Recently, I tried to get 3G working on my Lenovo ThinkPad X121e - it has an Ericsson F5521gw mobile broadband card. This is supported by ModemManager, but all I got were unknown errors (276 and 272).
Searching online, there were very few results (hence this short note) - just previous unrelated Linux kernel issues. I found someone with the same problem on Fedora, but no solution, so I started off by filing a bug report with Debian.
Of course, then I found the Arch user who had filed the same bug on Launchpad, and had discovered that resetting the BIOS to its default settings fixes the issue. If only that page mentioned the keywords "Ericsson", or "Lenovo"...
So after all that, it was just some weird BIOS issue. I hate hardware.
Posted: 24 Jan 2012 22:07 |
So since my last post about perl tutorials, the Perl Tutorial Hub has leaped from page 2 to be the top result for the relevant Google search. The Leeds tutorial has dropped off the first page.
I couldn't figure out how such a dramatic reversal could have happened, until I asked Mithaldu on IRC; the admins of the old Leeds tutorial have added a (delayed) redirect. So, Google has interpreted that as a 302 status, and given perl-tutorial.org all the old inbound links, presumably.
Perhaps there is hope for Perl yet. :)
Posted: 19 Jan 2012 23:32 |
Last year, a bit of a fuss was kicked up in the Perl community about the low quality of search results for the phrase "Perl tutorial". Various ideas for fixing this were proposed, including the handy Perl tutorial hub, but kicking Leeds University off the coveted top spot is going to be a real challenge.
The problem is, most Perl tutorials on the internet were written for Perl 4; modern Perl doesn't get a look-in. It's a miracle anyone manages to learn Perl at all...
While thinking over this problem, I was reading Mithaldu's original criteria for the "content creation" option. "Community effort"... "github repo"... "exported to HTML regularly"... if only Perl had some central site where you can publish documentation... that all Perl hackers can access and update... like CPAN.
So although my documentation-writing skills are pretty weak, I proudly introduce the Perl-Tutorial CPAN dist and github repository. The great thing about writing Perl documentation using POD is that you can link to other CPAN references so easily - as the basics get filled out, they can guide the user towards how to learn more about each topic. Everyone who's anyone knows how to send a pull request on github, and there seems to be far more of a community feel to CPAN these days.
Version 0.001 is just "Hello, World!" - but watch this space. :)
Posted: 09 Jan 2012 20:41 |
So I was about to configure an FTP server to let a friend upload content for a website... and then I came to my senses and remembered sftp exists. It's supported by the same graphical clients, and avoids me having to figure out SSL certificates and so on.
Next problem: we want to both edit the site. Okay, so I create a group, make it the default group for both users... and now I need to set the umask to 002 so that all group members can edit all files. There's no option in the client...
Skimming Debian bug #496843 (closed Apr 2010, thanks Colin Watson!) we can set this in sshd_config these days - no need to mess about with wrapper scripts. Very easy:
Subsystem sftp /usr/lib/openssh/sftp-server -u 002
Now all content created through the sftp client is group-writable, and owned by the default group of each user! See 'man (8) sftp-server'.
Posted: 10 Dec 2011 20:47 |
This week, Google released an extension called BITE which lets you file bug reports from within Chrome (or Chromium). If you are testing web applications, it lets you attach screenshots and/or automated tests to reproduce the bug you've found.
There's just one small catch: they haven't released a server to go with the client. Oops. Apparently the internal systems are too tightly integrated to make that possible.
I have hacked up enough stubs of a BITE server in Perl to get the client to "log in" and show off some features. (Warning: it doesn't actually do anything useful yet.)
So far, I have learnt:
Posted: 16 Oct 2011 17:54 |
Note to self: when disabling Range headers in Apache to fix CVE-2011-3192, be sure to read the updated advisory and also disable Request-Range headers. (Presumably not "Range-Request" as in the summary of that link?)
Or just apply the handy Debian update, of course.
Posted: 31 Aug 2011 18:23 |
Some things I have learnt this week at DebConf:
I have quietly resolved to spend more time doing things that I enjoy, that maximise the use of my skills, and which help other people; and spend less time on the opposite.
So far, I have tidied up various outstanding commitments that were weighing on my mind, and offered mdbtools for adoption. I started doing some RC bug NMUs again, because on a good day they hit all three of my criteria. Some ideas are already forming in my mind of other things to do, so I shall never be short of tasks.
Posted: 30 Jul 2011 14:14 |
It feels good to be at DebConf again, this time in Banja Luka. This is my fifth consecutive DebConf.
Getting here was fairly painful; a flight from Split was delayed, so I had to get a later bus than planned from Zagreb. Still, I met a bunch of DebConf attendees getting the same bus, so at least there was conversation.
Packaging-wise, I have been working on adding KiokuDB (and associated backends) into Debian. I wrote a patch for libossp-uuid-perl yesterday to fix a bug with its Data::UUID compatibility; this probably means I'll drop the Data::UUID ITP. Having looked at the code, I don't see how it can be easily fixed for multi-user systems.
The Perl team's forthcoming move to git has come as a pleasant surprise; I've been trying out the new workflow.
Earlier in the week I went running with bubulle et. al. - I must have missed the bit in the email where the very steep hill was mentioned. And the rain. So I had to slow down and turn around, and probably didn't quite do 15km in the end. :)
Beer is half the price of Coca-Cola here. Awesome.
So generally, I've been decompressing, and introspecting. The cafes are good for philosophical discussions; preferably when it's not raining. More later.
Posted: 28 Jul 2011 18:21 |
I have turned off comments on my blog - there was too much spam, and I'm not planning to invest the time to fix that properly.
On the one hand, this is a shame - it removes an opportunity for other people to respond to what I might write.
On the other hand, the idea that this was any kind of two-way conversation was always a badly-maintained illusion. I didn't have any kind of notifications set up to tell me when comments arrived; so I rarely read them, and almost never replied. I don't want to build a commercial enterprise or a "community".
So for the moment, if you want to get in touch, email me. If you want to respond publically, write your own damn blog post. :)
Posted: 22 Jul 2011 17:02 |
I have recently finished watching The Prisoner (1967). All the surrealism is messing with my head.
In other news, I updated GNU Enscript.
Oh, and I filed an ITP for the real Data::UUID, and promptly found a symlink attack which I suspect I failed to disclose responsibly. Hmm.
I could write a lot more, but the short version is: I need a holiday.
Posted: 13 Jul 2011 00:25 |
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Tim Retout tim@retout.co.uk
JabberID: tim@retout.co.uk
I'm afraid I have turned off comments for this blog, because of all the spam. Let's face it, I didn't read them anyway. Feel free to email me.