earth tech

This is a one-liner that shows something about why grep has behaved so strangely in the past when we've tried to feed it regular expressions as the pattern to match:

  du -h | grep  "^[1-9]\+\.[0-9]\+[M]" | sort 

The trick here was to add the backslashes ('\') in front of the plus signs ('+'). apparenlty grep interprets the '+' literally if it is not escaped.

Note A: the Debian-blows-goats version of grep is not built with support for Perl regular expressions (bug #15051), which figures, since the Debian-POS developers only seem to know Python.

Note B: it apparenlty makes no difference to [this version] grep if the quote delimiters used in the above command are single- or double-quotes [this is counter-intuitive, since use of single quotes typically means no escape characters are needed], but the quotes must be there for the command to work - leaving them out causes the command to emit no output.

Labels: bash, debian, du, grep, sort

posted by pd wilson   #   14:48

There is a problem - as mentioned previously - with the default Debian-blows-goats install. For whatever reason, the system refuses to mount a USB mass-storage device when it is connected - that is, the Debian-POS system neither automounts the new storage device, nor will it allow either root or any loggeg-in use to mount it, despite the appropriate entries in /etc/fstab and the expected messges in /var/log/messges.

The forum thread /dev/sda1 missing [now closed] at LinuxForums describes the problem, some attempts at solutions, and some "workarounds" (see our post Found a workaround, maybe...) in detail, but the information we're posting here is not there [or if it is, it's in another thread and we didn't find it], and since the thread is "closed" we are posting it here...

Basically, the solution is very straight-forward: Install the udev package.

While that sounds straight-forward, Debian-blows-dogs-for-quarters has [again] gone out of their way to make the administrators life as difficult as possible by making sure that there is no apparent way to navigate to 'stable' distro from the 'untable' distro, and furthermore there is no clea way to select which Debian-POS distro you want to get .deb packages from. There appears to be no way to do a substring match when seraching packages. And there seems no way to either know which distro (eg.. 'stable', 'unstable', etc) the packages installed on a given machine came from, either.

And now IceWeasel-POS is crashing - randomly deleting characters from the textarea on blogger.com, and taking a good .7sec per charcteer typed to echo the characters typed - andddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd this with dysfunctional spell checking! Also, as you can see, the IceWeasel-POS is repeating characters and words randomly when blogger does its autosave operation.

So this is like : I'm typing a sentence, then stopping and waiting fffffffffffffffffffffffor the words to appeare. - and when they do- the repeats.

We have [sort of] found a solution. Note that in the log below, the 'apt-get install udev' command output is from the second run of same command. Ran it, then ran it again. Not sure why, but it worked.

root@juggalo:/dev# apt-get install udev
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  bluez-bcm203x hotplug
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  udev
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 2 to remove and 2 not upgraded.
Need to get 263kB of archives.
After unpacking 471kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? Y
Get:1 http://ftp.de.debian.org stable/main udev 0.105-4 [263kB]
Fetched 263kB in 1s (183kB/s)
Preconfiguring packages ...
(Reading database ... 139905 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing bluez-bcm203x ...
dpkg: hotplug: dependency problems, but removing anyway as you request:
 atmel-firmware depends on udev (>= 0.070-3) | hotplug (>= 0.0.20040329-12); however:
  Package udev is not installed.
  Package hotplug is to be removed.
Removing hotplug ...
Selecting previously deselected package udev.
(Reading database ... 139875 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking udev (from .../archives/udev_0.105-4_i386.deb) ...

**************************************************************
* Please purge the hotplug package!
* (/etc/init.d/hotplug has been found on this system)
**************************************************************

Setting up udev (0.105-4) ...
Installing new version of config file /etc/init.d/udev ...
Installing new version of config file /etc/udev/links.conf ...
Installing new version of config file /etc/udev/persistent-input.rules ...
Installing new version of config file /etc/udev/persistent.rules ...
Installing new version of config file /etc/udev/cd-aliases-generator.rules ...
Installing new version of config file /etc/udev/udev.rules ...
Installing new version of config file /etc/udev/devfs.rules ...
Installing new version of config file /etc/udev/hotplug.rules ...
Installing new version of config file /etc/udev/permissions.rules ...
Installing new version of config file /etc/udev/persistent-net-generator.rules ...
Installing new version of config file /etc/scsi_id.config ...

Note that it is not clear how or why bluez-bcm203x hotplug got installed - it was not requested or wanted, as this machine has no Bluetooth devices, and probably never will.

Other notes of note:

• The udev package was already installed, but wasn't working right.
• The installed version of udev did not include the documentation that was [according to the Debian udev package description] supposed to exist in /usr/share/udev/
• As with so many other Debian-POS commands, there was no man page installed, despite the fact that 'apropos udev' showed a number of [non-existent] man pages for the command. This seems to be a pervasive problem with this particular Debian-lies-like-a-whore distro - many [we're inclined to say "most" actually] of the administrative manual pages are notably missing, even though 'apropos' claims they are there - perhaps there is some issue with the configuration of the 'makewhatis' cron job on Debian-blows? Why would these man pages be left out? And if they are going to be left out, why lie about it through apropos?

So yes, we seem to have fixed this problem, but Debian still sux0r.

Labels: auto-mount, debian, linux, sux, sux0r, udev, usb

posted by pd wilson   #   08:54

Okay, I've had it - I am fed up. Debian Linux is crap - pure, unadulterated crap. Furhermore, it is crap like Debian that is giving Linux such a bad name. Nothing works on this distro. Nothing. These are not hardware problems, since most of the stuff work under e.g. WINDOWS or fraking SUSE Linux 9.1 - NINE POINT ONE, fer godx sake - that's what, 4 years old now, 5? SuSE 9.1 still uses the 2.4.x kernel, fer fux sake. Yet SuSE 9.1 has some functionality - it "just works".

Since installing this Debiian crap, nothing on this machine works - from the USB drive (won't mount - Debian records in /var/log/messages that the drive has been plugged in and all is well, but all attempts to use the mount command fail with a "Special File /dev/sdXX not found" error. It's true, they're not there (the /dev/ files). Where did they go? They were there yesterday (at least for a little while); they were there about 20 minutes ago when this same machine was running KNOPPIX from a LiveCD image (same source from which I so unfortunately installed this alleged OS called "Debian" - I will refer to it henceforth as "Debian-piece-of-crap" or "Debian POS" for short - [note that this is a run-on sentence which refers back to the "- from the USB dirve ..."] - to the freaking spell-checker in this stupid IceWeasel browser. As I type this, every word in the text input area is flagged as a misspelling - EVEN the ones that I specifically told StoopidWeasel to "Add to Dictionary" - simple shit like "for" and "to" and "an" and "the" and so on. WtF? "Check-as-you-type" spelling? Konqueror has had it for several versions/years now. Freaking MS WORD has it. AND IT WORKS [sort of, in word, but still].

I've heard for years now how Debian such a l33t "engineers" distro - I fought with obsolescent Debian versions in the lab, at work, thinking to myself "there has to be a good reason they chose this lame bullshi over [fill-in-the-blank-distro] that works" - I've [sort of] followe the FOSS debates where all the acolytes sing hoseanah to the great Debian-ness and how "at Debian they are really committed to FOSS."

I call bullshit. Debian is crap, and anyone who doesn't realize it is jst sucking up to the emporer, every bit as the tailors who pretended to make a suit. Linux is the emporer, Debian are the tailors, and the emporer has no clothes. Deal with it.

Now please excuse me while I go find and install a distro that actually works with some of this hardware that apparenlty is just to newfangled a gee-whiz-bang for Debian to have gotten around to - stuff that everybody else was supporting out-of-the-box 8 or 10 years ago - okay, maybe 5 or 6 years, but still...

And finally, I want to make as clear as possible the information that the Debian Package management tools [such as they are] a clearly sub-standard, inferior, user-unfriendly, and just generally suck ass compared to any other modern computing system standard of which I am aware.

I will never again reccomend Debian to anyone [except perhaps to enemies], and will not bother with the excuciating downloads of this Debian crapware. And KNOPPIX - well, you have mislead us all, KNOPPIX - all your fiddling and fixing to make this Debian bullshit run half-assed normal from a LiveCD - it really shows thru what crap Debian is when the KNOPPIX tweaks have are no there.

One final point - I installed the Debian-piece of crap to /dev/hda4 but that process somehow hosed the saved KNOPPIX LiveCD configuration on /dev/hda1 - there is no apparent way to get it back or to copy it over to the Debian-piece-of-crap partition, so not only does the Debian-piece-of-crap not work, it trashed the most stable configuration this machine has had since WinXP was removed, and didn't bother to either a) warn me it was about to trash my working config, or b) tell me that it had done so once it had hosed both the saved config and the new install.

So knoppix myconfig=/dev/hda1 doesn't work anymore - which I suppose is part of the greater plan by the Debian-piece-of-crtap manufacturers to eliminate Linux as a functional alternative OS.

Labels: ballz, blows, debian, sucks, sux

posted by pd wilson   #   05:03

This is an excerpt from the output of the lsmod command run under KNOPPIX on an HP Pavilion a220n desktop computer:

snd_intel8x0           31260  3
snd_ac97_codec         88352  1 snd_intel8x0
8250_pnp               12288  0
snd_ac97_bus            6016  1 snd_ac97_codec
snd_pcm_oss            38176  0
snd_mixer_oss          17536  1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_pcm                73220  4 snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm_oss
snd_timer              22148  2 snd_pcm
shpchp                 37032  0
i2c_nforce2             9856  0
snd                    44768  10 snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_timer

For some reason neither KNOPPIX 5.0.1 nor the Debian install to the hard disk [provided by the KNOPPIX LiveCD via the knoppix-installer command] seem to be able to get the audio input functionality of the sound card working.

Audio output works okay when the Sound System is enabled via the KNOPPIX control panel, but does not appear to work under the Debian instantiation of KDE.

No version numbers captured yet from the Debian kernel, or the versions of KDE involved (which are different between the Debian install (with updates) and the KNOPPIX distro.

Labels: a220n, audio, debian, hp, knoppix, linux, pavilion, sound

posted by pd wilson   #   08:48