In meetings with government departmemts, hearing them castigate the pace of response within thier own IT departments, thinking, these guys cant be the first to be suffering from these issues

Wish this was available in Australia! I wonder how far behind our banks are on this stuff.

I guess its my fault for not watching what I’m doing, but its been so long since apt-get dist-upgrade did something like reach in and pull the beating (mysql-server-5.5) heart out of my dev box that I guess I got soft. Thank you Ubuntu for hardening me up.

After some of this:

~$ sudo apt-get clean && sudo apt-get autoclean

and some of this:

~$ sudo apt-get purge mysql-server*

~$  sudo apt-get purge mysql-client*

and even some of (don’t do this!!):

~$ apt-get purge mysql-common*
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree      
Reading state information… Done
Note, selecting ‘mysql-common-4.1’ for regex 'mysql-common*’
Note, selecting 'mysql-common’ for regex 'mysql-common*’
Note, selecting 'mysql-common’ instead of 'mysql-common-4.1’
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  dbconfig-common libctemplate0 libmemcached10 libodbc1 libpq5 libzip2 mysql-workbench-data php5-mysqlnd python-mysql.connector python-paramiko python-pyodbc python-pysqlite2
Use 'apt-get autoremove’ to remove them.
The following extra packages will be installed:
  php5-mysqlnd
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  gearman* gearman-job-server* libdbd-mysql-perl* libmysqlclient18* libmysqlclient18:i386* libmysqlcppconn6* libqt4-sql-mysql* libqt4-sql-mysql:i386* mysql-common* php5-mysql* phpmyadmin*
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  php5-mysqlnd
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 11 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 163 kB of archives.
After this operation, 24.3 MB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? n

The real culprit was:

mysql-client-5.5 : Depends: mysql-common (>= 5.5.32-0ubuntu0.12.10.2) but 5.5.32-0ubuntu0.12.10.1 is to be installed
 mysql-server-5.5 : PreDepends: mysql-common (>= 5.5.32-0ubuntu0.12.10.2) but 5.5.32-0ubuntu0.12.10.1 is to be installed

Eventually I was able to get the train back on the tracks with:

~$  sudo apt-get install mysql-server-5.5=5.5.32-0ubuntu0.12.10.1 \
mysql-client-5.5=5.5.32-0ubuntu0.12.10.1 \
mysql-server-core-5.5=5.5.32-0ubuntu0.12.10.1

I dont know how much fun that will provide down the track now that I’ve specified the versions, also mysql-workbench deps are still borked and wont install, but at least I can continue work for the day. Sigh.

Added an eq today, pulseaudio-equalizer, to handle a video with a stack of hiss. Worked like a charm.

Precise Pangolin 12.04 with Xfce Desktop - Thunar title bar double click doesn’t always work.

Switching to xubuntu-desktop was the best thing I ever did - within 15 minutes i was calm as a hindu cow, wondering how adding two clicks to every action was ever considered progress. Unity 5 is a giant leap backwards for mankind.

xubuntu-desktop, or Xfce, has its issues - some rough edges, missing niceties - but it does try to stay out of the way and let you get things done. Also, anything can be configured. That’s my type of computer.

Today’s small victory: fixing the intermittent double click action of the xfwm4 title bar to maximise and minimise.

This is a three year old bug. The timing is set too fast, and you may feel like you have forgotten how to double click properly.

Solution thanks Aldin:

Aldin K (aldin) wrote on 2011-03-25: #8

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xfwm4/+bug/393672

Ubuntu Lucid server as virtualbox guest, cant update vm.

jerram@lamp apt/archives$ sudo LANG=C dpkg –configure -a
Setting up
dpkg: error processing initramfs-tools (–configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of casper:
 casper depends on initramfs-tools (>= 0.92bubuntu55); however:
  Package initramfs-tools is not configured yet.
dpkg: error processing casper (–configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of linux-image-2.6.32-36-virtual:
 linux-image-2.6.32-36-virtual depends on initramfs-tools (>= 0.36ubuntu6); however:
  Package initramfs-tools is not configured yet.
dpkg: error processing linux-image-2.6.32-36-virtual (–configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of linux-image-2.6.32-37-virtual:
 linux-image-2.6.32-37-virtual depends on initramfs-tools (>= 0.36ubuntu6); however:
  Package initramfs-tools is not configured yet.
dpkg: error processing linux-image-2.6.32-37-virtual (–configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of linux-image-virtual:
 linux-image-virtual depends on linux-image-2.6.32-37-virtual; however:
  Package linux-image-2.6.32-37-virtual is not configured yet.
dpkg: error processing linux-image-virtual (–configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of linux-virtual:
 linux-virtual depends on linux-image-virtual (= 2.6.32.37.43); however:
  Package linux-image-virtual is not configured yet.
dpkg: error processing linux-virtual (–configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
 initramfs-tools
 casper
 linux-image-2.6.32-36-virtual
 linux-image-2.6.32-37-virtual
 linux-image-virtual
 linux-virtual

The problem was the symlink. Not sure if it was a turnkey linux thing or a virtualbox thing: 

jerram@lamp /etc/initramfs-tools$ l /etc/initramfs-tools/
total 32K
drwxr-xr-x  5 root root 4.0K Dec 26 03:49 .
drwxr-xr-x 89 root root 4.0K Dec 26 04:01 ..
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 4.0K Apr 26  2010 conf.d
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 4.0K Apr 26  2010 hooks
-rw-r–r–  1 root root 1.4K Apr 26  2010 initramfs.conf
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   53 Dec 26 03:49 modules -> /etc/initramfs-tools/modules.BeforeVMwareToolsInstall
-rw-r–r–  1 root root  198 Sep 28 14:25 modules.AfterVMwareToolsInstall
drwxr-xr-x 12 root root 4.0K Apr 26  2010 scripts
-rw-r–r–  1 root root  379 Apr 26  2010 update-initramfs.conf

I spent a lot of time trying to reinstall initramfs-tools, the answer was:

rm /etc/initramfs-tools/modules && sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

I have been picking the guitar up more often lately, and playing for an hour at a time a few times a week. I am really enjoying the “otherness” of just letting your brain work your fingers rather than a spreadsheet or something, it is great to zone out to a movie or just sit on the couch and let your fingers take over.

So far I have been focusing on getting my fingers and brain going phyiscally, coordination and finger strength, and also working on scales and modes, to get my head around the fretboard again. I have forgoten a lot since I stopped playing daily 15 years ago. My progress is much more rapid these days and I am playing better now than I have before. Thats an exciting and motivating feeling.

http://www.timrobinsonguitar.com/lessons/lessons/warmup.html

I’m putting a list here on tumblr of all the free apps that make life a lot easier.

Media Player Classic is by far the best video / media player for windows. Its free, fast and it always works.

this is pretty awesome…

These doctors leave their cushy western-doctors-world and go work in the worst places on the planet, to help people. I rate that pretty highly.

http://www.msf.org.au/?utm_source=MSF&utm_medium=email&utm_content=logo_banner&utm_campaign=enewsletter