[SLUG] Some events

[Bruce Badger]

Here are some events which I thought may appeal to SLUG members (it
would be great if they could appear in the SLUG calendar :-)):

** The OpenSkills social evening will be held this Wednesday evening
at the Cohi Bar from 18:30.  It's a chance to network, get your key
signed and to get OpenSkills to do the things you need it to do.  It's
also the last chance to pick up a 2006 DevCon pin!  The social evening
follows the committee meeting (the link has more details of the
venue):
 http://wiki.openskills.org/OpenSkills/Agenda+for+Committee+meeting+38

** There will be a Sydney Smalltalk User Group meeting this Friday at
the ACS NSW offices in Sydney.  The easiest place to get all the
details is on the speakers blog:
http://tinyurl.com/gz3eb

** There will be an ACS FOSS SIG meeting next Thursday (the 29th) by
Del Elson about the Fedora directory services.  No charge for coming
along (I mention this only because some ACS SIG *do* charge
non-members) .  Details on the ACS NSW site:
http://tinyurl.com/lyo3d

All the best,
  Bruce
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[SLUG] Calendar

[Bruce Badger]

The SLUG calendar does not seem to reflect upcoming events.  Is the
calendar no longer used?

I ask because I plugged the SLUG calendar into my Google calendar and
nothing showed up.  I used the following link to the SLUG calendar:

http://www.slug.org.au/events/event.ics

Thanks,
   Bruce
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[SLUG] BSD SOckets

[Bruce Badger]

Chaps,

Where is the specification of BSD sockets definitively expressed?

What standards body is responsible for the specification?

I read that BSD Sockets are a de facto standard (e.g. in RFC 2553), so
the answers may be nowhere and nobody respectively ... but I'm hoping
there is a body somewhere that owns the spec.

Thanks,
Bruce
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Re: [SLUG] Re: [SLUG-ANNOUNCE] DebSIG Meeting: Wednesday April 12, 2006

[Bruce Badger]

On 10/04/06, Andrew Cowie <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Guest speaker Christof Wittig will be talking about db4o
> OODBMSes came and went as a technology in the late 80s/early 90s, so you
> might be saying WTF?

Hey!  Less of the "went"! :-)

The OpenSkills SkillsBase uses a Smalltalk OODB called GemStone in
production, and as it happens  I will be giving a talk about this at
Linux World / Smalltalk Solutions in Toronto in a couple of weeks
time:

  http://www.lwnwexpo.plumcom.ca/smalltalk.cfm

... and because of my current interest in OODBs I'm very much looking
forward to hearing what Christof has to say on Wednesday.

All  the best,
Bruce
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Re: [SLUG] Re: [SLUG-ANNOUNCE] re-announce: DebSIG Meeting: Wednesday April 12, 2006

[Bruce Badger]

On 10/04/06, Lindsay Holmwood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> AFAIK, Bruce had taken care of the bookings.

yes, we have the bookings in hand.  We have the second Wednesday
booked for the next few months, and we'll probably roll that forward. 
The Cohi Bar is a great venue for our needs.

BTW, the meeting isn't the OpenSkills AGM, it's just the regular board
meeting at 18:00 followed by the social evening at 18:30 ... and this
week we are luckly enough to have the DebSig and Christof Wittig along
to our social evening. :-)

All the best,
Bruce
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Re: [SLUG] Re: Linuxworld Success!

[Bruce Badger]

I'd like to add my thanks to LA for letting us have some OpenSkills
beer mats on the display, and for those on the LA stand for handing
them out.

Many thanks!

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Re: [SLUG] Re: [Linux-aus] ACS FOSS SIG

[Bruce Badger]

On 28/03/06, Matthew Hannigan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> OK, we have WWF sorted, now we have to deal with
Ah, OK.  Sorry about that.

> ACS
Australian Computer Society

> FOSS
Free & Open Source Software

> SIG
Special Interest Group

> CMS
Content Management System

> And which CMS is it?
I don't know!  This ACS FOSS SIG Is a tale of how the WWF found their CMS.

:-)

All the best,
   Bruce
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Re: [SLUG] ACS FOSS SIG

[Bruce Badger]

On 27/03/06, Craige McWhirter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Mon, 2006-03-27 at 14:09 +1000, Bruce Badger wrote:
>
> > Details of the time and venue are here:
> > http://tinyurl.com/rwfec
>
> Is registering necessary or merely optional?

Not necessary, but appreciated.

I hope to see you there :-)

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[SLUG] ACS FOSS SIG

[Bruce Badger]

As quite a few people will be in town for the Linux World conference, I
thought I'd mention the ACS FOSS SIG talk on Thursday evening given by
Matt Moore (SLUG member and all-round good guy) and a colleague of his
from the WWF.

The talk is about the CMS system used by the WWF.

Details of the time and venue are here:
http://tinyurl.com/rwfec

All the best,
Bruce
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Re: [SLUG] Re: Dapper & the Microphone

[Bruce Badger]

On 26/03/06, Matt Palmer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Sun, Mar 26, 2006 at 10:18:11AM +1100, Bruce Badger wrote:
> > ... but if I run Audacity and hit the record button, none of the sound
> > I can hear coming to the speakers from the mic is recorded.  I end up
> > with a recording of silence.
>
> I reckon that your system has managed to find itself two microphones, and
> Audacity is recording off the wrong one.  It's about the only thing left
> that's a possibility.  Knoppix probably gets it right by accident, by
> switching the mics around in their load order or something crazy.

Yeah, I came across this on my desktop workstation.  With that I could
not get the mic to work either, but I found in alsamixer that I could
select "mic2".  Once I did that, I could hear sound from the mic
through the speakers *and* record.

On the Thinkpad, if I switch to mic2 in alsamixer I can no longer hear
sound from the mic through the speakers, nor do the recording apps
capture any sound :-(

Is there a diagnostic tool that can reveal more information?

BTW, in the Gnome Sound Recorder, the "Record from input:" drop down
menu contains 45 (!) entries.  There are 8 unique values in the list
(e.g. "Line-in" "CD" "Microphone" ...) but the are repeated several
times.  Odd in itself.

I had someone mention KMix so I've given that a go as well.  KMix
reveals many more options and I must have worked through every
possible combination - no joy :-(

I would be good if there was some kind of absolute identity for the
microphone and some way of directing the recording programs to it - at
the moment the recording programs look at /dev/dsp and then a miracle
occurs ... or in this case, does not.

Thanks for all the suggestions so far.

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[SLUG] Dapper & the Microphone

[Bruce Badger]

I'm still trying to get the microphone on my Thinkpad T21 to be picked
up by recording apps (e.g. Audacity).

I've installed Dapper Drake (Flight 5) and have the same symptoms I
had with Debian Sarge.

The mic works fine.  I can hear sound from the mic through the laptop
loudspeakers and headphones.  I can control the volume of the mic and
mute/un-mute it using the Gnome Volume Control app.

I see in the Volume Control under "Capture" that I can enable/disable
the mic for recording.  I have the microphone volume set to a
reasonable level (I can hear it through the speakers, but no feedback
howl).  I have both the mute/un-mute and audio capture buttons such
that the little red x is *not* showing.

... but if I run Audacity and hit the record button, none of the sound
I can hear coming to the speakers from the mic is recorded.  I end up
with a recording of silence.

This must be some stupid config thing I'm missing.  It works fine
under Knoppix 4, so it is possible to get Audacity to record if things
are set up right ... but what is "right" and how can I figure out what
the problem is with the configuration under Dapper?

Any suggestions?  Please?

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Re: [SLUG] Ubuntu Flight 5 - blank screen

[Bruce Badger]

On 25/03/06, Peter Hardy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Sat, 2006-03-25 at 17:46 +1100, Bruce Badger wrote:
> > The system hung with the blank screen there and nothing else
> > happening.  The system responds to pings, but does not visibly respond
> > to any keyboard input (e.g. trying to select other ttys).
>
> Don't suppose you have an ATI video card?

It's an S3 card.  It looks like I have Dapper running nicely now. :-)

Many thanks for the response, though!

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[SLUG] Re: Ubuntu Flight 5 - blank screen

[Bruce Badger]

On 25/03/06, Bruce Badger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> The system hung with the blank screen there and nothing else
> happening.  The system responds to pings, but does not visibly respond
> to any keyboard input (e.g. trying to select other ttys).

I restarted in recovery mode (from the Grub menu) and got a root
prompt quite quickly.  startx started X and Gnome fine, except for
some scary messages about failing to initialise HAL and dbus not
running.

I ran the system upgrade and restarted and lo!  Thinks came up fine.

... now to try recording from the built-in mic

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[SLUG] Ubuntu Flight 5 - blank screen

[Bruce Badger]

In trying to solve a problem with recording sound using the built in
mic on my Thinkpad T21, I thought I'd give the latest "flight" of
Ubuntu a try.

I burned the Flight 5 Ubuntu CD and went through the install to the
point where the CD was ejected and the system rebooted.  Everything
seemed OK up to that point.

When the system rebooted, I saw the graphical boot stuff with the
messages scrolling on the brown screen under the Ubuntu logo.  Then
the screen went blank except for a non-blinking cursor in the top left
of the screen, then I heard the tom-tom drum sound that usually
accompanies the opening of the logon screen ... and that's it.

The system hung with the blank screen there and nothing else
happening.  The system responds to pings, but does not visibly respond
to any keyboard input (e.g. trying to select other ttys).

Help/guidance would be much appreciated.

Thanks,
Bruce
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[SLUG] Re: Sound Recording - not

[Bruce Badger]

Apologies for the breach of netiquette in replying to myself, but I
have news of progress.  Not much, but some.

Using Knoppix 4 I can get sound recording applications to record sound
from the built-in mic on my Thinkpad.  So, the hardware is fine.

I have recording working on another sarge box here, so I can see that
the recording apps do work under sarge (not too big a surprise).

... but I'm still stumped trying to get (e.g.) Audacity (thanks James)
recording from the mic on my Thinkpad.  I do hear sounds from the mic
on the speaker (as I do when under Knoppix, and on the other box).  I
can control the volume of the mic on the Thinkpad and can mute it
through the Gnome volume control.  But recording apps get nothing.

I'd be happy to R an FM or a troubleshooting guide if someone could
point me to one.  I have Googled, but have not found anything that has
helped so far.

Many thanks.
   Bruce
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Re: [SLUG] Sound Recording - not

[Bruce Badger]

On 22/03/06, James Purser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > I'd like to record some sound on my venerable Thinkpad T21 which is
> > running Debian sarge.

> Have you tried Audacity yet?

I hadn't.  Nor Sweep.  But I have tried both now, and neither of those
will record from the mic either. :-(

Thanks for the suggestion, though.  Audacity and Sweep are very nice. 
I love scrubby!

All the best,
Bruce
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[SLUG] Sound Recording - not

[Bruce Badger]

I'd like to record some sound on my venerable Thinkpad T21 which is
running Debian sarge.

I can hear sound picked up from the microphone through the onboard
speakers or via headphones.  I can control the volume of the mic using
the Gnome volume control and Alsa mixer.  I can also mute and un-mute
using the Gnome volume control.  I can also get a really loud feedback
noise :-)

But (!) I can't get any application to record the sound from the mic
to a file.  I've tried arecord and Gnome Sound Recorder.

Any suggestions of what I should try or what I should read?

Many thanks,
Bruce
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Re: [SLUG] SSH/Bash journal

[Bruce Badger]

Thank you all for the great information.

Best regards,
Bruce
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[SLUG] SSH/Bash journal

[Bruce Badger]

In the days of teletypes you had a hard-copy record of everything that
happend in a shell session - the paper teletype roll.

Is there a way to get a journal (electronic is fine, no need for the
roll :-)) produced for SSH/Bash sessions?

Thanks,
Bruce
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[SLUG] Looking for speakers

[Bruce Badger]

Hi all,

I'm looking for speakers for the ACS FOSS SIG.

If you can give a talk on a FOSS related subject, and you are free one
last Thursday in the month ... of if you know of someone else who could
give such a talk, please let me know.

This is a chance to get a slightly different slice of the Australian IT
industry excited about what's happening in the FOSS world.

Many thanks,
Bruce
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[SLUG] [Fwd: [sydney-stug] Sydney Smalltalk Meeting at the James Squire on Monday 12th December 6PM]

[Bruce Badger]

I thought I'd pass on this announcement for a Smalltalk User Group
meeting on the evening of Monday 12th.

If dynamic languages and AI interest you, do come along.

 Forwarded Message 
> From: McNeil, Andrew <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: [sydney-stug] Sydney Smalltalk Meeting at the James Squire
> on 
> Hi All
> 
> This is somewhat short notice, but for those who are interested we are
> planning a Sydney Smalltalk Users Group meeting for Monday 12th
> December 6PM at the James Squire at Kings Street Wharf down at Darling
> Harbour.
> 
> http://www.malt-shovel.com.au/frames.asp?page=brewhouse.asp
> 
> We don't have a formal room booked, but we may be able to hijack the
> Ward Room if it is not occupied.
> 
> As a special guest we will have David Long from Canadian firm
> Satellite Forces who have some great technology revolving around
> defining and automating business processes, based on an AI engine all
> based on VisualWorks. I'll add a more detailed bio and info shortly. 
> 
> David is in Australia for a month on holidays and keen to meet up with
> other Smalltalkers while he is here. Apart from Sydney I know he'll be
> in Canberra as well.
> 
> Regards 
> Andrew McNeil 
> 
> 
> 
> ___
> Sydney-stug mailing list
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> http://lists.openskills.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sydney-stug
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Re: [SLUG] Anyone know of a LISP Users group in Sydney ?

[Bruce Badger]

On 10/26/05, Mark Jonathan Greenaway <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> >>Hello fellow SLUGers,
> >>Does anyone know of any LISP user groups in our fair city ?
> >Nope, but I'm willing to get involved with one.
> I'd probably pop along to such a thing largely out of curiousity. I
> think there are many people on this list who have at least had a passing
> infatuation with LISP, or something like it. If you like LISP, you might
> like Smalltalk as well.

And, if Smalltalk *does* interest you, there is a Sydney Smalltalk
user group.  We tend to meet on demand (when someone has something
interesting to show), and needless to say we have a mailing list,
which you can sign up for here:

  http://lists.openskills.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sydney-stug

Lispers would also be most welcome :-)

All the best,
Bruce
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[SLUG] Software Idea Patents - another nudge

[Bruce Badger]

SLUGgers, if you think software idea patents are a bad thing, you can
do a little something to help, at least in Europe.

There is a poll to find the "European of the Year" which is open to
anyone, no matter where they live.  Some of the candidates have worked
to keep software idea patents out of Europe.  If right-minded people
win, it will help raise the "No Software Patents" profile.  To this
end, nosoftwarepatents.com have set up a page suggesting how you might
vote:

 http://tinyurl.com/byo7j

You might like to spread the word to other groups too!

All the best
  Bruce
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Re: [SLUG] C-Pointers and Perl ?

[Bruce Badger]

On 9/30/05, Benno <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Fri Sep 30, 2005 at 10:24:56 +1000, Bruce Badger wrote:
> >For problems that requires memory mapping, VM based languages are not
> >going to be a good fit (given my experience of them, anyway).
> Mmm, that is true. Languages I've used/know of, generally have `a way out',
> some way to bypass this, by writing some small stub in C. Which I guess I was
> assuming O'Caml (or smalltalk) would have.

Ah,  I see.  Yes, calling out to C is doable in a number of ways from
a Smalltalk runtime.  The options cover calling a library and also
adding "primitive" functions to the Smalltalk VM.

All the best,
 Bruce
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Re: [SLUG] C-Pointers and Perl ?

[Bruce Badger]

On 9/30/05, Benno <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I know, but I don't agree with him. If the language is good, there is no
> reason why it *shouldn't* be used for device driver programming.

The languages that save developers worrying about if a number is too
big to be an integer mostly do the insulating by lifting the
programmer away from physical resources.

So, for example, memory allocation and deallocation is magic.

For problems that requires memory mapping, VM based languages are not
going to be a good fit (given my experience of them, anyway).

> Device drivers are, in general, buggy pieces of crap, so having a higher
> level language to program them in would be a *really* good thing.

I certainly agree with this sentiment.

> I've written bindings to allow you to program drivers in python
> before, unfortunately the result wastoo slow :(. So a higher level
> compiled language like O'Caml might be kind of cool.

Smalltalk may be interesting, then.  GNU Smalltalk is pretty quick, I
understand.

All the best,
 Bruce
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Re: [SLUG] Your top-ten linux desktop apps

[Bruce Badger]

On 9/29/05, O Plameras <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Bruce Badger wrote:
> >integerArray :=  #(1 -2 3 -4 5 -6 -7 8 -9 32727000 9876543210).
> On my Computer which is a 32-bit,  my C compiler is able to handle Integer
> size 4 bytes = 32 bits. So 2 exponent 32 less 1 is 2147483647. This is
> the max
> that my computer can handle. Can't handle your number  9876543210.
>
> With C on 64-bit your number will not be a problem as an integer. C integer
> is size 8 bytes = 64 bits. So 2 exponent 64 less 1 can be handled.
>
> Is your computer 64-bit or does smalltalk handles wider size integers ?

Smalltalk can handle integers of an arbitrary size, limited only by
the physical resources of the machine (e.g. RAM).

e.g.  The following are Smalltalk expressions with results on the
following line:

2 ** 64
18446744073709551616

2 ** 128
340282366920938463463374607431768211456

2 ** 256
115792089237316195423570985008687907853269984665640564039457584007913129639936

It sounds like Python can do this too.  As can Ruby (I just checked).

All the best,
 Bruce
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Re: [SLUG] Your top-ten linux desktop apps

[Bruce Badger]

On 9/29/05, Andrew Bennetts <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Python can be nicer than that:
>
> integer_array = [1, -2, 3, -4, 5, -6, -7, 8, -9, 32727000]
>
> for index, value in enumerate(integer_array):
> print "integer [%d] = %d" % (index, value)

So can Smalltalk! :-)

integerArray :=  #(1 -2 3 -4 5 -6 -7 8 -9 32727000 9876543210).
integerArray doWithIndex: [:element :index|
Transcript show: 'integer [', index printString, '] = ', element
printString; cr]

(can you other guys handle the big number I added at the end OK?)

Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

All the best,
  Bruce
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Re: dynamic vs static type checking (was Re: [SLUG] Your top-ten linux desktop apps)

[Bruce Badger]

On 9/29/05, Angus Lees <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> At Tue, 27 Sep 2005 12:00:09 +1000, Bruce Badger wrote:
> > In fact, the very best of the JITing VMs can get performance that
> > exceeds that attainable by static compilation - because there is
> > more information available at run time to base the tuning decisions
> > upon.
>
> If a program's use changes over its invocation, and the JIT
> continually shifts its optimisation targets, then I can see the
> potential benefit of this approach.  I don't believe, however, that
> there are many programs that have this dynamic behaviour.

I agree.  It is only in very dynamic, high throughput and long-lived
services that one would see a measurable benefit in having such a
sophisticated VM, though I would not be surprised to see heavily used
web servers falling into this category.

> You can gain the same runtime knowledge in a statically compiled C
> program by compiling with gcc's -ffprofile-arcs, running over some
> typical use cases (will write a bunch of .gcda files) and then
> recompiling with -fbranch-probabilities.

Right.  For static problems, or problems with a well understood number
of modes of operation static compilation can be superb.  For each new
mode encountered in the wild, though, one would have to tweak the
compiler hints and rebuild to keep up with our imaginary perfect
JITer.

I think the key is your first point.  The cases where absolute
performance is critical are very rare indeed.  I'm happy, though, that
I am using an environment where I can focus on the problem at hand,
and delegate many low-level issues to the environment itself and at
the same time expect performance on a par with (and perhaps even
better than?) the best hand-crafted binaries.

Only real circumstances will tell.  I'd love to work in an environment
that was sophisticated and high-load enough to put some of the
advanced JITing VMs to the test.

All the best,
 Bruce
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Re: [SLUG] Your top-ten linux desktop apps

[Bruce Badger]

On 9/28/05, David <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> If they are doing low volumes, I can't imagine a punter using mutt. It's
> really hard to convince someone raised on gui that consoles are actually
> easier.

Perhaps we could have a SLUG talk on mutt?

I've heard so many good things about mutt, so I'l like to give it a
try, but feel that I don't have the time to learn how to get going
with it.

So, a talk that covered:
o Running mutt for the very first time
o Configuring for IMAP ( and POP, and local mail file etc...)
o How to fetch & read mail
o efficient ways of searching mail
o how to send an email
o how to filter mail (e.g. I have Evolution move my mail around as it arrives)
o just *why* mutt is more efficient that a GUI mail tool
... and all the things that makes mutt cool! :-)

All the best,
Bruce
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Re: [SLUG] Re: dynamic vs static type checking

[Bruce Badger]

On 9/27/05, Peter Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Tue, 2005-09-27 at 12:00 +1000, Bruce Badger wrote:
> As a developer intent on doing the best job possible,  I want to
> discover whole classes of bugs long before the corresponding unit test
> is executed.  (E.g. my keyboard can't spel.)

I certainly share the desire to do a good job!  Wrt bugs, I'm quite
happy if I can find the problems before I check code into my version
control system.  I tend to be running SUnit tests while I am writing
code and debugging.  BTW, the Smalltalk IDE I use does have a spell
checker that picks up many typos (I know - I have clumsy fingers :-/).

> What is essential in a production environment is a way to validate the
> code for trivially stupid mistakes, like a = b.c where b is an int, and
> c is a struct member; or prentf("%g\m", 4)

Right, before we get to the production system.  This is the kind of
thing I had in mind when I said I don't experience the problems one
might imagine static typing would save you from.

> The worst are some interpretive languages where whole code blocks are
> parsed at run time, creating the wonderful situation where customers (!)
> ring up and say "what does syntax error mean?"

[Aside: Languages can be implemented in many ways - e.g. there are
statically compiling Smalltalk IDEs & C can be interpreted.  Yes,
Smalltalk tends to be dynamically compiled and C tends to be
statically compiled, but that's not the fault of the language.]

Production environments can throw up all kinds of surprises, mostly
because users do unexpected things or present unexpected data. 
Neither static typing nor unit tests will give you a 100% guarantee
against a system doing something embarrassing.  I reckon no code
coverage tool can cover 100% of situations either, even if it does
help you cover 100% of the code.  Surprises are inevitable.

Clearly it is possible to build excellent system using all kinds of
tool sets.  It's possible to build crap systems too.  IMO, the best
tool for the job is the one that developer finds to be the best one
for the job.  Of course, a good developer will keep an open mind and
look out for different and perhaps better ways of doing things, but
having a current preferred tool set is important (BTW flitting from
one tool to the next in hope of a silver bullet is as bad as sticking
with what you know and not keeping an open mind, IMO).

For myself, I think the best trade-off is to be found using Smalltalk
as the primary language. :-)

All the best,
   Bruce
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Re: [SLUG] Your top-ten linux desktop apps

[Bruce Badger]

On 9/27/05, O Plameras <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I can RTFM but if I can see the  equivalent of this code, it'd be helpful.
> I wish to have a quick idea of the language.
>
> #include 
>
> int integer_array[] = {1,-2,3,-4,5,-6,-7,8,-9,32727000};
> int *ptr;
>
> int main(void)
> {
> int i;
> ptr = &integer_array[0];
> printf("\n\n");
> for (i = 0; i < 10; i++)
> {
>   printf("integer_array[%d] = %d   ",i,integer_array[i]);
>   printf("ptr + %d = %d\n",i, *(ptr + i));
> }
> return 0;
> }

In Smalltalk:

integerArray := #(1 -2 3 -4 5 -6 -7 8 -9 32727000 9876543210).
Transcript cr.
1 to: integerArray size do: [:index|
Transcript
show: 'integerArray[', index printString, '] = ';
show: (integerArray at: index) printString;
cr].
^0

Notes:
o The index of the first position in an Array is 1
o Objects have a memory address, but only the VM knows what it is
o I popped in a larger number at the end of the Array :-)

Here is the result of evaluating the above:

integerArray[1] = 1
integerArray[2] = -2
integerArray[3] = 3
integerArray[4] = -4
integerArray[5] = 5
integerArray[6] = -6
integerArray[7] = -7
integerArray[8] = 8
integerArray[9] = -9
integerArray[10] = 32727000
integerArray[11] = 9876543210

All the best,
Bruce
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Re: dynamic vs static type checking (was Re: [SLUG] Your top-ten linux desktop apps)

[Bruce Badger]

On 9/27/05, Erik de Castro Lopo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> There are large classes of problems where running speed is an
> important issue. Static typing does make for faster run times
> and in cases where that moves your program from being too
> slow to being fast enough, that is not a premature optimisation.

Modern VMs (e.g. many of the Smalltalk VMs) dynamically compile code,
i.e. they JIT.  The more sophisticated ones use type inferencing to
tighten up the compiled code at runtime.  This adds the runtime
benefits of having type information to the coding time benefits of
dynamic typing.  In fact, the very best of the JITing VMs can get
performance that exceeds that attainable by static compilation -
because there is more information available at run time to base the
tuning decisions upon.

The down side to JITing is that there is a start-up cost.  Every time
a program starts, the process of compiling and tuning begins. 
Statically compiled code is therefore much faster out of the blocks. 
This is very much like the story of the tortoise and the hare - the
quality JIT will overtake the statically compiled code, but whether it
will do it before the end of the race depends on the length and nature
of the race.

Horses (or tortoises) for courses.

Of course, languages like Ocaml bring bring significant coding time
benefits to the table too!  The declarative nature of Objective Caml
suits some kinds of problems really well.

> Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding of Smalltalk is that
> all objects live in a class heirarchy that inherits from a base
> class.

Given a sane programmer - yes.  There are ways to create new root
classes, but anyone doing this in code destined for a production
environment should scolded, and perhaps even spanked.

> That means that given an operation on two objects A and
> B that is not defined on A and B, then the runtime system can
> walk back along the class heirarchy of both A and B until (hopefully)
> it finds parent classes of A and B that do allow the required
> operation.

Exactly

All the best,
 Bruce
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Re: dynamic vs static type checking (was Re: [SLUG] Your top-ten linux desktop apps)

[Bruce Badger]

On 9/27/05, Erik de Castro Lopo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> The problem with dynamic typing is that it postones testing for an
> important class of errors (type errors) until run time.

Nah.  In fact the oposite is true.  Static typing is just another form
of premature optimisation!

I make extensive use of dynamically typed languages (Smalltalk mostly)
and the class of problem one might imagine that static typing save you
from I just don't encounter in practice.

Each to their own, of course :-)

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Re: [SLUG] curious javascript phenomenon

[Bruce Badger]

On 8/31/05, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I have a _javascript_ file that gets imported into a php page.
The curious thing about this is that if I name the the file:'cust.js', one particular field doesn't get checked.
If I name the file something else like 'testJS2.js', then all checking worksabsolutely perfectly.
Do you have more that one _javascript_ fragment called 'cust.js'?

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Re: [SLUG] Squid accelerator + SSL

[Bruce Badger]

> On Tue, 2005-06-07 at 12:00 +1000, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> > I'm not sure if this is even possible. We have an Exchange server
> > behind our Linux firewall runnning webmail on port 80. Would it be
> > possible to run Squid as an accelerator on the firewall but adding
> > SSL to it? So basically within our lan it uses http but from outside
> > (the firewall via Squid) it uses https. Any ideas on how to make
> > this webmail run over https outside our network. Thanks.
> > 
> > Carlo

I certainly hope this is possible, because this is exactly what we plan
to do for the OpenSkills SkillsBase and membership systems.

Rob Collins pointed in the direction of the (still unreleased) Squid 3.0
as having better reverse-proxy support for authentication, SSL and load
balancing.  So far we are using the authentication capability only, but
have tested out the load balancing.  The SSL stuff is on the list of
things to do soon.

If you would like to work together on this, let me know.

All the best,
Bruce
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Re: [SLUG] Co-lo, UML & Dedicated servers

[Bruce Badger]

> > Just after some recommendations on the above probably in that order.
> > 
> > Machines don't need to be overly powerful but reasonable traffic 
> > allowance would be good.
> > 
> > The Co-lo would need to be located in sydney the others I'm fairly 
> > ambivalent about (but if O/S a nice exchange rate helps)

All OpenSkills services are run on UML servers hosted by:

  http://www.bytemark.co.uk/index.html

Which has worked out very well for us.

HTH,
Bruce
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[SLUG] 2-Way power splitter

[Bruce Badger]

I think I left my 2-way power splitter behind at the last DebSIG held at
the James Squire Brewpub.

Did some kind soul pick it up?  It has a sticker on it with my email
address.

Thanks,
Bruce
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Re: [SLUG] Unzipping a big file

[Bruce Badger]

On Tue, 2005-01-04 at 13:20 +1100, Robert Collins wrote:
> On Tue, 2005-01-04 at 13:09 +1100, Bruce Badger wrote:
> > I'm having a problem unzipping a large file.
> > I get: ... write error (disk full?).

> Its probably not been built with 64-bit file pointers.
> try unzip < BigFile which will use stdio rather than a file.

Brilliant!  Thanks for the pointer.  This worked fine:

unzip -bp vm.zip BigFile | cat > BigFile

> Also, you could use a 64-bit box :)

Alas, my excuse for getting one is blown now you suggested using stdio.

Thanks again,
Bruce
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[SLUG] Unzipping a big file

[Bruce Badger]

I'm having a problem unzipping a large file.

I get: ... write error (disk full?).

Which is, you would think, a hint that the disk is full.  But I have
20GB free and everything is in the / partition.

I created a 600MB file, and used cat as follows:
cat 600.file 600.file 600.file 600.file > BigFile

This worked fine, and I ended up with a 2.4GB file as expected.

... and yet unzip seems to just hit a wall.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I could diagnose this
situation?

I'm using Debian sarge, BTW.

Many thanks,
Bruce
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[SLUG] USB /dev/???

[Bruce Badger]

How can I work out the device name of a USB device?

So, I plug in my USB device.  I see the device in usbview.  How can I
work out what node in the /dev/ tree has been mapped to the device I
just plugged in?

Thanks.
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[SLUG] OpenSkills social evening

[Bruce Badger]

There will be an OpenSkills social evening at the James Squire Brewhouse
tomorrow (Wednesday 10th) evening at 20:00.

http://www.malt-shovel.com.au/brewhouse.asp?Sydney=true

People (and wireless Internet access) will be there quite a bit earlier
as we'll be having some more formal meetings < 20:00 (a ctte meeting and
an SGM).

Anyway, if you'd like to find out more about OpenSkills and perhaps have
a look at the systems available for members, and ones in the works too,
please come along.

Please also come along if you just want to chat about making a living as
a skilled individual in the IT industry.

I hope to see you there.

All the best,
Bruce
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Re: [SLUG] 3d graphics viewing/modelling

[Bruce Badger]

> From: Erik de Castro Lopo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> The sort of thing I'd like to be able to do is define a 2d shape
> like this (ascii art):
> and then spin it around the spin axis shown to trace out a 3d shape.

Ah, here is an example of what I thing you are asking for as seen when
using Jun for Smalltalk:

http://www.srainc.com/Jun/Manuals/Jun/OpenGLRotationModel/rotation_e.htm

All the best,
Bruce
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Re: [SLUG] 3d graphics viewing/modelling

[Bruce Badger]

> From: Erik de Castro Lopo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> The sort of thing I'd like to be able to do is define a 2d shape
> like this (ascii art):
> 
> +---+
> |   |
> +---+   |
> |   +-+
> Spin axis ==
> +-+
> 
> and then spin it around the spin axis shown to trace out a 3d shape.
> 
> I'd then like to be able view the resulting 3d shape, spinning it to
> look at it from different angles.

You can do all of this using Jun for Smalltalk.  Jun is an OpenGL
wrapper.

http://www.srainc.com/Jun/Main_e.htm

Jun is GPLed.

HTH

Bruce
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[SLUG] RMS @ UTS on Friday @ 14:00

[Bruce Badger]

The ACS is hosting a talk by Richard Stallman at the UTS on Friday 15th
October @ 14:00.  That's this Friday at 2:00pm.

Details & registration here:

https://www.acs.org.au/acs_events/index.cfm?attributes.fuseaction=eventdetails&event_id=935&branch=NSW

All the best,
Bruce
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Re: [SLUG] NSW Tender meeting

[Bruce Badger]

> From: Pia Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> On Thu, 2004-10-07 at 09:39, Craige McWhirter wrote:

>  
> > > put together a panel of who would be appropriate. It might be a good
> > > time to get together, look at all the requirements and put together a
> > > matrix of skills in NSW. We already have a few directories online:
> > 
> > Sounds like OpenSkills - http://openskills.com/ - may as well use an
> > existing infrastructure.
> 
> I'm talking specifically about a matrix of skills as defined in the
> tender. IE - who does postfix, spamassasin, etc. An opportunity to
> figure out where we may be lacking, or have many options.

And indeed the OpenSkills SkillsBase system can be used to answer
precisely this kind of question:

http://skillsbase.openskills.net/SearchResults?do=Search&s=178&s=31

or

http://skillsbase.openskills.net/SearchResults?do=Search&s=14&s=25

So while the SkillsBase is a young system with only a few people using
it so far, it is designed to do what you seem to be asking for.  If you
think it needs some additional features, just let us know.

And if you'd like to know why it is worth becoming a member of
OpenSkils, a recent thread of discussion on the topic resulted in Taryn
writing the following:

http://wiki.openskills.net/OpenSkills/Why+be+a+member%3F

HTH.

All the best,
Bruce
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Re: [SLUG] NSW Tender meeting

[Bruce Badger]

Further to Pia's announcement of the meeting about the NSW tender next week:

The venue:
ACS NSW offices
Level 4, 122 Castlereagh Street 
Sydney NSW 2000 
Ph. 02 9261 4411 

Time:   14:00 - 15:30 Thursday 14th Oct 2004

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Re: [SLUG] NSW Tender meeting

[Bruce Badger]

> 
> __
> From: Ben de Luca <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Cc: SLUG <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: Re: [SLUG] NSW Tender meeting
> Date: Thu, 07 Oct 2004 21:07:59 +1000
> 
> Do you think that being on the committee might give you a extra value 
> from what is offered? With more members coming in is 100x times going 
> to change to 10x?

I can't think of a reason that being on the committee should be an
advantage in getting engagements, and I don't think being on the
committee should be an advantage.  Right now, all the professional
engagements are through the SkillsBase, the OpenSkills-dev list, or just
word of mouth between members.  It's all pretty transparent.

OpenSkills is not the market, so demand for professional talent is not
really changed by OpenSkills.  We hope that OpenSkills is an efficient
way for people to find skilled help and so will become one of the first
places people will look, and thus we would expect that being a member
will give you an edge in marketing your skills.

> I saw the cost is around $20 a year? so open skills has brought you 
> 2000? the time spent doing what ever you need to do with openskills 
> might out way the benefit of the 2000? If the cost is so low $20 how 
> does open-skills market it self?

Yes, membership of OpenSkills is $20 AUD / year.



OpenSkills currently markets itself by word of mouth.  The major systems
to help members make the most of their skills are coming on stream this
year.  For example, the membership management and effort tracking
systems are due to be rolled out < Christmas.

Once all the major systems are in place, we'll be looking at some more
explicit means of marketing ourselves.  If you have any suggestions as
to how we should do this, they would be most welcome.

> Does some one check that the people who list information list only true 
> and correct information?

Well, to be a member you need to have your OpenPGP key signed by at
least two other members.  This gives us something of a handle on who
people really are, and makes it hard for a person to pretend to be many
people.

In the future, we will be adding in cross validation tools to the
SkillsBase.  The first would be a simple reference, where one member can
be a reference for another and agree to be called or emailed - as with a
regular reference you might get from an ex employer.  Then we'd like to
move on to commendations where one member can commend another for a
particular skill.  ... but we want to be careful and avoid game-able
features (e.g. where two members jointly praise each other to the
skies), so we'll move slowly.

So in short, we try to create a transparent situation where it's hard to
cheat.  We hope to avoid needing a central screening function.

HTH

All the best,
Bruce
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Re: [SLUG] NSW Tender meeting

[Bruce Badger]

Taryn wrote:

> Openskills you have to pay for... 
> I find this a big turnoff and it's highly unlikely that I'd join. 

We know that some people feel this way, but OpenSkills does provide a
number of hosted services, and these do need to be paid for.

An alternative would be to look for advertising revenue or sponsors. 
Both of these options would mean that OpenSkills would be beholden to
parties other than our members, and that may not be in the best
interests of members.

Being funded by members means that we can focus on doing the best for
members.  If there is a better financing model that leaves OpenSkills
free to focus on it's goals, we'd love to hear about it.

All the best,
Bruce
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[SLUG] Walking talking Gimp whizz

[Bruce Badger]

I thought a talk on the Gimp would be interesting for the ACS FOSS SIG
meeting one month (and perhaps for SLUG too?).

Is anyone here a Gimp whizz willing to give a 40 minute intro to the
Gimp?  Or, do you know such a person?

Thanks,
Bruce
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[SLUG] RMS bed situation

[Bruce Badger]

Many thanks to all those who offered bed facilities for RMS.

He now has accommodation all sorted out for his stay in Sydney during
October, thanks to the power of the SLUG community :-)

All the best,
Bruce
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[SLUG] Richard Stallman - bed

[Bruce Badger]

Richard Stallman will be visiting Sydney for a week or three at the
beginning of October this year.  The initiating event is the Builder
conference: http://www.builderconference.com.au/

I have been trying to line up a speaking engagements for him with the
ACS while he is here (possibly taking him around the country), but this
is taking some time to work out.

Anyway, during the exchanges, RMS asked me if:

o There were any venues where he could speak while in Sydney.  He had in
mind Universities.  Does anyone on the list have any thoughts or
suggestions about possible venues for an RMS talk?

o Would anyone have a spare bed for the duration of his stay?  It seems
that RMS prefers to avoid hotels.

If you have any ideas on either of these, please let me know.

Thanks,
Bruce
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Re: [SLUG] The Sound of Silence

[Bruce Badger]

On Tue, 2004-08-03 at 15:38, Shaun Oliver wrote:
> try looking at your /etc/esound/esd.conf
> I think that's the properpath,
> and comment it out entirely

The trick is, as Jeff said, to specify that the sound server should not
start in the Gnome>DesktopPreferences>Sound dialog.  Commenting out
every line in the /etc/esound/esd.conf seemed to have no effect :-/

> if your sound card is a multi channel card you won't need esd.
> hth

It seems that my card is not multi-channel, then, because if I try and
play a .au file with aplay while xmms is playing something (say,
Berlioz), aplay hangs until I stop xmms playing (I don't have to close
xmms) and then aplay proceeds to play the .au file.

Jeff suggested using esd for everything, but then I have to presumably
explicitly configure everything (e.g. zine, ogle, xmms, aplay, mpg123
etc ...) to use esd.  I'm kind of surprised that there is not some
Debian-wide policy on this such that everything is configured to use a
default setup that will just work (once the right modules are loaded).

I'm up and listening to music now.  Xine works too.  I don't do these
two things at the same time, so I'm happy enough for now :-)

Many thanks for the help Jeff & Shaun.

All the best,
Bruce

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Re: [SLUG] The Sound of Silence

[Bruce Badger]

On Tue, 2004-08-03 at 13:19, Jeff Waugh wrote:
> 
> 
> > I can't get sound on my new XPC :-(
> 
> > [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ ALSA lib pcm_hw.c:1155:(snd_pcm_hw_open) open
> > /dev/snd/pcmC0D0p failed: Device or resource busy
> > Which I guess means that snd_pcm_hw_open thinks that /dev/snd/pcmC0D0p
> > is being used by something else.
> > ... but what?  How can I find out what is already using my sound device?
> 
> Yeah, you got an nforce-based board in it? Stupid, stupid sound chipsets in
> these ones. Oddly enough, I got a shuttle recently too, and it's a big step
> back for sound hardware (from an sblive).
> 
> Use fuser or lsof to find out what has the device open. Sure you haven't got
> a stray esd process going? :-)

Why, I *do* have an esd process running!  How did that get there?  I see
nothing in /etc/init.d.  It's not a module.  Yet there is is, bold as
brass, sitting right under init.

While loathe to just kill the thing, I did anyway.  And lo!  Sound!  So,
what is the humane way of exterminating a feral esd?

But, you're right.  It is crap sound.  I get a kind of crackling noise
in the background, and thisr really gets in the way of the old Berlioz.

As it happens, I have a spare PCI slot in the XPC - should I just
transplant my old SB Live, or even get a new card?  And if a new card is
the way to go, are there any recommendations for sound cards for XPCs
running Debian sarge these days?

And so we see that it is true that, given an inch, I'll take a mile :-/

Many thanks,
Bruce
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[SLUG] The Sound of Silence

[Bruce Badger]

I can't get sound on my new XPC :-(

I am using Debian Sarge with Kernel 2.6.7.  I am trying to work with
ALSA.

Everything seems to check out fine.  alsamixer does the right thing. 
The /proc/ files show me the information I expect to see, but when I try
and play something I get:

[EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ ALSA lib pcm_hw.c:1155:(snd_pcm_hw_open) open
/dev/snd/pcmC0D0p failed: Device or resource busy

** WARNING **: alsa_setup(): Failed to open pcm device (default): Device
or resource busy

Which I guess means that snd_pcm_hw_open thinks that /dev/snd/pcmC0D0p
is being used by something else.

... but what?  How can I find out what is already using my sound device?
- or perhaps I'm just seeing a symptom of another problem?

Guidance from the wise would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Bruce
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Re: [SLUG] Need to replace htdig for personal use.

[Bruce Badger]

Terry,

One option might be for you to look at an IMAP server running on your
local box, and have your mail tool point at that.

I use Cyrus which works well for me.  As it happens, I run Cyrus on a
server in the UK, but running locally would just make it faster.

All the best,
Bruce
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[SLUG] Smalltalk User Group

[Bruce Badger]

I'm sorry, I should have thought to mention this here sooner.

There is a Smalltalk user group meeting in Sydney this evening  at 18:30
at the James Squire Brewhouse down on Kings St. Wharf in Sydney (nr.
Darling Harbour).

At this meeting, I will be giving a talk that I recently gave at the
Smalltalk Solutions conference in Seattle, WA (and more recently at the
GLUG meeting).  It's about the implementation of the OpenSkills
SkillsBase, and covers the use of the key elements of the system (e.g.
Squid, VisualWorks, Swazoo, GemStone) and how they are used together to
create a highly scalable system deployed on Debian GNU/Linux.

The SkillsBase will be also covered at the OpenSkills social evening
next week (16th, also at the Jame Squire Brewhouse) but will be much
more from a user perspective (i.e. how to promote your skills through
the system).  This OpenSkills social evening will also be hosting the
DebSIG keysigning as one of the activities.

All the best,
Bruce
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[SLUG] UTS FIT Seminar 5th May 2004 Wednesday 2 pm 10.4.460

[Bruce Badger]

This posted to both the SLUG and ACS open source SIG lists ...

I just heard about this, and thought people may be interested (curtesy
of John Leany at UTS).

Rather frustratingly, I'm not available on the 5th May - darn.

All the best,
Bruce


-Forwarded Message-

>FACULTY OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH SEMINAR, UTS
>
>THREE UNEXPECTED RESULTS IN EMPIRICAL OPEN-SOURCE SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
>
>Date and time: 2pm, 5/5/2004
>Location: 10.4.460 (Building 10, Floor 4, Room 460)
>Presenter: Associate Professor Stephen R. Schach, Vanderbilt University
>
>ABSTRACT:
>We present the results of three research projects in empirical open-source 
>software engineering.
>
>First, we consider Linus's Law ("Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are 
>shallow"), named in honor of Linus Torvalds, the creator of the Linux 
>operating system.  We show that Linus's Law does not hold for Mozilla, 
>Gnome, or Apache.  On the contrary, between 70 and 90 percent of faults in 
>the versions we examined were corrected by the members of the small core 
>group (the inner circle of software developers), rather than by the 
>"eyeballs" of the hundreds of thousands of worldwide users who have 
>downloaded the software.
>
>Second, we give a new categorization of common coupling within the context 
>of software product lines, and use it to show that Linux will become 
>extremely hard to maintain in the future.
>
>Third, in 1978, Lientz, Swanson, and Tomkins ("LST") published data that 
>seemed to demonstrate that less than 20% of maintenance is performed in 
>order to correct a defect.  However, when we examined 60 versions of the 
>Linux kernel and 15 versions of GCC, we found that over 50% of the 
>maintenance was corrective in nature.  We also query the validity of the 
>original LST data.
>
>
>BIOGRAPHY:
>Stephen R. ("Steve") Schach is an associate professor of computer science 
>and computer engineering in the Department of Electrical Engineering and 
>Computer Science at Vanderbilt University.  Steve is the author of some 
>115 refereed publications and 12 books.  The Sixth Edition of his textbook 
>Object-Oriented and Classical Software Engineering will be published in 
>June 2004 by McGraw-Hill.  His current research is in the area of 
>empirical software engineering, with particular application to open-source 
>software.
>
>SEMINAR LOCATION:
>The Faculty is located in Building 10 (the Fairfax Building) in Jones 
>Street off Broadway.  Maps are available at:
>http://www.uts.edu.au/about/mapsdirections/bway.html
>or
>http://www.uts.edu.au/about/mapsdirections/citymap.html
>
>PRESENTATION SLIDES:
>Presentation slides of past Faculty Research Seminars are available at:
>http://www-staff.it.uts.edu.au/~laurel/Research/ResearchSeminarshtm.htm
>
>
>
>Dr Laurel Evelyn Dyson, CCNA CCAI
>Lecturer and Assessor
>Department of Information Systems
>Faculty of Information Technology
>University of Technology, Sydney
>PO Box 123 Broadway NSW 2007
>
>Building 10, Floor 4, Room 324
>Phone:  9514 4493
>Webpage:  www-staff.it.uts.edu.au/~laurel/
>
>UTS CRICOS Provider Code:  00099F


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[SLUG] BSD Sockets

[Bruce Badger]

Is there a definitive source of information on BSD sockets?  e.g. is
there an RFC?

Many thanks,
Bruce
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Re: [SLUG] nomation: robert collins

[Bruce Badger]

On Mon, 2004-02-23 at 23:05, Robert Collins wrote:
> Looks like this year will be a little less insane for me. So, I'm
> nominating myself for either VP or ordinary committee member.

Seconded for both.

Good luck, Rob!

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Re: [SLUG] Compiere

[Bruce Badger]

On Fri, 2004-02-20 at 14:29, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>  On Thu, 2004-02-19 at 15:14, Hal Ashburner wrote:
>  > Project of the month at Sourceforge.
>  > http://sourceforge.net/potm/potm-2004-02.php
>  > http://www.compiere.org/
> 
> You need Oracle, despite their use of db connection
> middleware.
> 
> So ... got Oracle?
> 
> I heard a complaint from somewhere that compiere
> have been working on database independence for a
> LONG time but do not seem to be getting closer
> to that goal.

Compiere is writen mostly using Oracle plsql, stored procedures,
trigrers and all that.

I heard a port to PostgreSQL was underway, but have heard nothing about
that effort for quite a while.  Probably just too hard, esp. as Compiere
is proving to be a very fast moving target.

If you *do* have Oracle it may be worth a try.  It seems to be an
ERP/CRM solution that many SMBs are getting good use from.

All the best,
Bruce
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[SLUG] ACS OpenSource SIG

[Bruce Badger]

The slides for the last ACSOSS meeting on open source and the law are
now available here, together with slides from a couple of previous talks
(Gus on EmbPerl and Rob on Squid):
http://openskills.com/acsoss/

At the next meeting Rob Collins will be telling us about Arch
Thursday 26th Feb @ 18:00
Lv 4, 122 Castlereagh Street

SIG home page: http://www.acs.org.au/nsw/sigs/opensource/index.html
Register for talk: http://www.acs.org.au/nsw/

All the best,
Bruce
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[SLUG] The ACS open source SIG

[Bruce Badger]

It has been suggested that I post information here about upcomming
meetings of the ACS (yes, the Australian Computer Society) open source
SIG.

The SIG is open to all.  The ACS NSW branch only ask that you sign a
register of guests.

We meet on the last Thursday of the month, which is typically the day
before the SLUG meeting.  The venue is the ACS NSW branch office at Lv
4, 122 Castlereagh Street. The building is directly opposite David
Jones'.

This month we have Rob Collins who will be talking about Arch.

Rob asked me to stress that this will *not* be the same talk he did at
SLUG - it's a new one.  And for those of you who don't know (not many,
I'm sure), arch is version control system, so those in search of a
version control system, or a better version control system, will find
this talk most interesting, I'm sure.

So, Rob will be talking at our February meeting, which will be held on
Thursday 26th February @ 18:00, at the NSW ACS HQ which is  at Lv 4, 122
Castlereagh Street here in the CBD.

The home page of the SIG (such as it is) is here:
http://www.acs.org.au/nsw/sigs/opensource/index.html

We use a Yahoo! group to coordinate the SIG, and you are most welcome to
join that.  There is a little form at the bottom of the SIG home page.

All the best,
Bruce
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Re: [SLUG] Open Source in Iraq.

[Bruce Badger]

On Thu, 2003-12-18 at 14:48, David Killen wrote:
> An interesting article I found about the possibilities of Open Source in 
> Iraq
> 
> http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=7320&mode=thread&order=0 
> 

We're seeing some activity over there too.  OpenSkills already has
members in the middle-east (to my surprise), and we have someone looking
for a JBoss whizz in Jordan (if you know of any potential candidates,
please yell).

We live in very exciting open source times, I think.
 
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Re: [SLUG] Freedom and Alternatives

[Bruce Badger]

On Sun, 2003-12-14 at 23:32, Ken Foskey wrote:
> On Sun, 2003-12-14 at 22:35, Benno wrote:
> 
> > Umm, I have to disagree here. The BSD folk want a commons for *anyone*
> > to leverage. The GPL folk want a commands for anyone except
> > proprietary product developers to leverage.[1]
> 
> OK let me flip this with a little story.  I am a corporation, I am
> considering releasing my code to the FOSS community.  After some advice
> I consider BSD to be the one true free license (my opinion shines
> through) and release.  Company B my main competitor picks up the
> application and adds some refinements.  Because they have a better
> product they start getting my clients and my openness has cost me money.

The Ogg Vorbis people use both the GPL and BSD style licenses IIRC.

They use BSD style  license for the CODEC spec so that anyone can write
an implementation of the CODEC.  This is good for helpng the .ogg format
to be widely adopted.

They use GPL syle licenses for their code so that nobody can simply lift
their implementation of the CODEC and quietlly embed in it a proprietary
system.

To me this is an excellent example of using the strengths of each
license.  BSD to encourage widespread usage, GPL to keep implementations
free and open.
 
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Re: [SLUG] Freedom and Alternatives

[Bruce Badger]

On Sat, 2003-12-13 at 11:23, Robert Collins wrote:
> Hmm. So lets follow this:
> IDL file (GPL licence)
>  --> smalltalk source (derived work)
>--> 'linked' into your smalltalk program (making that a derived work
> when taken as a whole). GPL requires releasing as GP.
> 
> IDL file (BSD licence)
>   --> smalltalk source (derived work)
> --> 'linked' into your smalltalk program (making that a derived work
> when taken as a whole). BSD allows treating the derived work as
> proprietary.

Sounds about right to me.  Certainly if you change "Smalltalk" for "C"
and assume static linking then the GPLed IDL would appear to suck the
client app into being GPLed too.

Of course beyond the licensing of the IDL there is also the question of
the licensing of the IDL compiler and the ORB (the common part of the
CORBA library needed by the client app) and the impact this has on
things :-/

And, back to Smalltalk, there is a question in my mind about how the GPL
concept of "linking" applies to late-binding languages like Smalltalk. 
In our CORBA example, the generated code (the derived work) would not be
needed in the system until runtime, and then it could be loaded and used
on-the-fly, and even unloaded again - all from the Smalltalk runtime
environment.  Also one could use a completely different implementation
(but with a consistent interface) of the generated code without any
modification or recompilation being required for the client code - and
this could also be done at run-time.  Flipping between the two
implementations without having to restart the client app is also
possible.

So, what does "linked", in the GPL sense, mean for dynamically typed
late binding languages?

All the best,
Bruce
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Re: [SLUG] Freedom and Alternatives

[Bruce Badger]

On Sat, 2003-12-13 at 02:08, Robert Collins wrote:
> On Fri, 2003-12-12 at 09:28, Benno wrote:
 
> > >2) To a user of the system, the OOP COM object is hidden - it's not
> > >directly visible or usable as a standalone entity.
> > 
> > Yes true.
> > 
> > I think you are saying that this goes to making it a derived work, 
> > or covered by the GPL? If so does that mean I can't use any GPLed
> > CORBA components on a Linux system without also releasing under GPL?
> 
> I don't know enough CORBA to answer that. 

It goes like this.

IDL (Interface Definition Language) defines CORBA interfaces.  IDL is
compiled to generate code in a specific language.  That code is in turn
compled using a native compiler to create the local CORBA artifacts used
interact with the CORBA objects.  Note that an IDL compiler produces
*source* code in another language, e.g. C, C++, Smalltalk.

So, as a client wanting to use a GPLed CORBA server, I'd grab the IDL
and compile it (in my case to Smalltalk classes).  I would then write
code to interact with the new classes generated by the IDL compiler. 
The generated classes would translate messages I send into IIOP packets
sent to the appropriate places (e.g. processes offering CORBA services).

I don't need to even see the code of the GPLed CORBA server to interact
with it.  I do need to *read* the IDL (well, the IDL compiler reads it)
in order to generate native (e.g. Smalltalk) code.

It seems to me then that the only issue might be how the IDL is
licensed.  So perhaps the way to use CORBA is to GPL your servers, and
put the IDL under BSD?  But perhaps even having the IDL under the GPL
would be OK in this case as the IDL itself is only ever read, and never
directly included in new software?

HTH

All the best,
Bruce

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Re: [SLUG] No more Red Hat Linux support after April 30 2004 - Quick Survey

[Bruce Badger]

On Tue, 2003-11-04 at 19:58, Ken Foskey wrote:
> Debian has three "types" of releases:
> 
> Stable:  Grandma runs this, very very stable.  So stable nothing changes
> except security fixes.  It is also very safe from crashing.
> 
> Testing:  Normal desktop use.  People that want to have latest releases
> mostly without the pain.  Breaks but reasonably rarely.  Things that are
> stable on unstable for a reasonable period of time migrate to here on a
> fairly quick basis.

I have found that testing is the worst of both worlds (i.e. of stable &
unstable).  It does not have the latest things, and it's not very
stable.  Some things are missing altogether - e.g. there is no testing
version of GNUCash.  Some things have large chunks missing (e.g. Gnome).

Testing is, I think, for testing out the candidate stable releases. 
It's no place to live, except perhaps just before it is about to become
stable anyway.

> Unstable:  Stress monkeys live here.  They HAVE to have the latest
> release, they want to be active in the debugging process.  If they are
> smart they find out about apt-listbugs and are more selective about what
> they install.

I would say that the split is:
o Stable by default for people who want a reliable platform to work on
without having to worry too much about the platform itself.
o Unstable for those with a taste for the newest or coolest and those
who like to be involved with development/packinging/deployment issues of
the platform.
o Testing for those who have an interest in specific packages and want
to use them and test them in a less volatile environment than unstable.

I find testing is the most challenging environment of the three.

All the best,
Bruce
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[SLUG] Jabber

[Bruce Badger]

Does anyone have hands on experience in deploying a Jabber server in a
business context?  I'm looking for some help doing this (for $).  Please
drop me a line if you can help.

Thanks.
Bruce
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Re: [SLUG] Databases, some advice please.

[Bruce Badger]

On Tue, 2003-10-14 at 15:00, Bill Bennett wrote:
> I'd like to teach myself something on databases.
> 
> The table of Window equivalents lists:---
> 1) KNoda
> 2) Gnome DB Manager
> 3) OpenOffice + MySQL
> 4) InterBase7 (Prop)
> 5) InterBase6 (Presumably no longer Prop)
> 6) Berkley DB
> 7) Rekall (Prop)
> 8) StarOffice Adabase
> 
> Has anyone any experience of any of these that they'd like to air?
> As I have only (very, ancient) limited experience of Access, I think
> thorough documentation would be a high priority.
> 
> Any help, comments etc. 

Well, there's pgaccess for PostgreSQL which is great if you are using postgreSQL.

What are you trying to achieve?

All the best,
Bruce 
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http://www.openskills.com


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Re: [SLUG] Financial Membership

[Bruce Badger]

On Mon, 2003-09-29 at 13:23, DaZZa wrote:
> On Sat, 27 Sep 2003, Jan Schmidt wrote:
> 
> > Details on becoming a financial member are available here:
> > http://www.slug.org.au/membership.html
> 
> Dare I ask if any progress has been made on accepting membership remotely?
> 
> I am unable to get to SLUG meetings - my work pattern is too varied to
> allow me the time - and while I'm perfectly willing to become a financial
> member again, there seems to be (still) no provision for anything other
> than paying by attending a meeting.

OpenSkills is in the process of setting up to accept payments through
PayMate.  This is a low hassle, low outlay but high % per transaction
charge service. It will add ~ a couple of dollars onto a SLUG
membership.

Payments are made by completing a form on the PayMates site pecifying
o a target email account (e.g. [EMAIL PROTECTED])
o credit card details
o amount to pay

The form is here: https://www.paymate.com.au/PayMate/PaymateExpress

Both parties get confirmation email, and the money (less fees) is put in
the target bank account.

I'd be happy to keep the SLUG committee up to date with our initial
experience with PayMate.  Also, I'd be *very* interested in hearing
about any alternatives (except PayPal).

All the best,
Bruce 
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Re: [SLUG] Debian Kernel

[Bruce Badger]

On Tue, 2003-09-02 at 19:17, Steve Kowalik wrote:
> At  3:41 pm, Tuesday, September  2 2003, Bruce Badger mumbled:
> > So, would some kind soul please tell me:
...
> > o Why I got the bonus SMP kernel?
> 
> I'd need to see the output of apt-get to determine that.

OK :-)

wally:~# apt-get -d install kernel-image-2.4.21-4.686
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
  kernel-image-2.4.21-4-686 kernel-image-2.4.21-4-686-smp 
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  kernel-image-2.4.21-4-686 kernel-image-2.4.21-4-686-smp 
0 packages upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0  not upgraded.
Need to get 22.3MB of archives. After unpacking 60.9MB will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] 
Get:1 ftp://ftp.iinet.net sarge/main kernel-image-2.4.21-4-686 2.4.21-4
[11.0MB]Get:2 ftp://ftp.iinet.net sarge/main
kernel-image-2.4.21-4-686-smp 2.4.21-4 [11.3MB]
Fetched 22.3MB in 14m11s
(26.2kB/s)
Download complete and in download only mode

> > o Will the bonus SMP kernel be installed too?
> 
> You said to apt-get to only download. Therefore, I'm to assume you're going
> to use dpkg -i to install it, in which case, no.

Well, I plan to use apt-get install without the -d this time.  Will that
work OK?

> > o If apt-get install will Do The Right Thing to make the non-SMP kernel
> > bootable?
> > 
> Keep in mind if either or both kernels are installed, your machine will
> remain bootable. SMP or non-SMP it will still boot. An SMP kernel is not
> dependant on having more than one CPU.
> That doesn't answer your question, however. If you use lilo, yes, installing
> the .deb will do the Right Thing.

Great, thanks.  In trying to understand why I got the bonus SMP kernel
(above) I used apt-get -d install to get kernel-image-2.4.20.3.686. 
This one came down *without* a bonus SMP package.

Then, when running the apt-get install again (to really install it) I
got this:

You are attempting to install an initrd kernel image (version
2.4.20-3-686) This will not work unless you have configured your boot
loader to use initrd. (An initrd image is a kernel image that expects to
use an INITial Ram Disk to mount a minimal root file system into RAM and
use that for booting).

This reads like "back off unless you know what you are doing!".  But is
it really saying "do remember to update lilo.conf, old bean"?  Or is it
saying something else altogether?

Many thanks,
Bruce


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[SLUG] Debian Kernel

[Bruce Badger]

I have just upgraded my machine from stable to sarge (I specified sarge
in my sources so I stick with it when it becomes stable).  Apart from
the fact that Gnome is broken, things have gone quite smoothly so far.

I would like to use a more recent kernel.  I looked at the kernel
packages, and there are zillions of them!  I suppose it's a good way of
handling all the variety of targets for binary kernels, but it's a bit
of a shock when compared to all the other packages.

Anyway, I decided to go with  kernel-image-2.4.21-4-686.  I have a
single CPU PIII, so this kernel seemed like a good fit for me.  I did an
apt-get -d install (-d to download only) and apt decided to download
kernel-image-2.4.21-4-686-smp too.  I don't understand this.  The smp
kermal was not listed as a dependency for the non smp kernel.

So, would some kind soul please tell me:
o If the kernel I'm trying to install is a reasonable one to go for?
o Why I got the bonus SMP kernel?
o Will the bonus SMP kernel be installed too?
o If apt-get install will Do The Right Thing to make the non-SMP kernel
bootable?

Many thanks,
Bruce

---------
Bruce Badger
OpenSkills.com


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Re: [SLUG] finance under linux

[Bruce Badger]

On Tue, 2003-09-02 at 13:01, Richard Heycock wrote:
> You might want to have a look at the gnucash (http://www.gnucash.org).
> I'm not sure if it handles GST though.

I maintain my company books using GnuCash at the moment and it handles
GST nicely.  It does not have GST/BAS specific functionality, but being
a real double entry system make it a breeze to track all the numbers.

Of course, YMMV.

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Re: [SLUG] Opinions sought: Exim vs Sendmail

[Bruce Badger]

On 23 Jun 2003 11:25:36 +1000
"Tony Green" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> I'd also suggest postfix over exim if you're going to migrate away from
> sendmail, though others will be able to give you more help there (I'm a
> sendmail fan).

Could you expand a bit on why postfix over exim?

Many thanks.
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Re: [SLUG] Popular Distros in Australia.

[Bruce Badger]

On Sun, 2003-06-15 at 09:51, Matthew Palmer wrote:
> I'm StudIEEE, StudIEAust, StudAPESMA, but not because of my interest in
> Linux.  To become an ACS member, you have to hold appropriate technical
> qualifications - which I'll wager half of the people on SLUG don't have (not
> necessarily a bad thing...).  In the circles I frequent, the ACS is seen as
> a bit of a joke - an MS shill, and not overly interested in true state of the
> art.  I think IEEE's Computer Society isn't bad, but it isn't local.

A tad harsh on the ACS, I think.

In New South Wales the ACS have an open source SIG, and you don't need
to be a member to come along to the SIG meetings (but members will get
priority e.g. if there is not enough room at a meeting).

The SIG home page is here:
  http://acs.org.au/nsw/sigs/opensource/index.html

Also, the ACS can be a good place to network - i.e. find work.

All the best,
Bruce Badger
http://www.openskills.com


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Re: [SLUG] really slick screensavers..

[Bruce Badger]

Jeff,

I'm preparing the Smalltalk talk you asked me to give this month.  What
time-slot do I need to fit within?

Thanks,
Bruce

On Thu, 2003-04-03 at 12:08, Jeff Waugh wrote:
> 
> 
> > For those of you with Nvidia or ATI cards with hardware TCL, there are
> > some welll nifty screensavers packaged for RH8.0/9.0 on
> 
> Hrm, if someone has this kind of hardware on a notebook, would they like to
> do a demo of it at SLUG this month? :-)
> 
> - Jeff
> 
> -- 
> linux.conf.au 2004: Adelaide, Australia http://lca2004.linux.org.au/
>  
>"Can we have a special TELSABUG category, and everything gets dropped
>  to fix them first?" - Telsa Gwynne
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Re: FW: [SLUG] ps2tiff

[Bruce Badger]

On Mon, 2003-03-31 at 07:01, Michael Still wrote:
> On Sun, 30 Mar 2003, Adam W wrote:
> > "fax". You open it in this kodak program(or really any image viewer),
> > and it supports multiple pages within the one tif file.
> 
> I have had pain with not all views supporting multipage TIFFs. What you
> describe is implemented in this way inside the file:

FWIW, the ghfaxviewer (GNU HaliFAX Viewer) supports multi page TIFF
files.  The Debian package is ghfaxviewer.



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Re: [SLUG] Visual traceroute ?

[Bruce Badger]

On Wed, 2003-03-19 at 20:52, Nick C wrote:
> Evening,
> 
> Anyone got any ideas about a visual version of traceroute (tktraceroute,
> traceroute-nanog)?

How about xtraceroute?  It uses data from LOC records to show where
hosts are on a 3D globe.  Nice.

It's a Debian package.  I don't know about RPMs.

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Re: [SLUG] iinet DSL + Debian

[Bruce Badger]

On Mon, 2003-03-17 at 10:51, Kevin Saenz wrote:
> I am with iinet, Do not use roaring penguin
> It will not work.

I'm with iiNet, and I use the Roaring Penguin pppoe software which works
fine for me.  I mostly use tkpppoe to start the connection because I get
a nice graph of the inbound and outbound traffic.

I have a D-Link DSL-300 modem connected to a RH7.3 box.


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[SLUG] Any DEBSig tonight?

[Bruce Badger]

Will there be a Debian SIG meeting this evening?

If so, what are the details?

Thanks



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[SLUG] October Open Source Expo

[Bruce Badger]

There has been some talk about having an open source expo of some kind
in Sydney in the October time-frame. There are a few people quite keen
on this, and it has been suggested that interested people have a get
together to talk about objectives, structure etc.

The ideas so far are to have a broad based event which is open to
anyone, and will be held at a location where people can just drop in and
see some cool things. Broad based means companies can have a presence
too.

So, anyone who is interested should come along to the Woolloomooloo Bay
Hotel on Thursday 3rd April 2003 from 18:00 to 21:00.

If you have any questions or, please contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

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Re: [SLUG] VMware on Redhat 8.0

[Bruce Badger]

On Wed, 2003-03-05 at 10:39, Howard Lowndes wrote:
> If anyone is running VMware 3.2 on Redhat 8.0 without getting a closing
> error message, could they contact me OL pse.

I'm not sure what "OL pse" means (sorry), so I'll post here.

The current version of VMWare is not supported in RH8, though there are
some work-around options you can find using Google.  The beta version of
VMWare 4 *does* run on RH8 (I'm using it myself), but it's just a beta,
of course.

(BB hopes he doesn't get flamed for mentioning VMware 4 when the Howard
*specifically* asked about VMWare 3.2 :-/ )

I got stuck with this too.  I wanted RH8 for a particular reason, and
then found VMWare would not fly.  Ugh.

You can get the VMWare 4 beta from here:
http://www.vmware.com/download/

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[SLUG] Searching the slug archives

[Bruce Badger]

Is there any way to search the slug archives.  A search tool, that is,
rather than just poking thought the archive?

Thanks



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RE: [SLUG] Where Can I get Red Hat Linux 8.0 ?

[Bruce Badger]

On Sun, 2003-03-02 at 21:12, Jon Biddell wrote:
> So why offer the discount at all for one distro ???

OK, you asked, this is how it came about:

Early last year I was in Dymocks and the only Linux distros they had
were old and very expensive, some over $300.  This seemed crazy to me. 
I asked the guys in the shop if they would be interested in stocking a
distribution at a much lower cost, e.g. < $20.  They said that it
sounded good.

I thought that an inexpensive distribution in a place like Dymocks would
be good, and advertising SLUG and the Linux community in Sydney would be
a constructive thing to do.  How to get people along to SLUG, though?

I suggested to SLUG that having a distro in Dymocks that offered, say, a
$5 discount on membership would be a good way to get people along to
SLUG.  The $5 discount would be built into the price.

OK, so now to fund the thing.  My company, OpenSkills, agreed to fund
the exercise if they could have their name on the sleeve and CD, and if
it was run as a non-profit exercise.

I chose Debian as the distro to go with.  It seemed like a good idea at
the time, perhaps because there seemed to be a good body of support for
Debian within SLUG.  As it happens, I was using RedHat and SuSE at the
time, thought recently I have used Debian.

Much of the basic art-work for the CD and sleeve came straight from the
Debian web site.  I had the art-work professionally put together with
OpenSkills logo, SLUG logo, and sleeve text. After several reviews
involving all parties it was signed off.

I had a number of CD-R blanks and sleeves printed up, and then had  a
few (about 100) "manufactured" (burned, inserted in sleeves and sealed).

The final costs were $5 to manufacture each CD, $5 for SLUG and $1 to
cover the costs for OpenSkills.  The idea was to get them on the shelves
for about $15 each.  It turns out that Dymocks sell them for about $22,
and the Coop for about $15.

So far, Dymocks and the Coop carry the CDs, and we are already getting
into repeat orders.  Only small numbers, though.

So there you have it.  The SLUG/Debian distribution is just the first CD
of the Debian install packaged up with information on how to join SLUG. 
People who buy this can surrender the the top left corner of the sleeve
for a $5 discount off membership.  SLUG gets refunded from the
non-profit funds managed by OpenSkills.  I can assure you that there is
no danger at all of a profit for OpenSkills out of this (and yes I did
have to explain how non-profit became for-loss)!

Both OpenSkills and I hope that the CD proves useful to those who use
it, and to SLUG as a way of encouraging people to join.

So, as I said before, if you would like to put together a similar
distribution, but based on [name your favorite distro here] please do
so.  If you would like to talk about how to go about doing it, I'd be
happy to have a chat with you about it.  Send me an email, and we can
exchange phone numbers.

One thing I have to say, though: The last thing I ever expected to
happen as a result of all the effort I put to this project was to be
accused of being a Nazi.  That really took my breath away.


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RE: [SLUG] Where Can I get Red Hat Linux 8.0 ?

[Bruce Badger]

On Sun, 2003-03-02 at 17:59, Jon Biddell wrote:
> =>> > The main Dymocks shop on George St. in Sydney does sell Debian 
> =>> > Woody, BTW.  And this is the distro that gives you $5 off SLUG 
> =>> > membership too! Particularly interesting as this the AGM 
> =>is at the 
> =>> > next SLUG meeting, and you need to be a member to vote.
> =>> 
> =>> 
> =>> Long Live The Debian Police! Debian Nazis Forever!
> 
> Hell, if buying Debian gets you a $5 discount, buying ANY distro should
> get you the same

I think you're right!  Why don't you put together such a distro?  I'm
sure that Dymocks and the Coop would be interested in another community
sponsored option, and I doubt that SLUG would mind at all (note that I'm
not speaking for SLUG, though).

Feel free to get in touch if you want to discuss what you'll have to do
to make this work.

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Re: [SLUG] Where Can I get Red Hat Linux 8.0 ?

[Bruce Badger]

On Sun, 2003-03-02 at 11:51, David wrote:
> 
> 
> On 2 Mar 2003, Bruce Badger wrote:
> 
> > On Sun, 2003-03-02 at 10:43, Louis Selvon wrote:
> > > Hi:
> > >
> > > As the subject says.
> > >
> > > The stores in my area don't have them. Does Dymocks sell version 8.0 or
> > > any urls that list vendors of Red Hat Products in Australia would do me.
> > >
> > > I am browsing the web but had no lukc yet.
> >
> > The main Dymocks shop on George St. in Sydney does sell Debian Woody,
> > BTW.  And this is the distro that gives you $5 off SLUG membership too!
> > Particularly interesting as this the AGM is at the next SLUG meeting,
> > and you need to be a member to vote.
> 
> 
> Long Live The Debian Police! Debian Nazis Forever!

You cast this as if you were defending against a ferocious attack.  I
intended no such attack, and am rather shocked to have such crude
language directed against me.

David, I apoligise if I have caused you offense by mentioning the SLUG
Debian distribtion.

> 
> D'uh... didn't he ask about RedHat?

He did.  I just thought he may be interested, that's all.
> 
> David (Debian User, btw)
> 


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Re: [SLUG] Where Can I get Red Hat Linux 8.0 ?

[Bruce Badger]

On Sun, 2003-03-02 at 10:43, Louis Selvon wrote:
> Hi:
> 
> As the subject says.
> 
> The stores in my area don't have them. Does Dymocks sell version 8.0 or
> any urls that list vendors of Red Hat Products in Australia would do me.
> 
> I am browsing the web but had no lukc yet.

The main Dymocks shop on George St. in Sydney does sell Debian Woody,
BTW.  And this is the distro that gives you $5 off SLUG membership too! 
Particularly interesting as this the AGM is at the next SLUG meeting,
and you need to be a member to vote.

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Re: [SLUG] iiNet - not Mozilla friendly

[Bruce Badger]

On Sun, 2003-02-23 at 14:34, David Kempe wrote:
> Have you still got the serial cable that came with the modem?
> If so you need to plug it into a spare serial port, bark up your favourite
> comms program (like minicom) and connect at 9600,8,N,1

Great, thanks!  I can talk to the modem now.

> You can then do a itex mode auto at the prompt and then config save at the
> prompt and it should change the way it detects the line sync.

Where can I read up on the commands?  If I type help when connected to
the modem it lists the commands (including itex), but does not explain
what they do :-/  I've looked in the manual - even downloaded the latest
from d-link, but I've found no clear description.

> This may of course have nothing to do with it, as you could just have line
> noise from the rain we have been having (or something else completly).

Well, things have been flaky all this year.  I had no problems at all in
2002, but so far 2003 has not been good for the link light on my modem
:-(

Many thanks,
Bruce

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Re: [SLUG] iiNet - not Mozilla friendly

[Bruce Badger]

On Sun, 2003-02-23 at 14:15, David Kempe wrote:
> Hi Bruce,
> we had a customer with the same problem.
> do you have a dlink dsl-300?

I do.  If it is a modem problem, what can be done?

Thanks,
Bruce

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[SLUG] iiNet - not Mozilla friendly

[Bruce Badger]

It seems that iiNet (http://iinet.net.au) have "improved" their account
management tools such that they will no longer work with Mozilla.

Is it just me, or have they really just taken this step backward?

Also - I'm having a shocking time with my DSL connection at the moment. 
The link light goes out for an hour or so once or twice a day.  Is this
just Telstra once again demonstrating their brilliance, or is it
possible iiNet are screwing up this too?

Bruce {fondly remembering the *T1* connection I had at home for $49/
month when I lived in the 'states} 


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[SLUG] PII 400 no-fan heatsink?

[Bruce Badger]

I have a couple of PII 400 machines which are very noisy.  As part of
the campaign to make them quieter, I was wondering if there were any
no-fan heatsinks around that could prevent the PII 400s from melting
down.

Google reveals that world+dog would like to sell me a heatsink *with*
fan - but I see no heatsinks without a fan.

Is there such a thing?

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Re: [SLUG] Getting to my app

[Bruce Badger]

On Sun, 2003-02-16 at 20:35, Christopher Samuel wrote:
> -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
> 
> On Sunday 16 Feb 2003 7:37 pm, Bruce Badger wrote:
> 
> > Any hints, tips (or complete answers :-)) would be most appreciated.
> 
> What does: "netstat -ntlp" say for port 10045 ?


I just knew this would be embarrassing!

netstat reveals that Adam W was correct - I was listening on 127.0.0.1
only

Here's the output:
tcp0  0 127.0.0.1:10045 0.0.0.0:*  
LISTEN  9428/visual

How dumb can you get. :-(

BTW, the server is one of a number of HTTP servers implemented in
Smalltalk.

Thanks for the help.  Sorry to have troubled you :-/

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[SLUG] Getting to my app

[Bruce Badger]

I'm running Debian Woody, and am trying to access an application which
is listening on a TCP/IP socket.  The app is just a small http server,
and I'm using a web browser to access it.

I know the app is listening on the expected port, because if I connect
using a browser on the same machine that the server is running on,
everything works fine.  If I try to get to the same app from a different
machine, though, I get "the connection was refused".

If I run tcpdump on the server I see that using the browser on the local
machine to access the service generates 11 packets over the expected
port (via lo).  The remote access generates only two packets (via eth0),
one coming in with the the request, and the other (i guess) saying "the
connection was refused".

If I ask iptables what filtering is active, is tells me that everything
is accepted.  I've checked the nat filter and mangle tables.

Clearly I'm missing something dead simple here.  I have read the HOWTO
for iptables and for IP in general, but I'm just not seeing the
solution.

Any hints, tips (or complete answers :-)) would be most appreciated. 

 Thanks.

BTW, here is the output from the tcpdump showing the bouncing request.

Here is the tcpdump of the 
wally:~# tcpdump port 10045
tcpdump: listening on eth0
18:31:17.162927 alice.set.badgerse.com.53433 >
wally.set.badgerse.com.10045: S 1628653908:1628653908(0) win 5840 
(DF)
18:31:17.163010 wally.set.badgerse.com.10045 >
alice.set.badgerse.com.53433: R 0:0(0) ack 1628653909 win 0 (DF)

2 packets received by filter
0 packets dropped by kernel


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Re: [SLUG] Autorepeat broken after suspend

[Bruce Badger]

On Thu, 2003-02-13 at 14:56, Myles Byrne wrote:
> 
> > I can suspend the machine with X running, and everything is fine when I 
> > resume ... except for the keyboard autorepeat which no longer works, and 
> > the mouse becomes prone to take a single click as a double click.
> 
> I have exactly the same problem with a thinkpad 600E

Great - I'm not alone!

I tried to Google for a solution, but could not find anything.

Ben de Luca suggested that fiddling with the Repeat Keys options in the
Keyboard Preferences dialog fixed a similar problem for him in the
past.  It didn't work for me though.  Have you tried that?

I'm wondering at what level this is a problem.  e.g. IBM hardware, Video
card driver, X, Metacity, Gnome ...

It's a nuisance, that's for sure.

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Re: [SLUG] Autorepeat broken after suspend

[Bruce Badger]

Peter, many thanks for the suggestions.

On Tue, 2003-02-11 at 23:00, Peter Hardy wrote:
> Couple of things you can try:
> When you resume, run "xset r" to try turning autorepeat back on.  The
> xset manpage will probably also tell you how to change the doubleclick
> timeout.
I can't get this to work :-(

If I start X, open an xterm I see that "xset r off" and "xset r on" do
indeed start and stop autorepeat for all X apps.  (nice - I've learned
something there).

However, if I suspend the machine at this point, and then resume it, I
find that autorepeat is off, and "xset r on" will not restart it :-(

> If that doesn't work, try changing to a virtual console before
> suspending. 
I'm afraid that even this didn't work :-(

Thanks again, though


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[SLUG] Autorepeat broken after suspend

[Bruce Badger]

I'm running RH8.0 on an IBM Thinkpad T21.

I can suspend the machine with X running, and everything is fine when I 
resume ... except for the keyboard autorepeat which no longer works, and 
the mouse becomes prone to take a single click as a double click.

Simply exiting X and restarting it makes the problems go away.  If I 
switch to another TTY, autorepeat is working fine - back in X land, it's 
still not working.

Has anyone else experienced this?  Does anyone know if/how it can be fixed?

Thanks

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Re: [SLUG] Palm Zire vs Psion Revo

[Bruce Badger]

I have a Revo and it's a great machine.  My wife has one too.  She is
more gentle than I am, and her Revo has lasted 3 years now without
problem.  Mine had a battery recharge problem, but I had it fixed,
though while it was being fixed I got withdrawl symptoms and bought a
Revo Plus, so now I have a spare Revo (which I'll hang onto).

I have not got synching working with my Linux boxes, mainly because I'm
lazy.  Has anyone on the list got a Revo to synch with a Linux app?

Anyway, it is true that Psion have stopped design work on new models,
but AFAIK they are still making, shipping and supporting the Revo [+].

On Tue, 2003-02-11 at 11:59, Adam Hewitt wrote:
> The Revo is definitely on their website, and is still being sold
> throughout australia. They have, however, brought out the Revo Plus
> which is the advanced model...
> 
> On Tue, 2003-02-11 at 10:54, Andrewd wrote:
> > I don't think they actually make the Revo anymore, go to there website and check
> > - I think it may be old stock only. Also my Revo broke after 4 months, but then
> > I was fairly rough with it.
> > 
> > >Does anyone have any recommendations, good and bad points, linux
> > >compatibility (obviously the Zire is compatible from Graemes' recent
> > >post)...
> > >
> > >I was going to buy a Zire today, but my dealer has offered me the Revo
> > >for the same price...
> > >
> > >Adam.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >-- 
> > >SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group - http://slug.org.au/
> > >More Info: http://lists.slug.org.au/listinfo/slug
> > >
> > -- 
> > SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group - http://slug.org.au/
> > More Info: http://lists.slug.org.au/listinfo/slug
> 
> 
> -- 
> SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group - http://slug.org.au/
> More Info: http://lists.slug.org.au/listinfo/slug


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[SLUG] Pia & Linux Australia makes the news ...

[Bruce Badger]

 Linux Australia votes in first female president ...

http://www.zdnet.com.au/newstech/os/story/0,224997,20271565,00.htm

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[SLUG] mgp presentations from components

[Bruce Badger]

I'm working with Magic Point (mgp) to put together a number of 
presentations.  These presentations have much in common, so I want to be 
able to form a presentation from a number of sub-components.  I thought 
I could use the $include directive in .mgp files to suck the component 
files into one big presentation, but $include is a one-shot thing for 
establishing defaults :-(  So, it seems that there is no built-in way of 
doing this in mgp.  How, then, can I do what I want?

I guess if i could have a file like "next-tuesday-talk.mgp.spec" that 
looked like:
   $include 'common-header.mgp'
   $include 'funny-story-1.mgp'
   $include 'technical-bit-1.mgp'
   ...etc...

... and have a script to bolt it all together to make 
"next-tuesday-talk.mgp'.  Is there any tool around that will just do 
this kind of thing, or do I need to write my own script?

Sorry, that was a long way of asking something that I'm sure is very simple.

Thanks,
   Bruce

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Re: [SLUG] [OT] recoverying NT4 disk

[Bruce Badger]

You could talk to Piamen Pazov who is a SLUG regular.  His comany is 
Xyber, and they specialize in data recovery.  His number is 9906 7967.

Good luck,
   Bruce

Richard Hayes wrote:

Dear list,

Sorry about the subject.

A small SCSI drive has gone walkabout and I need to recover the data.

1. Is there a Linux based tool to rebuild the MBR / directories?

2. Can anyone recommend a company to recover the data?

Any suggestions / recommendations?

regards,

Richard Hayes
0414 618 425





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