Present Perfect

Today I ran into a weird problem on my N900. I was clearing some space to put on more music, and to do so I wanted to delete some root images I had on the device.

I had used qchroot to mount each of them to decide whether I could delete them or not. The combination of mount, qchroot and closechroot however seem to have some issues; I'm not 100% convinced closechroot actually properly cleans up. It seems to do so, but running mount after it shows most chroot mounts still active, although you can't actually access them or unmount them by hand.

Anyway, I unmounted them as best as I could, and deleted 3 of them, for a total of 8 GB. However, the disk space wasn't actually freed. Deleting other files worked fine and reclaimed disk space as expected.

I rebooted, thinking that there probably were active references to the blocks, but this didn't fix anything either.

I started digging around for possibly hidden Trash folders, and someone on #maemo suggested that there should be a /home/user/MyDocs/.Trash-1000 but it wasn't there on my device.

Eventually, I found about dosfsck, which is installed on the device, and it said something hopeful:

Reclaimed 109128 unused clusters (7151812608 bytes).
Free cluster summary wrong (5274 vs. really 114402)
1) Correct
2) Don't correct

and after some fiddling to actually make it apply the changes, it dropped the following files in my MyDocs:

FSCK0000.REC
FSCK0001.REC
FSCK0002.REC

They were all about the same size as the images from before, so I deleted these files and voila!

Since I didn't find anything pointing to this using Google, I'm posting it here so that I can find it next time, as well as others that may need it..

Today I ran into a weird problem on my N900. I was clearing some space to put on more music, and to do so I wanted to delete some root...

Linux Magazine March 2010 is full of GStreamer goodness: one article reviewing 4 media players, all of them using GStreamer (Banshee, Rhythmbox, Amarok 2, Songbird), and a three page article on your favourite video editor, PiTiVi!

Linux Magazine March 2010 is full of GStreamer goodness: one article reviewing 4 media players, all of them using GStreamer (Banshee, Rhythmbox, Amarok 2, Songbird), and a three page article...

Tim pointed me to a bug report about GStreamer. I couldn't resist from commenting on a comment that questioned my mental capacity :)

(In reply to comment #4)
> I still wonder who invented such ugly naming scheme for gstreamer plugins?

I don't think you wondered really hard because it's not that hard to find who
did. It was me.

> Who
> is this completely braindamaged guy, who combines all plugins into several
> packs, which names says nothing about their actual content.

If memory serves, the same guy that you met in person some years ago.

> I still hope, that sometimes there will be a great developer, who will split
> these good/bad/ugly/etc packages into something more suitable for end-users.

And I still hope that some people will not assume everyone else is stupid just
because they're talking on the internet.

Whether or not the GStreamer plugin-split and its naming was a good idea is obviously debatable. I still think that we did the right thing there, and he could have read the explanation.

But regardless, people, seem to think that because it's the Internet, common courtesy isn't necessary. Especially in our communities, people can get abrasive online where they wouldn't be in real life because they have a real person in front of them.

Often, these people emulate people like Linus Torvalds, who is known to have a certain abrasiveness. Linus gets away with it because he's made undeniable and genius contributions to the community. The problem are the disciples, taking him as an example, confusing correlation with causality, and copying his abrasive style thinking it will lead to genius.

I'm extrapolating this particular bug report here - I can't or won't comment on his contributions, which are many as well. I know about a lot of them, since he interviewed here for a job a year ago. I'm mentioning this to make sure you know that the Internet is not always as anonymous or isolated as you think it is. You can't delete stuff from the net, and people will evaluate you by your online presence, for better or worse.

And if the person commenting is really interested in the plugin split, feel free to talk to me, but let's keep the chatter out of the bug report.

Now excuse me, I'm late for my CAT scan. Better safe than sorry!

UPDATE: someone commented that I breached etiquette; so I removed some details like the bug report and a part of the comment. I should have thought it through, I had no idea what I did was considered as such. My excuses.

Tim pointed me to a bug report about GStreamer. I couldn't resist from commenting on a comment that questioned my mental capacity :) (In reply to comment #4) > I...

As a collaboration between Mozilla, OpenVideoAlliance, and Flumotion, we're streaming the Slamdance Filmmaker summit.

The stream is in Ogg/Vorbis/Theora, and I'm happy to see an event like this being streamed with an open codec, using our open source technology, on our platform.

Go read the full press release.

And I owe Javier from our support team some Champagne Truffles for setting up the stream between the cracks of our usual process - Javier, the box of chocolates is next to the big pinguin's feet at work!

As a collaboration between Mozilla, OpenVideoAlliance, and Flumotion, we're streaming the Slamdance Filmmaker summit. The stream is in Ogg/Vorbis/Theora, and I'm happy to see an event like this being streamed...

It took quite a bit of blood, sweat, tears, and dirty hacks, but finally:


Nokia-N900-42-11:~# apt-get install desktopcouch
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
couchdb-bin erlang-base erlang-crypto erlang-inets erlang-mnesia
erlang-public-key erlang-runtime-tools erlang-ssl erlang-xmerl libjs
python-desktopcouch python-desktopcouch-records python-keyring
Suggested packages:
couchdb erlang-tools erlang erlang-manpages erlang-doc-html
python-keyring-gnome python-keyring-kwallet
Recommended packages:
erlang-syntax-tools
The following NEW packages will be installed:
couchdb-bin desktopcouch erlang-base erlang-crypto erlang-inets
erlang-mnesia erlang-public-key erlang-runtime-tools erlang-ssl erlang-xmerl
libjs python-desktopcouch python-desktopcouch-records python-keyring
0 upgraded, 14 newly installed, 0 to remove and 9 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B/12,5MB of archives.
After this operation, 27,9MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?
WARNING: The following packages cannot be authenticated!
erlang-base erlang-crypto erlang-mnesia erlang-runtime-tools
erlang-public-key erlang-ssl erlang-inets erlang-xmerl libjs couchdb-bin
python-keyring python-desktopcouch python-desktopcouch-records desktopcouch
Install these packages without verification [y/N]? y
Selecting previously deselected package erlang-base.
(Reading database ... 27651 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking erlang-base (from .../erlang-base_1%3a13.b.2.1-dfsg-3maemo2_armel.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package erlang-crypto.
Unpacking erlang-crypto (from .../erlang-crypto_1%3a13.b.2.1-dfsg-3maemo2_armel.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package erlang-mnesia.
Unpacking erlang-mnesia (from .../erlang-mnesia_1%3a13.b.2.1-dfsg-3maemo2_armel.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package erlang-runtime-tools.
Unpacking erlang-runtime-tools (from .../erlang-runtime-tools_1%3a13.b.2.1-dfsg-3maemo2_armel.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package erlang-public-key.
Unpacking erlang-public-key (from .../erlang-public-key_1%3a13.b.2.1-dfsg-3maemo2_armel.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package erlang-ssl.
Unpacking erlang-ssl (from .../erlang-ssl_1%3a13.b.2.1-dfsg-3maemo2_armel.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package erlang-inets.
Unpacking erlang-inets (from .../erlang-inets_1%3a13.b.2.1-dfsg-3maemo2_armel.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package erlang-xmerl.
Unpacking erlang-xmerl (from .../erlang-xmerl_1%3a13.b.2.1-dfsg-3maemo2_armel.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package libjs.
Unpacking libjs (from .../libjs_1.8.0-rc1-1_armel.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package couchdb-bin.
Unpacking couchdb-bin (from .../couchdb-bin_0.10.0-0maemo3_armel.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package python-keyring.
Unpacking python-keyring (from .../python-keyring_0.2-3_all.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package python-desktopcouch.
Unpacking python-desktopcouch (from .../python-desktopcouch_0.5.1-0maemo1_all.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package python-desktopcouch-records.
Unpacking python-desktopcouch-records (from .../python-desktopcouch-records_0.5.1-0maemo1_all.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package desktopcouch.
Unpacking desktopcouch (from .../desktopcouch_0.5.1-0maemo1_all.deb) ...
Setting up erlang-base (1:13.b.2.1-dfsg-3maemo2) ...
Searching for services which depend on erlang and should be started...none found.
Setting up erlang-crypto (1:13.b.2.1-dfsg-3maemo2) ...
Setting up erlang-mnesia (1:13.b.2.1-dfsg-3maemo2) ...
Setting up erlang-runtime-tools (1:13.b.2.1-dfsg-3maemo2) ...
Setting up erlang-public-key (1:13.b.2.1-dfsg-3maemo2) ...
Setting up erlang-ssl (1:13.b.2.1-dfsg-3maemo2) ...
Setting up erlang-inets (1:13.b.2.1-dfsg-3maemo2) ...
Setting up erlang-xmerl (1:13.b.2.1-dfsg-3maemo2) ...
Setting up libjs (1.8.0-rc1-1) ...
Setting up couchdb-bin (0.10.0-0maemo3) ...
Setting up python-keyring (0.2-3) ...
Setting up python-desktopcouch (0.5.1-0maemo1) ...
Setting up python-desktopcouch-records (0.5.1-0maemo1) ...
Setting up desktopcouch (0.5.1-0maemo1) ...
Nokia-N900-42-11:~# dbus-send --session --dest=org.desktopcouch.CouchDB \
> --print-reply --type=method_call / \
> org.desktopcouch.CouchDB.getPort
method return sender=:1.516 -> dest=:1.515 reply_serial=2
int32 53864
Nokia-N900-42-11:~#


Among other things, I had to:

• port desktopcouch to use python-keyring as suggested by the desktopcouch hackers, although I'm not sure what they now want to do with it since there's no way to make it compatible with their current way of storing in gnome-keyring
• Build the arm parts of erlang and couchdb on my phone in a chroot, since qemu-arm-sb actually hangs when executing erlc. Had to build it in an actual maemo chroot as well; the easy-deb chroot was not a solution since it comes with newer C and ssl libraries.
• figure out how to package spidermonkey, instead of depending on xulrunner the way the debian couchdb does
• package lots of missing packages; for example, while maemo has avahi, it didn't have the python bindings built.

For the adventurous, I think you should be able to download tao.install on your phone, then go to console and run the same apt-get install command as I did. Please let me know if it worked for you !

Now, need to figure out (or get told by the desktopcouch hackers) how I can set up pairing with UbuntuOne for my data without needing to port the whole gnome applet...

It took quite a bit of blood, sweat, tears, and dirty hacks, but finally: Nokia-N900-42-11:~# apt-get install desktopcouch Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done The...