Fighting FakeRAID and GRUB problems

Everybody knows that RAID can be an effective solution for redundancy and general availability, but in a real professional environment it is clearly not enough - and a very careful analysis of all the possible point of failure should be made (and people that believe having a single expensive SAN with RAID5 inside 'covers everything' at enterprise level should be quickly and quietly removed from decision positions).

However for very cheap (home or really-small business) some compromises have to be made, and given the abysmal reliability but acceptable price of the more recent generations of hard-disks it is now a decent solution to use some form of low-cost RAID 1 (mirroring) even for home use.

Now if you have some basic technical skills with computers you already know about the 'integrated RAID' that is now provided at basically no extra cost on most of the modern motherboards, and if you also have some decent Linux skills you also know that the type of RAID provided by those solutions is very specific in needing some (serious) OS-side support and as such it is referred in the Linux world as FakeRAID and in the purist circles is always derided - however that is a very narrow and slightly shortsighted view (of the same kind as 'I don't see SMP becoming mainstream …') - for certain scenarios the FakeRAID can be a very effective solution if you know what you are doing!

So how bad is FakeRAID ? Well, right now it is not as polished as some of the other OS-level software approaches (like volumes in Windows or Linux) and it is not as fast as some of the very expensive dedicated hardware solutions, however:

a) it is much better for interoperability among different Operating Systems than any of the other software solutions - think of it at hardware vendors forcing Linux and Microsoft to come to an agreement on volume (basic) formats :) On top of that it also perfectly fixes the initial boot problem (since the BIOS is aware of it, unlike for instance a Microsoft proprietary solution).

b) it can be a LOT cheaper and also 'easier to recover' than a dedicated hardware solution.

So what problems should you be aware of ?

First of all there is still some lock-in but this time from the hardware vendors - there are a number of FakeRAID formats and those are not 'playing nice' one with another so a FakeRAID from one type of motherboard most likely will not work on a totally different motherboard - you can see a more detailed discussion here but as a general quick rule of thumb you must remember that ideally you should replace the motherboard in such a system with another motherboard with the same chipset for a full 'instant replacement' !

If that kind of drop-in replacement is not possible things are still not completely lost - since Linux can still see such FakeRAID volumes even on some slightly different hardware (because the differences are coming from BIOS level) - so you can still perfectly read all you data, but this time you might need some extra storage to save the data to, then you can re-arrange things in BIOS for the new FakeRAID format and then restore the saved data - far more time-consuming but still doable if you care about your data - which is precisely what happened to one of my systems :)

So which are the problems mentioned in the title ? Well, once the theory from above was well clarified (and I was no longer trying to get a 'perfect solution' since the old chipset could no longer be found) I decided to reinstall clean versions of the Operating Systems - things worked very well for Windows (except Windows 2000 which seems to no longer be supported by all FakeRAID vendors), but surprisingly the boot process was looking very tricky on Linux, specifically with some of my USB 'recovery tools' and with new installations. The problem was apparently related to RAID support (since in some early attempts it was booting OK without the RAID) - so I lost a huge amount of time experimenting with a number of distributions - most of which were starting OK from the installation DVD or LiveDVD but were rather tricky in setting the partitions and all without any exception were finally getting to the same end-point - a non-bootable system at GRUB level !!!

I will not list all the stupid tests I have done to clarify that strange behavior but instead I will fast-forward to the actual conclusion - the problem WAS related to RAID, but not to the actual OS-level RAID (well, most of the time at least, see below the paragraph on Ubuntu) but instead to something else simpler but far more surprising - the free-memory pattern of the low 640k of the memory which was changed when the RAID BIOS was activated !!!

So the bottom line is that even to this day there is a (dumb) bug in both GRUB and GRUB2 which 'assumes' that the low memory is pretty free in some fixed (???) addresses from (linear) 0x90000 to about 0x9A000 - where some initial parts of the kernel (and also memtest) is loaded/started (in real mode) !!! And of course that assumption was NOT true once the extra RAID BIOS was active - so no surprise that the system was never bootable! You can easily check for that problem with displaymem at the GRUB legacy (which still is a LOT better than GRUB2 when something goes wrong) command prompt - if you see any reserved block in that range you will see booting problems!

So how on earth those Linux DVDs were still starting so well ? Well, that also explained something that I have observed starting a few years ago - pretty much all serious distributions are using ISOLINUX to boot from CD/DVD (even if GRUB was looking easier to setup and handle) - but of course ISOLINUX / SYSLINUX / EXTLINUX are all working OK even with strange low-640k memory maps - so probably without ever getting to describe the full (potential) problems, the maintainers were just automatically choosing the boot method which 'was working' !!!

Once that become clear the obvious solution was to switch to EXTLINUX - which is a lot 'different' than you would think, since as far as I know there is no large-scale friendly distribution using it as the final HDD bootloader - many distributions are including it somewhere but are optimized around having GRUB and more recently GRUB2 as the general system bootloader which has to be 'automagically' updated after installing a new kernel or anything :(

So the final solution was to install Ubuntu - one extra 'trick requirement' was that the above system was also somehow used for certain tests, and I wanted both a 32-bit and a 64-bit system side-by-side - 'forcing' GRUB legacy on both (but with different targets - I used the partition table for the entire disk for the 32-bit version and the actual Linux64 partition for the 64-bit version), and then 'chain' from GRUB to a manually-maintained EXTLINUX for the actual booting - things work OK as long as I remember to manually update the EXTLINUX configuration file after major kernel updates. There was also an extra complication - somehow along my many tests I ended with a separate small /boot partition (located in the first 8 GB of the disk - at some point in the tests I was ready to accept even the most fantastic explanations, like for instance the BIOS not being able to read in real mode past 8 GB), where EXTLINUX also is placed (starting from the boot sector of that partition) and I have to copy there the kernel and initrd files - and with that occasion I also noticed that Ubuntu kernel/initrd files do not have anywhere in the name some 'architecture marks' - like x86 or x64 somewhere in the name - so basically I keep them in separate folders to avoid inherent name clashes :)

The other tricky part with Ubuntu was handling RAID partitions - it seems that the current 10.04 LTS neither in the LiveCD nor the AlternateCD is very prepared to handle the changes after you create or seriously change partitions on FakeRAID - so ideally you just create everything on the first boot from one of those CDs and then just reboot - when the installer will detect the partitions just fine and go ahead without any problems! Surprisingly the Alternate x64 also has some bugs, so I ended installing from Alternate x86 and Live x64 - but the resulting install worked equally well once correctly set with EXTLINUX !

So the bottom line is that sometimes you might still see unexpected things with Linux, but a little persistence (and good internet searching skills) can provide a quick workaround - and hopefully during the long run the GRUB bug from above will be fixed and I will no longer need to keep both GRUB and SYSLINUX on my USB recovery tools :)

Ubuntu LTS - from 'huge disappointment' to 'acceptable Lazy Lynx' ?

There have been a number of previous Ubuntu versions which were clear disappointments, with 8.04 LTS going to the top of the list (see for instance here), so the launch of the latest Ubuntu LTS version - 10.04 Lucid Lynx - was expected with understandable curiosity.

Unfortunately after a promising beta version the first release candidate started to expose ugly problems which unfortunately remained in the final version :( It is however possible to get past those and with a little effort get a very acceptable installation - but that is obviously not something very simple for a newcomer or when we speak about deploying it on a small number of computers - so the correct codename for the version IMHO should have been 'Lazy Lynx' :)

The first and most serious problem is a very unfortunate (and IMHO far from smart) change in regard to X11 on a number of video cards - most notably some VERY common Intel models used mainly in notebooks - with the result that actually many systems that were very stable under the previous 9.10 can't even boot the 10.04 LiveCD !!!

So if you just tried to start the 10.04 LTS LiveCD and after 5-10 minutes you get a computer that just hangs with a black or garbled screen and no feedback at all (most notably no starting sound) you are most likely a 'victim' of that problem (one other alternative might be RAID-related stuff, but that one most often just 'blocks' the computer for like 3-5 minutes only and after that is starts OK). One ugly but GENERIC workaround for the video problem is to start in 'safe video mode' - unfortunately in the current version that option is no longer 'friendly' in an obvious menu so you basically need to press F6 and erase the 'splash quiet --' part of the options and replace them with 'xforcevesa' - this can solve plenty of problems but unfortunately you are now stuck with the VESA minimal video driver (which will remain after installation) and all acceleration and 3D is gone :(

The real workaround for certain Intel video cards is to actually use another option - 'i915.modeset=1' - apparently older X11 code was failing on maybe 3% of the Intel video cards with the default modesetting behavior (and for that case you needed 'i915.modeset=0') so somebody decided to reverse (disable) that - which seems that now fails in like 10% of the cases :( Anyway, if after that your LiveCD starts nicely then you will be able to install just fine but the booting process will fail on the first restart - so again add manually (once) 'i915.modeset=1' to the boot options and then once booted OK from the command line do:
sudo echo options i915 modeset=1 > /etc/modprobe.d/i915-kms.conf
(which will set that option persistently). Some other information on the matter can be found at this page - but note that the version of the page might talk about older cases where you had to disable modesetting (which is now the default).

As I said another (rare) problem might be in certain RAID configurations - but patience and attention (plus eventually some Google skills) will get you over that :)

If you want optimal interoperation with Windows another 'pre-installation trick' would be to format the Linux partition in advance with EXT3 and the older 128 bytes inode (mkfs.ext3 -I 128) and do not let the installer to reformat the partition (and in the installer you should ALWAYS use the advanced/manual partitioner !) - that way you will be able to read and write to that partition from Windows with EXT2 IFS !

On certain hardware configurations (Broadcom cards) WiFi will not be configured by default and you will need at least once a wired Ethernet connection so that the 'hardware wizard' will be able to fetch the (restricted to deployment) Broadcom firmware. After that your network will start and you can enable time-sync (which will install ntp) and most certainly you will have over 200 Mbytes of updates :)

While the default general color combination is a small improvement over previous versions, the 'new looks' are actually worse - apparently there is some huge 'OSX envy' somewhere at a very high level at Ubuntu and that leads to some very dumb usability/efficiency decisions - one of the most talked subject about 10.04 is about how to get back to the classic button order so here is again - you start gconf-editor, go to apps → metacity → general and change the value for button_layout to 'menu:minimize,maximize,close' ! Of course that is only part of the road to a decent look - I also MUST change the theme from the new Ambiance to Clearlooks (which allows me to configure the color for the title bars since it is the same as the color for ' selected item').

Also I always make certain the 'desktop effects' are on 'Advanced' (which means compiz) and then install compiz-settings-manager where I have a huge amount of personal productivity settings (including a large number of hotkeys). I also need my favorite firefox plugins + my passwords + my bookmarks, then I install VLC (in this version on my notebook it seems to need to be manually configured for OpenGL video output since otherwise will crash the system), and of course WINE 'just in case'.

The look and usability will be more than acceptable in the end:

When no amount of reality distortion field can hide the fact that the emperor is naked

After a long media frenzy on how the Apple tablet will revolutionize the world and be the best thing since the invention of the PC, the actual official announcement of the iPad has indeed slashed all records - I mean, all records on the number of new jokes (most of them surprisingly funny) launched in just 24 hours !!!

There are many 'firsts' in regard to this latest launch, but none of them is really a pure technological achievement - and most important of all is the fact that for the very first time Apple has launched a product that even the most die-hard fanboys see as non-inspiring and not so desirable in any way. This is a huge problem - since at Apple it was always a matter of selling a product which was visibly and vastly overpriced but at least it was so desirable that people would skip rent and still buy one just in order to have the latest 'status symbol'. That's no longer the case - and is only in a rather small part since the name is related to an article of feminine personal hygiene. It could be that for the first time there was too much hype prior to the launch but more likely it is also related to the total lack of something technologically new or at least exciting - it is just a much bigger iPod, one that you can NOT carry in your pocket to listen to your music on your daily commute ...

There IS however one potential market segment where the iPad might fit - but again I wonder if Apple really would like to go there - the product could be an almost-perfect device for your grandmother or anybody else with poor sight or hand coordination - but that would make it instantly the most non-cool device that Apple has ever sold and I am curious if the company will survive the wave of jokes on that matter.

There are plenty other things that are wrong with the device - unfortunately at the very top is the actual US economy :( The device would have done well in 2005 or 2006, but that is 2010 and with little chances to see a real recovery before 2020 the sticker shock might be a little too much for everyone but the most brainwashed fans.

And finally let's get to the actual huge technological problem - while with the original iPod the real innovation was a legal market for a product which until then RIAA would have considered totally illegal (and certainly fight in court), and on the iPhone the trick was to grab some small market share from other totally-closed devices (and getting most of the money in hidden long-term fees from the cellphone providers), today the iPad is trying something that even most mactards see as the wrong direction - closing a class of devices perceived as personal computers and which until now people would assume that they own - not entirely true, given that both Windows and OSX are actually licensed, but at least in theory it was possible to 'break free'. Well, not any more - the new device is just another totally-closed ecosystem, but unlike the iPhone (where pretty much all the other players were equally closed at the moment when Apple was actually grabbing market share), on this one there are quite a number of cheaper and better devices already on the market or very soon coming. And just as with the cellphones - where the actual iPhone killers are open-source devices like Android or Nokia N900 - on the tablets the new wave of Linux tablets and netbooks will actually marginalize the iPad probably long before most people will forget the original jokes about it.

The only (other than grandma-device) segment where the iPad might eventually compete is the electronic-book segment - on this one ALL the publishers will agree that the total closeness is a huge advantage - but unfortunately the device is 1-2 years too late even for that (not to mention that a Kindle will kick major iPad ass in direct sun).

So - will it fail or not ? Well, for 1-2 years the sales to fanboys might keep it afloat, but on the long term it might remain in history as the device that sank the myth of Steve Jobs ...

Ubuntu finally getting a good version this year ...

After the half-failure with the current Long-Term-Support (LTS) 8.04 version the guys from Canonical finally managed to have a decent version with 8.10 but again 9.04 was a disapointment so now everybody was expecting 9.10 - which I am happy to say is (finally) another solid release !!! (even if the transition to GRUB2 is not without surprises).

However the major question in the mind of everybody that is involved in using Ubuntu for something more than getting email and surfing the web at home is about the next Long-Term-Support version - and we all hope that 10.04 LTS will be a version which FINALLY will allow real business use of Linux ... but of course that should not be taken as certain - some last moment stupid decision is still possible :(

Predictions 2009

Just a very quick post for now - as you can see my 2008 predictions were over 80% correct - I have only missed the one regarding high-profile assassination (which however remains a possibility for 2009) and the success of the second generation iPhone.

I will only have one general prediction for 2009 and you probably already know about that - things will get A LOT WORSE - among other things expect 1 EUR = 2 USD, more war and generally the shit will hit the fan ... and I don't (yet) speak about the global warming shit - that will start hitting us in about 5-6 years :(

Also I will only provide one technical prediction for 2009 - things will look bad for the large players and especially Apple and Google, but it might be possible that specifically because things will be so ugly we might finally see some actual progress - at least better batteries but I really hope for (at least) one major innovation ...

Apple 'behind' the most hilarious Simpsons episode in years ...

The funniest Simpsons episode in years aired recently - you can also take a look at the best part here but let's just say that every single thing that is wrong with Apple is there (maybe except the recent action where Apple directly attacked free speech in a way that certainly makes Microsoft proud). There are many, many small references, including one to the famous 80's commercial ... just take a look for yourself (and don't be fooled by mactards - it IS incredibly funny).

Another 'funny' thing from Apple - as predicted they are getting closer and closer to their own antivirus industry - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2550?viewlocale=en_US !!!

UPDATE - the knowledge base article above was removed by Apple - but I guess that is now far more embarrassing :)

Also even more embarrassing is the OFFICIAL LEGAL POSITION of Apple that ONLY A FOOL WOULD BELIEVE APPLE 3G ADS !!!

Mandriva 2008 Spring vs. Ubuntu 8.04 LTS ... and how neither one wins :(

You might remember from my old Ubuntu 7.10 vs Mandriva 2008 story and later from the Fedora vs. OpenSUSE vs. Ubuntu on both x86 and PPC that the winner of the 'end of 2007 Linux competition' was Ubuntu 7.10 (but only by a whisker or so) - and I was actually mentioning that the competition only started to get more interesting - so now we are a the end of the spring 2008 and it's time to see how things have evolved ...

Mandriva launched the new 2008 Spring version (or 2008.1) around April 9th 2008 and just 2 weeks later around April 24th Ubuntu 8.04 LTS was out clogging the internet pipes in a download frenzy :) Needless to say - I have tested some of the beta and release candidates before those launch dates and very soon I have also installed both final versions on a number of computers - but as always there were too many other more urgent things to finish first and I wanted a slightly longer-term experiment with those so only now I will try to do a (rather short) review of those two.

I will start with the good part - Mandriva 2008.1 got slightly better than the previous version with the new 2.6.24 kernel and the entire color theme and user interface remains very good, polished and usable - which probably make Mandriva one of the best distributions around if you want both KDE and GNOME.

In a rather similar way Ubuntu 8.04 has integrated the newer 2.6.24 kernel and all the latest sofware and has also done a number of small usability improvements - for instance for a newcomer from Windows WUBI might a nice way to take a first look at Linux.

Unfortunately here is where the constructive criticism must start - BOTH Mandriva 2008.1 AND Ubuntu 8.04 LTS just scream 'unfinished work' all over them - it might be a general Linux feature that it's an evolving target but the fact that 'managers' from both Ubuntu and Mandriva somehow decided that they will replace the major winner of the entire open-source philosophy of building software - we will ship when it is ready - with time-fixed release dates (which not even Microsoft is able to pull most of the time) is such a huge mistake - and is mind-blowing that the entire media is still missing the fact that by officially abandoning the 'we will ship when it is ready' approach the open-source just handed a major victory to the closed-source camp :(

Among the worst parts in Mandriva:

1. On clean installations on certain notebook video cards (and NOT the 'latest stuff', just ordinary intel cards that worked perfect with the previous installer...) the dual-output leads to a bad graphics configuration and the system can not start in GUI mode - a more experienced user is able to fix things very quick from the command line but it's easy to see how somebody without any previous Linux/X11 experience will run scared and never look back;
2. There is still a problem with suspend/hibernate which seems to be related to a 'video suspend script' - the 'suggested workaround' is to remove the script /usr/share/pm-utils/sleep.d/20video ???
3. CPU SpeedStep is OK for 1.2 GHz Low-Voltage Pentium-M models but not for the slightly-newer 1.4 GHz Low-Voltage Dothan ??? (which works fine in Ubuntu or Windows).
4. HUGE problem in certain configurations with the default inode size on EXT3 - 'normal/older' versions of GRUB can not even boot from those !!!

Good or at least better-than-Ubuntu stuff in Mandriva 2008.1:

1. Ndiswrapper still works;
2. Compiz seems to be working for the first time stable with KDE;
3. notebook HDD problems seem to be handled better than in Ubuntu;
4. Default UI is better than in Ubuntu.

Worst parts in Ubuntu 8.04:

1. Ndiswrapper is no longer working (there is a bad workaround here but it's not working in all Broadcom configurations);
2. Suspend/resume is again not always working :(
3. Many things that look 'unfinished' or 'untested';
4. still using the old/unpatched GRUB that can not boot on newer EXT3 with big inodes;
5. Default UI is still hurting my eyes :)

So who is the winner of the spring contest ? If I would be forced to pick just between the two from above I would say Mandriva might be now one whisker ahead on some configurations - but the actual unexpected winner is Ubuntu 7.10 which still remains the main Linux on my ultraportables !!!

That is showing a dangerous closed-source precedent now moving to Linux - just like many people will still favor XP over Vista or OSX 10.4 over 10.5, it is now the first time when a newer 'generation' of Linux distributions fail to become clearly better than the previous one ... That is definitely related to the fixed release schedule imposed by the above distributions but might also raise a small question - is it possible that the complexity of modern distributions (meaning full operating systems, and I include here Vista and OSX 10.5) might have now reached a point where it is no longer possible to 'get them right' the first time ?

What can you do when you need the portability of the MacBook Air but you only have 500 USD to spend ...

First things first - if you just want the HotAir in order to "make you look cool" (as probably 95% of the owners do) you have already lost that battle, time to go away, nothing for you here ... However if you really like the idea of a very portable notebook, you are not crazy about glamour and you only have very little money - keep reading - there is still hope :)

For a smart buyer there ARE a few low-cost alternatives but you will need to set your priorities straight - first real question is "does size matter to you ?" :) Or in other words - how good are you with very small screens and keyboards ? If you don't mind a VERY small screen and a small keyboard you can actually get something SMALLER than the MacBook Air starting NEW around 300-400 US$ - either the already famous Asus eeePC or the newer Everex Cloudbook - get the first if a more normal touchpad is important to you, the second if disk size is essential.

However there is a serious problem with both of the above - the screen is actually more than 3 times smaller than the Air and the keyboard can feel too small at first so you will NOT write your novel on a 7'' screen (and generally you should also avoid reading one if you care about your eyes).

If money was no object there were many other choices a LOT better than the HotAir - Panasonic W or Y series, Lenovo X61 and X61T, Dell Latitude XT, and soon the Lenovo X300 which seems quite nice ... but obviously those are in the same price range as the Air (but without skimping on any important features and then selling that as a 'major progress') ... so the only route left is pre-owned ... but amazingly you can get something with BETTER FEATURES than the HotAir for about 500 US$ - just head for ebay or craiglist and look after a Dell X300 or Dell X1 - the 'secret' is to buy from a bigger seller that probably got a (very) large batch that was retired by a bank or something like that -they will have a decent description of the item, 10000+ feedback (so a scam is very unlikely) and most often you will get 2 weeks of 'warranty' so if things go wrong you can still send it back ...

X300 is cheaper and I recommend the models with the 1.4 GHz Low-Voltage CPU (but the older 1.2 GHz Low-Voltage CPU is also just fine and runs circles around the 600 MHz Celeron Low-Voltage from the eeePC). X1 comes with an Ultra-Low-Voltage CPU around 1-1.1 GHz - that one was only somehow superseded by Intel in 2007 by some models and the first major step forward will actually come in 2008 so it still is almost as good as it gets in the ultra-cool CPUs!

You can probably get a good X300 with 640 MB RAM, 30-40 GB HDD, docking station, combo CDRW/DVD and two batteries under 400 US$ delivered - if you want more RAM you should try to get one of the cheaper models with only 128 or 324 MB RAM since any memory upgrade will mean that you will throw away the memory from inside and add a 1 GB SODIMM stick from Crucial or similar for around 80 US$ - for a total of around 1.1 GB RAM which should be OK for any decent scenario. The same can go for the HDD if you need LOTS of space - you can upgrade to a 120 GB WD or Samsung 2.5'' model for well under 100 US$. The total will most likely come to less than 550$ even if you do both upgrades, and you will have an amazing subnotebook that is LIGHTER than the HotAir and has ALL the extensions you will ever need - USB, FireWire, PCMCIA, SD card reader, Ethernet, WiFi, video out, swappable battery, even modem and IRDA :)

Most of the machines will come with the original XP sticker so you will be able to install a clean legal version of the Dell OEM XP - but the hardware configuration is rather classic at this moment and most of the modern Linux distributions will work just fine (eventually with a little tweaking on the WiFi and Suspend to RAM part).

Another HUGE advantage over the Air or any of the 2000-3000 US$ new subnotebooks is that you can actually get 2 notebooks + all upgrades for under 1000 US$, and at that point you can always keep them 'cloned' and at any moment something fails you just switch to the other one - unlike a new expensive model where you might have warranty, but that means you will send the notebook (most likely together with ALL you confidential information) to be repaired and AT BEST you will get it back in 1-3 weeks ...

Finally here is another somehow similar post - Cloudbook vs eeePC vs X31 Thinkpad - the IBM Thinkpads are probably even better built than the X300/X1 but are slightly heavier and do not have a touchpad :( (that last one being the reason why X61T was not the absolute best TabletPC ever on the price/performance ratio - but I hope that Lenovo X71 will fix that :) ).

Managing notebook HDD problems with Windows Power Events Monitor (+ hdparm + smartctl)

Do you remember the relatively recent frenzy around how in Linux there was a very aggressive policy regarding disk-drives with the result of very premature HDD failure? Well - the good news are that it was not something wrong that Linux was doing, the BAD news are that the same problem is now present with certain HDD models under Windows too !!! The problem is related to the huge number of head loading / unloading and I had posts about that story here, here, here and here - the fact that the bug can generate some loud noise is the partially good part (since you might become aware of it, but that only takes place in like 25% of the drives), the real problem is that after a certain amount of head loading / unloading your HDD will just fail, and that can take place even after only a few months of use ... (more likely a little over one year so that many disks will be out of warranty and full of important data). The WORSE part is that on some of those HDD models setting 'saner parameters' only works until the HDD is powered-down OR SUSPENDED - so for instance even if you manage to disable that infuriating disk-clunking it will be back as soon as you resume your notebook from standby!!!

Under Linux the fix was not very complex - for instance under Ubuntu I have created a text file /etc/init.d/hdparm-B with a content like:

#!/bin/sh
hdparm -B 254 -S 61 -M 254 /dev/sda
echo 30000 > /proc/sys/vm/dirty_writeback_centisecs
echo 8 > /proc/sys/vm/dirty_background_ratio
echo 24000 > /proc/sys/vm/dirty_expire_centisecs

and then symbolic links to that as /etc/rcS.d/S92hdparm-B and /etc/acpi/resume.d/99-hdparm-B.sh (it is simpler than it sounds).

Under Windows however things are not as simple since there is no very clear folder where to put some commands that you want executed in certain conditions ... and since the irritating disk clunking (from head loading/unloading) is now also a serious problem under Windows with certain laptop disk models (like for instance Western Digital WDC WD1200BEVE) a small helper program was needed ...

Initially I have used myself some other of my own programs that are always running on my notebooks, but when two of my friends asked for help with just the same problem it was clear that a more generic solution was needed - and in about 2-3 hours on Sunday I have placed together a small program which will solve that problem in a way that should be very simple for most of the technical Windows users - it just took two days after that to get the project on SourceForge :) (together with the source code which is GPL v2).

So what you need to do is to first go to the SourceForge page for the binary release for Windows Power Events Monitor and download the program (the start page for the project is here and from that one you can also navigate to the page with the source code).

In order to install the program you just need to unzip the content of the binary release to your C:\ drive root - you will get at the top a folder called C:\_smart (which later you can rename or move, but it will be easier to test it this way), and inside that folder you will find the program that you need to run as C:\_smart\bin\pwr_mon.exe - just start it and a new icon will become visible in the system tray - the light-bulb will be ON if the computer is on AC and OFF when using batteries, a right-click will bring the main menu of the program from where the main window can be shown/hidden. If your HDD is one of those that will not retain the settings over power-off or standby (some Western Digital and some Samsung are certainly in this category) you will also need to create a shortcut to this program somewhere in your StartUp folder (or the StartUp folder for all users).

The actual low-level work is done by the Windows version of hdparm (it is included in the binary release from above) - but the actual parameters are in the three BAT files that are VERY SIMPLE to tweak so that you will get the desired results for YOUR configuration !!! Everything involved is located under C:\_smart\bin\ and by default the values that are used are picked for the Western Digital WDC WD1200BEVE - which in my personal experience so far was among the 'worst offenders' - so when I am running it plugged-in on AC I am setting it to such values that Advanced Power Management (the thing that generates the 'clunking') is 'practically disabled' (-B 254 in H.BAT) and also the Acoustic Management is set to 'fast' (-M 254). However on batteries another BAT file is called - H_BATT.BAT - and for that one I am using slightly more power-friendly settings (-B 253 -M 128) that will generate SOME clunking (but the batteries will last longer and the HDD will be slightly better protected if you drop it on a hard surface) - if you want to eliminate that residual clunking just change the values from H_BATT.BAT to the same as H.BAT (-B 254 -M 254).

There is also a third BAT file that is called just once when the program is started - it is H_FREEZE.BAT and it will protect your HDD (only until the next restart) from being hardware-locked with a password that you do not know (that action has no effect if you already have a password on the HDD and also you can still set/change the HDD password from BIOS after a full reset - don't forget to also place a password on the BIOS itself!). Some newer BIOS versions will already take care of that 'security freeze', but unfortunately not all - and certainly very few of the older computers BIOSes ...

If your notebook has two internal HDD drives (a friend of mine has one of those monsters) you will just have to edit the 3 BAT files and add a second line on each of them for /dev/hdb instead of /dev/hda. Also other actions that you would like to automate when the computer is restored from standby/hibernate or when the AC/DC status changes can be added to those BAT files so you can feel free to experiment :)

Another very nice thing that you can do with the programs from that folder is to check the 'health' and 'age' of your HDD - just get to a command prompt in that folder and run a command like

smartctl.exe -d ata -a /dev/hda > 1.txt

and after that you will have a file called 1.TXT where you can see things like the number of hours your HDD was ON (under Power_On_Hours, but some HDDs might have the amount of MINUTES here) and the amount of head loading/unloading (under Load_Cycle_Count) - if your Load_Cycle_Count is over 100000 you should start worrying (also if Reallocated_Event_Count is bigger than 0 before 1 year). And if dividing Load_Cycle_Count by Power_On_Hours results in a number bigger than 30 cycles/hour you probably need this program badly :)

So that's it - you can now use your notebook HDD without that annoying noise and without fear that in 6 months it will die as a result of too many head loading/unloading! (also please add comments to this post if you encounter any problem; the testing could not be very extensive on Vista so any feedback is welcome).

Retarded by design

At some point during the last decade or so a trend emerged with some companies - and 'defective by design' was the generic name for those attempts to fool the consumer into paying more for less or for nothing at all. The vast majority of those attempts were promptly punished by the informed consumers, and the offending companies are now in a constant fall. But while Sony was punished by the buyers after installing rootkits on their computers and Microsoft have long been a disgraced monopolist, one company managed to thrive by taking the precise same tactic and slightly changing it to what now is almost a trademark - 'retarded by design' - and is of course the worst monopolist of all, Apple itself.

The same company policy was visible with the latest Macworld announcements when Apple - together with the major labels, which for a long time were trying to pull this one - decided that it will be a lot better for their bottom lines to only rent you stuff - just another name for further limiting the consumer rights and making you pay again and again for the same thing. I have serious doubts that the informed consumers will fall for that, but given the rather low price there will be enough takers - however the profits will also be rather small and I also predict some nagging technical problems ahead (not to mention that what Apple calls 'HD movies' is actually something inferior to even the decades-old DVD quality).

The same 'as restricted as possible' approach could not be missing from the other Apple products - consumers were promised that the (unimpressive for anybody with any computer experience) Time Machine would work over the network - but of course that in order to get that you will have to buy some more stuff from Apple - that is somehow funny since it is pretty much the same as with Micro$oft, which the vast majority of macmorons love to hate :) (note for the fanboys - there is a free hack to do that and avoid paying the Apple tax - but I will not provide a link since you should learn to think/search for yourself).

But the absolute best example of the 'beautiful but retarded by design' company policy is the new Mac Air - which is actually the supreme design when the actual goal is to get as much money possible from your customer yet providing something that will have the absolute minimal use and the shortest possible life - 'planned obsolescence' at its best!

The MacBook Air is a LIE from the very start - not only you can see in many posts and articles that it is NOT the thinnest notebook, but the entire marketing strategy around that is only a classic play on the american obsession with thin, beautiful ... but shallow and without any value or loyalty :(

You see - unlike a PHONE the thickness of a notebook is totally irrelevant (since you will not be able to place it in your pocket anyway) - and is just a gimmick designed to cover the absence of any other major innovation. The actual value is in the WEIGHT - and that one is OK in the Mac HotAir, but there are MANY other better notebooks that are (a lot) lighter so SteveJ could not score any points on that direction so he needed some other 'catchline' for the fanboys :)

Surprisingly MacBook Air also gets 3 things right - but unfortunately for Apple the company used for the last ten years the entire power of it's famous distortion field against precisely those things when Dell and Toshiba and other were getting those right in the first place - and as a result the brainwashed fanboys have seen very, very little value in the fact that the CD is external (a feature about 10 years old in the Windows subnotebooks), the CPU is one of the Low-Voltage Intel models (which ARE more expensive for a very good reason, but for instance IBM/Lenovo was using similar models in the X61 and X61T for about one year now), and finally the screen is pretty much the ONLY thing that an Asus eeePC owner might really miss (at about 1/5 - 1/8 of the price, and actually a much easier to carry form factor).

But unfortunately the number of things that Apple got right are dwarfed by the amount of the deliberately bad decisions - the smallest one is that you can not expand the RAM but the fact that the ONLY 'expansion' that you get is a standard USB2 is something so stupid it's not even funny - other subnotebooks get a PCMCIA slot (where you can get 3G cellular coverage for instance), 2-3 USB ports, FireWire, memory-card readers (even eeePC has a SD card slot), gigabit Ethernet (try to backup your HDD over the wireless if you think you don't need it) and more ... last but not least being a battery that you can replace 'on the go' and get even 12 hours of battery life if you really need it! (in contrast HotAir customers will either send it to Apple for an expensive replacement - which is OK given that they will not miss it since the HotAir is only used to impress other morons - or more likely just throw away the entire gizmo - probably one of the LEAST environmentally-friendly notebook models ever built in spite of all the marketing speak that you will get from the Apple sales droids).

And of course the competing high-end models that are really expensive and a clear difference between a fanboy wannabe and the real upper-class have certain exclusive features - like being a convertible tablet (however I still consider the Dell one slightly overpriced, but at least that one gets the Ultra-Low-Voltage CPU versions from Intel) or some of the amazing Panasonic models which are not only packing a DVD writer in the same weight as the HotAir, but are also spill-resistant and about 5 times tougher!!!

So in the end there is only one thing that will sell those new products, and you can see it following this link :)