[10:19] <bashrc> 13.10 was going so well, and then unity crashed
[10:19] <bashrc> with a completely blank screen on boot
[10:19] <bashrc> pretty much a show stopper
[10:20] <bashrc> I tried uninstalling and reinstalling ubuntu-desktop and unity, but to no avail
[10:20] <bashrc> ended up just reinstalling from scratch
[10:20] <bashrc> ...which takes a long time
[10:38] <brobostigon> good morning everyone.
[10:41] <bashrc> morning all
[10:42] <brobostigon> morning bashrc
[11:31] <bashrc> has anyone experienced Unity crashing on 13.10?
[12:21] <MartijnV1S> not more or less than other versions
[12:21] <popey> ditto
[12:21] <popey> pretty stable here
[12:21] <MartijnV1S> well, less crashing than SOME versions ;)
[12:21] <popey> bashrc: what video card?
[12:33] <MartijnVdS> popey: how's the storm on your side of the water?
[12:33] <popey> not here yet
[12:34] <popey> bit windy, but it's not scheduled to get bad till tomorrow I believe
[12:34] <popey> early morning
[12:34] <MartijnVdS> We're scheduled for "around noon"
[12:34] <popey> going to put everything away in the garden
[12:34] <MartijnVdS> even the webcam
[12:34] <MartijnVdS> ?
[12:34] <popey> might setup the camera ☻
[12:34] <popey> or two
[12:35] <MartijnVdS> Dutch news links to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKPQLl5rupg
[12:36] <popey> ☻
[12:36] <popey> our news keeps showing that too ☻
[12:39] <MartijnVdS> They're expecting a lot of fallen trees, because of the wet ground and top-heavy (with leaves) trees
[12:49] <SuperEngineer> Local council interviewed on radio yesterday: "to be honest -our preparedness is about dealing with the aftermath".
[12:49] <MartijnVdS> http://bestburgerinnorthwestlondon.wordpress.com/2013/10/24/cheaper-to-rent-in-barcelona-and-commute-to-london/
[12:57] <SuperEngineer> preparedness ~ noun    very rare
[12:57] <SuperEngineer>  1. the state of having been made ready or prepared for use or action (especially military action).  hmmm....
[13:06] <penguin42> SuperEngineer: Not that rare these days
[13:06] <MartijnVdS> penguin42: Maybe it's "preparedness" as in "how do you want your steak?" - very rare
[13:13] <SuperEngineer> MartijnVdS: ;)
[13:25] <bashrc> looks like I have the same problem again - 13.10 doesn't boot to unity
[13:25] <bashrc> just a blank screen
[13:26] <penguin42> bashrc: does ctrl-alt-f2 get you a text console?
[13:26] <bashrc> that's what I'm in now
[13:27] <bashrc> emacs/erc
[13:27] <penguin42> bashrc: you say it doesn't boot to unity - does it give you the login screen?
[13:27] <bashrc> no
[13:27] <bashrc> but at installation I chose to log in automatically
[13:28] <penguin42> ah hmm, so it's a little tricky to know which stage is going wrong
[13:28] <penguin42> bashrc: I'd check both /var/log/lightdm and /var/log/Xorg.0.log
[13:28] <bashrc> it obviously doesn'y get as far as unity
[13:29] <penguin42> right but there's a lot of stuff before then
[13:35] <bashrc> lightdm.log says it logged to .xsession-errors
[13:35] <Kaun> Hello
[13:37] <bashrc> is there any recovery or minimal graphics mode?
[13:38] <bashrc> I guess I could just work on the commandline indefinitely :)
[13:39] <bashrc> last entry in lightdm/x-0.log is "loading extension GLX"
[13:41] <penguin42> bashrc: Look at the dates on the logs - has lightdm's logs got written this time around?
[13:42] <bashrc> if I try running the last command in lightdm.log I get "software acceleration check failed"
[13:45] <bashrc> logs look recent
[13:49] <bashrc> looks like lightdm cannot open the display
[14:19] <bashrc> I got my screen back.  Yey!
[14:20] <bashrc> the solution to not booting with a black screen was sudo apt-get remove nvidia*
[14:21] <bashrc> I think this laptop has two graphics cards, Intel and Nvidia
[14:21] <penguin42> bashrc: Ah yes that's common, you can normally force them to use precisely one in the bios
[14:21] <penguin42> bashrc: Which laptop?
[14:21] <bashrc> lenovo z580
[14:22] <bashrc> Usually it's using the Intel graphics
[14:22] <bashrc> will check the bios
[14:23] <penguin42> bashrc: OK, in the bios you should have a choice between integrated/discrete/optimus, if it does everything you want on intel set the bios to integrated and it'll stick with intel
[14:23] <bashrc> it may have had something to do with me trying to install opencv, which also installs nvidia-updates
[14:39] <bashrc> yes, there is a bios option to select Intel only graphics.  Selecting that and removing any nvidia packages fixed the problem
[14:40] <penguin42> bashrc: OK, watch out - on some machines some outputs need the nvidia (e.g. the w520 vga output only works from the nvidia)
[14:41] <bashrc> ok.  For now I'm not connecting any external screens though
[14:42] <bashrc> another success story
[15:21] <DJones> One for cat lovers everywhere https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn2/q71/1378726_738874022795087_1399509075_n.jpg <---- popey ?
[15:25] <popey> haha
[15:25] <popey> he looks _delighted_ to be there
[15:25] <penguin42> the look on the cats face is priceless
[15:26] <DJones> I wondered if it had its claws out holding on
[15:26] <lornajane> I have suggested more than once to Kevin that he should put the cat in a sling to make room for his laptop on his lap
[15:27] <lornajane> normally he has the cat and the laptop kinda hanging on at different angles
[15:38] <popey> http://imgur.com/i3qr5fI
[15:38] <popey> how salem sits most days
[15:39] <lornajane> hehe, I don't really tolerate the cat in my office, but then he isn't my cat
[15:39] <lornajane> mostly he sits immediately outside the office door so I can step over him 80 times a day
[15:40] <Azelphur> I should get a cat. xD
[15:54] <AlanBell> chickens > cats
[15:55] <popey> lies
[15:56] <SuperEngineer> ☺ http://www.simonscat.com/
[15:56]  * penguin42 guesses at least you get the eggs from the chickens
[15:59] <AlanBell> so, how many raspberry pi devices do you think it would take to build Ubuntu in a reasonable timeframe?
[16:00] <lornajane> AlanBell: quite a lot!
[16:00] <penguin42> AlanBell: A heck of a lot - and then I doubt you'd manage to link libreoffice
[16:01] <AlanBell> they built debian for it
[16:01] <penguin42> for or on?
[16:01] <AlanBell> and I am mainly interested in the server side stuff
[16:01] <AlanBell> penguin42: both, you have to build on the target platform really
[16:02] <AlanBell> yes, I know about cross compiling, but a buildd has to be the real architecture
[16:02] <penguin42> AlanBell: Well I'd build on a better ARM than a pi I think if I was building for one
[16:02] <penguin42> or on qemu
[16:02] <AlanBell> there isn't a better ARMv6
[16:02] <AlanBell> not significantly anyhow
[16:03] <penguin42> AlanBell: The Guruplugs would probably be a lot better - but I don't think there would be a problem building on v7 as long as you were careful with the build setup
[16:03] <penguin42> (or are guruplugs older....)
[16:04] <AlanBell> raspberry pis I don't mind getting lots of because I can always use them
[16:05] <AlanBell> I don't mind getting 20 or 30 pi devices if that is a sensible number to use
[16:06] <penguin42> AlanBell: http://www.cnx-software.com/2012/02/21/seneca-uses-guruplug-server-farm-to-build-raspberry-pi-fedora-distribution/
[16:08] <penguin42> AlanBell: I guess the 512MB ones wouldn't be too bad - and you'd have to think about where you'd do your storage, maybe iscsi or nfs root
[16:09] <AlanBell> penguin42: that might have been done before you could buy as many pis as you like, it was one per order for quite a while
[16:10] <AlanBell> I don't think the 1.2 Ghz device is significantly faster than the pi (which can be overclocked a bit)
[16:12] <penguin42> http://archive.raspbian.org/raspbian/logs/main/libc/libcmis.log  looks like they're building on mx5's
[16:12] <penguin42> AlanBell: Do not under estimate just how grim the CPU on a Pi is
[16:15] <popey> MartijnVdS: https://twitter.com/BBCNews/status/394497383930671104
[16:16] <AlanBell> penguin42: so I throw more at the problem, the point is that I can use pis, so it doesn't matter how many it takes
[16:16] <popey> i have pondered this in the past too
[16:16] <popey> considered rebuilding the entire archive on a pi, starting with main
[16:16] <popey> (under debian)
[16:20] <penguin42> AlanBell: I'd look for Cortex-A9 based boards, I bet you can find a dual-core A9 board that's more than 4 times the speed of a pi for less than 3 times the cost
[16:20]  * AlanBell thinks penguin42 isn't getting the point here :)
[16:20] <penguin42> AlanBell: What could you possibly want that many PIs for?
[16:21] <penguin42> AlanBell: You're going to need a significant amount of networking/wifi/psu wiring for that many boards
[16:21] <AlanBell> control units for bluetooth LE sensors
[16:21] <penguin42> LE?
[16:21] <AlanBell> bluetooth smart, it is a bit like RFID
[16:22] <AlanBell> low energy stuff, basically bluetooth dongles that sense tiny tags that go on assets that move about
[16:22] <AlanBell> and we use raspberry pi devices to listen and send data back to base
[16:22] <penguin42> AlanBell: OK, I mean sure if you want to do it, do - I suspect you'll hit some problems on the big packages (think more than 1 day link time/out of memory) but you'll manage most packages
[16:23] <AlanBell> "most packages" is probably fine
[16:23] <AlanBell> certainly fine for my own use
[16:24] <AlanBell> currently we use raspbian on them, but it would be mildly nice to have exactly the same package versions of everything on the pi as on other things
[16:24] <AlanBell> not that raspbian is causing us any problems at all
[16:24] <penguin42> AlanBell: but you see things like http://www.wandboard.org/   and those things should run a standard ubuntu (maybe need a kernel package)
[16:24] <AlanBell> but I can use pis, so I can buy as many as I like, because they will get used in production eventually
[16:25] <penguin42> (what is the collective noun for pis?)
[16:25] <lornajane> a pickle of pis?
[16:25] <shauno> a bakery!
[16:25] <penguin42> lornajane: I like that
[16:26] <AlanBell> sure, we could use all sorts of other things, but we are using the pi :)
[16:26] <lornajane> all collective nouns should be aliterative also
[16:26] <AlanBell> a bramble of raspberry pis
[16:27] <lornajane> the only real collective noun I could think of starting with P was parliament and that doesn't fit for a Pi
[16:27] <lornajane> posse?  Hmm
[16:28] <penguin42> AlanBell: well then I guess you probably could if you have a surfeit of Pis, the trick will be finding out how to cluster them cheaply
[16:29] <AlanBell> yeah, would need to try to stick to components that can be useful, maybe use wifi for networking
[16:30] <AlanBell> we could switch to the model A without ethernet anyhow
[16:31] <popey> well this is interesting
[16:31]  * popey has a pi booted on his desk with a USB attached SATA disk
[16:31] <penguin42> AlanBell: Build over wifi - you really are wanting pain aren't you?
[16:31] <popey> all powered off a portable battery
[16:31] <AlanBell> oh, that only has 1 usb
[16:31] <AlanBell> penguin42: they don't have networking when building
[16:31] <AlanBell> but they do download packages to create the build environment
[16:32] <penguin42> AlanBell: So you're going to keep each one self contained? The way others are suggesting is to run it as a distcc farm
[16:33] <popey> hmm, ssd not powering up
[16:33] <popey> unsurprisingly
[16:34] <AlanBell> popey: so the ssd in sata enclosure gets power from the battery through a Y lead?
[16:34] <popey> no, bu i should try that
[16:34] <popey> if i could find the cabler
[16:34] <AlanBell> penguin42: I think that is how buildd works, you have lots of builders that build packages
[16:34] <popey> found it
[16:35] <popey> hmm, not seen in dmesg
[16:35] <popey> the blue LED gets brighter when the Y lead is attached
[16:36] <popey> thats disappointing
[16:53] <popey> i dont actually think the build time is the biggest issue, it's more patching packages to make them build at all
[16:53] <AlanBell> yeah, I am not too worried about build time
[16:54] <penguin42> AlanBell: Remember that may be in days
[16:54] <AlanBell> sure, some packages might take days, but I am cool about leaving it running for a few months
[16:55] <penguin42> ok then....
[16:56] <penguin42> AlanBell: What storage are you going to run off?
[16:57] <AlanBell> dunno, the pi *has* to boot from SD card, but it can then hand off to something else, either USB attached or NFS (yeah, storage over wifi might be a bit scary)
[16:57] <penguin42> AlanBell: Building off SD isn't necessarily very pretty - some of them won't last that long
[16:58] <AlanBell> yeah, we have good ones. SLC based, but they are not cheap
[16:59] <AlanBell> however for a build farm cheap unreliable SD cards are fine, if one breaks you just rip it out and stick in another one
[16:59] <penguin42> yeh but if you can network them then you avoid that pain
[16:59] <AlanBell> they still each need an SD card to boot from
[17:00] <AlanBell> and network contention could be a problem, I dunno
[17:01] <AlanBell> there would be a computer with a few TB of attached storage to serve up packages to the builders, that might not be a pi
[17:02] <penguin42> AlanBell: do they have usb-networking setups with pis?
[17:03] <AlanBell> the network card hangs off the USB
[17:03] <AlanBell> which has the expected impact on performance :)
[17:03] <penguin42> AlanBell: No, I mean pi<->usb<->pc ?
[17:03] <AlanBell> oh, right, erm, no
[17:03] <AlanBell> the USB input on the PI is just for power
[17:04] <penguin42> ah, that's a useful trick on a lot of the android things
[17:04] <AlanBell> it doesn't have a guest mode USB, but you can hack stuff together if sufficiently motivated
[17:18] <AlanBell> looks like a buildd is suggested to have 20G of disk space, which means slightly more expensive SD cards, or NFS for the build directory
[17:19] <AlanBell> though I suspect for most packages a lot less would be fine
[17:21] <popey> AlanBell: why not a decent 32GB USB stick?
[17:42] <popey> AlanBell: 4m46s to build tar on my i7. 36m28s to build tar on RPi with SD card
[17:53] <AlanBell> not so bad
[17:53] <penguin42> that's tar - a nice small easy to compile package
[17:53] <AlanBell> 32G USB stick is a possibility
[17:54] <penguin42> popey: Out of interest had you set the parallelism on your i7?
[17:54] <popey> i didnt, i just ran "debuild -uc -us"
[17:55] <penguin42> popey: But do you have the debian env set for parallelism?
[17:55] <popey> as I said... no ☻
[17:56] <penguin42> popey: See what difference a     export DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS='parallel=10'
[17:56] <popey> on which box?
[17:56] <penguin42> popey: The i7
[17:56] <penguin42> (unless you want to try running 10 builds at once on a Pi!)
[18:00] <penguin42> popey: Or I think you can do   debuild -j 10
[18:02] <AlanBell> popey: USB sticks are not that much cheaper than SD cards and I can't re-use them as easily
[18:02] <popey> real    4m47.312s
[18:02] <popey> no difference penguin42
[18:06] <directhex> AlanBell, raspberry pi's usb stack is a joke. it won't be faster
[18:06] <AlanBell> it isn't about faster
[18:25] <penguin42> popey: Hmm that's curious
[20:41] <andylockran> hey guys - any recommendations on how to get a machine past a grub boot screen?  I haven't got a keyboard to hand to press enter to continue - so it's just stuck there..
[21:04] <shauno> why does it want you to hit enter?
[21:23] <zleap> i am sure it should time out to the default and carry on
[21:26] <Myrtti> dwatkins: http://imgur.com/gallery/oobfnMe
[22:53] <dwatkins> Myrtti: a wizard, eh?
[22:53] <dwatkins> http://i.imgur.com/or9IwTS.jpg