On Sunday 20 May, I rode in the Leukemia Research Weston-super-Mare Bikeathon which "has so far raised in excess of 120,000 for the charity." I finished the course of about 23 miles in a bit over 2 hours. That was slightly slower than I expected, but I hadn't anticipated the batched mass start (20 riders set off every 30s or so) and the relatively slow speed of the large group ride to the first hill where the short course filtered off. I wasn't the fastest or the slowest by a long way. The first hill, Bleadon Hill, was new to me and it was a bit of a pain. It was rideable, unlike the hill nearest me, but it continued upwards at a challenging gradient for a long time. I'd estimate it's about 4km and mostly over 5% - I'll not be riding it again in a hurry. The view from the top was almost worth it (even if it didn't photograph well, looking almost south at 11am) but then you remember that you've just ridden up there from sea level and everything aches. Getting down from that hill was also fun. The descent was through Canada Coombe, which looks about 10% down for about 1km and it's a narrow uneven road with loose gravel washed onto the road. Then it was a fairly direct link north to Locking and Worle, a flattish loop from the crematorium to Ebdon, Bourton, Icelton and Wick St Lawrence (which felt good, like I could ride it forever - it's amazing how easy a well-tuned bicycle feels) and back to town via Sand Bay and Kewstoke. The picture is of me outside the pavillion at Clarence Park, just after finishing. The pack contained repair kit, water, food, rain gear and extra top, none of which was needed. I didn't pack sun block or insect-repellent, which would have helped (although thankfully not vital)! Thanks to everyone who sponsored me. If you still want to contribute, please put it in the comments form with an email address, and/or email me directly.

bill watson commented:

"Excellent report. I'm a member of Co-op Group (Northern) and also United. United is an extremely well run outfit with well maintained shops. They also have about 30 petrol stations, mostly in Yorkshire and Greater Manchester. The fear from United members, on the proposed merger, is that focus will be lost and regional investment diluted. United are also trialing factory made shop units which are erected on-site (similar to the way McDonalds do it). This gives a turnaround time of about 16 weeks from start to shop opening. There is one not far from me (Ditton) and it's very popular. The United website United Acquisitions gives lots of info on this and other things."

I've mixed feelings on modular build (McStores?) - it makes the construction greener, but there seems little information on the long-term energy use of the store. Maybe it's simply unknown yet. The offer of a finder's fee for new store sites is interesting. I wonder if that will spread to the Co-operative Group after the merger. As I understand it, the fear from tCG members is that we're getting a lot of new members and a new chief exec who seems to have a very different focus to the members. I'm sure we'd be happy to see well-run and well-maintained shops, but will it mean even more centralisation and all the mistakes that means? Like stocking no Somerset Cheddars in some Somerset stores, with the confusing excuse that (as far as I could understand - see previously-mentioned answers to AGM food questions) no supplier offers enough units that meet the specifications or it's unsuitable for our type of stores ("Welcome"). I'm glad so many people liked the report, anyway.

Pete Boyd wrote:

"

"Surely if one has CUPS installed already, a Microsoft PC can print to it as a network printer without Samba?"

This is true but you need to know what you're doing to be able to add such a print queue on Windows, its not trivial. The procedure people using Windows will expect to use is something like point'n'print where they navigate to the print server in Windows Explorer, right-click on the print queue and choose 'Connect'. This way the drivers are copied across the network and auto installed on their system and the print connection setup."

It looked like I could add it by opening the Printers and Faxes screen, clicking "Add a new printer" selecting the right radio button and then putting the URL for the CUPS server into the box. Doesn't that work then? chithanh wrote:

"If you already have a working lpr setup, you can install Print Services for Unix via the control panel, and connect to your lpr daemon. No need for Samba at all."

Thanks for the tip. My lpr doesn't offer remote connections (it's a shell script that execs ghostscript), but I'll remember the above for future use.

On Sunday 20 May, I will be riding in the Leukemia Research Weston-super-Mare Bikeathon which "has so far raised in excess of 120,000 for the charity." If you'll sponsor me, please put it in the comments form with an email address, and/or email me directly.

What I learnt this morning while installing Samba so that an out-of-ink Microsoft PC could print on a toner-full laser attached to a GNU/Linux workstation: Firstly, the manual authors seem to prefer to document CUPS. I don't understand why. Surely if one has CUPS installed already, a Microsoft PC can print to it as a network printer without Samba? I installed Samba because I want to print without replacing lpr and breaking things that print from the workstation already. Secondly, if you ytpo smb.conf badly enough, then smbd will sulk. Particularly passwd-related options. To persuade it to give useful error messages, smbd -F -S -i seems the magic combination. If you don't put -i, it decides that you really meant it to daemonise, despite the other options. Thirdly, it doesn't break it if Microsoft Windows puts "unable to connect" or another strange message on its Printers window. I'm not sure what that message really means. Finally and most importantly, if the nobody user is not allowed to print, make sure Samba is sending the print job as a different user that is allowed to print. That's the "guest account" option in the printer config.

I've been smashing my head against this brick wall for a while and can't decide: is it possible to use MakeMaker or one of the other perl installers to install some modules and some cgi-bin scripts in one action? How? Update: Tincho writes in How to recognise different types of trees from quite a long way away: About installing a complex perl web application

"In a nutshell, if you only want to process modules and CGIs, you can do it with MakeMaker"

Unfortunately, I think I have lots of templates and images, so I guess I really do need to do something sick and twisted if I want to use MakeMaker. Is there some web application that does this already? What's long, red, has four wheels and eats grass?

Today, MJRay asks how to make MakeMaker (no redundancy!) do what he wants. Incidentally, I faced this issue just yesterday, preparing an application for internal use in my job. As sysadmin, I want all the homebrew software to be Debian-packaged, even if they're not the most policy abiding packages. I was installing some modules for mod_perl2, some utility modules and a couple of scripts. Of course, it also needed accesory files, like images for the web or templates for HTML, and configuration too. After reading the reply to this post, written by Randal Shwartz himself, I got convinced that there wasn't any frigging way to make the thing do it. So my solution was far from ideal, as I wanted to put everything in the Makefile, but it wasn't so ugly, considering that it was only meant for use in a Debian package:

• mod_perl and regular modules, using the standard method: put them under lib/ and MakeMaker takes care of them. As I didn't wanted site-wide modules, I changed INSTALLVENDORLIB in the debian/rules to point to /usr/share/pkgname/lib
• for scripts, perl or not: you list them in EXE_FILES, and then point INSTALLVENDORSCRIPT to where you want them. In my case it was /usr/share/pkgname/bin, but if you need to install CGIs, it would be valid to point to /usr/lib/cgi-bin.
• For support files, at first I put them under PMLIBDIRS control (as the rest of the modules), but I didn't like the resulting directory layout. So I processed them, along with configuration files, and stuff with debhelper tools.

In a nutshell, if you only want to process modules and CGIs, you can do it with MakeMaker

Michael's sent me a link to his view of the Co-op Group from Devon and it currently has a few comments on another nearby major retail cooperative, PSW.

Marc Fargas commented about the work-grabbing contract clauses --

"From clause 2 I understand the $ COMPANY has access to later version **used in the $ COMPANY ** ""of such software in use at $ COMPANY ."", not any later version, just those used while being in $ COMPANY as they may be depending on such code."

So, is this (all versions of (such software in use at $ COMPANY )) or ((all versions of such software in use) at $ COMPANY )? Whoo, a lawyerbomb - it's unknowable unless it's reached court.

I installed cowdancer for cowbuilder from etch but the tree it built seemed to have a few problems. Firstly, it didn't work (sudo cowbuilder --login, right?). It was missing cow-shell, libcowdancer and start-stop-daemon, which I copied into the tree from the system. Is this a bug, user error or something really strange? Secondly, it seemed to be pointing at ftp.jp.debian.org which is very very slow for me. I guess this is either a missing feature or a user error. Is there a good HOWTO about care and feeding of a cowbuilder? Anyway, despite the above, the long-overdue git RFS has been answered. Thanks Ian. Update: Vincent Bernat commented:

"cowbuilder just uses pbuilder. You can set mirror with --mirror switch or in your pbuilderrc (or in /etc/pbuilder)."

Thanks for the useful tip. So I should have written my pbuilderrc before using cowbuilder for the first time. Which rc line is equivalent to cowbuilder's --basepath option?

I think Boicottare Novell is an Italian-language translation of my judo explanation. Rock.

I maintain the HenPlus interface for databases. The tool is written in Java but it didn't work with non-Sun implementation of Java. The reason was sun.misc.Signal class. It is used for trapping Ctrl+C in application. I wonder why the GNU Classpath does not support this class. Does it mean the Sun Java is not really standarized? I've found the workaround. I unpacked some of sun/misc/*.java files from official Sun Java sources. Fortunatelly they was published under GPL license. The trick made possible to compile the HenPlus with GCJ+ECJ, so I could change the build-time dependency to java-gcj-compat-dev. It really worked! Even if the signal couldn't be handled with GCJ or SableVM, the application started with non-Sun Java runtime:

Hen*Plus> system-info
----------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------+
            System Property                                  Value                     
----------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------+
 Diff. of used memory (now-before) [KB]                                      1.932,00  
 Java VM                                     GNU libgcj 4.1.2 (Ubuntu 4.1.2-0ubuntu5)  
 Java Vendor                                           Free Software Foundation, Inc.  
 Java Home                                /usr/lib/jvm/java-1.4.2-gcj-4.1-1.4.2.0/jre  
[...]

I've found that the GCJ and Kaffe doesn't work with Oracle JDBC driver. I'm suprised that SableVM works without problems. It's good to see that there is a reasonable alternative for Sun's imlementation.

This is a reply to Andrew McMillan Contracts for people to work on Open Source Software, posted on my blog because of yet another stupid eyetest. It looks like there might be a loophole: Clause 2 maybe gives $ COMPANY rights to access the source code of later versions, just because $ EMPLOYEE used one version at $ COMPANY . I don't think it's fair for $ COMPANY ownership to be the default instead of joint ownership. I didn't spot anything obviously missing. I'd like to see $ COMPANY changed so that the workers are owners rather than merely employees, but that's probably not on offer ;-) However, that's part of how TTLLP side-steps the question - it's a partnership, not a employer-employee situation where the employer's owners try to own the fruits of the worker-employees' labour in addition to the company's assets.

lorenzo wrote:

"This is a comprehensive report - right down to the sugar free Mintos. I'm going to an AGM next week - so maybe i should do something in this interesting vein instead of a four line summary."

michael harriott wrote:

"Cheers for this. I was also at the AGM. Your report is very conprehensive. Do you mind if i create a link from my blog to yours.?"

Of course you can link here. Let me know if you put something relevant on your site, or spot something on another site and I'll link to it.

Apparently, yet another NHS IT project has tanked. Steve Purkiss wrote in:

"I've just written an article on the latest debacle in our Government's long line of software failures, and how a switch to Open Source would provide a far better solution all round. I would be extremely grateful if you could help by digging it: http://digg.com/linux_unix/The_MTAS_debacle_Even_more_reasons_to_switch_to_Free_Open_Source_Software Thanks!"

I notice that Brane Dump: Wanted: A Telco That Doesn't Suck is roughly where I was a couple of years ago, when BT were raising the line rental and including "free" minutes that I didn't use. I do wonder how you put grocer's apostrophe into Southern Cross. Southern Cros's? sdf commented:

"i guess they mean they don't use traffic shaping to restrict speed on the usual p2p-ports"

Maybe, but is that within the retail ISP's control or would it be done by the network provider?

Sam commented:

"Some excellent questions, I might say. The 10% profit target that you mention is probably the target for Return on Capital Employed (ROCE), which was set at 10% by the Co-op Commission. This number is not displayed on page 13 of the annual review, but I think it is calcuable from the information there."

I also noticed that Sam's excellent site has a report on the Central and Eastern AGM.

Kevin Mark commented:

"Hear hear! I was waiting to read about the Eurovision results! But I'm sure AJ and Martin want a let's take the fun out of Debian planet debian tech and I'm sure someone can make them a custom feed for the cost of a reasonable bounty!

Nice to know I'm not alone. (Why mention AJ?) Joachim Breitner wrote:

"I once tried to start a German planet Debian because the official only allows English postings. Maybe it would be nice to have some kind of tagging standard that works across aggregators. This way, we could allow any kind of posts on p.d.o, and allow various sets to chose from, based on tags. I, for example, would choose (german OR english), others might chose (english AND tech), or ((french OR english) AND debian). Some (NOT politics). And some just (jokes) :-)"

Why didn't German planet debian work? I think there's a sort-of standard in dc:subject and xml:lang, but we'd need to agree a tag dictionary. And I think planetplanet generates files, so we'd need some cached or database solution. Update: Joachim Breitner replied:

"To be correct, I tried setting up an international planet debian on gluck with no language restrictions, but interest was rather low and planet (the software) is not really maintenance-free, so I stopped after a while. A German planet was tried by someone around Christmas, I think, but AFAIR he lost interest while trying to make it look pretty. I guess I should follow up on that. :-) (PS: Can you make the comment form store the information in a cookie? Would save some typing.)"

Sorry, these pages are static html at the moment. You could try using Saved Forms in Iceweasel/Firefox, which may be configured at Edit: Preferences: Privacy: Saved Forms or similar.

Alexander wrote:

"You know, a lot of people here in Ukraine are offended by Danilko's image; He looks glare (in bad sense) and his lyrics are nonsense. But IMHO he is artisis Eurovision deserves. People need show, even stupid one. So I'm quite surprized he isn't winner."

I'm surprised too. Thankful, but surprised. zii kell wrote:

"Freesat consultation - organisations' responses Text only BBC Trust final conclusions on Freesat Text only Other interesting docs about this can be found in ascii and PDF formats."

Apparently, it is fine by him if others flood planet debian with repeats because they screwed an upgrade, post questionable career advice or misleading documentation links, make fun of unrelated computer companies, or discuss the weather or traffic, but I posted about Eurovision and Martin Zobel-Helas unlinked my entries and sent me a rude email. Isn't planet debian a planet of debian developers, not just a planet of debian development? Even if you only write about debian, please don't force that on everyone else. I like reading about the other stuff developers do - even the loony political views that I don't agree with... Didn't someone put up a Planet Debian Tech a while ago? Maybe that's what Martin Zobel-Helas should read. Whatever happened to it?