Planet Arch Linux

Forum Announcements: Arch Linux Newsletter July 2009 - Discussion

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:49:35 +0000

http://www.archlinux.org/static/newslet … -july.html

As usual we discuss everything related to the Arch Linux Newsletter here; articles, contributions, and suggestions are welcome and appreciated.

The newsletter sets a new standard for quality with every release, we try to deliver a newsletter that is more user/community-centric. All this is possible thanks to the awesome team we have for the newsletter.

Special thanks to the community, for giving us the motivation to continue doing this.

Thanks,

In the name of the Arch Linux Newsletter Team,

Eduardo Romero

-- posted by kensai

Official News: Arch Linux Newsletter July 2009

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 04:00:00 +0000

The Arch Linux Newsletter team is proud to announce the Newsletter for July 2009. To discuss this newsletter, click here. To read past issues of the Arch Linux Newsletter, here they are.

Arch Linux and Haskell: dons00

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 21:25:23 +0000

Another update, since there was a bit of a package backlog.

Hackage now has 1395 (+130) Haskell packages, of which 1222 (+113) (87.6%) have been natively packaged for Arch in AUR. All these packages are available via AUR, using the “yaourt” tool.

The full log of updates and new packages is available here.

Notable Updates

haskell-hdbc-2.1.1: Haskell Database Connectivity
haskell-takusen-0.8.5: Database library with left-fold interface, for PostgreSQL, Oracle, SQLite, ODBC.
cpphs-1.7: A liberalised re-implementation of cpp, the C pre-processor.
haskell-chart-0.11: A library for generating 2D Charts and Plots
haskell-atom-0.0.5: A DSL for embedded hard realtime applications.
haskell-hmatrix-0.5.2.2: Linear algebra and numerical computations
haskell-network-2.2.1.3: Networking-related facilities
haskell-hxt-8.3.1: A collection of tools for processing XML with Haskell.

Dozens of other packages have been added as well. Interestingly, a handful of new Haskell games have been published.

Godane's Development Blog: godane

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 23:54:56 +0000

Changes since last release:

* Removed e17svn and gnome to save in size for apps.

* Using a custom kernel so catalyst 9.6 can be build and work with 2.6.30 kernel. Third party modules in archlinux repo will still work.

Everything is up2date as of 6:00 PM EST on 20090627.

Here is the iso, md5, and package list.

Package changes are here.

Forum Announcements: netcfg v2.2.1

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 02:48:01 +0000

netcfg v2.2.1 is released. it's in [testing] and should be in [core] shortly.

Because theres so many fixes in 2.2 from 2.1, I decided it was better to push out a new stable release than wait for wireless-dbus to stabilise. wireless-dbus is still there, but unchanged and just as broken as before.

On the other hand, the normal wireless, ethernet and ethernet-iproute connections are as stable as ever. I received few bug reports, and no wireless regression reports with the last beta cycle which was very encouraging!

New Features from 2.1
- iproute support (CONNECTION='ethernet-iproute')
- Improved reliability in regular wireless (CONNECTION=wireless)
- Wired wpa_supplicant support (untested)
- Some new netcfg arguments for convenience: 'reconnect', 'clean'.
- Support for connection methods written in other languages than bash
- Refactored resuable functions into separate files from connection methods.
- Additional documentation of supported options (see git)
- Many bug fixes

Upgrading
* Remove any QUIRKS options, as *most* of these are no longer necessary, or are unneccesary due to changes in netcfg. These were a poor solution in the first place and cause more problems than they solve in some cases.

Third party netcfg tools/addons
Some of the older addons may not work.

The following netcfg addons are known to work:
wifi-select: http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=63973
netcfg-tray: http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=74742

netcfg-tray - tray icon/menu!
A 'simple' tray icon for netcfg. The aim is a very simple front to start/stop netcfg/netlib profiles and just make it a little more convenient. Not a full clicky configure-everything GUI.

http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=74742

IPRoute Support
iproute support has been implemented (CONNECTION="ethernet-iproute"). The config options I've setup for it make connecting using a simple static IP or more advanced configurations easier.

This support is not option compatible with the old, so a new config is required. Examples are provided in /etc/network.d/examples

wireless-dbus
This is known broken, don't report bugs.

Documentation
Documentation is still catching up a little bit.
* There is a full set of example configs.
* Initial documentation of supported configuration options is presently in git.
* Wiki needs to be updated to reflect -iproute/-dbus.
* netcfg manpage needs to be updated

-- posted by iphitus

Allan McRae: Expectations Of Services Provided For Free

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 12:26:17 +0000

It continuously amazes me… the number of people who expect something done for free and want it done now. The more I think about it, the more I wonder if it is a consequence of the internet era as I struggle to come up with non-internet based examples.

What started me on this rant was a comment I saw in the while investigating whether a new episode of an anime series I am watching was released by the fansub group yet. It had been a while since the last release, so I looked at the comments of the previous episode to see if there were any clues to when more releases would be made (I know for a fact the next two have been translated). To paraphrase one comment: “Why are you so slow… maybe you should find something else to sub? There’s already quality subs out there that are getting released at a stable pace, so why bother?“. My initial thought was that the poster put the solution to their “problem” right in their comment. Now consider that this is a one-woman subbing group (well, there is a timer and a quality checker for this series) and she has just had final exams and a fairly serious illness according to her Twitter posts. I bet that if you were not thinking “wanker” before, you are now. This behaviour is not just restricted to this particular subbing group; I have noticed similar posts in the comments section for almost all series I am currently watching.

I see similar things all the time in the Arch Linux forums and bugtracker and even my email inbox. I can guarantee that every time there is a kernel release, there will be a post asking when it will be packaged within a day. What I am finding amusing is that 1/3 of the first page I get with the “Show new posts” link is threads asking for help with issues caused by the 2.6.30 release. But it is sad that the overlap of the users demanding the release and those complaining about it afterwards is not as big as it is in my dream world. Although, going back through old posts, there was definitely some overlap when KDE-4.x was released.

I had plenty of emails telling me of the immediate need to update ruby to the 1.9 branch. In the end I gave in and pushed the release to [testing], breaking gvim in the process. I got no angry emails about breaking gvim, which leads me to conclude gvim users > ruby users or (more likely) [testing] users > ruby users, on some scale where being greater than is a good thing. Those in the overlap of those groups are questionable… Similarly, I have had a number of emails telling me that python-3.0 is out and it is a “production release” (to somewhat laughably quote one user). That means that Arch is not keeping to its rolling release mantra and the python package needs updated. NOW! I used to reply with an email asking for patches for every package in our repos so they would either run with python-3.0 or would use python-2.x when the main binary was located at /usr/bin/python2. I never got a response.

Now I just add people who complain to a filter list so I will never see another email from them. This makes me immensely satisfied.

Leslie Polzer: Starcraft on VirtualBox (and Hamachi)

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 07:09:19 +0000

Rationale

Starcraft on Wine is horribly slow due to the missing DIB engine.

Handling DIBs is a crucial component when it comes to fast 2D drawing. Other games like Age of Empires and even applications like Adobe Photoshop are affected by this weakness in Wine.

Work on this has started last year as a Summer of Code program, but progress has slowed down recently.

All in all I guess we won’t get a usable implementation within the next few years except if another dedicated effort is spent on it.

Enter VirtualBox

Luckily another solution has come up recently: Sun’s VirtualBox virtualization product is free (as in beer and freedom), easy to use and works well enough with Starcraft.

Here’s my basic setup: VirtualBox 3.0.0 (in beta state right now but so far it hasn’t crashed on me) with guest additions, Windows XP and Starcraft Brood War 1.16.1.

I have enabled DirectDraw acceleration and bridging as network mode in VirtualBox. Both are simple point-and-click settings; you need to make sure the vboxnetflt module is loaded, though.

All of Starcraft is usable and very importantly fast.

Resolution issues

VirtualBox does not have a real full-screen mode. With the guest additions you’re able to get a Desktop that resizes automatically to fit, but fixed resolutions (Starcraft uses 640×480) will not be scaled up to fill the VirtualBox window or the whole screen.

I have tried XRandR but it just made the viewport smaller which is worse than useless.

The kludge here is to copy over your X config, remove all resolutions except for 640×480 and start a new X server. I cannot go into the full detail here but it boils down to this:

xinit /home/sky/scripts/xinitrc.2 -display :1 \
  -- :1 -ac -config xorg.conf.lowres

Put in some lightweight window manager or VirtualBox itself at the end of xinitrc.2.

After that just use VirtualBox as you have before and switch to full screen.

You should be ready to get the full experience of playing Starcraft now!

Bonus: Hamachi integration

Hamachi is a proprietary cross-platform VPN solution that is also beginner-friendly and gratis. It works well with my VirtualBox setup, too.

However the latest version (1.0.3.0) does seem to have some problems with UDP networking.

Downgrading to 1.0.1.4 helped, and I was even able to play Starcraft via a VPN. Don’t forget to turn off the helpful Windows firewall least it might interfere with your network.

Did this post help you?

If yes, then I’d like to know about it. Please also tell me about other games that work or don’t work with this setup.

If you’re really happy about it you may also send me a gift.

Dan McGee: New Eee kernel has KMS enabled by default

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 02:17:07 +0000

With the release of kernel-eee-2.6.30-2 tonight, I've made the switch to KMS (kernel mode-setting) being enabled by default. Hopefully this will be a seemless transition for all as I've pulled in three patches to the build to ensure things are working well. This is the first time I've patched the vanilla kernel in some time, so you know I'm serious about this.

The biggest things to keep in mind when upgrading:

Any vga= or video= lines you may have in your grub command line should be removed with the change to KMS.
Ensure your userspace has been upgraded- you need a relatively new version of Xorg for this to work.

I didn't need to make any xorg.conf configuration changes once I pulled in the relevant patches, so hopefully the same applies for everyone else. Please let me know if you have any trouble with the upgrade (by leaving a comment) and I'll try to follow up here. If everything works great, feel free to speak up too. :)

Official News: portmap replaced by rpcbind & important nfs-utils upgrade

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 04:00:00 +0000

Hi arch community, portmap is replaced by rpcbind in the [core] repository. It has more features, like ipv6 support and nfs4 support. Please change your /etc/rc.conf file accordingly. Important nfs-utils upgrade: - NFS4 support is now implemented This is a rather important upgrade, you are going to have to change config files. /etc/rc.conf daemons changes: 1) Change portmap to rpcbind 2) Change nfslock to nfs-common 3) Change nfsd to nfs-server Extended configuration options for NFS (clients & server) are available in: /etc/conf.d/nfs-common /etc/conf.d/nfs-server Please change them to your needs.

Official News: kernel 2.6.30 series moved to the [core] repository

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 04:00:00 +0000

Hi arch community, The new 2.6.30 kernel series moved to the [core] repository. Upstream changes: http://kernelnewbies.org/LinuxChanges Arch Linux changes: - removed the acpi-dsdt-initramfs.patch There is no functional patch anymore available. If you need a custom dsdt, please compile it yourself into your custom kernel. - removed snd-pcspkr module #14958 - added dccp #15071 - added SCHED_DEBUG=y - changed to lzma kernel compression - removed rt2500 module it is supported by in kernel drivers now

Eli Janssen: Cooking With Booze

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 21:13:27 +0000

Cooking With Booze: this book looks neat

Eli Janssen: How a science teacher from Oregon became a YouTube climate change phenomenon | Environment | guardian.co.uk

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 17:58:22 +0000

How a science teacher from Oregon became a YouTube climate change phenomenon | Environment | guardian.co.uk

Dusty Phillips: Recent Developments

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 18:43:12 +0000

I’ve been awfully busy the past few weeks, but finally had three separate evenings to sit down and code on some of my little projects this week. I’m anticipating having more time in a couple weeks, as I gave notice on my job on Thursday. I am, however planning a move and exploring numerous job opportunities in my home province.

I managed to fix a couple bugs on WhoHasMy. As previously reported this project was originally coded in 48 hours for the Django Dash competition. We tied for fifth place and have traded the resulting bitbucket account for a github prize. I’m very happy with the placement given that my brilliant co-developers had nil django experience going into the competition and I hadn’t touched it professionally in months. I added a TOS to the page as requested in a comment on my earlier post, fixed some ordering bugs in the lists, fixed a couple broken links, and made it easier to add information about friends when you loan an item to someone not currently in the system. And here we thought it was 100% bug free when we finished our 48 hour stint and stumbled off to bed.

I have also spent a fair bit of time improving Quodroid, the Android app for controlling quod libet on my laptop from my phone. It now uses fancy icon buttons, allows you to specify the host and port you want to connect to, lists the currently playing song whenever you perform an action, allows volume control, and gives a semi-sane error message when the phone can’t connect. In short, its actually useful and usable by someone other than myself. I’ve been using it regularly the past few days. I still have to arrange it to perform the network stuff in a service instead of the main activity, which occasionally becomes unresponsive if the server is slow to respond. I’m actually becoming more comfortable with Java again as I develop this, its not as evil as I thought, but it certainly cuts into productivity.

Today, I made a few changes to opterator. I wrote my first app (a contrived example code-test for a job I’m pursuing) that actually used opterator a couple weeks back and found it was missing a few features. It now the ability to have multiple copies of a single option. Turns out this actually worked, all you had to do was use the ‘append’ action. I wrote three tests, didn’t change a line of code and poof, I had append support! I then realized that storing the action in the docstring was unnecessary as it could be introspected from the type of the keyword argument. This makes the @param docstrings a lot more readable and informative. As simple as this little module is, I feel its one of my more brilliant innovations.

I’ve also tossed around the idea of having multiple opterated main methods in a single module and allow the decorator to pick which one to call depending on the options. This seemed cool at first, but I think it may violate the ‘one best way’ policy of Python. I also realized that deriving sensible error messages and usage strings would be really painful, from the end user’s perspective, so I’m holding off on this until I’ve decided how best to do it.

Godane's Development Blog: godane

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 23:09:37 +0000

Changes since last release:

* This iso uses the testing repo and the lastest packages in testing.

* Kernel is its own module now.

* Added packages.list to the iso. This is so the iso can be mirror without the package list and still have it in the iso.

* Added rpcbind to replace portmap.

* Updated my build scripts so there can update older .working folders without rebuilding all of the squashfs modules. This is good cause it means that your only rebuild squashfs modules that are needed and that will save a lot of time when using less powerful computers.

Everything is up2date as of 5:00 PM EST on 20090620. ( The iso doesnt have the new xfce4 plugins and new tzdata in testing that came out today.)

Here is the iso, md5, and packages list.

Packages changes are here.

Eli Janssen: command line view remote ssl server cert

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 20:34:26 +0000

Sometimes I want to view a server certificate without bringing up a browser.

To view a server cert from the command line, something like the following works:

openssl s_client -connect ${REMHOST}:${REMPORT}

Reference: http://www.madboa.com/geek/openssl/#cert-retrieve

Official News: New module-init-tools changes modprobe configuration file location

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 04:00:00 +0000

The new module-init-tools 3.8 package changes the location of the configuration file: /etc/modprobe.conf is no longer read, instead /etc/modprobe.d/modprobe.conf is used. Files in /etc/modprobe.d without a .conf suffix will be ignored in the future. Please adjust your local configuration files after the update.

Allan McRae: Spam, Spam, Spam

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 09:16:58 +0000

I had turned off the need to moderate comments before their appearance on this blog as an experiment to see how long it took for spammers to start posting. Turns out, it was not very long… but taking 25 days is still slightly longer than I had expected. So comment moderation is turned back on.

While most spam is obvious posting of links to websites, I just do not understand some of the spam that I have received. One IP address (which is well know for its spam), posted messages like “The best information i have found exactly here. Keep going Thank you” and “Hi, very nice post. I have been wonder’n bout this issue,so thanks for posting“. Do a google search for those phrases and note how frequent those exact comments are. What is strange is that the “people” posting these comments seem to have nothing to gain, at least initially. They listed website their website as google.com and their email address is not shown so no-one can reply to them. I suppose they want to get through that initial moderation phase so that they can posted unhindered crap in the future. You have got to admire their determination…

Eli Janssen: cabel.name: The Most Intense Gamer Ever

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 00:14:59 +0000

cabel.name: The Most Intense Gamer Ever: awesome. youtube advertising on a telephone pole

Eli Janssen: better security and performance with native JSON at hacks.mozilla.org

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 23:12:19 +0000

better security and performance with native JSON at hacks.mozilla.org

Eli Janssen: Here's The Part Where Keyboard Cat Intersects With Gaming -

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 22:11:31 +0000

Here's The Part Where Keyboard Cat Intersects With Gaming -: this is hilarious

Eli Janssen: "No technique works if it isn’t used."

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 18:04:41 +0000

“No technique works if it isn’t used.”

- Niven’s laws - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Eli Janssen: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 18:02:36 +0000

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

- Clarke’s three laws - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Eli Janssen: Series of Tubes Music Video (via superfunky59) An...

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 03:03:32 +0000

Series of Tubes Music Video (via superfunky59)

An ‘oldie’, but a goodie.

Dusty Phillips: Style As Communication

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 00:28:29 +0000

A couple weeks ago I read an article. I don’t remember the title, links, topic, or most of the content of the article; indeed, I likely should never have read it. I would have forgotten it altogether except one suggestion that you should ensure the signature on e-mails sent from your blackberry or iphone says “Sent from my blackberry/iphone”. In theory, this allows the recipient to know you were on a mobile when you sent the message and they can excuse the brevity and grammatical errors that tend to occur when typing a message on such devices.

When I receive a one-line comment followed by a second line stating ’sent from my Blackberry’, my first thought is not, “Ah, they were mobile, they weren’t able to type a polite response”. To the contrary, I tend to think, “They couldn’t be bothered to go back to the office and send me a well-crafted reply. How can I trust they even thought about the question at hand?”

The thing is, how things are worded sends as much information as the words themselves. Critics of the Internet age have long pointed out that face-to-face communication is better because you can pick up on so many non-verbal cues in their gestures, posture, tone, and expression. Yet nobody realizes that text-based communication also says plenty about you and about the message you are conveying.

While we are instructed to ensure our cover letters and resumes have no grammatical errors because it makes a bad impression, in day-to-day business or interpersonal dealings, nobody worries over such things. We’ve all seen the despicable language that has evolved to support the character limits in Twitter and text messaging. It makes the most erudite communicators look like fools.

The full qwerty keyboard on my HTC dream is terrific, but I don’t get anywhere near the 100WPM I can get on my computer keyboard. Messages typed on the mobile can be painful to compose. I always put forth the effort to ensure my grammar is correct and the style is the way I want to sound. It takes me a while and I can’t supply that impressive immediate reply that mobile devices are famous for. But I can give you a hand-crafted response styled ‘just so’, to give you exactly the interpretation I wish you to receive. Chances are I won’t send the message until I get home and review it at a full keyboard where edits are easier.

One can argue that putting an emphasis on grammar and style is a waste of time and the world is clearly learning to evaluate only the content of messages. This is a shame. It restricts our ability to communicate. Properly wielded, style can say so much more than mere content ever will. Like pictures, style can be worth a thousand words. Instead of abandoning style altogether, we should cultivate it, use it as a secondary channel, its own medium of communication.

As a fitting example, compare the following two messages I received recently when trying to sell a desk online:

CALL ME. 416-###-####

vs:

Hi I am interested in the corner desk you are advertising on craigslist. What are the dimension of the desk? And where in Toronto would I be picking it up from?
Thanks,
Emily

When I read these messages, I felt that Emily was more likely to be truly interested in the desk. I felt she would follow through on any commitment she made. I felt she could be believed and trusted. I felt she would let me know if she was going to be late or couldn’t make her appointment. I felt she was friendly and would be a pleasure to deal with.

Emily is now the happy new owner of my corner desk.

She only typed three short sentences, but gave me several paragraphs of information. The former request only typed two words and a phone number. They also gave me several paragraphs of information.

I never called.

Eli Janssen: "The waterfront is littered with the skeletons of stubborn horses."

Sun, 14 Jun 2009 23:24:00 +0000

““The waterfront is littered with the skeletons of stubborn horses.””

- Theoden (#archlinux on irc)

Daniel Isenmann: We have done it!

Sun, 14 Jun 2009 10:21:51 +0000

We have done our first mapping party for OSM (Openstreetmap) in Liedolsheim/Graben-Neudorf. Yesterday we, that’s Sven Krohlas (aka Sven423) and me, have started the first mapping party in this region. The weather was really nice for riding with our bikes and so we have mapped 20 kilometres of tracks between grade1 to grade5. For all those who haven’t mapped before, here is a photo of a track with grade5:

After nearly 2 hours we finished our small mapping party with a result of 20km new tracks. Here you can see the progress of our party:

Our final result can be found here.

Dusty Phillips: Exceptions As Flow Control In Python

Sat, 13 Jun 2009 17:00:19 +0000

I’ve complain in recent months that my knowledge of Python has stagnated. I look at code I wrote six months ago and I still think its well-written code and there isn’t much I would change. It is well-written code, but in previous lives, my definition of good code would evolve.

Possibly due to my early training in Java, I’ve always been quite cautious when raising exceptions. In Java, exceptions are a curse. The overhead of maintaining them and listing which ones can be caught or thrown from a given call-stack is time-consuming and of dubious benefit.

In the past, I’ve read the word ‘Exception’ as meaning ‘an exceptional circumstance I didn’t anticipate’. I don’t raise exceptions often unless I’m writing a library and want to communicate an exceptional circumstance the calling system may not have expected.

Excluded from this definition are ‘error conditions I did anticipate’, such as validation errors or permission checks. When I expect such errors, I tend to include them in the return values. If you’re a python coder you might think I mean this:

## BAD CODE ##
result = some_function_with_error()
if type(result): == tuple:
    error, message = result
    # handle error

But I would never do this. Checking the type of an object in Python is a sure sign you’re doing something wrong, probably very wrong. Either that or you’re writing some kind of introspective framework. I’ve seen code where people return an object in the normal case and a string if its an error. They then check if type(response) == str. This will fail when you ultimately have to switch to unicode, and its going to make your Python 3 porting attempts very confusing. Don’t do it.

However, I frequently use this idiom:

isadmitted = auth.check_privilege()
    if isadmitted != True:
        return isadmitted

In this case, check_privilege is returning either True or an error string. I used to think this was good code, but its actually doing an implicit type check. if you have to write ‘x != True’ instead of ‘not x’, its not proper duck-typing. While its unlikely that boolean will ever have values other than ‘True’ and ‘False’, its highly probable that your function will one-day want to return something else.

That last bit is based on real code I decided to refactor today. I’ve expanded my definition of ‘Exception’ to ‘anything that is not the normal return value of a function’. Now I have code that looks like this:

try:
       response = self.process_post(session)
except (ValidationError, InsufficientPrivledgesError), e:
    session.rollback()
    response = e.response
else:
    session.commit()
finally:
    session.close()
return response

I’ve wondered why so much attention was paid to Python’s try…except handlers in recent releases. Now I know — its because they expect Python coders to use them. Two months ago if I’d written an exception handler that included all of except, else, and finally, I’d have thought I was doing something wrong. My new understanding (notice I don’t say ‘corrected understanding’) is that this is how such code should look.

The good news is: every time I look at code I wrote six months ago and see something that uses an if statement to check a return value for an error condition, I’m going to be itching to rewrite it. My understanding of what good Python code should be has evolved. I’m back!

Allan McRae: Using An x86_64 Kernel On An i686 Userland

Sat, 13 Jun 2009 15:37:00 +0000

I have been experimenting with running an x86_64 kernel with an i686 userland. The motivation for me was to be able to build both i686 and x86_64 packages on my primary system, because the access to the machine I have an x86_64 install on is becoming limited. I could have just reinstalled with x86_64, but I use wine regularly (I need MS Office for work, among other things) and I really dislike needing multilib or a chroot to run this in x86_64. Also, I did not want to do a reinstall on my primary production system (but other “risky” changes are fine…). Fedora had planned to ship an x86_64 kernel on 32-bit x86 with Fedora 11, but decided against it, so there is probably some issues with this setup.

The advantages I see of this setup are:

The ability to use more than 4GB RAM without compiling (a reportedly slower) PAE kernel. However, individual processes will still have the 32bit memory limitation.
Being able to create chroots for building both 32 and 64 bit packages.
There is no need for ugly multilib packages for wine, skype or whatever 32bit only software you need.

The last one is the only real advantage over running pure x86_64. The disadvantages are:

Not being able to automatically update the kernel and modules using the standard Arch repos.
Some configure scripts use uname to figure out which architecture to build for. This is worked around by using linux32.

I work around the update issue by creating a local repo containing just the kernel and its firmware and having this automatically updated when I rsync my local package mirror. I suspect that the second issue is probably a factor in Fedora backing out this change as it would not be very user friendly (although I have no confirmation of this).

Actually achieving this setup is easy. Just download the x86_64 version of the kernel26-firmware, kernel26 and any additional drivers you need and then install them. Reboot and marvel as the output of “uname -m” says x86_64! It is now several days since I did this and I have noticed no issues, although I have not done any major package building in that time.

I had to make a couple of changes to get the Arch devtools to run correctly (using linux32 when appropriate within i686 build scripts, using /etc/makepkg64.conf and a separate package cache for x86_64), but the changes are very minor. One day I will look into patching these properly as it would probably be useful for people wanting to use these on a pure x86_64 system to build i686 packages.

Godane's Development Blog: godane

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 23:42:52 +0000

Changes since last release:

* Using testing so we have kenrel 2.6.30 to test out. Wicd and module-init-tools are not update in this release since of problems with new wicd 1.6.0 working and module-init-tools need blacklist files to have .conf at the end of them.

* I have seen the kernel crash once when testing it on real hardware i think. I couldn’t read the dmesg since the screen just went black to fast to read it . I thought it was the ati driver acting up at first. I tested twice after that with noxconf and without noxconf boot option. It work just fine those times. If you see any crash like that try to see if you get the dmesg message and posted it to the comments. This iso is testing purposes only. Use at your own risk.

* There are not video-drivers module in this release. Couldn’t get catalyst to compile with kernel 2.6.30 anyway. ( The video-drivers module has packages so it installs and setup xorg.conf file with 3d drivers at boot with nonfree boot option. This will not work with this release.)

* Added gecko-mediaplayer to the base modules. This makes apple movie trailers work again.

* Added clamtk for virus scanning windows machines. You will have to download the main.cvd from clamav.net and put in /var/lib/clamav or $HOME/.clamtk/db. I’m not sure which one clamtk looks for.

Everything is up2date as of 5:00 PM EST on 20090612.

Here is the iso, md5, and package list.

Package changes are here.

Eli Janssen: Make My Mood » A must have Tshirt

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 17:01:56 +0000

Make My Mood » A must have Tshirt: “You’ve got an electromagnet”

Judd Vinet: Migrating to Android

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:06:00 +0000

I went to Google I/O in San Francisco this year, and lo and behold, they started off the conference by giving all 4000 of us free, unlocked Android phones! Not bad for a $300 conference.

I do like the iPhone (my current ride) a lot. The hardware is very sleek and the OS is pretty nice. But, their development philosophy seems very closed to a Linux geek like myself. First off, I have to live in the Apple world in order to build an iPhone app. I don't actually own a Mac, which is apparently a bit of a barrier right there. And if I actually want to geek out on my iPhone, I have to go around Apple's back and jailbreak it so I can run what I want.

Not so with the egalitarian Android. The SDK runs on Windows, Mac, or Linux. As soon as I installed the SDK, I had an easy shell from my workstation to the USB-connected phone. I'm not really a fan of Java, but this is already encouraging me to make some Android apps, a feeling I never really had from the iPhone.

In terms of general usability, here are some things I've noticed in my short time with Android so far:

The virtual keyboard is slightly laggy when responding to my finger taps (compared to iPhone). This can cause more typos that I don't register until I've already gone a few keys past, and so I find myself backspacing more often to fix mistakes. This is mitigated by typing in landscape mode, as the keyboard itself is bigger.
I love the Back button! IMHO, this functionality should really be on iPhones as well. If I open an email in Android, then click a URL inside, it will take me to the browser app. If I then click the Back button, it takes me back to my email message. With the iPhone, I have to click the Home button first and then load up the mail app again.
No two-finger pinch/zoom stuff in the default Android kernel, though I'm told this can be enabled with a custom kernel. Based on that, I'd guess that two-finger tricks will be arriving in an official capacity soon.
Google integration is really nice to have. If you already use Gmail et al. in your day-to-day life, then all this data is magically on your phone too. I'm sure MobileMe is like this too, but I think more people use Gmail than MobileMe. And Gmail is free.
There's no 1/8" headphone jack on this handset (HTC Magic), only a USB connection. Of course, they do provide headsets (two!) with the phone, but it'd still be nice to have a standard stereo jack.
In general, I find the app organization (or lack thereof) and both iPhone and Android to be annoying. Both choose to lay out all apps in a single panel, so it becomes time-consuming to find an app if you have a lot of them installed. I would prefer some sort of hierarchical system, so I could organize all my networking apps in one area, productivity apps in another, games in a third, etc.

So despite my general happiness with the iPhone as an end-user, I'm giving Android a solid chance. The first thing I had to do was get my contacts moved over to the new phone. This, surprisingly enough, proved to be non-trivial. You'd think it could be as simple as hitting an "Export to SIM" button on one phone and an "Import from SIM" on the other. The problem is that neither phone provides an "Export to SIM" function. They'll happily import contacts off a SIM, but I guess nobody has had a need to export yet. And any sort of third-party app was conspicuously absent from the App Store. Hmmm. It smells a bit like data lock-in, but I'd never say that out loud.

Eventually, I just SSH'ed into my iPhone and started poking around. Turns out the contacts are all centralized in a SQLite database! That made life a lot easier. I copied it over to my workstation and wrote a little Python script that massaged the contact data into CSV format. I imported the CSV file into my Gmail contacts and seconds later, they all showed up on my Android phone. Cinch.

If you're interested, the DB is in /var/mobile/Library/AddressBook/AddressBook.sqlitedb.

Here's the Python as well. It's a little rough around the edges -- I've been doing a lot of Javascript lately, and kept finding myself trying to do prototypal things in Python. That didn't work.

#!/usr/bin/python
import io, sys
import sqlite3

# get headers from CSV template
#   <http://theregoesdave.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/gmail.csv>
hdrs = io.open('gmail.csv', 'r').readline().strip().split(',')
print '"' + '","'.join(hdrs) + '"'

conn = sqlite3.connect('AddressBook.sqlitedb')
conn.row_factory = sqlite3.Row

cContact = conn.cursor();
cContact.execute("SELECT * FROM ABPerson ORDER BY Last,First")

# From the ABMultiValueLabel table
Labels = ("", "Mobile", "Work", "Home", "Other")

for contact in cContact:
	# get phone numbers
	cPhone = conn.cursor();
	cPhone.execute("SELECT value,label FROM ABMultiValue WHERE record_id=? AND property=3 ORDER BY label", (contact["ROWID"],))
	phones = {}
	for p in cPhone: phones[Labels[p["label"]]] = p["value"]
	if(len(phones) == 0): continue # skip people without phone numbers

	# get email addresses
	cEmail = conn.cursor();
	cEmail.execute("SELECT value,label FROM ABMultiValue WHERE record_id=? AND property=4 ORDER BY label", (contact["ROWID"],))
	emails = {}
	for p in cEmail: emails[Labels[p["label"]]] = p["value"]

	# Use "Section 1" for home/mobile
	# Use "Section 2" for work
	rec = {
		'Name': "%s %s" % (contact["First"], contact["Last"]),
		'E-mail': emails["Home"] if emails.has_key("Home") else emails["Work"] if emails.has_key("Work") else "",

		'Section 1 - Description': 'Home',
		'Section 1 - Email': emails["Home"] if emails.has_key("Home") else "",
		'Section 1 - Phone': phones["Home"] if phones.has_key("Home") else "",
		'Section 1 - Mobile': phones["Mobile"] if phones.has_key("Mobile") else "",

		'Section 2 - Description': 'Work',
		'Section 2 - Email': emails["Work"] if emails.has_key("Work") else "",
		'Section 2 - Phone': phones["Work"] if phones.has_key("Work") else "",
		'Section 2 - Company': contact["Organization"] if contact["Organization"] else ""
	}

	# prune empty fields and section descriptions
	def prune(dict, key):
		for k in dict.keys():
			if len(dict[k]) == 0: del dict[k]
		ct = 0
		for k in dict:
			if k.startswith(key): ct = ct + 1
		if ct == 1: del dict[key+' - Description']

	prune(rec, "Section 1")
	prune(rec, "Section 2")

	# write out as CSV
	row = []
	for h in hdrs:
		row.append(rec[h] if rec.has_key(h) else "")
	print '"' + '","'.join(row) + '"'

Hope it helps. Of course, you will need a jail-broken iPhone in order to SSH in and copy a raw file off it. If you use Windows, you can probably just sync your contacts to Outlook and then export from there.

Forum Announcements: wiki.archlinux.org updated

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 06:35:26 +0000

Hi all,

I just updated MediaWiki to version 1.15. For upstream changes see http://svn.wikimedia.org/svnroot/mediaw … EASE-NOTES

I enabled two new Plugins:

* Google-Ads is now handled by a plugin; this way we don't need to hack the Template directly and the same source can easily be used on other sites.
* A simple "automated" CAPTCHA implementation which should block all spam bots.

No magic here as its just one of those which works because spam bots don't know about how it works. If you use a CSS capable browser you should not notice anything at all. Those who use other browsers (like links, w3m etc.) will need to enter a 4-digit hex code on login or account creation.

Let me know of any problems; especially on login/register or editing of articles.

-- posted by Pierre

Eli Janssen: Mike the Headless Chicken - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 03:55:20 +0000

Mike the Headless Chicken - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Eli Janssen: Moserware: The First Few Milliseconds of an HTTPS Connection

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 22:03:46 +0000

Moserware: The First Few Milliseconds of an HTTPS Connection: awesome https early exchange analysis.

Eli Janssen: Death Metal Parrot MindCrap.com

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 18:05:03 +0000

Death Metal Parrot MindCrap.com: whoah. badass.

Official News: Update on Misuse of Arch Linux Logo

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 04:00:00 +0000

After publishing the article discussing a misuse of our old logo in the June Newsletter, I received an unexpected e-mail from the operator of the company in question. He has made a formal apology and has removed the logo from his website. We thank him for his compliance and wish him well in designing a new logo to represent his company. Apparently he received several vulgar and threatening e-mails in response to this issue. I am very disappointed that this has occurred; The Arch Linux community prides itself on its friendliness among other things and individuals who identify themselves as members should be above this sort of behaviour. I did not intend to motivate such actions, and I hope that those responsible will act more maturely in the future.

Eli Janssen: The System 222

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 21:34:50 +0000

The System 222: awesome.

Eli Janssen: put a cork in it

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 21:06:55 +0000

put a cork in it: society for handheld hushing

Judd Vinet: Rocket Stick on Arch Linux

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 07:06:00 +0000

Well, thanks to a kind employer and an ill-timed server crash, I now have a free Rocket Stick. It's an HSDPA USB modem from Rogers, a Canadian cellular carrier. Download speeds "up to" 7.2 Mbps in 3.5G. The downstream degrades steadily as I wander off into 3G and (gasp!) 2G.

Not a bad toy to have in the summer months. Now all I need is a really bright laptop screen and I can sit in parks all day, coding and yelling at hobos.

The device is a ZTE MF636 USB modem. Naturally, it's not supported under Linux. I don't even know if Rogers knows what Linux is. But the Internet came through, as it usually does, and within 45 minutes I had found all my answers on various forums and blogs. So here's a consolidated contribution that should work for most Linux distributions. I've tested this on Arch Linux, but the tools used are generic.

So the catch with this little device is that it has multiple personalities. When you first plug it into a Linux machine, the OS will see it as a generic CD-ROM device (eg, /dev/sr1). This is what the marketing boys call a "Zero CD" application install. The Windows/Mac drivers and software are in a small ROM on the USB device itself, so no extra CD required. If you're on a Windows machine, you simply plug the USB key into the computer and the computer will see it as a CD-ROM and fire up the Autorun executable. Voila.

What happens behind the scenes is this: The software runs off the CD-ROM and installs the drivers. When the installation is complete, the driver issues a command to the device that tells it to switch personalities. Now it's a USB modem, and has a new USB product ID associated with it.

This mode switch is the part that I used Windows for. I know, it sucks, but I had a Windows machine on hand so I took advantage.

1. Disable CD mode on the device.

Using a Windows machine, plug in the USB device and go through the short install wizard. Once done, close the Rogers app that starts up, then head into the Device Manager (Control Panel -> System -> Device Manager). Under the Ports section, find the COM port that's connected to the USB modem (ignore the Diagnostics one). Connect to that COM port through Hyperterminal, found in the Accessories area of the Start Menu. Connection parameters are

Bits per Second: 115200
Data bits: 8
Parity: None
Stop bits: 1
Flow Control: None

Once connected, type the following commands:

AT+ZOPRT=5
AT+ZCDRUN=8

This tells the modem not to use CD mode when it's first plugged into a computer. Now exit Hypterterminal and remove the USB modem. You're done with Windows.

2. Setup udev rules.

Create a file /etc/udev/rules.d/90-zte.conf that contains the following:

ACTION!="add", GOTO="ZTE_End"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idProduct}=="0031", SYSFS{idVendor}=="19d2", GOTO="ZTE_Modem"
GOTO="ZTE_End"

LABEL="ZTE_Modem"
RUN+="/sbin/modprobe usbserial vendor=0x19d2 product=0x0031", MODE="660", GROUP="network"
LABEL="ZTE_End"

3. Setup hal rules.

The current version of hal (that I have) doesn't know about the MF636, though it does acknowledge some earlier models. To inform it, create a file /etc/hal/fdi/information/10-modem.fdi with the following:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <!-- -*- xml -*- -->

<deviceinfo version="0.2">
  <device>
    <match key="info.category" string="serial">
        <!-- ZTE MF636 HSDPA USB dongle -->
        <match key="@info.parent:usb.product_id" int="0x0031">
          <match key="@info.parent:usb.interface.number" int="3">
            <append key="modem.command_sets" type="strlist">GSM-07.07</append>
            <append key="modem.command_sets" type="strlist">GSM-07.05</append>
          </match>
        </match>
    </match>
  </device>
</deviceinfo>

4. Create a wvdial configuration.

Wvdial is an easy-to-use frontend to PPPd. The configuration is fairly easy to comprehend. This one is probably longer than it needs to be, but I'll include it all. Make sure you replace the /dev/ttyUSB0 line with the node that your USB modem is connected to.

[Dialer Defaults]
Modem = /dev/ttyUSB0
ISDN = off
Modem Type = USB Modem
Baud = 7200000
Init = ATZ
Init2 = 
Init3 = 
Init4 = 
Init5 = 
Init6 = 
Init7 = 
Init8 = 
Init9 = 
Phone = *99#
Phone1 = 
Phone2 = 
Phone3 = 
Phone4 = 
Dial Prefix = 
Dial Attempts = 1
Dial Command = ATM1L3DT
Ask Password = off
Password = off
Username = na
Auto Reconnect = off
Abort on Busy = off
Carrier Check = off
Check Def Route = off
Abort on No Dialtone = off
Stupid Mode = on
Idle Seconds = 0
Auto DNS = on

5. Dial up to the interwebs.

Now just run wvdial to connect!

# wvdial -C /etc/wvdial.conf

If you see output reporting your PPP local and endpoint IP addresses, then you've won! Crack a beer and troll some forums.

6. Acknowledge the real heroes.

Thanks to the following webpages that gave me all this information:

Update: Fixed a bug in my udev rules.

Eli Janssen: "They thought they could destroy him by their traps and deadly tricks they used to destroy him. Then..."

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 21:08:29 +0000

““They thought they could destroy him by their traps and deadly tricks they used to destroy him. Then they destroyed him. But they destroyed him wrong.””

- The tagline from The 13 Burning Serpent Blades of the Ghost Ninja Assassin Warrior’s Revenge

This could be the best movie title ever, and the tagline is hilarious.

Allan McRae: Taking Moblin For A Spin

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 10:38:39 +0000

I thought I should take the Moblin v2 Beta release for a spin to see what all the excitement is about. While most distros would run fine on a netbook with little modification (e.g. The EEE repo for Arch essentially just contains a kernel), Moblin started from scratch and provides an interface specifically designed to get the most out of netbooks. Also, it is optimized for Intel’s Atom processor, so should provide a boost to multimedia applications on those less powerful processors that netbooks contain (in particular optimizations for the SSE2 and SSE3 instruction sets).

I was intending to test the Moblin Beta (20090529) in VirtualBox as I do not actually have a netbook, but that is not supported yet. While the live CD will boot, the screen resolution is too small for the upper menu to fit and the functionality is severely impaired. It did boot and run well on my laptop (any computer with recent Intel parts should be fine), but I was limited to testing from the live CD due to lack of spare partition to install it on.

My initial impressions are all positive. The interface makes it easy to do what I would want to do on a netbook (browse the internet and watch videos). Connecting to wireless internet was simple and sound worked out of the box. The web browser and media players did their job. The concept of “zones”, rather than multiple desktops, also works well. I would not be expecting to run too many applications at the same time on a reasonably underpowered machine anyway. I would need more time to assess how useful “the myzone” actually is, but my initial impress is that it could use improvement.

A couple of things did frustrate me:

The inability to configure the top menu. I do not use Twitter or Last.fm so it would be good to get rid of the “status panel”.
The “myzone” page can only have its background customized. This seems an area where more configuration options would be useful.
I spent a lot of time looking for a shut-down button. It appears hitting the power button on the laptop does a shutdown (without a confirmation dialog…).
The lack of a system tray. An instant messager is a bit useless without one.

I am sure some/all of these will be addressed as the distro heads towards an actual release. Only not being able to configure the top menu and the lack of system tray are critical as far as I am concerned.

Overall, I will definitely consider Moblin quite favorably if/when I get a netbook.

Official News: Arch Linux Newsletter June 2009

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 04:00:00 +0000

The Arch Linux Newsletter team is proud to announce the Newsletter for June 2009. To discuss this newsletter, click here. To read past issues of the Arch Linux Newsletter, here they are.

Dieter Plaetinck: Mysql status variables caveats

Sat, 06 Jun 2009 09:33:34 +0000

While setting up Zenoss and reading Mysql documentation about status variables I learned:

All select_* variables ("Select statistics" graph in Zenoss) are actually about joins, not (all) selects. This also explains why there is no clear relation to com_select (which shows the amount of selects). ("Command statistics:selects" graph in Zenoss)
Com_select does not denote all incoming select commands. If you have a hit on your query cache, com_select is not incremented. So I thought we were doing less qps while in fact we were just getting more cache hits. Qcache_hits gets incremented on cache hits (but is not monitored by Zenoss)

Dieter Plaetinck: Zenoss & Mysql monitoring

Sat, 06 Jun 2009 08:35:40 +0000

I've been playing with Zenoss (2.4) for the first time. Here are my thoughts:

One big package that installs itself in /usr/local and copies an initscript to /etc/init.d . Contains a mysql instance, rrdtool, python and several more binaries. (all in all about 500MB installed). Not the cleanest way to do things but definitely easy to install/deploy. This is also where your data will end up
Configuration is in a Zope-specific database (ZODB). I prefer text files for this (easy to edit, easy to generate, version control etc). Mysql is used for the events, RRD files for measurement data. Two fine choices there
When you add a host, it does a lot of things automatically (monitoring various things through snmp and even ssh. Even crontabs and their results are tracked). I'm sure people will have various opinions about this
It uses Adobe flash for interface...I mean, seriously
It checks for updates itself. Very useful if you don't like package managers
Most stuff just works by default (eg basic snmp monitoring). to monitor things like mysql/apache you just install a zenpack, restart zenoss, configure one or two settings and it should work. No need to write the commands, variable replacements etc like in Nagios
Nice overview page per host with its current state (it shows the host' properties and other information, not just servicecheck outputs like Nagios)
I did have several issues about rrd files not being generated and such (even once where a manual 'python check_foo args' worked) for which I did not get human-friendly errors or in fact, no errors at all ( even in event log), but this is obviously the kind of stuff they will iron out. Usually some other people have had the same issues and in IRC they are also quite helpful.

I also tried the mysqlmonitor zenpack, which is quite nice. You can find out what it can do at various places (extended monitoring guide, mysql monitoring shootout etc), but here is what it does not monitor/graph:

query cache (hits, inserts, lowmem_prunes, queries in cache,..)
query durations / #slow queries
returned rows /dataset sizes
open tables
replication stats
thread states
temp tables (tmp tables on disk!)
com_* variables other then com_select/insert/update/delete. no com_alter/commit/flush/lock_tables etc

I don't see why you can't track such things, as afaik you can easily/cheaply get them all with a 'show global status'. (though storing them all in rrd files will take quite some space). Imho it would be very usefull it you had more control over what (not) to monitor, maybe through zPropperties or whatever.
Though it doesn't look too hard to adapt the Zenpack, so it can be done.

Eli Janssen: Mozilla Labs Jetpack | Exploring new ways to extend and personalize the Web

Sat, 06 Jun 2009 00:38:28 +0000

Mozilla Labs Jetpack | Exploring new ways to extend and personalize the Web: the little jetpack demo video makes jetpack seem pretty neat.

Godane's Development Blog: godane

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 23:54:01 +0000

Changes since last release:

* larchin 6.1.2 works now. You will have to go to lxde desktop to use it though. Need at least 4GB to install the full archiso-live.

* Added baseonly option in english menu. This is so there is barebone install of archiso-live. Lxde is the default desktop cause xfce will not be in it. Need 2.5GB to install the barebone install.

Everything is up2date as of 4:00PM on 20090605.

root password is ArchLinux

arch password is arch

Here is the iso, md5, and package list.

Package changes are here.

Eli Janssen: garfield minus garfield

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 03:40:49 +0000

garfield minus garfield: garfield minus garfield is great. It makes Jon seem even more neurotic and depressed.

Eli Janssen: i dislike launchpad

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 18:01:34 +0000

I dislike launchpad. So much so, that when I am using a piece of software, and I discover a bug, and the only way to submit said bug is to use launchpad, I generally just give up on submitting it. The barrier for entry/use is too high.

In a similar vein, if I run across a project using bazaar (often tied to projects on launchpad), I tend to be less interested in the source.

Maybe I have become a “tool snob”. Either that or it isn’t just me, and launchpad and bazaar really are as awful for other people as they seem to be to me.

Dusty Phillips: Django Dash

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 14:58:28 +0000

“I am going to send you a link and I want you to think about it before you just say no.”

That’s how Jason introduced the idea of the Django Dash to me. He figured it’d be fun to try to develop an entire web app in 48 hours using a web framework and Javascript toolkit he was unfamiliar with. (Jason has odd ideas of fun). I agreed, but we’re both aesthetically challenged. We’re good web programmers. Website design and graphics, not so good.

Enter Phil, an acquaintance of Jason’s I had not yet heard of. Great guy, great designer, great team mate.

So last weekend, I spent about 35 out of 48 hours on skype with these two goofballs three timezones away, typing python code and cursing javascript. We made 100 commits more than any other team (but we wore out before we cleared 500). Sleep and exhaustion tried to throw us off course, but we pulled it off. We had a ton of fun and I even learned something (the for statement can have an else clause).

The constant skype linkup really helped in terms of motivation, its so much more productive to just ask a question and have it responded to than to dig through someone’s code trying to figure out what they were thinking, to scan google results looking for the info you need, or to send an e-mail to someone and wait for them to respond. Skype is also more productive than instant messaging. This surprised me; turns out that its much easier to talk and type in or scroll your source window than it is to be constantly switching back and fourth to your IM window.

For those interested, here is the result of our 48 hour sprint, a relatively complete and not-quite bug-free loaned item tracking application: WhoHasMy.

Phil deserves all the credit on the sleek design, he’s totally awesome and is the difference between an ugly django app with ajax calls and a professional one. He also has an entertaining habit of verbifying nouns.

Jason deserves the credit for the initial idea, most of the program design, autocomplete, and bailing us out when git-svn confused us… several times.

I will take credit for an outrageous number of commits editing the to-do file and keeping us organized. I think I may also have written some python code and some interesting ajax requests.

Our top priority was to have fun. And we did — It was a blast. I think we’ve got a decent chance at a prize, though there’s some stiff competition out there. But hey, Who would turn down a free private github subscription or Bacon?

Eli Janssen: Why you should use Gentoo on your servers - blog, jurgen dot ca.

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 15:34:36 +0000

Why you should use Gentoo on your servers - blog, jurgen dot ca.: pretty funny