pterjan's diary

  Mandriva 2010 is out, and me too

So, Mandriva Linux 2010 is now out, and they finished it without me as I broke my two arms two weeks ago. It was a stupid fall, no need to give details :)

It was not too serious (in each arm, the head of a bone is broken, and the bone did not move), so I can now use again my arms for most things including the laptop. I can not unfold it totally yet, or distort it too much but I can now survive alone :)

Thanks to everyone who helped me!

So, Mandriva 2010 is out and was finished without me, but I managed to improve a bit the partionning screen the day before this accident, so it looks better than in my previous post:

Further improvments will have to wait for 2010 Spring...

So far Mandriva 2010 seems to have quite positive reviews :)

  Naming by Microsoft

My knowledge of Microsoft Windows is quite limited (even if I used Windows 95 and NT4 for several years), and today I looked for documentation to check that we add the correct Windows partition to bootloader. I was quite surprised by Microsoft naming.

To quote wikipedia:

In Microsoft Windows, the system partition and boot partition refer to:
• The system partition is a disk partition that contains the boot sector and files such as NTLDR that are needed for booting Windows[...]
• The boot partition is the disk partition that contains the Windows operating system files and its support files, but not any files responsible for booting.

This naming is indeed the one described by Microsoft.

So, system partition is the one containing boot files, and boot partition is the one containing system files. I really can't understand how they came to this naming...

  Navigo pass under Linux (and cheap Smartcard reader!)

RATP (Paris transport authority) is starting a new service to buy weekly or monthly "tickets" over the Internet.

Until Sunday they sell the reader for 8 euros. It is a Gemalto GemPC Twin which works perfectly under Linux and is listed at 42 euros.

PC/SC device scanner
V 1.4.15 (c) 2001-2009, Ludovic Rousseau 
Compiled with PC/SC lite version: 1.5.5
Scanning present readers...
0: Gemplus GemPC Twin 00 00


Mon Nov 30 14:01:23 2009
 Reader 0: Gemplus GemPC Twin 00 00
  Card state: Card inserted, 
  ATR: 3B 6F 00 00 80 5A 08 03 03 00 00 00 <MY CARD NUMBER> 82 90 00


ATR: 3B 6F 00 00 80 5A 08 03 03 00 00 00 <MY CARD NUMBER> 82 90 00
+ TS = 3B --> Direct Convention
+ T0 = 6F, Y(1): 0110, K: 15 (historical bytes)
  TB(1) = 00 --> VPP is not electrically connected
  TC(1) = 00 --> Extra guard time: 0
+ Historical bytes: 80 5A 08 03 03 00 00 00 <MY CARD NUMBER> 82 90 00
  Category indicator byte: 80 (compact TLV data object)
    Tag: 5, len: A (card issuer's data)
      Card issuer data: 08 03 03 00 00 00 <MY CARD NUMBER>
    Tag: 8, len: 2 (status indicator)
      SW: 9000


Possibly identified card (using /usr/share/pcsc/smartcard_list.txt):
3B 6F 00 00 80 5A 08 03 03 00 00 00 <MY CARD NUMBER> 82 90 00
3B 6F 00 00 80 5A .. 0[1-5] .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 82 90 00
        Card supporting a Calypso application Rev 1
        Typically: French "Navigo" transport card

I installed various packages (pcsc-lite, ccid, opensc, mozilla-plugin-opensc) and after changing my User Agent (for the OS, Firefox/Windows would be OK) their check sees the reader fine:

I also tried to see what info it contains, the obvious one is the card number, I did not yet try to understand the others. I also used it on my Visa card and saw some info like my name, the expiration date, the remaining pin errors allowed,...

If you live in Paris and want to play with it, I suggest that you rush to buy one :)