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debian-user-digest Digest V2007 #2092

From: <debian-user-digest-request(at)lists.debian.org>
Date: Fri Aug 03 2007 - 15:46:14 EDT


Content-Type: text/plain

debian-user-digest Digest Volume 2007 : Issue 2092

Today's Topics: 

  Re: design focus [was Large initrd,   [ David Brodbeck  ]
  Re: scp non-overwrite option          [ Bhasker C V  ]
  Re: ext3fs errors with kernel 2.6.18  [ Brad Sawatzky 

Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2007 09:51:25 -0700


From: David Brodbeck <brodbd@u.washington.edu>
To: List Debian User <debian-user@lists.debian.org>
Subject: Re: design focus [was Large initrd, was booting problem (udev related?)]

Message-Id: <50F3AFDE-8A26-4C3F-ABB8-9BC6237E677F@u.washington.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed
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On Aug 3, 2007, at 9:25 AM, Douglas Allan Tutty wrote:


> I guess the problem is related to this notion of trying to compete  
> with
> MS.  If people 'buy' brand A because they like features x,y, and z,  
> and
> brand B has the goal of gaining market share, it will tend to morph  
> into
> a clone (feature-wise) of brand A.  However, it will tend to take on
> some of the compromises of brand B that go with features x, y, and z.
>
> I stick with debian on my big box because of inertia, the debian  
> policy,
> the debian security support for all packages in debian/main, and the
> absolute ease of applying bug fixes with aptitude.  Debian also  
> supports
> my trackball mouse's scroll wheel (IMPS/2) whereas OpenBSD does not.
> However, my older computers are transitioning away from Debian to BSD
> because of the newer debian (perhaps all linuxes) being so much slower
> on them than either older debians or new BSDs.

I don't think it's so much Microsoft's influence as it is a  
difference in philosophy.  Linux distributions put a lot of effort  
into being convenient desktop OSs.  BSD tends to be aimed more at  
servers, where things like hotplugging aren't as important.  If you  
have to check dmesg for the right device node and then run 'mount' to  
access a USB flash drive on a server, it doesn't matter much because  
you aren't going to be doing that often.  If you have to do that on  
your desktop machine every time you plug in your digital camera, it  
gets old in a hurry.  For that matter, ten years ago Linux  
distributions were already doing fully automated installers while  
NetBSD and OpenBSD still required you to get out a calculator to  
figure out the cylinder boundaries for the slices on your hard disk.   
The two OSs just occupy different points on the easy of use vs.  
compactness scale.


Do you need help?X

You see this in hardware support, too.  Linux tries to support the  
newest stuff, because that's what's in desktop machines (and  
sometimes suffers instability because of it), while BSD tends to take  
a more conservative approach.  Hardware that's seen in desktops but  
rarely in servers often isn't supported or maintained well in BSD,  
because it's just not a priority.  (The 3c509 ethernet driver, for  
example, was buggy for *years* in FreeBSD.  It never really got  
fixed, the cards just became obsolete. ;)  Another example: The  
Marvell Yukon gigabit ethernet chipset, common in desktops but rare  
in servers, is much slower under FreeBSD than under Linux.)



It could be for your particular application, BSD is just the right  
tool for the job.



Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2007 19:05:54 +0200


From: Adrian Chapela <achapela.rexistros@gmail.com>
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org


Cc: debian user <debian-user@lists.debian.org>
Subject: Re: Looking for driver Compal EL80

Message-ID: <46B36072.2000504@gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable


Jeff D escribi=F3:

> On Fri, 3 Aug 2007, Adrian Chapela wrote:
>
>> Hello,
>>
>> I am looking for a driver for the wireless / bluetooth switcher of a=20
>> Compal El80 laptop. Some tips ??
>>
>> I can't find this to active / de-active the wireless or the bluetooth=20
>> by soft. The laptop has a hardware switch but it also has a software=20
>> switch to active BT or Wireless or two at time.
>>
>> Can you say me the right direction to find the driver ??
>>
>> Thank you.
>>
>>
>> --=20
>
> With out know what kind of wireless card you have in there, it's tough=20
> to say.  But from digging around a little it looks like you might have=20
> an intel 3945ABG. You can find out more info on how to get that=20
> compiled here: http://ipw3945.sourceforge.net/.  If thats not the=20
> wireless card you have, we would need to find out what you have in ther=

e.


Yes I have this card but my problem isn't the card support, it is the=20
support for the switcher, BT / WLAN Switcher... understand you now ??



The card is very well supported at this moment, but I can't find any=20
driver, application to de/activate  BT or WLAN.



Thank you!

>
>
> -+-
> 8 out of 10 Owners who Expressed a Preference said Their Cats=20
> Preferred Techno.
>
>
Do you need more help?X

Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2007 19:43:08 +0200


From: Adrian Chapela <achapela.rexistros@gmail.com>
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org


Cc: debian-user@lists.debian.org


Subject: Re: Looking for driver Compal EL80

Message-ID: <46B3692C.7080601@gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

Can we help you?X

Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable


Adrian Chapela escribi=F3:

> Jeff D escribi=F3:
>> On Fri, 3 Aug 2007, Adrian Chapela wrote:
>>
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> I am looking for a driver for the wireless / bluetooth switcher of a=20
>>> Compal El80 laptop. Some tips ??
>>>
>>> I can't find this to active / de-active the wireless or the=20
>>> bluetooth by soft. The laptop has a hardware switch but it also has=20
>>> a software switch to active BT or Wireless or two at time.
>>>
>>> Can you say me the right direction to find the driver ??
>>>
>>> Thank you.
>>>
>>>
>>> --=20
>>
>> With out know what kind of wireless card you have in there, it's=20
>> tough to say.  But from digging around a little it looks like you=20
>> might have an intel 3945ABG. You can find out more info on how to get=20
>> that compiled here: http://ipw3945.sourceforge.net/.  If thats not=20
>> the wireless card you have, we would need to find out what you have=20
>> in there.
> Yes I have this card but my problem isn't the card support, it is the=20
> support for the switcher, BT / WLAN Switcher... understand you now ??
>
> The card is very well supported at this moment, but I can't find any=20
> driver, application to de/activate  BT or WLAN.
>
> Thank you!
>>
>>
>> -+-
>> 8 out of 10 Owners who Expressed a Preference said Their Cats=20
>> Preferred Techno.
>>
>>

Could be a problem with rf_kill switch. It has a value of 2. I need to=20
assign to 0 but when I execute "echo 0 > rf_kill" and the "cat rf_kill"=20
I see a value of 2, it's strange no ??


>
>

Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2007 23:08:16 +0530


From: "Masatran, R. Deepak" <masatran@research.iiit.ac.in>
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org


Cc: sam+deb@zoy.org, zorglub@debian.org


Subject: VLC missing from Debian Testing repository!

Message-ID: <20070803173816.GA23879@research.iiit.ac.in>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Disposition: inline


I am looking for VLC. Aptitude is unable to locate it, so I looked at the
website. I find that it is present in Stable, Unstable, and OldStable, but
not in Testing <http://packages.debian.org/vlc>!


-- 
Masatran, R. Deepak <
http://research.iiit.ac.in/~masatran/>

-- 
This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
believed to be clean.


Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2007 20:07:12 +0200
From: Franck Joncourt <franck.joncourt@wanadoo.fr>
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: VLC missing from Debian Testing repository!
Message-ID: <20070803180712.GB11029@sid.toystory.lan>
Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1;
	protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="DBIVS5p969aUjpLe"
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On Fri, Aug 03, 2007 at 11:08:16PM +0530, Masatran, R. Deepak wrote:

> I am looking for VLC. Aptitude is unable to locate it, so I looked at the
> website. I find that it is present in Stable, Unstable, and OldStable, but
> not in Testing <http://packages.debian.org/vlc>!
>=20


More information on this page :

http://packages.qa.debian.org/v/vlc.html

--=20
Franck Joncourt
http://www.debian.org - http://smhteam.info/wiki/
GPG server : pgpkeys.mit.edu
Fingerprint : C10E D1D0 EF70 0A2A CACF 9A3C C490 534E 75C0 89FE

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WNcYHg3kRe8dP9YgFBRMYgA=
=lrTi
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--DBIVS5p969aUjpLe--


Can't find what you're looking for?X

Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2007 23:23:06 +0530
From: Bhasker C V <bhasker@unixindia.com>
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
Subject: converting file system
Message-Id: <1186163586.7783.1.camel@h1.unixindia.com>
Content-Type: text/plain
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All,

 Is there a method to convert an ext3 file system created with -T
largefile4 to a normal ext3 file system with normal block sizes ?
(without losing data).
Thanks
-- 
Bhasker C V
Registered Linux user: #306349 (counter.li.org)
The box said "Requires Windows 95, NT, or better", so I installed Linux.



Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2007 23:24:41 +0530
From: Bhasker C V <bhasker@unixindia.com>
To: Bob Proulx <bob@proulx.com>
Cc: debian-user@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: scp non-overwrite option
Message-Id: <1186163681.7783.3.camel@h1.unixindia.com>
Content-Type: text/plain
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Thanks Bob.

On Thu, 2007-08-02 at 23:17 -0600, Bob Proulx wrote:

> Bhasker C V wrote:
> >   I was trying to scp a large directory from server to my box (server on
> > FC and my desktop on etch). I use scp -r option to copy all the files.
> > But when it happens that the scp fails somewhere, i cannot ask it to
> > continue by omitting the ones it has already copied.
> 
> This is a perfect application for 'rsync'.
> 
>   rsync -av /from/here/dir example.com:/to/there/
> 
> The rsync program will only copy what needs to be copied.  This means
> it can be interrupted and restarted and will quite efficiently
> complete the copy without transmitting the previously copied data.
> 
> > For example in the standard cp command, i can give a '-i' option to
> > interactively ask if the command is going to overwrite a file
> > already present.
> 
> Grr...  That is a blunt and coarse use of 'cp -i'.  You would have to
> answer 'n'o to a lot of questions.  Or use 'yes n | cp -i' and that
> seems worse.  Of course 'cp -u' will avoid copying the previously
> copied files too but better to use rsync here.
> 
> > Why is this option not present in scp ?
> 
> Because it is not needed because it exists in other commands.  scp is
> simply an rcp lookalike command.
> 
> Bob
> 
> 

-- 
Bhasker C V
Registered Linux user: #306349 (counter.li.org)
The box said "Requires Windows 95, NT, or better", so I installed Linux.



Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2007 14:28:58 -0400
From: Brad Sawatzky <brad+debian@swatter.net>
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: ext3fs errors with kernel 2.6.18 but not with 2.4.27
Message-ID: <20070803182858.GA24411@enigma.swatter.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Disposition: inline

On Fri, 03 Aug 2007, Francois Duranleau wrote:

[ . . . ]

> Now, when I boot my computer using the new kernel, I get an error
> message during filesystem check saying it contains errors (sorry, I
> don't have a more precise error message, and I have no logs) and
> it then mounts the filesystem read-only. If I boot back with the
> 2.4.27 kernel, no problems. I do get often though an error message
> like this:
>   hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
>   hda: dma_intr: error=0x84 { DriveStatusError BadCRC }
> and then sometimes:
>   ide0: reset: success
> I have been having this for a long time (even after I changed to a
> new hard drive), and only when DMA is active, but I never noticed
> anything bad happening except for those error messages.

[ . . . ]

You have either:
  1) a bad ide cable, or
  2) a bad motherboard (IDE connector, timing, flakey chipset, who knows).

Try using a new IDE cable and see if the error messages go away.  Be sure
to use an 80 wire cable and not an old ATA/33 era 40 wire cable.  If you
have two devices on the same cable, it could be that the second device is
causing problems too.

(2) is pretty unlikely unless it's a really old board.

HTH,
-- Brad



Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2007 14:16:35 -0400
From: "Francois Duranleau" <xiao.bai.xiong@gmail.com>
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
Subject: ext3fs errors with kernel 2.6.18 but not with 2.4.27
Message-ID: <8eb883950708031116o22193437md088ac0058ecf882@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
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Hi!

I have a somewhat strange problem at home. Lately, I decided to
finally update my kernel from 2.4.27 to 2.6.18 (actually now it
would be 2.6.21, but when I tried it was 2.6.18). I installed the
source package, compiled the kernel as I used to with the previous
one (didn't change much the configuration) and installed the image
(the boot loader I use is grub).

Now, when I boot my computer using the new kernel, I get an error
message during filesystem check saying it contains errors (sorry, I
don't have a more precise error message, and I have no logs) and
it then mounts the filesystem read-only. If I boot back with the
2.4.27 kernel, no problems. I do get often though an error message
like this:

hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hda: dma_intr: error=0x84 { DriveStatusError BadCRC }

and then sometimes:

ide0: reset: success

I have been having this for a long time (even after I changed to a
new hard drive), and only when DMA is active, but I never noticed
anything bad happening except for those error messages.

Recently, I tried to update my system, but the new glibc package
requires kernel 2.6, which I can't run. So now I am stuck. I can't
upgrade my system unless I make the 2.6 kernel work.

Anybody has an idea of what may be wrong? Why do I get filesystem
errors with the 2.6 kernel but not with 2.4?

For reference, my system runs lenny with a custom-built kernel
(2.4.27, and I use kernel-package; same for 2.6.18; 2.4.27 is
compiled with gcc-3.3 and 2.6.18 with gcc-4.1). It's CPU is an old
AMD Athlon Thunderbird 1.1GHz with 1.25GB of memory. The hard
drive is a Western Digital 80GB. There is no dual-boot.

I posted some details about my kernel configurations here:

http://www-etud.iro.umontreal.ca/~duranlef/linux-config/

--
Francois



Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2007 20:07:02 +0200
From: Florian Kulzer <florian.kulzer+debian@icfo.es>
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: VLC missing from Debian Testing repository!
Message-ID: <20070803180702.GA5481@localhost>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Disposition: inline

On Fri, Aug 03, 2007 at 23:08:16 +0530, Masatran, R. Deepak wrote:

> I am looking for VLC. Aptitude is unable to locate it, so I looked at the
> website. I find that it is present in Stable, Unstable, and OldStable, but
> not in Testing <http://packages.debian.org/vlc>!
http://bjorn.haxx.se/debian/testing.pl?package=vlc

-- 
Regards,            | http://users.icfo.es/Florian.Kulzer
          Florian   |



Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2007 14:35:09 -0400
From: Douglas Allan Tutty <dtutty@porchlight.ca>
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: converting file system
Message-ID: <20070803183509.GA9723@titan>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Disposition: inline

On Fri, Aug 03, 2007 at 11:23:06PM +0530, Bhasker C V wrote:

> 
>  Is there a method to convert an ext3 file system created with -T
> largefile4 to a normal ext3 file system with normal block sizes ?
> (without losing data).


I don't think that -t largefile changes the size of block sizes but
changes the number of blocks per inode (but I'm hazy on such details).
Looking at tune2fs, I don't see any related options.

So I doubt it.  How you proceed depends on what mount point we're
talking about.  Hopefully, its not /.  Anything else you can 'fix' by
doing a backup, going single-user, unmount the partition, remake the
filesystem, mount it, and restore the backup, then shutdown back to
multi-user.

Doug.



Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2007 14:39:57 -0400
From: Douglas Allan Tutty <dtutty@porchlight.ca>
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: ext3fs errors with kernel 2.6.18 but not with 2.4.27
Message-ID: <20070803183957.GB9723@titan>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Disposition: inline

On Fri, Aug 03, 2007 at 02:28:58PM -0400, Brad Sawatzky wrote:

> On Fri, 03 Aug 2007, Francois Duranleau wrote:
> 
> [ . . . ]
> > Now, when I boot my computer using the new kernel, I get an error
> > message during filesystem check saying it contains errors (sorry, I
> > don't have a more precise error message, and I have no logs) and
> > it then mounts the filesystem read-only. If I boot back with the
> > 2.4.27 kernel, no problems. I do get often though an error message
> > like this:
> >   hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
> >   hda: dma_intr: error=0x84 { DriveStatusError BadCRC }
> > and then sometimes:
> >   ide0: reset: success
> > I have been having this for a long time (even after I changed to a
> > new hard drive), and only when DMA is active, but I never noticed
> > anything bad happening except for those error messages.
> [ . . . ]
> 
> You have either:
>   1) a bad ide cable, or
>   2) a bad motherboard (IDE connector, timing, flakey chipset, who knows).
> 
> Try using a new IDE cable and see if the error messages go away.  Be sure
> to use an 80 wire cable and not an old ATA/33 era 40 wire cable.  If you
> have two devices on the same cable, it could be that the second device is
> causing problems too.
> 
> (2) is pretty unlikely unless it's a really old board.


But why would he only get the errors with a new kernel?


To get the 'logs', with the system in single-user with the fs mounted
ro, can you mount a usbstick or floppy and copy dmesg to it?  If the
messages aren't there, set up a serial console and capture the messages
there.  

Doug.



Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2007 15:01:23 -0400
From: Brad Sawatzky <brad+debian@swatter.net>
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: ext3fs errors with kernel 2.6.18 but not with 2.4.27
Message-ID: <20070803190123.GA31027@enigma.swatter.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Disposition: inline

Hi Douglas,

On Fri, 03 Aug 2007, Douglas Allan Tutty wrote:


> On Fri, Aug 03, 2007 at 02:28:58PM -0400, Brad Sawatzky wrote:
> > On Fri, 03 Aug 2007, Francois Duranleau wrote:
> > [ . . . ]
> > > Now, when I boot my computer using the new kernel, I get an error
> > > message during filesystem check saying it contains errors (sorry, I
> > > don't have a more precise error message, and I have no logs) and
> > > it then mounts the filesystem read-only. If I boot back with the
> > > 2.4.27 kernel, no problems. I do get often though an error message
> > > like this:
> > >   hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
> > >   hda: dma_intr: error=0x84 { DriveStatusError BadCRC }
> > > and then sometimes:
> > >   ide0: reset: success
> > > I have been having this for a long time (even after I changed to a
> > > new hard drive), and only when DMA is active, but I never noticed
> > > anything bad happening except for those error messages.
> > [ . . . ]
> 
> But why would he only get the errors with a new kernel?


Perhaps I misunderstood, but I thought he got the errors with the old
kernel (and had for a long time) but they did not trigger a filesystem
check.  My hunch was that the 2.6.x IDE driver (or ext3 driver) is handling
the error condition in a different way.  Perhaps not retrying at all on the
CRC error, or maybe having a shorter time-out on the retry, who knows...

If he only gets the errors under 2.6.x and not 2.4.27 then it looks more
like a driver issue.  Perhaps his 2.6.x kernel is using the new 'merged'
SATA+PATA subsystem to handle his PATA drive instead of the old ATA/ATAPI
driver and that is causing the problem.

-- Brad


Don't know where to look next?X

Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2007 15:41:52 -0300
From: Jeronimo Pellegrini <pellegrini@mpcnet.com.br>
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: converting file system
Message-ID: <20070803184152.GA32379@randomnode.info>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Disposition: inline

On Fri, Aug 03, 2007 at 02:35:09PM -0400, Douglas Allan Tutty wrote:

> So I doubt it.  How you proceed depends on what mount point we're
> talking about.  Hopefully, its not /.  Anything else you can 'fix' by
> doing a backup, going single-user, unmount the partition, remake the
> filesystem, mount it, and restore the backup, then shutdown back to
> multi-user.


Or use convertfs.

(apt-cache show convertfs)

J.



Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2007 15:06:49 -0400
From: "Andrew J. Barr" <andrew.james.barr@gmail.com>
To: "Jeronimo Pellegrini" <pellegrini@mpcnet.com.br>,
	debian-user@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: converting file system
Message-ID: <903e17bb0708031206i519105e7of0897381e38320a5@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Disposition: inline

On 8/3/07, Jeronimo Pellegrini <pellegrini@mpcnet.com.br> wrote:

> On Fri, Aug 03, 2007 at 02:35:09PM -0400, Douglas Allan Tutty wrote:
> > So I doubt it.  How you proceed depends on what mount point we're
> > talking about.  Hopefully, its not /.  Anything else you can 'fix' by
> > doing a backup, going single-user, unmount the partition, remake the
> > filesystem, mount it, and restore the backup, then shutdown back to
> > multi-user.
>
> Or use convertfs.
>
> (apt-cache show convertfs)
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=386967
> J.

Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2007 12:40:39 -0700
From: Andrew Sackville-West <andrew@farwestbilliards.com>
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: design focus [was Large initrd, was booting problem (udev
	related?)]
Message-ID: <20070803194039.GA31947@localhost.localdomain>
Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1;
	protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="vtzGhvizbBRQ85DL"
Content-Disposition: inline

--vtzGhvizbBRQ85DL
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On Fri, Aug 03, 2007 at 12:25:15PM -0400, Douglas Allan Tutty wrote:

> On Fri, Aug 03, 2007 at 05:54:57PM +0300, Andrei Popescu wrote:
> > On Thu, Aug 02, 2007 at 08:34:00PM -0400, Douglas Allan Tutty wrote:
> > =20
> > > However, don't all those modules in the initrd end up staying in the
> > > kernel anyway, or do they get unloaded during boot?  If they stay, and
> > > 'most' modules get added, how is that different than having a huge
> > > monolithic kernel?  It may not matter on a box with huge memory, but I
> > > have mostly small-memory boxes.
> >=20
> > I may be wrong, but I think that only the needed modules are actually=

=20

> > loaded.


I think this is correct, only the needed modules are actually loaded
into the kernel. The initrd makes the *available* for loading. And
when / pivots, I think the initrd memory gets freed. So its really
only an issue during the initial bootstrap. A really large initrd on a
memory-bound machine could get in the way. A really large initrd on an
I/O bound machine can take a long time to load in. But, IMO, for
general purpose machines, its not a big deal.


> >=20
> > > As for xorg-video-foo, that's why I don't install the xorg metapackag=

e.

> > > I choose from its dependencies what I need. =20
> >=20
> > Same here
>=20
> All these extra packages together take a lot of disk space, a lot of
> download bandwidth to install and maintain.


yeah, the extra packages definitely are an issue. I'm not so sure tht
the extra kernel modules are all that big a deal in the long run. but
that's just a gut feeling.


>=20
> >=20
> > > /rant
> > >=20
> > > There's a growing kitchen-sink approach in Debian (perhaps all of Lin=

ux,

> > > I don't know).  There's the kernel/initrd size, there's the variable
> > > device name problems, to name two.  It suggests to me that there's a
> > > missing piece of infrastructure.  Perhaps the installer system should
> > > create a hardware inventory file that initrdtools (or whatever the
> > > nom de jure) can access to generate a tailord initrd, that apt can
> > > consult for what drivers to download, etc.  The installer rescue mode
> > > could offer a tool to regenerate the inventory file for times when one
> > > changes hardware.
> > >=20
> > > /end rant
> >=20
> > True, but you have to consider the competition.=20
>=20
> I guess the problem is related to this notion of trying to compete with
> MS.  If people 'buy' brand A because they like features x,y, and z, and
> brand B has the goal of gaining market share, it will tend to morph into
> a clone (feature-wise) of brand A.  However, it will tend to take on
> some of the compromises of brand B that go with features x, y, and z. =20
>=20


I think that on the whole, debian strikes a decent balance. You get
the kitchen sink, but have the option to switch over to a bare pipe
sticking out of the wall for no charge other than your own labor. :)

A

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Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2007 15:25:10 -0400
From: Douglas Allan Tutty <dtutty@porchlight.ca>
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: converting file system
Message-ID: <20070803192510.GA10724@titan>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Disposition: inline

On Fri, Aug 03, 2007 at 03:41:52PM -0300, Jeronimo Pellegrini wrote:

> On Fri, Aug 03, 2007 at 02:35:09PM -0400, Douglas Allan Tutty wrote:
> > So I doubt it.  How you proceed depends on what mount point we're
> > talking about.  Hopefully, its not /.  Anything else you can 'fix' by
> > doing a backup, going single-user, unmount the partition, remake the
> > filesystem, mount it, and restore the backup, then shutdown back to
> > multi-user.
> 
> Or use convertfs.
> 
> (apt-cache show convertfs)


I don't see any such package (aptitude search convertfs) in either i386
or amd64.  http://packages.debian.org/convertfs doesn't show any
such package.

Doug.

End of debian-user-digest Digest V2007 Issue #2092
**************************************************

Received on Fri Aug  3 15:43:04 2007

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.8 : Thu Aug 09 2007 - 19:05:39 EDT

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