Linux/BSD Geek

This past Friday was my 9th time (if my calculations are correct) attending the annual Okanagan Fest of Ale. I think it might be my last.

I, and a lot of other people, have some major complaints about this years event.

First of all they doubled the price of tokens to $2. The size of the glasses didn't increase to compensate even slightly for the price increase. Very maddening.

Then there was the entrance fee - $24.50. It seems like every single year that price goes up too.

So what did we get for our money?

Way less breweries. The Fest-of-Ale site doesn't seem to have a history record for 2009 or 2010 but in 2008 there were 27 breweries represented. This year? 19!! 8 less breweries. But we did get more food. Looks like there was about 3 or 4 more restaurants. Maybe they should rename the event to the Fest-of-Restaurants instead.

Because there was less breweries and the same number of people, the lineups were flippin' insane by about 6:45 on Friday. Ridiculously long line-ups. We left at 7:45. It was just too much of a pain in the ass to try to get any more beer.

Now I'm not sure why there were way less breweries. Maybe it was the US economy. I don't know. But I was not impressed.

Between my wife and I we spent over $100 for this event. We could've gone to a nice restaurant in town and had a hell of a lot better time for less money.

Here's to hoping the organizers make some major changes to fix these issues or a lot of people won't be bothering to attend in 2012.

Finally received my Notion Ink Adam on March 30th. I used the stock Eden ROM for about 30 minutes and just didn't like it. Decided to install Beast ROM. It's 1000% better than EdenX, although some people might disagree with me - to each his own.

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DO NOT BUY OCZ PRODUCTS. THEY ARE CRAP!

My last power supply (also an OCZ) died after approximately 3 1/2 years in mid December 2010. Decided to buy another OCZ because there was a good deal on one at NCIX.

Six weeks later and the f***** thing is dead! NCIX offers no support for OCZ products. I have to deal directly with the manufacturer.

Go to their site, fill out an RMA request. Over two days later I finally get a response with some tests they want me to run to verify the PS is actually dead. Yep, it sure as hell is. Now I need to wait for them to reply to this with the shipping address, etc for me to send it back in again. Then they'll ship me some hacked up fixed unit back.

WTF? It's six weeks old. They should damn well send me a new unit NOW and not some refurbished piece of crap. I better not be expected to pay for shipping.

I am not happy about this. OCZ SUCKS!

I see that Oracle has released Virtualbox 4.0. Let's give a try on Arch...

Prerequisites
Kernel headers

$ sudo pacman -S kernel26-headers
resolving dependencies...
looking for inter-conflicts...

Targets (1): kernel26-headers-2.6.36.2-1

Total Download Size: 4.01 MB
Total Installed Size: 38.27 MB

Proceed with installation? [Y/n] Y

$ sudo sh ./VirtualBox-4.0.0-69151-Linux_amd64.run
Password:
Verifying archive integrity... All good.
Uncompressing VirtualBox for Linux installation..........
VirtualBox Version 4.0.0 r69151 (2010-12-22T14:35:05Z) installer
Installing VirtualBox to /opt/VirtualBox
WARNING: /etc/modprobe.d/modprobe.conf line 4: ignoring bad line starting with 'snd_hda_intel'

VirtualBox has been installed successfully.

You will find useful information about using VirtualBox in the user manual
/opt/VirtualBox/UserManual.pdf
and in the user FAQ

http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/User_FAQ

We hope that you enjoy using VirtualBox.

Wow. That seemed WAY too easy.

$ /opt/VirtualBox/VirtualBox

Just upgraded to VMWare Workstation 7.1.2 this morning and ran into nothing but problems. Here's the fixes.

This isn't anything I came up with on my own but found here:
linuxinsight.com article

Arch Linux VMWare Wiki page

# cd /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/
# cp -a vmmon.tar vmmon-orig.tar
# tar xf vmmon.tar
# cd vmmon-only/linux/
# nano /root/vmmon.patch

Found the patch here

Paste the following into /root/vmmon.patch

diff --git a/vmmon-only/linux/iommu.c b/vmmon-only/linux/iommu.c
index a279a26..9de467b 100644
--- /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/vmmon-only/linux/iommu.c
+++ /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/vmmon-only/linux/iommu.c
@@ -153,7 +153,7 @@ IOMMU_SetupMMU(VMLinux *vmLinux, // IN: virtual machine descriptor
map_to = PPN_2_PA(mpn);
map_prot = IOMMU_READ | IOMMU_WRITE;
}
- if ((status = iommu_map_range(vmLinux->iommuDomain,
+ if ((status = iommu_map(vmLinux->iommuDomain,
PPN_2_PA(ppn),
map_to, PAGE_SIZE, map_prot))) {
printk(KERN_ERR "%s: IOMMU Mapping of PPN 0x%x -> MPN 0x%x "
@@ -400,7 +400,7 @@ IOMMU_VMCleanup(VMLinux *vmLinux) // IN: virtual machine descriptor

/* Relinquish the IOMMU domain used by this VM. */
for (ppn = 0; ppn < vmLinux->numPages; ppn++) {
- iommu_unmap_range(vmLinux->iommuDomain, PPN_2_PA(ppn), PAGE_SIZE);
+ iommu_unmap(vmLinux->iommuDomain, PPN_2_PA(ppn), PAGE_SIZE);
}
if (vmLinux->iommuDomain) {
iommu_domain_free(vmLinux->iommuDomain);

# patch -p0 < /root/vmmon.patch
# cd ../../
# tar cf vmmon.tar vmmon-only
# rm -rf vmmon-only

Now we need to do the same for vsock

Download the vsock patch from the linuxinsight posting to /root/vsock.patch

# cd /root
# wget http://www.linuxinsight.com/files/vsock.patch
# nano vsock.patch
# cd /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/
# cp -a vsock.tar vsoc-orig.tar
# tar xf vsock.tar
# cd vsock-only/linux
# patch -p0 < /root/vsock.patch

patching file af_vsock.c
Hunk #1 succeeded at 3230 (offset 9 lines).
Hunk #2 succeeded at 3253 (offset 9 lines).
Hunk #3 succeeded at 3265 (offset 9 lines).
Hunk #4 succeeded at 3325 (offset 9 lines).
Hunk #5 succeeded at 3341 (offset 9 lines).
Hunk #6 succeeded at 3375 (offset 9 lines).
Hunk #7 succeeded at 3473 (offset 9 lines).
Hunk #8 succeeded at 4113 (offset 9 lines).
Hunk #9 succeeded at 4150 (offset 9 lines).
Hunk #10 succeeded at 4203 (offset 9 lines).
Hunk #11 succeeded at 4437 (offset 9 lines).
Hunk #12 succeeded at 4477 (offset 9 lines).
Hunk #13 succeeded at 4543 (offset 9 lines).

# cd ../..
# tar cf vsock.tar vsock-only
# rm -rf vsock-only
# vmware-modconfig --console --install-all

Decided to try our old '97 Dodge Caravan to haul the boat from Kelowna. Got a trailer hitch and transmission cooler installed yesterday.

This morning, Victoria and I headed up to Kelowna to pick up the boat. After finishing all the paperwork, getting plates for the trailer and buying some accessories, "Captain John" took us out for a brief spin in Okanagan Lake. It was a lot of fine and it really made me feel much more comfortable with the boat. Great service from Dockside Marine.

My only complaint would be that we weren't all that impressed with how clean the boat was when we picked it up. We were assured that it would be fully detailed. It was reasonably clean but there was a lot of dirt/dust/grit all over her and she really needed a good waxing.

We got the boat out of the water, locked everything down and headed for Penticton with our fingers crossed. Well, we made it just fine. The van worked perfectly.

Then I spent the afternoon washing, waxing and doing some general cleanup on her. She looks much shinier.

Here's some pics.... see if you can spot the bratty girl....

Victoria, Mackenzie and I went to look at a used boat in Kelowna today. From the pictures, it looked really nice but when we actually got to see it in person, it wasn't that great. It wasn't bad and it seemed like the owner had put a lot of money into fixing it up. We decided to take a spin by Dockside Marine just to see what they have.

We were helped by Steve. He was great. We told him that we were new to boating and that we weren't exactly sure of what we wanted. He said that they had just gotten in a 2005 Bayliner 175 the day before and it hadn't even been cleaned up yet. The boat is 5 years old but had been sitting in storage for the last two years as the previous owner run into financial difficulties and couldn't afford the boat anymore.

Long story short....we bought ourselves a boat...

Just some notes on getting the latest development version of Wireshark running on Arch Linux. I'm going to install it with a prefix of /opt so it doesn't interfere with the current 'stable' release that is already installed via pacman.

Download the latest build

Extract it.

Prerequisites:
# pacman -S python-geoip

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Figure I should make some notes on what I've done to get Arch running on my Thinkpad. I've made so many changes without any notes. Oops.

This is what I did to get my laptop to suspend when closing the lid. Found the instructions at http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Lenovo_Thinkpad_X300#Suspend_.2F_Hibernate

# pacman -S uswsusp

Test suspending:
# /usr/sbin/s2ram -f

Then install acpid

# pacman -S acpid

Add it to /etc/rc.conf DAEMONS section before hal.

# nano /etc/acpi/handler.sh

Note: In above link it says to edit default.sh. That file doesn't exist. It's now handler.sh

Change the 'button/lid' section like this:

button/lid)
#echo "LID switched!">/dev/tty5
;;

to

button/lid)
/usr/sbin/s2ram -f
echo "LID switched!">/dev/tty5
;;

Walking out of Canadian Tire this weekend and there was a display for getting your Pleasure Craft Operators Card. The girl says that I can try writing the exam for $63 and I only pay if I pass. After explaining that I haven't read any of the required materials, have almost no boating experience, she says most people pass it without studying.

15 minutes later I've written and passed the exam with only 3 questions wrong out of 36.

What is wrong with this picture? How the hell is this kind of useless exam making boating safer? What a complete and total joke.

See you on the water.