Fri, 24 Aug 2007
Hard Disking
Two days ago two new HDs arrived. Two Seagate 500GB SATA disks. Together with a SATA controller, they were meant to replace the three disks in my old Athlon server ("sanctum", for obvious reasons ;).
The controller installed fine. Built a new 2.6.16 (2.6.16.53 now, the previous was 2.6.16.29). Booted... works! Good.
Shutdown, connect new disk #1, bootup. Good.
The disk still lies beside the server... since yesterday. Because...
Okay, there's this old lvm1 volume group (VG). Which I used since way back, it was created on a 2.4.x kernel. And still worked in 2.6.
Now, I created a new physical volume (PV) on a partition of the new disk. Tried to extend the VG. Failed, because the VG is lvm1 (metadata format) and the new PV is lvm2 format.
Okay, remake the PV in lvm1 format. Add to VG. Works.
Now... pvmove the physical extents (the actual data) from one of the old PVs to the new one. Oh, yes, now I remember this won't work for a lvm1-format VG. Great.
No problem, I think, vgconvert to new lvm2 format. Success. Now do pvmove... oops: "Metadata Too Large For Circular Buffer"
It appears I have too many LVs. 117 in fact.
Now, does it not seem strange that the "limited to 255 LVs" lvm1 metadata format can handle these fine, while the "virtually unlimited LVs" lvm2 metadata format fails?
Found some (limited) help on IRC. I could convert back to lvm1 format, but that's about it.
And here I am, stuck between a rock and a hard place. Do I keep lvm1, but no pvmove (and none of the mythical (to me) advantages of lvm2 which I had no need for in the past). Or move to lvm2 (and a whole new VG), but need some guesswork as to how big a metadata area I need.
Tue, 14 Aug 2007
I'm back!
After a short-ish hiatus, this "thing" is back. For whatever that's worth.
Thu, 22 Jun 2006
Make lower level characters important
One problem with level-based systems (and, let's face it, any system where characters progress is in some way, shape, or form, level-based) is the uselessness of low(er) level chars.
How to remedy this?
I recently came up with this idea: why not put the quality of drops and the level of the PCs in an inverse proportional relationship.
Makes sense?
Okay, let me illustrate what I'm thinking of:
You have pretty low-level mobs. Perfect for low level players. Now, they drop some resource that players of all levels need (plenty of) for some (or many) crafting processes.
Usually, this means that higher level characters would wipe that population out regularly.
So, let's give lower level players higher rewards. No, not XP. Let the resource the mobs drop be of higher quality if the player killing it is a lower level.
That's game mechanics, simple and easy, higher level player, lower quality.
But how to rationalize it in-game? How to... RP it? Well, let's say it's some secretion the mobs (some sort of animal, for example) produce. And they only produce it when they're aggressive. And they only get aggressive when they see a chance at winning.
If on the other hand they see their packmates getting slaughtered by a high level character, the run in fear, and do not produce that secretion (or in lower quality).
Think of it as the difference between "fight" and "flight".
So, the key to getting high quality items of that resource would be to kill these animals with a lower level character.
Fri, 19 May 2006
DPL Anthony Towns... what were they thinking?
Yes, I just now learned (yes, I'm out of the loop a bit) that a bunch of fools^w^w^w^w Debian developers have elected Anthony Towns to DPL.
What were they thinking? Or should I say, smoking?
Anthony is (at least to this observer) well-known for not really liking to communicate. Which is not a good trait in a DPL.
I'm... okay, Sun Java will stay in. Anthony being ftp master and DPL and a proponent for that upload... damn.
On the other hand, I'm not really very surprised. Debian developers (in the majority) are sheeple, just like everyone else.
(And Joey's departure as stable release manager (sort of), and the ensuing... nothing, shows how much DDs like the status quo. Joey resigning (not from Debian... not yet anyway), and people just go "ho-hum, things happen, but this really doesn't mean nothing". Just don't shake things up, it's "bad for Debian". Or some such bullshit.)
Thu, 18 May 2006
Sun Java in Debian (non-free)
This is... the worst news about Debian for quite some time. If not ever. Big discussion (only started) on debian-devel. With Bill Alombert giving the single best reason for it not being able to be distributed by Debian at all.
The license allows Sun Java to be distributed with the OS. But, as everyone (and especially a Debian developer) should know: non-free is not part of Debian. Never was, never will be. So, Java in non-free is not "distributing with the OS".
We still don't know who decided the license was okay. But one thing we do know: it was a highly politically-motivated decision. Another one of those "we want to be one of the big boys, we want to be accepted, bwaaaaahh" decisions.
How do we know? Well, there was no discussion of the license on debian-legal (wonder why), and the NEW packages were accepted within 5 hours of upload!
And then there was the "announcing non-free packages on debian-devel-announce" thingie...
Now I just wonder if it will be pulled. And what happens if it won't (and I consider it actually likely that it won't... ending in either some people leaving, or a GR, and then some people leaving).
If this sounded incoherent (and I think it was the most coherent rant so far ;)) then it's because I still feel shocked.
Thu, 04 May 2006
Whither Python?
So, now we have @decorators (yes, I read (parts of) that huge discussion cloud on py-dev just now). With "@". Ugh... why not
decorate DECORATER(STUFF)
instead of
@DECORATOR(STUFF)
We also got a ternary operator (years after it was sort-of decided that we didn't need one). And we got an ugly one. While an ancient patch by Guide himself had a nice one, a pythonic one.
So, I wonder: where will Python actually go? Oh, yeah, what with the type-checking conundrum and all also thrown into the mix...
And where will I go with Python? Contrary to what some people have alluded to (including Guide), the "@" syntax isn't really as wildly popular as claimed.
Oh, and on the ternary operator? There was a PEP way back (in 2003), which was rejected then, and I quote: "Accordingly, the PEP was rejected due to the lack of an overwhelming majority for change. Also, a Python design principle has been to prefer the status quo whenever there are doubts about which path to take."
This self-same principle was mentioned in the decorator discussions... and rejected. Well, it's still Guido's language. I just wonder if it's still mine... or if I'll follow him onward (and if not, when our paths will part).
Another quote from the historical version of PEP 308:
"The original version of this PEP proposed the following syntax:
<expression1> if <condition> else <expression2>
The out-of-order arrangement was found to be too uncomfortable for
many of participants in the discussion; especially when
Hah, and now that's exactly the syntax we got. Hmm, and the "easy to miss while skimming" was a (big!) argument of Guido's he used for shooting down (some) of the alternative proposals for the decorator syntax...
And then there's the str.join I still don't like...
PS: No, I don't know Guido personally.
Thu, 20 Apr 2006
Transfer completed!
Finally, everything's on the new server, including the mail system.
Sigh... it feels good.
Sat, 15 Apr 2006
jerhard.org transfer in progress
I started the transfer, now it's only a matter of days. Hope everything works :)
And then terminating the contract with my old hosting... which runs til September anyway. Damn.
Either way, these are the final days on 1und1 for me (for the server part at least).
Mon, 10 Apr 2006
Final stages of site migration
Redirected DNS for jerhard.org and subdomains to the new server. Test for about a day or two I think.
The mail setup is working too. Dovecot installed, and able to fetch mail from my own Maildir. Virtual users setup working too, just the dovecot part unconfigured.
So... about a week, I'd say. Or less. Then it's "bye-bye, 1und1".
I don't and didn't have any beef with 1und1, for the record. I was quite satisfied with their services and server for the past 3+ years.
The reason for moving is having my own box under full control is way better. For example, I don't have to use MySQL for DB stuff, I can do PostgreSQL as I always wanted. And that's not even the most important factor, it's actually a pretty minor one.
Sun, 26 Mar 2006
/etc/apt/preferences: maddening lack of # comments
Maddening. There's an ancient wishlist bug to allow # comment lines. There's even a very simple patch. There's no response from a maintainer. (There was a retitle action, but AFAIK, Thomas Hood wasn't a maintainer at that time).
What's the holdup? Where's the fuckin' problem? Yeah, yeah, we don't have time. Time to apply one very simple patch? For something that should have been there right from the start?
Oh, I do see a reason for not applying the patch: there's an "Explanation" tag you can use. The apt guys don't come out and say it, but that's what they think. I'm pretty sure of that, judging by what I read of Adam Heath over the years.
But not responding to that report at all is... cowardice.
(Oooh, some people will hate me for that, or alternatively think I'm an idiot. I'm used to the latter...)
Wed, 22 Mar 2006
Domains, DNS and RSS... oh my!
I made the jump and set up aobios.org so that host is the master, and ZoneEdit's are slaves. And it works! Nice, very nice.
http://kiwu.org and http://christian-anarchist.org are on DynDNS/ZoneEdit now too.
The only one left is the biggie, jerhard.org and the subdomains. Biggie because all my mail runs through it. ("A river of mail runs through it". Yup, too much mail :P)
But I'm close to get that sorted out too. By the weekend I guess I'll make that jump.
Oh, and blog.jerhard.org (this site right here :) ) has RSS20 now, and thus, live bookmarks.
Hmmm, just need to set up trackbacks/pingbacks now... (and understand them first, doesn't seem to be that good documentation about it out there).
My dream news ticker app (for Linux/X11)
It makes everything else, even the window manager, think the screen's height is N pixels less than it actually is. Then uses this free space for a ticker bar. It might be the window manager's work, actually.
The feel of it would be similar to KDE's knewsticker. Namely, horizontal scrolling, with clickable headlines that bring up your configured browser (opening a new tab in Firefox in my case).
Since I'm using WindowMaker, I'd want a bar at the top of the screen, as high as one dock tile (64 pixels, usually). That would hold 2 lines of text, so... even more information for this info junkie :)
Mon, 13 Mar 2006
ZoneEdit.com to the rescue!
Thanks to these fine folks, I have my DNS stuff. Free. And even if I want/need more, they're lots cheaper than DynDNS. I mean, seriously, 15$ for each domain? For secondary DNS (means I'd still have to register my server as an allowed name server)?
ZoneEdit: free for up to five zones. I have 4, currently. One I don't (yet, and maybe never) use. And... it seems I could even go with my server as the actual master server. That would be nice (familiar with editing zone files by hand, not familiar with ZE's clunky interface).
First domain transfer successful!
My first domain (aobios.org... don't ask at this time ;) has transferred! Cool. Now, on to the rest... with jerhard.org being the biggie. Since I have to get mail setup for it too (almost all my mail goes through jerhard.org these days).
But it feels good to be the actual controller of my own domain.
(Long pause, playing with my domain)
Crap. Need DNS. Additional crap money down the drain. Good to know... now. I wish I had known how crappy that part is beforehand.
Yep, DynDNS doesn't permit IP addresses as NS references. It seems no-one (or most) don't. Maybe it was never permitted (you have to "register" a nameserver name. Great). Don't know, since I'm really new at this. I can set up Bind9 no problem (even some of the weirder stuff), but all the bureaucracy. Oh, sure, it's for "security". I doubt it; DNS service cost extra, remember?
Thu, 09 Mar 2006
So, I'm a swede at heart? ;)
Hmm, that's not even that far out... I like the scandinavian countries, and their people (yes, that means you Danes, Swedes, Norwegians, Finns, even you Icelanders ;) I'm more of a winter person than a summer person. Don't mind snow (if it's not too much), and rather have it freezing cold (with a warm house to stay in ;) ) than past-25C temperatures.
| Your Inner European is Swedish! |
Relaxed and peaceful. You like to kick back and enjoy life. |
Exim4 and auto_thaw
Woah. Just learned that auto_thaw seems to be deprecated (the spec doesn't say so, but I found a mailing list post that claimed it was (no, not one by Phil, someone else, stranger to me, but then I never was an exim-dev insider)).
auto_thaw? The discussion I was reading (snippets off, as it seems google can't find exim-dev, or at least doesn't show it as a top result) was interesting, and I begin to see the problem. So, maybe I need to write a script for batch-thawing in some cases. Yes, I changed guard's exim conf to exim4.conf, from a default config file, and slowly migrate it to a working version. Result: got a bunch of messages which should be delivered locally frozen. Without auto_thaw, they'd be gone in a bit. With auto_thaw, they will be delivered. If auto_thaw could be keyed to specific messages (like, well, non-bounce messages)...
PS: Actually there seems to be one very vocal person waging war on auto_thaw... might hint at something. Hmm, it gets even more interesting in that he came on exim-dev with "I don't operate or have experience with exim". Nice fellow indeed...
Wed, 08 Mar 2006
A real server!
Finally, I fell for their nefarious schemes... and got myself a root server.
Now I only need to transfer my domains over, then terminate the old hosting contract. Hope everything works okay... but I think it will.
kiwu.org and this blog already reside on the new server. :)
Sun, 05 Mar 2006
Password stupidity
And on it goes... a password with only letters and digits allowed? How can that be secure? Yes, I'm talking to you, strato.de. How much more of a dickheaded stupid dick can one be?
Christ...
Webforms and E-mail addresses
And another form that doesn't accept "+" in the local-part. Why is everyone so stupid? Read RFC822, people! And give me my "jae+someshit" addresses!
For heaven's sake... what's the paranoia for? Or is it just laziness coupled with stupidity? Untrusted user input? Just treat it as an opaque string, for fuck's sake!
This really gets to me every damn fuckin' time it happens.
(This is probably the first real rant here... a pet peeve if you will. Might need a category for that stuff, because there's lots more ;-)
mod_rewrite and .htaccess
On this host, since I have no root access, I have to work with .htaccess. But, for the life of me, I can't get the rewrites to work. Which work perfectly on my local Apache 2.0.
Tried to do it with .htaccess locally too. Oh. Same errors. Weird, very weird rewrite.log. Seems it never triggers the RewriteRule in my top-level .htaccess. And I have no idea why.
Yummy, floats
Great tutorial on CSS floats on css.maxdesign.com.au. Thanks to that I got my design as I want it, nicely liquid. Advice from me: use "em", not "px" for size specs, that means it adjusts to the font size. I hate all the sites that go completely wacky when you go 2 font sizes up (my eyesight ain't that bad, but I tend to sit quite some way away from my monitor, so I often increase font size).
Sat, 04 Mar 2006
Web 2.0
Gimme a bucket, I feel a technicolor yawn coming up. Got the current c't (german computer mag, one of the best, even though it's far from it's former quality). First time I heard of "Web 2.0". Am I out of it? No, obviously it's just a new marketing buzzword.
Googled for it, stumbled on an article on it by Tim O'Reilly. Which got me to the realization that it really is nothing but a buzzword.
I mean, you hear "Web 2.0", and I start to think of something like Internet2. Which really is something new. But Web 2.0? Laughable.
More goodies!
pycalendar and pycategories plugins. You should see them on the right (if the transfer of the working solution from my local machine works :-/ )
Also a bit of stylesheeting (though I haven't managed to get hold of the pyblosxom default stylesheet... according to Michael Olson (http://www.mwolson.org/blog, and whose CSS I snarfed :-D ), there did exist such a thing (but neither the Debian package nor the 1.3.2 tarball have it).
More design coming up... maybe. ;-)
Comments!
To my surprise, the xml stuff that's installed on the 1und1 host has enough features to support the comments plugin. So, comment away! ;-)
We are published!
My blog went public. At... oh well, if you read this, you know where :P
I still need to find a way to make it non-ugly. The problem eludes me... it works quite nicely locally here on my private server. But that is in a virtual host setup. On Apache 2. The public site is on a 1und1.de hosting service. I need to use .htaccess. And it's Apache 1.3. Damn.
Anyway, here's my shit. ;-)