Jo bought me a voucher last Christmas to spend some time on a race track, driving an Aston Martin and a Lamborghini. Finally we got around to using it last week. Jo is just as much a petrol-head as me, so I surprised her by buying the same experience voucher for her - call it a wedding present. Good call - she didn't stop grinning all day, even on the long drive home! The Aston Martin was a DB9 Volante (i.e. the convertible). Lovely car, but a little softer than I'd expected (maybe due to it being the convertible). I preferred the Lamborghini Gallardo, pictured here in a nice subtle colour. *grin* The nice folks doing the official photos at the track also took some extra photos of us sitting in another supercar - an Audi R8 V10 convertible. We've got those photos coming on CD in the post, and I'll post one when they land.

As I write this, it's the morning of June 5th, 1981. A few people scattered across the US are waking up, going in to work, sitting down at their terminal with a coffee, and reading Usenet. Usenet is only getting a trickle of posts each day -- it's still in that period where it's easy to read every message posted to it. Many things lie in Usenet's future. It's still running A-News, which doesn't even have a real From header yet. Later this year it will switch over to B-News, and volume will begin to increase. In 1987 there will be The great renaming. And of course in 1994, the first spam will be posted to Usenet. But that's all a long way off, here in 1981. Right now, they're talking about 500 mb disk drives that only cost $38000. And rms is inciting flames about nuclear proliferation. And Postel is publishing an RFC for the new Mail Transfer Protocol. Good morning, Usenet. Who knows what will come next in this fledgeling electronic communications medium! a ten year real-time historical exhibit This morning, I'm announcing a new site: Olduse.net It's Usenet, updated in real time as it was thirty years ago. Planned to be available for the next ten years, unless I run out of inodes (again). If you missed it the first time around, this is your chance to follow Usenet's flowering. made possible by

• Henry Spencer at the University of Toronto, Department of Zoology, who archived Usenet. Back when it was really uncool and really expensive. Our view onto Usenet is thus slightly centric to Canada and Zoology, but that's ok.
• David Wiseman, who hauled 141 magtapes in a pickup truck.
• Many who worked to rescue data off the tapes. Including from the deleted stuff at the ends.
• Rich Skrenta, who somehow got a copy of the archive out from under the Google borg. Although one of the tar files is truncated. Just saying.
• The creator of Telehack, who pointed me in the right direction, ending my multi-year quest to find the archive. And if you think this is neat, Telehack will blow you away.
• The developers of Haskell, which enabled me to whip up a B-News to C-News converter, a custom uucp, date parsers for every crazy date format ever used on Usenet, and suitible queue data structures in a rock solid, maintainable way, in 500 lines of code written over 12 hours. When I realized I also needed an A-News to B-News converter, I knew it was worth it to have done things right, because that took only 43 more lines, and worked 100% on the first run! My code repository for olduse.net is here.

---

PS: You can post to olduse.net, but it won't show up for at least 30 years. :)

Erich Schubert's blog post reminded me that I've been meaning to writeup a post detailing how I'm keeping parts of my $HOME in git repositories. My goal has been to keep my home directory in a version control system effectively. I have a number of constraints however. I want the system to be modular. I don't always need X related config files in my home directory. Sometimes I want just my zsh related files and my emacs related files. I have multiple machines I check email from, and on those want to keep my notmuch/offlineimap files in sync, but I don't need these on every machine I'm on, expecially since those configurations have more sensitive data. I played around with laysvn for a while, but it never really seemed comfortable. I more recently discovered that madduck had started a "vcs-home" website and mailing list, talking about doing what I'm trying to do. I'm now going with madduck's idea of using git with detached work trees, so that I can have multiple git repositories all using $HOME as their $GIT_WORK_TREE. I have a script inspired by his vcsh script that will create a subshell where the GIT_DIR, GIT_WORK_TREE variables are set for me. I can do my git operations related to just one git repository in that shell, while still operating directly on my config files in $HOME, and avoiding any kind of nasty symlinking or hardlinking. Since I am usually using my script to allow me to quickly "move in" to a new host, I named my script "movein". It can be found here. Here's how I'll typically use it:

    stew@guppy:~$ movein init
    git server hostname? git.vireo.org
    path to remote repositories? [~/git] 
    Local repository directory? [~/.movein] 
    Location of .mrconfig file? [~/.mrconfig] 
    stew@guppy:~$ 

This is just run once. It asks me questions about how to setup the 'movein' environment. Now I should have a .moveinrc storing the answers I gave above, I have a stub of a .mrconfig, and an empty .movein directory. Next thing to do is to add some of my repositories. The one I typically add on all machines is my "shell" repository. It has a .bashrc/.zshrc, an .alias that both source and other zsh goodies I'll generally wish to be around:

    stew@guppy:~$ ls .zshrc
    ls: cannot access .zshrc: No such file or directory
    stew@guppy:~$ movein add shell
    Initialized empty Git repository in /home/stew/.movein/shell.git/
    remote: Counting objects: 42, done.
    remote: Compressing objects: 100% (39/39), done.
    remote: Total 42 (delta 18), reused 0 (delta 0)
    Unpacking objects: 100% (42/42), done.
    From ssh://git.vireo.org//home/stew/git/shell
     * [new branch]      master     -> origin/master
    stew@guppy:~$ ls .zshrc
    .zshrc

So what happened here is that the ssh://git.vireo.org/~/git/shell.git repository was cloned with GIT_WORK_TREE=~ and GIT_DIR=.movein/shell.git. My .zshrc (along with a bunch of other files) has appeared. Next perhaps I'll add my emacs config files:

    stew@guppy:~$ movein add emacs       
    Initialized empty Git repository in /home/stew/.movein/emacs.git/
    remote: Counting objects: 77, done.
    remote: Compressing objects: 100% (63/63), done.
    remote: Total 77 (delta 10), reused 0 (delta 0)
    Unpacking objects: 100% (77/77), done.
    From ssh://git.vireo.org//home/stew/git/emacs
     * [new branch]      emacs21    -> origin/emacs21
     * [new branch]      master     -> origin/master
    stew@guppy:~$ ls .emacs
    .emacs
    stew@guppy:~$ 

My remote repositry has a master branch, but also has an emacs21 branch, which I can use when checking out on older machines which don't yet have newer versions of emacs. Let's say I have made changes to my .zshrc file, and I want to check them in. Since we are working with detached work trees, git can't immediately help us:

    stew@guppy:~$ git status
    fatal: Not a git repository (or any of the parent directories): .git

The movein script allows me to "login" to one of the repositories. It will create a subshell with GIT_WORK_TREE and GIT_DIR set. In that subshell, git operations operate as one might expect:

    stew@guppy:~ $ movein login shell
    stew@guppy:~ (shell:master>*) $ echo >> .zshrc
    stew@guppy:~ (shell:master>*) $ git add .zshrc                                       
    stew@guppy:~ (shell:master>*) $ git commit -m "adding a newline to the end of .zshrc"
    [master 81b7311] adding a newline to the end of .zshrc
     1 files changed, 1 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
    stew@guppy:~ (shell:master>*) $ git push
    Counting objects: 8, done.
    Delta compression using up to 2 threads.
    Compressing objects: 100% (6/6), done.
    Writing objects: 100% (6/6), 546 bytes, done.
    Total 6 (delta 4), reused 0 (delta 0)
    To ssh://git.vireo.org//home/stew/git/shell.git
       d24bf2d..81b7311  master -> master
    stew@guppy:~ (shell:master*) $ exit
    stew@guppy:~ $ 

If I want to create a brand new repository from files in my home directory. I can:

    stew@guppy:~ $ touch methere
    stew@guppy:~ $ touch mealsothere
    stew@guppy:~ $ movein new oohlala methere mealsothere
    Initialized empty Git repository in /home/stew/git/oohlala.git/
    Initialized empty Git repository in /home/stew/.movein/oohlala.git/
    [master (root-commit) 7abe5ba] initial checkin
     0 files changed, 0 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
     create mode 100644 mealsothere
     create mode 100644 methere
    Counting objects: 3, done.
    Delta compression using up to 2 threads.
    Compressing objects: 100% (2/2), done.
    Writing objects: 100% (3/3), 224 bytes, done.
    Total 3 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0)
    To ssh://git.vireo.org//home/stew/git/oohlala.git
     * [new branch]      master -> master

Above, the command movein new oohlala methere mealsothere says "create a new repository containing two files: methere, mealsothere". A bare repository is created on the remote machine, a repository is created in the .movein directory, the files are committed, and the new commit is pushed to the remote repository. New on some other machine, I could run movein add oohlala to get these two new files. The movein script maintains a .mrconfig file, so that joeyh's mr tool can be used to manage the repositories in bulk. Commands like "mr update", "mr commit", "mr push" will act on all the known repositories. Here's an example:

    stew@guppy:~ $ cat .mrconfig
    [DEFAULT]
    include = cat /usr/share/mr/git-fake-bare
    [/home/stew/.movein/emacs.git]
    checkout = git_fake_bare_checkout 'ssh://git.vireo.org//home/stew/git/emacs.git' 'emacs.git' '../../'
    [/home/stew/.movein/shell.git]
    checkout = git_fake_bare_checkout 'ssh://git.vireo.org//home/stew/git/shell.git' 'shell.git' '../../'
    [/home/stew/.movein/oohlala.git]
    checkout = git_fake_bare_checkout 'ssh://git.vireo.org//home/stew/git/oohlala.git' 'oohlala.git' '../../'
    stew@guppy:~ $ mr update
    mr update: /home/stew//home/stew/.movein/emacs.git
    From ssh://git.vireo.org//home/stew/git/emacs
     * branch            master     -> FETCH_HEAD
    Already up-to-date.
    mr update: /home/stew//home/stew/.movein/oohlala.git
    From ssh://git.vireo.org//home/stew/git/oohlala
     * branch            master     -> FETCH_HEAD
    Already up-to-date.
    mr update: /home/stew//home/stew/.movein/shell.git
    From ssh://git.vireo.org//home/stew/git/shell
     * branch            master     -> FETCH_HEAD
    Already up-to-date.
    mr update: finished (3 ok)
    stew@guppy:~ $ mr update        

There are still issues I'd like to address. The big one in my mind is that there is no .gitignore. So when you "movein login somerepository" then run "git status", It tells you about hundreds of untracked files in your home directory. Ideally, I just want to know about the files which are already associated with the repository I'm logged into.

Erich Schubert's blog post reminded me that I've been meaning to writeup a post detailing how I'm keeping parts of my $HOME in git repositories. My goal has been to keep my home directory in a version control system effectively. I have a number of constraints however. I want the system to be modular. I don't always need X related config files in my home directory. Sometimes I want just my zsh related files and my emacs related files. I have multiple machines I check email from, and on those want to keep my notmuch/offlineimap files in sync, but I don't need these on every machine I'm on, expecially since those configurations have more sensitive data. I played around with laysvn for a while, but it never really seemed comfortable. I more recently discovered that madduck had started a "vcs-home" website and mailing list, talking about doing what I'm trying to do. I'm now going with madduck's idea of using git with detached work trees, so that I can have multiple git repositories all using $HOME as their $GIT_WORK_TREE. I have a script inspired by his vcsh script that will create a subshell where the GIT_DIR, GIT_WORK_TREE variables are set for me. I can do my git operations related to just one git repository in that shell, while still operating directly on my config files in $HOME, and avoiding any kind of nasty symlinking or hardlinking. Since I am usually using my script to allow me to quickly "move in" to a new host, I named my script "movein". It can be found here. Here's how I'll typically use it:

    stew@guppy:~$ movein init
    git server hostname? git.vireo.org
    path to remote repositories? [~/git] 
    Local repository directory? [~/.movein] 
    Location of .mrconfig file? [~/.mrconfig] 
    stew@guppy:~$ 

This is just run once. It asks me questions about how to setup the 'movein' environment. Now I should have a .moveinrc storing the answers I gave above, I have a stub of a .mrconfig, and an empty .movein directory. Next thing to do is to add some of my repositories. The one I typically add on all machines is my "shell" repository. It has a .bashrc/.zshrc, an .alias that both source and other zsh goodies I'll generally wish to be around:

    stew@guppy:~$ ls .zshrc
    ls: cannot access .zshrc: No such file or directory
    stew@guppy:~$ movein add shell
    Initialized empty Git repository in /home/stew/.movein/shell.git/
    remote: Counting objects: 42, done.
    remote: Compressing objects: 100% (39/39), done.
    remote: Total 42 (delta 18), reused 0 (delta 0)
    Unpacking objects: 100% (42/42), done.
    From ssh://git.vireo.org//home/stew/git/shell
     * [new branch]      master     -> origin/master
    stew@guppy:~$ ls .zshrc
    .zshrc

So what happened here is that the ssh://git.vireo.org/~/git/shell.git repository was cloned with GIT_WORK_TREE=~ and GIT_DIR=.movein/shell.git. My .zshrc (along with a bunch of other files) has appeared. Next perhaps I'll add my emacs config files:

    stew@guppy:~$ movein add emacs       
    Initialized empty Git repository in /home/stew/.movein/emacs.git/
    remote: Counting objects: 77, done.
    remote: Compressing objects: 100% (63/63), done.
    remote: Total 77 (delta 10), reused 0 (delta 0)
    Unpacking objects: 100% (77/77), done.
    From ssh://git.vireo.org//home/stew/git/emacs
     * [new branch]      emacs21    -> origin/emacs21
     * [new branch]      master     -> origin/master
    stew@guppy:~$ ls .emacs
    .emacs
    stew@guppy:~$ 

My remote repositry has a master branch, but also has an emacs21 branch, which I can use when checking out on older machines which don't yet have newer versions of emacs. Let's say I have made changes to my .zshrc file, and I want to check them in. Since we are working with detached work trees, git can't immediately help us:

    stew@guppy:~$ git status
    fatal: Not a git repository (or any of the parent directories): .git

The movein script allows me to "login" to one of the repositories. It will create a subshell with GIT_WORK_TREE and GIT_DIR set. In that subshell, git operations operate as one might expect:

    stew@guppy:~ $ movein login shell
    stew@guppy:~ (shell:master>*) $ echo >> .zshrc
    stew@guppy:~ (shell:master>*) $ git add .zshrc                                       
    stew@guppy:~ (shell:master>*) $ git commit -m "adding a newline to the end of .zshrc"
    [master 81b7311] adding a newline to the end of .zshrc
     1 files changed, 1 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
    stew@guppy:~ (shell:master>*) $ git push
    Counting objects: 8, done.
    Delta compression using up to 2 threads.
    Compressing objects: 100% (6/6), done.
    Writing objects: 100% (6/6), 546 bytes, done.
    Total 6 (delta 4), reused 0 (delta 0)
    To ssh://git.vireo.org//home/stew/git/shell.git
       d24bf2d..81b7311  master -> master
    stew@guppy:~ (shell:master*) $ exit
    stew@guppy:~ $ 

If I want to create a brand new repository from files in my home directory. I can:

    stew@guppy:~ $ touch methere
    stew@guppy:~ $ touch mealsothere
    stew@guppy:~ $ movein new oohlala methere mealsothere
    Initialized empty Git repository in /home/stew/git/oohlala.git/
    Initialized empty Git repository in /home/stew/.movein/oohlala.git/
    [master (root-commit) 7abe5ba] initial checkin
     0 files changed, 0 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
     create mode 100644 mealsothere
     create mode 100644 methere
    Counting objects: 3, done.
    Delta compression using up to 2 threads.
    Compressing objects: 100% (2/2), done.
    Writing objects: 100% (3/3), 224 bytes, done.
    Total 3 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0)
    To ssh://git.vireo.org//home/stew/git/oohlala.git
     * [new branch]      master -> master

Above, the command movein new oohlala methere mealsothere says "create a new repository containing two files: methere, mealsothere". A bare repository is created on the remote machine, a repository is created in the .movein directory, the files are committed, and the new commit is pushed to the remote repository. New on some other machine, I could run movein add oohlala to get these two new files. The movein script maintains a .mrconfig file, so that joeyh's mr tool can be used to manage the repositories in bulk. Commands like "mr update", "mr commit", "mr push" will act on all the known repositories. Here's an example:

    stew@guppy:~ $ cat .mrconfig
    [DEFAULT]
    include = cat /usr/share/mr/git-fake-bare
    [/home/stew/.movein/emacs.git]
    checkout = git_fake_bare_checkout 'ssh://git.vireo.org//home/stew/git/emacs.git' 'emacs.git' '../../'
    [/home/stew/.movein/shell.git]
    checkout = git_fake_bare_checkout 'ssh://git.vireo.org//home/stew/git/shell.git' 'shell.git' '../../'
    [/home/stew/.movein/oohlala.git]
    checkout = git_fake_bare_checkout 'ssh://git.vireo.org//home/stew/git/oohlala.git' 'oohlala.git' '../../'
    stew@guppy:~ $ mr update
    mr update: /home/stew//home/stew/.movein/emacs.git
    From ssh://git.vireo.org//home/stew/git/emacs
     * branch            master     -> FETCH_HEAD
    Already up-to-date.
    mr update: /home/stew//home/stew/.movein/oohlala.git
    From ssh://git.vireo.org//home/stew/git/oohlala
     * branch            master     -> FETCH_HEAD
    Already up-to-date.
    mr update: /home/stew//home/stew/.movein/shell.git
    From ssh://git.vireo.org//home/stew/git/shell
     * branch            master     -> FETCH_HEAD
    Already up-to-date.
    mr update: finished (3 ok)
    stew@guppy:~ $ mr update        

There are still issues I'd like to address. The big one in my mind is that there is no .gitignore. So when you "movein login somerepository" then run "git status", It tells you about hundreds of untracked files in your home directory. Ideally, I just want to know about the files which are already associated with the repository I'm logged into.

This is my monthly summary of my Debian related activities. If you re among the people who made a donation to support my work, then you can learn how I spent your money. Otherwise it s just an interesting status update on my various projects. I have been Doing some work towards Debian Rolling At the start of the month, the discussions about Debian rolling were still very active on debian-devel. Declaring that testing would be rolling did not make it (as I hoped), the argument that some RC bugs last for far too long in that distribution carried the discussion and thus the most consensual proposition ended up being the one of Josselin Mouette were rolling would be testing plus a few selected cherry-picked packages from unstable. I believe it s a workable solution if we only care about a subset of architectures. Otherwise the same reasons that keep the fixed packages out of testing would probably also apply for rolling. Given this, I did setup britney (the software that controls testing) on my laptop to investigate how we can create rolling. It turns out britney is a very specialized software with very few configuration knobs. At the same time Joachim Breitner made a proposition that immediately grabbed my attention. He suggests to use SAT solvers to find out the set of packages that should migrate from unstable to testing. I thought that rolling would be a good testbed for this new implementation of britney (which he calls SAT-britney) so I jumped right in this project. I was not at all familiar with this science field, so I looked up quite some documentation: I learned that all SAT solvers expect the problem to be presented in CNF form, and that DIMACS was the file format of choice to represent those boolean constraints. Several SAT solvers are available in Debian and picosat appears to be one of the best. Then I started some early coding/prototyping to play with the concept. You can find the result in this git repository, you can grab a copy with git clone git://git.debian.org/~hertzog/sat-britney.git. There s not much yet, except some Python code to generate a SAT problem that can be fed to a SAT solver. But I really look forward to this project. Representing Debian during Solutions Linux During the second week, I spent 3 days in Paris to help manage the Debian booth at Solutions Linux. We have responded to lots of queries but most visitors already knew Debian, and many of them use it at work and/or at home. We tried to recruit those people as new members for Debian France, the local association. We also sold all our remaining goodies. The Ubuntu people were interviewed by France 3 (an important TV channel) and we took this opportunity (with the consent of the Ubuntu guys) to show our Debian t-shirts in the background: you can watch the video here (in French), you can see me with Carl Chenet at 1:21. We have also been interviewed by Intelli n TV: here and here (both in French). I m not very good at this exercise. Improving dpkg triggers The third week was a vacation week, in theory I should have stayed away from my computer but I really wanted to take this opportunity to improve the state of dpkg triggers in Debian. I already covered my work in another article: Trying to make dpkg triggers more useful and less painful. The result is not merged yet, I just asked a question to all package maintainers who are using triggers to be able to decide whether I ll merge it as is, or if I can make the new behavior the default one. Supporting users after Alioth s migration When I came back from my vacation, many services provided by Alioth.debian.org were non-functional after a migration to a new setup that involves two machines instead of one. Given that I used to be an Alioth admin, I know that in those periods you tend to be get bogged down on many user support requests. So I re-joined #alioth on IRC and tried to help a bit. I did investigate some of the reported problems and prepared fixes (updated scripts, configuration files, etc.) for some of the issues. I also created a list of remaining issues that should have lasted only a few days but that s still active because there are still regressions left. The most important things still missing are:

• proper support for delegation of rights. We used ACL setup by the admins in the past. With the new FusionForge, each project admin should be able to delegate rights to external roles . There s a Debian Developer role already but trying to grant him right fails
• access to the Ultimate Debian Database. Many tools rely on this database to work.
• anonymous FTP access to download project files.
• clear guidelines on how we re supposed to deal with websites that are updated by VCS hooks.
• clear guidelines on how we re supposed to deal with personal git repositories

Improving the 3.0 (quilt) source format I have made some proposals to change the way the new source format would work. The goals are to be less painful for packagers who are using a VCS, and to avoid unexpected changes slipping through a new patch generated by dpkg-source. It seems that the proposals are relatively consensual so I ll implement them at some point. Missing in action on my blog I did a lots of stuff for Debian between travel and vacation, and in the remaining time, I did not manage to write many articles for my blog. In fact, besides the article on my triggers work mentioned above I only published one interview: People behind Debian: Steve Langasek, release wizard. I ll try to do better this month! Thanks Many thanks to the people who gave me 151.61 in May. See you next month for a new summary of my activities.

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When I installed my new laptop, I decided to switch from sleepd to GNOME Power Manager (GPM). The rationale behind this decision was to get screen dimming for free while keeping other features because GPM uses UPower which uses pm-suspend and pm-powersave behind the scene. This means that it is easy to execute scripts on suspend or when the AC is unplugged by putting them in /etc/pm. I don t use a full GNOME desktop. My desktop is running FVWM which is just a window manager. However, I already use some parts of the GNOME environment:

• GDM as a display manager because it is the only one that is able to handle ConsoleKit correctly. This means that GDM is able to register your session to ConsoleKit and make it active. Without that, you won t be considered as the user sitting in front of the screen and DBus won t allow you to interact with most of your hardware unless you add yourself to a lot of groups. ConsoleKit enables the at_console property used by most policies.
• Network Manager to handle both wired and wireless connections. Connecting to some random AP using only command line tools is rather cumbersome (assume that the AP is using WPA). Connecting to a broadband network with a 3G dongle is even more cumbersome.
• GNOME bluetooth applet because interacting with BlueZ bluetooth stack is now done with DBus only and the command line tools have been removed. Therefore, you need to write your own tools or use this small applet that do most of the work for you.

What s working It happens that most of the features just do not work. However, suspend when closing the lid works fine. The icon in the systray works fine too (but there is a small bug). The screen dimming feature on idle also works (but there are annoying bugs with it). The visual feedback when pressing brightness keys works too.

What s not working It seems that I am not the only one to have problem with GPM: there are currently 115 bugs opened in the Debian BTS. If you want to get some debug output from gnome-power-manager, run it with --verbose flag. --debug flag does nothing (and supersedes --verbose).

Nothing happens when pressing the power button I have configured GPM to ask me what to do when I press the power button. But when I press the button, nothing happens. Looking at the source, here is the snippet of code that is executed:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

if (policy == GPM_ACTION_POLICY_INTERACTIVE) GpmSession *session; egg_debug ("logout, reason: %s", reason); session = gpm_session_new (); gpm_session_logout (session); g_object_unref (session);

In fact, this is not GPM that will ask you the question, but GNOME session manager because GPM triggers logout. If you don t run a full GNOME session, nothing will happen. My workaround is just to set the action to Suspend .

Does not sleep when idle GPM is configured to go to sleep after 2 hours on AC or 30 minutes on battery. This does not work for me because idle detection is delegated to external programs. There are four variables used by GPM to determine if we are idle:

• session_idle which is the idle hint from ConsoleKit,
• idle_inhibited which is set when another program asks to disable idle detection (a video player which does not want the screen to be dimmed),
• suspend_inhibited which means a program do not want we going to sleep (a music player for example)
• x_idle which tells if X is idle or not (someone is moving the mouse or typing on the keyboard).

To allow GPM to suspend when we are idle, x_idle and session_idle must be true while suspend_inhibited and idle_inhibited must be false. For screen dimming purpose, you just need to have x_idle set to true and idle_inhibited set to false. Currently, only GNOME Screensaver seems to tell ConsoleKit if the session is idle or not. XScreenSaver does not contain anything about this. I am using xautolock with xlock and I am pretty sure they won t tell GPM if I am idle. You can use dbus-send to circumvent this problem:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

$ dbus-send --system --dest=org.freedesktop.ConsoleKit \ > --type=method_call --print-reply --reply-timeout=2000 \ > /org/freedesktop/ConsoleKit/Manager \ > org.freedesktop.ConsoleKit.Manager.GetCurrentSession method return sender=:1.6 -> dest=:1.106 reply_serial=2 object path "/org/freedesktop/ConsoleKit/Session1" $ dbus-send --system --dest=org.freedesktop.ConsoleKit \ > --type=method_call --print-reply --reply-timeout=2000 \ > /org/freedesktop/ConsoleKit/Session1 \ > org.freedesktop.ConsoleKit.Session.SetIdleHint boolean:true method return sender=:1.6 -> dest=:1.108 reply_serial=2

While I understand what is the rationale behind those choices (no code duplicate and allowing external programs to hinder power management), it lacks some fallback in case you don t use GNOME Screensaver (which is the key component here). I first though this was bug #594706 but this is not the case. I have opened (and closed) bug #628755. UPDATED: Jump to the conclusion for an updated solution for this problem.

Brightness is not restored to the previous value after idle When GPM undims the screen, it does not restore the previous value. It seems to be bug #617310 which is marked as fixed in upstream. I did not investigate it.

Wrong number of batteries reported I only have one battery but after one suspend/resume cycle, GPM thinks I have two. Maybe this is a bug of UPower. Maybe this is bug #606434. I did not investigate it. Maybe there is an happy interaction with bug #456280.

Inability to set configure actions when the UPS runs out of battery This is bug #390602. In addition to laptop batteries, UPower also supports UPS. In this case, GPM displays a special icon to tell if the UPS is fully charged. However, there is no possibility to execute special actions when the UPS is unplugged, like hibernate after 10 minutes or something like this. This seems to be a problem with the interface because looking with gconftool-2, we can spot variables like low_ups or critical_ups which allow to set actions when the UPS is almost out of battery. Moreover, the UPS icon only displays after one suspend/resume cycle but I am too lazy to report and debug this issue. Since, the icon disappear if I restart GPM, I am confident that the bug is in GPM.

Conclusion The conclusion is that GPM is not really that buggy but it really needs to be run in a full-blown GNOME desktop. The main problem is not really GPM. New technologies like UPower and ConsoleKit get pushed by freedesktop.org initiative, they get implemented by GNOME (and, I suppose, KDE) because they have tons of people following the appropriate mailing lists and any alternative just gets crushed by all those unpublicized changes. UPDATED: I got several helpful comments about this problem. There are two possible solutions:

1. Use xfce4-power-manager. It handles brightness control in a better way and don t need an external program to tell when the current session is idle. It still needs a session manager to ask what to do when using the power button. The drawback to this solution is that you start to pull another desktop environment into your environment. You had some parts of GNOME and now you have some parts of XFCE. This solution was proposed by Sylvain Collilieux.
2. Use gnome-session, gnome-screensaver and keep gnome-power-manager. As pointed by Julien Valroff, gnome-screensaver needs gnome-session to detect idleness. However, gnome-session starts a whole GNOME desktop. Again, there are two solutions. The first one is to replace gnome-session by something lighter implementing the bare minimum to make gnome-screensaver happy. Another suggestion is to configure gnome-session to start your favorite environment.

I start mine from ~/.xsession and here is what I have added at the top of it:

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# If not done, restart ourself with gnome-session if [ -z "$SESSION_MANAGER" ]; then [ -d ~/.config/autostart ] mkdir ~/.config/autostart rm -f ~/.config/autostart/* cat <<EOF > ~/.config/autostart/xsession.desktop [Desktop Entry] Name=Xsession Comment=Start .xsession Exec=$(readlink -f $0) Type=Application X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=true EOF exec gnome-session --autostart=$HOME/.config/autostart fi # Otherwise, keep starting stuff # [...] exec fvwm-crystal

The BitTorrent protocol works with trackers, that track the clients or peers that share a given file. This is one specific design of a peer-to-peer protocol, very appropriate for official distribution: for instance, Debian runs a tracker for distributing the installation images.The problem There exists many BitTorrent clients, but, for what I have seen, few BitTorrent tracker. Within Debian, I think the only trackers available are the original BitTorrent's one, and its fork BitTornado. Both suffer from serious drawbacks:

• they have been unmaintained (upstream) for years;
• they provide both a tracker and a client in the same package, whereas a BitTorrent client and a tracker do not have much in common, and most people are only interested in the client, so the package maintainer had to completely disable the tracker daemon, which complicates the task to get a working tracker;
• the tracker's logging simply sucks: they had the brilliant idea to bufferize their log, with what seems no buffer control at all, so you get half-written lines, that get complete half an hour later, and so on.

Proposed solution Now that I have criticized a lot, let us be more constructive. All these issues could be fixed by modifying the code and the package (well, by adopting it, for the first one). I think it is not worth doing so, exactly because they implement both a client and a tracker: there are many good BitTorrent clients so there is no real need for them as clients, and because a tracker's job is quite different, and easier than a client's, it would be useless to maintain a client with the tracker. So, I am considering coding a BitTorrent tracker. Even though the tracker protocol is based on HTTP, it is completely stateful so it would be a standalone daemon rather than a CGI-style program. I would code it in Python because this is the language I currently prefer, and I may call it tbtt (the BitTorrent tracker, or Tanguy's BitTorrent tracker, or transport blind tout terrain (all terrain armoured transport)). If you have any information or suggestion, please comment! Perhaps I missed some existing tracker that would do the job instead of coding a new one?

I was invited to be part of one of the panels to be present this Thursday (June 2) in a forum that promises to be interesting. The forum is organized by the Science and Technology comission of the Senate of the Republic (of Mexico ;-) ), Universidad Aut noma Metropolitana and Mozilla M xico. The day will be opened by Sen. Francisco Javier Castell n Fonseca and Richard Stallman; starting at 10:00, we will have thematic panels on:

• Education
• Government
• Industry
• Civil society

The full program (as well as details of interest of those that can physically attend) is attached to this post. I am looking forward to this forum. Not only it is a good opportunity to get our work known in one of those places where it matters, but it's also being organized by several interesting people I'm sure will have something interesting to contribute. And of course, we lacked time to build a better, more complete and more coherent proposal but there is a good probability we will have further such contacts. You might find interesting to read on the list we have been discussing; subscription seems to be open (although access to the archives is not Maybe it will be later on? In any case, I'm saving a mbox ;-) )

Attachment	Size
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Puppet labs's use of the term puppetmaster is rather clever (in contrast to other un-necessarily offensive uses of "master" in the software world). While I appreciate the clever name, I'm less impressed with the concept. At May First/People Link we've spent the last several years (including the last couple months in earnest) working to transition management of our 90-some servers from a collection of hand-written bash scripts to puppet. Over the years, we've worked hard to keep our servers as secure as possible. We have a team of about a half dozen people who all have root access on all servers. It's all key-based access. To help mitigate a disaster if one person's keys were compromised, we've implemented monkeysphere on all servers, allowing us to easily revoke access. After spending so much time thinking through our root-access strategy and fully implementing the monkeysphere to reduce our exposure to a single point of vulnerability, I was disappointed by puppet's use of a puppet master. For those less familiar with puppet, it goes something like this: One server (or god forbid multiple servers), run an externally accessible daemon. Each and every server on your network runs a daemon as root that periodically communicates with the puppet master, receives new instructions, and then (again, as root) executes these instructions. In other words, if your puppet master is compromised, I'm not sure exactly what you would need to do, short of rebuilding every server in your network. To make matters worse, it seems as though some users generate and store all server ssh keys (private and public) on the puppet master and then push the private keys to their respective nodes. That means an intruder doesn't need to write to the puppet master, just reading these keys would be enough to compromise all servers in your network. There must be a better way. Puppet without masters After some web-searching, I found a promising thread on the puppet list asking what's lost without a puppet master. This thread lead to a couple other blogs by people who have worked out a system for using puppet without a master. It turns out that there are two distinct points of centralization with puppet. One is the puppet master (as described above). In addition, there is a concept called storeconfigs - which allows each node in the network to store information in a central database. For example, one server can store a request for an account to be setup on a backup server. The next time the backup server runs, it checks the storeconfigs, finds the request, and creates the user. It's possible to run puppet with storeconfigs but without running a puppet master (that avoids the hassle of running the puppet daemons, while providing the convenience of centralization). For our purposes, however, we decided to forego both the puppet master and storeconfigs. We did not want any form of centralization that would provide an additional point of vulnerability. As is common with puppet, we are storing our puppet recipes in a git repository. And, we are publishing to a single, canonical git repository on the Internet. On each node, we have two git repositories - one is a bare repo (that we can push to) and the other is a checked out repo (in /etc/puppet) that is read by puppet. The bare repo has a post-update hook the changes into the /etc/puppet directory, pulls in the changes from the bare repository, and runs puppet against the newly checked out files. Therefore, we can apply new puppet recipes to any server on the network with

git push <server>

No daemons: neither a master daemon nor a puppet daemon running on the node using up memory or providing a potential security hole. The git push happens over an ssh connection - since all system administrators already have root-level ssh access on every server - there is no need to grant any additional access above what we already have. Pushing works great - but with 90 nodes we don't want to have to push to 90 servers everytime we want a change made. That's where the canonical git repository comes in. A cron job runs a script on each node once an hour that runs git remote update from /etc/puppet. The script then checks the time stamp on the most recent gpg-signed tag and compares it with the time stamp of the current commit. If the most recent gpg-signed tag is newer, it verifies that the tag came from a list of authorized gpg keys (the very same gpg keys used by the monkeysphere to grant root level ssh access). If the gpg signature of the tag can be properly verified, then the changes are merged and puppet is run on the new recipes. What about privacy? One of the benefits of a puppet master setup is that nodes get configuration details on a need-to-know basis. The puppet master doesn't share the entire puppet repo - only the compiled manifest for the node with which it's communicating. Our solution to this problem was to go screaming in the other direction. As you might notice from our support wiki and ticket system, we generally favor transparency. Since we are publishing our entire puppet git repo publicly, there seems little point in trying to hide one node's configuration details from another node. That also means each node carries around about 4Mb of extra weight in the form of disk space for the git repo. That seems like a small price to pay for the resource savings of not running a puppetd process all the time. More differences As I've read the puppet lists, faqs and documentation, I've found yet more ways our use of puppet diverges from the norm. The first is a little thing really - most people seem to store all their node configurations in a single nodes.pp file. I'm not sure why. Fortunately, puppet's include syntax allows globbing, so we've created a directory and gave each server it's own .pp file. This arrangement makes it much easier to parse the configuration with tools other than puppet (like, Q. How many servers do we have? A. ls wc -l). Backup and Nagios monitoring without storeconfigs More significantly - there are some things we can't do since we are not using storeconfigs. While many puppet users add a variable, like $nagios = true before including their sshd class (which then causes the sshd class to store a configuration for the nagios server to monitor ssh on the node in question), we were forced to come up with alternatives. My first solution was to simply list all the servers that needed to be monitored in the server node configuration file for the nagios server. Ditto for the backup servers. This approach, however, proved cumbersome and error prone. When adding a new node, I now have to edit three files instead of one. And, how can I easily tell if all nodes have their nagios and/or backup configurations set? The solution was rather simple - there's more than one way to store a config for another node. Our nagios server is called jojobe.mayfirst.org and our backup server is luisa.mayfirst.org. A typical node.pp file looks like this:

node pietri.mayfirst.org  
  # node config goes here
 
if ( $fqdn == "jojobe.mayfirst.org )  
  nagios_montior   "pietri":  
 
if ( $fqdn == "luisa.mayfirst.org )  
  backup_access   "pietri":  
 

This way all configuration related to pietri stays in a single file. Host keys and granting access between servers storeconfigs is commonly used to distribute host ssh keys. Every node that is added to puppet has it's ssh host key stored centrally and then re-distributed to every other node. That way, you can ssh from node to node without ever getting the ssh fingerprint verification. Avoiding that prompt is particularly important when backing up from one server to another via automated scripts. storeconfigs can additionally be used to copy user's public ssh keys - thus granting user access between servers. Our solution to this problem: monkeysphere. Rather than maintaining our own private data store of keys, we publish (and sign) our ssh keys via the web of trust. In addition to server keys, each one of our servers' root user has an ssh-enabled gpg key (also publicly signed by us). By configuring each server to trust our system administrators' gpg keys for verifying other keys, we can both avoid the ssh fingerprint manual verification step and we can grant a root user on one server access to another server by simply dropping root@$server.mayfirst.org into an authorizeduserids file on the target server. There's no question - the setup was rather tedious (we're using runit to maintain an ssh-agent for each root user), however, now that's in place (and configured via puppet), it's a breeze to add new servers. The only extra step we have to take is to confirm and sign each new server's keys. This "extra" step not only allows our servers to verify each other, but also allows our users to verify the servers as well, so it's hardly an extra step at all. Shared modules There's a vibrant community of third party module developers for puppet. Rather than figure out the intricacies of having puppet configure sshd, for example, you can install a contributed sshd module and then you simply add:

include sshd

And you get a default sshd setup. Many of these modules are fairly well developed, offering the ability to easily customize your setup in a number of different ways. Unfortunately, most of the modules assume you are using storeconfigs and if you are not, they will either fail to work right or you will get noisy errors. At first, this seemed like a problem. However, as I built our puppet recipes, I found myself increasingly frustrated with the third party modules that we could use. Configuring servers is hard - and requires constant debugging and trouble shooting. puppet already provides a layer of abstraction between you and the server you are setting up. Given the benefits of puppet, I'm willing to spend the time learning the puppet syntax and asking the rest of our system administrators to do the same. This layer of abstraction is further compounded by our use of git to store the configurations (not a problem if you are git hero - but most of us are already struggling to get a handle on using git). Again, all seems worth it for the pay off. Now enter the puppet module. In addition to learning puppet syntax (and struggling with git) you now need to understand how the third party module works. With software programming, I typically don't need or want to learn how a library or class does what it does - that's the beauty of object-oriented programming: it hides the complexity. But when it comes to configuring the servers that I will be responsible for debugging and maintaining, I really need to know exactly what is happening. To further compound the problem, I found myself wading through third party module code designed to work on Debian, Ubuntu, CentOS, Redhat, gentoo... and more. We run entirely on Debian - we don't need any of this extra code. And, once I got rid of all the other operating systems, I was still left with a complex module that allows you to configure software in ways we'll never need. In the end, we tore out most of these third party modules and replaced them with file and exec puppet resources that did exactly what we needed them to do. Our code base is now much smaller and simpler. Not just a whiner I have a lot more to whine about (like why native resources for things like nagios that are so easily handled with the file resource?). However - the remarkable thing about puppet is that it's flexible. Despite some fairly substantial problems with the "typical" use of puppet, the program provides enough flexibility for us to use it in a way that fully meets our needs. After having built my own bash-based set of configuration scripts and deeply exploring puppet, I have a great appreciation for the difficulty of building system configuration software (we considered and rejected cf-engine and chef as not being any better). And, if you are still not convinced that puppet will work fo you ... you might consider a package I learned about after going down the puppet route: slack.

I doubt I have ever read a book that had as significant an impact on me, and my act of reading it had on others, as this one. Conversations like this were frequent: Someone, upon seeing me reading my Kindle, would ask what I am reading. War and Peace. Oh. . . uhm, wow. Yeah, it s great. I m reading it for fun. Uhm, OK then, see you later. . . It seems to be so revered, and also so loathed, that I had to read it. At 1400 pages, it took me 8 months to finish, though I read several other entire books in that time. I feel rather unequal to the task of expressing how this book impacted me, let alone a review of it. And nonetheless, I also feel I would be remiss if I let it go past saying nothing. I was struck by so many things as I read War and Peace. Some of them I won t mention here and hope to turn into their own blog posts. Of the others, I felt I gained some sense of how the nobility and serfs in Russia (and, to a certain extent, Europe) thought about life, their position, and how things ran. Being a modern Kansan, this thought process was not familiar to me, and though I head read about it in history texts before, felt far more informed having read it in Tolstoy s novel. Although much of the novel centers around Napoleon s invasion of Russia in 1812, the work as a whole spans nearly two decades of time. Tolstoy s characters aren t static; they change over time. Some, yes, die; others go through hardships and triumphs that change them to their core. It evoked a feeling of nostalgia in me at times for the younger, childlike Natasha who was so full of simple delight in life. But then, a thousand pages later, the older Pierre finally was able to find simple delight in life too. Sometimes I have missed on the simple joy of being, and Jacob or Oliver or Terah remind me of that. Today Oliver and I read a book together, one that we read often, and we discovered an illustration of a tiny worm we had never noticed before. And the worm had a red hat ( hat is one of Oliver s favorite words right now.) The happy laughter as he pointed at the tiny hat, saying hat over and over, reminds me that sometimes children know how to live better than adults. Jacob later asked me how my day was, and I told him how I read a book on my Kindle, where I sat, and how I even read it lying down on the couch for a bit. At that he too laughed. As with some other wonderful, engrossing books, I was sad to reach the end of this one. I felt as if I was leaving a conversation early; fictional characters, yes, but their story wasn t over. And really, that was part of Tolstoy s point: things don t happen in isolation, and stories don t have clearly-defined start and end points. The novel touched on politics, religion, philosophy, free will, and just about every topic imaginable. It is, really, unfair to call it a just a novel. Here are some random quotes from the book, which I highlighted:

his heart was now overflowing with love, and by loving people without cause he discovered indubitable causes for loving them. How often we sin, how much we deceive, and all for what? All will end in death, all! A pleasant humming and whistling of bullets were often heard. Looking into Napoleon s eyes Prince Andrew thought of the insignificance of greatness, the unimportance of life which no one could understand, and the still greater unimportance of death, the meaning of which no one alive could understand or explain. If there is a God and future life, there is truth and good, and man s highest happiness consists in striving to attain them. We must live, we must love, and we must believe that we live not only today on this scrap of earth, but have lived and shall live forever, there, in the Whole, said Pierre, and he pointed to the sky. Prince Andrew stood leaning on the railing of the raft listening to Pierre, and he gazed with his eyes fixed on the red reflection of the sun gleaming on the blue waters. There was perfect stillness. Pierre became silent. The raft had long since stopped and only the waves of the current beat softly against it below. Prince Andrew felt as if the sound of the waves kept up a refrain to Pierre s words, whispering: It is true, believe it. He sighed, and glanced with a radiant, childlike, tender look at Pierre s face, flushed and rapturous, but yet shy before his superior friend. In Natasha Prince Andrew was conscious of a strange world completely alien to him and brimful of joys unknown to him, a different world, that in the Otradnoe avenue and at the window that moonlight night had already begun to disconcert him. Now this world disconcerted him no longer and was no longer alien to him, but he himself having entered it found in it a new enjoyment. All the kings, except the Chinese, wear military uniforms, and he who kills most people receives the highest rewards. But what is war? What is needed for success in warfare? What are the habits of the military? The aim of war is murder; the methods of war are spying, treachery, and their encouragement, the ruin of a country s inhabitants, robbing them or stealing to provision the army, and fraud and falsehood termed military craft. The habits of the military class are the absence of freedom, that is, discipline, idleness, ignorance, cruelty, debauchery, and drunkenness. And in spite of all this it is the highest class, respected by everyone. From the moment Pierre had witnessed those terrible murders committed by men who did not wish to commit them, it was as if the mainspring of his life, on which everything depended and which made everything appear alive, had suddenly been wrenched out and everything had collapsed into a heap of meaningless rubbish. Though he did not acknowledge it to himself, his faith in the right ordering of the universe, in humanity, in his own soul, and in God, had been destroyed. He had experienced this before, but never so strongly as now. When similar doubts had assailed him before, they had been the result of his own wrongdoing, and at the bottom of his heart he had felt that relief from his despair and from those doubts was to be found within himself. But now he felt that the universe had crumbled before his eyes and only meaningless ruins remained, and this not by any fault of his own. He felt that it was not in his power to regain faith in the meaning of life. When Princess Mary began to cry, he understood that she was crying at the thought that little Nicholas would be left without a father. With a great effort he tried to return to life and to see things from their point of view. Yes, to them it must seem sad! he thought. But how simple it is. The fowls of the air sow not, neither do they reap, yet your Father feedeth them, he said to himself and wished to say to Princess Mary; but no, they will take it their own way, they won t understand! They can t understand that all those feelings they prize so all our feelings, all those ideas that seem so important to us, are unnecessary. We cannot understand one another, and he remained silent. Love hinders death. Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love. Everything is united by it alone. Love is God, and to die means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and eternal source. These thoughts seemed to him comforting. People speak of misfortunes and sufferings, remarked Pierre, but if at this moment I were asked: Would you rather be what you were before you were taken prisoner, or go through all this again? then for heaven s sake let me again have captivity and horseflesh! We imagine that when we are thrown out of our usual ruts all is lost, but it is only then that what is new and good begins. While there is life there is happiness. There is much, much before us. I say this to you, he added, turning to Natasha. During that twenty-year period an immense number of fields were left untilled, houses were burned, trade changed its direction, millions of men migrated, were impoverished, or were enriched, and millions of Christian men professing the law of love of their fellows slew one another. What does all this mean? Why did it happen? What made those people burn houses and slay their fellow men? What were the causes of these events? What force made men act so? These are the instinctive, plain, and most legitimate questions humanity asks itself when it encounters the monuments and tradition of that period.

Conrad Sanderson is preparing version 2.0.0 of his Armadillo templated C++ library for linear algebra and has released a first public beta version 1.99.2. This has been folded into a new release of the RcppArmadillo wrapper for R based on our Rcpp library. Also added in this version is a new example of a simulation of a vector autoregression process which I had blogged about earlier. The example had been prepared for the Rcpp workshop / class at last month's R/Finance conference, and demonstrates a rather nice speed gain from using Rcpp and RcppArmadillo. The short NEWS file extract follows below.

0.2.20  2011-05-25
    o   Upgraded to Armadillo release 1.99.2 "v2.0 beta 2" (and 1.99.1 before)
          * faster inverse of symmetric matrices
          * faster element access for fixed size matrices
          * faster multiplication of tiny matrices (eg. 4x4)
          * faster compund expressions containing submatrices
          * added handling of arbitrarily sized empty matrices (eg. 5x0)
          * added syl()
          * added strans()
          * added symmatu()/symmatl()
          * added submatrices of submatrices
          * htrans() has been deprecated; use trans() instead
          * trans() now takes the complex conjugate when transposing a
            complex matrix
          * .is_vec() now outputs true for empty matrices
          * most functions with matrix inputs no longer throw exceptions when
            given empty matrices (eg. 5x0)
    o   Added a new subdirectory examples/ seeded with a nice Vector
        Autoregression simulation simulation example by Lance Bachmeier
    o   Rewrote armadillo_version as to no longer require an instance 
        of arma::arma_version, with tanks to Conrad for the suggestion

And courtesy of CRANberries, here is the diff to the previous release.

Diff between RcppArmadillo versions 0.2.19 dated 2011-04-24 and 0.2.20 dated 2011-05-26
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/Col_proto.hpp               only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/Cube_proto.hpp              only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/GlueCube_proto.hpp          only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/Glue_proto.hpp              only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/Mat_proto.hpp               only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/OpCube_proto.hpp            only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/Op_proto.hpp                only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/Row_proto.hpp               only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/arma_ostream_proto.hpp      only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/arrayops_proto.hpp          only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/atlas_proto.hpp             only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/auxlib_proto.hpp            only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/blas_proto.hpp              only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/diagview_proto.hpp          only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/diskio_proto.hpp            only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/eGlueCube_proto.hpp         only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/eGlue_proto.hpp             only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/eOpCube_proto.hpp           only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/eOp_proto.hpp               only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/eglue_core_proto.hpp        only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/eop_core_proto.hpp          only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/field_proto.hpp             only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/fn_htrans.hpp               only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/forward_proto.hpp           only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/glue_conv_proto.hpp         only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/glue_cor_proto.hpp          only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/glue_cov_proto.hpp          only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/glue_cross_proto.hpp        only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/glue_join_proto.hpp         only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/glue_kron_proto.hpp         only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/glue_mixed_proto.hpp        only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/glue_relational_proto.hpp   only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/glue_solve_proto.hpp        only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/glue_times_proto.hpp        only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/glue_toeplitz_proto.hpp     only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/injector_proto.hpp          only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/lapack_proto.hpp            only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/mtGlueCube_proto.hpp        only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/mtGlue_proto.hpp            only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/mtOpCube_proto.hpp          only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/mtOp_proto.hpp              only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_chol_proto.hpp           only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_cor_proto.hpp            only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_cov_proto.hpp            only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_cumsum_proto.hpp         only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_cx_scalar_proto.hpp      only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_diagmat_proto.hpp        only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_diagvec_proto.hpp        only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_dot_proto.hpp            only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_dotext_proto.hpp         only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_find_proto.hpp           only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_flip_proto.hpp           only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_htrans_proto.hpp         only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_inv_proto.hpp            only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_max_proto.hpp            only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_mean_proto.hpp           only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_median_proto.hpp         only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_min_proto.hpp            only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_misc_proto.hpp           only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_pinv_proto.hpp           only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_princomp_cov_proto.hpp   only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_princomp_proto.hpp       only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_prod_proto.hpp           only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_relational_proto.hpp     only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_repmat_proto.hpp         only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_reshape_proto.hpp        only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_shuffle_proto.hpp        only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_sort_proto.hpp           only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_stddev_proto.hpp         only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_sum_proto.hpp            only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_trans_meat.hpp           only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_trans_proto.hpp          only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_trimat_proto.hpp         only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_var_proto.hpp            only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/podarray_proto.hpp          only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/running_stat_proto.hpp      only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/running_stat_vec_proto.hpp  only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/subview_cube_proto.hpp      only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/subview_elem1_proto.hpp     only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/subview_field_proto.hpp     only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/subview_proto.hpp           only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.19/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/wall_clock_proto.hpp        only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/ChangeLog                                                  20 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/DESCRIPTION                                                10 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/NEWS                                                  26 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/examples                                           only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/RcppArmadillo/Mat_meat.h                       8 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo                                    199 -
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/Col_bones.hpp               only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/Col_meat.hpp                  519 +++
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/Cube_bones.hpp              only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/Cube_meat.hpp                  96 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/GlueCube_bones.hpp          only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/Glue_bones.hpp              only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/Mat_bones.hpp               only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/Mat_meat.hpp                  673 +++-
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/OpCube_bones.hpp            only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/Op_bones.hpp                only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/Proxy.hpp                      28 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/ProxyCube.hpp                  20 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/Row_bones.hpp               only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/Row_meat.hpp                  491 +++
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/arma_ostream_bones.hpp      only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/arma_ostream_meat.hpp          87 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/arma_static_assert.hpp         31 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/arma_version.hpp                6 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/arrayops_bones.hpp          only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/arrayops_meat.hpp             143 -
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/atlas_bones.hpp             only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/auxlib_bones.hpp            only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/auxlib_meat.hpp               772 ++++-
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/blas_bones.hpp              only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/compiler_setup.hpp             17 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/debug.hpp                      24 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/diagmat_proxy.hpp              93 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/diagview_bones.hpp          only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/diagview_meat.hpp             128 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/diskio_bones.hpp            only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/diskio_meat.hpp               104 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/eGlueCube_bones.hpp         only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/eGlueCube_meat.hpp             14 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/eGlue_bones.hpp             only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/eGlue_meat.hpp                 14 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/eOpCube_bones.hpp           only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/eOp_bones.hpp               only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/eglue_core_bones.hpp        only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/eglue_core_meat.hpp           519 ++-
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/eop_core_bones.hpp          only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/eop_core_meat.hpp             327 +-
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/field_bones.hpp             only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/fn_accu.hpp                    40 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/fn_det.hpp                      7 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/fn_diagmat.hpp                  7 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/fn_elem.hpp                    62 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/fn_eye.hpp                  only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/fn_inv.hpp                     18 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/fn_log_det.hpp                  8 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/fn_max.hpp                     38 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/fn_mean.hpp                    42 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/fn_median.hpp                  53 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/fn_min.hpp                     38 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/fn_ones.hpp                    45 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/fn_prod.hpp                    20 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/fn_randn.hpp                   10 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/fn_randu.hpp                   12 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/fn_stddev.hpp                  20 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/fn_strans.hpp               only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/fn_syl_lyap.hpp             only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/fn_symmat.hpp               only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/fn_trans.hpp                   35 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/fn_var.hpp                     20 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/fn_zeros.hpp                   12 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/forward_bones.hpp           only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/gemm.hpp                      337 --
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/gemm_mixed.hpp                 59 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/gemv.hpp                      208 +
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/glue_conv_bones.hpp         only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/glue_conv_meat.hpp             16 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/glue_cor_bones.hpp          only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/glue_cor_meat.hpp              12 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/glue_cov_bones.hpp          only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/glue_cross_bones.hpp        only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/glue_cross_meat.hpp            47 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/glue_join_bones.hpp         only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/glue_join_meat.hpp             46 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/glue_kron_bones.hpp         only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/glue_mixed_bones.hpp        only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/glue_relational_bones.hpp   only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/glue_solve_bones.hpp        only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/glue_times_bones.hpp        only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/glue_times_meat.hpp           493 +--
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/glue_toeplitz_bones.hpp     only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/glue_toeplitz_meat.hpp          5 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/injector_bones.hpp          only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/lapack_bones.hpp            only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/mtGlueCube_bones.hpp        only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/mtGlue_bones.hpp            only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/mtOpCube_bones.hpp          only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/mtOp_bones.hpp              only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_chol_bones.hpp           only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_cor_bones.hpp            only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_cor_meat.hpp                14 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_cov_bones.hpp            only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_cumsum_bones.hpp         only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_cumsum_meat.hpp              9 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_cx_scalar_bones.hpp      only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_diagmat_bones.hpp        only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_diagmat_meat.hpp            10 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_diagvec_bones.hpp        only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_dot_bones.hpp            only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_dotext_bones.hpp         only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_find_bones.hpp           only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_flip_bones.hpp           only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_htrans_bones.hpp         only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_htrans_meat.hpp             98 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_inv_bones.hpp            only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_inv_meat.hpp                13 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_max_bones.hpp            only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_max_meat.hpp                57 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_mean_bones.hpp           only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_mean_meat.hpp               34 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_median_bones.hpp         only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_median_meat.hpp            214 -
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_min_bones.hpp            only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_min_meat.hpp                33 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_misc_bones.hpp           only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_pinv_bones.hpp           only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_pinv_meat.hpp               10 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_princomp_bones.hpp       only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_princomp_cov_bones.hpp   only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_prod_bones.hpp           only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_prod_meat.hpp               34 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_relational_bones.hpp     only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_repmat_bones.hpp         only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_repmat_meat.hpp             29 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_reshape_bones.hpp        only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_reshape_meat.hpp            32 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_shuffle_bones.hpp        only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_shuffle_meat.hpp            10 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_sort_bones.hpp           only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_stddev_bones.hpp         only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_stddev_meat.hpp             34 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_strans_bones.hpp         only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_strans_meat.hpp          only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_sum_bones.hpp            only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_sum_meat.hpp                38 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_symmat_bones.hpp         only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_symmat_meat.hpp          only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_trimat_bones.hpp         only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_trimat_meat.hpp            190 +
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_var_bones.hpp            only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/op_var_meat.hpp                37 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/operator_times.hpp             12 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/podarray_bones.hpp          only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/podarray_meat.hpp              57 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/promote_type.hpp               18 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/running_stat_bones.hpp      only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/running_stat_meat.hpp           2 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/running_stat_vec_bones.hpp  only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/subview_bones.hpp           only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/subview_cube_bones.hpp      only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/subview_cube_meat.hpp          50 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/subview_elem1_bones.hpp     only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/subview_elem1_meat.hpp         24 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/subview_field_bones.hpp     only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/subview_field_meat.hpp         37 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/subview_meat.hpp             1423 +++++++++-
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/traits.hpp                     69 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/typedef_u64.hpp             only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/undefine_conflicts.hpp      only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/unwrap.hpp                     64 
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/inst/include/armadillo_bits/wall_clock_bones.hpp        only
 RcppArmadillo-0.2.20/RcppArmadillo/src/RcppArmadillo.cpp                                      27 
 253 files changed, 6400 insertions(+), 2358 deletions(-)

More information is on the RcppArmadillo page. Questions, comments etc should go to the rcpp-devel mailing list off the R-Forge page.

<iframe frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&amp;bc1=000000&amp;IS2=1&amp;bg1=FFFFFF&amp;fc1=000000&amp;lc1=0000FF&amp;t=dedasys-20&amp;o=1&amp;p=8&amp;l=as4&amp;m=amazon&amp;f=ifr&amp;ref=ss_til&amp;asins=B004IYISQW" style="width: 120px; height: 240px; float: left; margin-right: 20px; margin-bottom: 8px;"></iframe> Many small business owners start a business with the idea of greater freedom in mind, yet end up chaining themselves to something that takes even more dedication than a regular job. This book discusses the dos and don'ts that business owners need to be conscious of in order to create a business that is independent of its owner(s) in order to be able to sell it. It does so in an easy to read format that's a bit of a gimmick - a fictional story illustrating the authors points. Like most business books, the core idea isn't that hard to explain. the book even includes a handy summary of the main points, which I'll paraphrase here:

1. Focus on one thing you can do really well; even a service business can be 'productized' by creating a standard service that is the focus of the business.
2. If your business revolves around one or two key clients, the risk inherent in that approach will lower the value or scare of potential buyers completely.
3. Put a process in place, from sales through production.
4. Don't "be" your company. If the company is all about you, what's a potential buyer really getting if you sell it and leave?
5. By focusing on products, you can charge up front rather than having poor cash flow. If you pay people to work on a project for 3 months, and don't get paid for another month, you are, by the end, out 4 months salary while waiting for the payment.
6. Say no to projects outside the scope of your business. Only by focusing narrowly can you really excel at what you do.
7. Spend time doing some research and calculations to estimate your potential market size; buyers will want to know this.
8. If you have a business that has sales people, hire at least two so that they'll compete with one another.
9. You want people who are good at selling products, not services; the latter will want to tweak your offering for each and every client, rather than selling it as-is and trying to find how it can meet the customer's needs that way, which is the best strategy for a product.
10. If you were previously running a more 'generic' services company, and you switch to a more productized approach, be prepared to take a hit the year when you switch.
11. Potential acquirers will want to see at least a couple of years of steady growth with the new model after making the switch.
12. If you grow, you'll need a management team that can work without you. Put an incentive system into place to reward their loyalty and results.
13. When looking for an adviser to sell your company, aim for one where you will not be the largest or smallest client.
14. If your adviser really only has one company in mind to sell yours to, they may be trying to sell you off cheap as a favor.
15. Consider how much you could grow with the resources of a buyer. Think big, and show them what kind of growth could happen with the right backing.
16. Think and speak like a product business with 'customers' rather than 'clients'.
17. Stock options are more complex than simpler options like bonuses that are paid out over a period of time, in terms of ways to give people an incentive to stay.

All in all, it was an enjoyable read, with solid points. Even if you have no intention of selling your business, thinking of the business itself as a sort of "product" that is not dependent on you to work correctly is a sensible way to go about creating and growing a business. He's certainly not, nor claims to be the first one to discuss this idea, and indeed references the well known E-Myth Revisited which focuses less on selling a business, and more on how to go about extricating you and your skills from the business.

Today I was baptized and joined the Mennonite Church. I imagine this might surprise some of you for various reasons, so let me provide a bit of background. I ve had a lot of people, both in person and in comments responding to my blog post, express surprise with statements I have made. The view of Christianity that many people have is of a group that devalues scientific inquiry and places a lot of emphasis on things like opposition to gay marriage, evolution, and abortion, and enjoys political leaders that say bring it on. While I know some Christians that fall into that mold, there are quite a few that don t as well. Some churches, such as the one we attend, have a surprisingly diverse set of people and yet still function and get along well. Today they accepted me with joy. Nobody was concerned that I started my statement with a reference to ancient Greek philosophy, wound up suggesting that the church ought to make sure to make illegal immigrants, gays and lesbians, and prostitutes feel welcome, and embraced both religion and scientific inquiry, feeling them complimentary. Mennonites practice adult baptism rather than infant baptism. A traditional age for people to be baptized is during high school, though emphasis is placed more on the individual than their age, so it s not unheard-of for someone to do so a bit later in life as I have. Part of the baptism involves the candidate sharing their faith story. These are typically intensely personal, widely varied, heartfelt, and honest. Some people s stories involve struggles with depression, physical disabilities, or the place of religion in their lives, while others reflect little struggle at all. Mine involves letting go of a lot of things, and also seeing some things, such as serious intellectual inquiry or existential questions about God (such as is there a god? ), as a positive rather than a negative feature of a Christian life. But it also involves a recognition and deep respect for those that don t approach things in this way. Though given publicly in a church, baptism testimonies are rarely published or shared more broadly. But I m going to share mine here. I have edited it only very lightly to remove a few local references that wouldn t make sense out of the context of this community. This was delivered in front of a rather different audience than is likely to be reading this post, so if you have questions, do feel free to ask in the comments. But before I begin, I just have to pass along a joke a friend told me: John, you picked quite a day for your baptism the day after the rapture. Baptism Testimony John Goerzen May 22, 2011 Those of you that know me well will probably not be surprised that I will begin my Christian baptism testimony with a story about an ancient Greek philosopher, and also touch on the philosophical nature of truth. These are key parts of my story. As legend goes, Socrates famously said, I know that I know nothing in other words, he believed that nothing could be known with absolute certainty. The Greek Oracle thought to be infallibly wise said that Socrates, the man that thought he knew nothing, was the wisest man in all Athens. An interesting paradox, and one that sheds light on my own religious story. My story involves coming to grips with the understanding that I know very little, that no person can ultimately know much about God, and finding a way to make peace with that situation. Growing up in this community, I thought I knew some things about faith and Christianity. At a certain age, it all seemed so simple. We took the Bible to be literally true. We marveled in Sunday School at how the apostles could sometimes appear so blind. And, modeled both implicitly and explicitly, was this notion: the stronger our faith, the fewer inner questions or doubt we have about the nature of God, the literal accuracy of the entire Bible, or our relationship to God. Those I perceived held up as examples never seemed to question any of these things, and showed outwardly, at least complete certainty about them. Moreover, holding certain intellectual beliefs was key to Christian identity, and even more importantly, to eternal life. This model has quite obviously worked well for many people for many years. The good that has happened, and continues to happen, from people that have that kind of certainty is manifest all around us. And yet, it didn t seem to work out for me. I m not the kind of person that accepts a lot of things at face value. It is helpful to be able to examine and challenge ideas and even more helpful to have other people challenge my ideas. From well before I was in high school, I was questioning some things about the Bible, God, and religion in general. My thoughts ranged from the impact of evolution on religion to the apparently vengeful God of the Old Testament to the very existence of God. In the Christian context, I perceived having these questions as a personal failing, something that I ought to repress. The more I tried to repress them, the more troublesome they became. Why, for instance, should a loving merciful God decide whether to let us into heaven based on whether we hold certain intellectual beliefs? In high school, I participated in the catechism class here at this church, and was frustrated because it didn t tackle deeper meanings or the kinds of questions I had. I wasn t yet able to articulate all my thoughts and questions very well, and I probably had an overactive case of teenage cynicism. As a result, I didn t get baptized like most others my age did. As I learned more about the early history of Judaism and Christianity, I only found more reasons to question the model of faith I thought I had received the one in which Biblical literalism and a divine guarantee of sorts was key. More recently, I gradually became aware that the model of Christianity I had in mind was one of many views. Christians, Mennonites, and even this church are incredibly diverse groups, and in retrospect, I am surprised that it took me so long to realize this. Three major steps led me to baptism. The first step was the realization that, whatever our understanding of the literal accuracy of the Bible, literal truth is often inferior to metaphorical truth. As an example, many of us have read the works of Shakespeare. They are fictional, but the reason they have been revered for so many centuries is that they are true. They teach us things about ourselves and our world in a way that no history book can. By placing such an emphasis on literal truth in the Bible, I was missing out on the message right there for me. By concerning myself with creationism or evolution, I missed out on thinking about what the story in Genesis meant for the Jews, and what it could mean for me. Evolution ceased to be a threat to religion; it became simply a tool for learning about a different sort of truth than we get from religion. N. T. Wright mentions an incident that illustrates this point. A woman attending a religious conference asked the speaker, a prominent theologian, Is it true that the serpent in Genesis actually spoke like you and I speak? The theologian answered, It doesn t matter whether the serpent could speak. What matters is what the serpent said. The second step I took towards being baptized was realizing where the real core of Christianity lies. It s not some debate about Genesis, but rather the death to one s old self, and the rebirth and continual remaking of oneself in the example of Jesus. Given that, a lot of questions seem unimportant or even irrelevant. Good can be expressed in many ways, and if one person achieves a remarkably Christian life via a literal understanding of the Bible, and another via a more metaphorical reading, then it is my place only to affirm both and say that they both got it right. If we say that the task of remaking ourselves is like climbing a mountain, then what matters is not how we are climbing the mountain, but simply that we are climbing it. I used to equate faith with an intellectual belief. I have come to see that was a narrow view. Faith, to me now, is more about vision: do we see the world like Christ did? Where do our loyalties and our trust lie in God or in human institutions? What are our goals in life? We humans have failed to understand God, and probably always will. I too share in that incomplete understanding, but I have come to accept that it is OK. I know enough to know that I want my loyalty to lie in Jesus, to know what kind of vision of the world I want to have, and I have learned to accept that intellectual questions can even be a form of meditation, enlightenment, and prayer. The third step toward baptism was moving past my own shortcomings. For a long time, I thought I didn t believe the right things, didn t believe them strong enough, wasn t certain enough about God, didn t pray enough, didn t read enough, didn t understand enough, didn t love enough and ultimately, that I wasn t good enough. I request baptism today understanding that, despite the various imperfections I still have, and we all have, everyone is good enough and deserving of love and peace. God s love is for everyone. No exceptions! Following Jesus boils down to this: I too must be an agent of love and peace to everyone, without exception. My vision must be centered around the fact that we are to emulate the God that loves the entire world, sinners all, and therefore I should as well. I hope I can show others the kind of love that has been shown me. I hope, too, to share with this congregation and the global church in the vision of love. I hope that we can continually strive to re-focus on Christ s vision. As an example, we all know that many different viewpoints about whether homosexuality is sinful exist in Mennonite Church USA. These opinions are deeply held and personal for many, and have been discussed over and over and over. But ultimately, they aren t terribly relevant to the church s mission. The example of Jesus unites us all: he embraced everyone. He accepted criminals and prostitutes and showed them love and kindness. Our difficult task, which is also my difficult task, is to show this same love to absolutely everyone, regardless of our varying opinions about them and their conduct. The forgotten and repressed of our day perhaps criminals, homeless, Muslims, addicts, gays and lesbians, illegal immigrants, ethnic minorities, and still prostitutes deserve the love of Christ s church and all its members. My hope is that any one of the earth s 7 billion people could step through the doors of our church, or any church, and immediately feel Christ s love, and the unconditional, non-judgmental, welcome and love of Christ s followers, no matter what. This prayer from Ephesians 3 sums up my hope and my vision, for myself and everyone:

I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being. I pray that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord s people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ. And I pray that you will know this love that surpasses knowledge that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (3.16-19)

The ability to connect a 3G modem to a wireless router to form a Internet connected ad-hoc network of machines is very powerful. I ve done this many times and have written about it before (e.g., see my OpenWRT writeup page) but I recently did it with modern hardware again. Here I will use the TP-Link TL-WR1043ND wireless router (available here for around $50) together with the Huawei E367 3G UMTS/HSDPA modem. Other wireless routers and modem should work fine. The software is OpenWRT 10.03 although I hope to redo this with LibreWRT eventually. My writeup is mostly focused around what is happening around the prompt, so it is mostly a cut n'paste terminal session with a comment interlined.


The first step is to flash the firmware with OpenWRT. The OpenWRT wiki page for the TL-WR1043ND covers this in detail, and for any other hardware you should find what you need in the OpenWRT wiki. If you have already installed OpenWRT on the TL-WR1043ND, and want to wipe it out and start from scratch (like I did for this writeup) here is how to do it:

root@choco:~# cd /tmp
root@choco:/tmp# wget http://downloads.openwrt.org/backfire/10.03/ar71xx/openwrt-ar71xx-tl-wr1043nd-v1-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin
Connecting to downloads.openwrt.org (78.24.191.177:80)
openwrt-ar71xx-tl-wr 100%  *******************************   2688k 00:00:00 ETA
root@choco:/tmp# md5sum openwrt-ar71xx-tl-wr1043nd-v1-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin
9927973ba5da65d0d52e255397452b87  openwrt-ar71xx-tl-wr1043nd-v1-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin
root@choco:/tmp# mtd -r write /tmp/openwrt-ar71xx-tl-wr1043nd-v1-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin firmware
Unlocking firmware ...
Writing from /tmp/openwrt-ar71xx-tl-wr1043nd-v1-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin to firmware ...
Rebooting ...

The device will reboot automatically when it is done. After say 30 seconds, try to connect to it using the default IPv4 address 192.168.1.1. I have connected the WAN port to the Internet and connect to the router over local network connected to the router s LAN1 input. Let s configure OpenWRT, I m calling the host choco and giving it the IPv4 address 192.168.1.46. I ll also set a good root password to disable telnet, and add some SSH keys to simplify remote login.

jas@latte:~$ telnet 192.168.1.1
Trying 192.168.1.1...
Connected to 192.168.1.1.
Escape character is '^]'.
 === IMPORTANT ============================
  Use 'passwd' to set your login password
  this will disable telnet and enable SSH
 ------------------------------------------
BusyBox v1.15.3 (2010-04-06 03:14:11 CEST) built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.
  _______                     ________        __
          .-----.-----.-----.          .----.    _
     -      _     -__                   _    _ 
  _______    __ _____ __ __ ________ __    ____ 
           __  W I R E L E S S   F R E E D O M
 Backfire (10.03, r20728) --------------------------
  * 1/3 shot Kahlua    In a shot glass, layer Kahlua
  * 1/3 shot Bailey's  on the bottom, then Bailey's,
  * 1/3 shot Vodka     then Vodka.
 ---------------------------------------------------
root@OpenWrt:/# passwd
Changing password for root
New password:
Retype password:
Password for root changed by root
root@OpenWrt:/# sed -i -e 's/OpenWrt/choco/' /etc/config/system
root@OpenWrt:/# sed -i -e 's/192.168.1.1/192.168.1.46/' /etc/config/network
root@OpenWrt:/# cat>/etc/dropbear/authorized_keys
ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2...
^D
root@OpenWrt:/# dropbearkey -y -f /etc/dropbear/dropbear_rsa_host_key
Public key portion is:
ssh-rsa AAAA... root@OpenWrt
Fingerprint: md5 45:fd:62...
root@OpenWrt:/#

You could reboot the machine here to switch from telnet to SSH, but I ll install a bunch of packages while I m at it. Run opkg update to update the package list, and then install the wireless modules for the TL-WR1043ND.

root@OpenWrt:/# opkg update
Downloading http://downloads.openwrt.org/backfire/10.03/ar71xx/packages/Packages.gz.
Inflating http://downloads.openwrt.org/backfire/10.03/ar71xx/packages/Packages.gz.
Updated list of available packages in /var/opkg-lists/packages.
root@OpenWrt:/# opkg install kmod-ath9k wpad-mini
...
Configuring iw.
Configuring kmod-crypto-core.
Configuring kmod-crypto-arc4.
Configuring kmod-crypto-aes.
Configuring wireless-tools.
Configuring kmod-cfg80211.
Configuring kmod-mac80211.
Configuring kmod-ath.
Configuring kmod-ath9k.
Configuring crda.
Configuring wpad-mini.
root@OpenWrt:/#

Next I ll install some packages that will are needed for the modem.

root@OpenWrt:/# opkg install comgt kmod-usb-serial kmod-usb2 kmod-usb-uhci kmod-usb-ohci usb-modeswitch
...
Configuring kmod-nls-base.
Configuring kmod-usb-core.
Configuring chat.
Configuring kmod-usb-ohci.
Configuring kmod-usb2.
Configuring comgt.
Configuring usb-modeswitch.
Configuring kmod-usb-serial.
Configuring kmod-usb-uhci.
root@OpenWrt:/#

Now let s reboot the machine and try to get things to really work.

root@OpenWrt:/# sync
root@OpenWrt:/# reboot

Use SSH to connect to the router, and don t forget the use its new IPv4 address! 3G modems are notoriously known for not acting as a modem directly. Instead they often simulate a CD-ROM that will install device driver software, for inferior operating systems. Fortunately the usb_modeswitch tool fixes the hardware for us. My Huawei E367 start up with the USB vendor/product IDs 0x12d1:0 1446, you normally find this out by looking in /proc/bus/usb/devices. Here is the output on my device:

root@choco:~# cat /proc/bus/usb/devices
...
T:  Bus=01 Lev=01 Prnt=01 Port=00 Cnt=01 Dev#=  2 Spd=480 MxCh= 0
D:  Ver= 2.00 Cls=00(>ifc ) Sub=00 Prot=00 MxPS=64 #Cfgs=  1
P:  Vendor=12d1 ProdID=1446 Rev= 0.00
S:  Manufacturer=Huawei Technologies
S:  Product=HUAWEI Mobile
C:* #Ifs= 2 Cfg#= 1 Atr=c0 MxPwr=500mA
I:* If#= 0 Alt= 0 #EPs= 2 Cls=08(stor.) Sub=06 Prot=50 Driver=(none)
E:  Ad=81(I) Atr=02(Bulk) MxPS= 512 Ivl=0ms
E:  Ad=01(O) Atr=02(Bulk) MxPS= 512 Ivl=0ms
I:* If#= 1 Alt= 0 #EPs= 2 Cls=08(stor.) Sub=06 Prot=50 Driver=(none)
E:  Ad=02(O) Atr=02(Bulk) MxPS= 512 Ivl=0ms
E:  Ad=82(I) Atr=02(Bulk) MxPS= 512 Ivl=0ms
root@choco:~#

This means I have to go find a usb-modeswitch configuration for this device. Fortunately, I found it on my Debian Squeeze box in /etc/usb_modeswitch.d/12d1:1446 (from the usb-modeswitch-data package). There was a slight problem with the file, it didn t specify the correct USB vendor/product ID of the device after it has been switched . My Huawei E367 switches to 12d1:1506, so I add 1506 to the TargetProductList list. Here is the final configuration:

root@choco:~# cat>/etc/usb-modeswitch.conf
EnableLogging=1
DefaultVendor= 0x12d1
DefaultProduct=0x1446
TargetVendor=  0x12d1
TargetProductList="1001,1406,140b,140c,1412,141b,14ac,1506"
CheckSuccess=20
MessageContent="55534243123456780000000000000011062000000100000000000000000000"
root@choco:~#

Now you should be able to run usb_modeswitch to perform the switch :

root@choco:~# usb_modeswitch 
Looking for target devices ...
 No devices in target mode or class found
Looking for default devices ...
 Found default devices (1)
Accessing device 002 on bus 001 ...
Using endpoints 0x01 (out) and 0x81 (in)
Inquiring device details; driver will be detached ...
Looking for active driver ...
 No driver found. Either detached before or never attached
SCSI inquiry data (for identification)
-------------------------
  Vendor String: HUAWEI
   Model String: Mass Storage
Revision String: 2.31
-------------------------
USB description data (for identification)
-------------------------
Manufacturer: Huawei Technologies
     Product: HUAWEI Mobile
  Serial No.: not provided
-------------------------
Setting up communication with interface 0 ...
Trying to send the message to endpoint 0x01 ...
 OK, message successfully sent
Checking for mode switch (max. 20 times, once per second) ...
 Waiting for original device to vanish ...
 Original device can't be accessed anymore. Good.
 Searching for target devices ...
 Searching for target devices ...
 Searching for target devices ...
 Searching for target devices ...
 Searching for target devices ...
 Found correct target device
Mode switch succeeded. Bye.
root@choco:~#

The /proc/bus/usb/devices file will now contain information about the real device:

root@choco:~# cat /proc/bus/usb/devices
...
T:  Bus=01 Lev=01 Prnt=01 Port=00 Cnt=01 Dev#=  3 Spd=480 MxCh= 0
D:  Ver= 2.00 Cls=ef(misc ) Sub=02 Prot=01 MxPS=64 #Cfgs=  1
P:  Vendor=12d1 ProdID=1506 Rev= 0.00
S:  Manufacturer=Huawei Technologies
S:  Product=HUAWEI Mobile
C:* #Ifs= 7 Cfg#= 1 Atr=c0 MxPwr=500mA
A:  FirstIf#= 1 IfCount= 2 Cls=02(comm.) Sub=00 Prot=00
I:* If#= 0 Alt= 0 #EPs= 3 Cls=ff(vend.) Sub=01 Prot=01 Driver=(none)
E:  Ad=81(I) Atr=03(Int.) MxPS=  64 Ivl=2ms
E:  Ad=82(I) Atr=02(Bulk) MxPS= 512 Ivl=0ms
E:  Ad=01(O) Atr=02(Bulk) MxPS= 512 Ivl=4ms
I:* If#= 1 Alt= 0 #EPs= 1 Cls=ff(vend.) Sub=01 Prot=09 Driver=(none)
E:  Ad=83(I) Atr=03(Int.) MxPS=  64 Ivl=2ms
I:* If#= 2 Alt= 0 #EPs= 2 Cls=ff(vend.) Sub=01 Prot=08 Driver=(none)
E:  Ad=84(I) Atr=02(Bulk) MxPS= 512 Ivl=0ms
E:  Ad=02(O) Atr=02(Bulk) MxPS= 512 Ivl=4ms
I:* If#= 3 Alt= 0 #EPs= 2 Cls=ff(vend.) Sub=01 Prot=03 Driver=(none)
E:  Ad=85(I) Atr=02(Bulk) MxPS= 512 Ivl=0ms
E:  Ad=03(O) Atr=02(Bulk) MxPS= 512 Ivl=4ms
I:* If#= 4 Alt= 0 #EPs= 2 Cls=ff(vend.) Sub=01 Prot=02 Driver=(none)
E:  Ad=86(I) Atr=02(Bulk) MxPS= 512 Ivl=0ms
E:  Ad=04(O) Atr=02(Bulk) MxPS= 512 Ivl=4ms
I:* If#= 5 Alt= 0 #EPs= 2 Cls=08(stor.) Sub=06 Prot=50 Driver=(none)
E:  Ad=87(I) Atr=02(Bulk) MxPS= 512 Ivl=0ms
E:  Ad=05(O) Atr=02(Bulk) MxPS= 512 Ivl=0ms
I:* If#= 6 Alt= 0 #EPs= 2 Cls=08(stor.) Sub=06 Prot=50 Driver=(none)
E:  Ad=06(O) Atr=02(Bulk) MxPS= 512 Ivl=0ms
E:  Ad=88(I) Atr=02(Bulk) MxPS= 512 Ivl=0ms
root@choco:~#

Let s put that command in /etc/rc.local so that it will be run on every boot.

root@choco:~# cat /etc/rc.local
# Put your custom commands here that should be executed once
# the system init finished. By default this file does nothing.
/usr/bin/usb_modeswitch
exit 0
root@choco:~#

We are not quite ready, the usbserial module needs to be told which USB vendor/product to use. The /etc/modules.d/60-usb-serial file is used during boot to set the right parameters. You can also run rmmod followed by insmod with the proper parameters to avoid a reboot. You can use the gcom info tool to find some information about the modem. Normally you use /dev/ttyUSB0 but for some reason it does not work for me and instead I had to use /dev/ttyUSB3.

root@choco:~# cat>/etc/modules.d/60-usb-serial
usbserial vendor=0x12d1 product=0x1506 maxSize=4096
root@choco:~# rmmod usbserial
root@choco:~# insmod usbserial vendor=0x12d1 product=0x1506 maxSize=4096
root@choco:~# gcom -d /dev/ttyUSB3 info
##### Wireless WAN Modem Configuration #####
Product text:
====
Manufacturer: huawei
Model: E367
Revision: 11.807.05.00.00
IMEI: 353613040739180
+GCAP: +CGSM,+DS,+ES
OK
====
Manufacturer:           huawei
IMEI and Serial Number: 353613040739180
Manufacturer's Revision:
11.807.05.00.
Hardware Revision:      NOT
Network Locked:         ERROR:
Customisation:          NOT SUPPORT
Band settings:          (NOT)
APN:                    ERROR:
##### END #####
root@choco:~#

Let s configure network and wireless. The configurations files are /etc/config/network and /etc/config/wireless. Edit them using your favorite editor, or vi. I m setting up a PSK2 encrypted WLAN and I have a WDS to connect two wireless routers. Note that you need to use the correct PIN for your SIM card (here I m using 8328) and set the APN correctly (I m using bredband.tre.se ). Reboot after making these changes.

root@choco:~# cat /etc/config/network
config 'interface' 'loopback'
       option 'ifname'   'lo'
       option 'proto'    'static'
       option 'ipaddr'   '127.0.0.1'
       option 'netmask'  '255.0.0.0'
config 'interface' 'lan'
        option 'ifname'   'eth0.1'
        option 'type'     'bridge'
        option 'proto'    'static'
        option 'ipaddr'   '192.168.1.46'
        option 'netmask'  '255.255.255.0'
#config 'interface' 'wan'
#        option 'ifname' 'eth0.2'
#        option 'proto' 'dhcp'
config 'switch'
	option 'name' 'rtl8366rb'
        option 'reset' '1'
        option 'enable_vlan' '1'
config 'switch_vlan'
        option 'device' 'rtl8366rb'
        option 'vlan' '1'
        option 'ports' '1 2 3 4 5t'
config 'switch_vlan'
        option 'device' 'rtl8366rb'
        option 'vlan' '2'
        option 'ports' '0 5t'
config interface wan
        option ifname   ppp0
        option proto    3g
        option device   /dev/ttyUSB0
        option apn      bredband.tre.se
        option pincode  8328
root@choco:~# cat /etc/config/wireless
config wifi-device  radio0
	option type     mac80211
	option channel  5
	option macaddr	00:27:19:fc:87:b2
	option hwmode	11ng
	option htmode	HT20
	list ht_capab	SHORT-GI-40
	list ht_capab	DSSS_CCK-40
config wifi-iface
	option device   radio0
	option network  lan
	option mode     ap
	option ssid     Grisslan
	option encryption psk2
	option key	  notforyoutosee
config wifi-iface
        option device     radio0
        option network    lan
        option mode       wds
        option bssid      00:1F:C6:60:D3:11
        option ssid       GrisslanWDS
        option encryption psk2
        option key        thisisalsosecret
root@choco:~# reboot
root@choco:~#

Once the machine have rebooted, you can bring up the 3G connection by using ifup wan . Look at the log by using logread and tail the log in the background by doing logread -f & .

root@choco:~# ifup wan
Trying to set PIN
PIN set successfully
root@choco:~# logread  tail -20
May 21 13:41:20 choco local2.info chat[2419]: send (ATD*99***1#^M)
May 21 13:41:20 choco local2.info chat[2419]: expect (CONNECT)
May 21 13:41:20 choco local2.info chat[2419]: ^M
May 21 13:41:20 choco local2.info chat[2419]: ATD*99***1#^M^M
May 21 13:41:20 choco local2.info chat[2419]: CONNECT
May 21 13:41:20 choco local2.info chat[2419]:  -- got it
May 21 13:41:20 choco local2.info chat[2419]: send ( ^M)
May 21 13:41:20 choco daemon.info pppd[2412]: Serial connection established.
May 21 13:41:20 choco daemon.info pppd[2412]: Using interface ppp0
May 21 13:41:20 choco daemon.notice pppd[2412]: Connect: ppp0 <--> /dev/ttyUSB0
May 21 13:41:24 choco daemon.warn pppd[2412]: Could not determine remote IP address: defaulting to 10.64.64.64
May 21 13:41:24 choco daemon.notice pppd[2412]: local  IP address 95.209.96.115
May 21 13:41:24 choco daemon.notice pppd[2412]: remote IP address 10.64.64.64
May 21 13:41:24 choco daemon.notice pppd[2412]: primary   DNS address 80.251.201.177
May 21 13:41:24 choco daemon.notice pppd[2412]: secondary DNS address 80.251.201.178
May 21 13:41:24 choco daemon.info dnsmasq[1028]: reading /tmp/resolv.conf.auto
May 21 13:41:24 choco daemon.info dnsmasq[1028]: using nameserver 80.251.201.178#53
May 21 13:41:24 choco daemon.info dnsmasq[1028]: using nameserver 80.251.201.177#53
May 21 13:41:24 choco daemon.info dnsmasq[1028]: using local addresses only for domain lan
May 21 13:41:25 choco user.notice rdate: Synced with ptbtime1.ptb.de
root@choco:~#

Hooray! Or almost so usually the first time you connect, I often get incorrect DNS servers from the server. It shows up like this in the log:

May 21 12:25:04 choco daemon.notice pppd[1157]: primary   DNS address 10.11.12.13
May 21 12:25:04 choco daemon.notice pppd[1157]: secondary DNS address 10.11.12.14

The exact reason why this happens is beyond me. There are patches floating around for pppd, but I haven t tried them. A common workaround is to hardcode static DNS servers (like Google DNS or OpenDNS). I have come up with my own workaround, based on the observation that when the problem has occurred it will not happen again if I disconnect and reconnect. Thus I have written a small script which is invoked whenever an interface is brought up (typically the WAN interface).

# Written by Simon Josefsson May 2011.
root@choco:~# cat> /etc/hotplug.d/iface/01-reconnect-if-dns-is-broken
case "$ ACTION:-ifup " in
    ifup)
	    if grep -q 10.11.12.13 /tmp/resolv.conf.auto; then
		(sleep 30 && ifdown wan && ifup wan) &
	    fi
	    ;;
esac
root@choco:~# chmod +x /etc/hotplug.d/iface/01-reconnect-if-dns-is-broken
root@choco:~#

That s it! If you found this writeup useful, please flattr it.

From the java point of view Recently I had to get some Scala Tool working correctly. Unfortunately there are basically no packages in the Debian Archive at all so I had to use maven to install these (or download + install manually). Being a highly paranoid person downloading and executing code from the internet without any cryptographic verification at all one after the other practically drove me nuts. Looking a bit deeper I noticed that some of the software in maven's repository have some signatures next to them -- signed by the author or release manager of this specific project. Why secure sources matters With my experience in mind I got some Input from other people. One of the things I was told is that some scala tools just aren't security critical -- they're only installed and used as the current user. In my opinion this is, for my desktop system, totally wrong. The important things on my private Computers are my GPG and SSH keys as well as my private data. For messing with these no super user access is needed at all. Comparing to the Common Lisp situation Being a Common Lisp fan of course I noticed basically the same problem for installing Common Lisp libraries. Here the situation in Debian is quite a bit better -- and I'm working in the pkg-common-lisp Team to improve this even more. Common Lisp has some maven-alike tool for downloading and installing dependency trees called quicklisp -- without any cryptographic verification as well. However there's light at the end of this tunnel: There are plans to add GPG verification of the package lists really soon. Comparing the maven and the quicklisp model So there are basically two different approaches to be seen here. In maven the software author confirms with his signature the integrity of his software while in quicklisp the distributor confirms all users get the same software that he downloaded. Now the quicklisp author can't and won't check all the software that is downloadable using quicklisp. This won't be doable anyway as there's way to much software or a single person to check. Now in some kind of perfect World the maven way would be vastly superior as there's a End-To-End verification and verification of the full way the software takes. However there's a big problem: I don't know any of these Authors personally and there's no reason I should just trust any of them. Now comparing this to the Distribution / quicklisp model. Here I would just have to trust one person or group -- here the quicklisp team -- to benefit from the crypto which might be possible based on karma inside the using community. However here I don't gain the possibility that the software is integer. However idealized if some of these pieces of software was forged between upstream and the quicklisp team and attacker would also intercept me downloading the software from the same address so I get the source from upstream matching the checksum from quicklisp -- assuming the quicklisp team does indeed know the correct website. Additionally I get the confirmation that all other quicklisp users get the same source (if the quicklisp guys are fine of course) so no-one inside the community complaining is a good indication the software is fine. For this to work there's of course a relevant user-base of the distributor (quicklisp) necessary. Relevance for Debian So how do conventional Linux Distributions like Debian fit in here. Ideally we would have maintainers understanding and checking the software and confirming the integrity using their private key or at least know their upstreams and having at least a secured way getting the software from upstream and a trust relationship with them. Of course that's just illusionary thinking of complex and important software (think libreoffice, gcc or firefox for example). Maintainers won't fully understand a lot simpler pieces of software. And loads of upstream projects don't provide a verified way of getting the correct source code though that's a bit better on the real high-impact projects where checksums signed by the Release Manager are more common than in small projects. A misguided thought at the end As I'm a heavy emacs user I like to have snapshots from current emacs development available. Fortunately binary packages with this are available from a Debian guy I tend to trust who is also involved upstream so adding the key from his repository to the keyring apt trusts. Now my first thoughts were along the lines "It would be really nice if I could pin that key to only the emacs snapshot packages" so this guy can't just put libc packages in his repository and my apt would trust them. Now thinking of it again a bogus upload of the emacs snapshot package could just as well put some binary or library on the system at some place in front of the real on in the system path which would be rather similar bad. b

After a bit of work, today I decided to start using mpm, the mancoosi package manager, to upgrade my laptop. My first use of it on a production system - until now I run all my experiments in throw-away virtual machines - and it works ! Not rocket science here. During the last month David Kalnischkies (of APT fame) visited our offices in Paris and together with zack worked out a communication protocol between apt-get and the mancoosi cudf solvers (EDSP). I guess somebody is going to announce all details about this endeavor soon. This cooperation enabled us to advance in the integration of apt-get and the mancoosi technology. Reusing the same protocol and backend I developed to translate the apt problem to cudf (and to call a suitable solver), I've re-wrote large part of mpm and added the possibility to generate the installation plan before calling dpkg and really installing the selected packages. Below notice the intermediate calls as Inject Model , Simulate, Compare Models . These are at the moment stubs that are going to call the simulation framework developed at mancoosi. The food : Reg the installation plan, this is an xml file that will be passed to a simulator developed by the university of L'Aquila to make sure that the installation script (well, a model of them), will not cause any problem during the installation. The format is a very simple xml file as follows : Soon APT will ship a patch to use the very same infrastructure of mpm (yeii !!!). This will on one hand make mpm useless as package manager on its own. It is a simple hack in python and I never tough to compete with its big brothers. On the other hand I think it will stand as a nice workbench to experiment with new ideas, to prototype new features and to make it easier for poeple that are not c++ experts to play with the APT library (thanks to python-apt) in a semi structured environment. The code is in the mancoosi svn if you want to have a look.

After a bit of work, today I decided to start using mpm, the mancoosi package manager, to upgrade my laptop. My first use of it on a production system - until now I run all my experiments in throw-away virtual machines - and it works ! Not rocket science here. During the last month David Kalnischkies (of APT fame) visited our offices in Paris and together with zack worked out a communication protocol between apt-get and the mancoosi cudf solvers (EDSP). I guess somebody is going to announce all details about this endeavor soon. This cooperation enabled us to advance in the integration of apt-get and the mancoosi technology. Reusing the same protocol, and backend I developed to translate the apt problem to cudf (and to call a suitable solver), I've re-wrote large part of mpm and added the possibility to generate the installation plan before calling dpkg and really installing the selected packages. Below notice the intermediate calls as Inject Model , Simulate, Compare Models . These are at the moment stubs that are going to call the simulation framework developed at mancoosi. The food : Reg the installation plan, this is an xml file that will be passed to a simulator developed by the university of L'Aquila to make sure that the installation script (well, a model of them), will not cause any problem during the installation. The format is a very simple xml file as follows : Soon APT will ship a patch to use the very same infrastructure of mpm (yeii !!!). This will on one hand make mpm useless as package manager on its own. It is a simple hack in python and I never tough to compete with its big brothers. On the other hand I think it will stand as a nice workbench to experiment with new ideas, to prototype new features and to make it easier for poeple that are not c++ experts to play with the APT library (thanks to python-apt) in a semi structured environment. The code is in the mancoosi svn if you want to have a look.

I was amazed this morning that it's only been a month since I moved house. So much has happened since. For reasons that I won't go into, I've had to move house. Since I like living in Mechelen, not too far from work, however, I decided to search for something close by. And I did find something close by; I moved to "just around the corner". Which is a bit silly, but then blame the bureaucrats. At any rate, I'm starting to feel at home in the new spot. It's a bit smaller and a bit more expensive than the old place, but it looks a lot better, and that more than makes up for it. And it's not like I needed the extra space in the old place -- I kept having this big empty spot in the middle of my living room, anyway. To make matters more interesting, I've been on stage three times and out of the country once in this past month: One wedding, two concerts, and a work trip to Cork. I guess that's why it seemed like so much more time. But that's over now, and recently I finally managed to make some time working on other projects. Today it was incorporating some patches (which turned out not to work entirely) and doing a release for nbd. That release was overdue by quite a bit; there were a few fairly serious bugs outstanding that I had commits for in the git repository already, I just had to get them out there. Oh well. A few weeks back I've also managed to work a bit on ipcfg some more. The reason it has been so long since the last time I worked on it was that I had started to realize there were several things wrong with it, and I wasn't sure how to best move forward. But then not so long ago I had an epiphany, and I've now started to reimplement the broken bits which is, well, most of it. But hey. Moving isn't fun. Glad it's over. Almost.

Today we had a very interesting demonstration. People who know me for some time know I like to be a part of demonstrations, adding my voice to the people. And even though I know most demonstrations, as massive as they might be, have no real and tangible effect... Well, I try to be there. Today we had a large demonstration in Mexico City of people angry with the government's tactics on the war on drugs Have you been to Mexico before 2007? You will remember we have always had our problems, but violence was basically limited to keeping an eye open, not flashing your money/jewels, and not looking too touristy. We were, all in all, a quiet country Known even as "the country where nothing happens, even if it happens". Five years later, a good portion of the country lives really in war-like conditions, and close to 45,000 people have been killed. At some point about a year ago (where the body count was at ~22,000), our oh-so-bright de-facto president said that "only" 10% of them were civilians. If that is still the case, and if proportions are held, we can now talk about ~4,500 people killed just because they were there Oh, but remember the country is not at war, and death penalty has very long been abolished, so we cannot give the other 90% a different status. We have had over 45,000 killed people. That means at least ~200,000 torn lifes. About six weeks ago, the cry from a father who lost his son started getting heard. And no, I do not want to talk about specific names or anything like that It is just the voice-bearer of many people who are fed up. Four days ago, he and a group of people left Cuernavaca city on a caravan and walked to Mexico city. Yesterday evening they arrived to the National University (UNAM), and were greeted by an amazing open-air concert: Mozart's Requiem. Today, our day started very early. My mother wanted to help, as many more anonymous citizens did, so we started making and packing sandwiches and apples at ~5:30AM, delivered them to the camp where they were staying and grouping with other people, and came back home for our breakfast. Later, at around 9AM, as the demonstration started going by our house (we live a block from UNAM), my girlfriend, father and me started walking with them. Why do I say this was a different demonstration than others I have been to?

1. Much longer. We walked for close to 16Km, for about five hours. Most demonstrations I have been part of are 3-5Km long
2. A different kind of support. I was surprised, even laughed at first when I saw a lady standing by us with a sign that read, I cannot join you today, but I'm there in spirit . But then I saw more, more people that just went out of their houses to a point close to where we walked on, and just stayed there on the streets. Not walking, yes, but being part of it.
3. The march was silent And yes, this is the first time I see it for true. At the very beginning we heard some people chanting, cheering, but the cheerers were requested not to be noisy. People wearing political parties' logos were requested not to wear them (as political parties are at an all-time low prestige). No, we were not silent for the whole 5 hours; we were talking with each other, but it felt... just very different from any other times.
4. Not only were people supporting, but this is the first time I saw this amount of people wanting to materially help. As I said, my mother delivered a little breakfast for 50 people, for those that slept at the camp, for those that had already walked ~70Km. But all along the road we were offered oranges, cookies, water, bread... Whatever people were able to offer, to somehow help. Very nice feeling of solidarity.
5. Contrary to all other times, we were really spread out, it was a very low density walk, os it was quite pleasant. Of course, I have not even seen an estimation of the number of participants... And I doubt anyboy can be decently close to it

Will this change anything? I doubt it. I am happy that for the first time, the de-facto president (remember a large percentage of Mexicans still believe he lost the presidential election, and it was only due to his lack of legitimacy that he pushed the army to the streets to start this war on drugs) is recognizing that this might not be the best strategy but it is the only one he has... People are still, despite what I saw many felt, very far from organized. And, yes, no short-term concrete proposals are made on how to stop the killing I feel the population agrees that drugs should be legalized and regulated, that would at least shift the problem, reduce the direct violence (and money) related to it... But, of course, it is plainly not feasible with our current reality. Anyway, after a 5hr walk today (and even after a nice nap and shower), I don't want to dig into hypotheses anymore. I just wanted to share about a very interesting and different experience I had the opportunity to be part of.