Last nights episode ‘Birth on a cargo’ ship left me feeling fairly uneasy. The plot was basically the midwife (Most of them are inexperienced and newly qualified) had to visit a cargo ship for a suspected birth, OK bit strange a woman being on a cargo ship in the 50′s but hey this could be fun? Turns out the captain of the cargo ship had installed his daughter on board so that she could have sex with all the crew members to, in her words, “Keep them all happy at sea.” Apparently this was not disgusting enough for the BBC, with possible low IQ and paedophile implications given it was his young daughter? the show had the actress say “Yes I am a bit large, the men slip off sometimes” Oh how everyone chuckled at that BBC, never mind that the girl is being used as a sex slave!

If that was not enough the poor girl goes through a difficult birth, we cut to a scene of about six or seven men, including her father, outside the cabin all looking concerned I suspect in a “Am I the father?” kind of way? As you’d expect the birth goes OK and all the men outside rejoice that the young girl has given birth to one of their offspring. Now I’m sat there with my jaw open wondering “When do the cops appear?” but oh no, apparently, even though the girl says she’s going home, the midwife lets them all sail away happily every after on the love boat.

Now I’m not silly, I know this kind of stuff goes on everyday and it’s only TV, but I’m not sure it should be presented in such a way that people think that it is funny. It makes me wonder if a lot of people at the beeb thought what Jimmy Savile was doing was funny at the time as well?

Jan. 26, 2010 Yahoo set as default search engine: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-desktop/2010-January/002396.html

Jan. 10, 2011 Pete predicts Ubuntu will produce it’s own Kernel: http://www.cannon-linux.co.uk/2011/01/2011-predictions/

Apr. 6, 2011 Ubuntu stops shipping free CD’s: http://www.geek.com/articles/news/canonical-stops-offering-free-ubuntu-cds-2011046/

Feb. 15, 2011 Ubuntu changes revenue code in Banshee: http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/71460

July. 30, 2012 Ubuntu drops the word Linux from it’s name: http://blog.projectz.me/2012/07/30/why-ubuntu-not-ubuntu-linux-will-be-the-future-of-next-gen-oss/

Sept. 23, 2012 Ubuntu adds Amazon adverts lens: http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/1182

Oct. 11, 2012 Ubuntu adds a “Donations” section to it’s download site: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/10/11/ubuntu_download_donations/

At the minute it just looks like every avenue is being explored to generate revenue and I wholeheartedly agree with that but clearly it’s not working or not enough is being raised? Maybe it’s time to draw a line in the sand and say “Stuff it, we may upset a lot of our users, we may piss off the community, but we’re going to have to start charging for it.”

We waited and waited and waited and then Amo (Amrik Singh) arrived “Hey Amo what are you drinking?” I asked. “Pineapple and lemonade please” Said Amo. The barmen then started looking all over the place like my dog looks when he can’t find his ball! “You’ve not got any pineapple have you?” I asked, “No we haven’t” after asking Amo what he wanted instead I asked for a lemonade.

The barman then informed me there would be no pepsi so I said I’d have a lemonade as well. Blow me if he then seemed to have issues with the lemonade! Finally, drained by the experience we sat down with our drinks.

A little later Alex (Alex Wilmer) had a chicken and (Bacon?) toasted sandwich, the chicken was cold? Alex sent it back but they said “It’s supposed to be cold” Erm? How come the cheese and the bacon is warm then? Alex ate, I wouldn’t have.

I read yet another “I AM LEAVING!” email on the arch-general mailing list this morning citing this article; http://archlinux.me/brain0/2012/09/10/yet-another-systemd-comment/ and the reason why the author of the email was leaving.

Now I want to be fair and say initially I thought the blog post was pretty good, it seemed to give some valid reasons and kind of explained to a non developer like myself the ins and outs of why it ‘might’ (depending on the side of the fence you sit?) be better to run with systemd.

I was just starting to warm to the author when I got to the final paragraph;

“You can yell all you want, yet Arch Linux will slowly move towards systemd. Initscripts will probably keep working for a long time, but they will eventually disappear. It doesn’t help if you insult us for it. It doesn’t help if you state a thousand times that you leave Arch over “the systemd issue”. We don’t care. You can either embrace systemd and enjoy all its advantages, provide an alternative or use another distribution. We don’t care. We make Arch for ourselves, and for the ones that like it like we do. Whether we have a million users or one hundred users – we will keep making it the distro we like. Deal with it.”

I love the bit where it says that insults etc don’t help. I agree, that doesn’t *help* but then the author smacks them in the face with “We don’t care. ” he then goes on, ever the Freedom loving diplomat, to say in a nutshell “ Do as we say or fook off! ” and yet again repeats “ We don’t care. ”

Then the true colours are revealed “ We make Arch for ourselves. ” what an arrogant statement? Firstly who is this “We”? Some sort of secret handshake society? I wonder if they all sit at a round table meditating past Arch users who’s ashes are ensconced in niches behind them?

And the final tragedy “ We don’t care about, or how many users we have. ” like that’s an argument winner isn’t it? I wonder if as a child you used to knock the game board off the table when you realised you was about to lose?

WON’T SOMEBODY PLEASE SAVE MY BELOVED ARCH LINUX FROM ITSELF?

Ron’s a great guy, his six seater Fiat is like a technology department on wheels what with his blue tooth phone controller thing-a-ma-jig, so he sets the mobile phone Sat Nav (More than likely open street maps knowing Ron?) to get us to Craig Squire’s house. After Ron’s stupid Sat Nav takes us all round the houses we arrive to the tune of me screaming “What a pile of crap that is! I could have got us here much faster and with less hassle” we dragged Craig out his mansion and set off for Liverpool. Department of Transport I hate your guts, why is there never a patrol car pulling over what would clearly appear to be 1.4 litre articulated lorry drivers trying to overtake other slow moving articulated lorries? A straight road that should take us around one and a half hours to traverse took TWO AND  HALF HOURS! Mr minister for transport.

Now I’m a very poor person and have to run a PAYG mobile phone I also keep my 3G turned off especially after last years OggCamp where I purchased £10 worth of credit just before we set off and by the time we left the M25 for Aldershot I had used up all my credit so by the time we hit the M62 for Liverpool I was starting to get Google G+ withdrawal symptoms. I had stuck £5 on my phone late on Thursday and I swear I’d not made any calls and had only sent a couple of texts. By the time we left the M62 I had 97p of credit left. :’(

We arrived at the Britannia Adelphi which was the official OggCamp hotel and Ron kindly dropped us all off then went to park the car, once through the revolving door I thought I had gone through a worm hole or a time warp at the very least! I kept waiting for Kate Winslet to swan down the stairs with her arms flailing behind her like a set of pretend wings. The Adelphi is a Victorian hotel and the décor leaves you in no doubt it’s Victorian, one of the first things that hits you when you first arrive is the smell I’m sorry Adelphi but you stink you really do. It’s a kind of musty old smell with a hint of mould thrown in for good measure I have to say for the first couple of hours it was almost gagging time however after being exposed enough a bit like some dog owners home you actually got used to the smell so much so that you didn’t notice it any more. What’s weird about this hotel is it’s so amazingly crap and yet awesome all at the same time, the place is huge and in its day would have been lavish but it’s kind of just hanging on in there to be honest and due to its size I suspect not even the Sultan of Brunei could not afford refurbish it.

Apparently my room was on the first floor which initially I was pleased with as it meant not far to travel, oh you poor sap Peter you will learn that your happiness will be short-lived, however we will deal with that later. So off I set to find my room, now while there are numbers on the wall to tell you [supposedly] where to go they’re rubbish! This is because not only are there rooms on both sides of the corridor but also rooms in the middle of the place too! So after traipsing back and forth a few times in a long marble wall I spy what looks like a cupboard door, I’m not joking either yes this was my door. I inserted my key card and opened the door to be presented with a cupboard, honestly, in front of me was two walls with a fuse box on the one in front “This can’t be right?” to my right was another door  handle as I started to open the second door the front door eerily slammed shut and I entered Narnia! The room was enormous, the ceiling must have been at least 20ft high I’d got two single beds made into a double and my wardrobe was that big it had another wardrobe inside it, I was out of breath just walking across the room to get to the bathroom, thank heavens there was some easy chairs so I could have a rest half way.

The rehearsal: Matt and I had been asked a few months prior if we would host a OggCamp quiz for the Linux Outlaws and the Ubuntu UK Podcast given there was some technology involved Matt and I felt a rehearsal was in order which turned out to be a good idea as there was one or two glitches that needed sorting out before Saturday. We had arranged to be there for an hour but it quickly slipped into longer the funniest point was Tony Whitmore saying “While I know you don’t want to reveal anything and I don’t want to spoil it can I just ask what you have planned and what’s involved?” Ahahahaha I’m not saying Tony was concerned but I’m sure I could hear parpping noises (Snigger).

The LEAF: And so for some food, we had already posted our intention to eat at the LEAF on bold street, Liverpool Matt and I love this place after Dan held his Rathole Radio Live there in April of this year. They do a decent range of meals including vegetarian options, you sit at mostly long rustic tables with long benches. Because it was so busy we had to sit upstairs, the guy behind the bar said “Is there many of you? I’ll inform the chef” I was really tempted to be cruel and say “Actually they’ve sold 400 tickets so …..” but I didn’t. We had a brilliant time with everyone inspecting everyone else’s meals “Ooh that looks nice what you got there then?” they even had non alcoholic ginger beer so I was a happy bunny.

The Pre OggCamp party: Now that we had filled our bellies with some food we headed back to the hotel for the drunken revelry we have all come to love. As I hinted at earlier the Adelphi is not only huge but a rabbit warren of function rooms, bars and eating establishments this will become relevant later. We all piled into what was already a very busy bar come part-time sauna, there is a sort of circular bar in the middle of the room but this offered little extra ability to get a drink. twenty people all surround the bar clutching £5, £10 and £20 notes in an attempt to gain a quicker service from the three barmen all to no avail. after a long time I managed to purchase a Coke and made my way to the back of the room that by now must have been pushing 20°C everyone was sweating nicely I met up with loads of friends (I can’t name all of them or we’ll be here all week, you all know who you are.) unable to stand the heat any longer I made my way outside which lasted about twenty minutes when it decided to throw it down with rain so we all ducked under the entrance canopy whereupon Julian Aloof (German) and Kim Rasmussen (Danish) proceeded to make remarks about the UK weather,  I was having none of that and lectured them on the fact that English rain was the envy of the world and that they had better get glassful’s and take it home to their parents who will worship them for securing her majesty’s rain. I hope they both remember the rain conversation as everyone around us seemed to find it funny at any rate. But I have to say the funniest point for me was when I bumped into Félim Whiteley or as we like to call him on the podcast “The posh Irishman” because of the acute above the letter é. After a bit of a chat I said that Shane Marks was here and offered to introduce him, so they started off with the usual stuff where do you live, where do you work then Shane said “Ranelagh it’s near Slitorgan.” OMG it was like a scene out of Father Ted “Ah ya loying baastard it’s nowhere near there.” the bit that made me wet myself with laughter was when Shane started to get his mobile out, I presume to look at a map? And Félim said “Ah to be sure and Google’s never been wrong has it?” Bwahahahaha. They both assure me it was typical Irish banter and we all had a good laugh about it.

I wandered up to have a chat with heeed AKA Michael Rimicans who relayed this story to me; “So I was in the lift coming down and there was these two old ladies one of them was blind. I started talking to the blind lady and asked her where she was from, how long she was here for the normal stuff anyway she asked me if my room was nice and I told her about it being a bit small and how the view from the window was rubbish as it was the car park. I then proceeded to  ask her what her view was like? I knew what I was saying, I couldn’t stop myself the words just came out even though she was blind what’s your view like?” I didn’t laugh honest, no honestly. Bwahahahaha. I knew it was too good to be true some guy came out and said we all had to go back into the sauna as technically we was on the street and drinking in the street breaks the by-law so we all shuffled back in to be greeted by ‘Grab a granny night’ it wasn’t just appalling it was embarrassingly appalling I swear to god one of them was 118 if she was a day “Ello deary fancy a quick step?”

Having only managed to obtain two drinks all night due to the three barmen nightmare I came up with a cunning plan, when you enter the Wave bar you actually walk past another bar with a restaurant ”Why not get a drink there and bring it in here?” I thought, it worked perfectly only trouble was I opened my big gob and then that bar was full too! Oops. I have no idea what time they slung us out of there but we was moved to a 4Ft by 3Ft residents bar known as The American Bar I don’t have the foggiest why I tried to carry on drinking but I’d had enough so sloped off in the hope of at least finding my room within thirty minutes so long as I didn’t get too lost.

OggCamp day one: Amazingly for me I arose at 7:30 most of my friends know as Adam Sweet puts it “You get up at stupid times” so this was a long lay in for me but I was looking forward to something I’ve not had for  about fifteen years now, a bath! refreshed and wearing my new Creative Commons tee-shirt I headed down to breakfast with Shane Marks and Julian Aloofi the hotel did it’s very best to either ensure we took as little food as possible or scar us for life by providing red-hot implements to retrieve food items with however this did not stop me from filling my plate with bacon!

Having dragged our full bellies out of the dining room we met up with Matt and some others in the lobby ready for the hike, and I mean hike to OggCamp. Why is everything in Liverpool up a bloody hill? Upon arrival I sneaked in under the pretext of dropping our quiz stuff off and then craftily registered so I didn’t have to stand in that huge queue, well I mean I am a celebrity you know? I had a quick look at the CampFire board and was disappointed that it only displayed the name of the presenter and not what the talk was about, I did speak to Jon Spriggs about this on the Sunday and apparently it was the way people had in-putted the information and nothing to do with him or CampFire for that matter.

I attended the welcome section along with everyone else and then spent the morning basically chatting to everyone, I had my photo taken by Tony Whitmore little did I know what he intended doing with all these photo’s although I have to say the end result was fooking brilliant, well done Tony. It was insanely hot I managed to obtain some large blue paper towel from The LEAF that had set up a small refreshments stand at OggCamp, did I say how much I like the LEAF? So I spent the rest of the morning wandering around dabbing myself like Louis Armstrong. My first port of call was the FSFE stand I had already arranged a few days earlier to purchase a hoodie from them but it would seem it was not to be? Apparently they had arrived from Germany that very morning but the paperwork was not in order so the whole lot was sent back to Germany! Bloody Customs. I handed over some money and arranged for them to post it to me. I then went round and grabbed some stickers and an LCD display screen that I have no idea what I’m going to do with but it was free so why not?

Geeknic: This is actually heaps of fun to attend made even more appealing by the promise of free food but most importantly free pizza! Little did we know that some swine’s would hover around said food items like carrion waiting for the pizza boxes to be opened, by the time I arrived there was four pieces of pizza left, I took one and luckily Matt was behind me and he took one for him and Marie, bloody geeks they’re like human vacuum’s when it comes to pizzas, we all had a good old natter sat in pretty good weather if the truth be told drinking coke and chilling.

Stephen Fry & The Quiz: Now we only had an hour or so until the moment everyone was waiting for was upon us, Stephen Fry, like most people I’ve seen him on the TV and I do watch QI the quiz show he hosts now and again but I wouldn’t class myself as a huge fan however after the thirty minute message he’s definitely gone up in my estimation, if you haven’t seen it and get the chance you should make some time to watch it. For me the best part was his definition of copyright and how it was like a small bird for me he was spot on.

While my new mate Steve was telling us what Linux distribution he uses, it just had to be Ubuntu didn’t it? Matt, Ron and I started setting up ready for the quiz. During the planning of OggCamp 2012 Dan Lynch asked Matt and me if we would like to organise a quiz between Linux Outlaws and the Ubuntu UK Podcast, deeply flattered Matt and I set about trying to produce something that would do justice to the hard work everyone puts into this event. We actually researched the question (Something we rarely do on our podcast) and then sought help from our good friend Ron who very kindly donated some buzzers, questions and his time. Matt spent his personal time reworking the pyquizaster software so that it fitted our event and needs and more importantly going through 12 months of both teams podcasts collecting items to ask questions on, can I just thank Matt as this was no mean task and did take him more than just a couple of hours. I set about creating the ‘Tux from above’ section and the corresponding questions. I did want to have some proper printed cards however the cheapest price I was quoted for 50 cards was £60 which was a bit rich for my pocket. I decided we would make our own and purchased 100 cards from Rymans the stationers. My test prints failed miserably and so we was left with no alternative but to print off our logo on normal paper and glue that paper to the cards so my daughter Hannah kindly spent a whole day glueing each individual card I then glued every question to every card a task that took us two days to complete, Hannah darling you rock.

Matt and I thoroughly enjoyed it and certainly the audience was laughing loads as you can see in the video we had some problems that unfortunately threw us out a bit, you can tell at the start we’re a bit shaky and just kind of launch into it, we sadly lost the sound which meant we could not use the theme tune Matt created or the buzzer sounds I created. As you would expect from nine hyper active podcasters it descended into anarchy now and again. We had a plan to flick our cards into the audience, my misses had said “It’s a bit dangerous?” but hey since when do husbands listen to wives? She was right of course, wives always are, I nearly took some poor woman’s eye out in the second row! All in all it was a damned good laugh and lots of people came up afterwards and said they really enjoyed it. Thanks LO & UUPC we love you.

Linux Outlaws: Fab’s Buzzer Dan’s Buzzer Les’s Buzzer

Ubuntu UK Podcast: Alan’s Buzzer Tony’s Buzzer Mark’s Buzzer Laura’s Buzzer (Sorry Laura it was the best I could think of for you.)

Feed me Seymour: And that was it for OggCamp day one and most of us headed back to the hotel to dump our stuff. Now a person who shall remain anonymous (You know who you are) suggested we eat at a place that apparently did food from all over the world and was one of those ‘Eat all you like’ for £14.99 my spider senses started tingling when he said “So you go down there, up there, turn right, up the stairs turn left……. I thought “Yeah this is a recipe for failure?” and I was right, kind of. Oh we found the place all right after a four day trek and the loss of 4 stone in weight only to discover it was packed to the gunnel’s so  we turned around and some of us headed back to where we came from and ended up eating in the Indian just across the road from the hotel. This was actually hysterical, Stuart Langridge and Adam Sweet was with us so there was bound to be trouble,  Adam piled his plate up and left three potato wedges I was moaning at him that there was a £3 charge for any left food so he hid them between two plates! But the funniest bit was Aq’s (Stewart Langridge) “Worst job in the world” role play. He mused at how they got that Basmati rice coloured at each end only and that it was done by some poor sod on an apprenticeship with two marker pens and a mountain of rice, then the question of quality control came up “Ooh you’ve coloured this one wrong you’ll have to do the whole batch again!” Bwahahaha

Sing Jimmy Carter ya bastard: We all headed into the bowls of the hotel for another night of drunken revelry and entertained by Dan Lynch and his band 20lb sounds Now how can I put this politely? Dan is not what you would call a size 32 chest, I watched Dan sidle up to a chair in need of a sit down, and crush it! Yep one sec there was Dan in front of me the next he was rolling on the floor to sounds of helpful laughter. Of course Dan would say that the leg of the chair was faulty but …… Bwahahaha. Clearly Dan chose two records specifically designed to make me lose my voice namely Billy Bragg’s “Great leap forward” and Dan’s very own “Jimmy Carter” at the time I thought I was OK however next day my voice box was horribly damaged. Towards the end of the evening George Doscher asked me if I wanted to go for a burger with the group of people he was with which little did I know on the one hand might have been a good idea. I was pretty tired and decided to retire to my presidential suite room, now remember how at the start of this I said I was on the first floor and that while I was pleased with this I was to later find out what a mistake this was? Well here it comes. As I made my way through the labyrinth of corridors to the lounge area there was a wedding reception going on with a sound system they had clearly borrowed from The Who “That’s a bit loud?” I thought, yeah it was loud all right. When I got to my room everything inside including me was bouncing up and down I kid you not! Boom, boom, boom, boom. There was no way I was getting any sleep so headed out to wander the streets of Liverpool for an hour and sat eating what McDonalds call a burger watching all the revellers. I couldn’t find George although from what I heard the next day that was probably a good thing as George ended up with some Hen party and the least said the better although rumour has it there are pictures to be found on the Internet.

OggCamp Day Two: It was a later start today, the event was not due to open until 11:00am and we all had to book out of the Adelphi by 11:00am anyway. I’d already arranged to have breakfast with Shane and Julian so while on my way to that I was waylaid by Jon Spriggs where we had probably one of the best conversations I’d had all weekend, true it went over old ground and my thoughts on the Free Software Federation (FSF) and the FSFE (Europe) and all the other plethora of FOSS associated, self appointed organisations. As far as I know Jon now understands where I’m coming from and grudgingly agrees with me which is nice. Craig Squire lumbered in brining his sated belly with him “You been to breakfast?” said Craig “Not yet, I’m meeting Shane.” I replied “He’s been there a while.” Craig informed me. I leapt up and raced down to find a massive queue. Bugger.

On our way back up that pigging hill I dropped my bags off in Ron’s car and we all headed for the last day of OggCamp 2012 Matt had already hacked into CampFire and added The Dick Turpin Road Show for our live recording at 12:00pm and I suspect that swine jontheniceguy added the red warning triangle to our schedule. Matt had put NSFW (Not Safe For Work) but I mean, we do warn people you know? Ahahaha. We had just enough time to meet and greet and before we knew it our time slot was upon us, personally I blame Jon Spriggs and his rotten CampFire as we only had about thirteen or fourteen people at the recording, it couldn’t possibly be anything to do with the fact we clashed with Simon Phipps? The problem was I really wanted to see Alex Martindale’s talk on comedy error messages and of course be at the raffle so the only choice was 12:00pm Matt came up with an awesome topic for discussion “Will Windows 8 be a success for Microsoft?” I felt we had a good debate with lots of audience participation especially from Fabian Scherschel I suspect everyone’s favourite bit was when the church bells next door started peeling hence the title of our episode “For whom the bell tolls”.

The Raffle: Now I don’t want to break my winning streak but I always win ‘something’ at the OggCamp raffle and it’s kinda become tradition that I give my prize to UUPC for them to give away on their show in a competition, wait hold the phone? Did I just say I pay good money for tickets then give the prize away? Yes I did. in 2009 I won a very nice Ubuntu laptop bag, in 2010 I won some O’Reilly E-Book vouchers in 2011 I won some Python hardback books (I kept those) and this year I won another Laptop carry case all of which I gave back to UUPC (Apart from the 2011 win as I said) so I’m not really a tight fisted meanie.

The main prize was a Nexus 7 “Oooooh” they retail at £200 and so a hush fell on the salivating audience, to cut a long story short it was a bloody fix as I never won it, but wait, what’s this? “I would like to donate it back to OggCamp to be auctioned off to raise funds towards the cost of the event.” what a fantastic gesture, that man should get an ovation at every FOSS event he attends. And so we start all over again but this time it’s money on the table. I thought I was in with a chance with my offer of £40 I was even prepared to go to £80 , I had the cash. It finally went to Esko Reinikainen for £280.00 that’s £80 above the RRP! The FOSS community is just overflowing with the most generous, selfless and friendly people you are ever likely to meet.

Goodbye OggCamp: With tears welling up in my eyes I made my way round the venue man-hugging all my friends, and one or two strangers as well, the car park attendant seemed most upset by it? I hate leaving OggCamp I honestly do I feel so sorry for poor Ron as he stands there while I drag out the leaving, trouble is most of the people there I know I won’t see for at least another year and it’s such a great group of people you want to be with them every day.

We made our way back to where Ron’s car was parked and headed off to collect Ron’s wife and daughter and then made our way to the M6. I did warn Ron that Liverpudlians think they’re blee-din Ben Hur at the Colosseum but he did not heed my warning so after a couple of scares we made it on to the M62 prior to joining the M6. Just outside of Stoke-on-Trent the motorway signs started displaying “40MPH Pedestrians on motorway” with visions of crowds of people wandering down the fast lane we passed some random dude in the middle of nowhere stood behind the crash barrier watching the traffic. Obviously there is very little to do on a Sunday In Stoke? After screeching up Craig’s road and pushing him out we headed for my house to be greeted by a distraught Archie he was so excited he wanted to lick everyone in sight.

If you’ve never been to OggCamp you should make the effort I guarantee you’ll meet at least one person you will get on with like a house on fire. Once again OggCamp peeps you’re the best, I look forward to next and many more. #hugs

If this is not a clear, written in black and white, piece of evidence that the#archlinux  most of us have been using for the last six or seven years no longer exists I don’t know what is? Of course I’m starting to turn into one of those dogs howling at the moon because nobody who has control of a project is going to listen to me they never do. I don’t just mean Arch Linux I mean all distributions, look at the furore within the #ubuntu community when such things as Gimp was removed from the Live CD.

Don’t get me wrong I’m not averse to change, change is good it’s how we progress but IMO the current so-called changes (Ch ch ch changes, turn and face the strain) to me seem extremely poorly implemented almost as if the developers are hammering square pegs into round holes simply so they are able to say “I did that!” now you’re perfectly entitled to call me an idiot and say I’m talking out of my backside but just stop and think for a minute, if you’ve hammered a square peg in a round hole and it supposedly works why do you need to create a sym link then? I might not be the brightest spark in the match box but that clearly tells me that actually a square peg in round hole doesn’t work but if we glue some bits of plastic over the gaps it might, kind of.

I never said this on our podcast The Dick Turpin Road Show I wish I had now, but it seems to me that what the developers should have done/do is in effect work on the new incarnation of Arch Linux in secret separate to the mainstream release and then announced “Further development on Arch Linux -A will cease forthwith. Today we announce the release of Arch Linux -B. This is radically different from -A and is not compatible hence the ‘Cease’ notification. Blah, blah, blah.” that way it would have made it more palatable to the users and not have horribly broken people’s installations some of which had been running for five years or more without a re-installation as per Judd Vincent’s vision.

It’s clear that the destruction of the original concept of Arch Linux is going to continue for at least the rest of the year and I’m not going to bother wasting my breath with such stock veiled threats as “You’ll loose users you know!” because even an Amoeba could have seen how these decisions and implementations would really upset the user base and yet nobody cared enough to say “Hang on a minute.”

I like Allan McRae’s stuff, hell I’ve been thinking about asking him on the podcast “He knows his onions.” as we say in the UK but if you read his blog post carefully and know a bit about Arch Linux even you will see that it’s riddled with inconsistencies, for example;

<quote>
The Arch Build System (ABS)
Being able to readily customize packages is always touted as on of Arch’s best features in any review I see. I never use it… Well, not entirely true – I have 1 customized package out of the 626 currently on my system. I wonder if it is the packaging system rather than ABS that is being highlighted by not well-informed reviewers there, because maintaining a custom package is really not a pleasant task in Arch.
</end quote>

My thought is “Just because you don’t use ABS doesn’t mean nobody else is, in fact some people might say maintaining custom packages is the biggest contribution anyone can make to a distribution?” so changing something simply because a select few don’t use it is wrong, very wrong.

<quote>
Simple configuration
The rc.conf file was highlighted by many reviews as being the one stop for all your configuration. In fact, one review suggested that it should also include “wi-fi profiles, printer, scanners, bluetooth etc” given there were not GUI tools to do this. The lack of distro specific tools for configuration was also highlighted, although that is a bit weird given our rc.conf is distro specific.
</end quote>

This is probably my biggest upset, I loved, Notice I said loved, rc.conf as it is to be killed off by the look of things “RIP rc.conf” this for me was the defining factor along with the ‘rolling’ capability of Arch Linux, it is what set us apart from other distributions. Now of course there’s two trains of thought here. Do we make ourselves just like everyone else apart from our logo? Or do we maintain our affiliation with Linux but with our own definite identity?

I for one have never been a sheep.

First Add iSCSI device.
ID: Pick a unique name for this storage
Portal: IP address or hostname for your iSCSI target
Target: After you have entered a valid IP or hostname in Portal you just pick the LUN of the iSCSI target you want to use.
If you don’t see anything here you haven’t configured the iSCSI services correct on you NAS.
Nodes: All (No restrictions)
Enable: Check
Use LUNs directly: Check

Second, add LVM group on the iSCSI target.
Click ‘Add LVM Group’ on the Storage list
As storage name use whatever you want but take care, this name cannot be changed later.
For ‘Base Storage’, use the drop down menu to select the previously defined iSCSI target.
For ‘Base Volume’ select a LUN
For ‘Volume Group Name’ give a unique name (this name cannot be changed later).
Enable shared use (recommended)

You cannot use iSCSI for backups you will need to use NFS for this.

I used to do a review of Dan’s podcast where I would give my personal thoughts on each song, it was actually a lot of work getting all the artwork and writing it all up and so I stopped doing it. Dan loved the ‘Thumbs up’ element of my reviews (At least that’s what he used to say.) so I thought maybe I could do a cut down version with just the thumbs up/down element.

I have no association with Dan’s podcast other than being a fanboy, this is just my opinion, just because I don’t like a song does not mean you wont so don’t bother getting the hump with me. 

RatholeRadio 79 – 27th May 2012

00:00 – Juanitos – Sai-k-delic Party – CC BY Licensed - 

06:03 – Binary Zero – Dirty Clouds - CC BY-NC-ND Licensed - 

09:15 –  The Monster Brothers – Sack Of Bones – CC BY-SA Licensed - 

16:47 – Sophie Ballamy – My Friend, The Moon – License Unknown - 

20:04 – Bryyn – Laws of Physics - CC BY-NC-SA Licensed - 

29:32 – Raphaël Chassigneux – Marina la lama - CC BY-NC-ND Licensed - 

30:57 – The Stirrups – Best Times – CC BY-NC_SA Licensed - 

39:11 – Tijana Bass – Face Of Freedom - License Unknown - 

45:53 - LIVE SONG – Listener’s choice (kind of) – My haphazard version of “White Room” byCream. - 

51:38 – Sam Page – Lottery - License Unknown - 

61:28 – Emerald Park – Reality Bites - CC BY-NC-ND Licensed - 

“All musical styles have good and bad within them. Genres are pointless. Forget pigeon holes and embrace new sounds. You might discover something you like.”

So it’s that time again when we all head off to Liverpool for Dan Lynch’s Rathole Radio, as usual Matthew Copperwaite travelled up from the small village of London to Castle Cannon in the West Midlands and arrived while I was watching Mel Gibson leaving no one behind in ‘When we were soldiers’. Full of excitement I opened the front door to be greeted by Matt clutching a pathetic bouquet of flowers! “These are for you.” he said “you’re always moaning that I never bring you flowers.” Bastard, he knows full well I like lilies! After spending some time recovering from his journey Matt and I set off for Liverpool, I always like to take Matt on a little bit of a detour rather than taking the shortest route to the M6 so that he can sample the delights of the West Midlands the first 20 minutes or so of our journey was pretty uneventful however when we hit the M6 OMG! The traffic was horrendous, every 5 to 10 minutes it was stop start stop start and this was in the fast lane, it has to have been one of the worst journeys up Matt and I have done in fact on one occasion we nearly died when I took my eye off the car in front for literally a split second.

Now I was determined on this occasion that we would not get lost I had downloaded the directions from Google maps even though this is the third time I have done the journey, it clearly states on the directions to get off at junction 21a and follow the M62 to the 5080 now this is where we got lost before so we start to follow the directions and yes you guessed it we was on the wrong road “Fook this” I said “I’m going back to the 62.” So we headed back to the 62 and followed it down into Liverpool which miraculously turns into the 5080  how stupid is that? On the outskirts of Liverpool we could clearly see Ubuntu’s new venture, they are going into house refuse collection as there was a sea of purple wheelie beans everywhere presumably these are collected by the Ubuntu-cart. We headed on down into the city centre totally ignoring the directions we had with me repeatedly saying “we just need to head for the sea.” Yeah that worked really well didn’t it? So having gone round the block we decided to follow a bus which clearly had better directional sense than we did. Now I should say here that we was looking for the Q car park Liverpool 1 I had looked on Google maps, street view, and could see how you got out of the car park but could not for the life of me find the way in. The Strand is a very busy road with three lanes of course we was in the left-hand lane and needed to be in the right-hand lane I tried looking like a lost tourist at the cop car next to us in the hope that they would let us cross in front of them but we obviously didn’t look criminal enough as they just drove off.

Having managed to cross the three lanes into the right-hand lane we travelled a little further on and Matt spotted a ramp in the middle of the road going down into the bowels of the earth “aha, this must be the entrance?” As we descended down we drove across the worst rumble strips I have ever driven over in my life I don’t know about slowing us down but it certainly nearly made me shit myself. I have to say I have never parked in such a posh car park, blue mood lighting adorned the subterranean cavern and this car park was huge. We found a space and retrieved our bags from the boot and set off looking for the exit, on our way we accosted an unfortunate local woman “excuse me can you tell us how we get out of here?” The poor woman led us to the lifts “you don’t happen to know where the travel Lodge Strand Hotel is do you?” The woman led us outside and directed us in the general location of the hotel, Matt and I set off in the lovely weather we was having on that day, it was pissing down. As the bedraggled pair shuffled along the Strand heads sunk into our shoulders for protection we tried to find the hotel “I’m sure it’s on the docks” I said then suddenly out of the corner of my eye there in 20ft letters was the Strand, unusually reception is on the first floor and as we came out of the lift we was greeted by a party of hen nighters trying to book in. Matt, ever the geek, used the booking in console and had his door key straight away I of course was determined to hand over my scrap of paper confirming my booking to a human being, yeah I’m old school, bite me.

“What shall I do give you knock in about an hour?” Said Matt, “Na, I’ve changed my mind I’m not going to have a shower now I’m just going to have a shave and change. Just come in about 20 minutes, don’t panic I won’t be naked.” twenty minutes later there was a knock at the door and I opened it naked from the waist up clutching a towel to my face trying to staunch the blood!
“You bastard, you promised you wouldn’t be naked!” said Matt, never mind the fact that the lovely white towel was covered in blood and looked like some heinous murder had been committed all he was worried about was seeing my hairy chest. Having managed to stem the flow I dressed and we set off to retrieve my phone which I had accidentally left in the car this meant traipsing all the way back to the car park which by now we had a good idea how to get to, having retrieved the phone we got back into the lift and arriving at the shopping level the lift announced “shopping and shop mobility.” which was hysterical given there was still a flight of stairs to be negotiated, how on earth is a wheelchair bound person going to get up those stairs?

We set off for Wetherspoon’s which is where some of us met up last year, as we walked through the city centre a voice called out “Hello” scared that we was going to be asked if we could loan the owner of the voice 24p we picked up the pace, “It’s Dick Turpin in’t it?” I was cornered I had no choice but to own up. There in front of us was Matt Molyneaux, maybe he had been there all day waiting to ambush us? Moggers needed to go back to the hotel so we told him where we would be and carried on I thought it would be a good idea to announce on G+ where we was meeting so, wait for it, I typed ‘witherspoons’ Matt said “what the hell is witherspoons? It’s Wetherspoon’s how can you get that wrong? It’s the biggest national pub chain in the UK!” He’s horrible to me you know. What always makes me smile in this pub is all the girls with rollers in their hair who are having a pre-night out drink I think I’ve only ever seen this in Liverpool? After a short while Matt’s mate texted him that he was in another pub, The Pilgrim on Pilgrim Street. Now given I’d announced we was in Wetherspoon’s we buggered off to the Pilgrim like the complete gits we are.

It’s become a bit of a tradition to eat in The China Palace given it was one of those “Eat all you can for £6.00″ establishments, now Michael (heeed) Rimicans had said earlier in the week that their website was down but we never listen to anything he has to say anyway. My phone rang and it was Michael “The Chinese is closed!” now I thought he meant closed as in not open but after much gnashing of teeth he managed to communicate that like the African blue parrot (Monty Python) “It had ceased to be.” and was closed down so we decided to head for the LEAF as they did food there, the venue is actually really nice and I thought the staff was pretty friendly too. We could hear Dan warming up and could take no more and crept upstairs.

First up was Tom Morecroft I would have said he was a folk singer, we all loved his opening song and his band featured a guy who played a box. Yep he sat on a box and banged it! But it was very good.

I’m afraid the next few songs seemed a bit same old same old with a bit too much “Ooh Ooh aah aah” melodies for my liking Tom did say Holly(?) had a beautiful voice, if only she had sung words more. The songs in the middle of his set was a bit depressing for me but even so we all enjoyed it, sing some happy songs next time mate.

Next up was ‘our mate Dan’ with his band 20lb sounds I am so glad he’s smartened himself up a bit, gone are those crappy red shorts and in was a pretty slick black pair of strides and a black shirt. Of course being a scouse git he still had to wear some multi coloured trainers didn’t he!

Getting a bit too carried away with himself Dan managed to break a string during the second song “It’s OK I only need five strings anyway.” said Mr show off. I’m not sure if it was the next song or the one after Dan realised that he did need that string after all when he hit his guitar solo which now consisted of ‘one note’ played relentlessly. The highlight for me was not only when he announced ”The next song is Jimmy Carter” but that it was for me \o/ I love this song, mainly because it’s the only one of Dan’s I know the words to but also Dan really belts it out. I was a bit worried about him during the mouth organ solo I was scared we’d have to scoop his lung up as he bent over blowing his guts out with a contorted face “You’ll do yourself a mischief mate.”

Next up was P’Chenga this guy is mental! Matt said he was kinda Ska/Punk with almost a bit of Reggae thrown in. This loon threw himself round the stage like a demented gibbon while pulling facial contortions HE WAS BRILLIANT true we couldn’t really understand half the words but who cares he made up for it in energy.

We did feel that his set went on a touch too long there’s only so much excitement a man can take so was kind of glad we could get our breath back when he finished by now I had consumed seven Ginger Beers and was glad of the toilet break to be honest.

The final act was The Corinthians I would have said they was a Rap band, I’ll be honest they was not really my cup of tea although my foot was tapping a couple of times. Matt and I noticed that the guy on the Laptop and I suspect sound board was brilliant! He really seemed to be enjoying himself as well as the guy in the white tee-shirt (This works really well if you wasn’t there as you have no idea who I’m talking about.) my main complaint was they must have said “Corinthians” 30 times during every song! Mind you Matt was right as it clearly worked, their name is now imprinted on my brain.

They’re clearly popular as they brought along their own fan base with an average age of twelve by the look of some of them however at least they had the balls to stand in front of the stage and dance (If you can call it that) which made a few others get up and jiggle about a bit.

One of the strangest moments of the night was when Mr Tinfoil walked past! I have no idea what he was smoking and his excuse of “I was at a fancy dress party.” seemed ‘thin’ very thin in my opinion but hey this is Liverpool and nothing should surprise you of a night time round there.

It was getting near the end of the night certainly for us some of our friends had already headed off and Matt and I decided to wander off back to the hotel. We had a brilliant night Rathole Radio is not just about the music for us it’s about a social event with our friends and one we look forward to every year. If you’ve never been come along next year and we’ll look after you.

The pictures in the post are reproduced by kind permission of another baldy Pete Stean who scared the living daylights out of me by leaving his hugely expensive camera lying around, I’ve lost five years off my life coz of you you bastard! Cheers for letting me use your photos mate and the ones you took of Matt and me.

Pete Stean is available for weddings, christenings and Bar Mitzvah’s and the odd risqué photo shoot. All that’s left to say is “Thanks Dan see you in 2013″

Oh and one final thing, Matt and I was very impressed with the vending machine in the Strand Travelodge that dispensed paracetamol!

ENJOY