October 2014 - Talk - lists.gtalug.org

teksavvy dsl 2 modem that runs OpenWRT
by Alex Volkov 23 Nov '14

23 Nov '14

Hello everyone, I need to get a DSL2 modem, and I like running OpenWRT when it comes to embedded devices -- I'm planning to run OpenVPN, ssh server and a few Python scripts. I'm assuming there could be a router out the with DSL2 modem capability. Could anyone recommend the most linux-friendly model that would have enough resources to run all the things I've mentioned? Thanks, Alex.

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Why Everyone Wants to Kill the Mouse and Keyboard
by Thomas Milne 02 Nov '14

02 Nov '14

Why Everyone Wants to Kill the Mouse and Keyboard http://gizmo.do/boYucko <http://pocket.co/sDAQD> Sent from Pocket.

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capturing the output of any program and inserting in db
by Dave Cramer 30 Oct '14

30 Oct '14

Is there anything out there that is written simply ? By this I mean I don't want to have to install a framework or a jvm or any large dependencies. Ideally this would be written in bash or the like. The goal is to monitor cron jobs using something other than mail. Dave Cramer

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Storing Securities in a Git Repo
by Myles Braithwaite 28 Oct '14

28 Oct '14

Does anyone have any experience storing securities (i.e. AWS access and security keys) in a Git repository? I did some Googling and found a two solutions, git-crypt[1] and blackbox[2]. Anyone tried them before? [1]: https://github.com/AGWA/git-crypt [2]: https://github.com/StackExchange/blackbox -- Myles Braithwaite | http://mylesb.ca/e

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riseup.net
by Giles Orr 27 Oct '14

27 Oct '14

After FSOSS on Thursday and Friday, I spent some time looking at prism-break.org. One of the sites they recommend for email is riseup.net: is anyone familiar with them and/or have an account? How is their user interface? Are there two of you out there who would be willing to (privately) send me an invite so I can bypass what is apparently a very long wait for a regular request? Their site says "To create codes, existing users can login to user.riseup.net and click 'Invites'." I'm interested in experiences, not just invites. Getting away from gmail would be a plus, and riseup does claim to support IMAP. Thanks. -- Giles http://www.gilesorr.com/ gilesorr(a)gmail.com

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wierd usb problem: refuses to mount rw
by Matt Price 24 Oct '14

24 Oct '14

In what appears to be a recent and spontaneous change, teh Ubuntu box I use to run our PVR has stopped mounting USB keys rw. THis is on Ubuntu -- when Ifirst noticed the problem I was still running 13.10, but am now updated to 14.10. WHen I plug in a key, it will sometimes (but not always!) appear to mount as usul to /media/matt/something , opening up a nautilus window. but any attempt to write to the disk will fail due to lack of write permission. Attempts to remount also fail: ~$ sudo mount -o rw,remount /media/matt/Linux\ Mint\ 17\ Xfce\ 32-bit/ mount: cannot remount /dev/sdb1 read-write, is write-protected Meanwhile, dmesg says this, which I don't entirely understnad: 794.736021] usb 1-6: new high-speed USB device number 4 using ehci-pci [ 794.869458] usb 1-6: New USB device found, idVendor=1221, idProduct=3234 [ 794.869463] usb 1-6: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3 [ 794.869466] usb 1-6: Product: Flash Disk [ 794.869469] usb 1-6: Manufacturer: USB2.0 [ 794.869471] usb 1-6: SerialNumber: 100000000000068B [ 794.869731] usb-storage 1-6:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected [ 794.872208] scsi7 : usb-storage 1-6:1.0 [ 795.874368] scsi 7:0:0:0: Direct-Access USB2.0 Flash Disk 2.50 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2 [ 795.874586] sd 7:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0 [ 795.875227] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] 2068480 512-byte logical blocks: (1.05 GB/1010 MiB) [ 795.876225] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off [ 795.876228] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 0b 00 00 08 [ 795.877226] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page found [ 795.877229] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through [ 795.882222] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page found [ 795.882226] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through [ 795.882860] sdb: sdb1 [ 795.882863] sdb: p1 size 2445312 extends beyond EOD, enabling native capacity [ 795.885227] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page found [ 795.885229] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through [ 795.885858] sdb: sdb1 [ 795.885861] sdb: p1 size 2445312 extends beyond EOD, truncated [ 795.891228] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page found [ 795.891233] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through [ 795.891235] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk [ 796.069733] ISO 9660 Extensions: Microsoft Joliet Level 3 [ 796.070732] ISO 9660 Extensions: RRIP_1991A ----- this happens with all usb keys, all of which I am able to mount on my laptop, which runs arch linux. Any htoughts on how to proceed? Thanks as always, Matt

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Unbootability
by Peter King 23 Oct '14

23 Oct '14

I'm trying to revive an old computer. The CPU is an Athlon XP 2500, on an Asus A7X87 motherboard, with 3GB of RAM. The internal connections are all PATA. It has both USB ports and a DVDRW drive installed. Up until a month or so ago, it ran as well as an old computer could, with Gentoo installed. Then a hard disc went bad, and that's when the fun began. The BIOS, which dates from 2004, wouldn't let me boot from a USB stick (the only options are USB-FDD and USB-ZIP). So I started burning boot CDs, all of which fail: Gentoo current install disc; SysRescue CD; the Debian 7.0 live install disc; Archliinx; and OpenBSD. As I said, they all fail, quite early on in the process: the BIOS tells me "ATAPI CDROM: No Emulation" and then starts loading each disc, but fails one way or another, never getting through a kernel load as far as I can tell (which isn't very far). I have swapped the DVDRW drive out for another one, with no change in results; I have changed the PATA cable connected to the DVDRW twice, also with no change in results. MemTest seems quite happy with the installed RAM. The boot failures are inconsistent, but, for what it's worth, here is how they each fail: (1) Gentoo install disc: Gets as far as starting to load the kernel when the screen goes black. Sometimes that triggers a BIOS reboot, but at other times it just sits there. Tried several combinations of kernel modules: nofb, noacpi, no-hardware-detection, and so on, without any making a difference. (2) Sysrecue CD: Latest version simply segfaults after the "ISOLinux" declaration. (3) Debian 7.0 live install disc: Gets to the menu of choices, and will usually allow me to make a choice; picking "Install" in any form causes a black screen followed by a reboot. Under the "Advanced" menu I can run MemTest, though. (4) Archlinux install disc: Once I got to the menu, with the motherboard wildly beeping in the background, but wasn't able to select any of the choices. Every other time it just triggers a reboot. (5) OpenBSD 5.6 install disc: Starts loading the kernel but freezes after printing the UC copyright notice. Google turns up lots of suggestions for the "no emulation" message, most of which are either "switch the cable" or "change the drive", both of which I've tried, as noted. The next thing I'll try is to remove one hard disc, install it in some other functional computer, and install a bootable Gentoo (or whatever) on it there, then reinstalling the disc on the old computer to see if it will boot from it. I'm happy (enough) to do that, but I'm bothered by the brick wall I've hit in trying to do something ordinary, namely to boot from a CDR. Any ideas? -- Peter King peter.king(a)utoronto.ca Department of Philosophy 170 St. George Street #521 The University of Toronto (416)-978-4951 ofc Toronto, ON M5R 2M8 CANADA http://individual.utoronto.ca/pking/ ========================================================================= GPG keyID 0x7587EC42 (2B14 A355 46BC 2A16 D0BC 36F5 1FE6 D32A 7587 EC42) gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys 7587EC42

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Re: [GTALUG] Java coding education/tutorials
by Stan Witkowski 23 Oct '14

23 Oct '14

At 07:00 AM 2014-10-22, Thomas Milne wrote: >My son is all motivated to learn Java so that he can hack around in >Minecraft, so I'm looking for ways for him to get started. I have no >coding background either, so I am equally lost. >Can anyone recommend something to get him to the next stage? www.youtube.com and enter java in the search box I especially like Derek Banas (many videos), but beginners may find him too fast (he doesn't pause a lot, although I prefer his fast clip). Java Programming by Derek Banas 175,184 views Cheat Sheet is Here : http://goo.gl/OPMjte Slower Java Tutorial : http://goo.gl/UHdlyP My preference is to download the videos at the highest resolution available (usually 720p) to watch them on an HDTV via a media player. (ASUS O!play mini - $65 at Canada Computers, often $55 when on sale) The media player's remote control allows me to freeze the picture and zoom in over 8 times to see some things really up close. This is especially useful when the presenter is writing on a whiteboard or blackboard and the lettering is tiny. As well, once downloaded, the videos can be copied to a tablet and watched at any time, anywhere. I've gotten quite a collection of Javascript, HTML, web stuff, stock market, etc. etc. educational videos. There is a TON of them on youtube. I use: Firefox browser with the add-on DownloadHelper 4.9.24 Stan.

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Java coding education/tutorials
by Thomas Milne 22 Oct '14

22 Oct '14

My son is all motivated to learn Java so that he can hack around in Minecraft, so I'm looking for ways for him to get started. I have no coding background either, so I am equally lost. We are working with Alice right now, and I think it's giving him the basic idea, but I'm not sure how far Alice can take him. On the one hand I'm tempted to just start mangling some Minecraft code and learn that way, but I don't want to ruin the momentum here. Can anyone recommend something to get him to the next stage? I've been desperate to get him to start to learn coding so I don't want to waste this opportunity now that he's actually motivated! :-) -- Thomas Milne

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MythTV: Major Service Changes at Schedules Direct
by David Collier-Brown 22 Oct '14

22 Oct '14

The tv-listings supplier I use with MythTV is changing to delivering the data from their own servers, and in addition is prototyping a json version. At the moment, it's not obvious if I need to change anything: anyone following this and have experience to share? --dave -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Major Service Changes at Schedules Direct Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2014 01:01:42 -0700 From: Schedules Direct <noreply(a)schedulesdirect.org> To: David Collier-Brown <davecb(a)spamcop.net> Greetings David Collier-Brown! Schedules Direct has been operating since 2007 to provide a stable environment for non-commercial media applications to receive TV listings data, but that does not mean things never change! :) This may be our first email-blast since 2007! We have been informed that Gracenote (formerly Tribune Media Services) will be ending the guide data service currently used by most members of Schedules Direct. Their plan is to end support for this service on November 1, 2014. Schedules Direct was already hard at work implementing replacement services. Please check with your application's support page for your best solution. Some applications have chosen to use a new SD-JSON service that offers a richer data set, while others have chosen to use the SD-DD service, which is meant to be a drop-in replacement for Gracenote/Tribune's service. If your application is no longer supported, there's no reason to worry. Most apps can continue to function with a change to your system's hosts file. (details in the SD forum). Last week I asked Tribune to update their DNS to force half of the traffic to the SD-DD servers. The concept was for people with problems to fail half the time now, rather than 100% come Nov 1. If you're one of the folks having problems, check with your application team or us to help resolve it. For the most up-to-date news, look for links on the SD website http://schedulesdirect.org Robert Eden President, Schedules Direct

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