Looking back, looking around, looking ahead

I never mentioned the fates of those computers I sold off last month: the Inspiron and the Pavilion. As you can see for yourself, the Inspiron finished at around US$112 for the entire set, and the Pavilion at around US$202.

I am nonplussed about the results; naturally I would have liked both machines to have recouped more of their value, but for all the trash-talking I do about ebay, it does level the field, so to speak. I never feel like I paid more — or was paid more — or less than the actual market value on an item. ebay might be a wet dog in my book, but at least it’s a level market, so to speak.

And really, the value in those computers is to be determined by the people who use them. I had the Inspiron for four or five years, grew to love it, and when I realized I was holding the functional value over the sentimental value, it became time to move on. And the Pavilion … well, the Pavilion was a challenge way back in 2006. Now it was just an unusual piece of work.

I have my eyes on a couple of other machines in the local area, that might be viable resells. I had never noticed the market before a few months ago, but when foreigners move to Japan they occasionally bring machines with them, and as luck would have it they do occasionally break down. And since the lack of a Japanese keyboard makes them nearly valueless here (speaking specifically to laptops, of course), it’s almost worth the price of shipping it back to its country of origin for auctioning off.

Kind of a bizarre niche market though. And not something I think I would actively pursue.

For my own uses, I am still keeping my eyes open for a new workhorse. My experiences with Thinkpads has made me partial to those machines, and I have seen a few secondhand machines for sale in electronics shops and local computer stores that have tempted me. I don’t know enough about particular models — or at least no more than what ThinkWiki tells me — but I have seen X40s, one or two T41’s and a T61p in local stores, usually at a decent price.

For my own part, cruising through the ‘wiki suggests a G40 or a T30 might be interesting to me, but I would like to hear some direct reviews on models before I clamp down on one. I have skimmed through the Thinkpad owner’s thread in the Ubuntu Forums, and seen a few enthusiastic responses. I take those as better endorsements than any other.

In any case, a processor with at least 2.4Ghz in it, a decent video card and an easy-to-use network card are my priorities. Things like USB2.0, a DVD burner and maybe wireless are also bonuses. Memory and hard drives are easy to replace. With that short list, it shouldn’t take me long to find a winner.

A perceived sense of inferiority

I have to break stride here for a little bit — considering that my last two posts were about console applications, I don’t want this blog to turn into some kind of “console app-a-day” site.

Not that that would be a bad thing, it’s just a little gimmicky for me, there are lots of sites like that out there already, and I don’t have the resources (read: time) to pursue that sort of project. And really, this is where I stash my notes and thoughts about Linux, not introduce software or distributions. Usually.

What has my brain turning today is a simple thread in the Ubuntu Forums that sparks the age-old discussion about the usefulness of the CLI over GUIs. Without getting too far into that debate, I can tell you that when I was a moderator and a forum regular, I would usually resort to helping troubleshoot with console commands over GUI instructions. The logic should be fairly obvious — I was unfamiliar with most non-Gnome desktops, my own desktop was rather esoteric, and I couldn’t predict what the other person was using.

So like most other moderators at the time (and probably still now; they can confirm that if they like), I usually offered solutions at the command line, over point-and-click. End of story.

Or is it? The quote that grabbed me out of the aforementioned thread, was this one.

It also ascertains a distinction among “classes” of ubuntu (or linux) users – if you know the shell, you’re in. If you are afraid of the shell (like meself, not because I now feel more comfortable with a graphic environment, but because I feel less comfortable with typing in commands i dont know what they mean) – well, dunno, you’re afraid of the shell.

I know, and I have experienced, a sort of “inferiority” that occasionally swirls around Linux in general. I have been told to RTFM, and also been told that if I didn’t understand something, I shouldn’t be pursuing it. It’s unfortunate. I make no apologies, but I accept that snotty tone as the nature of the beast. After all, this entire movement started out (as a loose explanation) as a challenge, burgeoned into a hobby, became the domain of the geek, and is only now becoming mainstream and accessible to the ordinary, non-technophiliac John Q. Public. Maybe soon that snotty tone will be gone altogether.

But if there is an upper “class” of Linux users that is somehow determined by whether or not a person uses the terminal … well, I have my doubts. Speaking for myself only, I could care less if you spend your entire life at the GUI, if you play halfsies with a terminal emulator on a graphical desktop, or if you drilled holes in your skull so you could wire your brain to your CPU. I make no distinctions as to whether you’re hip or square, cool or a tool just because you type in your commands, instead of moving around a mouse.

So if you’re getting some sort of sense of inferiority by reading this site, a feeling that you’re somehow a lesser being than me because I prefer the text-based interface that is easily 40 or 50 years out of date … that’s something on your end. PEBKAC.

Moving back to the larger scale, I have to wonder how many people who mention this same sense of inferiority — because the OP’s assertions are reinforced later, so there must be more — are also guilty of this, when the person offering the advice is doing little more than taking the quick, efficient route to a solution. I’m guessing for Ubuntu in particular, that feeling is inferred, not implied.

(And as a side note, I can attest that occasionally, when I mention Linux to some Windows users, there is a similar bristling effect, which suggests to me that perhaps that same sense of inferiority is perceived on their part.)

So where’s it come from? I don’t know. But the OP’s post — to me, at least — suggests a hesitance to learn, and from that, my own belief is that the sense of inferiority stems somehow from that. (Everything goes back to transactional analysis, but that’s just my own philosophy. )

The moral of the story, if you ask me, is ask what the command does. Make an effort to learn. You’ll be sidestepping the sense of inferiority that seems to come about from ignorance or fear, and at the same time will somehow permit you to “enter” that “upper echelon” of Linux users that otherwise seems to exist. And once you’ve done that, you’ll realize that there was no class system, just one big happy family.

Painting with cadubi

It seems the longer I write in this darned blog, the harder it gets to remember things I have talked about before … and things I haven’t.

That appears to have been the case this time, because I intended to but — if scroogle.org is to be believed — didn’t properly explain cadubi, which I happen to like as a vaguely artistic and somewhat amusing way of “painting” text for the console.

Now like everything else I mention, you shouldn’t get your hopes up. Console is console, and there’s almost nothing to be done to convert chunky block text into something resembling an actual picture. Almost.

Here’s how it works. Cadubi is basically a stamp-painting program, with a few simple hot-wirings that make it more usable. You set a pen shape, a foreground color and background color. Navigate with the arrow keys or with i-j-k-l, and when you smack the spacebar, the pen drops and stamps that location with the shape and colors you picked.

Nothing could be simpler. I could’ve sworn I wrote a program not too different from this in my junior high school programming class. Hello, Atari 800.

It’s fairly basic, but for what you can probably imagine, it’s also slightly inconvenient if you want to add a word or a sentence to an image. cadubi is one step ahead of you on that front, allowing you to switch to a typewriter-esque mode, and type normally on the image, a la a text tool box.

All very nice, but where’s the quan, you ask? Well, like a lot of cool things for the console, when they stand alone, they don’t impress much. But when combined with other console gizmos, they suddenly offer new potential.

cadubi can also read in files, edit them, and output to disk again. Enter figlet, setting the width of the output and the font from the command line …

figlet -w 132 -f big Motho ke motho ka botho

And then reading it into cadubi.

Experiment with things like …

figlet -f big `echo $HOSTNAME`

or even

figlet -w 132 -f big `echo $HOSTNAME` \/\/ Crux Linux `uname -r` > login.txt

Set the pen colors before reading in the file, and cadubi will paint the entire image in that scheme. And once that’s written back out again, you can tack it on to your /etc/issue file, in a manner somewhat similar to this, and make your logins quite entertaining.

The fun doesn’t stop there. Remember caca? The colorized console text that can take input from mplayer and pipe it to the framebuffer? Well with it you usually get img2txt, which does much the same thing for a static image, of almost any type. Ergo. …

img2txt -W 102 -f utf8 wp-cccp-1280x1024.jpg > cccp.utf8.txt

And before you know it …

Touch that up, tie it to your login prompt and every geek within a kilometer radius will be sick to their stomachs with envy.

There’s lots of fun to be had here, provided you’re patient, artistic, open-minded and willing to learn. cadubi isn’t anything new, and I’m sure there are better ways to put it to use, but that should give you some ideas to start.

tnote: Simple is good

Simple is good. Simple takes up little space, simple requires very little external support, and simple implies speed. There are always exceptions here and there, but those three points — sometimes more — are usually implied.

For a console note-taker, tnote is extremely simple. It weighs all of about 19Kb when packed, untars into a space smaller than your fingernail, and when installed runs no slower than your machine can spit things out on to the screen.

“Cool,” you say, “but what’s it do?”

This is the delicate part. Without getting entangled in that whole Mono discussion, tnote basically does the same thing as Tomboy, gnote or even xpad — in the sense that it gives you something like sticky notes for the terminal.

Don’t suddenly imagine floating yellow sticky notes on your terminal screen: You won’t get that effect unless you combine tnote with something like twin, or run it in an emulator on the desktop. And even then it won’t feel quite the same.

But it’s quick to access and needs only Python to run. Trigger it with tnote, use the -a flag to add a note, -m to modify, and notes are indexed with numbers. So picking out a note and rereading it is quick and painless.

One of the best parts is that you determine the editor you want to use with tnote, so not only can I hopefully dodge the whole Mono discussion, but I can also throw sand in the eyes of the vi-emacs-nano-ed debate. Check out the ~/.tnote/tnoterc file for more tweaks, and the help page for ideas.

I’ve mentioned a lot of other “note-taking” applications in the past — things like hnb, or even vimwiki — and I still keep those on hand because of the particular way they arrange notes, whether it’s in a hierarchical style, or in a wiki fashion.

But for a flat, direct, and easy way to jot down a memo or paste in a string of text, tnote is probably the quickest and simplest one I’ve found. And simple is good.

Name a renamer

A few days ago I mentioned a nifty command-line loop that converts out of proprietary music formats and into ogg, by coupling mplayer with oggenc. That was a good find, although I’m still poking around looking for some sort of console application that makes file renaming a little bit easier — something along the line of gprename, which I hold in high regard.

I look, but I don’t find much. I understand the standard rename command, but it’s still a bit awkward for my needs — I’d love something that would handle insertion and deletion, renumbering and search-and-replace, with a little more deftness.

I also spotted a few other tools (which I should leave unnamed), but those likewise seemed rather obtuse. I know some folks who are more programming-savvy are probably comfortable with the flags and switches and so forth that would make those work how I need, but something with an interface is more to my liking. I am not afraid to admit I have all the programming ability of a brick.

A long time ago, for some bizarre reason, I installed the renameutils package in Ubuntu, and used the qmv tool to direct-rename some files. That package is easily built and installed in Crux, and again that seems like the most practical solution for me. Pipe the files through vim, use the search-and-replace there or just plain edit them straightaway, and then get them renamed in one fell swoop.

Not exactly the “interface” I was looking for, but better for me than cryptic, hard-to-troubleshoot lines of variables and codes. If you know of anything that can fill out most of the functions of something like gprename, and run almost as fluidly, I’d be delighted to hear about it.

The price you pay

I advocate ultralight environments whenever possible, even going so far as to suggest dumping the entire X underbelly in favor of console “desktops” that use the framebuffer. It’s not for everybody — even most of my coworkers and associates consider it a little extreme — but the best reason for doing this is easily illustrated.

Consider the output of ps -AF on my Thinkpad, which uses nothing from the Xorg subsystem, relies on framebuffer support through a customized 2.6.31.5 kernel, and has very little in the way of extraneous packages installed (well, freecell is on here, but that’s pretty small).

UID        PID  PPID  C    SZ   RSS PSR STIME TTY          TIME CMD
root         1     0  0   416   600   0 07:30 ?        00:00:00 init [2]
root         2     0  0     0     0   0 07:30 ?        00:00:00 [kthreadd]
root         3     2  0     0     0   0 07:30 ?        00:00:00 [ksoftirqd/0]
root         4     2  0     0     0   0 07:30 ?        00:00:00 [events/0]
root         5     2  0     0     0   0 07:30 ?        00:00:00 [khelper]
root         8     2  0     0     0   0 07:30 ?        00:00:00 [async/mgr]
root       114     2  0     0     0   0 07:30 ?        00:00:01 [kblockd/0]
root       116     2  0     0     0   0 07:30 ?        00:00:00 [kacpid]
root       117     2  0     0     0   0 07:30 ?        00:00:00 [kacpi_notify]
root       118     2  0     0     0   0 07:30 ?        00:00:00 [kacpi_hotplug]
root       165     2  0     0     0   0 07:30 ?        00:00:00 [ksuspend_usbd]
root       169     2  0     0     0   0 07:30 ?        00:00:00 [khubd]
root       172     2  0     0     0   0 07:30 ?        00:00:00 [kseriod]
root       222     2  0     0     0   0 07:30 ?        00:00:01 [pdflush]
root       223     2  0     0     0   0 07:30 ?        00:00:00 [pdflush]
root       224     2  0     0     0   0 07:30 ?        00:00:03 [kswapd0]
root       276     2  0     0     0   0 07:30 ?        00:00:00 [aio/0]
root       282     2  0     0     0   0 07:30 ?        00:00:01 [nfsiod]
root       285     2  0     0     0   0 07:30 ?        00:00:00 [crypto/0]
root       445     2  0     0     0   0 07:30 ?        00:00:03 [rpciod/0]
root       457     1  0   466   656   0 07:30 ?        00:00:00 /sbin/udevd --daemon
root       519   457  0   475   580   0 07:30 ?        00:00:00 /sbin/udevd --daemon
root       527   457  0   475   632   0 07:30 ?        00:00:00 /sbin/udevd --daemon
root       551     2  0     0     0   0 07:31 ?        00:00:00 [pccardd]
kmandla    607     1  0   796  1748   0 07:31 tty1     00:00:00 -bash
root       648     1  0   457   284   0 07:31 ?        00:00:00 /sbin/dhcpcd -t 10 -h 1161-41j eth0
kmandla    650   607  0   608   768   0 07:33 tty1     00:00:00 screen
kmandla    651   650  0   740  1360   0 07:33 ?        00:00:12 SCREEN
kmandla    652   651  0   739  1204   0 07:33 pts/0    00:00:00 /bin/bash /home/kmandla/.scripts/centerim.sh
kmandla    653   651  0  2520  5220   0 07:33 pts/1    00:00:00 alpine
kmandla    654   651  0   931  1736   0 07:33 pts/2    00:00:00 mc
kmandla    655   651  1   580  1112   0 07:33 pts/3    00:00:41 htop
kmandla    656   651  0  9005  1968   0 07:33 pts/4    00:00:00 calcurse
kmandla    657   651  0   739  1256   0 07:33 pts/5    00:00:00 /bin/bash /home/kmandla/.scripts/elinks.sh
kmandla    658   651  1  2371  3996   0 07:33 pts/6    00:00:54 mocp
kmandla    659   651  0   578   808   0 07:33 pts/7    00:00:00 hnb notes.hnb
kmandla    660   652  0  2081  4480   0 07:33 pts/0    00:00:00 centerim -T
kmandla    661   657  3  2282  7164   0 07:33 pts/5    00:01:46 elinks
kmandla    667   654  0   798  1760   0 07:33 pts/8    00:00:00 bash -rcfile .bashrc
kmandla    669   658  3 10640  3868   0 07:33 ?        00:01:46 mocp
root       755     1  0   415   508   0 08:08 tty2     00:00:00 /sbin/agetty 38400 tty2 linux
kmandla    782   651  0   814  1832   0 08:21 pts/9    00:00:00 /bin/bash
kmandla    796   651  0   798  1768   0 08:26 pts/10   00:00:00 /bin/bash
kmandla    800   796  0   535   840   0 08:27 pts/10   00:00:00 ps -AF

Now compare that to the 600m running the entire Ubuntu Gnome desktop while doubling as a file server and torrent client (and remember that those last two roles are something even a 100Mhz Pentium with 16Mb of memory can handle, so there’s no real challenge in adding those to what Gnome requires naturally).

UID        PID  PPID  C    SZ   RSS PSR STIME TTY          TIME CMD
root         1     0  0   822  1000   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:01 /sbin/init
root         2     0  0     0     0   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 [kthreadd]
root         3     2  0     0     0   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 [migration/0]
root         4     2  0     0     0   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:01 [ksoftirqd/0]
root         5     2  0     0     0   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 [watchdog/0]
root         6     2  0     0     0   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 [events/0]
root         7     2  0     0     0   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 [cpuset]
root         8     2  0     0     0   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 [khelper]
root         9     2  0     0     0   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 [netns]
root        10     2  0     0     0   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 [async/mgr]
root        11     2  0     0     0   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 [kintegrityd/0]
root        12     2  0     0     0   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 [kblockd/0]
root        13     2  0     0     0   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 [kacpid]
root        14     2  0     0     0   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 [kacpi_notify]
root        15     2  0     0     0   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 [kacpi_hotplug]
root        16     2  0     0     0   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:17 [ata/0]
root        17     2  0     0     0   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 [ata_aux]
root        18     2  0     0     0   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 [ksuspend_usbd]
root        19     2  0     0     0   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 [khubd]
root        20     2  0     0     0   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 [kseriod]
root        21     2  0     0     0   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 [kmmcd]
root        22     2  0     0     0   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 [bluetooth]
root        23     2  0     0     0   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 [khungtaskd]
root        26     2  0     0     0   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:08 [kswapd0]
root        27     2  0     0     0   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 [aio/0]
root        28     2  0     0     0   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 [ecryptfs-kthrea]
root        29     2  0     0     0   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 [crypto/0]
root        33     2  0     0     0   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 [scsi_eh_0]
root        34     2  0     0     0   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:20 [scsi_eh_1]
root        36     2  0     0     0   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 [kstriped]
root        37     2  0     0     0   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 [kmpathd/0]
root        38     2  0     0     0   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 [kmpath_handlerd]
root        39     2  0     0     0   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 [ksnapd]
root        40     2  0     0     0   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 [kondemand/0]
root        41     2  0     0     0   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 [kconservative/0]
root        42     2  0     0     0   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 [krfcommd]
root       345     2  0     0     0   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:12 [kjournald2]
root       407     1  0   537   564   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 upstart-udev-bridge --daemon
root       448     1  0   462   184   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 dd bs=1 if=/proc/kmsg of=/var/run/rsyslog/kmsg
syslog     451     1  0  8424   808   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 rsyslogd -c4
root       455     1  0   628   348   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 udevd --daemon
102        598     1  0   790  1252   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:03 dbus-daemon --system --fork
avahi      625     1  0   705   760   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 avahi-daemon: running [9vwtx81.local]
avahi      626   625  0   705   128   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 avahi-daemon: chroot helper
daemon     700     1  0   451   376   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 portmap
statd      717     1  0   469   276   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 rpc.statd -L
root       742     1  0   425   200   0 Nov05 tty4     00:00:00 /sbin/getty -8 38400 tty4
root       745     1  0   425   200   0 Nov05 tty5     00:00:00 /sbin/getty -8 38400 tty5
root       753     1  0   425   200   0 Nov05 tty2     00:00:00 /sbin/getty -8 38400 tty2
root       754     1  0   425   200   0 Nov05 tty3     00:00:00 /sbin/getty -8 38400 tty3
root       756     1  0   425   200   0 Nov05 tty6     00:00:00 /sbin/getty -8 38400 tty6
root       758     1  0   493   672   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 acpid -c /etc/acpi/events -s /var/run/acpid.socket
daemon     762     1  0   490   188   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 atd
root       764     1  0   522   360   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 cron
root       796     1  0  1392   476   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 /usr/sbin/sshd
103        830     1  0  1517  2852   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:14 hald --daemon=yes
root       848     2  0     0     0   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 [rpciod/0]
root       861     1  0  4676  1968   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:03 NetworkManager
root       867     1  0  4851  1660   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 /usr/sbin/console-kit-daemon
root       881     2  0     0     0   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 [kpsmoused]
root       884     1  0   975  1112   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 /usr/sbin/modem-manager
root       954   830  0   834   748   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 hald-runner
root       955     2  0     0     0   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 [nfsiod]
root       978     1  0   574   156   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 rpc.idmapd
root      1013     1  0  1233   744   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 /sbin/wpa_supplicant -u -s
root      1016     2  0     0     0   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 [lockd]
root      1017     2  0     0     0   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 [nfsd4]
root      1018     2  0     0     0   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 [nfsd]
root      1019     2  0     0     0   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:02 [nfsd]
root      1020     2  0     0     0   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:01 [nfsd]
root      1021     2  0     0     0   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:01 [nfsd]
root      1022     2  0     0     0   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:01 [nfsd]
root      1023     2  0     0     0   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:04 [nfsd]
root      1024     2  0     0     0   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:04 [nfsd]
root      1025     2  0     0     0   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 [nfsd]
root      1028     2  0     0     0   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 [pccardd]
root      1031     2  0     0     0   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 [pccardd]
root      1033     1  0   567   852   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 /usr/sbin/rpc.mountd --manage-gids
root      1109   954  0   853   624   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 hald-addon-input: Listening on /dev/input/event0 /dev/input/event5 /dev/input/event4 /dev/input/event1 /dev/input/event2
root      1120   954  0   853   600   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:05 hald-addon-storage: polling /dev/sr0 (every 2 sec)
103       1129   954  0   814   544   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 hald-addon-acpi: listening on acpid socket /var/run/acpid.socket
root      1142     1  0  1689   344   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 /usr/sbin/cupsd -C /etc/cups/cupsd.conf
root      1208     2  0     0     0   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 [phy0]
root      1224   954  0   852   444   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 /usr/lib/hal/hald-addon-rfkill-killswitch
root      1232     1  0  2147  1240   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 gdm-binary
root      1283   455  0   653   624   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 udevd --daemon
root      1290   455  0   653   120   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 udevd --daemon
root      1297   954  0   852   444   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 /usr/lib/hal/hald-addon-leds
root      1368  1232  0  2129  1128   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 /usr/lib/gdm/gdm-simple-slave --display-id /org/gnome/DisplayManager/Display1
root      1369  1368  0 12105 19492   0 Nov05 tty7     00:01:10 /usr/bin/X :0 -br -verbose -auth /var/run/gdm/auth-for-gdm-TB1f1N/database -nolisten tcp vt7
root      1394     1  0   425   200   0 Nov05 tty1     00:00:00 /sbin/getty -8 38400 tty1
gdm       1430     1  0   845   244   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 /usr/bin/dbus-launch --exit-with-session
root      1435     1  0  1288  1576   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 /usr/lib/devicekit-power/devkit-power-daemon
root      1490  1368  0  2157   816   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 /usr/lib/gdm/gdm-session-worker
guest     1516     1  0 10176   828   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 /usr/bin/gnome-keyring-daemon --daemonize --login
guest     1531  1490  0  6387  2000   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 gnome-session
guest     1570  1531  0  1229   120   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 /usr/bin/ssh-agent /usr/bin/dbus-launch --exit-with-session /usr/bin/pulse-session gnome-session
guest     1573     1  0   845   244   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 /usr/bin/dbus-launch --exit-with-session /usr/bin/pulse-session gnome-session
guest     1574     1  0   775  1132   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 /bin/dbus-daemon --fork --print-pid 7 --print-address 9 --session
guest     1578     1  0 23530  1300   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 /usr/bin/pulseaudio --start
guest     1581  1578  0  2657   744   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 /usr/lib/pulseaudio/pulse/gconf-helper
guest     1583     1  0  1894  2336   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:02 /usr/lib/libgconf2-4/gconfd-2
guest     1594     1  0 24083  2928   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:04 /usr/lib/gnome-settings-daemon/gnome-settings-daemon
guest     1598     1  0  5587  1668   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 seahorse-daemon
guest     1600     1  0  1435  1180   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 /usr/lib/gvfs/gvfsd
guest     1605     1  0  4335  1440   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 /usr/lib/notify-osd/notify-osd
guest     1607     1  0  9786  1440   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 /usr/lib/gvfs//gvfs-fuse-daemon /home/guest/.gvfs
guest     1611  1531  0   437   172   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 /bin/sh /usr/bin/compiz
guest     1620     1  0   791   480   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:19 syndaemon -i 0.5 -k
guest     1693  1611  0  7439  3244   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:08 /usr/bin/compiz.real --ignore-desktop-hints --replace --indirect-rendering --sm-client-id 10648ab2af57643dac125739716330839600000015310022 move resize place decoration animation ccp
guest     1694  1531  0 10405  9500   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:07 gnome-panel
guest     1695  1531  0 22402 25560   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:09 nautilus
guest     1697     1  0 10149   784   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 /usr/lib/bonobo-activation/bonobo-activation-server --ac-activate --ior-output-fd=20
guest     1699  1693  0   437   144   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 /bin/sh -c /usr/bin/compiz-decorator
guest     1700  1699  0  4960  4388   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:02 /usr/bin/gtk-window-decorator
guest     1707  1531  0  6742  2200   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:02 update-notifier --startup-delay=60
guest     1709  1531  0 10747  2936   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 /usr/lib/evolution/2.28/evolution-alarm-notify
guest     1712  1531  0  4256  1552   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 bluetooth-applet
guest     1715  1531  0  9997  4036   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:06 nm-applet --sm-disable
root      1718     1  0  1257  1708   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:09 /usr/lib/devicekit-disks/devkit-disks-daemon
root      1719  1718  0  1205   324   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:32 devkit-disks-daemon: polling /dev/sr0
guest     1721  1531  0 25607  4396   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:01 gnome-power-manager
guest     1722  1531  0 23573  1776   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 gnome-volume-control-applet
guest     1723  1531  0  4264  1764   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 /usr/lib/gnome-disk-utility/gdu-notification-daemon
guest     1724  1531  0  7383  2400   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 python /usr/share/system-config-printer/applet.py
guest     1727  1531  0  4151  1588   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 /usr/lib/policykit-1-gnome/polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1
root      1729     1  0  1461  1416   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 /usr/lib/policykit-1/polkitd
guest     1730     1  0  4371  3200   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:02 gnome-screensaver
guest     1739     1  0  1546  1272   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 /usr/lib/gvfs/gvfsd-trash --spawner :1.9 /org/gtk/gvfs/exec_spaw/0
root      1740   861  0   535   580   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 /sbin/dhclient -d -sf /usr/lib/NetworkManager/nm-dhcp-client.action -pf /var/run/dhclient-wlan0.pid -lf /var/lib/dhcp3/dhclient-96df47b4-368e-4c41-8df1-e6e7151e3a07-wlan0.lease -cf /var/run/nm-dhclient-wlan0.conf wlan0
guest     1745     1  0  7523  1224   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 /usr/lib/gnome-applets/trashapplet --oaf-activate-iid=OAFIID:GNOME_Panel_TrashApplet_Factory --oaf-ior-fd=18
guest     1748     1  0  1590  1408   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 /usr/lib/gvfs/gvfs-gdu-volume-monitor
guest     1750     1  0  1767  2760   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 /usr/lib/gvfs/gvfs-gphoto2-volume-monitor
guest     1753     1  0  8015  1676   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 /usr/lib/indicator-applet/indicator-applet-session --oaf-activate-iid=OAFIID:GNOME_FastUserSwitchApplet_Factory --oaf-ior-fd=19
guest     1758     1  0  8038  1704   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 /usr/lib/indicator-applet/indicator-applet --oaf-activate-iid=OAFIID:GNOME_IndicatorApplet_Factory --oaf-ior-fd=26
guest     1794     1  0  1435   752   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 /usr/lib/gvfs/gvfsd-burn --spawner :1.9 /org/gtk/gvfs/exec_spaw/1
guest     1827     1  0  2032  1544   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 /usr/lib/indicator-messages/indicator-messages-service
guest     1829     1  0  3015  1008   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 /usr/lib/indicator-session/indicator-status-service
guest     1831     1  0  1580   960   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 /usr/lib/indicator-session/indicator-users-service
guest     1833     1  0  1722  1128   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:00 /usr/lib/indicator-session/indicator-session-service
guest     2212     1  0  1356  1740   0 Nov05 ?        00:00:02 SCREEN
guest     2213  2212  0  6486 11488   0 Nov05 pts/1    00:08:06 rtorrent
guest     2214  2212  0  1613  1588   0 Nov05 pts/2    00:00:00 mc
guest     2215  2212  1   632   852   0 Nov05 pts/3    00:24:13 htop
guest     2216  2212  0  1124   244   0 Nov05 pts/4    00:00:00 /bin/bash /home/guest/.scripts/elinks.sh
guest     2217  2216  0  3800  1744   0 Nov05 pts/4    00:05:27 elinks
guest     2219  2214  0  1536  1092   0 Nov05 pts/5    00:00:00 bash -rcfile .bashrc
root      3059     2  0     0     0   0 00:29 ?        00:00:00 [pdflush]
root      3100     2  0     0     0   0 01:26 ?        00:00:00 [pdflush]
guest     3857     1  0  1406  1828   0 12:00 ?        00:00:00 /usr/lib/gvfs/gvfsd-metadata
root      4046   796  0  2183  2980   0 13:19 ?        00:00:00 sshd: guest [priv]
guest     4089  4046  0  2219  1656   0 13:19 ?        00:00:00 sshd: guest@pts/0
guest     4090  4089  0  1534  3416   0 13:19 pts/0    00:00:00 -bash
guest     4113  4090  0  1021  1128   0 13:19 pts/0    00:00:00 screen -r
guest     4114  2212  1  1536  3432   0 13:19 pts/6    00:00:00 /bin/bash
guest     4133  4114  0   660  1020   0 13:20 pts/6    00:00:00 ps -AF

I often draw the line for usability for vanilla Ubuntu (and sometimes Xubuntu too) around the 1.4Ghz, 512Mb mark, and that’s why. How you interpret those two lists is up to you; the only point I make here is that all those doodads and whirligigs take up a lot of space. A truism perhaps, but no less true for being one.

Case in point: File server and torrent slave

I like to show off these things when I put them together, so I hope you’ll forgive me if it looks like I’m gloating again.

 

This is a combination home file server and remote torrent downloader — nothing particularly fancy or unique at all. This is something any moderately capable geek can put together in under 30 minutes or so, plus installation time, and keep in use for a decade at least.

Personally I consider this overpowered for what it does. This is the 600m I have mentioned (unfortunately) several times in the past weeks — a 1.4Ghz Celeron with a better-than-average video card, a pair of Broadcom-based network interfaces and a long history of hardware failures.

The failure du jour, if we don’t count the fact that the wired network port is unresponsive, is a rather important series of keys on the keyboard. As I mentioned before, I do suppose I could set this free on ebay, recoup a little of the value and wash my hands of it, but I have run out of favors with my associate in America, and rather than run the risk of irritating a friend with too many requests to piggyback on their ebay account … it can become a file server.

As you can see I used Gnome Ubuntu for this, which is probably sheer madness, except that just getting the system installed was a bit of a trick. Without that 1-q-a-z-Tab row of keys, there is a lot that is missing from a console environment.

And it’s not just that the keys don’t work, they send garbage to the system, usually in a high-speed burst. So pressing “a”, for example, causes the volume to decrease, the window to maximize and four random characters to spill into the terminal. And sometimes the touchpad gets in on the action, forcing the pointer into the lower left corner. Bad news.

The obvious solution that you should already be typing into the “Reply” box is “ssh.” And for that answer your teacher would give you a gold star. The problem is that the network requires a little coaxing, since Ubuntu 9.10 cannot, apparently, install a Broadcom 4318-series wireless card without access to the Internet.

It’s the old Catch-22: You can’t get your network running, without access to the network.

My solution was to use a leftover PCMCIA card to connect, install the fwcutter stuff with the Hardware Drivers utility, and then free myself of the cable. It was a liberating moment.

Now that I had full access to the wireless network, I installed ssh with Synaptic (because typing “sudo aptitude install openssh-server -y –without-recommends” has two a’s in it), edited the /etc/hosts.allow file by copying and pasting the letter “a” into the terminal anywhere “nano” or “allow” was necessary, and added sshd: ALL.

The rest becomes quite easy. ssh from the Thinkpad, install rtorrent, elinks, mc, htop, iftop, nfs-kernel-server and do a little text file setup.

Originally I was going to set nfs to offer only the “Public” folder for sharing, since that was created automatically for me. But it turned out to be somewhat impractical, and since I sometimes ssh into the machine and use the terminal while the system is mounted, there was little logic in forcing myself to move files out of one folder when I had access to its parent from another terminal. Or maybe that doesn’t make sense. …

In normal running mode, there is a detached session of screen in place, with rtorrent, mc, elinks and htop running in separate “windows.” I detach and let it run on its own, and reattach any time I want to check the system or make an adjustment. If I find a torrent I want to download, I can simply dump it in a watched folder, and rtorrent starts it automatically.

At the same time, I added the shared folder to my /etc/fstab, and set it to automatically mount on startup. Something like this works fine.

192.168.x.x:/home/guest /media/nas nfs auto,users,nolock 0 0

I couldn’t imagine a situation where the storage machine would be offline, and the Thinkpad would need access and not have it, so mounting on start seemed okay. I’m sure however, that Fate will have a situation to offer, given enough time.

One strange thing: Apparently, under Gnome, the network is inaccessible until someone signs in. No doubt there is a setting for that somewhere, but rather than actually search for the answer, I decided I was happy to sign in once, cue the network, then log off. The network apparently stays up in that situation, and I wanted the system to run with the login screen displayed anyway, so it works fine for me.

I also tweaked Gnome’s power management so I could close the lid on the machine without sending it to sleep. If for some reason the machine loses power (like, I kick the plug), it should survive for an hour or two before powering itself down. Of course, if it loses power, chances are the network has lost power, so … ?

But the best part really, and my favorite part of the entire experiment, was to imprison it in my closet. I picked up about US$6 in hardware at a local 100-yen shop, and I now have extension cords tacked to the corners, leading up to the topmost cavity of my closet. See for yourself.

 

If it looks like the cords are disappearing into the closet, they are. I needed about 5 meters of cord but the longest ones were 3 meters, so they couple in the closet, then run back out. I am a hack when it comes to cabling, but this isn’t too bad.

The beauty of this, of course, is that it is out of the way, takes up no space on my desk, needs no 10-meter network cable to reach the router, and has a battery backup for the 65W power supply. Mentally, I put that in the same bracket as my kitchen light bulb.

The downsides … well, like I said, I consider this an otherwise usable machine. If the keyboard weren’t so annoying — or if I were willing to drop US$65 for a keyboard plus shipping — it would go back to being functional, and not just a closet dweller. And although it’s not much of a fault, it’s a lot more powerful than it really needs to be.

But I have to repeat one small admission before closing: It’s true, like I said, I probably could not have put this together in Arch or Crux, because I couldn’t rely on the keyboard. For once, the GUI made it possible.

Things we all know

I haven’t tried this yet, but I love the idea: Use the Arch Linux PKGBUILDs to streamline the creation of packages in SliTaz. It’s like a graft of two of my favorite operating systems, one fast and light and the other fast and small and light.

It also suggests something small on the side: That maybe this sort of scripted package creation system — while certainly not invented by Arch — is a really great tool that ought to show up in some other, larger distributions (hint, hint). But Arch fans don’t need me saying out loud the things they already know. …

Kernel configuration guide

I have time for only a quick note and a link this evening, so I will make this short and to the point: If you are experimenting with custom kernels, or if you are new to building your own kernel and would like some sort of guide to the configuration process, you might try out the guide here, on wikia.com.

I haven’t been through every page of course, so I can’t be sure it’s 100 percent up-to-date, but a lot of the explanations and rationales are useful. It’s quite clear-cut about which parts are generally safe to trim, and which parts are probably essential. Most of it appears to come from the kernel help pages themselves, but there are parts that are clearly annotated by an outside source.

In any case, it’s worth looking at if you are new to The Big Show, or if you are an old hand and just want to review your own notes. If you know of any other kernel guides (my own not included ), feel free to clue me in; I make a habit of jotting down references for the future.

Keyboard failures

I had a strange feeling about that 600m, and now my concern has been validated: It’s back, and with crippling keyboard issues.

It didn’t last long. My neighbor was quite happy with it as a replacement for the Pavilion, but it was less than a month before pressing certain keys caused the entire keyboard to lock, random gibberish to appear on the screen, or for windows to bounce around uncontrollably as if possessed.

The issue is 100 percent obviously hardware related. It’s about five keys in vertical line — the 1, Tab, q, a and z keys on a standard US keyboard, which says to me that the part of the funny little grid that monitors that particular row has gone south.

The machine as a history of motherboard issues, but I’m fairly certain this is the keyboard alone that is misbehaving. And unfortunately, I checked with the original owners and they said it has a history of keyboard problems as well — some as recent as six months ago, when the current keyboard was installed as a repair.

Needless to say I refunded my neighbor, and I took back the machine — call it customer service, I guess. My plan at this point is … rather sketchy. Under other circumstances I might replace the keyboard, but shipping to Japan for that part might be cost-ineffective. And reselling it locally isn’t an option, since the market has no place for non-Japanese keyboards (desktops are a different story).

My best plan at this point is to use it as a file server and download client, much like the old Thinkpad used to do. It’s overkill in that role, but until I can figure out exactly how and what I want to achieve with it, it’s a worthy function.

I’ve already set up nfs and ssh, and of course with the latter in place, there’s nothing that I need the standing keyboard for at all. Score another one for ssh.

Next stop is to put rtorrent and maybe fttps on there, and then stash it in the closet with an extension cord and a few specific power settings. Once I have the whole thing in place, I’ll put up a howto or at least a case-in-point page, maybe with a photo or two. Everybody loves a picture.