Source Guru

So, it seems that the issues I’ve been having with Lethargy are because supybot is not by default utf8 compliant. Meaning that it wont pick up RSS feeds that are.

Zeth Green came up with the following solution

<+zeth> back up that file
<+zeth> sudo cp -a /usr/bin/supybot /root/
<+zeth> you see the line import sys
<+zeth> after that add these 2 line
<+zeth> reload(sys)
<+zeth> sys.setdefaultencoding(’utf-8′)
<+zeth> then restart Lethargy and see what happens

Well, it worked, now if only I could find the supybot bugtracker

<+zeth> that is why those Launchpad people have a point
<+zeth> One bugtracker to rule them all

I totally agree

So, after a few issues with Paypal (damn them!) I’ve finally managed to be able to actually send my payment(s) for my VPS, and it has now returned.

Over the years, I’ve been hosted in many places, from Tripod, to Freedom2surf, to lyximer (man, I miss that place!) enhosting, one&one, and now to bitfolk and over all that time -I’ve used many a different Control Panel (except for lyximer - those were the good old days of getting down and dirty with the configuration files)

Well anyway, in Source Guru’s past implementation, I used ISPConfig which did exactly what I wanted, to an extent. It automated the creation of new domains, including mail, DNS etc etc. However, it lacked in a few features. It was horridly coded, and well, cause me more hassle than was worth (espescially when trying to upgrade)

So, now I’m using webmin, usermin, and virtualmin, and I’m surprised at how well Webmin actually interfaces with the config files actually on your server. You can add as many obscure settings as you want and webmin either recognises them, or just leaves them alone.

Unfortunately, It’s still not up to scratch, for me probably more than most. As I’m hosted by bitfolk I have access to 5 other DNS secondaries. It’s nice to know that you’ll be able to access your DNS even if things go wrong. However, using VirtualMin to create sites (for things like Realist Anew) it doesn’t actually create the proper Nameserver records, meaning that the Secondary Nameservers won’t take the transfer requests.

If I use Webmin’s DNS settings to create it, I can add in a nice bit that will add all the nameservers for me, but it seems that Virtualmin doesn’t interface with this! Gah!

So well, yeah, it’s getting down and dirty again in the config files to make things work (Many thanks to Andy Smith for helping me out with this one)

Anyways, other than a nice swap death, my server’s been up and playing nicely, now I just need to import all the old websites I had on there!

But it does lead me to want to start making my own “Control Panel” software … … …

Ok, so not that long ago, I had to reinstall Kubuntu (we won’t explain why here! - I’m too ashamed to tell!)

Anyway, I installed Kubuntu Dapper, and that all worked fine. However, after upgrading to Feisty, I had a strange problem, I no longer had an English Keyboard layout, and I couldn’t change it.

So, I put up with it, after searching the ubuntu forums and realising a couple of people had a similar issue to me, thinking it was a bug.

Today, however, it really got to me (again, not something I wan’t to explain why)

So, I started bitching on IRC.

Again, as usual, my bitching and ranting and raving was unfounded. (sort of) The code WAS right in feisty, but for some reason, had been removed from my system. Grr…. I guess that the upgrade path is broken somewhere (seeing as I had to have about 3 attempts to do the upgrade with modding a couple of init scripts to just return true as they were giving me huge headaches! (one of the font updating things I believe))

But yeah, It’s fixed now, and much thanks to Colin Watson for pointing out that the file was in the package, as if it wasn’t for that, I wouldn’t have thought to just

sudo apt-get install –reinstall xkb-data

So I’m now back on a UK keyboard, and after using it for a month as a US keyboard, am now having difficulty switching back!

I should switch to dvorak, and just make my life even more confusing

For a while now, I’ve wanted to make a MAME Cabinet, being inspired by MAKE magazine and also Michael Erskine’s appearance at LUGRadio Live 2006 with his MAME cabinet.

So, well, I’ve just been chatting to the guy who runs my local gaming cafe and he has a Konami cabinet that was used for playstation games which he’s trying to get rid of. (unfortunately, I can’t find any information about it online!)

It’s got the perfect sizes for a PC to be put in the back, hooked up with a couple of Playstation-stylee controllers and loaded up with MAME.

 It could be fun… I just need to know where to start.

 Getting an old PC to host would be a start… anyone got one they want to donate?

Trying to update my control panel software (Manages stuff like email websites etc, etc) and I get this

checking whether the C++ compiler (gcc   ) works… no
configure: error: installation or configuration problem: C++ compiler cannot create executables.

Kind of annoying, yes.

 But even more annoying that it then went on to delete my current (working) copy of My control panel.

Luckily everything works, I just have to do things manually until I can get this fixed

Last night, I released katapult 0.3.1.4, which is mainly a bugfix release, but well, It’s a release!

We now have katapult working with amarok >=1.4.2 (and with < 1.4.2 still too!)

It was annoying, however, when my ISP decided to drop my connection for half an hour in the middle of pushing the files out to sourceforge.

See The Katapult website for more details.

Packages will be available soon for feisty and sid

First of all, before I start writing, I need to state the following.

This blog is published on Novell affiliated website(s) This post does in no way represent the view of Novell/Microsoft or any of their employees, and is only my own personal opinion on this subject.

For those of you who haven’t already read, Novell and Microsoft have entered into 3 agreements of Collaboration between the companies. See here for more info

The way I see it is yes, this is a good thing in general for Linux. With Microsoft actively participating in the collaboration between open source and Windows, it can only be a good thing, finally, we will be able to integrate Windows and Linux clients seamlessly, they’ll work together, and everything will be groovy.

For SUSE Enterprise customers.

Yes, this will bring technical advances and help with the proliferation of Linux, undoubtedly, but - the way the Press Release and FAQ are written, it seems to me that Novell and Microsoft will be working hand in hand to exclude anyone outside their customer bases from using anything that will come from this collaboration.

Novell, up to this point to me have seemed to make huge steps into the Open Source Market, making a lot of contributions in lots of projects, but with this announcement, it now seems that they just want themselves to benefit, not the rest of the FLOSS community. Do we really want Novell to become the “Microsoft” of Linux? Monopolising on the things that are going to get the paying customers to use their Products? I remember a quote from an interview with Novell’s Greg Mancusi-Ungaro in LXF which was this

Well, if we ever woke up one day and said ‘Wow, Novell is the Microsoft of Linux’ or ‘Red Hat is the Microsoft of Linux’, then the Linux movement would be over.

I totally agree, but to me, it looks like this is a step in that direction for Novell.

By the way, feel free to flame me^W^Wcomment, I’d love to hear other people’s opinions on this

Recently, Amarok decided to change the way they store URL’s in it’s database, meaning that it’s now a PITA to try and get a song to play, as for some reason - they all now start with ./ - instead of just /.

 So now I have to go hacking away to make katapult use the proper URLs. This is going to be even more fun as it will also need to detect the version of amarok. - Yay!

 Lets just hope KURL::isRelativeURL (const QString &_url) works well enough to determine the type of path amarok is returning

For those of you who don’t know me… You may be surprised to find out that I actually have a real Job.

 I’m a dealer. No - not the drug kind, I work in a casino. Gala Casino in Birmingham in fact.

Anyway - today - I’m sitting there, dealing a game of roulette, when all of a sudden, the “winning number display” crashes. Leaving an xterm on screen.

Considering that most of our electronic gaming equipment is supplied by the same manufacturer, I’d assume that they’re all running Linux… Which means - that, at work - I’m surrounded by Linux.

I’m actually surprised by the quality of how everything is linked in together, including the “table top” display (a big table which shows a 3D rendering of the roulette wheel). These are all linked to Smart Card Cash terminals… it’s pretty amazing how linux is being used. I’m happy to see it being used in a way other than just for servers. Rock on ACE systems!

For this - just the things I’ve been wanting on the supermirror since I started using it (2 weeks ago!)