Ubuntu KDE Package Dependency Hell
patrick — Wed, 2010-03-24 15:00
I recently upgraded my mythtv setup to Ubuntu's Koala and had some permissions issues. As all UID/GID settings in /etc/passwd and /etc/group were previously set up correctly so that NFS would work correctly across multiple computers the only thing I can think of is that when the upgrade process removed certain packages in preparation for re-adding the newer packages it also stripped those users and groups out of my /etc/passwd and /etc/group files. As my desktop had the old UIDs and GIDs I compared them to the new UIDs and GIDs on my mythtv backend and my mythtv frontend and all 3 had different UIDs and GIDs.
In attempting to fix the issue on my mythtv frontend I ended up screwing up a couple of things and decided to do a clean install of xubuntu. After it set up the new file system (and before rebooting and adding more packages) I copied the /target/etc/passwd and /target/etc/group to my desktop, injected all the various users and groups I needed across all my boxes (making sure UIDs and GIDs didn't overlap), and added a couple items to /target/etc/shadow.
I then allowed the installation process to eject the live CD and reboot the computer. When it finished booting I logged in and started installing a few items I knew I needed - mythtv-frontend (making sure it wasn't installing the backend, which would be redundant), vlc, k3b, kaffeine, amarok, sun-java6-jdk, php5-cli, php-pear, php-getid3, and mysql-client. In the process of trying to add all of these I noticed that mysql-server-core-5.1 was being automatically installed... Why?
OLPC Update
patrick — Sat, 2008-09-13 18:28
I know there were several people wanting updates on the OLPC. The GUI is non-standard for a PC of any breed (Mac, Linux, Win) & I had thought of looking to see what other projects were around that would provide an interface I'm more familiar with.
I'm not a large fan of the Red Hat's (the linux distro that OLPC uses) rpm (yes, I realize yum has come out since I left), but I figured I could mess with whatever for a laptop I'd only be using for taking notes at conferences & such. I'd still have access to pretty much all the tools & utilities I'm used to.
I ended up with other projects that were more of a priority for me (my mythtv boxes, work, fun...). And then somebody pointed out Fortune Magazine - With Microsoft, OLPC may finally succeed. While a nifty title I find it on the humorous side.
I've Changed My Mind - I Love Windows Vista!
patrick — Wed, 2008-04-02 02:05
Ok, it's 2am my time so it's past the time for goofy April Fools' jokes. This was the post I mentioned I'd hold off on. Special thanks to jaeger for unknowingly giving this post a title.
That's right. I've decided I absolutely love Windows Vista (wikipedia entry). I like it even more than Ubuntu (wikipedia entry).
Another Way To Build A File Server
patrick — Thu, 2008-03-27 17:07
Somebody was talking about ZFS today and I hadn't heard of it, but thought it might be similar to XFS. After pointing me in the direction of some information I'm not sure of the exact differences, but ZFS is more akin to raid... or at least from the information I've read so far.
My OLPC Arrived!
patrick — Tue, 2008-03-18 23:05
So I got this weird box in the mail today and started googling for it. I didn't find anything via google, but looking closer at the FedEx & contents stickers I noticed "OLPC XO" on the side! My OLPC had showed up! Somebody asked for pictures so here's the top & bottom... After getting a closer look at what all is on it I'll make another post.
Friends & Family Fileserver & Backup Idea
patrick — Mon, 2007-07-02 11:47
This was originally started somewhere around 2007-06-27, but has taken several days of digging through information and sorting ideas to put this together.
Fun with Mono.NET
patrick — Wed, 2006-10-18 18:16
Whee! That was fun. Ok, so I set up mono way back in January or February hoping I could show off some of my old ASP (not .NET) applications that I had worked on. After getting everything set up, writing a "Hello World" page, getting that to actually display, & heading off to discover if I could get my VB ASP code to work I discovered that all the time I had put into setting up mono was a complete waste of time. Mono won't run the old VB ASP code.
Converting Photoshop PSD to PNG with ImageMagick
patrick — Wed, 2006-09-06 03:23
Yay for smart people! I got a zip file with a bunch of images in Photoshop's PSD format. Considering I only needed the top layer of the PSD file this got a bit annoying. My first try ended with multiple files for each PSD file... I tried using identify to see if that might be useful & sure enough, it gives information about each layer. So, I slopped together a couple of loops to go through all of the PSD files & convert their top layer to PNG.
The Joys of Compressed Files & Soft Links
patrick — Tue, 2006-08-08 21:14
I have saved the world yet again... Ok, maybe not the world, but I did help a friend out.
MinceR over @ irc.psionics.net#dnd3e was having issues with some shell scripts used in a C program. After asking a bunch of questions & debating various possibilities there was only 1 last thing that I could think of. I suggested that if the code had been extracted from a compressed file there's a possibility that the compression utility doesn't understand how to deal w/ soft links.
