General Science

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

Apparently, our ancestors and chimps just couldn’t keep their hands off each other:

The researchers, from the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, propose that humans and chimpanzees first split up about 10 million years ago. Then, after evolving in different directions for about 4 million years, they got back together for a brief fling that produced a third, hybrid population with characteristics of both lines.

That genetic collaboration then gave rise to two separate branches, one leading to humans and the other to chimps.

This will no doubt drive the creationists ape.

[Via The Speculist]

Administrative

Fedora Partition Overcapacity Update

OK, per the suggestion in comments here, I decided to see just what it was that was filling up the /var partition. Here it is:

##########################################

[root@linux-station ~]# du -s /var/*
12 /var/account
773872 /var/cache
16 /var/crash
28 /var/db
16 /var/empty
60 /var/gdm
56716 /var/lib
8 /var/local
128 /var/lock
86208 /var/log
448 /var/lost+found
4 /var/mail
232 /var/named
8 /var/nis
8 /var/opt
8 /var/preserve
340 /var/run
72480 /var/spool
8 /var/tmp
8 /var/tux
13936 /var/www
24 /var/yp

#################################

I can live without the contents of cache, right?

Well, maybe not:

[root@linux-station ~]# du -s /var/cache/*
80 /var/cache/alchemist
472 /var/cache/gstreamer-0.8
1344 /var/cache/man
8 /var/cache/mod_proxy
8 /var/cache/mod_ssl
384 /var/cache/samba
771568 /var/cache/yum

#######################################

Note that it’s all cache/yum. Does that mean that if I blow it away, my ongoing yum upgrade gets clobbered? Getting rid of logs will help a little, but I suspect that the yum cache will quickly fill up the available space if I give it any. What now?

War Commentary

The Hunters, Not The Hunted

Another very important Memorial Day piece, in (of all places) the New York Times.

In the past, the American public could turn to its sons for martial perspective. Soldiers have historically been perhaps the country’s truest reflection, a socio-economic cross-section borne from common ideals. The problem is, this war is not being fought by World War II’s citizen-soldiers. Nor is it fought by Vietnam’s draftees. Its wages are paid by a small cadre of volunteers that composes about one-tenth of 1 percent of the population

Administrative

Fedora Update Update

So I was updating my machine, per the instructions found here, and things were going along swimmingly for a while, until I got the following stretch of error messages:

################################
Other Transactions:
Obsoleting: compat-libstdc++.i386 0:8-3.3.4.2 with compat-libstdc++-296.i386 0:2.96-132.fc4
Obsoleting: cryptsetup.i386 0:0.1-4 with cryptsetup-luks.i386 0:1.0.1-0.fc4
Obsoleting: db4.i386 0:4.2.52-6 with compat-db.i386 0:4.2.52-2.FC4
Obsoleting: db4-devel.i386 0:4.2.52-6 with compat-db.i386 0:4.2.52-2.FC4
Obsoleting: db4-utils.i386 0:4.2.52-6 with compat-db.i386 0:4.2.52-2.FC4
Obsoleting: gcc-g77.i386 0:3.4.2-6.fc3 with compat-gcc-32-g77.i386 0:3.2.3-47.fc4
Obsoleting: gcc-g77.i386 0:3.4.3-22.fc3 with compat-gcc-32-g77.i386 0:3.2.3-47.fc4
Obsoleting: httpd-suexec.i386 0:2.0.52-3 with httpd.i386 0:2.0.54-10.3
Obsoleting: httpd-suexec.i386 0:2.0.52-3.1 with httpd.i386 0:2.0.54-10.3
Obsoleting: kernel-utils.i386 1:2.4-13.1.39 with smartmontools.i386 1:5.33-1.5 Obsoleting: libf2c.i386 0:3.4.2-6.fc3 with libgfortran.i386 0:4.0.2-8.fc4
Obsoleting: libf2c.i386 0:3.4.3-22.fc3 with libgfortran.i386 0:4.0.2-8.fc4
Obsoleting: libtool-libs.i386 0:1.5.6-4 with libtool-ltdl.i386 0:1.5.16.multilib2-3
Obsoleting: libtool-libs.i386 0:1.5.6-4.FC3.2 with libtool-ltdl.i386 0:1.5.16.multilib2-3
Obsoleting: memtest86.i386 0:3.2-1.1.fc3.rf with memtest86+.i386 0:1.55.1-1
Obsoleting: nautilus-media.i386 0:0.8.1-3 with nautilus.i386 0:2.10.0-4
Obsoleting: openoffice.org.i386 0:1.1.2-10 with openoffice.org-math.i386 1:2.0.1.1-5.1
Obsoleting: openoffice.org-i18n.i386 0:1.1.2-10 with openoffice.org-langpack-sv.i386 1:2.0.1.1-5.1
Obsoleting: openoffice.org-libs.i386 0:1.1.2-10 with openoffice.org-core.i386 1:2.0.1.1-5.1
Obsoleting: pdksh.i386 0:5.2.14-30 with ksh.i386 0:20050202-1
Obsoleting: tuxracer.i386 0:0.61-28 with ppracer.i386 0:0.3.1-4.fc4.1
Obsoleting: xscreensaver.i386 1:4.18-4 with xscreensaver-base.i386 1:4.21-4

Is this ok [y/N]: y
Downloading Packages:
libtool-ltdl-1.5.16.multi 100% |=========================| 25 kB 00:00
openoffice.org-langpack-s 100% |=========================| 13 MB 00:39
smartmontools-5.33-1.5.i3 100% |=========================| 257 kB 00:00
microcode_ctl-1.12-1.24_F 100% |=========================| 238 kB 00:01
openoffice.org-langpack-t 100% |=========================| 12 MB 00:33
openoffice.org-langpack-z 100% |=========================| 13 MB 00:38
openoffice.org-langpack-g 100% |=========================| 755 kB 00:02
openoffice.org-langpack-n 100% |=========================| 12 MB 00:33
httpd-2.0.54-10.3.i386.rp 100% |=========================| 935 kB 00:03
openoffice.org-langpack-a 100% |=========================| 4.1 MB 00:13
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “/usr/bin/yum”, line 8, in ?
yummain.main(sys.argv[1:])
File “/usr/share/yum-cli/yummain.py”, line 136, in main
base.doTransaction()
File “/usr/share/yum-cli/cli.py”, line 589, in doTransaction
problems = self.downloadPkgs(downloadpkgs)
File “/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/yum/__init__.py”, line 382, in downloadPkgs
mylocal = repo.get(relative=remote, local=local, checkfunc=checkfunc)
File “/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/yum/repos.py”, line 443, in get
checkfunc=checkfunc)
File “/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/urlgrabber/mirror.py”, line 414, in urlgrab
return self._mirror_try(func, url, kw)
File “/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/urlgrabber/mirror.py”, line 400, in _mirror_try
return func_ref( *(fullurl,), **kwargs )
File “/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/urlgrabber/grabber.py”, line 595, in urlgrab
return self._retry(opts, retryfunc, url, filename)
File “/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/urlgrabber/grabber.py”, line 527, in _retry
return apply(func, (opts,) + args, {})
File “/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/urlgrabber/grabber.py”, line 583, in retryfunc
fo._do_grab()[root@linux-station home]#

File “/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/urlgrabber/grabber.py”, line 852, in _do_grab
new_fo.write(block)
IOError: [Errno 28] No space left on device

#######################################

At which point it returned to the root prompt.

What now?

[Update at noon]

Oops! /var is full.

######################################

[root@linux-station home]# df
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda7 10412484 3489804 6393744 36% /
/dev/hda1 101086 8478 87389 9% /boot
none 257904 0 257904 0% /dev/shm
/dev/hda2 100790036 44456020 51214104 47% /home
/dev/hda3 1004052 20080 932968 3% /tmp
/dev/hda5 1004024 1000672 0 100% /var
#######################################

What do I do about that? Any magic tools that can repartition a live drive?

[Update on Monday evening]

OK, I guess the question is, given that (in theory) I’ve done a partial update from Core 3 to Core 4, but it bombed out part way through, is the machine rebootable? Or do I have to figure out a way to install and run gparted under the current running shell? I don’t want to reboot into a Livedisk for repartioning, only to find out that my OS is FUBAR, even with the bigger partition, on reboot.

Humor

Get A Clue

With the upcoming onset of hurricane season in a few days, Dave Barry has some advice for residents (like him, and me) of the hurricane belt. I call this humor, because like most Dave Barry advice, it is, but it’s also a public service (albeit a futile one) for the irremediably clueless:

As you know, Florida Power & Light had some problems last hurricane season, when it was discovered that, because of an error in the engineering specifications, thousands of the company’s power poles were in fact really tall breadsticks. FPL has been working hard on this problem, and a company spokesperson states that this year, if we are struck by another Wilma-level hurricane, FPL personnel will immediately implement an action plan designed to provide all customers, as quickly and as safely as possible, with realistic-sounding excuses as to why their power will not be restored for an indeterminate period of time.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!