Re: [Fwd: Re: How secure is Preupgrade? Answer: Not.]
Will Woods wrote: > Preupgrade is currently designed to be exactly as secure as an anaconda > http install. No less, no more. But it's not being marketed as an alternative to an Anaconda HTTP install with less downtime as the only improvement. It's being marketed as a safer alternative to a live upgrade with Yum, and as a faster, more convenient and less bandwidth-wasting alternative to downloading and burning DVD images. See this article for example: http://www.redhatmagazine.com/2008/04/15/interview-fedora-developers-seth-vidal-and-will-woods/ The article talks a lot about how Preupgrade is better than both a Yum upgrade and a DVD-based upgrade, but says very little about network-based Anaconda upgrades, and it's completely silent about the security aspect. Here's a quote from the article: "So you can upgrade with the convenience and bandwidth savings of a live upgrade, but without the risky craziness inherent therein." Yeah, it avoids the risky craziness inherent in a Yum upgrade but adds instead the crazy riskiness inherent in an HTTP-based Anaconda upgrade. That's no improvement in my book. No matter what the risks with a Yum upgrade are, getting intruders in my computer is worse. > Nothing's *missing*. There just aren't any signatures to check for the > boot images, and there never have been. For several years now, all my boot images have been included in ISO images. Those ISO images have been accompanied by checksum files, and those checksum files have been cryptographically signed. I always verify the signature and the checksums, and when they're verified correctly I know that all the files in the ISO image are clean, including the boot images. Generating detached signatures for the boot images and putting them in the directory where the images are published would take at most five minutes of manual work for each release. > Furthermore anaconda doesn't check the gpg signatures of packages it > downloads and installs during http installs. Never has. That's bug #998. > (Yes, #998. Not a typo. See https://bugzilla.redhat.com/998) Would you like to guess why I never do network-based installs except from my own server directly attached with a crossover cable? Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: How secure is Preupgrade? Answer: Not.
Beartooth Sciurivore wrote: > Dumb question, probably : if you install and run preupgrade > according to http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PreUpgrade, BUT let it stop > after downloading boot images, is there some user-friendly thing you can > do then to make it secure? Something on the order of getting into a > directory and commanding, in effect, "check all signatures"? No. You can check the RPM packages in /var/cache/yum/anaconda-upgrade/packages with rpm --checksig (assuming you have known good public keys in the RPM database, but that's required for Yum too). The big problem is that you can't check the boot images in /boot/upgrade, because nobody has made signatures for them. Making signatures is easy, but only the owners of the Fedora project's private key can do it. > Or had we just better wait till PreUpgrade 1.0 comes out? Or ...? Don't hold your breath. Checking the packages is scheduled for 1.1: https://fedorahosted.org/preupgrade/ticket/7 Checking the boot images is scheduled for 1.2, but that ticket talks about checksums, not signatures, so I think it's only intended to protect against accidental corruption, not malicious tampering: https://fedorahosted.org/preupgrade/ticket/8 > If the latter, do we need to get rid of whatever-all 0.9.3-3 > downloaded? Or will we be able to just "yum update PreUpgrade" in F8 and > then run it again? I get the impression that Preupgrade is intended to keep previously downloaded files if you run it again, and only download missing files and new dependencies, if any. If you choose to upgrade with Yum it should be possible to tell Yum to use the packages that Preupgrade downloaded. The security will then be the same as in any yum update command. Just be sure to delete the unchecked boot images so you don't accidentally boot them. Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: How secure is Preupgrade? Answer: Not.
stan wrote: > If anaconda uses rpm to do the upgrade, there is a blurb in the man file > stating that rpm automatically does the md5 check on install. I think > these are signed with a Fedora specific key, so they would fail if they > weren't official or were tampered with. Checking the MD5 sum detects accidentally corrupted packages. To detect that a package has been tampered with you have to check the PGP signature. A bad guy can easily generate a new MD5 sum for his modified package. He can't generate a new PGP signature unless he has a private key that corresponds to one of the public keys that are loaded in your local RPM database. But as the installer may have been tampered with, it may have inserted the bad guy's own key in your RPM database, or it may have installed a modified RPM that says everything is OK, or any other nasty stuff. I don't think the probability is all that high, but the possibility is there. Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: How secure is Preupgrade? Answer: Not.
Beartooth Sciurivore wrote: > I ran PreUpgrade on it, but spotted Bj"orn Persson's warning in > time, and have not let it reboot. Do I need to get rid of it in some way > before I do an upgrade from DVD? Or will anaconda take care of it? Just delete the files, as you have them on the DVD anyway – at least most of them. rm -rf /boot/upgrade /var/cache/yum/anaconda-upgrade Be careful with that command! A typo could make it delete vital parts of your system instead. When you've done that, the security risk is gone (unless Preupgrade has put something in a third directory that I haven't found). There's also a new choice in the boot menu, but it's harmless when you've deleted the files. Anaconda will probably blow it away, but if you still see it after you upgrade from the DVD, then you may want to remove it by hand. Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: PGP signatures.
Tim wrote: > On Wed, 2008-05-28 at 16:29 +0100, Bill Crawford wrote: > > What do you do if you encounter a key that's signed by both someone > > you trust personally, *and* someone you don't trust? > > I suppose that would depend on whether that was: You didn't know > whether to trust them, or you distrusted them. No. If A's key is signed with B's key, and B's key is known to be valid, and you trust that B signs keys responsibly, then A's key is valid, period. Other signatures are completely irrelevant. Nobody can make a key invalid by signing it, no matter how evil or irresponsible or untrustworthy they are. Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: Slightly OT: Verify certificate?
Anne Wilson wrote: > On Wednesday 04 June 2008 12:01:39 g wrote: > > with thunderbird and evolution, opens 'current' or 'highlighted' > > email in a 'simple editor' and can view email unformatted. ie, 'headed', > > 'body', 'html', or 'encoded'. > > > > i would think kmail would also. may be thru different approach from menu, > > maybe 'view'. > > Ah - yes, if I'd known what I was looking for In Kmail you press V. Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: Slightly OT: Verify certificate?
Anne Wilson wrote: > While reading my mail I have just received a pop-up asking me to verify > that the certificate identified as blah blah has the fingerprint > more-blahs. Just how do you do that? Meet the guy in person, verify his identity and ask him what the correct fingerprint is. If you know his voice you can ask him over the phone. If that's more trouble than it's worth, then the authenticity of the message remains uncertian, which most of the time isn't a big problem. Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: Wide, flat, & weird : HP w2207h with F8 & F9
måndagen den 30 juni 2008 skrev Beartooth: > On Tue, 01 Jul 2008 02:35:00 +0930, Tim wrote: > > On Mon, 2008-06-30 at 16:45 +, Beartooth wrote: > >> (The machine was built for me, to my budget, by an electronic friend; > >> but I haven't found a way to ask it what video card it has, and I hate > >> to ask him to dig through his records (if any) to find out.) > > > > You can try "dmidecode" (it's a command line tool). > > Well, at least some of that is in English. I went through it, > line by line, a couple of times. But all I could see that might be > relevant was this : > > = = = > Handle 0x0023, DMI type 10, 6 bytes. > On Board Device Information > Type: Video > Status: Enabled > Description: To Be Filled By O.E.M. > = = = The DMI data doesn't come from the various pieces of hardware themselves. It's all stored in a memory on the motherboard, so it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with what hardware is actually installed. It seems only big corporations have tools to write to the DMI memory. > Is there something else I should be looking for?? What I know of > hardware would go in a gnat's eye -- and never discommode the gnat. Try running lspci and looking for words like "display", "graphics" and "VGA". Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: Fedora 9 Openchrome drv HP w2207h Monitor was: Re: help with setting up graphics
Beartooth wrote: > I can't imagine why startx would work immediately after logging > in in text mode, without touching anything that affects the configuration > of X; and it seems a strange, roundabout approach. But I'm willing to try > it, if I understand aright what it is I'm to try. I don't understand it either but similar things happen to me. If I boot into runlevel 5 I only get a black screen. If I boot into runlevel 3, log in as root and run "init 5 ; exit", then X starts just fine. I've described the problem here: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=448340 Weird. Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: Please, please please!
Jim wrote: > You are a 100% right on that Anne, but if the orignal post is snipped, > the third, fourth person who picks up on the RE: > doesn't see what the orignal post was, to properly give a good answer > to the problem. Then they just need to go back to the original message and read it. Assuming of course that they have a decent MUA. Trying to follow a high-traffic mailing list like this one in a primitive MUA that doesn't support threading must be a real pain – and it would be a pain even if everybody would quote everything every time. Someone who just joined the list may have to look in the archive if they really really want to read the original post, but that problem goes away after a week or two. Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
that old GNU/Linux argument
Mark Haney wrote: > Personally, I think the demand by Stallman, and others to call Linux > 'GNU/Linux' is just stupid and childish. What exactly is it that you don't want to call "GNU/Linux"? What pieces of software does it contain? Is Udev part of what you call Linux? Is Bash part of what you call Linux? Is GCC part of what you call Linux? Is Yum part of what you call Linux? Is Apache HTTPD part of what you call Linux? Is Sylpheed part of what you call Linux? Is GNU Chess part of what you call Linux? Is Kylix part of what you call Linux? Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: that old GNU/Linux argument
tisdagen den 15 juli 2008 skrev Tim: > On Tue, 2008-07-15 at 02:48 +0200, Björn Persson wrote: > > What exactly is it that you don't want to call "GNU/Linux"? What > > pieces of software does it contain? > > > > Is Udev part of what you call Linux? > > Is Bash part of what you call Linux?... > > They're all part of what's released as an OS called something-or-other > Linux. Show me something that has been released as an OS called something-or-other Linux and contains Kylix. > Just the > same as a lot of software is called Windows software, despite never > being written by Microsoft. Over time, software *for* Linux, or > software *for* Windows just gets called Linux software or Windows > software. Can you support your implied claim that "Windows software" means "part of Windows"? I read it as "software for Windows". Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: that old GNU/Linux argument
Joe Klemmer wrote: > On Tue, 2008-07-15 at 02:48 +0200, Björn Persson wrote: > > Is Udev part of what you call Linux? > > Yes. > > > Is Bash part of what you call Linux? > > Yes. > > > Is GCC part of what you call Linux? > > Yes. > > > Is Yum part of what you call Linux? > > Yes. > > > Is Apache HTTPD part of what you call Linux? > > Yes. > > > Is Sylpheed part of what you call Linux? > > Yes. > > > Is GNU Chess part of what you call Linux? > > Yes. > > > Is Kylix part of what you call Linux? > > And, well, yes. > > While it's a fact that the kernel is the only part of any distro that's > actually named Linux, The name has become attached to the entire OS. Based on your answers I draw the conclusion that you use "Linux" as a collective name for all software that can run in a Unix-like environment, regardless of who wrote it or whether it's free or not. You probably think of Fedora, Gentoo, Ubuntu et cetera as different subsets of Linux, as none of them contains Kylix for example. You also don't seem to make any distinction between operating systems and applications, but consider all software part of the operating system. I seriously doubt that's what Linus Torvalds means when he says "Linux", and I can assure you that Richard Stallman does not consider Kylix a part of GNU/Linux. Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: that old GNU/Linux argument
Gordon Messmer wrote: > Joe Klemmer wrote: > > BTW, has the FSF been as vocal about GNU/FreeBSD? Not picking on *BSD, > > just curious. > > They probably don't need to be, as GNU/FreeBSD is clear about its > implementation. It's a FreeBSD kernel in combination with the GNU > operating system. And so the official name is Debian GNU/kFreeBSD, to reflect that it doesn't contain all of FreeBSD, only the kernel. Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: Why is Fedora not a Free GNU/Linux distributions?
Les Mikesell wrote: >"In 2008, we found that GNU packages made up 15% of the “main” >repository of the gNewSense GNU/Linux distribution. Linux made >up 1.5%. So the same argument would apply even more strongly >to calling it “Linux” > > Why not name it something that gives the appropriate credit to the 83.5% > that has nothing to do with GNU Since it's a bit impractical to name a distribution by concatenating the names of all the packages it contains, I suggest that the team that maintains a distribution should come up with a name for the distribution. That way none of the upstream projects would be credited any more or less than any others. In this case the distribution could be named "gNewSense" for example. A certain other distribution could be named "Fedora". Doesn't that sound like a good idea? Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: Why is Fedora not a Free GNU/Linux distributions?
onsdagen den 16 juli 2008 skrev Gordon Messmer: > Les Mikesell wrote: > > But it is equally ridiculous either way, when 80+% is neither GNU nor > > Linux code. Calling it an xwindow system would make more sense. Or > > perhaps a firefox/thunderbird/openoffice.org system - with most of the > > other parts interchangeable. > > If you're talking about a distribution, then I suppose it's fine. When > you refer to the *operating system*, though, that's a different story. > GNU/Linux is an operating system. It implements a defined operating > system interface. Linux, by itself, is not an operating system. I'd like to hear your definition of "operating system". Linus Torvalds calls Linux an operating system. He appears to use Andrew Tanenbaum's definition, where "operating system" is pretty much synonymous to "kernel". Other people have other opinions on what an operating system is. Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: Why is Fedora not a Free GNU/Linux distributions?
Gordon Messmer wrote: > GNU/Linux is an operating system. It implements the interfaces > described by POSIX. Applications written to conform to that standard > will build and run on GNU/Linux. > > Linux is a kernel. It implements no documented standard (and maintains > a policy against stable interfaces). Applications do not run on Linux. Does Linux not implement the system calls described by POSIX? Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
"the whole GNU/Linux thing"
Daniel R. Koehler wrote: > Maybe we should just refer to the whole GNU/Linux > thing with a new name, that includes neither > "GNU" or "Linux". Call it Everyone's Operating > System (EOS) or something that is more creative > than what I can think of right now. But what *is* that "whole thing" that might be called EOS? Where can I download it from? Is there a list of what components it contains? We need to define what it is before we can give it a name. > That way, > everyone can form a picture in their own mind of > what it means, be it the kernel, the interface, > the tools, the distribution, or whatever. I think one of the major causes for this eternal argument is just that. Everyone forms their own picture of what "Linux" or "GNU/Linux" means, and people keep talking past each other because they don't realize that they're talking about different things. Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: that old GNU/Linux argument
Patrick O'Callaghan wrote: > I can't help but point out that your > definition of "operating system" does not include GNU, since GNU does > not have a kernel. Ever heard of the Hurd? Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: that old GNU/Linux argument
Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
> On Wed, 2008-07-16 at 23:33 +0200, Björn Persson wrote:
> > Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
> > > I can't help but point out that your
> > > definition of "operating system" does not include GNU, since GNU does
> > > not have a kernel.
> >
> > Ever heard of the Hurd?
>
> Ever since it was first mooted. Has anyone ever seen one? Are there any
> in production use anywhere in the world?
That's irrelevant. Production use wasn't part of Alexandre's definition
of "operating system". GNU does have a kernel. Its name is the Hurd. You can
install the Hurd on a computer together with libraries and programs from the
GNU project to form a basic operating system. You can boot it, log in and run
programs. Therefore, contrary to what you wrote, GNU does fit Alexandre's
definition of "operating system".
> However that's not my point. You can't claim that GNU={libraries+apps}
> and also GNU={libraries+apps+kernel}. In this discussion even the
> pro-GNU people are using the first definition, not the second.
So what *is* your point? Are you claiming that the Hurd isn't part of the GNU
project? Or are you arguing that instead of "GNU/Linux" people should
say "GNU-except-the-Hurd/Linux"?
Björn Persson
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Re: that old GNU/Linux argument
Ric Moore wrote: > Has HURD actually become a working kernel?? Ric Apparently yes: http://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-install Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: that old GNU/Linux argument
Timothy Murphy wrote: > Bizarrely, it seems one has to pay for a "Live Hurd CD". How is that bizarre? You know that a CD is a physical object, don't you? Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: that old GNU/Linux argument
Thomas Cameron wrote: > On Tue, 2008-07-15 at 02:48 +0200, Björn Persson wrote: > > Mark Haney wrote: > > > Personally, I think the demand by Stallman, and others to call Linux > > > 'GNU/Linux' is just stupid and childish. > > > > What exactly is it that you don't want to call "GNU/Linux"? What pieces > > of software does it contain? > > > > Is Udev part of what you call Linux? > > udev is not a GNU project. > > > Is Yum part of what you call Linux? > > Yum is not a GNU project. > > > Is Apache HTTPD part of what you call Linux? > > Apache is not a GNU project. > > > Is Sylpheed part of what you call Linux? > > Sylpheed is not a GNU project. > > The reality is that a modern Linux distribution contains code from the > *BSD projects, from the Apache project, from ISC, and from a ton of > other projects and groups. Should we call it "GNU/Apache/BSD/Kitchen > Sink/Linux?" That's just silly. > > The core of the distribution *The* distribution? Which one? Mark Haney's post didn't talk about any particular distribution, but this is the Fedora list after all so I'll assume that you meant Fedora. > is the kernel, called Linux. It is > perfectly fair and reasonable to call it plain old "Linux." Although you didn't really answer my questions, your argumentation implies that you consider Udev, Yum, Sylpheed and the entire Apache project parts of Linux, but not Kylix apparently. You also seem to equate Fedora with Linux. I won't assume without further evidence that you're a bigot who thinks Fedora is the One True Distribution, so you probably consider Debian, Gentoo and others different versions of Linux or something like that. I guess your idea of Linux is "all software that is included in at least one distribution based on the kernel Linux" – a bit narrower than Joe Klemmer's concept of "all software that can run in a Unix-like environment". Seeing how you point out that Yum, Apache and Sylpheed aren't GNU projects, yet consider them parts of Linux, it seems like you think they're subprojects of Linus Torvalds' Linux project and are distributed by Linus and his team. Surely you know that's not the case, but if they can be parts of Linux without being Linux projects, then I don't understand why they couldn't be parts of GNU/Linux without being GNU projects. > I don't > really get riled up at the folks who write it as GNU/Linux, but I think > they are being silly, and not attributing all the other fine projects > which have contributed code. I agree that it would be silly to talk about all of Fedora as "GNU/Linux", because it contains so much more than just GNU and Linux. I suppose that's why it's called "Fedora". It follows of course that it would be even more silly to call Fedora "Linux", because Linux is an even smaller part of Fedora than GNU/Linux is. Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: that old GNU/Linux argument
Patrick O'Callaghan wrote: > trying (fruitlessly it seems) to get some > consistency in the use of terminology, That's what I'm trying to achieve too. Or if it isn't possible to get people to agree on terminology, then I'd like to at least understand what people mean when they use a word. To that end I'm asking people what they mean when they say "Linux", but so far I'm not getting very clear anwers. Would you like to tell us where *you* draw the line? What is part of Linux in your mind, and what is not part of Linux? Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: that old GNU/Linux argument
Colin Paul Adams wrote: > I myself almost always say Linux. It is just quicker. And would you like to tell us what *you* mean when *you* say "Linux"? What is part of Linux in your mind, and what is not part of Linux? Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: that old GNU/Linux argument
Thomas Cameron wrote: > I'm talking about Linux > as a Linux distribution in very generic terms. Whether it's Fedora, > Ubuntu, Slackware, whatever. [...] > > so you probably consider Debian, Gentoo and > > others different versions of Linux or something like that. > > Of course. OK, all distributions are equal, and they're all Linux in your mind. > > I guess your idea of Linux is "all software that is included in at least > > one distribution based on the kernel Linux" – a bit narrower than Joe > > Klemmer's concept of "all software that can run in a Unix-like > > environment". > > No, OK, so that's not it. > the current most common use of the term "Linux" really talks more > about a Linux distribution with all the associated applications. Many > if not most of those apps have zero relationship to the GNU project. How about this then: There isn't one set of software that is Linux. There are many distributions based on Linus Torvalds' kernel. They are all Linux, but they're different Linuxes. All the software that is included in one of them is part of that Linux, but you don't apply the name "Linux" to the superset of all the software in all the Linuxes. Is that more like it? But in that case, how do I know which of the Linuxes you mean when you say something about "Linux"? > You don't see > them making asinine demands that we go around calling it Sendmail/Linux > or Apache/Linux, do you? When people talk about Sendmail they typically call it "Sendmail", and I don't think anyone believes that Linus Torvalds wrote Sendmail, so I don't see why the Sendmail Consortium would complain. > I don't think anyone on this list is claiming that Fedora == Linux. I > think what has been said over and over is that Fedora is a Linux > distribution. The vast majority of the community and the industry calls > Linux distributions just plain old "Linux." Fedora isn't Linux, it's a Linux distribution, but everyone calls all Linux distributions "Linux", so Fedora should be called "Linux" even though it isn't Linux? Is that what you're saying? Unfortunately that doesn't help much with defining what Linux *is*. Or do you mean that Fedora isn't *equal* to Linux, it's just *a* Linux, but everyone calls all Linuxes "Linux"? > It's easy, it makes sense, > everyone knows what is being said. No, that's exactly the problem. I do *not* know what people are saying when they say things about "Linux", because I don't know what "Linux" means to them. I'm more and more getting the impression that "Linux" is a word without a meaning, or with a meaning just as vague as "thingy". There seems to be lots of people who think they know what Linux is, but when asked to explain what Linux is they just answer with some hand-waving and a lot of arguments for why it shouldn't be called "GNU/Linux". Should a thingy be called a thingy or a doodad? How can we answer that question without first specifying what thingy we're talking about? Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: that old GNU/Linux argument
Les Mikesell wrote: > Linux has always been just a kernel. But what you usually describe is a > complete distribution. And when you talk about a complete distribution, do you call it "Linux" or do you call it "Fedora" or "CentOS" or "Slackware"? > I can't recall ever having any reason to have a > name for a subset of a distribution that only included the GNU > components and the kernel. Can someone who uses this term explain the > circumstances where it is useful? This subset rarely/never exists by > itself and it doesn't make much sense to name it, although you might > need to talk about the kernel specifically or the complete distribution > as a whole. The application I work on in my job uses some Linux-specific features and some GNU-specific ones. It wouldn't be nearly as good if we'd use only POSIX interfaces. We could probably port it to one of the BSDs for example, and we might achieve similar performance there, but currently it requires GNU and Linux so it could be described as a GNU/Linux application. But I mostly agree. I often make statements about Linux that have nothing to do with GNU, and then I say "Linux". I also often make statements about various GNU programs, and then I say "Bash" or "GCC" or "Emacs" or whatever. When I say something about a whole distribution, it's usually not true for all distributions, and then I say "Ubuntu" or "Gentoo" and so on. But sometimes I want to say something about all distributions that are based on GNU and Linux. Then I call them "GNU/Linux-based distributions". If I wanted to include Debian GNU/Hurd and Debian GNU/kFreeBSD too, but not FreeBSD, NetBSD or OpenBSD, then I'd say "GNU-based distributions". Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: that old GNU/Linux argument
Colin Paul Adams wrote: > So I may mean different things at different times. Then I hope it's obvious from the context what you mean each time. Otherwise it'll be confusing. > I talk about > running Linux. This is a shorthand for running GNOME in X11 with a > Linux kernel plus lots of other software. I'd probably talk about running Fedora in that case. Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: that old GNU/Linux argument
Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote: > Björn Persson wrote: > > Fedora isn't Linux, it's a Linux distribution, but everyone calls all > > Linux distributions "Linux", so Fedora should be called "Linux" even > > though it isn't Linux? Is that what you're saying? Unfortunately that > > doesn't help much with defining what Linux *is*. > > > > Or do you mean that Fedora isn't *equal* to Linux, it's just *a* Linux, > > but everyone calls all Linuxes "Linux"? > > It is kind of like the difference between a car, a Ford, and a > Mustang. A car does not have to be a Ford to be a car. A Ford doea > not have to be a Mustang. But it is still correct to call a Mustang > a car. Should I take that to mean that your concept of "Linux" is the same as Thomas Cameron's, whatever his concept really is? Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: What is the point of the NM keyring?
Timothy Murphy wrote: > Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote: > > So if your password on one system gets compromised, it does not > > compromise your password on other systems. > > OK, that seems a valid point, but does not actually apply to me, > as all the passwords in question in my case are on one computer. Really? Well, *maybe* you don't have any email accounts on any servers but receive all your email directly to your workstation, but if Network Manager needs a key from the Gnome keyring, then it's because your wireless network requires an access key, so that key isn't local to your computer. Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: Printing with Canon Pixma iP1800 on Fedora Core 7
Valentina M wrote: > It says: > > el planificador de tareas se está ejecutando > destino predeterminado del sistema: iP1800_Ver.2.70 > tipo de conexión para EPSONLX300: parallel:/dev/lp0 > tipo de conexión para iP1800_series: usb://Canon/iP1800%20series > tipo de conexión para iP1800_Ver.2.70: cnij_usb:/dev/usb/lp0 > tipo de conexión para pruebaip4000: usb://Canon/iP1800%20series > EPSONLX300 aceptando peticiones desde mié 18 jul 2007 20:14:59 UYT > iP1800_series aceptando peticiones desde sáb 12 jul 2008 20:01:23 UYT > iP1800_Ver.2.70 aceptando peticiones desde mar 15 jul 2008 12:16:01 UYT > pruebaip4000 aceptando peticiones desde sáb 12 jul 2008 20:25:01 UYT > la impresora EPSONLX300 está inactiva. activada desde mié 18 jul 2007 > 20:14:59 UYT > la impresora iP1800_series está inactiva. activada desde sáb 12 jul 2008 > 20:01:23 UYT > la impresora iP1800_Ver.2.70 está inactiva. activada desde mar 15 jul 2008 > 12:16:01 UYT > la impresora pruebaip4000 está inactiva. activada desde sáb 12 jul 2008 > 20:25:01 UYT > > It is in spanish... if u want me to translate it i can do it. Let the computer do the work. :-) "LANG=en lpstat -t" should do the trick. Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: that old GNU/Linux argument
Ric Moore wrote: > I just took a peek at it. Crufty comes to mind. And, it took over ten > years to do what Linus did over 10 years ago. Ric It's not really quite the same work. Linux is a monolithic kernel. It didn't even have modules in its early days. The Hurd is a set of daemons around a microkernel. It's a more advanced architecture so it should be expected to take longer to write. Even so, the FSF apparently ran into some kind of problems so that it took much longer than they expected. Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: that old GNU/Linux argument
Les Mikesell wrote: > The only GNU-specific features that come to the top of my head are the > -a option to cp (and I usually use rsync anyway where it would be > useful) and the copious non-standard options to gnutar that sometimes > turn out to be useful. Are there others that really matter? It would > be nice to have a list to avoid in portable code and scripts. We program in C (unfortunately). All Unix-like systems have their own additions to the "standard" C library, and so does the GNU C library. Most GNU tools also tend to have GNU-specific features: http://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/echo.msg.html http://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/gcc.html I don't have a list. For GlibC the man pages are good at explaining which functions and behaviors are GNU extensions. At least some of the command line tools' manuals do that too. I don't know if all of them do. Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: that old GNU/Linux argument
söndagen den 20 juli 2008 skrev Alexandre Oliva: > I happily regard myself as a Free Radical. Giggle! Maybe Les, Thomas, Patrick and others are proteins and DNA then? Maybe this discussion needs some antioxidants? ;-) Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: that old GNU/Linux argument
söndagen den 20 juli 2008 skrev Anders Karlsson: > * Björn Persson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [20080720 19:52]: > [snip: lots of hairsplitting and otherwise ludicrous statements] If my latest response to Thomas Cameron seemed particularly hair-splitting, it may be because he rejected the definition I proposed and yet made more statements that seemed to agree very well with the definition he rejected. I tried to figure out where the difference was and came up with a marginally different definition. If he doesn't agree with that one either, then I definitely don't understand what he means with "Linux". > Is it really so hard to grasp that the term "Linux" can (and does) > mean different things depending on context, who you are talking to, > and the counterparts technical savvy? It's not difficult at all to understand that people have different ideas of what Linux is, but that's not enough to understand what any particular person means when he says "Linux". And why are we even communicating if we aren't going to try to understand each other? > I also would like to know why you have the absolute fascination and > the palpable need to obtain a totally absolute definition of "Linux". I don't think I'll get everyone to agree on a definition. I don't even think all the anti-GNU/Linux folks will agree on a definition. When Mark Haney "vented his spleen" I made an attempt to damp the argument that would inevitably follow. I tried to get Mark to say something about what it was that should or shouldn't be called Linux or GNU/Linux, so that maybe people would at least argue about the same thing. That mostly failed. I kept asking in the hope that at least some people would start thinking about whether their opponents even understood what meaning they put in the words. I expected that some of the anti-GNU/Linux folks would say that Linux is the operating system and that the operating system is the kernel plus the programs that are necessary to boot the system, log in, run commands and edit text files, or something like that. I thought that others would include stuff like Cron, RPM, X and maybe the core parts of a desktop environment. Instead, those who have answered so far or otherwise made their position clear in the argument either say that Linux is a kernel or that pretty much everything and the kitchen sink is Linux. I didn't expect that. I'm particularly surprised that some even include unfree programs that have never been distributed bundled with Linus' kernel. So far I haven't seen a pro-GNU/Linux person describe what GNU/Linux is and what it isn't. It would be interesting to see whether they include the kitchen sink in GNU/Linux. Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: that old GNU/Linux argument
Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote: > Björn Persson wrote: > > Should I take that to mean that your concept of "Linux" is the same as > > Thomas Cameron's, whatever his concept really is? > > No - just that I think the argument is equivalent is like > complaining about someone calling a Mustang a car, instead of > calling it a Ford Mustang. Calling a distribution Linux is less > specific then calling it by the distribution name, but it is not > less correct then calling a specific car by the generic name car. Well, that still seems to put you somewhere in the "everything and the kitchen sink is Linux" camp. > Depending on exactly what you are talking about, you may need to be > more specific, because the more generic term may not give enough > details. Not only that, but by using a too generic term you might say something that isn't true, because it's only true for some of the things that the generic term covers. > For other discussions, being more specific will actually > make the discussion harder. I don't see how using terms that are too generic would make discussing easier. If you mean using terms that are more specific than intended, then that's of course not optimal. It may of course be that some people find it harder to use the appropriate terminology because they then have to actually think about what they mean, but once they do that I'm sure they'll find that the discussion works much better. Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: that old GNU/Linux argument
Patrick O'Callaghan wrote: > Having said that, my *usage* of the term "Linux" encompasses any > accumulation of software that has a useful purpose and is constructed > around a Linux kernel. This includes GNU+Linux, X+Linux, > Fedora/Debian/Ubuntu/Slackware/etc. and the system that runs my wife's > RAZR-2 cellphone. OK, that's a fairly clear explanation. Apparently you're in the "everything and the kitchen sink" camp too. > 'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful > tone,' it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor > less.' Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. When combined with the assumption that everyone else automatically knows what Humpty Dumpty wants the words to mean it ensures endless misunderstandings. Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: that old GNU/Linux argument
I wrote: > So far I haven't seen a pro-GNU/Linux person describe what GNU/Linux is and > what it isn't. It would be interesting to see whether they include the > kitchen sink in GNU/Linux. Correction: Alexandre Oliva has said that "an operating system is a kernel plus a bunch of userland libraries and programs that users and other applications generally rely on" and that GNU is an example of an operating system. I can't believe I forgot that. It's a bit vague, but clearly a whole lot less than all of Fedora or Debian. It could be taken to mean just a kernel and the GNU command line tools, or it could include X and Gnome too. Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: that old GNU/Linux argument
Tim wrote: > The majority will understand "Linux" as being an OS, the whole thing, > one of the many OS distros that are similar to each other (*), but not > understand it as referring to just the kernel. And then you'll hear arguments like "You think Windows is bloated? Linux is *much* worse! Look, Debian is twenty-one CDs! Thirteen gigabytes! My, what a horribly bloated OS!". They think "the whole thing" is the OS, and so they compare "the Windows OS" to "the Linux OS", not understanding that Debian is a huge collection of programs more comparable to Windows plus Office plus Visual Studio plus MS SQL Server plus Photoshop plus lots and lots of other third-party programs, and that nobody will ever install all those 13 GB of Debian packages. That's a misunderstanding, and they'll continue misunderstanding until you explain to them that the distribution contains much more than an operating system – or that you only need a small part of the operating system to operate the system, or however you choose to say it. > There's no lack of understanding > when one person says to another that they use Linux. They mean they use > an OS which has Linux at it's heart. Let's see how much that statement really tells the other person. If someone says he's using Linux, he's most likely using the kernel Linux and the GNU core utilities. Someone who talks that way probably also uses a GUI, so we can assume X, but we can't tell whether he's using Gnome or KDE. We also don't know if he has Apache or BIND running, or some database or other server. We can't even tell whether packages are managed by RPM, DPKG or Emerge. So the meaning that the word "Linux" conveys in this case is pretty much "Linux, GNU and X", right? Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: that old GNU/Linux argument
Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote: > What I was thinking of is a discussion of things that apply to all > Linux distributions, where using a specific distribution gives the > impression that what you are talking about is distribution specific. > This is especially true when the discussion is between users of two > different distributions. OK, in that case naming one distribution is too specific, but you need to be careful to not use a too generic term instead. I don't think you can find much that can be said about all distributions from Tomsrtbt over Smoothwall and Slackware to Fedora, apart from what can be said about Linux itself or the GNU core utilities. You'll probably have to say things like "many distributions" or "all the big distributions". Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: that old GNU/Linux argument
Les Mikesell wrote: > I'm not sure there is an anti-GNU/Linux factor - just a pro "the other > 85%" of the distro unwilling to give unfair naming rights. Are you sure that there really are people who want to include those 85% in GNU/Linux? I'm not. I have now seen several people state that "the whole thing" is Linux, but I haven't yet seen anyone state that "the whole thing" is GNU/Linux. Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: that old GNU/Linux argument
Antonio Olivares wrote: > > > So far I haven't seen a pro-GNU/Linux person > > > > describe what GNU/Linux is and > > > > > what it isn't. It would be interesting to see > > > > whether they include the > > > > > kitchen sink in GNU/Linux. > > > > Correction: Alexandre Oliva has said that "an > > operating system is a kernel > > plus a bunch of userland libraries and programs that users > > and other > > applications generally rely on" and that GNU is an > > example of an operating > > system. I can't believe I forgot that. > > > > It's a bit vague, but clearly a whole lot less than all > > of Fedora or Debian. > > It could be taken to mean just a kernel and the GNU command > > line tools, or it > > could include X and Gnome too. > > > > Björn Persson > > > > -- > > Using google with the search phrase "why is it called GNU/Linux?", we get > many hits, most notably > > http://www.gnu.org/ > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU/Linux_naming_controversy > > http://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html None of those give a clear answer either. The FSF frequently says that "the operating system" or "the whole system" should be called GNU/Linux, but I'm not sure if they really intend "the whole system" to mean "all the software on the computer" or even Fedora Everything or all 21 CDs of Debian. It may well be that when they say "the whole system" they mean "the whole operating system", and that they define the operating system as all or most GNU programs including Gnome, plus Linux, X and maybe Sendmail. If that's the case, then this argument is really a case of people talking past each other, because then we have a group who say that everything that makes up a distribution is Linux against another group who say that a rather small part of a distribution is GNU/Linux. Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: that old GNU/Linux argument
Patrick O'Callaghan wrote: > Truth be told, normally I'm on the other side of this kind of argument. > I prefer exactness wherever possible. I've simply learned to save my > energies for things that matter, and that I might eventually change. So, since you are in fact investing your energy in this argument, I must conclude that you think it's important to make the FSF stop requesting that people say "GNU/Linux", and that you think they may eventually give up. I think you may have underestimated their determination. Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: that old GNU/Linux argument
måndagen den 21 juli 2008 skrev Patrick O'Callaghan: > On Mon, 2008-07-21 at 15:23 +0200, Björn Persson wrote: > > Tim wrote: > > > The majority will understand "Linux" as being an OS, the whole > > > > thing, > > > > > one of the many OS distros that are similar to each other (*), but > > > > not > > > > > understand it as referring to just the kernel. > > > > And then you'll hear arguments like "You think Windows is bloated? > > Linux is > > *much* worse! Look, Debian is twenty-one CDs! Thirteen gigabytes! My, > > what a > > horribly bloated OS!". They think "the whole thing" is the OS, and so > > they > > compare "the Windows OS" to "the Linux OS", not understanding that > > Debian is > > a huge collection of programs more comparable to Windows plus Office > > plus > > Visual Studio plus MS SQL Server plus Photoshop plus lots and lots of > > other > > third-party programs, and that nobody will ever install all those 13 > > GB of > > Debian packages. > > So you explain it. You think you aren't going to have to explain it > anyway? How do you expect me to explain it if I'm supposed to let them continue thinking that Linux, operating system and distribution are all the same thing? May I inform beginners that Linux is only a part of Debian so that I can explain why Debian is so much bigger than Windows? Please? Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: that old GNU/Linux argument
Les Mikesell wrote: > Björn Persson wrote: > > Les Mikesell wrote: > >> I'm not sure there is an anti-GNU/Linux factor - just a pro "the other > >> 85%" of the distro unwilling to give unfair naming rights. > > > > Are you sure that there really are people who want to include those 85% > > in GNU/Linux? I'm not. I have now seen several people state that "the > > whole thing" is Linux, but I haven't yet seen anyone state that "the > > whole thing" is GNU/Linux. > > The other 85% has nothing to do with GNU, and is usually the driving > force behind people bothering to install the GNU portions at all. That > is, I don't install a system so I can run cp or tar or the other minor > infrastructure components, I install it to run some useful applications. > So it's not so much wanting to include the names of all the more > attractive applications in the distribution name as not seeing any > reason to glorify minor components that, after all, have their own > distribution anyway if anyone is interested in them on their own merits. You seem to be good at answering without actually answering the question at all. I think you'd become a great politician. You're still talking as if your opponents want to name entire distributions "GNU/Linux". I'm not so sure that there really is anyone who wants to name entire distributions "GNU/Linux". Are you sure that there are people who want to do this? Do you have any evidence? Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: that old GNU/Linux argument
Alexandre Oliva wrote: > Isn't it funny that the same people who refuse to retain the due > credit to the GNU project and respond to the request with "GNU can't > force me to", will refuse to remove the credit to the ASF, even though > it can legally demand it? Funny, yes, maybe, but not surprising. It seems rather consistent actually. Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: that old GNU/Linux argument
måndagen den 21 juli 2008 skrev Les Mikesell: > Björn Persson wrote: > > You're still talking as if your opponents want to name entire > > distributions "GNU/Linux". I'm not so sure that there really is anyone > > who wants to name entire distributions "GNU/Linux". Are you sure that > > there are people who want to do this? Do you have any evidence? > > I don't have much occasion to talk about a subset that is more than a > kernel and less than a distribution with real applications so I'm not > sure where or why such a name would be used. It could for example be used in sentences like these: "Fedora is a collection of programs and libraries built around the operating system GNU/Linux." "GNU/Linux is a good operating system to run a web server on." "Specialized firewalls, NAS devices and other appliances often run slimmed versions of GNU/Linux." Nobody is asking you to talk about it every day if you don't have a reason. All they ask for is that you call it "GNU/Linux" instead of "Linux" when you do talk about it. If you're talking about an entire distribution then you're welcome to just call it "Fedora", but if you're going to include "Linux" in the name of the distribution, then they ask you to also unclude "GNU". At least I think that's the FSF's position. Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: that old GNU/Linux argument
Mark Haney wrote: > But this name change business is silly. I mean why stop there? Let's > change grep to gnu/grep! Or bash to GNU/bash. I could go on and on here. Heh! $ grep --version grep (GNU grep) 2.5.1 Copyright 1988, 1992-1999, 2000, 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc. This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. $ bash --version GNU bash, version 3.2.33(1)-release (x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu) Copyright (C) 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc. No, it's not "GNU and Grep" or "GNU and Bash" but it is GNU Grep and GNU Bash, just the same as it is Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat. Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: that old GNU/Linux argument
Antonio Olivares wrote: > > You're still talking as if your opponents want to name > > entire > > distributions "GNU/Linux". I'm not so sure > > that there really is anyone who > > wants to name entire distributions "GNU/Linux". > > Are you sure that there are > > people who want to do this? Do you have any evidence? > > They do, take a look here > http://www.getgnulinux.org/ That one says "GNU/Linux, or simply Linux, is an alternative to Microsoft Windows." If GNU/Linux corresponds to Windows, then it's only a minor part of Fedora or Debian, so that agrees with what I think. > if you click on more, see what you find > http://www.getgnulinux.org/more/ That one mentions two distributions, none of which is called "GNU/Linux". We might guess that we can get GNU/Linux by downloading one of the distributions, but that doesn't mean that they *are* GNU/Linux. They could just as well *contain* GNU/Linux. > http://www.gnulinuxmatters.org/about/ That one says that GNU/Linux is a great system and that it matters, but "great system" doesn't necessarily mean "entire distribution". > The wikipedia tries to explain which ones are truly GNU/Linux > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_distribution You mean the parenthesis at the very top? That's not worth much as evidence. Can you show me where the team behind one of those distributions states unambiguously that the entire distribution is GNU/Linux? Yes, Debian for example includes "GNU/Linux" it the name, but it's not just GNU/Linux. It's *Debian* GNU/Linux. > There is an article to the 7 most influential GNU/Linux Distributions > > http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/entdev/article.php/3701421 Do you think the term "(GNU/)Linux distribution" means "software distribution which, in its entirety, is a version of (GNU/)Linux"? It could be taken that way, but I think it could also be intended as "software distribution built around (GNU/)Linux". But I do think that the term "Linux distribution" contributes a lot to the confusion about what Linux is. Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: that old GNU/Linux argument
Ric Moore wrote: > So, he took Minux, an operating system, (presumably with it's GNU > packages), inserted his kernel (which took only 10 months to have it > working enough to distribute), named and released a package named > "Linux", under the GPL. He referred to it as "an operating system". Now, > either Linus understood what an operating system meant, or he was just > ignorant and misguided as hell. There is no agreement on what "operating system" means. Some, like Andrew Tanenbaum, say it's pretty much equivalent to "kernel". By that definition Linux is an operating system. Others, like Richard Stallman, say an operating system contains all the programs you need to use the computer to perform various common tasks. By that definition Linux and GNU together form an operating system. > Is Minix now GNU/Minix as well? Andrew Tanenbaum is entitled to choose the name of what he produces and distributes. If he has packaged GNU tools together with his own kernel and distributes that package, then he can call the whole package "Minix", just like the Fedora team call their distribution "Fedora". The GNU tools are then part of Minix just like they are part of Fedora. If the end user who receives Minix from Andrew Tanenbaum has to get the GNU tools separately from the FSF and combine them himself to form a usable system, then it would be wrong to say that the GNU tools are part of Minix. Now, which is the case with Linux? Do Linus Torvalds and his team distribute a complete usable system, or do they distribute a kernel that needs to be combined with the GNU tools (or equivalents) to form a usable system? Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: that old GNU/Linux argument
Timothy Murphy wrote: > I think it is misleading to say that Torvalds was "dissatisfied" with > Minix. The fact is, Tanenbaum (bizarrely) declined to port Minix to the 386 > on the absurd grounds that there were millions of 286's around the world, > and people would continue using them indefinitely. "Port" can't be the right word here. A 386 runs 286 code natively so there's no need to port it. You probably mean that he didn't want to make use of the more advanced features of the 386. What I've heard is that Minix was meant for teaching. Tanenbaum deliberately made it simple so that students could understand the whole kernel in reasonable time. Those who wanted Unix on their PCs used Minix because it was the only Unix-like OS available for PCs. Some people wrote patches to improve it, but Tanenbaum didn't incorporate their patches because he wanted to keep Minix simple. Tanenbaum's license wouldn't allow anyone to redistribute patched versions of Minix, so those who wanted an improved Minix had to get the patches separately and apply them. So I don't know if Linus was dissatisfied but some people certainly were. There was a pent-up demand for a more advanced Unix-like OS for PCs that would allow people to help improving it, and then Linux appeared on the scene and provided the last piece that made GNU usable. Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: that old GNU/Linux argument
Antonio Olivares wrote: > Linus said in the naming controversy: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU/Linux_naming_controversy > > > Linus Torvalds has said in the documentary Revolution OS, when asked if the > name GNU/Linux was justified: > > Well, I think it's justified, but it's justified if you actually make a GNU > distribution of Linux ... the same way that I think that "Red Hat Linux" is > fine, or "SuSE Linux" or "Debian Linux", because if you actually make your > own distribution of Linux, you get to name the thing, but calling Linux in > general "GNU Linux" I think is just ridiculous.[25] > I'm starting to think that the slash was a mistake. "GNU/Linux" is supposed to be read as "GNU combined with Linux", but lots of people read it as if it were analogous to "GNU Emacs", the GNU project's clone of Emacs. If even Linus has trouble understanding the distinction between "GNU Linux" and "GNU/Linux", then the problem is really bad. (I can of course not rule out the possibility that Linus was misquoted.) Stallman should probably have put in a word instead of the slash from the beginning. If he had asked people to say "GNU and Linux", or "plus" or "with" or "on" or something, then people would at least not be attacking him based on that particular misunderstanding. Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: OT: Audio Feedback Problem on Thinkpad T40
R. G. Newbury wrote: > Booted my Thinkpad T40 this morning and it immediately started a high > pitched feedback squeal. The volume controls do nothing and of course > there is nothing in the BIOS section to even attempt to control or > change the behaviour. Interestingly, it also seems to affect CPU usage: > the machine is very slow in responding to inputs, but top shows nothing > out of the ordinary. > > Anyone have any thoughts about what is going on? Are you sure the sound comes from the loudspeakers? I was thinking perhaps the noise is from a broken fan and the CPU slows down to avoid overheating. But as I can't hear the sound I might be totally off. Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: that old GNU/Linux argument
Tim wrote: > Speaking as someone who studied (at college) computing from the > component level, and has built systems from the chip level. I mean > breadboarding CPUs, RAM, I/O, etc., not just putting together IBM > clones. As well as studying programming at that level (hand compiling > the op-codes from mnemonics used to write the program). I'm quite > astounded by the number of people who want to redefine what an OS is, to > something that it's not, just to suit their egos. The OS simply is that > which lets software make use of the hardware, not what makes it > convenient for us to make use of it. > > So answer this: Which bit of the software on this computer system is it > that actually does the OS functions, the *real* OS function? With all that education you have, perhaps you can explain something I've been wondering about: Why do we have both terms "kernel" and "operating system" if they're both the same thing? If people can't agree on what an operating system is, but do agree on what a kernel is, maybe we should avoid the ambiguity of "operating system" and simply call a kernel a kernel? Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: that old GNU/Linux argument
Les Mikesell wrote: > I've forgotten the timing, but I don't think Posix had a full/useful > spec until well after Linux. AT&T's SVID spec (published for sysvr4 > around 1989) would have been about right. Posix wasn't very complete > until 1995 or so. On the third of July 1991, Linus Torvalds asked in comp.os.minix where he could get the Posix standard. I suppose Posix has evolved since then, but apparently an early version did exist. (He wanted it for the system call specifications.) Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: DNS Attacks
Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote: > ksh shrm wrote: > > Is there anything we all care about. > > We are normal users who don't have any server at home. > > I guess there era a lot of abnormal users on this list them. Yeah, I'm abnormal. And my DNS server is upgraded. Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: DNS Attacks
Les Mikesell wrote: > If you are really paranoid (or about to do large transactions on what > you hope is your banking site), you could do a 'whois' lookup for the > target domain to find their own name servers and send a query directly > there for the target site. Check that the domain name in the address bar is right, that you're using HTTPS, and that the bank's certificate has been verified correctly. Then you're safe, unless the attacker has *also* managed to trick one of the certification authorities into issuing a false certificate, or somehow sneaked a false CA certificate into your browser. Similarly for other protocols: Use TLS if the server's identity matters. This is what TLS is for. (Well, one of its two purposes.) Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
RE: DNS Attacks
bruce wrote: > while what you say makes sense... the vast majority of people pop up their > favorite browser, and go to a site.. there's no way these guys (my mother > included) are going to get into the esoteric details of what goes on behind > the scenes for the browser/dns/certificates/etc... They aren't going to follow Les' advice and do whois lookups either. For those who do care about whose server they give their secrets to, TLS is a better solution than whois. Oh, and please don't top-post. Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: DNS Attacks
Les Mikesell wrote: > You aren't paranoid enough. What if the spoofer is also a system > administrator at the bank with access to a copy of the real certificate > that he installs on the machine he's tricked your dns into reaching - > with the expected name that you'll still see. Then the bank has failed to protect its secret key. I expect banks to have rigorous security routines to control who can access sensitive systems, and to be able to check afterwards who did what. Could you elaborate on how whois guards against malicious system administrators? Do you think security could be improved by having browsers and other programs make whois queries automatically? Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: DNS Attacks
Les Mikesell wrote: > Yes, but controlling 'who does what' only works as long as the selected > person does what you expect. Are you following the case of the San > Francisco network admin that refused to give the password to anyone > else? This may not even be malicious (he may just think everyone else > would screw it up), but it isn't what anyone expected. I think I saw something about it. Relying entirely on one administrator is foolish even if he's guaranteed to never do anything malicious. There should always be some way for someone else to access the system in case the administrator suddenly dies for example. > >> Could you elaborate on how whois guards against malicious system > >> administrators? > > It spreads the number of things that have to be compromised to fool you. > The person who had access to copy the security certificate may not be > the same one that registers the public DNS servers. OK, a slight improvement, but it still depends on the bank's security routines, just like the secrecy of the secret key does. > Maybe it's a backup > operator who knows how to restore a copy elsewhere Well, a backup copy of a secret key is just as secret as the "live" copy and must be protected by just as rigorous routines. > >> Do you think security could be improved by having > >> browsers and other programs make whois queries automatically? > > Slightly, but the DNS infrastructure probably would not handle having > every query send to an authoritative source, which is why we have the > caches that can be compromised in the first place. So doing that manually works for you only because most people don't do it? > > Also, if it is the a system administrator at the bank, what is to > > prevent him from just changing the real name servers? > > That's visible and would leave traces in obvious places. As I already wrote, a bank should have things set up so that copying a secret key would also leave traces. Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: that old GNU/Linux argument
Antonio Olivares wrote: > I have also found a page in which it clearly explains some problems with > the GPL > http://www.topology.org/linux/gpl.html> > An analogy for the GPL would be the farmer who receives the gift of a GPL > cow from a neighbour. The cow is completely free, but all of the milk from > the cow must be given away for free, and all of the cow's calves, [...] Yet another meaningless pseudo-analogy representing free software as gratis material goods. People who want to blacken free software love that kind of comparisons, but they only work on really clueless people who are completely unaware of the fundamental difference between atoms and numbers. The analogy collapses once you realize that information can not be moved, only copied, and matter can not be copied, only moved. If that represents the quality of www.topology.org, then I feel zero need to look at that other page, "lingl.html". Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: Last kernel Update (2.6.25.11-97) breaks wlan (iwl4965)
Bjoern Schiessle wrote: > M A Young <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > I had the similar problem. It seems the GUI package manager failed to > > update the iwl4965-firmware package, but doing a yum update fixed it. > > thank you! "yum update" worked for me too. > > I'm quite new to Fedora so i wonder how such things can happen? The > kernel rpm should have the right dependencies because otherwise yum > would fail too. Right? So how can the GUI package manager miss one > dependency while meet the other dependencies? I guess the firmware package hadn't yet reached the mirror you used when you upgraded the kernel. Later, when you ran yum update, the firmware package was there, or maybe Yum chose another mirror. Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: that old GNU/Linux argument
måndagen den 28 juli 2008 skrev Antonio Olivares: > > If the cow is completely free in the same sense as in the > > GPL, then it > > can't have been given as a gift, > > Why can't it be given as a gift, Because it can't be moved. If the cow is free in the sense of the GPL, then it is information, because matter can't be free in this sense. Giving a gift means to remove an object from your possession and move it to another's possession, and information can't be moved. > > for gift amounts to > > ownership, which > > is slavery rather than freedom. > > Yes you are a slave of the GPL, So now the cow suddenly owns you? What an odd idea of a gift! > The neighbor only put one cow under the GPL license and he gave it to you. You mean he erased his cow after he gave you a copy? Why did he do that? Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: Curious characters in Thunderbird on Linux...
Tim wrote: > On Wed, 2008-07-30 at 20:54 -0500, Kevin Martin wrote: > > So if messages are sent using an encoding that you are not this will > > happen? Crud, how do you get around /that/? > > Your client should automatically display the text correctly, transcoding > if it has to. Of course, that will only work if: > > 1. The message correctly identifies which encoding it used. > 2. It's an encoding that your client understands. > 3. You have fonts that can provide the characters needed. > 4. You haven't forced your client to use a particular encoding. > 5. The message hasn't been mangled in transit. Thunderbird is good with character encodings in my experience, so points 1 and 2 shouldn't be a problem on your end, Kevin. Point 3 should give different symptoms. I don't know if point 4 is possible in Thunderbird. You may want to check that, but otherwise the problem is probably not with Thunderbird. Then it's either the other person's email program, or a broken gateway (point 5). > If you think all of that is a right headache, it is. That's why there > was a push for unicode all those years back. One scheme for everyone, > and no transcoding required. Unicode was invented some 50 years too late. A gazillion different encodings were created in the meantime, and now we have to cope with the mess. Björn Persson -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: kmail hangs
José Matos wrote: > I suspect that this is a problem of kmail dealing with very long folders > because it occurs even if your folder is local. I have local folders with > 80 thousand messages and kmail always takes too long when the cursor is > inside that folder. I've got a local folder with 25000 messages. There's an annoying delay every time I enter that folder, but after that everything works quickly. I counted to nine seconds. One processor works 100% during that time, so Kmail doesn't just wait for no reason. Björn Persson signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: Upgrading to next version of Fedora
Richard England wrote: > Dave Feustel wrote: > > What is involved in upgrading from one version of Fedora to the next? > > (eg from Fedora 9 to Fedora 10 when F-10 becomes available) > > You might look into preupgrade But you should be aware that Preupgrade is a possible attack vector if someone is trying to sneak malware into your computer. It doesn't check the files it downloads for tampering. Yum checks all the packages it installs, and for CD images there are signed checksums so that you can verify them manually. Björn Persson signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: Upgrading to next version of Fedora
lördagen den 2 augusti 2008 skrev Richard England: > Björn Persson wrote: > > Richard England wrote: > >> Dave Feustel wrote: > >>> What is involved in upgrading from one version of Fedora to the next? > >>> (eg from Fedora 9 to Fedora 10 when F-10 becomes available) > >> > >> You might look into preupgrade > > > > But you should be aware that Preupgrade is a possible attack vector if > > someone is trying to sneak malware into your computer. It doesn't check > > the files it downloads for tampering. > > > > Yum checks all the packages it installs, and for CD images there are > > signed checksums so that you can verify them manually. > > > > Björn Persson > > I was under the impression that RPM was still used by Anaconda and the > MD5 was still checked by RPM at installation time. 1: It's the PGP signature that needs to be checked, not the MD5 sum. RPM can check PGP signatures but Anaconda doesn't tell RPM to do that. 2: Installation time is too late in the case of Preupgrade. The installer needs to be checked before it is booted. After the reboot you have a possibly malicious RPM running on a possibly malicious Linux, and if signatures were to be checked in that stage it would be a possibly malicious GPG checking signatures against a possibly false PGP key. > Does anyone that can speak to it know what security changes are planned > / will be in place for F10? There are two enhancement tickets but no target dates: https://fedorahosted.org/preupgrade/ticket/7 "gpg check downloaded packages" "For safety's sake, we should gpgcheck the packages as we download them." That's one important step but it doesn't include the installer, which is the next ticket: https://fedorahosted.org/preupgrade/ticket/8 "Checksums and file sizes for boot images" "If anaconda .treeinfo included file size and checksums for initrd/vmlinuz/etc, we could provide more accurate download progress, resume interrupted downloads, and be sure we have the correct files." That's not enough. Checksums don't prevent tampering. The boot images need to be signed with PGP and Preupgrade needs to check those signatures. Björn Persson signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
messed-up encoding (was: How to swee youtube videos,)
"g" wrote: > so just what in hell is 'Mir[0xef 0xbf,0xbd]'??? An indication that either you have configured Thunderbird wrong, or else mail to you passes through one or more broken servers that made a mess of the character encoding. Björn Persson signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: messed-up encoding
söndagen den 3 augusti 2008 skrev g: > what is program??? Miro with an acute accent on the o. Björn Persson signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: How to swee youtube videos,
"g" wrote: > Patrick O'Callaghan wrote: > > > > The message was in text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1. Perhaps you need to > > check your settings for character encoding. > > it is set to utf-8. 8859-1 throws a '�', that is a "double grave i, an > inverted ?, an a '1/2'". Just for your information, the two dots are called a diaeresis, not "double grave". EF BF BD is the UTF-8 representation of the character U+FFFD REPLACEMENT CHARACTER, which is described as "used to replace an incoming character whose value is unknown or unrepresentable in Unicode". I see it as a white question mark in a black square standing on its corner. This probably means that some program took the ISO 8859-1 text, tried to read it as if it were UTF-8, found the byte value F3, and found that it was an invalid UTF-8 code. My guess is that it was your Thunderbird that did this. Have you forced it to read everything as UTF-8? > > BTW it's an accented 'o' (ó). > > that is what i see when you send it, but not when rui sends it. Rui's message was encoded in ISO 8859-1. Patrick's was in UTF-8. Both reached me unmangled. To see for yourself, press Ctrl+U and look at the header "Content-Type". Björn Persson signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: OT: Re: Replies to newbies
söndagen den 3 augusti 2008 skrev g: > Anne Wilson wrote: > > George, your tone to newcomers to the list often leaves something to be > > desired. People that know you don't take offence, but it's all too easy > > to scare newbies away. Please do be less critical and more sympathetic > > to them. :-) Who knows what they might contribute in the longer term. > > ok. just where in hell was i being 'off tone'??? Well that's one example right there. "Hell" and three question marks seems somewhat rude. > if you would read back thru thread, you will see that i was interested > in finding out what program rui [if that is what has brought this about] > was referring to. my using hex to relate to what i was seeing in his > reply was not meant to be offensive and because i do not have keyboard > set up to print special marks, i used what i did. Instead of "so just what in hell is 'Mir[0xef 0xbf,0xbd]'???", I suggest that you write something like "That seems to have been garbled and I can't figure it out. What was the name of the program?" That would be a nicer tone and would also help us understand you better. As you saw, I didn't understand at first that you asked for the name. I tought you complained about a garbled message. Björn Persson signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: How to swee youtube videos,
"g" wrote: > Björn Persson wrote: > > everything as UTF-8? > > yes. 8859 throws up garbage characters just as bad as utf-8, but utf-8 > tends to keep it down to 1 or 2. Do you often receive emails that are encoded in UTF-8 but claim to be some other encoding? If not, I suggest that you stop enforcing any particular encoding. Let Thunderbird use the encoding that is specified in each individual message, and all will be good as long as the messages adhere to standards. You may also want to review the thread "Curious characters in Thunderbird on Linux...", started by Kevin Martin last Wednesday, 17:15:13-05:00. Björn Persson signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: How to swee youtube videos,
Rui Miguel Silva Seabra wrote: > Yeah, it seems sometime in the past I lost my send_charset flag setting. > > So even though I was using UTF-8, mutt sent out > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > > NOT NICE :) sorry all, it's now fixed. I don't see anything wrong in your message. The stated encoding matched the actual encoding, so no standard was violated. You may send everything in UTF-8 if you like, but you don't have to. What's important is that your email client specifies which encoding it uses, and it did. I'm not a Mutt user but I guess that if send_charset is unset it will automatically choose the "smallest" encoding that can encode all of the characters you used. In this case the ó couldn't be encoded in ASCII, but it could be encoded in ISO 8859-1, so Mutt chose ISO 8859-1, transcoded your text into ISO 8859-1, and specified "charset=iso-8859-1" in the Content-Type header, quite correctly. Björn Persson signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: ssh / bind help?
William Murray wrote: > I have 5 machines in a home network, all running F9, with > named/bind providing local DNS. > A couple of weeks ago a problem appeared: ssh hangs for internal > connections. No doubt > I had misconfigured the thing years ago, as bind mystifies me, but an > update must have triggered it. > > The problem is that reverse lookups hang forever; here is the end of > "ssh -vvv XXX" > debug1: Next authentication method: gssapi-with-mic > debug3: Trying to reverse map address 168.254.0.251. > Note the 'dot' at the end. That dot probably marks the end of the sentence. Is there a good reason why your home network is using addresses that, according to whois, belong to Hillsborough County Public Schools in the USA? (You seem to be in Great Britain.) I can't say I understand what the problem is but if you're using someone else's addresses, that might have something to do with it. Björn Persson signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: kde kmail
Anne Wilson wrote: > On Tuesday 05 August 2008 12:18:51 roland wrote: > > Is there anybody who can tell me where kmail puts the mail. > > If that doesn't apply, then your mail is probably under > ~/kde/share/apps/kmail. You will also need config > files - /kde/share/config/ On my box ~/.kde/share/apps/kmail contains some account data but the actual mail is in ~/Mail. I don't remember configuring that so it's probably Kmail's default. Björn Persson signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: time/ntp[d]
michael wrote: > [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ sudo /usr/sbin/ntpq -p > remote refid st t when poll reach delay offset > jitter > === >=== > utserv.mcc.ac.u 193.62.22.98 2 u7 6412.575 348421. > 0.001 > > but not sure what that means · Your time is not synchronized yet, as the line begins with a space. If NTPD thinks the server seems reliable it will synchronize to it, and an asterisk should appear before the server's name. · remote: NTPD is talking to utserv.mcc.ac.u... (The name is truncated.) · refid: utserv is synchronized to 193.62.22.98. · st: utserv is at stratum 2, so you'll be at stratum 3. · I'm not sure about the "t" field. It might mean type of timesource. · when: NTPD latest queried utserv 7 seconds ago. · poll: The interval between queries is currently 64 seconds. This will gradually increase to 1024 seconds if the communication works well. · reach appears to be an array of eight bits represented as an octal number. It keeps track of whether responses were received to the eight latest queries. As you just started NTPD there's only been one query so far. If no packets are lost the value will eventually be 377. · delay: A roundtrip to utserv and back takes 2.575 milliseconds. I don't know if this is the latest roundtrip or some sort of average. · offset: Your time differs with 348.421 seconds from utserv's time. When synchronized, NTPD should be able to keep this below a tenth of a second. · jitter is, as far as I understand, a measure of the server's stability. If its time doesn't appear to be running uniformly, the jitter value will be high. (Varying delays in communication can cause this.) Björn Persson signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: OT: postfix filtering
Jamie Bohr wrote: > According to http://www.postfix.org/FILTER_README.html#simple_filter I > can configure Postfix to run a script to look at the contents of an > email, change the email and then resubmit the message or even choose > not to send it at all, does that sound correct? Yes, that's essentially what that page describes. Björn Persson signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: time/ntp[d]
Todd Denniston wrote: > > One other bit of info, if I turn off ntpd over night, the clock loses > > time (new battery required?) The various oscillators in a typical computer aren't high-precision clocks. Without NTP you'll have to adjust the time frequently. If you turn the computer off, and when you turn it on again it thinks it's the first of January 1990 or something, then you probably need to replace the battery. > no, unlike MS, Unix system clock uses the frequency ticker on the CPU to > keep time, which is independent of the battery backed TOY clock. > i.e., after shutting ntpd off run: > date;/sbin/hwclock --show;date > then after you have slept > date;/sbin/hwclock --show;date > > I expect the time from the date commands to have drifted as you are seeing, > but the time from hwclock will have drifted differently. > date -> returns system time > hwclock -> returns TOY clock time. When NTPD is running, however, it will inform Linux that the system time is synchronized to a time source, and Linux will then keep the hardware clock in synch with the system time. You may need to run "hwclock --systohc" once if it's off by half an hour or more, but after that it should stay correct as long as NTPD is running. That way, if the system crashes the time should still be reasonably right when it comes back up. Björn Persson signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: Hardware trouble? Me? Or ...??
torsdagen den 7 augusti 2008 skrev Beartooth: > My #1 machine (with F9 on one hard drive, and XP (to run topo > maps) on the other) won't do anything; it doesn't even turn its > little blue light on. That sounds a lot like a hardware failure. When I had a similar failure I ended up replacing the power supply, the motherboard, the CPU, the memory and the graphics card. I guess a short circuit had killed both the motherboard and the power supply. The memory banks may have just been incompatible with the other motherboard, as was the CPU. I'm surprised that the graphics card didn't work. Maybe a voltage spike had reached it too. Let's hope you will only have to replace one component. Björn Persson signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: The assignment of numerical addresses for Domain Names ??
Chris Tyler wrote: > http://xkcd.com/195/ provides an interesting perspective :-) Yes, although it's quickly becoming outdated. For example, in an announcement in February, ICANN mentioned that "IANA allocated more than one /8 (16m IPv4 addresses) per month in 2007 and the rate of allocation is not expected to slow in 2008", so the green areas are shrinking fast. http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-2-10feb08.htm Björn Persson signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: For anyone experienced with the IETF and RFCs ??
William Case wrote: > My question is this: These memos are entitled Requests for Comments and > each have received several detailed and learned comments, yet, the RFC > seems to become adopted as written with the comments only attached but > not adopted. I am I misreading the actual RFC process? "Request for comments" is a misnomer nowadays. The documents are called RFCs because of tradition, but the right stage for commenting is while they are Internet-Drafts, before they become RFCs. When minor errors are found in a published RFC, an erratum may be published. If more substantial changes are needed, a new RFC is written and the old one becomes obsolete. You might want to read RFC 2026, titled "The Internet Standards Process – Revision 3": http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2026 Björn Persson signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: Stripes on screen after installing Fedora
Bjørn Ivar Johnsen wrote: > BTW, I have wireless wifi, could it be that fedora is unable to use my > internet connection??? That's very possible. Fedora has drivers for some wireless cards and not for others, and even if there is a driver you probably need to tell Fedora to connect to the access point. Do you have any way of plugging in a network cable? Wired networking is much more likely to work out of the box. Then use that until you get your graphics working, so you'll have a nice GUI environment to work in when trying to get wireless to work. You could also download the graphics driver manually in Windows and then reboot to Fedora and pick the files up from the Windows partition. That may be tedious however, as you may have to go back to Windows several times to download more packages that the driver package depends on. Björn Persson signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: Stripes on screen after installing Fedora
Bjørn Ivar Johnsen wrote: > P.s.( After installing the nvidia linux driver, will my windows nvidia > driver still work? I suppose it do, but just to be sure...) Yes it will. The Windows Nvidia driver is installed in Windows and isn't affected by what you do in Fedora. (It is of course possible to break Windows by messing with its data from Fedora, but that's not specific to the graphics driver.) Björn Persson signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: OT: Cleaning video head on my Betamax VCR
Tim wrote: > isopropyl/isopropanol (apparently the same thing, > but it'd donkey's years since I studied chemistry under crappy teachers) The most official and correct name of the molecule is "2-propanol". "Isopropanol" and "isopropyl alcohol" are also valid names for the same substance. "Isopropyl" on its own is strictly speaking not a valid name as it describes only a part of the molecule. Isopropyl groups can also be part of all sorts of other molecules that might not be alcohols at all. Björn Persson signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: Stripes on screen after installing Fedora
Patrick O'Callaghan wrote: > As I (and I think others) have said before, > the way to run the basic system without the graphical part is to go into > mode 3. But this only applies once Fedora is installed. To get through the installation without graphics, type "linux text" when you boot the installer disc, as Frank Cox wrote. When the installation is done in text mode like this, the installed system will also boot into text mode (mode 3). After the installation is done it's time to run the commands that others have mentioned to install the updates and the graphics driver. When the graphics works you can change a setting so that the system will boot into graphical mode (mode 5) instead. Björn Persson signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: Stripes on screen after installing Fedora
Bjørn Ivar Johnsen wrote: > I NEWER expected it to be this complicated, I am just a guy who thougt > it would be fun to try Fedora instead of Windows.. So i thought it was > just a matter of putting in the DVD, and click yes a few times then > VOILA I had Fedora installed, but... Usually it is that easy. You seem to have had very bad luck with your graphics card, or possibly your monitor. Björn Persson signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: Stripes on screen after installing Fedora
Bjørn Ivar Johnsen wrote: > Den 10. aug.. 2008 kl. 22.00 skrev Mike Evans <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > > Try going with the VESA driver initially. Just edit the xorg.conf. > > How, exactly, do I edit that file? Where do I find it?? You don't edit configuration files until you have installed Fedora. The full path to the file is "/etc/xorg.conf". First type the command "cp /etc/xorg.conf /etc/xorg.conf.backup" to save a copy of the original file in case you need to change it back. Then type "nano /etc/xorg.conf" to edit it. If Nano is missing, install it with the command "yum install nano". But first get through the installation. As for what changes you should do to xorg.conf, I'll let Mike answer that. Björn Persson signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: Stripes on screen after installing Fedora
Patrick O'Callaghan wrote: > On Mon, 2008-08-11 at 03:12 +0200, Björn Persson wrote: > > The full path to the file is "/etc/xorg.conf". > > Actually it's /etc/X11/xorg.conf. It was until recently. In my Fedora 9 system it's /etc/xorg.conf. Björn Persson signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: Stripes on screen after installing Fedora
Patrick O'Callaghan wrote: > On Mon, 2008-08-11 at 19:17 +0200, Björn Persson wrote: > > Patrick O'Callaghan wrote: > > > On Mon, 2008-08-11 at 03:12 +0200, Björn Persson wrote: > > > > The full path to the file is "/etc/xorg.conf". > > > > > > Actually it's /etc/X11/xorg.conf. > > > > It was until recently. In my Fedora 9 system it's /etc/xorg.conf. > > Then you have a non-standard F9. The X11 stuff is definitely > in /etc/X11. Some other X stuff is still in /etc/X11: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ~]# LANG=en ll /etc/X11/ total 68 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 18 Jun 4 02:17 X -> ../../usr/bin/Xorg -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 547 Jun 11 19:13 Xmodmap -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 493 Jun 11 19:13 Xresources drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Apr 7 23:44 applnk drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jul 26 20:47 fontpath.d -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1052 May 15 18:28 prefdm drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 May 25 17:32 twm drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 May 25 17:34 xdm drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 Jul 2 23:20 xinit > Do this: > > # rpm -qf filesystem|grep X11 > # rpm -ql xorg-x11-xinit|grep X11 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ~]# LANG=en rpm -qf filesystem|grep X11 error: file /root/filesystem: No such file or directory [EMAIL PROTECTED] ~]# rpm -ql xorg-x11-xinit|grep X11 /etc/X11 /etc/X11/Xmodmap /etc/X11/Xresources /etc/X11/xinit /etc/X11/xinit/Xclients /etc/X11/xinit/Xclients.d /etc/X11/xinit/Xsession /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc-common /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/localuser.sh Perhaps you meant -ql in both cases? [EMAIL PROTECTED] ~]# rpm -ql filesystem|grep X11 /etc/X11 /etc/X11/applnk /etc/X11/fontpath.d /usr/lib/X11 /usr/lib64/X11 No xorg.conf was listed there. Does that prove anything? Björn Persson signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: Stripes on screen after installing Fedora
måndagen den 11 augusti 2008 skrev Mike Chambers: > On Mon, 2008-08-11 at 19:17 +0200, Björn Persson wrote: > > Patrick O'Callaghan wrote: > > > On Mon, 2008-08-11 at 03:12 +0200, Björn Persson wrote: > > > > The full path to the file is "/etc/xorg.conf". > > > > > > Actually it's /etc/X11/xorg.conf. > > > > It was until recently. In my Fedora 9 system it's /etc/xorg.conf. > > How did that happen (for it to be in /etc)? Cause it has been going > to /etc/X11/ dir for a while now. I think you need to look again, > unless you make a link or something and did it yourself. I don't know what program created the file initially but it has a comment in it that says "Xorg configuration created by system-config-display". I have used system-config-display and I have edited the file by hand but I have not moved it. I was surprised to find that it wasn't in /etc/X11 as it was in Fedora 8. Björn Persson signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: Stripes on screen after installing Fedora
Tim wrote: > On Mon, 2008-08-11 at 19:17 +0200, Björn Persson wrote: > > In my Fedora 9 system it's /etc/xorg.conf. > > Not here. How odd. Maybe it depends on how the file is initially created? > That sounds more like you've moved it out of the way. I would have known if I had done that. > Is it actually being used? You don't need a configuration file, most of > the time, these days. So the chances are that it's not being used. I had a problem with the resolution for a while, before Intel's driver got fixed, and fiddled a lot with xorg.conf to diagnose the problem, first through system-config-display and then by hand. I assure you that editing /etc/xorg.conf did affect the resolution. Björn Persson signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: Is Apache included with Fedora
Adil Drissi wrote: > I want to use Apache-Mysql-Php in my fedora 8. > I did "yum install apache" the result was "no package apache available" but > httpd is already installed. > > So i want to know if apache is installed in my machine under the name httpd > or i have to download it myself. If it is already installed please tell me > how to start it. In the philosophy of teaching a man to fish rather than giving him a fish, I'll give you this tip: If you run "rpm --query --info httpd" you'll get a description of the package where it says, among other things, "Apache HTTP Server". If you don't know the name of the package you can ask about the package that owns a certain file, for example "rpm --query --info --file /usr/sbin/httpd". Björn Persson signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: how to convert text file with unknown 16 bit encoding to 8 bit as cii
Lancashire, Pete wrote: > how do I convert a file (or output to stdont) with an unknown 16 encoding > into plain > ol' ASCII aka 8 BIT ? > > Example of files contents > > 0 255 254 > 2 60 0 > 4 72 0 > 6 84 0 > 8 77 0 > 10 76 0 > 12 62 0 > > or .. > > 000 377 376 < \0 H \0 T \0 M \0 L \0 > \0 \n \0 > 020 \0 \0 < \0 B \0 O \0 D \0 Y \0 > \0 > 040 \n This looks like either UCS-2 or UTF-16. Fortunately you don't have to figure out which of those it is, because any UCS-2 text is encoded identically in UTF-16, so you can just say that it is UTF-16. On the other hand, UCS-2 can represent all characters that ASCII can represent. If the text is in UTF-16 and contains anything that can't be treated as UCS-2, then it can't be converted to ASCII, so when converting to ASCII you can just as well treat it as UCS-2. The first two bytes are a byte order mark that shows that the encoding is little-endian. It's good that the byte order mark is there, but it must be removed in order to convert to ASCII. (ASCII doesn't need byte order marks anyway.) If it's guaranteed that the text will always be representable in ASCII (7-bit), then "iconv --from-code=UTF-16 --to-code=ASCII" should do the conversion. Iconv seems to strip away the byte order mark automatically from UTF-16 but not from UCS-2. If any non-ASCII characters may occur, then you probably want to convert to UTF-8 instead. UTF-8 can represent all Unicode characters. If you know exactly which characters can occur, then you may be able to find a suitable 8-bit encoding (preferably one from the ISO 8859 family). Either way, make sure that the receiving program knows which encoding it is. Otherwise the text will probably get garbled. Björn Persson signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: F9 boot-from-USB MemStick?
Joe Klemmer wrote: > No floppy and DVD doesn't work. I need to boot from a USB stick and > try to install that way. There is an overload of Fedora related sites > which makes it slightly cumbersome finding stuff at times. So, is there > a Fedora "spin" that can be used with USB sticks for installation? If > so, where might it be? It's supposed to be possible to make a "live" USB stick out of a "live" CD image. I haven't tried that but I have sometimes installed Fedora using an installation DVD image and two USB sticks. I put the DVD image on one USB stick such that the ISO image was a file in the file system on the stick. Then I took the image file diskboot.img (which seems to be efidisk.img in Fedora 9) from the DVD image and wrote it to another USB stick such that the image became the file system on the stick. As I recall I first inserted the boot stick and booted from it. Then I inserted the other USB stick, selected the option to install from a hard disk, and gave the installer the path to the DVD image on the stick. Björn Persson signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: DNS poison? Yum tummy ache?
Gene Heskett wrote: > With all due respect for Paul, an announcement like this truly belongs on > the mail list, not on some list only 2% are subbed to. I'm not going to make up bogus percentages but I'm sure there are many Fedora users who don't read fedora-list. I've been participating on this list for a few months now, and I've been here a few times before. I think I may soon have to leave this list again as other things will take up my time, but I'll remain subscribed to fedora-announce-list. Even now I skip large parts of fedora-list, following only some threads, so I could easily miss an announcement made on this list. I used to have all the Fedora lists mixed in the same mail folder, but now I have separate sub-folders for fedora-list, fedora-announce-list and fedora-package-announce. That way important announcements don't drown in the noise on the other lists, and I can more easily delete old package announcements while keeping archives of the other lists longer. One can expect people to subscribe to either fedora-list or fedora-announce-list but not both, and send all announcements to both lists, or else one can expect people who want to receive announcements to subscribe to fedora-announce-list, and send the announcements to that list. I vote for the latter. Björn Persson signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: (slashdot)Package Managers As Achilles Heel
Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote: > Marcelo M. Garcia wrote: > > http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/10/227220&from=rss > > Two things bother me about this. First of all, most users are not > using the same mirror all the time, so there would only be a brief > window that the system would be vulnerable. The second thing is that > yum is not going to install an older package, and the package > version is not dependent on the file name. It is part of the > information in the RPM. So they could delay the installation of an > update on some systems. By default, yum picks a mirror at random > from the mirror list to help spread the load on the mirrors. I found this in their FAQ: | Q: I use a service that distributes my requests to different mirrors for my | distribution (like MirrorManager). That means I'm not vulnerable, right? | A: The good aspect of these systems is that it may spread your requests | across multiple mirrors in the normal case. However, when testing some of | these systems, we were able to target the clients that used our mirror and | exclude them from using other mirrors. This means that if an attacker wants | to target your organization, these services may help the attacker do so. It's not clear whether Yum is vulnerable to getting locked to the malicious mirror, or how they did it. Björn Persson signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: Non-urgent query re: yum ?
William Case wrote: > It would be nice and easy to just 'yum install --from-file > ~/billspackagelist' or after a disaster 'yum install > --from-file /backup/billspackagelist' You could always make a little shell script of the whole command: #!/bin/sh yum install \ this-package \ that-package \ some-other-package Save the file as /usr/local/bin/install_my_packages and make it executable. Then the command to install all the packages is just "install_my_packages". Björn Persson signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: Infrastructure status, 2008-08-19 UTC 0200
Anne Wilson wrote: > On Friday 22 August 2008 17:48:22 Tom Killian wrote: > > >One of the compromised Fedora servers was a system used for signing > > >Fedora packages. However, based on our efforts, we have high confidence > > >that the intruder was not able to capture the passphrase used to secure > > >the Fedora package signing key. Based on our review to date, the > > >passphrase was not used during the time of the intrusion on the system > > >and the passphrase is not stored on any of the Fedora servers. > > > > Hmm, sounds like the passphrase is safe, but the passphrase-encrypted > > private key is in the hands of the bad guys, a good reason to revoke > > the key. > > That is not at all what was said. The 'bad guy' intruded into the system. > At no time did he use the passphrase - as has been verified. I can think > of no reason for him not to do so if he had got the private key. The FUD > on this list is unbelievable. Tom is right. What the announcement says is that we must assume that the intruder has the key but he probably can't use it. The key is encrypted with a passphrase and the intruder had no way of finding out the passphrase. The key therefore needs to be changed but there's no need to panic. Björn Persson signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: non-disclosure of infrastructure problem a management issue?
fredagen den 22 augusti 2008 skrev Tim: > On Fri, 2008-08-22 at 16:08 +0100, Anne Wilson wrote: > > There was an intrusion, and it affected the server which signs > > packages, hence the warning to hold off until tests had been done. > > They really should have said something more like that, first off. I agree. I can't see any reason why they couldn't have said the following a week ago: "We suspect that some Fedora servers may have been illegally accessed. We are working to analyze the intrusion and the extent of the compromise. Right now we can't rule out the possibility that there may be tampered packages on the mirrors, so as a precaution we recommend you not download or update any additional packages on your Fedora systems. The investigation may result in service outages, for which we apologize in advance." Björn Persson signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
Re: non-disclosure of infrastructure problem a management issue?
Rahul Sundaram wrote: > https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-advisory-board/2008-August/msg00088. >html "Interfering with an investigation"? Bullshit! I suppose it's also illegal to stop the intruder until the investigation is done, then? You have to let him continue causing damage, reading your secrets and covering his tracks, because if you stop him he'll know he's been discovered and then you've interfered with the investigation, right? I knew the legal system in the USA was crazy but I really didn't think it was *that* insane. When you discover an intrusion, the *first* thing you should do is yank the network cable out. An inevitable side effect of this is that the intruder finds out that he's been discovered. Warning others who may also be affected doesn't help the intruder get away better when he already knows he's been discovered. Björn Persson signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@redhat.com To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
