Abandoning darcs

[Tuomo Valkonen]

The Ion darcs repositories have been taken offline, and I will
switch away from darcs. Reason: no version for the most viable
*nix platform of the day, Cygwin. The website will be upgraded
when I manage to replace Ikiwiki, which also does not work under
Cygwin.

[Tuomo Valkonen]

Post by Tuomo Valkonen
The Ion darcs repositories have been taken offline, and I will
switch away from darcs. Reason: no version for the most viable
*nix platform of the day, Cygwin. The website will be upgraded
when I manage to replace Ikiwiki, which also does not work under
Cygwin.

This is going to take some time. I, of course, can't even use the
usual tools to convert from darcs to another format, because
the non-deterministic windows-cygwin hybrid darcs does not even
print dates etc. in a standard format, so parsers fail.

(No, passing TZ does not work. Darcs shouldn't know about it,
as it's not a cygwin program. In truth, though, setting TZ
messes everything up. Must be a leak in GHC from depending
on cygwin for compilation, although it can not be compiled
for cygwin -- which is the reason why there's no cygwin
verion of darcs.)

...

Has anyone any experience of a simple coLinux setup?
That wouldn't mess hibernate/standby up? With internal
samba? No udev and other crap; Windows handles devices.

[Tuomo Valkonen]

Post by Tuomo Valkonen
This is going to take some time. I, of course, can't even use the
usual tools to convert from darcs to another format, because
the non-deterministic windows-cygwin hybrid darcs does not even
print dates etc. in a standard format, so parsers fail.

Another big project is writing a non-Haskell (read: Lua)
implementation of lua-xgettext. Fuck GHC and its unportability.
Help appreciated.

[Nicolas Schier]

Hi Tuomo,

have you already decided which SCM you want to switch to? I have noticed
you took a look at mercurial... I for myself am very content with it,
but I know that your requirements have mostly a little higher level.

Regards,
Nicolas

[Tuomo Valkonen]

Post by Nicolas Schier
have you already decided which SCM you want to switch to? I have noticed
you took a look at mercurial... I for myself am very content with it,
but I know that your requirements have mostly a little higher level.

Probably Mercurial. I've been using it for all new repositories
anyway. It mostly sucks compared to darcs, but I don't know anything
better that's portable. Stupid GHC, stupid compilers, their
bootstrapping, and complicated build systems.

[Tuomo Valkonen]

Post by Tuomo Valkonen

Post by Nicolas Schier
have you already decided which SCM you want to switch to? I have noticed
you took a look at mercurial... I for myself am very content with it,
but I know that your requirements have mostly a little higher level.

Probably Mercurial. I've been using it for all new repositories
anyway. It mostly sucks compared to darcs, but I don't know anything
better that's portable. Stupid GHC, stupid compilers, their
bootstrapping, and complicated build systems.

*sigh* Even in my Windows switch, FOSS crap causes the most trouble.
GHC: fail (=> Darcs: fail, lua-xgettext: fail, riot: fail).
Ikiwiki: fail. And Cygwin itself poorly supports locales (i.e., UTF-8
in practise), although with some effort I've managed to make it mostly
work. Ion is one that doesn't support non-ascii... with the settings
that other stuff works with. The problem seems to be, once again, that
X doesn't quite understand the cygwin/libc locales. Cygwin bash is
also _slow_... actually wrote my first _much_ faster (still under cygwin)
python program [1] ever thanks to this.

Windows (XP) itself works quite smoothly.. far better than Modern
Linux, so far.. but doesn't natively provide all the software I'd
like to use. Maybe coLinux would work better than Cygwin, although
it's in principle an ugly solution, and seems to be poorly supported
and difficult to set up... plus you have to deal with all the current
Linux crap [2] that I want to escape from, unless there's some lightweight
coLinux-oriented distro that strips away all that useless crap.

If only Apple wasn't so blur-fascist, and had 4:3 laptops with a
nipple... Although, I did try the _huge_ touchpad on one of the newer
Apple laptops recently, and it was far better than most I've come
across: no need to be skating back and forth, actually quite comfortable
to move the cursor with it. But, still, it's in the way of typing --
can't rest your thumbs anywhere, whereas on the Trackpoint you can
comfortable rest them on the buttons, ready to press -- and you need
to move your hand to actually use it, while the Trackpoint is simply
an integral part of the keyboard.

[1]: A small tool to backup ID3 tags, eyeD3 providing a python library for
reading and copying the raw frames to dummy files. Since copying my
music collection from CDs and DVDs to a hard drive -- it's quite
incredible in how small a package 500G goes in a usb-powered 2.5"
disk, compared to the pile of 3.5" disks I had with combined capacity
of just 300G... and these aren't big compared to stuff you find from
the 80's -- and switching from mocp to foobar2000, I've been adding
tags to my collection and downloading cover art, and need to back them
up separately.

[2]: http://iki.fi/tuomov/b/archives/2009/03/13/T16_46_57/


\end{another status report written in a moment of boredom and tiredness}

[Sylvain Abélard]

If only Apple wasn't so blur-fascist, and had 4:3 laptops with a nipple...

And non-glossy screens for all configurations, not just for > 2000€ ones.

Although, I did try the _huge_ touchpad on one of the newer

Apple laptops recently, and it was far better than most I've come
across: no need to be skating back and forth, actually quite comfortable

And the "slide with two fingers scrolls whatever content you have" is
incredibly handy. Luckily this is being copied to more and more
computers (netbooks).
The rest is mostly candy for demoes, but the zoom and rotate features
are cool and handy for the visual stuff.

to move the cursor with it. But, still, it's in the way of typing --
can't rest your thumbs anywhere

I'm testing this right now. That's not really a problem to keep your
thumbs on the trackpad, even with the "tap-mode" activated. If they
move a little, your mouse will flicker (thak God, it disappears when
you're typing), but that's not really a big deal.

The most painful is Window Management (missing ion so much) and that
"Spaces" multi-desktop thing not well integrated, especially
overriding some keyboard bindings (which are "customisable with
limited choices", all of them not satisfying).

You may find yourself disappointed at their quite-non-standard
keyboard layout and some other inconsistencies, but they're less
painful.

Apparently there are some external tools but they tend to break things
more than they solve problems.

[Tuomo Valkonen]

Post by Sylvain Abélard

If only Apple wasn't so blur-fascist, and had 4:3 laptops with a nipple...

And non-glossy screens for all configurations, not just for > 2000€ ones.

Well, yes, but the situation is almost the same on PCs: all the
affordable models have a glossy screen.. and typically crappy
keyboards. And the nipple you find only on the el cheapo Thinkpad
SL models. The better T-model Thinkpads are just as expensive
as Macbook Pros in .fi but come with a shallowscreen and megabezels
these days. (The Thinkpads tend to be about 500e cheaper in .de
compared to .fi!)

Post by Sylvain Abélard
I'm testing this right now. That's not really a problem to keep your
thumbs on the trackpad, even with the "tap-mode" activated. If they
move a little, your mouse will flicker (thak God, it disappears when
you're typing), but that's not really a big deal.

Would have to try for an extended period to find out if they'd
have managed to make it work tolerably, but so far I've always had
to disable to trackpad to be able to use a laptop.

Post by Sylvain Abélard
The most painful is Window Management (missing ion so much) and that
"Spaces" multi-desktop thing not well integrated, especially
overriding some keyboard bindings (which are "customisable with
limited choices", all of them not satisfying).

Sure you can run Ion in X in OS X? I run it in Windows XP under
Cygwin/X, and half of my apps/windows there. (In Xterm, but
also plan to use gv/xpdf/xdvi for TeXing when it comes time
to write something again.) It works comfortably enough, switching
between Windows and Ion, after I changed Mod1+Tab to Mod1+Q
in Ion, instead of passing -keyhook to X, which disables the
Windows key too, which I'd like to work (could then Win+tab
on the taskbar). This keeps the Windows window-count tolerable;
it couldn't handle the gazillion terminals comfortably without
a tabbing terminal emulator or something... but that's just Ion
then; I consider it my "IDE".

Post by Sylvain Abélard
You may find yourself disappointed at their quite-non-standard
keyboard layout

I have to reconfigure the keyboard on any system I plan to actually
use for anything, in any case. Done that on Windows too. (Caps lock =
control, extra altgr between shift and z, extra altgr+key bindings [1].
No dead keys, they suck.)

[1]: http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.window-managers.ion.general/8542

[Klaus Umbach]

Post by Tuomo Valkonen
Has anyone any experience of a simple coLinux setup?
That wouldn't mess hibernate/standby up? With internal
samba? No udev and other crap; Windows handles devices.

I used to use it for a while with the default-debian-image, which I
upgraded to a recent version. Hibernation works flawlessly, as it is just a
Windows-Application as any other. It's much faster as cygwin. I don't know
if it can be suspended alone, so you can reboot windows without rebooting
your Linux.

I even used it to connect to my real XFS-partition of the real Linux
besides my Windows, so I could access the data via samba, because there is
no XFS-driver for Windows.

I used XMing as X-Server, which was quite fast.

I don't use it anymore, because Windows drove me crazy, so now I
virtualized Windows in VirtualBox for the few applications I need.

-
Klaus

[Tuomo Valkonen]

Post by Klaus Umbach

Post by Tuomo Valkonen
Has anyone any experience of a simple coLinux setup?
That wouldn't mess hibernate/standby up? With internal
samba? No udev and other crap; Windows handles devices.

I used to use it for a while with the default-debian-image, which I
upgraded to a recent version. Hibernation works flawlessly, as it is just a
Windows-Application as any other.

Nope, it's a driver.

Post by Klaus Umbach
I don't use it anymore, because Windows drove me crazy, so now I
virtualized Windows in VirtualBox for the few applications I need.

Modern Linux and Linux politics drives me crazy.

[Klaus Umbach]

Post by Tuomo Valkonen

Post by Klaus Umbach

Post by Tuomo Valkonen
Has anyone any experience of a simple coLinux setup?
That wouldn't mess hibernate/standby up? With internal
samba? No udev and other crap; Windows handles devices.

I used to use it for a while with the default-debian-image, which I
upgraded to a recent version. Hibernation works flawlessly, as it is just a
Windows-Application as any other.

Nope, it's a driver.

Ah, OK. So it's a driver and a service. Anyway, it was pretty stable.

Post by Tuomo Valkonen

Post by Klaus Umbach
I don't use it anymore, because Windows drove me crazy, so now I
virtualized Windows in VirtualBox for the few applications I need.

Modern Linux and Linux politics drives me crazy.

Yes, but I can use both my cores and don't have to reserve one for my
virus-scanner. From my point of view, Windows is still worse.

e.g. you can't overwrite a file, when it is executed.
You can't open a file when another application writes in it (how am a I
supposed to read logfiles?). A path in NTFS is not allowed to be longer
than 255 chars... And worst of all: it lacks a package-management.

-
Klaus

[Tuomo Valkonen]

Post by Klaus Umbach
Ah, OK. So it's a driver and a service. Anyway, it was pretty stable.

Maybe I'll try it one day. No time now.

Post by Klaus Umbach
Yes, but I can use both my cores and don't have to reserve one for my
virus-scanner. From my point of view, Windows is still worse.

Both cores.. doing fine with just one. Only really notice the scanner
at login, which takes ages, just like the boot too. But with reliable
standby/hibernate, it's not necessary to boot often, and you can still
shut down the system for the night, etc.

Post by Klaus Umbach
e.g. you can't overwrite a file, when it is executed.
You can't open a file when another application writes in it (how am a I
supposed to read logfiles?).

This is indeed a major annoyance that you can't delete a file
in use, as on *nix. At least in cygwin they can, however, be
renamed out of the way. I've been told this should've been
improved in Vista.

Post by Klaus Umbach
A path in NTFS is not allowed to be longer than 255 chars...

Path? You mean file name? It's the same on ext2/3 as far as I
recall, and no practical limitation, just Linux fanboy FUD --
especially as NTFS uses Unicode, so special characters don't
take many bytes as with UTF-8.

Post by Klaus Umbach
And worst of all: it lacks a package-management.

Worst of all: Linux has fragmented centralised package
management. All the gazillion distributions doing redundant
work have de facto central control over what software you
can easily install on that particular distribution.

On Windows I can just download software from the ISV, and
easily run it. In a sandbox if I want to. And, best of all,
nearly all the latest sofware still runs on Windows XP, which
is from 2001 (and largely still uninfected by the current
blur-fascist IT regime). Try running latest Linux binaries
-- or even source, for that matter -- on Linux from 2001.
FAIL.

It's sick. Linux is outright against independent software
vendors, and yet it's Microsoft that gets sued for any
feature they add to their OS.

[Rui Tiago Cação Matos]

Tuomo,

Post by Tuomo Valkonen
On Windows I can just download software from the ISV, and
easily run it. In a sandbox if I want to.

I'm curious. Does Windows have that capability built in or do you use
some kind of sandboxing third party solution?

Rui

[Tuomo Valkonen]

Post by Rui Tiago Cação Matos
I'm curious. Does Windows have that capability built in or do you use
some kind of sandboxing third party solution?

I use Sandboxie (the first I found).

[Yves Rutschle]

Post by Tuomo Valkonen

Post by Klaus Umbach
A path in NTFS is not allowed to be longer than 255 chars...

Path? You mean file name? It's the same on ext2/3 as far as I
recall,

Just tried it out of curiosity, I got bored after about 6000
characters.

Post by Tuomo Valkonen
and no practical limitation, just Linux fanboy FUD --

Yeah, the biggest problem is Windows users naming
directories like "Program Files", "Last year's review",
"Deliveries for this and that", which means the 255
limitation actually comes up quickly. Then try to convince
them to use short names and no spaces.

Post by Tuomo Valkonen
especially as NTFS uses Unicode, so special characters don't
take many bytes as with UTF-8.

Actually I think NTFS uses UTF-16 which is about twice as
big as UTF-8 (Unicode being the numbering of letters, UTF-8
and UTF-16 being two encodings of Unicode).

Y.

[Tuomo Valkonen]

Post by Yves Rutschle
Yeah, the biggest problem is Windows users naming
directories like "Program Files", "Last year's review",
"Deliveries for this and that", which means the 255
limitation actually comes up quickly. Then try to convince
them to use short names and no spaces.

Yeah, it sucks.. but it's coming in Linux too.
I absolutely fucking hate the Desktop directory
that every now and then shows up in ~.
IT'S MY HOME DIRECTORY YOU GNOME FUCKTARDS! DON'T PUT ANYTHING
VISIBLE THERE! I'S ***MIIIINE***, NOT YOURS, YOU PIECE OF SHIT
RETARDS!! GET IT?!?!?

Post by Yves Rutschle

Post by Tuomo Valkonen
especially as NTFS uses Unicode, so special characters don't
take many bytes as with UTF-8.

Actually I think NTFS uses UTF-16 which is about twice as

NTFS: 255 UTF-16 code points = 510 bytes
ext2: 255 _bytes_ = less than 255 UTF-8 characters even with latin alphabet.

This is what I meant.

Of course, even with UTF-16 you get less than 255 glyphs when
using combining characters and stuff.

[Daniel Clemente]

Post by Tuomo Valkonen
Yeah, it sucks.. but it's coming in Linux too.
I absolutely fucking hate the Desktop directory
that every now and then shows up in ~.
IT'S MY HOME DIRECTORY YOU GNOME FUCKTARDS! DON'T PUT ANYTHING
VISIBLE THERE! I'S ***MIIIINE***, NOT YOURS, YOU PIECE OF SHIT
RETARDS!! GET IT?!?!?

No, I don't think they get it... Try in a Gnome discussion list, there may be some Gnome developers there.

By the way, is ~ really yours? Who created it? :-)

Yes, I also hate it, but I have learnt to ignore it with version control. Or better, I use it to store trash. And if I want a directory that I control myself, I create one, it's not so complex.

[Tuomo Valkonen]

Post by Daniel Clemente
Yes, I also hate it, but I have learnt to ignore it with version
control. Or better, I use it to store trash.
And if I want a directory
that I control myself, I create one, it's not so complex.

But it's not ~, it's ~/my or /my or something long and non-automatic.

I suspect that when they realise this home directory cluttering problem,
instead of choosing saner names, they'll reinvent the wheel and introduce
a Hidden attribute to file systems... in an additional gnome indirection
layer, not the kernel.

[Adam Duck]

Post by Yves Rutschle

Post by Tuomo Valkonen

Post by Klaus Umbach
A path in NTFS is not allowed to be longer than 255 chars...

Path? You mean file name? It's the same on ext2/3 as far as I
recall,

Just tried it out of curiosity, I got bored after about 6000
characters.

Yes, it is possible to _create_ such file names, but you can't use
them. Here at WinXP I can create (best under "Desktop") dirs close to
255 chars.
But if you try to put files into them, it won't work. You can also put
files in dirs <255 chars and then rename some of the dirs so that the
full file name is
longer than 255 chars. Then they become unusable: no icons, no clicks,
nothing...

bye, Adam.

[Tuomo Valkonen]

Post by Adam Duck
Yes, it is possible to _create_ such file names, but you can't use
them. Here at WinXP I can create (best under "Desktop") dirs close to
255 chars.

Actually, I've been succesfully using file names with colons in them
in Linux on NTFS (stupid NTFS-3g not failing on such names), and
Windows shows them, but you can't access them.

Actually, there is a low path length limit not in NTFS but in the some
old versions of the _Windows API_ itself. This is probably what the FUD
was about. (And if you consider an API originating for 8+3 names -- if
this is the case -- 255 is a tolerable limitation for path length.)

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa365247.aspx

"""
In the Windows API (with some exceptions discussed in the following
paragraphs), the maximum length for a path is MAX_PATH, which is defined as
260 characters. A local path is structured in the following order: drive
letter, colon, backslash, components separated by backslashes, and a
terminating null character. For example, the maximum path on drive D is
"D:\<some 256 character path string><NUL>" where "<NUL>" represents the
invisible terminating null character for the current system codepage. (The
characters < > are used here for visual clarity and cannot be part of a
valid path string.)

Note File I/O functions in the Windows API convert "/" to "\" as part of
converting the name to an NT-style name, except when using the "\\?\" prefix
as detailed in the following sections.

The Windows API has many functions that also have Unicode versions to permit
an extended-length path for a maximum total path length of 32,767 characters
"""