Archive vom Juni, 2016

Here's a solution for a problem I have been unable to find anything about on the net, so I would like to share it with you.
It results from a particular combination of choices that are not exactly mainstream, so it is probably quite rare:

Setup

First, I use the i3 window manager. Like many of the more usual window managers, it supports the notion of work spaces. I also use multiple monitors, and this is where i3 is different: instead of building up a huge desktop stretching over all monitors (and changing its contents via workspaces), each monitor is taken seperately; and each can be assigned one or more workspaces.You start working on a different workspace either by moving the mouse pointer, or by a key combination.

Here's where factor number three comes in: I use an absolute pointing device, namely a Wacom Intuos3. By default, the tablet maps to the whole screen area -- treating it as a single desktop,
conceptually very diferent from i3's approach.

Culture Clash

This shows: when I switch to a different screen, i3 has the ability to warp the mouse pointer, i.e. make it jump to the newly focused window. This is a nice touch for an ordinary (relative) mouse, but an absolute mouse will jump right back. You have to manually move it over.
It might seem like a good idea to switch screens using the mouse instead, but this does not work well if you need a workspace that lingers at the back of your other monitor -- you have to click on a tiny icon at the bottom. Besides, using the mouse to switch workspaces does feels wrong with keyboard-centric i3.
I ended up using a key combination and moving the mouse over, which feels redundant and annoying.

I looked for a way to confine my Intuos to just the active monitor, but have been unsuccessful until recently. Here's my setup:

Solution

First, bund workspaces to monitors:
workspace 1 output HDMI-0
workspace 2 output HDMI-0
workspace 3 output HDMI-0
workspace 4 output HDMI-0
workspace 5 output HDMI-0
workspace 6 output DVI-I-1
workspace 7 output DVI-I-1
workspace 8 output DVI-I-1
workspace 9 output DVI-I-1

Then, replace the ordinary workspace-switching key combinations by extended ones that also remap the input device:

bindsym $mod+1 exec --no-startup-id " i3-msg workspace 1; exec $HOME/bin/wacom-left"
bindsym $mod+2 exec --no-startup-id " i3-msg workspace 2; exec $HOME/bin/wacom-left"
bindsym $mod+3 exec --no-startup-id " i3-msg workspace 3; exec $HOME/bin/wacom-left"
bindsym $mod+4 exec --no-startup-id " i3-msg workspace 4; exec $HOME/bin/wacom-left"
bindsym $mod+5 exec --no-startup-id " i3-msg workspace 5; exec $HOME/bin/wacom-left"
bindsym $mod+6 exec --no-startup-id " i3-msg workspace 6; exec $HOME/bin/wacom-right"
bindsym $mod+7 exec --no-startup-id " i3-msg workspace 7; exec $HOME/bin/wacom-right"
bindsym $mod+8 exec --no-startup-id " i3-msg workspace 8; exec $HOME/bin/wacom-right"
bindsym $mod+9 exec --no-startup-id " i3-msg workspace 9; exec $HOME/bin/wacom-right"
bindsym $mod+0 exec --no-startup-id " i3-msg workspace 10; exec $HOME/bin/wacom-right"

Note the double quotes -- single quotes get messed up in some internal shell call and lead to weird error messages.
The remap scripts apply a coordinate transformation matrix that depends on your monitor setup and sizes.
#!/bin/bash -x
xinput set-prop "Wacom Intuos3 6x8 stylus" --type=float \
"Coordinate Transformation Matrix" 0.6 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1

For some hints on how to calculate the proper matrices, see the linuxwacom wiki.

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Nach meinem Systemwechsel auf dem Desktop habe ich mich mit meinem iPhone immer ein bißchen wie ein Außerirdischer gefühlt: so richtig Spaß macht es nur auf dem Planeten iTunes, und iTunes ist weit weg. Als das iPhone den Geist aufgab, lag es also nah, auch hier einen Systemwechsel zu vollziehen. Das heißt fast automatisch Android  (nur mit Jolla habe ich kurz geliebäugelt). Das erst Problem war, in der Fülle der Hersteller und Geräte etwas passendes zu finden. Gelandet bin ich schließlich beim Galaxy A3, das eine angemessene Ausstattung in einem nicht allzu großen Gerät unterbringt.
Etwas in den Abmessungen des iPhone 4 wäre mir lieber gewesen, ich habe aber nichts passendes gefunden.
Die erste große Überraschung mit dem neuen Gerät war, daß es um die Konnektivität nicht so gut bestellt ist wie gedacht. Das Android-Lager setzt genauso auf Cloud-Dienste wie die Firma Apple, und eine lokale Datensicherung oder die Verwaltung des Smartphones vom Rechner aus ist nicht vorgesehen. Zum Abgleich von Musik gibt es MTP, aber das erwies sich also so gruselig instabil, daß es nicht sinnvoll nutzbar ist.
Wenn der neurotische Kram nicht funktioniert, helfen meist Standard-Tools. In diesem Falle ist das ein Android-sshd namens SSHDroid,mit dem ich meine Plattensammlung bequem und sicher aufs Telefon bringen kann. Damit sie dort dann auch erkannt werden, ist derzeit noch ein Reboot vonnöten, ich bin aber guter Hoffnung, das noch verbessern zu können.

1 Kommentar

Rsnapshot is flawed, claims Espen.   I've stumbled upon a problem he does not directly mention: when a backup run fails, it won't be retried until (ana)cron decides to run the job again. This should not be a problem for hourly runs, but can become troublesome for the weeklies and monthlies. Even worse, cron runs might be correlated with backup failures: when anacron tends to run your backup job two minutes before you connect the external hard drive, you might be without any long-term backup while merrily retiring old hourlies.

I am convinced a better solution will consider all backup lines (including weekly and monthly runs) at each invocation (say, hourly). Here's a proposition: for each line, compare the time stamp of the most recent copy to the oldest copy in the next (more frequent) line. If the difference is sufficiently large, perform a migration.

In other words: if the oldest daily backup is more recent than the latest weekly by at least a week, call rsnapshot weekly to move that copy over.

Here's the script I use:

#!/bin/bash

TARGET=/backup/snapshots

[ -d $TARGET ] || exit 2

function invoke() {
  SERIES=$1
  PERIOD=$2
  PRED=$3
  if [ ! -e $TARGET/$PRED ]; then
    return
  fi
  if [ -e $TARGET/$SERIES.0 ]; then
    MTIME=`stat -c %Y $TARGET/$SERIES.0`
    PTIME=`stat -c %Y $PRED`
    if [ $((PTIME-MTIME)) -gt $PERIOD ]; then
      rsnapshot $1
    fi
  else
    rsnapshot $1
  fi


}

invoke monthly $((30*24*3600)) weekly.4
invoke weekly $((7*24*3600)) daily.6
invoke daily $((24*3600)) hourly.23
rsnapshot hourly

It goes into /etc/cron.hourly, and this is the only place rsnapshot is called -- no more fiddling around with half a dozen cron entries.

Edit: if e.g. rsnapshot weekly is invoked but daily.6 is absent, the oldest weekly snapshot is still deleted, so check for this.

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