=^.^=

Documentary for Dinner: Human Resources (2010)

• karma

Another excellent Metanoia Films documentary, Human Resources explores bahaviourism and how techniques for conditioning humans have been developed and employed as a means of mass social management.

I kept hearing this narrators' very wonderful, mood-setting voice in some of my most favourite documentaries (The Power Principle, The Corporation, many more) and decided to look her up. It turns out Mikela Jay is a fellow Torontonian and one smart cookie - not only does she lend her velvet voice to the films she works on but tends to play an active role in their production. Perhaps it's the genuine passion for the material she covers which makes her work so memorable. Here's hoping there will be plenty more in the future.

ksign-publickey.c:2:17: error: key.h: No such file or directory

• karma

Encountered while compiling a new kernel and modules for ClearOS 6.2 kernel 2.6.32-279.2.1.v6.x86_64 to obtain the one wireless module that isn't offered (naturally):

scripts/kconfig/conf -s arch/x86/Kconfig
  CHK     include/linux/version.h
  CHK     include/linux/utsrelease.h
  SYMLINK include/asm -> include/asm-x86
  CALL    scripts/checksyscalls.sh
  CHK     include/linux/compile.h
  CC      crypto/signature/ksign-publickey.o
crypto/signature/ksign-publickey.c:2:17: error: key.h: No such file or directory
crypto/signature/ksign-publickey.c: In function ‘ksign_init’:
crypto/signature/ksign-publickey.c:10: error: ‘ksign_def_public_key’ undeclared (first use in this function)
crypto/signature/ksign-publickey.c:10: error: (Each undeclared identifier is reported only once
crypto/signature/ksign-publickey.c:10: error: for each function it appears in.)
crypto/signature/ksign-publickey.c:11: error: ‘ksign_def_public_key_size’ undeclared (first use in this function)
make[2]: *** [crypto/signature/ksign-publickey.o] Error 1
make[1]: *** [crypto/signature] Error 2
make: *** [crypto] Error 2

Thanks to this post:

1) Select "Enable loadable module support", then "Module signature verification (EXPERIMENTAL)". Disable it.
2) Then go back to the main menu, select "Cryptographic API" then "In-kernel signature checker (EXPERIMENTAL)" and disable that one too.

Now I just have to cross my paws that this is still a simple matter of compiling a module and not the slightly messier matter of replacing the kernel image as well.

Documentary for Dinner: The Power Principle (2012)

• karma

Over four hours of excellently edited and narrated footage investigating the roots power as we know it today. Read more.

Part I - Empire

Part II – Propaganda

Part III – Apocalypse

Documentary for Dinner: Vice: How to Get Away with Stealing (2012)

• karma

A quick jaunt through the world of London fraudsters.

ClearOS 6.3 is Godawful, Keep Using 5.x

• karma

I'm sure anyone who works for ClearFoundation and sees this will think "well, you can't please everyone!" but this is a list of things they have managed to horribly screw up that every admin needs to know before plunging head first into ClearOS 6.3 or worse, an earlier 6.x:

  • You can no longer limit or reserve bandwidth for a whole IP or IP range. I know the documentation says you can. You can't. This was apparently done in 6.2 then carried into 6.3 to make bandwidth management play along with multiwan - something that seemed to be possible for years until now. From the app's review tab:

    by Asad Siddiqui - June 20, 2012

    Following modifications are required;The bandwidth limitations are on network card interface only, there is no option of limiting bandwith on the basis of single IP address or range of IP addresses. Although this was provided in Clark Connect.This option may kindly be added in this application

  • Speaking of apps: WTF, apps? 6.x is clearly the Foundation's idea of caching in on "cloud" and "app" clichés. Software is no longer packaged, it is apped and you don't get your apps from a repo you get them from the marketplace. It's like they've tried to make a routing distribution appeal to a twelve year old girl. Routers are not something that should be built by people who have no concept of routing and making it approachable to those who do not is aggravating to those who do. This is not a desktop distribution, why are they trying to broaden their target demographic?

    I see what you did there. I couldn't disapprove more.

  • There is no way (at least that I've found so far) to uninstall apps in the webconfig. You must feel around and guess the package name then yum erase it.
  • Every god-damned page in the webconfig now has a huge, unnecessary app column taking up valuable space in the hopes that they might up-sell you on the commercial apps you already passed up on install. Fsck off, I'm trying to configure my firewall - I don't give a crap how many stars it has.
  • Even more of the setup process is done in the web interface now and god help you if you happen to put in a wrong name server or you may find yourself wondering why it's taking forever to not time out when it looks for new packages.
  • Registering with ClearSDN is now mandatory; you're SOL if you think you can set up the router without an active connection and drop it in later. Wonderful. ET phone home!
  • Kernel-devel doesn't actually contain the kernel sources and kernel-sourcecode is missing. You have to do it the hard way: 
    wget http://mirror2-houston.clearsdn.com/clearos/community/6.3.0/dev/SRPMS/kernel-2.6.32-279.2.1.v6.src.rpm
rpm2cpio kernel-2.6.32-279.2.1.v6.src.rpm > kernel.cpio
cpio -idmv < kernel.cpio
cd rpmbuild/SOURCES/
cp linux-2.6.32-279.2.1.el6.tar.bz2 /usr/src/
cd /usr/src/
tar xjf linux-2.6.32-279.2.1.el6.tar.bz2
  • "Development Tools" package group has been replaced with clearos-centric clearos-devel. This pulls in 170 packages meant to help you design apps and whatnot but mostly useless if all you need is a C build environment.
  • No more free IPsec! There is still a paid-for "Dynamic VPN" app which provides this functionality but the old IPsec module has been dropped for good.

Doubtless I will have plenty more nasty things to say about this new major version as time goes on and it reveals its sins to me. Do check in from time to time.

The only nice thing I have to say is way to go on the 64 bit version - now if only they would provide Xen images in addition to every other virtualization platform that should NOT be used to run a router...

RENDER UNTO BETA WHAT IS BETA'S.