Raw Matter

Reading Kyle's view on Konqueror and KHTML's current status: I couldn't agree more. I use konqueror instead of Firefox because I quite like its GUI, and its integration into KDE is obviously better than Firefox'. Issues with various websites prompt me to have an Iceweasel window open as well quite a large part of the time. Let's just switch to WebKit, so the market only has to care about Gecko and WebKit and can ignore one more marginal rendering engine.

I see libqt-webkit 4.5 is in experimental and a Google query on “debian konqueror webkit” at least shows an Ubuntu packaging effort of the Konqueror WebKit KPart, so the days of khtml on my Desktop are certainly nearing its end.

At this point: Kudos to the KDE folks (Debian and upstream). KDE4.2 is really, really usable, the remaining issues are really small. And, if I don't try to manually interfer like I did in my first attempt, migrating the KDE settings from ~/.kde4 to ~/.kde actually did work just fine on my netbook.

While probably nobody has missed the news of the wekk (year?) in the IT industry, I'd still like to award a small virtual prize to Jonathan Corbet for the best headline:

Oracle: SELECT * FROM Sun

Yay! I'm finally allowed to (and starting to) port the application I'm working on at work from Oracle to PostgreSQL.

Oh, and I note that PostgreSQL 8.4 (beta out yesterday) introduces support for WITH RECURSIVE queries (closures, or for you Oracle folks, CONNECT BY, if I understand the feature correctly), the lack of which has always made tree / graph type data structures a pain to work with in current and older versions. Of course, many other improvements, too.

Long time since my last movies posting ...

Just discovered the U.S. TV series Supernatural, in an episode showing the two heroes being introduced for the first time to the writer of the book series “Supernatural”, which contains the life of the two heroes. (Strangely, it showed up when I searched for Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs on a torrent search engine.) I'm not quite sure what to think about the series, judging from that episode. I read a lot of fantasy and I like the real-world / fantasy world crossover every now and then, but Supernatural is quite cheaply made. Watching this one episode was fun, but I have no idea if I would actually watch it regularly. (I find, generally, that fantasy is difficult in movies. Lord of the Rings is very well executed and mostly presents the world as “just a normal world”, and I'm forever thankful to Jackson that he shares my opinion — I think he says as much in the bonus materials on one of the DVDs — that magic with smoke and flashes mostly ends up in major silliness. I have neither read nor watched anything of the Harry Potter epic, so I can't comment on that.)

While I can't comment on Reservoir Dogs yet, I finally got around to watch From Dusk Till Dawn by director Robert Rodriguez, and with Tarantino (also co-writer of the movide, and if you watch the making of, co-director even if it's not in the titles) and Clooney as two of the main characters, together with a wonderful Juliette Lewis. That's certainly one of the movies I'll watch again, several times. Great soundtrack, too.

Yesterday, I was a bit disappointed after I watched Time Bandits; Gilliam's later films got much better.

It takes something to make a stop motion movie in today's time of cheap and easy computer animation ... so I really liked Tim Burton's Corpse Bride, if not for the rather straightforward story, but for the look and the atmosphere. The movie is also more a musical than a film, which I like very much as well.

While yesterday was April Fool's day (I guess that's why Schneier posted this on his blog), the actual quote seems to be genuine (It wasn't added yesterday, and anyway it's on Wikipedia, so it must be true...)

Prompted by the theft of Eileen, MOBA staff installed a fake video camera over a sign at their Dedham branch reading: "Warning. This gallery is protected by fake video cameras."

Quote from the Wikipedia article about the Museum of Bad Art

While I'm not terrible happy with Oracle (what decade is it? Have a look at Oracle's default sql commandline tool and you're right back when I wasn't even born. Commandline history? Tab completion? Even just navigation with the arrow keys in the commandline? The future is really cool... Yes, I'm sure nobody seriously uses sqlplus), they just scored on this: I needed to download one of their products. I tried to create an account, saw that I already had one, had the password reset and mailed to me (extra point for not just sending me the old one) and signed in, getting a page where I could confirm my data (address data and subscription to their various newsletters), and hit the “continue” button that was at the bottom, whereupon the application still remembered that I wanted to download the file and immediately delivered the requested file. The fact that I didn't remember having an account highlights that their “I don't want email from Oracle” option really does mean exactly that. I really did not get a single email from them.

All this is extremely trivial. Sadly, it makes me happy that there is at least one company that actually manages to do this, which goes entirely against my experience with other vendors' web jungles.

Just stumbled on the Optical RayTracer by Paul Lutus, a fun program to play around with optical lenses. After an initial look around, the next obvious step was, of course, to re-build an existing lens; I guess it worked somewhat. Compare the screenshot below with the block diagram of Canon's EF 50mm 1.8 lens. (No, I'm not paid by Canon, it's just the brand of the camera we own, and it's probably one of the simplest lenses around, too. Which, no surprise, we happen to own as well.)

Optical RayTracer is not in Debian yet. I've asked Paul if he'd mind if I did a package. Not within the next two, three weeks, though, sorry.

The Canon EF 50mm 1.8 re-built in Optical Raytracer

(Note to self: also look at OpenRayTrace)

As funny as these stories are for reading, any hard data is absolutely lacking. Are there similar stories which actually cite sources? OTOH the fact that even cheap main stream devices like USB sticks and WLAN routers routinely have “compatible with Linux”, often even giving a kernel version, printed on the package tells me that the stories are not that far off. Even so, I'd be curious who these Icelandic Microsoft Certified Partners switching to Linux / Free Software are (first link, the quote below also originates there).

Microsoft Access, the only database software on the planet that’s better at printing mail-merged stickers than it is at storing data.

I'm eternally confused about the state of powermanagement in Debian (or in Linux generally? Not using any other distribution seriously, I have no idea.) There are just too many scripts who interact or merely run in parallel (see my short note in my first posting about my shiny toy. While I don't actively invest time to educate myself about the situation, I've just tried to uninstall a round of unneeded packages and got rid of apmd and hibernate, which both were installed by default (or by dependencies of other stuff I've got rid of earlier?) but seem not to be necessary. At least the laptop still suspends when I close the lid. This is without rebooting or even just logging out, though, so if it doesn't work out, I'll have to update this entry.

Update: Thanks to Michael's comment, pointing to #451380. Scope for a Google Summer of Code project, perhaps? This would be 90% talk to people and get a consensus and only 10% coding, though, but I think it would be worth it so that squeeze would have a powermanagement /acpi framework where different components don't stand on other components' toes all the time.

Two small tricks that I feel should be circulated more widely, because Google only disclosed them to me after a few false starts:

To figure out which processes are writing to the disk, I eventually found /proc/sys/vm/block_dump (see also chapter 5 of the Laptop Mode FAQ) which does exactly what I was hoping to find: it shows down to the level of process and file where disk writes are coming from. (Turns out, that kded and PowerDevil are currently appending to the .xsession-errors file regularly, keeping the disk busy on my new toy. Unlimited scrollback in konsole was the other culprit, but that one is switched off easily.)

Since I want to start backup on my netbook when it comes online at home, I figured the DHCP server was the likely place to trigger this. But the “execute” feature to start hook scripts on the DHCP server (see the dhcp-eval man page) was only added quite recently, so google first showed me a huge load of discussions involving tail on syslog and parsing its output. (I also found the simple event correlator which might be useful where “run command” features are not available.)

Last week, I couldn't resist and bought myself an Acer Aspire One (AOA 150Ab) netbook. It has 1G RAM, 120G HDD, unfortunately needs a fan, and is the model without 3G modem. It comes with Linpus Linux pre-installed. Looks quite nice, but is obviously ultimately the wrong OS ... Besides, it's locked down quite a bit, there's not even an easy way to start a terminal :-) I still have kept it, in a dual-boot configuration, to play around or show to people.

Installing Lenny went very well, and to make things more fun I'm running quite a few things from experimental: KDE 4.2, xorg 7.4 (1:7.4~5 right now) and Oo.org 3. And, to get DRI2, also the 2.6.28 kernel from the newer-than-sid repository of the kernel team (2.6.28-2~snapshot.12850, but I hear 2.6.28 has now been uploaded.) While the whole thing is fun to use and didn't make any real problems, there are a few remaining issues (yes, this is a Dear Lazyweb posting, feel free to comment. I'll try to add updates to this article as this progresses):

• Power events (power button, battery level critical) are handled by two sets of scripts. Not sure if the blame lies with acpid, acpi-support or KDE for this one. Symptom: when setting up, in KDE, that the power button should bring up the logout dialog, this results in: the power button does indeed show the logout dialog, but then immediately the system is shut down. Adding an “exit 0” in /etc/acpi/powerbtn-acpi-support.sh before the final shutdown command in that file fixes this, though. Similarly, the battery critical event brings up a warning that the system will soon be forcibly suspended and then immediately suspends to RAM. (I'll have to investigate if there's already a bug about this in the bts.)
• The X server has quite a few issues. It sometimes blanks the display without any reason. Causing any of the fancy full screen effects (like “present windows”) to happen sometimes fixes this, sometimes a quick suspend to RAM and wakeup cycle fixes it. Sometimes it does not and I need to reboot (and I have yet to set up a hotkey for log out without questions.) Also, the screen stays black after a switch back from a text console, and after logout. Oh, well, I guess I'll just wait a few Intel driver and perhaps kernel releases (not sure: do I already have kernel modesetting, btw?)
• KDE sometimes complains that X compositing is too slow and disables it. I immediately re-enable it, because while some of the effects do indeed demonstrate the limits of the graphics hardware, I've become used to things like “present windows” and, especially on the small screen, the screen magnifier. UPDATE: Since I wrote the article, kernel, KDE and various X components have been updated repeatedly, and stability is much improved. Switching between X and text console works now, too.
• Also a feature of the new X server is HAL powered handling of input devices, which left me without my desired keyboard layout in X. After some hunting around at places like #447666 I found a very simple x11-input.fdi file somewhere I can't remember and installed that:

  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
  <deviceinfo version="0.2">
    <device>
      <match key="info.capabilities" contains="input.keys">
        <merge key="input.xkb.layout" type="string">ch</merge>
        <merge key="input.xkb.variant" type="string">de</merge>
      </match>
    </device>
  </deviceinfo>
  

  I now realize that just installing hal-info from squeeze or sid might (UPDATE: does) also fix the issue.
• Also related to the new input hotplugging: how do I pass options to the synaptic driver? Probably another XML file for HAL, haven't hunted for this yet. As it is, the touchpad works but tapping won't click, and there's no scrolling on the edges of the pad. Update: Mark points me to the correct HAL invocation, thanks.. Now I only need to find the right values for all the options...(at least tapping doesn't work yet when I use the same values as the Linpus installation uses.)
• The various “ Fn” key keyboard functions situation is very inconsistent. Some of the keys just work (Num-lock, the completely useless Scroll-lock, Home, End, volume up, down; Even brings up a graphical notification, blank screen). Mute/unmute is caught by userspace but doesn't work correctly: it just displays the current volume instead of muting/unmuting audio (it also shows “HalPower::slotButtonPressed: Unknown button type” in .xsession-errors. Same message but no effect whatsoever for the Zz sleep button.) The deactivate touchpad key works but gets “unknown key pressed/released” kernel messages, as does the (off-keyboard) WiFi power switch. “Switch video output” only shows the “unknown key pressed/released” messages but doesn't do anything. Finally, some work but are also mapped to keycodes where they shouldn't be (dim screen is also mapped to “^@”, it appears, while increase screen brightness is mapped to “±”.)
• WLAN only works with the “options acer_wmi wireless=1” option, and without the LED, as described on the Debian Acer Aspire One wiki page. This is with the ath5k driver, haven't tried the MadWifi one yet.
• Powertop claims that the camera is always on, unloading all related modules () seems to solve this (at least, powertop doesn't complain anymore, and power is down by 0.5W.) Powertop also claims that USB autosuspend is off, but it's just set to 2 instead of 1 which if I read this correctly is the timeout to use for USB devices.
• KDE4 doesn't have a network manager applet frontend in Debian. I guess this is an upstream problem. (Although I note that the OpenSUSE people already have an applet ;-) Update: Sune tells me it's in NEW already, thanks.
• While network-manager (lenny version) does work properly and switches between wired and wireless as needed, it strangely keeps sending out DHCP requests on eth0 even though no cable is attached (and mii-tool correctly reports no link.)

Ok, this has become rather a long list. But at least, as you can see, it's mostly minor issues, and hopefully a few where it's just missing configuration. One other issue is battery life: I see that there should be a large battery available for this thing. If it doesn't cost me as much as the whole netbook again, I'll seriously have to think about this... The 3-cell battery does last about 2.5h (and has, right now, uncovered a little bug where the battery monitoring applet tells me “No AC adaptor plugged in, battery capacity: 50%, charging”. Whee! I have a perpetuum mobile! I'm gonna be RICH!)

After dropping all (pretense at) regular exercise after leaving high/grammar/secondary school (the german word is Gymnasium) and doing more or less nothing for more than 10 years, I've taken up weight training (after a not very successful attempt at volleyball; I like the sport but the team fell apart) two years ago. Since I actually managed to work out regularly (twice a week) in the first year, and since membership in a gym is not cheap, and since I moved and thus had to find a different solution anyway, I decided to buy a Bowflex Sport home gym. I can't compare it to other home equipment, and it apparently it has been discontinued by Nautilus, but nonetheless, a few thoughts:

The conclusion first: Would I buy it again? No. Was it a waste of money? No, it's not that bad. In detail:

• The free-running seat that should allow cardio rowing is not very useful because there's no good foot-rest, and because the range of motion is too limited. This is my main grievance because being able to do cardio was one of the main reasons for chosing this engine over other offers.
• Go for the 310lbs extension at least (I did, luckily.) With leg exercises, 210lbs are just not enough (I'm 70kg/180cm and have been doing weight training two years. Certainly no muscle freak...)
• It's slightly too small. For many exercises, I'd wish for a bigger range of motion. Especially the lat tower could be 10cm higher.
• While the famous “power rods” haven't shown signs of wearing out after this first year, the resistance is not consistent. The 310lbs is split in rods of 5, 10, 10, 30, 50, 50lbs per side, and I've noticed that 30 + 10 + 10lbs is noticeably lighter than 50lbs. (I haven't measured at which point of the range of motion the nominal resistance applies. Resistance goes from very light at the start of the motion to hard towards the end, so the numbers don't really compare to training with real weights anyway. I haven't had any problem with this, though.)
• The documentation is lacking. Besides quality issues (wrong images, spelling), some of the stuff delivered in the box as well as some of the possible exercises are simply not used/described. (Example: it is possible to do squats, but the manual doesn't describe them.) So don't get this machine if you don't have an idea about what kinds of exercises you want to do.
• Assembling it is quite a project. But the documentation is good enough on the assembly if you have ever managed to assemble a Kinder Surprise toy, and you only do it once anyway, so it's not really an issue.

Closing remarks: I'll probably keep it for quite a while. I've thought about spending much less money and just getting a bench and a few weights, but I really like to have a lat tower. Overall I can do what I want to do with the exception of cardio workouts. The other angle is that there is quite a bit of bad press around about the founder of Nautilus, Arhur Jones. I can't comment on how trustworthy these articles are, and I can't comment on Nautilus' business practices today (Mr. Jones seems to be dead), so take this with a large pinch of salt before making a buying decision based on moral/ethical standards.

Bruce Schneier is very sceptical about the new hard drive encryption standards released by a group composed of virtually all major storage vendors. He points out that the established software solutions have worked just fine, while this new standards adds complexity (and probably flaws, too) at the hardware level. I'm not so sure myself in which direction the balance goes:

• Encryption (without the key management, which I do not suppose the standard covers) is not that complex to get right and it can easily take advantage of hardware acceleration. (Yes, I don't quote numbers here. Schneier claims he hasn't had problems with encryption speed, but doesn't have numbers either ...)
• It should be a lot easier to subvert a software component than it is to subvert a hardware component.
• It is a lot harder to correct errors in hardware / firmware than in software and get users to apply the updates.
• In many cases the key management is the weak point, not the encryption itself. And key management is hard to get right regardless of where the encryption sits.
• I'm sure the abysmal track record of encrypted drives affects only the cheap USB drives and not the type of hardware we're talking about here. But, can I really be sure? (Serious) software solutions come from companies where security is the main business, whereas the hardware encryption will be implemented by storage companies which so far haven't had to care much about these issues.
• Finally: This standard should replace a number of proprietary solutions since some vendors already do offer encrypted drives anyway. Assuming the standard is sane, this should certainly be a Good Thing™ in any case.

Last weekend I found yet another movie that satisfied my apparent need for the strange and bizarre: Delicatessen by Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet.

(You can find older movie-related posts on my old blog.)

On the risk of repeating myself...

While I do understand aseigo's dismay at the recent Linus-goes-to-GNOME-land media hype, caught by LWN amongst others — is anyone taking bets if and when Linus will return to KDE? — and I share LWN's (Jake Edge's) view that Red Hat/Fedora (I have no idea how far the latter really is a community project nowadays) has a long history of questionable release decisions regarding its inclusion of “newer than bleeding edge” software in releases, ultimately it's still KDE's fault for releasing KDE 4.0 with that ominous 4.0 version number in a move to get as many testers as possible for this public beta program (at least users didn't have to pay lots of money for this KDE Vista.) Why not just call it 3.9, if a “beta” label should be avoided? It would have been a release and avoided the bad press of staying in eternal beta, but the dot nine version would have made clear that it's not finished.

Leaving the ranting aside, I congratulate the KDE crew for getting 4.2 out of the door, and the Debian KDE team for their decision to stay with KDE 3 in Lenny and providing KDE 4 via backports. I'm very happy with KDE 3 on my office workhorse, and have KDE 4 on the home machine and am quite impressed, but with reservations since I see parts of it crashing far too often for my taste (in the latest version I have installed, kmail rarely survives longer than 10min.)