I once bought a DVD from outside my region, partly just to see if I could make it work. Regionset is the commandline tool to change your drive’s region setting, but it’s somewhat exciting to use due to the premise that DVD drives usually limit your chances of changing the region to 5 times, so mistakes can be costly. I figured I’d make this note of how it went, because examples of how it should go are reassuring to see prior to executing such delicate operations oneself.

My first issue was with the drive going bonkers (even before using regionset) every time I tried reading the out-of-my-region disc. After that region-compatible discs wouldn’t work either, and as regionset requires a working drive with a working disc in it, it would just fail with a “Please ensure there is a readable CD or DVD in the drive” prompt.

After a cold boot I made sure to insert a region-compatible disc in the drive, and that allowed me to run regionset.

jani@saegusa:~$ sudo regionset /dev/sr0
regionset version 0.1 -- reads/sets region code on DVD drives
Current Region Code settings:
RPC Phase: II
type: NONE
vendor resets available: 4
user controlled changes resets available: 5
drive plays discs from region(s):, mask=0xFF

Would you like to change the region setting of your drive? [y/n]:y
Enter the new region number for your drive [1..8]:1
New mask: 0xFFFFFFFE, correct? [y/n]:y
Region code set successfully!

Note that the comma immediately following “drive plays discs from region(s):” indicates my drive was initially unset for any region (as I reckon many of them are, so it’s not unusual).

To make it things even that much more exciting, regionset doesn’t tell you here what regions the numbers correlate to; for that you’ll have to consult the Interwebs or the listing in /usr/share/doc/regionset/README. Above, I set my drive to region 1, which is the North American region, which is where my expatriate DVD is from (I’m from region 2).

Here’s another run without changing the setting, just to show how the “drive plays discs from region(s)” now displays the new region code.

jani@saegusa:~$ sudo regionset /dev/sr0
regionset version 0.1 -- reads/sets region code on DVD drives
Current Region Code settings:
RPC Phase: II
type: SET
vendor resets available: 4
user controlled changes resets available: 4
drive plays discs from region(s): 1, mask=0xFE

Would you like to change the region setting of your drive? [y/n]:n

Tuli pitkästä aikaa käpisteltyä nyt jo elinkaarensa loppua lähestyvää Windows Xp:tä. Sen päivityksissä oli heti jotain perinteistä häikkää: KB928416:een itsensä assosioiva valinnainen .NET 3.0 -päivitys ei suostunut asentumaan vaan ilmoitti virheistä. Yrittäessäni korjata sitä oli pian toinenkin valinnainen, .NET 1.1 -paketti samassa jamassa. Netistä tuntuu löytyvän yhtä monta ratkaisua tähän KB928416:n ongelmaan kuin on siitä kärsiviäkin, mutta niissä kaikissa on yhteinen teema: puretaan .NET-asennukset ja asennetaan ne sitten uudestaan jossain tietyssä järjestyksessä. Tämän Xp Pro -asennukseni tapauksessa toimiva resepti meni näin:

1. Ladataan ja puretaan .NET Cleanup tool.
2. Suoritetaan Cleanup graafisena ja kaavitaan kaikkien .NET-asennusten jäljet Xp:stä. Kestää hyvän tovin.
3. Ladataan .NET 3.0 Redistributable. MS itse ei tätä enää ilmeisesti jakele. Huom! Ei saa olla .NET 3.0 SP1, vaan pitää olla lähtötason .NET 3.0 -paketti.
4. Asennetaan .NET 3.0 Redistributable-paketista. Reboot.
5. Asennetaan .NET 1.1 (fi) Windows Updatesta. Reboot.
6. Tämän jälkeen ilmeisesti kestää loput .NET-paketit (päivitykset jo asennettuihin ja 3.5 Service Packeineen sekä nelosversion Client Profile) latailla ja asennella WU:sta mielivaltaisessa järjestyksessä ilman että KB928416 tai 1.1 ilmestyvät valinnaisiin kummittelemaan.

jani@saegusa:~$ grep-available -F Provides -s Package mail-transport-agent
Package: postfix
Package: dma

where mail-transport-agent is an example virtual package.

(Via Serverfault).

Here’s QJoyPad as it was on PlayDeb.net today, but with MAXKEY in constants.h changed to 255 to allow for bigger keycodes.

• qjoypad_4.1.0-1~getdeb1_amd64.deb

sudo service lightdm stop
sudo Xorg -configure :1
sudo service lightdm start


This is a fork of YOURLS: WordPress to Twitter that does nothing but generate YOURLS for new posts (and new media if opted). I ripped out all the Twitter bits and other stuff I have no use for, because the original plugin kept annoying me by nagging about not having configured Twitter.

Download: yourls-just-yourls-0.1.zip

This was a quick afternoon hack and as usual, might murder your pets when used. I’m not even sure if it works yet, this post is the first real test.

I’m setting up a Bluetooth “Group ad-hoc Network” (GN) between my desktop (say, MAC 00:00:00:00:00:0A) and laptop (MAC 00:00:00:00:00:0B) just to see if I can. Existing documentation’s pretty sparse, so I’m documenting what I do as I go along, to be able to recreate it later if need be. This is not a proper how-to, it’s public just for myself; you’re free to apply it though (as you should).

I installed bluez-tools.

$ bt-adapter -i

shows information about the local adapter.

I set both adapters discoverable:

$ bt-adapter –set Discoverable 1

They already were pairable. If not, set them so:

$ bt-adapter –set Pairable 1

This enables me to query the other device:

jani@A:~$ sudo hcitool info 00:00:00:00:00:0B

jani@B:~$ hcitool scan
Scanning …
00:00:00:00:00:0A A-0

And to pair them:

jani@A:~$ bluez-simple-agent
Agent registered

jani@B:~$ bluez-simple-agent hci0 00:00:00:00:00:0A
RequestPinCode (/org/bluez/1075/hci0/dev_00_00_00_00_00_0A)
Enter PIN Code: 1234

#(back at A)
RequestPinCode (/org/bluez/1395/hci0/dev_00_1A_6B_28_21_1C)
Enter PIN Code: 1234

#(back at B)
Release
New device (/org/bluez/1075/hci0/dev_00_00_00_00_00_0A)

I did this manually, because I was having trouble pairing the devices using GUIs. But once I had the two computers paired, I ran Blueman on both, added networking service on the desktop (all the default settings, using dnsmasq and Network Manager), created trust between the two (not sure if necessary) and connected the laptop to the desktop’s networking service. Oh, and patched Blueman on the laptop to be able to connect.

After that I ran sudo dhclient bnep0 on the laptop. I think the DhcpClient plugin in Blueman is supposed to take care of this, but it doesn’t work for some reason, and Network Manager doesn’t see the interface (on either end) so it’s not configurable there either.

At some point of the process I also added myself to the ‘bluetooth’ group on both setups, though I’m not sure if it’s necessary or even desirable. If things continue to work as they are, I’ll probably try removing myself from the group to see if it still works.

Finally got me the titanium drill bit I needed to remove the corroded-solid screw that held the last piece of +Acer #Aspire One’s PCB in place. Then spent better part of the day disassembling and reassembling the little One: I tried to get a 2 GB SO-DIMM in, because according to some sources (a dmidecode output for one) that’s the controller’s limit, in contrast to 1 GB as I thought it was.

But it just wouldn’t boot with the 2 GB module in place. Not even after upgrading the BIOS. A 1 GB module, by contrast, worked just fine. There’s still a slim chance that the #A1 just can’t handle a PC6400 module (like the 2 GB one) and requires PC5300 max (like the 1 GB modules I have). If I get hold of a 2 GB PC5300 module I’ll sure give it a try, but for now I’m settling for the 1 GB addition.

Next I’ll focus on solving the storage problem: substituting the worn-down P-SSD1800. Contemplating a hybrid solution with memory cards.

# dpkg -l | cut -d\ -f 3 | sed 's/^\(.*\)$/apt-get install \1-dbg/g' | sed -n '/aacp/,$p' | bash

(This is making a lot of assumptions and it’s generally a bad idea to run arbitrary code you find on the Internets so why are you reading this?)

Just making this big mental/virtual note of how to assign LVM volumes’ ownership: a /etc/udev/rules.d/99-my-volume.rules with the following contents:

SUBSYSTEM=="block",KERNEL=="dm-*",ACTION=="add|change",ENV{DM_NAME}="my-devicemapper-volume-name",OWNER="myusername",GROUP="myusergroup"

Also, this trigger comes handy to test the changes:

sudo lvchange -an my-volume-group/my-volume
sudo lvchange -ay my-volume-group/my-volume