From kayve at sfsu.edu Fri May 1 18:43:50 2009 From: kayve at sfsu.edu (KAYVEN RIESE) Date: Fri, 1 May 2009 18:43:50 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [buug] fvwm focus In-Reply-To: <87ocuex0s0.fsf@matica.localdomain> References: <87fxfs7r8h.fsf@matica.localdomain> <20090428165152.GA31982@wagner> <20090428172830.16903axqiuxj3gu8@webmail.rawbw.com> <20090429180023.GA5350@wagner> <87ocuex0s0.fsf@matica.localdomain> Message-ID: On Wed, 29 Apr 2009, Ian Zimmerman wrote: > > Claude> "FocusFollowsIntent" is an old joke picked up from BUUG many > Claude> years ago. > > Ahh, your original reply makes much more sense now :) AI technology that can understand MRI imaging of radiolabeled glucosage usage--they have that now! > > -- > Ian Zimmerman > gpg public key: 1024D/C6FF61AD > fingerprint: 66DC D68F 5C1B 4D71 2EE5 BD03 8A00 786C C6FF 61AD > Ham is for reading, not for eating. > _______________________________________________ > Buug mailing list > Buug at weak.org > http://www.weak.org/mailman/listinfo/buug > *----------------------------------------------------------* Kayven Riese, BSCS, MS (Physiology and Biophysics) (415) 902 5513 cellular http://kayve.net Webmaster http://ChessYoga.org *----------------------------------------------------------* From kayve at sfsu.edu Fri May 1 19:07:50 2009 From: kayve at sfsu.edu (KAYVEN RIESE) Date: Fri, 1 May 2009 19:07:50 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [buug] (no subject) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, 30 Apr 2009, william benton wrote: > > If I want to put a unix os on a pc(not linux), is a unix os(not linux) > available as freeware? what is the best source? Is berkeley unix > available as freeware? Is BSD berkeley unix? I mean is it exactly like > what you would get if you went to the university and logged on to their > machine? not exactly.. pcbsd.org, freebsd.org, netbsd.org, dragonflybsd.org, and openbsd.org are all independent projects that spun off the 4.4 BSD source code There is such a thing as http://www.bsd.org/ that seems to link out to the others. Mac OS X is derived from a BSD called Darwin. Currently, the UC (as always) has a vast array of computational resources. They even have a Windoze Lab! (ugg!) [=:O https://iris.eecs.berkeley.edu/ http://www.freebsd.org/copyright/license.html > > thanks > > > > > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > Windows Live? SkyDrive?: Get 25 GB of free online storage. > http://windowslive.com/online/skydrive?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_skydrive_042009 *----------------------------------------------------------* Kayven Riese, BSCS, MS (Physiology and Biophysics) (415) 902 5513 cellular http://kayve.net Webmaster http://ChessYoga.org *----------------------------------------------------------* From kayve at sfsu.edu Fri May 1 19:13:54 2009 From: kayve at sfsu.edu (KAYVEN RIESE) Date: Fri, 1 May 2009 19:13:54 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [buug] (no subject) In-Reply-To: <3424dc900904301057l2610cbd8s8164ea4beeea2601@mail.gmail.com> References: <20090430170148.GA8264@primate.net> <3424dc900904301042t53e96e1fn3e32a6f87044a70b@mail.gmail.com> <3424dc900904301057l2610cbd8s8164ea4beeea2601@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 30 Apr 2009, Tony Godshall wrote: > [the WB wrote] >>>> If I want to put a unix os on a pc(not linux), is a unix os(not linux) >>>> available as freeware? what is the best source? Is berkeley unix available >>>> as freeware? Is BSD berkeley unix? I mean is it exactly like what you >>>> would get if you went to the university and logged on to their machine? > ... > > [I wrote] >> If you want something other than a wild guess, you might read this... >> >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD#Significant_BSD_descendants > ... > > And here's a chart of what variants are most popular as of 2005... > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_BSD_operating_systems#Popularity I feel like pointing out that PC-BSD is actually a FreeBSD.. just packaged up and purported to be user friendly. I am about to try it out on the new puter I am hopefully getting soon. > Anyone out there in BUUG-land actually know for a fact what is used at > U.C. Berkeley? I assume it varies by department. What are you I was trying to think what they had in the 2nd floor of Soda. I just took a couple of courses there. I think they were Suns. That's the non-windoze labs {:) > actually interested in, William, computer science? General computer > labs? Engineering labs? (I hear computer labs in universities are > closing now that everyone has their own computers) The general push now adays is that all these script kiddies run what they want. Sometimes Ubuntu, sometimes windoze, sometimes macs. etc. > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix#2000_to_present > > Best Regards. > Please keep in touch. > This is unedited. > P-) > _______________________________________________ > Buug mailing list > Buug at weak.org > http://www.weak.org/mailman/listinfo/buug > *----------------------------------------------------------* Kayven Riese, BSCS, MS (Physiology and Biophysics) (415) 902 5513 cellular http://kayve.net Webmaster http://ChessYoga.org *----------------------------------------------------------* From togo at of.net Sat May 2 13:19:56 2009 From: togo at of.net (Tony Godshall) Date: Sat, 2 May 2009 13:19:56 -0700 Subject: [buug] (no subject) In-Reply-To: References: <20090430170148.GA8264@primate.net> <3424dc900904301042t53e96e1fn3e32a6f87044a70b@mail.gmail.com> <3424dc900904301057l2610cbd8s8164ea4beeea2601@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <3424dc900905021319p454d9a52kaa1060a9bf762181@mail.gmail.com> ... >> Anyone out there in BUUG-land actually know for a fact what is used at >> U.C. Berkeley? ?I assume it varies by department. ?What are you > > I was trying to think what they had in the 2nd floor of Soda. ?I just took > a couple of courses there. ?I think they were Suns. ?That's the > non-windoze labs ?{:) Yeah, I guess Solaris is the closest thing to a corporate Real Unix around today. Of course they, like BSD, replaced the Unix copyright stuff so they don't call it Unix(tm) either. Of course now they are owned by Oracle, and they've open-srouced much of it... >> actually interested in, William, computer science? ?General computer >> labs? ?Engineering labs? ?(I hear computer labs in universities are >> closing now that everyone has their own computers) > > The general push now adays is that all these script kiddies run what they > want. ?Sometimes Ubuntu, sometimes windoze, sometimes macs. etc. You are calling UC Berkeley students script-kiddies? I'd assumed script-kiddies weren't smart enough to get into Cal. Tony From oly562 at charter.net Sat May 2 13:42:14 2009 From: oly562 at charter.net (PR) Date: Sat, 02 May 2009 13:42:14 -0700 Subject: [buug] (no subject) In-Reply-To: <3424dc900905021319p454d9a52kaa1060a9bf762181@mail.gmail.com> References: <20090430170148.GA8264@primate.net> <3424dc900904301042t53e96e1fn3e32a6f87044a70b@mail.gmail.com> <3424dc900904301057l2610cbd8s8164ea4beeea2601@mail.gmail.com> <3424dc900905021319p454d9a52kaa1060a9bf762181@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49FCB026.4090908@charter.net> Some one lend me their log and pass, I would like to have a look-see at the UCB lab. ;) havn't log into a school lab since um... 1992? lol Tony Godshall wrote: > ... > >>> Anyone out there in BUUG-land actually know for a fact what is used at >>> U.C. Berkeley? I assume it varies by department. What are you >>> >> I was trying to think what they had in the 2nd floor of Soda. I just took >> a couple of courses there. I think they were Suns. That's the >> non-windoze labs {:) >> > > Yeah, I guess Solaris is the closest thing to a corporate Real Unix > around today. Of course they, like BSD, replaced the Unix copyright > stuff so they don't call it Unix(tm) either. Of course now they are > owned by Oracle, and they've open-srouced much of it... > > >>> actually interested in, William, computer science? General computer >>> labs? Engineering labs? (I hear computer labs in universities are >>> closing now that everyone has their own computers) >>> >> The general push now adays is that all these script kiddies run what they >> want. Sometimes Ubuntu, sometimes windoze, sometimes macs. etc. >> > > You are calling UC Berkeley students script-kiddies? I'd assumed > script-kiddies weren't smart enough to get into Cal. > > Tony > > _______________________________________________ > Buug mailing list > Buug at weak.org > http://www.weak.org/mailman/listinfo/buug > > From jose at tumis.com Sat May 2 15:10:19 2009 From: jose at tumis.com (jose d lopez) Date: Sat, 2 May 2009 15:10:19 -0700 Subject: [buug] (no subject) In-Reply-To: <49FCB026.4090908@charter.net> References: <20090430170148.GA8264@primate.net> <3424dc900904301042t53e96e1fn3e32a6f87044a70b@mail.gmail.com> <3424dc900904301057l2610cbd8s8164ea4beeea2601@mail.gmail.com> <3424dc900905021319p454d9a52kaa1060a9bf762181@mail.gmail.com> <49FCB026.4090908@charter.net> Message-ID: It varies, but campus wide services generally run on Solaris. Student run labs use FreeBSD or various *nix. The school itself is actually very luddite when it comes to IT. Departments have very strict rules for compliance if they want to run on the school network. On May 2, 2009, at 1:42 PM, PR wrote: > Some one lend me their log and pass, I would like to have a look-see > at > the UCB lab. ;) havn't log into a school lab since um... 1992? lol > > Tony Godshall wrote: >> ... >> >>>> Anyone out there in BUUG-land actually know for a fact what is >>>> used at >>>> U.C. Berkeley? I assume it varies by department. What are you >>>> >>> I was trying to think what they had in the 2nd floor of Soda. I >>> just took >>> a couple of courses there. I think they were Suns. That's the >>> non-windoze labs {:) >>> >> >> Yeah, I guess Solaris is the closest thing to a corporate Real Unix >> around today. Of course they, like BSD, replaced the Unix copyright >> stuff so they don't call it Unix(tm) either. Of course now they are >> owned by Oracle, and they've open-srouced much of it... >> >> >>>> actually interested in, William, computer science? General >>>> computer >>>> labs? Engineering labs? (I hear computer labs in universities are >>>> closing now that everyone has their own computers) >>>> >>> The general push now adays is that all these script kiddies run >>> what they >>> want. Sometimes Ubuntu, sometimes windoze, sometimes macs. etc. >>> >> >> You are calling UC Berkeley students script-kiddies? I'd assumed >> script-kiddies weren't smart enough to get into Cal. >> >> Tony >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Buug mailing list >> Buug at weak.org >> http://www.weak.org/mailman/listinfo/buug >> >> > _______________________________________________ > Buug mailing list > Buug at weak.org > http://www.weak.org/mailman/listinfo/buug From oly562 at charter.net Sat May 2 19:48:52 2009 From: oly562 at charter.net (PR) Date: Sat, 02 May 2009 19:48:52 -0700 Subject: [buug] (no subject) In-Reply-To: References: <20090430170148.GA8264@primate.net> <3424dc900904301042t53e96e1fn3e32a6f87044a70b@mail.gmail.com> <3424dc900904301057l2610cbd8s8164ea4beeea2601@mail.gmail.com> <3424dc900905021319p454d9a52kaa1060a9bf762181@mail.gmail.com> <49FCB026.4090908@charter.net> Message-ID: <49FD0614.5000804@charter.net> rsa keys? 30 seconds? 2 firewalls? , as well as be added to nis. thats what i need at my last job and is understandable. ;) I mean, be on the phone, give me ALL credentials so I can have a peek at UCB net. assumed wishful thoughts ;) jose d lopez wrote: > Ha, ha. It's actually not that easy as login/pass anymore. If you're > not on the campus network, LAN or AirBears- wireless, you need to VPN > in, then connect to servers. No external connections allowed. > > There are a few offices that run rogue APs and servers but UCB IT is > proactive on shutting them down. > > > > On May 2, 2009, at 1:42 PM, PR wrote: > >> Some one lend me their log and pass, I would like to have a look-see at >> the UCB lab. ;) havn't log into a school lab since um... 1992? lol >> >> Tony Godshall wrote: >>> ... >>> >>>>> Anyone out there in BUUG-land actually know for a fact what is >>>>> used at >>>>> U.C. Berkeley? I assume it varies by department. What are you >>>>> >>>> I was trying to think what they had in the 2nd floor of Soda. I >>>> just took >>>> a couple of courses there. I think they were Suns. That's the >>>> non-windoze labs {:) >>>> >>> >>> Yeah, I guess Solaris is the closest thing to a corporate Real Unix >>> around today. Of course they, like BSD, replaced the Unix copyright >>> stuff so they don't call it Unix(tm) either. Of course now they are >>> owned by Oracle, and they've open-srouced much of it... >>> >>> >>>>> actually interested in, William, computer science? General computer >>>>> labs? Engineering labs? (I hear computer labs in universities are >>>>> closing now that everyone has their own computers) >>>>> >>>> The general push now adays is that all these script kiddies run >>>> what they >>>> want. Sometimes Ubuntu, sometimes windoze, sometimes macs. etc. >>>> >>> >>> You are calling UC Berkeley students script-kiddies? I'd assumed >>> script-kiddies weren't smart enough to get into Cal. >>> >>> Tony >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Buug mailing list >>> Buug at weak.org >>> http://www.weak.org/mailman/listinfo/buug >>> >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> Buug mailing list >> Buug at weak.org >> http://www.weak.org/mailman/listinfo/buug > From bill.honeycutt at gmail.com Sat May 2 23:21:47 2009 From: bill.honeycutt at gmail.com (Wm. F. Honeycutt) Date: Sat, 2 May 2009 23:21:47 -0700 Subject: [buug] (no subject) In-Reply-To: <49FD0614.5000804@charter.net> References: <20090430170148.GA8264@primate.net> <3424dc900904301042t53e96e1fn3e32a6f87044a70b@mail.gmail.com> <3424dc900904301057l2610cbd8s8164ea4beeea2601@mail.gmail.com> <3424dc900905021319p454d9a52kaa1060a9bf762181@mail.gmail.com> <49FCB026.4090908@charter.net> <49FD0614.5000804@charter.net> Message-ID: <87acd5770905022321r7c24615fj7f2f7b6a13b7522@mail.gmail.com> Take a look at: http://nsi.org/Library/Compsec/computerlaw/Californ.txt Then consider the preceding post. Ask yourself, "Is it advisable to solicit user/login information to an unauthorized network in a public forum like BUUG's list server? I'm not making judgements, but this thread seems to be careening toward the Darwin Award short list. If you want to look at the Cal network, sign up for a class. On Sat, May 2, 2009 at 7:48 PM, PR wrote: > rsa keys? 30 seconds? 2 firewalls? , as well as be added to nis. thats > what i need at my last job and is understandable. ;) ?I mean, be on the > phone, give me ALL credentials so I can have a peek at UCB net. > > assumed wishful thoughts ;) > > jose d lopez wrote: >> Ha, ha. It's actually not that easy as login/pass anymore. If you're >> not on the campus network, LAN or AirBears- wireless, you need to VPN >> in, then connect to servers. No external connections allowed. >> >> There are a few offices that run rogue APs and servers but UCB IT is >> proactive on shutting them down. >> >> >> >> On May 2, 2009, at 1:42 PM, PR wrote: >> >>> Some one lend me their log and pass, I would like to have a look-see at >>> the UCB lab. ;) ?havn't log into a school lab since um... 1992? lol >>> >>> Tony Godshall wrote: >>>> ... >>>> >>>>>> Anyone out there in BUUG-land actually know for a fact what is >>>>>> used at >>>>>> U.C. Berkeley? ?I assume it varies by department. ?What are you >>>>>> >>>>> I was trying to think what they had in the 2nd floor of Soda. ?I >>>>> just took >>>>> a couple of courses there. ?I think they were Suns. ?That's the >>>>> non-windoze labs ?{:) >>>>> >>>> >>>> Yeah, I guess Solaris is the closest thing to a corporate Real Unix >>>> around today. ?Of course they, like BSD, replaced the Unix copyright >>>> stuff so they don't call it Unix(tm) either. ?Of course now they are >>>> owned by Oracle, and they've open-srouced much of it... >>>> >>>> >>>>>> actually interested in, William, computer science? ?General computer >>>>>> labs? ?Engineering labs? ?(I hear computer labs in universities are >>>>>> closing now that everyone has their own computers) >>>>>> >>>>> The general push now adays is that all these script kiddies run >>>>> what they >>>>> want. ?Sometimes Ubuntu, sometimes windoze, sometimes macs. etc. >>>>> >>>> >>>> You are calling UC Berkeley students script-kiddies? ?I'd assumed >>>> script-kiddies weren't smart enough to get into Cal. >>>> >>>> Tony >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> Buug mailing list >>>> Buug at weak.org >>>> http://www.weak.org/mailman/listinfo/buug >>>> >>>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Buug mailing list >>> Buug at weak.org >>> http://www.weak.org/mailman/listinfo/buug >> > _______________________________________________ > Buug mailing list > Buug at weak.org > http://www.weak.org/mailman/listinfo/buug > From Michael.Paoli at cal.berkeley.edu Sun May 3 01:04:01 2009 From: Michael.Paoli at cal.berkeley.edu (Michael Paoli) Date: Sun, 03 May 2009 01:04:01 -0700 Subject: [buug] replaced the Unix copyright stuff so they don't call it Unix(tm) In-Reply-To: <3424dc900905021319p454d9a52kaa1060a9bf762181@mail.gmail.com> References: <20090430170148.GA8264@primate.net> <3424dc900904301042t53e96e1fn3e32a6f87044a70b@mail.gmail.com> <3424dc900904301057l2610cbd8s8164ea4beeea2601@mail.gmail.com> <3424dc900905021319p454d9a52kaa1060a9bf762181@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20090503010401.104060d18nay1cgs@webmail.rawbw.com> Quoting "Tony Godshall" : > Yeah, I guess Solaris is the closest thing to a corporate Real Unix > around today. Of course they, like BSD, replaced the Unix copyright > stuff so they don't call it Unix(tm) either. Of course now they are > owned by Oracle, and they've open-srouced much of it... No, actually the reason so many Unix and UNIX (R) variants (primarily) use names other than UNIX - most notably for the operating system itself, mostly has to do with what historic controls have existed on the UNIX (R) trademark. Before it was handed over from Novell to what was then X/Open Company (now The Open Group), exactly who could and couldn't call their software / operating system UNIX (R) was, at any given point in time, directly or indirectly under the thumb of exactly one company that owned the trademark, and would sell branding rights on whatever terms and conditions they chose (typically tens of thousands or dollars or more - just to barely get started). This is a fair part of what sparked the Unix Wars. That's also why so many other operating systems didn't call themselves UNIX (R) or claim to be UNIX (R) - but they'd certainly make claims about compatibility, etc. Hence names such as Cromix, Xenix, HP-UX, AIX, Irix, Ultrix, Tru64, SunOS, Solaris, etc., etc. By the time UNIX (R) trademark was handed off to X/Open Company, most other vendors of what was quite effectively Unix - if not UNIX (R) in name, had the Operating System names/brands pretty well established, and wanted to distinguish themselves, ... so, ... although they typically also wanted to stick UNIX (R) on their products (and most have done so), many/most didn't change their names on account of that (though some did). So now, among UNIX (R) variants, most don't use UNIX as part of the name of the brand product, though some do. Along the history of UNIX, many, even if they licensed the source code and rights to develop and resell binaries from such, may not have licensed use of the UNIX name - hence even many that used what was then UNIX source code didn't use the UNIX name (e.g. Xenix). Since then, UNIX (R) is an "open" standard - for certain definitions of "open". The standards themselves are free - as in beer, not freedom. UNIX (R) branding is available - not for free - but on at least a much more level playing field than it was historically (cough up enough money to be tested, pass the tests, "earn" the right to use the UNIX (R) branding). From Michael.Paoli at cal.berkeley.edu Sun May 3 17:32:51 2009 From: Michael.Paoli at cal.berkeley.edu (Michael Paoli) Date: Sun, 03 May 2009 17:32:51 -0700 Subject: [buug] Free access: Safari Books Online, via ... Message-ID: <20090503173251.858045sudsvhm3eo@webmail.rawbw.com> Got a current* Berkeley Public Library card? Not only can one access Safari Books Online from within the Berkeley Public Library, but one can also access it online via the Berkeley Public Library web site and by using one's current* Berkeley Public Library card. Other libraries might possibly have similar access. California residents can bet a Berkeley Public Library card - need to visit a branch in person to complete the application process. Details available on the Berkeley Public Library web site. *Berkeley Public Library cards expire after two years (or two years of not being used) references: http://www.berkeleypubliclibrary.org/ http://www.berkeleypubliclibrary.org/services_and_resources/online_resources.php#computers From jzitt at josephzitt.com Sun May 3 18:21:05 2009 From: jzitt at josephzitt.com (Joseph Zitt) Date: Sun, 3 May 2009 21:21:05 -0400 Subject: [buug] Free access: Safari Books Online, via ... In-Reply-To: <20090503173251.858045sudsvhm3eo@webmail.rawbw.com> References: <20090503173251.858045sudsvhm3eo@webmail.rawbw.com> Message-ID: This is great to know. Thanks. On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 8:32 PM, Michael Paoli wrote: > Got a current* Berkeley Public Library card? > > Not only can one access Safari Books Online from within > the Berkeley Public Library, but one can also access it online > via the Berkeley Public Library web site and by using one's > current* Berkeley Public Library card. > > Other libraries might possibly have similar access. > > California residents can bet a Berkeley Public Library card - need > to visit a branch in person to complete the application process. > Details available on the Berkeley Public Library web site. > > *Berkeley Public Library cards expire after two years (or two years of > not being used) > > references: > http://www.berkeleypubliclibrary.org/ > http://www.berkeleypubliclibrary.org/services_and_resources/online_resources.php#computers > -- Joseph Zitt :: The Path of the Bookseller :: blog.josephzitt.com From jb at caustic.org Sun May 3 18:34:04 2009 From: jb at caustic.org (Johan Beisser) Date: Sun, 3 May 2009 18:34:04 -0700 Subject: [buug] Free access: Safari Books Online, via ... In-Reply-To: References: <20090503173251.858045sudsvhm3eo@webmail.rawbw.com> Message-ID: <32393800905031834v70aa8518i200e532f4d2a10b@mail.gmail.com> For those of you not in Berkeley, SF Public Library also does this. To get an SFPL library card, you have to be a resident of CA. Not of SF. They proxy the service through their servers, giving access to a wide range of resources, including Safari Books Online. On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 6:21 PM, Joseph Zitt wrote: > This is great to know. Thanks. > > On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 8:32 PM, Michael Paoli > wrote: >> Got a current* Berkeley Public Library card? >> >> Not only can one access Safari Books Online from within >> the Berkeley Public Library, but one can also access it online >> via the Berkeley Public Library web site and by using one's >> current* Berkeley Public Library card. >> >> Other libraries might possibly have similar access. >> >> California residents can bet a Berkeley Public Library card - need >> to visit a branch in person to complete the application process. >> Details available on the Berkeley Public Library web site. >> >> *Berkeley Public Library cards expire after two years (or two years of >> not being used) >> >> references: >> http://www.berkeleypubliclibrary.org/ >> http://www.berkeleypubliclibrary.org/services_and_resources/online_resources.php#computers >> > -- > Joseph Zitt :: The Path of the Bookseller :: blog.josephzitt.com > _______________________________________________ > Buug mailing list > Buug at weak.org > http://www.weak.org/mailman/listinfo/buug > From mattias at thorslund.us Sun May 3 18:36:31 2009 From: mattias at thorslund.us (Mattias Thorslund) Date: Sun, 03 May 2009 18:36:31 -0700 Subject: [buug] Free access: Safari Books Online, via ... In-Reply-To: References: <20090503173251.858045sudsvhm3eo@webmail.rawbw.com> Message-ID: <49FE469F.3030202@thorslund.us> Oakland library provides the same thing: http://www.oaklandlibrary.org/databaselist.htm#ebooks Any other libraries a s well? Cheers, Mattias Joseph Zitt wrote: > This is great to know. Thanks. > > On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 8:32 PM, Michael Paoli > wrote: > >> Got a current* Berkeley Public Library card? >> >> Not only can one access Safari Books Online from within >> the Berkeley Public Library, but one can also access it online >> via the Berkeley Public Library web site and by using one's >> current* Berkeley Public Library card. >> >> Other libraries might possibly have similar access. >> >> California residents can bet a Berkeley Public Library card - need >> to visit a branch in person to complete the application process. >> Details available on the Berkeley Public Library web site. >> >> *Berkeley Public Library cards expire after two years (or two years of >> not being used) >> >> references: >> http://www.berkeleypubliclibrary.org/ >> http://www.berkeleypubliclibrary.org/services_and_resources/online_resources.php#computers >> >> From oly562 at charter.net Mon May 4 08:47:52 2009 From: oly562 at charter.net (PR) Date: Mon, 04 May 2009 08:47:52 -0700 Subject: [buug] (no subject) In-Reply-To: <87acd5770905022321r7c24615fj7f2f7b6a13b7522@mail.gmail.com> References: <20090430170148.GA8264@primate.net> <3424dc900904301042t53e96e1fn3e32a6f87044a70b@mail.gmail.com> <3424dc900904301057l2610cbd8s8164ea4beeea2601@mail.gmail.com> <3424dc900905021319p454d9a52kaa1060a9bf762181@mail.gmail.com> <49FCB026.4090908@charter.net> <49FD0614.5000804@charter.net> <87acd5770905022321r7c24615fj7f2f7b6a13b7522@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49FF0E28.9090306@charter.net> good thing bill is watching... who knows what mischief we might get into... Wm. F. Honeycutt wrote: > Take a look at: > > http://nsi.org/Library/Compsec/computerlaw/Californ.txt > > Then consider the preceding post. Ask yourself, "Is it advisable to > solicit user/login information to an unauthorized network in a public > forum like BUUG's list server? > > I'm not making judgements, but this thread seems to be careening > toward the Darwin Award short list. > > If you want to look at the Cal network, sign up for a class. > > On Sat, May 2, 2009 at 7:48 PM, PR wrote: > >> rsa keys? 30 seconds? 2 firewalls? , as well as be added to nis. thats >> what i need at my last job and is understandable. ;) I mean, be on the >> phone, give me ALL credentials so I can have a peek at UCB net. >> >> assumed wishful thoughts ;) >> >> jose d lopez wrote: >> >>> Ha, ha. It's actually not that easy as login/pass anymore. If you're >>> not on the campus network, LAN or AirBears- wireless, you need to VPN >>> in, then connect to servers. No external connections allowed. >>> >>> There are a few offices that run rogue APs and servers but UCB IT is >>> proactive on shutting them down. >>> >>> >>> >>> On May 2, 2009, at 1:42 PM, PR wrote: >>> >>> >>>> Some one lend me their log and pass, I would like to have a look-see at >>>> the UCB lab. ;) havn't log into a school lab since um... 1992? lol >>>> >>>> Tony Godshall wrote: >>>> >>>>> ... >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>>> Anyone out there in BUUG-land actually know for a fact what is >>>>>>> used at >>>>>>> U.C. Berkeley? I assume it varies by department. What are you >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>> I was trying to think what they had in the 2nd floor of Soda. I >>>>>> just took >>>>>> a couple of courses there. I think they were Suns. That's the >>>>>> non-windoze labs {:) >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>> Yeah, I guess Solaris is the closest thing to a corporate Real Unix >>>>> around today. Of course they, like BSD, replaced the Unix copyright >>>>> stuff so they don't call it Unix(tm) either. Of course now they are >>>>> owned by Oracle, and they've open-srouced much of it... >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>>> actually interested in, William, computer science? General computer >>>>>>> labs? Engineering labs? (I hear computer labs in universities are >>>>>>> closing now that everyone has their own computers) >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>> The general push now adays is that all these script kiddies run >>>>>> what they >>>>>> want. Sometimes Ubuntu, sometimes windoze, sometimes macs. etc. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>> You are calling UC Berkeley students script-kiddies? I'd assumed >>>>> script-kiddies weren't smart enough to get into Cal. >>>>> >>>>> Tony >>>>> >>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>> Buug mailing list >>>>> Buug at weak.org >>>>> http://www.weak.org/mailman/listinfo/buug >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> Buug mailing list >>>> Buug at weak.org >>>> http://www.weak.org/mailman/listinfo/buug >>>> >> _______________________________________________ >> Buug mailing list >> Buug at weak.org >> http://www.weak.org/mailman/listinfo/buug >> >> > > _______________________________________________ > Buug mailing list > Buug at weak.org > http://www.weak.org/mailman/listinfo/buug > > From oly562 at charter.net Mon May 4 10:23:19 2009 From: oly562 at charter.net (PR) Date: Mon, 04 May 2009 10:23:19 -0700 Subject: [buug] (no subject) In-Reply-To: <87acd5770905022321r7c24615fj7f2f7b6a13b7522@mail.gmail.com> References: <20090430170148.GA8264@primate.net> <3424dc900904301042t53e96e1fn3e32a6f87044a70b@mail.gmail.com> <3424dc900904301057l2610cbd8s8164ea4beeea2601@mail.gmail.com> <3424dc900905021319p454d9a52kaa1060a9bf762181@mail.gmail.com> <49FCB026.4090908@charter.net> <49FD0614.5000804@charter.net> <87acd5770905022321r7c24615fj7f2f7b6a13b7522@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49FF2487.50103@charter.net> Actually Bill, it's morning here, and sometimes I email things without real thought. Let's recap: After reading the NSI page link from Bill, just wanted to clarify things: First off, thanks for that link. Good to know info. The "Rules" have gotten more restrictive since the last time I viewed them, Here is the mischief I am referring to: To assist the guys comments below, if I had access I would help them by simply typing a 'uname -u' or '-mrs' on any unices that accepts that command to see what OS it is running. I figured they new that already. What I meant by being on the phone: or wishful thinking: 1. I wouldn't send login/pass info over the net, or voip phone system for that matter - that would be a darwin winner to me. 2: I simply miss having access to networks other than my own or job related networks. I like to see how other admins set up their op's. Assumed evolution. It appears that computer labs have tightened up their networks, that's GREAT as they should. Next time fellas, try not to use a list server to ask any private net questions, as most are willing to help out. I am one of them, but if you are to do anything listed in the NSI, then you can consider me out. Who knows what mischief people will get into. Maybe I should reread my emails before I send them... sighs... Njoy Oly Below is what started it all... > Anyone out there in BUUG-land actually know for a fact what is > used at > U.C. Berkeley? I assume it varies by department. What are you > > > I was trying to think what they had in the 2nd floor of Soda. I just took a couple of courses there. I think they were Suns. That's the non-windoze labs {:) From kayve at sfsu.edu Mon May 4 20:20:36 2009 From: kayve at sfsu.edu (KAYVEN RIESE) Date: Mon, 4 May 2009 20:20:36 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [buug] (no subject) In-Reply-To: <3424dc900905021319p454d9a52kaa1060a9bf762181@mail.gmail.com> References: <20090430170148.GA8264@primate.net> <3424dc900904301042t53e96e1fn3e32a6f87044a70b@mail.gmail.com> <3424dc900904301057l2610cbd8s8164ea4beeea2601@mail.gmail.com> <3424dc900905021319p454d9a52kaa1060a9bf762181@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 2 May 2009, Tony Godshall wrote: > ... > >>> actually interested in, William, computer science? ?General computer >>> labs? ?Engineering labs? ?(I hear computer labs in universities are >>> closing now that everyone has their own computers) >> >> The general push now adays is that all these script kiddies run what they >> want. ?Sometimes Ubuntu, sometimes windoze, sometimes macs. etc. > > You are calling UC Berkeley students script-kiddies? I'd assumed > script-kiddies weren't smart enough to get into Cal. Attack of the killer script kiddies! > > Tony > *----------------------------------------------------------* Kayven Riese, BSCS, MS (Physiology and Biophysics) (415) 902 5513 cellular http://kayve.net Webmaster http://ChessYoga.org *----------------------------------------------------------* From bill.honeycutt at gmail.com Mon May 4 20:55:49 2009 From: bill.honeycutt at gmail.com (Wm. F. Honeycutt) Date: Mon, 4 May 2009 20:55:49 -0700 Subject: [buug] (no subject) In-Reply-To: <49FF2487.50103@charter.net> References: <3424dc900904301042t53e96e1fn3e32a6f87044a70b@mail.gmail.com> <3424dc900904301057l2610cbd8s8164ea4beeea2601@mail.gmail.com> <3424dc900905021319p454d9a52kaa1060a9bf762181@mail.gmail.com> <49FCB026.4090908@charter.net> <49FD0614.5000804@charter.net> <87acd5770905022321r7c24615fj7f2f7b6a13b7522@mail.gmail.com> <49FF2487.50103@charter.net> Message-ID: <87acd5770905042055q4068dd59v342f8ada1135f75e@mail.gmail.com> The "Imp of the Perverse" gets us all, at times. : ) On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 10:23 AM, PR wrote: > Actually Bill, it's morning here, and sometimes I email things without real > thought. > Let's recap: > > After reading the NSI page link from Bill, just wanted to clarify things: > > First off, thanks for that link. Good to know info. > The "Rules" have gotten more restrictive since the last time I viewed them, > > Here is the mischief I am referring to: > > To assist the guys comments below, if I had access I would help them by > simply typing a 'uname -u' or '-mrs' on any unices that accepts that command > to see what OS it is running. ?I figured they new that already. > > What I meant by being on the phone: or wishful thinking: > 1. I wouldn't send login/pass info over the net, or voip phone system for > that matter - that would be a darwin winner to me. > 2: I simply miss having access to networks other than my own or job related > networks. I like to see how other admins set up their op's. Assumed > evolution. > > It appears that computer labs have tightened up their networks, that's GREAT > as they should. > Next time fellas, try not to use a list server to ask any private net > questions, as most are willing to help out. I am one of them, but if you are > to do anything listed in the NSI, then you can consider me out. ?Who knows > what mischief people will get into. > > Maybe I should reread my emails before I send them... sighs... > > > Njoy > Oly > > > Below is what started it all... >> >> Anyone out there in BUUG-land actually know for a fact what is >> used at >> U.C. Berkeley? ?I assume it varies by department. ?What are you >> >> > > I was trying to think what they had in the 2nd floor of Soda. ?I > just took a couple of courses there. ?I think they were Suns. ?That's the > non-windoze labs ?{:) > > > From rick at linuxmafia.com Fri May 8 10:22:06 2009 From: rick at linuxmafia.com (Rick Moen) Date: Fri, 8 May 2009 10:22:06 -0700 Subject: [buug] UNIX (R), etc. In-Reply-To: <20090430124816.21562n52j8i62wsg@webmail.rawbw.com> References: <20090430170148.GA8264@primate.net> <3424dc900904301042t53e96e1fn3e32a6f87044a70b@mail.gmail.com> <3424dc900904301057l2610cbd8s8164ea4beeea2601@mail.gmail.com> <20090430124816.21562n52j8i62wsg@webmail.rawbw.com> Message-ID: <20090508172206.GG16483@linuxmafia.com> Quoting Michael Paoli (Michael.Paoli at cal.berkeley.edu): > Once upon a time, what was UNIX(TM)/(R) was a particular set of code, or > authorized derivative code. That was quite a while ago. One of the > (relatively) good things that came out of the "UNIX Wars" was that UNIX > (R) is not dependent upon a particular source code set or derivation > thereof, but rather conformance to specifications and, for > the right to carry the UNIX(R) registered trademark, passage of > certification tests (submission to the tests for certification and > branding is not free, though the standards upon which the tests are > based are available for free (as in beer, not freedom)). Quite. It's really nostalgic to see anyone raising the hoary "BSD isn't actually Unix", "Linux isn't actually Unix", etc., bits, because didn't everyone who cared die off by the early 1990s? And, before anyone goes there, Open Group may own the trademark (that nobody really gives a damn about, any more), and the certification mark, but I'm not wielding either one in commerce, so they can bite me. ;-> From rick at linuxmafia.com Fri May 8 10:33:55 2009 From: rick at linuxmafia.com (Rick Moen) Date: Fri, 8 May 2009 10:33:55 -0700 Subject: [buug] (no subject) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20090508173355.GH16483@linuxmafia.com> Quoting william benton (webenton at hotmail.com): > If I want to put a unix os on a pc(not linux), is a unix os(not linux) > available as freeware? what is the best source? Is berkeley unix > available as freeware? Is BSD berkeley unix? I mean is it exactly like > what you would get if you went to the university and logged on to their > machine? 1. There are a variety of modern, PC-compatible operating systems that are fairly classifyable as Unixes. They fall into a number of families. 2. The term "freeware" is ill-defined. If you mean "available without expenditure other than download time", the answer is yes, you can do that. Note that downloading isn't often a really efficient way to acquire very large codebases, but whatever floats your boat, and that is certainly situation-dependent. 3. You might wish to consider that whether you can initally acquire something at cost is an orthogonal question to the much more interesting question of what you and others are then permitted (and enabled) to do with it. For that reason, it's common nowadays to distinguish _two_ orthogonal scales of gradation. One is costs a great deal, costs little, costs nothing.[1] Which might be the spectrum you're thinking of when you say "freeware". The other is proprietary on one end, various types of open source (aka "free software") on the other. This is a metric of how much freedom (and source code availability) you and others enjoy to redistribute, to independently modify and develop and release variation. 4. The various BSD descendents are indeed Unixes in any useful sense of the term. That is also true of Unixes based on the Linux kernel, and Unixes based on the OpenSolaris kernel, and so on. Tastes Differ[TM], of course. 5. I'm having a difficult time parsing your question "What is the best source?" If you're asking where's the best place to acquire installation media, etc., then it depends. You may need to get a better idea of what you want to try first, before that question can be usefully answered. The fact that you're still stuck on the quaint "Is it really Unix" question suggests that you might need to back up a bit. From togo at of.net Fri May 8 10:36:47 2009 From: togo at of.net (Tony Godshall) Date: Fri, 8 May 2009 10:36:47 -0700 Subject: [buug] UNIX (R), etc. In-Reply-To: <20090508172206.GG16483@linuxmafia.com> References: <20090430170148.GA8264@primate.net> <3424dc900904301042t53e96e1fn3e32a6f87044a70b@mail.gmail.com> <3424dc900904301057l2610cbd8s8164ea4beeea2601@mail.gmail.com> <20090430124816.21562n52j8i62wsg@webmail.rawbw.com> <20090508172206.GG16483@linuxmafia.com> Message-ID: <3424dc900905081036o7517cf25y171252168043e173@mail.gmail.com> [MP wrote] > Once upon a time, what was UNIX(TM)/(R) was a particular set of code, or > authorized derivative code. That was quite a while ago. One of the > (relatively) good things that came out of the "UNIX Wars" was that UNIX > (R) is not dependent upon a particular source code set or derivation > thereof, but rather conformance to specifications and, for > the right to carry the UNIX(R) registered trademark, passage of > certification tests (submission to the tests for certification and > branding is not free, though the standards upon which the tests are > based are available for free (as in beer, not freedom)). Thanks for the clarification, Michael. Do I hear a wikipedia edit coming on? This entry could be clarified a bit... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix [RM wrote] > ... ?It's really nostalgic to see anyone raising the hoary "BSD > isn't actually Unix", "Linux isn't actually Unix", etc., bits, because > didn't everyone who cared die off by the early 1990s? Heh. Thanks, William! (and it's one thing to care (I don't) and another to try to help out a person who seems to ("Unix (not Linux)"). By the way, how old are you, William? > And, before anyone goes there, Open Group may own the trademark (that > nobody really gives a damn about, any more), and the certification mark, > but I'm not wielding either one in commerce, so they can bite me. ?;-> Heh heh. Quite. From rick at linuxmafia.com Fri May 8 10:37:52 2009 From: rick at linuxmafia.com (Rick Moen) Date: Fri, 8 May 2009 10:37:52 -0700 Subject: [buug] (no subject) In-Reply-To: <3424dc900905021319p454d9a52kaa1060a9bf762181@mail.gmail.com> References: <20090430170148.GA8264@primate.net> <3424dc900904301042t53e96e1fn3e32a6f87044a70b@mail.gmail.com> <3424dc900904301057l2610cbd8s8164ea4beeea2601@mail.gmail.com> <3424dc900905021319p454d9a52kaa1060a9bf762181@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20090508173752.GI16483@linuxmafia.com> Quoting Tony Godshall (togo at of.net): > Yeah, I guess Solaris is the closest thing to a corporate Real Unix > around today. Then there's Nexenta, which will really play with your mind: 100% complete Debian/Ubuntu-flavoured GNU userspace. OpenSolaris kernel. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nexenta_OS It's getting more difficult to experience the pain of corporate Unix. Thank Ghod for unmaintained Solaris 2 boxes, for that old dinosaur feel. ;-> From rick at linuxmafia.com Fri May 8 10:43:03 2009 From: rick at linuxmafia.com (Rick Moen) Date: Fri, 8 May 2009 10:43:03 -0700 Subject: [buug] (no subject) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20090508174302.GJ16483@linuxmafia.com> Quoting KAYVEN RIESE (kayve at sfsu.edu): > There is such a thing as http://www.bsd.org/ that seems to link out to > the others. Mac OS X is derived from a BSD called Darwin. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Sort of. Why does everyone forget NeXTSTep? Even Apple, Inc. seems to want people to forget all about NeXT, Inc.'s code and history, and the fact that it's the reason OS X has many of the weirdnesses it still does. They're still cranking out that propaganda about hiring all of those guys cut loose when WindRiver folded, and pretending as if OS X is and maybe always has been a shiny FreeBSD with a Macintoy user interface. From jb at caustic.org Fri May 8 12:00:23 2009 From: jb at caustic.org (Johan Beisser) Date: Fri, 8 May 2009 12:00:23 -0700 Subject: [buug] (no subject) In-Reply-To: <32393800905081107x2cd57d4bs590a9becdfe64ef6@mail.gmail.com> References: <20090508173355.GH16483@linuxmafia.com> <32393800905081107x2cd57d4bs590a9becdfe64ef6@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <32393800905081200h387267farc7393923b4431364@mail.gmail.com> Somehow, I managed to screw up replying to the list. Sorry for spamming you, Rick. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Johan Beisser Date: Fri, May 8, 2009 at 11:07 AM Subject: Re: [buug] (no subject) To: Rick Moen Comments in line. Perhaps a differing view. On Fri, May 8, 2009 at 10:33 AM, Rick Moen wrote: > Quoting william benton (webenton at hotmail.com): > >> If I want to put a unix os on a pc(not linux), is a unix os(not linux) >> available as freeware? what is the best source? Is berkeley unix >> available as freeware? Is BSD berkeley unix? I mean is it exactly like >> what you would get if you went to the university and logged on to their >> machine? > > 1. ?There are a variety of modern, PC-compatible operating systems that > are fairly classifyable as Unixes. ?They fall into a number of families. There's a few that are true UNIX(R), as well. BSD/OS, (from BSD, Inc), was one of them. AT&T had a full SystemV on PC hardware in the 90s, mostly used for embedded systems. Related, was a fully registered POSIX compliant version of QNX for x86 hardware, and ran fairly snappily as an 'embedded OS' on 386s. > 2. ?The term "freeware" is ill-defined. ?If you mean "available without > expenditure other than download time", the answer is yes, you can do > that. ?Note that downloading isn't often a really efficient way to > acquire very large codebases, but whatever floats your boat, and that is > certainly situation-dependent. I have to disagree. "Open Source Software" has the vague definition of "Freeware" while not really being exclusive. "Freeware" harkens back to the "Shareware" software of the 80s and 90s. Essentially you were permitted to share with your friends, family, etc, and there was a request you send money to the author. Freeware was the "free to use, free as in beer" software that many people used. It's a foundation of GNU Software, but not always as virally infective with the license, and the tradition predates Stallman's founding of GNU. Quite a few Freeware authors put no limit on what could be done with the software at all. > 3. ?You might wish to consider that whether you can initally acquire > something at cost is an orthogonal question to the much more > interesting question of what you and others are then permitted (and > enabled) to do with it. ?For that reason, it's common nowadays to > distinguish _two_ orthogonal scales of gradation. > > One is costs a great deal, costs little, costs nothing.[1] ?Which might be > the spectrum you're thinking of when you say "freeware". I really disagree. "Freeware" is "Free as in beer." It costs nothing for the software, but might cost you for the transport and acquisition of it (internet hookup fees, email fees, storage until you could grab it all fees). "Open Source" doesn't mean Free at all. It just means the source code is available to you to tinker and modify if you'd like. > The other is proprietary on one end, various types of open source (aka > "free software") on the other. ?This is a metric of how much freedom > (and source code availability) you and others enjoy to redistribute, to > independently modify and develop and release variation. See above. > 4. ?The various BSD descendents are indeed Unixes in any useful sense of > the term. ? That is also true of Unixes based on the Linux kernel, and > Unixes based on the OpenSolaris kernel, and so on. ?Tastes Differ[TM], > of course. Yes, although the history is a little more muddled than that. BSD really is more than just the kernel at this point, with the "Big 3" versions (FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD) having differences in userland utilities as well. I freely admit I get frustrated at the stupidity of "more" on Linux, when I expect "less" like behavior after coming off of my BSD based firewall. Yes, on my Kubuntu laptop, I have "more" aliased to "less." > 5. ?I'm having a difficult time parsing your question "What is the best > source?" ?If you're asking where's the best place to acquire > installation media, etc., then it depends. ?You may need to get a better > idea of what you want to try first, before that question can be usefully > answered. > > The fact that you're still stuck on the quaint "Is it really Unix" > question suggests that you might need to back up a bit. It's Unix-Like, and that's usually enough. Striving for POSIX compliance means there's a principle of least surprise when bouncing from one Unix to the next. It still means each flavor of Unix has it's own idiosyncrasies, and it's just about what you're comfortable with and what you enjoy. For what it's worth, MacOS 10.5 is POSIX compliance and a certified Unix(R). From rick at linuxmafia.com Fri May 8 12:52:29 2009 From: rick at linuxmafia.com (Rick Moen) Date: Fri, 8 May 2009 12:52:29 -0700 Subject: [buug] (no subject) In-Reply-To: <32393800905081200h387267farc7393923b4431364@mail.gmail.com> References: <20090508173355.GH16483@linuxmafia.com> <32393800905081107x2cd57d4bs590a9becdfe64ef6@mail.gmail.com> <32393800905081200h387267farc7393923b4431364@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20090508195229.GO16483@linuxmafia.com> Quoting Johan Beisser (jb at caustic.org): > There's a few that are true UNIX(R), as well. And yet, nobody really cares. As I said, the few people who did died by around 1992. So did, by and large, the companies. BSDi is long gone, for example. Open Group still does some Single UNIX Specification (or whatever it's called, these days) certification business to this day -- but that business has just about gone away because nobody gives a damn. > I have to disagree. About "freeware" being ill-defined? Well, sorry, it is. I hear the term bandied about to mean all sorts of things, and users of the term almost invariably have no clear idea what it means, and morever of what _they_ mean when they say it. > "Open Source Software" has the vague definition of "Freeware" while > not really being exclusive. You are flamboyantly mistaken, here. Open source software has a formal, highly useful, specific definition: http://www.opensource.org/docs/osd Honestly, did you not _know_ that? It's OK if you didn't. I'm just surprised. > "Freeware" harkens back to the "Shareware" software of the 80s and > 90s. "Shareware" is another ill-defined term, although rather less so. Some "shareware" permitted the recipient to create and send out derivative works, some did not. Some had source code access, some did not. So, it was a pretty highly vague conceps. I believe the entirety of what it entailed was that you would have some right to redistribute (though sometimes with severe and even ridiculous strings attached), and the software held out its hand for money and/or created a legal obligation to pay someone. > Freeware was the "free to use, free as in beer" software that many > people used. That is one thing people have been known to use the term to mean. There are others. And the term as you construe it is fuzzy, because it says nothing about the legal right of modification, independent development, and distribution of derivative works. > I really disagree. "Freeware" is "Free as in beer." Again, you are confused. You have misread what I said. I said that "freeware" as the term is usually construed is one pole of an axis on which acquisition cost is denoted. > "Open Source" doesn't mean Free at all. It just means the source code > is available to you to tinker and modify if you'd like. You really ought to read what I _said_ before purporting to disagree with it. I said that the term "freeware" contemplates one point on an axis of acquisition cost. I asserted that this particular axis isn't especially interesting. I pointed out a separate, orthogonal metric of legal rights to source forms, right to modify, right to redistribute modified works, right to use for any purpose. That is the axis on which proprietary terms lie on one end, and various types of open source aka free-software terms lie on the other. > Yes, although the history is a little more muddled than that. You don't need to tell _me_ how muddled it is. And I was around while it was happening. This is obviously a newcomer to whom I was addressing. Were you expecting me to hit him with the whole damned levenez.com history chart? > BSD really is more than just the kernel at this point.... Um, BSD was always more than just the kernel. > It's Unix-Like, and that's usually enough. Yes, you seem to be strenuously in agreement, which might be fun but also a waste of time. As I said, Tastes Differ[TM]. > Striving for POSIX compliance means there's a principle of least > surprise when bouncing from one Unix to the next. Rough POSIX.1 has been shown useful (except of course that such things as the Microsoft POSIX Subsystem for Windows shows you can achieve that and produce something utterly useless). Let me correct that: Rough implementation of the Core Services _portion_ of POSIX.1 has been shown useful. Remember, we don't all need real-time extensions, and POSIX.1c threading isn't really great. From jb at caustic.org Fri May 8 15:20:41 2009 From: jb at caustic.org (Johan Beisser) Date: Fri, 8 May 2009 15:20:41 -0700 Subject: [buug] (no subject) In-Reply-To: <20090508195229.GO16483@linuxmafia.com> References: <20090508173355.GH16483@linuxmafia.com> <32393800905081107x2cd57d4bs590a9becdfe64ef6@mail.gmail.com> <32393800905081200h387267farc7393923b4431364@mail.gmail.com> <20090508195229.GO16483@linuxmafia.com> Message-ID: <32393800905081520l61d54a19r37db02e319076a5f@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, May 8, 2009 at 12:52 PM, Rick Moen wrote: > Quoting Johan Beisser (jb at caustic.org): > >> There's a few that are true UNIX(R), as well. > > And yet, nobody really cares. ?As I said, the few people who did died by > around 1992. ?So did, by and large, the companies. ?BSDi is long gone, > for example. ?Open Group still does some Single UNIX Specification (or > whatever it's called, these days) certification business to this day -- > but that business has just about gone away because nobody gives a damn. To be honest, I used BSD/OS well until 2003. Even as things were winding down after their acquisition of Walnut Creek CDROM, and hiring a bunch of FreeBSD core. >> I have to disagree. > > About "freeware" being ill-defined? ?Well, sorry, it is. > > I hear the term bandied about to mean all sorts of things, and users of > the term almost invariably have no clear idea what it means, and morever > of what _they_ mean when they say it. Okay, I've got to concede here. You're right, but that can be said about most technical and software terms in use by the lay-user. >> "Open Source Software" has the vague definition of "Freeware" while >> not really being exclusive. > > You are flamboyantly mistaken, here. ?Open source software has a formal, > highly useful, specific definition: ?http://www.opensource.org/docs/osd It's also modern, and postdates the early use of the term. I heard "freeware" in the early 80s, often in the term of games. Same goes with "shareware." Perhaps I'm just old, recalling a time before GNU Software, and having someone distribute binary only applications for free. > Honestly, did you not _know_ that? ?It's OK if you didn't. ?I'm just > surprised. No, I just see the two as very different. Freeware implies something different than Open Source software to me. As I said below. >> "Freeware" harkens back to the "Shareware" software of the 80s and >> 90s. > > "Shareware" is another ill-defined term, although rather less so. ?Some > "shareware" permitted the recipient to create and send out derivative > works, some did not. ?Some had source code access, some did not. ?So, it > was a pretty highly vague conceps. ?I believe the entirety of what it > entailed was that you would have some right to redistribute (though > sometimes with severe and even ridiculous strings attached), and the > software held out its hand for money and/or created a legal obligation > to pay someone. "Shareware" implied, at least to me as a teen, that you should pay for it. PKZip/PKunzip for DOS were an excellent example of this. >> Freeware was the "free to use, free as in beer" software that many >> people used. > > That is one thing people have been known to use the term to mean. > There are others. ?And the term as you construe it is fuzzy, because it > says nothing about the legal right of modification, independent > development, and distribution of derivative works. I'm not sure you have to define those aspects for something to be "freeware." I'm a pragmatist. "Do I have to pay the author cash for the software itself?" On the same note, the license itself will define the rest. I don't want to start a license debate, but defining something as "Free to use, modify, and distribute the modified works" doesn't exclude it from being "Freeware." It simply gives the user more rights to do things with the software. On the same note, that moves it from the amateur "freeware" label to "Open Source/Free Software." >> I really disagree. "Freeware" is "Free as in beer." > > Again, you are confused. ?You have misread what I said. ?I said that > "freeware" as the term is usually construed is one pole of an axis > on which acquisition cost is denoted. Yes... I think we fell in to agreement, somewhere. And it might be that I misunderstood what you said. >> "Open Source" doesn't mean Free at all. It just means the source code >> is available to you to tinker and modify if you'd like. > > You really ought to read what I _said_ before purporting to disagree > with it. > > I said that the term "freeware" contemplates one point on an axis of > acquisition cost. ?I asserted that this particular axis isn't especially > interesting. > > I pointed out a separate, orthogonal metric of legal rights to source > forms, right to modify, right to redistribute modified works, right to > use for any purpose. ?That is the axis on which proprietary terms lie on > one end, and various types of open source aka free-software terms lie on > the other. Gotcha. Sorry again for my misunderstand of what you wrote, and thank you for your clarification. >> Yes, although the history is a little more muddled than that. > > You don't need to tell _me_ how muddled it is. ?And I was around while > it was happening. I can't claim I was, I simply benefited when the AT&T lawsuit was settled. Before that, I simply used SunOS and AT&T SysV systems. > This is obviously a newcomer to whom I was addressing. ?Were you > expecting me to hit him with the whole damned levenez.com history chart? No, not at all. I find it overwhelming at times, I can't imagine it for a newbie. >> BSD really is more than just the kernel at this point.... > > Um, BSD was always more than just the kernel. At one point it was less than that. >> It's Unix-Like, and that's usually enough. > > Yes, you seem to be strenuously in agreement, which might be fun but > also a waste of time. ?As I said, Tastes Differ[TM]. Yep. They do. >> Striving for POSIX compliance means there's a principle of least >> surprise when bouncing from one Unix to the next. > > Rough POSIX.1 has been shown useful (except of course that such things > as the Microsoft POSIX Subsystem for Windows shows you can achieve that > and produce something utterly useless). I can't say I've looked at it seriously. > Let me correct that: ?Rough implementation of the Core Services > _portion_ of POSIX.1 has been shown useful. ?Remember, we don't all need > real-time extensions, and POSIX.1c threading isn't really great. I've not really seen POSIX threading work really well, but I can't claim to have looked. From rick at linuxmafia.com Fri May 8 17:40:56 2009 From: rick at linuxmafia.com (Rick Moen) Date: Fri, 8 May 2009 17:40:56 -0700 Subject: [buug] (no subject) In-Reply-To: <32393800905081520l61d54a19r37db02e319076a5f@mail.gmail.com> References: <20090508173355.GH16483@linuxmafia.com> <32393800905081107x2cd57d4bs590a9becdfe64ef6@mail.gmail.com> <32393800905081200h387267farc7393923b4431364@mail.gmail.com> <20090508195229.GO16483@linuxmafia.com> <32393800905081520l61d54a19r37db02e319076a5f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20090509004055.GV29418@linuxmafia.com> Quoting Johan Beisser (jb at caustic.org): > To be honest, I used BSD/OS well until 2003. Using legacy stuff is not the subject, here. People are still using SPARC1 gear. Point is, nobody really gives a damn whether somebody has gone through Open Group calesthenics to prove Single UNIX Specification test suites (and of course paid Open Group a nice wad of money for the privilege). Nobody even cares whether anyone has actually paid IEEE the much smaller amount of money for full POSIX.1 compliance certification, either. For one thing, it turns out that, like just about any technical standard from a hyperactive, politicised committee, POSIX.1 includes a bunch of elements that just done matter because they aren't used, and also that merely aiming at approximate POSIX.1 and being reported widely to have done the job is good enough. NetBSD does that, various Linuxes, sundry OpenSolaris flavours, and on and on. And _nobody_ gives a rat's ass who's still paying Open Group the trademark licensing fees required to use the word "UNIX" in commercial product references. > Okay, I've got to concede here. You're right, but that can be said > about most technical and software terms in use by the lay-user. Now, you're reaching. Any term can be _misunderstood_ and misused. Some were never clear in the first place. "Freeware" has always been one of the latter -- and always will be. Which is why smart people eschew it and switch to more-useful distinctions that actually tell you something worth knowing. > >> "Open Source Software" has the vague definition of "Freeware" while > >> not really being exclusive. > > > > You are flamboyantly mistaken, here. ?Open source software has a formal, > > highly useful, specific definition: ?http://www.opensource.org/docs/osd > > It's also modern, and postdates the early use of the term. Of the term "_freeware_"? Sure. But, of the term "open source" in the context of software? No. Not in any real sense. About two or three times in OSI history, somebody with a grudge has come onto the OSI "license-discuss" mailing list seeking to prove to them that OSI had no right to define what "open source" means because, he said, somebody or other had once use the term and concept together prior to OSI's founding. Never mind that that's just _a bit_ illogical. One of them was energetic enough to actually grep through lots of archives and found, if memory serves, an astonishing two instances of near-hit citations on Usenet, just before OSI's founding. Of course, neither of those guys had actually attempted to define a category. They were just talking about software, so it was a graze against the issue that OSI soon took charge of. > I heard "freeware" in the early 80s, often in the term of games. Same > goes with "shareware." Sure. So did I. I'm not sure what your point is. Yes, these were terms of some antiquity, just as you and I are obviously of some antiquity. (But were you a Homebrew Computer Club member? ;-> ) > No, I just see the two as very different. Freeware implies something > different than Open Source software to me. Um, I never claimed the two were anything alike. I am astonished you should think I did. > "Shareware" implied, at least to me as a teen, that you should pay for > it. PKZip/PKunzip for DOS were an excellent example of this. Yes, yes, yes. We know that. In some cases, there was a legal obligation to pay, but not enforced by the software. In other cases, there was a legal obligation, _and_ enforced in some way by the software. In others, there was no obligation, just persuasion. In no case was anything else useful implied by the term "shareware", except that impliedly you also had the permission to redistribute the thing to others, sometimes burdened by absurd restrictions to that right, other times not. > >> Freeware was the "free to use, free as in beer" software that many > >> people used. > > > > That is one thing people have been known to use the term to mean. > > There are others. ?And the term as you construe it is fuzzy, because it > > says nothing about the legal right of modification, independent > > development, and distribution of derivative works. > > I'm not sure you have to define those aspects for something to be > "freeware." I never so asserted. I said, for lack of saying anything about those utterly crucial aspects of software (among other reasons), the term is basically useless because it's too vague and tells you little that really matters. > I'm a pragmatist. "Do I have to pay the author cash for the software > itself?" Well, I sure hope that's not _all_ you care about concerning software. For example, if you care about yourself and others having the right to maintain the software, irrespective of whether you were able to acquire it for free, then you give a damn (to that degree) whether it's proprietary or not. If "pragmatist" means "doesn't care whether something is fixable after it ceases to work in a changing environment", then count me out. > On the same note, the license itself will define the rest. I don't > want to start a license debate, but defining something as "Free to > use, modify, and distribute the modified works" doesn't exclude it > from being "Freeware." I never so asserted. Did you think I did? Try re-reading. From pewterbot9 at gmail.com Sat May 9 13:37:11 2009 From: pewterbot9 at gmail.com (Pewter Bot) Date: Sat, 9 May 2009 13:37:11 -0700 Subject: [buug] Attn John from Thurs. meeting Message-ID: Congrats on your new Asus netbook. Regarding connecting our two netbooks directly via our wifi chips (which we couldn't figure out on the fly): I've been researching the matter, it's called "unmanaged" or "ad hoc" networking. I posed my question on an ubuntu forum: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=7246810#post7246810 The first reply provided a link to a page that may answer our question. The link is: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=861388 But I can't test it out, as I don't have a second laptop handy. Another poster remarked "Create ad hoc network.You can do that easily at fedora 10 with network manager BUT at ubuntu creating ad hoc from gnome network manager or wicd does not work from my experience." But I seriously question that. Ubuntu/gnome is still Linux, and I'm sure you can create an ad-hoc network via the terminal. If you go to that thread I posted in the ubuntu forum, you'll see my comment, --quote: From itz at buug.org Sat May 9 14:02:02 2009 From: itz at buug.org (Ian Zimmerman) Date: Sat, 09 May 2009 14:02:02 -0700 Subject: [buug] Attn John from Thurs. meeting In-Reply-To: (Pewter Bot's message of "Sat\, 9 May 2009 13\:37\:11 -0700") References: Message-ID: <87ws8qf0s5.fsf@matica.localdomain> Pewter> But I can't test it out, as I don't have a second laptop handy. Pewter> Another poster remarked "Create ad hoc network.You can do that Pewter> easily at fedora 10 with network manager BUT at ubuntu creating Pewter> ad hoc from gnome network manager or wicd does not work from my Pewter> experience." Pewter> But I seriously question that. Ubuntu/gnome is still Linux, and Pewter> I'm sure you can create an ad-hoc network via the terminal. If Pewter> you go to that thread I posted in the ubuntu forum, you'll see Pewter> my comment, Yes. Forget Network Manager, which is one of the most tourturously mangled pieces of the Linux puzzle (and yes each distro has a slightly different one). If you need WPA encryption look at wpa-supplicant. If not you should be able to do what you want with just wireless-tools. -- Ian Zimmerman gpg public key: 1024D/C6FF61AD fingerprint: 66DC D68F 5C1B 4D71 2EE5 BD03 8A00 786C C6FF 61AD Ham is for reading, not for eating. From pewterbot9 at gmail.com Sat May 9 15:10:45 2009 From: pewterbot9 at gmail.com (Pewter Bot) Date: Sat, 9 May 2009 15:10:45 -0700 Subject: [buug] Attn John from Thurs. meeting In-Reply-To: <87ws8qf0s5.fsf@matica.localdomain> References: <87ws8qf0s5.fsf@matica.localdomain> Message-ID: On 5/9/09, Ian Zimmerman wrote: > Yes. Forget Network Manager, which is one of the most tourturously > mangled pieces of the Linux puzzle Excellent, Ian. Thanks for steering me away from a rocky shore! > If you need WPA encryption look at wpa-supplicant. > If not you should be able to do what you want with just wireless-tools. Way to go! -- Zeke Krahlin City of the Undead From pewterbot9 at gmail.com Mon May 11 02:37:28 2009 From: pewterbot9 at gmail.com (Pewter Bot) Date: Mon, 11 May 2009 02:37:28 -0700 Subject: [buug] Intriguing New OS on the Horizon Message-ID: It's called "ReactOS", now in alpha stage...learned about it watching one of Chris Pirillo's videos: How do You Run Windows Programs without Windows http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9pICtFavMs So I went to their site [ http://www.reactos.org/ ] to learn more. It consists of "only of GNU GPL (General Public License) and GPL compatible licensed source code." --Here's their spiel as it appears on the home page; ReactOS? is a free, modern operating system based on the design of Windows? XP/2003. Written completely from scratch, it aims to follow the Windows? architecture designed by Microsoft from the hardware level right through to the application level. This is not a Linux based system, and shares none of the unix architecture. The main goal of the ReactOS project is to provide an operating system which is binary compatible with Windows. This will allow your Windows applications and drivers to run as they would on your Windows system. Additionally, the look and feel of the Windows operating system is used, such that people accustomed to the familiar user interface of Windows? would find using ReactOS straightforward. The ultimate goal of ReactOS is to allow you to remove Windows? and install ReactOS without the end user noticing the change. --end of spiel --And an excerpt from their FAQ page: ReactOS works very closely with Wine, and thus both projects actually benefit from each other. We have several developers in both the WINE and ReactOS projects that work on cross-compatibility issues between the two projects. It is our view that Linux + Wine can never be a full replacement for Microsoft(R) Windows(R). ReactOS has the potential for a much higher degree of compatibility - especially for Microsoft(R) Windows(R) drivers - which WINE does not address. --end of excerpt How intriguing. Thought others here might be curious about these GPL upstarts! Is this the first GNU derived OS that is not a unix-compatible system? -- Zeke Krahlin City of the Undead From pewterbot9 at gmail.com Mon May 11 16:07:28 2009 From: pewterbot9 at gmail.com (Pewter Bot) Date: Mon, 11 May 2009 16:07:28 -0700 Subject: [buug] External CD-RW/DVD-RW burner Message-ID: I'm looking to purchase a USB-connect CD/DVD player/burner (slim/mini), 'cause they're a good price these days ($55 average). But the two I've looked at on eBay, say they'll work with Windoze or Mac. But isn't it a safe bet any more, than such USB 2.0 devices all run on any Linux distro? Or do I need to get picky and look up their model names/brands on a Linux-hardware compatible list? TIA. -- Zeke Krahlin City of the Undead From bill.honeycutt at gmail.com Mon May 11 16:42:04 2009 From: bill.honeycutt at gmail.com (Wm. F. Honeycutt) Date: Mon, 11 May 2009 16:42:04 -0700 Subject: [buug] External CD-RW/DVD-RW burner In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <87acd5770905111642k2290f13fxa560a2d04fa36f07@mail.gmail.com> Find a specific reference to a USB 2.0 DVD/RW which works with someone else's eeeubuntu. You stand a better chance of success when you find a "working" model. On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 4:07 PM, Pewter Bot wrote: > I'm looking to purchase a USB-connect CD/DVD player/burner > (slim/mini), 'cause they're a good price these days ($55 average). But > the two I've looked at on eBay, say they'll work with Windoze or Mac. > But isn't it a safe bet any more, than such USB 2.0 devices all run on > any Linux distro? Or do I need to get picky and look up their model > names/brands on a Linux-hardware compatible list? TIA. > > -- > Zeke Krahlin > City of the Undead > _______________________________________________ > Buug mailing list > Buug at weak.org > http://www.weak.org/mailman/listinfo/buug > From charles.paul at gmail.com Mon May 11 16:49:42 2009 From: charles.paul at gmail.com (Charles Paul) Date: Mon, 11 May 2009 16:49:42 -0700 Subject: [buug] Fwd: External CD-RW/DVD-RW burner In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Charles Paul Date: Mon, May 11, 2009 at 4:29 PM Subject: Re: [buug] External CD-RW/DVD-RW burner To: Pewter Bot I picked up a Lite-On bus-powered DVD writer for 80 dollars. ?It automagically shows up as /dev/sr0, /dev/dvd and /dev/cdrom on my Debian Lenny eeepc netbook. ?YMMV, but I believe that most modern dvd adaptors will do the same. On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 4:07 PM, Pewter Bot wrote: > I'm looking to purchase a USB-connect CD/DVD player/burner > (slim/mini), 'cause they're a good price these days ($55 average). But > the two I've looked at on eBay, say they'll work with Windoze or Mac. > But isn't it a safe bet any more, than such USB 2.0 devices all run on > any Linux distro? Or do I need to get picky and look up their model > names/brands on a Linux-hardware compatible list? TIA. > > -- > Zeke Krahlin > City of the Undead > _______________________________________________ > Buug mailing list > Buug at weak.org > http://www.weak.org/mailman/listinfo/buug > From pewterbot9 at gmail.com Mon May 11 17:20:13 2009 From: pewterbot9 at gmail.com (Pewter Bot) Date: Mon, 11 May 2009 17:20:13 -0700 Subject: [buug] Color laser printer compatibility Message-ID: Per Rick Moen's sage advice to steer clear of *all* inkjet printers, and in need of acquiring a good quality color printer, I've started looking at the laser species. Delighted to see that I have a wide selection these days when I'm willing to spend up to $150. Prices sure have dropped compared to several years ago! Of course, I will do my homework re. Linux compatibility, consumer reviews, cartirdge expense, etc. But I now would like to pose the following question, regarding system requirements listed on eBay. Thusly: "Minimum system requirements: SuSE Linux 8.2, Red Hat Linux 9, Red Hat Fedora Core 1, Mandrake Linux 10.1 Discovery, SuSE Linux 9.2, Red Hat Fedora Core 3, Red Hat Linux 8.0." [I removed any Windoze and Mac listings, for brevity's sake.] Interesting that neither Debian nor Ubuntu were listed. Now, I would gladly dual-boot w/2 versions of Linux if need be. But wouldn't there be a rather simple workaround, in order to get the printer to work in Ubuntu? Or is this some proprietary arrangement that would not allow this? TIA. -- Zeke Krahlin Zekeopolis Headquarters From Michael.Paoli at cal.berkeley.edu Mon May 11 20:07:07 2009 From: Michael.Paoli at cal.berkeley.edu (Michael Paoli) Date: Mon, 11 May 2009 20:07:07 -0700 Subject: [buug] Color laser printer compatibility In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20090511200707.11155lc8b216598g@webmail.rawbw.com> Without details such as make and model, printer language(s)/protocol(s), etc. it's rather difficult for folks to make much more than a guess as to how compatible or not it may be on operating systems / distributions not specifically stated as compatible. That it works or is supported on several Linux distributions is at least fairly encouraging, but without more information it's rather difficult to know how well it may or may not work on other distributions - or even those it's stated to work on. E.g. if it depends upon binary blobs from the manufacturer, that only work on Linux distributions for which they produce that binary blob, and for which they release no source, one might be looking at a printer that's mostly good for a boat anchor a few years down the road. Or it may be they release all the source, and those they list as "supported" are just those they've created packages for and tested their printer on, and provide at least some level of "support" - may work perfectly fine on other distributions, ... just may not have "support" (or any official support) from the manufacturer for other operating systems / distributions. references/excerpts: http://catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html Quoting "Pewter Bot" : > Per Rick Moen's sage advice to steer clear of *all* inkjet printers, > and in need of acquiring a good quality color printer, I've started > looking at the laser species. Delighted to see that I have a wide > selection these days when I'm willing to spend up to $150. Prices sure > have dropped compared to several years ago! > > Of course, I will do my homework re. Linux compatibility, consumer > reviews, cartirdge expense, etc. But I now would like to pose the > following question, regarding system requirements listed on eBay. > Thusly: > > "Minimum system requirements: SuSE Linux 8.2, Red Hat Linux 9, Red Hat > Fedora Core 1, Mandrake Linux 10.1 Discovery, SuSE Linux 9.2, Red Hat > Fedora Core 3, Red Hat Linux 8.0." [I removed any Windoze and Mac > listings, for brevity's sake.] > > Interesting that neither Debian nor Ubuntu were listed. Now, I would > gladly dual-boot w/2 versions of Linux if need be. But wouldn't there > be a rather simple workaround, in order to get the printer to work in > Ubuntu? Or is this some proprietary arrangement that would not allow > this? TIA. From Michael.Paoli at cal.berkeley.edu Mon May 11 20:52:16 2009 From: Michael.Paoli at cal.berkeley.edu (Michael Paoli) Date: Mon, 11 May 2009 20:52:16 -0700 Subject: [buug] ~, shell script programming, etc. (wee bits from last BUUG meeting, plus a bit more Message-ID: <20090511205216.24245ohysm6c5yo8@webmail.rawbw.com> from an sh(1) man page: Tilde Expansion (substituting a user's home directory) A word beginning with an unquoted tilde character (~) is subjected to tilde expansion. All the characters up to a slash (/) or the end of the word are treated as a username and are replaced with the user's home directory. If the username is missing (as in ~/foobar), the tilde is replaced with the value of the HOME variable (the current user's home directory). $ echo ~ /home/m/michael $ echo \~ ~ $ echo '~' ~ $ echo "~" ~ $ But not all shells are created equal - notice the differing behaviors between bash and dash, for the versions at my fingertips, in the case where HOME isn't set: $ bash -c 'unset HOME; echo ~' /home/m/michael $ dash -c 'unset HOME; echo ~' ~ $ Somewhat hazardous: #!/bin/sh cd ~/some_directory ./some_program A bit better: #!/bin/sh cd ~/some_directory && ./some_program Typically even better for a shell script: #!/bin/sh set -e cd ~/some_directory ./some_program With -e set, upon error (non-zero return for shell command) the shell exits non-zero, rather continuing execution. This is typically what one wants. references: 2009-05-07 BUUG meeting sh(1) http://www.rawbw.com/~mp/unix/sh/#Good_Programming_Practices From rick at linuxmafia.com Tue May 12 10:15:17 2009 From: rick at linuxmafia.com (Rick Moen) Date: Tue, 12 May 2009 10:15:17 -0700 Subject: [buug] Color laser printer compatibility In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20090512171517.GK16483@linuxmafia.com> Quoting Zeke Krahlin (pewterbot9 at gmail.com): > Per Rick Moen's sage advice to steer clear of *all* inkjet printers, > and in need of acquiring a good quality color printer, I've started > looking at the laser species. FWIW, I've traditionally known _colour_ laser printers as an exotic and somewhat pricey subspecies that I've fortunately not needed, so I've not paid close attention to them. I gather that their prices have dropped immensely while I wasn't looking. But, in consequence, I'm not up to date on the state of them. Honestly, I've always assumed that limited amounts of colour printing is the best possible usage model for an inkjet: That is, the post-purchase variable costs of an inkjet -- pretty much any inkjet -- tend to suck, but, if you use them only when absolutely necessary and stick to a dependable monotone laser for everyday, you pay ghastly per-page charges only for a small number of pages per year, and thus win. For many years, until some time around 2006-2007, a gentleman named Grant Taylor ran the linuxprinting.org Web site, and one of its many nice features was its Suggested Printers page. What changed in '06-'07 is that Grant turned over operation of the site and its extensive database on printer makes/models to The Linux Foundation. Those guys have done a decent job, but Suggested Printers is among the features now dropped from the site (which itself moved to openprinting.org). Here's the final snapshot of that page at archive.org: http://web.archive.org/web/20071229130553/www.linux-foundation.org/en/OpenPrinting/Database/SuggestedPrinters It was already, then, a long-unmaintained page. I'd guesstimate that its contents were truly current only as of maybe 2005. So, FWIW, Grant was _then_ able to announce that the price problem with colour lasers had recently been broken, such that "There are already many devices well under $1000." Grant was able to enthusiastically recommend models based on nothing but commodity PostScript as the printer language, such as the HP Color LaserJet 2550L and Minolta Magicolor 2450. He suggests that other PostScript models were also hitting the market. He also recommended with almost as much enthusiasm the Konica or Minolta QMS Magicolor DL series, which required one-off drivers that were, however, open source. On the slightly higher end, he added "Workgroup and high-end color laser printers usually understand PostScript and so they can easily be set up with the manufacturer-supplied PPD file." So, where does that leave you in 2009? I'm not sure -- but I'd certainly concentrate on finding genuine PostScript-compatible printers, among what's listed in the "openprinting.org" database, and then evaluate _those_ for durability and price. I honestly have no idea if you can't get anything but proprietary crap for a mere $150. However, when you do your Web site research, you'll know. > "Minimum system requirements: SuSE Linux 8.2, Red Hat Linux 9, Red Hat > Fedora Core 1, Mandrake Linux 10.1 Discovery, SuSE Linux 9.2, Red Hat > Fedora Core 3, Red Hat Linux 8.0." [I removed any Windoze and Mac > listings, for brevity's sake.] Aw, c'mon. This is not a distro-specific problem. Any given release of a distro comes provided with then-recent sets of various printer filter ("driver") packages: Ghostscript Uniprint, Magicfilter, lots of others. If your distro doesn't have a recent enough driver of the deseired family for a given printer, most of the time you can just grab a PPD for the printer, e.g., via Linux Foundation's warmed-over version of Grant's site, just drop it onto your filesystem, and point CUPS at it. Done.` From rubinson at u.arizona.edu Tue May 12 11:02:59 2009 From: rubinson at u.arizona.edu (Claude Rubinson) Date: Tue, 12 May 2009 11:02:59 -0700 Subject: [buug] Color laser printer compatibility In-Reply-To: <20090512171517.GK16483@linuxmafia.com> References: <20090512171517.GK16483@linuxmafia.com> Message-ID: <20090512180259.GB3750@wagner> On Tue, May 12, 2009 at 10:15:17AM -0700, Rick Moen wrote: > For many years, until some time around 2006-2007, a gentleman named > Grant Taylor ran the linuxprinting.org Web site, and one of its many > nice features was its Suggested Printers page. What changed in '06-'07 > is that Grant turned over operation of the site and its extensive > database on printer makes/models to The Linux Foundation. Those guys > have done a decent job, but Suggested Printers is among the features now > dropped from the site (which itself moved to openprinting.org). The old linuxprinting.org was a best of breed, hearkening back to the days of HOWTOs that were both useful and up-to-date. I clearly remember having to buy a new printer, looking up the site, and being surprised to find a recommendation for a Lexmark inkjet. Very roughly paraphrased, the recommendation was something along the lines of "Inkjets usually aren't worth it (unless, as Rick noted, you need color). And Lexmark's generally suck. But this one has PostScript built-in and is on sale for a ridiculously low price. Buy two." I used that printer for over a decade until I finally gave it away (or sold it?). Never had a problem. And now I curse all printers that don't have native support for PostScript. RIP. Claude From rick at linuxmafia.com Tue May 12 11:13:32 2009 From: rick at linuxmafia.com (Rick Moen) Date: Tue, 12 May 2009 11:13:32 -0700 Subject: [buug] Color laser printer compatibility In-Reply-To: <20090512180259.GB3750@wagner> References: <20090512171517.GK16483@linuxmafia.com> <20090512180259.GB3750@wagner> Message-ID: <20090512181332.GL16483@linuxmafia.com> Quoting Claude Rubinson (rubinson at u.arizona.edu): > The old linuxprinting.org was a best of breed, hearkening back to the > days of HOWTOs that were both useful and up-to-date. In the middle of the most recent BUUG discussion about printing, some months back, I was driven to write directly to Grant Taylor, solely to send him fanmail. I wanted to go out of my way to merely say thanks, to say that I really appreciated his work on that site. I also dropped into that fanmail a particular thanks for the Suggested Printers page, saying that _if_ he ever felt like maintaining such a page again, I'd be enthusiastically recommending it to people, as I did the old one. Grant did reply back, was clearly pleased at the unexpectedly nice mail, and is indeed considering getting back into the game -- but, I'm sure, not right this minute. From itz at buug.org Tue May 12 20:15:41 2009 From: itz at buug.org (Ian Zimmerman) Date: Tue, 12 May 2009 20:15:41 -0700 Subject: [buug] External CD-RW/DVD-RW burner In-Reply-To: <87acd5770905111642k2290f13fxa560a2d04fa36f07@mail.gmail.com> (Wm. F. Honeycutt's message of "Mon\, 11 May 2009 16\:42\:04 -0700") References: <87acd5770905111642k2290f13fxa560a2d04fa36f07@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <87octxelr6.fsf@matica.localdomain> Bill> Find a specific reference to a USB 2.0 DVD/RW which works with Bill> someone else's eeeubuntu. You stand a better chance of success Bill> when you find a "working" model. The read side is pretty much automatic, no need to worry. The write side, I would do what you suggest. -- Ian Zimmerman gpg public key: 1024D/C6FF61AD fingerprint: 66DC D68F 5C1B 4D71 2EE5 BD03 8A00 786C C6FF 61AD Ham is for reading, not for eating. From pewterbot9 at gmail.com Wed May 13 02:57:36 2009 From: pewterbot9 at gmail.com (Pewter Bot) Date: Wed, 13 May 2009 02:57:36 -0700 Subject: [buug] External CD-RW/DVD-RW burner Message-ID: On Mon, 11 May 2009 "Wm. F. Honeycutt" posted: {{ Find a specific reference to a USB 2.0 DVD/RW which works with someone else's eeeubuntu. You stand a better chance of success when you find a "working" model. }} I have a CD/DVD-RW EIDE (PATA) internal drive that i used for my windoze system since 2005. Yanked it from my old desktop, adapted it for USB and voila...it runs just fine in Ubuntu, including burning both CD's and DVD's. Likewise for an external read-only DVD drive that I bought for my netbook in November, which came preinstalled with XP. It also runs just fine in Linux. I understand your reasoning, however I think USB technology has made cross-compatibility a much easier process in many cases. Prior to USB, we had SATA, PATA, SCSI, ps/2, parallel and serial...along with their concomitant driver interface issues. Perhaps the fact that this is RW, not just R, adds a complication unbeknownst to yours truly? Also, what Linux compatible lists I've seen, the external DVD models are quite few and all at least 30% pricier (like what I'd expect for Mac products) than the good deals I see on eBay and elsewhere. But I thought I'd ask before taking the plunge. Last time I played with Linux, things were not so easy. What a breakthrough! I saw a nice model for only $59 (free shipping), but seller promotes it as specifically for the Acer Aspire One (another netbook; mine's Asus). I'd love to get that one, but I posted a query to the seller, as to why it's advertised for a specific model computer. We'll see! You may view the product here: http://tinyurl.com/poeulu Then I can offer a really cheap deal via craigslist for both my internal RW, and external RO. And my workspace will become that much less cluttered. =================== On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 4:29 PM, Charles Paul posted: {{ I picked up a Lite-On bus-powered DVD writer for 80 dollars. It automagically shows up as /dev/sr0, /dev/dvd and /dev/cdrom on my Debian Lenny eeepc netbook. YMMV, but I believe that most modern dvd adaptors will do the same. }} Excellent, and I thought so! Before switching over to Linux, I had purchased a used (w/slight dent) non-writeable DVD player (only $24), which works flawlessly in the Ubuntu kingdom. Thanks, Charles. BTW, I just purchased the "HORNETTEK Rhino 250GB 2.5" External hard drive" for just $66.60 (inc. shipping/tax/insurance). It is highly rated for quality and durability...seeing as consumer reviews speak often of their USB mind-drive dying on them. But I've learned that this is usually due to the USB connectivity itself...and removing the drive from the case, reconnecting with a $20 SATA-USB adapter will usually have it purring like a kitten once more. Good to know these things...my money doesn't grow on vines! Now, my 80gb EIDE internal drive (that I stripped from my now-trashed desktop) w/cooling case can be shelved...and my home system no longer has any noisy fan that I've had to live with for years and years. A relief comparable to finally discarding those clunky CRT monitors, and noisy dot-matrix printers (which regardless retain a certain charm in my heart after all these years). Amazing how my updated PC reality has become minaturized, quietized and greenized now, in 2009. After all, gotta get ready for the technological singularity. Nanobots and AI all the way. Wheee! -- Zeke Krahlin Zekeopolis Headquarters From pewterbot9 at gmail.com Wed May 13 15:29:23 2009 From: pewterbot9 at gmail.com (Pewter Bot) Date: Wed, 13 May 2009 15:29:23 -0700 Subject: [buug] Can Debian learn from Ubuntu? Message-ID: An interesting article, with even more interesting comments, both pro and con: Ted Ts'o: Debian Can Learn from Ubuntu http://www.linux-magazine.com/online/news/ted_ts_o_debian_can_learn_from_ubuntu FYI: I posted my own comment there; you can too...no need to register. -- Ezekiel J. Krahlin Zekeopolis Headquarters From jose at tumis.com Wed May 13 16:09:08 2009 From: jose at tumis.com (jose d lopez) Date: Wed, 13 May 2009 16:09:08 -0700 Subject: [buug] External CD-RW/DVD-RW burner In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4E4948E8-2534-4407-A480-F1BBB4FEA2DF@tumis.com> I pulled a generic LiteOn DVD-RW drive and made it a USB drive with a USB 2.0 adaptor like this one: Rosewill RCW-608 USB2.0 Adapter For IDE/SATA Device http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812119152 I use it to quickly connect older drives, etc. I have used it with eeePc 701, eeeBox -linux, and Acer Aspire One - linux We also have this cool brown one from LaCie in the office that works. I did have some boot issues with CentOS on an HP Vectra desktop. I suspect the older BIOS on the Vectra though. http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=4308 From pewterbot9 at gmail.com Wed May 13 17:20:47 2009 From: pewterbot9 at gmail.com (Pewter Bot) Date: Wed, 13 May 2009 17:20:47 -0700 Subject: [buug] Color laser printer compatibility Message-ID: On Mon, 11 May 2009 "Michael Paoli posted: {{ That it works or is supported on several Linux distributions is at least fairly encouraging }} Thanks Michael. I'm sure Rick M. is correct, that I'd be no better off with a sub-$200 color laser printer, than with an inkjet. I decided to fuggedaboudit. :P =============== On Tue, 12 May 2009 Rick Moen posted: {{ pretty much any inkjet -- tend to suck, but, if you use them only when absolutely necessary }} Then you run the risk of the color ink cartridge drying out through infrequent use. :( {{ and stick to a dependable monotone laser for everyday, you pay ghastly per-page charges only for a small number of pages per year, and thus win. }} My only real need is color, so I can print my decal designs. Otherwise, I used to indulge in printing out my latest blogs and tales, which are quite pretty as well as informative, due to the teensy illustrations. I enjoy looking at them on paper, over a cup of java and a lemon square (or a juicy slice of blueberry torte, if truth be known). I also shared w/some friends who like my writings, but don't use computers (can't believe these kind still exist). I'll just forgo this luxury, and pat myself on the back for drastically reducing my paper output. {{ For many years, until some time around 2006-2007, a gentleman named Grant Taylor ran the linuxprinting.org Web site, and one of its many nice features was its Suggested Printers page. }} Thanks for the reference page. It's still useful, and I hope your friend Grant resume its upkeep; he knows printers! {{ I honestly have no idea if you can't get anything but proprietary crap for a mere $150. However, when you do your Web site research, you'll know. }} Oh, I have no doubt about that...and have decided to drop entirely, the idea of purchasing a printer. I have found a printout and photocopy service in the Mission (on 16th near Valencia) that does an excellent job...w/o requiring you to do it all yourself, thus having to pay for the inevitable bad results that occur frequently, and you have to wait a long time to get any problem resolved, everyone's so busy-busy, and this is why I avoid Kinko's. In this place, someone prints out your pages, so any that do not come out good, do not cost. The last copy place I really liked, closed down two years ago. So it is actually much more affordable to take my files to a printing service: guaranteed top quality results for my colorful designs. Especially when you consider cartridges that leak, cartridges that dry out, and cartridges that just don't work. These printouts serve as templates, which I then duplicate via photocopy, and convert to pin-on buttons or self-adhesive decals. Until I become rich (or at least moderately guppified) and can afford an $800+ printer, I'll simply forgo the matter entirely. Sweep it under the rug; all gone! -- Zekeopolis Headquarters http://ezekielk.tblog.com From pewterbot9 at gmail.com Wed May 13 17:47:08 2009 From: pewterbot9 at gmail.com (Pewter Bot) Date: Wed, 13 May 2009 17:47:08 -0700 Subject: [buug] ~, shell script programming, etc. (wee bits from last BUUG meeting, plus a bit more Message-ID: On Mon, 11 May 2009 "Michael Paoli" posted: {{ But not all shells are created equal - notice the differing behaviors between bash and dash, for the versions at my fingertips, in the case where HOME isn't set }} Thanks for the mini-tutorial, Michael. It's now in my Linux notes. -- Zekeopolis Headquarters http://ezekielk.tblog.com From Michael.Paoli at cal.berkeley.edu Thu May 14 07:44:39 2009 From: Michael.Paoli at cal.berkeley.edu (Michael Paoli) Date: Thu, 14 May 2009 07:44:39 -0700 Subject: [buug] BALUG: Tu 2009-05-19 Cathy Malmrose, CEO of ZaReason Message-ID: <20090514074439.19013hr7tq7wjxwk@webmail.rawbw.com> Bay Area Linux User Group (BALUG) Tuesday 6:30 P.M. 2009-05-19 Tu 2009-05-19 Cathy Malmrose, CEO of ZaReason For our 2009-05-19 BALUG meeting, we're excited to have Cathy Malmrose, CEO of ZaReason[1] as our guest speaker. ZaReason, Inc. is based in Berkeley, California, and builds and sells a variety of Linux hardware solutions, including servers, laptops, and desktops. Cathy, in addition to being CEO of ZaReason, runs a non-profit, Partimus[2], supporting technology in education. She has done much volunteer work with the nonprofit computer recycling organization Alameda County Computer Resource Center (ACCRC)[3], spent the 90s as a tech writer, and is also a self-identified Linuxchick[4]. 1. http://www.zareason.com/ 2. http://www.partimus.org/ 3. http://www.accrc.org/ 4. http://www.linuxchix.org/ So, if you'd like to join us please RSVP: rsvp at balug.org **Why RSVP??** Well, don't worry we won't turn you away, but the RSVPs really help the Four Seas Restaurant plan the meal and they ensure that we're able to eat upstairs in the private banquet room. Meeting Details... 6:30pm Tuesday, May 19th, 2009 2009-05-19 Four Seas Restaurant 731 Grant Ave. San Francisco, CA 94108 Easy $5 PARKING: Portsmouth Square Garage at 733 Kearny Cost: The meetings are always free, but dinner is $13 Feedback on our publicity/announcements (e.g. contacts or lists where we should get our information out that we're not presently reaching, or things we should do differently): publicity-feedback at balug.org http://www.balug.org/ From rick at linuxmafia.com Thu May 14 10:59:47 2009 From: rick at linuxmafia.com (Rick Moen) Date: Thu, 14 May 2009 10:59:47 -0700 Subject: [buug] Color laser printer compatibility In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20090514175947.GI16483@linuxmafia.com> Quoting Zeke Krahlin (pewterbot9 at gmail.com): > Oh, I have no doubt about that...and have decided to drop entirely, > the idea of purchasing a printer. I have found a printout and > photocopy service in the Mission (on 16th near Valencia) that does an > excellent job...w/o requiring you to do it all yourself, thus having > to pay for the inevitable bad results that occur frequently, and you > have to wait a long time to get any problem resolved, everyone's so > busy-busy, and this is why I avoid Kinko's. At least you can rest in the knowledge that the printing-shop business is notoriously competitive. Which is not to say that bad deals are impossible, but only that you can detect them readily, and fix them by walking a few doors down to the next guy. However, I thought I'd mention a third option you might pursue over time: _used_ colour lasers. Logically, those that Grant Taylor endorsed, half a decade or so ago, would make a safe bet. Those were: o HP Color LaserJet 2550L o Minolta Magicolor 2450. o other, contemporaneous pure-PostScript colour lasers o Konica or Minolta QMS Magicolor DL series A vendor on eBay is offering an HP Colour LaserJet 2550L for auction, current high bid $25. http://computers.shop.ebay.com/items/_W0QQTechnologyZLaserQQ_dmptZCOMPQ5fPrinters?_nkw=LaserJet+2550L&_sacat=178&_trksid=m270&_odkw=&_osacat=178 You'll notice the "BuyItNow" (no-bid) price of $275, but that's not the auction. A Konica Minolta QMS Magicolor 2450 is shown, but not as an auction item but rather as BuyItNow ($395). There are two Konica Minolta Magicolour DL printers currently up for bid: http://cgi.ebay.com/Konica-Minolta-Magicolor-5430-DL-Laser-Printer_W0QQitemZ320362915693QQcmdZViewItemQQptZCOMP_Printers?hash=item4a971e276d&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1234|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A1318|301%3A1|293%3A1|294%3A50 http://cgi.ebay.com/KONICA-MINOLTA-MAGICOLOR-5440-DL-printer-color-laser_W0QQitemZ230343112437QQcmdZViewItemQQptZCOMP_Printers?hash=item35a184f6f5&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1234|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A1318|301%3A1|293%3A1|294%3A50 This printer on Craiglist isn't quite one of what Taylor recommended, and indeed is shown on Openprinting.org as a "GDI printer" -- a printer that offloads all imaging onto the host computer -- but works well enough and has open source drivers _and_ is cheap: http://sfbay.craigslist.org/pen/sys/1168177173.html http://openprinting.org/show_printer.cgi?recnum=Minolta-magicolor_2400W Probably the same cut-rate printer, $25 cheaper still: http://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/sys/1160988023.html Doing this search brings up a whole bunch (85) of other local prospects: http://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/sys?query=color laser You could do a whole lot worse than to just research a dozen or so of the best-looking candidates on Openprinting.org, and then just buying one and getting it over. From pewterbot9 at gmail.com Thu May 14 16:34:02 2009 From: pewterbot9 at gmail.com (Pewter Bot) Date: Thu, 14 May 2009 16:34:02 -0700 Subject: [buug] External CD-RW/DVD-RW burner Message-ID: On Wed, 13 May 2009 16:09:08 -0700 jose d lopez posted: {{ I pulled a generic LiteOn DVD-RW drive and made it a USB drive with a USB 2.0 adaptor like this one: }} Thanks for the excellent reference, I've just bookmarked for future need...may get one in advance, the price is so reasonable. -- Zekeopolis Headquarters http://ezekielk.tblog.com From pewterbot9 at gmail.com Fri May 15 14:45:44 2009 From: pewterbot9 at gmail.com (Pewter Bot) Date: Fri, 15 May 2009 14:45:44 -0700 Subject: [buug] Buug Digest, Vol 50, Issue 12 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, 14 May 2009 Rick Moen posted: {{ However, I thought I'd mention a third option you might pursue over time: _used_ colour lasers. }} Thanks much for all those excellent recommendations, Rick. I know they'll come in handy somewhere down the line, 'cause I can only put off for so long, w/o doing my own printing. -- Zekeopolis Headquarters http://ezekielk.tblog.com From rick at linuxmafia.com Fri May 15 15:24:33 2009 From: rick at linuxmafia.com (Rick Moen) Date: Fri, 15 May 2009 15:24:33 -0700 Subject: [buug] Buug Digest, Vol 50, Issue 12 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20090515222433.GK16483@linuxmafia.com> Quoting Zeke Krahlin (pewterbot9 at gmail.com): > Thanks much for all those excellent recommendations, Rick. I know > they'll come in handy somewhere down the line, 'cause I can only put > off for so long, w/o doing my own printing. You're very welcome. I have to admit that I boggle, every time I see people boggling over how to select hardware that is (1) Linux-compatible, (2) inexpensive, and (3) a newly released model that is available only "new" on the retail market. It's usually laptops, but the same principle applies to (various types of) printers: Why not discard criterion #3, since doing so makes the other two massively easier to satisfy? I almost never see people do that. Instead, they scrimp and save to buy some extremely new, expensive unit, then post complaints about how Linux support lags for its newly-created chipset, printer language, etc. And I find myself thinking "Well, what'd you expect?" Buying used is (speaking generally) smarter, not just because you get a huge price break, but also because you can ensure that you're buying 1-2 year old chipsets that, by now, have rock-solid Linux support in released distros. -- Cheers, Notice: The value of your Hofstadter's Constant Rick Moen (the average amount of time you spend each month rick at linuxmafia.com thinking about Hofstadter's Constant) has just McQ! (4x80) been adjusted upwards. From rick at linuxmafia.com Fri May 15 16:08:31 2009 From: rick at linuxmafia.com (Rick Moen) Date: Fri, 15 May 2009 16:08:31 -0700 Subject: [buug] Buug Digest, Vol 50, Issue 12 In-Reply-To: <4A0DEE33.6020004@eecs.berkeley.edu> References: <20090515222433.GK16483@linuxmafia.com> <4A0DEE33.6020004@eecs.berkeley.edu> Message-ID: <20090515230831.GA29418@linuxmafia.com> Quoting Jeff Anderson-Lee (jonah at eecs.berkeley.edu): > That does not often work in research computing. I want to use Linux, > but it's a struggle to do so some times without paying for Red Hat > Enterprise. Well, if you actually need the latest and greatest hardware, then that's a hard requirement. Most of the time, it's not. In particular, people new to Linux often assume that you need grossly overpowered CPUs and gobs of RAM, thus requiring cutting-edge gear. Even when I'm not merely being cheap, my Linux gear is always based on chipsets that have been on the market a minimum of 1-2 years. Thus, if I were looking to get a replacement laptop, my preferred choice would be a Thinkpad T42 or T42p, which is several models obsolete, but still really good and an enormously satisfactory Linux machine. But, anyway, I'm a little puzzled by your reference to RHEL, because in my experience that distro's vendor kernel and installer often has real problems on some recently introduced hardware chipsets. One of my recent long-term gigs was as the sole guy in charge of Linux hardware certification for a very large EDA firm: Vendors would ship the firm their eval units, and they'd get dropped off at my lab. It was my task to recommend or disrecommend their purchase for upcoming quarters. First thing I'd always do is boot a recent Sidux live CD, because _that_ would reliably figure out all hardware. That, in turn let me probe the machine's hardware inventory using lspci, "dmesg | more", /proc/cpuinfo, /proc/meminfo, and so on. I would capture all those details on the intranet wiki, then finally _try_ the various enterprise distros the firm used (various levels of RHEL3, 4, and 5, SLES9 and 10 with sundry service packs). It was fairly common for some and in some cases all of the RHEL installations to be problematic on hardware-support grounds. Most common problem was newly-introduced integrated Broadcom NICs. ACPI problems were also very common. Sometimes, those problems could be gotten around by playing with kernel parameters (noapic, nolapic, noacpi, etc.) Sometimes, the only feasible workaround was turning off the problematic onboard component and installing a PCI-E add-on card. From pewterbot9 at gmail.com Sat May 16 12:12:44 2009 From: pewterbot9 at gmail.com (Pewter Bot) Date: Sat, 16 May 2009 12:12:44 -0700 Subject: [buug] linux printers Message-ID: On Fri, 15 May 2009 Rick Moen posted: {{ Buying used is (speaking generally) smarter, not just because you get a huge price break, but also because you can ensure that you're buying 1-2 year old chipsets that, by now, have rock-solid Linux support in released distros. }} Best printer advice ever! -- Zekeopolis Headquarters http://ezekielk.tblog.com From pewterbot9 at gmail.com Mon May 18 18:18:47 2009 From: pewterbot9 at gmail.com (Pewter Bot) Date: Mon, 18 May 2009 18:18:47 -0700 Subject: [buug] Gears or no Gears? Message-ID: Would like some informed opinion about whether or not using Google Gears would prove a boon to operating my upcoming Linux blog and site. I've settled on Wordpress, which has the option of using Gears to facilitate a blogmaster, quote: "Gears is a plug-in that extends your browser to create a richer platform for web applications. For example, webmasters can use Gears on their websites to let users access information offline or provide you with content based on your geographical location. To install Gears, visit http://gears.google.com." Gears is Linux-ready, and plugs into Firefox. Does anyone from BUUG know if Gears can violate my online priivacy in any way? How about tracking? Are the features offered mostly lazy workarounds, or will they really be an asset to my blogging? i certainly like the idea of having a clean interface between client and server, and being able to work offline. My needs would be simple; my blog would only be mildly interactive, based on comments only, nothing else. Perhaps Gears' features would be top heavy, and thwarted by the fact I don't have 24/7 broadband, and only have that when i access public wifi away from home (where I only have dialup). -- Zekeopolis Headquarters http://ezekielk.tblog.com From rick at linuxmafia.com Mon May 18 18:56:50 2009 From: rick at linuxmafia.com (Rick Moen) Date: Mon, 18 May 2009 18:56:50 -0700 Subject: [buug] Gears or no Gears? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20090519015650.GQ16483@linuxmafia.com> Quoting Zeke Krahlin (pewterbot9 at gmail.com): > Would like some informed opinion.... An offering a guesstimate from a non-developer. You'll have to decide for yourself what that's worth in this context. > Does anyone from BUUG know if Gears can violate my online priivacy in > any way? How about tracking? You mean, in the sense of calling home to the Google, Inc. mother ship? I really don't see how -- with the minor exception that the default network location provider for the Geolocation API is maps.google.com, so you feed Google the usual slow trickle of "someone cares about this place" data, same as whenever you use Google Maps. Everything else in the Gears toolkit, as detailed on http://code.google.com/apis/gears/ , seems to be strictly local extensions inside and alongside the user's browser. > Are the features offered mostly lazy > workarounds, or will they really be an asset to my blogging? You'll really need to read Wordpress's docs about _how_ they use the Gears interfaces, to judge that for yourself.` From pewterbot9 at gmail.com Tue May 19 12:52:51 2009 From: pewterbot9 at gmail.com (Pewter Bot) Date: Tue, 19 May 2009 12:52:51 -0700 Subject: [buug] Gears or no Gears? Message-ID: On Mon, 18 May 2009 Rick Moen posted: {{ You'll really need to read Wordpress's docs about _how_ they use the Gears interfaces, to judge that for yourself.` }} They're not very helpful; no discussion of possible down sides to using Gears. My concern is how secure an interface they use, or would my system become compromised/vulnerable. A web search for "google gears security privacy issues" came up with the answers I seek (and after reading these pages, I've decided to do w/o the Gears). Google Gears: Initial Thoughts on Security Implications http://www.oreillynet.com/onlamp/blog/2007/06/google_gears_initial_thoughts.html --quote: I like the concept of Google Gears. I think it?s a great idea. Just like everything in life, the increased functionality it provides is not without increased risk. If I had to pick from the list above, I?d guess that we are most likely to hear of existing XSS or browser vulnerabilities being abused to steal (or manipulate) Gears databases. --end quote Google Gears and Security concerns http://www.anishshaikh.com/2008/04/google-gears-and-security-concerns.html --quoting aspects of possible intrusion: DNS spoofing or /etc/hosts file...SQL Injection...Cross site scripting...Security of Data files...Memory usage...Encryption...Good news for Forensics Investigators...New Attack avenues...Malware...Worker Process Abuse...You cannot password protect your files when they are offline like in Microsoft Office. --end quote Is it OK for Google to Own Us? http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Security/Is-it-OK-for-Google-to-Own-Us/ --quote: The services at issue at some point will likely include Google Gears, now in beta, an open-source browser extension that uses Java-Script APIs to allow users to work on Web applications when theyre offline. --end quote Is Google Gears Safe? http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/02/security_google_gears/ --quote: Bottom line: Gears is probably fairly safe, provided that the site really is trustworthy, but it is a beta and the usual caveats apply. Check that URL carefully. Avoid Gears when used by smaller organizations that might not have sites well defended against malware. I still don't like the dialog though; and I'm surprised that Google does not make it easier for users to examine the security issues. --end quote NO GEARS FOR ME! -- Zekeopolis Headquarters http://ezekielk.tblog.com From Michael.Paoli at cal.berkeley.edu Wed May 20 00:03:03 2009 From: Michael.Paoli at cal.berkeley.edu (Michael Paoli) Date: Wed, 20 May 2009 00:03:03 -0700 Subject: [buug] Berkeley Linux Users Group Message-ID: <20090520000303.562821hhc7mt04cg@webmail.rawbw.com> There is now, also: Berkeley Linux Users Group BerkeleyLUG http://www.berkeleylug.com/ From pewterbot9 at gmail.com Wed May 20 15:15:04 2009 From: pewterbot9 at gmail.com (Pewter Bot) Date: Wed, 20 May 2009 15:15:04 -0700 Subject: [buug] Berkeley Linux Users Group Message-ID: On Wed, 20 May 2009 "Michael Paoli" posted: > There is now, also: > Berkeley Linux Users Group > BerkeleyLUG > http://www.berkeleylug.com/ Fantastic. Just subscribed via their home page, I'm gonna be there! Maybe some would also like to attend our more laid-back bi-Thurs. gatherings. Personally, I like once or twice a week get-togethers, to slake my Linux thirst, so this'll work out fine. Tfhanks, Michael. -- Zekeopolis Headquarters http://ezekielk.tblog.com From jim at well.com Wed May 27 08:22:47 2009 From: jim at well.com (jim) Date: Wed, 27 May 2009 08:22:47 -0700 Subject: [buug] BayPIGgies meeting Thursday May 28, 2009: PyCon Recaps Message-ID: <1243437767.6500.328.camel@jim-laptop> BayPIGgies meeting Thursday May 28, 2009: PyCon Recaps NOTE BayPIGgies meets at the Symantec Vcafe, at Symantec's location at 350 Ellis Street in Mountain View. http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&ie=UTF8&fb=1&split=1&gl=us&ei=w6i_Sfr6MZmQsQOzlv0v&hl=en&t=h&msa=0&msid=116202735295394761637.00046550c09ff3d96bff1&ll=37.397693,-122.053707&spn=0.002902,0.004828&z=18 Tonight's talk is * PyCon Recaps by Wesley Chun, Daryl Spitzer, and Aaron Maxwell Meetings start with a Newbie Nugget, a short discussion of an essential Python feature, specially for those new to Python. Tonight's Newbie Nugget: unknown at this time LOCATION FOR May 28, 2009 Symantec Corporation Symantec Vcafe 350 Ellis Street Mountain View, CA 94043 BayPIGgies meeting information is available at http://baypiggies.net/new/plone ------------------------ Agenda ------------------------ ..... 7:30 PM ........................... General hubbub, inventory end-of-meeting announcements, any first-minute announcements. ..... 7:35 PM to 7:45 PM ................ Newbie Nugget: unknown ..... 7:45 PM to 8:35 PM ................ PyCon Recaps by Wesley Chun, Daryl Spitzer, Aaron Maxwell Topic areas will include Design Patterns, Class Decorators, Coroutines and Concurrency, Testing, and more. ..... 8:35 PM to 9:00 PM ................ Mapping and Random Access Mapping is a rapid-fire audience announcement of topics the announcers are interested in. Random Access follows immediately to allow follow up individually on the announcements and other topics of interest. From aldenm at gmail.com Thu May 28 14:05:13 2009 From: aldenm at gmail.com (Alden Meneses) Date: Thu, 28 May 2009 14:05:13 -0700 Subject: [buug] VPS Business for Sale Message-ID: <221610dc0905281405r795e8a1cn735b21f085a0a7ff@mail.gmail.com> Hello All, I happened across a VPS business for sale. The business sells for under $5K and supposedly has a positive cash flow of about $3.5K/annually. I don't have the system admin skills to go at this alone. The VPS is running on Linux out of leased equipment at a Dallas facility. Guess what I am looking for is a) A partner b) A guru or contractor to support me when I cannot figure out how to solve some issues on my own. c) Some insight on the VPS market and things to look out for. At any rate send me an email and we can discuss further. I haven't spoken to the seller as of yet to get more details but if you want to be involved you will need to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). All the best, Alden Meneses -- Need a place to stay in So. Lake Tahoe, CA? Visit www.heavenly5.com cell (510) 734-1821 fax (415) 386-8230 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.weak.org/pipermail/buug/attachments/20090528/bd72ba3f/attachment.html