Monthly Archive for November, 2006

Booting Debian with root (/) on LVM2

Published
by
Anton
on November 16, 2006
in Debian
. 0 Comments

So I got 2 new pc’s recently. One was a complete reinstall job, playing with the new Debian Etch installer. Unfortunately the kernel it came with was too old to support lvm at boot time, so even though I installed initramfs-tools it would not find my root partition in lvm. I had to use a rescue disk to upgrade to a newer kernel and initramfs-tools.

My other box was far more fun. I tried to move it to LVM. I made a copied the data from / into my new LVM root partiton, rebooted and found that I could not boot off LVM. Installing initramfs-tools and a newer kernel worked, but then I tried to resize my old partition smaller and make it just a boot partition, which killed grub. So a boot disk came back and I had to reinstall grub, which was full of hassle.

I do have both working now, so with a bit of effort it is possible.

pocket pc sync in linux

Published
by
Anton
on November 16, 2006
in Linux and Technology
. 2 Comments

So i decided to look for ways to sync my PocketPC powered XDA IIs in linux. Sure I could sync it in windows if I wanted to use Outlook as an email program (which I most certainly don’t). I found that it is relatively easy to sync with KMail. I personally prefer Thunderbird, but as there is not that much between the two, I will happily use the KDE offering in return for the ability to sync to my PDA.

So what is needed?
I installed synce-kde which allows you to connect your pda, along with syncekonnector which has the synchronising mechanism to sync with KMail.
Running it all was a bit odd, first off I had to select a serial port (their wording, not mine) of ttyUSB0 (which is the USB hub, and not the actual ports. Then launching Raki (a part of synce) allowed me to start up a daemon to launch the thing, yet it didn’t work. Googling revealed that I have to run synce-serial-start (I had to do a synce-serial-config ttyUSB0 too) and then the device came alive. Tick a few boxes and my contacts, tasks and calendar are all in the base KDE apps!

Excellent!

Just be careful with recurring entries. At the moment syncing a recurring entry from Kmail to your pda causes the calendar to crash (and on mine this caused a memory leak which killed the whole pda!).

Children Writing About The Sea

Published
by
Anton
on November 7, 2006
in Humor
. 0 Comments
  1. This is a picture of an octopus. It has eight testicles.
    (Kelly age 6)
  2. If you are surrounded by sea you are an Island. If you don’t have sea all round you, you are in continent.
    (Wayne age 7)
  3. Sharks are ugly and mean, and have big teeth, just like Emily Richardson. She’s not my friend no more.
    (Kylie age 6)
  4. A dolphin breaths through an asshole on the top of its head.
    (Billy age 8 )
  5. My uncle goes out in his boat with pots, and comes back with crabs.
    (Millie age 6)
  6. When ships had sails, they used to use the trade winds to cross the ocean. Sometimes, when the wind didn’t blow, the sailors would whistle to make the wind come. My brother said they would be better off eating beans.
    (William age 7)
  7. I like mermaids. They are beautiful, and I like their shiny tails. How do mermaids get pregnant?
    (Helen age 6)
  8. I’m not going to write about the sea. My baby brother is always screaming and being sick, my Dad keeps shouting at my Mom, and my big sister has just got pregnant, so I can’t think what to write.
    (Amy age 6)
  9. Some fish are dangerous. Jellyfish can sting. Electric eels can give you a shock. They have to live in caves under the sea where I think they have to plug themselves into chargers.
    (Christopher age 7)
  10. When you go swimming in the sea, it is very cold, and it makes my willy small.
    (Kevin age 6)
  11. Divers have to be safe when they go under the water. Two divers can’t go down alone, so they have to go down on each other.
    (Becky age 8 )
  12. One holiday my Mom went water skiing. She fell off when she was going very fast. She says she won’t do it again because water shot up her fanny.
    (Julie age 7)

Hursley Fireworks

Published
by
Anton
on November 5, 2006
in IBM, My Job and Photography
. 2 Comments
Friday saw the annual firework display at IBM Hursley. Of course I took my camera, but the battery died halfway through, possibly from the cold. I didn’t think I would get many good photos, but am pleased with quite a few of them.
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If you took photos of the event, please post a link here or drop me an email so I can see what other people managed to get

Portrush Airshow

Published
by
Anton
on November 1, 2006
in Photography
. 2 Comments

I was in Northern Ireland over summer and went along to the Portrush Airshow. Of course I had my camera with me, and despite cloudy weather got some incredible photos.

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Dead hardware

Published
by
Anton
on November 1, 2006
in Technology
. 2 Comments

So both my pc’s at home have died…

My desktop has a failed disk, so I cannot do much with it. It also has other problems, so I am replacing the whole thing. A nice new dual core 64-bit machine is on it’s way to me.

My server died after I tried to add a new disk to it. I tried turning it on and nothing happened. So I grabbed a speaker from my box of PC parts and found that it beeped 11 times. Pulling out every card in it did not help, and eventually I tried swapping the graphics card with the one from my desktop. That worked, but even with a new graphics card it takes several attempts at booting to get it up. Even then it only lasts a few days before the kernel panics. Don’t ask me why adding a disk caused the thing to fail though.
So I am replacing it too, but with the cheapest parts I could find to build a new pc from.

I will have great fun installing both of them, especially as I will need to dig out a network cable to actually my desktop hooked up to the net to install Linux. I suppose I could download a set of Debian cd’s, but even then I will probably have to compile my network driver myself. As it will be a 64 bit-box I obviously want to run 64-bit Linux, but Debian does not have a release of that yet. I could try the testing level of Debian, as it has a 64-bit setup, but I am actually thinking of trying out Ubuntu (or as I am a fan of KDE, Kubuntu)as it has had a 64-bit release for quite a while and is very similar to Debian - it is probably better suited to a desktop than Debian is.