We're going to have a Bug-Squashing Party at the end of January 2010 in New York City. If you live in or around the tri-state area (or want to visit), are interested in learning about the process, meeting other debian folk, or just squashing some bugs in good company, you …
All articles
dd, netcat, and disk throughput
I was trying to dump a large Logical Volume (LV) over ethernet from one machine to another. I found some behavior which surprised me.
fun constraints
- I have only a fairly minimal debian installation on each machine
(which fortunately includes
netcat-traditional) - The two machines are connected directly by a single …
- I have only a fairly minimal debian installation on each machine
(which fortunately includes
dealing with entropy on a virtual machine
I've been using virtual machines (KVM, these days) as isolated environments to do things like build packages as root. Unfortunately, some of these activities require decent-sized chunks of random data (pulled from
/dev/random). But/dev/randompulls from the kernel's entropy pool, which in turn is replenished from "hardware …Revoking the Ubuntu Community Code of Conduct
I've just revoked my signature over the Ubuntu Code of Conduct 1.0.1. I did this because Ubuntu's CoC (perhaps jokingly?) singles out Mark Shuttleworth as someone who should be held to a super-human standard (as pointed out recently by Rhonda, as well as earlier in ubuntu bug 53848 …
sexist behavior in the free software community
So not even 3 months out from RMS's sexist Gran Canaria “virgins” remarks, we have another powerful leader in the Free Software Community making sexist remarks in a talk to developers (this time, it's Mark Shuttleworth). It's a shame that these two people have said stupid things that hurt their …
Tools should be distinct from Services
Modern daemon implementations can be run in a variety of ways, in a range of contexts. The daemon software itself can be a useful tool in environments where the associated traditional system service is neither needed nor desired. Unfortunately, common debian packaging practice has a tendency to conflate the two …
xen etch to lenny upgrade serial console
I maintain several xen machines. Most servers that i maintain use serial consoles (i should probably write another post in more detail about why serial consoles are the One True Way to manage a server).
Trouble is, the way that xen works with the serial console has changed between etch …
Wanted: Empowered, Active, Activist Users
The other, better-known and wiser Dan Gillmor (disclosure: we don't just share names, we're related) has started a new project called Mediactive. His older project, We the Media was about the power and coming growth of grassroots journalism. The new project focuses on media "consumers", instead of media "producers". Economic …
Canon camera lens faiure (E18) -- resolved!
I have a little old Canon SD200 point-and-shoot, which is a decent camera. unfortunately, i've (ab)used it quite a bit, lugging it everywhere in my pocket or in a bag and even sending it up in a kite (and, uh, bouncing it off the ground on the way back …
keeping ssh host keys up-to-date with monkeysphere
Enrico posted a neat trick to track the SSH host keys of debian machines, thanks to Zobel. I wanted to mention monkeysphere, a project i'm involved with which provides a more generalized structure for doing this kind of update by taking advantage of the OpenPGP Web of Trust to distribute …