A Very Annoying X Problem

I've bitten again by a very intermittent X problem. Sometimes my X run smoothly for a month (with many hibernates in between), but these last couple of days, it stroked twice! I can't find any informative messages in logs. Not in any /var/log/X*, /var/log/messages, /var/log/syslog, ~/.xsession-errors. This .xsession-errors is ultimately can't be used for anything! It doesn't have timestamps on each event; no standard delimiter between events; what can you hope to salvage from this garbage?

$ tail -50 .xsession-errors
at com.aelitis.azureus.core.networkmanager.impl.tcp.TCPConnectionManager.runSelect(TCPConnectionManager.java:535)
at com.aelitis.azureus.core.networkmanager.impl.tcp.TCPConnectionManager.mainLoop(TCPConnectionManager.java:212)
at com.aelitis.azureus.core.networkmanager.impl.tcp.TCPConnectionManager.access$900(TCPConnectionManager.java:45)
at com.aelitis.azureus.core.networkmanager.impl.tcp.TCPConnectionManager$5.runSupport(TCPConnectionManager.java:201)
at org.gudy.azureus2.core3.util.AEThread.run(AEThread.java:71)
Peringatan pengatur jendela: Error IO yang fatal berkode 104 (Connection reset by peer) pada tampilan ':0.0'
nm-applet: Fatal IO error 104 (Connection reset by peer) on X server :0.0.
gnome-panel: Fatal IO error 104 (Connection reset by peer) on X server :0.0.
The application 'update-notifier' lost its connection to the display :0.0;
most likely the X server was shut down or you killed/destroyed the application.
The application 'nautilus' lost its connection to the display :0.0;
most likely the X server was shut down or you killed/destroyed the application.
The application 'bluetooth-applet' lost its connection to the display :0.0;
most likely the X server was shut down or you killed/destroyed the application.
The application 'kerneloops-applet' lost its connection to the display :0.0;
most likely the X server was shut down or you killed/destroyed the application.
The application 'gnome-screensaver' lost its connection to the display :0.0;
most likely the X server was shut down or you killed/destroyed the application.
The application 'gnome-settings-daemon' lost its connection to the display :0.0;
most likely the X server was shut down or you killed/destroyed the application.
opera: Fatal IO error: client killed
pidgin: Fatal IO error 104 (Connection reset by peer) on X server :0.0.
The application 'SWT' lost its connection to the display :0.0;
most likely the X server was shut down or you killed/destroyed the application.
X IO Error
The application 'gedit' lost its connection to the display :0.0;
most likely the X server was shut down or you killed/destroyed the application.
The application 'gecko' lost its connection to the display :0.0;
most likely the X server was shut down or you killed/destroyed the application.
The application 'gnome-session' lost its connection to the display :0.0;
most likely the X server was shut down or you killed/destroyed the application.
The application 'gnome-terminal' lost its connection to the display :0.0;
most likely the X server was shut down or you killed/destroyed the application.
liferea: Fatal IO error 104 (Connection reset by peer) on X server :0.0.
Exit from Azureus complete
[1211343465,000,xklavier.c:xkl_engine_start_listen/] The backend does not require manual layout management - but it is provided by the application
(gnome-panel:4361): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_object_run_dispose: assertion `G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed

(gnome-panel:4361): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_object_run_dispose: assertion `G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed

FYI this is a Debian Sid box.

So, how would you debug this problem? Run a debug version of X server and collecting huge amount of garbage without any time reference? Throw away this box and buy a better one? Use Windows XP instead? Get a plastic surgery? Please, pretty please, help me!

Updated: Debian Sid on Acer Aspire 5583 NWXMi

My experience on configuring Debian Sid on Acer Aspire 5583 NWXMi. This laptop is a varian of Acer Aspire 5580. Hopefully useful to anyone who has same/similar machine. Added info: custom DSDT to solve battery problem, PCMCIA, xrandr, Intel 3945, etc.

Security Update OpenSSL Yang Sangat Penting Untuk Debian

Advisory nomor DSA-1571-1 dari Debian sangat mengejutkan

It is strongly recommended that all cryptographic key material which has been generated by OpenSSL versions starting with 0.9.8c-1 on Debian systems is recreated from scratch. Furthermore, all DSA keys ever used on affected Debian systems for signing or authentication purposes should be considered compromised; the Digital Signature Algorithm relies on a secret random value used during signature generation.

The first vulnerable version, 0.9.8c-1, was uploaded to the unstable distribution on 2006-09-17, and has since propagated to the testing and current stable (etch) distributions. The old stable distribution (sarge) is not affected.

Affected keys include SSH keys, OpenVPN keys, DNSSEC keys, and key material for use in X.509 certificates and session keys used in SSL/TLS connections. Keys generated with GnuPG or GNUTLS are not affected, though.

Masalahnya, boleh jadi kita harus meng-generate ulang sekian banyak key.

Untuk membantu menguji kekuatan key kita, akan ada tool yang dapat diunduh dari:
http://security.debian.org/project/extra/dowkd/dowkd.pl.gz
http://security.debian.org/project/extra/dowkd/dowkd.pl.gz.asc (OpenPGP signature)

Sedangkan instruksi untuk rollover key untuk berbagai paket akan dipublikasikan di:
http://www.debian.org/security/key-rollover/

Pengguna distro lain tidak perlu khawatir, karena masalah ini spesifik Debian. Apakah Ubuntu terpengaruh? Akan segera saya periksa.

update 20080513 22:19 Ubuntu juga terkena masalah ini

Bang, SMS Siapa Bang?

Dr. Nigel Bannister dari Universitas Leicester telah memperoleh perkiraan biaya transmisi data Hubble dari pihak NASA. Angka yang diperoleh adalah sekitar 8,85 poundsterling per megabyte (sekitar 160 ribu rupiah). Apabila dihitung juga biaya transmisi ke pengguna akhir, maka biaya itu bisa membengkak menjadi 85 poundsterling per megabyte (sekitar 1,5 juta rupiah).

Bandingkan dengan biaya yang harus dikeluarkan kalau kita mengirim data yang sama besarnya, melalui SMS, di Indonesia. 1 SMS maksimum berisi 160 karakter 7 bit, berarti 1 SMS dapat mengangkut data 140 byte. Untuk mengirim data sebesar 1 mega byte, diperlukan 7490 pesan SMS. Bila biaya per SMS adalah 350 rupiah, maka biaya untuk mengirim 1 MB via SMS adalah 2,6 juta rupiah. Kalau kita ambil biaya SMS murah ke sesama operator yang 50 rupiah pun, total biaya untuk 1 MB masih 449 ribu rupiah.

Opo tumon? Mosok kirim SMS lebih mahal daripada kirim data dari Hubble ke bumi?

Kompetisi dan Kerja Sama

Google membantu pesaingnya, Yahoo, sehingga menggagalkan rencana Microsoft. Apakah hal semacam ini pernah terjadi di Indonesia?

Memristor Yang Mengubah Paradigma Tentang Elektronika

Ini adalah peristiwa yang sangat langka: kita mesti mengubah cara berpikir secara sangat mendasar, yang telah kita yakini selama puluhan tahun. Apakah peristiwa ini sedrastis perubahan pandang dari bumi sebagai pusat semesta ke matahari sebagai pusat tata surya? :D

Selama ini kita diajari bahwa resistansi sama dengan tegangan dibagi arus. R = V / I. Pada tahun 1971, Leon Chua dari UC Berkeley mempublikasikan paper yang menyatakan bahwa mestinya R = dV / dI. Analogi yang bagus dituliskan oleh Colin Johnson di EETimes:

"The situation is analogous to what is called "Aristotle's Law of Motion, which was wrong, because he said that force must be proportional to velocity. That misled people for 2000 years until Newton came along and pointed out that Aristotle was using the wrong variables. Newton said that force is proportional to acceleration--the change in velocity. This is exactly the situation with electronic circuit theory today. All electronic textbooks have been teaching using the wrong variables--voltage and charge--explaining away inaccuracies as anomalies. What they should have been teaching is the relationship between changes in voltage, or flux, and charge."

Bukan hanya itu, Chua juga meramalkan komponen elektronik pasif keempat yang dinamainya memristor, selain resistor, kapasitor, dan induktor yang selama ini telah kita kenal. Sifat unik dari memristor ini adalah bahwa resistansinya naik apabila dialiri arus pada satu arah, dan turun apabila arus dialirkan pada arah sebaliknya.

Ternyata, implikasi sifat memristor tersebut bisa sangat mengejutkan. Transistor yang berukuran jauh lebih kecil dapat dibentuk dari memristor, sehingga hukum Moore yang saat ini sudah semakin sulit dipertahankan karena keterbatasan material yang telah ada masih akan terus berlaku selama lebih dari 10 tahun mendatang. Potensi lain adalah terciptanya media penyimpan data yang jauh lebih irit konsumsi energinya dibanding RAM saat ini, lebih tinggi kepadatan penyimpanannya, dan bahkan mempertahankan isinya tanpa perlu daya (seperti halnya hard disk atau flash disk).

Jadi, kapan memristor masuk ke text book elektronika? Kapan masuk ke buku SMA, SMP, dan SD?