The answer is an Akismet plugin, that was turned on but not initialized (no code generated). Apparently Akismet in that state treat all comments as suspicious and overrides WordPress by putting them to moderation queue.

Disabling Akismet plugin finally turned the moderation off.

► Jump straight to solution

First error I got was:

This is the sign of missing i386 version of glibc library.

After installing that, there were more errors, i.e.:

and more of such.

Each one means missing i386 (i686) library that was not installed by default on x86_64 system.

To find out package that needs to be installed for a particular error, I first check if I do have x86_64 version, i.e.

Then I check what is the name of the package containing it:

and I learn that I need to install libXv.i686 — the same package in i386/i686 flavor.

For Skype this is the command that will install all the requirements:

Firefox 4 is more demanding and needs yet:

After moving a FAT32 (not sure about NTFS) partition within a disk (as a whole, without looking inside, just byte-to-byte copying), Windows stops to boot. It even starts to, but later fails with the error (blue screen) -  I don’t remember saying what right now (but will check).

Problem is that damn Windows keeps absolute offset of the partition data inside the boot sector of that partition!

These are 4 little-endian bytes at 1Ch offset from partition start.
Number in there should point do partition data start, that is (at least in case of extended partitions) partition offset (a sum of size of all the preceding partitions) + 63 bytes.

References: MS WIN4.1 boot record

Recently I have upgraded my system to Fedora 9, and was generously forced to upgrade KDE 3 to KDE 4. I found it very annoying, and still cannot configure it in a way I’m used to work on my desktop.

So here you have – my problems, workarounds, and solutions (if I ever get to that point).

• Upgraded KDE 3 to KDE 4 + doing some configuration tweaking resulted in
  crash of KDE on every startup. Well, I didn’t have time to debug it, so
  just removed ~/.kde directory and did new config from scratch. Painful, lost
  all settings from kde apps too (have a backup), but worked.

  Ah, it happened again. I wasn’t going to scratch the config again, so tried to find out.
  Crash seems to be related with adding some scripts (anything?) to
  ~/.kde/Autostart. If I find out something more, I’ll be submitting a bug
  report probably.

  Update: Problem turned out to be my default settings of umask 0077, that disallowed any access to /usr/share/mime/ every time it got updated. That made kde to crash.

• Panel (or how they call the main menu bar) on the left (vertically)
  setting is unusable Applications (widgets) embed in it, just does not
  support (does not fit) that mode. No solution as of now.
  Update (KDE 4.2): This is partially fixed, but some apps/widgets still behave poorly.

• No ‘Manual’ mode for window placement Any automatic (even Smart) option
  on a large (virtual/multi-monitor) display just does not work for me. I want
  manual control, period. For KDE 3 I wrote a small, and quite imperfect patch
  to add that mode to kwin. Will have to do the same for KDE 4.
  Anyway, ok, that’s just a feature request, with apparently minimal interest among users.

  Update (KDE 4.2): I have implememnted that feature for myself. Maybe after more testing I will make the patch public.

• gnome-terminal just got mad, shows a lot of trash instead of ASCII
  text on a +- half of the screen. Didn’t debug. Highlighting the text, or
  moving the window out of the screen and back helps until contents changes.
  
  Tried switching to konsole, but…

  Update (KDE 4.1): this started to work ok at some point. Not sure when/why. No more konsole. Hurray!

• konsole knows better(!) what shortcuts I want to use, so redefines
  Ctrl+Insert to ‘Paste’ the clipboard (aka Ctrl+V), instead paste the current selection (X
  default), and disallow to change it.
• konsole starts in geometry of last closed konsole (sic!), and no way
  to change, set up on
  command line or in
  any other way (tried dcop/dbus too!)
  
• konsole tabs cannot be set up upon command line startup, i.e. what
  tabs are opened, how to name them, and what command to run
• Where do I configure mouse wheel to change desktops?

  Answer: Option is gone in KDE4 (using compositing, but apparently, in my case, without compositing too), but planned.

  Update (KDE 4.2): Fixed

• New kickoff menu very hard to navigate when you want to scan through menus. Fortunately old one is available.

• How do I setup middle click on the desktop = window list?

• And forced predefined shortcuts again!. I’m used to have Alt+Up
  combination bound to Window Rise action. Who made the developers into the
  position to decide it will be irrevocably bound to some ‘Up’ action?! If you
  wish, you can warn, that redefining the standard action is a bad idea
  and user does it on his responsibility. But force?! You are apparently going
  Windows!
  
  Window says: The ‘Alt+Up’ key combination has already been allocated to the standard action “Up” that many application use. You cannot use it for global shortcuts for this reason.

• Fixed both forced shortcuts problem with a kdelibs-remove-shortcuts.patch. For now on, it disables only shortcuts: Alt+Up & Shift+Insert, so both can redefined. This unfortunately does not fix Ctrl+Insert being bound to ‘Paste’ (although it can be now redefined to something else).
• It means rebuilding whole KDE rpms every KDE update. Eh…

Post Scriptum: this is an import of information that I wrote a while ago. Things might have changed since then.

You are now chatting with: ‘Iogear3′
Iogear3: Thank you for using IOGEAR Customer Advocacy Technical Support Live Chat. Please tell me your model number, operating system, and short description of the problem.
You: Hello, I own GWU513 802.11g network card, and just upgraded my computer to 64 bit. Where can I find drivers that would work with 64-bit OS?
Iogear3: That unit is only supported on 32 bit OSs, we unfortunately do not offer support for it under 64 bit systems.
You: Are there any plans to release 64-bit drivers?
Iogear3: No as that product is discontinued we have no plans to offer 64 bit support.
You: Hmm, I must say I’m quite disappointed.
You: Hmm, I must say I’m quite disappointed.Thanks anyway
Iogear3: Take care.

Well, that would be it… Any new info is appreciated.

PS. Actually, GWU513 works under Linux (x86 and x86_64) after minor tweaking.
Isn’t it funny that for once Linux has better WiFi drivers than Windows?

Matshita UJDA745 (Panasonic/Matsushita) is an ultraslim 9.5mm (regular is 12.7mm high) cdrw/dvd drive build into some light laptops, ie. Sony Vaio PCG-V505BX (and probably other from 505 series), IBM T40.

DVD reading problems

Unfortunately it seems that it is build on weak parts, or something else bad happens to the hardware as after some period of time for unspecified reason drive stops reading/playing DVDs. Some DVD still can be recognized, but later a lot of read errors shows up. Same DVDs are read without any problem in another drive.
This happened to drive I bought (new) in a laptop and another I’ve bought on eBay as a replacement.

more info

• CD and CD-writing is not affected.
• both data DVD and video DVD does not work (neither DVD-R/RW nor pressed)
• not an OS issue (doesn’t work in Linux nor in WinXP)
• uploading newest firmware 1.05 doesn’t help
• software or hardware were not abused in any way (ie. no unofficial firmwares, no disassembling)
• BTW, drive ‘by design’ doesn’t read DVD+R (but firmware 1.05 states to add support for Double Layer DVD+R)

devices that failed

• manufactured: June 2003, serial no: 3FBEB127xxx
• manufactured: March 2003, serial no: 3CAEB037xxx

finally…, replace with compatible drive

After unsuccessful tries to rescue or replace broken UJDA745 drive, with new one. I have finally decided to buy compatible DVD+-RW drive MATSHITA UJ-822Da. I’ve paid about $130 on eBay. Replacing the drive is easy, and the drive seems to work without any problems so far (a few months now).

Resources

Here I’m trying to collect web resources on that issue, for others that are hit by that issue, and to show that it is not single issue, but rather common problem with this hardware…

various complains on the issue

• http://www.driversearch.com/forums/cdrom/5020.html (a lot of complains)
• http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=28973.0
• http://forum.rpc1.org/viewtopic.php?t=32519
• http://www.siliconpopculture.com/sonytr/viewtopic.php?p=35085, p=35085
• http://www.computing.net/hardware/wwwboard/forum/37516.html
• http://www.howtofixcomputers.com/bb/sutra216442.html

Compatible models

Some says that UJDA755, Panasonic UJ-812B DVD-R or Panasonic UJ-822B DVD+-R can replace UJDA745

• http://www.siliconpopculture.com/sonytr/viewtopic.php?p=38651
• Others say that Panasonic UJ-810 fails after 12 months too…
• Reports that updating Panasonic UJ-812B bios from K101 to K103 broke DVD reading.
• Another UJ-812B problem reports

Other resources

• Firmware update for Sony Vaio laptops
• Firmware update for IBM laptops

Comments

Any solution to the problem is really appreciated…
Any additional info of course, too…
By then, I would recommend to avoid buying laptop with an UJDA745.

For debugging with valgrind I use following configuration:

To disable glibc memory errors detection you need to set MALLOC_CHECK_ environment variable to 0 (note the ending underscore).

Normally DockApps should be displayed in special mode, so they can be docked in one of the screen corners. They also does not have titlebar, and does not require to be placed manually (if this is set up in Window Maker).

Some old DockApp applications are somehow incompatible with recent WindowMaker (tested on 0.91+), and either does not display at all, or display in regular “window”.

I didn’t see confirmation of that behavior, so maybe this is only my issue (but on a few machines) but solution I found is to fix the source code bye  changing one line of it. Search for res_class string in the source and change right side of the expression to the "DockApp". Recompile.

Instruction:

1. Open (or put cursor on) message you want to forward
2. Enter Full Headers mode¹ (press h)
3. Forward the mail (press f)
4. Accept ‘Forward message as an attachment?’ (press y)

Tested on pine 4.62. Is there any simple method? What displaying full headers has to do?

¹To be able to enter Full Headers mode, you may need to enable it in configuration:
On main screen enter Setup (press s), Config (c), and check (x) enable-full-header-cmd in Advanced Command Preferences. Exit and save (e, y).

Post Scriptum: this is an import of information that I wrote a while ago. Things might have changed since then.