Slashback: Safety, Transmissions, Breakage

Slashback has updates tonight on nuclear-safe hosting facilities, the temporary return of Metricom's Ricochet service, and a possible problem with Apple's newest upgrade for anyone using Xfree86 under Mac OS X.

A soft spot on the Apple?MacXGuy writes: "I recently obtained by free 10.1 upgrade from the Apple Store in the Mall of America. After installing it on my Titanium PB-G4 XFree4.1 (http://www.mrcla.com/XonX/) no longer works. (I'm definitely not installing it on my Dual 800 G4 until a workaround is found.)"

Since most of the stuff I've heard about the 10.1 upgrade has been positive to the point of suspicion, I wonder if anyone else has experienced similar upgrade quibbles with it.

Another good reason for a complex infrastructure. PhantomHarlock writes "New York City officials requested and got what's left of Metricom to re-activate the wireless network in the area surrounding the World Trade Center. Rescue and cleanup crews are using the network to coordinate and access death certificates filed online. Only one rooftop transmitter had been destroyed, the other four are still intact."

Even when you're right, you're wrong -- as the fine print clearly shows. An anonymous reader points to column in InfoWorld about interpreting the overlapping, contradictory and sometimes funny EULAs that accompany Microsoft products. Microsoft certainly isn't alone in that regard either -- ever read a EULA you thought was totally fair, unambiguous, and satisfying? Mr. Anonymous writes: "This was amply illustrated last week after I mentioned here that the EULA (end-user license agreement) for FrontPage 2002 contains a term prohibiting use of the software in connection with a site that disparages Microsoft or its online services. I love it."

The only place to hunker is a well-connected bunker. severn2j writes: "It seems that AL Digital's nuclear bunker (posted on /. a few weeks ago), has paid off for them in light of the attacks on the U.S. So much so that they've got another one."

And for all your fair-use needs ... An Anonymous Coward writes "Maybe lyrics.ch is going down now, but most of its content and even more is available from LyricsDot which is not going to close."

Good to hear. Amateur song transcription really isn't such a bad thing, except when you consider most of the songs.

10.1 breaks things

[cmoney]

No conspiracy theory here, 10.1 does in fact break things. There were hacked up drivers for the Lucent WaveLan wireless ethernet card that worked with 10.0.4 but broke under 10.1. Various other programs like BBEdit had smaller problems also. Alot of programs have been re-released within the past few days to address 10.1 issues that have cropped up. If you haven't seen them publicized, it's because you're not looking on Mac boards, but they're there.

Re:10.1 breaks things

[kerincosford]

it does indeed break things.

I installed it today, and it broke Apache, because I'd installed the Apple WebSharing update, which seems mighty odd.

It also went ahead and installed an older build of PHP over my existing one.

But, the problems werent that huge. A simple edit Apache edit and a rebuild of PHP and everything was up and running again.

Other people may well have more problems with stuff like C and Perl though, until they start using Developer Tools 10.1 - a whole bunch of modules have been renamed, and GCC seemed to be all screwed up until Dev tools 10.1 was installed.

Not the hardware

[matty]

He's not talking about a problem with the hardware, he's saying that XFREE86 4.1 no longer works.

I don't need to mention that XF86 4.1 is software, not hardware, do I?

Re:10.1 breaks things

[kerincosford]

Oh, anybody having troubles with 10.1 breaking things - this [stepwise.com] has a whole bunch of handy pointers.

XFree 4.1 needs to be post 1.0a2

[descubes]

I had a similar problem. After upgrading to 1.0a3, the latest build, it worked fine. The web page at http://www.mrcla.com/XonX [mrcla.com] indicates that 1.0a2 is the first build that starts on 10.1.

I still have trouble if I lose a connection to a remote X machine, or if I kill XDarwin. In that case, I seem to have trouble starting a new X session, it complains that it cannot connect to a socket and that another XDarwin might be running.

XF86 10.1 problem is easy...

[ehintz]

Make sure /usr/X11R6/bin and /usr/local/X11/bin are in your path.

Re:MacXGuy is lying

[wrhix]

Hang in there, it can work.

I'm running XDarwin 1.0a3 successfully with Mac OS X.I. (Dual headed on a PowerBook G3 no less!) I had a little bit of problem, but it was easily fixed. OS X replaces the BSD subsystem, so I had to go back into the system tcsh login and add /usr/X11R6/bin back into the path.

A friend with an iBook had to reinstall XDarwin 1.0a3 to get it to work again.

Good Hunting!
Raph

Re:EULA Issues

[os2fan]

Having read the EULA in question, it DOES place exactly the sort of restrictions as I have indicated. The way that the EULA that I have for it reads, it does not specifically state web components. Is HTML a web component? The term "web component" is undefined. And having seen what MS does with undefined terms, I would be afraid of this.

That MS has overstepped the steps necessary to protect the unauthorised reproduction of its licenced IP, and the misuse of its trademarks, should be regarded as a threat to the freedom of speech.

Next, they will be saying you can't use their compiler to compile a competing wordprocessor, or any product that competes, replaces or interferes with their extant or potential products. Well.

Re:10.1 breaks things

[timdaman]

It broke X so I reinstalled it. Blow away your /usr/X11R6 and /etc/X11 and reinstall. Also get the really nice new XonX Xdarwin client so you can run X in rootless mode (i.e. show X and Aqua on the same display at the same time). Total time of recovery, about 15 min. Also if I may put my 2cents in, **10.1 ROCKS**!!!!! I was almost ready to give up my Mac habit of many years. I had Linux running on my G4 fulltime with occasionaly trips to MacOS 9/X to do stuff. Now I think I may be moveing in the other direction. I still am keeping linux on my router and server tho so I am not toally abandoning it. :)

10.1 breaking things.

[hemisphere]

I'm using XDarwin and that runs fine for me on a Ti under 10.1. However, installing 10.1 did break cvs, fink and a bunch of other things. I kept getting library errors. Installing the 10.1 developer kit (upgrading from 10.04 or whichever) fixed my problems.

XFree4.1 does work on OS X 10.1...

[GreenDot09]

You just need to go download the 1.0a2 rootless test patch (from the xonx sourceforge sight: http://sourceforge.net/projects/xonx ). I have it installed and X works fine on my pismo running 10.1