I've mentioned before that this blog is created using blosxom, which is Perl based. I'd observed that a lot of the GNOME guys used pyblosxom, the Python version. Now, I know that this is partly because you have to be a Python freak to be involved with GNOME these days but I figured there might be a performance improvement, so I did a little test with my blog. I set up pyblosxom on the same machine as I host my blosxom blog, made all the settings the same, but didn't include any plugins for pyblosxom (blosxom generates my archives tree using a plugin - that means extra CPU time to execute). Even with the archive plugin, blosxom still displayed the blog content faster than pyblosxom, so I'll be sticking with what I know, the Perl version.

Haven't mentioned this for a few days, I've not been ignoring it. I chatted with Carlos earlier in the week on #GST about it, and basically we both think that my code should work. But it doesn't. If anyone can tell me how the following doesn't work, when $gst_dist == "suse-9.0", I'd love to know:

%login_defs_prop_map = ();
# For SuSE, we need to use SYSTEM_GID_MIN, not GID_MIN

if ($gst_dist =~ /^suse/)
{
    @login_defs_prop_array =
    (
     "QMAIL_DIR" ,     "qmail_dir",
     "MAIL_DIR" ,      "mailbox_dir",
     "MAIL_FILE" ,     "mailbox_file",
     "PASS_MAX_DAYS" , "pwd_maxdays",
     "PASS_MIN_DAYS" , "pwd_mindays",
     "PASS_MIN_LEN" ,  "pwd_min_length",
     "PASS_WARN_AGE" , "pwd_warndays",
     "UID_MIN" ,       "umin",
     "UID_MAX" ,       "umax",
     "SYSTEM_GID_MIN" ,       "gmin",
     "GID_MAX" ,       "gmax",
     "USERDEL_CMD" ,   "del_user_additional_command",
     "CREATE_HOME" ,   "create_home",
     "", "");
}

else
{
    @login_defs_prop_array =
    (
     "QMAIL_DIR" ,     "qmail_dir",
     "MAIL_DIR" ,      "mailbox_dir",
     "MAIL_FILE" ,     "mailbox_file",
     "PASS_MAX_DAYS" , "pwd_maxdays",
     "PASS_MIN_DAYS" , "pwd_mindays",
     "PASS_MIN_LEN" ,  "pwd_min_length",
     "PASS_WARN_AGE" , "pwd_warndays",
     "UID_MIN" ,       "umin",
     "UID_MAX" ,       "umax",
     "GID_MIN" ,       "gmin",
     "GID_MAX" ,       "gmax",
     "USERDEL_CMD" ,   "del_user_additional_command",
     "CREATE_HOME" ,   "create_home",
     "", "");
}

for ($i = 0; $login_defs_prop_array[$i] ne ""; $i += 2)
{
  $login_defs_prop_map {$login_defs_prop_array[$i]} = $login_defs_prop_array[$i + 1];
  $login_defs_prop_map {$login_defs_prop_array[$i + 1]} = $login_defs_prop_array[$i];
}

%profiles_prop_map = ();

# For SuSE, we need to use SYSTEM_GID_MIN, not GID_MIN

if ($gst_dist =~ /^suse/)
{
    @profiles_prop_array =
    (
     "NAME" ,          "name",
     "COMMENT",        "comment",
     "LOGINDEFS",      "login_defs",
     "HOME_PREFFIX",   "home_prefix",
     "SHELL",          "shell",
     "GROUP",          "group",
     "SKEL_DIR",       "skel_dir",
     "QMAIL_DIR" ,     "qmail_dir",
     "MAIL_DIR" ,      "mailbox_dir",
     "MAIL_FILE" ,     "mailbox_file",
     "PASS_RANDOM",    "pwd_random",
     "PASS_MAX_DAYS" , "pwd_maxdays",
     "PASS_MIN_DAYS" , "pwd_mindays",
     "PASS_MIN_LEN" ,  "pwd_min_length",
     "PASS_WARN_AGE" , "pwd_warndays",
     "UID_MIN" ,       "umin",
     "UID_MAX" ,       "umax",
     "SYSTEM_GID_MIN" ,       "gmin",
     "GID_MAX" ,       "gmax",
     "USERDEL_CMD" ,   "del_user_additional_command",
     "CREATE_HOME" ,   "create_home",
     "", "");
}

else
{
    @profiles_prop_array =
    (
     "NAME" ,          "name",
     "COMMENT",        "comment",
     "LOGINDEFS",      "login_defs",
     "HOME_PREFFIX",   "home_prefix",
     "SHELL",          "shell",
     "GROUP",          "group",
     "SKEL_DIR",       "skel_dir",
     "QMAIL_DIR" ,     "qmail_dir",
     "MAIL_DIR" ,      "mailbox_dir",
     "MAIL_FILE" ,     "mailbox_file",
     "PASS_RANDOM",    "pwd_random",
     "PASS_MAX_DAYS" , "pwd_maxdays",
     "PASS_MIN_DAYS" , "pwd_mindays",
     "PASS_MIN_LEN" ,  "pwd_min_length",
     "PASS_WARN_AGE" , "pwd_warndays",
     "UID_MIN" ,       "umin",
     "UID_MAX" ,       "umax",
     "SYSTEM_GID_MIN" ,       "gmin",
     "GID_MAX" ,       "gmax",
     "USERDEL_CMD" ,   "del_user_additional_command",
     "CREATE_HOME" ,   "create_home",
     "", "");
}

for ($i = 0; $profiles_prop_array[$i] ne ""; $i += 2)
{
  $profiles_prop_map {$profiles_prop_array[$i]} = $profiles_prop_array[$i + 1];
  $profiles_prop_map {$profiles_prop_array[$i + 1]} = $profiles_prop_array[$i];
}

Tonight I'm leading a meeting at church, it's the latest Soul Man night. Soul Man is our men's ministry, which I'm involved with leading, and we've recently started alternating our monthly meetings between ones with a spiritual bent (like tonight) and our traditional social nights (normally curry nights). Tonight's meeting is entitled The Wrong Glasses, last time we had our first spiritual night, and it was called The Wrong Trousers, and it's developed into a theme. Mike, our Senior Pastor's ging to be teaching, on the subject of vision (hence glasses - geddit?). Should be a good night, and we're hoping for a good turnout tonight. Last time we had a Delirious? gig to compete with.

Had a bit of a result today, I finally beat a Nokia IP30 into submission to establish a VPN with one of our satellite offices. I'm quite proud of myself.

Just to clarify the oven issue (for Paul's benefit...)

We did not forget that we had switched it off, and had to get a repair dude out just to turn it back on. It died while in use, it would now seem due to a power surge. The repair engineer took the top off the cooker (the gas hobs) and flicked a switch behind the front panel, which gets triggered by power surges or overheating. This switch is not mentioned anywhere in the manual, with the result that we've lost out on 75 quid, which could have proved handy this time next year when we would have got it, when potentially, I could be at college again.