Re: shooting oneself in the foot with "ldconfig -v"

[perryh]

> > The previously configured directory list was fully populated, so
> > effectively there should have been no change as the previously
> > configured directories were untouched and I specified no
> > additional pathnames.
> > ...
> > Are you saying that by specifying "-v" I no longer satisfied the
> > "no parameters are given" clause and ended up in a default place
> > in the logic?
>
> That wasn't actually what I was saying, but after checking the
> source code it turns out you are right and that is exactly what
> happens.
>
> > ... IMHO a verbose switch shouldn't change behavior; it should
> > just spam the console a lot.
>
> True.

Current behavior sounds like, at best, a LOLA violation.  Perhaps the
OP would consider submitting a PR.
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How to set up a network-attached printer

[perryh]

Where would I find a specific method for setting up a Samsung
ML-2571N network-attached PostScript printer in FreeBSD 6.1?
I'm hoping for something less generic than what I've found in
the handbook.

It "just works" from MacOS X, as did the old LaserWriter IIf
that the Samsung replaced, so I suppose one approach would be
to use the Mac as a print server; but I would prefer to print
from FreeBSD directly so that the Mac does not need to be up
in order to print from the FreeBSD machine.
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Re: FreeBSD 6.2 on J7F4 locks up

[perryh]

> I've now also experienced lock ups when building world in in
> single user mode, without using the nics. So the problem might
> not only be the nics. Cany anyone confirm this?
>
> ACPI, SATA, AC97 and USB were disabled when the lock up occurred.

The canonical suspect would be flakey memory.
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Re: add application names to the drop-down menu??

[perryh]

> > Can anybodytell me how to add apps to the Gnome "drop-down"
> > menu beneath the string "Applications"? (Upper-left-hand corner)
>
> Try using deskutils/alacarte ...

x11-wm/wmconfig is another possibility.
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Re: hidden disk geometry on Compaq Presario V2000

[perryh]

Lorin Lund <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> I have a Compaq Presario Notebook in the V2000 series.
> I just replaced the hard drive because the original was getting
> disk errors.
>
> I have a WD Scorpio 120 GB.  When I try to load FreeBSD I get an
> error message when I get to the partition the disk stage.  It
> says my disk geometry is wrong.  It says I need to use whatever
> numbers my BIOS uses.  But my BIOS doesn't show the disk geometry
> numbers anywhere I can see.  How can I proceed?  How can I find
> out what disk geometry to use?

One method, which I think may be mentioned in the Handbook, is to
boot the Windows install CD (that presumably came with the Presario)
and use its fdisk to create a small partition.  You don't need to
actually install Windows, just create a partition as if you were
going to install it.  Then boot the FreeBSD CD and sysinstall will
figure out the geometry from the Windows master boot record.
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Re: K3b

[perryh]

> BTW: I really gets annoyed when people say by the way
> it works in Linux, Windows, Solaris or whatever.
> What is that suppose to mean?

When someone describes a problem getting a certain hardware setup
to work as desired in FreeBSD, and reports that it works in some
other OS, I would take it to mean that one need not suggest testing
the hardware, since it is already known to work properly in the
other environment.  For someone who happens to be familiar with
whatever other OS was mentioned, it may also serve as an example
of the sort of operation that the poster was attempting to achieve
in FreeBSD.
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Re: FreeBSD for Sony Playstation3?

[perryh]

> > ... will FreeBSD.org consider porting FreeBSD to Sony
> > Playstation3?
>
> ... NetBSD works like a charm on Sony Playstation2
> http://www.netbsd.org/ports/playstation2/.
>
> and my guess will be that NetBSD 4.0 which is supposed to
> be released about the same time as FreeBSD 7.0 will work
> on Playstation3.

The IBM Cell processor in the PS3 is unique beast, similar in many
ways to a PPC970 but with enough subtle (and some not-so-subtle)
differences that the port would likely need to be overseen by
someone familiar with such undertakings.  This is not to predict
that NetBSD 4.0 will or won't support it -- that could reasonably
be asked on a NetBSD list -- but be aware that it may turn out to
be a bigger job than one might initially expect.
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Re: rss-glx screen saver compilation fails?

[perryh]

> spirographx.o(.text+0x30f): In function `getAll':
> : undefined reference to `sincosf'

Per Google, it's a gnu-ism: http://linux.die.net/man/3/sincosf

void sincosf(float x, float *sin, float *cos);

Several applications need sine and cosine of the same angle x.
This function computes both at the same time, and stores the
results via the given pointers.

Probably a 10-liner by just calling sin() and cos() separately --
a bit more work to do it "properly" -- or just grab the gnu code
if you don't need to be BSD-licensed.
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Re: Capturing tar output

[perryh]

> > redirect stderr with "2>" operator
> >
> Using the following command,
> # /usr/local/gtar/bin/tar -cvf - /home/hallja 2 > /var/log/test.txt |
> /usr/local/bin/gpg --encrypt "recipient" | dd of=/dev/nsa0 obs=128k
>
> I receive an error meesage stating, "Ambiguous output redirect."

Wojtek correctly pointed out that there should be no space between
the 2 and the >, but I suspect the primary problem is that "2>" is
Bourne/Korn/Bash syntax and your root shell is most probably csh.

Does it work any better if you first start /bin/sh:

# sh

sh will give you another # prompt, and then it should work:

# /usr/local/gtar/bin/tar -cvf - /home/hallja 2> /var/log/test.txt | 
/usr/local/bin/gpg --encrypt "recipient" | dd of=/dev/nsa0 obs=128k

After it finishes, and sh prompts again:

# ^D

The Ctrl-D will exit from sh, returning to the csh prompt.
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Re: server is crashing constantly

[perryh]

Jonathan Horne <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> I have a new web server [which] is crashing 2-3 times a day ...
>
> That is what im getting in the /var/log/messages.
>
> Sep 13 20:09:25 rps savecore: reboot after panic: page fault
> Sep 13 20:09:25 rps savecore: writing core to vmcore.0
...
> Any ideas or recommendations about where to start looking
> to track this down would really be appreciated.

It's likely to be hardware problems (yes, even on a new box).

memtest and/or memtest86, in ports/sysutils.
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Re: Realtek 8111C?

[perryh]

> ... I thought I'd try copying the driver from 7.1.  The module
> (if_re.ko) appears to load successfully at boot time, however
> the NIC is still not shown in dmesg and unavailable as re0.
> I admit I don't know if this should even work (7.1-compiled
> module on 6.3 kernel) ...

That would indeed not be expected to work.  Even a 7.1 module on
a 7.0 system would be hit-or-miss; across a major revision it's a
wonder it didn't panic.  You could try building the module from
the 7.1 source on 6.3.
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Re: My unqualified host name

[perryh]

> > "nyana sm-mta[803]: My unqualified host name (nyana) unknown;  
> > sleeping for retry"
>
> ... sendmail expects your machine to have working DNS and for
> the machine to have a valid FQDN.  Either set that up, or add  
> sendmail_enable="NONE" to /etc/rc.conf to disable sendmail ...

There is another approach, which is to ignore the message.  After
something like 3 repetitions, at something like a minute apart,
it will give up on qualifying its name.  Everything seems to work
just fine thereafter until the next boot, when the entire sequence
repeats.

This leads to the question of how to get sendmail -- or whatever
-- into the state where it will eventually land after the 3-miunte
delay, without the delay and the messages.  It seems as if this
ought not be all that difficult.
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Re: My unqualified host name

[perryh]

> >  > > "nyana sm-mta[803]: My unqualified host name (nyana) unknown;  
> >  > > sleeping for retry"
> >  >
> >  > ... sendmail expects your machine to have working DNS and for
> >  > the machine to have a valid FQDN.  Either set that up, or add  
> >  > sendmail_enable="NONE" to /etc/rc.conf to disable sendmail ...
> >  
> >  There is another approach, which is to ignore the message.  After
> >  something like 3 repetitions, at something like a minute apart,
> >  it will give up on qualifying its name.  Everything seems to work
> >  just fine thereafter until the next boot, when the entire
> >  sequence repeats.
>
>Respectfully, my gut reaction is this is, if not /bad/ practice,
> at least not /good/ practice.  The requirements for geting sendmail
> to behave (at least in this regard) are not particularly onerous;

If sendmail *will not work properly* without a valid FQDN, that alone
is onerous.  See below.

> why not just diagnose and fix the root problem?

because I have no clue how to do it, without adopting settings that
I don't want!

Dunno about the OP, but my FreeBSD machines do not have nor need
valid FQDNs because they sit behind a NAT firewall (and therefore
do not have externally-identifiable IP addresses).  I want hostname
to simply return the unqualified host name (say, foo), not foo.com
nor foo.uucp nor even foo.bogus.  I don't need sendmail to handle
anything but purely local traffic, such as the periodic reports to
root, and it's just fine for it to identify itself simply as foo.
We were able to do things like this back in the days of SunOS 4, so
why should it be difficult to accomplish today?  Indeed, why should
it not be the default mode of operation when hostname returns an
unqualified name?
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Re: My unqualified host name

[perryh]

> If you look for "My unqualified host name" "unknown; sleeping for
> retry" you will get a lot of possible answers; some suggesting to
> add your unqualified host name in /etc/hosts.

That line is already in /etc/hosts, both with and without a trailing
period.  I still get the ~3 messages about a minute apart during boot.

The first 4 lines of /etc/hosts look like:

::1localhost
127.0.0.1  localhost
192.168.200.61 foo 
192.168.200.61 foo.
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cc-mail file format

[perryh]

Is anyone aware of a program that can read cc-mail mailboxes,
similar to readpst from mail/libpst for Outlook?
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Re: Inode numbering

[perryh]

Polytropon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> Let's assume we have a directory D with an inode number i(D).
> It contains a file F with its inode number i(F).
>
> May I state that i(D) < i(F)?

In general, no.  It might work in the special case where nothing
on the filesystem is ever moved or removed, and no hard links are
ever added.

As a simple example, suppose I have directories foo and foo/bar,
and file foo/baz, with i(foo) == 15, i(foo/baz) == 20, and
i(foo/bar) == 25, satisfying your criterion.  If I do

  mv foo/baz foo/bar

(so baz is now foo/bar/baz), I will have i(foo/bar) == 25 and
i(foo/bar/baz) == 20.
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Re: Inode numbering

[perryh]

Polytropon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> ... It will force me to
> do what I originally intended to do: Iterate from 2 up
> to the maximal number and then check the availability,
> and, if given, "trace back" the ".. chain" to an existing
> directory entry point - or re-create one, if it is missing,
> too. Will be a lot of work, but I think I can learn much
> from this.

You may be able to reuse some code from dump(8).

When doing an incremental dump, it reads through the inodes, makes
a list of those which are newer than the previous dump, then
recursively locates all parent directories of selected inodes and
adds them to the list.  (When doing a level 0 dump, it does the same
thing but by definition every inode is selected.)  Having done all
that, it dumps all the selected directories followed by the rest of
the selected inodes.

Dump's purpose is to ensure that the dump will be complete in the
sense of containing the full path to any file that is on the tape,
and your purpose is different, but I suspect much of the "find
parent" logic may be reusable.
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Re: sudo multiple commands at once without shell script

[perryh]

> How do I run multiple sudo commands at once? This fails
> because the semicolon ends the whole sudo command:
>
> > sudo whoami; whoami
> root
> user
>
> This confuses tcsh:
>
> monica:~> sudo ( whoami ; whoami )
> Badly placed ()'s.

Supposing sudo spawns a shell, something like

  ~> sudo whoami \; whoami

or

  ~> sudo "whoami; whoami"

should work.  If not, maybe try explicitly running a shell:

  ~> sudo sh -c "whoami; whoami"
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Re: Problems with FreeBSD

[perryh]

> I have some problem with my FreeBSD server. I have this:
>
> ####  #
> # Linux1  #  -> ASA  -> Internet  -> # FreeBSD  #  -> # Linux2 #
> ####  #
>
> If I run a ssh for Linux1 to FreeBSD, my connection freeze when
> the return of some command is a big text. Example:
>
> I make a ssh connection in the from the Linux1 to FreeBSD server,
> then, I execute some commands, like: 'pwd', 'whoami', 'ls /'...
> this work perfectly.  But, if I run some command that return a big
> text, like as: 'ls /dev/', or top, my connection freeze.
...
> If I try to access the Linux2, throught FreeBSD (redirect port on
> natd or redirect port with rinetd), the same thing happens.
>
> Is this a problem with FreeBSD? Someone know how I can fix it? Some
> sysctl?

One possible cause of this behavior is an MTU problem.  If something
in the Linux1 <==> FreeBSD path is dropping packets larger than X
(where X is something lower than the endpoints are expecting) you'll
see exactly this sort of symptom.

While the real solution is to fix whatever is dropping the packets,
it may be easier to restrict the MTU.
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Re: Hardware Raid + hot-replace failed disk

[perryh]

> On Thursday 06 November 2008 22:01:39 Wojciech Puchar wrote:
> > > Suppose you have a system with multiple disks managed by a
> > > hardware RAID controller in a RAID5 of RAID6 configuration,
> >
> > what is "RAID5 of RAID6"???
>
> 'of' is 'or' in dutch, common typo for dutch or flemish people.

For Americans also, due to "f" and "r" being adjacent
on a US-English keyboard.
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Re: Port Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator for FreeBSD?

[perryh]

> >> Is there a port like Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator for FreeBSD?
> >> I would like to move to FreeBSD as soon as possible.
> >
> > You could try the gimp for manipulating bitmap images. For creating
> > vector images, try either inkscape or xaralx. They're all in ports.
>
> i have a friend that do offset printing.
>
> he have to use windoze and photoshop for only one reason - gimp
> doesn't support editing CMYK images

If all else fails, one could try running the Windows versions of
Photoshop and Illustrator under wine.
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Re: Desktop image of Beastie

[perryh]

> I picked up this jpg of Beastie over 10 years ago. Tried using
> it for a gdm logon screen background, but it's really light.
>
>http://www.a1poweruser.com/beastie.JPG
>
> Does any one know where i can get a darker version of this image?

You're right, that's extremely faint, more like a watermark than an
attraction in its own right.  How about this one?

http://www.freebsd.org/layout/images/beastie.png
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Re: root /etc/csh

[perryh]

> > > > ... Why doesn't FreeBSD ship bash and other shells besides
> > > > the `sh' linked statically is beyond me. It wouldn't break
> > > > ports, would it?
> > > 
> > > It does break ports.  Very, very badly.  I know because I've
> > > personally attempted replacing /bin/sh with bash as a "I have
> > > a weekend to spare" project.
> > 
> > You misunderstand. I do not suggest replacing the standard shell
> > with bash, I suggest that the shells available in FreeBSD, even
> > through ports to be linked statically so they can be used for
> > rescue and recovery.  If the default make instructions told to
> > compile statically, it wouldn't break the ports.
>
> You're right -- I'm still not understanding.  So let me cover the
> bases here:
>
> 1) The entire ports and FreeBSD build system (see: world) rely
> heavily on /bin/sh-isms and do not work with bash.  bash being
> compiled statically will not solve these problems.

If this is accurate, it should be reported to the bash maintainers as
a bug.  Bash claims complete Posix compatibility (plus extensions).
In any event, it is irrelevant to the OP's point.

> 2) Changing the root users' shell is not recommended.  There are
> a lot of reasons for this, but as mentioned, the main one is
> single-user scenarios (where /usr hasn't been mounted yet, thus
> /usr/local/bin/bash is not available -- and if it's installed as
> /bin/bash, the libraries /bin/bash link to are not available).

This, of course, being the whole point of the OP's suggestion to
link port shells statically.

> 3) You can build bash statically; make WITH_STATIC_BASH=true.  I do
> not know the true reason why the port is not built statically by
> default, but I can give you a damn good reason why it shouldn't be:
> complete and total wasted memory.
>
> Take into consideration environments where there are hundreds (or at
> my place of work, thousands) of users logged into a machine at once.
> Many of those are going to have /usr/local/bin/bash as their shell.
> A statically-linked version of bash would waste significant amounts
> of memory, while a dynamically-linked/shared version would ease that
> pain.  The same applies for any static vs. dynamic program.

How so?  Wouldn't a single in-memory instance of the bash text
segment be shared among all bash processes, across all users?
Granted, there is, in effect, *one* extra instance of the part
of libc that gets linked into the static bash.

A better reason is that security updates to shared libs often
update only the .so files, expecting the binaries that use them
to automatically pick up the new versions.  Any static executable
should be rebuilt any time there is a security update to a shared
lib that it would be using were it linked dynamically.

That said, perhaps it would be reasonable for shell ports to
build both a dynamically-linked instance to be installed in
/usr/local/bin, and a statically-linked instance to be installed
in, say, /usr/local/static.  Those who want to use bash as the
root shell could copy it from there to /bin or /sbin.
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Re: [OT] printing question

[perryh]

> So the bottom line is:  "Get a postscript printer."  They're
> rather expensive ...

I got a Samsung ML-2571N for well under $100 at Fry's something like
a year ago; granted that was a sale price, dunno regular.  It speaks
PostScript and lpd, so no need to bother with drivers or CUPS; all
it needs is a printcap entry.  (BTW it also works seamlessly from
MacOS X.)

One small caution:  there is also an ML-2571 without the N -- it
may have a different letter -- which is not networked, dunno if
that one handles PostScript.
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Re: shell scripting problems

[perryh]

> In the shell script, i have a
>   pkg_info -qLx "^$PKG-[0-9,._]+$"
> also tried (-X)tended regex instead of the standard rege(-x).
>
> sh keeps erroring out saying various $" isn't a valid variable
> name ...

Both sh and csh will try to treat $ inside of "" as a variable
reference.  Does it work any better if you enclose the $ in ''
instead?

If you need the first $ to be a variable reference and the second
to be used literally, you may need to do something like

  "^$PKG-[0-9,._]+"'$'
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Re: [freebsd-questions] Looking @ upgrades mechanisms...

[perryh]

> ...  I'm trying to remember why I did not like pkg_add -r.

IIRC, one issue with pkg_add -r is that it insists on doing
everything from the remote repository, and will not bother
looking for any packages (incl. dependencies) locally first.
This makes sense for a brand-new installation where you know
there's no local repository to search -- which is probably the
use case that the author had in mind -- but can be inefficient
otherwise.  I started hacking on it a while back, but have not
had much time lately.
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Re: X - after some time can't lauch new windows, Error: Can't open display

[perryh]

Anton Shterenlikht  wrote:
> After some time I cannot open any new windows in X,
> I get
>   No protocol specified
>   Error: Can't open display: :0.0
>
> This is on i386 9.0-current with ... xorg-7.4_2,
> xorg-server-1.6.1,1, xf86-video-intel-2.7.1
...
> After logging into X via xdm I can launch new windows fine.
> But after a while, probably several hours, an attempt to
> launch a new window, i.e. any program that opens a new window,
> like xterm or xpdf, results in the error message above.

I have not seen this with local clients, but I _have_ seen something
similar from time to time with remote (ssh tunneled) clients.  IIRC
there was also some kind of squawk about display permissions, as if
something related to xauth had gotten messed up.

I'm running FreeBSD 6.1 with Xorg 6.9.0; remotes are various Linux
and Solaris boxes (and I haven't made note of their versions, nor
if the problem happens with some remote versions and not others).
Point being that, if we're both seeing the same issue or closely
related, it's not of recent origin.
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Re: / almost out of space just after installation

[perryh]

Oliver Fromme  wrote:
> Chris Stankevitz  wrote:
>  ...
>  > Q1: Is 26M free space on / after installing FreeBSD normal?
>
> It depends on the FreeBSD version, and whether you installed
> the kernel with debug symbols.  430 MB space used in the
> root file system isn't completely uncommon.
>
> Nowadays I recomment to spend 1 GB for the root file system ...

I have long wondered where sysinstall gets its default FS sizes.

At least as far back as SunOs 3.5* the installer was able to auto-
size the partitions based on the selected distribution sets.  Of
course, this means that the installer must know the size of each
distribution set -- on each of /, /usr, and /var -- and that the
selection of what to install has to happen before the partitioning
is actually done.  I would think that the sizing of the distribution
sets could easily be automated as part of the release process, and
that the needed reordering of the installation process would not
be all that difficult for someone familiar with sysinstall and
accustomed to coding in the language involved.

* a commercial incarnation of 4.2BSD, some 20 or 30 years ago;
  I date myself by having even heard of it :)
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Re: WD External Disc Drive

[perryh]

> > > ... If you are refering to a kind of
> > > hard disk, use "disk" with k. Think like "diskette". If you
> > > are refering to optical media, use "disc" with c. Think like
> > > "CD = compact disc".
> >
> > An arbitrary convention adopted by you and a few other people
> > does not invalidate the dictionary spellings and usage.

Am I the only one who is finding the longevity of this bikeshed a
bit disk-gusting?
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Re: stuff and even more problems.... [ to mostly the hard core ]

[perryh]

Gary Kline  wrote:
> the keybd isn't the problem ...  problem is that on my KVM
> switch are only ps2 plugs.  on the back of the dell are USB
> jacks.  i need something to convert from the PS2 plug to
> fit into the USB   

Such things do exist:
http://www.amazon.com/Adesso-Adapter-connects-connectors-ADP-PU21/dp/B8ZPED
http://www.amazon.com/TRENDnet-USB-PS-2-Converter/dp/B0007T27HI
http://www.amazon.com/Ultra-USB-Male-Female-Adapter/dp/B000658ETS
http://www.frys.com/product/3470803
http://www.frys.com/product/3866207
http://www.frys.com/product/4161343
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Re: Problems with FreeBSD assembly

[perryh]

Mihai Don??u  wrote:
> I don't think the kernel is the one that initializes the
> 0, 1 and 2 file descriptors (stdin, stdout and stderr).

Correct so far.

> I think you have to open them yourself ...

No, the shell does it.  That's how it is able to set up
pipes and redirection.
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Re: BTX Loader crashes -- Help wanted

[perryh]

"Ronald F. Guilmette"  wrote:
> If one can't even install from the distribution CDs/DVDs
> on perfectly good hardware ... it's not like the whole SATA
> interface standard is exactly ``new'' or anything anymore.)
>
> ... Should I stick my neck out and label this PR
> either severity==critical or priority==high ?

Before filing a PR at all, you might want to check what kind of
SATA controller chip you've got.  There have been several postings
on the FreeBSD lists reporting that the Silicon Image 3112 should
not be considered "perfectly good hardware".
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Re: Sorting a device list

[perryh]

Oliver Mahmoudi  wrote:
> you can try to delete the /dev/ad10 entry with sed and then just
> append it to the end manually using the printf(1) utility like so:
>
> # ls /dev/ad* | sed s/"\/dev\/ad10"// | grep "/dev/ad" && printf
> "/dev/ad10\n"

Or strip the non-numerics from the beginning of each line, and put
them back after sorting:

# pfx=/dev/ad ; ls -d1 ${pfx}* | sed "s;$pfx;;" | sort -n | sed "s;^;$pfx;"
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Re: editing a binary file

[perryh]

Greg Larkin  wrote:
> ...
> > truncate -4 myfile should get rid of the last four bytes.  Maybe
> > there's a similar efficient way to truncate the start of a file.
>
> This should do it:
>
> dd if=oldfile of=newfile bs=1 skip=4

Or, perhaps marginally more efficient:

dd if=oldfile of=newfile bs=4 skip=1
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Re: "Checksum mismatch -- will transfer entire file"

[perryh]

Victor Sudakov  wrote:
> ... [svn] needs python26, perl and tcl - all the three of them ...

It seems you may have discovered the significance of the name:
it subverts the sysadmin's sanity.  Maybe it can find practical
use as a meta-port for scripting languages, if someone cares to
add ruby to the mix ;)
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Re: List replies

[perryh]

> There is a touching concern for newbies in all this, which is out
> of step with the somewhat edgy aspect of FreeBSD that most of you
> seem to embrace in other connections.  And the bottom line is that
> most newbies end up elsewhere.  If making FreeBSD more popular is
> a priority, there is long list of issues that are more vital than
> this detail that we are discussing in this thread.

Given that the project is run almost entirely by volunteers,
I suppose some disconnects are inevitable.  One example:  it's
considered very important for questions@ to be newbie-friendly,
to the point of accepting posts from non-subscribers, but it's
*not* considered important to tune up sysinstall to prevent
botches like installing a system that can't be booted because
it has no kernel.
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Re: Mac osX drivers

[perryh]

> I know I keep asking about drivers, but what about Mac drivers? I
> understand that Mac osX is based fairly well on BSD, so would the
> drivers be portable?

Last I heard, MacOs X userland was based on FreeBSD but the MacOS X
kernel was Mach.  The part of a driver that deals with the hardware
might be portable, but it doesn't seem so likely for the part that
deals with the OS.
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pkg_add goofiness in 7.0

[perryh]

The first time I tried to add linuxdoc-1.1_1.tbz to a new-from-CD
7.0 installation, it complained about a missing dependency that
was on the other CD.  OK, I switched CDs and installed that, then
switched back and retried linuxdoc-1.1_1.tbz, and it gave me some
sort of error about an unbalanced add operation.  (I didn't try
to copy down all the details, figuring instead to retry with a
script(1) active so as to capture them.)  Upon that retry, it now
tells me that the package is already installed, even though the
prior attempt failed.

What is going on?

# uname -a
FreeBSD fbsd70.uucp 7.0-RELEASE FreeBSD 7.0-RELEASE #0: Sun Feb 24 19:59:52 UTC 
2008 [EMAIL PROTECTED]:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC  i386
# ls -l linuxdoc*
-r--r--r--  1 root  wheel  9156 Feb 24 08:18 linuxdoc-1.1_1.tbz
# pkg_add -Kv linuxdoc*
Requested space: 36624 bytes, free space: 774981632 bytes in 
/var/tmp/instmp.3DBbHN
pkg_add: package 'linuxdoc-1.1_1' or its older version already installed
pkg_add: 1 package addition(s) failed
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Re: pkg_add goofiness in 7.0

[perryh]

> > [trying to install linuxdoc-1.1_1.tbz] it gave me some
> > sort of error about an unbalanced add operation.  (I didn't try
> > to copy down all the details, figuring instead to retry with a
> > script(1) active so as to capture them.)  Upon that retry, it now
> > tells me that the package is already installed, even though the
> > prior attempt failed.
> > ...
> > # ls -l linuxdoc*
> > -r--r--r--  1 root  wheel  9156 Feb 24 08:18 linuxdoc-1.1_1.tbz
> > # pkg_add -Kv linuxdoc*
> > Requested space: 36624 bytes, free space: 774981632 bytes in 
> > /var/tmp/instmp.3DBbHN
> > pkg_add: package 'linuxdoc-1.1_1' or its older version already installed
> > pkg_add: 1 package addition(s) failed
>
> No idea, you'll have to recreate the failure and show us.

Which failure are you referring to?  The original one with the
unbalanced add message, or the new one where it claims the package is
already installed even though the previous installation reportedly
failed?

I can recreate the second one any number of times, but absent some
specific suggestion it's not going to produce any more output than
shown above.  (I'm already specifying -v.)  Short of wiping the
drive and starting completely over, I have no idea how to go about
reproducing the original failure without first fixing the newer one.
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Re: pkg_add goofiness in 7.0

[perryh]

> What you showed does not indicate a failure.  If you are saying
> that the package wasn't actually installed completely, then
> pkg_delete it and retry.

I am not saying that the package was installed incompletely,
incorrectly, or something else because I don't know which of those
applies.  *The package installation itself* threw an error message,
with no instructions for recovery, and left the package database
corrupted (incorrectly showing the package as installed).

pkg_delete was only partially successful, perhaps because it was
unable to completely clean up the corruption.  Now what?

# pkg_delete -v linuxdoc-1.1_1
Trying to remove dependency on package 'xmlcatmgr-2.2' with 
'textproc/xmlcatmgr' origin.
Trying to remove dependency on package 'iso8879-1986_2' with 'textproc/iso8879' 
origin.
Change working directory to /usr/local
Delete file /usr/local/share/sgml/linuxdoc/README
Execute '/usr/local/bin/xmlcatmgr -sc /usr/local/share/sgml/catalog.ports 
remove linuxdoc/catalog'
xmlcatmgr: enabling compatibility mode; removing ALL matching entries
xmlcatmgr: no matching entry for `linuxdoc/catalog' of any type
pkg_delete: unexec command for '/usr/local/bin/xmlcatmgr -sc 
/usr/local/share/sgml/catalog.ports remove linuxdoc/catalog' failed
Delete file /usr/local/share/sgml/linuxdoc/catalog
Delete file /usr/local/share/sgml/linuxdoc/freebsd-1.0.dtd
Delete file /usr/local/share/sgml/linuxdoc/freebsd-1.1.dtd
Delete file /usr/local/share/sgml/linuxdoc/linuxdoc.dec
Delete file /usr/local/share/sgml/linuxdoc/original.dtd
Delete directory /usr/local/share/sgml/linuxdoc
Change working directory to .
pkg_delete: couldn't entirely delete package (perhaps the packing list is
incorrectly specified?)
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Re: pkg_add goofiness in 7.0

[perryh]

I believe this is the same as the error message I saw originally
(when I had not specified -v, so it wasn't buried among a pile of
other stuff):

xmlcatmgr: unbalanced arguments for `add' action

# pkg_add -Kv linuxdoc*
Requested space: 36624 bytes, free space: 774946816 bytes in 
/var/tmp/instmp.CfA0bH
Package 'linuxdoc-1.1_1' depends on 'xmlcatmgr-2.2' with 'textproc/xmlcatmgr' 
origin.
 - already installed.
Package 'linuxdoc-1.1_1' depends on 'iso8879-1986_2' with 'textproc/iso8879' 
origin.
 - already installed.
extract: Package name is linuxdoc-1.1_1
extract: CWD to /usr/local
extract: /usr/local/share/sgml/linuxdoc/README
extract: /usr/local/share/sgml/linuxdoc/catalog
extract: execute '/usr/local/bin/xmlcatmgr -sc 
/usr/local/share/sgml/catalog.ports add linuxdoc/catalog'
xmlcatmgr: unbalanced arguments for `add' action
pkg_add: command '/usr/local/bin/xmlcatmgr -sc 
/usr/local/share/sgml/catalog.ports add linuxdoc/catalog' failed
extract: /usr/local/share/sgml/linuxdoc/freebsd-1.0.dtd
extract: /usr/local/share/sgml/linuxdoc/freebsd-1.1.dtd
extract: /usr/local/share/sgml/linuxdoc/linuxdoc.dec
extract: /usr/local/share/sgml/linuxdoc/original.dtd
extract: CWD to .
Running mtree for linuxdoc-1.1_1..
mtree -U -f +MTREE_DIRS -d -e -p /usr/local >/dev/null
Attempting to record package into /var/db/pkg/linuxdoc-1.1_1..
Trying to record dependency on package 'xmlcatmgr-2.2' with 
'textproc/xmlcatmgr' origin.
Trying to record dependency on package 'iso8879-1986_2' with 'textproc/iso8879' 
origin.
Package linuxdoc-1.1_1 registered in /var/db/pkg/linuxdoc-1.1_1
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Re: pkg_add goofiness in 7.0

[perryh]

...
> > extract: execute '/usr/local/bin/xmlcatmgr -sc 
> > /usr/local/share/sgml/catalog.ports add linuxdoc/catalog'
> > xmlcatmgr: unbalanced arguments for `add' action
> > pkg_add: command '/usr/local/bin/xmlcatmgr -sc 
> > /usr/local/share/sgml/catalog.ports add linuxdoc/catalog' failed
...

> That looks like a warning from xmlcatmgr which may or may not be 
> important, but the package apparently added itself completely (no
> errors were reported by pkg_add).

It may not make a lot of difference, but I am now wondering how to
recognize an "error reported by pkg_add" since this:

> > pkg_add: command '/usr/local/bin/xmlcatmgr -sc 
> > /usr/local/share/sgml/catalog.ports add linuxdoc/catalog' failed

looks like one to me, but apparently it isn't.

> You should look into the xmlcatmgr documentation, or talk to the
> port maintainer, to find out what that warning means and if it
> is important.

I didn't find anything pertinent in the (minimal) installed
documentation.

Just taking the xmlcatmgr message at face value, it looks as if
some addition that linuxdoc intended to make in some catalog did
not get done.  Anything following that step in the postinstall
script may also not have gotten done.  My gut suspicion is that
there is something wrong with the linuxdoc postinstall script
-- or perhaps linuxdoc has an unstated dependency which I don't
happen to have installed -- rather than something wrong with
xmlcatmgr.  PR time, I guess :(
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Re: Adobe Flash Player Petition

[perryh]

> >  Where do such articles go for FreeBSD? ... I can make
> >  a website on my server for it, but it seems to be a
> >  kind of overkill, for just such installing sequence..
>
>   If you have things working for Flash 9, enough people
> /will/ be interested this is not overkill.
>   My suggestion:
>   1) create a web page; present the steps (with commentary
> is appropriate) in an easily readable format; _date the page_.
>   2) post the URL to questions@, ports@, and possibly www@ and
> multimedia@ in separate posts.  Make the subject line something
> relevant - this is not about "Adobe Flash Player Petition".

and/or send a PR, including the content (not just the URL), to have
it added to the Handbook or the FAQ.  That way, even if the website
goes away before a doc committer gets to it, it's archived in the
PR database.
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Re: wine: notepad OK, others not

[perryh]

> >  I have installed wine-0.9.20 from ports, and
> >  there's a Win98 FAT32 slice mounted on /windoze
>
>   
>   
> >  How do I fix this?
>
>   I would start by upgrading and re-installing wine.  You have
> 0.9.20; the current version is 0.9.55 and I believe there have been
> substantial improvements.

When I updated my ports, the newer wine refused to install on 6.1,
saying it wouldn't work properly on anything prior to 6.3 IIRC.

Rather than risk breaking my primary system in an upgrade attempt,
I installed 7.0-RELEASE and wine-0.9.48 (the version from the
7.0-RELEASE ports) on a different machine.  It happened to have XP,
so I'm now trying to run XP .exe's instead of win98 .exe's.

Notepad and Write are, if anything, worse than before:  now, if
I just start typing without selecting a font, I get something
that looks more or less like dingbats.  They do seem to work if
I explicitly select Courier.  (The ultimate goal is to run Visio,
not to do word processing, but I'm trying to start with something
simple.)

The problem with wordpad has not changed very much:

  $ wine "/winxp/Program Files/Windows NT/Accessories/wordpad.exe"
  err:module:import_dll Library MFC42u.DLL (which is needed by 
L"Z:\\winxp\\Program Files\\Windows NT\\Accessories\\wordpad.exe") not found
  err:module:LdrInitializeThunk Main exe initialization for 
L"Z:\\winxp\\Program Files\\Windows NT\\Accessories\\wordpad.exe" failed, 
status c135

(Previously it was looking for MFC42.DLL instead of MFC42u.DLL.)

OK, it doesn't know where to find the DLLs.  Try making a symlink
to a place which (per the manpage) is always searched:

  $ ls -l /winxp/WINDOWS/SYSTEM32/mfc42u.dll
  -rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  995384 Aug 23  2001 
/winxp/WINDOWS/SYSTEM32/mfc42u.dll
  $ ln -s /winxp/WINDOWS/SYSTEM32/mfc42u.dll /usr/local/lib/wine
  $ wine "/winxp/Program Files/Windows NT/Accessories/wordpad.exe"
  err:module:import_dll Library MFC42u.DLL (which is needed by 
L"Z:\\winxp\\Program Files\\Windows NT\\Accessories\\wordpad.exe") not found
  err:module:LdrInitializeThunk Main exe initialization for 
L"Z:\\winxp\\Program Files\\Windows NT\\Accessories\\wordpad.exe" failed, 
status c135

Maybe the search is case-sensitive (although Windows ordinarily
isn't)?

  $ ln -s /winxp/WINDOWS/SYSTEM32/mfc42u.dll /usr/local/lib/wine/MFC42u.DLL
  $ wine "/winxp/Program Files/Windows NT/Accessories/wordpad.exe"
  err:module:import_dll Library MFC42u.DLL (which is needed by 
L"Z:\\winxp\\Program Files\\Windows NT\\Accessories\\wordpad.exe") not found
  err:module:LdrInitializeThunk Main exe initialization for 
L"Z:\\winxp\\Program Files\\Windows NT\\Accessories\\wordpad.exe" failed, 
status c135

The symlinks in /usr/local/lib/wine *do* point to that DLL, and they
*can* be followed successfully:

  $ ( cd /usr/local/lib/wine ; ls -lL mfc* MFC* )
  -rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  995384 Aug 23  2001 MFC42u.DLL
  -rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  995384 Aug 23  2001 mfc42u.dll

Now what?  I can't imagine anyone would be able to do much with wine
if problems finding DLLs were common.  What am I doing wrong?

  $ wine --version
  wine-0.9.48
  $ uname -a
  FreeBSD fbsd70.uucp 7.0-RELEASE FreeBSD 7.0-RELEASE #0: Sun Feb 24 19:59:52 
UTC 2008 [EMAIL PROTECTED]:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC  i386
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Re: wine: notepad OK, others not

[perryh]

> > ... If you want to run applications under Wine either install
> > them under Wine or (with simple applications) copy them over
> > from a Windows install into ~/.wine/drive_c.
>
> And specifically I'd populate  ~/.wine/drive_c/windows/fonts
> from a real windows installation. 

Which raises the question:  how does one figure out what-all
pieces of a real windows installation should and should not be
copied (or symlinked) into ~/.wine/drive_c?  So far it looks
as if some (but surely not all) .exe's and .dll's, and (all?)
fonts, should be imported.
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Re: wine: notepad OK, others not

[perryh]

> If I were you I'd just try to install Visio under Wine and see how
> it goes. That is, mount the install cd, check with winecfg that
> Wine can see the mount point as a drive D: or something and then
> run "wine d:\\setup.exe" ...

It did not work at all.  This version of Visio is old enough that
it installs from floppies, rather than from CD :) and I've set it
up in .wine/dosdevices according to the manpage:

  $ ls -la .wine/dosdevices
  total 4
  drwxr-xr-x  2 perryh  staff  512 Apr 21 00:17 .
  drwxr-xr-x  4 perryh  staff  512 Apr 22 21:07 ..
  lrwxr-xr-x  1 perryh  staff8 Apr 21 00:17 a:: -> /dev/fd0
  lrwxr-xr-x  1 perryh  staff   10 Apr 19 16:39 c: -> ../drive_c
  lrwxr-xr-x  1 perryh  staff1 Apr 19 16:39 z: -> /

mdir can read the disk, and it does contain a setup.exe, but
wine can't see it:

  $ wine a:setup.exe
  wine: cannot find 'a:setup.exe'
  $ wine 'a:\setup.exe'
  wine: cannot find 'a:\setup.exe'

There doesn't seem to be a manpage for winecfg:

  $ man winecfg
  No manual entry for winecfg

and when I tried to run it it was not at all obvious what to do.
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Re: wine: notepad OK, others not

[perryh]

> >$ ls -la .wine/dosdevices
> >total 4
> >drwxr-xr-x  2 perryh  staff  512 Apr 21 00:17 .
> >drwxr-xr-x  4 perryh  staff  512 Apr 22 21:07 ..
> >lrwxr-xr-x  1 perryh  staff8 Apr 21 00:17 a:: -> /dev/fd0
>
>   Is the second colon intentional

Yes!  That is exactly what the manpage says to do, so as to have
wine use a *device* rather than a node in the Unix filesystem:

  $WINEPREFIX/dosdevices
Directory  containing the DOS device mappings. Each file in that
directory is a symlink to the Unix device  file  implementing  a
given  device.  For  instance,  if  COM1 is mapped to /dev/ttyS0
you'd have a symlink of the form $WINEPREFIX/dosdevices/com1  ->
/dev/ttyS0.
DOS  drives  are  also  specified with symlinks; for instance if
drive D: corresponds to the CDROM mounted at  /mnt/cdrom,  you'd
have a symlink $WINEPREFIX/dosdevices/d: -> /mnt/cdrom. The Unix
>>  device corresponding to a DOS drive can be  specified  the  same
>>  way,  except with '::' instead of ':'. So for the previous exam-
>>  ple, if the CDROM device is mounted from  /dev/hdc,  the  corre-
>>  sponding   symlink   would   be   $WINEPREFIX/dosdevices/d::  ->
>>  /dev/hdc.

Presumably this method is provided so that wine can be given access
to a removable device without a particular disk having to be mounted.
It would be, at the least, inconvenient to have to mount and unmount
a sequence of 5 floppies to do this installation.
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Re: wine: notepad OK, others not

[perryh]

> It's really easier to try to install an app under Wine ...

With, it seems, at least two exceptions:

* Some apps -- such as Wordpad and Write -- are packaged and
  installed with Windows, rather than on separate media.  Are
  there instructions somewhere for "installing" such an app
  under wine?  I'm certainly not finding it at all obvious.

* Some add-on (separately installable) apps are packaged
  on multiple diskettes (or multiple CDs for that matter). 
  Pre-mounting the first, and pointing wine at the mount
  point, seems likely to result in getting stuck partway
  through the install when it asks for the second disk.

The version of Visio that I have is in the second category.

The manpage describes a way of pointing wine to a device
rather than to a mounted filesystem:

  The Unix device corresponding to a DOS drive can be
  specified the same way, except with '::' instead of
  ':'. So for the previous example, if the CDROM device
  is mounted from /dev/hdc, the corresponding symlink
  would be $WINEPREFIX/dosdevices/d:: -> /dev/hdc.

but, as reported elsewhere, wine could not find setup.exe
on the Visio install diskette with dosdevices set up this
way.

> ... You also might want to have a look at
> http://wiki.winehq.org/winetricks for a script
> that can install and setup various packages ...

Unfortunately, I can't find Visio in its list of packages.

Is there something else to try, or is installing an app like
Visio beyond Wine's current capabilities?
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Re: wine: notepad OK, others not

[perryh]

> Wine has its own simple version of Wordpad though.
> Just run "wine wordpad".

This version has its own notepad, but it doesn't appear to have
wordpad.  (There's no "wordpad.exe" that I can find, but there
are two identical copies of "notepad.exe" -- one in .../windows
and the other in .../windows/system32.)

> I'm not entirely sure, but I think the :: link is only used for
> raw access to devices. Wine doesn't mount disks on its own.

For floppies, which AFAIK are always formatted as FAT, I'd settle
for having it use mtools so the disk wouldn't need to be mounted
at all :)
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Re: wine: notepad OK, others not

[perryh]

> You have to mount the floppy and then link a: to the mount point.
> So if you mount it under /mnt you'd need this:
>
> mount -t msdosfs /dev/fd0 /mnt
> ln -s /mnt ~/.wine/dosdevices/a:

That got only a little bit farther.  It did find the setup program,
and the option dialogs seemed to work properly, but very shortly
after starting the actual install I got an error box:


 VISIO Setup

   ! Tried to create an invalid path using 'A:\' and 'clipart.vs_'


and it locked up the display so that CtrlAltF1 would not switch
to a text screen (although it did allow AltTab to bring up FVWM's
window list).  After clicking OK:


 Visio Setup

   i Setup failed.


and it quit.
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wine: app won't install from floppy

[perryh]

What is the correct way of installing something into wine from
floppy?  The obvious approach:

  $ wine 'a:\setup.exe'

did not work with a (fairly old version of) Visio:  the option
dialogs seemed to work properly, but very shortly after starting
the actual install I got an error box:


 VISIO Setup

   ! Tried to create an invalid path using 'A:\' and 'clipart.vs_'


It somehow locked out CtrlAltF1 so I could not switch to a text
screen, but AltTab did bring up FVWM's window list (thus making
it possible to transcribe the error message into an xterm that
was not related to the wine session).

After clicking OK I got an info box:


 Visio Setup

   i Setup failed.


and it quit when I clicked OK there.

Comparing the contents of .wine before/after the attempt, it seems
the only change involves the font entries in the registry:

  $ diff -r wineBak .wine
  diff -r wineBak/system.reg .wine/system.reg
  9082c9082
  < [Software\\Microsoft\\Windows NT\\CurrentVersion\\Fonts] 1208923638
  ---
  > [Software\\Microsoft\\Windows NT\\CurrentVersion\\Fonts] 1209616619
  diff -r wineBak/user.reg .wine/user.reg
  453c453
  < [Software\\Wine\\Fonts] 1208923638
  ---
  > [Software\\Wine\\Fonts] 1209616619
  456c456
  < [Software\\Wine\\Fonts\\External Fonts] 1208923638
  ---
  > [Software\\Wine\\Fonts\\External Fonts] 1209616619

and of course I have no clue whether this makes any difference to
anything.

  $ uname -a
  FreeBSD fbsd70.uucp 7.0-RELEASE FreeBSD 7.0-RELEASE #0: Sun Feb 24 19:59:52 
UTC 2008 [EMAIL PROTECTED]:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC  i386

  $ wine --version
  wine-0.9.48

a: is symlinked to /fd in .wine/dosdevices and /dev/fd0 is mounted
on /fd
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Re: wine: notepad OK, others not

[perryh]

> > ... very shortly after starting the actual install I got an error
> > box:
> > 
> > 
> >  VISIO Setup
> > 
> >! Tried to create an invalid path using 'A:\' and 'clipart.vs_'
> > 
> > 
> > and it locked up the display so that CtrlAltF1 would not switch
> > to a text screen (although it did allow AltTab to bring up FVWM's
> > window list).  After clicking OK:
> > 
> > 
> >  Visio Setup
> > 
> >i Setup failed.
> > 
> > 
> > and it quit.
>
> Were there any messages printed in the terminal window?

No.

> What version of Visio is this?

3.0.  Long before M$ took it over, so it should be just a generic
Win32 app with no secret M$ tricks.

> You might also want to try on a Linux system if you have that
> somewhere, just to see if it works there.

If I had a Linux system set up, I'd have tried this there in the
first place.

> Also, you should really take this to the [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> mailing list. The people there should know more about this than
> here on a FreeBSD mailing list.

I suppose I can try it, but I wonder how much interest there will
be on a wine list in supporting FreeBSD.  At a minimum I suppose
they'll want to know if it still breaks on the latest wine version,
and I'll have no way to find out since the FreeBSD port doesn't
support the latest wine version.

In any case, it seems FreeBSD should not be allowing a port -- any
port -- to lock out CtrlAltF1.
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Re: wine: notepad OK, others not

[perryh]

> >> Wine has its own simple version of Wordpad though.
> >> Just run "wine wordpad".
> > 
> > This version has its own notepad, but it doesn't appear to have
> > wordpad.  (There's no "wordpad.exe" that I can find, but there
> > are two identical copies of "notepad.exe" -- one in .../windows
> > and the other in .../windows/system32.)
>
> "wine wordpad" still works though. It's in /usr/local/lib/wine.

Along with yet another notepad, this one twice the size of the ones
in .../windows and .../windows/system32!  The obvious followup is
which one actually gets used if someone runs "wine notepad", but
I doubt it's worth looking into.
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Re: time drift

[perryh]

> FreeBSD 6.2 running on X86 hardware (FSC) shows a remarkable time
> drift
>
> running ntpdate every half hour shows that the system looses about
> 10-14 sec each time.
> 15 May 10:06:48 ntpdate[7200]: step time ... offset -13.799602 sec
> 15 May 10:36:48 ntpdate[7515]: step time ... offset -12.813941 sec
> 15 May 11:06:48 ntpdate[7879]: step time ... offset -13.651921 sec
> 15 May 11:36:50 ntpdate[8079]: step time ... offset -11.109298 sec
> 15 May 12:06:50 ntpdate[8289]: step time ... offset -11.836499 sec
...
> The 6.2 system is a production system, has a uptime of almost 300
> days and I don't want to experiment a lot with acpi, battery or so. 
>
> What would be your suspicion on the large time drift of the FreeBSD
> 6.2 system?

With an uptime of nearly a year -- commendation to the power company
-- and (I take it) a recently-developed problem, I'd be asking what
might have changed shortly before the problem appeared.

Is the system clock source by any chance the CMOS RTC?  If so, I'd
suspect that its battery may be dying.
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Re: Belkin F5D9050 ver 4000

[perryh]

> I checked the FreeBSD 7.0-RELEASE Hardware Notes before I bought
> this USB Ethernet device.
> It should be supported by the rum driver, but it gets picked up
> by ugen instead.
> The Hardware Notes mentions version 3 and the box says ver 4000,
> but I think it's probably actually ver 4.
...
> What am I missing?

It sure sounds as if you are missing a supported USB device :(

Unfortunately, it is not at all uncommon for manufacturers to make
significant internal changes to a product, without changing the
name or the packaging.  At least they changed the version label.

Doing a descriptor dump, and posting the results to freebsd-usb@,
might find someone who knows how to get that particular device to
work.
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Re: Belkin F5D9050 ver 4000

[perryh]

> > Doing a descriptor dump, and posting the results to freebsd-usb@,
> > might find someone who knows how to get that particular device to
> > work.
> > 
> Ok, I'll bite.  How do you do a descriptor dump?

One way is to use sysutils/udesc_dump, from ports, as recommended here:
http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-usb/2008-January/004308.html
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non-RAID SATA

[perryh]

I am looking for a cost-effective way to add a SATA drive to an
existing 7.0 system whose on-board controller is PATA, and am not
getting very far at all in identifying an inexpensive controller
which would be expected to work well.  (I'd prefer PCI, since the
USB in this box is probably 1.0 and not capable of sustaining
desirable data rates.)

All mentions of SATA in the hardware guide and FAQ seem to be of
RAID controllers, or else too generic to guide a choice of add-in
cards.

Does anyone have any experience with this that they would be
inclined to share?
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Re: Duplex printer advice

[perryh]

> my own requirements list includes (color duplex printer scanner).
> I don't need it to be a laser, but I do need both color, multifunc,
> and duplex printing ...  I begin to wonder if I could find one with
> the same specs ESCEPTING it was the cheaper technology of inkjet.
> ... please don't spend time trying to talk me out of features
> like color, or duplex, I like both too well ...

If you want *good* color, look into Xerox.  Seriously.  They are
not as costly as you may be expecting.

My experience with inkjet is that it produces inferior results,
and saves little or no money if you consider the cost of ink,
esp. when you have to pitch a 3/4-full cartridge because it
clogged up.  BT, DT.

And no, I don't work for Xerox.
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Re: fbsd safety of the ports

[perryh]

David Brodbeck  wrote:

> TWiki is a nightmare to update ...

TWiki was replaced with Foswiki (which is also in ports) at $WORK
a while back.  Dunno why, or how much of a job the changeover was
for the admins, but there must have been some expected benefit to
justify the effort.  The change was largely transparent to users.
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Re: FreeBSD 9, GPT and gmirror

[perryh]

Janos Dohanics  wrote:

> 1. The Guided partitioning doesn't suggest any more to
> create /var, /tmp, /usr, etc. file systems. Is it really
> the recommendation to go with just / ?

Depends on who you ask :) and on your intended usage.

> 2. Is there a way to use the old sysinstall to install FreeBSD 9? 

Not using the standard distribution IIUC.  You might want to look
at http://druidbsd.sf.net/

> 3. It seems that setting up gmirror is more involved with GPT
> (http://blather.michaelwlucas.com/archives/1071); now I have a
> mirror for each of the filesystems /, /var, /tmp, etc. Is it
> OK to use gmirror in this way at all?

Yes, indeed it is the only way to combine GPT and gmirror without
getting into trouble of one sort or another.  (The conflict between
GPT and a full-disk gmirror is actually not new.)

> 4. Also, with GPT, one has to be in single user mode to synchronize
> disks - correct?

Dunno about this one.

> 3. Assuming one has enough RAM, is zfs mirror or raidz recommended
> over gmirror?

Same situation as with #1.
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Re: 'rm' Can not delete files

[perryh]

Jerry McAllister  wrote:

> On Fri, Feb 10, 2012 at 10:34:20AM -0500, Henry Olyer wrote:
> > I use bash 4.
>
> OK.  So??

If you had read the thread before posting, you would have known
that someone asked which shell Henry was using (and he answered).
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Re: 'rm' Can not delete files

[perryh]

Matthew Seaman  wrote:

> >>> ls -1 | xargs rm
>
> >> but be aware that that wont work for filenames with spaces.
>
> True.  Can't do that using ls to generate the list of filenames as
> there is no option to generate a null-separated list amongst ls's
> multitudinous collection.

It can, however, be done indirectly :)

$ ls -1 | tr '\012' '\000' | xargs -0 rm
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Re: Printing directly to IP address

[perryh]

Jerry  wrote:

> I know it is possible; however, I cannot find any actual
> documentation under the "printing" section in the FreeBSD
> manual.  If anyone could provide a link to such documentation,
> it would be appreciated.

Provided the printer supports lpd protocol, i.e. it looks like
a remote BSD machine operating as a print server, the setup is
covered in the "Networked Printing" handbook section (as of 6.1
-- I don't seem to have any newer doc package installed).  The
comments in /etc/printcap are also useful, and there's some
coverage in the Corporate Networker's Guide:  "Setting up LPR/LPD
on FreeBSD" and "Printing from UNIX".
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Re: Technical Support Question

[perryh]

Chip Oakley  wrote:

> Am tempted to remove the drive and insert a new one, not sure as
> there is memory on the drive available and nothing really wrong
> with it.

If you don't mind losing everything currently on the drive,
overwriting the MBR -- and the backup GPT at the end of the drive,
if the BIOS supports GPT/UEFI -- would surely keep it from booting
into Windows.  You'd probably have to take the drive out, and
connect it to a different machine (since this one's BIOS seems
hardwired to boot only from the hard drive).

Another possibility would be to clear the machine's CMOS, if there's
a way to do that.  Desktop mainboards usually have a jumper for the
purpose; dunno about Samsung laptops but removing the CMOS battery
and giving it a few minutes for the stray capacitance to discharge
should suffice.  (Getting to the CMOS battery may involve taking the
case apart.)
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Re: /usr/home vs /home

[perryh]

Polytropon  wrote:
> On Mon, 20 Feb 2012 22:53:10 -0800, Doug Hardie wrote:
> > The RK05 had one removable platter in a plastic housing. 
>
> Please compare the images of the drive and the media.
> Does it look similar?
>
> Removable platters types EC 5269 in plastic cartridge:
>
> http://www.robotrontechnik.de/index.htm?/html/komponenten/datentraeger.htm#wechselplatte

That looks like pictures I've seen of an RL cartridge.  (I never
dealt with actual RL hardware.)  The RK-05 was front-loaded, not
top-loaded.
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Converting C++ to C

[perryh]

Some early implementations of C++ operated as preprocessors
that emitted C code.  Is there any current tool that will do
that?  I didn't recognize any such option in the g++ manpage,
although I suppose it's possible that one of the -fdump-tree-
options would come close enough.

Reason:  I want to make what I think would be a fairly minor
change to a small (1100-line) C++ program, but I don't know C++
-- only C -- and I don't understand the program well enough
to mess with it.  I suspect I would be able to figure out an
equivalent C program.

In case it matters, I'm using FreeBSD 8.1.
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Re: Brother Printer

[perryh]

Michel Talon  wrote:

> If you want to avoid such problems the only solution is to buy
> a printer with postscript or pdf support and direct network
> connection, that is an expensive one ...

I've been using a Samsung ML-2571N for something like a couple of
years now.  It has a direct net connection, supports PostScript,
directly supports both lpd and Bonjour (Mac) protocols, and cost
something like $60 or $70 (US) at Fry's.  Granted that was a sale
price -- regular was probably around $100 -- but even $100 does
not seem all that expensive.

I don't see the ML-2571N on frys.com today -- the closest is the
ML-2545 ($70, I think it uses the same engine but without network
support and may not have PostScript).  If I were choosing from
today's Fry's list, I would probably pick the ML-2955ND ($130) which
does duplexing.  (They also have wireless models, but I would not
trust wireless unless the printer and all its clients were inside
a Faraday cage :)

And no, I don't work for either Fry's or Samsung.
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Re: XFCE - how to edit menu ?

[perryh]

jb  wrote:

> How can I edit the menus ?
> Also, how to rename Applications Menu to e.g. just Menu as
> it would better reflect applications and system (utilities)
> components ?
>
> FB9-release, XFCE 4.8

Dunno how FreeBSD's XFCE port does this since I don't use XFCE,
but it could be using x11-wm/wmconfig.  The manpage is reasonably
descriptive.
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Re: Editor With NO Shell Access?

[perryh]

Tim Daneliuk  wrote:

> ... we're talking about almost 1000 systems
> here.  That's a whole bunch of configuration...

Had you considered using something along the lines of
sysutils/puppet?
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Re: Off-Topic: Computing for the Blind

[perryh]

Jerry  wrote:

> When it comes to "speech recognition", the only two applications
> that seem to work reliably at all levels are "Siri on iPhone 4S"
> and "Dragon NaturallySpeaking", neither of which are obviously
> available on FreeBSD. I don't believe that there is even a
> *nix/BSD version of "Dragon NaturallySpeaking" in production.

The Windows version of "Dragon NaturallySpeaking" is, however,
reputed to work well on wine, which is in ports.  One of the D-NS
developers (or maybe it was a tech support person) was helping out
on the wine-users forum for a while; I don't recall having seen her
post there recently, but this _might_ be because D-NS is working so
well with recent wine versions that no one needs help with it.
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Re: Printer recommendation please

[perryh]

Polytropon  wrote:

> On Fri, 30 Mar 2012 17:38:36 +0200, Karel Miklav wrote:
> > Could you please recommend me a home printer that works nicely
> > with FreeBSD?
> > 
> > HP inkjets aren't that bad, FreeBSD drivers are allright, but
> > I'd like to shift towards some kind of PostScript laser. Xerox
> > Phaser 6500 looks nice ...
>
> Allow me to mention some things that are worth investing in.
>
> 1. Network connection.
> Don't bother with USB stuff. Buy a printer that offers Ethernet

+1

> and maybe also WLAN,

I personally don't trust wireless, because it's well nigh impossible
to truly secure it.

> 2. Standard language.
> Postscript and PCL. Make sure the printer understands at least
> one of them.

or, alternatively, PDF (which some of the newer printers are reputed
to take directly, rather than requiring the host to convert it to PS
or PCL).

> 3. Laser printer.
> Don't believe that inkpee printers are genereally cheaper. They
> are not.

+1, especially if used only occasionally.

If I needed a monochrome printer this weekend, I'd head for the
local Fry's where they're advertising the (network & duplex capable)
Samsung ML-2955ND for $80.  I haven't used that model, but it looks
very similar to the (network-capable, but no duplex) ML-2571N that's
been working just fine since I got it a few years ago.

> The only excuse for using them is that you need photo
> quality color prints (requiring the proper paper, too).

I've gotten quite adequate printing of digital-camera photos from
a Xerox Phaser 6130 (about $400 a few years ago IIRC).
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Re: Printer recommendation please

[perryh]

Polytropon  wrote:

> On Sat, 31 Mar 2012 14:01:43 -0700, per...@pluto.rain.com wrote:
> > I personally don't trust wireless, because it's well nigh
> > impossible to truly secure it.
>
> In that case, one should also pay attention to secure the
> printer. Wait - secure the printer? What am I talking about?
>
> Firmware attacks!
>
> Yes - malware has already reached printers ...

All the more reason to avoid wireless.  (I had been thinking more
along the lines of someone intercepting sensitive print files, e.g.
tax returns, as they were being sent to the printer.)

A printer connected to a hard-wired network, behind a firewall with
no tunnelling to it allowed, is not going to get anything sent to it
from outside.  Granted this does not protect against malware jobs
sent from a local machine, but it at least avoids having malware
sent wirelessly to the printer by someone parked out front, thus
there's one less pathway needing to be secured.

It may also be a reason to _avoid_ printers that accept PDF directly.
Since PDFs are often downloaded and printed, an attacker could post
a bogus firmware download under an innocent-sounding name like
"manual.pdf" leading someone to do

$ fetch http://.../manual.pdf && lpr manual.pdf

Oops.

However if said PDF has to first be locally converted to PS (e.g.
by xpdf) before being sent to the printer, an attacker would have
to (somehow) formulate a PDF that would cause xpdf to emit a
"PostScript" file that looked to the printer like a firmware
download.  I don't know enough about either PDF or xpdf to say
whether that's possible, but I imagine it would at least be a
whole lot more difficult than in the direct PDF case.
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Re: Printer recommendation please

[perryh]

Jerry  wrote:

> Obviously you are not aware of the latest trend towards the
> movement to standardize PDF as the standard print format. I would
> recommend you start by reading the documentation located at:
> 
> and continue on from there.

That page seems to be concerned with using PDF, rather than PS, as
a common intermediate print language in CUPS.  I see nothing there
relevant to sending PDF directly to a printer.

> While there might be some rational for your security concerns on
> a business network in regards to wireless networks, they are not
> really relevant on a home networks. The simple ease of use that a
> wireless network gives a user on a home network far outweigh any
> pseudo claims of espionage.

Following that line of reasoning to its logical conclusion would
lead one to believe that home networks have no need of any malware
protection, e.g. anti-virus.  Any ISP which has had to deal with
incidents precipitated by customers' infected machines -- including
but likely not limited to DDoS and spambots -- would likely disagree.

> Furthermore, there are means of encrypting print data ...

Utterly irrelevant to the topic under discussion, which is
the additional malware exposure that a PDF-accepting printer
has relative to a printer that accepts only PCL and/or PS.

I maintain that an attacker can more easily trick a less-than-
paranoid user into sending a malware "print file" to a PDF-accepting
printer than to a non-PDF-accepting printer, simply because PDF
is such a commonly used distribution format.  If someone prints a
malware "PDF" file that they have downloaded, and the process of
printing it does not require that it be transformed in any way (such
as conversion to PS) before being sent to the printer, their only
protection from disaster is whatever validation may be built into
the printer itself.  (Keep in mind that what started the malware
discussion was Poly's link to a report stating that some printers
do not sufficiently validate an "update firmware" job.)

Granted the identical exposure exists for a PS printer if the
downloaded malware file is identified as a PS file, however the
risk is much less in practice because distribution of PS files
is sufficiently uncommon that most unsophisticated users would
have no idea what to do with one if they were to come across it.

> By the way, since you seem so concerned over your printers security,
> I assume that you all ready have it at least password protected.

No need.  I have no wireless at all -- everything is hardwired --
and I trust my firewall.  There's no way for anyone to either sniff
or inject anything from outside (i.e. without physical access to
the network on the secure side of the firewall).
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Re: Questions about Jail

[perryh]

Fbsd8  wrote:

> In most cases your jail environment will function ok as long as
> its the same base release level. Example, host=8.0 jail1=8.1 and
> jail2=8.2

IIUC, a better example would be host=8.2, jail1=8.1 and jail2=8.0.
A point release is not supposed to make any incompatible changes to
the kernel ABI, but it might add new interfaces not present in the
older kernel.

> But host=8.2 and jail1=9.0 will have unknown reliability.

I would say it is only an accident if (jail major > kernel major)
works, because the KABI will likely have changed between N.x and
(N+1).x.  However, host=9.0, jail1=8.x should work if the host
kernel includes the COMPAT_FREEBSD8 option.

> Technically there is no checks stopping someone from doing this
> and from the outside all will look correct, but it will fail and
> you may lose both the host and jail.

You may indeed lose the jail, but if _anything_ done in the jail is
able to corrupt the host there is by definition a bug in the host's
jail support.
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Re: Printer recommendation please

[perryh]

Jerry  wrote:

> > > Furthermore, there are means of encrypting print data ...
> > 
> > Utterly irrelevant to the topic under discussion, which is
> > the additional malware exposure that a PDF-accepting printer
> > has relative to a printer that accepts only PCL and/or PS.
>
> FROM YOUR ORIGINAL POST:
> "All the more reason to avoid wireless.  (I had been thinking more
> along the lines of someone intercepting sensitive print files, e.g.
> tax returns, as they were being sent to the printer.)"

I think you must have missed the parentheses, and the "had been".
When I initially stated my distrust of wireless (in a post prior to
the one you quoted here), I didn't specify a particular security-
related reason, just general concern that it effectively bypasses
the firewall.  Here I note that Poly's concern about a printer
being corrupted by receiving a malicious "firmware update" job is
important, and acknowledge that my original concern about sniffing
pales by comparison.

> I again restate my original statement that there exists means of
> encrypting data sent to a printer.

Yes, provided the printer supports the corresponding decryption
operation, but that capability is still irrelevant to the question
of whether the printer's firmware can be corrupted by a malicious
"firmware update" job.  According to the report that Poly linked
to, there are at least some printers that are vulnerable to that
kind of attack.
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Re: current pids per tty

[perryh]

"ill...@gmail.com"  wrote:

> (there is an executable named /usr/bin/jobs, but . . .
> well run "cat /usr/bin/jobs" & see for yourself).

Whoa!  Does /usr/bin/jobs even work?

  $ cat /usr/bin/jobs
  #!/bin/sh
  # $FreeBSD: src/usr.bin/alias/generic.sh,v 1.2.10.1.4.1 2010/06/14 02:09:06 
kensmith Exp $
  # This file is in the public domain.
  builtin ${0##*/} ${1+"$@"}

It looks as if generic.sh intends to have the same effect as the
builtin matching the name under which the script is run, but at
least for "jobs" I don't think it will DTRT because it will run
in the wrong context:

* The builtin "jobs" command will report all background jobs known
  to the shell in which it is issued.

* Because it is a shebang script, running /usr/bin/jobs will cause
  the shell in which it is run to fork/exec an instance of /bin/sh,
  and that instance will execute the /usr/bin/jobs script, thus it
  will will be the new /bin/sh instance that executes _its_ builtin
  "jobs" command -- reporting nothing, since _that_ instance has not
  put anything into the background (and has no knowledge of what-all
  its parent shell may have put in the background).
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Re: Music production on FreeBSD

[perryh]

"Conrad J. Sabatier"  wrote:

> And lately, even some of the timidity++ stuff isn't working
> right.  The Xaw interface refuses to build/install properly,
> ever since the removal of X11BASE from the ports infrastructure.

That "should" only require replacing X11BASE with LOCALBASE
in the 3 port files where it appears:

  timidity++/Makefile.interface (3 places)
  timidity++-motif/Makefile
  timidity++-xaw/pkg-plist (2 places)
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Re: Token Ring (really)

[perryh]

"Jay West"  wrote:

> this is for a historical re-creation project ...
>
> I guess I'll have to see how tough it would be to yank
> the TR code from 7x and get it running under 9x.

Might it not be both more historically accurate, and a great deal
easier, to just use the version of FreeBSD that corresponds to the
historical era being re-created?
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Re: FreeBSD's backwards webdesign / corporate identity

[perryh]

Mark Felder  wrote:

> Python on Planes is the future, mn.

Shouldn't that be spelled "plains", as in the places where the
snake-containing grass grows?



:-)
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Re: FreeBSD's backwards webdesign / corporate identity

[perryh]

Polytropon  wrote:

> On Tue, 10 Apr 2012 15:29:42 +1000, Da Rock wrote:
> > On 04/10/12 21:32, per...@pluto.rain.com wrote:
> > > Mark Felder  wrote:
> > >
> > >> Python on Planes is the future, mn.
> > > Shouldn't that be spelled "plains", as in the places where the
> > > snake-containing grass grows?
> > >
> > > :-)
> > >
> > Ha! One would think so, but with ruby on rails one would think
> > that python on plains wouldn't sound anywhere near as exciting
> > or appear too quick. That and a shaded reference to a certain
> > similarly titled movie with Samuel L Jackson- corny! :D
>
> Should we "modernize" programming languages by putting
> them "on" something? Like "awk on a anchor", "C on a
> chimney" or "Java on Jambalaya"? :-)

Sather on sabattical?
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Re: System initialization

[perryh]

Brett Glass  wrote:

> I have several nearly identical servers in my network, and would 
> like to control their configurations entirely from one file ...

You might find sysutils/puppet useful.
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Re: mounting ext2fs

[perryh]

"Julian H. Stacey"  wrote:

> > what does lsvfs show ?
>
> Maybe try: dd if=/dev/da0s1 count=20 of=/tmp/t ; file /tmp/t
> (it show interesting stuff on my /xp  anyway ).

Easier:  file -s /dev/da0s1
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Re: mounting ext2fs

[perryh]

Warren Block  wrote:
> On Thu, 19 Apr 2012, Matthias Apitz wrote:
> > the problem with (this) cardreader seems to be that the card must
> > already inserted at boot time; a later switch to another card, for
> > example from a card with 'msdosfs' to a card with 'ext2fs', gives the
> > problem in my first mail; don't know if this is a bug or feature :-)
>
> Try forced retasting after loading a card.
>
>true > /dev/da0

and/or unplugging/replugging the reader, if it is hot-pluggable (e.g. USB).
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Re: UFS Crash and directories now missing

[perryh]

Alejandro Imass  wrote:

> 3) the directories were moved at reboot by journal recovery,
> fsck or something else

I think it's *extremely* unlikely that fsck was involved, because
it just doesn't do things like that.  It might move an orphaned
directory (or file) to lost+found, but nowhere else.  That's in
addition to the fact that, as someone already mentioned, it asks
before doing anything.  I don't know enough about the details of
journal recovery to comment on it as a suspect.

> That is what worries me, is that it wasn't just some random bit
> or cosmic ray, but the potential of happening again ...

Any chance that your base system -- rather than one of the jails --
has somehow been cracked; maybe even that the cracker precipitated
the crash?  It might be wise to restore the whole system from backup,
the base from a moderately old one since it doesn't change anyway,
rather than trying to recover.
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Re: Is ZFS production ready?

[perryh]

Edward M  wrote:

>  That reply was not meant for you, so why do you care?

If it wasn't meant for everyone on the list,
why was it sent to the list?
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Re: OT: Linux EXT4 dump/restore equivalent?

[perryh]

"Peter A. Giessel"  wrote:

> What I have been completely unable to find is a linux boot disk
> that has a version of restore that supports ext4.

It's unclear to me how "a version of restore that supports ext4"
would differ from "a version of restore that supports UFS".

AFAIK restore (unlike dump) is FS-agnostic:  it must understand the
format of the dumpfile, but it needs no knowledge of how the FS is
represented on disk because it uses ordinary system calls (open,
write, etc.) to access the FS.

What you _do_ need on that recovery disk -- along with a generic
restore -- are ext4-aware versions of the kernel, fsck, mkfs, mount,
and (arguably) dump.

> I am very hesitant to use a backup scheme that doesn't have a
> clear recovery path.

+1
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anoncvs password

[perryh]

What is one supposed to enter when anoncvs prompts for a password?

I have tried:

* my email address, as I would use for anon FTP
* "ftp", as was once conventionally used for anon FTP
* "cvs" (same idea, but mentioning the transport in use)
* nothing -- just hit return

None of these works.  I get

Permission denied (publickey,keyboard-interactive).
cvs [checkout aborted]: end of file from server (consult above messages if any)

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/anoncvs.html seems to say
that anoncvs either should not require a password (Example A-2),
or it should accept any password at all (the other examples).
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Re: anoncvs password

[perryh]

Matthias Apitz  wrote:

> ... one should use today better svn, not cvs;

Does svn work for (parts of) the ports collection,
and is there a writeup somewhere on how to use it?
It doesn't seem to have found its way into
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/mirrors.html
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Re: Backtick versus $()

[perryh]

Thorsten Glaser  wrote:

> tcsh is not a shell ...
> http://www.faqs.org/faqs/unix-faq/shell/csh-whynot/

If you are _that_ strongly opposed to (t)csh, sir, I submit that you
are wasting your time reading and posting to a FreeBSD mailing list.
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Re: Bit order == byte order??

[perryh]

Erik Trulsson  wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 03, 2011 at 11:26:12AM -0500, Frank Solensky wrote:
> > In sys/netinet/ip.h, the first octet of the ip header structure
> > tests the byte ordering to determine the ordering of the header
> > length (ip_hl) and version (ip_v) fields.
> > 
> > My question: that always works?  While my reading of the
> > language specification document leaves both the ordering of
> > the bits within a byte and the bytes within a longer field as
> > implementation choices, the two are independent of each other.
> > 
> > I haven't run into a CPU where this assumption was proven
> > incorrect ...
>
> Unless you have a CPU where memory is addressed bit-by-bit rather
> than byte-by-byte the ordering of bits within a byte is not only
> completely irrelevant, it is also pretty much impossible to
> determine programatically.

Agreed it is at least difficult to determine programatically,
however it is quite important when dealing with hardware that
converts between a sequence of bytes and a bitstream, e.g.
serial ports, network interfaces, SATA ports.  Driver writers
had _better_ know which bit of the byte, as well as which
byte of a word/longword/quadword, is going on the wire first.

The O.P. is absolutely correct that bit order within a byte and byte
order within a multibyte field need not, in principle, be the same.
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Re: grep: write error: Broken pipe

[perryh]

 ??  wrote:

> ... how best can I repay you all?

IMO, by "paying it forward":  as you become more familiar with/
knowledgeable of FreeBSD, continue to read freebsd-questions@
and assist when able.

Everyone here was new to Unix and/or to FreeBSD at one time.
Some of us still are :)
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Re: Firefox printing

[perryh]

ste...@mailer3.nospam.homeip.net wrote:

> With FreeBSD 8.2R and Firefox 3.6.13:
>
> When printing postscript to file (or PDF, and actual printers too),
> the font and spacing of text is incorrect and does not look good.
> When I do the same on Firefox 3.6.13 on Ubuntu 10.04, I get clear
> output.
...
>  have included test-bad.ps to illustrate the difference,

The mailing list strips attachments.

Based only on the description, I suspect Firefox is using different
fonts on the two systems.  That's about as far as I can go with my
limited knowledge of Firefox text rendering, but others may have
suggestions re how to go about fixing this.
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Re: Server not booting

[perryh]

Doug Hardie  wrote:

> The motherboard doesn't recognize a USB stick for booting
> unfortunately.  The motherboard manual is dated 2006 so
> I think its just too old for that.

This

http://www.plop.at/

can be loaded off just about any device the system _can_ boot from,
and stands a good chance of booting from a USB stick.  (Works for me
on an old Dell, loaded from floppy and booting a FreeBSD memstick
image.)
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Re: Unable to umount

[perryh]

John Levine  wrote:
> >> [robert@dell64] ~> umount Flash
> >> umount: unmount of /home/robert/Flash failed: Device busy
>
> ... The problem is likely that HAL or one of its friends helpfully
> has the device open just in case you might want to ask questions
> about it.

I that case, shouldn't lsof(8) have reported something?
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Re: Unable to umount

[perryh]

Warren Block  wrote:

> lsof reports nothing open on either the mountpoint or the device.
>
> fstat blames gam_server:
>
> % fstat /home/wblock/Desktop/removable-storage/
> USER CMD  PID   FD MOUNT  INUM MODE SZ|DV R/W NAME
> wblock   gam_server  1409  776 /usr/home/wblock/Desktop/removable-storage 
> 244864 drwx--4096  r  /home/wblock/Desktop/removable-storage/

Does this show a bug in lsof(8), or an intentional difference
between it and fstat?
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logging to dmesg from userland

[perryh]

I am looking for a way to write into the kernel message buffer --
the one that dmesg prints out -- from a userland program, to help
in relating kernel printf messages to the userland operations which
provoked them.  (Yes, I am aware of the potential DoS implications:
the capability should be restricted to root, or at least to the
"operator" group.  I expect to use it only in single-user mode.)

Is there a program, or a system call, which can do this?  logger(1)
seemed a likely prospect, but either it doesn't have this capability
or I haven't found the formula.
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Re: Shell script termination with exit function in backquotes

[perryh]

Maxim Khitrov  wrote:

> ... these deviations should be noted in the man page to
> help eliminate such surprises. A single sentence would
> have sufficed in this case.

As always, I'm sure patches would be welcome :)
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Re: FreeBSD mirror server on a Debian operating system?

[perryh]

Chris Brennan  wrote:

> ... the list does not 'mail-back' your e-mail ...
> i.e. you do not see your own post until someone replies to it.

... unless you go to the subscription page and select the option
to be sent your own posts :)
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Re: Port dependencies

[perryh]

Chris Rees  wrote:
> On 2 April 2011 00:58, Chris Telting  wrote:
> > One of my biggest gripes with the ports system is dependency hell.
>
> I think you've misunderstood the term dependency hell [1]. Anyone
> who has spent hours struggling with rpm ... would never dare to
> even think of such terms when using the Ports Collection.

Dependency purgatory?
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Re: graphical representation of `du`

[perryh]

Chris Rees  wrote:

> Maybe I should port it...

+1
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