Skip navigation

Category Archives: Site News

Demo FAIL, but ReciPants GO

Well, my demo of the Linux Gamers Live DVD didn’t go so well. My crappy old computer did not perform very well, so we ended up borrowing someone’s laptop to perform the demo. Wasn’t too exciting. I just brought up each game on the disk and played them for a bit. We also discussed some other Linux-friendly gaming.

After that FAIL, I needed some success. I finally got some relief with the ReciPants database issue. The problem seems to be with my method for transferring the database from the old server to the new. Here’s a brief synopsis of what I did to get it to work:

Migrated from the old server (with MySQL 3.23) to a virtual machine running CentOS 3 (also with MySQL 3.23).

On the old server:

  • Exported the database with the following command (no extra options used, my mistake was exporting with —opt and/or —add-drop-tables):

mysqldump -u root -p ReciPants > ReciPants-database.sql

On the “new” server:

  • Set up ReciPants v1.2 on the new server, per the Web site instructions — including running the SQL scripts tables-mysql.sql and ref_data.sql.
  • Once I confirmed that worked OK, restored the data from the old
    server with the following command (the -f is necessary, as there is a
    non-critical error early on that will halt the process):

mysql -u root -p -f ReciPants < ReciPants-database.sql

Again, I need to test the above method on MySQL 5.x, but I believe it will work just fine.

New site logo!

Now, before the copyright police get all excited, let me explain.

The logo appears to be an edited version of a famous artist’s original drawing. I assure you, no copyright violation has taken place here.

In fact, this is an edited version of an original photo taken by me:

This photo was taken in an alleyway in the city of Vancouver, BC. The photo is of a graffiti artist’s rendering of said famous original drawing. As the photographer, I hold copyright to this image, but not that one.

ReciPants crippled by lack of Digest::SHA1 (UPDATE: oops, still broke!)

I gave up trying to “fix” ReciPants on this site, and decided to try setting it up on a server at home for use there. I’ve discovered, however, that the latest version of Perl doesn’t seem to like the required module Digest::SHA1, and fails to compile it every time.

I need to spend some more time digging in to the error messages it throws when it fails to compile, but it appears to hinge on a missing library.

We’ll see. I may be looking for a way to export all of those recipes to another recipe database. . .

UPDATE ONE

Well, um, DUH. Did a quick surf through the results of apt-cache search sha1 and ran across a little package called libdigest-sha1-perl. That installed successfully on my home system and now ReciPants works!

I think I’m going to keep this as an in-home only database anyway, due to security concerns with the ReciPants project (which hasn’t been updated since April 2004).

The inability to compile the module most likely indicates a lack of the correct development libraries on my systems. That will teach me to just be more lazy and rely on apt-get 😉

UPDATE TWO

Moved this to a fresh LAMP build on the latest version of Debian running in-house. Installed all modules, configured, etc. Lots of love until I went to actually view a recipe — SQL error! ARGH.

Visited the Recipants site, sent an SOS to the main contact there, and he actually answered me back. Yay! I’ve provided him with log entries and details, so maybe I’ll get a fix? Keep watching this space for more. . .

Coming together. . .

I’ve still got a lot of work to do, but this is coming along quite nicely. Here’s a list, mostly for my own benefit:

  • Move most (but not all) of the photos from the old gallery to Picasa.
  • Migrate Recipants to the new server.
  • Move www.jocci.com to a new host.
  • Move www.ia4wdc.org to a new host.
  • Move www.prairiemarsh.net to a new host.
  • Update DNS and double-check it.
  • Other stuff?
  • Retire old server

Experimental

This is an experimental post. I will be re-working this site soon. Very soon.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Donec rutrum est eu mauris. In volutpat blandit felis. Suspendisse eget pede. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos hymenaeos. Quisque sed arcu. Aenean purus nulla, condimentum ac, pretium at, commodo sit amet, turpis. Aenean lacus. Ut in justo. Ut viverra dui vel ante. Duis imperdiet porttitor mi. Maecenas at lectus eu justo porta tempus. Cras fermentum ligula non purus. Duis id orci non magna rutrum bibendum. Mauris tincidunt, massa in rhoncus consectetuer, lectus dui ornare enim, ut egestas ipsum purus id urna. Vestibulum volutpat porttitor metus. Donec congue vehicula ante.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Donec rutrum est eu mauris. In volutpat blandit felis. Suspendisse eget pede. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos hymenaeos. Quisque sed arcu. Aenean purus nulla, condimentum ac, pretium at, commodo sit amet, turpis. Aenean lacus. Ut in justo. Ut viverra dui vel ante. Duis imperdiet porttitor mi. Maecenas at lectus eu justo porta tempus. Cras fermentum ligula non purus. Duis id orci non magna rutrum bibendum. Mauris tincidunt, massa in rhoncus consectetuer, lectus dui ornare enim, ut egestas ipsum purus id urna. Vestibulum volutpat porttitor metus. Donec congue vehicula ante.