The biggest annoyance is that usb devices aren’t automounted. Stick in a USB memory stick, formatted as fat32 or ext2, and nothing happens. Looking at dmesg shows it’d detcted and devfs does it’s thing, but then nothing. In previous versions of Ubuntu it would be mounted - exactly as you would expect and hope. Sometimes running “gnome-mount -d /dev/xxxx” will mount the device, but not always. Annoying

I do find it quite amazing that the Ubuntu team have released 8.04 with such a serious flaw, but looking around for solutions it seems I’m not the only one to experience this problem. Sadly my searching hasn’t found a solution and I’ve seen reports that people still using Ubuntu 7.10 have had the same problem, so reverting to that version probably isn’t an option

This is the first time I’ve run into serious problems with Ubuntu on the desktop, but I hope it’ll be the last!

Until recently an encrypted volume I was using was automounting, but now it’s the same as my other USB devices When i try and use gnome-mount to mount the drive, I get…

x40:~$ gnome-mount -vtd /dev/mapper/luks_crypto_xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx
gnome-mount 0.8
** (gnome-mount:17095): DEBUG: Mounting /org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/volume_part_1_size_0
GConf Error: Bad key or directory name: "/system/storage/default_options/(null)/fstype_override": `(' is an invalid character in key/directory names
** (gnome-mount:17095): DEBUG: Mounting /org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/volume_part_1_size_0 with mount_point='', fstype='', num_options=0
** Message: Mount failed for /org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/volume_part_1_size_0
org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.UnknownMethod : Method "Mount" with signature "ssas" on interface "org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume" doesn't exist

Any Ubuntu folks have solutions or suggestions?

The problems started after a reboot. The box came up, but none of the networking was configured. The people from the hosting company managed to get the interfaces configured (after initially omitting adding a route) and I was able to access it via ssh. Something wasn’t right though and there was a raft of odd behaviour.

The OS was in need of an update, so as the machine was being monitored and the network KVM was still attached, it seemed like an ideal opportunity to upgrade. After backing up all the required files I installed the kernel and rebooted - to be met by silence. A phone call confirmed my fears, but the guy from the hosting company simply asked how he could help - very cool and collected After a session of trying a few simple things we managed to get the networking working sufficiently to let me login via ssh. After a 30 minute session of head scratching and puzzling the machine was rebooted and came back perfectly - much to my relief.

It’s been a frustrating couple of days, but the server is now working and the various ports have been upgraded.

This gets me from an old, old version of FreeBSD (4.9) to a slightly newer one (5.2). I’m aiming to get it to at least 6.3 so I can use the newer binary updater to try and avoid all these issues in future.

Full credit to my hosting company, Positive Internet for their help and support.

The Mozilla Sunbird client works well and runs on Linux and Windows. It supports CalDAV and so running a CalDAv server shouldn’t be a problem so I figured this should move me away from the hacks I’ve tried before and get me to a point where things simply worked without constant intervention.

Having gotten this far, it was time to find a CalDAV server. Given how long the specification has been around I figured there would be a few to choose from. As usual, I wanted an open source solution and one that wasn’t Java (sorry Java weenies) and would run on Ubuntu. Naively, I didn’t think this would be too hard!

After a few web searches with a variety of keywords I was going round in circles. Every search gave me the Apple CalendarServer as the first or second result with a mixture of others - most of which I’d not heard of before. When I came across a post about running the apple server on Ubuntu and seeing someone I know from Apache was involved in the project, I decided to give it a go. There didnt seem to be a package available, so it was time to grab the source and build.

Getting the source proved easy enough, but building it revealed a lot of missing packages form the machine, each quickly solved. [ I had to edit some of the files as they included the Python.h header by using ‘Python/Python.h’ which didn’t work. using just ‘Python.h’ worked fine. ] Finally I had a built server. Running the quick test showed it to be working OK. Now I needed to install it.

Running the install command proved to be a disaster the first time round. For some reason the installer ignored all the usual conventions (well it is Apple I shouldn’t have been surprised) and stuck the required files into an odd folder. I removed the folder and debated what had gone wrong. Eventually I ran the installer again using ’sudo ./run -i /’ and things seemed to end up in more sensible places. The location for the installed config file was /usr/caldavd. Hardly where I would have expected it, but possibly not a bad choice given that this is still highly experimental. in keeping with the experimental nature of this I decided to use that directory for the configuration, data and documents.

The next step was to configure the server. This is done by the caldavd.plist file, which is just a slightly odd xml file. Apparently the file is considered straightforward enough not to need any documentation - but I didn’t find it that way and struggled a bit to get things setup the way I wanted.

I added a user, caldavd, to run the service and below are the steps I took to get the various directories and the config file ready. This probably isn’t the ideal way of doing things and I’m sure once there is a debian package available things will move, but this layout does keep things together to allow easy removal for when that happens. Comments or suggestions for improvements welcome

1. sudo mkdir /usr/caldavd/conf
2. sudo mkdir /usr/caldavd/data
3. sudo mkdir /usr/caldavd/documents
4. sudo chown -R caldavd:caldavd /usr/caldavd
5. sudo mkdir /var/log/caldavd
6. sudo vi /usr/caldavd/caldavd.plist
   • Set DataDir to /usr/caldavd/data
   • Set DocumentDir to /usr/caldavd/documents
   • Set Directory Service xmlFile to /usr/caldavd/conf/accounts.xml
   • Set SudoersList to /usr/caldavd/conf/sudoers.plist
   • Set AccessLogFile to /var/log/caldavd/access.log
   • Set ErrorLogFile to /var/log/caldavd/error.log
   • Set ServerStatsFile to /var/log/caldavd/stats.plist
   • Set PIDFile to /var/run/caldavd.pid
   • Set UserName to caldavd
   • Set ControlSocket to /var/run/caldavd.sock
   • Set Twisted deamon path to /usr/bin/twistd
   • Set PythonDirector pydir path to /usr/bin/pydir.py
7. sudo caldavd -f /usr/caldavd/caldavd.plist

At this point you should see warnings about a missing accounts.xml file. This file needs to be created in /usr/caldavd/conf/accounts.xml. The format is reasonably easy to follow.

<accounts realm="xxxxx">
  <user>
    <uid>david</uid>
    <guid>david</guid>
    <password>xxxxxx</password>
    <name>David Reid</name>
    <cuaddr>mailto:xxxxxxxxx</cuaddr>
  </user>
  ...
  <group>
    <uid>family</uid>
    <guid>family</guid>
    <password>xxxx</password>
    <name>Family Calendar</name>
    <members>
      <member type="users">david</member>
      ...
    </members>
  </group>
</accounts>

You’ll also need to add the sudoers.plist file (though I’m not sure what exactly this does to be honest and the documentation I read didn’t throw any light on it). The format of this file seems to be as follows.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
  <dict>
    <key>users</key>
    <array>
      <dict>
        <key>username</key>
        <string>superuser</string>
        <key>password</key>
        <string>superuser</string>
      </dict>
    </array>
  </dict>
</plist>

The mailing lists for the server could do with a fully searchable archive, and if one exists then a link somewhere on the site to it would be helpful. They do represent a useful place to look, but the lack of documentation has really been frustrating. Thankfully there are several other useful blog posts around that have allowed me to get this far, so maybe this will help someone else.

I’m also taking the opportunity to reorganise my site, so if you’re looking for something that’s not there , let me know and I’ll sort it out. The basic plan is to have a spring clean and remove a lot of the old content and move the site into source control so I can better keep track of it’s current state

While making the move I’ve upgraded to Wordpress 2.5 and initial impressions are mixed. The new admin styling is nice, but some of the functionality isn’t as easy to find as the previous incarnation. I think I’ll hold fire for a while before upgrading the other blogs I look after.

The venue was the old ruined chapel on Salibury Crags, Edinburgh. Organising an outdoors event in April in Scotland is always a slightly risky proposition due to the unpredictable weather and last night proved to be no exception. The forecast at the start of the week was for rain and wind - hardly ideal conditions - but by Wednesday it had changed to a few showers and windy. Warning people to wrap up warm, we pressed ahead and had a really enjoyable night.

A slideshow of all the pictures can be seen here.

As Rosie and I were both setting up and taking shots it did highlight that despite the (some would say) excessive amount of strobist kit we have, we don’t quite have enough as we kept having to wait for the other to finish. Perhaps a few small purchases will be upcoming to correct this in the coming weeks.

It was amazing to see how much kit the group do now possess though as for much of the evening we had at least 3 simultaneous setups running (1 using PW’s and 2 using skyports for those interested in such things). What was also good to see was an impromptu tutorial session run for a someone who wanted to learn more. 2 of the people attending simply took enough kit and wandered off to one side for around 30 minutes - true peer to peer learning in action.

We’re hoping to make these events a more regular occurrence, but given how cold it was we may have to be more conservative in our locations For anyone in the east of scotland who’s interested the organisation is done via the East Scotland Strobist flickr group.

This involves a flickr group, which is in effect a mini community. The group is known as Photography Guide to Edinburgh and can be found here. I’ve been a member for a long time and know a lot of the members of the group - in fact I’ve even attended one of their meeting and have kept trying to attend subsequent ones.

With no prior notice, though, I have found myself removed from the community and any mention or note of my participation removed! It’s as if I never existed! What did I do to warrant such radical rewriting of history?

I’ve had no official notification of my crimes against the community, so can only assume I touched a nerve with a short post about the slowly reducing number of members of the group. Surely any community should care about a rapid reduction in its membership, especially when it follows an especially nasty and very personal thread about whether to allow video content to be added to the group (which has now been deleted).

Let’s face it, all communities go through such growing pains, but ignoring them and removing those who bring them up can’t be the right approach - can it?

So, what do I do next? I’ve rejoined the group, but haven’t dared post any comments on any threads for fear of being removed again? Should the admin who removed me (who remains anonymous) have sent me an email before simply kicking me out? Is removing all evidence of my contribution justifiable? I find myself in the odd position of not knowing what to do next!

Suggestions via the comments to this blog or direct email please!

Given that the government is spending a lot of money to encourage people to make the switch sooner rather than later, the current situation hardly seems to provide much incentive. Once more the whole digital switchover seems to be more of a digital “switch off”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7h_SiOM9p_I

I really need to sort out a better backup strategy as I’m starting to generate a large amount of data and my laptop’s 60Gb HDD just doesn’t cut it any more. So, anyone got any suggestions?

My current thoughts are to have an external USB HDD that I use for short term storage and then a large RAID based storage device at home. The home based device would either just be a USB/FW standalone device or NAS, but I’d ideally like it to have hot swap drive bays and probably potential for up to 2Tb total storage. Anyone have experience of such a device and care to offer reccomendations?

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/ukcorrespondents/holysmoke/dec07/islam-resolution.htm