Off you go… into the purple yonder!

Dell announced that a few more models are now available pre-installed with Ubuntu: the XPS 1530n and the Studio 15n.
I configured an XPS 1530n with the following specs, which are available both with Ubuntu and Windows:

SYSTEM COLOR
Tuxedo Black

PROCESSOR
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T5850 (2.16GHz/667Mhz FSB/2MB cache)

LCD AND CAMERA
Full Hi Definition, glossy widescreen 15.4 inch LCD (1920×1200) [...]

So you’ve done quite a few dapper to hardy upgrades, and you’re ready for the next one.
You

apt-get update
apt-get upgrade
apt-get install update-manager-core

and then

do-release-upgrade -d

You go get a cup of tea, and come back to

# do-release-upgrade -d
Checking for a new ubuntu release
Done Upgrade tool signature
Done Upgrade tool
Done downloading
extracting ‘hardy.tar.gz’
authenticate [...]

So you’re happily developing a rails app, and for whatever reason need to restart your devel server.
And then you get this (paths removed to improve readability):

$ script/server
=> Booting Mongrel (use ’script/server webrick’ to force WEBrick)
=> Rails application starting on http://0.0.0.0:3000
=> Call with -d to detach
=> Ctrl-C to shutdown server
** Starting Mongrel listening at 0.0.0.0:3000
** Starting [...]

$ host ftp.us.debian.org.
ftp.us.debian.org has address 128.30.2.36
ftp.us.debian.org has address 64.50.238.52
ftp.us.debian.org has address 64.50.236.52
ftp.us.debian.org has address 35.9.37.225

$ telnet ftp.us.debian.org 80
Trying 35.9.37.225…
Connected to ftp.us.debian.org.
Escape character is ‘^]’.
HEAD / HTTP/1.0

HTTP/1.0 200 OK
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/html
Content-Length: 2949
Date: Tue, 03 Jun 2008 22:36:34 GMT
Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0

Connection closed by foreign host.

Excuse me?

$ whois 35.9.37.225
Merit Network Inc. MICH-1 (NET-35-0-0-0-1)
[...]

The SVN FAQ has an entry with the title why aren’t my repository hooks working?. It describes some debugging tips for svn hooks.
Unfortunately it does not mention a few very important SVN ‘features’:
1. stdout of all repository hooks goes to /dev/null, always
2. stderr of post-commit repository hooks goes to /dev/null, always
3. stderr of all but [...]

So Xen 3.2.0 was released last week.
Oddly enough there are no precompiled 64-bit binaries anymore. That does not make much sense to me - running Xen on 32 bit is just… painful. Problems with accessing ram beyond 4GB, issues with libc6, etc. On 64 bit all that stuff just works.
Sadly, the 3.2 release is broken. [...]

Dan Bernstein aka djb writes brilliant software. He has a reputation for being a little difficult but his software is really, really well written and some of the most secure code out there. I used qmail for a long time, and I still think that it is hands down the best choice for an outgoing [...]

When I purchased my Dell Inspiron 1420N with Ubuntu pre-installed, bluetooth was not offered as an option. It seems it still is not as of today.
The machine does have a nice built-in slot and connector for a bluetooth module. It seems the Wireless 355 Bluetooth Module is the right one, even though the Inspiron 1420N [...]

Xsane works quite well, even if you want to scan a multipage document into a PDF. Just select ‘multipage’ as the target:

and then this window will pop up, where you can select an output format; the default is PDF.

I had a 17 page document to scan, which I (foolishly, perhaps) did at 150dpi. That resulted [...]

Today is Software Freedom Day! Events are being held in 90 countries, organized by 330 local teams. I’m looking forward to the Boston event this afternoon.