January 2015 - Talk - lists.gtalug.org

New M.2 PCIe 2.0 drives show off future of solid-state storage
by Thomas Milne 09 Jan '15

09 Jan '15

Quote "For newer computers that possess PCIe 3.0 interfaces, the Samsung and Mushkin drives can reach 2,150MB/s read speeds and 1,550MB/s write speeds. (In comparison, a drive using a SATA 6Gb/s interface can only transfer files at a maximum speed of 600MB/s.)" http://www.zdnet.com/article/ces-2015-new-m-2-pcie-2-0-drives-show-off-futu…

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Second router as wireless ethernet bridge
by Thomas Milne 08 Jan '15

08 Jan '15

Here's another project I'm working on that is driving me around the bend. Sorry this is such a long story... A computer in our basement has no wireless, so instead of running a long cable to it, I wanted to put a router beside it and have it connect to that router by ethernet, and then have that router connect to the main one over wireless. No, I did not plug the computer into the WAN port... ;-) I have an old Linksys router WRT54GL v. 1.1 running Tomato 1.28, and my main router, the Buffalo N600 which has DD-WRT. According to about a hundred different howto's it should be very simple. I set the second router to an IP outside the DHCP range of the first, and set also set it to use the first router as gateway and DNS. I also set the SSID and password the same, and also the type of security used. Oh, and obviously I set the second router as 'Wireless Ethernet Bridge'. router 1 is 192.168.11.1, router 2 is 192.168.11.2 both have 255.255.255.0 as subnet mask Router 1 gives out addresses starting at 192.168.11.5 Am I correct in assuming that DHCP broadcasts should be relayed by the second router? In wireless bridge mode it doesn't appear to even have the option of offering DHCP... I noticed that the Buffalo will let you set up a virtual interface, so I tried using that with no security at all. I also found something here: http://www.cnet.com/how-to/reuse-an-old-router-to-bridge-devices-to-your-wi… that said I should set the second router to operate as a router and not as a gateway so I changed that. Still no ping response from google.com :-\ The only thing I can think of is that maybe the firewall settings are wrong on the second router, running Tomato. Respond to ICMP is unchecked, Allow Multicast is unchecked, NAT Loopback is set to Forwarded Only, and Enable SYN cookies is unchecked. Help! -- Thomas Milne

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Linksys 1200AC, an inexpensive, open-source 802.11ac Wi-Fi router
by Thomas Milne 08 Jan '15

08 Jan '15

"The dual 2.4 and 5GHz band AC1200 router is powered by an ARM 1.3GHz Dual-Core Processor. This is backed by 128MB of Flash memory, 512MB DDR3 RAM. A Belkin product manager said that the memory can be upgraded. It also comes with eSATA/USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 ports, four Gigabit Ethernet ports and a Gigabit WAN port." Daaayum http://www.zdnet.com/article/ces-2015-linksys-1200ac-an-inexpensive-open-so… -- Thomas Milne

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Experience with TekSavvy Business DSL
by Sadiq Saif 08 Jan '15

08 Jan '15

Hi all, I am curious if anybody on the list has experience with TekSavvy's business DSL service. I am looking at their 25/10 business service with a dry loop. Any good/bad/ugly thoughts experiences? -- Sadiq Saif https://staticsafe.ca

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Coworking space
by Greg Martyn 08 Jan '15

08 Jan '15

Hi all, Has anyone worked in a coworking space? Have a favourite? I'm just starting my search online, and from what I see, there are plenty to choose from. Any anecdotal tales would be really helpful. I'm completely new to this. Thanks! I live by the Main St subway stop, but have a slight preference for more centrally located locations, because the company I work for might start hiring in the Toronto area in the near future. Thanks, Greg

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Anyone on the list know what I need to read ancient Apple disks?
by David Collier-Brown 06 Jan '15

06 Jan '15

An elderly relative has a PPC iMac, the so-called "sunflower mac" http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/02/Imac_sunflower2.jpg It eventually died, but the symptoms hinted it wasn't a disk crash. This apparently came with MacO OS 9.2 and a 60.0 GB Ultra ATA/66 hard drive (5400 RPM), so what modern machines can read Mac file formats? I have an Ubunutu-based PVR with an ATA interface that's doing the DVD right now, could I read it from Linux? My old SPARC read Mac SCSI formats... --dave -- David Collier-Brown, | Always do right. This will gratify System Programmer and Author | some people and astonish the rest davecb(a)spamcop.net | -- Mark Twain

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Rogers and MTU size
by James Knott 06 Jan '15

06 Jan '15

One thing I noticed recently was that my firewall, running Linux, was getting a MTU of 576 bytes, instead of the normal 1500 bytes. This was being set by the Rogers DHCP server (option 26). 576 was common back in the days of non-error correcting modems, but hasn't been needed since then. If you're running dhcpcd, you can edit /etc/sysconfig/network/dhcp and change the line 'DHCPCD_USER_OPTIONS=""' to 'DHCPCD_USER_OPTIONS="-M"'. This will disable the DHCP MTU setting and use the configured MTU. Using a 1500 MTU will improve network efficiency, as 576 bytes will cause 3 packets to be sent, instead of 1, each with an IP header and also causes a lot more work for all the routers along the path. You can verify the MTU with a ping -s 1500 <destination>. If that works, then you have a 1500 byte MTU along the entire path to the destination. I found this because I was curious as to why the Ethernet port connected to the cable modem was not getting an IPv6 link local address. IPv6 requires a minimum MTU of 1280 bytes so, with 576, IPv6 wasn't allowed. I have advised Rogers of this and the person I was speaking to agreed it should be 1500. Let's see if they fix it.

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war story: bad ADSL packet loss
by D. Hugh Redelmeier 05 Jan '15

05 Jan '15

My internet connections are confusing and complicated so I will spare you those details. One connection is via ADSL2 to telnetcommunications.com. It started to get flaky. I measured 50-90% packet loss over various periods of time. I also have a VDSL2 connection with telnetcommunications.com that did not have the problem. Tentative conclusion: telnetcommunications.com's network is not the problem. I use a TP-Link TD-8816 as a modem, but not as a router. I have a Linux box that does the PPPoE thing. I tried: powercycling things, one at a time, to see if things got better. They didn't. I tried: phoning support. They suggested switching phone cable or ethernet cable before trying to talk to Bell. I tried: switching cables. No change. I tried: taking other phones off phone line and removing splitter where the ADSL modem was connected to the wall jack. No change. I tried: swapping ADSL modem for an identical one, purchased at the same time. It worked! Lesson's learned: - being a hoarder has its advantages (why did I buy two ADSL modems 3.5 years ago?) - being a hoarder has its disadvantages. Both modems are out of (2 year) warranty. The splitter that came with the newly unwrapped modem doesn't work and I have no recourse. - ADSL modems sometimes fail. My previous ADSL modem (Speedstream something or other) failed, but I don't remember the symptoms. - ADSL modems don't always fail hard. - with so many pluggable parts, there is a very large number of configurations to test. The modem has: power, phone, ethernet, all of which could have been swapped. The wall jack needs a splitter, an ADSL filter on one side, and cables connecting all of these. Of the right length. And other jacks in the house need to be played with too. I didn't even bother to see if the replacement modem would work as well with the original modem's power supply, or vice versa. Life's too short.

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GnuPG Woes...
by Peter King 03 Jan '15

03 Jan '15

I could use some help from people who are more expert at GnuPG than I am, which is most people. Using GnuPG 2.0.26 and libcrypt 1.6.2, running under Gentoo with kernel 3.17.4, all at the command line. I have a gpg key (since 2004) and it's always worked well for me. Just today, though, I tried to use it to decrypt a file I'd successfully decrupted many times in the past: $ gpg -d File_to_Decrypt > decrypted_file I kept getting a "bad session key" error. After doing some googling, I eventually tried the suggestion to run: $ gpgconf --reload After doing so, however, when I try to decrypt the file as before: $ gpg -d File_to_Decrypt > decrypted_file gpg now asks for the data file, and when I offer File_to_Decrypt, I get back a list of of signatures, each correctly identified with my DSA key ID (as shown by the command gpg --listkeys), but each entry is followed by the line "BAD signature from <my_ID> [ultimate]" -- which seems like very bad news indeed. Naturally, the encrypted file is valuable (to me), and I have backup encrypted copies, but nothing in clear... Well, the gnupg key hasn't changed since February 2004, and it's worked fine all the way to at least mid-October 2014, the last time I encrypted/decrypted the file. Now I'm more or less clueless. What should I try next? -- Peter King peter.king(a)utoronto.ca Department of Philosophy 170 St. George Street #521 The University of Toronto (416)-978-3311 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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HummingBoard-i2eX First Impressions
by Scott Sullivan 02 Jan '15

02 Jan '15

This Christmas I got myself another ARM dev board. In this case the HummingBoard-i2eX from SolidRun. The Vendor ========== http://www.solid-run.com/ SolidRun is an Israeli company producing small form factor computers. They previously produced the CuBox (know to many on this list). In recent history they moved to creating their devices with FreeScale's iMX.6 SoCs. They started with a common SoM (System on a Module), and developed two complimentary product lines of base boards that the SoMs connect to. These are the CuBox-i and the HummingBoard. The CuBox-i is a continuation of their 2'x2'x'2' cube computer design. The HummingBoard is a Raspberry Pi-like form factor (more on this later). The Board ========= Vendor Product Page: http://www.solid-run.com/product/hummingboard-i2ex/ Local Distributor Product Page: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813455003 This is the Hummingboard base board, with the Dual Core + 1GB + Extra Features SoM. This boils down to a system with extra features of a mSATA slot on the bottom of the board, a miniPCIe slot on the top, and an extra 2x4 header with two USB extra connections on it. The Board is nearly perfect match for the Raspberry Pi B (not B+) form factor. All the connectors (HDMI, USB, Power, etc...) line up where they would on a Raspberry Pi B. The only trick bit is the height of the mSATA connector on the bottom which will not fit in any of the Raspberry Pi B cases I own. This should not be an issue with the Hummingboard-i1 or -i2 as they don't have mSATA. First Boot ========== The board as purchased from NewEgg comes only with the board. You will need to provide your own USB supply 5v@2A. You will also need your own microSD card for the OS. Prep the microSD Card --------------------- If your familiar with the Raspberry Pi, there is a NOOBs-like OS installer called Ignition. You dd this to your microSD card and then on the first boot you get a GUI that will then download and install the Distro of your choice. http://www.solid-run.com/wiki/Ignition Install your OS of Choice ------------------------- First Note: There is check box to show all OS options. Check this as it by default hides all but four (Android 4.4, and three XBMC variants). Second Note: There is a debug window, click it, and then re-arrange the two windows so you can see both. Some of the installs are broken, I discovered this when trying to install Fedora 20 via Ignition, it never downloaded an install image, and some of the partitioning looks to be broken. This is not a fault of the Fedora Project, but of the solidRun community member that put together the Iginition script. I haven't started debugging it yet. I ended up choosing Debian Wheezy, and the install took about 10-15 minutes downloading and installing. Your millage will vary. Poking Around ============= The boot loader is on microSD card. You need it to boot. The boot loader is uboot. Kernel lists as a 3.14.14-cubox, so a custom build. lspci list just a 'bridge' device. I powered down, added a spare mPCIe wifi card I had around, and it showed up when I rebooted. Memory was listed as the full 1GB, so video buffer stealing doesn't seem to be happening. But I can't confirm that fully. That's it so far. -- Scott Sullivan

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