theYinYeti

Thank you Ken! That's an interesting tool to know about. I'll try this mandriva-seed.sh.

BTW, I had a backup when I “broke†my device, but no amount of dd would restore it… It was a “free ad†USB key from my wife's work, though, so probably not good quality.

Yves.

What if I want the old one to be the active /boot? I want 2009.1's /boot to be the active one, as one day I'll upgrade it to 2010.0 final. Meantime, I'd like to test 2010.0 beta and rc.

Won't Mandriva 2009.1 become confused, if another (more recent) Mandriva inserts stuff into its /boot folder?

Now that I think about it, maybe making 2010's /boot active would indeed be the right choice; if I understand correctly, from 2009.1's point of view, it will be as if nothing had ever happened, and then later I suppose I'll be able to restore 2009.1's clean boot loader using Free DVD…

Did I understand correctly?

Yves.

Is it possible to dual-boot with a new Linux installation, when the existing Linux installation has its /boot folder in the / partition?

Yves.

Yesterday, I was going to dd the 2010beta One ISO to a 2GB USB stick to test it, but I did not.

Last time I played with a USB key, for something other than storing data, was when I tried several distributions that boot on CD or USB (among which is GeeXboX) for my “salon†PC to become disk-less. Each USB distribution involved formatting the USB either FAT or Ext2, and installing on it. At the fourth attempt or so (only one of which booted fine), the USB device stopped working beyond any hope of repair: it reported a ridiculously small capacity, an invalid partition table…

So before “playing†with a USB stick again, I want to be sure there's a way back. In particular, the ISO being only 700MB, the USB disk will probably report a capacity of 700BM, and I want to be able to get the 2GB back.

Can someone enlighten me on the workings of USB sticks and why capacity and formatting is not as straightforward as with standard hard disks?

Yves.

BTW: what's the proper En/Us word for this USB thing? “USB stickâ€, “USB keyâ€, “flash driveâ€, something else?

Here on Mdv 2009.0, fully up-to-date :

[yves@localhost ~]$ urpmq -i dkms-nvidia96xx
Name        : dkms-nvidia96xx
Version     : 96.43.07
Release     : 5mdv2009.0
Group       : System/Kernel and hardware
Size        : 5735301                      Architecture: i586
Source RPM  : nvidia-96xx-96.43.07-5mdv2009.0.src.rpm
URL         : http://www.nvidia.com/object/unix.html
Summary     : NVIDIA kernel module for most GF2/3/4 class cards
Description :
NVIDIA kernel module for most NVIDIA GeForce2/3/4 class video cards.
This is to be used with the nvidia-96xx package.

Yves.

You're welcome :)

There were one or two labels I did not even understand (let alone know how to translate), but I see that someone else took care of them. Great!

Yves.

I'll play with the wiki again :)

Yves.

This may be a dumb question, but anyway… What makes you think you need those drivers? I guess those are sound drivers; don't you have sound already?

I ask because I have a motherboard with a realtek chip on it for sound, and the drivers CD for Windows does contain this Realtek HD thing. Still, sound is working great in Mandriva on this PC, without having to install anything.

Yves.

Well… I did look deeper into qt4-designer. And I'm not enthusiastic about it.

It is indeed a very complete and well thought-out tool (the slots-thing is impressive), but like all the other tools (except VisualTcl), it lacks in-place editing of event-handling code. So for it to be my tool of choice, it has to offer something else… and it does not:

— The “.ui†file needs to be post-processed to have usable files. I've only read about post-processing for usage in C/C++ but I'm confident I could have found the same for usage in Python. Either way, that's one more step before actual usage of the application, and I'm looking for the easiest and fastest possible way from programming to app usage.

— qt4-designer's GUI is targeted at programmers and it shows; for example, widgets' properties are shown class by class (eg: first QWidget, last QPlainTextEditor), and they are very numerous. While it allows total control for the experienced programmer, it is a hindrance (even for the experienced) when the goal is speed; besides, a less-experienced programmer would easily get lost (or loose still more time).

So, I'm still with wxGlade, although it is not perfect.

Please share your experience or opinion (maybe I did not see something I should have), or tell about other tools you know about.

Yves.

I tried Glade3. It was uselessly more complicated than wxGlade, while giving nothing more in return. And in the end, the python code did not display the frame… (very basic code taken from internet). While I would be able to circumvent such difficulties, my son would not.

All in all, Glade3 isn't as good as wxGlade; neither for me nor for my son (one day…).

I had a first look at qt4-designer. It is of course targetted at Qt, not Gtk, but anyway I'll just forget this little inconvenience. This tool looks more complicated than Glade, but at the same time more intuitive and thus more usable. Besides, it seems not to be “integrated†in that handlers cannot be coded while using the tool (the same goes with Glade); and it seems rather targetted at C/C++, although I'm sure something can be done with Python.

Well, that first impression is not all that bad, and I'll get back to it in a matter of hours…

So far, wxGlade seems to be the winner for my needs, but nothing is final yet :)

Yves.

Thank you both for your answers!

It's interesting to see that you both recommend qtDesigner. I'll have to test it.

It's also interesting to see Glade mentionned, because it hapens my prefered tool so far is actually modeled after Glade, hence its name: wxGlade.

While I'm at it, wxGlade did a great job! Back from work, I clicked the “Generate†button, and opened the result in Geany. I was amazed at how few lines there were, and very readable at that! Compared to the 406 lines of Tcl/Tk generated by VisualTcl (my handlers included), the file generated by wxGlade, along with my handlers, is barely 80 lines! AMAZING! Let you see:

#!/usr/bin/env python
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
# generated by wxGlade 0.6.3 on Wed Jul 15 21:00:21 2009

import wx
import subprocess

# begin wxGlade: extracode
# end wxGlade

class MyFrame(wx.Frame):
 def __init__(self, *args, **kwds):
# begin wxGlade: MyFrame.__init__
kwds["style"] = wx.DEFAULT_FRAME_STYLE
wx.Frame.__init__(self, *args, **kwds)
self.lblTitre = wx.StaticText(self, -1, "Gestion du MediaCenter SFR")
self.txtSortie = wx.TextCtrl(self, -1, "", style=wx.TE_MULTILINE|wx.TE_READONLY|wx.HSCROLL|wx.TE_WORDWRAP)
self.btStatus = wx.Button(self, -1, "Statut")
self.btStart = wx.Button(self, -1, u"Démarrer")
self.btStop = wx.Button(self, -1, u"Arrêter")

self.__set_properties()
self.__do_layout()

self.Bind(wx.EVT_BUTTON, self.handleStatus, self.btStatus)
self.Bind(wx.EVT_BUTTON, self.handleStart, self.btStart)
self.Bind(wx.EVT_BUTTON, self.handleStop, self.btStop)
# end wxGlade

 def __set_properties(self):
# begin wxGlade: MyFrame.__set_properties
self.SetTitle("Gestion du MediaCenter SFR")
self.lblTitre.SetFont(wx.Font(14, wx.DEFAULT, wx.NORMAL, wx.NORMAL, 0, "Sans"))
# end wxGlade

 def __do_layout(self):
# begin wxGlade: MyFrame.__do_layout
szFenetre = wx.BoxSizer(wx.VERTICAL)
szActions = wx.BoxSizer(wx.HORIZONTAL)
szFenetre.Add(self.lblTitre, 0, wx.ALIGN_CENTER_HORIZONTAL, 0)
szFenetre.Add(self.txtSortie, 1, wx.EXPAND, 0)
szActions.Add(self.btStatus, 0, 0, 0)
szActions.Add(self.btStart, 0, 0, 0)
szActions.Add(self.btStop, 0, 0, 0)
szFenetre.Add(szActions, 0, wx.ALIGN_CENTER_HORIZONTAL, 0)
self.SetSizer(szFenetre)
szFenetre.Fit(self)
self.Layout()
# end wxGlade

 def handleStatus(self, event): # wxGlade: MyFrame.<event_handler>
self.displayOutput("status")
event.Skip()

 def handleStart(self, event): # wxGlade: MyFrame.<event_handler>
self.displayOutput("start")
event.Skip()

 def handleStop(self, event): # wxGlade: MyFrame.<event_handler>
self.displayOutput("stop")
event.Skip()

 def displayOutput(self, param):
pipe = subprocess.Popen(["/opt/mediacenter/mediacenter", param], stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.STDOUT);
result = pipe.communicate()
self.txtSortie.Clear()
self.txtSortie.AppendText(result[0])
# end of class MyFrame

if __name__ == "__main__":
 app = wx.PySimpleApp(0)
 wx.InitAllImageHandlers()
 GestionduMediaCenterSFR = MyFrame(None, -1, "")
 app.SetTopWindow(GestionduMediaCenterSFR)
 GestionduMediaCenterSFR.Show()
 app.MainLoop()

I'm still interested in others' experience, though, and I will look into qtDesigner and Glade.

Yves.

I forgot: here's basically the look of it:

+-----------------------------+
|		 frame title		 |
|+---------------------------+|
|| …command output…		  ||
|+---------------------------+|
| [Statut][Démarrer][Arrêter] |
+-----------------------------+

Example usage with SSH on “work†(using Cygwin for example), provided x11vnc is installed on “home†PC :

work$ ssh -f -t -L 5900:localhost:5900 home 'x11vnc -xdamage -xdamage -wait 100 -scale 2/3 -localhost -display :0'

Then run VNCViewer with encoding “tight†(or something else but not “rawâ€).

And if you have direct VNC access (with no need of an SSH tunnel), then you just have to let x11vnc run at “home†(there's an additional parameter for this) and neither cygwin nor ssh will be needed at “workâ€.

If you do need the SSH tunnel, there may be a more Windows-like way of creating this tunnel (without the need for the heavy Cygwin), but I'm neither aware nor interested in this…

Yves.

The solution depends on what the work OS is and what the home OS is. Anyway, what you want is possible.

This article may point you in the right direction; it did for me:

http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/locutus/remote...1-session-15601

Yves.

Hello,

I usually fill the gaps in my needs for running the computer by programming more or less complete/clean bash scripts, with a bit of zenity if needed, and by putting lanchers upon them.

Now I'm at a point where zenity is not enough. I want several GUI controls in a single window. BUT…

My family life, and my professionnal life, make it so that I have very little time for programming.

So I need a very quick way of programming a GUI, and of programming the event handlers. And I don't want my programs to require an exotic runtime or launcher. So it'll have to be either Perl, Python, bash, or Tcl/Tk (installed by default on any mainstream Linux), or a tool that generates a binary (if that exists).

My first attempt has been with Visual Tcl; it's a bit rough around the edges, but still usable, and stable enough. Unfortunately, this tool has not been updated since 2007, and suffers from incompatibilities with Tcl 8.5 or newer (and we're at 8.6…). This can be patched (see “Tristan 2008-09-29â€) but still, I was disapointed to see that the much-advertised “widget†array did not work (any more?)…

So I decided to search for more GUI designers… I found nothing else related to either bash or Tk, the two languages I had in mind for fast programming. My need for speed rules out C/C++, as well as Java (the language I'm most familiar with).

Looking further, I found seemingly great wxWindow-related tools, for Python, a language I'm willing to learn as it seems to fit my criteria (which is: as few written lines as possible to get the job done) :

— Boa-Constructor: nice first impression although the GUI is a bit overwhelming, but it is way too unstable. The IDE crashed at each of my ten attempts to achieve the same simple app I had programmed with Visual Tcl, and before I could even attempt to program event handlers.

— PythonCard: clean (and stable, it seems) and simple, but too much so : I miss the wx sizers.

Looking still further, I finally found some hope :

— wxGlade: at last something that I can use! Simple and to the point. All is there without fuss and with no crash. It is just an UI designer though, that generates a python file that you open in your favourite editor and where you program the event handlers at the right places. Although this is OK with me, I'd like something more integrated, where you take no risk of breaking the GUI code while programming the event handlers, nor loosing your handling code when re-generating the UI; that's because eventually, I'm thinking of using what I'll have found for teaching the basics of programmation to my son. Anyway, this is so far my best finding.

— wxFormBuilder: I did not try yet (not in Mdv's repositories); I'll have to.

— WideStudio: I did not try yet (not in Mdv's repositories); I'll have to (but I really wonder what this MWT is, how it integrates the desktop, and what needs to be installed at runtime).

And in case I find nothing appropriate, I keep bookmarks for Code::Blocks, Gambas, Lazarus, Anjuta, KDevelop and MonoDevelop.

What do you all use for quick and not-so-dirty GUI-app programming? Do you know what tool would suit my needs, if possible with a good learning potential for kids?

Yves.

If this is OK for you, maybe you could have your XP in VirtualBox instead of rebooting to XP ; then using VB's shared folders, you would have access from XP to any host folder/drive you want.

Yves.

Trying to solve this by myself, I tried and logged to the Novell machines in a way as close as possible to what Windows PCs do.

I tried to mimick what a Windows user sees on their Novell login window, as well as the sequence of operations : first login, then map the drives. So I tried this :

ncplogin -T TREE -X CO.NTE.XT -E -U USER.CO.NTE.XT -u 501 -g 500 -P PW -f 0664 -d 0775 -y utf8 -p cp850 -i 3
ncpmap -S NV2 -A NV2 -o tcp -X CO.NTE.XT -E -V DATA -f 0664 -d 0775 -y utf8 -p cp850 -i 2 -a

and this :

ncplogin -S NV2 -A NV2 -o tcp -X CO.NTE.XT -E -U USER.CO.NTE.XT -u 501 -g 500 -P PW -f 0664 -d 0775 -y utf8 -p cp850
ncpmap -S NV2 -A NV2 -o tcp -X CO.NTE.XT -E -V DATA -f 0664 -d 0775 -y utf8 -p cp850 -i 2 -a

Both sets “workedâ€, although the first set of commands does not anymore… I suppose I was lucky, and “ncplogin -T†only worked because I had connected before ; now I get “failed:Cannot attach to tree TREE. Err:Server not found (0x8847)â€.

Anyway, whatever the commands I use, I still get the same result : I can browse directories, create, open and delete files, BUT I cannot browse files (see them in Nautilus or command-line)…

And ncpfs hasn't got a web site, and wasn't updated since 2005. This is getting depressing.

Yves.

Older ATI cards aren't supported by the latest ATI driver, and the previous driver doesn't compile on latest kernels, although I've read there's a patch somewhere on Internet for doing this compilation successfully…

You should revert to older kernel and ATI driver (but then you're on your own, with help from the community), or go back to Mandriva 2009.0 (which still has the right driver), or try and find the above-mentionned patch.

Yves.

Cups has a bug about file permissions. See

https://qa.mandriva.com/show_bug.cgi?id=50154

and

https://qa.mandriva.com/show_bug.cgi?id=49407

Maybe they apply to your problem, and the fix is easy.

Yves.

I've had this one on my radar for several months (see my previous thread about a home server); I'd be quite happy with a 99$ price, but I'm waiting for the beast to have a French plug…

Yves.

Thank you for answering Ian :)

There is indeed a reason for the two lines to be different.

On the IP side, both machines are seen:

[yves@work ~]$ ping N1
PING N1.workdomain (x.x.x.x1) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from N1.workdomain (x.x.x.x1): icmp_seq=1 ttl=128 time=1.42 ms
64 bytes from N1.workdomain (x.x.x.x1): icmp_seq=2 ttl=128 time=0.389 ms
^C
--- N1.workdomain ping statistics ---
2 packets transmitted, 2 received, 0% packet loss, time 1923ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.389/0.908/1.428/0.520 ms
[yves@work ~]$ ping N2
PING N2.workdomain (x.x.x.x2) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from x.x.x.x2: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.378 ms
64 bytes from x.x.x.x2: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.396 ms
^C
--- N2.workdomain ping statistics ---
2 packets transmitted, 2 received, 0% packet loss, time 1505ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.378/0.387/0.396/0.009 ms

Now, I notice that ping “64 bytes…†lines look different for the second server. I don't know if there's any meaning to this.

On the NCP side of things, though, N2 is unknown, which is no surprise because I've read that clustered volumes only work in IP mode because they use a capability of IP that the Novell protocol does not have:

[root@work ~]# slist

Known NetWare File Servers		  Network   Node Address
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
N1										0534FA74  000000000001
NA										0B6DB224  000000000001
NB										00008657  000000000001

So, for N2, I have to use the “tcp†and “ipserver†mount options, which give the IP sub-protocol to use and the DNS mapping for the given Novell logical name.

For the record, here's the output of mount without those options:

[root@work ~]# mount -t ncp -o volume=data,multiple,uid=501,gid=500,filemode=0664,dirmode=0775,passwd=PW,codepa
ge=cp850,iocharset=utf8 N2/USER.CO.NTE.XT test/
mount.ncp: Server not found (0x8847) when trying to find N2

As for the “volume=†mount option, it is because I've read that this option is mandatory for clustered volumes, unless you want to see the administration volume (or something like that; I'm far from an expert in this area); for non-clustered volumes, ncpfs' default without this option is to mount all volumes (as sub-directories) under a single mount-point. And indeed, until I added this option, the contents of N2's mount point would remain “_admin/†and “sys/â€, which has nothing to do with the contents I need.

Yves.

I corrected a typo in the first post. Still no idea? The access from Linux seems to match that from windows, but maybe my second post will help someone spot a permission issue, a difference somewhere that could explain the strange behaviour…

Yves.

I don't know if that's any help, but here's some more information.

Where I work, we were previously using Novell from server NV1, and now data is being moved to clustered volumes on server NV2.

On Windows boot, here's the current login log:

Contexte actuel : CO.NTE.XT

Utilisateur : USER Contexte : CO.NTE.XT
Arborescence actuelle : TREE
Vous êtes attaché au serveur NV1.
 Nous sommes aujourd'hui Mercredi 20 Mai 2009  


	 BIENVENUE SUR LE SERVEUR		NV1			 

	   Votre identification est 001F160E9D36					
Authentification sur le serveur NV2.
Unité P : = NV2\DATA: \
Authentification sur le serveur NV3.
LOGIN-LGNWNT32.DLL-430 : impossible de terminer l'opération d'assignation d'unités.
 [U:=NV3/USR:] 
le code d'erreur était 8804.
S1: = Z:. [NV1_SYS.:PUBLIC \]
Unité Q : = NV1_SYS.:PUBLIC\
Unité R : = NV2\DATA:SUB\DIR \
Les unités C,D correspondent à un disque local.
Unité F : = NV1_SYS.:\
Unité P : = NV2\DATA: \
Unité Q : = NV1_SYS.:PUBLIC\
Unité R : = NV2\DATA:SUB\DIR \
L'unité X correspond à un disque local.
  -----   Unités de recherche   -----
S1: = C:\Applications\Java\jdk16\bin
S2: = C:\WINDOWS\system32
S3: = C:\WINDOWS
S4: = C:\WINDOWS\System32\Wbem
S5: = C:\WINDOWS\system32\nls
S6: = C:\WINDOWS\system32\nls\FRANCAIS
S7: = Y:. [NV1_SYS.:PUBLIC \]
S8: = Z:. [NV1_SYS.:PUBLIC \]

And here's exactly the contents of my /etc/autofs/auto.ncpfs file:

NV2 -fstype=ncpfs,tcp,ipserver=NV2,volume=data,multiple,uid=501,gid=500,filemode=0664
,dirmode=0775,passwd=PW,codepage=cp850,iocharset=utf8   :NV2/USER.CO.NTE.XT
NV1 -fstype=ncpfs,multiple,uid=501,gid=500,filemode=0664,dirmode=0775,passwd=PW
,codepage=cp850,iocharset=utf8   :NV1/USER.CO.NTE.XT

Also, this line is ran on boot by /etc/rc.d/rc.local: “ipx_configure --auto_interface=on --auto_primary=onâ€

NV1 works OK.

NV2 does not: I see directories, but no files, although I have access to them. For example, I could open a PDF file I knew was there (gnome-open /path/to/file.pdf), even though I could not see the file! As told before, I can also (blindly) create and delete files.

Yves.

I have a very strange problem with a mounted NCP share (remote Novell clustered volume).

Directories are there, but not files!

I mount the share with autofs, but the same happens with mount, or directly with ncpmount. Example mount command:

mount -t ncp -o tcp,ipserver=SERVER,volume=VOL,multiple,uid=501,gid=500,filemode=0664,dirmode=07
75,passwd=PW,codepage=cp850,iocharset=utf8 SERVER/USER test/

(all parts in capitals were substituted).

A “find -noleaf ! -type d†in test/ returns nothing.

Stranger still: I can create and delete a file but I don't see it happen! Example: I ran “touch test/SOME/DIR/test_fileâ€, and a coworker on Windows could see the file, but I could not! And I ran “rm -f test/SOME/DIR/test_file†and my co-worker reported to me that the file disappeared! Neither command gave any error.

Yves.

[edit]Corrected typo: “find†returns nothing when looking for non-directories.[/edit]

And I bought my Intel-based chipset with on-board G950 because I was told that Intel was great on Linux, with strong involvement from Intel for their Linux drivers… I'm very disappointed, and thinking about buying an NVidia card…

Yves.