iMac and MyBook FW800 trouble

I have a WD MyBook connected to my iMac via FW800. If not in use both are disconnected from power via a multiple socket outlet with a switch. If I switch this on a start the Mac the drive is not mounted automatically. Mounting it by hand doesn't work either.

My only solution so far was to unplug the Mac from the power outlet and switch it one. After a view seconds I plugged in the Mac and booted it. With this procedure the MyBook was mounted most of the time.

Searching for a better solution I found this alternative. This is not really simpler as the solution I found, but it helps, if in the case my failed.

• unplug the power cord of the MyBook


• unplug the FW800 cable on one side


• keep the Mac running


• plug in the power of the MyBook


• plug in the FW800 cable

No the MyBook will be mounted automatically.

mpd and ALSA

mpd is also dependant on x11-common. Started to install by hand but gave up and installed it with apt-get and all requested dependencies.

Steps I had to do, to get it this time working:

• added to bashrc:
  export MPD_HOST=127.0.0.1
  export MPD_PORT=6600


• copied some test files to /var/lib/mpd/music/


• mpd --create-db


• create a playlist in /var/lib/mpd/playlists


• loaded the playlist and started it - played but no sound


• apt-get install alsa-utils


• used alsamixer to enable pcm

install sshd without X dependencies

The new debian installation is missing a ssh server. The obvious solution with apt-get listed a lot of X dependencies. As X is not installed and I want a more or less minimal system I installed it by hand.

download the dep package

the easiest way is to use apt-get with -d to only download the packages. apt-get -d install openssh-server

install the dep package

dpkg -i /var/cache/apt/archives/openssh-server...deb

This step required only the blacklists to be installed.

update to lenny via net installation

I have an old PC which OS is totally out of date. As it has testing on it for quite some time and I also tried out a lot of programs, a new installation looks like the best thing to to.

To save me the trouble of downloading the boot CD and burning it, I will try the net installation. The installer will be started (booted into) from the HD (see debian installation manual).

• download from initrd.gz and linux from debian nl (for squeeze) or any other debian server to /boot/new.


• update menu.lst:
  title New Install
  root (hd0,0)
  kernel /boot/new/linux
  initrd /boot/new/initrd.gz
  


• reboot


• let the installer repartition/format the HD you booted from


• continue like normal installation

After the first reboot the file system check failed with this error:
The file system size (according to the superblock) is 992013 blocks The physical size of the device is 736981 blocks Either the superblock or the partition table is likely to be corrupt
Running fsck by hand didn't help. Booting from a rescue CD and running resize2fs /dev/hda1 fixed the problem.

groovy tools very picky at GROOVY_HOME

Today my groovy script wouldn't start. It couldn't find org/apache/commons/cli/CommandLineParser. As I didn't use this class I tried groovy -version. This also produced:

java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/apache/commons/cli/CommandLineParser
at java.lang.Class.getDeclaredMethods0(Native Method)
at java.lang.Class.privateGetDeclaredMethods(Class.java:2427)
at java.lang.Class.getMethod0(Class.java:2670)
at java.lang.Class.getMethod(Class.java:1603)
at org.codehaus.groovy.tools.GroovyStarter.rootLoader(GroovyStarter.java:99)
at org.codehaus.groovy.tools.GroovyStarter.main(GroovyStarter.java:130)
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.apache.commons.cli.CommandLineParser
at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:200)
at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:188)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:319)
at sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader.loadClass(Launcher.java:330)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:254)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClassInternal(ClassLoader.java:402)
... 6 more

Next I checked if I had set GROOVY_HOME and JAVA_HOME. OK.

Asked the web and found a bug report with the same error message. The conclusion is that startGroovy fails to accesses some resources, if a constructed path from GROOVY_HOME, contains //.

As I had created my GROOVY_HOME with TAB completion, the path had a / at the end. Removing this one fixed the problem.