- Talk - lists.gtalug.org

glittery cheap but useless toy computers
by D. Hugh Redelmeier 30 Sep '18

30 Sep '18

The price of this looks very attractive: <https://www.zapals.com/nexbox-a95x-tv-box-4k-android-7-1-amlogic-s905w-quad…> - US$23.99, with free (very slow) shipping, probably no tax - only FullHD - 1G RAM, 8G eMMC (a little light) - Amlogic S905w: quad core Arm Cortex A53 processor; penta core Mali 450MP GPU. There are a lot of cheap boxes meant for running Kodi and this is one of them. Technically, they run Android and easily hook up to your TV. But they don't run Android TV (a subtle but important difference). Because of "Digital Rights Management", they cannot run Netflix at a good resolution. I don't remember if YouTube also limits them. So what's left? Unauthorized content discovered through Kodi plug-ins. I've never tried this. I understand that there is a large turnover in plug-ins as they get taken down. For TV use, I much prefer a Xiaomi Mi Box with genuine Android TV (US$70 from US Walmart). BUT. The raw hardware for these cheap boxes is interesting. Faster than a Raspberry Pi. And these come with a box, remote control, and power supply. Expandability and openness in general is a lot worse. The worst thing is that all their GPUs are proprietary (and a few other things too) so you cannot drop an ordinary Linux on them. I think that they all use uboot and device tree, but in an idiosyncratic way, adding to the difficulty. I bought a (less) cheap S912 box that I intend to play with. Apparently you can run Linux on these if you don't need video output. I won't give links because I don't know which efforts are the best.

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Replacement keys (was Lenovo ThinkPad Compact Bluetooth Keyboard with TrackPoint)
by Michael Hill 27 Sep '18

27 Sep '18

On Tue, Aug 28, 2018 at 6:35 PM, Scott Sullivan via talk <talk(a)gtalug.org> wrote: > I've had a number of folks express interest after seeing me use mine. > So I'm just going to drop the links here for general reference. > > Lenovo ThinkPad Compact Bluetooth Keyboard with TrackPoint Mine has been indispensable for five years. Last week, sadly, the X key was dislodged and fell out of my backpack somewhere. Can anyone recommend a supplier for replacement keys? I took a look on eBay and the selection seemed pretty spotty. Mike

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September talk with Marcel Gagne is on youtube
by Alex Volkov 25 Sep '18

25 Sep '18

Hey Everyone, You can now watch the recording of our September 2018 meeting -- How Open Source Destroyed the Past, Created the Present, and Will One Day, Save the Future with Marcel Gagne. Presentation -- https://youtu.be/llHkWbVHpR0 Q&A -- https://youtu.be/nyKg0L_xld0 The video is also available on the meeting page -- https://gtalug.org/meeting/2018-09/ In fact past meeting pages link to all recorded videos. Cheers, Alex.

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Old vs new logo on Mastodon
by Seneca Cunningham 25 Sep '18

25 Sep '18

Hi all, I got stuck on the IPv6ternet for a bit this morning, and two of the handful of websites I could visit were gtalug.org and Mastodon. I noticed that we’re still using the old logo there. Will this be updated? Seneca

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Lenovo ThinkPad Compact Bluetooth Keyboard with TrackPoint
by Scott Sullivan 23 Sep '18

23 Sep '18

I've had a number of folks express interest after seeing me use mine. So I'm just going to drop the links here for general reference. Lenovo ThinkPad Compact Bluetooth Keyboard with TrackPoint https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16823218058CVF https://www.lenovo.com/ca/en/accessories-and-monitors/keyboards-and-mice/ke… The also make a USB only version, which I have two of as daily drivers for at home and work. https://www.lenovo.com/ca/en/accessories-and-monitors/keyboards-and-mice/ke… -- Scott Sullivan

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Fedora 28 Xsane on Brother MFC now working
by Russell Reiter 23 Sep '18

23 Sep '18

I'm still confused tho. My Brother printer/scanner is working now. I had added the legacy libnsl (not currently shipped with glibc) and created the unit files but the scanner didn't respond until I added "brother4" to /etc/sane.d/dll.conf. Thanks Hugh for the suggestions/advice and a wayback to David CB. Apparently there really is Better Living Through Dynamic Linking. I actually looked for my notes of the day, as this was a kind of a head scratcher for me. Still is. Although I stumbled through systemd while trying to target a moving target, systemd apparently wants a stationary one. I've disabled the unit files which I had added. Sane just works, also removing the error below. I'm not exactly sure what does the switching and hw endpoint stitching, but it is working. # systemctl --failed UNIT LOAD ACTIVE SUB DESCRIPTION ● saned.socket loaded failed failed saned incoming socket LOAD = Reflects whether the unit definition was properly loaded. ACTIVE = The high-level unit activation state, i.e. generalization of SUB. SUB = The low-level unit activation state, values depend on unit type. 1 loaded units listed. Pass --all to see loaded but inactive units, too. To show all installed unit files use 'systemctl list-unit-files'. Also thanks Hugh, Wayland fixed my stuttering display widget. I'd thought I was using Wayland by default, but it was actually running gdm.

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[GTALUG-Announce] In The Community
by hi＠gtalug.org 21 Sep '18

21 Sep '18

# In the Community # September ## Ryerson Linux User Group Evan Leibovitch from the Linux Professional Institute will be discussing careeers in open source and the history of LPI. * Tuesday, 18th, 6pm * ENG203 [George Vari Engineering Building], Ryerson * https://lugryerson.github.io/09-18-2018.html ## DEFCON 416 Tor: In the age of big surveillance & Using Machine Learning to Detect Attacks * Thursday, 20th, 6pm * Pivotal Labs, 1 Toronto Street, 11TH FLOOR * https://www.meetup.com/DEFCON416/events/254593724/ ## Toronto Perl Mongers * Thursday, 27th, 7pm * FlightNetwork, 145 King St West Suite 1400 * https://www.meetup.com/Toronto-Perl-Mongers/events/rhsxwpyxmbkc/ # October ## Toronto Postgres User Group David Wolever, Behind the curtains of MVCC * Wednesday, 3rd, 6pm * Pivotal Labs, 1 Toronto Street, 11TH FLOOR * https://www.meetup.com/Toronto-Postgres-User-Group/events/254012744/ ## GTALULG AGM + Firefox: What’s Next. with Mike Hoye * Tuesday, 9th, 7:30pm * ENG203 [George Vari Engineering Building], Ryerson * https://gtalug.org/meeting/2018-10/ ## Free Software and Open Source Symposium * Thursday, 25th and Friday, 26th * CDOT, Seneca @ York * https://fsoss.senecacollege.ca/2018/ --- GTALUG Announce mailing list announce(a)gtalug.org https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/announce

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ancient computer history
by D. Hugh Redelmeier 19 Sep '18

19 Sep '18

I read this with fascination in 1967 or perhaps early 1968. It was almost current then! Looking at it now, I still remember some of the phrases. <https://www.computer.org/web/csdl/index/-/csdl/proceedings/afips/1964/5064/…> (I was in high school then and it was extremely difficult to get information about computers then. The internet is such a great facility! I used to sneak into U of T, Waterloo, and York to get accesss to computers.) It's fun to read of Algol's support for recursion and dynamic memory allocation of local variables: it is fair to say that they are difficult, and their inclusion in an Algebraic lanuage that is intended to be universal is controversial. How far have we come! (How did I end up on this page? I posted a link to the Algol 60 report to the list. The report is dedicated to the memory of William Turanski who was killed before the conference. I've always wondered who he was. It turns out that he worked with Anatol Holt on an early programming system for the US military. He also was a Putnam Fellow (undergrad math contest). Turanski is mentioned in Rosen's paper.)

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Online Course for Lex/Yacc?
by William Park 18 Sep '18

18 Sep '18

Every now and then, I come across situation where an ideal solution would have been a custom parser/interpreter, either to parse data format or to write my own sets of commands. In each case, I don't know enough to write it (I'm not Comp Sci) or don't have time. So, I end up resorting to shell, awk, python, etc. Now, I want to take some course on Lex/Yacc, finally! What online course do you recommend? -- William Park <opengeometry(a)yahoo.ca>

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Suggestions for stopping occasional spurious use of commercial wi-fi
by David Collier-Brown 17 Sep '18

17 Sep '18

I have a Rogers-supplied router and cable modem package, which twice has shown significant usage when I was out, once with the original unit and once with their replacement Cisco. That makes me suspicious of the current state of authentication for wi-fi schemes (and I use the term "schemes" advisedly: they used to horribly leaky (;-)) What's a good approach? I have considered * MAC address lists, * no wi-fi (strictly wired doesn't work with solid concrete walls), * a second router with a more secure protocol (/is/ there such a protocol? And will my wife's Mac speak it?)) * something I haven't thought of --dave [The usage never runs me over my limit: I think someone is using me for downloads that might put /them/ over their limit] -- 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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