A trivial systemd unit script: vboxservice.service

In a VirtualBox guest, VBoxService (which is for example responsible for setting the time after a host suspend/resume) is not started on boot. I thought about writing a simple init script to doit (editing the vboxadd init script seemed like a bad idea, since it might get overwritten on updates).
Then I decided to try the "native systemd" way.
Executive summary: it is much easier than with old style SysV init:

# cat /etc/systemd/system/vboxservice.service
[Unit]
Description=VirtualBox guest services

[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/bin/VBoxService -f

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

Activate with systemctl enable vboxservice.service.

12.1 update - no problems and systemd rocks

Two days ago I updated my home server to 12.1, basically by doing

# cd /etc/zypp/repos.d
# sed -i 's/11.4/12.1/' *
# zypper ref
# zypper -v dup --no-recommends

The only small glitch I had was systemd apparently taking a nap during boot, which made the machine take very long to boot (about 2 minutes).
After filing bug 730776, I found out (with the helpful hint from Frederic), that I still had an invalid swap partition in my fstab. After fixing that, the bootup now really is blazingly fast:
server:~ # systemd-analyze
Startup finished in 4116ms (kernel) + 33827ms (userspace) = 37944ms

new avr-gcc packages

Thanks to Volker Kuhlmann, there are now 3 brand new avr-gcc packages in the CrossToolchain:avr repository: avr-gcc-436, avr-gcc-462 and avr-gcc-47-20111105.
The "original" cross-avr-gcc package is still at 4.3.3, as that's the most tested revision and also it has additional patches that are dropped from the new versions. Those patches add, amongst others, XMEGA support which is not present in the avr-gcc packages. That's something to improve in the future.

The packages contain a run-avr-gcc-XXX wrapper script (substitute XXX with the 436, 462,...) to make testing the respective compiler very easy.

Have fun testing!

Cool. Censored Mailinglists.

Funny. As soon as someone brings up an unwanted topic, the openSUSE Factory Mailinglist Dictator^WModerator shows up and the rest of the discussion never reaches the list. Without a notice of course.

So that's what I had to say on the topic, and the Factory list will now probably do without me. This post is just that people have a chance to know why their bugreports will be handled the way they are.

Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2011 07:50:03 +0100
From: Stefan Seyfried
To: opensuse-factory@opensuse.org
Subject: Re: Decision making (Was Re: [opensuse-factory] Kmail 4.7 is not
 shippable in 12.1)
In-Reply-To: <201111091248.27668.markus.s@kdemail.net>

On 09.11.2011 12:48, Markus Slopianka wrote:

> On Mittwoch 09 November 2011 11:45:27 Stefan Seyfried wrote:
> 
>> We should simply revert the mistake of making KDE the default desktop.
> 
> https://features.opensuse.org/306967
> https://features.opensuse.org/307495
> 
> Live with it, vocal minority!

Well, some time ago it was said that openSUSE is a meritrocracy. Those
who do the work get to decide.

It is very easy for people to first vote "make $BROKEN_DESKTOP default"
and later complain that it does not work.

Obviously, all the people wanting to have a certain desktop as a default
need to make it work. If it doesn't, it does not deserve to be the default.

There is even FATE for that: https://features.opensuse.org/312959
Right now, people vote for not having a working desktop.

That's fine with me. Makes bugfixing much easier: either "RESOLVED -
WORKSFORME", or "Component: KDE4-Workspace", "[x] reassign to default
component owner".
I doubt it improves the user experience, but hey, the users voted for
it, so who am I to complain.