Re: [PLUG] No space left on device

[Tim Bruce - PLUG]

On Wed, October 25, 2017 21:48, John Jason Jordan wrote:
> On Wed, 25 Oct 2017 15:42:37 -0700
> Dale Snell  dijo:
>
>>Ah, okay.  You'll have to unplug the Synology in order to find
>>those movies.  They're in whatever filesystem the Synology mounts
>>in.  Say you have a directory "/mnt/storage/".  If you do an
>>"ls /mnt/storage", nothing will show up.  When you mount your new
>>filesystem (say, the Synology) on /mnt/storage, doing the
>>"ls /mnt/storage" will report whatever is in the new filesystem.
>>If you create files in /mnt/storage/ _before_ mounting the
>>Synology, and _then_ mount the Synology, you won't see those
>>files, just the Synology's.
>
> Free space: 57.9 GB of 82.4 GB (29% used)
>
> Hallelujah!!
>
> Now that things are back to normal I want to work on making sure that
> this never happens again.
>
>>One thing I learned to do in a previous life, when I helped
>>administer a Sun III, was to mark unmounted filesystems.  Use
>>mkdir as usual to create the mountpoint directory (mkdir blorfl),
>>then immediately do a "touch blorfl/not_mounted".  When you do
>>a directory listing of blorfl, it should show "not_mounted" only.
>>If there are other files there, you've got a problem.
>
> The 'not mounted' file is a good idea. There is a
> folder /media/jjj/Synology and that is where the Synology is mounted.
>>From fstab:
>
>   192.168.1.115:/volume1/Synology /media/jjj/Synology nfs
>   auto,user 0 0
>   #it took me a long time to get that fstab line right
>
> And here is the rsync command:
>
>rsync -rptog --progress --stats --delete
>--exclude-from=/media/jjj/Movies/rsync_exclusions 
> /media/jjj/Movies/
> /media/jjj/Synology
>
> It seems to me that maybe a simple way to make sure this never happens
> again is to modify the rsync command so that if the Synology is not
> mounted the command aborts. Even better, if it aborts it should send me
> a message so I know that things are amiss. Wait ... a pop-up with
> gxmessage would be better. OK, this sounds like I need a script instead
> of just a raw command.
>
>   if  then gxmessage "Movies backup failed"
>   else rsync -rptog ... etc.
>
Something along the lines of:

#! /bin/bash
#
grep -i synology /etc/mtab
if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
   gxmessage "Movies backup failed"
else
 rsync -rptog --progress --stats --delete
--exclude-from=/media/jjj/Movies/rsync_exclusions /media/jjj/Movies/
/media/jjj/Synology
fi

(I'm using -i on the grep command to make it a case insensitive match)

Please watch wrapping in there

> I can do really, really simple bash scripts but I don't know how to do
> . Also unsure about bash syntax for if-then-else.
> Oh, and gxmessage is installed, as I use it to pop up a list of Unicode
> values for characters in IPA.
>
> Thanks a major bunch to you and everyone else who helped. Next time we
> meet I owe you a beer! Several beers!
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Re: [PLUG] Compile issue: libraries present but not seen [FIXED]

[tim]

On 2017-09-03 10:18, Rich Shepard wrote:
> On Sun, 3 Sep 2017, Rich Shepard wrote:
> 
>>   I'm trying to build gnucash-2.6.17 on my Slackware-14.2/32-bit 
>> system. The
>> build fails because make cannot find libgnc-gnome, which is in turn
>> dependent on libgtk-x11. Both are present on this host.
> 
>Found the answer: run ldd on the library not found and check its
> dependencies. When I did this I found two libraries of an earlier 
> version
> from the one installed. Made soft links to from the existing one to the
> version number gnucash seeks.
> 
>Gnucash built, installed, and runs.

Congratulations.  You may still want to shop around for some cheap 
64-bit machines, though.

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Re: [PLUG] newegg security

[Tim]

> OK, tried it again this morning and got the insecure connection problem
> again.  I also tried it with Chrome and got a similar security warning.
> Could someone else please try these two addresses and report if you see
> a similar problem?  To the best of my knowledge, both of these are
> Newegg IPs.
> 
> https://38.95.229.188
> https://216.52.208.188


HTTPS certificate validation will fail if you are not accessing the
web server using the site's appropriate DNS domain name.  Public HTTPS
certificates cannot be issued for IP addresses, so the URLs you
included are guaranteed to fail validation.

tim
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Re: [PLUG] Linux / Android Security?

[Tim]

Hi Mike,

You should consider coming to OWASP meetings as well.  One of them is
tonight, which unfortunately conflicts with RainSec, but that doesn't
typically happen.  We post our event notices a variety of places, but
Calagator is where all the info typically resides:
  http://calagator.org/events/1250471438

You don't need to be a security expert to attend RainSec or OWASP.
Just come to learn and meet people.

I could point you to various resources on what else you could read up
on to expand your security knowledge, but I'm not sure what your goals
are.  Information security is a very broad set of topics and many
might bore you...

tim


On Mon, Apr 24, 2017 at 07:36:29PM -0700, Mike C. wrote:
> Perhaps I've missed Security oriented threads and/or PLUG Talks, but I'm 
> very interested in connecting with other security wonks. It's one of the 
> many reasons I chose Linux a decade ago.
> 
> I went to a couple of talks in town on cyber security & privacy. They 
> were both sparsely attended. I learned a few new tips & tricks, but 
> mostly went home with a bunch of questions to research.
> 
> I listen to the Security Now! podcast. I've worked w. Firewalls, VPNs, 
> Tripwire, and other "bolt-on" technology. But there's so much I don't 
> know and I feel like a cyber security victim in the waiting from 
> governments, criminals, corporations, etc
> 
> There's a monthly RainSec meetup. It's intended for "Security 
> Professionals". Which I'm technically not. Has anyone attended a RainSec 
> meetup?
> 
> There's also the Beer of Trust PGP Key-Signing events, 
> http://calagator.org/events/1250471462, which I unfortunately keep missing.
> 
> I'm also not just interested in the tools and best practices, but also 
> how they intersect with our constitutional rights and freedoms.
> 
> So, what's the ask, you're thinking. I guess I'm wondering if there are 
> any Linux / Android Security Pros and/or wonks on PLUG and what the 
> group interest level is on PLUG talks on cyber security & privacy.
> 
> Thank you,
> 
> Mike
> 
> 
> 
> 
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Re: [PLUG] What does this message mean?

[tim]

I tell it "download now" and it grinds away for a while, then pops up 
the same message.

Maybe it's a permissions thing (oh joy).

On 2017-01-16 12:31, Bruce Kilpatrick wrote:
> It is trying to install a package of M$ fonts (I think from the
> restricted repository).  I told it to download now, and it finished
> the installation.
> 
> Bruce
> 
> On 01/16/2017 10:04 AM, Tim Wescott wrote:
>> I keep getting this message from the Ubuntu 16.04 package upgrader:
>> 
>> quote -->
>> 
>> Failure to download extra data files
>> 
>> The following packages requested additional data downloads after
>> package installation, but the data could not be downloaded or could 
>> not
>> be processed.
>> 
>> ttf-mscorefonts-installer
>> 
>> The download will be attempted again later, or you can try the 
>> download
>> again now.  Running this command requires an active Internet
>> connection.
>> 
>> <-- unquote
>> 
>> Various light messing around with apt (update and upgrade, nothing
>> more) hasn't cleared the problem.
>> 

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[PLUG] What does this message mean?

[Tim Wescott]

I keep getting this message from the Ubuntu 16.04 package upgrader:

quote -->

Failure to download extra data files

The following packages requested additional data downloads after
package installation, but the data could not be downloaded or could not
be processed.

ttf-mscorefonts-installer

The download will be attempted again later, or you can try the download
again now.  Running this command requires an active Internet
connection.

<-- unquote

Various light messing around with apt (update and upgrade, nothing
more) hasn't cleared the problem.

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Phone: 503.631.7815
Cell:  503.349.8432



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Re: [PLUG] My Firefox 50.1.0 hack

[Tim Abraldes]

On Sat, Jan 14, 2017 at 9:26 PM, Denis Heidtmann 
wrote:

> Is there anybody here who is willing to explain (to a novice) how this is
> possible?  I too have encountered a similar behavior, but was fortunate
> enough to not have any tabs I needed to save.  I believe when I had the
> problem I was running Chrome.
>

I'm not a detective of any sort, but I know a little bit about web
development. Below is my analysis after looking at the source for the page
in the original post:
  The browser has a handful of window-modal dialogs that restrict you from
interacting with anything (e.g. other tabs) before you respond to the
dialog. One of them is window.confirm [1] which this page makes heavy use
of. They set up window.confirm calls to happen whenever the mouse moves
(per the mousemove event [3]) and also on a timer, using window.setInterval
[4]. They also use the beforeunload event [2] to try to stop you from
leaving the page or closing the tab.

[1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Window/confirm
[2] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Events/beforeunload
[3] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Events/mousemove
[4]
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/WindowOrWorkerGlobalScope/setInterval
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Re: [PLUG] My Firefox 50.1.0 hack

[Tim Abraldes]

The best course of action is probably to report the site with Google's Safe
Browsing Service:
 https://safebrowsing.google.com/safebrowsing/report_badware/?hl=en

Firefox uses Google's Safe Browsing Service [1] so reporting there will
also help Firefox users.

Ideally you would also file a bug with Firefox so that the developers can
examine the page and take appropriate action:
 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/


[1]
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-does-phishing-and-malware-protection-work#w_how-does-phishing-and-malware-protection-work-in-firefox


On Sat, Jan 14, 2017 at 1:42 PM, John Jason Jordan  wrote:

> Firefox 50.1.0 on Xubuntu 14.04 up to date.
>
> I clicked on a link that took me to wik.galert.info (DON'T GO THERE!).
> This page pops up a little window warning me that authentication is
> required, and the window claims that there is a virus that is sending
> my credit card, etc., and that this notice is from Microsoft
> (including Microsoft logos on the page). Naturally, I'm not so stupid
> that I would respond to what is surely phishing. However, I haven't
> found a way to close the popup window or the tab. I shut down Firefox
> and then restarted it, but at the time I had several windows open, each
> with numerous tabs, so to restore my session I clicked on History >
> Restore previous session. This brought back the offending tab and its
> popup window. There is also a long repeating audio message "critical
> alert from Microsoft." And the mouse is disabled everywhere on Firefox.
>
> What is interesting is that this window and the tab cannot be closed.
> In fact, I cannot close any of the tabs in any of the windows. But I
> was able to bookmark each tab, so I could shut down Firefox and then
> recreate my windows and tabs, except the offending tab, of course.
>
> I have never had an experience like this. I am curious how they hacked
> Firefox so the user cannot close tabs or popups.
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[PLUG] Coffee mug

[Tim Wescott]

I know this is outside of what the list is for -- but it's
entertaining.  Just smack me if I'm going too far, and I'll remember.
 The ad is interactive; you have to mouse over the mug for maximum
effect.

https://www.gearbubble.com/changcoffeez

-- 

Tim Wescott
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Control & Communications systems, circuit & software design.
Phone: 503.631.7815
Cell:  503.349.8432



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[PLUG] Old storage -- stand down

[Tim Wescott]

Thank you very much to the folks who responded.  

With the snow and it's impact on schedules my wife decided that a 5-1/4 
inch floppy would be good enough if I could dig some out -- and I
could, so we're set.

(And the fact that last night she held her hands about five inches
apart and said "this is how big an 8" floppy is, right?".  Everyone
descended from my dad has a built-in tape measure in our heads -- so
the notion that someone wouldn't have an instinctive grasp of how big
an eight inch floppy was kind of caught me by surprise.  But then, it
does every time.)

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Control & Communications systems, circuit & software design.
Phone: 503.631.7815
Cell:  503.349.8432



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[PLUG] Anyone got old storage?

[tim]

My wife will be giving a talk next Tuesday about storage technology.  
She's looking for late '70's, early '80's computer storage media that 
she may have used in her youth -- 8" floppies, paper tape (preferably 
with something punched on it), punch cards, etc.  She did mention that 
she's not interested in any 24" diameter 100MB disk packs, though.

The oldest media that we have, if we can find it at all, is some 5 1/4" 
floppies: it would be nice to have something older.

Anyone got something to lend?  We'll pick up.

Thanks.

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Re: [PLUG] Java jar file does not run as expected

[Tim Bruce - PLUG]

Rich,

I don't think there's a 9.6 version for JDBC.  The most current version
I've found is 9.4 (but that should work just fine - even with Postgres
9.6).

I got it from this website:

https://jdbc.postgresql.org/download.html

But I just discovered I'm using an outdated version myself.  I think it
should be the *1212* version rather than the 9.4-1201 Version I specified.
 I just haven't tired it yet.

YMMV

Tim
-- 
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visit my Website at: http://www.tbruce.com
Registered Linux User #325725

On Tue, December 27, 2016 12:02, Rich Shepard wrote:
> On Tue, 27 Dec 2016, Timothy J. Bruce wrote:
>> We use schema spy pretty heavily at work. The following may be a good
start.
> Hi Tim,
>> The assumption is that the following files are in the same directory
(links are for my convenience):
>> -rw-rw-r-- 1 tjb 648487 Jun 11  2015 postgresql-9.4-1201.jdbc41.jar
>I think that this is the issue; I don't have a
> postgresql-9.6*.jdbc*.jar
> file. I had tried all options other than the jdbc because I thought
schemaSpy would find it on the system and would tell me if it was not
found.
>Have you any idea where I might find a copy (I don't suppose the
> distribution makes any difference; it's a compiled .jar file)?
> Thanks,
> Rich
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Re: [PLUG] Firefox: remove incorrect 'place'

[Tim Abraldes]

I would think that the solution is to remove that entry from your history
(by navigating to your history in the Firefox UI and deleting the entry
there). I'm not in front of my machine to test that theory.

On Dec 6, 2016 14:37, "Rich Shepard"  wrote:

>Some time in the past I inadvertently entered the URL as
> slackbuilds.com
> rather than as slackbuilds.org. Now, every time I open a tab and start
> typing the URL firefox automatically fills in the .com version.
>
>In ~/.mozilla/firefox/83.../ I grep'd for the .com name and found it in
> places.sqlite. Opening that database I checked the moz_places table and
> found that row; deleted it.
>
>But, it still autofills even after killing firefox and restarting it. I
> cannot find it in another database or non-binary file and have no idea
> where
> to locate the offending name. Is there a way to find and remove it?
>
> Rich
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Re: [PLUG] I have an Ansible joke...

[Tim]

> Because I am doing much operating systems work at the shell, this may be 
> "most of what I do". :( Note that often lua is chosen in close-to-the-OS 
> situations.

I'm really not sure *why* there's such a performance hit in some
libraries, and it probably varies from one library to the next.
Obviously when spawning any external program, you will always take a
big hit no matter which language you're calling from.  If you can
batch together as much of your library work as possible, you should be
able to get by.

Another nugget of info: I have a library I wrote in C and wrote some
Python bindings for it.  Typical use cases require a lot of
back-and-forth between Python and the library.  Tests under Python 3.x
were 10%-20% faster than 2.x.


> > Have you looked at the Python profilers?  This may require you to run
> > the process again under the profiler (can't attach to a running
> > process, AFAIK), but it's an option.
> 
> Obviously I haven't. As in: https://docs.python.org/2/library/profile.html ?

Yup, exactly.  I haven't used them a lot, but that would be a good
starting point.

> Thanks!

No prob.

tim
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Re: [PLUG] I have an Ansible joke...

[Tim]

> Useful was never the question. Perfomant, your mileage may vary.

Python tends to be *very* fast.  

Right up until you try to interact with a C/C++ library.  

Basically, any time Python executes native libraries (e.g. sqlite,
libssl, whatever) to do something, there's a big performance hit on
that one transaction.  I don't know why that performance hit is so
bad, but I just tend to write my code to minimize the number of
Python<->C transitions.  Large queries and large result sets, small
number of queries, etc.

Of course with any garbage collected language, you could have
situations where circular references or unnecessary left over
references cause processes to use way more memory than needed.  Or
people do foolish things like repeatedly search lists when they could
be using a dict, but that's just bad coding.


> I am working with project where everyone is love with Python, resulting 
> in top(1) showing a dozen python processes.
> 
> truss does not seem to provide many insights for them and I will try 
> adding the separate debug symbols.
> 
> Can you suggest any other strategies for inspecting a running Python 
> process?

Have you looked at the Python profilers?  This may require you to run
the process again under the profiler (can't attach to a running
process, AFAIK), but it's an option.

tim

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Re: [PLUG] Word List

[Tim Wescott]

Even if none of them seem to have "phonon" (speaking of Richard's
reference to Scrabble).

On Mon, 2016-08-01 at 14:29 -0700, Michael Rasmussen wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 01, 2016 at 01:58:51PM -0700, Tim Wescott wrote:
> > I feel a need for some concentrated word play.
> > 
> > Is there a word list (i.e., a spelling dictionary or similar) that would
> > (A) be found in most standard Linux distributions (or at least Ubuntu),
> > and (B) be in plain text format or some other easy-to-parse format?
> > 
> > I'd like to be able to do regex searches on all the words in the English
> > language.
>  
> /usr/share/dict/ used to be the standard. 
> Improved spell checkers don't use an alpabetical plain text file anymore. 
> 
> well, that's disappointing.
> 
> Aspell has some binary format. 
> 
> You might install the mythes package - its word index is | 
> so you can parse that.
> 
> A bit of Googling brought good news though. 
> https://superuser.com/questions/137957/how-to-convert-aspell-dictionary-to-simple-list-of-words
> 
> replace the PL given in the example with en and you'll have a list of words.
> 
> 

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Phone: 503.631.7815
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Re: [PLUG] Word List

[Tim Wescott]

Bingo.  /usr/share/dict/ has several word lists.

I knew it was in there, someplace.

On Mon, 2016-08-01 at 14:29 -0700, Michael Rasmussen wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 01, 2016 at 01:58:51PM -0700, Tim Wescott wrote:
> > I feel a need for some concentrated word play.
> > 
> > Is there a word list (i.e., a spelling dictionary or similar) that would
> > (A) be found in most standard Linux distributions (or at least Ubuntu),
> > and (B) be in plain text format or some other easy-to-parse format?
> > 
> > I'd like to be able to do regex searches on all the words in the English
> > language.
>  
> /usr/share/dict/ used to be the standard. 
> Improved spell checkers don't use an alpabetical plain text file anymore. 
> 
> well, that's disappointing.
> 
> Aspell has some binary format. 
> 
> You might install the mythes package - its word index is | 
> so you can parse that.
> 
> A bit of Googling brought good news though. 
> https://superuser.com/questions/137957/how-to-convert-aspell-dictionary-to-simple-list-of-words
> 
> replace the PL given in the example with en and you'll have a list of words.
> 
> 

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Re: [PLUG] Word List

[Tim Bruce - PLUG]

Something other than /usr/share/dict/american-english

It exists in Ubuntu.  Red Hat/Centos doesn't have it by default, but maybe
it's an optional package we don't install at work.

yum search dictionary does show this, however:

words.noarch : A dictionary of English words for the /usr/share/dict
directory

T
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On Mon, August 1, 2016 13:58, Tim Wescott wrote:
> I feel a need for some concentrated word play.
>
> Is there a word list (i.e., a spelling dictionary or similar) that would
> (A) be found in most standard Linux distributions (or at least Ubuntu),
> and (B) be in plain text format or some other easy-to-parse format?
>
> I'd like to be able to do regex searches on all the words in the English
> language.
>
> --
>
> Tim Wescott
> www.wescottdesign.com
> Control & Communications systems, circuit & software design.
> Phone: 503.631.7815
> Cell:  503.349.8432
>
>
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[PLUG] Word List

[Tim Wescott]

I feel a need for some concentrated word play.

Is there a word list (i.e., a spelling dictionary or similar) that would
(A) be found in most standard Linux distributions (or at least Ubuntu),
and (B) be in plain text format or some other easy-to-parse format?

I'd like to be able to do regex searches on all the words in the English
language.

-- 

Tim Wescott
www.wescottdesign.com
Control & Communications systems, circuit & software design.
Phone: 503.631.7815
Cell:  503.349.8432


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[PLUG] Limiting memory to a program

[Tim Wescott]

I have a program (Scilab), which occasionally decides that it's hungry
and wants to eat lots and lots of memory.  This seems to be dependent on
what code I'm running (Scilab includes an interpreted data-analysis
language).

Something about the way that Ubuntu is set up lets it use up so much
memory that it bogs down my computer to the point where I need to do a
hard reboot.  I think that it's hitting swap so hard that the normal
rationing of processor time to processes is hijacked by memory
availability.

Once I'm done rattling the appropriate bars at Scilab.org with a bug
report, is there a way to launch a program under Linux that limits its
memory access, either by total amount or in a way that'll throttle down
just that program when it goes to swap?

-- 

Tim Wescott
www.wescottdesign.com
Control & Communications systems, circuit & software design.
Phone: 503.631.7815
Cell:  503.349.8432


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Re: [PLUG] Kernel panic?

[Tim Wescott]

Oh, I know why I haven't reported the bug -- it's because when you try,
Ubuntu's bug base put you on this goddamned web-page merry-go-round,
with buttons that you would think would put you into a bug report form,
but instead go to things like a generic page on reporting bugs, a page
on how to tell if you have a bug (my computer locks up -- duh), and god
knows what else because at that point I figured that Ubuntu is trying to
be like Microsoft.

Grrr.

On Sun, 2016-05-15 at 21:17 -0700, John Jason Jordan wrote:
> About a week ago I added a USB 3.0 external DVD drive to my laptop. It
> has been working fine. Today I disconnected it when I took the computer
> to the Clinic. Also, before going to the Clinic I installed all the
> recent updates for the OS (Xubuntu 14.04). There were a lot of updates,
> including a new kernel. The laptop functioned fine at the Clinic.
> 
> Back home I reconnected the new DVD drive, and used it to rip and encode
> a DVD from my collection. This went perfectly. Then I started to rip
> and encode a second DVD, but this one hung at 85%, probably due to the
> media being scratched. I was encoding with Handbrake, so I stopped the
> encoding, but Handbrake would not stop. This has been a bug in
> Handbrake for a long time, although the upgrades I did this morning
> included a new version. In the past I could simply kill Handbrake, then
> manually eject the DVD. When I did so this time the computer hung - no
> keyboard, no mouse. (No I don't have a way to SSH into it.) 
> 
> I powered down and restarted it, then I cleaned the DVD media and tried
> again. And once again, Handbrake hung on about 85%. I killed Handbrake
> again, but this time the DVD light was still flickering. So I pressed
> the eject button several times, and was suddenly greeted with a black
> screen full of unintelligible command-line type text, and two lights
> were flashing (hard drive and numlock? - can't remember which is
> which). 
> 
> Again, I rebooted and everything is fine. 
> 
> This happened to me once a number of years ago and I was told that
> flashing lights mean a kernel panic. Beyond that I know nothing. 
> 
> I need suggestions.
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> 
> 

-- 

Tim Wescott
www.wescottdesign.com
Control & Communications systems, circuit & software design.
Phone: 503.631.7815
Cell:  503.349.8432


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Re: [PLUG] Kernel panic?

[Tim Wescott]

This has been happening to me off and on since the upgrade to
3.16.0-71-generic (64-bit).  70-generic would just randomly panic, so
until 71 came out I was running 69-generic.  71-generic seems to panic
sometimes when I plug in my Android phone, or when I dismount it -- but
it hasn't shown problems with my Cannon PowerShot S3IS (cameras are the
only "removable media" I've been using lately).

You may just want to run 69-generic.

Have you sent in a bug report?  (Have I sent in a bug report?  No, but
I think I should!)

On Sun, 2016-05-15 at 21:17 -0700, John Jason Jordan wrote:
> About a week ago I added a USB 3.0 external DVD drive to my laptop. It
> has been working fine. Today I disconnected it when I took the computer
> to the Clinic. Also, before going to the Clinic I installed all the
> recent updates for the OS (Xubuntu 14.04). There were a lot of updates,
> including a new kernel. The laptop functioned fine at the Clinic.
> 
> Back home I reconnected the new DVD drive, and used it to rip and encode
> a DVD from my collection. This went perfectly. Then I started to rip
> and encode a second DVD, but this one hung at 85%, probably due to the
> media being scratched. I was encoding with Handbrake, so I stopped the
> encoding, but Handbrake would not stop. This has been a bug in
> Handbrake for a long time, although the upgrades I did this morning
> included a new version. In the past I could simply kill Handbrake, then
> manually eject the DVD. When I did so this time the computer hung - no
> keyboard, no mouse. (No I don't have a way to SSH into it.) 
> 
> I powered down and restarted it, then I cleaned the DVD media and tried
> again. And once again, Handbrake hung on about 85%. I killed Handbrake
> again, but this time the DVD light was still flickering. So I pressed
> the eject button several times, and was suddenly greeted with a black
> screen full of unintelligible command-line type text, and two lights
> were flashing (hard drive and numlock? - can't remember which is
> which). 
> 
> Again, I rebooted and everything is fine. 
> 
> This happened to me once a number of years ago and I was told that
> flashing lights mean a kernel panic. Beyond that I know nothing. 
> 
> I need suggestions.
> _______
> PLUG mailing list
> PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org
> http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
> 
> 

-- 

Tim Wescott
www.wescottdesign.com
Control & Communications systems, circuit & software design.
Phone: 503.631.7815
Cell:  503.349.8432


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Re: [PLUG] Slightly OT: Good HTML design books

[tim]

On 2016-04-15 07:05, Louis Kowolowski wrote:
>> On Apr 14, 2016, at 4:56 PM, Joe Shisei Niski  
>> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> On 04/14/2016 12:31 PM, Tim Wescott wrote:
>>> All my web pages are pre-cellphone, and Google has already bitched at 
>>> me
>>> about formatting.
>>> 
>>> At this point I'm pretty sure that I should be using HTML 5.0 -- but 
>>> I'm
>>> not sure.
>>> 
>>> Can anyone recommend a good book for web page design that'll bring me 
>>> up
>>> to date?  I've got several sites that I take care of that I'd like to
>>> start updating.
>>> 
>>> Thanks.
>>> 
>> Rather than a book, I'd recommend a framework/toolkit that supports
>> "responsive design", i.e. code a page once  and let the framework 
>> adjust
>> its appearance based on the size & orientation of the browser window.
>> Google's Angular.js is the framework I've used. It uses client-side
>> javascript for rendering, copes well with all the major browsers and
>> with html 4 and 5. You code in both html and javascript, and the
>> framework offers a slew of higher-level functions for rendering
>> specialized layouts and controls.
>> 
>> The downside is that it's a framework and takes some learning.; the
>> upside is that there's a ton of good online tutorials and support (and 
>> a
>> few physical books) because it's a very successful Google tool.  
>> Whether
>> it's too much for your needs only you can determine.
>> 
> ++
> 
> What kind of site are you wanting to create and maintain?
> 

Hi Louis.

Simple static webpages -- basically extended brochures.  These are the 
sites that I'm currently responsible for:

www.wescottdesign.com
www.atomiczombieworkshop.com
www.funflyers.org

(Note that most of the public content of the funflyers site is mine, but 
I inherited it from a guy who authored it on some Microsoft product, and 
haven't converted it entirely).

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[PLUG] Slightly OT: Good HTML design books

[Tim Wescott]

All my web pages are pre-cellphone, and Google has already bitched at me
about formatting.

At this point I'm pretty sure that I should be using HTML 5.0 -- but I'm
not sure.

Can anyone recommend a good book for web page design that'll bring me up
to date?  I've got several sites that I take care of that I'd like to
start updating.

Thanks.

-- 

Tim Wescott
www.wescottdesign.com
Control & Communications systems, circuit & software design.
Phone: 503.631.7815
Cell:  503.349.8432


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Re: [PLUG] Guiding a geographically remote friend from Windows to Linux

[Tim Wescott]

Yup. Most importantly I know that if my suggestion is of base for his friend, 
Richard will go another direction with no slight assumed or taken. 


Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE smartphone

 Original message 
From: Richard Owlett  
Date: 03/27/2016  1:44 PM  (GMT-08:00) 
To: plug@lists.pdxlinux.org 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Guiding a geographically remote friend from Windows to
  Linux 

On 3/27/2016 2:33 PM, Tyrell Jentink wrote:
[snip]
>
> The OP never stated WHY he felt Microsoft-like behavior was evil, or even
> WHAT makes something Microsoft-like... [snip]

Tim operating on information you didn't have.
He's known  for several years. I also assume he agrees with the 
logic behind your reply to my post.


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Re: [PLUG] Guiding a geographically remote friend from Windows to Linux

[Tim Wescott]

That's a good point - I've had Ubuntu updates screw things up. I've just 
adopted a strategy of putting in a new hard drive whenever X.04 comes out and 
doing a clean install. It sounds like that's not for him. 


Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE smartphone

 Original message 
From: Richard Owlett  
Date: 03/27/2016  1:38 PM  (GMT-07:00) 
To: plug@lists.pdxlinux.org 
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Guiding a geographically remote friend from Windows to
  Linux 

On 3/27/2016 11:05 AM, Tim Wescott wrote:
>
>
> Check Xubuntu for usability. Most of Ubuntu's Microsoft like qualities are in 
> the desktop, and Xubuntu puts Xfce on top of Ubuntu. Lubuntu is a 
> possibility, too. (I use Xubuntu, for much the reasons you quote).

Remember you introduced me to the Debian family in the first 
place. Besides their default UI I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable 
having having him on something using a rolling release 
philosophy. I only sporadically follow Ubuntu related groups, 
does that create any problems in the real world? As to which UI, 
I'd have look at each of them. The choice would depend more 
heavily on "human factors" than technical specs.

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Re: [PLUG] Guiding a geographically remote friend from Windows to Linux

[Tim Wescott]

Check Xubuntu for usability. Most of Ubuntu's Microsoft like qualities are in 
the desktop, and Xubuntu puts Xfce on top of Ubuntu. Lubuntu is a possibility, 
too. (I use Xubuntu, for much the reasons you quote).

Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE smartphone

 Original message 
From: Richard Owlett  
Date: 03/27/2016  7:05 AM  (GMT-08:00) 
To: plug@lists.pdxlinux.org 
Subject: [PLUG] Guiding a geographically remote friend from Windows to Linux 

I live in SW Missouri (or as one wag in the group has put it) "He 
lives out past Estacada, even." My friend lives in Upstate NY. 
Yes I realize that long distance support will create problems. 
Not doing it is not an option.

What I suggest will be either Debian or Debian based because that 
is what I will be using. It will NOT be Ubuntu as Canonical is 
aiming at the same market as Microsoft and comes up with similar 
solutions on the operator interface. That is where His primary 
problem apparently is. [Based on having known him and is wife for 
~50 years.] For the same reason Gnome3 is out. I'm leaning 
towards Mate as DE.

I'll take a two pronged approach. I have an old laptop on which 
I'll install what I think is a reasonable approximation of what 
he needs and he would find comfortable using.

The second prong requires more homework on my part and is what 
motivates this post.

I'm looking for suggestions for tools to look at an unknown 
system and report on the installed hardware -especially CPU, 
clock speed, RAM, and networking hardware.

Windows software [suitable for WinXP or later] would be nice. I 
would put it on a flash drive with an appropriate bat file. He 
would run it on each of his machines and return the drive to me 
via snail mail. [Did you note the lack of user input required ;]

The second option is for me to create a LiveCD [don't know if all 
his machines can boot from a flash drive]. There would be a 
script which would write the information to a flash drive I 
supplied. That drive would have an appropriate UUID.

Comments, other than I'm ... ?
TIA




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[PLUG] Joomla! Unauthenticated Remote Code Execution

[Tim Morgan]

I figured a few of you might run Joomla! or know of someone who does.
This will surely result in a lot of breaches.

https://developer.joomla.org/security-centre/630-20151214-core-remote-code-execution-vulnerability.html
https://www.joomla.org/announcements/release-news/5641-joomla-3-4-6-released.html
https://blog.sucuri.net/2015/12/remote-command-execution-vulnerability-in-joomla.html


tim
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Re: [PLUG] imap server that allows ssl certificate based authentication?

[Tim]

> So, you seem also to be using mutt with dovecot
> 
>   User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.24 (2015-08-30)

Well, not quite... I found Mutt's IMAP support was lacking.  Also,
since I run a business off of my mail infrastructure, I am forced to
use things like Thunderbird to manage meeting invites and the like,
etc.  So mutt is for personal mail via SSH, and IMAP is for work
stuff.


> Agreed!  I love socat!
> 
> It does not support client SSL certificate handling, but it is a 
> wonderful and lightweight CLI and can also function in a pinch as a 
> capable, if modest server.  I love that it can connect to just about 
> any kind of file or socket.  So much more flexible than 'nc'.

Ok, good to know about the lack of client cert handling.

tim
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Re: [PLUG] imap server that allows ssl certificate based authentication?

[Tim]

> Personally, I like combining passwords and tokens (the old "what I have and
> what I know" combo). I've been using password-based IMAP transported over
> certificate-based OpenVPN, which does the trick for me.
> 
> I readily acknowledge that my solution isn't really what you're hoping to
> use. Still, it's flexible enough so that all sorts of services that
> traditionally rely on passwords (SMTP AUTH, web services, plus IMAP) can be
> wrapped in a certificate-authenticated connection.


I made this same decision about authenticated IMAP.  I run OpenVPN on
my laptop and it works fine.  It is usually quite good about
recovering when network connectivity comes and goes.  If you're
already using OpenVPN for other things, it is a logical choice to skip
using certificates with each individual service.

The trouble I ran into, though, was with OpenVPN on my Android.  I
can't get it working at all, and I've spent countless hours trying to
debug it (with root access on my phone, sniffing at both ends, etc).
The OpenVPN client connects, successfully authenticates, and then
nothing happens.  No packets at all are transmitted over the
established connection.  It is super frustrating, and no OpenVPN folks
stepped up to help me figure it out.  I'm just hoping with the next
Android phone it will magically work...

Ok, enough venting.


> It has the further benefit that you only need to contact one remote port,
> reducing the chance that a local firewall will become an obstacle to your
> session.

Yup.  You can run OpenVPN on unusual ports (e.g. 53/UDP) that are
often allowed outbound without filtering.  In addition, if you use the
tls-auth option with a UDP port, attackers can't even tell the OpenVPN
service is running on you rserver unless they know the pre-auth
symmetric key. (This is kinda like a group password checked on the
very first packet before certificate authentication is performed.)

tim
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Re: [PLUG] imap server that allows ssl certificate based authentication?

[Tim]

> Courier is v4.9.1 - it was chosen years ago and the decision has not be 
> revisited. Not that I'm adverse to doing so.

I recently chose dovecot over courier and it has been working out
pretty well.  If it has integrated certificate support and isn't too
hard to set up, that might be your best option.  I considered doing
that as well, but since my cell phone email client didn't support
client certificates at the time, I never followed through.


> stunnel would work, I'll weigh it vs coercing imap server to fit my whim.

In past projects I've always found stunnel to be confusing and buggy.
There are several versions of it and the newer versions just seemed to
confuse things more.  Recently I've switched to socat for similar
features.  It's far more of a swiss army knife, but also more
intuitive for me.  I've never looked into using it for IMAP access
(and how you'd handle user identity info, or whatever) so it would be
a DIY project of sorts, but it is worth looking into.


> I now have a working system and the improvements will be incremental.
> 
> FWIW - this all started when I wanted to run mutt from my laptop instead of 
> sshing to my server for email.  
> In past trials I've found Thunderbird to be slow and ugly and web mail 
> options to be cumbersome. 

sshfs might be an option, though probably slow...

HTH,
tim
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Re: [PLUG] Multi host init system?

[Tim Bruce - PLUG]

Would something like Rundeck work for you?

http://rundeck.org/

T
-- 
Timothy J. Bruce


On Thu, July 9, 2015 16:34, Michael Rasmussen wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 09, 2015 at 01:17:15PM -0700, Michael Rasmussen wrote:
>> I have an app that is distributed across a dozen servers.
>> There are several processes involved, some with dependencies on
>> processes running on other servers.
>>
>> What app would you recommend for starting the whole thing up in an
>> orderly manner?
>
> Clarification: the system uses SuSE and this cannot be changed.
>
> --
>   Michael Rasmussen, Portland Oregon
> Be Appropriate && Follow Your Curiosity
> You're suddenly worried about how much is in your retirement account,
> but other people are worried about how much is on their dinner plate
> tonight.
> ~ Rick Steves on the economy March 2009
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Re: [PLUG] EMF help needed

[tim]

It's more likely that the fan is causing a power drag that is affecting 
your monitor.

A UPS may be your best bet, if you can stand the beeping when the fan 
acts up.

On 2015-06-25 17:24, Fred James wrote:
> I live on the top floor of an apartment building with a flat roof ...
> apparently under a roof top ventilation fan.
> 
> My monitor, a ViewSonic flat screen LED screen, blinks and flickers
> during certain periods but only when the roof fan is running.  I cannot
> tell if the interference is coming directly from the fan, or possibly
> from electric wires that may be in the wall?
> 
> I have been playing with a couple sheets of aluminum foil on the wall
> behind the monitor ... maybe it is just my imagination, but that seems
> to help a little bit?  And sometimes it seems that it doesn't.
> 
> Any suggestions?  Thank you
> Regards
> Fred James
> 
> 
> 
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[PLUG] Advanced Topics Tonight?

[Tim Bruce - PLUG]

Is there a plug Advanced Topics meeting tonight?  I don't remember seeing
an announcement

-- 
Timothy J. Bruce

visit my Website at: http://www.tbruce.com
Registered Linux User #325725



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Re: [PLUG] FTP-response clarification

[Tim]

> the concern is with tracking what people on the inside transfer to locations 
> on the outside.
> We can't control the services made available outside.

You can block the port outbound.  If the DLP can detect FTP in
general, surely it could block FTP on other ports as well based on
handshake inspection.

FTP is really problematic for a number of reasons.  Can it be
configured securely?  Yeah, but only after lots of testing and
requring clients use specific software in specific configurations.
I too recommend it just be blocked.  If a user has a legit reason to
use it, first try to convince them and the service they are using to
leverage an alternative.  Failing that, whitelist only that site and
encourage FTPS/SFTP.

tim
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Re: [PLUG] RAM Hammer

[Tim]

> The most recent closed source Memtest86 v6.0 has a ramhammer test.
> Available for gratis download to a USB key.
> 
> The open source memtest.org, which is loosely linked to the proprietary
> project, is at v5.0 , no ramhammer test yet.
> 
> I will download the free version of the proprietary test and try it
> out on a few machines.  When the memtest.org folk catch up, I will
> add memtest86+ v6.0 to my boot options.


I believe the folks that brought this to the attention of the security
world last summer did use memtest86(+) to create a proof-of-concept,
so you may be able to install that version.

Or better yet, just use the userspace tool that the Google guys
released:
  https://github.com/google/rowhammer-test

tim
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Re: [PLUG] Vulnerable Hardware (was: Internet of Exploitable Things (was Seagate NAS))

[Tim]

> So all you need to do is carry around an ECC-equipped desktop or server
> (along with cables, monitor, keyboard, pointing device) and you're secure.
> Simple fix!

=)  

Well... Not quite.

ECC helps, for sure.  But if you read the first security-oriented
paper on row hammer (linked to in the one I sent earlier):
  http://users.ece.cmu.edu/~yoonguk/papers/kim-isca14.pdf

They indicate that it simple ECC mechanisms are not adeqate to prevent
all flips:
 "For example, SECDED (single error-correction, double errordetection)
  can correct only a single-bit error within a 64-bit
  word. If a word contains two victims, however, SECDED
  cannot correct the resulting double-bit error. And for three or
  more victims, SECDED cannot even detect the multi-bit error,
  leading to silent data corruption. Therefore, we conclude
  that SECDED is not failsafe against disturbance errors."


With that said, I'm definitely planning on buying ECC from now on.

tim
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[PLUG] Vulnerable Hardware (was: Internet of Exploitable Things (was Seagate NAS))

[Tim]

Here's a related issue, but far far worse than Seagate/TLS issues:
  
http://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2015/03/exploiting-dram-rowhammer-bug-to-gain.html

Thanks hardware companies for making it impossible to provide local
security on any PC with any OS!

tim
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Re: [PLUG] Five year old unpatched vulnerable in code? That's OK, we're Seagate.

[Tim]

>Apparently a lot of ancient vulnerabilities are still present in current
> software releases. Yesterday's news was that Google and Apple are among the
> Web sites still using the 512-bit encryption madated by the feds as
> export-acceptable in the early- mid-1990s. Apparently, a moderately competent
> cryptanalyst with the power of ~15 servers (which can be accessed at AWS and
> other cloud computing providers) can extract the key in about 7 hours. Oops!
> For whatever the reason, they (and a bunch of others) never upgraded their
> encryption to 1024-bit or 2048-bit. Chrome is apparently not vulnerable, but
> Safari is.
> 
>I don't have the URLs to the articles available or I'd post them here.


Well, it's not *quite* that blatant.  You see, SSL/TLS supports many
different crypto algorithms grouped into "cipher suites".  When the
server and client do their handshake, they agree on the "most secure"
or "most preferred" cipher suite that they both support.  So weak
ciphers *shouldn't* be used, even if both sides support it and an
attacker modifies the handshake.  The handshake modification is
supposed to be detected and rejected if that happens.

I believe this gimmick-y named FREAK vuln is simply a cipher suite
downgrade attack, which allows one to force a weaker cipher suite to
be used.  Cipher suite downgrade vulnerabilities have happened many
times before in many SSL/TLS libs.  If you disable the legacy/weak
cipher suites, then you avoid the issue, but the downgrade is still
the main vulnerability.  SSL/TLS is designed to prevent it, afterall.

In summary, yes, you could argume that those library authors should
have disabled the weak cipher suites a long time ago, but there are
always pressures to minimize compatibility problems.  If the downgrade
vuln didn't exist, it shouldn't be much of a risk to leave them
enabled, provided you have stronger preferred suites, since they'll
almost never be used.  But then the downgrade did happen, didn't it?

tim
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Re: [PLUG] Spyware in hard drive firmware - a reality for 10+ years

[Tim]

> One thing the articles about this problem keep saying and which doesn't
> make complete sense is that "this infection is immune to removal".
> There is a method to get the infection into spare sectors and into
> firmware, which seems to me to mean that there *is* a way to see those
> raw sectors and/or firmware in a such a way as to a) see what's there;
> and b) remodify the firmware.
> 
> It might be that if you are dependent on the firmware to inspect or
> replace the firmware, then the infected firmware could just lie to you
> in order to hide itself.  In which case, these devices really need to
> have some offline way of inspecting their flash sufficient to generate
> dumps and checksums to verify they are running what you think they are
> running.

Yes, that very well may be the case.  Much like kernel-level root kits
that return a clean version of an infected binary upon read(), but run
a different version when and exec system call is run.

Besides, even if a BIOS read did return the infected version, we don't
have any off-the-shelf tools to test for the infection.


> What tools currently exist on linux to inspect the hard disk firmware?
> I recall updating some hard disk firmware (several years ago), but
> perhaps using a vendor supplied freedos-based software kit.

I don't know of any, but I haven't looked.  Similar to BadUSB
research, you'd probably have to reverse engineer the vendor-supplied
HD BIOS update software to figure out how they do it.  It's probably
just a matter of sending a vendor-specific "magic word" over to the
HD.  I know there's been interest in creating open source system
BIOSes, but not sure about HDs.

IMO, HD vendors shouldn't provide a way to update their firmwares over
ATA, unless it involves some serious downtime.  For instance, they
could require that the flashing can only occur after being authorized
directly by the Firmware during a reboot.  Perhaps leverage the ATA
password prompt process to ask the user to type "CONFIRM" or something
very explicit to unlock the flashing capability for that single boot
session.

Same goes for USB firmwares, and any other device firmware.  Either
provide a physical port for re-flashing, or find a way to make it very
hard to secretly flash the firmware.  

It seems cumbersome, but all that scary backdoor stuff people
hypothesized about 15 years ago actually began to happen 10 years ago,
and we're only now finding out about it.

tim
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Re: [PLUG] GIMP alternatives (grump)

[tim]

On 2015-01-23 12:18, Keith Lofstrom wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 23, 2015 at 07:42:20AM -0800, Damon Getsman wrote:
>> >More than should be possible, it's been done.
>> >http://www.gimpshop.com/
>> 
>>   Now that is some fine news.  I'll pass that on a bit; thank you for
>> sharing that valuable tidbit.
> 
> Oops - did you see my comment below that?  gimpshop.com has
> been sniped and compromised, the current downloads infested
> with 3rd party exploits, according to the gimp website.
> 
> Or maybe the gimp website has been compromised.  Or pdxlinux.org
> compromised.  Or kl-ic.com compromised.  I'm hiding under the
> bed until all this computer stuff goes away.
> 
> Keith

It is fortunate, then, that you live in Oregon where there's so much 
good tool stone lying around (basalt is, according to Wikipedia, a good 
stone for chipping tools from, presumably because it's hard and chips in 
a well-controlled manner).
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Re: [PLUG] Server-to-SMS text message service

[Tim Bruce - PLUG]

On Wed, January 21, 2015 16:04, Brian Martin wrote:
> I have a server that sends me SMS messages for important events.  To
> date I've just sent e-mail to my phone's e-mail-to-text address, but
> T-mobile is suddenly having problems getting those messages through to
> me.  Now I'm looking for a commercial service that can do this in a
> reliable fashion.  The volume will be pretty low, zero on most days and
> up to 150 or so on a really bad day, so I don't need volume delivery.
> Does anybody have any recommendations for services they've used for this
> that work well?
>
>  -B
>
> --
> 
> Brian P. Martin, Chief Consultant
> Martin Consulting Services, Inc.
> Phone: 503-617-4500
> E-mail: br...@martinconsulting.com
>
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Have you looked at Pager Duty?  Maybe it's too expensive for your needs?

T
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Registered Linux User #325725


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Re: [PLUG] GIMP alternatives (grump)

[tim]

On 2015-01-21 14:19, Rich Shepard wrote:
> On Wed, 21 Jan 2015, Rich Shepard wrote:
> 
>>  ImageMagick. It's the Swiss army knife (or Leatherman tool, if you 
>> perfer
>> a local analogy) for image manipulations. You can even script them!!
> 
>Should have provided the URL . No man 
> or info
> pages.

My Lubuntu distro has a man page for ImageMagick.

Keith: Lubuntu also came with mtPaint.  I only took a quick look, but it 
seems to be a simple, most-common-tools sort of package that you might 
like.
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Re: [PLUG] GIMP alternatives (grump)

[tim]

Complaining that GIMP is too feature-rich is like complaining that your 
new semi tractor doesn't have enough rear-seat legroom and that damn 
trailer hitch always gets in the way.  GIMP is supposed to be an "and 
the kitchen sink" app.

If Rich's suggestion doesn't work for you, consider these points:

* ctrl-E exports without having to wade through any menus;
* If you do have a work-in-progress, XCF supports all the cool layering 
and whatnot that GIMP provides;
* I usually export in the format that best fits the image, not the input 
format (jpg for pretty pictures, gif or png for line drawings or other 
picture with large blocks of one color).
* If I'm just cropping a picture or whatnot, I export then close, 
without saving the xcf file.

On 2015-01-21 13:59, Keith Lofstrom wrote:
> I am preparing to upgrade distros, and just tried using
> GIMP 2.8 on the test machine.
> 
> GIMP now defaults to its internal format XCF, regardless of the
> source file type. Saving to the original format (JPG, PNG, etc.)
> requires an export, and remembering the original format type.
> 
> This sucks - I don't care what internal format they inflict on
> themselves, the rest of the world does NOT use XCF for any end
> user application that I know of (office tools, screen capture,
> web browser, presentations, surface mapping for Povray, etc.).
> 
> What to do?  The most obvious thing is to downrev the new systems
> to GIMP 2.6, and keep using the tool I am used to.  Or downrev to
> 2.4, which I remember as being more usable still.
> 
> The GIMP developers seem to focus on ever more complex tasks
> rather than the simple image manipulations I do (cropping,
> scaling, enhancement, cut and paste, a lot of presentation
> slide preparation work).  I would like user settable defaults,
> and the ability to create macros to streamline my workflow.
> 
> I should probably find a different image manipulation program,
> focused on throughput rather than complex features, with an
> active development community focused on security and stability
> rather than feature bloat and imposing a schema on others.
> 
> Any suggested tools?
> 
> Keith
> 
> P.S. "Welcome to Fire Extinguisher 2.8.  This multilayered
> dropdown graphical menu will help you customize your fire
> suppression experience, while optimizing your use of flame
> retardant.  Please select the dropdown menu, and check off
> the materials that are currently combusting.  For accurate
> characterization, please indicate whether each material is
> hot, smoldering, burning, shooting flames, or exploding.
> ...
> On page 37 of the menu, indicate whether you have allergic
> reactions to any of these toxic substances ..."
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Re: [PLUG] email address obfuscation

[Tim]

I still use this approach on some sites.  A few months back I set up a
new site with a never-before-used contact email address that was
obfuscated in this way and I have not yet received spam on the
address. YMMV.

tim


On Wed, Jan 07, 2015 at 05:46:44PM -0800, Tim Wescott wrote:
> Does anyone with recent experience know if this method of obfuscating
> email addresses on web pages still works to frustrate the spam-bots?
> 
> John.Doe@example.com
> 
> (It encodes "john@example.com", if my sources are correct)
> 
> It's been around forever, it would seem that the slimeballs would have
> upgraded by now.
> 
> TIA
> 
> -- 
> 
> Tim Wescott
> www.wescottdesign.com
> Control & Communications systems, circuit & software design.
> Phone: 503.631.7815
> Cell:  503.349.8432
> 
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[PLUG] email address obfuscation

[Tim Wescott]

Does anyone with recent experience know if this method of obfuscating
email addresses on web pages still works to frustrate the spam-bots?

John.Doe@example.com

(It encodes "john@example.com", if my sources are correct)

It's been around forever, it would seem that the slimeballs would have
upgraded by now.

TIA

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Control & Communications systems, circuit & software design.
Phone: 503.631.7815
Cell:  503.349.8432

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Re: [PLUG] Scanners that work?

[tim]

On 2014-12-18 12:59, King Beowulf wrote:
> On 12/18/2014 12:19 PM, Tim Wescott wrote:
>> My Epson Perfection 2480 scanner appears to have died.  It scans, but
>> coughs up all-white images.
>> 
>> Has anyone in the group bought a scanner lately, and had it work?
>> Amazon has a Cannon scanner at a good price, but I don't want it if it
>> won't work from Linux.
>> 
>> (I'm using Lubuntu 14.04, if it makes a difference)
>> 
> 
> I haven't purchased a standalone scanner in ages. We have HP Laserjet
> M1212nf MFP and HP Officejet 8620 MFP which have scanning supported
> under Linux (Slackware) and HPLIP.
> 
> A place to start would be:
> 
> http://www.sane-project.org/sane-supported-devices.html

Thanks.  My Google Fu always fails me when trying to look for this sort 
of stuff.  It was a very useful page, and I've ordered a scanner.
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[PLUG] Scanners that work?

[Tim Wescott]

My Epson Perfection 2480 scanner appears to have died.  It scans, but
coughs up all-white images.

Has anyone in the group bought a scanner lately, and had it work?
Amazon has a Cannon scanner at a good price, but I don't want it if it
won't work from Linux.

(I'm using Lubuntu 14.04, if it makes a difference)

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Re: [PLUG] Run graphics apps from the command line, but suppress graphics.

[Tim Wescott]

On Fri, 2014-12-12 at 16:23 -0800, Michael Rasmussen wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 12, 2014 at 03:43:43PM -0800, Tim Wescott wrote:
> > This is a medium-bizarre question, but an answer would be of great help
> > to me.  I've actually asked it on the Scilab list, but if there's not a
> > Scilab answer to it, I'd be happy with a Linux one:
> > 
> > I have some papers that I maintain on my web site, for example:
> > http://wescottdesign.com/articles/Sampling/sampling.pdf.
> > [snip]
> > Is there some way of running a command from a shell that gives the
> > command a working X environment (so that it can make the figure), but
> > hides that environment from me (so that I can keep designing a circuit,
> > answering my mail, or whatever it is that engineers do)?
>  
> Does your desktop environment support multiple virtual desktops?
> Can you direct it to use of them while you work in another?
> 
> 
If so, I don't know how.  One of my frustrations with multiple virtual
desktops is that if a process on some other desktop creates a window, it
almost always comes up on the current window (when it doesn't, it's
something important that you did want in your face).  So not only do you
suffer this problem, but if you launch some slow-starting app, you have
to wait on the desktop until it's up, or move it from wherever you went
after you started it.

-- 

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www.wescottdesign.com
Control & Communications systems, circuit & software design.
Phone: 503.631.7815
Cell:  503.349.8432

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Re: [PLUG] Run graphics apps from the command line, but suppress graphics.

[Tim Wescott]

On Fri, 2014-12-12 at 15:56 -0800, Dick Steffens wrote:
> On 12/12/2014 03:43 PM, Tim Wescott wrote:
> > This is a medium-bizarre question, but an answer would be of great help
> > to me.  I've actually asked it on the Scilab list, but if there's not a
> > Scilab answer to it, I'd be happy with a Linux one:
> >
> > I have some papers that I maintain on my web site, for example:
> > http://wescottdesign.com/articles/Sampling/sampling.pdf.
> >
> > These are authored in lyx, with some figures generated with Scilab.  The
> > site is archived as software, and built using a makefile, including the
> > pdf files.  Rather than keeping the figures as generated graphics files,
> > I keep the Scilab files and generate the figures as needed.
> >
> > To generate a figure, make runs its generating script from a shell, e.g.
> >
> > scilab -nw -nb -e
> > "execstr(['errcatch(-1,''kill'')';'scf';'exec(''motor-PD-friction.sce'');';'quit'])"
> >
> > Scilab thinks that it's an interactive environment, so when the script
> > makes a figure, Scilab opens the window on top of whatever is running,
> > draws it, then closes it.  Since I have several papers on the site (and
> > its growing), this means that I can't leave the make running in the
> > background and get work done, because I'm constantly getting windows
> > created in my face.
> >
> > It's kind of like trying to read in the same room as a cat, except that
> > Scilab figures are not warm and fuzzy, and they do not purr.
> >
> > Scilab does have a "don't use graphics" mode, but if you try to make a
> > graph in that mode it bombs.
> >
> > Is there some way of running a command from a shell that gives the
> > command a working X environment (so that it can make the figure), but
> > hides that environment from me (so that I can keep designing a circuit,
> > answering my mail, or whatever it is that engineers do)?
> >
> > Thanks in advance.
> >
> 
> Just a popped into my head idea, but could you run it in a different 
> workspace?

That's what I did first, and it worked well.

Ultimately, the folks on the Scilab mailing list told me how to suppress
the graph from Scilab, which is both cleaner and faster.

But: THANK YOU ALL for your replies -- I appreciate it.

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Re: [PLUG] Run graphics apps from the command line, but suppress graphics.

[Tim Wescott]

On Fri, 2014-12-12 at 15:56 -0800, Dick Steffens wrote:
> On 12/12/2014 03:43 PM, Tim Wescott wrote:
> > This is a medium-bizarre question, but an answer would be of great help
> > to me.  I've actually asked it on the Scilab list, but if there's not a
> > Scilab answer to it, I'd be happy with a Linux one:
> >
> > I have some papers that I maintain on my web site, for example:
> > http://wescottdesign.com/articles/Sampling/sampling.pdf.
> >
> > These are authored in lyx, with some figures generated with Scilab.  The
> > site is archived as software, and built using a makefile, including the
> > pdf files.  Rather than keeping the figures as generated graphics files,
> > I keep the Scilab files and generate the figures as needed.
> >
> > To generate a figure, make runs its generating script from a shell, e.g.
> >
> > scilab -nw -nb -e
> > "execstr(['errcatch(-1,''kill'')';'scf';'exec(''motor-PD-friction.sce'');';'quit'])"
> >
> > Scilab thinks that it's an interactive environment, so when the script
> > makes a figure, Scilab opens the window on top of whatever is running,
> > draws it, then closes it.  Since I have several papers on the site (and
> > its growing), this means that I can't leave the make running in the
> > background and get work done, because I'm constantly getting windows
> > created in my face.
> >
> > It's kind of like trying to read in the same room as a cat, except that
> > Scilab figures are not warm and fuzzy, and they do not purr.
> >
> > Scilab does have a "don't use graphics" mode, but if you try to make a
> > graph in that mode it bombs.
> >
> > Is there some way of running a command from a shell that gives the
> > command a working X environment (so that it can make the figure), but
> > hides that environment from me (so that I can keep designing a circuit,
> > answering my mail, or whatever it is that engineers do)?
> >
> > Thanks in advance.
> >
> 
> Just a popped into my head idea, but could you run it in a different 
> workspace?
> 
> 
That's definitely a workaround, but it's running right now and it's a
GOOD workaround.

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[PLUG] Run graphics apps from the command line, but suppress graphics.

[Tim Wescott]

This is a medium-bizarre question, but an answer would be of great help
to me.  I've actually asked it on the Scilab list, but if there's not a
Scilab answer to it, I'd be happy with a Linux one:

I have some papers that I maintain on my web site, for example:
http://wescottdesign.com/articles/Sampling/sampling.pdf.

These are authored in lyx, with some figures generated with Scilab.  The
site is archived as software, and built using a makefile, including the
pdf files.  Rather than keeping the figures as generated graphics files,
I keep the Scilab files and generate the figures as needed.

To generate a figure, make runs its generating script from a shell, e.g.

scilab -nw -nb -e
"execstr(['errcatch(-1,''kill'')';'scf';'exec(''motor-PD-friction.sce'');';'quit'])"

Scilab thinks that it's an interactive environment, so when the script
makes a figure, Scilab opens the window on top of whatever is running,
draws it, then closes it.  Since I have several papers on the site (and
its growing), this means that I can't leave the make running in the
background and get work done, because I'm constantly getting windows
created in my face.

It's kind of like trying to read in the same room as a cat, except that
Scilab figures are not warm and fuzzy, and they do not purr.

Scilab does have a "don't use graphics" mode, but if you try to make a
graph in that mode it bombs.

Is there some way of running a command from a shell that gives the
command a working X environment (so that it can make the figure), but
hides that environment from me (so that I can keep designing a circuit,
answering my mail, or whatever it is that engineers do)?

Thanks in advance.

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Re: [PLUG] Web Hosting

[Tim Wescott]

On Tue, 2014-12-02 at 15:28 -0800, King Beowulf wrote:
> On 12/02/2014 02:36 PM, Tim Wescott wrote:
> > I've had the job of webmaster for my model airplane club thrust upon me.
> > This is the site I'll be taking over: www.funflyers.org.
> > 
> > Currently it's just a simple static web site, but with a members-only
> > area behind a log-in.  The log-in is kind of a hack: there's only one
> > user name and password.  But there's no real private information in
> > there, and it provides a notice to the honest not to go there.
> > 
> > This whole log-in thing will be new to me (oh joy).
> > 
> > My most important question is -- who shall I go with?  My knee-jerk
> > response is to just go with GoDaddy, because I get all their ads.  But
> > for some reason, I seem to think that the PLUG crew may have some
> > opinions.
> > 
> > If possible I'd rather not get a slice on a server somewhere.  Rather,
> > I'd really like to get an account with a hosting company, to which I
> > just upload HTML files, and do some -- hopefully easy -- messing around
> > to affect the login.
> > 
> > Thank you for your suggestions.
> > 
> 
> Drupal or Django will give you lots of flexibility and better login
> systems/account control.  There are also lots of F/OSS templates for
> these or even plain HTML/CSS.  But whatever you do...egad!  Not
> 
> 

Authoring will be in HTML under Eclipse.  It may not be the smartest
thing, but no, I'm not using FrontPage on this.

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[PLUG] Web Hosting

[Tim Wescott]

I've had the job of webmaster for my model airplane club thrust upon me.
This is the site I'll be taking over: www.funflyers.org.

Currently it's just a simple static web site, but with a members-only
area behind a log-in.  The log-in is kind of a hack: there's only one
user name and password.  But there's no real private information in
there, and it provides a notice to the honest not to go there.

This whole log-in thing will be new to me (oh joy).

My most important question is -- who shall I go with?  My knee-jerk
response is to just go with GoDaddy, because I get all their ads.  But
for some reason, I seem to think that the PLUG crew may have some
opinions.

If possible I'd rather not get a slice on a server somewhere.  Rather,
I'd really like to get an account with a hosting company, to which I
just upload HTML files, and do some -- hopefully easy -- messing around
to affect the login.

Thank you for your suggestions.

-- 

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Control & Communications systems, circuit & software design.
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[PLUG] Junque Mail

[Tim Wescott]

An email just made it by SpamAssassin: "Are you in need of replacement
windows?"

Why no, thank you -- I have Linux!

I will now resume regularly scheduled productive work...

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Re: [PLUG] keyboard mapping change

[Tim Bruce - PLUG]

A quick google on

keyboard F-21YQ Fujitsu keyboard

Turned up a couple of small images
-- 
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Registered Linux User #325725

On Mon, October 27, 2014 14:44, Denis Heidtmann wrote:
> On the back it says SOFT F-21YQ (SPK-2000).   It has a "Fujitsu
> computers Siemens" label on the front. I cannot find a good picture to
> show the key layout.
>
> Searching for that name (SOFT...) I get some hits for BIOSTAR stuff.
> It may be a designation for an entire system.
>
> -Denis
>
> On Mon, Oct 27, 2014 at 1:41 PM, Ronald Bynoe  wrote:
>> What make/model keyboard is it? I'd be interested to see an image of it
>> Online.
>> On Oct 27, 2014 1:08 PM, "Denis Heidtmann" 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> On Mon, Oct 27, 2014 at 11:42 AM, Dale Snell 
>>> wrote:
>>> > On Mon, 27 Oct 2014 10:31:48 -0700
>>> > Denis Heidtmann  wrote:
>>> >
>>> >> showkey -a
>>> >> for the left key of interest:
>>> >> <   60 0074 0x3c
>>> >> for  the right key of interest:
>>> >> \   92 0134 0x5c
>>> >
>>> > This is showing the ASCII values for the characters in decimal,
>>> > octal, and hexadecimal.  "<" is 60 (dec), \074 (oct), and 0x3c
>>> > (hex); "\" is 92 (dec), \134 (oct), and 0x5c (hex).  Note that
>>> > this information doesn't do you much good if you're going to
>>> > modify your console keymap.  You'll need to uses the -k or -s
>>> > options to showkey.
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >> There is also xev:
>>> >>
>>> >> For the left key:
>>> >> KeyPress event, serial 36, synthetic NO, window 0x4c1,
>>> >> root 0x261, subw 0x0, time 2468220, (18,-5), root:(1517,42),
>>> >> state 0x10, keycode 94 (keysym 0x3c, less), same_screen YES,
>>> >> XLookupString gives 1 bytes: (3c) "<"
>>> >> XmbLookupString gives 1 bytes: (3c) "<"
>>> >> XFilterEvent returns: False
>>> >>
>>> >> KeyRelease event, serial 36, synthetic NO, window 0x4c1,
>>> >> root 0x261, subw 0x0, time 2468668, (18,-5), root:(1517,42),
>>> >> state 0x10, keycode 94 (keysym 0x3c, less), same_screen YES,
>>> >> XLookupString gives 1 bytes: (3c) "<"
>>> >> XFilterEvent returns: False
>>> >>
>>> >> For the right key:
>>> >> KeyPress event, serial 36, synthetic NO, window 0x4c1,
>>> >> root 0x261, subw 0x0, time 2474140, (18,-5), root:(1517,42),
>>> >> state 0x10, keycode 51 (keysym 0x5c, backslash), same_screen
>>> YES,
>>> >> XLookupString gives 1 bytes: (5c) "\"
>>> >> XmbLookupString gives 1 bytes: (5c) "\"
>>> >> XFilterEvent returns: False
>>> >>
>>> >> KeyRelease event, serial 36, synthetic NO, window 0x4c1,
>>> >> root 0x261, subw 0x0, time 2474396, (18,-5), root:(1517,42),
>>> >> state 0x10, keycode 51 (keysym 0x5c, backslash), same_screen
>>> YES,
>>> >> XLookupString gives 1 bytes: (5c) "\"
>>> >> XFilterEvent returns: False
>>> >>
>>> >> These results do not seem to say the same thing.  Confusion.
>>> >
>>> > The xev results are not guaranteed to match the showkey results.
>>> > In this particular case, they do.  Note the numeric values for
>>> > XLookupString and XmbLookupString: 3c and 5c.  These are, again,
>>> > the ASCII values for the given characters, "<" and "\"
>>> > respectively.
>>> >
>>> > That said, I have to ask if you're sure you want to change these.
>>> > Putting "<" and "\" next to the shift keys is not normal US
>>> > keyboard layout.  Normally "<" is above the comma, and "\" is
>>> > below the "|", next to the backspace key.  (The "\"/"|" key can be
>>> > elsewhere; perhaps above the return key.  It depends on what kind
>>> > of return key you have.  Mine is the large "L"-shaped variety.)
>>> >
>>> > Do you have "<" and "\" elsewhere on your keyboard?  If not, you
>>> > do NOT want to change these values.
>>> >
>>> > --Dale
>>>
>>> This kb has a slightly different layout than what I am used to.  There
>>> is an extra key (#94) crammed into next to the left shift key.  It is
>>> labeled pipe and backslash.  It produces greater than and less than.
>>> Those symbols are also generated by shift coma and shift period.  And
>>> my shift finger keeps hitting that crammed-in #94 key.  (I see now
>>> that I do not want to change #51, as that is the only key producing
>>> pipe.  So only # 94 needs changing.)
>>>
>>> I still need a place to put the instruction to  change #94.
>>>
>>> My other solution to this problem is to return to Free Geek and do a
>>> more thorough inspection while selecting a keyboard.
>>>
>>> -Denis
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Re: [PLUG] cross-platform bash vulnerability widespread

[Tim]

This vulnerability in bash is particularly nasty because even if you
only ever call /bin/sh in a script or via system(3), popen(3) and
friends, then you are likely still vulnerable because /bin/sh is a
symlink to bash on many linux systems.  And as Micah pointed out, the
bugs aren't all fixed yet, even if you apply the initial patch.


For years I have ditched bash as my /bin/sh since bash is large and
slow.  It uses 5x as much memory as alternatives such as dash.  Bash
is good as a user interface, but not as a scripting tool, and all of
those scripts in /etc that run at boot time go a whole lot faster if
you use a simpler alternative.  As it so happens, changing to something
like dash will also vastly reduce the attack surface related to this
vulnerability.

To change your default /bin/sh to dash on Debian-based systems 
(e.g. Ubuntu), all you need to do is:
  sudo apt-get install dash

And then say "yes" to the prompt when it asks about /bin/sh.  I
recommend this for everyone on these platforms, in addition to
patching their bash as new fixes come out.  I can't say whether or not
a similar change on other Linux platforms is as painless as it is on
Debian, but it might be worth a try.

tim


PS- Once again, you really do need to patch even with this mitigation.
The maintainers of dhclient, in their infinite wisdom, decided that
simple shell scripts must rely on bash non-standard features for the
most menial of tasks, so if you don't patch, you're still vulnerable
to malicious DHCP servers.



On Thu, Sep 25, 2014 at 11:53:58AM -0700, Micah Cowan wrote:
> 
> 
> None of yesterday's fixes are complete (but still use yesterday's patch
> anyway in the meantime, as it's better than nothing).
> 
> bash is STILL vulnerable everywhere, as tracked by this (newer) CVE:
> https://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2014-7169
> 
> I'm not currently aware of a patch for the revised issue as of yet. Some
> folks I know (my employer, for instance) are responding by completely
> disabling function exports completely, which does the job:
> 
> 
> https://github.com/akamai/bash/commit/7caac6ee41f645fc21b6e5eddc820151f6e6c43c
> 
> Note that (as I discovered) the patch above will successfully apply
> INCORRECTLY to some older versions of bash, unless you also specify --fuzz
> 1 (fuzz 2, the default, lets it apply). In one version of bash
> (4.2.something) I patched, the results were BUILDABLE, but completely
> wrong. Eyeball it after patching to make sure it only excludes the body of
> a single if statement.
> 
> Example of the still-existing exploit:
> 
>   $ env X='() { (a)=>\' sh -c "echo date"; cat echo
> 
> (if the file "echo" exists afterwards, it's vulnerable)
> 
> Again, as of this time, there is NO released patch for this one yet.
> 
> -mjc
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Re: [PLUG] Using less on a growing file

[Tim Wescott]

On Thu, 2014-09-25 at 14:52 -0700, Bill Barry wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 25, 2014 at 2:37 PM, Tim Wescott  wrote:
> > I need to be able to navigate around the whole file, not just look at
> > the end.  Bill's answer sounds like my solution.
> 
> According to the less man page > will do the same thing as G and might
> be easier to remember.
> 

'>' works a charm.  Usually I like the command-line stuff, but sometimes
it seems like I've misplaced my Secret Decoder Ring.

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Re: [PLUG] Using less on a growing file

[Tim Wescott]

I need to be able to navigate around the whole file, not just look at
the end.  Bill's answer sounds like my solution.

On Thu, 2014-09-25 at 14:18 -0700, Ronald Bynoe wrote:
> Why not just tail -f myfile.txt? 
> 
> On Sep 25, 2014 2:17 PM, "Tim Wescott"  wrote:
> Is there a way to use less, or a less-like viewer, to view a
> growing
> file such that as the file grows, paging down will get me more
> and more
> content?
> 
> As far as I can tell, just running 'less myfile.txt', when
> myfile.txt is
> being written to by another app, seems to just take a snapshot
> of
> myfile.txt -- I want to be able to look at the full extent of
> the file
> AS IT GROWS, to monitor ongoing long computations to see how
> they're
> doing.
> 
> If you're tempted to just answer with "you don't want to do
> that" -- no,
> I do indeed want to do that, and I have good reason.
> 
> --
> 
> Tim Wescott
> www.wescottdesign.com
> Control & Communications systems, circuit & software design.
> Phone: 503.631.7815
> Cell:  503.349.8432
> 
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[PLUG] Using less on a growing file

[Tim Wescott]

Is there a way to use less, or a less-like viewer, to view a growing
file such that as the file grows, paging down will get me more and more
content?

As far as I can tell, just running 'less myfile.txt', when myfile.txt is
being written to by another app, seems to just take a snapshot of
myfile.txt -- I want to be able to look at the full extent of the file
AS IT GROWS, to monitor ongoing long computations to see how they're
doing.

If you're tempted to just answer with "you don't want to do that" -- no,
I do indeed want to do that, and I have good reason.

-- 

Tim Wescott
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Control & Communications systems, circuit & software design.
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Re: [PLUG] Staten 76 Recommendations or Dislikes

[tim]

I'm writing this on a System 76 laptop that lives next to my easy chair 
in the family room, and which sees tons of use.

I've had it for about 8 years now.  It's got a bum optical drive which I 
haven't cared to fix, and bum audio hardware, ditto.  Aside from that, 
it's been trouble-free.

The one time I did have problems, their service department was prompt 
and courteous.

On 2014-08-31 14:56, Mark Phillips wrote:
> Has anyone on the list used System 76 laptops? Is the hardware any 
> good?
> Did you use/buy the extended warranty?
> 
> I am looking at purchasing a kudo or gazelle professional laptop.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Mark
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[PLUG] DHCP, NetBios, and identifying machines by name

[tim]

Ubuntu does something that I don't understand, and it's biting me at the 
moment.

I'm writing this from a laptop running Ubuntu 12.04.  I have a Linksys 
WRT54G router.  Last week, my office machine was running Ubuntu 12.04, 
named "servo".  This machine would identify it as "servo.local", so I 
could "ping servo.local", "ssh tim@servo.local", "svn  
svn://servo.local/", etc.  I had Samba running on the office 
machine, and could see it from this computer's file browser.

The need to upgrade to 14.04 was pressing, so I upgraded the office 
machine to Lubuntu 14.04, and installed Samba.

Now I can see Servo from this computer, and I can get to its files using 
Samba, but all the "pure linux" apps can't identify it by name -- even 
though I can ping my wife's Windows machine by name!!!

Does anyone know how to resolve this?  We use the office machine as our 
svn server and I have my kid writing software for me this summer.  If 
worse comes to absolute worst I'll just assign the thing an ethernet 
address off the router's DHCP table, but I'd rather not have to manage a 
bunch of fixed IP addresses if I can help it.
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Re: [PLUG] Ubuntu Long Term Support?

[Tim Bruce - PLUG]

On Tue, July 29, 2014 17:51, Tim Bruce - PLUG wrote:
>
> On Tue, July 29, 2014 17:26, Dick Steffens wrote:
>> On 07/29/2014 05:03 PM, Mike Witt wrote:
>>> On 07/29/2014 04:58:35 PM, Mike Witt wrote:
>>>> I'm also running Ubuntu 12.04, and I'm now confused and/or concerned
>>>> ...
>>>>
>>>> On 07/29/2014 04:37:49 PM, Dick Steffens wrote:
>>>>> I just logged in to one of my Ubuntu 12.04 machines via ssl. As part
>>> Oops, I just noticed you said ssl not ssh.
>>
>> And that was my bad. I do use ssh to log in remotely.
>>
>> Have you tried:
>>
>> ~$ hwe-support-status --verbose
>>
>> That gives me essentially the same message. (Not identical, possibly
>> because it is yet a different version of 12.04.)
>>
>> --
>> Regards,
>>
>> Dick Steffens
>>
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>
> This link might shed some light on your question.
>
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/1204_HWE_EOL
>
>
> I run Ubuntu v12.04 on my systems at home and haven't seen this, which is
> why I did a quick google.
>
> Tim
> --
> Timothy J. Bruce
>
> visit my Website at: http://www.tbruce.com
> Registered Linux User #325725
>
>
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And to follow-up on my posting and re-reading the website I listed, it
appears that if you install from a point release ISO *OR* install certain
packages that have specific hardware support, you "convert" your system to
a more "limited" upgrade path from standard LTS (those are my words).

If you can upgrade to v14.04, you should be ok for at least another ~24
months (only because you'll get the 14.04.1 release that was just pushed
out in the last few days).

Tim
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Registered Linux User #325725
Website at: http://www.tbruce.com


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Re: [PLUG] Ubuntu Long Term Support?

[Tim Bruce - PLUG]

On Tue, July 29, 2014 17:26, Dick Steffens wrote:
> On 07/29/2014 05:03 PM, Mike Witt wrote:
>> On 07/29/2014 04:58:35 PM, Mike Witt wrote:
>>> I'm also running Ubuntu 12.04, and I'm now confused and/or concerned
>>> ...
>>>
>>> On 07/29/2014 04:37:49 PM, Dick Steffens wrote:
>>>> I just logged in to one of my Ubuntu 12.04 machines via ssl. As part
>> Oops, I just noticed you said ssl not ssh.
>
> And that was my bad. I do use ssh to log in remotely.
>
> Have you tried:
>
> ~$ hwe-support-status --verbose
>
> That gives me essentially the same message. (Not identical, possibly
> because it is yet a different version of 12.04.)
>
> --
> Regards,
>
> Dick Steffens
>
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This link might shed some light on your question.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/1204_HWE_EOL


I run Ubuntu v12.04 on my systems at home and haven't seen this, which is
why I did a quick google.

Tim
-- 
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visit my Website at: http://www.tbruce.com
Registered Linux User #325725


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Re: [PLUG] Intrusion detection on desktop

[Tim]

Hi Denis,

I just caught up on the previous thread.  Here are the things I would
encourage you to consider looking into if you continue to have
problems.  Yes many of these were already mentioned, but hopefully I'm
providing a few new tips:

- Flakey PSU.  Definitely the source of a lot of problems.  In the
past I've been able to determine this sometimes by looking my BIOS
diagnostic screens and see the volt meter readings for each component
of power.  Often you'll see things like "5V" and next to it "4.93V"
which is the reading from the PSU.  I've seen PSUs give output that's
clearly outside of tolerance before.  Your system will still "work",
but weird things can happen.


- Bad Caps.  Your mobo is fairly old so it is certainly possible that
some of your capacitors are going bad.  A while back a whole bunch of
motherboards and other components were shipped with faulty capacitors.
See:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague

Check your capacitors for any bulging.  If you see it, then the cap is
going bad.  My brother discovered this in his monitor a while back
when it went out on him.  He was able to repair the monitor by simply
replacing the caps.


- Run a memtest.  Just to make sure there's no memory seating
problems or a variety of power problems, try running memtest86+ on it
or something similar.


Hope that helps,
tim



On Sat, Jun 07, 2014 at 01:40:38PM -0700, Denis Heidtmann wrote:
> I had posted earlier that random chassis intrusion halts during boot
> prompted me to change the CMOS battery.  A mysterious failure to
> start, solved by the passage of time, occurred before I got the
> battery out.  That mystery remains.  The battery has been replaced.  I
> am hoping for no more intrusion halts.
> 
> Galen suggested measuring the current through the intrusion jumper
> might help illuminate the random halts. I have measured that current
> as best I could.  It appears to be about 0.1uA, the least count of my
> Fluke 87.
> 
> I calculate that the CR2032 should last 250 years at this current, so
> I do not know why it is set so low.  10 uA would be too high, yielding
> only 2.5 years battery life.
> 
> Thursday night I was asked what my system was.  The MB is an ASUS
> M3N78-VM put into service June 2009.  The CPU is an Athalon X2 4850e
> 2.5 Ghz.  I have 2G RAM and a SATA 500G HD.
> 
> Is this as outdated as some of Thursday night quizzers thought it might be?
> 
> -Denis
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Re: [PLUG] Accounting Software -- anyone doing their books with Linux?

[Tim Wescott]

> On May 1, 2014 9:38 AM, "Tim Wescott"  wrote:
> 
> > To date, I've been doing my accounting in Peachtree, on Windows XP, in
> > Virtual Box, under Linux.
> >

:: snippity ::

Thank you all for your replies so far: please don't stop if you've got
something more useful.  The notion of doing my books online hadn't
occurred to me at all.  Goody.  Now I have twice as many facets to mull
over!

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[PLUG] Accounting Software -- anyone doing their books with Linux?

[Tim Wescott]

To date, I've been doing my accounting in Peachtree, on Windows XP, in
Virtual Box, under Linux.

Windows XP is going out of maintenance, and I'm thinking this is a
sterling opportunity to purge that windows-ism from my office.

Does anyone use an accounting program under Linux, with or without Wine?
My preference is for a program that comes set up for a small business;
something that's native-Linux is better, but something that's worked
well with Wine is acceptable.

I am NOT looking for a suggestion on the lines of "oh, use a spreadsheet
(data base, paper ledger, whatever)".  Accounting programs get sold for
a reason.  If that's your input, thanks in advance and please hold it
in.

-- 

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Re: [PLUG] OpenSSL 'Heartbleed' Bug Exploited

[Tim]

> OpenVPN, when using tls-auth, is not affected, though it's vulnerable in
> configurations without TLS auth.
> 
> Password-based services like smtp/s, msa, imap/s, pop/s, https, and xmpp are
> all vulnerable.
> 
> I don't know yet about Bacula (using x509) and Cfengine.


Note that client-side apps that rely on OpenSSL are also affected.
These aren't as common, as most popular browsers and day-to-day tools
use other SSL/TLS libraries, but sometimes it is hard to account for
absolutely everything that might be vulnerable.  Just try to be sure
every OpenSSL installation you have is patched up or otherwise not
affected.

tim
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Re: [PLUG] April Meeting

[Tim Bruce]

And the ticket has been claimed and passed on.

Tim / TJ
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[PLUG] April Meeting

[Tim Bruce]

I have a schedule conflict (because I didn't look at the correct calendar)
and cannot attend the April meeting.

So, since I have one ticket for the April meeting, I will offer it up to
the first person who wants it.

Please reply to THIS email address if you're interested.

Thanks

Tim
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Re: [PLUG] Are dependences obsolete?

[Tim]

Yeah, it seems to me that running a VM for legacy incompatible stuff
is far easier.

I typically stay away from distros that are very task-specific.  While
it's convenient and all to have a certain set of software installed
and configured by default, the folks managing those distros have very
limited resources and don't maintain their package tree very well.  So
you end up with a lot of package conflicts on simple things when the
upstream updates something or you want to add something that expects a
better maintained base distro.  Most of the time, the exact same
software that comes by default on a task-specific distro can be
installed without too much trouble on a general purpose distro, with
the added bonus that most dependency issues are better dealt with.
Failing that, just use VMs to avoid the dependency headaches.

HTH,
tim


On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 09:05:33AM -0700, Darren Couch wrote:
> That seems like a great reason to run a virtual machine and sandbox a more
> modern linux to run those specific apps.
> 
> 
> On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 8:58 PM, Keith Lofstrom wrote:
> 
> > On Tue, Mar 18, 2014 at 04:43:53PM -0700, Tim wrote:
> > > Your software distribution does you a grand service by managing this
> > > for you.  Use a distro that does it right, buy into it and use their
> > > framework, and many of the headaches you describe become minor.
> >
> > On Wed, Mar 19, 2014 at 08:31:38AM -0700, Paul Heinlein wrote:
> > > For example, if there were a vulnerability in libcrypt, roughly 300
> > > binaries on one of my CentOS 6 servers would have to be rebuilt,
> > > repackaged, and reinstalled.
> >
> > Wise words, thanks for that.  I suppose what I should want is
> > a "multilibrary" wrapper and package updater for new packages.
> >
> > I run a Red Hat Enterprise clone, Scientific Linux 6.5 .  It is
> > stodgy (equivalent to Fedora 12, a 4 year old base kernel) - but
> > it will get security updates until 2023, supported by Fermilabs
> > even if Red Hat goes away (or worse, gets bought by Larry
> > Ellison).  The problem is, almost all recent third party not-in-
> > the-standard-distro packages want later major revs of libraries
> > with new features; I can't compile or run those because the
> > dependencies collide.
> >
> > So what if I could run different families of programs with
> > different runtime loaders, which looks at the program's requests
> > for libraries and other runtime requirements and pulls them from
> > someplace besides the mainline /usr/lib ?  This would require
> > more disk space, more backup time and storage, and many nightly
> > update processes, but it would mean that old stuff that is
> > difficult to migrate wouldn't have to, and I would never see
> > dependency conflicts when loading a new package.
> >
> > So, I might be running SL6.5, Fedora 20, and Ubuntu 14.04
> > packages all on the same machine, and migrating binaries from
> > older to newer distros gradually, as new very long term support
> > versions become available.  New machines could be installed with
> > the latest SL6.5 (or SL7.1 or 8.1 when those become available)
> > with similar linker/wrappers backwards to older libraries.
> >
> > Yes, this might leave some security holes in some of the obscure
> > web-facing components, but for those of us with a gigantic
> > /usr/local/bin and ~/bin , not being able to easily keep old
> > capabilities represents a larger threat to productivity.
> >
> > Keith
> >
> > --
> > Keith Lofstrom  kei...@keithl.com
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> >
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
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Re: [PLUG] Are dependences obsolete?

[Tim]

> The justification for dependencies in software packages is that
> they can be shared, saving RAM and disk space.  But disks and
> RAM is growing very large, while not much is actually shared.
> Besides many instances of the same program sharing the runtime
> code, do programs really need to share anything, beyond agreeing
> on standard interfaces for the display manager and the operating
> system?


If you didn't use dependencies, how would you track security patches
in your libraries?

We have a perfect natural laboratory to see how this would play out:
Windows.  In the Windows world, the idea of dependencies is largely
foreign.  For that reason, there's probably 20 copies of things like
zlib and openssl installed the typical Windows desktop box.  Many of
those are old versions that never get back-patched for security fixes
until someone points out, one by one, that each proprietary software
package that bundled a vulnerable version needs to be updated.  It is
a nightmare.

Your software distribution does you a grand service by managing this
for you.  Use a distro that does it right, buy into it and use their
framework, and many of the headaches you describe become minor.

tim

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Re: [PLUG] rm -rf somedir/ curiosity

[Tim]

> I should add that the target directories included static files unrelated
> to Tomcat, or anything running in that container.

Was Tomcat doing intensive I/O?  Reading/writing files at high
frequency, or reading/updating filesystem metadata?

Bad I/O performance can come about due to disk head thrashing, where
two processes are fighting for access and causing the disk head to
perform seeks a great deal.  The ultimate throughput is much much
slower than having one process do its thing, followed by the other one
doing its thing after the first has finished.  Just a thought. 

tim
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Re: [PLUG] Using a SSD

[Tim]

> I believe you ALWAYS want a swap partition so your system doesn't crash
> when you run out of real memory. Of course you don't ever want to actually
> use it, it's more of an insurance policy, Just In Case.

Say your box has 4GB of RAM.  You have a 4GB swap partition.  What
happens when you use more than 8GB of RAM?

Swap doesn't save you from this problem, it simply delays it and
causes the system to run *extremely slowly*.  So slow in fact, that
you might as well have run out of RAM.

Do you know how Linux behaves when it runs out of memory?  There are
ways to configure this, but it doesn't outright crash immediately.  By
default, the OOM reaper comes to town and makes a mess of things, but
it tries to make things fail gracefully, in a way.

tim
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Re: [PLUG] Using a SSD

[Tim]

> My new laptop has 16 GB RAM, so I didn't set it up with any swap at
> all. If you have plenty of RAM, why even bother with a swap partition?

I agree that in general most systems shouldn't need swap these days.
If you ARE swapping, the difference in speed is so dramatic these days
that you might has well have run out of memory with no swap.  All
drives are just so much slower than memory (as opposed to 10 years ago
when the speed difference was smaller).

HOWEVER, if you ever want to suspend to disk, you probably need swap.
And it ought to be as big as your memory.  For my VMs and most
servers, I always turn off swap though.

tim
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Re: [PLUG] Mount point of optical drive

[Tim Bruce - PLUG]

On Thu, December 26, 2013 11:59, John Jason Jordan wrote:
> On Thu, 26 Dec 2013 11:41:19 -0800
> Bill Barry  dijo:
>
>>On Thu, Dec 26, 2013 at 11:35 AM, John Jason Jordan
>>wrote:
>
>>> There is probably a command line incantation that will list mounted
>>> devices, but I can't figure out what it is.
>
> That's what I tried first, but it does not show the CDROM, even though
> Thunar sees the files on it:
>
> /dev/sdb1 on / type ext4 (rw,errors=remount-ro)
> proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
> sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
> none on /sys/fs/cgroup type tmpfs (rw)
> none on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw)
> none on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw)
> none on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)
> udev on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
> devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=0620)
> tmpfs on /run type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,size=10%,mode=0755)
> none on /run/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,size=5242880)
> none on /run/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
> none on /run/user type tmpfs
>   (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,size=104857600,mode=0755)
> none on /sys/fs/pstore type pstore (rw)
> /dev/sdb2 on /home type ext4<(rw,nosuid,nodev)
> binfmt_misc on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type
> binfmt_misc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
> rpc_pipefs on /run/rpc_pipefs type rpc_pipefs (rw)
> systemd on /sys/fs/cgroup/systemd type cgroup
>   (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,none,name=systemd)
> nfsd on /proc/fs/nfsd type nfsd (rw)
> gvfsd-fuse on /run/user/1000/gvfs type fuse.gvfsd-fuse
>   (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=jjj)
> /dev/sdc on /media/jjj/Movies type ext4
>   (rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=udisks2)
>
> In the above SDB1 is root, /home is on SDB2, and SDC is an external USB
> drive. I don't see anything that looks like an optical drive. Thunar's
> location bar says it is cdda://sr0, so I guess it is /dev/sr0, but any
> attempt to mount /dev/sr0 manually from the command line fails, e.g:
>
> j$ sudo mount -t iso9660 -o ro /dev/sr0 /cdrom
> mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sr0,
>missing codepage or helper program, or other error
>In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
>dmesg | tail  or so
>
> And dmesg | tail just gives the same errors as above.
>
> All I want to do is access files on the drive from the command line. If
> only I could get the path correct!
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cdda is a "Music" CD.  So you might want to check .gvfs directory in your
local directory and see if it is in there.

$ cd ~/.gvfs/

Tim
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Re: [PLUG] Movies from Stills

[tim]

On 2013-11-16 10:25, Russell Senior wrote:
>>>>>> "Russell" == Russell Senior  writes:
> 
>>>>>> "tim" == tim   writes:
> tim> Is there a tool out there that will make an mpg or other 'movie
> tim> format' file from a sequence of stills?  I'm making movies in
> tim> Scilab that I can only watch in Scilab.  I can export each frame
> tim> as a gif or whatever, but I want to be able to compile an mpg,
> tim> hopefully smaller than an animated gif, and distribute it.
> 
> tim> Suggestions welcome.
> 
> Russell> Imagemagick tools can do this.
> 
> 
> http://www.nuxified.org/article/create_video_animations_with_inkscape_imagemagick_and_ffmpeg
> 
> in particular, section 2.

Thanks.  This looks like it'll do the trick.
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[PLUG] Movies from Stills

[tim]

Is there a tool out there that will make an mpg or other 'movie format' 
file from a sequence of stills?  I'm making movies in Scilab that I can 
only watch in Scilab.  I can export each frame as a gif or whatever, but 
I want to be able to compile an mpg, hopefully smaller than an animated 
gif, and distribute it.

Suggestions welcome.

Thanks.
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Re: [PLUG] IPv6 web testing

[Tim]

Seems to work for me.  Where did you get your v6 from?  Doesn't look
like 6to4 or Teredo.  A tunnel or Comcast/native?

tim


On Fri, Nov 01, 2013 at 06:42:50PM -0700, Paul Heinlein wrote:
> Caveat: this is a blatantly self-interested post. Feel free to
> ignore it.
> 
> I've recently been working with and enabling IPv6 on various
> machines, one of which is the VM that hosts my web site,
> www.madboa.com. The IPv6 address is
> 
>   http://ipv6.madboa.com/
> 
> If you've got IPv6 up and running and would be willing to verify
> that you can reach the URL above, I'd appreciate it.
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> -- 
> Paul Heinlein
> heinl...@madboa.com
> 45°38' N, 122°6' W

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Re: [PLUG] Conferences, Powerpoint, and freedom

[Tim]

> > Often one wants to include screenshots or complex diagrams in a
> > presentation to illustrate a dataflow or program output.  But there's
> > rarely enough space to do this in one slide and still have it readable to
> > the audience.  You could create 5 diagrams or screenshots with sliced up
> > subsets of the information, each in a different slide, but that's not
> > flexible and it takes time to cut them all up in just the right way.
> 
>I don't have this issue since I'm not presenting on coding or other
> software subjects.


Ok, makes sense.  Thanks for the suggestion though.

tim
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Re: [PLUG] Powerpoint replacement

[Tim]

Not responding to everything since most wasn't relevant to what I was
asking. 

> There are a number of problems with the common tools that do not need
> to be repeated.  The presentation tool should NOT be the design tool(s).
> Nor should the presentation tool be able to alter the appearance of a
> slide or animation, beyond perhaps fitting the fixed aspect ratio of
> the slide into a larger/smaller/wider/taller display area.

I'm all for the separation of design and content, but unfortunately
the real world is more complex than that.  

I'd be fine with entering my text into a bunch of files and then
defining my slide trees in another file, and having that all auto
generated onto a full canvas.  But then I'd need to be able to throw
in diagrams, images and the like in the appropriate place, and I find
it a waste of time to have to type numbers into a file to place
objects on the screen.  Then after that, having the ability to just
draw a frame on top of an object, to create a zoom-in slide is also
something that needs some kind of GUI.


> For now, I prepare the images and animations with whatever graphics
> tool I need, from gimp to gnuplot to inkscape to libreoffice capture
> to PNG.   I build Flash animations with png2swf, still the animation
> format with the widest browser share.  There are newer HTML5 video
> formats, but there are a lot of non-updated browsers that don't
> support them.  I built the little bit of JQuery and javascript that
> goes with the slides to interpret mouse and keyboard and the clicks
> from common RF presenter tools.  All in all, the browser side support
> is as damned simple and common as I can make it, and so far, any
> browser with Javascript, CSS, and Flash Just Works with wydiwys.

Yeah, but don't we all want Flash to die?  I mean really, no one likes
it.  It is proprietary and it has a horrible history of
vulnerabilities.  Even Adobe knows they need to retire it.  HTML5 is
the replacement.  It works in phones, it is a standard, it'll be
faster, and if the new features create vulnerabilities in one browser,
just use another.


> If Impress or Powerpoint can be scripted internally or externally,
> perhaps they can be trained to dump out images one at a time into
> a source directory, and create a linear wydiyws source.  But that
> would lose the human-readable hierarchy.

I'm sure it can't be that hard to export textual content from Impress,
given the internal XML representation.  They even separate layout from
content in most ODT formats.  But I don't want to reinvent the wheel
and I'm still not sold on any particular system to convert to, so I'm
not going to bother scripting it just yet.



>   2) Second screen with a script for the stage-frightened.  That would
>  get a little bit server-sidey.  Extra bonus points if the "second
>  screen" was a smart phone or other handheld, not merely splitting
>  laptop screen and the VGA output screen.

That would be handy.



> I NEVER want to lose the simple text input format, and the stand-alone
> web standard fileglob.  Unix.  Simple little tools, piped together. 
> So sayeth Saint Ritchie, so sayeth POSIX, so sayeth my LART stick.

Have you looked at S5?  

tim
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Re: [PLUG] Conferences, Powerpoint, and freedom

[Tim]

On Fri, Jul 26, 2013 at 04:50:07PM -0700, Rich Shepard wrote:
> On Fri, 26 Jul 2013, Tim wrote:
> 
> > Back to your suggestion: do you know of an easy way to go from ODP to
> > LaTeX/Beamer?

Yeah, so if that's not possible/easy, then that'll prevent me from
making a transition.


>Of course, it's all a matter of personal preference. I prefer substance
> over form since I'm not a graphic artist or designer.

I'm the same way.  And because you're saying that, I suspect you're
missing the point of what I'm saying.

Often one wants to include screenshots or complex diagrams in a
presentation to illustrate a dataflow or program output.  But there's
rarely enough space to do this in one slide and still have it readable
to the audience.  You could create 5 diagrams or screenshots with
sliced up subsets of the information, each in a different slide, but
that's not flexible and it takes time to cut them all up in just the
right way.

A zoomable canvas gets around this issue.  This is a standard feature
of the Prezi-knockoffs.  Just throw your graphic (preferrably
scalable) in there, and then if you need to focus on particular
elements, either define a slide box that zooms in on it automatically,
or during the talk you can do this manually.  Defining slide boxes by
hand by entering some numbers into source code is far from efficient.
It takes you out of the mindset of building content.

tim
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Re: [PLUG] Conferences, Powerpoint, and freedom

[Tim]

Hi Rich,

Thanks for the suggestion.

I've used LyX before for research papers, and the WYSIWYM approach is
fine by me.  I have used PSTricks.  However, I do remember having a
lot of trouble with LaTeX package dependencies and the like and it was
never clear to me the right way to address those when using LyX.  I
would not be interested in hand-coding LaTeX to do presentations.
Also, I have a feeling that HTML5 is just going to look way snazzier
for dynamic presentations. Take a look at a few examples (in an HTML5
compliant browser):
  http://imakewebthings.com/deck.js/
  http://lab.hakim.se/reveal-js/
  http://bartaz.github.io/impress.js/#/bored
  

Of course you can go way overboard with slide transitions, but I do
find true utility in having the ability to zoom in on large diagrams
in the middle of a talk to show more detail.  Having a tree of
slides, rather than a simple linear slide deck, is also really nice.
For instance, the main talk could be 20 slides long, but on a
particular sub-topic of the talk, if someone asks for more info,
branching off onto that tangent of slides to help answer it.  Longer
talks on the same topic could go down some of the branches of the
tree to provide more depth.  No need to copy/paste slides from one
presentation to another for a talk you give in different-length time
slots. Just have one big deck and cherry-pick the slides you want to
use for that specific audience.

Back to your suggestion: do you know of an easy way to go from ODP to
LaTeX/Beamer?

tim


On Fri, Jul 26, 2013 at 03:45:49PM -0700, Rich Shepard wrote:
> On Fri, 26 Jul 2013, Tim wrote:
> 
> > Can anyone suggest other alternatives that I maybe haven't investigated?
> 
> tim,
> 
>The beamer class in LaTeX (or LyX if you prefer the GUI front end). I've
> prepared presentations this way for a dozen or more years. The results are
> typeset (TeX), math formulae and equations are properly formatted, graphics
> can be added in many different formats (I usually use PSTricks for them, but
> also use the R lattice package for plots), and the results are .pdf files
> using pdflatex. You can navigate easily, any flavor computer that can
> display PDF files will work, and you can control everything about the layout
> and appearance because underneath it's all LaTeX.
> 
>One of the big advantages is that the presentations look professional, not
> the cluttered, difficult-to-read junk that is characteristic of almost all
> PPT presentations.
> 
>I can send an example or two if you want to see the results.
> 
> Rich
> 
> -- 
> Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D.  |  Have knowledge, will travel.
> Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc.   |
> <http://www.appl-ecosys.com> Voice: 503-667-4517  Fax: 503-667-8863
> 
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Re: [PLUG] Conferences, Powerpoint, and freedom

[Tim]

> Although Impress strives to be bug-compatible with Powerpoint,
> there are 21 versions of PPT (Win and Mac) to be compatible
> with, and the same morass of font problems, inadvertent mode
> switching, etc.  The problem isn't whether something is
> compatible with PPT, it is whether PPT is compatable with PPT.
> 
> After years of never-the-same-twice, often unreadable slides, I
> gave up on all that and wrote my own web-based presenter, using
> HTML and JQuery and (for now) Flash for the animations, with a
> Perl front end compiler.  I use an RF presenter to navigate a
> hierarchical collection of slides, which saves much time during
> Q/A.  With a few clicks I can get to any slide, including the 10x
> more backup slides I've built with answers to common questions. 
> 
> http://server-sky.com/wydiwys
> 
> The slides are all autoscaling fixed-ratio images, which makes 
> the presentations big (especially with the full-frame animations)
> but that leaves very little for the browser to misinterpret.
> 
> In theory, if the presentation laptop has a browser that can parse
> standard lemonade html with CSS, javascript, and flash, I'm golden.
> I can and have presented off USB drives, even off the web.  But
> browsers on M$ platforms are even more unpredictable than PPT.


I think it's great that you're trying to come up with something that
is more flexible and universal than PPT.  Over the last few months
I've dabbled with a number of open source projects that are trying to
do the same thing with HTML5 and S5, etc.  I really like the
flexibility of arranging slides into a two dimensional canvas and then
just telling the system what order I want to see the slides in for a
particular talk.  And scalable graphics/fonts/etc are definitely the
way to go to maintain that flexibility.  I can do without Flash, and
would prefer to.

I have two problems right now with getting complete sold on these
approaches:
 1. Migration.  
I have a ton of content in ODP and I need to be able to convert
it.  It doesn't have to be a perfect conversion, but I don't want
to have to copy/paste everything. 

 2. WYSIWYG
Yes, I can hand-code HTML and write scripts to generate HTML and
the like, but I don't want to.  When I sit down to build a slide
deck, I want to focus on my content, not the mechanics of the
slide system.  A WYSIWYG doesn't have to be highly featureful.
Just enough to arrange some text and images in a slide and then
define which slides to show when.

Recently I've done a couple of presentations in InkScape using one of
the presentation plugins.  This generates a large SVG file that
includes JavaScript to run the slide transitions.  Since InkScape is a
decent WYSIWYG for arbitrarily sized canvases, this gives me most of
#2.  I also found by exporting my ODP slides as PDF (with a specific
set of options), I was able to import my slides into InkScape while
maintaining the scalable aspects of them.

Still, this solution is far from perfect.  The plugin I'm using for
InkScape, Sozi, has a pretty terrible interface being modal and not
allowing one to easily set the order of slides from within the rest of
the UI.  Also, converting from the PDFs has several downsides when it
comes to further editing the slides.  

Can anyone suggest other alternatives that I maybe haven't
investigated?

tim
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Re: [PLUG] python boggle

[Tim]

To check for this, try: 

print(repr(SERVER_NAME))

tim


On Thu, Jul 25, 2013 at 11:55:11AM -0700, John Meissen wrote:
> Un-printable characters (including cr/lf) in the data read from the file?
> 
> > I'm trying to read the content of a file to specify the name of a server to 
> > a python script. If I set the variable directly, it works fine If I read 
> > the file, the script fails with a 'can't find server' error. 
> > 
> > Setting the hostname directly is easy enough:
> > 
> > SERVER_NAME = fqdn.domain.net
> > 
> > That works fine... Adding a print to the script prints the appropriate 
> > hostname.
> > 
> > If, however, I try to read the filename from a file, I get what amounts to 
> > a host not found error:
> > 
> > f1 = open('/path/to/file', 'r')
> > 
> > SERVER_NAME = f1.read()
> > f1.closed
> > 
> > And again, printing the variable prints the correct hostname, but when the 
> > script attempts to access the host, it can't find the host. 
> > 
> > Ideas? 
> > 
> > Russell Johnson
> > r...@dimstar.net
> > 
> > 
> > 
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Re: [PLUG] Javascript on Client Side

[Tim]

Actually, no, JavaScript has been predominantly a client-side language
since it's inception.  It was Netscape who invented it, afterall, and
it's purpose has been to make web pages dynamic.

Note that Java and JavaScript are two completely different languages.

Use of JavaScript on the server has never been hugely popular, though
it has always been there, waxing and waning depending on what
frameworks support it.  Lately it has been waxing.

tim


On Fri, Jul 12, 2013 at 05:24:11PM -0700, Rich Shepard wrote:
>I'd like some insights from you folks who know Web applications from the
> server and client ends. My friend has javascript enabled in firefox and
> chrome but facebook (and another site or two) either do not recognize this
> or, perhaps, are using js features not in the version installed on her
> computer.
> 
>I thought that js was a server-side only language. What does it do on the
> client side? It would be nice to resolve this issue sooner rather than
> later.
> 
> TIA,
> 
> Rich
> 
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Re: [PLUG] Ubuntu 12.04 -- uninstall something installed from a .deb

[Tim]

> dpkg --get-selections | grep -i earth
> 
> will give you a list of packages containing the phrase earth and
> whether they are installed or not.


And then perhaps something like this, to remove it:

dpkg --purge google-earth6

If "google-earth6" were the package name.


tim
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Re: [PLUG] Samba access - different results from different machines

[Tim Bruce - PLUG]

On Mon, March 18, 2013 13:36, Mike C. wrote:
>   
>I'd like to set things up so that
>
>> all of the machines are able to access the shared directories of any of
>> the other machines. I don't know how to phrase the question for Mr.
>> Google. I get lots of instructions for installing Samba, but nothing
>> that covers my question.
>>
>> Recommended reading?
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
>> --
>> Regards,
>>
>> Dick Steffens
>>
>
> -- I typed "smb password windows 7 ubuntu 10.04" into the Google search
> bar. This was the 2nd hit. After a cursory review of the article, it seems
> very applicable and and also very well documented.
>
> "Now I made complete tutorial on samba configuration to share you data
> from
> Ubuntu to Windows and also Windows to Ubuntu. Share data from Linux Ubuntu
> with/without permissions. Permission is up to you, if you want to set
> permission or not."
>
> http://www.noobslab.com/2012/03/configure-samba-sharing-between-ubuntu.html

Just for grins, you don't have a .smbmount file in your home directory on
the server that lets you log in, do you?  That file has your username /
password to log you into a samba server.
-- 
Timothy J. Bruce



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Re: [PLUG] Where did Arial go? Ubuntu 12.04 LibreOffice Writer

[Tim Bruce - PLUG]

On Wed, February 13, 2013 12:49, Richard C. Steffens wrote:
> On 02/13/2013 11:25 AM, Tim Bruce - PLUG wrote:
>> Mine are installed in /usr/share/fonts/truetype/msttcorefonts/ so I'd
>> check to see if they are located in there. If they are, maybe you can
>> run something to "fix" the fonts. Check the following man pages:
>> mkfontscale mkfontdir fc-cache to help you rebuild the files /
>> listings. Tim
>
> There's only a README file that directory. It says:
>
> --
> License refused.
>
> Please reinstall the ttf-mscorefonts-installer package (e.g. via
>   apt-get install --reinstall ttf-mscorefonts-installer
> to get prompted for the license again.
> --
>
> Sure enough, I get a dialog titled "Configuring
> ttf-mscorefonts-installer". It provides a EULA. At the bottom of the
> dialog there is a line with "" in the center. However, hitting
>  does nothing. In trying to get out of that I've corrupted
> something related to dpkg at /var/lib/dpkg -- something to do with a
> file called lock.
>
> I'll have to work on that some more after lunch.
>
> --
> Regards,
>
> Dick Steffens
>
>

If I remember correctly, you need to TAB (or click on the OK button)
before hitting .  But I'm not positive.  So try again with the
sudo apt-get install --reinstall ttf-mscorefonts-installer

Tim

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Re: [PLUG] Where did Arial go? Ubuntu 12.04 LibreOffice Writer

[Tim Bruce - PLUG]

On Wed, February 13, 2013 10:25, Richard C. Steffens wrote:
> On 02/13/2013 09:44 AM, Tim Bruce - PLUG wrote:
>> On Wed, February 13, 2013 09:35, Richard C. Steffens wrote:
>>> Upgrades sure are annoying.
>>>
>>> I've migrated to my Ubuntu 12.04 (32 bit) machine. I'm diving into a
>>> real project this morning. The first thing I need to do is to set a
>>> header to a Word doc with the name of the file rendered in Arial 9pt
>>> bold italic. I've been doing this for months. I copy the file name,
>>> past
>>> it into the header of the Word doc (using LibreOffice Writer, of
>>> course), select what I just pasted, right click on it and pick Arial
>>> from the list of available fonts. This worked fine in LibreOffice
>>> Writer
>>> on Ubuntu 10.04. But Arial is not on the list. I checked to be sure
>>> that
>>> msttcorefonts is installed. And, actually, Arial is present already in
>>> the template Word doc file. I can type Arial into the font selection
>>> box
>>> in the LibreOffice Writer tool bar, and it changes the font of the
>>> selection to Arial.
>>>
>>> So, why isn't Arial listed as a font option? Times New Roman isn't
>>> there, either, although it's present in the template file.
>>>
>>> 
>>> Aren't all these "improvements" wonderful?
>>> 
>>>
>>> --
>>> Regards,
>>>
>>> Dick Steffens
>>>
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>>>
>> I think you need to install the "Microsoft" true type fonts, which
>> aren't
>> installed by default.
>>
>> If I remember correctly, the following command will start the process:
>>  sudo apt-get install ttf-mscorefonts-installer
>>
>
> Thanks for the idea, but that's already done:
>
> rsteff@Gateway-E-4500D:~$ sudo apt-get install ttf-mscorefonts-installer
> [sudo] password for rsteff:
> Reading package lists... Done
> Building dependency tree
> Reading state information... Done
> ttf-mscorefonts-installer is already the newest version.
> The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer
> required:
>kde-l10n-engb kde-l10n-zhcn
> Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
> 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 14 not upgraded.
> rsteff@Gateway-E-4500D:~$
>
> --
> Regards,
>
> Dick Steffens
>
>

Mine are installed in
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/msttcorefonts/

so I'd check to see if they are located in there.  If they are, maybe you
can run something to "fix" the fonts.

Check the following man pages:
mkfontscale
mkfontdir
fc-cache
to help you rebuild the files / listings.

Tim
-- 
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Registered Linux User #325725
Website at: http://www.tbruce.com



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Re: [PLUG] Where did Arial go? Ubuntu 12.04 LibreOffice Writer

[Tim Bruce - PLUG]

On Wed, February 13, 2013 09:35, Richard C. Steffens wrote:
> Upgrades sure are annoying.
>
> I've migrated to my Ubuntu 12.04 (32 bit) machine. I'm diving into a
> real project this morning. The first thing I need to do is to set a
> header to a Word doc with the name of the file rendered in Arial 9pt
> bold italic. I've been doing this for months. I copy the file name, past
> it into the header of the Word doc (using LibreOffice Writer, of
> course), select what I just pasted, right click on it and pick Arial
> from the list of available fonts. This worked fine in LibreOffice Writer
> on Ubuntu 10.04. But Arial is not on the list. I checked to be sure that
> msttcorefonts is installed. And, actually, Arial is present already in
> the template Word doc file. I can type Arial into the font selection box
> in the LibreOffice Writer tool bar, and it changes the font of the
> selection to Arial.
>
> So, why isn't Arial listed as a font option? Times New Roman isn't
> there, either, although it's present in the template file.
>
> 
> Aren't all these "improvements" wonderful?
> 
>
> --
> Regards,
>
> Dick Steffens
>
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>

I think you need to install the "Microsoft" true type fonts, which aren't
installed by default.

If I remember correctly, the following command will start the process:
sudo apt-get install ttf-mscorefonts-installer

Tim
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visit my Website at: http://www.tbruce.com
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Re: [PLUG] Where do I find more properties of menu items in Ubuntu 12.04 Gnome Classic Applications menu?

[Tim Bruce - PLUG]

On Fri, February 8, 2013 17:23, Richard C. Steffens wrote:
> On 02/08/2013 04:43 PM, Dale Snell wrote:
>> On Fri, 8 Feb 2013 23:41:24 + (UTC)
>> rst...@comcast.net wrote:
>>
>>>Today's exercise is trying to get the python program footpedal to
>>>work.
>> Try running it from a shell window, and see what sort of error
>> messages are produced.  Since footpedal is a python program, you
>> may need to do something like
>>
>>  $ python /path/to/footpedal.py
>>
>
> src$ python footpedal
> Traceback (most recent call last):
>File "footpedal", line 809, in 
>  fs.startServerThread(None)
>File "footpedal", line 792, in startServerThread
>  self.server_thread = ServerThread(self, self.hid_device_index)
>File "footpedal", line 120, in __init__
> self.reusable_notification.attach_to_status_icon(self.app_window.my_status_icon)
> AttributeError: 'pynotify.Notification' object has no attribute
> 'attach_to_status_icon'
>
>
> Thanks. That's a start. Now I just have to figure out what all that
> means. I know that this is python program uses gtk, so I'm guessing
> that's my next line of research.
>
>> >% snip! %<
>>
>>>Another question is what log do I look in to see what happened when
>>>I clicked on that menu item?
>> Probably ~/.xsession-errors.  You might look in /var/log/messages
>> as well.
>
> I went looking for that and found that it doesn't exist. That seemed
> odd, so I Googled it and found out that Ubuntu uses syslog, instead.
> Screwy, but there it is. Anyway, there wasn't anything in
> /var/log/syslog related to the problem.
>
>> Also, doesn't Ubuntu use AppArmor?  I know next to
>> nothing about AppArmor, but if it were preventing your program
>> from running, I would imagine that it logged that event somewhere.
>> I've no idea where, though.
>
> I don't know anything about AppArmor, either. But it appears that the
> problem exists with:
>
> AttributeError: 'pynotify.Notification' object has no attribute
> 'attach_to_status_icon'
>
>
>> I'm afraid that's all I can think of.
>
> Thanks. It's something to start with.
>
>
> --
> Regards,
>
> Dick Steffens
>
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I found this link from a quick google search.  Hope it helps you Rich.

http://code.google.com/p/footpedal/issues/detail?id=4

-- 
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Registered Linux User #325725



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[PLUG] Open source dwg to dxf converter?

[Tim Wescott]

Does anyone know of any open-source dwg (native AutoCAD format) to dxf
(openly-specified drawing format) converters?

I can't seem to find any, which is sensible.  But frustrating.

-- 

Tim Wescott
www.wescottdesign.com
Control & Communications systems, circuit & software design.

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Re: [PLUG] Linux(ubuntu) Motherboard

[Tim]

Oh, I tend to buy most stuff hardware.  Newegg is good for comparing
various hardware specs and reading reviews written by competent
people.

tim


On Tue, Jan 01, 2013 at 05:57:58PM -0800, Chaz Sliger wrote:
> Any pointers on where to obtain one?
> I went to Frys but they seem to be very Windows oriented...
> -chaz
> 
> 
> On Tue, 2013-01-01 at 17:50 -0800, Tim wrote:
> > I've generally had good luck with Tyan motherboards in terms of
> > Linux compatibility and stability.  Most of their boards are
> > server-oriented, which seems to be what you need.
> > 
> > tim
> > 
> > On Tue, Jan 01, 2013 at 05:16:57PM -0800, Chaz Sliger wrote:
> > > Looking for motherboard recommendations and a good place to buy.
> > > Don't care about gaming or whizzy graphics.
> > > This will be used for financial analysis and database operations.
> > > Need connections for 6 disks (3 sets of mirrors).
> > > Need at least 16 Gb of ram.
> > > Mostly interested in getting a solid reliable board.
> > > Regards,
> > > Chaz
> > > 
> > > 
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> 
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Re: [PLUG] Linux(ubuntu) Motherboard

[Tim]

I've generally had good luck with Tyan motherboards in terms of
Linux compatibility and stability.  Most of their boards are
server-oriented, which seems to be what you need.

tim

On Tue, Jan 01, 2013 at 05:16:57PM -0800, Chaz Sliger wrote:
> Looking for motherboard recommendations and a good place to buy.
> Don't care about gaming or whizzy graphics.
> This will be used for financial analysis and database operations.
> Need connections for 6 disks (3 sets of mirrors).
> Need at least 16 Gb of ram.
> Mostly interested in getting a solid reliable board.
> Regards,
> Chaz
> 
> 
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Re: [PLUG] Bitcoin

[Tim]

I've been meaning to research the crypto involved for a while.  If/when I
get around to it, I could put together a short talk describing it.
If someone else is already an expert, I'd love to hear an in-depth
talk on it too.

tim


On Sun, Dec 30, 2012 at 03:53:56PM -0800, John Jason Jordan wrote:
> Is anyone using it? And if you know anything about it, could you be
> persuaded to give a talk on it, and the Linux apps available for it?
> 
> I have to admit that the thought of dispensing with banks and
> government currencies has appeal.
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[PLUG] Video editing software -- recommendations?

[Tim Wescott]

Title says it: I'm looking for video editing software, preferably
freeware.

I don't know much about video editing: I know that there is "linear
editing" software and "nonlinear editing" software.  Whatever that
means, I want software that'll let me arbitrarily splice any length
chunks of video from any compatible file into the finished job, then
independently dub in audio as I see fit.

Stills may be nice, a way to do titling would be very nice, special
effects like running slow or backward is totally unnecessary.

-- 

Tim Wescott
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Control & Communications systems, circuit & software design.

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Re: [PLUG] Your turn to talk!

[Tim]

I *may* have time to put together a short talk on OWASP, what it is
all about, what our chapter is doing locally, and introduce FLOSSHack,
(a hacking competition designed to audit open source apps).

Or if that isn't technical enough, I could give a talk I recently gave
at BSides PDX on an open source tool (bletchley) I'm working on which
helps pentesters perform black box cryptanalysis.  Kinda niche also,
though.

Chime in if there is any interest...
tim


On Mon, Nov 26, 2012 at 12:19:17PM -0800, Michael Dexter wrote:
> 
> Hey all,
> 
> The holidays have proven disruptive for everyone and no one has stepped 
> forward for the December slots. I offered a plan-B of me giving my BHyVe 
> hypervisor talk but that's a bit niche.
> 
> The person who recently came up about physical security is interested 
> but looks like they will need more time.
> 
> Got something to share?
> 
> Another thought: few-minute pseudo-lightning talks on the absolutely 
> coolest open source things we've each discovered this last year with the 
> option of a few things that have driven us up the wall.
> 
> Michael
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Re: [PLUG] Victor upgraded to Ubuntu 12.something

[Tim Bruce - PLUG]

On Fri, November 16, 2012 21:44, Victor Soich wrote:
> Dear Plug clinic,
>
> I don't like my Ubuntu 12.something.  I can't figure out what programs
> are on my machine.  There is no menu.  I want to go back to 10.04.  Or
> I want to put on Mint or Debian on my desktop computer.  I really
> don't relish hauling my desktop computer down to the clinic, with my
> monitor, printer, et. al.  Can I get help backing up my files, blowing
> away Ubuntu 12.something, and putting Debian on my machine, and make
> sure I can surf the internet, and be able to print, all in the span of
> 4 hours.  I've had issues with all these things in the past, and each
> time it took an inordinate amount of time.
>
> On second thought, I may be getting a laptop, and putting Linux from
> Scratch, or Debian on it, or whatever more sophisticated people than I
> suggest.  Once I get that working to my satisfaction, I'll blow away
> my Ubuntu 12.something.  Unless there some quick trick to go back to
> 10.04, I'll leave well enough alone.  Is there a mechanism to roll
> back the operating system, so to speak?
>
> Sincerely,
> Victor Soich
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Victor,

One thing I've found is the reliance on the menu.  And I should know
because I'm one of them.  Trying to remember the app names can be
frustrating but I can remember which submenu it's on.

In that regard, I've installed AWN (Avant Window Navigator) which give me
a Macintosh like look (along with Unity).

Maybe you want to take a look at some of the screen shots of that and see
if that fits your bill rather than a full re-install or trying to "fix"
it.

Tim
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Re: [PLUG] Configuring GTK2 File Dialog Box Entries

[Tim Bruce - PLUG]

On Tue, October 23, 2012 09:19, Rich Shepard wrote:
>It appears that all file selection dialog boxes (e.g., Firefox,
> LibreOffice) use the same GTK2 widget with Xfce4. When the dialog box is
> presented to select a directory or file for opening or saving the entire
> list of dot-files are shown. I don't see a checkbox to remove those.
>
>Please provide a pointer to the config file that will allow me to
> select
> to not display dot-files in this dialog box.
>
> TIA,
>
> Rich

Rich,

You might try the following:

Edit the file
~/.config/gtk-2.0/gtkfilechooser.ini

There is a line with the parameter ShowHidden.  Change it from True to False

Tim

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