Re: [PLUG] New CUPS, ancient printers

[King Beowulf]

On 9/29/23 11:50, Keith Lofstrom wrote:
> Does modern CUPS 2.3.3op2 (Debian 11) and contemporary Ubuntu work 
> with 25yo HP4050n and HP4100n postscript 2 laser (not deskjet) 
> printers? I'm encountering configuration issues, which may be PEBKAC ...

Yep...most likely PEBKAC...either that or internet search-fu requires 
additional training.

HP printers, especially older laserjets, are well supported. Besides 
CUPS, you will also need HPLIP to provide the correct printer ppd, 
filters, and URI. For many HP printers, CUPS will not have the 
"drivers". As postcript printers, you might be able to get CUPS to work 
with a generic ppd.  Same for PCL5.  The interface URI will be the 
tricky part.

I have a HP LJ m1212nf MFP (Vintage 2010)and network print, scan and fax 
works - well fax did a few years ago ;-)

HPLIP support is: 
https://developers.hp.com/hp-linux-imaging-and-printing/supported_devices/index

HP LaserJet 4050n Printer HPLIP >= 0.9.5    Full (End of support)   
USB connection
HP LaserJet 4100n Printer     HPLIP >= 0.9.5    Full    USB 
connection

Note that network, parallel IEEE-1284, RS232 printing is not supported 
on Linux.

For 4050N:
Fast Ethernet 10/100Base-TX: J3113A
External USB dongle? http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c01626959.pdf

For 42100N:
Fast Ethernet (10/100Base-TX single RJ-45 port): J4169A
HP JetDirect Connectivity card (EIO) for USB, Serial, LocalTalk: J4169A

References:
https://www.openprinting.org/printer/HP/HP-LaserJet_4050
http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/bpl06919.pdf
http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/bpl10335.pdf


Have fun!
-Ed

Re: [PLUG] Commands that highlight the filename but not the extension

[King Beowulf]

On 6/26/23 16:13, Dick Steffens wrote:
> Here's another one that I don't know what to call it. In Xubuntu 20.04,
> when I create a file with Right-click - file type, I would get a text
> box where, for example, a new text file would show up with something
> like "Plain Text" highlighted and .txt not highlighted. I could then
> just type the name I want the file to have without having to type .txt.
> That is not what I'm getting with Xubuntu 22.04. The text box has
> everything highlighted, so I have to remember to add the .txt.
>
> Is this a feature, or the loss of a feature? And if it's a feature, how
> to I set it to act like it did in 20.04?
>

Dick,

Linux does not rely or use extensions as heavily as Windows - a legacy 
of various DOS, whether IBM, MS, CP/M etc.  They are not necessary and 
usage will vary between DEs and DE versios (KDE, Xfce, etc), what 
program or file manager generates the file, and not the particular Linux 
distro installed. Syslogs for example historically end in .log for 
convenience instead of .txt or nothing.

Interesting article to learn about Linux file types:

https://www.baeldung.com/linux/file-extensions-meaning

Being an old fossil myself from the CP/M and [MS,IBM]DOS days, I tend to 
explicitly give my files the old timey extensions, disregarding whatever 
the default (unless mandated by the program), so I can easily tell who 
is what in a file listing.

In my distro, I've used Xfce for many an age, and it is the unmodified 
upstream source.  Right-click on desktop or in Thunar just presents 
Create Document -> Empty File -> file name dialog.  The created file is 
always text regardless of extension provided.

TL;DR:

Xubuntu may have added or modified the right-click with Thunar custom 
actions and/or file templates.  Look for a $HOME/Templates or 
/etc/Templates, for example. If you create an empty "new file.txt" in 
$HOME/Templates, it will show up as a choice in Thunar and Xfce desktop 
right-click->create document.

-Ed

Re: [PLUG] Hard drive issue

[King Beowulf]

On 6/25/23 06:33, Rich Shepard wrote:
> Good morning, group:
>
> On 2022-02-06 I purchased 4 WD Red 2T 5400rpm hard drives from Amazon for
> the MediaSonic Pro external hard drive.
...
> About a week ago (I forget the exact date) as I prepared to log in to my
> desktop server/workstation I found a long display of /dev/sde1 errors on the
> console. The kernel (I assume) told me to umount /dev/sde1 and run
> xfs_repair on that drive. After reading the xfs_repair man page that's what
> I did.
>
> This morning I found a shorter message about an error on /dev/sde1 when I
> woke up the monitor. Another run of xfs_repair put the drive back to what it
> should be.
>
> I assume that WD Red drives are supposed to last more than 16 months so I
> could contact them about it. However, since daily incremental backups are
> critical for my business I'm asking for your professional advice: should I
> replace that drive (perhaps both backup drives)? If so what brand/model
> should I purchase? My internal hard drive is 2T so all the external hard
> drives are 2T. All previous external backup drives have been the size of the
> internal drive so I don't think a larger drive is warranted.
>
> Reccomendations wanted.
>

Rich,

I'd start with a check of the drive's S.M.A.R.T reported health status 
and run some tests. As root run 'smartctl' to get overall health:

# smartctl -a /dev/sdX

A nice HOW-TO is here:

https://docs.slackware.com/howtos:hardware:smart_hdd_diagnostics

and

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/S.M.A.R.T.

If the drives are failing within the warranty period, get them replaced!


I have two WD Red Plus 6TB NAS drives in my Synology NAS and they seem 
fine.  But given recent WD legal history, I may pass on additional WD 
drives. I'm also slowly swapping out the old WD and Seagate 500 GB and 1 
TB mechanical drives (now > 5 yrs old) with NVMe and SSD 1 TB drives as 
cash and sales permit (4 TB replaced, 4 TB to go!).  Mechanical vs solid 
state both have their pros/cons and for me solid state is a better choice.

-Ed

Re: [PLUG] What are the permissions for .ssh/authorized_keys?

[King Beowulf]

On 4/26/23 12:32, Rich Shepard wrote:
> There are no ssh logs in/var/log/  or root's home directory.
Rich,

When you ssh caddis -> salmo, sshd will log the event on salmo
(destination).

Slackware 15.0 default for sshd is

/var/log/syslog -> errors and status messages
/var/log/secure -> errors and status messages (pam)

look for sshd messages.

-Ed

Re: [PLUG] Capture output of ssh -vv

[King Beowulf]

On 4/18/23 14:30, Rich Shepard wrote:
> I'm setting up a laptop and configuring ssh on it so I can transfer files
> between it (hostname: caddis) and the desktop (hostname: salmo).
>
> When I tried 'ssh salmo' I was asked for my password on salmo. Entered that
> and was immediately returned to the shell prompt.
>
> Then I tried 'ssh -vv salmo' and was presented with a long list of data,
> ending with ssh asking me for my salmo password. Entered that and was
> immediately returned to the shell prompt.
>
> Since I cannot retain the screen display would the tee command copy the
> output to a file so I can see why my efforts are failing? Is there a better
> way for me to debug the failure to connect?
>
> Regards,
>
> Rich
>
Rich,

Are you sure you are not "connecting"?  Of course ssh will drop you to a
shell prompt...on the other PC!

You can set your prompt to display host name so you know where you are. 
In each PC home director I have a ~/.bashrc with

PS1="\u@\h: \W "
case `id -u` in
   0) PS1="${PS1}# ";;
   *) PS1="${PS1}$ ";;
esac

(This is actually in the default if no .bashrc is present, see /etc/profile)

Example of Xfce terminal ssh to my hobby server:

---
beowulf@gandalf: ~ $ ssh aragorn
(beowulf@aragorn) Password:
Last login: Tue Apr 18 16:44:39 2023 from 192.168.1.3
Linux 5.15.94.

A rolling stone gathers no moss.
     -- Publilius Syrus

beowulf@aragorn:~$
---

Now, if it just drops you silently back to the original prompt, sshd may
not be running:

Is /etc/rc.d/rc.sshd set to executable?

-Ed

Re: [PLUG] Building pulseaudio-equalizer

[King Beowulf]

On 4/16/23 11:22, Rich Shepard wrote:
> On Sun, 16 Apr 2023, Ben Koenig wrote:
>
>> $ meson build
>> That is 'meson' then a SPACE then 'build'. They didn't tell you to run
>> meson.build, so why are you executing the file manually? Did you just
>> assume that they made a mistake?
> Ben,
>
> Well, I assumed that 'mason.build' was the file name, not the command 'mason
> build.' So, ...
> $ mason build
> -bash: mason: command not found
>
> Regards,
>
> Rich

Today's word is

M E S O N

1. hadronic subatomic particle composed of an equal number of quarks and
antiquarks,

2. an open source build system meant to be both extremely fast, and,
even more importantly, as user friendly as possible

-Ed

Re: [PLUG] Audio card for clear voice output

[King Beowulf]

On 4/16/23 06:42, Rich Shepard wrote:
> The audio voice output quality from my Asus Prime X470-Pro is distorted and
> unacceptable. I finally figured out that this is the issue with online
> meetings and news/youtube videos, not the speakers (although I just replaced
> the Creative Pebbles with ProSonus studio monitors).
...
>
> Please provide recommendations for an add-in PCIe audio card that outputs
> clear voice as well as music to speakers and headphones/headsets.
>

Rich,

Most of the Creative Labs Soundblaster Audigy series are well supported
with high quality.  You go have to check and pick the card by chipset
and not by price as there are various gaps in some functionality in the
myriad of available models.

https://alsa-project.org/wiki/Matrix:Vendor-Creative_Labs

(Alas, this list is not up to date.)

Slackware-15.0 uses ALSA 1.25 and allows for replacing pulseausio with
pipewire.  Highly recommended.  PA literally sucks donkey balls. In
Slackware-15.0 use:
/usr/sbin/pipewire-enable.sh
/usr/sbin/pipewire-disable.sh

2 years back I upgraded my motherboard sound (AMD Starship/Matisse HD
Audio Controller) and switched to the Core3D chipset on the CL
Soundblaster Z ($99.99 in 2021). The new motherboard did have only old
timey PCI slots so I was not able to recycle the nice SB Audigy 2 card I
was using.

https://www.newegg.com/creative-sound-blaster-z/p/N82E16829102048?Item=N82E16829102048

The newer version is
https://www.newegg.com/creative-sound-blaster-z-se/p/N82E16829102110

audio quality is excellent. The catch with Core3D is that you need a
newer kernel that the one Slackware-14.2 ships with 4.4.x).  IIRC,
Core3D support hit around kernel-4.18+

I paired this with a Beyerdynamic headset (gaming version, there are
others) - cat ate through the cord of a middling Turtle Beach headset.
https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16826380033?Item=N82E16826380033

I usually skip trying to set stuff in the PA mixer GUI, other than to
disable the webcam audio and GPU's HDMI audio.  Alsamixer suffices, and
Slackbuilds.org has a equalizer plugin.

-Ed

Re: [PLUG] Print jobs fail [UPDATE]

[King Beowulf]

On 4/4/23 08:48, Rich Shepard wrote:
> On Tue, 4 Apr 2023, King Beowulf wrote:
>
>> Depending on the manufacturer (or CUPS) driver package. filters and ppd
>> can be in a variety of locations.
> Ed,
>
> The Lexmark C3326DW has 64-bit linux drivers, including:
> Driver files for 64-bit Linux distributions with Debian-based packaging [1 
> MB]Driver  Linux/Unix
> Ubuntu 16.04 Sep 5, 2019
>
> Driver files for 64-bit Linux distributions with RPM-based packaging [1 MB]   
> Driver  Linux/Unix
> OpenSUSE 42.3 Sep 5, 2019
>
> Driver files for CUPS-based systems [2 MB]Driver  Linux/Unix
> Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Sep 5, 2019
>
> Slackware has CUPS installed (always has). Could I use that one? If so,
> after running deb2tgz how does it install as a CUPS printer?
These are all the "same".  the "CUPS BASED" one is agnostic as to any
distro package tools.  This one (tar.Z) has detailed manual install
instructions and even an install script.

once the ppd/filter is installed, you "install" CUPS printer via
http://localhost:631/admin as for any printer.

OTOH, Look for the Lexmark C3426DW as that printer is included in CUPS
and via foomatic (Slackbuilds.org)

You can also check https://openprinting.org/printers for printers
supported natively in CUPS and foomatic.

> My system shows a cups_pdf printer available (and I now see that it has this 
> problem: Idle -
> "File "/usr/lib/cups/filter/Xerox_Phaser_6000_6010/XRM_MF" has insecure
> permissions (0100755/uid=1000/gid=100)." What should the perms be?
>

Interesting. According to https://www.cups.org/doc/api-filter.html

For security reasons, CUPS will only run filters and backends that are
owned by root and do not have world or group write permissions. The
recommended permissions for filters and backends are 0555 - read and
execute but no write. Backends that must run as root should use
permissions of 0500 - read and execute by root, no access for other
users. Write permissions can be enabled for the root user only.

To avoid a warning message, the directory containing your filter(s) must
also be owned by root and have world and group write disabled -
permissions of 0755 or 0555 are strongly encouraged.


That file owned by YOU (user id=1000) and users group and should be
root:root.  Try, as ROOT:

chown root:root /usr/lib/cups/filter/Xerox_Phaser_6000_6010/XRM_MF

restart

/etc/rc.d/rc.cups restart

can' hurt.

-Ed

Re: [PLUG] Print jobs fail [UPDATE]

[King Beowulf]

On 4/3/23 15:36, Rich Shepard wrote:
> On Mon, 3 Apr 2023, Rich Shepard wrote:
>
>> How do I find what filter that is and how would I fix it?
> Installed here are:
> cups-2.1.4-x86_64-2_slack14.2
> cups-compat32-2.1.4-x86_64-1compat32
> cups-filters-1.9.0-x86_64-2
> cups-filters-compat32-1.9.0-x86_64-2compat32
> cups-pdf-3.0.1-x86_64-1_SBo
> pycups-1.9.73-x86_64-1
>
CUPS filters are part of the printer driver package to convert what is
to be printed into the correct format before sending the page to the
printer.  Sometimes the "filter" is the ppd driver and sometimes a
separate binary file. If the filter is "missing" then CUPS and/or ppd
either can't find it, or the filter is in the wrong place.

Depending on the manufacturer (or CUPS) driver package. filters and ppd
can be in a variety of locations.


XEROX has two driver packages:
.DEB is 32-bit only
.RPM is 32- and 64-bit

To use 32-bt, you need to either run Slackware x86_32 or convert
Slackware x86_64 to full multilib.  Simply installing the COMPAT32
packages is insufficient (core system 32-bit lib dependencies).

Installing .DEB or .RPM onto Slackware is non-trivial given how linux
distros have drifted apart.  What and how did you install? For RPMs,
Slackware's rpm2tgz "sometimes" works; Slackbuilds.org's deb2tgz "might"
work; but in either case you need to check the converted Slackware
package to make sure everything is in the correct place.

Note also that the Xerox Phaser 6000 linux drivers date from 2011 and
the precompiled binary bits may no longer work on newer Slackware or
other Linux distros.

> On the CUPS web page (localhost:631), printer maintenance -> set default
> options the entire page is in French, but I activated the printer and set
> the paper size to letter from A4. Still no joy.
>

You should not be seeing French language. Looks like you buggered
something up.

-Ed

Re: [PLUG] Thumbnails Missing

[King Beowulf]

On 3/27/23 11:05, Dick Steffens wrote:
>>> In Xfce you can try deleting $HOME/.thumbnails and then running
>>>
>>> $ xfdesktop --reload
> Nothing changed.
>
>>> It could be that the .thumbnails is getting too big, too many stale
>>> thumbnails.
> .thumbnails is empty.
>
>>> Also check your Thunar settings: Edit -> Preferences -> Display -> Show
>>> Thumbnails.
> Set for Local Files Only.
>
> I did a restart and the problem is fixed.

Dick,
(You must be using a graphical login.  Restarting xfdesktop doesn't
restart X or reboot here.)

Interesting...This implies another utility is getting "lost"

Thunar uses external packages to generate thumbnails - tumbler and/or
ffmpegthumbnailer.  Since it runs as a daemon, it doesn't always
reload/rescan.  Try:

$ update-mime-database /usr/share/mime
$ thunar -q

this will refresh mime database (happens on reboot) and quit thunar
background processes.  When restarted, it should generate thumbnails.

Also, I previously forgot to mention also $HOME/.cache/thumbnails/* 
Might be a good idea to clear that out and start fresh.

You can also try to refresh your Xfce DE and WM.  YMMV!

$ xfce4-panel -r && xfwm4 --replace

Have fun!
-Ed

Re: [PLUG] Video card fan noise

[King Beowulf]

On 3/26/23 11:18, Rich Shepard wrote:
> I just installed a 51Risc Radeon-RX580 video card with two fans. They're
> quite noisy. Web searches suggest that the 'fan curve' can be adjusted but
> that appears to be a function of AMD's Windows software.
>
> How can I track GPU temperature and fan speed, and adjust the latter?
>
> Rich

Rich,

check out "pwmconfig"  (already installed in Slackware). This will allow
somewhat easier access to fan etc control in "|/sys/class/hwmon/" tree.

-Ed

|

Re: [PLUG] lspci output and matching software to the actual hardware

[King Beowulf]

On 3/20/23 17:29, American Citizen wrote:
> I just ran lspci on my system (under root privileges) and got quite  a
> long list:
>
> How do I assure that the CPU and drivers for the controllers are
> correctly matched to the hardware?
>
> Or do we naively assume that whatever (insert your favorite linux flavor
> here) will get it right? Do we have to do some manual intervention here?

Use

lspci -v

or

lspci -vv

to get all the gory, or EXTRA gory, details, including which kernel
modules are in use.  You can use

modinfo 

to get some information on the module to see if it makes sense. Some of
the lspci entries are subdevices of other devices and thus need no
module or driver, or use the same one as the parent device.

Linux gets it right most of the time. Very occasionally it grabs the
wrong module - usually older devices that may have been rolled into new
modules - so you just need to blacklist.  You'll know pretty quick: the
device is present but does not work. Sensor chips for example can be tricky.

-Ed

Re: [PLUG] Adjusting brightness on Acer SB-220Q monitor

[King Beowulf]

On 3/19/23 11:03, Rich Shepard wrote:
> On Sun, 19 Mar 2023, Bill Barry wrote:
>
>> Try some of the other keys. The key function might not correspond to the
>> labeling on the monitor. Sometimes it is state dependent.
> Bill,
>
> Other than the right-most key each brings up a different menu. The
> second-from-the-left button is for brightness. When that's displayed other
> buttons replace brightness with their functions.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Rich
I emailed a link to the user manual that explains how to use the right
most menu button and how to navigate to all the image tweaking settintgs.

RTFM!!!

-Ed

Re: [PLUG] New monitor issues

[King Beowulf]

On 3/20/23 14:49, Rich Shepard wrote:
> The video card is an AMD Radeon Pro WX-2100. The amdgpu module is insalled.
> I don't know whether the installed amdgpu (which worked with the AMD Radeon
> RX-550 video card) is compatible with the WX-2100 nor how to learn whether
> it is.
The WX-2100 is a Polaris 12 GPU. Same GCN series (Volcanic Islands) as
your RX550 (Polaris 12) and uses the same GPU driver.

The issue is NOT the driver or Xorg, but monitor and GPU EDID and DPMS
implementation/detection via display port.

Yo may have to craft an xorg conf with correct parameters to override
the detected ones.

-Ed

Re: [PLUG] New monitor issues

[King Beowulf]

On 3/20/23 10:25, Rich Shepard wrote:
> I just downloaded AMD's amdgpu-install_22.20.50205-1_all.deb and ran it
> through deb2tgz to produce the Slackware package
> amdgpu-install_22.20.50205-1_all.txz.
>
> I'll learn how best to upgrade the existing amdgpu module.

No. This will bugger up Slackware. That package is not for the likes of
real Linux users, only debian and that ilk.

amdgpu on Slackware is provided via kernel and Mesa and is already
installed and new enough.

-Ed

Re: [PLUG] New monitor issues

[King Beowulf]

On 3/20/23 10:18, Rich Shepard wrote:
> I don't see any video driver here. There must have been one when the Radeon
> RX-550 was installed. Huh.
/sbin/lspci -v

-Ed

Re: [PLUG] New monitor issues

[King Beowulf]

On 3/20/23 10:03, Rich Shepard wrote:
> How strange!
> $ lspci
> -bash: lspci: command not found
>
> I'm sure I used lspci in the past.
>
> Yet,
> $ ls/var/log/packages/  | grep pciutils
> pciutils-3.4.1-x86_64-2
you need to be 'root' on Slackware or run via

su -c lspci

or run via full path

/sbin/lspci

-Ed

Re: [PLUG] Webinar software recommendations

[King Beowulf]

On 3/12/23 13:00, Rich Shepard wrote:
> On Sun, 12 Mar 2023, Rich Shepard wrote:
>
>> I've found a long list of F/OSS webinar software on sourceforge.net
>> .
> They're all commercial, none free, other than a trial.
>
> Sigh,
>
> Rich

Depending on your needs a "web seminar" may be a limiting search term. 
Maybe "web conference" is better. I assume you are looking to transmit a
live presentation a la a live meeting / presentation / talk such as CES
or Pittcon or Comicon but on the so-called "web".  Need both live
video/voice and/or live text chat for Q?  How many attendees?

There are a few listed here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_web_conferencing_software

-Ed

Re: [PLUG] Can someone enlighten me on H.265/HEVC

[King Beowulf]

On 3/3/23 00:07, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
> ...
>> https://www.videolan.org/developers/x265.html
>> can be linked to vlc and ffmpeg, and anything linked to them.
> Ffmpeg binaries are a patent violation and distributing them is a violation.  
> It is small enough that MPAA-LA is not going after them.  But it makes it 
> impossible to use ffmpeg with libxh265 in anything corporate.  MPAA-LA does 
> not care about you viewing your security cam in your house, LOL.
Did U say anything about "corporate'? No.  ffmpeg binaries are not a
violation for home use.  This was settled back when the lame mp3 source
(before mp3 patents expired).

> ...
>
> The reason that cams like the Reolink cams use H.265 to encode
Not all. Reolink E1 Pro uses H.264.
>
>> https://www.libde265.org/blog/2014/02/22/gstreamer-4k-h265-hevc-plugin/
>> Anything that uses gstreamer can play h.265 with this gst plugin and
>> libde265 library..
> None of this hodgepodge of programs is going to be able to keep up with 
> encoding a video stream using
> A low power CPU like the ARM A9 in a camera.  That's why they use hardware 
> encoders.
>
>> Whether a plugin/extension/HTML5/js/nodejs can be massaged so as to display 
>> in a web browser is another exercise.
> Once more it's pointless since Chrome supports the hardware decoders in Kaby 
> Lake and later CPUs that have them.
>
>> H.265 is a topic on the Zoneminder forums, so they are aware:
>> https://forums.zoneminder.com/viewtopic.php?t=31787
> Actually, everything on that above link is wrong.  The first post says:
>
> "the issue is, once enabled, zoneminder no longer allows you to watch saved 
> events or scrub multiple events."
>
> Which is completely wrong since I'm staring at a Zoneminder saved event that 
> is saved in H.265 right this second with no problems!
>
> There's also a post in that thread about decoding H.265 in Javascript which 
> is nuts because because Chrome/Edge on modern hardware can already display 
> native H.265.  The whole javascript idea would only benefit Firefox, and 
> Chrome running on older hardware.  It would be a lot less work to just write 
> a patch for Firefox to use the hardware decoder.  Mozilla did this for the 
> hardware AV1 decoders already, they can do it for the hardware H.265 decoders 
> easily.
>
> I think the posters in that thread really were unclear on the issue.  Of 
> course, that thread is older than the fix that Google made to Chrome to 
> support hardware decoders.
>
>> https://forums.zoneminder.com/viewtopic.php?p=129677=H.265#p129677
> This link is accurate.  ZM transcodes incoming H.265 or any other video codec 
> a camera might use into H.264 for the live view.  The initial poster of that 
> thread very likely had some other issue in his configuration.
>
>> Unfortunately, I missed your Zoneminder talk. I have it running here with 2 
>> cellphones [1] and just added a Reolink E1 >Pro [2]. Once I figured out that 
>> I needed their windows app (WINE FTW!) to activate rtsp and ONVIF I was able 
>> to find >the h264 streams.  why were these disabled by default and no web 
>> console!
> You don't need their windows app to activate rtsp in most Reolink cams.  You 
> can access the camera admin interface with a web browser and go to network 
> settings and there's a tickbox that is buried there that turns on the 
> protocol.
>
> It is interesting to find out you enabled rtsp on an E1.  According to the 
> following from Reolink the E1 does not support rtsp:
>
> https://support.reolink.com/hc/en-us/articles/90617826-Which-Reolink-Products-Support-CGI-RTSP-ONVIF
>
I have a Reolink E1 *PRO*.  There is *NO* web interface.  A weird
non-standard server runs on port 9000 (for reolink apps) and RTSP and
ONVIF were disabled.
> But personally I'm not much interested in wifi security cameras like the E1.  
> In Oregon the law says it's illegal to record someone where there is a 
> reasonable expectation of privacy, and most indoor homes have that 
> expectation implied so as a rule I refuse to assist or install video cameras 
> inside of a home.  If someone wants to record their cat while they are away, 
> that's fine, but a DIY set-and forget wifi cam like the E1 is what they use, 
> and they won't be calling me to help them.
Irrelevant, off topic.  I do not live in OR nor have asked you to
install anything for me.  I also do not think you fully understand
"reasonable expectation of privacy" when it concerns private property.
> Retail businesses are public places so I do those, and wifi cams are just not 
> reliable enough plus most businesses doing indoor cams have drop ceilings so 
> it's easy to run ethernet cables to cams.
Irrelevant commentary
>> https://www.linuxgalaxy.org/kingbeowulf/repurpose-cellphones-as-home-security-cameras/
> Yeah that one has banging around for a while.  Most people in homes want to 
> use security cams outside and weatherproofing a cell phone is not easy.  It 
> might be fun for making cat videos of your cats when you 

Re: [PLUG] can no longer right click on address in thunderbird

[King Beowulf]

On 1/15/23 12:44, Galen Seitz wrote:

...snip...
>   IIRC, I used to
> be able to right click on an address in this pane.  This would bring up
> a menu containing multiple items, among them a "compose new message to"
> and a "copy email address".  Does anyone know how to restore this
> functionality?
>
> I'm running Thunderbird 102.6.0.
>

Thunderbird 102.6.1 here. Email header right-click address context menu
works as expected.

There is probably something screwy with your installation.  Try running
TB from CLI to see if there is an error message.

-Ed

Re: [PLUG] wget NOT getting all the pages

[King Beowulf]

On 12/27/22 16:18, American Citizen wrote:
> Hi
>
> I used wget recently to try to download all 26 or 27 pages of my
> website, but it seems to miss about 40% of the pages.
>
> Does anyone have the CLI command line which captures 100% of a website
> URLS ?
>
> I tried the typical
>
> %wget -r --tries=10 https://my.website.com/ -o logfile
>
> as suggested in the "man wget" command, but it did NOT capture all the
> webpages. I even tried a wait parameter, but that only slowed things up
> and did not remedy the missing websubpages issue.
>
> I appreciate any tips so that ALL of the website data can be captured by
> wget. Yes, I am aware of the robots.txt restricting downloadable information
>
> - Randall
>
>

wget can be a bit tricky - it has a lot of options for downloading
websites.  For your case, how many directories deep is your website? By
default, the directory level is 5. try

wget -r -l 10 --tries=10 https://my.website.com/ -o logfile

for 10 levels deep, or adjust as needed.  To make a offline copy of the 
website, you can use 'mirror' instead

wget --mirror --tries=10 https://my.website.com/ -o logfile

or

wget --mirror\
  --convert-links \
  --html-extension\
  --wait=2\
  -o logfile  \
  https://my.website.com/

'--html-extension' is handy if some of your pages do not conform to *.html. Use 
'--convert-links' for offline viewing in a browser.

Some other options that may be handy:

-p (--page-requisites) : download all files that are necessary to properly 
display a given HTML page. This includes such things as inlined images, sounds, 
and referenced stylesheets.
-H (--span-hosts) : enable spanning across hosts when doing recursive 
retrieving.
--no-parent : When recursing do not ascend to the parent directory. It useful 
for restricting the download to only a portion of the site.


Also, be aware that some linux distros symlink wget to wget2 which operates a 
bit differently.

-Ed

Re: [PLUG] question on finding a good html editor

[King Beowulf]

On 12/28/22 12:01, American Citizen wrote:
> Hi:
>
> I am using bluefish to examine the html code of my website,
> unfortunately bluefish complained about the very long length of the
> lines, and then proceeded to split them, after receiving an
> acknowledgment from me to go ahead.
>
> Question:
>
> Are there any other good html editors (linux) out there? Apparently
> finding a WYSIWYG screen under the editor which works well is
> problematic too.
>
>

I use Bluefish on and off. It does a good job and I ended up liking it
so much that I'm the Slackbuilds.org buildscript maintainer. It's not
just an HTML editor but also and IDE.  It does have a few quirks. You
can adjust the right margin line split to your liking. Default is 80
characters.  I like having HTML lines wrapped as that makes it easier to
read. Normally this is not a problem unless you have stray white space etc.

Now, if you use a CMS such as Django, Drupal etc you may always have
weird issues viewing via an HTML editor.

Another option is Seamonkey - a suite of internet utilities, including a
WYSIWYG editor.

-Ed

Re: [PLUG] Creating a replica Slackware setup ( was: File permissions issue )

[King Beowulf]

On 12/3/22 09:07, Robert Citek wrote:
> Thanks, Ben.
>
> Getting closer.
>
>  $ grep -v '^#' /etc/slackpkg/mirrors
>  http://slackware.osuosl.org/slackware64-14.2/
>
>  $ slackpkg update
>
>  $ yes | slackpkg install texlive xfig fig2dev texinfo
>
>  $ yes | slackpkg install texindy
>  Checking local integrity... DONE
>  Looking for texindy in package list. Please wait... DONE
>  No packages match the pattern for upgrade. Try:
>
>  /usr/sbin/slackpkg install|reinstall
>
> P.S. I realize the issue with texindy is a solved problem.  But I'm curious
> to know how to create a replica Slackware setup.
>
> Regards,
> - Robert
>
>
>
Hello Robert,

In Slackware packages, not every utility or executable has it's own
package (like some of those 'other' distros). For example, there are no
'package' and 'package-dev'. Slackware is a FULL linux distribution, and
as such you should always do a FULL install and not cherry pick
packages. All packages are 'dev' packages and compiled from the
unadulterated upstream source (with a few exceptions for security or
unique to Slackware design).  There is NO dependency resolution: that's
the user's job.

That said, after a full installation, there is a heap of software
installed for a full desktop or server. Unless you are a Slackware
expert, always do a full install.

slackpkg only sees the full Slackware package list - not the package
contents - and does not look outside that list (there is a slackpkg+
plugin for 3rd party package repos), or look at dependency information
(there is none). Since 'texindy' is included in 'texlive', on a full
installation (15.0 or newer) it is already installed.  (Slackware-14.2
includes tetex-3.0 which does not provide 'texindy.)

If you skipped the 't' series, then

slackpkg install texlive xfig fig2dev texinfo

will install the missing bits, as Ben mentioned (texinfo is in the 'ap'
series), but only on 15.0.  To see installed packages

slackpkg search 

this can be a partial string, or search PACKAGES.TXT at one of the
slackware mirrors.  To find if a file is part of a package you can
either open each package.txz or try

https://packages.slackware.com/

Searching for 'texindy' for Slackware64-15.0 mode=content provides:

Nr   Location     Package Content
1    slackware64/t    texlive-2021.210418-x86_64-2.txz usr/bin/texindy
2    slackware64/t    texlive-2021.210418-x86_64-2.txz
usr/man/man1/texindy.1.gz
3    slackware64/t    texlive-2021.210418-x86_64-2.txz
usr/share/texmf-dist/scripts/xindy/texindy.pl
4    slackware64/t    texlive-2021.210418-x86_64-2.txz
usr/share/texmf-dist/xindy/modules/base/texindy.xdy

Finally, Slackware-15.0 includes 'textlive-2021', Slackware-14.2 does
not.  To install textlive on 14.2, you need to go to slackbuilds.org to
grab the buildscript and source to build the package.  You can also try
to install the textlive-2021 package from 15.0 but that is NOT recommended.

-kb

Re: [PLUG] PLUG Venue Options

[King Beowulf]

On 11/3/22 16:49, Russell Senior wrote:
> I just tried from a private browser window with (I think) no google account
> logged in and it worked for me.
>
> On Thu, Nov 3, 2022 at 4:38 PM John Jason Jordan  wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 3 Nov 2022 15:18:08 -0700
>> Russell Senior  dijo:
>>
>> https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc58ccHKEQrlDoJDud-iRTw9I8jsHIAovb8-MAnGzFYahrD_A/viewform
>>
>> Requires a Google account, which I don't have or want. But I would
>> answer Yes to all, with the comment that I need Max train access; buses
>> don't work well when you have to stand and wait in the rain at 10pm,
>> and then have to wait a couple times more for transfers.
>>

Same here. google doc opened just fine, no login.  You only need to sign
to "save progress" to submit later.

-Ed

Re: [PLUG] Adding another DNS record

[King Beowulf]

On 10/10/22 13:53, Rich Shepard wrote:
> I want to add another DNS record for my web host, one that allows access to
> the site using https://appl-ecosys.com in addition to the current
> https://www.appl-ecosys.com. My long chat with a namecheap tech didn't
> provide me with the answer.
>
> Here's a summary of the current DNS records (IP addresses redacted):
> Type  HostValue
> A record  @   Office static IP address
> A record  mailOffice static IP address
> A record  www Web site host IP address
> TXT record@   v=spf1@office static IP address
> TXT record@   v=spf2@office static IP address
>
> How can I allow web site visitors to access it without the 'www' prefix?
>
> TIA,
>
> Rich

Rich,

After reading over this thread, you are all making this harder than it
has to be. I'm no DNS expert, bu you just need a CNAME that to add
another web host alias/redirect.  No need to monkey with URL redirect
that can get you blocked as a bad actor.

For example, I use Linode for www, and a home server for gopher and
mumble.  Mail goes to MX records (and a few others for protonmail domain
keys etc that I left off). The gopher and mumble servers get split off
via port forwarding, hence I don't need a separate home

     linuxgalaxy.org                A        
     linuxgalaxy.org                MX       
     linuxgalaxy.org                MX       
     gopher.linuxgalaxy.org         A        
     kingbeowulf.linuxgalaxy.org    CNAME gopher.linuxgalaxy.org
     mumble.linuxgalaxy.org         CNAME gopher.linuxgalaxy.org
     www.linuxgalaxy.org            CNAME    linuxgalaxy.org

The A record is the website, linuxgalaxy.org. The redirect is the CNAME
www.linuxgalaxy.org that points to linuxgalaxy.org

This both https://[www].linuxgalaxy.org return the same IP. The home
server IP for gopher.linuxgalaxy.org is the A record with [kingbeowulf |
mumble].linuxgalaxy.org as CNAME aliases.

The mail for @linuxgalaxy.org is via a MX record.

-kb

Re: [PLUG] trying to simplify my Linux operating system graphics components

[King Beowulf]

On 9/6/22 17:30, American Citizen wrote:
> Hi all:
...
> My system is 64 bit, Linux localhost 5.14.21-150400.24.18-default #1 SMP
> PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Thu Aug 4 14:17:48 UTC 2022 (e9f7bfc) x86_64 x86_64
> x86_64 GNU/Linux openSuse system, at current levels.
>
> After this mysterious crash, I decided to look at the state of graphics
> drivers for my Nvidia GEForce series 710 graphics card which is the only
> graphics card I have.
>
> Unfortunately lsmod shows that nouveau graphics driver is active, and
> even though I enabled the Nvidia G06 drivers
nouveau is active because you didn't turn it off. nvidia and nouveau can
not coexist.  The current Nvidia driver for the Geforce GT 700 series is
nviidia-141-03 (Legacy) released 2022.8.2
Most distros do a poor job of updating for bug fixes and kernel
compatibility, as well as proper conflict checking. They also do a poor
job rebuilding the nvidia kernel module when the linux kernel is
updated. "on the fly' updates can and will crash X.

ALSO! on a 64-bit system, Nvidia no longer supports 32-bit GPU drivers.
Depending on your repository, be careful what packages you choose.
32-bit compatibility is only available for the userspace libraries
(/usr/lib) - not the kernel driver and modules.
> If I attempt to remove the nouveau kernal modules, the x-server
> complains, and expects nouveau to be installed as the PRIMARY video
> driver, in fact it demands it!!

You can't willy nilly remove X and kernel components.  To use the Nvidia
proprietary binary blob, per the Nvidia instructions, you must BLACKLIST
the nouveau module. Since nouveau is a CONFLICT and not  DEPENDENCY I
hazard a guess that OpenSuse is too stupid to know the difference.

# cat /etc/modprobe.d/BLACKLIST-nouveau.conf

# Do not load the kernel nouveau dri module, since it interferes with both
# the nv and binary nvidia drivers.

blacklist nouveau
> But, and this is really confusing, the KDE desktop alludes to 4 graphics
> systems installed:
>
>      egl
>      glx
>      vulkan
>      x-server

MESA (1st 3), X (4th) and the kernel DRM modules ARE the GPU drivers. 
You need them all (and quite a few others). Desktop environments (such
as KDE) depend on MESA and X, but do NOT provide them.

-kb

Re: [PLUG] memory and swap not recovered after program kill - some questions

[King Beowulf]

On 8/27/22 13:32, American Citizen wrote:
> Hello all, this is a question about freeing up system memory and swap
> space as apparently this is not happening from some mathematical
> programs I am using
>
> ...
>
> There appears to be a problem occurring here, as used memory never
> recovered and swap space never emptied either, despite the 6 programs
> being killed.
>
> Is kill -9 the right command? or kill -15 ?? Once I kill the algebraic
> program, shouldn't we see system memory recovered? I am also surprised
> that swap did not drop to 0 used, once all 6 programs were terminated.
>
> Randall
>

You can clear swap just by turning off swap and then back on. See

"man swapon"

As root (os sudo), you can play around with

|# sync; echo X > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches where X = |

 1. Clear Page Cache
 2. Clear Dentries and Inodes
 3. Clear all the above categories

Typically, however, Linux is pretty good at eventually freeing up stale
memory on its own

-Ed


||

Re: [PLUG] question on command line mailx to gmail

[King Beowulf]

On 7/2/22 13:08, American Citizen wrote:
> Google changed their gmail login procedure last May 30th, requiring 2
> factor authentication. Has anyone been able to work out a command line
> script using mailx with gmail successfully?
>
> - Randall
>

Although I haven't used mailx or other CLI mail in ages, Google started
providing "app passwords" for all non-google and non-Android access
quite a while back.  Now that 2FA i required, you'll need to set that
up.  I switched to 2FA when Google first provided it and when 2FA was
still optional for using Thunderbird etc.  Your mail program will need
to be able to use OAuth 2.0, or turn on "less secure app access".

https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/185833?hl=en#zippy=
https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/6010255?hl=en

https://obrienlabs.net/mailx-send-linux-email-gmail/


-Ed

Re: [PLUG] Libre Office Calc merge and center cells broken

[King Beowulf]

On 5/24/22 17:00, Dick Steffens wrote:
> Is anyone else having trouble with merge and center cells in Libre
> Office Calc, Version: 6.4.7.2?
>
> It's worked correctly for years, but recently quite working. On the
> toolbar there is an icon that used to cause the contents of a selected
> group of cells to merge and center. That icon is grayed out. There is an
> option in Format > Cells > Alignment, Text Alignment, Horizontal Center,
> Vertical, Middle. But the vertical option only allows "Default". This is
> not a critical issue, but it is annoying.
>


I pulled up Libreoffice, verions 7.3.0.3, here to check. It's not a feature
I use too often.  It seems to work fine as I played around with it.

Might be my newer version, or
Did Edit > Track Changes > Record get turned on?
Some config or other setting corrupted: try deleting
/home/beowulf/.config/libreoffice/
As Keith mentioned, remove/reinstall libroffice


Enjoy.
Ed

Re: [PLUG] generating an Xorg.conf file for static configuration

[King Beowulf]

On 5/16/22 17:36, Keith Lofstrom wrote:
> I am transitioning my desktop from an ancient Redhat 7 distro
> to MATE UBUNTU 20.04 (and later to 22.04.1), which uses
> lightdm as the display manager.  Part of the transition is
> visually comparing thousands of old webpages and documents
> to new, side by side, making sure most information survived
> the transition.
>
> My screens are two rotated displays on KVM switches.  I can
> set up the screens with the GUI, but after I switch one of the
> screens to the other machine, some unknown process loses the
> X configuration.  When I switch back, the display is sideways.
>
> I have a working kludge that fixes that, a looping shell script
> using xrandr that corrects lightdm's poorly designed automatic
> "help" adapting to the "new" screen it badly auto-configures.
>
> The PROPER way might be creating an xorg.conf file that
> permanently configures the screen, preempting lightdm's
> auto-configuration.  However, the format and magic words
> for xorg.conf have evolved beyond the documentation I have,
> and recent man pages are way too generic and nonspecific.
>
> I HOPE to find a TOOL or SCRIPT that probes my displays and
> auto-generates a permanent, static, SPECIFIC xorg.conf file
> that I can install somewhere in the systemd startup maze.
> Failing that, a big collection of RECENT xorg.conf examples
> online, which I can frankenstein into my own static file?
>
> 
> DOES ANYONE KNOW OF SUCH AN xorg.conf GENERATION TOOL,
> and where on the web to find instructions to use it?
> 
>

You can set stuff up with carefully crafted xrandr commands, that you
run when you flip the KVM switch etc, or via commandline after stopping
and exiting X, usually as root, perhaps 'sudo' works. 

# X -configure

or

# Xorg -configure

see 'man Xorg'

The xorg.conf file will be in the home directory.  If you are running
systemd, YMMV.

-Ed

Re: [PLUG] Resolved: Linux and Windows VPN?

[King Beowulf]

On 3/15/22 09:55, Dick Steffens wrote:
> On 3/15/22 00:47, Tony Schlemmer wrote:
>> I use NordVPN and it runs under Ubuntu, iPhone, Windows 7/10, Android and  
>> ChromeBook. I have only used Windows 7 and 10 only. I know there is Windows 
>> 11 but I have used it as of yet. Under Ubuntu is uses OpenVPN. I like on 
>> Ubuntu since it more configurable compared to iPhone, Windows and 
>> ChromeBook. May also run under Mac OS but I have no experience with a Mac.
> After hearing all the responses and thinking about it more, my wife
> decided not to pursue a VPN at this time.
>
> Thanks for all the ideas.
>
 late to the party, again...

I'm a fan of https://protonvpn.com/ and also of protonmail. 

It has multi-platform native apps - including mobile devices.  Keep this
one in mind should you wish to revisit.

-Ed

Re: [PLUG] Laptop battery health check: strange result [RESOLVED]

[King Beowulf]

On 3/14/22 15:47, Rich Shepard wrote:
> On Mon, 14 Mar 2022, David Bridges wrote:
>
>> Perhaps your device is not correct.
>> Try upower --dump  to see everything.
> David,
>
> Thank you very much for the upower lesson. The dump reported on both the A/C
> power supply and the battery (which is at 96% of maximum).
>
> Rich

Interesting, here 'upower -i ' also gave the wrong information.
After 'upower -d' then 'upower -i ' displayed correctly.  Go figure.

Xfce panel power applet will also display some of the battery information.

-Ed

Re: [PLUG] Using dmesg to find system starting delay

[King Beowulf]

On 3/4/22 13:41, Tomas Kuchta wrote:
> 1. You need to be root to use journalctl
> 2. Start looking/using at man pages, info pages and other on-line
> up-to-date sources.
FYI. Slackware, does not use systemd.  journalctl is used to extract
logs from a binary database.  IMHO, all diagnostic logs should be plain
text as they are in Slackware.

-Ed

Re: [PLUG] Configuring a laptop for only wireless

[King Beowulf]

On 3/3/22 14:31, Rich Shepard wrote:
> I assume that configuring a laptop for only wireless networking the Ethernet
> configuration should be set for DHCP and all ethX ports left blank. Then
> iwconfig is used (with wpa-supplement) to configure wlan0.
>
> Have I missed anything?
>
> Rich
You don't have to monkey with iwconfig, ip, or wpa-supplement directly. 
Network Manager work adequately now in Slackware-15.0.  In 14.2 it was a
bit gimpy.  Choose Network Manager during the installation
configuration.  It has an adequate tray GUI. Works fine here on the
Lenovo T510 laptop.

-Ed

Re: [PLUG] Missing ffmpeg missing mp3 encoder

[King Beowulf]

On 2/17/22 10:39, Rich Shepard wrote
> Where do I look for codec mp3 and how do I put it where it should be for
> ffmpeg to find? Or, is there another tool I can use to extract the audio
> stream from an .mp4 I created so I can test my sound system with a file I
> know has recorded audio?
>
> Rich
>

In Slackware 14.2 you need to install lame from Slackbuilds.org

https://slackbuilds.org/repository/14.2/libraries/lame/

then get ffmpeg from same

https://slackbuilds.org/repository/14.2/multimedia/ffmpeg/

and adjust the buildscript for any codex you need to have included. 
Everything not in the base Slackware is =no by default.  Thus,
install the needed codecs, then either edit the buildscript or

# LAME=yes ... sh ffmpeg.SlackBuilds

See README. Don't forget your mp4 video codecs.  In Slackware-15.0
ffmpeg is compiled with lame (mp3).

-Ed

Re: [PLUG] Sound still not working; updated status

[King Beowulf]

On 2/16/22 15:29, Rich Shepard wrote:
> ==
> Opening audio decoder: [mpg123] MPEG 1.0/2.0/2.5 layers I, II, III
> AUDIO: 44100 Hz, 2 ch, s16le, 32.0 kbit/2.27% (ratio: 4000->176400)
> Selected audio codec: [mpg123] afm: mpg123 (MPEG 1.0/2.0/2.5 layers I, II, 
> III)
> ==
> No such audio driver 'arts'
> [AO ESD] latency: [server: 0.29s, net: 0.00s] (adjust 0.29s)
> AO: [esd] 44100Hz 2ch s16le (2 bytes per sample)
> Video: no video
> Starting playback...
> A:   2.0 (02.0) of 30.0 (30.0)  0.1% 2%
> Audio device got stuck!
Rich,

The output is telling you what the problem is.  Check
$HOME/.mplayer/config for dangling configuration settings.  If using
gmplayer (the GUI), check
$HOME/.mplayer/gui.conf.  Check also global system defaults in
/etc/mplayer/mplayer.conf 

Here, 

$ mplayer -ao help
MPlayer 20210418-10.3.0 (C) 2000-2021 MPlayer Team
Available audio output drivers:
    alsa    ALSA-0.9.x-1.x audio output
    esd    EsounD audio output
    pulse    PulseAudio audio output
    sdl    SDLlib audio output
    openal    OpenAL audio output
    mpegpes    DVB audio output
    v4l2    V4L2 MPEG Audio Decoder output
    null    Null audio output
    pcm    RAW PCM/WAVE file writer audio output

No arts. The other one mplayer tries next is esd (EsounD or Enlightened
Sound Daemon). Slackware hasn't had arts (from KDE 3.x) for ages. esd
won't work (by default) unless you are running KDE 5. Also, older
mplayer gets confused by pulse. Try playing your file with:

$ mplayer -ao alsa file.mp3
or
$ mplayer -ao pulse file.mp3

The default Slackware mplayer install uses ALSA by default, unless
specifically told otherwise. On my systems (15.0, same as for 14.2 with
your libavformat)

$ mplayer "Cream - Sunshine Of Your Love.mp3"
MPlayer 20210418-10.3.0 (C) 2000-2021 MPlayer Team

Playing Cream - Sunshine Of Your Love.mp3.
libavformat version 58.76.100 (external)
Audio only file format detected.
Clip info:
 Title: Sunshine of Your Love
 Artist: Cream
 Album:
 Year:
 Comment:
 Genre: Unknown
Load subtitles in ./
==
Opening audio decoder: [mpg123] MPEG 1.0/2.0/2.5 layers I, II, III
AUDIO: 44100 Hz, 2 ch, s16le, 128.0 kbit/9.07% (ratio: 16000->176400)
Selected audio codec: [mpg123] afm: mpg123 (MPEG 1.0/2.0/2.5 layers I,
II, III)
==
AO: [alsa] 44100Hz 2ch s16le (2 bytes per sample)
Video: no video
Starting playback...
A:  16.1 (16.1) of 252.0 (04:12.0)  0.2%

and

$ mplayer -ao pulse "Cream - Sunshine Of Your Love.mp3"
MPlayer 20210418-10.3.0 (C) 2000-2021 MPlayer Team

Playing Cream - Sunshine Of Your Love.mp3.
libavformat version 58.76.100 (external)
Audio only file format detected.
Clip info:
 Title: Sunshine of Your Love
 Artist: Cream
 Album:
 Year:
 Comment:
 Genre: Unknown
Load subtitles in ./
==
Opening audio decoder: [mpg123] MPEG 1.0/2.0/2.5 layers I, II, III
AUDIO: 44100 Hz, 2 ch, s16le, 128.0 kbit/9.07% (ratio: 16000->176400)
Selected audio codec: [mpg123] afm: mpg123 (MPEG 1.0/2.0/2.5 layers I,
II, III)
==
AO: [pulse] 44100Hz 2ch s16le (2 bytes per sample)
Video: no video
Starting playback...
A:  46.1 (46.0) of 252.0 (04:12.0)  0.2%

You also need to remember that every USB audio device is seen by ALSA
and PULSEAUDIO as a new sound card.  Pulse is stupid (a bit less so in
Slack 15.0), loses track of the defaults, mis-detects USB and is
terrible at jack sensing. unplug/replug sometimes fixes.

Audacious is a bit smarter.  Go to menu Output -> Audio Settings Choose
Output plugin = ALSA Output then click settings to set the correct PCM
and mixer devices.

"aplay -L" can be tricky to interpret with multiple cards, mics.  Thus,
with pulse, pretty much only "speaker-test -Dplug:pulse -c2 -twav" will
work. You'll then set the default with pavucontrol gui (an brainless
zombie Slack 14.2) to set the default...assuming /etc/asound.conf wasn't
changed.

Slackware 15.0 is better and even better when you dump pulse for pipewire.

-Ed

Re: [PLUG] Brave Browser?

[King Beowulf]

On 2/14/22 14:49, Dick Steffens wrote:
> Is anybody using the Brave browser?
>
> Good? Bad? Indifferent?
>

Brave browser is a bit of an odd derivative of chromium.  It is focused
on privacy, but also has set up an advertising network that pays users
to view optional adds via BAT (cryptocurrency) tokens.

"good" or "bad" will depend on your views toward online advertising. 
Brave does have quite a few nifty features.

Additional info here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_(web_browser)

-Ed

Re: [PLUG] Audacity-2.3.2: recording permanently paused

[King Beowulf]

On 2/8/22 08:26, Rich Shepard wrote:
> If you know how to unpause Audacity's recording please share that knowledge
> with me. Although I click the red dot 'record' icon the status bar says that
> recording is paused. I don't find a menu or icon option to unpause it and my
> web searches are not productive.

You probably have sound activated recording enable.  Check in the menu:

"Sound Activated Recording" in the "Transport menu > Transport Options >
Sound Activated Recording (on/off)"

https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?t=103484

-Ed

Re: [PLUG] Burning DVD from command line with dd

[King Beowulf]

On 2/5/22 11:12, Rich Shepard wrote:
> I'm trying to write an .iso to a single-layer DVD. Here, /dev/sr0 in
> /etc/fstab uses the alias of /dev/cdrom and it's read-only. I don't know of
> a way to temporarily change the permissions to rw and changing them in fstab
> does nothing.
>
> Unfortunately, the xcdroast on 14.2 no longer works. The command line will.
>
> Suggestions?
>
> Rich

Rich, as explained in off-list emails, you need to set up perms
correctly for the front ends s/w to be able to use and access cdrecord
and growisofs as well as access the drives.

1. as started, you do NOT mount the optical drive to burn. It is not a
mass storage device in this case.
2. you MUST use burner s/w since the optical drive needs to be put into
burn mode - laser from "read" to "write" power etc.
3. If you log in as 'root' you can simply

# growisofs -dvd-compat -Z /dev/dvd=image.iso

see manpage fro more options to fine tune.

4. wodim is a fork of cdrecord.  Slackware provides cdrtools and
dvdrw-tools for which the Debian fork is cdrkit.

-Ed

Re: [PLUG] Audio help needed: no audacity output

[King Beowulf]

On 2/1/22 08:20, Rich Shepard wrote:
> On Tue, 1 Feb 2022, Rich Shepard wrote:
>
>> What have I missed?
> Still clueless on the source of the problem. However, aplay -L shows all
> available audio cards, sound-test produces its default sound, and mplayer
> produces output from the podcast .mp3 I downloaded to the speakers and the
> Yamaha headset (which is much clearer than the speakers, Ed).
>

Rich,

In Slackware 14.2, older audacity and pulse easily confuse each other.
Sometimes setting the playback hw:x,y confuses the heck out of
pulseaudio.  Here I set:

Host = ALSA
Playback Device = pulse
Recording device = default: Front microphone:0

I'm using the front mic jack on my Sounndbaster so adjust as needed.

-Ed

Re: [PLUG] Speaker control: more than volume

[King Beowulf]

On 1/31/22 15:50, Rich Shepard wrote:
> On Mon, 31 Jan 2022, Michael Rasmussen wrote:
>
>> Can we be provided with their name so we can listen to it?
> Sure: . Scroll down to the
> trailer.
>
> Rich
ok on my desktop logitech speakers, but SO MUCH better and clearer on my
Beyerdynamic headphones.

-Ed

Re: [PLUG] Speaker control: more than volume

[King Beowulf]

On 1/31/22 11:17, Rich Shepard wrote:
> I have a pair of small speakers that work really well with music but lack
> clarity for voice reproduction. Alsamixer can control volume but not
> frequency response.
>
> Is there a tool that will provide me with better spoken audio such as
> podcasts or news sites?
>
> Rich
Forget most tiny computer speakers.  Unless your router into nice fancy
ones, the frequency response is trash.  Get a good set set of Sennheiser
or Beyerdynamic headphones.  You can also download the podcast (I do NOT
listen via web browser), and use Audacious (a Slackware default app) for
playback and adjust it's equalizer for voice as needed. 

-Ed

Re: [PLUG] Reformating date fields in text files

[King Beowulf]

On 1/14/22 13:13, Rich Shepard wrote:
> I often download data as .csv files. The dates are usually formated as
> mm/dd/. I want to convert them to the format -mm-dd.

Rich,

I may not have this quite right as I haven't touched Perl in ages.  From
a few online hints:

myfile.csv (month/day/year)

COLA,DATE,COLB,COLC
,12/15/2021,,
,01/14/2022,,

---

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

open(FH,"myfile.csv") or die "Can’t open file-$1";
open(WH,">new_myfile.csv") or die "Can’t open file in write mode- $!";

while(my $line = ){
   $line =~s/(\d{2})\/(\d{2})\/(\d{4})/$3-$1-$2/g;
   print WH $line;
}
      
close(FH);
close(WH);

--

new_myfile.csv (year-month-day)

COLA,DATE,COLB,COLC
,2021-12-15,,
,2022-01-14,,

This uses search with regular expressions so, I think, you don't need to
know what column its in. Not quite sure I've got the regex quite right
since I don't know what else might match the xx/yy/zzz date pattern.

-Ed

Re: [PLUG] A question about using 'screen'

[King Beowulf]

On 1/11/22 11:01, Rich Shepard wrote:
> A few nights ago I used screen for a very log running task. The man page
> tells me, "... When screen is called, it creates a single window with a
> shell in it (or the specified command) and then gets out of your way so that
> you can use the program as you normally would. Then, at any time, you can
> create new (full-screen) windows with other programs in them (including more
> shells), kill existing windows, view a list of windows, turn output logging
> on and off, copy-and-paste text between windows, view the scrollback
> history, switch between windows in whatever manner you wish, etc."
>
> When I used it after screen started the command it returned me to the shell
> prompt, $. Since then, when I've started a screen session with the command
> to run it gives me a couple of line feeds and no prompt.
>
> What might I be doing incorrectly?
>
> TIA,
>
> Rich
>
The screen manpage a hefty tome to wade through.  basic 'screen' usage
is pretty simple.  I've switched to tmux as I find its commands a bit
simpler to use...or maybe remember

start a "blank" screen, just so

$ screen

...now do stuff...

CTRL-a d  to go back to original shell (detached) To list sessions,
detached, that are running stuff

$ screen -ls
There is a screen on:
    18112.pts-3.gandalf    (Detached)
1 Socket in /home/beowulf/.screen.

To reattach, either explicitly

$ screen -r 18112[.pts-3.gandalf]

(the .pts etc is usually optional) or if only 1 screen running

$ screen -R

to open it up to see the goings-on. When attached to a screen typing
"exit" at the prompt will terminate.  If you start screen with the program:

$ screen htop

when the program exits, screen will terminate.  Now lets give screen
something human readable, and start program 'htop':

$ screen -S my_htop -t stuff htop

"stuff" is now the title name in the status bar to label what the screen
is doing "my_htop" to help remember when running multiple screens. 

$ screen -ls
There is a screen on:
    18573.my_htop    (Detached)
1 Socket in /home/beowulf/.screen.

To re-attach
$ screen -r my_htop

There are a bunch of bells and whistles, $HOME/.screenrc customizations,
split windows, yada yada. For example, my .screenrc has for the status:

--
# detach on hangup
autodetach on

# don't display the copyright page
startup_message off

# emulate .logout message
pow_detach_msg "Screen session of \$LOGNAME \$:cr:\$:nl:ended."

# make the shell in every window a login shell
#shell -$SHELL

defscrollback 2000


# improved status:

hardstatus alwayslastline
hardstatus string '%{= kG}[ %{G}%H %{g}][%= %{=
kw}%?%-Lw%?%{r}(%{W}%n*%f%t%?(%u)%?%{r})%{w}%?%+Lw%?%?%= %{g}][%{B}
%m-%d %{W} %c %{g}]'

--
among other things I've long since forgotten how to do.  As Randy
mentioned "screen -L [-logfile ]" in case you need to figure
out why screen terminated etc.

Anyway, I'm all into tmux these days:

tmux new-session -s  
tmux ls
tmux attach-session -t 
tmux kill-session -t 

C-b d detaches a session.  For example:

tmux new-session -s  -n "window_title" "program_name args"
2> $/path/my_tmux.log

-Ed





With either screen or tmux, you can start something, detach and then ssh
in from another computer to check.  Because sometimes to lazy to roll
the chair over 3 feet in my office!

Re: [PLUG] question on permission override for a HP printer

[King Beowulf]

On 11/8/21 15:11, logical american wrote:
> Hi:
>
> I have an HP Deskjet printer connected to a LAN. Without checking to see
> if my hardwire cable was plugged in, I attempted to print a document to
> this default printer. Nothing happened, so I checked the status, the
> printer was placed into pause.
>
> I opened up the HP Printer Manager and went to the controls section and
> hit "enable printer", it asked for the permission override, and then did
> nothing. I tried this 2 or 3 times, with no results.
>
> I went to the CUPS configurator and found that the printer check box for
> enabled was white which meant the printer was NOT enabled. I checked the
> box, and closed out, rewriting the configuration files. This had the net
> effect of enabling the printer back into active mode (on a working LAN)
>
> Question:
>
> Why could the HP Printer Manager not override the pause state of the
> printer? It seems to me that some execution permission is not there, or
> perhaps the HP program does not have Wheels group permission? Any ideas?
>
> - Randall
>
>

HPLIP (3.20.5 here) is a series of python modules. Many distros are
dropping back to Python-3.9 since Python-3.10 (as is their habit)
changed syntax etc. making MPLIP ad other stuff useless.  Here, after
wrestling with HPLIP hp-scan and various broken hp-toolbox issues (even
tried 3.21.8; I was able to find a few partial patches), Slackware-15.0
RC1 rolled back to Python-3.9 so that stuff just works. Check your
distro package repo.

[aside]
Given the Python devs' mindset, I would never recommend Python for any
programming project.  Idiots, all of them.

"They can pry C, FORTRAN and assembly from my cold, dead fingers!"
[/aside]

-Ed

Re: [PLUG] Audacity .aup3

[King Beowulf]

On 9/22/21 14:41, Dick Steffens wrote:
> Anybody using Audacity? I had to use a Win10 machine to do some
> recording this morning. When I got home I went to copy the .aup file and
> directory to my Xubuntu machine. What I found was there isn't a .aup
> file and folder, but instead a .aup3 file. I went back to the Win10
> machine and tried to save as the old version, but that feature is not
> available.
>
>  From https://fileinfo.com/extension/aup3 it looks like this happened
> back in March of this year. I have version 2.3.3. The Win10 machine has
> version 3.0.4. Synaptic does not show version 3 on my Xubuntu machine. I
> hesitate to download the Linux version of 3 without knowing what will
> happen to my existing Audacity projects done with 2.3.3.
>


According to the Audacity wiki, audacity-3.x will read and convert .aup
to .aup3 without issues.

Personally I never bothered with aup. I keep it all as either lossless
FLAC or uncompressed PCM WAV. That way, portability is assured. I can
easily enough convert to other formats with either audacity or a myriad
other tools.

Your Xubuntu may too old have an older wxGTK or other libraries in the
repos that are not compatible with audacity-3.0.4.  Compiling 3.x has
become a bit of a hassle.

-Ed
  

Re: [PLUG] Samsung SSD QVO/EVO/PRO - most reliable?

[King Beowulf]

On 9/12/21 16:51, Randy Bush wrote:
> do not know how widely this extends
>
> https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/08/samsung-seemingly-caught-swapping-components-in-its-970-evo-plus-ssds/
>
> randy
There is also this:

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item=Samsung-860-870-More-Quirks

I'd avoid Samsung SSD for a bit.  I have had a few (last a 840 in an
external USB 3 enclosure). So far good enough. However, better not to
reward a vendor who monkeys around behind our backs.

-Ed

Re: [PLUG] New curated search engine: neeva.com

[King Beowulf]

On 9/5/21 14:46, Mike C. wrote:
> being a UK outfit, the GDPR applies.

No, it doesn't. UK is dropping the EU GDPR post-Brexit. The replacement
is in-progress and may not end up as rigorous as the EU GDPR.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/aug/26/uk-to-overhaul-privacy-rules-in-post-brexit-departure-from-gdpr

or more bluntly,

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/gdpr-data-privacy-brexit-b1909270.html

At this time, I wouldn't make any privacy assumptions for any on-line
service based in the UK.

-Ed

Re: [PLUG] Proton mail not exempt from surveillance

[King Beowulf]

On 9/6/21 14:14, Mike C. wrote:
> One regional communication service provider that I know of that doesn't log
> ip addresses is Riseup.net. Their philosophy is essentially any info that
> isn't logged/stored isn't able to be shared.
>
> If you don't know about the Warrant Canary, now you can now -
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrant_canary
>
> Riseup.net warrant canary info - https://riseup.net/en/canary
>
> On Mon, Sep 6, 2021 at 1:15 PM Russell Senior 
> wrote:
>
>> Saw this referred to on tweetar this morning, and looked it up:
>>
>>
>>
>> https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/06/protonmail-logged-ip-address-of-french-activist-after-order-by-swiss-authorities/
>>

Not to cause a flame war or get into the weeds of how email works, but
no email service you use is immune to a subpoena or court order - in any
country. The SMTP protocol requires servers to cache, even for a short
while, header information to deliver/receive messages.  Even Riseup can
be compelled to cough up this subscriber data, esp, as branch of a USA
non-profit. USA has some of the worst individual privacy protections,
courtesy of the Patriot Act and similar laws passed to fight "terrorism". 

The legal usefulness of warrant canaries is still debatable.  Once
invested in an email service, and a canary dies, what then? Your data is
already gone. Stop suing the service? End-to-end encryption, Tor, VPNs
will at least keep your data, if not always source and destination,
safe.  Riseup.net is not immune to what happened at ProtonMail.  I'm
glad these service providers exist, but they are limited in how much
privacy they can provide.

We walk around with cell tower and GPS location trackers. We scan credit
and debit cards debit cards. Instead of worrying about our email
provider rolling over on a court order, perhaps it would be better to
pressure our elected servants to rescind privacy nonsense like the
Patriot Act and stupidity like the Citizens United SCOTUS decision.

-Ed

Re: [PLUG] NVidia video on a Dell Optiplex 790

[King Beowulf]

On 8/17/21 00:45, Russell Senior wrote:
> lspci says:
>
>01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GT218 [GeForce
> 210] (rev a2)
>
> After an ubuntu 20.04 update, video disappears. It was using the
> nvidia-340 driver. It appears the build against a new kernel failed.
> I've encountered this previously, although it was long enough ago that
> I don't remember exactly what I did. The internet tells me that nvidia
> EOL'd support for "legacy" video cards. So, I guess I am looking for a
> replacement. It is just a plain jane desktop box, no fancy 3d video
> acceleration required afaik.
>
> It's a small form factor box I got at FreeGeek a number of years ago.
>
> Any suggestions for a replacement?
>

As kernels improve, nvidia does't go back and update EOL legacy drivers.
nvida-340.108 hasn't been updated since 2019.

Did you try the open source nouveau driver that comes built into most
linux distros?  Geforce 200 series (NV50 Tesla) are well supported for
most 2D/3D functions short of CUDA/OpenCL and newer video games.  remove
all traces of nvidia-proprietary bin blob and X.org with nouveau works
OOTB.  If Wayland, you are on your own

https://nouveau.freedesktop.org/FeatureMatrix.html
https://nouveau.freedesktop.org/CodeNames.html

Geforce 400 series (nvidia-390.144), or 600 and newer (470.63.01) are
still supported.

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/unix/

-Ed

Re: [PLUG] Startup Applications Re: two rotated screens with xrandr

[King Beowulf]

On 8/11/21 8:29 PM, Keith Lofstrom wrote:
> In the August 9 email below, I called my xrandr script
> using .bashrc .
>
> Wrong, that also adds cruft to an ssh login from another
> computer.
>
> A better place to call this script is from Startup
> Applications Preferences.  For Gnome2 and Mate, that can
> be done by clicking down through the menu bar:
>
> MainMenu -> System -> Preferences -> Personal -> Startup Applications
>
> Then clicking the +Add button and browsing to the twoscreen
> shell script.
>
> That works, but must be added for every user logging in
> to my system via the desktop console.   For now, just
> keithl, and very rarely, root.  Postpandemic, others.
>
> Perhaps one of you can suggest a way to +Add the same
> script for all users when they login on the console.
> I made my change for Mate on a CentOS 7 system.  I will
> soon upgrade to Mate Ubuntu 20.04, which may have an
> "add this script for all users" method.
>
> Keith
>
> --

Depending on your DE (I use Xfce mostly), look for the autostart
directories:

$HOME/.config/autostart

$HOME/.config/autostart-scripts

You can place files in /etc/skel so that everytime 'useradd' is invoked
it copies those over.
https://www.linuxhowtos.org/Tips%20and%20Tricks/using_skel.htm

...or, once you have one user set up, use a script to copy the autostart
settings to all the other users.

-Ed

Re: [PLUG] Block-list, Pass--list

[King Beowulf]

On 7/22/21 4:10 PM, Russell Senior wrote:
> For me, abandoning blacklist/whitelist has more to do with the murky
> origin of the expression, and what I assume might be uncertainty in
> the receiver of the connotation of the expression. According to the
> OED, it was used in 1624:
> 
> 1624   Bp. J. Hall True Peace-maker 42   "Ye secret oppressors,..ye
> kind drunkards, and who euer come within this blacke list of
> wickednesse."
> 
> That links to "black" 13a:
> 
>   "Designating something which indicates disgrace, undesirability,
> failure, liability to punishment, etc. (often involving or consisting
> in a black symbol)."
> 
> usage dating from circa 1550:
> 
> ?1550   J. Bale Apol. agaynste Papyst f. cxvi   "He feared the blacke
> blotte of treason for maynteynynge monkery, whych hys prince had
> condempned afore."
> 
> Without trying to research further, I presume this comes from the
> general association of black with darkness (in the sense of hard to
> see) and evil (things that lurk unseen).
> 
> However, when I am talking to people I don't know well and who might
> not understand the innocent way I intend to use the expression, I do
> NOT want them to make the wrong association. A naive person might hear
> blacklist and whitelist and make an association with racial
> preferences, particularly when I am suggesting how to get their device
> put on one list or another. There is no question that within my
> lifetime racial discrimination was openly explicit and harsh, and we
> are still living with the echos of that long legacy.
> 
> That said, there is a slippery slope. For example, I've seen people
> suggest that "native" should be avoided, and I don't get that. I am
> unaware that "native" is generally understood in a pejorative way.
> Even master/slave, which has obvious association with an evil
> social/economic/political system, as it is used to describe roles of
> devices on a bus (like SPI), is not (to me) obviously offensive. The
> master device is commanding the slave device to do something. The
> slave device is expected to do what is asked. This seems simply
> descriptive. I don't understand how someone would think that it was an
> expression of discrimination or supremacy among people. There is some
> danger that word policing will drift into silliness.
> 
> On Thu, Jul 22, 2021 at 2:28 PM  wrote:
>>
>> The etymology of the terms white and black list have absolutely nothing
>> to do with today's hyperracialized politics.
>>
>> James
>>
>> On 2021-07-22 16:55, Keith Lofstrom wrote:
>>> This might be a "plug-talk" subject, but it will affect
>>> how we write and use and archive Linux code, so it belongs
>>> on this list, practically speaking.
>>>
>>> I've used the terms "black-list" and "white-list" for half
>>> a century.  I just realized those terms are ideologically
>>> incorrect, and will derail a discussion, sooner or later.
>>>
>>> A little googling revealed alternatives.
>>>
>>> An obvious (and technically more accurate) replacement for
>>> "black-list" is "BLOCK-list".  A bit of work to relearn,
>>> but trivial to implement technically.  When I forget and
>>> mistakenly say "black", I can pretend you misheard me :-)
>>>
>>> "WHITE-list" is harder, many more variants in play.
>>> "Allow-list" is one alternative (same number of letters);
>>> "Pass-list" is faster to say (same number of syllables).
>>>
>>> Maybe "Pass--list" is optimum, since cut-and-paste changes
>>> checksums but not line and file lengths.
>>>
>>> I bring this up now, and here, because I would like to
>>> resolve this and practice making the change before some
>>> politically-correct pecksniff derails a technical
>>> discussion.  Virtue signalling has its place (plug-talk),
>>> but I hope we can make this transition together, without
>>> rancor, maintaining focus on technical virtuosity instead.
>>>
>>> Let's discuss this /technically/ here, /virtuously/ on
>>> plug-talk.  When we decide what to do, TOGETHER, how do we
>>> propagate it through millions of lines of code written by
>>> thousands over decades?
>>>
>>> Keith
>>>
>>> P.S. Genetically, I am "very-dilute-black".  Many people
>>> with southern-US ancestors are.  Some west-African genes
>>> protect against malaria, endemic in the antebellum south.
>>> Linux systems were used to discover this.  References
>>> available off-list; discuss on plug-talk.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Keith Lofstrom  kei...@keithl.com
>>
>> --
>> James Bertelson
>> ja...@bertelson.me

Indeed - sillyness. The terminology of white-* and black-*, as well as
master/slave, as they relate to technolgy, predates modern era slavery
as practiced in Colonial America and later USA, and have nothing at to
do with racism. Even in modern usage, demanding we remove and replace
terminology that some find offensive due to their lack of education in
History and Evolution is ludicrous.  The ancient Greeks and Romans did
not exclusively enslave "black" Africans. Removing "white" "black"
"master" "slave" from 

Re: [PLUG] Block-list, Pass--list

[King Beowulf]

On 7/22/21 4:25 PM, Randy Bush wrote:
> living in a complex society, and not wishing to offend/annoy folk who
> are sensitive, i find it trivially easy to ameliorate terminology.
> 
> others seem to relish offending.
> 
> we all have choices.
> 
> randy
> 

Trying to ameliorate terminology to avoid offense will result in less
understanding, not more.  Yes, language does evolve; but often more via
stupidity and illiteracy than by any conscious design for improvement.

-Ed



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Re: [PLUG] Computer electronics looking for a good home

[King Beowulf]

On 7/20/21 6:10 PM, Ben Koenig wrote:
> Yo the nvidia 550 and 950 were on loan for special projects, remember?
> 
> If you dont want them then ill take em back...
> 
> Sent from ProtonMail mobile
> 
>  Original Message 
> On Jul 20, 2021, 5:58 PM, King Beowulf wrote:
> 
>> Hello pluggers (pluglets? Pluggies?) I've have a stack of stuff that may be 
>> useful to some of you. I thought I'd give you first crack at it before I 
>> send it off to the e-waste recyclers. ...

Those are  being auctioned off to pay for storage fees!

-Ed





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[PLUG] Computer electronics looking for a good home

[King Beowulf]

Hello pluggers (pluglets? Pluggies?)

I've have a stack of stuff that may be useful to some of you. I thought
I'd give you first crack at it before I send it off to the e-waste
recyclers. If interested, email me at
kingbeow...@gmail.com
kingbeow...@linuxgalaxy.org
to arrange a pickup (East Vancouver, WA near 164th/McGillivray).  Since
switching to work-at-home I lost the company car (ALAS!) and haven't
bought one yet at the crazy prices these days.

-
$80.00
Netgear Nighthawk AC1900 (R7000-100NAS) w/ DD-WRT V3.0 beta r4700
6/28/2021, fully functional, like new. Broadcom chipset
https://wiki.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Netgear_R7000

-
** Free (as in beer) **
(brewed or fermented libations gratefully accepted)

GPU
---
EVGA Geforce GT 430 original box
Gigabyte Geforce GTX 660 original box
EVGA Geforce GTX 950
EVGA Geforce GTX 550 Ti
EVGA Geforce 9800GT (thin blower)
EVGA e-Geforce 9800GT p/n 512-P3-N982-B2 (fat blower)
Sapphire AMD Radeon HD4850 x2

CABLES, adapters, KVM
-
Belkin KVM dual port switch (8ft VGA, USB, audio/mic 3.5 mm jacks) model
F1DL102U
VGA cable, 6 ft male-malem QTY 2
VGA-DVI adapters QTY 3
Centronics to DB-25 parallel port printer cable
Centronics to USB printer cable
PS/2 keyboard/mouse extension cables, 6 ft QTY 2

Power Supplies, power cables

Antec 550 W model Neo HE550 ATX power supply, semi modular
Power bricks / wall warts, misc phone/device, unsorted box.
Power cords, USA standard NEMA 5-15P 3-prong to IEC C13 (computers, most
electronics), unsorted box

Networking
--
Milan MIL-S800i-v2 8-port 10/100TX switch, C7 to UK/EU/JP power cables,
no USA!
D-Link WNA-1330 Wireless G notebook adapter (802.11g, Atheros,
PC-Card/PCMCIA, linux=yes)
Netgear AC1200 model A6210 USB 802.11ac dual band USB 3 (Mediatek,
linux=yes)
TP-LINK TL-WN721N USB 802.11bgn (Atheros, linux=yes)
TP-LINK AV200 Nano Powerline Adaptor started kit (Tl-PA2010KIT) QTY 2
original box
Intel PRO/1000 MT Dual Port network adaptor, PCI-X, p/n PWLA8492MT

-Ed



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Re: [PLUG] exFAT v. FAT32

[King Beowulf]

On 6/10/21 4:16 PM, John Jason Jordan wrote:
> I just received today a new 1TB USB drive with a USB 3.0 Type A plug on
> one end and a Type C plug on the other. I plugged it into one of the
> Type C ports on my Thinkpad and discovered that it is formatted 'Win95
> FAT32.'
> 
>...

Unless you desperately need Windows or MacOS compatibility, you can skip
both fat32 and exfat.  There is no real reason not to use ext4, esp for
USB C/3.x and large TB sticks.  For Windows compatibility, use NTFS.
Linux now supports that natively.

If are worried about the USB stick lifetime with journaling, then just
use ext2.

https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/33552/htg-explains-which-linux-file-system-should-you-choose/

https://www.howtogeek.com/73178/what-file-system-should-i-use-for-my-usb-drive/

-Ed






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Re: [PLUG] Old OS on New Machine

[King Beowulf]

On 5/6/21 3:57 PM, Michael Barnes wrote:
> I'm having the opposite of Dick's problem. I just built a new computer
> using an ASUS Pro B460M-C motherboard with 32GB or RAM. I'm trying to
> install CentOS7. I have both DVD and USB stick. I get the initial menu to
> choose install, test media and install, or troubleshoot. Regardless of what
> I choose, the screen blanks and nothing happens. I have also tried a
> Knoppix DVD with the same results.
> 
> No commentary on distribution needed, I must install CentOS 7. I'll try
> other things for troubleshooting, but in the end, I need CentOS7 installed.
> 
> Any ideas?
> 
>

web search? RTFM?


https://docs.centos.org/en-US/centos/install-guide/Text_Installation_Intro-ppc/

"If your system has a graphical display, but graphical installation
fails, try booting with the inst.xdriver=vesa option - see Boot Options."

https://docs.centos.org/en-US/centos/install-guide/adminoptions/#chap-anaconda-boot-options

CentOS uses a graphical GUI installation process. With a newer system,
esp with newer GPU, I would not expect the older kernel and X/Mesa to
have the appropriate GPU modules/drivers.


-Ed



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Re: [PLUG] Sync sucks, downgrading firefox, then alternatives

[King Beowulf]

On 4/24/21 6:57 PM, Keith Lofstrom wrote:
> In this case, it means that Firefox now requires "Sync"
> and "Lockwise".  Passwords stored (allegedly encrypted)
> on Mozilla servers. 

Ah. no.  Mozilla may have added dubious features, but blame your distro
package managers (if on a binary distro) or you (if on a source distro).

Slackware64-15.0 beta Firefox 88.0 64-bit

no sync, etc., here.  No firefox account.

But, go ahead. Don't let me stop you from a good rant.

-Ed




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Re: [PLUG] Connection speed suddenly dropped

[King Beowulf]

On 4/28/21 11:14 AM, John Jason Jordan wrote:
> ethtool enx3ce1a1c0dbfc
> Settings for enx3ce1a1c0dbfc:
>   Supported ports: [ TP MII ]
>   Supported link modes:   10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
>   100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
>   1000baseT/Half 1000baseT/Full
>   Supported pause frame use: No
>   Supports auto-negotiation: Yes
>   Supported FEC modes: Not reported
>   Advertised link modes:  10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
>   100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
>   Advertised pause frame use: Symmetric Receive-only
>   Advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
>   Advertised FEC modes: Not reported
>   Link partner advertised link modes:  10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
>100baseT/Half
> 100baseT/Full 1000baseT/Full
>   Link partner advertised pause frame use: Symmetric Receive-only
>   Link partner advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
>   Link partner advertised FEC modes: Not reported
>   Speed: 100Mb/s
>   Duplex: Full

John,

to clarify this data: you are getting 90 Mbps because your interface is
locked to 100 Mbps.  you can bash your head against the wall all day,
you're not going to get any more speed.

Your chipset supports:
Supported link modes:   10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
1000baseT/Half 1000baseT/Full

But you are only getting advertised as
Advertised link modes:  10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
 100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full

Note that '1000baseT/Half 1000baseT/Full' is missing.

Thus, either your router port no longer can handle 1000Mbps (not likely
since the desktop is working), have a bad router port, or you have a bad
cable. Or a CAT5 cable. It is not uncommon for the connectors to bad -
either pins or the clip.

Max speed   Max bandwidth
Cat 5e  100 Mbps100 MHz
Cat 5e  1,000 Mbps  100 MHz
Cat 6   1,000 Mbps  250 MHz
Cat 6a  10,000 Mbps 500 MHz
Cat 7   10,000 Mbps 600 MHz

The "cat number" is usually written on the cable unless you picked up a
weird aftermarket patch cord.

For grins ad giggles you can try this to see it the speed suddenly
jumps. ifconfig may display a bunch of TX errors, but at least it will
isolate the issue a bit more. Ignore the VPN for now - it is irrelevant
for hardware troubleshooting.

# ethtool -s eth0 speed 1000 duplex full

'ethtool eth0' should now report 1000 Mb/s and you can try a speed test.

-Ed



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Re: [PLUG] Connection speed suddenly dropped

[King Beowulf]

On 4/27/21 3:54 PM, John Jason Jordan wrote:
> 2.168.1.170 is the address given to the laptop by the router for
> ethernet, and 192.168.1.163 is for its wifi. In the command 'cat
> /sys/class/net/eth0/speed 1000' I tried changing 'eth0' to wlp82s0 and
> to enx3ce1a1c0dbfc, but each resulted in 'Invalid argument' and 'no
> such file or directory. I must not be doing something right.

Disable wifi.  Wifi, even 802.11ac will have a hard time hitting 200Mbps
depending on your router, distance, etc.  You really only need one or
the other (wired, wifi) not both and I've seen Network
Mangler...er...Manager get confused.  I bet your desktop is wired with
no wifi interface, and that is why it works, yes?

-Ed




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Re: [PLUG] Serial dot-matrix printer replacement

[King Beowulf]

On 4/24/21 10:53 AM, Michael Barnes wrote:
> I have an old piece of equipment that handles monitoring and remote control
> for a site. It has an old serial dot matrix printer that would print out
> alarms situations and status readings. We want to keep the basic unit, but
> the printer has died. I'd like to replace the printer with something like a
> Raspberry Pi that would watch the serial printer line and store the data to
> a file, probably on a daily basis. I'm not great at programming, so I would
> like to find an app that could easily handle this duty.
> Suggestions appreciated.
> 
> Thanks,
> Michael

Here's a summary of serial console options.

https://www.cyberciti.biz/hardware/5-linux-unix-commands-for-connecting-to-the-serial-console/

The RPi has a serial interface but you will have to assemble the serial
port wiring (either DB25 or DB9 male/female port) to connect to the
existing cable. With Radio Shack and Fry's gone belly up, I really miss
scanning the shelves for various electronic gems.

minicom may be the best "turn key" choice, as it can easily capture to a
file

minicom -s  to set up

minicom -C capturefile.txt   to capture serial data

https://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/connect-soekris-single-board-computer-using-minicom.html

This article provides parts and information specific to setting up the
RPi serial ports.

https://elinux.org/RPi_Serial_Connection


-Ed





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Re: [PLUG] Memory error downloading file from website

[King Beowulf]

On 4/22/21 8:16 PM, Jason Barnett wrote:
> You are correct. Dumb error on my behalf.
> 
> On Thu, Apr 22, 2021 at 8:09 PM King Beowulf  wrote:
> 
>> On 4/19/21 11:19 AM, Jason Barnett wrote:
>>> Do you have 1.2Tb of space free on your drive and can your file system
>>> handle single files of that size?
>>>
>>> Jason
>>
>> 1,168,591Kb  is NOT 1.2 Tb
>>
>> it is 11411 Mb
>>
>> -Ed
>>

patch -p1 < reading_glasses.patch

worked wonders here.

-Ed



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Re: [PLUG] Memory error downloading file from website

[King Beowulf]

On 4/19/21 11:11 AM, Rich Shepard wrote:
> I've not before had a problem downloading huge files. But, trying to
> download
> http://ph-public-data.com/document/PHRD_2019/Pre-RD_PDI_Appx-A-Chemistry-Data-DVR.zip
> 
> which the site says is 1,168,591Kb large fails.
> 
> The 102k PDF error page displayed (from django) can be downloaded here:
> 
> 
> over the next 5 days.
> 
> I'd like help in determining how to download this large data file; wget
> failed to do so (at least, with no command line options).
> 
> Rich
> 
> 

Rich the link above, despite the .ZIP extension points to a web page. on
that web page are download links.

the actual link appears to be

http://ph-public-data.com/file/download/Pre-RD_PDI_Appx-A-Chemistry-Data-DVR.zip

but I get an 500 internal server error here using wget.  I was able to
download just fine via Firefox.

you can try wget --content-on-error when web admins are foolish.

$ wget --content-on-error
http://ph-public-data.com/file/download/Pre-RD_PDI_Appx-A-Chemistry-Data-DVR.zip
--2021-04-22 20:21:18--
http://ph-public-data.com/file/download/Pre-RD_PDI_Appx-A-Chemistry-Data-DVR.zip
Resolving ph-public-data.com (ph-public-data.com)... 138.68.58.192
Connecting to ph-public-data.com
(ph-public-data.com)|138.68.58.192|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 301 Moved Permanently
Location: /file/download/Pre-RD_PDI_Appx-A-Chemistry-Data-DVR.zip/
[following]
--2021-04-22 20:21:18--
http://ph-public-data.com/file/download/Pre-RD_PDI_Appx-A-Chemistry-Data-DVR.zip/
Reusing existing connection to ph-public-data.com:80.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... No data received.
Retrying.

--2021-04-22 20:21:50--  (try: 2)
http://ph-public-data.com/file/download/Pre-RD_PDI_Appx-A-Chemistry-Data-DVR.zip/
Connecting to ph-public-data.com
(ph-public-data.com)|138.68.58.192|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 1196636755 (1.1G) [application/zip]
Saving to: ‘Pre-RD_PDI_Appx-A-Chemistry-Data-DVR.zip’

Pre-RD_PDI_Appx-A-Chemistry
100%[>]   1.11G  28.0MB/s   
 in
41s

2021-04-22 20:22:39 (28.1 MB/s) -
‘Pre-RD_PDI_Appx-A-Chemistry-Data-DVR.zip’ saved [1196636755/1196636755]



-Ed




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Re: [PLUG] Memory error downloading file from website

[King Beowulf]

On 4/19/21 11:19 AM, Jason Barnett wrote:
> Do you have 1.2Tb of space free on your drive and can your file system
> handle single files of that size?
> 
> Jason

1,168,591Kb  is NOT 1.2 Tb

it is 11411 Mb

-Ed




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Re: [PLUG] RedHat flubs, AlmaLinux arrives Re: Is Free Software ...

[King Beowulf]

On 4/15/21 2:07 PM, Keith Lofstrom wrote:
> hile I would be more comfortable making the small jump
> to AlmaLinux, the bigger jump to Debian puts me closer 
> to most of the rest of PLUG.  
> 
> You folks better be worth it :-)
> 
> Keith

Those of us running Slackware Linux are worth it.  Debian/Ubunutu and
than ilk ... not so much.

-Ed

PS:
Give the Slackware live boot USB drive a try.
https://download.liveslak.org/




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Re: [PLUG] Printer permissions

[King Beowulf]

On 3/29/21 11:13 AM, Rich Shepard wrote:
> I had to reinstall the driver for my Dell color laser printer (a rebranded
> Xerox Phaser 6000B). When I tried to send a job to it CUPS responded:
> Idle -
> "File "/usr/lib/cups/filter/Xerox_Phaser_6000_6010/XRM_MF" has insecure
> permissions (0100744/uid=1000/gid=100)." which I reduced from the original
> 755.
> 
...

see:
https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-hardware-18/xerox-phaser-6000b-dell-labeled-driver-permissions-4175692822/#post6235679




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Re: [PLUG] Jitsi meeting password

[King Beowulf]

On 2/4/21 2:44 PM, Rich Shepard wrote:
> A while ago when I pointed the browser to https://meet.jit.si/ and
> entered a
> unique meeting name there was a button to set a password for it. Today
> there
> wasn't any password option. The site told me the meeting name was insecure
> but offered no option to secure it.
> 
> What have I missed?
> 

Looks like jitsi changed how they set up meetings and passcodes.  If I
enter 'Slackware' on the website https://meet.jit.si/ I get a warning

"The room name is unsafe. Unwanted participants may join your
conference. Consider securing your meeting using the security button."

But 'SlackwareRulez!' no such warning.  Once you set up a meeting and
join, there is a yellow shield button (security button) on the lower
right corner to add additional security, such as lobby and password.

There is also the end-to-end Encryption option in the options menu (3
vertical dots).  However, this is only supported on Chromium 83+ based
web browsers, not Firefox.

https://jitsi.org/security/

It only took me 1/2 a beer to figure this out. To be fair, the User
Guide sucks donkey balls - pretty much empty. And the security page
omits any mention of how to GET to the security settings.  Ah, open
source. ZESTY!

TL;DR the rest of this thread. I attribute Ben's linguistic pedantry to
his parental units.

-Ed




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Re: [PLUG] Midnight Commander display borked

[King Beowulf]

On 12/28/20 10:33 AM, Nat Taylor wrote:
> Hmm...  Everything but LC_ALL is UTF-8
> mc -a does fix it
> But I have figured out that I was using xfce4-terminal instead of Konsole
> or QTerminal, and the problem is only there.
> 
> I guess the moral of the story is to use mc -a if you are using
> xfce4-terminal, or just use a different terminal for mc
> 
> I had installed pv and progress in attempts to get progress meters while
> transferring files to my new hard drive from the command line over the
> network, but then realized that mc already had progress meters and worked
> great.
> 
> I guess they weren't the culprits after all.
> 
> I guess I hadn't tried mc in the xfce4-terminal I had inadvertently
> launched.  Unless me installing advcpmv locally to test somehow borked it
> just for xfce4-terminal
> 
> 

I've used mc with xfce-terminal for years and ages.  versions 4.10, 4.12
had some issues with line drawing characters with some system fonts,
4.14 was better.  I'm on 4.16 now (xfce-terminal-0.8.10). spiffy!

in ~/.bashrc I have

# Set 256 color for XFCE terminal
if [ "$COLORTERM" == "xfce4-terminal" ] ; then
export TERM=xterm-256color

I also have xfce-terminal preferences set to use "Monospace Regular 12pt"

Note that, depending on xfce-terminal and mc versions, not all Options
-> Appearance work well in xfce-terminal. pick one that looks good.
With UTF-8  and mc46 should always work fine without the -a
option.  There are a number of styles that may work better with your
default system font.

If you like mc, check out krusader (part of KDE5)

btw, rsync also has a progress meter option (--progress and --info=progress)

All the GUI and CLI file managers have progress bars. I have no idea why
there are so may duplicate projects to add stuff to mv, cp etc, when
rsync works just fine when you RTFM.

Moral of the story: Don't blame xfce-terminal for PEBKAC.

-Ed



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Re: [PLUG] Whether to host one's own email these days?

[King Beowulf]

On 9/20/20 3:20 PM, Eric House wrote:
> I've used a personal domain for years, and the email address attached
> to it is the one I care about most, though of course I have a few
> gmail and other addresses. For years I ran my own email server. But
> when my ISP crashed and burned (remember SpiritOne and the crook who
> destroyed it?) and I didn't have a lot of time for research I started
> paying Google $5/month for a g-suite account. (Everything else moved
> to Linode, which has been great. I'm pretty sure the recommendation
> came from this group. Thanks!)
---nip---
> 
> I suspect my requirements are pretty limited. When I had the ability
> to add unlimited email addresses and to run code on every incoming
> email I used both, but I've gotten used to not being able to do that
> sort of thing. So I can probably live with a pretty simple service as
> long as I can access it on a smartphone and through a web interface.
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> --Eric
> 

Many here do run, and thus will recommend running, there own email
server.  The critical issue us what ISP you use to connect, their TOS,
and whether you can get a fixed IP at a reasonable price.

Being on Comcast, along with herding the cats that come along for the
ride when trying to use a dynamic DNS service, I decided to no longer
host web and email locally.  Now I use:

nearlyfreespeech.net
For domain registration and simple web site hosting

Linode
For web (CMS etc apps), and misc hosting.

freedns.afraid.org
To manage domains, subdomains and DNS
(Also dynDNS for gopher and mumble not yet moved to Linode)

protonmail.com
protonvpn.com
For encrypted email and VPN servces. There are several plans depending
on how many email addresses, storage and/or domains you need. Email can
be accessed via web, Android, iOS. These days I trust the Swiss and bit
more than I do the good ol' USA.

My gmail and comcast emails are now for mailing lists, etc. and for
throw away web accounts.

-Ed




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Re: [PLUG] Weather application for Xubuntu 18.04

[King Beowulf]

On 9/11/20 8:03 AM, Rich Shepard wrote:

> Drought, pandemic, federal administration, economic collapse, and now
> record
> wildland fires. A year to remember and there's still 1/3rd to go.
> 

Almost sounds like the Four Horsemen are upon us.





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Re: [PLUG] GUI sudo prompt

[King Beowulf]

On 8/31/20 5:07 PM, Vince Winter wrote:
> I am looking for an alternative to gksu/gksudo (they are no longer
> supported) or to pkexec (getting it setup for the gui is annoying, i.e.
> editing policy).
> 
> I am trying to make a cinnamon desktop launch that asks for a password,
> keeping simple as I can to implement.
> 


Depending on what sort of Linux is underneath your Cinnamon DE, and
assuming 'root' has not been disabled, the 'su' for root privileges is
simply:

$ pkexec env DISPLAY=$DISPLAY XAUTHORITY=$XAUTHORITY 

or

$ pkexec --disable-internal-agent env DISPLAY=$DISPLAY
XAUTHORITY=$XAUTHORITY 

(depending on your polkit config, both work here) will run  as
root after asking for root's password.  This is essentially the same as
opening a console and running "su -"


-Ed






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Re: [PLUG] Auto start HTOP in tty.

[King Beowulf]

On 8/30/20 8:10 AM, Chuck Hast wrote:
> That finished nailing it. I am going to work on it this afternoon, but
> that data brought it all back. Funny, my searches all brought up
> doing this in a terminal screen in the GUI, command line only gets
> no respect...
> 
> 
> On Sun, Aug 30, 2020 at 3:20 AM Tom  wrote:
> 
>> On Fri, 28 Aug 2020 18:41:20 -0500
>> Chuck Hast  wrote:
>>
>>> There that brought a bunch of stuff back (old sux) and I
>>> started seeing light flashes, as I knew I had done it in the
>>> past but just could not remember how.
>>>
>>> This is a server box so there is no X on it.  I will take a
>>> look at screen/tmux, and see how that does.  Thank you
>>> very much.
>>>
>> Hi there. Just place where you see /sbin/agetty in /etc/inittab with
>> the path to the program you want to launch instead. like /usr/bin/top
>>
>>
>

Be aware you will need more that just replacing agetty command in
inittab.  If you do not and stdout and stdin redirects, you will not
have keyboard functionality. See my original post to this thread.

-Ed




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Re: [PLUG] Auto start HTOP in tty.

[King Beowulf]

On 8/28/20 12:00 PM, Chuck Hast wrote:
> Folks,
> I have a server that I would like to have HTOP startup in
> one of the TTY's so far all I find are how to do it from the
> GUI (no gui this is a server) I would like for HTOP to start
> in say terminal 3 for grins (I use 1 and 2 for doing changes
> or whatever stuff I need if I am not doing it over and SSH
> screen)
> 
> So far I have not been able to find some instruction to have
> a terminal (tty) start a program, any guidance here?
> 
> 

As mentioned, assuming no X sessions, you can add a line to /etc/inittab

For example (in Slackware):

...
# These are the standard console login getties in multiuser mode:
c1:12345:respawn:/sbin/agetty --noclear 38400 tty1 linux
c2:12345:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty2 linux
c3:12345:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty3 linux
c4:12345:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty4 linux
c5:12345:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty5 linux
c6:12345:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty6 linux
htop:2345:respawn:/usr/bin/htop /dev/tty7 2>&1

...

That last line runs htop in tty7 accessible via ALT-F7

However, a better way is to use screen or tmux (or similar).  That way
you can access everything locally OR via ssh. If htop is already running
on a tty, there is no good way to access it via ssh.

If you are on a systemd box, then there is a config file for tty setup.

-Ed



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Re: [PLUG] Serious linux malware

[King Beowulf]

On 8/14/20 5:33 AM, Rich Shepard wrote:
> As a computer user and a non-professional I'd like your thoughts on this
> Ars
> Technica article, "NSA and FBI warn that new Linux malware threatens
> national security."
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Rich
> 

The media hype this is hysterical...because RUSSIA!

There have been numerous toolkits over the years with similar
functionality (rootkit + botnet + spyware etc), so I'm not surprised a
government spy agency cleans it up.  Heck, UK probably has the same
thing called "007" or similar and USA's some sort of unpronounceable
acronym...

From what I can tell, it is unlikely for this to be an issue without
local root privileges since is it MALWARE and not an EXPLOIT:

1. needs local access to computer OR
2. trick user to installing the software via email or compromised
download (gee, does that STILL happen?) OR
3. piggyback on existing remote access exploit to gain root access
(privilege escalation).

Thus, the same rules apply to keeping this off your systems and servers
as have for decades: don't click random links, don't download random
executable files, etc.

-Ed



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Re: [PLUG] PinePhone

[King Beowulf]

On 8/8/20 2:34 PM, Rich Shepard wrote:
> Has anyone looked at purchasing a pinephone from pine64.org, or considered
> doing so?

As mentioned, pinephone is not quite there yet. I do like Pine's concept
of isolating the OS from the cellular modem hardware.  Its for the modem
and related parts that you get all the proprietary binary driver blobs.

Another one to keep an eye on is the Libre 5 from Purism:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/09/purisms-librem-5-phone-starts-shipping-a-fully-open-gnulinux-phone/

https://puri.sm/products/

This one is a bit farther along, and it ain't cheap. The Libre 5 USA
version, where components are made/assembled in the USA (one part from
Germany I think), makes the iPhone 11 Pro Max price look cheap.

Another alternative is to strip Android off your favorite cellphone
(with some hardware version limitations), and load a non-Google Android
fork such as:

LineageOS
https://lineageos.org/

Replicant
https://replicant.us/

-Ed



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Re: [PLUG] Jitsi will not unmute microphone

[King Beowulf]

On 7/28/20 3:27 PM, Rich Shepard wrote:
> Using a Logitech H570e USB headset pavucontrol's input tab shows the
> microphone responding to my voice as the vu bar moves. The headphones work
> when I use aplay on /usr/share/games/xboard/sounds/*.wav files.
> 
> But, when I join a jit.si meeting the microphone icon shows it's muted and
> it will not unmute it.
> 
> Same situation with the Mpow and Yamaha headsets.
> 
> How to I locate the source of this problem so I can fix it?
> 
> Rich
> 

I'd check the following

1. mute switch on headset?
2. Disable microphone permissions in browser? Left of the URL, is there
a microphone icon crossed out?
3. try recording a clip via audacity or sox utilities.
4. You can also test Firefox microphone etc with
https://mozilla.github.io/webrtc-landing/gum_test.html

For example, have sox record 10 sec of mono audio and store it in
test.flac (ALSA's arecord is another option):

$ rec -c 1 test.flac trim 0 10

Input File : 'default' (pulseaudio)
Channels   : 1
Sample Rate: 48000
Precision  : 16-bit
Sample Encoding: 16-bit Signed Integer PCM

In:0.00% 00:00:02.39 [00:00:00.00] Out:106k  [   ===|===   ]Clip:0

see 'man sox' to set input.

-Ed




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Re: [PLUG] HDMI

[King Beowulf]

On 7/19/20 9:22 PM, Bruce wrote:
> I have an older HP G70-460US laptop.  I recently did a fresh install of
> Ubuntu 20.04.
> 
> This laptop streams to my Samsung TV.  I use an HDMI connection. The
> older version that was installed did this very well.  The new version
> shows the Ubuntu logo during boot and then (I think) as the desktop is
> loaded, the screen blanks on both the TV and the laptop.  The mouse
> cursor shows on the laptop and the laptop screen seems to be flashing. 
> The TV responds as though there is no signal to it.
> 
> My Google searches turn up lots of problems with Nvidia.  This laptop
> has onboard Intel drivers.
> 
> Can anybody point me in the proper direction?
> 
> I will post any additional info necessary.
> 
> 
> Bruce
> 

This sounds like the old intel i915 KMS modesetting bug, or power saving
glitch.  The TV shows the boot but when modeseting kicks in it all goes
blank - the GPU freezes to conplete system lock, depending on kernel and
effects some recent kernels in the 4.x and 5.x versions. It may also be
that your kernel is not built with some required framebuffer features,

The first thing I would check is the X.org log.  It may contain clues as
too what is happening.  Log for current boot is usually
/var/log/Xorg.0.log with previous log in Xorg.1.org

if your human readable text logs are missing refer to your systemd
documentation.

Also check your BIOS.  There may be a GPU/PCI setting that was ok with
older kernels and X.org but is no longer appropriate.

If modesetting is the issue, you can try modifying your grub boot line
to add i915 specific parameters or to disable it. Note that UMS (user
mode setting) via X.org may not work on your newer kernel. Thus you may
be SOL.

https://wiki.debian.org/KernelModesetting
https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1613132
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=235352
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Kernel_mode_setting





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Re: [PLUG] Linux Slideshow Set To Music

[King Beowulf]

On 7/27/20 12:59 PM, Ben Koenig wrote:
> Yo Ed,
> 
> Didnt you create some family dvds that did this years ago? I remember you
> running through the slackbuilds for dvd authoring software and did a pretty
> nice job of making a playable slideshow.
> 
> Only took you half my childhood to figure it all out
> 
> -Ben
> 

I used imagemagick and gimp to fix/format/convert the still images, Kino
as a front end for ffmpeg and dvdauthor (dead movie editor and DVD
authoring, kdenlive is a good replacement), and K3B to rip CD audio with
audacity to format the audio. A good NLE GUI makes adding transitions
and audio easier.

if the CLI route with ffmpeg etc is too daunting, I believe any
non-linear video editor can create slide shows from still images and add
audio. Some are more difficult to figure out that others (Kino was nice
and simple). In no particular order, any linux distro should have one or
more of these:

kdenlive
Pitivi
Shotcut
Flowblade

-Ed





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Re: [PLUG] recommendations for a usb wireless adapter

[King Beowulf]

On 7/7/20 10:07 PM, Smith, Cathy wrote:
> Can some recommend a WiFi usb adapter that is compatible with Ubuntu?
> 
> I have a Dell workstation that I want run Ubuntu.  The nearest ethernet port 
> is 2 rooms away.   Using a wireless adapter would be easier than stepping 
> over an ethernet cable.  The workstation belongs to my employer, so buying a 
> NIC card is not worth the money.  I tried to use a Linksys AC600 WiFi adapter 
> but I couldn't find a driver.
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> 
> Cathy
> --
> Cathy L. Smith
> IT Engineer
> 

I'm a bit (!) behing in my mailing lists, but in case you haven't found
one yet, or for anyone else:

Netgear A6210  AC1200 USB 3.0

avialable on newegg and amazon

Models with and without USB cable.  I like the one with the cable since
you then place the antenna in a better spot than sticking out of a front
or rear USB port.

Works here OOTB Slackware64-current (15.0 dev). Uses mt76x2u module
(MediaTek chipset).

-Ed





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Re: [PLUG] Linux Slideshow Set To Music

[King Beowulf]

On 7/27/20 12:30 PM, Ronald Bynoe wrote:
> As the subject says. My Dad passed away last month and I'm building a
> memorial slideshow for him. I'd like the images set to music (like fancy
> proprietary apps do) but all my systems are Linux. I'm playing with
> "Imagination" right now but the output videos it produces are all black
> when I play them back in VLC, so I'm debugging what I'm doing wrong.
> 
> Does anyone have any other video production software for Linux like this?
> I'd like to just point the program at a directory of images & mp3s, and
> have it manage the production process (a big ask, I know).
> 
> Pleasantly,
> Ronald Bynoe

please review the following:

https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/Slideshow

-Ed





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Re: [PLUG] Brasero says CD/DVD only...

[King Beowulf]

On 7/16/20 2:43 PM, John Jason Jordan wrote:
> On Thu, 16 Jul 2020 18:21:16 +
> gregm  dijo:
> 
>> I used to use the following cli method, when I was doing BD none of
>> the Linux gui apps supported BD, it has been a few years since I used
>> BD.
>>
>> "truncate --size=25GB /pub/bluray.udf
>> mkudffs /pub/bluray.udf
>> sudo mount -oloop,rw /pub/mybr.udf /mnt/bluray
>> sudo chown pabi.pabi /mnt/bluray
>>
>> #growisofs -speed=6 -Z /dev/dvd=/pub/bluray.udf"
> 
> Can a cli method can be used to burn BD media larger than 25GB?

Stick with GUI. Much easier and the software will remind you if you are
running out of space.

Remember too, blank BD media needs to be formatted (all tools do this
automatically, taking up a bit of space) and that capacity is advertised
as multiples of 1000 not 1024.

Each CD/DVD/BD media has an identity code that the drive reads.

growisofs is a front end of mkisofs (part of cdrtools).  Most GUI
cd/dvd/bd burners can use cdrtools, including brasero.

libburnia is another CLI backend. I've not used it.

Note: there are distros whose binary repos are a bit old (damn unpaid
volunteers). Thus, older versions may have missing functionality.

whether or not you can burn any particular BD size will depends on your
BD hardware hardware. BD Capacity is 25 GB (single-layer), 50 GB
(dual-layer), and 100, 128 GB (BDXL). Up to four layers are possible in
a standard form BD.

If you can burn 25GB but not 50GB, then your drive might not support
Dual (multi) Layer recording. Note: this is NOT the same as being able
to read a dual layer disc. I've also had some BD-RW and DVD-RW drives
that where a bit wonky and needed firmware updates to fully support discs.

-Ed



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Re: [PLUG] Points on a map

[King Beowulf]

On 7/12/20 7:56 PM, Michael Barnes wrote:
> Here's an interesting challenge. First, I am not a programmer, but I can
> sometimes piece stuff together and modify to make it work.
> 
> I have seen these on other web pages and they seem like they should be
> simple enough. I have a document file with about 200 locations nationwide.
> Each location has s site number and an address and description of the
> location. What I would like to do is have a web page with a map I can zoom
> in on with a dot for each location. Clicking on the dot brings up a small
> box with the site number, name, and a link to the description. Clicking on
> the link brings up a new window with the paragraph describing the site
> details.
> 
> Maybe there is some kind of service I can incorporate for this? It will be
> very low volume and out of my pocket, so Open Source or otherwise free is
> nice.
> 
> Thanks for your ideas.
> Michael

Google maps API does what you seek.

https://www.google.com/earth/outreach/learn/mapping-from-a-google-spreadsheet/

https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/embed/start

There are other GIS tools, but google is probably sufficient.



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Re: [PLUG] Brasero says CD/DVD only...

[King Beowulf]

On 7/10/20 10:10 AM, mich...@robinson-west.com wrote:
> I have an LG M disk burner and a disc it should be able to burn that is 100G 
> capacity. Brasero tells me to please replace the disc with a supported CD or 
> DVD.
> The drive is definitely a BDXL drive capable of burning up to 128 gig disks. 
> Is there a known workaround for burning BDXL disks in CentOS 8?
> 
>  -- Michael Robinson

It matters not what the hardware can do if you do not install the
correct software.

You have to set up brasero (a GUI front end) with the correct CLI
backend to be able to create blu-ray discs (Bd) - and the appropriate
file system. Here I use K3B with cdrtools and growisofs.  I'm not
familiar with what CentOS has available in their repositories or
installed by default.  IIRC, few linux distributions install by default
software that can create and burn BD.

See also:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_disc_image_software

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/CdDvd/Burning

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Re: [PLUG] Communicating with digital camera via USB

[King Beowulf]

On 6/23/20 8:21 AM, Rich Shepard wrote:
> I have a Canon EOS Rebel T3 digital camera and just purchased a USB cable
> that is supposed to work with this model. When I connect the camera to a
> USB
> port on the desktop /var/log/messages reports:
> 
> Jun 23 08:05:32 salmo kernel: [1090432.979576] usb 1-14: new high-speed
> USB device number 60 using xhci_hcd
> Jun 23 08:05:32 salmo kernel: [1090433.187069] usb 1-14: New USB device
> found, idVendor=04a9, idProduct=3217, bcdDevice= 0.02
> Jun 23 08:05:32 salmo kernel: [1090433.187070] usb 1-14: New USB device
> strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
> Jun 23 08:05:32 salmo kernel: [1090433.187071] usb 1-14: Product: Canon
> Digital Camera
> Jun 23 08:05:32 salmo kernel: [1090433.187072] usb 1-14: Manufacturer:
> Canon Inc.
> Jun 23 08:05:32 salmo mtp-probe: checking bus 1, device 60:
> "/sys/devices/pci:00/:00:01.3/:01:00.0/usb1/1-14" Jun 23
> 08:05:32 salmo mtp-probe: bus: 1, device: 60 was not an MTP device Jun
> 23 08:05:55 salmo kernel: [1090455.623438] usb 1-14: USB disconnect,
> device number 60
> 
> I just learned that MTP is Media Transfer Protocol and apparently
> Slackware-14.2 supports it, recognizes the camera, but cannot
> communicate with it. My web searches for how to use the Canon USB cable
> with
> linux found only one unanswered question from a couple of years ago.
> 

Rich,

Actually, Slackware spots a USB device that does not report as a true
(and simple) mass storage and guesses MTP and then fails because the
device is NOT an MTP device. This could be true, or it could be that the
Slackware 14.2 libraries are too old, or the camera is using an odd
version of MTP, or the USB port is too slow.

You can also try a different USB port - not all are created equal.

Canon cameras are supported via gphoto.  Slackware has libgphoto2-2.5.10
and gphoto2-2.5.10 that support the Canon Rebel T3 (no EOS?)
http://gphoto.org/proj/libgphoto2/support.php

try:

$ gphoto2 --auto-detect







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Re: [PLUG] Xsane cannot communicate with scanner

[King Beowulf]

On 6/22/20 4:11 PM, Rich Shepard wrote:
> On Mon, 22 Jun 2020, King Beowulf wrote:
> 
>> The only printer/scanner company that I know of that explicitly supports
>> Linux is HP.
> 
> Ed,
> 
> I believe that Epson also explicitly supports linux.
> 

Like Canon, Epson provides (partially open) closed source Linux drivers,
while having a CLI or GUI shell to use the drivers.  For both companies,
the printer and scanner software is often out of date or incomplete.
One can sometimes get lucky with CUPS and SANE drivers that were often
reverse engineered, often with only basic functionality.

"Important: Epson does not provide support for Linux drivers."

So no. Epson does not explicitly support Linux.  They are more of a toss
the code out there and say YMMV.

In the case of HP, they do support the Linux software:
https://developers.hp.com/hp-linux-imaging-and-printing/support

True, software support is 100% online, but at least they have people to
read the messages.  And while I often have issues with HP's business
practices, and sometimes variable product quality, I do prefer to spend
my money with companies that will dedicate a cubicle drone or two to
supporting Linux.

-Ed






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Re: [PLUG] Xsane cannot communicate with scanner

[King Beowulf]

On 6/22/20 12:51 PM, Rich Shepard wrote:
> On Mon, 22 Jun 2020, Michael Rasmussen wrote:
> 
>> I went to check the PLUG history at
>>   http://lists.pdxlinux.org/pipermail/plug/
> 
> Michael,
> 
> That February thread was about the need to plug the scanner into the
> desktop
> directly, not into an external USB hub because the power limits for the
> latter were insufficient for the scanner.
> 
> That's not today's issue.
> 
> lsusb, sane-find-scanner, scanimage -L, and xsane all find the hardware,
> but
> xsane cannot communicate with it. Canon's scangearmp2 now doesn't find the
> hardware.
> 
> Canon is making an exception for a warranty return on a 6-month old scanner
> because they know how to trouble shoot using only Microsoft or Apple
> software; they don't support linux. Except, they provide scangearmp2 as
> .deb, .rpm, and .tgz files ... for linux. Strange company.
> 
> Now I'm looking for a backup scanner from a company that does support
> linux.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Rich
> 

Rich
The only printer/scanner company that I know of that explicitly supports
Linux is HP. HPLIP already comes installed on Slackware, and, while is
can be a bit tricky at times to set up, it HPLIP does work well. Check
the device list here:

https://developers.hp.com/hp-linux-imaging-and-printing/supported_devices/index

The list contains several Scanjet models that work with HPLIP.

Keep on eye on the "Driver Plug-in" column: these are proprietary binary
blobs needed for full functionality.  These can be a bit trick to
install sometimes.

Or opt for one if the multifunction printers: buy a scanner and get a
printer for free!

My corporate overlord provided for my home office a HP LJ M1212nf MFP
that has worked well since Slackware 14.1.  Slackware-14.2 has
HPLIP-3.16.5 but its not hard to compile 3.20.6 (Slackware-current) if
the printer/scanner needs the newer version.

-Ed



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Re: [PLUG] Resolved, sort of: Background on Zoom in Linux?

[King Beowulf]

On 5/24/20 7:51 AM, Dick Steffens wrote:
> On 5/23/20 11:40 PM, King Beowulf wrote:
>> On 5/23/20 8:33 AM, Dick Steffens wrote:
>> ...
>>> In the settings section, the Virtual Background button wasn't available
>>> before. After I signed up for a free account, that button appeared.
>>> However, when I clicked on it and tried to put up a background, it said
>>> my machine wasn't powerful enough, but let me do it anyway. When I chose
>>> a background, it worked, but not well. A lot of video noise. Oh, well.
>>> Since the laptop is the only machine I have with a camera, and since it
>>> works without a background, I'll probably not use a virtual background.
>>>
>>> Thanks.
>>>
>> Or you can go old school motion picture production:
>>
>> 1.  large(-ish) poster prints
>> 2.  set up projector screen and use 35mm slide projector
>>
>> You'll have to play with lighting and camera exposures a bit. Movies and
>> TV shows were done this way LONG before green/blue screens and CGI...or
>> even video overlays.
> 
> And rear projection. That way I wouldn't have to stare into the light
> coming from the projector. However, it would mean building a projection
> booth onto the side of the house above the front door, since I'm sitting
> in front of an outside wall with no window. That would probably look
> weird. :-)
> 

Do a web search for "short throw projector" - not cheap but only need a
foot two of space!

Or, heck...mount a flat screen LCD TV on the wall of the appropriate
size.  Video loop of a nice outdoor scene, and fan to fluff the hair
(I'm assuming here - my noggin is pretty threadbare).

-Ed

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Re: [PLUG] Resolved, sort of: Background on Zoom in Linux?

[King Beowulf]

On 5/23/20 8:33 AM, Dick Steffens wrote:
...
> 
> In the settings section, the Virtual Background button wasn't available
> before. After I signed up for a free account, that button appeared.
> However, when I clicked on it and tried to put up a background, it said
> my machine wasn't powerful enough, but let me do it anyway. When I chose
> a background, it worked, but not well. A lot of video noise. Oh, well.
> Since the laptop is the only machine I have with a camera, and since it
> works without a background, I'll probably not use a virtual background.
> 
> Thanks.
> 

Or you can go old school motion picture production:

1.  large(-ish) poster prints
2.  set up projector screen and use 35mm slide projector

You'll have to play with lighting and camera exposures a bit. Movies and
TV shows were done this way LONG before green/blue screens and CGI...or
even video overlays.

-Ed



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Re: [PLUG] Ambient light screen adjustment

[King Beowulf]

On 4/30/20 7:21 PM, Chuck Hast wrote:
> Folks,
> I have a HP Compaq 6300 I am using as a DVR terminal to my DVR which is
> elsewhere on the property. The 6300 just displays the critical camera
> screens.
> 
> My issue is that I am trying to figure out how to use the camera on the
> machine
> to detect ambient light and adjust screen brightness. I see a lot about Win
> 10
> doing so bidden or not. But do not see much about this in Linux. The issue
> is
> the screen is so bright at night that it bothers my wife. But we do not
> want to
> turn it off because if we hear something outside the first thing we do is
> look at
> the screen to see what the cameras are seeing. Since the machine is mounted
> on the wall for viewing there is no keyboard on it and even if there was
> wife
> probably would not try to adjust it.
> 
> Any ideas on how to use the on board camera to adjust screen brightness?
> 

These may be of use:

https://www.linuxlinks.com/clight-webcam-becomes-light-sensor/
https://sourceforge.net/projects/calise/




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Re: [PLUG] wine doesn't kindle_for_pc...

[King Beowulf]

On 5/1/20 1:27 PM, mich...@robinson-west.com wrote:
> michael@eagle Downloads]$ wine KindleForPC-installer-1.28.57030.exe
> wine: Bad EXE format for 
> Z:homemichaelDownloadsKindleForPC-installer-1.28.57030.exe.
> [michael@eagle Downloads]$
> 
> [michael@eagle Downloads]$ wine Kindle_for_PC_Download.exe
> wine: Bad EXE format for Z:homemichaelDownloadsKindle_for_PC_Download.exe.
> [michael@eagle Downloads]$
> 
> similar result if I try wine64 instead.
> 
> How do I get Kindle_for_PC_Download.exe installed so I read my Kindle format 
> ebooks on CentOS 8?

You may want to poke around here for clues.  Some of the tests are
old/obsolete but could still be useful.

https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application=10597

You can also try a newer version and/or run 'winecfg' to set the Windows
OS version.

-Ed




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Re: [PLUG] Apollo 13 anniversary

[King Beowulf]

On 4/11/20 3:28 PM, Russell Senior wrote:
> If there are space nerds here, you can follow along with Apollo 13,
> synchronized to exactly 50 years ago:
> 
> https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/
>

+1

Also, Apollo 11, when I was 9 yrs old. ah the memories.

https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/

-Ed



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Re: [PLUG] Webcam capture software

[King Beowulf]

On 4/11/20 2:25 PM, Rich Shepard wrote:
> My research found two linux applications for webcam capture: vlc and
> webcamoid. Has anyone experience with these and will share thoughts on
> preferring one ove the other?
> 

I've used VLC before.  Its a swiss army knife for video playback with
capture capability.  Crazy big dependency list.  It may be a bit
overkill if all you what is a simple webcam software.

webcamoid looks interesting, I'll have to check it out.

wxcam on Slackbuilds,org. VERY minimal and few bells and whistles.  I
might drop it when Slackware current -> 15.0 in favor of maybe webcamoid.

For the crusty command line crowd, ffmpeg will also capture, see
https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/Capture/Webcam

QT4 and QT5 have test utilities, "QT V4L2 Test Utility" and "QT V4L2
capture utility"

-Ed



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Re: [PLUG] Question on Zoombombin

[King Beowulf]

On 4/5/20 6:08 PM, Mark Allyn wrote:
> Folks:
> 
> I don't know if this is the right forum or not to ask this, but I am curious 
> about this so called Zoombombing that's been creeping up.
> 
> I was as a zoom meeting that did get bombed with porn on Saturday. Luckily, 
> the host was able to kick them off very quickly.
> 
> However, this leads me to a question.
> 
> If I happen to have had another machine on my network running a sniffer; 
> something like Snort; would have I got the IP address of whomever Zoombombed 
> the meeting I was on?
> 
> In a system like Zoom, do all of the videos come together to my desktop or do 
> they go to the host first and then out to the guests? Who would see the 
> source IP addresses of those who connect (including the zoombomber) if they 
> had a Snort or other sniffer running on their network?
> 
> If this is not a good forum for something like this, would anyone know what 
> forum I could take this to? Would it be DorkbotPDX?
> 
> Thank you
> 
> Mark
> 

Besides some of the issues discussed on this topic, for me the 2 big
ones, regardless of who and what software:

1. Zoom claimed but did not have end-to-end encryption
Doesn't matter if you sniff the IP, social engineer, or try a
man-in-the-middle attack, without the encryption key...

2.  Not setting up secure defaults.  It is never a good idea to assume
customers new to your product will understand or even find all the
required security settings.  Google is famous for this one: making
security settings the default literally reduces advertiser revenue!

https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-prevent-zoom-bombing
"It wasn't a technological weakness in Zoom that allowed these events to
occur. It was a matter of the host not knowing all the features of the
tool and how to use them. "

-Ed



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Re: [PLUG] BASH script make a backup...

[King Beowulf]

On 4/4/20 4:06 PM, mich...@robinson-west.com wrote:
> tar: 
> root/web_safety/build/squid/squid-4.9/debian/.debhelper/squid/dbgsym-root/usr/share/doc/squid-dbgsym:
>  File removed before we read it
> tar: 
> root/web_safety/build/squid/squid-4.9/debian/.debhelper/squid-cgi/dbgsym-root/usr/share/doc/squid-cgi-dbgsym:
>  File removed before we read it
> tar: 
> root/web_safety/build/squid/squid-4.9/debian/.debhelper/squid-purge/dbgsym-root/usr/share/doc/squid-purge-dbgsym:
>  File removed before we read it
> tar: 
> root/web_safety/build/squid/squid-4.9/debian/.debhelper/squidclient/dbgsym-root/usr/share/doc/squidclient-dbgsym:
>  File removed before we read it
> tar: 
> root/web_safety/build/squid/squid-4.9/debian/squid-common/usr/share/squid/errors:
>  File removed before we read it
> 
> I've never seen tar errors like this before...
> 
> ...
> tar --one-file-system --keep-directory-symlink -chjf $dump_dir/root.tar.bz2 
> root/ 2>$dump_dir/tar_err.txt
> ...
> 

I was in error about the -h parameter.  Sorry about that. To much time
at home I suppose.

https://www.gnu.org/software/tar/manual/html_node/dereference.html

-h is only used to follow the symlink and grab the linked file.

$ ls -l tar_test/
total 0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 beowulf users 9 Apr  4 17:23 symtest2.txt -> test2.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 beowulf users 0 Apr  4 17:23 test1.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 beowulf users 0 Apr  4 17:23 test2.txt

$ tar -cvjf tar_test.tar.bz2 tar_test/
tar_test/
tar_test/test1.txt
tar_test/test2.txt
tar_test/symtest2.txt

$ mv tar_test.tar.bz2 /tmp/tar_test.tar.bz2
$ cd /tmp
$ tar -xjf tar_test.tar.bz2
$ $ ls -l tar_test
total 0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 beowulf users 9 Apr  4 17:23 symtest2.txt -> test2.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 beowulf users 0 Apr  4 17:23 test1.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 beowulf users 0 Apr  4 17:23 test2.txt




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Re: [PLUG] BASH script make a backup...

[King Beowulf]

On 4/4/20 1:03 PM, mich...@robinson-west.com wrote:
> Of course, leave off the $ when defining a variable in Bash!
> 
> I'm using the following tar invocation:
> 
> tar --one-file-system -cvjf foo.tar.bz2 foo/
> 
> Is there a way to tar up symbolic links as links?
> 
> What about permissions?

#!/bin/bash
dump_dir="/home/Shared/backup/"
...
mkdir -p $dump_dir
# -p creates parent directories if needed
...
tar --one-file-system -cpvjf foo.tar.bz2 foo/
...

Omitting -h should backup any symlinks and not just the files they point
to. Just remember to add -h when you extract to restore the symlinks.
-p preserves perms (default if superuser)
--keep-directory-symlink if you have symlinks to directories.
(see man tar)

> 
> Should I run this as root in runlevel 1?
> 

Why?  running as user is fine or use su or sudo.  Your user just needs
access to the source and target directories.

> 
> Instead of starting over, could I uninstall X Windows from the existing 
> system in console mode for troubleshooting?
> I think with X gone that network manager will go too which may be the source 
> of my networking problems.

if you don't need X apps etc, and just use the console, dump it.
Removing X won't remove usually Network Manager as NM has a CLI
component. Of course, that depends on the dependency list for NM and X
for your distro package manager.

-Ed



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Re: [PLUG] From {proprietary consumer} TO {FOSS contributor} HOW???

[King Beowulf]

On 3/27/20 12:59 PM, Richard Owlett wrote:
> Lousy subject line? *PROBABLY* Suggestions welcome ;}
> 
> About a decade ago I got fed up with M$ telling me that they knew more
> about my needs than I.
> 
> Responding to an application oriented question on a USENET forum, a PLUG
> member suggested I try Ubuntu. Canonical had made design decisions which
> clashed with how I thought. That led me to discovering FOSS, and Debian
> in particular.
> 
> I do not have the technical skills to contribute viable code.
> I've been a computer *USER* since early 60's.
> Is there a forum whose goal is guiding consumers to provide _USEFUL_
> feedback?
> 

I haven't written much in the way of code since Z80 C and assembly when
I was 50 lbs lighter and had a full head of hair.  There are many ways
to contibute: Q forums, documentations, package management.  I've been
active for nearly 10yrs contributing bash build scripts for Slackware at
Slackbuilds.org, a 3rd party software package volunteer effort.
Essentially just automating the configire-make-create package steps.
Debian has something similar and more convoluted.

Head over to linuxquestions.org: sort of a one-stop-shopping forum for
all things linux and has been around for a long time. Most distros are
represented and BSD as well.  If you have experience solving technical
issues, you can often jump in and assist with the "How do I...?" and "It
go boom...?" questions and provide pointers to solutions.  Lots of stuff
there.  Good community that self polices pretty well and sharp
moderators that jump in to keep everyone on topic (although wacky
tangents do occur at  times.)

-Ed



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Re: [PLUG] HELP, service provider may be VICTIM?

[King Beowulf]

On 3/12/20 1:14 PM, Richard Owlett wrote:
> On 03/12/2020 02:52 PM, Paul Heinlein wrote:
>> On Thu, 12 Mar 2020, Richard Owlett wrote:
...
>>
>> Most e-mail clients will allow you to save to disk the entirety of an
>> e-mail message, headers and body both included.
> 
> That is what I wanted.
> 
>>
>> I suggest you save it to disk, then gzip or xz it, and send it as an
>> attachment to your provider.
> 
> HOW?
> 
> I use SeaMonkey version 2.49.4 under Linux (IE. Debian 9.)
> 

Right click the email message, Save as.., this saves as the .eml format.
This is a (now) common email format that can be imported into other
email clients or viewed in a plain text editor.

-Ed




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Re: [PLUG] Unmanaged gigabit switches: does brand matter?

[King Beowulf]

On 11/23/19 8:27 AM, Rich Shepard wrote:
> While my old LinkSys (non-gigabit) switch worked for years it recently
> died.
> I'm now using a Netgear GS116 gigabit switch and I want a backup unmanaged
> 16-port gigabit switch.
> 
> I find them available from Cisco, Netgear, TrendNet, TP-Link, and D-Link.
> Where reviews are provided (Newegg and Amazon) they range from 1 to 5
> stars;
> the lower rankings seem to be due to poor customer support when a switch
> (or
> some ports) fail. Prices also range quite broadly (not considering that
> some
> offer PoE or PoE+ and others don't.)
> 
> Are any of the brands preferred, or to be avoided?
> 

Rich

I currently have a combination of TP-Link, Netgear, D-Link 10/100/1000
switches scattered about to route data to various rooms, all bought on
sale. As mentioned already on this thread, there are not a lot of
differences as the tech, firmaware and chipsets are mature for
unmananged devices.  I can stream 4K on the Roku, while transferring
gigabytes among the various boxes here, without any noticeable hick-up.

I do tend to prefer metal encased versions, however, as they seem a bit
more resilient to RF interference.

My corporate overlord bundles unmanaged Milan/Transition switches for
our laboratory equipment and I have not seen any of those fail in 10+
yrs, some of which are in fairly dirty and/or hot manufacturing
environments.

-Ed



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Re: [PLUG] Finding suitable printer

[King Beowulf]

On 10/19/19 1:37 PM, Dick Steffens wrote:
> On 10/19/19 11:19 AM, King Beowulf wrote:
> 
>> HP has excellent F/OSS Linux CUPS driver support via HPLIP, which is
>> either already installed in you distro or readily  available.
> 
> Be aware that if you choose a really new model from HP, the support for
> all its features may not be in HPLIP yet.
> 
> In my case I can print, but I still don't have the ability to scan.
> Probably not your issue, though.
> 

The models I posted as an example were listed as having full HPLIP
support for that reason.  Easy enough to check while shopping when
having a copy of:

https://developers.hp.com/hp-linux-imaging-and-printing/supported_devices/index

With scanning, some HP models need a d/l a proprietary blob that does
not always work in Linux/CUPS.

-Ed




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Re: [PLUG] Finding suitable printer

[King Beowulf]

On 10/19/19 4:55 AM, Richard Owlett wrote:
> I run Debian on two laptops in different rooms and networking is not
> feasible. I'm looking for a small low volume printer. It will generally
> be stored, not connected, on a shelf near one laptop. Desk space *very*
> limited. Occasionally used away from home. {Battery operation would be
> nice but not required.} I've not looked for a printer in decades.
> 
> Max number pages per run -- ~10
> Max pages per year   -- ~50
> USB connectivity
> 
> Comments/suggestions?
> TIA
> 

Richard,

In addition to comments already posted here, the keywords are:

compact printer
portable printer

It is hard these days to find a printer that just prints (eps. at brick
and mortar) - they through the kitchen sink into them now.  Here are
some ideas/examples:

HP OfficeJet 200 Mobile Printer
portable color thermal inkjet, battery operation
With your duty cycle, ink cost should not be an issue

HP LaserJet Pro M15w Printer
compact laser, 600dpi
HP has a few varieties approx 13.6 x 7.5 x 6.3 in, ~8lbs Higher
resolution can cast more and be heavier.

HP has excellent F/OSS Linux CUPS driver support via HPLIP, which is
either already installed in you distro or readily  available.  Build
quality is nor quite what it was like "back in the day" but still
acceptable.  Recommended.

Canon, Brother, Epson et al have spottier linux/CUPS driver support and
usually arcane installation of binary blobs.  Canon may be best in this
regard, in terms of build quality and driver support, but I really
haven't used the others in a long while.  I have a Canon TR8520
all-in-one that works ok (a bit bulky bulky). It does get lost every so
often and needs a power cycle to reconnect back to CUPS.  Not recommended.

-Ed



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