Running eclipse based apps on Fedora 9 x86_64

Many IBM applications are based on eclipse for i386 architectures. Just some examples: Lotus Notes, Sametime, Symphony, IES (IBM eclipse SDK). However, the Fedora 9 for x86_64 architectures does not install any 32 bits libraries anymore. How shall these applications now run on Fedora 9?

xfs forgetful?

I have been using xfs for some months now. Somewhere I had read about advantages of xfs and got convinced that I should store my files on that file system (sorry, I don’t remember the references anymore).

Today it happened that, suddenly, eclipse complained that all the files I was editing did not exist anymore on the workspace and that the file view was out of sync with the file system. Probably, a bug of new Ganymede version, I thought. But in sequence, everything crashed: KDE, firefox, Sametime, Notes, …

Too bad. At the terminal I saw that that my most popular subdirectories in my homedir were empty! Where were all the files? I tried to reboot the machine and to run xfs_repair, but there was no rescue anymore.

That made me remember that some time ago, binaries form /usr/bin and libraries from /usr/lib were mysteriously vanishing on another machine while they were running. The root partition of this machine was also xfs.

Fortunately I have always a recent backup near to me (sure, backup is not stored on another xfs), so this experience was not that painful. However, I wonder if xfs is enough reliable to not forget my files. In doubts, I will reinstall my favorite Linux distro with ext3 as soon as possible.

Backing up DVD movies on Linux now useful

For a long time I have been struggling on Linux to easily create backup copies of my favorite movies, until I finally found k9copy.

Before k9copy, backing up dvds was darkness

On one hand, there are many fancy video tools available for Windows. However, nearly all of them have some kind of embedded spyware or virus. On the other hand, Linux tools are all written for command line, and require a lot of expertise just to understand what they do.

I really wanted to find a tool really easy backup DVD. Googling around, I also found several non-understandable scripts that promised to do certain tasks, but were of no use. Even worse, these scripts had not any kind of support.

After a while I learned and tried Mencoder, which had produced the best results. I also tried transcode, using dvd:rip. Although being slower than Mencoder, transcoder had less issues than Mencoder. However, I could not figure how use those tools to backup a DVD.

Some relief with DVD Shrink

At least, there has always been DVD Shrink for windows. However, due to many legal issues, this software has been discontinued and no other reliable and spyware-free software has been developed in replace.

I have read several articles and how-tos suggesting to use wine to run DVD Shrink on Linux. Although reasonable, I wondered if there was another more updated software.

Finally, light: k9copy!

I am really impressed. K9copy is available on most popular Linux distros. It is trivial to install. The tool is really simple to use and understand. It does it task really fast (about 40 mins for a DVD on an older computer). Its output is of good quality.

I wonder why few poeple know this software.

Unfortunaly k9copy, like most other dvd software, does not burn the copy. It only produces an .iso file, that can be easily burned to a DVD using any dvd tool, like k3b.

In order to watch the video on the computer, kaffeine player can open the iso file.

Whats this? IOException: Write end dead

I like Java very much. Nevertheless, there are things I cannot stand in Java. Sure, and one of them are undocumented exceptions from the Java API, that nobody can explain.

I will talk about “Write end dead” IOExceptions. What does this mean? Why did this happen? Even if googling around, it is difficult to find a clear answer.

This article is a full explanation to understand this exception and shows how to fix your code. Just continue reading…