Re: ZFS vs btfrs

[Bill Ricker]

On Thu, Feb 24, 2022, 11:55 Ken D'Ambrosio  wrote:

> I use the btrfs-send (which, of course, is modeled after zfs-send)...
> except, I kinda don't.  And this isn't a dig at btrfs (or ZFS), but just
> paranoia: I'm afraid that, if there were corruption on the source FS,
> using a FS-specific/replicating tool to do the data transfer might bring
> over whatever corruption was on the source in the first place.


Not a merely theoretical concern. I saw this happen.

Our British cousins fielded the same application we did, but since their
geographically dispersed data centers were within the radius supported for
syncronous SAN replication , they opted for that from primary cluster to
Disaster cluster. We were replicating much further so used semantic
replication stateside $BigCorp (log forwarding for DB, file level for
normal volumes), even though it had a chance of losing the last transaction
in flight. The DB driver made an error and wrote garbage ,  which
corrupted DB indices, DB panicked. SAN dutifully copied the block level
writes to alternate site, so that panicked also. Oopsie. They had to
restore Prod last backup onto UAT system (and recreate all logged
transactions... a day of market!) to return to service. It was a bad week.

I much prefer semantic (vs block/bit) replication.
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Re: SMART data & Self tests, not sure if my SSD is on it's last gasp

[Bill Ricker]

On Wed, Jan 6, 2021 at 3:45 PM Joshua Judson Rosen 
wrote:

> Showtime Computer  in Hudson now does
> custom-built laptops,
> as of some time in the last few years IIRC. They look like they're based
> on the same ODM kits
> as the other Linux boutiques I've shopped, and should be solid.
>

?? I do NOT see Linux listed on their Operating Systems page (except for a
WSL mention on WinSvr page).

ThinkPenguin  is also based in NH again
> (Keene, last I heard);
>
Interesting

> looks like they've may have stopped doing laptops for the time being,
> though
> (I don't see any in the listing on their website, just accessories; they
> have _desktops_...).
>
Too bad


> I was buying all of my computers from ZaReason, but they just went out of
> business
> ("Unfortunately, the pandemic has been the final KO blow. It has hit our
> little town hard
>and we have not been able to recover from it.
>As of Tuesday, 11/24/20 17:00 EST ZaReason is no longer in business.").
>

Sad.
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Re: How does Linux handle DST/ST? It's all about time...

[Bill Ricker]

On Tue, Nov 10, 2020 at 2:15 PM Bruce Labitt 
wrote:

> "Dumb" machine, while actually computer controlled, is closed source.
> No possibility of changing its behavior.
> No ssh, no network.  It's a data logger to an SD card.  I have to use
> sneaker net to transport data to my PC.
>
> Other possibility (after a SD card backup) is to change the dumb machine
> clock back to standard time, hopefully without messing any settings up.
>

Dumb machines that don't understand timezones properly should probably be
set to Zulu=UTC as their timezone.
(Which is the internal time for most Linux systems' RTC also, TZ are just
user interface things there.)

(This solves the problem of having the same times twice when falling back;
there's no change.)

My Garmin GPS claims to understand TZ (for display) but records posits as
Z=UTC.

Alas that just makes things worse for reading the SD card, as that's always
4-5 hours ahead, unless the TZ is included in the timestamp on the SD card
(but not indication of DST/ST)?
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Re: Simple git question

[Bill Ricker]

Dan's way is as good as any.
(Could also commit to the local branch instead of stashing, which would let
you diff against your config tweaks.)

I find that understanding what Git is doing really helps me figure out what
i want to do. My preferred intro for this is

   - Git from the inside out
   

My other strategic bookmarks -

   - Git - Book 
   - Git - autocomplete
   
   - Specify an SSH key for git push for a given domain - Stack Overflow
   

   - rename git branch locally and remotely · GitHub
   
   - The Universe of Discourse : How to recover lost files added to Git but
   not committed 
   - Git 2.5, including multiple worktrees and triangular workflows
   

   - Difference between git reset soft, mixed and hard
   
   - git revert-a-faulty-merge
   

   - 10 Common Git Problems and How to Fix Them – citizen428.blog
   

   [so good i bookmarked it twice, 2nd location Codementor
   

   ]
   - git admin: An alias for running git commands as a privileged SSH
   identity – Noam Lewis
   

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Re: update on CIFS SAMBA CVE Re: Boston Linux VIRTUAL Meeting Wednesday, September 16, 2020 - Crypto News Review, Historical Vignette, and Transitioning from PGP/GnuPG

[Bill Ricker]

On Thu, Sep 17, 2020 at 8:39 PM Ben Scott  wrote:

> On Thu, Sep 17, 2020 at 12:40 PM Bill Ricker  wrote:
> > ... mentioned in my News segment in last night's presentation.
>
> There was talk of the slide deck being made available online
> somewhere.  Do you know if that happened?
>

WIP.  I *have* sent the deck to JABR. (I split the transitions for PDF
export.)
He will eventually post it at
   http://www.blu.org/meetings/ under Sept. 2020
... and automatically xref it under my Speaker resume
http://www.blu.org/cgi-bin/calendar/speakers/b-ricker1 ,
where you can find last year's (2019 Sept) list of alternatives to PGP by
use-case.

Thanks again for an interesting and informative presentation, BTW.
>

Welcome, and feedback appreciated !

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update on CIFS SAMBA CVE Re: Boston Linux VIRTUAL Meeting Wednesday, September 16, 2020 - Crypto News Review, Historical Vignette, and Transitioning from PGP/GnuPG

[Bill Ricker]

Today's Ubuntu security updates has a Debian Security patch Samba/CIFS for
CVE mentioned in my News segment in last night's presentation.

  * SECURITY UPDATE: Unauthenticated domain controller compromise by
subverting Netlogon cryptography
- debian/patches/CVE-2020-1472
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retired & new COBOL programmers being recruited

[Bill Ricker]

As no doubt you've heard, NJ/CT/others need COBOL help with
under-maintained Unemployment insurance systems.

IBM is offering resources and training; IDK what strings attached.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/ibm-open-mainframe-project-launch-initiative-to-help-train-cobol-coders/

 NJ Cobol contact info https://forms.business.nj.gov/tech/


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Re: COBOL on HPUX

[Bill Ricker]

On Mon, Jan 6, 2020 at 10:45 PM R. Anthony Lomartire <
opensourcek...@gmail.com> wrote:

> So I recently landed a job working in COBOL on HP-UX. It's been a trip!
>

HPUX is "interesting".
HP and IBM both made IT-friendly variants of Unix (previously it was just
an engineering OS; named "HPUX" and "AIX" respectively) long before POSIX
standardized the needed richer security/permissions features (e.g. ACLs),
and of course the other brands refused to bless either HPUX or AIX's
variations.  So life is odd on either of them.  I survived HPUX, and liked
AIX, when I had projects on them.

This stuff is from before my time but it's been really interesting to
> learn. Have any of you folks worked with this stuff?
>

Well yes.
   I coached a couple of girlfriends through the COBOL assignment in their
Survey of Languages courses in '79-'80, using an already obsolete IBM 1401
user manual, without having taken the course or studied COBOL more than
casual reading. (They both passed, and I'm still married to one of them!)
Then in 1981, i was paid to "write" (tweaked copy-pasta reuse) 2 lines
of COBOL on the TOPS-10 PDP-10 at DOT VOLPE center, to add field 13 A to
the processing for a form, after adding 13 A between 13 and 14 in the
Screen Painter and the DBMS schema. (And dump and reload the data of
course.)
   (We were the Fortran department, but our previous DB guru was bilingual
and noticed that the Cobol/DP dept had gotten a Form-painter application
that worked on glass terminals in block mode, to get away from literally
keypunching data on cards, and it only supported COBOL -- would generate a
DATASECT and an object to link to; and our DBMS System 1022 also generated
a DATASECT for COBOL (and did similar for Fortran), so it was a small
matter of  (pseudocode cobol)
CALL INPUT_FORM_ROUTINE

IF <*validate input buffer field*>
COPY input7 TO output7
ELSE SET ERROR_SEEN TO 1


*... lather rinse repeat 1 to 17 ... and then insert 13A between 13 and 14
after it's been in "production" for months.*

CALL WRITE_OUTPUT_TO_DBMS

The DEC PDP-10 had 36 bit words, so DEC TOPS COBOL had 6 x 6-bit ASCII
UPPER CASE CHARACTERS PER WORD. (WHO NEEDS LOWER CASE?)
DEC TOPS Fortran by contrast had discovered mixed case and had 5 x 7-bit
ASCII per word. (But the bit left over was mantissa lsb, not sign, so was
pretty much useless as a out of band marker.)

We're looking to migrate away eventually, maybe anyone with experience
> there? I'd love to hear any stories about COBOL or old enterprise mainframe
> applications you've worked with. We're probably going to be hiring soon too
> if anyone would be interested in a similar gig. :)
>

Early in the new century, my old financials shop was looking to replace two
overlapping business critical applications, one Mainframe COBOL and one VMS
COBOL,  with something new.  (We'd already replaced the PL/1 application
running on Stratus.) Eventually* instead of paying a vendor to upgrade
their Unix/Linux C++ app with Java UI to handle the needed features, the
vendor for the IBM M/F COBOL app added the features needed to retire the
VMS app.  (I didn't directly touch the Mainframe, but dealt with the
problems of transferring LRECL EBCDIC files to CRLF ASCII Unix/Linux hosts
and vice versa, as well as App/OS/HW interface/capacity issues on
Unix/Linux platforms. Much hilarity with file transfers.)

*Eventually = I think they finally finished??

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Re: The sudden upheaval at the FSF...

[Bill Ricker]

On Tue, Sep 17, 2019 at 3:18 PM Greg Rundlett (freephile) <
g...@freephile.com> wrote:

> The FOSS community has long needed a better spokesperson and maybe with
> luck we'll find who that person is.
>

The platform for that better spokesperson may well be OSI, no the other
one, the Open Source Initiative; *their* problematic original board member
has stepped down from the board long since, and they have good
gender-balance on the board now. https://opensource.org/docs/board-annotated
And they have a bunch of good people in their "stable."  To name but two,
Simon Phipps on their Board and V.M. "Vickie" Brasseur who sometimes writes
for their blog/eMagazine are spokespeople I like to hear from. That they've
rotated board members early and often is probably good too.

(The irony is that OSI was ESR's riposte to RMS's FSF. Perhaps with both
ESR and RMS out of OSI and FSF leadership, the two groups can work more
together and less dogmatic Libre vs Gratis shouting.)
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Signing update -- license^W key revoked

[Bill Ricker]

tl;dr -- don't bother trying to sign mine !

I was informed my  key 4096 RSA 41936952 (090F 3675 F519 C3D3 A5D8  E763
9CD4 CB6D 4193 6952)
shows as REVOKED on the keyserver.
(Our sign-up PHP should filter out revoked and expired keys !!?)

Oddly, i was able to push change of expiration date anyway ... but if i
pull it back, i now see it revoked too.
Interesting.  I don't recall doing that ...  and I got a Bot reminder it
was expiring last week!
Did i do it by accident, trying to follow a best-practice cookbook to make
an emergency revoke cert and instead sending one?
IDK.
I didn't think i was affected by the Debian weak primes but maybe that key
was, and the gray-hats popped it for safety.

Well, at least it's reassurance that Revoked keys actually will not be
used, if one checks them often !

> pub   rsa4096/41936952 2013-09-18 [SC] [expires: 2019-09-17]
>   Key fingerprint = 090F 3675 F519 C3D3 A5D8  E763 9CD4 CB6D 4193 6952
> uid [ultimate] William Ricker (Boston) 
> uid [ultimate] William Ricker (Boston) 
> sub   rsa4096/938DF10B 2013-09-18 [E] [expires: 2019-09-17]
>
> pub   rsa4096/41936952 2014-06-16 [SCEA] [revoked: 2016-08-16]
>   Key fingerprint = BFE3 CE1E 3A50 F8ED 96C8  537D D27E 035F 4193 6952
> uid [ revoked] William Ricker (Boston) 
>


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Quantum Crypto redux Re: Boston Linux Meeting ... Crypto News, plus ...

[Bill Ricker]

Elliott is correct that ECC including Curve25519 as well as NIST P-* curves
are more affected  by QC (Shor's) than RSA ... in part because our
classical factoring technology had such a head start, has gotten so good,
that RSA keys have gotten huge, but discrete log remained hard, so ECC
remains small(er)-data, so a classically recommended-keysize problem fits
in fewer QuBits.

Having a 20x safety factor on announced QuBits today is fine for commercial
attack safety today, but for how much longer?
(The good news is AES and hashes only need to double in size to resist
Grover's algorithm in Quantum, they say. )

Partial retraction -- the D-Wave machines with ridiculous numbers of QuBits
are Quantum Annealers, not general purpose Quantum Computers. (It did seem
obvious there was something different about them, from the interleaved
series of records of different orders of magnitude. Now I know what!)
Annealers are good for some kinds of non-linear search problems, but the
two Quantum Computing algorithms known to theoretically plague
public-key/asymmetric and private-key/symmetric  cryptography, Shor's and
Grover's  respectively, are not among the Simulated Annealing algorithms.
So $15M for 2kQuBit D-Wave isn't yet scary for crypto even though
Curve25519  can be solved by < 1600 QuBits in theory, because the (open)
record for the general QC logic machine remains at 72 QuBits, a safety
factor of 20.

QuBits aren't QUITE on the Moore's Law 18-month doubling cycle yet; my
back-of-the-envelope shows going from 7 QuBits to 72 QuBits in 16 years is
doubling in 28 months.  Which is kinda close to Moore's law for RAM (24
months)...
How soon the engineering will allow a growth spurt is unclear.

So setting my ED25519 key expiration at 10 years was just about right, :-)
that's just exactly when it should be doable commercially :-).
A little shorter would have been more conservative!

(I do wonder if D-Wave could be used for Hill-Climbing attack on some
classic crypto problems e.g. Wheatstone/Playfair, but wouldn't be cost
effective there. :-)  )
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Re: Boston Linux and Unix InstallFest LXV Saturday October 7, 2017

[Bill Ricker]

1. Note that Memorial Drive meters may be Mass State meters not Cambridge
(since MDC/DCR parkway), and so may differ from Cambridge meters on campus.

2. I will probably bring my Xerox ambulance gurney, usable if we need to
move  bulky stuff down the block. (We did this for the Ubuntu installfests
a few years ago.)

​
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Re: Is Amazon AWS/EBS snapshotting just LVM, or what?

[Bill Ricker]

The lack of coherence due to OS cave not being flushed should still be a
concern.

OTOH I saw a storage level replication system propagate corruption to the
remote site's copy of the Production DBMS ... So it perfectly replicated
the primary's failure. Oops. Easiest recovery was restoring a nightly
backup to the test system since both Prod nodes were so hosed.
This is bit one reason I like best-effort (asynchronous) dbms level
transaction replication. The remote is 30s behind but is in a consistent
state. Most users can handle checking if their last txn before crash
survived; most will even if not instructed to! (Even if asked not to!)
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Re: [Discuss] Any miners?

[Bill Ricker]

Bitcoin initially did not require specialized hardware, but as new golden
hashes get harder to find, mining costs more in electricity and
depreciation without speciality gear (or a huge BITNET running for free).
If scarcity drives up BTC value, maybe, but odds of finding one still
declining as payoff increases. I haven't checked the calculation lately, it
would be a good exercise: what would an AWS VPS mining cluster big enough
to average 1 BTC mined per week cost to operate?

Which if any of the alt-coins have legit upside is not yet clear, and the
most likely of them already requires a cluster and has had its first major
scam.

/ bill

On Jun 16, 2017 5:58 PM, "Greg Rundlett (freephile)" 
wrote:

> My son is investigating crypto-currency mining and seems to think it's
> incredibly lucrative.
>
> I've not delved into it at all.
>
> Comments? Anyone actually making money mining?
>
> From what I've previously gathered, I thought the amount of computational
> power, expense and electricity just about squeezed out anybody but those
> with super-specialized hardware.
>
> Greg Rundlett
> https://eQuality-Tech.com
> https://freephile.org
> ___
> Discuss mailing list
> disc...@blu.org
> http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>
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Re: "investigator hackers"?

[Bill Ricker]

On Wed, Feb 15, 2017 at 9:30 AM, David Rysdam <da...@rysdam.org> wrote:
>
> Our common friend asked me if anything like an "investigator hacker"
> existed that could look into these things, trace it back, send take-down
> requests, etc.

Because we didn't know where to find one, we considered starting such
a firm ... a friend investigated what it would take to get licensed as
such.

According to my recollection of their research, the easiest path to
licensing as a Private Detective/Investigator in Mass was to work for
one for N years, so we were considering recruiting a licensed PI as
managing director. ( IDK what NH rules are. )  I think it's SANS INST
that has an Ethical Hacker certification that would be useful
documentation in such an enterprise.

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Re: 16.04 SSD Re: Upstart issues with Ubuntu 14.04.

[Bill Ricker]

On Sat, Sep 10, 2016 at 4:05 PM, Peter Petrakis <peter.petra...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Having said that, I run all Intel with UMA graphics and
> can drive my 4K monitor with a 5 year old thinkpad.
>

​I do like all-Intel and aim for that. NVIDIA is nice if you need it ... so
there's no point in having it without getting best performance from the
proprietary blob.  But I avoid Broadcom always.  I inadvertently got one
all-Intel, one Nvidia Thinkpad T61 when buying lease-return quasi-refurbs.
(Neither is 14"; Nvidia one has the newer than PCMCIA slot, so i could add
a SD reader.)
   The Nvidia T61 behaves much nicer since i switched to the Tested
proprietary driver.
   The Intel one requires either the 14.04 HW Enablement Kernel update or
16.04 upgrade in order to use a different set of Xorg & Intel driver
patches that are required for Chrome HTML5 to not crash ​the GPU.
   Was going to do that HW enablement kernel, but the fain died so built
out a NUC6i7kyk first :-) The NUC isn't on Canonical certified list,
but it is listed as Linux tested/supported by Intel.  Windows is not
required to flash the BIOS, yeah!  A cute flash-drive with both USB-A and
micro-USB even allowed me to download BIOS update with tablet ... but
apparently can't update HDMI firmware w/o installing windows? Forums say i
should have one 4k with HDMI, have problems with 2x 4k HDMI, with Linux,
but even one didn't work for me. It could only do 1k4 via HDMI2VGA, not
even 1k7 but that could've been adapter limitation.  Feels like i'd need to
boot Windows and update HDMI firmware, ugh.  (Wind/Dos boot flashdisk
documented as working for one BIOS option but not for HDMI installer. boo
hiss.) But DP port is working fine as 3k5, and one of those is enough !

(Will order a fan later ... )



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16.04 SSD Re: Upstart issues with Ubuntu 14.04.

[Bill Ricker]

On Sep 9, 2016 23:05, "Joshua Judson Rosen"  wrote:
>
> On 09/09/2016 12:06 PM, Richard Kolb II wrote:
> > Not exactly related, but I just switched from windows 7 on my primary
> > machine to Ubuntu 16.x LTS. I found it horribly slow, which surprised
> > me considering it's a faster machine, more ram, and an SSD, over my
> > 14.x LTS machine.
>
> Does it perhaps have a worse graphics card--or perhaps even just
> a _worse-supported_ graphics card? Bottlenecks can be
> at the near end just as well as they can be at the far end

If you run "Additional Drivers", it will inform you if there is a nonlibre
driver that might perform better.

xenial 16.04LTS with SSD, Intel graphics is amazing fast here.
(Intel NUK6i7kyk and EVO950pro nvme m.2 SSD . mDP works fine, HDMI didn't
do 4k for me. )

Don't be fooled by SATA mode m.2 SSDs, they're better than rotary drives
but they aren't the m.2 you are looking for!
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Re: CentOS vs Unbuntu desktop

[Bill Ricker]

On Fri, Sep 9, 2016 at 1:52 PM, Chris Linstid <clins...@gmail.com> wrote:

> One of the other options is to start with ubuntu server (
> http://www.ubuntu.com/download/server). It will give you a very clean
> starting point and you can just install what you actually need. I don't use
> Unity, so I never start with that. I tend to lean towards XFCE or i3
>

​I've used Lubuntu (LXDE) on older hardware; previously used Xubuntu (XFCE)
but it got too heavy for one of the older netbooks; may be better again?

If you add more than one desktop/window managers, the log-in screen lets
you pick one.

Re Unity - In May 2014 i took an upgrade to Ubuntu 14.04​ Trusty LTS on my
main laptop earlier than desired - i like to avoid Dot Uh Oh releases but
had to run with it that time - to support a demo requiring latest kernel -
fully expecting i'd hate Unity and would deal with replacing it
(Mint/Cinamon/Lxde/xfce/...) when i got motivated to do so after the demo.
After working through a couple lists of "must-do tweaks", i never did
replace it.
And I have just applied those same tweaks (including Local Integrated
menus ) to 16.04 Xenial LTS  with Unity on my new box. (With new 4k monitor
- use DP not HDMI ! - i need the LIM.)

   (Hardest part was Google Earth on 64bit OS, which was even more trouble
than 14.04. Am having one minor issue on Ubuntu 16.04 with re-selecting
right audio sink on thaw/revive from suspend/hibernate/screenlock; related
i presume to SystemD ignoring what i know and vice versa. Not bad all in
all.  NUC6i7kyk doesn't actually have speakers, so yes i would like audio
to default to DP/HDMI unless headphones connected.)

​I'd suggest giving Unity a ch​ance (with tweaks) and even if you do add a
lightweight or traditional DWM, keep Unity as a log-in choice if only to be
able to file bugs that say "fails in both Unity and Mint" .

​[*] Tweaks
http://www.noobslab.com/2016/04/important-20-tweaksthings-to-do-after.html
https://launchpad.net/unity-tweak-tool
http://www.florian-diesch.de/software/indicator-privacy/
http://www.florian-diesch.de/software/classicmenu-indicator/ ​


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Re: tech recruiters you like?

[Bill Ricker]

The ones i liked retired.

Outplacement firm i worked with most recently said % of jobs found
through personal network is growing. Getting hired as an internal
referral saves them the hassle of dealing with Monster or Zip or ... ,
and is usually better per-screened by the referrer, for free. They
recommended strong use of LinkedIn to reconstruct who you used to know
so you can leverage their eyes and ears.
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Re: Gmail spam solution?

[Bill Ricker]

On Tue, Feb 23, 2016 at 1:01 PM, Brian St. Pierre <br...@bstpierre.org> wrote:
> In the gmail web ui, pull down the menu next to "to gnhlug-discuss", choose
> "Filter messages from this mailing list", tick "Never send it to spam",
> click "Create filter"


oh thanks, that's even slicker than the way i made the filter for BLU
lists (i used to: instead of list:).
Thanks !

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Re: Boston Linux Meeting Wednesday, October 21, 2015 - MooseFS

[Bill Ricker]

On Fri, Oct 16, 2015 at 6:58 AM, Jerry Feldman <g...@blu.org> wrote:
> ### Please note that Wadsworth St. is still closed.
> ### Proceed West on Memorial Drive to Ames St. Ames will be
> ### 2-way during construction. Take a right onto Ames St and another
> ### right onto Amherst St.
>
> ### There is a report that it may be open, but the  detour signs are
> ### still posted.

Wadsworth was open to traffic, lovely new pavement with proper painted
lines, on Tuesday (Perl Mongers). I'm guessing they just hadn't
collected the NO THRU TFC & DETOUR orange signs yet.

Will possibly get another gander at it when we welcome daughter's Mac
back from MicroCenter service center today, which will be a joyous
reunion, or before/after MIT flea Sunday (http://swapfest.us for
details and to print $1 off flier.)

(Congested weekend, with NEARfest swapmeet in NH, Photographica flea,
and MIT flea all in 3 days.)


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Re: SDHC card locked?

[Bill Ricker]

On Sat, Sep 19, 2015 at 4:09 PM, Bruce Labitt <bruce.lab...@myfairpoint.net>
wrote:

> .   I wanted to copy my data
> from another SDHC card to it.  The card seems to be locked, and is
> preventing writing to the card - although the little slider is set to
> the unlocked position.  Short of returning the card, which may be my
> best option, what can I do to check that the card is actually ok, or my
> laptop's SD card reader is at fault.
>
> I checked the properties of the card - it is set to user -
>


​Check the 'dmesg -T',  'mount', 'hdparm', 'fdisk -l', and
'/var/log/messages'  output for clues. ​

Some distros default fat, vfat, ntfs file-systems to read-only for safety,
don't know if that's your case. Devices also remount r/o on error.  If
'mount' reports 'ro', but no errors listed, a 'mount --options remount,rw'
should work.

Sometimes a specific reader doesn't like a specific card, so try another
one. E.g., my USB hub has slots for everything, but the uSD slot isn't
reliable.



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Re: SDHC card locked?

[Bill Ricker]

On Sat, Sep 19, 2015 at 4:52 PM, Bruce Labitt <bdlab...@gmail.com> wrote:

> How would the command go?  mount


​Since mount reported 'rw', 'mount ...remount,rw' isn't needed, wasn't the
problem.​



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Re: gps navigation project?

[Bill Ricker]

Interesting ideas.

 1. There's often an avoid tolls or this route has tolls, but never
 anything hinting at how much it will cost. A $1 toll is a lot nicer than a
 $30 one.

Great idea.  Toll is dependent upon vehicle configuration (and
sometimes time of day). I don't recall OSM having that richness; if
they don't, can suggest it. I should check if they have a MAX
HEIGHT/VEHICLE TYPE restriction on STORROW DR and MERRIT PKWY. Router
has to have your vehicle height, axles, wheels, type to handle all
this.

 2. Find on the way would be an amazing thing. Imagine, you ask for a
 ${DONUTSHOP} on the way from A to B, and it finds one that's minimally off
 the planned route.

Indeed.  And this is the sort of thing that's most useful real-time
not planning.

 My 3yr old garmin will find stuff near destination or along route.  Not as
 easy as it should be though.

Oh ? Which one?   I like Garmins ... eTrex, iii+, 76c previously; 76csx now.

 My car has something else and I can avoid whole roads which is nice.

Nice

 Sometime you don't want to go north on 93 on Friday.  Rt 3 is less
 congested...

Rt 3 being less bad than anything is  scary ...

I just let it recalculate when i reject its advice; sometimes
switching from Quickest Route to Shorter Path gets it on-board with a
short-cut quicker. (Having Avoid U-Turns turned off helps, but that
doesn't stop it suggesting three rights.) If it gets really irksome, i
set it in boat/air Off Road range-and-bearing navigation mode until
i really want turns suggested.   :-)   Picking an intermediate
waypoint as first destination or setting a Route with a few waypoints
(good for a re-usable shortcut/detour) can help.

I've been using OSM routable maps in my Garmin 76csx. Quality is
getting better but there are still disconnected butt-splices in the
interstate. (The source Census TIGER data set was not designed for
routing, so connectivity is not its strong point. Mostly fixed but
periodically it suggests i detour up an exit just to get back on to
route around a mesh defect.)  Alas i can't fix them while driving ...

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Re: gps navigation project?

[Bill Ricker]

On Tue, Aug 25, 2015 at 5:54 PM, Tom Buskey t...@buskey.name wrote:

 I have a wifi only Android.  No data when in the car.  If I have Wifi, I
 usually have my computer w/ a bigger screen.



​I have a wifi-only Android but have a 4G accesspoint.  Some 'Phone' apps
don't think that's good enough.  Haven't tried Waze, when i want traffic i
just use Google Maps app. Do you know if Waze will work with mobile WiFi ? ​



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Re: gps navigation project?

[Bill Ricker]

On Tue, Aug 25, 2015 at 4:53 PM, Tyson Sawyer ty...@j3.org wrote:
 but OsmAnd is probably a useful starting point.


I'd call it a starting point
​!

It's unclear to me how
The application is available in both a free [7] and a paid version [8]
which works as a donation to the developer, unlocks the download limit for
offline maps,
plus their  App store exception, would be GPLv3-compatible, but as it seems
it includes no GPL dependencies, it's not a violation of anyone's
license.   Even so, I have trouble thinking of free useless demos as
valid Freemium FLOSS distribution. Off-line maps is pretty basic function
here, and it's free data it's charging to access !
   Sure, the source is Free as in speech, but unless you have an unlocked
and rooted phone/tablet, you  may not be able load it even if you can build
it.
(Not that $6 - or $8 with Contours add-on - is outrageous, it's pretty
decent value!,  but either in-app purchase or app-store purchase required
for what's really basic functionality - off-net maps - doesn't feel FLOSS,
it feels Bait and Switch when you find out downloading from free sources
OSM and Wikipedia are locked !   At least it gives me a choice of who leaks
my credit card to the hackers ... Maybe i should get a $20 VISA gift card
to use for AppStore credit so i don't care who has it.)

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Re: Google thinks GNHLUG is spam now

[Bill Ricker]

 Is there an SPF record?


With GMAIL ​Show Original i see

 Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of
 gnhlug-discuss-boun...@mail.gnhlug.org designates 104.131.202.47 as
 permitted sender) client-ip=104.131.202.47;

Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: domain of
 gnhlug-discuss-boun...@mail.gnhlug.org designates 104.131.202.47 as
 permitted sender)
 DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com;
 s=20120113;

and no indication of why Spam was triggered.

I have a filter that pulls Mailing list posts out of Spam folder, and Gmail
reports


*This message was not sent to Spam because of a filter you created.*
on Ben's message (@gmail) but not on MadDog's (@comcast). Looks rather like
how it treats YAHOO Strict DKIM.  I suspect Gmail is objecting to receiving
mail with sender=gmail.com from outside.  Lists probably need a bit more
header re-writing to make it happy - or they need to be smarter to see that
yes, we did send that to the list, and it's back.

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Fwd: Self-signed cert and Pidgin.

[Bill Ricker]

Oops, replied direct.


-- Forwarded message --

On Mon, Mar 30, 2015 at 10:25 AM, Ken D'Ambrosio k...@jots.org wrote:
 To work around #2, I set up an /etc/hosts entry; based on what I
 understand about SSL (or *think* I understand; I'm pretty hazy on
 certain parts), that should be okay.  But #1 seems to be an issue.  When
 I try to fire up Pidgin, here's what I get:
 -
 Unable to validate certificate
 The certificate for foo.com could not be validated.  The certificate
 chain presented is invalid.

Reading bug-reports, supposedly Pidgin will prompt for self-signed /
unknown certs once, and every time for expired certs.

One suggestion i see for debugging Pidgin TLS is using openssl client.

openssl s_client -connect host.name.here.net:5222 -CApath
/etc/ssl/certs -starttls xmpp
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Re: KIBO license plate

[Bill Ricker]

On Thu, Dec 18, 2014 at 9:07 PM, David Rysdam da...@rysdam.org wrote:

 I've seen this twice in the last few years. Which one of you is it?


​I've met Kibo (and there-in lies a tale; buy me a beer sometime), but
not in years (though i saw a mutual friend recently at a BLU-co-sponsored
event!).

I don't think he's on this list.​

But if he's still ego-scanning, he may show up in 3 .. 2 .. 1 ..
(In which case,
   Hi Kibo !
-- world!wdr
)

I hope the plates are his; iirc he was car-free when i knew him ... where
did you see this ?

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Re: Drill Press Local to Nashua/Amherst/Milford needed

[Bill Ricker]

On Tue, Dec 16, 2014 at 1:20 PM, David Rysdam da...@rysdam.org wrote:
 One possible difficulty is the fact that this is acrylic. Acrylic melts
 if you try to cut or drill too fast. I can slow my spindle speed down,
 but I'm not sure how slow it goes. We should practice on some scraps if
 you have any.

If you can't slow it enough, can you spray-cool when drilling plastic?
I forget if you'd want wood bit or metal bit for this ?

If this particular acrylic machines at all like Lucite™ (only acrylic
i've machined, in a prior century!), it also wants to be machined with
its protective adhesiver-paper cover still on, it helps prevents
chipping.  If you don't have a cover layer, shelf-paper or
packing-tape might temporarily replace it ?

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Re: Drill Press Local to Nashua/Amherst/Milford needed

[Bill Ricker]

On Tue, Dec 16, 2014 at 2:15 PM, David Rysdam da...@rysdam.org wrote:
 I've been thinking maddog's acrylic is a laser-cut thing he ordered
 somewhere and wouldn't have any paper. MDF/plywood backing would
 probably work.

Likely .


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Re: BLINK

[Bill Ricker]

On Tue, Nov 4, 2014 at 11:22 PM, Joshua Judson Rosen
roz...@geekspace.com wrote:
 Would you believe if I told you that what I was working on
 was a web-based VCR clock?


DO IT !

:-)

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Re: Copyright in FOSS Consulting

[Bill Ricker]

On Thu, Oct 30, 2014 at 6:56 AM, Greg Rundlett (freephile)
g...@freephile.com wrote:
 I've been working on clarifying the best practices and boilerplate
 contract language that addresses Copyright in a GPL world.

That's a good thing to do, thank you. Well done re the Trigger and AGPL.

Might want to compare/contrast *GPL vs MIT, BSD licenses from
commercial use point of view. (And GPLv2 vs GPLv3.)

There's a similar issue on the Salaried employment side (so-called
perm, hah!); terms of employment often make FLOSS contribution
impossible without very careful re-negotiation with Corporate Legal.
My recent Fortune500 was relatively enlightened and had a formal
process for allowing and encouraging pushing patches and add-ons
up-stream, and even for releasing internally created projects out to
github as new FLOSS projects where external contributors would help it
thrive. (Obviously core competitive secret-sauce was not eligible for
that!)

One area we had concern was internally modified GPL software used by
contractors on our behalf.  GPLv3 terms define 'Distribution' well
enough that's clearly out of scope and non-triggering. GPLv2 was
perceived as fuzzy here.

The other subtlety is GPLv3 has those Patent clauses. HP prevailed in
getting the draft toned down to *only* apply to patents required by
the software. Firms engaging in software and/or process patents only
for defensive purposes may be ok with GPLv3 patent clauses, but any
expecting to enforce patents against competitors must tread carefully
with using (L)GPLv3 enabling  platforms with their patented IP.

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Re: Perl Tech meeting Tues Oct 14th - Shell-Shocker CGI and Perl DoS bugs

[Bill Ricker]

While today is a holiday for some, tomorrow is Boston.PM anyway.
(Worse, next month we're on 11/11.)
And Boston Perl Monger's 2nd Tuesday comes as late as possible this month,
so falls the day before BLU 3rd Wednesday.
   (I hear some operating system also issues patches that day, doesn't
affect me.)

TOPIC: Shell-Shocker CGI and Perl DoS bugs
DATE: Tuesday, October 14
TIME: 7:00 – 10:00 PM
ROOM: E51-376
SPEAKER: Bill Ricker (lead)

We will examine the implications for the ShellShock BASH bug for Perl
-- it's much wider than just about BASH CGI or even Perl CGI scripts
-- and also a recently discovered/fixed but comparably long-lurking
Perl DoS bug in a core module (Data::Dumper stack smash CVE-2014-4330)
and how is it possibly remotely triggerable.

The good news is ShellShocker was slightly over-hyped; unlike
Heartbleed, this one does NOT generally affect the Internet of Things,
you internet-enabled toaster is likely immune. But Windows and Mac are
not entirely immune to this Linux bug.

[ Anyone who has examined either bug or its implications is welcome to
contribute or co-present - contacting me off-list is recommended,
although in our interactive style I'll cheerfully include ambush
collaborators. ]

Boilerplate details

Tech Meetings are held on the 2nd Tuesday of every month at MIT
building E51, Sloan School Tang Center [not the other Tang building!]
nearer to Kendall Sq than Mass Ave.
 (directions http://boston-pm.wikispaces.com/MIT+Directions).
Talk begins at 7:30.
Refreshments in the hallway prior.
RSVP for count encouraged but not required, to bill.n1...@gmail.com or
Boston-PM list, by 4pm Tuesday.


(NOTE: we're staying in the wider room 376 where we were in summer,
after being in squarish 372 for winter/spring.)

website - boston.pm.org

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Perl Tech meeting Tues Oct 14th - Shell-Shocker CGI and Perl DoS bugs

[Bill Ricker]

Boston Perl Monger's 2nd Tuesday comes as late as possible this month,
so falls the day before BLU 3rd Wednesday.
   (I hear some operating system also issues patches that day, doesn't
affect me.)

TOPIC: Shell-Shocker CGI and Perl DoS bugs
DATE: Tuesday, October 14
TIME: 7:00 – 10:00 PM
ROOM: E51-376
SPEAKER: Bill Ricker (lead)

We will examine the implications for the ShellShock BASH bug for Perl
-- it's much wider than just about BASH CGI or even Perl CGI scripts
-- and also a recently discovered/fixed but comparably long-lurking
Perl DoS bug in a core module (Data::Dumper stack smash CVE-2014-4330)
and how is it possibly remotely triggerable.

The good news is ShellShocker was slightly over-hyped; unlike
Heartbleed, this one does NOT generally affect the Internet of Things,
you internet-enabled toaster is likely immune. But Windows and Mac are
not entirely immune to this Linux bug.

[ Anyone who has examined either bug or its implications is welcome to
contribute or co-present - contacting me off-list is recommended,
although in our interactive style I'll cheerfully include ambush
collaborators. ]

Boilerplate details

Tech Meetings are held on the 2nd Tuesday of every month at MIT
building E51, Sloan School Tang Center [not the other Tang building!]
nearer to Kendall Sq than Mass Ave.
 (directions http://boston-pm.wikispaces.com/MIT+Directions).
Talk begins at 7:30.
Refreshments in the hallway prior.
RSVP for count encouraged but not required, to bill.n1...@gmail.com or
Boston-PM list, by 4pm Tuesday.


(NOTE: we're staying in the wider room 376 where we were in summer,
after being in squarish 372 for winter/spring.)

website - boston.pm.org

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Re: Home server hardware for Ubuntu 14.04?

[Bill Ricker]

On Tue, Oct 7, 2014 at 7:53 AM, Tom Buskey t...@buskey.name wrote:
 My intro to Openstack was someone in sales from Canonical showing how he
 used HP microservers and other parts from eBay to teach himself Openstack.
 Juju was just being introduced and at the time, the minimal recommended
 stack was 12 nodes.

 He had the whole setup in his office.


Sounds like Federico ... he's Product Management (which isn't quite
Sales) where he handles the non-sexy server features [same as he did
at SUSE before], and he's also the upstream maintainer for man(1).
He's on the BLU mailing-list, not sure if he listens here too.

He did OpenStack from Scratch: Part ii at OSCON this year, previewed
on BLU video at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPHquM1PEnUfeature=youtu.be

I don't see a video of part i, which is the preso you describe.

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Re: Best RAW photo editing tool?

[Bill Ricker]

On Thu, Sep 4, 2014 at 5:22 PM, Joshua Judson Rosen
roz...@geekspace.com wrote:
 Hrm. Is that actually an appropriate use of floats?

I think so. With modern hardware, even efficient time-wise. But chews
up RAM a little faster.

 I imagine
 people working with JPEGs as source material basically can't care
 about whatever precision is being lost; is the lost precision
 `down in the noise' for RAW, too?

yeah, JPEGs are hardly precise or accurate or anything else. One
reason to access the RAW ...

RAWs *are* precise, like a 12, 14, or 16 bit per channel GIF/PNG/TIFF;
the only compression if any is RLE. If i save a RAW out again as
TIFF16, I shouldn't have lost any original bits in the diversion into
Floats with 'merely' 24 bits of fraction, but autoscaling avoids
trouble in exposure compensations etc. (File-on-disk hash difference
should be dominated by metadata changing when re-writing.)

( A little noise down in the noise may actual help avoid Mach banding
during processing, so 'useless' extra precision of 24 bits may
actually be helpful too.)


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Re: Best RAW photo editing tool?

[Bill Ricker]

On Wed, Sep 3, 2014 at 3:02 PM, Ben Scott dragonh...@gmail.com wrote:
 I have got tired of post-processing because of the time it takes. Sad to say
 google's auto-awesome impresses me in terms of time efficiency.

   How do I run that on my Linux box?


You don't, you just upload direct from Android or from laptop to the
gCloud and they'll awesome-ize it unless you say three times no i know
better don't.


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Re: Best RAW photo editing tool?

[Bill Ricker]

On Tue, Aug 26, 2014 at 4:13 PM, Marc Nozell (m...@nozell.com)
noz...@gmail.com wrote:
 dcraw
 darkroom
 rawstudio
 rawtherapee
 ufraw (also the default tool used by gimp and f-spot)

Add one to the list. Fotoxx, which is my preferred tool for JPEG photo
edits, now handles RAW file natively, no longer by just shelling out
to ufrawdcraw. Caveat, since Mike avoids integer math overflow pixel
problems by using FLOATs, so don't expect snappy performance on a
limited machine with large RAWs !  With small files or big memory it's
pretty snappy though, and just works -- more what do you want to
accomplish and less how should it do it, like a complete set of
PhotoShop / Gimp plugins, without the rest of PS/Gimp.

I've tried all the above except rawstudio (I'll add that to my To Do
list!).  I will still sometimes do Raw 'developmet' in 'ufraw' when it
needs significant exposure correction and save as TIFF16 and a resized
TIFF16  or JPEG before finishing in Fotoxx. Sufficiently that I asked
Mike to restore the Open-with-Ufraw option to Fotoxx.

I've tried 'darktable' but haven't figured it out. I think it has
workflow promise if I ever figure it out.

For many purposes, RawTherapee would be better for RAW us, if I didn't
have Fotoxx to do phase 2 in. Very nice selection of What do you want
knobs instead of How To Mash Pixels knobs. I should use it more.

'dcraw' is what Fotoxx and likely everyone else uses for batch.
Doesn't do resize-while-convert, alas.

bill








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Re: Fonts Re: how dumb is this idea?

[Bill Ricker]

On Sun, May 25, 2014 at 6:43 PM, Joshua Judson Rosen
roz...@geekspace.comwrote:

 I like Georgia. It has lowercase numerals.


​The technical terms are ranging numerals or text figures vs the
modernist lining figures.
Each has its purposes, but it's a very good sign if an oldstyle font
includes ranging figs in at least on variant. ​



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Fonts Re: how dumb is this idea?

[Bill Ricker]

 ​ttf-mscorefonts-installer

Easily my favorite MS product since OS2.

In particular, *Georgia* and *Verdana* are a great pair of fonts, designed
to complement each other as *text* and *Title*.​  I have a lot of respect
for MS's Typographers last decade.

(*It's not their fault what people abuse Comic Sans for*.  Yes, I liked the
Carter-Cone Lucida family even better -- you see Lucida Bright in
Scientific American now -- but that's not as widely available, so
unsuitable for file interchange usage. Lucida Fax was great when it shipped
with WinFax Pro!)

​I have set my Gmail default font for HTML email (we lost that war, alas)
to Georgia since it's ubiquitous in the XP-and-later Outlook/MSOffice
world, and looks nice.

 ​It is not free, but does not cost anything.​

:-)   ​With fonts, that's good enough unless you're a purists, in which
case interchanging with MSO is already unclean.

​

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Re: how dumb is this idea?

[Bill Ricker]

​One comment on LO interchange with MSO from recent experience working with
MSO-only consultants --  LO Track Changes didn't seem to be as reliably
portable when round-tripping doc* files with MS Word users. The changelog
was a mess by the time we were done.

(I was still on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS at the time, it's possible that's been
fixed now, but that's the sort of odd corner where each of the several
doc/docx/xml formats could be squirly on round trip collaboration.)

Next time, i'll compare saved/sent version to received version to see their
changes, and suggest they do likewise.

bill
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Re: DoS attacks on Healthcare.gov...

[Bill Ricker]

MOD

 I'm sure some would not be displeased to see the
 term open source get Embraced And Extended and
 turned into a pejorative the way hacker was...


the Intelligence community has had sources longer than the computation
community has, and they distinguish open vs covert/secret. The
terminological collision is inevitable. (overt action might be more
linguistically appropriate, if that's what they mean, but bureaucrats
aren't known for that.) Combining our meaning and theirs in the Open
Source Media movement is confusing, since they mean *both* meanings at
once, but that's alas natural evolution.

Evidence may be appearing of SQL injection attacks, the linkned
un-confirmed image shows SQL in suggested searches on Healthcare.gov
https://twitter.com/alexhern/status/402365655250644992/photo/1
which suggests (as noted by
https://twitter.com/Green_Footballs/status/402606184277868544) that those
attacks are most popular queries ... which would seem to confirm a sig % of
traffic is adversarial.

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Re: DoS attacks on Healthcare.gov...

[Bill Ricker]

David is correct, open sources has been a concept in the intel community
in contrast to covert sources, classified sources  for longer than
we've had computers. It originally meant reading the foreign newspapers.

Among its magical properties of openly-sourced intel is that we don't have
to hide that/how we know this (anymore).

-- 
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@n1vux bill.n1...@gmail.com
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Re: Boston Linux Meeting reminder today, September 18, 2013 - PGP/GnuPG Keysigning Party XIV

[Bill Ricker]

Based on latest news and comments, we should not be signing 1024 bit keys.

2048 or larger. Bruce Schneier's new key is 4096 bits, so that's become
accepted.

bill
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Re: Boston Linux Meeting Wednesday, September 18, 2013 - PGP/GnuPG Keysigning Party XIV

[Bill Ricker]

KEYSIZE for this year is 2048.

Key size 1024 is no longer considered safe for public keys expiring later
than Dec 2013.

Please use size 2048 this year, whether choosing RSA/RSA or DH/DSA (or RSA
or DSA signing-only keys)
Folks who have 1024 size keys should make 2048 keys. (You can sign the new
2048 with the old 1024 to prove it's the same person, and eventually revoke
the 1024 once enough people have seen the 2048.)

(3072 and 4096 are still too large for most purposes and may not be fully
supported. So 2048 is really the only choice.)

(ECC keys are still ok at 256 but are still only in DEV branch of GPG,
possibly due to Patent concerns, so aren't highly interoperable yet. Which
is too bad since strength per key length is better and not affected by
mathematical advances that put both RSA and DH in play in the future.  I'll
speak more on this Wednesday. Lots of news this year, besides what you've
seen on Cable TV news, which really shouldn't have been a surprise.)

http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2012/09/10/minimum-rsa-public-key-lengths-guidelines-or-rules.html
http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2013/05/27/anatomy-of-a-change-google-announces-it-will-double-its-ssl-key-sizes/





On Wed, Sep 11, 2013 at 7:32 AM, Jerry Feldman g...@blu.org wrote:

 When: September 18, 2013 7PM (6:30PM for QA)
 Topic: PGP/GnuPG Keysigning Party
 Moderator:Bill Ricker
 Location: MIT Building E51, Room 315


 Summary
 A talk about PGP and GnuPG, followed by a keysigning party.
 Please Register your key in advance to participate!

 Abstract

 A key signing party is a get-together of people who use the PGP
 encryption system with the purpose of allowing those people to sign each
 others keys. Key signing parties serve to extend the web of trust to a
 great degree. Key signing parties also serve as great opportunities to
 discuss the political and social issues surrounding strong cryptography,
 individual liberties, individual sovereignty, and even implementing
 encryption technologies or perhaps future work on free encryption software.

 The basic workflow of signing someone's key is as follows:

 Verify that the person actually is who they claim to be;
 Have them verify their key ID and fingerprint;
 Sign their key;
 Send the signed key back to them

 At the meeting, we go through the first two steps. Each person who
 preregistered their key will announce their presence and then read off
 their key ID and fingerprint, so everyone can verify that their copy of
 the list of keys is correct. Once we've run down the list, we line up,
 and each of us examines everyone else's photo IDs to verify that they
 are who they claim to be. After the meeting is over, each participant
 can then retrieve the keys that they've personally verified, sign those
 keys, and send the signed keys back to their respective owners.

 In order to complete the keysigning in the allotted time, we follow
 a formal procedure as seen in V. Alex Brennen's GnuPG Keysigning Party
 HOWTO, attached below. It is strongly advised that if you have not been
 to a keysigning party before, you read this document. We're using the
 List-based method for this keysigning party, and the keyserver at
 subkeys.pgp.net.

 It is essential that, before the meeting, you register on the signup
 form listed in the attachments. You should bring at least one picture ID
 with you. You must also bring your own printout of the report on that
 page, so you can check off the names/keys of the people you have
 personally verified.

 The list will be printed on Wednesday afternoon, the day of the
 meeting; be sure to register your key for the keysigning before that.
 The official cutoff time is 3:00 pm.

 Additional Links:
 Registration 
 http://blu.org/keysignings/**keypartyregister.phphttp://blu.org/keysignings/keypartyregister.php
 GNUPG Keysigning Party Howto:
 http://www.cryptnet.net/fdp/**crypto/gpg-party.htmlhttp://www.cryptnet.net/fdp/crypto/gpg-party.html
 GNU Privacy Guard: http://www.gnupg.org/

 For further information and directions please consult the BLU Web site
 http://www.blu.org
 Please note that there is usually plenty of free parking in the E-51
 parking lot at 2 Amherst St, or directly on Amherst St.

 After the meeting we will adjourn to the official after meeting meeting
 location at The Cambridge Brewing Company
 http://www.**cambridgebrewingcompany.com/http://www.cambridgebrewingcompany.com/

 --
 Jerry Feldman g...@blu.org
 Boston Linux and Unix
 PGP key id:3BC1EB90
 PGP Key fingerprint: 49E2 C52A FC5A A31F 8D66  C0AF 7CEA 30FC 3BC1 EB90



























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@n1vux bill.n1...@gmail.com
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Re: Is this normal?

[Bill Ricker]

if you Jerry or someone previewed the site with Chrome, Google knows.
there are hints that links in email are captured.
links in mailing list archives are definitely captured.

robots.txt is your only hope. (requires ownership of whole website.)
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Re: FYI

[Bill Ricker]

If the disk is failing, perhaps what it needs in SpinRight to recover the
iffy blocks. Not Free, not Open, but good stuff and not expensive.

(And it makes possible the Security Now! podcast.)

But even that on 1-3TB will take forever.

bill
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Rakudo Star - a useful, usable, 'early adopter's distribution of Perl 6 MIT 9/14 E51 7pm

[Bill Ricker]

Rakudo Star - a useful, usable, 'early adopter's distribution of Perl 6

 Rumors of my death are greatly exaggerated -- Mark Twain

Curious what the Perl community has been up to lately? Come see Perl
6's recent preview release.

Since July, Perl Mongers groups around the world are doing demo nights
to build and exercise Rakudo Star.  Boston.PM's turn is September
14th, MIT  E51-376 7:30pm (refreshments in hallway at 7). {This is the
night before BLU's PGP night, second Tuesday is as late as it gets
this month.}  We'll install it and show what it can do. We may discuss
what more the final release candidate will do, and if  enough
non-regulars turn up, we can discuss what's in 5.12 that's not in the
5.8.4 or older that's still on many commercial Unix systems.

RSVP for count encouraged (so our kind refreshments sponsors CIDC
know) but not required,
to me bill.n1...@gmail.com or Boston-PM list. (If you have favorite
snippets of Perl6 code to share, send them too)

Directions - http://boston.pm.org/kwiki/index.cgi?MITDirections

-- 
Bill Ricker, Boston.pm facilitator http://boston.pm.org/kwiki/
bill.n1...@gmail.com
[*] http://perldoc.perl.org/perlhist.html




Announce: Rakudo Star - a useful, usable, early adopter distribution of Perl 6
Submitted by pmichaud on Thu, 07/29/2010 - 05:18

On behalf of the Rakudo and Perl 6 development teams, I'm happy to
announce the July 2010 release of Rakudo Star, a useful and usable
distribution of Perl 6. The tarball for the July 2010 release is
available from http://github.com/rakudo/star/downloads.

Rakudo Star is aimed at early adopters of Perl 6. We know that it
still has some bugs, it is far slower than it ought to be, and there
are some advanced pieces of the Perl 6 language specification that
aren't implemented yet. But Rakudo Perl 6 in its current form is also
proving to be viable (and fun) for developing applications and
exploring a great new language. These Star releases are intended to
make Perl 6 more widely available to programmers, grow the Perl 6
codebase, and gain additional end-user feedback about the Perl 6
language and Rakudo's implementation of it.

In the Perl 6 world, we make a distinction between the language (Perl
6) and specific implementations of the language such as Rakudo
Perl. Rakudo Star is a distribution that includes release #31 of
the Rakudo Perl 6 compiler [1 http://github.com/rakudo/rakudo],
version 2.6.0 of the Parrot Virtual Machine [2 http://parrot.org/],
and various modules, documentation, and other resources collected from
the Perl 6 community. We plan to make Rakudo Star releases on a
monthly schedule, with occasional special releases in response to
important bugfixes or changes.

Some of the many cool Perl 6 features that are available in this
release of Rakudo Star:

* Perl 6 grammars and regexes
* formal parameter lists and signatures
* metaoperators
* gradual typing
* a powerful object model, including roles and classes
* lazy list evaluation
* multiple dispatch
* smart matching
* junctions and autothreading
* operator overloading (limited forms for now)
* introspection
* currying
* a rich library of builtin operators, functions, and types
* an interactive read-evaluation-print loop
* Unicode at the codepoint level
* resumable exceptions

There are some key features of Perl 6 that Rakudo Star does not yet
handle appropriately, although they will appear in upcoming releases.
Thus, we do not consider Rakudo Star to be a Perl 6.0.0 or 1.0
release. ...
[read more]  http://rakudo.org/node/75 announcement
(1) http://github.com/rakudo/rakudo
(2) http://parrot.org/
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Re: Nokia N900 // GPS, again

[Bill Ricker]

On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 9:31 PM, Joshua Judson Rosen
roz...@geekspace.com wrote:
 How's the GPS? I heard from someone that the N810's GPS was lacking,

I had heard same on N810 and N900, so didn't have high expectations
and so haven't tested extensively. I vaguely think it's supposed to be
quicker than 810 but still not a terribly precise (by GPS nerd
standards).
 Only time I tried it half-seriously I had horrible skies, indoors
near window with 3G, and was pleasantly surprised it was able to be
crudely off-position quickly. Since I was thinking of getting a logger
(screenless) GPS anyway, for use with camera geotagging, having a
logger bluetooth bond with the N900 only when I want to do precision
mapping live  online doesn't seem unreasonable for me.

 I myself would not plan on using my phone for navigation, as for that
I use a sportsman's Garmin which is differently hackable (OSM.ORG
maps, freebeer downloaded POI files, custom by me POI files with my
own icons).  I use rangeazimuth more often than turn-by-turn, and
when using street routing it's more for amusement or for debuging the
OSM import of MASS GIS or TIGER data than for actual guidance. I also
wouldn't want my phone loose on the dash either, it rides on the
console on an antiskid mat (bought in kitchen gadget aisle at grocery
who think its a drawer liner).

 (In that position, a Bluetooth screenless GPS  several feet forward
at the base of the windscreen would help sky visibility too., but not
safely viewable by driver for Nav.)

-- 
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Re: OpenStreetMap compatible GPS?

[Bill Ricker]

 Depending on how much OSM you want to do, you might be better off buying
 the car GPS based on its features and get a GPS data logger:


That may be sensible whether OSM is hi or low. I like the control using a
non-car GPS in car gives me, but that is considered abnormal - I have put my
unit in rental cars next to the built in, and gotten them arguing. A lot of
folks want default routing that the for-the-car units provide.

Still might want to include in car GPS feature list being able to load OSM
maps, rather than only vendor paid downloads. If so, ability to load
MULTIPLE map files (different styles, sizes) and menu switch them is the one
feature I with I had. I also add  POI files that aren't fully free for
specific merchants' locations and other events. So USB/uSD
access/expandibility still matters, even if not for track files. Does it
require MS Win version X to load the proprietary map loader program, or can
usb/uSD be manipulated as a drive with copy/paste? Does gpsbabel handle any
serial protocol required?

I may add a V900 logger  bluetooth GPS to my kit, as it is suposed to make
OSM2Go on the Maemo platform more precise when in the field than the N900's
built-in GPS, and will be an elegantly small track logger for my camera bag
for geotagging, and will separate photo track storage from my magic map
Navigation device's storage. It'd be by first non-Garmin, but it's a USB
drive emulator with standard format trackfiles, so I should be ok.

As to mounting, consider security. Visible GPS or having evidence of suction
cup's slime rings on windshield say 'beak window to loot toys' in even
parking lots you wouldn't consider seedy.

-- 
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Re: Nokia N900 // GPS

[Bill Ricker]

  Both: http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/cellphone/8928/
  (I have one.  Audio quality sucks, unfortunately.)

yeah it sounds gike a1g cellphone ... but it looks good and fits the
ear-mouth spacing.

uniting threads, OSM2Go field map-editing program works fine with N900
, although i am told the internal GPS is low res and on outboard
bluetooth GPS placed where it has good sat vis will improve things.
Repository includes gpsd  iirc. Haven't used the OviMaemo mapping.



-- 
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Re: Nokia N900 // bluetooth

[Bill Ricker]

re bluetooth retro handset

I have one.  Audio quality sucks, unfortunately.
   I was rather disappointed.  I used the 2.5mm jack wireline version
 once (thanks, Bill McG!), and it was much better.  Apparently they
 skimped on the electronics in this one.


That's more or less true with much of Bluetooth telephonic (as opposed to
stereo) audio. I talked to the Cellphone Accessories aisle clerk at Fry's,
told him I liked the ear-fit of Jabra and the audio quality of Plantronics.
He said Jarbra BT850 was the only one that would suit me. Love it. Not sure
what if any current part# is equivalent. I have had a Plantronics or two
also, great feature and quality, but the Jabra gels fit like Uhura's earbud,
it's hardly there.

-- 
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Re: Bluetooth telephone interfaces (was: Nokia N900 // bluetooth)

[Bill Ricker]

On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 9:48 AM, Benjamin Scott dragonh...@gmail.comwrote:

  We tried a Jabra BT5020 for a desk application at work.  Audio
 quality was mediocre.
  I don't like Jabra as much as I used to.


Yes, most wireless is crap. That's why I asked the Frys' guy if any Jabra BT
had Plantronics-grade audio, and he said ONLY the BT850 had audio comparable
to good wired or Plantronics wireless headset. I would stil trust any Jabra
for wired.

-- 
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Re: Nokia N900

[Bill Ricker]

 I'm looking at upgrading my phone. Even though I won't get 3G, I'm
 looking at the Nokia N900. Has anyone used it? What are your thoughts?

I really like mine, it have placed my phone  my Zaurus.
Works well on T-Mobile 3G, 2.5G (Is that EDGE?), 3.5G (WTF is that?), and WiFi.
Internet is not going to be fiber speed that way but ... it's better
than nothing.

N900's Key advantage -- root shell is a supported download away.
Package  repository http://maemo.org/downloads/Maemo5/ has choice of
many normal Linux packages like Vim, OpenSsh, VNC, Pidgin, Xchat,
Irssi, Perl modules, Ogg, fbreader  another eBook reader, ...

It helps that I am a Debian/Ubuntu sort of person so I grok Maemo more
than Android.
(Next Intel/Nokia version Meego will be RPM, but expect Maemo FLOSS to stay Apt)

Be warned the fonts are really small like all the smart phones.
Understand please that it is only available unlocked, off-contract.
Note that all these touch phones are clumsier as phones than old flip phones --
fail to lock keyboard and it will pocket dial; it's shaped like a
chimney tile not a phone;
you will want a bluetooth earbud or retro handset or both.

-- 
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Re: [OT] Luddite Teachings (was OpenStreetMap compatible GPS?)

[Bill Ricker]

teacher decided to force logs on us... by way of a slide rule.

Back in the dark ages, my HS physics  chemistry instructors had us do
the formulae with sliderules for weeks before we got to bring in our
fancy pricey scientific calculators (HP-25c is 1976). This was NOT to
push logarithms on us but to push Scientific notation, ESTIMATION and
dimensional analysis. Why? Since the exponent or decimal point is done
in wetware while the slipstick tracks the mantissa, one must
understand what you're doing to get the right answer. So when we
started punching buttons, we had a better chance to get the right
answer there too.

A good sliderule still does rectangular to polar conversion, or
proportions, quicker and simpler than any digital device ...

-- 
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Re: OpenStreetMap compatible GPS?

[Bill Ricker]

On Wed, Apr 28, 2010 at 3:38 PM, Tyson Sawyer ty...@j3.org wrote:
  How do you find it works with Linux?  Or do you?  :)

 eTrex work great with gpsbabel.

provided you have right cable. Garmin has made three different cables,
two for RS232 serial and most recently USB.
Gpsbabel is great.

 Newer, fancier units mount up as mass
 storage devices over USB and natively support GPX files.

And microSD too.

My personal favorite is Garmin 76csx, available at HRO Salem,NH or
LLBean and lots of other places.
www.garmin.com/products/gpsmap76csx/

I like moderately large color screen (smaller than tomtom but bigger
than etrex or iii+) and the air/boat/hiker 'off road'
range-and-azimuth mode for when I don't trust the street routing
(usual), usb  uSD, old Garmin round rigid automotive power connector,
and tall enough to jam between by dash  windscreen without a mount
that tells thieves it must be nearby.

I can load my own OSM made maps, which can be routable; I can add my
own POI DB's separately from Map (made with gpsbabel); I can extract
and load waypoints via GPX file; I can extract hi-precision track GPX
files from the uSD card (and low/compressed tracks by USB). I can
synchronize photos with my trackfile; though it's larger than my
eTrex, it fit in a pocket and can move away from the vehicle with the
camera, and last quite a while on 2 AA batteries.

Some newer Garmins will let you switch/select from several loaded maps
by menu, 76csx does not (at least not at my firmware level and think,
not.) Instead I have multiple maps on multiple uSDs in a media wallet
in my pocket, should travel out of my current map. Works for me.

-- 
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n1...@arrl.net bill.n1...@gmail.com

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Fwd: Enlightenment desktop API // Boston.pm Tech Meeting - Tuesday, April 13 MIT E51-376 7:15pm

[Bill Ricker]

Since the topic is one of the up-n-coming desktops, cc'ing the LUGs .
   -- Bill, permanent acting temporary facilitator, Boston.pm.org
// To Boston-pm-announce at mail.pm.org

Next Tech Meeting -- Tuesday, April 13  E51-376 7:15pm

Adam Flott - Enlightenment gui api in Perl
** Quick Enlightenment window manager and library introduction
(http://www.enlightenment.org/ )
** Binding the Enlightenment Foundation Libraries to Perl With XS and
Why XS Wasn't as Scary As I Thought  (http://search.cpan.org/dist/EFL/
)
** Cutting Corners With Dist::Zilla and Releasing to CPAN
(http://search.cpan.org/dist/Dist-Zilla/ )

RSVP count will be taken EARLY afternoon Tuesday so CIDC, our kind
sponsors, can place order. RSVP to me or [boston.pm] list. [RSVP not
required, used to estimate.]

* Tech Meetings are held on the 2nd Tuesday of every month at MIT
[(directions) http://boston.pm.org/kwiki/index.cgi?MITDirections ].
** *NOTE* - Lately the lot has filled early, overflow is to Hayward
lots (avoid MEDICAL RESERVED spaces!). See above
** Suggestions for future meetings solicited on Topics page [
http://boston.pm.org/kwiki/index.cgi?TechMeetingTopics ]

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Re: We need a better Internet in America

[Bill Ricker]

On Wed, Apr 7, 2010 at 12:54 AM, Edward Ned Harvey b...@nedharvey.comwrote:

 Are you referencing something that happened today?


Yes he was.

Court Backs Comcast Over *FCC* on '*Net
Neutrality*'http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303411604575167782845712768.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read‎
 - 44 minutes ago


**
http://www.google.com/search?q=fcc+net+neutrality

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Re: Linux Android Phone coming to Verizon

[Bill Ricker]

The Nokia N900 is a combo upgrade from the N97 smartphone and the
N700/800/810 Linux wifi tablet. Due on T-Mobile and ATT  soon i hear.
 It should be harder to lock down ... and all the apps built for
N700/800/810 should be usable. That's what I'll be looking for when my
contract is up.

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Re: wok-key: dealing with keyloggers on net-cafe computers

[Bill Ricker]

On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 6:43 PM, Tom Buskeyt...@buskey.name wrote:
 Boot from a CD or USB key?

typical cafe has no accessible CD slot or boot button., and booting
will break their time keeping (billing ) system, so you should expect
to be evicted -- or arrested for 'hacking'

-- 
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Re: best office/home office setup - the telecommuter

[Bill Ricker]

On Sun, Jul 26, 2009 at 4:17 PM, Jarod Wilson ja...@wilsonet.com wrote:


 The Advanced Dock for T60  W/T500 has slot for pci-mini to add second
 graphics adapter, wwhich would get you the secondd dvi.


 What kind of slot?

 I presume its the same Advanced Dock that I have for my T61. The slot is
 PCI Express. Its a physical x16 slot, but electrical x8 or x4, iirc, but you
 can indeed put a PCIE graphics card in it (it just won't run at maximum
 efficiency w/less PCIE lanes to work with).


yes T60,61 use same dock. that is the critter.
shoult allow dual dvi with right card, right?


-- 
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Re: best office/home office setup - the telecommuter

[Bill Ricker]

On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 3:11 PM, Greg Rundlett (freephile) 
g...@freephile.com wrote:

 Moving to a new employment position, I'm once again faced with
 purchasing some computer equipment.  I'm wondering what hardware,
 software and combination people like the best for working seamlessly
 in the office AND home office environment.  I'm not really a traveller
 - so I don't have to do the 'road warrior' thing.  However, I do want
 to be able to work in multiple locations.


What is allowed by the employer's security rules and what they provide makes
a big difference. I used to be allowed to bring my laptop onto $DayJob net,
since I could be trusted to be cleaner than their systems, but no more
exceptions. Using DropBox would be a firing offence, as is sshfs or any
other connection to personally owned electronics.

If employer's office email has secure webmail access option, on recommended
work at home option is email it to yourself AT WORK ADDRESS, access it from
home, upload back to office web mail when done, and clean-up.

I had the good fortune to be issued the same model laptop at the office as I
was using at home, so office provided dock at office and Google found me the
same part number for half price for home.

I am not sure if the T600 they'll probably upgrade me to will  be dock
compatible with either the T60 or T61 that I picked up at MIT Flea in June
if I want to replicate that happy coincidence.

The powered USB poorman's dock is an option that obsoletes as standards
rachet up, since it has video and ethernet built in, but not useless when
you switch laptop models, and that may be an option with incompatible rigs
as I might be facing.




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Re: best office/home office setup - the telecommuter

[Bill Ricker]

On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 3:53 PM, Gordon Marx gcm...@gmail.com wrote:

 Incidentally, I haven't been able to find a dock that has two DVI
 outputs -- while I appreciate that the dock has 1 DVI and 1 VGA, I'd
 really rather have 2 DVI, or even DisplayPort (but I'm not sure anyone
 is THAT cool yet).


The Advanced Dock for T60   W/T500 has slot for pci-mini to add second
graphics adapter, wwhich would get you the secondd dvi.

I find Ubuntu intrepid on my new T61 touchier about mixing different sizes
of onboard and off in one desktop than on my old T42. And the T60 is getting
x.org crashes.
Ubuntu Jaunty picked up net X.org release which includes net Intel code, so
while some things are simplified, there may be the odd gap.
I need to check chipsets, i might be better off moving both or one up to
Jaunty.

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Re: searching/grepping for words near each other

[Bill Ricker]

On Fri, May 1, 2009 at 12:20 AM, Dan Jenkins d...@rastech.com wrote:
 I believe this is often called a proximity search.

these days, this would be a job for a search engine. eg, for perl
http://search.cpan.org/~tmtm/Plucene-1.25/lib/Plucene.pm

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Re: Very important information!

[Bill Ricker]

   The modern rack unit used in computing, i.e. the U in 1U, is by pure
   coincidence exactly equal to the vershok, an obsolete Russian
   measurement of length.

1U or RU for Rack Unit, but Russia is .ru
Coincidence? You decide.


 I'm shocked.  A unit of length it doesn't know about??

Patches Welcome!

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Re: UNIX vs Unix (was: Time for Linux)

[Bill Ricker]

On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 12:29 PM, Ben Scott dragonh...@gmail.com wrote:
  Later, dmr tried to get the
 spelling changed to 'Unix' in a couple of Bell Labs papers, on the
 grounds that the word is not acronymic.  He failed,


which likely would be due to Bell Trademark lawyers - you have to use
it only the way you trademarked it or the mark expires prematurely eg
Elevator.

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Boston time_t party Re: Stop! Unix Time

[Bill Ricker]

What - time_t party

when - 1234567890

ET Fri Feb 13 18:31:30 2009

UT Fri Feb 13 23:31:30 2009

Where - Westin Boston
Waterfronthttp://www.starwoodhotels.com/westin/property/area/directions.html?propertyID=1528Lobby
Bar

Why there - Boskone http://http//www.boskone.org SF Convention

Why am i doing my own time_t  - dates and other magic numbers where a
feature fo my Boston Perl Mongers talk in November celebrating a different
time_t special value. I will have a laptop with a Perl/Tk time_t clock (as
featured in Perl Advent Calendar 12 http://www.perladvent.org/2008/12/ +
16 http://www.perladvent.org/2008/16/ )




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Re: shell, perl, performance, parallelism, profiling, etc. (was: Upgrade guidance)

[Bill Ricker]

On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 6:51 PM, Ben Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Perl is poor at SMP (gah! perl threads!).
  I've never had to worry about Perl MP.  Sounds like I should be glad.  :-)

MP in any language is tricky, but sometimes it appears easy and bites
you later. Perl has tried a couple times to make it safe and easy, but
MP intrinsically isn't, so the original Perl Threads (5.005) design
was abandoned. The heavierweight interpreter threads (ithreads) used
for fork() emulation on MSWindows since 5.6 has been available as a
config choice when building Perl for nomal platforms since 5.8. IBM
ships /bin/perl with ithreads enabled on AIX. I am pleasantly
surprised none of my coworkers have hurt themselves with
raceconditions.

 Shell pipes are a simple coarse MP primitive that *is* safe, but at
the cost of spawning heavyweight processes and flowing through IPCs.

A shell pipe with sort in it won't be doing more than loading the
executable / spawning the process in parallel, since the sort won't
write until it's done reading.

Shell scripts with bunches of external commands in the inner loop will
speed up in Perl as, even with sticky execs, each external commands
line execution costs a process start.

7Perl scripts are much faster if one uses the built-in bulk processing
features (the Lisp or APL 'map-reduce' dialect of Perl)  rather than
writing the same thing in Perl loops and branches (the C dialect). But
it won't my knowledge make use of SIMD/SMP (although that has been
added to one of the Perl 6 prototypes).



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Re: Linux distro release cycles, upgrades, etc.

[Bill Ricker]

 Not  Lenny, Testing.   Testing and Lenny are synonymous now, but when Lenny
 is released,  it will become Stable, and you'll track that, while Lenny+1
 will be Testing (forgot the name they have announced for it).  Testing will
 always be Testing (and what I currently track).

d*oh, right, it's *Sid* that is the permanent name for Unstable. my bad


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Re: Questions about Ubuntu

[Bill Ricker]

On Fri, Sep 19, 2008 at 10:23 AM, Thomas Charron [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 and synaptic and update manager provide 2 bundled friendly front
 ends for desktop Ubuntu users scared of the commandline.

  Which, ironically enough, generally scare the users of the command line.  :-D

indeed, and wello-said.

. the goodnews is the don't take away the  commandline tools, which
still work well with the guis, and Ubuntu has gotten the guis to be
reliable . so i use either, depending what i'm doing, if i need extra
control, or if i want to do something else meantime.

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Re: Linux distro release cycles, upgrades, etc.

[Bill Ricker]

 wanted me to use Ubuntu. Quite a while ago I switched rom Debian to SuSE
 because the release cycles were too slow.

Debian had a really rough spot for a while, yeah.  They have cleaned
up their act.  But you could always get the Gentoo continual upgrade
effect without compiling by installing. Lenny. I got a Lenny Hive DVD
in the mail with one of the Brit Linux rags.

Living off Ubuntu Testing is pretty edgy too.


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Re: Booting NOT-Windows

[Bill Ricker]

On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 10:56 PM, Peg Harris [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Thanks to all of you!  You are my heros this evening!

Klaus Knopper and Linus Torvalds desrve some share of our collegtive
thanks for giving us the tools.

In addition to the excellent and intuitive Knoppix, there are other
perhaps more arcane/technical Linux based fixit kits

http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=rip
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=systemrescue
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=CDlinux
http://rear.sourceforge.net/

of these, the first two have found use locally.

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Boston Perl Mongers seeking speakers

[Bill Ricker]

If any members of BLU, GNHLUG, or Ubuntu Mass LoCo have YAPC, OSCON or
other talks that would be appropriate for a Perl-centric community,
we'd be interested to hear you. We meet in the same MIT E51 building
as BLU but up the side corridor,  normally on 2nd Tuesday (but July
15th due to holiday weekend early).

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Re: Boston Linux Installfest XXIX Saturday June 21, 2008

[Bill Ricker]

 Generally our volunteers have sets of the latest Fedora, SuSE and
 Ubuntu distributions:
* Fedora - http://fedora.redhat.com (Fedora 7)
* Open SuSE - http://opensuse.org (OpenSuSE 10.3)
* Ubuntu - http://www.ubuntu.com  (Gutsy Gibbon 7.10)

 Does this stanza maybe need a bit of updating? Fedora 9 has been out
 about a month now, let alone Fedora 8 for 7 months, and Ubuntu 8.04 has
 been out for 2 months as well...

Yes. Both GG 7.10 and HH 8.04 disks should be available.

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USENIX Tech '08 Boston?

[Bill Ricker]

Are the LUGs/LoCo doing anything around USENIX Boston this month?

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Re: NearFest

[Bill Ricker]

Not what I asked, but way Cool in it's own way! See you there.
I'll want to look at your ham stuff too ...

if I can get to the Mass Ubuntu LoCo stocks of Hardy or Gutsy CD's,
I'll bring piles as freebies.

Not sure how early or late I'll get up ... not sure how much if any of
Friday I can take off work :-(

73 Bill n1vux

On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 11:10 AM, Gerry Hull [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 I'll be at NearFEST selling ham related items as well as demoing
 an Asterisk PBX (www.pbxinaflash.com) and giving away free phone calls
 (US/Canada) as well as giving away some CDs of the PBX distribution
 (Which is based on CentOS 5).   I'll be selling some Nortel i2004 business
 desk phones (very nice NOS units) for cheap coin.   Stop by if you want to
 chat about Linux
 or make a call...

 I should be there after 1pm on Friday... Typical spot is near the relaxation
 area.

 Gerry Hull, W1VE ([EMAIL PROTECTED])


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Re: Hamfest in Ubuntu News; Local Community team ?

[Bill Ricker]

   It was also reported that the NEAR-Fest organizers seemed to be less
  receptive to the computer stuff, wanting to focus more on traditional
  radio stuff.


True.  Perception of recent Hoss Traders was there were more big
layouts of small buckets of PCI cards and cables than of RF
connectors, and aside from a couple commercial ham dealers selling NEW
there were no radios, and all the good used ham gear was going to eBay
because there weren't any RADIO buyers only junk computer buyers  -- a
self fulfilling prophecy, once the radios (are perceived to) go to
ebay, they buyers don't show. New Mgt announcing more radios, less
computers was self-fulfilling also, and so radios *were* there to be
bought, the buyers were there to buy, and deals were made.  But still
some computers. I bought a 35mm film scanner.

And GNU/Linux is recognized as having been Ham-friendly from early on,
e.g. having an AX.25 driver in kernel, and the DIY ethic of
GNU/Linux/FLOSS hackers and
radio/electronics/robotics/kinetic-art/Make-magazine hackers is in the
same direction.  GNHLUG giving out the Ham linux disk certainly helped
on keeping that perception current..

 But it's also been reported that they may be coming around on that score.

Hams need computers too !  Just don't want to drive the radio
resellers back to eBay again.

   Of course, if you someone wants to show up and spread the word
  anyway, that's perfectly fine.  Indeed, more power to you!  :)  There
  are prolly still a few attendees who would benefit; we just decided
  there weren't enough to be worth it anymore.

Linux isn't a closely held open secret any more, that's true.

   One note: We discovered that if you advertise anything for free at
  hamfest, you will get cleaned out by people taking seven of everything
  just because it's free.

:-)

  They might not even own a computer; they
  don't care, they see it as a moral imperative to take free stuff.  If
  you try to limit to one per person, they'll come around seven times.

If there's a limit, it's obviously good !

  We solved this problem by loudly advertising the $1 fee for the discs
  we were burning, and keeping the free status of the pre-made discs
  quiet.

:-)

If I can get a couple boxes of out-of-date Gutsy CDs, I was thinking
of Johny Appleseeding, giving them to folks selling computers for them
to give WITH the older systems as upgrades.

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Fwd: Hamfest in Ubuntu News; Local Community team ?

[Bill Ricker]

Will GNHLUG be at NEARFEST this weekend ?

If so, would GNHLUG like Ubuntu LoCo support vis-a-vis the recent 8.04
Hardy Heron release ?
I note the recent Ubuntu Newsletter #88 featured a Hamfest outreach by
LoCo (see below).

If I can get a few boxes of Gutsy 7.10 CDs and some Hardy Heron 8.04
CDs from Mass LoCo team, I'll bring them up with me Friday /or
Saturday (as well as to MIT Fleas in future), and maybe
Installfest/Explo:Ubuntu flyers.
(Maybe I'll take some to Photographica in Wakefield on the way home
too Saturday.)

73 de
Bill N1VUX
[EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]

There is not an Ubuntu NH LoCo team yet.
There is a Maine team and a Mass team under an umbrella NU Ubuntu
Team (Northeastern United States of America Ubuntu Local Community
Team :=  I-95 + VT per Census definition)
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/NUUbuntuTeam
Mass LoCo has Exploration:Ubuntu installfest/demos at MIT, and
community based training events, and more to come.
 https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MassachusettsTeam?highlight=%28Massachusetts%29


 https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Issue88  ... Excerpt ...
LoCo News  - Northeast Louisiana Regional Ham RadioFest
   The Louisiana LoCo team had a booth at the Northeast Louisiana
Regional Ham RadioFest on Saturday April 26th. They passed out cds,
stickers, flyers and had a giveaway that included Ubuntu t-shirts, and
two complete computers running Ubuntu Hardy Heron. There was a lot of
interest in Ubuntu by the attendees and many people were excited to
try out the latest version. In addition to the booth, the team also
held a presentation followed by a QA session with good attendance.
Everyone was excited and receptive. At the end of the day the team got
a chance to relax at the release party and enjoy some good food and
fellowship. It was a very successful day. A special thank you to all
those team members who were able to attend and help out with the
booth, it wouldn't have been possible without you!
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Re: anyone have a cheap source for pc3200 memory?

[Bill Ricker]

I am seeing similar issues shopping for 1GB 200-pin CL 2.5 PC2700 DDR
for the not-that-old Thinkpad T42.  Mobo slots limited to (2) 1GB
SODIMMs, no advantage to faster than PC2700/DDR333 but could
apparently use PC3200 if I could find it in 200-pin SODIMM (?).

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Upstart (init.d replacement) Re: New distro question

[Bill Ricker]

   init-replacement thing in the FOSS world.  I forget the name.  It's
  Upstart? http://upstart.ubuntu.com/
  Ubuntu started using it in 6.10
 I'm running 7.04 on my laptop and still see /etc/init.d.  Maybe it's 7.10?

You're both right - it shipped with Ubuntu 6.10 or so but init.d isn't
fully deprecated for a couple cycles so upgrades will work and they
don't have to break all packages at once, so init.d will continue to
work for now too..

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Re: New distro question

[Bill Ricker]

To simplify scientist self-administration of the workstation, consider
WebMin  it's UserMin module. See April Linux Journal review.

  scientific calculations.

What kind of science?
Bio/Genetic, Geo/Soc/Stat, HPC MPPC ?

If Clustering, / Hi-Performance Computing, that's a whole different
kettle of fish.

BioGenetic: http://www.mybio.net/biowiki/Computational_biology lists several.

Geo: ArchLinux (Archeology), GIS Knoppix, see http://www.opensourcegis.org/

Quantian is Knoppix/Debian Live packaging of lots of scientific
calculation goodness.
[ http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=Quantian  ]

See also GNU/Linux in Science and Engineering FAQ at
http://www.comsoc.org/vancouver/scieng.html

http://live.gnome.org/GnomeScienceCD uses AutoPackage to install to any distro
Website has links to many other Linux for Sciences projects too.


  functional and reasonably supportable.  MIS is familiar with RH stuff,
  if that matters.

Scientific Linux suits RH-similarity Your MIS should be able to fit
Scientific Linux into their RH BootStrap system.

A number of others might be RH/Centos/Fedora derived, see
http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=independence to see who is
based on whom (but hasn't been updated for Ubuntu variants yet?).

Or just use the Gnome Science CD with MIS's RH desktop ?

If you want Ubuntu cool-ness, Scibuntu is the Ubu answer to Science
Linux (from the RH/Fedora camp).

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Re: Setting up separate network question

[Bill Ricker]

Definitely keep your paperwork in order.

Sounds like what you need is corporate paperwork defining the cluster
as a peripheral execution-accelerator of the CentOs box, defining the
gig-E or whatever cluster-bus as a cluster-bus not a hidden lan
segment.

Alternatively, get the Network guys to give you a gig-E/100T NAT
bridge of their own to make your subnet legit, let them manage it and
be happy, and let them provide DHCP to your subnet, so the dual-home
CentOS can concentrate on real work.

If you give IT network guys choice of managing something 10x faster
and different tech, they'll either thankfully give you paperwork to
say it's yours and they want to only talk to the CentOS (covering
themselves) or they'll happily take responsibilty (new toys). Depends
on budget and workload/excitement.

Wish my problems were half so exciting ...

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Re: linux hardware inventory program

[Bill Ricker]

Another hardware-inventory project is by a Boston Ubuntu-nik -
http://dohickey.parsed.net/
I'm not sure how mature 9it is.
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Re: Fix for vmsplice exploit...

[Bill Ricker]

On Thu, Feb 14, 2008 at 6:09 PM, Ben Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
   I prefer to just let the universe evolve to contain a disk with the
  data I want.

Luckily, the wait only lasts 6 months each time ...
https://shipit.ubuntu.com/

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Re: ThinkPad Pointers

[Bill Ricker]

Ubuntu at least has user settings that iirc could do that too.
when i ipdate my T423 from Gentoo to Ub untu, I'll check.
I know putting an outboard USB trackball disables both onboard pointers.


On 1/14/08, Kenny Lussier [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 You have to do it in the BIOS, I believe.

 -KL

 On 1/14/08, TARogue [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  HELP
 
  I use ThinkPads for a number of reasons, mostly because I prefer the
  nipple stylle pointer to the touchpad style. My new ThinkPad (R61) has
  both. I am *not* a good typist; my wrists stay down all the time. This
  leads to alot of straying pointer issuse when my wrists or thumbpads hit
  the touchpad or the touchpad's buttons.
 
  Please tell me how I can turn off the touch pad without turning off the
  nipple?
 
  Thanks!
Tom
 
  --
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   You can always tell the people that are forging the new frontier.
   They're the ones with arrows sticking out of their backs.
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Re: [OT] Simple math considered physics; turns out it's fun, not harmful

[Bill Ricker]

 that is in the big leagues.  I'm not making fun of the guy, but
 physics isn't involved in solving the problem, just regular math.

Physics is just applied math. All the world is functions.

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Re: Power to the Pedants

[Bill Ricker]

  IOW, I was trolling for more pedantry :)
   Oh, well.  That's different.  Carry on, then.  ;-)

My wife custom-ordered a button for me
I'm not Pompous,
  I'm Pedantic
  There's a
 difference


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Re: News from NEAR-fest October 2007, Deerfield

[Bill Ricker]

 Neither of us is a Ham,

I am. [1]

 Did anyone else attend?

I was there Friday afternoon/evening, sporting a golf-umbrella from my
long-gone start-up. Saturday, I was at First Ubuntu Massachusetts LoCo
InstallFest. [2]


 There were several food vendors as well: the apple crisp smelled
 heavenly from quite a distance.

It was the same Pat's Crisp as at prior fairgrounds. Mahvellous as
always.  (Another may have been open.) The Lobster Roll stand was
quite passable too. Nice variety of food available.


The guy with big white car-port pavillion selling tower-computers
including one dual-processor (2x 933?) server asked if that
white-haired Linux guy was here. I said No, maddog was at the new
Canadian Linux Festival. But Mark KE1L (also of both BLU + Boston.PM)
and I gave him some of the Ubuntu advice he needed. He had sporadic
EDGE service on his laptop's card and was trying to configure
something.

In general, a much higher ratio of old radios to old computers for
sale than recent years, but at least one component vendor - barely
enough computers for-sale for me to wish I'd brought Linux CDs 
InstallFest fliers.  But one of my finds was non-ham computer
accessory, a 35mm slide/film scanner, almost-new-in-box. If it isn't
SANE compliant, it has Mac s/w, and I have a Mac mini too, so worth
the gamble. And everybody can use rechargeable batteries and LED
flashlights!

[1] http://www.qrz.com/detail/n1vux http://ema.arrl.org/fd/
[2] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MassachusettsTeam/Events/InstallFests/2007-10-13

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Re: RADIO - Peter Day (BBC) - Wikinomics

[Bill Ricker]

On 10/12/07, Michael ODonnell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 During a bout of insomnia I caught this broadcast
 live on the BBC last night and liked it a lot:

   http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/global_business.shtml

 I've always regarded the presenter, Peter Day, as generally
 cool and the subject matter is likely to be of interest to
 most people on this channel...


Cool as a cucumber. Peter Day is a great presenter, Global Business is
a great program.

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Re: Best live CD (DVD) distribution

[Bill Ricker]

 That's very much a matter of taste.

True

 As it is a laptop, I presume you're looking for mostly desktop
 functionality, as opposed to server...

Knoppix is quite good for autodetect hardware and see what works.  But
it's not really a full-service desktop.

Ubuntu is a good install and ok live (if you like Gnome; or Kubuntu
or Xubuntu if you like KDE or light WM's) with good laptop support;
that's what I'm using for new installs now.

There is an Ubuntu InstallFest in Cambridge MA this Saturday if you
want spotters for a full install.
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MassachusettsTeam/Events/InstallFests/2007-10-13

PCLinuxOS has gotten good buzz lately.

See also http://www.frozentech.com/content/livecd.php +
http://www.livecdnews.com/

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Re: [OT] xkcd

[Bill Ricker]

 If you know what a SQL injection attack is, you will love this:
 http://xkcd.com/327/

while xkcd++;

And if it doesn't make sense, you NEED to read this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL_injection_attack

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Re: Perl best practices (was: question ... Split operator in Perl)

[Bill Ricker]

I highly recommend Damian Conway's book of same title, Perl Best
Practices, which recommends a much tamer, consistent readable style
within a workgroup than he uses in his own code (depending on context)
-- he suggests one style but encourages each group to decide for
themselves and take his list of 255 practices as a template for their
own local standard.

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/perlbp/

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Re: Spreadsheets and precision?

[Bill Ricker]

 Oh.  I do see that now that I look.  This strikes me as completely
 counter-intuitive.  So, how to people do actual division in
 spreadsheets?  Does Excel suffer from this as well?

Yes.

Every spreadsheet since VisiCalc has done floating point division and
other basic numeric formuli in formulaic form as

  =3329.10/10

and used NamedFunctions() only for things without conventional (to
business folks) infix notation.

VisiCalc and Lotus 1-2-3 allowed
   +3329.10/10
and might figure out that
 3329.10/10
was NOT a date and work, but OO.o.C and Excel insist on = prefix for
any non-constant formula

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Re: a simple question about grep

[Bill Ricker]

   Or, if you only have an old grep, but do have Perl, the following should 
 work:

The Andy and the ack project have built a better grep with perl.
http://perladvent.pm.org/2006/5/
search.cpan.org/~petdance/ack/ack
petdance.com/ack/

ack is pure Perl, so consistent across all platforms. Command name is
25% shorter. :-) Heck, it's 50% shorter compared to grep -r. 
use.perl.org/~petdance/journal/31763

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1ynTV_E-5s [Andy petdance giving
ack Lighting talk at OSCON 2007, 9min]
http://www.perlfoundation.org/perl5/index.cgi?ack

Disclaimer - I have been known to contribute a patch to ack once in
a blue moon.

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Re: ZFS vs EXT4 vs XFS

[Bill Ricker]

   I regard most such storage-related benchmarks with a great deal of
 suspicion.  They always seem to assume the computer won't be doing
 anything else when the filesystem is being used.

Well said.

Amplifying ...

ALL benchmarks are at best hints of reality, since they're ALL
over-simplifications.

It takes an actual workload simulation to properly benchmark a
balanced system design (like IBM Power Series P) in comparison to
systems where each subsystem was tuned to a simplistic benchmark.

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Re: Re: Facebook group

[Bill Ricker]

 Okay, so where do the Boomers or old Guys go?

Second survey ...

ToastMasters marketing public shared MindMap
[http://www.mindmeister.com/maps/show_public/1599833] lists under
Social Networking the PR opportunities of

  Xing (video or what?)
  Viadeo (?)
  Linkedin
  FaceBook
  Hi5 (?)
  flirckr
  MySpace
  Ziki (a people-search; like Spock only earlier?)

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[OT] Re: I've got to get organized.

[Bill Ricker]

On 8/13/07, Steven W. Orr [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 A great line from The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming! was
 when Fendall Hawkins (played by Paul Ford) was yelling We've GOT to get
 ORGANized!.

Aside from the map-folding scene (no line), my favorite is
  Ev-er-y-one to get from Street
with Boris Badenough accent.

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Re: I've got to get organized.

[Bill Ricker]

 Time Management for System Admins by Tom Limoncelli (O'Reilly),
 ISBN 0-596-00783-3 $24.95 and 200 pp, is the last of a long series of
 books I've used to help me get focused and organized.

Excellent.  Can work for programmers too with adaptations.
He gave several talks in N.E. a couple years ago, and a NJ group put
his talk on the web as a Flash movie.

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Re: I've got to get organized.

[Bill Ricker]

 Time Management for System Admins by Tom Limoncelli (O'Reilly),
 ISBN 0-596-00783-3 $24.95 and 200 pp, is the last of a long series of

Voted LOPSA's (first ever) Book of the Month
http://www.oreillynet.com/sysadmin/blog/2005/12/lopsa_book_of_the_month_time_m.html

Author's Wiki for the book
http://wiki.everythingsysadmin.com/twiki/bin/view/TM2SA/WebHome

Website for his other prizewinning
[http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/8679] book is
http://www.everythingsysadmin.com/

My notes on mixing Outlook/Exchange (required for group scheduling at
my $DayJob office) and a 3-ring half-sheet (Classic) binder
 http://www.diyplanner.com/node/1016
at the website that lets you download MODIFIABLE PDF's to make your
own forms (in variety of sheet sizes and formats)
 http://www.diyplanner.com/

BTW, even Tom will tell you that David Allen's GTD book is worth
reading too, but if you're a techie, you'll find Tom's interpretation
closer to your life than the mid-mgt/exec view of Allen's books.

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