Re: [expert] is it possible for cracker to cover his track?

[Dave Seff]

Be very careful. Many people miss this bit of info:

Check for installed RSA/DSA keys in any ssh accounts. Just because you
change passwords doesn't mean you're safe. He/She may have a stray
account that, if an RSA/DSA key was installed would give acces without
password needed. 

-Dave

 
On Fri, 2003-10-24 at 01:02, Fajar Priyanto wrote:
> -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
> Hash: SHA1
> 
> On Friday 24 October 2003 11:11 am, Jack Coates wrote:
> > define good; there's not a lot of ways that don't involve hard feelings.
> > Assuming that telling him it didn't working out and walking him to the
> > door isn't a possibility, your options are all variations on a theme:
> > change all the passwords when he isn't around, then scour the network
> > looking for back doors and missed systems (probably with a consultant in
> > tow to help document and make sure you don't miss anything).
> >
> > Good luck,
> 
> Thanks guys,
> I've been thinking about it and comes with these summaries:
> - - change root password
> - - change postmasters password
> - - turn off ftp and http from some time
> - - turn off mailing lists (to prevend any unexpected hoax)
> - - check and secure sudoers
> - - limiting ssh access from my machine only
> 
> The downside of my position is that I'm new in this position so my knowledge 
> of what he has done on the system is fairly limited. But I've got my orders 
> from top clearly. He's got to be dumped ASAP.
> Wish me luck.
> - -- 
> Fajar http://linux.arinet.org
> Linux mdk91.sistek.kom 2.4.21-0.13mdk GNU/Linux
> 11:53:18 up 4:19, 10 users, load average: 0.17, 0.05, 0.01
> Quote of the day:
> The first time Microsoft makes something that doesn't suck is when they
> start making vacuum cleaners.
> -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-
> Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (GNU/Linux)
> 
> iD8DBQE/mLJnMai9kCFqACoRAlToAKCpvnR/UCQL4xdIytDQSEGYtbxrHgCgotVE
> DOh5LCrNVm7OHg65QVDq+TY=
> =xur9
> -END PGP SIGNATURE-
> 
> 
> 
> __
> Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? 
> Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com


Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? 
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[expert] UNIX/Linux Admin in New York City Area

[Dave Seff]

I know this may look like spam, but if any of you are in the NYC are and
are looking for a Full time UNIX(sun)/Linux (Mandrake) job, Contact me
off this list, I have a spot opening up and I don't really want to pay a
headhunter. 

-Dave




Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? 
Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com

[expert] ECMP and iproute2

[Dave Seff]

Does anybody at Mandrake know if iproute was compiled using gcc > 3
against the 2.4 kernel? I know it's kind of a dumb question but I am
trying to do Equal cost multipathing ( using 2 ISP's at the same time)
and I am am running across a strange but common problem. 

It seems that I have set everything up correctly, but one of my
connections always comes up as "dead". For example (ip addresses have
been hidden):

# ip route list
208.x.x.x/27 dev eth1  scope link
192.168.4.0/24 dev eth0  scope link
10.0.1.0/24 dev eth2  scope link
127.0.0.0/8 dev lo  scope link
default  proto static equalize
nexthop via 10.0.1.5  dev eth2 weight 65 dead
nexthop via 208.x.x.x dev eth1 weight 1

I have been digging on deja a good bit. What I come up with is that ecmp
support in the 2.4 series has been broken for a good while. Supposedly
what you have to do is add in an bogus nexthop prior to the "real" ones,
a.k.a., the first 'nexthop' is just gonna be dead come hell or high
water.
I tried this, but what happens is that both my first and my last
'nexthop' show up as dead. This is driving me batty! 

Another person also said that "there has been an API change between 2.2
and
2.4. 'ip' compiled under 2.2 will not properly configure ECMP on 2.4!"

Any help is geatly welcomed. 

-Dave





Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? 
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Re: [expert] Missing kernel source from 9.2 isos...

[Dave Seff]

>  isn't not supplying the 
> kernel source technically a violation of GPL?  

It probably was not intentional. 




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Re: [expert] Shockwave Player for Linux Campaign

[Dave Seff]

Done. 

More OEM's and companys should have this. It would be amazing to some
people the responses they would get. Instead most of them just say," The
only people that want this are Windows users" with their heads still
buried in the sand. 

 
On Thu, 2003-10-16 at 16:18, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> --- Original Message ---
> From: Sebastien Routier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: [expert] Shockwave Player for Linux Campaign
> 
> >Got this from an other list:
> >---
> >One of my dwindling requirements for Windows is that our family
> likes 
> >Shockwave games on a few sites and Crossover's plug-in costs money. 
> >(Boo!)  I saw a story about this on Newsforge and thought that
> we all 
> >can do something about this.
> >
> >Here's the link:
> >http://lists.suse.com/archive/suse-kde/2003-Feb/0007.html
> >
> >I'll be signing up.
> >---
> >
> >I already signed up!! What about you?
> >
> >
> >-- 
> >
> >bye.
> >/Sebast
> 
> just added my .02 worth to their email
> 
> 
> 
> __
> Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? 
> Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com


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Re: [expert] Flash Broken (FYI)

[Dave Seff]

That worked also. Thanks everyone. 


On Tue, 2003-10-21 at 20:56, Dave Seff wrote:
> I had actually tried to search for the file with rpmdrake. I'll try with
> urpmf and see what happens. 
> 
> 
> On Mon, 2003-10-20 at 11:29, James Sparenberg wrote:
> > On Mon, 2003-10-20 at 05:17, Greg Meyer wrote:
> > > On Monday 20 October 2003 12:42 am, Dave Seff wrote:
> > > > I noticed that The Flash player from Macromedia.com is broken in 9.2
> > > > because of a missing libstdc++-libc6.2-2.so.3
> > > >
> > > > I couldn't find it in any package so I symlinked it from
> > > > libstdc++.so.5.0.5. It appears to be working but I am always thought
> > > > symlinking the different versions was a ugly hack.
> > > >
> > > 
> > > On my machine /usr/lib/libstdc++-libc6.2-2.so.3 is a symlink to 
> > > /usr/lib/libstdc++-3-libc6.2-2-2.10.0.so  
> > > 
> > > so if I do 
> > > 
> > > $ rpm -qf /usr/lib/libstdc++-3-libc6.2-2-2.10.0.so
> > > 
> > > I get
> > > 
> > > libstdc++2.10-2.96-0.83mdk
> > > 
> > > I bet you don't have that package installed.  Just install the libstdc++2.10 
> > > package and you should be good to go.
> > > 
> > > Something I have learned by getting familiar with urpmi, is that if I am 
> > > missing some library file, just be typing
> > > 
> > > urpmi libfoo6.2.2.so
> > > 
> > > will install the right package most of the time.
> > 
> > and if it doesn't 
> > 
> > urpmf [file name I need]
> > 
> > will find the package, if it exists.
> > 
> > James
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > __
> > Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? 
> > Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
> 
> 
> 
> __
> Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? 
> Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com


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Re: [expert] Flash Broken (FYI)

[Dave Seff]

I had actually tried to search for the file with rpmdrake. I'll try with
urpmf and see what happens. 


On Mon, 2003-10-20 at 11:29, James Sparenberg wrote:
> On Mon, 2003-10-20 at 05:17, Greg Meyer wrote:
> > On Monday 20 October 2003 12:42 am, Dave Seff wrote:
> > > I noticed that The Flash player from Macromedia.com is broken in 9.2
> > > because of a missing libstdc++-libc6.2-2.so.3
> > >
> > > I couldn't find it in any package so I symlinked it from
> > > libstdc++.so.5.0.5. It appears to be working but I am always thought
> > > symlinking the different versions was a ugly hack.
> > >
> > 
> > On my machine /usr/lib/libstdc++-libc6.2-2.so.3 is a symlink to 
> > /usr/lib/libstdc++-3-libc6.2-2-2.10.0.so  
> > 
> > so if I do 
> > 
> > $ rpm -qf /usr/lib/libstdc++-3-libc6.2-2-2.10.0.so
> > 
> > I get
> > 
> > libstdc++2.10-2.96-0.83mdk
> > 
> > I bet you don't have that package installed.  Just install the libstdc++2.10 
> > package and you should be good to go.
> > 
> > Something I have learned by getting familiar with urpmi, is that if I am 
> > missing some library file, just be typing
> > 
> > urpmi libfoo6.2.2.so
> > 
> > will install the right package most of the time.
> 
> and if it doesn't 
> 
> urpmf [file name I need]
> 
> will find the package, if it exists.
> 
> James
> 
> 
> 
> 
> __
> Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? 
> Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com


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[expert] Flash Broken (FYI)

[Dave Seff]

I noticed that The Flash player from Macromedia.com is broken in 9.2
because of a missing libstdc++-libc6.2-2.so.3

I couldn't find it in any package so I symlinked it from
libstdc++.so.5.0.5. It appears to be working but I am always thought
symlinking the different versions was a ugly hack. 

Anyway, just FYI. 

-Dave



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Re: [expert] Re: Firebird, Thunderbird

[Dave Sherman]

T. Ribbrock wrote:
On Thu, Oct 16, 2003 at 06:43:52AM -0500, Dave Sherman wrote:

If you mean for Firebird 0.7 and Thunderbird 0.3, then I don't think 
anything is up yet. But last night I downloaded the tarballs of both 
from the Mozilla site, and simply untarred them into my home directory. 
They both work great that way, as long as your system already meets the 
basic dependencies (GTK2 and XFT libraries).


I'm curious: Does an "out-of-the-box" MDK 9.1 (or 9.2) install fulfill
those dependencies?
Did for me on 9.1.

--
Dave Sherman - MCSE, MCSA, CCNA
Meddle not in the affairs of dragons,
  for you are crunchy, and good with ketchup.

Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? 
Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com

Re: [expert] Firebird, Thunderbird

[Dave Sherman]

AS Reginvest wrote:
Hey all!
Are there Mdk packages available for those mentioned in subject? Could
not urpmi them, even though tex, plf and contrib sources have been
configured.
If you mean for Firebird 0.7 and Thunderbird 0.3, then I don't think 
anything is up yet. But last night I downloaded the tarballs of both 
from the Mozilla site, and simply untarred them into my home directory. 
They both work great that way, as long as your system already meets the 
basic dependencies (GTK2 and XFT libraries).

--
Dave Sherman - MCSE, MCSA, CCNA
Meddle not in the affairs of dragons,
  for you are crunchy, and good with ketchup.

Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? 
Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com

Re: [expert] linux complient notebooks

[Dave Sherman]

L.V.Gandhi wrote:
I would like to get opinions from those possesing linux compatible notebooks 
without any driver problem. Further I would like to ask those possessing 
intel centrino based notebooks their usability in linux for wireless 
connection. Mine will be general purpose using productivity apps and also 
video and audio playing from cds and dvds in addition to internet oriented 
jobs.
I used to have an IBM ThinkPad that worked great. The only down-side was 
a WinModem, but even so I was able to download a proprietary Lucent 
driver for it.

Currently, I am using a no-name model from www.powernotebooks.com. They 
sell non-branded notebooks at good discounts (comparable to Dell), and 
by default the notebooks come WITHOUT WINDOWS! Ironically, I ended up 
ordering mine preinstalled with WinXP Pro (for professional reasons), 
but I immediately re-partitioned the drive and installed Mandrake 9.1 on 
it. Everything worked out of the box (including Radeon video w/ 3d 
acceleration, AC97 sound, integrated NIC, and combo CDRW/DVD drive) 
except the winmodem, which I have never bothered to try, so I don't know 
if it is possible. The company even has several user support fora on 
their site, including one devoted to running Linux on their systems. All 
in all, I've been very happy with this unit.

--
Dave Sherman - MCSE, MCSA, CCNA
Meddle not in the affairs of dragons,
  for you are crunchy, and good with ketchup.

Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? 
Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com

Re: [expert] Serial terminal program for Linux?

[Dave Sherman]

Richard Urwin wrote:
I need a serial terminal program to talk to a microcontroller programmer 
I have just acquired. After googling for half an hour or so there 
seemed to be only one: Minicom. It's a console-based beastie and it 
doesn't do file send/receive (I don't need any protocol just dump out 
and capture.)

I *could* hack this program to do what I want, or just use cut and 
paste, but I can't believe there is nothing else out there. Does anyone 
know of anything that will suit?
Actually, minicom *does* do file send/receive. 'man minicom' to find out 
how.

--
Dave Sherman - MCSE, MCSA, CCNA
Meddle not in the affairs of dragons,
  for you are crunchy, and good with ketchup.

Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? 
Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com

Re: [expert] HOWTO Samba server with XPHome & ME clients

[Dave Seff]

IIRC, XP Home was always crippled to talk to an SMB server, including an
MS server You couldn't map drives, yada yada 

The general assumption was that home users should be part of a
'corporate LAN'. What I mean by 'corporate' is that there shall be no
central fileserver, and no authentication server. 

Then again I could be completely wrong. 

-Dave


On Thu, 2003-09-04 at 15:07, Niclas Jacobsson wrote:
> Thanks to Rashid but still problems:
> 
> Have setup user accounts with "userconf", have "activated" same accounts in
> samba via
> SWAT but still on XPH client when accessing resources the log-in pop-up
> shows
> up with a non-editable user field prompting for pswd for user
> "\\Mamma\Guest"
> -"Mamma" being my name on the server but there is no "Guest" account
> setupattaching the samba conf file for reference..what am I doing
> wrong??
> 
> My shares  are namned "Gemensamma" and "sambamnt" but I am having same
> problem
> with "home" for all acounts...
> 
> Thanks!
> Niclas
> 
> # Samba config file created using SWAT
> # from localhost (127.0.0.1)
> # Date: 2003/09/04 20:58:43
> 
> # Global parameters
> [global]
> workgroup = JACOBSSON
> netbios name = MAMMA
> server string = Samba Server %v
> security = SHARE
> map to guest = Bad User
> log file = /var/log/samba/log.%m
> max log size = 50
> socket options = TCP_NODELAY SO_RCVBUF=8192 SO_SNDBUF=8192
> printcap name = cups
> dns proxy = No
> printer admin = @adm
> printing = cups
> 
> [homes]
> comment = Home Directories
> read only = No
> browseable = No
> 
> [printers]
> comment = All Printers
> path = /var/spool/samba
> create mask = 0700
> guest ok = Yes
> printable = Yes
> print command = lpr-cups -P %p -o raw %s -r   # using client side
> printer drivers.
> browseable = No
> 
> [print$]
> path = /var/lib/samba/printers
> write list = @adm root
> guest ok = Yes
> 
> [pdf-generator]
> comment = PDF Generator (only valid users)
> path = /var/tmp
> printable = Yes
> print command = /usr/share/samba/scripts/print-pdf %s ~%u //%L/%u %m
> %I "%J" &
> 
> [Gemensamma]
> path = /mnt/win_e/Gemensamma
> guest account =
> read only = No
> 
> [sambamnt]
> path = /tmp
> guest account =
> read only = No
> 
> - Original Message - 
> From: "Rashid" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Thursday, September 04, 2003 7:46 PM
> Subject: RE: [expert] HOWTO Samba server with XPHome & ME clients
> 
> 
> > https://localhost:1 and log in
> >
> > -Original Message-
> > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Niclas Jacobsson
> > Sent: Thursday, September 04, 2003 1:35 PM
> > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > Subject: Re: [expert] HOWTO Samba server with XPHome & ME clients
> >
> > Until now I've used SWAT found under config/network/samba config in KDE
> > menues. Being new to Linux I am having difficulties locating
> > servers/webmin?? Pls elaborate
> >
> >
> > - Original Message - 
> > From: "Rashid" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > Sent: Thursday, September 04, 2003 7:15 PM
> > Subject: RE: [expert] HOWTO Samba server with XPHome & ME clients
> >
> >
> > Log on to webmin under servers , click on samba window file sharing and
> > click on edit samba users and password. Click on the user names and and
> > under the password option check the new password and re enter the old
> > password  and save That should work. Do that for all the users. And
> > don't forget to restart samba . GOOD LUCK
> >
> > -Original Message-
> > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Niclas Jacobsson
> > Sent: Thursday, September 04, 2003 12:57 PM
> > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > Subject: [expert] HOWTO Samba server with XPHome & ME clients
> >
> > Hi All!
> >
> > I've got problems setting up a samba server for WinME & XPHome clients.
> > Printersharing works like a charm but file/directory (oops sorry for the
> > Win-termino

Re: [expert] Dropped packages - Attack?

[Dave Sherman]

Wolfgang Bornath wrote:
Hi,

I installed a new WLAN router/access point and after configuring the
beast I looked at the logs in the router after a couple of hours.
I found more than 100 entries (during 3 hours) like:

Time  Message Source   Destination  Note

01:01:45  Dropped TCP 211.74.178.73:1342   x.x.x.x:445  Rule:
  packetfrom WANdefault deny
The sources are mostly the same (6 or 7 different), all trying my IP
(x.x.x.x) and several different ports:
445, 135, 1839, 2536, etc.

Is this normal attack attempts or results of the infamous worm?
BTW: I'm not using any donkeys or such kiddie stuff.
Well, the worm is known to scan on ports 135 and 445. Can't say about 
the others...

--
Dave Sherman - MCSE, MCSA, CCNA
Meddle not in the affairs of dragons,
  for you are crunchy, and good with ketchup.

Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? 
Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com

Re: [expert] k3b & CD writer

[Dave Sherman]

Praedor Atrebates wrote:
On Friday 15 August 2003 09:45 pm, Todd Lyons wrote:

Larry Sword wanted us to know:

I have supermount and K3b runs flawlessly.
And so I stand corrected 


How have you pulled this off?  I have tried, off and on, to get k3b working - 
and disabling supermount is not an option.  I just wont do it.
Here's how I got k3b working on my laptop. It has a CD-RW/DVD combo 
drive. The important point to remember is that I only have a single 
CD-ROM drive, with two mount points, one for CD-ROMs and one for 
CD-Rs/CD-RWs.

$ cat /etc/fstab (edited for relevance -- also not ethat the two lines 
wrap):

none /mnt/cdrom supermount 
dev=/dev/scd0,fs=auto,ro,--,iocharset=iso8859-1,codepage=850,umask=0 0 0

/dev/scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/cd/mnt/cdrecorder auto 
ro,noauto,user,exec 0 0

OK, see how my cdrecorder does *not* use supermount? That's how k3b 
works so nicely for me. Even if it automounts a CD-RW with stuff already 
on it, the mount point is /mnt/cdrom, which does not interfere with k3b 
using /mnt/cdrecorder.

--
Dave Sherman - MCSE, MCSA, CCNA
Meddle not in the affairs of dragons,
  for you are crunchy, and good with ketchup.

Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? 
Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com

Re: [expert] Installed cable --> now host = HWaddr of NIC

[Dave Sherman]

Rolf Pedersen wrote:
Hi,

I was just provisioned with a cable modem/account, which uses dhcp, and
my bash prompt now looks like:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

where the part starting with 00 is the HWaddr of eth0, according to
ifconfig.  Heretofore, it has been '@localhost' on this single,
non-networked machine.
In /var/lib/dhcp/dhclient.eth0.leases, under the three most recent of
the four leases, there is:
option host-name "x1-6-00-03-xx-xx-xx-xx"

which seems culpable.  I reran drakconnect, setting hostname there to
localhost, which shows up in /etc/tmdns.conf but, after reboot, the host
in the prompt is as shown.
For a short while, I have been using dhcp for an adsl modem but the host
was not changed, making me think it might be a behavior of the cable
modem.  I tried releasing and renewing the lease with dhclient -r eth0,
dhclient -l eth0 but that did not seem to do anything.  Not knowing
anything about networking, I hope someone knows what is going on.
Yes. Your cable company's dhcp server knows your ethernet MAC address. 
It is assigning you a host name using your MAC address to ensure that 
the hostname is unique on its network.

You *might* be able to edit /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 
and make sure there is in entry that looks like:
NEEDHOSTNAME=no

You would also need to edit /etc/sysconfig/network, and set the 
following entry (if it's not already there):
HOSTNAME=localhost

Both of these need to be done as root (or use sudo). Finally, as root 
(or using sudo) run the following command:
service network restart
to restart your network services without rebooting.

However, depending upon how the cable company is set up, their systems 
might refuse you Internet access if you have a hostname that they don't 
recognize.

Good luck.

--
Dave Sherman - MCSE, MCSA, CCNA
Meddle not in the affairs of dragons,
  for you are crunchy, and good with ketchup.

Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? 
Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com

[expert] kde question

[Dave Sherman]

Hi all,

Anybody know a way to make KDE recognize a DVD when I put it in the 
drive (supermount works), and automatically launch Xine? I know I used 
to do it when I used Gnome, and I figure there's gotta be a way with KDE.

--
Dave Sherman - MCSE, MCSA, CCNA
Meddle not in the affairs of dragons,
  for you are crunchy, and good with ketchup.

Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? 
Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com

Re: [expert] OOo RC1 starts like a rocket compared to 1.03

[Dave Sherman]

Miark wrote:
I just installed this. I noticed that "oowriter" is called "swriter". Is 
that just for testing in the RC? I thought 'swriter" was only used in the
StarOffice suite.
I noticed that in Beta2 as well. Maybe they are trying to provide a 
clean upgrade path from StarOffice to OpenOffice.org ;-)

--
Dave Sherman - MCSE, MCSA, CCNA
Beware the wrath of dragons, for you are crunchy, and good with ketchup.


Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? 
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Re: [expert] wpd2sxw

[Dave Sherman]

Brent Hasty wrote:
I need to convert a whole directory tree of files that are in Word Perfect 
Document format into OpenOffice files.
I was hoping someone could help me with a small script file that will 
recursevly dive through a tree converting text.wpd to text.sxw leaving them 
in the same directory side by side using wpd2sxw
Brent,

Given that the WordPerfect document format is binary and proprietary,
like MS Word's is, I don't think anyone will be writing any simple
scripts to manage such a covnversion.
However, the good news is that there are utilities already written to do
at least part of the job for you. Check out this URL, you might find
what you are looking for. And maybe someone will be able to write a
script the automate the use of one of these tools, and be able to do
what you are looking for.
Here's the URL:
http://libwpd.sourceforge.net/
Enjoy!

--
Dave Sherman
MCSE, MCSA, CCNA
"In total we spend almost three years of our lives on the toilet. It's
natural and it's normal, so let's learn to say: 'Wow! That's a great
toilet!'" - Jack Sim, Restroom Association President

Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? 
Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com

Re: [expert] LM9.1 Supermount - Reliable?

[Dave Sherman]

Praedor Tempus wrote:
I had thought that allowing k3b to install new lines
into fstab, redundant entries for my /dev/cdrom and
/dev/cdrom2, would cause problems.  I thought that
these k3b-added lines needed to be in replacement for
the supermount entries.  Having semi-redundant lines
in fstab with and without supermount doesn't cause any
problems?  

praedor
No problems here. As long as they are not both mounted at the same time, 
it's not an issue. If both cdrom and cdrecorder were mounted at the same 
time, then there might be some file locking or other file access issues, 
but I am assuming that K3b is unmounting cdrom (which would have been 
automounted) before manually mounting cdrecorder.

--
Dave Sherman
MCSE, MCSA, CCNA
"In total we spend almost three years of our lives on the toilet. It's
natural and it's normal, so let's learn to say: 'Wow! That's a great
toilet!'" - Jack Sim, Restroom Association President

Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? 
Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com

Re: [expert] LM9.1 Supermount - Reliable?

[Dave Sherman]

Praedor Tempus wrote:
Hmpf.  My supermount setup has both my CDROM and CDRW
setup as scsi-ide.  If I try k3b, it fails to see
them.  All the other cdburner apps work fine with
this.
praedor
In fstab, my cdrom mount point is setup for supermount, but my 
cdrecorder mount point is *not* setup for supermount -- K3b mounts it on 
demand, and presumably unmounts the cdrom mount point at the same time, 
so there are no conflicts.

If *both* mount points are setup for supermount, but they use the same 
device, wouldn't this be rather ... counterproductive?

--
Dave Sherman
MCSE, MCSA, CCNA
"In total we spend almost three years of our lives on the toilet. It's
natural and it's normal, so let's learn to say: 'Wow! That's a great
toilet!'" - Jack Sim, Restroom Association President

Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? 
Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com

Re: [expert] LM9.1 Supermount - Reliable?

[Dave Sherman]

Praedor Tempus wrote:
I am one who hasn't had problems, per se, with
supermount in 9.1 or 9.0 (or others).  Supermount
causes problems, however, if you wish to use k3b, the
kde cdburner app.  It is a nice looking app but I
cannot get it to work with my system setup with
supermount, though I have no problems with X-CDroast
or eroaster w/supermount.  

So, I suppose it depends on your system and what you
wish to do.  The fstab entries required/created by k3b
are incompatible with supermount (unless someone can
set me right on this).
Praedor,

I may be the exception to the rule, but K3b and supermount work just 
fine on my Mdk 9.1 laptop. I've got separate mount points for cdrom and 
cdrecorder, and it seems to work fine that way. However, if I remember 
correctly, I *did* need to setuid root on the cdrecord and cdrdao 
programs. They are setuid in any case. This is obviously a security 
risk, but my laptop is mostly single-user (my wife occasionally plays 
Frozen Bubble on it).

--
Dave Sherman
MCSE, MCSA, CCNA
"In total we spend almost three years of our lives on the toilet. It's
natural and it's normal, so let's learn to say: 'Wow! That's a great
toilet!'" - Jack Sim, Restroom Association President

Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? 
Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com

[expert] 2.4.21 Variable HZ Howto

[Dave Sherman]

James Sparenberg wrote:
On Mon, 2003-06-30 at 20:43, Robert Crawford wrote:

Dave,
Sounds like you had great success! So, we now know at least that Hz patch can 
be added to the already heavily patched Mandrake kernels. Could you please 
post some info on the two minor patch failures, and how you fixed them?


Yes please please please! *grin*
OK, here goes...

Install Mandrake's multimedia kernel (hereafter "mm kernel") and source. 
Technically, you don't need to install the kernel, but I did so that I 
could perform a "sanity check" and make sure everything would work ok 
with the basic mm kernel. Why bother patching and compiling a kernel 
that is broken (for my particular hardware, anyway) from the start?

Reboot into the mm kernel and make sure everything works. If yes, 
continue...

In a console, su to root and copy the mm kernel source directory from 
/usr/src to $HOME/src:
	# cp -R /usr/src/linux-2.4.21-0.16mm-mdk/ /home/username/src/
Change directory back to /home/username/src, and change ownership to 
your user name:
	# chown -R username:username linux-2.4.21-0.16mm-mdk/
In the console, Ctrl-D to exit out of root and get back to yourself. 
Change directories into the new kernel source dir.

Go to http://members.optusnet.com.au/ckolivas/kernel/ and download the 
Variable Hz kernel patch. This appears to be a little more recent than 
the Variable Hz patch available at kernel.org, although I could be wrong 
- but the file sizes are different, so I went with the bigger patch 
file, assuming it would have the most recent changes/additions. Save the 
patch in the root of the kernel source directory (linux-2.4.21-0.16mm.mdk).

In the console, apply the patch:
	$ patch -p1 
You will see a bunch of messages go by, most of them indicate success, 
but two of them failed for me (assuming the same kernel source version 
and patch, they will for you too :-) ).

Thankfully, the failed patch bits are easy to fix. The patch program 
generates *.rej (reject) files for each failure, so you can see what was 
attempted to patch, and look at the pristine file to figure out where it 
should go. The two files are ./kernel/sys.c and ./kernel/signal.c. Just 
open up both files in kate or another text editor, and you can see that 
there is only a single "#include " line to add to each 
file. Copy and paste, and save the files!

From here Robert's directions are pretty clear. Open up the Makefile in 
the root of the kernel source directory, and look at the EXTRAVERSION 
line. It should say -0.16mm-mdk, and I changed it to -0.16mm-ck2. Also, 
you need to "make mrproper" before anything else.

Next, make a backup of Mandrake's supplied .config file, called 
.config.backup. Then, in a console:
	$ make xconfig
There is only a single change, in the General section you will see the 
Variable Hz box with the number 100 in it. Change it to 1000, and save 
your config.

Still in the console:
$ make dep
$ make clean
$ make bzImage
$ make modules
(No errors encountered on my system, so su to root and...)
# make modules_install
Now, copy the System.map and bzImage into the /boot directory, renaming 
them on the fly:
	# cp System.map /boot/System.map-2.4.21-0.16mm-ck2
	# cp arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot/bzImage-2.4.21-0.16mm-ck2

Edit lilo.conf to add an entry for the new kernel:
# vi /etc/lilo.conf
My new entry looks like this:
image=/boot/bzImage-2.4.21-0.16mm-ck2
label=linux-2421-ck
root=/dev/hda5
read-only
optional
vga=788
append=" devfs=mount hdc=ide-scsi acpi=on quiet"
(Notice we're not using a ramdisk for this kernel.)
Save the file, and run lilo to re-write your boot sector:
	# /sbin/lilo -v
I add the -v (verbose) option so that I can see extra success or failure 
messages.

If everything is still good, then reboot your system, and choose the new 
kernel! I do see one error upon boot, but it seems inocuous enough. The 
first line to appear says something about the scheduler not being 
started yet. I suspect this a just a minor timing issue, since we have 
now sped up the timing of the kernel schedule.

We also lost the pretty blue Mandrake graphical boot screen, which I 
might like to get back, but at the moment I am happy to have a working 
kernel.

Hope this helps, and have fun!

--
Dave Sherman
MCSE, MCSA, CCNA
I think animal testing is a terrible idea; they get all nervous and
give the wrong answers.

Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? 
Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com

Re: [expert] Re: New 2.4.21 Variable HZ question.

[Dave Sherman]

Robert Crawford wrote:
Waiting sounds wise- no use in messing up your current setup. 

However, if you really wanted to see if it will apply, what you could try is 
copying your stock MDK kernel sources directory from /usr/src to it's own 
directory in /home. (Compiling there is much safer than doing it as root in 
/usr/src, especially for people like me still learning).Then make a backup of 
your .config file, and cd in a console (as user) to the new directory in 
/home where you copied the MDK kernel sources to, and run mrproper. Then, try 
applying the Hz patch. If it applies OK, do a make xconfig and load the copy 
of your stock .config file into xconfig., Then change the value of the Hz 
line to =1000Hz, and save and exit.

 VERY IMPORTANT:Check the makefile extra version line at the top of the file 
to see if it added the -ck2 extra version when the patch applied, otherwise 
if you do choose to install this kernel and the name (version) is the same, 
it will overwrite your original modules directory, and not create a new -ck2 
version. In your case, that would be a disaster.

Then you can (as user) do:

make dep
make clean
make bzImage
make modules
If you get through these with no error outs, you are probably OK, and will 
then know the patch probably didn't cause any problem. Up to this point, 
nothing you have done could possibly affect your current kernel setup.

If you want to actually install, su to root and do:

make modules_install

This will put a new modules directory in /lib/modules with the new -ck2 
version name, leaving the original untouched.

I never do the usual final "make install" to call the kernel script after that 
if I'm not compiling in /usr/src. I did that once, and had huge problems. I 
manually copy System.map and bzImage to /boot, naming them to reflect the 
extra version, like System.map-2.4.21-ck2, and bzImage-2.4.21-ck2. I then 
edit lilo, and since I don't use an initrd file for the new kernel, I delete 
the initrd line in the new kernel's lilo stanza, so it looks like:

image=/boot/bzImage-2.4.21-ck3
label=2421ck3
root=/dev/hda10
append="devfs=mount hdc=ide-scsi acpi=off quiet"
vga=788
read-only
Then save, and run lilo as root.

Of course there's no way to know if doing all this will actually increase 
system response in a noticable way, even if the patch applies on the MDK 
kernel, without actually doing it. I can report that all the ck patches I've 
applied seem to work great on the vanilla 2.4.21.
Well, I was following this thread over the weekend, and so today I went 
ahead and followed your directions. I installed the multimedia kernel 
and source, then booted into the Mandrake multimedia kernel to make sure 
it worked - it did, at least as good as the stock Mandrake kernel.

So, I went ahead and downloaded the patch, and patched the mm kernel 
source, which I had copied and chowned into $HOME/src/. The patch had 
two minor failures, which I was able to manually fix (I've never even 
patched a kernel before, let alone had to manually patch some source 
code because the patch failed - but it was easy).

I check the Makefile, and sure enough I also had to edit the 
extra-version info to indicate 'ck2' so I wouldn't blow away my existing 
multimedia kernel modules.

Everything compiled without errors, so I went ahead and installed the 
modules and kernel. I am running the patched mm kernel right now, and it 
performs at least as well as the stock kernel and (unpatched) mm kernel. 
Not sure how to do any performance benchmarks, but at least nothing is 
broken!

--
Dave Sherman
MCSE, MCSA, CCNA
I think animal testing is a terrible idea; they get all nervous and
give the wrong answers.

Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? 
Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com

Re: [expert] hostname

[Dave Sherman]

richard bown wrote:
Hi 
up to a few days ago, if I opened a xterm my hostname was as I set it.
ie gb7tf
now and I cant find the file to change, its 
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
all the files containing the hostname seem OK
Normally, the hostname is in /etc/sysconfig/network. However, it can be 
overridden by an entry in /etc/sysconfig/networking/ifcfg-*, or 
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-*. The dhcp client daemon can 
overwrite these files, if it receives a hostname from the dhcp server.

--
Dave Sherman
MCSE, MCSA, CCNA
I think animal testing is a terrible idea; they get all nervous and
give the wrong answers.

Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? 
Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com

Re: [expert] Installation advice

[Dave Sherman]

Daniel Axtell wrote:
I want to install Linux on an older laptop (Pentium 133Mhz), I had already 
installed LM 7.2, but would like to have new versions of applications (like 
Mozilla).  Does anyone have any suggestions as to what version of LM might 
give me good performance on a Pentium 133Mh, 80 megs ram, (specifically what 
kernel should I go with), but still makes it relatively easy to install a 
newer browser, possibly gnumeric and abiword, without have to recompile every 
library because none of the newer apps is compatible with the older 
libraries?  Or should I just bite the bullet and do everything the hard way, 
compiling from source?
On my old laptop, a 333MHz Celeron, I had good experience with Mandrake 
7.2 all the way through 8.1. I did upgrade the RAM, though, from 64MB to 
192MB.

Truthfully, though, I saw better performance using RedHat 7.x and 8.0. 
Not sure why, but that's the way it is. In fact, I sold the laptop to a 
friend, who is still happily running RH 8.0 on it.

I also always saw better performance under Gnome vs. KDE.

As to Mozilla specifically, it is a known resource pig. True, it has 
improved immensely from the early betas and releases candidates, but it 
is still a monster for memory. I always had better performance using 
Galeon under Gnome, with either Mandrake or RedHat.

In spite of my above comments, I now use Mandrake 9.1, KDE and Mozilla, 
but on a much faster laptop :-)

--
Dave Sherman
MCSE, MCSA, CCNA
I think animal testing is a terrible idea; they get all nervous and
give the wrong answers.

Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? 
Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com

Re: [expert] a bit of a mailserver technical question

[Dave Sherman]

Adrian Golumbovici wrote:
Hi all,
 
I just installed/configured/secured my own postfix server with a dyndns 
address. My dyndns entry is as MX server registered and it is working. I 
normally have about maximum 5 minutes offline time. My provider 
disconnects me each 24 hours, but linux PC connects again immediately 
and updates dyndns entry, which normally takes about maximum 5 minutes 
to propagate). In this time the dyndns still points to the old ip 
address, which is either not connected (no user got it in so short time) 
or points to someone who doesn't have the ports opened (no email 
server). I wondered what happens if someone/some-server tries to deliver 
me email in this time. Will it be bounced or will it retry and finally 
send it to me when connection available again?
Depends on the (sending) server's config, but most of them will retry 
several times over a period of hours or even days, before bouncing back 
to the original sender with a "Host unreachable" message.

--
Dave Sherman
MCSE, MCSA, CCNA
I think animal testing is a terrible idea; they get all nervous and
give the wrong answers.

Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? 
Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com

Re: [expert] radeon 8500

[Dave Sherman]

Vincent Danen wrote:
Has anyone gotten this to work with 9.1?  I've got a radeon 8500 that I had
temporarily put into a machine that just did console, and now I've moved it
back to my own machine and I'll be darned if I can make it work properly.  I
can get 640x480 out of it and that's it...  I kinda would like to have
1280x1024 again... =)  I pulled out a r128 card, tried XFdrake to make the
changes and no dice, so I even did a reinstall last night and still nothing.
I'm a total n00b when it comes to X and different cards and even trying some
ATI binary drivers resulted in nothing happening and I've been told that the
8500 should work "out of the box".
Any help would be seriously appreciated.  Thanks.

Have you checked this page?
http://www.zebulon.org.uk/3D8500_en.html
--
Dave Sherman
MCSE, MCSA, CCNA
I think animal testing is a terrible idea; they get all nervous and
give the wrong answers.

Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? 
Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com

Re: [expert] System locks on logout

[Dave Sherman]

Tim Dinkins wrote:
I appreciate the smart-ass remark, that is why I signed up for the 
mailing list you know.  Don't get quite enough abuse from my wife.

Mandrake 9.1
PS/2 mouse and keyboard through Belkin KVM.
Radeon VE Graphics card.  Using the radeon driver.  Hardware 
exceleration on or off is the same.
Booting to init5.
There are known issues with Mandrake's stock Radeon driver and DRI being 
enabled. But if DRI is *disabled*, then the problem goes away. You said 
the problem exists whether you have DRI enabled or not. Have you 
verified this by actually looking at XF86Config-4 and making sure DRI is 
disabled? If you are using DrakConf, maybe it's not actually working, 
and you need to edit the file by hand (I say this from experience...). 
If so, edit the file and look for the following line and section, and 
comment them out:

Section "Module"
Load "dbe" # Double-Buffering Extension
Load "v4l" # Video for Linux
Load "extmod"
Load "type1"
Load "freetype"
Load "glx" # 3D layer
#Load "dri" # direct rendering<== COMMENT OUT
EndSection
#Section "DRI"
#Mode 0666  <== COMMENT OUT THIS WHOLE SECTION
#EndSection
You can also go to:
http://www.zebulon.org.uk/xcrashati_en.html
Download the one of the two drivers (I used the second one, which is 
slightly more up to date) driver and upgrade it with --nodeps:
# rpm -Uvh XFree86-server-*.rpm

Now you can enable DRI and it will work fine. This solution worked 
perfectly for me, on a Radeon 7500-equipped laptop.

--
Dave Sherman
MCSE, MCSA, CCNA
I think animal testing is a terrible idea; they get all nervous and
give the wrong answers.

Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? 
Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com

Re: [expert] KDE K3b cdrw

[Dave Sherman]

richard bown wrote:
I edited out the previous post as it was getting long.
Like others I want to dump using winxp and nero and K3b is very similar
in style to nero.
I'm trying to run K3b in Gnome, some seem to be getting success with K3B
while others like my self ar'nt.
So who's is running K3b with Gnome or with KDE3.1.
The other files that K3b looks for and I cant find:-
eMovix, tccat, tcdecode, tcextract, tcprobe & tcscan
What function do they have? , and have those who have success with K3b
loaded them ?
I am using K3b with good success, on KDE 3.1. I only use it to burn data 
CDs, not music CDs -- I have heard via my local LUG mailing list, that 
several people have had difficulties burning music CDs, even though they 
have no trouble with data CDs.

I did not install any of the additional programs that the K3b setup 
program looks for.

--
Dave Sherman
MCSE, MCSA, CCNA
I think animal testing is a terrible idea; they get all nervous and
give the wrong answers.

Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? 
Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com

[expert] Shared Raw file systems

[Dave Seff]

I know how to create raw filesystems with mdk (8.2) and LVM, but now I
got ahold of a SCSI disk array and have connected to machones running
mdk 8.2 to them. 

How can I make the LVM partitions and the /dev/raw/raw* identical on
both machines to I can play with clustered applications like Oracle 9i
and others?


-- 
Dave Seff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>


Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? 
Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com

Re: [expert] OT LTSP + Mandrake = Mandrake on Steroids.

[Dave Sherman]

James Sparenberg wrote:
Thought this might be of interest to some.  How to turn dozens of
"ancient" computers into Modern boxes using LTSP and Mandrake 9.1
James



http://newsforge.com/newsforge/03/06/11/204.shtml?tid=23
Thanks, James. Not much technical info here, but it brought a smile to 
my face -- always a Good Thing.

--
Dave Sherman
MCSE, MCSA, CCNA
"Windows NT was supposed to hit Unix hard (it did - like a bug hitting a 
windshield)"
- Andrew Grygus, aaxnet.com


Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? 
Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com

Re: [expert] Wanted to try wine

[Dave Sherman]

Jim C wrote:
I've never run a windows emulator before and I wanted to see if I could 
get some Blizzard (StarCraft, WarCraft etc...) games to run under 
Mandrake 9.1

What I discovered is that 9.1 comes with only 1 emulator (that I've 
found so far) and it is a freakin Alpha.  We were not amused.

So.  What is the best way to do this?
Even though wine is considered "alpha", it is quite functional. I use it 
to run the Lotus Notes client, and it works great.

For games, though, you will want to get Transgaming's version of wine, 
called WineX (because it added DirectX and other functional support for 
games). You can get the source to WineX for free, or pay a minimal 
subscription fee (as little as $15 for three months, last time I 
checked) and download an rpm file. It comes with a decent GUI config 
utility, which also allows you to easily install and uninstall your 
Windows programs.

--
Dave Sherman
MCSE, MCSA, CCNA
"Windows NT was supposed to hit Unix hard (it did - like a bug hitting a 
windshield)"
- Andrew Grygus, aaxnet.com


Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? 
Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com

Re: [expert] third test to list

[Dave Sherman]

I've seen several of your tests come through...

David Rankin wrote:
Anne, mates:

Are my messages getting through to the list?? Anne, I sent this
one directly to you as well to see if you get it. If you do, check the
mandrake list and let me know if I am getting through. It looks like I
am only getting about 10 posts per day from the listserve and nothing
I send gets through. Any thoughts??
--
David C. Rankin, J.D., P.E.
RANKIN * BERTIN, PLLC
510 Ochiltree Street
Nacogdoches, Texas 75961
(936) 715-9333
(936) 715-9339 fax






Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? 
Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com


--
Dave Sherman
MCSE, MCSA, CCNA
"Windows NT was supposed to hit Unix hard (it did - like a bug hitting a 
windshield)"
- Andrew Grygus, aaxnet.com


Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? 
Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com

Re: [expert] Keeping up with security updates with older systems

[Dave Sherman]

Olaf Marzocchi wrote:
A friend has a box with linux MDK 8.2 and prefers not to upgrade.
Since MDK stopped (or is going to stop) support for that system, how 
could he keep up with security upgrades?
Should he abandon rpm and compile everything or should he use rpms 
available on the Internet?
He could use source rpm's. That way he still has the package control of 
RPM, and adds to it the ability to get the latest source package for an 
application and compile it for his system.

--
Dave Sherman
MCSE, MCSA, CCNA
"Windows NT was supposed to hit Unix hard (it did - like a bug hitting a 
windshield)"
- Andrew Grygus, aaxnet.com


Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? 
Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com

Re: [expert] Linux Flash Player trouble.

[Dave Sherman]

James Sparenberg wrote:
All,
   If I go to abcnews.go.com with my box that has libflashplayer
installed my cpu usage shoots to 100% and slows the box to an absolute
crawl... Question is... Is it just my box or can others duplicate this
problem.
James
I've got a 1.8 GHz mobile P4 laptop, and it opened the site without 
breaking a sweat -- CPU was hovering around 20%. Running Mozilla 1.3.1 
with libflashplayer installed.

--
Dave Sherman
MCSE, MCSA, CCNA
"Windows NT was supposed to hit Unix hard (it did - like a bug hitting a 
windshield)"
- Andrew Grygus, aaxnet.com


Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? 
Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com

Re: [expert] 9.0 to 9.1

[Dave Sherman]

Lyvim Xaphir wrote:
On Mon, 2003-06-02 at 13:32, Brian V Bonini wrote:

On Mon, 2003-06-02 at 12:52, Lyvim Xaphir wrote:


Also, before you move to 9.1, I suggest you review your reasons for
doing so.  Are you looking for a more stable production environment or
are you curious and just have alot of time to analyze 9.1.  
Are you saying 9.0 is more stable?


Look, I'm in a real tough position here.  First, I am and always have
been a supporter of Mandrake.  I think they (as an entity) have more
potential than any other distro company I've seen; in general, history
has shown that the features of the Mandrake distro are just ahead of the
game, in nearly all respects.
Agreed. After trying out each of the major "desktop oriented" distros 
over the years, Mandrake has always stood out above the rest.

I don't want to say this, but I have to say it because it is the truth. 
For users of 8.2 or maybe even 9.0 there is no cogent reason to upgrade
to 9.1, if you are seeking a stable production system.  The reasons I
say this are myriad, but I'll cut it down to three or four.  One, there
was not enough manpower focused on 9.1 to release it as an improved
distro over 9.0 or 8.2.  This is demonstrable (at least on my system,
which *has not changed* since LM82) because LM91 crashes and/or locks
up, probably about an average of once per day.  (It is also slower.) 30
minutes ago I was examining email, with no unusual activity going on,
and XFree vaporized for no reason that I could discern, taking several
smaller apps with it to their doom.  That's just today.  I won't say
that LM82 never failed me at all, but I will say that I have a very
strong memory of LM82 being about as stable as the crust of the planet
Mars.  Plus, it was faster.
I have not had this experience. I found that 8.1, 8.2, and 9.1 were all 
equally stable. I also found that 8.2 was faster than 8.1, and by the 
time I got to 9.1 I had also upgraded my hardware, so I no longer had a 
valid basis for comparison (although it performs as good as RH 8.0 on 
the new system).

Second, it's been noted that there does not seem to be a formally
presented system for production distro bugs or problems.  Prior to the
advent of 9.1 this was not a major issue, primarily because (IMO) the
releases were so pristine that there was not a major need for one.  The
fact that there has been extensive discussion lately for a report route
for production bug reports should be telling.
Even bugzilla would be useful. I'm not aware of anything available to 
registered (or otherwise) users.

[snip remaining, as I did not participate in the voting]

I will say this: the main reasons I moved from 8.2 to 9.1 (skipped 9.0) 
were these:
1. Updated software.
2. Eye candy, especially anti-aliased fonts.

I could have even done without updated software, but the truth is, the 
anti-aliased fonts were worth it to me to upgrade.

Also, since the question (I think) was originally about upgrading vs. a 
clean install, I would say do a clean install.

--
Dave Sherman
MCSE, MCSA, CCNA
"Windows NT was supposed to hit Unix hard (it did - like a bug hitting a 
windshield)"
- Andrew Grygus, aaxnet.com


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Re: [expert] NTFS - ext2/3 ?

[Dave Sherman]

Steven Broos wrote:
I still have a 40gig HD formatted with NTFS (mounted ro)
Is there any way to convert it (safely!!) to ext2/ext3 without temporary 
moving the data ?

I'm aware of the existence of partition magic, but I don't have it.  And 
frankly, I'm not going to pay for an apllication I will use once... (no, 
the demo version isn't functional)
Are you saying you want to *convert* the filesystem from ntfs to ext2 
without damaging the data, or do you want to *resize* the partition 
(non-destructively) in order to make room for an additional ext2 partition?

If the former, I don't think that is possible - to change a filesystem 
generally requires formatting the partition to the new FS.

If the latter (which makes more sense, in light of your comment about 
Partition Magic), then google for it. I managed to find a demo version 
of software that ran from a DOS boot diskette, to resize the NTFS-5 
(WinXP) partition on my laptop. This was less than 6 months ago, so it 
should still be available.

--
Dave Sherman
MCSE, MCSA, CCNA
"Windows NT was supposed to hit Unix hard (it did - like a bug hitting a 
windshield)"
- Andrew Grygus, aaxnet.com


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Re: [expert] LM9.1: DVD ejects automatically

[Dave Sherman]

Frederic Soulier wrote:
Hi

On a LM9.1 I did install mplayer from Plf and it was all working fine (I
could play any region DVDs).
Then after a few days (I have no clue why it does that now) the DVD
started to act strangely. Basically when I insert a DVD movie that used
to play just fine the DVD reader ejects it automatically after 10s
Have you tried calling mplayer from a command prompt, and watching any 
messages it kicks out? Maybe it's failing to mount the disk, or something...

--
Dave Sherman
MCSE, MCSA, CCNA
"If we wanted you to understand it, we wouldn't call it code."

Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? 
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Re: [expert] updatedb

[Dave Laird]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Good evening, all...

> On Thursday 03 Apr 2003 1:07 am, Jack Coates wrote:

> > the daily cron job doesn't do updatedb any more after 9.0 > 9.1 upgrade.
> > Anyone else seeing this? Intended behavior?
>
> Under 9.0 it was only done weekly.  I manually set it to run daily.

I believe it defaults to once per week since 8.x, but I could be wrong. In
either case, I altered the default to once each day manually, as well. 

Dave
- -- 
Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
The Used Kharma Lot / The Phoenix Project 
Web Page:   http://www.kharma.net updated 03/05/2003
Usenet News server: news.kharma.net
Musicians Calendar and Database access: http://www.kharma.net/calendar.html
   
An automatic & random thought For the Minute:
Armadillo:
To provide weapons to a Spanish pickle.
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Version: GnuPG v1.0.7 (GNU/Linux)

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/kOQUJAo+aATQu2F08L1k14=
=FGhO
-END PGP SIGNATURE-


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Re: [expert] wireless in ML 9.1

[Dave Sherman]

engage wrote:
Well, I did a fresh install for ML 9.1 on my notebook since an upgrade from 
9.0 broke stuff. (Reboot still doesn't work, though).

Anyway, how do I change the configuration to use a shared key instead of an 
open system setting (for WEP, of course)? ML 9.1 configured the pcmcia 
wireless card as eth0. I believe that I need to modify 
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 but I'm not sure of what variable 
to use. Is this info suppose to be part of WIRELESS_ENC_KEY? I tried to add 
the shared key parameter to that variable but it turned off WEP.
Here's what my /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth1 file contains:

TYPE=Wireless
DEVICE=eth1
HWADDR=
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
ONBOOT=yes
MII_NOT_SUPPORTED=yes
DHCP_HOSTNAME=hostname
NEEDHOSTNAME=no
ESSID=foobar
CHANNEL=6
MODE=Managed
KEY=B21B-51E3-3A
Works perfectly for me. I've got a Linksys WPC-11 wireless PC card.

--
Dave Sherman
MCSE, MCSA, CCNA
"If we wanted you to understand it, we wouldn't call it code."

Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? 
Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com

Re: [expert] MS crud

[Dave Laird]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Good evening, Jack...everyone...

On Wednesday 26 March 2003 09:28 pm, Jack Coates wrote:

> It's been kind of entertaining watching Dave and Mark go off in search
> of the most difficult way to do it while ignoring that URL until they
> finally snipped it out... that is, when I've had time to notice.
> Brutally busy week and I'm going to bed now.

[laughing despite myself] Shame on you for not stopping Mark and I from
chasing rainbows, but I do submit the "strings" method, while a bit obscure,
works just fine. However, the minute I saw your message, I went to the
"Green Room" and immediately applied the RedirectMatch line. I'm too tired
to sit up and watch it, but I'll check it tomorrow morning. 

Thanks. 

Dave
- -- 
Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
The Used Kharma Lot / The Phoenix Project 
Web Page:   http://www.kharma.net updated 03/05/2003
Usenet News server: news.kharma.net
Musicians Calendar and Database access: http://www.kharma.net/calendar.html
   
An automatic & random thought For the Minute:
Logic doesn't apply to the real world.
-- Marvin Minsky
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Version: GnuPG v1.0.7 (GNU/Linux)

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=6HeS
-END PGP SIGNATURE-


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Re: [expert] RH is jumping numbers hard.

[Dave Laird]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Good morning, James...

On Monday 24 March 2003 10:51 pm, James Sparenberg wrote:

> On Mon, 2003-03-24 at 22:42, Dave Laird wrote:

> > Is it a necessary evil? While I'll concede this is probably not something
> > that is entirely on-topic, since most everyone reading this uses Linux in
> > one form or another, I submit that any strategies put forth by the
> > manufacturers which will (1) provide us with better product(s), (2) give
> > them a fair profit for their efforts, and (3) thus continue the
> > development process forward perhaps is a necessity, given the current
> > software market.
>
> I'm not saying evil... I'm saying the strategy is worth MDK
> investigating.  At least the part about timing store copies and download
> version together.

Yes, now that you mention it, it *does* make perfect sense, doesn't it? 

> > As for RedHat jumping from 8.0 to 9.0, I've been wondering about that all
> > day since I received my notification earlier that on the 31st I will be
> > able to download the ISO's at an advantageous time compared to
> > non-subscribers. Perhaps someone here knows why the version number
> > boogety-boogety.
>
> I feel sorry for RH two .0 versions in a row *grin*.

Well, six months into 8.0 they had to essentially re-write the entire file
system, plus there have been troubles with the ext3 journaling system, and
now the problems re-emerged with SSL about a month ago. At this rate if they
take all the patches I've downloaded faithfully and applied, we'd almost
have a new operating system. I've got a few servers running RedHat,
unfortunately.  

> > Now back on topic, we are saying Mandrake 9.1 will be released when? 8-)
>
> rc3 seems to be hitting the mirrors now... strangely enough and totally
> unexpected.  As for the other we patiently await.  Just hoping
> for a powerpack disk only version myself.  May get the powersuite
> instead.

I just hope that it is as stable and bug-free as 9.0 has been. It took me
over a week to get the [EMAIL PROTECTED] ATI All-in-Wonder Pro TV card working, and
I *like* having TV on my desktop now. The scanner, the Zip Disk and the Jazz
Drive and both EIDE drives all work flawlessly, even. So let us hope they
don't break what isn't broken. 8-) 

Dave
- -- 
Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
The Used Kharma Lot / The Phoenix Project 
Web Page:   http://www.kharma.net updated 03/05/2003
Usenet News server: news.kharma.net
Musicians Calendar and Database access: http://www.kharma.net/calendar.html
   
An automatic & random thought For the Minute:
Q:  Why should you always serve a Southern Carolina football man
soup in a plate?
A:  'Cause if you give him a bowl, he'll throw it away.
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Version: GnuPG v1.0.7 (GNU/Linux)

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Y1pkxd23JRCHNMhxuczvXtw=
=Y+n1
-END PGP SIGNATURE-


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Re: [expert] RH is jumping numbers hard.

[Dave Laird]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Good morning, James...

On Monday 24 March 2003 10:10 pm, James Sparenberg wrote:

> 
> Beginning March 31, 2003, paid subscribers to Red Hat Network will
> have access to Red Hat Linux 9 ISOs - a full week before retail store
> and Red Hat FTP availability. Also, Red Hat Network subscribers will
> receive dedicated Red Hat Network Technical Support.
> 
>
> Two interesting things here.  One.  RH is jumping from 8.0 to 9.0
> Second is the way they are releasing.. first to paying RHN members then
> to the public. Note that they are also holding back the formal release
> of the download version till the product is in the stores.

Yes, and since I am a registered RedHat developer *and* coincidentally a
registered Mandrake subscriber, I have several different views on the
emergence of this tactic. On one hand, it puts the upgrade in my hands
faster than former methods, which I view as good. Anything that will put a
mature product in my hands faster is construed as a good thing . 

On the other hand, I can just about hear the peebles shouting in frustration
at having to wait for the "latest and greatest" because they didn't
subscribe. Either way, this drives the buyers either to buy a subscription
or to buy a branded copy at their nearest store. Either way, it puts more
money in the pockets of the developers, which is a good thing  too. 

Is it a necessary evil? While I'll concede this is probably not something
that is entirely on-topic, since most everyone reading this uses Linux in
one form or another, I submit that any strategies put forth by the
manufacturers which will (1) provide us with better product(s), (2) give
them a fair profit for their efforts, and (3) thus continue the development
process forward perhaps is a necessity, given the current software market. 

As for RedHat jumping from 8.0 to 9.0, I've been wondering about that all
day since I received my notification earlier that on the 31st I will be able
to download the ISO's at an advantageous time compared to non-subscribers.
Perhaps someone here knows why the version number boogety-boogety. 

Now back on topic, we are saying Mandrake 9.1 will be released when? 8-) 

Dave
- -- 
Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
The Used Kharma Lot / The Phoenix Project 
Web Page:   http://www.kharma.net updated 03/05/2003
Usenet News server: news.kharma.net
Musicians Calendar and Database access: http://www.kharma.net/calendar.html
   
An automatic & random thought For the Minute:
Do not seek death; death will find you.  But seek the road which makes death
a fulfillment.
-- Dag Hammarskjold
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=VBuo
-END PGP SIGNATURE-


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Re: [expert] Mdk 9.1 rc2 and radeon 7000

[Dave Sherman]

Gary Hodder wrote:
Hi all,

has anyone got the radeon 7000 video card to work with rc2 which uses Xfree
4.3?
It works fine on mdk 9.0 Xfree 4.2 in single head.
I Have got the dri drivers to try out tonight.
Any gotcha's that I should know about?
I know the mobile Radeon in my laptop doesn't work with DRI. 
Specifically, whenever I try to restart the X server (including changing 
the screen resolution, logging out of my desktop, or rebooting), the 
system locks up bad and forces me to do a hard reboot. By disabling 3d 
acceleration (DRI), this problem went away. This is apparently a known 
bug in the radeon driver - I found the problem mentioned in the Mandrake 
Cooker mailing list archives.

I am running Mandrake 9.1 rc2, updated to Cooker, including X 4.3.

--
Dave Sherman
MCSE, MCSA, CCNA
"If we wanted you to understand it, we wouldn't call it code."

Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? 
Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com

Re: [expert] Linux Mail Servers for Win clients

[Dave Seff]

Also in my crusade, I have found Contact, a product by Samsung. They are
actually using MAPI for their communication. Too bad it is closed source
and not free and not fully functional. Hopefully it is not as buggy as
other closed source products, like Ximian connector. 


On Fri, 2003-03-21 at 21:02, John Haywood wrote:
> On Fri, 7 Mar 2003 02:13 pm, Dave Seff wrote:
> > On this topic, does anybody know of any project that aims to be a
> > drop-in replacement for exchange?
> 
> Well, you might look at CommuniGate Pro (commercial) with the new plugins. It 
> might not have everything, but it certainly is moving along
-- 
Dave Seff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>


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Re: [expert] floppies

[Dave Laird]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

'Afternoon, Jack...

On Sunday 23 March 2003 03:01 pm, Jack Coates wrote:

> What else would you store usually read-only but occasionally modified
> configs on? 

Why, a slightly-aged Iomega Zip Drive, of course! 8-) It took some juggling,
but I even managed to get the blasted zip drive to come up beneath 9.0 as
ext2, not fat32 or vfat every single reboot, which took some "fudging", I
might add. 

I can boot from it. (with recent BIOS)

I can make it read-only

I can carry it to any other Linux box that has one, providing they have
learned how to install it, of course.

It even shares pretty decently using Samba. 

My only wish is that the media didn't cost so much, but on the good side,
the disks seem (at least to me) to last a long, long time, which is more
than I can say about floppy disks. 8-) 

Dave
- -- 
Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
The Used Kharma Lot / The Phoenix Project 
Web Page:   http://www.kharma.net updated 03/05/2003
Usenet News server: news.kharma.net
Musicians Calendar and Database access: http://www.kharma.net/calendar.html
   
An automatic & random thought For the Minute:
When it is incorrect, it is, at least *authoritatively* incorrect.
- -- Hitchiker's Guide To The Galaxy
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=rgm2
-END PGP SIGNATURE-


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Re: [expert] hysteresis

[Dave Laird]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Good afternoon, Anne...

On Sunday 23 March 2003 11:45 am, Anne Wilson wrote:

[snipping for cogency]

> That's an interesting article.  I think the definition given to me was
> 'loose' to say the least.  There was a kit sold that had a special 5 1/4"
> disk and a special 3 1/2" disk which was used to measure 'hysteresis'. 
> Basically, if it said you were out of alignment it was as well to ditch the
> fdd asap.

Your statements about hysteresis are *still* quite timely today. I don't
remember where, but there was a disk warehouse in Los Angeles selling those
floppy disk test kits even as recently as six months ago. Floppy disk drives
are *so* notorious for developing various imperfections in how they track.
That much hasn't seemed to change all that much over the last decade. 
Perhaps someday they will develop a reliable floppy of some sort, but don't
hold your breath. Hysteresis will always be a factor to contend with. 

Dave
- -- 
Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
The Used Kharma Lot / The Phoenix Project 
Web Page:   http://www.kharma.net updated 03/05/2003
Usenet News server: news.kharma.net
Musicians Calendar and Database access: http://www.kharma.net/calendar.html
   
An automatic & random thought For the Minute:
The idle man does not know what it is to enjoy rest.
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Version: GnuPG v1.0.7 (GNU/Linux)

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qhhANJ+aOYrSLaUuEAlrxEw=
=kM5T
-END PGP SIGNATURE-


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Re: [expert] Update to Cooker?

[Dave Sherman]

Adolfo Bello wrote:
On Wed, 2003-03-19 at 22:05, Dave Sherman wrote:

This is probably a silly question, but I have so far been unsuccessful 
in finding the info I am looking for...

Can anyone tell me how to update Mandrake 9.1rc2 to Cooker?
You have to create a urpmi source with a cooker mirror. Then do: 

urpmi.update -a

and

urpmi --autoselect

You will find instructions on how to add a cooker urpmi source at:

http://www.zarb.org/~nanardon/index.php
This web page was quite handy. Thanks to all who replied. I am now 
running a fully-updated Cooker - woohoo!

Next time I will search the archives first (I just re-joined after a 
several month hiatus).

--
Dave Sherman
MCSE, MCSA, CCNA
"If we wanted you to understand it, we wouldn't call it code."

Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? 
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[expert] Update to Cooker?

[Dave Sherman]

This is probably a silly question, but I have so far been unsuccessful 
in finding the info I am looking for...

Can anyone tell me how to update Mandrake 9.1rc2 to Cooker?
--
Dave Sherman
MCSE, MCSA, CCNA
"If we wanted you to understand it, we wouldn't call it code."

Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? 
Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com

Re: [expert] MS crud

[Dave Laird]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Good morning, Pierre...

On Saturday 15 March 2003 06:19 am, Pierre Fortin wrote:

> I may have a look at the code; but rather than "strings", I would think
> quick-exit protocol-diving would be a better approach...  but that's just
> me...

No, you're very right. I've let the box running strings under IPTables run
for nearly 12 hours, and I think your conclusions about it are pretty
accurate. It bogs down the system, particularly because it is only running
64M of memory. However, I added a few sticks of SDRAM this morning and
compared it to last night's performance, and I didn't see that much
difference. However, when I compared the overall performance of the box with
another identical box running standard IPTables, I still noticed a
performance hit. 

I'm not that enamored of the idea. Back to the drawing board. Thanks to
everyone who gave input to this idea. It *does* block strings from Code Red,
but at a pretty substantial performance hit. 

Dave
- -- 
Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
The Used Kharma Lot / The Phoenix Project 
Web Page:   http://www.kharma.net updated 03/05/2003
Usenet News server: news.kharma.net
Musicians Calendar and Database access: http://www.kharma.net/calendar.html
   
An automatic & random thought For the Minute:
A mind is a wonderful thing to waste.
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4/80f+7Bo1dUWcBcoS2ErCk=
=jbcI
-END PGP SIGNATURE-


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Re: [expert] MS crud

[Dave Laird]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Good morning, Joerg...

On Saturday 15 March 2003 04:59 am, Joerg Mertin wrote:

> Since I use spamassassin and I'm having my own blacklist (domains/IP's),
> the spam attempts have gone down. But if you check
> http://www.solsys.org/system.php under Mail/System attacks you'll see
> that through the average (Note, you can click on the Index-image for
> details) of 5minutes display, it's quite a lot what is happening there.

I know. As fast as we block one IP /netblock range, there are half a dozen
more from the world trying to introduce themselves to us.  

> My option is to check from time to time what where the worth time where
> I had system attacks - then block the IP-Address Class-C ranges out
> through a DROP-policy in ip-tables.

Since neither myself nor anyone who logs onto any of my boxes has any use
for mail from Korea or Japan, I use the "scattergun" approach, and simply
drop all packets destined to port 25 from those locations. That seems to cut
down the traffic a bit. 

> Anyone has another hint on how to have a proactive way of preventing
> from spam ? Or good links to Howto's for including one of the
> distributed blacklists into the own mail-daemon ?

Add the following lines to your default sendmail.mc (that is, if you're
using Sendmail's latest and greatest). Then run m4 /etc/mail/sendmail.mc >
/etc/mail/sendmail.cf and thump Sendmail (or whatever you call your .mc file
and wherever it may happen to be. 8-) 

FEATURE(dnsbl, blackholes.mail-abuse.org', Rejected - see
http://www.mail-abuse.org/rbl/')dnl
FEATURE(dnsbl, relays.osirusoft.com', Rejected -- see
http://www.osirusoft.com')dnl
FEATURE(dnsbl, dialups.mail-abuse.org', Dialup - see
http://www.mail-abuse.org/dul/')dnl
FEATURE(dnsbl, relays.mail-abuse.org', Open spam relay - see
http://work-rss.mail-abuse.org/rss/')dnl
FEATURE(dnsbl', relays.ordb.org\', "550 Email rejected due to mail relay -
see "\')dnl

I'm actually somewhat impressed at the number of spam "hits" that are picked
up and rejected by osirusoft on a daily basis, not to mention impressed with
how quickly they put someone in the database when good proof is demonstrated
that they are spamming any of my domains. If I send them headers, sendmail
log entries and proof-of-spam (message) it usually takes less than 24 hours
and they are rejected. That beats sending endless complaints to
[EMAIL PROTECTED] and receiving meaningful promises that it will be handled. 

Dave
- -- 
Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
The Used Kharma Lot / The Phoenix Project 
Web Page:   http://www.kharma.net updated 03/05/2003
Usenet News server: news.kharma.net
Musicians Calendar and Database access: http://www.kharma.net/calendar.html
   
An automatic & random thought For the Minute:
Old Grandad is dead but his spirits live on.
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mwIIRulZy/n2K/5o1FzVZ9U=
=kL0N
-END PGP SIGNATURE-


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Re: [expert] MS crud

[Dave Laird]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Good evening, Pierre...

On Friday 14 March 2003 06:04 pm, Pierre Fortin wrote:

> Got a pointer to the "strings' stuff...?  I'm running 8.2 on my main
> server (9.0 issues)...

http://articles.linuxguru.net/view/125

It would seem, based upon my reading the page, that most of us will have to
patch our kernels before this will work, so being somewhat idle, I promptly
downloaded the patch and applied it to the RedHat kernel running on one of
my "spare" boxes, rebooted and tested it. Heck, it works. However, I should
say that it slowed things down quite a bit, running only 64M of memory. I
don't have anything scientific to prove that, just the observation. However,
within five minutes, it did capture and DROP a set of packets. I was
impressed. 

> What have you tried in this matter?  Feel free to take this thread offline
> -- we can summarize back...

There it is. I'm going to experiment some more with this with a box and see
if there are any additional drawbacks to using an iptables filter to trap
Code Red. Then I'll summarize back here what I find. I'm still somewhat
surprised how easily it all flew together, and it works! 8-) 

Dave
- -- 
Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
The Used Kharma Lot / The Phoenix Project 
Web Page:   http://www.kharma.net updated 03/05/2003
Usenet News server: news.kharma.net
Musicians Calendar and Database access: http://www.kharma.net/calendar.html
   
An automatic & random thought For the Minute:
A couch is as good as a chair.
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=K8ry
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Re: [expert] MS crud

[Dave Laird]

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Good evening, Pierre...

On Friday 14 March 2003 04:27 pm, Pierre Fortin wrote:

> On the _passive_ side, I have some ideas for short-circuiting Nimda
> attacks with iptables.

[Dave sits upright in his chair from sleeping through the flame wars and
wriggles with impatience] Are you referring to a thing I read a few weeks
back about using "strings" in iptables to deflect Code Red? I've started a
time or two to explore this in more detail, but if you have an idea that
either does/does not follow that platform, I'm *ALL* ears. At least in
principle the "strings" idea should work. 

Dave
- -- 
Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
The Used Kharma Lot / The Phoenix Project 
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An automatic & random thought For the Minute:
UH-OH!!  I put on "GREAT HEAD-ON TRAIN COLLISIONS of the 50's" by
mistake!!!
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=JV6F
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Re: [expert] Suggestion to eliminate off topic postings

[Dave Laird]

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Good morning, Todd...

On Friday 14 March 2003 11:43 am, Todd Lyons wrote:

> In effect right now.  I read what's been posted to the list through the
> night, after that, they're gone.

In few words, my Inbox says THANK YOU.  and so do I.  

Dave
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Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
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An automatic & random thought For the Minute:
Genius doesn't work on an assembly line basis.  You can't simply say,
"Today I will be brilliant."
-- Kirk, "The Ultimate Computer", stardate 4731.3
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=UI7Z
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Re: [expert] printer abnormalities

[Dave Laird]

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Good evening, Brian...

On Thursday 13 March 2003 02:20 pm, Brian Schroeder wrote:

> We have a wierd printer problem also.  Sometime overnight, every
> night, all our printers spit out a CUPS Printer Test Page.  We have
> scoured all cron files, checked all print queues, and examined
> everything else we can think of - to no avail.

> From: Todd Lyons <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

> >Obviously it's something in /etc/cron.hourly/ that's doing it.  Run
> >every one of the scripts you see there until you find one that spits
> >stuff out of the printer.  Also, look in /etc/cron.d/ as one of those
> >may be configured to run hourly.

Without reading Todd's mind (above) I might humbly submit that you might
also give an eye to what's inside cron.daily, as well. It does sound like a
mis-firing cron job. 8-) 

Dave
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An automatic & random thought For the Minute:
"They're unfriendly, which is fortunate, really.  They'd be difficult to 
like."
-- Avon

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=kScK
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Re: [expert] New list Moderator (was) 9.1rc2 Hostname problem

[Dave Laird]

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Good morning, everyone...

The following OT message is presented for your edification:

On Thursday 13 March 2003 11:49 am, Mark Weaver wrote:

> All you's guys! I'm appointing myself a moderator and I'm also
> appointing Et, as my leu-ten-ant.

> My first action as moderator is to demand that Ric drink some guiness
> until he's sh^t-faced and all the tension drains out. Boycotting the
> list is not allowed and no one is allowed to be an @$$hole except for ET
> when he feels like it.

Now wait a minute here... I'm OK with whoever wants to be list moderator,
and they can have their choice of whoever they want to be their Leu-ten-ant
or even Sargeant-at-Arms, if they want.

However, I have a permit, here, that entitles me to be an @$$hole anytime I
feel the need.  

Here, I'll read it to you. 

"This worthy document, as testified by Wait a minute. That's not my
@$$hole permit, that's part of my marriage licence from 1965. Well, come to
think of it, that was a kind of an @$$hole permit in its own right. So as my
beleagured bride can attest, I have a permit to be an @$$hole anytime, which
I am known to exercise at will.  

So, let us move back to OT discussions. I am reassured beyond words there
are enough of us present who already have @$$hole permits to destroy any
usability this list might ever have. 

Dave
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Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
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An automatic & random thought For the Minute:
You are so boring that when I see you my feet go to sleep.
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=uy7Y
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Re: [expert] Lilo conf lines

[Dave Laird]

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G'afternoon, g...

On Tuesday 11 March 2003 02:24 pm, g wrote:

> did you change fstab and lilo.conf?

Yup. I looked in dmesg, and everything matches. I think the problem is with
the MB BIOS, since the secondary drive is a 120 G EIDE on an 80 pin cable.
Last night I tried the same experiment here, using two drives and a
more-recent Motherboard and BIOS and saw no such problems, no matter where I
put the drives. I think I'll go back out that way next week and flash the
BIOS with the latest and see what happens. Thanks, though...

Dave
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Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
The Used Kharma Lot / The Phoenix Project 
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An automatic & random thought For the Minute:
Women, when they have made a sheep of a man, always tell him that he is a
lion with a will of iron.
-- Honor'e de Balzac
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=+Kvf
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Re: [expert] Lilo conf lines

[Dave Laird]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
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Good afternoon, Anne...

I've been avidly following this discussion regarding ATA100 drives because I
saw something quite akin to that just last week. I formatted and installed
two ATA100 drives, both on the primary cable as Master/Slave, and did a
bunch of other install configuration thingees. About an hour later, I
decided in a rash moment of heat, to put one drive as primary/master and one
drive as secondary/master. The second drive disappeared. Since I really
didn't have the time to figure it out, I put them back where they were
formatted and all was well. Several attempts resulted in the same findings
and finally I put the case on it and all was well. 

That day there simply wasn't enough time.  

On Tuesday 11 March 2003 01:57 pm, Anne Wilson wrote:

> I hate not knowing what has caused this.

Me too. 8-( 

Dave
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Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
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An automatic & random thought For the Minute:
Utility is when you have one telephone, luxury is when you have two,
opulence is when you have three -- and paradise is when you have none.
-- Doug Larson
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urv/RVotjIeiDTGlzvqEh9k=
=CBro
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Re: [expert] kde screensaver problem

[Dave Laird]

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Good morning, David...

On Sunday 09 March 2003 10:23 am, David Relson wrote:

> I discovered kdeartwork a while after posting my query.  It is now loaded
> and I see a reasonable list of choices.  However, when it's time for the
> screen saver to kick it all that happens is that the screen goes
> black.  The screen returns to normal when I use the keyboard.
>
> Perhaps the issue is the "Random" screen saver, which is what I like to
> use. (Gnome has such a great selection of different screen savers).  Using
> google, I found some mentions of non-working KDE screensavers.  Is that
> still true?  Are the ones for gnome compatible with kde?

It sounds suspiciously as if you still have Power Control turned on. If you
want to see the screen saver, in some cases, you must first make sure you
have that unchecked, because *it* will blank the screen, before the screen
saver kicks in, in some cases. Of course, your results may vary. 8-) 

Dave
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Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
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An automatic & random thought For the Minute:
Onward through the fog.
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=Guxg
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Re: [expert] How to check for open ports?

[Dave Laird]

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G'evenin' all...

On Thursday 06 March 2003 09:42 pm, Vox wrote:
James Sparenberg wrote:

> > Of course the obvious question would be who do you want to exclude and
> > how do you want the results of the test skewed... I can write a test to
> > exclude any individual or group you'd like.
>
>   Uhm...any human being who asks a question before reading the
>   documentation? that'd make the IRC channel I hang out a lot more
>   civil :)

 Will you guys quit it!  I'm trying to get some work done
here, and I have to dash over every half hour for the next comeback. 8-) 

Dave
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Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
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An automatic & random thought For the Minute:
Don't get mad, get even.
-- Joseph P. Kennedy

Don't get even, get jewelry.
-- Anonymous
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=54kM
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Re: [expert] Linux Mail Servers for Win clients

[Dave Seff]

On this topic, does anybody know of any project that aims to be a
drop-in replacement for exchange? I run an all Linux IT shop EXCEXT for
Exchange because our sales people are literally attached to the hip with
Blackberries. If there is a project out there that looks to do exchange
to the letter (ldap, mapi, pop, imap, yada yada . .) That will get
people's attention. Especially mine. 

-Dave


On Tue, 2003-03-04 at 09:32, Norman wrote:
> Hi all,
> I have been asked if I can set up a Linux box to replace an NT server.
> What has been requested is that it be file server, mail server, print server and 
> firewall 
> and that external users should be able to access their mail and data.
> 
> I think that as the PC's ( 10 ) are running win95 and win98 I can use Samba without 
> problems and that the printer, which is a nearly new Samsung, Linux compatible 
> Laserjet
> can be accessed under cups.
> I have recommended that they use a separate PC for the firewall and am thinking of 
> using 
> smoothwall. I do not know whether the free version would be ok or whether I should 
> get the 
> commercial version.
> What I am puzzled about is the mail server. I have not used one myself and do not 
> know if 
> any of them, qmail, sendmail etc can talk to outlook or messenger.I have not seen 
> the 
> setup they have so am relying on the guy having given me the correct information at 
> this 
> stage. They would be happy for me to set up a new PC to do this job and I am keen to 
> have 
> a go. As far as I know this will be the first one in my area and want to encourage 
> the use 
> of Linux.
> Any ideas?
> tia
-- 
Dave Seff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>


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Re: [expert] Samba LDAP PDC an answer, not a question

[Dave Seff]

I have been trying to do the same thing. Could you send me the LDAP
section from your smb.conf offline? Just X out your specific info. 

Thanks. 

-Dave


On Wed, 2003-02-26 at 14:12, Jim C wrote:
> So I've been racking my brains over why my Samba-LDAP PDC wont add a 
> machine account automatically like it is supposed to. If I add the 
> machine by hand there is no problem with joining the domain.  So what's 
> up?  I try to log on and I don't get any error codes that pertain to 
> adding a user showing up in the logs.  In addition Samba does not want 
> to execute the 'add user script' at all even if I use a custom script.
> Until today I had thought the problem might have to do with my Perl 
> libraries.  BU! Wrong answer!
> 
> Turns out that if you have the ldap port set incorrectly in 
> /etc/smb.conf you can only join the domain if the user has already been 
> added.  Reason being that Samba refuses to execute the 'add user 
> script'.  I found this very weird as I would have expected that no 
> joining the domain at all would have been possible under these conditions.
> 
> 
> 
> Jim C.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ______
> 
> Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? 
> Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
-- 
Dave Seff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>


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Re: [expert] Contribs

[Dave Laird]

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Good afternoon...

On Sunday 02 March 2003 06:05 pm, civileme wrote:

> <html>

Thanks. It's been installed. 8-) 

Dave
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Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
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An automatic & random thought For the Minute:
Badges?  We don't need no stinking badges.
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=9CDU
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Re: [expert] Re: [newbie] Samba-Only Windows Clients can write to shares

[Dave Laird]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Good afternoon...

On Sunday 02 March 2003 09:35 am, Technoslick wrote:

> All boxes are part of the same domain. The Mandrake workstations can see
> the shares and view them, per the authenticity of the user's logon. They
> just can't write to the the shares. It doesn't matter what I do to the
> local permisions for /mnt/, they revert back to ownership 'root',
> group 'root'. On the server, I have made the owner and group on my secured
> share to be my user name, 'pmbuc'.
>
> Doe this give you an ideas?

Just for the sake of it, would you please post your smb.conf file for everyone
to examine? This might show others and myself something which might cause
your problem. Also, if you could, please show the full permissions for any
given file in the shared directory if you could, please. 

Dave
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Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
The Used Kharma Lot / The Phoenix Project 
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An automatic & random thought For the Minute:
You need no longer worry about the future.  This time tomorrow you'll be dead.
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=YrD9
-END PGP SIGNATURE-


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Re: [expert] iptables to block spam

[Dave Laird]

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Hash: SHA1

Good evening...

On Saturday 01 March 2003 10:48 pm, . wrote:

> 209.8.161.0/24 will get 209.8.161.0 - 209.8.161.255. /16 will get
> 209.8.0.0 - 209.8.255.255
>
> Is iptables running on your firewall, with the mail server behind it, or
> on your mail server?  If the former, you might need to add this on the
> FORWARD chain, not INPUT.

It figures I would get it backwards by typing without double checking.
 The firewall is on the mail server, hence I didn't mention
the FORWARD statement, however, that's a good point, too. Thanks. Now I'm
going to bed.  

Dave
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An automatic & random thought For the Minute:
When you don't know what you are doing, do it neatly.
Q:  What lies on the bottom of the ocean and twitches?
A:  A nervous wreck.
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=Amjf
-END PGP SIGNATURE-


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Re: [expert] iptables to block spam

[Dave Laird]

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Good evening, 

On Saturday 01 March 2003 07:09 pm, Scott St. John wrote:

> My question would be 1)Is that practical 2)Is the proper way to block an
> entire network this:
>
> iptables -A INPUT -s 209.8.161.0/24 -j DROP
>
> I added this, however traffic from this network is still reaching my mail
> server.  I want to block EVERYTHING from that network as they are sending
> porn mail to my clients.

iptables -A INPUT -s 209.82.110.17/16 -j DROP will work to drop *everything*
from 209.82.110.x, regardless of the the fourth digits in the network
address. Unless I've gotten it backwards again (it's past my bedtime) 24 only
drops the 0 of your address, which might possibly be the gateway, depending
upon how they have configured their system. 

I use the firewall to block undesirable IP's as needed, and it has proven,
time and again, to substantially reduce my spam loads. Also, if you want more
targets, go to http://www.iana.org/assignments/ipv4-address-space  and look
up the IP blocks assigned to the primary sources of most pornographic spam.
Then block them by country. You'd be surprised at how spam levels will drop. 

Dave
- -- 
Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
The Used Kharma Lot / The Phoenix Project 
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An automatic & random thought For the Minute:
He asked me if I knew what time it was -- I said yes, but not right now.
-- Steven Wright
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=CGbQ
-END PGP SIGNATURE-


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Re: [expert] Automatic e-mail notification

[Dave Laird]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

G'morning, everyone...

On Friday 28 February 2003 02:34 pm, Anne Wilson wrote:
> On Friday 28 Feb 2003 8:02 pm, Ronald J. Hall wrote:
> > On Friday 28 February 2003 11:18 am, Anne Wilson wrote:
> > > Correct.  I have 'beep' set and automatic checking.  Works well when
> > > I'm in the room, and I just look anyway if I've been out for some time.
> > >
> > > Anne
> >
> > Ditto here. My question is, can that "beep" sound be changed for
> > something else (You've got mail - NOT) 
>
> Well, it offers 'execute command line' so I would think you could play any
> sound file you chose.

I have it play a 10 second opening from the Rites of Spring as a .WAV file
using /usr/bin/play (it also works with esdplay) and it works fine. I
wouldn't try this on a lightweight processor, though, as it will bog the
system down. Granted a 500 mz processor or above and a minimum of 256 MEG of
RAM you can have it play anything you prefer. I imagine it would even
gleefully play a MIDI file if you wanted to work out the details. 

It's actually pretty handy if you poll a mail server once in awhile for new
mail. 

Dave
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Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
The Used Kharma Lot / The Phoenix Project 
Web Page:   http://www.kharma.net updated 01/20/2003
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An automatic & random thought For the Minute:
Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.
-- Shakespeare
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=AWGo
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Re: [expert] Defragging

[Dave Laird]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Morning, James...

On Tuesday 25 February 2003 11:34 pm, James Sparenberg wrote:

> Don't know how I got credit for saying it ... but. I do know the
> program...

You had a vaguely guilty look in your eye. 8-) 

> defrag
>
> http://freshmeat.net/projects/defrag/?topic_id=136
>
> Is a url that should get you to it.

Thanks! It went to work as soon as it came out of the compiler. I'll be
curious what it does to the news spool, which is nearly always fragmented
quite a bit. 

Dave
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Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
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An automatic & random thought For the Minute:
There's always free cheese in a mousetrap.
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=2FYh
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Re: [expert] Defragging

[Dave Laird]

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Good evening, James...

On Tuesday 25 February 2003 10:15 pm, James Sparenberg wrote:
> On Tue, 2003-02-25 at 14:41, civileme wrote:

> > there is a utility for defragging ext2 though it is hardly worth the
> > trouble of running.  It used to make big performance gains for ext

Might you have a link to this utility? It might be handy for running usenet
news which, as we all know, is notorious for fragmenting an ext2 file system
pretty badly. 

Dave
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Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
The Used Kharma Lot / The Phoenix Project 
Web Page:   http://www.kharma.net updated 01/20/2003
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An automatic & random thought For the Minute:
I must have slipped a disk -- my pack hurts!
Thou hast seen nothing yet.
-- Miguel de Cervantes
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Re: [expert] ML9.0: patch VIA to enable UDMA100 not installed but yet reporting UDMA100, Cycle time 120 ns???

[Dave Laird]

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Hash: SHA1


On Friday 14 February 2003 11:35 pm, vatbier wrote:

> What is a normal sustained transfer rate for UDMA5 in Linux ( what does
> "hdparm -t /dev/hda" return on your computer)?
> How in Win XP can I test the sustained transfer rate like in Linux with
> the command "hdparm -t /dev/hda" ? Would it be the same speed as in
> Linux ?

hdparm -t /dev/hda1
Timing buffered disk reads:  64 MB in  2.08 seconds = 30.71 MB/sec

My UDMA is set by the motherboard resources, and is fast as the dickens. I
hope my answer helps in some way. 

Dave
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Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
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Web Page:   http://www.kharma.net updated 01/20/2003
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An automatic & random thought For the Minute:
There are three things I have always loved and never understood --
art, music, and women.
If a listener nods his head when you're explaining your program, wake him up.
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=gMjy
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Re: [expert] Xnest questions

[Dave Laird]

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Good afternoon, Jack...

On Friday 14 February 2003 02:35 pm, Jack Coates wrote:

> er, whuh? I didn't ask the question, I posted the answer :-) Read the
> URL, it's how to do what he asked.

 Did I do *that* in front of millions? Egad. Oh, about those
autographed pictures of George Bush, Jr. you ordered, they are in now. 8-)
hehehe. Sorry. It's Friday and I'm multi-tasking too many processes at the
same damned time. 

Dave
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An automatic & random thought For the Minute:
"Life would be much simpler and things would get done much faster if it
weren't for other people"
-- Blore
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=FSu4
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Re: [expert] Xnest questions

[Dave Laird]

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Good afternoon, Jack...

On Friday 14 February 2003 02:08 pm, Jack Coates wrote:

> > certainly.  And here's another question I would like to pose... Let's
> > just say I have an old box, and I want to run gdm on it, so I can xdmcp
> > into it.. BUT! here's the kicker.. I dont want X to run on the box
> > locally... IOW, I don't want X to take up a VT on the system, ONLY be a
> > remote X server.. anyone have any ideas here? :)
>
> http://www.monkeynoodle.org/comp/remote-x-cygwin-howto

You always ask such *GOOD* questions. 8-) Let me look at it later on this
evening and I'll see what I can come up with, as I did just that a long, long
time ago. I just don't remember what I did. 8-( 

Dave
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The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of an expanding bureaucracy.
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dNFUREPUGG9O760WDL/t/BE=
=fHxx
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Re: [expert] Xnest questions

[Dave Laird]

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G'afternoon, Chuck...everyone else...

On Thursday 13 February 2003 12:58 am, Chuck Burns wrote:
> I am playing around with Xnest, and what I am looking for is a gui app that
> will allow me to, connect via xdmcp to the host of my choice, in a nested
> window.  I know I can type 'Xnest -query host :2' and it will work, but I
> want to know if there is a small gui app that I can click on, and it'll ask
> "local, remote (enter ip here)" or something similar... if there already is
> one, that is.. if not, then I might have found myself a small project :)

In case your findings come to you off this list, could you please forward any
information you may find about this? I've begun playing with Xnest, too, and
would like to have a gui tooie. 8-) 

Dave
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Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
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Art is a lie which makes us realize the truth.
-- Picasso
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=InJU
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Re: [expert] ML9.0:file system completely crashed ext3,"could not find mime type",kde3.0.3

[Dave Laird]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Good morning, ET...

On Wednesday 12 February 2003 06:56 am, et wrote:

> yep I just remeber the problems and thought they were overcome about the
> same time as the 8 gig limit was overcome.

That's your bogie. 8-) If you look at some of the comments made by 
Levitts, Gibson and others during that period, you'll also see where they
*really* did most of their testing on the early Linux kernels, rather than on
Windoze, because of the ability to punch the drive parameters in as conditions
changed. I wish I knew where some of the written documentation from that 
period
of time went.  It was the first incidence of an open forum on drive
specifications, but without it, we probably would still be using old, slow,
small hard drives. Can you believe a 150 gigabyte UDMA/EIDE drive for under
$300? Egods. How things change in this industry. 

 They say Mandrake 9.1 and KDE 3.1 are both coming out the cooker 
soon. That, too, works for me. 8-) 

Dave
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Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
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An automatic & random thought For the Minute:
Goodbye, cool world.
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=Z6FE
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Re: [expert] ML9.0:file system completely crashed ext3,"could not find mime type",kde3.0.3

[Dave Laird]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

G'morning, Anne...

On Wednesday 12 February 2003 02:29 am, Anne Wilson wrote:

> This is making interesting reading.  Do you think the Maxtor problem is
> specific to later, faster drives?  I've run a Maxtor and Fujitsu in tandem
> for longer than I care to think about, without problems.  Mandrake
> configures them correctly, too, but they are both 20GB disks, so not the
> latest and fastest.

There actually are several different problems I've either encountered or read 
about:

1. If a non-Maxtor drive is on the same EIDE channel, *some* troubles may 
occur,
especially if the Maxtor is on a UDMA high-speed cable OR if the Maxtor drive 
is
one of the "new breed" of high-speed drives.

2. If the Maxtor is a high-speed drive, on the primary, and the other drive on 
the channel is a low-speed Hitachi/Toshiba/Sanyo with the strange-looking 
motherboard (pre-wired instead of jumpers) it won't work at all. (Fujitsu 
drives 
seem to work, so long as they are relatively modern.)

3. There is an older (pre-1999) problem relating to Maxtor drives that Steve 
Gibson wrote about a few years ago, that *perhaps* describes some of the
technical issues we are seeing with relationship to Mandrake. His article 
describes a lot of the technical issues involved in drive chain recognition, 
which is how the problem manifests itself.

> Also, is it your experience that these problems occur only between pairs of
> HDDs, or do they equally occur when the slave is a cd/dvd/cd-rw?

I have seen some *really* cheap CD's that wouldn't work with Maxtor, but then
they were really picky about anyone else's drives, too. Most of these types of
problems occurred in the late 1990's, as I haven't seen any reoccurance of the
problems since. Another choice problem that is easily recognized is an early 
CD
(Promise?) that came with the sound card on the CD-ROM drive. They only seem 
to
run on Windoze, and even iffy at that.

So, if I were to hang my derierre *really* far out into target-space, I'd
suggest the following rules:

1. Whenever possible, use the same drive speeds, especially if they are going 
to
be attached to the same cable on the same channel. If you run into problems
using a Maxtor drive and another drive manufactured by another company, put 
them
on separate channels.

2. If you're going to use any of the new Maxtor UDMA high-speed drives and an
older CD-ROM, especially an early CD-ROM R/W, make sure the CD is not on the
same channel as the Maxtor. You'll get all kinds of interesting interactions 
if
they are on the same channel, at least in my experience.

3. Again, the newest Maxtor drives don't work well, if at all, with some of 
the
older slow Toshiba/Hitachi drives that came pre-configured (a WAG ) from the
factory, didn't have any jumper slots on the motherboard, and for the most 
part
were sold through package deals. I started to add Sanyo to this list, but I 
just
looked at my notes and there is only one model of Sanyo drive I've seen that 
had
this problem, and that was a *long* time ago.

4. Here's one I just saw the other day: Three hard drives, one CD-ROM on a 
newer
motherboard-provided EIDE/UDMA channel. The only way the drives spun up 
properly
was putting the new Maxtor high-speed on the Primary Master, the Seagate
high-speed on Primary Slave, the second slower Seagate on Secondary Master, 
and
the CD-ROM, a generic Sony look-alike on Secondary Slave. The slower Seagate
would work, but the entire drive chain was *slowed* dramatically once you put
the slow Seagate on the Primary channel. However, if you put it with the 
CD-ROM
in the Slave position on the second channel, *everyone*, with the exception of
the CD-ROM, ran at the enhanced speeds. The guy had 120 gigabytes of space at
high speeds! I remember when 20 MEG cost a fortune. 

5. Whenever possible, put the first high-speed Maxtor drives on the Primary
chain as Master. They seem to like that. 8-)

6. Of course, in the same coin, some of the early Seagate EIDE slow drives
refused to work with a Maxtor unless they are in the Master position. Again,
there's a terribly funny piece floating around the internet about this
phenomenon.

And in case anyone thinks I'm bashing Maxtor drives, I'm not. I've been using
Maxtor drives nearly exclusively as my personal choice for almost two decades 
in
nearly every network machine in my office, and am *delighted* beyond words 
with
their no-BS warrantee policies.

Dave
- --
Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
The Used Kharma Lot / The Phoenix Project
Web Page:   http://www.kharma.net updated 01/20/2003
Usenet News server: news.kharma.net
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An automatic & random thought For the Minute:
"Don't discount flying pigs before you have good air defense."
- 

Re: [expert] ML9.0:file system completely crashed ext3,"could not find mime type",kde3.0.3

[Dave Laird]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

G'morning, ET...

On Wednesday 12 February 2003 04:08 am, et wrote:

> > Without doing a *lot* of testing I'd hazard a guess that is as good a
> > generalization as you could find anywhere, and probably better than
> > some... with
> > the possible exception of Maxtor drives and most other non-Maxtor drives,
> > as noted previously. Another combination I remember vaguely that ran into
> > troubles
> > in the early testing I've done was using a Seagate EIDE slow drive on the
> > primary and a fast Seagate on the secondary, which only worked in 16 bit
> > mode, something else I never understood. 8-)
>
> was that in M$ products say before 1997?

Yes, I believe that was the platform. There's an excellent article that 
explains 
some of the more technical aspects of why floating around the web written by 
young Steve Gibson, I think. 

Dave
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Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
The Used Kharma Lot / The Phoenix Project
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An automatic & random thought For the Minute:
Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
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=e5di
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Re: [expert] ML9.0:file system completely crashed ext3,"could not find mime type",kde3.0.3

[Dave Laird]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Good evening, Damon...

On Tuesday 11 February 2003 07:05 pm, Damon Lynch wrote:

> It still may matter.  But I don't know - that's why I am asking :-)
>
> Supposing you have a UDMA 100 as master, and a UDMA 33 as slave.
> Conceivably they may both drop down to UDMA 33, and the master runs a
> bit faster than the slave simply because it is the master.

Normally that is all true *EXCEPT* there is a differential factor that I just 
mentioned to someone else on this list about Maxtor drives running on the same
IDE channel as a non-Maxtor drive, regardless whether they match or not, will 
not "cooperate".

> Maybe that is not what will happen.  Either way, I'm curious to know
> what the experts think!  I've heard conflicting stories from different
> folks (mostly off this list).

Without doing a *lot* of testing I'd hazard a guess that is as good a 
generalization as you could find anywhere, and probably better than some... 
with 
the possible exception of Maxtor drives and most other non-Maxtor drives, as 
noted previously. Another combination I remember vaguely that ran into 
troubles 
in the early testing I've done was using a Seagate EIDE slow drive on the 
primary and a fast Seagate on the secondary, which only worked in 16 bit mode, 
something else I never understood. 8-)

Dave
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Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
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An automatic & random thought For the Minute:
Yes, but every time I try to see things your way, I get a headache.
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=zB4Z
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Re: [expert] ML9.0:file system completely crashed ext3,"could not find mime type",kde3.0.3

[Dave Laird]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Good evening, James...

On Tuesday 11 February 2003 06:28 pm, James Sparenberg wrote:

> I've had similar results but specifically when it's a maxtor drive and a
> non maxtor in the slave position. They didn't play nice at all.  Now if
> I had the Maxtor paired up with another one running the same DMA
> level... no problem.

 Yes, I recognize that tune. Try a Sanyo-Toshiba low-speed
drive and any Maxtor high-speed drive on the same IDE channel. They simply 
won't
work, even if you call Maxtor and order one of their service & support books,
which they don't even sell anymore, anyway.  

Dave
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Don't let people drive you crazy when you know it's in walking distance.
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=A/Ne
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Re: [expert] ML9.0:file system completely crashed ext3,"could not find mime type",kde3.0.3

[Dave Laird]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Good afternoon, Anne...

On Tuesday 11 February 2003 12:53 pm, Anne Wilson wrote:

> There's an old saying
>
> The faster the master,
> The slower the slave
>
> It wouldn't matter which way round if you were right.

Actually about six months back or so I did a relative speed test using a 
series
of different UDMA drives on an enhanced system under various O/S platforms to
see if anything had changed since the last time. Under *certain* conditions,
that axiom no longer applies. However, I also willingly admit, despite doing a
*lot* of skull-banging, I haven't figured out why, or for that matter, what 
has 
changed in how hard drive parameters are recognized under Linux.

For example, under Mandrake using a fast high-speed 40 gigabyte drive, in
approximately 40% of the time it was recognized by Mandrake as a fast drive, 
and
deployed appropriately. If the slave was *also* a UDMA drive, it, too, was
configured correctly. Even a lowly Iomega Zip Drive was configured as a fast
access drive. Go figure, sez I. I even tried it using several different brands
of drives, since I was neither scientific nor exacting about it.  When 
it 
worked it was a thing of marvel.

However, just now having stuck my foot so nicely into my mouth, I couldn't 
then
account for the other 60% of the time when one or both drives were recognized
and configured as pokey slow EIDE drives. I repeated this test four or five
times, and even had a fast drive be recognized two *different* ways several
times. I know instinctively it is in the libraries somewhere, but I don't have 
a
clue.

FWIW, I was able to replicate the same test results using Micro$oft Windoze 98
and backwards a time or two. For the most part, Windows 98 Second Edition and 
upwards recognizes the drive geometry correctly every time.  

Can I buy an axiom now?  

Dave
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Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
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Reality is for people who lack imagination.
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=VQIe
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Re: [expert] TV card problems.

[Dave Laird]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Good evening, everyone...

On Saturday 08 February 2003 11:31 am, Fabian Pena-Arellano said:

>   Thank you for answering. The computer receives the signal
> from an outdoor antenna. I live in a university accomodation, and my
> other flatmates can see these four channels perfectly using the
> same signal.
>   Any hint would be grately appreciated.

Off the top of my head I'd say try using one of those signal amplifiers you
can find in most electronics shops, and see if it makes a difference. Of
course if your luck follows mine, what you get is really *well* amplified
noise and scatter on the screen. Let us know, though. If I get some time free
this weekend I'll try to replicate the problem, uh... with different
television stations, of course. 8-) 

Dave
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Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
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An automatic & random thought For the Minute:
QOTD:
"Wouldn't it be wonderful if real life supported control-Z?"
Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed
down-stairs a step at a time.
-- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar
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=GGVa
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Re: [expert] TV card problems.

[Dave Laird]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Good morning, Fabian...

On Saturday 08 February 2003 10:15 am, Fabian Pena-Arellano wrote:

> 1. I live in Birmingham in the UK, so how many channels
>should I receive? So far I have been able to see the
>following:

Are you receiving signal via television cable or an outdoor antenna? Since I
know little to nothing about your reception area, I cannot tell you much
about what channels are in your area. However, if you are using an antenna
instead of cable, your results may vary widely.

>   BBC Two: 623250 kHz, station: 40, PAL
>   itv1:647250 kHz, station: 43, PAL
>   4TV: 705500 kHz, station: 50, PAL
>   BBC One: 671250 kHz, station: 46, PAL
>
> 2. Sound is good in these four channels, althouhg
>4TV image is bad, and BC One image is really bad.
>How to improve image quality?

Again, that depends upon your method of reception.

Nice choice of card, though. 8-) 

Dave
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Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
The Used Kharma Lot / The Phoenix Project 
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An automatic & random thought For the Minute:
A fanatic is a person who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.
- - Winston Churchill
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Re: Fwd: [expert] Best Mandrake yet!!!

[Dave Laird]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Good evening, everyone...

On Friday 07 February 2003 09:47 pm, Vincent Danen wrote:
> On Sat Feb 08, 2003 at 12:10:59AM -0500, Mark Weaver wrote:

> > In my experience you've got to try pretty damn hard to break Mandrake
> > linux. For getting work done there's just no comparison between windows
> > and Linux. the two of them don't even belong in the same breath let alone
> > in the same ball park. and I'm not bashing windows just for the sake of
> > it. My workstation at work dual boots win2K and Mandrake Linux. While I
> > hacking out code for something at work I'm running Mandrake. My boss runs
> > win98...he has to reboot sometimes 3-4 times...I just keep working. If I
> > wouldn'tn have to interact with the accounting system I wouldn't have to
> > boot back into windows at all.

I was going to simply let this thread slide on by my workstation and keep my
mouth shut, as it's Friday, and I am exhausted after a 60+ hour week. Then I
remembered my little "chart", and after finding it in the archive directory,
and reviewing the results of nearly two years of comparitive studies and
constant testing, particularly with regard to Windows XP versus Mandrake 9.0,
I simply *had* to say something. 

Between a huge volume of e-mail, plus constant involvement in various other
writing projects, programming in Perl and Delphi and various other forms of
database development, I would say I probably am as hard on a workstation as
anyone else. For a fortunately brief period of time each year, I have
performed quality analyses on two other workstations powered by Microsoft
products and my own workstation running Mandrake. There is *not* a year but
what the Mandrake box has handily won, but this year neither of the XP boxes
stood a chance when it came to the race for efficiency. 

Here is a tiny sample:

Current Uptime:  Windows 2 days 6 hoursMandrake 14 months 9 days
Mean average:   Windows 2+ days  Mandrake 13 months+
Last forced reboot   Windows 2 days  Mandrake NEVER
Time consumed in last patch/upgrade:
Windows 3.2 hours   Mandrake .75 hours (45 mins)
Viruses/worms   Windows (2) Mandrake 0
Catastrophic faults Windows 9   Mandrake 0
(failures which required user intervention and loss of use)

Here's an anomaly that stands out:

Most productive version of each brand:
Windows 98
Mandrake 8.2 and up

I keep the Windows machines running only because the corporate databases are
written entirely in FoxBase, but we are slowly beginning to phase that out in
favor of Kylix, which means within the next year database development will be
moved entirely to Mandrake workstations. 

To be politically-correct, I am not here to bash Windows. However, given the
number of times the Windows boxes have been patched and upgraded, I still
cannot seem to do better than 2 or 3 days uptime before one or both of them
crash or require a reboot. 

Dave
- -- 
Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
The Used Kharma Lot / The Phoenix Project 
Web Page:   http://www.kharma.net updated 01/20/2003
Usenet News server: news.kharma.net
Musicians Calendar and Database access: http://www.kharma.net/calendar.html
   
An automatic & random thought For the Minute:
"You are WRONG, you ol' brass-breasted fascist poop!"
- -- Bloom County
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=mC98
-END PGP SIGNATURE-



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Re: [expert] Mandrake RPM updates

[Dave Laird]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Good afternoon,  Mark...

On Tuesday 04 February 2003 03:44 pm, Mark Chou wrote:

> What do most of you do to keep your machines up to date with necessary
> features and security updates?  Do you pretty much re-pave each time for a
> newer MDK distro, or do you build your own from sources?  Any time-saving
> hints, like rsync, etc, which would save download time? What are the best
> practices?

I cannot speak for others, but the method I have used since I began using
Mandrake as a workstation model is that I upgrade nearly every time a new
distro is available. Plus, *anytiime* security "fixes" or upgrades are
offered, I don't hesitate to download the upgrade and apply it without
question.  Thus far I have yet to be "bitten" by a security
upgrade. Even the recent KDE upgrade went flawlessly, although I gather from
reading comments that some did have problems. 

When a new distro comes out, such as 8.2 to 9.0, I wait a few days and watch
the newsgroups (and this e-mail list among others) for any complaints of
problems, and if none are perceived, I burn the CD's and write over the
existing copy. Thus far, other than 8.0, I haven't had any trouble, and then
it was because I was in too much of a hurry to do my homework. 8-( 

Thus far I have never used Mandrake as a server, although I understand it can
be just as robust as RedHat when it comes to that. I just haven't gotten
around to it yet. 

Dave
- -- 
Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
The Used Kharma Lot / The Phoenix Project 
Web Page:   http://www.kharma.net updated 01/20/2003
Usenet News server: news.kharma.net
Musicians Calendar and Database access: http://www.kharma.net/calendar.html
   
An automatic & random thought For the Minute:
Use a pun, go to jail.
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Version: GnuPG v1.0.7 (GNU/Linux)

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mxwI0rSX9QkZ7tLZuYoUffE=
=UybP
-END PGP SIGNATURE-



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Re: [expert] OT Will there be a tomorrow?

[Dave Laird]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Good morning, Wobo...

On Wednesday 29 January 2003 06:37 am, Wolfgang Bornath wrote:

> Looking back I realize that I have made a mistake by opening this
> thread. Sorry folks, I'll start a new one on my experiences with the
> Beta2 of 9.1 in some minutes. And it will contain nothing about
> politics! Promise.

[Dave puts on a black wig and leans close to the monitor] Whisper about it in
my ear. No one else will ever know. 8-) 

Dave
- -- 
Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
The Used Kharma Lot / The Phoenix Project 
Web Page:   http://www.kharma.net updated 01/20/2003
Year 2 of running Mandrake Linux workstation on a 100% Microsoft-free system.
   
An automatic & random thought For the Minute:
Don't assume that every sad-eyed woman has loved and lost -- she may
have got him.
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Ja4Pca2v1dRtyM/5WvCc39A=
=gQZx
-END PGP SIGNATURE-



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Re: [expert] OT Will there be a tomorrow?

[Dave Laird]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Good morning, Mike...

On Wednesday 29 January 2003 06:20 am, Mike Veltman wrote:

> And please respect the fact that a lot of europeans have a different view
> of the Irac case.

...as do *SOME* Americans. 

Dave
- -- 
Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
The Used Kharma Lot / The Phoenix Project 
Web Page:   http://www.kharma.net updated 01/20/2003
Year 2 of running Mandrake Linux workstation on a 100% Microsoft-free system.
   
An automatic & random thought For the Minute:
Minicomputer:
A computer that can be afforded on the budget of a middle-level manager.
-- T.A. Dolotta
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BP4eEI4qanJ6/HOVeUi53CU=
=rglC
-END PGP SIGNATURE-



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Re: [expert] OT Will there be a tomorrow?

[Dave Laird]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Good evening, Wobo...

On Tuesday 28 January 2003 11:20 pm, Wolfgang Bornath wrote:

> IF there is hard evidence for what Mr. Bush claims is true I'll be the
> first to stand up and say "GO!"

After seeing the angst and fervently-felt emotions well up in this useful
little mailing list, and, like a deer drinking from a brook, I've wandered
along the ditch banks sampling the waters as I go, I have formed an opinion
of sorts which closely parallels what you've said above:

All I've got to say for The Shrub, our President, is, "SHOW ME THE BEEF!" If
he shows me that he has proof for everything he said, especially the parts
about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction, I too will stand up and join you
in saying loudly, "DO IT!" 

However, given the condition of the US economy at the present, and given the
abject lack of accurate verifiable information coming from The Shrub's
office, I am truly saddened by what I see coming. 

Dave
- -- 
Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
The Used Kharma Lot / The Phoenix Project 
Web Page:   http://www.kharma.net updated 01/20/2003
Year 2 of running Mandrake Linux workstation on a 100% Microsoft-free system.
   
An automatic & random thought For the Minute:
Should I do my BOBBIE VINTON medley?
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=j5Cb
-END PGP SIGNATURE-



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Re: [expert] OT Will there be a tomorrow?

[Dave Laird]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Good evening, Terry...

On Friday 28 February 2003 08:20 pm, Terry Mathews wrote:

> B) Please keep politics off the mandrake-expert list. Whether or not there
> will be a war in Iraq has nothing to do with your Mandrake box.

Actually that only applies to *some* of us. If the US goes to war with Saddam
Hussein, I have every reason to believe that my Mandrake box, a laptop
running 9.0, and I will probably end up somewhere working as a contractor for
the DOD, which is a battle of a different sort, I'm afraid. You see,  I am
one of those semi-rabid pacifists you read about back in the 60's, a
Berkeley, California graduate, and given the lack of work in my home town,
I'd probably jump at the opportunity to work for the Department of Defense,
because they pay well. 

I'm afraid the prospects of working for the DOD, despite putting some serious
money in my bank account, is somewhat "difficult" given my moral beliefs
against war. My Mandrake box even agrees with me. So there. 

Dave
- -- 
Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
The Used Kharma Lot / The Phoenix Project 
Web Page:   http://www.kharma.net updated 01/20/2003
Year 2 of running Mandrake Linux workstation on a 100% Microsoft-free system.
   
An automatic & random thought For the Minute:
Each new user of a new system uncovers a new class of bugs.
-- Kernighan
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=7gcq
-END PGP SIGNATURE-



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Re: [expert] MandrakeSoft back to daily business

[Dave Laird]

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Hash: SHA1

Good evening, all...

On Tuesday 28 January 2003 04:38 pm, James Sparenberg wrote:

> Yes but gentlemen at age 47 I've learned that there is nothing I can do
> to STOP my mother from trying to help me.  I'm just glad she's around to
> get in my way. ;)

You forgot to mention she is fluent in Perl, Java, Assembler (remember THAT?),
C and C++ and can code while doing the laundry. 8-)

Dave
- -- 
Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
The Used Kharma Lot / The Phoenix Project 
Web Page:   http://www.kharma.net updated 01/20/2003
Year 2 of running Mandrake Linux workstation on a 100% Microsoft-free system.
   
An automatic & random thought For the Minute:
Finality is death.
Perfection is finality.
Nothing is perfect.
There are lumps in it.
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cjlTiPulyrXVImokwaoMOSw=
=hTdx
-END PGP SIGNATURE-



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Re: [expert] MandrakeSoft back to daily business

[Dave Laird]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Good morning, Carroll...

On Tuesday 28 January 2003 08:13 am, Carroll Grigsby wrote:

> Kiddies:
> 57? Big deal. Hell, I've got neckties older than that.

Ah, but I still have some minor advantages:

1. I don't have the remnants of last week's dinner on my middle because I
automatically dispose of any leftovers.

2. I am most clearly *not* just another pretty thing hanging around. In fact,
if one might think I was pretty, I can recommend a number of good
optometrists to visit. 

So, how soon before KDE 3.1 shows up on the mirrors? Does anyone know? 

Dave
- -- 
Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
The Used Kharma Lot / The Phoenix Project 
Web Page:   http://www.kharma.net updated 01/20/2003
Year 2 of running Mandrake Linux workstation on a 100% Microsoft-free system.
   
An automatic & random thought For the Minute:
Any time things appear to be going better, you have overlooked something.
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=JydC
-END PGP SIGNATURE-



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Re: [expert] MandrakeSoft back to daily business

[Dave Laird]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Guten morgan, mein freundt...

(That's about the limit of my German, although my wife reads and speaks quite
a bit of it from being raised speaking German as a second language.)

On Tuesday 28 January 2003 07:58 am, Wolfgang Bornath wrote:

> So we are same age (see http://www.wolf-b.de/pers/pers1.html). My sig
> was meant for the occasional kid jumping into such mailinglists and/or
> newsgroups without any clue what he/she is doing. Or people who seem
> to be kids according to their posting style and/or behaviour.

 That would work rather nicely for usenet news, wouldn't it? Of
course, given the current mindset of many people along usenet way, I don't
know if they would necessarily understand the underlying subtlety. However, I
am impressed that I'm not the only 50+ person hanging around Mandrake these
days, as that, too, is a sign that bodes well for the future of Mandrake. We
get to teach our *grandkids* about the value of open source, thus breaking
the world-wide domination of Microsoft in the next generation. 

> > Rainy days and automatic weapons always get me down.
>
> It's all a matter of proper clothing!

Oh, that. That's the fortune which runs under cron and thus updates my
.signature file. The only *bad* part about it is you never know what you'll
get as a fortune. Over the years, I've added to and deleted some of the
fortunes to taste, but there are still occasions when my signature file is
better than the messages themselves. 8)

Dave
- -- 
Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
The Used Kharma Lot / The Phoenix Project 
Web Page:   http://www.kharma.net updated 01/20/2003
Year 2 of running Mandrake Linux workstation on a 100% Microsoft-free system.
   
An automatic & random thought For the Minute:
I put up my thumb... and it blotted out the planet Earth.
-- Neil Armstrong
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YCP8GgX8pwEikNUNCaNpWZ8=
=mIs2
-END PGP SIGNATURE-



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Re: [expert] MandrakeSoft back to daily business

[Dave Laird]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Good morning, Wolfgang, everyone...

On Tuesday 28 January 2003 05:11 am, Wolfgang Bornath wrote:

[Announcement deleted to save space and bandwidth]

That is *truly* great news! Thanks for sharing it. You forgot to put a plug in
there that KDE 3.1 is beginning to appear on the Mirrors... WH! It just
doesn't get much better than this!

> If you don't understand or are scared by any of the above
> ask your parents or an adult to help you.

At age 57, do I truly want to inflict the visual image of my mother trying to
assist me on everyone?  Speaking for the Polident faction of
Mandrake, of course. 

Dave
- -- 
Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
The Used Kharma Lot / The Phoenix Project 
Web Page:   http://www.kharma.net updated 01/20/2003
Year 2 of running Mandrake Linux workstation on a 100% Microsoft-free system.
   
An automatic & random thought For the Minute:
Rainy days and automatic weapons always get me down.
-BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-
Version: GnuPG v1.0.7 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQE+NpJgaE1ENZP1A28RAtihAJ4nSKgSLvvEqNPk8shmc1s0L96/fACeI6f+
NEJ6KcHor+JXpQ1JiU7QKP8=
=+B6v
-END PGP SIGNATURE-



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Re: [expert] mysql install problem

[Dave Laird]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Good evening, Benjamin...

On Monday 27 January 2003 07:56 pm, Benjamin Pflugmann wrote:

> You are aware that 4.0.9 is current?

 Yes, as of this evening, I became aware of it. God, how time
flies when you're having too much fun! 

> So it's also possible that it was a glitch in the beta version you
> used before and that was fixed in the meantime. The out-of-the-box
> comment is only meant for the most recent version, 4.0.9, of course.

That would explain why, just minutes ago, after I completed testing the
precise same pair of indexed 100,000 record tables, everything worked
normally 100% of the time. I guess I should have checked back more often to
see the status of MySQL, but I've been pretty busy, and didn't notice the
changes taking place beneath my nose. They obviously have optimised quite a
bit since my last test, based upon what I've seen just this evening. 

They have apparently improved Innobase, although I'm not certain if I'm seeing
changes to it, or merely the tremendous influence of the cache at work. Even
on multiple complex JOIN statements MySQL *flies* as never before, even on
limited hardware. My test base, a 333 mz Pentium II with 128 M of memory, was
chosen for its hardware anemia, to see if the original performance benchmarks
as printed for 3.23 were improved. They most certainly *ARE* improved. 

To answer a question someone asked earlier, I restored some 800,000 record
tables off an old backup tape (pre-3.23, but I don't remember the version)
and plopped them onto the development machine, and they worked flawlessly but
with a noticeable performance improvement, even without allowing for the lack
of a decent hardware platform.  

I ran a few record-locking routines under Innobase to do a "poor man's"
verification that record locks work as well as rollover, and they do work
without exception. Perhaps even more important, 4.09 didn't break *any* of my
Delphi code, which means no breaks in existing development programming. 

I can hardly wait for 4.10 to emerge. 

Dave
- -- 
Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
The Used Kharma Lot / The Phoenix Project 
Web Page:   http://www.kharma.net updated 01/20/2003
Year 2 of running Mandrake Linux workstation on a 100% Microsoft-free system.
   
An automatic & random thought For the Minute:
"I'm really enjoying not talking to you ... Let's not talk again REAL
soon ..."
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+blvRusz2jX7h3UtwOQ7Qrk=
=UzOL
-END PGP SIGNATURE-



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Re: [expert] mysql install problem

[Dave Laird]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Good evening, Benjamin...

On Monday 27 January 2003 06:11 pm, Benjamin Pflugmann wrote:

> How about
>
>   http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,293,00.asp

> which tests MySQL 4.0.1 and MySQL AB's summary of the latter:
>
>   http://www.mysql.com/eweek/index.html
>
> Unfortuneatly, neither PostgreSQL nor a MySQL 3.23 was not part of the
> test.

Yes, but even *I*, a totally convinced user of MySQL over Micro$oft's best,
sat there reading both articles and warbling like a jaybird who's got his
b**ls caught in an electric fence! That is impressive news indeed! I was
going to send both these articles to a certain Mickey$oft SQL admin-type I
know, but I understand over last weekend he was unexpectedly busy for three
days in succession. Something about an upgrade or a patch, I was told. 8-) 

> [...]
>
> > Looking forward to seeing it.  So the MySQL team considers 4.x stable
> > now?  Do they recommend using it over 3.x?
>
> According to http://www.mysql.com/downloads/index.html still 3.23.x is
> recommended, but from what I know, that probably changes with the next
> release (see below).
>
> On Mon 2003-01-27 at 11:55:56 -0700, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> > On Sun Jan 26, 2003 at 09:10:12PM -0800, Dave Laird wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> > > The last time I looked (last week or two) it was listed as
> > > BETA-Stable,
>
> That would be rather be at least 6 weeks, because since 2002-12-14
> (v4.0.6) MySQL is declared gamma.

That's about right, actually. I was going to check back, to see if the
development status had changed in the interim, but didn't. Shame on me. I
updated my version to the Gamma 4.0.6 earlier this evening and will be
testing it on my development box tonight. If it was good enough to compete
nose-to-nose with Micro$oft and win, it's probably good enough for my
development machine, IMHO. 8-) 

> > > but other than having to regenerate the indexes for an existing
> > > table which I moved over into my development directories, it was
> > > pretty much a bolt-up application.
>
> I am not sure why you *had* to rebuild indexes. AFAIK, MySQL 4.0.x
> should work on tables created with 3.23.x (aveats below ;)

I'm relatively certain that was an anomaly that came from the tarball I used
to copy the files over, rather than something wrong with the indexes
themselves or the method which 4.0.x reads and writes to them. I tried
replicating the original error just now with the Gamma release and the
problem didn't reoccur. However the access speeds of selecting a single
record in the 100,000 record database is impressive. Once the selected record
is in the cache, selecting it a second time is *blinding*. 

> According to the 4.0.8 release note, the next version is expected to
> be declared stable. Since 4.0.9 was released two days later to fix
> some screw-up that slipped by, 4.0.10 is generally thought to be
> released as stable, if nothing unexpected happens.

Kewl! I can hardly wait!

> The short story is that 4.0.x should work out-of-the-box on a 3.23.x
> database and configuration, but you will have to do some tweaking in
> order to be able to make full use of the new version.

Tongue-in-cheek rules to remember when testing the Gamma:

1. Wear a hair net to hold your hair in place. There are recorded instances of
people being plucked bald by the sheer speed of the newest releases using the
cache. 

2. Avoid any and all discussions relating to the "vast superiority" of
Microsoft SQL over MySQL like the plague. Maybe if we keep this really quiet
Bill Gates won't try and buy MySQL.

Dave
- -- 
Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
The Used Kharma Lot / The Phoenix Project 
Web Page:   http://www.kharma.net updated 01/20/2003
Year 2 of running Mandrake Linux workstation on a 100% Microsoft-free system.
   
An automatic & random thought For the Minute:
Yow!  It's some people inside the wall!  This is better than mopping!
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oZO1g2ho1Yb7X/yf1A345T0=
=Qwis
-END PGP SIGNATURE-



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Re: [expert] mysql install problem

[Dave Laird]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Good morning, Vincent...

On Monday 27 January 2003 10:55 am, Vincent Danen wrote:

> Ok... I'll wait until it goes stable then, although I might throw it on
> my workstation just to play with some of the new features and such.

If I can help or offer any assistance don't hesitate to drop a note on this
mailing list. I've been testing 4.x for about two weeks now, and other than
having to regenerate the indexes, I haven't had a moment's problem. 

Dave
- -- 
Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
The Used Kharma Lot / The Phoenix Project 
Web Page:   http://www.kharma.net updated 01/20/2003
Year 2 of running Mandrake Linux workstation on a 100% Microsoft-free system.
   
An automatic & random thought For the Minute:
Men will always be men -- no matter where they are.
-- Harry Mudd, "Mudd's Women", stardate 1329.8
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Re: [expert] mysql install problem

[Dave Laird]

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'Evening, Vincent...

On Sunday 26 January 2003 08:58 pm, Vincent Danen wrote:

> Looking forward to seeing it.  So the MySQL team considers 4.x stable
> now?  Do they recommend using it over 3.x?

The last time I looked (last week or two) it was listed as BETA-Stable, but
other than having to regenerate the indexes for an existing table which I
moved over into my development directories, it was pretty much a bolt-up
application. I only got to spend a half-day on it, but there is a lot to
commend switching over as soon as it goes stable. 

Dave
- -- 
Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
The Used Kharma Lot / The Phoenix Project 
Web Page:   http://www.kharma.net updated 01/20/2003
Year 2 of running Mandrake Linux workstation on a 100% Microsoft-free system.
   
An automatic & random thought For the Minute:
Fatal Error: Found [MS-Windows] System -> Repartitioning Disk for Linux...
(By [EMAIL PROTECTED], Christopher Browne)
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Re: [expert] Updated information about TV cards in general...

[Dave Laird]

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Good afternoon, Kwan...

On Friday 24 January 2003 09:12 am, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

> On Fri, 24 Jan 2003, Dave Laird wrote:
> > Xaitv not only works better than Xawtv 'out of the box', as it comes up
> > the first time with the audio on and the picture in place. It is also
> > much more compliant when you have a number of other applications present
> > on the desktop simultaneously.
>
> I've been using the gatos/xatitv since I got the card a couple years
> ago. From what I've read, xawtv does not support the AIW pre-Radeons.
> Xatitv does, but there may be problems with using the v4l devices.

Actually I was able, with some "fudge factoring", to get xawtv to work with my
pre-Radeon AIW Card, but it took some pretty proficient swearing and a bit of
twitching with configuration files to get the job done. Even then, the
interface was a bit shaky, with some portions of it that didn't work at all.
(such as frame-grabbing). 

> BTW, the TV-Wonder VE (a low end add-on card available for ~ $20 on
> sale) works with xawtv.

I never heard of that card. Who manufactures it?

> > When you resize the TV screen, however, it undergoes a bit of what I
> > might term instability, as the picture shakes and quakes like a mouse in
> > the presence of a convention of eagles hungry for dinner. However, be
> > patient. Eventually it resizes itself to the frame that you selected and
> > all is once again well.
>
> I notice this too.

However, in its defense, it has a lot more of the configurability that I have
come to expect of Mandrake. I can hardly wait until v42 comes out of the
cooker and is ready for use with KDE. I understand it is a lot more reliable
and thus might work with streaming video better. Can we dare imagine it,
watching a VCR/DVD movie while we work?  8-)

Dave
- -- 
Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
The Used Kharma Lot / The Phoenix Project 
Web Page:   http://www.kharma.net updated 01/20/2003
Year 2 of running Mandrake Linux workstation on a 100% Microsoft-free system.
   
An automatic & random thought For the Minute:
There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes.
-- Dr. Who
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Re: [expert] mysql install problem

[Dave Laird]

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Good afternoon, Vincent!

On Saturday 25 January 2003 02:52 pm, Vincent Danen wrote:

> Actually, speaking of which, has anyone used 4.x at all?  Any initial
> reactions to it compared to 3.x?

I set it up on one of my internal systems last weekend, and the only
conclusions I have reached, thus far, are thus:

1. Without doing any *real* certification or testing, my impression is that it
is faster than the 3.xx version I currently am running in production. 

2. Having a functional rollover that I can code into applications (that
actually appears to be working) is really nice. 

3. Thus far it is working nicely using a set of normalized 10,000 record
tables. 

Every once in awhile I kick it to see if it still works, but other than that,
after the shambles today, I haven't really had the time to experiment
further. However, I'll post my impressions once I really get my feet wet with
it.

Dave
- -- 
Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
The Used Kharma Lot / The Phoenix Project 
Web Page:   http://www.kharma.net updated 01/20/2003
Year 2 of running Mandrake Linux workstation on a 100% Microsoft-free system.
   
An automatic & random thought For the Minute:
It's clever, but is it art?
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[expert] Updated information about TV cards in general...

[Dave Laird]

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Good morning, everyone...

Enough people showed an interest in my early experimentation with an ATI
All-in-Wonder Pro TV card that I decided to wander a little further afield,
and test another TV application under KDE 3.0. First, this time, I'll do the
"right thing" and explain the sofware/hardware:

Hardware:

An anemic 500 mz Intel MB with 256 M of memory
Two hard drives, one SCSI Jazz and a Zip drive tossed in for the hell of it.
An ATI-AGP All-in-Wonder Pro card with 8 M of memory

Software:

Mandrake 8.0 upgraded several times to Mandrake 9.0

All the current ATI drivers from the Mandrake Mirrors installed

The video card configured as an All-in-Wonder-Pro, not a Rage 128, which seems
to be the default that Hardrake seems to prefer.

Instaling the Software:

1 I downloaded the Gatos application from the mirrors

2 I also downloaded the library to satisfy dependencies
libibtk0-0.0.14_pre2-13mdk.i586.rpm

Then I fired off xaitv-conf to make sure the settings were sane enough for my
rickety system and, incredibly enough, it works!

Comments: 

Xaitv not only works better than Xawtv 'out of the box', as it comes up the
first time with the audio on and the picture in place. It is also much more
compliant when you have a number of other applications present on the desktop
simultaneously. 

When you resize the TV screen, however, it undergoes a bit of what I might
term instability, as the picture shakes and quakes like a mouse in the
presence of a convention of eagles hungry for dinner. However, be patient.
Eventually it resizes itself to the frame that you selected and all is once
again well. 

Right-click anywhere on the screen to change your settings. All in all, this
is a very robust little TV player, and it even does screen captures with v41,
something that Xawtv won't do without a v42. 

Now I can pull the ATI card from my system and try out the new Hauppage card I
bought last night. 8-) 

Dave
- -- 
Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
The Used Kharma Lot / The Phoenix Project 
Web Page:   http://www.kharma.net updated 01/20/2003
Year 2 of running Mandrake Linux workstation on a 100% Microsoft-free system.
   
An automatic & random thought For the Minute:
Sum quod eris.
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Re: [expert] getting a DWL-650 to work in MDK

[Dave Laird]

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Good evening, Pierre...

On Thursday 23 January 2003 04:10 pm, Pierre Fortin wrote:

> Thanks for the clue...  all 4 PCI IRQs on my IBM TP A20m were set to 11
> also...  I changed them to auto-select; but that just used 11 again.   So,
> I forced them to 5, 9, 10 & 11 -- there were others available; but some
> put up a yellow asterisk (anybody know what IBM might mean by those?) so I

 Those are conflicting IRQ's, if my memory serves me right. 

> avoided them.  Now, eth0 and CS46xx are listed in /proc/interrupts -- they
> weren't even there before the change...

Progress is good. Progress is good. 

> Hope to know soon if that'll fix my sound problems after suspend/resume.

Let us know. I can look up the IRQ's for the onboard sound, as I have a "cheat
sheet" here for IBM laptops that comes in pretty handy every once in awhile. 

Dave
- -- 
Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
The Used Kharma Lot / The Phoenix Project 
Web Page:   http://www.kharma.net updated 01/20/2003
Year 2 of running Mandrake Linux workstation on a 100% Microsoft-free system.
   
An automatic & random thought For the Minute:
Windows 98 recently won a price as best vacuum cleaner ever.
Comment from one of the testers: "Windows 98 sucks more than anything..."
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