this girl drives a tank

I was able to run the Anritsu software under Wine with some success although there were a couple of segfaults along the way, the only think I haven't tried is the serial connection to the actual sweep machine because I don't have permission to take one of these machines home at the moment (they're about $40,000). However most of what I need to do can be done on my home computer using Debian which makes me happy.

My backup desktop works fine now with Xorg 7 and this morning after close to a month of not doing any upgrades on my main desktop I finally took the plunge and did an apt-get dist-upgrade. It pulled in almost 400mb of updated packages and I was able to get X working again in about 10 minutes so all in all it was worth all the troubles I had on my not so important backup machine.

My blog was down for a while because it had been moved to a new machine but it came back to life with no intervention on my part because Jeff was nice enough to back everything up for me!

There is actually a mirror of this site thanks to the magic of rsync so even if he hadn't been so diligent I would have been able to restore it, nevertheless, thanks Jeff :-)

So the saga of my backup desktop continues, but tonight I tried actually reading my error messages :-)

armarda:~#  m-a a-i nvidia
The source tarball could not be found!
Package nvidia-kernel-source not installed?
Running 'm-a -f get nvidia-kernel-source' may help.
Target package file /usr/src/nvidia-kernel-2.6.15_1.0.8178-1_i386.deb already
exists, not rebuilding!

I apparently didn't even have the nvidia-kernel-source installed. After running the command the error message suggested I got a new module built and finally apt-get install nvidia-glx worked. However restarting X and reloading the nvidia kernel module still gave me an error about versions this time.

armarda:~#  egrep '^\((EE|WW)\)' /var/log/Xorg.0.log
(WW) The directory "/usr/share/fonts/X11/cyrillic" does not exist.
(EE) NVIDIA(0): Version mismatch detected between the NVIDIA X driver and the
(EE) NVIDIA(0):      NVIDIA GLX module.  X driver version: 1.0-8178; GLX
(EE) NVIDIA(0):      module version: 1.0-8756.  Please try reinstalling the
(EE) NVIDIA(0):      NVIDIA driver.
(EE) Failed to initialize GLX extension (Compatible NVIDIA X driver not found)

I don't understand now what this 'X driver' is really, all my relevant packages seem to be in order:

armarda:~#  dpkg -l | grep nvidia
ii  nvidia-glx                 1.0.8756-4 NVIDIA binary XFree86 4.x driver
ii  nvidia-kernel-2.6.15       1.0.8756-4 NVIDIA binary kernel module for Linux 2.6.15
ii  nvidia-kernel-source       1.0.8756-4 NVIDIA binary kernel module source
ii  nvidia-kernel-common       20051028+1 NVIDIA binary kernel module common files

Ah well, I will leave it for tonight and do something else but take some small measure of satisfaction that its close to being fixed. And also manpages-dev installed again finally so thank you to whomever fixed that bug :)

I need to get this software working in linux, I used to use vmware but no longer have a key, so I am going to try Wine this time and hope that it works. The Anritsu software is horribly written but I am forced to use it. It basically records a graph of a signal sent up the cable in our radio rooms, all the way up the tower to the antenna and then back down to the test equipment again. We can then see every little bump in the cable no matter how small and every connection point along the way and can estimate how much loss should be there and compare it to actual loss.

Our contractors are responsible for sending these sweeps into us but they often cheat and try to hide problems, for instance, if they damage a cable installing it, they might sweep another cable of similar length and label it as the damaged one, and I have to try to spot this :-\ Really I don't care though, most times if its a small bump I let it go, but sometimes, depending on my mood its fun to try and outwit them :-)

One of the major problems is that the sweeps have to be labeled in a certain way, so I know what site they come from, what antenna it is, what frequency and so on. The contractors always do this wrong or omit stuff so its like a huge dull, repetitive, chore for me each week.

Anyway, I thought if I can get it to work in linux that means I can take some of it home and pick at it while doing more interesting things with my computer.

Here is someone, obviously a newbie to linux, asking for general help. Link.

Being totally ignorant of any type of Linux based OS, I'm going to ask a stupid question. Does Debain use a GUI or does it use a DOSesk black screen and typing in commands to get things cooking ? Yes I was raised on GUI ala "Windows" but I'm interested in trying to move away from the jugernaut. If you don't mind giving me info or even a website so I can research my own question. I just don't know where to look first Thanks for your time Michael

Note the two follow ups, Christoph Haas's helpful post and yet another Paul Johnson post that does very little, if anything to actually help the user. Once again, why even bother if that's all you have to offer?

I am no closer to solving my Nvidia problems on my backup desktop, I tried to build the module manually but it complained my kernel was compiled with gcc 3 but my compiler was gcc 4, so I recompiled my kernel and then tried again.

armarda:~#  cd /usr/src/modules/nvidia-kernel/
armarda:/usr/src/modules/nvidia-kernel#  debian/rules binary_modules
[snip...bunch of output...]
nv-linux.h: At top level:
nv-linux.h:711: error: conflicting types for 'pm_message_t'
/lib/modules/2.6.15/build/include/linux/pm.h:143: error: previous declaration
of 'pm_message_t' was here
In file included from nv.c:14:
nv-linux.h:744:2: warning: #warning "conftest.sh failed, assuming
remap_page_range(4)!"
nv.c:307: warning: initialization from incompatible pointer type
nv.c: In function 'nvos_get_agp_device_by_class':
nv.c:512: warning: implicit declaration of function 'pci_find_class'
nv.c:512: warning: assignment makes pointer from integer without a cast
nv.c:526: warning: assignment makes pointer from integer without a cast
[snip....]
nv.c:3682: error: too few arguments to function 'agp_backend_acquire'
nv.c:3684: error: too few arguments to function 'agp_backend_release'
nv.c: In function 'nvos_count_devices':
nv.c:3793: warning: assignment makes pointer from integer without a cast
nv.c:3799: warning: assignment makes pointer from integer without a cast
make[1]: *** [nv.o] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/modules/nvidia-kernel/nv'
make: *** [build-stamp] Error 2

At work we have many cell phone and wireless internet antennas scattered across the country and each one has to be aligned to within a couple of degrees. In the past we relied on the contractor who installed the antenna to align it but many times drive tests showed that these antennas were wrong.

We then decided to use a surveying company that used a transit and an aligning tool with prisms and fancy sights. This was really accurate, to within a half of a degree but extremely expensive. Now our engineers thought requiring the contractors to use a handheld GPS receiver like the Garwin 60CS would be a great alternative so we had some contractors buy some of these and went about testing the accuracy.

Unfortunately, right in the manual, it says the unit is susceptible to electromagnetic interference, just like a regular compass is. The only way to align an antenna on a 350ft tower is to climb up there and sit behind the antenna with the GPS unit and of course, since the top of the tower is where all the antennas are there is quite alot of electromagnetic interference.

So in short the experiment was pretty much a disaster but the GPS unit ended up on my desk and I got to play with it. I was able to set it up to show various places like my house, my parents house, the gym and lots of other places I routinely travel to and then as I drove there the little map tells me what streets are coming up and where to turn.

Its fun for a little bit but not very useful as the screen is quite small and distracting to read when your driving, hooked to a laptop display I would imagine this thing would be really cool.

I also think for outdoorsy types, you would never get lost and it would seem especially great for boaters and fisherman. But for me, unless I suddenly get interested in geocaching I doubt this device will do me much good.

I did note a Debian package for gpsdrive so I will install that and see what fun I can get up to :-)

Thanks to the tireless work of Debian's X team, most of the xorg7 bugs have been worked out and I am one package away from getting X to work on my backup desktop and can then upgrade my main desktop.

My Nvidia card needs the nvidia-glx package (I think) as I am still getting this error:

armarda:~#  egrep '^\((EE|WW)\)' /var/log/Xorg.0.log
(WW) The directory "/usr/share/fonts/X11/cyrillic" does not exist.
(EE) NVIDIA(0): Failed to initialize the GLX module; please check in your X
(EE) NVIDIA(0):      log file that the GLX module has been loaded in your X
(EE) NVIDIA(0):      server, and that the module is the NVIDIA GLX module.  If
(EE) NVIDIA(0):      you continue to encounter problems, Please try
(EE) NVIDIA(0):      reinstalling the NVIDIA driver.

According to this bug report I need to either wait or compile my own module, which I am willing to do if only I knew how :-)

I think I saw this on slashdot and it's quite worrisome that MS would be included by anyone when it comes to drafting up laws. Oklahoma Gazette:

If you click that accept button on the routine user's agreement, the proposed law would allow any company from whom you bought upgradable software the freedom to come onto your computer for detection or prevention of the unauthorized use of or fraudulent or other illegal activities in connection with a network, service, or computer software, including scanning for and removing computer software prescribed under this act. That means that Microsoft (or another company with such software) can erase spyware or viruses. But if you have, say, a pirated copy of Excel? Microsoft (or companies with similar software) can erase it, or anything else they want to erase, and not be held liable for it. Additionally, that phrase fraudulent or other illegal activities means they can: -Let the local district attorney know that you wrote a hot check last month. -Let the attorney general know that you play online poker. -Let the tax commission know you bought cartons of cigarettes and didn't?t pay the state tax on them. -Read anything on your hard drive, such as your name, home address, personal identification code, passwords, Social Security number ? etc., etc., etc.

Nasty stuff.

Now that the new modular Xorg R7 has been uploaded to Debian unstable it was time to test the upgrade procedure on my backup-desktop.

The following packages will be REMOVED:
  discover libdiscover2 libxfcegui4-dev nvidia-glx x-window-system
x-window-system-core
  xfce4-mcs-manager-dev xfce4-panel-dev xfree86-common xlibs-static-pic
xserver-common
  xserver-xorg
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  libcairo-perl libdrm2 libfontenc-dev libfontenc1 libgl1-mesa-dev
libgl1-mesa-dri
  libgl1-mesa-glx libglu1-mesa libglu1-mesa-dev libx11-data libxfont-dev
libxfont1
  libxmu-headers mdetect mesa-common-dev tzdata x11proto-core-dev
x11proto-dmx-dev
  x11proto-fixes-dev x11proto-fonts-dev x11proto-input-dev x11proto-kb-dev
x11proto-randr-dev
  x11proto-record-dev x11proto-render-dev x11proto-resource-dev
x11proto-scrnsaver-dev
  x11proto-trap-dev x11proto-video-dev x11proto-xext-dev x11proto-xf86dga-dev
  x11proto-xf86misc-dev x11proto-xf86vidmode-dev x11proto-xinerama-dev xbitmaps
xcursor-themes
  xfonts-encodings xfonts-utils xresprobe xserver-xorg-core
xserver-xorg-input-all
  xserver-xorg-input-evdev xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
  xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
xserver-xorg-video-ati
  xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
  xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev xserver-xorg-video-glint
  xserver-xorg-video-i128 xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-i810
  xserver-xorg-video-imstt xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
  xserver-xorg-video-newport xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
  xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
  xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
xserver-xorg-video-sis
  xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
  xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-vesa
  xserver-xorg-video-vga xserver-xorg-video-via xserver-xorg-video-vmware
  xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xtrans-dev xutils-dev
The following packages have been kept back:
  dbus-1-utils libtasn1-2 libtasn1-2-dev thunar
The following packages will be upgraded:
  flex glibc-doc hddtemp libc6 libc6-dev libdmx-dev libdmx1 libfs6 libglu1-xorg
libglu1-xorg-dev
  libgtk2-perl libice-dev libice6 libiw28 libsm-dev libsm6 libx11-6 libx11-dev
libxau-dev
  libxau6 libxaw7 libxcursor-dev libxcursor1 libxdmcp-dev libxdmcp6 libxext-dev
libxext6
  libxfixes-dev libxfixes3 libxft-dev libxft2 libxi-dev libxi6 libxinerama-dev
libxinerama1
  libxkbfile-dev libxkbfile1 libxkbui-dev libxkbui1 libxmu-dev libxmu6
libxmuu-dev libxmuu1
  libxpm-dev libxpm4 libxrandr-dev libxrandr2 libxrender-dev libxrender1
libxres-dev libxres1
  libxss-dev libxss1 libxt-dev libxt6 libxtrap-dev libxtrap6 libxtst-dev
libxtst6 libxv-dev
  libxv1 libxvmc-dev libxvmc1 libxxf86dga-dev libxxf86dga1 libxxf86misc-dev
libxxf86misc1
  libxxf86vm-dev libxxf86vm1 locales lsb-base make makedev render-dev sobby tar
twm
  wireless-tools x-dev x11-common xbase-clients xdm xfonts-100dpi xfonts-75dpi
xfonts-base
  xfonts-scalable xfs xlibmesa-dri xlibmesa-gl xlibmesa-gl-dev xlibs-data
xlibs-static-dev xnest
  xutils xvfb
95 upgraded, 81 newly installed, 12 to remove and 4 not upgraded.
Need to get 60.7MB of archives.
After unpacking 23.2MB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? 

What are the chances of this going smoothly? :) Well it turns out it didn't and I cannot launch X at all so I have quite a bit of fiddling around to do now find out what is wrong, thankfully the debian-user mailing list has already some noise on this matter and I am hoping I can find some answers there. Also there's a problem with the locales package so I have not UTF support at the moment which really sucks and compiling the new version of bzflag gives me no errors but a strange stereo image when I play, and finally manpages-dev has some problem with conflicting files from modutils so I cannot read any programming man pages unless I go online, so its not been a good week :-)

I am seriously considering going back to Debian stable on my main desktop but I know as soon as I do that I will start installing backports and negate the whole point of running a stable OS.

A few weeks ago I got up in the middle of the night and upon returning to bed in the dark, knelt on my laptop which was left at the end of the bed. I heard a cracking noise and decided that I wouldn't look and go back to sleep. When I woke up, expecting the worst, I saw that I had broken my pcmcia card and thankfully not the screen on my laptop. It was a couple of pieces which I managed to snap back together and one little bit I had to glue. I was unable to bend it straight so it now looks like the above picture. When I booted the laptop the card worked fine so I assumed all was well until a little while ago I took the laptop downstairs and discovered I now have no range, so I will stick this one in my old laptop which just sits in my bedroom anyway and pick up a new card.

I was told recently that in the USA and Europe, milk doesn't come in bags. This is amazing to me. Here in Canada milk comes in bags, it always has, we also have cartons but most family's go through a couple of 4 litre bags a week. This is what a bag of milk looks like and of course the plastic milk bag holder.

One side effect of getting more sleep is of course now I dream more. And recently some of my dreams have been violent, this is a new type of dream for me and quite disturbing to say the least. Carl Jung claimed that each of us is psychologically part male and part female. The Anima is the female in men, and the Animus, the male inside women. Apparently my Animus has been acting up and causing these bizarre dreams I have been having.

Anyway, the time to research this of course is at work, on company time, so on Friday I was googling to find the meaning of my dreams and what, if anything I can do to make them more normal. So today my IT guy had to fix something on my computer while I was at lunch and guess he looked at my history or something and now basically everyone at the office thinks I dream about men all the time. He told a few key people and now everyone knows. It's very embarrassing, and I think on his part very unprofessional, but then again, he is technically incompetent and plays Quake and file shares all day, so he is in my view unprofessional by definition.