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urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:bgoglin Brice Goglin's Blog Brice Goglin Brice Goglin 2015-07-27T19:48:43Z urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:bgoglin:20598 Besoin d'un GPS? Evitez Tomtom, c'est de l'arnaque 2013-02-16T15:27:16Z 2013-03-06T14:46:18Z Je suis l'heureux propriétaire d'une voiture avec GPS intégré. Si c'est pratique au premier abord (notamment le joystick sur la console centrale), ca devient beaucoup plus compliqué quand on creuse un peu.

Tout d'abord, la carte Tomtom n'est mise à jour que tous les 3 mois, il faut payer pour avoir la mise à jour, et elle n'est en fait jamais vraiment à jour! Combien de fois on se retrouve en plein champ parce que Tomtom n'est pas au courant des travaux réalisés il y a un an... Tous les sites proposant des cartes sur Internet y arrivent mais pas Tomtom.
Ensuite, leur fameux service Live marche bien, à condition d'attendre 5 minutes avant de démarrer. Il est si long à récupérer les infos de trafic qu'on est déjà coincé dans les bouchons avant qu'il nous prévienne. Pas du tout pratique en ville. Et je ne parle pas des nombreuses fois où le Live ne répond pas.
Jusqu'il y a peu, il proposait une recherche Google pour trouver tout et n'importe quoi. Tous les clients qui paient pour ce service l'ont vu récemment remplacé par Tomtom places qui est juste d'une nullité incroyable. Au final, on se retrouve à chercher sur son smartphone puis à entrer le résultat dans le GPS. Super... Quitte à utiliser le smartphone, autant prendre un GPS dessus...
Bref, on se demande à quoi ça sert de payer pour leur Live ou pour des mises à jour de carte.

Pire, leur méthode de distribution logicielle est nulle. Impossible de revenir à une version antérieure quand la dernière est bugguée. Et quand la dernière est bugguée au point de planter définitivement votre GPS (de nombreux utilisateurs ont récemment du aller chez leur garagiste pour réparer), ils la laissent en ligne sans prévenir qu'elle va peut-etre aussi planter votre GPS. Entre fin novembre 2012 et mi-janvier 2013, des centaines de clients se sont fait avoir alors que Tomtom savait dans quel cas le bug se produisait. Mais ils ont refusé de le préciser dans là où on télécharge les mises à jour. Bravo.
Et inutile de demander une indemnisation. Ils se considèrent comme non-responsables des délais de réparation soi-disant imposés par nos garagistes. Sauf que ces derniers ne savent pas réparer (ben oui, un garagiste répare des voitures, pas des GPS) et Tomtom ne leur fournit pas d'info, donc ca prend des semaines. Bref, un mois et demi avec un GPS planté et un service client qui nous ignore. Sympa.

Quand on voit qu'un GPS gratuit comme Waze sur smartphone a une carte plus à jour et des infos de trafic aussi bonnes, inutile d'envisager de donner un seul euro à Tomtom. urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:bgoglin:20464 Remote Console Access with IPMI on Dell R710 2010-07-19T12:34:15Z 2015-07-27T19:48:43Z
 Our local servers are moving from Dell Poweredge 2950 to R710. A couple years ago, I wrote a guide for Remote Console Access through IPMI 2.0 on the 2950. Some noticeable changes are needed for R710, so here's a new updated guide. I also added some notes about R815 and R720 at the end, since they are very similar.

 You should first choose a new sub-network for IPMI. Although the IPMI network traffic uses a regular physical interface, it has a different MAC address and should use different IP address. If your boxes have 10.0.0.x regular IP addresses, you may for instance use 10.0.99.x for IPMI. Adding corresponding hostnames (for instance xxx-ipmi for host xxx) in your DNS or <tt>/etc/hosts</tt> file might be good too.

 At the end of the BIOS boot, press Ctrl-e to enter the Remote Access Setup and enable actual IPMI Remote Access (note that some models can also be configured from Linux using ipmitool after loading some ipmi kernel modules).

Set IPMI over LAN to on (requires iDRAC6 LAN)

Enter the LAN parameters menu:

Keep NIC Selection on Shared

Set IPv4 Address source to Static

Set IPv4 Address to 10.0.99.x

Set Subnet Mask to 255.255.255.0 and set Default Gateway if needed

You may set Host Name string to something like xxx-ipmi but it does not seem that useful anyway

Enter the LAN User Configuration menu:

Set Account User Name to some login

Enter a password in Enter Password and again below in Confirm Password

By the way, while you're there, you may enter LCD Configuration and set your user-defined string in LCD Line 1

 IPMI is now configured correctly. You should be able to ping the IPMI IP addresses for the master node (assuming you properly enabled the 10.0.99.x network there).

 $ ping 10.0.99.x

 Now, you may for instance reboot a node using the following line. Replace <tt>cycle</tt> with <tt>status</tt> to see the status, <tt>off</tt> to shutdown, <tt>on</tt> to start.

 $ ipmitool -I lan -H 10.0.99.x -U login -P passwd chassis power cycle

 Now we need to configure console redirection. It makes it possible to send the BIOS, GRUB, and kernel output through IPMI on the network. Note that the Second Serial port should be used. So usually you will use COM2/ttyS1. After booting, press F2 to enter the BIOS. Go in the Serial Communication menu:

Set Serial Communication to On with Console Redirection via COM2

Keep External Port Address to Serial Device1=COM1,Serial Device2=COM2 (some models enforce Device2 for the serial redirection)

Set External Serial Connector to Serial Device1 (some models don't allow using the same device here and for console redirection)

Keep Failsafe Baud Rate to 115200

Keep Remote Terminal Type to VT100/VT220

Set Redirection After Boot to Enabled

 With this configuration, you should see the BIOS and GRUB output remotely using:

 $ ipmitool -I lanplus -H 10.0.99.x -U login -P password sol activate

 Then we want to see the kernel booting remotely. This is done by adding the following to the kernel command line:

 console=tty0 console=ttyS1,115200n8

 With GRUB2 on Debian, you should open <tt>/etc/default/grub</tt> and add these options to <tt>GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX</tt>. By the way, you probably want to uncomment <tt>GRUB_TERMINAL=console</tt> and remove the <tt>quiet</tt> option nearby. Everything will be propagated to <tt>/boot/grub/grub.cfg</tt> when running <tt>update-grub</tt>.

 And finally, you might want to get a console login remotely through IPMI. To do so, add the following line to /etc/inittab:

 T0:23:respawn:/sbin/getty -L ttyS1 115200n8 vt100

 With all this setup, the above <tt>ipmitool sol activate</tt> line will display the same thing than the physical console on the machine, which makes it very nice to configure the BIOS, change the kernel, debug, ... Note that ~ is the control character when using the console redirection. And ~. may be used to leave the console. Also <tt>ipmitool sol deactivate</tt> may help if somebody did not leave the console correctly.

 Update for R815 (2012/05/30): The configuration for the R815 is very similar. I met some harder constraints about serial device configuration in the BIOS, everything is already explained above.

 Update for R720 (2012/05/31): On recent PowerEdge models, the IPMI config is directly available in the BIOS setup menus, no need to hit Ctrl-e during boot anymore. Just go in the BIOS with F2 as usual, then enter the iDRAC config. The following menus are similar to those described above. The other difference is that the R720 doesn't seem to work well with the IPMI <t>lan<t> interface. Always passing <t>lanplus</t> instead of <t>lan</t> to <t>ipmitool -I</t> seems to work fine.</t></t>

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 urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:bgoglin:20039 Encrypting part of /home 2010-05-02T12:23:24Z 2010-05-02T12:24:37Z
 I am preparing my switch to a new laptop at work in the next weeks. I am considering adding encryption to part of the hard drive, but I don't want to dramatically decrease performance. Encrypting the swap device or some .foo directories in $HOME looks like a good idea to protect private keys, keyrings, ... But encrypting git clones of large projects is probably useless.

 So I am thinking of just having a small /home encrypted partition (a couple GB). I'd keep .foo directories in $HOME and only have symlinks to another non-encrypted partition where all my actual source code and other non-sensitive files would be.

 Does this make any sense?

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 urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:bgoglin:19868 Debian/X.org notes - Radeon KMS in unstable, enabled by default 2010-03-22T10:37:35Z 2010-03-22T10:41:11Z
 Now that we have DRM from 2.6.33 in latest 2.6.32 kernel in unstable, I just uploaded Radeon KMS and DRI2 to unstable. xserver-xorg-video-radeon 1:6.12.192-2 even enables KMS by default. Please test it.

 In case of problems, you may for instance disable KMS by changing modeset to 0 in /etc/modprobe.d/radeon-kms.conf. You may also downgrade to testing where xserver-xorg-video-radeon 1:6.12.6-1 does not enable/support KMS.

 Make sure you run linux-image-2.6.32-4-$arch or later so that you actually have DRM from 2.6.33 and the radeon kernel module gets loaded early by udev. Otherwise, you may experience problems like this. You may need to add radeon to /etc/modules as a temporary fix.

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 urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:bgoglin:19624 Debian/X.org notes - Bug triaging while waiting for DRM 2.6.33 2010-03-07T12:00:01Z 2010-03-07T12:00:30Z
 Almost nothing interesting happened recently in X.org in Debian. But interesting things are coming soon.

 First, radeon KMS and DRI2 will enter unstable soon. xserver-xorg-video-radeon 1:6.12.191-1 is currently in experimental. People seem to be happy with it so far, and upstream is taking very good care of bug reports as usual.

 The next 2.6.32 kernel will contain DRM from 2.6.33. It first means that the radeon KMS driver not in staging anymore. Once this new kernel is uploaded, I'll put the new xserver-xorg-video-radeon in unstable (6.13.0 is expected soon, but 6.12.191 already looks good so far).

 DRM from 2.6.33 will also brings nouveau support. It means that we will build libdrm-nouveau and upload a new xserver-xorg-video-nouveau. However, it also means that we need somebody to maintain this. And nobody in the team has a nvidia board to test packages so... If you want nouveau in Debian, please help.

 While waiting for all these, we have been triaging the BTS a bit. Kibi is helping a lot by triaging recent intel bugs (many regressions fixed in recent kernels). I spent some time during the week-end triaging some old bugs. I closed more than a hundred of them, and pinged another hundred. We still have more than 1100 bugs open. It is not so bad compared to 1500-2000 when nobody maintains X (aka often), but still way too much.

 Some of my bug closing might look a bit rude. But we had so many bug reports a couple years ago that are irrelevant today. Keeping them open would be meaningless. For instance, many input problems are obsolete since a lot of the input code was rewritten, we switched to input-hotplug, and then hal to udev. Another example is intel lockups (we had a lot of them after driver 2.2 arrived). But XAA and EXA were dropped in favor of UXA, DRI1 was dropped for DRI2, and KMS arrived. So it's useless to keep these obsolete and irrelevant bugs that cannot be debugged nowadays.

 As usual, the Debian X team needs a lot of help. Again, if you want nouveau in Debian, please help.

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 urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:bgoglin:19346 Debian/X.org notes - Radeon KMS and DRI2 in experimental 2010-02-01T23:13:07Z 2010-02-02T23:01:26Z
 Now that libdrm-radeon1 is in unstable, I just uploaded a snapshot of the radeon driver to experimental (xserver-xorg-video-radeon package version 1:6.12.99+git20100201.a887818f-1). So you may now get KMS and DRI2 working, assuming you have a recent kernel (I am running 2.6.32-trunk-686 here). This driver even contains some early support for r8xx boards.

 To check whether KMS is working, look for radeon kernel modesetting in dmesg. To check whether DRI2 is working, look for DRI2 in /var/log/Xorg.0.log.

 Make sure the radeon kernel module is loaded early (which means: don't let X load it late in the boot, otherwise you may experience this bug). I had to add radeon to <tt>/etc/modules</tt> and put options radeon modeset=1 in <tt>/etc/modprobe.d/</tt>. In the past, I also needed agpmode=-1 there but it didn't seem to make any difference with latest packages.

 Then, actual DRI2 support requires Mesa packages rebuilt against libdrm-radeon1. This is in experimental as well now. Look for libgl1-mesa-dri and other Mesa packages version 7.7-3.

 Don't forget that these packages are in experimental for a good reason, they may not work. But at least basic things seem to work fine on my Radeon X300 (rv370). And don't forget that the X team needs help, otherwise these packages may never make it to unstable...

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 urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:bgoglin:18689 Fun with SuperMicro BIOS and PCI-NUMA 2009-10-31T12:23:33Z 2009-11-05T17:58:25Z
 We have a SuperMicro machine with a X8DAH motherboard at work. It contains 2 Intel Xeon Nehalem X5550 (8 cores, 16 threads total) with 3 GPUs. As several Nehalem motherboards, there are actually 2 IO hubs, one near each socket.

 --------- ------------ ------------ --------- | Mem#0 |===| Socket#0 |===| Socket#1 |===| Mem#1 | --------- ------------ ------------ --------- || || ----------- ----------- | IOHub#0 |===| IOHub#1 | ----------- ----------- || || GPU#0 GPU#1+2

 So PCI devices behind one IO Hub are closer to one socket than to the other one. So DMA performance depends on where the target memory is located: in the memory near one socket, or in the other memory node. The motherboard manual tells us which PCI slots are actually behind which IO hub (and thus near which socket/memory). And benchmarking our GPUs confirms the actual position of each PCI devices in the above picture. But we want to find out such information automatically to ease deployment and portability of applications. Linux may report such information through sysfs:

 $ cat /sys/bus/pci/devices/0000:{02:00.0,84:00.0,85:00.0}/local_cpulist 0,2,4,6,8,10,12,14 0,2,4,6,8,10,12,14 0,2,4,6,8,10,12,14

 However, this is wrong since 0,2,4,6,8,10,12,14 means near socket #0 while 2 GPUs are actually near socket #1 (CPUs 1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15). This could have been a bug in the Linux kernel, but it's actually a bug in the BIOS (Linux just needs to report what the BIOS tells). So we talked to SuperMicro about it and tried upgrading the BIOS.

 The first BIOS upgrade (from 1.0 to 1.0b) went kind of bad: the machine didn't boot anymore at all, not even any BIOS message on screen. Fortunately, we removed the GPUs and it booted again. But Linux didn't have any NUMA information at all. It was just saying there was a single NUMA node instead of 2. So we just forgot about all this mess and downgraded back to the older BIOS.

 Another BIOS update came out recently (1.0c) so I contacted SuperMicro to know if it was worth upgrading. At some point, they asked me to try disabling NUMA in the current BIOS. The machine didn't boot anymore... except after removing some GPUs. Exactly as above. It seems that there is an incompatibility between disabling NUMA in the BIOS and having multiple GPUs in the machine. And the first BIOS upgrade apparently disabled NUMA by default, causing all the above problems with BIOS 1.0b.

 So we had to try upgrading again, and make sure NUMA wasn't left disabled by default again. Instead of going back to 1.0b, I upgraded the BIOS to the latest release (1.0c) directly. And now the machine finally reports the right PCI-NUMA information!

 $ cat /sys/bus/pci/devices/0000:{02:00.0,84:00.0,85:00.0}/local_cpulist 0-3,8-11 4-7,12-15 4-7,12-15

 You might have noticed that CPU numbering changed in the meantime (CPU number interleaving is different), but I don't care since we have hwloc (Hardware Locality) to deal with it. Now the development version of our lstopo tool reports the whole machine topology, including PCI, as expected:

 In short, if you have a X8DAH motherboard, don't disable NUMA in the BIOS (why would you do that anyway?) since it causes boot failures in some cases (when 3 GPUs are connected here), and upgrade to 1.0c if you care about memory/PCI locality/performance (which is probably the case anyway).

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 urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:bgoglin:18559 Debian/X.org notes - i865 fixed, Xserver 1.6 entering testing soon 2009-09-13T00:02:15Z 2012-06-02T06:14:55Z
 No Xorg update entered testing since Lenny was released. The last big remaining bug in unstable was the Intel driver locking up on i865 when the UXA/GEM acceleration is used (and 2.8.x only supports UXA so there is no work around). See #541307.

 Fortunately, Eric Anholt found out that it was caused by a kernel bug in the intel-agp driver. The fix is not in vanilla 2.6.31, so you'll have to apply the patch or wait for an updated 2.6.31.x kernel to be released.

 Anyway, the Intel driver 2.8.1 as well as Xserver 1.6 and Mesa 7.5 will enter testing soon. If you have a i865, make sure your kernel contains the above fix or you'll likely experience lockups soon after X startup.

 Update: If building the intel-agp driver as a module, you will also need another small patch to export the <tt>clflush_cache_range()</tt> function to modules.

 Update: Everything just entered testing for real.

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 urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:bgoglin:18277 Debian/X.org notes - Quick Updates 2009-07-27T07:29:34Z 2009-07-27T07:32:05Z
 Another round of quick notes about X in unstable while the XSF team is on vacation.

 Intel Driver and PAE kernels

 If upgrading to xserver-xorg-video-intel broke X or made it very slow, make sure you are not using a PAE/bigmem kernel. The Intel driver now enforces UXA for acceleration. But UXA requires GEM support in the kernel, and GEM is not compatible with PAE before 2.6.31. So if you have PAE in your kernel (CONFIG_HIGHMEM64), i.e. for instance if you are using a -bigmem kernel, your Xorg.0.log will say:

 (EE) intel(0): [drm] Failed to detect GEM. Kernel 2.6.28 required. (EE) intel(0): Failed to become DRM master.

 Obviously, 2.6.30 should be enough when 2.6.28 is required. But 2.6.30 with PAE is not.

 Return of the DRI2 breakage

 It looks like the DRI2 breakage in Xserver 18.104.22.1681-3 wasn't enterily fixed in 1.6.2. According to #538637, Xserver 1.6.2 didn't work with KDE4.2 effects when built against Mesa 7.4.4. Fortunately, Mesa 7.5 is in unstable now, and the new Xserver 18.104.22.1681-1 was built against it.

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 urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:bgoglin:17951 Debian/X.org notes - Intel 2.8.0 in Sid, enforces UXA and DRI2 2009-07-21T14:48:55Z 2009-07-21T14:49:07Z
 The Intel driver 2.8.0 has been uploaded to unstable. The biggest changes in there is that support for DRI1, XAA and EXA has been dropped. It means that the driver now always uses UXA and DRI2 now.

 KMS (Kernel Modesetting) is still optional (and the non-KMS crash from 18.104.22.1682 has been fixed in 2.8.0). But you might want to use a recent kernel, which means 2.6.30 or 2.6.31-rc.

 There are still some problems with UXA/DRI2 on old boards such as my i865. So if you encounter any big problem, you might want to downgrade to driver 2.7.1 (some old packages are available at here) and switch away from UXA.

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 urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:bgoglin:17871 Debian/X.org notes - DRI2 fixed in unstable, and more 2009-07-13T23:02:01Z 2009-07-14T22:13:22Z
 A couple news from the mostly-offline X Strike Force team:

 The previous upload of xserver-xorg-core (2:220.127.116.111-3) severely broke DRI2 and more. 2:1.6.2-1 has been uploaded, it should hopefully fix all this.

 Intel driver 126.96.36.1992 has landed in experimental as well.

 As expected, the arrival of Linux kernel 2.6.30 helped a lot. So if you had problems, especially performance problems with 2.6.29, make sure you try 2.6.30. If you're playing with kernel modesetting, upgrading to kernel 2.6.31 and latest intel driver in experimental is probably a good idea as well.

 Update: Intel driver 126.96.36.1992 is broken when NOT using Kernel Modesetting, see #537052.

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 urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:bgoglin:17612 Debian/X.org notes - Why some X drivers like firmware-linux 2009-05-11T07:08:41Z 2009-05-11T07:11:51Z
 We got many bug reports about X being slow. Many of them are caused by some MTRR/PAT problems in kernel 2.6.29. But some are not.

 It appears to be caused by Debian 2.6.29 kernels not containing ugly binary graphics firmware anymore. Indeed, radeon, r128 and mga driver need a firmware for 3D, but also for some 2D and Xv features (basically everything that's hardware accelerated). So if you use one of these X drivers and you have some problems, a quick look in the kernel logs might tell you that a firmware is missing. Installing the firmware-linux package may help then. We are adding the corresponding Suggests line to X drivers.

 Moreover, some people are upgrading to 2.6.30 pre-release because it contains DRM support for R600 boards. A ugly binary firmware is needed as well and it has obviously been removed from Debian 2.6.30 experimental packages. But firmware-linux does not seem to contain this firmware yet. So if you want 2.6.30 for R600 DRM, you want to either build your own 2.6.30 kernel, or wait for an updated firmware-linux package to be available with R600 firmware. See bug#523467 for an example.

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 urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:bgoglin:17395 Debian/X.org notes - Howto get DRI2 on Debian? 2009-02-14T09:45:45Z 2009-02-25T08:40:51Z
 Now that the final Mesa 7.3 is available in experimental (and built on most architectures), it is actually easy to get DRI2 in Debian if you have an Intel board.

 First, make sure you have a recent kernel, otherwise it may fail miserably. I am running 2.6.29-rc here, and I am not even sure 2.6.28 would be enough. Hopefully, one day the driver/server will properly detect and report problems when it runs on a old kernel :)

 Enable the new UXA acceleration architecture with <tt>Option "AccelMethod" "UXA"</tt> in the device section of your xorg.conf. Restart X. You should see DRI2 enabled in the log. Now start Compiz and it works. You can see a wobbly glxgears!

 Well, on my i945, Compiz was very slow by default. I add to disable Sync to-VBlank in the display settings in Compiz' general options. If you don't want Compiz, you may also try running <tt>xcompmgr</tt> and then play with <tt>transset</tt> to put transparency on 3D applications.

 Update: Added kernel requirements, added how to make Compiz not slow, removed -a from xcompmgr.

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 urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:bgoglin:16916 Debian/X.org notes - X behavior changes in experimental 2009-02-14T09:34:28Z 2009-02-14T09:35:13Z
 Apart from interesting features such as DRI2, KMS or input-hotplug, there are some minor changes in X in experimental that actually appear to disturb many users.

 The first one is that Ctrl-Alt-Backspace does not kill X anymore. There is no easy consensus here, but many people were annoyed of killing X by mistake, so it's disabled by default now. To reenable it, add to the ServerFlags section of your xorg.conf:
 Option "DontZap" "off"

 Another one is the background during X startup. Say goodbye to the old well-known grey background. Now you get a black background by default. To revert to the old behavior, pass -retro on the server command line (for instance in /etc/X11/xinit/xserverrc). Note that this option also reenables Ctrl-Alt-Backspace killing the server.

 Finally, you might also see <tt>glxgears</tt> reporting very low frame rates (60) on some hardware. Well, please remember that it is not a benchmark, the output basically means nothing. This is why some distros even removed the fps output by default. The thing is that recent DRM stacks will just synchronize frame rendering on vertical blanks (can anybody here see 1000fps with human eye?). So if you have a 60Hz refresh rate, glxgears will report 60fps, that's it. But it has nothing to do with DRI or 3D being slow. Please try some relevant 3D programs or benchmarks before complaining :)

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 urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:bgoglin:16734 Debian/X.org notes - Howto Input-hotplug? 2009-01-24T21:07:16Z 2009-02-01T11:44:51Z
 I have been wondering for a while how to get X.org "input-hotplug" to work, but I never actually tried before today. It is actually fairly easy, once you know what to do.

Requirements

 First, make sure you have the evdev X driver installed (xserver-xorg-input-evdev). You might want to use X packages from experimental since things are much more recent than in Lenny or Sid these days, and upstream improved input management in the meantime. Then, if you are not running a pre-packaged kernel, check the the evdev driver is enabled and loaded in your kernel (CONFIG_INPUT_EVDEV).

Telling hal what to do with input devices

 Now, you need to tell hal how to configure your input devices. Actually, you do not have much to do since latest <tt>xserver-xorg-input-evdev</tt> packages bring what you need. hal reads all fdi files under <tt>/usr/share/hal/fdi/policy</tt> to find out how devices should be configured. If you run <tt>lshal</tt> and look for input, you should see that the evdev is planned to drive your input devices.

 However, if you look at keyboard devices in lshal (look for input.keys), you will see that the US layout is used. To switch to another layout, you can add some overriding rules as a new <tt>*.fdi</tt> file in <tt>/etc/hal/fdi/policy/</tt>. For instance, to get French layout:
 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <deviceinfo version="0.2"> <device> <match key="info.capabilities" contains="input.keys"> <-- Enforce XkbLayout=fr and XkbVariant empty --> <merge key="input.xkb.layout" type="string">fr</merge> <merge key="input.xkb.variant" type="string" /> </match> </device> </deviceinfo>

 Thanks to this, you can enforce XkbLayout, XkbVariant and friends as usual in <tt>/etc/X11/xorg.conf</tt>. Don't forget to restart hal after modifying some fdi files. Then run <tt>lshal</tt>, and look for Xkb, you should find your setup there. Note that you can add some matching rules to configure some devices with different setups if needed. Just need to read the output of <tt>lshal</tt> and find something like a hardware identifier to match on.

 You can find some documentation about these rules by looking at the existing fdi files in <tt>/usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/20thirdparty/</tt>, and in the upstream x11-input.fdi (note that <tt>input.xkb.foo</tt> is the actual recommended syntax instead of <tt>input.x11_options.XkbFoo</tt>).

Touchpads

 If you have a touchpad and want to use the synaptics driver, installing the <tt>xserver-xorg-input-synaptics</tt> will bring another fdi file. <tt>/usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/20thirdparty/11-x11-synaptics.fdi</tt> matches input.touchpad in the device capabilities in hal. Now the synaptics driver will be automagically loaded for your touchpad (instead of evdev for regular mice). Again, you can override this rule in <tt>/etc/hal/fdi/policy/</tt> and you can add many configuration options for synaptics as well. See <tt>/usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/20thirdparty/11-x11-synaptics.fdi</tt> to get an example.

 Fortunately, you will not have to manually take care of the above <tt>/etc/hal/fdi/policy/</tt> file for ever. The plan is to have hal look at the Debian console configuration and get at least the keyboard layout from there automatically.

Telling the Xserver to talk to hal

 Now, you need to tell the Xserver to use what hal wants. Basically, you want to remove everything about keyboard, mouse and other input devices from your xorg.conf. Just drop all <tt>InputDevice</tt> sections and all references to them within other sections. With recent Xserver versions, options <tt>AllowEmptyInput</tt> and <tt>AutoAddDevices</tt> are enabled by default (otherwise, you might have to add them in the <tt>ServerFlags</tt> section).

Ignoring a device

 If you do not want Xorg to use one of your input device, in the past you would just have not talked about it in xorg.conf. Now, hal notifies the server of all devices, and all of them are enabled by default. To disable it, you can use something like:
 <match key="info.product" contains="myname"> <remove key="input.x11_driver"/> </match>

For more information

 For more documentation, you want to read Peter Hutterer's blog, especially this post and this one.

 By the way, if you don't want this input-hotplug thing and you want to run a recent Xserver anyway, you should set <tt>AllowEmptyInput</tt> and <tt>AutoAddDevices</tt> to off in the <tt>ServerFlags</tt> section.

Update: Fixed the way to manage fdi files, fixed the syntax of input.xkb.foo rules, added a paragraph about synaptics, added a way to ignore a device, and organized things in sections. Thanks to everybody's comments.

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 urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:bgoglin:16547 Debian/X.org notes - Xserver 1.6, Intel 2.6.1, ... what's up in XSF? 2009-01-24T20:59:53Z 2009-01-24T21:00:12Z
 It has been a while since my last post here. Not because nothing happened, but mostly because I did not have time to do much for X. Fortunately, Julien is taking good care of X in Debian so we are still close to latest upstream bits. Obviously, due to Lenny's freeze, everything is happening in experimental these days.

Xserver 1.6

 The release Xserver 1.6 is expected in the near future. 1.6-rc1 (188.8.131.521) entered experimental recently. Both video and input driver ABIs changed and very few drivers have been rebuilt so far. So if you're not running Intel or Radeon, you might not be able to upgrade yet. Please be patient :) You might have heard that many things are happening in X.org these days: DRI2, kernel-modesetting (KMS), RandR 1.3, ... Everything is not ready yet, but it's getting close for real.

Radeon 6.10.0 and Intel 2.6.1

 Radeon driver 6.10.0 was released in early 2009. As usual, it brings many fixes, and improvements for modern boards (see Alex Deucher's blog for details). However, Radeon is not ready for above DRI2 and KMS yet. Most of the development for these new features is first done in the Intel driver, which got recently bumped to 2.6.1 as well.

DRI2

 DRI2 is the new Direct Rendering Infrastructure. The most noticeable change from the user point of view is support for Redirect Direct Rendering, which basically means that your 3D application can be wobbly/transparent in Compiz. See Kristian Høgsberg's blog for details.

 If you want to try DRI2 on Intel, you have to enable UXA as the acceleration architecture in xorg.conf (<tt>Option "AccelMethod" "UXA"</tt> in the Device section). DRI2 will then be enabled automatically. Then, it may or may not work, depending for instance on the hardware. I get a black screen at startup on i865 while i945 works fine until I start Compiz (the server suddenly exits for some reason then). Note that you probably want to upgrade your Mesa packages to experimental as well here (7.3 has been released recently). Of course, running git snapshot of various components (Mesa, libdrm, kernel drm, Intel driver, ...) may help since the released versions seem to not be entirely ready yet. But, things should may be ready to use for everybody in the near future.

Kernel Modesetting

 The other nice feature that makes a lot of noise in X.org these days is Kernel modesetting (KMS). It moves the management of mode (aka resolution+rate) into the kernel. It helps support for switching between different users' sessions, enables reporting of kernel messages (oops, panics, ...) while X is running, and reduces the need to blank the screen during boot (since the kernel can setup the display early and X doesn't have to change it later independently).

 KMS testing requires a bleeding-edge kernel (2.6.29). Using a git snapshot of the drm stack is probably a good idea as well since I couldn't get KMS to work on 2.6.29-rc2 here. Again only Intel will support KMS soon, but other drivers will follow.

Panning is back (aka RandR 1.3)

 Xserver 1.6 brings support for the 1.3 version of the RandR X extension. Among other improvements, it reintroduces one feature that many users miss since it was removed back in Xserver 1.3 or so. "Panning" (often referred to as "Virtual Desktop") gives the ability to move the display within a larger screen when the mouse approaches from the border. Instead of being configured with the Virtual option in xorg.conf (this option means something else nowadays), it may now be enabled/tuned with xrandr --panning. You'll need the latest libxrandr2 and xrandr utilities to do so (the latter is not uploaded yet).

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 urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:bgoglin:16319 MMU notifiers brings into Linux what we've been wanted for HPC for a while 2008-07-29T17:29:05Z 2008-07-29T17:29:23Z
 After the addition of ioremap_wc() in 2.6.26, MMU notifiers have now been merged in 2.6.27-rc1. It means that everything we have been wanting in the past to help HPC support is finally available upstream. We thought IB being merged (back in 2.6.11) would make things go fast, but it looks like these important features were not that obvious to people that did not work on HPC for a long time.

 Back in 2004, I was trying to get a safe registration cache working in the kernel for distributed storage over Myrinet. User-space regcaches are known to be a mess because they need to intercept malloc/free/munmap to invalidate cached segments. It works sometimes, but it is often a mess. In the kernel, you just can't intercept anything. So I wrote a patch called VMASpy which allowed other subsystems to be notified when part of a "registered" VMA is unmapped or forked. I never submitted it since it couldn't be accepted unless somebody in the kernel (i.e. IB) used it. Given posts like this, we see that IB people weren't conscious of the problem (nowadays they are interested but something in the IB specs apparently prevents them from using this).

 KVM needed some kernel support for its shadow pages, so MMU notifiers were written by Andrea Arcangeli (thanks a lot to him for keeping working on this despite many people not liking it). After a couple months of trolls, here we go with 2.6.27-rc1, we can now register a notifier per mm_struct and get a callback when part of the address space is unmapped. The implementation is very different from my VMASpy and of course much better :) But the final API provides similar features, so it should be great news for people working on registration caches or so.

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 urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:bgoglin:16043 myri10ge broken in 2.6.26, will be fixed in 220.127.116.11 2008-07-29T16:55:32Z 2008-07-29T16:55:43Z
 The myri10ge driver (Ethernet driver for Myri-10G boards) is broken in 2.6.26. It may not do anything at startup. It may also oops when opening the interface. The breakage appeared because the big pile of updates sent for 2.6.26 has been only partially applied (multislice RX is only applied in 2.6.27), and I did not test it intensively enough. Apologies.

 2.6.27-rc1 is not affected by the breakage. And 2.6.25 works fine as well. Two patches have been sent to the stable release team for inclusion in 126.96.36.199. In the meantime, you may use Myricom's tarball, take the driver from 2.6.27-rc1 or from 2.6.25, ... or just not use 2.6.26 :)

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 urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:bgoglin:15638 Debian/X.org notes - xserver-xorg-video-radeon in unstable 2008-06-22T12:52:05Z 2008-06-22T13:25:15Z
 As you may now, the r128 and mach64 drivers were split out of ati recently. However, for Etch->Lenny transitional reasons, xserver-xorg-video-ati still depends on xserver-xorg-video-r128 and -mach64. If you're bored of having to install these packages on your Radeon machine, beware that there is now xserver-xorg-video-radeon for you in unstable. It just contains the radeon driver and does not depend on any other driver.

 xserver-xorg-video-ati still exists, for transitional reasons. It also provides the "ati" meta-driver which takes care of loading "mach64", "r128" or "radeon" depending on your hardware. If you actually remove xserver-xorg-video-ati, don't forget to update your xorg.conf into Driver "radeon".

 Update: And of course, right after posting this, I get a bug report about the missing Replaces: ati. It will be fixed in 1:6.8.191-3.

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 urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:bgoglin:15598 Debian X.org notes - X.org in Lenny (and more) 2008-06-14T11:36:16Z 2008-06-14T11:43:35Z
Xserver 1.4.2 for Lenny

 We originally planned to ship Xorg 7.4 and Xserver 1.5 since they were expected in February. However, Xserver 1.5 (and Mesa 7.1) are not released yet, so we are going to keep some updated X.org 7.3 for Lenny. A new Xserver 1.4 snapshot with some security fixes will enter testing soon. Once this is done, the final Xserver 1.4.2 will be uploaded. It is not perfect but it is the one you will get for Lenny. Many people suffered from Xserver 1.4 bugs in the last months, especially on the input side. Fortunately, many of them have been fixed. Lots of them were also caused by obsolete config files (that have to be manually fixes unfortunately). So we hope this Xserver 1.4.2 will be good enough for Lenny.

XaaNoOffscreenPixmaps by default

 It is worth noting that XaaNoOffscreenPixmaps will now be the default (when XAA is enabled, i.e. by default for all drivers but Intel). It helps Compiz and seems to prevent various rendering problems from happening. Ubuntu and Fedora have been running such a patch for a while, so it looks like we are going to do the same for Lenny. To revert to the old behavior, use Option XaaOffscreenPixmaps in the Device section of your xorg.conf.

ATI 6.8.191, Intel 2.3.2, Mesa 7.0.3++

 Apart from the server, some big components are getting updated these days:

 A new Mesa has been uploaded so that it enters testing before the libs are frozen. It contains the latest Mesa 7.0.x git snapshot, including lots of bugfixes, especially for Intel hardware. Mesa 7.0.3 was already pretty solid, this new one (7.0.3-2) will be even better.

 ATI is still getting a lot of work upstream as usual. 6.8.191 (aka 6.9-rc1) has been released this week. It brings r6xx support, acceleration for r5xx, EXA Composite for r3xx/r4xx/r500, textured video support, ... It also fixes many bugs everywhere. Given the big testing that we had in experimental in the last months, I consider it much better than 6.8.0, so I decided to put it in unstable even if it's only a release candidate.

 This new ATI does not include the r128 and mach64 drivers anymore. So the new xserver-xorg-video-r128 and -mach64 packages finally entered unstable as well. Due to unexpected upstream version numbers for mach64 and r128 and me messing up with epochs, they have a lower version number (6.8.0-1) than the previous snapshots from experimental (1:6.8.1~git...). There's almost no code difference though, but people might want to install the unstable packages anyway. The old snapshots will be removed from experimental soon.

 On the Intel side, a new 2.3.2 is expected soon, without many big improvements from what I have seen.

X.org post-Lenny Future

 Xorg 7.4/Xserver 1.5 prereleases should arrive in experimental soon. It requires Mesa 7.1, which still needs some build fix and requires a new yet-to-be-released libdrm. Once all these are properly fixed and released, you should for instance be able to experience some interesting improvement in EXA. It may finally make XAA useless for real. Also, Xorg 7.4 will simplify the Xserver package maintenance since its build won't need the whole Mesa source anymore (the GLcore module that AIGLX uses will be built/shipped within Mesa).

Stop build-depending on xutils!

 Also, we've been trying to cleanup the dependency mess in many X packages for a while. We removed the obsolete dependency from xutils to xutils-dev which was only needed for Sarge->Etch upgrade (xutils-dev was split out of xutils). However, many packages still wrongly build-depend on xutils. Lucas reported that removing this useless dependency in the latest Xorg upload caused 84 FTBFS. So, we're going to revert the change to avoid adding 84 RC bugs. However, everybody build-depending on xutils, please check whether you actually need xutils or xutils-dev so that we can quickly fix this after Lenny.

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 urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:bgoglin:15162 Debian X.org notes - Radeon Textured Xvideo in experimental, r128 and mach64 split out 2008-03-02T14:57:00Z 2008-03-02T16:34:01Z
 After xf86-video-ati 6.8.0 got released, George Sapountzis split the old r128 and mach64 subdrivers out of the common ati wrapper. So, starting from 6.8.1, the <tt>xserver-xorg-video-ati</tt> package only contains the <tt>radeon</tt> subdriver. The other subdrivers have been moved to their own <tt>xserver-xorg-video-r128</tt> and <tt>-mach64</tt> packages. All of them just landed in experimental.

 Your existing xorg.conf should work as before. I don't have any Mach or Rage board, so please test these new packages and report back if they don't work. Note that if your xorg.conf contains <tt>Driver "ati"</tt>, you'll need to keep <tt>xserver-xorg-video-ati</tt> installed. If you only have the <tt>mach64</tt> or <tt>r128</tt> package installed, you need switch to <tt>Driver "mach64"</tt> or <tt>"r128"</tt> in xorg.conf.

 On the <tt>radeon</tt> side, the upstream developers are still very active. The last feature that has been added is Textured Xvideo. The Xvideo extension is usually implemented using the hardware overlay, which basically inserts the video on screen at the very end of the rendering. While working very well, this feature conflicts with compositing managers such as Compiz which cannot transform the Xvideo image.

 The radeon driver now exposes a Texture Xvideo adaptor which is composite-aware, which means you can have wobbly Xvideo players in Compiz. The Overlay adaptor is still the default since the Textured video isn't considered stable enough yet. To enable it, you can use something like:
 mplayer -vo xv:port=74 foo.avi

 Where do I get this port 74 from? Just look at the output of <tt>xvattr</tt> or <tt>xvinfo</tt>:
 $ xvattr Found Xv 2.2 Adaptor: 0 Name: ATI Radeon Video Overlay Port: 73 [...] Adaptor: 1 Name: Radeon Textured Video Port: 74 Port: 75 [...] $ xvinfo X-Video Extension version 2.2 screen #0 Adaptor #0: "ATI Radeon Video Overlay" number of ports: 1 port base: 73 [...] Adaptor #1: "Radeon Textured Video" number of ports: 16 port base: 74 [...]

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 urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:bgoglin:15063 Debian X.org notes - No, DisplaySize and DPI are not (always) broken 2008-01-19T10:15:38Z 2008-01-19T10:18:52Z
 We are getting many bugs about wrong DPI configuration and DisplaySize not working. In most of the cases, it is actually caused by a confusion between Monitor sections in xorg.conf and RandR 1.2 outputs.

 With a default config, RandR 1.2 drivers will basically associate the unique Monitor section with their first output, even if not enabled. Bug #461501 is a good example of this issue.

 RandR 1.2 drivers (intel, ati, nv for G80, mga in experimental, radeonhd so far) require that you specify which output is attached to which monitor. If you have a Monitor section with identifier "Foo" connected on output "BAR", then you want the following in your Device section:
 Option "Monitor-BAR" "Foo"

 Or (easier), just rename identifier "Foo" into "BAR". You need to add such a section for each output that you want to tweak (DisplaySize, ModeLine, PreferredMode). Then your tweaks will be applied to the right monitor/output. See the HowToRandR12 sections III.1 and III.3 for details.

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 urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:bgoglin:14593 Debian X.org notes - One year of X.org BTS maintenance 2008-01-06T12:28:24Z 2008-01-06T16:08:02Z
 One year ago, I started triaging the X.org BTS (by replying to #163057 iirc). I closed almost 1600 bugs since then, bringing the remaining ones to about 900 today. I am kind of proud of Ender's graph (when the URL works...). Even if the actual BTS triaging is done now, I still try to take care of X.org bugs. And it's not that easy unfortunately...

 Almost 650 new bugs were opened this year against X.org packages. 250 of them are already fixed, more than one hundred have been forwarded upstream. It doesn't mean that 300 bugs still apply to our packaging. Most of our X packages are simple (apart from the xserver-xorg postinst mess that David is cleaning). But, there are lots of problems that we have no clue about, or that miss some info because people can't upgrade to unstable, ...

 I am sometimes tired of getting so many bugs without being able to do much about them. Maybe because upstream doesn't care enough about some problems (lots of drivers are unmaintained and get broken more and more when new features are added for a couple more important drivers). So, I sometimes tend to concentrate my work on what I like and trust. Some people noticed that xserver-xorg-video-ati get very often updated these days (6 uploads in the last 20 days). Of course, the reason is that I own a r300 board :) But also because its upstream devs are very good, it's very nice and easy to work with them.

 Of course, we have a lot of work and few people to do it. That's kind of sad since playing with X is very interesting. Most users are very happy when discovering things like RandR 1.2 or Compiz. Getting a chance to test them early and understand their internals is very cool. But, as said in some other posts, hacking on X.org doesn't seem to look fun. If you're interested anyway, taking care of the bugs is a very easy way to learn a lot. I had no clue about X one year ago and I learned a lot by taking care of the BTS. I would be glad to get some help now :)

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 urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:bgoglin:14265 Debian X.org notes - ATI 6.7.197 in unstable, AtomBIOS r500/600 support in experimental 2007-12-21T08:13:10Z 2007-12-21T17:05:27Z
 I finally uploaded the ATI RandR 1.2 driver to unstable. This is xserver-xorg-video-ati 1:6.7.197-1. Lots of people were already using the experimental packages to get the RandR 1.2 support. And it looks pretty good, at least not worse than the obsolete 1:6.6.193-3 that has been in unstable during the last months or the prehistoric 1:6.6.3-2 still in testing.

 Things are (again) moving fast upstream. Right after the 6.7.197 released, they merged 2 important branches in master:

 atombios-support brings support for r500 and r600 boards using AtomBIOS. Yes, this is for the same boards as the ones supported by the old avivo and the recent radeonhd driver, but the implementation differs a lot. See Dave Airlie's blog entry.

 zaphod-lolz brings back support for the old Zaphod mode that lots of people have been missing. If you like having two screens (:0.0 and :0.1), you might like this. See Dave Airlie's blog entry for some details.

 Given how important all this is, I also uploaded a new snapshot of upstream master into experimental. This is xserver-xorg-video-ati 1:6.7.198~git20071221.be7f8fd3-1. Merry Christmas!

 Update: Looks like this is Radeon day. A new version (1.1.0) of the radeonhd driver has been released, so I just uploaded it to unstable too.

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 urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:bgoglin:13886 Debian X.org notes - Upcoming Xserver 1.4.1, Intel 2.2 and friends 2007-11-11T13:12:45Z 2007-11-11T17:06:49Z
 Once ftp-master is back, several important X updates should arrive. The first one is a Xserver pre-1.4.1 snapshot (the official 1.4.1 is expected soon). It will bring many input fixes, for instance for broken LEDs (reported 12 times). Unfortunately, there are still some input bugs in there, for instance upstream bug #13114 which is kind of annoying (I can't play xmoto anymore).

 A new release of the Intel driver is coming soon. The first release candidate, 2.1.99, has been uploaded to experimental. The most noticable changes include some fix for VT switch and the support for some rare LVDS chipsets (ch701x). Also EXA is now enabled by default, which is good news since XAA had some bugs that won't ever be fixed (for instance when using XV in Compiz, see upstream bug #10912). Before 2.2 is released, we might get a fix for backlight support which got fixed on some boards while broken again on some others in the past (see upstream bug #11527).

 The new Mesa 7.0.2 release might be worth taking a look too since it brings many fixes, including a working <tt>__gluInvertMatrix()</tt> which should solve many GLU-related problems that have been reported, and some fixes for several Blender crashes.

 Not much activity on the xserver-xorg-video-ati side recently. But given how well it works these days, I am seriously thinking of uploading the next snapshot to unstable (1:6.6.193-3 didn't help a lot there).

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text:
I did not authorise, nor was I aware of, phone hacking under my editorship.
That was the Jewish Daily Forward, issued in New York under the editorship of Abraham Cahan.
Then, weeks later, Rupert offered me the editorship of The Sun, his biggest paper, with a daily sale of 3.7 million.
He recounts his editorship of the Forward and his political twists and turns.
On Wednesday, Jill Abramson was suddenly ousted from the editorship of The New York Times.
"If this," and "granted that," the editorship of the Leader was an ideal post.
We shall be much embarrassed about the editorship of the Guardian.
So they helped the renegade to a cheap martyrdom by removing him from the editorship of "Die Neue Zeit."
His editorship would help him, and for the rest he must help himself.
In 1881 he succeeded Howells in the editorship of the "Atlantic."

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Visual Comfort Lighting Thomas OBrien Farlane 6 Light Chandelier
$ 1,428.00
This 6 light Chandelier from the Thomas OBrien Farlane collection by Visual Comfort will enhance your home with a perfect mix of form and function. This item qualifies for free shipping! Check the right-hand bar or call our dedicated Sales Team for similar items and additional options not pictured.
- Collection: Thomas OBrien Farlane
- Number of Lights: 6 lights
- Wattage Per Light: 25W
- Bulbs Included: No
- Total Wattage: 150W
- Shade: Natural Paper with Red Tole
- Dimensions: 34" w x 60" h


text:
S32 Ep1: 2013 Ford Shelby GT500 & 2012 BMW 6 Series
Video duration: 26:51Expires: 09/26/13Video has closed captioning.
In this episode, it's the extreme muscle car, the Ford Shelby GT500, then it's a pair of rarefied BMWs. Plus, long-term updates of the 2012 Hyundai Accent and the 2012 Jeep Grand Cherokee. Also, why it's important to find a funnel that fits, and MotorWeek visits the Simeone Auto Museum.


text:
[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="320" caption="rutorrent webUI screenshot (traffic statistics)"][/caption]
As of today, the primary OS on my laptop is Ubuntu and since torrenting is a good way to get open source applications (such as Eclipse), I thought I should definitely invest the time to get a decent torrent client. I'm not saying that Transmission isn't a good client. I certainly can't say that since I haven't used it for more than 5 minutes. I simply lacks umph. It really doesn't impress me as much as uTorrent does on Windows. So let's look for an alternative client.
Using uTorrent with Wine is always a popular option, one most Windows to Linux converts happily embrace. Let's face it, uTorrent is awesome. But I really wanted to embrace Linux which for me meant to stop using the mouse and GUI as much as possible (not that difficult for me) and getting used to native applications rather than applications via Wine. This meant no more uTorrent for torrenting and no more mIRC :( The alternative I settled for came highly recommended by quite a few users. And oh, look at that, it's terminal based. Of course, I'm talking about rTorrent ;)
I have tried to install rTorrent before and failed. This time around, I had managed to get rTorrent to install and work fine but I couldn't get a webUI for it to work. So I had dt walk me through the process. I'll try to document as much of it as possible to help users going through the same issue.
If you want to see a couple of screen shots of the end result before beginning, visit the rutorrent website and check out the screen shots. The best part about it is the tracker based, per torrent and global settings along with the pretty amazing traffic plug-in which gives your multiple (group) views of your traffic statistics. It's pretty cool ;)
The first step is to install XMLRPC-C followed by libTorrent and finally rTorrent. These steps are pretty well documented in this installation guide for XMLRPC-C and this installation guide for libTorrent and rTorrent with a few changes. I'll note the changes in commands in bold.
Before beginning, make sure you have the following packages:
Installing XMLRPC-C: (Note: You should have xmlrpc-c v1.07 and up for a rather bug free rutorrent)
> > cd /usr/src > wget http://dfn.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/xmlrpc-c/xmlrpc-c-1.11.00.tgz > tar xvf xmlrpc-c-1.11.00.tgz > cd xmlrpc-c-1.11.00 > ./configure --disable-cplusplus > make > make install > >
Installing libTorrent:
> > cd /home/rtorrent > svn co svn://rakshasa.no/libtorrent/trunk > > > > cd /home/rtorrent/trunk > cd libtorrent > ./autogen.sh > ./configure > make > make install > > > > cd ../rtorrent > ./autogen.sh > ./configure --with-xmlrpc-c > make > make install > >
Next, make a .rtorrent.rc file in your home folder with appropriate settings. The line in bold is what we need to set up the webUI.
# This is an example resource file for rTorrent. Copy to # ~/.rtorrent.rc and enable/modify the options as needed. Remember to # uncomment the options you wish to enable. #safe_sync = yes **scgi_port = 127.0.0.1:5000** encoding_list = UTF-8 # Maximum and minimum number of peers to connect to per torrent. min_peers = 10 max_peers = 50 # Same as above but for seeding completed torrents (-1 = same as downloading) min_peers_seed = -1 max_peers_seed = -1 # Maximum number of simultaneous uploads per torrent. max_uploads = 10 # Global upload and download rate in KiB. "0" for unlimited. #download_rate = 0 upload_rate = 20 # Default directory to save the downloaded torrents. ** directory = /home/karun/share/torrents/** # Default session directory. Make sure you don't run multiple instance # of rtorrent using the same session directory. Perhaps using a # relative path? **session = /home/karun/share/torrents/session** # Watch a directory for new torrents, and stop those that have been # deleted. schedule = watch_directory,5,5,load_start=/home/dt/share/torrents/auto/*.torrent # run traffic count schedule = trafic,10,00:05:00,"execute={sh,-c,php /var/www/rtorrent/plugins/trafic/update.php& exit 0}" # Close torrents when diskspace is low. #schedule = low_diskspace,5,60,close_low_diskspace=100M # Port range to use for listening. port_range = 55556-55560 # Check hash for finished torrents. Might be usefull until the bug is # fixed that causes lack of diskspace not to be properly reported. check_hash = no # Set whetever the client should try to connect to UDP trackers. use_udp_trackers = yes # Encryption options, set to none (default) or any combination of the following: # allow_incoming, try_outgoing, require, require_RC4, enable_retry, prefer_plaintext # Enable DHT support for trackerless torrents or when all trackers are down. # May be set to "disable" (completely disable DHT), "off" (do not start DHT), # "auto" (start and stop DHT as needed), or "on" (start DHT immediately). # The default is "off". For DHT to work, a session directory must be defined. # dht = auto # UDP port to use for DHT. # dht_port = 55555 # Enable peer exchange (for torrents not marked private) # peer_exchange = yes
Our next step is to get the WebUI which needs the following packages
After making sure the above packages are installed, run the following 2 commands on terminal to enable apache modules (in case they aren't already)
a2enmod php5
a2enmod scgi
The next step is to edit /etc/apache2/httpd.conf with your favorite editor and adding the following lines
SCGIHandler On SCGIServer 127.0.0.1:5000
Once done, save and exit. You're all ready to do get the webUI. It's important to note that rTorrent has a plethora of WebUIs for itself. We are going to use rutorrent for this purpose. Why? Because I like the addons :P If you plan to use some other WebUI, please go ahead and ignore the rest of this tutorial. If you are installing rutorrent, follow what I say.
The first step now is to get the rutorrent files off it's SVN. Here's what I do.
> > cd /var/www > svn checkout http://rutorrent.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/rtorrent > >
Simple enough? Let's edit the config to make sure it's what we want. Open up config.php in /var/www/rtorrent and make sure it has
> > $scgi_port = 5000 > $scgi_host = "127.0.0.1" > >
Well, we're all done with the basic installation of WebUI. You can start using it right now! You have to make sure your apache is started and so is your rTorrent. If you don't already know, you can start apache using sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 start and rtorrent by simply typin rtorrent into your terminal though you should consider screening rtorrent which you can do by typing out screen rtorrent in your console followed by the sequence ctrl+a ctrl+d to detach from the application and keep it in the background :) To check out your hard work, go to http://localhost/rtorrent. If everything is working fine, you should get the page with no errors. The errors I got were for the scgi port and host when I didn't have rtorrent started up in the background and when I didn't have a sessions folder when I said it existed in the config. The former needs you to run rtorrent directly or screening it while the latter needs you to create the sessions folder as mentioned in the config file (.rtorrent.rc).
The last step for the day is getting the add-ons. These are the ones I got. None of them require any setup other than getting the files though the RSS plugin requires the curl install (sudo apt-get install curl in case you don't already have it).
> > cd /var/www/rtorrent/plugins > svn checkout http://rutorrent.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/plugins/choose > svn checkout http://rutorrent.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/plugins/datadir > svn checkout http://rutorrent.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/plugins/edit > svn checkout http://rutorrent.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/plugins/_getdir > svn checkout http://rutorrent.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/plugins/rss > svn checkout http://rutorrent.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/plugins/seedingtime > svn checkout http://rutorrent.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/plugins/throttle > svn checkout http://rutorrent.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/plugins/tracklabels > svn checkout http://rutorrent.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/plugins/trafic > cd trafic > gedit conf.php > >
Make sure you set $isAutoStart to false since .rtorrent.rc starts the plug-in up.
And you're done. Enjoy torrenting on linux with rTorrent and ruTorrent WebUI awesomeness :)
One last thing, make sure you compile XMLRPC-C with --disable-cplusplus. The XMLRPC-C install is the one thing that kept giving me issues. The solution to this was in a bug patch that could not be found. I simply have the patched file that you are free to use if you are facing the same issue. Take this file and put it in xmlrpc-c-1.11.00\lib\curl_transport and continue the process. The patched file comes with a disclaimer of course. I am not sure what changes were made. It worked for me. Use it at your own risk.
I hope this tutorial helps you lost souls trying to get rTorrent on Ubuntu with ruTorrent as your WebUI.


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Bush Administration: We were not legally required to save destroyed CIA interrogation tapes
The Bush Administration has told a federal judge not to investigate the destruction of videotaped footage of the CIA interrogating two terror suspects, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri.
Reports the Associated Press, government lawyers told U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy, who ordered the administration in 2005 to safeguard evidence and information pertaining to torture and abuse of Guantanamo Bay detainees, that it was not required to save these tapes, as the footage was filmed in secret CIA prisons, not Guantanamo.
Zubaydah and al-Nashiri eventually ended up at Guantanamo after their videotaped "questioning."
Even if this argument maintains ground, Judge Kennedy could still pursue further investigation under suspicion of spoliation, the term for destroying evidence in fear or anticipation of litigation.


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Fox News' Benghazi Madness Proves The Network Won't Change
Blog ››› ››› ERIC BOEHLERT
So much for the idea of right-wing media reform.
In the wake of the Mitt Romney's loss last week, conservative voices raised concerns about the state of right-wing press and how the "conservative entertainment complex," as writer David Frum dubbed it, had "fleeced" and "exploited" its followers by chronically, and purposefully, misinforming them about the issues of the day.
John McCain's former campaign manger, Steve Schmidt, lamented how much "power and the influence" the GOP Noise Machine has over Republican leadership. Today's commentators, he said, have given conservatism a "repellant" "snarl," said Schmidt.
Now, just ten days after Romney's drubbing, and just ten days after Republicans sounded alarms about chronic and paranoid misinformation on their side of the media aisle, Fox News is applying contorted pretzel logic as it desperately tries to turn the General David Petraeus extramarital affair story into a "Watergate"-like chapter in the supposed mega-scandal surrounding the terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
Benghazi represents the would-be bonfire that Fox News has tried to light time and again in order to fan the ugly flames of Obama hatred. Fox has now formed an impenetrable wall of noise on the topic. Since Novemeber 1, "Benghazi" has been mentioned far more often on Fox News than it has on CNN and MSNBC combined, according to TVeyes.com
Keep in mind there's nothing about the Petraeus story that connects his extramarital affair to how the government responded to the Benghazi attack, or how it explained the attack.
Yet that now forms virtually the entire basis for Fox's coverage of the story. Fox has simply concocted a story it wants to cover (Petraeus + Benghazi = scandal) and focuses on it relentlessly.
So, Fox regular Jay Sekulow suggests impeachment may be on the table "if the president lied" about Benghazi. And in a question typical of the network's over-the-top tone, Fox & Friends co-host Steve Doocy pondered whether Petraeus was "being blackmailed by the White House to toe the company line" regarding his previous testimony about Benghazi.
Those kind of baseless, breathless allegations about the imaginary ties between the Petraeus affair and Benghazi have, of course, spread through the far-right media this week.


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July 12, 2012 BY John Kim
When Jay Meschter first developed Flywire threads for Nike, did he believe it would be in such widespread use today? The primary goal of this Vectran-composed thread was to reduce weight and maximize support, but with the design inspired by a suspension bridge, Flywire became as much of a visual benchmark as it was an engineering marvel. From the original Hyperdunk to this remixed Air Max 95, Flywire continues to be in prevalent use, but is this Air Max 95 'Flywire' perhaps taking away the soul of the Air Max 95? For purists, the recent no-sew and 360 Air'ed out models were mere afterthoughts, for those who embrace the newer technology on older models, Spring 2013 is looking mighty fine. Check out the four colorways of the Air Max 95+ BB Flywire (dropping Spring 2013) and let us know what you think. Photos: TSG
Filed under: Air Max 95 Nike Air Max Upcoming Sneakers


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Anne Leembruggen was a once only parliamentary candidate, but a successful local government councillor. She was Alderman at the Ashfield Municipal Council from 1987-1991 and an Independent candidate in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly elections for Ashfield in 1988.
Anne Leembruggen was raised in the Sutherland Shire and attended Jannali Girls' High School. She trained as a Special Education teacher and for 5 years taught intellectually handicapped adults and children. She then taught at a primary school in Strathfield, before becoming an Adult Basic Education teacher in the TAFE system. She also lectured at the Institute of Technical and Adult Teacher Education, teaching teachers how to teach adults with language and reading problems.
Anne Leembruggen joined the Summer Hill Action Group in 1985 and this led to her successful election as a councillor on Ashfield Municipal Council. While on Council, she was influential in setting up Vacation Play Centres and she set up a working party to investigate community services needs.
View the full record at Australian Women's Register
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Volunteer with Children in Madagascar
- Placement location: Andasibe
- Types of care projects: Primary school
- Role: Organising creative and physical activities after school, assisting teachers
- Accommodation: Host family or guesthouse
- Price: From
- What's included? Food, accommodation, transfers to and from our specified airport,transport to and from work where required, insurance, personal webpage, induction and orientation, 24/7 support
- What's not included? Flights, visa costs, spending money
- Length of placement: From 2 weeks
- Start dates: Flexible
By volunteering with Projects Abroad on a Care Project in Madagascar, you will contribute by providing disadvantaged children with much-needed support, both during and after school. Whether you are on a gap year, career break, or looking for a meaningful experience during your vacation, you will have an important role to play and your efforts will be greatly appreciated in the community.
Our Care placements are based in the town of Andasibe, which has a population of 12,000 people.
Volunteering on a Care Project in Madagascar with Projects Abroad
Projects Abroad works with a local primary school in Andasibe that provides after-school activities to students from impoverished backgrounds. At your placement, you will help out with these after-school activities that are organised by the school principal. These placements have limited resources, so volunteer assistance is vital to help give children the best care possible. As a volunteer, you will be a welcome pair of helping hands for the local staff.
These afternoon sessions help keep the children busy after school and give them a safe space to learn and have fun. These sessions will be tailored to your skills and interests. You could play sports like basketball, football, and Frisbee and help kids develop their team skills, or start an English conversation club – your options are endless! The children range in age from 3-8 years, but sometimes students up 15 years old may join in the afternoon activities.
In the mornings, volunteers will assist teachers in classes at local primary schools by working one-on-one with students or small groups.
Whether you are helping children learn to read, playing sports with them, or teaching them a new game, the time and attention you give will be hugely beneficial. Any skills you have to offer are welcome.
Your Role as a Care Volunteer in Madagascar
Social development, friendship, and support are the key things you can offer as a volunteer. Most volunteers work from Monday to Friday and have the weekends free to travel and explore.
Projects Abroad is happy to provide extra help to volunteers working on Care Projects. This may include buying some paints or art materials or arranging a day where all the volunteers in Madagascar help to renovate a play area at one of the schools. Suggestions from volunteers are welcomed and we are open to any ideas you may have to help improve the lives of the children with whom you are working.
You can join a Care project in Madagascar for two weeks if you don't have time to join us for four weeks or more. This project has been selected by our local colleagues as being suitable for short term volunteering for both the host community and the volunteer. Although you will gain a valuable cultural insight and work intensely within the local community please be aware that you may not be able to make the same impact as someone volunteering for a longer period.
This placement is fully researched, safety audited and risk assessed in accordance with the British Standard BS8848 for the Adventure Travel Sector.


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Violent partners' older men and the use of hormonal contraceptives are stated as some of the factors why South African girls are eight times more likely than boys in the same age group to be HIV positive.
Verifying figures quoted by deputy president and chairperson of the South African National AIDS Council Cyril Ramaphosa' Africa Check was able to source some reasons why girls aged between 15 and 19 years had a higher HIV prevalence than their male counterparts.
Director of research at the Wits Reproductive Health and HIV Institute' Professor Sinead Delany-Moretlwe' said behavioural factors play a role but added that girls in the age group 15 to 19 are also affected by biological and sociological factors.
"Immature genital tracts' greater use of hormonal contraceptives and pregnancy increase susceptibility to HIV infection. Some of the women have violent partners who are less likely to use condoms' more likely to have multiple sex partners and to be HIV positive'" said Delany-Moretlwe.
Sintha Chiumia from Africa Check said more than 38'000 household members were interviewed with 3'000 young people between 15 and 19 tested for HIV. Based on this' 5.6% of the females and 0.7% of the males in this age group in South Africa were estimated to be HIV positive' working out to an eightfold difference between the sexes.
Professor Olive Shisana' co-chair of the International Aids Conference' said that women in the 15 to 19 age group have a higher HIV prevalence because young women engaged in sex earlier and with older men.
Shisana said communities had to challenge these relationships' especially because of the financial gains involved.
"It is necessary to ensure that girls and young females are empowered and have access to education and employment to break the cycle of poverty'" said Shisana.
Source: Times Live


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Love It Or Leave It: Kristen Stewart's Tuxedo-Style Premiere Look?
Kristen Stewart has become somewhat of an unwilling fashion plate in the past few years, what with her red carpet ubiquity and relationship with Balenciaga, but I don't always agree with her sartorial choices. She's never photographed off-duty in anything but Converse, jeans, and a T-shirt, so I often find her event looks kind of contrived given that she seems so uncomfortable, like she has no idea why she's where she is, wearing whatever she's wearing. I will give her credit, though: she actually cracked a smile at this week's LA screening of "Snow White And The Huntsman," no small feat for a girl who usually looks like she's about to cry. Nevertheless, I feel terribly ambivalent about the Stella McCartney ensemble she went for. A high, buttoned neck like this is flattering on next to nobody, but I think it could have worked on Kristen had she skipped the stuffy jacket. She looked fabulous at all of her Cannes appearances and while I prefer to see her in those opulent dresses with her hair down, this is probably the kind of outfit she feels more "herself" in, and I can't argue with that. What do you think: is Kristen rocking this buttoned-up, slightly androgynous look?


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16 U.S. Code § 460ccc–3 - Management plan
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(a) In general
(1) No later than January 1, 1997, the Secretary shall develop and transmit to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources of the United States Senate and the Committee on Natural Resources of the United States House of Representatives, a general management plan for the conservation area, which shall describe the appropriate uses and development of the conservation area consistent with the purposes of this subchapter.
(2) The management plan described in paragraph (1) shall be developed with full public participation and shall include—
(A) an implementation plan for a continuing program of interpretation and public education about the resources and values of the conservation area;
(B) a proposal for administrative and public facilities to be developed, expanded, or improved for the conservation area including the Red Rock Canyon visitors center, to accommodate visitors to the conservation area;
(C) a cultural resources management plan for the conservation area prepared in consultation with the Nevada State Historic Preservation Officer, with emphasis on the preservation of the resources in the conservation area and the interpretive, educational, and long-term scientific uses of these resources, giving priority to the enforcement of the Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979 (16 U.S.C. 470aa et seq.) and the National Historic Preservation Act (16 U.S.C. 470 et seq.) within the conservation area;
(D) a wildlife resource management plan for the conservation area prepared in consultation with appropriate departments of the State of Nevada and using previous studies of the area; and
(b) Wilderness study areas
Subject to section 460ccc–5 of this title, nothing in this subchapter is intended to alter the requirements of section 1782 of title 43, or section 5(a) of the National Forest and Public Lands of Nevada Enhancement Act of 1988 (102 Stat. 2751), as those requirements apply to the lands within, or adjacent to the conservation area as of November 16, 1990.
Source(Pub. L. 101–621, § 5,Nov. 16, 1990, 104 Stat. 3343; Pub. L. 103–437, § 6(d)(23),Nov. 2, 1994, 108 Stat. 4584; Pub. L. 103–450, § 2(a),Nov. 2, 1994, 108 Stat. 4766.)
References in Text
The Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979, referred to in subsec. (a)(2)(C), is Pub. L. 96–95, Oct. 31, 1979, 93 Stat. 721, which is classified generally to chapter 1B (§ 470aa et seq.) of this title. For complete classification of this Act to the Code, see Short Title note set out under section 470aa of this title and Tables.
The National Historic Preservation Act, referred to in subsec. (a)(2)(C), is Pub. L. 89–665, Oct. 15, 1966, 80 Stat. 915, as amended, which is classified generally to subchapter II (§ 470 et seq.) of chapter 1A of this title. For complete classification of this Act to the Code, see section 470 of this title and Tables.
Section 5(a) of the National Forest and Public Lands of Nevada Enhancement Act of 1988, referred to in subsec. (b), is section 5(a) ofPub. L. 100–550, Oct. 28, 1988, 102 Stat. 2751, which is not classified to the Code.
1994—Subsec. (a)(1). Pub. L. 103–450substituted "No later than January 1, 1997," for "Within 3 full fiscal years following the fiscal year in which the date of enactment of this subchapter occurs,".
Pub. L. 103–437substituted "Natural Resources" for "Interior and Insular Affairs" after "Committee on".
LII has no control over and does not endorse any external Internet site that contains links to or references LII.


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A great cruise for the price but wouldn't take it again.: Carnival Ecstasy Cruise Review by Katrinachariee
Overall Member Rating
A great cruise for the price but wouldn't take it again.
Destination: Bahamas
Embarkation: Port Canaveral (Orlando)
Embarking - wasn't longer than a hour and half. Went very smoothly and it was a plus that we both were able to bring a bottle of wine onboard which was nice.
Ship - to my surprise for being an older/smaller ship that it was well clean and fresh looking. The workers are friendly as usual. There are 4 hot tubs and only 1 pool. We always were able to find a lounge chair to relax. Lots of beautiful lights especially inside the piano bar. Mini golf was fun and being able to get pizza-ice cream-room service 24/7 was a big help when we were hungry late at night.
Cabin (M205) - interior which I wouldn't get again. It was just a little to small for us, we felt cramp a lot. The Ac would go from either be really hot or really cold. Made sleeping some nights restless. Lots of space to hang up/put away More clothes. Nice big mirror and counter space along with lots of light switches. TV was one of the most annoying things in our room. We both got sea sick on different nights and while resting watching in bed the screen would just go black and we tried everything to fix it but...nothing. Rooms get cleaned twice a day which was done extremely well. I always could count on the bathroom having fresh towels after being on the Lido deck.
Food/ Food Service - The food on this ship was just okay. Was your basic breakfast and lunch options on the Lido deck. Lots of tables to sit at and could always count on the Lido deck being clean. We had dinner at Wing Song which wasn't ever better than an disappointing experience. Our waiter rarely appeared other than to take our order. Getting water or a refill of any kind took an average of 15 minutes. Food was okay but selections small. We had asked for a cup of coffee one night after dinner and it never arrived, even after asking 3 times.
Entertainment - The comedy shows were always funny and kept us entertained. Family friendly along with the adult show both made us laugh the whole time. Was lots of gambling completions and raffles for free things. Gift shop is nice and good prices on bottles of liquor. The main shows were played on repeat the whole cruise. We were able to make lots of new friends and had a great time with them on the Lido deck and the bar was always on point.
Freeport was good for shopping. Drank out of coconuts and went to Senior Frogs. Lots of different places to shop if you take the $10 taxi (both ways) to a shopping center, casino and beach is also at shopping center.
Half Moon Cay was beautiful. Its owned by Carnival so you and your shipmates are the only ones on the island. We did the Stingray Adventure extrusion which was a lot of fun. You get to swim with the stingrays and feed them pieces of squad. It is also along a coral reef which was pretty.
Nassau we did Atlantics which was $129.99 a person with lunch included. Great price for the deal. Resort is huge and very nice. Wasn't packed so we were able to do everything in about 2 and a half hours then we relaxed by the pool and went along the white sand beach.
Disembarking went easier than I thought. We decided to take off our luggage ourselves and I'm so happy we did. We were able to just walk right out to the taxi area and go home. It wasn't a bad or great experience. It was average so next time I'm booking on a bigger ship. Less
Published 12/12/13
Cabin review:
Read Cruise Critic's Carnival Ecstasy Review >>
3 night RC cruise, Port Canave...
OLD OLD OLD Boat
Carnival actually wins (?!)
Bland, old ship; boring food, ...
Good time, but not what I was ...
Better than expected
Never Disappoints
A very pleasant surprise
Lots of winners and few losers...
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U.S. Senator Tim Johnson (D-SD) has joined an effort to provide assistance to new farmers and ranchers. Johnson is an original cosponsor of the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Opportunity Act of 2011, which would make revisions to several current Farm Bill programs and establish new initiatives specifically designed to help young producers.
"Agriculture is a way of life in South Dakota and this legislation will help the next generation of farmers and ranchers keep our ag sector strong well into the future," said Johnson. "The Beginning Farmer and Rancher Opportunity Act will make it easier for them to take the steps necessary for success in the industry."
With increasing South Dakota land values and tight credit markets, it is becoming more and more difficult for young and new producers to enter the agricultural industry.
The Bill would extend current programs in the Farm Bill that encourage assistance to new farmers and ranchers, including the Conservation Reserve Program Transition Incentive Program, which provides incentives for retiring producers to transfer expiring Conservation Reserve Program acres to new and beginning farmers and ranchers. Additionally, it would make it easier for beginning farmers and ranchers to participate in the Environmental Quality Incentives Program and Conservation Stewardship Program.
Beyond conservation, the bill also includes several mechanisms to assist beginning farmers and ranchers in accessing credit and obtaining direct farm ownership and operating loans. It would also expand USDA Rural Development program authority to better foster new entrepreneurial opportunities for beginning producers.
The legislation also includes provisions concerning research, education, and extension programs, and it includes a mechanism for the Risk Management Agency to make changes necessary to remove barriers and expand access to crop and revenue insurance for beginning producers.
See below for a summary of the legislation.
Beginning Farmer and Rancher Opportunity Act of 2011 (H.R.3236, S.1850)
This bill was recently introduced in the House by Rep. Tim Walz (D-MN-1) and Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE-1), and in the Senate by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), along with nine original co-sponsors. A brief summary of the bill follows, which includes revisions to existing farm bill measures, as well as new farm bill provisions which are indicated by *. Items marked with a # include farm bill mandatory funding. Provisions are listed in the order of current farm bill titles.
Conservation Provisions
# Conservation Reserve Program Transition Incentive Program (CRP-TIP): Extend the authorization of CRP-TIP through 2017 and amend the program to strengthen provisions for conservation, create a comprehensive conservation plan option, and allow CRP-TIP transition between family members who meet the eligibility criteria in cases in which the land is transferred to the next generation. Add a new option for beginning farmers and ranchers to enroll exiting CRP land into the grassland reserve program or FRPP.
Farm and Ranchland Protection Program (FRPP): Amend the FRPP to make farm viability part of the purpose of the program and to give discretionary authority to the eligible entities that implement the program to give priority to easements with an option to purchase at the agricultural use value, deals that transfer the land to beginning and farmers and ranchers, applicants with farm succession plans, and other similar mechanisms to maintain the affordability of protected land.
Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP): Reaffirm the existing cost share differential for BFRs within EQIP. Also, reaffirm the advance payment option allowing beginning and socially disadvantaged producers to receive an advance payment for the project's costs for purchasing materials or contracting services, but increase the limit on the advance payment from 30 percent to 50 percent of costs. Include BFRs and socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers in the Conservation Innovation Grant subprogram.
EQIP and Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) Funding Set Aside: Raise the reservation for beginning and socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers from 5 percent to 10 percent of the total EQIP funds and 10 percent of total CSP acres. Also, give USDA authority to increase the rate at which technical assistance is provided when assisting these farmers.
Whole Farm Conservation Planning: Reauthorize farm bill authority for special incentives for beginning, limited resource, and socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers and add a new provision authorizing the Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) to provide these farmers and ranchers with technical and financial assistance (through EQIP, CSP, or Conservation Technical Assistance), to develop whole farm resource management system plans.
Credit Provisions
Direct Farm Ownership Experience Requirement: Reduce the farm management experience requirement for direct farm ownership loans from 3 years to 2 years, thereby extending eligibility as a beginning farmer from 7 years to 8 years.
Conservation Loans: Reauthorize direct and guaranteed conservation loans with the existing priority for beginning and socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers but delete the existing provision that waives the FSA family farm eligibility requirement to ensure that limited government financing is well targeted. Create a target participation rate for BFRs similar to the targets for other loan programs.
Down Payment Loan Limits: Increase the limit on the size of the land value that can be FSA-financed from $500,000 to
$667,000 for the down payment loan program to help BFRs afford to purchase land in areas with high real estate values; this change will make the maximum FSA portion of the loan at $300,000, consistent with the other FSA direct loan programs.
* Young Beginning Farmer and Rancher Microloan Program: Create a new simplified loan category within direct operating loans to provide flexible capital through operating microloans (not to exceed a balance of $35,000) for beginning farmers and ranchers from 19-35 years old who also receive borrower training.
# Beginning Farmer and Rancher Individual Development Accounts Pilot Program: Reauthorize this matched savings program per the 2008 Farm Bill but with $5 million per year in mandatory funding. The program will be administered by the Farm Service Agency (FSA) through pilot programs in at least 15 states.
Graduation to Commercial Credit: Retain all existing graduation language and change term limit provisions to not more than 15 consecutive years for guaranteed loans and not more than 9 consecutive years for direct loans.
Authorization Levels: Increase the authorization for appropriations for program levels for direct operating loans to $1.25 billion, for direct farm ownership loans to $750 million, and for guaranteed farm ownership loans to $1.5 billion to better reflect the actual appropriations levels for these programs.
Loan Reserve Fund and Priority for Participation Loans: Continue existing statutory loan fund set- asides for BFRs at current levels with current timing provisions, and extend current direct operating loan reserve rate beyond 2012. In order to serve the most borrowers and to encourage partnerships with private lenders, establish a policy to give a priority in the DFO loan portfolio to down payment loans and 50/50 joint financing participation loans.
Borrower Training Program: Coordinate the borrower training program administered through FSA with the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program (BFRDP) administered by NIFA to ensure that BFRDP training programs that provide financial management training are able to meet FSA borrower training requirements.
Definition of Qualified Beginning Farmer: Modify the definition of "qualified beginning farmers and ranchers" who are eligible to receive FSA loans so that the average, not median, farm size is used to determine eligibility.
Rural Development Provisions
# Value-Added Producer Grants: Retain the priority for projects benefitting beginning and socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers as well as the set-aside of program funding for these projects, but clarify that Value Added Producer Grant Program (VAPG) projects in which more than a quarter of the beneficiaries are beginning or socially disadvantaged farmers or ranchers shall qualify. Renew mandatory farm bill funding for VAPG, at $30 million per year.
* Rural Development Authority for New Entrepreneurial Farm Enterprises: Include new general authority to allow USDA to use Rural Development grant and loan programs to foster new entrepreneurial opportunities for BFRs, with such grants and loans targeted exclusively to small and mid-size farm enterprises, consistent with the purposes of each individual underlying program, and excluding annual agricultural production purposes.
Research, Education, and Extension Provisions
# Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program: Reauthorize this highly successful flagship training program, increase mandatory funding from $75 million to $125 million over the next 5 years to help meet growing demand for the program, and include a new priority on agricultural rehabilitation and vocational training programs for military veterans.
* Beginning Farmer and Rancher Research Priority: Authorize a new program area within the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative competitive grants program administered by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, to support research, education, and extension related to BFRs, socially disadvantaged and immigrant farmers, farm transition, farm entry, new marketing and farm viability alternatives, and related issues.
Crop Insurance and Risk Management Provisions
BFR Revenue Insurance Eligibility: Adopt Sense of Congress language to encourage the Risk Management Agency to make whatever regulatory or operational changes are necessary to remove barriers and ensure fair access to crop and revenue insurance by BFRs.
# Risk Management Partnership Programs: Increase partnership program funding and add a strong emphasis on beginning and socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers within the partnership programs.
Coordination Provisions
* Small and Beginning Farmer and Rancher Coordinators: Add new authority, under the Office of Advocacy and Outreach, for a small and beginning farmer-rancher coordinator (from within existing staff) at the state office for FSA, RMA, NRCS and RD to coordinate outreach and technical assistance to help BFRs gain access to USDA programs and to develop a State plan to ensure adequate services at all county and area offices.
* Veterans Agricultural Liaison: Create a new Veterans Agricultural Liaison Position at USDA charged with facilitating the process of educating returning veterans about and connecting them with BFR training and/or agriculture vocational and rehabilitation programs as well as ways to use veterans educational benefits for purposes relating to beginning a farming career.
Source: http://johnson.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=55a80323-8bcb-4739-93dc-7a6f3e44a676&ContentType_id=c3d73cfe-c14b-4676-96ed-43a65aea57c0&Group_id=6ae28060-e7a2-46ba-bbab-cce51bb5cb91


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Finding Aid for the Hermann C. Raebel Papers, 1865-1997
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Hermann C. Raebel Jr. (1848-1869) was born in Leipzig, Germany. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy (1866). While on maneuvers off the coast of Brazil in 1866, received a commission as ensign. He painted watercolors and wrote letters home while serving on several U.S. Navy ships along the west coast of South America (1866-69). The collection contains 46 about 10 x 6 watercolors of scenes from the east coast of South America, along with color photocopies.
Hermann C. Raebel Jr. was born in 1848 in Leipzig, Germany; at age 9, he came to the U.S. with his family; graduated from high school in 1862 in Cleveland, Ohio at age 14, then entered the U.S. Naval Academy, graduating in 1866; while on maneuvers off the coast of Brazil in 1866, received a commission as ensign; painted watercolors and wrote letters home while serving on several U.S. Navy ships along the west coast of South America, 1866-69; died on June 25, 1869 in the hospital ship Illinois in New York Harbor after contracting yellow fever in the Caribbean.Hermann C. Raebel Jr. was born in Leipzig, Germany, in 1848 (exact date unknown). His family emigrated to the United States in 1857, when he was 9 years old. In 1862, at the age of 14, Raebel graduated from high school in Cleveland, Ohio. That same year he entered the U.S. Naval Academy, and graduated from there in 1866. On November 1, 1866, aged 18, and whilst on maneuvers off the coast of Brazil, Raebel received a commission as Ensign in the U. S. Navy from President Andrew Johnson. Reputedly that made him the youngest officer in the Navy at the time. Raebel painted his watercolors and wrote the letters that are recorded in the collection by his father whilst serving on several U. S. Navy ships up and down the coast of South America between 1866 and 1869. In 1869 Raebel caught yellow fever in the Caribbean and on June 25 died in the hospital ship Illinois in New York harbor. He was 21 years old.
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As his Rebel Wilson vehicle, Super Fun Night, lurches through an uneven start on ABC, Conan O'Brien continues developing other TV shows at a rapid clip. His latest entry is I Knew You When, a multi-camera comedy about two old men who achieved fame and fortune in their younger days, and can now look back on the rough road that led to success.
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The series hasn't begun casting yet. While William Preston—who acted alongside Conan in many a Late Night sketch as Carl "Oldy" Olsen—passed away in 1998, Abe Vigoda's still available.
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Premier Foods cooks up a £1.1bn refinancing package
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Last Thursday (February 20) night, "American Idol" narrowed its field from 20 down to the season's Top 13 and then, still gasping from the adrenaline rush of eliminations and jubilation, the Top 13 paraded up and down a blue carpet in Hollywood answering questions from reporters.
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Before Wednesday's episode begins, check out my interviews.
Up first? The six guys in the Top 13.
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Then it's on to another country boy, Dexter Roberts, who discusses what sets him apart from Ben and also CJ Harris.
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According to Unger, the new political landscape can be boiled down to a single equation: The Democratic Party vs. Karl Rove.
As Unger readily admits, Rove's political career was considered dead after the 'ugly stain" of the George W. Bush presidency, a fall from grace that makes his astronomical rise to GOP "party boss" all the more legendary.
And Rove's aspirations are legendary as well. According to Unger, Rove is playing the long game, in which electing Romney is just the beginning.
Is Karl Rove Still the GOP's Puppet Master?
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PROVEN Curriculum | EXPERIENCED Coaching | POWERFUL Connections
The Entrepreneurs Network -TEN - is for startups who are commercializing scientific breakthroughs and new technologies, and for small businesses who can scale by tapping new markets or expanding their product portfolios. This focus on growth potential drives powerful peer-to-peer learning, and leads to real-world success stories. TEN members do better: winning government grants and contracts, increasing revenues by retooling sales & marketing strategy, and securing equity financing or traditional sources. If you want to improve your firm's performance, join TEN today!
Please complete your application to TEN in order to be considered for the next class, which will run September to December 2017.
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