Planet Debian – Colin Watson: Reproducible man-db databases

Oct 162022
 

I’ve released man-db 2.11.0
(announcement,
NEWS), and
uploaded it to Debian unstable.
The biggest chunk of work here was fixing some extremely long-standing
issues with how the database is built. Despite being in the package name,
man-db’s database is much less important than it used to be: most uses of
man(1) haven’t required it in a long time, and both hardware and
software
improvements
mean that even some searches can be done by brute force without needing
prior indexing. However, the database is still needed for the whatis(1)
and apropos(1) commands.
The database has a simple format – no relational structure here, it’s just a
simple key-value database using old-fashioned DBM-like interfaces and
composing a few fields to form values – but there are a number of subtleties
involved. The issues tend to…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~cjwatson/blog/reproducible-man-db-databases.html

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Richard Stallman’s Political Notes – Inventing “holidays” to get people to spend

Oct 162022
 

US businesses have been inventing “holidays” as excuses to get people
to spend money for more than a century.
About 10 of the many examples.

I decided long ago to disregard all the holidays that pressure people
to give gifts.
I would not “celebrate” Record Store Day, but I do wish there were a
good record store in Boston, with a big selection of classical and
world records — I would visit it from time to time to look for
interesting CDs to buy. The CD is the last media substrate that was
invented without malfeatures to restrict people or impose nonfree
technology, and I am happy to use it.
Meanwhile: Out, out, damned Spotify! It has the same injustices as Amazon…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://stallman.org/archives/2022-jul-oct.html#14_October_2022_(Inventing_holidays_to_get_people_to_spend)

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Richard Stallman’s Political Notes – Digital payments for parking

Oct 162022
 

People who use a digital method to pay for parking are contributing
to a system of tracking which endangers human rights and democracy.
Occasionally, some of them also get scammed and then screwed.

External feed Read More at the Source: https://stallman.org/archives/2022-jul-oct.html#14_October_2022_(Digital_payments_for_parking)

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Hackaday – Reverse-Engineering a Display Protocol to Repair a Roland Synthesizer

Oct 162022
 

Repairing electronic devices isn’t as hard as it used to be. Thanks to the internet, it’s easy to find datasheets and application notes for any standard component inside your gadget, and once you’ve found the faulty one, you simply buy a replacement from one of a million web shops — assuming you don’t end up with a fake, of course. When it comes to non-standard components, however, things get more difficult, as [dpeddi] found out when a friend asked him for help in repairing a Roland Juno-G synthesizer with a broken display.
The main issue here was the fact that the display in question was a custom design, with no replacement or documentation available. The only thing…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://hackaday.com/2022/10/15/reverse-engineering-a-display-protocol-to-repair-a-roland-synthesizer/

 2022-10-16  Comments Off on Hackaday – Reverse-Engineering a Display Protocol to Repair a Roland Synthesizer