Mossop Status Update: 2010-10-29

Done:
Wrote code to sanely deal with database corruption at runtime
Cleared review queue
Only thing left on my assigned list are blocked on other bugs right now
Triaged Toolkit blockers and noms

Done:

  • Wrote code to sanely deal with database corruption at runtime
  • Cleared review queue
  • Only thing left on my assigned list are blocked on other bugs right now
  • Triaged Toolkit blockers and noms

Next:

  • Get the stuff I have waiting landed (assuming the tree reopens)
  • Check on the status of all blockers

Beating Bootcamp

I had a plan to go back to doing some more traditional Fractal work this weekend, unfortunately the best tools out there (UltraFractal is a fine example) tend to be on Windows and all my machines are Macs right now. So I figured it would be a simple task to use Bootcamp to install Windows onto my laptop, but like much else that I’ve tried to do these past few weeks it turned into a bit of a nightmare so I figured I’d document how I managed it.

The way Bootcamp works is relatively simple, it shrinks your main OSX partition and then creates a new Windows partition at the end of the disk, then you just install Windows onto that. The problem is that Bootcamp isn’t very good at shrinking the main partition when there are files sitting around at the end of it. As every good OSX fanboy tends to blather about, OSX works hard to avoid fragmentation within files, unfortunately I suspect this tends to spread individual files around all over the disk as the OS tries to find contiguous space to move them to. So when you try to use Bootcamp to shrink your partition you get this lovely error telling you that some files cannot be moved and suggesting you basically reinstall OSX to fix it:

Bootcamp failing to shrink your partition

There are lots of suggestions on the web for combating this. Most revolve around paying for defragmentation software. I didn’t want to pay though so here is a free alternative.

It should go without saying that this involves partition wrangling. Make sure you backup first, double check before doing every step, don’t blame me if you lose data.

Go get the Gparted live CD, burn it to a disk and boot from it (hold down Option while restarting). GParted should show your disk with two partitions in in, one small one at the start that claims to be FAT, ignore this one. The rest of the disk should be HFS+ and named after your Mac install. Select this partition, click the resize button and choose how much to shrink it by. The easiest way is to just put the amount of space you want for Windows in the space to leave at the end box. Click ok and then apply then wait patiently while it does a far more competent job than Bootcamp could of moving your files around.

Restart into OSX, open Disk Utility and go to the partition for your main disk. You should now see your OSX partition taking up less space and a gap at the end. Click the + sign to add a new FAT partition and name it BOOTCAMP. You should now find that the Bootcamp assistant recognises that the Windows partition exists and will allow you to start the Windows installation.

Make sure to read the bootcamp instructions, there are some real gotchas in there during the Windows install, and make sure to read the support info on how to allow Windows SP3 to install if you want to do that, without that I ended up with a broken Windows.

Mossop Status Update: 2010-10-22

Done:
Debugging XUL cache issues
Debugging Linux focus issues
Fixing up reviewed patches
Getting a handle on what is blocking the patches I almost have complete

Next:
Hopefully have a …

Done:

  • Debugging XUL cache issues
  • Debugging Linux focus issues
  • Fixing up reviewed patches
  • Getting a handle on what is blocking the patches I almost have complete

Next:

  • Hopefully have a week without stupid things slowing me down

Nightly Tester Tools is being brought back to life

After my last post about how I no longer have the time to maintain Nightly Tester Tools I am happy to say that someone has stepped forward to take over development and maintenance. I’m even more happy that it is one of the Mozilla teams so finally NTT is going to be officially owned and supported by Mozilla.

I sat down with them last week to talk over what I saw as the key goals of NTT and some ideas I had had suggested to me for the future but they also want to hear from you so go and read about their plans and give them your thoughts.

Mossop Status Update: 2010-10-15

Done:
Fixing all the patches I had working but got broken due to the b7 freeze delays
Thinking hard about how to recover from DB corruption as sanely as possible
Reviewing Blair's updated UI work
Analyzing an annoyi…

Done:

  • Fixing all the patches I had working but got broken due to the b7 freeze delays
  • Thinking hard about how to recover from DB corruption as sanely as possible
  • Reviewing Blair's updated UI work
  • Analyzing an annoying intermittent orange, looks like it may be 2 or three intermittent oranges

Next:

  • Clear out my assigned list
  • Clear out my review queue

Mossop Status Update: 2010-10-01

Done:
Made patches for more blockers, the add-ons manager now has 40% of its blockers waiting for review or waiting to land

Next:
Track down a strange issue with webprogress listeners …

Done:

  • Made patches for more blockers, the add-ons manager now has 40% of its blockers waiting for review or waiting to land

Next:

  • Track down a strange issue with webprogress listeners not getting called correctly.
  • Figure out how to manage all the patches waiting to land if the b7 freeze goes on for much longer.