Re: Backup Image for my needs
Douglas A. Tutty wrote: On Wed, Dec 17, 2008 at 08:42:15PM -0600, Ron Johnson wrote: On 12/17/08 19:51, Douglas A. Tutty wrote: As far as I know, Debian doesn't have an installer feature like OpenBSD's where you can boot the installer, set up the disk partitions, and run restore right from there (from tape, presumably a raw drive partition as well, I don't know). That's one large-systems feature which Linux really misses. Real large-systems aren't taken off-line or ever restored from that low a level, usually. If they are, it's because there was 8 feet of water in the server room, and even then, you probably failed over to your cold-site before it got that bad. If you just had a hardware failure, you're probably already running on the warm/hot spare system by the time you look into it. So... you might be thinking mid-sized PC-based systems. ;-) I wonder if linux's dump is compatible with OpenBSD's restore? That would make bare-metal restores very handy. Ron, Much of the linux culture (the way to do things) seems to be aimed at (developed by?) windows users. Hahaha... that was the funniest thing I read all day. Short of getting a job in a large-systems shop (not going to happen), do you have any references, hints, etc, on becoming more familiar with large-systems practices/procedures/culture? Why bother? Go outside, enjoy some sunshine, have a life. If it's cold where you are, I hear snowmobiles are fun. There's nothing useful other than self-edification about learning how to manage large systems unless someone pays you to do it. (Plus if you want to know what it's REALLY like to manage large or complex systems, just cancel all capital expenditures this quarter! There's a worldwide economic panic going on amongst the same people who screwed it up in the first place, don't you know? No LTO tape drive or any of those other toys you mentioned allowed... OKAY... NOW GRIN and come up with a backup plan... and welcome to REAL large system's admin!) :-) Nate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Freeze SO Linux, it's possible?
Micha Feigin wrote: Tux on ice www.tuxonice.org has a keep image mode, although you need to be Second reply, to my own comment... http://www.tuxonice.net/ is the correct URL. Nate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Freeze SO Linux, it's possible?
Micha Feigin wrote: Tux on ice www.tuxonice.org has a keep image mode, although you need to be Doesn't resolve here. Nate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Colored less
Celejar wrote: On Mon, 24 Nov 2008 22:22:43 +0100 Javier Barroso [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 7:42 PM, Celejar [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, 24 Nov 2008 15:00:17 +0100 Rob Gom [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: However I don't see two things: 1. Automatic file update (when it's changed). less doesn't seem to do this either. except for growing files, F key in less emulate 'tail -f' (I don't known when this feature was introduced in less) Neat! I didn't know that. Yeah, I've completely broken my habit of tailing log files... less -ian and then hitting F has finally become my finger's habit... very useful... can search, move up and down, etc... Does eat a bit more RAM than just tailing things of course, if you're on a very constrained system or a system in serious memory trouble... Nate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Electricity Cutoffs, EXT3 and Filesystems
Michelle Konzack wrote: Am 2008-11-03 12:00:03, schrieb Volkan YAZICI: I really wonder the future of ReiserFS. I don't follow kernel related improvements (and discussions) that much, but I still don't have a reliable information about the development issues with ReiserFS. Somebody is saying something, and another one is duplicating it -- without giving a single grain of thought -- to others and so on. But AFAIK, there still isn't any official (you know what I mean by _official_) explanation related with ReiserFS. Yep, Hans Reiser did some nasty things. But would development of Linux stop if Linus Torvalds gets in some sort of trouble, e.g. arrested? This is NOT the same, since ReiserFS was generaly developed by ONE KEY PERSON Hans Reiser where the Linux Kernel itself has several 1000 contributors which can take over at any time... That's a nice platitude, but reading the Kernel list for years, it just isn't how it works. Reality is that if the one or two people who champion any particular thing disappear, the crowd deprecates their stuff after asking for volunteers (there rarely are any), and they write something new. If they don't write something completely new, they still rewrite the whole thing, introducing a whole new series of bugs, but basically bugs that THEY understand, instead of them reading and learning and fixing the OLD bugs. It never stabilizes. A 1000 monkeys all with their own agendas. That's the kernel. Not some fantasy-world 1000 great developers who can and do enjoy reading each other's code and working on other people's pet projects when they're missing/gone. Let's not sugar-coat it. The most prolific kernel folks are also those who are paid by a company to work on it. That's been shown a number of times via analysis of the check-ins to the source repositories du-jour, which Linus and the kernel team change regularly also. There's no there when talking about the wonderful panacea of open-source development... it's a mess, just like every commercial development effort I've ever seen, but with LESS management and less motivation to leave ABI's alone for customers, etc. Nate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: tardy sarge to etch upgrade proceedure
Mark Copper wrote: Economics aside, I am still amazed after all these years at the power free software has provided to the ordinary person. No university or corporation needed; just read and ask questions. Cool. And in what way does a GOOD closed-source software vendor break that? I've worked with plenty of closed-source applications and OS's over the years who's creators encouraged reading their excellent documentation and asking questions, and answered them. MS isn't one of them, but they are out there. It's not just an open-source phenomenon. It's a Customer Service and QUALITY phenomenon. Start using WindRiver, Microware, or Green Hills software and give them a call with a real programming problem, and see how they respond, for example. Even the Solaris team at Sun Microsystems, HP-UX team within HP, and the AIX team at IBM are all more responsive than MS about things. Claiming this transparency or power for the end-user wasn't there before open-source is disingenuous. Plenty of GREAT closed-source OS and application vendors out here still. The hype/religious experience of open-source notwithstanding... Nate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: When stability is pointless
It is very common for software developers to plow ahead without thinking much about the versions the distros provide. You may want to contact them and see how they would expect users to use their software effectively. It's likely: They won't care. Open-source suffers from not having the rest of what is typically seen in a company making commercial software... a team of documentation writers, a support staff to answer questions, people reviewing changes to see if they're sane from a user's perspective, user-interface standards and people to check them... all those nice things your dollars pay for. The open-source software eco-sphere is dense with applications, but very shallow. It never gains much depth of quality. Certain major applications with paid people taking care of them (the kernel, Apache, MySQL, etc) all are much better than the average quality level. Nate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Way OT: OpenDNS
On Sep 11, 2008, at 12:21 AM, Ron Johnson wrote: On 09/11/08 00:51, Dave Patterson wrote: On Thu, Sep 11, 2008 at 12:41:13AM -0500, Ron Johnson wrote: Guns? There's no law mandating you must own a gun in the US. Although, visions of Angelina Jolie packing heat are quite interesting... Indeed. No, I take that back. Kennesaw, Georgia and Geuda Springs, Kansas mandate that all households (with certain exceptions) maintain firearms and ammunition. Don't the Swiss do the same thing? I seem to remember an article somewhere... something to do with national defense... How could I have forgotten??? The Swiss Armed Forces issues every fit male a Sig 550 rifle and a Sig-Sauer P220, which they bring home with them. Smart people, the Swiss. In untrained hands, an Internet connection is far more dangerous than a firearm. -- Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Way OT: OpenDNS
On Sep 10, 2008, at 5:57 PM, Alex Samad wrote: :) I am allergic to guns, plus I love it down under Everyone is. Lead poisoning. It's not like you see people walking about packing firearms (in most places) - sheesh. You gotta love the media. What crock are they feeding you down there about us in Oz, mate? Everyone's a gun-toting mad man, ready to shoot people at a moment's notice? Sorry, the only places that happens are in the ghettos where drug dealing is rampant. And even then, there's a lot of drug culture folks who refuse to carry weapons because they know they'll go away for life if they're caught dealing with a firearm on them. Issue everyone a gun, the scare of them goes away. They're a tool like anything else. Of course, I live in a metro area and have virtually no regular use for mine - but I'm also an hour and a half away from being far enough back in the mountains/woods, that I could be dead in a single rainy/ snowy night without proper clothing and shelter -- and I've had enough scares with bears (mom and cub) that there's no reason NOT to take a weapon along when out in the woods. Quite a few Mountain Lions here too, but the reality is that if they're hunting you and you're the prey, you're probably not going to hear them until they hit you -- so a stand-off weapon like a firearm isn't going to be as much help as a good old-fashioned hunting knife. And the few people that have things like concealed carry permits are the ones that are playing by the rules so much, you know they're ultra-respectful of weapons and know how (and when) to use them. 99.999% of the time, the answer to that question is... You don't. Draw the weapon, you'd better already know it's a kill or be killed situation -- and there's not too many situations where that's the case... so... being scared of an armed population is pretty silly. Being scared of armed criminals who don't get their weapons legally anyway -- yeah, that's why you get the concealed weapon permit in the first place, if you frequent those places where that type of crowd hangs out. Where I live in the U.S. we do have what's called a Make my day law, where if someone is IN YOUR HOUSE threatening your life, you can shoot them. They even so much make it outside to the front porch, and you shoot there, you're probably going to jail for a very very long time. Frankly, anyone who knows guns also knows that regular guns are a menace inside a residential structure... you're as likely to fire the thing through the wall and kill the kids sleeping in the next room as you are to hit the bad guy in the house. Shotguns are the proper weapon for home protection, not handguns. Handguns are for shooting beer cans with your buddies. Feel free to CC me (unlike most of the whiners on the list about CC's - I actually delete so much of the train-wreck that is debian-user, that I just might miss any replies to this one... the OpenDNS subject line caught my eye but the thread rapidly turned into DSLReports.com, and I'm just not interested in sharing ping times from DSL/Cable/ Residential lines... it quickly headed toward the who cares? category for me... heh heh...) on replies. -- Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [OT] Incredible world-wide transportation network
David Fox wrote: On Wed, Jul 16, 2008 at 11:38 AM, Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Oh wow, that name brings back some memories... My brother sent me a microfiche scan at the library of an old newspaper (vintage 1986) which featured Fry's ads from that time period. Wow. He told me that his 750 gig drive would have cost some tens of millions of dollars if it had been manufactured back then. Actually he'd have a few thousand 20 meg MFM drives stacked from here to the nearest 7-11 :). My favorite computer: http://www.natetech.com/images/tandycoco.jpg Only $599 and 16K of RAM. :-) And whoever said something about open-source desktops: http://www.natetech.com/images/not-penguin.jpg Nate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [OT] Incredible world-wide transportation network
Ron Johnson wrote: That computer served me very well for several years. Leading Edge D? Oh wow, that name brings back some memories... Nate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: My first message... more of a mad mans rant...
Stackpole, Chris wrote: Personally, I would feel bad for the developers who would be forced to upkeep an unstable, a testing alpha (may or may not break), a testing (may or may not break), and a stable release version. It would be like having a version of testing as a perpetual Release Candidate. I don't really care to wish that on the developers. If you want a working Sid machine, just load this: http://sidux.com/ (No, I don't endorse anyone but people who know what they're doing and what they're getting into using it -- I just know about it being out there and I'm sharing so the tweakers who can't wait, but also can't code or fix anything on their own... can play with it.) I would like to see a well standardized release system. I think that is one thing that Mark Shuttleworth is doing right over at Ubuntu. I personally think that a 6mo release cycle is a bit much, however, would it be really difficult to pick a date once a year and just state something like Every August 1rst testing is frozen and a release will be made by the end of September!? That way the time frame between stable releases isn't absurd and everyone knows when they need to have their code in place. It isn't an arbitrary date that developers may or may not be aware of. Real release dates are nice, but Debian also needs to keep the freedom to NEVER break policy that states critical bugs either mean the package is removed, or fixed, BEFORE release. That's what makes Debian as rock-solid as it is for Production purposes. If that means waiting 2 months to fix something that's busted... so be it. Nate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: IMAP is teh r0x0rz! [was: Re: getting copies of own posted messages; was: Re: ??: Stunned by aptitude.]
On Jul 10, 2008, at 11:51 AM, Steve C. Lamb wrote: On Thu, Jul 10, 2008 at 10:38:21AM -0700, Andrew Sackville-West wrote: On Wed, Jul 09, 2008 at 01:38:35PM -0500, Ron Johnson wrote: On 07/09/08 13:26, Andrew Sackville-West wrote: This is why IMAP should be the standard mail store, not mboxes in proprietary locations. second that. THe convenience is incredible. Case in point: Here's another fine example. I use dovecot on my server to expose my mbox mail via IMAP. Here are the locations from where I regularly check my mail: We really gotta get you over to Maildir someday, Steve. ;-) Then you can back up mail directories with thinks like rdiff and not pull in the whole mbox file into the backup again. Just the new mail. (GRIN) -- Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Solved] Re: Unable to remove trousers (package!!!)
On Jul 8, 2008, at 4:25 PM, stabbyjones wrote: the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. Like top-posting? -- Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Clearing SWAP
Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso wrote: Yes Apple does apparently give back some code... It looks khtml or Webkit or whatever the marketable term nowadays is does indeed have free Apple code in it, even if they gave it back in ways that were difficult for free developers to adopt and took a long time to actually find their way back to KDE. I've never quite understood what is the difference between Mach, XNU, and Darwin, where the kernel ends and where the operating system begins, and just exactly what is it that Apple took and gave back when it comes down to that. What irks me is that I get the impression that Apple takes a lot more code than it gives back and it uses unfair practices like the GPL exception in CUPS that's just for them only. A friend jokingly says, Don't hate the Player baby, hate the Game! For me, that GPL exception and all the non-free software they release point to even murkier practices under the surface. If that's what they let us see, what are they hiding from us? I don't hate Apple (nor Microsoft for that matter), but I do think it's likely that they'll be the next monopolists. First IBM, then Microsoft, now Apple. I guess it's time to change masters again. This does not make me happy. Ooh, the Big Conspiracy Theory comes out. Whatever. Build something better. Same argument as the previous Master, and Linux as a whole, still hasn't really done it yet. (I don't expect it will, either, because better to the average consumer and better to a person that likes to tinker with Linux are two distinctly different things, and most Linux hackers aren't interested in building the former definition of better. Some are, but not all.) Real freedom = BSD. Freedom with an agenda = GPL. Apple used what was available to them, and continues to do so to make a profit. If that's wrong, outlaw profits. Sheesh. Nate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Most inexpensive debian friendly laserjet printer? total cost of ownership including laserink?
Mitchell Laks wrote: I tend to print out a lot of documentation on the software for projects that I work on. Therefore I go through alot of laserjet cartidges on my postscript compatible hp laserjet 1200 printer. I haven't done the math but have been happy with my Samsung laser printer. I print a lot of BW (no color) and it doesn't seem to be nickle and diming me to death. Printer price was reasonable, and the cartridges aren't too bad either. It's an ML-1710, and there are some newer models now (ML-1710 is discontinued) that use the same cartridge, but the major differences seem to only be in paper handling and larger output bins on the newer ones. Nate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Looking for a decent IMAP server with hierarchical folders
Joe wrote: Public Mailing Lists wrote: Hi, I'm looking for a decent imap server with hierarchical folders. I tried Cyrus, but Cyrus does not accept the emails that I'm trying to copy onto it. Which other imap server has hierarchical folders? Any experiences for share? Thanks, Gordon IMAP does this by definition. I'm using Courier. Assuming a default Debian exim4 installation, you need to switch it to using maildir rather than mbox format, I believe all IMAP servers require this. Courier can be set up to support maildir or mbox formats. Of course, maildir is better. Nate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: question for the listmasters - bounce threshold?
Andrew Sackville-West wrote: On Mon, Apr 07, 2008 at 02:04:21PM -0600, Nate Duehr wrote: I get a warning from the Debian listservers once in a while that my server is bouncing messages and that: maybe don't bounce them. either REJECT them at smtp time or simply blackhole them. if you're bouncing them, you've already gone to the trouble to receive them... blackhole works great and never needs empyting. Bounce is their word. I'm rejecting. Nate WY0X -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
question for the listmasters - bounce threshold?
I get a warning from the Debian listservers once in a while that my server is bouncing messages and that: If those bounces pass a certain threshold, our bounce-detection will forcibly remove your subscription. They also nicely (unlike a lot of list server setups) provide a link to the bounce so I can read it. In every case, it's due to BLATENT spam getting onto the lists that my SA setup is rejecting at delivery-time. They do kindly offer a solution: If you are using 'Before-Queue Content filtering' and you think that this mail is wrong, you should whitelist liszt.debian.org from Content filtering. But that's not a solution. The Debian lists according to my logs are by FAR the worst lists I'm on for allowing spam through, and if my ULTRA-simple SA setup can stop these things... Well anyway... I'm certainly not going to whitelist Debian while it's still my highest source of spam. But the message doesn't indicate the ACTUAL number of bounces that are required before a removal happens. Anyone ever hit the real number and know how many it takes? I've tried replying to and/or contacting the Listmasters in other polite ways and never receive a response. Is it a big secret what the real thresholds are? I read their message this way: We can't keep even simple spam off our lists, but we've implemented automatic bounce removal. Please don't filter at delivery time. To which I say... meh. Just let it fail and take me off the list if you can't do as simple a setup as mine is here... I have nothing fancy going on... and don't use any of the super aggressive anti-spam measures. Just normal ones. Nate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Totally OT] Re: Hmmm. A question. Was [Re: Debian is losing its users]
On Apr 5, 2008, at 9:41 PM, Hal Vaughan wrote: On Saturday 05 April 2008, Nate Duehr wrote: On Apr 5, 2008, at 8:56 PM, Charlie wrote: I suppose by that standard you imagine that children have no worth at all? I can't really agree. As one who was a child once, I think children are an extremely valuable asset to a species in the now as well as the future. I never said anything of the sort. I said that as a society we reward parents for having children, and it's odd. If their values are to have a big family that's fine, but government encouraging it is a different thing. Not necessarily bad, just not real obvious to the majority that have children. I was debating to respond earlier, but I thought I'd wait. If you're talking about taxes in terms of rewards, as you said initially, compare how much the deduction for a child is or how much is added on to the refunds we'll get this year to how much it costs to take care of a child for one year. It's about as much of a reward as someone paying me $5 to spend a month doing some tough coding that keeps me up day and night. Doesn't matter, economically it's still a reward for behavior that you as an adult were always 100% responsible for anyway. There's no bigger welfare for a larger group of people anywhere in the U.S. if you're making roughly middle-class money, it comes off of your taxable income. It reduces your tax liability quite significantly. I made similar comments on another list and challenged any parent to calculate the difference on their taxes, and to send the difference to their local school district during an education reform debate. I haven't seen any e-mails yet from any takers... thus, obviously the parents are not putting their money where their mouth is -- they want to put my money (thus my labor and skills) in that breach instead and run experiments with the school system on my dime. I'd rather see them up the limits for future education spending for the children under that particular parent's care, than take a straight- off-the-top taxable income change. Go ahead and let 'em save lots and lots of money for that child's education to reduce their tax liability just as much as they get back for any dependents if they will... (more than they can save already today as a tax shelter). Education of their children benefits society far more than yearly reductions in taxable income. And this year, additional money in the rebate checks for those with children? Why? Think about that one for a minute... 1. They already paid less in taxes. 2. Now they get more money than childless taxpayers back? What a deal! I bet ALL of the concerned parents will be sending BOTH the difference in their original taxes in 2006 and their rebate checks straight to the education system. (Rolling eyes.) -- Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Totally OT] Re: Hmmm. A question. Was [Re: Debian is losing its users]
On Apr 5, 2008, at 3:24 PM, Hal Vaughan wrote: Seems kind of stupid to put yourself in that kind of ethical dilemma in the first place. It's not like there aren't six billion other people on this already overpopulated rock, plopping out another before you can afford to raise it through age 18 in this day and age ought to be considered child abuse. Sorry to be so harsh, but there's no other way to call it than to say such as statement is shortsighted, overdramatic, and ignorant. Planning out the next 18 years is just not possible. Even for the independently wealthy, there is no way to be sure you'll have the resources in 18 years that you have now. By your standard, less than 2% of the entire world's population should ever consider parenthood, and those would be the richest 2% on the planet. Unless you're at least a multi-millionaire (considering numbers these days, I'd say worth $3-5 million), you've just qualified yourself as an unfit Father. Not going to dive into the fray about overpopulation and people having children who can't afford to raise them... but I will comment that having finished my 2007 taxes here recently, and as a (by choice) non- parent, I find our society rewarding parents by giving a tax break for each child to be quite distasteful. I have no problems paying my fair share of taxes, but lowering both taxable income and this year -- offering a higher rebate as an economic stimulus package-- for people who decided to have or keep children, is fiscally irresponsible, as it rewards the wrong behavior. I guess I wouldn't spend that money more readily on capital goods that would truly help the economy? Yeah right. What world is this again? The parents with four kids will spend it on higher fuel costs for soccer mom to rush children from event to event. As a DINK family (Dual-Income, No Kids and yes, we're a family too, even if we're treated like second-class family citizens by almost every government, religious, and societal group), who probably will be for our entire lives, we know we're in the minority, and screwed -- when it comes to pointing out to our so-called representative government that handing back more money to someone because they have children, and/or offering them a lower taxable income number every year than ours at the same real income level, is blatantly wrong. -- Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Somewhat More OT] Closed source software Was [Re: Hmmm. A question. Was [Re: Debian is losing its users]]
On Apr 5, 2008, at 3:25 PM, Andrew Sackville-West wrote: I have seen direct evidence of the problem inherent in reply-to munging. We had a student reply to an email thinking she was replying only to the instructor and instead sent her tearful sounding pleas to the entire class list. Not cool. Much better to err on the side of sending mail to fewer people than the opposite. Call me a masochist if you like, but I think stuff like that IS cool. It also shows very dramatically the inherent problems with using e- mail for human communication. If she really was that distressed, why wasn't she in his office for office hours IMMEDIATELY? So much for human interaction. You can now beg and plead for important things in life from your iPhone while drinking a coffee at Starbucks. (I assume she was begging about a grade or needing help with the course material, or something similar if she was a student.) Progress? Not really. Maybe next year she can at least call him via a videoconference! LOL! -- Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Totally OT] Re: Hmmm. A question. Was [Re: Debian is losing its users]
On Apr 5, 2008, at 8:56 PM, Charlie wrote: I suppose by that standard you imagine that children have no worth at all? I can't really agree. As one who was a child once, I think children are an extremely valuable asset to a species in the now as well as the future. I never said anything of the sort. I said that as a society we reward parents for having children, and it's odd. If their values are to have a big family that's fine, but government encouraging it is a different thing. Not necessarily bad, just not real obvious to the majority that have children. So I assume that government feels the same way and is willing to ensure that people keep having children? Perhaps. Or perhaps they are scared to piss off the majority and say, You can pay your fair share -- the people without children shouldn't be paying more. Neanderthal man had children because of sex drive, modern families often want things other than children because their sex drive can be satisfied without the obvious result. It is a choice, so each must make their own. Yep. Personal decisions. Get the government out of the macro- economics of it. Interesting, and there will always be controversy and views in both directions. Yep. I just speak mine when I get a chance, because I'm an adult in the vast minority on this topic. No offense meant to people who have chosen to be parents. (I don't say haven't chosen because well frankly, the vast majority choose to have sex, and can take responsibility for the results.) -- Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Totally OT] Re: Hmmm. A question. Was [Re: Debian is losing its users]
On Apr 5, 2008, at 8:59 PM, Hal Vaughan wrote: On Saturday 05 April 2008, Paul Johnson wrote: On Saturday 05 April 2008 02:24:17 pm Hal Vaughan wrote: I truly hope you're being facetious because the alternative would be to wonder if you've ever talked to any parents. Of course I know parents, and the ones who don't have anything resembling that kind of money lined up pretty much have hell to pay for it. It's an unenviable position that I plain can't understand why anybody would put themselves in to start with, much less consider normal. That you don't understand it does not mean that you are in any position to judge them. That you admit you can't understand it supports that you are in no position to make such a judgement. If you don't understand it, you're not the one to make a judgement. Actually there's one judgement we can all agree on... the vast majority of people having children (let's keep the straw-men of rape, incest, etc... out of the big picture discussion for the moment) are choosing to have sex. They must then live with the consequences as responsible adults. Whether or not we make their responsibilities easier or harder to deal with becomes a societal decision. The welfare of the child often is the litmus test for such decisions, and indirectly we often make the parent's decision to have sex easier because we choose as a society not to let the child suffer. This is probably a good thing, from a balanced point of view -- neither fully socialistic nor fully capitalistic, but we also must openly recognize that it ultimately leads to an unfair situation for those willing to behave responsibly, and put limits on direct or indirect aid. I say, start with ramping down the indirect aid -- drop dependent tax breaks. Fully aid those in the worst of situations where the child is at risk, and quit handing the typical middle-class parents free money every year just because they have kids. They'll budget and cope. -- Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: exim/postfix comparisons
koffiejunkie wrote: Nate Duehr wrote: Qmail is fast, and can handle an incredible amount of mail thrown at it, I have heard and read that claim so many times but, after years of having to admin qmail servers, have yet to seen it handle huge amounts of mail with even half the grace that Postfix does. I have no experience with postfix on massive amounts of mail. I do believe you, however... since HP is using postfix internally quite heavily, from what I've heard. (I don't work there.) The postfix machines I've run are much smaller than the qmail box(es) were and less important. I'm lazy and my home server is still running exim, because I've been running it since exim3 days on Debian... and I haven't felt like rebuilding it to postfix. But if the hardware ever finally keels over dead, it'll be rebuilt as postfix/courier. I regularly encounter servers that had been compromised (usually via php or a weak smtp password) and used for sending out massess of spam. 100,000 undeliverable mails in the queue and qmail just about stops functioning. That's odd. Someone who would go through the time/effort to set up qmail didn't secure their box? Weird. Never seen a queue quite that high, but I would assume the box would get both CPU and I/O bound for most values of box. (GRIN) Add in that even if it's Public Domain, the author never wnated to work with the community to make it better... he just washed his hands of it You're letting him off lightly. He still maintains it is perfect, doesn't need any of the new features, and is 100% secure. Forgive me for thinking doesn't have to deal with any real busy production servers. Yeah, I was being diplomatic. Qmail's author is out of touch with large mail server admin reality so far that I figured it went without saying... anyone who really looks into it will find the same things you've just added above. Anyone too lazy to look into it, gets what they deserve when they have to deal with constantly recompiling qmail for their various production machines. I gave enough of a hint that they could go do their own research/homework. :-) Nate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: exim/postfix comparisons
koffiejunkie wrote: That's odd. Someone who would go through the time/effort to set up qmail didn't secure their box? Weird. Well, it's like this. I work for a hosting company, a lot of our clients use a certain hosting panel whose name I won't mention. This Smells like Plesk. (GRIN) There, you didn't have to say it. :-) I get at least one box that's compromised in one of the above ways per day. Clients call saying their mail isn't going out. This is usually because there are tens of thousands of mails in the queue and the box is paralised. Ick. Do you monitor port 25 outbound at your border for spikes in traffic? Seems like in some cases that would be the only way you'd ever see it when dealing with the low-end ultra-clueless hosted customers. Ever had your entire netblock dumped into one of the major spam fighting sites... have seen that many years ago at a large datacenter... sure pissed off the other customers. The spam-fighters were their usual unresponsive, uncaring selves and didn't care that they'd been overzealous in their crusade against spam. Little discipline in many of those groups... but a lot of emotion. I hate spam, but engaging in such a way as to cause mass collateral damage to real businesses and people trying to make a living to make a point? Give me a break. It's like someone coming to your brick-and-mortar store and pointing a gun at you and saying, Get the guys next door to stop selling XYZ product! And if you don't we stand here and you're out of business until you do! It's retarded. (We had already found the problem in the original customer's server and stopped it from happening with them. But getting an entire Class-C that was properly SWIP'ed and reverse-DNS tagged as NOT just being that one customer, off the spam lists, was a long and annoyingly difficult process, even when I could prove the other problem was gone, and that there WERE people overseeing that netblock who weren't criminal or insane spammers.) The real answer has been, and always will be... a method to authenticate both servers and end-users of e-mail, end to end. Until that day, spam reigns supreme, no matter how hard anyone tries. Take note, I'm talking about undeliverable mail. qmail doesn't deal well with this. It is pretty fast if all the mail can be delivered without problems. Yep. It sucks at that. Ties up tons of resources. The way the place I saw using it heavily dealt with that is that they had separate inbound and outbound servers... and more than one outbound... what a waste of time... but it worked for them. Postfix is quite a different beast. The one and only time I saw it straining under load, a client phoned and complained that his mail was slow. Turns out he set up a mysql backend, but couldn't get smtp authentication working with it (forgot to install pam_mysql) and instead decided to just allow relay for 0.0.0.0. Let your imagination do the rest. His humble little server (I think it was a duron with 512MB ram and a single IDE disc) had over a million mails in the queue, but was still spitting out mail, just not as fast as he was used to. LOL! What made this a pleasure to work with, was that after fixing the relay issue, I could move all the mail in the active queue to the hold queue, so mail was instantly flowing as normail, which gave me all the time in the world to delete the spam and requeue the legitimate mail. qmail (to the best of my knowledge) doesn't have a way to do this. Yeah. Managing mail via moving files is far more sane than dealing with specific mail queue commands, different on every system. Moving files seems much more Unix-like to me. Never seen a queue quite that high, but I would assume the box would get both CPU and I/O bound for most values of box. (GRIN) Yeah, it gets to them. Another silly thing with qmail is that when you restart it, it doesn't kill existing outgoing smtp sessions. So if your remoteconcurrency is set to 100, you'll now have 200 sessions, until the first 100 all timed out. Hahaha, I don't think I ever noticed that, but makes sense! Well, maybe after reading along here, the original poster (if he's even still here or paying attention to the list...) is thoroughly scared off of qmail now. Which probably isn't a Bad Thing(TM), since there's just better options available... and have been for quite a while... Nate WY0X -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: exim/postfix comparisons
Kevin Mark wrote: On Mon, Mar 24, 2008 at 12:13:19PM +0100, Martin Marcher wrote: PS: if there's a compelling reason to go in the sendmail direction (or any other mta) i'm willing to do that, but I refuse qmail because of licensing issues Are you aware that qmail is now 'public domain' as of last year? -K DSFG Free, or not? If not... don't bother. Qmail is fast, and can handle an incredible amount of mail thrown at it, but it has some quirks that make it a real pain in the ass in production. Mostly its bounce-handling. Having to recompile it all the time to add features, also sucks. Add in that even if it's Public Domain, the author never wnated to work with the community to make it better... he just washed his hands of it, and features that should have been rolled into it, instead have always had to be patched in from source and the entire system rebuilt to get standard features that other MTA's had safely and successfully added along the way. The licensing issues weren't what the main problem was, but those issues along with the source/rebuild cycle and other operational weirdnesses, also made me feel that qmail... was a giant pain in the ass. Nate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Canon LIDE-90 scanner
Anthony Campbell wrote: I'm just waiting for either my scanner or printer to die, so that I can justify buying one of those nice HP C6200 units... Which means twice as many things to go wrong and more room taken up on the desk. Also, I don't want an inkjet printer. They do make such all-in-one things with both black and white and color laser for the printing... not cheap, but if you bought a good one, it'd probably last forever. Nate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Accessing a TV adapter via my network
On Feb 5, 2008, at 2:26 AM, Barry Samuels wrote: I don't intend a cardboard box to be a permanent solution but I've no intention of buying a case until I know that the whole setup works. Fair enough. Put some shielding around that puppy someday, at least. :-) -- Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: low-MHz server
Douglas A. Tutty wrote: On Tue, Feb 05, 2008 at 11:58:28AM -0500, Christopher Judd wrote: PS FWIW, I doubt that it is really the high frequency fields that she is sensitive to, but without another explanation, you have to go with what works for you. FYI, UHF TV signals are in the 70 - 1000 MHz range. It would be hard to escape these anywhere near civilization, although the signal strength may be quite low. I thought that the standard FM band (88.7 MHz - 108.?) sat between channels 6 7 on the TV VHF band. I suppose I could check wikipedia. The upper UHF TV channels go cut to make room for cell phones when they came in. If you can find open spectrum in virtually anything DC-to-Daylight in the U.S., you're a LONG way from populated areas, or you're in the National Radio Quiet Zone. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_National_Radio_Quiet_Zone It's why the regulatory agency (note: not a revenue generator for the government, the REGULATORS) can make $4+ billion auctioning off 30 MHz of spectrum. (And some of us are still wondering where that 4 billion goes, after the FCC runs these new-fangled spectrum auctions.) There are not many open holes in this chart: http://www.ntia.doc.gov/osmhome/allochrt.pdf That's the real deal. There have been a lot of studies of people who claim frequency sensitivity and only one case where the person did seem to truly have some minor sensitivity to RF (I remember reading the article, but I can't find it now) at certain frequencies in scientific testing. But, there were quite a few MORE people who were actually sensitive to ultra-sonic frequencies... audio that was above the normal range of human hearing. Many of those people had reported that computers and electronics bothered them, and what was found was that they could HEAR these frequencies, in almost a subconscious way, and it would annoy them, distract them, etc. A small and poorly done study published recently that they proved that some people sleep poorly in the presence of 800 MHz signals, but they didn't produce a very large sample and they didn't properly measure the field strengths needed. This report immediately got spun into GSM cell phones will cause you not to sleep, when of course, most GSM phones are NOT operating in the 800 MHz spectrum MOST of the time (they are on the higher alternate bands, unless they can't reach that network for some reason or another), and various other reality check problems with the stupid news reporting (and reporters who don't check sources and facts). It's VERY easy to shield an area of a house or building to keep in or out certain frequency ranges. RF engineers do this all the time to create RF test chambers and other quiet areas for receiver testing, etc. (Faraday cage.) I'd put money on the ultrasonics in her case, if she's really sensitive to electronics operating nearby. She can probably HEAR them running, and doesn't realize it because it wouldn't be real obvious... there is no training in your youth from family/friends Hey, do you hear that? for folks that have extended hearing ranges. I can't hear ultrasonics, but I whiz through hearing tests up into very high frequencies and I hear things that my wife simply can't hear... I get into her car and say, When did that noise start?! That sounds bad... we might need to get the X fixed! and she wonders what the heck I'm talking about. My father, and grandfather and supposedly great-grandfather also suffered from mild tinitis (ringing of the ears - for some people it never stops, and can literally drive people mad), but I've never dug to see if there's a real genetic link for that particular malady. I've had episodes of mild ringing, but I understand this can simply be from damage to the cilia in the ear, and I'm pretty bad about listening to loud music, and I fly small aircraft (with hearing protection, but it's still bloody loud in a light aircraft, no matter how you slice it) and love anything that makes a hell of a lot of noise, like airshows, screaming crowds at events, etc. This also explains why my wife thinks a $30 boom box is fine and wonders why I insist on buying quality stereo equipment and speakers anytime I can afford them. She honestly probably can't hear the difference, or not as much of one. Nate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Accessing a TV adapter via my network
On Jan 31, 2008, at 3:36 AM, Mihira Fernando wrote: Barry Samuels wrote: [snip] I have setup my cardboard computer (it's in a cardboard box) using an old main board with a 750 MHz Athlon K7 and 768 MB of RAM. I fitted a PCI ethernet card and a PCI wireless card. There is a 6.5 GB hard drive [snip] it would a lot safer to get a proper casing for that. You're looking at a fire hazard with a cardboard box and those components. Not to mention throwing small but annoying amounts of RF interference everywhere... there's probably a cell site technician, ham radio operator, or similar -- trying to figure out where that damn noise source is. RF shielding has gotten pretty poor on modern cases, but a cardboard box takes the cake. -- Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Where do you put your swap partition?
On Jan 26, 2008, at 3:56 AM, Mike Kuhar wrote: I think that's quite reasonable. -mike (Sorry to be late to the show.) All my systems run from a single disk drive. I put the swap partition as close to the middle of the disk on the theory that that'll minimize seek time for a function I want to run as quickly as possible. Is this reasonable? Or not. Most disks nowadays present a logical format to the computer they're connected to that has little to do with where the heads are actually reading/writing from on the platters. It's all handled in the firmware on the disk's controller board. For what it's worth, you have little (real) control over where things get written to the platters these days. You do have control over the performance of that platter, however... (faster disk, bigger bus to talk to it on, etc etc etc.)... -- Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: OT: clicky keyboards
On Dec 14, 2007, at 2:43 PM, Kent West wrote: David Brodbeck wrote: Didn't Microsoft sell a data wristwatch for a while that was programmed by rapidly flashing the screen? I remember thinking at the time that it was rather short-sighted to come out with a product that required the user to have a CRT monitor. There was such a watch, but I'm confident it was not a Microsoft brand. I'm thinking Timex. I have a co-worker who had one. He's not around at the moment to query. Yep Timex. I had one. One of the only pieces of data sync software I've ever used that worked correctly -- mostly because it was only one- way. :-) -- Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: OT: clicky keyboards
On Dec 10, 2007, at 5:15 PM, David Brodbeck wrote: On Dec 10, 2007, at 3:51 PM, Miles Bader wrote: I agree the Apple II and TRS-80 keyboards were crap, but I have very fond memories of hacking on the VT-100. I guess the keyboard feel wasn't all that great compared to a model-m or something, but there was just something very nice about the whole package (the keyboard _shape_, and key layout on the VT-100, for instance, were great)... What I remember most about the VT-100 is that it had the loudest system bell I'd ever heard. There was a 3 speaker in the bottom of the keyboard. Overall I preferred the VT-330. It was much more compact, and the amberchrome CRT was easier on the eyes than the VT-100's black-and- white tube. I spent a lot of time on the Wyse 55 and 60... (you can still get those, I believe Wyse still sells them)... -- Nate Duehr, WY0X [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: OT: clicky keyboards
On Dec 8, 2007, at 10:54 AM, Ron Johnson wrote: Listening to people sing in Italian (or German) about incest and matricide is not my cup of tea. We'll make sure not to ever invite you to any Shakespeare plays then, either. Classic fictional tragedies often use such topics as a setting for an epic plot to emerge. Hamlet: Madam, how like you this play? Queen: The lady doth protest too much, methinks. (Of course, the above is a misquote, since the word protest meant something quite different in Shakespeare's time, but you get the idea. GRIN.) -- Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: OT: clicky keyboards
On Dec 8, 2007, at 11:42 AM, Ron Johnson wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 12/08/07 12:17, Andrew Sackville-West wrote: On Sat, Dec 08, 2007 at 11:54:57AM -0600, Ron Johnson wrote: Listening to people sing in Italian (or German) about incest and matricide is not my cup of tea. sounds like a python bit The language or the comedy troop? Anyway, no one can convince me that opera is nothing more than pre-television HBO. Your joke would be funnier if you used MTV or VH1 instead of HBO. -- Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: OT: clicky keyboards
On Dec 7, 2007, at 4:43 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [This message has also been posted to linux.debian.user.] In article [EMAIL PROTECTED], Andrew Sackville-West wrote: If you need that amazingly insightful gift for someone (yourself?) this year, check out www.clickykeyboards.com for real IBM keyboards. Mine just arrived and I'm in heaven.=20 Also known as the Carpal Tunnel special. Humbug. If you learned hot to type *properly* on a real IBM Selectric (hint: you never pushed the key down past the click, certainly never to the stops), using a clicky keyboard today won't cause you carpal tunnel any faster than a squish-box typed on improperly will. The click was meant to simulate the action of the typewriter ball smacking the paper for those of us who learned how to type on typewriters. Most carpal tunnel is brought on by typing done with angle of the arm and wrist all wrong, etc. Basic ergonomics. To start with, real speed typists raise their hands off the board (the long wrist rests on most modern keyboards, especially laptops, simply didn't exist on typewriters -- people also didn't use them on their laps!). Incorrect technique is far more risky than using a clicky keyboard. Learning how to type properly isn't an activity undertaken by many people anymore. Heck, taking a basic computer operation course with the basics of input/output, files, and how computers work isn't done either -- and look how confused the average untrained user is by simple tasks on a computer. We point them at a complex device with no training and expect results. Ridiculous. Look up some old typist-training books sometime and research how typists on typewriters got above 80 WPM. You'll find the techniques to avoid carpal tunnel in most of them. Some people are also simply more prone to it, but seriously -- the keyboard's always far less at fault (since our society always wants to blame something on externalities than on one's own behavior) than the typist's technique. Blaming carpal tunnel on a particular type of keyboard smells funny to me. I'm not buying. I'm surprised many people have. Of course, there's a fiscal reason -- carpal tunnel claims and legal cases are quite lucrative. -- Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: permissions in /sbin
On Dec 5, 2007, at 10:31 AM, David Brodbeck wrote: One obvious problem with removing permissions on all this stuff is there are sometimes situations where an ordinary user legitimately needs to run, say, mount. Seems to me like setting up that user with sudo access to mount would fix the problem without moving things out of their normal locations? -- Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: OT: clicky keyboards
On Dec 6, 2007, at 2:08 PM, Andrew Sackville-West wrote: Totally OT, except it's on my debian box ;) If you need that amazingly insightful gift for someone (yourself?) this year, check out www.clickykeyboards.com for real IBM keyboards. Mine just arrived and I'm in heaven. My clicky board is hooked up downstairs on the desktop machine, and it's a real find -- a real IBM that has a two-button mouse and a nubby in the middle of the keyboard, just like their laptops. No need to reach for a mouse at all. I love that thing. Right at the moment, I'm on the MacBook -- my second favorite keyboard. At work, they use IBM's and the external keyboard isn't clicky but it's about as close as you can get on a new keyboard these days... I'm a happy typist. I never got used to squishy keyboards, I originally learned to type on an IBM Selectric typewriter, and I make a lot more mistakes on keyboards that have no audible or tactile feedback... or aren't flat enough (like the MacBook) to remind me of my original Tandy Color Computer Model I. The keyboard I dislike the most are the newer cheap Sun Type V keyboards that came with regular ball mice. Those things stink. Older ones (which were squishy I will admit) were much better built -- the ones with the optical mouse, long before optical mice were popular... but they had to be used on the special little mousepad with the lines embedded in it... I could get by on those. :-) -- Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: OT: SATA Backplanes drivebays and caddies
On Dec 5, 2007, at 2:39 AM, Bob wrote: Bob wrote: Sorry for the OT post but I know a few round here are well informed on the storage industry. I'm just about to migrate a bunch of PCs to SATA from IDE as the IDE drive caddies are failing [0] and I already have my server and a few PCs using SATA, what I'm looking for is a drivebay / backplane manufacturer that has 5, 4, 3 and 1 slot internal bays available that use the *same* tray / housing / caddie. The tray / housing / caddie doesn't have to be rugged [1] or cover the whole drive, it would just be *really* convenient to be able to move drives around at will. My search (below) hasn't helped much, has anyone round here got any suggestions? sata removable (disk | drive | harddrive) (caddy | bay | drawer | tray) single multi Thanks [0] I think all ATA removable bays take a bunch of liberties with the standard anyway and these were cheap and are old [1] which I suppose by definition means it's not a caddie fx crickets, cicadas and frogs /fx Alternatively if you can think of a better forum for this post a link would also be appreciated. The folks on the Debian-ISP list probably deal with this type of hardware quite a bit more than the average Debian home user on the main user list? -- Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: UPS
On Dec 5, 2007, at 5:17 AM, Hugo Vanwoerkom wrote: Looks like I am looking for a 7 Amp-Hour 12 volts F2 spade terminals .250 sealed lead-acid battery Fire alarms and security alarms often use these types of batteries. If you can find a local alarm service company, they probably have some or know where to get them locally. They might even sell you one from a bulk order they placed. -- Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: UPS
Hugo Vanwoerkom wrote: My Back-UPS LS 500 is in need of a battery. How do I go about finding that locally? I.e what does one ask for? I know the battery it has and that is not sold locally. I don't know the physical layout of the LS 500, but the packs are typically made up of standard sealed lead-acid batteries that are used for all sorts of purposes... fire alarms, industrial, etc. To replace these is simple: I just opened my UPS up, pulled out the pack -- which turned out to be two standard 12V sealed lead-acid batteries -- disconnected it (it's well marked for positive and negative, and in my case there was a Y cable with an in-line fuse holder between the two packs for current limiting), and took them to the local battery dealer. I shopped a bit online and found batteries a couple of bucks cheaper (or really cheap in 10 packs - if someone has a lot of UPS's to refurbish), but the local store was convenient and their price was fair if I included shipping on the stuff from the Net dealers. The local store also was nice because they took the two original dead batteries for recycling at no charge, and glued the two new batteries together to make up the pack. You could install them without gluing them together, for certain -- but it makes it a little easier to get them in and out of the unit with the front cover door down. Slide the new pack in, reconnect the connectors and the in-line fuse holder that was hooked between the packs, and it was done. APC also has a trade-up offer on their website where they'll give discounts on brand new units for turning in the old one (I believe they are even providing recycling services). The prices weren't that great, but if you were out in the country-side and didn't have a local battery dealer, it'd be better than nothing. If this is your UPS: http://www.apc.com/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=BP500UCtotal_watts=200 They have links on that page for battery replacement kits with and without their software. You only need the battery. That's definitely a standard single sealed lead-acid battery. They sell that kit to replace it, but you can get that battery just about anywhere... Looking at the photos, I think that is a 7Ah battery, but let's see... a little Google... http://www.apexbattery.com/apc-back-ups-ls-500-ups-battery-bp500uc-ups-batteries-apc-ups-batteries-apc-back-ups-batteries.html Yep. 7.5 Amp-Hour standard gel cell. CDW wants $35.99 for the official APC branded replacement. http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?EDC=107245RecommendedForEDC=209767RecoType=AC APC voids their equipment protection if you don't use theirs, supposedly... If you're not worried about that, those batteries (if I got the right UPS above) are a piece of cake to find all over the place. Make sure you recycle the old one. Have fun. Nate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: UPS
David Brodbeck wrote: For home use the BackUPS models are fine, but for important servers I prefer the SmartUPS models due to their self-test capabilities. With a BackUPS your first clue that the battery has worn out is usually when the power fails and the UPS drops the load. My BackUPS does a daily load test. The first indication that batteries are dead is when it tries to move the load to the battery and the alarm starts screaming bloody murder. People often discard these units when the batteries fail, after thee or four years. If there's a good computer surplus store in your area you might be able to pick up some units for almost nothing that just need new batteries. I've frequently bought surplus BackUPS units for $2 to $3 each and I have yet to get one that needed anything more than new batteries. Definitely agreed. Sealed lead-acid batteries are cheap, and most battery outlets will happily make you up a pack if your UPS is big enough to have more than one battery hot-glued together and make sure you have the correct tabs/connectors to install it in any UPS you might have. I recently refurbished an old BackUPS 1100 that had dead batteries for about $50 for brand new, name-brand batteries. People who won't be bothered to fix things and are part of the throw-away society, pay for nice new UPS's, and I get them for the cost of battery replacements. Great deal for me... sad for them. Nate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: kernel headers and vmware
On Nov 19, 2007, at 6:54 PM, Steve Kleene wrote: On Mon, 19 Nov 2007 16:25:58 -0600, Hugo Vanwoerkom wrote: I use VMware Server 56528 and am quite happy with it. Wished I could start vmware + XP without the intervening prompts of the vmserver-console. I've been very happy with 39867 except that the moment my USB scanner starts to scan, it crashes the whole virtual XP machine. The manual indicates that the behavior with USB scanners is unpredictable. Engineering = If you plug USB scanners in, sometimes it blows up. Don't ship yet. Marketing = Put 'Behavior with USB scanners is unpredictable.' in the Readme and ship that crap. I need a new Porsche. :-) -- Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: why does the shell show commands foolishly when I press UP key?
On Nov 9, 2007, at 12:25 AM, Serena Cantor wrote: I often use UP key to get commands entered previously. The shell show some commands again and again, just because I have used them several times. Can the shell be more smart? Any shell could be made smarter -- the source code is available, of course. But to try to answer your question in a more helpful way -- you might try different shells. Almost every one that has command history on the command line handles it differently. There's ksh and friends who can have vi-like or emacs-like keybindings for such things, so those that spend all day in those editors can feel more comfortable/productive. There's tcsh that behaves quite differently than bash, but which can be useful at times. There's bash (of course, and probably what you're thinking of since it's the default shell on most Linux distros). There's zsh which I've never really gotten into, but that has a huge following amongst some of the local Linux LUG crowd around here. And more... The options available, even for the lazy like me who don't want to hack on the code and change the behavior, are many. Enough that you could spend a signficant number of days/weeks/months learning all the ins and outs of each shell. Maybe the command history and completion behaviors of a particular shell that's already out there would be enough motivation for you to also try some other shells out and do some scripting in each? Lots of options! -- Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: why does the shell show commands foolishly when I press UP key?
On Nov 9, 2007, at 12:39 AM, dulev wrote: I often use UP key to get commands entered previously. The shell show some commands again and again, just because I have used them several times. Can the shell be more smart? Put in ~/.bashrc export HISTCONTROL=ignoredups Here I go and mention all these neat opportunities to try out other shells, and bash already has the feature that was requested. Darn(?). :-) I'm not sure if that makes me happy for bash, or sad that the other shells won't have been tried, just for fun! -- Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's your favourite FLOSS?
This set of answers will probably bore everyone to death, but I really only use Linux for servers. Desktops are better done by others (Apple). On Nov 6, 2007, at 4:15 AM, Tshepang Lekhonkhobe wrote: Here's a template where you can fill in your favourites; feel free to add missing categories: audio editor: Audacity audio player: N/A cd-ripper: N/A desktop OR window manager: KDE (when I have to - would rather use the Mac for GUI stuff) DBMS: Informix oops.. not FLOSS... MySQL then. :-) development: vim disc burner: cdrecord e-mail client: Apple Mail... oops... Thunderbird file manager: ls finance: Quicken... oops... N/A ftp client: ftp image editor: N/A image viewer: Firefox instant messenger: N/A mathematics: N/A misc utilities: find news: N/A p2p: Email with MIME attachments. (LOL!) package manager: aptitude pdf-reader: N/A spreadsheet: N/A tag editor: vim (?) terminal emulator: minicom text editor: vim video player: N/A web browser: Firefox/Ice-whatever word-processor: vim anything unreleased and anticipated: don't care :-) anything deserving great honours (EG. GCC): everyone that writes code for free and gives it away -- huge kudos and bravo! games: Real-life... oops... N/A non-free: Mac OSX :-) -- Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's your favourite FLOSS?
On Nov 7, 2007, at 2:24 PM, John Masters wrote: On 13:15 Tue 06 Nov , Tshepang Lekhonkhobe wrote: Here's a template where you can fill in your favourites; feel free to add missing categories: big big snip Sorry but here's where I unsubscribe for a couple of months while the same stuff is rehashed as it was a few months ago. Does this totally unscientific poll have any real use? Apart that is from reigniting the antediluvian arguments like mutt v emacs, bash v korn etc. Sheesh... sort by thread, delete key. Not difficult... There is a method to gauge the popularity of FLOSS apps built into every Debian installation. If you haven't enabled it yet, do so and eliminate this totally superfluous 'poll'. You might have mentioned that it's called popularity-contest and can be found via your favorite package manager. :-) Picture yourself standing in a big room with a hundred people all having different conversations... imaging yelling at the top of your lungs I'm tired of hearing that group over there talking about that! I'M LEAVING! Think anyone would, a) care?, b) not think you were insane? That's pretty much the equivalent of what most I'm leaving the list messages amount to. No one cares, we all just shake our heads and say, There goes a very troubled person. -- Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's your favourite FLOSS?
On Nov 7, 2007, at 4:03 PM, John Masters wrote: That's pretty much the equivalent of what most I'm leaving the list messages amount to. No one cares, we all just shake our heads and say, There goes a very troubled person. Do not presume to psychoanalyse me. I see the Debian Users list as an invaluable source of information and advice, to which I attempt in my own small way to contribute. Posts requesting opinions as to which is the best software/hardware/distro inevitably invite flame wars which fill my inbox with dross. I didn't psychoanalyze you -- I told you what people think of such behavior in public. I leave psychoanalysis to the pros. :-) As far as your comments about posts requesting opinions as to which is the best software to use for a particular purpose -- you're absolutely right -- they always lead to dumb arguments and the same old flamefests. My point to you is that no matter how hard you try (or voice your opinion that you don't like it) -- those stupid arguments will continue to happen. Example: If you can find an example of a Unix list where the tired old vi vs emacs thread HASN'T happened, I'd be impressed. What point is there in fighting it? It's just tilting after windmills to try to stop flamefests on a non-moderated mailing list. It's far easier to just delete the thread and move on. :-) Standard Unix flamefests: S/N ratio of lists drops by some measurable amount. Complaints about flamefests, S/N ratio drops by a further amount. (Me being dumb enough to reply to you and try to explain it... S/N ratio of list drops even further. GRIN...) It's a never-ending flamefest/complaint/explanation that flamfests won't go away/new flamefest cycle. Almost as natural as the Sun rising and setting. I find the complaints about the flamefests to also be dross in my inbox, see? And I was dumb enough to point it out... which you replied by saying you didn't like people psychoanalyzing you? Heh. Quite the useless thread now... sorry, I'm done. I fell into the same trap you did... complaining about something neither one of us can change. -- Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Programmers Text Editor
On Nov 5, 2007, at 4:49 PM, Steve Lamb wrote: David Brodbeck wrote: Using vi requires you to keep track of the editor's state in your head -- you have to remember whether it's in input mode or command mode. I've never been able to do that reliably. Neither have I. However I did learn early on in my vim life that ESC in insert mode puts you in command mode. ESC in command mode puts you in command mode. So if you're not sure, just slap escape then you are sure. :)) I have an older friend who's been doing Unix since, well... the beginning, and we were talking about this once, and he pointed out that he and his buddies figured out the in all of the possible modes/ windows, three ESC's would always get you back to command mode from anywhere in vi. I've never really analyzed that statement, but it did start me a new habit... I usually hit it more than once while/if I'm thinking about what to do next and know I need to go to command mode before doing it. -- Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Programmers Text Editor
On Nov 5, 2007, at 4:10 PM, David Brodbeck wrote: I think it comes down to personal taste. I just can't get the hang of vi. I use it when I have to, but after years of using it off and on I still do things like accidentally insert 127 copies of the letter 'a' into my file. If you do that, you hit u for undo... Using vi requires you to keep track of the editor's state in your head -- you have to remember whether it's in input mode or command mode. I've never been able to do that reliably. As someone else pointed out, vim and others show what mode you're in at the bottom of the screen. Perhaps you were using nvi or some older version that doesn't have a visual indication of mode? -- Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Charging iPod / Listening to music
Douglas A. Tutty wrote: Then how does my USB light get power; surely it doesn't request enough power to run an LED? I can also charge my Palm with the computer off; there's nothing running to receive any request. The USB spec allows a certain amount of power to be sent (below 200 mA I believe - I forget right now) at all times, and if a device needs more power it's *supposed* to request it. Different laptops and chipsets implement power delivery to USB devices differently, but generally devices like lights and other small things don't bother to ask for power, they just use what they can get from the default power pin at the default (low) current draw level from the laptop/USB host. Larger devices (like iPods) would have to ask for power before they would connect their power bus to the USB, because 200 mA won't be enough. That would be implemented in the iPod itself, not the laptop. The designer would know if his device could run properly at the 200 mA level, and if not, the device wouldn't attempt to charge or connect to the USB power bus until it had done a handshake with the laptop/USB host. If the USB driver is down on the host, and no handshake can happen, no power will flow. So it's all device and chipset implementation dependent. There are devices that misbehave and pull more than their fair share of power. Some laptops put up with this, other's don't and cut off USB power to any device drawing more than its requested current level. The iPod has pins on the bottom connector for different power sources, if I remember correctly (Apple's not too forthcoming with the connector specification, since it's proprietary and they license manufacturers who use/make iPod accessories) where one is meant to be power from a computer source, and the other pin is meant for things like car power cables, airplane power cables, etc. Then the iPod itself decides what it can do depending on where it's seeing input voltage. It also might be possible to trick the iPod by plugging it into a powered USB hub and then connecting that to the laptop, instead of directly to the laptop. I've never tried, but thinking about it -- that could exhibit different behavior than directly-connected. Nate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Charging iPod / Listening to music
Richard Lyons wrote: On Wed, Oct 31, 2007 at 08:41:38AM -0400, Douglas A. Tutty wrote: On Tue, Oct 30, 2007 at 06:14:49PM -0600, Nate Duehr wrote: On Oct 30, 2007, at 4:01 PM, Mathieu Malaterre wrote: It works, I can listen to music again, but even if the cable is pluged it does not seems to be charging... That makes sense. USB devices have to request how much power-draw they want to pull from the host. If you kill the stuff that talks to USB devices, they can't request power. Then how does my USB light get power; surely it doesn't request enough power to run an LED? I can also charge my Palm with the computer off; there's nothing running to receive any request. Oh, that is interesting. Only yesterday I noticed that (at least on this laptop) the usb is dead when the computer is off. Plugging in the mp3 player, for example, (or mobile phone charger) has no effect, even if the power lead to the portable is connected. Only when I start the computer up does the usb go live. I wonder if this is simply the normal arrangement for laptops? It changes by laptop and chipset manufacturer for the USB host chipset and how they designed the power sub-systems. I have seen one laptop that leaves the USB ports on in sleep mode, but never in off mode. I think it was the work IBM/Lenovo, but don't remember. My Mac turns 'em off in sleep, if I remember correctly. Don't remember what the old eMachine USB 1.0 machine does... and then there's the desktops... they're all over the place. Nate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Charging iPod / Listening to music
David Brodbeck wrote: On Oct 30, 2007, at 4:43 PM, steve wrote: its not possible to listen and charge an ipod on any platform with the ipod firmware. Not true. If I plug my iPod mini into my MacOS X machine, then eject it in Finder, it will continue to charge but I'll have control again. Agreed. I also hadn't done any homework to see what they were doing. I know that Apple also supports having disk mode and non-disk modes turned on and off, and they warn against removing the iPod without an eject when disk mode is turned on... but you can simply yank the cable safely when in non disk mode in their applications. This also works under Linux with AmaroK and recent version of GTKpod, assuming you have sufficient permissions to unmount the device. Yeah, I'm not sure mount and unmount are the correct terminology here. If you don't have disk support turned on in the Apple applications and on the iPod, nothing is mounted in the traditional Linux/Unix sense of the word. However, if you just mount and unmount it without running AmaroK or GTKpod, it will display the 'DO NOT DISCONNECT' screen until you, well, disconnect it. ;) I haven't looked at the source code of those two apps, but I suspect there's some flag that must be set on the iPod before the OS unmounts it so it knows it's been cleanly disconnected. Probably Apple is trying to protect the internal database it uses from corruption. Agreed. It probably also relates to whether or not the disk mode disk is mounted when that feature is used. BTW, this behavior may be slightly different depending on the filesystem your iPod is using. Mine is vfat because I originally set it up on a Windows system. iPods originally set up on a Mac will be HFSv2, and I don't have any experience with that. Interesting point. Mine is also VFAT I think. Hmmm... since I never use disk support and don't care about it, I wonder if I should wipe and reinstall it with HFSv2... see if it behaves differently. Not sure if Linux can even read them when they're set up that way, though... never tried... (not super interested in trying either, but maybe I'll at least reinstall/reformat it sometime just to play around and see what it changes). Nate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Apt-Get or Aptitude
On Oct 29, 2007, at 9:49 PM, Daniel Burrows wrote: Also, I was trying to gently point out that there's more to aptitude than the command-line. Excluding generic shared code, the rest of aptitude is about 6 times larger than the command-line interface, and it would be nice to think people occasionally use all that stuff. :-) I occasionally notice people writing that they just discovered aptitude's curses interface after using it for ages, so I know that this isn't universally known. A! I see. You were doing a little marketing for the CUI. :-) I actually knew about the curses interface before I ever tried the command-line... and like it more, since it has more powerful features. But then again, I was coming from dselect, and very used to that curses interface years and years ago. I think the niftiest feature (and one that still has me scratching my head as to how you accomplished it) is the MOUSE control in curses over SSH from a WINDOWS box?! That's amazing. (In case you're not sure what I mean... get on a Windows box, fire up PuTTY (I'm sure PuTTY is also helping in this scenario somehow) and then click on the menu items in the curses interface with a mouse. Whoa... it works? I stumbled across that by accident one day, and it's one of my favorite things to show programmers who think they're really good curses programmers... Can you make your app do THIS? Heh heh. Wild.) aptitude is by far one of the best package management tools out there. Newbies and folks really stuck in the graphic-oriented/desktop user world may like synaptic better, but for just getting things done -- aptitude wins hands down, almost all the time. -- Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Charging iPod / Listening to music
On Oct 30, 2007, at 4:01 PM, Mathieu Malaterre wrote: Hi there, When I plug my iPod using the USB cable I get the 'Do not disconnect' screen on the ipod. It's great because I can see the ipod is charging. But to listen to music I do not understand what I need to do. I tried: $ eject /dev/sda - return an error Then I tried : $ sudo rmmod usb_storage So you're shutting down the entire USB storage subsystem. Good thing you don't have any other USB-based hard disks plugged in at the same time! It works, I can listen to music again, but even if the cable is pluged it does not seems to be charging... That makes sense. USB devices have to request how much power-draw they want to pull from the host. If you kill the stuff that talks to USB devices, they can't request power. -- Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Help With Dependencies
On Oct 29, 2007, at 5:30 PM, Jeff Grossman wrote: I want to install Mercurial. If I use aptitude install mercurial I get the following: The following NEW packages will be installed: dbus dbus-x11 esound-clients esound-common fam fontconfig hicolor-icon-theme jackd kdelibs-data kdelibs4c2a kdiff3 libakode2 libart-2.0-2 libarts1-akode libarts1c2a libartsc0 libasound2 libaudio2 libaudiofile0 libavahi-client3 libavahi-common-data libavahi-common3 libavahi-qt3-1 libavc1394-0 libdbus-1-3 libdrm2 libesd0 libfam0 libflac8 libfreebob0 libfs6 libgl1-mesa-glx libglu1-mesa libice6 libiec61883-0 libjack0 libjasper1 liblcms1 liblua50 liblualib50 libmad0 libmng1 libogg0 libopenexr2ldbl libqt3-mt libraw1394-8 libsamplerate0 libsm6 libsndfile1 libspeex1 libtiff4 libvorbis0a libvorbisenc2 libvorbisfile3 libxaw7 libxcursor1 libxdamage1 libxext6 libxfixes3 libxft2 libxi6 libxinerama1 libxkbfile1 libxmu6 libxmuu1 libxrandr2 libxrender1 libxslt1.1 libxss1 libxt6 libxtrap6 libxtst6 libxv1 libxxf86dga1 libxxf86vm1 menu menu- xdg mercurial portmap python python-minimal python-support python2.4 python2.4-minimal python2.5 python2.5-minimal qjackctl xbase-clients But, if I use apt-get install mercurial I get: The following NEW packages will be installed: mercurial python python-minimal python-support python2.4 python2.4- minimal python2.5 python2.5-minimal How come such a difference? I don't want to install all of that other stuff. I just want to install mercurial and what is required to run that program. I think what you're seeing is that apt-get and aptitude handle the Suggests: and Recommended: directives differently. You can change that behavior in the aptitude menus, I believe, if you feel like it. Also, are you sure that aptitude isn't completing some earlier installations done outside of aptitude? What happens in aptitude's user interface if you just launch it without asking it to install anything? Does it still want to? Perhaps it is catching up on packages that are already installed and their recommended siblings. -- Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Apt-Get or Aptitude
On Oct 29, 2007, at 6:00 PM, Celejar wrote: On Mon, 29 Oct 2007 00:14:18 -0600 Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Oct 28, 2007, at 11:06 AM, Daniel Burrows wrote: [snip] I'd say the main difference is that apt-get is a command-line tool, whereas aptitude is an interactive tool that can be driven from the command-line. I would disagree. Aptitude supports command-line operation as well as interactive. You do realize that Daniel is both the author and maintainer of aptitude :) ? Nope. I guess he forgot that you can drive aptitude just fine from the command line? ;-) [Thanks, Daniel, for your Debian, aptitude and d-u work!] Yep. Good job. Aptitude walks the dog, compared to apt-get. I'm an old dselect guy who migrated to aptitude. It's good stuff. -- Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Telnet/SSH Terminal Help
On Oct 28, 2007, at 10:37 PM, Jeff Grossman wrote: I do all of my administration on my Debian system using either Telnet or SSH from a remote computer. But, when I run programs like aptitude or mc it does not show any lines just funky characters for the lines. I did a screen shot and put it up on my webpage if anybody would like to take a look and tell me what I have configured wrong. http://www.stikman.com/mcdisplay.jpg That looks similar to some things I saw when SSH'ing from a Mac OSX machine to a Debian system and running Aptitude. Switching the Mac's Terminal application over to using xterm-color for the terminal type, straightened it right up. Even if you're not on a Mac, it's a problem with the terminal emulation of the machine you're on, and what the terminal emulation is set up as on the Debian machine in $TERM in the shell. You can probably find a combination that works properly though, if you hunt a bit. Don't forget to reset in the shell each time you change your terminal emulation on your machine you're testing from, if you're not disconnecting and reconnecting. -- Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Apt-Get or Aptitude
On Oct 28, 2007, at 11:06 AM, Daniel Burrows wrote: On Sat, Oct 27, 2007 at 10:12:31AM -0700, Amit Uttamchandani [EMAIL PROTECTED] was heard to say: On Sat, 27 Oct 2007 10:01:02 -0700 Jeff Grossman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I was just reading the forums at forums.debian.org and came across a thread about apt-get and aptitude. I just installed Debian this week after moving over from Gentoo. I have only been using the apt-get method because that is all I ever saw mentioned. But, I guess aptitude is the preferred Debian method now. Is there a safe way for me to start using aptitude instead of apt-get? What is the best way for me to make the switch? For new installs it is actually recommended to use aptitude. However, from following the recent apt-get vs aptitude threads, there doesn't seem to be any big difference between the two. So if you are comfortable with apt-get there is no need to switch. I'd say the main difference is that apt-get is a command-line tool, whereas aptitude is an interactive tool that can be driven from the command-line. I would disagree. Aptitude supports command-line operation as well as interactive. aptitude install packagename aptitude update aptitude upgrade aptitude remove packagename -- Added benefit, cruft goes away too. All work just fine... and don't launch the CUI. (Character User Interface?) -- Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Apt-Get or Aptitude
On Oct 27, 2007, at 11:01 AM, Jeff Grossman wrote: I was just reading the forums at forums.debian.org and came across a thread about apt-get and aptitude. I just installed Debian this week after moving over from Gentoo. I have only been using the apt- get method because that is all I ever saw mentioned. But, I guess aptitude is the preferred Debian method now. Is there a safe way for me to start using aptitude instead of apt-get? What is the best way for me to make the switch? The main difference is that aptitude in default configuration mode will track dependencies added for packages requested and if no package needs the dependency anymore, it can remove it. apt-get isn't that smart. -- Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Query about Iceape, Iceweasel
Bret Busby wrote: I hope that my apology is accepted, and that we can move on. For what it's worth Bret, I apologize for blowing up on you also. I won't apologize for being angry at the rest of the folks who dog-piled on, who still aren't attempting to help you in any way, but had plenty to say about our behavior. Some of them are acting high-and-mighty, but not helping the situation any, which some of them do in EVERY thread on Debian-User. Sorry Bret, I honestly hope you find a solution to your window-popping problem. Nate (I'll break the rules this once, and send this both to you direct and to the list, just to make sure you get this response. Perhaps it can start another 50 message flamewar about THAT behavior... seen that one here multiple times. Very childish. Those folks need to learn to hit delete and move on, just like I should have with your response when I realized it was going to get me going. Maybe I should have top-posted too, just to get THAT crowd going. Bunch of children around here, Bret. Me included -- apparently -- since I'm complaining about them! HA. Sorry. Maybe its time to unsubscribe from D-U permanently... who has time for this silliness? Or at least a good long multi-year break from it all. The S/N ratio is -- and has been for years -- way out of whack here... normal for D-U, though... and I'm not complaining about that... just the way it is. Sorry for adding to the N instead of the S. Cheers!) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Query about Iceape, Iceweasel
Steve Lamb wrote: Nate Duehr wrote: I didn't start the insults, please look back through the thread. The original poster gets more and more agitated that people aren't testing correctly without fully defining his problem from the beginning. I did, I started from the beginning and didn't feel compelled to jump in until I saw your tripe. So now that's two false presumptions on your part. Want to make it the trifecta? Yeah, he's grumpy, I would be too if stuff didn't work that should, in spite of your limited view, work. Doesn't mean you have to reciprocate and escalate. So you felt compelled to jump in to rescue Bret. Fine. Useless but fine. We can work our problems out on our own, Steve. We're adults. No one appointed you to be the list baby-sitter. Do you feel compelled to jump in and continue this process and actually fix his problem? Take up the technical challenge or step away. In my limited view, you won't succeed in finding his problem. There's some tripe for you. Best regards, Nate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Query about Iceape, Iceweasel
On Oct 17, 2007, at 8:08 AM, Daniel Burrows wrote: On Tue, Oct 16, 2007 at 10:48:40PM -0700, Steve Lamb [EMAIL PROTECTED] was heard to say: Nate Duehr wrote: Perhaps you might argue that the software should handle it perfectly, but at that level of insanity, I certainly don't care anymore... as one user to another -- since I'm not a developer or package maintainer Might I suggest since you're neither a developer or a package maintainer to keep your insults to yourself? Be helpful or be gone. Personally, I would hope that developers and package maintainers would also keep their insults to themselves. I didn't start the insults, please look back through the thread. The original poster gets more and more agitated that people aren't testing correctly without fully defining his problem from the beginning. (If I'd have seen him say, I'm opening a god-awful number of windows and then... X happens..., I would have ignored the entire thread from the beginning. He suckered me into trying to help and then said I wasn't doing it right... fine... go whine to the devs, instead of a USER list.) I'm sure all the fine folks dog-piling on me who didn't bother to read the entire thread, will get all of his problems sorted out now. For free. Like professionals even! And he'll NEVER have another problem ever again with free software! (Yes, that's sarcasm.) The OP needs to realize that free software sometimes works great, sometimes works badly. Having an attitude that reeks of entitlement (this MUST work for me or you must make it work!), doesn't get many other users interested in helping him. In my upset state, I mixed in the information of exactly how to trace what the software is doing with some get a clue insults. I probably shouldn't have done that. Still others had offered up MULTIPLE ideas on how to fix the problem, and the OP refuses to try them. I don't think I'm the one with the problem here. Guess what? Iceape/ Iceweasel works FINE for me... so guess who has the problem? The OP needs to get over himself and try some of the suggestions given, in some cases those solutions have been repeated MULTIPLE times by his peers here with more experience with the software. Rebuild the profile, purge and reinstall, or trace the software and see exactly what's triggering the behavior you don't like. It's just a damn browser, after all. There are other browsers to try, too. Am I still a bit upset? Yes. I hate it when people think they DESERVE answers to their questions here. It reeks of the very elitism he claims I hit him with -- I just flung it back his direction, is all. I only did because he started in on me... ignoring suggestions, acting like he was entitled to better answers, claiming that we weren't doing it right when he hadn't shared even the most important detail -- that he was opening a large number of windows to lots of different sites. (If you recall, he sent a list of exactly TWO URL's and told us those were the problem sites. Uh- huh, sure.) Anyway... who cares? He'll either find answers to his problems from all you nice people, or he'll still hate the software and maybe even me, and I'll still be happy with the software I'm using and he won't. The mean people offered up solutions and he didn't like them. Oh well. I guess we're terrible people. Good bye. (I'm going to go be mean and enjoy the efforts of all the developers who've kindly developed all this free software. Sometimes it doesn't work right -- you don't see me complaining that a USER list isn't supporting it in a professional way. Of course we don't. We're users. Talk to the devs, for crying out loud. I never owed you any answers or ideas in the first place, and you went on the offensive when you didn't like what I offered. I didn't start it. Then Steve piles on with complaints that I'm being rude. Fine. Steve can fix your problems, as I'm sure he will. Please make sure to send any complaints in the future to Steve.) -- Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Query about Iceape, Iceweasel
Bret Busby wrote: The web addresses, or, URL's, that are involved with the unauthorised untitld windows being opened, vary, from addresses to which I have previously been, to addresses that I regularly visit, inclusing the two below, with such addresses being unlikely to involve malicious code, hence the problem appears significantly more likely to lay with some bug (or, possibly malicious code (?) ) within the particular web browser applications. It recently happened while the system monitor showed memory usage of less than 50% total (out of 2GB RAM). The untitled windows appear to open as pop-ups, although I have a setup configuration of the web browsers, to block pop-ups, which obviously does not work within the software. The problem also appears to occur, apart from when I open links in either new tabs or new windows, when a tab within a window, automatically refreshes, such as the news and weather web pages at http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDW60034.shtml and http://www.abc.net.au/news/justin/ . Then, I get multiple untitled windows opened, even if I am not doing anything, other than leaving browser windows displaying web pages, open. Leaving web browser windows open, appears to be dangerous, due to the unauthorised actions performed by the software, including the opening of the unauthorised untitled windows, and, otherwise increasing usage of preocessor and memory resources. Your installation is either broken, your machine has been compromised, or you have a setting turned on that is non-standard in your profile. The examples you gave above do not pop any extra windows here on any OS or browser I've tried. (Various browsers, on Windows, Debian, Ubuntu, and OS X.) I think the examples given by others of either rebuilding your profile, and/or purging and reinstalling are a good start for troubleshooting. You might also want to log into that machine as a different user and see if the problem happens to any other users other than your own. Preferrably not root, another regular user... for sanity. Note that on the top of the first example page it says: This page has been replaced by an improved version so it will be discontinued after August 31st 2006. Please update your bookmarks. Cute. 2006, huh? They're right on the ball there at the Oz Meteorology department... Nate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Query about Iceape, Iceweasel
Bret Busby wrote: Before I go purging and reinstalling software, and trying to rebuild associations (or whatever they are named), like when I click on a link to a .pdf file and it is opened by a PDF viewer (not Adobe Acrobat - that is not installable), and then trying to again configure the reinstalled software, there is something that I should perhaps clarify, if you or someone else is trying to reproduce the problem that I encounter, and are unable to reproduce the problem. You might have us confused for software testers. We're just your peers/other users also using the software. In open software, ultimately you're responsible for coming up with a reasonable test that will reproduce the problem on multiple systems if you're experiencing a problem. Frustrating as that might be, that's how it works. Your description might help someone else recognize something they've seen before so you get help also, by their direct assistance, but if you're doing things that are out of the ordinary -- you probably won't find anyone out there at the edge of the envelope with you. This is just a mailing list of folks who are trying to help you figure it out, not the other way around. You can turn in a real bug report through the BTS if you'd like a developer to look at it. But... looking at your description below, I don't think you're going to get much in the way of a response... As an example, for one country, to read the news, I have a bookmark set that I use, that has 32 URL's, so that I have at least 32 tabs open in the browser window for the news for that country. As I open links for news stories, I can have tabs open, that go off the right hand edge of the screen. I have just opened an extra tab, in that particular browser window, that went to the right edge opf the screen, and that was a count of 41 tabs open in that browser window. 41 webpages open and you're experiencing problems. Gee, there's a big surprise. You're somewhat pushing the bounds of sanity at that point, for just about any browser. (And my interest in helping with your problem just vanished completely. I can't read 41 pages at a time, and neither can you. Perhaps you might argue that the software should handle it perfectly, but at that level of insanity, I certainly don't care anymore... as one user to another -- since I'm not a developer or package maintainer -- I'd recommend the old adage of Doctor it hurts when I do this! probably applies. Then don't do that.) In the browser window that I open for this country, I have about ten tab bookmarks, and, of those, about 6 web pages automatically refresh. Due to the bodgy way that the ABC presents its news web pages, apart from five news headline web pages refreshing about every minute, each news story web page that is open, also refreshes about every minute. Yeah, it's the websites fault you're opening 41 web pages. LOL! We'll get right on that... I'll attempt to contact the various badly-written websites and see if they'll fix their sites just for you and little-old me. Sure they will. Maybe after we're dead. Get real. At present, I have 22 Iceape browser windows open, with however many tabs in total are open, and tsome of those tabs, are subject to automatic refreshing. That's utterly ridiculous. Have fun being a test pilot. What you're describing sounds more like a load test in a QA department than any normal needs of anyone running a web browser! On occasion, Iceape has taken above 95% of CPU, and that is when (but not necessarily the only occasions when) it sometimes crashes of its own accord (without me closing untitled windows). Yeah, well... whatever. You're so far out on a limb doing stuff that makes no sense (no one can read 41 pages at a time) that what difference do the details make at this point? I have earlier today, with these browser windows and tabs open, encountered the problem with the untitled windows. I have also encountered the problem on occasions with 10 browser windows open, and with 14 browser windows open, thence with less memory usage, both by programs and by cache. I bet you have. So, perhaps, if you want to try to reproduce the problem, you may need to have more than just one instance of each of the two URL's that are included in my message shown above as having the timestamp of 0130 AM. I bet I would. However, I'm no longer interested. Maybe some gung-ho developer or person without a real life will go on a mission to reproduce your problem at this point, but I doubt any sane person would spend much time on it. You're too far outside of the normal use curve, methinks. If you're interested in finding out what's wrong, tools are available on Linux that don't really exist (without cost) on other OS's. For example, you could start launching iceweasel inside of strace or other low-level debugging tools and trying to trap the moment when the phantom windows pop up,
Re: migration and installation 50 THOUSAND machines
On Oct 11, 2007, at 4:38 PM, andremachado wrote: Hello, As PART of a viability study about using Debian GNU / Linux for a massive deployment from 5 thousand up to 50 thousand machines (desktops AND servers) geographically distributed across a country, I searched for some installation, configuration and config management tools for this task size [0], [1], [2]. It sounds too big to manage centrally. Provide tools and standards and delegate. Please, verify if a relevant tool is missing or if there are errors and or omissions. I found the Alexander Zangerl texts [3] as a good starting point for a broader text. They are the most aligned with the study objectives that I was able to find. Do you have some ideas? Millions of people have installed Linux, and thousands Debian -- on their own. With appropriate back-end support, standard configurations (if that's desired) from a central set of apt repositories, and good documentation/instructions -- you won't have to hire a fleet of people to set up the system only to let them all go after it's up and running. Get local technical staff that are on-site involved and delegate. Some information about why Debian is suitable for this task? Best package management system in any Linux distro. What tools are suitable for some of the remaining tasks: managing systems, user accounts, monitoring such big deployment? Managing systems: Do you really need to manage the desktops? For servers -- there's quite a large number of options depending on what you want to manage. User accounts? What specific applications require centralized authentication and which one's don't? Are they web-based (meaning no need for centralized login authentication)? Monitoring: Do you really need to monitor the desktops? Are all of the servers critical for the business need? Do you have some url more suitable for reading? Something that explains the KISS principal, perhaps. This screams, Over-engineered to me. -- Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Query about Iceape, Iceweasel
On Oct 10, 2007, at 12:20 AM, Andrew Sackville-West wrote: Both Iceape and Iceweasel, open up untitled windows when trying to open web pages at all kinds of locations, and, trying to close one of these untitled windows when it is initially displayed, crashes the application, including all of the browser windows that it has open; a procedure has to be used, of some time later, finding the duplicate copy of the untitled window that the application has opened, and, closing that, will cause the untitled window to close. So, when these untitled windows start opening, all that can be done, is minimising the untitled window and its duplicate (they open in pairs), and, again clicking on the link to get the destination that was sought when the application decided to goawry. I'm confused by this description above. The only thing I know of that causes this untitled window issue is when you open a .pdf or some other externally handled file while using a middle click (opening a tab). And closing them certainly doesn't crash anything. Perhaps you could provide specific instructions on how to duplicate this problem for others to try? Are these just pop-ups? What sites are you seeing them on, specifically? The history of the Ice named versions is here; there's virtually no difference of any consequence between them and the Mozilla branded versions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naming_conflict_between_Debian_and_Mozilla -- Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: wireless keyboard encryption
On Sep 20, 2007, at 11:51 AM, Chris Purves wrote: On 20/09/2007, Gabriel Parrondo [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: El jue, 20-09-2007 a las 10:23 -0600, Chris Purves escribió: Is it possible to encrypt my wireless keyboard communication? I have a Logitech EX110. The included Windows software has this feature, but of course no linux drivers. Rare... how is it connected? Usually this kind of devices are hardware-only and transparently work as a standard device for the OS. The Logitech webpage is http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/keyboards/keyboard_mice_combos/ devices/154cl=ca,en# The normal operation does work transparently. There is a receiver that plugs into the ps/2 ports. Establishing initial connection is through connect buttons on the receiver and keyboard and mouse. I ran the included SetPoint software in Windows and it had an option for enabling encryption between the keyboard and receiver. Perhaps, once it is enabled, it will continue to be encrypted when I boot into Debian. I don't know if the software turns on a switch in the hardware, or if it runs some driver that must be running in order to get encryption. I've also seen this enable encryption option on my wireless keyboard at home. I think the more important question for the original poster is really -- how far away do you think your keyboard can be reliably received (just walk away from the computer and see where you can go... type things into a text editor like, Now I'm on the stairs, Now I'm in the kitchen, Now I'm on the back porch, and then walk back and see what's on the screen. I think you'll find that even good wireless keyboards won't easily penetrate more than a single wall of your home, and won't extend very far past an exterior wall in most setups, if at all. I can't even put the receiver under the 1 1/2 thick wooden desk on top of the computer without some glitches -- these devices use VERY low RF output... at least the ones I own. Then do a sane risk-analysis. If I can only reliably use it at X distance, how often will someone I don't trust be able to put a receiver capable of both receiving the data in whatever format it's in? (Keeping in mind that the protocol used for the keyboard usually not well-documented, so it'd take some skill and knowledge to intercept it, or you'd have to disassemble a similar RF unit and reverse engineer a way to make it into a data-logger.) A good exercise might be in TRYING to intercept your own keystrokes, and seeing how difficult it is for YOU to do it. If it's a pain in the ass for you, then evaluate whether or not you're doing something so bad or have such a need for privacy that you can name anyone or any organization that would go to that effort to read your typing. If you can think of someone/something who'd want that data bad enough to get close enough, and do the work of figuring out how to capture it -- wireless keyboards probably weren't a good idea for you in the first place. Security is as much about realistic risk-analysis as it is about encryption for encryption's sake. I'm not saying you shouldn't TRY to encrypt your keyboard traffic if the keyboard has the feature -- but at some point there's a steep diminshing return on security. Another thing to look at... are there easier ways you'd leak whatever it is that you're typing on your keyboard that someone smart would go after before trying to snoop your keyboard? Could it be gathered any other electronic/technical way? Could you fall for a social engineering hack easier and GIVE away what you're doing on that keyboard to someone you thought you could trust? I bet there are ways that would have a much lower opportunity-cost lost to the attacker than trying to get your keystrokes from your wireless keyboard. If you're using a wireless keyboard out in public... that's a completely different story. Again, wireless may not be the correct technical solution for you.. :-) -- Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: baffling ssh problem
On Sep 19, 2007, at 10:54 AM, Wayne Topa wrote: Douglas A. Tutty([EMAIL PROTECTED]) is reported to have said: On Tue, Sep 18, 2007 at 10:38:50PM -0400, Wayne Topa wrote: I've been messing with that for 2 weeks. I must not have used a good enough search phrase on Google. Just for completeness, you didn't need a google search. The info is somewhere around line 721 in the ssh(1) man page. :)) Not on my boxen Douglas. It ends on line 579. I just read the man page, again, and still don't see it. I'm only half way through my first cup of coffe so I will go back and read it again after cup 3-4. It must be in the AUTHENTICATION section. man formats things to your particular page size on-screen in most setups, so referring to things in man pages by page number, is almost universally -- worthless. -- Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: bash vs. python scripts - which one is better?
On Aug 18, 2007, at 5:28 PM, Steve Lamb wrote: Ron Johnson wrote: I've written enough cryptic Python and lucid C bash to know that Python does *not* enforce clean coding. I don't think anyone has ever claimed that. What a waste. bash is *great* for looping thru lists. (Perfect? No. But still great.) So is Python with the added benefit of not having to defeat globbing at every step of the way. Is this discussion REALLY still going on? Use whatever you like. As I said in my original reply to the question. LOL! Back and forth, back and forth, a program could have been written in both languages by now to do whatever anyone wanted. -- Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: bash vs. python scripts - which one is better?
On Aug 10, 2007, at 12:19 AM, Steve Lamb wrote: Uh, no, fanboi. I never said it had to remain a one liner. In fact, that was my point. One liners rarely stay that way. And when you venture past your very narrow mindset you find the problems in shell. And when you venture past yours, you'll find that ALL programming languages have SERIOUS flaws in them... and that most can get this particular relatively simple job done, just fine, with fairly similar amounts of effort by someone who is sufficiently skilled in that particular language. In other words, if it takes you only 15 minutes to write something to do the job in Python, because you enjoy Python, someone else will also just as easily (to them) write the same program with the same results in shell, or Perl, or zsh's flavor of shell or whatever. Some other folks can write the thing just as easily and quickly (from their perspective) in REXX, C, whatever else you can think of -- in this case, something that can make system calls to the outside heavy- hitter conversion software that's really doing the hard work. It doesn't matter -- at all -- what you choose, if you're comfortable with your choice. Even if you're not good with a particular language or any language, starting the project and ignoring the constant clamor of the hoards of people spending their time arguing about which language is better, you'll get far more done than they ever will accomplish. It's just something for coders (who are human and have different tastes) to argue incessantly over, and for some to evangelize as religion. You appear to have found the God of Python meets your every need, and you bow down and submit your reverent respect for the sacrament of Whitespace, as all who follow the Python path, must. The original poster seemed worried that he only knows a couple of (perhaps) obscure languages. If those languages can't make system calls, he'll have to learn something new. But the hardest concept to pass to folks staring at that mountain is that the underlying concepts of variables, loops, conditionals, etc etc etc... don't change! I'll give you one thing Steve, you were one of the only people to publish code samples. Nicely done on that. But I truly believe (after watching these debates go on literally for over a decade in many cases) that the choice of language is personal, and more a preference than something people can articulate properly in terms of better. Something I like might be a much better way to eplain it. I think it matters little, for such a small and simple program, what language is used. The OP just needs to try a few and see what they like. -- Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Recomendations - becoming a C soldier.
Orestes leal wrote: QUESTION: Studying C 'every day' 4 hours with good understanding, writing at least 10 programs to test this knowledge every day, the question it: How Long Can I become a very 'very' good C programmer to the point to hack in some kernel of some system or writing good apps without some trouble? A completely impossible question to answer. Too many variables. Download some complex C code (like the kernel source) and see if you understand it. Nate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: bash vs. python scripts - which one is better?
Steve Lamb wrote: Quick, take your one liner, have it traverse an entire directory tree converting all the wavs (regardless of capitalization) to mp3s, oggs and flac, sorting all 4 into their own directory trees. For me I just need to change my small script into a function, wrap it inside os.walk() and have calls to os.makedirs() and shutil.copy() to do all the work. Several more minutes of work and I can add in checks for the same files with different names, prompt the user to pick a name to use, convert that one and delete the rest. Then for my final trick I can wrap it all up as a library, still retaining its ability to run as a stand alone script, and import it into other Python scripts. To make your point, you'd need to do all of the above in one line of Python code. What a fanboi... Quick, write a one-liner while I take 20 minutes to write a real program! You're pretty good for a laugh though, Steve. :-) Nate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: How to prevent LVM disk spinup at shutdown
On Aug 8, 2007, at 2:54 AM, Gilles Mocellin wrote: Le Wednesday 08 August 2007 09:44:16 Malte Forkel, vous avez écrit : Hi, I use a couple of LVM volumes on a MD RAID1 array for backup. These volumes are rarely accessed, so I use hdparm to switch the RAID disks into standby mode. I noticed that the disks are forced to spin up whenever the the system shuts down. What is causing the spin up? Is there a way to avoid this? Thanks, Malte I have the same problem with my external USB drive, used for backups. It wakes up when the filesystem is umounted, because the cache must be flushed. Perhaps, should we mount and unmount the filesystem each time my backups runs... It's also marking the filesystem as having a clean shutdown, so fsck doesn't try to fix it on next boot. There's no way around it unless you want to bypass that and wait through an fsck during the next boot. In other words, it's not a bug, it's actually doing something -- something that has to be done. It's a feature. :-) -- Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Virtual Machines/Emulators
On Aug 7, 2007, at 5:32 PM, Mike McCarty wrote: Nate Bargmann wrote: * Mike McCarty [EMAIL PROTECTED] [2007 Aug 07 17:29 -0500]: However, I'd say installation is VERY HARD. That's why we use Debian, it makes the hard tasks easy and the impossible ones possbile. This is not an issue with the distro, it's a defect in the original package. There is a version for FC, which I use, but not for FC2, the support starts with FC5. But the original Makefile needs to be fixed. Send 'em a patch. -- Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: bash vs. python scripts - which one is better?
On Aug 7, 2007, at 12:42 PM, Manon Metten wrote: Hi, I'm about to learn bash or python scripting. - Which one is easiest to learn? Doesn't matter. Learn one or the other or both if you need them. - Which one is more powerful? Doesn't matter. As a friend puts it... If it can't be done in a shell script, it probably wasn't worth doing in the first place. You can find endless debates amongst programmers and even non- programmers on the web about how powerful something is, or how extensible, or the semantics of syntax or any of a million other banal repetitive debates about software. Only once you reach the almost zen-like realization that the computer is just a machine and it's either doing everything you want it to, or it isn't, and that you can fix it if you feel like it in ANY language... then you start to understand why the debates don't matter, and good programmers know multiple languages. - Can I execute /bin commands from within a python script (something like mkdir or ls)? Don't know. Or should I learn bash scripting anyway? I don't know. Should I learn Swedish? What exactly are you attempting to accomplish? Have you searched for software that does it? Or software that comes close? Perhaps the best thing you could do would be to find software that comes close and then code in whatever language THAT software is in, to make your finished program do what you want. Please, let me know your experiences. My experience is that folks that need to get something done, pick a language and do it. They end up either enjoying writing code and learn multiple languages over time, or they quit. They don't ask others to tell them what to do or learn. Thanks in advance, Manon. Quite welcome. -- Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: converting file system
Douglas Allan Tutty wrote: On Fri, Aug 03, 2007 at 05:15:42PM -0700, Andrew Sackville-West wrote: from the RM bug report: - The final step in converting a filesystem, reordering the blocks of the target filesystem, is apparently programmed in a very inefficient way, and it can take weeks for large filesystems to complete convertfs. --^^ imagine if you didn't know that going in... In order for that to appear in the report, someone must have found out the hard way. To know that it took weeks (instead of, say, a weekend), someone had the patience of Job to know that after weeks it did complete. Or someone exaggerated. Sheesh... no need to hero-worship the bug report. The bigger the filesystem, the longer it would take, nothing rocket-science there... and if it's inefficient, you could get away with saying weeks... but that doesn't mean it really did. Nate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: ext3fs errors with kernel 2.6.18 but not with 2.4.27
Francois Duranleau wrote: On 8/3/07, Brad Sawatzky [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Perhaps I misunderstood, but I thought he got the errors with the old kernel (and had for a long time) but they did not trigger a filesystem check. My hunch was that the 2.6.x IDE driver (or ext3 driver) is handling the error condition in a different way. Perhaps not retrying at all on the CRC error, or maybe having a shorter time-out on the retry, who knows... If he only gets the errors under 2.6.x and not 2.4.27 then it looks more like a driver issue. Perhaps his 2.6.x kernel is using the new 'merged' SATA+PATA subsystem to handle his PATA drive instead of the old ATA/ATAPI driver and that is causing the problem. It seems like I wasn't clear. Let me try to clarify: On 2.4.27, I get the CRC errors (not at boot time, later, and all the time thereafter), and I've been having them for many years. I mentionned just in case there might be a link with my problem. Otherwise, I am not trying to solve this particular problem. Time to fix the root-cause problem. Get the CRC errors to stop on the old kernel first. On 2.6.x, at boot time, errors are reported on the initial filesystem check. I do not know if I still have those CRC errors. Fix problem #1... then fix problem #2... (GRIN)... You're lucky. Most times I've seen CRC errors like that, serious corruption was happening on the disk and or the disk itself was about to take a nose-dive. There's no way I would have EVER let low-level errors like CRC errors go on for as long as you have. They'd be a performance hit, if nothing else... but at that low a level, if CRC is having to rescue you from IDE bus problems... regularly... that's just downright dangerous to run anything important that way for any length of time. It's logging the errors for a reason... clean 'em up! (GRIN) Nate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: undeleteable file
On Jul 17, 2007, at 8:52 PM, Frank McCormick wrote: Can't move it...can't chown it. It just tells me operation not permitted. The file is also dated 1931 ! This is the output of ls -l [EMAIL PROTECTED]:/lost+found/#573699/drivers/i2c/busses$ ls -l * ---s---r-t 1 993200132 3086322235 0 1931-09-13 15:22 i2c-nforce2.ko Weird huh! Not really. It has really strange permissions, and it's in lost+found, which is an indication that you have already had some form of filesystem damage that was probably fixed by an fsck. You might want to give it normal permissions first before trying other operations on it, and it still may be that you have other filesystem damage to whatever kind of filesystem you're running there that wasn't truly fixed by the fsck. If you suspect the drive is dying, it's probably a very good time to copy any data or files you need off of it, depending on the state of the drive, it may already be too late. Hopefully you have been making proper backups all along. Various tools may or may not be useful -- you're already into the realm of filesystem recovery, and if it's the first time you've ever done it, you could be in for a steep (but usually short) learning curve. It won't take long to decide if your disk is really dying, as other strange behavior might show up very soon. Get your important data/files off of it, if you need to -- and then exercise it heavily... format, heavy read/write (tools like bonnie++, etc... can help here), and generally abuse it and see if it holds up to the stress. Welcome to the I've had an important disk fail merit badge club! (GRIN) -- Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Linux on a Router
On Jul 10, 2007, at 9:10 PM, ArcticFox wrote: On Jul 10, 2007, at 10:09 PM, Roberto C. Sánchez wrote: On Tue, Jul 10, 2007 at 10:06:53PM -0500, ArcticFox wrote: I've been having a heck of a time trying to keep my internet connection active. It likes to drop on me for no apparent reason. I've managed to narrow the problem down to the router, but Linksys wants to charge me ~$30 to troubleshoot the router. Someone I know suggested that I try Linux on the router and I was wondering if anyone out there knows/ has experience/suggestions for doing something like this. The router is a Linksys BEFW11S4 v.4 The only client system I have is MacOS X 10.3.9 I think that OpenWRT can be made to load on many (most?) Linksys routers. I would start there. However, I've not personally used it, so I am not positive about whether it is the right thing for you. Regards, -Roberto You gave me somewhere to start though, and for that I thank you. OpenWRT being the more open of the options, is a good place to start, but might be a bit more manual than you want to set things up. I personally like DD-WRT, which has a bit more effort put into it from the standpoint of the web interface, etc... But they're both good options. -- Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: backup script modification help
On Jun 4, 2007, at 11:22 AM, Wei Chen wrote: I recommend rdiff-backup. It does incremental backups. It is easy to use and has powerful statistics displaying functions. I personally use it. It is in the repository so easy to install. There is detailed document and sample commands on its Website http://www.nongnu.org/rdiff-backup/ backupninja is a decent front-end for rdiff-backup and other niceties, like things that can do backups/dumps of live mysql databases, etc. As its readme states, it can configure and coordinate many different backup utilities. It's very server-esqe in that you have an /etc/backup.d directory with your various backup routines and it runs them in succession and reports success/failure on whatever schedule you choose. Although I've never used this piece of it, it also has a console helper called ninjahelper to help create the configuration files... they were simple enough that I've never needed to do that. I've found it very useful. Hope that helps. -- Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: [OT] Best of UNIX/Linux Books that you can't stop reading
Unix System Administration Handbook, Evi Nemeth et. al. Prentiss-Hall (And her Linux-specific book is even better.) Nate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Irresponsible user stories!
On 4/23/07, Michael Pobega [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, Apr 23, 2007 at 03:25:20PM -0500, Gnu_Raiz wrote: [ Snip Story ] That's pretty awesome, one of the best stories I've heard in a long while. Did you end up figuring out who this person is, or not? I would have had a look through his browser history and cookies to check out where he visits, and gotten him in trouble; Honestly, I don't mind if people look at porn and stuff, but doing it on a public computer and denying other people access is definitely out of the question. Bah. The people who should be in trouble here are the folks who don't know how to set up a lab properly in a college (read: hostile) computing environment. Those machines shouldn't be capable of booting from outside media, should re-image themselves regularly (possibly at each boot) and should be severely locked-down to only do the things approved in that lab. I wouldn't even call it an interesting story. Crud like that has been happening in college computer labs for decades. With appropriate changes, the lab admins would have known the second someone took a machine offline, and should have immediately approached and stopped the student from loading Linux on the box, if that wasn't the box's intended purpose. It's just another bad college lab admin story, is all it is. Welcome to college... if they don't respect their own network enough to protect it from people reloading machines, it probably shows what kind of engineering and work they do protecting both your network-saved data and your personal information in the main systems in the University too -- if it's the same admins. In many schools it is not. Buy your own machine, and keep it heavily firewalled with all outside services shut off, if you ever even THINK about plugging it into that network. Nate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Outlook clients and Linux Debian
Aww crud, Gmail's reply-to handling or the Debian lists are broken... whichever.. don't feel like starting that flame-fest again, but I replied direct to Paul. Oops, sorry Paul. On 2/2/07, Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 2/1/07, Paul Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hervé Piedvache wrote: What kind of solution could I find to this stuff under a Debian Linux service ? If you happen to run postfix for an MTA, Kolab might be exactly what you are looking for. If not, you may now curse Kolab's rather interesting dependency on a specific MTA. http://www.kolab.org/ http://pkg-kolab.alioth.debian.org/ And if you *really* need real Outlook, just run CrossOver Office. http://www.codeweavers.com/products/cxoffice/ Nate
Re: How to Play Two Audio streams to two different outputs?
Kent West wrote: Dave Thayer wrote: On Fri, Dec 08, 2006 at 03:42:02PM -0600, Kent West wrote: We're wanting to use one Debian box to play two different audio streams to two different systems: one playing music-on-hold for our general telephone system, and one playing tips-and-updates for our Helpdesk phone system (for simplification purposes, you can just think of the two streams going to two different sets of speakers located in two different rooms). I figure we'll need two sound cards, each driving its own set of speakers. Since phone systems are mono, have you considered using the left and right channels seperately for the audio sources? You might be able to get by with some mixer software trickery to run L R independently. Thanks for the suggestions, everyone. It looks like Dave's idea will work well for us. I've started up two instances of xmms (had to go into Options/Preferences/Options and turn on Allow multiple instances, and put one audio tune on one instance, and moved the balance all the way to the Left, and then put another audio tune on the other instance, moving it's balance all the way to the Right. Preliminary testing indicates that this will work. You might make sure by cranking up the audio as high as it will go on both individually and making sure there's no cross-talk. I've seen some (cheap, crappy) sound cards that only have about -40dB isolation between Left and Right channels. If this is a one-off, and you are good to go with your current setup, great. If you're going to try to accurately reproduce it, be aware that some (cheap, crappy) sound cards don't have much isolation between the Left and Right channels. Nate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's the killer app for GNU/Linux systems?
Roberto C. Sanchez wrote: On Fri, Dec 01, 2006 at 09:52:16PM -0700, Nate Duehr wrote: Both the GPL *and* commercial licenses are ultimately based on FUD. If you're scared of the consequences of simply taking some code and using it as you please and/or the consequences of doing so: You want a license to tell you how you may or may not use it. Neither is Freedom. Both are restricted. Otherwise they wouldn't be licenses. If you simply do what you wish with whatever code you have, and accept the consequences, whatever they might be, you don't need a license. s/code/books/ Your argument does not hold. In the early days, so few people were using code that it really didn't matter. As more people came along and became education in programming and computer science, more people started founding companies to develop software. These people realized that like a book, someone could copy it without permission and sell those copies without the original author getting the benefit. That is called copyright. It has existed for a very long time. Totally unrelated to my point. In fact, you completely missed it. I can send you some non-GPL'ed non-Copyrighted code right now. Would you like some? You're adding things that simply don't need to exist. They *do* exist for *some* code, including GPL'ed code, but licensing of ANY sort (including Copyright, which is nothing more than another contrived license allowed by law in many places) *restricts* the use of code in some fashion. The only truly FREE code is code without any license at all. Code does NOT inherently *require* licensing or Copyright. You just think it does. What would you like me to send you? A two line BASIC program? 10 PRINT HELLO 20 GOTO 10 Look - there you go. Free code. No Copyright, no license. Freely distributed. I would tell you to do with it what you wish, but that would insinuate that you need to follow my wishes. You don't. It has no license or copyright. (Many countries call this Public Domain.) You may incorporate my code into your own works freely without any encumberances of any kind. Enjoy. Or don't. Your choice. Do you get it now? I'm not arguing for or against the GPL, just pointing out that code doesn't need to be licensed just because anyone (or even a majority of anyone) says it does. Nate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's the killer app for GNU/Linux systems?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Fri, Dec 01, 2006 at 09:52:16PM -0700, Nate Duehr wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: My assertion: The kernel is more important than the license. Code trumps license. No code, no need to even use or have a license... whatever it is. Code without licence tends not to propagate. Linux wasn't the first Unix-compatible one to have been written. It seems to me there was a Unix-compatible kerlen written in the language TURING sometime in the late 70's or early 80's. But it didn't have a free license, and -- well, have any of you ever heard of it? Code before licenses were popular propagated just fine. Ask RMS! It's the basis for the entire GNU movement! Code *was* propagating just fine until greedy companies added licenses. Then the so-called battle was enjoined. True. I remember those days from back in the sixties. What you need the license for is to grant the users the right to propagate the code. Placing it in the public domain (which to my mind is a kind of license, whatever the legal technicalities may say) has the effect that companies can take the code private, privately enhance it to the degree that they effectively own what the original code has become, which may atrophy. This may or may not be what is intended, but the larger the developer community, and the greater the utility of the code, the less likely is will be to happen. GPL did prevent that kind of taking-private, but its contagion provisions are, in my mind, more restrictive than necessary to accomplish this aim. GPL prevents it, but people CHOOSING to purchase the commercial version in the first place caused the problem. GPL was not necessary if people had simply refused to use the commercialized versions. I could send you some code in e-mail right now if you'd like. You could modify it and send it on privately to someone or use it in your business and I'd never know about it. Code propagates just fine without licenses. And if you ever found out about it seven years form now when you've acquired a different mindset? Would you sue? Are you sure? If you did sue, would you win? And even if you are sure you wouldn't sue or couldn't win, can I be sure unless you do explicitly place it in the public domain? Depends on my morals and ethics, doesn't it? I could GPL it and later still sue, no difference there. GPL would limit whatever damage I could cause by suing -- maybe. That remains to be seen in court. Under current international law, code is automatically copyright by the author. Unless a license is explicitly or implicitly granted, no one else has the right to make copies. What if I don't WANT a Copyright. Stupid. What if I want nothing to do with it once released? I don't want an automatic license if I mail you some code without a license on it. That's stupid and sounds like it was creaed for idiots who forgot to license their code. You guys do realize I'm playing Devil's advocate here, and would always explicitly license any code I released as a matter of course. Or explicitly release Copyright and place it in the Public Domain. I completely understand all you guy's comments, but I disagree heavily that code ever *REQUIRES* a license. And that is the point I'm trying to drive home to anyone who believes that code requires a license. It simply doesn't. Code is code, and is always Free, unless created under contract that it remain non-Free or released under a restrictive license like the GPL or BSD or anything else... anything other than raw code is encumbered with non-Freedom. And that's okay... it's just a point that few in the GPL fan-boy community ever even think about, let alone really digest fully. Nate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's the killer app for GNU/Linux systems?
Tshepang Lekhonkhobe wrote: Gorgeous stuff... Shouldn't this kind of stuff be posted to some advocacy site somewhere? Sure. Why not? Go ahead. Nate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's the killer app for GNU/Linux systems?
John Hasler wrote: If you give or sell me a copy of a work of yours I own that copy and can do as I please with it (that includes running it if it is a computer program) with no need for a license. However, copyright law forbids me to make and distribute copies of it without your permission. Feel free to feel bound and to limit your own freedom if you so choose. It's a self-imposed limitation in the case of my example of non-licensed, non-attributed code that I typed into the mailing list. Code is protected by copyright by default and may not be copied and distributed without permission of the copyright owner. If you feel you need to follow that law in every circumstance, go right ahead. Breaking copyright in the case of someone releasing something without a license appears to be a victim-less crime. Thus, copyright in the real world only matters if the author chooses to exercise it. By your definition, you could have hit reply with quoting turned on in your MUA to my code example I sent -- and then you would have been a law breaker! I could start sprinkling code into my signature line and then sue everyone who quotes it on a mailing list? Yeah, right. It'd actually be fun to see someone try that and see how far it got in the legal system. I continue to contend that if you put it up in public (not private, there are differences there) for anyone to see, and it has no license or stated Copyright -- you'll have no leg to stand on if you attempted to take that to a court to enforce copyright later. No matter how the law is written, no Judge with half a brain cell operating would allow me to sue you for hitting reply and copying my code. Therefore the most effective way to share code with absolutely zero encumbrances, is simply to post it somewhere in public, and to force people to grow up and make their own decisions about whether or not they wish to copy it and use it. No license required. Copyright may be automatic, but doesn't apply unless the author chooses to enforce it. And by posting it in public, they've taken all their own teeth out if they were ever dumb enough to try to retroactively enforce it later on. Nate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's the killer app for GNU/Linux systems?
Douglas Tutty wrote: On Tue, Dec 05, 2006 at 11:02:12AM -0700, Nate Duehr wrote: Roberto C. Sanchez wrote: On Fri, Dec 01, 2006 at 09:52:16PM -0700, Nate Duehr wrote: I can send you some non-GPL'ed non-Copyrighted code right now. Would you like some? You're adding things that simply don't need to exist. They *do* exist for *some* code, including GPL'ed code, but licensing of ANY sort (including Copyright, which is nothing more than another contrived license allowed by law in many places) *restricts* the use of code in some fashion. The only truly FREE code is code without any license at all. Code does NOT inherently *require* licensing or Copyright. You just think it does. What would you like me to send you? A two line BASIC program? 10 PRINT HELLO 20 GOTO 10 Look - there you go. Free code. No Copyright, no license. Freely distributed. This would be your licence. Thank you. I would tell you to do with it what you wish, but that would insinuate that you need to follow my wishes. You don't. It has no license or copyright. (Many countries call this Public Domain.) You may incorporate my code into your own works freely without any encumberances of any kind. Enjoy. Or don't. Your choice. Clause two of your licence. Thank you. I knew some pedantic schmuck would say that. Pretend that I left those OFF the message, because trying to make the point in the message is difficult without saying it explicitly, so just use your tiny little imagination and pretend none of that explanation was there). Twit. Nate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's the killer app for GNU/Linux systems?
Douglas Tutty wrote: On Tue, Dec 05, 2006 at 03:03:53PM -0700, Nate Duehr wrote: Thus, copyright in the real world only matters if the author chooses to exercise it. Since copywrite exists unless released within a licence, who would want to open themselves (or their company) to the risk of a legal battle, or tarnishing of a reputation. Their view of the real risks are skewed then. Ask any company who's put GPL'ed code inside a product and gotten away with it because no one could tell it was there. You naive enough to think that hasn't, and isn't happening daily? Do those people give a whit about the license or the Copyright? Nope. Do they just have a copy of the code. Yep. You (as copyright holder) have to prove they're using your code. (Re: SCO.) You can't prove it, then what good did your automatic Copyright do for you? Absolutely nothing. By your definition, you could have hit reply with quoting turned on in your MUA to my code example I sent -- and then you would have been a law breaker! No. The forums are clearly stated on the web-site (not just assumed by the culture) that they and anything posted to them are public. This releases the rest of us from liability if we redistribute your code. Where? What forum? This is a mailing list you can sign up for without ever seeing a web page. I could start sprinkling code into my signature line and then sue everyone who quotes it on a mailing list? Yeah, right. It'd actually be fun to see someone try that and see how far it got in the legal system. You obviously don't agree with automatic copyright. However, to change it you would have to change international law. I have no beef with automatic Copyright, I just claim it's useless. Can you find any case law where automatic Copyright has been invoked? Try releasing something into public and then trying to regain your Copyright in a couple of years if it gets wildly popular just because you changed your mind. Won't happen. Most Judges just aren't that stupid. Nate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's the killer app for GNU/Linux systems?
John Hasler wrote: Copyright law is what it is, not what we want it to be. Agreed, but that doesn't require us to pay any attention to it, or give it more than it deserves. Nate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's the killer app for GNU/Linux systems?
Matthew Krauss wrote: Nate Duehr wrote: Tshepang Lekhonkhobe wrote: Hi, A killer app is an application that compels one to use a certain system. On Debian lists, someone mentioned that meld, a GUI diff utility, was killer. I can't think of any I have because I moved to GNU/Linux for its said overall magnificence, instead of a particular application, and today there's isn't one utility I admire so much I'd consider such... maybe gnome-terminal, lsof, grep, top, epiphany-browser, or less. I'd mention admirance for Blender, GCC, Python but they are cross-platform. I'd mention GNOME, but it's a 100 apps. So I give up and ask you, what's your killer app(s)? The kernel. Without it, I wouldn't be here. :-) Nate Okay, I can top that: The GPL. :-) twice. -Matthew Nah, if there had been no GPL, Linus would have probably licensed under the BSD license. (Just a guess there, since that's a fake world that never existed, but...) My assertion: The kernel is more important than the license. Code trumps license. No code, no need to even use or have a license... whatever it is. Nate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's the killer app for GNU/Linux systems?
Roberto C. Sanchez wrote: On Thu, Nov 30, 2006 at 02:30:54PM -0600, Ron Johnson wrote: The *real* killer app was Linus' decision to develop Linux openly. I took a software engineering class where the professor maintained that the only notable contribution that Linus Torvalds has made to the programming/compsci/compeng world was figuring out how to make it possible for hundreds of people to work on the same code base without stepping all over each other. He was wrong. People step all over each other in the kernel and just about every application that requires more than a few developers all the time in the open-source world. [Hint, see recent ABI screw-ups in mysql-server and mysql-client... not caused by Debian, happened upstream. Retarded bugs really, too.] CVS/Subversion/[insert tool du jour here] are what REALLY allow collaborative development. That and communication, both public and private, between the devs. The fact that stepping on happens every day, is why new versions aren't released the second the source hits the tree. Nate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's the killer app for GNU/Linux systems?
Francis Healy wrote: The classic definition of the killer app is the one program that justifies the entire cost of the computer. NICE answer. Wish more people in business would figure that one out. Nate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's the killer app for GNU/Linux systems?
Ron Johnson wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 12/01/06 12:30, Nate Duehr wrote: Roberto C. Sanchez wrote: On Thu, Nov 30, 2006 at 02:30:54PM -0600, Ron Johnson wrote: The *real* killer app was Linus' decision to develop Linux openly. I took a software engineering class where the professor maintained that the only notable contribution that Linus Torvalds has made to the programming/compsci/compeng world was figuring out how to make it possible for hundreds of people to work on the same code base without stepping all over each other. He was wrong. People step all over each other in the kernel and just about every application that requires more than a few developers all the time in the open-source world. [Hint, see recent ABI screw-ups in mysql-server and mysql-client... not caused by Debian, happened upstream. Retarded bugs really, too.] Just because Linus solved a *social* problem, doesn't mean that that ability was instantly transmitted to every other project. What social problem did he solve? You appear to have him on a pedestal he probably doesn't deserve nor want. Back then source was generally free for a whole lot of OS's. He just wrote a interesting new monolithic kernel for x86 hardware and invited the world to help him work on it. He's no genius of social sciences or anything. The rest was just dumb luck and timing. The time was right for something new, maybe. BSD was going strong by the time Linux popped up. You give him too much credit. Where he might be a genius is in keeping it together all these years... not in doing Linux in the first place. The first Linux kernels weren't exactly earth-shatteringly great or anything. There were lots of OS's that did a better job on x86 hardware, and a few were already open-source. Just as an example, Microware's OS/9 is still around, and it was up and working on multiple hardware platforms years before the early Linux kernels came out. It never was open-source, but it's still a better RTOS than Linux. Nate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Large file uploads via PHP
John Miller wrote: After all this mucking around, the file still took 20 minutes to upload--over our LAN, no less! While the file was being written to the upload_tmp_dir (/tmp), the php4 process gobbled over 100MB RAM. If this only happened once a day, we might be able to live with it, but ten concurrent uploads of this size would pretty much bring things to a halt. How have you all handled this? We teach them how to use Ef T P. Nate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's the killer app for GNU/Linux systems?
Ron Johnson wrote: And has *kept* them working on it, without turning it into a huge ball of legacy crud, without forking or general worker revolution. However he does it, he *has* done it, and that is his genius. Some might argue these days with the ball of legacy crud part. :-) He's no genius of social sciences or anything. He's a genius at something. I doubt it. He's certainly no Einstein. Save the genius title for people who singlehandedly (not with hundreds of thousands of people helping them) changed how the entire of humanity views the world, please. The rest was just dumb luck and timing. The time was right for something new, maybe. BSD was going strong by the time Linux popped up. If herding cats was soo simple: 1. FreeBSD would be the dominant OSS OS, 2. NetBSD and OpenBSD would not have forked with much acrimony, 3. NetBSD would not now be dying, 4. nor OpenBSD starving for cash. One could argue that the guy that created the Penguin logo did more for Linux than Linus did for it's marketing. Perhaps religious fundamentalists like flightless waterfowl more than they like Daemons. OBSD's issues are all Theo's doing for both #2 and #4. The guy never learned to play nicely with others in the sandbox as a child. #3 is probably a side-effect of that too. Linus is a nice guy (important) who created an OS. That OS became popular. Lots of people latched on for the ride, and the guy proved to be a good manager of people without any training. That's about it. You see that much genius in most companies in at least one or two managers. People with a knack for working with others. It's not that big a deal. QNX has been around for 20 years, and runs on many processors. And is still used by engineers who find it useful for specific needs. CP/M ran (runs?) on the Z80, 8086 68000. Limited in what it can do. Natural selection. NT ran (for a time) on x86, Alpha and MIPS. Abandoned by the company supporting it. Natural selection. z/OS has been around for 35 years, running on a sequence of processor units over the years. Can't make any comment about this one. No background. DOS/VSE has been around for *41* years. Still used. OpenVMS runs on VAX, Alpha and Itanic. Still used wherever the hardware requires it and it meets the needs. HP-UX started on 68000, went to PA-RISC now Itanic. Still used VERY heavily. The AS/400 started out as 2 radically different 70's-era minicomputers, and now runs on Power64. Uh-huh. I won't even mention how many systems that NetBSD runs on. Shall I go on? Sure, but I don't get your point. Is Linux better because it's used more, or it is just used more because people feel it's better? Chicken and egg. And since the original discussion was about what you THINK Linus did to make it happen... what's all the above got to do with that? I'm not saying that Linux isn't good software and a lot of fun. It is. I'm not saying Linus isn't a smart, well-rounded guy with good people and management skills. He is. But genius? Nah. Nate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's the killer app for GNU/Linux systems?
M-L wrote: The genius is that Linus got people involved and the allowed it to run without taking it back or stifling it in any way. As for timing, that's another genius in itself. So maybe Linus was two geniuses? Item one isn't genius, it's good people management skills. Item two: You're saying he picked when he was born and went to college and knew that if he timed that right, OS development would be at the proper point for him to create a little kernel and have it take off wildly? Humbug. Nate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
