16.12.19
I noticed that tcsh 6.22.02 has a broken configure
script:
./configure: gl_HOST_CPU_C_ABI_32BIT: not found
This looked like an unexpanded m4
macro to me. I was unable to reproduce the error if I ran autoreconf
under Debian buster, so I switched to a NetBSD host and tried there. Indeed, running autoreconf
resulted in the same broken configure script.
Upon closer inspection, it turns out that devel/gettext-m4 had been updated to a new version in pkgsrc without noticing that generated configure
scripts now throw an error. The cause was a missing file (host-cpu-c-abi.m4
).
For some reason the package Makefile
has a hardcoded list of files to install from gettext-tools/gnulib-m4
(as opposed to calling the install target via make
). The reason is probably to avoid unnecessary or irrelevant files. However, this means that any relevant changes to gettext-tools/gnulib-m4/Makefile
can easily go unnoticed.
I’ve added the missing file to the list, but I worry that this approach is prone to errors. Perhaps some easy check could be added and noted in the package Makefile
to detect problems, e.g. generating a sample configure
script before committing a version update.
4.5.17
By default many Linux network interface card drivers set their SMP affinity mask to either all zeroes or all ones (“ff” — the length of the mask depends on the number of CPUs on the system). The former results in all queues and interfaces running on CPU ID 0, which can become a performance bottleneck due to insufficient computing power. The latter results in all queues and interfaces being scheduled on multiple CPUs, which can become a performance bottleneck due to increased CPU memory cache misses. (more…)
14.3.17
For whatever reason my Windows desktop profile is not reflected to my Citrix apps. So I get to figure out the settings that I’ve changed over the years all over again.
In Skype for Business I want a fixed width font and no emoji.
- Click the Settings menu in the main Skype window (the cog icon).
- Select IM on the left.
- Uncheck the box for Show emoticons in messages.
- Click the Change Font button and choose Consolas.
12.3.17
This morning Alexa was an hour behind — she hadn’t moved to DST. A quick search on Google showed that last year DST switching had worked.
The top hit, however, was a fresh Reddit thread with Alexa users reporting the same issue. After keeping an eye on it, I saw a user come up with the solution that worked for me (and it is the only solution on the thread so far).
Launch the Alex app and go to Settings, select a device, and change the timezone
- from America/Eastern Standard Time
- to US/Eastern Standard Time
The fix takes immediately: just ask “Alexa, what time is it?” — no power cycling needed.
2.12.16
Since switching to the iCloud Photo Library, the Photos app on my laptop has kept telling me that
- 1 Item on This Mac Only
- Unable to Upload 9 Items
To identify the oddball photos, I created the following smart folders respectively:
- [Photo] [is] [referenced]
- [Photo] [is] [unable to upload to iCloud Photo Library]
Referenced photos can be consolidated into the library and would then be uploaded to iCloud — mine was a duplicate, so I just deleted it. The photos that could not be uploaded were photos that had been deleted, but somehow a reference had been kept or imported.
References: