Re: [PLUG] my printer is out of ink, recommendations for a new printer?

[Tom Sharples]

My experience with recent vintage HP (and other) inkjet reliability over 
the last several years has been abysmal. Not to mention irritating 
nagware that prompts you - on all your desk and laptops - to buy new ink 
when the old stuff is still fine etc. I finally junked them all and 
bought a Brother MFC-9330 combo laser. Bulletproof, fantastic 
paperfeeder, never gives me grief. A welcome relief from endless dicking 
around with cheap inkjets.

Tom S.


On 10/27/2016 10:48 PM, Russell Senior wrote:
> The subject line is partly a joke.  I have an HP Deskjet 932c, probably
> 10 years old or something vaguely like that.  The ink cartridges are
> about shot (currently blue instead of black, morphing into a red).  A
> replacement set of ink (HP 78/45) is about $80, which is close to a new
> printer.  The printer is attached to an Ubuntu box, printing occurs
> through CUPS.
>
> Advice?
>
>

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Re: [PLUG] Small network managed switch?

[Tom Sharples]

UBNT's 24-port Edgeswitch lite retails for around $200:

https://www.ubnt.com/edgemax/edgeswitch-lite/

On 11/16/2015 12:52 AM, Russell Senior wrote:
>> "Wayne" == Wayne E Van Loon  writes:
> Wayne> I have a customer that would like me to use a managed network
> Wayne> switch in my next control system. It's a very small network, <8
> Wayne> ports needed for my ethernet I/O. I have never used a managed
> Wayne> network switch. I am aghast at the prices!
>
> Wayne> Anybody have a recommendation of something to look at?
>
> What features do you need?
>
>

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Re: [PLUG] PCENGINES group order?

[Tom Sharples]

Were they using the older wrap board or the newer alix? The wraps did 
have reliability and performance problems. But we have hundreds of the alix 
3c/d boards in outdoor settings in widely varying temperatures runing Slack, 
and they have been rock-solid and quite speedy for us.

Tom S.

- Original Message - 
From: Chris Schafer xoph...@gmail.com
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group plug@lists.pdxlinux.org
Sent: Thursday, November 14, 2013 8:23 AM
Subject: Re: [PLUG] PCENGINES group order?


 Oh perhaps it was somewhat climate and housing related then.  I suppose it
 depends on your use case.  If you don't cause any load on them I am sure
 they are fine.

 Which OS would that be?  There are many things that are great about Linux
 but I find your use of the term modern somewhat confusing.  Whether you
 are talking about the kernel or the user land would we really say that
 Linux is modern?  Free, powerful, familiar, robust, ?  I mean of the
 packaged router in a box systems I think it is really hard to beat 
 pfsense.
 And I have used most of them.  That said if you are gonna do it all from
 the command line it probably doesn't matter which one you use if it has
 crypto library support for the onboard chipset.

 The hope with these boards was that they had the cpu to do the vpn and
 routing we needed at the time.  If properly tuned they would just get by.
 But given the hot climate they were installed in perhaps the case and
 complete packaging where at fault there.

 I mean they are sort of between a full PC router and a linksys class
 OpenWRT box.  There was basically one OpenVPN setting that would work with
 the on board accelerator.  The rest would work but could only push like
 50-80Kbits between the links.  No crypto was 2Mbit as was the one
 compatible library setting.
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[PLUG] How to detect ppp address change remotely?

[Tom Sharples]

Hello all,

We have several installations of embedded wireless routers (running 
slack on a 2.4 kernel) in which the gateway router_1 uses a Verizon 3G 
USB modem (ppp0) as its connection to the outside world, and one or more 
downstream router_2 have 5.8Ghz wireless links to router_1, and thus 
route traffic to the outside world through the same ppp0 3G connection.

Verizon has a habit of constantly changing the ppp0 IP address often 
sometime several time per hour. I would like to figure out a way that 
the downstream router_2 can be made aware of that ppp0 address change at 
router_1 within a minute or two of it happening. The obvious way seemed 
to be running a cronjob traceroute from the router_2 to a known outside 
IP, with a limit of two of three hops, and grepping the first public IP 
and looking for the change. However, for some reason that shows the 
Verizon gateway router on their tower as the first public IP rather that 
the locally assigned ppp0 public IP address. Any suggestions for how to 
determine that ppp0 IP using standard tools and pref. without writing 
e.g. inter-router communications scripts etc. would be welcome.

verizon_tower--[3G_modem(ppp0)]-[router_1]---[5.8Ghz_link][router_2]

Thanks,

Tom S.
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Re: [PLUG] How to detect ppp address change remotely?

[Tom Sharples]

You're not confused - they are using the gateway router, and it is 
handling the routing to the internet. They need to know when the 
gateway's ppp0 IP address has changed for reasons unrelated to their 
routing of data, having to do with a somewhat wierd custom DDNS/IP 
camera/event-alert thingy. I didn't want to get into explaining all that 
wierdness tho :-)

Tom S.

On 3/17/2012 8:28 PM, Rich Burroughs wrote:
 Tom,

 I'm a little confused. I'm not a routing guru by any means though :)

 But there's a NIC in the gateway router? Why aren't the downstream 
 routers using that as their default gateway? And then it would handle 
 the routing to Verizon?

 Rich

 On Saturday, March 17, 2012, Tom Sharples tsharp...@qorvus.com 
 mailto:tsharp...@qorvus.com wrote:
  Hello all,
 
  We have several installations of embedded wireless routers (running
  slack on a 2.4 kernel) in which the gateway router_1 uses a Verizon 3G
  USB modem (ppp0) as its connection to the outside world, and one or more
  downstream router_2 have 5.8Ghz wireless links to router_1, and thus
  route traffic to the outside world through the same ppp0 3G connection.
 
  Verizon has a habit of constantly changing the ppp0 IP address often
  sometime several time per hour. I would like to figure out a way that
  the downstream router_2 can be made aware of that ppp0 address change at
  router_1 within a minute or two of it happening. The obvious way seemed
  to be running a cronjob traceroute from the router_2 to a known outside
  IP, with a limit of two of three hops, and grepping the first public IP
  and looking for the change. However, for some reason that shows the
  Verizon gateway router on their tower as the first public IP rather that
  the locally assigned ppp0 public IP address. Any suggestions for how to
  determine that ppp0 IP using standard tools and pref. without writing
  e.g. inter-router communications scripts etc. would be welcome.
 
  
 verizon_tower--[3G_modem(ppp0)]-[router_1]---[5.8Ghz_link][router_2]
 
  Thanks,
 
  Tom S.
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Re: [PLUG] How to detect ppp address change remotely?

[Tom Sharples]

Neither arp not ip n show the ppp0 address on either router, probably 
because of the noarp option being selected (don't think I have control 
over that but will check).  Ifconfig does of course, but that only helps 
on the gateway router, not the downstream ones. And as mentioned before, 
traceroute just skips the local IP ppp0 ip address:

Hoku_R2:~# traceroute yahoo.com
traceroute to yahoo.com (98.139.183.24), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets
  1  172.16.181.1 (172.16.181.1)  34.889 ms  1.059 ms  1.022 ms 
---gateway node
  2  132.sub-66-174-202.myvzw.com (66.174.202.132)  61.664 ms  79.163 
ms  67.642 ms ---verizon tower gateway

At position 2 above I would expect to see the ppp0 address:

ppp0  Link encap:Point-to-Point Protocol
   inet addr:72.10.xxx.xx  P-t-P:66.174.202.132  
Mask:255.255.255.255
   UP POINTOPOINT RUNNING NOARP MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1

but no joy.

Tom S.



On 3/17/2012 8:51 PM, Bill Barry wrote:
 On Sat, Mar 17, 2012 at 6:54 PM, Tom Sharplestsharp...@qorvus.com  wrote:
 ..
 Verizon gateway router on their tower as the first public IP rather that
 the locally assigned ppp0 public IP address. Any suggestions for how to
 determine that ppp0 IP using standard tools and pref. without writing
 e.g. inter-router communications scripts etc. would be welcome.
 verizon_tower--[3G_modem(ppp0)]-[router_1]---[5.8Ghz_link][router_2]
 router_2 could be able to run arp to find the ip address of router_1.
 router_1 could run ifconfig to find out its own address

 Bill


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Re: [PLUG] How to detect ppp address change remotely?

[Tom Sharples]

Only have busybox on these devices. Unfortunately -T isn't supported, 
and tcptraceroute isn't installed.

traceroute: invalid option -- T
Options:
 -d  set SO_DEBUG options to socket
 -n  Print hop addresses numerically rather than symbolically
 -r  Bypass the normal routing tables and send directly to a 
host
 -v  Verbose output
 -m max_ttl  Set the max time-to-live (max number of hops)
 -p port#Set the base UDP port number used in probes
 (default is 33434)
 -q nqueries Set the number of probes per ``ttl'' to nqueries
 (default is 3)
 -s src_addr Use the following IP address as the source address
 -t tos  Set the type-of-service in probe packets to the 
following value
 (default 0)
 -w wait Set the time (in seconds) to wait for a response to a probe
 (default 3 sec.).


rOn 3/17/2012 9:26 PM, Bill Barry wrote:
 On Sat, Mar 17, 2012 at 9:09 PM, Tom Sharplestsharp...@qorvus.com  wrote:
 Neither arp not ip n show the ppp0 address on either router, probably
 because of the noarp option being selected (don't think I have control over
 that but will check).  Ifconfig does of course, but that only helps on the
 gateway router, not the downstream ones. And as mentioned before, traceroute
 just skips the local IP ppp0 ip address:

 Hoku_R2:~# traceroute yahoo.com
 traceroute to yahoo.com (98.139.183.24), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets
   1  172.16.181.1 (172.16.181.1)  34.889 ms  1.059 ms  1.022 ms---gateway
 node
   2  132.sub-66-174-202.myvzw.com (66.174.202.132)  61.664 ms  79.163 ms
   67.642 ms---verizon tower gateway

 At position 2 above I would expect to see the ppp0 address:

 ppp0  Link encap:Point-to-Point Protocol
   inet addr:72.10.xxx.xx  P-t-P:66.174.202.132  Mask:255.255.255.255
   UP POINTOPOINT RUNNING NOARP MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1

 but no joy.

 Tom S.
 How about tcptraceroute or traceroute -T?

 Bill
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Re: [PLUG] usefulness of Cisco 186/188 ATA phone adapters, Ooma

[Tom Sharples]

We used Vonage for years and years, but the quality and reliability got 
really bad so I switched to Comcast VOIP. They use a separate dedicated 
network, and it's best voice service I've ever had.

Tom S.


On 10/28/2011 9:21 PM, C W wrote:
 Scott,
 Thanks for the feedback.  Ooma's service sounds like it's better quality
 than mobile phone service, so I can live with that.  Especially since Ooma's
 monthly charge is extremely low.

 How expensive and difficult is it to add several phones in the same house to
 one Ooma line?

 Cheers,
 Elcaset

 On Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 8:08 PM, Scott Garmansgar...@zenlinux.com  wrote:

 On 10/28/2011 07:12 PM, C W wrote:
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ooma
Anybody here familiar with Ooma?
 I switched from Vonage to Ooma this year. Never had any issues with
 Vonage, but with Ooma I have occasionally had audio quality issues, and
 even dropped calls. Not fun when I work from home most days and am
 dropping from a conference call.

 About a month ago I was considering going back to Vonage, but things
 have been stable since then, so I'm willing to take the risk until I run
 into problems again.

 Scott

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[PLUG] Setting permanent eth0 IP address in Ubuntu LTS?

[Tom Sharples]

Hi, I've run into a (documented) bug using the Network Manager GUI to try to 
set a static IP eth0 address in Ubuntu : the apply button is always grayed 
out so it won't let me set the address no matter what I do.  Is there a 
command-line shell script or file I can edit to get this set up? Ubuntu is 
very foreign to me (I use slackware) and I'm loath to screw something up on 
a system that's going to a customer.

Thanks,

Tom S. 

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[PLUG] Alternative to using split / cat for FTPing large file to remote location?

[Tom Sharples]

Hello,

We're building a wireless 3G IP camera system that will FTP a large 
(2.5Mbyte) 10 megapixel jpeg image every 30 minutes to a remote server, for 
use in a time-lapse image application. Using a cron job, we pull the image 
from the attached IP cam via curl http://local cam IP address/img.jpg 
 /tmp/image.jpg, and then FTP it to the remote server. This works fine when 
the 3G connection is working well (around 300-400K upload bandwidth). But 
when the 3G connection slows to a crawl, which happens multiple time each 
day, the FTP transfer hangs or times out.

I tested a script that uses split to divide the 2.5Mbyte image into smaller 
50k chunks, which are individually ftp'd, then reassembled at the server 
using cat. This works but will require a fair amount of experimentation and 
additional code to make it reasonably robust to deal with missing files, 
slowdowns, timeouts, retries, etc. etc. My question - is there a better 
apporoach or code out there (for a bare-bones slack 2.4.23 environment) that 
would automate this process and reliably handle the transfer of the large 
file to the remote server under erratic bandwidth conditions?

Thanks,

Tom S. 

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Re: [PLUG] 3G Data Transfers, WAS: Alternative to using split / cat for FTPing large file to remote location?

[Tom Sharples]

I believe this is a problem with all carriers altho we use Verizon. Basic issue 
is competition with cellphones and that's a big problem esp. during rush hour. 
Throughout the day, we've measured upload speeds as high as 450kbs and as low 
as 8kbs. 

We do have a number of these systems out there (not with 10mp cams tho) and 
this problem shows up anytime you're in an urban or suburban area. Performance 
is actually much better in rural areas (if you can get a signal), presumably 
because there's not as much cellphone traffic.

- Original Message - 
  From: Michael R 
  To: Tom Sharples ; General Linux/UNIX discussion and help; civil and on-topic 
  Sent: Wednesday, April 27, 2011 10:25 AM
  Subject: Re: [PLUG] 3G Data Transfers, WAS: Alternative to using split / cat 
for FTPing large file to remote location?


  Tom Sharples wrote:
   Hello,
   
   We're building a wireless 3G IP camera system that will FTP a large
   (2.5Mbyte) 10 megapixel jpeg image every 30 minutes to a remote server, for
   use in a time-lapse image application. Using a cron job, we pull the image
   from the attached IP cam via curl http://local cam IP address/img.jpg
   /tmp/image.jpg, and then FTP it to the remote server. This works fine when
   the 3G connection is working well (around 300-400K upload bandwidth). But
   when the 3G connection slows to a crawl, which happens multiple time each
   day, the FTP transfer hangs or times out

  Well that's interesting.  Is this all on one 3G network or multiple carriers? 
 Are the 3G slowdowns consistent with respect to time of day?  Do you you have 
multiple camera points?

  Please tell more.



  -- 
  Michael Rasmussen
  http://www.jamhome.us/
  Be Appropriate  Follow Your Curiosity
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Re: [PLUG] Alternative to using split / cat for FTPing large file to remote location?

[Tom Sharples]

Have not tried rsync. Scp at first suceeds in sending about 15% of the file, 
then stalls and eventually times out the same way as FTP. Not sure why but 
it may be that during times of poor bandwidth verizon limits the amount of 
data you can send in one session (?)

Tom S.

- Original Message - 
From: Russell Senior russ...@personaltelco.net
To: Tom Sharples tsharp...@qorvus.com
Cc: General Linux/UNIX discussion and help; civil and on-topic 
plug@lists.pdxlinux.org
Sent: Wednesday, April 27, 2011 10:24 AM
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Alternative to using split / cat for FTPing large file 
to remote location?


 Tom == Tom Sharples tsharp...@qorvus.com writes:

 Tom Hello, We're building a wireless 3G IP camera system that will
 Tom FTP a large (2.5Mbyte) 10 megapixel jpeg image every 30 minutes
 Tom to a remote server, for use in a time-lapse image
 Tom application. Using a cron job, we pull the image from the
 Tom attached IP cam via curl http://local cam IP address/img.jpg
 Tom /tmp/image.jpg, and then FTP it to the remote server. This works
 Tom fine when the 3G connection is working well (around 300-400K
 Tom upload bandwidth). But when the 3G connection slows to a crawl,
 Tom which happens multiple time each day, the FTP transfer hangs or
 Tom times out.

 Tom I tested a script that uses split to divide the 2.5Mbyte image
 Tom into smaller 50k chunks, which are individually ftp'd, then
 Tom reassembled at the server using cat. This works but will require
 Tom a fair amount of experimentation and additional code to make it
 Tom reasonably robust to deal with missing files, slowdowns,
 Tom timeouts, retries, etc. etc. My question - is there a better
 Tom apporoach or code out there (for a bare-bones slack 2.4.23
 Tom environment) that would automate this process and reliably handle
 Tom the transfer of the large file to the remote server under erratic
 Tom bandwidth conditions?

 No software is going to make your 3G network not suck, but have you
 tried scp or rsync?


 -- 
 Russell Senior, President
 russ...@personaltelco.net 

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Re: [PLUG] Cheapest possible linux hardware?

[Tom Sharples]

One of the cheapest is probably the ubiquiti bullet, under $40 including 
built-in wireless, ethernet, and serial data port. Downloadable SDK too.

http://www.ubnt.com/bullet

Tom S.

- Original Message - 
From: Scott Garman sgar...@zenlinux.com
To: plug@lists.pdxlinux.org
Sent: Tuesday, November 09, 2010 9:20 PM
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Cheapest possible linux hardware?


 On 11/09/2010 09:17 PM, Scott Garman wrote:
 The tiniest, most inexpensive Linux-based devices I know of are smart
 ethernet ports, which often only offer a tiny embedded webserver an
 miniscule amounts of flash memory. Useful when tied to a sensors in data
 acquisition situations.

 My apologies for the unusual grammar above. I'm tired and/or becoming
 senile. :)

 Scott

 -- 
 Scott Garman
 sgarman at zenlinux dot com
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Re: [PLUG] Wireless Access Point Security

[Tom Sharples]

Minor point - at a given power setting, the wireless range of 802.11b is 
greater than 802.11g, esp. in a clear LOS environment.

Tom S.

- Original Message - 
From: Richard C. Steffens rst...@comcast.net
To: PLUG List plug@lists.pdxlinux.org
Sent: Saturday, April 24, 2010 12:11 PM
Subject: [PLUG] Wireless Access Point Security


 This is another phase of the thread, 2nd Router Setup.

 At last week's clinic we figured out how to set up my WRT54G as a
 wireless access point to use with a WET11 bridge. The subject of
 security arose and after a short conversation we decided I should try
 using the WRT54G in 802.11b mode for two reasons: 1, the WET11 only
 works on 802.11b, and 2, the wireless signal range of 802.11b is shorter
 than 802.11g.

 This morning I installed the WRT54G in the basement and started walking
 around with my laptop checking out the range. I got all bars showing
 green up in my office on the 2nd floor and directly above the WRT54G. I
 went outside and started walking up the driveway. By the time I got to
 the street the laptop was still showing 2 bars. I thought, Well, it's
 clearly loosing signal strength. Maybe if I put a shield of some sort
 between the WRT54G and the outside wall of the basement, which is the
 direction of the street, maybe that will block the signal in that
 direction. So, I took an aluminum cookie sheet and set it between the
 wall and the WRT54G. I went back up the driveway and saw that, while it
 dropped to 2 bars by the time I got to the street, It took longer to do
 so, i.e. my shield worked to improve the signal strength!

 So, now I have radio questions:

 Would a shield work?

 Does it have to be grounded in order to be effective?

 BTW, I'm less concerned about the other three directions away from the
 house because it's twice as far or farther from the location of the
 WRT54G to the nearest neighbor in all three directions as it is to the
 street.


 -- 
 Regards,

 Dick Steffens


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Re: [PLUG] Restoring the original netbook OS when no media supplied

[Tom Sharples]

I ran into a similar problem a couple years ago with a new HP computer - the 
then-current linux drivers wouldn't properly support the HP sata host 
adaptor. I called HP customer service, complained, and they ended up sending 
me a set of recovery disk in the mail at no charge. You could try the same 
thing with Samsung. Might work.

Tom  S.

- Original Message - 
From: Wayne E. Van Loon Sr. w...@pacifier.com
To: General Linux/UNIX discussion and help;civil and on-topic 
plug@lists.pdxlinux.org
Sent: Friday, February 19, 2010 6:00 PM
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Restoring the original netbook OS when no media supplied


 Eric House wrote:
 This is a rant, a warning, and a request for help.  The help part: any
 ideas on how to get Windows 7 Starter onto a netbook for which it's
 licensed without buying a disk?

 The story: we've been waiting for the Pinetrail version of the Atom
 to show up in netbooks, and so when Costco started carrying the
 Samsung N-150 I snapped one up.  As soon as it arrived I installed
 Ubuntu Netbook Remix.  The installer for that distro doesn't support
 LVM and won't let you install without creating a swap partition, so a
 minimum of two partitions were required.  Samsung's setup used three,
 so I wiped it, figuring I could restore later (after enabling LVM and
 freeing up the swap partition), and moved on.

 Big mistake.  The device does not ship with any recovery media.

 This won't solve your problem, but I am curious. The last several laptop
 type computers that friends have purchased did not include recovery
 media. One of the first tasks for the purchaser was to make it. Was that
 the situation with your Samsung? Or have things gotten even screwier?

 Wayne

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Re: [PLUG] It just happened again (Resolved)

[Tom Sharples]

http://tinyurl.com/ycm67lt

- Original Message - 
From: John Jason Jordan joh...@comcast.net
To: plug@lists.pdxlinux.org
Sent: Sunday, December 06, 2009 5:37 PM
Subject: Re: [PLUG] It just happened again (Resolved)


 On Sun, 06 Dec 2009 15:39:54 -0800
 Dale Snell ddsn...@verizon.net dijo:

On Sun, 06 Dec 2009 11:30: -320800
John Jason Jordan joh...@comcast.net wrote:

 Thanks for all the suggestions. I finally nailed it.

 The ~/.local-original/share/applications folder for the new user had
 only two files. My ~/local/share/applications folder has many
 entries. I don't know what they do. Some appear to be part of the
 Applications menu, but others clearly are not. And I also have
 launchers in Applications that are not reflected in a file in this
 folder.

 However, I was especially interested in a file called
 metacity.desktop. I noted that the new user's original folder did not
 contain this file. I tried to rename it, but Nautilus would not let
 me. I certainly own the file and have rw permissions for it, but
 Nautilus just wouldn't let me. No matter, as root from the command
 line I renamed it metacity.desktop.old. Then I rebooted. And after
 logging in metacity launched as it is supposed to. Everything else
 seems to be working normally.

 I have no idea what rogue process created this file.

 It is a text file that can be opened with Gedit. Looking at the
 contents I see nothing that says don't launch metacity for this
 user.

 If any of the Gnome users on this list have such a file, it would be
 interesting to compare notes. I feel an obligation to file a bug
 report, but I in order to make the bug report useful I need to figure
 out what is the purpose of the file, what created it, and where it
 went wrong.


John,

I do have the ~/.local/share/applications folder, and the metacity file
is in it.  It's a simple text file.  The contents are:

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=Metacity
Type=Application
...
many lines of the form Name[language-specifier]=Metacity
...
Exec=metacity
NoDisplay=true
X-GNOME-WMSettingsModule=metacity
X-GNOME-WMName=Metacity
X-GnomeWMSettingsLibrary=metacity
X-GNOME-Bugzilla-Bugzilla=GNOME
X-GNOME-Bugzilla-Product=metacity
X-GNOME-Bugzilla-Component=general
X-GNOME-Autostart-Phase=WindowManager
X-GNOME-Provides=windowmanager
X-GNOME-Autostart-Notify=true
Name[en_US]=Metacity

Nautilus shows the filename as Metacity, but ls shows it as
metacity.desktop (note the capitalization).  Changing the name from the
command line (mv metacity.desktop metacity.desktop.orig) changed the
name as shown by ls.  Nautilus, however, still showed it as Metacity.
Changing the name with Nautilus, to Metacity.orig, showed the name
changed there.  Just to be stubborn, ls showed the name as
metacity.desktop.orig.  A little digging showed what is likely the
reason.

The last line of the file is Name[en_US]=Metacity.  If I change the
filename using Nautilus, that line changes to
Name[en_US]=Metacity.orig.  The actual filename, as shown by ls, does
not change.  It seems pretty obvious that this line is what Nautilus is
reporting as the filename, at least on my system.

Now, as to why Nautilus didn't want to let you change the name of your
file, I'm not sure.  Check the SELinux context for the file, that may
be a problem.  For that matter, check the context for the parent
directory.  I've had trouble occasionally where I couldn't change a
file, even as root.  The security context turned out to be the
trouble.  Here are the directory listings from my system:

[da...@valeron applications]$ ls -d --context ../applications
drwxr-xr-x  dales dales unconfined_u:object_r:user_home_t:s0 
../applications
[da...@valeron applications]$ ls --context metacity.desktop
-rw-rw-r--  dales dales unconfined_u:object_r:user_home_t:s0 
metacity.desktop

Now that I think about it, SELinux contexts could be a problem waiting
to bite you.  If you're bringing files into Fedora from another distro,
they almost certainly don't have the right security contexts, assuming
that they have any at all.  Nautilus can set the contexts for you.
Move to your /home directory and right-click on your user directory.
Select Properties and select the Permissions tab.  Make sure that
your folder and file permissions are set correctly (they probably
are).  Then, at the bottom of the panel, you'll see a line SELinux
Contexts and a string widget.  Make sure the settings are right
(again, they probably are, but if not see mine, above), click
the Apply Permissions to Enclosed Files button, and you should be
good to go.

 The string widget on my Nautilus is just a drop-down, but User home 
 directory
 is what it was set to. I did click on the Apply Permissions to Enclosed 
 Files
 button, on general principles.

 I have brought in only a handful of config files from other distros
 - .openoffice.org, .scribus, .rhythmbox, and the like. But no config files
 relative to the desktop or OS.

 Having said that, I have copied several 

Re: [PLUG] Dell Zino

[Tom Sharples]

Along the same line, we need to prototype something that's capable of 
playing streaming video from up to four IP cameras in a Firefox browser 
window, using the downloadable java players that each cam manufacturer 
provides to support playback of mjpeg or mpeg4 video streams. In the example 
of your proposed hardware, would these players typically be able to use the 
Nvidia chipset or would they have to use the Atom processor, or is there any 
way to know without trying it?

Thanks,

Tom S.

- Original Message - 
From: Galen Seitz gal...@seitzassoc.com
To: General Linux/UNIX discussion and help;civil and on-topic 
plug@lists.pdxlinux.org
Sent: Friday, November 13, 2009 9:37 PM
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Dell Zino


 VY wrote:
 Hi:

 Does anyone has any experience running Linux on the new Dell Zino line of
 PCs?
 I want to use it as a media center kind of box.  It seems low
 cost and even has an HDMI out.

 http://www.dell.com/us/en/home/desktops/inspiron-zino-hd/pd.aspx?refid=inspiron-zino-hds=dhscs=19ref=dthp

 My first concern would be the state of driver support for video
 features.  It seems to be taking forever for ATI and Intel to get this
 stuff nailed down.

 I'm considering a motherboard with an Nvidia ION chipset for a MythTV
 front end client.
 http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=articleitem=nvidia_ion_linuxnum=1

 These boards use an Atom processor, but with all the heavy lifting
 offloaded to the Nvidia graphics processor, they have no problem
 handling HD video.  The one downfall that is frequently mentioned is
 flash.  Since there currently is no way to offload flash video to the
 graphics processor, the Atom has to do the rendering.  As you can
 imagine, this does not work very well for anything high-res.

 Both Zotac and Asrock make suitable ION motherboards.  Here's one that
 looks promising for my purposes:
 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813500027cm_re=zotac_ion-_-13-500-027-_-Product

 I can't believe I'm suggesting something that requires a proprietary
 driver, but unfortunately the Nvidia ION is currently the best fit for
 what I want to do.

 -- 
 Galen Seitz
 gal...@seitzassoc.com
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[PLUG] Multi IP-camera display - suggestions?

[Tom Sharples]

Hello, 

We're trying to figure out a low-cost way to simultaneously display the outputs 
of up to four different brands (e.g. Axis, Sony, Bosch, etc) of IP cams on a 
single LCD flatpanel attached to an x-86 Linux workstation. This platform can 
be anything handy like e.g. a low-end Dell or HP. Each IP cam has an embedded 
web server that allows you to surf to its IP and see live video, but the 
underlying mechanisms are very different from one brand to the next. Some 
require you to download a resource-hungry Java or active-X blob, others merely 
execute in-line javascript or streaming ftp, and yet others require a 
multi-step interactive series of key and mouse clicks to get to a live video 
screen. 

One way to handle this might be using e.g. curl scripts to deal with the 
preliminaries, and then opening up four individual browser instances, one for 
each cam, and assigning their video outputs to one of four quadrants of the 
screen. But this seems pretty clunky and likely to severely bog down system 
resources and cause random crashes. Does anyone here have suggestions for a 
better way to do this?

Thanks,

Tom S.
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Re: [PLUG] Do it yourself solar...

[Tom Sharples]

Some of our wisps use these airx-400s:

http://preview.tinyurl.com/lmgs39

if you have sufficient wind they work quite well.

Tom S.

- Original Message - 
From: Michael Robinson plu...@robinson-west.com
To: plug@lists.pdxlinux.org
Sent: Wednesday, August 19, 2009 1:02 PM
Subject: [PLUG] Do it yourself solar...


 Since I'm looking at building a do it yourself UPS, I figured I ought to
 look into a do it yourself solar power system as well.

 Well, I can't find any Portland businesses to buy panels from at a
 reasonable hobbyist price.

 Even at $6/watt, panels are awfully expensive.

 The best I can get a grid tie inverter for is $299 and that's
 only a 250 watt inverter off of Ebay.

 Batteries only get you so far.  Can anyone build a solar system
 that can provide 250 watts for say a single server for significantly
 less than $1k?  How about a wind mill?  Any other options?  To get
 250 watts worth of panels I'm looking at $1.2k alone and getting
 only a fraction of the power most of the time.

 Anyways, I'm curious.  Are there any incentives in Oregon for people
 who buy solar panels to address the cost issue?

 So I'm back to getting a non grid tie inverter and somehow managing
 to program a PIC microcontroller to monitor the battery and report
 to the Linux server.  I guess I'll have to design a circuit to charge
 the battery and monitor the AC line for outages, spikes, and brownout
 conditions.

 With sliver solar panels and other emerging technologies, one would
 expect that solar panels would be a lot cheaper by now than they
 were even a year ago.  I guess that just isn't the case.

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Re: [PLUG] Web file transfer site recommendations

[Tom Sharples]

Skype is your friend for unlimited-size file transfers:

http://www.skype.com/allfeatures/sendfiles/

We rountinely use it to transfer files  50MB.

Tom S.

- Original Message - 
From: John Jason Jordan joh...@comcast.net
To: PLUG plug@lists.pdxlinux.org
Sent: Thursday, July 23, 2009 10:55 PM
Subject: [PLUG] Web file transfer site recommendations


I must use PSU's e-mail servers, even for my Comcast account, or I
 won't be able to send e-mail when I am on campus.

 Recent upgrades to the university e-mail system changed the maximum
 e-mail attachment from 20 MB to 8 MB.

 Side question 1: How does this benefit the university? Doesn't the
 entire e-mail and all its attachments merely pass through the
 university's computers? Am I correct in thinking that the 20 ~ 8 MB
 never resides on the university's servers?

 This is seriously annoying to me. I cannot get files from my professors
 because they are too big to pass through the university's e-mail
 system.

 As a workaround, I am looking for web-based file storage sites. All I
 have found so far are unacceptable.

 Does anyone know of such a site (free) that does not require an e-mail
 address so they can spam me forever with requests that I upgrade to a
 for-pay account?
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