Re: [PLUG] No space left on device

[Dale Snell]

On Wed, 25 Oct 2017 15:04:18 -0700, in message
20171025150418.059d1ba7@Devil-Bonobo, John Jason Jordan wrote:

> On Wed, 25 Oct 2017 14:07:59 -0700
> Dale Snell <ddsn...@frontier.com> dijo:
> 
> >> According to ls there are 16 files in /media and 436 files
> >> in /media/jjj. Why do they not appear when I use 'ls -la'? I also
> >> tried as root, but got the same output. And for what it's worth,
> >> Thunar (Xfce GUI file manager) also does not display them. 
> >
> >The "total " lines in a long directory listing do not
> >report the number of files in a directory.  Rather, they report
> >the total disk allocation (i.e., the number of blocks) for all
> >files in that directory.
> 
> Ah, that helps. I was wondering about those numbers, because 436 files
> would be a couple of terabytes. 
> 
> >If you know the name of one of the files, you should be able to
> >find it with the find(1) command.  cd to /media and try
> >
> >find . -name movie_name -print
> >
> >If  is excessively long, or you don't remember all of
> >it, use a wildcard like \* at one end or the other.  E.g., "Star
> >Trek\*" (w/o the quotes, natch) should find anything Star Trekish.

Actually, you need the double quotes in the example given, since
the file name has a space in it.  Or you can escape the space with
a backslash: Star\ Trek\*  *sigh*  I need more caffeine. 

> When I ran the rsync command at a time when the Synology was unplugged
> rsync added a lot of files to wherever it put them, and they were all
> in alphabetical order. Rsync got through the As before failing. That
> is 164 movies, where each is a folder with the name of the movie, and
> inside is the movie, usuallly as an MKV file. So all I need to do is
> pick a movie file that starts with an A and it should work. I tried
> several such movies, from /, from /media, and from /media/jjj, but all
> I got was 'no such file or directory.'

Ah, okay.  You'll have to unplug the Synology in order to find
those movies.  They're in whatever filesystem the Synology mounts
in.  Say you have a directory "/mnt/storage/".  If you do an
"ls /mnt/storage", nothing will show up.  When you mount your new
filesystem (say, the Synology) on /mnt/storage, doing the
"ls /mnt/storage" will report whatever is in the new filesystem.
If you create files in /mnt/storage/ _before_ mounting the
Synology, and _then_ mount the Synology, you won't see those
files, just the Synology's.

One thing I learned to do in a previous life, when I helped
administer a Sun III, was to mark unmounted filesystems.  Use
mkdir as usual to create the mountpoint directory (mkdir blorfl),
then immediately do a "touch blorfl/not_mounted".  When you do
a directory listing of blorfl, it should show "not_mounted" only.
If there are other files there, you've got a problem.

> 
> >Another thing you might do is cd to / and run the following
> >command:
> >
> >du -hl --sync --output=source,itotal,iused,iavail
> 
>   du -hl --sync --output=source,itotal,iused,iavail
>   du: unrecognized option '--sync'
>   du: unrecognized option '--output=source,itotal,iused,iavail'
> 
> Not sure what went wrong here. 

Simple.  I have the bad habit of mumbling at the keyboard.  The
command should be df, not du.

A graphical tool you may be interested in is filelight.  It scans
very quickly, and makes it fairly obvious where your disk space is
going.  The downside is that it's a KDE program.  If you don't
have any other KDE programs installed (I have a bunch of games),
you may not want to install it; it'll probably drag in a bunch of
stuff you won't otherwise need.

Another tool you might want is logwatch.  Easy to install, doesn't
take up much room.  Runs in the early AM, and sends you an email
telling you the status of your system.  Very nice little utility.

Sorry for the screw-up.

--Dale

-- 
Be comforted, that in the face of all aridity and disillusionment,
And despite the changing fortunes of time,
There is always a big future in computer maintenance.
--National Lampoon, “Deteriorata” (excerpt)
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] No space left on device

[Dale Snell]

On Wed, 25 Oct 2017 12:57:55 -0700, in message
20171025125755.1e654906@Devil-Bonobo, John Jason Jordan wrote:

> I found at least part of the problem. During remodeling work
> apparently the power plug to the Synology disk station was unplugged.
> Thus, when rsync tried to sync the Mediasonic USB drive to the
> Synology it failed. But at least a couple of times recently I ran the
> command manually (Instead of waiting for cron to do it at 2am), and I
> watched in the terminal as it did so. It copied a lot of movies from
> the USB, and then failed. Now I know why it failed.
> 
> The part I don't know is where rsync put those files. They are
> somewhere in /media, because the du command listed /media as having
> 56GB. 
> 
>   jjj@Devil-Bonobo:/$ cd /media
>   jjj@Devil-Bonobo:/media$ ls -la
>   total 16
>   drwxr-xr-x   4 jjj  jjj  4096 Apr 16  2017 .
>   drwxr-xr-x  25 root root 4096 Oct 24 21:46 ..
>   drwxr-x---+  5 jjj  jjj  4096 Oct 24 20:59 jjj
>   drwxr-x---+  2 root root 4096 Apr 16  2017 root
>   jjj@Devil-Bonobo:/media$ cd jjj
>   jjj@Devil-Bonobo:/media/jjj$ ls -la
>   total 436
>   drwxr-x---+5 jjj jjj   4096 Oct 24 20:59 .
>   drwxr-xr-x 4 jjj jjj   4096 Apr 16  2017 ..
>   drwxrwxrwx 6 jjj jjj   4096 Oct 24 21:08 128GB
>   drwxr-xr-x  2311 jjj jjj 270336 Oct 25 11:17 Movies
>   drwxr-xr-x  2311 jjj jjj 159744 Oct 25 08:00 Synology
> 
> According to ls there are 16 files in /media and 436 files
> in /media/jjj. Why do they not appear when I use 'ls -la'? I also
> tried as root, but got the same output. And for what it's worth,
> Thunar (Xfce GUI file manager) also does not display them. 

The "total " lines in a long directory listing do not
report the number of files in a directory.  Rather, they report
the total disk allocation (i.e., the number of blocks) for all
files in that directory.

If you know the name of one of the files, you should be able to
find it with the find(1) command.  cd to /media and try

find . -name movie_name -print

If  is excessively long, or you don't remember all of
it, use a wildcard like \* at one end or the other.  E.g., "Star
Trek\*" (w/o the quotes, natch) should find anything Star Trekish.

Another thing you might do is cd to / and run the following
command:

du -hl --sync --output=source,itotal,iused,iavail

This will list all your filesystems and display the total number
of inodes, the number of inodes used, and the number if inodes
available.  You may not be running out of inodes, but it's good to
check, just in case.

Hope this helps.

--Dale

-- 
“Always do right -- this will gratify some and astonish the rest.”
-- Mark Twain (1835-1910) 
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Web pages display no body text [was: Configuring fc-cache search path]

[Dale Snell]

On Wed, 4 Oct 2017 09:30:23 -0700 (PDT), in message
alpine.lnx.2.20.1710040928230.7...@salmo.appl-ecosys.com, Rich Shepard
wrote:

> On Wed, 4 Oct 2017, Rich Shepard wrote:
> 
> >   Please provide suggestions on tests to run or other diagnostics
> > so I can isolate what changed in the past week.
> 
>Update: It's not a DNS issue. Host returned the IP address for
> linuxquestions.org (75.126.162.205). Pointing firefox to that IP
> address did not display any text.
> 
>Web searches found nothing relevant.

Rich,

I tried both the  and 75.126.162.205 in my
Firefox, and the former in Chromium.  Everything appeared to work
correctly.

Query: Do you have your Firefox font preferences set to allow the
web site to set its own fonts, or to use your own?  It's my
understanding that if your system doesn't have a font that the web
site wants, it will download it.  (This is for the first case, of
course.)

I have no idea why Chromium and Opera are crashing on your
system.  The only thing I can think of is that something has been
corrupted in your system.  If you can't find it, the only thing
I can suggest is that you re-install your system.  Not fun,
I know.

Sorry I can't be of any more help.

--Dale

-- 
Things are more like they used to be than they are now.
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Kewel tool: MasterPDFEditor

[Dale Snell]

On Thu, 21 Sep 2017 15:45:13 -0700, in message
0476ce77-59c2-a99d-87fe-be768ae47...@gmail.com, Joe Shisei Niski wrote:

> On 09/21/2017 03:20 PM, Tomas Kuchta wrote:
> > I had great success with evince for filling up forms over the last
> > couple of years.
> 
> hmm, I tend to forget about evince because its window management and 
> text sizing bug the heck out of me. Good to know.

I've used qpdfview for filling in forms.  It works quite nicely
for that, and is nowhere nearly as annoying as evince.

--Dale

-- 
“The more they over-think the plumbing, the easier it is to stop
up the drain.”-- Scotty, “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock”
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Emacs: removing obsolete assoc.el

[Dale Snell]

On Thu, 7 Sep 2017 08:33:01 -0700 (PDT), in message
alpine.LNX.2.20.1709070828430.27043@localhost, Rich Shepard wrote:

>Running emacs-24.5 here. This morning when I started emacs I saw
> the message that package assoc is obsolete, so I did a web search.
> Found that, indeed, it was deprecated with 24.2 and the package is
> apparently called assoc.el. One contributor on the emacs wiki
> provided a script to find all his git packages that require assoc.el,
> but that's not relevent to me.
> 
>Looking for the package on my system using 'find / -name assoc.el'
> returned nothing.
> 
>While the deprecation warning does not stop use of emacs I would
> like to remove assoc.el when I can find it.
> 
>Thoughts?
> 
> Rich

You didn't specify find's target correctly.  I did a

find /usr -name assoc\* -print

and got four significant results:

/usr/share/emacs/24.5/lisp/obsolete/assoc.elc
/usr/share/emacs/24.5/lisp/obsolete/assoc.el.gz
/usr/local/share/emacs/25.1/lisp/obsolete/assoc.el.gz
/usr/local/share/emacs/25.1/lisp/obsolete/assoc.elc

(note the filename extensions).

Oddly, I have never gotten a message stating that assoc.el is
obsolete.  I'm not sure why you should suddenly start seeing it.
Then again, I don't use assoc.el -- I don't even know what it
does.  :-)  If you're using it, you'll probably need to find out
what it's been replaced with.

Anyway, I hope this helps.

--Dale

-- 
I don’t like when people talk to me.  I can’t hear the voices.
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] What do you call it? LibreOffice preview screen?

[Dale Snell]

On Wed, 26 Jul 2017 18:54:14 -0700, in message
20170726185414.25f65782@Devil-Bonobo, John Jason Jordan wrote:

> OK, the pointer trick didn't work, but I fudged it by taking a
> screenshot to the clipboard, opening it in the GIMP, and taking note
> of the size of the resulting graphic, which was 1120 x 1060. I added
> this to the launcher for Evince, but afterward it wouldn't launch.
> From the command line I got:
> 
> evince -geometry 1120x1060+150+10
> Cannot parse arguments: Unknown option -geometry
> 
> So that leaves me wondering what the -geometry option belongs to. 

The -geometry option is part of X.  (See the man page for X(7) for
an explanation of the geometry option.)  Some programs accept that
option and pass it through to X.  Emacs, for example, has a "-g"
or "--geometry=" option, which it passes to X.

In looking at the man page for Evince, I didn't see any mention of
a geometry option.  You can open the viewer normally, or in (-f)
full-screen mode.  For what it's worth, I couldn't find a geometry
option for my favorite viewer, qpdfview, either.  However, that
one at least has the grace to remember its size, position, and
some other state between sessions.

--Dale

-- 
“The more they over-think the plumbing, the easier it is to stop
up the drain.”-- Scotty, “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock”
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Using newly installed emacs mode

[Dale Snell]

On Thu, 11 May 2017 06:35:46 -0700 (PDT), in message
alpine.LNX.2.11.1705110629370.18732@localhost, Rich Shepard wrote:

>When seeking how to have emacs use a newly installed language mode
> (js2-mode) I'm not using the appropriate web search terms. Results
> are many instances of writing emacs extensions to support languages,
> but not how to get emacs to use the mode when a language file is
> opened for editing.
> 
>I used 'install-package [RET] js2-mode [RET]' to download, build,
> and install the mode. Tried 'M-x run-js2' but that was not found. I
> assume that I need to add the language to ~/.emacs but find no
> information on how to do this.
> 
>Would appreciate learning how to make the mode active so I can use
> it now and in the future.

Hi Rich,

The simplest thing is probably to add the file type to
'auto-mode-alist'.  The command will look something like

(add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.js\\'" . js2-mode) t)

That's assuming that the mode name is "js2-mode" and the file type
is ".js".

You'll need to add the above to your ~/.emacs file.  Once that's
done, starting Emacs and loading, say, foobar.js will
automatically start js2-mode as well.

Hope this helps.

--Dale

-- 
"Text processing has made it possible to right-justify any idea, even
one which cannot be justified on any other grounds."
-- J. Finnegan, USC.
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] emacs: save highlighted text to new file name

[Dale Snell]

On Fri, 5 May 2017 15:22:10 -0700 (PDT), in message
alpine.LNX.2.11.1705051519020.8235@localhost, Rich Shepard wrote:

>I thought emacs had a keyboard chord to save a block of marked
> text to a new file name, but the emacs manual section on saving files
> has no entry for this. C-x C-w saves the entire buffer to a new name,
> not just highlighted text.
> 
>What do more experienced users do?
> 
> Rich

Hi Rich,

To save a selected region use  M-x write-region RET .  This
function is not tied to any particular key-chord.  But that
doesn't mean you can't set one up yourself.

Hope this helps.

--Dale

-- 
Sign in coffee shop:  “Children left unattended will be given an
espresso and a Free Puppy.”
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Problems Turning Off USB Booting

[Dale Snell]

On Sat, 10 Dec 2016 13:28:23 -0700, in message
caeqej2oeniodeks5471har0usju0t3wix_tb6fb9uwbce-e...@mail.gmail.com,
Mark Phillips wrote:

> I have an old laptop running Linux version 4.8.0-1-amd64 (Debian
> 5.4.1-3) that I use as a "headless" server for backups and Plex. It
> has two USB drives attached to it for the backups and the media files.

Tom had a number excellent ideas.  Another possibility is the CMOS
backup battery.  I've had some truly bizarre problems caused by
a battery that has run down.

--Dale

-- 
When the fog came in on little cat feet last night, it left these
little muddy paw prints on the hood of my car.
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Emacs: change \n\n to \n

[Dale Snell]

On Thu, 10 Nov 2016 12:04:34 -0800 (PST), in message
alpine.LNX.2.11.1611101201000.21451@localhost, Rich Shepard wrote:

>Large files have a mix of single and double line spacings. I want
> to convert double spaced lines to single space lines but cannot find
> the appropriate regex search and replace syntax. Looking in the emacs
> wiki and other web sites suggested that C-q C-j C-q C-j + would do
> the job, but it does not. Neither does (search) ^$^$ (replace) ^$.
> 
>I thought this was a simple request but the answer is avoiding me.

M-x replace-string RET C-q C-j C-q C-j RET C-q C-j

works fine for me -- I just tested it.  Am I missing something?

--Dale

-- 
The only substitute for good manners is fast reflexes.
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] ThinkPad X200 Issues

[Dale Snell]

On Wed, 26 Oct 2016 16:09:16 -0700 (PDT), in message
alpine.LNX.2.11.1610261559200.9160@localhost, Rich Shepard wrote:

>There are several highly experienced ThinkPad uses here so I'm
> confident a couple of issues on my 'new' X200 will quickly be
> resolved.
> 
>1. As root and as a user when I quit from viewing a file,
> e.g., /etc/fstab in an Xfce4 terminal rather than clearing the screen
> and displaying the command line prompt again the prompt overwrites
> the top-most line of the file's content and the rest of the file's
> content is below it. I've not before encountered this and it appears
> to be X Window System related; this does not happen when viewing a
> file on a console.

I assume that you are using a pager such as less(1) to view the
file.  Check the default options for your pager, to make sure that
this behavior isn't what it's set for.  (Probably an environment
variable set in .bashrc or .bash_profile.)  FWIW, I have seen this
sort of behavior before, and my mis-configuration was the cause.

>2. After tailing /var/log/messages to ensure that the USB flash
> drive is recognized as sdb1 I entered this line in /etc/fstab,
> 
> /dev/sdb1  /mnt/thumb   vfat   auto,users,ro  0  0
> 
> which is what I've used on other hosts. Now, even after a reboot
> neither root or a user can attach the USB flash drive with the
> command, 'mount /mnt/thumb' because it's the wrong file system type,
> has a bad master block, or some other issue. Root can
> 'mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/thumb' with no problem. Your thoughts on
> diagnosing the cause are needed.

There is no guarantee that your USB flash drive will be recognized
as any particular device.  Use a UUID or device label to positively
identify the device, and use that in your /etc/fstab file.  (I
prefer UUID, simply because I'm prone to using the same identifier
more than once.  D'Oh!)

Hope this helps.

--Dale

-- 
“The more they over-think the plumbing, the easier it is to stop
up the drain.”-- Scotty, “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock”


___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] unexpected perl dependencies

[Dale Snell]

On Wed, 5 Oct 2016 19:07:49 -0700, in message
cbd6876d-a771-11b0-c487-b3ffd39ff...@seitzassoc.com, Galen Seitz wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I'm encountering dependency problems while trying to install an rpm
> package that I built.  The program is rsnapshot, which is a perl
> program similar to dirvish.
> 
> I've got it working under CentOS 6 and Ubuntu 16.04 (using alien), but
> I'm having problems with CentOS 5 due to missing dependencies.  The
> rpm I built under CentOS 5 has the following problematic
> dependencies.  As far as I know, these dependencies are not readily
> available under CentOS 5.  I could build them if that's really
> necessary, but I have my doubts as to whether they are legit.
> 
> perl(DBI)
> perl(Data::Dumper)
> perl(XML::Simple)
> perl(XML::Validator::Schema)
> 
> I've searched the rsnapshot code looking for something that mentions
> DBI or XML, but they don't appear in the code.  They do not appear in
> the spec file either.  Also, the rsnapshot README says "It is written
> entirely in perl with no module dependencies".  I'm not sure whether
> to believe that or not.
> 
> Does anyone have an idea about what might be causing these
> dependencies to be listed in the package?

Hi Galen,

I would guess that if the problematic modules aren't available
from the Centos repositories, then you'll have to get them from
the CPAN repository.  Again, this is a guess, since I don't run
Centos.

You may have to grep through the configure script to find the
references to the missing modules.  Remember that rpmbuild
actually runs configure when it builds a binary program.

I checked the FAQ on the rsnapshot web site, and they did say that
the Lchown module might be needed from CPAN (though not one that you
mentioned).  That was to clear up warnings like "could not
lchown() simlinks".

Hope this helps.

--Dale

-- 
A child of five could understand this!  Fetch me a child of five!
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Bash: pause running script and continue it in background

[Dale Snell]

On Wed, 5 Oct 2016 13:31:30 -0700 (PDT), in message
alpine.LNX.2.11.1610051324060.6157@localhost, Rich Shepard wrote:

>Seems to me that I should be able to pause the running script
> (PID: 10952 pts/0 S+ 0:00 sleep 15) or whatever the PID is when I
> pause the script, then run bg 10952 to re-start it in background
> mode. Is this correct?

Rich,

You don't need anything so baroque.  You should be able to list
the running jobs with "jobs".  E.g., if I start jackd-start.sh and
forget to put it in the background, I can stop it with ,
as you've pointed out.  This will produce the following output:

$ jackd-start.sh
^Z
[1]+  Stopped jackd-start.sh

Note the number in the brackets.  This is the job number.  To put
the job in the background, simply type "bg %1", which will respond
with:

[1]+ jackd-start.sh &

and lo! your job is in the background.  (I use this more than I'd
like to admit.)

You may want to look up "job control" in the bash Info manual.  The
bash man page is too painful to use.

Hope this helps.

--Dale

-- 
"We have the Shoe Factory, and the Brick Works, and the wonderful
Insane Asylum we're all mighty proud of.  But the heart of the
town is its Miskatonic University."
-- Henry Armitage, "Shoggoth On The Roof"
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Setting display colors

[Dale Snell]

On Sat, 24 Sep 2016 07:52:29 -0700 (PDT), in message
alpine.LNX.2.11.1609240748060.16601@localhost, Rich Shepard wrote:

>In /etc/DIR_COLORS directories should be displayed in yellow (DIR
> 01;33). However, on my laptop they're displayed in blue (color 34).
> No file type in DIR_COLORS is specified as 34 so I have no idea why
> directories are displayed in blue rather than yellow.
> 
>There's nothing in ~/.bashrc or ~/.bash_profile with a file
> display color of 34.
> 
>Thoughts on where to look are needed.

Check in /etc.  There should be a DIR_COLORS file there.

--Dale

-- 
"Have a place for everything and keep the thing somewhere else;
this is not advice, it is merely custom."  -- Mark Twain
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] lvm: reclaim and reallocate space

[Dale Snell]

On Wed, 3 Aug 2016 12:16:04 -0700, in message
CAArW4Zj-j2pEK-6qJOgyuWd193pwUc4wJxG=+3Xn=h6wjvg...@mail.gmail.com,
mitch portland wrote:

> Hi Guys,
> 
> I have a Fedora 21 machine on which I configured the 250Gb drive in
> the following way:
> 
> hobgoblin:~:{619}lsblk
> NAMEMAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
> sda   8:00 232.9G  0 disk
> ├─sda18:10   500M  0 part /boot
> └─sda28:20 232.4G  0 part
>   ├─fedora-swap 253:00  15.7G  0 lvm  [SWAP]
>   ├─fedora-root 253:1050G  0 lvm  /
>   └─fedora-home 253:20 166.7G  0 lvm  /home
> sr0  11:01  1024M  0 rom
> sr1  11:11  1024M  0 rom
> hobgoblin:~:{620}df
> Filesystem   Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
> devtmpfs  16G 0   16G   0% /dev
> tmpfs 16G  122M   16G   1% /dev/shm
> tmpfs 16G  1.5M   16G   1% /run
> tmpfs 16G 0   16G   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
> /dev/mapper/fedora-root   50G   38G  9.5G  80% /
> tmpfs 16G  460K   16G   1% /tmp
> /dev/sda1477M  177M  271M  40% /boot
> /dev/mapper/fedora-home  164G   11G  146G   7% /home
> tmpfs3.2G   28K  3.2G   1% /run/user/2155
> 
> I've been using the machine for over a year, and all's well, except
> that I'm now continually running out of space on the / volume. The
> applications I use install in /opt, and I have to keep many different
> versions around for my work, so space is getting very tight. /home
> has plenty of space though, so I'd like to reallocate most of it to /.
> 
> I've used the OSX disk utility to "pack" a partition's contents into
> it more efficiently, and then reduce the size of the partition so I
> can reallocate it to another. Using that gui tool, the process is all
> very clear and works great.
> 
> When I set up the Fedora 21 machine, there was a very nice gui
> interface for setting up the partitions and logical volumes. But
> Fedora 21 doesn't seem to have an equivalent tool that can be run
> after installation, now that system-config-lvm is no longer
> supported. Command-line lvm looks simple-ish to use; but what I'm not
> clear on is whether it can pack a volume's contents in order to
> create a clear area of unused space before resizing the volume.
> 
> I can't afford to break this machine, so I'm trying to make sure I
> know exactly what I'm doing before I get started.
> 
> Thanks, mitch


Hi Mitch

First off, you should read the man pages for fsadm(8) and
lvresize(8).  You need to resize /home before you can re-size the
logical partition.  The LVM command-line programs are not
particularly difficult to use, but you must be absolutely certain
that you're doing the right thing.  Since my memory is as leaky as
a sieve, I always have to re-read the man pages for any of the
commands I need to use.  :-)

That said, it should not be difficult to re-size /home -- that's
your main worry.  It wouldn't hurt to re-size / either, but
I don't think it's really necessary.

Once that's done, you should be able to use lvresize(8) to shrink
/home, then expand /.

There should be no need to fiddle with the pv* or vg* LVM
commands.  But do read up on the lg* commands.  There are a lot of
them, I know, but they're well worth reading about.

Hope this helps,

--Dale

-- 
“I’ve always felt that a leader should have a strong chin.
Santiago has _no_ chin, and his running mate has several.  This,
to me, is not a good combination.”
-- Susan Ivanova, “Midnight on the Firing Line”, Babylon 5
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Rsync user confusion: Who is user 1026?

[Dale Snell]

On Mon, 11 Jul 2016 11:48:44 -0700, in message
2016074844.0a360442@Devil-Bonobo, John Jason Jordan wrote:

> On Mon, 11 Jul 2016 17:41:30 +
> Jason Spohn  dijo:
> 
> >Check out this page for some info on mounting NFS on Linux. Also
> >shows how to create the proper 'fstab' to make it persistent.
> >http://www.tldp.org/LDP/nag2/x-087-2-nfs.mountd.html
> 
> I read the above page and tried what it said to do, but nothing
> worked. Mostly I think the problem is that it never addressed
> mount.cifs.


Why should it?  That web page is about mounting an NFS share.  It
has nothing to do with mounting SMB/CIFS shares.  Note that there
is an analog to mount.cifs: mount.nfs.  It is meant to be used by
the mount(8) program, but can be used standalone if you really
must.  See the man pages for mount.nfs(8) and mount(8) for
details.

Hope this helps.

--Dale

-- 
"Always do right -- this will gratify some and astonish the rest."
-- Mark Twain (1835-1910) 
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Rsync to a NAS drive

[Dale Snell]

On Sat, 9 Jul 2016 11:00:17 -0700, in message
20160709110017.3280e2bf@Devil-Bonobo, John Jason Jordan wrote:

> I can see I'm going to have to spend a lot of time studying rsync. But
> for starters I decided to use cp to see if I know how to specify the
> destination. Thunar displays a window with files in the destination
> and at the top of the window is a location bar. It says
> 'smb://synology.local/synology/.' So from the command line in the
> directory where the USB drive is mounted I did
> 
> cp  smb://synology.local/synology/
> cp: cannot create regular file ‘smb://synology.local/synology/’: No
> such file or directory
> 
> I also tried it without the trailing slash and again with a slash
> in front and got the same results. Then I tried adding http:// in
> front, but still no joy. For my last effort I specified the
> destination by the ip address of the Synology (192.168.0.101), and
> this time I got no error message, but it also failed to copy the
> file. However, when I added a slash in front of the ip address I got
> 'cp: cannot create regular file ‘/192.168.0.101’: Permission denied.'
> This reminds me that before Thunar would show the contents of the
> Synology I had to log into the share. 
> 
> I'm out of ideas. Suggestions?

cp does not understand remote copying, which is what you're trying
to do here.  You'll need to use scp, assuming that ssh is in the
Synology's software suite.  If it is, and you don't have them,
you'll need to generate a set of keys.  It's not hard, but I never
remember how to do it.  The man pages are complete, but rather
dry.  In fact, they're downright desiccated.

Anyway, I hope this helps.

--Dale

-- 
Excess on occasion is exhilarating.  It prevents moderation from
acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.
-- W. Somerset Maugham


___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Kernel panic?

[Dale Snell]

On Sat, 21 May 2016 16:21:00 -0700, in message
20160521162100.3e1bccff@Devil-Bonobo, John Jason Jordan wrote:

> 'Makemkv.com' in the Firefox URL bar redirects to Showtime website.
> Synaptic does not list anything for 'makemkv.' Searching Google for
> 'makemkv' turns up a website for the program, where it is apparently
> only available for Windows and MacOS.


John,

The address you need is "www.makemkv.com".  That's what StartPage
gave me when I told it to search for "makemkv" (without the .com).

According to the MakeMKV web site, the program is available for
Linux, as well as Mac OSX and Windows.

The program is not part of the standard Fedora repositories,
though one or two unofficial repos do carry it.  I presume the
same thing is true of the 'buntus.

Anyway, I hope this helps.

--Dale

-- 
+-+  +-+  ++  ++  +---+
| In this |  | Of toil |  | Your head  |  |  But not   |  | Burma |
|  vale   |  | and sin |  | grows bald |  | your chin. |  | Shave |
+-+  +-+  ++  ++  +---+
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Snappy response not so snappy anymore

[Dale Snell]

On Fri, 6 May 2016 13:58:32 -0700, in message
572d0578.10...@speakeasy.net, Robert Munro wrote:

> On Thu, 5 May 2016 15:52:04 Dick Steffens wrote:
> > On 05/05/2016 10:10 AM, Neal wrote:
> 
> >>> Do you have a tool that can show how busy the hard drive is
> >>> during the seconds the system is waking up? (Is there even such a
> >>> tool?)
> > I haven't found one, but I got caught up in work.
> > 
> 
> The package gkrellm is what you want for a compact visual performance
> monitor. It should be available in your distribution repositories, and
> takes just a minute to install and set up. I keep an instance running
> all the time in a vertical one inch wide strip on the left side of one
> virtual desktop, which also features a console tracking log messages.
> You can run top in another session to see what's using cpu, and so on.

Rather than running top, you can install a GKrellM plugin,
gkrelltop.  This will show the (up to) three busiest programs in
the system.  That, along with the other integral activity graphs,
can give one a nice picture of the system status.  Which is, of
course, GKrellM's purpose.

There is a similar program, Conky, which purports to do much the
same thing.  I've not used it, but others seem pleased with it.

--Dale

-- 
Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy.
-- Charlie McCarthy


pgpXHd3TRDLoy.pgp
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Emacs Text Editing Question

[Dale Snell]

On Fri, 25 Mar 2016 08:04:32 -0700 (PDT), in message
alpine.LNX.2.11.1603250755300.8249@localhost, Rich Shepard wrote:

>While I regularly use emacs I'm not as expert with it as are many
> of you. Perhaps your expertise can explain an emacs paragraph
> formatting behavior that seems anomalous to me.
> 
>Line length is set to 78 characters, and I use M-q to reformat a
> paragraph when I've made changes. Most lines are filled to column 78,
> or less, but now and then a word that could fit on a line without
> exceeding column 78 is placed on the following line. I'd like to
> understand why.
> 
>Here are two such lines as an example:
> 
> measures are difficult to interpret as suitable for fish and
> wildlife. Biological-based standards of water quality are more useful
> 
> The 'd' in "and" is on column 59; when I place "wildlife" on that
> line the space after the '.' is in column 70. So, why is the \n
> placed between "and" and "wildlife." when I reformat using M-q?


Hi Rich,

What is 'sentence-end-double-space' set to?  I suspect it's 't',
which is what it's set to here, and is the default.

I noticed that you only used one space after the period.  When
I tried formatting your lines with 'M-q', I got the same results
as you did.  When I put a second space after the period and
reformatted, I got what you probably expected.  I.e., the first
line ends with the period at column 69 and the \n at column 70.

The only thing I can suggest is either change your typing habits
(which is hard to do, I know), or change the value of
'sentence-end-double-space'.  Since Emacs uses that variable
(among other things) to determine where a sentence ends, that
might do what you need.  My guess, and it's only a guess, is that
Emacs saw "wildlife. Biological" as a sort of contraction, like
"Dr. Smith", and refused to break the two words apart.  Which is
correct, but not what you were expecting in this case.

I just tried an experiment: 70 "a"s, followed by a space, followed
by the string "Dr. Smith".  I used 'M-q' to reformat the line, and
lo-and-behold, "Dr. Smith" ended up on the next line, even though
there was room for the "Dr." on the first line.  I then set
'sentence-end-double-space' to 'nil', and tried reformatting the
line again.  It worked the way you probably want: "Dr." ended the
first line, and "Smith" started the second.  Note, however, that
in this case, this is the _wrong_ thing to do.  A (contracted)
title and the associated name should _not_ be broken across
lines.

What would I do?  Use two spaces after a sentence.  But then,
I come from the old typewriter school that teaches that method.
I also use a monospace font (DejaVu Sans Mono, to be precise), so
that it looks like typewritten text.  Emacs always behaves nicely
when I do that.

Anyway, I hope my ramblings help.

--Dale

-- 
"Have a place for everything and keep the thing somewhere else;
this is not advice, it is merely custom."  -- Mark Twain


pgplrghoePgZL.pgp
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Acroread Changes Typeface [RESOLVED]

[Dale Snell]

On Fri, 18 Mar 2016 08:34:14 -0700 (PDT), in message
alpine.LNX.2.11.1603180829460.30163@localhost, Rich Shepard wrote:

>I used to use xpdf, but it's a version or so behind Adobe, so I
> switched to mupdf. That does a great job, but sometimes blocked text
> cannot be transferred to another application. Acroread has useful
> capabilities that help me when mupdf cannot.
> 
>Okular is a KDE app which requires loading KDE (including the
> kitchen sink), and I run Xfce so I'll stick with xpdf, mupdf, and
> acroread.

Hi Rich,

I’m also running XFCE.  My current favorite PDF viewer is qpdfview,
which does not depend on KDE or GNOME.  It does require one of the
Qt libraries; I forget which, though.

I’m curious, though.  What do you mean by “blocked text”?  I don’t
understand the reference.

--Dale

-- 
When the fog came in on little cat feet last night, it left these
little muddy paw prints on the hood of my car.


pgphNlJ8QgNLg.pgp
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Failure Mode in 20 volt Power Adapters

[Dale Snell]

On Wed, 27 Jan 2016 18:17:46 -0800, in message
20160127181746.4a63daa8@Devil-Bonobo, John Jason Jordan wrote:

> On Wed, 27 Jan 2016 17:17:20 -0800
> Dick Steffens  dijo:
> 
> >On 01/27/2016 05:08 PM, wes wrote:
> >> the center pin is a "data" line, the computer uses it to identify
> >> the power adapter powering it. the computer may refuse to do things
> >> like run at full speed, or charge the battery, if it cannot verify
> >> that the power adapter is capable of handling that load.
> >>
> >> I think it's some sort of fire prevention scheme?
> 
> >Interesting. Overload protection sounds logical.
> 
> The power brick for my System76 laptop has four contacts. I have been
> told that the extra contacts are to communicate the charge level of
> the battery to the brick, lest it overcharge the battery. I'm not
> sure I buy that, but then, I'm not terribly clever with electrical
> circuits.


Laptop batteries have small microcircuits in them that detect and
communicate to the laptop the charge state of the battery.  In
doing so, they prevent the laptop from over-charging the
batteries.  The better batteries can also detect if one or more of
the internal cells is going bad.

The extra contacts in the power brick connector are indeed a data
connection, which the laptop uses to tell the brick to reduce the
charge current.  At least, that's what my memory tells me.  It
could be worng.


--Dale

-- 
"Text processing has made it possible to right-justify any idea, even
one which cannot be justified on any other grounds."
-- J. Finnegan, USC.


pgp9fu9JTmXET.pgp
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] question on sudo umount command

[Dale Snell]

On Wed, 13 Jan 2016 19:36:22 -0800, in message
569717b6.1050...@gmail.com, logical american wrote:

> Recently one of my commands
> 
> [linux ~]$ sudo umount /dev/sdd2
> 
> failed to return back to the command prompt, and all subsequent sudo 
> commands failed similarly.  Only by rebooting the system was I able
> to get the "sudo umount /dev" command working again.
> 
> I am running 64 bit openSuse v13.2 linux kept to current revision
> level.
> 
> Any ideas on why umount is not returning to the CLI prompt?

Randall,

Is it umount or sudo causing the problem?  Try becoming root
("sudo -i" should do it, if "su -" doesn't) and try issuing the
umount command.  If it comes back the problem is probably with
sudo.  What that problem might be I have no idea.

Just my 2¢ -- and worth everything you paid for it.

--Dale

-- 
I don’t like when people talk to me.  I can’t hear the voices.


pgpWdlLCMpPQC.pgp
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Optical drive failure?

[Dale Snell]

On Thu, 7 Jan 2016 18:33:30 -0800, in message
20160107183330.01ccb158@Devil-Bonobo, John Jason Jordan wrote:

> Lately programs complain that they can't read the media in the
> Bluray drive in my laptop. Dmesg reports hundreds of errors like the
> following:
> 
> [551454.265635] end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 1412
> [551454.265638] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 353
> 
> The errors are so thick that I can't even play a movie now, yet the
> problems started quite suddenly - last week it was working fine.
> 
> The drive is just a little over two years old, and has had moderate
> use. It has rarely been used with Bluray media; mostly just ordinary
> DVDs. It's a Matshita BD-MLT UJ260AF. 
> 
> I inspected it with a magnifying glass and I didn't see anything
> obviously wrong, but then, I have no idea what to look for. 
> 
> Before I take it out of the computer and buy a replacement, I thought
> I'd ask for suggestions.


Those certainly look like hardware failures to me.  Before
replacing the drive, though, there are a couple of things you can
try.  One, the drive's SATA cable might be defective.  Try
replacing it with a known good one.  Two, the computer's SATA
controller might have gone bad.  Try using a different port.  If
neither of those work, I would guess that the drive itself has
gone bad.

Hope this helps.

--Dale

-- 
Daniel: "This tastes like chicken."
Sam: "So what's the matter with it?"
Daniel: "It's macaroni and cheese."


pgpeA8WCS9v1Q.pgp
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Optical drive driving me crazy

[Dale Snell]

On Thu, 31 Dec 2015 11:28:23 -0800, in message
20151231112823.7a66eb61@Devil-Bonobo, John Jason Jordan wrote:

> On Wed, 30 Dec 2015 21:53:28 -0800
> David  dijo:
> 
> >The device /dev/sr0 is typically the first CD/DVD device found by
> >the operating system (and /dev/sr1 would be the second). All it's
> >saying (loosely) is that the device wasn't cleanly closed before
> >eject and an inode is still being "accessed" even if no available
> >any longer by some process.
> >
> >This is why you can't mount anything new at this point with the
> >device still being "busy", according to the kernel.
> 
> Is there any way to fix it short of rebooting, which is a PITA?


The commands lsof(8) and fuser(1) can generally tell you what
process is using a particular file.  Once you know that, you can
kill the offending process with extreme prejudice.  (In my case,
it's usually a bash shell; its current directory is set to the
filesystem I want to dismount.)

Hope this helps.

--Dale

-- 
Pessimist:  The glass is half empty.
Optimist:   The glass is half full.
Engineer:   The glass is twice as big as it needs to be.


pgpBlNjElZCDj.pgp
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Need New Video Card Today

[Dale Snell]

On Fri, 23 Oct 2015 13:01:42 -0700 (PDT), in message
alpine.LNX.2.11.1510231254030.1161@localhost, Rich Shepard wrote:

> On Fri, 23 Oct 2015, Rich Shepard wrote:
> 
>The problem has escalated. While I was out getting a video card at
> Free Geek the system died. 

Ouch!

>1)  I have two options: install Slackware-14.1/64-bit on th enew
> hard drive, iostall the multilb libraries, move databases and other
> applications over, and rebuild all SlackBuilds.org packages (since
> the existing server/workstation runs 32-bit Slackware-14.1).
> 
>2)  Install the current sda in the new box. get the system
> running, then install, build, configure everything on the larger new
> hard drive while it's connected externally.
> 
>I think the second option gets me a functioning server/workstation
> more quickly and seek your thoughts on this issue. It's the end of
> the month next week so a fully functional system is needed.

Since you have to be up and running for the end of the month, your
second option seems the best to me.  To save some money, you might
want to check with Free Geek and see what they've got in the line
of refurbished systems.  That's what I did when my old system went
south, and the Free Geek box has been working like a champ.

Just my two cents.

--Dale

-- 
Be comforted, that in the face of all aridity and disillusionment,
And despite the changing fortunes of time,
There is always a big future in computer maintenance.
-- From the National Lampoon's "Deteriorata"


pgpmeIXafGnED.pgp
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Configuring Dual SSD/spinning HD System

[Dale Snell]

On Fri, 23 Oct 2015 14:21:50 -0700 (PDT), in message
alpine.LNX.2.11.1510231419540.1161@localhost, Rich Shepard wrote:

>The new system has a 60G SSD drive and a 750G WD Caviar Black
> drive. I've read enough to know that the SSD drive needs to be tuned
> to work well with linux (and I have a bookmarked Web page with
> explicit instructions and explanations for that). But, what I've not
> found to my satisfaction are 1) what file system(s) to use on each
> drive and 2) what partitions to put on the SSD.
> 
>One forum thread suggested putting /, /boot, /bin, /etc, and /usr
> on the SSD drive since they have fewer writes than
> do /usr/local, /opt, /home, /var, and /tmp. The latter group go on
> the conventional, spinning HD.
> 
>Another thread (on a Ubuntu forum) was by a user who had problems
> booting from the SSD; he could not partition it, IIRC.
> 
>I'll be running only Slackware on this system (as I do on all my
> hosts), and I suspect that the distribution flavor makes no
> difference in selecting an appropriate file system (or two) and a
> partitioning scheme.
> 
>All your suggestions and recommendations are eagerly awaited. :-)


First off, does Slackware have any recommendations?  If so, I'd
follow them first, then listen to what a bunch of crazies on the
'Net have to say.  :-)  That said, here's what I do:

First off, I'd have multiple partitions.  This nonsense of having
one partition to rule them all is just that, nonsense.  In my
case, I go so far as to use LVM.  I can have one logical volume to
hold /, and one to hold /home, /opt/ and /usr/local.  /boot goes
on a separate physical partition.  /tmp is in memory using tmpfs.
/var (and thus /var/tmp) goes on my rotating disk.  As I said,
that's how I set my system up, and it works quite nicely for me.
YMMV, of course.

Here's my basic setup, from lsblk:
(sdb is my SSD; sdc is my rotating medium hard drive)
NAME   SIZE  TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sdb  119.2G  disk 
├─sdb1 512M  part /boot
├─sdb2 8.1G  part [SWAP]
├─sdb3  25G  part 
│ └─vg_Fedora-lv0_root.usr  15G  lvm  /
└─sdb485.7G  part 
  ├─vg_Zothique-lv0_home50G  lvm  /home
  ├─vg_Zothique-lv1_usr.local8G  lvm  /usr/local
  └─vg_Zothique-lv2_opt  8G  lvm  /opt
sdc  931.5G  disk 
└─sdc2   8G  part /var

I could have simply gone with a regular partition for Fedora, but
when I originally set it up, I had /var as a separate partition on
the SSD.  Since that partition's now on the magnetic HD, there's
no need for the logical volume.  Ah well.  Live and learn.

"Tuning" the SSD.  It's possible to put the "discard" option in
your /etc/fstab, but that's not the best idea, IMO.  Not all SSDs
react well to that, including the Samsung that I've got.  Better
is to create a small script and store it in /etc/crontab.weekly.
It can be something as simple as this command:

fstab --all

Or you can do something more elaborate:

for partition in  ; do
fstab $partitions
done

That part's easy enough.  I set it up to run on a weekly basis,
since you don't want to run it too often -- it'll accelerate the
wear of the SSD.  If you're using LVM, as I am, you'll also want
to edit the /etc/lvm/lvm.conf file, and change "issue_discards=0"
to "issue_discards=1".

Now, if you want to have an encrypted disk, DON'T do it on your
SSD.  The discard/fstrim operation is a major security leak.  (You
can't scrub the file(s), either, since the SSD will automatically
write into an unused set of blocks.  Oops.)  So your best bet is
to run dm-crypt on your rotating magnetic media, and ignore the
SSD.  Again, IMO and YMMV.

Once you've made your configuration changes, you'll need to
rebuild your initramfs.  On my system, I ran "sudo dracut -f".  I
have no idea what Slackware would need.  Once initramfs is
rebuilt, re-boot the system and have fun.  :-)

Anyway, I hope this helps.

--Dale

-- 
I recall hearing that highly-classified data must be destroyed by
physically shredding the medium.  Yes, throw your disk drive in
the shredder!  (Just imagine the class of machinery required to
digest an RA81 HDA.)  -- Mark Wood on linux-kernel


pgpBs4QLab2gn.pgp
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Configuring Dual SSD/spinning HD System

[Dale Snell]

On Fri, 23 Oct 2015 15:44:42 -0700 (PDT), in message
alpine.LNX.2.11.1510231541480.1161@localhost, Rich Shepard wrote:

> On Fri, 23 Oct 2015, Paul Heinlein wrote:
> 
> > Some older mainboards have trouble booting from an SSD when there's
> > a tradition HD alongside it. I suspect testing is the only way to
> > know.
> 
>The motherboard is an Asus Sabertooth 990FX, bought December 2011.
> Not sure if that qualfies as 'older' but I suspect it will boot off
> the SSD and use the HDD for variable data since this configuration
> was recommended to me way back then.


My mobo is an Asus M2N-MX, which was released 2007 (February, I
think).  It boots from the SSD with no trouble.  Your Sabertooth is
three or four years newer, so I'm sure you'll have no trouble.

--Dale

-- 
Q:  Why did the Klingon color his hair blond?
A:  Because it was a good day to dye.


pgpkk3ktvkWOQ.pgp
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Configuring Dual SSD/spinning HD System

[Dale Snell]

On Fri, 23 Oct 2015 17:05:18 -0700, in message
20151023170518.49d5a772@zothique.localdomain, Dale Snell wrote:

--- Blather deleted ---

I forgot to mention:  As of Fedora 22, I've switched over to the XFS
filesystem, from EXT4.  It seems to be working just fine.  (FWIW, I'm
still not convinced that btrfs is ready for prime time.)

--Dale

-- 
"It's a very sobering feeling to be up in space and realize that
one's safety factor was determined by the lowest bidder on a
government contract."--Alan Shepard


pgpqPj6Q21g_Q.pgp
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] DIR_COLORS not working properly

[Dale Snell]

On Sun, 4 Oct 2015 15:30:06 -0700 (PDT), in message
alpine.LNX.2.11.1510041528130.23817@localhost, Rich Shepard wrote:

>On a laptop, in /etc/DIR_COLORS I have files set to the same 01;33
> as on other hosts, but files display only in blue (on a blue
> background) rather than in yellow. I cannot change the colors.
> 
>What might I be doing incorrectly?

Rich,

Are you modifying the right DIR_COLORS file?  At least on my
system (F22), there are three:

  $ ls -dl /etc/DIR_COLORS*
  -rw-r--r--. 1 root root 5081 Sep 16 12:01 /etc/DIR_COLORS
  -rw-r--r--. 1 root root 5697 Sep 16 12:01 /etc/DIR_COLORS.256color
  -rw-r--r--. 1 root root 5102 Sep 16 12:01 /etc/DIR_COLORS.lightbgcolor

Just to confuse the issue, I have a file ~/.dir_colors where I
make my own modifications to the standard files in /etc.  You
might check to see if you have one of those installed.

Hope this helps.

--Dale

-- 
Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them the
usual way.  This happens to us all the time with computers, and
nobody thinks of complaining.-- Jeff Raskin


pgprTlgAzo4rs.pgp
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] xterm font losing pixels

[Dale Snell]

On Thu, 24 Sep 2015 12:27:38 -0700, in message
20150924192738.ga22...@gate.kl-ic.com, Keith Lofstrom wrote:

> > Keith Lofstrom wrote:
> > >Sometimes one of the characters in my gnome-terminal instances
> > >(I typically run about 20) loses a few black pixels - on every
> > >instance of that character on every terminal instance.
> 
> On Wed, Sep 23, 2015 at 02:57:39PM -0700, Ken Stephens wrote:
> > Wonder if you can test the video memory.  memtest86 tests the
> > main memory.  Does it have a test for your video card memory? 
> 
> The Intel Express Integrated Graphics Controller (945GM?) uses
> main memory for graphics.  Remember, this is the font table that
> is getting messed up, and I presume it is either X or gnome-terminal
> that manages that table and renders the display windows for that.
> The 945GM does not have a font rendering engine.
> 
> When I switch virtual windows, X rerenders the window, presumably
> with the help and saved state of each application.  Since I don't
> see this behavior in Firefox or the other applications, and the
> disk copy of the font table remains intact (it is there when I
> restart X), I presume the corrupted table is in RAM and belongs
> to gnome-terminal or X.

Something you might try, just to narrow the list of suspects, is a
different terminal emulator.  Instead of Gnome-terminal or any of
its cousins, clones, inlaws, outlaws, etc., try something like
XTerm, or RXVT.  If the problem persists, at least you'll know
that it's not the terminal program.

Do any other programs exhibit this behavior?  Emacs is pretty
demanding; if anything was going to show this up, I'd think it
would.

> However, your suggestion does inspire a clue - since the busted
> pixels are always stored in a table in RAM, perhaps something is 
> interfering with the RAM refresh for that.  I will run memtest86+ 
> with the "bit fade" option  - that takes 3 hours, I'll run it tonight.
> 
> If there is another program I should run that keeps the memory bus
> too busy to run refreshes - is that possible? - I should try that.

I don't think so.  Even in the Good Old Days™, engineers were
smart enough not to interfere with DRAM refresh.  It's been a long
time since I studied DRAM architecture, but as I recall, modern
chips have the refresh circuitry built in.  So unless you
deliberately shut it off (and why would you?) it's always running.
To be honest, I'd be more likely to suspect the graphics chip
rather than the system RAM.  That's assuming (*cough*-*cough*)
that is is a hardware problem.

--Dale

-- 
Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur
("The world wishes to be deceived, so let it be deceived.")
-- Attributed to the Roman satirist Petronius, first century AD.


pgpL0ZM0KFyZq.pgp
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] fstab entry

[Dale Snell]

On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 17:33:37 -0700, in message
CAArUT0h_tuKhpq653m=3loyjdomwwcpqjoctgyqmexehgrf...@mail.gmail.com,
Denis Heidtmann wrote:

 With regard to the ancient system, how might I clone the HD so that
 in case the HD fails we will still have a functional system?  We do
 not  have the installation disks for the SW that is part of the
 system (win 3.1, IDL 3.6.1, and custom C code).

First off, you're going to have fun (for certain values of fun)
finding a replacement drive.  It'll have to be an IDE drive,
probably about 1 Gig maximum capacity.  At least, that's what my
old Windows 3.1 Compaq Presario had.  Once you find a drive,
you'll need to test it thoroughly, preferably on your Linux box,
using the read/write bad blocks scan.  Once that's done, use the
dd command to do a bit-for-bit copy from the original drive to the
new one.  It'll look something like this:

dd if=/dev/old_drive of=/dev/new_drive bs=size_of_old_drive_in_bytes

Read the dd(1) man page CAREFULLY.  Double and triple check your
command line -- you don't want to swap the if= and of= entries!

There are a couple of reasons for using dd here.  One: there may
be hidden partitions.  dd will copy those, where most backup
software wouldn't find them.  Two: some programmer may have been
ever-so-clever and written software that would go directly to a
partition, without going through the partition table.
sarcasm
After all, nobody would ever change the disk partitioning, now
would they?
/sarcasm

Anyway, that's about all the advice I can give you off the top of
my head.  I hope this helps.

--Dale

-- 
Always double-check your math if there are explosives involved.
-- Digger


pgpdTK2g_Ap95.pgp
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] fstab entry

[Dale Snell]

On Fri, 28 Aug 2015 08:20:47 -0700, in message
caarut0gzxdj5xqdnlkjax8e+vxpbbztrbvxxrvpwxpd4vnl...@mail.gmail.com,
Denis Heidtmann wrote:

 I needed to use the floppy disk on my ubuntu 14.04 system (why is a
 separate story).  I found that the default setup had the floppy owned
 by root. Even when I made myself a member of the group floppy, I did
 not have write access. It appeared as if the drive was not a member
 of the group floppy.
 
 On searching for a solution I came across a change to /etc/fstab which
 solved the problem.  My question is, I would like to understand what
 these changes do and what the entries mean, and make sure that the
 changes do not have any flaws. Could the dropping of the utf8 option
 produce a problem?
 
 Original entry (as provided by the installation):
 /dev/fd0   /media/floppy0  auto   rw,user,noauto,exec,utf8  0 0
 
 New entry:
 /dev/fd0   /media/floppy   auto  rw,user,noauto,exec,gid=floppy,umask=007 0 0

You ensured that the floppy was a member of group floppy.  Since
you're a member of that group, you now have access.  The utf8
option does different things, depending on the type of
filesystem.  You'll have to read the mount(8) man page to
determine what's happening in your particular case.  If you're
formatting your floppy as vfat, then I'd keep the utf8 option.
BTW, you might want to specify uid=your_user_ID.  That should
make sure that you own the device, not root.

Hope this helps.

--Dale

-- 
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.  It is by the
beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed, the hands acquire
shakes, the shakes become a warning.  It is by caffeine alone I set
my mind in motion.-- The Programmer's Mantra


pgp_x0kfOo0dk.pgp
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Installing to new disk

[Dale Snell]

On Sun, 26 Jul 2015 21:59:09 -0700, in message
caarut0intrcvck-pru4pdcmh1u3ksjujtyutummovcjjckw...@mail.gmail.com,
Denis Heidtmann wrote:

 To install Ubuntu 14.04 on a new 1T drive I moved the cables from the
 current internal drive to the new drive.  I installed from a DVD.  I
 chose the default partitioning.
 
 First question:
 Everything went as expected, except fdisk -l shows:
 
  /dev/sda1 .97x10^9 blocks ID 83  Linux
  /dev/sda2 6.2x10^6 blocks ID 5  extended
 Partition 2 does not start on a sector boundary
  /dev/sda5 6.2x10^6 blocks ID 82  swap
 
 (I expressed the block count that way for brevity.)

Please don't.  I need to see the complete results if I'm to
understand what's going on.


 Is the starting of partition 2 not on a boundary because the memory
 installed is 6,260,740,096 bytes (5Gb) ?

I don't understand the question.  What do you mean, memory installed?

 Is it a problem?  If yes,
 how do I correct it?  (Re-install is fine.  I have not done anything
 with the new drive.)

It sounds to me like you've got a drive with 4KB sectors, and
firmware that tries to fake 512B sectors.  This will slow down
your drive.  It's not going to damage anything, but it's really a
kludge to make old software work with the new hardware.

Here's what I would do:

Boot from a live CD/DVD, like Knoppix.  Use fdisk to create a
reasonable partition scheme; for example:

partition 1: start=2048, end=1050623   (size=512M  == /boot)
partition 2: start=1050624, size=8.1G   (swap partition)
partition 3: start=17946624, size=25G   (Linux OS partition)
partition 4: start=70375424, size=the rest of the disk  (/home partition)

The start numbers are the actual starting locations on my system
disk.  You can change things if you need to, but keep the number
of sectors in each partition a multiple of 2048.  When you go to
re-install, use that partitioning, rather than the installer's
default.  I have yet to see any distro whose default partitioning
scheme was worth two hoots in Hoboken.

 Second question:
 My desktop computer has an internal SATA drive and a SATA drive
 dock.  The dock is normally used to hold my backup drive.  Can I do
 the install in the dock, copy data from the old drive to the new
 drive, then move  the new drive to the internal location?

Hmm...  I think I'd swap the drive positions.  Put the old drive
in the dock, and connect the new drive as the internal one.  The
other way is an invitation for Grub to screw things up.  A little
paranoia is a good thing.

 Will the drive then be known as /dev/sdb1?

I have no idea.  What happened to /dev/sda?

 How do I tell the install program to find the external drive?

The installer should find all the drives on the system
automatically.  All you should have to do is select the drive you
want to install to.

(Sorry if I sound a bit short.  It's 1 am and I'm very tired.)

Anyway, I hope this helps.

--Dale

-- 
The question of whether computers can think is just like the
question of whether submarines can swim.
-- Edsger W. Dijkstra


pgpujipqLLWcX.pgp
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Desktop failure returned

[Dale Snell]

On Wed, 15 Jul 2015 22:05:26 -0700, in message
CAArUT0jKWejUygaOdt0CQVgXa40MVNc1O--MbkvGoPh4h=-6...@mail.gmail.com,
Denis Heidtmann wrote:

 After upgrading to Grub2 on the 13th the hope was that would fix
 things. Not so.
 
 This time the failure happened after it was running for 5-10 minutes,
 not on boot.  First symptoms were Chrome failed to start 3 times.
 Then Nautilus did not display properly; it closed when I attempted to
 view the root directory.  Then the desktop icons were big and
 spurious text appeared.  ^ alt bksp yielded:
 *Stopping save kernel messages
 speech dispatcher disabled;edit /etc/default/speech-dispatcher
 WARNING: All config files
 need.conf:/etc/modprobe.d/nvidea-current_hybrid.conf.hidden, it will
 be ignored in a future release.
 *Starting Virtual Box Kernel Modules
 *Starting Virtual Box Kernel Module...
 *Starting MD monitoring service mdadm--monitor
 saned disabled; edit /etc/default/saned  *checking battery state...
 [2033.461491] end_request: I/O error, dev sda, sector 606863455
 [2033.461491] EXT3-fs error(device: sda1): ext3-_get_inode_loc:unable
 to read inode block- inode=18964526,block=75857924
 8 more similar messages...
 ^ ALT DEL produced 3 more messages
 Each repeat of ^ ALT DEL yielded an identical message.
 
 Power off, then restart.  Now it is working fine, AFAICT.
 
 This is screaming disk problem, yet tests of the disk say it is
 fine.  What else could be failing erratically?

The disk interface.  I assume that you're using a SATA interface on
the motherboard.  Have you tried a different SATA port?  If that
fails, you could buy a SATA interface card and plug the drive into it.

You could still have an intermittent failure in your drive itself.
Frankly, I'd buy another drive and see if it fixes your problem.  If
not, well, it doesn't hurt to have a spare drive.

Is the failure always located in the same sector/block/inode?  That
would point to the drive proper.  If the sectors are different every
time, then it's probably something else.  It could even be the power
supply for the computer.  Have you tried swapping it out?  (I don't
remember what you've done, other than re-load Grub.)

Hope this helps.

--Dale

-- 
The software industry is really one of the only organizations
where you can knowingly build a defective product and push it out
to a potential buyer and the buyer assumes all the risk.
-- Jerry Davis, CISO


pgpqNiIeVZ4a2.pgp
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Firefox again

[Dale Snell]

On Sat, 11 Jul 2015 20:01:59 -0700, in message
20150711200159.5d8b5d83@Devil-Bonobo, John Jason Jordan wrote:

 Firefox 38.0 on Xubuntu 14.04.1, up to date. 
 
 I used to have an URL bar and a smaller search bar in the same
 toolbar. Suddenly my URL bar is missing; that is, what was the URL
 bar has become a larger search bar. I no longer have any way to tell
 what URL I am on. If someone thought this was an improvement I'd like
 to find him so I can explain some things, non-verbally.
 
 Does anyone know how to get the URL bar back?

Firefox 38.0.5 on Fedora 22.

I have both address and search bars visible.  To be honest, I
didn't know there was a way to hide the address bar.  I have seen
the search bar hide, when I've shrunk the width of the browser
window too much, but that doesn't apply to the address bar.  You
might try hitting ctrl-L, that should bring up the address bar.

As for non-verbal explanations, I've been wanting to explain some
things to Mozilla's designers for some time now.  Preferably with
a 2-by-4.  Or perhaps a room full of angry Narns with aluminum
baseball bats.

--Dale

-- 
If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything.
-- Mark Twain


pgpzRnhe1dTNS.pgp
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] /not/ OK, Google

[Dale Snell]

On Thu, 2 Jul 2015 07:59:37 -0700, in message
caarut0hznoh1dlc4au_vyytmtz7xega+3vprbrl8mstgkv+...@mail.gmail.com,
Denis Heidtmann wrote:

 Certainly bad news but not too surprising.
 
 Two questions:
 
 How/why did Debian permit black-box code?

I don't know.  I have to wonder the same thing about Fedora.

 Can a smart phone be turned off (other than removing the battery)?

To the best of my knowledge, no.  Several years ago, Motorola
introduced a smartphone that responded to voice commands.
Including, IIRC, something on the order of phone on.  (This was,
as I recall, before Apple introduced Siri to an unsuspecting
world.)

--Dale

-- 
Daniel: This tastes like chicken.
Sam: So what's the matter with it?
Daniel: It's macaroni and cheese.


pgpM0bIdF6rUw.pgp
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] rsync: no; scp: yes

[Dale Snell]

On Sat, 20 Jun 2015 07:11:48 -0700 (PDT), in message
alpine.LNX.2.11.1506200708210.8143@localhost, Rich Shepard wrote:

 On Sat, 20 Jun 2015, Dale Snell wrote:
 
  If memory and my interpretation of the man page are correct (and
  neither may be, I've not had my morning caffeine yet), rsync
  requires you to specify an absolute path for the destination. Hence
 
   rsync -avz host:/path/to/dir/subdir/ .
 
  should work.
 
 Dale,
 
Yep, it should. And that's worked many times before. The terminal
 slash prevents creation of another subdirectory with the same name on
 the target host.

Argh...  I meant the _source_ directory.  (*sigh* not enough coffee.)
The remote host's path has to be absolute, or rsync won't know where
subdir and its files are.

--Dale

-- 
If it's not loud it doesn't work!-- Blank Reg, Max Headroom


pgpGwaP_osE6O.pgp
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] rsync: no; scp: yes

[Dale Snell]

On Sat, 20 Jun 2015 05:44:24 -0700 (PDT), in message
alpine.LNX.2.11.1506200539350.8143@localhost, Rich Shepard wrote:

A question for you professional admins: what situation might
 result in the command, 'rsync -avz host:directory/subdirctory/ .'
 reporting that the directory/subdirectory does not exist on that host
 while the command, 'scp host:directory/subdirctory/* .' work like a
 charm?

If memory and my interpretation of the man page are correct (and
neither may be, I've not had my morning caffeine yet), rsync
requires you to specify an absolute path for the destination.  Hence

  rsync -avz host:/path/to/dir/subdir/ .

should work.

If I neglected to specify the target (that is '.') with the rsync
 command, would that produce the observed result?

Nope.  To quote the man page, 'As a special case, if a single
source arg is specified without a destination, the files are
listed in an output format similar to ls -l.'

Hope this helps.

--Dale

-- 
Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four essential
food groups: alcohol, caffeine, sugar, and fat.  -- Alex Levine


pgpThO87HuGCl.pgp
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Sound works for root, not for user

[Dale Snell]

On Thu, 18 Jun 2015 10:42:51 -0700 (PDT), in message
alpine.LNX.2.11.1506181037530.5863@localhost, Rich Shepard wrote:

 On Wed, 17 Jun 2015, King Beowulf wrote:
 
  make sure /dev/snd are root:root and perms 755; contents are
  root:audio with perms 660 and suid on execution.
 
 Ed,
 
Yes, /dev/snd/ is 755 and owned by root:root.
 
What I don't understand is why the xmms warning message tells me
 that oss_open() failed to open /dev/dsp. Since OSS has been
 deprecated why is alsa calling oss_open()?

Alsa is not calling oss; alsa is the _replacement_ for oss.  XMMS
is calling oss, for whatever reason.  Check the output plugins for
XMMS; you'll probably find an oss plugin.

Just a data point.

--Dale

-- 
On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!], 'Pray,
Mr.  Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right
answers come out?'  I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of
confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.
-- Charles Babbage


pgpGgr9apznk5.pgp
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Mount FFS file system

[Dale Snell]

On Sun, 14 Jun 2015 18:03:29 -0700, in message
cadzojqjdork6n5jymjmqrqcky4jcaohesrvd30hqgozh8ua...@mail.gmail.com,
Jonathan Drews wrote:

 OS: Linux Mint 17.1 Rebecca
 
 Hi Folks:
 
 I have an external hard drive that has information stored on an
 OpenBSD (FFS) file system.
 Is there anyway to mount this on Linux?
 
 Thanks for any advice,
 Jonathan

I know next to nothing about the FFS, but you might find this web
page of interest:

https://wiki.netbsd.org/tutorials/how_to_mount_ffs_partition_under_linux/

Hope this helps.

--Dale

-- 
Have you any idea how successful censorship is on TV?  Don't
know the answer?  Hmm.  Successful, isn't it?  -- Max Headroom


pgpfETCNHHbSJ.pgp
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] useradd issue

[Dale Snell]

On Sat, 13 Jun 2015 15:50:57 -0700, in message
557cb3d1.5000...@gmail.com, King Beowulf wrote:

 -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
 Hash: SHA1
 
 On 06/13/2015 03:04 PM, Rich Shepard wrote:
  For some reason I've not been able to discern, when I add me as a
  user to the netbook it looks OK until I log in. Then I get the
  message that 'no directory, logging in with HOME=/'.
  
  The useradd command I use is: useradd -m -d /home/rshepard -u 1000
  -g 100 -s /bin/bash rshepard
  
  The /home/ directory contains ftp/, lost+found, and rshepard. The
  first two are owned by root.root, the last by rshepard.users.
  /etc/passwd has the line
  'rshepard:x:1000:100::/home/rshepard:/bin/bash' and group 100 is 
  'users'. As root, the password for rshepard is created and works to
  log in.
  
  There's nothing I see in the useradd man page or my Web searches
  that explains why this time I cannot log in to /home/rshepard/ on
  the netbook. Prior to my negligent error of wiping out /etc/ the
  same command worked as it's supposed to work and when I log in as a
  user it's in /home/rshepard/.
  
  I've no idea where to look for a solution since everything appears
  correct but it's just not working.
  
  Your thoughts are needed.
  
  Rich
 
 That is odd.  Your passwd entry appears wrong. it should read
 something like
 
 rshepard:x:1000:100:,,,:/home/rshepard:/bin/bash

The field between group and home, that you have marked ,,, is
the GCOS (formerly GECOS) field.  It is simply a comment, and
usually holds the user's full name.  It can safely be left empty.

Unfortunately, I don't use Slackware, so I can't tell why Rich is
having such trouble.


Rich,

1.  Is your shadow password entry correct?
2,  Is /home/rshepard really a directory?  (I know it almost
certainly is, but just for the sake of completeness...)
3.  Can you log in from root, using su -l rshepard?


--Dale

-- 
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.  It is by the
beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed, the hands acquire
shakes, the shakes become a warning.  It is by caffeine alone I set
my mind in motion.-- The Programmer's Mantra


pgpUdFv8fttKm.pgp
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Restore /etc

[Dale Snell]

On Sat, 13 Jun 2015 11:31:09 -0700 (PDT), in message
alpine.LNX.2.11.1506131129420.22964@localhost, Rich Shepard wrote:

Setting up a netbook and accidently removed /etc/ rather than a
 local etc/. Is there any way to restore that directory, e.g., from
 the Slackware distribution DVD, without re-installing and
 re-configuring the whole thing?
 
 Rich

Ouch!  You don't have a backup?  I don't know of any other way to
restore just your /etc directory hierarchy.

Each package contains its own entry or entries into /etc.  So if
you lose /etc, then you'll need to re-install each of those packages.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

--Dale

-- 
Wanted: Young, skinny, wirey fellows not over 18.  Must be expert
riders willing to risk death daily.  Orphans preferred.  Wages $25
per week.-- Pony Express advertisement, 1860 


pgpRll_hYnIBK.pgp
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Emacs: Uneven Tab Spacing

[Dale Snell]

On Wed, 22 Apr 2015 06:21:15 -0700 (PDT), in message
alpine.LNX.2.11.1504220614230.26983@localhost, Rich Shepard wrote:

When working with text files in emacs separating strings with tabs
 results in highly uneven spacing. Sometimes pressing the [Tab] key
 produces two line continuation arrors before stopping half-way across
 the buffer screen. Looking at the result in a v.t. using the 'joe'
 editor shows this variable spacing. And, it turns out that in joe
 there are more than single tabs separating many of the strings.
 
The current situation is generating a tab-separated file of data
 for input to an application.
 
Does anyone know why this happens? Can't think of appropriate web
 search terms to look for a reason.
 
 Rich

WARNING: I haven't had my gallon of caffienated beverage yet this
morning.  Everything I write may be wrong.

Hi Rich,

First off, just to be sure I'm understanding you correctly (I may
not; see above), Emacs isn't issuing evenly spaced tabs.  Yes?

Secondly, what do you mean by line contiuation errors?  I don't
think I've ever seen Emacs generate one.

Thirdly, is the TAB key actually issuing a tab character
(ctrl-I)?  What happens if you type C-q TAB instead of TAB by
itself?

Finally, are your tab stops set to something you're expecting?
You can issue M-x ruler-mode to see the tab stop locations.

--Dale

-- 
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.  It is by the
beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed, the hands acquire
shakes, the shakes become a warning.  It is by caffeine alone I
set my mind in motion.


pgprR5EXFE0lP.pgp
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Emacs: Uneven Tab Spacing

[Dale Snell]

On Wed, 22 Apr 2015 11:54:39 -0700 (PDT), in message
alpine.LNX.2.11.1504221146380.26983@localhost, Rich Shepard wrote:

 On Wed, 22 Apr 2015, Dale Snell wrote:
 
  Nani?
 
?

dying-backwards-accordion  Yes.

:-)  Actually, nani is a Japanese word; it means what.  (I actually
heard it used in a radio commercial a few years ago.  Surprised
the heck out of me.)


  C-q is control-q, and is bound to the Emacs command
  quoted-insert, which inserts the next character literally. So the
  sequence C-q TAB should insert a literal ASCII tab character at
  point.
 
Should, but didn't. Point did not move.

That's weird, it should have.  You might want to check your Emacs
init file, to see if C-q is re-bound somewhere.


  If you're using a proportionally-spaced font, then I don't know how
  it's divided.)
 
Don't know why I'd want to do that.

Heh, neither do I, but I've seen people do the strangest things,
including using a prop font for text editors and terminal
emulators.  (Ugh.)


The samples were the first two header lines in an e-mail, not the
 data with which I worked.

The default settings annoy the heck out of me.  Here's how I have
mine set:

(setq-default indent-tabs-mode nil)
(setq-default tab-width 4)


The lines were written here, the e-mail was used for an example.

Ah, okay.  That makes more sense.


When I opened the file in joe I was able to fix all the multiple
 tabs and extraneous spaces emacs had generated so this task is
 finished. The source of the text file was a selective export from
 jpilot (the desktop side of the Palm PIMs while the handheld side is
 my Treo 700p 'smart' phone).

Okay...  It sounds to me like you need to look into how jpilot is
set up.  I can't help you there; I know nothing about jpilot.
Heck, I don't even have a PIM.

--Dale

-- 
Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them the
usual way.  This happens to us all the time with computers, and
nobody thinks of complaining.-- Jeff Raskin


pgpYOszqKaLFC.pgp
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] POTS setup under Linux

[Dale Snell]

On Wed, 11 Mar 2015 14:45:04 -0700, in message
camf_wkqd74t_bk3jaow7baarz1osq6yq5w8nnfpqbgillsr...@mail.gmail.com,
Mark Townsley wrote:

 Hello All:
 
 I have a need to go back to 1990s technology  :)  ...and wanting to
 turn my Linux box into a phone dialer, using something like this:
 
 
 http://www.amazon.com/TRENDnet-Phone-Internet-Modem-TFM-561U/dp/B004BU8O9Y/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8qid=1426109981sr=8-7keywords=USB+RJ11

Wow.  I didn't know they made modems that small.

 I recall using my Linux host to do PPP dialing back in 1990s, even
 making phone calls using my phone jacks.   But I cannot find much
 info anymore nor do I remember how to put things together.
 
 
 Any simple pointer much appreciated.

I used to use a program called WvDial to control my modem.  It
could dial out and as I recall, answer the phone.  It probably
wouldn't be too hard to repurpose it to your friend's needs.

The program's still around; see the Wikipedia article (WvDial).
That article also has some other links you might find interesting.
You can also try to surf to

http://alumnit.ca/wiki/?WvDial

to visit the home page.  However, I wasn't able to connect;
perhaps the site is down.  On the other tentacle, try free(code):

http://freecode.com/projects/wvdial/

I note that the program hasn't been updated in quite a while.
Free(code)'s latest version is 1.60, dated 01-Aug-2007.  Fedora
doesn't give a date, but wvdial v1.61 is what's available for
F21.

Anyway, I hope my ramblings help.

--Dale

-- 
+--+  +--+  +---+  +-+  +---+
| Space is |  | Space is |  | It's Hard |  | A Place |  | Burma |
|   Big|  |   Dark   |  |  to Find  |  | to Park |  | Shave |
+--+  +--+  +---+  +-+  +---+


pgpik_iSCQFJ4.pgp
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Emacs: Setting Line Length for .txt Files

[Dale Snell]

On Wed, 11 Mar 2015 15:23:26 -0700 (PDT), in message
alpine.LNX.2.11.1503111521470.9435@localhost, Rich Shepard wrote:

 On Wed, 11 Mar 2015, Rich Shepard wrote:
 
My emacs wraps lines of .txt files at column 72. However,
  sometimes (and all too often) it will wrap a line at column 46 or
  so and there's no way I can fill that line so it remains filled
  with I re-format the paragraph with M-q.
 
Looking at the emacs customization I learned that C-x f changes
 the column number beyond which the line wraps. This seems to be
 buffer-specific and would need to be set for each buffer when a .txt
 file is loaded. Is there a way to make the desired line wrap column
 the default?

I have the following in my ~/.emacs.d/init.el file:

(add-hook 'text-mode-hook (lambda () (setq-default fill-column 66)))

This automatically sets the fill column to 66 for any buffer that
uses text-mode.  I have a bunch of other things, too.  But then,
my init.el file has become rather... eccentric.  :-)

Hope this helps.

--Dale

-- 
If the primates that we came from had known that someday
politicians would come out of the gene pool, they'd have stayed up
in the trees and written evolution off as a bad idea!
-- John Sheridan, Babylon 5 episode, A Distant Star


pgpu59k9PaElS.pgp
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Emacs: Setting Line Length for .txt Files

[Dale Snell]

On Wed, 11 Mar 2015 16:06:18 -0700 (PDT), in message
alpine.LNX.2.11.1503111604270.9435@localhost, Rich Shepard wrote:

 On Wed, 11 Mar 2015, Dale Snell wrote:
 
  I have the following in my ~/.emacs.d/init.el file:
  (add-hook 'text-mode-hook (lambda () (setq-default fill-column 66)))
 
  Hope this helps.
 
 Dale,
 
I'm sure it will. Did not have ~/.emacs.d/init.el, but now I do.

You didn't?  Do you perchance have a ~/.emacs file?  That's the
same thing as the init.el.  I like having the init file in
~/.emacs.d, since I can keep all of my Emacs stuff in the same
directory.

BTW, you might want to put this in your init file:

;;; Make text-mode the default major mode.
(setq-default major-mode 'text-mode)

As the comment says, it makes text-mode the default.  Another
thing you can do is turn on ruler-mode with M-x ruler-mode RET.
You can also do it in your init file:

;;; turn on the ruler mode.
(add-hook 'lisp-interaction-mode-hook 'ruler-mode)
(add-hook 'text-mode-hook 'ruler-mode)
(add-hook 'nroff-mode-hook 'ruler-mode)
;;; end of ruler-mode setup

Ruler mode puts a character ruler at the top of the window,
showing tab positions, comment column, and fill column.  You can
change the latter by grabbing it with the middle mouse button and
moving it wherever you want.

There's a number of other things you might like in your init file:

;;; if a file doesn't end with a newline, ask:
(setq require-final-newline 'query)

;;; Add user-only local storage for Emacs-Lisp packages
(let ((default-directory ~/.emacs.d/user-lisp/))
  (normal-top-level-add-to-load-path '(.))
  (normal-top-level-add-subdirs-to-load-path)
)

;;; New in Emacs 24!  Electric-mode everywhere!  Oh.  Happy.  Joy.
;;; Turn it freaking OFF.  Grump.  Get offa my lawn, ya damn kids!
(setq electric-indent-mode nil)

;;; Keep Custom out of my init file!  Set the absolute path of an
;;; external file for Custom to scribble in, then tell Emacs to load it.
(setq custom-file ~/.emacs.d/custom-settings.el)
(load custom-file)

;;; Use ElectricBufferList; it works a bit nicer that the default.
(global-set-key (kbd C-x C-b) 'electric-buffer-list)
;;
;; Set up font locking for the buffer menu list.
(setq buffer-menu-buffer-font-lock-keywords
  '((^[*]Man .*Man.* . font-lock-variable-name-face) ; Man page
(.*Dired.*   . font-lock-comment-face)   ; Dired buffer
(^[*]shell.* . font-lock-preprocessor-face)  ; shell buffer
(.*[*]scratch[*].*   . font-lock-function-name-face) ; scratch buffer
(^[*].*  . font-lock-string-face); * named buffers
(^..[*].*. font-lock-constant-face)  ; Modified
(^.[%].* . font-lock-keyword-face))) ; Read only
;;
(defun buffer-menu-custom-font-lock  ()
  (let ((font-lock-unfontify-region-function
 (lambda (start end)
   (remove-text-properties start end '(font-lock-face nil)
(font-lock-unfontify-buffer)
(set (make-local-variable 'font-lock-defaults)
 '(buffer-menu-buffer-font-lock-keywords t))
(font-lock-fontify-buffer)))
;;
;; Use the first line if ElectricBufferList is enabled, otherwise, use the
;; second line (one line only!) for the default buffer list functionality.
(add-hook 'electric-buffer-menu-mode-hook 'buffer-menu-custom-font-lock)
;; (add-hook 'buffer-menu-mode-hook 'buffer-menu-custom-font-lock)
;;
;;; End of electric-buffer-list setup.


A note about the Custom setting, above.  Custom refers the Emacs
Customize facility.  You can change all sorts of things with it,
to configure Emacs the way you like it.  However, when you do so,
Emacs sticks a block of nigh-unreadable ELisp code at the end of
your init file.  The more you customize, the bigger the block
gets, and the less readable.  Giving Emacs a place to put it keeps
your init file smaller and neater.


Anyhoo, I've babbled at you enough.  Enjoy!

--Dale

-- 
Money is truthful.  If a man speaks of his honor, make him pay cash.
-- Lazarus Long


pgp11Asjz9iXr.pgp
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] How to find the executables

[Dale Snell]

On Thu, 12 Feb 2015 20:01:25 -0800, in message
20150212200125.1237cef9@Devil-Bonobo, John Jason Jordan wrote:

 Living with the problem would be trivial if I
 knew the names and locations of the executables on my computer, but I
 don't have that information. I think it can be found from the command
 line, but I need a clue. In the present instance I am trying to find
 the executable for Ristretto image viewer. 

John,

Standard executables are located in /usr/bin.  If you've built
something yourself, it's probably located in /usr/local/bin (GNU
software installs itself there by default).

Hope this helps.

--Dale

-- 
Come, muse, let us sing of rats.  -- James Grainger


pgpCzdqV3azuh.pgp
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Line lengths for emails

[Dale Snell]

On Wed, 7 Jan 2015 13:32:27 -0800
Keith Lofstrom kei...@gate.kl-ic.com wrote:

 This may be a religious question, but here goes. 
 
 I tend to write my emails and other documents with a target line
 length approaching but less than 68 characters - I trained in an
 era of 80 column terminals, and multiple-quoted emails with 
 in front of the lines become much harder to read when they wrap. 

I appreciate the narrower fill length, believe me.  I too trained
with 80 column terminals.  (Heck, my old Tek 4051 had a 72 column
screen.)  As for the multiply-quoted messages mentioned above,
I've been known to re-fill such messages, so the lines don't go
off the (80 column) screen.

 I usually read emails in 80 column windows, though sometimes I use
 a full screen window 170 characters wide, even 250 characters wide
 with tiny fonts when I am looking at log files.  An email without
 line breaks is very difficult to read 250 characters wide!

These days I run Claw-Mail, though I've been considering going
back to MH-E.  (I have Claws set up to use Emacs as its external
editor, since my fingers automatically use Emacs keystrokes.)
Claws will generally do a decent job of line wrapping.  Not
always, but usually.

 So, what do you folks find easiest to read, and what is your 
 tolerance range?  I expect some will respond like all lines MUST
 be exactly 72 characters, use a thesaurus to find words with the
 correct spacing or my enter key is broken so it is all one line.
 Such responses will be weighted appropriately.
 
 Keith

I have Claws' message pane set to 80 columns, and its line-wrap
length (fill-column for us Emacsies) to 72.  For writing email, I
use Emacs, as mentioned above.  I have the fill-column set to 66
columns, probably a holdover from my high school typing classes.

I refuse to indulge in 2048-pixel-wide terminals.  :-(  Those
aren't a Windows-only affectation, alas.  I've gotten mail from
some Linux people that has the same structure.  Just because I
have a 2048 pixel width screen, doesn't mean I want my terminals
that wide.  Actually, I can have two 80-column terminals
side-by-side on one screen.

Broken Enter key?  Get another keyboard.  FreeGeek has them, as do
other places.  Heck, I bought my current keyboard, brand new, at
ENU for about $15.00.  Messages must be fully justified to 72
columns?  *Phththth!*  Well, if you absolutely must, use nroff
or LaTeX.  But please, don't.  Just don't.

--Dale

-- 
clairvoyant, n.:  A person, commonly a woman, who has the power of
seeing that which is invisible to her patron -- namely, that he is
a blockhead.-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary


pgpodt4I0M3Oz.pgp
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] External drive enclosures?

[Dale Snell]

On Mon, 8 Dec 2014 13:05:40 -0800
Tyrell Jentink tyr...@jentink.net wrote:

 Like many Linux users, I use older desktops as my servers.  The
 practical upshot is obvious: I'm not using it anymore, and it's still
 very powerful, so I might as well put it to work.
 
 But desktops just aren't built to hold lots of drives... This case,
 for example, has 3x 3.5inch drive bays, and 4 SATA slots; I have 1
 drive for the local OS, and 2 drives for shared content (Formatted
 with BTRFS). I want to add 2 more drives.
 
 It SEEMS like it should be as easy as adding an additional SATA host,
 and run the SATA cables to a shielded drive enclosure... But all the
 drive enclosures I have found have their own PCBs, and seem to have
 all sorts of USB host stuff in them.  Is there such a thing as a
 Dumb enclosure, that you put a drive in and run cables to the
 computer and call it done?

This can be done fairly easily, assuming you're talking about a SATA
host adapter card and some eSATA cables.

I've also heard of such a thing as a SATA expander box.  Connect the
box to your computer via one SATA cable, and install more SATA drives
in the box.  Sort of the SCSI LUN idea, but for SATA.  I imagine that
such a device is expensive, though.  I've not looked into such a
beastie, as I've never needed one.

 On a related note, is there actually a difference between SATA and
 eSATA? Why do all eSATA cases insist on having USB too?

There is very little difference between SATA and eSATA.  The cables
are different; SATA have L-shaped connectors, and eSATA have I-shaped
connectors.  Also, the eSATA cables are better shielded.

Why add USB to eSATA enclosures?  So that the same enclosure can be
sold to more people.  One of the great lies of the Universe:  One Size
Fits All.

Hope this helps.

--Dale

-- 
The attitude of 'Oh, you want it should work?  That costs extra!'
is the biggest security hole in computer software today.
-- Anon., paraphrased (anybody know the real source?)


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Interesting question came up on the way to fixing a Windows system

[Dale Snell]

On Sat, 06 Dec 2014 11:19:53 -0800
Roderick Anderson raander...@gmail.com wrote:

 Is there a way to determine which 'program' on a Linux box is
 creating network traffic.
 
 I'm sure I knew once upon a time but I seem to be suffering from CRS
 now.

There is a program called nethogs(8) that will tell you which
processes are accessing the network.

Hope this helps.

--Dale

-- 
Text processing has made it possible to right-justify any idea, even
one which cannot be justified on any other grounds.
-- J. Finnegan, USC.


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Agentx - what is it?

[Dale Snell]

On Wed, 5 Nov 2014 17:00:56 -0800
website reader website.read...@gmail.com wrote:

 I just now discovered a symbolic link in my /var folder area called
 agentx which links to the /run/agentx executable (which is not
 there)
 
 Should I be concerned about this?  Just a quick glance seems to
 reveal that it is both a monitoring program and controller for the
 Linux kernel.  It appears to be some type of snmp program.
 
 My machine is openSuse v13.1 linux.
 
 I appreciate some feedback here, thanks.
 
 Randall

Okay, here's what yum had to say about agentx:

$ yum search agentx
yummy-blither deleted
amavisd-new-snmp.noarch : Exports amavisd SNMP data
$ yum info amavisd-new-snmp
yummy-blither deleted, Description: follows

This package contains the program amavisd-snmp-subagent, which can be
used as a SNMP AgentX, exporting amavisd statistical counters database
(snmp.db) as well as a child process status database (nanny.db) to a
SNMP daemon supporting the AgentX protocol (RFC 2741), such as
NET-SNMP.

It is similar to combined existing utility programs amavisd-agent and
amavisd-nanny, but instead of writing results as text to stdout, it
exports data to a SNMP server running on a host (same or remote),
making them available to SNMP clients (such a Cacti or mrtg) for
monitoring or alerting purposes.

Researching RFC 2741 is left as an exercise for the student.  :-)

Since the agentx program isn't there, I'd delete the symlink; it
serves no good purpose.

Hope this helps.

--Dale

-- 
I recall hearing that highly-classified data must be destroyed by
physically shredding the medium.  Yes, throw your disk drive in
the shredder!  (Just imagine the class of machinery required to
digest an RA81 HDA.)-- Mark Wood on linux-kernel


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Re-arranging Firefox Display

[Dale Snell]

On Tue, 4 Nov 2014 07:43:18 -0800 (PST)
Rich Shepard rshep...@appl-ecosys.com wrote:

The Slackware devs released an upgrade for Firefox from 28.n to
 31.n. There are two display changes in the new version that I would
 like to have work as they did in earlier versions but I cannot find a
 way to do this within Firefox, and Web searches do not find anything
 relevant (or current).
 
1. In earlier versions when the View - Sidebar menu was set to
 History (with a check mark on the left side), it stayed that way when
 the sidebar window was closed. Now when the window's closed Ctrl-h no
 longer opens it; it requires accessing the menu and re-enabling that
 option. I would like to re-enable the use of Ctrl-h to open the
 sidebar. Might that be on about:config somewhere?

This works here.  I type ctrl-h and the history panel opens.  I
don't know why it doesn't for you.  I'm not sure where the config
entry would be.  I just looked, and I couldn't find anything that
looked right.

Sorry I couldn't be more help.

--Dale

-- 
Delusions are often functional.  A mother's opinions about her
children's beauty, intelligence, goodness, et cetera ad nauseam,
keep her from drowning them at birth.


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] system response lost

[Dale Snell]

On Sun, 2 Nov 2014 15:56:42 -0800
Denis Heidtmann denis.heidtm...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Sun, Nov 2, 2014 at 3:39 PM, Denis Heidtmann
 denis.heidtm...@gmail.com wrote:
  My wife was replying to an email when the typing suddenly stopped
  producing any characters on the screen.  She had three windows open
  in Firefox (gmail).  I opened a terminal (using the mouse) and
  found that the response to the keyboard was the same: nothing.
  Then it seemed that the response to the mouse was either
  non-existent or very slow. I tapped the power button which
  presented a window for shutting down. The return key worked; it
  shut down.  A restart seems to have restored normal operation.
 The terminal displayed an open box at the prompt rather than a filled
 box. This indicates it did not have the focus, even though I clicked
 in the window.
 
  What logs might be of help in understanding what happened?  What
  might I have done at the time to provide some clues?
 
  Running Ubuntu 12.04.  Replaced the keyboard a few days ago.

I can think of three things off the top of my head.

 1)  It could be Firefox devoting all of your system's resources to
running some script or other.  This happens to me every once in a
while.  Annoying as all get-out, but there's not much to be done
about it.  I tend to doubt this, since all three FF windows were
open to GMail.

 2)  Something, somewhere, is eating up all your stack space.
This can cause the symptoms you listed.  Adobe Reader will do this
quite happily.  I no longer use Adobe Reader.

 3)  It's a long shot, but it _might_ be the keyboard.  If it's
sending a constant stream of characters, spaces say, then it could
be interfering with your system's operation.  This happened to me
a couple of times.  Once was something resting on the keyboard.
The other time was caused by a stuck key.  That one resulted in me
buying a new keyboard.

Unfortunately, I don't think that there's going to be a log of
this anywhere.  The best thing I can think of is to install
GKrellM, a system monitor.  It is quite lightweight, so it doesn't
put much of a load on your system.  I have it running on my system
all the time.  Make sure that the CPU and swap graphs are enabled.
(The swap krells can help, but they just show how much swap is
being used.)  Add the gkrelltop plug-in, and set it to monitor
the top three processes.  Note that GKrellM probably won't catch
possibility #3.

You could also start a top(1) session in a terminal window and
just let it run.  My experience, though, is that top is a bigger
load on the system than GKrellM.  Plus, GKrellM gives you a lot
more information than top does.

Anyway, that's my two cents worth.  Remember, it's worth
everything you paid for it.  :-)

--Dale

-- 

Vir:  I thought the purpose of filing these reports was to provide
accurate intelligence.
Londo:  Vir, intelligence has nothing to do with politics.
-- _Babylon 5_, episode Point of No Return


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] keyboard mapping change

[Dale Snell]

On Mon, 27 Oct 2014 08:31:13 -0700 (PDT)
Rich Shepard rshep...@appl-ecosys.com wrote:

 On Mon, 27 Oct 2014, Ken Stephens wrote:
 
  showkey
 
 Ken,
 
Wasn't sure if that showed the key name as used in .Xmodmap or the
 scan code for the key. Didn't look at the man page.

showkey(1) [and its cousins loadkeys(1) and dumpkeys(1)] are for
use from a Linux VT, not from X.  See also keymaps(5).

Use xev(1) to get the key names that X uses.  They aren't the same
as the ones the VTs use.  Also for X, see xmodmap(1) and
setxkbmap(1).

(And I swear they made the X Window System documentation as
obscure as possible.  *grrr*)

Hope this helps.

--Dale

-- 
Q:  Why did the Klingon color his hair blond?
A:  Because it was a good day to dye.


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] keyboard mapping change

[Dale Snell]

On Mon, 27 Oct 2014 10:31:48 -0700
Denis Heidtmann denis.heidtm...@gmail.com wrote:

 showkey -a
 for the left key of interest:
60 0074 0x3c
 for  the right key of interest:
 \   92 0134 0x5c

This is showing the ASCII values for the characters in decimal,
octal, and hexadecimal.   is 60 (dec), \074 (oct), and 0x3c
(hex); \ is 92 (dec), \134 (oct), and 0x5c (hex).  Note that
this information doesn't do you much good if you're going to
modify your console keymap.  You'll need to uses the -k or -s
options to showkey.


 There is also xev:
 
 For the left key:
 KeyPress event, serial 36, synthetic NO, window 0x4c1,
 root 0x261, subw 0x0, time 2468220, (18,-5), root:(1517,42),
 state 0x10, keycode 94 (keysym 0x3c, less), same_screen YES,
 XLookupString gives 1 bytes: (3c) 
 XmbLookupString gives 1 bytes: (3c) 
 XFilterEvent returns: False
 
 KeyRelease event, serial 36, synthetic NO, window 0x4c1,
 root 0x261, subw 0x0, time 2468668, (18,-5), root:(1517,42),
 state 0x10, keycode 94 (keysym 0x3c, less), same_screen YES,
 XLookupString gives 1 bytes: (3c) 
 XFilterEvent returns: False
 
 For the right key:
 KeyPress event, serial 36, synthetic NO, window 0x4c1,
 root 0x261, subw 0x0, time 2474140, (18,-5), root:(1517,42),
 state 0x10, keycode 51 (keysym 0x5c, backslash), same_screen YES,
 XLookupString gives 1 bytes: (5c) \
 XmbLookupString gives 1 bytes: (5c) \
 XFilterEvent returns: False
 
 KeyRelease event, serial 36, synthetic NO, window 0x4c1,
 root 0x261, subw 0x0, time 2474396, (18,-5), root:(1517,42),
 state 0x10, keycode 51 (keysym 0x5c, backslash), same_screen YES,
 XLookupString gives 1 bytes: (5c) \
 XFilterEvent returns: False
 
 These results do not seem to say the same thing.  Confusion.

The xev results are not guaranteed to match the showkey results.
In this particular case, they do.  Note the numeric values for
XLookupString and XmbLookupString: 3c and 5c.  These are, again,
the ASCII values for the given characters,  and \
respectively.

That said, I have to ask if you're sure you want to change these.
Putting  and \ next to the shift keys is not normal US
keyboard layout.  Normally  is above the comma, and \ is
below the |, next to the backspace key.  (The \/| key can be
elsewhere; perhaps above the return key.  It depends on what kind
of return key you have.  Mine is the large L-shaped variety.)

Do you have  and \ elsewhere on your keyboard?  If not, you
do NOT want to change these values.

--Dale

-- 
The Enrichment Center reminds you that the Weighted Companion Cube
will never threaten to stab you and, in fact, cannot speak.  In the
event that the Weighted Companion Cube does speak, the Enrichment
Center urges you to disregard its advice.


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] TUESDAY: October PLUG Advanced Topics: Living Desktop Environment-Free

[Dale Snell]

On Mon, 20 Oct 2014 17:31:34 -0700
John Jason Jordan joh...@comcast.net wrote:

 I can use a minimal desktop like Xfce, but I'm trying to imagine how I
 could function without any desktop at all, even if I was a master at
 shell scripts, which I most definitely am not.

 I started my day by writing a couple pages with LO Writer where I
 alternated between American English and polytonic Greek, which uses
 not only a different alphabet, but up to three diacritics per letter.
 Then I wrote several pages for phonetics students where I used the
 International Phonetic Alphabet extensively (Unicode 250 to 2AD, plus
 a few outside of that block). Then I downloaded a pic from my phone,
 spent 15 minutes altering it in the GIMP, then uploaded it to
 Craigslist using Firefox. 

(I am assuming [HAH!] here that X is not running in this scenario.
If I'm wrong, please feel free to correct me.  But gently, please.
It's been One of Those Days, and I have a strong urge to throw
heavy objects through my monitor.)

 
 Can I do all of this without a desktop environment using just shell
 scripts?


Not easily, I think.  The writing part is do-able, so long as you
don't insist on seeing polytonic Greek characters in your editor.
The reason for that is that the Linux VT (which you're stuck with
without X running) does not have all of those characters.  You
would need to use a text processor, like Groff or TeX, and specify
your characters that way.  Not that while Groff does have some
Greek characters, they are for technical communications -- there
are no diacritic marks.  So you'd have to install a polytonic
Greek typeface.  I think you'd have to do the same thing for TeX.
TeX has modern Greek built in, I think, but that's not what you're
looking for.  The same goes for the IPA characters; you'd need to
install your IPA typeface of choice.

Of course, you still need some way of profredding *grin* your
text, and you can't display a PDF in a VT.  You'd have to print it
on paper.  If you're like me, and check every. little. thing, it
would use up a lot of paper.  (BTW, if you do want to try Groff or
TeX, I _strongly_ suggest using a macro set of some sort.  MOM is
my choice for Groff; LaTeX is the choice for TeX.)  That said,
Groff and TeX can both produce some beautiful text.  (Now, if X
_is_ running, you could fire up the PDF viewer of choice, and
you'd be home free.  And, since you'd have access to more complete
font sets, you could actually see polytonic Greek and IPA in your
text editor.)

Web access is probably the easiest of the three applications you
mentioned.  There are a number of text-only web browsers out
there.  They do take some getting used to, but they are quite
practical.  Heck, you can even find one or two that run in Emacs
(the text editor that thinks it's an operating system).

The killer, in my opinion, is the graphical work.  Yes, it is
possible to modify graphics files from the command line, but it's
not exactly intuitive.  ImageMagick is probably the best known
command-line graphics program for Linux.  It has a _lot_ of
commands and functions.  Each one by itself isn't terribly
difficult to learn, but did I mention that there were a lot of
them?  Plus, using them effectively requires that you learn how to
tie them together into a program.  Not shell scripting so much as
C, Perl, Lisp, and so on.  Given your current workload, I doubt
you'd like to add learning ImageMagick _and_ a programming
language to the list.

Anyway, those are my opinions, and they're worth everything you
paid for them.  Add $3.50 and you can buy a cup of coffee at
Starbucks.

--Dale

-- 
Delusions are often functional.  A mother's opinions about her
children's beauty, intelligence, goodness, et cetera ad nauseam,
keep her from drowning them at birth.



signature.asc
Description: PGP signature
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Such a thing as a single user Linux?

[Dale Snell]

On Thu, 25 Sep 2014 10:34:47 -0500
Richard Owlett rowl...@cloud85.net wrote:

 Rich Shepard wrote:
 
  Perhaps because we don't have a clear understanding of your
  problem we cannot offer a solution. I've not read anything that
  makes a multiuser linux system/network unsuitable for you. Please
  clarify if you wish to.
 
 
 I'll paraphrase some of what was snipped.
 
 The Unix heritage of Linux just gets in the way. Unix was 
 intended to serve a large user base having diverse individual 
 needs simultaneously.

This is what I don't understand.  How does the multi-user/
multi-tasking system that Unix uses get in your way?  If you don't
want multiple users, simply never create accounts for them.
That's what I do here.  If you really want to enforce single-user mode,
set your system to boot to that mode.  I'm the only one with physical
access to my system, unless some rude person breaks into my house,
so I don't care.  I have no user accounts other than myself.  

As for running apps from read-only media, set your /etc/fstab to
mount /usr as read-only.  I don't, because I'd have to remount it
read/write whenever I updated my system.

(Truly, I _like_ having a multi-tasking system.  I can have, say,
Firefox and/or Midori running, along with man, to check on
documentation, which is usually local.  I don't particularly like
being on the Web all the time myself.  Too darn many web-creatures.
:-)  [Who will get that reference, we wonders, yes, we wonders.]  At
the same time, I can be writing in Emacs, crunching the file buffer
with Groff, and reading the resulting PDF with xpdf or qtpdfview.
Actually, I'm using Emacs to write this, whilst Claws-Mail sits in the
background.)

Y'know, it occurs to me that what you might want is an Amiga.
Lovely systems they were.  Single user, multi-tasking.  You won't get
mine until you pry it out of my cold, dead hands.  :-)

I fear I can't help you with your Debian questions; I'm a Red Hat
kinda guy.

Hoping I didn't add too much noise to the conversation.

--Dale

-- 
Q:  Why did the Klingon color his hair blond?
A:  Because it was a good day to dye.


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Rpcdebug commands

[Dale Snell]

On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 12:42:19 -0700
John Jason Jordan joh...@comcast.net wrote:

 I'm reading the manpage for rpcdebug and entering commands as the
 manpage says, but always get an unintelligible error message. The
 manpage is hopelessly unclear, and offers no examples of commands.
 Does anyone have any ken of rpcdebug?
 
 Oh, and all I want to do is increase the verbosity to the max for
 everything.

Hi, John,

I've never used rpcdebug, but from the man page, I'd say the first
thing to do is issue a rpcdebug -vh.  That will get you a list
of all the flags.  Mind you, I have no idea what those flags
actually do, you you're on your own there.  However, the next
steps would probably be:

$ rpcdebug -v -m nfsd -s flags of choice here, or all
$ rpcdebug -v -m nfs -s flags of choice here, or all
$ rpcdebug -v -m rpc -s flags of choice here, or all

(I'm not sure what nlm is for, so I left it out.)

I hope this helps.

--Dale

-- 
The wombat lives across the seas, |  His distant habitat precludes  
Among the far Antipodes.  |  Conclusive knowledge of his moods. 
He may exist on nuts and berries, |  But I would not engage the wombat  
Or then again, on missionaries;   |  In any form of mortal combat.  


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Repairing a dead MacBook Pro

[Dale Snell]

On Wed, 17 Sep 2014 14:30:18 -0700
Loren M. Lang lor...@north-winds.org wrote:

 I'm assuming the power supply voltages are out of
 spec so I pulled out my voltmeter. Measuring the SATA power connector
 with the dead hard drive attached and Mac powered on, I found 5V on
 the 5V supply lines and no voltage on the 12V or 3.3V lines. No
 indication of something that might kill a logic board, but I would
 expect to see 12V on the supply.

Okay, this is wrong.  There should be a +12V supply at the drive pins.
It's not surprising that there isn't a +3.3V logic supply.  Most
drives don't use it, so most manufacturer's don't provide it.
However, the 12 volt supply is required, and should always be
there.  Did you measure the voltages with the drive plugged in or
not?  The presence or absence of a load can make quite a
difference.

Also, did you check for an AC component on the supply pins?  Or
better yet, use an oscilloscope on them?  It's entirely possible
to have high-amplitude AC coming out of the power supply, yet
still have it read the proper DC voltage with a meter.  That sort
of thing can fry your logic board.  (Heed the Voice of Experience,
my son.)

Hope this helps.

--Dale

--
Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them the
usual way.  This happens to us all the time with computers, and
nobody thinks of complaining.
-- Jeff Raskin


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Identifying Why One Web Site Will Not Load

[Dale Snell]

On Tue, 16 Sep 2014 17:55:24 -0700
Bill Barry b...@billbarry.org wrote:

 On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 4:59 PM, Rich Shepard
 rshep...@appl-ecosys.com wrote:
  On Tue, 16 Sep 2014, wes wrote:
 
  The fact that your browser can load http://140.211.15.75 but not
  http://grass.osgeo.org pretty much eliminates any issue that could
  exist between your workstation and the webserver. Remaining
  possibilities include an element on the page which is interrupting
  loading, or a server configuration which only affects your setup,
  or a small enough group that you're the only one among us who
  belongs to that group.
 
  wes,
 
 It is quite irrational, I agree. That I could not load several
  of the mirrors may or may not be a related issue.
 
 At least now I can access a mirror site so I'll wait to see if
  something changes back in the future.
 
 Age discrimination? :-)
 
 Very likely just makes them load slower and look slightly blurry.
 
 
 
 Only some of the mirrors work for me also. Do these match up with
 what you see?
 
 USA Tier 1 http site
 http://mirror.quintex.com/grass  does not load
 
 http://grass.meteo.uni.wroc.pl/works
 
 http://grass.unibuc.ro/   404
 
 http://grass.milthi.me/works
 
 http://grass.fsv.cvut.cz/works
 
 don't see any listings for French, German or Italian mirrors on the
 current site.
 
 Bill

For grins and giggles (and too much time on my hands), I tried all
the mirrors listed on the grass.osgeo.org site.  To wit:

USA: 
quintex.com is down, both sites.  Ping returns zero packets.

Sweden:
http://grass.milthi.me  System is up, but server won't answer.

Czech Republic:
http://grass.fsv.cvut.cz  System down; ping returns zero packets.

Romania:
http://grass.unibuc.ro  System down; ping returns zero packets.

Korea:
http://pinus.gntech.ac.kr/grass  Works

Japan:
http://wgrass.media.osaka-cu.ac.jp/grassh/   Works

India:
http://wgbis.ces.iisc.ernet.in/grass/Works

Indonesia:
http://grass.gis.co.id   Site redirected to a shopping site,
http://www.dealdiskon.com/  (The Grass site has the correct
address, somebody is playing games.)

China:
http://grass.osgeo.cn/   Works

South Africa:
http://grass.mirror.ac.za   Opens a page of links to many
mirrors.  The grass.mirror.ac.az link re-opens the links page.
the ftp://grass.mirror.ac.za link works.

Namibia:
http://grass.polytechnic.edu.na/ Works

The wiki site also works.

Though I said that some of the systems were down, it's very
possible that there's been an Internet hiccup of some sort.  It's
not like this sort of thing hasn't happened before.


Hope this helps, or at least adds a few data points.

--Dale

--
The attitude of 'Oh, you want it should work?  That costs extra!'
is the biggest security hole in computer software today.
-- Anon., paraphrased (anybody know the real source?)


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Can't find a file

[Dale Snell]

On Thu, 11 Sep 2014 20:43:30 -0700
John Jason Jordan joh...@comcast.net wrote:

 However, although I found the file, I still get:
 
   find: `./.cache/dconf': Permission denied
 
 As well as the file I was looking for. Why does it do that? 

You don't have permission to enter the directory ./.cache/dconf.
Therefore, find doesn't either, since you started it.  It's just
letting you know that there was a directory it couldn't enter to
scan.

--Dale

--
That is what I like!  Little things hitting each other!
-- Napoleon Bonaparte, Time Bandits


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Determining Why Perl Script Fails

[Dale Snell]

On Wed, 6 Aug 2014 07:39:16 -0700 (PDT)
Rich Shepard rshep...@appl-ecosys.com wrote:

After changing logwatch.pl to send its reports by mail the script
 worked for a few days. Today it failed completely. That is, running
 from the command line produces no output in the virtual terminal so
 apparently there's nothing to report via mail either.

Running logwatch.pl via strace produces a 600+K output file with
 appropriate pauses when running while the script reads and summarizes
 log files. The strace output tells _me_ nothing.
 
Considering that logwatch.pl has run faithfully each day for years
 I suspect that there's something in the upgrade to version 7.4.0 that
 is at the root of the problem.
 
There are many perl mongers amoung you and I would appreciate
 guidance on determing where the script fails and advice on how to fix
 it ... finally.

I'm not a Perl monger, but I have a suggestion or two:

Try running the strace output file through grep, looking for the
string ERR or ENO.  It's a long shot, but it can't hurt to
try.

What options did you specify for strace (it has so very many)?  It
can make quite a difference in the output.

Also, you might try running logwatch with the --debug n option,
where n is an integer running from 0 to 100.  I've never done
this, and the man page does say it will _really_ clutter up your
output, but what the hey?  I'd try something low, like 10, just to
start.


Sorry I couldn't be of more help.

--Dale

--
Bring on the lightning!  We'll build a monster for fun!
Bring on the lightning!  We'll turn him loose when we're done!
It's very frightening -- See how the villagers run!
Pull that switch and catch the lightning -- Before the storm is done!
  -- from Girl Genius, sung to the tune of the Beer Barrel Polka


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Determining Why Perl Script Fails

[Dale Snell]

On Wed, 6 Aug 2014 11:35:27 -0700 (PDT)
Rich Shepard rshep...@appl-ecosys.com wrote:

 On Wed, 6 Aug 2014, Dale Snell wrote:
 
  Try running the strace output file through grep, looking for the
  string ERR or ENO.  It's a long shot, but it can't hurt to
  try.
 
 Dale,
 
No errors, but some ENOTTY; don't know if those are new or were
 always there.

ENOTTY is an error; one could translate it as Error: No Terminal.
At a guess, logwatch tried to open a device or file as a target to
recieve its standard output, and failed.  Why, I do not know.  It's
going to take some more troubleshooting, I'm afraid.

--Dale

--
Vir:  I thought the purpose of filing these reports was to provide
accurate intelligence.

Londo Mollari:  Vir, intelligence has nothing to do with politics.
-- _Babylon 5_, Point of No Return


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Trying to avoid the ls limit

[Dale Snell]

On Sun, 3 Aug 2014 13:33:43 -0700
website reader website.read...@gmail.com wrote:

 To bash gurus:
 
 I just now ran into the wall while processing files in a long
 simulation run, there are over 50,000 files in one directory and now
 the bash shell expansion wild card character * is expanding command
 line arguments and then the infamous too many argments message is
 given.  This is particularly bad while trying the ls command: ls
 *file*  ( I apparently understand that there is a limitation in the
 readdir() command buffer size)

Randall,

I believe the xargs(1) command can help you here.

--Dale

--
Duct tape is like the Force.  It has a light side, a dark side,
and it holds the universe together.   --Carl Zwanzig


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Computer hell

[Dale Snell]

On Mon, 21 Jul 2014 10:54:54 -0700
John Jason Jordan joh...@comcast.net wrote:

 Yesterday, just before shutting down my System76 Bonobo Extreme laptop
 (Sager NP9380) to go to the Clinic I applied a number of updates to my
 Xubuntu 13.10 x86_64. When I restarted it at the Clinic I noticed that
 it was taking a very long time to boot Eventually I shut it down and
 restarted it, after which it booted normally. Grub is set to quiet
 so I can't say what it was hanging on. 


That's why I always turn off the Red Hat graphical startup and the
quiet mode.  I like to see what's happening.  Fedora's graphical
startup screen isn't all that entertaining anyway.
 

 Several hours later the screen suddenly became distorted. It appeared
 as if there was some RF interference that was causing static. After
 puzzling about it I rebooted, which went fast as it usually does, and
 the video problem disappeared. The video is a GeForce GTX 750M, and I
 am using only the Intel video in the chip.


Hmm.  Sounds like perhaps the machine was overheating?  I'm not
sure what to say.  Except perhaps, to see if your laptop is still
in warranty.


 When I got home I restarted the computer and it proceeded normally.
 However, my computer life was about to enter hell. I spent an hour
 updating the PLUG flyer, intending to print new ones for OSCON, only
 to discover that my network had lost the conection to the printer. It
 took an hour to solve the problem (I *hate* network issues!), and
 then I discovered that there is something wrong with the cyan in the
 printer. An hour later I gave up trying to fix it. We'll have to make
 do with the old flyers.


Can't help much with the printer, I'm afraid.  Except to ask: have
you've tried to run a self-test page from the printer directly?
The cyan ink port may have plugged in the printhead; running the
printer's cleaning routine may help.


 I continued with other things at he computer, and as I was doing so I
 knocked a liter of soda directly into the keyboard. I dried it up as
 much as I could, and it seemed to be functioning normally, although
 occasionally a key would give me an unexpected result, like a shift-W
 would suddenly switch to another workspace. It continued to work until
 I went to bed.


OUCH!  Soda (or coffee, tea, whatever) and keyboards do NOT mix
well.  How did you dry it up?  Your best bet would have been to
shut down the computer, disconnect the power supply and remove the
battery.  The rinse the keyboard gently with warm water;
de-ionized would probably be best.  (Yes, I know, it sounds
terrible -- water and electronics don't mix! -- but how do you
think the electronics are cleaned at the factory?)  Soda will
leave a lot of sugar and other residue, which will cause major
keyboard malfunctions if it isn't removed.  The rest of the laptop
would probably benefit as well.  Once it's been cleaned, allow it
to air dry _thoroughly_.  Overnight in a dish rack would be a good
place.

If you don't know how to remove the keyboard, check the user's
manual that should have come with the laptop.  If one didn't,
google for it on the web.  It should show you how to remove the
keyboard.  Find some way to store the screws -- an egg carton
would work well.  Or perhaps a set of pill bottles.  They're very
easy to lose.  Very easy.

 
 This morning the keyboard was mostly dead. Occasionally a key would do
 something, but always some bizarre result. I decided to reboot, and as
 it was shutting down the screen started flashing continually and the
 shutdown process was hung. Eventually I just hit the power button.
 When I rebooted I got the Grub menu instead of booting directly as it
 normally does (probably because of he abnormal shutdown). I could not
 progress because the keyboard was not working (Grub menu doesn't
 recognize the mouse). It occurred to me to borrow the USB keyboard
 from my desktop in order to continue booting, but it did not work.
 Eventually I decided to reboot again, and when I did so the keyboard
 from the desktop worked to get me into the BIOS; in other words, if
 the USB keyboard works as early as the BIOS, the failure to recognize
 the keyboard must be a problem somewhere in Grub or Ubuntu.


Yeah, this looks like the soda dried inside the keyboard.  Once
you've got the keyboard removed, you can soak it in warm water.
Clean water won't hurt the keyboard, so long as it's unplugged.

 
 I called System76 just now and a replacement keyboard will cost
 probably $100.


OUCH!  Again!  I'd definitely try cleaning the keyboard before I
spent that kind of money.


 I'm going for a walk to clear my head. Meantime, any suggestions are
 welcome. 


Sounds like a plan.  Anyway, I hope my little suggestions help.

--Dale

--
Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them the
usual way.  This happens to us all the time with computers, and
nobody thinks of complaining.  -- Jeff Raskin


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature

Re: [PLUG] ntpd and subnet

[Dale Snell]

On Thu, 26 Jun 2014 12:03:11 -0700 (PDT)
Rich Shepard rshep...@appl-ecosys.com wrote:

 On Thu, 26 Jun 2014, Larry Brigman wrote:
 
  I just looked at adjtimex. This is a c call that is used to adjust
  the kernel clock not the hwclock. It is what ntpd uses.
 
 Larry,
 
I've not had need, nor interest, in delving into the differences
 between kernel, system, and hardware clocks. My concern was to get
 the two portables keeping the correct time as they had before.

There are two adjtimex()s.  The one Larry mentioned is
adjtimex(2), which is indeed a C call, and not something you'd
want to play around with.  The one I was talking about is
adjtimex(8), which is a user program.  You may have to install it
on its own; it doesn't seem to be part of an OS install setup.
(It's a pretty old program, and not used much anymore.  Given the
ubiquity of wireless Ethernet, there's no longer as much need for
it.)

 
While /usr/sbin/ntpd is run from /etc/rc.d/rc.ntpd when systems
 boot, for some reason that is not sufficient for the Sony and
 Toshiba. But, running it again from /etc/rc.d/rc.local at the end of
 the boot sequence fixed the problem, at least on the Toshiba. Getting
 the Sony booting again is on Saturday afternoon's schedule, and I
 expect that it will also keep correct time by the extra invocation of
 ntpd.

Sounds like rc.ntpd is running before the network gets set up.
You might try changing the order in which the rc.d/* programs are
run.

--Dale

--
Things are more like they used to be than they are now.


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Compile error

[Dale Snell]

On Wed, 25 Jun 2014 17:54:09 -0700
John Jason Jordan joh...@comcast.net wrote:

Hi, John,

Just to satisfy my 'satiable curiosity I looked into the SleepyHead
program.  

 Apparently the make command uses stuff found in a text file called
 sleepyhead.pro.

No, make reads the file Makefile.  The Makefile has the
instructions that make needs to (re)compile the program source
file(s).

SleepyHeadQT.pro is a project file, which I assume (HAH!) is
read by qmake.  I could be worng, of course.

 I read it and there were some references to serialport
 and qextserialport, but I don't know exactly what I need to fix. I
 searched in Synaptic for qt and serial and several other
 possibilities, but didn't come up with anything that sounded like it
 might be what is missing.

Read the file .../3rdparty/qextserialport/README in the SleepyHead
sources.  Also, take a look at the web site

http://code.google.com/p/qextserialport/

(referenced in the README file).  Those should tell you what you
need, I think.  It looks to me like you'll have to build and
install the qextserialport package on your own.

Hope this helps.

--Dale

--
Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them the
usual way.  This happens to us all the time with computers, and
nobody thinks of complaining.-- Jeff Raskin


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] ntpd and subnet

[Dale Snell]

On Tue, 24 Jun 2014 10:49:20 -0700 (PDT)
Rich Shepard rshep...@appl-ecosys.com wrote:

The ethernet-connected hosts here have static IP addresses. The
 wireless access point serves dynamic IP addresses on a different
 subnet. Only two portables use the WAP and both have a time keeping
 issue: each machine gains time and can get days ahead.
 
While many of us wish we could gain time so everything can be
 accomplished, for the computers it is not desired. One laptop, a
 Toshiba Satellite running Slackware-14.1 booted and thought it was
 Thursday, June 26th, and 5:17 pm when it was only an hour ago. I
 reset the date and time, ran 'hwclock -w' to set the hardware clock
 to the system time, and shut down. Realizing that the reason users
 cannot run alsamixer was not having their usernames in the audio
 group, I rebooted. The system gagged because the last time /dev/sda1
 was checked was Thursday the 26th and now it is Tuesday the 24th and
 it doesn't know how to deal with back to the past. That was fixed by
 running 'e2fsck -v -y' and waiting.
 
So, now the kernel is happy, and I need to figure out why only the
 two portables that connect to the 'Net wirelessly through the WAP
 keep gaining time. I've set up one of the laptops to use na.pool ntp
 servers but it still keeps gaining time. My Web searches and thread
 on linuxquestions.org have produced no solution for the one laptop;
 just this morning I saw the second has the same problem and realized
 the common factor is wireless connectivity.
 
Any ideas of why only the portables connecting via the WAP keep
 gaining time would be much appreciated. Also, any diagnostics or
 tests I can run to isolate the source of the problem would be good.


I really doubt that running over the wireless network has anything
to do with your problem.  So...

First off, make sure you have ntpd running on your laptops.  You
can use ntpdate(8) to set the time if you need to.  ntpdate is
deprecated; 'ntpd -q' is the replacement.

If your laptop's hardware clock gains too much while the laptop is
off, then you might want to look into the adjtimex(8) program.  It
will let you set up a correction factor that will keep the
hardware clock within reasonable limits.  You'll have to leave
your laptop running for quite a while, the longer the better.  The
man page for adjtimex(8) will tell you what you need to know.

Anyway, I hope this helps.

--Dale

--
Yet creeds mean very little, Coth answered the dark god, still speaking
almost gently.  The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all
possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.
-- James Branch Cabell, The Silver Stallion


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] NFS again

[Dale Snell]

On Sun, 22 Jun 2014 19:28:26 -0700
John Jason Jordan joh...@comcast.net wrote:

 It's hard for me to remember anything in all my years of using
 computers that is as big a PITA as NFS.
 
 It was working fine yesterday. Today, without touching anything,
 suddenly the client can't see the files on the share. Thunar hangs
 when I try to open a window to display the share; Nautilus just
 presents a spinning cursor, but at least I can exit gracefully
 without having to kill it.
 
 From the command line on the client the mount command executes without
 error and df -h says the share is mounted. However, when I try to
 umount the share I get error messages that the share is busy. I even
 tried umount -f, but it still says the share is busy and won't umount
 it. And the terminal window hangs if I try to cd to the share; that
 is, I can cd right up to the folder I want to see, but just typing the
 first letter of the folder hangs the terminal window, as does the ls
 command. That probably means something, but Google won't tell me what.
 
 The server is the laptop, Xubuntu 13.10, up to date, and the client is
 the desktop, Xubuntu 12.04, up to date. The share is the /media folder
 on the laptop, and the files I want to see are on an external USB
 drive, mounted at /media/jjj/Movies on the laptop. The laptop has no
 problem displaying or manipulating the files in the Movies folder.
 
 Suggestions for things to poke at would be welcome.

John,

You might try fuser(1) or lsof(8) from the client to see what is
trying to use your NFS share.  You could try from the server, too,
since that could hold things up.  I've had occasion to use both,
and they're usually pretty helpful, though not always.  The man
pages for both are pretty long, but the most helpful forms of the
commands are simply 'command /path/to/share'.  Once you've got
the name/PID of the offending program, you can kill it.

Anyway, I hope this helps.

--Dale

--
+--+  +--+  +---+  +-+  +---+
| Space is |  | Space is |  | It's Hard |  | A Place |  | Burma |
|   Big|  |   Dark   |  |  to Find  |  | to Park |  | Shave |
+--+  +--+  +---+  +-+  +---+




signature.asc
Description: PGP signature
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Slackware-14.1/x86_64: Need to install kmod to boot

[Dale Snell]

On Tue, 10 Jun 2014 11:52:52 -0700 (PDT)
Rich Shepard rshep...@appl-ecosys.com wrote:

At the logo screen, I tried all 12 function keys to reach the BIOS
 settings, but none worked.

Rich,

Try the DELETE key.  That works for some motherboards.

Hope this helps.

--Dale

--
Penn's aunts made great apple pies at low prices.  No one else
in town could compete with the pie rates of Penn's aunts.
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] OS not responding to laptop touchpad

[Dale Snell]

On Fri, 06 Jun 2014 16:47:37 -0700
Dick Steffens d...@dicksteffens.com wrote:

 I'm guessing this is because I had a mouse plugged in when I did the 
 install, but my laptop does not respond to the touch pad or its 
 associated buttons. How do I figure this one out?
 
 The hardware is an Acer Aspire 1640Z. The OS is Linux Mint 13 Maya.
 I've just spent a week with it as my only machine (over at our
 timeshare in Lincoln City) and, as near as I can tell, the rest of it
 works fine.
 
 Thanks.


Dick,

Check out the man pages for synclient(1) and synaptics(4).  The
former is a command line tool to control the driver, which is
documented in the latter.  The bulk of the information you may
want is in the driver man page, rather than the control man page.
(You need both, however.)

You should find them quite informative.

Hope this helps.

--Dale

--
We are all born charming, fresh and spontaneous and must be
civilized before we are fit to participate in society.
-- Judith Martin, Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly
   Correct Behaviour
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Network is unreachable

[Dale Snell]

On Sat, 17 May 2014 10:22:09 -0700 (PDT)
Rich Shepard rshep...@appl-ecosys.com wrote:

 On Sat, 17 May 2014, John Jason Jordan wrote:
 
  And evidently the cat managed to dislodge the connection between the
  extension cord and the wall wart, so one of the switches had lost
  its power connection.
 
So, it turned out to be a Cat1 problem, not a Cat5 problem.
 Interesting. I guess now when you have network problems you need to
 do a cat scan first.

In the more general case, you should probably go for a pet scan.  That
will catch dogs (especially puppies), rabbits, gerbils, as well as the
random(3) cat(1).

--Dale

--
Q:  Why did the Klingon color his hair blond?
A:  Because it was a good day to dye.
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Firefox 24.x: Automatically Clear Download History

[Dale Snell]

On Thu, 1 May 2014 17:42:36 -0700 (PDT)
Rich Shepard rshep...@appl-ecosys.com wrote:

Prior versions of firefox had a preferences option to clear the
 download history after each download; version 24.x apparently does
 not. I've looked through all preferences and searched the Web without
 finding anything pertinent to firefox versions  5 or so.
 
Does anyone here know how this can be set?
 
 TIA,
 
 Rich

In my Firefox, the Privacy page of Preferences has a Clear
history when Firefox closes checkbox.  Of course, I'm running
Firefox v28, not v24.  Perhaps you should upgrade?

--Dale

--
Q.  Why did the Klingon color his hair blond?
A.  Because it was a good day to dye.
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Alternatives to Firefox Thunderbird

[Dale Snell]

On Fri, 4 Apr 2014 07:22:05 -0700
John Jason Jordan joh...@comcast.net wrote:

 On Fri, 4 Apr 2014 06:02:46 -0700 (PDT)
 Rich Shepard rshep...@appl-ecosys.com dijo:
 
There's Opera, Google Chromium, and the text-based lynx and linx
  as
 browsers and Google Mail for ... well, mail. Unless you prefer
 alpine, mutt, or elm.
 
 I started years ago with Sylpheed, and now use the Claws Mail fork.
 It's rock solid, fairly simple, yet can even read html mail, if you're
 foolish enough to want to. 

Like John I started with Sylpheed and switched to the Claws-Mail
fork.  It's been very solid and easy to set up.  Claws-Mail offers
some very easy-to-use filtering abilities.  I subscribe to a
number of mailing lists, and have my mail from each one split out
into separate folders.  I also have multiple accounts, which are
split out in the same fashion.


--Dale

--
Q:  Why did the Klingon color his hair blond?
A:  Because it was a good day to dye.
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Mount point of optical drive

[Dale Snell]

On Thu, 26 Dec 2013 12:21:33 -0800
John Jason Jordan joh...@comcast.net wrote:

 On Thu, 26 Dec 2013 12:04:23 -0800
 Michael Rasmussen mich...@jamhome.us dijo:
 
 On Thu, Dec 26, 2013 at 11:35:30AM -0800, John Jason Jordan wrote:
  I wish to access files stored on CDs. I place the CD in the drive
  and close the door, and Xubuntu 13.10 automatically mounts it. The
  files are visible in Thunar. But I want to access the files from
  the command line. I can't figure out what the mount point is.
 
 df -h provides a clean and easy to read listing. 
 
 Much easier!
 
 $ df -h
 Filesystem  Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
 /dev/sdb177G  8.3G   65G  12% /
 none4.0K 0  4.0K   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
 udev7.9G  4.0K  7.9G   1% /dev
 tmpfs   1.6G  1.2M  1.6G   1% /run
 none5.0M 0  5.0M   0% /run/lock
 none7.9G  308K  7.9G   1% /run/shm
 none100M   36K  100M   1% /run/user
 /dev/sdb2   321G  181G  124G  60% /home
 /dev/sdc2.7T  783G  1.8T  30% /media/jjj/Movies
 
 But I still don't see the optical drive. 

Hi John,

Try the lsblk(1) command; it should show all block devices on your
system, whether mounted or not.  Mounted devices, whether mounted by
mount(8) or not, will have their mount points listed.  In your case, I
suspect that your CD-ROM is mounted somewhere like this:
/run/media/jjj/name-of-CD-ROM.  The actual block device should be
sr0 or sr1, assuming you have two optical drives on line.

Anyway, I hope this helps.

--Dale

--
Don't anthropomorphize computers.  They hate it when you do that.
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Mount point of optical drive

[Dale Snell]

On Thu, 26 Dec 2013 12:49:45 -0800
John Jason Jordan joh...@comcast.net wrote:

 Everywhere on this computer I find references to sr0, so I'm pretty
 sure it's /dev/sr0. But:
 
 $ sudo mount /dev/sr0 /mnt
 mount: block device /dev/sr0 is write-protected, mounting read-only
 mount: /dev/sr0: can't read superblock
 
 $ sudo mount -t iso9660 /dev/sr0 /mnt
 mount: block device /dev/sr0 is write-protected, mounting read-only
 mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sr0,
missing codepage or helper program, or other error
In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
dmesg | tail  or so
 
 Superblock?

The Superblock is a block in the file system that tells the system
how big the file system is, how long the blocks are, its options,
the label, the uuid, and so on and so forth.  There are usually
several copies of this block scattered throughout the file system.
That's for regular Unix-style file systems.  I don't know if the
ISO9660 file system even has a superblock.  We'll need someone
more knowledgeable than I to clear that up.

--Dale

--
The 25120 is easily cooled by employment of a six-foot fan, 1/2
inch from the package.  If the device fails, you have exceeded the
ratings.  In such cases, more air is recommended.
-- From a Signetics data sheet.
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Stupid NFS question - Progress!

[Dale Snell]

On Mon, 23 Dec 2013 20:28:34 -0800
John Jason Jordan joh...@comcast.net wrote:

%-- SNIP! --%

 Then I did sudo chmod 777 -R /media, which produced
 error messages:
 
   chmod: changing permissions of /media/jjj/Devil-Bonobo:
   Operation not permitted
 
 And so on for everything in /media.
 
 Using Thunar I checked on Properties for /media/jjj and it said that
 it was owned by root:root. I assume that it was owned by root because
 I had to use sudo to mount it. But that doesn't make sense. We always
 have to use sudo to mount things, but the regular user can still see
 them after they are mounted. And how is it that root cannot change
 permissions?

I ran across this once.  Thunar won't help here, nor any of the
GUI file managers.  You'll need to do an lsattr(8) of jjj whilst
in /media.  You should get something like this:

-e-- ./backtrace.txt
-e-- ./ligature-test.mom
-e-- ./compose_key_combos.txt

If there is an i in the first column, you have an immutable
file.  You'll have to use chattr(1) to change the attribute.
chattr -i /media/jjj SHOULD do what you need -- the -i means
remove the i attribute, rather than option i.

 I wonder if it is possible to mount a filesystem at more than one
 place simultaneously. Movies has to stay mounted at /media/jjj because
 Ktorrent is seeding torrent data located there. Changing data
 locations in Ktorrent is a major pain (I've had to do it). But if I
 could mount movies simultaneously in ~/, then the ~/ share should
 suffice, since it is working.

Yeeesss, but I'd try the lsattr(1)/chattr(1) method before doing
that.  Look up Bind and Loop mounts in the mount(8) man page.  I'm
leery of doing something like this for fear that, with one worng
keystroke, I could hose an entire filesystem.

BTW, the question popped up earlier about an fstab entry for
removable drives.  Here's what I use for the drive holding my
music:

  # MusicData has my music collection in it.
  UUID=fs-uuid  /srv/musicdata  ext4  noauto,users  0  0

This allows me to mount/umount the drive as myself, rather than root.
Since the last two fields (0 0) are zeros, you could simply leave them
off.  The zero in the fifth field tells the system not to use dump(8)
to back up that fs.  (Does anyone still use dump?)  The sixth field
tells the system when and if to run fsck at boot time.  This one MUST
be zero, which tells the system to skip this fs.  Otherwise, if the
drive is not connected you get dropped into an emergency shell in the
middle of boot-up.  Such a lovely surprise.  Ask me how I know.

Anyway, I hope this helps.

--Dale

--
I recall hearing that highly-classified data must be destroyed by
physically shredding the medium.  Yes, throw your disk drive in
the shredder!  (Just imagine the class of machinery required to
digest an RA81 HDA.)  -- Mark Wood on linux-kernel
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Clonezilla 'n stuff

[Dale Snell]

On Mon, 16 Dec 2013 22:48:56 -0800
John Jason Jordan joh...@comcast.net wrote:

 On Mon, 16 Dec 2013 21:21:38 -0800
 David dafr+p...@dafr.us dijo:
 
 Lastly, what does the BIOS/EFI say is the order of the two drives?
 If one is the master and the other the slave, that might also be
 stomping on you, but not knowing anything about the laptop, I can't
 help you beyond that.
 
 I don't recall seeing anything about masters and slaves. Both are
 SATA3 drives. Do SATA drives even have master/slave settings? Having
 said that, I am curious how the BIOS decides which is the hard drive
 to boot to. 

Er, no, with SATA drives it's one cable--one drive.  They don't do the
whole Master/Slave bit.  That's for PATA and older drives.

--Dale

--
Text processing has made it possible to right-justify any idea, even
one which cannot be justified on any other grounds.
-- J. Finnegan, USC.
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Emacs: save marked lines to new file

[Dale Snell]

On Thu, 7 Nov 2013 08:27:23 -0800 (PST)
Rich Shepard rshep...@appl-ecosys.com wrote:

When I have a large data file I want to save blocks of lines to
 separate files without saving the entire buffer with a new name.
 
My Web search foo is not working this morning: I cannot write a
 search string to find how to save selected lines in a buffer to a
 different file name (there's no menu option for doing this).
 
Pointer appreciated.
 
 Rich

The following command will do what you want:

M-x write-region

You'll have to set the region first, of course.

--Dale

--
If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most
honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged.
-- Cardinal Richelieu
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Emacs: save marked lines to new file

[Dale Snell]

On Thu, 7 Nov 2013 10:16:14 -0800 (PST)
Rich Shepard rshep...@appl-ecosys.com wrote:

 On Thu, 7 Nov 2013, Dale Snell wrote:
 
  The following command will do what you want:
 M-x write-region
 
Thanks, Dale. I was looking for a key stoke chord, but this will
 certainly do the job. I need to find a list of all these commands; the
 one I use the most is M-x revert-buffer.

C-x RET r will execute revert-buffer-with-coding-system (there being
no plain revert-buffer that I can find).  The manual makes it plain
that the Emacs authors consider that command rather dangerous.  You
can use the  undo  command (C-_ or C-/) more safely.

You can get a list of keybindings with the command C-h b (or f1 b).
Also, the PDF Emacs manual (which I consider easier to read than
the .info version) has the function/command and keybindings indexes.

Hope this helps.

--Dale

--
Don't only practice your Art, but force your way into its
Secrets, for it and Knowledge can raise Men to the Divine.
-- Ludwig van Beethoven
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Emacs: save marked lines to new file

[Dale Snell]

On Thu, 7 Nov 2013 10:45:50 -0800 (PST)
Rich Shepard rshep...@appl-ecosys.com wrote:

 
Just as easy to mark a region (keyboard or pointy device), then press
 ctrl-x w to cut and ctrl-x y to yank it back.
 

That procedure works fine, except that it marks the buffer as
modified.  That can be fixed with M-~ .  So, being terminally lazy, I
created a macro in my .init.el:

(global-set-key (kbd C-x w) 'copy-region-as-kill)

I do quite a bit of copy/paste, and this command makes things more
convenient.

--Dale

--
Have you any idea how successful censorship is on TV?  Don't
know the answer?  Hmm.  Successful, isn't it?  -- Max Headroom
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Emacs: save marked lines to new file

[Dale Snell]

On Thu, 7 Nov 2013 12:18:48 -0800 (PST)
Rich Shepard rshep...@appl-ecosys.com wrote:

 On Thu, 7 Nov 2013, Dale Snell wrote:
 
  That procedure works fine, except that it marks the buffer as modified.
 
Well, it is modified if I delete content.
 
  So, being terminally lazy, I created a macro in my .init.el:
 
  (global-set-key (kbd C-x w) 'copy-region-as-kill)
  I do quite a bit of copy/paste, and this command makes things more
  convenient.
 

When I want to copy a marked block I use C-x w followed by C-x y.
 Doesn't need an additional macro.

???

Do you perhaps mean C-w (kill-region)?  I chose C-x w specifically
because that key combo was not bound to anything else.  Also, while
kill-region / yank-region leaves the buffer essentially unchanged, the
buffer is still marked as modified.  That's why I created that little
bit of code.  I got tired of telling Emacs that yes, I know the buffer
is modified and no, I really do not want to save it.

Also, what is C-x y?  It's not in my copy of the manual.

--Dale

--
America believes in education: the average professor earns more
money in a year than a professional athlete earns in a whole
week.-- Evan Esar
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] I killed my desktop

[Dale Snell]

On Sat, 26 Oct 2013 13:02:51 -0700
John Jason Jordan joh...@comcast.net wrote:

 Having discovered that I could hot-plug the other 320 GB drive I tried
 it with the 1 TB drive. But the result was not what I hoped for. The
 disk light came on and stayed on continuously and Xubuntu did not
 mount the drive. I don't know what this means, and since the drive is
 not visible to Xubuntu, or even the BIOS, there is no way to do
 diagnostics on it. The only thing I can think of to try is to install
 it in another desktop computer with SATA ports to see if it is
 recognized. 

Download and install the iotop package.  You'll have to run it as
root, but it should tell you what process is hogging the drive.  The
drive is probably bad, but it doesn't hurt to check.

Anyway, hope this helps.

--Dale

--
The attitude of Oh, you want it should work?  That costs extra!
is the biggest security hole in computer software today.
-- Anon., paraphrased (anybody know the real source?)
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] odd date command behavior for the starting Daylight time in a year

[Dale Snell]

On Wed, 25 Sep 2013 22:06:33 -0700
website reader website.read...@gmail.com wrote:

 To the KPLUG community:

KPLUG?

PLUGH!

 I got invalid data warnings for all the March dates on the shell
 script file, but changing the time to 03:00:00 fixed this problem.  Is
 something wrong with the tzfile or ???
 
 The problem occurred on my Ubuntu machine when checking daylight
 savings time EPOCH values for the years 2010 to 2015.
 
 I am curious to see if this occurs on other machines?
 
 Randall

--% snip! %--

Just tried your script, got the same problem.  I tried subtracting one
day from all the March dates and everything worked.

Those March days are all Daylight Saving Time switchover days, aren't
they?  (If they're not, I'm going to look really stupid...)  There is
no 2:00AM hour on those days, thus the dates really are invalid.

--Dale

--
IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD!  Or the beginning.  Hmph.  End, begin,
all the same.  Big change.  Sometimes good.  Sometimes bad.
-- Aughra, _The Dark Crystal_
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Looking for the grub-emu info page

[Dale Snell]

On Fri, 20 Sep 2013 23:11:25 -0700
Michael Dexter dex...@ambidexter.com wrote:

 I am looking for the grub-emu info (not man!) page referenced in the man
 page:
 
 http://manned.org/grub-emu/9e965fe3
 
 
 The  full  documentation  for grub-emu is maintained as a Texinfo
 manual. If the info and grub-emu programs are properly installed  at
 your  site, the command
 
 info grub-emu
 
 should give you access to the complete manual.
 
 
 Could someone please shoot me a copy of this info page or a link to it?
 
 Thanks!
 
 Michael


I found a list of files in Debian's grub-emu package.  Unfortunately,
as you can see here

http://packages.debian.org/squeeze/amd64/grub-emu/filelist

there does not seem to be a .info file, just the man page.  Fedora
does not support grub-emu at all.  I presume that Red Hat doesn't
either.

I suspect that you're going to have to download the grub2 sources
and compile them yourself, which will generate the doc files.
That's assuming that the grub-emu.info page actually exists, which
it may not.  My google-fu came up blank (i.e., zero pages) several
times.  Another thing you could try is emailing the GNU folks a
line asking about grub-emu.  If anyone could tell you where to get
the info page, they could.  Also, GNU supports a number of IRC
channels on freenode, including #grub and #gnu.  That might be
faster than emailing them.

Anyway, sorry I couldn't help more.  Best of luck to you.

--Dale

--
Yet creeds mean very little, Coth answered the dark god, still speaking
almost gently.  The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all
possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.
-- James Cabell, The Silver Stallion
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Trackball ball movement not smooth

[Dale Snell]

On Fri, 20 Sep 2013 10:45:48 -0700
Dick Steffens d...@dicksteffens.com wrote:

 I decided to try out a trackball a friend gave me. It was pretty dirty, 
 so I cleaned the ball and the socket with isopropyl alcohol. Before 
 cleaning the cursor response to the movement of the ball was jerky. Now 
 the cursor response is smooth, but the ball movement in the socket is 
 sticky. It's like I had cleaned some kind of lubricant off of it -- I'm 
 guessing that the ball is not lubricated, since that would likely get on 
 one's fingers -- but that's what it feels like.
 
 Any recommendations on how to get the ball to rotate smoothly in the socket?
 
I've never had a trackball, but I'm assuming (oh that word) that it's
rather like an old-fashioned ball-type mouse, only upside down.  If
so, there should be two orthagonal rollers.  Since you've cleaned the
socket out, there shouldn't be any lint or hair or whatever to foul
things up.  At a guess, you cleaned off some sort of lube from the
roller pins.  A touch of lube at each end of the pins should do the
trick.  I think it should, anyway.  Be sure that you don't get any
lube on the interrupters, or your cursor will skip around most
unpleasantly.

BTW, alcohol isn't the best thing to use on those hard rubber rollers.
Some rubber conditioner, like that for magnetic tape capstan rollers,
would be much better.

Anyway, I hope this helps.

--Dale

--
A thoughtful, educated populace is the enemy of governments
everywhere.  -- Unknown (From memory -- source please?)
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Flash Drive Recommendations?

[Dale Snell]

On Mon, 19 Aug 2013 09:37:58 -0700
Dick Steffens d...@dicksteffens.com wrote:

 Any horror stories related to flash drives?
 
 Those $20 Lenovo machines Kieth mentioned that are available at Eco 
 Binary don't have an optical media drive. So installing an OS would need 
 to be done with a flash drive (or some other way, but that's the one I'm 
 aware of).
 
 I'm looking at a SanDisk Cruzer 32 GB USB Flash Drive from Amazon.
 
 http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Cruzer-Flash-Drive-SDCZ36-032G-AFFP/dp/B007JR532M/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8qid=1376928931sr=8-3keywords=flash+drive
 
 There are two reviews that are somewhat contradictory. The first one 
 says the thing is actually a 64 GB and he's happy with it.
 
 The second one says the transfer rate is slow, and it hangs on him.
 
 Any experience with these things (USB flash drives in general) for 
 installing an OS?

The only thumb drive I've ever had go bad on me was an 8GB PNY unit.
OTOH, I have a couple of other PNYs that work just fine.  One of them
is the very first thumb drive I bought, with a whopping 256MB
capacity.  :-)  Most of my thumb drives Kensingtons, and I've never 
had any trouble with them.  I don't have any SanDisk thumb drives, so 
I can't say from personal experience how well they work.  I do have a
couple of microHD cards from them, and they work well enough.

I did just buy a new PNY 8GB drive (it was at the food checkout stand
at Fred Meyer :-) ), and I noticed something troubling -- the
connector shell is plastic, not metal.  Since the shell is both ground
and shielding, I don't consider that a good thing.  I'm sure it makes
the drive less expensive, but still.  The annoying thing is that you
can't tell this at the store.  The drive has a sleeve that slides up
to protect the connector when the drive's not in use, which of course
hides it.  I shant be buying any more of those.

I looked at the Amazon web page, and the reviews seem to be for the
entire line of that style of SanDisk thumb drives.  While most of the
reviews (and there are over 2000 of them) are positive, most of
them do note that the drive is slow.  It looks to me as if that whole
series of drives is slow.  From what I know of SanDisk's reputation,
it will probably work well.  Just very slowly.

I've never tried to use a thumb drive as an installation drive.  I
have used one as a live OS drive, and it worked nicely, so I assume
(HAH!) that it would work as an installation drive.  Since I have a
number of 2.5 hard drives, and the USB cases to put them in, I'd just
use one of them as an installation drive.  Or for that matter, I have
a portable USB DVD unit, if I really needed a DVD reader.

Hope this helps.

--Dale

--
I haven't lost my mind -- it's backed up on mag tape somewhere.
-- Peter da Silva
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Resolved: Flash Drive Recommendations?

[Dale Snell]

On Mon, 19 Aug 2013 10:39:58 -0700
Dick Steffens d...@dicksteffens.com wrote:

 I think I'll still look into using a USB flash drive for the install 
 media, though, even though the box I install on might have an optical 
 drive. Saves burning a DVD and can be reused.

My desktop system doesn't like booting to random USB devices.  I have
to reset the BIOS for every drive (but only one at a time!), and it
loses that setting once the drive's been removed.  So I don't bother
with booting from USB, and use DVDs.  OTOH, I got tired of burning two
DVDs every time a new Fedora release came out.  (One for my 64-bit
desktop, and one for the 32-bit laptop.)  So I bought a pack of 5
DVD-RW disks, and haven't had to burn (in more ways than one) a DVD
for Fedora since.  CD-RW disks work nicely for the Live CDs, too.  A
bit spendy at the outset, but I'm on my fifth release of Fedora on the
same pair of disks, so I consider it money well spent.  Just a
thought.

--Dale

--
Excess on occasion is exhilarating.  It prevents moderation from
acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.
-- W. Somerset Maugham
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Resolved: Flash Drive Recommendations?

[Dale Snell]

On Mon, 19 Aug 2013 11:35:18 -0700
Paul Mullen p...@nellump.net wrote:

 On Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 11:18:58AM -0700, Dale Snell wrote:
  My desktop system doesn't like booting to random USB devices.  I
  have to reset the BIOS for every drive (but only one at a time!),
  and it loses that setting once the drive's been removed.
 
 You can don't have to enter the Setup screen and alter the boot device
 priorities each time you plug in a new device if your BIOS supports
 the BIOS Boot Specification (which it should, unless the system is
 quite old).  When you first power-on your system, you should see
 something similar to Press F8 for BBS Popup.  (It may be Escape or
 F5 or some other key, depending on how the vendor configured the
 BIOS.)
 
   https://imageshack.us/a/img60/6793/bbsjpgne7.jpg

Nope, I don't get the BBS popup notification at all.  The Press DEL to
Setup shows up, of course, but not the other.  Obviously the desktop's
motherboard is a bit on the elderly side.  :-)  It's an Asus M2N-MX.

 The BBS popup menu presents a list of all bootable devices currently
 available.
 
   https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8049/8350750816_f589819597_b.jpg

This doesn't show on my desktop machine, either.  I do get it on my
laptop, though (a Dell Inspiron 9300).

--Dale

--
I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and
the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home
alone.-- Jack Valenti, MPAA president, testimony to the
House of Representatives, 1982.
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Belkin N900 Not Seen at 192.168.2.1

[Dale Snell]

On Sun, 11 Aug 2013 10:19:48 -0700 (PDT)
Rich Shepard rshep...@appl-ecosys.com wrote:

After many months I'm finally setting up the Belkin Advance N900
 wireless router. It's connected via a cat5 cable directly to my
 laptop. The default IP address for the Belkin is 192.168.2.1. When I
 enter that address (without the http protocol preceeding it, per the
 Belkin users manual) firefox responds by telling me that it cannot
 establish a connection to that server.
 
Opera also reports it cannot connect to a server at that IP
 address.
 
Is there anything obvious I've missed? If not, I will wait for
 next week's clinic and bring Belkin N900, laptop, cable, and myself
 there for help.

Try specifying the http:// protocol anyway.  You're going to be
connecting to an html page, so it can't hurt.  I think Belkin is
expecting the browser to prepend the protocol specifier automatically.
In these suspicious days, they may not do that anymore.

--Dale

--
A little paranoia is a good thing.  --me
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Tuning Setup of Belkin N900

[Dale Snell]

On Sun, 11 Aug 2013 15:15:40 -0700 (PDT)
Rich Shepard rshep...@appl-ecosys.com wrote:

On the Linksys and Asus wireless routers I could add static IP
 addresses, host names, and MAC addresses for the two portables here
 and restrict use of the wireless access to only those two. On the
 Belkin the page for client list is blank when neither portable is
 connected; I cannot add clients to that list. Also, the Belkin
 assigns 192.168.55.100 to my portable (which is an unused number),
 but /etc/hosts and related files know the portable as 192.168.55.2.
 Is there a way to associate static IP addresses of the two portables?
 When I tried setting the Belkin to use static IP addresses it was not
 happy with me. Perhaps I did not follow the protocol it wanted.

Have you turned DHCP off?  It sounds to me like the router is trying
to be a DHCP server.

--Dale

--
Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur
(The world wishes to be deceived, so let it be deceived.)
-- Attributed to the Roman satirist Petronius, first century AD.
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Need 32-bit Debian based user

[Dale Snell]

On Sat, 10 Aug 2013 08:04:11 -0700
John Jason Jordan joh...@comcast.net wrote:

 http://sourceforge.net/projects/ltc/?source=recommended
 
 The file is ltc-3.0.4-1.fc13.i386.rpm. 
 
 My Xubuntu did not come with alien installed, but sudo apt-get install
 alien will take care of it if your computer does not already have it. 
 
 I don't know if the resulting 32-bit .deb will install on 64-bit
 Xubuntu, but I can always hope. The 32-bit .rpm did install on 64-bit
 Fedora.

John,

No need to go through all that pain.  Go to the SourceForge
location for ltc:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/ltc/files/ltc/

Now go into the 3.1.0 directory.  There you will find a .deb file
for the latest version of ltc.  Also the source file (.tar.gz).
To be honest, I'd probably grab the source file.  But I'm strange
that way.  :-)

As for installing 32-bit programs on a 64-bit system, that
shouldn't be a problem, so long as you've got the right
libraries.  You should have two /usr/lib* directories: /usr/lib
and either /usr/lib32 or /usr/lib64.  Red Hat and Fedora use
lib64, but I think Debian and the 'buntus use lib32.  The number
tells you the bittage (if you will) of the libraries in said
directory.

Hope this helps.

--Dale

--
The man scarce lives who is not more credulous than he ought to
be  The natural disposition is always to believe.  It is
acquired wisdom and experience only that teach incredulity, and
they very seldom teach it enough.-- Adam Smith
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Laptop video

[Dale Snell]

On Tue, 6 Aug 2013 12:02:05 -0700
John Jason Jordan joh...@comcast.net wrote:

 1) I see laptops at the Clinic that seem to have two video chips, like
 Intel and nVidia. And one of the laptops that I am seriously
 considering* has Intel and nVidia. Why?

 2) In the past Intel had a reputation of lower power consumption, and
 nVidia the worst. Is that still true?

Intel + nVidia = Optimus.  Not yet well supported under Linux,
though it is being worked on.  The idea being that for long-term
battery operation, 2D or low-stress 3D graphics and the like, the
Intel system runs, saving power.  For high-end 3D graphics, HD
videos and the like, nVidia runs.  Sort of a best of both worlds
set up.

 3) I will want full video functionality - GL graphics, flash, etc. Are
 there any chips to be avoided?

I have a GT 520, which uses a GF119 chip.  For most of what I do,
it's fine.  For high end graphics work (HD videos, etc.), it's
slow.  Videos get jerky, and so on.  Still, for $60, I'm not
really unhappy.

 *I really like the Traverse Pro:
 
 http://www.pugetsystems.com/nav/traverse/pro/customize.php?sys_id=61
 
 Decked out the way I would want it, including a USB3 docking station
 it comes to about $3K. 

Oh man oh man, I'm drooling.  Don't do this to me John.  :-)  It
looks lovely.  The only cavil I would have is the touchpad.  It
looks like it has only two buttons, unless the fingerprint reader
doubles as the middle mouse button.  Of course, since I loathe
touchpads, I'd probably get a real mouse and turn off the touchpad
altogether.

--Dale

--
A fuse is a physical embodiment of Zen:  In order for it to
succeed, it must fail.
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Urgent! Lost network connection after upgrade

[Dale Snell]

On Mon, 5 Aug 2013 12:31:11 -0700
Mike C. mconno...@gmail.com wrote:

 Regarding my last post about the interface config files. After
 modifying them, you'll want to either reboot or restart networking
 services. I'd say reboot and hope that the interface config file is
 read before NM is invoked.

Easiest thing for John to do here, I think, is disable NM altogether:

$ sudo systemctl disable NetworkManager.service

should do the trick.  I think.

--Dale

--
There is is no reason for any individual to have a computer in
their home.
-- Ken Olsen (President of Digital Equipment Corporation),
   Convention of the World Future Society, in Boston, 1977
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Urgent! Lost network connection after upgrade

[Dale Snell]

On Mon, 5 Aug 2013 13:51:41 -0700
Daniel Hedlund dan...@digitree.org wrote:

 I sat down a played on John's laptop directly for a few minutes.
 When he upgraded to Fedora 17 it only partially upgraded his system
 and then bailed for an unknown reason, but likely due to unresolved
 conflicts or dependencies.  Most of the things that worked on his
 system were packages that did not get upgraded; he was running a F16
 version of the kernel and Xorg but everything that was going through
 systemd was referencing F17 libraries that did not get installed on
 his system.  Trying to install these RPMs resulted in even more
 dependencies and conflicts that needed upgrading.  A quick 'rpm -qa |
 grep f16' resulted in about 1k packages. Doing 'rpm -qa | grep f17'
 also resulted in around 1k packages, meaning about 50% upgrade.
 
 Since he was still running a F16 kernel that came bundled with his
 network drivers, his hardware was detected and a physical link was
 observable (ie via mii-tool).  However, many of the libraries that
 the network tools relied on got removed or changed to incompatible
 versions during the upgrade and no longer functioned.  Even the most
 basic ifconfig and ip commands wouldn't work because, while it could
 assign an IP address to the interface, it could not interface with
 the part of the system that managed the routing table and all DNS
 resolver related libraries were missing.

Ouch.  Ouch, ouch, ouch.  Hades on a hoverboard.  Helen Damnation,
and other unpleasant people.

At this point I'm tempted to say start over.  Re-partition the
disk to something reasonable (none of this put everything in one
big partition crap*), and install Fedora 19 instead of 17.  (F17
no longer being supported and all.)  Then install all the extra
programs, and document what has to be done to make them work.  Buy
an engineering log book, or one of those green 1/5-inch grid
pads.  PSU bookstore should have both.

HOWEVER, that said, I know John doesn't want to go through all the
pain of making all that stuff work again.  So here's my last gasp
thought on the subject.  Mount the F17 installation DVD -- don't
try to run it, just mount it.  Navigate to the Packages directory
and see what's there.  It'll either be all of the packages, or a
set of directories, one for each letter of the alphabet.

If it's one massive directory full of packages, fine.  Get the
list of all the F16 packages still installed, strip off the
version info, and feed it to yum.  You may need a --local flag;
I don't remember when they removed that option.

If it's a set of directories, do the same basic thing, but sort
the list of packages into alphabetized chunks, and feed them to
yum one letter at a time.  A small bash script should work just
fine.

That _should_ get enough of F17 installed that you can do whatever
else you need to do.  No guarantees.  I still recommend
documenting your additional software.  Stuff from Fedora or the
RPMFusion repos most likely won't need that; they're set up to
work out of the box, so to speak.  But other stuff will need
more attention, as you've found out.

* I could go on a rather, um, inflamed rant on the subject, but
I'll spare us all.  (I'm too lazy to write it.)  I will just say
that putting everything in one massive partition is, IMO, a bad
idea.  John, if you want to know how I recommend setting up a
disk, and why, let me know and I'll write something up for you.

Anyway, I hope this helps.  Good luck.

--Dale

--
Who cares if it doesn't do anything?  It was made with our new
Triple-Iso-Bifurcated-Krypton-Gate-MOS process ...
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Urgent! Lost network connection after upgrade

[Dale Snell]

On Sun, 4 Aug 2013 19:48:38 -0700
John Jason Jordan joh...@comcast.net wrote:

 On Sun, 4 Aug 2013 19:34:24 -0700
 Mike C. mconno...@gmail.com dijo:
 
 Creating object for path
 '/org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/ActiveConnection/17' failed in
 libnm-glib.
 
 A possible solution might be to disable the Network Manager app. As
 JJJ mentioned and I tend to agree with something is stopping you
 from being able to manually assign an ip address to eth0.
 
 Network Manager is a many headed monster with lots of tentacles and
 if it's not happy about something it might be interfering with your
 attempts to configure eth0 manually via ifconfig.
 
 So perhaps try disable NM and try manually assigning and ip addr
 again. Don't bother with adding any routes until we can get eth0 to
 take an ip addr assignment.
 
 sudo stop network-manager
 
 At this time I'll try anything. However,
 
 $ sudo stop network manager
   password, etc.
 sudo stop: command not found

Try this:

$ sudo systemctl stop NetworkManager.service

Fedora 17 has switched over to systemd almost totally.

--Dale

--
The optimist thinks that this is the best of all possible worlds,
and the pessimist knows it.
-- J. Robert Oppenheimer, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Urgent! Lost network connection after upgrade

[Dale Snell]

On Sun, 4 Aug 2013 20:18:27 -0700
John Jason Jordan joh...@comcast.net wrote:

 On Sun, 4 Aug 2013 20:03:52 -0700
 Dale Snell ddsn...@frontier.com dijo:
 
 Try this:
 
 $ sudo systemctl stop NetworkManager.service
 
 Fedora 17 has switched over to systemd almost totally.
 
 Thanks. That seems to have worked.

Good, good.  Glad to have helped.

 Now, how do I go about manually assigning an IP address?

'Fraid I can't help much there.  I don't have much experience with
networking, though I have poked around with it a bit.  Mostly I've let
Network Manager do its thing.

--Dale

--
expert, n.:  A has-been drip under pressure
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Re: [PLUG] Urgent! Lost network connection after upgrade

[Dale Snell]

On Sat, 3 Aug 2013 11:01:36 -0700
John Jason Jordan joh...@comcast.net wrote:

 Now I've done it.. I decided to upgrade my Fedora 15 laptop to Fedora
 17 using the DVD. The upgrade went without error, and when I rebooted
 things came up as before, but I have no network connection. If I try
 manually to connect to eth0 I get:
 
 (1) Creating object for path
 '/org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/ActiveConnection/17' failed in
 libnm-glib..
 
 I am sending this from my desktop computer, proof that my home network
 is still working fine.
 
 Life sucks without a connection. Any suggestions? 

Try connecting to em1.  That's what my interface is named (it's on the
motherboard).  You probably don't have an eth0 anymore.  The new
enumeration scheme tries to name interfaces in a way that will tell
you where the interface is located.  At least, I think that's the
idea.

Also, why Fedora 17?  It hit End Of Life a while ago, and is now
unsupported.

Hope this helps.

--Dale

--
I recall hearing that highly-classified data must be destroyed by
physically shredding the medium.  Yes, throw your disk drive in
the shredder!  (Just imagine the class of machinery required to
digest an RA81 HDA.)  -- Mark Wood on linux-kernel
___
PLUG mailing list
PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug