Humbling coming back to Linux server administration
I was off working for a defense contractor for five years and have been more or less retired for the last two years. Back when my colleague Bill Sconce passed away our mutual client contacted me and I now do occasional work for them. Around 8 years ago I installed a CentOS server for the client and the system has been bubbling along with very little intervention every since. As you might imagine the client is loath to replace his server with anything less reliable and to that end I have been getting the site ready to upgrade to a new server running the current version of CentOS. This has been a humbling experience because when you aren't hands on for long periods you need to relearn what previously was second nature. So I'll be on here periodically asking questions and possibly sharing information. BTW, the government uses Linux a lot more than most people are aware and it is often hidden within the framework of applications provided by third parties. -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: [GNHLUG] TONIGHT: CentraLUG, NHTI Library, David Berube, Scaling MySQL
Ted Roche wrote: On 11/02/2009 10:50 AM, H. Kurth Bemis wrote: Hi Ted - Any chance there'll be audio or video available for those that are stuck in the great Canadian north and cannot attend but REALLY wanted to hear the talk. :] If not, oh well. Thanks ~k LUGcasting is on my to-do list, but real life has interceded in keeping me from pursuing it up to now. I do take good notes, though, and will do my best to post them soon after the meeting. I'm not sure if this would help but you can see the slides for several MySQL performance talks at: http://www.percona.com/presentations.html -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: My router saga (with bonus features!)
Ben Scott wrote: My router saga . . . I bet you've noticed that this kind of saga has a one step forward two steps back quality ;^) And of course you personally have told us that if you were doing this commercially you wouldn't even think about using cheap consumer grade gear. It's so tantalizing though. Buy a $20-$50 box and avoid spending the $200-$1000 commerical grade stuff. Unfortunately though when you factor in wasted time, the expensive stuff starts to look reasonable. Unless of course you're doing this just for the learning experience and because you have some spare time. Think of it as a geek busy box ;^) -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: What is the result of connecting a single link (DVI-D) video source to a dual link monitor?
Mark Ordung wrote: On Thu, Oct 15, 2009 at 4:34 PM, Tom Buskey t...@buskey.name wrote: I have a Mac Mini (mid 2009) model. From what I'm reading, that's what you have and not an earlier model. (refer to http://lowendmac.com) This model has 2 video ports: 1 mini displayport and 1 mini DVI. There is no analog signal in them. A mini DVI to DVI will be DVD-D output, not DVI-I or DVI-A. The svideo/composite adapter that apple sells will not work on this model because there is no analog component. I don't know if thiis helps your actual situation. I had to buy a USB powered VGA to svideo/composite converter (not just an adapter) to hook up an old TV. This generated an analog signal from a digital input. I bought a Mac mini last month as soon as they began shipping with Snow Leopard and I'm using it with a $30 Apple brand Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter that I picked up at Best Buy. So I don't see where a converter is necessary? I'm kind of an Apple fan boy but when it comes to their video options it sure doesn't always 'just work', as I think this thread shows. Mark I too have had good results using the miniDisplayPort to VGA adapter. With most VGA monitors this setup just works. In fairness to Apple the application space I'm trying to get working uses esoteric hardware. Not many users will be using $25k monitors and you wouldn't really expect a Mac Mini to work with these very high resolution monitors. Still, I've got at least one 3MP monitor working at its rated resolution and I'm hopeful with a bit of work to get a couple of others working. My client wouldn't have a problem purchasing a Mac Pro if that proves to be necessary and with some assistance from the Apple folks I believe we can make that setup work. In this application (Radiology) the computer systems are only a small fraction of the cost of the setup. -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: What is the result of connecting a single link (DVI-D) video source to a dual link monitor?
Alex Hewitt wrote: Mark Ordung wrote: On Thu, Oct 15, 2009 at 4:34 PM, Tom Buskey t...@buskey.name wrote: I have a Mac Mini (mid 2009) model. From what I'm reading, that's what you have and not an earlier model. (refer to http://lowendmac.com) This model has 2 video ports: 1 mini displayport and 1 mini DVI. There is no analog signal in them. A mini DVI to DVI will be DVD-D output, not DVI-I or DVI-A. The svideo/composite adapter that apple sells will not work on this model because there is no analog component. I don't know if thiis helps your actual situation. I had to buy a USB powered VGA to svideo/composite converter (not just an adapter) to hook up an old TV. This generated an analog signal from a digital input. I bought a Mac mini last month as soon as they began shipping with Snow Leopard and I'm using it with a $30 Apple brand Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter that I picked up at Best Buy. So I don't see where a converter is necessary? I'm kind of an Apple fan boy but when it comes to their video options it sure doesn't always 'just work', as I think this thread shows. Mark I too have had good results using the miniDisplayPort to VGA adapter. With most VGA monitors this setup just works. In fairness to Apple the application space I'm trying to get working uses esoteric hardware. Not many users will be using $25k monitors and you wouldn't really expect a Mac Mini to work with these very high resolution monitors. Still, I've got at least one 3MP monitor working at its rated resolution and I'm hopeful with a bit of work to get a couple of others working. My client wouldn't have a problem purchasing a Mac Pro if that proves to be necessary and with some assistance from the Apple folks I believe we can make that setup work. In this application (Radiology) the computer systems are only a small fraction of the cost of the setup. -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ A trip to the Apple store in Salem proved beneficial. The technical folks (actually everyone I talked to) were anxious to help. We weren't able to get the Mac Mini to drive the Barco monitor but the Mac Pro worked perfectly. So my client will purchase a Mac Pro and I have two other clients that want the same setup duplicated. Success! -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: What is the result of connecting a single link (DVI-D) video source to a dual link monitor?
Jarod Wilson wrote: On 10/14/2009 09:07 PM, Alex Hewitt wrote: Shawn O'Shea wrote: On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 5:37 PM, Alex Hewitt hewitt_t...@comcast.net mailto:hewitt_t...@comcast.net wrote: I'm trying to connect a new Mac Mini to a Barco monitor. The Barco monitor expects a dual link video source (2048 x 1536 /1536 x 2048) but the Mini is outputing single link DVI-D. The Mac sees the monitor as having a resolution of 1280x1024. Apple makes a dual link DVI adapter but I don't know if this will allow the Barco to work properly. Anyone have any experience with this kind of setup? Single-link DVI has less pins/wires and maxes out at 1920x1200 resolution. For higher resolutions, you need the extra wires and can go to 2560x1600. You need to also make sure that the DVI cable you are using is dual link as well. Pictures of connector types: http://www.interfacebus.com/Design_Connector_Digital_Visual_Interface_DVI_Bus.html Discussion of single vs dual with resolution information: WHAT ARE SINGLE AND DUAL LINKS ? section of http://www.datapro.net/techinfo/dvi_info.html -Shawn The Mac Pro does have a dual link video but I'm not sure if that system would also have the same problem. The Barco site only describes MS Windows systems and provides drivers for the same. -Alex P.S. BTW, we did connect a Totoku 3MP display (2048x1536) which uses a DVI-D connection and that display worked at full resolution. Thanks Shawn. Good pointers. There is something a bit odd about this though. The Totoku monitor is running at it's native resolution (2048x1536). The Mac gives me the full resolution as a choice in the display preferences. I'll look closely at the connector (miniPort to DVI-D) and see if it's actually dual link. The DVI-I dual link is definitely not working. From http://www.apple.com/macmini/specs.html # Extended desktop and video mirroring: Simultaneously supports up to 1920 by 1200 pixels on a DVI or VGA display; up to 2560 by 1600 pixels on a dual-link DVI display using Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter (sold separately) Jarod, I think you missed what I was saying. We have a monitor running at 2048x1536 resolution. That's higher than the 1900x1200 that the specs state. Apple makes a dual link adapter kit which connects to the mini display port on the back of the Mini. I have a suspicion that the DVI-D output of the supplied adapter can map the higher resolution of some monitors (those that use a DVI-D connection). -Alex P.S. I'm thinking of carrying the Barco monitor to the Salem Apple store and hopefully the Apple folks will let me try out the dual link adapter before I actually plunk down the $99 that it costs. I also need to find out if the Mac Pro can drive this monitor (we have several of them that we want to use). ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
What is the result of connecting a single link (DVI-D) video source to a dual link monitor?
I'm trying to connect a new Mac Mini to a Barco monitor. The Barco monitor expects a dual link video source (2048 x 1536 /1536 x 2048) but the Mini is outputing single link DVI-D. The Mac sees the monitor as having a resolution of 1280x1024. Apple makes a dual link DVI adapter but I don't know if this will allow the Barco to work properly. Anyone have any experience with this kind of setup? The Mac Pro does have a dual link video but I'm not sure if that system would also have the same problem. The Barco site only describes MS Windows systems and provides drivers for the same. -Alex P.S. BTW, we did connect a Totoku 3MP display (2048x1536) which uses a DVI-D connection and that display worked at full resolution. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: What is the result of connecting a single link (DVI-D) video source to a dual link monitor?
Shawn O'Shea wrote: On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 5:37 PM, Alex Hewitt hewitt_t...@comcast.net mailto:hewitt_t...@comcast.net wrote: I'm trying to connect a new Mac Mini to a Barco monitor. The Barco monitor expects a dual link video source (2048 x 1536 /1536 x 2048) but the Mini is outputing single link DVI-D. The Mac sees the monitor as having a resolution of 1280x1024. Apple makes a dual link DVI adapter but I don't know if this will allow the Barco to work properly. Anyone have any experience with this kind of setup? Single-link DVI has less pins/wires and maxes out at 1920x1200 resolution. For higher resolutions, you need the extra wires and can go to 2560x1600. You need to also make sure that the DVI cable you are using is dual link as well. Pictures of connector types: http://www.interfacebus.com/Design_Connector_Digital_Visual_Interface_DVI_Bus.html Discussion of single vs dual with resolution information: WHAT ARE SINGLE AND DUAL LINKS ? section of http://www.datapro.net/techinfo/dvi_info.html -Shawn The Mac Pro does have a dual link video but I'm not sure if that system would also have the same problem. The Barco site only describes MS Windows systems and provides drivers for the same. -Alex P.S. BTW, we did connect a Totoku 3MP display (2048x1536) which uses a DVI-D connection and that display worked at full resolution. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org mailto:gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ Thanks Shawn. Good pointers. There is something a bit odd about this though. The Totoku monitor is running at it's native resolution (2048x1536). The Mac gives me the full resolution as a choice in the display preferences. I'll look closely at the connector (miniPort to DVI-D) and see if it's actually dual link. The DVI-I dual link is definitely not working. -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
Lori Nagel wrote: I think it is very hard on newbies and drives people away from using free software. I remember as a newbie, reading things for hours, trying to look something up, not finding the information, not even knowing what to ask or how to ask it. I would read things, not understand them, and then ask questions. I remember going to some irc channels on freenode where I would get RTFM. The problem was I didn't really know enough about the subject matter to ask smart questions. It took me half a year just to figure out how to add the math library into the compiler so I could compile some basic C programs from one of the C programing books I have. I finally managed to learn it by finding a pdf copy of the Intro to GCC book. So basically, it is a document that expects people to have more knowledge than they may actually have. I don't think it is necessarily bad to try to ask smarter questions. I think the problem is when it becomes an exercise in newbie bashing where the so called fine manual is nowhere to be found. - Original Message From: Bruce Dawson j...@codemeta.com To: Lori Nagel jas...@yahoo.com Cc: gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org Sent: Fri, October 9, 2009 8:40:44 PM Subject: Re: How To Ask Questions The Smart Way OK. I'll bite. What aspects of that document do you not like? --Bruce Lori Nagel wrote: For no particular reason, I will say I do not think very highly of that document. - Original Message From: Kevin D. Clark kevin_d_cl...@comcast.net To: Greater NH Linux User Group gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org Sent: Fri, October 9, 2009 12:38:52 PM Subject: How To Ask Questions The Smart Way For no particular reason, I will mention that I think that this is a really good document. http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html I hope that others enjoy it as well. Kind regards, --kevin ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ Lori has hit it on the head. The document reeks of us and them. I taught programming for several years at a community college. I told my students that there were no stupid questions. I told them that if they asked me a question 5 times I'd answer them every time. I told them that I'd wonder about them around the third time they asked but never the less I'd answer them. Working in the industry I found myself working with people at widely varying skill levels. My favorite people to work with were those who were both brilliant and who had a self deprecating sense of humor. One engineer in particular, our kernel architect was incandescently brilliant. Of the 300+ engineers who worked with him, virtually all felt that they weren't qualified to carry his lunch bag into his office. Instead of being a pain in the ass to work with he was always cheerful and made you want to impress him that you had done your homework before bothering him with your (for him) trivial question. His attitude and style made people want to work with him. Other, otherwise bright engineers would crap on anyone who approached them with less than wonderful questions. Needless to say they didn't get nearly as much cooperation as they might have otherwise gotten. In the engineering field you sometimes hear the term ego-less programming. I have found that those ego-less programmers are quite often the best. So ESR's document is reasonable in terms of explaining why and how someone should do their research in order to get better results but the tone is borderline nasty. One other small note - on one compiler project that I worked on, newbies were looked on as another chance to get things right. The newbie, not knowing all the ingrained habits of the seasoned developers wouldn't understand poorly written or incorrect documentation. They wouldn't configure their environment to avoid the build problems which inevitably creped into project resources. They usually improved the product because they didn't know what they were supposed to know... -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Parallel sockets or?
bruce.lab...@autoliv.com wrote: The TCP connection to my FFT server is not performing anywhere near the link speed. (14%) I've scoured the net (and this list, probably to your annoyance) looking for ways to optimize the link speed. Having tried most of them, (including jumbo frames, interrupt coalescence, tuning socket sizes to BDP, wmem_max, etc.) and only realizing at most a 10% increase of speed over default setting has me frustrated. However, it has given me a great deal of respect for the great work that others have put into the OS and TCP. Reading some papers about increasing WAN performance between super computers mentioned the use of parallel sockets to increase TCP network throughput. The parallel sockets with default TCP settings had higher throughput than a single highly tuned socket. There are quite a few papers explaining how this can be. Apparently this parallel socket technology is using in several products, like filezilla, and there is a plugin for Firefox to increase download speed. Supposedly there is a psocket library. psockets are supposed to look like BSD sockets. So the programming did not look too bad. I went to sourceforge and found a project that had been set up and apparently abandoned. Nothing to download, at least not directly. The originators of psock were at cesnet.cz, there is a link to the library at http://www.cesnet.cz/project/qosip The make doesn't finish. Several compile errors. I played about a bit, but did not make much headway... I've sent an email to Dr. Sven Ubik at cesnet.cz but have not heard from him... Anyone find a good download site for psockets? I did find UDT, which looks interesting. For the main transport it uses UDP, with overhead to make it reliable. Supposedly it is very fast. I did try the test code, at least the project compiled, and I managed to send data at 650Mbps, across my local network, if I believe its diagnostics. Unfortunately for me, it is written all in C++, which makes it hard for me to understand how to use it. If at all possible, I'd like to use simpler, C libraries and TCP. Suggestions, comments, where do I go from here??? Regards, Bruce Bruce Labitt Autoliv Electronics 1011B Pawtucket Blvd, PO Box 1858 Lowell, MA 01853 Email: bruce.lab...@autoliv.com. Tel: (978) 674-6526 Fax: (978) 674-6581 ** Neither the footer nor anything else in this E-mail is intended to or constitutes an brelectronic signature and/or legally binding agreement in the absence of an brexpress statement or Autoliv policy and/or procedure to the contrary.brThis E-mail and any attachments hereto are Autoliv property and may contain legally brprivileged, confidential and/or proprietary information.brThe recipient of this E-mail is prohibited from distributing, copying, forwarding or in any way brdisseminating any material contained within this E-mail without prior written brpermission from the author. If you receive this E-mail in error, please brimmediately notify the author and delete this E-mail. Autoliv disclaims all brresponsibility and liability for the consequences of any person who fails to brabide by the terms herein. br ** ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ There is another way to radically increase communication speed that is very popular in the cluster world. Basically hardware is added to allow memory to memory writing. One node communicates with another by writing into this device which is mapped to the other nodes memory controller (a 50,000 foot simplification but useful). Here is an article that describes cluster interconnects: http://www.clustermonkey.net//content/view/124/34/ You might find this useful for more than your current project. -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: How can I retrieve the mount count for an ext3 volume?
Ben Scott wrote: On Tue, Oct 6, 2009 at 8:35 AM, Alex Hewitt hewitt_t...@comcast.net wrote: My Ubuntu 8.10 system uses EXT3 for the root filesystem and will automatically fschk the volume every 35 mounts. I see the question's been answered, but here's some general commentary, FWIW. I generally find it's more appropriate to use the time interval check, and disable the maximum mount count check. The theory being that it doesn't really matter how often you mount the filesystem. If you reboot 5 times a day because you shut your PC off when you're not using, that doesn't necessarily mean you need to check every week. Contrariwise, if you almost never reboot, that doesn't mean you only need to check once per decade. Since I like to divide things up into multiple partitions, I can also tune based on filesystem usage. For example, my /tmp partition checks every 30 days, but my /usr partition checks every 180 days The theory being that a filesystem with more activity is more likely to encounter problems. I have my root and boot partitions set to check every mount. The theory being that they're really important. They're also small in my setup, so it only takes a few seconds. OTOH, if you have multiple partitions, you can disable the time interval and use different mount counts, and avoid checking multiple filesystems at once. -- Ben ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ Thanks Ken, Dave and Ben for the answers and thoughtful analysis. I currently have essentially one large partition for Linux and another large partition for Vista. I think when I set up my next system I'm going to make the granularity of the file systems finer by dividing up the mount points/partitions. It's been a standard practice for a long time to separate system and data partitions/disks primarily for backups but in the case of a file system check, it speeds operations enormously. -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: How Apple makes more profit on their systems...
Tom Buskey wrote: On Sun, Oct 4, 2009 at 10:33 PM, Kenny Lussier kluss...@gmail.com mailto:kluss...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Oct 4, 2009 at 10:03 PM, Hewitt_Tech hewitt_t...@comcast.net mailto:hewitt_t...@comcast.net wrote: What bugged me about the way Apple sells the Mini is their deliberate withholding of information from the customer so that the customer would feel obligated to buy much more expensive gear from them. Check out their web site and see if you can figure out what would be necessary to get the Mini setup using an existing monitor, keyboard and mouse. -Alex P.S. There's making money and then there's screwing the customer. I just spent about 30 seconds on their site, and found the Mac Mini tech specs. You need this: http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB570Z/A?fnode=MTY1NDA5OQmco=MTA4NTYxMDQ http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB570Z/A?fnode=MTY1NDA5OQmco=MTA4NTYxMDQ . As for a mouse and keyboard, since it has 5 USB ports, you don't need anything. I bought a mini in March to use as a media center. I bought the Apple remote which just works. I had USB keyboards. I bought a bluetooth keyboard and mouse - they just worked. I bought a mini dvi to VGA adapter that just worked with my display. I have a standard TV with svideo input. I got a mini displayport to composite adapter. *bzzt*. The mini is digital only output. I had to get a vga to composite converter to get analog output to my TV. That was about $30 and not available from apple. I've since gotten an HDTV and a cheap 3rd party mini displayport to hdmi adapter. It just works. I could've built a low power PC as a media center, but the mini just works for everything I want to do. I didn't have to spend lots of time researching compatible parts. It's one of the lowest power desktops availble. And it looks pretty good next to the TV, Wii, etc. Apple does a great job with their power management software. In fact I can't think of anyone who does a better job. Recently I had a customer bring me their moderately expensive Acer laptop. The user had the Vista system hang on them. Thinking they were doing the right thing they closed the lid. The laptop didn't power down and since they left it running at full power with the lid closed, the motherboard cooked itself. The system was barely a year old (but out of warranty). I have clients who have bought more than twenty Mac Minis over the last few years. There has only been one failure (a hard drive) and I'm pretty sure that was due to someone sitting the Mini on edge and then knocking it over. So they definitely have reliability going for them. I think I mentioned that Apple has the highest customer satisfaction numbers and it's easy to see why. If you have a Dell product, unless you bought a business model, you might have a hard time with the off-shore support. For Apple, off shore is Canada and I defy most people to figure out the difference. -Alex Now, if I wanted a server or general use system that didn't run MacOSX, then I'd choose something else. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
How Apple makes more profit on their systems...
Yesterday some friends asked me to accompany them to the Apple store in Salem to help them purchase a Mac. I had talked to them previously about some of the advantages of the platform including decent reliability and in their case the much lower amount of malware targeting the system. But before going I decided to check out the Apple web site. They were planning on buying a Mac Mini which is probably Apple's best bargain for their budget. Recently a customer had purchased the current (early 2009) model and I already knew that if they were going to use their VGA CRT type monitor they were going to need an adapter. The Mac Mini used to have a full size DVI connector on the back capable of both Analog and Digital connections. The new model has removed the DVI connector and replaced it with two much smaller connectors. An included adapter produces a DVI-D connection (single link, Digital only) and the other connector requires a miniDisplayPort to VGA adapter. That has a standard VGA connector (what they needed). The miniDisplayPort adapter costs $29.95 (and probably costs $2.95 to manufacture in China). I actually don't know the right combination of cables that would allow you to connect most current digital flat panels. The Apple site doesn't provide that information and they don't seem to offer the correct cable. They definitely don't tell their customers that they won't be able to connect their current monitor unless they are just plain lucky. I asked the sales guy (who was quite pleasant) why the Apple web site doesn't provide enough information for a customer to properly connect their new Mini to their existing monitor and he essentially said that Apple wants these customers to buy one of their nice shiny Cinema displays. Of course the Cinema display comes with precisely the correct cable to hook up to the digital only DVI-D adapter and only costs $899 (which is $100 more than the higher end Mac Mini). My conclusion - Apple isn't in the business for their health. If an unsuspecting customer walks through their door and all they needed was a decent low end system to web surf, read their email, play their music and view their photographs, they will walk out of the store about $2,000 to $2,500 lighter in the wallet. The Mac Mini is actually a pretty decent value for a small form factor system. They have upgraded their graphics from the sorry Intel video they previously used to a decent nVidia 9400 based chip set. That's all to the good but taking big chunks of cash from unsuspecting customers seems to be on the verge of bait and switch. -Alex P.S. There are a lot of ways to spin this but for me it has a bad smell. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
VPN problem...
I recently was relating on the list how a client was having a problem with their Linksys BEFSX41 router and the solution was that Linksys RMA'd the router. They apparently have removed the BEFSX41 model from their active product list so they sent me a BEFVP41 v2 model. I received it yesterday, configured it and tested it from my office network. The router was set to obtain it's WAN address dynamically from it's WAN connection. It connected fine to a wireless bridge that I use for this purpose and I could surf the web from behind it with a PC. I then configured the VPN tunnel exactly as the old router was set up and it immediately connected to the customer's end point and I could ping systems located at the end point LAN. I tore down the setup and put the router in a container to set up at my client's location this morning. I got to the client site and thought that all that was going to be necessary was to set the WAN address of the Linksys router to match the static address being provided by Comcast at the customer location. As soon as I did that I was able to connect to the internet from behind the router. But I then noticed that the VPN was not connected. Since the VPN settings were identical to the previous router there shouldn't have been a problem. For the fun of it I set the router to obtain it's WAN address dynamically and immediately the VPN tunnel connected. I checked the logs but didn't see anything obviously wrong. I did notice that when the router is setup to use a dynamic address, it has the correct date and time. When it's set up with a static address the status page says time unavailable. I think this might be part of the problem. If the router doesn't know the time (perhaps the clock can't be used?) then the VPN connection might not work. I'm also puzzled as to what server it's requesting date/time data from. It has the ability to manually set the time zone but doesn't give any choices as to which ntp server to use. Does anyone have any ideas? So far Linksys support hasn't been very useful. -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Enabling Virtual Machine support
Ben Scott wrote: On Sun, Sep 27, 2009 at 7:59 PM, Thomas Charron twaf...@gmail.com wrote: Intel's VT-x extensions *MUST* be enabled and supported by BIOS. I'm not sure why ... I seem to recall this facet of the design being sold as a security feature. The scenario given was the entire nominal installed OS running inside a hostile VM which installed itself as part of some malware attack. So at boot, the virtualization stuff is disabled by default. Or something like that. FWIW, YMMV, I may be wrong, etc. -- Ben ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ Ok, for the fun of it I ran cpuid on my Acer Aspire 5100 laptop. I'm running Ubuntu 8.10 (32 bit) and VirtualBox 2.2.4 r47978. Here's the output: $ cpuid eax ineax ebx ecx edx 0001 68747541 444d4163 69746e65 0001 00040f82 01020800 2001 178bfbff 8000 8018 68747541 444d4163 69746e65 8001 00040f82 0595 001f ebd3fbff 8002 20444d41 69727554 74286e6f 3620296d 8003 32582034 626f4d20 20656c69 68636554 8004 6f6c6f6e 54207967 30352d4c 8005 ff08ff08 ff20ff20 40020140 40020140 8006 42004200 01008140 8007 003f 8008 3028 0001 8009 800a 0001 0040 800b 800c 800d 800e 800f 8010 8011 8012 8013 8014 8015 8016 8017 8018 Vendor ID: AuthenticAMD; CPUID level 1 AMD-specific functions Version 00040f82: Family: 15 Model: 8 [] Standard feature flags 178bfbff: Floating Point Unit Virtual Mode Extensions Debugging Extensions Page Size Extensions Time Stamp Counter (with RDTSC and CR4 disable bit) Model Specific Registers with RDMSR WRMSR PAE - Page Address Extensions Machine Check Exception COMPXCHG8B Instruction APIC SYSCALL/SYSRET or SYSENTER/SYSEXIT instructions MTRR - Memory Type Range Registers Global paging extension Machine Check Architecture Conditional Move Instruction PAT - Page Attribute Table PSE-36 - Page Size Extensions 19 - reserved MMX instructions FXSAVE/FXRSTOR 25 - reserved 26 - reserved 28 - reserved Generation: 15 Model: 8 Extended feature flags ebd3fbff: Floating Point Unit Virtual Mode Extensions Debugging Extensions Page Size Extensions Time Stamp Counter (with RDTSC and CR4 disable bit) Model Specific Registers with RDMSR WRMSR PAE - Page Address Extensions Machine Check Exception COMPXCHG8B Instruction APIC SYSCALL/SYSRET or SYSENTER/SYSEXIT instructions MTRR - Memory Type Range Registers Global paging extension Machine Check Architecture Conditional Move Instruction PAT - Page Attribute Table PSE-36 - Page Size Extensions 20 - reserved AMD MMX Instruction Extensions MMX instructions FXSAVE/FXRSTOR 25 - reserved 27 - reserved 29 - reserved 3DNow! Instruction Extensions 3DNow instructions Processor name string: AMD Turion(tm) 64 X2 Mobile Technology TL-50 L1 Cache Information: 2/4-MB Pages: Data TLB: associativity 255-way #entries 8 Instruction TLB: associativity 255-way #entries 8 4-KB Pages: Data TLB: associativity 255-way #entries 32 Instruction TLB: associativity 255-way #entries 32 L1 Data cache: size 64 KB associativity 2-way lines per tag 1 line size 64 L1 Instruction cache: size 64 KB associativity 2-way lines per tag 1 line size 64 L2 Cache Information: 2/4-MB Pages: Data TLB: associativity L2 off #entries 0 Instruction TLB: associativity L2 off #entries 0 4-KB Pages: Data TLB: associativity 2-way #entries 0 Instruction TLB: associativity 2-way #entries 0 size 1 KB associativity L2 off lines per tag 129 line size 64 Advanced Power Management Feature Flags Has temperature sensing diode Supports Frequency ID control Supports Voltage ID control Maximum linear address: 48; maximum phys address 40 This machine is using kvm with VirtualBox and the performance of virtual machines is quite good. Can I assume the virtual mode extension is turned on? -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Enabling Virtual Machine supportn of virtualization. (buying virtualization support)
Jerry Feldman wrote: I guess a couple of more things is what you want to use virtualization for. On my laptop it is almost purely for demo purposes, although I initially set it up to run some things that could not be done under Linux, even through WINE. Initially, I needed RealPlayer for my wife, but RealPlayer Superpass needs Active X and Windows explorer. While Windows explorer works ok under WINE and CrossoverOffice, RealPlayer 10 does not run under WINE. Initially I ran VMWare Server, but its performance was lacking, and later I used Virtualbox where the performance was much better. While I can cite some specific cases where virtualization improved performance (or more specifically througput), you are going to take a bit of performance hit. At home I use KVM/QEMU to run both Windows 7 and Windows XP. My primary need is to run Citrix which has some issue natively under fedora 11. Additionally, currently I'm not getting any sound under the guest OS, but I used to get sound on XP, and I think it is more configurational, and I just have not yet fixed it because it is not important. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ One area where virtualization, especially virtual Windows machines is a pain is licensing. Try reading Microsoft's licenses and how they apply to virtual machines. As best as I could tell you need to use their special volume licensed software to be compliant. IANAL so your mileage will vary. -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: cpu processing capabilities
Lloyd Kvam wrote: http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=42014 claims that the P7550 supports virtualization which I expect to show up as vmx in the cpuflags. I bought a new HP laptop which featured a P7550 processor and expected to be able to use KVM. Unfortunately, the vmx flag is not present, and HP does not believe they disabled vmx capabilities. http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?s=c0762a76f7b00eada10c7b8f986d9822p=5272854postcount=6 This post convinced me that the Intel page is wrong. Can anyone suggest a good course of action? Have any of you encountered this problem? I can grumble to Newegg amd HP, but Intel appears to be the party at fault. I presume without kvm support the virtual machine runs like molasses right? My Acer laptop circa 2006-2007 came with an AMD X2 TL-50 and it has virtualization support. Pretty much all AMD processors have virtualization support although they are generally slower than the common dual core Intel processors. Both AMD and Intel's web sites make it difficult to come up with intelligent choices. There are motherboard compatibility problems as well. That's why many IT shops run away from integration work. They'd much rather let the manufacturers do the heavy lifting. To make matters more difficult the margins on modern systems tend to be very thin so it's hard to justify too much time building them. If the problem comes down to the Intel CPU having virtualization support but HP hasn't properly integrated it with their motherboard you should be able to complain to HP. -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Why Linksys routers are so cheap...
Ben Scott wrote: On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 8:53 AM, Hewitt_Tech hewitt_t...@comcast.net wrote: P.S. I think the above advice just echoes the same message on this list several times in the last couple of years. ;^) Indeed. Most consumer gear like LinkSys, D-Link, Belkin, NetGear et. al., is cheaply designed, even more cheaply manufactured, and supported not-at-all. That's why you can get a router for a buck. :) On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 9:24 AM, Hewitt_Tech hewitt_t...@comcast.net wrote: I would say that back when Linksys was a standalone company they did a much better job supporting their gear but that was at least 4 or 5 years ago. YMMV, I guess. I had dealt with LinkSys support well before Cisco bought them, and they sucked then, too. FWIW, I do still buy LinkSys and similar stuff for light home use. When it breaks, I tell people to throw it out and buy a new one. We live in a disposable society, unfortunately. -- Ben ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ I was finally able to get Linksys to issue an RMA. The customer service people transferred me back to their technical support side this morning and after I explained to the tech that power cycling the router would make it work again for anywhere from 45 minutes to 3 or 4 hours she went off to talk to her supervisor after which she told me that they agreed there was something wrong and she then transferred me back to customer service and an RMA was issued. I had the curious feeling though that I was like a gambling addict determined to win back money I had lost earlier ;^) -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Linux as a NAS performance questions
Neil Joseph Schelly wrote: On Thursday 17 September 2009 06:17:39 pm H. Kurth Bemis wrote: Take a look at LogicSupply (logicsupply.com). They have a pretty good selection of compact systems. Atom based systems too. I was looking at Intel Core-based architectures and processors because I aim to use an ideal little Shuttle box for this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856101070 It's got room for 4 SATA drives, no display card (it'll run headless), and 2 PCI-x and 2 eSATA connectors for further expansion. A lot of the other barebones boxes, like at logicsupply.com, don't have room for many or any drives. -N ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ Another alternative that I have had some experience with is Aopen's Mini PC MP945-VX. I've got 4 of these systems running with almost excellent reliability. The systems I built had Intel dual core CPUs, 120 GB SATA 2.5 inch hard drives and 1 GB of RAM. After two years one system lost it's hard drive which I was able to RMA to Seagate and replace. The systems run quite cool and have plenty of punch. The systems I installed also had blue tooth/802.11b/g adapters. Another alternative of course is Apple's Mac Mini running Windows. -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Linux as a NAS performance questions
Drew Van Zandt wrote: That's basically what a Drobo (http://www.drobo.com/products/drobo.php) is, only they already considered all of those performance questions for you. --DTVZ On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 4:09 PM, Neil Joseph Schelly n...@jenandneil.com mailto:n...@jenandneil.com wrote: I'm looking to build a small Shuttle barebone machine into a NAS running Linux. The intent of the machine is to be a networked PC with lots of storage in a RAID array, made available over the gigabit network interface via Samba, NFS, and maybe iSCSI protocols. I'm curious what experience others have with this sort of stuff in general, but two immediate questions come to mind about processor and memory performance. I can go the low-power, low-heat route and get a single-core processor and a single memory stick of minimal quantity. Or I can upgrade a bit, get a dual-core processor with 2 sticks of dual-channel memory. Or something in between. What I don't know is how much impact processor speed, multiple cores, memory capacity, and dual-channel memory has on disk I/O, network I/O, software RAID processing, etc. I like the idea of a small low-power, low-heat appliance, but will going too low on those negatively impact performance much? The cost difference between a single-core processor with 1GB of memory and a dual-core processor with 2 sticks of 1GB dual-channel memory is insignificant, so that's not much of a concern. -N ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org mailto:gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ There seem to be a lot of unhappy Drobo users if Newegg's customer reviews are anything to go buy. Take a look here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822240010 I have learned the hard way to be very mindful of the customer reviews on Newegg. If the unhappy customers get to the 20% or higher level you need to make sure their complaints don't apply to your situation. -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Minor disaster recovery
Tyson Sawyer wrote: Its been at least 10 years since I have actually done a recovery of this sort. ...back then LILO was king and floppy drives were still in use. I've been lucky enough to not do much sysadmin work in recent years. So... I have a small home server running a not quite up to date version of Ubuntu 8.10. It has an 80G main drive that is the OS and applications. It has an external USB drive that is our primary data storage. It has a 2nd USB drive that is used to backup the rest of the system, a couple of laptops and an N810. We use BackupPC for the backups and occasionally check that it is working and have occasionally recovered a single file. The primary drive has gone on the blink. About 4-5 days ago the primary system drive reported some sort of complaint and the OS remounted it read-only. We rebooted, said, Damn, well we'll have to replace that and went about life. This morning we found the system mostly unresponsive. The caps-lock LED was about the only response we could get out of it. The filesystem on the system drive is (or should be) backed up. We would like to recover the system rather than rebuild to avoid having to figure out all the applications we had installed and figure out how we had them configured. There is a reasonable chance that we can reboot the old drive again, but I have not yet tried. We will attempt to find a replacement drive today. We live in Brookline, NH and work in Bedford, MA. Any suggestions on stores or drive brands? Any suggestions on recovery strategy? One strategy I had in mind is (if the old drive still runs) is to boot the old drive with the new as a secondary. Shut down all extra services. Partition and format the new drive. Copy the filesystem from the old to the new. Install Grub on the new (dont' know how, never done much with Grub) and boot it. Do some sort of restore from BackupPC to restore any libraries for files that have been corrupted. Other suggestions? ...or fill in the details (specifically the install of Grub and moving to the primary position) of what I have outlined? Oh, the drive is a standard sized IDE. Thanks! Ty You might want to take this opportunity (;^) to triage your system. If you have installed lot's of apps you will undoubtedly have apps that you never use. This will automatically take them off your system. You should also be able to perform a clean install to a new hard drive in just a relatively few minutes. One way to contaminate a system is to try to pick and choose from the pieces of an old system. As for disk drives the big sellers are still Western Digital and Seagate. You might see Maxtor in a retail store but they are now owned by Seagate. Recently Seagate had serious problems with their disk drives. They responded by reducing the length of their warranty unless you pay extra for their corporate versions. I have had good luck with both Western Digital and Seagate in having warranties honored. A few months back one of my clients had a 2.5 inch Seagate drive fail (had a 3 year warranty) and all I did was generate an automated RMA on the Seagate web site and then print it out, package up the bad drive and ship it to Seagate. About a week later I got new replacement drive. The drive had been in use at the customer site for about two years. Other manufacturers whose products might be in a retail store are Toshiba and Hitachi. I haven't had an undue number of problems with their products but remember that all drives eventually fail. It's not If but a matter of When. One manufacturer that I have read horror stories about is Samsung. The typical problem is that it is difficult to get through to their support and then they tend to deny coverage. I have had DOA's with just about every drive you can buy. About six months ago I bought a 160 GB Western Digital drive at Best Buy. DOA. I exchanged it for another identical model. DOA. At that point I returned it for a refund and informed the Best Buy manager that they probably had a bad run on that model and they might consider pulling them (they did). In the last six months I have installed at least two Western Digital 500 GB IDE hard drives and they have so far worked without incident. YMMV. -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Minor disaster recovery
Ben Scott wrote: On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 8:16 AM, Tyson Sawyerty...@j3.org wrote: The filesystem on the system drive is (or should be) backed up. You need to explain that using a lot more words. :) (e.g., how you back it up, using what software, how often, what you backup, how you test the backups, when your last backup was made, what's changed since then, etc.) We would like to recover the system rather than rebuild to avoid having to figure out all the applications we had installed and figure out how we had them configured. As Jim Kuzdrall said, I would avoid trying to run a system copied from a drive that's known to be faulty. You might copy a corrupt file. If you have a known-good backup of the system, from before the disk started to fail, restoring *that* to a new disk and running is okay. (I don't think Ubuntu keeps checksums of installed files by default (anyone know?). So there's no way to verify the integrity of the installed system (like rpm --verify --all). And even with package manager checksums, that won't help you with corrupt data files, config files, or files installed outside of the package manager (make install).) There is a reasonable chance that we can reboot the old drive again, but I have not yet tried. Don't try. As Jeff Smith said, the more you tinker, the worse things usually get. If you intend to attempt to recover data from the failed disk, I would suggest making a block level image, like Jeff said. But I'd recommend using the dd_rescue and dd_rhelp utilities to do so. dd_rhelp will supervise dd_rescue, and use it to recovery easily readable blocks first, and then try harder for the remaining blocks. Once you've got the block-level image, you can examine it at your leisure, without worrying about if the drive is about to die for good. We will attempt to find a replacement drive today. We live in Brookline, NH and work in Bedford, MA. Any suggestions on stores or drive brands? All hard disk drive brands are about equal. Pretty much. What is different is how easy it is to get support/replacement. It's easy with Western Digital and Seagate. Other vendors manufacture a lot more than disk drives. Their web pages can be nearly impossible to navigate and their support might be downright useless. I would suggest that you investigate a manufacturer's support by visiting their web site(s). If you can't even find the support contact information you're going to be in tough shape if you need help. My favorite, from a recent experience, is AMD. I had an out of the box defective processor and there was literally no way to contact their support. Fortunately I had bought the part from Newegg and they did their usual excellent job of handling my problem (RMA and bought a different processor model). All big stores are about equal. Staples, OfficeMax, Wal-Mart, etc. Or find a local guy. For buying commodity parts, parts is parts, but some find it nice to give business to the little guy, and having a good relationship with a local tech dealer is a useful thing for a home user. The local guy is almost always buying his parts from the same place you might buy the parts but his/her advantage would be getting a better price and more expeditious service. -Alex P.S. The markup on parts is usually very low unless it's somehow a proprietary part in which case you should be prepared to open your wallet wide. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
It appears that Cisco has decided to deep six the Linksys line...
Or at least they've made getting information on Linksys products a lot harder by completely changing the Linksys web site. I just spent a good ten minutes tracking down information on the RVL200 (SSL VPN router). Quite painful and not a good way to sell products or perhaps that's the idea... -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Rootkit signatures?
Kenny Lussier wrote: Hi All, I have a mandate to install anti-virus and anti-malware software on all servers. Since all of our servers are Linux, this was further clarified to mean rootkit detection software. I have looked at several rootkit detectors, and they all appear to be fairly old. My guess is, it isn't really worth it, since a rootkit is going to be personalized and customized to the system being attacked (but hey, what do I know... :-) ). I have found a few apps that are essentially just a list of files and directories that are common to some older rootkits, and if anything in the list is found, it sets off the alert. I can do the same thing with Tripwire, which is already on every system. What I am trying to do is either compile an extensive list of rootkit properties, or subscribe to a rootkit signature feed (like a Nessus feed). Does anyone know of the existence of either of these things? TIA, Kenny ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ Kenny, if you have a mandate to install anti-virus/anti-malware does that mean that whoever mandated this wants to scan all files on the servers for PC infections? Although these things typically have no effect on Linux systems they might be a problem for Windows boxes that are reading/writing files on the servers. If that is the case, ClamAV would be a good solution... -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Rootkit signatures?
Kenny Lussier wrote: On Thu, Jun 25, 2009 at 9:05 AM, Alex Hewitthewitt_t...@comcast.net wrote: Kenny, if you have a mandate to install anti-virus/anti-malware does that mean that whoever mandated this wants to scan all files on the servers for PC infections? Although these things typically have no effect on Linux systems they might be a problem for Windows boxes that are reading/writing files on the servers. If that is the case, ClamAV would be a good solution... Alex, The mandate actually isn't that intelligent. It was a broad statement of You have to have anti-virus and anti-malware software on all of your servers, and when we wrote a compensating control that stated This is not needed on Linux servers, someone Googled Linux +virus and found rootkit. Thus, the mandate for Anti-rootkit software (and yes, that is what the audit sheet calls it.. ) None of the Windows servers or workstations in the company have any access to the servers that are in question. The servers are extremely isolated in their own firewalled island, with no sharing allowed :-) Windows systems can read/write to anything on that network. I could probably install ClamAV on every box and call it a day, and they would be perfectly happy. However, I would like to go beyond the letter of the mandate and do something that is at least useful. If I can compile a list of known rootkits and their properties, I can write Tripwire recipes and add that to our tool chain. Thanks, Kenny Certainly a downside to putting ClamAV on all these systems is the waste of resources. That would be my main objection under the circumstances you presented... -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: DDQOTD (Dumb Distro Question of the Day) Does Fedora 10 install as a 64 bit OS when it senses 64 bit hardware?
Alex Hewitt wrote: Jarod Wilson wrote: Alex Hewitt wrote: Just an update - the system that I was trying to install various 64 bit Linux distros also wouldn't install Vista 64. Turns out the processor I was using has some kind of TLB bug (AMD Phenom X4 9600). Oh, haha, yeah, that tlb erratum was a nasty one... Prices on the 9x00 series Phenom all dropped quite a bit after that one was discovered, and they were quickly replaced by 9x50 Phenoms, but they still sold the ones already out to resellers... (iirc). --jarod ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ Here's a writeup on the Phenom processors and a description of the tlb bug: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenom_(processor) -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ Last update - dropped in a new Phenom II X4 940 processor. Night and day! Installed Ubuntu 9.04 and the machine is very fast... Happy, happy, -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: DDQOTD (Dumb Distro Question of the Day) Does Fedora 10 install as a 64 bit OS when it senses 64 bit hardware?
Ben Scott wrote: On Thu, Apr 23, 2009 at 6:22 PM, Alex Hewitt hewitt_t...@comcast.net wrote: Linux hostname.localdomain 2.6.27.5.117.fc10.i686.PAE #1 SMP Tue Nov 18 12:08:10 EST 2008 i686 athlon i386 GNU/Linux The i386 indicates the running kernel is for the i386 architecture. In other words, 32-bit. A kernel for x86-64 will identify the architecture as amd64 or x86-64 or something like that. (In an interesting historical twist, AMD invented Long Mode and Intel copied AMD.) When I issue the free command I see all 8 gb of RAM. Does that mean that the distro installed itself as a 64 bit version? Nope. As Ted says, PAE means the processor can see more than 4 GiB of RAM, even when in 32-bit protected mode. Most processors made since 1997 or so support PAE. Many (but not all) motherboards do as well. With PAE supported and enabled: * The physical address bus has 36 lines. These are the actual pins coming out of the processor. * The physical address word is 36 bits wide. * The page table structures change to support the larger physical address word. * A third level of page table indirection is added to support the larger page tables. * The processor can address up to 64 GiB of RAM or other hardware. * The virtual address word (point size) is still 32-bit. * Each process is still limited to a 4 GiB virtual address space. * Each process is still limited to a 3 GiB user virtual address space (kernel reserves 1 GiB). The common scenario where PAE is of benefit is a multiple-process workload, where no single process needs more than 3 GiB of memory, but the aggregate memory use of all processes is greater than 4 GiB. The kernel and MMU can map different RAM pages into each process's virtual address space. It is possible for an OS to support bank switching, to enable a single process to make use of more than 4 GiB of RAM. At the process's request, the kernel can change the memory mapping for the process. For example, say the process writes 1 GiB of data into memory, and then tells the kernel to switch that with a new 1 GiB block. The kernel unmaps that 1 GiB of RAM, but leaves it allocated. The drawback is the application has to do its own memory management. I don't know if Linux implements this. Microsoft does for Windows, but they kind of had to, because they were so late to the 64-bit party. -- Ben ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ Just an update - the system that I was trying to install various 64 bit Linux distros also wouldn't install Vista 64. Turns out the processor I was using has some kind of TLB bug (AMD Phenom X4 9600). I RMA'd the processor after finding that I couldn't easily communicate with anyone at AMD. AMD support requires that you register with them and no matter how much I tried I couldn't get the registration completed. One might suspect that they don't actually want to talk with their customers. Under the circumstances I RMA'd to my supplier who granted an exception return under a lack of compatibility category. I ordered AMD's new Phenom II 940 processor which seems to get excellent reviews. I really need a 64 bit platform because I'm running software that manipulates large images. -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
DDQOTD (Dumb Distro Question of the Day) Does Fedora 10 install as a 64 bit OS when it senses 64 bit hardware?
I have a copy of Fedora 10 that came inside a Linux Format magazine. I installed it on a new system with 8 gb of RAM and a quad core AMD CPU. When I issue the free command I see all 8 gb of RAM. Does that mean that the distro installed itself as a 64 bit version? If so, is there an easy way to tell? uname -a gives: Linux hostname.localdomain 2.6.27.5.117.fc10.i686.PAE #1 SMP Tue Nov 18 12:08:10 EST 2008 i686 athlon i386 GNU/Linux -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Dell Studio Hybrid won't work with ViewSonic vx2235wm monitor (DVI)
Greg Rundlett wrote: I have a strange situation that has me baffled and I'm hoping somebody knows what is going on. I bought a refurbished Dell Studio Hybrid 140G (which has DVI and HDMI video outputs). I already own a ViewSonic vx2235wm 22 LCD (circa 2006) monitor (which has DVI and VGA inputs). If I connect the Dell to the ViewSonic using a DVI cable there is no output to the monitor. Nothing. Because there is no signal, the monitor light is amber rather than blue. The cable is known to work with my MacBook Pro. The monitor is known to work (in Digital mode) connected to my MacBook Pro. (The monitor also works in VGA mode, but that is beside the point.) A Dell technician visited and replaced the motherboard and cable with no change in the results. I have hooked up the Dell Studio Hybrid 140G to 4 other monitors using either DVI or HDMI and they all have worked. As I said, I have also hooked up the monitor to at least one computer using DVI and it works. When I put them together I get nothing. I hooked up the Dell Studio Hybrid 140G to a working monitor at a friends house and installed the latest Vista driver from ViewSonic hoping that would fix it, but no change in the results when connecting the Dell Studio Hybrid back to the ViewSonic monitor at home. The Dell seems to boot just fine, and goes through a good POST routine. (The capslock and numlock keys work.) The boot order is DVD/CD then hard disk, so I had hoped that a Linux Live distro would allow me to use the monitor. However, when Mythbuntu 8.10 is put into the Dell, I again get no video signal whatsoever to the display. Of course Mythbuntu also works fine at my friends house (with an HP monitor). In the BIOS settings, I turned off quick boot so that full POST tests are performed. I applied all Windows updates - including one from two days ago that was from Dell and dealt with bus communications and video. There is this forum post which is similar, but doesn't offer any solution. http://en.community.dell.com/forums/p/19244493/19379615.aspx Although I have updated the ViewSonic driver, I guess I should also make certain the Intel graphics card driver is the most up to date. I'm downloading the most recent knoppix live cd figuring that will have a good assortment of drivers and might be able to create a display. Any other suggestions? I'm also ready to return the thing to Dell because I'm not likely to buy a new monitor. Does the monitor support something called HDCP? That's the DRM protection mechanism favored by Microsoft. If your monitor does not have HDCP, Vista may ignore the monitor. -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Dell Studio Hybrid won't work with ViewSonic vx2235wm monitor (DVI)
Neil Joseph Schelly wrote: On Monday 13 April 2009 11:14:47 am Greg Rundlett wrote: I never get anything. No beep, cursor, text, splash, nothing. I turn the computer on, and the screen remains black as if there is no signal to it. If I have another computer connected on the VGA port, I can toggle back and forth between analog and digital, with a perfect diplay on the VGA input, and no signal on the DVI input. If I connect my Macbook to the DVI input, I'll be able to toggle between both inputs and both work. Well, as far as I'm concerned, that eliminates the OS or HDCP from this entirely. If you can't get that to work, you've either got to hope there's a firmware update for your machine or video card (good chance?) or maybe even for the monitor (doubtful). -N ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ It really does sound like broken hardware. I've noticed that small form factor machines (with the exception of the Mac Mini) seem to have a higer rate of failure than regular towers. -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
OT: Way off topic - Latest in password cracking software
April 1, 2009 -- ElcomSoft Co.Ltd. introduces *Password Recovery Tambourine http://tambourine.elcomsoft.com*, a supernatural amulet to recover lost passwords with a 100% guarantee. The new tambourine is produced with genuine deer skin and requires training supervised by a qualified Yakutsk shaman. By offering guaranteed, 100% password recovery rate, ElcomSoft leaves competition behind once and forever. *Why Password Recovery Tambourine* Passwords affect people's lives. Lost and forgotten passwords can cost a life or a job. Strived to provide a solution to improve peoples' lives, ElcomSoft makes software for helping its customers recover passwords http://www.elcomsoft.com/products.html they've lost or forgotten. The company's password recovery tools are extremely effective, and literally save lives and jobs every other day. However, not all types of encryption are created equal. Some companies make exceptionally good effort protecting information, and use really secure algorithms from time to time. If a really secure password is used with those algorithms, the protected data is as good as gone. *Background* Universal cryptanalysis methods do exist. Government agencies, intelligence services and, in some countries, even police have successfully used methods such as rubber-hose cryptanalysis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_hose_cryptanalysis for years. Rubber-hose cryptanalysis allows passwords and keys to be discovered in a surprisingly short time. The method is quite computationally inexpensive. However, commercial use of this method is limited due to legal restrictions in most countries. ElcomSoft started a quest to develop a universal cryptanalysis method that is at least as effective as rubber-hose, but comes with no penalty of being inhumane or restricted to exclusive use by government agencies. *Development History* Several unsuccessful attempts were made to design the ultimate password recovery tool. Using a crystal ball seemed like a great idea at first, but was quickly rejected. Rabbit's foot seemed a better idea for some time, but subsequent tests demonstrated that the foot could only solve certain network problems with corporate LANs, and only when used by qualified system administrators. A voodoo doll was a total nightmare, doing anything but recovering passwords. The first ray of hope shined after one of ElcomSoft's employees was sent to Yakutia, a freezing province in Russia with real bears. He brought a shaman's tambourine that was used regularly by the local tribe's shaman to find missing things. ElcomSoft has conducted a full-scale scientific research of the new tool, spending endless hours chatting with Yakutia locals and shamans who use tambourines more often than we use our toothbrushes. Over than two hundred ritual dances have been performed, and today, ElcomSoft is proud to announce that the ultimate tool to recover lost passwords that cannot be recovered it in a traditional way has emerged. *About Elcomsoft Password Recovery Tambourine* Elcomsoft Password Recovery Tambourine is anything but easy to use. A special supervised training program must be completed, stunts and tricks have to be learned, and spells in Yakutian language must be mastered. The price is barely affordable. A variety of models is available. Standard model works for most users without special needs. Simple, reliable, not too expensive. Corporate model is based on the standard tambourine, and it can work with hundreds and thousands documents at the time. Special team training is required. Pocket version is easy to take on a trip, but it has some restrictions supporting less exotic formats than its bigger siblings. A comprehensive, 200-page manual is shipped with every tambourine. To order or get more information on Elcomsoft Password Recovery Tambourine visit http://tambourine.elcomsoft.com/ http://tambourine.elcomsoft.com *About ElcomSoft Co. Ltd.* Established in 1990, ElcomSoft Co.Ltd. http://www.elcomsoft.com develops state-of-the-art computer forensics tools, provides computer forensics training and computer evidence consulting services. Since 1997, ElcomSoft has been providing support to businesses, law enforcement, military, and intelligence agencies. ElcomSoft tools are used by most of the Fortune 500 corporations, multiple branches of the military all over the world, foreign governments, and all major accounting firms. ElcomSoft and its officers are members of the /Russian Cryptology Association/. ElcomSoft is a /Microsoft Certified Partner/ and an /Intel Software Partner/. OT ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: OT? Shipping issues?
Alex Hewitt wrote: Dan Jenkins wrote: Ben Scott wrote: On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 2:59 PM, Hewitt_Tech hewitt_t...@comcast.net wrote: Recently I've noticed that both major overnight package delivery companies have been damaging packages. Other than the Recently part, your experience matches mine. Shipping eats boxes, but this isn't news. My favorite was a story told to me at UNH, where a rather expensive new computer arrived with holes in the box and BB shot rolling around inside. Apparently, someone had used it for target practice. This was no more recently than 1996. To be honest we've had largely good luck in shipping, except for a few instances. My favorite story was when our regular man-in-brown sheepishly brought in what appeared to be an accordion made of metal - the sole surviving piece of the server that had fallen out of the back of his truck and was slammed by a tractor trailer into oncoming traffic where it was hit by a dump truck and knocked into a swamp where it sank. They did not dispute the claim. Nothing in the last twenty years has equaled that, so I consider the other incidents minor annoyances. -- Dan Jenkins, Rastech Inc. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ And now for the rest of the story... Fedex has a policy where they need to inspect the package for damage. So they picked up the package from the recipient in Florida. They then inspected it but ignored my instructions to return it to the delivery point. They instead returned it to the authorized shipping point here in Manchester which is a Mailbox type operation. I didn't find this out until I called Fedex and they told me the package had been dropped off in Manchester yesterday. Here's where it starts to get good - Fedex tells me that I can't file a claim. They say the Mailbox place needs to do it. I stopped at the Mailbox place and when the nice lady (she really is nice) handed it to me I heard a clunk. I told her I needed to open it up and see what was making the noise. When I took the side panel off I see the 1 TB 3.5 inch hard drive laying in the bottom of the case! They had managed to rip the hard drive and it's retaining sleeve out of the case. The drive had it's Sata signal cable connector sheared off. The CMOS battery mount on the motherboard looked like a rear ended car and the battery was in different part of the case. The motherboard also has a number of crushed header connectors (USB). So on the way back to Manchester Fedex more or less totaled the system. To add insult to injury I'm now stuck waiting for the Mailbox place to make the claim... -Alex P.S. Although I haven't had a chance to test yet the only things that survived where 4 memory modules, the CPU chip and the fan/heat sink. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ The corner mailbox place just called to let me know that Fedex won't honor my damage claim. They say wasn't packed properly. So much for using factory supplied cartons. Kind of an expensive way to find out that is the insurer and the shipper are the same entity, you're going to get hosed. Cost me $350 in parts plus $40 for the nasty shipping and doesn't include anything for all the wasted time. -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: OT? Shipping issues?
Ben Scott wrote: On Tue, Mar 24, 2009 at 11:55 AM, Alex Hewitt hewitt_t...@comcast.net wrote: I'll probably just send the whole thing USPS. I don't know how the USPS insures but I do know that it's a separate item so maybe it will mean something. I rather doubt it will make a significant difference. I've had stuff destroyed by USPS, too, and that's really what you care about. Remember, your package is one of literally millions per day, being tossed around by people who often aren't paid well or treated well by management or their customers, and machinery which prolly isn't maintained well, if it was designed well in the first place. This is not a system conductive towards success. Engineer appropriately. Your best bet is simply to pack things *very* well. At a minimum, double box -- use two shipping cartons, in addition to whatever packaging the item itself comes in. Use thick cardboard for both shipping cartons. Make sure all spaces are filled with packing material, not just an air gap. Tape all seams of both cartons well. Cover it in large, dayglo Fragile stickers. If you're really worried, use a wooden crate for the outer container. I know Pak Mail (before they got bought by whoever) used to offer independent insurance if they packed it. Something like that would be your best bet if you want reliable insurance coverage. As always, *carefully read the fine print of the insurance agreement*. -- Ben ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ I concluded that breaking the system into small pieces and then double packing would be the way to go. The computer case will be directly shipped to Florida but the rest of the system will be assembled, disk built and then taken apart again. I'll put the motherboard/cpu/heat sink/memory into one shipment and the drive in a separate shipment. It appears that the chances of things arriving in usable condition is inversely proportional to the size and weight of the packages. -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: OT? Shipping issues?
Jerry Feldman wrote: On 03/24/2009 10:29 AM, Alex Hewitt wrote: The corner mailbox place just called to let me know that Fedex won't honor my damage claim. They say wasn't packed properly. So much for using factory supplied cartons. Kind of an expensive way to find out that is the insurer and the shipper are the same entity, you're going to get hosed. Cost me $350 in parts plus $40 for the nasty shipping and doesn't include anything for all the wasted time. I learned a while back that it is the shipper that is responsible for filing claims. We had a couple of cases where UPS failed to deliver some stuff to my wife (for her ebay store). Our regular driver told her that the substitute driver probably left it at the wrong address. My wife then started to file a claim, and was then told that the shipper must file the claim. She contacted the shipper who did file the claim, and refunded the money to my wife. If you can get the fedex documents, try to file a claim on the manufacturer. Certainly, FedEx would be responsible if they mishandled it, but if the item was shipped in improper packaging, then it is the shippers fault, not Fedex. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ Yup. Fedex took the claim but then said that the shipper (in this case the Mailbox place on the corner) needed to file the claim. The shipping carton was the one provided by Antec. The box was a heavy corrugated carton with foam inserts to cushion the computer case. The damage was more or less a crushing with the case buckled along the vertical axis. It would take quite a bit of force to buckle a rolled steel case but they managed to do it. The internal damage as noted previously was turning a hard drive into a missile. Again the hard drive was ripped out of the caddy that contained it. The caddy used a spring mechanism to hold the drive into the drive bay. You need to squeeze the steel strips on either side of the drive to pull it free from the drive bay. If you tried to do this by pulling on it you would have a tough go. -Alex P.S. The destruction of the system was a two step process. Some damage as it made it's way to Florida and then heavy damage on the way back stopping somewhere for inspection. The Mailbox person used to work for one of the big shippers and said that once a package has a Damaged label placed on it you can expect much rougher handling because the logic is It's already damaged so what the hell. I would have been ahead of the game if I had not filed a claim and the system would be in use right now because it booted and ran when it got to the customer. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Ubuntu dbus/hald/gconf/etc.
Ben Scott wrote: Hi all, I've got to upgrade my home desktop distro (Fedora 8 being not updated anymore) so I thought I'd give Ubuntu 8.10 a try. After trying the GNOME GUI overload thing for a few days, I once again decided I Don't Like That, and went back to fvwm. I then proceed to disable the plague of daemons which had infected my system. I observe an interesting behavior: If hald is not running, then I get no keyboard in X. Even the zap sequence (CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE) doesn't work. I could switch virtual consoles, though, so it was easy enough to restart the hald (and dbus-daemon, which it depends on). So, my questions are: A1. What the frak has gone wrong with Linux where even the frelling *KEYBOARD* needs two daemons running? A2. Is is practical to want to run Ubuntu without all these dameons, or am I fighting the design assumptions of the system here? A3. If the answer to A2 is It is practical, anyone want to tell me how, or point me at a writeup, etc.? A4. If the answer to A2 is It is NOT practical, anyone have some advice on a distro that doesn't pervert everything good about Unix? -- Ben ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ Just a general comment - it seems that any modern distro will have quite a few daemons running. For a while I've taken old systems and installed Linux on them to be donated to needy families. What I have found is that it's a bit of work to get Linux running on a system with less than 256 MB of RAM. But systems that are 5+ years old often only have 128 MB and sometimes less. When you get to these hardware limited systems Damned Small Linux/Puppy Linux etc.. start to become attractive. Naturally if you install on a more current system they seem to fly. -Alex P.S. I also ran across a statement in Linux® Bible 2007 Edition that the hald daemon was enabled by default in Fedora. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: OT? Shipping issues?
Dan Jenkins wrote: Ben Scott wrote: On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 2:59 PM, Hewitt_Tech hewitt_t...@comcast.net wrote: Recently I've noticed that both major overnight package delivery companies have been damaging packages. Other than the Recently part, your experience matches mine. Shipping eats boxes, but this isn't news. My favorite was a story told to me at UNH, where a rather expensive new computer arrived with holes in the box and BB shot rolling around inside. Apparently, someone had used it for target practice. This was no more recently than 1996. To be honest we've had largely good luck in shipping, except for a few instances. My favorite story was when our regular man-in-brown sheepishly brought in what appeared to be an accordion made of metal - the sole surviving piece of the server that had fallen out of the back of his truck and was slammed by a tractor trailer into oncoming traffic where it was hit by a dump truck and knocked into a swamp where it sank. They did not dispute the claim. Nothing in the last twenty years has equaled that, so I consider the other incidents minor annoyances. -- Dan Jenkins, Rastech Inc. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ And now for the rest of the story... Fedex has a policy where they need to inspect the package for damage. So they picked up the package from the recipient in Florida. They then inspected it but ignored my instructions to return it to the delivery point. They instead returned it to the authorized shipping point here in Manchester which is a Mailbox type operation. I didn't find this out until I called Fedex and they told me the package had been dropped off in Manchester yesterday. Here's where it starts to get good - Fedex tells me that I can't file a claim. They say the Mailbox place needs to do it. I stopped at the Mailbox place and when the nice lady (she really is nice) handed it to me I heard a clunk. I told her I needed to open it up and see what was making the noise. When I took the side panel off I see the 1 TB 3.5 inch hard drive laying in the bottom of the case! They had managed to rip the hard drive and it's retaining sleeve out of the case. The drive had it's Sata signal cable connector sheared off. The CMOS battery mount on the motherboard looked like a rear ended car and the battery was in different part of the case. The motherboard also has a number of crushed header connectors (USB). So on the way back to Manchester Fedex more or less totaled the system. To add insult to injury I'm now stuck waiting for the Mailbox place to make the claim... -Alex P.S. Although I haven't had a chance to test yet the only things that survived where 4 memory modules, the CPU chip and the fan/heat sink. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: OT? Shipping issues?
Michael Pelletier wrote: The UPS hub in Nashua seems to be unusually bad, even for UPS. Check out the site http://www.unitedpackagesmashers.com/ Here's a package of mine from last year: http://www.aidoann.com/photos/ups/070913-tornbox.jpg My HP Laserjet 2605dtn was a near miss, too, a couple of years ago - the Styrofoam gave its life to save the printer. If there's any alternative to UPS shipping when I'm ordering online, I jump on it, even if it costs a bit more. -Michael Pelletier. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ I went with the other big shipper after all the broken stuff via Uninterruptible Power Supply and they destroyed my package going from Manchester to Orlando Florida. The pics on the web site look quite familiar ;^( -Alex P.S. To add insult to injury they reclaimed the package for inspection. I'm taking bets on whether they will finish the computer off on the 2 trips back and forth to the inspection site. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Amazing Source
Thomas Charron wrote: On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 10:40 PM, Ben Scott dragonh...@gmail.com wrote: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViGntIpdpyw John.. How low have you sunk? :-D Not only has he not sunk but this time of year if he let everyone on board who would like to be with him, the boat would go down due to over crowding! ;^) -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Amazing Source
Thomas Charron wrote: On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 10:40 PM, Ben Scott dragonh...@gmail.com wrote: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViGntIpdpyw John.. How low have you sunk? :-D Imagine if they were on a boat and not the beach! ;^) -Alex P.S. Gee I guess it was pretty late when I first watched the video... ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Stop! Unix Time
Jon Maddog Hall wrote: facebook Jon Maddog Hall 4:03am Feb 1st Stop! Unix Time To gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org Y2K in the Unix Erawhere will your computer be? Jon has shared an event with you. To view the event or to reply to the message, follow this link: http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=593062024k=45A66V5X44ZM5AAFUD6YSQ http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=593062024k=45A66V5X44ZM5AAFUD6YSQ Are your friends bothering you? You can opt out http://www.facebook.com/o.php?u=1356460525k=a9bd5c of emails from friends on Facebook. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ I notice that any time I attempt to access Facebook, usually to check on a message from a relative or otherwise, Facebook tells me I need to sign up to use their service. I'm not really thrilled with the idea and was wondering if there is any way to access a Facebook page without the sign up? -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Ethernet NICs w/ USB host attach?
Ben Scott wrote: On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 7:12 AM, Jim Kuzdrall gnh...@intrel.com wrote: I would bet that all of these use the same chip and firmware, so they should all look the same to the operating system. There are definitely multiple chips out there. Not all USB/Ethernet adapters as the same. -- Ben ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ There's always the LinkSys USB model. The reviewers at the Newegg site claimed that this worked well with their Tivos which are Linux based. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833124122 -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Thots on evolution vs t'bird.
Bruce Dawson wrote: I quit using Evolution and switched to Thunderbird when Evolution took more than 28 hours to rifle though my (more than) 1024 .mbox files. Thunderbird did it within 1 minute - and I got to watch as is progressed through them. I don't know why Evolution was taking so long; they were both going through an IMAP server - so its not like some resource on the server was being exhausted. Its been like that since Evolution release 1.0something. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ I threw Evolution under the bus when for some odd reason it started filtering most of my incoming email messages sticking them into it's junk folder. At about the same time Evolution seemed to lose track of messages it had already downloaded and kept downloading the same messages over and over again. Thunderbird just worked. -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: [Fwd: Open Source Bundle of Books Sale] from Apress
jk...@kinz.org wrote: On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 10:32:40AM -0500 From:Apress User Group Liaison newslett...@apress.com .. Option A: Beginning Ubuntu LTS Server Administration: From Novice to Professional, Second Edition and Pro Ubuntu Server Administration for $45 Option B: Expert Oracle Database 11g Administration and Linux Recipes for Oracle DBAs for $60 Option C: Beginning CakePHP: From Novice to Professional and Practical CakePHP Projects for $45 Just for comparison purposes, those same bundles in PHYSICAL dead tree books would each be $5 to $8 dollars more if purchased from www.bookpool.com. Looks like most of these bundles would qualify for free shipping from book pool at the Media rate which is slow, 10 days. So a little cheaper, delivery a lot faster, BUT... Only an electronic copy, no print copy. (which may not matter to some) Hmm.. just found out that their ebook format is a password protected PDF file. I hate browsing PDF's on my Linux boxen because I have yet to find a PDF viewer that isn't slower than molasses on my systems. (literally, 3 - 10 seconds to open a new page) No reflection on Ted's good work in passing the info to the list. My preferences are strictly mine and may or may not be shared by others. I just wish they would find better formats for e-books. (hmm - wonder if it can be used in a Kindle.. ? ) Jeff Kinz ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ I was under the impression that Amazon offers an inexpensive conversion service to convert pdfs to Kindle format. I have no idea whether a converted pdf is as good as what one would see on a laptop display for example. -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: USB enclosure for a laptop IDE drive?
Bill McGonigle wrote: On 2008-12-30 6:02 PM, ord...@gmail.com wrote: On 12/30/08, Ben Scottdragonh...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Dec 30, 2008 at 4:09 PM, Ted Rochetedro...@tedroche.com wrote: The folks at GotInk4You (*) sell a USB 2.0 to SATA/IDE cable connector pretty cheap /// Not an enclosure but I've heard good things about this gizmo. Anyone have any experience? http://www.newertech.com/products/usb2_adaptv2.php Mark I have this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812232002 and it works perfectly. It looks very similar, I assume there's an OEM who makes them in customer plastic. -Bill I have the same one Bill has but recently I found this docking station at Newegg and I'm very happy with it. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153066 It only does SATA 2.5/3.5 drives but it's very nicely done... -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Review Fedora Unleashed 2008 Edition ISBN-13: 978-0-672-32977-7
This book, one of a series of Unleashed books published by SAMS is a topical work designed to instruct intermediate to advanced users of RedHat's Fedora distribution of Linux. This edition covers Fedora version 8 and includes a DVD with the software. It also states that if the book is registered in 2008, a free Fedora version 9 DVD will be sent to the owner provided the owner registers the book at the publisher's web site. My reading of the material suggests that the book should have targeted beginner to intermediate users. The authors attempt to cover a lot of ground and there is a fair bit of historical asides to keep up interest. I have purchased Unleashed books before but noted that they suffered from several problems. One problem that makes the book much less useful as a reference is relatively poor indexing. To cite one example, if you look up ntfs in the index you will find minimally useful references that lead you to pages in the book that simply inform the reader that ntfs is a file system designed and released by the Microsoft corporation. Much earlier in the book in the How to install section the authors mention that Windows users will already have at least one ntfs partition on their computers and that the ntfs partition will need to be re-sized in order to install Fedora. Unfortunately quite a bit of vital information will either not be present or will be difficult to find due to poor indexing. An advanced book on Fedora would likely have a detailed description of RAID technology. Although on page 277 of the book the authors state that more information will be available in chapter 35, no such information was present leading me to think that the editing of this book left a lot to be desired. Still, despite the shortcomings the authors have written a book that most readers should find easy to absorb. They try hard to be thorough and have certainly delivered lot's of useful information. Delivering this much material would seem to be a Herculean task. This book would be useful for someone who wants to cover Fedora's features but it is less useful as a reference book. I'm not sure how useful the Programming Linux part of the book would be to users since I think this is better covered in separate material. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Review of Essential Linux Device Drivers ISBN-13: 978-0-13-239655-4, ,Sreekrishnan Venkateswaran, published Prentice Hall
This book is intended to teach an intermediate level programmer who is already proficient in the C language to write device drivers for the Linux operating system. The book covers Linux kernel 2.6-23/24 versions which just happens to be the version I was using with my Ubuntu 8.04 laptop at the time of my review. The author is clearly an experienced device driver programmer and he has a first rate command of written English. I found his writing to be clear, well organized and most importantly capable of teaching me how to work with kernel sources that are actively in use. He does an excellent job of explaining the environment in which modern device drivers will be used and he covers all of the major categories of devices that a programmer would need. This book thoroughly covers these categories in enough detail to get the programmer started writing drivers. I particularly liked his mentioning several source code analysis tools that are commonly used by those having to work with kernel sources. At least two of the tools, cscope and ctags, I used when working on kernel maintenance for Digital Equipment Corporation. These tools made it possible to browse through the symbols used in the kernel and also to allow one to see where the corresponding name was declared and where it was accessed (read or written). The author gives a high level explanation of each driver type covered and then helps the reader navigate the relevant source code files in the kernel source tree. I was also pleasantly surprised to find that the author had more than a passing acquaintance with embedded Linux having participated in a number of driver projects for embedded Linux devices. As you might expect in a book on device drivers the author describes the major routines used for a class of device drivers, where the routine can be found (file/tree structure), a full explanation of how the routines are used and the functions they perform. The author presents the reader with device driver code for devices that would need drivers and also shows how they would be integrated into the existing device driver structure for the class of device presented. The final chapters of his book describe user space device drivers, miscellaneous device drivers (ACPI, Firewire etc). He has an excellent chapter on debugging device drivers which covers kernel debuggers, kernel probes as well as kernel exec and kdump. He offers a sample debugging section for a buggy driver. He also covers kernel execution profiling and tracing. The book index is well done allowing the reader to quickly pinpoint items of interest. Book indexing is to some extent an art form and Prentice Hall does an especially good job with their technical books. Overall I'd give this book a high rating and it's good enough that I will add a copy to my personal library. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Need dd-wrt configuration to isolate wireless router from local LAN...
Drew Van Zandt wrote: Method (1): Put the wireless router outside the wired router. Method (2): Add something like: iptables -I INPUT -d 192.168.1.0/255.255.255.0 http://192.168.1.0/255.255.255.0 -j DROP and (to allow the wired router as a destination): iptables -I INPUT -d 192.168.1.1 http://192.168.1.1 -j ACCEPT You might need to do that second method to the nat table instead of the default table, that's all from memory so the syntax is probably not quite right. --DTVZ On Thu, Dec 11, 2008 at 3:53 PM, Alex Hewitt hewitt_t...@comcast.net mailto:hewitt_t...@comcast.net wrote: This might not have an easy answer but I want to setup a wireless router inside an existing LAN. I want to be able to let users connect to the wireless router but not be able to access systems on the LAN that the wireless router will be installed on. So the scenario is: Internet Connection . . Existing router (192.168.1.1 http://192.168.1.1) . . Wireless router (192.168.2.1 http://192.168.2.1 or any private network) A user connecting to the wireless router would get an address such as 192.168.2.100 http://192.168.2.100 and they could ping or otherwise see machines on the 192.168.1. http://192.168.1.* network. I've got dd-wrt v2.4 micro edition running on a WRT54G V5 wireless router. The main router is a LinkSys RV042 model. Is there a simple way to stop users connected on the wireless router from accessing systems on the main LAN? One way to achieve this would be to add a switch between the ISP's equipment and the RV042 but I'd like to make sure that any wireless connections couldn't chew up too much bandwidth. -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org mailto:gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ Just a followup. I used the second method. Drew's suggested iptables commands were correct except for the table that needed to be updated which turned out to be the FORWARD table in OpenWRT. Also making the iptables rules persist requires modifying a file /etc/firewall.user. Initially I miss-understood how this was to be done because the documentation suggested that merely executing firewall.user would make the iptables rules persist across reboots and power cycling. In fact you need to add your new rules to the firewall.user script which gets run every time the router is rebooted. -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Need dd-wrt configuration to isolate wireless router from local LAN...
This might not have an easy answer but I want to setup a wireless router inside an existing LAN. I want to be able to let users connect to the wireless router but not be able to access systems on the LAN that the wireless router will be installed on. So the scenario is: Internet Connection . . Existing router (192.168.1.1) . . Wireless router (192.168.2.1 or any private network) A user connecting to the wireless router would get an address such as 192.168.2.100 and they could ping or otherwise see machines on the 192.168.1.* network. I've got dd-wrt v2.4 micro edition running on a WRT54G V5 wireless router. The main router is a LinkSys RV042 model. Is there a simple way to stop users connected on the wireless router from accessing systems on the main LAN? One way to achieve this would be to add a switch between the ISP's equipment and the RV042 but I'd like to make sure that any wireless connections couldn't chew up too much bandwidth. -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Need dd-wrt configuration to isolate wireless router from local LAN...
Drew Van Zandt wrote: Method (1): Put the wireless router outside the wired router. Method (2): Add something like: iptables -I INPUT -d 192.168.1.0/255.255.255.0 http://192.168.1.0/255.255.255.0 -j DROP and (to allow the wired router as a destination): iptables -I INPUT -d 192.168.1.1 http://192.168.1.1 -j ACCEPT You might need to do that second method to the nat table instead of the default table, that's all from memory so the syntax is probably not quite right. --DTVZ On Thu, Dec 11, 2008 at 3:53 PM, Alex Hewitt hewitt_t...@comcast.net mailto:hewitt_t...@comcast.net wrote: This might not have an easy answer but I want to setup a wireless router inside an existing LAN. I want to be able to let users connect to the wireless router but not be able to access systems on the LAN that the wireless router will be installed on. So the scenario is: Internet Connection . . Existing router (192.168.1.1 http://192.168.1.1) . . Wireless router (192.168.2.1 http://192.168.2.1 or any private network) A user connecting to the wireless router would get an address such as 192.168.2.100 http://192.168.2.100 and they could ping or otherwise see machines on the 192.168.1. http://192.168.1.* network. I've got dd-wrt v2.4 micro edition running on a WRT54G V5 wireless router. The main router is a LinkSys RV042 model. Is there a simple way to stop users connected on the wireless router from accessing systems on the main LAN? One way to achieve this would be to add a switch between the ISP's equipment and the RV042 but I'd like to make sure that any wireless connections couldn't chew up too much bandwidth. -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org mailto:gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ Thanks. I might need to use my WRT54GL rather than the WRT54G for this because the micro version of dd-wrt is very spartan whereas the GL version looks like a more complete Linux system. -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Need dd-wrt configuration to isolate wireless router from local LAN...
Bill McGonigle wrote: On 2008-12-11 4:28 PM, Alex Hewitt wrote: LinkSys RV042 The Amazon product page says this thing has built-in DMZ support with LAN isolation. That's my extent of knowledge of the product, but it might be a matter of 'plug it into the DMZ port'. -Bill You might be right. I dug out the User's Guide and it does look just about that simple. I was spending time looking at the WRT54G (v5) router with dd-wrt and it's really bare bones. I then started checking out Open-WRT on the WRT54GL and that setup is very easy to use. So I'll probably just use the DMZ feature and set the inner wireless router to a fixed address and make it a DMZ connection. Thanks, -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Need dd-wrt configuration to isolate wireless router from local LAN...
Alex Hewitt wrote: On Thu, Dec 11, 2008 at 3:53 PM, Alex Hewitt hewitt_t...@comcast.net mailto:hewitt_t...@comcast.net wrote: This might not have an easy answer but I want to setup a wireless router inside an existing LAN. I want to be able to let users connect to the wireless router but not be able to access systems on the LAN that the wireless router will be installed on. So the scenario is: Internet Connection . . Existing router (192.168.1.1 http://192.168.1.1) . . Wireless router (192.168.2.1 http://192.168.2.1 or any private network) A user connecting to the wireless router would get an address such as 192.168.2.100 http://192.168.2.100 and they could ping or otherwise see machines on the 192.168.1. http://192.168.1.* network. I've got dd-wrt v2.4 micro edition running on a WRT54G V5 wireless router. The main router is a LinkSys RV042 model. Is there a simple way to stop users connected on the wireless router from accessing systems on the main LAN? One way to achieve this would be to add a switch between the ISP's equipment and the RV042 but I'd like to make sure that any wireless connections couldn't chew up too much bandwidth. -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org mailto:gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ Thanks. I might need to use my WRT54GL rather than the WRT54G for this because the micro version of dd-wrt is very spartan whereas the GL version looks like a more complete Linux system. -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ I was going to ask a bunch of dumb newbie questions about iptables but I checked my safari library and found that the Linux Networking Cookbook answers most of the obvious questions... -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: buying a laptop either bare or with Ubuntu
michael miller wrote: About 2 mo ago I needed to upgrade my wife's laptop computer. I saw an Acer for just under $400 at Best Buy that looked interesting. I'm not an Acer fan, but at that price for a 15.5 LCD laptop with an Intel dual core 2GHz T3200, 2GB DDR2, 160GB HD, DVD DL burner and wlan I thought it was worth a try. I was assured that if I installed any operating system other than Vista, the warranty would be void. I let it go through the the Vista install just to make sure it worked, then partitioned the HD and installed Ubuntu 8.04. It's worked without a glitch so far and she loves it. At some point I'll delete Vista, probably after the warranty runs out. Mike Miller On Wed, 2008-11-26 at 16:30 -0500, Lloyd Kvam wrote: On Thu, 2008-11-13 at 20:24 -0500, Nikkiana H. wrote: I bought both the Studio 15 and the Mini recently and am pretty happy with them. Well the Dell Studio 15 arrived yesterday. When I tried to boot it, the splash screens and text boot messages worked fine. However, when it came time to draw the desktop, the screen changed to a bright background with colored pinstripes running vertically. The bundled diagnostics (from the boot menu) pass and an external monitor shows a normal Ubuntu desktop. I tried the Dell on-line chat support and was given a number for Ubuntu support. This turned out to be Canonical. The person I spoke to said he had heard that Dell switched LCD screens on the Studio 15 production line without properly testing the new screens. Ubuntu is not working with those new LCD screens. He gave me the Dell Ubuntu support phone number. When I called, they said they have no fix. I can replace my laptop as defective, but they do not expect the replacement to work any better. My guess (as a software guy) as to what is going on: Ubuntu is only detecting 4:3 resolutions from the video controller and the LCD screen only supports 16:9 (or 16:10) resolutions. I fiddled the xorg.conf with no success using an external monitor. I could only get 4:3 resolutions to show on the external monitor. Attempts to force 1280x800 which is the documented resolution for the LCD resulted in a 640x480 screen on the external monitor. None of these had any impact on the built-in LCD screen. I'm returning the laptop to Dell and will buy something else. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ One of the interesting things about Acer is that they sell most of the same models in the US with Windows but with Linux for other countries. I'm typing this on an Aspire 5100 that I bought a couple of years ago. I run Ubuntu 8.04 as my primary OS but switch back to Vista on another partition whenever I need something that is Windows specific. Installing Ubuntu on this machine was pretty easy and except for a few burps when upgrading it's been quite reliable. -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: (OT) Flaky USB Bus
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Good Morning, I have (my wife) a Win XP machine that is driving me beserk. She decided that a new printer was in order and I would (obviously) take care of the rest of that idea... How would you check the functionality of a USB Bus / Controller? May we assume that if a typical USB device plugged in to a Win XP (SP 2) machine and seems to work, would that probably indicate that the USB interface (cable/controller) is squeekie clean? I.E., would this assume that all of the generic USB functionality (probably) works O. K. ? We have a new HP 6310 printer (Fax, Scanner, Printer, All In One) which doesn't print, but an earlier generation HP 3745 printer works fine (both printers via USB on same machine). I've done a reinstall using the HP CD, of software / drivers (of the 6310), several times, without success. I downloaded and installed the 6310 Driver via the Web (as another idea) without (printing) success. But if I hook up the old HP 3745 printer and create a sm file via NotePad editor, the 3745 works (prints) fine. OBTW, I took the HP 6310 back to Circuit City and got a new item, then followed procedure as above, (3 - 4 times) without success??? Tried USB spigot on back of machine (different controller?) and get same results as USB spigot on front of machine (no print) ??? I tried a different USB cable as well with no change. Can add HP 6300 printer manually, in Printers and Faxes. Can select Printer (Icon) as Default printer and shows as Ready' ... My Computer - Hardware sees device as Unknown Device... What other options do I now have? Is there a way to test generic USB functionality? Should I consider Refreshing Win XP (SP 2), as the last resort? Is there other Plug Play issues here, that I am not aware of? Any other options that you might suggest? Thanks for any Comments or suggestions (or flames)... paulc ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ I have run into this kind of problem between an XP host and an HP multi-function printer before. No amount of registry editing, removing of old drivers, re-installing would work. Finally I found that re-installing XP corrected the problem. HP doesn't know how to fix this particular problem which usually manifests itself as a error occurred during installation message when you attempt to install the multi-function printer. If a re-install becomes necessary you should make sure you have the necessary kits (including Office and any other application needed) and then make sure you back up your wife's data. You can get almost all of her data by backing up the Documents and Settings folder (which will not only back up her stuff but all the accounts on the system). If she is using Quickbooks or another accounting program make sure you get her company file(s) in your backup. You can also backup individual items like Outlook Express/Outlook data files. If she is using Outlook Express make sure you export her address book to a .wab file. You can reload her address book from that file after you re-install Windows. If you had another Windows system you could test the printer with that system but the problem you are describing sounds a lot like the problem I have run into at several client sites. HP has a more thorough printer de-installation program but I didn't get the results needed when I've used it. -Alex P.S. You should also export your wife's bookmarks and cookies before re-loading Windows. You can import those saved files when you've got Windows up and running again. P.P.S. Feel free to google for a solution but unless HP has figured out how to fix this you may need to re-load Windows. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Laptop HD repair/recovery question
Ben Scott wrote: On Mon, Nov 17, 2008 at 10:38 AM, Ed lawson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Running a live Linux CD results in a indication the HD is dead... maybe hosed partition table. Be warned that if the hardware is faulty, simply powering it up may be doing additional damage. Unfortunately, making the determination as to hardware vs software is often itself difficult. Depending on value of the data, you may want to just go right to a first tier data-recovery service. These are the places that have a clean room to open the drive up, and equipment to read the data off the platters independent of the drive electronics. On the down side, cost for a recovery will often be $1000. I've used CBL Data Recovery (http://www.cbltech.com/) in the past with good results. They offer a free quote, and you don't pay if they don't get data. Mail-in service. Good luck! -- Ben ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ I'd echo what Ben just said. I have done recovery operations for customers and have gone as far as ordering an identical part number drive from eBay and then swapping the electronics (the drive was dead when I received it). The operation was a success but if the value of the contents of the drive are high enough you should just pack it up and send it to a recovery company. One such outfit, Drive Savers, was featured on a CBS news program. See their web site at www.drivesavers.com. When I looked into having them recover a customer drive they wanted somewhere north of $3k but their price was proportional to the percentage of data recovered. I have also used Knoppix to mount a Windows NTFS partition and found that the Linux NTFS driver would allow me to access data that Windows would barf on. Again though, if the data is really valuable don't bother with local places, just go to the folks that have the proper facilities to get the job done. -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: x86_64 Live-CD recommendations? /sbin/loader?
On Wed, 2008-11-12 at 11:08 -0500, Ben Scott wrote: On Wed, Nov 12, 2008 at 10:31 AM, Michael ODonnell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The CentOS5.2 LiveCD-creator kit looked promising until we found bugs that prevent it from running on our bleeding-edge hardware. I'm curious. Got time to provide any details? In particular, why would the regular CentOS install disc work for you when the live disc would not? Aren't they basically most of the same pieces, just in different places? WTF is /sbin/loader ? I think it's part of the Anaconda installer. Beyond that, dunno, sorry. -- Ben ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ Try this link: http://kbase.redhat.com/faq/FAQ_103_10529.shtm -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: [GNHLUG] GNHLUG is back on the Internet
On Mon, 2008-11-10 at 22:17 -0500, Ben Scott wrote: Greetings, As some of you noticed, the GNHLUG Internet server experienced an extended outage recently. We were down starting the morning of Thr 23 Oct, and are now back up as of Mon 10 Oct. A number of factors contributed to both the initial outage and the length of the downtime. More details will be posted to gnhlug-discuss for those interested. If you still see the sad penguin page on the web site, try forcing your browser to fetch a new copy of the page (SHIFT+CTRL+R in Firefox). I would like to apologize to the membership for the delay in getting things back online. Please report any further trouble to me. Thanks for your patience. -- Ben Scott, GNHLUG server coordinator ___ gnhlug-announce mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-announce/ ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ And you were being paid the big bucks for all of this right? ;^) Seriously, thanks for getting it back on the air. I missed it... -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Regain root control of Zenwalk system...
I have a laptop that was setup for a family member using a Zenwalk install. The laptop doesn't have a functional CD reader and I don't have the root password. I am able to easily pull the hard drive and mount it as a USB external drive to my Ubuntu system. I can see the passwd and shadow files and the lilo.conf file. Is there an easy way to edit the shadow password file to set a good password for root? Or might it be easier to modify the lilo.conf file to get into single user mode and set a new password from there? The current root password line in the shadow password file is: root:$1$yDo/7BS7$y8McHMKPj3hTRnSl.HTrO/:13427:0: Can I just remove the string $1$yDo/7BS7$y8McHMKPj3hTRnSl.HTrO/ to edit out the password or do I need to replace it with something else? -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Regain root control of Zenwalk system...
On Wed, 2008-09-24 at 13:09 -0400, Tom Buskey wrote: On Wed, Sep 24, 2008 at 12:34 PM, Alex Hewitt [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have a laptop that was setup for a family member using a Zenwalk install. The laptop doesn't have a functional CD reader and I don't have the root password. I am able to easily pull the hard drive and mount it as a USB external drive to my Ubuntu system. I can see the passwd and shadow files and the lilo.conf file. Is there an easy way to edit the shadow password file to set a good password for root? Or might it be easier to modify the lilo.conf file to get into single user mode and set a new password from there? The current root password line in the shadow password file is: root:$1$yDo/7BS7$y8McHMKPj3hTRnSl.HTrO/:13427:0: Can I just remove the string $1$yDo/7BS7 $y8McHMKPj3hTRnSl.HTrO/ to edit out the password or do I need to replace it with something else? -Alex vi shadow :s/:1$yDo/7BS7$y8McHMKPj3hTRnSl.HTrO\//::/ :wq root now has no password Thanks to both responders. Stripping out the characters between the first and second colons did the trick. I now have full control of the system. -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: nslookup alpine-usa.com
On Wed, 2008-09-10 at 07:39 -0400, Frank DiPrete wrote: I am not getting a response while trying to lookup alpine-usa.com Trying to figure out if the problem is my dns server, comcast network, or alpine. I'm running bind 9.5 Can you guys get to alpine-usa.com ? ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ Interesting. When I nslookup alpine-usa.com I don't get an IP address from the Comcast DNS servers: nslookup alpine-usa.com Server: 68.87.71.226 Address:68.87.71.226#53 Non-authoritative answer: *** Can't find alpine-usa.com: No answer When I nslookup www.alpine-usa.com I do get an IP address: nslookup www.alpine-usa.com Server: 68.87.71.226 Address:68.87.71.226#53 Non-authoritative answer: Name: www.alpine-usa.com Address: 72.3.185.216 The Comcast DNS servers do give IP addresses (different) for microsoft.com and www.microsoft.com. -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: How to troubleshoot wide area network performance problem?
I've had suggestions from at least two colleagues that we may be the victims of peer to peer throttling. I'm going back to the Nashua site later today and I'm going to replace a small internal router that used to replace a failed router Monday. I don't believe the internal router has any bearing on the problem because the customer noticed the problem when there was no internal router in place (we bypassed it as a workaround). I'm not sure if there is any kind of tool that can be used to check for throttling. One of my colleagues ran into a Comcast throttling problem while doing an rsync at a different location. He said the rsync ran at full speed for about 30 seconds and then basically dropped to about ten percent performance after that. I need to see if something similar is going on at the Bedford site. -Alex P.S. I'll probably put in a call to One Communications today to have them check the connection/routing. Replacing the router at the Bedford site had no effect (as expected). I called One Communications and talked to an engineer who was more than willing to help. He said they use an application called hyper-trace. He was checking the connection at the Bedford end and concluded that there wasn't anything obviously wrong. He then started checking towards the Nashua end and said there's something strange. He then went on to say that the Comcast end had too many hops. So I think we're back looking at Comcast. He gave me his name and a trouble ticket number and said he'd be more than happy to assist the Comcast folks should they need to talk to him. While he was testing we were chatting and he mentioned that although his wife really likes Macs he ran an Ubuntu system. Nice to know that the folks responsible for networks are also open source enthusiasts. -Alex P.S. Since I also have less than wonderful performance from my Comcast service to the Comcast service in Nashua I might just call up and complain as an actual direct customer rather than on behalf of my clients. I'm also getting pretty irritated about this whole mess and the amount of time I've wasted troubleshooting it. I think I'm going to call MV Monday morning and see if they can provision a DSL connection at the Nashua end. I'm also going to withdraw my Comcast business recommendations for the 20-30 clients I have that use them... ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: How to troubleshoot wide area network performance problem?
On Fri, 2008-07-11 at 11:30 -0400, Hewitt_Tech wrote: Mark Greene wrote: On Thu, Jul 10, 2008 at 7:36 PM, Alex Hewitt [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have clients with an interesting network problem. One location in Bedford New Hampshire using a fractionated T1 has routinely been transmitting studies to an office in Nashua New Hampshire. There have been no problems with this for at least 18 months. However recently (about a week ago), the transmissions suddenly became slow, really slow. A transmission that was taking around 10 minutes suddenly jumped to 2-3 hours. The customer in Bedford New Hampshire is using One Communications. I'd bet money that One Communications is the culprit, and that they are doing different routing on their network to you vs. to your Nashua client's office. They *may* be doing selective throttling based on content ala Comcast, but this may also be a non-malicious mistaken config problem too. mark ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ I've had suggestions from at least two colleagues that we may be the victims of peer to peer throttling. I'm going back to the Nashua site later today and I'm going to replace a small internal router that used to replace a failed router Monday. I don't believe the internal router has any bearing on the problem because the customer noticed the problem when there was no internal router in place (we bypassed it as a workaround). I'm not sure if there is any kind of tool that can be used to check for throttling. One of my colleagues ran into a Comcast throttling problem while doing an rsync at a different location. He said the rsync ran at full speed for about 30 seconds and then basically dropped to about ten percent performance after that. I need to see if something similar is going on at the Bedford site. -Alex P.S. I'll probably put in a call to One Communications today to have them check the connection/routing. Actually the site I'm going to replace the router at is the Bedford site. I want to make sure I've done everything humanly possible to be 100% sure the problem isn't in equipment that I can control. -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
How to troubleshoot wide area network performance problem?
I have clients with an interesting network problem. One location in Bedford New Hampshire using a fractionated T1 has routinely been transmitting studies to an office in Nashua New Hampshire. There have been no problems with this for at least 18 months. However recently (about a week ago), the transmissions suddenly became slow, really slow. A transmission that was taking around 10 minutes suddenly jumped to 2-3 hours. The customer in Bedford New Hampshire is using One Communications. So far I haven't asked them to look at this problem because I've been trying to clarify it. The office in Nashua has Comcast business class service with a static IP address. Here's where it gets interesting. I had the Bedford client transmit the data to my system in Manchester New Hampshire. I have Comcast residential service. The data usually takes about 8 minutes to arrive at my location. I then send the data to the Nashua office and it typically takes 25-30 minutes. The payload is a collection of images that are typically between 65 and 70 MB. Today Comcast at the request of the customer sent someone on site to the Nashua site. The tech did some speed tests using the DSLReports Speakeasy test suite. He was getting 20 mbs down, 3+ mbs up which is pretty decent. For the fun of it I had him download a 47 MB antivirus program. His first try was ridiculous telling him it was going to take 4 + hours. I had him break the connection and try again and this time the download took around a minute. And it gets more interesting...another client in Salem New Hampshire needed to send their data to the Nashua site (they use Verizon DSL). It arrived in about 8 minutes. So my Comcast connection which is fairly decent is taking a half hour to send 65-70 MB to the Nashua site. The Salem site is taking 8 minutes for something approximately the same size and the Bedford site is taking several hours. Traceroute doesn't show much interesting - it craps out after the first 5 hops. Pinging (standard payload) from my office to the Nashua site is averaging less than 20 ms. One odd thing is that when I'm in the process of sending data to the Nashua site my pings jump up to 650 - 800 ms. The Comcast tech was happy to conclude that the Nashua site was working properly. They checked transmission levels, noise and of course the guy downloaded some files and ran the Speakeasy speed tests and all of that looked good. Any ideas how to proceed on a problem like this? Currently I'm having the customer transmit their data to me and then I re-transmit because my connection although slow is probably 4 or 5 times faster than theirs. -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: How to troubleshoot wide area network performance problem?
On Thu, 2008-07-10 at 19:36 -0400, Alex Hewitt wrote: I have clients with an interesting network problem. One location in Bedford New Hampshire using a fractionated T1 has routinely been transmitting studies to an office in Nashua New Hampshire. There have been no problems with this for at least 18 months. However recently (about a week ago), the transmissions suddenly became slow, really slow. A transmission that was taking around 10 minutes suddenly jumped to 2-3 hours. The customer in Bedford New Hampshire is using One Communications. So far I haven't asked them to look at this problem because I've been trying to clarify it. The office in Nashua has Comcast business class service with a static IP address. Here's where it gets interesting. I had the Bedford client transmit the data to my system in Manchester New Hampshire. I have Comcast residential service. The data usually takes about 8 minutes to arrive at my location. I then send the data to the Nashua office and it typically takes 25-30 minutes. The payload is a collection of images that are typically between 65 and 70 MB. Today Comcast at the request of the customer sent someone on site to the Nashua site. The tech did some speed tests using the DSLReports Speakeasy test suite. He was getting 20 mbs down, 3+ mbs up which is pretty decent. For the fun of it I had him download a 47 MB antivirus program. His first try was ridiculous telling him it was going to take 4 + hours. I had him break the connection and try again and this time the download took around a minute. And it gets more interesting...another client in Salem New Hampshire needed to send their data to the Nashua site (they use Verizon DSL). It arrived in about 8 minutes. So my Comcast connection which is fairly decent is taking a half hour to send 65-70 MB to the Nashua site. The Salem site is taking 8 minutes for something approximately the same size and the Bedford site is taking several hours. Traceroute doesn't show much interesting - it craps out after the first 5 hops. Pinging (standard payload) from my office to the Nashua site is averaging less than 20 ms. One odd thing is that when I'm in the process of sending data to the Nashua site my pings jump up to 650 - 800 ms. The Comcast tech was happy to conclude that the Nashua site was working properly. They checked transmission levels, noise and of course the guy downloaded some files and ran the Speakeasy speed tests and all of that looked good. Any ideas how to proceed on a problem like this? Currently I'm having the customer transmit their data to me and then I re-transmit because my connection although slow is probably 4 or 5 times faster than theirs. -Alex A few more bits of information - I replaced the router in the Nashua office (Netgear FVS 114) with a new identically configured model. The download performance and speed tests were run with the Netgear router in place (all good). I disconnected the router from the cable modem and hooked the Mac that runs the client application directly to the cable modem. Again all download tests look normal. I replaced the original Mac with a newer model. The old system was a Mac Mini with 1 GB of Ram and a G4 CPU. The replacement model was a dual core Intel based Mini with 2 GB of Ram. The new system is definitely snappier but doesn't affect the problem at all. -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Netgear now touting open source WRT-compatible wireless router
On Tue, 2008-07-01 at 23:05 -0400, Ben Scott wrote: On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 7:54 PM, Alex Hewitt [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think I'll spend more time learning how to use OpenVPN... If you've got experience configuring other VPNs, you'll probably find OpenVPN is really easy. I've got config files and some knowledge I can share if anyone is interested. I'd be interested. I remember you did a presentation at least a couple of years ago at the Nashua GNHLUG meeting. Do you still have the talk in some presentation form or do you have the notes organized some how? -Alex P.S. I was researching this last night and apparently besides the OpenVPN project (SSL based) there is something called OpenSwan. OpenSwan is IPsec based and appears to be Linux only. Although there are at least a couple of books on OpenVPN, those books get relatively poor reviews on Amazon. -- Ben ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Netgear now touting open source WRT-compatible wireless router
On Tue, 2008-07-01 at 09:17 -0400, Bill Freeman wrote: ... I've not really been interested in Linksys gear because I've had terrible experience with the hardware just crapping out, and I've had good experience with Netgear, so I was glad to see this. On the other hand, I've had the only Netgear that I owned crap out too. To be fair, it provided years of service first. Bill beat me to the punch on this. I've had plenty of bad hardware/firmware from both Netgear and LinkSys. D-Link will also find detractors for pretty much the same reasons. The issue for me with these brands is the relatively poor support. But then as Bill pointed out, the margin pressure on these products precludes the kind of support you will see from Cisco, Juniper or other high margin vendors. I still use both Netgear and LinkSys when reliability is not a primary concern. You can buy a lot of $50 appliances for the cost of one Cisco et al router. -Alex Any product under the margin pressure that home routers see probably isn't using, for example, pre-burned in chips or MIL spec boards and soldering techniques. But, yes, it's great to see Linux compatibility in someone's marketing plan. Bill ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Netgear now touting open source WRT-compatible wireless router
On Tue, 2008-07-01 at 18:25 -0400, Ben Scott wrote: On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 2:28 PM, Gerry Hull [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Or, Buy a used Cisco router on Ebay ... I thought with Cisco, the IOS (firmware) license wasn't transferable, so even if you bought used hardware, you still had to buy an IOS license from Cisco? Really? I had no idea. I would have thought the IOS license would go with the hardware. It's not as if it has somehow transferred to another piece of hardware. But then Microsoft has weird and wonderful licensing so there's no reason why Cisco would be any different. That's one reason I like GPL'd stuff so much. Way less complicated. I've been going through the Microsoft terminal/user/device/per processor/enterprise licensing cruft lately and I value Linux that much more for the experience ;^) -Alex (One can violate the license, of course. But I, personally, find that dishonest and distasteful. Especially since many depend on a license -- the GPL -- for certain Free Software protections. Indeed, one of the big reasons third-party firmware modifications in the SOHO router market took off was that the GPL required LinkSys to publish their source code changes. (Which they only did after some legal prompting.)) -- Ben ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Netgear now touting open source WRT-compatible wireless router
On Tue, 2008-07-01 at 18:55 -0400, Ben Scott wrote: On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 6:38 PM, Alex Hewitt [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I thought with Cisco, the IOS (firmware) license wasn't transferable, so even if you bought used hardware, you still had to buy an IOS license from Cisco? Really? That's what I've been told, and some Google work appears to confirm. The license itself [1] just states it is nontransferable, which might be subject to interpretation. But, while they don't exactly make it easy to find, I eventually dug up [2], which clearly states, Cisco software licenses are not transferable from user to user. [1] http://www.cisco.com/public/sw-license-agreement.html [2] http://www.cisco.com/application/pdf/en/us/partner/products/ps2978/c1592/ccmigration_09186a00801e4ea8.pdf I would have thought the IOS license would go with the hardware. You'd think so, but this is Cisco. They didn't get rich by being nice. They're sometimes called the Microsoft of the networking world. That's one reason I like GPL'd stuff so much. Way less complicated. Amen, brother! :-) I just read the End User License Agreement that came with one of my customer's Juniper Networks Netscreen appliances and it basically has the same nontransferable rights clause that Cisco uses. Same deal, you can't sell your used Netscreen appliance to another user and have them use the software that came with it. They need to buy their own license. I think I'll spend more time learning how to use OpenVPN... -Alex I've been going through the Microsoft terminal/user/device/per processor/enterprise licensing cruft lately ... It helps to remember that you're not Microsoft's customer. Microsoft's customers are their distributors and major resellers. Theose companies benefit by having the licensing be so complex you need their help to manage it all. So Microsoft has no incentive to make it easy. -- Ben ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
When is a UPS battery actually bad? APC SUA750
I recently saw a problem with an APC brand SUA750 UPS. The unit had a replace battery LED which was lit up. I replaced the unit but when I got around to plugging the unit in again the replace battery LED wasn't lit anymore and the unit seems to be working ok. This unit is just over a year old. Any thoughts? -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: When is a UPS battery actually bad? APC SUA750
On Tue, 2008-06-17 at 10:20 -0400, Alex Hewitt wrote: I recently saw a problem with an APC brand SUA750 UPS. The unit had a replace battery LED which was lit up. I replaced the unit but when I got around to plugging the unit in again the replace battery LED wasn't lit anymore and the unit seems to be working ok. This unit is just over a year old. Any thoughts? -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ I should have looked harder before asking: http://nam-en.apc.com/cgi-bin/nam_en.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=10p_created=1000309963p_sid=rGBw9w6jp_accessibility=0p_lva=p_sp=cF9zcmNoPTEmcF9zb3J0X2J5PSZwX2dyaWRzb3J0PSZwX3Jvd19jbnQ9OTUmcF9wcm9kcz02MSZwX2NhdHM9JnBfcHY9MS42MSZwX2N2PSZwX3NlYXJjaF90eXBlPWFuc3dlcnMuc2VhcmNoX25sJnBfcGFnZT0xJnBfc2VhcmNoX3RleHQ9cmVwbGFjZSBiYXR0ZXJ5IGluZGljYXRvcg**p_li=p_topview=1 Which basically says - the indicator doesn't necessarily mean the battery is bad. It has some kind of timer which turns the LED on theoretically one to two months before the battery might need replacing. -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: When is a UPS battery actually bad? APC SUA750
On Tue, 2008-06-17 at 11:11 -0400, Thomas Charron wrote: On 6/17/08, Alex Hewitt [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Which basically says - the indicator doesn't necessarily mean the battery is bad. It has some kind of timer which turns the LED on theoretically one to two months before the battery might need replacing. Woot! Shared technology between UPS batteries and car engine status lights! :-D A good chunk of the time the UPS has long since passed it's sell by date and the users just keep the things plugged in. The batteries are useless as is the UPS but hey it's cheaper than buying a new one (that works). ;^) -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Does anyone know of a person or company that offers training in Open Office?
One of my clients is adopting Open Office and finds that they need training. Is there anyone locally (Southern New Hampshire) that provides that kind of training? -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Funniest thing I've heard today and it's only 9 AM
On Tue, 2008-06-03 at 09:40 -0400, Jarod Wilson wrote: On Tue, 2008-06-03 at 09:02 -0400, kenta wrote: I just had to share this, one of the consulants here just sent an e-mail in which he said: Postfix is open source. That's not a good thing for any product to support across different Linux flavors. That's a dark road to follow. (This is in reference to not having official support for our milter on Postfix vs. Sendmail) I am *really* hoping he's joking, but for some reason I think not. Must... restrain... FIST OF DEATH. Wow, that guy's clueless on so many levels, you'd certainly hope he's joking... If not, he ain't consulting for *me* anymore... The problem with people like the one cited is that they know what they know. They don't have a real understanding of FOSS and live in a proprietary world. I can sympathize with customers who just want to get a job done. They really don't understand the ramifications of the choices they make. But a professional or someone who calls themselves a professional should at least have a working knowledge of different ways to solve a problem and in as efficient cost effective manner as possible. When you look closely at the choice between proprietary versus Open Source you find yourself looking at expediency versus the long term best interests of your clients. -Alex P.S. I work every day in a Microsoft Windows world but never miss an opportunity to promote Open Source solutions... ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Reformat an NTFS disk to FAT32?
On Sun, 2008-04-20 at 16:40 -0400, Ben Scott wrote: On Sun, Apr 20, 2008 at 3:42 PM, Bruce Labitt [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Now that I think about this, all that I want is a format that I can read and write to for the WinXP machines that I have to live with and with linux. Ah, then yah, FAT32 is likely your best bet. That seems to have become the lingua franca for filesystem interoperability. Unfortunately when I received the disk it already was preformatted NTFS. I'd say your best bet is to change the partition type of the existing partition to 0x0C using fdisk, and then format it using mkdosfs. Believe it or not, if you want a 32 GB partition you need to do it with Linux or a manufacturer supplied utility (Western Digital provides one for some of their 2.5 external hard drives). Microsoft doesn't believe you should be using 32 GB FAT32 partitions even though the file system will support operations much greater. -Alex I don't want a multiple partitions, just a single FAT32... So from your description above I'd change the partition to c FAT32 LBA. And then mkdosfs -F 32 ... I believe that's right. I haven't used mkdosfs in a while, but the man page agrees with you. :) So what are options 1b and 1c ??? The hidden partition types were introduced by something to hide partitions from the OS. I forget what the something was -- it might have been the Boot Manager that came with OS/2. Some sther software tools followed suit (Partition Magic being one of them). Hiding partitions was needed because some versions of some Microsoft and/or IBM OSes had a terminal brain cramp if they saw more than one primary partition in a format they recognized. I forget which. Prolly Windows 95 or OS/2 2.0 or something like that. It hasn't been a problem in a while. -- Ben ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Reformat an NTFS disk to FAT32?
On Sun, 2008-04-20 at 17:31 -0400, Alex Hewitt wrote: On Sun, 2008-04-20 at 16:40 -0400, Ben Scott wrote: On Sun, Apr 20, 2008 at 3:42 PM, Bruce Labitt [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Now that I think about this, all that I want is a format that I can read and write to for the WinXP machines that I have to live with and with linux. Ah, then yah, FAT32 is likely your best bet. That seems to have become the lingua franca for filesystem interoperability. Unfortunately when I received the disk it already was preformatted NTFS. I'd say your best bet is to change the partition type of the existing partition to 0x0C using fdisk, and then format it using mkdosfs. Believe it or not, if you want a 32 GB partition you need to do it with Linux or a manufacturer supplied utility (Western Digital provides one for some of their 2.5 external hard drives). Microsoft doesn't believe you should be using 32 GB FAT32 partitions even though the file system will support operations much greater. -Alex One other size limit - FAT32 file systems don't support file sizes 4 GB. This can be a bit painful if for example you were using your FAT32 volume as a backup device and the backup attempts to put the entire backup into a single file. There are backup utilities that are aware of this size limitation and will automatically break the backup into 4 GB chunks. -Alex I don't want a multiple partitions, just a single FAT32... So from your description above I'd change the partition to c FAT32 LBA. And then mkdosfs -F 32 ... I believe that's right. I haven't used mkdosfs in a while, but the man page agrees with you. :) So what are options 1b and 1c ??? The hidden partition types were introduced by something to hide partitions from the OS. I forget what the something was -- it might have been the Boot Manager that came with OS/2. Some sther software tools followed suit (Partition Magic being one of them). Hiding partitions was needed because some versions of some Microsoft and/or IBM OSes had a terminal brain cramp if they saw more than one primary partition in a format they recognized. I forget which. Prolly Windows 95 or OS/2 2.0 or something like that. It hasn't been a problem in a while. -- Ben ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Free to a good home Dell PRX Advanced Port Replicators (Docking stations)
I have 5 new in the box Dell PRX docking stations. Apparently these are used with a number of Latitude/Inspiron models. On the bottom of the docking stations the model is listed as PRX 7345U. The docking stations come with a Power brick PA-9. -Alex P.S. I live in Manchester for anyone that wants one of these docking stations. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Free to a good home Dell PRX Advanced Port Replicators (Docking stations)
All spoken for (and gone). -Alex On Thu, 2008-04-17 at 13:01 -0400, Alex Hewitt wrote: I have 5 new in the box Dell PRX docking stations. Apparently these are used with a number of Latitude/Inspiron models. On the bottom of the docking stations the model is listed as PRX 7345U. The docking stations come with a Power brick PA-9. -Alex P.S. I live in Manchester for anyone that wants one of these docking stations. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: low power linux PC?
On Mon, 2008-04-07 at 09:37 -0400, Jon 'maddog' Hall wrote: There are a few notebook drive enclosures on the market that work off the power of the USB port with a 2.5 inch disk inside. You have to be careful in the selection of the 2.5 inch drives that you put in the enclosures to have very low power requirements, but you can find 160 GB drives that do work. Then some of the tiny-PC boxes previously mentioned can drive several of these drives, providing a server that can run at very low power, albeit with drives external to the main system box (and the system box might also have its own internal drive). You may want to test one or two external enclosure/drive/tiny-pc combinations, as you are dealing with fairly close tolerances here. I should also mention that if the enclosure/disk combinations need a bit more power most have an axillary power input to get it over the hump, which could be supplied by one power dongle of suitable power output providing the power to all the units at once. You might want to look at the efficiency of these power dongles, however, as some might waste more power than they provide. md As an aside, I noticed that most of the low cost network hardware vendors provide power cubes that are very simple transformer/AC bridge designs or alternatively switched type supplies. The switched types are generally much smaller and more efficient. I have one Netgear VPN router that came with a 12 volt power cube of the former type that must weigh close to a pound. Later models came with a switched variant that may have weighed 3 or 4 ozs. The switched supply also generates less heat. -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: low power linux PC?
On Mon, 2008-04-07 at 11:14 -0400, Alex Hewitt wrote: On Mon, 2008-04-07 at 09:37 -0400, Jon 'maddog' Hall wrote: There are a few notebook drive enclosures on the market that work off the power of the USB port with a 2.5 inch disk inside. You have to be careful in the selection of the 2.5 inch drives that you put in the enclosures to have very low power requirements, but you can find 160 GB drives that do work. Then some of the tiny-PC boxes previously mentioned can drive several of these drives, providing a server that can run at very low power, albeit with drives external to the main system box (and the system box might also have its own internal drive). You may want to test one or two external enclosure/drive/tiny-pc combinations, as you are dealing with fairly close tolerances here. I should also mention that if the enclosure/disk combinations need a bit more power most have an axillary power input to get it over the hump, which could be supplied by one power dongle of suitable power output providing the power to all the units at once. You might want to look at the efficiency of these power dongles, however, as some might waste more power than they provide. md As an aside, I noticed that most of the low cost network hardware vendors provide power cubes that are very simple transformer/AC bridge designs or alternatively switched type supplies. The switched types are generally much smaller and more efficient. I have one Netgear VPN router that came with a 12 volt power cube of the former type that must weigh close to a pound. Later models came with a switched variant that may have weighed 3 or 4 ozs. The switched supply also generates less heat. -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ I believe this item, http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/travelpower/7657/; that measures power consumption might have been discussed on the list before but the same folks now offer a more sophisticated model: http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/travelpower/7acf/ I do endorse the ThinkGeek people. I've bought a number of useful items from them and never had a problem... -Alex P.S. These items are especially useful for sizing UPSs. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: power meters [ was low power linux PC? ]
On Mon, 2008-04-07 at 11:53 -0400, Paul Lussier wrote: Alex Hewitt [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I believe this item, http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/travelpower/7657/; that measures power consumption might have been discussed on the list before but the same folks now offer a more sophisticated model: http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/travelpower/7acf/ I'm curious what the major differences between these two are. The former costs $129.00, the latter $24.99. Is it that the Watt's UP! model records and stores info whereas the Kill'O'Watt merely displays the current stats? The killawatt device just displays accumulated power use and wouldn't provide any kind of histogram. The more expensive device has a USB interface and an accompanying program to record and display power usage. The included program only runs on Windows but presumably if the USB port data could be monitored on a Linux system something similar could be created. -Alex P.S. To come up with meaningful power usage for UPS sizing you would want to drive the load as hard as possible. And, does anyone know of something like this that measures 220VAC as well? (I'd really like to know what my stove and clothes dryer cost me :) ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: server uptime
On Thu, 2008-03-20 at 13:41 -0400, Bill McGonigle wrote: On Mar 19, 2008, at 15:36, Ben Scott wrote: You're obviously not installing all your security updates, then. Both the 2.4 and 2.6 Debian kernels have had security advisories posted within the past two years. Hey, it's possible that Warren's kernel is so old that he doesn't suffer from the vmslice() exploit. :) Seriously, though - check. If `uname -r` = 2.6.17, vmsplice() plus one (e.g.) PHP bug = remote root exploit. That's bad, mmmkay? Perhaps more importantly you're not picking up ext3 bugfixes, the CQF elevator, etc. And somebody around here actually found an old Netware box running in a closet that had been drywalled over 5 years before. It was apparently still serving files and print jobs (they traced the ethernet cable). Maybe instead of uptime it should be renamed to closettime ;^) -Alex -Bill - Bill McGonigle, Owner Work: 603.448.4440 BFC Computing, LLC Home: 603.448.1668 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cell: 603.252.2606 http://www.bfccomputing.com/Page: 603.442.1833 Blog: http://blog.bfccomputing.com/ VCard: http://bfccomputing.com/vcard/bill.vcf ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: server uptime
On Thu, 2008-03-20 at 13:48 -0400, Warren Luebkeman wrote: Nah, we are not vulnerable to that exploit. We do keep tabs on important security issues when they come up. We plan to retire that server pretty soon, although I may leave it running behind the firewall, just to see how long it goes... ;-) Come to think of it, isn't drywall just another name for firewall? -Alex - Original Message - From: Bill McGonigle [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Warren Luebkeman [EMAIL PROTECTED], Benjamin Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Greater NH Linux User Group gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2008 1:41:25 PM (GMT-0500) America/New_York Subject: Re: server uptime On Mar 19, 2008, at 15:36, Ben Scott wrote: You're obviously not installing all your security updates, then. Both the 2.4 and 2.6 Debian kernels have had security advisories posted within the past two years. Hey, it's possible that Warren's kernel is so old that he doesn't suffer from the vmslice() exploit. :) Seriously, though - check. If `uname -r` = 2.6.17, vmsplice() plus one (e.g.) PHP bug = remote root exploit. That's bad, mmmkay? Perhaps more importantly you're not picking up ext3 bugfixes, the CQF elevator, etc. And somebody around here actually found an old Netware box running in a closet that had been drywalled over 5 years before. It was apparently still serving files and print jobs (they traced the ethernet cable). -Bill - Bill McGonigle, Owner Work: 603.448.4440 BFC Computing, LLC Home: 603.448.1668 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cell: 603.252.2606 http://www.bfccomputing.com/Page: 603.442.1833 Blog: http://blog.bfccomputing.com/ VCard: http://bfccomputing.com/vcard/bill.vcf ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
re: server uptime
On Wed, 2008-03-19 at 13:50 -0400, Warren Luebkeman wrote: I am curious how common it is for peoples servers to go extremely long periods of time without crashing/reboot. Our server, running Debian Sarge, which serves our email/web/backups/dns/etc has been running 733 days (two years) without a reboot. Its in an 4U IBM chassis with dual power supplies, which was old when we fired it up (PIII Server). Does anyone have similar uptime on their mission critical servers? Whats the longest uptime someone has had with Windows? ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ DEC had a customer who owned an AlphaServer 2100 for 7 years. In that time the server was rebooted exactly once due to patch kit installation (it ran VMS). In my experience the stability of any system has to do with it's usage. With servers running programs that are reasonably stable up time will certainly be many months and can stretch into years. Any system that for example is running unpredictable loads such as one might find in a time-sharing university setting are less likely to have long uptimes. The bane of server operations are applications with memory leaks. If these apps aren't restricted that will consume all available memory and eventually cause the system to swap it's brains out. User space apps can usually be prevented from taking the system down but a memory leak in a service can easily make the system crash or become unavailable. -Alex P.S. Interesting stats to collect from a system that has a long uptime are the load averages for CPU, memory and I/O. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: kernel bug
On Thu, 2008-02-21 at 10:32 -0500, amc wrote: I did noticed that some of the kernel crashed message had something about ndiswrapper which I am using at the time due to how badly Broadcom works on my laptop. - Original Message - From: amc To: gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2008 10:23 AM Subject: kernel bug I have been getting a strange kernel bug on my laptop from time to time. It doesn't really matter what kernel I use. I upgraded to gentoo-sources- 2.6.23-r8 and the bug says unable to handle kernel paging request at virtual address 80370665 and gave me a lot of call trace info and stack info. this problem only happens when I boot my laptop. not while it is running. anyone else have this problem ? and if so what should I do about it. rebooting the computer usually fixes the problem for the time being. For what it's worth...I have an Averatec 3200 series laptop that get's a paging error on reboot. I only noticed this behavior in Windows XP Pro and pieced together the scenario that made the problem reproduce. The Averatec when it is put into sleep or hibernate has problems with the Windows paging file when it wakes up. I think the paging operation is invalidated most likely due to the time discrepancy between suspending and then re-awakening. If your laptop only has this problem after sleeping that might be your issue too. I think this is probably a hardware issue rather than software (on the Averatec system). -Alex __ ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: ARTICLE - Why the MS Office file formats is so complicated
On Wed, 2008-02-20 at 13:18 -0500, Ben Scott wrote: On Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 11:52 AM, Michael ODonnell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Quite the tangled mess and very hard to write compliant FOSS apps against, but (at least on the surface) apparently not the result of an actively evil intent. A-yup. Lots of people (me included) have been saying that for years. It really comes down to Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. And let's face it, Microsoft has plenty enough stupidity to go around. In many ways, Microsoft suffers from the result as much as others. Can you imagine what having to work with the Windows or Office source code must be like? Code going back decades, much of it poorly documented, coding practices evolving with time and marketing fads, early stuff written by people who clearly had no clue about how to design proper systems... it's a wonder it works at all. (One could argue it doesn't.) One of the original goals in Vista was to replace the legacy code still doing important stuff. After struggling for two years, they *gave up*. Microsoft's can afford more resources that just about any software development effort, and they still couldn't figure it out. A friend of ours wrote a bunch of recipe files using something called Microsoft Write. Files created with that tool have a .wri extension. Theoretically Microsoft Word is supposed to be able to read such files but I found that the version I was using (Word 2003) wouldn't. So I opened a few of the files with a binary editor and found that every file had an 84 hex byte prefix, the file itself in ASCII, a series of bytes again in non-ASCII, followed by a repeat of some of the original ASCII. Writing a filter in Python was trivial and I was able to convert the files to plain text. Of course some of the lines were no run-on but overall the cleanup was simple. But the interesting thing was that I couldn't easily find a Microsoft tool that understood the format which originated with Windows 95 or an earlier version of Windows. Along the way Microsoft had basically given up on the format. I'm sure somewhere there is a tool that can read those files short of the original platform but we're only talking about perhaps a ten year span since the files were created and now are not readily readable. -Alex Of course, many people still put their critical data in that mess. Now *that's* scary. gulp -- Ben ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: ARTICLE - Why the MS Office file formats is so complicated
On Wed, 2008-02-20 at 17:23 -0500, Ben Scott wrote: On Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 3:58 PM, Alex Hewitt [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: A friend of ours wrote a bunch of recipe files using something called Microsoft Write. Yah, Windows Write is/was one of the accessories that came with Windows 3.x. It morphed into WordPad in Windows 95 and later. WordPad still exists. It won't write the Write (hah) format anymore, but it can read it, and save in some variant of the RTF format. Theoretically Microsoft Word is supposed to be able to read such files but I found that the version I was using (Word 2003) wouldn't. Curious. My install of Word 2003 can. Are you sure you installed all the import/export filters? If you did a Minimal or Custom install (instead of the mondo-huge Full), I don't think those are all included by default. I sit corrected! ;^) Word 2003 complains about the file saying in effect this might be a virus but I have a converter that will convert it and it does. I think the original reason I wrote the filter was because our friend didn't have Word and I didn't want to manually edit her 83 files. I'll see if Word can be called from the command line to do the converting. -Alex Writing a filter in Python was trivial and I was able to convert the files to plain text. For future reference, the strings(1) command can be used to much the same effect. ... the file itself in ASCII, a series of bytes again in non-ASCII, followed by a repeat of some of the original ASCII. That sounds very similar to the MS Word .DOC format, and I bet they're related. DOC files do not interleave the formatting with the text, as (for example) HTML or Word Perfect did. Instead, all the plain text is stored in one blob, and then the formatting information is stored in a different blob. The formatting directives have pointers to the position of the text they effect. The repeat you describe is not actually a repeat, but a follow-on save. Word and friends work in an interesting fashion. You open the file, and it loads the base text blob described above. You start making your changes. Those changes go into an undo buffer. That undo buffer is actually backstored on the disk in temporary files. (That's why a directory containing Word files people are busy editing accumulates lots of odd temp files until they close the original.) When you invoke Save, the undo buffer -- essentially like a diff -- gets tacked on to the end of the main file. This made saves fast on slow computers already overburdened by Microsoft bloatware. Loads were slower, of course, but the reasoning was that people care about save speed more than load speed.As you can imagine, if there are lots of saves, rebuilding the text is not so easy as running strings(1) on it. In Word, if you turn off Fast Saves, it writes out a full, unified version of the text instead. This became the default at some point -- I have no idea when. But the interesting thing was that I couldn't easily find a Microsoft tool that understood the format which originated with Windows 95 or an earlier version of Windows. Start - Programs - Accessories - WordPad My copy of Win XP Pro opens .WRI files automatically in WordPad. I just double-click the file. WordPad is an optional component for Windows. Perhaps the computer was installed with a minimalist attitude, so various optional tools were not there when you needed them? -- Ben ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: ARTICLE - Why the MS Office file formats is so complicated
On Wed, 2008-02-20 at 17:23 -0500, Ben Scott wrote: On Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 3:58 PM, Alex Hewitt [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: A friend of ours wrote a bunch of recipe files using something called Microsoft Write. Yah, Windows Write is/was one of the accessories that came with Windows 3.x. It morphed into WordPad in Windows 95 and later. WordPad still exists. It won't write the Write (hah) format anymore, but it can read it, and save in some variant of the RTF format. Theoretically Microsoft Word is supposed to be able to read such files but I found that the version I was using (Word 2003) wouldn't. Curious. My install of Word 2003 can. Are you sure you installed all the import/export filters? If you did a Minimal or Custom install (instead of the mondo-huge Full), I don't think those are all included by default. As usual Ben, you're right. I just tried to read these files again with Word and it can read them. I'll see if there's a way to read/convert these files from a batch job. There are 83 files and I'd hate to need to process them one at a time. -Alex P.S. Kind of takes the fun out of heckling Ben ;^) Writing a filter in Python was trivial and I was able to convert the files to plain text. For future reference, the strings(1) command can be used to much the same effect. ... the file itself in ASCII, a series of bytes again in non-ASCII, followed by a repeat of some of the original ASCII. That sounds very similar to the MS Word .DOC format, and I bet they're related. DOC files do not interleave the formatting with the text, as (for example) HTML or Word Perfect did. Instead, all the plain text is stored in one blob, and then the formatting information is stored in a different blob. The formatting directives have pointers to the position of the text they effect. The repeat you describe is not actually a repeat, but a follow-on save. Word and friends work in an interesting fashion. You open the file, and it loads the base text blob described above. You start making your changes. Those changes go into an undo buffer. That undo buffer is actually backstored on the disk in temporary files. (That's why a directory containing Word files people are busy editing accumulates lots of odd temp files until they close the original.) When you invoke Save, the undo buffer -- essentially like a diff -- gets tacked on to the end of the main file. This made saves fast on slow computers already overburdened by Microsoft bloatware. Loads were slower, of course, but the reasoning was that people care about save speed more than load speed.As you can imagine, if there are lots of saves, rebuilding the text is not so easy as running strings(1) on it. In Word, if you turn off Fast Saves, it writes out a full, unified version of the text instead. This became the default at some point -- I have no idea when. But the interesting thing was that I couldn't easily find a Microsoft tool that understood the format which originated with Windows 95 or an earlier version of Windows. Start - Programs - Accessories - WordPad My copy of Win XP Pro opens .WRI files automatically in WordPad. I just double-click the file. WordPad is an optional component for Windows. Perhaps the computer was installed with a minimalist attitude, so various optional tools were not there when you needed them? -- Ben ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Negroponte, OLPC, AAAS, obese electronics
On Tue, 2008-02-19 at 15:20 -0500, Ben Scott wrote: On Feb 19, 2008 2:43 PM, Neil Joseph Schelly [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: These arguments never go anywhere. It takes two to tango. ;-) If you don't like the lame, quibbling arguments, don't participate in them. Nobody's making you hit Reply. Not even Microsoft. ;-) They don't make it more complex, expensive, or any of that. They do indeed make it more complex. How much varies from phone to phone. To spin it with PHB buzzwords, TCO keeps increasing, even though purchase price remains the same. A frequent complaint I hear from the 30 or so mobile phone users at work is that their new phone is over-complicated. They'd rather a simpler device that worked better. But those don't sell as well to the general population. Marketing works. I suppose you could say people deserve what they get, but it's annoying for those of us who can see beyond the sales display. . . . Of course one thing worse than overly complicated phones is having the carrier deliberately cripple the phone unless you buy extra services from them. That seems to be a specialty of my carrier, Verizon, but I'm sure others do similar things so that the phone for example can only send pictures to another of the carrier's phones or the bluetooth support doesn't allow you to access the storage in the phone. Cute tricks that make a complicated product more complicated. -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Fix for vmsplice exploit...
Just after I turned on my Ubuntu 7.10 laptop this morning the update manager informed me of a fix for the vmsplice exploit. The description: The vmsplice_to_pipe function in Linux kernel 2.6.17 through 2.6.24.1 does not validate a certain userspace pointer before dereference, which allows local users to gain root privileges via crafted arguments in a vmsplice system call, a different vulnerability than CVE-2008-0009 and CVE-2008-0010. After rebooting I confirmed the fix by re-running the roothole program which failed. The output: ~$ ./roothole --- Linux vmsplice Local Root Exploit By qaaz --- [+] mmap: 0x0 .. 0x1000 [+] page: 0x0 [+] page: 0x20 [+] mmap: 0x4000 .. 0x5000 [+] page: 0x4000 [+] page: 0x4020 [+] mmap: 0x1000 .. 0x2000 [+] page: 0x1000 [+] mmap: 0xb7d82000 .. 0xb7db4000 [-] vmsplice: Bad address $ -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Free computer needs a new home
On Tue, 2008-02-12 at 08:52 -0500, Ted Roche wrote: I recently upgraded Dad's computer and have his old one to repurpose. It's a seven- or eight-year-old box, so it's no screamer but if you had a use for an older machine (second office machine, little LAMP server, etc.) this could fill the bill. It was a single-owner machine, literally run by grandparents who turned it on a couple hours a week to check their AOL email over dial-up and to look at pictures of their grandkids. Hard disk drives have been updated, and a LinkSys Ethernet card added. The modem was removed to install in their new machine. So you're saying it only has 100,000,000 cycles on the CPU. There's no blue smoke coming out of the exhaust and it's only been used on Sunday to view the church services? ;^) -Alex If you'd like it, let me know. You can pick it up in Contoocook, or I can drag it along to a LUG meeting. Dell Dimension L550r PIII-550 512 Mb RAM Hewlett-Packard 32x CD Writer Plus 9500 10 Gb Western Digital WD102BA 30 Gb Western Digital WD300BB USB, serial, Parallel Intel 810e VGA video Ensoniq E1371 sound Dell QuietKey keyboard Logitech PS/2 mouse w/roller ball Designed for Windows 2000 Pro/NT 4 Workstation/Windows 98 HDD's have been scrubbed of all traces of data. A clean version of Kubuntu 7.10 Desktop is installed. No monitor. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: 2.6 kernel local-user root privilege hole
On Mon, 2008-02-11 at 08:11 -0500, Ben Scott wrote: On Feb 10, 2008 9:36 PM, Dan Miller [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I wonder if 64 bit is immune. I don't understand the details of the code, but I see some hard-coded values and a lot of assembler. Many exploits depend on things like buffer sizes and offsets, so switching to a different word size may mean the code would need to be tweaked. Or maybe vmsplice has a completely different implementation on x86-64. Interestingly I built and ran the code on my Ubuntu 7.10 system. As Bill stated I got a root terminal window. However, within a couple of minutes my system froze and I wasn't able to get it's attention again. Coincidentally the system announced that updates were available and it was within a few seconds of the update starting that the system went out to lunch. So I guess it's possible that the exploit trashes one or more system structures. Still, you could use the root window to elevate the privileges of an otherwise non-privileged account while the system was still runnable. -Alex -- Ben ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: (Off Topic) Windoze spam and corruption
On Mon, 2008-02-11 at 12:21 -0500, Lloyd Kvam wrote: On Mon, 2008-02-11 at 10:16 -0500, Ben Scott wrote: (I agree with Ben, but am adding a little commentary.) On Feb 11, 2008 8:55 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have a Win XP machine that is terribly infested (Ugh!) The only way to say for sure is to boot from trusted media and run your investigations from there. One item I've found very useful for this is a small cable/USB interface you can buy that let's you easily slave the hard drive from a PC and perform your scans from a known good system. Here are pointers to one of these devices: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812156101 The small power cube that comes with the cable has enough juice to run most 3.5 inch drives although I've found a few that wouldn't spin up. You can also just plug in the cable to the drive and leave the power connector plugged into the PC that it's running in. You plug the USB end of the cable into the PC that you want to do your scanning from. -Alex I've had some success over the years with Knoppix and now Fedora Live CD's. You'll need enough ram to update the virus scanning software and signature files and will need to enable write access to the Windows filesystem. The last time someone brought me a problem Windows box, its scans pronounced it clean, but monitoring the network showed lots of extraneous traffic. Clam flagged the swap file (pagefile.sys), among others (which the windows scan had also reported and cleaned). After removing the swap file and scrubbing the other files, the system booted cleanly in Windows and no problem traffic was detected on the network. While my last and most effective option is to wipe drive and reinstall Windoze, ... I'd argue your last and most effective option is to wipe the drive and install Linux. I'm not being a wise-guy, either. Generally speaking, there are satisfactory solutions for most of the But I need Windows ... objections, and Linux can make one's life a lot better. Big companies have to worry about all sorts of inertia, but single-users can often switch easily. This group is full of people eager to help with such endevors. A couple of years ago when my daughter complained about having her computer infested yet again, she finally agreed to try Linux. That's worked OK. It took a while to get the media stuff working to her satisfaction (watching DVD's, playing MP3 files, etc.), stuff I'd never been terribly concerned about. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Small business backups solutions?
On Tue, 2008-02-05 at 10:18 -0500, Ben Scott wrote: On Feb 5, 2008 9:24 AM, Dan Coutu [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have a small client (30 employees) using Linux servers that is struggling to find a robust and reliable backup solution that provides bare-metal recovery capability without costing over $10K. tar provides bare-metal recovery and is free and reliable. :) The primary challenge so far has been hardware. They used to use 30Gb tapes but now that the servers are bigger this doesn't work. You can get a LTO-4 drive from Dell for $3200. 400 GB native (uncompressed) capacity. Tapes are around $110 ($0.275/GB). Alternatively, the external hard drive solution is popular. With 750 GB disks going for $160 ($0.213/GB), they're cheaper than tape, even with the cost of the enclosure. And eSATA can be pretty darn fast. And then you just need rsync or even cp instead of tar. The downside to using external hard drives is the possibility of a primary failure only to discover that the backup disk is bad. For really important data (is there any other kind?) you'd want to duplicate the backup drive. We do this when we want to make sure there is a zero possibility of losing the customer's data. Given the low cost of disks and the backup speed I think using external hard drives make a lot of sense. -Alex P.S. Amanda has been discussed on this list before but the Amanda chapter from the book UNIX Backup and Recovery by W. Curtis Preston is online here: http://www.backupcentral.com/components/com_mambowiki/index.php/AMANDA I've tried to use the Iomega REV ... In my experience, IOMega makes crap and always has. I know this because I own several of their products, and have worked with hundreds more. -- Ben ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Small business backups solutions?
On Tue, 2008-02-05 at 11:09 -0500, Ben Scott wrote: On Feb 5, 2008 10:35 AM, Kenny Lussier [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: You can get a LTO-4 drive from Dell for $3200. 400 GB native (uncompressed) capacity. Tapes are around $110 ($0.275/GB). Um I LTO4 is supposed todo 800GB uncompressed. Oh, you're right. I had just checked quickly, and the page said 800 GB with a footnote. I just assumed they were doing the typical marketing thing (i.e., lying), and cut the number in half. Turns out they were being honest; the footnote is about 1 GB = 10^9. Color me surprised. Sorry for the bad information. So that means $0.138/GB. So tape is still cheaper than disk. (For the media. Factor in the tape drive... not so much.) It's been my experience that these tape drives (and I'm not necessarily talking about this specific model) last about 3 years or so. At that point you either need to buy a replacement or have the thing refurbished which seems to cost about half price. Not only that but you really need to pay attention to the tapes malfunctioning because these guys are usually set up with minimal user intervention. Customers typically are clueless that their tape systems are starting to fall apart and it can be going on for a while before the IT staff is notified or trips over a log that indicates problems are cropping up. -Alex With 750 GB disks going for $160 ($0.213/GB) even with the cost of the enclosure. And eSATA can be pretty darn fast. And then you just need rsync or even cp instead of tar. You can get 1TB drives (SATA) for around $250. Right, but that's $0.25/GB. Smaller disks are cheaper, unless your data set is only just over 750 GB and not expected to grow. -- Ben ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Small business backups solutions?
On Tue, 2008-02-05 at 13:00 -0500, Lloyd Kvam wrote: On Tue, 2008-02-05 at 12:16 -0500, Kenny Lussier wrote: Well, the problem with disk to disk in general is that the space is finite. I think a second problem with backing up to disk is that it's generally on-site and vulnerable to fires and other threats to the original data. If you have the bandwidth to backup to remote disks, then you might choose to live with the finite disk space. Otherwise I think you need backup media that can be stored off-site. When it's appropriate (the customer hasn't got terabytes of storage) I have them purchase a 2.5 inch USB hard drive. They typically weigh 5 - 8 ozs. Today, Overstock.com has a Western Digital Passport 250 GB external hard drive for $139.95. The customer has a regular backup running overnight and when they come to work they run a small script which transfers the backup to the removable hard drive. They take it with them when they leave at the end of the day. These drives although reasonably rugged can't take a drop while they're spinning. Furthermore I've had one customer kick the USB connector (it was plugged into the front of the system) and smoke the drive. On the other hand I've got a customer who has been using the same small hard drive for about 3 years without problems. Given how inexpensive these drives are they are certainly cheap enough to replace should they be lost or damaged. One other caveat is that the backup should be encrypted if there is really sensitive data stored. -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Can a browser based application write to files on a local hard disk?
On Thu, 2008-01-31 at 09:32 -0500, Ben Scott wrote: On Jan 31, 2008 8:24 AM, Tom Buskey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: TiddlyWiki Which requires endlessly clicking Allow to save changes (at least five times just now -- I gave up after that), or remembering the decision to turn off the JavaScript sandbox for all local HTML files (a security risk, and one I would consider fairly significant for most users) IIRC, Firefox complained the first couple of times but then offered an allow for this file option. It's a pain but so far this is the only way I've found that works across platforms and doesn't require the installation of libraries or other tools. -Alex -- Ben ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Can a browser based application write to files on a local hard disk?
On Tue, 2008-01-29 at 21:52 -0500, Ben Scott wrote: On Jan 29, 2008 12:12 AM, H. K. Bemis [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Am I missing why a db is out of the question? It sounds like Alex is intending to distribute a self-hosted package which runs entirely on the user's computer. HTTP might not even be involved. So despite the use of a web browser, it will be more like a traditional software package than modern web apps which are part product and part service. -- Ben That's definitely what I had in mind. I don't want a potential user of the program to install anything beyond downloading the program itself. One issue of course would be someone deliberately replacing my program with something nefarious but I could put up a warning about where the user got the program etc.. Not that most Windows users pay attention to that stuff but you can only try. ;^) -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Can a browser based application write to files on a local hard disk?
Scenario: Need a web application which collects user data that needs to be stored on the user's local hard disk. Which tools can do this? I know that web site based applications are usually prevented from writing to the user's local hard disk but I would prefer that any user data be kept local to the user rather than stored on my web site. The reasons are obvious - I don't want to be responsible for the user's data and I'd like to be able to say We don't have access to your private information because we don't store it on our web site. Ideas? -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Can a browser based application write to files on a local hard disk?
On Mon, 2008-01-28 at 13:19 -0500, Alex Hewitt wrote: The program is just a program that keeps track of diet data. So the person would be recording their weight and the date it was taken. As such it really doesn't need anything as complicated as a database. A simple text file would do. The thing is I'm not the least bit interested in who the person is or what weight data they enter. But of course if the person wants to track this data they would probably be upset if it got lost. The reason I thought about using a browser based application is precisely to avoid having the user need to download an application that might depend on anything beyond the browser itself. -Alex P.S. I'd probably have a how it works section that would describe the format of the data, where it is stored etc.. . . . Bill Freeman gave me an off-list pointer to something called TiddlyWiki. You can see it at this url: http://www.tiddlywiki.com/ Very nifty! -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Can a browser based application write to files on a local hard disk?
On Mon, 2008-01-28 at 17:23 -0500, Ben Scott wrote: On Jan 28, 2008 5:05 PM, Alex Hewitt [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If I take the TiddlyWiki approach, the data will be on their system in the form of a web page which they will be modifying. Under those circumstances they own the whole enchilada. That doesn't matter; it will still be your fault. (I wish I was kidding.) Definitely not paying customers. Ahhh. That makes it s much easier. :-) End users usually don't back up anything. Yup! And in addition to the IT magician, they will also blame whatever person/company wrote the software. What?!? I paid all this money for this software and now you're telling me my data is gone?!? ~sigh~ It certainly is painful. People won't take any responsibility for their own actions or in-actions. It may take 72 point blinking warnings but if that's what it takes... We use open source software everyday and I almost never hear of anyone getting sued unless it's something stupid like the patent troll companies or one big company being egged on to go after others under frivolous circumstances. -Alex -- Ben ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Can a browser based application write to files on a local hard disk?
On Mon, 2008-01-28 at 17:23 -0500, Ben Scott wrote: On Jan 28, 2008 5:05 PM, Alex Hewitt [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If I take the TiddlyWiki approach, the data will be on their system in the form of a web page which they will be modifying. Under those circumstances they own the whole enchilada. That doesn't matter; it will still be your fault. (I wish I was kidding.) Definitely not paying customers. Ahhh. That makes it s much easier. :-) End users usually don't back up anything. Yup! And in addition to the IT magician, they will also blame whatever person/company wrote the software. What?!? I paid all this money for this software and now you're telling me my data is gone?!? ~sigh~ -- Ben We have a guy here in Manchester who thinks he's a psychic. He's gotten smart though. He now advertises his reading sessions as entertainment. That way people can't go after him because he told them to do something and they got hurt because they took him seriously. Maybe we need to do something along those lines with software. -Alex ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
