hmmm….

I was in need of a means to disable upstart scripts in /etc/event.d via some means other than getting rid of the file. Since upstart has no documentation to speak of, I asked my buddy Google.

Google pointed me to the year old bug 94065 in launchpad. I added a quick ‘me too’ and subscribed to updates on the bug. This was back in March. Fast forward to last week and this arrives:

** Changed in: upstart
      Target: 0.5 => None

--
Add non-destructive means to disable a job
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/94065
You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
of the bug.

There is no mention of this change in bug meta-data on the launchpad site, or maybe I’m just not finding it since I lack the doctorate in navigating launchpad necessary to be able to use the site. This prompted an update from the original reporter on the bug asking for more information:

is there a disable method yet? i reported this initially over a year ago. (there may be, but since there’s no upstart manpage on hardy, it’s hard to know. :-)

Now for the asshole fail:

Scott James Remnant wrote on 2008-08-14: (permalink)

Does this bug report say that there is a disable method? Is it marked Fix Released?
No.

I’m not sure what Scott James Remnant <scott@canonical.com>’s roll at Canonical is but perhaps it should be modified to remove any tasks that involve interaction with the public?

Dynex is the Best Buy brand. We were recently there and I noticed a $20 webcam that said it supported OS X 10.1 and greater on the box so I decided to purchase it. I installed the included drivers and software and started up their software. I just get a black screen with “No video input.” The LED on the webcam does turn on and off appropriately. I took it back and exchanged it thinking the unit was deffective. The new one had the same problem.
Unfortunately their included drivers are as ancient as the version of OS X referenced on the box. There are a few commercial and open source driver sets available for web cam support on OS X but unfortunately this camera isn’t supported by any of them. They said they had 24×7x365 support on their website so I figured, what the heck, maybe they have some nice shiny new drivers they forgot to link to on the website.

This is the call:

“So what seems to be the problem?”
“Well I have a Mac and the box said the Mac is supported so I installed the drivers and software that came with it and the software that came with it says there is no video from the cam”
“Oh, well since you said you have a Mac you will need to contact the manufacturer of the computer
to see if…”
“There is nothing wrong with the computer.”
“Right but maybe there is some sort of driver that you need for the Mac to make it work.”
“Exactly, and that driver comes from the manufacturer of the device, that would be Dynex, whom you
represent.”
Click.

Just to be clear, that click there at the end is them hanging up on me. I guess they couldn’t argue with that.