Ubuntu on the PowerBook G4 (powerbook5,6) describes some of the problems you have with Ubuntu on PowerBooks - for me as a reference when I switch my notebook.
Archive 1.11.2005 - 22.11.2005
Ubuntu and Powerbook
Ok, since my Mac Mini is working hard and everything is functioning as it should, I took the opportunity to install Ubuntu on my Powerbook. I wanted to finally check out how well something like this works today - back in the day, notebooks were quite an adventure with Linux.
Overall, everything looks very good - just like the first impression from the Live DVD. Everything starts properly, the components are mostly well recognized, and the settings are mostly sensible - especially the simple installation (for a test drive, I like to use the DAU mode, just to see how well the people understand their job) leaves a well-set-up desktop system.
Unfortunately, I have a notebook. And not just any notebook, but a Powerbook.
Well, the software itself runs. The desktop is nicely set up, and the selection of software is very useful - even all the notebook features are mostly installed. What was missing?
Well, let's start with the simplest thing: a Powerbook has a fixed keyboard layout - the keys are labeled. I'm not planning to rub off the labeling and repaint it to match a PC. Why don't the Torfnasen provide a Powerbook keyboard layout? I did find something on the net, but to implement it, some major efforts are needed (either applying a not fully functional patch or adjusting the X start process - neither of which are particularly DAU-friendly). Why isn't something like this included with the system? After all, anyone who has seen a Mac keyboard up close knows that it's really not identical to PC keyboards. This is further complicated by the fact that there are quite a few Mac keyboard layouts included - but they only make sense with old ADB keyboards, as they have completely different keyboard codes.
Next up: power management. A lot of software is installed, most of which comes without useful documentation. That's fine - in theory, everything should just be set up. And for the most part, it is set up: when I close my display and open it again, the daemon.log properly records that pbbuttonsd was able to execute the appropriate script.
It would just be nice if the script actually did something...
People, power management is not just a nice-to-have feature for a notebook; it's essential. And everything necessary for it is actually present. Please include it and use it. The Ubuntu installation looks as if the part that would execute the actions was simply left out. And I haven't found out on the fly in which package this might be hidden.
Then there's Bluetooth. The system recognizes all sorts of things, and something is being done with someone - but how, what, and where you can now do something with Bluetooth, that's not really clear. Hey guys, Bluetooth is really not ultra-new anymore, and for Linux, there's been something for quite some time - how about at least some rudimentary tools that show the status?
WLAN still doesn't work - but that's not Ubuntu's fault, it's the stupid manufacturer of the cards. 3D acceleration of the graphics also doesn't work, which is why the desktop is a bit sluggish than it should be - same reason as with WLAN. It's really a shame that hardware manufacturers put extra obstacles in the way of a free operating system.
Minor annoyances: the trackpad is set to be ridiculously sensitive - almost unusable for people with motor problems. More conservative settings would be much more sensible. And Gnome is still quite wasteful with screen space - hey, my notebook only has 1024x768, I can't just add pixels!
All in all, Ubuntu confirms its good suitability as a desktop system - because the installed system itself is really useful. But notebooks are still the last adventure for the toughest.
And my notebook? Well, I'll probably just go back to Tiger.
Dejavu - Trac - another Object-Relational-Mapper for Python. Sounds quite interesting in some points.
A Year on Mars
About the Super Performance of the Mars Rover:
The dramatic landing, during which the 180-kilogram vehicle crashed into the Martian rubble wrapped in airbags, is celebrating its anniversary these days, as a Martian year, i.e. 687 Earth days, has passed since then. To everyone's surprise, the Mars rovers are still functioning.
Really great what these little boxes are doing there. Let's hope for another Martian year. And please, a few more from the model series on a few other planets and moons, if you please?
Finally, the dialer value chain is being tackled
BGH ruling breaks dialer resale chain:
The "average informed and understanding telephone and internet user" is "not aware of the service chain between the network operator and the value-added service provider". Therefore, the "call to the value-added service cannot be interpreted as the user's intention to conclude a contract with the number administrator". The provider is "from the customer's perspective an agent of a third party".
Very good. This will finally make it more difficult for the dialer mafia to operate their money-making machines. It's about time. Yes, I understand that the intermediaries are not necessarily involved with the dialer scammers - but they have at least tacitly accepted that such businesses are conducted through them. And the constant hide-and-seek game of the dialer operators behind shell companies was really absurd.
Dispute over ARD election graphics settled
Democracy powered by Microsoft has come to an end:
The cooperation between Infratest dimap and Microsoft in ARD election broadcasts has ended, reported the leading North German Broadcasting on Monday.
About time. The ARD's dance around the issue had become simply ridiculous. No corporate advertising belongs in election broadcasts. Period.
Germany - Arms Dealer
First the Leopard II tanks to Turkey, now submarines to Israel - and then also with financing a part of the production by Germany itself. Quite a big action.
And no, what bothers me is not the word "Israel" - there could be any other country. What bothers me - besides the general fact of arms production and arms exports - is the part where Germany itself bears a third of the production costs ...
Well, Intel messed up again: Hyperthreading hurts server performance, say developers - what was the reason again why Apple relies on Intel processors? Better performance? Pfft.
Richard Stallman Gets in Trouble with UN Security for Wearing a Tin-Foil Hat - well, not a tin-foil hat, rather an ID card wrapped in aluminum foil. Due to RFID.
Taxi 3
Hey, wasn't that just Sly Stallone?
(And to be quite honest: the Bond rip-off at the beginning of the movie is just plain awesome)
Disgusting ...
... the fearmongering of the agitators against data protection and privacy, when the secrecy of telecommunications threatens to be taken seriously.
Definition: Embarrassing
People who write longer articles about their blog design.
Chancellors can commit perjury and maintain secret accounts, getting away with a mere threatening finger-wagging. But football fraud is severely punished in Germany.
Hibernate on your non-brandnew Mac - works on many old PowerBooks, except on the 12" 867Mhz PowerBook. Guess which one I have ...
Critical Vulnerability in Content Management System Mambo
PHP is increasingly becoming a security dump:
Not always does disabling register_globals in PHP increase security. Sometimes this opens up a vulnerability. This is also the case with the Content Management System Mambo, which, according to a posting on the security mailing list Full Disclosure, contains a vulnerability that allows attackers to execute their own code on the server.
This is certainly due to the fact that there is hardly any language - apart perhaps from Perl - that carries as much cruft as PHP. The result shows itself again and again in esoteric problems that even catch people who should be prepared for such things based on their experience.
A Millimeter
A Millimeter
The whole thing is really just a millimeter - more precisely, the centers of the two upper lines are one millimeter apart. The lower line is on the half millimeter. The blur is completely normal with the shallow depth of field that you have at such extreme magnification scales - 12x magnification relative to the camera chip of the EOS 10D.
Cactus Mite Revisited
Jutta and I have been playing around with macro photography again - Jutta has acquired a Zeiss cold light source, so there's finally enough light even for absolutely crazy magnifications. Result: the cactus mite visited again:
If you want a size comparison: the following image is a section of a fairly precise millimeter scale - the top two lines are one millimeter apart, the bottom one is on the half millimeter. The image field corresponds to that of the image above.
The slight blurriness comes from the extreme magnification ratio - about 12x magnification relative to the base area of the 10D chip - and from the optical system operated far outside its optical parameters.
The equipment used was a Canon EOS 10D, a Canon EF to Contax Y/C adapter, a Contax bellows unit, a Tokina ATX 17mm/f3.5 in retro position, and the whole thing then on a tripod and ball head (such an Arca Swiss Monoball is already something fine - the ideal ball head for macro work). Then some finesse, patience, and series shots with minimally changing distance between lens and subject.
e-Voting: Contesting the Bundestag Election Due to Voting Computers
Problems with voting machines in the federal election:
Wiesner criticizes in particular that the voting is indirect – via the voting machine and the software used – and it cannot be verified whether the vote is stored immediately and unchanged in the vote memory and subsequently in the electronic vote memory until the election result is determined is not changed.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he succeeds with his application, but I don't see any greater chances - because surely it will just be discussed to death again and by then the Federal Constitutional Court may decide, the current coalition will have long since gone to Orkus (they won't last 4 years) ...
Some things annoy me terribly
For example, if umlauts are not processed cleanly - as with pre_populate_from in Django. Therefore, I no longer use this in my CMSProject, but simply fill the slug in _pre_save. And then let a corresponding routine run there. Although this is not really perfect, but at least usable ...
And yes, this is a test post for the function to create a slug from a title with umlauts.
And then there was ...
... the bankruptcy of the Red-Black horror coalition and the loud howling and gnashing of teeth of all the interest group arse-lickers who now think they might lose their little butter. Meanwhile, the hunt against Hartz IV recipients continues and the welfare state is dismantled, but the police state is further expanded. Any sense is left out and therefore the little conjuncture is simply murdered with a VAT increase. The whole thing is then garnished with a clear violation of the constitution in the budget for next year. And these idiots stand up and celebrate themselves and their pathetic work.
When watching bad movies, you can always switch channels. Where is the remote control for reality, please?
Apples WebObjects with new licensing terms
Apple has clarified the licensing issues with WebObjects - Deployment on Linux boxes is now also completely allowed. Thus, the XCode environment with WebObjects is now completely free from development to deployment.
Taking Photos While Geocaching
A series of pictures taken during various geocaching tours. Some in the Coesfelder Heide, some near Wolbeck:
A Few More Pictures ...
... there is in my CMS Testbed(yes, I'm knitting on my own content management software again). And when I look at how little trouble my own software gives me and how much trouble Wordpress always causes (for example, today I couldn't upload any pictures without being able to find any reason - nothing in the log files, no error message, just the refusal to upload), then the switch could be getting closer and closer ...
Linux-Vserver on Debian Sarge - the title says it all. Bookmark for later - could be interesting for my server.
Mac-on-Linux - strangely never blogged about, so now. Running Mac operating systems in a virtual environment under Linux on Macs - ideal for Linux-powered Mac Minis where you still want to have the one or other OS X program ...
Mac-on-Mac is the inverse counterpart to Mac-on-Linux - a port of the virtual machine to OS X, with which you can then run Linux or other Mac systems under OS X in a virtual environment. Status is still very raw ...
Dream Dancer at Work
Who wants to have a good laugh: RatcliffeBlog—Mitch's Open Notebook: Measuring podcasts: The right first step - about the pathetic attempts of Audible to make money from podcasts. Regardless of what you think about podcasts (I don't think much of them, their accessibility is simply terrible), Audible's ideas (which sell DRM-infested audiobooks) are simply laughable.
Boycott Sony-BMG!
Their rootkit nonsense is now also affecting Macs:
Sony BMG has turned the Windows universe against itself with the XCP copy protection from First 4 Internet. Now a copy protection method also appears that is supposed to perform similar tasks in the Mac cosmos as the XCP software. Until now, there were hardly any Trojans and rootkits known for Mac systems.
Great. Hardly any rootkits and Trojans - until now the music industry pushes such nonsense in our face. What are they smoking at Sony-BMG anyway? One thing is clear: a CD from them will not come into my player again. Stigmatizing consumers as criminals and whining about how bad they have it, and then launching an attack on my computer with CDs? Forget it.
Phishing: iTAN offers no protection either - which was actually clear to everyone beforehand, but of course did not stop the banks from marketing this nonsense as the best invention since sliced bread ...
Loss of Reality Among SAP Board Members
SAP Executive Rants Against Open Source:
Otherwise, it is important not to mess too much with the code of high-quality software programs.
Wait a minute. "High-quality software programs". He works at SAP? Where do they have any high-quality software programs? I mean, if you don't consider "high-quality" as "hopelessly overpriced junk", as he probably does?
wikiCalc - a mixture of spreadsheet and wiki. Strange. By Mr. Visicalc himself. Currently only Windows-compatible despite Perl. Well, spreadsheets fit for me with Perl and Windows - all shady stuff.
another week in Munich
And therefore, here are only sporadic updates when I feel like it and have the time. Given the interesting project and the quite pleasant weather, this will probably be rather rare.
SPD Sells Job Protection
To continue playing a role in the Berlin government, the SPD sells out job protection:
The experts from the Union and SPD have agreed to further relax job protection in a grand coalition. As reported by the "Bild am Sonntag," the probationary period for new hires may be extended to up to two years in the future. "This does not shake the substance of job protection," SPD labor market expert Klaus Brandner told the newspaper.
Okay, the whole thing is from Bild am Sonntag, so you can't put much stock in the truthfulness, but if it's really true, that's quite an outrageous audacity. A probationary period of two years is de facto an abolition of job protection, no matter what this SPD blowhard says - new hires then have no security at all, and the slightest disagreement and the contract is terminated. That's simply absurd.
Especially since employers already have a comparable option with fixed-term contracts today, only the employee then at least has some security for the duration of the fixed-term relationship - with the idea sketched above, there is no security at all.
And let's be honest: a boss who needs two years to determine if a new employee is suitable for the job (and that's exactly what the probationary period is for, not as a dishonest way out for the abolition of job protection), must either be a lying piece of shit, or dumb as a piece of bread in the puddle...
The lies of the SPD in recent years (with Hartz IV and all the crap from Schily) and in the current coalition negotiations is in any case a clear sign that the SPD no longer deserves its own name. It has nothing to do with social anymore. This is the sale of the welfare state purely out of power greed and obsession.
sql relay is a SQL connection pool that can serve various databases and handles client connections to the database via a central pool. Ideal in multi-host environments and when the connection load is too high (e.g., Django generates a connection per request).
Off to the Police State Germany!
Coalition of Social Democrats and Christian Democrats to review data protection:
Under the title "Germany – a safe and free country," the fight against terrorism is described in the paper available to heise online as "a very important task for all German security authorities." In addition, a "claim" of citizens is postulated "to be protected from crime." According to the interior experts of the grand coalition, other constitutionally guaranteed civil liberties must be subordinated to this. It is necessary to examine, as stated in the eight-page contract document, "to what extent legal regulations, for example in data protection, stand in the way of effective combating of terrorism and crime" and whether the "proven security architecture" needs to be further developed.
Speechless.
Value Added Tax vs. Wealth Tax
Open Letter: The Wealthy Want to Pay More Taxes:
Krämer said it cannot be that seriously considering an increase in the value-added tax without also taxing the wealthy more. An increase in the value-added tax would hit average earners, retirees, and the unemployed much harder.
Funny how people with money can understand this, but our federal proles can't ...
The Cowardice of the SPD
She shows herself in the position on (not quite?) General Secretary Nahles:
Nahles had previously been sharply attacked within the party. The spokesman of the conservative Seeheimer Kreis, Johannes Kahrs, said in the ARD morning magazine: "I think it is absurd that someone is rewarded as a regicide who, with his stubbornness, has led the party into crisis."
I think it is absurd that a right-wing pile of trash like the Seeheimer Kreis gets a voice in the SPD at all. He should just go over to the Union ...
The "regicides" were, by the way, not Mrs. Nahles, but the party executive - of whom 8 also did not attend the meeting. But criticizing them, the little coward naturally does not dare, because they could cut him back in his perks and trim him down to what he is: nothing.
But unfortunately, the SPD executive probably does not have the guts and will chicken out in front of the conservative forces and thus help to make the SPD just as boring, uninteresting, predictable and insignificant with new personnel as it already is. Just a red-painted Union. Who needs that? When we have Stoiber and Seehofer?
Rumsfeld denies UN access to detainees
In the Land of the Free and the Brave:
The United Nations has accused the United States of imposing unacceptable conditions on a planned inspection of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. Even China does not set such conditions for visits to its prisons, said the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Manfred Nowak, in New York.
With the current administration, perhaps rather a land of cowards and liars?
coverage is a tool for creating coverage reports - which parts of a program were executed and which were not. Useful as a supplement for unit tests to ensure that the unit tests also cover all areas of the code.
Sony BMG's Copy Protection with Rootkit Functions
At Heise, there is a report about the problems with Sony BMG's copy protection:
This software emulates rootkit functions - rootkits also hide their (illegal) activities from the computer user. The copy protection installs filter drivers for CD-ROM drives and IDE drivers, through which it controls access to media.
Ultimately, this is another breach of user data integrity. And considering the idiotic copy protection laws in Germany, you're not even allowed to do anything about it. And so, the individual's right to their property (this is not just about Sony's silly CD, the entire computer is affected!) is once again sacrificed on the altar of the music industry's arrogance.
By the way, this copy protection also includes monitoring functions for media other than its own protected content - and in my opinion, this massively violates data protection regulations, because regardless of what Sony wants to protect, what else is going on on the computer is none of their business.
Another reason not to buy CDs from Sony BMG.
Stoiber has dusted off
Stoiber is not going to Berlin - the signs of decay of the grand coalition are already evident before it even comes into being, and they are really quite amusing. On both sides, people are falling apart like cardboard boxes.
The entertainment value of this Berlin docu-soap is certainly remarkable.