HOWTO: Fix: Baobab opens directories in Totem/VLC (and some Xfce4 related things)

If you ever used filelight or baobab you probably know how useful they are. If you didn't, then you missed a lot on how you can spot (and fix) where your disk space is wasted.

With my recent attempt to upgrade to GNOME 3 which, because of its innate property to be useless and counter-productive, actually made me to use Xfce4 with a mix of GNOME aplications (since Xfce lacks a few functionalities here and there), I ran into all sorts of problems.

As a side note, Xfce4 is quite decent, but if you like some icons on your panels to be left aligned and some right aligned, you should know that you can add a Separator item to the panel, right click on it -> Properties and tick the Expand* check box. And if you also set the Transparent style, it will look nice, too.

Back to the topic. With my mix of Xfce and Gnome apps, I configured my top panel to contain a Free Space Checker for my /home file system and today it alerted me that I was low on disk space, so I started baobab to check what I can clean up.

When I found a possible suspect, I wanted to open the directory with a file browser, but, instead, Totem was started and started trying to queue all the files in the offending directory. The problem is that one way or another, Totem (or VLC) was configured to be the default handler for directories instead of the file manager.

The solution is simple, open with an editor the file ~/.local/share/applications/mimeapps.list and search for the line starting with inode/directory= and you'll see something like:

inode/directory=nautilus-folder-handler.desktop;baobab-usercreated.desktop;vlc-usercustom.desktop;

Remove the offending part, vlc-usercustom.desktop;, save the file and try again to open that directory from baobab. If you are double-lucky :P and now it opens with Totem, you will have to remove a reference to a "totem-usercustom.desktop;" or something of that sort. Now, on my system, that line looks like this:

inode/directory=nautilus-folder-handler.desktop;baobab-usercreated.desktop;

And now it works as expected**

* I suppose it's called like that in English, I have my desktop in Romanian
** Except that I would like it to start my desktop preferred file manager, not Nautilus, but that's another issue.

HOWTO: Git - reauthor/fix author and committer email and author name after a git cvsimport

You might find yourself at some moment when your git repository imported from CVS does not contain all the correct names and email addresses of the commits which were once in CVS but are now part of your project history in your git repo. Or you might do a cvsimport which missed a few authors.

Let's suppose you first import the cvs repo into git, but then you realise you missed some authors.

Before being able to do a git cvsimport, you need a checkout of the module or cvs subdir that you want to turn into its own git repo.

For ease of use I defined CVSCMD as

cvs -z9 -d :pserver:my_cvs_id@cvs.server.com:/root_dir

You will need to replace the items written in italics according to you situation, more exactly, you need to define 'my_cvs_id', 'cvs.server.com' and 'root_dir'. If your acces method to the server is not pserver, you should change that accordingly. This information should be available from your project admin or pages.


Check out the desired module or even subdir of a module

$CVSCMD checkout -d localdirname MODULE/path/to/subdir

git cvsimport -A ../authors -m -z 600 -C ../new-git-repo -R

How to find out the commits which do need rewriting

The way to limit yourself only to the commits that had no cvs-git author and commit information on git-cvsimport time is to use a filter like this:

git log -E --author='^[^@]*$' --pretty=format:%h

This tells git log to print only the abbreviated hashes (%h) for the commits that have NO '@' sign in the 'Author:', which happens if no cvs user id to git author and email was provided in the authors file and git cvsimport time.

We will use this command's output to tell later git filter-branch which commits need rewriting. *

But before that...

How do we find if our authors file is complete?

For this task we'll use a slighly modified form of the previous command and some shell script magic.

git log -E --author='^[^@]*$' --pretty=format:%an | sort -u > all-leftout-cvs-authors

And now in all-leftout-cvs-authors we'll have a sorted list of all cvs id's which were not handled in the original git-cvsimport. In my case there are only 19 such ids:

$ wc -l all-leftout-cvs-authors
19 all-leftout-cvs-authors

Nice, that will be easy to fix. Now edit your all-leftout-cvs-authors file to add the relevant information in a format similar to this:

john = John van Code <john@code.temple.tld>
jimmy = Jimmy O'Document <jimmy@documenting.com>

In case you can't make a complete cvs-user-to-name-and-email map, you might want to use stubs of the following form in order to be able to easily identify later such commits, if you prefer (or you could let them unaltered at al ;-):

cvsid=cvsid <cvsid@cvs.server.com>

How to actually do the filtering to fix history (using git-filter-branch and a script)

After this is done, we'll need just one more piece, the command to do the altering itself which reads as follow (note that my final authors file is called new-authors and that I placed this in a script in order to be able to easily run it without trying to escape all spaces and such madness):

[ "$authors_file" ] || export authors_file=$HOME/new-authors

#git filter-branch -f --remap-cvs --env-filter '
git filter-branch -f --env-filter '

get_name () {
    grep "^$1=" "$authors_file" | sed "s/^.*=\(.*\)\ .*$/\1/"
}

get_email () {
    grep "^$1=" "$authors_file" | sed "s/^.*\ <\(.*\)>$/\1/"
}

if grep -q "^$GIT_COMMITTER_NAME" "$authors_file" ; then
    GIT_AUTHOR_NAME=$(get_name "$GIT_COMMITTER_NAME") &&
    GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL=$(get_email "$GIT_COMMITTER_NAME") &&
    GIT_COMMITTER_NAME="$GIT_AUTHOR_NAME" &&
    GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL="$GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL" &&
    export GIT_AUTHOR_NAME GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL &&
    export GIT_COMMITTER_NAME GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL
fi
' -- --all

You might wonder what's up with the commented git filter-branch line with the --remap-cvs option. This script will NOT work for you as long as you have the stock git-filter-branch script and keep the option --remap-cvs while not patching your git-filter-branch script (/usr/lib/git-core/git-filter-branch), but that option will provide a file with the mappings from the old to the new commit ids. If you want that function, too, you'll want to apply this patch to git-filter-branch:

diff --git a/git-filter-branch b/git-filter-branch
old mode 100644
new mode 100755
index ae602e3..d1f7ef6
--- a/git-filter-branch
+++ b/git-filter-branch
@@ -149,6 +149,11 @@ do
   prune_empty=t
   continue
   ;;
+ --remap-cvs)
+  shift
+  remap_cvs=t
+  continue
+  ;;
  -*)
   ;;
  *)
@@ -368,6 +373,33 @@ while read commit parents; do
    die "could not write rewritten commit"
 done <../revs
 
+# Rewrite the cvs-revisions file, if requested and the file exists
+
+ORIG_CVS_REVS_FILE="${GIT_DIR}/cvs-revisions"
+if [ -f "$ORIG_CVS_REVS_FILE" ]; then
+ if [ "$remap_cvs" ]; then
+  printf "CVS remapping requested\n"
+
+  CVS_REVS_FILE="$tempdir/cvs-revisions"
+  cp "$ORIG_CVS_REVS_FILE" "$CVS_REVS_FILE"
+  printf "\nFound $ORIG_CVS_REVS_FILE; will copy and alter it as $CVS_REVS_FILE\n"
+  cvs_remap__commit_count=0
+  newcommits="$(ls ../map/ | wc -l)"
+  for commit in ../map/* ; do
+   cvs_remap__commit_count=$(($cvs_remap__commit_count+1))
+   printf "\rRemap CVS commit $commit ($cvs_remap__commit_count/$newcommits)"
+
+   oldsha1="$(basename $commit)"
+   read newsha1 < $commit
+   sed -i "s@$oldsha1\$@$newsha1@" "$CVS_REVS_FILE"
+  done
+ else
+  warn "\nNo CVS remapping requested, but cvs-revisions file found. All CVS mappings will be lost.\n"
+ fi
+elif [ "$remap_cvs" ]; then
+ warn "\nWARNING: CVS remap was ignored, since no original cvs-revisions file was found\n"
+fi
+
 # If we are filtering for paths, as in the case of a subdirectory
 # filter, it is possible that a specified head is not in the set of
 # rewritten commits, because it was pruned by the revision walker.
@@ -491,6 +523,11 @@ if [ "$filter_tag_name" ]; then
  done
 fi
 
+if [ "$remap_cvs" -a -f "$CVS_REVS_FILE" ]; then
+ mv "$ORIG_CVS_REVS_FILE" "$ORIG_CVS_REVS_FILE.original"
+ cp "$CVS_REVS_FILE" "$ORIG_CVS_REVS_FILE"
+fi
+
 cd ../..
 rm -rf "$tempdir"
  

Then, after running this script, let's call it filter, you should have a brand new git repo with the appropriate authors and their emails set.


P.S.: I have started writing this post some time ago but stopped just before the last part, the one with the filter script. I realise I might be missing something in the explanation, but if you have problems, please comment so I can help you fixing them.

P.P.S.: * I realised in the filter script at some point I wanted to do something like:

for R in $(git log -E --author='^[^@]*$' --pretty=format:%H | head -n 2) ; do
[the same git filter branch command above but ending in ...]
' $R
done

But I think I remember that $R didn't work on the whole history, but only on that revision, or some other weird of that sort. I know I ended up not filtering explicitly those revisions, but the entire history. I hope this helps.

HOWTO: Windows, nmake, cygwin and path type detection

If you are using Windows, have cygwin installed and need to test if a path is absolute or relative in nmake (I know, how often does that happen?), here is the magic bit of code that manages to do just that:

cygwin_path = c:\cygwin\bin

echo = $(cygwin_path)\echo.exe
grep = $(cygwin_path)\grep.exe

#testpath = ..\..\rel\test\path
#testpath = rel\test\path
#testpath = \abs\test\path
testpath = c:\abs\test\path

!if  ([ $(echo) '$(testpath)' | $(grep) -q -E '^^(\w:)?\\\\' ] == 0)
type = abs
!else
type = rel
!endif

test:
   @$(echo) "testpath = $(testpath)"
   @$(echo) "type     = $(type)"

Probably there are other solutions, but this is the first I came up with. Another solution would be to use gnu make :-) .

HOWTO: GIMP - create a text-with-halo effect

A small tutorial I made about an effect I used in the previous interviews (in English), so, for consistency, I had to recreate it, even after Kino was no longer available in Debian Wheezy.



I'll probably upload more videos like this about cinelerra, pitivi, gimp, audacity and other software I use for the work I do for our „Sceptici în România”/ „Skeptics in Romania” podcast (The podcast is in Romanian, but we are preparing also a project for the international audience, too).

And in case you are wondering, yes, this podcast is part of the reasons I wasn't able to do any work for Debian lately!

What's common between Windows 7 and GNOME 3 / gnome-shell?

Update: I managed to make sound work. For some weird reason, a mute switch option of some the many (and who knows how useful) switches of my sound card was enabled. Now the damn thing works. Did I mention that since I did the upgrade all my sound cards (I have a USB sound card, too) have listed as available inputs all the inputs of my internal sound card (mic, front mic, line in, CD, etc.) in Audacity? That makes for a very confusing and loooong sound input sources list! The upside is that I can finally record clips from televisions that do not provide such a feature and FastVideoDownload doesn't handle.

I also seem to have found a possible fix for the caps-ctrl issue in Xfce4 (obviously, setting "-option ctrl:swapcap" in ~/.Xkbmap, instead of that Alt modifier).

---

As I said in my previous post, I will tell you what do GNOME 3 and Windows 7 have in common.

Before everything else, I want to make it clear that when I am saying GNOME 3, I am referring to Debian Wheezy's GNOME 3, since I recently upgraded from Squeeze on my laptop. I'll probably drop a line or two about that, too.

First, I'll tell you about the (boring, probably for many) experience with Windows 7. As I said before, my new job requires me to use a Windows machine, so up until a few months ago I was using Windows XP with some additional software and tweaks to make it usable. Then came the Windows 7 „upgrade”. I am using quotes since the more appropriate term would be „fresh installation on a new partition”, not even close to what Debian users are used to call an upgrade.

So after a fresh Windows 7 installation, my first shock was the fact there was NO Quick Launch*. Some of you might be laughing, but I had never used Windows 7 up until then, just saw it on a laptop of a friend of mine (Ovidiu, one of the guys with whom I am doing this podcast, went to Denkfest with, and made these interviews). That was the first shock. Initial discussions about this with Windows users lead me to believe Quick Launch was dead and for some unexplained reason, I believed them. Later, much later, a week ago, to be precise, I found out that you can bring back the Quick Launch through some convoluted way**. Up until that point I had to have some icons pinned to the task bar, but some others on the desktop (and I hate that) because some of them, like Cygwin, if pinned, would start a cmd console, since Win 7 pins the process, not the starting script.

Among other things which broke in Win 7 and used to work fine in XP, the Virtual Dimension application which provides me with a virtual desktop, was the first one which was broken. I have been using a liniar 4 desktops-wide virtual desktop for over 5 years and I am worthless and inefficient if all my apps are on the same desktop. Mail application is always on the first desktop, work and file managers are on the second, the third is for extras and multimedia editing while the fourth is my gateway to the internet, containing the browser, instant messenger, or whatever.

The shortcuts I use to get to the various desktops are Win+1 ... Win+4 keyboard shortcuts, but the M$ Evil Empire decided that those shortcuts are going to start or bring foreward the first, second and so on applications pinned on the task bar. And you can't change those shortcuts***. Nor is disabling just those possible since they are all disabled through a huge switch which disables ALL Win+x keyboard shortcuts, among which Win+E (file expolrer) and Win+D (Show Desktop) were also. Luckly, Win+L (lock screen) was not disabled. So I disabled al those Win+ shortcuts, since I need virtual desktops.

Now, imagine if I had to start a Cygwin console and I had all sorts of apps open! Win+D was disabled, so I had to minimize the apps covering the desktop shortcut for Cygwin, click on the icon to start it, bring back the minimized windows and go on with my work. What a waste of clicks, mouse movement, energy and time, just because some dudes thought a Quick Launch-like feature was useless****.


You might wonder already what do those '*' sings mean. Well, sadly, that's what GNOME 3 / gnome-shell and Windows 7 have in common.

Gnome 3 was a shock for me. An empty desktop right after upgrade. No panels, no shortcuts*, no power indicators, no wicd indicator, no virtual desktops, no desktop icons, (I have a few dirs and docs there). Sounds like an Evil Empire decision, doesn't it?

Luckly I have been using Tilda as my always-ready console and I could fire up iceweasel from the console in order to understand where my panel disappeared.

I then realised that the upgrade brought me Network Manager, that app which wicd replaced. As a consequence, I had no working wlan since Network Manager made sure to mess up with the network manager I chose.

After looking through the documentation of Network Manager and realising I either had it set up to leave wlan0 alone or I didn't understood NM's documentation, I simply stopped the service, which let Wicd its job flawlessly.

The first thing I searched was „Gnome 3 panel” or something of that sort and I was confronted with the obvious option to appeal to the Forced Fallback Mode which was disabled. I figured I either had an old version, or Debian disabled this feature (hoping they provided an alternative). There was also the option to conform to this convoluted way of working** with Actions and such uselessness like that. I still wonder, what is the purpose of the „Favourites” bar on the left side, since it's accessible only after wasting a lot of mouse movement and time? For Joe's Pesci sake, I use focus under mouse just to avoid needless mouse and keyboard manipulation. Why? Why? WHY would I want every time I need to start or SWITCH to another application to move the mouse to the upper-left corner then take my hands off the mouse to type, move the mouse downwards or move across the whole width of the screen to get to my beloved virtual desktops and pick the app I want?

Making a long story short, after even trying XFCE4 (which for some unknown reason resets almost immediately my keyboard layout to the default layout with the Caps on Caps, instead of my preferred and set Ctrl on Caps - yes, it's global), I managed to find GNOME Shell Frippery** which made the experience better.

Later I found out that GNOME 3's file manager, Nautilus, has decided that an „up on level” button is useless, since the default is to use that uncopy-pastable button location bar instead of a sane text location bar. And it seems the GNOME developers decided this*** and I should conform to it.

To add insult to injury, those icons on my old panel are apparently useless**** and even in the fallback version I can't get them back. Or so the GNOME developers decided.

At some point this sunday, don't know how or why this change happened, producing sound was impossible. I know the problem is pulseaudio since when I kill the pulseaudio daemon from the console I can play audio. BTW, great timing, just when I needed sound the most, before releasing episode 32 of our podcast (yay, I reaslised that xfce just decided to reset my caps to be caps, after setting to ctrl a few minutes ago).

I know I praised pulseaudio when I first tried it, but failing to make it work out of the box or after some tinkering is a deal breaker for me, so I removed it. Now I find it that is a default in GNOME, yet all it manages to do is prevent audio from working. At least on my machine.

Other problems? Gnome Power Manager manages to hang and block my session, GNOME managed somehow to fail to start at some point. Yeah, and that sound problem which I didn't fix yet, didn't went away after removing all the pulseaudio packages which could be removed (e.g.: ryhtmbox depends on libpulse0, same do some other apps like audacity, so I couldn't remove all pulse related packages).

I got involved with Debian and GNU/Linux because it was tweakable and customisable, didn't use to force all sorts of option on me and now I find with its increasing popularity it becomes more and more like a product of a corporation which decides to change some things just to change and totally disregadring user experience and uses.

So, in the light of all of these problems I think it's time to probably consider trying KDE. Is it any good lately?

Another Windows tip - How to store cvspass login for CVSNT

Since I am currently working on a Windows machine at work I am looking for ways to make this thing work in a sane way. The latest insane thing is the fact that I wasn't able to log on a CVS server at work from WinCVS (which uses CVSNT) with my regular credentials, while the cached password in Cygwin did work with the Cygwin CVS.

So the obvious fix was to copy the .cvspass file from cygwin to whereever CVSNT kept its cvspass file. Well, it isn't that easy, since CVSNT keeps such passwords in the Windows registry. But since I had no previous logins with CVSNT, I didn't knew what to put in the registry.

I found really easily that the key is under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\cvsnt\cvspass, but how do I save it? Looking at the line in my cygwin .cvspass I saw the line had the format:

/1 :pserver:username@our.cvs.server.net:/u S()meh4s'h00

I finally found out that I have to create a string value with the name ":pserver:username@our.cvs.server.net:/u" and the value data that hash "S()meh4s'h00" and plainly ignore the first field.


Stay tuned. The next article will be about what's common between Windows 7 and GNOME 3 / gnome-shell, since I upgraded my home laptop to wheezy (I really wanted to use pitivi 0.15), and my desktop at work to Windows 7.

Speechless...

No words can express how grateful I am to the genius of this man.



Thank you Dr. Sagan!

Do you agree that Linux desktops are here?

I found some time ago this site which aims at proving that Linux desktops are currently over 1%. So, I registered my and my wife's Debian GNU/Linux desktops to contribute to the statistic.

http://www.dudalibre.com/gnulinuxcounter?lang=en

As publicity for GNU/Linux, this project has potential to put Linux on the radar of more producers, so, please, add your desktops to the counter!

HOWTO: Making Windows usable and avoiding accidental sending of mails in Microsoft Outlook

I've changed jobs recently and after 5 years of not having to work with a Windows system I am having all sorts of adaptation-to-Windows problems at the new job.

First I just had to have the usual X-mouse behaviour and so I installed True X-Mouse Gizmo for Windows. This provides focus under mouse, middle click paste after select (not perfect, but it works), right click to push to bottom the window.

Second I had to have a virtual desktop, so I installed Microsoft's Virtual Desktop Manager from the PowerToys page. I tried another virtual desktop manager before using MSVDM, but I found it too clumsy so I switched to MSVDM which I knew from way back when I used Windows the last time. Good, now I can have my applications organised the way I am used to.

UPDATE: I gave up on MSVDM in favour of Virtual Dimension since I wasn't able to send a particular window to the intended desktop unless I had in the taskbar all apps visible (Shared Desktop option). I might try other suggestions (Virtual Dimension does not have a way to send a window directly to a specific desktop, but just to the neighbours of the current one.)


Third, I had to make Caps Lock work as Ctrl. I just can't go back to an inferior setup. I found information on this page and ended up at this page from where I got a zip file with various registry keys which allow the deactivation of caps, or turning it into another Ctrl.

Fourth, I am used to write with diacritics in Romanian with the secondary layout of the standard (SR 13392:2004), so I rushed to Cristian Secară's page for the keyboard driver since on XP the Romanian layout is retarded (some history in which some arbitrary German guy decided y and z had to be switched on Romanian keyboards and some other similarly weird stuff). Since the installation, my keyboard behaves according to this layout:




Things started to look well, but I soon was reminded that Outlook is an idiotic mailer since it doesn't require a confirmation on send, not even if you didn't set a subject. And this is problematic since sending the mail is done via Alt+S, so if the current layer is NOT Romanian, when I want to type „ș” (s with a comma below), a fairly common character in Romanian words, you end up looking like an idiot on the recipient side since they receive an incomplete mail. Remember, no confirmation AND no default spell checking before send. Yay!

At my second such accidental mail sending (of which the last two were sent to the same person), I decided to see if this can't be fixed. I initially looked for changing the short cut, but I couldn't find it (I might be inept at finding things in Windows, remember, I haven't touched Windows systems in the last 5 years) but I found another workaround and decided it's good enough to share with other people that might hit the problem.

Just setup a delay rule following these steps.
1. Go to Tools....Rules Wizard
2. Click 'New' Rule
3. Select "Check messages after sending"
4. Click Next on "Which conditions you want to Check?" dialog.
5. Press yes to "This Rule will be applied to every message" message box
6. In the "What do you want to do with message?" dialog, Select "Defer delivery by a number of minutes"
7. Select your favourite number of minutes.... I usually select 2 mins.
8. Select Finish. and close the Rules Wizard.

Now everytime you send an email it will sit in your outbox
for specified number of minutes. If you ever wanted to change it, delete it etc, You have sufficient time to do it :)

I used 3 minutes for the delay. At least now I can prevent looking retarded in front of people... more than necessary :D .


Oh, and Windows' clock display is retarded. It shows, by default, the hour and minutes, but there's no way to change that in a sane way. If you want the date, you must hover over the clock and it shows it, but the day of week is missing. Great job! You can see that information, too, but you have to drag the toolbar to be 2 or even 3 rows high (here it requires 2, but I've seen people saying they needed 3) to get that information, too. Great! One has to choose between wasting desktop real estate and having access to useful information. Or you could install an independent application for the clock... retarded. I am not making this shit up.

I hope this helped.

Upgrade from lenny to squeeze - first impressions

Update: I reported the deluge issues and added a new problem about the lack of click on tapping on the touchpad.

---

I know that installation reports and upgrade reports need to be submitted to the BTS, but I just want to point out some issues for people that might hit the same issue on upgrade from lenny to squeeze.

But before that I must say I like the new Debian site(s) look.

Issue number one: When upgrading from lenny's deluge to squeeze's deluge, the new version of the app is quite different from the prevoious version. Here are some things to take into account:

• when starting for the first time the new version it will take ages to check (and probably recalculate some checksums); make sure you don't mind the I/O activity when you start it; a torrent will not be available until this check is done
  
• the new version relies on a client-server model which is disabled if you use the "classic mode" (Edit->Preferences->Interface)
• some features available in the old version are not available in the new version (e.g.: graph for traffic and embedded search function)
• some features are availbale as modules, but there are just a few modules
• when starting the graphical interface in the new mode, don't use the "Start daemon" button, use the "Connect" button. If you start the daemon via the "Start daemon" button the "Connect" button will become "Disconnect" although the client is NOT connected. Using the "Connect" button directly solves the problem.
• There is an ugly side panel (on the left side) which, IMHO has no real function or use, except filtering in the view the active downloads or similar things
• when choosing the place to save a torrent and trying to set that place as the default location, deluge will not remember that setting
• closing now (with the daemon option) the app will close just the client, but the server/daemon will remain in the background, unless is explicitly closed (there is a dedicated menu entry)
  

Issue number 2: I seem to experience some weird glyph/graphic area reshuffling in GNOME (maybe X?) after recovering from hibernate. With a total (according to my current sloppy counting) 5 resumes, things get back to normal, but I suspect the next hibernate-resume cycle will restart the glyph reshuffling cycle.

By glyph/graphic area reshuffling I mean alterations of the shapes of the glyphs (and some areas on the background picture) in such a manner that it seems that within a set of 8/16/N (?) lines are shifted/rotated sideways with some undefined and different ammount each, but in a reproducible manner ("b" will always be doodled in the same way, no matter if is in the word "be" or if is in the word "absurd".

I'll try to provide some picture in the bug report, once I report this issue in BTS.

Update: I reported this in Debian's BTS and upstream (with screenshots, too). I am not convinced the problem is in the kernel since I tried an old kernel and saw the same issue. I suspect X is at fault.

Issue number 3: This is more like a convenience issue. In the past I was using "hibernate" with uswsusp which I understand is now broken beyond repair and replaced by pm-utils. The thing I miss in the hibernate process now is the ability to abort the hibernation process as it was possible in lenny's uswsusp by pressing the backspace key during the storing of the state on disk phase.


Issue number 4: The upgrade process was quite tedious because once I tried upgrading aptitude, python2.6 was pulled in and almost all apps ended up needing upgrading due to the chaining of necessary package upgrades.


Issue number 5: For some weird reason pulseaudio was initially installed making playback of any audio impossible (the apps wanting to emit noises would just freeze but they were TERM-inatable) and later I've seen a default null audio sink was defined for me. Killing pulseaudio and removing the ~/.pulse directory fixed the issue (but I should probably see why pulseaudio didn't work properly in the first place because I suspect the problem will reappear at the next restart - I usually use hibernate).

Issue number 6: Tapping the touchpad no longer results in a click. Maybe some packages got removed? And, no, it is the same when I remove the external mouse, so it is not because of some smart behaviour of that sort.

Otherwise I am quite satisfied with the result of the upgrade. A huge "thank you" to all people involved in the development of squeeze.

Picking up the pieces

Update: After trying KiBi's suggestion to take advantage of this information, I looked for more info on the issue and found this conversation. A git upgrade to the backported git 1:1.7.1-1.1~bpo50+1 version, and git svn rebase started pulling the right stuff in. Yes, I left the svn-remote.svn.rewriteRoot stuff set to the old value and the svn-remote.svn.url to the new value.

Keywords:

Unable to determine upstream SVN information from working tree history

when running git svn reabase

---

As I said yesterday, I am going to come back to being active in Debian.

I remember looking a little at my page on the Debian Wiki and it was clear that it was stale. (I sometimes find it amusing how I presented myself „my name is Eddy Petrisor”.) For some reason now the wiki seems to be down.

Two days ago I tried to get the Wormux/Warmux upstream source but git svn appears not to like the rename although I even modified the .git/config and .git/svn/.metadata, but it still wasn't satisfied and answered in a bad mood with this message (after a long waiting period):

$ git svn rebase
Unable to determine upstream SVN information from working tree history

And, yes, I am aware of the compromise and I changed my password for the project on gna.org.

I guess is better if I try to take a look at the RC bugs for the moment.

Back to coding and similar stuff soon

There has been a quite long hiatus in my Debian activity, first due to my involvement in OpenStreeMap and later due to some personal reasons. This has left the packages I was responsible for basically without a maintainer, even in the case of the game packages which should have been taken care by the Debian Games Team. Sadly, it seems the principle „there are other people which can get involved” was at work in this case.

The good news is that I foresee a period when I will be able to get involved again in Debian work, although I don't know yet how long will it take to start and how long will it last.

The first thing on the agenda should be the Womux - Warmux rename and packaging the latest version of the game.

And yes, currently I am totally clueless about the state of squeeze release and the RC bug count. If I get fast enough back in the Debian work wagon, I'll probably try to help fix a couple of RC bugs here and there.

Back after the operation

As I said more than a week ago I was about to undergo an operation.

Now, 10 days after the operation I must say I am still not 100% recovered and I experience a weird sensation as if the nose is way too empty, especially the left nostril. During this period since the operation I have been experiencing head aches, and an almost continuous sensation of an empty left maxilar sinus, the side on which the cyst was before. This sensation is amplified after a nose blow or after the regular nose post-op cleanings.

I hope this is not Empty Nose Syndrome.

This was a ton of fun

This past saturday I passed by this man in the park. He was calling and feeding some squirrels.



He was kind enough to give me some walnuts to call the squirrels myself. He did this without even me asking.



It was such a wonderful experience for me, especially since the last squirrel gently touched my index finger while trying to get the walnut from my hand. Its paw was so cold and it felt very smooth and gentile.

I don't know when, but I will definitely go with a bag of walnuts of my own and spend some time there.