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Archive for May, 2010

OS-Install-o-mania Parts 1, 2 and 3

Monday, May 31st, 2010

Unintentionally trashing the Vista installation on a Dell computer

One decade back, I was installing operating systems quite often. Win 98 was broken every now and then, and Linux was developing very quickly.

Meanwhile I’m very reluctant in updating operating systems. It just takes too much time to set up the system, to reinstall all required applications and to do all the configuration work. Or the other way around: It’s just a waste of time.

However, there are circumstances where your machines need some healing hands.

#1: N900 Upgrade

This week, a much anticipated update for the Nokia N900 was finally released. I was eagerly waiting for it, as I hoped that it would erase »The Big Bug«. The update was advertised as an »over-the-air«-update, installable via a wireless network connection. Unfortunately, the device didn’t offer the update on my machine. After waiting for a couple of days, I got suspicious and searched the web for the reasons.

Obviously the device performs some checks first, and in case certain circumstances occur, it denies to offer the update. The reason might be that I enabled an additional repository and installed (only) a couple of extra software packages. Further, the N900’s operating system is not installed to the 32GB flash memory. Instead, it lives in some wee small extra partition of about 200MB. I’ve never understood why it is designed this way and why the space is that limited. Unfortunately, the Debian-like operating system stores each package in a folder in this small partition, further reducing its size.

So I ssh’ed into the phone and tried to install the update using apt-get. It told me that it wants to download about 100MB of packages and that there was not enough space left. I created a folder on the 32GB flash drive and symlinked to it. Now the update packages were downloaded and the update went fine – halfways. I saw some warnings during the update, and finally it stopped.

So I did it the hard – by reflashing the device. I downloaded the current firmware image and a GUI tool for the Mac. Unfortunately this tool failed to complete the flashing process so the device was bricked. I tried again using my Linux box and everything went fine now. As all personal data lives on the 32GB storage which was not touched by the flashing process, I just needed to reinstall some additional software packages (mainly those for mapping) and was back in business.

#2: Reinstalling Vista from a recovery CD

The backlight of the display on my Dell notebook was broken (it appeared as a defective contact, as the backlight switched off every now and then). I’ve a service contract and hoped they would replace it as soon as possbile (»next business day«). Surprisingly, there was some (bi-daily) mail exchange where they told me what to do – one bit of information per message.

First they asked me to install some BIOS and driver updates, though I wrote in my initial message that I’m running Linux on the machine and that everything looks like a hardware defect. I wanted to do them the favour and booted Vista from the (seldom used) NTFS partition. After downloading and installing the driver updates, Vista prefered to show a blue screen at each attempt to boot it. Doh.

Dell further asked me to run a diagnostics tool before booting the operating system. This led me nowhere, as the backlight of the display always switched off while the tool was running.

Next they offered to catch the device and to repair it off-site. The device would be unavailable for up to two weeks. Hey guys, there was a reason why I spent the extra bucks for the on-site service.

Finally, after almost two weeks, a technician dropped by and exchanged the display. Heck, I didn’t remember how bright the display once was :) .

I do not really rely on the Vista installation, but I boot it every now and then to compile and test some code of my own. Due to some file system errors, problems with KDE after upgrading Ubuntu, the broken Vista installation and the fact, that the 15 GB partition was too small for Vista (yes, Vista needs at least 10GB for its installation, 2GB for a swap and 2GB for a hibernation file), I decided to set up the complete machine anew.

I backed up my home directory and used the Kubuntu installation disk to repartition the hard drive.

The Vista installation went halfway straightforward thanks to the Dell recovery CD. But later on I got stuck as there was no driver installed for the wireless network adapter. I tried to install it from an additional CD that came with the device, but to no avail. I finally downloaded some drivers from the Dell page and got it working, but this still was a challenge as it was not obvious which file to download and install. This was surprising as I passed the service tag of the device to the online support system.

Finally Vista insisted to download and install plenty of huge updates. I read »Usability Engineering kompakt« meanwhile :) .

#3: Installing Kubuntu 10.04 LTS

This one was simple. Insert the CD, enter some data, select the right partitions for installation and let the installer alone for a couple of minutes. After booting the system, plug in the USB hard drive containing the backup of your home directory and copy the files back to the hard drive. Log in and feel comfortable.

Conclusion

It was good luck that it was a rainy sunday. I really hate those bread- and senseless installation orgies. I hope the machine will now run until it gets replaced.

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Adieu KDE – peu à peu

Sunday, May 30th, 2010

Office utils (openclipart.org, public domain)

I’ve been a KDE user for a very long time – actually since I use Linux on my machines. I remember the day when I wiped Win 95 and installed SuSE Linux (do not recall the version) back in 1998. I sat in front of the computer, staring at the KDE filemanager. And I thought: »And that’s the operating system better than Win?!?«. Meanwhile I know better, and KDE matured over the years. I helped with a bunch of applications, writing manuals, filing bug reports, and finally started to write my own code to get some tools I missed.

KDE 3.5 was a very usable and stable system, while KMail still is an excellent mail user agent.

However, the switch to KDE 4 was a major break, introducing lots of rewritten code and new design concepts. While I appreciated all the ongoing changes, I left my system untouched, still running KDE 3.5.

I upgraded as my distro was outdated and the repositories went offline. This way I got KDE 4.3. Well, it was running and ready to use, but there were lots of issues which did remind me of the days when struggling with Win 95.

One source of eternal joy is the mess around KDE PIM, Akonadi, Strigi, Nepomuk, Virtuoso-t and the like.

Virtuoso-t CPU usage, draining the battery

Kontact, the PIM application embedding mail, contacts, feeds and the like, started to rely on Akonadi, which in turn requires an SQL database server for operation. Unfortunately it didn’t work out of the box, and after following some docs on the net and trying out several meds to cure the problem, I finally gave up and decided that I will never run an SQL server just to manage some personal data. So I have to close the annoying Akonadi error message dialog each time I log in.

Akonadi error message after each login

I understand the design concepts behind the PIM suite and am impressed of what the KDE community tries to achieve. But at first I need a working system where I can perform basic tasks. Further, I want to create backups just by copying the data of my home directory to another hard drive. I will not start to write specialized scripts which will backup and restore some additional data of a database server. If I wanted to, I’d install an Exchange server and enjoy the journey.

One of the cool things I always liked in KDE was the fish-protocol which allows you to edit files transparently directly on a server over an ssh connection. Unfortunately this was one of the features broken in KDE 4.3.

Meanwhile I upgraded my distro and got KDE 4.4. The fish protocol is operational again (which is great). But the problems with Akonadi remained. I still cannot access my contacts from within Kontact, as it complains about problems with the Akonadi server.

Impossible to access contacts

Additionally, it seems that there still is absolutely no possibility to sync any of the PIM data with my cell phone.

The file indexer continues to keep my CPU and notebook fans busy (hi nepomukservicestub). I saw it eating one of my cores completely, but also saw it at 70% CPU usage.

Nepomukservicestub easting 49% CPU

Dolphin, the file manager, also shows some severe bugs. Today I wanted to change the file permissions of an (admittedly huge) backup file available on an external USB hard drive. I rightclicked and chose to open the properties dialog. The result was a frozen file manager which I killed manually. After two further attempts I used the command line to set the file’s properties. In case you expect that all this fan blowing at least makes sense because you’ll easily find files afterwards, you might be wrong.

Nepomuk search failed

To me KDE 4 appears as an overloaded desktop environment with too many applications, too many features and too many bugs, which in turn has problems performing basic tasks like managing files, PIM data and doing some sync to a cell phone. I really appreciate the decision to turn the computer into a social desktop to manage one’s internet activity. But I wonder whether it was better to keep the rewrite of the desktop separate of the breaks and changes of the PIM applications. The propellerheads behind KDE were brave and decided that they better do it the hard way. KDE probably will be a cool desktop in a couple of years again.

But meanwhile I need a replacement, and less surprisingly I’m considering to give another desktop a try. Besides Gnome and Evolution, there are other window managers and PIM applications. If you’re a KDE switcher and want to share some experience, please drop me a line.

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Mapping the woods between Karlsruhe and Rastatt

Sunday, May 23rd, 2010

Back Side of Rastatt Castle

Today’s trip led from Karlsruhe to Rastatt, an ancient german town with several baroque buildings. I decided not to make it a grand mapping trip, but to use openrouteservice.org to find the way. This means I expected not to find new ways because the route was calculated based on existing ones.

The way led through the woods and fields between the two towns. Many of the ways originally have been mapped by me several years ago and needed maintenance. Tracktypes for example didn’t exist in those days yet. Surprisingly I found some new ways anyway while others meanwhile have been paved.

Unfortunately my bike caused some trouble again. I’ve been at the shop three times, but they just don’t manage to get their stuff done. I’m already looking for another dealer and a new bike. I wanted to avoid spending the money, but today it broke my neck. It’s just no fun when your vehicle of choice doesn’t do its job.

Posted in Openstreetmap, Outdoor, Pictures | Comments Off

Mappers heading towards Wissembourg

Sunday, May 23rd, 2010

La Maison du Sel en Wissembourg

Finally the rainy days are over. The warm and sunny weather conditions allowed for the first mapping trip to Wissembourg by bike – the biking season finally has started.

I mapped a lot of details along the way. Some short breaks every now and then and finally a nice supper at the destination took time. Luckily »Deutsche Bahn« (a german railway company) provided public transport back home.

The location services of the N900 are pretty good, but there are also some weak points:

The N900 uses assisted GPS (AGPS) to get its position really quickly. If however no callular net is available, it needs ages (up to twenty minutes) to get a GPS fix. I’ve also seen such a behaviour on one of Garmin’s premium GPSrs, but only every now and then. The N900 does it each time it is outside the network of my provider. I guess the behaviour could by improved by saving an almanac to the device, but appearently the N900 doesn’t do it.
The first fixes the GPS subsystem delivers to the requesting application are sometimes really far (and I mean far) away from the actual position. This makes it difficult to check the trip’s length at home. I’ve never seen such a behaviour on the Garmins I used, and I consider this being a software bug.
Modern vehicles use screens with a vapour deposited metal layer. This hinders the GPS signals flowing into the vehicle. If the Garmin’s have a fix outside the vehicle, they are usually (but not always) capable to keep the fix after entering the car or train. The N900 today had difficulties, but as the WBT I also used today did not really do much better, I guess there were really bad GPS conditions in the train.
The big bug requires a second device which is more reliable for collecting tracklogs. Both Maep as well as Mapper loose their tracks in case you must hard reset the device.

Here’s how the tracklog recorded in the train looks like. Note that it should follow the rails precisely:

The device is an almost perfect gadget anyway. All I want to say is: If you reliably want to collect the tracklogs of your trips, just get an additional logger. The N900 is an exccellent general purpose device. It is not a specialized GPS receiver and logger.

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Mapping a watermill hiking trail

Sunday, May 16th, 2010

Ottenhöfen, Black Forest

Around Ottenhöfen, a Black Forest town, some ancient watermills have been restored. A hiking trail connects all of them. Today’s weather was not that great, e.g. too cold for May, and it was a cloudy and windy day. We grabbed the occasion anyway, stuffed eleven people into two cars and entered the black forest, leaving the cars at Ottenhöfen station. Here’s one of the watermills:

Watermill near Ottenhöfen (wikimedia commons, Andreas Frick, public domain)

Meanwhile I know why I’ve been elected to book and drive a van of the local car sharing provider. Along the trail, a lot of fountains are sited, and some of them act as a very special selling point (called »Schnapsbrunnen«). The black forest aborigines place bottles of schnapps in the water, add some drinking glasses and an offertory box. Hikers just serve themselves and leave some money. Needless to say that some of us served themselves very well :) .

Of course I used the occasion for some mapping. Most tracks and ways already have been mapped, but not very well. I added some ways, details along them and fixed some broken crossings. I’ve also modelled the water mill trail for appearance in the hiking and bridle map, but it will take some time until it gets rendered.

Finally we had some coffee at a local restaurant, enjoying local cake. This is a typical black forest cherry cake (»Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte«):

Black Forest cherry cake (»Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte«)

A great trip, and it begun raining just as we returned to the cars. An excellent timing :) .

Posted in Openstreetmap, Outdoor, Pictures | Comments Off

Überraschendes Wahlergebnis in Nordrhein-Westfalen

Monday, May 10th, 2010

Ballot box (openclipart.org, public domain)

Ich verstehe nichts von Fußball und äußere mich daher üblicherweise nicht zu Dingen wie Abseits oder Elfmeter. Bezogen auf die Politik interessiere ich mich eher für die mittel- und langfristige Gestaltung, die in der Tagespolitik ob der verhältnismäßig kurzen Wahlzyklen oftmals zu kurz kommt.

Dennoch verblüfft mich das Ergebnis der heutigen Wahl in Nordrhein-Westfalen.

Ob es gerechtfertigt war, die Union derart heftig abzustrafen, vermag ich nicht zu beurteilen, da ich die Arbeit der NRW-Regierung in den vergangenen Jahren nicht verfolgt habe. Vor dem Hintergrund diverser Ereignisse der vergangenen Wochen und Monate in Berlin und Düsseldorf war aber ein Stimmeneinbruch abzusehen. Zudem hat noch immer jeder dritte Wähler der Union seine Stimme gegeben. Das ist zwar im Vergleich zum letzten Ergebnis schwach, aber noch immer eine ganze Menge. Tatsache ist allerdings, dass es momentan für eine Fortsetzung der schwarz-gelben Koalition schlecht aussieht. Dass das der Union übel aufstößt ist nachvollziehbar.

Auch die Sozialdemokraten haben leicht verloren, befinden sich aber mit der Union überraschend auf Augenhöhe. Man mag politisch stehen, wo man will, aber auch wenn man sich mit den beiden »Volksparteien« (ein komisches Wort) schwer tut, darf man die Rolle, die sie als Mehrheitsbeschaffer bei der Bildung stabiler Regierungen spielen, nicht geringschätzen.

Stellt sich die Frage, wohin die Wähler der Union und der Sozialdemokraten abgewandert sind. Vor dem Hintergrund der Wirtschaftskrise und der Schwäche einiger Länder der Eurozone wandert der Blick zuallererst auf die Randparteien.

Bei den Liberalen hat sich nicht viel geändert. Eigentlich könnte man erwarten, dass die Menschen ihre Hoffnungen auf Politiker mit vermeintlicher wirtschaftlicher Kompetenz setzen würden. Diesen Bonus haben die Liberalen aber vermutlich im letzten Bundestagswahlkampf verspielt. In der Folgezeit sendeten die Bundesliberalen immer wieder das Signal aus, dass mir ihnen nicht sonderlich gut zu regieren ist.

Die Linke konnte zwar geringfügig zulegen. Es war aber eigentlich zu erwarten, dass die Linke mit ihren Positionen im ehemaligen »Pott« stärker würde zulegen können. Vielleicht haben die Wähler durch die Liberalen gelernt, unrealistische Forderungen zu erkennen.

In jedem Falle erfreulich ist, dass die Parteien am rechten Rand von der Situation nicht profitieren konnten und außen vor bleiben dürfen.

Somit wandert der Blick suchend durch die Parteienlandschaft, um den Gewinner des heutigen Abends auszumachen. Fündig wird man interessanterweise bei den Grünen. Auf ARD.de kann man lesen: »Den Volksparteien laufen die Wähler weg«. Man könnte auch einer anderen Lesart folgen, die der Realität vielleicht viel näher kommt: Die Gewichte innerhalb der Voksparteien verschieben sich.

Was viele noch immer nicht wahrhaben wollen ist, dass die Grünen eine durchaus konservative Partei darstellen, die mitnichten als Revolutionäre mit unrealistischen Forderungen am linken Rand agieren. Ganz im Gegenteil ist die Partei inzwischen zu einer professionellen Partei gereift, deren Köpfe es in der Regierungsverantwortung immer wieder geschafft haben, »heimlich, still und leise« ihre Ziele zu verfolgen. Auch die Grünen haben ihre ersten Skandale erlebt und somit belegt, dass sie zum Establishment gehören. Gleichzeitig erscheinen sie aber neben Union und SPD viel unverbrauchter und progressiver. Wer den Staus quo bewahren möchte, wählt die Union. Wer die Segnungen der Industriegesellschaft der zweiten Hälfte des letzten Jahrhunderts erneut herbeisehnt, wählt die Sozialdemokraten. Und wer der Meinung ist, dass unsere Gesellschaft dringender Veränderungen bedarf, wählt die Grünen. Gewiss, eine überspitzte, simplifizierende und allzu plakative Darstellung. Aber die Wähler des bevölkerungsreichsten deutschen Bundeslandes haben ein Signal gesetzt: Es geht auch anders. Dass sie durch die Bereitschaft zur Veränderung im Zweifelsfalle eine große Koalition riskieren, ist bemerkenswert.

Der eigentliche Verlierer des Tages aber ist die Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Im Bundesrat, bewusst geschaffen zur Limitierung der Macht des Bundes, lebt sie fort, die deutsche Kleinstaaterei der vergangenen Jahrhunderte. Über den Bundesrat versuchen die Wähler heute die durch die Bundestagswahl falsch gestellten Weichen gegen den Zugverkehr zu sperren. Nicht dass ich ein Fan der schwarz-gelben Koalition wäre. Aber das letzte, was wir für die nächsten Jahre brauchen können, ist eine in ihrer Handlungsfähigkeit behinderte Bundesregierung – egal welcher Couleur sie auch sein mag.

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Osmarender rules changed to render forest parcel names

Sunday, May 9th, 2010

Forest parcel name rendered in osmarender, zoom 17

At crossings of tracks in the woods, you often can find up to four name plates displaying the names of the adjacent wooden parcels. I usually placed a node tagged as place=locality and added the names. Of course this leads to a situation where the names will overlap each other, and after collecting some of those plates, it was desirable to draw the parcels as areas with the name rendered at the center, not as individual nodes at the vertices. I currently add a polygon tagged as landuse=forest.

While Mapnik renders the names of natural and landuse features in zoom levels 14 through 17, Osmarender only rendered them visibly at zoom level 17. It rendered natural names at zoom levels 16 and 15, but subsequently the caption was hidden by the rather huge surrounding wood polygon. landuse was missing in those levels.

I’ve thus adjusted the render rules so the names of natural and landuse features also get displayed at zoom levels 16 and 15. I hope this won’t mess up the map in densely populated areas. If so, please drop me a line and I’ll change the additional k="landuse" v="*" to something like k="landuse" v="forest|wood".

As soon as the changes are slurped by the tiles@home clients, I’ll start to convert the locality-nodes to something like amenity=nameplate or similar to finally clean up the map.

Posted in Coding, Openstreetmap, Software | Comments Off

Mapping Hiking Routes

Saturday, May 1st, 2010

Hikingmap Route

While curing some cold, I mapped a hiking route to make it appear on the Hiking and Bridlemap.
(more…)

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Points of Interest