about antitheism atheism audio author:phaidros author:tee console daw dawkins deb debian domu freebsd grub guest ikiwiki linux lowlatency mailman openwrt perl public sysctl tech terminal thereisnogod ubuntu ubuntu-server virtualbox xen

life can be so easy ...

phaidros@daddl:~/workspace/openrd/openrd.git$ sudo aptitude install uboot-mkimage
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  uboot-mkimage 
0 packages upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 5 not upgraded.
Need to get 9,876B of archives. After unpacking 57.3kB will be used.
Get:1 http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid/main uboot-mkimage 0.4build1 [9,876B]
Fetched 9,876B in 0s (61.7kB/s)      
Selecting previously deselected package uboot-mkimage.
(Reading database ... 52121 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking uboot-mkimage (from .../uboot-mkimage_0.4build1_i386.deb) ...
Setting up uboot-mkimage (0.4build1) ...

phaidros@daddl:~/workspace/openrd/openrd.git$ make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=/home/phaidros/workspace/openrd/arm-2010q1/bin/arm-none-linux-gnueabi- uImage
  CHK     include/linux/version.h
  CHK     include/generated/utsrelease.h
make[1]: `include/generated/mach-types.h' is up to date.
  CALL    scripts/checksyscalls.sh
  CHK     include/generated/compile.h
  Kernel: arch/arm/boot/Image is ready
  SHIPPED arch/arm/boot/compressed/lib1funcs.S
  AS      arch/arm/boot/compressed/lib1funcs.o
  LD      arch/arm/boot/compressed/vmlinux
  OBJCOPY arch/arm/boot/zImage
  Kernel: arch/arm/boot/zImage is ready
  UIMAGE  arch/arm/boot/uImage
Image Name:   Linux-2.6.33-rc8-00099-gb4cb3f9
Created:      Wed Aug 25 17:42:47 2010
Image Type:   ARM Linux Kernel Image (uncompressed)
Data Size:    2561572 Bytes = 2501.54 kB = 2.44 MB
Load Address: 0x00008000
Entry Point:  0x00008000
  Image arch/arm/boot/uImage is ready

yippieh, not longer complaining about missing mkimage .. thanks ubuntu (though possibly it came directly from Debian, so thanks to you uys as well !!! )

Posted on 25 August, 2010 Tags: Client OpenOCD OpenRD Plugcomputer Sheevaplug Uboot

yay. finally I managed to mangle my OpenRD Client board .. sigh

I had troubles, that the marge of my dev board was never stating the correct
manufacturer ID for the NAND, which made flashing newer Uboot bootloader im-
possible.

This was the error popping up whatever I tried with Uboot/OpenOCD ...

unknown NAND device found, manufacturer id: 0x00 device id: 0x00
probing failed for NAND flash device

It drove me nuts until found a solution [1]. Yay!

Now with a newer Uboot (v3.4.19) I was suddenly able to install Debian on the
SD/MMC. For that I followed the great Howto under [2].

Heh, nice. So it finally boots Debian .. and having the D-I via serial console
in my screen (hint: screen tops minicom a million times: screen /dev/ttyUSB0 115200)
just feels very nice :)

But then I got hot and wanted moar .. MUAHAHA !! .. I finally have put the Debian
install from the SD/MMC onto the internal flash, but not before converting that
flash to UBIFS, following this guide [3] ff.

Heh, so now I have an OpenRD Client, booting Debian on choice from SD/MMC or the
internal flash with either kernel 2.6.32-5-kirkwood from Debian or the Sheevakernel
from [4] with 2.6.35.3 ..

I love it!

Further down I have a list with more good-to-read-in-case-links.

[1] http://code.google.com/p/openrd/issues/detail?id=7
[2] http://www.cyrius.com/debian/kirkwood/openrd/install.html
[3] http://plugcomputer.org/plugwiki/index.php/Installing_Debian_To_Flash#Convert_internal_flash_root_partition_to_UBIFS
[4] http://sheeva.with-linux.com/sheeva




hth :)

Posted on 25 August, 2010 Tags: Client OpenOCD OpenRD Plugcomputer Sheevaplug Uboot

Ever wondered why it currently seems so fashionable for hackers to bash on homeopathy ?

well, we got ... numberz ! and to be less boring, put them into some pictures that give a relation.

First of all, lets see for what kinds of people homeopathy actually works and for whom not:

average effectiveness

works for.png

strange, heh ?

well, theres moar: as demonstrated, it is easy to understand that people only choose the data that is sufficient to prove their claims. in the current homeopathy bashing, most arguments go on about the theoretical possiblility of any effect based on the amount of thinning of a given substance.

as paracelsus stated that success alone will tell, this gives quite a different picture:

use only datasets that fit into your mindset

schusters leisten.png

hm... so, really, if someone believes something is completely harmless, then why hit on it ? the winner is quite clear:

who has an advantage

2-sponsored by pharma industry.png

100%

a clear winner at 100 per cent, not mentioning the small fry companies and users that are hurt by it.

To deviate a bit, an analysis of the hacker mindset in relation to alternative medicine seems in order.

As everyone is a computer expert these days, it should be mentioned that most computer people can maintain an overview over complex matter.
It should however also be mentioned that it mostly only applies to their own field of interest and proficiency and horribly fails at other systems.

hackers

3-system theory.png

Does that mean if they cannot maintain a feeling for a complex system outside of their domain it will equally be impossible to still take them seriously ?

It is about time for some lowkicks.

We shall take a look at their self image and how it deviates from reality.

Taking into account that they have access to a lot of information on the interwebs, this might suggest an onmisciencent belief system coupled with some more illusions:

omniscient beliefs

4-hackers believe they know all.png

reality shows a different picture, one of delusion.

This leads us to the difference between life and its skewed image in the mirror of the web:

delusions

5-hackers believe they know a lot.png

For people who are strictly to adhere to the dogma of duality expressed in ones and zeroes, anything fuzzy is an unlikely encounter:

a straight mindset

6-straight vs hip.png

But what the heck anyway, would you rather get an operation by a computer-illiterate surgeon or a hacker believing he/she knows about medicine ? How often have hackers helped you medically ?

What if conventional medicine fails ? If alternative medicine were totally non-effective, how could it hurt trying an alternative ?

fact is that there is a significant amount of so-called hopeless cases that were solved by "ineffective and unscientific" means.

doh.

7-who or what helps.png

To be able to spot a hunch of an explanation, we need to leave the rational battlefield and enter martial arts. This view allows us to pinpoint a fundamental difference between hackers and medics from any field.

The Difference

8-chi levels.png

This clearly gives an indication that a certain energy level needed to administer and receive alternative medical treatment is lacking at our aforementioned subjects.

Life is not a game where Experience Points can be gained by sitting in front of a screen and clicking at the things that pass by.

On the contrary, using computers for several times a day leads to a deprivation in energy that cannot adequately be quenched by pizza:

computers suck

9-computers suck.png

To increase the amount of MediPacks (ie. Health), it makes sense to turn the box off once in a while and stop bitching about stuff one does not have a clue about.

Hugh.

Posted on 19 August, 2010 Tags: arrogance bashing dumb as a brick hackers homeopathy rant

for ages, i had my ssh-agent settings in my .bashrc. with lucid this setup stopped working.

i had to - tell gconftool to not intermingle:

gconftool-2 --set -t bool /apps/gnome-keyring/daemon-components/ssh false

which did not do much. as an ugly hack, i additionally just disabled my own ssh-agent handling if it runs on lucid:
    # ssh-agent stuff
    # broken with ubuntu lucid
    distro=lsb_release -c | sed -e 's/Codename://g' | grep lucid
    if [ ! -z "$distro" ] ; then
                #echo "$distro detected, aborting ssh-agent logic"
                echo $- | grep i > /dev/null
                noninteractive=$?
                if [ "$noninteractive" == 0 ] ; then
                    ssh-add -l >& /dev/null
                    if test $? = 2; then
                         if test -f ~/.agent; then
                                 . ~/.agent
                         fi
                         ssh-add -l >& /dev/null
                         if test $? = 2; then
                                 ssh-agent > ~/.agent
                                 . ~/.agent > /dev/null
                         fi
                    fi
                fi

fi


links: live.gnome about ssh and ssh-agent not forgetting passphrase

Posted on 27 June, 2010 Tags: agent gnome lucid ssh

linked the aptitude docs ..

.. as I regularly tend to forget, I linked the aptitude docs on http://subsignal.org/aptitude.

the enhanced search option you can find directly here:
The aptitude Search Term Quick Guide !!eleven!

now, use it.
then, fun :)

Posted on 19 April, 2010 Tags: administration aptitude cli quickguide searchterm

what is the station url format in shell-fm?

using the nice and fantastic shell-fm player, the last-fm player in your beloved terminal,
you might wanna know which channels you can listen to and preferably in which
format you have to enter them.

All I found over the interwebz are here:

lastfm://user/${user}
lastfm://user/$USER/recommended
lastfm://user/$USER/playlist
lastfm://user/${user}/loved
lastfm://user/${user}/personal
lastfm://usertags/${user}/${usertag}
lastfm://artist/${artist}/similarartists
lastfm://artist/${artist}/fans
lastfm://globaltags/${globaltag}

Hehe, meanwhile crawling through the omniscient dump, I just found another friendly
cli player lastbash (homepage) and wikipedia article. neat.

can haz this channels e.g.:

lastbash "lastfm://globaltags/jungle"
lastbash "lastfm://globaltags/glitch"
lastbash "lastfm://user/phaidros7/neighbours"
lastbash "lastfm://artist/Salmonella Dub/similarartists"

now: fun!

Posted on 18 March, 2010 Tags: cli last-fm lastbash musicplayer shell-fm

atheism is stoopid!

Posted on 14 March, 2010 Tags: dna facepalm

squeeze still has no jack support in libportaudio an amd64, ..

.. which is needed to use mixxx with jack

# apt-get source portaudio19  
# apt-get build-dep portaudio19

# cd /portaudio19-19+svn20071207/debian

remove ENABLE_JACK = no from line 48
ENABLE_JACK must be explicitely set to "yes"

# nano debian/rules

# dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -b

# cd ../
# dpkg -i *.deb

mixxx still doesn't detect jack for me, stay tuned. Does work now!

(no) fun! (yet)

Posted on 19 February, 2010 Tags: amd64 jack jackd libportaudio19 mixxx squeeze unstable

10 commands for installing latest nvidia on squeeze

# echo <<EOF >> /etc/apt/sources.list \
deb http://ftp.tu-chemnitz.de/pub/linux/debian/debian/ unstable main non-free contrib \
deb-src http://ftp.tu-chemnitz.de/pub/linux/debian/debian/ unstable main non-free contrib \
EOF

# echo 'APT::Default-Release "testing";' >/etc/apt/apt.conf.d/00defaultrelease

# aptitude update
# aptitude install module-assistant nvidia-kernel-common build-essential
# m-a clean nvidia-kernel-source
# m-a purge nvidia-kernel-source
# m-a prepare
# aptitude install nvidia-kernel-source/unstable
# m-a a-i nvidia-kernel-source
# aptitude -t unstable install nvidia-glx nvidia-libvdpau1 nvidia-settings nvidia-libvdpau1-ia32 nvidia-glx-ia32

fun!
Posted on 19 February, 2010 Tags: amd64 nano-howto nvidia squeeze unstable

install debian from usb stick

# wget http://http.us.debian.org/debian/dists/stable/main/installer-amd64/current/images/hd-media/boot.img.gz
# sudo umount /dev/sdb1
# zcat boot.img.gz > /dev/sdb1

plug stick out / in.

# wget http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian-cd/current/amd64/iso-cd/debian-504-amd64-netinst.iso
# mount

see where stick is mounted.

# cp debian-504-amd64-netinst.iso /media/Debian\ Inst/

happy installing!

Posted on 18 February, 2010 Tags: amd64 installer stick usb

OpenWRT on Xen patched, up and running

Thanx to jow and thomas h., we have now working support for Xen in OpenWRT!
see the following changesets for what is done:

So you now can choose x86 as target with Xen as subtarget.
nice. we give back to the connected funk-haeusers!

Posted on 13 February, 2010 Tags: dom0 jow

locale: Cannot set LC_ALL to default locale: No such file or directory

now and then this happenes to me on a new machine. usually I just set
LC_ALL, LC_LANG & LANGUAGE like this

root@gargamel:~# cat /etc/profile.d/locale 
export LANGUAGE = "en_US.UTF-8"
export LC_ALL = "en_US.UTF-8"
export LANG = "en_US.UTF-8"

still it complains about missing default locale. so we hafta do this:

localedef -v -c -i en_US -f UTF-8 en_US.UTF-8 

because usually en_US is probably defined.
we r done. we give back to the connected funk-haeusers!

Posted on 29 January, 2010 Tags: annoying cli helpers locale locales

mkcd - mkdir & cd directly into it

phaidros@42:~/ #$ echo 'mkcd() { mkdir -p "$@" && cd $_; }' >> ~/.bashrc
phaidros@42:~/ #$ . ~/.bashrc
phaidros@42:~/ #$ mkcd /path/to/a/new/folder/
phaidros@42:/path/to/a/new/folder/#$ echo "Well done :) !"

Little, easy, damn useful.
We give back to the connected funk-haeusers!

Posted on 13 January, 2010 Tags: bash cli helpers

finding obsolete conffiles

when updating from lenny to squeeze, one will face two major upgrades of the system:

  • grub becomes grub-legacy and is superceeded by grub2

for people not wanting to convert yet as not everything is supported yet, this can be postponed if desired.

  • sys-rc is being accompanied by innserv

a new, faster system for booting (it looks even faster than upstart to me). its upgrade might fail for some packages on the system not being --purged but just --removed.

getting a list of obsolete conffiles is as simple as

dpkg-query -W -f='${Conffiles}\n' | grep obsolete

if you're absolutely sure you dont need any of the old stuff (possibly including your own customisations) you might also do

dpkg --purge $(dpkg -l|awk '/^rc/ {print $2}')

which will simply purge all removed but not purged packages.

Posted on 5 January, 2010 Tags: apt dist-upgrade dpkg lenny squeeze

List all packages containing the words route or routing in their description:

aptitude search '~drout(e|ing)'

List installed packages that are not official Debian packages:

aptitude search '~S~i!~Odebian'

List packages installed from experimental:

aptitude search ~S~i~Aexperimental

List packages with 'ruby' and 'gtk' in their names:

aptitude search 'ruby gtk'
aptitude search ~nruby~ngtk

List installed packages that depend on bash:

aptitude search ~S~i~Dbash

Purge all packages that have been removed except for their config files:

aptitude purge ~c
Posted on 30 December, 2009 Tags: apt-get aptitude gnu regex

atheism is arrogant ;)

Posted on 4 December, 2009 Tags:

xm console not working (blank)

on some xen domUs I recently figured that the xm console didn't come
up. so investigating the issue I found out that you gotta set the
tty in the machine's config like this:

extra       = 'xencons=tty1'

but still I get a blank screen instead of the login. solution is simple,
for systems still having an inittab (eg. debian) look for the following
line:

nano /etc/inittab

1:2345:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty1

for systems which utilize upstart already (ubuntu) look for another file:

nano /etc/event.d/tty1

start on stopped rc2
start on stopped rc3
start on stopped rc4
start on stopped rc5

stop on runlevel 0
stop on runlevel 1
stop on runlevel 6

respawn
exec /sbin/getty 38400 tty1

makes the xm console work on all my machines again.

Posted on 4 December, 2009 Tags:

if you are using virtualbox and seeing this:

This kernel requires the following features not present on the CPU:
0:6
Unable to boot - please use a kernel appropriate for your CPU

or the like, it could be you are trying to run an *buntu server kernel.
just enable PAE/NX for the vm guest. this should solve the issue.

Posted on 10 November, 2009 Tags:

freebsd bootloader repairs et al

to repair ie grub on freebsd (or to overwrite the disk the box is running on, etc..), the system will complain about doing so.

sysctl kern.geom.debugflags=16

will let you shoot yourself in the foot nevertheless (make the mbr writable).

Posted on 8 October, 2009 Tags:

make deb from cpan

simple:

dh-make-perl --build --cpan $module
dpkg -i $module.deb

Posted on 23 June, 2009 Tags:

preparing the guest system

you need to put following

  1. /etc/preinit

    • add "mknod /dev/hvc0 c 229 0"
    • before "exec /sbin/init"
  2. /etc/inittab

    • add "hvc0::askfirst:/bin/ash --login"

in the domU.conf, aside the usual settings:

  • disk = ['tap:aio:/path/to/openwrt-x86-ext2.fs,xvda1,w']
  • root = '/dev/xvda1 rw'
  • extra = "console=hvc0 init=/etc/preinit"
Posted on 22 June, 2009 Tags:

building debs from source

make sure to have deb-src entries in your sources.list[.d]

among the installed packages should be at least

build-essential debhelper fakeroot autoconf automake

add more if necessary (like dh-make, quilt and so on)

get the dependencies right:

sudo apt-get build-dep $package

get the sources and build them:

sudo apt-get -b source $package

for manual adjustments, leave out the -b and in the package source dir, do

fakeroot debian/rules binary

after changing whatever you wanted different.

Posted on 10 June, 2009 Tags:

ikiwiki setup notes

heres a cklist should i create another iki instance. just assuming the vcs would be svn this time.

deciding for

  • one or more webroots: as one repository is rendered into html by ikiwiki --setup ikiwiki-setup it can also be rendered somewhere else with a different setupfile, ie one is a wiki (some ppl call it backend) and another one will be rendered into plain html just to look at. (some ppl call it "cms" but this is way nicer to use than a cms. also, its lightyears faster)

/$webroot/$instance(wiki)
/$webroot/$instance(dumb)

and then

(moar)

hide

  • place for one or more Makefiles and ikiwiki-setup.$instance (no, i won't rename this file anymore)

~/wikis/$instance

  • place for a checkout that can also be edited without the webif

~/wikis/$instance/src

  • $vcs repository location

/wotevr/svn/repo/$instance

  • webserver config
  • urls for all components

http[s]://f.q.dn/iki/$instance
http[s]://f.q.dn/svn/$instance

  • $vcs repo webserver config or not

  • component and setup for the history button (->ie viewvc)

http[s]://f.q.dn/iki/$instance/history
ScriptAlias /viewvc /usr/local/viewvc/bin/cgi

finally,

ikiwiki --setup ikiwiki.setup-$instance
ikiwiki-makerepo svn ~/wikis/$instance/src /wotevr/svn/repos/$instance

done.

Posted on 8 June, 2009 Tags: cms

as I did, you might also wonder if mailman is capable of running on multiple domain names with a single instance.

yes it is, easy. configure mailman for your default host and for the next ones, just add the following line to /etc/mailman/mm_cfg.py

add_virtualhost('lists.yourdomain.org','lists.yourdomain.org')

add a vhost for your webserver to point http://lists.yourdomain.org to the mailman. nicely you can add now (with the sooperdooper password) new lists via webif.

now the wondering point: your new list will still be listed on the webif of the default mailman host. I tried to patch mailman, as I remembered it was not a feature offered upstream. by reading the code, I just wondered, that there is a comparison alread done if the list belongs to the web url. well, all you need to do is changing the web_page_url variable of your new list of the virtual domain, because by default all new lists belong to - who guessed - default host. easy thing:

bin/withlist -l -r fix_url listname -u lists.yourdomain.org

well, now it just shows up onlt on the webif of the vhost it belongs to, ez, eh?

Posted on 8 June, 2009 Tags:

ubuntu stable sucked, so I just went alpha!

grep -r jaunty /etc/apt/sources.list* | grep -v "^#" | gawk {'print $1'} | sed 's/:.*$//' | xargs sed -i 's/jaunty/karmic/g

set all used apt sources from jaunty to karmic.

sudo aptitude update
sudo aptitude dist-upgrade    

for a t41p (or other harware using Rxxx ATI card) follow the instructions here: https://launchpad.net/~xorg-edgers/+archive/ppa

get your card running. nice, latest DRI, and works. (don't forget to:

aptitude install xserver-xorg-video-ati

)

I then again got troubles with supend/hibernation. so tetzlav pointed me once moar to uswsusp.

sudo aptitude install uswsusp
s2ram -f -p -m

for suspend to ram.

s2disk

for suspend to disk. roxx!

and, well, still splash was buggy. kick it. now I got radeonfb used for 1440x1050 on console

nano /boot/grub/menu.list

add the following to the line with #defoptions (do not remove the '#', remove all other vga= or video= settings)

vga=835 video=radeonfb

so, that to work, you must edit /etc/initramfs/modules. just add

i2c_algo_bit
fb_ddc
radeonfb
fbcon

fb_ddc is used to detect the screen resolution, i2c is needed by it. radeon, of course ..

now get your changes into place

sudo update-grub
sudo update-initramfs -u -k all

reboot, see, suspend, wake up .. \o/ ..

Posted on 6 June, 2009 Tags:

about


this blog features tech tips, sometimes done in the spirit of technical thugging. its name was inspired by stuff that can be done with a FLT.
hoping to be of any practical use, this blog contains info about things someone did to get some stuff done.

if any of the things here inspire you to shoot yourself in the foot, you are welcome to do so but don't come complaining except when trying to help.

you get what you pay for, and it's free.

Posted on 6 June, 2009 Tags: