Re: OT 1TB pata drives?
On Sat 07 Aug 2010 10:57:05 NZST +1200, Nick Rout wrote: Any particular card you recommend (or that I should avoid). I saw a via card on trademe and thought it best to avoid that baby! I don't have first-hand experience with pci-e, sorry, but as a rule, for sata cards I would try hard to pick a chipset that supports hotswap properly. By that I don't mean will blow up, none will do that, but will generate proper signals so the kernel can take the drive offline. Just like the USB sticks. Check this: http://ata.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/SATA_hardware_features When it works properly you can just pull the sata data cable off the mobo, and plug it back in 10 seconds later and have your disk back. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: OT 1TB pata drives?
On Fri 06 Aug 2010 18:37:50 NZST +1200, Nick Rout wrote: What gives? Can anyone point me to a source (chc preferably, nz otherwise) of 1TB (or bigger) pata drives? Maybe they can't satisfy demand and are producing the mainstream items first? Check pricespry, if nothing else they have a good list of suppliers. I guess my other alternative is to get a pci-e sata card and sata drives. Which might actually come cheaper anyway, times when PATA and SATA where the same price are past. And you can reuse the drive when you upgrade your mythbox. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: Migration of linux-users to Mailman
On Wed 04 Aug 2010 14:28:44 NZST +1200, Dan Hawke wrote: The main visible user change will be the addition of: [Linux-users] To the subject line of all emails. Can you turn this nonsense off in mailman, please? It means changing the default setting. I too would like to add my thanks to the UoC for hosting this mailing list for the past 15 years. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: getting an old distro to install from the files
On Sat 17 Jul 2010 23:56:48 NZST +1200, Kevin and Litesha Maher wrote: If I have all the files for a distro, how do I install that distro if the files are on a partition, and not a bootable CD? To explain the situation... way back in 2002 I was running SuSE 8.2 that a mate of mine had bought, and quite liked it. I've managed to find it online and downloaded it (3.2 GB worth), and would like to install it on my computer for old time's sake but don't know how to install it with just the files. I've installed a few versions of Linux enough times to know what options to choose, how to partition the drive, etc, but that's always been from an iso file burnt onto a CD. You'll probably save yourself some time if you just copy the ISO instead. You can take a copy of my disks (1 DVD or 5 CDs), and you can have a copy of the updates too. Your next option is to boot the network install ISO, aaand point the installer at your copy of the installation files. There were always multiple options for where the installation files could be located, CD/DVD was obviously one of them, but ISO file on local disk, http, ftp, and directory on local disk all exist. I don't remember whether SuSE 8.2 offered all of them, and which of those offered actually worked. You will need a copy of the net install ISO (prob about 40-50MB) and burn that to a CD. You can probably use any one of approximately the same age, like 8.1 or 9.0, but don't quote me on that. It is esssential that your copy of the installation files has the same directory layout as their installation CD/DVD has. Before you copy all 5 CDs on top of each other I suggest you start with the first only, then install missing packages once your system is up and running. In theory you should be able to install a system from the files you have, but you may have to work out exactly how the installer works and then assemble an environment in which that will start up and continue. Or maybe the easiest would be to create a bootable CD/DVD from the files you have, i.e. massage them back into an ISO. You'll need to work out the correct opttions for mkisofs to do that, but assuming you have a complete and accurate copy of all the files, this method will work. to know how do I turn the key in the ignition so to speak? I'm familiar with Windows (apologies if that word offends anyone) so is there some equivalent of setup.exe? I am not sure that you can install doze by running a setup.exe which happens to be on a CD. What do you have already running at the time you start setup? Nothing? No doulbe clicking then. A full doze? WHy install it again then? It doesn't make sense in doze or linux. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: OT: Help with Damaged data on a hard drive
On Sat 10 Jul 2010 12:37:22 NZST +1200, Daniel Hill wrote: Sounds to me like the disk is dead because it's got read error, not because the sata plug broke. No amount of data damage you can do with a broken plug would affect read performance with dd once you connect it up properly. You don't even need ddrescue. If you haven't yet done so, do that now and start again. If the disk had read errors (average 1MB/s sounds rather like it) then technically you run rescue operations on a copy of a ddrescue copy. If you don't have the space you get only 2 goes (one on the first copy, one on the bad disk). Buy another disk if it's important. You can find out if the disk has surface errors by running the smartctl command of the smartmontools package. Note that if you connect the disk through anything involving USB then you need an adapter which is designed properly, and a rather recent version of smartmontools. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: CLUG meetings
On Sat 10 Jul 2010 12:42:43 NZST +1200, Daniel Hill wrote: Some local *nix users meet on the first Wednesday of each month (i.e. tomorrow) at 7.30pm-9.30pm in the South Learning Centre at South Library on Colombo Street in Beckenham (use the rear door). Can some one confirm this? I though they canceled it? There is no CLUG. Those meetings one might have called CLUG meetings petered out due to lack of interest. Rik's meeting is something of his own doing entirely, if he says it takes place it probably will as he's running it. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: Identify all installed packages in Ubuntu?
On Sat 19 Jun 2010 12:27:11 NZST +1200, Andrew Sands wrote: I need to know what I installed on the family 9.10 before upgrading to 10.04 LTS. Otherwise the signal-to-noise ratio will be real bad in my ear for the next week if I miss something out. Well can't you just get the list of installed packages? Save that someplace. If you installed anything outside of your package manager (and then don't remember what it was) you deserve all the noise you're going to get. IIRC the command was dpkg -l It is probably not a good idea to just feed this list into the package installer of the new version, because some packages may have changed name, some may have been superseeded, so thinking is still needed. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: LaTeX problem - square brackets
On Mon 14 Jun 2010 11:00:18 NZST +1200, Ross Drummond wrote:
Calling all TeXperts.
How do I enclose text within square brackets?
\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
Some [text enclosed in brackets] works just fine.
\end{document}
Yawn.
Volker
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Volker Kuhlmann
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Re: Kiwi Online
On Tue 15 Jun 2010 07:09:44 NZST +1200, chris wrote: If you are using the internal winmodem with that driver, it is normally /dev/modem No, that depends on the driver of the particular losemodem you are using. /dev/SL is probably a dumblink (in the docs mentioned as smartlink). Losemodems are almost always a waste of time, especially these days, when barely anyone uses them any more and the binary-only drivers are no longer supported by the modem chip makers and are unmaintainable by open source kernel programmers. If you can't replace your losemodem with a real modem, ensure you work out what the problem is in two separate steps, in this order. 1. Establish that you get a carrier. Use a terminal program of your choice (minicom, cu (part of uucp, you can't run this as root), whatever) and issue the correct AT commands with your keyboard. Vary the modem init string as necesssary, then dial the ISP number and see if the modem reports CONNECT some number. If not, your modem isn't working. As modem means piece of lousy hardware combined with piece of lousy driver (and the two are inseparable), draw your own conclusions and get a real modem. In my experience it is also almost always necessary to reduce the reporting level from X4 to something like X2, or the modem doesn't recognise the dial tone and doesn't proceed. Fix all this up first, *then* 2. Check your login to your ISP is working. Do this with a terminal program and follow the ISP prompts. That will also confirm you are entering your user name and password as your ISP wants it. When that is working, plonk all the (now verified correct) strings into wvdial, and test id that makes a connection too. kinternet and smpppd are superb for this. And did I mention that with a losemodem, don't be surprised if you don't get past 1.? HTH, Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: Is there such a distro?
On Thu 03 Jun 2010 16:03:38 NZST +1200, Nick Rout wrote: physical access means root access! Only if you can boot from CD/USB stick (which any lab admin has disabled), or if you manage to disassemble the computer while the lab admin looks at you holding his baseball bat. Good luck. On the list of reasons why you couldn't possibly afford a root password on a lab computer is pretty darn silly, which haven't been mentioned: * The admin might have a very good reason to need or want it. * If your root password can be brute-forced during a lab class, you sure didn't deserve any better anyway. * It's a research institution, so playing with the security system where the potential damage is marginal is part of the game. I know admins who just shrug their shoulders for this very reason, as long as no actual damage takes place. * Did someone go there to get a degree, or to be kicked off campus by the acceptable use policy? But the most annoying thing about sudo is the crowd of Buntunistas(TM) who think everyone absolutely has to use it everytime everywhere just because it's the default for their favourite distro, when benefits are at best arguable and at worst a security problem. It's a tool. It gets used when and if it gives a useful return. Just like with any other tool. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: Is there such a distro?
On Thu 03 Jun 2010 10:04:25 NZST +1200, aidal...@no8wireless.co.nz wrote: By the way, it's only five extra keystrokes to prefix a command with sudo . And exactly why do you think commands are called mv, rm, and ls? ;-) Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: Is there such a distro?
On Tue 01 Jun 2010 12:39:09 NZST +1200, Hadley Rich wrote: Even more useful is sudo sux sux sux: Command not found. sux was deprecated some while ago. It's now integrated in su, and runs xauth somehow via pam. A ~/.xauth... is created. It Just Works(TM). which gives root the ability to open gui tools. I always take that for granted. (Assuming local user login, not ssh.) `gksu gedit` gksu gksu: Command not found. Ok so can you make do without a root password, but I still don't see why I have to and remain not to be interested. Each to their own. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: Is there such a distro?
On Mon 31 May 2010 12:27:38 NZST +1200, Nick Rout wrote: You don't need a root password. Ubuntu proves that. No it doesn't. It only proves that granny doesn't need to do root operation. And it's the very first thing I always fix on those systems, as I refuse to be forced to prefix everything I do with sudo. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: Is there such a distro?
On Mon 31 May 2010 20:56:00 NZST +1200, Hadley Rich wrote: `man sudo` shows that you can use `sudo -i` or `sudo -s` Yes, useful - thanks! Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: big mail problem
On Fri 28 May 2010 20:27:08 NZST +1200, Wesley Parish wrote: agreement with TelstraClear. There was one email - no. 159 - that was clearly over 5MB, that took most of an hour to download. When I came to look for it, intending of course to send its author a thick ear, I couldn't find it anywhere in kmail. Never mind. kmail is not the most reliable when it comes to indexing mail, but then I use it with mbox, which it is clearly not supporting well, e.g. it's unable to work our reliably when an mbox file has changed and therefore needs to be re-indexed, let alone locking the file when it modifies it. You failed to say what your mailstore is. Local disk? IMAP? By default, kmail stores everything under ~/.kde (it's easy to find), and like every other semi-modern MUA, i.e. one with a GUI, treats your mail as its private property to be guarded jealously from your tinkering. Firstly, is there a handy grep script that can search through MBOXes? Yes. At the shell prompt, type g r e p, followed by something smart, like a substring of the subject line. There's a faster way for you: use grepmail. There's an even faster way for you: use mutt -f. It's a workhorse as reliable as any you can get, and it never EVER fails. By comparison, you can kick all the good-looking stuff half way to inter-galactic space. Choose between easy to use and works well. Sad, but true. Secondly, this smells like an attack vector. Download an invisible file through a visible email that deletes itself Does kmail have the kind of vulnerability that would allow the installation of a privilege-excalating binary? Nobody knows, but historically it hasn't featured on the walls of shame, or not much that I remember anyway. Thirdly, I was going directly in downloading my email, because of the major problems I have had with Telecom's lines being unreliable, thus making it difficult to sanitise my email by looking through the webmail interface. [Telecom bla bla deleted] It's called fetchmail. Coupled with procmail and someone with a computer-clue it pretty rocks. Works better with a permanent connection though. I have a script which wraps fetchmail, and runs when *I* say it (not fetchmail wants to), and which carefully logs fetchmail's activity. Happy to give out copies BUT it's not in releasable state, i.e. needs local adaptation work (mainly editing constants). Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: Kmail not loading
On Sat 29 May 2010 11:06:47 NZST +1200, dave wrote: OS starts and I've signed in load kmail once loaded it tries to connect to the server. at some point it crashes! sig 6 pid whatever it was Signal 6 is abort, something tells kmail to abort. Could also be a network issue. And is the crash after/while contacting the mail server, or before? The difference is quite important. kmail stores files in these places (warning KDE 3, KDE 4 may be different): ~/.kde/share/apps/kmail/ ~/.kde/share/config/kmail.eventsrc ~/.kde/share/config/kmailrc ~/.kde/share/config/kmailsnippetrc Plus the default mail store is somewhere, but I can't tell you where because I always put it where I want it. You could rename all of those (search for anything containing kmail in its name, under ~/.kde/, or whereever your distro puts the user kde files). MAKE DAMN SURE kmail is not running at the time! Then set up the mail account again in kmail. TO revert, make sure kmail is not running, delete the new stuff and rename the old one back. Your contacts etc will be in one of those files. Your old email will be someplace too, you can easily feed that into thunderbird, but you'll need to convert it to mbox format first if it isn't (the default for kmail is not mbox). You can concatenate all the email files into one file, EXCEPT the leading From line (that's not the From: line!) is probably missing. The best way to reconstruct that is to run every mail file through formail -b before concatenating them into a single mbox file. Note this may scramble your received times, try formail -b -a Date: to fix that. And -a Date: may scramble your From dates, try running the output of that through formail -b again, before concatenation. Use mutt -f to check your mbox file. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: 17th May...
On Tue 27 Apr 2010 16:49:20 NZST +1200, Steve Holdoway wrote: Cue a colourful trip to the Twisted Hop??? I assume you're not suggesting technicolor yawns?? ;-) Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: serious X problem
On Fri 23 Apr 2010 17:08:33 NZST +1200, Barry wrote: Every time I try to view any movie X crashes requiring a restart and sometimes locks the kbd. This happens with mplayer and vlc. It follows a clean install of Mandriva2009.1 The only msg I have is 'Unsupported pixel format' but can not find anything in the logs after restarting As others have pointed out, the root cause of your problem is one of two: 1) Your distro ships broken X drivers or a broken xorg. No application should cause your xorg to crash no matter what pile of dirt data it shoves at it. This is not a recommendation for your xorg version or the xorg driver version for your video hardware. File a bug report with your distro. An X crash is a serious bug, what you've been running is irrelevant except for debugging. It is possible the xorg bug is only triggered by using certain features of it, and it may be that only some (specifically video playing) applications use these broken features. This is assuming our xorg actually crashes - use ps after a crash to check. If only mplayerCo crash, your xorg still runs but may become unusable (which I count as an xorg or general Linux bug too). 2) Your hardware is broken, but the problem mainly only shows when using some xorg features but not others. Perhaps it's even bad RAM, and the bad area is only used when you play videos. Many possibilities exist. It can be rather difficult to distinguish between 1) and 2). Saying the same distro works on another PC doesn't tell you that your xorg has no problems if the PC has different graphics hardware. Nick gave you some good advice for capturing the crash output. Start the program from a text console instead, and/or redirect its output to file. Use strace and ltrace. If your X app causes your xorg to crash, you need to trace xorg. Either way, I expect you're either going to be fixing your hardware or be waiting for your distro vendor to supply fixed software. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: Print large image across multiple sheets
On Sun 28 Mar 2010 19:15:06 NZDT +1300, Roy Britten wrote: I have a largish (~12000 pixels square) image that I want to print at a defined scale across multiple sheets. I'm comfortable using Image Magick to split the image into appropriately-sized chunks, but am at a bit of a loss when it comes to forcing 300dpi at printing time. You are looking for the netpbm package. The command arguments are a bit of PITA though, you get the distinct impression it was designed by Americans. You may create PostScript first, which doesn't matter because you can convert that to PDF easily. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: OT: Telecom Proxy servers?
On Sat 06 Mar 2010 18:48:20 NZDT +1300, aaron mcewan wrote: Telstra subject their cable customers to a transparent proxy as well. Their proxy behaves when told to get the uncached version of an object thankfully. and if you gather evidence of it stuffing up things they will put that site on a bypass list (it took some convincing though... ) Very annoying with sites which use the user's IP address as one identification of the user. Every few pages you get logged out because a different one of Telstra's proxies handled the traffic. Haven't seen that one in years though - either websites have changed, or Telstra got their act together and don't rotate the server-side IP of their proxy(ies) so often. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: cable testing?
On Thu 04 Mar 2010 14:30:48 NZDT +1300, Craig Falconer wrote: Secondly - if you fasten the new wire to the old wire and pull it through, then there's no need to go under the house again. If the first attempt broke the cable by pulling it hard around some sharp corners, you'll be wasting your time and your cable trying to do the same thing again. Only the crawling approach will work. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: cable testing?
On Thu 04 Mar 2010 16:24:02 NZDT +1300, Nick Rout wrote: How do you tell the difference? Without trying to be funny - you read the label. Someone should tell DSE to label theirs properly then! Correct, and the best way to achieve this is by telling them they're incompetent and unfortunately one has to buy elsewhere because their product is insufficiently labeled and therefore useless. Seriously, 15 cents difference on a plug of the correct type is plain not worth any of your time. Computer Dynamics have a pretty good catalog online for the general public, you have to have an account to buy there but you won't have any trouble finding someone to pick things up for you. I believe it's also possible for an account holder to have things shipped straight to the customer. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: cable testing?
On Thu 04 Mar 2010 20:47:51 NZDT +1300, Hadley Rich wrote: Dad (who has been doing this as a living since I was born) says to talk to Shane at Rexel. Yeah, I buy all that sort of stuff off Rexel too. There must be a secret I haven't figured yet. Electrical so-called wholesalers' pricing, Rexel being no exception, is [X] A lough [X] Astronomical [X] Phantastic [X] Someone's wet dream [X] Downright offensive [XXX] All of the above I don't even bother contacting those jokers any more. They're just wasting my time. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: cable testing?
I have run a couple of cat5e cables and I am trying to terminate them, unsuccessfully at present. Will a cable tester help me? Depends on the problem, but prob yes. If you broke copper core pulling the cables the tester should show that (not fix it though). If you mixed up cables it'll show that too - but only after the crimping. I suspect that each time I put a plug on the end one or more of the wires is in the wrong place, or not quite long enough to make the connection. Only improved technique will help there. The tester will only show a bad job afterwards. Coupled with this I am only 90% sure which cable end is which at the switch end (ie the centre of the star), having failed to mark them. That's the easier bit, assuming you have easy access to all 8 ends of both cat5e cables on both sides, and you are not too colour blind to tell the colouring apart. Connect the ends of a pair of one cable together on one side. On the other side, use a multimeter (ohm setting) to see which 2 ends of the same coloured pair are shortened - that's the same cable. There are a gazillion ways to do similar things, like use a plugpack/battery and a torch bulb. Specialised equipment made for this purpose is lacking the geek factor... Is there some sort of cable tester that can, eg, tell me what wires are right and what are wrong, and which end of the cable is wired wrong? Yes, basic cheap ones run a continuity test on all 8 wires. They tell if some are swapped, but NOT if the 4 pairs are kept paired (i.e. if there is a double-fault which cancels itself), in which case it'll show ok for a cable which doesn't work. You MUST keep the pairs paired, though you can swap one pair with another as long as you do it the same on both ends. (I strongly recommend you stick with the prescribed colour scheme, or you're risking your sanity next time you do wiring work on one side and forgot you changed things aroud on the other side too.) Things a simple continuity tester won't show: * Breaks or bad contacts reliably if there is a fraction of connectivity left. * Swapped wires (see above). * High frequency response of the cable. Meaning it doesn't stress test and it won't show whether the cable will actually work when connected to Ethernet interfaces. But it should show the sort of trouble you seem to have. And, heres the hit, can someone in ChCh lend me one? Yes, both tester and multimeter. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: Tip'o'the Day: Don't name anything core!
significantly to filling up the hard disk. As we didn't own the source code, and there was no effective support from the manufacturer, the core files weren't really much use. So the best thing we could do was to prevent their creation in the first place, and this can obviously be achieved very easily by creating an empty read-only item named core on the filesystem (in all directories where the app in question might try to write a core file) ... Probably the better way to suppress said core file behaviour would be to set appropriate limits on the process environment. In sh and tcsh the command is ulimit. Set the hard core file size to 0 (no point setting the soft limits in this case), and if there also is an option to suppress writing core files altogether, set that too. The crank up your binary app. A wrapper script would work well. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: Filesystem and replacing the window manager
This raises two problems: how do I switch window managers within an X session (without terminating the X session)? Kill the window manager process, start a new one. Warning: once killed, you won't be able to e.g. change input focus any more. Some wms allow to change wms as a menu option, but the barebones ones you;re after probably not. And what filesystem can I put on my memory stick that is more UNIX friendly than FAT, but that does not have the ext filesystems' problem of confusing the system that mounts it when moving between systems with different UIDs? UIDs are a fact of Unix, there's no way around. You missed the point that this has nothing to do with ext. You could try to make all files/directories writable by everyone. Decent Linux distros will assign the logged-in users UID as owner to FAT filesystems on removable storage, again, the no-frills-no-functions wms you're after probably won't do that. Have fun, Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: ssh tunnelling question
On Mon 15 Feb 2010 16:08:23 NZDT +1300, Nick Rout wrote: At work: windows computer which runs putty and vnc server. At home: linux machines, one running openssh server. Therefore I can only initiate ssh from the office end. Correct. I can easily use putty to enable access to web servers on the home machine, but can I set something up so that I can connect to the vnc server on the office machine from a vnc client at home? Is it as simple as connecting port 5900 on the windows machine to a defined port, say 2000, on the openssh server at home? Or does a tunnel like that have to be opened from the other end? No, and yes you can. ssh is one of the more subversive protocols around ;) I use *ix terminology here, you can sort putty out accordingly. ssh -L ... will establish a listener (start with localhost) and forward connection attempts to the other side. What you want is ssh -R ... which establish a listener on the other side, forwarding connections to the host which has the ssh client running on it. Reality is a tad more complicated, you do not have to use the ssh client or server hosts, you can also use a host on the respective LAN. There is no limit to the number of these tunnels you can establish, but you have to establish them when the ssh client connects to the server. And the really nifty thing is: no need to worry about any firewalls. If you can establish a connection from the ssh client to the server, you can tunnel back any connection from programs on the server host to any host on the client's LAN which the client can connect to. The tunnel data is going over the originally established connection. Use with caution. In putty this should be somewhere under the tunneling setting. Be aware that some ssh clients may have bugs which make tunnel operation not entirely reliable, in particular when X11 protocols are forwarded. And remember to crank up putty before you go home... (Plan B would be to place a barebones Linux machine with a LAN connection in your desk's bottom drawer.) Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: List stats
On Tue 05 Jan 2010 10:56:52 NZDT +1300, Christopher Sawtell wrote: Is this a sign that linux is becoming more mature, and fewer problems arise? Without doubt. The umpteen Shuttleworth millions have made a real difference. Your new life giving you the pink glasses, is it...? ;-) Don't you think it's a bit delusional to think Shuttleworth is the only one who ever did anything or paid anything for Linux? And a good part of those millions has been spent on marketing ploys like free CDs for everyone. If he'd invested it in good engineering I wouldn't have had what I call a piece of diabolical junk for my friend which could neither drive a monitor to acceptable standard nor configure a network interface with a second IP address. As my friend insisted to stay with that ululunbuto whatever he went the Redmond solution way and bought himself a new graphics card as well as a new ADSL modem, instead of cutting the real problem aka that Shuttleworth junk at the neck. Makes me wince. He could have used his millions to for example solve the Linux audio problem, but no, Linux audio still doesn't work, and networking is still automagically dicey as soon as someone mentions network manager or some such thing. Instead, he throws out Yet Another Distro for free CDs, which, all things considered, never worked better than those already on the market despite the religious masses repeating god's word relentlessly. And remember IBM's billion bucks making a REAL splash for Linux some while back? Are you aware of the countless millions private business and trusts put into Linux creating FOSS? The salaried programmers who make a functional kernel and device drivers, or bring up FOSS from distinctly average to good level? How many paid by Shuttleworth (obviously not counting whatever he pleases himself with developing internally) - none for the kernel, last I know? He's just copying everyone else's efforts. That's not to say Shuttleworth isn't appreciated, but it puts his millions a bit into perspective. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: Backup wierdnesses...
On Wed 06 Jan 2010 11:39:17 NZDT +1300, steve wrote: Not backup wierdness, but a problem with the filesystem in use. mkdir: cannot create directory: `/backup/Wednesday/user/projects/YEAR 10/01/06 Jan 2010': Operation not supported Some things to check: Is there any encryption on the NTFS? If so, forget it. What are the permission settings on the ntfs? Can Linux even read/modify them? The tools say the fs is mounted rw, but may in fact be mounted ro for some reason, eg the fs driver detected a problem and enforced ro to prevent data loss? Start creating a file at the top level, then work down one level at a time, to pinpoint the problem location. Bug in ntfs-3g? Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: power board issue
On Thu 24 Dec 2009 14:39:21 NZDT +1300, Roger Searle wrote: lol - reminds me of the time i picked up a 3 pack of power boards from there, was like $8 or something, couldn't believe what a deal that must be - woohoo! got home, tried first one, didn't go, threw it out, one worked on all 4 outlets, the third works on 3, though one of those can be a bit dodgy depending on orientation of board/cable. definitely got what i paid for that day . . . I wouldn't hesitate to take a $1.95 item back to Bunnings for a full refund (been there, done that) just to make the point that no matter what the price, it has to work. But turning the Warehouse filter on at Bunnings helps to save time. Btw throw the sometimes-works one out right now - one day you'll plug a heater into it and run a good risk of burning your house down. Mostly works is not acceptable when it comes to power. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: power board issue
On Wed 23 Dec 2009 08:14:07 NZDT +1300, chris wrote: Problem is this. The computer and monitor work correctly when plugged directly into the wall socket. However, if plugged into a power board, they will not boot. Dude, 1) Unplug the power board 2) Make sure it's unplugged 3) Cut its plug off 4) Deal with the pieces (if you're short of ideas, no doubt this list could help out) then trot to Bunnings and get some HPM stuff for $2.93. Don't waste your time (again) on the $1.97 ones. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: Subtle Info Leak of the Year...
On Tue 01 Dec 2009 18:40:16 NZDT +1300, steve wrote: rfc 1122 3.2.2.6 Every host MUST implement an ICMP Echo server function that receives Echo Requests and sends corresponding Echo Replies. That was obiously written in the days of telnet when someone thought both were a Good Idea(TM). Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
New book on pfSense
pfSense: The Definitive Guide (Paperback) http://blog.pfsense.org/?p=509 Useful presentations: http://www.bsdcan.org/2008/schedule/attachments/66_pfSenseTutorial.pdf http://www.bsdcan.org/2009/schedule/attachments/94_pfSense_2_0_and_beyond_BSDCan_09.pdf -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: failed raid1 drive
On Thu 22 Oct 2009 16:00:39 NZDT +1300, Roger Searle wrote: confirmation of being on the right track to resolve this. Seems from the failure of more than 1 partition I will be needing to buy a new disk Absolutely. If the number of badbocks suddenly goes up, it's a paperweight. You should get a warranty replacement if there are any bad blocks during the wty period. Support your claim with evidence, aka smartctl -a. The failed disk is 320GB, and contain (mirrored) /, home, and swap. Presumably I could buy much larger disks, and need to repartition prior to adding it back into the array? The partitions should be at least the same size but could be much larger without any problem? If you were to replace a failed disk in a raid1, remove the failed disk physically, install the new disk physically, boot, and partition the new disk the same way as the one you removed was partitioned. You do NOT have to raid the whole disk. You DO HAVE to make the raided partitions of equal size. No they do not have to be at exactly the same location at each disk with Linux kernel raid, but there are advantages in doing so when it comes to boot loader installation. When you have created partitions matching the existing raid partitions in size, use mdadm to add them into the raid. They'll be synced automatically. See /proc/mdstat I've done this a couple of times with zero trouble when a disk blew up. I'll never have a Linux desktop without 2 disks in raid1 again. You should not need to run mdadm for anything else. In your case, as Steve pointed out, if both your raid1 disks are from the same batch, they'll both fail at the same time. One's already history. You're living on borrowed time. Mind you, I had fun once testing out how long a disk would keep on going which by all means was dead ten times. Years, if I remember. No I did not have anything important on it. Just don't bother complaining when the smoke goes up. Conclusion: when making a raid, never buy all disks from the same manufacturer. (This rule may not be valid for high performance SCSI server disks; it definitely is for consumer junk models. Note disks come in two flavours: high performance server, and consumer junk. You easily tell them apart by price.) You can not enlarge existing raids. You can buy bigger disks and add another raid partition set. As Steve says, you probably want to just buy two bigger disks (no, not from the same make), stick them in, copy the old onto the new, and pull the old. Oh, and set up smartd. Only idiots don't, IMHO. No guarantees it'll save your bacon, but much better than nothing. If you want to improve matters, lod smartctl -a twice daily and write a script to tell you if the bad blocks, pending, or uncorrectable numbers go up. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: Cross-bit compling
On Tue 20 Oct 2009 20:59:34 NZDT +1300, Aidan Gauland wrote: I've tried the -m 32 option to gcc, but that causes ld to freak out: /usr/bin/ld: i386 architecture of input file `helpimtrappedinanemail.o' is incompatible with i386:x86-64 output Install all the bits needed, it looks like you haven't. You'll need everything(!!) in 32bit installed as well. Good luck. Assuming the piece of software doesn't have a make system which falls over itself with bad assumptions, it'll work. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: Halt command on remote box causes ssh client to hang
If I give the halt command on a remote box while connected through a ssh client the ssh client hangs. This smells like an improper shutdown of the remote, which should reset the tcp connection when the ssh daemon gets killed. I'm guessing at some possibilities: The tcp stack gets shut down before the reset packet goes out. The remote is overloaded, and there isn't enough cpu time for the ssh daemon to generate a connection reset from the sigterm before it gets a sigkill. Try diddling the system init scripts and increase that delay. Only an issue on rather slow machines. Either remote or local ssh softwares are buggy. As a workaround, like you can interrupt a telnet client with ^], you can interrupt an ssh client with ~.return (but it only works after a return, or at the beginning of a line). HTH, Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: DVD-RW drive partially faulty
On Tue 28 Jul 2009 10:15:27 NZST +1200, Craig Falconer wrote: The DVD-RW drive in my laptop is partially faulty: * Why would it fail in this way? What is special about CDs that it cannot read them, but it can read DVDs Different laser colour. To expand, because it might not be obvious to everyone: Because CD and DVD use different laser colours, there are two different lasers in the drives, and only one may be faulty. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: How can I limit the maximum number of outgoing SFTP connections?
On Thu 23 Jul 2009 14:40:03 NZST +1200, Phill Coxon wrote: Sometime in the last few months Hostgator.com upgraded their firewall so that if too many connections from the same ip address get opened within a small period of time, the ip gets blocked temporarily for between 2 and 30 minutes. Does anyone know if it's possible to limit the number of outgoing simultaneous ssh connections Yes, put IP packet filter rules into place. That'll then give you errors, but won't get you locked out. Or use one of the other good suggestions. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: itunes only podcasts?
On Sat 25 Jul 2009 12:56:38 NZST +1200, Nick Rout wrote: Some podcasts I would like to subscribe to only seem to have iTunes links which is pretty useless to linux users. Can anybody work out a way around this? Uhmm, tell them they're useless and that therefore you'll be obtaining your music elsewhere?? Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: OT Press co hogging cpu usage
On Thu 25 Jun 2009 21:15:04 NZST +1200, Ryan McCoskrie wrote: What happend to HTML? It was such a great standard and it died in its prime. Remember - it got crushed to death between Netscape Combusticator and Internet Exploder, sometime in the 90s. Now it's all Web 2.0(TM) - plenty of javascript offering useless drivel, making sure that it only works in One Browser. Like Consumer Institute. It doesn't even work properly in firefox, and sure as anything will do naught in anything else. Or Kiwibank. It only works in firefox now (which on Linux I view as a pretty shoddy browser). Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: Motherboards that play nicely with Linux
On Wed 24 Jun 2009 18:46:14 NZST +1200, Ryan McCoskrie wrote: Embedded Intel video cards have open source drivers but I haven't the first hand experience to talk about them because they cost a packet. Remember one thing: The existance of an open source driver says nothing about that driver's performance, stability, or quality. There have been a *lot* of issues regarding Intel graphics lately. Plus if you're into 3D performance, I don't think Intel's your friend. Intel makes graphics for business computers. Avoid the nVidia equivalents like the plague they are. They tend to just work. They tend to also be fast. And they are well supported by nVidia. And proprietory. ATI appears to be worse - lack of performance, features, and support. Also proprietory. Currently you can't have your cake and eat it. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: Motherboards that play nicely with Linux
On Wed 24 Jun 2009 18:38:20 NZST +1200, Aidan Gauland wrote: Are there any motherboard manufacturers who usually make motherboards that work well with Linux, or any that Linux users should avoid? No there are not. All manufacturers make stuff which works, and all make stuff you don't want. To find out which is which, first look at the chips on the board. Chips without proper Linux support from their vendors don't work well no matter whos mobo they're on. Chips which are well supported tend to work, but even if all the chips are well supported, there is still plenty of opportunity for mobo vendors to stuff it up (buggy bios, tons of features for testosterone junkies without any regard things that actually matter). And drop your notion that all this (mobo, chips, ...) is vendor dependent. Every vendor makes paperweights as well as useful stuff. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: OT: Search the Christchurch Public Library catalogue using a Firefoxkeyword
On Mon 22 Jun 2009 14:52:14 NZST +1200, Douglas Royds wrote: Add the following bookmark in Firefox: Name: Public Library catalogue search Location: http://librarydata.christchurch.org.nz/web2/tramp2.exe/do_keyword_search/guest?setting_key=InternetBranchservers=1homeindex=defaultquery=%s Keyword: public (or whatever you prefer) No need to click through that irritating Just Enter rubbish any more: From memory the chch pub lib pac online search was some sort of session based. You might want to check your search shortcut still works 30min later. And the same thing is trivially done with konqueror too: Right-click on the search-engine selector icon (on the left, not the drop-down on the right) and select Select search engines. Click new. Enter a descriptive name, the search URL (replace the user search term with \...@}), enter a web shortcut, e.g. cpl, and click ok. You can then type cpl:sometitle into the URL field of the browser. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: Success with Bluetooth
On Wed 17 Jun 2009 11:14:44 NZST +1200, Stephen Irons wrote: Some one on Trademe is selling little Bluetooth adapters for $10 + $2 postage [1]. It is the size of the tip of my thumb. Just right for plugging into one of the USB holes of your netbook. I bought one. Plugged it in. It Just Worked. Good news! But for your post to be of any use to someone else, please identify the hardware. For USB devices, that is 1) The respective line from the output of lspci 2) Make, brand, and model. If at all possible, also the supplier. There are too many bluetooth offers on trademe to find yours. Thanks! Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: dodgy hd
On Tue 16 Jun 2009 13:51:12 NZST +1200, David Merriman wrote: Something which I have found useful in some cases is SpinRite ( www.grc.com/spinrite.htm ), which can perform low-level analysis and recovery of hard drive sectors. It's not free, but has been invaluable to me in the past (not recently, touch wood :) If it's for recovery, go ahead and spend money (if you were foolish enough to save on backups). If it's for analysis, why the hell would I waste my money on something the disk maker owes me for nothing? Either use the manufacturer's free tool, or run smartmontools. Besides, if the disk does have bad sectors within warranty you shouldn't have any problems getting it swapped. I don't believe this thread goes on for that long. You buy a toaster with 1y warranty and after 2 months half of it stops working. Is anyone stupid enough to ask whether to return it?!?? Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: dodgy hd
On Tue 16 Jun 2009 20:09:05 NZST +1200, Steve Holdoway wrote: If you go through the possible reasons for the superblock to get corrupted, then the causes are not limited to a hard disk failure. True. But then fsck would fix it *without* errors. In any case, smartctl will settle the issue. Apart from potential hardware issues elsewhere, there's configuration errors - overlapping partitions, human error - dd of=/dev/sda just for a couple of examples. None of that produces anything abnormal with smartctl. Nothing abnormal with smartmontools equals embarrassment when returning disk. Sure, it's almost certainly a disk failure, but there are other possible causes. Sure. How about just running smartctl instead of discussing possibilities ad infinitum? Either the disk or the data is foobared, in either case course of action is crystal clear. But hey, why not discuss it for another 3 days...? Also, given the uphill fight you often get when not speaking Microsoft to suppliers, A smartmontools printout showing the maker's own product says of itself(!!) I'm stuffed on sectors XYZ goes a long way. As it happens, Dove are a pretty level headed supplier, and I've never had problems returning failures. Yes yes yes I know. So go and take that damn disk back :) bold_statement reason=3 glasses of fermented grape juice Any Linux user spending real dosh on M$-only products for analysing disks instead of donating that to smartmontools does not deserve a free copy of smartmontools. /bold_statement Volker (amused) PS Did I say smartmontools? -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: dodgy hd
On Tue 16 Jun 2009 21:27:10 NZST +1200, Steve Holdoway wrote: PS Did I say smartmontools? Hmmm let's take this machine and have a look... The question was regarding a 120GB hard disk drive. There are none of those that don't support smart. It became the done thing around 10GB or so. Or in other words, there are no disk drives still under warranty that don't do smart. Of course if the disk is USB connected you're SOOL. Make appropriate temporary arrangements (any commercial tools won't save you here either because the USB adapter blocks the relevant low-level disk commands). Those mobile SATA racks are mightily convenient; for IDE, see SOOL above (- open case, plug in cable to spare IDE connector). And if the disk is raid-controller connected, then it's basically 1) an Areca, and it just works 2) a 3ware, and support is pretty there (I understand) 3) some piece of rubbish, probably Highpoint, in which case it's just desserts, 4) like 3, but you're using it in non-raid mode as simple controller, with Linux kernel raid, in which case smart should work too. So basically I don't see a problem, because there isn't one. If your hardware is buggered, you're wasting your time debugging your software, so smartmontools is mandatory, not optional. And it's step 1, not step 15. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: dodgy hd
On Tue 16 Jun 2009 22:50:18 NZST +1200, Steve Holdoway wrote: Until there is a standard and requirement, you can't *guarantee* it will work or rely on the results. It'll *probably* work, there are plenty of cases where it plain doesn't work... like my SSD here smart doesn't necessarily make a lot of sense for SSDs, and they weren't mentioned so far. The questions here were is my disk stuffed and it's stuffed, do I claim warranty. Both plentifully answered. Until that time, smartmon is a really useful tool, but it's not the sole solution you make it out to be. Well then you're even more out of luck, because step 1 still is: check your hardware first. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: dodgy hd
oops, 120 gig from dove Any disk with bad sectors within warranty goes back to maker. Period. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: OT Telstra Cable Grey box on side of house
On Sun 07 Jun 2009 12:46:17 NZST +1200, Nick Rout wrote: There is a box on the side of the house, and two coax cables come out. I'd like to disconnect the second cable and run another one to the cupboard but I am damned if I can get the cover off. Heh, I'd like to know too. The key for it has the same shape as a socket from the usual socket sets, except it is square, not hexagonal. In fact it looks very identical to those old square-socket-on-a-handle keys railwaymen carried to open all the doors passengers aren't usually supposed to go into. For the SaturnTelstraClear(TM) box I think the major difference is that the key is also somehow magnetic. This pulls a couple of levers inside the grey box out of the way which then allows the square bolt to turn. Can anyone confirm this kind of principle being used? Secondly I assume this is the same cable as one would use for a sky dish? (I have plenty of rg6) Yes it's RG6, but DO NOT USE JUST ANY RG6. Make sure you get sky-rated good-quality stuff, not the cheapest DSE/jayjunk stuff. Otherwise, you will be degrading the signal for yourself and everyone else in the street, and the excuse for fiddling with the operator's network sounds better if you can at least say you did it semi-competently... Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: ekiga not creating sockets
On Sun 31 May 2009 16:16:17 NZST +1200, Andrew Errington wrote: Hmm. apt-get install skype, and, err, that's it. That is presumably not what Derek is talking about. If your sound driver or hardware doesn't work (because it's a mess under Linux), simply installing skype won't make skype work. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: Farewell to Chris @ Twisted Hop - 2nd. June 6:30pm onwards.
On Tue 26 May 2009 21:01:55 NZST +1200, Robert Fisher wrote: Is the Twisted Hop suitable to have Bubs on my lap while I imbibe an ale or two? Not if she is grunting and/or crying. I don't think it matters much if the crying isn't too voluminous. From experience you have to screem at each other anyway if you want to hold a conversation. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: OT: Cabling to a shed
You could leave a draw wire in your conduit (use big radius curves in the conduit) to replace the the cat 5 etc. with fibre at a later date. You can yank hard on some copper, but if you snap the fibre, you'll have dead signal... Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: OT: Cabling to a shed
On Sun 17 May 2009 22:45:45 NZST +1200, Kerry Mayes wrote: Not OT IMHO, although not restricted to Linux. I'm wanting to connect up my shed for power (3 phase), Woow, talk about green computing! The water is for the PC cooling...? ;) water and data (phone network). I have (with significant help) dug the trench to the shed and will be organising the connections in the next few weeks. However, if I run the network cables next to the power cables I'll have issues, yes? Yes. For starters, the power cables are legally required to be in conduit of their own, and with good reason. You can not use garden hose as conduit underground. It is not rot resistant in permanently damp environments. Use min 32mm PVC tubing, pulling the 4th cable in with a pullstring will probably work if it isn't too long or has too many bends, but anything above that and use 50mm PVC tubing. Compare effort of digging it up again with extra cost now. Make damn sure you use the large-radius bends if you plan on putting a pullstring in (good idea!), and be aware that what a lot of people in trade call large radius most definitely isn't. As reference, leave anything 25cm radius in the shop and don't listen to sales staff. Shielded ducting is a dead idea. No such thing. You will run the risk of interference issues if the power and data conduits are too close together. I'd aim for min 10-15cm separation (legally they may touch) for short runs, more for longer. The annoying thing is that you won't know whether you have a problem until it's too late and you're looking at starting over. Your only chance at shielding is using STP instead of UTP cable. It's expensive. Shorter lengths up to 50m can be obtained cheaply as stranded with a plug on each end from the patch cable corner, if you can handle crimping plugs for stranded cable (don't mix them up, it won'te be reliable) and find a way to hook it up to the patch panel. You can't crimp stranded cable into patch panel sockets, they're always for solid core. Consider leaving the plugs on the cable and not running it through the panel, connecting it straight where you want it. Putting the water between the other two *may* give you a bit of extra shielding, and will help your separation. Putting the data conduit on top makes it easiest to access in case you run out of space... (avoid nots and twists at all cost when pulling the cables in), however the top one will catch the lightning first - which probably doesn't matter because after a hit like that you'll be looking at a lot of charcoal anyway. Using CAT5e instead of going straight for 6 is lousy idea and very bad economics. If a few $100 extra pale in comparison with the money you're spending on that shed, go for CAT7 STP. There are cheap sources for data cabling and all that stuff. For PVC conduit try Bunnings (I think the others didn't have all the bits), but you really want to use someone's trade account because those electro buggers are a serious ripoff - but talking to them nicely sometimes makes prices reasonable. For a laugh and some cautionary tales read http://volker.top.geek.nz/linux/tech/outdoorwiring.html Which reminds me, make sure your house and shed have their earths solidly connected! HTH, Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: OT: Cabling to a shed
When I 'undergrounded' my street feed I was advised to bury the cable directly in the ground for the cooling effect of the earth. If I had used a conduit then I would have had to use the next larger wire size. The price difference was significant to me at least. I imagine for 3-phase the difference will be even greater. Interesting point. Talk to your sparky. I doubt you're allowed to bury the usual cables straight, you probably need tougher stuff rated for underground. But the extra plastic may be way cheaper than the extra copper these days. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: OT: Cabling to a shed
On Mon 18 May 2009 10:55:40 NZST +1200, Craig Falconer wrote: Which reminds me, make sure your house and shed have their earths solidly connected! Is it worth running an earth wire in the trench ? Or is that going to be bad later? I don't see any disadvantage. The house will have its own earth stake, the shed doesn't need one depending on its size, but given a 3-phase supply to the shed (holy bananas, what a shed) I'd be surprised if the sparky wasn't insisting on another stake for the shed. Good idea in any case. If the shed has no own earth, an earth connection in the trench is a must as the house earth stake is used for the shed. Otherwise it's strictly speaking optional and costs money. The issue with house and shed on different earths is that those earths need not have the same potential, which you won't ever notice until you run cables from one to the other. The difference may be big enought to hurt, though shouldn't kill (if it gets that big there's another problem). For data cabling though this can generate additional noise, and that can be a nuisance to deal with. One way of dealing with it is to put an Ethernet switch at the end of each cable on one side, and to treat those cable plugs as potentially charged. As an aside, it's also possible to connect house and shed each to a single phase, but a different one for load balancing. That'll probably give you more noise between the buildings, as well as 380V, not 240V, between the wall outlets. Disclaimer: I'm an electrical engineer, not a sparky. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Kubuntu help please
The installation was pretty smooth, but running the system leaves me singularly unimpresssed. Where are the system config tools please? All I see is system- settings. Looks good, until I click on it - then it has all the headlines but silch content. Maybe that's just the state of KDE4 for now, but making a whole distro on that is insane. There's got to be something useful. systemsettings network interfaces-wired doesn't even bother to ask me which interface I want to configure, let alone what the root password is. Doh. After installation there was a note telling me where to find the Kubuntu system documentation. After login that note goes poof (doh), and I can't find anything poking around. The primary job at hand: what's the gui tool to configure eth0? Manual configuration, static IP, DNS, gateway, and all in a way I can teach a non-techie. Plus saving it as a profile, then handling multiple profiles for traveling. Any kubuntu users able to point me in the right direction? Thanks, Volker Oh yeah, trivial in openSUSE, and I don't even have to start hunting for any docs let alone read those docs. -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: Kubuntu help please
On Sat 16 May 2009 23:49:13 NZST +1200, Christopher Sawtell wrote: The primary job at hand: what's the gui tool to configure eth0? Knetworkmanager. NOEXIST Kubuntu 9.04, KDE 4.x(--) I guess the bottom line is KDE 4 isn't quite there yet. As (K?)ubuntu doesn't offer anything beyond vanilla in terms of system config, Kubuntu 9.04 is sort of also not quite there yet and a few years behind in places. There is a systemsettings tool, but the network part is borked and totally useless. Yes I agree it seems to be nuts to have the network configuration at the user level, but it's very useful to be able to choose the network to join manually. No, not nuts, some network settings are only really useful under user control, but that's after root has marked them as such (typically for wireless, but not eth0). Thanks, Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: Kubuntu help please
On Sun 17 May 2009 01:09:27 NZST +1200, Andrew Errington wrote: Not a Kubuntu user (tried it once, but it seemed to be Ubuntu's bastard sibling that no-one talks about). ROTFL... great way to put it. I always called it an afterthought. So why didn't you just install openSUSE? Not my decision, it's for someone else. I view it as a good opportunity to see what the competition is up to. Other than the network config (impossible for beginners) I didn't have any major problems, though I'm still short on system maintenance. Oh yes, what's the gui tool for managing system services? Anyway, I can recommend wicd for networking. Thanks! apt-get works, I'll see if I can get it to work. Nope. wicd daemon doesn't start, googling shows dbus must be restarted, but then wicd-client just crashes with a different error. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: Kubuntu help please
I think it's time to try Ubuntu again. The gnome file requester drives me bananas each time I run a gnome app. It's also different with each app. Gnome never managed to achieve KDE's consistency. The main reason I've been using KUbuntu is for sftp: access in konqueror so I can copy and edit files on remote sites live. Run konqueror under gnome. Those methods available from konqueror is something gnome is short on too. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: Kubuntu help please
On Sun 17 May 2009 13:48:18 NZST +1200, Andrew Errington wrote: Sorry. That's too bad. Yeah, sounds otherwise exactly what I'm looking for. I need profiles too. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: Kubuntu help please
On Sun 17 May 2009 15:01:50 NZST +1200, Andrew Errington wrote: Well, if you have the time I'd suggest it would be worthwhile persevering. Ok, after I'd already decided I don't have time for cr*p, and that's the adjective to use for describing software which poos its pants on startup with screenfuls of python barf, instead of saying that the wicd default config has access protection enabled and therefore the user runing wicd-client needs to be a member of the netdev group. Googling for the error msg has only one answer, and that's in a Polish blog. Fortunately my Polish was good enough to understand the one important word, being /etc/dbus-1/system.d/wicd.conf ;) At first glance it does what I need to do. Thanks Andrew! Now some similar program for screen sizes would be good too, as xorg.conf is empty and no obvious tool is readily apparent. vmware starting up 800x600 gets a tad annoying after a while. I also need to config an old TNT 64 Pro card where kubuntu throws the same trick. One thing is that wicd does not play nice with network-manager. Sounds like a turf fight to me :) Thanks, Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: OT: Telecom (Monopoly) Problem
On Sat 09 May 2009 00:59:09 NZST +1200, Wesley Parish wrote: To wit: whenever it rains or the temperature drops precipately, it cuts out the connection from me to them. Last Wednesday, for example, when I arrived home from town and picked up the receiver, I got no dial tone. Does anyone have any ideas why Telecom cannot reproduce the problem Welcome to the nature of transient problems. If they never occur during business hours you have a problem getting them fixed. Try getting them to do a proper quality check, in the hope of some noise being present during dry weather too. Does the phone line actually work, and does only the adsl drop out in bad weather? Higher frequencies are worse affected. If it's adsl related getting them to do a proper check of the equipment at the exchange might help (yes this probably requires an exchange visit). As to how to get them to do that... I take it you can't get Telstra. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: Linux on USB stick recommendations
On Tue 05 May 2009 16:44:10 NZST +1200, Derek Smithies wrote: On those three quite reasonable requirements, what is best option? kiwi, and remaster your very own package selection. I believe it's out of the box on openSUSE. Btw here's my take on the boot from USB caper: There's a bunch of HP/Compaq boxes, none too old really but also none hot off the press, at some place. All of the BIOSes in the boxes support booting from USB. Does it work? ROTFL... Maybe with the very latest models, but by far most of the time, it was a nice thought and a complete waste of time. So in my own experience the number of boxes out there which can actually boot from a USB storage device is too small to bother. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: Are Linux netbooks becoming extinct?
On Fri 01 May 2009 14:13:52 NZST +1200, Steve Holdoway wrote: The other area that may save Linux on the netbook is the arrival of very low cost, high powered, high battery life Arm CPU based netbooks. Oh, if only. It'll take a fairly brave manufacturer to step up, though! Linux distributors are gearing up their arm versions. I also seem to remember that Microsoft was doing some wince thing or whatever it's called these days for arm. Neither would be doing that without an expectation of hardware being available. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: End of monthly meetings
On Thu 23 Apr 2009 22:07:30 NZST +1200, Christopher Sawtell wrote: Thanks much for making it happen all these last few years! Much appreciated. And all the best for your next life back on the other side ;) Options range from a relatively light-weight alcoholic orgy for members, Blerrgh to giving it to the FSF. That's more like the right idea. How about moving it to the NZOSS? Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: Home Automation Dealers in Chch?
On Mon 20 Apr 2009 11:49:04 NZST +1200, Craig Falconer wrote: Lots of Cat6 to everywhere. Put in draw wires for future use. Run some 100 mm conduit to every building on the property. And plenty of power points and power capacity. A separate circuit for each room is handy too. Electrically isolate the kitchen/laundry/AC/heatpump/HWC/bathroom from all the other rooms. All extremely good advice! Every single point of it. Make sure your switchboard is big enough, I suspect you'll find a 30-way too small (I do). Kick the electrician(s) early, otherwise you get el-cheapo. Keep in mind that the conduits for data cables must be different to the conduits for power cables. Only solution is to double up. There are 4-way wall outlets available from PDL which fit a standard flushbox and the space of a double outlet. Easy way to get more outlets in a tidy manner. Personally I'd make sure to be able to run everything I want to run without any wireless. For a lot of home automation you'll need actual wires too. Treat wireless as optional, but don't depend on it. You can always go wireless, but not the other way round. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: my video card is possessed
On Fri 10 Apr 2009 16:39:06 NZST +1200, Aidan Gauland wrote: for full information), and has no fan to fail. Is there a way to test the card for heat damage (or any kind of subtle damage)? No there isn't. Not for heat damage, and not for anti-static damage. If the card doesn't have a fan, and doesn't have heats sinks clogged with dust, then it doesn't have heat damage. If it is subtly damaged, the symptoms you get are unreliability. Same as for old age. And, John, how could the motherboard battery affect the video? Not likely, but it's always worth a shot to at least clear the cmos and reload factory/safe/whatertheycalledit defaults. Replace the battery only if it has 2.9V or so, but do rub the clip contacts off and wipe the battery hard with a cotton cloth, then insert it without(!) leaving fingerprints (or lint). Skin grease corrodes metal surfaces over time. The real reason you want that battery to work is so that it doesn't gain funny settings while you power the box off (and to keep the time if you don't use ntp). Tracking down unreliability issues is difficult. Faults that only occur sometimes are hard to find. Pretty much all has been said. power supplies can lose uumph, unless you have an electronics workshop, swap it with another one and see if problems disappear. As you tried different distros I agree that it is most likely a hardware and not a software fault. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: Small-form-factor as a desktop machine
On Sat 14 Mar 2009 02:20:33 NZDT +1300, Ross Drummond wrote: I use rdesktop from my linux box to interact with XP using XP's remote desktop feature. Really? The XP rdesktop server is only available in XP Pro, not XP Home, or was that a particular absent feature of the Dell Home box I looked at? Or did Billy change his mind? Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: Linux-users list RFC Introduction
On Thu 12 Mar 2009 16:35:27 NZDT +1300, Dan Hawke wrote: I'd like to introduce myself on this list as I've been reading for a few weeks now. Thanks Dan, great news. And thanks to uni for running this list since 1995, dependably and without major hickups. One caveat for migrating this list server will be whether the list server recognises subscribers by From: or envelope sender. If the new server is different to the old there will be some people who can no longer post or unsubscribe. Making the archive public is of no consequence, all postings are public anyway and there are several existing archives. Just make sure you mangle email addresses in any archive you put online. And thanks for letting us know that the future will not be Exchange, so we don't have to find a new host for this list... ;))) Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: Dumb partition question
Partitioning as per your suggestion is wise. Any of those 3 partitions can be either primary or secondary, it doesn't matter. If you think you may need more partitioning tricks later, leave a primary space free. The extended will also take up one of the four spaces. Put the boot loader into the MBR and you won't have trouble. In your case (XP + warranty), back up your MBR with dd count=1 /dev/sda file yourself before messing with boot loaders, and you have one more thing to go back to. Putting the boot loader into a root filesystem secondary didn't work for me in many cases. Whether this was because I use RAID1 for /home and / (I never use a /boot, and yes I boot from RAID1 and it just works), or whether the installer was broken, or whether grub was broken, or whether grub supports this only for some cases and my installer didn't bother to check, I don't know, but I got sufficiently fed up that I thought stuff it..into the MBR and be done. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: galleries on CD
On Fri 13 Mar 2009 13:21:44 NZDT +1300, Chris Bayley wrote: digikam is a very nice photo databasing/editing app which has several gallery export options including a couple of html galleries and CD. Yes, digikam exports galleries to a directory. The root-directory of the gallery is position-independent IIRC, so you just do a recursive copy of that to a storage medium of your choice. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: Hardy 8.04 modem concerns
On Sat 28 Feb 2009 09:34:18 NZDT +1300, Eliot Blennerhassett wrote: Xtra's login prompts confuse wvdial and thus gnome-ppp. In Kppp setup choose Authentication: Script based for the script Expect ogin: Send your username Expect word: Send your password Expect ser: Send ppp Did you try wvdialin stupid mode with this? I find it hard to believe that wvdial doesn't work with something as trivial as this. Did you submit a log of the logins session to wvdial development? Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: serious Mozilla design bug
On Fri 20 Feb 2009 20:18:49 NZDT +1300, Wesley Parish wrote: There are several serious design errors in firefox, that's why I use konqueror. Unless I'm on doze. There was something seriously smarta...e in ff 3.x, about URL or search term completion. There is also a secret mantra, to be spoken in the holy part off ff aka advanced config tab, to rid yourself of such annouayance. (What annoys me about that part is that not all config settings are visible. Many you have to pull out of the universe to add to the list, before you can change their value.) What you describe should either be up on bugs.mozilla.org, or your setup is stuffed. Quit ff, delete ~/.mozilla and start again. Knowing you, I assume the problem is not BKAC. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: Kubuntu - good bad and ugly
On Fri 20 Feb 2009 23:30:02 NZDT +1300, yuri wrote: So I picked up Kubuntu 8.10 and gave it a whirl. There also seems to be lots of community support for *buntu derivatives. Be careful whether this applies to kubuntu as well as ubuntu. The bad: KDE 4.1 seems less configurable than KDE 3.5. You have a misconception here. That is purely a KDE issue. The distro issue is elsewhere. KDE 3 had the rug pulled out underneath by qt3 being discontinued. qt4 is not a drop-in replacement, resulting in the need for rewriting much of KDE as I understand. This is both a vurse and an apportunity. Now whereas gnome has unlimited resources, KDE does not, so things take a little while. (Still, the KDE team managed to backport a hell of a lot of stuff, and 3.x apps work under 4.x and 4.x apps under 3.x - the gnome team tried hard, conceded failure and gave up.) So KDE 4.0 is, let's say, proof of concept, 4.1 is getting there but definitely hasn't arrived (see all the beating SUSE got for 11.0), but 4.2 is quiet usable, though not all of 3.x as been forward ported yet. Bottom line, if you want KDE, and kubuntu 8.10 gives you neither 3.5 nor 4.2, you made a bad choice of distro. From the distro's point of view it was unfortunate release timing management (can't release 4.2 when that isn't out then). As everybody does anyway you might as well blame the distro if it makes you feel better, even if it isn't quite accurate. What you can blame kubuntu for is not giving you 3.x as an option, until their 4.x offering is usably stable. But you decided to go with it. You'll have the same problem with any distro with KDE 4.1. I can still offer you a choice of a pretty well functioning KDE 3.5 and 4.2 in openSUSE 11.1. The other day you wanted the disks before I was home from work so no luck there. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: wireless connecting - network manager problem?
On Fri 20 Feb 2009 12:46:23 NZDT +1300, Nick Rout wrote: This is IMHO the problem when operating system tasks (networking) are handed off to some desktop app. Do you have a better solution? There are many cases where hardware has to be handled with user interaction. The 90s unix ways are no longer adequate. Dito for software - wouldn't an application-based packet filter with user interaction be nice too? On top of, of course, not as replacement. You could also stay with KDE 3.x for as little longer. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: wireless connecting - network manager problem?
On Fri 20 Feb 2009 13:54:09 NZDT +1300, Nick Rout wrote: Other alternative? set up a /etc/network/interfaces file for each location and have a script to swap tham over and do /etc/init.d/network restart No, much better. Use the system's network GUI config tool (even Red Hat has one, PITA but it works) and configure multiple system profiles. Switch profile when moving. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: Remove a watermark from a PDF
On Mon 16 Feb 2009 17:04:41 NZDT +1300, Stephen Irons wrote: [...] Looks like most PDF editors are, let's say, not quite there yet. Use pdfimages (of xpdf) to extract all images. Check the watermark is a bitmap graphics. If so, there's probably only one copy in the PDF, which you could turn into all-transparent with a hex editor. Use pdftk or whatever to remove the encryption. It's just a PITA anyway. You may have to doctor some FOSS to do that. Use pdftops, hope it's easier to doctor in the postscript. Try loading it into OO with pdfimport (search OO extensions). Remove background image (OO supports no other watermarks), reassemble PDF from OO. Give feedback to the manufacturer of said second-hand device, featuring the word morons or some such prominently. Buy other device next time. Put up with the annoying printout, or use the non-dead-tree variety instead. HTH, Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: OTish: Any experiences with EoP?
On Sat 14 Feb 2009 08:37:30 NZDT +1300, Christopher Sawtell wrote: There is still the option of an optical link such as:- http://www.laser2laser.co.nz/about_laser.htm Not bad, but sounds expensive. Those particular units are probably overkill for what you want to do, but is indicative of what can be done. Try the laser-diode in the pringle tube? Material value: very low. Educational value: high. Time sink factor: high. Reliability: proportional to your engineering skills. Oh and if the Internet goes down, check for birds nests... I'd dig a trench. Done right, done once, always works. Scales well too, if you plan it in a way which allows you to pull more cables through (big enough, no sharp bends). However the EoP should set you at ease on two points: There are no transformers between your house and garage, and most likely you'll have only one phase to deal with; if not, make sure to pick the same phase in house and garage. You could get a pair on trial, or else make sure you have a right of return if it doesn't perform to their marketing standards. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: Who's in charge?
On Fri 13 Feb 2009 12:02:20 NZDT +1300, Gauland, Michael wrote: Always using this address. I've wondered if it has something to do with the mail system here mangling (or randomly changing) headers, but I If it works only sometimes, your outgoing email system is behaving inconsistently. The software running this list is *very* reliable, though not necessarily always behaving the way you expect. (As the handling goes through the university email system, things can go like treacle when that is bogged down to breaking point by spammers, but that isn't the list software's fault.) Your message cannot be delivered to the following recipients: Original address: linux-users@it.canterbury.ac.nz Reason: you are not allowed to use this list: Does any of that mean anything to anyone? Yes. It means the system did not recognise your email address as being subscribed. The explanation is that your envelope sender address is used to identify you (it may not be the only citerion). That's your sender address in the SMTP part (which comes before the email headers). Whatever you put into From: is something completely different, and you may be able to still post successfully if you stuck Mickey Mouse in there. Obviously your outgoing email handling changes your envelope sender address. For the subscription process it is possible that your From: address is used to send the confirmation emails to, but your envelope sender address still has to remain the same. This list has been run by the university since 1995 more or less as a favour. No-one at uni is paid enough to put any time into it, so we all hope it keeps working. Zane used to work at uni and did put some time into it, he handed over to Brendon Wyber, who won't be wanting to be bothered too much. Brendon couldn't help you anyway, you need to be able to send emails in a consistent manner. If you really need to contact him, details should be somewhere on the IT department's staff list. HTH, Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: en_nz dictionaries?
On Wed 11 Feb 2009 10:04:31 NZDT +1300, Steve Holdoway wrote: en_gb should do as a start... Not to step on any toes :), but the GB is no good here. You want metric content, though the spelling would be close enough. I don't remember the details, but the OO website has a link to other languages for both OO and the dictionaries and thesauri. However for NZ and Oz there is a dictionary available for the price of a A$5 donation or something like that. Keyword Kelvin dictionary. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: USB turntables, anyone?
I've got some vinyl that I'd like to transfer to one or t'other digital medium. Is it true that there is a USB turntable for percisely this purpose? Maybe, maybe not, the question doesn't arise in the first place. If you have a good quality old analog turntable, why on earth would you shell out for another lousy one with unknown Linux compatibility just because it has a USB plug on it? If you are into audio, you have a decent quality sound card. Hook up your turntable to your amp (which it is already), hook up amp line-out to soundcard line-in, run your favourite recording app, done. Well sort of done, then you do the job of digitally enhancing the recording before putting it into your archive. Unfortunately there isn't any good quality audio software around. Quick-job open source audio filters are probably barely what you want, however if you don't care you're set to go. Note that simply chopping a continuous recording into track-like pieces is the trivial bit, there are numerous programs for that (I made one too). Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: USB turntables, anyone?
Actually you are far better off with a preamp. IIRC levels (impedance?) from turntables don't match well with line-in on a sound card. Nailed. That's why I said to connect the amp's line-out to line-in... Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: Feb meeting...
The meeting scheduled for 7:30pm on February 10th 2009, will be at the St Albans Community Resource Centre, 1047 Colombo Street. We have a Sat meeting now? That would be royally annoying as I couldn't possibly make anything that weekend. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: Feb meeting...
We have a Sat meeting now? Doh. Scratch that. Flips to the *February* calendar... -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: Feb meeting...
On Sat 24 Jan 2009 14:42:24 NZDT +1300, Derek Smithies wrote: [...] I'd be very interested in listening to any of your RD activities. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: Create preconfigured installation image for Mandriva
On Tue 20 Jan 2009 16:51:03 NZDT +1300, Nick Rout wrote: Might try fedora again soon, or maybe arch for some real fun! Debian maybe? Funny you say that. I installed Fedora 10 just yesterday. The disk partitioner is most obnoxious - you are allowed to say how many and what size partitions you want, you get to shut up about the order they're in, or whether they're primary or extended. I didn't see a function to make do with an already partitioned disk, so you might not even be able to run fdisk first. Fedora Crap 10. Other than that, the install went go and run. Apalling though that the desktop does not offer any function to install more software, or for that matter do any system administration. Of course one can always go commando, I mean command line, but that's not competitive on the desktop these days. In short, it's lagging behind SUSE about as far as it did 10 years ago. I'd say don't waste your time. Mandrake used to be pretty good in the user-friendlyness department, dunno about Mandriva. I don't believe for a millisecond the hype about 'buntu. Debian is not a desktop distro. While perhaps perfectly suited for being admin'ed from the sad end of a 38kbaud, if that is the only option, I have better things to do (and won't embarrass myself by suggesting something like this to my M$ workmates, but that's a different story). Hopefully this list hasn't exhausted the options yet? I like Rob's Mepis idea... Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: Create preconfigured installation image for Mandriva
On Tue 20 Jan 2009 12:40:58 NZDT +1300, Nick Rout wrote: http://www.informatik.uni-koeln.de/fai/ I have experience with that. It's a very flexible framework for automating installations. Theoretically it might work with any distro, but it's developed on Debian, tailored to Debian, incorporates the Debian arro^H^H^Hattitude, and in practice doesn't work on anything else. And flexible equals humangeous amounts of time required to set anything going. My advice: stay clear unless you have *way* more than 5 Debian boxes to install; for non-Debian, forget you heard about it. All distros have their own mechanisms anyway, e.g. always had, RH did, dunno about others but expect so. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: Blocking some websites!
On Thu 15 Jan 2009 09:34:49 NZDT +1300, Steve wrote: Open DNS is free and allows you to choose a huge range of website categories that you can block for users on your network. [snip] I second this service. Moved over to it when ihug DNS went titsup about 9 months ago, and have never bothered to change back. I changed some systems to them when it became unclear which ISP offered a safe DNS service and which didn't. The I discovered there were no more NXDOMAIN, only advertising, so I dropped openDNS again. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: Promotional event for the average person
On Thu 15 Jan 2009 13:12:44 NZDT +1300, Tim Buchanan wrote: I've recently been helping my co-workers with their laptops. When I have suggested that they might try to try a Linux OS, they tell me that they would like to stick with what they know how to use (ie window$ xp). Time to drop Ubuntu and go for one of the KDE distros?? Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: /var/spool/mail/$USER file locking under Ubuntu
On Thu 15 Jan 2009 12:49:35 NZDT +1300, Stephen Irons wrote: And, can you believe it, Evolution still, in year 2009, corrupts lines starting with 'From ' to 'From '. It obviously needs to evolve some more. Yes, it's anally^H^H^H^H^Hpolitically correct, for emails which are not mime encoded. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: Blocking some websites!
On Wed 14 Jan 2009 20:01:49 NZDT +1300, Navdeep Singh Sidhu wrote: I would like your help in blocking some websites like YouTube and Bebo from our staff computer. Ehmm, this is a free country. Assuming one computer always gets used by the same person: count the traffic, then charge $1/10MB. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: Unable to boot
On Tue 13 Jan 2009 10:04:53 NZDT +1300, David Merriman wrote: Yes, it's certainly easy enough to reinstall if necessary; I was just hoping to avoid that since it's a pain having to reinstall all the apps, etc., but I suspect I may have to do it anyway. Rubbish. (excuse me) If you borked your boot loader, you never have to reinstall the whole shebang. You will however have to reinstall the boot loader. I believe the BIOS will boot from the first disk/partition which has the active flag set, that might not be the first disk in the list, so it is possible to create grub failures by swapping disks around. With /etc/fstab it is possible to mount filesystems by ID instead of device name, but I doubt grub can do likewise. Keep in mind that there is only one MBR in the box, and all the distros want to write on it. Last one wins. :) If you do this kind of setup you'll have to synchronise your grub configs among the distros a tiny wee bit. Most importantly you'll have to pick one distro which does the booting of all of them. Into that one's menu.lst you need to add entries to boot the other distros. If you can't boot *any* distro any more, you'll have to unpack your rescue system. Which one doesn't matter. If you use SUSE, the closest is on every install CD/DVD. These rescue systems vary in ballast and features, but they all do the very basics, which is create a chroot environment, enter that, reinstall grub. I've posted how to do that many times in the past, but 2 things have changed. Apart from /proc, you also need /sys, and /dev. Instead of mounting, which you couldn't do with /dev anyway, you use mount --bind. That's then: mount /dev/... /mnt #repeat above if you also need to mount /boot mount --bind /proc /mnt/proc mount --bind /sys /mnt/sys mount --bind /dev /mnt/dev chroot /mnt bash --login # fix grub here exit umount /mnt/* /mnt On SUSE you find the commands used to install grub originally in /etc/grub.conf, so you can reinstall grub simply with grub /etc/grub.conf If other distros aren't as smart you're on your own with the grub manual. Obviously that /etc/grub.conf is correct for the disk configuration at the time you installed that distro. Modify as needed. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: OT: Section 92 of the Copyright Amendment Act assumes Guilt Upon Accusation
On Thu 08 Jan 2009 16:53:08 NZDT +1300, Steve Holdoway wrote: Note, it states that ISPs must have a policy for terminating the accounts of REPEAT INFRINGERS in APPROPRIATE CIRCUMSTANCES. Note the term repeat infringers is well defined. Nowhere does it state that the account can just be terminated without evidence. And nowhere does that state that the ISP is required to collect evidence. The ISP may define appropriate as Hollywood seems fit. If you think that's out of touch, several years ago I read ISP TCs and they all stated something like may terminate contract or pass on any user data upon violation of *any* law of *any* foreign country. Ridiculous for any business operating exclusively under NZ law. The amendment under discussion, as is common, supports copyright holders without protecting consumer rights. You're right that ISPs would have a commercial incentive to define appropriate not too much Hollywood, but to be honest I'm finding that a bit thin. Sure, users must be aware of their ISP's policy, it'll be part of the TC's. But what about pre-existing accounts? Surely it can't cover them retrospectively? Yes they can. They all reserve the right to change TC on you any time. If you're lucky, they require themselves to give you X days notice. Your inaction will always be taken as acceptance of whatever they put over you. And generally speaking (doesn't apply in this case) the law always takes priority over existing contracts. That's why you get 4 weeks holidays when your contract only gave you 3. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: [nzlug] Xtra dialup settings for wvdial/pppd?
On Wed 07 Jan 2009 20:42:57 NZDT +1300, Eliot Blennerhassett wrote: Since my last mail I have configured plain pppd to work via pon/poff. However the non-gui, zero feedback, edit arcane config files approach is less than ideal for the non savvy customer. You could of course log a complete PPP session and file an enhancement request with evdial. Or just act on everyone's knowledge: there are better ISPs than Xtra. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: OT: Section 92 of the Copyright Amendment Act assumes Guilt Upon Accusation
Wow, this made the German News: http://www.heise.de/newsticker/Rechtsstaatliche-Bedenken-gegen-Internet-Sperregelung-in-Neuseeland--/meldung/121271 Try this (don't laugh too much): http://babelfish.yahoo.com/translate_url?lp=de_enurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.heise.de%2Fnewsticker%2FRechtsstaatliche-Bedenken-gegen-Internet-Sperregelung-in-Neuseeland--%2Fmeldung%2F121271 Public opinion is by and large not favourable. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: OT: Section 92 of the Copyright Amendment Act assumes Guilt Upon Accusation
On Wed 07 Jan 2009 20:23:06 NZDT +1300, Christopher Sawtell wrote: None, but as soon as your introduce the idea of a fail trial you bring the whole Justice and Corrections departments in on the Act. Do you _really_ want criminal convictions recorded against naive minors who are proven to have downloaded a few flicks and songs. I would not want that at all. Wasn't the issue ISPs disconnecting customers, not court trials against anyone? This whole discussion can be boiled down to the question:- No it does not. That question is already answered in the affirmative. The issue is the copyright mafia subverting the process of enforcement away from the established channels and on to non-accountable private business. Should people who devote a lot of time, effort, and financial investment, which is not without risk, producing something either for the benefit or entertainment of other people receive a financial reward for so doing? In this connection note that the producers of the film Sione's Wedding ended up without any financial benefit whatsoever because spivs and shysters made illicit copies of the DVD and sold them in South Auckland flea markets. Stay on the floor. For starters I fail to see how disconnecting Internet customers impacts on flogging DVDs on Auckland flee markets, and then you haven't established said flogging being the *cause* of said financial disappointment or whether the movie may have been just boring. In any case the correct response would be to deal with flee marketeers, not ISPs. But you won't be able to share your contemplations on copyright holder business revenue much longer with us Chris, because as due process is skipped, you can get on with your life outside of the Internet after someone sets up their cron to send the same complaint several times to your ISP (of a country reputed to be a lapdog to the Americans). Whether the complaint is at all factual or you did appropriately pay for your viewing of Sione's Wedding is not something anyone will be asking... Have a nice day ;) Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: How are /proc file permissions set?
On Sat 03 Jan 2009 19:10:19 NZDT +1300, Jasper Bryant-Greene wrote: No problem. I should point out that the rc.local file varies by distribution: Yes. Not sure about other distributions, I imagine several use /etc/rc.local though. More organised distributions use something like /etc/init.d/boot.local Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: How are /proc file permissions set?
On Sat 03 Jan 2009 22:40:43 NZDT +1300, Volker Kuhlmann wrote: Not sure about other distributions, I imagine several use /etc/rc.local though. More organised distributions use something like /etc/init.d/boot.local Found it: http://refspecs.linux-foundation.org/LSB_3.2.0/LSB-Core-generic/LSB-Core-generic/initsrcinstrm.html All Linux distros are currently required to put init scripts into /etc/init.d/, and have been for a very long time. There's a comment to the effect that this requirement may change in the future, but it hasn't yet. Is this perhaps under discussion because certain distros scream hell at Microsoft for not following standards, but have no intentions of doing so themselves? One could argue that the system-local boot script is not a service init script, but that's getting picky. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: New ISP Suggestions
On Mon 29 Dec 2008 07:18:50 NZDT +1300, Bernard Frankpitt wrote: After 3 years of trouble free service Slingshot has installed ppp peers that my linux machine can't communicate with. My guess would be that it can be made to work. The first answer to ppp issues is to use wvdial instead of that chat rubbish certain distros were using forever. Try wvdial with and without stupid mode. Does any one have suggestions for Linux-friendly dial-up or broadband services in Christchurch? My telephone provider is Telstra. Well, easy answer for broadband then. Dunno about dial-up, but if you chose Paradise as Telstra broadband ISP (if you can do that still), you automatically get Paradise dial-up at about $3/h as well. Good for backup. Be aware though that Paradise is on the way out and no longer handles any email. All Telstra email is handled by Clear. As far as quality goes, Paradise used to be a top NZ ISP, but has plummeted at Telstra's hand. At the moment I'd not rate them more than about average. If you can get their tech support on the phone, they're very good, but don't bother sending any emails to their support. Telstra's prices have also gone up rather noticably ever since Consumer gave them too good grades for too long... ;) Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
