Re: [SLUG] Customer site hacked with brut.php - what to do?

[Robert Collins]

On Wed, Aug 22, 2012 at 2:54 PM, Mark Walkom  wrote:
> On 22 August 2012 12:00, David Lyon  wrote:
>
>> I have a customer with a hacked website.
>>
>> When I ftp'd to their web-server I found this wart (listed below - saved as
>> brut.php):
>>
>> How did the hacker put it on my system ? What could it have comprimised ?
>> What
>> can I do to stop further consequences?
>>
>>
> Reset any management/admin passwords to be safe. Make sure everything
> running on the server is up to date - OS, DB, Apache etc.
>
> Get rid of FTP, use SCP and fail2ban.

Reinstall the machine from bare metal. Verify the BIOS against the
vendors version (not 100% fullproof) and discard the filesystem
entirely (take a backup first).

You don't know what has been altered, its not impossible they got
root, and its not impossible that they put a preboot attack in place
too.

-Rob
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Re: [SLUG] $11.7m for OLPC Australia in the federal govt budget

[Robert Collins]

On Wed, May 9, 2012 at 1:03 PM, Sridhar Dhanapalan
 wrote:
> "The Australian Government is providing over $11 million to support
> the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) Program which will deliver over 50,000

Thats pretty awesome. Are OLPC still doing the 'buy one donate one' program?

-Rob
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Re: [SLUG] Help with files that have "identical" filenames

[Robert Collins]

It could be unicode normalisation.

-Rob
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Re: [SLUG] 500 node mesh network for Parramatta

[Robert Collins]

+1 on Adrian's telco check suggestion. Also, Google in Mountain View
have had some terrible trouble with single-radio mesh networks, so I'm
not sure WRT's will give a good result.

or perhaps you mean 'pervasive network with roaming', not 'mesh' ?

-Rob
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Re: [SLUG] mobile printer

[Robert Collins]

The H470 from HP looks pretty small.

-Rob
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Re: [SLUG] Re: Time Pedantry

[Robert Collins]

On Wed, 2010-04-07 at 12:27 +1000, Daniel Pittman wrote:

> >> ...but the real question is if we love or hate the GMT/UTC difference, and
> >> 23:59:61?
> >
> > *cough* :60 *cough*
> 
> Well, I am glad someone was on the ball enough to notice that. ;)
> 
> IIRC, :61 is actually a possible but extremely unlikely time value, to account
> for two leap-second adjustments required in a year, but a quick look around
> suggests that memory was wrong.  So, :60 it is.

http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/basedefs/time.h.html

"The range [0,60] seconds allows for positive or negative leap seconds.
The formal definition of UTC does not permit double leap seconds, so all
mention of double leap seconds has been removed, and the range shortened
from the former [0,61] seconds seen in previous versions of POSIX.
"

-Rob


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Re: [SLUG] evolution vs notifyosd

[Robert Collins]

On Fri, 2010-04-02 at 22:53 +1100, Peter Miller wrote:
> Does anyone know how to get Ubuntu notifyosd (the notify
> on-screen-display doohickey) to leave my Evolution pop-up appointment
> reminders alone?
> 
> notifyosd is there to make transient events visable without being
> intrusive.  But I *WANT* appointment reminders to be intrusive... you
> know... so I go to them even if the reminder jarringly throws me out of
> "flow state".

Have a look at your evolution plugins; there may be a notify plugin.
Anyhow - its primarily an evolution issue; you might ask/discuss this in
#ubuntu-desktop.

-Rob


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Re: [SLUG] Re: [activities] SLUG FebruaryMonthly Meeting - Python Game Programming *Tutorial*

[Robert Collins]

On Fri, 2010-02-26 at 16:08 +1100, Dylan Jay wrote:
> On 25/02/2010, at 11:01 AM, Robert Collins wrote:
> 
> > On Wed, 2010-02-24 at 11:31 +1100, Tim 'mithro' Ansell wrote:
> >> Hello everyone!
> >>
> >> Don't forget to do your homework (Install Python, Pyglet and Rabbyt)
> >> before this tutorial. The set-up page has been updated with  
> >> instructions
> >> for a number of other Linux distros. You can find it at
> >>http://wiki.slug.org.au/pythonprogrammingsetup
> >
> > Those docs suggest easy_install; run arbitrary from the internet. Yay!
> 
> run code written by the authors of the software.

Last I checked, no, it might, under usual conditions, but its not
secured.

> >
> > I suggest
> > apt-get install python-pyglet python-rabbyt
> > digitally signed packages \o/.
> 
> which locks you into a certain operating system. Not very pythonic.

The wiki page that was referenced contained specific instructions for
several operating systems; I was commenting on the Ubuntu instructions -
I don't think using Ubuntu locks you into it at all. In fact, apt-get
exists for windows and RedHat as well as Debian, Ubuntu and other Debian
derived platforms. So 'lock in' is hardly accurate.

I don't see what is unpythonic about making use of good features of a
platform you're running on: GAE isn't unpythonic, ActiveState python
isn't unpythonic, the win32 module isn't unpythonic - or are they?

-Rob


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Re: [SLUG] Re: [activities] SLUG FebruaryMonthly Meeting - Python Game Programming *Tutorial*

[Robert Collins]

On Wed, 2010-02-24 at 11:31 +1100, Tim 'mithro' Ansell wrote:
> Hello everyone!
> 
> Don't forget to do your homework (Install Python, Pyglet and Rabbyt)
> before this tutorial. The set-up page has been updated with instructions
> for a number of other Linux distros. You can find it at
> http://wiki.slug.org.au/pythonprogrammingsetup

Those docs suggest easy_install; run arbitrary from the internet. Yay!

I suggest
apt-get install python-pyglet python-rabbyt
digitally signed packages \o/.


-Rob


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Re: [SLUG] LAMP - researching setup for hosting on multiple servers

[Robert Collins]

On Thu, 2009-12-17 at 20:32 +1100, Peter Rundle wrote:
> G'day Sluggers,
> 
> I've inherited a LAMP stack which uses the php session stuff to maintain a 
> session with an authenticated user. A cookie gets sent 
> to the user and upon it's return PHP retrieves the "session" from a file in 
> the "sessions" folder.

I don't know php, but there is usually some distributed means to make
sessions work, I'm sure someone else will pop up.

> I would like to change the setup such that the site could be hosted on 
> multiple web servers. The PHP sessions would then be badly 
> broken because the user could potentially be directed to the "other" server 
> depending on what load balancing solution was used, 
> which would not have the matching "sessions" file. I do not want to use a 
> solution that has the load balancer direct the user back 
> to the same server because a lot of the reason for load balancing is for 
> redundancy or to be able to take a server off-line to 
> service / upgrade it etc.
> 
> The multiple web servers would initially share a a single back-end DBMS 
> server, but in future would have their own dedicated 
> back-end DBMS, with the DBMS servers using replication to keep in sync.

There are two separate issues: load & redundancy.  I suggest you shard
for load, and single master replicate for redundancy, what you wrote
above suggested multi-master replication, and thats painful.

-Rob


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Re: [SLUG] Australian government to censor your internets

[Robert Collins]

On Thu, 2009-12-17 at 18:24 +1100, Adam Kennedy wrote:
> I'm not suggesting this be the ONLY way of dealing with the issue.
> 
> If it's possibly to at least remove all the excuses that it's cheap
> and easy, and demonstrate an ongoing series of high profile false
> positives, and the resulting latency issues, and that the whole thing
> is ungodly expensive.

10's of millions is already ungodly expensive ;). 

> Surely taking the problem we know exist and making those problems
> real, immediate, high profile, and tangible, would provide some
> benefit to the people doing the more serious political work.

It may simply backfire by making 'the problem' more tangible measurable
and accessible to the fearmongers, permitting them more draconian plans
and more money wasted.

-Rob 


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Re: [SLUG] Australian government to censor your internets

[Robert Collins]

On Thu, 2009-12-17 at 16:08 +1100, Adam Kennedy wrote:
> Is anyone aware of any groups taking more direct technical action
> against this proposal?
..
> I'm pondering the idea of automating the web trawling process to find
> NC content, and then just submit all 100 million NC content URLs to
> the people that maintain the blocklist...

Political problems need political solutions: the technology needed to do
fast lookups on a 100 million plus string corpus already exists; all
you'd do is push the price up (and probably centralise it to one nation
wide solution). False positives, broken applications & induced latency
are much more concerning technical aspects than filter size.

The fundamental issue though, is that Australia is already censored: the
debate about whether the internet should be censored is a bit misguided
IMO: a better debate is that films are already censored: there isn't a
strong argument why the internet /shouldn't be/, unless you consider the
film censoring a problem (I do).

Really, what I think we should be pushing for is:
 - RC material is abolished as a catch all category 
 - Adults are required to ensure their children are not permitted access
to adult only material, but the means is left to the parents to achieve.
 - This would apply to movies, magazines, etc. No more special treatment
for canberra :)

-Rob 


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Re: [SLUG] sound always zero on sign on karmic

[Robert Collins]

On Thu, 2009-12-03 at 14:47 +1100, Ken Foskey wrote:
> whenever I sign onto Ubuntu Karmic the sound level is zero and I have to
> raise the volume.  This is an upgraded system, I cannot find right
> google juice to find answer.
> 
> Work around to force 100% in start up also accepted.  I have an external
> volume control anyway.
> 
> Any hints on solving this one.

May or may not be related - what kernel are you running (uname -a).

Should be -14 or -15; if not, check /etc/kernel-img.conf for grub hooks
- if they are missing, add them, run sudo update-grub.conf and reboot.

-Rob


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Re: [SLUG] 64-bit Karmic Koala or not?

[Robert Collins]

On Fri, 2009-11-20 at 10:00 +0800, jam wrote:
> On Friday 20 November 2009 05:57:09 slug-requ...@slug.org.au wrote:

> > otherwise, 32bit is better.
> Pray wax lyrical

Memory footprint. For instance, bzr memory use under 32-bit builds of
python is less than half that of the same workload on 64-bit builds.

-Rob




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Re: [SLUG] 64-bit Karmic Koala or not?

[Robert Collins]

FWIW, the things that affect me using 64 bit on a given machine are:
more than 3GB of RAM or
need more than 2GB in a single process or
doing 64 bit math (nb this isn't strict, you can get at the opcode in
32-bit installs, just requires effort) or
want to do 64 bit port testing/development
-> 64bit

otherwise, 32bit is better.

Some 64bit capable CPU's actually do 32-bit mode better than 64, and
vice-verca, but I don't recall which ones - and unless you're on the
performance edge it won't matter anyway.

-Rob


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Re: [SLUG] bzr issue

[Robert Collins]

On Thu, 2009-11-05 at 20:34 +1100, Ashley Maher wrote:
> I have been pushing to a remote repo using bzr when the adsl link dropped.

> sftp://usern...@repo.didymodesigns.com.au/pathtorepo/
> usern...@repo.didymodesigns.com.au's password:
> bzr: ERROR: No such file: '/pathtorepo/.bzr/repository/pack-names':
> [Errno 2] No such file

sftp usern...@repo.didymodesigns.com.au
cd /pathtorepo/.bzr/repository

there will be two temporary files there, the old pack-names, and the new
one.
mv the new one to pack-names

then you can run 'bzr break-lock
sftp://usern...@repo.didymodesigns.com.au/pathtorepo/'
and finally push again.

Cheers,
Rob


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Re: [SLUG] Syncable wiki?

[Robert Collins]

On Tue, 2009-11-03 at 19:14 +1100, pe...@chubb.wattle.id.au wrote:
> 
>  Does anyone know of any such software?  Linux of course, and
>  preferably PalmOS as well but that's not essential. 

ikiwiki is the most mature such thing I know of.

-Rob


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Re: [SLUG] Pulse Audio

[Robert Collins]

On Mon, 2009-11-02 at 19:31 +1100, Jeff Waugh wrote:
> 
> PulseAudio is awesome. We've desperately needed something like it in
> the
> Linux desktop ecosystem for a very long time. Ubuntu's integration
> (and lack
> of co-ordination with upstream) is... not so great. Sadly, this means
> that a
> huge majority of folks are not seeing PulseAudio operating at its
> best...
> and end up blaming it. Hopefully, the Ubuntu desktop developers will
> spend a
> bit of time polishing up the PulseAudio integration in their next
> release
> (an LTS, so polish is very much the focus). 

There seems to be some FUD around about the integration aspect :).

-Rob


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Re: [SLUG] advice on security compliance

[Robert Collins]

On Mon, 2009-11-02 at 16:28 +1100, Daniel Bush wrote:
> I was following Rick's recent post about penetration testing with some
> interest.  I'm looking at complying with anz e-gate for e-commerce
> transactions.  ANZ has this declaration form for internet sites that you
> have to sign.  One of the tick boxes says "Do you operate a firewall that is
> regularly updated?"
> 
> I have an iptables firewall which basically blocks all ip6 and all ip4
> except for a couple of ports I expose to the internet.  I don't see why I
> need to update it "regularly".

Two primary reasons:
 - iptables is not bug free. Few and far between, but not empty-of-bugs.
 - ip4 and ip6 are not 'finished'. Every now and then a new RFC or even
std is released, and you need to update your firewall and routing rules
accordingly. (e.g. the nonroutable address space changes over time, so
you need to update your rules accordingly).

Even if those two points didn't matter, if you admin the firewall using
ssh, and sshd has a bug permitting remote compromise, you'd be remiss
not to update that.

So, its an important checkbox, and if you're not maintaining your
firewall, don't tick it! (Worse still, if you think deny-all + a couple
of permits == correctly setup firewall - you need about 15 rules I
think, for a _minimally_ conformant firewall [that is, not in violation
of parts of the IP stack]). Keeping on top of the whole mess is what is
implied by 'regularly updated', not turning on some vendor software-sync
button and forgetting about it.

-Rob



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Re: [SLUG] Pulse Audio

[Robert Collins]

On Mon, 2009-11-02 at 12:36 +1100, Heracles wrote:
> -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
> Hash: SHA1
> 
> After upgrading to Ubuntu 9.10 I no longer have sound. lspci recognises
> my Creative Labs Live card but I get nothing out of it. Last time this
> happened I fixed it by the complete removal of Pulse Audio.
> Is there a simple fix or do I just have to remove this malware.

check your kernel - uname -a - if the date is not from October, then run
'sudo update-grub' and reboot. If that still has no sound (and not just
muted), do 'sudo update-initramfs' and reboot again.

-Rob


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Re: LTS worth anything? (was: Re: [SLUG] Announcement roundup from October meeting)

[Robert Collins]

On Mon, 2009-11-02 at 11:14 +1100, Del wrote:
> 
> One of the things that the stable distros tend to miss out on is
> having 
> the latest updated device drivers.  What it sounds like you're doing
> is 
> trying to get stuff working that while not bleeding-edge, probably
> does 
> require updated kernels and recent device drivers.  So it sounds like 
> LTS isn't for you.

Ubuntu LTS gets 6 monthly driver-only updates :).

-Rob


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Re: LTS worth anything? (was: Re: [SLUG] Announcement roundup from October meeting)

[Robert Collins]

On Sun, 2009-11-01 at 13:03 +1100, Amos Shapira wrote:


> That's generally what I'd expect, based on my experience with Debian
> and CentOS, and why I tried to stick to it - I usually don't care
> about having latest versions (as long as the current one does the job)
> and I don't have too much spare time to mess with upgrades unless I
> absolutely must.
> 
> But when a bug was fixed in a later release it was NOT back-ported to
> the LTS release - so what does "LTS" stand for? "Local Transport
> Strategy"? (http://www.clacksweb.org.uk/property/developmentplan/glossary/),
> "Leaning Toothpick Syndrome"? "Low-Temperature Superconductor"?
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTS)

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LTS

To get the LTS updated a 'stable release update' is needed - SRU:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/StableReleaseUpdates. When an individual fix is
backported its called an SRU - see below for 'backports', which is a
whole other thing.

> >  - backports are available if you want newer packages on a per package
> > basis.
> 
> "Backporting", in the definitions I'm familiar with (e.g. RHEL), is to
> fix an OLDER version which is current in a supported release, not an
> upgrade to a later version of the software.

In Debian/Ubuntu 'backports' (NOT BackportING) is a collection of newer
packages built as much as possible against an older release.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuBackports

-Rob


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Re: [SLUG] Re: LTS worth anything?

[Robert Collins]

On Sun, 2009-11-01 at 10:50 +1100, david wrote:
> 


> I'm running LTS on my two servers - so graphics, sound etc are non issues. So 
> far, so good and it's 
> really nice to not have to worry about things breaking but still get security 
> upgrades. I'm 
> wondering if anyone has any thoughts about how good the transition to the 
> next LTS will be when I'm 
> going to want to upgrade critical servers.

We test release->release+1 upgrades, and LTS->LTS+1 upgrades, so no
better or worse than any release I expect. Possibly better because
things that catch people out (like the update-grub needs running issue
with karmic  & sounds) in intermediate releases can be catered for and
avoided in the LTS->LTS+1 upgrade path.

-Rob


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Re: LTS worth anything? (was: Re: [SLUG] Announcement roundup from October meeting)

[Robert Collins]

On Sat, 2009-10-31 at 23:25 +1100, Amos Shapira wrote:
> 2009/10/31 Robert Collins 
> >
> > A small note: if you have Hardy, the ISO won't help, you should upgrade
> > via update-manager -c -d (or wait 6 more months for Lucid which will be
> > a LTS release).
> 
> Speaking of Ubuntu LTS - does anyone see real value in sticking to it?

So LTS is all about stable [e.g. nothing changed that doesn't have to be
changed]. It has the following:
 - regular point releases with kernel updates (giving new hardware
support)
 - security fixes
 - backports are available if you want newer packages on a per package
basis.

Many many things improve in every release, but there is always the
chance that something will regress - and sound and video support are
particular risk points.

I generally encourage users that have the resources to run
latest-release always, users with particularly large deployments (those
where a refresh takes years to deploy) to run LTS, and users that want
to contribute to run ubuntu+1 as soon as an alpha is available.

-Rob


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Re: [SLUG] Announcement roundup from October meeting

[Robert Collins]

On Sat, 2009-10-31 at 16:47 +1100, James Polley wrote:
> Just to summarise the things people announced at the start of our
> October meeting:
> 
>  - Ubuntu Killer^WKarmic Koala was released yesterday. If you have a
> Jaunty Jackalope machine you should be prompted for an upgrade -
> otherwise you can download it from the usual places
> (http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download will help you find the usual
> places, if you don't know where they are already)

A small note: if you have Hardy, the ISO won't help, you should upgrade
via update-manager -c -d (or wait 6 more months for Lucid which will be
a LTS release).

-Rob


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Re: [SLUG] Advice Request for moving a Ubuntu installation to a larger disk and 4Gb RAM

[Robert Collins]

On Tue, 2009-10-27 at 13:15 +1100, Bill Donoghoe wrote:
> 
> 1. What do I need to do to get Ubuntu to use 4Gb RAM? My current
> Jaunty
> installation only recognises around 3Gb.  Is this just a kernel
> upgrade
> or 

If I remember correctly we don't support > 3GB on 32-bit installs
anymore - the performance overhead is terrible. AIUI you can however run
a 32 bit userspace on a 64-bit kernel - but I've not done this so can't
offer advise ;). There /may/ be a kernel flavour that has PAE turned on
- check the server flavours. (But again, warning, slow).

> 2. How complicated is it to move my "linux setup" from a single
> partition to
> the lvm partitions on the larger disk.  My latest thought is to:
> a. update Ubuntu on the hard disk to match the current working
> environment
> (fix apt-get config files and/or dpkg -l on both and diff them, and
> them
> update)
> b. If I copy /usr and /var from the working environment to the new
> environment will that cause problems? (it will save re-installing some
> software that isn't managed by apt)
> c. copy /home from working environment to new disk (recommended
> method?
> rsync to new drive connected via USB?)
> d. use pgdump / pgrestore to move postgres databases across
> e. Backup new disk
> f. find out what doesn't work? What have I missed?

Sure, or you could:
partition the new disk
boot into readonly single user mode
mount the new partitions somewhere sensible
rsync everything to them.
reboot

-Rob


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Re: [SLUG] quiet computer

[Robert Collins]

On Wed, 2009-10-07 at 14:44 +1100, Ken Foskey wrote:
> My computer is too noisy.   It is not graphics because it is not used
> much and when it does there is enough background noise.  It is the power
> supply and cpu fan that kicks in with cron at 2 am in the morning.
> 
> I was thinking about adding fluid cooling,   is this worth it or else
> can I where can I get a powerful 24 hour home system that will run
> quietly?

Depending on what 'powerful' means, a fanless media server may suite you
too.

-Rob


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Re: [SLUG] Integration testing

[Robert Collins]

There's pycucumber for pythonistas; haven't used it so can't vouch for
it strongly :)

-Rob


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Re: [SLUG] setting up squid proxy

[Robert Collins]

A standard squid config is setup as a forward proxy. You need a reverse
proxy. If you also want to browse out via squid, you need both a forward
and reverse proxy setup.

http://wiki.squid-cache.org/ConfigExamples


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Re: [SLUG] Disclosure agreements and open source

[Robert Collins]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Armin Marth wrote:
> Hello SLUGers,
> I work on the help desk for a medical software company, and have
> recently been given a disclosure and confidentiality agreement to
> sign. I have been keeping a keen eye on open source software for
> medical professionals and would like to eventually contribute to them.
> 
> The point I'd like to clarify is clause 2. "The Employee shall
> acknowledge all inventions, discoveries and designs and all writings,
> art-work, drawings, designs, computer programs (copyright works)
> created during the course of your employment with the Employer,
> belongs to the Employer."
> 
> See a copy at http://www.arminmarth.info/disclosure.pdf
> 
> Would this stop me from contributing to open source software if it's
> in the same field as I currently work in?
> 
> I've been asked to sign this by Monday or I will not be able to work
> on any health care related products, i.e. they'll force me to take
> leave.

Find a lawyer :). If you don't have one already, I believe there are a
number of lawyers in Sydney specialising in open source already, and I'm
sure this is a question that they have been asked before.

Its a question for lawyers, because while the law looks like english,
its not :(.

"course of your employment" could mean '9-5 weekdays', or 'from the time
you sign till you are fired', or something else. (IANAL). And that is,
perhaps - the key point.

- -Rob
-BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-
Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iEYEARECAAYFAkqRARIACgkQ42zgmrPGrq47swCfRfZkaVmMFsEaw2NDqtk8mEQg
+ugAoLBCT3A/fPstjNOE7s4wjWFSQIR0
=exhK
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Re: [SLUG] setting up squid proxy

[Robert Collins]

On Tue, 2009-08-18 at 18:38 +1000, Amos Shapira wrote:
> 2009/8/18 Tony Sceats :
> > what you're trying to do is usually referred to as a transparent reverse
> > proxy.. you should be able to find heaps of info on this
> 
> What's "transparent" about it? It's just "reverse proxy" as far as I know.

Its not transparent at all - transparent involves handling
non-proxy-ready http requests as well as TCP hijacking :)

> And it's worth mentioning (or even iterating) - be careful not to make
> it useable to surf anything but your intended internal URL's -
> otherwise it'll get used by crackers to hide their identity on your
> expense.

Indeed, both Adrian and I provided secure configs.

I assumed the proxy was simultaneously serving outbound clients; Adrian
offered a accelerator-only config.

-Rob


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Re: [SLUG] setting up squid proxy

[Robert Collins]

On Tue, 2009-08-18 at 17:00 +1000, Ben Donohue wrote:


> I'm using webmin to configure the setup and it's pretty basic what I 
> want. Just squid to redirect the http request to the correct server.

I have no idea if webmin understands current syntax.

http_port 80 vhost
visible_hostname 
cache_peer your_server parent 80 0 no-query originserver \
 no-net-db-exchange no-digest
acl www port 80
acl all src all
acl myservers dstdomain your_outside_hostname
cache_peer_access your_server allow www myservers
cache_peer_access deny all

-Rob


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Re: [SLUG] Chinese intruder yesterday

[Robert Collins]

Also, passwordauthentication no in sshd_config

is a very useful step ;)

-Rob


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Re: [SLUG] where to get an Ethernet hub (NOT a switch)

[Robert Collins]

On Sun, 2009-07-19 at 09:36 +1000, Amos Shapira wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I'm looking for an Ethernet hub to be used for network troubleshooting
> (trying to find which of our hosts is involved in the load on our
> office uplink).

If you want to do greedy packet capturing, I suggest using 'port
mirroring', a feature found on many business model switches. Failing
that, you can make a trivial two port switch out of a linux machine with
brtools.

-Rob


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Re: [SLUG] two silly bash questions I can't find in google

[Robert Collins]

On Tue, 2009-06-16 at 22:36 +1000, david wrote:

> Q2. what does the @ mean?
> 
> da...@david:~$ date -d @1174306440
> Mon Mar 19 23:14:00 EST 2007
> 
> I got this from a google search - the string is from a mysql timestamp which 
> didn't include the @ I can't find a reference to @ in the date man page.

Its in 'info date', and that is referenced from man date in the section
about the string parameter to -d.

-Rob


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Re: [SLUG] Re: aptitude removal problem - no space left on device

[Robert Collins]

On Wed, 2009-06-03 at 15:56 +1000, Denis Crowdy wrote:
> 
> cp: cannot copy a directory, `/', into itself,
> `/tmp/mkinitramfs_C18636/'
> cp: cannot copy a directory, `/', into itself,
> `/tmp/mkinitramfs_C18636/'
> cp: cannot copy a directory, `/', into itself,
> `/tmp/mkinitramfs_C18636/'
> cp: cannot copy a directory, `/', into itself,
> `/tmp/mkinitramfs_C18636/' 

This is extremely odd - looks like a maintainer script problem.
[backports tends to have this sort of thing btw].

Uhm, I'd try to find the maintainer script in /var/lib/dpkg and fix it.
Look at the kernel* package logs - you may find its fixed already and be
able to copy the fixed one in by hand.

-Rob



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Re: [SLUG] Re: aptitude removal problem - no space left on device

[Robert Collins]

type 'mount' in a terminal and look for filesystems.

One of them will be low - < 200MB or even less of space.

One possibility is '/boot', which is where kernel initramfs' are built
and saved. These can add up to quite a bit of space.

-Rob


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Re: [SLUG] HOT SWAPPING - back to the OP ;-)

[Robert Collins]

On Sun, 2009-05-17 at 18:48 +1000, david wrote:


> I wonder what "warmplug" means?

AIUI its 'suspend, attach device, resume'. So there is power on but no
activity during the attach/detach event.

-Rob


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Re: [SLUG] Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon mirror?

[Robert Collins]

On Fri, 2009-05-01 at 15:35 +1000, sonia wrote:
> Anyone know of (or how to find) an Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon mirror?
> 
> Yes, way old (at 2 years...), but I'm trying to maintain an old
> machine that I don't want to upgrade. Gutsy has dropped out of the
> Ubuntu mirrors, and googling on "Ubuntu Gutsy mirror" etc isn't getting
> me far...

as https://help.ubuntu.com/ notes, gutsy is no longer receiving security
updates - or any changes at all.

Given the continual stream of security updates I see for my machines, I
really encourage you to upgrade. I suggest that hardy, a
long-term-support release is probably easiest and best - it will stay
supported for quite some time.

-Rob


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Re: [SLUG] Defining "Mainsteam"

[Robert Collins]

On Tue, 2009-04-07 at 20:27 +1000, Daniel Pittman wrote:
> Jeff Waugh  writes:
> > 
> >
> >> Hmm discounts all my work.  In one company a mere 2,000 employees got
> >> to see it.
> >> 
> >> Hey if my software is used by tens of people but the results are seen
> >> by millions does that count?  Nope I guess not really.
> >> 
> >> I am wandering away depressed that I have squandered my life
> >> programming meaningless applications...
> >
> > Not sure it makes too much sense to review your life's work on
> > Daniel's very literal argumentation... :-)
> 
> Colour me bitter, but the standard that Robert set seems a touch
> dismissive by placing a bar that almost no software every achieves.

Nearly everything in Ubuntu's default install reaches that degree of
usage, more or less. Sure, most of the software in Ubuntu isn't in the
default install. Heck, most of the software I've altered or written is
almost certainly several orders of magnitude less used than say 'gdm'.

Clearly, you get more feedback as you get more users, and anyone with a
product used by thousands of users should be happy with that.

But "Mainstream" software - which for me is software that has crossed
the divide and become broadly available in its chosen market rather than
being available only if you know about it and ask the right questions -
really does have millions of users. And yes, I know I'm discounting
niche software packages like urban waste planning software - for such
software the entire market is probably only just big enough to meet
'millions of users', if that.

I certainly didn't mean to diminish the contribution we make when we
contribute to an open source project that *isn't* already used by the
vast masses. It is important to realise that the dynamic of talking to
all your users and getting good bug reports changes drastically as the
user base scales out.

With all of those caveats, I *still* wouldn't call a piece of software
that 2000 people use as 'mainstream', particularly in a closed
environment like in-house software: You've got at most $EMPLOYEES
configurations to deal with, and typically internal IS will be trying to
keep that down to a single digit count, as every different configuration
adds to the support burden.

-Rob


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Re: [SLUG] Defining "Mainsteam"

[Robert Collins]

On Tue, 2009-04-07 at 15:25 +1000, Daniel Pittman wrote:
> 
> Out of curiosity, what number of users are you considering "real
> users"
> here?  I agree with what you are saying, but you certainly seem to
> have
> a much, much higher standard than I (at least) am used to for "real"
> use.

Millions.

-Rob



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Re: [SLUG] Re: [chat] Version control

[Robert Collins]

On Thu, 2009-03-19 at 12:29 +1100, Sonia Hamilton wrote:
> * Robert Collins  [2009-03-19 12:02:41 +1100]:
> 
> > On Thu, 2009-03-19 at 11:46 +1100, Sonia Hamilton wrote:
> > > Is there any reason why you want to use a *distributed* VCS? For
> > > personal stuff it's probably overkill, and using a centralised VCS will
> > > make your life easier. In which case use Subversion.
> > 
> > Whoa there Tonto. Using *nearly* any DVCS is simpler for personal use
> > than using a centralised client-server system like svn.
> 
> Why?
> 
> I'm still learning git, but one of the things I found annoying was that
> I need to commit to the local repo, then merge my changes up my
> "central" git repo, then commit my changes on the "central" git repo.
> (Maybe I'm doing it the wrong way, I'm only up to "page 2" of the
> manual). Whereas with a centralised VCS check in only takes one step.

You are doing it wrong; you're learning git :). In bzr it can be one
step (if you do a checkout, like in svn). However, one of the main
things common to most DVCS is that you don't _need_ a central
repository, you simply have one repo which you can push places to back
it up.

> However I can see the advantages mentioned by John Ferlito of better
> branching in DVCS's. And of course if you've regularly got limited
> connectivity, a DVCS is the only way to go.
> 
> PS You might want to lookup what "tonto" means [1] before you go around
> calling people it. It was a term of disrespect for Amerindians on the
> US/Mexican border in the 1800's. At least be grammatically correct, and
> call me "tonta" :-p
> [1] http://www.spanishdict.com/translate/tonto

I was (mis)quoting the Lone Ranger, I thought.

-Rob


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Re: [SLUG] Re: [chat] Version control

[Robert Collins]

On Thu, 2009-03-19 at 11:46 +1100, Sonia Hamilton wrote:
> * Alan L Tyree  [2009-03-18 11:55:51 +1100]:
> > > > Looking for some advice. I have used RCS version control for writing
> > > > LaTeX documents for some time, but am looking at the advantages of
> > > > using a distributed version control system.
> 
> Is there any reason why you want to use a *distributed* VCS? For
> personal stuff it's probably overkill, and using a centralised VCS will
> make your life easier. In which case use Subversion.

Whoa there Tonto. Using *nearly* any DVCS is simpler for personal use
than using a centralised client-server system like svn.

-Rob


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Re: [SLUG] Talk request. Freenet or similar technology.

[Robert Collins]

On Mon, 2008-11-03 at 09:52 +1100, Erik de Castro Lopo wrote:
> On Mon, 03 Nov 2008 09:43:38 +1100
> Robert Collins <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 
> > I've been running a node off-and-on for a few years, and tracking the
> > project. If noone else steps up I'd be happy to put something together
> 
> That would be great.
> 
> > (and don't forget about technologies like tor and privoxy too).
> 
> I had heard of Tor, but have no iead what it does.

http://www.torproject.org/ 
"Tor is a software project that helps you defend against traffic
analysis, a form of network surveillance that threatens personal freedom
and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and
state security. Tor protects you by bouncing your communications around
a distributed network of relays run by volunteers all around the world:
it prevents somebody watching your Internet connection from learning
what sites you visit, and it prevents the sites you visit from learning
your physical location. Tor works with many of your existing
applications, including web browsers, instant messaging clients, remote
login, and other applications based on the TCP protocol."

> As for privoxy, I cannot forget about something I had never heard of
> before (and I do try to keep reasonably well informed about computer
> technology).

privoxy isn't all that relevant actually, my memory of it was a little
stale. http://www.privoxy.org/ - "Privoxy is a non-caching web proxy
with advanced filtering capabilities for enhancing privacy, modifying
web page data, managing HTTP cookies, controlling access, and removing
ads, banners, pop-ups and other obnoxious Internet junk."

-Rob
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Re: [SLUG] Talk request. Freenet or similar technology.

[Robert Collins]

On Mon, 2008-11-03 at 09:20 +1100, Erik de Castro Lopo wrote:
> 
> 
> Has anyone played around with Freenet or similar technologies and
> be willing to give us a presentation about it?

I've been running a node off-and-on for a few years, and tracking the
project. If noone else steps up I'd be happy to put something together
(and don't forget about technologies like tor and privoxy too).

-Rob
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Re: [SLUG] Steve Ballmer live rally Sydney November 6

[Robert Collins]

On Sat, 2008-11-01 at 23:23 +1100, Gerard Kelly wrote:
> Hey All,
> 
> Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer will be hosting a live rally in Sydney
> on
> November 6th.
...
> "Make a note in your diary now and be watching at the dawn of a new age of
> freedom."
...

In what psychotic world did you imagine this was ontopic for a linux
users group list?

-Rob
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RE: [SLUG] Fortress .... err Firewall Australia

[Robert Collins]

On Tue, 2008-10-21 at 13:44 +1100, James Purser wrote:
> Yeah while we're at it,
> let's jail people for joining a religion or we could try bringing back
> the death penalty.

Don't forget torture, forced abortions and mutilations while we're at
it.

-Rob
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Re: [SLUG] DODO

[Robert Collins]

On Thu, 2008-08-28 at 09:19 +1000, Dave Kempe wrote:
> Lindsay Holmwood wrote:
> >
> > I'm 99% certain they're using Squid, but I think they've either
> > severely misconfigured it, or are running a dodgy hacked up older
> > version.
> >
> >
> >   
> yeah I ran into the TPG proxy admin at my local woolies (overheard him 
> talking to someone about it and had to interrupt!)
> He said they are running squid on rhel4 I think. He didn't say what 
> version, but I got the impression it wasn't actively being upgraded.

AFAIK most Australian ISP's run intercepting caches, and squid is a
common choice for the cache component.

Its not a static tool though - media vendors are continually finding new
and interesting ways to fuck with HTTP, and browsers too - and squid
changes to accomodate these things. So if you're running an ISP with an
intercepting proxy, really, seriously, you're a numpty if you don't run
the latest stable release. 

PLEASE apply cluebats to relevant ISP staff whenever they are in reach.

-Rob
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Re: [SLUG] debmirror - shared pool between debian and ubuntu?

[Robert Collins]

On Wed, 2008-08-27 at 09:38 +1000, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> 
> 
> Is there much overlap between the ubuntu (hardy which I have) and
> debian
> respositories?
> 
> If there is any significant overlap, then is it possible to share the
> package pool between debian and Ubuntu?

No. Binary compatibility can differ on packages that have been simply
synced and thus kept their version; debmirror keys on version not on
suite+version.

-Rob

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Re: [SLUG] Glen Turner : The return of the Walled Garden

[Robert Collins]

On Tue, 2008-08-26 at 11:53 +0930, Glen Turner wrote:
> 
> 
> Tunnel brokers are fine for experimentation. It's nice to see
> Internode
> offer one, as the AARNet one is incredibly hammered (the most-heavily
> used Hexago box in the world). But neither the ISP nor the customer
> will want tunnels in the long run -- gamers cry about latency now,
> just wait until all their gaming traffic routes via Adelaide :-)

Should be fine for internode games servers though :)

-Rob
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Re: [SLUG] Firefox 3.0 Download Day

[Robert Collins]

On Tue, 2008-06-17 at 13:22 +1000, Rick Welykochy wrote:
> Hi Guys,
> 
> Firefox 3.0 is coming out tomorrow. The 18th here is the 17th in the USA,
> which is global download day for the Firefox 3.0 launch.
> 
> Mozilla is attempting to win a Guiness Book of World Records entry
> for the most downloads in one day.
> 
> So far, 1.4 million have pledged.
> 
> More here:
> 
> 
> 
> Ditch Internet Explorer and get Firefox :)

Isn't this a _linux_ users group? I would have assumed using linux ->
not using internet explorer.

-Rob
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[SLUG] Re: [SLUG-ANNOUNCE] SLUG Monthly Meeting, Friday 27 June and Call for Speakers

[Robert Collins]

On Sun, 2008-06-15 at 11:44 +1000, Sonia Hamilton wrote:
> === Call for Speakers ===
> 
> SLUG is currently looking for speakers to fill our General and In-Depth 
> Talk slots for this month's talks. Please contact the committee if you 
> would like to talk - [EMAIL PROTECTED]

I'd be happy to do a talk about bzr-search - I blogged this about it
recently:
http://www.advogato.org/person/robertc/diary/87.html

I found writing this to be fun and enjoyable, perhaps I could share some
of that ;)
-Rob
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Re: [SLUG] Filesystem which allows online fsck?

[Robert Collins]

On Thu, 2008-06-12 at 13:24 +1000, Erik de Castro Lopo wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> Does anyone know of a Linux filesystem which allows online
> fsck on a disk that is currently mounted read/write?

xfs or jfs might.

I'm pretty sure ext3 allows a readonly fsck online, but I presume you
want writing-fsck online?

Oh, also zfs is likely worth checking (but there are licence issues).

-Rob
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Re: [SLUG] Spider a website

[Robert Collins]

On Tue, 2008-06-03 at 14:20 +1000, Peter Rundle wrote:
> I'm looking for some recommendations for a *simple* Linux based tool to 
> spider a web site and pull the content back into 
> plain html files, images, js, css etc.
> 
> I have a site written in PHP which needs to be hosted temporarily on a server 
> which is incapable (read only does static 
> content). This is not a problem from a temp presentation point of view as the 
> default values for each page will suffice. 
> So I'm just looking for a tool which will quickly pull the real site (on my 
> home php capable server) into a directory 
> that I can zip and send to the internet addressable server.
> 
> I know there's a lot of code out there, I'm asking for recommendations.

wget :)

-Rob
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Re: [SLUG] Outputing progress counters with PHP/HTML

[Robert Collins]

On Wed, 2008-04-30 at 12:30 +1000, Matthew Hannigan wrote:
> 
> 
> You do a select before every insert?!  Is the table indexed?
> If not that might explain the slowdown; a select WILL take
> longer the bigger the table.

Also when adding 100K records the stats for the table could become
incorrect quite rapidly; this can lead to bad query plans even on an
indexed table.

But I'm guessing this is being done in a single transaction which is not
nice to the database :P

-Rob

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Re: [SLUG] PostgreSQL slowing down on INSERT

[Robert Collins]

On Wed, 2008-04-30 at 02:32 +1000, Howard Lowndes wrote:
> I have a PHP script that inserts around 100K of records into a table on
> each time that it runs.
> 
> It starts off at a good pace but gets progressively slower until it falls
> over complaining that it cannot allocate sufficient memory.
> 
> I have increased the memory allocation in the script with:
> ini_set('max_execution_time', '3600');
> ini_set('memory_limit', '128M');
>  but this only seems to delay the crash.
> 
> I have also tried closing and reoprning the database` every 10K inserts,
> but that doesn't seem to speed things up either.
> 
> Any other suggestions?

Are you doing this as one transaction or many?

-Rob
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Re: [SLUG] Sending mail from within a highly locked down network

[Robert Collins]

On Mon, 2008-04-21 at 12:06 +1000, Mary Gardiner wrote:
> Background: my normal mail setup uses Postfix on my laptop to send
> outgoing mail. My university has blocked all outgoing ports except 80
> (and they may have a transparent proxy in front of that) and 443 on
> their wireless network. My laptop cannot contact its normal mail servers
> on any port. (I happen to run those servers, but I already have
> processes listening on 80 and 443 on the relevant servers!)
> 
> In the best of all possible worlds, I wouldn't have to edit
> /etc/postfix/main.cf whenever I happen to be in this network. (Of
> course, I could script that.) Does anyone have alternative setups?

So far I've managed to avoid digging deep into this - port 587 is often
open, and the cases where it isn't, I've just edited configs.

I think it would be nice for NetworkManager to be able to drive a
consistent change across all tools - so that when I'm on a broken
network I could tell network manager once that its broken and to active
$workaround-that-isn't-good-enough-for-normal-use.

-Rob
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Re: [SLUG] SIM cards as cheap data storage?

[Robert Collins]

On Tue, 2008-04-15 at 14:36 +1000, Sridhar Dhanapalan wrote:
> On 15/04/2008, Robert Collins <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > On Tue, 2008-04-15 at 14:18 +1000, Martin Visser wrote:
> >  > Also do they actually need to carry the data with them? It would seem
> >  > if the ratio of data owners to intelligent devices/readers is so high,
> >  > you really come back to simply needing a card number ala Medicare - or
> >  > maybe even something like a "tinyurl" only a little more human
> >  > rememberable.The client then just needs to recite their number/tinurl.
> >  >
> >  > This assumes that the reader device has real-time (or maybe near
> >  > real-time is good enough, access to the data storage. (And near real
> >  > -time may be good enough - 1 000 000 users with 10 K data each is
> >  > "only" 10G - easily replicated on all your reader devices - assuming
> >  > the data doesn't change all that often.
> >
> >
> > I'm inferring that the scheme being developed is something like the
> >  following:
> >
> >  * At each village/town there is a single low-capability but functional
> >  pc. It has no reliable network.
> 
> Not quite. A person will arrive by motorcycle, probably once per week,
> with a laptop in tow. They'll have about an hour to sort out the
> people there before departing to the next settlement. At the end of
> the day/week, they'll return to base and synchronise their laptop with
> the central system.
> 
> >  * The data owners want to be able to track e.g. taxes, accounts, small
> >  personal data.
> 
> Mostly simple financial data, like a passbook.
> 
> >  * They want to be able to use this data where *they* are, not where a
> >  specific reader device is.
> 
> As mentioned above, the reader comes to them.
> 
> As mentioned previously, this is for the developing world. The current
> system is very manual: paper and pen. It's very laborious, and open to
> errors and even fraud. We're looking for a simple and reliable digital
> replacement.

Martin's point then about just storing the data in the reader makes a
lot of sense to me.

Give each data owner their own password. You could even use a crypted
loopback fs for each 'account' so that they have their own encrypted
audit trail which can be used to double check the central records in the
case of suspected fraud.

-Rob

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Re: [SLUG] SIM cards as cheap data storage?

[Robert Collins]

On Tue, 2008-04-15 at 14:18 +1000, Martin Visser wrote:
> Also do they actually need to carry the data with them? It would seem
> if the ratio of data owners to intelligent devices/readers is so high,
> you really come back to simply needing a card number ala Medicare - or
> maybe even something like a "tinyurl" only a little more human
> rememberable.The client then just needs to recite their number/tinurl.
> 
> This assumes that the reader device has real-time (or maybe near
> real-time is good enough, access to the data storage. (And near real
> -time may be good enough - 1 000 000 users with 10 K data each is
> "only" 10G - easily replicated on all your reader devices - assuming
> the data doesn't change all that often.

I'm inferring that the scheme being developed is something like the
following:

* At each village/town there is a single low-capability but functional
pc. It has no reliable network.
* The data owners want to be able to track e.g. taxes, accounts, small
personal data.
* They want to be able to use this data where *they* are, not where a
specific reader device is.

-Rob

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Re: [SLUG] Anyone familiar with git?

[Robert Collins]

On Thu, 2008-04-10 at 18:13 +1000, Erik de Castro Lopo wrote:
> 
>  a) Pull the upstreams sources (this I can already do).
> 
>  b) Create branch of the upstream sources for my own hacking (I
> think this is "git clone upstream hacking").

Yes.

>  c) Hack on my hacking branch and commit stuff as I see fit.
> 
>  d) Routinely update my upstream source branch (this I can do with
> "git fetch ; git rebase origin" but I'm not entirely sure what
> these commands do).

fetch will update the upstream., The rebase command rewrites your
revision history by (roughly) applying the commits you had as patches to
the new tip of upstream, and committing them serially; of course this
breaks collaboration with you for other repositories; or even with
yourself if you have a laptop and desktop environment that you don't
keep in firm sync.

>  e) Merge from the updated upstream into my hacking branch.

d has done that.

>  f) Generate diffs between the upstream branch to my hacking branch
> to send upstream.

I think its patchbomb for this; but I'm not a git afficiondo :)

> It would be much appreciated if someone could clue me in on this
> stuff. For instance, I'm not sure the above is even the right way
> to work with git. I have found dozens of supposed explanations and
> howtos on the net and none of then are anywhere near a complete
> picture. many of them are not even helpful.

-Rob
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Re: [SLUG] Anyone familiar with git?

[Robert Collins]

On Thu, 2008-04-10 at 21:22 +1000, Amos Shapira wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 6:13 PM, Erik de Castro Lopo
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> >  I'm interested in hacking on a project that uses git and although I
> >  have used cvs, sccs, GNU arch, bzr, svn, perforce, darcs and others,
> >  git seems to have gotten the better of me.
> >
> >  What I would like to do is the following:
> >
> >   a) Pull the upstreams sources (this I can already do).
> >
> >   b) Create branch of the upstream sources for my own hacking (I
> > think this is "git clone upstream hacking").
> 
> Ahmm, "branch"... :^).
> 
> I haven't used it but there was a link posted here a few weeks ago to
> a lecture that Linus gave at Google about GIT. Maybe it's worth the
> trouble of watching it (he's a very entertaining speaker) to help get
> your head around how GIT is supposed to be used (a google about "linus
> google git lecture" came up with many links).
> 
> One thing I remember from that talk is that basically every time you
> download from a GIT repository you effectively create a branch.

Thats the basics of any DVCS, and Erik has been using DVCS's for many
years now.

No, this problem is about 'how to use the beast called git', not the
general topic.

-Rob

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Re: [SLUG] Network Real-Time Hot Filesystem Replication?

[Robert Collins]

On Sat, 2008-04-05 at 09:52 +1100, Crossfire wrote:
> I've just spent some time quickly researching this to no real satisfaction.
> 
> What I'm looking for is a way to do real-time hot-replication of a whole 
> filesystem or filesystem tree over 2 nodes (and strictly 2 nodes) 
> without STOMITH[1].
> 
> The scenario is I have two identical systems with local (software) 
> RAID1.  They will be tethered onto their internet feed via ethernet, and 
> can optionally be tethered to each other via Gig.
> 
> I want to be able to set it up so /home (and maybe other filesystems) 
> are replicated from one to the other, in both directions, in real time 
> so they can run in an all-hot redundant cluster.
> 
> The environment should be mostly read-oriented, so I can live with 
> write-latent solutions as long as they handle the race/collision 
> gracefully (preferably by actually detecting and reporting it if they 
> can't avoid it).
> 
> The options I've investigated so far:
> 
> * Lustre (MDS requirements[2] make this not an option)
> * GlobalFS (STOMITH requirements make this not an option.  Oriented
>towards shared media too, which I am not using)
> * tsync (Naive concurrent operation model, but otherwise viable)
> * MogileFS (not quite what I was looking for, but none the less useful).
> * OpenAFS (read-only replication only, loss of the node hosting the
>write volume still renders the volume unwritable).
> 
> Is anybody aware of any other options that I've missed?

http://sourceforge.net/projects/ceph/

-Rob
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Re: [SLUG] whack MBR

[Robert Collins]

On Tue, 2008-04-01 at 09:58 +1100, Peter Miller wrote:
> Dear Lazy Web,
> 
> I am presently debugging PXE installs for our product.  This involves a
> lot of round trips like this:
> 1. enter bios setup, disable disk boot
> 2. netboot and install Linux, when that reboots
> 3. notice the reboot, hit DEL, enable disk boot
> 4. shiny new linux boots, not perfect, figure our what went wrong, go
> back to step 1
> 
> The bios doesn't have a "Press F12 to enter boot menu" which would be
> particularly useful, because I could then leave disk boot enabled. 
> 
> So, dear reader, if you have got this far, how hard is it to add a
> "Whack Master Boot Record" to the *grub* boot menu, alongside memtest86,
> which would overwrite the MBR with all zero?  That option, combined with
> a h/w reset, could be used to cause a fresh install.
> 
> Has such a thing been written?  what is the package name?

I'd probably do it with a trivial initramfs that dd's 0's to the
relevant device :>

-Rob

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Re: [SLUG] DST in debain

[Robert Collins]

On Sun, 2008-03-30 at 20:21 +1100, Rev Simon Rumble wrote:
> This one time, at band camp, Sonia Hamilton wrote:
> 
> > Long and short of it some devices will change incorrectly todat (eg my
> > mobile phone), others are correct. Thank $deity I haven't got a large
> > server/blackberry/phone infrastructure to manage at the moment.
> 
> My Ubuntu desktop doesn't seem to have done it right.  Now how to fix 
> it?  There's no new tzdata package available...

There is a bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/209429

'dpkg-reconfigure tzdata' and select sydney again, will fix it.

-Rob
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Re: [SLUG] Nomination: Anna Buttfield

[Robert Collins]

On Thu, 2008-03-27 at 08:27 +1100, Sridhar Dhanapalan wrote:
> On Wed, 26 Mar 2008 at 11:43, "James Dumay" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > I am proud to nominate Anna Buttfield for the position of Ordinary
> > Committee Member.
> >
> > Anna has been an integral organiser and liaison venue for the SLUG this
> > year. She has demonstrated an amazing interest in both the SLUG and Free
> > and Open Source software community in Sydney and Australia.
> >
> > I feel Anna will be a invaluable member to this years team if elected.
> >
> > Anna, I would like to thank you personally for the hard work you have been
> > doing to make SLUG @ Atlassian possible - without you we would not have
> > been able to put on such a great monthly event.
> 
> 100% seconded. Anna has been the one keeping our venue available and usable 
> every month. She deserves a massive pat on the back... and a committee post.

The reward for a job well done another job.
-Rob

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[SLUG] Re: [activities] Installfest at University of Wollongong tomorrow

[Robert Collins]

On Fri, 2008-03-14 at 12:13 +1100, Martin Visser wrote:
> Just a reminder if you want to help out at the 'Gong Uni installfest
> we could still do with a 2 or 3 more volunteers to help assist
> tomorrow
> 
> Incentives include enjoying the nice drive to Wollongong in early
> autumn, pizza and softdrink being provided, and the opportunity to
> show your installation wrangling talent on the variety of machines the
> students will be bringing in. (We have 46 students signed up, so we
> have an assured participation).
> 
> Please do let Ashley or myself know if you are coming (we don't want
> too many volunteers and we do have a small quorum of volunteers
> already)

Perhaps a wiki page where people can edit themselves in would make it
more clear to people whether they are needed or not.

Right now the process seems to be roughly:
1) decide you can help
2) clear your weekend
3) email you and ashley
4) wait an arbitrary amount of time
5) find out you count as 'too many' and really should have accepted that
cruise on the harbour you declined during 4).

-Rob
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Re: [SLUG] HOWTO make a Ubuntu Live CD

[Robert Collins]

On Thu, 2008-03-06 at 18:24 +1100, Ken Caldwell wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I would like to make a Ubuntu live CD. That is to say a CD similar to
> the usual installation CD but with the installer stripped out. The CDs
> would be used in a classroom where I don't want students actually
> installing Ubuntu just running it from the CD. I haven't (yet) found out
> how to do this. Do any sluggers have any pointers?

Expand the squashfs from the cd to a live ext3 file system, chroot into
it and remove ubiquity.

Then recompress, generate a new iso with the new squashfs, and you're
good to go.

-Rob
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Re: [SLUG] Data Leakage Prevention and Detection

[Robert Collins]

On Mon, 2008-02-11 at 10:28 +1100, Ricky wrote:
> Dear SLUG List
> 
> Has anyone come across any Linux/Open Source Data Leakage Prevention (DLP)
> solution ?

I thought selinux has something in this space.

-Rob
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Re: [SLUG] Re: [activities] If you could ask Microsoft a question, what would it be?

[Robert Collins]

On Mon, 2008-01-14 at 19:08 +1100, Jeff Waugh wrote:
> > >Perhaps it would be useful to say,
> > > "we're only really interested in talking to your Open Source
> Office
> > > people". :-)
> > 
> > I don't think that that is useful, particularly as its not true.
> 
> Er, what is not true?

The clause in your sentence following 'perhaps it would be useful to
say' (which is the obvious binding :)). so...

>  c) Perhaps it would be useful to say, "we're only really interested
> in
>  talking to your Open Source Office people". (Are you suggesting it
> wouldn't
>  be useful to say this?)

I'm saying its not true that 'we're only really interested...' because:
 - I'd certainly be interested in anyone up the management chain from
the open source office
 - folk from the open source office are really not interested to me for
the reasons I pointed out..

> I never claimed that company-wide policy was set in the Open Source
> Office,
> in fact I've made the same point you have re: decision-making on a
> number of
> occasions in the thread (particularly where it migrated to other
> lists).

I did not claim that you made such a claim [there's no need to highlight
that you didn't make that claim]; I said that such folk are not
interesting because they don't set policy high enough up in the company
to prevent the behaviour that is the issue here...

-Rob

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Re: [SLUG] Re: [activities] If you could ask Microsoft a question, what would it be?

[Robert Collins]

On Mon, 2008-01-14 at 15:58 +1100, Jeff Waugh wrote:
> 
> 
> > I can think of few things in the IT sector less interesting to me than a
> > visit from a MS marketroid. Get a MS leader in the door, and thats a
> > different thing.
> 
> The original person visiting was not a marketroid. It'll be interesting to
> see who they propose instead. Perhaps it would be useful to say, "we're only
> really interested in talking to your Open Source Office people". :-)

I don't think that that is useful, particularly as its not true. The
open source office is not the place that company wide direction is set.
Microsoft is thousands of times larger than a company needs to be for
left-hand and right-hand doing different things to occur in the absence
of clear leadership on specific issues. The folk that need to engage
*us* about open source and open standards etc etc are not the folk on
the left hand, or the right hand, but the head, the (as much as a
company can have) global direction setters. Until *they* are walking the
walk and talking the talk, you can almost guarantee that Microsoft will
continue to work sporadically *at best* at being a participant in the
open source community.

-Rob

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Re: [SLUG] Re: [activities] If you could ask Microsoft a question, what would it be?

[Robert Collins]

On Sun, 2008-01-13 at 11:59 +1100, Sridhar Dhanapalan wrote:
> On Sun, 13 Jan 2008, Erik de Castro Lopo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Good will is not coming to a LUG meeting and pushing microsoft's agenda.
> > Good will is doing something that costs Microsoft and benefits Linux and
> > FOSS far more than it benefits Microsoft.
> 
> 100% agreed. If they don't back this up with something of substance, the 
> whole 
> visit would have been a waste of everyone's time.
> 
> At the very least, this is an opportunity to have them visit our turf, on our 
> own terms, and force them to respond to everything we throw at them. Lab rats 
> spring to mind :)

I really don't think that that is how it will pan out. The folk being
proposed to visit are what, 10? 20? reporting levels down from the
leaders of the company.

I can think of few things in the IT sector less interesting to me than a
visit from a MS marketroid. Get a MS leader in the door, and thats a
different thing.

-Rob

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Re: [SLUG] Override the tools

[Robert Collins]

On Sat, 2008-01-12 at 11:13 +0900, jam wrote:
> 
> dpkg and apt seem to not have the options. Every one says 
> aptitude is better. Wow not for the likes of me! but it still
> does not allow packages to be broken.
> 
> Short of lists and a stick can the package manger be forced?

It can be but you don't need to. Remove ubuntu-desktop and keep the
packages it references that you do want.

-Rob
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Re: [SLUG] BarCamp Sydney

[Robert Collins]

On Wed, 2007-12-19 at 10:53 -0800, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Hi there,
> 
> We have posted the "BarCamp Sydney" event and also many other more on
> Esparko.com. Esparko.com is another great avenue to help promote your
> future events. You may post and manage your own events at any time you
> want yourself on Esparko.com and share them with others with click of
> a button. As for your reference, you may also click on the link
> attached to access the event details or go visit other events on
> www.esparko.com directly.
> 
> BarCamp Sydney
> http://www.esparko.com/event.aspx?eid=9bc92924-bf0a-4ff9-8e22-dc048fffcea5

This reads like an advertisement for esparko, rather than an invite to
BarCamp :)

Perhaps including details like time, place and a brief description for
folk that are ignorant of what a BarCamp is would get more folk
involved.

Also, putting the BarCamp link into the Slug calendar might be a good
idea.

-Rob

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Re: [SLUG] Death to trackerd

[Robert Collins]

On Sun, 2007-12-02 at 22:25 +1100, Erik de Castro Lopo wrote:

> So, does anyone have anything positive to say about trackerd?

It shows how hard robust and painless indexing is to achieve :).

-Rob
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Re: [SLUG] {Commercial} SafeSquid "SPEED-BOOSTER" 4.2.0 Released

[Robert Collins]

On Sat, 2007-09-29 at 05:59 +, Proxy wrote:
> Hello All,
> 
> SafeSquid "SPEED-BOOSTER" 4.2.0 for Linux has been released.
> Increasing throughout, is the key goals of 4.2.0.The changes made in
> the new version are as follows -

NOT RELATED TO SQUID AT ALL.

Entirely spam, a commercial product riding on the squid name and brand.

Not happy!

-Rob
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Re: [SLUG] Which multiport NICs for Linux ?

[Robert Collins]

On Sun, 2007-09-23 at 21:30 +1000, Minh Van Le wrote:
> Hello :)
> 
> I want to set up an IP accounting box for a home network.
> 
> My idea is to install x2 quad port ethernet NICs in a Red Hat server to
> compose the topology below.
> 
> Do people know of any good Linux compatible multiport NICs I can use ?

I suspect most just work these days.

> Or are there any other suggestions ?

I would just do

ADSL Router
 |
Linux server
 |
Hub
PC's.

Massively simpler, less equipment needed.

-Rob

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Re: [SLUG] Linux and Windows interoperabiliy

[Robert Collins]

On Thu, 2007-09-20 at 09:29 +1000, Amos Shapira wrote:
> On 20/09/2007, Ken Foskey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> > cygwin is like Linux I have never had any problems getting things sorted
> > out, the community is very strong. We have plenty of Unix experts at my
> > company so I leveraged those skills as well.
> 
> 
> What about the licensing?
> 
> Our coders now use Cygwin to make shell scripts run on Windows and noticed
> that the API is GPL'ed (they just port shell scripts but for output
> redirection they had to write a small C program using the API).

Cygwin1.dll is GPL'd with an exception for any OSI approved FOSS
licence. If you distribute a binary it must be under an OSI approved
FOSS licence. There are proprietary versions of cygwin available from
redhat.

-Rob
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Re: [SLUG] Suspenseful laptops

[Robert Collins]

On Fri, 2007-09-14 at 11:18 +0930, Michael Davies wrote:
> On 14/09/2007, Jeff Waugh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > 
> >
> > > James Dumay wrote:
> > >
> > > > They are not heavy MacBook Pros are.
> > >
> > > Next SLUG meeting, how about we compare the weight of your machine against
> > > my Dell or Robert's Dell?
> >
> > I challenge you both to a fight with wet newspapers.
> >
> > (MacBook Pros are wrapped in metal. MacBooks are wrapped in plastic. Heavy
> > plastic!)
> 
> Bah!  According to http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/specs.html and
> http://www.apple.com/macbook/specs.html ...
> 
> Mac Book 13"
>   Total weight: 2.31kg
>   Weight / inch of screen: 0.177 kg/inch
> 
> Mac Book Pro 15"
>   Total weight: 2.45kg
>   Weight / inch of screen: 0.163 kg/inch
> 
> Mac Book Pro 17"
>   Total weight: 3.08kg
>   Weight / inch of screen: 0.181 kg/inch
> 
> So it all depends on whether you're talking about the 15" or 17" MBP
> in comparison to the MB :-)

Sounds like a choice from '1.5 times heavier to 2.5 times heavier' :)

-Rob
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Re: [SLUG] Suspenseful laptops

[Robert Collins]

On Thu, 2007-09-13 at 13:46 +1000, James Gregory wrote:

> > I'm very happy with the Dell D420, which has been updated to Core 2 Duo with
> > the newer Dell D430. Robert Collins has one of these, so he can tell you how
> > sweet it is. :-) Mine works really nicely, with Intel top-to-bottom.
> 
> Neat. Thanks dude. Looks a little slow though -- 1.2 GHz. Do you find it
> so?

Slow is relative. Its a dual core 64-bit machine with 2G of ram. Frankly
it goes like a rocket. 'tar xzf ../mozilla.tar.gz . ' in a fresh mozilla
tree (550MB of data) takes 33 seconds. (clearly thats single cpu , and
benchmarks suck - but there you go).

-Rob


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Re: [SLUG] Free to good home - new dell all-in-one 946 printer.

[Robert Collins]

On Wed, 2007-08-29 at 11:46 +1000, Robert Collins wrote:
> I recently bought a laptop, and due to bizarre marketing voodoo it was
> cheaper to buy it with a printer. I have a printer already though, so
> the new one is off to a good home.

And its found a home - thanks!

-Rob
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[SLUG] Free to good home - new dell all-in-one 946 printer.

[Robert Collins]

I recently bought a laptop, and due to bizarre marketing voodoo it was
cheaper to buy it with a printer. I have a printer already though, so
the new one is off to a good home.

Cheers,
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Re: [SLUG] {OT} Have a read of this

[Robert Collins]

On Wed, 2007-08-15 at 09:32 +1000, Nicholas Tomlin wrote:
> http://cecaust.com.au/main.asp?sub=ausnews&id=2007_08_13.htm

Including a small snippet about it is polite at a minimum. 

In this case its not just OT, its completely unrelated to linux and at
best belongs on slug-chat with a topic like 'howard and water scam' or
something.

Or were you spamming us and we should blacklist you?

-Rob

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Re: [SLUG] Injecting information into a bind server

[Robert Collins]

On Thu, 2007-08-09 at 13:03 +1000, Alex Samad wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On Thu, Aug 09, 2007 at 08:03:41AM +1000, Ershad Shafi Chowdhury
> wrote:
> > have you considered using the "hosts" file to resolve names
> internally? its
> > ok for a couple of machines, but if you have hundreds, then views
> seems to
> > be the way to go.
> > 
> doesn't work for things like squid 

Sure it does.

-Rob
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Re: [SLUG] Audio skipping on Ubuntu kernels

[Robert Collins]

On Wed, 2007-08-01 at 13:56 +1000, Jeff Waugh wrote:
> 
> 
> > > > is there any reason you cant go to a cpu specific kernel?
> > > Because the largely pointless number of CPU specific kernels were
> > > reduced to a single generic kernel for edgy.
> > see hard disk IO
> 
> Not entirely sure how that's relevant to CPU-specific kernels. Separate
> kernels remain for the 'server' config, which may be relevant, but...

And IIRC the kernel team would like to remove them too.

Specifically the bigiron flavour is apparently unused and the only folk
with the relevant hardware roll their own *anyway*.

-Rob
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Re: [SLUG] Audio skipping on Ubuntu kernels

[Robert Collins]

On Wed, 2007-08-01 at 13:27 +1000, James Gregory wrote:
> Hey guys,
> 
> I've found that playback of music on my laptop has this horrible,
> horrible tendency to "skip" (by which I mean that the music stops for
> some fraction of a second) extremely frequently. This has only been
> occurring since Ubuntu's -generic kernels came in (I forget which
> version that was).

I'd check your disk is using dma; PIO disk IO is a great way to turn
your laptop into a snail.

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Re: [SLUG] WAN link optimisation

[Robert Collins]

On Fri, 2007-07-27 at 15:36 +1000, Gavin Carr wrote:
> 
> What I'd _really_ like, though, (and haven't found any explicit
> references 
> to yet) is like (3) but actually duplicating packets down multiple
> links, a 
> sort of 'network raid 1' where (3) is network raid 0. In other words, 
> something that transparently splits a stream into multiple duplicate
> streams 
> down separate links, which are then merged/multiplexed at the other
> end, and
> duplicates discarded. Effectively trading bandwidth for latence,
> given 
> multiple links.
> 
> Anyone heard of anything at all like that? Or am I crazy?

For a single direction:
Standard end host behaviour is to discard duplicates; which can occur
naturally (though not commonly). As for duplicating the outbound packets
onto multiple links, you can probably roll-your-own with a little bit of
userspace hackery; I'd start with the LARTC as a starting point.

-Rob

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Re: [SLUG] WAN link optimisation

[Robert Collins]

On Fri, 2007-07-27 at 11:15 +0930, Glen Turner wrote:
> Secondly, if you run a QoS network connected
> to a non-QoS network then you might want to do deep packet
> inspection and set the DSCP on incoming traffic. Otherwise
> you end up with a situation where the user on the non-QoS
> network gets a nice picture but the user on the QoS network
> gets the poor picture. 

Can you not just mark all traffic from the non-QoS network as low
priority non-realtime ?

-Rob
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Re: [SLUG] Linux laptop repairs?

[Robert Collins]

On Mon, 2007-07-09 at 18:36 +1000, Erik de Castro Lopo wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> Anyone have any recommendations for a laptop repairer who knows
> what Linux is. I have a Dell laptop with nothing but Linux on it
> a minor hardware problem.

Why not use Dell? They've repaired my X1 a number of times now, and its
Linux only too.

-Rob
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Re: [SLUG] Trojan Horse Loaded Version Of Ubuntu 7.04 Spreading Over Torrent Sites

[Robert Collins]

On Wed, 2007-06-27 at 22:09 +1000, Amos Shapira wrote:
> For the benefit of those who might not follow such news (e.g. Linux newbies
> who take their first steps in downloading and installing such software), I
> post this here as a warning - don't download just any copy of a Linux distro
> unless it's coming from an official distro site and (or?) without verifying
> the checksums with those provided on an official mirror site.
> 
> http://www.funtechtalk.com/trojan-horse-loaded-version-of-ubuntu-704-spreading-over-torrent-sites/

This currently appears to be FUD. Note the complete lack of supporting
documentation on the blog post.

You should *always* verify the sha1sum of anything you download, and
using the ubuntu mirror archive should be safe. If you are using a
torrent, just check the sha1sum of the output iso against the sha1sum
from the ubuntu network - which you should do anyhow :). 

-Rob
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Re: [SLUG] Etch on ibook

[Robert Collins]

On Thu, 2007-04-26 at 11:09 +1000, Luke Yelavich wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 26, 2007 at 09:49:09AM EST, Robert Collins wrote:
> > At a guess:
> >  1) install the ubuntu kernel, acpi-support, laptop* packages.
> 
> PowerPC machines do not use ACPI.

Thats true. However there are a bunch of suspend etc scripts that they
may well use which are included in the acpi-support package. (Note that
I didn't list acpid as a package to replace).

-Rob
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Re: [SLUG] Etch on ibook

[Robert Collins]

On Wed, 2007-04-25 at 13:06 +1000, Alan L Tyree wrote:
> I've just installed Etch with xfce on my iBook. I can't quite figure
> out what I need to install/configure to get the machine to "sleep". I
> know that it works since I was earlier running Ubuntu on it.
> 
> I will probably be embarrassed by the ease of finding the answer, but
> it has eluded me so far.

At a guess:
 1) install the ubuntu kernel, acpi-support, laptop* packages.
 2) Deal with the resulting breakage from various ABI mismatches (e.g.
your video DRI support may break).

-Rob
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Re: [SLUG] Dual booting a USB stick

[Robert Collins]

On Tue, 2007-04-24 at 09:11 +0800, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> On Tuesday 24 April 2007 07:51, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> > Does anyone know if it's possible, and if so how, a USB stick can be
> > made to be setup as dual boot with either Lilo or Grub (I assume).
> >
> > I have a 2Gb USB stick which currently boots to SysRescueCD, but I would
> > also like to dual boot to Ubuntu as well.
> 
> Welcome to a topsy turvey world:
> 
> You *can* just do normal grub stuff. I've done it 10% success rate :-(
> You probably need to RFM on syslinux. 
> Your CD probably has got booting done with syslinux and its different, but 
> not 
> too hard to do.
> 
> With both it IS possible, from what I've seen 100% success rate with syslinux

usb sticks should boot just fine grub; the kernel and initramfs on the
ubuntu cd's will boot fine with grub; but you'll need to pass in the
same magic parameters that the isolinux on the cd is if you want to boot
into the ubuntu livecd environment (without them it tries to boot
normally without the squashfs and unionfs stuff that casper provides).

HTH,
Cheers,
Rob

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Re: [SLUG] downloading multiple files using MIME multipart/related

[Robert Collins]

On Sat, 2007-04-21 at 22:43 +1000, Amos Shapira wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> Does anyone have a pointer for a sample of code which sends multiple files
> as a single HTTP response using MIME multipart/related?
> 
> All the code or explanations I found so far are talking about either
> creating MIME e-mail messages or parsing multipart responses (or even upload
> of multiple files using multipart/related over HTTP), but nothing that shows
> how to do this as an HTTP server.

Last I checked RC2616 does not defnied multipart/related semantics for
HTTP.

> Perl and C/C++ are most useful, but I think an example with any
> language/tools might help.
> 
> (A little background - I'm looking for ways to speed up sending of thousands
> of small files between internal hosts, the client right now is running on
> Windows but I hope to convert it to Linux one day (the server runs Linux).
> Currently it uses ftp and just can't keep up with the volume).

HTTP/1.1 persistent connections, single file at a time should be fine
and scale to several 10's of thousand of requests per second on a single
host.

Rob
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Re: [SLUG] Doing a demo of Ubuntu at my place of work

[Robert Collins]

On Thu, 2007-04-19 at 18:36 +1000, Howard Lowndes wrote:
> 
> What might be meant is that the sales droids make commission on the
> sales.

And? They still get a commission, of the same amount - or more
(different product lines often have different margins) with what I'm
suggesting.

-Rob

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Re: [SLUG] Doing a demo of Ubuntu at my place of work

[Robert Collins]

On Thu, 2007-04-19 at 17:52 +1000, David Ward wrote:

> Thanks Amos.  This is something I have thought of and mentioned to
> some
> of the sales stuff.  Their instant reaction is that if there's no
> money
> in Linux why bother selling it?
> 
> They sell MS software and make margin on it.  So can understand what
> they are saying but dont agree with them.  
> 
> I am definately not a sales person :) 

Say the client wants to spend no more than $1000/employee on computer
systems.

With MS Windows, thats what - 700 in hardware, 300 in the base OS.
With Linux, the salespeople can do several things:
 - 1000 hardware
 - 700 hardware, 300 in services (e.g. training on Linux :))
 - 700 hardware, 300 towards server room hardware or other things the
client wants and could not have afforded previously.

-Rob
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Re: [SLUG] Samsung SGHA701 / USB connection

[Robert Collins]

On Thu, 2007-04-12 at 13:48 +1000, david wrote:
> 
> Is this just to stop idiots messing up the phone's software, or is
> there
> a genuine problem with plugging one of these gadgets into a linux box?

Its probably to stop windows assigning a generic driver to the device
before their software is installed.

-Rob
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Re: [SLUG] Microsoft's tool to assess Linux Persona

[Robert Collins]

On Tue, 2007-03-20 at 18:49 +1100, Howard Lowndes wrote:
> http://www.linuxpersonas.com/

Shame it doesn't work on linux :).

(Firefox, flashplayer-somethingorother installed).

Rob
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Re: [SLUG] RAID Performance Oddness - Update

[Robert Collins]

On Fri, 2007-03-02 at 11:34 +1100, Craig Dibble wrote:
> 
> 
> It may well be that spelling it out like this makes it look obvious
> what
> the problem is, but since the results I was getting seemed to be
> contrary to popular wisdom, and to any documentation I have read, I
> had
> a hard time trying to explain what I was seeing. Hand-waving aside, I
> think this explanation fits the bill.

I dont, because you have ignored the parallelism in each spindle.

With 10 disks, doing 10 writes, one per disk, should take precisely as
long as 5 disks, doing 5 writes, one per disk, as long as you have
bandwidth on your SCSI bus.

-Rob

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Re: [SLUG] wenwe

[Robert Collins]

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
I hate to play (wenwe were in Zimbawbe ...) but rpm has *never* left me up the 
creek without a paddle:


apt-get install kde4base-dev
...
I guess if that if everyone believes the wonderful toy is truly wonderful then 
the cracks never get to be fixed.


This is a known upgrade defect in ubuntu, though I only see it for kde3 
stuff(*). Where did you get that package? (The version number looks odd).


http://people.ubuntu.com/~robertc/possible-conflicts/edgy/universe.txt

-Rob
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Re: [SLUG] [EMAIL PROTECTED]: [activities] Call For Participation: Distro Discussion Panel @ Friday's meeting]

[Robert Collins]

On Thu, 2007-02-22 at 14:34 +1100, Lindsay Holmwood wrote:
> 
> G'day all!
> We're running low on volunteers - anyone else want to represent their
> favourite distro? 

What ones do you have?

Rob
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