Dealing with bugs in Linux

by Jack Wallen on February 8, 2010

One of the things I’ve always liked about using Linux is the feeling that my input is actually important. Either by way of giving input to the developers directly or (more importantly) reporting bugs that inevitably appear on a system. It’s the latter of the two that help Linux (as a whole) to take great strides forward. Without a community of users and developers to report problems, the operating system would stagnate.

But to the new user, these bugs are nothing more than a nuisance, getting in the way of things “just working”. Those new users need help in understanding that bugs in Linux should be reported to the developers. But how do you do it? A new user isn’t going to be savvy enough to run a backtrace on a segfaulting piece of software. In this article I am going to attempt to help the new user to see how easy it can be to report bugs as well as how and/or where to report them.

What is a “bug”?

I would venture a guess that most everyone viewing this site knows what a “bug” is, in reference to computer software. But just in case you don’t…

When referring to a “bug” on a computer, it is always referring to a software bug. This means that somewhere, within the code, there is a problem that can only be resolved by fixing the code (there are, of course, exceptions.) In Linux you will find bugs will show up in strange ways. Sometimes a program simply won’t start. Or some times a program will start but give you an error (sometimes a rather saucy error).

It’s when a program doesn’t launch that bugs become really problematic. Why? How do you know what is going on? The first, and best, way to figure this out is by launching the program from the command line (instead of the menu). This will often give you some indication as to what is going on. From this “indication” you can often google the error and find a resolution. But what happens if you find no resolution? That is when tools come in to play.

Linux bug tools

The first tool many developers will want you to use is strace. This application is a way to run a buggy piece of software and get returned a log file that is very helpful to developers. So when you have a piece of software that will not start (say it exits with a segmentation fault) you can start the application using strace like so:

strace -o OUTPUT_FILE /PATH/TO/EXECUTABLE

Where OUTPUT_FILE is the file you want to output the debug info to and /PATH/TO/EXECUTABLE is the explicit path to the executable file. NOTE: You MUST use the complete (explicit) path to the executable or the program will not execute.

The file containing the debug info is precious manna for developers trying to squash bugs in software. Attaching it to bug reports is more helpful than anything.

Most distributions have specific web sites dedicated to reporting bugs. For example: Ubuntu uses Launchpad for bug reporting. Red Hat uses Bugzilla for bug reporting. OpenSuSE has their own bug reporting site. If you are interested in helping make your favorite distribution better, make sure you know the site for reporting bugs.

There are also tools, like BugBuddy, that are useful for reporting bugs (which I will address in a later article).

Final thoughts

The single most important issue with reporting bugs is to make sure you collect as much information about the bug as possible. Armed with that information, you will be a big help to the developers of the application and that bug will get squashed.

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Explore A Website’s History With WaybackFox

by Martin on February 8, 2010

Webmasters and researchers sometimes need to take a look at a website’s history. This is for instance essential when buying a website to make sure that the seller has been running the website for the time claimed and not snatched a dropped domain to make a quick buck. The Wayback Machine at archive.org is the preferred way of checking how a website looked in the past. Not every website is included obviously but the most popular and visited websites usually are.

WaybackFox is an interesting prototype add-on for Firefox that makes it a tad easier to access the Wayback Machine directly from the website that needs to be checked.

The Firefox add-on places an icon in the Firefox status bar. This icon indicates whether the add-on is active or inactive. A click with the mouse button will change the status but that is all that can be done actively. The icon will change when a website with records is opened in the web browser.

A slider is added next to the icon that can be used to select one of the available history records of that website. This version of the website is then automatically loaded in Firefox. A small overlay over the slider will display the dates as well as the total number of records on file.

WaybackFox makes it very easy to work with the Wayback Machine archive for websites, ideal for webmasters, business owners, researchers and nostalgia fans. The add-on is currently in experimental stage and compatible with all Firefox 3.x versions.

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Windows 7 Library Tool

by Martin on February 8, 2010

The Libraries are a new addition in Microsoft’s latest operating system Windows 7. They have basically evolved from the MyDocuments folders which were limited by the fact that they lined to one absolute location on the computer system. Libraries on the other hand can combine and display the contents of multiple locations which is very helpful if photos, videos, music or documents are stored in different folders or even on different hard drives.

Libraries are by default however limited. It is for instance not possible to add a network location to a library. Trying to do so will result in the error message “This network location can’t be included because it is not indexed” or “This folder cannot be included because it is on a share that is not indexed”.

Microsoft has made available a command line utility that they appropriately named slutil.exe (no joke) which can be used to add network shares or locations to Windows 7 libraries.

A command line tool is usually not the most comfortable option as most users prefer to use graphical user interfaces.

That’s why the Win7 Library Tool was created by Zorn Software.

The software program that is compatible with Windows 7 provides the following functionality:

Add network (UNC or mapped drive) and any other un-indexed folders to libraries.

Backup library configuration, such that a saved set of libraries can be instantly restored at any point (like after a re-install of the OS or for transfer between multiple computers).

Create a mirror of all libraries (using symbolic links) in [SystemDrive]:\libraries. This means you can reference all your files using a much shorter path, and also provides another entry-point to your files in many places in the Operating System (e.g. file open/save dialogs).

Change a library’s icon.

The program is controlled by the icons in the status bar. The leftmost icon loads the existing libraries of the operating system. Other controls can be used to import or export libraries, create and delete libraries as well as to edit existing libraries.

Win7 Library Tool can be downloaded from the developer’s website.

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Opera Backup

by Martin on February 8, 2010

Backups should be an important part of every computer user’s disaster recovery strategy so that important data can be recovered after hardware crashes, virus attacks or accidentally deletions. Backup tools can be divided into general backup software that backup all files and folders that a user wants to backup and specialized backup programs that backup specific software or files.

Opera Backup is a specific tool as it can be used to backup the Opera 10 web browser. The program interface is in English but the help file and developer website is not which makes it a bit complicated to configure. From what we could gather the backup process is driven by a file called backup.ini which defines what will be backed up and what will be excluded from the backup.

Besides the option to edit the backup.ini directly the different elements can also be selected by clicking in the Items button.

Both the backup and restore backup option are available in the same interface with backup being selected by default. A click on Restore backup will open a file browser to restore a previously created Opera backup.

All installed Opera versions can be selected in the second step. The installed widgets can also be selected for backup. Users with portable Opera browsers can use the define folders option to pick and backup these browsers as well.

Backups are compressed by default as ob, zip or 7z files. The compression ratio can be changed in the file menu at the top of the backup software.

Opera Backup can be downloaded from the developer’s website. It is compatible with Opera 10 only and can be installed on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 computer systems.

An alternative to Opera Backup is the multi-browser backup software FavBackup which can also be used to backup Opera as well as other browsers.

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Should SEOs care about Real Time Social Search?

by David Harry on February 8, 2010

Are we there yet?

I thought we could spend a few moments looking at the value, potential and implications for the world of (real time and) social search. I prefer to think of them as;

Social search – using explicit elements (voting, annotating) in conjunction with standard search functionality.
Real Time Search – searching the fire-hose of the social world (Twitter, FaceBook, FriendFeed and so on)

But for the sake of this post, we’ll just go with RTSS (real time social search) to make things easier. While I personally believe there is a need for distinction, it would make things messy for this simple journey. For starters, a few examples….

Explicit data; Social Search

The Fire-hose; Real time search

While people tend to not make the distinction between social and real-time search, it is certainly important from an SEO standpoint, to do so. Now we have some associations in place, let’s look at the present state of affairs (from an IR standpoint).

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Firefox About:Support Helps In Troubleshooting Browser Problems

by Martin on February 8, 2010

One of the most interesting additions in Firefox 3.6 is a new support page called about:support which can help the Firefox user and technicians in troubleshooting web browser problems. The support page lists important application, extension and modified configuration settings that can be used to troubleshoot problems.

All Firefox 3.6 users can enter about:support in the address bar of the Internet browser to display the support page.

Application Basics lists the name and version of the browser. The section also links to the Firefox profile as well as the about:config and about:buildconfig pages. The link to the Firefox profile folder can be very handy as it is usually faster to access that way than to use a file browser.

All installed extensions are listed in the extensions section of the support page. Extensions are listed with their name, version, status and ID.

Modified Preferences is the final section which is probably the most important one for troubleshooting the web browser. It lists all configuration parameters (in about:config) that have been modified by the user. These are often the cause for problems that are experienced in the browser.

The about:support page can be helpful in various situations but most importantly for troubleshooting the browser.

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Build Your Own PC February 2010: CPU, Motherboard And RAM

by Martin on February 8, 2010

Whenever I’m thinking of building a new PC I’m starting the selection process months earlier. I begin with an analysis of the needs, something that is often forgotten by users. What will the computer be used for? Will it be a gaming PC, office, photo manipulation, server or all purpose PC? What connectors do I need? Someone with a digital camera that connects via Firewire for instance should make sure that the PC has Firewire. The same is true for other elements like USB or eSATA.

The PC that I want to build for instance has to be an all purpose PC. It should be able to run the latest games but it will mostly be used for work. The PC should be as silent as possible without running to hot. The operating system will be Windows 7 64-bit. It should support USB 3.0 which has been released some time ago and will become the new standard to connect USB devices.

I have decided to divide the article into different parts to be able to concentrate on specific hardware and why I have chosen them. We begin with the selection of the CPU, motherboard and RAM, the core components of a computer.

Build Your Own PC: CPU

PC users have a wide selection of CPUs. It basically comes down to the two manufacturers AMD and Intel who both produce processors for lots of different purposes. We are looking for a desktop cpu which means that we will concentrate our search on those. Top of the line CPUs are usually to expensive for their performance gain over the rest of the CPU lineup (unless you have the cash lying around).

This basically leaves two options: An Intel Core-i7, Core-i5 or an AMD Phenom II X4. It is now time to use the Internet or computer magazines to find benchmarks and reviews of those CPUs. You can use many hardware shops like Newegg, CPU Benchmarks or Tomshardware as well as many other sites for that.

You will end up with a few CPUs that would make a good selection: Intel Core i7-860, Intel Core i7-920, Intel Core i5-750 or AMD Phenom II X4 965 BE. The final selection now is not only determined by the performance but also the price and quality of the CPU. The AMD CPU is cheaper than all Intel CPUs. It’s performance is lower than the Intel CPU performance but it should be sufficient for all computing tasks.

The Intel Core i7-860 is the fastest Intel CPU in this field but also the most expensive one, we are talking about a difference of €100 here.

My Selection: Intel Core i7-860
Alternative: AMD Phenom II X4 965 BE

Build Your Own PC: Motherboard

The selected CPU leads directly to the motherboard that we need. The Intel Core i7-860 needs an LGA-1156 CPU socket type motherboard. We use our needs and wishes that we came up with earlier in this step. The motherboard needs to offer all the connectors that we need, e.g. Firewire, which makes the selection process easier for us as we need to find and evaluate only those motherboards that support all the features that we need.

What should the motherboard offer?

Minimum number of memory slots: 4
CPU: At least Intel Core i7-860
Memory: At least DDR3 1600
USB 3.0
Onboard Lan: 1000/100/10
Onboard Sounds: Indifferent
Onboard Video: No
SLI: No
SATA 3 GB/s: At least six
Raid: No
Other Connectors: Not needed

This may obviously look different when you build your own PC. It is again important to make an initial selection of 2-3 motherboards that offer what you are looking for. The next step is very important. Perform a search for that motherboard on the Internet and add keywords like problem, error, or help to it. Take a look at those posts and the number of them to see how likely it is that you might run into troubles.

The Gigabyte GA-P55-USB3 is one of the few motherboards that support USB 3.0 right now. It is not as expensive as many other motherboards that offer USB 3.0 (costs $120). The other motherboards that I have taken a look at are the MSI P55-GD85 which retails for about $220 which has a surprisingly similar configuration to the Gigabyte motherboard and the ASUS P7H57D-V EVO for $200 which is the only one of the three with an HDMI port.

The Gigabyte GA-P55-USB3 offers everything that I need plus it is roughly $100 cheaper than the rest of the motherboards. That’s enough to make it my pick in the motherboard category.

My Selection:

GIGABYTE GA-P55-USB3

Build Your Own PC: RAM

The selection of the motherboard determines the RAM – or computer memory – that we can use. We also need to determine at this point if we want more than 4 Gigabytes of RAM. We would need a 64-bit operating system if we do.

We do need DDR3 RAM (to be precise 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM) as this is the computer memory supported by our motherboard. We also need dual-channel or quad-channel and not triple-channel RAM as we have selected the Core i7-860 cpu. This means that we either need to shop for 4 Gigabytes of RAM or a factor of that (8, 12 or 16 which is the maximum supported by the motherboard).

It does not really make sense to buy less than 4 Gigabytes as it would limit the PC’’s performance. Avid gamers or those that run applications that need as fast RAM as they can get might want to take a look at overclocked RAM or RAM that can be overclocked nicely. I usually stay away from that RAM though as the performance gains usually do not justify the price increase. The motherboard supports up to DDR3-2200.

My Selection

CORSAIR XMS3 8GB (4 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 ($270)
G.SKILL Trident 8GB (4 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2000 (if you want faster) ($290)

This was the first part of the Build your own PC February edition. I hope you enjoyed this as much as I do. Leave a comment if you have questions or suggestions.

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Human Biological Clock

by bspcn on February 7, 2010

Source

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Display Control Panel And Recycle Bin In Windows Explorer [Windows 7]

by Martin on February 7, 2010

The Windows Explorer in Windows 7 has been revamped a bit by Microsoft to display helpful shortcut links in a sidebar by default. The libraries are displayed there for instance as well as the user’s favorite folders and the drives that are connected to the PC.

It is possible to customize that display either by adding a new favorite location to the sidebar listing (by dragging and dropping the folder there) or by adding a new library.

There is also a third option that does not become apparent to most Windows 7 users. It is possible to change the configuration so that additional links are displayed in that sidebar in Windows Explorer.

The two prominent additions of this configuration change are links to the control panel and recycle bin.

The left image shows the standard display of Windows Explorer with the categories favorites, libraries, homegroup, computer and network while the right screenshots shows the extended display with all folders shown.

The right folder structure has also changed if you look closely as the Desktop now makes up the root of nearly every other folder in that display except the favorite links.

It is really simply to display the control panel and recycle bin in Windows Explorer. All that needs to be done is to open an explorer window, click on Tools > Folder Options and check the Show all folders box under Navigation Pane.