[gentoo-user] How do I eject an audio CD inside Gnome?

[gentoo-user] How do I eject an audio CD inside Gnome?

[Alan Mackenzie]

Hi, Gentoo.

I've now managed to play CDs in Gnome, primarily by adding myself to the
cdrom group.  I do wish all these restrictions, enforced by group
membership, could be switched off.

Having played a CD, I discover there's no way to eject it; the physical
button on the drive is inactive until I exit from Gnome, which is
clearly suboptimal.

However, if I start Gnome as root, I can eject a CD trouble freely.
But running as root is also suboptimal.

So, I thought, maybe this "feature" is another pesky group restriction.
So I tried adding myself to group "disk", then to group "cdrw", all to
no avail.  I still couldn't eject the disk.

Help, please!

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).

Re: [gentoo-user] How do I eject an audio CD inside Gnome?

[Alan McKinnon]

Apparently, though unproven, at 22:49 on Sunday 29 May 2011, Alan Mackenzie 
did opine thusly:

> Hi, Gentoo.
> 
> I've now managed to play CDs in Gnome, primarily by adding myself to the
> cdrom group.  I do wish all these restrictions, enforced by group
> membership, could be switched off.
> 
> Having played a CD, I discover there's no way to eject it; the physical
> button on the drive is inactive until I exit from Gnome, which is
> clearly suboptimal.
> 
> However, if I start Gnome as root, I can eject a CD trouble freely.
> But running as root is also suboptimal.
> 
> So, I thought, maybe this "feature" is another pesky group restriction.
> So I tried adding myself to group "disk", then to group "cdrw", all to
> no avail.  I still couldn't eject the disk.

With a CD in the drive and gnome running, please post the output of

mount
cat /etc/mtab


-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] How do I eject an audio CD inside Gnome?

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Sun, 29 May 2011 22:58:39 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:

> With a CD in the drive and gnome running, please post the output of
> 
> mount
> cat /etc/mtab

And the output of eject -v


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened.

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Re: [gentoo-user] How do I eject an audio CD inside Gnome?

[Alan Mackenzie]

Hi, Alan.

On Sun, May 29, 2011 at 10:58:39PM +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> Apparently, though unproven, at 22:49 on Sunday 29 May 2011, Alan Mackenzie 
> did opine thusly:

> > Hi, Gentoo.

> > I've now managed to play CDs in Gnome, primarily by adding myself to the
> > cdrom group.  I do wish all these restrictions, enforced by group
> > membership, could be switched off.

> > Having played a CD, I discover there's no way to eject it; the physical
> > button on the drive is inactive until I exit from Gnome, which is
> > clearly suboptimal.

> > However, if I start Gnome as root, I can eject a CD trouble freely.
> > But running as root is also suboptimal.

> > So, I thought, maybe this "feature" is another pesky group restriction.
> > So I tried adding myself to group "disk", then to group "cdrw", all to
> > no avail.  I still couldn't eject the disk.

> With a CD in the drive and gnome running, please post the output of

> mount

root@acm ~ # mount
rootfs on / type rootfs (rw)
/dev/root on / type ext2 (rw,noatime,errors=continue)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
rc-svcdir on /lib64/rc/init.d type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,size=1024k,mode=755)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
debugfs on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
udev on /dev type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,relatime,size=10240k,mode=755)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,gid=5,mode=620)
shm on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
/dev/mapper/vg-usr on /usr type ext3 (rw,noatime,commit=0)
/dev/mapper/vg-usrportage on /usr/portage type ext2 (rw,noatime)
/dev/mapper/vg-usrportagedistfiles on /usr/portage/distfiles type ext2 (rw,noatime)
/dev/mapper/vg-usrsrc on /usr/src type ext3 (rw,noatime,commit=0)
/dev/mapper/vg-home on /home type ext3 (rw,noatime,commit=0)
/dev/mapper/vg-opt on /opt type ext3 (rw,noatime,commit=0)
/dev/mapper/vg-var on /var type ext3 (rw,noatime,commit=0)
/dev/mapper/vg-varspoolmail on /var/spool/mail type ext3 (rw,noatime,commit=0)
/dev/mapper/vg-varspoolnews on /var/spool/news type reiserfs (rw,noatime)
/dev/mapper/vg-iso on /iso type ext2 (rw,noatime)
/dev/mapper/vg-old on /old type ext2 (rw,noatime)
/dev/mapper/vg-vg--backup on /backup type ext2 (rw,noatime)
usbfs on /proc/bus/usb type usbfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,devmode=0664,devgid=85)
binfmt_misc on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)


> cat /etc/mtab

root@acm ~ # cat /etc/mtab
rootfs / rootfs rw 0 0
/dev/root / ext2 rw,noatime,errors=continue 0 0
proc /proc proc rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime 0 0
rc-svcdir /lib64/rc/init.d tmpfs rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,size=1024k,mode=755 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime 0 0
debugfs /sys/kernel/debug debugfs rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime 0 0
udev /dev tmpfs rw,nosuid,relatime,size=10240k,mode=755 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,gid=5,mode=620 0 0
shm /dev/shm tmpfs rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime 0 0
/dev/mapper/vg-usr /usr ext3 rw,noatime,commit=0 0 0
/dev/mapper/vg-usrportage /usr/portage ext2 rw,noatime 0 0
/dev/mapper/vg-usrportagedistfiles /usr/portage/distfiles ext2 rw,noatime 0 0
/dev/mapper/vg-usrsrc /usr/src ext3 rw,noatime,commit=0 0 0
/dev/mapper/vg-home /home ext3 rw,noatime,commit=0 0 0
/dev/mapper/vg-opt /opt ext3 rw,noatime,commit=0 0 0
/dev/mapper/vg-var /var ext3 rw,noatime,commit=0 0 0
/dev/mapper/vg-varspoolmail /var/spool/mail ext3 rw,noatime,commit=0 0 0
/dev/mapper/vg-varspoolnews /var/spool/news reiserfs rw,noatime 0 0
/dev/mapper/vg-iso /iso ext2 rw,noatime 0 0
/dev/mapper/vg-old /old ext2 rw,noatime 0 0
/dev/mapper/vg-vg--backup /backup ext2 rw,noatime 0 0
usbfs /proc/bus/usb usbfs rw,noexec,nosuid,devmode=0664,devgid=85 0 0
binfmt_misc /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc binfmt_misc rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev 0 0


> -- 
> alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).

Re: [gentoo-user] How do I eject an audio CD inside Gnome?

[Alan McKinnon]

Apparently, though unproven, at 23:20 on Sunday 29 May 2011, Alan Mackenzie 
did opine thusly:

> Hi, Alan.
> 
> On Sun, May 29, 2011 at 10:58:39PM +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > Apparently, though unproven, at 22:49 on Sunday 29 May 2011, Alan
> > Mackenzie
> > 
> > did opine thusly:
> > > Hi, Gentoo.
> > > 
> > > I've now managed to play CDs in Gnome, primarily by adding myself to
> > > the cdrom group.  I do wish all these restrictions, enforced by group
> > > membership, could be switched off.
> > > 
> > > Having played a CD, I discover there's no way to eject it; the physical
> > > button on the drive is inactive until I exit from Gnome, which is
> > > clearly suboptimal.
> > > 
> > > However, if I start Gnome as root, I can eject a CD trouble freely.
> > > But running as root is also suboptimal.
> > > 
> > > So, I thought, maybe this "feature" is another pesky group restriction.
> > > So I tried adding myself to group "disk", then to group "cdrw", all to
> > > no avail.  I still couldn't eject the disk.
> > 
> > With a CD in the drive and gnome running, please post the output of
> > 
> > mount

Well that didn't work too well - they're not listed. Obviously gnome doesn't 
use mount/mtab/fstab to do it's mounting thing. Time for Neil's plan B

eject -v

for comparison, do it as a user and then as root




> 
> root@acm ~ # mount
> rootfs on / type rootfs (rw)
> /dev/root on / type ext2 (rw,noatime,errors=continue)
> proc on /proc type proc (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
> rc-svcdir on /lib64/rc/init.d type tmpfs
> (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,size=1024k,mode=755) sysfs on /sys type
> sysfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
> debugfs on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
> udev on /dev type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,relatime,size=10240k,mode=755)
> devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,gid=5,mode=620)
> shm on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
> /dev/mapper/vg-usr on /usr type ext3 (rw,noatime,commit=0)
> /dev/mapper/vg-usrportage on /usr/portage type ext2 (rw,noatime)
> /dev/mapper/vg-usrportagedistfiles on /usr/portage/distfiles type ext2
> (rw,noatime) /dev/mapper/vg-usrsrc on /usr/src type ext3
> (rw,noatime,commit=0)
> /dev/mapper/vg-home on /home type ext3 (rw,noatime,commit=0)
> /dev/mapper/vg-opt on /opt type ext3 (rw,noatime,commit=0)
> /dev/mapper/vg-var on /var type ext3 (rw,noatime,commit=0)
> /dev/mapper/vg-varspoolmail on /var/spool/mail type ext3
> (rw,noatime,commit=0) /dev/mapper/vg-varspoolnews on /var/spool/news type
> reiserfs (rw,noatime) /dev/mapper/vg-iso on /iso type ext2 (rw,noatime)
> /dev/mapper/vg-old on /old type ext2 (rw,noatime)
> /dev/mapper/vg-vg--backup on /backup type ext2 (rw,noatime)
> usbfs on /proc/bus/usb type usbfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,devmode=0664,devgid=85)
> binfmt_misc on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc
> (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
> 
> > cat /etc/mtab
> 
> root@acm ~ # cat /etc/mtab
> rootfs / rootfs rw 0 0
> /dev/root / ext2 rw,noatime,errors=continue 0 0
> proc /proc proc rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime 0 0
> rc-svcdir /lib64/rc/init.d tmpfs
> rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,size=1024k,mode=755 0 0 sysfs /sys sysfs
> rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime 0 0
> debugfs /sys/kernel/debug debugfs rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime 0 0
> udev /dev tmpfs rw,nosuid,relatime,size=10240k,mode=755 0 0
> devpts /dev/pts devpts rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,gid=5,mode=620 0 0
> shm /dev/shm tmpfs rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime 0 0
> /dev/mapper/vg-usr /usr ext3 rw,noatime,commit=0 0 0
> /dev/mapper/vg-usrportage /usr/portage ext2 rw,noatime 0 0
> /dev/mapper/vg-usrportagedistfiles /usr/portage/distfiles ext2 rw,noatime 0
> 0 /dev/mapper/vg-usrsrc /usr/src ext3 rw,noatime,commit=0 0 0
> /dev/mapper/vg-home /home ext3 rw,noatime,commit=0 0 0
> /dev/mapper/vg-opt /opt ext3 rw,noatime,commit=0 0 0
> /dev/mapper/vg-var /var ext3 rw,noatime,commit=0 0 0
> /dev/mapper/vg-varspoolmail /var/spool/mail ext3 rw,noatime,commit=0 0 0
> /dev/mapper/vg-varspoolnews /var/spool/news reiserfs rw,noatime 0 0
> /dev/mapper/vg-iso /iso ext2 rw,noatime 0 0
> /dev/mapper/vg-old /old ext2 rw,noatime 0 0
> /dev/mapper/vg-vg--backup /backup ext2 rw,noatime 0 0
> usbfs /proc/bus/usb usbfs rw,noexec,nosuid,devmode=0664,devgid=85 0 0
> binfmt_misc /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc binfmt_misc rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev 0 0

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] How do I eject an audio CD inside Gnome?

[Alan Mackenzie]

Hi, Neil.

On Sun, May 29, 2011 at 10:13:08PM +0100, Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Sun, 29 May 2011 22:58:39 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:

> > With a CD in the drive and gnome running, please post the output of

> > mount
> > cat /etc/mtab

> And the output of eject -v

acm@acm ~ $ eject -v
eject: using default device `cdrom'
eject: device name is `cdrom'
eject: expanded name is `/dev/cdrom'
eject: `/dev/cdrom' is a link to `/dev/sr0'
eject: `/dev/sr0' is not mounted
eject: `/dev/sr0' is not a mount point
eject: `/dev/sr0' is not a multipartition device
eject: trying to eject `/dev/sr0' using CD-ROM eject command
eject: CD-ROM eject command failed
eject: trying to eject `/dev/sr0' using SCSI commands
eject: SCSI eject succeeded

(This was run as a normal user, not root.)

Hey, eject -v works!  :-)  It's still not quite ideal, though.

> -- 
> Neil Bothwick

> Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened.

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).

Re: [gentoo-user] How do I eject an audio CD inside Gnome?

[Alan McKinnon]

Apparently, though unproven, at 23:37 on Sunday 29 May 2011, Alan Mackenzie 
did opine thusly:

> Hi, Neil.
> 
> On Sun, May 29, 2011 at 10:13:08PM +0100, Neil Bothwick wrote:
> > On Sun, 29 May 2011 22:58:39 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > > With a CD in the drive and gnome running, please post the output of
> > > 
> > > mount
> > > cat /etc/mtab
> > 
> > And the output of eject -v
> 
> acm@acm ~ $ eject -v
> eject: using default device `cdrom'
> eject: device name is `cdrom'
> eject: expanded name is `/dev/cdrom'
> eject: `/dev/cdrom' is a link to `/dev/sr0'
> eject: `/dev/sr0' is not mounted
> eject: `/dev/sr0' is not a mount point
> eject: `/dev/sr0' is not a multipartition device
> eject: trying to eject `/dev/sr0' using CD-ROM eject command
> eject: CD-ROM eject command failed
> eject: trying to eject `/dev/sr0' using SCSI commands
> eject: SCSI eject succeeded
> 
> (This was run as a normal user, not root.)
> 
> Hey, eject -v works!  :-)  It's still not quite ideal, though.


My money says you've been hit by the Gnome Borg - where you are only permitted 
to do things the way the gnome devs have deemed to be appropriate and 
TheOneTrueWay(tm). After all, you are just a user, what do you know? The devs 
know better, you must trust them!

I can't be of much more help to you, I don't use Gnome at all (see above)


-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] How do I eject an audio CD inside Gnome?

[Peter Humphrey]

On Sunday 29 May 2011 22:56:10 Alan McKinnon wrote:

> My money says you've been hit by the Gnome Borg - where you are only
> permitted to do things the way the gnome devs have deemed to be
> appropriate and TheOneTrueWay(tm). After all, you are just a user, what
> do you know? The devs know better, you must trust them!

Just like Windows.

-- 
Rgds
Peter

Re: [gentoo-user] How do I eject an audio CD inside Gnome?

[Thanasis]

on 05/29/2011 11:49 PM Alan Mackenzie wrote the following:

> So, I thought, maybe this "feature" is another pesky group restriction.
> So I tried adding myself to group "disk", then to group "cdrw",
Try adding yourself to plugdev group also.

Re: [gentoo-user] How do I eject an audio CD inside Gnome?

[Alan Mackenzie]

Hi, Alan.

On Sun, May 29, 2011 at 11:56:10PM +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> Apparently, though unproven, at 23:37 on Sunday 29 May 2011, Alan Mackenzie 
> did opine thusly:

> > Hi, Neil.

> > On Sun, May 29, 2011 at 10:13:08PM +0100, Neil Bothwick wrote:
> > > On Sun, 29 May 2011 22:58:39 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > > > With a CD in the drive and gnome running, please post the output
> > > > of

> > > > mount
> > > > cat /etc/mtab

> > > And the output of eject -v

> > acm@acm ~ $ eject -v
> > eject: using default device `cdrom'
> > eject: device name is `cdrom'
> > eject: expanded name is `/dev/cdrom'
> > eject: `/dev/cdrom' is a link to `/dev/sr0'
> > eject: `/dev/sr0' is not mounted
> > eject: `/dev/sr0' is not a mount point
> > eject: `/dev/sr0' is not a multipartition device
> > eject: trying to eject `/dev/sr0' using CD-ROM eject command
> > eject: CD-ROM eject command failed
> > eject: trying to eject `/dev/sr0' using SCSI commands
> > eject: SCSI eject succeeded

> > (This was run as a normal user, not root.)

> > Hey, eject -v works!  :-)  It's still not quite ideal, though.


> My money says you've been hit by the Gnome Borg - where you are only
> permitted to do things the way the gnome devs have deemed to be
> appropriate and TheOneTrueWay(tm). After all, you are just a user, what
> do you know? The devs know better, you must trust them!

You're dashed right.  I now understand what's happening:  When a CD is
inserted and Gnome detects it as an audio CD, the CD drive is locked.  At
the same time, a stupid icon "Audio Disc" appears on the screen.

Right clicking on "Audio Disc" gives an "eject" menu point.  YUCK!!!  If
I'd've wanted an Apple Macintosh, I know where to buy one.  I just want
my drive's eject button to work.

It gets worse.  If you double click on "Audio Disc", it opens a window
with the "files" uselessly displayed.  Right clicking gives a menu point
"unmount" (I kid you not), as though a filesystem were mounted.  This
unlocks the drive.

I feel like screaming.  AAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

> I can't be of much more help to you, I don't use Gnome at all (see above)

Can't say I blame you.  What's the choice, though?  I appreciate the
spare uncluttered desktop of Gnome.  Last time I tried KDE (about 7 years
ago) it was anything but uncluttered.  I tried XFCE briefly, but couldn't
get it to run stably.  Besides, it was missing an application to switch
between keyboard layouts, something I absolutely need.

> -- 
> alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).

Re: [gentoo-user] How do I eject an audio CD inside Gnome?

[Alan McKinnon]

Apparently, though unproven, at 12:10 on Monday 30 May 2011, Alan Mackenzie 
did opine thusly:

> > My money says you've been hit by the Gnome Borg - where you are only
> > permitted to do things the way the gnome devs have deemed to be
> > appropriate and TheOneTrueWay(tm). After all, you are just a user, what
> > do you know? The devs know better, you must trust them!
> 
> You're dashed right.  I now understand what's happening:  When a CD is
> inserted and Gnome detects it as an audio CD, the CD drive is locked.  At
> the same time, a stupid icon "Audio Disc" appears on the screen.

I don't understand why they lock it. If you can physically press the eject 
button the drive should open because you can just as easily put a paperclip in 
the little hole and force it open.

A case can be made for locking the software controls - with software, open the 
drive using the matching command to what loads it. But not physical controls

> Right clicking on "Audio Disc" gives an "eject" menu point.  YUCK!!!  If
> I'd've wanted an Apple Macintosh, I know where to buy one.  I just want
> my drive's eject button to work.
> 
> It gets worse.  If you double click on "Audio Disc", it opens a window
> with the "files" uselessly displayed.  Right clicking gives a menu point
> "unmount" (I kid you not), as though a filesystem were mounted.  This
> unlocks the drive.
> 
> I feel like screaming.  AAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

I feel your pain

> > I can't be of much more help to you, I don't use Gnome at all (see above)
> 
> Can't say I blame you.  What's the choice, though?  I appreciate the
> spare uncluttered desktop of Gnome.  Last time I tried KDE (about 7 years
> ago) it was anything but uncluttered.  I tried XFCE briefly, but couldn't
> get it to run stably.  Besides, it was missing an application to switch
> between keyboard layouts, something I absolutely need.

I hear good things about XFCE these days. If you haven't tried it lately, it 
might be worth a new look. And you can always write a small script to change 
your keyboard layout if there's no gui app. Not as convenient as a systray 
icon, but probably a small price to pay if everything else suits your needs

There's also other DEs like *box and e17.

e17 requires a huge mind shift in how you perceive the desktop but once you 
get your head around it, it becomes strangely addictive.


-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] How do I eject an audio CD inside Gnome?

[Mick]

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On Monday 30 May 2011 11:33:02 Alan McKinnon wrote:
> Apparently, though unproven, at 12:10 on Monday 30 May 2011, Alan Mackenzie

> > Can't say I blame you.  What's the choice, though?  I appreciate the
> > spare uncluttered desktop of Gnome.  Last time I tried KDE (about 7 years
> > ago) it was anything but uncluttered.  I tried XFCE briefly, but couldn't
> > get it to run stably.  Besides, it was missing an application to switch
> > between keyboard layouts, something I absolutely need.
> 
> I hear good things about XFCE these days. If you haven't tried it lately,
> it might be worth a new look. And you can always write a small script to
> change your keyboard layout if there's no gui app. Not as convenient as a
> systray icon, but probably a small price to pay if everything else suits
> your needs
> 
> There's also other DEs like *box and e17.
> 
> e17 requires a huge mind shift in how you perceive the desktop but once you
> get your head around it, it becomes strangely addictive.

KDE has changed *significantly* from 7 years ago.  It will be a completely new 
experience for you and there are a number of LiveCDs/DVDs you can use to try 
it out and see if it meets your needs.

Fluxbox which I have been using for years is ultimately configurable, but 
development is not really breathtaking and it does not do compiz or other 
composite eye-candy.  It's fast, but some of its edges are jagged compared to 
more modern WMs.

e17 is the best desktop for me, because it is extremely light footed, has 
enough eye candy (if you need that) and it is relatively configurable.  Until 
it becomes stable you'll need to compile it from svn.

Alan, I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "huge mind shift"?  Unless my 
mind shifted and wasn't aware of it!  :))
-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] How do I eject an audio CD inside Gnome?

[Jonathan]

On Sun, 29 May 2011 20:49:05 +0000
Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de> wrote:

> Having played a CD, I discover there's no way to eject it; the physical
> button on the drive is inactive until I exit from Gnome, which is
> clearly suboptimal.

Try checking to see if any program has a file open in the cd.
If you open a terminal and change the current dir to one on the cd, it will lock it as well as a open file.
I had fun and games with that ones.

If all else fails you could turn the lock off with: echo 0 > /proc/sys/dev/cdrom/lock 
I'm sure you know that you can add the setting to /etc/sysctl.conf

Re: [gentoo-user] How do I eject an audio CD inside Gnome?

[Stroller]

On 30/5/2011, at 11:10am, Alan Mackenzie wrote:
> ...
> Right clicking on "Audio Disc" gives an "eject" menu point.  YUCK!!!  If
> I'd've wanted an Apple Macintosh, I know where to buy one.  I just want
> my drive's eject button to work.


Your Linux box isn't working, and you're complaining about Macs?

That seems a little inappropriate.

Let me assure you: when a Mac has a hardware button, it will work just fine. It won't be disabled for no reason. 

This is why I use Mac for the desktop. Because when I get home after a hard day's work fixing computers I don't want to have to do a "bat shit crazy amount of work to keep things working" [1]. I don't want the kind of grief you've been experiencing with this issue. I'd *love* to use Linux on the desktop, but it's stuff like this that discourages me.

Right-clicking a CD to get an eject menu is very well-established across all UIs. It's better established in Windows, in fact (since c 95), than it is in Macs, which used to be criticised because one dragged the CD "to the trash" (actually, the Trash icon changes to an eject icon as soon as you start to drag a CD in MacOS). I would be *extremely* surprised to hear that KDE didn't have a right-click eject menu option when I last used it seriously a decade ago. None of this need prevent the drive's physical eject button working - it should be possible for the o/s to be aware of that (as it is in Windows, for instance).

I'd be the first to admit that Macs have flaws, but this isn't one (or two) of them.

> It gets worse.  If you double click on "Audio Disc", it opens a window
> with the "files" uselessly displayed.  

I'll bet it doesn't display the actual files. Audio CDs don't have files, they have a single spiral of wav-like audio data. AIUI Linux desktops *present* audio CDs so that they *appear* as audio files, so that you can more conveniently drag and drop them to your MP3 music collection. Typically there is a preference which allows you to choose between copying them as MP3, AAC, FLAC &c - the audio data will be transcoded to the selected format only after you drag & drop the icons in another folder. 

Stroller.




[1] Alan McKinnon, 28 May 2011 9:06:34 am GMT+01:00

Re: [gentoo-user] How do I eject an audio CD inside Gnome?

[Stroller]

On 30/5/2011, at 11:33am, Alan McKinnon wrote:
>> ....
>> You're dashed right.  I now understand what's happening:  When a CD is
>> inserted and Gnome detects it as an audio CD, the CD drive is locked.  At
>> the same time, a stupid icon "Audio Disc" appears on the screen.
> 
> I don't understand why they lock it. If you can physically press the eject 
> button the drive should open because you can just as easily put a paperclip in 
> the little hole and force it open.
> 
> A case can be made for locking the software controls - with software, open the 
> drive using the matching command to what loads it. But not physical controls

The button *isn't* fully a physical control, though. It reports to the o/s "I've been pressed" and the o/s should open the drive, as long as (for instance) you're not in the middle of burning a CD (which would ruin the CD; clearly pressing the button at such a time would be accidental; the user would have to cancel through the on-screen burning dialogue which would normally ask "are you really sure?")

Ejecting the disk with the paper clip is liable to scratch the CD, if the disk is being read. That's why the button isn't as fully physical as the paper clip method, that's why the paper clip method should be reserved for "emergencies" and that's why the o/s may choose to "lock" the eject button. 

Stroller.

Re: [gentoo-user] How do I eject an audio CD inside Gnome?

[Stroller]

On 31/5/2011, at 12:26am, Stroller wrote:
> On 30/5/2011, at 11:10am, Alan Mackenzie wrote:
> 
>> It gets worse.  If you double click on "Audio Disc", it opens a window
>> with the "files" uselessly displayed.  
> 
> I'll bet it doesn't display the actual files. Audio CDs don't have files, they have a single spiral of wav-like audio data. AIUI Linux desktops *present* audio CDs so that they *appear* as audio files, so that you can more conveniently drag and drop them to your MP3 music collection. Typically there is a preference which allows you to choose between copying them as MP3, AAC, FLAC &c - the audio data will be transcoded to the selected format only after you drag & drop the icons in another folder. 

I meant to say:

Most people don't find this "icon view" useless, as it allows one to select and play (or copy) a single track at a time. It is a useful "representation" of the songs on the CD. Most people find it *more useful* to be able to drag and drop the tracks to their MP3s folder, because they don't like having to physically find a CD, looking through hundreds of disks, and insert it into the drive. Far easier to drag and drop once, then just search for "fiona apple" in Gnome's file viewer or in their music player.

TL;DR: you're sounding dangerously like a grumpy old man. In this latter case: it's not necessarily "bad" just because it's unfamiliar to you.

Stroller.

Re: [gentoo-user] How do I eject an audio CD inside Gnome?

[daid kahl]

>> > I can't be of much more help to you, I don't use Gnome at all (see above)
>>
>> Can't say I blame you.  What's the choice, though?  I appreciate the
>> spare uncluttered desktop of Gnome.  Last time I tried KDE (about 7 years
>> ago) it was anything but uncluttered.  I tried XFCE briefly, but couldn't
>> get it to run stably.  Besides, it was missing an application to switch
>> between keyboard layouts, something I absolutely need.
>
> I hear good things about XFCE these days. If you haven't tried it lately, it
> might be worth a new look. And you can always write a small script to change
> your keyboard layout if there's no gui app. Not as convenient as a systray
> icon, but probably a small price to pay if everything else suits your needs
>

My basic response was in fact that I now use XFCE, and I basically do
not have any auto-mounting software even installed.  I don't mind
mounting and umounting manually for some stuff, and then using udev
rules and scripts for like my regular USB items (harddisks, flash
memory...).

So yeah, you go mount the CD yourself, but then the eject button will
work if you just set up a script in the very worst case, as long as
all permissions are satisfied (group, whatever).  Usually an eject
call on the device will work fine for the hotkey.  Just use some
keyboard tweaking program to fix it up.  And for me that's just fine.
Other people may prefer it differently.  But auto-mounting will do
annoying stuff on my laptop every time it goes to sleep and wakes up
and...it's just annoying to me personally.

If you don't have much experience setting up you own custom
'automonting' tools, I'll give just a couple examples.  I think with
the comments it's clear enough.

daid@titan ~ % cat /etc/udev/rules.d/10-local.rules
# external USB, Seagate FreeAgent GO aka cyclops
 SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", DRIVERS=="usb", ATTRS{serial}=="
5LZ2XQJ5", SYMLINK+="cyclops" ACTION=="add",
RUN+="/etc/udev/scripts/mount_cyclops.sh"


daid@titan ~ % more /etc/udev/scripts/mount_cyclops.sh
#!/bin/bash
#mount Seagate FreeAgent Go with serial 5LZ2XQJ5 to /mnt/cyclops on ACTION='add'
mount -t ext3 /dev/cyclops /mnt/cyclops
chown root:users /mnt/cyclops
chmod 775 /mnt/cyclops

daid@titan ~ % ls -l /etc/udev/scripts/mount_cyclops.sh
-rwxr--r-- 1 root root 186 Apr 27 04:21 /etc/udev/scripts/mount_cyclops.sh
daid@titan ~ % ls -l /etc/udev/rules.d/10-local.rules
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1409 May 25 13:43 /etc/udev/rules.d/10-local.rules

The udev rule will do a tricky thing making the /dev/cyclops symlink
so it doesn't matter what *order* the device was connected.  Rather
than 'naming' it like in some other operating systems, you just give
it a static mount point.  When you're done, just manually umount the
mount point.

Cheers,
daid

Re: [gentoo-user] How do I eject an audio CD inside Gnome?

[daid kahl]

> daid@titan ~ % cat /etc/udev/rules.d/10-local.rules
> # external USB, Seagate FreeAgent GO aka cyclops
>  SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", DRIVERS=="usb", ATTRS{serial}=="
> 5LZ2XQJ5", SYMLINK+="cyclops" ACTION=="add",
> RUN+="/etc/udev/scripts/mount_cyclops.sh"

Sorry, but make sure that the one entry (begins with SUBSYSTEMS) is on
*only one line* since that is a general requirement for a udev rule
format (but some email programs may auto-indent or mis-represent the
single line, but this is a necessary detail, just like makefiles don't
paste well from html either due to whitespace issues).

~daid.

Re: [gentoo-user] How do I eject an audio CD inside Gnome?

[Indi]

On Mon, May 30, 2011 at 12:10:02AM +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> Apparently, though unproven, at 23:37 on Sunday 29 May 2011, Alan Mackenzie 
> did opine thusly:
> 
> > Hi, Neil.
> > 
> > On Sun, May 29, 2011 at 10:13:08PM +0100, Neil Bothwick wrote:
> > > On Sun, 29 May 2011 22:58:39 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > > > With a CD in the drive and gnome running, please post the output of
> > > > 
> > > > mount
> > > > cat /etc/mtab
> > > 
> > > And the output of eject -v
> > 
> > acm@acm ~ $ eject -v
> > eject: using default device `cdrom'
> > eject: device name is `cdrom'
> > eject: expanded name is `/dev/cdrom'
> > eject: `/dev/cdrom' is a link to `/dev/sr0'
> > eject: `/dev/sr0' is not mounted
> > eject: `/dev/sr0' is not a mount point
> > eject: `/dev/sr0' is not a multipartition device
> > eject: trying to eject `/dev/sr0' using CD-ROM eject command
> > eject: CD-ROM eject command failed
> > eject: trying to eject `/dev/sr0' using SCSI commands
> > eject: SCSI eject succeeded
> > 
> > (This was run as a normal user, not root.)
> > 
> > Hey, eject -v works!  :-)  It's still not quite ideal, though.
> 
> 
> My money says you've been hit by the Gnome Borg - where you are only permitted 
> to do things the way the gnome devs have deemed to be appropriate and 
> TheOneTrueWay(tm). After all, you are just a user, what do you know? The devs 
> know better, you must trust them!
> 
> I can't be of much more help to you, I don't use Gnome at all (see above)
> 

The only real reason gnome exists is so kde4 users can have someone 
to sneer at and look down upon, while they frantcally attempt to 
make kde4 actually do something other than hog RAM and feed their OCD.
:)

-- 
caveat utilitor
♫ ❤ ♫ ❤ ♫ ❤ ♫ ❤ 

Re: [gentoo-user] How do I eject an audio CD inside Gnome?

[Alan McKinnon]

Apparently, though unproven, at 13:46 on Monday 30 May 2011, Mick did opine 
thusly:

> e17 is the best desktop for me, because it is extremely light footed, has 
> enough eye candy (if you need that) and it is relatively
> configurable.  Until  it becomes stable you'll need to compile it from
> svn.
> 
> Alan, I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "huge mind shift"?  Unless
> my  mind shifted and wasn't aware of it!  :))

I meant that for someone using e17 for the very first time they will find 
something quite unfamiliar.

They'll also need to get into raster's head to some degree too :-)


-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] How do I eject an audio CD inside Gnome?

[Alan Mackenzie]

Hello, Stroller.

On Tue, May 31, 2011 at 12:26:45AM +0100, Stroller wrote:

> On 30/5/2011, at 11:10am, Alan Mackenzie wrote:
> > ...
> > Right clicking on "Audio Disc" gives an "eject" menu point.  YUCK!!!
> > If I'd've wanted an Apple Macintosh, I know where to buy one.  I just
> > want my drive's eject button to work.


> Your Linux box isn't working, and you're complaining about Macs?

No, comPARing, not comPLAINing.  :-)

> That seems a little inappropriate.

> Let me assure you: when a Mac has a hardware button, it will work just
> fine. It won't be disabled for no reason. 

I seem to remember an old Mac back in ~1992 not having a button to eject
the floppy.  That forced you to use the mouse in the trash can method,
just as Gnome is forcing me to use the mouse to eject.

> This is why I use Mac for the desktop. Because when I get home after a
> hard day's work fixing computers I don't want to have to do a "bat shit
> crazy amount of work to keep things working" [1]. I don't want the kind
> of grief you've been experiencing with this issue. I'd *love* to use
> Linux on the desktop, but it's stuff like this that discourages me.

Yes, I can understand.

> Right-clicking a CD to get an eject menu is very well-established
> across all UIs. It's better established in Windows, in fact (since c
> 95), than it is in Macs, which used to be criticised because one
> dragged the CD "to the trash" (actually, the Trash icon changes to an
> eject icon as soon as you start to drag a CD in MacOS). I would be
> *extremely* surprised to hear that KDE didn't have a right-click eject
> menu option when I last used it seriously a decade ago. None of this
> need prevent the drive's physical eject button working - it should be
> possible for the o/s to be aware of that (as it is in Windows, for
> instance).

Totally agree.  I don't object to their being a clicky way to eject a CD;
I object to it being the _only_ way.  My CD/DVD drive is behind a sturdy
sliding door.  Sooner or later, I'm going to try to eject the disk with
this door shut, with undefined results.  I'd prefer not to get into
dangerous habits.

> I'd be the first to admit that Macs have flaws, but this isn't one (or
> two) of them.

The biggest flaw the Mac has is that it's a computer.  ;-)

> > It gets worse.  If you double click on "Audio Disc", it opens a
> > window with the "files" uselessly displayed.  

> I'll bet it doesn't display the actual files. Audio CDs don't have
> files, they have a single spiral of wav-like audio data. AIUI Linux
> desktops *present* audio CDs so that they *appear* as audio files, so
> that you can more conveniently drag and drop them to your MP3 music
> collection.

Ah, right.  I dragged a track to the desktop, which converted it to .wav.
When I tried to play it, it was a cacophony, a sort of mixture of two
streams one to seconds apart.  I think I'm better just playing the disk
with Aqualung.

> Typically there is a preference which allows you to choose between
> copying them as MP3, AAC, FLAC &c - the audio data will be transcoded
> to the selected format only after you drag & drop the icons in another
> folder. 

> Stroller.

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).

Re: [gentoo-user] How do I eject an audio CD inside Gnome?

[Mick]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: Text/Plain, Size: 907 bytes --]

On Tuesday 31 May 2011 14:45:47 Alan McKinnon wrote:
> Apparently, though unproven, at 13:46 on Monday 30 May 2011, Mick did opine
> 
> thusly:
> > e17 is the best desktop for me, because it is extremely light footed, has
> > enough eye candy (if you need that) and it is relatively
> > configurable.  Until  it becomes stable you'll need to compile it from
> > svn.
> > 
> > Alan, I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "huge mind shift"? 
> > Unless my  mind shifted and wasn't aware of it!  :))
> 
> I meant that for someone using e17 for the very first time they will find
> something quite unfamiliar.

I know what you're mean!  I am still looking at the advanced Fonts config menu 
waiting for inspiration ... one day I hope it will make sense how that GUI is 
meant to work.


> They'll also need to get into raster's head to some degree too :-)

:-) 
-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] How do I eject an audio CD inside Gnome?

[Alan McKinnon]

, though unproven, at 00:05 on Thursday 02 June 2011, Mick did opine thusly:

> On Tuesday 31 May 2011 14:45:47 Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > Apparently, though unproven, at 13:46 on Monday 30 May 2011, Mick did
> > opine
> > 
> > thusly:
> > > e17 is the best desktop for me, because it is extremely light footed,
> > > has enough eye candy (if you need that) and it is relatively
> > > configurable.  Until  it becomes stable you'll need to compile it from
> > > svn.
> > > 
> > > Alan, I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "huge mind shift"?
> > > Unless my  mind shifted and wasn't aware of it!  :))
> > 
> > I meant that for someone using e17 for the very first time they will find
> > something quite unfamiliar.
> 
> I know what you're mean!  I am still looking at the advanced Fonts config
> menu waiting for inspiration ... one day I hope it will make sense how
> that GUI is meant to work.

It sort of works something like this:

edje does themes, one of it's tricks is to have standard theme-able elements. 
Title bars look like this, menu text looks like that, and so on The advanced 
config lets you change these settings to be different to what is coded into 
the theme in use.

Which is all very fine and dandy - the same approach would let you change the 
images used for min, max, close buttons for example.

Except I've never actually seen the dialog DO something. I've fiddled with 
various settings and ... nothing changes.

So I dunno. Maybe it's dead code and not a single dev has ever noticed.

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] How do I eject an audio CD inside Gnome?

[Mick]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: Text/Plain, Size: 1976 bytes --]

On Wednesday 01 Jun 2011 23:50:18 Alan McKinnon wrote:
> , though unproven, at 00:05 on Thursday 02 June 2011, Mick did opine thusly:
> > On Tuesday 31 May 2011 14:45:47 Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > > Apparently, though unproven, at 13:46 on Monday 30 May 2011, Mick did
> > > opine
> > > 
> > > thusly:
> > > > e17 is the best desktop for me, because it is extremely light footed,
> > > > has enough eye candy (if you need that) and it is relatively
> > > > configurable.  Until  it becomes stable you'll need to compile it
> > > > from svn.
> > > > 
> > > > Alan, I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "huge mind shift"?
> > > > Unless my  mind shifted and wasn't aware of it!  :))
> > > 
> > > I meant that for someone using e17 for the very first time they will
> > > find something quite unfamiliar.
> > 
> > I know what you're mean!  I am still looking at the advanced Fonts config
> > menu waiting for inspiration ... one day I hope it will make sense how
> > that GUI is meant to work.
> 
> It sort of works something like this:
> 
> edje does themes, one of it's tricks is to have standard theme-able
> elements. Title bars look like this, menu text looks like that, and so on
> The advanced config lets you change these settings to be different to what
> is coded into the theme in use.
> 
> Which is all very fine and dandy - the same approach would let you change
> the images used for min, max, close buttons for example.
> 
> Except I've never actually seen the dialog DO something. I've fiddled with
> various settings and ... nothing changes.
> 
> So I dunno. Maybe it's dead code and not a single dev has ever noticed.

I'm staying clear of it for now, because it does not have a 'reset to 
defaults' button.  My confusion is that I can click to an item on the left, 
e.g. "Menu Item" but there is no font on the right already highlighted to show 
what is the default font for the selected item.
-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] How do I eject an audio CD inside Gnome?

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Tuesday 31 May 2011 00:26:45 Stroller wrote:
> On 30/5/2011, at 11:10am, Alan Mackenzie wrote:
> > ...
> > Right clicking on "Audio Disc" gives an "eject" menu point.  YUCK!!!  If
> > I'd've wanted an Apple Macintosh, I know where to buy one.  I just want
> > my drive's eject button to work.
> 
> Your Linux box isn't working, and you're complaining about Macs?
> 
> That seems a little inappropriate.
> 
> Let me assure you: when a Mac has a hardware button, it will work just fine.
> It won't be disabled for no reason.
> 
> This is why I use Mac for the desktop. Because when I get home after a hard
> day's work fixing computers I don't want to have to do a "bat shit crazy
> amount of work to keep things working" [1

so why do you own a mac?

Just days ago I beachballed a mac adding some pictures to a word document. 
Yeah, that is the legendary MacOS stability.

Next time I sat on a mac there were 37gb of stuff in trash. The poor owner 
tried to delete them. MacOS showed the apropriate reaction, no error anyway - 
and no file was deleted.

Had to go down to the shell - and even after that some crap was still left. 
Undeletable and with no error messages or informations why.

Apple's macos is the worst of all OS I had to deal with. OpenBSD is a hostile 
little bitch, but at least you can get the information you need out of it. 
Solaris? Not half as broken. WindowsXP? A sow rolling in mud munching on 
garbage but at least it does not die a horrible death just because you add 
some pics to a word file. VIsta is just a bigger sow.

Re: [gentoo-user] How do I eject an audio CD inside Gnome?

[Stroller]

On 3 June 2011, at 02:32, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
>> ...
>> Your Linux box isn't working, and you're complaining about Macs?
>> 
>> That seems a little inappropriate.
>> 
>> Let me assure you: when a Mac has a hardware button, it will work just fine.
>> It won't be disabled for no reason.
>> 
>> This is why I use Mac for the desktop. Because when I get home after a hard
>> day's work fixing computers I don't want to have to do a "bat shit crazy
>> amount of work to keep things working" [1
> 
> so why do you own a mac?
> 
> Just days ago I beachballed a mac adding some pictures to a word document. 
> Yeah, that is the legendary MacOS stability.
> 
> Next time I sat on a mac there were 37gb of stuff in trash. The poor owner 
> tried to delete them. MacOS showed the apropriate reaction, no error anyway - 
> and no file was deleted.
> 
> Had to go down to the shell - and even after that some crap was still left. 
> Undeletable and with no error messages or informations why.

Part of my post that you chose not to quote was "I'd be the first to admit that Macs have flaws."

All desktops / UIs / operating-systems are a compromise. I don't believe any of them are perfect.

Last time I used Linux on the desktop (in ernest) I had some dreadful problems with KDE crashing or failing to open under certain circumstances, which I found frustrating and impossible to overcome. That was several years ago, and no-one on the mailing list or Usenet group I tried was able to help; I don't think I knew at the time to try the KDE mailing list. 

Currently the biggest thing holding me back from giving Linux another good chance to prove itself to me is basically that Mac OS X is "good enough" for me. It's exceedingly easy to try the new version - I'm booted off an external USB drive as I write this, and I can copy across my ~ directory from my old system just the way you would with Linux. That's something you can't do with Windows, for example.

If I wanted to try Linux, it would take me at least a week to give it a fair chance, to install it, to configure my desktop, to find equivalent applications and configure those, too. And if I didn't like then I'd have that hassle of moving back to Mac OS and having all my files (ODF document files and even just such trivial things as chatlogs) in different formats and so on.

That's 7 - 10 days of my life that I have no interest in spending. What's the benefit for me?

One concern about using Linux on the desktop is that I don't think the apps will be as good or as polished as the ones I use currently. Another is that (I believe) gestures are not supported in present window managers - presently I can pinch outwards with two fingers to zoom in on an image, or I can swipe with 4 fingers to show an overview of my virtual desktops and open windows. Spreading all 5 fingers shows me the desktop. So I don't like mice, and I was getting pissed off with cleaning my trackball on a daily basis (the ball kinda gets all clogged and slow) … it's hard to find a device with as many buttons as I can make trackpad gestures.

You complain of beachballing OS X, using Word. But Word is a Microsoft application. ;)

Nevertheless, there are some things I agree are absolutely shit about OS X. Some of these are that way because Steve Jobs wanted them that way, and his "good taste" is not universal; some are purely technical. It's possible to make OS X swap horribly - that might well be what happened when you dragged the image into Word, but you don't tell us how much RAM that machine had. You don't tell us whether you checked swap consumption in `top` or Activity Monitor.

Safari's memory usage seems pretty bad, and I have been easily able to consistently reproduce on occasions a beachball for several minutes as pages are exchanged between RAM and disk; there's a well-known printing bug that causes this, and some particular websites. Almost always it'll sort itself out if it's left alone to settle down. My next machine will have 8gb of RAM, and I'm pretty confident I won't see this problem; I typically have 40 - 60 browser tabs open in perhaps 8 different windows.

OS X's HFS gets insanely fragmented in a way that many self-identified "Mac experts" will deny. They clearly haven't tested their assertions using Amit Singh's hfsdebug (or fileXray) tool.

Nevertheless, these are very much manageable problems, they're known and they're clearly defined. 

If you've got some stuff in Trash that is not deletable, I would guess that you've got a corrupt file system. That can happen on any o/s. This feels like like old joke about "I can always get technical support by joining IRC and saying that 'Linux is crap because it doesn't do X'. Then half the channel will spend ages telling me how to do X in Linux". Format an external USB hard-drive as bootable (I believe you use "GUID Partition Scheme" for Intel Macs and HFS+ Journalled; there is no magic bootable tick-box to check, and no bootloader to install) then boot to an OS X installation CD and open a Terminal instead of the installer (from the Tools menu, usually). Copy the entire contents of the old drive to the new using `ditto` (using all "--archive --preserve-rescource-forks" type options, just to be safe). If you hold the ALT (or "Option") key when the computer restarts you should be able to boot from the external drive, otherwise boot to the old drive and choose the new one in System Preferences (under Startup disk). If the undeletable files are missing from the Trash in the new system, or you can now delete them (I assume you already checked their Unix file permissions) then the problem was probably filesystem corruption. You should be able to remove the drive from the external caddy, put it inside the Mac and use it instead of the old one (which may just have a corrupt file system but which is probably suffering from bad sectors / hardware failure).

Stroller.

Re: [gentoo-user] How do I eject an audio CD inside Gnome?

[Dale]

Stroller wrote:
> My next machine will have 8gb of RAM, and I'm pretty confident I won't see this problem; I typically have 40 - 60 browser tabs open in perhaps 8 different windows.
>
>    
> Stroller.
>
>    

I used to do that when I was on dial-up.  Large pages would take so 
long, I would click on the links then go take a shower while they 
loaded.  Now that I have DSL, that is sort of funny.  I thought I was 
the only one that did that.  lol

Way back when I worked on computers, we serviced Mac's, well Apple in 
General.  I always liked Macs.  They were easy to work on and just plain 
worked back then.  I'm not sure where Linux was at that time.  This 
would be about 1990 or so.  I'm a old fart sometimes.  o_O

If you think 8Gbs is cool, try 16Gbs.  It takes it a while to even fill 
up with cache.  I tried putting portage's work directory on tmpfs, it 
wasn't any faster.  I could have spent that on a really large drive 
instead.

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] How do I eject an audio CD inside Gnome?

[Indi]

On Sat, Jun 04, 2011 at 05:10:01AM +0200, Stroller wrote:
> 
> Part of my post that you chose not to quote was "I'd be the first to admit that Macs have flaws."
> 
> All desktops / UIs / operating-systems are a compromise. I don't believe any of them are perfect.
> 
> Last time I used Linux on the desktop (in ernest) I had some dreadful problems with KDE crashing or failing to open under certain circumstances, which I found frustrating and impossible to overcome. That was several years ago, and no-one on the mailing list or Usenet group I tried was able to help; I don't think I knew at the time to try the KDE mailing list. 
>

That's not a problem with Linux, it's a problem with kde.
That's once of the reasons I strongly dislike kde4 BTW -- with kde3 most 
windows users were impressed and easily switched. As you found (and as we see 
daily on this list), kde4 has yet to achieve that level of carefree stability.
People whose first experience with *nix involves kde4 are bound to come
away relieved they have windows to go back to! 

> Currently the biggest thing holding me back from giving Linux another good chance to prove itself to me is basically that Mac OS X is "good enough" for me.

Low standards, or perhaps you just value "other things"?

Does Apple Mail give you the option of wrapping text at a sensible
number of characters? Perhaps it's just your settings... 

> 
> One concern about using Linux on the desktop is that I don't think the apps will be as good or as polished as the ones I use currently

Never understood the obsession with "polish".
Either it works properly or it doesn't. The "polishing" Apple
delivers always seems to end in me looking at a blnding box of light
with the only recourse being to dim *everything*, invert colors on
*everything*, or wear shades. Incredibly annoying, and not my idea of
"polished" at all (then again, I genuinely don't see why anyone would 
buy 100 watt light bulbs other than for industrial use). Apparently Apple 
doesn't give a rat's behind about accessibility issues. 
"Imperfect physical specimens need not apply" is what Jobs would
probably say if he were honest. Disability is *so* uncool...

Another is that (I believe) gestures are not supported in present window managers - presently I can pinch outwards with two fingers to zoom in on an image, or I can swipe with 4 fingers to show an overview of my virtual desktops and open windows. Spreading all 5 fingers shows me the desktop. So I don't like mice, and I was getting pissed off with cleaning my trackball on a daily basis (the ball kinda gets all clogged and slow) … it's hard to find a device with as many buttons as I can make trackpad gestures.

You have a keyboard, why the need to "pinch" something? :)

> 
> Nevertheless, there are some things I agree are absolutely shit about OS X. 
>

Yes, like FINDER (actually makes windows explorer look almost reasonable), 
utter crap security, xnu, and Jobs' stupid obsession with microkernels.
The Mac Defender fiasco is the beginning of the end.
A similar thing happened with the original Mac OS, and within two years
there were hundred of malware instances just like windows.
Apple is more interested in design than in engineering, it's been their 
downfall before.

You say OS X is "good enough"
I say you've got some mighty low standards.

-- 
caveat utilitor
♫ ❤ ♫ ❤ ♫ ❤ ♫ ❤ 

Re: [gentoo-user] How do I eject an audio CD inside Gnome?

[Alan McKinnon]

Apparently, though unproven, at 13:35 on Saturday 04 June 2011, Indi did opine 
thusly:

> You say OS X is "good enough"
> I say you've got some mighty low standards.

My manager's predecessor's precedessor's precedessor had the same thing with 
SuSE and installed that goddamn piece of shit on 100+ boxes.

Sure, it all looks neat after first install. Sybase ASE goes on and starts up 
real nice as do all sorts of other proprietary (and despoke) apps. Wait 6 
months, try do a perfectly reasonable upgrade. Something easy like, say 
syslog-ng-1.6 to syslog-ng-3.x. Carnage.

There's a certain mentality that goes with these New! Improved! Shiny! OSes 
and their magic sauce special apps. They only work if you use it exactly as 
the vendors thinks - which is necessarily an extremely narrow view.

/etc ain't broke, I can't understand why SuSE insists on fixing it

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] How do I eject an audio CD inside Gnome?

[Indi]

On Sat, Jun 04, 2011 at 06:47:34PM +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> Apparently, though unproven, at 13:35 on Saturday 04 June 2011, Indi did opine 
> thusly:
> 
> > You say OS X is "good enough"
> > I say you've got some mighty low standards.
> 
> My manager's predecessor's precedessor's precedessor had the same thing with 
> SuSE and installed that goddamn piece of shit on 100+ boxes.
> 
> Sure, it all looks neat after first install. Sybase ASE goes on and starts up 
> real nice as do all sorts of other proprietary (and despoke) apps. Wait 6 
> months, try do a perfectly reasonable upgrade. Something easy like, say 
> syslog-ng-1.6 to syslog-ng-3.x. Carnage.
> 
> There's a certain mentality that goes with these New! Improved! Shiny! OSes 
> and their magic sauce special apps. They only work if you use it exactly as 
> the vendors thinks - which is necessarily an extremely narrow view.
> 
> /etc ain't broke, I can't understand why SuSE insists on fixing it
> 

It's the desire to create something only you can fix, so you get users 
over a barrel. Windows mentality...

-- 
caveat utilitor
♫ ❤ ♫ ❤ ♫ ❤ ♫ ❤ 

Re: [gentoo-user] How do I eject an audio CD inside Gnome?

[Mick]

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On Saturday 04 Jun 2011 18:25:00 Indi wrote:
> On Sat, Jun 04, 2011 at 06:47:34PM +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > Apparently, though unproven, at 13:35 on Saturday 04 June 2011, Indi did
> > opine
> > 
> > thusly:
> > > You say OS X is "good enough"
> > > I say you've got some mighty low standards.
> > 
> > My manager's predecessor's precedessor's precedessor had the same thing
> > with SuSE and installed that goddamn piece of shit on 100+ boxes.
> > 
> > Sure, it all looks neat after first install. Sybase ASE goes on and
> > starts up real nice as do all sorts of other proprietary (and despoke)
> > apps. Wait 6 months, try do a perfectly reasonable upgrade. Something
> > easy like, say syslog-ng-1.6 to syslog-ng-3.x. Carnage.
> > 
> > There's a certain mentality that goes with these New! Improved! Shiny!
> > OSes and their magic sauce special apps. They only work if you use it
> > exactly as the vendors thinks - which is necessarily an extremely narrow
> > view.
> > 
> > /etc ain't broke, I can't understand why SuSE insists on fixing it
> 
> It's the desire to create something only you can fix, so you get users
> over a barrel. Windows mentality...

If it weren't for SUSE and Fedora I wouldn't be running Gentoo for all these 
years ...  ;-)
-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] How do I eject an audio CD inside Gnome?

[Stroller]

On 4 June 2011, at 12:35, Indi wrote:
>> ...
>> Last time I used Linux on the desktop (in ernest) I had some dreadful problems with KDE crashing or failing to open under certain circumstances, which I found frustrating and impossible to overcome. That was several years ago, and no-one on the mailing list or Usenet group I tried was able to help; I don't think I knew at the time to try the KDE mailing list. 
> 
> That's not a problem with Linux, it's a problem with kde.

You're right. I should have said "last time I used a Free Software desktop system in earnest."

> That's once of the reasons I strongly dislike kde4 BTW -- with kde3 most 
> windows users were impressed and easily switched. As you found (and as we see 
> daily on this list), kde4 has yet to achieve that level of carefree stability.

I'm afraid I didn't find that at all, sir.

This would have been KDE 2, I would guess from the date (c 2001, Mandrake, c v8). 

> People whose first experience with *nix involves kde4 …

And then I tried Irix for a while. Maybe a year or so.

>> Currently the biggest thing holding me back from giving Linux another good chance to prove itself to me is basically that Mac OS X is "good enough" for me.
> 
> Low standards, or perhaps you just value "other things"?

I find something slightly insulting about your reference to my "standards", and I'm having a little trouble articulating quite why. I don't know, maybe it's because I'm used to a person having "low standards" when his girlfriend is dumb, fat or ugly. "That guy has some low standards, man", "Did you see the face on her?", "Blimey! What about her arse?"

And this is pretty ridiculous, because you obviously don't know what you're talking about. You clearly wouldn't tolerate using a Mac for even a few weeks - I doubt even a day - so how can you know what it's really like to work with?

It's impossible for either of us to know which is the "better" operating system, without committing several weeks to the project. If you're prepared to do that, then maybe we can arrange a proper comparison. Let me know when your iMac arrives and tell me what window manager you suggest.

> Does Apple Mail give you the option of wrapping text at a sensible
> number of characters? Perhaps it's just your settings... 

My client wraps lines at a perfectly sensible length.

http://linux.stroller.uk.eu.org/Email%20Line%20Wrapping.png

>> One concern about using Linux on the desktop is that I don't think the apps will be as good or as polished as the ones I use currently
> 
> Never understood the obsession with "polish".
> Either it works properly or it doesn't.

There's a difference between "functional" and "working well". 

To me, this is all about getting things done. Quickly and efficiently.

> Apparently Apple doesn't give a rat's behind about accessibility issues. 


Sorry, I don't know anything about accessibility.

>> Another is that (I believe) gestures are not supported in present window managers - presently I can pinch outwards with two fingers to zoom in on an image, or I can swipe with 4 fingers to show an overview of my virtual desktops and open windows. Spreading all 5 fingers shows me the desktop. So I don't like mice, and I was getting pissed off with cleaning my trackball on a daily basis (the ball kinda gets all clogged and slow) … it's hard to find a device with as many buttons as I can make trackpad gestures.
> 
> You have a keyboard, why the need to "pinch" something? :)

Seriously? You don't have a mouse? Because there are a lot of other people here you could be discussing this with before starting on one of my comments and making this about operating-systems and window managers. 

We have keyboard shortcuts because sometimes it's quicker not to have to reach for the mouse. Likewise mice have, in recent years, sprouted additional buttons because sometimes it's easier to use one of those than to reach for the keyboard.

In some ways multitouch trackpad gestures are simply a whole load more buttons than you have room for on a single mouse. But they are also one of those things that once you "get" them, you'll never go back. A bit like `screen` (or `tmux`) or using the command-line in general (or digital communication or lots of other great examples that sprung to mind easily before I got distracted, and which I can now no longer recollect). I can't blame you at all for being sceptical, because they definitely don't click immediately, but stick with them a few frustrating days (I did only because my 5 year old desktop died and I was forced to rely on my laptop for a while), and pretty soon you'll be asking yourself "how did I live without this?" (and perhaps more to the point: "how would I live without this?").

>> Nevertheless, there are some things I agree are absolutely shit about OS X. 
> 
> Yes, like FINDER (actually makes windows explorer look almost reasonable), 

You know, Finder is not as bad as you would imagine. As Alan says - it works exactly how Steve thinks it should work. I can imagine it is absolutely rubbish if you're forced to use it for only a few minutes at a time. It's been so long since I started using OS X that I can't really remember how it was at first, but I assuredly felt that way about Classic (to MacOS 9). But what I do remember from my first days of OS X is that after a couple of weeks I got used to it - I have been perfectly happy ever after.

I absolutely agree with you that software should *not* force you to do things its way (the software should do things *your* way) and, personally, I do think that Windows Explorer or KDE are better. Having a tree view on the left hand-side of the file-system navigator makes life a lot easier; I prefer emphasis on right-clicking, and feel that Finder leaves a lot to be desired in this respect; Finder's viewing and sorting options are shitty. But you know what? It really doesn't make much difference. Once you get used to doing it Steve's way it doesn't take any longer.

I can walk out of the store with a new Mac tomorrow (or do a fresh install on this one), double-click on the iChat icon and enter my AIM screenname and password - video conferencing will work immediately. Within 5 minutes of opening the box I can be chatting with my mum in Australia, and I can just click again to invite my sister to the group. 

Let's compare that with Meino Cramer's experience. He first posted here about webcams on the 25th July 2009. He was "still having problems" when he posted at 9pm yesterday. (As an aside: I should make a screencast showing how effortlessly I found that information; the search here is great.)

If buying a Mac saves me only 2 days of messing about trying to get a webcam working, then it has paid for itself. I mean that in terms of the compromises I'm prepared to make: I'm plenty happy to take a second longer navigating to a folder to drag and drop a file if I never have to care what driver I need for my webcam or wifi card, if I never have to `make menuconfig` and wait for it to compile. The Finder interface would have to be *really* contrived - it would take me an an awful lot of drags and drops at a couple of extra seconds a time - to make that a net loss. On my server? Sure, it can compile away, doing an `emerge -u world` and a revdep-rebuild to its heart's content. But on my desktop I don't want to be interrupted by that - I'm interacting with it all the time and every minute of maintenance is a minute I'm not surfing the web, chatting or engaging in petty disagreements ;) on mailing lists.

Finder is shit? All I'm doing is dragging some files from my SD card into a folder called "Photos". How bad can it be?

> The Mac Defender fiasco is the beginning of the end.
> A similar thing happened with the original Mac OS, and within two years
> there were hundred of malware instances just like windows.

You know, you might be right. 

If we could see the future, we would all be dot-com millionaires. 

10.3 and 10.4 were great releases, IMO. Each release of OS X since, I have thought "this looks a bit shit, what's Steve going to mess up for me this time?"

Each time since I've contemplated switching to Linux and, so far, each time the butchery hasn't been as bad as I've feared. Each time some nice improvements have been made that I've been pleased with.

I've been lucky 3 times now, I don't imagine this will go on forever.

Linux will surely be the first o/s I'll try when OS X no longer meets my needs. And the readers of this list will probably be the first to hear about it. I've got nothing to hide here, nothing to boast about. 

If you could prove to me that Linux would be a better desktop experience than OS X, then I'd be grateful to you for your help. But I don't see that you can. You can't prove it with a few screenshots or even with a video. I don't think you're trying with your words, because you're not telling me all the great things about a Linux desktop, you're trying to shit on the interface that I use for several hours a day, every day. And I know about that better than you do.

The only way this fantastic Linux desktop environment can be proven to me is by experiencing it, and I have no need to do that - I have a great workspace here on my Mac. Right now all you're doing is arguing and wasting my time - in fact the time I've spent replying to Volker and you, I could have installed a Linux desktop by now. Tell me "this is great", "that is great" and maybe I'll give it a go. Right now you're in a very poor position to convince me, because all your arguments are based on the platform that I know much, much better than you do.

If someone posts again in the future saying "my Linux box isn't working, Macs are so crap" then I will pipe up and make appropriate corrections. Apart from that, you all get one response. This was yours. (I should have mentioned this in my reply to Volker, but he doesn't come here to listen to other peoples' opinions, so I gave up on him a long time ago). I'll defend my position, but I'm not going to get drawn into some dumb flamewar - if you want that, I suggest you put your foot down to 88mph and go argue vi vs. emacs.

I use Linux every day, and I am devoted to it. Of course my Mac doesn't do everything a Linux box does! Nor does Linux do everything my Mac does; I know Linux well enough to be fairly confident of that. I don't live in a house with only one computer, though, and I doubt that you do, either.

All I'm asking is that you keep an open mind, and that everybody not talk shit about things they don't know. Just because Volker helped his auntie with her computer does not make him an expert on Apple Macs. Are you telling me that I could sit down at a Linux desktop tomorrow and find my way around it as well as you can? Do you think I would find all the preferences you have set up just the way you like them? No, probably not. I would love to have a really *detailed* discussion about Linux desktop interface nuances with you - we might agree on many points - but it would take me 3 weeks before I could start having that conversation about a single window manager. 

Stroller.

Re: [gentoo-user] How do I eject an audio CD inside Gnome?

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Sat, 4 Jun 2011 23:09:28 +0100, Stroller wrote:

> My client wraps lines at a perfectly sensible length.
> 
> http://linux.stroller.uk.eu.org/Email%20Line%20Wrapping.png

It's not always a readable length. Long lines are much harder to read,
that's why newspapers use columns. The accepted width was generally
considered to be 2.5 to 3.5 alphabets (not characters because of
proportional type) which matches up rather nicely with the 70-odd
character generally recommended for mail.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

WinErr 003: Dynamic linking error - Your mistake is now in every file

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Re: [gentoo-user] How do I eject an audio CD inside Gnome?

[Indi]

On Sat, Jun 04, 2011 at 11:09:28PM +0100, Stroller wrote:
> 
> You know, Finder is not as bad as you would imagine. 
>

I don't have to imagine.
Bought my first Mac (an SE) in 1987, and my last in 2009.
The '87 SE still works, the 2009 mini no longer does and was a 
buggy piece o' crap all its life. Unusual, yes. I was unlucky.
I still use a G4 eMac running Tiger for some audio work, you 
can't beat macs for that -- but I can't stand to use one as an 
all-purpose computer. 

If you have to move large amounts of data around Finder is 
horrible. Of course it's fine for lite duty use like moving data 
to your usb stick. 

And Apple Mail will screw you over, refusing to wrap properly or
suddenly composing in html without telling you and after it's already 
been told text only, etc etc. I've had plenty enough experience using 
a Mac to give an informed opinion and submit rational observations,
thank you. :) 

Of course, there are *many* conflicting informed opinions, it depends 
on what you do and how you prefer to do it. For some people OS X is 
the bee's knees. 

As for the "low standards" crack, I apologize if you were offended, 
it wasn't meant to be serious. 

-- 
caveat utilitor
♫ ❤ ♫ ❤ ♫ ❤ ♫ ❤ 

Re: [gentoo-user] How do I eject an audio CD inside Gnome?

[Mick]

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On Saturday 04 Jun 2011 23:38:09 Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Sat, 4 Jun 2011 23:09:28 +0100, Stroller wrote:
> > My client wraps lines at a perfectly sensible length.
> > 
> > http://linux.stroller.uk.eu.org/Email%20Line%20Wrapping.png
> 
> It's not always a readable length. Long lines are much harder to read,
> that's why newspapers use columns. The accepted width was generally
> considered to be 2.5 to 3.5 alphabets (not characters because of
> proportional type) which matches up rather nicely with the 70-odd
> character generally recommended for mail.

Strange, on Kmail Indi's text does not wrap as shown in Stroller's screenshot, 
but extends to the end of the message window just as Stroller's text does.
-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] How do I eject an audio CD inside Gnome?

[Dale]

Mick wrote:
> On Saturday 04 Jun 2011 23:38:09 Neil Bothwick wrote:
>    
>> On Sat, 4 Jun 2011 23:09:28 +0100, Stroller wrote:
>>      
>>> My client wraps lines at a perfectly sensible length.
>>>
>>> http://linux.stroller.uk.eu.org/Email%20Line%20Wrapping.png
>>>        
>> It's not always a readable length. Long lines are much harder to read,
>> that's why newspapers use columns. The accepted width was generally
>> considered to be 2.5 to 3.5 alphabets (not characters because of
>> proportional type) which matches up rather nicely with the 70-odd
>> character generally recommended for mail.
>>      
> Strange, on Kmail Indi's text does not wrap as shown in Stroller's screenshot,
> but extends to the end of the message window just as Stroller's text does.
>    

It was here too. I have one more question.  What the heck is going on 
with our email stuff?  First broken threads, now word wrapping not 
working correctly.  Did someone break a mirror?  O_O

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] How do I eject an audio CD inside Gnome?

[Indi]

On Sat, Jun 04, 2011 at 06:37:31PM -0500, Dale wrote:
> Mick wrote:
> > On Saturday 04 Jun 2011 23:38:09 Neil Bothwick wrote:
> >    
> >> On Sat, 4 Jun 2011 23:09:28 +0100, Stroller wrote:
> >>      
> >>> My client wraps lines at a perfectly sensible length.
> >>>
> >>> http://linux.stroller.uk.eu.org/Email%20Line%20Wrapping.png
> >>>        
> >> It's not always a readable length. Long lines are much harder to read,
> >> that's why newspapers use columns. The accepted width was generally
> >> considered to be 2.5 to 3.5 alphabets (not characters because of
> >> proportional type) which matches up rather nicely with the 70-odd
> >> character generally recommended for mail.
> >>      
> > Strange, on Kmail Indi's text does not wrap as shown in Stroller's screenshot,
> > but extends to the end of the message window just as Stroller's text does.
> >    
> 
> It was here too. I have one more question.  What the heck is going on 
> with our email stuff?  First broken threads, now word wrapping not 
> working correctly.  Did someone break a mirror?  O_O
> 

All mail here is edited in vim, so I know I'm wrapping my text.
The quoted text left in in my replies usually appears "as is" deliberately, 
as a courtesy. It's always good to verify what one's mail looks like in 
another MUA. :)

-- 
caveat utilitor
♫ ❤ ♫ ❤ ♫ ❤ ♫ ❤ 

Re: [gentoo-user] How do I eject an audio CD inside Gnome?

[Alan McKinnon]

Apparently, though unproven, at 00:09 on Sunday 05 June 2011, Stroller did 
opine thusly:

> > Yes, like FINDER (actually makes windows explorer look almost
> > reasonable), 
> 
> You know, Finder is not as bad as you would imagine. As Alan says - it
> works exactly how Steve thinks it should work. I can imagine it is
> absolutely rubbish if you're forced to use it for only a few minutes at a
> time. It's been so long since I started using OS X that I can't really
> remember how it was at first, but I assuredly felt that way about Classic
> (to MacOS 9). But what I do remember from my first days of OS X is that
> after a couple of weeks I got used to it - I have been perfectly happy
> ever after.

So here's one thing that MacOS is very good at: text searches. I have to 
archive old mails in off-line tbz2 to retain some sanity, my colleagues on 
Macs don't. Their mail store goes somewhere (we don't know where, not having 
looked much) and 60,000 mails from 2 years doesn't slow things down.

If we want to discuss the grand plan from 9 months ago about the public ftp 
server and replacing the DNS caches without actually ever paying for them, I 
have a 30 minute search ahead of me. The PFY types a few words in a text box 
and we magically watch the folder list get shorter and shorter. He can find 
almost any mail in less than a minute - looks a lot like Google's autocomplete 
search box actually.

My point? MacOS has at least one very well thought-out feature for the users 
that 100% JustWorks.

p.s. stroller - your line breaks are not really reasonable. I have 1920 pixels 
horizontally and mails display in 7 point Monospace; the mailer is maximized 
to benefit Folder View. I don't care about the dead space beyond the 
100-column limit (Kopete windows set "Above all" fit in there nicely) but 240 
column monospace txt is almost unreadable - the eye can no longer easily stay 
on the same line while scanning. 80 columns really is a good thing

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] How do I eject an audio CD inside Gnome?

[Indi]

On Sun, Jun 05, 2011 at 12:40:29PM +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> 
> So here's one thing that MacOS is very good at: text searches. I have to 
> archive old mails in off-line tbz2 to retain some sanity, my colleagues on 
> Macs don't. Their mail store goes somewhere (we don't know where, not having 
> looked much) and 60,000 mails from 2 years doesn't slow things down.
> 

Sorry, forgot to mention that using mairix for searching local mail via 
offlineimap is *very* fast and quite accurate so far here, though there may be 
issues I haven't seen yet as it's only been a week or so.

Somewhere I read that mairix chokes on utf-8, but so far no problem here..

-- 
caveat utilitor
♫ ❤ ♫ ❤ ♫ ❤ ♫ ❤