Re: [SLUG] newbie to writing programs
Chris, What Nick said: Both parent and child resume/start executing at the next instruction, which is the if() test. The child gets a return value of 0 from fork() whereas the parent gets a non-zero positive value. More specifically: The parent gets the PID of the child process. So if you need to fork a whole bunch of children and keep track of them, you can read back the return result of fork() and then shove it in some kind of array or structure. You can then send signals to the children as required. Some long-running processes do things like this -- fork a bunch of children and hand them requests on some kind of load-balancing or round-robin basis, then once a child process has done enough work kill it off and fork a new one to tidy up any possible memory leaks. Del -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Can banks handle daylight saving?
Due to scheduled maintenance Internet Banking will be unavailable on Sunday 1 April from 1AM-5AM AEDT. We discussed this before. Looks like banks still haven't worked out how to handle changing timezones. And NAB doesn't understand that there simply won't be 5AM AEDT on 1 April. There will be in 2017. That's a hell of an outage though. Del -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Re: [Jobs] Systems Admin - Build Engineer
My experience would put that salary at a high level helpdesk person, with what they are asking more towards the 80-100K range. Or am I being somewhat ambitious with my views? No, not ambitious. I had the job pushed at a few people I know by the recruitment agent late last week. They want a degree qualified Linux Admin with extensive development experience as well as able to be a MySQL DBA. When I found out the salary on offer my response was you are joking, right?. -- Del Babel Consulting http://www.babel.com.au/ ph: 02 9400 0400 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Re: slug Digest, Vol 63, Issue 9
And the netbook remix in 10.10 is dreadful compared with 10.04. At last I understand the mentality of people running Redhat 7 !! +1. I would like to roll my video-watching netbook on to 10.10 so I can plug in one of the new USB tuner cards that needs to have that kernel for support, but I can't get 10.10 to work with a second monitor plugged in. -- Del -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Linux for Seniors
Geoffrey Cowling wrote: While attending SLUG my main complaint was lack of help. On this list I got little response to questions (except from persons at my level, who did not necessarily know either). I felt that unless one was a professional, or training to be one, there was no support. A nooby, at school--fine. Amateur with limited knowledge, or out of date knowledge--no. OK--RTFM, but what if you cannot understand it? It was more rewarding, after googling, to try foreign web sites. They tended to be more sympathetic. It's a complaint that I hear all of the time. The problem is that this group isn't a free (or paid-for) beginners' Linux support forum. It's mostly inhabited by fairly high level techies who'd rather exchange details about race conditions in the latest iSCSI drivers in the kernel, and not by people who are happy to lend an old bloke a hand with installing Ubuntu. There isn't really such a beginners' Linux community forum that's easy to find and get to grips with. Even if there was, if a forum existed populated entirely by beginners then there would be nobody there to answer your questions. Bringing more experienced people into sucha forum is going to be hard work, simply because answering questions from beginners all day is damned hard work. I've done it for periods of time and although I recognise that it's an activity that needs to be done, it's hard work and I can't claim to enjoy it. Although I feel your pain, the Sydney / Australian Linux community doesn't actually have a responsibility to offer unlimited free support to people learning Linux, whether seniors or not. I wonder, though, if there is a place for an on-line forum of sorts where new people can ask questions and get answers from a knowledgeable pool of experts, who have agreed to give of their own time to answer those questions in some kind of roster arrangement. I'd certainly be happy to contribute to that in some way or form. -- Del -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] linked in - please block
Menno Schaaf wrote: Naming and shaming... Person at fault this time is Kevin Waterson, employee of http://www.blueglue.com.au/ I know Kevin and I also know that he doesn't work for BlueGlue. He's the guy behind the http://www.phppro.org/ site. I suspect that someone's using a fake identity to troll the SLUG list. -- Del -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] today's scary thought
Jeff Waugh wrote: quote who=Del Someone asked me today, as they often ask me about things Linux, if I had a Linux replacement for their favourite journal app that they run on their (windows) PC. I asked what that journal app did, and was told: You can set it to track when you open files of various types [in other applications] and how long they are open for.. Further quizzing revealed that you can set it to record when those files were opened, saved, closed, and when and where any saved and backup copies were stored. I mentioned the security impacts of such an application, or even the fact that such an application was possible, and left it at that. Look around for Zeitgeist. :-) Good point, but quite different. It's a D-BUS based data logger which apps can choose to publish their information to. In a way it's not unlike syslog. So my OpenOffice.org calc program can choose to tell zeitgeist Del opened file X on his system. zeitgeist doesn't interrupt OpenOffice.org calc's system calls to find out what files are being opened (and potentially dumping copies of those files to an IRC channel to be picked up by a botnet operating out of frangipangiland) without OpenOffice.org knowing about it. -- Del -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] today's scary thought
Someone asked me today, as they often ask me about things Linux, if I had a Linux replacement for their favourite journal app that they run on their (windows) PC. I asked what that journal app did, and was told: You can set it to track when you open files of various types [in other applications] and how long they are open for.. Further quizzing revealed that you can set it to record when those files were opened, saved, closed, and when and where any saved and backup copies were stored. I mentioned the security impacts of such an application, or even the fact that such an application was possible, and left it at that. -- Del -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Re: Ubuntu 10.04
Richard Ibbotson wrote: ... Shame the PHP stuff in Lurid Lynx 10.04 isn't quite there just yet. Maybe an update in a few weeks for Ubuntu. The PHP stuff in 10.04 is perfectly OK 5.3, it's just that (as some folks have already pointed out) there are significant enough changes in the object model of PHP 5.3 so as to break a LOT of web apps. All Drupal versions that I have tested so far (which I admit doesn't include Drupal 7) are broken on PHP 5.3. It will probably take wordpress time to catch up as well, and that's just the major ones. PHP 5.3 includes a lot of fairly forward-looking changes that were originally slated for PHP 6. The justification for doing that's been argued about quite a bit in the PHP community. -- Del Babel Com Australia http://www.babel.com.au/ -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] new ubuntu 10.4
Daniel Pittman wrote: Jim Donovanj...@aptnsw.org.au writes: I'm still trying to fit 700MB of it onto a 699MB blank CD-ROM. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/FromUSBStick Assuming you have a 700MB+ USB stick, of course, but those seem to be fairly common these days. http://www.elx.com.au/cat/software/ubuntu 8GB sticks with Ubuntu 10.04 pre-loaded. -- Del Babel Com Australia http://www.babel.com.au/ -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Best API/abstraction? [Was: Time Pedantry] servers?)
Jeff Waugh wrote: quote who=Jamie Wilkinson I for one am glad such pages exist. I wish the inventors of time_t had read it. So which language / library has a great abstraction for time and date stuff, helping you deal with the intricacies of this craziness? Zend Framework (PHP) -- Zend_Date. The date handling functions in PHP are pretty limited but this extension library of an extension library works well. Whatever library the Remember The Milk (www.rememberthemilk.com) folks use is pretty good. I can type in second friday after the third tuesday in november at 4pm and it gets that, and sends me the reminder notice at the correct time even if I tell it I've changed my time zone to Chatham Islands Daylight Savings Time in the mean while. It also understands that repeat every three weeks means 21 days after the event was first scheduled but repeat after three weeks means 21 days after I actually got around to doing it (after postponing it several times). -- Del Babel Com Australia http://www.babel.com.au/ -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] cloud / VM storage
Hi, I know that VPS and cloud hosting has been discussed here quite a bit, and on the basis of that discussion we've started using Linode for some virtual services, so thanks for the recommendations for them to those who posted. However storage at Linode is very expensive -- adding additional GB is around $2 per GB per month. Does anyone have a recommendation for a VM provider where the storage space is cheap, for such things as off-site backups? Thanx, -- Del Babel Com Australia http://www.babel.com.au/ -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] WINMOR -- a win for free protocols
Hi, This may interest some, bore others, and remind others of the time when *all* modem communication was slow: http://www.winlink.org/WINMOR Traditionally, digital communication over long distance radio has been slow and expensive. Slow of necessity because the carrier radio waves for the digital signal are typically in the 2MHz - 16MHz frequency range and therefore don't carry significant amounts of digital information per second (10 - 100 bytes per second are typical of the technology), and expensive because of a proprietary protocol and product called PACTOR that requires a specific make model of HF modem to interface between the PC and the HF radio set. However for long distance communication between HAM radio enthusiasts and vessels at sea, it's the only option. Other than satellite, which for vessels at sea takes expensive to new levels of meaning (it's difficult to arrange a fixed satellite dish on a ship that's moving and pitching in all directions), there are no other means of communicating. The higher frequency spectrums that carry digital signals to users of mobile broadband just don't have that sort of propagation. The PACTOR protocol is covered by several patents which make it impossible for third party vendors to implement this protocol. So everyone who wants to use this is stuck with the expensive and proprietary PACTOR modems, along with their proprietary (and MS Windows only) software to drive them. There is a new protocol and software under test called WINMOR, developed by the Winlink 2000 folks who traditionally provide an endpoint for digital communications with amateur stations and vessels at sea. Although the current software is available for Windows only, the protocol and specification have been released to the public domain for anyone to implement. Although the protocol and software are both under development, the end product has been shown to be reasonably stable and reliable. The only hardware required is a sound card, and of course an HF or HAM radio (nearly all ships would have the latter as an essential piece of safety equipment). There are a number of WINMOR enabled HF stations worldwide, with more popping up regularly, including 2 so far in Australia. Remember that HF propagation, depending on the frequency chosen, time of day, solar activity, number of sunspots, etc, can be anything from 200km to planet-wide, so for global communications to be effective over this type of network there is no significant need for large numbers of stations. -- Del Babel Com Australia http://www.babel.com.au/ -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Wireless Broadband?
Hello Del, The BigPond Elite network gateway is of real interest to me. As I'm not knowledgeable with wireless, I was wondering if you, or anyone, could provide a run down on how to get this thing to work on my linux system, which is Fedora 12 ... a desktop box? I have a home network of 3 computers connected by ethernet and I'm on dial-up in a rural location. I would only want one computer connected to the internet with the wireless network gateway. It's relatively easy because it's just a wireless modem/router. The instructions come with the router, but it's a matter of connecting to the wireless or the ethernet network (it has a 4 port switch in it), pointing your web browser at the gateway, log in using the default admin login password, configure it to talk to bigpond (provide your bigpoind user name password) and then you're away. Nothing to configure on the Linux end, other than normal networking or wireless LAN stuff. -- Del Babel Com Australia http://www.babel.com.au/ ph: 02 9966 9476 fax: 02 9906 2864 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] shopping carts?
Rodolfo MartÃnez wrote: Hi, Have you tried osCommerce? http://www.oscommerce.com/ Anyone who has looked inside the PHP code for either would have to agree with me in strongly recommending OpenFreeway over osCommerce. The rest of this discussion can be taken off-list if anyone's interested. Del -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] shopping carts?
Dini wrote: Hi, I'm going to run a shopping cart on my web site. Is there an Open Source Shopping Cart that is idoit friendly and is ok for Au banks? thanks. D You want OpenFreeway. http://www.openfreeway.org/ -- Del Babel Com Australia http://www.babel.com.au/ -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Wireless Broadband?
Still - so far I haven't heard that it works with Linux so I'm not sure it's an option, unless I manage to test it successfully in the shop somehow (my own company issued laptop's display died this week so I'll have to buy a new one before I can do that). It will work with Linux for certain values of Linux. That means that certain distros and certain kernel versions will have the right bits and pieces so that you can, in most cases, cobble together a working device and a working driver. If you're tied into a specific Linux distro then you're probably stuffed. Having said that I got mine working OK with CentOS 5.4 when it absolutely refused to play with CentOS 5.2. I've had it working briefly with Ubuntu 9.10 with the kernel that came with the distro just to try it out, it failed again once I did a kernel upgrade, then I switched back to the gateway because I need something that works all of the time (and in particular, I need something low power that will allow the VoIP phone to connect and my android phone to get wifi when the laptop is switched off). I tried about 4 different versions and models of the device, including 2 different objects that had the same model number and appeared to have the same chipset, albeit probably different internal firmware, and could only be differentiated by the serial numbers -- one failed to work at all under any version of Linux, one worked fine on all versions with no problems. Some of the different models worked on some kernels and not others, and vice-versa. Your kilometerage may vary a whole lot. In nautical terms that's called cross-track error (XTE). -- Del Babel Com Australia http://www.babel.com.au/ -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Wireless Broadband?
Amos Shapira wrote: Since this became a discussion of broadband modems - I got an OK from my workplace to buy the Telstra Turbo USB pre-paid modem (currently costs $149) but so far Google, whirlpool and ubuntuforums failed to provide a positive answer about the hardware compatibility to linux (Ubuntu 9.10). Can anyone here have positive experience with this moddem? No, I can not. :) You're better off buying their network gateway for $399, which is the BigPond Elite network gateway on this page: http://www.bigpond.com/internet/plans/wireless/wireless_devices/ It works flawlessly, and since it has an internal wifi gateway and 4 port switch it doesn't require any configuration with Linux. I use mine on the boat with a 12v lead in from the house batteries but I've also run it while travelling off a 12v plug pack powered by a 7Ah sealed battery of a reasonably common type (Jaycar will have them). Bigpond are the biggest wunch(*) on the planet, so you have to be aware. One issue is that although all of their devices are essentially compatible, your internet plan is tied to the device so if you get one of their plug in modems and decide later you want the gateway, you have to cancel (and pay out) your old plan and buy a new plan. No other internet provider makes you do this -- e.g. iinet don't make you cancel your plan if you buy a new ADSL modem. (*) -- collective term for a group of bankers. -- Del Babel Com Australia http://www.babel.com.au/ -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] one serial port multiple readers
BTW, I think you asked the wrong question. For example, I personally would have fed the NMEA messages into a NMEA channel on D-BUS, allowing any application to subscribe to the message flow. But to get that answer the question is about sharing messages, not about sharing serial ports. That assumes you've got the source code to the application, and can modify it to subscribe to a D-BUS message flow. It also assumes that the application runs on an OS that supports D-BUS. Neither of those two are the case for all of the apps at this point. The answer involved some chicanery with gpsd, gpsprobe, socat, and a Windows program called HW VSP 3 (for those apps running on Windows that expect to read NMEA data from a serial port). I'm putting the solution up on a wiki shortly -- one that's well known to the sort of people who do ocean navigation and are likely to need it. -- Del Babel Com Australia http://www.babel.com.au/ -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] R.I.P. Grant Parnell
What happened? Grant was ill with Oesophagus cancer around the time of Anthony Rumble's funeral. He had the cancer removed and chemotherapy but a follow up revealed it had spread to his lungs and liver. He made a visit to watch the V8s at Olympic Park in early December which he enjoyed very much but was from then confined to the SAN hospital at Wahroonga. He faded very quickly from then. Del -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] one serial port multiple readers
Hi, Does anyone have a solution to this problem? I have a serial port (connected to a GPS at 4800 baud). I have multiple processes that need to read from that serial port. I need all of the processes to read the same data, essentially creating a one way chat from the serial port to all processes listening in. I've tried using socat but if I create a socket connection, using, e.g. socat TCP4-LISTEN:2,reuseaddr,fork /dev/ttyUSB0,b4800,raw,echo=0 ... then have multiple connections in to TCP socket 2, then each socket connection gets part of the data stream from the serial port. I've tried setting up a multicast, but because multicast is UDP based I'm seeing occasional packet-out-of-order and packet-dropped issues. Ideally I'd like it to be TCP based -- I have one process that can connect to a TCP socket for its data rather than read from the port, and I can use socat to create PTYs for the other processes that expect a serial port provided the data comes in in the right order. Yes, I know about gpsd, and one of the processes that needs to read the serial data is gpsd, but I have some processes that need to read the raw data provided by the GPS and not gpsd's output. Thanx, -- Del Babel Com Australia http://www.babel.com.au/ ph: 02 9966 9476 fax: 02 9906 2864 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] one serial port multiple readers
Martin Visser wrote: Del, I just did a simple test, that might help you to a solution 1. Used mkfifo to create 3 pipes mkfifo /tmp/r1;mkfifo /tmp/r2;mkfifo /tmp/r3; 2. Used tee -a to write a copy of data to each of these - (while [ 1 ]; do date; sleep 1; done ) | tee -a /tmp/r1 | tee -a /tmp/r2 | tee -a /tmp/r3 3. In 3 separate terminals did a cat /tmp/r1 (and r2 and r3). This *mostly* works, but killing one listening process seems to cause the others to abort. I am guessing there is some foo I am not aware of. It doesn't solve the problem that I can't have two clients both connected to a listening TCP port on the machine and both receiving the same data. I can create a listener on one of the FIFOs above like this: socat -u /tmp/r1 TCP-LISTEN:2,fork,reuseaddr However I still hit the same issue -- the first client connects to port 2 and gets the data, the second listener connects to port 2 and then each client gets half of the data. A partial workaround appears to be to create a separate listener for each client, e.g. socat -u /tmp/r1 TCP-LISTEN:2 socat -u /tmp/r2 TCP-LISTEN:25556 socat -u /tmp/r3 TCP-LISTEN:25557 ... but that appears to defeat the purpose somewhat. I now have to configure each client to connect to a separate port. -- Del Babel Com Australia http://www.babel.com.au/ ph: 02 9966 9476 fax: 02 9906 2864 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] one serial port multiple readers
Terry Dawson wrote: Del wrote: Does anyone have a solution to this problem? This might do what you want: http://freshmeat.net/projects/conserver Although it could be overkill for what you want to do. It does the job, though. I found a simple solution for the specific case that I was after, and that is to use gpsd. gpsd contains a client called gpspipe which can query gpsd for the raw data received on the serial port. Then it was a matter of creating a forked gpspipe process for each incoming socket connection, which socat can do: socat -lm TCP4-LISTEN:25591,fork,reuseaddr EXEC:/usr/bin/gpspipe -r,pty ... so every process connecting to TCP port 25591 gets its own copy of the raw NMEA data from the GPS. conserver seems to be the solution for the general case of one serial port, multiple readers (or writers), however. It seems a pretty simple exercise to write a small daemon program that opens a serial port, and listens for incoming TCP connections, multiplexing the data about as you want it though. It's not trivial but it's possible. The problem is in giving all clients a shared buffer that they can read from and allowing each client to read from the buffer using its own read pointer but also having a single write buffer pointer. Multiple FIFOs could handle it but I'd be inclined to code something using memcached or shared memory segments. Then there's the mess of cleaning up the various forked children, scavenging their read pointers for reuse, etc. I got part way through a perl implementation (before I discovered gpspipe and conserver) and it was a few hundred lines. I presume you don't need two way comms, just simplex? Yeah, in this case nobody is allowed to write to the GPS, only read from it. -- Del Babel Com Australia http://www.babel.com.au/ ph: 02 9966 9476 fax: 02 9906 2864 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] one serial port multiple readers
USB serial ports are easy and cheap: 1 serial port per consumer Yeah, in this case that wasn't going to work because the object on the end of the serial port is (a) expensive and (b) susceptible to the sort of voltage drops that can be caused by parallelising serial ports. -- Del Babel Com Australia http://www.babel.com.au/ ph: 02 9966 9476 fax: 02 9906 2864 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] squid ACL question
Sonia Hamilton wrote: A question about Squid ACL's (from an existing config I'm working on). Let's say the config file defines (in this order) these ACL's and rules: acl foo src 1.2.3.4 acl bar url_regex -i .bar.com http_access allow foo http_access allow foo bar http_access deny all The second http_access line is redundant, isn't it? Yes, it is. -- Del Babel Com Australia http://www.babel.com.au/ -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] 64-bit Karmic Koala or not?
Dean Hamstead wrote: 32bit is dead Not on subnotebooks. It'll have 4Gb RAM, which should be enough for my work needs. Which is a good enough reason to move to 64 bit. If you want to address more than 2GB of RAM in a single process reliably (i.e. without using odd memory addressing tricks) then you'll want 64 bit. If you only have 128MB of RAM total or something like that then there's not much point. -- Del Babel Com Australia http://www.babel.com.au/ -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: LTS worth anything? (was: Re: [SLUG] Announcement roundup from October meeting)
Amos Shapira wrote: The goal of trying to stick with LTS was to get a stable system - one where Skype will work with my webcam, mic and speaker, Firefox won't blow up on me and play Flash. I'm now with 9.04 which took a while to get Speaker working and mic doesn't work, I don't know whether it's a Skype problem or hardware except that the mic used to work with ALSA until PulseAudio was thrust on me. I'm not a gamer and don't have time to play with the latest and greatest, I just need to Get Things Done(tm) - monitor my work network (which is based on CentOS 5, great support and stability, BTW), browsing, e-mail (gmail, hosted exchange server (another sore point), skype (which doesn't do voice for months now), printing (which loses the printer every time it changes IP address). The reason that stable distros such as RHEL and CentOS and LTS exist is so that IT managers don't go into system shock when they are told they need to upgrade their stable servers every 6 months. So things like RHEL and LTS are based on known-working-in-a-datacentre packages where urgent bug fixes and security issues are fixed only, without any new functionality being added (e.g. to get newfangled devices working), and support is typically provided for 5-7 years. I and I'm sure many others have had much success getting RHEL, CentOS or LTS going on large numbers of servers in big data centres where long term stability is important. One of the things that the stable distros tend to miss out on is having the latest updated device drivers. What it sounds like you're doing is trying to get stuff working that while not bleeding-edge, probably does require updated kernels and recent device drivers. So it sounds like LTS isn't for you. Most of the recent (e.g. Ubuntu 9.10, Fedora 11, openSUSE 11, etc) distros we've played with have pretty good flash support, work well with webcams, mics, speakers, and have reasonably recent Firefoxes that tend not to explode. On the other hand CentOS 5.3 (which I use on my older desktop) has a Firefox that's a few revisions old. One of the tricks to getting Firefox, flash, skype etc, working well is to use a 32 bit distro rather than a 64 bit one. -- Del Babel Com Australia http://www.babel.com.au/ ph: 02 9966 9476 fax: 02 9906 2864 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Announcement roundup from October meeting
James Polley wrote: - Or, you could buy it on a USB stick from the everythinglinux store which has just reopened. Online at http://www.elx.com.au/, or visit the store at 102/38 Oxley Street St Leonards. Just to correct that, the shop is at shop 3, 41 Oxley St Crows Nest. The above address is our office (although they're across the road from each other, and the staff at one will no doubt direct you to the other if needs be). http://www.elx.com.au/contact.php ... and we're closed on Mondays, so don't come by today, but we have Ubuntu 9.10 available on CD and USB stick any time from tomorrow. -- Del Babel Com Australia http://www.babel.com.au/ ph: 02 9966 9476 fax: 02 9906 2864 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] ELX news mailing list
Hi, In my last post here I said we'd be setting up a news products announcement mailing list. The subscribe page is here: http://www.elx.com.au/lists/?p=subscribe Del -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] CentOS 5.4 release, in stock
Hi, I realise this list isn't the correct place for sales talk, but our own products mailing list is still under construction, so I'll keep it short. CentOS 5.4 is released, and Everything Linux have it in stock, $10 off this week only: http://www.elx.com.au/cat/software/centos ($35 for a USB stick, live or ready to install, 32 or 64 bit). The Live USB sticks are partitioned 1GB for the OS and 7GB for data so you can carry your distro and data with you. Also remember if you want to drop in-store for some Linux assistance, we have free 10 minute sessions from 2pm - 5pm tomorrow and every Tuesday. No need to book, just drop in and we'll see what we can do for you. We have longer 1 hour sessions on Thursdays, they need to be pre-booked. Del -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Linux course at WEA
jon wrote: I am running an introductory one-day Linux course at WEA in Bathurst Street Sydney on Wednesday the 28th of October. Details at: http://www.weasydney.nsw.edu.au/index.php?action=coursecourse_action=detailcode=94CP114search=1keyword=linux As far as I know this is the first Linux training offered to the general public in Sydney. If you already know anything at all about Linux then this is NOT for you. However, it may be for your partners, parents, children, or anyone else who spends their time wondering just what it is you do all day. Jon. Hi, Is this course actually running tomorrow? The above URL just goes to a course list page, and a search for the keyword linux on the WEA site reveals nothing. Del -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Everything Linux store opening
Hi all, Just one final reminder about the store opening tomorrow. Shop 3 41 Oxley Street Crows Nest NSW 2065 http://www.elx.com.au/contact.php All are invited. Refreshments will be provided and De Bortoli Wines have provided a few bottles of their best, as well as some beer (mmm ... beer). The web site with all of the products is now live, although we have disabled on line ordering until we actually open the store at mid-day tomorrow. There will be some in-store specials only, all day tomorrow, including $5 for all DVDs, $10 off all distros on USB stick, and some give-aways from Novell, Red Hat, and some old ELX items. -- Del Babel Com Australia http://www.babel.com.au/ ph: 02 9966 9476 fax: 02 9906 2864 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] sendmail falling under its own warning messages
My conclusion is that these spam report delayed warnings and bounce messages are pretty useless - I'd rather drop the warnings, bounce reports and even drop the old spam reports instead of trying to treat them as so important that I just MUST deliver them. Here is what I have in my sendmail macro file: define(`confDOUBLE_BOUNCE_ADDRESS', `null')dnl define(`confDEAD_LETTER_DROP', `null')dnl define(`LUSER_RELAY', `local:null')dnl -- Del Babel Com Australia http://www.babel.com.au/ ph: 02 9966 9476 fax: 02 9906 2864 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] ELX on Facebook and Twitter
Everything Linux on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Everything-Linux/124821692255 Everything Linux on twitter: http://twitter.com/elxcomau -- Del Babel Com Australia http://www.babel.com.au/ ph: 02 9966 9476 fax: 02 9906 2864 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] ELX store opening Friday 23rd October
Hi all, Everything Linux will be having a store opening on Friday 23rd October. The store location is: Shop 3 41 Oxley Street Crows Nest NSW 2065 The store will be opening at 12:00 Light refreshments will be available from 12:30pm Talks and presentations in store from 1pm - 2pm. More details as they emerge will be here: http://www.elx.com.au/ Come along and join in the cheer! -- Del Babel Com Australia http://www.babel.com.au/ ph: 02 9966 9476 fax: 02 9906 2864 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] upgrading php to 5.2 or 5.3 latest version so as to use phpmyadmin
This recipe has always worked for me: yum -y erase php-mcrypt php-mhash php-tidy php-pecl-memcache \ php-pecl-xdebug php-mysql wget \ http://rpms.famillecollet.com/el5.i386/remi-release-5-7.el5.remi.noarch.rpm rpm -Uhv remi-release-5-7.el5.remi.noarch.rpm yum --enablerepo=remi -y update php mysql yum --enablerepo=remi -y install php-mcrypt php-tidy php-pecl-memcache yum --enablerepo=remi --disablerepo=epel -y install php-pecl-xdebug yum --enablerepo=remi -y install php-mysql yum --enablerepo=remi -y install php-devel php-gd php-imap php-mbstring yum --enablerepo=remi -y install php-odbc yum --enablerepo=remi -y install php-soap php-xml php-xmlrpc yum --enablerepo=remi -y install phpmyadmin yum --enablerepo=remi -y install php-pear -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] web based firewall config tool wanted
Matthew Hannigan wrote: On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 03:38:07PM +1000, Grant Parnell wrote: I'm finding it difficult to believe there's no simple web based firewall configuration tool. I'm going to be running a cut-down Ubuntu-Hardy off ... It's killing me because I came across something like this just recently but it had a distinctly non evocative name so it's lost to my brain. I'll let you know in case it pops back in. It was something hydrid open source; gpl for iptables and pf but 'pro' /commercial version had cisco etc support. Not fwbuilder, something else, not listed in the usual wikipedia, delicious, dmoz etc lists. We wrote this years ago. It's hopelessly outdated, support for PHP 3 but you have to turn on a bunch of non-standard switches to get it to work for PHP 4 or 5 http://phpfwgen.sourceforge.net/ If anyone wants to bring it up to date then that'd be great. We've been meaning to ourselves but jobs that pay money tend to take priority. -- Del Babel Com Australia http://www.babel.com.au/ ph: 02 9966 9476 fax: 02 9906 2864 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] ELX on Facebook and Twitter
Hi, As announced at the SLUG meeting last month, Babel has acquired Everything Linux, and will soon be setting up a shop in the Crows Nest area of Sydney. We have started a facebook page and a twitter feed, which you're welcome to join in on and follow for the latest news: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Everything-Linux/124821692255 http://twitter.com/elxcomau Del -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: Which wireless data service should I signup to? was [SLUG] Don't buy ZTE's
Marghanita da Cruz wrote: With the Demise of the I-Burst Network, I now have to look for an alternative. The 3G options seem to be Telstra (the broadband expert had heard of Linux - but did not seem to know it was an OS!) Various Plans (capped/shaped plan $80/month) +299 Modem/router or USB modem ($?) Virgin Various Plants (capped/shaped plan $40/month - incudes USB modem and $60 capped/shaped plan with (non roaming) homephone/modem/router IPRIMUS (capped/shaped plan $40/month) + (?) USB Modem ($?) Vodafone Optus do not seem to have a capped/shaped plan. I have Telstra/Bigpond after having tried Virgin and Soul (Optus rebadged). Originally it worked under Linux fine but the modem got flaky and needs replacement, now it requires a fair bit of jiggling to get working. The replacement center is in Prestons and I haven't made it out there to get a replacement (they did send me a prepaid post baggie to use but I'd rather take it in myself). It's expensive but gives me the best coverage. My coverage requirements are more than most, I need it to work out on the harbour as well as up at the Hawkesbury and at least a reasonable distance off shore. Neither Virgin nor Optus made it out that far. The coverage is rock solid and the speed is good but you have to pay for it. I have the 10GB non-capped plan, I didn't realise they did a capped/shaped plan. I have a friend who uses Virgin and says the coverage is good and it is cheap but unreliable and their service desk is appalling, and wouldn't recommend it to anyone. It took them 9 months to do a landline number port. I wouldn't rate the service desk at bigpond either. -- Del Babel Com Australia http://www.babel.com.au/ ph: 02 9966 9476 fax: 02 9906 2864 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] ssh certificate logins
Mary Gardiner wrote: There is one potential disadvantage of non-standard ports: there are a few networks with a default-deny outgoing connection policy who open port 22, but do not open most ports. (I find 443 the most useful alternative port to run SSH on, outgoing to 443/HTTPS is very often open!) OK, raise their hand everyone here who runs an SSH server somewhere out on the net on port 443 for the deliberate purpose of tunneling through a work-related proxy server / firewall combination to do non-proxy-allowed stuff. (/me sheepishly raises hand) (/me points at *everyone* at a certain large organisation that will remain nameless) :) Del -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Asus m51s Audio problem
Daryl Thompson wrote: Hi I have a customer who has just brought a ASUS M51S Laptop and has install Fedora 9 but he has no Sound. What should we be looking for to fix this I think the problem is in the distro. I have never gotten sound working on Fedora 9 on anything I've tried it on. Some of the daemons seem to be generating a connection refused message but I have no idea what it's trying to connect to or how or on what port. All of the permissions appear to be OK and things like the new network audio server appears to be running (but possibly not set up correctly by default). I've rolled back to CentOS 5.2 on the systems I need sound working on, and I'm hoping that the Fedora team fix what's going on shortly. Del -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] wireless broadband?
So, who uses wireless broadband here? I'm currently researching the available alternatives and although Virgin appears the cheapest they also appear to have limited coverage and none of the vendors provide (a) Linux support or (b) an offer of your money back if you can't get it working on Linux. My contenders at the moment are Virgin, Optus, and Telstra (Bigpond). The limitation is that I need it working on a boat, and I only have one limited 240v supply. So I'd prefer it to be a USB stick type approach. I'm interested in any success/failure stories if anyone has them. -- Del Babel Com Australia http://www.babel.com.au/ ph: 02 9966 9476 fax: 02 9906 2864 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] wireless broadband?
Tony Cosentino wrote: Hi Del, I use mobile broadband with the 3 network. It was by far the best value 18 months ago when I got it. I have been very happy with the speed, availability. Its had about 3 major outages in that period of 1-4 hours. None in the last 6 months though. I got have the PCI Express modem and originally was using it on a windoze laptop. I have since seen the light and converted to Ubuntu and mainly use a regular PC with a WIFI card. I bought a Wireless router from Netcomm that takes the PCI express card. They now have releases a new model that accepts USB modems and PCI express card modems. Make: Netcomm Model is N3G002W http://www.netcomm.com.au/products/3g/n3g002w They sell for under $200 and I think are a good option, I realise you have power issues though. Is there anyway you can rig up a solot panel to trickle feed a dry cell battery to power your laptop as the laptop battery could handle that lifestyle better than the router. Yes, I already have an 85W solar cell and a 120W wind generator which will probably be upgraded to 2 x 90W and 400W respectively, and I have a 12V laptop charger so I can run the laptop and USB hub from the 12V. There are 4 x 105Ah deep cycle batteries on board so plenty of 12V power. The problem is that I have *one* 240V outlet and the inverter is only rated to 400W, so I don't want to go powering routers and things with it as I will almost certainly need it for other things (charging the shaver and electric drill batteries, for example, which I don't have 12V chargers for). I may look at 3, but the N3G002W is only an option if I can run it off 12V. Del -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] wireless broadband?
Marghanita da Cruz wrote: I am very happy with my I-Burst bridge which plugs into a router or provides ethernet directly so, no issue about linux. It is Wireless but not claiming mobility. I have used the device/account in Sydney and Canberra but it may not work when travelling at speed. There is a PCMCIA option, not sure about USB or coverage out at sea or elsewhere. Heh. At speed for me means 10 knots. 20km/h or thereabouts. That's running downwind with a couple of knots of current. I couldn't find any info about the bridge hardware. What sort of power adapter does it have? It probably has a 240v plug pack that plugs into a small round power connector on the back of the bridge unit itself. Can you look at that and tell me what voltage output it is and whether it's AC or DC? Thanx for the info so far, Del -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] wireless broadband?
Andrew Cowie wrote: It may seem overkill, but depending how far offshore you're heading don't screw around, just get an Inmarsat terminal. I'm still waiting for the prices to drop on these. Typically you're paying $1/kb for traffic which is unreasonable. I'm happy with HF radio offshore and that gives me text email with no attachments. I'm looking for something I can use inshore, at marinas and the such like and mostly in coverage zones, as well as while travelling (e.g. on a train or vehicle, on-shore). Del -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] wireless broadband?
Rev Simon Rumble wrote: I'm assuming you're using a laptop then. If it takes the mini-PCI cards, there are internal HDSPA (3G) cards. Otherwise the little USB ones. I've heard they work okay, but never used one. Yes, I am, and I should have pointed out earlier that it doesn't take PCMCIA cards at all. It's an older model Panasonic toughbook, hence waterproof, and the PCMCIA slots aren't waterproof. It does have an external USB hub (only one USB port) and that's got a spare slot, so I'll look at a USB modem. It's also got wifi on board as well as an ethernet port. As has been said, once you roam out of capital cities you're on Telstra at bend-over-and-take-me rates. You might be better going with Telstra direct on their NextG. It does get longer distance. I'm beginning to come to that conclusion, but I'm wary of the fact that NextG is 30c/MB for downloads over the limit. I'd prefer a capped/throttled plan such as Virgin offer, but comments have been made about their customer service and useability. If all you want is email, there are packet radio options on HF radio. Not gonna be watching any YouTube though. Yeah, I'm familiar with the packet radio thing. To be honest, while at sea I've never found that much use for it (bouncing around too much), but it's good to have as a backup. Even for weather data files I find I'm better off just taking notes on the HF weather via voice channel and drawing lines and circles on my charts to represent the fronts and H/L systems that they mention. Thanks for the info though. Del -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Advice on data transfer over shortwave
Mehmet Yousouf wrote: Hi, I have a friend that will be going to the Solomon Islands for a year (work on a thesis). He will have some solar panels to give him some power but not much else. What I am hopeful is possible is to set him up so that he can use rf to connect and merge / update a git repository (he is also a programmer - and a linux user) and possibly send emails. Connect, merge, update git. No. Send emails? Yes. By shortwave you actually need HF radio, sometimes known as SSB. The system you are after is called SailMail, commonly used by ships at sea although it can be done by land based HF stations. Alternatively, you can try using WinLink although for that you need to use the Ham bands and therefore need an amateur radio license. http://www.sailmail.com/ or http://www.winlink.org/ You need a recent model Icom HF radio: http://www.sailmail.com/radios.htm and a Pactor HF modem: http://www.pca.cc/ -- Del Babel Com Australia http://www.babel.com.au/ ph: 02 9966 9476 fax: 02 9906 2864 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] On buying a colour printer.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Alright, so I'll take the plunge and buy a colour laser printer. I have always purchased HP printers as well as multifunction units. They are well supported with their own OSS drivers in Linux as well as by CUPS and the scanners (even network ones) are supported in SANE. They also just work, every single time. I made the mistake of buying a (brand name withheld) non-HP multifunction printer for my office last year. I would not do so again. I later bought a HP 2840 for home and it does the job far better than the more expensive one I have at the office. I got the 2840 cheap at Grays online and it hasn't missed a beat, either printing, faxing, scanning, or copying. -- Del Babel Com Australia http://www.babel.com.au/ ph: 02 9966 9476 fax: 02 9906 2864 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] what to backup on CentOS5 / EHEL5?
Amos Shapira wrote: Hello, We have a production CentOS 5 server which I need to be able to restore from scratch (naturally). mkcdrec is excellent. http://mkcdrec.ota.be/ Make a bootable DVD of your system including everything (except what you specify to be excluded, which might be just your running databases). If your machine needs a restore, boot off the DVD, type in the restore command, and come back an hour or so later to a bootable system, just about where you left it. -- Del Babel Com Australia http://www.babel.com.au/ ph: 02 9368 0728 fax: 02 9368 0758 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] SCO delisted from NASDAQ
James Dumay wrote: It has not been delisted yet and the decision is subject to appeal. So they have not been delisted from NASDAQ - apparently there is a certain amount of time between filing chapter 11 and NASAQ delisting your company - and this reporter is just passing this fact off as news. So there's still time to rush out and buy me a whole stack of SCO shares! Yay! -- Del Babel Com Australia http://www.babel.com.au/ ph: 02 9368 0728 fax: 02 9368 0758 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Software RAID Questions
As the office champion at Doing Stupid Things With Raid (TM) this interests me a bit. I'd like to see how you get it working in the end. I don't have any specific advice, but things you might like to play with include: * Read the manual page for mdadm.conf, which is an (optional) config file which describes your RAID config. You essentially have to build that by hand after building your RAID array, and make your mdadm.conf file match it. It sometimes helps when your RAID config can't be detected on boot up, but it is nearly always not required. * Make sure that your USB drivers and things are loaded before you run mdadm. If necessary you may need to play with the order of things in your /etc/rc*.d or /etc/init.d files. It may be the case that you have to re-run your mdadm with your mdadm.conf file after your USB drivers load and your USB system is started. Put some debugging into your /etc/init.d files if required. * If that doesn't work, have a think about what is required to restart your RAID array (mdadm man page will help here), and perhaps run that from somewhere like /etc/rc.d/rc.local -- Del Babel Com Australia http://www.babel.com.au/ ph: 02 9368 0728 fax: 02 9368 0758 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] [ot] Waterproof case and SBC for hotspot
Richard Hayes wrote: Dear list, I have a wireless application and need to have a small computer on the roof of a building similar to an access point. Can someone point me to waterproof casing and small computer with a full Linux development kit? Waterproof doesn't come cheap, and is normally found in laptops. You could search ebay for a second-hand Panasonic Toughbook, the previous model (CF-29) sells at a reasonable price. Otherwise this is a good supplier and model for something new: http://www.antares.com.au/products/notebooks/itronix_gobook_xr1/index.php -- Del Babel Com Australia http://www.babel.com.au/ ph: 02 9368 0728 fax: 02 9368 0758 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Quantum hard disk wanted
Hi, Anyone got a Quantum Atlas 10K RPM 18GB 80 pin SCSI disk lying around in working order? These are a bit old and Quantum no longer makes disk drives. I'm prepared to pay good money (or even bad money) to replace a failed one that a customer has in a RAID array. Failing that I'll take a pair of any brand, 80 pin SE SCSI disks, around 10K / U160 speed, around 18 - 36GB capacity. eBay hasn't turned anything useful up so far. -- Del Babel Com Australia http://www.babel.com.au/ ph: 02 9368 0728 fax: 02 9368 0758 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Quantum hard disk wanted
Can you wack in a new controller just use newer disks? Skinny 1U machine with no free slots and the controller on the motherboard. -- Del Babel Com Australia http://www.babel.com.au/ ph: 02 9368 0728 fax: 02 9368 0758 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] SLUG Bootcamp, this Saturday!
Peter Hardy wrote: On Fri, 2007-05-18 at 15:45 +1000, Del wrote: I thought about participating with some hands-on fedora directory server stuff but since the aim was mostly to play with desktop apps and not server ones I decided against it. I may drop by during the day, though, and perhaps I'll save the FDS/Samba talk for another time. Would it be something you'd care to give at a SLUG meeting some time? I for one would be interested to see a demonstration of FDS. Unfortunately my Friday night class which was every 2nd Friday which used to occasionally clash with SLUG meetings is now 2nd and 4th Fridays of the month which always clashes. Unless the month has 5 Fridays in it, which is quite rare. It happens in June, when I'll be in Seattle, and in August, which I may be able to make. -- Del Babel Com Australia http://www.babel.com.au/ ph: 02 9368 0728 fax: 02 9368 0758 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] SLUG Bootcamp, this Saturday!
Jeff Waugh wrote: quote who=Sridhar Dhanapalan Come to the SLUG Bootcamp! The event will run from 10am to 6pm on this Saturday (19 May). Where/how has this event been publicised, aside from SLUG announcements and flyers at Open CeBIT? How many people to you expect to participate? Did you take RSVPs at all? Seems like this was pulled out of the hat very quickly, without a lot of lead time for building community involvement or promotion, which will be a worry for anyone spending their time preparing for it. Given the number of flyers [sic] handed out for this at CeBIT, I think the promotion was pretty good. At least as good as other SLUG installfests, etc, in the past. I thought about participating with some hands-on fedora directory server stuff but since the aim was mostly to play with desktop apps and not server ones I decided against it. I may drop by during the day, though, and perhaps I'll save the FDS/Samba talk for another time. -- Del Babel Com Australia http://www.babel.com.au/ ph: 02 9368 0728 fax: 02 9368 0758 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] SLUG Boot Camp
The SLUG Bootcamp is on 19 May, at the HP offices in Rhodes. You can find a map at http://www.slug.org.au/2007/bootcamp More details will be forthcoming, but essentially it will be a series of demonstrations and tutorials on how to use Linux. If you have a laptop that you want to install Linux on, bring it along. Can someone put some more details on the wiki page please? I have a few people I would like to send along but they aren't going to go if the event notice just says Details: TBA. -- Del Babel Com Australia http://www.babel.com.au/ ph: 02 9368 0728 fax: 02 9368 0758 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: recommended internet wireless
Not just in Sydney Metro - IRCing from a bus halfway between Byron Bay and the Gold Coast is quite useful[1] too :) What's the offshore coverage like? I'm sort of thinking about the NextG concept with the new tower/software upgrades they are planning later in the year, because apparently that should give 200km coverage out to sea. Not that I'll believe it until I see it, mind you, and Telstra's pricing is still extortionate (although not as extortionate as satellite, and faster than seamail over HF). -- Del Babel Com Australia http://www.babel.com.au/ ph: 02 9368 0728 fax: 02 9368 0758 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] AMD based computers.
For servers, it comes down to price/performance/power. I haven't been watching very closely in recent times, but it seems Intel are making a strong comeback on that front. Anyone have links to (clueful) comparisons that take all three into account? For the general case, I haven't seen any. For specific examples of machine vs machine you would probably want to look at Toms Hardware guide, etc. If you're looking at higher end / 64 bit server stuff, the word from the various vendors seems to be that although Intel have made a strong comeback in terms of price/performance it does come at the cost of heat dissipation issues and the recent server offerings have pretty much reflected that. e.g. HP are pushing their quad CPU AMD-64 offerings in a 4RU form factor fairly heavily, but you won't find a quad CPU intel 64 bit in anything less than 7 or 8 RU as the intel chips need a fair bit more heat dissipation. How does that relate to home PCs? If you're looking at 64 bit then you can expect your average Intel machine to be hotter and noisier than your average AMD machine in the same price/performance range. -- Del Babel Com Australia http://www.babel.com.au/ ph: 02 9368 0728 fax: 02 9368 0758 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] cage bolts
I'm after some cage nuts and cage bolts for rackmounting. I need them on Monday, so mail ordering them from Perth isn't really an option. Does anyone know of any shops around Sydney that might have them in stock where they can be bought over the counter? -- Del Babel Com Australia http://www.babel.com.au/ ph: 02 9368 0728 fax: 02 9368 0758 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] OKI 5540
Alex Samad wrote: Hi Del why not HP_LaserJet_3390, I used it to replace my hp3330 I need colour and I need duplex, and the 3390 doesn't do either. -- Del Babel Com Australia http://www.babel.com.au/ ph: 02 9368 0728 fax: 02 9368 0758 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Fedora Core repositories
Howard Lowndes wrote: I am having occasional lockups downloading the FC repositories using: /usr/bin/lftp -c mirror --verbose=3 --continue --delete-first --exclude-glob *-debuginfo-* --exclude-glob debug/ --exclude-glob headers/ --exclude-glob repodata/ --exclude-glob *.html http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/fedora/linux/extras/6/i386/ /mnt/repo/fedora_core/6/extras Is anyone else having similar probs? Yes, I am, and I'm assuming it's AARNet. I have switched to downloading from the mirror at pacific.net.au, it's much faster and doesn't die on me continually. -- Del Babel Com Australia http://www.babel.com.au/ ph: 02 9368 0728 fax: 02 9368 0758 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] odd eth1/ipw2200 problem
Hi, I have a Toshiba laptop with an ipw2200 wireless device. It currently runs Fedora Core 6 but I've tried a few other distros on it (mostly booting from a small set of /boot partitions I keep at the back of the disk, and mounting most of the rest of their stuff from an attached USB disk, but I wouldn't think that'd cause the problem). Quite frequently, I'd say about 25% of the time, when it boots it comes up with a message during network initialisation saying ipw2200 device eth1 not found, skipping initialisation or whatever the distro's words to that effect are. When I run ipconfig -a or look in /dev I found that the ipw2200 device that is normally /dev/eth1 has in fact set itself up as /dev/__tmp22993 or something equally stupid. Rebooting usually makes the problem go away, although sometimes it gets on a roll and I have to reboot anything up to 10 times before I get eth1 back. I haven't found any way of fixing this other than rebooting. I've looked through all of the various scripts in /etc/init.d and I can't see what's causing this. Obviously it's creating a temp file name somewhere and expecting that to be translated into eth1, but it doesn't happen, and I can't figure out where. I've even pulled apart the initrd and can't see anything in there causing it either. Because this happens on a number of recent distros, perhaps it's a devfs or udev or similar problem? Can someone who knows the ins and outs of udev/devfs/hal/etc or other hardware detection shed some light on it? Is there some way of just nailing the device mapping up so that the ipw2200 device always appears as eth1 (and yes, it's listed as that in /etc/modprobe.conf, which just goes to show that perhaps everything should be done in simple config files and all of this autodetection rubbish should be taken out and shot). -- Del Babel Com Australia http://www.babel.com.au/ ph: 02 9368 0728 fax: 02 9368 0758 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] OKI 5540
Hi, I'm looking at replacing our venerable HP 3330 MFP (printer/scanner/fax/copier) a mid-range model, more up to date, with a duplexing kit and colour. Although I've always bought HP printers in the past, HP have a Colour LaserJet 2800 which at $1600 or so looks a bit flimsy, doesn't have duplexing, and not large enough paper trays or duty cycle, and the 4730x which at $10,000 is too big and somewhat overkill, and nothing in between. The printer I've been looking at is the OKI C5540 MFP which is around $3,000. Has anyone used this or can recommend an alternative colour MFP with similar specs that runs OK on Linux? -- Del -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] LDAP replication with OpenLDAP
My problem is that in the master slapd.conf file I seem to have to
have the replica credentials in cleartext, which I don't like. I have
tried passing them as {SSHA} but that doesn't seem to work. Is there
a way around this problem.
How about connecting using ldaps (i.e. LDAP over SSL) ?
Correct solution to the wrong problem (sending, not storing, clear text
passwords).
You can do it via kerberos, however the solution is so complex that I will
not advise you how to do it here.
Instead I think you should just use a less obvious replication password
than lannetlinux (something generated with openssl rand 12345 | md5sum -
perhaps) and then ensuring the slapd.conf files on each end can't be
easily read.
Normally slapd.conf is readable only by root or the ldap user. If someone
is logged on to your server as one of those users then the security of your
replication password is the least of your problems.
Alternatively I'd suggest you have a look at doing replication using
Fedora Directory Server instead of OpenLDAP.
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Re: [SLUG] bash problem - renaming files with their time stamp
Peter Hardy wrote: Oh, cool. I seem to recall having problems with the for file in * construct, but I don't remember what they were, so I'll try it again next time I want a for loop. The problem you'll have with for file in * is that when you have a ridiculously large number of files in a directory you will find that the maximum size of a command line is exceeded by *. So the way around that is, when you hit that problem, replace this: for file in *; do do_something_with $file done with this: ls | while read file; do do_something_with $file done ... the latter is a smudge less efficient, however. -- Del Babel Com Australia http://www.babel.com.au/ ph: 02 9368 0728 fax: 02 9368 0758 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Linux UI decision
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I've never done any winders programming, but needed to do a GUI winders project. I spent 90% of my time doing it on my linux box, 10% porting it to winders. Now I can build either, mod either, support either (heh heh vmware) So 10 days for a C programmer to write a C++ app and port to winders. Not Bad! (Qt is simplistic C++, but the paradigsm works). Much easier than motif! What sort of effort is required to get a Qt app, once built, installed on Windows? As in, what libraries, dlls, etc do I have to get a novice desktop user to install to get my Qt app running, and how complex is that (packaged in an install EXE / MSI file, etc, or do I have to create files all over the file system and install a bunch of registry entries by hand)? -- Del Babel Com Australia http://www.babel.com.au/ ph: 02 9368 0728 fax: 02 9368 0758 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Web based poll/survey software
Simon Wong wrote: On Tue, 2006-11-07 at 21:15 +1100, Del wrote: I've used PHPESP in the past and been pretty happy with it. http://www.butterfat.net/wiki/Projects/phpESP/ Thanks, Del. Do you find it's easy for non-technical people to use and setup? Yes, once it's installed. -- Del Babel Com Australia http://www.babel.com.au/ ph: 02 9368 0728 fax: 02 9368 0758 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Web based poll/survey software
Simon Wong wrote: I am looking for some web based software to run a poll or more of a survey with multiple questions eg Q1 Do you like Pizza? yes/no Q2 What toppings would you like in the future? Q3 Choose your favourite crust. (i) thin (ii) thick (iii) cheesy I have found the VotePlugin and PollPlugin for twiki but not sure if that will do the job. Does anyone have any suggestions for something that can be pretty much dropped into a site hosted by an external Web Host? I've used PHPESP in the past and been pretty happy with it. http://www.butterfat.net/wiki/Projects/phpESP/ -- Del -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] print image across multiple pages?
Hi, Does anyone know of a convenient way of printing a large image across multiple pages (on a standard A4 printer)? I've tried the various dialogs in GIMP, etc, and drawn a blank. -- Del -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] please help, due in tonight
David Herd wrote: Hello there slug members It's me, David Herd again. I had a go with my assignment and had difficulties. Here is the assignment and some of my incomplete answers. Please help, this assignment is due tonight 12pm, show some mercy. It might help to put your answers near the questions. For the bash commands you are asked to write answers to, try them on your own home Linux machine. If you don't have a Linux machine at home then you should probably ask someone in SLUG about getting one set up, but probably do that before you tackle a course on Linux. a) show the lines of the online manual page for sort that contain the word order. Read the man page for grep b) show how many characters the date command outputs. Read the man page for wc c) copy all C source files (the filenames end in .c) from the present working directory into a subdirectory called Cfiles. Check the case (C/c) in the answer you gave. d) list all files in the present working directory that have filenames that match: starts with either t or T the extension is a single digit Extension means something after a dot. So a file with a single digit extension might be ttt.0, or TtT.7 e) compress all the files in the directory Docs/ and store them in an archive called Docs.tar Read the man page for tar. f) sort the file /etc/passwd in reverse alphabetical order by username. sort is a good start, but what are you sorting? Read the man page for sort. g) append all the lines of m1 that contain name to m2 Read about and . Also look up the man page for grep. h) Mail the present working directory contents to the current user with subject Directory. You haven't made an attempt at that. What command might you use to send mail? Try man -k mail or man -k send. Question 2. (4 marks) Read the man page for bash, especially around the area where it talks about file descriptor numbers. 2b is a tough-ish question, do that one last and don't sweat if you don't figure it out. Question 3. (4 marks) m1, m2 and m3 are text files. What do the following commands do under tcsh? Answer in English. a) ls -l | grep admin |tee m1 | lpr -Pp1 What does the lpr command do? b) zcat m.z | head -20 This should be easy to answer, you have the commands, just read the man page for each. In fact the first half dozen or so lines of man zcat and man head should give you the answer to this question. e.g. gzip, gunzip, zcat - compress or expand files head - output the first part of files ... so, perhaps ... uncompress your neighbour's cat, and chop off its head 20 times? Or something else maybe. What does the m.z bit mean? -- Del -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Cross Platform FOSS Project Management Software
Erik de Castro Lopo wrote: Hi all, At work we need to get hold of some project mamagement software and would prefer something FOSS and cross platform (ie both *nix and windows clients). http://www.dotproject.net/ -- Del Babel Com Australia http://www.babel.com.au/ ph: 02 9368 0728 fax: 02 9368 0758 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Snakes and Rubies?
So, what does everybody think of reviving the old Python SIG, and possibly combining it with a Ruby one? At which point, you're only a couple of steps away from making it an Open Source Developer's Club [1] for Sydney folks. Thoughts? Which is probably worth having. The MySQL folks are having problems attracting members, the PHP users' group is active and self-sustaining but could use some more interaction, and some people don't have time to get to 4, maybe 5, maybe 7 meetings per month because much of the membership of these groups overlap anyway. - Jeff [1] http://www.osdc.com.au/osdclub/index.html Pity they are already The Open Source Developers' Club, so no room for another one by that name. Peh. Melbourne people. -- Del -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] those netgear modems
Hi, There was an overwhelming response about the netgear modems that I advertised on the SLUG list last week. A number more than I was able to handle so I wasn't able to get back to all of the several dozen people who emailed me. I am away from the office for a week but when I get back I'll see how many we have left, and maybe bring them along to a SLUG meeting for people to collect on a first-come first-served basis. -- Del -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Dialup.
Unrelated comment except by subject. I have a number, 20 or so, Netcomm RM356 modem/routers. They have a dial-up modem in them, and 4 ethernet ports. They mostly work quite well, but they are dial up. They are free. If anyone wants one or more contact me off list. I also have some D-Link serial routers. They are also free, however they mostly don't work. If you want some or all of them then you are welcome to them. -- Del -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Dialup.
Michael Fox wrote: On 5/15/06, Del [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Unrelated comment except by subject. I have a number, 20 or so, Netcomm RM356 modem/routers. They have a dial-up modem in them, and 4 ethernet ports. They mostly work quite well, but they are dial up. I think you mean Netgear RM356, they weren't made by Netcomm. Blue box from memory, had one for my folks, not a bad unit to tell you the truth.. Yes, Netgear. Whatever. -- Del -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] arrayprobe
Hi, Has anyone managed to compile arrayprobe against a 2.6 kernel and can send me a binary? It's a utility to check the status of cciss RAID arrays (Compaq/HP servers). There appears to be a debian package floating around, so if anyone has a 2.6 kernel Debian or Ubuntu system that they can install this on and send me the binary (it should just be a single self contained binary) that'd be good too. Not sure what arcane magic the debian maintainers used to get it to compile but it doesn't work for me on any of the systems I've tried. -- Del -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Hiding LDAP binddn/passwd
Beav Petrie wrote: Sluggers, Any ways to hide LDAP binddn/passwd so if I connect as user 'myname' and passwd 'mypass' (not connecting as 'anonymous') I enter: $ldapsearch something something will not include 'myname'/'mypass'. I know this command: $ldapsearch -x -D uid=myname,ou=people,dc=mydomain,dc=com \ -w mypass (Don't want to show mypass or enter mypass with a -W option)l There are a lot of different ldapsearch'es out there, so the answer will vary with each one. For the time being I'll assume you are using OpenLDAP. The obvious, but complex, answer is to use SASL Kerberos. Then you just get the tgt once and from then on you're bound to the server. That's a whole minefield of things that need setting up so I suggest you google about for it a bit, there is plenty of documentation. The next obvious answer is to use -y passwdfile, where passwdfile contains the password you want to use. That file should be somewhere where nobody else can find it, and where only you can read it, and even then I wouldn't trust it. -- Del -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] debian vs FC threads
Only because I was asked. :) Dean Hamstead wrote: this is flame bait : i cant think of anything that is specific to redhat and its friends. perhaps there are some strange SAN drivers which only work on redhat. if that is the case, you need to ask yourself what sort of life is this hardware likely to have? if i update the kernel will it make the hardware useless? binary drivers and software suffer from bit-rot horribly in linux. No, it's not flame bait, it's just ill-informed (so I stand by my comments earlier on that line). Nearly all SAN systems have fibre-SCSI attachment -- this goes for all of the major SAN vendors -- EMC, Hitachi, Fujitsu, etc. To make the SAN switch work in failover mode, you need specific hardware -- usually EMC/Lightpulse style or QLogic chipset (there are third party OEM boards using these chipsets) dual-fibre SCSI cards. The business of automatic-failover and detection of reconnects on these systems is still pretty much a black art, and all of the drivers to do it are closed source. The majority of them are only available for Red Hat in the Linux universe, while the rest are available for either Red Hat or SuSE. No other distro choices, sorry. There are the beginnings of an open-source driver in the kernel (provided by Red Hat in fact) but it just doesn't have the features of the closed-source drivers. e.g. multipath works but failover does not. So the closed source drivers are available (at a cost) for every version of RHEL and most recent versions of SuSE, and they are tied to a specific kernel version and they don't suffer from bit-rot because there are large companies being paid significant amounts of money to keep them updated. I doubt that every major SAN hardware vendor is going to go out of business because their drivers aren't available on Debian, or aren't available to people who roll their own kernels. No, you get RHEL, you install that, the drivers are available for that version of RHEL (RHEL never updates its kernel, only backports patches, so the drivers remain good over time), and you use that. No Debian, no gentoo, no Ubuntu, and no Fedora Core. And you aren't going to get major data centers pulling out their SAN storage units and stringing together heaps of USB drives or something just so they can run without the binary drivers. There are hundreds of millions of dollars invested in this stuff, it's good, it's stable, and it works. You want to connect 1000 servers up to 500TB of disk storage, have it work reliably, and have cluster file systems so you can have large oracle / OCFS / GFS clusters, with SCSI path redundancy and load balancing? This is the way it's done, end of story. -- Del -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] debian vs FC threads
re-inventing the wheel. further, one asks another flame-bait question - are there actually really savy redhat users? on this list? Yes. Me. (I think I'm the last one who hasn't been scared off -- I certainly know other experienced Red Hat users and systems admins who won't have anything to do with SLUG). the solution may simply to be, people asking distribution specific question should be directed to a distribution specific list? i for one take this stance and spend a lot of time on the debian lists as debian-ppc or debian-amd64 (or freebsd) questions arent likely to get answered here. There's a lot of merit in that. I'd like to see us all remain under the banner of one SLUG. However there are distribution flavours, and there are all levels of user experience as well. Perhaps we need some distro-flavoured mailing lists, and perhaps some kind of linux-newcomers list where some of us can hang out and answer the most basic of questions in a non-threatening manner (something that may have to be done on a volunteer or rotation basis). -- Del -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] data centers
To take another Dean Hamstead thread back to the list: If you have problems with you SAN drivers in redhat, perhaps you should be calling redhat or your vendor - not asking on slug. (a) SLUG stands for Sydney Linux Users Group. I don't see anything in the title that implies Sydney Linux non-data-center Users Group. (b) If you call Red Hat or your SAN vendor you will get a very biased view point. The usual response is well, buy our X product and we will sell you some consulting time and you can pay us large numbers of dollars and your problem may or may not be fixed. There is no active forum for data center Linux sysadmins to talk about what may or may not be best practice for this sort of environment -- is satellite really the way to go to manage a large number of Linux boxes in a data center or would we be better off with Red Carpet or something? Who uses Clariion machines and what are the specs like vs the later EMC gear, and what version of the Linux driver do you use in that kernel? What's the best JVM to use on Linux? So (in the interests of improving SLUG) perhaps it's time for a data centers mailing list @slug.org.au -- keep it vendor neutral and get some of the folks working in the larger data centers involved. A possible new source of SLUG members, and maybe some of the slug regulars might learn a thing or two, even if only off the list archives? I'd be happy to moderate/admin. -- Del -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] debian vs FC threads
You're not the last RH user nor sysadmin on the list :) Glad to hear it. :) -- Del -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] data centers
Jeff Waugh wrote: quote who=Del So (in the interests of improving SLUG) perhaps it's time for a data centers mailing list @slug.org.au I think that's an extremely awkward 'first topic split' for SLUG. It was a tough call to split off the chat list a few years back, but ultimately I think that was successful. If we were to start splitting off topic-specific lists, I can think of a few broader topics which would make *vastly* more sense (and be less risky) than 'data centre'. In retrospect I agree, but perhaps it's something we can consider down the track, once the other topic lists are up and running and successful. -- Del -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] debian vs FC threads
James Purser wrote: In keeping with the current discussion, a thought occurs. As I understand it, there is a SLUG Debian Special Interest Group, for those who either use or develop for Debian. Could not something similar be setup for FC/RH users? I'm in. Where do we start? Mailing list? Pub meet? -- Del -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: DEC Storage Works
Slightly related, well it is multi-channel {:-), but does anyone have
any experience with using a DEC Storage works array under dual linux
hosts?[1]
1) can it be done?
Yes. It's a filesystem issue, not specifically a host issue, although
you do need to make sure that your storageworks array is the type that
will map the same filesystems to multiple hosts (early models won't do
that).
2) which distros?[2]
RHEL 3 with OCFS. RHEL 4 with OCFS2 should work as should GFS (I've
never tried it with GFS). I've seen people fail in an extremely
spectacular manner trying it with ext3. However OCFS is the only
filesystem that I've gotten it to work on personally.
3) other stuff?
You may be able to get GFS for a really recent Debian, 2.6.9 kernel or
thereabouts. You will probably need OCFS if you want this to work on
earlier / 2.4 kernels. OCFS can't be used to store files -- only Oracle
databases. You may have some joy with OCFS2 instead, not sure what
kernels that's supported under. I suspect that OCFS2 is probably more
stable than GFS, but GFS has some performance advantages. Oracle
would like you to use OCFS2, Red Hat would like you to use GFS. Choose
your poison. Neither will support you running on Debian, so you may
need to build from source and google a lot. YMMV.
It was really unstable, and crashed a lot. I suspect that was the
hardware. The ventilation needed to be really good or it spat disks
out at an alarming rate.
The need to rebuild an entire RAID array to expand the size of the
storage was a complete pain, and it wasn't the fastest box to rebuild
arrays on. Make sure you know which direction your SCSI buses and
SCSI IDs are numbered in the chassis -- some storageworks models cable
the busses going down and the IDs left to right, some do it the other
way. Getting multiple disks in the same array spanning multiple busses
within the storageworks chassis can improve your performance a lot,
so sometimes you need to fill the arrays top to bottom and sometimes
you need to fill them left to right.
Generally the storageworks units I played with left a lot to be desired
in comparison with the EMC gear. I wouldn't buy one or recommend one
to a client, however if one's fallen into your lap it may be a fun
toy, and better than a stack of yellow sticky notes from a storage
point of view.
--
Del
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[SLUG] debian vs FC threads (was: presidents report)
that the normal run of the mill distro-comparison discussions are anything other than helpful. However if someone's asking a question about getting something done on Red Hat or Fedora then perhaps either start another subject on how to do it on Debian, or refrain from replying altogether. Otherwise you're (a) driving people away from the community and (b) driving them away from SLUG. I don't have time to check my SLUG mail on an hourly basis, so it's often the case that when someone asks how do I do X on Red Hat there are several replies that say you do it by switching to Debian, so there is no point me replying with an actually useful, Red Hat specific answer. So in addition to harming the reputation of the community you are actually stopping people finding out the information they are after, and let's face it there is no Linux distribution where the documentation is *perfect*. I'd also like to add that in comparison, the Ubuntu folks have been generally more pragmatic (minor exception noted above). While I disagree with Jeff Waugh's statements about Ubuntu's market perception vs that of Red Hat, he does at least take the entire conversation aside into a separate Ubuntu thread, and recognises the position of Red Hat in the market place and addresses that directly. Some of the other folks could follow the lead there. -- Del -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] MySQL in RHEL3 ?
Voytek Eymont wrote: I've just installed RHEL3 with 'everything' option, when I tried: RHEL 3 doesn't ship with MySQL server. You have to log in to RHN, add the Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES (v. 3 for x86) Extras channel to your list of subscribed channels, and then do: up2date -u mysql-server -- Del -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Heads Up - troubles with time zones
It appears that a bunch of the pre-distributed timezone patch files that came from various places are incorrect for some reason. For example, Microsoft distributed a special commonwealth games patch that doesn't appear to have fixed the problem on MS systems, so they are all an hour out as well. So in addition to making the above copy or its equivalent Oh, and here's the good news: http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/am-and-pm-not-ok-when-pcs-exit-aedt/2006/03/24/1143083999500.html -- Del -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Re: [LINK] Re: Heads Up - troubles with time zones
Craig Sanders wrote: 3. reformat and install debian. you know you want to :-) Can we not start distro flame wars over something as simple as a timezone file? Other than that, that's not a useful response as the problem doesn't appear to be limited to FC4. -- Del -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Heads Up - troubles with time zones
Sean Jackson wrote: My Fedora 4 box was also patched but is now an hour behind. Updated the time and restarted ntpd using the following step tickers: ntp0.cs.mu.oz.au ntp.ise.canberra.edu.au ntp1.cs.mu.oz.au time was set back an hour again, disabling ntpd for now. Possible the time servers are out? /bin/cp -a /usr/share/zoneinfo/Australia/NSW /etc/localtime ... fixes it for me. It appears that a bunch of the pre-distributed timezone patch files that came from various places are incorrect for some reason. For example, Microsoft distributed a special commonwealth games patch that doesn't appear to have fixed the problem on MS systems, so they are all an hour out as well. So in addition to making the above copy or its equivalent on whatever system you are running on, make sure that you have an actual real correct zoneinfo file, verify this using: zdump -v Australia/NSW|grep 2006 Rumour has it that various Solaris zoneinfo patches aren't correct either. (No doubt there will be some gnashing and wailing in the press about this once people begin to care about it this week). -- Del -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Fedora Core 5
I have the DVD ISO. I guess I must have gotten in early. bittorrent with this thing has never worked for me, I just grabbed it off a nearby mirror. I will burn a few copies and have them available at LWE next week if anyone wants one. Of course you might also ask the ELX guys, they may have copies at their stand at LWE as well. -- Del -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Interesting view
No apologies needed. About 5 years ago I did a major linux install across a multi branch business. About 50% of the users were first time computer users and there were no problems, and the desktops were a lot less sophisticated 5 years ago. I also did a smaller windows to linux switch about 5 months ago; all of the users had windows experience and it took about 1 hour each for them to get the hang of KDE. That'd be an interesting case study to make available via OSIA or similar. -- Del -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] cvs and subversion
In addition, cvs does not do renames nicely nor does it allow files to be easily moved from one directory to another. Its not uncommon for me to rename files so that their fine name more closely matches its content. I also put new files in a miscellaneous directory and move them later to a directory of other files with the same subject matter. CVS doesn't do renames not does it track file moves. It keeps the same file name in the same place. If you move a file you actually track that in CVS by saying it was deleted in one place and added in another. So it is still possible to move a file, but you leave a record of the file in its original place as well as a creation date in the new place. In certain environments that's important to know, for example in most MIL-STD-973 (and later EIA 836) environments it's important to have it done the CVS way. I can't configure subversion to handle file moves the way that CVS does, so I have to use CVS for that. For many other purposes, subversion may be better. However, I prefer CVS because it suits what I do better than subversion does. subversion suits the creators best, but it is not a better cvs, it's a different cvs. It did not suit my paradigism. YMMV. cvs ensures the SAME document in both places is called the same-name. subversion does not. Since subversion does renames and file moves much better that cvs I think its actually a better tool for this job than cvs. However itsI still don't think its the right tool. No, that's still different not better. If it was better then it would be better for everyone. It's not better for me, and it isn't better for the original poster (James). Neither are the right tool for controlling binary files, though, although they will both still work. I don't know of anything that's open source that does that well, although there are some expensive high-end CM packages that will. -- Del -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Archiving/searching PDF and PS files.
I'd also like to be able to have some offline tool that searches through these files and builds up a database so I can search the whole collection. Anybody have any clues on how to do this? Suggestsions? http://beaglewiki.org/Main_Page Last time I looked this required some odd kernel patches that were slowly being integrated into the main kernel. That might have been done by now, depending on your distro. -- Del -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] linux to linux shares
dave kempe wrote: You really think NFS is better than CIFS/smbfs? Define better? NFS runs over UDP, is stateless, and for that reason is faster, provided your network can be trusted. It uses fewer resources at the server end, and for high-performance low-security unix - unix shares is probably better in some ways than CIFS. It doesn't have the granularity of security, doesn't require or support passwords to turn on and off mounts, and can't handle non-unix clients very effectively. It has a completely different locking paradigm, so NFS and CIFS clients don't mix too well on the same server. NFS support is available in pretty much every *ix. CIFS support varies between *ixes. NFS is easier to set up than either samba or AFS. So it's horses for courses. For my home network, NFS is better, however I don't own any windows machines. For closed networks that involve Unix systems only, NFS is better. That's not to imply it's better everywhere. -- Del -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Project managment software
Benno wrote: Does anyone know of any good project management software for Linux? E.g: MS Project clone. Planner looks kind of OK, but seems a bit buggy, and feature poor. (Of course if it is the best out there, I guess I will just fix it.) The web based ones I've seen look more like PIMs than proj. mgmt. http://www.dotproject.net/ It works as a back end for Eventum as well which is quite a good issue management / tracking tool. -- Del -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] SQL Query...
Terry Denovan wrote: Hi Sluggers, I am trying to write an SQL Statement and require some help. There is now a MySQL users' group in Sydney: http://mysql.meetup.com/142/ It has a notice board and Arjen is about to set up a mailing list for it so perhaps you can join up there. -- Del -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] SQL Query...
*delete** from members_temp where email like '(select distinct email from news)' * Answer 2: remove the quotes. delete from members_temp where email like (select distinct email from news) Otherwise you're trying to delete a member who has the email address (select distinct email from news) which is a very odd email address. -- Del -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Fedora vs RH Enterprise - consultants advising to change
Something to consider, do you *need* support? Consider what you have available, what you bring personally to the party, and be prepared to be brutally honest. Simon, this isn't supposed to be personal, but you sign your job title as IT Manager. Now there are a lot of different types of IT Managers, varying from technical boots-and-all small-team people, to people who are just adept at managing an IT staff and who have limited skills. What other IT resources in-house do you have? Is there a reasonable body of staff that are happy with helping you support a number of Fedora systems and are sufficiently competent (and that is where the brutally honest bit comes in) to do emergency package downgrades where something is broken by a Fedora update? Alternatively, are you like many organisations today whose IT budget has been squeezed to death, coping on limited staff resources and having to rely on external consultants for any depth of skill? Are a lot of your IT people just the ones who would agree to work for you for the money that was offered, and are spending few of their leisure hours attempting to improve on their skills? Consider what your needs are -- do you need a supported distro or not? My company has more computer technical people than we know what to do with, and so we probably do not. I can point at other organisations trying to run large data centers full of rack mount systems with limited IT staff resources and they absolutely need supported distributions, no questions asked. No people-savvy consultant would recommend Debian, or RHEL, or Tao, or White Box, or Fedora, without having a serious look at your needs and requirements first. -- Del -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Re: pentium M series
You guys have nothing better to do all day xmas day than to argue about intel CPUs and clock cycles? I get home from 14 hours solid fishing, boozing, and eating to collapse in front of the TV and maybe browse some web comics, and my mailbox is full of this? To steal a very famous quote -- all of you: Have you ever kissed a girl? -- Del -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
