metaruss

Lately, I have not been as diligent in testing Ubuntu releases before upgrading my important machines.  There are always some small hiccups, but most were fixed fairly easily.  Upgrades to both Feisty and Gutsy went fairly well and didn’t introduce any serious issues that I can remember.  I had a few snags with Hardy on one or two machines, but once a few weeks went by and the flurry of updates subsided, it proved to be one of the more solid versions I have used to date.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for Intrepid Ibex.  The upgrade went OK, but it introduced a lot of issues with usability such that I have decided to downgrade at least one of my machines.  The two main issues are:

• GNOME 2.24 was (intentionally) released with completely broken session management.  Sessions are no longer saved.  This is extremely irritating for me on laptops and other machines that I don’t keep on 24/7.  You can sort-of work around it by manually adding apps to the session, but most of those apps will not be placed and sized how they were originally.  I’m sort of anal that way and have workspaces dedicated to certain tasks.  I like those workspaces to be restored the way I left them.  This is very basic functionality that I have been using on UNIX for the past 10 years until now.
• Xorg 7.4 introduced a mysterious incompatibility with older X clients on Solaris hosts such that they immediately crash on any key press.  The result is that I can no longer use any tools on the servers at work via this machine.
• Random slowdown and lockups of the machine for no apparent reason.  The CPU and hard disk are idle when this happens, but the mouse becomes sluggish and any back ground tasks (such as music playback) will get interrupted.  On one or two occasions, my machine has locked-up hard.  This is probably a kernel issue, but I have not looked too deeply into it yet.

The 2nd issue is preventing me from doing any useful amount of work at my job.  Thus, I have been forced to downgrade that machine.

Downgrading Debian or Ubuntu is not trivial, but not impossible either.  It does require a lot of attention, however. Here is approximately how I did it (it’s best to do all this from a text console and not the desktop via Ctrl+Alt+F1):

1. Set your /etc/apt/sources.list to:
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hardy main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu intrepid main restricted universe multiverse
2. Set your /etc/apt/preferences to (be careful about extra white space, as apt-get will quietly ignore these if there are any parsing issues):
Package: *
Pin: release a=hardy
Pin-Priority: 1001
Package: *
Pin: release a=intrepid
Pin-Priority: 60
3. apt-get update
4. apt-get upgrade

The upgrade will fail for various reasons.  Most of them can be resolved by:

1. dpkg -i –force-overwrite /var/cache/apt/archives/problematic-package.deb
2. apt-get -f install
3. apt-get upgrade

Keep repeating the above sequence, replacing step 1 with whatever needs to be worked-around.  I ran into a problem with exim’s pre-install script and had to temporarily hack /etc/init.d/exim4 to succeed so that the package would install (don’t forget to unhack it once exim is installed).  I also had to manually remove “python-twisted-core” and “landscape-common” to avoid another conflict.

Eventually you will get to a point where some of hardy is installed, but much of intrepid remains.  You can illustrate this by trying “apt-get dist-upgrade”.  You will get a huge list of packages to remove, including some critical ones.  Don’t attempt to continue this way.  What causes this are packages installed by Intrepid that claim to “conflict” with some of Hardy’s packages.  APT needs some hand-holding to get through this.

1. Remove Intrepid from /etc/apt/sources.list
2. apt-get install libselinux1 sysvutils sysvconfig
3. apt-get upgrade

Even now you will have seen a huge list of packages that will get removed.  There should only be one “critical” package getting removed.  Go ahead and proceed.  If you are currently logged-in via GNOME, applications will likely start crashing around you during the next phase.  Just let them and try to avoid doing anything else with the system.  It’s best to do all this from a text console, though (Ctrl+Alt+F1).  The procedure is the same as before:

1. dpkg -i –force-overwrite /var/cache/apt/archives/problematic-package.deb
2. apt-get -f install
3. apt-get upgrade

Now you should be free of more of Intrepid, but you’ve also lost most of the desktop.  Restore it simply by:

1. apt-get install ubuntu-desktop linux-image-generic

I tried various methods to get through that last half in one step without removing so much of the system, but APT was getting highly confused by various package conflicts as before.  I think much of the trouble stems from Xorg, Python, libc, and CUPS (the packages were renamed from cupsys), but it could also be that I have a lot of extra stuff installed beyond your basic Ubuntu desktop.  It may have helped to remove the pinning rules from /etc/apt/preferences earlier, but I think all that would do is allow more of Intrepid to stick around without APT trying to do anything about it.  Following the steps above allowed APT to tackle the job a chunk at a time so that in the end “ubuntu-desktop” installed cleanly as it should.  Then I forced libc, cups, the 2.6.24 kernel to downgrade and kept trying apt-get dist-upgrade.  Once the dist-upgrade looked sane (not trying to uninstall the world), I let it go and called it a day.

Once you get through all this, a few loose ends remain:

1. Restore your original Hardy /etc/apt/sources.list from before you upgraded to Intrepid.  It should have been saved as /etc/apt/sources.list.distUpgrade.
2. Remove the pinning rules in /etc/apt/preferences.
3. apt-get update ; apt-get dist-upgrade
4. Restore your Hardy /etc/X11/xorg if you can (should have been backed-up).
5. Make SURE you have a kernel still installed.
6. Reboot

Wish yourself luck!  After that it was a matter of reinstalling the nvidia drivers with module-assistant for my system.  YMMV.

While the “blog” part of WordPress is attractive for some things, there are still the more static parts of my old web site that I wanted to integrate somehow.  I tested a few different themes and settled on pixeled by samk.  I like the layout and how it uses categories to power the menu bar at the top.  I also like the color scheme and artwork.  It’s a perfect throwback to the old site.  Thank you, Sam!

I’ve taken categories further by using them as an engine to load static HTML pages and display them at the top of the first page in each category.  This more-or-less emulates the layout of what I had before.  It also allowed me to eliminate some cruft and reminded me about some things that need updating (not that I will).  Still making changes, but this will work for now.  Right now these static pages are stored with the theme itself.  I may decide to switch to WP pages instead, though I am not quite ready to give up being able to update them locally and batch-upload them.

Sam released his theme under the GPL, so I am posting my derivative here.

After some experimentation with the WordPress eXtended RSS (WXR) importer, I decided it was more trouble than it was worth.  The importer requires too many details to create usable posts out of the basic “log” entires on my old website.  Instead, I have taken the portion of Zack Preble’s “CSV” Importer that interfaces with WordPress, fixed the database query problems for categories, and adapted it to a simple XML parser.  Then it was a simple matter to write a Perl script that could parse the HTML and generate the XML files.

The XML tags are modeled after WXR and the following are supported:

<item>, <title>, <post_date>, <category>, <content>

Here is an example XML file.

Source

• simplewxr-0.1.zip

Trying various ways to import my static website without having to do it by hand.  Poked around with Zack Preble’s “CSV” Importer.  It works fine for short posts in plain text without carriage returns, but it’s a bit lacking for more complicated stuff.

Right now I am trying to write a script that will generate WPX RSS formatted XML files that are good enough to import directly into WordPress.

I’ve been resisting the trend to start a blog for almost a decade now, as I still sort of enjoyed “blogging” through the various esoteric corners of my old, vanilla website.  However, I am finding less and less time to fiddle with HTML though ssh sessions. My brain is also getting such that I seem to forget where I keep things.  This is my attempt to migrate the more useful parts of my partly living home website into a searchable blog-style site.  We’ll see how far I get before I give up!

Update 01/17/2012: Sorry for the broken links. I think I lost some .htaccess magic when moving around my site hosting. I’ve been using my Keyspan on my Debian box running the stock 2.6.32 kernel and have not had issues. That’s why this page is so stale…I forgot all about it.

This driver source code and firmware was taken directly from the kernel.org sources and packaged as a kernel module.  It supports several of the Keyspan “USA” Series USB to Serial converters.  This driver was removed from official Debian kernel sources due to its change in status as “non-free” per the Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG).  This was the result of some unclear language in the license found in the firmware header files.

I had invested in several of these dongles due to their quality, performance, and good Linux support.  Debian is the only distribution that is not happy with the licensing terms.  Even Ubuntu (a Debian-derived distribution) has added this driver back to its kernels.  I was a bit frustrated by this and have decided to package the driver for other Debian users.

Source Packages

The sources can currently be built for 2.6.18 and 2.6.26 kernels intended for Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 “etch” and Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 “lenny”, respectively.  Other kernels are likely supported as well, but will require Makefile and possibly source modifications due to internal API changes between kernel versions. You should be able to build the module by installing the keyspan-source package and then using module-assistant: “m-a prepare; m-a auto-install keyspan”.

• keyspan-source_1.26.1_all.deb
• keyspan_1.26.1_amd64.changes
• keyspan_1.26.1.dsc
• keyspan_1.26.1.tar.gz

Binary Packages

Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 “etch”:

• keyspan-modules-2.6.18-6-amd64_1.26+2.6.18.dfsg.1-22etch3_amd64.deb
• keyspan-modules-2.6.18-6-686_1.26+2.6.18.dfsg.1-23_i386.deb
• keyspan-modules-2.6.18-6-486_1.26+2.6.18.dfsg.1-23_i386.deb

Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 “lenny”:

• amd64 coming soon…
• keyspan-modules-2.6.26-1-686_1.26.1+2.6.26-8_i386.deb
• keyspan-modules-2.6.26-1-486_1.26.1+2.6.26-8_i386.deb

Changes from Original Source

• Created Makefile to build outside of kernel tree.
• Initial release based on Linux Kernel 2.6.18.8 for Etch.
• Added driver source and firmware from 2.6.26.6 for Lenny.
• Modified Makefile to build for either kernel tree.
• Added preinst script to divert existing keyspan module.

09/16/2008: Version 60.17 (based on “Blueberry60”) – Add timing back to AdvanceFromMapWarmFull so that retard window is from 2.5 – 10psi. Also add a couple of degrees before and after that. Scale FuelMonitorScaling down instead of up (duh) to try to match observed mileage. Set StartFuelCompBaro back to stock to try to address insufficient fuel at cold start. Change AdvanceFromRpms under 1500 back to original BB60.

A week or two after the convention, the car suddenly got a bad vibration when making right turns.  It seemed like the left axle tripod was bottoming-out.  I had recentered the engine when I had the old stock axle in there and never put it back, but I wasn’t sure what caused it to suddenly appear one day.  It turned out that the aftermarket trans mount I installed had partially collapsed, which was enough to take out the last bit of slack in the axle.  Anyway, I put the poly trans mount back in (the engine vibrations were no better with the rubber mount anyway), fixed the front mount bracket so I could slip washers in there to space the poly away from the bracket, and recentered the engine.  Everything is fine now and the washers did seem to help a bit with the vibs.

I also cleaned-up the crab rims from the CSX, hit the lips with a scotch-brite abrasive wheel, and polished them a bit before installing them on the Daytona.  The Dunlop SP8000s from JT are worn down to the markers now, so I’m running the Kuhmo 712s from the CSX.  They have flat spots from the freeway spin-out, but they do have plenty of tread.  The Dunlops were awesome tires, but you can’t get them in 225/50 R15 anymore.  I’m saving the last of them for the CSX when it is done.

Lastly, I made shims for the brake pads on all four calipers to try to shut them up.  They still squeak, but are better overall.  I think the notches that are worn into the brackets from the pad plates may be to blame.  Would have to weld them up somehow, but I have bigger fish to fry.

The first time I drove the car after coming home from the convention, the door handle broke on the drivers side.  Joe from the club was nice enough to pick one up from an 85 Daytona in the junkyard and ship it to me.  The rod had to be bent to match the old one, but it swapped over just fine otherwise.  While the door was apart, I installed the ’87 power mirrors.  Man, the ’91 wiring diagrams are horrible.  Not one single interesting circuit on the power mirror page was right and as such my splice job from way back when did not work.  I spent many hours trying to sort that out, but now I finally have working power mirrors!

07/07/2008: Version 60.16 (based on “Blueberry60”) – Revert ColdEnrichmentFuelCurveA back to stock since AIS changes seemed to address part of lean startup conditions. Remove more timing from AdvanceFromMapWarmFull to widen range down to -2psi.