New Lucid Lynx theme (and why it sucks)

randall — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:51:07 +0000

WOW!!!!

After years of promises there finally has been a mayor overhaul of the Ubuntu theme after the “Brown Human Theme” that we have been accustomed to for so long, i know the usual complaints about the old Faeces Theme but i actually kind of liked it, or at least its what I’m used too and thought that Karmic was almost pretty damn chocolate perfect.

So, before continuing my tasteless rant here i would like to thank the people who worked on this new theme because its not something i can do or even can do better, so please understand where this is coming from before taking it personal and i’m glad the theming of the metacity theme, desktop background, GDM and splash are finally heading consistency.
Also that i have remarks does not mean its all bad, its just easier to be negative so take it as positive criticism

The timing

My first head-shacking experience is about the timing of the introduction of the theme itself, actually I had this about various new introductions in LTS releases.

I understand that a new release, and especially a LTS, has to be pushed with as much media attention as possible and a new exciting shiny new theme is definitely something to advertise on the billboards, but this sounds like a commercial decision to me and not something I’m happy with as a user in the long term.

Software gets better with age and so do themes, why would you want to put a new untested theme in something that you are going to be stuck with a long time, especially with the “only bugfixes” approach.

If you start a new theme with the LTS then the next LTS -1 will have the perfect matured version of that theme, that does not make sense to me.

The colour

OK, this is as subjective as its going to get but I actually liked the brown, as did many others. At least it was distinctive to Ubuntu. But yes, any colour will have its fair share of lovers and haters, but purple?

A choice is a choice and it has to be made, fair enough, but it took me some time to find out that this theme was described as “purple” since my first google after seeing the new colour was “lucid new pink theme” Am I the only one who’s first idea was that it was pink?

Apparently plenty of people seemed to like purple because it was the same purple as MacOSX. WTH??? Ubuntu should not to try to mimic the branding of Mac or MS but should stand out as being Ubuntu, did Linspire become a success because it looked just like windows?

But there are so many people coming from windows so you should try to make them feel at home is the usual response. Yeah Right, I did not move to Linux 6 years ago because I was so incredibly happy with windows and I can hardly imagine a happy Mac user to switch to Ubuntu because it looks so much like what he is used too, a cheap rip off it looks like.

The window buttons

Another much heard of complaint is the placement of the window buttons to the left. (Again, just like MacOSX)

Why? well.. its different, Yes….its how some other software company (That I will not mention again) does it, Yes….is it a useful change, No…is it confusing, Yes….does it look misplaced, Yes.

Every blog stopped complaining about it and started bugfixing, so I will repeat the steps here to be complete.

window buttons to the right

press — Alt F2 — type “gconf-editor” —- go to “apps” — go to “metacity” — go to “general” — right click “button_layout” — edit key — and change the value to “:minimize,maximize,close”

nuff said!

window title in the centre

This still leaves the window title on the far left instead of centred and it still looks ridiculous.

Open a terminal and issue the following command

sudo gedit /usr/share/themes/Ambiance/metacity-1/metacity-theme-1.xml

and find that part that looks like this

x=”10″ y=”(((height – title_height) / 2) `max` 0)+1″/> <title color=”#333″ x=”10″ y=”(((height – title_height) / 2) `max` 0)-1″/> <title color=”#333″ x=”10″ y=”(((height – title_height) / 2) `max` 0)”/> <title color=”#333″ x=”10″ y=”(((height – title_height) / 2) `max` 0)”/> <title color=”#dfd8c8″ x=”10″ y=”(((height – title_height) / 2) `max` 0)”/> </draw_ops> <draw_ops name=”draw_title_text_inactive”> <title color=”#333333″ x=”10″ y=”(((height – title_height) / 2) `max` 0)+1″/> <title color=”#333333″ x=”10″ y=”(((height – title_height) / 2) `max` 0)-1″/> <title color=”#333333″ x=”10″ y=”(((height – title_height) / 2) `max` 0)”/> <title color=”#333333″ x=”10″ y=”(((height – title_height) / 2) `max` 0)”/> <title color=”#99958b” x=”10″ y=”(((height – title_height) / 2) `max` 0)”/> </draw_ops></blockquote> and change it to look like this <blockquote><!– Window Title –> <draw_ops name=”draw_title_text_normal”> <title color=”#333″ x=”((3 `max` (width-title_width)) / 2)” y=”(((height – title_height) / 2) `max` 0)+1″/> <title color=”#333″ x=”((3 `max` (width-title_width)) / 2)” y=”(((height – title_height) / 2) `max` 0)-1″/> <title color=”#333″ x=”((3 `max` (width-title_width)) / 2)” y=”(((height – title_height) / 2) `max` 0)”/> <title color=”#333″ x=”((3 `max` (width-title_width)) / 2)” y=”(((height – title_height) / 2) `max` 0)”/> <title color=”#dfd8c8″ x=”((3 `max` (width-title_width)) / 2)” y=”(((height – title_height) / 2) `max` 0)”/> </draw_ops> <draw_ops name=”draw_title_text_inactive”> <title color=”#333333″ x=”((3 `max` (width-title_width)) / 2)” y=”(((height – title_height) / 2) `max` 0)+1″/> <title color=”#333333″ x=”((3 `max` (width-title_width)) / 2)” y=”(((height – title_height) / 2) `max` 0)-1″/> <title color=”#333333″ x=”((3 `max` (width-title_width)) / 2)” y=”(((height – title_height) / 2) `max` 0)”/> <title color=”#333333″ x=”((3 `max` (width-title_width)) / 2)” y=”(((height – title_height) / 2) `max` 0)”/> <title color=”#99958b” x=”((3 `max` (width-title_width)) / 2)” y=”(((height – title_height) / 2) `max` 0)”/> </draw_ops></blockquote> I’m not sure if this is the neatest way to do it but it works. <h3>It doesn’t work with every application</h3> Its kind of hard to make a theme that will shine and gives the best result for every application thinkable, this again has something to do something with maturity and how fast and if the designers can fix this for the new release. Firefox for example gives a very unreadable result when the history results come up when typing in the address bar. Skype gives an unreadable result when right clicking on a contact to see the available options. I’m sure there will be other non-gnome programs…can the devs fix this before the release or will we be stuck with an unlucky theming choice for many otherwise usefull programs the next 3 years? <h3>Size matters</h3> The last part of my rant is that the window buttons are really tiny, don’t get me wrong I’m not blind and they don’t have to be huge, but they are half the size of any other button available. Besides being a visual distortion it also leaves room for error since you do have to aim pretty actually to hit the option you want, this is doable during most circumstances but I noticed when wanting to close some windows when coming /home late at night after a few beers that it was damn right impossible to hit the right one. </article> <article> <h1>Karmic Koala bugs</h1> randall — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 17:48:00 +0000 strange colors in firefox when displaying images the below post fixed it, just set the default 2 to 0 http://support.mozilla.com/tiki-view_forum_thread.php?comments_parentId=403836&forumId=1 EDIT:::::: OK, have been working on the BETA now for almost a full workday, and there is much to like. Gnome is still Gnome since i used it about 5 years, some apps come and some apps go as usual with any release but i must say the whole system runs smoother then i expected and was used to, even with Compiz for the nice effects, something under the hood must be going in the right direction…….but…Gnome is also still Gnome when it comes to evolution-mail, it stinks!!! Maybe its me but it keeps crashing, i think it crashed 6 times on me today and just as many times i simply had to shut it down because it was starting to completely occupy my SWAP, not healthy behaviour. Ok, i do have 3 accounts setup and about 10GB of mail store on an IMAP server, but that should not give it to much problems, i use my mail a lot during the day, i keep switching between my mail app and applications that have just opened my attachment or about to create my attachment so a buggy mail app is simply not workable for me. Evolution simply ruins my complete Gnome experience which i do like for the rest so at about 4 in the afternoon i had it, once more, with evolution and will not use it again till the next 5 years. Have just installed the trustworthy and admirable Thunderbird once again, i feel relief… Nevertheless i do have the problem that my network shares do not show up in Nautilus (or is it file-picker?) when handling attachments in Thunderird, the package thunderbird-gnome-support should fix that i thought? </article> <article> <h1>Karmic Koala, first impression</h1> randall — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 16:54:59 +0000 MMM OK, the boot up is fast with the new upstart and the new log in screen looks promising even though its still a little rough around the etches. I have not used Gnome in a while or Karmic with another desktop so i don’t know who to blame yet,but i must say my desktop feels more responsive opening individual programs then ever before, is it Karmic, is it Gnome or is it the really smooth default Compiz that even works on my modest onboard graphics card? First thing to do is to get the restricted multi media going. Installing the “ubuntu-restricted-package” will get us a long way. <blockquote>This package depends on some commonly used packages in the Ubuntu multiverse repository. Installing this package will pull in support for MP3 playback and decoding, support for various other audio formats (GStreamer plugins), Microsoft fonts, Java runtime environment, Flash plugin, LAME (to create compressed audio files), and DVD playback. Please note that this does not install libdvdcss2, and will not let you play encrypted DVDs. For more information, see https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats/PlayingDVDs Please also note that packages from multiverse are restricted by copyright or legal issues in some countries. See http://www.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/licensing for more information.</blockquote> After restarting Firefox FLASH worked instantly, no problems checking out youtube. MickeySoft fonts, no problem MP3 and LAME i did not check, i hardly ever use that. But, the java JRE did not work out of the box, i did hear something about dropped support or replacement, nevertheless you can still find it in the repos by installing “sun-java6-plugin” after the old and trusted buggy and slow java worked. I wonder how far the free java replacement is and if its somewhat usable by now. Almost there with the codecs, just the medibuntu stuff left to go <blockquote>sudo wget http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/`lsb_release -cs`.list –output-document=/etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list && sudo apt-get -q update && sudo apt-get –yes -q –allow-unauthenticated install medibuntu-keyring && sudo apt-get -q update</blockquote> And install w32codecs and libdvdcss2 The upstart graphics don’t seem to be completely ready yet if you want a smooth transition from grub to desktop but its a good start, still some console text flying around here and there. Also i receive the message that the “computer will shut down in 60 seconds” when shutting down from the menu, this is either a bug or something that has to to with the delayed allocation of the ext4 file system bugs? i’m not sure. Still plenty to to about fine tuning the personal preference and the bug fixing but the conclusion so far…not the best ubuntu beta i’ve ever seen, but it could become one of the better stable ones </article> <article> <h1>Karmic Koala installation</h1> randall — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 13:49:24 +0000 As mentioned in the the post <a href="http://www.songshu.org/index.php/the-road-to-lucid-lynx" target="_blank">the road to Lucid Lynx</a> i will be trying out Karmic Koala Gnome version as a test to see if i can transition from a customised Xubuntu version that i have been using over the years. The Beta version of Karmic Koala shows the same cd boot screen that we have been used for a while, so lets start with the option ¨Try Ubuntu without any change to your computer” A new loading screen for the desktop CD appears and it looks quit minimal, not too bad, although some text based messages about crypto flash quickly before before going to the silvery black loading bar. The Gnome desktop looks about the same on the live cd apart from a new desktop image and a slightly new color brown. Lets not waste too much time and start with the installation right away with the “Install Ubuntu 9.10″ icon on the desktop. The welcome screen appears and we will use “English” for the installation process. Next are the “time settings” and have already seen the new lay-out since Jaunty, looks good to me. For the “Keyboard Layout” i will use the suggested USA. I usually keep my / and /home on a separate partition since i can’t be bothered making a backup in case of a reinstall, this means i choose the “Advanced Option”. Yeah!!!! always makes me feel good to be an “advanced” user . I already had everything manually formatted as ext4 from my previous installation but it seems to be the default choice now. The /root will be used as ext4 and formatted and obviously /home as ext4 and not formatted. The setup for the first user user on the system (the sudo account) looks familiar but there’s the GDM option to log in without a password and to require the password for the ecrypted home folder. My previous installation did not have an encrypted /home folder, if i choose to encryption now on the existing partition containing my personal data should i have made a backup first? Well…lets not take too many changes and i still don’t feel to wait for a 30 minute backup to finish. The next screen will show the options selected in the previous steps, so lets confirm this. OOOHHHH!!! some flashy introduction appears during the installation, i must say Ubuntu is slowly shaping up to look like the, looking as slick as OSX, promise. No GRUB confirmation? i think i noticed that the confirmation to install grub to the MBR already disappeared in the Jaunty version. Restart the system or continue to use the live cd appears as usual, so lets give that a try. The cd comes out as usual with the continue to restart after removing the cd I did not time the time it took for the default installation since i have been writing this ans making the screen shots during installation but it should roughly be about the usual 20 minutes for the complete procedure. As suspected after previous releases, even the BETA runs smoothly without any hick-ups and i must say it looks smooth </article> <article> <h1>the road to Lucid Lynx</h1> randall — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 10:47:21 +0000 Have been using Xubuntu for the last several years as my desktop of choice since the days of the first LTS Dapper Drake, the XFCE desktop proved to me a more sane and stable desktop environment then the Ubuntu Gnome version, especially some exciting new features (bugs and quirks) concerning the file manager (Nautilus) and the mail program (evolution) had me fleeing to the boring and featureless stable cradle that Thunar and Thunderbird provided. But with the new 9.10 in beta i’m willing to put it up to the test to see if i can switch to the standard Ubuntu for all my installed desktops (+- 12 of them) by the time of 10.04 . While safely posting this from my Xubuntu Jaunty 9.04 eeepc netbook i will be keeping track of the preparation for my personal use case on a modest Pentium IV with 512MB RAM as my test installation </article> <article> <h1>roundcube installeren</h1> randall — Thu, 28 May 2009 06:50:08 +0000 ik ga er hier van uit dat er al een werkende versie van apache en mysql aanwezig is <h2>Roundcube downloaden</h2> De laatste versie van Roundcube is te vinden op <a href="http://roundcube.net/downloads">http://roundcube.net/downloads</a> Op het moment van schrijven is dat versie “roundcubemail-0.2.2.tar.gz” Voor we Roundcube downloaden gaan we eerst naar een locatie waar we m willen hebben, en in mijn geval kies ik daar altijd de locatie /usr/src voor # cd /usr/src/ vervolgens gebruiken we wget om roundcube te downloaden # wget http://garr.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/roundcubemail/roundcubemail-0.2.2.tar.gz Roundcube zit verpakt in een tar.gz bestand en om deze uit te pakken gebruiken we tar -xvf # tar -xvf roundcubemail-0.2.2.tar.gz Het resultaat is een mapje met de naam roundcubemail-0.2.2 en om dit mapje op een mooie plek te krijgen met een duidelijke naam te geven doen we het volgende. # mv roundcubemail-0.2.2 /var/www/webmail <h2>MySQL voorbereiden</h2> Er van uitgaande dat MySQL al geinstalleerd is gaan we eerst een database aanmaken voor Roundcube (LET OP, MySQL gebruikers en de MySQL root account staan volledig los van de systeem gebruikers en root account) Om in te loggen op de MySQL comando prompt als root doen we het volgende. # mysql -u root -p vervolgens zal MySQL het wachtwoord vragen van de MySQL root gebruiker. Om de database “roundcubemail” aan te maken doen we het volgende. mysql> CREATE DATABASE roundcubemail /*!40101 CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci */; Vervolgens maken we een aparte gebruiker met de naam “roundcube” aan die gebruik kan maken van die database, LET OP!! verander het woord password hieronder in iets veiligers!! mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON roundcubemail.* TO ’roundcube’@'localhost’ IDENTIFIED BY ‘password’; Nu de database en gebruiker zijn toegevoegd gebruiken we het comando “quit” om weer uit de MySQL te komen. mysql> quit Vervolgens moeten we nog de tabellen e.d. importeren in de roundcubemail database en om dit te doen gaan we eerst naar het mapje webmail. # cd /var/www/webmail En vervolgens importeren we de tabellen # mysql -u roundcube -p roundcubemail < SQL/mysql.initial.sql Vervolgens zal MySQL vragen om het paswoord van de roundcube gebruiker, als het goed is is dat het “password” wat we eerder verandert hebben. <h2>Roundcube configuratie</h2> Roundcube is verder te configuren vanuit de browser mar voor we dat doen zorgen we dat de locatie temp en logs schrijfbaar zijn voor apache. # chown -R www-data:www-data temp # chown -R www-data:www-data logs In je webbrowser ga je vervolgens naar de locatie http://url-to-roundcube/installer/ Als alles OK is ga je door naar het volgende scherm met de knop ” NEXT” Op het volgende scherm zijn een hoop opties te vinden, !!!!!vervang in ieder geval het goede MySQL password!!!! Zodra alles OK is gaan we verder met “CREATE CONFIG” en krijgen we het volgende scherm, dit is de configuratie met de waarden die we in het vorige scherm hebben ingevuld. Zoals aangegeven moeten we die configuratie handmatig in het goede bestandje zetten. de eerste is main.inc.php selecteer alles uit dit gedeelte en doe copy met de muis, vervolgens gaan we we naar de comando prompt en maken we het bewuste bestandje aan. # nano /var/www/webmail/config/main.inc.php en pasten CTR + X om te saven Vervolgens de tweede db.inc.php copieren # nano /var/www/webmail/config/db.inc.php en pasten CTR + X om te saven Zodra dit gedaan is is roundcube klaar om te gebruiken maar eerst halen we de “installer” folder weg. # rm -r /var/www/webmail/installer <h2>Maak een link voor elke nieuwe gebruiker</h2> In het geval van virtualmin maakt wordt er voor elke nieuwe klant een systeem gebruiker aangemaakt met ieder zijn eigen “public_html” folder, om te zorgen dat elk domeintje via http://mijndomein.nl/webmail toegang heeft tot webmail maken we een symlink aan in de skeleton files. # mkdir /etc/skel/public_html en vervolgens de symlink # ln -s /var/www/webmail /etc/skel/public_html/ </article> <article> <h1>online debian manpages</h1> randall — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 11:46:32 +0000 Recently i have been practicing my “website building skills” a little, nothing special but making a nice website was simply a thing i never did so i just want to try out a few things to see what i can do. One of the things that came up on my list was inspired by the work done by the Ubuntu community. Apparently the man pages for Ubuntu were not to be found on the web to be read in your browser and the man pages website for debian manpages.debian.net cgi generates the pages meaning its not browsable by the search engines, so the chance of running in to them if you don’t know the exact address are next to none. So.. i downloaded the work done for Ubuntu and adjusted the scripts and appearance to work with Debian, the result can be found <a title="debian manpages" href="http://manpages.songshu.org">here</a> . Not sure what i’m gonna do with this site but if there seems to be appeal for it then i will keep the site up and maybe extend it a little. In case anybody has any idea’s on that i’d be glad the hear about it. </article> <article> <h1>Replacing a failing disk</h1> randall — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 14:11:31 +0000  <div class="dokuwiki"> <h3><a name="s.m.a.r.t._giving_warnings" id="s.m.a.r.t._giving_warnings">S.M.A.R.T. giving warnings</a></h3> <div class="level3"> <a href="http://manpages.songshu.org/manpages/lenny/en/man8/smartctl.8.html" class="urlextern" title="http://manpages.songshu.org/manpages/lenny/en/man8/smartctl.8.html" rel="nofollow">http://manpages.songshu.org/manpages/lenny/en/man8/smartctl.8.html</a> lately I've been receiving S.M.A.R.T. warnings by mail about one of the disks in a RAID10 array, the mails came in pairs like below. <pre class="code"> SMART error (CurrentPendingSector) detected on host: host This email was generated by the smartd daemon running on: host name: host DNS domain: cipar.net NIS domain: (none) The following warning/error was logged by the smartd daemon: Device: /dev/sde, 1 Currently unreadable (pending) sectors For details see host's SYSLOG (default: /var/log/syslog). You can also use the smartctl utility for further investigation. The original email about this issue was sent at Fri Feb 20 20:30:43 2009 CET Another email message will be sent in 24 hours if the problem persists. </pre> <pre class="code"> SMART error (OfflineUncorrectableSector) detected on host: host this email was generated by the smartd daemon running on: host name: host DNS domain: cipar.net NIS domain: (none) The following warning/error was logged by the smartd daemon: Device: /dev/sde, 1 Offline uncorrectable sectors For details see host's SYSLOG (default: /var/log/syslog). You can also use the smartctl utility for further investigation. The original email about this issue was sent at Fri Feb 20 20:30:44 2009 CET Another email message will be sent in 24 hours if the problem persists. </pre> Issuing <pre class="code"> smartctl -a /dev/sde </pre> gave me the following summary by the smartmontools <pre class="code"> smartctl version 5.38 [x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu] Copyright (C) 2002-8 Bruce Allen Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/ === START OF INFORMATION SECTION === Model Family: Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 Device Model: ST3500320AS Serial Number: 5QM056TH Firmware Version: SD04 User Capacity: 500,107,862,016 bytes Device is: In smartctl database [for details use: -P show] ATA Version is: 7 ATA Standard is: Exact ATA specification draft version not indicated Local Time is: Sun Mar 8 11:00:53 2009 CET SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability. SMART support is: Enabled === START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION === SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED General SMART Values: Offline data collection status: (0x82) Offline data collection activity was completed without error. Auto Offline Data Collection: Enabled. Self-test execution status: ( 113) The previous self-test completed having the read element of the test failed. Total time to complete Offline data collection: ( 634) seconds. Offline data collection capabilities: (0x7b) SMART execute Offline immediate. Auto Offline data collection on/off support. Suspend Offline collection upon new command. Offline surface scan supported. Self-test supported. Conveyance Self-test supported. Selective Self-test supported. SMART capabilities: (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering power-saving mode. Supports SMART auto save timer. Error logging capability: (0x01) Error logging supported. General Purpose Logging supported. Short self-test routine recommended polling time: ( 1) minutes. Extended self-test routine recommended polling time: ( 106) minutes. Conveyance self-test routine recommended polling time: ( 2) minutes. SCT capabilities: (0x003b) SCT Status supported. SCT Feature Control supported. SCT Data Table supported. SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 10 Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds: ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE 1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x000f 114 099 006 Pre-fail Always - 132023209 3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0003 093 092 000 Pre-fail Always - 0 4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 100 100 020 Old_age Always - 159 5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 100 100 036 Pre-fail Always - 35 7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x000f 074 060 030 Pre-fail Always - 21613621419 9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 089 089 000 Old_age Always - 9858 10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0013 100 100 097 Pre-fail Always - 0 12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 037 020 Old_age Always - 159 184 Unknown_Attribute 0x0032 100 100 099 Old_age Always - 0 187 Reported_Uncorrect 0x0032 082 082 000 Old_age Always - 18 188 Unknown_Attribute 0x0032 100 098 000 Old_age Always - 4295032838 189 High_Fly_Writes 0x003a 001 001 000 Old_age Always - 344 190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel 0x0022 071 048 045 Old_age Always - 29 (Lifetime Min/Max 27/31) 194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 029 052 000 Old_age Always - 29 (0 21 0 0) 195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered 0x001a 028 021 000 Old_age Always - 132023209 197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0012 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 1 198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0010 100 100 000 Old_age Offline - 1 199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x003e 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0 SMART Error Log Version: 1 ATA Error Count: 18 (device log contains only the most recent five errors) CR = Command Register [HEX] FR = Features Register [HEX] SC = Sector Count Register [HEX] SN = Sector Number Register [HEX] CL = Cylinder Low Register [HEX] CH = Cylinder High Register [HEX] DH = Device/Head Register [HEX] DC = Device Command Register [HEX] ER = Error register [HEX] ST = Status register [HEX] Powered_Up_Time is measured from power on, and printed as DDd+hh:mm:SS.sss where DD=days, hh=hours, mm=minutes, SS=sec, and sss=millisec. It "wraps" after 49.710 days. Error 18 occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 9008 hours (375 days + 8 hours) When the command that caused the error occurred, the device was active or idle. After command completion occurred, registers were: ER ST SC SN CL CH DH -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 40 51 00 4b 10 95 00 Commands leading to the command that caused the error were: CR FR SC SN CL CH DH DC Powered_Up_Time Command/Feature_Name -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- ---------------- -------------------- 60 00 80 9f 0e 95 40 00 17d+17:02:58.471 READ FPDMA QUEUED ec 00 00 00 00 00 a0 00 17d+17:02:58.471 IDENTIFY DEVICE 2f 00 01 10 00 00 a0 00 17d+17:02:58.348 READ LOG EXT 60 00 80 9f 0e 95 40 00 17d+17:02:56.547 READ FPDMA QUEUED ec 00 00 00 00 00 a0 00 17d+17:02:56.546 IDENTIFY DEVICE Error 17 occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 9008 hours (375 days + 8 hours) When the command that caused the error occurred, the device was active or idle. After command completion occurred, registers were: ER ST SC SN CL CH DH -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 40 51 00 4b 10 95 00 Commands leading to the command that caused the error were: CR FR SC SN CL CH DH DC Powered_Up_Time Command/Feature_Name -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- ---------------- -------------------- 60 00 80 9f 0e 95 40 00 17d+17:02:56.547 READ FPDMA QUEUED ec 00 00 00 00 00 a0 00 17d+17:02:56.546 IDENTIFY DEVICE 2f 00 01 10 00 00 a0 00 17d+17:02:56.441 READ LOG EXT 60 00 80 9f 0e 95 40 00 17d+17:02:54.640 READ FPDMA QUEUED ec 00 00 00 00 00 a0 00 17d+17:02:54.639 IDENTIFY DEVICE Error 16 occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 9008 hours (375 days + 8 hours) When the command that caused the error occurred, the device was active or idle. After command completion occurred, registers were: ER ST SC SN CL CH DH -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 40 51 00 4b 10 95 00 Commands leading to the command that caused the error were: CR FR SC SN CL CH DH DC Powered_Up_Time Command/Feature_Name -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- ---------------- -------------------- 60 00 80 9f 0e 95 40 00 17d+17:02:54.640 READ FPDMA QUEUED ec 00 00 00 00 00 a0 00 17d+17:02:54.639 IDENTIFY DEVICE 2f 00 01 10 00 00 a0 00 17d+17:02:54.534 READ LOG EXT 60 00 80 9f 0e 95 40 00 17d+17:02:52.707 READ FPDMA QUEUED ec 00 00 00 00 00 a0 00 17d+17:02:52.707 IDENTIFY DEVICE Error 15 occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 9008 hours (375 days + 8 hours) When the command that caused the error occurred, the device was active or idle. After command completion occurred, registers were: ER ST SC SN CL CH DH -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 40 51 00 4b 10 95 00 Commands leading to the command that caused the error were: CR FR SC SN CL CH DH DC Powered_Up_Time Command/Feature_Name -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- ---------------- -------------------- 60 00 80 9f 0e 95 40 00 17d+17:02:52.707 READ FPDMA QUEUED ec 00 00 00 00 00 a0 00 17d+17:02:52.707 IDENTIFY DEVICE 2f 00 01 10 00 00 a0 00 17d+17:02:52.585 READ LOG EXT 60 00 80 9f 0e 95 40 00 17d+17:02:50.792 READ FPDMA QUEUED ec 00 00 00 00 00 a0 00 17d+17:02:50.791 IDENTIFY DEVICE Error 14 occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 9008 hours (375 days + 8 hours) When the command that caused the error occurred, the device was active or idle. After command completion occurred, registers were: ER ST SC SN CL CH DH -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 40 51 00 4b 10 95 00 Commands leading to the command that caused the error were: CR FR SC SN CL CH DH DC Powered_Up_Time Command/Feature_Name -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- ---------------- -------------------- 60 00 80 9f 0e 95 40 00 17d+17:02:50.792 READ FPDMA QUEUED ec 00 00 00 00 00 a0 00 17d+17:02:50.791 IDENTIFY DEVICE 2f 00 01 10 00 00 a0 00 17d+17:02:50.677 READ LOG EXT 60 00 80 9f 0e 95 40 00 17d+17:02:48.845 READ FPDMA QUEUED 60 00 00 9f 0a 95 40 00 17d+17:02:48.845 READ FPDMA QUEUED SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1 Num Test_Description Status Remaining LifeTime(hours) LBA_of_first_error # 1 Extended offline Completed: read failure 10% 9849 917923767 # 2 Extended offline Completed without error 00% 9685 - # 3 Extended offline Completed without error 00% 9594 - # 4 Extended offline Completed: read failure 90% 9512 9769035 # 5 Extended offline Completed: read failure 90% 9344 9769035 # 6 Extended offline Completed: read failure 90% 9176 9769035 # 7 Extended offline Completed: read failure 90% 9008 9769035 # 8 Extended offline Completed without error 00% 8842 - # 9 Extended offline Completed without error 00% 8674 - #10 Extended offline Completed: read failure 40% 8505 675183097 #11 Extended offline Completed: read failure 40% 8342 675183097 #12 Extended offline Completed: read failure 40% 8170 675183097 #13 Extended offline Completed: read failure 40% 8002 675183097 #14 Extended offline Completed without error 00% 7835 - #15 Extended offline Completed without error 00% 7673 - #16 Extended offline Completed without error 00% 7503 - #17 Extended offline Completed without error 00% 7333 - #18 Extended offline Completed without error 00% 7165 - #19 Extended offline Completed without error 00% 6997 - #20 Extended offline Completed without error 00% 6833 - #21 Extended offline Completed without error 00% 6660 - SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1 SPAN MIN_LBA MAX_LBA CURRENT_TEST_STATUS 1 0 0 Not_testing 2 0 0 Not_testing 3 0 0 Not_testing 4 0 0 Not_testing 5 0 0 Not_testing Selective self-test flags (0x0): After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk. If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay. </pre> Actually i wasn't sure on how to read this but a quick e-mail to the debian-user mailinglist returned the following advice. <pre class="code"> G'Day. > > smartctl --all /dev/sde > > gives me the following, i've been trying to google this but some sources say > > replace the disk at once or don't wory, its harmless. Anybody can shed some > > light? > > 5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 100 100 036 Pre-fail Always > > - 35 This one above indicates that you drive is developing bad sectors. All drives come with 'spare' sectors that can be remapped to the usable space if ine or more becomes bad. Your drive has reallocated 35 bad sectors and is most likely out of spares. Regardless the drive is failing and must be replaced. In addition to that the data that was stored on those 35 previously bad sectors is most likely irretrievably lost. I hope that your raid setup has saved you from this data corruption. > > Num Test_Description Status Remaining LifeTime(hours) > > LBA_of_first_error > > # 1 Extended offline Completed: read failure 10% 9849 > > 917923767 ... > > #13 Extended offline Completed: read failure 40% 8002 > > 675183097 Your disc has been steadily failing for the last ~1800 hours. Buy a replacement and swap it out asap. Adrian </pre> OK, seems like clear advice so i'd better take it, actually i already ordered the new disk since smart gave me the first warning so its time to do some replacing. </div> <h3><a name="making_an_extra_backup" id="making_an_extra_backup">Making an extra backup</a></h3> <div class="level3"> <a href="http://manpages.songshu.org/manpages/lenny/en/man1/rsync.1.html" class="urlextern" title="http://manpages.songshu.org/manpages/lenny/en/man1/rsync.1.html" rel="nofollow">http://manpages.songshu.org/manpages/lenny/en/man1/rsync.1.html</a> Before doing anything i decided to do the manual backup routine. I have all my services and important data in a VServer set up on one big LVM partition so we stop the VServers first. <pre class="code"> /etc/init.d/util-vserver stop </pre> And then make a LVM snapshot. <a href="http://manpages.songshu.org/manpages/lenny/en/man8/lvm.8.html" class="urlextern" title="http://manpages.songshu.org/manpages/lenny/en/man8/lvm.8.html" rel="nofollow">http://manpages.songshu.org/manpages/lenny/en/man8/lvm.8.html</a> <pre class="code"> lvcreate -L592M -s -n backup /dev/vg/VSERVERS </pre> Normally you can start the VServers again at this point and then continue making the backup, but since this is a failing disk replacement and its sunday anyway i decided not too to risk any loss of data in case something did go wrong and accept the downtime. First we mount the snapshot to a physical location. In this case the location is as follows. <pre class="code"> mkdir /mnt/backup </pre> And then mount it. <pre class="code"> mount /dev/vg/backup /mnt/backup </pre> As said this is not my usual rotating backup, so i could have used copy but I always use Rsync anyway. <pre class="code"> rsync -av /mnt/backup /BACKUP/backup </pre> The /BACKUP location is on another seperate raid1 array on the same box, you could of course do it to another machine over the network, but since i have huge amounts of data this simply goes faster After Rsync has done its job we can unmount the LVM snapshot. <pre class="code"> umount /mnt/backup </pre> And then remove the snapshot alltogether. <pre class="code"> lvremove /dev/vg/backup </pre> </div> <h3><a name="remove_the_disk_from_the_array" id="remove_the_disk_from_the_array">Remove the disk from the array</a></h3> <div class="level3"> Now we have a fresh backup lets remove the disk from the array. The array looks as follows, note this is a raid10 + a raid1 array on the same box so 6 disks in total. lets have a look with <pre class="code"> cat /proc/mdstat </pre> the result looks like this. <pre class="code"> Personalities : [raid1] [raid10] md3 : active raid10 sdc6[0] sdd6[3] sdf6[2] sde6[1] 966020096 blocks 256K chunks 2 far-copies [4/4] [UUUU] md2 : active raid10 sdc5[0] sdf5[3] sde5[2] sdd5[1] 979712 blocks 64K chunks 2 near-copies [4/4] [UUUU] md1 : active raid10 sdc3[0] sdf3[3] sde3[2] sdd3[1] 9574528 blocks 64K chunks 2 near-copies [4/4] [UUUU] md0 : active raid1 sdc1[0] sdd1[3] sde1[2] sdf1[1] 96256 blocks [4/4] [UUUU] md4 : active raid1 sda1[0] sdb1[1] 976759936 blocks [2/2] [UU] unused devices: <none> </pre> The disk /dev/sde is used in ”/boot md0” ”/root md1” “swap md2” and the big ”/VSERVERS md3” partition. We need to remove it from every md device and it takes 2 steps per device. First we set it to fail <pre class="code"> mdadm --fail /dev/md0 /dev/sde1 </pre> <pre class="code"> mdadm --fail /dev/md1 /dev/sde3 </pre> <pre class="code"> mdadm --fail /dev/md2 /dev/sde5 </pre> <pre class="code"> mdadm --fail /dev/md3 /dev/sde6 </pre> This time <pre class="code"> cat /proc/mdstat </pre> shows as follows <pre class="code"> Personalities : [raid1] [raid10] md3 : active raid10 sdc6[0] sdd6[3] sdf6[2] sde6[4](F) 966020096 blocks 256K chunks 2 far-copies [4/3] [U_UU] md2 : active raid10 sdc5[0] sdf5[3] sde5[4](F) sdd5[1] 979712 blocks 64K chunks 2 near-copies [4/3] [UU_U] md1 : active raid10 sdc3[0] sdf3[3] sde3[4](F) sdd3[1] 9574528 blocks 64K chunks 2 near-copies [4/3] [UU_U] md0 : active raid1 sdc1[0] sdd1[3] sde1[4](F) sdf1[1] 96256 blocks [4/3] [UU_U] md4 : active raid1 sda1[0] sdb1[1] 976759936 blocks [2/2] [UU] unused devices: <none> </pre> That looks about right, so now we completely remove it from the array <pre class="code"> mdadm --remove /dev/md0 /dev/sde1 </pre> <pre class="code"> mdadm --remove /dev/md1 /dev/sde3 </pre> <pre class="code"> mdadm --remove /dev/md2 /dev/sde5 </pre> <pre class="code"> mdadm --remove /dev/md3 /dev/sde6 </pre> </div> <h3><a name="identify_the_disk" id="identify_the_disk">Identify the disk</a></h3> <div class="level3"> Now /dev/sde is completely removed from the array so we can physically remove the disk and replace it with the new disk. But how do we know which of the 6 disks is /dev/sde? Running <pre class="code"> smartctl -a /dev/sde </pre> again will show the serial number as it is marked on the disk. <pre class="code"> === START OF INFORMATION SECTION === Model Family: Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 Device Model: ST3500320AS Serial Number: 5QM056TH Firmware Version: SD04 User Capacity: 500,107,862,016 bytes Device is: In smartctl database [for details use: -P show] ATA Version is: 7 ATA Standard is: Exact ATA specification draft version not indicated Local Time is: Sun Mar 8 14:19:10 2009 CET SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability. SMART support is: Enabled </pre> So in this case 5QM056TH, good to know. Lets shutdown the machine and replace the disk <pre class="code"> shutdown -h now </pre> </div> <h3><a name="add_the_new_disk_to_the_array" id="add_the_new_disk_to_the_array">Add the new disk to the array</a></h3> <div class="level3"> After replacing the disk a new unformatted disk showed up when issuing <pre class="code"> fdisk -l </pre> <pre class="code"> Disk /dev/sde: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Disk identifier: 0x00000000 Disk /dev/sde doesn't contain a valid partition table </pre> Great, so lets get this one with the program and add it to the RAID10 array. Firstly we need to make sure that the new /dev/sde has the exact same partition layout as the other 3 disks in the array. Lets copy the partition table of /dev/sdc to /dev/sde. <pre class="code"> sfdisk -d /dev/sdc | sfdisk /dev/sde </pre> The result looked like this <pre class="code"> Checking that no-one is using this disk right now ... OK Disk /dev/sde: 60801 cylinders, 255 heads, 63 sectors/track sfdisk: ERROR: sector 0 does not have an msdos signature /dev/sde: unrecognized partition table type Old situation: No partitions found New situation: Units = sectors of 512 bytes, counting from 0 Device Boot Start End #sectors Id System /dev/sde1 * 63 192779 192717 fd Linux raid autodetect /dev/sde2 9767520 976768064 967000545 5 Extended /dev/sde3 192780 9767519 9574740 fd Linux raid autodetect /dev/sde4 0 - 0 0 Empty /dev/sde5 9767583 10747484 979902 fd Linux raid autodetect /dev/sde6 10747548 976768064 966020517 fd Linux raid autodetect Successfully wrote the new partition table Re-reading the partition table ... If you created or changed a DOS partition, /dev/foo7, say, then use dd(1) to zero the first 512 bytes: dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/foo7 bs=512 count=1 (See fdisk(8).) </pre> Once the partitions are OK, we can add the disk the same way as we failed it and removed it earlier <pre class="code"> mdadm --add /dev/md0 /dev/sde1 </pre> <pre class="code"> mdadm --add /dev/md1 /dev/sde3 </pre> <pre class="code"> mdadm --add /dev/md2 /dev/sde5 </pre> <pre class="code"> mdadm --add /dev/md3 /dev/sde6 </pre> Issuing the command <pre class="code"> watch cat /proc/mdstat </pre> should show you that the new disk is part of the array and that the syncing is in progress. <pre class="code"> Every 2.0s: cat /proc/mdstat Sun Mar 8 15:01:52 2009 Personalities : [raid1] [raid10] md3 : active raid10 sde6[4] sdd6[0] sdc6[3] sdf6[2] 966020096 blocks 256K chunks 2 far-copies [4/3] [U_UU] [>....................] recovery = 0.0% (196352/483010048) finish=122.9min speed=65450K/sec md2 : active raid10 sde5[4] sdd5[0] sdf5[3] sdc5[1] 979712 blocks 64K chunks 2 near-copies [4/3] [UU_U] resync=DELAYED md1 : active raid10 sde3[2] sdd3[0] sdf3[3] sdc3[1] 9574528 blocks 64K chunks 2 near-copies [4/4] [UUUU] md0 : active raid1 sde1[2] sdd1[0] sdc1[3] sdf1[1] 96256 blocks [4/4] [UUUU] md4 : active raid1 sda1[0] sdb1[1] 976759936 blocks [2/2] [UU] unused devices: <none> </pre> </div> </div>  </article> <article> <h1>house for sale</h1> randall — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 16:06:01 +0000 As a frequent user addicted to the use of linux Vserver and off course a loyal lurker on the excellent Vserver mailing list we received the following request from Herbert Poetzl to get some exposure for the link below. it looks actually kind a nice Regarding the old house we are trying to sell: I created a web page which will contain all required information for a buyer, and I’d like to promote that page (especially in and around Austria), so some link to that page would probably help a lot for major search engines to pick it up, i.e. what I am asking is that if you have a site where you can put a link to it, that would be really appreciated. <a href="http://www.reihenendhaus.at" target="_blank">http://www.reihenendhaus.at</a> (means end-of-terrace house in german) sensible keywords would include: Laaben, Reihenhaus, Garten, Siedlung, Verkauf </article> <article> <h1>avantfax_install_script</h1> randall — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 11:25:10 +0000  <div class="dokuwiki"> <h2><a name="debian_avantfax_install_script_improvement_work_in_progress" id="debian_avantfax_install_script_improvement_work_in_progress">Debian Avantfax install script improvement WORK IN PROGRESS!!!!!</a></h2> <div class="level2"> Avantfax works really well on Debian but it is not officially supported by Avantfax so the install script is lacking, i would like to improve that and any feedback would be appreciated. The first time i installed Avantfax on Debian Etch there was only an install script for Red Hat and SuSe so everything needed to be done manually, i made some notes at the time here <a href="http://www.songshu.org/index.php/avantfax-on-debian" class="urlextern" title="http://www.songshu.org/index.php/avantfax-on-debian" rel="nofollow">http://www.songshu.org/index.php/avantfax-on-debian</a> Since AvantFAX 3.1.0 there is a debian install script available that comes a long way but is not yet perfect and it requires some extra manual steps and tinkering, also an install script to set up mail2fax is missing for Debian. This is an attempt to improve the following Debian scripts that can be found in AvantFAX 3.1.6 <ul> <li class="level1"> <div class="li"> <a href="http://www.songshu.org/index.php/old-avantfax-316-debian-install-script" class="urlextern" title="http://www.songshu.org/index.php/old-avantfax-316-debian-install-script" rel="nofollow">http://www.songshu.org/index.php/old-avantfax-316-debian-install-script</a></div> </li> <li class="level1"> <div class="li"> <a href="http://www.songshu.org/index.php/old-avantfax-316-debian-prefs" class="urlextern" title="http://www.songshu.org/index.php/old-avantfax-316-debian-prefs" rel="nofollow">http://www.songshu.org/index.php/old-avantfax-316-debian-prefs</a></div> </li> <li class="level1"> <div class="li"> <a href="http://www.songshu.org/index.php/old-avantfax-316-email2fax" class="urlextern" title="http://www.songshu.org/index.php/old-avantfax-316-email2fax" rel="nofollow">http://www.songshu.org/index.php/old-avantfax-316-email2fax</a></div> </li> <li class="level1"> <div class="li"> <a href="http://www.songshu.org/index.php/old-avantfax-316-setup-postfix" class="urlextern" title="http://www.songshu.org/index.php/old-avantfax-316-setup-postfix" rel="nofollow">http://www.songshu.org/index.php/old-avantfax-316-setup-postfix</a></div> </li> </ul> </div> <h3><a name="debian_install_script" id="debian_install_script">debian install script</a></h3> <div class="level3"> This script comes a long way accept that the apache virtual host is not set up correctly. and the specified directory /etc/apache2/logs does not exist so apache will refuse to start. The following section needs improvement. <pre class="code"> cat >> /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default << EOF <VirtualHost *:80> DocumentRoot $INSTDIR ServerName avantfax ErrorLog logs/avantfax-error_log CustomLog logs/avantfax-access_log common </VirtualHost> EOF </pre> What we see here is that the virtualhost is added below in the 000-default file, this does not work since the default will not be changed and a new virtual host is not added. Also we could move the avantfax logs to the debian default log section /var/logs/ The suggestion is to have it add a separate new virtual host for the chosen domain name as specified in the debian-prefs.txt. <pre class="code"> cat >> /etc/apache2/sites-available/$FAXDOMAIN << EOF <VirtualHost *:80> DocumentRoot $INSTDIR ServerName $FAXDOMAIN ErrorLog /var/log/avantfax-error_log CustomLog /var/log/avantfax-access_log common </VirtualHost> EOF </pre> After the new virtual host file is added to the sites-available we can add the following to have it added to the apache sites-enabled section. <pre class="code"> a2ensite $FAXDOMAIN /etc/init.d/apache2 reload a2dissite 000-default /etc/init.d/apache2 reload </pre> </div> <h3><a name="debian-prefs" id="debian-prefs">debian-prefs</a></h3> <div class="level3"> </div> <h3><a name="email2fax" id="email2fax">email2fax</a></h3> <div class="level3"> </div> <h3><a name="setup-postfix" id="setup-postfix">setup-postfix</a></h3> <div class="level3"> This script is completely non-debian so i suggest to make ad a new debian-setup-postfix.sh script The following section can be removed <pre class="code"> # INSTALL REQUIRED APPS IF NOT ALREADY INSTALLED echo “Installing required packages” yast –install postfix </pre> It mentions yast and that should be replaced with apt-get but AvantFax depends on a functioning hylafax and the installation of hylafax in its turn depends on an installed MTA so it will default to install exim4 if no other MTA is present, using this scripts means you want to use postfix as MTA so this should already be installed before Hylafax. The following section is ment to stop postfix and alter the master.cf file <pre class="code"> # CONFIGURE POSTFIX /sbin/service postfix stop echo “Configuring Email to FAX for domain ${FAXDOMAIN}” cat >> /etc/postfix/master.cf << EOF fax unix - n n - 1 pipe flags= user=$FAXMAILUSER argv=/usr/bin/faxmail -d -n -NT ${user} EOF </pre> Debian uses init so this section should read as follows <pre class="code"> # CONFIGURE POSTFIX /etc/init.d/postfix stop echo “Configuring Email to FAX for domain ${FAXDOMAIN}” cat >> /etc/postfix/master.cf << EOF fax unix - n n - 1 pipe flags= user=$FAXMAILUSER argv=/usr/bin/faxmail -d -n -NT ${user} EOF </pre> Faxmail will start complaining it can not locate the fonts so we need to specify the ghostscript font directory to Hylafax <pre class="code"> cat >> /etc/hylafax/hyla.conf << EOF FontMap: /usr/share/ghostscript/8.62/lib/ EOF </pre> The following section at the end of this script will start postfix after having it stopped at the beginning of the configuration, again we use init. <pre class="code"> /sbin/chkconfig postfix on /sbin/service postfix start </pre> so we replace this with <pre class="code"> /etc/init.d/postfix start </pre> </div> </div>  </article> </main></body></html>