- Talk - lists.gtalug.org

Ryzen 3000 CPUs vs Linux
by D. Hugh Redelmeier 10 Jul '19

10 Jul '19

These barnd new chips look really attractive. Unfortunately, most resent Linux distros fail to boot on them. Debian 10 is apparently OK. The central problem is (another!) bug in AMD's implementation of the rdrand instruction. This shows up because systemd 240 and later tries to actually use rdrand. systemd 243 has code that works around the AMD bug. Apparently Fedora 30, ubuntu 19.04, and other systemd-using distros' installation media have systemd versions that are affected. I first saw this on phoronix: <https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ryzen-3700x-3900x-linux> but I think that this is a better writeup: <https://linuxreviews.org/AMD_Ryzen_3000_series_CPUs_can%27t_do_Random_on_bo…> Note: I have no first-hand experience so I cannot vouch for the details.

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Table Drapes
by Christopher Browne 09 Jul '19

09 Jul '19

Some old-timers may recall the "golden old days" when there used to be quasi-Linux-related conferences in large quantities, including in Toronto. We once had tables at IT360 and Linux World Canada and such. (This is going back YEARS!!!) Well, we still have a set or two of black drapes that we would drape around the generic folding tables in order to make for an attractive "booth look." Well, said drapes have not been used since 2008, and they recently came to visit me. I'm not particularly keen on storing them, and in view that there's no longer so many conferences, there is little likelihood of them being used much in the next 11 years. If anyone could make use of them, I would be pleased to help them get to such a place. I haven't poked hard at the box full of drapes; I could get measurements if there is interest. -- When confronted by a difficult problem, solve it by reducing it to the question, "How would the Lone Ranger handle this?"

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Making a UEFI capable debian USB net-install
by Michael Galea 09 Jul '19

09 Jul '19

Just completed an install of debian on a Lenovo T480 running windows, for dual boot. The install was made more complex by the fact that the T480 doesn't have a CD, and that the laptop booted win10 in UEFI with secure boot. I was very surprised by the differing consensus of how to generate a UEFI bootable net-install. A simple dd of the image to the usb stick did NOT result in a UEFI bootable image. What did work, was formatting the usb stick vfat, and extracting the install iso onto it. I found this to be a clumsy workaround. Does anybody have a better method? Also, the literature was rife with warnings of Window's tendency to blow away the the linux bootloader (although some claims were made that this is less likely under UEFI). Does anyone have any experience with this, and what what is a likely recovery procedure for it? -- Michael Galea

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[GTALUG-Announce] Meeting Tomorrow
by hi＠gtalug.org 08 Jul '19

08 Jul '19

<https://gtalug.org/meeting/2019-07/> # Lightning Talks Lighting Talks is GTALUG's version of an un-conference, a loosely structured short talks emphasizing the informal exchange of information and ideas between participants, rather than following a conventionally structured GTALUG meetings. If you already have a topic in mind please send an email speakers(a)gtalug.org to be added to the list of scheduled talks. If you would like to give a talk during the meeting, all you have to do is write your name on a post-it and stick it on the whiteboard in the front of the room. When your talk gets selected, you will have five to present your idea, then five minutes of audience questions. ## Location George Vari Engineering and Computing Centre 245 Church Street, Room 203 Ryerson University <https://goo.gl/maps/16oJ2> <https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/23447525> ## Schedule * 6:00 pm - Please discuss on the general mailing list (i.e. <talk(a)gtalug.org>) where you want to go for dinner. * 7:30 pm - Meeting and presentation. * 9:00 pm - After each meeting, a group of GTALUGers move to The Imperial Pub (54 Dundas St East) for refreshments and more socialising. # Code of Conduct We want a productive happy community that can welcome new ideas, improve every process every year, and foster collaboration between individuals with differing needs, interests and skills. We gain strength from diversity, and actively seek participation from those who enhance it. This code of conduct exists to ensure that diverse groups collaborate to mutual advantage and enjoyment. We will challenge prejudice that could jeopardise the participation of any person in the community. The Code of Conduct governs how we behave in public or in private whenever the Linux community will be judged by our actions. We expect it to be honoured by everyone who represents the community officially or informally, claims affiliation or participates directly. It applies to activities online or offline. We invite anybody to participate. Our community is open. Please read more about the GTALUG Code of Conduct here: <https://gtalug.org/about/code-of-conduct/>. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns about the GTALUG Code of Conduct please contact the GTALUG Board @ <board(a)gtalug.org>. --- GTALUG Announce mailing list announce(a)gtalug.org https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/announce

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IETF Montreal Standard Registration and Reservation Deadline Approaching
by Evan Leibovitch 03 Jul '19

03 Jul '19

FYI. At the standard rate registration is US$875 Remote participation registration is no charge: https://www.ietf.org/registration/ietf105/remotereg.py ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: IETF Secretariat <ietf-secretariat(a)ietf.org> Date: Wed, 3 Jul 2019 at 13:37 Subject: Standard Registration and Reservation Deadline Approaching To: IETF Announcement List <ietf-announce(a)ietf.org> Cc: <recentattendees(a)ietf.org>, <105all(a)ietf.org>, <ietf(a)ietf.org> IETF 105 Montreal, Quebec, Canada July 20-26, 2019 Hosted By: Comcast NBCUniversal IETF 105 Information: https://www.ietf.org/how/meetings/105/ Register online at: https://ietf.org/how/meetings/register/ 1. Registration 2. Accommodations 1. Registration NOTE: The Standard Registration deadline is, Monday, July 8th. Be sure to register and pay before the deadline passes! Register online at: https://www.ietf.org/how/meetings/register/ 2. Accommodations NOTE: The reservation deadline for the Fairmont is, Sunday, July 7th. If a reservation is needed after this cut-off date, please contact agenda(a)ietf.org for assistance. 1. Fairmont The Queen Elizabeth (Headquarters Hotel, block of 675 rooms) Room Rate: $169 CAD/ $126.17 USD Room rates DO NOT include daily breakfast. Includes in-room high-speed Internet and access to in-house Health Club (pool and fitness room). Taxes are not included in the rate provided. Reservation Cutoff Date: 7 July 2019 Cancel with No Penalty: 24 hours prior to arrival Distance to Meeting Venue: N/A Reservations: https://book.passkey.com/go/ietf105 2. Le Centre Sheraton Montreal (Overflow hotel, block of 50) Room Rate: $180 CAD/$134.38 USD Room rates DO NOT include a daily breakfast. Includes in-room high-speed internet and access to Sheraton fitness center. Taxes are not included in the rate provided. Reservations Cutoff Date: 25 June 2019 Cancel with No Penalty: 48 hours prior to check-in/arrival Distance to Meeting Venue: 6 minute walk Reservations: Contact agenda(a)ietf.org More details at: https://www.ietf.org/how/meetings/105/hotel/ _______________________________________________ Recentattendees mailing list Recentattendees(a)ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/recentattendees -- Evan Leibovitch, Toronto Canada @evanleibovitch or @el56

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UofT ssh shutdown?
by Peter King 28 Jun '19

28 Jun '19

Up until 3am on Wednesday, 26 June, I had a solid and reliable way to ssh into the UofT, talking to my computers (three of them) there; they would also provide redundant backup for my data every night. Well, without any warning, suddenly I can no longer ssh in to those computers -- all attempts to connect just time out. They are still running, I just can't get to them, and since I'm about 1000km away at the moment this is pretty rough. I talked to the JOG (Joint Operations Group) at the UofT, who had no real idea about this but pointed out that they had tightened their "security" recently because of a massive hole in RDP. I looked at the bug description and it didn't look like it had anything to do with ssh, and besides they did that a few weeks ago and everything was working for me perfectly until the day before yesterday. On the other hand, someone somewhere might have just decided it was easier to block all remote access -- though you'd think there would be a hue and cry were that so, and the JOG didn't know anything about it. The problem has been bucked over to the local UofT support group but the people on this list are far more knowledgeable, and more likely to have noticed problems, indeed to have solved them too. So I thought I'd ask. Has anyone noticed anything about ssh access to the UofT in the past few days? (The problem occurs on several different networks, accessing from computers as far away as Virginia and North Carolina, to one located in Toronto itself but not on the University network -- all have the same problem.) I've managed to come up with a workaround to be able to check/read email, but I would like to be able to ssh in to my other computers -- one runs a git server, for instance. All suggestions welcome! Thanks. -- Peter King peter.king(a)utoronto.ca Department of Philosophy 170 St. George Street #521 The University of Toronto (416)-946-3170 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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Volunteer Opportunity at Toronto Botanical Garden
by Mark Stewart 28 Jun '19

28 Jun '19

Hello, I'm writing from Toronto Botanical Garden with a volunteer opportunity that may be of interest to some of your group members. We (TBG) are a small non-profit organization and currently lack any IT staff due to budgetary constraints. We're looking to set up an open-source DAM system on our in-house Linux server. If anyone might be interested in helping out, or knows someone who might, we'd love to connect with the right person/people. Thanks for taking a look! Here's a brief description of the project: Toronto Botanical Garden is looking for a volunteer with strong Linux skills to help us set up an open-source Digital Asset Management software on a designated, in-house server. The volunteer will work closely with TBG's Knowledge Resources Manager on this project. Our goal is to set up a DAM system to catalogue our digital assets, including images, video, and other electronic files. Some work has been done to select an appropriate open source DAM to suit TBG's needs, with Collective Access<https://www.collectiveaccess.org/> being a strong contender. The ideal volunteer will have previous experience working with, installing, and configuring DAM software. This project will greatly increase TBG's ability to leverage our digital assets for communication, outreach, and research. Thank you for considering. Hope you have a fantastic long weekend! Mark Stewart, MLIS Knowledge Resources Manager TORONTO BOTANICAL GARDEN 777 Lawrence Avenue East, Toronto, ON T. 416-397-1375 F. 416-397-1354 W. www.torontobotanicalgarden.ca<http://www.torontobotanicalgarden.ca/> UPCOMING EVENTS ZimSculpt, June 29 through September 8, 2019 VISIT TORONTO BOTANICAL GARDEN'S WESTON FAMILY LIBRARY<https://library.torontobotanicalgarden.ca/> Mon - Fri, 10am - 4pm Sat - Sun, 12pm - 4pm

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Screen vs Tmux
by William Park 26 Jun '19

26 Jun '19

Hi all, I try to use WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) whenever possible, even though I have VMware and VirtualBox available. One thing that WSL terminal lacks is "tab" that all other terminals have. So, that calls for Screen and Tmux. But, which one? And, why? -- William Park <opengeometry(a)yahoo.ca>

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Android / fastboot / ROM problem
by Evan Leibovitch 25 Jun '19

25 Jun '19

Hi all. I'm trying to determine if my Nexus 7 tablet (original 2012 version) is toast or can be fixed by software. Since its OS stopped being upgraded in 2015, I'd installed LineageOS on it some time ago. A few months ago when I went to upgrade, the install from TWRP didn't take and it just bootlooped on the Lineage animation about 15 seconds in. After trying a bunch of things I decided to just erase the whole thing and take it to factory settings. So, using these instructions <https://developers.google.com/android/images#nakasi>, I downloaded the factory ROM and tried to install. Here's what happened when executing the supplied install script: fastboot oem unlock (bootloader) Bootloader is already unlocked OKAY [ 0.015s] finished. total time: 0.015s fastboot erase boot erasing 'boot'... OKAY [ 0.015s] finished. total time: 0.015s fastboot erase cache ******** Did you mean to fastboot format this ext4 partition? erasing 'cache'... OKAY [ 0.015s] finished. total time: 0.015s fastboot erase recovery erasing 'recovery'... OKAY [ 0.015s] finished. total time: 0.015s fastboot erase system ******** Did you mean to fastboot format this ext4 partition? erasing 'system'... OKAY [ 0.015s] finished. total time: 0.015s fastboot erase userdata ******** Did you mean to fastboot format this ext4 partition? erasing 'userdata'... OKAY [ 0.026s] finished. total time: 0.026s fastboot -w update image-nakasi-ktu84p.zip target didn't report max-download-size sending 'bootloader' (2100 KB)... OKAY [ 0.262s] writing 'bootloader'... OKAY [ 0.601s] finished. total time: 0.863s rebooting into bootloader... OKAY [ 0.015s] finished. total time: 0.065s extracting android-info.txt (0 MB)... extracting boot.img (4 MB)... target didn't report max-download-size archive does not contain 'boot.sig' archive does not contain 'dtbo.img' archive does not contain 'dt.img' extracting recovery.img (5 MB)... archive does not contain 'recovery.sig' extracting system.img (628 MB)... archive does not contain 'system.sig' archive does not contain 'vbmeta.img' archive does not contain 'vendor.img' wiping userdata... Couldn't parse erase-block-size '0x'. Couldn't parse logical-block-size '0x'. mke2fs 1.44.6 (5-Mar-2019) /tmp/TemporaryFile-fnXNLB: Unimplemented ext2 library function while setting up superblock /usr/lib/android-sdk/platform-tools/mke2fs failed with status 1 mke2fs failed: 1 error: Cannot generate image for userdata Does this mean I have a hardware problem? I suspect if it is, the fix will be well more than the tablet is worth. Well, at least I know it's *probably* been wiped of any useful data, And yes, I've tried multiple ports, cables images and even systems. Thanks! -- Evan Leibovitch, Toronto Canada @evanleibovitch or @el56

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A find alternative: fselect
by Christopher Browne 20 Jun '19

20 Jun '19

Having recently been at a database conference, somewhere along the line, someone pointed out this tool, "fselect", which is basically what you get if you take /usr/bin/find, and change it to have a command line that looks like SQL rather than the odd-ish find arguments: https://github.com/jhspetersson/fselect $ fselect path, size from ~/Downloads where size gt 30mb order by size desc limit 25 /home/cbbrowne/Downloads/flyway-commandline-4.0.3-linux-x64.tar.gz 53991744 /home/cbbrowne/Downloads/HP41C.pdf 53174535 /home/cbbrowne/Downloads/Tai chi/WuDang sword.mp3 44784426 /home/cbbrowne/Downloads/civic-manual-2019.PDF 42192497 /home/cbbrowne/Downloads/HP-41CXOwnersManualVol1.pdf 39603314 Hmm. Looks like there's some crud I might want to get rid of, and a few calculator manuals :-) FYI, fselect is written in Rust, and has a goodly number of ("painfully large number of") dependencies, quasi-self-managed via the Rust-oriented dependency tool, Cargo. The dependency description is pretty commendable; it is pretty decently self-descriptive. See: https://github.com/jhspetersson/fselect/blob/master/Cargo.toml Using fselect to search for things is, I suppose, my experiment of the month. Will see how it grows on me. The output is intended to be human readable moreso than machine readable. (That said, how many of us still use /usr/bin/find to generate input for cpio???) -- When confronted by a difficult problem, solve it by reducing it to the question, "How would the Lone Ranger handle this?"

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