/dev/chat - 2014-07-28 (page 1 of 2)

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1:30 AM

@Ramesh - I finally got around to writing about the differences between GPT/MBR regarding UEFI/BIOS:

First here:

1

A: mounting a SD card without a partition

The link /dev/$disk points to the whole of a block device, but, on a partitioned disk without unallocated space, the only part which isn't also represented in /dev/$disk[num] is the first 2kb or so - $disk's partition table. It's just some information written to the raw device in a format that th...

5

A: Is LILO still usable on modern PC?

ELILO Managing EFI Boot Loaders for Linux: Using ELILO It's really difficult for me to decide which part of that to copy+paste because it's all really good, so I'll just ask you please to read it. Rod Smith Authored and maintains both gdisk and rEFInd. But before you do I'd like to comment ...

Some of my best stuff, as it's some of the stuff I most care to understand.

2 hours later…

3:04 AM

@mikeserv, amazing write up. I will read it and bug you if I have questions. :)

10 hours later…

1:34 PM

@Gnouc - be careful when reviewing. This one looks to have slip past you.

unix.stackexchange.com/review/low-quality-posts/56014

1 hour later…

3:01 PM

@Goldilocks: ping. You are a Rasberry Pi user, right?

3:16 PM

Ok. Chat.SE's behavior when you leave it running at work over the weekend is annoying. I have 30 pings! Yeah! Except I already answered them, I think, from a different browser.

3:37 PM

@FaheemMitha I have a few of them :)

"fixing the raid superblock(s) without touching the data?" using the backup. — Braiam 18 secs ago

@goldilocks Ah, would you recommend one as a media server? And is there much difference between a B and a B+? If that is the right terminology?

People run XBMC on it, which is not exactly a media server but may contain one, and it can run DNLA etc. I haven't done that, although I do use it as a sort of NAS via sshfs, which is fine for my purposes. An issue is that you will want an external hard drive with its own power supply, because the USB ports are sub-standard in that sense, and the fastest transfer rate you are going to get is commensurate with that (USB 2.0) which should still be fine for streaming HD, etc...

It will do a good 3 Mbits/sec on ethernet or wifi. It might do more, I dunno -- so if you want to stream several things at once, you should check into that.

@goldilocks I just bought the WD Passport, but it doesn't have its own power supply. Presumbly it gets power via USB.

@goldilocks wow, 3mbits, that's terrible!

3:48 PM

I didn't know external power supplies were standard with external HDs.

@FaheemMitha That will probably be a no-go. WRT to models, there's an A and a B, the B has more going for it. There's 2 revisions of the B but only the 2nd one is sold now, I think.

@goldilocks That's from an external hard drive?

@goldilocks Um, sorry. What will probably be a no-go? The Passport? For playing stuff off it?

@FaheemMitha Whoops -- actually here's what you can do. Mine is USB powered too. So you need a powered USB hub. That has a data connection you plug into the pi, then you power the pi and the drive off of it.

So by the time you are done it's pi + powered hub + external drive.

@goldilocks And I'm only planning to use it for one stream.

One stream it will be fine for sure.

3:51 PM

@goldilocks Ok, I see. Is B vs B's revisions worth it? I think in India it might be out of date, so just B might be available.

@goldilocks Ok. The hard part is finding a vendor in India who won't screw me over.

All part of the fun of Indian shopping.

@slm: Yes, I see. But I don't know how this happen. I remember I click to skip, not look ok.

I don't think it matters where you order from now -- rev. 2 is almost two years old and up until recently no one really held them in stock, it was all back order. There was a production chain in China that got shut down after like 8 months. I have a Chinese and an English one and haven't noticed a difference. Some places say "we sell U.K. units only", others are ambiguous. But it shouldn't matter.

@goldilocks Ok. That's rev 2 of B?

@FaheemMitha Use a global distributor.

@FaheemMitha Yeah. That's by far the most common one.

The A has half the memory and only one USB port.

@goldilocks Not sure what those ae, but I'll do a search.

@goldilocks What is? B or B rev 2?

@goldilocks thoughts about these people?

crazypi.com/raspberry-pi-products/Raspberry-Pi-Starter-Kits

3:57 PM

B rev. 2. If you order a case, check that, lol. I got a rev A one by mistake and had to apply hack saw to plexiglass to fit the extra height of the B. The pibow cases are very nice and have some potential for customization.

@goldilocks ok. I'm hopeless at diy work, though.

@FaheemMitha Oh I got me a soldering iron and everything, lol. The big thing about it is it has the GPIO pins broken out, including an I2C interface. You pay a few hundred bucks to add that to a normal motherboard, I think.

Forgot: the model A doesn't have an ethernet jack either.

WRT ordering, see if Farnell ships to India: uk.farnell.com/raspberry-pi

@goldilocks Oh, no idea what that means, but it's presumably a good thing.

@goldilocks Ok.

Lots of places ship to India, but it becomes more complicated. For sone thing, you have to deal with the freaking Indian customs, who are mad.

If one is buying from a Indian vendor, it is probably already in the country, though that is not guaranteed.

@FaheemMitha I didn't really know myself when I first got it, I just figured it'd probably be of more use value than an Apple TV. Access to the GPIO pins makes it a development board -- you can get lots of little components like you'd find in phones, etc., and wire them up.

@goldilocks I see. Sounds useful for an electronic hobbyist.

So, is Farnell good?

4:06 PM

@FaheemMitha I was happily surprised by Adafruit, who I think may also ship internationally. They put "$15 educational electronics" on my last shipment, which went through Canada customs with no tariff added. adafruit.com They sell a lot of the aforementioned raw electronic gadgetry too. I've been tracking barometric pressure all year, lol.

@FaheemMitha They were the original and primary source, I dunno what their relationship to the actual pi people is, but it seems close. I think I got my first one from the American wing of Element 14 (a Farnell partner) and the second one from Adafruit.

Actually the founder of Adafruit has been commended by the EFF:

Limor Fried is an American electrical engineer and owner of the electronics hobbyist company Adafruit Industries. She is influential in the open-source hardware community, having participated in the first Open Source Hardware Summit and the drafting of the Open Source Hardware definition, and is known for her moniker ladyada, an homage to Lady Ada Lovelace. == Career and recognition == Fried studied at MIT, earning a BS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) in 2003 and a Master of Engineering in EECS in 2005. For part of the qualification she created a project called Social Defense...

@FaheemMitha CrazyPi looks aright, but here's a few things: Don't buy a package. I'm sure you can get an SD card and a power supply locally (and if you use a powered hub, you won't be using that supply anyway). You probably do want some kind of case, although it's pretty to mount inside whatever too. The one I use as a server I have in a cheap transparent plastic case screwed inside a wooden box, so when I open the box (with the hub and drive in it) the board itself is still covered.

@goldilocks thanks, that's all very interesting. I wonder if any of these people sell kits. The attraction of buying from outside India is that you don't have to deal with Indian craziness. The downside is more time to get it, and having to deal with Indian customs.

@goldilocks Ok. it was just the convenience factor, though the bundled stuff may be crap. And I'm a very fastidious shopper. I research everything, and try to buy the best. And tend to keep things forever.

@FaheemMitha Yeah, they all sell kits I think. What I'm saying is you probably don't need a kit, you just need the board and a case. The power is mini-usb, so it is idiot proof. A 1A phone charger will work.

@goldilocks Hmm, Ok.

I guess the other issue with a bundle (apart from quality) is ending up with things I don't need.

How are these guys? in.element14.com/?ICID=country-selector-in

4:21 PM

If you do use Adafruit (NY is kinda a long way...) make sure you get one of these too: adafruit.com/products/1632 I have a great system monitor app for it that I have spend way too much time on ;)

in.element14.com/raspberry-pi/raspberry-modb-512m/…

@goldilocks great system monitor app for...?

@FaheemMitha Yeah, that's Farnell's partner. Or something. Anyway, they should be reliable, etc.

user image

@FaheemMitha ^^^

@goldilocks These element 14 people are local, relatively. bangalore.

@FaheemMitha Probably your best bet.

@goldilocks An app for the power supply?

So, the kit is not worth it, but it's worth getting a case, right?

Well, the element14 people say shipping from the uk. but I guessing all these things are imported anyway. I wonder if they make them in India. Probably not.

I read negative things about element14 in some blog post, I think. But just one data point does not necessarily mean much.

4:30 PM

@FaheemMitha No, they are all made in Wales now. They stopped the made in China line last year but there may be some still coming out of a warehouse. The app is just a system monitor but for an 8x8 LED matrix. No one had a C lib for it at the time, so I wrote that, then a C++ wrapper, then the app to demo the library and things got out of hand.

@goldilocks actually. it occurs to me that this discussion should be taking place on the rpi.sx chat, which is basically dead.

@goldilocks Sounds like a lot of work. Is that available publicly?

Yes, importing from NY might not make sense logistically.

@FaheemMitha No. I'm just finishing up a revision of it, and hopefully will get it dressed up and online in the next month. It's surprising what you can do with an 8x8 matrix.

Ok, so we are talking about

adafruit.com/products/1632

correct? I got confused there.

Of course, I don't expect there to be an actual user base, lol. OTOH adafruit have a lot of those things and it should work on any linux based device with an I2C header.

How does one write a C library for a LED matrix?

4:35 PM

@FaheemMitha Yeah. Actually all I have are 0.8" ones. There are "square pixel" ones too. Since I've put hundreds of hours into the software I should really just order them all now, lol. Be nice at Christmas.

@goldilocks Do you get it to blink different patterns?

@FaheemMitha The kernel has an ioctl() based interface for I2C.

@goldilocks Oh

@FaheemMitha It has an onboard blink and brightness setting, then you can get it to do whatever. E.g. I created an ASCII set for (ALL CAPS ONLY!) and you can, in fact, read a scrolled message.

@goldilocks Impressive.

4:38 PM

I was thinking of doing a primitive tetris, but probably won't. You could.

@goldilocks Unlikely.

@FaheemMitha Oh you definitely could. Just the block sizes would have to be small, etc.

People are always trying to get to to do stuff. I wish I could clone myself a few times.

Maybe in the 22nd century.

@goldilocks I mean I possibly could, but probably won't. :-)

@FaheemMitha Okay I didn't mean literally you, lol.

@goldilocks :-)

@goldilocks you could give your code to adafruit. they have a github acct.

4:43 PM

@FaheemMitha I will. One of the neatest things I've seen done with the pi involve long (10-15') led strips attached to the side of a building vertically. If your gaze scans across it rapidly (it can be reproduced with a camera, can't find an example because I can't remember what it's called) you see a 2D image. Like, a pretty detailed one. So that

's what people driving by the building at speed see.

@goldilocks Interesting. Do you have a video link? I guess element14 is a reaosnable bet.

@FaheemMitha I'm looking. The first one I saw included the Dalai Lama's face, an it freaking looked like a photograph. Can't find that now, but methinks it is called light painting.

@goldilocks ok

Are these rpi cases?

in.element14.com/jsp/search/…

@FaheemMitha Looks like it.

@goldilocks have you tried the beaglebone?

They actually don't seem much more expensive.

crazypi.com/BeagleBone-Black-Category/BeagleBone-Black-India/…

4:55 PM

@FaheemMitha I was going to get one of those instead of a second pi. I can't remember exactly why I didn't.

I can't believe I can't find this gdam video of the Dalai Lama roadside light painting.

Everything else seems comparatively lame.

@goldilocks Hmm. Watching this video now.

@FaheemMitha Ok, I think I was probably discouraged about the BBB by the primary storage being 4 GB of flash. But looking again it does take an SD card.

I think I came across a Debian Wiki page which got rather sniffy about the fact that the Pi runs non-free software.

@goldilocks It does. Actually, based on that video, it seems like a pretty reasonable choice. I guess more research is needed - sigh.

I think the beaglebone can run actual debian, while the pi can't. That's a definite plus.

Raspbian isn't Debian apparently.

@FaheemMitha Yeah, that's the broadcom firmware. But it's sort of the equivalent of the fact that your BIOS software is also non-free.

@goldilocks I guess. But I wonder if they are saying vanilla debian will run on the beaglebone.

The big plus of using straight Debian is not having to scrounge around for packages. I don't anticipate using this as a general purpose computer, but you never know.

5:04 PM

@FaheemMitha Could be. I'll have to get one of those too now, lol. I'm just happy that there are all these things now -- they are probably not going away now.

I know what it was about the BBB! It does not have a standard RCA audio out.

Back in 1998 I didn't expect to use Linux as my main computing environment either. If was just an amusing curiosity I installed.

Pretty sure audio out on the beagle bone is via HDMI only. I plug them into a stereo/speakers more often than I do a TV, so that was a big deal.

@goldilocks Ok. that does sound like a downside.

So speakers don't do HDMI?

I expect to only use this with my TV, which is a bit old, but does have HDMI.

So, that doesn't matter for me.

There's definitely no RCA jack: beagleboard.org/black

Builtin flash seems like a plus. that way, I don't have to buy a SD card.

Would it be harder to get XBMC to run on the BB?

It sounds like with the Pi it is just plug and play.

5:09 PM

@FaheemMitha No. I have a few powered subwoofer/speaker things like you'd plug into a computer via the green stereo jack. So RCA plug is a misnomer -- it's a normal stereo headphone jack.

Other than that the BBB seems to have slightly better specs over all.

@goldilocks OK. You play multimedia off these things? Like a portable CD player?

@goldilocks It does.

Better than slightly, imo.

@FaheemMitha Someone claims there's an Arch version that does: forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=194863

@goldilocks Hmm, well, I think I'll stick with Debian. I'm used to it.

I wonder why the Pi gets all the press.

@FaheemMitha For video stuff I use HDMI. There's a linux mp4 player for the framebuffer that I think was written for the pi called oxmplayer, meaning you don't need to use X with it.

@goldilocks ok. does that work with any similar device?

the mp4 player, i mean

5:13 PM

But if I just want to listen to tunes, I usually plug it into a stereo or speaker set via the headphone jack. Stereo headphone to red & white RCA cords are easy to come by, as are female to male extensions (for some "aux in" jacks).

"All BeagleBone Black Rev C boards are now shipping with Debian images (started May 5, 2014)."

@goldilocks You prefer this to a regular computer because of portability, I assume? How do you operate without a monitor, though?

@FaheemMitha Sorry it's omxplayer. I

'd think it works on linux generally, but...

@FaheemMitha ssh. I've done up web interfaces for playing mp3s, etc.

But that's probably a bit too DIY for most people since there are already other methods -- just I'm not so familiar with them.

E.g. I still haven't actually tried XBMC.

@goldilocks But you still need a monitor nearby, right? You can't take it on a walk, for example.

@FaheemMitha You'd need a battery; people have done that. I think it is a bit greedier than the average phone, but any 1A+ battery pack would do. Having a monitor and keyboard is handy for getting everything working, but in general ssh is fine; I can log in that way from android.

@goldilocks So, you would operate the device from your phone? Not sure what you are using for display in that case.

5:21 PM

One of my beefs with all the new fangled media servers is my pile of .mp3's were mostly ripped from CD and are organized with .m3u files, which no body seems to support anymore. Hence I end up doing custom interfaces rather than convert the .mp3s, lol.

@FaheemMitha Yeah. That's just a terminal interface though. If you set up DNLA you should be able to stream video that way though; there are both servers and clients for linux and android. And IOS, I guess. DNLA is cross platform.

@goldilocks ok

I know people also use X forwarding over ssh, but again, not something I've ever bothered with.

@goldilocks the m3u being meta-information?

@FaheemMitha Yeah. It's just a text file that's a playlist. Drop dead simple. Relative file paths, one per line. I have no idea at all why this has ended up in the dustbin.

@goldilocks The WP page says it is supported by various projects.

5:26 PM

I guess official mp3 contain meta info like that, so no one sees a need for per album play lists. But if you ripped the mp3s from CD ten years ago, they don't contain anything but the sound.

@FaheemMitha Oh some things do. But e.g., on Android I've only found one player that will work properly with the lists.

@goldilocks That sucks.

@goldilocks I see.

The built-in google one on my phone recognizes .m3u files, but doesn't do anything with them O_o

There is also something called Ardunio

I think Arduinos are a little more limited. They rely on a lot of proprietary stuff, I think.

@goldilocks Ok.

The PI has 1080p HDMI video output. Not sure about the BB

5:29 PM

Like the intention is for you to use their special C++ IDE from your windows box, with the arduino attached. You are basically flashing it, I think, akin to little embedded things.

"Looking at the broader perspective, there is an add-on board for the BeagleBone Black which gives adds a 3.5 mm audio out as well as a 3.5 mm audio in and some extra audio processing capability."

@goldilocks Ok, sounds like that one is not an option. Wonder if this 1080 thing is important for playing on a tv.

strikes me as too broad unix.stackexchange.com/q/147031/41104

How does microHDMI differ from HDMI? Can I still connect it to the TV?

@FaheemMitha This tested.com/art/makers/… claims the BBB can't do 1080p and that the pi is generally better for video. It does have hardware acceleration for video and 3D stuff.

@FaheemMitha It's just the size of the plug. So you need a micro HDMI -> HDMI to plug it into a TV.

Those are easy to get.

@goldilocks The PI has hardware acceleration for video and 3D stuff?

@goldilocks Ok. Hope so.

5:37 PM

@FaheemMitha Yep. The 3D openGL drivers are also closed source I think.

@Braiam Well, he stuffed a lot of stuff into one question.

@goldilocks Bummer. Do you have to pay for them?

Not that that matters for normal video. It does "H.264 hardware accelerated encoding" too, there's a special camera port.

There is also something called Odroid U2

@goldilocks in your stuff, would the BB suffice for playing normal video on normal TV?

I think this is an approx 10 year old Plasma screen thingy.

@FaheemMitha No, I'm just trying to figure out that relationship, actually. I know there's no open CS implementation, because people have wanted to use the GPU for other things.

And apparently zero chance broadcom will create one. Again, that doesn't matter to most people. Maybe the GPU stuff is part of the firmware, actually.

@goldilocks I'm sort of allergic to non-free sw. Probably too many years of using Debian has brainwashed me.

5:42 PM

@FaheemMitha I guess. Apparently max resolution is 1280 x 1024, so you know what that's like. Widescreen HD is like 1920 x ???

But it is probably too late for me now.

@goldilocks Hmm, I don't think this TV is HD. Does a regular tv support 1920x?

What would a regular DVD player send out?

@FaheemMitha Again, it's kinda like your BIOS. An HD TV supports 1920 ;)

Right, but I don't know if this tv is HD. And if it isn't I doubt it could be upgraded.

Ah, so there's the deal with omxplayer: it is pi specific because it exploits the hardware acceleration: wiki.matthiasbock.net/index.php/…

If you are going to use this for mostly video stuff, I'd probably go with the pi. I think that was an original goal with the design, "Do HD video well".

But there are open source drivers for it in that link too.

@goldilocks Hmm, ok. Yes, the plan is to mostly use it as a video player. Pity, the BB looks more attractive overall.

5:47 PM

Yeah

Unfortunately, this blog seems to concur

javconcepts.com/2013/11/27/beaglebone-black-media-center-pc

6:11 PM

@goldilocks the control for this thing is also a question. the obvious choice is a remote control, but that crazy pi package included a wireless keyboard.

@goldilocks "Just Playlists" is the only m3u player on Android I've found. Is there another?

I use m3u files for podcasts, actually. But Just Playlists has a bunch of problems with Bluetooth.

@goldilocks Musicbrainz! Retag all your files :-)

/me is tempted to go on a rant about music players and their pop-centric view of the world...

@FaheemMitha HD is 1920x1080. DVD is not HD; DVD player (unless its upconverting) will send out at most 720x480.

Well, that's with NTSC. PAL is probably slightly different

(Not sure which is used in India.)

Ah, naturally wiki has a full list: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD-Video#Video_data

6:37 PM

@derobert Hmm. Regardless, do you concur the Pi is probably better as a video player than the BBB?

@derobert I think NTSC.

6:55 PM

@FaheemMitha I haven't used either of them. I've heard more about people using the Pi for video boxes, though.

@derobert Ok. I'll probably go with the pi, though i don't like the non-free stuff.

@FaheemMitha Wireless keyboard is handy, but they are also easy to get (here -> $10-15 at big box store). I wouldn't bother just for this; you're probably gonna mostly work via ssh from another box. Maybe occasionally it gets screwed up and you have to plug the monitor and kbd in.

@derobert Hmm, the one I have is "mort player".

@goldilocks No, the plan is to use this mostly as a video player. I'd like it to be easy to operate - my mother wants to use it, and she is about as technologically illiterate as it is possible to get.

@goldilocks That name sounds familiar... I tried it but didn't like it for some reason.

@FaheemMitha That's actually a big consideration. It's normal linux and will run X, so however user friendly you consider that to be... XBMC is maybe more the thing if you don't want mom throwing her hands up. I've never tried it so can't judge, but I think it is what people use if they just bought it to be a media player.

7:05 PM

@goldilocks Yes, XMBC sounds like the ticket. But I still need something to operate it with.

@derobert The unpaid version is B&W -- which OMG I should send this guy some money, I've used it enough. It is still slightly irritating in that you have to do something with a menu or it gets confused about relative paths in the .m3u

I'll have to give it another try. Wonder what it was that made me pick the other one... Wasn't using BT at the time, so it wasn't that.

I actually thought about writing one, but there is a longer list of stupid ideas I have for re-inventing wheels. Once those are done, then the android m3u player. Next lifetime, or the one after that.

LOL, yeah, I've been tempted to. Or to just find a way to feed it into BeyondPod, which works perfectly.

Except BeyondPod won't just take an m3u file

@goldilocks are you using the music variant or the audio book variant?

7:28 PM

@derobert Of?

@goldilocks Of Mort Player

The music one I guess. It's been quite a while, but I wouldn't have bothered with an audio book version. I hate books, puppies, and chocolate. Also sunny days and bright hearts. ;)

@goldilocks You should put that on a greeting card.

Maybe Hallmark will sell it.

1 hour later…

8:56 PM

thanks, @goldilocks:

1

A: Is Android compatible with the Linux Standard Base?

The LSB, POSIX, and the Single UNIX Specification all significantly involve userland. Simply using a kernel that is also used as the basis of a "unix-like", "mostly POSIX compliant" operating system -- GNU/Linux -- is not sufficient to make Android such as well. There are, however, some *nix-is...

@mikeserv It seems to be "history and specification" day for me:

0

A: Difference between Unix OS Types

It's all historical ;) The original UNIX was a singular entity that was written in non-portable assembly for the PDP-11 as a AT&T Bell Labs project paralleling (or spun off from) the MULTICS OS, to which Bell had previously contributed. Since this took a lot of work -- perhaps, an amount compar...

Let me see that one...

I was a little worried when halfway through wikipedia went down, lol.

By the way, I was annoyed reading that guy. Maybe I'm just stuck up, but ... but is it a LSB kernel or not...?

Jeez. it is a linux kernel.

well done

@goldilocks - you sure pay in spades per sentence.

@mikeserv I can see how the confusion might arise. It wasn't until I started thinking about it that I made the connection: POSIX doesn't really refer to the kernel much and it certainly doesn't specify anything about it.

9:04 PM

I think they have some stuff to say about the kernel - all of that tty stuff and the posix threads and whatever, but you'd probably know better than me.

@mikeserv My degree is actually in English, but I like computer languages too ;)

Still - that's just about user interaction anyway, as you said.

@mikeserv I dunno about the tty stuff, but pthreads is still a user land library. Someone may come along and burn my ass for that but I think you're right: I'm right.

hahaha

that was good, man.

@goldlocks, thanks, again.

:D

9:11 PM

If you're interested and you scroll ^ way up there, I posted a link to the firmware boot shit I wrote this weekend. It's pretty good, but it is ^ way up there. Since we're sharing, anyway.

@goldilocks - lsb guy - I just clicked his Stultz link. It's a 2011 powerpoint.

@mikeserv Firmware ??!?

Well, so...

Yeah.

The questions were about partition tables and LILO respectively - so it applied.

Anyway, they're both good answers. I'd probably admit it if they were crap.

I thought the original UNIX was written in C. Maybe that came later?

@mikeserv I'm not gonna scroll up, so post the link again.

8

A: Is LILO still usable on modern PC?

ELILO Managing EFI Boot Loaders for Linux: Using ELILO It's really difficult for me to decide which part of that to copy+paste because it's all really good, so I'll just ask you please to read it. Rod Smith Authored and maintains both gdisk and rEFInd. But before you do I'd like to comment ...

9:15 PM

Presumably not much later, since C and UNIX were developed at approximately the same time.

@FaheemMitha - I just learned a lot readng goldilocks' thing.

@FaheemMitha Apparently, no. C was written to implement Unix, which they already had a working version of.

2

A: mounting a SD card without a partition

The link /dev/$disk points to the whole of a block device, but, on a partitioned disk without unallocated space, the only part which isn't also represented in /dev/$disk[num] is the first 2kb or so - $disk's partition table. It's just some information written to the raw device in a format that th...

I know Thompson originally wrote it on the PDP 11. Writing it in assembly cannot have been fun, if that is what he did.

@goldilocks Ok

@FaheemMitha - maybe he had a masochistic streak.

9:18 PM

@mikeserv Maybe. Though C is not really that much better, from a fun point of view. Though I know there are strange people who enjoy programming in it.

@FaheemMitha Yeah, before they invented all this technology, the people who invented it must have had quite a time. Just compiling stuff on the pi makes me sigh and look around for a distraction, and it would have been hot shit 15 years ago.

@FaheemMitha - I appreciate that you appreciate the fun point of view.

@mikeserv Of course. Fun is important.

@goldilocks True.

I'm not even clear how much abstraction assembly supports. Does it have the notion of a function? And if not, how could you write an OS in it?

" the concept of open source having been previously championed by GNU and its founder Richard Stallman."

@FaheemMitha I think C is a world apart from asm. You can get asm dumps from a compiler. I don't look at them because they're meaningless to me, but people will fuss over a few lines of C based on the pages of equivalent asm. C to things like python can be a be a bit like that, but much less so I think, and at least they sort of resemble each other syntactically (C is the grandpappy language). AFAICT asm doesn't even have syntax, lol.

@goldilocks you don't want to hear what Stallman would have to say about that.

@goldilocks I thought it was a stack based thing. A language within the meaning of the term

@goldilocks RMS doesn't do "open source".

9:22 PM

@FaheemMitha - yeah - I think they're called jumps.

@mikeserv What are?

The stack thing like you said.

@mikeserv Oh

Yes but Stallman has oppositional defiance disorder ;) so generally no one is supposed to want to hear what he has to say about anything. He did coin the term open source, BTW, just eventually he distanced itself from some of its other supporters.

This one needs a lot of salt considering its source - me - but I think you jump around memory pointers with assembly.

The function thing - I think that's as close as it gets.

I think Stallman is David Crosby.

9:25 PM

@mikeserv That's the picture I have. You could implement a function in asm, but its not part of the syntax. Sort of like, you can implement OO style classes in C, but they're not really part of the language.

@goldilocks That's news to me. When did he coin the term "open source"? I thought Raymond or possibly Perens came up with it.

@goldilocks Sounds painful.

@mikeserv No -- Rick Rubin

user image

Founder of Defjam and ...the Free Software Foundation ??

user image

Still - it's the voice that gets me.

@FaheemMitha Hmm, you might be right: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source#History

Apparently someone called Christine Peterson?

9:28 PM

Yeah, that seems pretty clear, it was more or less Raymond, since he then raised the flag.

Why do I have all these things I'm sure I heard that I didn't hear? Probably I have been repeating them to myself too much.

Well, Raymond popularized the term.

foresight.org/about/Peterson.html

I too want a job: "writes, lectures, and briefs the media on coming powerful technologies, especially nanotechnology and life extension. "

Wow, the first paragraph of the linked wikipedia article reads like Huxley.

Where can I get one?

I too can be a visionary. And get paid big bucks for writing and talking about airy fluff.

@mikeserv I did see that yesterday; I've already upvoted it. Nice one.

I've got to wonder, how do these people get these jobs?

9:32 PM

Right place, right time, right person.

Thank you.

why are man pages blank for non root users?

Wow. That guys got it all wrong.

@mikeserv ?

the question ^ up there.

I don't envy him

@mikeserv OK, I see it.

I bet it's that /etc/ file... man_db.conf I think.

I dunno. I don't care to look.

9:39 PM

Don't the man pages get cached somewhere?

@FaheemMitha You know, I'm sure I've read before about RMS leaving MIT because he was concerned about licensing -- in fact I think in a discussion w/ you -- long before 1998. So maybe he didn't coin the term, but I think he was a fundamental figure in the evolution of the concept.

Here we go: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_stallman#Events_leading_to_GNU

@goldilocks Well, the concept of free software in the current political sense is due to him. However, he doesn't consider "open source" to carry the same connotations.

Yeah.

It should be easy to find a link where he says what he thinks. He talks about it a lot.

I'm kind of surprised he doesn't get tired of it, actually.

Does anyone know where man pages get cached? Under /var, i would guess.

Maybe because in a sense Raymond hijacked his boat...like an ego issue ;) I am the one true king! I'm being flippant and ignorant.

9:43 PM

Are, there we go - /var/cache/man.

Alright gang -- cheers. Off to do strange things with beef shoulder. :D

@goldilocks No, the point is that "open source" (according to him) is used to connotate better methodology. It is all about pragmatism. Which he doesn't approve of.

Not about freedom, which he of course considers very important.

Like I said, he has plenty to say on the subject.

I don't know - some of the stuff he talks about can be kind of practical.

Ok, weird, nothing there but a bunch of directories.

Does anyone have files under /var/cache/man?

@mikeserv Hmm? How do you mean?

Wow I can't believe I just said that. Still, he talks about what is bound to happen to software - as computers churn more millions of cycles per second they need more code to churn - eventually it gets pretty difficult to maintain that codebase on payroll, you know?

9:46 PM

@mikeserv Where does he say this?

Oh, hell, I don't know. It was... some middle of the night youtube thing.

@mikeserv Ok

I just remember he had a really annoying voice and I kept thinking he was David Crosby.

@mikeserv Yes, he has a strange voice.

But that part made sense - like hoarding ideas is not just bad for people - though that was what he stressed - it's bad for business.

9:48 PM

Though maybe not so unusual for New York. I dunno.

@mikeserv He is willing to say programatic things as long as they don't compromise core principles.

I.e. if going along with the core principles has this and that pragmatic advantage, then he is certainly willing to bring it up.

Anyway, /var/cache/man is usually used to hold the cat files. But you have to setup the terminal lines to get those to be produced at all.

Why not? He doesn't lose anything by doing so. Though he does want people to believe in the core principles.

Gotcha.

@mikeserv What do the cat files do?

They're just not zipped, I think.

9:50 PM

I see cat stuff, but they are the names of directories. No files.

Or... Well, those are generated by... what's that program called?

I take it back. there are some index.dbs.

Maybe that is where everything is?

It's some doc type. Anyway, they generate those files from the doc source, and the cat file is a copy of the final output.

The .dbs are just... apropos.

They're like - short versions.

Do this:

cat /etc/man_db.conf

@mikeserv Oh. But I recall from long ago that when you read a man file, it saves a copy somewhere.

It's fairly well commented and it explains a lot of that.

Yeah, the cat files.

But you have to specifiy the amount of terminal lines.

There's a debug option so you can watch what it does...

9:52 PM

@mikeserv I don't have that.

You don't have that? etc/man anything? You might have one in your home directory...

man man -d

The man man page says its supposed to do something with a . file there - but I've never created one.

I have /etc/manpath.config

That's the dot file! That's what the manual says goes in ~/.manpath

Anyway, if it's the same as my db.conf - it's pretty informative.

@mikeserv I don't really follow it. So, it doesn't cache the whole man page?

I managed to get it to start saving those cat files by setting this in the file:

 MINCATWIDTH     55

After watching it complain about terminal size in man -d

9:57 PM

@mikeserv ok

You might have the same problem, but I dunno.

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