- Talk - lists.gtalug.org

little PCs for internet gateways
by D. Hugh Redelmeier 26 Oct '16

26 Oct '16

By gateway, I mean router/firewall/whatever box that sits between your LAN and the internet. Reasonable choices: - ISP-provided / sanctioned device (combo wireless router and modem) - ISP modem + user provided wireless router + possibly running custom firmware like CeroWRT or OpenWRT - ISP modem + PC acting as router + lots of possible software (pfsense, debian, whatever) For a variety of reasons I've always used PCs. But which PCs are best for this? Here's an interesting pair of articles on using little PCs as gateways: <http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/04/the-ars-guide-to-building-a-linux-ro…> <http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/09/the-router-rumble-ars-diy-build-face…> My previous gateways were SFF business PCs from a previous millenium. Built like tanks. Reliable. Running full Red Hat Linux, so quite familiar, versatile, and powerful. But they eat more electricity than they should. And they are not silent. My next generation, years in the making, is here. I've chosen to use two different Zotac Zbox tiny PCs. - the CI321 is a fanless box with two ethernet ports (two is the minimum for a pleasant router). - the RI323 has a fan and two ethernet ports. It is more fully-featured and I got it cheap. It even has two 2.5" drive bays. Both these us low power Haswell processors: The Celeron 2961Y. This means no AES-NI instructions :-( Both use Realtek chips for the ethernet ports. I understand that they have a mediocre record. There are a lot of nice-looking candidate PCs that you can order from China. Some with 4 ethernet ports. Unfortunately, the affordable one all use Baytrail or newer Atom cores (eg. J1900). This is what the newer Ars article recommends. But I would not use that processor because Intel has left a bug in the power management / clocking code of the Linux kernel for a couple of years. Who wants an unreliable gateway? <https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=109051> I'm prompted to write this by a current sale and rebate on the Zboxes (rebate offer ends with this month). <http://www.ncix.com/detail/zotac-zbox-ri323-barebone-mini-38-130690.htm> <http://www.directcanada.com/products/?sku=26671130690&vpn=ZBOX-RI323-U&manu…> <http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=DH8888119815> <http://www.mirhelp.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Oct-Mail-In-Rebate-Form-F…> Summary: - about $170 - $20 rebate for the RI323 - about $185 - $15 rebate for the CI321 Each needs a disk and RAM added.

5 5

restore GPT partition table?
by Matt Price 26 Oct '16

26 Oct '16

OK, so I did this dd if=some.iso of=/dev/sdb oops -- that's not the USB key! that's my internal m.2 drive! The partition table is gone, but it used to contain 2 partitions, both of them in an LVM, one of them part of an extended logical volume that added space to /home on my overburdened main drive. I haven't lost much data (just the first 700mb were overwritten), and amazingly my laptop continues to run just fine -- even though lvscan reports a missing drive, apparently the data is still findable. I'd like to restore the partition table but I don't know where the partition boundaries are, and in any case I don't know how to write a partition table (!). What tools should I use? Preferably without turning off my laptop, since I'm afraid it won't boot back up again!

7 10

Re: [GTALUG] FPD-Link adapter kits -Success - two out of three LCDs recycled
by Russell Reiter 25 Oct '16

25 Oct '16

Last top post on this thread. The first working LCD was an LG recycled from a Toshiba. That laptop needed the MB video chip to be refloated Thanks to Peter who let me have it for tinkering. I never got around to refloating it but the LCD is working ok. The next one was a 15 in LCD from an older Toshiba where I was trying to override the MP Bios bug. This LCD is Chungwei and worked with the supplied cable. Apparently there is a kernel setting setting which would allow me to correctly overrid ACPI and set the DSDT. Have yet to try that on the other Toshiba from Peter. It's stripped and boots SoaS. It's the only laptop which runs on ac without the battery being installed. The third Laptop was HP. While the LVDS pairs appear to be the same the cable connector is a locking version and it appears that the pin offset, which ensures the cable orientation, is not present. I'm not able to find a data sheet for it so I'm not going to try until I can get it under a magnifying glass. The pcb is fastened to the screen in a manner which makes it difficult to view the connection end on. >From my reading and limited testing it looks like this setup is generic enough to handle 17in and smaller LCDs. I'm not yet used to Raspbian but I'm going to use the adapter on a PC and tinker with audio. The adapter has headphone output but HDMI audio would be nice. <snipped oldest> Russell Sent from mobile.

1 0

[GTALUG-Announce] Meeting on 8 Nov at 7:30pm
by hi＠gtalug.org 25 Oct '16

25 Oct '16

<https://gtalug.org/meeting/2016-12/> # Thirteen Hours of Go with David Collier-Brown Trying out a new language by: - writing things based on cool or elegant stuff in it, - rewriting something you know in it, and - writing something that was hard elsewhere in it. And yes, it's indeed a cool language. Presentation File: <https://gtalug.org/static/uploads/meetings/2016-11/thirteen-talk.odp> ## Location George Vari Engineering and Computing Centre 245 Church Street, Room 203 Ryerson University <http://goo.gl/maps/16oJ2> <http://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: <http://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

1 0

desktop search in GNOME
by Matt Price 24 Oct '16

24 Oct '16

I've been using GNOME for a long time and am used to it, but the desktop search functionality is pretty limited. In my current installation it doesn't seem like tracker is integrated into the "windows" key search -- but from what I read it's supposed to be. I'm about to get a new computer and am planning to do an incremental migration where I try to fix some of hte problems in my current setup. I wondered -- does anyone have tips for getting search set up in an effective way? Thanks so much as usual, Matt

3 5

An Open Source Auto Time Tracker
by Myles Braithwaite 👾 24 Oct '16

24 Oct '16

tl;dr Looking for an open source alternative to RescueTime and WakaTime. I'm currently using RescueTime and WakaTime to track what I do and how long I do it on my computer. As an example RescueTime will tell me how many hours I have watched YouTube last month (8h 56m) and WakaTime tracks how long I have worked on a project in a text editor or IDE (i.e. I worked on my Ansible talk I did at GTALUG last month for 6h 3m). I use multiple computers and having that data in a convenient web dashboard and sent to me in a weekly email is really beneficial to my productivity. The issue with WakaTime and RescueTime is they are proprietary software and services. I haven't been able to find a good Open Source project that replicates their core functionality (i.e. a central place to store the data and a good auto time tracker). I was wondering if there is a good open source alternative?

2 1

Re: [GTALUG] FPD-Link adapter kits -Success
by Russell Reiter 22 Oct '16

22 Oct '16

Top posting again. It all works. The recycled laptop screen is connected to the Pi through the M.NT68676.2A display adapter. The provisional instructions said to make sure the ground on the LVDS cable was connected to the adapter correctly or damage to the screen would result. The original Toshiba cable was tabbed on top so it could only connect in the correct orientation. In fact the pin offset on the connection ensures that the cable only fits one way, if gentle pressure is used. Other than that, easy as Pi, although xrandr can't report the correct gamma size of this adapter. The OSD works fine and so I'm happy enough. Now to check a the old screens, hopefully there a few LG in the lot and close enough to this modle to be able to use this cable. Russell Sent from mobile. > > > On Oct 4, 2016 3:54 PM, "Russell Reiter" <rreiter91(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> >> On Aug 24, 2016 10:46 AM, "Russell Reiter" <rreiter91(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> > >> > On Aug 23, 2016 10:52 AM, "D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk" < talk(a)gtalug.org> wrote: >> > > >> > > | From: Russell Reiter via talk <talk(a)gtalug.org> >> > > >> > > | Has anyone tried out the LCD adapter kits like this one on ebay. >> <snip previous> >> >> I went with this product as it has a number of signal inputs. Also available on the net is a usb EPROM flash tool, but I'm hoping to override/modify EDID data in X in order to test several closely related LCDs with the same cable. >> >> M.NT68676.2A(HDMI+DVI+VGA+Audio) LCD/LED Screen Controller Board Diy Monitor Kit >> >> The cost was $61, and some change. It took about six weeks to ship. I got the full kit with power adapter rather than trying to recycle the PS and backlight inverter from the tickle trunk. >> >> Time to dig out the multimeter. >> >> The general instructions are to power test the inverter first, then test that the cable ground from screen to adapter is correct. >> >> Here's a shot of the package contents as delivered to my standard apartment sized mailbox. >> >> Very nice braid on the FPDL cable, I couldn't do that without a lot of practice. There is no spec sheet with the package so I'm going to turn to the net to figure out the EDID pairs. >> >> Success or failure some time soon, but It wouldn't be the the first time I toasted my pet project. >> >> Russell >> Sent from mobile. >> >> >> On Aug 24, 2016 10:46 AM, "Russell Reiter" <rreiter91(a)gmail.com> wrote: >>> >>> On Aug 23, 2016 10:52 AM, "D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk" <talk(a)gtalug.org> wrote: >>> > >>> > | From: Russell Reiter via talk <talk(a)gtalug.org> >>> > >>> > | Has anyone tried out the LCD adapter kits like this one on ebay. >>> > | >>> > | http://m.ebay.com/itm/121124750917?_mwBanner=1 >>> > >>> > Not me. But thanks for posting this. I'm mildly interested because of >>> > two projects that I never get around to. >>> >>> Here's a slightly cheaper one with VGA input only. This place drop ships from Flushing NY, although they say add 30 days for international delivery, most of them sellers I've viewed say that somewhere. >>> >>> These pre assembled device matched units all seem to come from the same manufacturing campus in China. >>> >>> http://m.ebay.com/itm/RTD2270-Universal-LCD-Controller-Board-Kit-VGA-to-LVD… >>> >>> I'm currently thinking of this one. >>> >>> http://www.chalk-elec.com/?page_id=1280#!/HDMI-to-LVDS-converter/p/14647633… >>> >>> You have to make/repurpose your own LVDS cable. However, there is a ink to step by step instructions and a they provide their own utility for loading EDID. This would be good for me considering where I'm starting from. However, in my case I may be wrong in my assumption these Toshiba's are all using LG. >>> >>> There is also this; as well as the native Linux EDID tools you can use to tinker Xorg. >>> >>> http://developer.amd.com/tools-and-sdks/graphics-development/amd-edid-utili… >>> >>> From what I have read so far, it is possible that if any of the adapters sold now is hooked up correctly ie. voltages and pin assignments are correct, you will get some sort of output. >>> >>> This guy has blogged his RE adventure. >>> >>> https://hackaday.io/project/4177/logs >>> >>> <snip> >>> > >>> > (Isn't it sad that the quality and resolution of the 15.6" notebook >>> > ($400) is so much less that of the 7" tablet ($40).) >>> >>> I see this as a transport issue related to supply side economics. You can invest in better technology for smaller items because your risk of damage or loss is spread out over a larger lot per container. The larger the display, the more fragile it becomes and shipping time and distance becomes more problematic. >>> >>> > --- >>> > Talk Mailing List >>> > talk(a)gtalug.org >>> > https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk >>> >>> Russell >>> Sent from mobile. > >

2 1

Ubuntu/Canonical livepatch
by Jamon Camisso 20 Oct '16

20 Oct '16

So this just got announced: https://www.ubuntu.com/server/livepatch >From this write up it sounds like a pretty clean implementation of kpatch: http://blog.dustinkirkland.com/2016/10/canonical-livepatch.html Free for up to 3 machines beats any of the Suse, RHEL, or Oracle offerings. I've got it running, so far no changes, but hopefully there'll be an update for CVE-2016-5195 soon: sudo canonical-livepatch status --verbose machine-id: <snip> last-check: 2016-10-20T11:35:01.408858488+01:00 boot-time: 2016-10-20T11:28:11+01:00 uptime: 10h48m6s status: - kernel: 4.8.0-25.27-generic running: false livepatch: state: nothing-to-apply version: "" fixes: "" - kernel: 4.4.0-36.55-generic running: true livepatch: state: nothing-to-apply version: "" fixes: ""

2 1

VirtualBox Guest Additions in Ubuntu VM doesn't work
by William Park 20 Oct '16

20 Oct '16

Question for Ubuntu users... VirtualBox Guest Additions installed by default on Ubuntu/Kubuntu VM is 5.0.18, ie. modinfo vboxsf Now, when I try to upgrade to latest 5.1.8, the install script (VBoxLinuxAdditions.run inside VBoxGuestAdditions.iso) finishes OK, but the version is still 5.0.18. Looking at kernel drivers, it seems that I have 2 versions of drivers: kernel/ubuntu/vbox/... --> from Ubuntu kernel misc/... --> newly compiled When I removed the default kernel drivers, then it uses the newly compiled 5.1.8 drivers. (which is what I want) What is Ubuntu-way of removing kernel drivers, or specifying which driver should be loaded? -- William

2 1

Hiring Someone to do a Custom Ubuntu Spins
by Marcus Brubaker 18 Oct '16

18 Oct '16

Hi, I'm involved in a start-up which has developed software to run on Ubuntu Linux [1]. We're currently looking to sell "appliance" servers with the software pre-installed. We want to streamline the installation process by building a custom install ISO which uses our required partitioning scheme and installs some additional drivers and software that are not available on the base image. We'd like to hire someone on a contract basis to do this for us. Primarily, we just need someone who can work through the steps here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/InstallCDCustomization based on our requirements. Minimal requirements include having the installer: - Partition drives in a particular configuration - Install specific required packages - Install NVIDIA and CUDA drivers - Create a special user and execution of a scripts to install software as that user. If you're interested or have any questions feel free to send me an email with your CV and some idea of what your rates might be. Cheers, Marcus

5 4