I have a machine which is running an up-to-date Ubuntu Feisty Fawn installation on which I wanted to run Squid. Installing it was a snap - just run sudo apt-get install squid3, and you’re set … or are you? Trying to use the proxy I get an unexpected "Connection refused" message. Investigating a bit further, I see that there’s nothing listening on port 3128 (the default Squid port), nor is Squid runninng. Strange! /var/log/messages reveals a string of messages of the following form:

squid[18518]: Squid Parent: child process 18536 started
squid[18518]: Squid Parent: child process 18536 exited due to signal 6

After a few tries, Squid just dies. /var/log/squid/cache.log contains only
Creating Swap Directories
/var/spool/squid3 exists
Making directories in /var/spool/squid3/00
Making directories in /var/spool/squid3/01
Making directories in /var/spool/squid3/02
Making directories in /var/spool/squid3/03
Making directories in /var/spool/squid3/04
Making directories in /var/spool/squid3/05
Making directories in /var/spool/squid3/06
Making directories in /var/spool/squid3/07
Making directories in /var/spool/squid3/08
Making directories in /var/spool/squid3/09
Making directories in /var/spool/squid3/0A
Making directories in /var/spool/squid3/0B
Making directories in /var/spool/squid3/0C
Making directories in /var/spool/squid3/0D
Making directories in /var/spool/squid3/0E
Making directories in /var/spool/squid3/0F

Squid had no problems starting and doing some initial housekeeping before stumbling. Running squid3 -d 10 produced a ton of debug output, but also this telling error message:

FATAL: Cannot open '/var/log/squid3/access.log' for writing.
        The parent directory must be writeable by the
        user 'proxy', which is the cache_effective_user
        set in squid.conf.

Ah ha! The default Ubuntu-packaged Squid (3.0.PRE5-5 with MD5sum d11df3af2e309f5b989a520e3cd50d55) is configured to run as the user ‘proxy’, but the associated log-directories are not writable by the user ‘proxy’. That’s easy enough to solve.

cd /var/log/squid3
sudo chown proxy cache.log .
sudo /etc/init.d/squid3 start


This time Squid was able to start successfully. Another few seconds were needed to configure the proper ACLs, but after that and a Squid restart later, we’re good to go!

And here is a gadget introduced today by Google to enable easy entry of Sinhalese text, without having to switch your keyboard layout or install special software: The Sinhala On-Screen Keyboard iGoogle Gadget!

The text in the previous post was actually created within seconds, through the use of this gadget.

Unfortunately, both Firefox and Internet Explorer have issues with rendering Sinhalese Unicode text correctly. Again, you can follow the instructions from here to get Firefox to render Sinhalese Unicode properly. This Sinhala Wikipedia entry also has useful information on how to configure Internet Explorer to correctly display Sinhalese text.

The important question is, how long will it take for Sinhalese websites to switch to using Unicode, instead of using proprietary and non-standard fonts like Kandy, Padma or Kaputadotcom?

Go forth and start blogging - in Sinhalese!

Here’s a test to see what happens when you search for රොෂාන් (Roshan) and සෙම්බකුට්ටිආරච්චි (Sembacuttiaratchy) via Google Sri Lanka. Actually, that last search should eventually be a GoogleWhack. If you use Firefox, the pages might not render correctly. Make sure you have a font like Kaputa Unicode installed. If you use any flavour of Linux, you’ll have to follow the instructions from here to enable proper support and rendering.

Google - they’re at it again!

They’ve introduced several new services on their Google UK site, which include:

• Google Local - to search for entries relevant to your immediate vicinity
• Google Maps - Interactive maps which are much more feature-rich than those from MultiMap or StreetMap.
• Google Mobile - Access Google via SMS from your UK mobile - sweet!

Here’s a retake on the popular ‘Roses are red’ poem, culled from various Slashdot posts….

And something along the same lines at Thinkgeek.

Well, my recent disaster with my laptop’s hard disk failing prompted me to install a Linux where I could access the Firewire drive onto which I would temporarily copy the data, till I could copy it back onto the replacement drive in the laptop. Plus, I needed to test and install something which I could very quickly and easily install onto the new replacement drive, so I decided to check out Ubuntu, which I’d heard was based on Debian, and which had recently got a fair amount of publicity.

So, I popped in the CD, rebooted, and was impressed by the simplicity of the install. I rebooted, it asked me a few questions, and after about 45 minutes total, it’s already started up X. This in itself was not too surprising, but what was very pleasant, is that it had auto-detected all the resolution settings for running my display at 1600×1200, which I always had to struggle with on other Linux distros. It had also auto-configured my soundcard, firewire, network cards, etc!

Neat!

So, pure Debian itself didn’t remain on my laptop for too long, but Ubuntu is based on Debian, so I haven’t completely abandoned it either. Shall now continue with my exploration of Ubuntu and see how well it works.

I used Gentoo on my desktop at college, and part of the time on my laptop when it’s actually booted into Linux, and did learn a lot about Gentoo, and more about Linux during this time. But the more time I spent working with it, the more I realised how unpolished or non-professional Gentoo is. Yeah, sure - it’s all bleeding edge, and you can’t really expect it to be, but all the memory leaks and system breakages finally made me go and do it: I installed Debian! (I can hear applause from Pitr at this point! )

And so, possibly until something more interesting comes along, my linux machine is going to remain at Debian, after having experienced so many other flavours: Slackware, RedHat, Fedora, Mandrake, Gentoo, Knoppix, Mepis and a short venture into LFS.

Use the source, Luke!

Neurobashing found this interesting post on the Fedora Developer list showing RedHat’s history as an IRC log (Colorized version here. Amusing to read, but also sobering in a way. Where is Fedora headed? Is it suitable to use on a server-environment? What suggestions? Gentoo has just hosed glibc on my PPC. Uagh!

Talking with Peter today reminded me of this article at OSNews about the command line being the best Newbie Interface.