Nov
30
2008

Gentoo, udev and Persistant PPP

(Add / View Comments) (0)Sunday, November 30, 2008 - 02:34:25 pm
(Posted Under: Linux Linux, Gentoo Linux Gentoo Linux)
It's been a rough couple of months since August with internet problems - all kicked off when I tried to get phpUnderControl up and running on my server, requiring a bunch of updates, including a baselayout update, which complete broke pppd being persistant when a connection is dropped.

To add insult to injury, my AG241 started playing up, now the switch side of it refusing to work at anything but 10mb/s.

For weekend after weekend I'd been trying to get a chance to fix it, but things kept coming up, until September when every single weekend became a complete wash. It's been about 2 months side I've even bothered saying "I'll fix my server this weekend".

It's amazing what having a little bit of downtime to diagnose the problem properly will do. I had another look today, and have some success. Initiating pppd manually I noticed /etc/conf/net.ppp0 was causing some problems - and noticed the file contained PERSIST="no", which I'd obviously missed! I guess that the previous version of baselayout ignored this, new one doesn't.

Even with this fixed, starting pppd manually worked nicely, but starting it through /etc/init.d/net.ppp0 start still behaved the same. However, removing /etc/init.d/net.ppp0, making it a symlink to /etc/init.d/net.lo appears to have solved this issue. And actually makes a whole bunch of sense.

Currently my pppd log is getting flooded with "Timeout waiting for PADO packet" messsages, but atleast I've got the modem back in bridge only mode and Gentoo dialing the connection.
Now Playing: The Poppin' Wheelies - Back Again
Nov
27
2008

We Can't Stop Here! This Is Bat Country

(Add / View Comments) (0)Thursday, November 27, 2008 - 11:06:37 pm
(Posted Under: No Category)
Last weekend Katie thought she saw some bats around here, but I figured they had to be crows. Then last night having a smoke out the front, I thought the possums were going nuts in the backyard. But then thought they were on the roof. Which can't be good. But then I realised they were birds. As they flew between the two houses I figured they were crows, certainly from the size. But then as the flew overhead I upgraded the assessment to having vampires living with us, based on the sound of the wings. So, maybe they are bats - but they just looked too big, despite how dark it was.

This afternoon the flew over again in the daylight, in a similar pattern to last night, and they're definitely bats. By far the biggest bats I've seen in my life! It would hav been cool if they'd been flying around during out Halloween festivities!
Now Playing: Sugar High - Scare Me
Nov
26
2008

Wouldn't You Like To Know The Sound Of The Ocean?

Mark Zubia on Point Of Ventre

(Add / View Comments) (0)Wednesday, November 26, 2008 - 11:39:07 pm
(Posted Under: Tempe Music Scene Tempe Music Scene, Music Music)
Tonight was a really great episode of Point Of Ventre, with Los Guys in the studio in light of their CD release tomorrow. Particularly awesome was Mark (and the rest of the band) graciously fullfilling my request of playing Absolutely Right Or Wrong. Rivaled in coolness by the fact that they broke into Not Now Alice. I'd expected them to just play the CD, and really loved when they broke into it acoustically. I thought it was too good to be true when they started talking about playing Pink Dress - unfortunately it was, since they played the CD version of that. The good choices continued with Parts Of Yesterday, which also seemed quite fitting given today.

Tonight I also appreciated hearing something new off of the Tramps new record, and a Domo song I haven't heard before. Metal note to self - need to get the Domo CD's!

  1. Absolutely Right Or Wrong - Los Guys (Acoustic in Studio)
  2. Not Now Alice - Los Guys (Acoustic in Studio)
  3. Pink Dress - The Piersons
  4. Parts Of Yesterday - Los Guys (Acoustic in Studio)
  5. Chemistry - Black Carl
  6. It's Just Me - Los Guys (Acoustic in Studio)
  7. Love You More - Los Guys
  8. It Ain't Easy - Tramps & Thieves
  9. Crooked Mile - Chimeras
  10. Waiting On A Girl - Shelby James & The Cryin' Shames
  11. A - Dead Hot Workshop
  12. Never Get It Right - Mix Tape Manual
  13. Tales Of A 25 Year Old Nothing - Truckers On Speed
  14. Suckerpunch - Domo
  15. Tributary Otis - The Refreshments
  16. Making Out In The Library - Kinch
  17. Drive - Satelitte
  18. Midnight Radio - Greyhound Soul
Now Playing: Tramps & Thieves - It Ain't Easy
Nov
23
2008

Monsters Of Rock 6

(Add / View Comments) (0)PhotosSunday, November 23, 2008 - 05:55:38 pm
(Posted Under: Music Music)
Monsters Of Rock 6 - who knew that tributes bands could be so much fun? Well, with 80's hair bands, you've got to be figure there is some potential.

We went to Monsters Of Rock 6 last night, particularly since Poisoned (formally Cry Tough) were on the bill. We heard about them on Triple M earlier in the year, and Katie had been on the lookout for a show to go to.

Photobox ImagePoisoned were the first band up after we got there, and well worth (for me anyway) the $25 ticket price. I always figure that tribute acts can go either really good, or really bad, especially when it's a band that you're a big fan of. Right from the get go I was quite impressed. Particularly Bret and Bobby's get ups were quite good. Being the second band up, there weren't many people on the floor, and it didn't take long for the singer to jump on the stage, and get people off their asses. With a good deal of cockyness, and reluctance to allow people not to rock made him a good Bret Michaels in my mind. He and 'Bobby' both seemed to have the moves down pretty well too. The only thing that didn't seem true to the real band is when the singer screwed up the words to Every Rose and the guitarist adjusted accordingly - I can't really imagine the real C.C's ego would allow that to happen. [wink] All in all I'd definitely like to see these guys again.

Before we left, I asked Katie if she wanted to borrow a Motley Crue t-shirt, as I was sporting the new Poison t-shirt that Katie had got me for my birthday. But she remembered that she had her David Lee Roth t-shirt. During X-Halen the boys from Poisoned tapped Katie on the shoulder to look at the back of the t-shirt, making it a good choice to wear.

Photobox ImageX-Halen were particularly enjoyable. The singer (who joined Poisoned during their set) did a really great rendition of David, and similarly the guitarist really nailed the Eddie Valen Halen sounds and style.

Photobox ImageKisstroyer were also ridiculously impressive. Given that the show started at 6, and that we were going primarily for Poisoned, we figured that we'd probably leave at some point before Kisstroyer. Not because I don't like Kiss or anything, just 6 bands in one night is a lot to get through. However, since it was such a good night, it was actually really easy to stay for the whole show. And we both were really glad that we had, given that Kisstroyer probably wasn't that far off actually seeing Kiss. Perfect costumes (as expected), pyrotechnics, fire breathing, blood spitting and smoking & pyrotechnics spewing guitars. The whole theatrics was a lot more than I expected for a tribute band. I definitely left really impressed with the Kisstroyer show.

Anyways, a great night. Hail 80's hair bands...and their tribute groups! [smile]

And here's to hoping there is an opportunity to see Poisoned again!
Nov
20
2008

Everything I Asked For on MTV

(Add / View Comments) (0)Thursday, November 20, 2008 - 10:38:03 pm
(Posted Under: Tempe Music Scene Tempe Music Scene, Music Music)
Everything I Ask For premiered on MTV today...



Ever since the album came out I've thought that Everything I Ask For is such an obvious choice for a single. However, MTV's censoring of shit in the chorus is really unfortunate.

It's really cool that a band who I said should be all over radio and MTV actually ended up there. It doesn't actually happen very often. *cough* Violet Wild *cough*. I must admit though, it is however surprising that it's only taken about 9 months since I said that for it to actually happen.

Talk about a band that's doing something right. Quite a few could probably take a leaf out of their book. *Insert more coughs...* [wink]
Nov
18
2008

Patch-O-Matic & Extras Repository

(Add / View Comments) (0)Tuesday, November 18, 2008 - 11:45:25 pm
(Posted Under: Linux Linux)
Since moving to gentoo-sources-2.6.19-r4 by virtual of severe breaking of my system using 2.6.8, some of my netfilter setup has been broken. Particularly, and not surprisingly, rules that rely on the extension modules not built into the new kernel.

On attempting to patch my kernel, the light bulb has gone off on an annoyance I've had for quite some time. The three main extensions I use are time, condition and account. The bugbear being that condition is part of the extras repository and has been seemingly missing from patch-o-matic for quite some time. I've previously been getting around this by using older versions of patch-o-matic with the condition extension. However, with 2.6.19, while I can force the patch into the kernel, it doesn't actually work. After much screwing around confirming that this was the issue with iptables telling me 'invalid argument', and trying to find a newer version of the extention, something I've been missing over the past few years became clear (with some good Google searches) - the extra repository still exists, but doesn't ship with patch-o-matic any more. You have to tell patch-o-matic to download it!

# ./runme --download
*Slaps forehead!* The netfilter website isn't the best documented thing in the world! It's only taken me a year (at least) to catch on to that!

In other news, I got udev finally working pretty nicely with 2.6.19-r4. Well, it seems that way anyway, though I haven't attempted a ppp connection using it, which was my real problem a few months ago.
Nov
16
2008

Setting Up Wireless Under Linux

(Add / View Comments) (0)Sunday, November 16, 2008 - 04:49:03 pm
(Posted Under: Linux Linux, )
With the move, I've had to take wireless networking to the next step, connecting the PC upstairs wireless. It hadn't been a big issue until earlier this week when we got the internet connected. But moving the server downstairs to support that has left me networklelss up here.

The plan was to throw a wireless device into my PC, and way you go. Thanks to someone at work, a wireless card was no problem. However later this week I had a terrible thought - that my PC was properly using all the PCI slots. Why these days it's thought that 2 PCI slots are enough, I do not know. After checking, unfortunately it turned out to be true. After deciding to setup a second routing machine up here, on Friday night I decided try putting the card in my Linux server downstairs. Which seemed like a recipie for disaster, as I got the card for free because the previous owner couldn't get it working under Linux.

Much to my suprise, it only took a couple of hours on Friday night to get things up and running, and most of that time was spent dealing with kernel issues that I've been suffering for a couple of months. As such, I've finally, after 4 years left 2.6.8 behind in preference for 2.6.19.

Anyways, setting everything up has been a lot simplier than what I'd read on the net. The largest problem I've really encounting is the daemons that require network interfaces to be up when they start - naemly dhcp, named and samba (through my own configuration). I sorted that out this afternoon with creating an init script that checks the wireless connection status and restart the services.

While having the main interface on my server being wireless isn't an ideal, it seems to be working well.
Nov
14
2008

Put A Record On, Make It Spin Until I Fall Out The Door

(Add / View Comments) (0)Friday, November 14, 2008 - 07:21:43 pm
(Posted Under: Tempe Music Scene Tempe Music Scene, Music Music)
A nice surprise just now on going to Strange Young Thing's myspace page and seeing they have some new songs up from the new record. Only about half of the album, but a nice preview neither the less. For a moment I thought maybe they'd put the whole record up and was disappointed that there was no Her Song. However, I found a full track listing, and that is one there.

It's funny how with unsigned bands that you dig, you don't set your expectations too high - well, okay, sometimes I do - but Strange Young Things are just a great live rockin' band, that I had no preconceptions about how studio stuff should sound. If it doesn't sound as good as them live, well that's okay - having something on record is enough So I was blown aware right from the get go at how good what I've heard so far is!

Now Playing: Strange Young Things - Dabble In The Mix
Nov
13
2008

That Crazy West Texas Moon

(Add / View Comments) (0)Thursday, November 13, 2008 - 11:20:33 am
(Posted Under: No Category)
Honey I don't mind that mountain
That you tell me that I got to climb
But baby I don't like those stones you put in my shoes
So maybe I'll just keep on walking
Trying to stay a step ahead of the blues...


Thank you Roger, for summing things up nicely. [smile]
Nov
11
2008

And We're Back...

(Add / View Comments) (0)Tuesday, November 11, 2008 - 08:14:51 pm
(Posted Under: No Category)
After a month, finally I have internet again. Well mostly, it seems to be dropping out fairly regularly. Like right now, actually. [wink] But still, it's a major coop. *Saluting Major Coop*.

Suprisingly it hasn't been that hard to be internet-less for so long, but still, it's nice to be connected again!
Now Playing: The Black Moods - Tall
Nov
02
2008

The Office

(Add / View Comments) (0)Sunday, November 2, 2008 - 11:24:54 pm
(Posted Under: No Category)
The Office is back on! It really seems like it's been forever since it's been.

Finally something to make the pending Monday morning somewhat better. [smile]

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