Somehow Emmentaler, Gruyere and the many other cheeses from Switzerland got standardized into ‘Swiss cheese’.

And that ‘Swiss cheese’ often tastes best when imported - from Ireland for instance:

It tastes quite good - like a young Emmentaler, but as if it was made from sheep’s milk rather than cow’s milk. Irish Swiss cheese - what a concept!

I must note that it is easy to buy the various different kinds of imported (Swiss) cheeses - but they are of course more expensive.

Google’s launching Free the airwaves - a campaign to make people aware of the FCC’s pending decision that could alter the broadband landscape significantly. If the FCC turns the ‘whitespace’ into an unlicensed band the US might finally be able to escape it’s third-world, backwater broadband status. We need more competition!

I configured an XPS 1530n with the following specs, which are available both with Ubuntu and Windows:

The Ubuntu version comes with:

The Windows version ships with:

The only other configuration difference was that Windows users need to pay $25 extra for a recycle kit, and are not given the ‘plant a tree for me’ option. I guess it costs extra to dispose of all that proprietary software

There were a few options available on the Windows version that are not yet on the Ubuntu version - presumably because free software drivers are still missing for that hardware.

The verdict? Financially, the Ubuntu machine is a way better deal:

  XPS 1530 with Ubuntu: $1,518
  XPS 1530 with Windows: $1,788

On top of the substantial price difference, the Windows version comes with the cheapest, most basic version of Windows Vista pre-installed, as well as the NO office software option. This is a very basic setup, software-wise. You’ll also need to shell out extra bucks for antivirus software.

Compare that with the Ubuntu version which ships with a very powerful operating system and ton of extra software, including Open Office. And you get a major operating system release every 6 months for free!

Now if only Dell would start selling more of their systems without Windows around the world - they are still not available in large parts of Europe, for instance…

And that works great. Recently, on deploying a new server, I discovered that the machine would just hang trying to kexec into Xen 3.2.1.

After a lot of digging and some fun setting up a test environment with qemu, I discovered that this broke somewhere between Xen 3.1.0 and 3.1.3. A message to the Xen-devel mailing list today yielded a quick response from a Xen developer suggesting I try the ‘no-real-mode’ parameter as an argument to the hypervisor.

The no-real-mode option stops Xen from doing some bios calls, and it also tells it to ignore the e820 bios table.

And somehow that solves the problem for Xen 3.1.3 and 3.1.4, both under qemu + coreboot and qemu + bochs. Kexec’ing into Xen 3.1.2 triple-faults qemu under qemu + coreboot, but works fine under qemu + bochs. That smells like a coreboot bug. I’ll try on real hardware tomorrow to see if this bug is specific to our qemu port, or a more general coreboot problem. To be continued..

From the article: A private company has recently completed a project to string dark fiber from a colocation facility under the Ottawa City Hall to a neighborhood of 400 older, upper-middle-class homes.

The idea is to sell the fiber to the home-owners. The larger the uptake, the lower the cost of the fiber will be since the bulk of the run is shared between all home owners. They estimate a cost of $2700 (Canadian $, I assume) if there is an uptake of 10%. If 50% of all homes sign up, the cost could be as low as $1000, and it can be paid with a lump sum or in installments.

The colocation facility is carrier-neutral, allowing the home owners to sign up with any ISP that has a presence there. A fiber management company will look after the fiber for a small fee, similar to how condo associations are often organized.

This is a really great idea. It puts the whole last mile problem on its head, and puts power in the hands of the home owners. Best of all - local communities can start doing this without having to wait for any state-wide or national laws.

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 'hardy.tar.gz' against 'hardy.tar.gz.gpg' 

Reading cache

Checking package manager
Reading package lists: Done
...
...
Done http://archive.ubuntu.com hardy-updates/restricted Sources
Done http://archive.ubuntu.com hardy-updates/universe Sources
Done downloading            

Error during update 

A problem occurred during the update. This is usually some sort of
network problem, please check your network connection and retry. 

W:Failed to fetch
http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/hardy-security/main/binary-amd64/Packages.bz2
Hash Sum mismatch
, W:Failed to fetch
http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/hardy-security/restricted/binary-amd64/Packages.bz2
Hash Sum mismatch
, W:Failed to fetch
http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/hardy-security/universe/binary-amd64/Packages.bz2
Hash Sum mismatch
, W:Failed to fetch
http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/hardy-security/main/source/Sources.bz2
Hash Sum mismatch
, W:Failed to fetch
http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/hardy-security/restricted/source/Sources.bz2
Hash Sum mismatch
, W:Failed to fetch
http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/hardy-security/universe/source/Sources.bz2
Hash Sum mismatch
, W:Failed to fetch
http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/hardy/main/binary-amd64/Packages.bz2
Hash Sum mismatch
, W:Failed to fetch
http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/hardy/restricted/binary-amd64/Packages.bz2
Hash Sum mismatch
, W:Failed to fetch
http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/hardy/universe/binary-amd64/Packages.bz2
Hash Sum mismatch
, W:Failed to fetch
http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/hardy/multiverse/binary-amd64/Packages.bz2
Hash Sum mismatch
, W:Failed to fetch
http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/hardy/main/source/Sources.bz2
Hash Sum mismatch
, W:Failed to fetch
http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/hardy/restricted/source/Sources.bz2
Hash Sum mismatch
, W:Failed to fetch
http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/hardy/universe/source/Sources.bz2
Hash Sum mismatch
, W:Failed to fetch
http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/hardy-updates/main/binary-amd64/Packages.bz2
Hash Sum mismatch
, W:Failed to fetch
http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/hardy-updates/restricted/binary-amd64/Packages.bz2
Hash Sum mismatch
, W:Failed to fetch
http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/hardy-updates/universe/binary-amd64/Packages.bz2
Hash Sum mismatch
, W:Failed to fetch
http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/hardy-updates/multiverse/binary-amd64/Packages.bz2
Hash Sum mismatch
, W:Failed to fetch
http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/hardy-updates/main/source/Sources.bz2
Hash Sum mismatch
, W:Failed to fetch
http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/hardy-updates/restricted/source/Sources.bz2
Hash Sum mismatch
, W:Failed to fetch
http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/hardy-updates/universe/source/Sources.bz2
Hash Sum mismatch
, E:Some index files failed to download, they have been ignored, or
old ones used instead. 

Restoring original system state

Aborting
Reading package lists: Done
Building dependency tree: Done
Building dependency tree: Done
Building dependency tree: Done

So you check the documentation at http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/upgrading and http://help.ubuntu.com/community/HardyUpgrades. Nothing different. You try a different mirror. Same problem. What’s going on?

You google around a bit until you stumble across https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/update-manager-core/+bug/223741 with a comment from 2008-07-17:

Using the ‘-d’ flag now causes Packages.bz2 and Sources.bz2 Hash Sum mismatch’s. “sudo do-release-upgrade” by itself now works. Please modify the upgrade instructions on http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/upgrading as this is causing considerable problems with folks trying to upgrade. I’ve just tested on a 6.04.2 (fresh) install and the following works:

sudo aptitude upgrade
sudo aptitude dist-upgrade
sudo aptitude install update-manager-core
sudo do-release-upgrade

Ergo, drop the ‘-d’ and all will be well. Would sure be nice if the docs could be updated…

Many thanks to the folks who made this happen:

* Konsult Stuge
* coresystems GmbH
* Kitchener Waterloo Linux User Group and Richard Weait
* Breakfast Design

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 Rails with development environment...
Exiting
.../vendor/rails/railties/lib/commands/servers/mongrel.rb:16: warning: already initialized constant OPTIONS
.../vendor/rails/railties/lib/commands/servers/mongrel.rb:19: undefined method `options' for []:Array (NoMethodError)
  from /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:32:in `gem_original_require'
  from /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:32:in `require'
  from .../vendor/rails/activesupport/lib/active_support/dependencies.rb:496:in `require'
  from .../vendor/rails/activesupport/lib/active_support/dependencies.rb:342:in `new_constants_in'
  from .../vendor/rails/activesupport/lib/active_support/dependencies.rb:496:in `require'
  from .../vendor/rails/railties/lib/commands/server.rb:39
  from script/server:3:in `require'
  from script/server:3

Googling for this error shows that Mongrel is eating the real error message. There are patches that have been committed to work around this - and guess what, your rails version already has those patches *and yet you still can’t see what’s going on*.

A number of underlying problems are suggested - missing dependencies/gems, problems with gems being renamed between rails versions, etc.

As Murphy would have it, the error could well be caused by something totally different.

There’s an easy way to find out. Don’t use ’script/server’ to debug this. Just start your mongrels with mongrel_rails, which will tell you the problem right away, like it did for me:

$ mongrel_rails start
** Starting Mongrel listening at 0.0.0.0:3000
** Starting Rails with development environment...
.../vendor/rails/activerecord/lib/../../activesupport/lib/active_support/dependencies.rb:249:in `load_missing_constant': Expected .../app/controllers/admin/key_hosts_controller.rb to define Admin::KeyHostsController (LoadError)
  from .../vendor/rails/activerecord/lib/../../activesupport/lib/active_support/dependencies.rb:453:in `const_missing'
  from .../vendor/rails/activerecord/lib/../../activesupport/lib/active_support/inflector.rb:257:in `constantize'
  from .../vendor/rails/activerecord/lib/../../activesupport/lib/active_support/core_ext/string/inflections.rb:148:in `constantize'
  from .../vendor/plugins/hobo/lib/hobo/model_router.rb:91:in `add_routes_for'
  from .../vendor/plugins/hobo/lib/hobo/model_router.rb:82:in `each'
  from .../vendor/plugins/hobo/lib/hobo/model_router.rb:82:in `add_routes_for'
  from .../vendor/plugins/hobo/lib/hobo/model_router.rb:70:in `add_routes'
  from .../vendor/plugins/hobo/lib/hobo/model_router.rb:70:in `each'
   ... 28 levels...
  from /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/mongrel-1.1.5/bin/../lib/mongrel/command.rb:212:in `run'
  from /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/mongrel-1.1.5/bin/mongrel_rails:281
  from /var/lib/gems/1.8/bin/mongrel_rails:16:in `load'
  from /var/lib/gems/1.8/bin/mongrel_rails:16

I made a stupid mistake in app/controllers/admin/key_hosts_controller.rb. No problems with dependencies or gems at all.

I don’t know what’s up with script/server, but it needs some love. Badly.

Excuse me?

$ whois 35.9.37.225
Merit Network Inc. MICH-1 (NET-35-0-0-0-1)
                                  35.0.0.0 - 35.255.255.255
Michigan State University MICH-618 (NET-35-8-0-0-1)
                                  35.8.0.0 - 35.10.255.255

# ARIN WHOIS database, last updated 2008-06-02 19:10
# Enter ? for additional hints on searching ARIN's WHOIS database.

Why, exactly, is Michigan State running an official Debian mirror on IIS?

The three other hosts run a real OS/webserver.

Check out the WBUR listen page. Here’s the direct link to the m3u. Also see the FSF press release about this.