fidzu : debian

This is mostly for my own reference, but since it might be useful to others:

By "Properly booting" I mean "Integrating into the boot system as well as Mac OS X does". The device should be visible from the boot picker menu and should be selectable as a startup disk. For this to happen the boot should be in HFS+ format and have the following files:

• /mach_kernel (can be empty)
• /System/Library/CoreServices/boot.efi (may be booted, if so should be a symlink to the actual bootloader)
• /System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist which should look something like

  <xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
  <plist version="1.0">
  <dict>
          <key>ProductBuildVersion</key>
          <string></string>
          <key>ProductName</key>
          <string>Linux</string>
          <key>ProductVersion</key>
          <string>Fedora 16</string>
  </dict>
  </plist>
  

That's enough to get it to appear in the startup disk boot pane. Getting it in the boot picker requires it to be blessed. You probably also want a .VolumeIcon.icns in / in order to get an appropriate icon.

Now all I need is an aesthetically appealing boot loader.

comments

09 Nov 2011 10:06pm GMT

From time to time i want to answer on mails on Debian mailinglists that i am not subcribed to. To have proper reply-headers set, i usually copied the archive mbox from master.debian.org to my local machine.

Now i found a much nicer way.

apt-get install fuse afuse sshfs
adduser zobel fuse
mkdir ~/fuse/
afuse -o mount_template="sshfs %r:/ %m" -o unmount_template="fusermount -u -z %m" -o timeout=60 ~/fuse
mutt -f /home/zobel/fuse/master.debian.org/home/debian/lists/debian-user/debian-user.201111

09 Nov 2011 10:04pm GMT

I recently started getting mails from no-reply@joindiaspora.com. Usually, a mail from no-reply@whatever is enough to make me believe that the admins of said whatever are clueless regarding what e-mail means and how should it work. And in this case, it really amazes me - If I get an invite to Diaspora*, right, I should not pester a hypothetical sysadmin@joindiaspora.com to get me off his list, but I should be able to reply to the person mailing me - Maybe requesting extra details on what he is inviting me to, or allowing me to tell him why I'm not interested. But yes, Diaspora* has fallen to the ease of requiring me to join their network to be able to communicate back with the "friend" who invited me.

Some of the (three?) readers of this site might not be familiar with the Diaspora* project. It is a free reimplementation (as far as I know) of something similar to Facebook - Free not only in the sense that it runs free software, but also because it is federated - Your data will not belong to a specific company (that is, you are not the value object they sell and make money with), but you can choose and switch (or become) the provider for your information. A very interesting proposal, socially and technically.

I find that a gross violation of netiquette. I should be able to reply to the mail - Even if in this case it were to (and sorry - As you are spreading my name/mail, you will excuse me if I spread your name ;-) ) fernando.estrada.invite1501335@joindiaspora.com. Such an (fictional FWIW) address would allow for mail to reach back the submitter by the same medium it was sent, without allowing open spamming into the network.

Now, what prompted me to write this mail (just before adding no-reply@joindiaspora.com to my blacklist) is the message I got (in an ugly HTML-only mail which erroneously promised to be text/plain, sigh...) is that Fernando sent me as the inviting message, «So, at least are you going to give Diaspora a chance?»

The answer is: No..

But not because of being a fundamentalist. Right, I am among what many people qualify as Free Software zealots, but many of my choices (as this one is) is in no way related to the software's freeness. I use non-free Web services, as much as many of you do. Yes, I tend to use them less, rather than more (as the tendency goes).

But the main reason I don't use Twitter is the same reason I don't use Identi.ca, its free counterpart - And the reason I'm not interested in Facebook is the same reason I will not join Diaspora* - Because I lack time for yet another stream of activity, of information, of things to do and think about.

Yes, even if I care about you and I want to follow what's going on in your life: The best way to do it is to sit over a cup of coffee, or have some dinner, or to meet once a year in the most amazing conference ever. Or we can be part of distributed projects together, and we will really interact lots. Or you can write a blog! I do follow the blogs of many of my friends (plus several planets), even if they have fallen out of fashion - A blog post pulls me to read it as it is a unit of information, not too much depending on context (a problem when I read somebody's Twitter/Identica lines: You have to hunt a lot of conversations to understand what's going on), gives a true dump of (at least one aspect of) your state of (mind|life|work), and is a referenceable unit I can forward to other people, or quote if needed.

So, yes, I might look old-fashioned, clinging to the tools of the last-decade for my Social Web presence. I will never be a Social Media Expert. I accept it - But please, don't think it is a Stallmanesque posture from me. It is just that of a person who can lose too much time, and needs to get some work done in the meantime.

(oh, of course: Blog posts also don't have to make much sense or be logically complete. But at least they allow me to post a full argument!)

09 Nov 2011 5:55pm GMT