Log from #neuros IRC channel

[00:08]

<crweb>

chreekat: hey

[00:08]

yo

[00:08]

<crweb>

chreekat: don't worry about it. every now and then there are people that just can't be helped

[00:08]

haha

[00:08]

<crweb>

he didn't want to fix it

[00:09]

crweb: It was a little entertaining

[00:22]

related to upgrading... can it be initiated on a file over NFS? I mean does it copy the file to RAM so that would be safe or is it not possible to do from network file. Just curious I'm not about to experiment to see!

[00:23]

what's nms?

[00:23]

<crweb>

you have to copy it to ram

[00:23]

"generic-nms"

[00:23]

<crweb>

if there is even 1 bad packet, you'd brick your osd

[00:24]

so from an SD card doesn't it copy to the RAM first so that it doesn't have to access the card during the firmware write?

[00:24]

<crweb>

thats what the crc is for

[00:25]

<crweb>

its a hard media, the chance of crc'ing it and then it failing is very low

[00:25]

hmm. yea I usually copy the .upk to my SD card over NFS. But I delete the original NFS upk in fear of accidentally clicking on it during the upgrade.

[00:26]

chreekat: did you answer your own question? 'nms' that I know is hte neuros media server/system.

[00:30]

sourcerror: no, that's just the only referenc I found. I am configuring the xmms2 sources right now, and it's in there. a google search also turns up neuros builds

[00:31]

so is it stuff for the xmms2 osd client?

[00:31]

<crweb>

chreekat: its what you use to access the media subsystem

[00:31]

I don't know much about xmms2

[00:31]

<crweb>

chreekat: its what actually does the playing of music/video

[00:31]

<crweb>

on the DSP core

[00:32]

<crweb>

well, i mean, it uses the codec kernel modules

[00:32]

<crweb>

but is kinda a more friendly interface to those

[00:34]

ah

[00:39]

crweb: I've bugged you about this before... I'm looking at a new laptop now. I'm interested in tablets. Toshiba has multiple lines which confuse me. Can you say what is the difference between Satellite R* and Portege M*? Similarly configured the Portege just costs more.

[00:40]

<crweb>

well, you get what you pay for

[00:40]

<crweb>

a Portege is just better designed

[00:40]

<crweb>

cooling is in better locations, etc

[00:40]

<crweb>

I have a tecra

[00:40]

<crweb>

love it

[00:40]

that's what I mean. same ram and cpu and HDD but portege costs more.

[00:41]

<crweb>

yeah, thats why

[00:41]

<crweb>

one is better designed, more reliable, can take more abuse

[00:41]

oh yea, I didn't look at tecra. damn.

[00:41]

<crweb>

Tecra is almost all tablets

[00:41]

<crweb>

I have an M4-S435

[00:42]

<crweb>

i know when i got mine the major difference was, I have PCI 16x, sata, ddr2

[00:43]

it's strange now hte lines seem to have a way to configure same CPU, HDD, RAM

[00:44]

<crweb>

everything on mine is perfect

[00:44]

<crweb>

fans are on the sides not on the bottom

[00:45]

yea, I'm willing to go for the higher price if I can detect a useful difference :)

[00:45]

yea side is better.

[00:47]

i appreciate the advice since I know you know how to stress a machine and get the most out of it :)

[00:47]

...know what to look for.

[00:48]

<crweb>

my friend has an M7

[00:48]

<crweb>

the model that updated mine

[00:48]

<crweb>

its pretty sweet

[00:48]

hi all

[00:48]

<crweb>

dont' buy anything that doesn't have an nvidia card

[00:49]

<crweb>

i know you think "but i don't play games why do i need 3d"

[00:49]

<crweb>

but its not about 3d

[00:49]

<crweb>

its about dedicated ram

[00:50]

<crweb>

photos-247.ak.facebook.com

[00:50]

I'm looking at the toshiba site and none of the tablets are called Tecra

[00:50]

<crweb>

damint

[00:50]

<crweb>

sorry

[00:51]

<crweb>

thats cause Tecra's are the real tablets

[00:51]

translation?

[00:51]

<crweb>

not cheaply made

[00:52]

<crweb>

but def odd that they don't show up

<crweb>

<crweb>

<crweb>

those are this year's series

[00:52]

<crweb>

I don't know about the Intel GMA950's

[00:53]

<crweb>

ah, yeah stuff has changed

[00:53]

<crweb>

Video Memory: Shared system memory

[00:53]

<crweb>

thats bad

[00:53]

* sourcerror looking at URLs

[00:53]

<crweb>

causes 2d delay

[00:54]

<crweb>

my tecra has an nvidia FX6200 256mb

[00:54]

<crweb>

and the older M7's have nvidia 7000 series mobile

[00:55]

yea, that's a good card and mem

[00:57]

it seems like they all got rid of that nub pointing device. I use a thinkpad for work and I love that little red pointing dev.

[00:57]

<crweb>

mine also has that

[00:58]

<crweb>

i find them a little annoying

[00:58]

<crweb>

i've never used one that didn't get stuck sometimes

[00:58]

<crweb>

like, it gets stuck moving down

[00:58]

<crweb>

and nothing will stop it

[00:58]

<crweb>

even the touch pad stops working, and I just kinda have to wait for it to stop on its own

[00:58]

yea, the driver has to be right. they have good self calibration on the thinkpad... you just leave it alone and it calibrates/stops.

[00:59]

<crweb>

it happens on every laptop i've ever had

[00:59]

<crweb>

ibm's, dell's, toshibas

[00:59]

i don't know. it used to happen all the time for me on my thinkpad and then it just stopped being a problem. I dont' know why. always assumed they fixed the driver.

[01:00]

...my work patches our systems all the time so we never know what is happening.

[01:00]

<crweb>

still happens on my x41

[01:01]

well. I know what you mean it is annoying.

[01:01]

<crweb>

thats really my only complaint

[01:01]

<crweb>

i was getting ready to buy another tablet

[01:01]

<crweb>

but i just upgraded the m4 instead

[01:01]

<crweb>

I wasn't using dual channel function

[01:01]

<crweb>

and the hard drive was 4800rpm

[01:02]

<crweb>

now, going to have dual channel ram 2gigs worth, and 7200 rpm sata drive

[01:02]

<crweb>

should run better than my p4 3.4ghz

[01:02]

yea, I was debating the choice between 5400 120GB vs. 7200 100GB but more $$$

[01:02]

<crweb>

the rpm is totally worth it

[01:02]

really?

[01:02]

<crweb>

especially mobile

[01:03]

(not sure what my IBM is, hmm)

[01:03]

<crweb>

7200 rpm is worth more than 20gigs

[01:03]

pluss it is more $$$

[01:03]

<crweb>

now if it were 80gig 7200 rpm, or 320gig

[01:03]

not sure difference at the moment.

[01:03]

<crweb>

err, 320gig 5400, I'd go with the 320

[01:04]

<crweb>

i'm all about responsive ness

[01:04]

<crweb>

you just don't get it with 5400rpm

[01:04]

<crweb>

even with sata

[01:04]

<crweb>

expecially with mobile cpu's

[01:04]

yea, I'll weigh that in.

[01:04]

then

[01:05]

<crweb>

I just waited till i could afford the new parts

[01:05]

<crweb>

my tecra came with 512mb, and i bought a 1 gig chip with it

[01:05]

<crweb>

but chips have to match to be dual channel

[01:05]

<crweb>

and it came with a 60gig sata 5400rpm drive

[01:06]

<crweb>

I'll have in my hands my 2nd 1gig mem chip, enabling dual channel. Tomorrow at noon

[01:06]

<crweb>

that will really help things

[01:06]

I think I understand now... toshibadirect sends you to resellers for the Tecra, but other lines they let you customize and order on taht site.

[01:06]

<crweb>

i get the 7200 rpm 100 gig drive at the same time

[01:07]

<crweb>

i'll let you know the difference

[01:07]

that's cool. yea, I'd like to hear what you think.... try to be objective ;)

[01:07]

<crweb>

i went from a dell with a 7200 rpm ata100 drive to the tecra with 5400rpm sata drive

[01:07]

<crweb>

i felt it big time

[01:08]

<crweb>

actually i did 1 benchmark test before i updated my desktop

[01:09]

<crweb>

full kernel build on my desktop took 32 minutes. P4-2.8ghz, 2gigs of ram in dual channel mode, 320 gig 7200rpm sata 3.5" hard drive, 32.6 minutes

[01:09]

<crweb>

on the tecra, Pentium M 1.73 ghz, 1.5 gigs of ram non-dual channel, 60 gig 5400rpm sata hard drive, 31.23 minutes

[01:09]

<crweb>

thats just straight up speed though

[01:10]

<crweb>

you would just notice the changes while doing user tasks. More responsive desktop and stuff

[01:10]

yea that sounds like a good test.

[01:10]

<crweb>

of course they were both the same kernel config file

[01:10]

<crweb>

and both running kubuntu 6.1

[01:11]

<crweb>

6.10

[01:14]

<crweb>

bed time

[01:14]

<crweb>

I'll more details in +11

[01:14]

<crweb>

ups comes at noon CST :)

[01:14]

thanks for the advice. I'm pooring over the details now.

[01:15]

<crweb>

on the other 2 bad things

[01:15]

...buying a laptop will make me 'poorer' too

[01:15]

<crweb>

A.) mine arroved with 2 dead pixels

[01:15]

<crweb>

it pissed me off at first, but now I don't even see them

[01:15]

<crweb>

and thats really just a chance you take with any lcd

[01:15]

yea. I've seen some places say they won't replace if less than 8 pixels, blah blah blah

[01:15]

<crweb>

yeah

[01:16]

<crweb>

toshiba is 5

[01:16]

<crweb>

also, dust gets behind the tablet cover

[01:16]

<crweb>

i take it off once a year and clean it out

[01:16]

<crweb>

careful not to let more in

[01:16]

right.

[01:16]

<crweb>

you're suppose to send it in, but eh

[01:17]

<crweb>

i've arranged to ship it to them 9-10 times

[01:17]

<crweb>

and never got around to it

[01:17]

<crweb>

they never ask questions really

[01:17]

I know. it is hard to figure out when to give it up.

[01:17]

never a good time.

[01:17]

<crweb>

well, i really do need to send it

[01:17]

<crweb>

i broke the ac plug

[01:18]

<crweb>

sat it down in my car seet plugged into my AC converter

[01:18]

<crweb>

then sat my hand on it

[01:18]

maybe the tech will accidentally mess up the screen... then you get a new one.

[01:18]

<crweb>

and all the weight was on the plug because the seat wasn't level

[01:18]

<crweb>

and it broke

[01:19]

<crweb>

they didn't ask how, just said send it in

[01:19]

<crweb>

i was going to but.. it still charges

[01:19]

<crweb>

its just a little loose

[01:19]

<crweb>

i've got 3 years

[01:19]

yea, with all the issues with laptops it might actually be worth the "protection plan".

[01:19]

<crweb>

well, i don't have protection plan

[01:19]

<crweb>

but it does come with 3 year warranty for free

[01:19]

<crweb>

thats what really matters

[01:19]

oh, 3 years is good.

[01:20]

<crweb>

pretty sure all toshiba's are 3 year

[01:20]

<crweb>

3 or 5

[01:20]

<crweb>

at least when I bought it

[01:20]

<crweb>

actually, i got it 2 days ago 2006

[01:20]

<crweb>

oh oh

[01:21]

<crweb>

real quick, great story

[01:21]

it's 1 or 3 on the website for different models, I can't tell why

[01:21]

<crweb>

so, there was a book shelf at the ex's house, about 7ft tall

[01:21]

<crweb>

i needed to charge the tecra but it was downloading stuff

[01:21]

I don't like the sound of this :o

[01:22]

<crweb>

so, i plug it into the wall and put it on top of the book shelf while its on

[01:22]

<crweb>

i start to walk away and the chord is wrapped around my foot

[01:22]

<crweb>

yeah, it falls, makes a sound like a plastic box hitting the floor (tile hard floor)

[01:22]

* sourcerror feels chill down spine

[01:23]

<crweb>

it was in tablet mode so of course it came uncliped and spun a round a little

[01:23]

<crweb>

the only thing it did, was pull the locking clip out of the holder

[01:23]

<crweb>

i snapped it back in..

[01:23]

<crweb>

still works

[01:23]

<crweb>

a year later

[01:23]

<crweb>

(only had it for 2 days)

[01:24]

weird. maybe some of the energy going into the 'spin' saved you.

[01:24]

<crweb>

if it was in linux, i would have had to buy a new hard drive

[01:24]

<crweb>

but the accel sensors work in windows, and locked the harddrive when it detected it was falling

[01:25]

cool.

[01:25]

<crweb>

i had a heart attack.. picked it up, ran scan disc for 4 days straight

[01:25]

<crweb>

scandisk

[01:25]

<crweb>

no damage

[01:25]

yea good story.

[01:26]

<crweb>

the clip did break the seal when it snapped out of the holder

[01:26]

<crweb>

and bent the tablet cover slightly

[01:26]

<crweb>

so I have more of a dust problem than normal

[01:26]

<crweb>

but, that was totally me

[01:27]

<crweb>

7 feet

[01:27]

yea. amazing.

[01:27]

<crweb>

sounded like an empty plastic pencil box hitting the floor

[01:28]

<crweb>

and that, is why I'll buy another toshiba

[01:28]

<crweb>

my dell didn't survive a 7 inch fall while it was off

[01:29]

<crweb>

of course.. 17" dell weighs 8-12 pounds

[01:29]

you know I have an ancient Toshiba Satellite... 325CDS in my closet.

[01:29]

<crweb>

my tecra weighs 4

[01:30]

<crweb>

with the battery in, weighs 4

[01:30]

32MB, 2GB HDD, Pentium II 233 MHz... can boot DSL but hard drive and battery dead.

[01:30]

<crweb>

i don't like the satellites

[01:30]

<crweb>

they have very bad layouts

[01:30]

this is so old it's not your satellite of today.

[01:30]

<crweb>

they are just not comfortable to hold or use

[01:31]

<crweb>

and fans are in bad places, usb ports too

[01:31]

yea that's just weird. It's like they have 3 companies inside designing 3 laptops

[01:31]

<crweb>

oh, usually the tablet hinge is on the right

[01:31]

<crweb>

when you're using it

[01:32]

<crweb>

so take that into account when looking at ports and stuff

[01:32]

yea OK.

[01:32]

<crweb>

i have to software lock my cdrom tray cause if i hold it against me it'll kick open

[01:32]

<crweb>

while in tablet mode

[01:33]

<crweb>

i guess, i could turn it around

[01:33]

<crweb>

but i'm right handed and the screen's joystick is on the bottom right if the hinge is on the right

[01:33]

<crweb>

and top left, if the hinge is on the left

[01:33]

here's the HDD difference... 120GB 5400rpm vs. 100GB 7200rpm + $8-

[01:33]

here's the HDD difference... 120GB 5400rpm vs. 100GB 7200rpm + $80

[01:34]

<crweb>

not that i ever use it

[01:34]

<crweb>

you're better off buying the cheaper one, and upgrading yourself

[01:34]

<crweb>

I just got my 100gig sata for $120

[01:34]

<crweb>

and now i have 2

[01:35]

yea, I suppose I could always put the old drive in an external USB case.

[01:35]

<crweb>

put the 120 that comes with it in a external mini enclosure

[01:35]

:)

[01:35]

<crweb>

i'll have 3 now

[01:35]

It's always good to have something to back up to.

[01:35]

<crweb>

100gig internal, 80gig ide ata100 2.5" usb

[01:36]

<crweb>

and my 60gig sata 2.5" usb

[01:36]

<crweb>

upgrading in customize isn't a good idea

[01:36]

<crweb>

1gig of ram was $100 more

[01:36]

<crweb>

and I ended up with 1.5gig for $80

[01:37]

<crweb>

now i have 2 gig for $120 total

[01:37]

that's about the same. I'll probably just start it with 2GB.

[01:37]

<crweb>

and an extra laptop DDR2-433 512mb if anyone is interested

[01:38]

<crweb>

i want low latency static ram..

[01:38]

I found the warranty stuff... 1yr standard, 3yr + $100 extra

[01:38]

<crweb>

i got mine from newegg

[01:38]

<crweb>

it came already packaged with 3yr

[01:39]

<crweb>

ok, bed for real now

[01:39]

<crweb>

ttyl

[01:39]

thanks. later.

[01:40]

<crweb>

oh, and i don't know if 14.1" screen is worth it

[01:40]

<crweb>

tablet wise its a bit to big

[01:40]

<crweb>

laptop wise its great

[01:41]

<crweb>

i have a 12" laptop and its to small

[01:41]

it is to me. I'd probably add that.

[01:41]

<crweb>

its just really big if you're looking for something more tablet/paper replacement

[01:41]

that's OK. I want the functionality even if it is a little larger.

[02:17]

anyone around who managed to get nano-x running as a stand alone server ?

[02:52]

nerochiaro: I read that article financing volunteer free sw. a good read.

[02:52]

it's from one of the ubuntu leaders. interesting indeed

[02:53]

stumbled upon it randomly

[02:53]

it has good pointers to avoid problems too.

[02:55]

I'm impressed with the good things that Neuros already does, well of course, that's why I got interested in the first place.

[02:55]

the part about sponsoring conferences and such ? or sprints ? yes, i think too they are good suggestions

[02:56]

same here, lots of time ago with the Neuros2. they were fumbling around a lot more back then, there was sure some progress

[02:56]

we need some sprints here :)

[02:56]

sourcerror: i think the dev base isn't large enough to allow for these :)

[02:57]

irc works well for me but it may be helpful to do some conference calls, skype maybe?

[02:58]

you mean dev base isn't large enough for conferences or sprints?

meow

GuestN224: purr

aw

hehe

yea, maybe wrong channel. it was funny when crweb pointed out lots of people end up here by accident

[02:59]

sourcerror: yep, i think you need to have much more devs to find enough that are available to meet at the same time for a sprint

[02:59]

it's that web client

[02:59]

seems we're #1 or something in google for "irc web client"

[03:00]

because neuros website ranks high for some keywords

[03:00]

haha

[03:00]

yea, that was it.

[03:00]

the funny thing is, no one knows which words are they

[03:00]

chreekat and I can meet for conferences :) we're both in sacramento, CA USA area

[03:01]

right. a 2 people conf is nice, but not exactly a conference :)

[03:01]

I'm sure we could find something to argue about.

[03:02]

er, debate

[03:02]

or at worse (or best) have some pints of nice beer

[03:02]

exactly.

[03:03]

haha

[03:03]

sourcerror: in other news, did you manage to check on that i18n idea any further ?

[03:04]

I think you can actually ask google to find out what keywords your site ranks highly on

[03:04]

they keep track of all that

[03:05]

I do have some of i18n working before you pointed me to gettext. the thing I didn't implement was reading translations from a file.

[03:06]

I know you are saying i've fallen victim to 'not invented here' but it really is just a page of code. qsort on the wordlist and bsearch to lookup. a faster dictionary could be written but might not be worth it.

[03:07]

I wrote a function to cache lookups into a list of pointers to strings if you were worried about performance, but I'm thinking that is not even worth it now.

[03:08]

chreekat: you mean ask a person, or some query will return that info?

[03:09]

sourcerror: you might have to sign up for some service

[03:09]

ah.

[03:09]

well it's funny anyway some people that I've seen come in in my short time here.

[03:09]

sourcerror: my company uses google ads exclusively for marketing right now, and the boss is all crazy about analyzing and optimizing keywords

[03:10]

sourcerror: well, i don't want to shoot you down, but on the upside of gettext we have that it's easier to use for both programmers (who don't have to invent and lookup string_ids) and for translators (which are probably more familiar with the POT files of gettext)

[03:10]

sourcerror: also, if i'm not mistaken the runtime part is part of glibc

[03:10]

so we have it "for free"

[03:10]

nerochiaro: I'm using the same API. oh crap I didn't realize it was in glibc

[03:11]

on the downside, gettext is probably less efficent

[03:11]

sourcerror: i'm not sure it's in glibc, but i think it is

[03:12]

at first I thought the conversion to the binary format was dumb, but then I realized it is probably a good idea since you can really squeeze the file size down and speed up the lookup (rather than use bsearch)

[03:13]

<-- talking about gettext

[03:14]

no point in leaving it text, which you have to parse, no ?

[03:14]

* chreekat wishes more people would embrace efficient binary formats for data

[03:15]

chreekat: sometimes it's just not necessary or more convenient to have it also human accessible

[03:15]

I think no matter what you end up leaving the strings in your code... _("some string"). But instead of doing a bsearch for "some string" you could follow a really compact tree structure to find the string.

[03:16]

sourcerror: you're saying that it's what gettext does ?

[03:16]

Am I wrong to assume that --prefix=$PREFIX should put *all* installed files under $PREFIX?

[03:17]

nerochiaro: nope, I'm saying that's how I'd write gettext. I haven't read the source for it just the docs.

[03:17]

* chreekat gives the evil eye to xmms2's build system

[03:17]

chreekat: i would assume so

[03:17]

chreekat: it seems it should

[03:18]

chreekat: unless it really needs to do something funky

[03:18]

<anders_>

Why is a tree better than a bsearch?

[03:18]

yeah, they put *almost* everything under prefix, but language bindings are put in /usr/local no matter what

[03:19]

00:55 < rafl> the bindings for those languages try to be smart and install themself somewhere where their interpreter can actually find them.

[03:19]

* chreekat pouts

[03:19]

sourcerror: right. if yours and gettext have the same API, my suggestion is to first convert the app to gettext, then benchmark, then convert to your system and benchmark again. see what comes up

[03:19]

anders_: I think it could just be more compact and faster but I have no data so I'm talking out of my *ss

[03:19]

if I wanted my hand to be held, I wouldn't be installing it from source

[03:20]

chreekat: that is bad indeed. the lang interpreter should be fixed, not the bindings install

[03:20]

chreekat: if anders_ is here you can just complain directly about xmms2 :D

[03:20]

anders_: sorry, it's bad form to come over here and gripe about the xmms2 build :-P

[03:21]

<anders_>

sourcerror: I mean a bsearch is O(log n) just like a perfectly balanced tree.

[03:21]

<anders_>

chreekat: There defintily is room for improvement.

[03:21]

anders_: I just wasn't sure if the current method is what people *wanted*

[03:22]

anders_: the problem is that my compare function in the bsearch is strcmp() so it is hard for me to guess how much that hurts

[03:23]

nerochiaro: the only thing I would be afraid of with gettext is that it requires using all the other steps. e.g. postprocessing the .pot into a binary format. Where I want to implement reading from a file and skip that step. this would allow people to just create a text file and put on their OSD.

[03:24]

...I know that's could be considered a lame NIH reason, but that's one difference.

[03:24]

sourcerror: it converts to binary. you just said it's more efficent

[03:24]

I shouldn't say "all the other steps". the one other step :)

[03:25]

I really should read the gettext source. I'm assuming too much.

[03:25]

sourcerror: and frankly, that it should be part of the build step, not something people should be able to modify at runtime, IMHO.

[03:26]

but... that's the beauty if we allow people to edit the files and just plop on their OSD they can see a string they don't like and just add it to their language file.

[03:26]

don't like -> is wrong

[03:27]

but you are right, they can run the tool to turn into binary format.

[03:27]

sourcerror: first they can't really "plop it on their osd", since the FS is ro

[03:28]

we should/could look on removable media for additional translation files I think

[03:28]

sourcerror: second, it could be handy, but does that outweight the fact it's less efficent ? it's a feature for geeks anyway

[03:28]

true. major languages would be done well enough.

[03:29]

sourcerror: we could, but it's all extra baggage that 98% of the users won't need. translation geeks can come here and we point them to a super easy VM method to generate these binaries. hell, there are probably POT converters for windows too

[03:30]

nerochiaro: yep. you're right.

[03:31]