Lornix's Corner of the Big Round World

Got the blahs tonight. Can't sleep either. Fighting the feeling that things aren't going to get better. That I'm not going to find work, upcoming court date with DHS isn't going to go well... yeah, doom and gloom.

Turned in a job application last week, haven't heard anything yet. Asked about it yesterday... "person responsible" wasn't in last week. Supposed to call Monday.

Per instructions (from my Doctor {Sigh}), I'm supposed to apply at USAJOBS. Not real enthusiastic about that. Sometimes the fact that I exited the Navy over ten years comes to mind... do my skills still count? Do I matter?

Yeah, depressed, alone, somewhat suicidal, frustrated, tired of fighting. Sometimes I do wonder if I even matter? Rather amazing how quiet it gets, how long it is between anyone calling, stopping by, how alone one truly is.

{Shrug} Another day...

(This is a funny... if you don't get it, read it again)

Ikea now selling new Shelf Dress! MultiColor Design matches most decor! The original descriptive text, as posted on Reuters, 9/28/08 A model displays a creation from Agatha Ruiz De La Prada’s Spring/Summer 2009 women’s collection during Milan Fashion Week September 26, 2008. REUTERS/Alessandro Garofalo

Been seeing all the "warnings" for the newest Firefox ClickJack exploit... absolutely amazing. A shame the creative efforts involved aren't properly redirected towards better ends. {Sigh} Oh well.

I played with the proof-of-concept page... it's done through flash... gee, how novel.

Pundits report that to prevent being "clickjacked", you need to either use the 'noscript' extension, disable flash, javascript and your brain, or use lynx, a text only browser usually found on linux systems.

I found that 'flashblock', an extension I use on all my systems, thwarts it very well. If the flash can't execute, it can't do bad things. Since I use it already, it's not something else to install and slow down things with. Besides, it's been reported on CNN and MSNBC websites... why would I go to THOSE places?

My advice? Install 'flashblock' for firefox, don't visit questionable websites. Pretty simple. Oh yeah, and try to avoid the herd mentality.

(This is a funny... if you don't get it, read it again)

Usually YOURS though... uh... ? Actually, I see TWO oddly placed hands, (same guy!) then you begin to wonder about where Fulgence's left arm & hand are placed... The original descriptive text, as posted on Reuters, 9/12/08 Second place, NPPA, sports category France's Fulgence Ouedraogo (L) and Benoit Lecouls (R) prepare to join a scrum against Australia during their international rugby test match in Sydney June 28, 2008. REUTERS/Tim Wimborne

(This is a funny... if you don't get it, read it again)

Local Gunclubs reaching out for new members, B.Y.O.G. and waive signup fees! The original descriptive text, as posted on Reuters, 9/12/08 A queue of children wait to exchange their toy guns for non-weapon-like toys as part of a government project to reduce violence in the area, in the Petare district of Caracas August 20, 2008. REUTERS/Susana Gonzalez

(This is a funny... if you don't get it, read it again)

Airport officials have installed heightened security in airports, now including more strict screening of your baggage as it passes through the scanner. The original descriptive text, as posted on Reuters, 9/12/08 Winner, Editorial Singles, New York Photo Awards A Hamas fighter takes position inside a scanning machine in the customs hall of the Rafah crossing border, between Egypt and the southern Gaza Strip, after they captured it, June 15, 2007. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa

My machine hosting the website is having hard drive issues, so I've set up another machine to handle the site. {Chuckle} Of course, it's not the zippiest machine, being a 266Mhz nslu 'slug' system.

The old setup (serendipity) would work, but it was seriously taxing to the unit, mysql isn't the nicest application to low-memory machines. Wanted to try the 'nanoblogger' setup, so here it is.

So far... it's alright. I find the interface frustratingly clumsy in the usability department (my apologies to the Author), I just don't see why it needs to be so awkward to do things.

I'll tinker with it, rewrite parts here and there.

Now to get email shifted over... {Sigh}

The people over at SecondLife are saying that the SpaceNavigator issues are resolved and it's all done and wonderful.

I don't think so.

It still involves recompiling the source code to be able to turn on the joystick/spacenavigator code. This isn't something most people are going to be able to do.

When I (or anyone) can go to the download section, download the SL Viewer for Linux, install it, log in and then enable the Joystick or SN controller from the Preferences menu... THEN it'll be "fixed".

I played with the code myself some (referenced previously)...

What is up with all these big projects using weird and offshoot type programming extensions? To be able to compile SL would involve me finding and installing 10 or 12 additional libraries (in addition to the 50-60 I already have), most of which I've *never* heard of... And I write code myself, so I consider myself somewhat fluent in "what's out there".

Get it in the downloadable tarball... THEN we'll see if it's fixed.

Even if it were still partially broken, there would then be many more people testing and improving it. This was my initial rant to begin with.. it's disabled on linux builds by default. We didn't even GET A CHANCE to use a joystick, broken or not.

Loni

It was an honest mistake! Really! Anyone could have done it.

Of course, this machine here isn't the powerhouse saturn is... so the limits are correspondingly lower. duh!

2GB per process on the 64bit AMD machine with oodles of ram. Makes sense.

Will be a while until I can really test this, since saturn is currently down, stress testing my backup/restore system. The root drive has been in there a while, guess it's only natural that it would begin slowly fading... Essentially, the last 'stress' I did... the huge swap file usage, hard drive pounding quaking terror I seemed to have put it though earlier this evening has caused the root drive to begin to give up. SMART began screaming at me during restart, sda is failing! sda is failing! the sky is falling! run for your life!

So a little while later, the system is restoring the backup onto a partition on another drive, rebuild grub and it should be back up within the hour or so. A pain, but that's what good backups are for. Right? And since I use volume labels, nothing needs to be changed since I formatted the new partition with the label 'root' again. taadaaa! (kinda slick that!)

Of course, I have this machine to play with while saturn's restoring, the webserver and email is handled on another machine... waaay too many computers in this apartment. {Grin}. Keeps me off the streets.

Right, so there I was tonight, tinkering with my program to find duplicate files. I let it run on my system, 2.4TB of storage, 396,000+ files, 46,660+ directories... (or so find and wc tell me)

And, I remember seeing a sym-link loop in there somewhere in the /var/lib area in the past, so I did rather expect it to get caught and whirr away for a while on that... probably abort with a memory malloc error or something similar.

Well, it *did* abort... but at exactly 16,777,216 items. Doesn't that number ring a bell? Yeah... exactly 16 Meg (16*1024*1024).

Kinda eerie. I've got 4GB of ram, 6 GB of swap... it ate up nearly 7GB of storage real/virtual before it coughed and died. So of course I had to enable core dumps and see....

<run it again!>

Yup... 16,777,216 entries, then:

terminate called after throwing an instance of 'std::bad_alloc'
what(): std::bad_alloc
Aborted (core dumped)

Strange... does 'vector' have an upper limit on how many it can index (beyond memory/ram limits of course)?

So whip up a little test jig, using 'vector <int> tst' just to see how many it can create before it dies...

This time... 536,870,912 items.... gee,that number's familiar too... That's *exactly* 512 Meg (512*1024*1024). Very Weird.

The test jig just stored 'int's, 4 byte values. The original program (dedupe), stores 'md5file' classes...

Hmmm:

512 Meg items @ 4 bytes = 2 GB of storage....
16 Meg items @ ? bytes = ... 2 GB?? (this is a theory...)

Implies the Class is 128 bytes... Let's go add up things and see...

Well... drat. sizeof(md5file) says it's 88 bytes, I'm 40 bytes shy. One-Third too low. Darn. And just for good measure, I verified that the test jig is using 4 byte int's too. Trying 8 byte double's now... testing the theory again. I predict... 256Meg items. Now to see if my theory holds true.

{jeopardy music plays softly in the background}

HEY! 268,435,456 items... 256*1024*1024... 256Meg! The theory seems to hold true...

So what's using the other 40 bytes? {Sigh} Use the Source Luke! Dang-it! I *WROTE* the source...

Not that my machine has anywhere NEAR 16 Million files to tinker with... but still!. Actually, considering that I can predict what it's going to do... maybe it's a feature now. {shrug} dunno.

Had an epiphany while recovering from the last coredump... Efficient memory usage / allocation is usually done by powers of 2... and since 88 > 64, then the next size up is 128. Which would explain the 128 byte per allocation usage predicted by my theory above.

So yeah, it all works. There's not a 16Meg limit to number of items, there's a 2GB limit on the amount of data stored.

Taa Daa!

(Not that this really explains anything, but at least now I know why it's dying at exact 'power-of-two' boundaries.

Loni

(Edit: I figured out the 2G limit too... see next post)

Agreed, you're correct... it's a trivial distinction. I live in the "South"... I probably have a Southern Accent myself, although I've been told it comes and goes too. But to stand in Walmart and hear some (seriously Southern) woman with curlers and neon-colored stretch pants going on about the amazing 12¢ price of RAY-MAN NOODLES! (No, it's not me!) Makes me laugh every time.

Actually, been somewhat without funds this month... got some things worked out with the finances, it'll just take time to resolve... so while I wait... I haven't much (or any!) money. Amazing what you eat when you're broke...

I *do* have a good habit, which is when I DO have money, I buy food, canned goods, boxed goods, dry goods... so I'm not exactly starving, but then again, The Iron Chef could have a slight challenge here.

I began to notice last week that I was eating quite a few 'boil-a-meal' type entree's. Boiled Spaghetti with Ragu Sauce, Rice with gravy (ok, so it's steamed... that's just REALLY extreme boiling, right?), boiled macaroni with random things from the pantry, lots of boiled stuff, mostly pasta. Kinda weird.

I had Rahmen (rrr-AH!) Noodles with whole-kernel corn niblets last night. Not bad actually. Tonight... I found a Microwavable Pot-Pie... Turkey! Yaaaaayyy! Solid food! With MEAT! Yeah Yeah, I'm glad I've been able to eat out of my pantry now for going on 5 weeks. Kinda took the whole 'packrat' theme to an extreme in the kitchen though. I did need to scrape up some change and purchase some spaghetti noodles though, $1.19, couch treasure! I think the cat's been eating better than me lately. {Grin}

Loni

I've been dealing with a very slow Firefox 3.0.1 lately and just figured out how to cure this.

Thought the rest of you might want to try it and see if it helps your experiences with FF3.

There are several bug reports concerning heavy drive thrashing and slow operation. These all boil down to the way FF3 is handling some data.

To help people identify Phishing sites, forgeries (phorgeries?), and general ickiness, FF3 contacts Google.com for EVERY http request. EVERY REQUEST

It then saves the results into 'urlclassifier3.sqlite' in your profile.

This file grew to more than 50MB at which point I read that you could 'vacuum' it using 'sqlite3' to drop the unused database entries. I did this, it shrank to 33MB, a savings of 17MB... but the thrashing continued.

If you will disable the Google checks, then exit FF3 and delete the 'urlclassifier3.sqlite' file from your profile, your FF3 experience will be much nicer, albeit at the expense of some assistance in Phish Site Phinding. (mmm, Ben & Jerry's Phish Food Ice Cream...)

Turn off these two options: (under preferences)

Security -> "Tell me if the site I'm visiting is a suspected Attack site"
Security -> "Tell me if the site I'm visiting is a suspected forgery"

Close the preferences window, exit Firefox, then delete the 'urlclassifier3.sqlite' file:

rm .mozilla/firefox/*/urlclassifier3.sqlite

The file WILL be recreated upon the next start of Firefox3, but it's only 32KB in size, and isn't expected to grow since the two "Tell me" options are off.

It's made a world of difference in the browsing experience for me.

Hopefully this helps others.

So I'm still here. Sometimes not really sure if that's good or bad.

I grew up being *very* independent. Never asked for help for anything really.

I'm educated to the hilt with calculus, physics, electronics, chemistry, nuclear reactor construction, operation, maintenance... the list goes on. My own hobbies are reading, electronics, computers... Yup, super geeky girl.

I once asked my mom to help me phrase a letter to a lawyer a few years back... mom got a funny look on her face and asked who I was... since the Loni she knew never did that. Didn't realize it was THAT strange for me to ask for something.

Several friends have recently helped me to survive this period, one has taken me to the clinics for meds and checkup/appointments... another bought kitty litter and kitten food for the little rascal who lives with me... and another helped with some bills.

I only asked the one person for help getting kitty litter... he and his girlfriend even got me some chips and a hot sandwich that afternoon too.

The others... I didn't ask. They just showed up. I suppose you never really know who your real friends are. Ever seen that email that goes around with the 'good friends' vs 'real friends'... ? That's what it's like with some of them.

A good friend will bail you out of jail.
----- A real friend will be sitting next you to in jail,
going "Oops! But that was fun!"
A good friend will never ask for food.
----- A real friend is the reason you have no food
A good friend wonders about your romantic history.
----- A real friend could blackmail you with it.

... and so on... search the web for more.

Sometimes I forget I have 'real' friends... been alone for so long, and moved so many times, it's hard to keep up and stay in touch. I've now lived here in this apartment for over 5 years. Which is the *longest* I have *ever* had the same address.

By last count (with mom's help), I've moved 35 times. 35 Addresses... I dread those application forms... please list your address(es) over the last 5 years... Thankfully, I've been HERE for the last 5... but those forms sucked!

Taking my meds... they upped my anti-depressants, helping to regulate my sleep better... used to be on a 30/12 kind of schedule, 30 up, 12 asleep... it's almost 18/6 lately... so that's a good thing.

Been helping people on the opensuse forums. Keep feeling guilty when I go off on a person. (hopefully) only done it twice now... but wow. I'm no guru..

I'm just me. A part wants to say "stupid ol' Loni"... but I'm not supposed to use words like that anymore. So the internal censor allows... "Loni"... since I'm not that old, and the official word is that I'm very far from stupid. {Sigh}. Stupid Censor in my head!

Been getting good feedback from some people on the forums too... guess i'm helping. Never know sometimes. I guess when they don't post again, then it's fixed, right? Or they just got fed up and decided not to return. {Shrug} Dunno.

Still want to curl up and hide some days. Still crying inside.

Dunno...

I frequent the OpenSuSE forums lately, trying (!) to help people with their problems, trying being the operative word... so very often, I'm frustrated to tears by the idiocy displayed...

Some notable questions:

'BBC SPORT | Olympics | Judo | Dumitru crowned Olympic champion'
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/olympics/judo/7551034.stm)

I have a problem with the above.

You will see a photograph of a Romanian athlete.
Below the photograph
I get the following error message:

Code:
--------------------
Cannot play media. Sorry, this media is not available in your territory.
--------------------

What is the problem?

Gee, dunno... maybe you're in the WRONG COUNTRY!?!

poster's IP address showed he was from Sweden.

Then this user... I suppose they've never used an editor before...

I'm very new to linux, and I'm unsure on how to save the edit... I tried closing Konsole, then reopening Konsole and navigating to menu.lst (sudo) again. I then was given an option to Recover it, which I did.

So what I want to know, is: How do I save an edit in Konsole?

Dunno... exit the editor program properly? (I have to assume they're using vi/vim since it prompted to recover the file) konsole is a terminal... an editor is an editor... they're not the same. if you use 'edit' in a 'command prompt' on windows then your results will be identical. Of course, this person is probably used to a gui editor (notepad? word, most likely!) where clicking 'x' prompts you to save the file. Works great... as long as the editor is a gui version. vi/vim is not. (gvim is!)

Just have to wonder, since vim is *not* exactly new-user friendly... who told them to edit it in that manner? {sigh}

There's another user, seemed knowledgeable, trivial problem... but was unwilling to read the (provided) man pages, just "want a script so I can cut&paste".

Gee, if you're unwilling to learn how to administer your own system, why should anyone help you? If you want to be spoon-fed, please re-install windows.

No, I don't grumble about helping people with large, complicated solutions... often they are just not far enough down the path to have the knowledge yet... I'd be happy to help those users...

But those who come crying with "OMG!!!! IT BROK N I KANT MAK IT WRK!!! WHT I DO????? U HAV 2 HLP!!!! PLS TEL ME NOW!!!!" ... I don't care if English isn't your first language (or your seventh...)... at least make an effort to try. Exclamation points do not add urgency to my response. They actually tend to turn me away. You can certainly tell the difference when a non-english speaker is at least making an effort.

And 'leet' speak (cuz ur so kewl!) or whatever that crap I tried to emulate above is called, is a definite turn-off. The words 'you', 'are', 'for' and the like aren't that long. Your 'kewlness' basically indicates to me that you're an idiot. Go away.

Oh yeah, don't get me started on the 'shouting with caps-lock on' issue either...

I've seen the occasional "wat is konsole" responses too... OMG! If you haven't even played with things enough to know SOME of the software...

No, I don't deal well with stupid. Ignorant, Naive, uninformed, uneducated... not a problem, I'll adjust and help.

But if you're stupid... {sigh} no.

A favorite bit of prose:
   From a philosopher named Aristophanes
   who lived around 400 BC:

Youth ages,
Immaturity is outgrown,
Ignorance can be educated,
and Drunkenness sobered.
But Stupid lasts forever!

Sums it up quite well I think.

'nuff ranting for tonight, I'll probably find more later...

Through a serious of mistakes on my part, and bureaucratic molasses, I start this month with no money, no income, nothing. My bank account is frozen, a dispute between myself and DHS. So I can't pay rent, any of my bills, food, diesel for truck, nada. zilch. My fault really, I won't kid anyone there, it's all my fault.

So I'm done essentially. I'll be evicted by the end of the month, electric will be turned off, cell phone, house phone, internet, water, insurance... it's all going away.

I've been fighting just to stay afloat for a while now, struggling with day to day issues, each waking a small choice to try some more, to fight some more.

No more. My kids haven't tried to contact me in months, I haven't a number or contact for them. I'm rejected by anyone I approach, and feel like an idiot anyways. No self-esteem, no self-confidence... all gone. I'm alone. Still. No one seems to care, I'm only useful when something breaks... I'm good at fixing things. yay.

'cept I can't fix myself. Kinda like the genie of the lamp... can do all except free himself. 'cept I'm no genie. Just a dumb bumpkin who's run out of steam.

I drive a large diesel truck, so driving into something would likely only damage the truck and not kill me. Damn! My kingdom for a Yugo! So that's out. I boiled it down to two choices... a stroll into traffic, between lights, where vehicles can get up to some decent speeds. splat. my dumb luck I'd survive.

Or a large knife, between the ribs, into the lung and upper chest cavity. A "sucking chest wound". Fun!!!

Yeah, either will hurt like a bitch I figure too... but pain's no stranger to me, not really.

I still want to write out a list of accounts that will require a copy of the death certificate to clear, might as well make it easier for someone to clean up. Had to do that too many times myself, after a person has left... and since no one else is privy to my marginal bookkeeping system... it would certainly help them to have it all written out.

account numbers, passwords, logins, etc. And a list of who should really get what... I know a friend who said she'd like the treadmill, another the computers, and so on.

Not that there's much really. just old junk. Even the computer is 3 years old.

That's all I can think of for now.

'Yaay! FF3 has officially arrived. Well, yesterday it did. Granted, I've been using Firefox3 since release candidate 1. I like the new features, regardless of what they're called ("awesome bar"? Are you 12?!?)

Of course, did the fight with the extensions, had to lose a couple, realized I didn't use them really at all, so wasn't a big loss, found a few others providing nice features too.

AdBlock Plus for sure, Forecastbar for weather, Web Developer, Flashblock and FlashGet are pretty much standard fare on all my systems. Others loaded for specific purposes as needed. Found a nice theme too, KDE4+FF3. Pretty!

Anyways, I did my part, downloading the new .bz2 for each computer, so that's three votes from me. It's almost 9am (CDT), and their download counter shows 6.6million++... so they've beat their 1.6M record handily.

It's like Christmas this week... Firefox 3.0 yesterday (Tuesday, 17 June) and OpenSUSE 11.0 on Thursday, 19 June. Ktorrent is idling, all warmed up, waiting for the signal to begin the heavy pulling of the install DVD/CD's.

I used to use Azureus, then realized I didn't use it but once or twice a month (if that!) and Ktorrent had an update that improved it substantially. So AZ went away. I lean on Usenet pretty heavily anymore anyways. (More on that later)

Yes, I ramble... is that bad?',

I've written a little decoder for the bitmapped information in /proc/bus/input/devices, works well for showing how the system sees each device:

decode-devices.pl -> src (Perl) (right-click -> save-as)

The output is essentially a verbose parsing of the information. My machine returns this information:

I: Bus=0010 Vendor=001f Product=0001 Version=0100
N: Name="PC Speaker"
P: Phys=isa0061/input0
S: Sysfs=/class/input/input0
H: Handlers=kbd event0 
B: EV=40001 : 18-SND 0-SYN 
B: SND=6 : 2-TONE 1-BELL 

I: Bus=0003 Vendor=046a Product=0048 Version=0111
N: Name="Das Keyboard"
P: Phys=usb-0000:00:02.0-1/input0
S: Sysfs=/class/input/input1
H: Handlers=kbd event1 
B: EV=120003 : 20-REP 17-LED 1-KEY 0-SYN 
B: KEY=7 ff800000000007ff e0b2ffdf01cfffff fffffffffffffffe
   Supports 131 keys
B: LED=1f : 4-KANA 3-COMPOSE 2-SCROLLLK 1-CAPSLK 0-NUMLK 

I: Bus=0003 Vendor=046d Product=c521 Version=0111
N: Name="Logitech USB Receiver"
P: Phys=usb-0000:00:02.1-4.6/input0
S: Sysfs=/class/input/input3
H: Handlers=mouse0 event3 
B: EV=7 : 2-REL 1-KEY 0-SYN 
B: KEY=ffff0000 0 0 0 0
   Supports 16 keys
B: REL=143 : 8-WHEEL 6-HWHEEL 1-Y 0-X 

I: Bus=0003 Vendor=046d Product=c521 Version=0111
N: Name="Logitech USB Receiver"
P: Phys=usb-0000:00:02.1-4.6/input1
S: Sysfs=/class/input/input4
H: Handlers=kbd event4 
B: EV=f : 3-ABS 2-REL 1-KEY 0-SYN 
B: KEY=7fff002c3027 bf00444000000000 1 f808837c000 667bfad9415fed 8e000000000000 0
   Supports 88 keys
B: REL=40 : 6-HWHEEL 
B: ABS=100000000 : 32-VOLUME 

I: Bus=0019 Vendor=0000 Product=0002 Version=0000
N: Name="Power Button (FF)"
P: Phys=LNXPWRBN/button/input0
S: Sysfs=/class/input/input5
H: Handlers=kbd event5 
B: EV=3 : 1-KEY 0-SYN 
B: KEY=10000000000000 0
   Supports 1 key

I: Bus=0019 Vendor=0000 Product=0001 Version=0000
N: Name="Power Button (CM)"
P: Phys=PNP0C0C/button/input0
S: Sysfs=/class/input/input6
H: Handlers=kbd event6 
B: EV=3 : 1-KEY 0-SYN 
B: KEY=10000000000000 0
   Supports 1 key

I: Bus=0003 Vendor=046d Product=c626 Version=0110
N: Name="3Dconnexion SpaceNavigator"
P: Phys=usb-0000:00:02.1-2.3.1/input0
S: Sysfs=/class/input/input12
H: Handlers=event2 
B: EV=20007 : 17-LED 2-REL 1-KEY 0-SYN 
B: KEY=3 0 0 0 0
   Supports 2 keys
B: REL=3f : 5-RZ 4-RY 3-RX 2-Z 1-Y 0-X 
B: LED=100 : 8-MISC 

I: Bus=0003 Vendor=0f30 Product=010b Version=0110
N: Name="Jess Tech GGE909 PC Recoil Pad"
P: Phys=usb-0000:00:02.1-2.3.4/input0
S: Sysfs=/class/input/input13
H: Handlers=event7 js0 
B: EV=b : 3-ABS 1-KEY 0-SYN 
B: KEY=fff00000000 0 0 0 0
   Supports 12 keys
B: ABS=30027 : 17-HAT_0Y 16-HAT_0X 5-RZ 2-Z 1-Y 0-X 

The last two entries are the SpaceNavigator, and the USB Gamepad I've got plugged in for, uh, testing. yeah.. testing.

And for those of you about to squawk... yes, I DO have a "Das Keyboard", and I love it. Keeps most people from bothering my computer too, and has improved my typing speed up further in the triple digits.

Interesting to note that my Logitech mouse somehow (!) has 88 keys on it. Hey... 88 keys... a PIANO?!?

This is in addition to the 16 keys it reports in the previous entry. Really weird!

Anyways...

If you look at the Keyboard entry, and the SpaceNavigator entry, you can see the LED's they support.

The SN supports the 'MISC' labelled LED, actually bit 8, and the keyboard supports KANA, COMPOSE, SCROLL, CAPS, NUM. Bits 4-0.

The leading numbers for each breakdown indicate which bit they are represented by.

Woolgathering:

1. Device is sensed as a "Multi-Axis Controller". It is quite probable that a small driver module could attach itself as a handler and pass the SN off to the joydev module for seamless joystick usage.
2. Would it need to be a module? Eventually... yes. For now, it could be a small program launched as a daemon to act as a proxy to and from the SN and the JSx device. I'd like to be able to sense all axis inputs, and ALSO toggle the base LED on and off. Of course, since few joysticks have das blinkenlights, that part could quite possibly be non-standard. blech. What if I researched how to send data to joystick as if it were a force-feedback capable device? that's a standard. pretty much. right?
3. "Multi-Axis Controller"... Posted on the web was a short writeup that noted that the device ID blocks for a joystick and a multi-axis controller differed in only a byte or two, or even just a few bits. Tinkering with the SN and a Joystick (JS) show very similar output data too. But I'd have to catch the SN BEFORE the evdev and input modules did. Probably not happening. Besides, that's working too hard and digging too deep to make this work. Items 1 & 2 above should work well.

I'm leaning towards a small daemon that attaches to the event device, and proxies the data to and from a js device. This would be very unobtrusive and require little to no changing of other parts of the system. (talking 'bout you.. Mr. Module!) Would lend itself to being a nice RPM file, a tar.gz/tar.bz2 and a comfy 'configure/make/make install' type setup. Also allow easy tweaking of config items, since we'll likely need to scale the SN motions somehow too. It returns larger values the further it's twisted, pushed and lifted. (Controlling the blue LED is a 'gotta have' thing though. I really don't need another 'glowie LED' on my desk, I've taken to putting dark fingernail polish on the annoyingly bright ones lately)

Things I want to keep track of:

My SpaceNavigator (SN) is the Personal Edition (PE), USB ID: 046D:C626 (PE/SE are identical, just license that changes).

udev rule to automatically set up:

/dev/input/spacenavigator symlink to proper event[0-9]* device:

KERNEL=="event[0-9]*", SYSFS{idVendor}=="046d", SYSFS{idProduct}=="c626", SYMLINK+="input/spacenavigator", MODE="0666"

Single line, placed in /etc/udev/rules.d/99-SpaceNavigator.rules (for instance, the name can vary, as can the leading number, I just stuck it at '99-' since it would get read after everything else, and hopefully wouldn't mess anything up. It hasn't)

The above line is tailored to the SN-PE... note the 'c626' ProductID. Replace that with the proper ProductID if you don't have the SN-PE model. (y'know, like the super-whamma-dyne neato models with many buttons and LCD's and stuff)

I read that SecondLife (SL) is "planning" on working on joystick support for Linux... Windows has it... Mac has it... why don't we?

I'm a long-time Linux user, off and on since the Kernel version started with a zero, and full-time user since around the Y2K fiasco (no, I didn't shift because of that!)

SL opened up their source code for the viewer recently (YAAY!), and I've recently purchased a shiny SpaceNavigator (SN) to play with. Of course, the SN isn't well supported on Linux, but there are a few decent drivers out there, and I've built my own just for fun and learning too...

So then I tackle the issue of joysticks in general, and the SpaceNavigator specifically not working with the SL Viewer in Linux...

One Download of the aforementioned SL Viewer source code later...

I find this:

In the file: .../linden/indra/newview/llviewerjoystick.h

Line 37:

#define LIB_NDOF (LL_WINDOWS || LL_DARWIN)

For those of you who aren't programmers... this essentially says "Define the flag LIB_NDOF if we're compiling for WINDOWS *OR* MAC (darwin)"

The rest of the joystick code then bases its working (or not) on this flag.

example on lines 39: (same file)

#if LIB_NDOF

and in the file:
.../linden/indra/newview/llviewerjoystick.cpp

Lines 168-236:

void LLViewerJoystick::init(bool autoenable)
{
#if LIB_NDOF
... {snip} ...
#endif
}

Which effectively cuts OUT the entire joystick initialization routine. This is continued throughout the joystick support modules.

So... since we're compiling for Linux, LL_WINDOWS and LL_DARWIN are FALSE, while LL_LINUX is TRUE... thus LIB_NDOF is FALSE... and the Linux users [rant mode] HAVEN'T EVEN GOT A CHANCE TO TRY! [/rant mode].

From this, it is apparent that Linux users will NEVER get a joystick working, unless we resort to mapping keystrokes to joystick positions. That's not a solution, it's a crude patch.

Yes, I CAN (and will!) edit the code and enable joystick support for the Linux SL Viewer. This helps me. But doesn't do much for the other 17 Linux users out there.

Please, at least ENABLE the joystick code for Linux users, so we can try to make things work. You're not even giving us a chance.

[Edit] 2008-05-19 02:13

Ok, after reading several bazillion bug tracker entries on SL's bug tracker system (!)... I find that a potential reason this is 'commented out' is because somehow SDL (a Linux Graphics system) doesn't seem to be able to obtain the motion data from the SN.

Hmmm, I'll try writing some sample code tonight (this morning?!?) or tomorrow and see if I can read the data from SDL calls. I think what might be creating havoc is the possibility that SL is wanting to use the 3Dconnexion supplied drivers, or even the FOSS replacement drivers. I've had *NO* problems reading the data using 'evdev' and 'uinput' type code, and really would like to not use those additional drivers. The SN responds as a HID (Human Interface Device) as per USB standards, just like my two USB gamepads, my USB keyboard and USB mice. So I don't think a special driver would be necessary.

I say this based on the fact that my joysticks/gamepads are sensed properly (and without extra drivers) by some of the SDL games and examples I've found. So following that logic... I believe it can be done, and quite simply. (Of course, 'simply' saying that, I've now cursed myself and will suffer through the many circles of Hell while researching this. {sigh})

[/Edit]