July 2015 - Talk - lists.gtalug.org

Thinkpad T420 as a VM host
by Alex Volkov 11 Aug '15

11 Aug '15

So I replaced a 4GB memory stick in my Thinkpad T420 with an 8GB one bringing the total amount of available ram to 12GB with maximum of 16GB.Even though Lenovo say that the laptop supports only 8 GB of ram total. As it stands now this 4 year old machine becomes a pretty cost-effective platform for virtualization: * Intel Core i5-2410M * 16GB max memory (~$65 per 8GB stick). * 2 SATA ports (built-in and ultrabay) * 2 mSata ports (one could be used for solid state storage) * 1 eSata port. * 1 Gigabit ethernet * 1 SD card Canada computers sells refurbished ones for about $300 and I think there are some available in Brampton. Also I saw a few similar refurbished machines on Amazon. Alex.

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Re: [GTALUG] Fedora 22 Live Workstation Install - no fglrx - no pdftk
by Russell Reiter 31 Jul '15

31 Jul '15

<snip the problem description> > > Can you duplicate the problem, all the while keeping a log of the > various temperatures that are available to you? The CPU can monitor a > few of the system temperatures, but I don't remember how (google > surely does). I was thinking of picking up one of those lazer doohickey's the health department uses to measure the temperature of steam table contents. I can't see if I was touching the cpu die or the bottom of the heat-sinc. For now I'v installed lm-sensor which shows: [root@solon ~] # sensors atk0110-acpi-0 Adapter: ACPI interface Vcore Voltage: +1.12 V (min = +0.85 V, max = +1.60 V) +3.3 Voltage: +3.26 V (min = +2.97 V, max = +3.63 V) +5 Voltage: +5.12 V (min = +4.50 V, max = +5.50 V) +12 Voltage: +11.98 V (min = +10.20 V, max = +13.80 V) CPU FAN Speed: 2755 RPM (min = 600 RPM, max = 7200 RPM) CHASSIS FAN Speed: 0 RPM (min = 600 RPM, max = 7200 RPM) POWER FAN Speed: 2428 RPM (min = 600 RPM, max = 7200 RPM) CPU Temperature: +43.0°C (high = +60.0°C, crit = +95.0°C) MB Temperature: +40.0°C (high = +45.0°C, crit = +95.0°C) k8temp-pci-00c3 Adapter: PCI adapter Core0 Temp: +36.0°C Core0 Temp: +43.0°C Core1 Temp: +40.0°C Core1 Temp: +38.0°C So far It looks like I don't have the chassis fan plugged into the right slot. But at least the unit works without blocking output of the air conditioner any more. > > Can you affect uptimes by running CPU-bashing programs? > > Are crashes at predictable uptimes when you are running identical > workloads? Are these times affected by your ad hoc cooling boosters? As you can see from lm-sensor, after the firmware update, I'm within operating parameters now. One feature of this motherboard is the ability to recover from different bios's. I'm curious beyond making it stable now, I may regress the bios and log what was happening at the time. > > | The board default is to set overclocking as auto. I didn't choose it. > | I haven't found a table of recommended settings like I once got with > | service manuals when I bought a board. Now all I can find is quick > | start or user manuals. > > There is a (probably obsolete) manual that talks about the BIOS setup > screen. (I'd look at this on my board but I don't wish to reboot.) Apparently ASUS has a MS utility they ship with the board. Ai gear 2, which allows overclocking the MB from userspace. The condition seems similar to the laptop I experienced where the MS OS had hooks into controlling the power management. > > "auto" is not described but it should meen "no overclocking". > Especially if all the related settings are "auto" too. > > When you flash new firmware, you are supposed to select "load setup > defaults" in the CMOS setup "exit" tab. I always do. It only matters > sometimes. Then you have to go reset all the little things you had > changed. That's what I chose, I had assumed conservative settings but perhaps that ASUS overclocking utility only works under one condition, auto. I'll never know, I don't use Windows. I did read that it killed audio on one board and that it was problematic for others. > > | Well the combination of being able to choose a lower display > | resolution and whatever was changed after the bios update did show > | about a 10-15% reduction in CPU access when playing DVD's according to > | Plasma's graphical system monitor. > > What is "CPU access"? The little graphic thingy in System Monitor which gives a visual output of load as a line graph for each CPU die, as well as for Memory/Swap and Network. At this time and at increased resolution the load line hovers around 60% as opposed to the old firmware at 800X600 which showed 85-100% load with video on VLC. > > | I do note that desktop > | sprite animations are slower. > > What are "desktop sprite animations"? The mouse pointer? Sprites are a term for layers used in animations. So in the case of the mouse pointer, it exists on a sprite layer. Any windows animations like dragging the widget around aren't dragging a box per-se, they are moving the indicator (0,0) to the point where the new sprite is created, leaving the old one to be destroyed on the screen redraw. In this case in Plasma, when you access the menu it pops up very slooooooowly and disappears in the same fashion. I'ts kind of cute. <snip the middle> > | It's the oddest thing. In the menu screen there is one line to set the > | date in the usual way. You know tab to the next setting and use the > | plus and minus keys to go up or down. However when you move to the > | next line to set hours, minutes and seconds, you can change them but > | enter won't commit them. F10 will write changes to the cmos but on > | restart the default time is always 00:00:00. > > Odd. Yeah, Odd. My error. I used + & - to set the date but tried to type in the time. It let me enter the numbers and in fact did display them in the right place but didn't commit them. I cleared the RTC using the jumper this time and figured out my error when I re-read the posts. Sometimes just to be able to read the question again in the light of others scrutiny provides an answer. It's part of why I use the list and why I'm grateful for it > > | > | Oh yea and whether or not it's worth it to modify the CPU > | > | heat-sinc. > | > > | > First guess: not yet. > | > | After the bios update there doesn't seem to be as much heat coming off > | it, but I can't tell for sure. The heat-sinc always feels cool to the > | touch on the top and sides but around the base is another matter. > > See above. > > | On the link you posted on thermal pads these guy's were talking about > | lapping matching surfaces on ground glass > > Don't take my posting a link as support for what it says! I understand that. I thought lapping the die was kind of goofy too. It's just that it reminded me of one of my old shop jobs. > > Lapping seems like a goofy amount of investment in old hardware. I > imagine people do that for the sense of control in a world where Intel > and AMD make all the decisions. Kind of like those of us who put > Linux on Windows boxes. I'm with you on that one. I like using Linux because I always feel I've learned something. Not how to do some thing. At this point I'm still a little at odds with what to do about QT, but I can live with this state of things. It looks to me like this bios is heavily vested in Windows gamer land with the bios optimized to accept hooks from the ASUS GUI overclocking utility. This board looks like it has good audio support so it would be nice to have an all in one home theatre with surround sound as my workspace, but it's not really a necessity. Anything else I do to this unit is more out of curiosity than needs. Thanks for the pointers. Now my SO won't have to wonder where all her nail polish remover went. Russell > --- > Talk Mailing List > talk(a)gtalug.org > http://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk >

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My company is looking for syadamins, Javascript and java developers
by David Collier-Brown 31 Jul '15

31 Jul '15

The classic HR descriptions are at http://www.indeed.ca/worldgaming-jobs World Gaming organizes prize-paying tournaments for video games. Many of us are gamers (I'm not, I'm just a nerd), but the business is organizing the tournaments, recording the scores, collecting the fees and paying out the prizes. We're at https://worldgaming.com logically, University and Adelaide physically. The front end is Angular JS, using REST to talk to the back end in Java. The platform is Tomcat, and the database is PostgreSQL on Centos. We develop with Eclipse and Maven on the back end, plus git and flyway for source and database revision control. The front end toolset is more variable, mostly using node-based tools and git. We need good Java, javascript and full-stack developers, plus at least an intermediate sysadmin, so if you're such a person or know someone who is, pass the word on! --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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Re: [GTALUG] Fedora 22 Live Workstation Install - no fglrx - no pdftk
by Russell Reiter 30 Jul '15

30 Jul '15

On 7/28/15, D. Hugh Redelmeier <hugh(a)mimosa.com> wrote: > | From: Russell Reiter <rreiter91(a)gmail.com> > > Be sure of your diagnosis before applying drastic remedies. You claim > overheating, and I previously responded on the assumption that this > was a correct deduction. Now I'll question it: what observation > convince you that overheating is a problem? There were hard crashes with no hanging and no warning, just the power turned off in order to save the cpu. These crashes were mitigated by directing cold air from my AC directly into the unit till I did the bios update. > > Also: I think that overclocking is really just a game. If it isn't > fun, don't do it. The cost (in uncertainty etc.) is usually more than > the benefit (subjectively unobservable speed-up). Don't do it and > then complain about things going wrong! If I don't think it's worth > your time to do overclocking, I'm sure it's not worth my time to help > you do it. The board default is to set overclocking as auto. I didn't choose it. I haven't found a table of recommended settings like I once got with service manuals when I bought a board. Now all I can find is quick start or user manuals. > > I think that generally a computer needs to be close to twice as fast > to feel significantly faster. Of course there are cases where > crossing a threshold matters (eg. playing videos). Well the combination of being able to choose a lower display resolution and whatever was changed after the bios update did show about a 10-15% reduction in CPU access when playing DVD's according to Plasma's graphical system monitor. I've bumped the resolution back up to 1024X768 for the time being. I'd don't watch a lot of DVD's, but I do use video to aid me in ad-hoc tweaking. I do note that desktop sprite animations are slower. > > | <snip previous> > | > existing solution. (AMD CPUs came with a disk of stuff instead of > | > paste and it is supposed to be single-use: detaching and re-attaching > | > a heat sink is not intended to work.) > | > | Could you describe this disk stuff in a little more detail? did you > | get the package locally? > > The disk came on the bundled heat-sink supplied by AMD. It was > perhaps an inch in diameter and a little thicker than a sheet of > paper. The idea is that it melts and spreads when it is sandwiched > between the HS and the CPU (clamped) and the CPU heats up. So it > spreads and becomes very thing. But it isn't supposed to do that > twice. > > It's not something that you'd buy by itself. It may or may not come > with a Heat-Sink / Fan unit (HSF). > > I haven't assembled a system in years. Enough decent off-the-shelf > systems come along. So the AMD HSF units may come with different > arrangements now. Here's a random thread about an AMD thermal pad: > <http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=863613> > > | I think I am going to change the heat sinc on this unit. The one that > | came with it has this copper pipe threaded through it, Makes it look > | sort of like the headers on the 67 Mustang I once owned. UNlike those > | headers these ones look like all show and no go. > > If it once was good enough, why would it not be now? Dust, > deteriorated contact with CPU, ...? I think perhaps I got it because it wasn't good enough, or not set up well enough or maybe both. I've seen a couple of threads about this board where significant overheating was an issue for some MS users. This machine formally had windows on it and a video card which had been removed. I remember having quite a time getting linux on to one particular laptop. It would overheat right off. I was able to finally install Debian after booting from a dos disk, formatting a fat partition and then installing the MS DOS power management utilities for the OS that was originally bundled with the unit. That's the one I had to sit on a bag of frozen peas for the unit to stay cool long enough to get anywhere. Now I have a couple of those reusable freezer blocks for the picnic cooler in case I have to do that again. Sorry can't help myself ...Gotta give peas a chance. > > Does it feel hot when you think that the CPU is overheating? If not, > there is a problem, I would think. After all, it is supposed to be > carrying the heat to the air. It seemed to be a little too hot around the base of the heat-sinc, while the fins of it were quite cool on the top and sides, which made me think perhaps there was too much thermal paste or perhaps none at all, or even poorly mated surfaces from the beginning. > > | Things got better after I flashed the bios. > > My guess is that the BIOS update would not change thermal management, > but we will never know. (I rarely read much into the manufacturer's > notes about BIOS updates because they disclose little and hide lots.) > > | After I switched back to > | GDM Plasma did stop hanging and I got to see that desktop for the > | first time on this unit. > > That's good. > > | I did read that north bridge switching is not enabled in later > | releases of this boards bios and I have since found there is an older > | bios with this FSB feature available. Although I usually hesitate to > | trim the north bridge clock. If you've got to trim a clock, trim the > | big clock first and see what acts up first. > > Don't pick at it! Use the BIOS defaults or conservative defaults (my > machine doesn't crash so I rarely see the BIOS screen). The defaults are overclocking enabled. I wish I could find a table of optimal settings from the manufacturer. My first conservative guess got me the BSOD. > > | I wish I was better at math :-) > > Me too. But I think you mean arithmetic. For which I use a > calculator. > > | And not so lazy. I reset the cmos without jumpering it off. When I > | reset it I could set the date but not the time. > > How can you be prevented from setting the time? Isn't date and time > one setting? It's the oddest thing. In the menu screen there is one line to set the date in the usual way. You know tab to the next setting and use the plus and minus keys to go up or down. However when you move to the next line to set hours, minutes and seconds, you can change them but enter won't commit them. F10 will write changes to the cmos but on restart the default time is always 00:00:00. > > | My working theory is that the ready state of the cross fire video bus > | consumes too many cycles. This board can drive four monitors. Since > | it's only driving one monitor, my first thought on stabilising was to > | knock the north bridge back a notch. > > You need to apply Occum's Razor. Your explanation is way to unlikely > and complicated for an early theory. > > You don't actually have a video card, right? You are just using the > on-motherboard video, right? That should not be stressful. Right now I"m using the onboard card. I did try with a PCIeX card I picked up. It's a slightly newer vintage Radeon but that made no difference to the VGA output so I went back to the onboard card. > > | There are Linux utilities from 2008 on the site; audio drivers and > | stuff and there is a check script: > > The fact that it talks about XFree86 means that it is way out of date. > Everyone uses Xorg's X. > > | The question for me right now is, can I just add XFree86 libs to get > | quick time? > > Don't do that! Or, if you do, stop asking for help. You are way off > book. > > | Oh yea and whether or not it's worth it to modify the CPU > | heat-sinc. > > First guess: not yet. After the bios update there doesn't seem to be as much heat coming off it, but I can't tell for sure. The heat-sinc always feels cool to the touch on the top and sides but around the base is another matter. > > | I know I haven't unseated it yet. That does't mean it hasn't been > | removed and reseated before this. > > True enough. > > | I remember I use to be able to find > | little tubes of acetone to clean parts. I guess a trip to Active > | Surplus might find something similar, but I sure don't want to store > | even a litre of acetone at my place, just to use a couple of > | tablespoons of it now. > > Acetone used to be available as nail-polish remover. Small amounts. > In drug stores. Thanks didn't think of that. > > My very few run-ins with cleaning gunk off CPUs and heat sinks > involved paper towels, finger nails, and elbow grease. Apparently their are kits available with both solvent and thermal grease at various price points. I just recall Acetone, being so volatile, leaves the least amount of residue. On the link you posted on thermal pads these guy's were talking about lapping matching surfaces on ground glass, that's how I removed bits of rust from the bottom of a jack plane, although I did that on the ripping bed of a bandsaw instead of a glass plate. They also did not have too much nice to say about thermal pads, just to use razor thin applications of thermal grease. Thanks Russell > --- > Talk Mailing List > talk(a)gtalug.org > http://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk >

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LInux+
by Rick Johnson 30 Jul '15

30 Jul '15

Hey folks. I've been studying for Linux+ lately. I have the Sybex book which covers lx0-101 and lx0-102 but I just discovered that these exams will be discontinued at the end of August and replace with lx0-103 and lx0-104. Has anyone taken these yet? I'm wondering what I'm in for. What is covered in these exams that isn't in the older versions? I can imagine that I'll have to dig into Systemd thoroughly but I'm wondering if I'll be able to just top up my knowledge from the 'net or is this a matter of starting all over? Thanks in advance

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Re: [GTALUG] Fedora 22 Live Workstation Install - no fglrx - no pdftk
by Russell Reiter 30 Jul '15

30 Jul '15

<snip previous> > existing solution. (AMD CPUs came with a disk of stuff instead of > paste and it is supposed to be single-use: detaching and re-attaching > a heat sink is not intended to work.) Could you describe this disk stuff in a little more detail? did you get the package locally? I think I am going to change the heat sinc on this unit. The one that came with it has this copper pipe threaded through it, Makes it look sort of like the headers on the 67 Mustang I once owned. UNlike those headers these ones look like all show and no go. Things got better after I flashed the bios. After I switched back to GDM Plasma did stop hanging and I got to see that desktop for the first time on this unit. Bonus; finer grained display ie. rotation was enabled and I was able to drop the resolution down to 800X600 to drive this old sansui tv I'm using. Stumbling blocks. I tried to underclock and crashed the bus. I haven's found any sic sigma tables for system recommendations; that plus the fact that overclocking is set by default to auto. Not even the decency to highlight the active settings in the menu at runtime, made me think where the heck is _that_ jumper0. I did read that north bridge switching is not enabled in later releases of this boards bios and I have since found there is an older bios with this FSB feature available. Although I usually hesitate to trim the north bridge clock. If you've got to trim a clock, trim the big clock first and see what acts up first. I wish I was better at math :-) And not so lazy. I reset the cmos without jumpering it off. When I reset it I could set the date but not the time. My working theory is that the ready state of the cross fire video bus consumes too many cycles. This board can drive four monitors. Since it's only driving one monitor, my first thought on stabilising was to knock the north bridge back a notch. I use tesseract's hocr to make pdf's text searchable so I always us video as an ad hoc performance monitoring thingy. By not over driving the display and dropping the resolution I got an extra 100 fps on glx gears. Vlc now plays dvd's without issue so it looks to me like tesseract should crunch a few hundered pages ok. There are Linux utilities from 2008 on the site; audio drivers and stuff and there is a check script: Detected configuration: Architecture: x86_64 (64-bit) which: no XFree86 in (/usr/lib64/qt-3.3/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/sbin:/home/russell/.local/bin:/home/russell/bin) X Server: unable to detect The question for me right now is, can I just add XFree86 libs to get quick time? Oh yea and whether or not it's worth it to modify the CPU heat-sinc. I know I haven't unseated it yet. That does't mean it hasn't been removed and reseated before this. I remember I use to be able to find little tubes of acetone to clean parts. I guess a trip to Active Surplus might find something similar, but I sure don't want to store even a litre of acetone at my place, just to use a couple of tablespoons of it now. Thanks Russell

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Fwd: Linux Distros available in Toronto
by Myles Braithwaite 29 Jul '15

29 Jul '15

We got this email on our general mailing list. Does anyone know where you can purchase Linux DVDs in Toronto. -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Linux Distros available in Toronto Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2015 12:20:28 -0400 From: [reacted] To: hi(a)gtalug.org Hello. I am newly interested in Linux and it's variations, and am looking to purchase a distro on DVD.....trouble is, it seems that I cannot find any vendors locally, in Toronto that has them available...and my "google-fu" is usually pretty good...it was while searching that I found your User Group. I can find sellers in the US, but would prefer to do this local...and "The Linux Store" seems to be off line...Linux Cafe is no more. Could you point me in the right direction as to where I could get hold of linxu distros in Toronto on CD/DVD at reasonable cost? In particular, I am looking to get hold of Knoppix Live DVD v7.4.2, as that seems most suitable for me based on my reading. Your assistance would be greatly appreciated...hope I am not imposing on you by this request. Thank you.

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Fedora 22 Live Workstation Install - no fglrx - no pdftk
by Russell Reiter 29 Jul '15

29 Jul '15

I recently acquired another older MB, ASUStek M3A78-EM, Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core, 4Gb ram & onboard Radeon and I thought I'd give the latest Fedora Live a try. It installed well enough and Gnome pretty much worked except for the lack of fglrx in the open source drivers. In fact KDE Plasma doesn't work at all. In the Gnome desktop however, any intensive video apps such as VLC etc overheat the CPU and crash the unit. It looks like I'd have to backport X in order to install the proprietary Catalyst drivers for this particular GPU. HTML 5 videos on the net do work, but eventually the unit overheats and dies. I switched to lightDM and that's a little better but still not up to speed. It seems that yum has been dandified for this release but when I tried the new dnf update it failed to connect to the repositories. However, yum-deprecated did update the kernel and after that update dnf was able to function as intended. As I am always a sink or swim kind of guy and because a few of the individuals I support have switched to Fedora, even though I usually install Debian, I decided to try this as my workhorse for a while. I am looking around for a more recent PCIe video card in my price range, which usually hovers around free or the price of a hamburger, but failing that I'm pleased overall with the performance of the business end of things. Well there is one exception, no more pdftk support. (Licensing issues with iText5+) My problem. I often have to combine several complete and already numbered pdf documents into one consecutively numbered tabbed document. I use a shell script like this one below to number the combined documents. I include this in case others on the list might find it handy. I didn't author it, I found it on the net somewhere and would credit the original author, if I could find my notes this morning. enscript -L1 -F --header-font=Times-Roman10 -b '||$%' -o- < <(for i in $(seq "$(pdftk "$1" dump_data | grep "Num" | cut -d":" -f2)"); do echo; done) | ps2pdf - | pdftk "$1" multistamp - output "${1%.pdf}-header.pdf" This adds a header with the page number in 10pt text to the upper right corner of each page. Then I use pdftk to burst the document again and then blend in the tabs like this pdftk TabA.pdf file1.pdf file2.pdf TabB.pdf file3.pdf file4.pdf cat output newfile.pdf after each page is separated and numbered. It's a bit kludgey on larger docs but for small quick work it's ok. I was hoping to automate it more eventually. So if anyone has a recommendation on a more linux friendly video card of somewhat older vintage, or a command line tool to replace pdftk I'd appreciate it. I note that there are several GUI tools now available to assist with sorting pdf pages but I was really hoping to find something in the command line arena which I could then poke into this script. Thanks Russell

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dedicated servers in Canada
by Dave Cramer 28 Jul '15

28 Jul '15

This https://www.ovh.com/ca/en/dedicated-servers/enterprise/2014-SP-128.xml#opti… Doesn't look like a bad deal, does anyone have any recommendations for hosting in Canada. One thing is their RAID 10 option is very expensive Dave Cramer

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Looking for Speakers for Upcoming GTALUG Meetings
by Myles Braithwaite 28 Jul '15

28 Jul '15

We are activly looking for speakers for upcoming GTALUG. If you are interested in speaking please contact: <speaker-coordinator(a)gtalug.org>.

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