Re: [DNG] Update on the Green Hat Hackers attack

[Don Wright]

KatolaZ wrote:
>   * APRIL FOOLS *


Not funny. Came here to get away from the crap. Going back to Debian, or
maybe IBM Red Hat.

___
Dng mailing list
Dng@lists.dyne.org
https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng

Re: [DNG] Cannot find in mail archive: was Mozilla and cloudflare to hijack all your DNS requests - for your own good of course

[Don Wright]

Mark Rousell wrote:

>Although it's still something of a work in progress, it seems that
>MM3/Postorius/HyperKitty might be a possible solution in that case.
>
>(That said, I've just tested the search function on the MM3 demo system
>at https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/ and I have to admit that it
>seems rather crude so far.)


Perhaps [1]this might be a better example of MM3 etc. in action. I believe
the Mailman 3 team has some involvement.

[1] https://mail.python.org/mm3/archives/

___
Dng mailing list
Dng@lists.dyne.org
https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng

[DNG] Debian blocks latest Intel microcode update

[Don Wright]

El Reg has [1]published a disagreement between a Debian maintainer and Intel
over changes to license terms in the latest CPU microcode updates. The added
terms (see comments) appear to attach liability to both Debian and mirror
sites if the end user violates certain new restrictions regarding
benchmarking. Debian has chosen not to play.

[1] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/08/21/intel_cpu_patch_licence/

___
Dng mailing list
Dng@lists.dyne.org
https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng

Re: [DNG] [OT] donate to Slackware

[Don Wright]

Not a Bruce, but... Source reference for that address is on page 11 on the
LinuxQuestions.org thread quoted by Jaromil below. Here's a direct link.
Decide for yourself, or wait for http://www.slackware.com/ to post.

https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/donating-to-slackware-4175634729/page11.html#post5883695


Steve Litt wrote:
>
>Bruce,
>
>It sounds like you have personal contact with him. Do you have for sure
>knowledge as to whether the https://www.paypal.me/volkerdi is Patrick's
>and funds I put in it would actually go to Patrick?



>> On Thu, Jul 26, 2018 at 1:46 PM, Jaromil  wrote:
>> 
>> > https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/donating-to-slackware-4175634729/#post5882751

-- 

   This signature intentionally left blank.


___
Dng mailing list
Dng@lists.dyne.org
https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng

Re: [DNG] ASCII installation static IP problem

[Don Wright]

Olaf Meeuwissen wrote:

>Installing a desktop, by default, pulls in wicd (or network-manager).
>You can prevent this by using apt-get's --no-install-recommend option.

Not an option within the de??an installer - which was the context of the
original post.


>Whether either package blatantly ignores your static IP configuration
>from when you installed, I cannot tell for sure (zapped wicd) but I
>vaguely remember that you can tell wicd to leave certain interfaces
>unmolested.  That may even be its default behaviour for interfaces that
>are configured in /etc/network/interfaces.
>
[Steve Litt] 
>>I would sure find this behavior surprising.
>
>If wicd breaks static IP address configurations out-of-the-box I'd be
>surprised too.  I've mainly used it in DHCP settings.  On my server's
>wicd was never installed so any static IP configurations just worked as
>intended.

However surprising to any of you, this is my testimony. A statically
configured interface present in /etc/network/interfaces was ignored **as
installed by Devuan ASCII.iso**. Removing wicd fixed the problem. What other
conclusion can reasonably be drawn but that wicd is the one doing the
ignoring?


># Veteran Unix Administrator's are free to cobble together their own
># solution and `apt purge wicd` goes a long ways towards that end ;-P

But that's only an option after the fault, which only shows up after
restarting. If the device is not within easy reach, how will you get a
command line at the random assigned IP address in the first place?

Background: My situation, which you so deride, is a test install of a server
with changing products *and management tools* which is where the desktop
comes in. When a configuration is finally settled upon, the server will be
wiped and reinstalled in a production configuration without desktop as all
my other servers have been, and the management tools installed on a
management workstation. Until then the churn will be limited to this one
system.

In any case, if wicd-vs-static IP is a long-standing issue I agree neither
of us would have encountered it before.

___
Dng mailing list
Dng@lists.dyne.org
https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng

[DNG] ASCII installation static IP problem

[Don Wright]

Installed ASCII using Expert (text) from devuan_ascii_2.0.0_amd64_dvd-1.iso.
I'm very familiar with the Debian Installer interface from years of using
it.

Selected a static IP for the network setup and a local apt-cacher-ng proxy
of us.deb.devuan.org for a faster response when (re)installing my test
boxes. Other than that the choices were pretty much the defaults, including
the Desktop packages, plus SSH host for remote access later.

Had some difficulty with the EFI system partition not booting, which was
solved by ignoring the advice to force the install to the EFI removable
media location. Sounded like it would put files in both places, but that
didn't work for my Lenovo ThinkServer.

Upon successful boot into the system things looked good locally, until I
tried to SSH to the box. Not there! While /etc/network/interfaces has the
settings I expected, the GUI showed wicd had ignored them and called DHCP to
create all new and mostly wrong settings.

#apt remove wicd soon cleaned that up, but who the systemd thought it was a
good idea to ignore! working! static! IP! settings! and install an unwelcome
network mangler in the first place? Take a purgative, get your heads out of
your ASCII, and stop your wicd ways from overriding traditional handcrafted,
all-natural, artisanal, text-based config files.

The guilty parties should lose an inch of *nix beard each in penance.

[ Semi-humorous howls of rage aside: Does the installed system ignore static
IP by design? ]

___
Dng mailing list
Dng@lists.dyne.org
https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng

Re: [DNG] Which is Free, Which is Open Source, is there any difference?

[Don Wright]

Antony Stone wrote:

>So what do you classify it as?
>
>Proprietary?  Closed source?  Commercial?
>
>What label works best for you?

Malware?

(Admit you left the door open for that one and we'll move on.)

Perhaps it's not really bad by intent, but like a few other well-known
companies, and in full compliance with Sturgeon's Law, perhaps they are
doing the best they can. A few projects just have better management.

___
Dng mailing list
Dng@lists.dyne.org
https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng

Re: [DNG] Devuan Jessie -> ASCII successful upgrade reports

[Don Wright]

Experimental subject is an Intel Pentium Core2Duo e6300, ASRock P43DE
mainboard, 4GB RAM, MSI (nVIDIA) NX6200TC-128G video, wired gig-E network,
SATA HDD, everything in / except separate swap - a pretty plain toybox. It
had served as my primary machine, then was regularly used to demo Linux at
community events, and now helps in the home network. Pretty sure I used the
amd64 arch on this box from the start, except for live DVDs being demoed.

I had long ago upgraded from Wheezy to Devuan Jessie, avoiding Debian
Jezzie[1], and had changed the repositories to pkgmaster.devuan.org soon
after that was announced as working. I simply copied/edited the
sources.list(.d) entries for jessie to ascii (leaving both active), pinned
packages to stable as best I could[2], and satisfied myself I was fetching
the necessary package lists. Then I unpinned, ran apt-get dist-upgrade, and
looked the list over before committing. Only one minor item stood out, so I
said to go ahead and upgrade.

O-kay. A lot of maintainer change notices here. Fortunately most of them
don't seem to apply to my use of this box. Still, it's the most change I've
seen in the De??an universe in a long time. Perhaps because I followed
'testing' before and didn't generally see the changes all at once, but a bit
of a shock none the less. Funny/sad to see notices reverting changes just
put in.

On reboot everything seemed to work as expected, except it was faster! I
didn't expect that. Remote login was faster, apt-get update was faster,
aptitude was... missing. OK, I expected that; dist-upgrade had told me it
was going to be deleted even though aptitude-common was being upgraded.[3] A
quick (literally) apt-get install aptitude returned the interface I've known
since Woody, and I was back to doing everything I did before. Just faster. 

While there was some mention of XFCE updates in the dist-upgrade report,
LXDE was still active from what I could see. Solitaire played, Firefox
fired; all in all, a good upgrade experience.  --Don


[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jezebel
[2] Non-critical system does not mean disposable.
[3] Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards...


___
Dng mailing list
Dng@lists.dyne.org
https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng

[DNG] Devuan Jessie -> ASCII successful upgrade reports

[Don Wright]

Might as well start a thread for those of us who /didn't/ have significant
issues upgrading from Devuan Jessie to ASCII as our part of the sprint, just
to provide some balance to the problem-oriented bug database and other
reports. I'll reply separately with my own narrative.

___
Dng mailing list
Dng@lists.dyne.org
https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng

Re: [DNG] OT: most processors are insecure (was Re: Nvidia Drivers)

[Don Wright]

Narcis Garcia wrote:

>El 15/08/17 a les 17:04, Hendrik Boom ha escrit:
>> What implications does this have for security?  Allow me to shudder.


>As Far As I Know, CPU makes what software asks to do.
>If software doesn't call some CPU functions, those functions will not work.


The counter-argument is that hidden instructions may hide additional bugs
because they are not being used as much as published instructions. Even
without flaws, "private" instructions may do dangerous things such as
bypassing inconvenient security restrictions. And just like cheat codes in
games, the existence of such hidden functions is likely to leak to those
interested in exploiting them. [Everyone chant the Konami Code.]

Even if they stay in the "proper hands", how many flawless programs do you
know of from the big vendors listed in the Bloomberg quote? If these
instructions aren't being used, as Narcis Garcia suggests, why did the
vendor ask for the instruction in the first place? 

And finally, when a program does something "impossible" that costs you
money, which of the dozens of vendors of code running simultaneously accepts
the blame?  --Don

___
Dng mailing list
Dng@lists.dyne.org
https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng

Re: [DNG] [Desktop-Environment] Cinnamon and MATE

[Don Wright]

Dragan FOSS wrote:
>I think it's best to drop 32-bit support at all... it's such a waste of 
>time and resources.


As long as you're pruning, kill x64 as well, because the majority of
computers sold are using ARM architecture and run Android or iOS.

___
Dng mailing list
Dng@lists.dyne.org
https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng

Re: [DNG] 403 forbidden on installer-iso

[Don Wright]

Gregory Nowak wrote:
>I'm getting a "403 Forbidden" message on:
>

Re: [DNG] 403 forbidden on installer-iso

[Don Wright]

Gregory Nowak wrote:
>I'm getting a "403 Forbidden" message on:
>
>
>Can anyone else confirm this? Thanks.

Yep, must be a little glitch in the release process. Most of the rest
have been updated recently too.

___
Dng mailing list
Dng@lists.dyne.org
https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng

Re: [DNG] Devuan Jessie 1.0.0 stable release candidate

[Don Wright]

Veteran Unix Admins wrote:
>Our April 2017 gift to you is the long-awaited release of Devuan
>Jessie stable release candidate (1.0.0-RC). If all goes as planned,
>this will be our first Devuan stable release and our first long term
>support (LTS) release as well.

\o/ dance-dance-dance \o/ -- Thanks for much hard work.

I see https://devuan.org still shows the old devuan_jessie_beta.torrent
(no longer working) instead of a new .torrent pointing to the RC. The
empty installer-iso/ is sure to get questions as well, as it is
mentioned in the README. 

By the way, http://mirror.math.princeton.edu/pub/devuan/ (listed on
https://devuan.org, not listed on
https://devuan.org/os/mirrors/files.devuan.org) doesn't have the
README.txt files at present.

There is a similar but incomplete list at https://devuan.org/os/mirrors.
Should this link to the same file?

Hope you have a fun weekend anyway.

___
Dng mailing list
Dng@lists.dyne.org
https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng

Re: [DNG] We need to speak up

[Don Wright]

Steve Litt wrote:
>Can somebody please make a list, that we can put our names on, of
>people who left Debian because of systemd? And put the name Steve Litt
>on it please.

Add mine too. I was a Debian supporter and pusher through my local LUG,
showing Linux (mostly Debian-based) and handing out CDs at the
occasional trade show, and also participating a bit on the debian-boot
(installer development) maillist. The increasing arrogance within the
project, demonstrated strongly by the systemd debacle, is what made me a
former Debian user.

Don Wright

-- 
Sponsored by Berserker Express. At BE, we bring things to Goodlife.

___
Dng mailing list
Dng@lists.dyne.org
https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng

Re: [DNG] How bad would it be to require Python3?

[Don Wright]

Go Linux wrote:
>Why don't you just install a vanilla devuan to see what you'd get.  That way 
>you'd know for sure.  ;)


Perhaps he needs to know what is supposed to happen, rather than what
may accidentally happen at a particular point in time?

Bugs get introduced and fixed all the time. The wise programmer bases
her design on the expected steady state, not the transitory illusion of
yesterday's reality.
  --DonW

___
Dng mailing list
Dng@lists.dyne.org
https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng

Re: [DNG] Debian is dropping support for i586. Are we?

[Don Wright]

Don Wright wrote:
>I believe the original comment was comparing the soon-to-be unsupported
>i586 arch to the RPi 1 and 2 which use a variant ARM processor that

Correction: As Adam noted, only the RPi model 1, Zero and Compute Module
use the original ARM-based BCM2835 system-on-a-chip. The higher Pi2 and
Pi3 are reasonably compatible with armhf binaries.

___
Dng mailing list
Dng@lists.dyne.org
https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng

Re: [DNG] Debian is dropping support for i586. Are we?

[Don Wright]

bcn...@gmail.com wrote:

>On Fri, May 06, 2016 at 12:17:31AM +0200, Adam Borowski wrote:
>>Reverting this in a derivative is possible, although it lands you pretty
>>much exactly in Raspbian's position.
>>
>>The result will be one-way compatibility: your packages will run on any
>>Debian-compatible system but importing from Debian or any other external
>>repository will require a rebuild.
>
>Aww crud... What's this about Raspbian?

I believe the original comment was comparing the soon-to-be unsupported
i586 arch to the RPi 1 and 2 which use a variant ARM processor that
falls halfway between the Debian armel and armhf distros. Thus Raspbian
is not compatible with Debian binaries from either arch and must build
and maintain their own packages - as would Devuan if i586 support were
to continue.

___
Dng mailing list
Dng@lists.dyne.org
https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng

Re: [DNG] Installer console on tty2?

[Don Wright]

Hendrik Boom wrote:

>Once the Debian installer starts setting a lot of stuff up for the 
>benefit of systemd, we're going to have to have a fork.  At that point, 
>the only question is whether we want to marginalize the potential user 
>base.  I think that would be still a bad idea.

Indeed most Debian-derived distros have replaced the installer in an
effort to make the user's first experience seem "friendly" or to support
specific features such as Debian-Edu's school network. Debian's prior
text-only installer was an easy target for scorn, but that same minimal
design could be implemented and maintained on an amazing variety of
architectures. The current graphic installer potentially supports the
majority of the world's written languages, limited mostly by volunteer
translators, advancing the goal of being the Universal Operating System.

Once Devuan has a more robust infrastructure it can examine ways to
improve life for every user, not just the majority. (This "needs of the
few" conflict appeared to be the cause of a lot of friction on
debian-boot when I still followed installer development there.)

For the current issue, if an option early in the install process[1]
could redirect logging output to a different virtual console without
breaking expectations of other users[2], and such a solution would be
easy to maintain during the timeframe it is needed, then of course
Devuan should encourage this freedom of choice.  --Don



[1] By command line, menu item, interpretive dance, or any other means
of human-machine communication the creative programmer may devise.

[2] As examples, options for visually impaired users or SSL-connected
terminals come to mind.

___
Dng mailing list
Dng@lists.dyne.org
https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng

Re: [DNG] Installer console on tty2?

[Don Wright]

KatolaZ wrote:

>On Tue, May 10, 2016 at 04:35:08PM +0200, Tomasz Torcz wrote:
>>   Can you use Alt+arrow keys to change consoles?  Or qemu's ”sendkey”
>> feature?
>> 
>
>Oh, sure I can, and this is how I got around it. I was just suggesting
>that changing this "default" might be useful in some occasions, and
>could avoid a bit of frustration :) After all, there is no need to
>have the installer log on tty4, rather than tty2, except for
>historical "reasons" (i.e., it has been there since the new Debian
>installer was introduced back in the days, for no particular reason,
>AFAIK).

And since Alt-F4 for the installer log is so well-known and
well-documented, not least in messages that will show up when searching
for troubleshooting advice, the process of changing it to fix an
edge-case annoyance with a simple workaround should involve considerable
discussion and deliberation before choosing to throw away this
accumulated wisdom.

There are numerous options for the virtualization stack, and I haven't
seen anyone claim QEMU, with or without KVM, has the largest usage. Let
us not forget KVM (the virtualizer most often paired with QEMU
management) is a Red Hat property, with all that implies for the future.

The installer is a key component of Debian as a distro, and historically
has determined much of the "what and when" for a new release. Does
Devuan really want to further marginalize its potential user base by
maintaining a fork of this key component with behavior different than
upstream?  --Don

___
Dng mailing list
Dng@lists.dyne.org
https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng

Re: [DNG] Mailinglist (was Re: leveldb support proposal)

[Don Wright]

T. J. Duchene wrote:
>With respect to all parties, I don't see why any particular stance on 
>the list is going to make any material difference in Devuan at the 
>present moment.   Devuan is in Alpha 4, and the decisions for this 
>version have been made.  I think it is best to table these kinds of 
>debates for the next version.


What a feeling of deja vu! On the Debian lists (and other contexts as
well) I saw this case for delay made many times, and strangely enough,
the window for discussion never seemed to open. There was always some
reason why now was "not the time."

If the people ACTUALLY RESPONSIBLE for turning the Alpha into a Release
don't have time, OK, they don't have to participate in this. But
shutting down discussion because "this isn't the time for..." too easily
masks a real meaning of "I don't want to listen to you."

Until more specialized forums are available for discussion of specific
aspects of Devuan, *this* is the place and *now* is the time for civil
discussion of any and all matters of direction and policy.

___
Dng mailing list
Dng@lists.dyne.org
https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng

Re: [DNG] Expired SSL certificate for git.devuan.org

[Don Wright]

Have you cleared your browser's cache and history? Both Opera and
Firefox (43.0.1 Windows) connect without complaint for me, showing the
Let's Encrypt certificate.

Perhaps Let's Encrypt isn't included in the default certification
authorities in your Iceweasel build (unlikely). Visit
https://letsencrypt.org and check the Support pages.  --Don


Edward Bartolo wrote:
>Iceweasel version 38.5.0 is still refusing to connect to
>git.devuan.org insisting the site is untrusted. I am using Devuan 64
>bit.
___
Dng mailing list
Dng@lists.dyne.org
https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng

[DNG] Distrowatch

[Don Wright]

Didn't see any mention of this little goodie, so enjoy:

In DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 632, 19 October 2015, in the News section
"Improving package searches", the editors dropped this tidbit:

" On a related note, we receive a lot of queries asking if there is a
  way to find distributions which do not include a specific package,
  particularly the systemd software. To find distributions which do not
  include a package, visit our Search page, select the package to be
  avoided and select Not in latest release from the drop-down box on the
  right. Then click Submit Query. A list of distributions which do not
  feature the package will be provided. "


___
Dng mailing list
Dng@lists.dyne.org
https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng

Re: [Dng] OT: How do I keep my Wheezy from upgrading itself to Jessie?

[Don Wright]

Renaud wrote:
Am I safe from a systemd infection ?

No. An accidental insertion of systemd into Debian wheezy security or
backports could force-convert your clean system into something else. If
it was carefully done, you might not even notice until it was too late.

As long as any distro is dominated by people who think systemd should be
forced on everyone, or even has a minority with that view but they are
the ones with the keys, then no repository from that distro can be
considered safe.

I'm not saying this is going to happen, but you asked about safety, not
trust. If you still trust the people in charge at Debian, then you can
sleep soundly.
___
Dng mailing list
Dng@lists.dyne.org
https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng