Re: UDP packets loss at Israeli ISPs during peak hours
On Jul 3, 2011, at 6:11 AM, Arie Skliarouk wrote: Hi, The company I work at uses openvpn extensively. We settled on UDP- based protocol as it is more effective than TCP based. Inter-Israeli VPN connection works perfectly all of the time, whereas international VPN has erratic behavior on at least one ISP. I suspect the ISP (XFone 018) dropping UDP packets occasionally during peak hours for following reasons: • ICMP ping to the internet-facing IP number of the VPN router works properly all of the time • over-VPN ping to some server has about 50% packet loss during peak hour (tested at 23:00) • on different ISP at the same time there was no packet loss • over-VPN ping on the same ISP worked perfectly in the morning hours You are complaining because UDP packets get lost, arrive late, or out of sequence? That's the definintion of UDP and the reason for the existance of TCP. Have anyone else noticed the same behavior? That UDP does exactly what it is supposed to do? That this happens in the afternoons and evening when the network gets congested? Or more accutately it does not happen in the mornings when the network is under utilized? What is legal status of such network traffic policing? Perfectly legal. I think your choice of UDP over TCP is ill-advised, and requires more research into the differences between the protocols, their uses and goals. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Making your enemy reliant on software you support is the best revenge. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: UDP packets loss at Israeli ISPs during peak hours
On Jul 3, 2011, at 8:02 AM, shimi wrote: There's a very good reason of using UDP and not TCP for tunneling. http://sites.inka.de/bigred/devel/tcp-tcp.html That's 10 years old. Even then it was questionable, UDP packets were dropped by ISPs all over the world when congested. That's why I worded my answer the way I did. If you understand what the differences are between TCP and UDP, you understand the risks, costs and benefits. With an uncrowded network, UDP makes more sense because there is a lot of overhead in TCP you don't need. In a crowded network, where UDP packets get dropped or delayed, like the are supposed to. TCP is a better option. It depends upon what you want. Fast performace with drop outs, or slower more reliable performance. For example, VoIP normally uses UDP as the desingers prefered to drop packets that arrived out of sequence or late, a little sound glitch was worth it for better streaming performance. HTTP was built around TCP because the designers wanted 100% reliablilty instead of (possible) better performance. FTP was built on neither. The FTP protocol uses UDP, but includes a rudimentry implementation of the same functions as TCP (packet sequencing and replacements of bad/missing packets). IMHO it all depends upon what you are using the VPN for. For watching the footie on the telly then I would chose UDP with no problem, even when there would be significant drop outs. For a business VPN where I'm editing text or filling out forms, or whatever, TCP would be required as you want to see and send every packet of data. YMMV. As for dealing with your ISP, if you want dedicate bandwidth, buy dedicated bandwidth. If you want random performance based on the low price plan, don't expect them to make it better. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Making your enemy reliant on software you support is the best revenge. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: UDP packets loss at Israeli ISPs during peak hours
On Jul 3, 2011, at 8:28 AM, Arie Skliarouk wrote: I think that would not work as I observe frequent name server errors at exactly same periods (I am using Google's free DNS servers 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4). Hmm, need to switch to the local DNS servers... UDP is UDP. Google needs to have DNS servers here in Israel too. :-) I've been noticing the same thing, but have not changed to my ISP's DNS servers. For frequently used web sites, it should make access faster, but for random ones where the ISP's DNS server has to resolve them, it may make it slower. YMMV. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Making your enemy reliant on software you support is the best revenge. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Hebrew fonts on digital readers
Didn't we this discussion a couple of months ago? From what I can see nothing has changed. I think in the end the person asking bought an eVrit, which is really a PanDigital Memo with Hebrew support and Steimatzky DRM built in. Are they still 900 NIS? Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Making your enemy reliant on software you support is the best revenge. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: RMS, Hosts Must Support Boycott?
On Jun 15, 2011, at 3:14 PM, Ira Abramov wrote: you know, there IS a logical falacy of guilt by association. There may be, but there is a clear case here, RMS as president of the FSF has, ex officio (from his office, meaning as the president, not his desk) said that he was boycotting. This makes it FSF policy. I suggest we stop and call on the FSF spokespeople to give their opinion on the matter and maybe resolve it otherwise. They already have, the President of the FSF has said so. As the President of the FSF. Is there anyone more appropriate to be their spokesperson? It's now up to them to say that different or not. This is however, the best vindication of project GNU. You can boycott the FSF, you can sue them, have their nonprofit status revoked, you can burn RMS in effigy, declare him persona non grata in Israel, do anything you want to him and the FSF and still use GPL'ed software for free, and get all the updates and source code for free. To paraphrase the movie My Blue Heaven, This is the worst case scenario of RMS's dream. 2. As usuall, I am suprised how appropriate my random signature comes out :-) -- Peacemaker http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colt_Single_Action_Army Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Making your enemy reliant on software you support is the best revenge. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: USB I/O draining my userspace (Ubuntu Natty 64b)
On Jun 15, 2011, at 4:19 PM, Ira Abramov wrote: Second, here's my problem: I have here a workstation running an Athlon 3700+, and part of my job is to occasionally write out an image file to USB universal card reader, testing the product of my builds. The writing takes forever (since I haven't discovered how to get dd to write out the sparse image to the CF card sparsely). Also, untill I moved the card reader to one of the backpanel ports, the write would drag my entire environment to a halt at the same time - even the mouse pointer gets stuck at some point, until dd would finish. switching from front to back panel and adding the oflag=dsync option solved the freַ¯ing of the userspace but not the horrible writing speeds. I have a feeling this is a major bug with the USBstorage driver or some related module, but as this is old hardware running on the latest kernel from Ubuntu, I am surprised. Anyone got a clue? No. It has to do with how USB is implemented in hardware. Almost every motherboard I have seen only has 2 USB ports. Motherboards with 6 USB ports on the back, and connectors for more on the front of the case still have only 2 USB ports, but they have a hub built into the motherboard. For example, on one system I have: lspci yields: 00:10.0 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82x UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 62) 00:10.1 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82x UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 62) 00:10.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB 2.0 (rev 65) The third USB controller is a PCI card. Now if you do a lsusb: Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub But I don't have any hubs. They are on the motherboard and the PCI card. So if you plug the keyboard and mouse into the same port as the memory stick, you are doing two things. The first is you are slowing the memory stick down to the speed of the keyboard and mouse, usually 12mbits per second. The second is that you are blocking IO to the keyboard and mouse while the disk is busy. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Making your enemy reliant on software you support is the best revenge. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: [job] C++ development in a Linux environment
On Jun 13, 2011, at 7:09 PM, Elazar Leibovich wrote: [1] I wonder if there's a company who's advertising jobs mediocre developers needed. 1. When you get to 1,000 programmers, you need to have average ones, stars just get resented and cause trouble by their presence. 2. Companies with legacy code need them to maintain it. This is often a dull, boring job. 3. Many startups reach a point where they find they are barking up the wrong tree as it were, and they hire mediocre programmers to keep busy, but never quite produce anything, so that the investors don't realize what is happening and pull out. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Making your enemy reliant on software you support is the best revenge. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: RMS, Hosts Must Support Boycott?
On Jun 10, 2011, at 9:38 PM, Marc Volovic wrote: People, RMS (as well as any other person) is entitled to support, adhere, acquiesce or abhor, deny, etc any and all BDS activities. The man is entitled to his opinion and choice. It is his right as a man and as a public figure. Marc, it has to do with US corporate law and practice. In the US, officers of a corporation are limited in liability for their actions as corporate officers. What they do as private citizens is different than what they do as officers of the corporation. This is different than Israeli corporate law, where there is much less of a corporate veil. When they do something as an officer of the corporation, it takes on a whole new meaning. It is the stated policy of the corportation. If RMS as RMS states what he does, as a private citizen, it is free speech. He is entitled to his opionions and limited by US laws as to what he can say and where, but those limits are awfully wide (compared to Israeli ones for example). However, once he signs an email as an officer of the FSF, or states it publicly that he, as representing the FSF is going to support a boycott (or not) and so on, it is FSF policy. So like it or not, the FSF has now incorporated the BDS movement into their message. It's not just FREE Software, it's also support the Palestinians and boycott Israel. If RMS wants to vacation in Ramalah, or sun himself on the beaches of Gaza, he is welcome to. If he does not want to stay in, vist or even pass through Israel, (He could enter Gaza from Egypt, or the PA from Jordan), he is welcome to. However as the President of the FSF his perceived boycott of Israeli institutions is unacceptable, and dilutes the FSF and it's message. Depending upon exactly what he does and does not do, and who provides the money for his visit, he (and therefore the FSF as he spoke and speaks for them) may be in volation of US law, and therefore subject to investigation, tax audits, etc. Quite simply this will not end well for the FSF. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Making your enemy reliant on software you support is the best revenge. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: RMS, Hosts Must Support Boycott?
On Jun 12, 2011, at 10:50 AM, Uri Even-Chen wrote: I don't agree with you, Geoff. What Richard Stallman does as a private person does not mean the FSF in involved. As a private person Richard Stallman has the right to boycott Israeli institutions and universities. It does not mean that the FSF is boycotting Israel. You can agree or not, it's your opinion. However US law is that once he signs his emails as an officer of the corporation, in this case president, it does. I am not a lawyer, but what I remember is that it is also the case in Israel. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Making your enemy reliant on software you support is the best revenge. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: An alternative to Skype
On Jun 12, 2011, at 4:46 PM, Mordecha Behar wrote: That means that at some point there will be FOSS alternatives that will be able to connect to the Skype network. There is and has been for some time. It just costs you money. Skype offically supports SIP. You have to pay for each SIP channel (around $5 a month) and you pay for every call to an outside phone. The now defunct Skype For Asterisk product gave you more features, but you can still receive and make calls to skype users and outside phones. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Making your enemy reliant on software you support is the best revenge. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: RMS, Hosts Must Support Boycott?
On Jun 12, 2011, at 10:35 PM, Stan Goodman wrote: My guess is that the anti-boycott law has nothing to do with FSF or any other voluntary organization (like what is called amutah in Hebrew), which is what I understand FSF to be. They are a 501 c 3 corporation, which limits prevents them from being involved in political activities that are not related to their purpose. If you are interested, you can find their articles of incorporation at their web site, and the wikipedia has a good write-up about 501 c 3 corporations. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Making your enemy reliant on software you support is the best revenge. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: An alternative to Skype
On Jun 10, 2011, at 4:46 PM, Uri Even-Chen wrote: When I used Skype for phone calls, I paid Skype for Skype out credit, but Skype zeroed my credit after a few months of not using their service - which I consider stealing money from me. It's six months, which is a fairly long time. That was a long time ago. Same thing happened to me, and I complained. They offered me a free month of voicemail, which was a nice token, but not very interesting to me. I hate voicemail and don't have it on any of my phones. They then started sending out email warnings that you have a month to use your credit and may send them out later, I make sure to make a call when I get them. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Making your enemy reliant on software you support is the best revenge. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: An alternative to Skype
On Jun 10, 2011, at 10:52 PM, Steve G. wrote: To make phone calls, other than skype there is ekiga and probably some other things, as well as gmail, but these are not free. Free as in beer, you can get a free SIP number at sip2sip.info. Once you have that, you can get a free incoming number (DID) in Washington State USA at IPKall.com. Once you have the DID working, you can get a Google Voice account, if you sign up from a US IP address. In order to sign up, it will call you on your US number. With Google voice, you can get an incoming number in most states in the US. (I don't know if they do Alaska or Hawaii). Note that none of these provide any real technical support, and IPKall provides absolutely NONE. For Windows and MAC there are several free clients, such as X-Lite and Zoiper. If you have your own Asterisk system there is VOIX client. I don't of any open source Windows or MAC clients, but you have your choice of several for Linux. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Making your enemy reliant on software you support is the best revenge. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Richard Stallman answer to me
On Jun 7, 2011, at 7:40 AM, Uri Even-Chen wrote: I agree with Richard Stallman's views about the Israeli occupation. The point is Uri, I could say all sorts of things about your level of understanding, IQ, several Freudian and Jungian (bullshit) comments, either positive or negative and they would not have any bearing on FOSS. If I disagree with you, I can delete your emails, not invite you for tea, say all sorts of ad homonyns to my friends and family, write crap on your Facebook wall, etc. If I agree I can do the opposite, it still has no bearing on FOSS. Stallman, however has tied his polictical opinions to FOSS. He has embraced the Palestinian BDS movement and given it a voice tied together with the FSF. So now I can no longer support the FSF without supporting BDS. This has IMHO a great impact on FOSS, as now the FSF's FOSS message is also the BDS message. While you agree with Stallman's opinions, do you agree that it should be included in the FOSS message? The GPL should include an anti-Israel clause? A donation to the FSF helps the BDS movement? Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Making your enemy reliant on software you support is the best revenge. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: [OFFTOPIC] Re: Richard Stallman answer to me
On Jun 7, 2011, at 12:43 PM, Stan Goodman wrote: That is a very brief list of some of the things that go over Mr Stallman's head. I think they amount to gross hypocrisy. Giving him a pass for his hypocrisy is also hypocritical. Stan (and others), This is Israel, and he is allowed to be a hypocrite, believe things that are wrong, state things that are wrong and not participate in actions that are wrong, whether he believes they are wrong, or you do. What he should not do, and IMHO can not do is to wrap the FSF message around them. If he posts as RMS, or Dick Stallman, or Rich Stallman, or even Richard Stallman, Phd, it's his privledge, but the moment he posts as Dr Richard Stallman, President, Free Software Foundation he has spoken for the FSF, and now the FSF is part of the BDS movement. While this may gain him a little street cred with some people, there are many who don't support the BDS movement, and this now gives us an unpleasant choice. Support the FSF and support BDS, or not. Shachar mentioned boycotting the FSF (actually I think he said GNU) but I will leave it to you to decide exactly what not supporting the FSF means. In case you don't know what I am talking about: http://www.bdsmovement.net/ This, BTW is why I dislike the GPL, it has some baggage attached, which now includes BDS. I much prefer BSD's do what you want, but don't do it here* license. Geoff. * Actually a quote from Bruce Springsteen, who is NOT Jewish although many people think he is. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Making your enemy reliant on software you support is the best revenge. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: [OFFTOPIC] Re: Richard Stallman answer to me
On Jun 7, 2011, at 12:59 PM, Shlomi Fish wrote: How do all these things of what the Palestinians are doing wrong, invalidate Stallman's criticism against Israel? Shouldn't Israel behave properly regardless of whatever the other side is doing? Yes, Israel should. The question of what is proper and what is not, used to NOT be an FOSS issue. Now it is. :-( And we are getting way off-topic here. No, we are not. RMS has chosen to marry the two topics, now we have to accept one if we want the other. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Making your enemy reliant on software you support is the best revenge. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Richard Stallman answer to me
On Jun 6, 2011, at 8:57 AM, Shachar Shemesh wrote: RMS has bought on, and is spreading, anti-Israeli propaganda. RMS is also the head of the FSF. Aside from these two, in themselves unrelated, facts what makes you say that the FSF itself should be boycotted? I disagree. RMS has opinions that some of us (me) see as anti-Israel. That's IMHO fine. He can have anti-Israel opinions, and as RMS post, discuss, write op-eds, etc. It's his right. However, he has crossed a line, RMS as head of the FSF has stated those opinions. Therefore they are now part of the FSF message. He did it, not me, and keeping my head in the sand as it were, won't undo what he has done, unsay what he has said, or change the position of the FSF. BTW, I did not say the FSF should be boycotted. In fact, I purposely said nothing about what people should or should not do to, with, or for the FSF. You made up the boycott part on your own. Has the FSF advanced anti-Israeli policy? Did RMS in FSF sponsored events (which is different than media interviews and such)? If not, I suggest we leave this out of the discussion. Yes, he has. He said so in email related to an FSF appearance signed as the FSF. (recently quoted) Signed: -- Dr Richard Stallman President, Free Software Foundation 51 Franklin St Boston MA 02110 USA From the email address: r...@gnu.org That makes it FSF not RMS personal. He has also decided to adjust his FSF schedule based upon his anti- Israel bias. Thus, I decided to follow their [Palestinian] policies in the trip they organized. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Making your enemy reliant on software you support is the best revenge. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Richard Stallman answer to me
On Jun 6, 2011, at 6:44 AM, Omer Zak wrote: Given the circumstances, I think that the most honorable thing that can be done is to have the organizers of the non-university talk - cancel it and explain to him the evilness of academic boycotts of universities which do not themselves practice discrimination or censorship of the opinions which he advocates. The problem, IMHO is that he has used his position as the head of the FSF to espouse anti-Israel propaganda. So now, in effect, if you buy GNU you are supporting the spread of it. This dilutes the entire purpose of the FSF. It has now become the Free Software and Anti- Israel Foundation. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Making your enemy reliant on software you support is the best revenge. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: sponsorship?
On May 29, 2011, at 1:12 PM, Hetz Ben Hamo wrote: Demanding that he will not talk to the Palestinians? umm, with the political situation today, I hardly belive he will agree to that. I think that the whole situation is a bad one, and we should just drop it, let him come, let him go, let him do what he wants without making a big stink about it. If he does not speak to the Palestinians, and I agree with Hetz, I doubt that he would, nor really do I think we should force the issue. After all it's free software as in beer so you don't have to pay me, and FREE software as in you can use it, I can't stop you. The way I see it, the more a stink is made about his speaking there and not here, the less GNU software will be liked here. This is bad for GNU, bad for FOSS and IMHO bad for Israel. It may also be bad for the Jews, but I am begining to see where they differ. The last thing we need is for GNU to be seen as anti-Israeli. It will just make it harder to gain acceptance of Linux and other GNU software, harder to get venture funding, and harder to get government support. Last week no one would fix their websites to work with FOSS browsers because it cost them money, next week they will say doing so supports the Palestinians, and is therefore unpatriotic. It's interesting because I commented on a Facebook posting today a quote from the movie My Blue Heaven: I am the worst case scenario of Thomas Jefferson's dream. Well, in this case, Stallman himself is the worst case scenario of his own (or at least our) dream. Even worse case is if some polticiain gets ahold of this, and he is refused a visa and has to enter the PA via Jordan. Then it will make it almost if not completely impossible for him to ever speak here. I was thinking more of: If we can find a company who's willing to pay the flight tickets, hotel etc, and then let Stallman decide whether he wants to appear at the Palestinians universities or not. I think that's the best idea, but it should be a separate trip. As a slight ad homonym, he point about the fences is made out of ignorance. He never really did understand the point of the fence and the diplomatic initatives Sharon was making. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Making your enemy reliant on software you support is the best revenge. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: sponsorship?
On May 29, 2011, at 1:54 PM, amichay p. k. wrote: Why do you think everyone shouldn't be able follow? Actually, I think it's the other way around. I am not on the hamakor list, nor do I plan to join, and I expect that since most of the people on this list are more interested in FOSS and not discussions about FOSS (in general), they aren't either. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Making your enemy reliant on software you support is the best revenge. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: sponsorship?
On May 29, 2011, at 2:15 PM, Nadav Har'El wrote: You're contradicting yourself: You're saying hamakor-discussions isn't interesting because it's discussions about FOSS rather than FOSS, but now that we have a discussion, which is even less FOSS-specific than usual, you don't think it doesn't belong in hamakor-discussions? No,there are always exceptions to the rules, and this is one of them. For the one in a year discussion about it that made its way here, I'm not going to join another list. As for it belonging on another list, I don't really care. It's here, and until Marc says that it goes, it IMHO stays. But seriously, many of us (including me) already posted their opinion on this matter in hamakor-discussions, and I for one don't want to repeat myself on a second list. Don't. We can have our own discussion without you, just as the people on the other lists can have one without me. There can be multiple discussions, by different (and overlaping) groups of people about the same topic. Probably even in multiple languages. Note that hamakor-discussions is in Hebrew, while this list is in English. That's enough reason IMHO to keep it going and to keep it separate. Bear in mind that not everyone in or interested in FOSS in Israel reads or writes Hebrew, and I'm sure RMS doesn't and the Palestinians who are sponsoring his trip probably do not. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Making your enemy reliant on software you support is the best revenge. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Fwd: sponsorship?
On May 29, 2011, at 2:15 PM, Nadav Har'El wrote: But seriously, many of us (including me) already posted their opinion on this matter in hamakor-discussions, and I for one don't want to repeat myself on a second list. I think we should move this to a SKYPE conference call. I'll even sign up for a one day premimum membership so we can make it a video conference call. ducks Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Making your enemy reliant on software you support is the best revenge. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: sponsorship?
On May 29, 2011, at 6:23 PM, Stan Goodman wrote: What twisted reasoning! Not really, if you go back to his writings, he's been anti-Israel and pro-Palestinain since the days of Ariel Sharon. If you google him, you find that he espouses those views even now. Unfortunately he has gone from the GNU spokesperson to the GNU AND anti-Israel spokesperson. Something I fear will not be forgotten. In the past it did not matter, no one really cared at that level, but now we all have been forced to take sides. Personally if it is a choice between GNU and Israel, I'll be looking for GNU-free software (as opposed to GNU FREE). IMHO this is going to get ugly, people are going to ask questions that were irrelevant or nonexistant such as how much money does the FSF get from terror organizations?, should RMS be allowed in Israel, etc. There is a lot of money in free software, and if there is money there is politics and if political capital can be made from it, it will. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Making your enemy reliant on software you support is the best revenge. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Linux 3.0
On May 29, 2011, at 6:29 PM, Ira Abramov wrote: I see no one else mentioned it on the list, so here it is, fresh from the kernel liׁ•t - Linus is considering a switch from 2.6.X to 3.X soon. No technical reason I can see, only that the kernel is going to be entering its third decade of life in July. Your ideas? :) http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Linux-3-0-could-be-out-in-July-1248294.html Good time to switch to BSD? It's GNU free :-) How much is going to be broken? What's going to be left out? Will audio ever work right? Will Linus, etc ever get it that it's not a toy and people actually expect it to work and stay working? Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Making your enemy reliant on software you support is the best revenge. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: sponsorship?
On May 29, 2011, at 7:45 PM, Gabor Szabo wrote: I am sure you will now reply with a lits of links to his posts, otherwise people might think you are just making empty accusations. Nope. You can't use google, it's not my problem. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Making your enemy reliant on software you support is the best revenge. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Linux 3.0
On May 29, 2011, at 9:23 PM, Nadav Har'El wrote: I know you said this as a joke, but to rain on your parade, BSD is not GNU- free. As far as I know *BSD distributions typically use quite a number of GNU packages, such as gcc, groff, bc, and probably a bunch of others. They also include, I believe, a bunch of other GPL (though not GNU) software. Some do, some don't they are not needed. As for C compilers, there is more than GCC. Linus's intention is to change the kernel numbering scheme, and nothing else - the move to 3.0 (or 2.8) will not (apparently) be used as an oportunity for massive depracation of old features, cleaup of defunct drivers, or major restructing of the code. These things have been happening slowly in every version, and nobody is waiting for a specific version number (like the big three-oh) to do them. Good, there was among other things the major I/O driver change from 2.4 to 2.6 leaving many devices with 2.4 drivers not working in 2.6, and 2.4 without drivers for many new devices until the fact that 2.6 was not being universally accepted and 2.6 drivers were backported. Then there was the alsa/oss disaster, when lots of things stopped working because there was no alsa support in the applications that used them, oss support for them in the kernel was dropped, and no oss emulation under alsa. This covered probably 90% of the TV capture cards and many sound cards in use. I had to give up on MythTV because I could no longer get a packaged system that would work with my capture card. I recently installed the latest Ubuntu (11.04) on a system with the card and it does not work. There was a work around using /dev/dsp? but it just disappeared in this release. Will audio ever work right? Audio has been working right for me for at least 10 years (before that, I had a lot of problems with proprietary and half-working drivers)... What kind of problems are you having? See above. Also the various sound daemons that have come and gone and never worked right, ESD, and something new I don't remember (it's in 11.04) and so on. Will Linus, etc ever get it that it's not a toy and people actually expect it to work and stay working? Linux worked, and stayed working, for me for the last 18 years, ever since I dumped ATT's commercial System Vr4 which I had been using on my 386sx, because Linux was, frankly, better than the commercial alternative. Over these 18 years, I slowly dumped also the rest of the commercial alternatives I had been using - DOS, Windows, OS/2, Solaris (nee SunOS), Ultrix, OSF/1, Irix, HP-UX, DG/UX, and probably a few others, and today work (almost) exclusively on Linux. My current PDA is still using Apple's prorietary OS, but the next one will most likely be using Linux (via Android). And I have several other devices at home running Linux (streamer, router, and more). So I don't think it should be called a toy. I think it has been working, and will continue to work for another decade, better than all the commercial alternatives. You're lucky. The system that has worked for me over time has been Windows. Linux has worked well for servers this century, but it never quite seems able to do the things I want when it comes to applications or hardware support. Once Windows 95 came out with TCP/IP built in, and SAMBA was available for UNIX, it has been a much better workstation with far less surprises and gotchas than Linux. IMHO it's still Linus' toy, and he makes artbtirary decisions based upon what he wants to see people use, and not what they want. Of course at this point it's the big choice for servers because the others are BSD (which is fragmented and not as well supported), MacOS (being dropped in server form), Windows Server (a different can of worms) and well that's it. Solaris is just about dead except in new large shops as Oracle intends to make a profit from it. No one I know can afford zOS or A/IX :-) As for your using Linux for 18 years, that would put you starting in 1993. That surprises me because I have been using Linux since mid 1995 and in those days it was not much more than a curiosity, and not something that you would want to replace UNIX with. In fact, in those days I was buying CD ROMS with several versions of Linux and BSD on them, and BSD was far richer and more reliable than Linux. I remember the disasterous Linux over DOS filesystem which if you were not careful deleted your boot blocks. I don't even want to remember how many times I had to rebuild them on various computers. When I made aliyah in 1996, I brought with me one of those disks, and left it on the ceiling of the HUJI CS department's system group. At that time they had a site license to to a BSD version and were using that for X86 UNIX, although the first year students had a farm of Windows/NT computers. When I left in 1998 to go work at one of the early
Re: Linux 3.0
On May 29, 2011, at 11:24 PM, Tzafrir Cohen wrote: That's old news. That switch was over 5 years ago. Since then Linux (the kernel) has avoided that long development cycles. It may have been, but it took a long time to finally die. I will say I was dumbstruck when I finally upgraded my RH 7.2 system (with lots of manual updates, extenstions etc) that I was using as a file server to a modern one (UBUNTU 8.04) and found my modem no longer worked. AFAIK host modems died a rather horrible death and were never ported forward. To this day I have a hylafax server with no way to fax anything. My external modem as not compatible with my NGN line, and I've found no outgoing Voip service that allows a-law or u-law or digital faxing. :-( OSS was dumped long ago for licensing issues. They later went free, but then re-rejected due to coding issues (doing too much in the kernel). I really don't care. All I knew is that my TV cards stopped working and I had to stay with an old version of KnoppMyth or buy new cards. Since I have a YES MAX anyway, I decided that when it was time to upgrade (the computers finally died) to replace it with a WD TV Live, which was much cheaper, had a much easier to use inteface and works just fine. There were indeed initially devices with no (or no good) ALSA drivers. I suggest that you come up with non-obscure devices that actually have better OSS4 drivers than ALSA Linux drivers. Again I don't care. I'm happily using my Linux systems as servers. I was recently given a dual core system (stuck at 512m RAM due to old technology and a bad RAM socket). CPU fast, I/O and RAM slow, that I installed Windows XP and Ubuntu 11.04 on. I put in the same video capture card I was using with KNOPPMYTH for all those years. The kernel recognizes it, it finds the right tuner, and I can watch TV. BUT I CAN'T HEAR IT and doing an exhaustive web search said that there was nothing that would properly read the sound from the card, nor merge it from an audio input if I used the audio out on it and looped it into a sound card. That and the fact that my APEX digital TV stick, made by Geniatech who plastered all over their website that it had Linux support, does not work, even with the 11.04 UBUNTU, means that my TV watching, either off the air, or from my YES box will be done in Windows. /dev/dsp using actual OSS drivers? Or ALSA emulation? The latter can also be done in userspace. No need to keep it in the kernel. Well, wherever it CAN be done, it WASN'T. Sorry as the unoffical UBUNTU motto it sucks to be you There is now basically a single audio server (PulseAudio). This has been the case for the recent 4 years or so. If you missed it, you must have lived under a rock, and never really bothered trying ot configure a sound system. Lived under a rock. A forced because there was no support for my TV card rock. A keep it in Windows if you want support rock. And now it's a it doesn't work rock. There's also Jack, but only for those who actually bother configuring and tuning it. Not worth it. I've spent 20 years inside operating systems before Linux was even a terminal emulator. Now spending time to get something simple like a sound card or video capture card to watch TV holds no appeal to me. I like the concept of FOSS (although I prefer the BSD license to the GPL), but I just want to have the darn thing work. For me watching TV is more important than spending hours or days to get the TV card to work. Though I must admit getting the PS3 media server to work on my Linux system, in a managable and secure way was fun. I ended up setting a user id specifically for it, and having it come up in a VNC X server at boot time. So it will but up, run and I can pop in from another system to manage it. With it set up so that users can't delete files. :-) On the other hand, why isn't it an UBUNTU package? It's a lot nicer, easier to use and set up than mediatomb, which is. I also just acquired a BEZEQ internet radio, which is real fun. I had to hack the PS3 media server to support it, but it wasn't too difficult. Still it would have been a lot nicer if I did not have to. Now not only can I play internet radio streams and podcasts, I can listen to my MP3 library. I'll admit for about 3,000 NIS I can get a decent system with a big hard disk, lots of RAM and a full hd LED monitor, but that's about 2,900 NIS more than I can afford. So for now, I have to hope that someone's old system dies or just is too old for them to use, and they are willing to give it to me and I can scrounge enough to get it going. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Making your enemy reliant on software you support is the best revenge. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Cell phone to send SMSs?
On May 17, 2011, at 11:31 PM, Meir Kriheli wrote: We've used for a project that sends/receives SMS simple Sony Ericsson phones. You could go over the supported db for gammu/wammu and find the ones you like: Thanks, that's what I was looking for. http://wammu.eu/phones/ Of course sms should be one of the supported features ;-) Also see Guy Sheffer's blog post (used a cheep fake Nokia): http://guysoft.wordpress.com/2011/03/27/smsgate/ That's what got me interested. Unfortunately, Guy got his phone in India. :-) Thanks, Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Occam's Razor does not apply to electronics. If something won't turn on, it's not likely to be the power switch. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: MS buys Skype - will it support Linux
On May 16, 2011, at 1:44 PM, Amos Shapira wrote: Even before that - I've tried some of these SIP-based voice programs on and off for a few years now and they *never* just work (let alone work) where as Skype is just a plug a play and voice clear as a whistle from the first time I used it in ~2003.. I've used (not on Linux, but they do exist there) X-lite, Zoiper and Voix (IAX only) and they work easily. You can not connect a SIP client to another SIP client, there has to be something in the middle. If you have firewalls in the way, you also need a SIP Proxy, (aka Stunnel server). SIP uses different ports for setting up and controlling a session and the actual voice data, and most people never quite get that right. (It's not easy with 2 firewalls, NAT, etc). Even more so - guys in my workplace who claim to have experience setting up SIP and none-Skype voip exchanges still have trouble setting up simple connections between our Sydney and San Francisco offices. You can claim that it's their fault but my point is that SIP (which is what all these solutions relay on) is just still too hard to use. That's barking up the wrong tree as it were. Asterisk systems with IAX trunking will do the job and can be set up easily. SIP is much more difficult. You are right though, if you already have a Skype ID and a copy installed on your system, you could call someone in another office in a few seconds. You can also do voice conference, video calls and now (if you pay for a premium account) video conferences. All with a minimum of effort and almost no skill. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Occam's Razor does not apply to electronics. If something won't turn on, it's not likely to be the power switch. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: MS buys Skype - will it support Linux
On May 11, 2011, at 10:10 AM, Nadav Har'El wrote: I am not aware of *any* Microsoft product that is officially supported on Linux. So I don't think there's any chance that a Linux version of Skype will continue to exist. I don't agree. For two reasons. My experience with the Mac Version of Skype has been that it is far less suported than the Windows version. I have not used the Linux version but I can't imagine it's support being better than the Mac. Most of their support is go ask on the forums anyway. Since Skype's support is so little on non Windows systems, it makes sense for Microsoft to continue it. Note that for many years the largest software developer for the Mac was Microsoft. They still sell Mac products (e.g. Office). This of course assumes that Skype continues to exist as a product. It may just become part of Windows and all stand alone versions will go away. :-( That being said, three questions remain to be answered: 1. How hard is it to create a free front-end to the Skype servers? For example, ICQ never had (as far as I know) a Linux version, but I've been using it for years through free clients like (today) Pidgin. Skype currently offers SIP access, but it is not cheap, From what I remember it is $5 a line per month with no subscriptions for outgoing calls. You also pay for DIDs (incoming numbers). 2. With all the world moving to VOIP and video chats, is Skype still unique? Yes. It's still the only cross platform and Windows, VoiP/Video Confernencing/text chat that can be used by anyone. There are others, but none offer all of it, are free, and are simple to set up and use. SIP still requires an exchange to connect through, and with the demise of Free World Dialup , there are only a few left and they are not well known. I know that Google Voice is available (but not in Israel...), and probably others (I didn't look too hard). Google voice can be accessed in Israel. You need an incoming US DID (which you can get for free) and a US IP address to register. Once you are registered and your DID forwards calls to your Israeli number or your device, you can use it. It's several layers of VoIP and routing, it may work for you or not. It's a question of price. There are lots of free/cheap VoIP providers. They range from no support to good support, but none of them have people who will set up your hardware (or provide it), come to your home and fix things, etc. There are also companies that do provide the hardware, have real people available for support, etc, but they are not free or even cheap. At least Skype did not astroturf (pay people to write friendly postings to mailing lists). You can tell because although they all are slightly different due to different people (often a member of the list) writing them, they all make the same points, follow the same order, and basicly say the same things in the same way. 3. Will Microsoft also drop support for Skype on non-Microsoft smartphone OSs (iOS, android, etc.)? iOS has lots of alternatives, more importantly will Apple offer an iChat and Facetime client for Windows? Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Occam's Razor does not apply to electronics. If something won't turn on, it's not likely to be the power switch. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Disk I/O as a bottleneck?
On May 8, 2011, at 9:30 AM, Yedidyah Bar-David wrote: I am considering, for my next laptop, and taking into account the fact that most laptops do not have space for two disks but do have some kind of flash memory slot (card reader) - usually SD-something, to have the OS on a (e.g.) SD card of 16 or 32 GB. I have no other experience with such cards, so I do not know if they are considered durable enough, fast enough - both random and sequential IO, both compared to SATA mechanical disks and to SATA flash ones, etc. Comments are welcome :-) It depends upon how you do it. The main difference in this case between a SOLID STATE DISK and memory card is the number of times you can write on it before it stops working. Modern memory cards do not use the same physical location for data all the time. The card itself randomizes where you write data, so that the useage of each bit on the card is spread out evenly. Of course this only works if the card is not full, and the emptier it is the better off you are. Whether this works with *NIX file systems is another question and I can't answer it. One of the bad things is that standard *NIX files systems are designed with magnetic media in mind, they update the access time of files every time you open them. This is bad for files that are opened often. The way around this is to mount a file system read only. Using a compressed read only file system, such as that on a live CD works well in this case. The problem with it is that you can't add software or change settings. UBUNTU has a setup where you can install a live system to a memory card/stick and it will mount your home directory in the unused space. If you can live with the limitations, then it will work for you. I think someone else said to use a small SSD for the system and a hard disk for your data. This would work extremely well for this situation where instead of a hard disk, you used a memory stick or card for it. It also depends upon what you are doing with it. Besides entertainment, my needs are fullfilled with an Xterm type terminal, SSH, a web browser and an email program. For entertainment, an MP3 player and one that will play 360P videos is enough. This can be accomplised with a lower power processor (Intel Atom for example) and a small screen. While you can get laptops with 15 inch screens and I7 processors, I'm not sure you would gain anything except a higher price by replacing a disk with an SSD/memory card combo. The latest Apple rumor is that they are going to produce a laptop soon with an ARM processor.Based on the success of the iPad, it probably will be a netbook size screen, a multicore ARM processor and a keyboard. It may or may not have a touch screen. I'm hoping that this rumor, whether there is any truth to it or not will fuel development of small ARM based netbooks. Unfortunately netbooks instead of getting smaller and cheaper, have gone the other way and become more expensive, larger, heavier and more powerfull. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Disk I/O as a bottleneck?
On The rated MTBF of my specific drive is 2 million hours. If I still know my math, that's some 228 years Which is meaningless. The life expectency of a drive is closer to the length of the warranty period. Warranties are decided based upon projected return rates. The manufacturers want no more than a 5% return rate, some less such as 2% or 3%. Once they expect more to come back, they no longer provide a warranty. So if they expect that 2% will come back in the first 3 years. They give you a 3 year warranty. These warranties only apply to retail drives. OEM drives generally are sold without a warranty at all. The OEM provides a warranty for the entire system, and negotiates a lower price with the understanding that they will eat any returns in exchange. That's even starting to affect computers, I saw in Friday's Yediot a computer sold for 15% less if you took it with a one year warranty instead of a three year one. Since it was a low end computer, possibly obsolete in a year or two, it may have been worth it. On the other hand my son is chomping at the bit for the one year warranty to expire on his computer so he can talk all of his relatives into chipping in and buying him a new video card. Last year's high end video card from last year is not fast enough now. :-) I on the other hand was recently given a five year old computer, which due to memory restrictions and a lousy BIOS will be permanently stuck on Windows XP. A new hard drive, a fresh install of Linux, and I'm happy. I/O is absymal, but the CPU is fast. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Disk I/O as a bottleneck?
On May 8, 2011, at 7:19 PM, guy keren wrote: when you say system Z - do you refer to what IBM formerly called MVS? IBM's had a lot of time to perfect it, their first multiprocessor machine was delivered in 1969. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Occam's Razor does not apply to electronics. If something won't turn on, it's not likely to be the power switch. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Disk I/O as a bottleneck?
On May 8, 2011, at 7:54 AM, is...@zahav.net.il wrote: I don't agree with this setup. Regular consumer drives setup with RAID to stripe are going to be much, much faster and have less problems in the long run than single SSDs at this point as well as being a better value until prices change a lot. If it's stuff you don't use often, or use sequentially, such as videos, cd/dvd software images, etc, you may consider USB drives. Be aware that using the NFS kernel server and USB disk drives causes kernel panics, lost data, etc. You can avoid the problem using samba shares or the user space NFS server. The user space NFS server is not compatible with some things, like RSYNC (missing function support), JDownloader (I/O on download directory) and the latest version of Ubuntu 11.04's gnome GUI (I/O error on home directory full eye candy turned on). With it turned off, it works. Between Kravitz, Bug and Office Depot, they occasionaly have disk wars where they sell USB external disks very cheaply. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Hardware questions
1. I understand you can now buy a USB digital tv receiver stick that is supported by Linux. I'm looking for one that is supported in Ubuntu 11.04 and can be bought easily by specifing the exact store or item (I need to send a non technical person to do it) or ordered by phone or via eBay. 2. Has anyone found a FAX modem that is compatible with NGN? I had several old ones which either were no longer supported (PCI modems) and external ones that were not compatible with NGN. When I plugged them into the phone line (after the appropriate filter) they always thought they heard a carrier. I assume it was because the filtering inside the modem was inadequate. I know you can get one, I have an HP multifunction unit, which lives on a Windows computer. Now I have to print out pages I want to fax and carry them over. I can print out on the printer part using samba, but can't fax. For shalom bayit, it's going to stay on the Windows computer, but I miss hylafax. A USB or RS-232 modem supported by Hylafax is exactly what I need. Or a service that I can pay per page to send faxes via hylafax. This needs to be an Israeli service, I don't need to send faxes outside the country. Or absent any of those an Israeli voip provider I can use to send faxes via asterisk. E.g. one that provides ulaw or alaw outgoing connections. Any information would be appreciated, even if it is a negative. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Hardware questions
On May 5, 2011, at 2:10 PM, Ram-on Agmon wrote: http://blog.k1789.org/?p=1791 Thanks, it's just a shame IMHO that you got the 260 NIS one working instead of the 55 NIS one. :-) Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Automatic crop and rotate scans?
On May 3, 2011, at 10:42 AM, Nadav Har'El wrote: Hi, I have a flatbed scanner (by HP) attached to my Linux machine, and I often need to scan rectangular items such as photographs, CD inserts, and the occasional piece of paper. unpaper? Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: The STREAMS non-inclusion in Linux
On Apr 20, 2011, at 8:09 AM, Omer Zak wrote: None of them has details about the reasons, which led Linux Kernel developers to reject STREAMS. STREAMS was only vaguely described as poorly-designed and resource-consuming. There were two competing implemtations of TCP/IP. UCB created sockets, which is sort of in the public domain. ATT (I think they subcontracted BBN to actually do it) created streams. My guess is that streams is based on ATT patents and was never reverse engineered. So UNIX systems based on SYS V had streams, while UNIX systems based on BSD had sockets. SYS V Release 3.2 which was the first combined release (ATT Kernel, both SYS V and BSD user land) had both. I've never looked but AFAIK, MacOS which is the latest real UNIX has sockets but not streams. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: DVB-T and MythTV
On Apr 15, 2011, at 1:17 PM, Amichai Rotman wrote: Hello all, Can any of you direct me to a HOWTO / Guide for setting up my DVB-T adapter to work with MythTV? Is it really supported under Linux? Most of them use them DSP chip with different tuner chips. The symptom of the tuner not being supported or recognized is what you describe. I have used the Hardware Drivers (Jokey) facility to find and install the driver (firmware) I was able to find and configure it in the MythTV Backend Setup, but when I scan - it finds nothing. Sounds like the wrong tuner definition. But it always pays to make sure that you actually can receive the broadcasts in your area and your hardware works. There isn't a frequency table for Israel... No need for one. DVB-T frequencies are fixed. The channels in each stream identify themselves, so when you do a scan, when one is found, the channels are automaticaly determined. Guy Scheffer (guysoft at gmail) did the original work of getting Mythtv to work with Israel TV. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
OT: Einstein Writer under QEMU
I'm trying to help someone run Einstein Writer under QEMU. I set up a virtual machine and installed FreeDos on it. I found a demo of Einstein which is supposed to be a running version of it. When I start it up, I get a few English words and a lot of junk on the screen. I assume I am missing installing Hebrew support in the virtual video card. I did a web search and found a wikipedia entry for codepage 862. I tried to load it with the FreeDos command display con=(ega,862,1). It loads, but I still get garbage. Any ideas? Alternatively is there a way to convert EinsteinWriter files to something useable without Einstein itself? Thanks, Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: OT: Einstein Writer under QEMU
On Mar 29, 2011, at 8:45 AM, geoffrey mendelson wrote: I'm trying to help someone run Einstein Writer under QEMU. I set up a virtual machine and installed FreeDos on it. I found a demo of Einstein which is supposed to be a running version of it. When I start it up, I get a few English words and a lot of junk on the screen. I assume I am missing installing Hebrew support in the virtual video card. I did a web search and found a wikipedia entry for codepage 862. I tried to load it with the FreeDos command display con=(ega,862,1). It loads, but I still get garbage. Any ideas? To answer my own question, I found a dos boot disk complete with the necessary files and Einstein all on it. It was designed for a different virtualization system, but it works with QEMU: http://masa.googlepages.com/eini.zip Alternatively is there a way to convert EinsteinWriter files to something useable without Einstein itself? Still looking for an answer. Thanks, Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: weird issue with ftp client on windows and Linux
On Mar 22, 2011, at 11:49 PM, Hetz Ben Hamo wrote: In his work, when he's trying to connect to an ftp server with Filezilla and other clients on Windows to download some work related data, everything seems to work: he's been asked for user/pass, then he gets the 220 status message with the text and he can download all the stuff. But with Linux, with the same filezilla (and other ftp clients), he connects to the same ftp, gives his user/pass, then he gets the first line of 220 status message and the ftp is freezing, no more text, no nothing. I tried it with server ftp clients on Linux, disabled his iptables and tried it with my Linux netbook machine at his work - same results. If it eventually times out and starts to work, it's a problem with the ident daemon. If it never times out (say 10 to 15 minutes), try passive mode. As in: ftp somehost.at.some.domain (user prompt) username (password prompt) password passiv cd directory get filename quit Geoff. I don't think it's related to the company's firewall since it works perfectly with any ftp client on Windows without any special setting or proxy. Any suggestions? Thanks, Hetz ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Netbook without windows
On Mar 2, 2011, at 5:22 PM, Elazar Leibovich wrote: The fact you got installation discs, doesn't mean its legal/ permitted by MS to install them on any computer you want. It depends. From what I understand of the EULA (which you can easily find on their site if you want to read it) if you buy an OEM version of Windows from Microsoft, you can install it on another computer if the one you bought it with is replaced by the new one. For example, if your motherboard dies, and you buy a new computer instead of a new motherboard. However it is not legal to install it on another computer if the first one still exists or has it installed. It's also legal to install it in a virtual machine as long as that virtual machine is run only on the computer it was bought for, and only is used by the person who is using the computer. So those virtualization packages which let you run multiple monitors and keyboards require a separate license for each virtual machine. The OEM versions included by a manufacturer, e.g. HP, are different. What is included and how is up to them. Most only include an install partition on the hard drive, and install Windows from that. They usually include a program to make install disks, but the disks can only install on that particular model (it checks BIOS signature) and wipe any drive they are used on. Usually these are not upgradable. For example we bought a Packard Bell computer instead of an HP because HP included 32 bit Windows and we needed 64. To get it on the HP we would of had to buy the full retail version. The OEM can include a sicker with a magic number to do an install if the BIOS signature changes, but they cost more and are often no longer done. Note that the BIOS specific versions of Windows will not install in a virtual machine without the magic number. As far as buying a laptop without Windows, I highly recommend against it. You are not going to save very much, probably around 100 NIS, and it really lowers the resale/gift value. It's just a question of whether or not you think you will sell it before it becomes so obsolete no one wants it. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Netbook without windows
All very interesting. I suspect that a cometent lawyer could make a case that the combination of the limitations described in this thread (which seem to me reasonable in themselves) coupled with MS policies enforced to punish or discourage vendors that wish to sell computers sans Windows, amount to restraint of trade, and are therefore themselves illegal. I think the same attorney could also demonstrate the same for the regioning policy for DVDs. Such a lawyer would have streets named for him in cities all over the world, not to mention roses. Not really. Microsoft gives computer stores a price break if they agree that all computers they sell will be sold with an operating system. The store can forgo the price break if they wish, or install a free operating system or include a CD of one or sell a competing operating system. There is no requirement for them to install a Microsoft product. Or they can install Windows XP, Vista or 7, from a recent disk without a magic number. This gives the user a 30 day free trial. There are plenty of non Microsoft products to choose from from FreeDos, Linux, BSD variants, UNIX (as in Solaris, etc), and so on. In fact, I'm sure if a computer store emailed the Ubuntu people and told them that they sold 20 computers a month without operating systems, they would get 20 Ubuntu CDs a month from their free CD project. So I fail to see why Microsoft is restraining trade, and am actually glad the policy exists. It encourages people to try fee operating systems and discourages the use of pirated ones. Let's face it, here in Israel, how many people who buy computers without an operating system are going to put something besides Windows on it anyway? Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
ot: job postings
These came to me from a friend in the US, the jobs are in Israel. I know nothing about them, so don't contact me for more info. http://www.ceva-dsp.com/about/career_vacancies.php Geoff -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Samba print server ** Urgent help needed **
On Feb 23, 2011, at 12:49 PM, Israel Shikler wrote: Hi List, Our goal is to use SAMBA on Redhat Linux as a print server. The server should allow users to browse the printers list, and to download printer drivers. Users should be authenticated against Active Directory Services . How do we set this configuration? I can't help you on that, and I seem to have lost the link to a page explaining how, but if you have any Apple devices (Macintosh, iPad, iPod or iPhones) on your network, be sure to set up your avahi-daemon to advertise the printers. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
OT: Re: Recommendation for an Israeli Computers/Computer Parts Store with a Web Interface in English or Arabic
On Feb 23, 2011, at 2:57 PM, shimi wrote: http://www.logicpc.co.il/ At those prices he could hire a translator for a day, buy from Ivory or KSP and still save money. KSP has a site in English, which I have never been able to compeletely understand, and Ivory's is simple ennough to navigate if you use google translate. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Samba print server ** Urgent help needed ** 2nd try
On Feb 23, 2011, at 5:00 PM, Israel Shikler wrote: http://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Samba__Active_Directory Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: [SOLVED] eVrit - Weird FS Problem
On Feb 21, 2011, at 9:46 AM, Amichai Rotman wrote: So I found out the reason the internal FS was corrupt, and that was the reason it was mounting read only. Running fsck.vfat on it did not work, so I had to format it - that solved the problem: I copied all files to the memory card, formatted the main memory, and moved all files back to the main memory. That often occurs when you don't unmount the filesystem and give it time to flush. The standard magic incantation is: umount filesystem sync sync sync This has to be done for both the main memory and the memory card, but you can unmount both and then do the sync commands. It also pays to check and see if there is an indicator the file system is still in use. The original Kindle has a set of four blocks that flash on and off while there is USB activity. The nook once the unmount is finished goes from a USB disk screen back to where it was before you connected the USB port. The eVrit may have a similar function. You can also avoid the problem by using the sync mount option. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Update: eVrit e-book Reader
On Feb 21, 2011, at 12:01 PM, Nadav Har'El wrote: I am not a lawyer and haven't paid attention to every little detail in the GPL, so maybe I'm asking a stupid question: does the GPL really say that you must give the source, or offer the source from your own site? What I mean is, if someone is selling a device running some unmodified version of Linux, and a couple other unmodified programs, isn't it enough for them to just say that, and you can get it from those projects' own official sites? Or since the eVrit is just a PanDigital Novel with NDS' DRM software (which I'm sure is not open source) and some publicly available Hebrew fonts, can they just refer you to PanDigital? Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Update: eVrit e-book Reader
On Feb 21, 2011, at 12:18 PM, Omer Zak wrote: It is my understanding that that someone must archive his own copy of the relevant source files and make them available to people who use the device. Is that necessary with an Android device? I'm not sure if the eVrit is one or not. Some of the ebook readers on the market are. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: MCTIP computer technician course
On Feb 20, 2011, at 10:13 AM, Hetz Ben Hamo wrote: There are video courses for MCITP which would cost you a lot less and you can learn at home at your free time. Those MCITP certificates aren't worth anything anyway - when someone wants to hire you, he would like to check your experience, not your certificates. It depends, if your resume is being screened by a hiring manager, it is unlikely that they will pay attention to your certificates. If it is being screened by a clueless person in personel, that is one of the first things they look for. So if you were for example, to send your resume to one of the people here who post that they are starting a startup, or work for a large company and need someone to work for/with them, then the certificates are not going to mean anything. If you were going to send your resume, blindly to personel at the same large company, the certificates will get you first consideration, or not just thrown in the trash. There are places that desire them, such as body shops, and schools. Having an MCITP certificate might get you a job teaching at one of those schools. My son, who is a published expert in his field, does not have a CS degree, and his employer, a body shop, keeps pushing him to get an MCITP because there is no certificate in his field, and it looks good on a resume when they are shoping him around. An MS or PhD would look better, but they would require real work and expense. He's waiting until they agree to pay for the classes and tests. Note that these things go bad with old age. The hot certificate 10 years ago, an MCSE is worthless now, and in 5-10 years an MCITP will be too. You will have to start over again if you want to be certified. IMHO if you want to go to a class and make some money out of the army, go to cooking school, or take a course to get a license as an electrician, plumber (instalator) or gas fitter. Those you can use to get work right away and pay fairly well, and you can work nights while you go to school during the day. On the other hand, if you want something less involved, study for and get an amateur radio license. They you can get in contact and make friends with people in various companies and business that will respect your ability to study, learn, and communicate, which will open more doors than a few letters after your name on a resume. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Update: eVrit e-book Reader
On Feb 17, 2011, at 11:57 AM, Amichai Rotman wrote: Hi all, Terrible for photos / pictures. Too dark, no colors and slow. The books' covers and in-book diagrams and line art look great! User Experience: As I mentioned, I am very happy with the device. It is very light and under the right lighting conditions it is very clear and fun to read from. Using it under the sun was even better than under florescent light. I downloaded a sample book from the Barns Noble site (what they call a 'NookBook) and transfered it to the device directly (an .epub file) - and begun reading immediately! no DRM, no conversion - out of the download! I called their Customer Support (voice - I needed to hear it) and asked if it is because it's a sample. the representative said the sample is technically the same as the full book! Over the course of the last three years I've read very few books, mostly technical books by the computer, but since I've bought this device I have read more than 70 pages of a Hebrew thriller, and a few pages of some technical books and got the epub version of a 1500 page book I was wondering how to carry around with me... Conclusion: Very good buy for those of you who need the Hebrew support. Not very expensive. No dual display. No color display - but perfect for reading books! What does it do with full page scans of books (jpeg images as PDF files)? The nook displays them full screen, with no rotate, zoom or contrast adjustment (makes reading colored ones difficult), the Kindle 3 (but not the original nor 2) has those adjustments. I have several thousand electronics and other technical books like that. You may also want to look at Calibre, it's an open source manager for eBooks, which includes format conversions, etc. It's available for Linux, Windows and Mac and supports the Kindle, nook, iPad and many other readers. If it does not support the eVrit directly, you can still use it to organize your library and do format conversions. If you are looking for modern Sci-Fi, Baen books has a free downloadable library. They have also issued free CDs of books (and in some cases entire series) that are not available on line from them, but you can download them via bit torrent and directly online. For the books: http://www.baen.com/library/ For the CDs: http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/ Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Is it a legit CA or is it an MITM attack on a gateway level ?
On Feb 17, 2011, at 4:31 PM, Boris shtrasman wrote: Hi , Is it a legit CA or is it an MITM attack on a gateway level ? Tested - no arp poisoning. Getting incorrect CA from google imap servers (but correct for https) I belive that this some one on the infrastructure level. Gmail occasionaly presents bad certificates. If it bothers you, close your email client and come back later. This usually seems to happen when a backup server from out of the US gets activated and someone forgot to update the certificates. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Update: eVrit e-book Reader
On Feb 17, 2011, at 6:36 PM, Stan Goodman wrote: On Thursday 17 February 2011 11:57:38 Amichai Rotman wrote: I downloaded a sample book from the Barns Noble site (what they call a 'NookBook) and transfered it to the device directly (an .epub file) From its name, I was sure that the NookBook was specialized to pornographic literature. Actually I think it's nookBook. The name on their website, the unit itself and charger have a lower case n. The accessories only have a lower case n on them. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Amazon Kindel
On Feb 3, 2011, at 9:28 PM, Mordecha Behar wrote: I think your best bet is BN Nook Color. The nook color is very attractive, but IMHO, it's not quite ready to be a general purpose tablet. Not because the hardware is lacking, but because its sold as an eBook reader by BN, and nothing else. Eventually (which is often only months in this business), the manufacturer of the hardware will be able to sell a similar unit (same internal hardware, different name and case) and it will be for a while, the best deal around. IMHO it won't replace the iPad, or even harm sales of it. The iPad is a stunning piece of hardware and iOS is a very well developed operating system. However the market is big enough for both an iPad, and an open device. I suggest that before you buy anything you look at the iPad to see what it can and can not do, and then decide if you really want it, or you want a different device. It is the state of the art, and will be for a while. That is assuming you want a general purpose pad, and not a smaller, cheaper dedicated eBook reader. I'd love to see something along the lines of the nook, or the nook color as an open device, instead of the current versions which are based on open source software, but are just as proprietary without a hack as the iPad. I understand you can root a nook or nook color, but that's not the same as it being a fully open device. But then it becomes a general purpose pad, and not an eBook reader, which may be very different. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: IPv6
On Feb 4, 2011, at 10:09 AM, Uri Even-Chen wrote: I have websites and domain names, but currently I think they work with IPv4 and not IPv6. Will they change them to IPv6? Will I have to change DNS settings for my domain names? And when will this happen? Possibly never, but at least for a long time. The current DNS system is IPv4 only, but serves both IPv4 and IPv6. If you have your DNS set up to include IPv6, the information will be available, but the client needs to be able to interpet it. Since BIND is open source software, nothing is preventing you or anyone else from adding IPv6 support to it. Eventually someone will do it, and 100% IPv6 networks will become possible. Will IPv4 support ever be dropped from BIND? Sure, some day. But as the old saying goes, don't hold your breath. After all Windows 7 still runs 8088 PC DOS programs. Not because Microsoft wants to maintain compatibility with 30 year old programs, but because customers pay for it. On the other hand, 99% of all internet uses have no idea what is on the other side of their router. You could replace IP with something completely different and as long as their routers still work, no one would ever notice. In fact, it pretty much is here in Israel, You run IPv4, HOT runs DOCISS and BEZEQ ATM. Your IPv4 (or IPv6 if you had it) packets go into the router, and come out somewhere else, but they get there via a different protocol. What happens to people whos systems don't support IPv6? Will they not be able to view IPv6 websites or send/receive email from IPv6 users? Or is it backwards compatible with IPv4? Will the DNS system all change to IPv6? My guess is that no one will convert their website to 100% IPv6 for many years to come, unless they don't really care about older users. For example, I mentioned PC DOS programs, and while Microsoft supports them, I doubt there is a YouTube plan to support them. As time goes on, many sites will just stop caring if a person with a ten year old PC and an obsolete network technology access them. Those people are not going to buy new cars or this week's newest cell phone, eat in $100 a person restaurants, or pay to watch HDTV (whatever it is by then). They will pay for low res (in comparison) sports, or order pizzas, so those sites will have IMHO IPv4 compatibility for a long time. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Amazon Kindel
On Feb 3, 2011, at 8:30 PM, Amichai Rotman wrote: Hello all, Any of you got the Amazon Kindel? I have a nook. I got it because my wife is on several librarians lists, and everyone on them said they were buying the Kindle for the school because of some deal, but were buying nooks for themselves. I was thinking of buying one (the WiFi $140 model) and was wondering if it's a good idea. If you read a lot ebooks, probably. It depends upon what you want to do. The nook has a failing, IMHO that you can not zoom, rotate or change the contrast on scanned PDF files. It displays a full page scan on the full screen. I have thousands of books, mostly electronics that were rescued by people taking out of copyright (or never copyrighted) books and scanning them. The files are PDF files containing JPEGS. It also depends upon if you a querty keyboard (and can stand such a small one) or a small touch screen. The main selling point of the Kindle is that it reads Amazon.com DRM protected books using the proprietary .mobi format. It does not read the open standard epub books. You have to convert them (easy if there is no DRM). The nook reads epub with BN's special DRM. The eVrit also uses epub, but with a different DRM. So if you want to buy books from Amazon, buy a Kindle. If you want to buy books from BN buy a nook. If you want to buy books from Steimatzky, buy an eVrit. If you don't want to buy books from anyone, and just want to read open or free books, then it does not matter which one you buy. The eVrit reader seems to be total waste of money - 900 NIS for 50% of the features and power... What's missing? The eVrit has a lot of advantages, native Hebrew support, it's a local product so you can get one easily and service if you need it. It also has a full screen touch screen, which the others don't. The Kindle has no touch screen at all, and the nook a small one. The wifi on the nook is useless, it only lets you buy a book from BN, I understand the Kindle is the same. By the time I bought a nook, cheap case and Florida sales tax, it was 650 NIS. Shipping and VAT was free as it was brought as gift by a tourist. Lacking a tourist, for 250 NIS more, the eVrit looks a lot better to me. If it had been 900 NIS when I bought the nook, I would have bought the eVrit instead. I expect the will be on sale soon, it's time for a new model, and they have come out with an eVrit app for the iPad/iPod, so most people who would of bought one will be buying an iPod touch or iPad instead. BTW, the scanned PDF files read nicely on an iPad. I'd appreciate your input. At $250, the color nook is a much better buy. Thanks! Amichai. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Script to create an image from text?
On Feb 2, 2011, at 3:39 PM, Amichai Rotman wrote: I am looking for a script to be used at a web site that will accept certain details as input (say: Name, Phone, etc.) and then convert it to a jpeg image file that will include a template (say: A diploma graphic) and the text entered incorporated... Probably the hardest way (but the one with the best results) would be to create a postscript file and print it with ghostscript. You can have it output as a jpeg, PDF file, or a native print file if you want it. If you want to produce one to start with, you can use almost any program and create a postscript print file, then use it as a template. The file will consist of headers, instructions, clear text, and the graphics file. You can easily split it into three parts, everything before the text and everything after, and just concatenate them with the new text in the middle. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: TV card
On Jan 23, 2011, at 4:04 PM, Stan Goodman wrote: I am considering installing a TV card in my desktop machine, to enable me to view programming of terrestrial digital TV stations. I would be grateful for any remarks from users of such cards about reliability, ease of installation, ease of use, availability of drivers, and other pertinent characteristics. I would be interested in viewing video both on the monitor, monitor in a partial screen, and sometimes through an existing external analog TV receiver. Ability to record video is a secondary consideration for me, as far as I can now predict. I would not bother. The first problem is that a PCI card costs, when you can find them a lot of money. One on-line vendor wanted well over 100 Euro for them. If you shop around, you can buy a USB tuner for 100 NIS. There are two problems with them. The first is that the modem chip has stayed the same for years, but the tuner chip keeps changing. I have two different ones, purchased a year apart and neither are supported by anything except Windows. So if you want to run them on Linux, you have to find an exact model and version that is supported. They do exist, it may be difficult to find one. Otherwise Linux recognizes the modem chip but can't tune any stations. The second is that if you leave them on for a long period of time, they tend to overheat. The irony of this is that a stand alone decoder box, with the ability to record to a USB disk or memory stick costs 299 NIS and I have seen them on sale for as little as 99 NIS. They need a monitor or TV set to play on. Most of them have HDMI outputs which will drive a DVI port on a monitor with a cheap cable. In fact a couple of months ago ACE hardware was selling computer monitors, cheap decoder boxes and HDMI to DVI cables as a package. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: TV card
On Jan 23, 2011, at 4:30 PM, Shachar Shemesh wrote: If the ability to record is secondary, I'd go with the simplest cards. I have a Hauppauge WinTV PVR-150 card, which is excellent for recording (I was actually too lazy to set up a full DVR - we record using a glorified cat /dev/video0 show.mpg), but it is much more difficult to watch live TV with it (couldn't get it to work, even though, in theory, /dev/video24 should work just like with the dumb card). Except for the fact that over the air analog TV broadcasts are scheduled to stop Feb 2.If you don't have HOT, YES, or a private satellite dish, the cards will go dark without an external decoder. Geoff -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: instructions how to use BPhone on Linux
On Jan 17, 2011, at 1:28 PM, Hetz Ben Hamo wrote: Few weeks ago I mentioned on this list Bezeq's new service, the BPhone (you can use your number on their VOIP solution), which is available for Windows, Nokia S60 V3, S60 V5 and iPhone. I published a post on my blog (in Hebrew) how to use the BPhone services on Linux and any standard SIP Client (twinkle, sip- communicator, x-lite, BRIA, sipdroid, etc..) Thanks. With the help of google translate I was able to figure it out and sign up for it. Since I did not do it on a Windows computer, I did not get the exe file, so I have to boot windows and do it there. What sucks for me is the sequential nature of the service. I have a fax machine and it is set to answer on the 6th ring, so it will never forward the calls. Hopefully it's new and they will fix it. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
OT: Re: JOBSEEK- Adopt a Programmer
On Jan 13, 2011, at 1:16 PM, Justin wrote: Do you have room in your software company to adopt a good programmer? We found this hacker wandering around without tags in large enterprise company. He had been abused for some time but is still able to produce code, and quite lovable. .. I'm posting this to the list so that anyone else who reads it in the future will see it. IMHO you made a big mistake in posting under the same name you use for your comments on mailing lists. Some of them go back to 2002 (has gmail been around that long?) and they do not paint a picture of someone who would do well in small Israeli startup. They may have been relevant at the time or pithy, or just plain cute. Now taken together, which is probably way out of context, they don't do you justice. If you want to find a job, make sure a resume that says what you want it to say is linked to in the email, and comes up near the top when someone googles you. Plumbing problems, or a new business idea that flopped, and so on, are not going to make you attractive to a prospective employer. One email friend of mine, who spent the last 15-20 years making wise- ass comments on mailing lists and newsgroups found that they prevented him from getting a single call back when looking for a job. So he opened a new blog, dropped the old email address, blogs everyday and tweets several times a day, on various topics. If you google him now, you find that he is a good worker, smart, friendly, a nice family man and a team player. It gets him interviews and jobs. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: asterisk and bezeq
On Jan 11, 2011, at 3:49 PM, Erez D wrote: Did you get any answers ? Sorry, I never persued it. I'm hoping someone who actually speaks Hebrew will. :-) Geoff -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: consistent device name
On Jan 5, 2011, at 3:41 PM, Tzafrir Cohen wrote: They are identical? How can you tell the difference? (any automated way?) lsusb -v and look for iSerial. If they have the same internal serial number then you NEVER will be able to tell the apart, you will have to buy another one with a different vendor and or product code. If they do have different serial numbers, Omer's rule will do nicely if you fill in the data properly. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Bezeq's Dropbox imitation
On Dec 21, 2010, at 9:57 AM, Daniel Feiglin wrote: Does anyone remember the Internet problems around 11/09/2001? (Incidentally I could level the same objection to international web based mail accounts like gmail, But that's another story.) I'd worry more about the internet outages when Pakistan tried to block YouTube and took down a large portion of the Internet. Or the outage(s) when a ship in the Med dropped anchor in the wrong place and cut the fiber optic cables to everyone except Israel. We still had lots of bandwidth to the rest of the world, but no one was letting us use it. Or the days when every time someone picked up the phone and received or made a call outside of the Israel, the internet lines lost 8k bits per second throughput. One ISP claimed to have the biggest bandwidth to the US, what they did not mention is that it was shared with their large telephone business which had priority. Even that was not enough, I remember in 2001 when you could not get an ISDN call to the UK at 3pm on a weekday. The problem is that while there are multiple points of entry into Israel from outside, they probably could be counted on the fingers of one hand. My experience has been that having two separate lines with 2 distinct ISPs does not significantly increase the reliability rate beyond local connections. If my connections to my ISPs are working I have the same successes or problems getting to a site (or a country) over both of them. What it does REDUCE is the situation when one line into my home from the outside world is down. It's become almost impossible to tell with the aDSL line now that NGN has replaced it here. The aDSL line I have no longer goes from me to the local phone switch, it goes less than 100 meters to a box which is connected via fiber optic to the phone switch. So it is always up, no matter what connectivity it has beyond my street. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Electronic Junk in Haifa
On Dec 19, 2010, at 11:32 PM, Stan Goodman wrote: Years ago, there was a junk shop in Haifa, near the wholesale vegetable market and not far from the old Turkish railway station. I know that it isn't there anymore; is there such a place anywhere in the vicinity where disused and unneeded electronic odds and ends are bought and sold? The only place I know of is YS Metronics which is in the Modiin Industrial park, which is really in Lod. http://www.ysmetronics.com/English/ (about page has a map) Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: HW compatibility research: are intel i5 graphics and realtek net/audio hassle-free?
On Dec 15, 2010, at 5:29 PM, Oleg Goldshmidt wrote: An old desktop computer of mine is croaking - it still breathes, but with difficulty. A quick check concluded that there are problems with the MoBo, and some with the graphics card, too. Basically, it looks like I need a new MoBo, and since there seems to be a shortage of boards with sockets for Athlon 3800+ or support for DDR1 - also a new CPU and memory. [Even if such boards can be found I am not going to waste time or money on the effort.] There are plenty of them around. No one wants them because you can buy a new computer with 1g of DDR2 or DDR3 RAM for less money than 1g alone of DDR(1) RAM. The machine is for dual workstation / home server (ssh, web, NFS, version control, bugzilla, stuff like that) use, maybe at times to run a program or two (say numerical but not HPC), web/office/coding, Skype and the likes, occasional video. Nothing particularly high performance, no games, etc. Target distro - Fedora (well, I do intend to use the old disk, which is actually new). I don't want already half-obsolete components, I want it to be reasonably reliable for a few years, I don't want any sluggishness in my normal tasks, and I want it hassle-free. Hassle-free is the topic. I got a quote that seems to be reasonable for a GIGABYTE H55M-D2H s1156 MoBo and Intel Core i5 650 3.2GHz with a GPU Core. Looking at the detailed specs on the 'net (http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3572#sp ) I see that the MoBo has on-board Realtek network and audio. I searched more, and found a fair amount of complaints about both Realtek (especially audio) and Intel's graphics. I won't bother you with URLs, but what I found was from 2009 and the first half of 2010. Oron posted very useful explanations on this list, too (http://www.mail-archive.com/linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il/msg55395.html ) but that was in May 2009 as well. There are two different Intel Graphics chip sets. I don't know which is which, but a quick search should answer the question. The earlier ones are chips that Intel bought a license to manufacture. They are not very good in general and have closed source drivers. This makes them OK for Windows, a problem for Linux. The second are the newer ones Intel designed and builds. They are well supported by Intel to the point that the open source drivers are as good as closed source ones. That's not a comment against open source drivers, but an acceptance of the fact that writing open source drivers for video chips that are poorly documented (on purpose) is difficult at best. So look for ones that have 100% open source drivers and you should be fine. As for buying an I5 processor, there are newer I3's with similar performance (for example 3gHz instead of 3.6gHz) for a lot less money. As for realtek, they tend to have cheap chips, which generallty work well. If you are concerend about support, check the exact model number of the chip as they keep changing them and the linux drivers do not always keep up. When you buy a mobo make sure you are getting one that supports full 64 bit addressing. Except for a sit it in a corner, use as a file server type machine, I would recommend getting at least 4g if not 8 of RAM. DDR3 RAM is currently very cheap. Geoff. Any comments? Experiences? Can anyone confirm that the onboard component (graphics, network, audio) will work fine? Is there any need for non-mainstream drivers (kernel, xorg, whatever)? I am not religious about FOSS but I do want yum update to pick the drivers for the new kernels up. Is the built-in i5 graphics enough for the described usage or do I need a decent external card? I saw reports (from about 9 months ago, e.g., http://www.linux-archive.org/debian-user/344759-intel-core-i5-integrated-graphics.html - some doubts about Realtek there as well) that the i5 graphics didn't work with a VGA cable but only with a DVI cable - is it true? No idea. Be warned that most of the current production really cheap (around 600 NIS) LCD screens only have VGA ports. There are not a lot of things that run on Linux that use the extra acceleration in expensive graphic cards, on the other hand if you are also going to run Windows on it (see my other comment below) and play high end games (Fallout New Vegas anyone?) you will need an extra hot graphics card. NVIDIA are my favorite in that case, but make sure the exact chipset is supported under Linux, although it may not matter. Most if not all of the things you describe won't benefit from the accerelation in the latest chips if it is not yet supported under Linux. HW gurus: I realize there are other options from MoBo/CPU as well, many/most of which are costlier. Any suggestions (besides this stuff won't work) why I should opt for something else, given the described purpose? The proposed configuration was clearly with the
Re: cable to copy VCR to DVD
On Dec 12, 2010, at 10:26 AM, Shlomo Solomon wrote: I'm including a link. The product comes with a Windows only program (ULEAD VIDEO STUDIO). Does anyone know if or how it could be used in Linux? The connections are from the RCA output of the VCR (or any other source) to USB on the computer. If you can, wait two months. I have already seen fire sale prices on LCD TVs with analog tuners, Feb 3, when they have all stopped working, people will be getting rid of devices without digital tuners. I'm sure at that point there will be many PC cards sold cheaply, given or thrown away. Most of them are supported in Linux. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: cable to copy VCR to DVD
On Dec 12, 2010, at 11:14 AM, Shlomo Solomon wrote: Interesting, but I'm not sure that's really true. Personally, I'm connected to YES and use an ancient analogue TV card connected to the RCA output on the MEMIR (works fine in Linux and Windows). So by the same logic, I'd expect old TVs to continue to work. Yes, but most people are not going to spend 300 to 400 NIS for a MEMIR (decoder) when you can buy a new LCD TV for under 1,000 NIS. People with HOT or YES will not be affected. I've also corresponded with several people who have dropped HOT or YES because they thought they could be happy with the 5 channels included in the digital package. You would be surprised how many people thought that they could spend 300-400 NIS for a decoder, and cut out the expense of HOT or YES without actualy paying attention to what they watch and which channel it is on. :-( In any case, maybe you have indirectly suggested a solution to my VCR to DVD question. I suppose I could connect the VCR to the TV card. Any suggestions on what to use to record the output? I've never had much luck recording with xawtv and I usually use tvtime which has no recording function (for viewing only). VLC or mencoder both work well. A long time ago I set up PERL programs to do various recording functions from the command line. I was going to use cron to do recordings, but found that I could not find the program guides I wanted in English. We ended up getting a YES MAX. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Video streamers with 5000 channels of TV
This is not really a linux question, but it might be. Friday's Yediot had an ad from Macsani Chasmal for a video streamer (make and model not listed). The ad said that it used SAMBA, so I assume it is Linux based. The ad also said that it was able to show 5,000 channels of TV for free. That's what I'm interested in, where do they get that number, and how do I find them? Thanks in advance. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: OT: Suggestion for good KVM Over IP?
On Nov 29, 2010, at 6:29 PM, Hetz Ben Hamo wrote: Hi, I was wondering if someone could recommend a good KVM switch which I can connect to servers and control them through the net. I have seen few KVM's which gave some crappy display results, others which have some issues that when you press a key, it repeats it dozen times (try to type an IP like that). VNC. I use it to run X Windows sessions from headless servers. You can even tunnel it over ssh. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: DHCP internet connection - HOT+BEZEQINT - Not getting IP
On Nov 23, 2010, at 4:21 PM, sara fink wrote: Unfortunately, that's how HOT work. They always blame the costumer. Either virus or the magic sentence something is blocking your internet. They will never admit they have a problem on their side. I believe you have to open your mouth. The problem is that MPLS (what is mistakenly called DHCP as ALL hot connections use DHCP), is broken. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not. IMHO you are much better off buying a router. I use on my HOT connection a 99 NIS TP-LINK router from Ivory. I use a PPTP tunnel to Netvision without a problem. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: 3G USB Modems
On Nov 21, 2010, at 1:52 PM, Boris shtrasman wrote: But you need to be aware other this is involed - the sim card and network support. While the modem itself works bugs happen all the time. The speed presented on the modem isn't the speed you will get from the net - as there is only support for 50% and less for some companies : e.g. 7.2mbps written on the casing while the net supports 2.8 (written in small letters in the contract). company name removed in order not to get sued there is at least one company that disconnect and enforce network priritazing policies. drop speeds to 128Kbps. sends RST packets for some websites (ips) from the internal network. All of the companies do something to limit your performance. Whether it's actual speed limiting, restricting the method of connection, or other methods (or tricks if you wish to call them that). Most of them have a limit or large charges (I don't know the Hebrew word, but it is often translated as fines) for going beyond that limit. Orange has a pay-as-you-go plan which simply stops working when you run out of pre-paid money (plan bandwidth and overages). So if you wait until the last day before you add more money, you will be relatively safe. If you put the SIM in a phone and call their automated billing system you can find out how much you have used and what your limit is. The problem with that is removing the SIM from the modem makes it useless while you make the call, and the SIM tray on some of the is very flimsy and will break if you do it too often. You can also call customer support from another phone, give them the phone number of the modem and they will tell you how much is left, this is really annoying as you actually have to go through the maze, and wait for a free person. At least it does not damage the modem. Someday I will ask if you can get a pay as you go modem twinned, where there is a second SIM with the same number and billing. Their website does not give that information, so you can't check on- line. I have been told that Orange now has a policy for contract phones of a maximum data charge of 250 NIS a month, and if you prefer you can have it automaticly shutdown for the rest of the month if you go over, but I have no idea of how you get it, if it is available to everyone and so on. I also have been told that Cell-Com's plan is unlimited during a month, with punitive action (reduced speed next month) if you go over their limits. Someone mentioned on a list a few nights ago that a friend of her's got a 1000 NIS bill for overage, so you really need to read the fine print on any contract. The only decent plan I have ever seen is Virgin's (US) pay-as-you-go data plan, it really has no limits. Speed is limited to what is available on the network. Virgin US is a virtual cellular company, they buy time on another network and re-sell it to you. They are in the process of getting a license to do business in Israel, I sure hope they do. Right now the cellular companies here are fighting them to prevent it, if they do get a license they will be fighting each other to get their contract. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM To help restaurants, as part of the stimulus package, everyone must order dessert. As part of the socialized health plan, you are forbidden to eat it. :-) ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Monthly waste of time :-( Has anyone been able to buy a Digital TV USB stick in Israel and get it to work under Linux?
Subject says it all, except that it's been longer than a month. Has anyone been able to buy a DVD-T (digital TV receiver) USB stick IN ISRAEL and get it to work under Linux? You can guess what I think of the likelyhood of it happening. :-( With less than three months left it may be a problem (or has the date been changed?) Thanks in advance, Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM To help restaurants, as part of the stimulus package, everyone must order dessert. As part of the socialized health plan, you are forbidden to eat it. :-) -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM To help restaurants, as part of the stimulus package, everyone must order dessert. As part of the socialized health plan, you are forbidden to eat it. :-) ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: looking to buy ARM servers
On Nov 2, 2010, at 5:03 PM, Hetz Ben Hamo wrote: Why don't you take Atom processors? more horse power (IIRC), and there are solutions (from Intel) which can give you a big box with few dozens boards and hard disks. Didn't we have this discussion a couple of weeks ago? Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM To help restaurants, as part of the stimulus package, everyone must order dessert. As part of the socialized health plan, you are forbidden to eat it. :-) ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: looking to buy ARM servers
On Nov 2, 2010, at 8:17 PM, Baruch Siach wrote: Then you should go for the Coretx-A8/A9 based chips. You can have a Beagleboard (TI OMAP based) for about $150. I don't know who sells them in Israel though. For that price (500 NIS) you can get a dual core ATOM (2x aprox 1.6gHz cores), capability of up to 2g RAM, 2 sata interfaces, one PCI (may be PCIe) slot, and so on. These take standard power supplies and fit standard cases. They may be too big for you. Both Ivory and KSP sell them and I'm sure all the usual others. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM To help restaurants, as part of the stimulus package, everyone must order dessert. As part of the socialized health plan, you are forbidden to eat it. :-) ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Small debian based server distribution
On Oct 27, 2010, at 8:15 PM, Elazar Leibovich wrote: On Wed, Oct 27, 2010 at 6:08 PM, Oron Peled o...@actcom.co.il wrote: Hmmm you actually did a BadThing(tm) -- totally bypassing the package management mechanisms: I think his idea was not to have the APT/RPM packages in this system, shaving off some few megabytes. One of the tiny linux distros did that by using APT, but not including the package information in the distro itself. You had to download them and install them, possibly with APT. I think it was DSL, but I may be wrong. And to answer another posting I can't seem to find, IMHO anyone who uses UBUNTU for anything except an out of the box desktop is as the old saying goes cruisin' for a brusin' (asking to be beaten up). Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM To help restaurants, as part of the stimulus package, everyone must order dessert. As part of the socialized health plan, you are forbidden to eat it. :-) ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Small debian based server distribution
On Oct 27, 2010, at 10:14 PM, Steve G. wrote: And why or how is Ubuntu server different from any other linux server to make it that way? I use ubuntu on the desktop and am quite satisfied with it. I used to use RedHat/Fedora and Suse/OpenSuse, until I ran into some unresolvable cyclical package requirements a number of time (when you want program A which makes you first get program B, which in turn requires Program A - or a similar variation with A, B and C. It was possible to bypass that by forcing installs, and by writing all the packages on one line, and other such kludges, but every package with the problem (the problem were with YAST and RPM) had to be researched first. I got disgusted, tried ubuntu and stuck with it, so far without similar problems. I decided to use their server 'product' because I felt comfortable with the main distro, and again, have not had any problems to date - have not been rooted, owned or anything. Not that it can't happen, but I am sure it is the same with any other distro. If I am missing something, please advise - and suggest a better server product with an argument why it is better. I am talking a generic server - ssh, ftp, httpd, nothing unique at this point. Because UBUNTU is not intended for people who want to customize their system beyond adding or subtracting whole packages. If you want a feature not compiled in, you can do it, but are no longer able to use their packages which means not using their update and dependency system. If want to add something they don't include you can, but if it depends upon a library they do include, there is no way to stop it from being updated and your program breaking. They also do not test very well, I've had to use older kernels when the latest new one would not boot. They have an attitude that deadlines are more important than function, so one release (was it 9.04) would not boot on an ATOM based system, something they knew about long before the release, but forgot to test it on the final version and when they did and found it would not work, ignored it. Their answer to many people complaining was basicly it sucks to be you. They often don't update packages between releases, so the bugs in the last release's version of Asterisk for example, stick with you until the next release of UBUNTU no matter when they were fixed. Yes, you can install your own, but it breaks their whole system. Another example is Netatalk. Since MacOS 10.5 came out, an option that UBUNTU refuses to include is needed for it to work. Same if you use a Mac to maintain your system via a remote X session. It will work if you use KDE or FVWM or twm, but not Gnome. Sucks to be you if you want to use their fancy graphic tools to maintain your system. There used to be a work around, but it stopped working about a year and a half ago. A generic server will be fine as long as you can live with their restrictions. The moment you step out of the envelope, look out. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM To help restaurants, as part of the stimulus package, everyone must order dessert. As part of the socialized health plan, you are forbidden to eat it. :-) ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Small debian based server distribution
On Oct 27, 2010, at 11:01 PM, Amos Shapira wrote: That's my general impression from Ubuntu - I switched to it for my desktops for convenience, and use CentOS for the servers at work. I never saw them actually back-porting important patches, for instance, not even to the alleged Long Term Support (LTS) versions (but maybe I missed). Long term support means that if they wake up in the morning and while they are reading their newspaper over breakfast see an article about a Linux security bug, they will open a bug and backport the fix, eventually. If it is something that only gets published on such obscure publications as Ars Technia, etc. They will ignore it. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM To help restaurants, as part of the stimulus package, everyone must order dessert. As part of the socialized health plan, you are forbidden to eat it. :-) ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Amazon free to new customers!
On Oct 24, 2010, at 9:51 AM, Tom Rosenfeld wrote: If you haven't already tried cloud computing, this is your chance to use free for a year! -tom Does this have to be a web server? Can one use it for an Asterisk or other SIP relay or a private HTTP or SOCKS proxy? Geoff -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM To help restaurants, as part of the stimulus package, everyone must order dessert. As part of the socialized health plan, you are forbidden to eat it. :-) ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Awful Bandwidth from Most Sites on Bezeqint - What can I do about it?
On Oct 13, 2010, at 10:47 PM, Shlomi Fish wrote: Can anyone help me shed any light on this problem? Traffic shaping? Did you try it at 6am or 1am? Geoff -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM To help restaurants, as part of the stimulus package, everyone must order dessert. As part of the socialized health plan, you are forbidden to eat it. :-) ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Awful Bandwidth from Most Sites on Bezeqint - What can I do about it?
On Oct 14, 2010, at 12:03 AM, Shlomi Fish wrote: On Wednesday 13 October 2010 23:04:55 geoffrey mendelson wrote: On Oct 13, 2010, at 10:47 PM, Shlomi Fish wrote: Can anyone help me shed any light on this problem? Traffic shaping? Did you try it at 6am or 1am? No, I did not. I'm usually not awake at 6am, and usually go to bed before 1am. Are there traffic shaping schemes that limit the speed on a single TCP connection and not the entire bandwidth? (Which in prozilla's case may consist of several connections to the same host.) 012 traffic shapes that way from around 3pm until 3am. Full speed for about 1-2 megabytes (I don't really have been able to figure out the exact number) and then it goes down to about 10% of the line's capability. Multiple connections all get limited. I wish I had a serial multiple connection downloader, i.e. it downloads a megabyte, closes the connection, waits 10 seconds and downloads another, until the full file is downloaded. Meanwhile when the latest Ubuntu came out, I was able to download 4 CD ROM images at full speed at 9pm. You can easily test it: cat wget url | at 03:00 Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM To help restaurants, as part of the stimulus package, everyone must order dessert. As part of the socialized health plan, you are forbidden to eat it. :-) ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: cheap linux box ?
On Oct 11, 2010, at 10:30 AM, Erez D wrote: I am actually looking for a cheap linux box, with usb2 and lan, which I can install a general purpose linux distribution on (e.g. debian and such. not openwrt which is good for routers, but not for other things like hosting a mail server etc ...) Do you want small or cheap? There are several motherboards with dual core ATOM processors on them that fit in a standard case. You can buy a complete system for 800 to 900 NIS, including motherboard, powersupply, case, hard drive, etc. The price varies from vendor to vendor and model to model, depending on which ATOM chip is on it, what hard drive, amount of RAM, etc. They all have a low grade (GMA 950 or 3x00) video card on the board, audio in and out, USB 2 ports, (2 or 3), 10/100 ethernet, one DDR2 RAM slot, an IDE port and 2 SATA ports. I think (I have never really looked) they may have PS/2 keyboard and mouse, and a parallel and serial port (or not). They usually include one PCI slot for expansion. By the time you buy a $149 cheap ARM system, pay for shipping and VAT at customs, the price is pretty close, and you are getting an Intel system that will run just about any standard distro (maybe not UBUNTU this week, but that's their fault) is much faster than anything with an ARM processor and has a lot more IO options. The downside is that is the size of small PC motherboard, sold in a PC case and has a fan cooled PC power supply instead of a brick. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM To help restaurants, as part of the stimulus package, everyone must order dessert. As part of the socialized health plan, you are forbidden to eat it. :-) ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: [OT] Buying a new computer
On Oct 11, 2010, at 5:48 PM, Shlomi Fish wrote: I did not have any experience with the Intel graphics cards and their drivers (which are always built-in-on-the-board). Their Linux drivers have been open- source from the start, and Intel also released specifications, but someone told me that their cards are of low quality and reliability. But I don't have any first-hand experience with it so I cannot confirm. The Intel onboard graphics chipsets are perfectly fine for normal use. They seem to be much better than the other onboard graphics chipsets of 10 years ago. They are not really accelerated graphics devices, if you want something to display windows on your screen, with stationary graphics or text, play videos (using the CPU to decode the compressed video) etc, they are fine. If you are trying to play a game that uses a graphics accelerator, or have a very large monitor they are probably not what you want. They also have no memory of their own, so if you are limited to the amount of RAM you have (or can use) then they may not be able to perform to their full potential. As for reliabilty, Intel does not make graphics cards, they make graphics chips. Many of the reliability issues are with the cards/ motherboards which are not made by Intel. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM To help restaurants, as part of the stimulus package, everyone must order dessert. As part of the socialized health plan, you are forbidden to eat it. :-) ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: cheap linux box ?
On Oct 11, 2010, at 8:29 PM, Gilboa Davara wrote: Of the top of my head, two options: 1. A dual core ATOM combo box can be found at under 800nis. Add a case, PSU and you can stay under 1100nis. KSP has one for 800 NIS including 1gb RAM, 250gb HD. Ivory's cheapest is 945 NIS, but it has a different ATOM processor and a different brand of motherboard. Both are dual core. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM To help restaurants, as part of the stimulus package, everyone must order dessert. As part of the socialized health plan, you are forbidden to eat it. :-) ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: asterisk and bezeq
On Oct 3, 2010, at 7:10 PM, Amichai Rotman wrote: The service is called Bphone. It seems to be a VOB line that you can access by installing an app called Phone Dialer on your cellular phone. I couldn't find what's the software for the PC... You could call 199 and ask for an English speaking representative and ask about Bphone. Ok, thanks, I will. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM To help restaurants, as part of the stimulus package, everyone must order dessert. As part of the socialized health plan, you are forbidden to eat it. :-) ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: asterisk and bezeq
On Oct 3, 2010, at 7:28 PM, Baruch Shpirer wrote: They have a voip service for home (076) in which they give you an MP202 adapter with 2 FXS ports And also a hardcoded softphone but both need port 5060 UDP redirected inside to used computer/mp202 lan interface Thanks. That is unfortunately nothing that I want. :-( I already have a similar adapter with a US line. It works perfectly fine without port 5060 redirect to it. I also do have an asterisk system, but it uses a different SIP port. IMHO having port 5060 open to asterisk is a way of finding the security holes in your asterisk system when you get your monthly phone bill. As for the phone number, I've had this 02 number for 14 years and would like to keep it. I just got it for faxes as it cost 7.99/month without calls but calling from it isnt more expensive then bezeq Ill get it checked with asterisk soon enough It's interesting that it works for faxes. Most VoIP won't unless you have t.38 fax machines at both ends and t.38 fax support all along the way. I think it will work with standard fax machines with ulaw or alaw codecs, but they use a lot of bandwidth. Thanks, Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM To help restaurants, as part of the stimulus package, everyone must order dessert. As part of the socialized health plan, you are forbidden to eat it. :-) ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
asterisk and bezeq
I've been seeing ads from BEZEQ about using your laptop to access your BEZEQ line. Since my Hebrew is not good enough to understand the ads, nor call and get marketing advice, I am asking here. If I understand the ads correctly you can get access (I assume SIP) to your regular BEZEQ DID. Is this true? I'm not talking about any random Israeli DID I get from a third party, I'm talking about my BEZEQ number, which I still want attached to my landline. Has anyone done this? Have you done it with ASTERISK? Thanks in advance for any info. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM To help restaurants, as part of the stimulus package, everyone must order dessert. As part of the socialized health plan, you are forbidden to eat it. :-) ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: asterisk and bezeq
On Oct 2, 2010, at 9:21 PM, ik wrote: Bezeq started to offer SIP trunks (calling it ipri, at least in the PRI equivalent). I can only guess that they offer also similar but to FXO. I do not know if it will work with Asterisk, but I'll be glad to hear if it does. Thanks. This was an add in Yediot in late August, which showed all ot the options you could get from BEZEQ and it showed some sort of linkage between your phone and a laptop. I guess they were talking about Wifi. :-( Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM To help restaurants, as part of the stimulus package, everyone must order dessert. As part of the socialized health plan, you are forbidden to eat it. :-) ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: CPU RAM in a storage box
On Sep 28, 2010, at 1:18 PM, Nadav Har'El wrote: so in theory I could back up a terabyte of movies for the same price (of course, it would probably take a year to upload a terabyte ;-)). If my arithmetic and assumptions are correct, you can upload a megabyte in 8 seconds with an 800k bits per second NGN line. This comes out to around 3 hours a gigabyte or 8 gigabytes a day. Multiply that out and a terabyte would take 128 days (slightly over 4 months). Since this does not include protocol overhead, retansmissions, network slow downs, etc, a year would IMHO be a reasonable estimate. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM To help restaurants, as part of the stimulus package, everyone must order dessert. As part of the socialized health plan, you are forbidden to eat it. :-) ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: asterisk client dummy question
On Sep 13, 2010, at 12:54 PM, David Ronkin wrote: Hi all I'm using Ekiga as a client in my ubuntu. The problem is i can't find a way to dial an extension when the call answered by an automate on the other side (like click 9 etc...)? Any other client that does it? Try Zoiper. The dialpad is normally not on the screen, but you can get one. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM To help restaurants, as part of the stimulus package, everyone must order dessert. As part of the socialized health plan, you are forbidden to eat it. :-) ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Old debian (Lenny) unable to get speed higher then 300kbps.
On Sep 12, 2010, at 11:07 AM, Boris shtrasman wrote: Hi, I got an old 10/100 switch with some new cables. When I transfer using cross cable the speed is normal (1.5 mbps and up). When I use the switch with two 5mr cables the speeds are around 150-300 kbps: rsync/ssh/scp 250-300. smb 150-200 kbps. doing some tcpdump I noticed ACK retransmit around 3%. I've Changed the cables. iptables is not running. I'm pretty sure I'm missing something very basic. Oh no, not another EDIMAX switch problem. :-) Just kidding. Try setting your ethernet parameters to 100m bits per second, and half duplex. BTW, are you sure the cables are good? New does not always mean better, or ever working. :-( Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM To help restaurants, as part of the stimulus package, everyone must order dessert. As part of the socialized health plan, you are forbidden to eat it. :-) ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Problem at startup - lockup loading swap
On Sep 12, 2010, at 12:41 PM, Micha wrote: We tried running swapoff -a, mkswap and swapon -a. On the call to swapon the machine complained about not finding the swap's UUID (which didn't match the value reported by mkswap). The only information in /etc/fstab regarding UUID is commented out. That's what is causing the UUID problem. You deleted the swap partition and reformated it. You have to remove or reconfigure the sleep to swap program, uswsusp. Any ideas about what the problem is and/or how to disable UUIDs altogether as they seem to be giving constant trouble? I think you are barking up the wrong tree. It's probably not a swap problem, you are assuming it's one because that's the last message you got. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM To help restaurants, as part of the stimulus package, everyone must order dessert. As part of the socialized health plan, you are forbidden to eat it. :-) ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Problem at startup - lockup loading swap
On Sep 12, 2010, at 1:50 PM, Micha Feigin wrote: I think I killed it when I installed his machine a long time ago, I don't like uswsusp, but I'll check. How is it related to swapon complaining about UUID though? It's not. Uswsusp will complain about the swap file not having the correct name, and AFIK can't be told to go on without it. The message appears after the swapon, and are easily confused as being related. Is swap defined in the grub menu or in a file on the intial ram disk? That's why I pointed to uswsusp, it saves a pointer to the swap file in the intial ramdisk image. You have to dpkg-reconfigure it if you change swap files. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM To help restaurants, as part of the stimulus package, everyone must order dessert. As part of the socialized health plan, you are forbidden to eat it. :-) ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: CPU RAM in a storage box
On Sep 9, 2010, at 6:35 PM, Hetz Ben Hamo wrote: I'm planning to add some big storage solution to my VPS business. I did some checking and calculated the costs, and figured out that if I want to have a decent 12TB solution NAS box, it would be best if I would roll my own. (12 TB before all the RAID stuff, after that it would lot less). All other solutions are very expensive (example: IBM EXP 3000 costs here 6K nis without a single hard disk). The question you should be asking yourself, IMHO, is what can I buy that will be as reliable as a commerical, industrial grade server? I'm planning to use hardware based RAID card, minimal Linux distribution and have some offers like iSCSI, NFS, CIFS - the usual suspects. My question is: since I'll use hardware RAID card, which processor and how much RAM should I put in such a machine? Xeon is overkill IIRC. For example, a system which costs under 900 NIS would do the job. You can get them from Ivory or KSP. They have a dual core ATOM processor, one PCI slot and one DDR2 memory slot. The power supply is not very big, but it will power a bunch of 5400 rpm green disks. How well will it work? How long will it last? Will it be fast enough? And the killer question, how much will it cost to replace, in the value of downtime, your time to replace it, bad will among your customers, etc? Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM To help restaurants, as part of the stimulus package, everyone must order dessert. As part of the socialized health plan, you are forbidden to eat it. :-) ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Can there be an Ethernet Switch that doesn't work with Linux???
On Aug 29, 2010, at 11:40 AM, Nadav Har'El wrote: Like I said on a previous mail, the speed negotiation works. The guess that the switch has a bug and forgets my computer's MAC address makes sense, but how come it forgets the Linux computer's and remembers the Windows one? :( Now wait. This is an 8 port hub/switch correct? If you plug the LINUX computer into port 1 and the Windows computer into port 2, and the WINDOWS computer sees the supposedly missing packets from the LINUX computer, then the hub/switch works. If you are not sure, you can move the computers around until you find that all ports work, or there is a bad port. If there is a bad port, return the switch. If there is no bad port, then you have a very different problem than what you are describing. BTW, gigabit ethernet is not. It is 4 full duplex pairs (send and receive on the same wires), 100mbit and 10mbit are 2 half duplex (send and receive on different wires). Full duplex on 10 and 100mbit means that it is sending data on the send data pair while receiving data on the receive pair, 1000mbit it means it is sending and receiving data on all 4 pairs in both directions at once. You said the autonegotiation works, have you tried to force it to 100mbit, half duplex? Also while you are at it, try cutting down your MTU on the Linux computers to 256. If it works, up it to 1400. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM To help restaurants, as part of the stimulus package, everyone must order dessert. As part of the socialized health plan, you are forbidden to eat it. :-) ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Can there be an Ethernet Switch that doesn't work with Linux???
On Aug 29, 2010, at 11:59 AM, shimi wrote: And last tip - of course it's a bit too late for you - but for the next time - I - personally - have learned my lesson - I will not buy Edimax again... :) I disagree with that. I have over the years had 3 different Edimax routers an access point etc. I am using an aDSL router on an NGN connection and get as much as 2.4megabytes per second with it. I have an access point that works fine, and many of their wifi dongles and so on. IMHO if he has a problem it's not the EDIMAX's fault, it's something else. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM To help restaurants, as part of the stimulus package, everyone must order dessert. As part of the socialized health plan, you are forbidden to eat it. :-) ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Can there be an Ethernet Switch that doesn't work with Linux???
On Aug 29, 2010, at 12:27 AM, Nadav Har'El wrote: While I have quite a bit of networking experience, I have found myself stumped by a frustrating problem in my home network - which surprisingly appears Linux-specific - and I wonder if anyone ever saw such a thing. My guess is that it's an autonegotation speed and or duplex problem. Try setting the speed to 10mbit and the duplex to half. Make sure the cables are correct, not crossover cables. The switch accomodates autosensing and will work with either, but the computer may not. If that works, try setting it 100mbps and half duplex, if that works try full duplex. If it works at 10 and not 100, it's probably bad cables. 10 year old switches generally did not support autosensing of cable type, full duplex and many of them were only 10mbit. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM To help restaurants, as part of the stimulus package, everyone must order dessert. As part of the socialized health plan, you are forbidden to eat it. :-) ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Can there be an Ethernet Switch that doesn't work with Linux???
On Aug 29, 2010, at 1:06 AM, shimi wrote: It could be that there's an Ethernet negotiation problem, in such a way that your MAC doesn't get registered on the switch (?). Not necessarily a Linux problem. Maybe a NIC problem, or an Ethernet cable problem. Of course that with a Hub that would work anyways, because a Hub broadcasts to all ports, regardless of negotiation... That's why I keep some RTL8139 cards around. They work with just about every operating system (not only Intel and not only DOS/Windows/Linux). Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM To help restaurants, as part of the stimulus package, everyone must order dessert. As part of the socialized health plan, you are forbidden to eat it. :-) ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
