Category: IT

vold volume daemon for linux:

But there already is an automounter in Linux! Why do we need this ‘vold’?
Something I did never like about the automounter is that its auto mounting is somehow special. Devices are not mounted automatically when they are available but when they are accessed. Another point that really annoyed me was that when I plugged in my Memory Stick in Windows or in Mac OS X, I needn’t do anything else – it just worked. I plugged it in on Linux and … nothing happened (as usual..). I could live with the mount process but its not only that. The device names may change if you have more that one hotpluggable device depending on which device you plug in first.

according to clemens, vold is in fact very similar to the volume daemon ‘vold’ found on Solaris or the ‘autodiskmount’ on Mac OS X. hmm.. polling/busy waiting?

i need to check it out as soon as i find some spare time (a rare thing lately and probably also for the next few months). i wonder whether there are any synergies with the new, planned devfs replacement.. possibly. perhaps an opportunity to get rid of hardcoded devices in the “scan file”.

once more i’ve noticed how much faster my old (but actually fine) vaio notebook is when running lean fluxbox as window manager instead of using full-blown desktop environments such as kde or windows. as i prefer fluxbox anyway i’ll probably keep it like this for a while.

so far, i haven’t heard anything new from apple regarding their 15.2″ aluminium powerbook screen problems. this is lousy. i don’t know yet whether i should risk ordering it anyway and let apple just fix it if required. after all, i still think that both mac os x 10.3 and the new powerbooks are great things.

in other news, my hi-fi set doesn’t work properly anymore. troubles with l/r channels, low frequencies (aka “give me bass, baby”) and the audiocd drive. that’s a pity. i think it’s time to get rid of it (yep, we’re living in a “junk society”). i’m thinking about not replacing it but re-activating my workstation’s 5.1 digital surround boxes instead. i prefer listening to web-radio (lounge-radio.ch, radio42.com etc.) anyway (much better sound, no news, broader choice, international stations, no advertisement). of course it’s also more suitable for listening to mp3/ogg, audiocd etc.. hmm.. yes, i think i will soon have my do-it-yourself mediacenter pc ;)

see heise mobil newsticker (german), linuxant press release. wrapping windows drivers is a bit ugly imho, but obviously the only solution atm. other centrino-news (german)

the secure shell filesystem can replace filesystem synchronization tools if used with a central linux server and linux clients. however, for cross-platform environments such as mine, the unison file synchronizer is the tool of choice.

first i’ve thought that the sudden gcc compilation failures have to do with a gentoo-specific gcc/headers problem, then i’ve stumbled over the following lkml message (see the whole thread)

[PATCH][2.6] constant_test_bit doesn’t like my gcc

so in case you experience the same problem, you know what to do :)

ada is a great programming language. i started reading a tutorial a while ago and i’ve even made initial gentoo ebuilds of gnat therefore (unfortunately i’ve lost those and several other nice ebuilds prior to submitting them). now all ada-related stuff in gentoo is maintained by david holm (which is a good thing as he’s proficient in ada).

i’m still a bloody beginner regarding ada, but i’m looking forward to digging deeper.

..sadly (*). that’s the disadvantage (some follow-ups: 1, 2, 3) when using a us-based search engine from within switzerland where dmca fortunately doesn’t exist (yet?). at least google is clever enough to publish the complaint.

is there any more evidence needed why mr. stricker’s case is important to all of us who live in .ch?

(*) in german: “Aufgrund einer Klage, die sich auf den Digital Millennium Copyright Act bezieht, haben wir 1 Ergebnis(se) von dieser Seite entfernt. Wenn Sie wollen, können Sie die DMCA-Klage lesen, die zur Entfernung dieser Ergebnisse geführt hat.”

ignorance is bliss..

..but it doesn’t change facts(*). sure, not all journalists do a good job. nevertheless let’s not ignore that only verifiable evidence counts when accusing renowned newspapers of bad journalism.

speaking about the ups and downs of journalism: encouraging people to do uptime comparisons (aka “schwanzlängenvergleiche” -> sorry, in german only ;) is pretty silly as a) you can’t compare apples with oranges and b) measuring uptimes of workstations/servers is very questionable unless there does not exist even a single known security hole in the system measured.

(*) such as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, ..

(bugs/security holes in complex software are inevitable with today’s software engineering technologies. however, not to release patches for known security holes within a reasonable amount of time is ignominious.)

some days ago, ingo has backported his exec-shield patch to vanilla 2.4.22. you can find it here. i’ve tested it on my box and it seems to work fine now.

now it’s all about grid computing. according to oracle to be more precise. what a nice coincidence that they offer a new suite of products which enables you to just enter the grid ;)

if however you believe having heard of “grid computing” long long before, this probably wasn’t a mental delusion..

[update 20031002: there are pictures of the event online now]
Continue reading “enter the grid?”