I just had my Linux install go fubar on me. The reason?
I'd commented out the <dri> line in
my /etc/security/console.perms so that a game demo I just
installed would work.
Upon reboot, almost immediately I get
an inexplicable error along the lines of "**CRITICAL** ... unknown
[something] <dri>" and then my boot disk wasn't recognised. Nothing would
seem to work when I was dumped to the prompt - it was like the disk just
didn't exist.
This had me all panicky about superblocks going bad (and unreasonably
cursing Windows as the cause). After looking into it using the rescue disk,
the disk was just fine - I could mount it, edit stuff on it and it was just
fine and dandy. So I edited the console.perms file, uncommented the
<dri> line, and voila, the machine boots ok.
This is an hour of hand-wringing later, of course. Next time a demo
wants write permission to /dev/nvidiactl, I'll just chmod it
on the spot.
It turns out I'd only commented out the "class" specification which
indicates what <dri> means in that file. I'd missed that much lower
in the file that <dri> symbol is actually used in another statement.
When that statement is attempted, <dri> is unknown and the whole
thing goes barf-o. It's just a tad unfortunate that this results in none of
my disk devices being created...
The new Leica
D-Lux is
not only techincally sound camera, but it's damned attractive too. From
the DPReview article:
The design of the LEICA D-LUX is reminiscent of the use of classic forms
for Leica's rangefinder cameras. It is a modular composition of basic
geometric figures such as semi-circles and rectangles. The result is a
timelessly elegant shape that fits comfortably in the photographer's hand.
via gizmodo
Kevin Altis
and others
have devised a much better label for Python than "scripting language" -
agile language ("characterized by quickness, lightness,
and ease of movement; nimble")
Kevin explains:
We still don't have a complete set of tenets, but here's the working list:
- excellent for beginners, yet superb for experts
- highly scalable, suitable for large projects as well as small ones
- rapid development
- portable, cross-platform
- embeddable
- easily extensible
- object-oriented
- you can get the job done
- simple yet elegant
- stable and mature
- powerful standard libs
- wealth of 3rd party packages
And don't forget that with Python, programming is fun again!
This is a work in progress for Kevin as he and others refine this
statement.
Well, the death throes of whatever died in the old computer took out
both disks on the IDE chain, and the controller logic. Unfortunately, one
of those disks was the /home disk. Lots lost :( I hadn't noticed, but my
dodgy backup methodology had missed my .ssh and Mail directories. Ouch.
I'm now sitting in front of a very quickly thrown-together new Athlon
system (the minimum spec system I could buy - 1.9GHz would you believe)
which replaces the old, now very dodgy, hardware.
The moral of this story ... more regular, complete backups!
While I was at it, I splurged on a Linksys router/switch to take over
that role from my desktop. AU$169 well spent, since it's quiet, compact and
consumes significantly less power than a real computer :)
