Raimi war hier

Repeat

wget http://ftp-master.debian.org/ziyi_key_2006.asc -O - | apt-key add -

until the message gpg: no ultimately trusted keys found goes away and only OK is shown (2 times for me). Verify with apt-key list which shows

pub   1024D/2D230C5F 2006-01-03 [expires: 2007-02-07]
uid   Debian Archive Automatic Signing Key (2006) <ftpmaster@debian.org>

Repeat on all hosts.

I don't like PHP for various reasons but today I found something to pinpoint (PHP 4.4.0-4 (cli)). I wanted to use some OO so that a Master instance can invoke a Slave instance which in turn calls back the Master to transfer some data. This doesn't seem to be such a terrible thing to do. Here is a sandbox:

<?php

class Slave {

  var $master;

  function bang() {
    $this->master->callback();
  }
}


class Master {

  var $slave;
  var $foo = -1;

  function Master() {
    $this->foo = 0;
    $this->slave = new Slave();
    $this->slave->master = & $this;
    $this->foo = 1;
    echo "1 Master: ".$this->foo."\n";
    echo "1 Slave : ".$this->slave->master->foo."\n";
  }

  function callback() {
    echo "Callback from slave: $this->foo (should be 2)\n";
  }

  function doSomething() {
    echo "1_Master: ".$this->foo."\n";
    echo "1_Slave : ".$this->slave->master->foo."\n";
    $this->foo = 2;
    echo "2 Master: ".$this->foo."\n";
    echo "2 Slave : ".$this->slave->master->foo."\n";
    $this->slave->bang();
  }
}

$mst = new Master();
$mst->doSomething();

?>

The copy-on-assign logic of PHP has been a bad idea since it's very conception, but the ability of assigning references at least made it possible to work around this "feature" most of the time.

Now, the above code emits this:

1 Master: 1
1 Slave : 1
1_Master: 1
1_Slave : 1
2 Master: 2
2 Slave : 1
Callback from slave: 1 (should be 2)

Which proves that assigning the references works in the constructor but when doSomething() is called, the Master instance and the Slave instance have different copies (?) of the Master. The more I look at it the less i can understand where the copy operation might even take place.

Until someone confirms this is a bug in PHP or in my understanding of the world I postulate that the brain of the PHP "inventor(s)" looks like this:

I could not agree more.

I picked up a DVD lateley: The Getaway (1972) with Steve McQueen. I have to say: This one is cool. Everything was shot on location and the atmosphere is very real. Each character is authentic and everything fits. The action is good, too.
Well, some characters are a little conservative, but that's ok since the setup is in Texas (and it's more than 30 years ago). Funny side note: Slim Pickens has a small but important role. You don't know the name? It's the cowboy riding the a-bomb in Dr. Strangelove, which is still the best movie, ever.

Here is what I did to let my (command line) PHP connect an Oracle database. First I downloaded the Instant Client and converted it to Debian (everything done as root):

apt-get install alien
alien oracle-instantclient-basic-10.2.0.1-1.i386.rpm
alien oracle-instantclient-devel-10.2.0.1-1.i386.rpm
alien oracle-instantclient-sqlplus-10.2.0.1-1.i386.rpm

Then I installed the packages and repaired all the file ownerships/permissions since they were unusable (might be solvable with alien):

dpkg -i oracle-instantclient-basic_10.2.0.1-2_i386.deb
dpkg -i oracle-instantclient-devel_10.2.0.1-2_i386.deb
dpkg -i oracle-instantclient-sqlplus_10.2.0.1-2_i386.deb
chown -R root.root /usr/lib/oracle /usr/include/oracle /usr/share/oracle
chmod -R go+r /usr/lib/oracle /usr/include/oracle /usr/share/oracle
find /usr/lib/oracle /usr/include/oracle /usr/share/oracle -type d -exec chmod go+rx {} \;

Everything is installed in those three directories (plus the Debian specific doc fragments). Now the libraries are to be made known to everyone. Edit /etc/ld.so.conf and add:

/usr/lib/oracle/10.2.0.1/client/lib

Now update the linker cache:

ldconfig

The PHP extension itself is installed with PHP Pear/PECL:

apt-get install php4-pear
pear install oci8

When prompted, type instantclient,/usr/lib/oracle/10.2.0.1/client/lib. After the extension is installed, activate it by editing /etc/php4/cli/php.ini and adding

extension=oci8.so

This will install the most current API version, so even the stuff marked as being PHP 5 works in PHP 4. This should work with CGI/Apache-Versions of PHP, just make sure ldconfig has been run before the server starts.

PS: Has everyone of you decided what to do with the leap second today?

I like mystery hardware. Stefan brought me a Sun VTU 100 C set of which we dont have a clue of. This term cannot be googled and Sun doesn't have it on the website. It seems to be a pair of transmitter/receiver for video (and perhaps keyboard) signals over a distance of 100m. Both boxes basically contain some connectors and transistors for (de)amplifying (2N3866).
One notable thing might be this switch-like blue thing shown here. Little metal clips that can fitted or removed. Seems to be an ancestor of DIP switches. Anyway, I'll probably throw it away but if anyone knows what this (around) 1991 technology was used for, I would be glad to hear about it. Also, hardware manufacturers should be forced to leave old product sheets online forever.

As noted earlier, I am still waiting for 2.6.15 to be released. In the meantime my machine crashed several times and the root filesystem got b0rked. Not fatally, just enough to force a fsck at every reboot which did not finish because the fs contains errors. This makes me wonder how I actually managed to repair a broken root fs up to now. As I learned the hard way, you must not fsck a mounted fs (even read-only mounts make it be destroyed in a snap). But since the fsck program is on the root fs and since you cannot umount / in single-user mode - how am I supposed to repair the root fs? This time i bootet a Debian netinst boot cd in expert mode (what else). The tricky part is to bring up software raid since the autorun (mdrun) doesnt find existing raids (for reasons beyond my comprehension). The trick is to mdadm -Ac partitions -m 0 /dev/md/0 which scans automatically the partitions from /proc/partitions and assembles everything belonging to minor number 0 into /dev/md/0 (1 for /dev/md/1). Then I could fsck.ext3 /dev/md/0, holding my breath everytime I had to type 'y'. But it worked out and my root fs is now okay. ...or should I go for 2.6.14.5 for instant relieve?

Berlin is a dangerous place for bicyclists like myself. For improved security I upgraded my helmet. Shown here is Mark II, which adds a blinking Smiley on top of the battery casing (which used to be a backlight). The 4 big red LEDs belong to a helmet set which broke due to a design mistake. I originally dismantled the backlight and removed the LEDs. The 4 helmet LEDs (which are glued to it using silicone) are connected to the 3 outlets of the backlight.
The Smiley was added parallel to one of the LEDs. The Smiley itself is a cheap christman-fair accessory featuring 5 blinking LEDs (two red, two green, one blue). It used to be powered using two 3V button cells). Since i usually use the blinking mode of the backlight, I added a 2200 uF capacitor which provides a more stable voltage source for the blinking Smiley. It usually blinks the left and the red eye in red now.
This whole thing would be more fun when I added some blue or white LEDs pointing forward. I also need a bigger power supply. Those not-really-3V of the two R3 rechargeble batteries are not enough. Stay tuned.

What a surprise. As of yesterday evening I am a 4th Kyu in Shito-Ryu Karate. I earned the first five belts in Shotokan Karate (years ago). We had an "exam training" at the Do Kai Dojo yesterday. That is, all the students came together for a training while two of them were going to be examined for their next belt. I participated as usual but to my surprise I also received a certificate at the end. Since both the 5th and the 4th Kyu wear a blue belt, I just continue to wear mine. Yes, I know, you don't care. But to me, this means something :)

While 2.6.15 is not released yet, I can use the time and note why I wait so eagerly. Ever since I got livsfare up and running with a GeForce and a bttv board there was something wrong. Switching TV channels quickly makes the machine crash, so do uptimes of about a day and watching TV. I suspected nvidia but that theory doesnt hold. The kernel oopses I get indicate something fundamentally wrong with the VFS so I hope, that this patch makes a difference. On the other hand I sure hope that the nvidia driver still works with the new kernel. It seems that many kernel developers dont care for proprietary drivers and nvidia doesnt care for supporting all the kernels quickly. They release not enough drivers for my taste, and with every new kernel there is the fear that it breaks for good. But with Linus applying a patch (i cannot find a link of) specifically for compatibility with the nvidia driver plus the many patches against hardware drivers I use I'm confident that the new kernel will be good for me. If only it was out, yet... ps: git looks very interesting.

Please note that it was all Katrin's idea to start case-modding. It was also her idea to create an electric picture frame. This statement is entirely voluntary.

My good old Dell Inspiron 7500 has served me well for about 5 years but now it went the way of all the Dells: The right hinge broke. The machine itself and above all the display are still good, though. It's a Pentium III with 600Mhz, 256MB RAM showing photos at 1400x1050. So it seemed only logical to mount this thing to the wall so it can show pictures or videos when guests are around. Also it would be nice to have a terminal near the couch (for emergency internet access).
I dismantled the display cover so that only the panel was left. This wasn't easy because it is both screwed and glued into the cover (which i now have left, btw). The pieces of cork are used for the hot-melt adhesive to attach the back of the panel to the bottom side of the body.
This picture shows the plexiglass plate that holds everything together. The keyboard is screwed to it as well as the body itself. The mouse buttons had to go because they came out too much. The power switch is still on this side of the machine because i would've had to dismantle the body itself to move it somewhere else (it's a microswitch on a little board). Also the keyboard is a little leaning because it is not rectangular and also the cable is too short for a more comfortable position. I consider case-modding of laptops to be a more advanced topic (especially for the handicraft-challenged like me). However, the next laptop should be completely dismantled and rebuilt in a very different way.
I had to place new network and power sockets for the picture frame, but that's worth it. What's left to do: Automatically make it start a logged-in X session with free access from my local network. Use cases have to be defined (play a CD/DVD/mp3, show/download pictures from a flash medium) and scripts should automatically launch the required applications. Also the X server should get red of the screen saver.

I am looking for a Wiki software that fulfills these requirements:

• Allow creation of an hierarchy
• Export hierarchies as PDF (or processible XML)
• Accessible via tunnel (MediaWiki has broken redirects)
• ...the rest can be like MediaWiki

We use a MediaWiki but the lack of structure is dangerous. Information gets burried and is never found again. The categories are a beginning. But I i want to put categories into categories and some logic should create a structure from that information and create a browsable tree. Am I asking too much? Anyone knows such a thing? Drop me a note.

Oh, I love Linux (or rather: doing things my way): I got myself a TV card (Hauppauge WinTV PCI FM, bttv type=10) with a remote control. That's actually my third TV card, all of which were bttv-based. I dumped the first one because it was only mono and the tuner wasnt very good. But it had a remote control which i was too lazy to make work. The second one was stereo but I didn't have a remote control. Now i got this new (old) one at ebay that has everything i need. I installed the LIRC tools from Debian but made the kernel module (lirc_i2c) myself. For 2.6.14.2 I had to use lirc-0.8.0pre1 because the last official release does not compile. My remote isn't supported directly, so I had to run irrecord to get a proper lircd.conf. You can find it together with my config by downloading this. Some applications have support for an infrared remote. The ones I want to use are xmms, xawtv and mplayer. I also want to control the master volume of my soundcard independently of any running application. The remote doesn't have many keys, I ended up with these functions which represent what i do frequently:

• TV - launch xmms in fullscreen mode
• RADIO - launch xmms
• VOL+/VOL- - change master volume using amixer
• SOURCE - say the current time
• 1 - play/pause/unpause file in xmms (xmms-shell)
• 2 - stop file in xmms (xmms-shell)
• 3 - skip to next file in xmms (xmms-shell)
• xawtv/mplayer: MINIMIZE - quit this program
• xawtv/mplayer: FULLSCREEN - toggle fullscreen mode
• xawtv/mplayer: MUTE - mute/unmute audio
• xawtv: CH+/CH- - Change current station
• xawtv: 0 - Change to first station
• mplayer: CH+/CH- - seek forward/backward 30s
• mplayer: 4/6 - seek forward/backward 3s
• mplayer: 5 - pause/unpause playback

As you might see: xawtv and mplayer are mutually exclusive, but xmms can (and does) run all the time. Volume control and launching of applications is handled by irexec which is started/stopped in my .xsession. So this is all nice and well, i can finally control the TV from the couch. Yes, this is new for me. No, I don't have a TV in my room. I would have liked to use a different remote because this one doesn't handle very nice. The keys are too small and insensitive. But obviously not every remote works with every sensor.