After authoring a couple of complete CMMS software systems and extensively using and maintaining computerised maintenance management software in my trade. I noticed that with the growth of cloud computing the market of available cloud CMMS applications was getting quite busy. Yet very few maintenance management professionals even knew what the term cloud computing referred to let alone that there was now a very good array of computerized maintenance management systems available online. Cloud CMMS is hoping to answer these questions, review some software and keep the maintenance community updated in this exciting area.

Plus I now have full time work in asset management again. The position title is Asset Performance and Reliability Planner. Unlike a “scheduling planner” this position is all about long term strategy. Budget management and improving asset reliability while keeping costs in check through maintenance efficiency improvements. This will no doubt lead to further ideas and insights that I can share.

We also have some ideas for reliability and mean time between failure data collection. You see MTBF calculations need data from the components in an asset or machine. Finding and picking this data every time a calculation needs to be done is tedious. Many machines are built using common components and if we could collect the data for these in a community database and then perform the calculations we might have a valuable service.

LinkedIn seems to have become the stomping ground for many facilities manager types so we will be sure to start some promotion and activities there too I suddenly see the whole point behind this particular social media site after being made aware of the opening for my new position via a contact on the site. Thanks!

Is twitter really social media?

The lack of social interaction and conversation on twitter has always bugged me. I like sprouting off a cryptic line just as much as the next person but I like to have some conversation about a piece on occasion too. The programmers and techies in my circle don’t seem to reply much, maybe it’s just the people that I follow? I know some of them must talk to each other but I can’t easily see their conversations or join in, not very social.

This facet has really kept my primary social stomping ground on Facebook. Which I, like other techies tried to avoid for the longest time. The reality is that it just works so I’m still there.

Add to that the fact that you might follow people that are a little stuck up and feel that they are above you (whether they are or not) and you certainly don’t have a peer to peer social thing going on. You could fall into this trap with Google plus too but it’s immediately obvious to put the iconic people that you follow into an appropriate circle and not expect to have a direct conversation with them. For example I follow Richard Branson and Joe Satriani but they are in my Following circle. They are both prolific posters and I can easily filter them out by circle (see just because you think you are important doesn’t mean you are always to everyone). If they were in my twitter stream I wouldn’t be able to see any other news.

Yes there are newer twitter tools that allow improved filtering, searching, grouping and following threads but it just doesn’t feel native and natural. I currently have 3 twitter apps installed on my Android mobile phone, TweetCaster, TweetDeck and official Twitter. None of them is feature complete and does everything that I want. The main reason I use TweetDeck? Fast posting the same short message to Facebook and Twitter, guess where I then go to have the social media experience?

To me twitter is a news feed

To me twitter is the first news feed that I have actually found myself using. I was never a newspaper reader even after working in a news print plant for some 7 years! I read maybe 3 newspapers a year. Sit myself down at 6pm to watch the evening television news every darn day at the exact same time, I think not. I have tried using news and blog feeds in my mail client (Icedove) and Google’s Reader both online and on my phone but just don’t find myself using it.

Twitter however provides peer vetted and recommended stories and articles many of which would not get any air play otherwise. This news is relatively well targeted, I’m actually interested in it, and it’s easy to access just click the short link. I can sit on the couch in complete comfort any time, scroll through my received tweets and read any full articles that interest me using dolphin browser on my phone.

Twitter is not much of a content service

I appreciate that some people like the simpleness of twitter but there is minimalist and then there is lack of core features.

Turns out I am quite the philosophical writer on occasion which is not all that surprising. After all coding is writing and writing takes a certain creative logical approach. My ideas just don’t fit into 140 characters all that often. I will be recommending this story to my twitter followers simply with the title, like I said: News Feed see.

Another miss applied core feature of twitter is tagging. Yes there are #hashtags and @username but put more than two of those in a tweet and you can’t say anything else! The tagging should have been external to the message character count but still part of the data packet. We had no technology limit here. Instead this encouraged a limit on the available length for usernames! Txt messaging quickly overcame this technology imposed character limit by chaining multiple texts together automatically, so what made twitter think going backwards was the right way?

Notice how you don’t use all that many abbreviations in txts any more? My Galaxy S2 has Swype on it, it’s so much faster to scribble the full word. Further multiple abbreviations don’t work in a tweet because you don’t have that context and close understanding with your audience for them to be able to interpret what you just said and you can’t explain any misunderstandings like in an IRC chat client, no conversation remember. Shorthand is for when speed is the priority not showing how clever you are, that takes longer.

So is wordpress.com perhaps twitter done right?

Let’s see, using the GPL Android client I can now sprout off any content that I like to a proper website. Self hosted or a wordpress.com blog. One liner, no problem just stick it in the header of a post, add a dot in the body, fire. One paragraph to go with that one liner? No problem, even add it later when you are ready to elaborate. Picture with a link and any amount of explanation, done and all the content is native to the platform.

• One liner? Check.
• Paragraph(s)? Check.
• Photographs and Images? Check.
• Video? Check.
• Draft ideas for later? Check.
• Save a private idea? Check.
• Schedule a delayed post? Check.
• Follow a blog or post in wordpress.com? Check.
• Followed posts now appear in a reader with good subscription options. Check.
• Trending stories? Freshly Pressed. Check.
• Like a post? Check.
• Categories and tags? Check.
• Retweet == Reblog. Check.
• Search, really? Dude what is Google for? PS good luck finding that tweet you were after. Check.
• Search, again? Search a specific blog including your own. Check.
• Search, still? WordPress.com reader has search too. Check.
• Search, yawn, WordPress.com saved search topic. CHECK.

One thing we might be missing is tagging a person, haven’t found that yet. That is more a fact that people don’t have global ID’s. You can’t @someone in a tweet if they don’t have a twitter account either. Perhaps there is some OpenID integration here that I haven’t found yet. However you can simply link their website or article. They will likely see the pingback and be grateful for the back link, maybe even come over for a CONVERSATION. Also you could link their Gravatar profile.

There does seem to be a fair bit of community and social interaction going on, but naturally I’m not too deep into it yet having just started at wordpress.com

WordPress Post Types

There are possibilities here but I just don’t find myself using wordpress post types, they don’t really do anything? However there are Status and Quote post types that should be applied by wordpress.com to embrace what we are talking about here.

Bonus Points for WordPress

The content is all yours and way more valuable in a website. You can link to other sites and provide greater link value than a tweet. You can edit, re-arrange or migrate to a privately hosted wordpress install should your content be a massive success. Maybe even generate some revenue! You can theme and present your content extensively if you feel the need.

Top 10 Macro Tech Tips (TM BS)

1. Avoid food avoidance.
2. Any meal is negotiable.
3. There are no magic pills.
4. There are no magic foods.
5. There are no magic exercises.
6. There are no magic methods of doing any of the above, sorry.
7. Macro nutrients count for body composition.
8. Micro nutrients count for health.
9. Exercise counts for health and body composition.
10. Don’t be OCD obsessive, in all cases see rule 1.

The full breakdown of body composition determinants and many truths can be found on Kevin’s Body Evolution Report along with all the backing studies

Basically along with Oracle’s security update 29 the terms that allow Linux distributions to distribute the Sun JRE and JDK have been removed. This required Debian/Ubuntu/Mint to remove the package as per this bug report.

So what the hell are our Java options for production servers?

Turns out that the only real solution at the moment is to manually download and install the JRE / JDK from Oracle. Which may be exactly what Oracle wants but for production software there really is no other option:

• Production servers must be security patched.
• We can’t hope that production code will work 100% on openJDK.
• OpenJDK-6 is in Debian Squeeze, but openJDK-7 is not.
• IntelliJ IDEA does not support openJDK.
• It would madness to develop on one JDK and deploy on another at this stage.

Further Oracle’s license terms are not fun and include a ‘call home’ function…grumble…

Anyway until this mess is corrected by the parties involved download the Oracle JDK:

• http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html

Register for email security update notifications:

• http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/security/securityemail-090378.html

Follow this Debian/Ubuntu how to:

• http://sites.google.com/site/easylinuxtipsproject/java

My JDK install steps:

Note: that we can now use our /usr/local/bin/oracle-java-default symlink in all further setup.
Note: that XX must be replaced by the latest version and yyy must be replaced by x64 or i586 in the above steps.

To install browser plugin for each user:

To setup Tomcat:

To upgrade Java version using our symlink:

To check Java versions:
$ java -version
visit http://java.com/en/download/installed.jsp

We’ve done the hard yards and have the technology working.
We predicted this market would emerge yonks ago.
We had fevered dreams, nightly wracking and twisting of the brain to think through many facets and learn so much.

But now as the market emerges, just as anticipated, we find that we have no wind in the sails.
Does the wind simply not blow in our direction or is it the same for everyone?
We’re tired, worn out, the depression lurks in dark corners of our minds or perhaps we really are just tired?

dol·drums
–noun
a state of inactivity or stagnation, as in business or art: August is a time of doldrums for many enterprises.

Ah perhaps that is the problem it’s nearly August!

Or perhaps we are trying to reach outside of our creative arena.
A place where we are smart and powerful, a place where we know how to move our hands so that creations emerge.
To reach deep into the business world a place where our creativity seems insignificant and the rules are not clear to us.

Either way it’s the inevitable result when you apply pressure to turn all that investment into a buck.

Well I haven’t got all the answers yet.
In the mean time play some Yngwie Malmsteen to lift the spirit.
Resist the urge to dive deep back into your creative arena or surrender and lay on the sand.
Work on your project management and todo lists, plan to succeed in 3 things each day.
Have the confidence that these 3 things will reap rewards.
This is a game of long term endurance where many will drop away simply by the course of time.
This is not a game of doing all that you can, you will kill yourself thinking that way, this is a game of persistence.

Copy
Simply copy the war from the build machine to the production machine then deploy it.

Pro – Simple.
Con – Slow if large war file and slow connection.

Build
Build the war file on the production machine then deploy it.

Pro – Built in the exact production environment, use VCS for very small transfers and build triggers.
Con – Full SDK on production machine and enough server resources to not effect production application.

I actually used this for some time on a demo site and it worked well until resources became an issue.
The effect on the production application can be minimised with `renice +19 -p $$` and `ionice -c2 -n7 -p $$ ` in the build script. But once you run out of RAM and go into swap even this can’t help.

Rsync war
Rsync the war to the production machine then deploy it.

Pro – Faster than copy method and still simple.
Con – Don’t get the full performance of rsync since small changes in source cause larger changes in zip/war files.

This is my current favourite method, war files can be rsync pushed from build machine to a binary repository (e.g. maven) then production machines can rsync pull and deploy. Rsync is averaging a 4-5 speedup with 14/60MB or 25% transfer. It’s modular, recoverable and makes sense.

Commands – Standard mod-time and size comparison `rsync -avzh –progress $SRC $DEST` or for the more accurate checksum comparison `rsync -acvzh –progress $SRC $DEST`.

Rsync exploded
Rsync the exploded war to the production machine then zip and deploy or deploy exploded.

Pro – Transfer is very fast.
Con – Hidden complexity and war files are designed to be deployed not exploded first.

Initially this seems ideal but has complications.
Distributing war files then adding unzip/re-zip to the process adds failure and variation points.
The war can be unzipped on the build or repository server then rsynced to an existing exploded dir. The transfer is very fast but unzipping/re-zipping time cancels the benefit.

Commands – Grails can be set to leave the staging dir exploded and not build the war with `grails -Dgrails.war.exploded=true war`. This can be used in conjunction with `grails.project.war.exploded.dir = “target/exploded-war”`. Building the war can be accomplished with `zip -r myapp.war exploded-war` or `jar -cf myapp.war exploded-war/` or even an ant build task. But none of these provided a war file with the exact build size of `grails war` and the build is no longer atomic but partial and distributed. The war build can be skipped altogether but this defeats all the benefits of war files in the first place.

THE END

Out of the Box
Most of the basic computing functions work under Linux (Debian 6.0 [Squeeze], CPU, RAM, Screen, Keyboard, TouchPad, USB). Some of the Fn buttons even work! Notably though the Integrated 802.11bgn Wireless (try: aptitude install firmware-brcm80211) and 3D Graphics do not work out of the box on Squeeze. But never fear, everything works in Debian Wheezy which is really amazing considering that this hardware was only released literally months ago. There are only a few ‘multimedia’ buttons to worry about, nice! After installing Linux the Boot-up ‘F4 – Restore’ will no longer work and you’ll get use of the whole hard drive, good stuff.

Get One!

RF511-S04 RF711-S03 RF711-S02

Hardware
The 15.6″ RF511 lappy is nice and portable but still has plenty of screen and keyboard real estate. I was considering a 17″ model but that really is a little on the large side (for me) to be portable. Of course if you are after a big laptop then give the 17.3″ RF711 a go.

The Keyboard is fantastic, almost as good as my Logitech k750. The slim base and careful key layout means you get a full width keyboard with number pad. The arrow and Delete/Home/End/PgUp/PgDn placement takes a moment to get used to but should be fine after a couple of days use.

The Screen is nice, a wide 15.6″ (1366×768), clear and bright when plugged in. With linux-image-2.6.38-2 and xserver-xorg-video-intel-2:2.15 (and newer) there is now full brightness control. Note that linux-image-2.6.32-5 that comes with Debian Squeeze can’t seem to control the back-light brightness so take note of the update recommendations bellow.

The CPU is the main reason that I purchased the Samsung rf511-s04. One of the first laptops to have the Q1 2011 Sandy Bridge, Intel Core i7 2630QM Quad-Core 2.0Ghz (2.9GHz Turbo). Four real cores on one chip providing 8 virtual CPU’s need I say more, bring on the compilers and virtualisation!

The RAM is supplied with anything from 4G to 8G. Two slots are available and easy to get to. If you happen to buy a unit with 1 stick of 4G then it is very easy to upgraded to the max of 8G for ~AU$100.

The Graphics that the Sandy Bridge CPU has on-board are pretty decent. While this machine also comes with a 1G Nvidia Optimus GT 540M. Unfortunately the Optimus chip is still waiting for full Linux support, normally Nvidia is good at providing drivers (even if only binary) but they are having some trouble since Xorg support is required or some such. Recently I have seen some support from a project called BumbleBee (Debian fork is now historical) but I am happy using the Intel graphics on the CPU which can easily run Compiz 3D desktop stuff, this should also provide better battery life. Although I have seen it written that the Optimus chip may be on and draining battery anyway, I have not verified this.

The Battery seems to get 3-4 hours with steady use (while installing Debian packages).

The 640GB HDD is good but as with all current machines can be the main bottle neck. An SSD drive would provide an optional boost.

Integrated Bluetooth seems to work fine.

The SD card slot seems to work fine.

The Touchpad is large and has a fine texture. Basic tap/click and point works accurately and smoothly but xserver-xorg-input-synaptics continues to report that it is not supported. So no multi-touch in Linux. Which is ok for me since the Fn+F10 disables it for typing and I much prefer my G700 external mouse.

Sound is of good quality and did work after installing alsaplayer and tinkering with all volume controls in alsamixer, there is a ‘speaker’ and ‘pcm’ volume that must be turned up to full. The ‘master’ volume is controlled by the software and Fn keys. The ‘headphone’ volume can be controlled independently, very nice.

Fn buttons.

• Fn+Esc (Moon symbol, Suspend to Ram) Screen may not resume without correct drivers.
• Fn+F2 (XF86Battery) Does nothing in my system.
• Fn+F3 (€) Reports a series of key presses in X.
• Fn+F4 (XF86Display) Randr to cycle external monitor config.
• Fn+F5 (XF86Launch1, Brigtness symbol)
• Fn+F6 (XF86AudioMute) Works in KDE
• Fn+F7 (XF86Launch2, unknown symbol)
• Fn+F8 (XF86Launch3, unknown symbol)
• Fn+F9 (XF86WLAN) Neither this nor the hardware wifi button change the wifi state in my system.
• Fn+F10 (XF86TouchpadToggle) Handy when using external mouse, appears to be detected by hardware.
• Fn+F12 (Lock symbol) Does not report or appear to do anything.

Updates
To get support for the Sandy Bridge CPU we really have to be running a newer Linux kernel than the stock Debian (Squeeze) image. At the very least at get 2.6.38 from backports. I’m now running 3.0.0-1-amd64 from Debian (Wheezy) and support is perfect.

Intel graphics support was only added to the Intel driver in 2010Q4 v2.14 with full support only added in 2011Q1 v2.15.
The 2.15 Intel drivers are available in Debian (Wheezy), testing at the time of writing, therefore to get the best from this laptop a dist-upgrade to Wheezy is highly recommended.

Another option, if like me you have the need to stick to stable as much as possible, is to run a mixed stable/testing system which is not recommended but entirely possible To do this we will need to upgrade: linux-image, linux-base, xserver-xorg-video-intel (remove any xserver-xorg-* drivers that you are not using) and the xserver itself will also need to be upgraded…not for the faint of heart…pay very careful attention to the dependencies.

These are the main packages that I ended up running from Wheezy:

$ apt-show-versions | grep testing
 
bluez-alsa/testing uptodate 4.96-1
gcc-4.6-base/testing uptodate 4.6.1-4
initramfs-tools/testing uptodate 0.99
lib32asound2/testing uptodate 1.0.24.1-4
libasound2/testing uptodate 1.0.24.1-4
libassuan0/testing uptodate 2.0.2-1
libcairo2/testing uptodate 1.10.2-6.1
libdrm-intel1/testing uptodate 2.4.26-1
libgcrypt11/testing uptodate 1.5.0-3
libgl1-mesa-dri/testing uptodate 7.11-6
libgl1-mesa-glx/testing uptodate 7.11-6
libglapi-mesa/testing uptodate 7.11-6
libglib2.0-0/testing uptodate 2.28.6-1
libglu1-mesa/testing uptodate 7.11-6
libstdc++6/testing uptodate 4.6.1-4
libva-glx1/testing uptodate 1.0.12-2
libva-tpi1/testing uptodate 1.0.12-2
libva-x11-1/testing uptodate 1.0.12-2  
libva1/testing uptodate 1.0.12-2       
libwmf0.2-7/testing uptodate 0.2.8.4-8.1
libxcb-util0/testing uptodate 0.3.8-1
libxfont1/testing uptodate 1:1.4.4-1
linux-base/testing uptodate 3.3
linux-image-3.0.0-1-amd64/testing uptodate 3.0.0-3
memtest86+/testing uptodate 4.20-1
memtester/testing uptodate 4.2.2-1
multiarch-support/testing uptodate 2.13-21
xorg/testing uptodate 1:7.6+9
xserver-common/testing uptodate 2:1.11.1-1
xserver-xorg/testing uptodate 1:7.6+9
xserver-xorg-core/testing uptodate 2:1.11.1-1
xserver-xorg-input-evdev/testing uptodate 1:2.6.0-2+b2
xserver-xorg-input-synaptics/testing uptodate 1.4.1-1+b1
xserver-xorg-video-intel/testing uptodate 2:2.16.0-1
xserver-xorg-video-vesa/testing uptodate 1:2.3.0-7+b1
xserver-xorg-video-vmware/testing uptodate 1:11.0.3-2+b2

lspci:

# lspci -v
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Sandy Bridge DRAM Controller (rev 09)
        Subsystem: Samsung Electronics Co Ltd Device c0a5
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
        Capabilities: [e0] Vendor Specific Information: Len=0c <?>
 
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Sandy Bridge PCI Express Root Port (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
        Bus: primary=00, secondary=01, subordinate=01, sec-latency=0
        I/O behind bridge: 0000d000-0000dfff
        Memory behind bridge: f4000000-f50fffff
        Prefetchable memory behind bridge: 00000000d0000000-00000000e1ffffff
        Capabilities: [88] Subsystem: Samsung Electronics Co Ltd Device c0a5
        Capabilities: [80] Power Management version 3
        Capabilities: [90] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit-
        Capabilities: [a0] Express Root Port (Slot+), MSI 00
        Capabilities: [100] Virtual Channel
        Capabilities: [140] Root Complex Link
        Kernel driver in use: pcieport
 
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Sandy Bridge Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
        Subsystem: Samsung Electronics Co Ltd Device c0a5                                                                    
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 11                                                                    
        Memory at f5400000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]                                                              
        Memory at c0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]                                                                
        I/O ports at e000 [size=64]                                                                                          
        Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]                                                                             
        Capabilities: [90] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit-                                                           
        Capabilities: [d0] Power Management version 2                                                                        
        Capabilities: [a4] PCI Advanced Features                                                                             
 
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation Cougar Point HECI Controller #1 (rev 04)                                 
        Subsystem: Samsung Electronics Co Ltd Device c0a5                                                                    
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 11                                                                    
        Memory at f760a000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16]                                                              
        Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 3                                                                        
        Capabilities: [8c] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+                                                           
 
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation Cougar Point USB Enhanced Host Controller #2 (rev 04) (prog-if 20 [EHCI])
        Subsystem: Samsung Electronics Co Ltd Device c0a5
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 16
        Memory at f7608000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1K]
        Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
        Capabilities: [58] Debug port: BAR=1 offset=00a0
        Capabilities: [98] PCI Advanced Features
        Kernel driver in use: ehci_hcd
 
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation Cougar Point High Definition Audio Controller (rev 04)
        Subsystem: Samsung Electronics Co Ltd Device c0a5
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 22
        Memory at f7600000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
        Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
        Capabilities: [60] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
        Capabilities: [70] Express Root Complex Integrated Endpoint, MSI 00
        Capabilities: [100] Virtual Channel
        Capabilities: [130] Root Complex Link
        Kernel driver in use: HDA Intel
 
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Cougar Point PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev b4) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
        Bus: primary=00, secondary=02, subordinate=02, sec-latency=0
        I/O behind bridge: 0000c000-0000cfff
        Memory behind bridge: f6c00000-f75fffff
        Prefetchable memory behind bridge: 00000000e3700000-00000000e40fffff
        Capabilities: [40] Express Root Port (Slot+), MSI 00
        Capabilities: [80] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit-
        Capabilities: [90] Subsystem: Samsung Electronics Co Ltd Device c0a5
        Capabilities: [a0] Power Management version 2
        Kernel driver in use: pcieport
 
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Cougar Point PCI Express Root Port 4 (rev b4) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
        Bus: primary=00, secondary=03, subordinate=03, sec-latency=0
        I/O behind bridge: 0000b000-0000bfff
        Memory behind bridge: f6200000-f6bfffff
        Prefetchable memory behind bridge: 00000000e2c00000-00000000e35fffff
        Capabilities: [40] Express Root Port (Slot+), MSI 00
        Capabilities: [80] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit-
        Capabilities: [90] Subsystem: Samsung Electronics Co Ltd Device c0a5
        Capabilities: [a0] Power Management version 2
        Kernel driver in use: pcieport
 
00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Cougar Point PCI Express Root Port 5 (rev b4) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
        Bus: primary=00, secondary=04, subordinate=04, sec-latency=0
        I/O behind bridge: 0000a000-0000afff
        Memory behind bridge: f5800000-f61fffff
        Prefetchable memory behind bridge: 00000000e2100000-00000000e2afffff
        Capabilities: [40] Express Root Port (Slot+), MSI 00
        Capabilities: [80] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit-
        Capabilities: [90] Subsystem: Samsung Electronics Co Ltd Device c0a5
        Capabilities: [a0] Power Management version 2
        Kernel driver in use: pcieport
 
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation Cougar Point USB Enhanced Host Controller #1 (rev 04) (prog-if 20 [EHCI])
        Subsystem: Samsung Electronics Co Ltd Device c0a5
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 23
        Memory at f7607000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1K]
        Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
        Capabilities: [58] Debug port: BAR=1 offset=00a0
        Capabilities: [98] PCI Advanced Features
        Kernel driver in use: ehci_hcd
 
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Cougar Point LPC Controller (rev 04)
        Subsystem: Samsung Electronics Co Ltd Device c0a5
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0
        Capabilities: [e0] Vendor Specific Information: Len=0c <?>
 
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation Cougar Point 6 port SATA AHCI Controller (rev 04) (prog-if 01 [AHCI 1.0])
        Subsystem: Samsung Electronics Co Ltd Device c0a5
        Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 29
        I/O ports at e0b0 [size=8]
        I/O ports at e0a0 [size=4]
        I/O ports at e090 [size=8]
        I/O ports at e080 [size=4]
        I/O ports at e060 [size=32]
        Memory at f7606000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=2K]
        Capabilities: [80] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit-
        Capabilities: [70] Power Management version 3
        Capabilities: [a8] SATA HBA v1.0
        Capabilities: [b0] PCI Advanced Features
        Kernel driver in use: ahci
 
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation Cougar Point SMBus Controller (rev 04)
        Subsystem: Samsung Electronics Co Ltd Device c0a5
        Flags: medium devsel, IRQ 18
        Memory at f7605000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]
        I/O ports at e040 [size=32]
 
01:00.0 3D controller: nVidia Corporation Device 0df4 (rev a1)
        Subsystem: Samsung Electronics Co Ltd Device c0a5
        Flags: fast devsel, IRQ 16
        Memory at f4000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
        Memory at d0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
        Memory at e0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=32M]
        I/O ports at d000 [size=128]
        Expansion ROM at f5000000 [disabled] [size=512K]
        Capabilities: [60] Power Management version 3
        Capabilities: [68] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
        Capabilities: [78] Express Endpoint, MSI 00
        Capabilities: [b4] Vendor Specific Information: Len=14 <?>
        Capabilities: [100] Virtual Channel
        Capabilities: [128] Power Budgeting <?>
        Capabilities: [600] Vendor Specific Information: ID=0001 Rev=1 Len=024 <?>
 
02:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4313 802.11b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller (rev 01)
        Subsystem: Askey Computer Corp. Device 7179
        Flags: fast devsel, IRQ 16
        Memory at f6c00000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
        Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 3
        Capabilities: [58] Vendor Specific Information: Len=78 <?>
        Capabilities: [48] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
        Capabilities: [d0] Express Endpoint, MSI 00
        Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting
        Capabilities: [13c] Virtual Channel
        Capabilities: [160] Device Serial Number 00-00-9f-ff-ff-94-b4-74
        Capabilities: [16c] Power Budgeting <?>
 
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 06)
        Subsystem: Samsung Electronics Co Ltd Device c0a5
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 28
        I/O ports at b000 [size=256]
        Memory at e2c04000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=4K]
        Memory at e2c00000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=16K]
        Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 3
        Capabilities: [50] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
        Capabilities: [70] Express Endpoint, MSI 01
        Capabilities: [b0] MSI-X: Enable- Count=4 Masked-
        Capabilities: [d0] Vital Product Data
        Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting
        Capabilities: [140] Virtual Channel
        Capabilities: [160] Device Serial Number 01-00-00-00-68-4c-e0-00
        Kernel driver in use: r8169
 
04:00.0 USB Controller: NEC Corporation uPD720200 USB 3.0 Host Controller (rev 04) (prog-if 30)
        Subsystem: Samsung Electronics Co Ltd Device c0a5
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 16
        Memory at f5800000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8K]
        Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 3
        Capabilities: [70] MSI: Enable- Count=1/8 Maskable- 64bit+
        Capabilities: [90] MSI-X: Enable- Count=8 Masked-
        Capabilities: [a0] Express Endpoint, MSI 00
        Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting
        Capabilities: [140] Device Serial Number ff-ff-ff-ff-ff-ff-ff-ff
        Capabilities: [150] #18

Turns out the slowness can be much improved with a few tweaks. Mainly disabling that complete failure (or virus) Nepomuk. After this the entire KDE desktop feels much smoother and more responsive and doesn’t get buried into swap with run away indexing.

In System Settings/Advanced tab/Desktop search:
- Disable checkbox for “Nepomuk Semantic Desktop”
- Disable checkbox for “Strigi Desktop File Indexer”

In System Settings/Advanced tab/Service Manager:
- Disable any services you don’t need e.g: Power Devil if not using a laptop.
- Yes Nepomuk is in here too, disable it, although that does not seem to change anything.
- Take some time to consider which services you will really use every day.

~/.kde/Autostart/killnepomuk.sh

#!/bin/sh
#Kill the nepomuk virus.
pkill nepomukserver &

Remove and exclude from all backups (this cache can get to 650MB!):

rm -R .kde/share/apps/nepomuk/repository

Other things that I previously didn’t need to exclude from backups:

exclude = /home/*/.kde/share/apps/nepomuk/repository
exclude = /home/*/.mozilla/eclipse
exclude = /home/*/.mozilla/firefox

Uninstall and disable akonadi from starting mysql, .config/akonadi/akonadiserverrc:

StartServer=false

Note that this may cause you some issues if you use kde pim apps, I don’t.

Conclusion

I really love the KDE Alt+F2 command line runner, I know the concept is not completely new but this is the first time that I really find it working for me. The menu is flashy but takes too long, use Alt+F2.

Dolphin is not powerful enough for me and I am back to using Konqueror. I did give Dolphin a fair go but I multi-split panes and right click to get svn context menu’s…all day long.

Webkit in Konqueror is still not for browsing, still using Iceweasel/Firefox and all it’s toys.

Kate, luv ya, finally *smart* auto brackets and code snippets/templates.

I’m finding the 3D window switching and screen edge actions so productive that I have done away with the task bar, nice! Again not brand new concepts but really working for me for the first time.

Kdesvn mostly better, sadly I’ll be leaving you for Git soon.

USB mount/umount WAY better, thanks to the Angel that fixed this.

Comment with your tweaks if you’ve got em!

Now it’s not my intention here to hurt any persons feelings so don’t take this personally…but I just have to vent! I went to download the Alfresco package and found that it was ~500MB. Now that seems a little on the large side and it must be packing a bunch of embedded things like Tomcat and Mysql which I already have on any Debian system. So I thought I would just grab a copy of the source and compile it quickly…I cut the download off at 1.5GB! May as well have just run:

wget *.jar

Holy crap, they must have included every Java library ever written on planet Earth and a few from just outside the Solar System! Ever heard of dependancy management or Ivy caching? Makes my 60MB war file look like a toy (which I can assure you it’s not). At this point I don’t care any more how functional the app is, I’m not going to use it. How is a man to be Agile (let alone Lean) with tools that over weight?

MyDMS may not have super cow powers but so far is the best that I can find, the Grails Stitches plugin looks promising if I can update it to a newer version of Grails. KnowledgeTree looks interesting and I’m pretty sure that I can build a basic Grails DMS that holds the document in a relational database. But I still have the nagging feeling that an IT problem this old should have been solved already…

Proving that I once knew this!