Firmware Goodness

I don't usually get too excited about firmware updates, mainly because the things they fix rarely tend to affect me, for whatever reason. But the last Leopard Graphics Update from a few weeks ago has actually caused me some problems. Two, I believe, to be precise.

The first problem I've had may or may not be related to the Leopard Graphics Update: occasionally my machine — my brand new, fresh-out-of-the-box machine — just locks up, requiring a force reboot. I don't remember where, but I do remember reading that people were associating this with the Leopard Graphics Update, and it definitely started happening to me immediately after that update, so I'm fairly sure the update was the cause. The second problem has been cosmetic: when typing in the Spotlight menubar the drop-down sheet flickers in and out, causing a really annoying strobe effect until the window stops updating. Very irritating!

The good news is, Apple's latest ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT Firmware Update fixes the second problem. Here's hoping it fixes the first one as well. Only time will tell.

UPDATE 3-28-07:
Yep. All fixed. Since applying this update my machine has not locked up. Nice.

A Rift in the Space-Time Continuum

I did it. Yes, I finally did it: I went and pissed off Time Machine.

I've been using the Staff Backup drive for my Time Machine backups, see. And that drive needs a certain amount of free space for any large chunks of data that staff might create during any given day. So when Time Machine finally ate up all the disk space on the drive, I decided to see what would happen if I cleared some space up by hand, the old fashioned way. And so I deleted the first month's worth of data from my Time Machine backupdb folder.

Now, I'm not totally stupid, and I have at least a good enough understanding of how Time Machine works to know that this would cause problems, but I was curious, and I wanted to see what those problems would be and how they would manifest themselves.

The first thing I got was a generic Time Machine failure:

Time Machine Failure
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Clicking the red info button revealed surprising details, considering my drive showed 200GB free:

Time Machine Error: Really? How do You Figure?
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So I decided to run a backup and see what happened. The backup appeared to start smoothly, but eventually I wound up getting this message:

Time Machine Error: Funny Math
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Hmmm... I think I broke it.

It makes sense, really. I mean, it stands to reason that, in Time Machine, the first and oldest backup actually contains the most actual data. It's the base for all the other data. Subsequent backups only copy changes, but the first backup is kind of the Mother of All Backups, if you will. Deleting that first backup will, unsurprisingly, wreak all sort of havoc on your backups.

Havoc that is, as far as I can tell, irreversible. The only way I've found to fix this is to start the backups fresh. That is, turn off Time Machine, delete the old backups (or at least move the old backupdb folder out of the way), and then set Time Machine up again.

Bummer.

Oh well.

UPDATE:
Ahhh! That's more like it.

Time Machine: Back Up and Running
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Translucency

Every now and then, when I connect to a network share, the window opens with its top slightly behind the menubar. This has been happening at least since Tiger, and I half expected it to go away in Leopard. But it hasn't. What has changed in Leopard, however, is the menubar, which is allegedly translucent.

Leopard Menubar: My Window has Been Decapitated
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But, as you can see from this screen grab, when one of my windows opens behind this supposedly translucent menubar you cannot see it. It just disappears. So, one of two things is happening here: either the menubar is not actually "translucent" but simply draws a shaded strip from the top of your Desktop image and layers the menubar atop that strip; or my window is not actually going up behind the menubar but, rather, is being partially sucked up into some neither-universe where graphics as we know them cease to exist.

Either way, it sure is disconcerting.

Leopard Installer Certificates

If you've been using Software Update (like I have, up 'til the other day), you've probably missed one of the new features of Leopard: Installer Certificates. Major updates from Apple now come with certificates of authenticity.

So, for instance, download the standalone Mac OS X 10.5.2 installer and launch the package in the Installer application, and you'll notice a small, new certificate badge in the upper right hand corner of the installer window.

Apple Installer: Certificate Badge
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Click the badge and you can take a look at the certificate that's attached to the installer, replete with details about said certificate under the "Details" disclosure triangle.

Apple Installer: Certificate Details
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It's another preemptive step in the right direction, security-wise. Always nice to see.

NetBoot Part 2

So here's the plan, as it stands right now. (Yes, I have a plan already! Yes, that was quick.) First, build an image that's good for all workstations (laptops, staff machines, standard workstations, etc.) throughout the lab with:

• Base OS (Mac OS X Leopard 10.5)
• A DHCP network connection
• Apple applications
• Adobe applications
• Drag-and-drop applications
• Other third-party applications
• One admin user
• ARD active

IMAGE THIS SYSTEM
This becomes the base system build, the Master Image — the replacement system if a machine ever needs rebuilding. It is the only full system image. There is only one.

Everything else that is machine-type specific — that is, users, applications, application components, crontabs, anything — gets turned into and installed via either a downloaded or hand-rolled package. So far I've been using Apple's PackageMaker, which has matured a great deal since last I tried it. It's pretty nice. I'm also taking a look at Iceberg, which also looks to be pretty full-featured and nifty.

Iceberg: by White Box

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PackageMaker: by Apple
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These packages can be machine-type specific and stored in a simple folder hierarchy by machine type — laptop packages in the laptops folder, etc. — for organizational purposes. In addition to being machine-type specific, packages can also, I believe, be machine specific. That is, I think we can make settings like computer name and network settings using packages as well. So what we're talking about here is a system of computer building that happens completely over the network, and that can be directed almost entirely from one ARD-toting computer, that computer being mine, of course. (I've always said, the sign of a good SysAdmin is that he never leaves his chair.)

I've gotten pretty good at making application packages, at this point (not that it's terribly hard, mind you). My next step will be to learn how to make system settings with packages as well. My other next step is going to be, of course, creating the Master Build. None of this building happens 'til summer. But still, something tells me it's going to be smart to start this process now and see what crops up over the next couple of months.

As usual, I'll be reporting any new and/or interesting developments.

Oh, and thanks to everyone who commented on the last post. The comments were extremely useful!