- Talk - lists.gtalug.org

google news alternatives?
by Karen Lewellen 24 Jan '19

24 Jan '19

Hi folks, Late new year wishes all around. I ask the question because I believe? someone posted a list of service alternatives a while back. Up until late December I was using theoldgnews.com Apparently google discovered the service though. Anyone know of a comparative alternative? Cheers, Kare

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How to run script at bootup in Debian
by William Park 23 Jan '19

23 Jan '19

Hi all, I need to run a custom script at the later stage of bootup in Debian 9.5 (board is BeagleBone Black). I seem to remember "rc.local" long ago, but it's gone in the latest Ubuntu and Debian. Online search says (1) simply create "/etc/rc.local", and systemd will automatically pick it up. (2) use crontab, "@reboot ..." Which is "proper" way in Debian world?--William

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nmcli is rather pleasant with tab completion
by Scott Sullivan 21 Jan '19

21 Jan '19

This morning I was in a scenario where just done an install (Fedora 29 Server), and the device had no wired network, only wifi. I was feeling lazy and didn't want to pull out my USB ethernet dongle and a cable. So out of curiosity, I was wondered how far I could get with the new nmcli (Network Manager CLI) tools, and tab completion. The answer, all the way to working wifi networking. So I thought I'd share the FYI. I see this coming in really handy for Raspberry Pi 3/3+ and Zero-W owners. Example output: [root@dna ~]# nmcli device wifi list IN-USE SSID MODE CHAN RATE SIGNAL BARS SECURITY ItsAWifi Infra 6 195 Mbit/s 100 ▂▄▆█ WPA2 * The_Terrace Infra 149 405 Mbit/s 97 ▂▄▆█ WPA2 ItsAWifi Infra 36 405 Mbit/s 94 ▂▄▆█ WPA2 -- Infra 153 540 Mbit/s 69 ▂▄▆_ WPA2 N.InetSamura_5G Infra 153 540 Mbit/s 69 ▂▄▆_ WPA2 AC.InetSamurai_5.825GHz Infra 165 195 Mbit/s 65 ▂▄▆_ WPA2 [root@dna ~]# nmcli device wifi <tab><tab> connect help hotspot list rescan [root@dna ~]# nmcli device wifi connect 00:19:BE:1E:C6:18 3C:17:10:22:AE:1E 80:2A:A8:18:2E:52 AC:84:C9:FD:27:95 BC:4D:FB:E2:8D:E8 The_Terrace 24:F5:A2:77:89:D3 6C:19:8F:C5:12:D8 A6:84:C9:FD:27:95 B4:75:0E:3F:CC:9E BELL270 ItsAWifi [root@dna ~]# nmcli device wifi connect ItsAWifi <tab><tab> bssid hidden ifname name password private wep-key-type [root@dna ~]# nmcli device wifi connect ItsAWifi password ***** And that worked! Best part, it also created all the needed files in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ for this network, set to start onboot even! Very handy. -- Scott Sullivan

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Looking for Someone to Answer some Questions
by nick 17 Jan '19

17 Jan '19

Greetings All, It was nice to meet you guys this week as I use to go to GTALUG when I was in high school but been busy for the last several years. I was wondering as I'm still in school if anyone knows of people who actually work in compiler design or embedded systems in the Toronto/GTA area. The reason I'm asking is maybe it's just me but it's very hard to find people in Toronto. I'm aware of the mailing lists for a lot of the projects so it's more of a local thing. Thanks, Nick

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Re: [GTALUG] Looking for Someone to Answer some Questions - the python fork
by Stewart Russell 15 Jan '19

15 Jan '19

On Tue, Jan 15, 2019, 08:13 Alvin Starr via talk <talk(a)gtalug.org wrote: > > > It may be old but if the description of the memory footprint is correct > then it looks to be the smallest implementation which has some value in > memory constrained applications. > IIRC PyMite (another name for this project) was a subset of the Python 2 language and had to be fed special bytecode. It wasn't an interpreter of any form of Python we'd recognize. It hasn't been actively developed for a decade. While MicroPython/CircuitPython is much bigger (smallest system that's useful would be a 256 K flash/32 K RAM Cortex-M0) it's a fair subset of Python 3 with REPL and library support. The best value is definitely on ESP8266 boards, where you get a fully wifi-capable embedded appliance for under $5. MicroPython runs on many targets, including generic Unix and even bare-metal on a Raspberry Pi Zero. Stewart

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Re: [GTALUG] Looking for Someone to Answer some Questions
by nick 14 Jan '19

14 Jan '19

On 2019-01-13 7:55 p.m., Alvin Starr wrote: > On 1/13/19 1:22 PM, nick via talk wrote: >> >> On 2019-01-13 11:25 a.m., D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk wrote: >>> | From: nick via talk <talk(a)gtalug.org> >>> >>> | I was wondering as I'm still in school >>> >>> What school? >> I'm at Seneca but I also asked UoT students and for whatever >> reason most students are going into web so that's the assumption >> or mobile. Which is fun considering that's been pushed into the >> Co-op program. I'm not complaining it's also pretty easy to tell >> from the electives as well i.e. there is only one Linux System >> Programming course. Even if I look at Waterloo there are courses >> in this but off the top of my head, only a handful at least at >> the undergraduate level. > > If your interested in compiler design go and grab a copy of Aho and Ullman's book Principles of complier Design (ISBN 0-201-00022-9) > > Another one is the Turing Programming Language.(ISBN 0-13-933136-0) > > You could also try tracking down ACM POPL articles. > > A bazillion years ago I worked on compiler and language implementation for a Markham computer company. > > Finding people building production compilers will be hard. > > You forget to CC this list. Anyhow here our my other comments. It's not hard online but finding them in person is difficult. Thanks for the book recommendation through, seems it may be good to read the theory too. The GCC folks already gave me a list of Todos to get started. Frankly I've been busy with other work mostly with the X.org Foundation. >>> | if anyone knows >>> | of people who actually work in compiler design >>> >>> Compiler design: not a big field. Most compilers that take a team are >>> already designed. >>> >>> There is a group at the IBM Toronto lab that works on their compilers. >>> I've known a few of them, but my main connections have retired. >>> >>> An interesting snapshot of this area is the annual CASCON held in >>> October (free! with lunches!). >>> >> That's useful thanks for the heads up. I will probably try and go, >> have family in Markham. As for compilers I was talking gcc/clang >> work not older tech i.e. optimizations or other things related. > > GCC is something like 20+ years old and although is it still a very good language stack. > > LLVM and Clang are newer but I have kind of fallen out of tracking the various compilers . > > >> >>> | or embedded >>> | systems in the Toronto/GTA area. >>> >>> Lots of folks do that. I don't know how to find them (I haven't >>> looked). They are often more embedded in the application area than >>> the computer field. (It often shows in the quality of their code.) >>> >>> I could imagine that networking through your school would help. >> See the above reasons. I tried too, but seems I'm on my own, > > I was under the impression the Seneca had a strong Open Source community. > > https://wiki.cdot.senecacollege.ca/wiki/Main_Page. > I did try going through CDOT but it's more web development and very little low level. The lowest level I'm aware of is porting packages to the ARM64 architecture but that's it. > If your interested in embedded systems then some hardware courses would go a long way to getting you somewhere because with embedded systems your almost always working directly with hardware. > I'm aware of the issues from a theoretical perspective just not actually running in on a embedded board.I have some Intel Board lying around and should figure out how to port a Linux distribution to it with a application stack using Yocto but again I'm frankly swamped with GCC and other things. Thanks and thanks for a notice about the IBM compiler lab from Hugh, Nick > >> >> Nick >>> --- >>> Talk Mailing List >>> talk(a)gtalug.org >>> https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk >>> >> --- >> Talk Mailing List >> talk(a)gtalug.org >> https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk >

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laptop repair in GTA/Markham?
by Tim Tisdall 12 Jan '19

12 Jan '19

So, my laptop won't turn on today and it's likely due to a coffee spill that happened yesterday. I suspect a trace on the board may have become corroded. I took it to the ASUS repair centre on Markham and the absolute minimum cost to repair it would probably be $400 and if I want to keep everything on my SSD I would need to remove it first (but I don't have the necessary torx bits to do that). I think they only swap parts out and don't attempt to actually repair. Does anyone know of a good and reputable repair place that would be able to fix a corroded trace on the board if that's all it is? It's an Asus Zenbook UX305C.

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January 2019 meeting videos
by Alex Volkov 11 Jan '19

11 Jan '19

Hello Everyone, Here's the videos from our January 2019 meeting as a playlist -- https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUgE6dqIXiEtCFbd16_EtwiykD-aD4JAL (sorry I may have typed January 2018 in a few places) Here's each lightning talk video as a separate url: * Alpine Linux with Christopher Browne * https://youtu.be/RU9c9lRTpIk * RHEL 8 Beta Impressions with Scott Sullivan * https://youtu.be/Mfo_LH38D5A * Windows Subsystem for Linux with Matt Gordon * https://youtu.be/rd8t_E4U1TE * What is a release? With D.Hugh Redelmeier https://youtu.be/SFFPzaDxPOE * More on Distros with Howard Gibson * https://youtu.be/BmpWYBaIhho I few of the videos are still unlisted, meaning they are not visible on our youtube feed. I will publish the videos in the next few days, because if I post a lot of videos at once people on youtube unsubscribe. Thanks, Alex.

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cron scripts **BOOM**
by Darryl Moore 10 Jan '19

10 Jan '19

so I have about 100 servers running 16.04 spread over North America. Today it became apparent that the root user cron script was deleted on all 100 of them. The script is at /var/spool/cron/crontab/root and everything I had has been deleted and replaced with # DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE - edit the master and reinstall. # (- installed on Fri Dec 28 08:18:31 2018) # (Cron version -- $Id: crontab.c,v 2.13 1994/01/17 03:20:37 vixie Exp $) crontabs were all originally installed using the crontab executable. when I redo it the same way I get the proper crontab file but with this above header added. This was never the case before. I do not have automatic updates turned on on any of my machines. The date stamp in this header is within a few seconds of the above on all my machines. I also have a few machines running Armbian, and they are exactly the same. This is a major F*up for me and I have no idea how it happened. Has anybody else had similar experiences? I'd love to know. regards, darryl

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another bargain netbook
by D. Hugh Redelmeier 10 Jan '19

10 Jan '19

Canada Computer is blowing out a netbook. It is currently (until January 3) only $200. After that it might go back to $300 or $250 (the previous selling price). <https://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=710_577_367&item_id=…> <http://forums.redflagdeals.com/canada-computers-canada-computers-200-13-3-i…> Points to consider o 13.3" o Celeron N3450 processor (Atom / Apollo Lake family). Low power in two senses: battery consumption and computing power. + no fan + 1920x1080 IPS matte display. A bit dim but OK. + very solid-feeling aluminum body. Thin. + I like the keyboard. US, not the Bilingual Canadian layout. + 4G of RAM. Not wonderful, but enough for most casual use - 32G eMMC "disk". This is too small for Windows and not generous for Linux. Trying to fit both would be difficult. + an unoccupied full-sized m2.SATA socket. Behind an access panel. - likely no support - firmware is a little slap-dash (why must CSM be enabled to boot from something other than the eMMC?) - the touchpad seems OK but not great. Someone thinks there will be improvements in touchpad handling with the just-released kernel, 4.20. - There is a fingerprint reader in the corner of the touchpad. I don't use fingerprint readers so I consider this a lose. I've got one. I installed a 128G m.2 SATA SSD and installed Fedora 29 on it. It seems to work well. There were a few adventures in installing it. A 512G m.2 SATA could be had for $88 this week. Prices for SSD seem to be trending down.

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