean products shipping and an active marketplace around them (which *can* be said for GNOME/KDE). Then the hairier issues of software support beyond hey does this stuff work? start to bite. This appears to diminish the experiments that do occur. I can agree with your generalisation however we should not minimise any effort on FOSS, even experiments. What about those scheduling experiments on the kernel, ultimately led to a major performance improvement for me personally. The problems with packaging really are not with the software but with all the prereq management. This is the strength of debian apt, not so much the install code itself. This does not minimise the complexity of the code itself but just where the true effort was in the first place. People often think a program is the solution, often the data feeding it is much more important. Think Redhat before they began merging Debian prereq information, it was really problematic. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Defining Mainsteam
Jeff Waugh j...@perkypants.org writes: quote who=Daniel Pittman Experimenting is fun. Reality is hard. I notice you omitted the section of my email where, indeed, I note that this is from practical experience. Sorry, but ROX and GNUstep are experimentations. They don't have users or vendors or real systems they need to integrate with or previous version compatibility issues, etc. When I say reality, I mean products shipping and an active marketplace around them (which *can* be said for GNOME/KDE). Ah. I see. Yes, if you use that definition then, indeed, I have only experimental experience. It would have been easier to argue if you had stated that definition up front, though, since most people (in my experience, obviously) consider shipping software that is used by some hundreds of people released. Even your definition strays dangerously toward that, although perhaps you are considering only recent years, not way back when they were innovative and current, while GNOME and KDE were rather ... younger. Then the hairier issues of software support beyond hey does this stuff work? start to bite. Yes, indeed, they do. That said, I stand by my assertion that the problem of AppFolders remains in integration outside the environment, not within it. Regards, Daniel ...that is a pretty big caveat, though. :) -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Booting (and logout) problem
Hi. I just upgraded to FC10 and everything works BUT 1 thing. When I look at the first mingetty (CTRL-ALT-F1) session the boot process has not cleanly finished as the last lines of the boot process are still clearly visible and the login screen that SHOULD be there is not there. This is not the case for all the other login screens and X is there too (as I am typing this from a X based mutt session). I normally enable only 2 mingettys in inittab but it looks too that inittab still has started all 6. When I log out then X returns to the first login screen (the unfinished boot process visbile) but does NOT respawn a new X session and the only two things I can do is to use one of the mingetty's to login in and use startx or reboot the machine to get a new X login screen. Anybody knows what this might be? Jobst -- People who fight may lose. People who do not fight have already lost. - Bertolt Brecht | |0| | Jobst Schmalenbach, jo...@barrett.com.au, General Manager | | |0| Barrett Consulting Group P/L The Meditation Room P/L |0|0|0| +61 3 9532 7677, POBox 277, Caulfield South, 3162, Australia -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Booting (and logout) problem
On Tue, 2009-04-07 at 12:54 +1000, Jobst Schmalenbach wrote: Anybody knows what this might be? Based on Debian but hopefully it wont be too far wrong. Before you start a new X look at the ~/.xsession_errors file and see if anything is there. Look at /var/log/Xorg.0.log, and finally look in /var/log/gdm/ -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
RE [SLUG] Booting (and logout) problem
Perhaps you can see error messages better buy adding --noclearto your first getty like so: 1:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty1 --noclear This will not clear the screen. Cheers Roger -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Defining Mainsteam
quote who=Ken Foskey This appears to diminish the experiments that do occur. I can agree with your generalisation however we should not minimise any effort on FOSS, even experiments. What about those scheduling experiments on the kernel, ultimately led to a major performance improvement for me personally. Yeah, I don't mean to diminish the importance of experimentation... it's a crucial part of the Open Source (scientific) process. But there is a BIIIG difference between mucking around with stuff in the lab and producing a product for Real Users. The kernel is actually a really good example... it usually takes a fairly long time between the genesis of ideas and practical, shipping functionality based on those experiments. The original point was this: it's very easy to say that's five lines of code! but it's a very rare circumstance in which a comment like that is actually correct (particularly in the Real World, which is far messier than the imagination fairy land we need to inhabit in order to innovate). - Jeff -- linux.conf.au 2010: Wellington, NZ http://www.penguinsvisiting.org.nz/ Our 20th anniversary issue, we suspect, will be about the year of the Linux desktop. - Jon Corbet, LWN -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Defining Mainsteam
Jeff Waugh j...@perkypants.org writes: quote who=Ken Foskey This appears to diminish the experiments that do occur. I can agree with your generalisation however we should not minimise any effort on FOSS, even experiments. What about those scheduling experiments on the kernel, ultimately led to a major performance improvement for me personally. Yeah, I don't mean to diminish the importance of experimentation... it's a crucial part of the Open Source (scientific) process. But there is a BIIIG difference between mucking around with stuff in the lab and producing a product for Real Users. Out of curiosity, what number of users are you considering real users here? I agree with what you are saying, but you certainly seem to have a much, much higher standard than I (at least) am used to for real use. [...] The original point was this: it's very easy to say that's five lines of code! but it's a very rare circumstance in which a comment like that is actually correct (particularly in the Real World, which is far messier than the imagination fairy land we need to inhabit in order to innovate). *nod* Worse still, in the Real World(tm) you have to deal with integration and history, which make most things much messier. :) Regards, Daniel -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
