- Talk - lists.gtalug.org

LinuxCon North America, FSF request
by Aruna Hewapathirane 28 Aug '16

28 Aug '16

Hello Would anyone be interested in helping run the FSF's table at LinuxCon North America which is taking place in Toronto from August 21st to August 24th. More info on the event here: https://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/ linuxcon-north-america If anyone is interested in volunteering to run the FSF's table, please email me and I'll let the FSF membership coordinator know to get in touch with you. Thank you. Aruna

4 3

Voting with our Dollars on Computing Future that Respects our Freedom.
by Scott Sullivan 28 Aug '16

28 Aug '16

There is a common refrain on this list, "Vote with your Dollars". We'll I'm going to put my money where my mouth is. The EOMA-68 effort is something I've spoken on before. It's a real earnest attempt to put together a hardware project that meets the ideals of the free software community. It's matter of principle, much like recycling is matter or principle (recycling is not cheaper then new materials). https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop I've been watching Luke, the project lead, fail and succeed in various ways for nearly 5 years now. He's had hardware prototypes built, small productions runs of the A20 card done. This is a early adopter scenario, it's going to be rough around the edges, and it's not going to be the fastest hardware. But it's got the heart. Spend sometime reading into the details. https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop/updates/fsf-ryf-background In Five years, I've not seen Luke give up. He's finally found a partner company with a good track record (Think Penguin). And the design is done and tested. It just has to be built in mass. I'm not asking that folks go for the laptop. But maybe just a Card, and a Cable Set for Standalone Operation. The costs of Hardware won't come down until we show that we are willing to put a down payment on future we've been asking for. I'm backing this project, not because its the cheapest, or the fastest. But because I want to see more projects like in the future that will be faster and possibly cost competitive in the market. -- Scott Sullivan

8 10

Neighboring LUGs and Other Computing User Groups in Toronto
by Myles Braithwaite 27 Aug '16

27 Aug '16

I'm trying to compile a list[0][1] of neighboring linux user groups and other computing user group in the Toronto area for the GTALUG website. Does anyone know of any user groups that should be added to this list? [0]: <https://gtalug.org/other-groups/> [1]: <https://github.com/gtalug/website/blob/master/pages/other-groups.markdown>

7 9

FPD-Link adapter kits
by Russell Reiter 24 Aug '16

24 Aug '16

Has anyone tried out the LCD adapter kits like this one on ebay. http://m.ebay.com/itm/121124750917?_mwBanner=1 My friend surprised the heck out of himself when he bought a raspberry pi and was able to get it working on his own. HDMI works fine for connecting to his TV. He just needed a little help with a RTC setup. I have a couple of old LCD screens and thought this might be an interesting breakout project. These suppliers all ask for the LCD model and say they will provide the proper cable and firmware. My feeling is that the cable may be pin adapted for their board but a bit of modification is also necessary for the firmware to display correctly. I have three others from the same manufacturer which is Toshiba. Actually two are the ones Peter put up on the list for tinkering some time ago. All over heaters. The oldest is stripped bare and boots SOAS from a flash drive. It is the only on which will run without a battery. The other plan for refloating the MB was kiboshed by my SO, so no joy, except that I salvaged the CD and LCD, perhaps for this project. I have the data sheet for that LCD. LG LP156WH1 tl c2 Thanks, Russell Sent from mobile.

3 4

Fwd: Bell Fibe -- thoughts?
by Alex Beamish 24 Aug '16

24 Aug '16

Hi All, I've had a persistent salesman at my door promoting Bell Fibe, so I thought I'd better canvass TLUG members to find out if anyone's using it, and what their feedback is. I'm currently on ADSL through TekSavvy, and that's been working fine for the last year -- it's about half the cost of Sympatico, gives me lots more bandwidth, and has a 300G monthly cap compared to Bell's 60G. Bell Fibe is unlimited (sic). Thanks for your feedback .. -- Alex Beamish VP Membership, Toronto Northern Lights, 2013 Champions / www.northernlightschorus.com Certified Contest Administrator, Barbershop Harmony Society / www.barbershop.org Cast member, The Music Man! / Opens Nov 3 / www.facebook.com/scarboroughmusictheatre

6 6

Wireless router -- which one?
by William Park 22 Aug '16

22 Aug '16

Short version: What dual-band router has QoS to deal with "buffer bloat" problem? I think queuing algorithm is called "fq_codel" or something. Long version: My current router is Asus RT-N66U. I didn't have problem with stock firmware. But, after upgrading to the latest firmware this weekend, I'm experiencing "bufferbloat" problem. When I download a large file (eg. ISO file), I can't browse or send emails or anything, until the download is finished or terminated. Right now, I'm using my previous router TP-LINK TL-WDR4300 with DD-WRT. But, its 5GHz band is flaky, and it needs frequent reboot. The very reason why I replaced it in the first place. So, it's time for a new router. I'm looking at Asus or Linksys. Any recommendation based on what you have or what you've heard? -- William

5 11

better than average article on why the federal payroll system is a mess
by D. Hugh Redelmeier 22 Aug '16

22 Aug '16

There have been a bunch of headlines about the new federal payroll system "Phoenix" is screwing up a lot. This article does a reasonable job of describing how the problems happened. <http://www.itworldcanada.com/blog/phoenix-payroll-report-by-michael-wernick…>

9 12

mysterious restarts
by D. Hugh Redelmeier 20 Aug '16

20 Aug '16

We have a computer that started doing random and frequent restarts on the weekend. We don't know why. Any suggestions? It looks as if the power dips momentarily and the computer reboots, with no message that we have observe. But it could just as easily be a crash of some other kind that leaves no trace. The system is an HP Compaq Pro 6300 Small Form Factor PC running Fedora 20. The crash seems to be at different points (i.e. not one consistent software activity). The crashes don't seem correlated with heavy workloads (eg. it crashed a couple of times while I was staring at log files to see if there was any hint of the problem). Hypothesis: a Fedora 20 bug. But the software has not been changed in months. Updates have not been appled this year. Since the behaviour has changed without the software changing, I don't think that Fedora is to blame. Hypothesis: it might be heat-related (the room it is in gets warm). I vacuumed out the interior and defuzzed the heat sinks. This did not improve the uptime. Hypothesis: it might be contact-related. So I disconnected and reconnected most internal connectors and reseated the memory. This did not seem to improve the uptime. Hypothesis: it might be the power supply. Normally, I'd swap power supplies to test this hypothesis but this Small Form Factor computer has a unique (and probably expensive) power supply. I opted to move the disk to a Dell OptiPlex 990 Small Form Factor computer and use that. The Dell, with the HP's disk, seems stable. No rebooting. This is in the same warm room, but the weather has changed. In the original HP box, I installed a disk that I had laying around (a 60G drive from a discarded laptop), installed Ubuntu 16.04, and have been running four CPU-bound processes for 24 hours. No crash. I admit that this is in a cooler room. The heat and power load of a laptop drive is less than that of a 3.5" HDD, but I would not think that that is significant. The computer is a couple of years old but still has a year of warranty. There are confidential files on the disk drive so I'd like to narrow down the problem before calling in HP support. Asking for a particular replacement part is more convenient that shipping the computer back to HP.

21 110

(question) TP-Link TL-WR802N 300Mbps Wireless-N Nano Router
by William Park 16 Aug '16

16 Aug '16

Anyone have this one? http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=27_1046_365&item_id=0… http://www.tplink.ca/en/products/details/TL-WR802N.html If so, have you ever used its "Client Mode" and can you confirm that it works? I need small portable "wireless bridge", and the advertised "client mode" is what I need. But, last TP-Link I bought was N750 dual-band TL-WDR4300. It advertised "wireless bridge" and even their tech support said so. But, both lied. Shocking! I have Linksys WRT model with DD-WRT, and its client bridge works. But, it's a bit bulky to carry around. -- William

8 30

Re: [GTALUG] Advice -- Building Debian 8 PC To Replace Win XP PC;
by Steve Petrie, P.Eng. 16 Aug '16

16 Aug '16

Greetings To GTALUG Members, Having gratefully received an avalanche of helpful postings from GTALUG members, and based on that advice, I provide below a summary of the revisions to the original specification of components, for the new desktop PC. Please find attached a PDF summary of the revised PC configuration: a.. <ca.pcpartpicker.com -- win7_PC_business_24_7_duty_bare_v2 - summary - Steve_Petrie - 20160811.pdf>. The price may seem high, given that this is not a gamer's PC. There is no video graphics support beyond that on the Intel CPU. This PC is a heavy-duty professional / business PC. The objective of this PC is to provide fast performance, with the ability to run cool and cruising (not struggling) under constant 24 / 7 duty. Also there is provision for future expansion, without overtaxing cooling capacity or power supply. Please note that the revised specification attached, includes only the Windows 7 operating system, and makes no mention of the Linux operating system. Omission of Linux is intentional, as commercial system builders typically are only interested in shipping PCs with Windows. So the plan is to do the Linux installation after the PC is received from the builder. I am now going to request price quotations for the PC as specified, from a number of commercial PC builders. If no satisfactory commercial builder quotation ensues (meaning: acceptable price and no component substitutions), then I will likely resort to the build-it-yourself option, with kind help from GTALUG. There is a hybrid build option: get the motherboard built commercially, and then personally complete the build from there. * * * * * * RAM Increase the RAM size from 8 GB to 16 GB (2 x 8GB DIMM). The ASRock Z97 Extreme6 motherboard has 4 DDR-3 slots, providing for future memory expansion to the maximum 32 GB supported by the Intel i5-4460 CPU. * * * * * * DIALUP MODEMS AND DSL (DIGITAL SUBSCRIBER LINE) It appears that Linux (and Windows) are keeping up support for: 1. USB dial up modems and 2. PPP network protocol, to enable tethering of GSM phones to the OS, as dial up modems (for e.g. file transfer). Therefore it is very likely that the same support (for USB dial up modems and PPP) on Linux, should also work on Linux with a real USB dial up modem (e,g, USR5637 56K V.92 USB modem). Dial up modems today still find uses, in situations where land line telephone service is the only wired Internet connection available: 1. in some rural areas, and 2. with portable computers away from home base, e.g. in hotel room. Also: some point-of-sale payment transaction systems use dial up modems, for improved security. Terminology: "hard line" = "land line" = POTS (plain old telephone service) = physical twisted pair of copper wires that electrically connect a subscriber's equipment, to the remote telephone exchange and thereby to the PSTN (public switched telephone network). Terminology: DSL (digital subscriber line) = ADSL (asymmetric digital subscriber line), the "asymmetric" means that upstream communications (from local to remote) and downstream communications (from remote to local) use different frequency ranges (Up: 26.075 .. 137.825 kHz, Down: 138 .. 1104 kHz). DSL service can share the same hard line with analog devices (e.g. telephone, dial up modem, fax machine) because DSL uses much higher modulation frequencies (26.075 .. 1104 kHz) than do conventional (human voice band) analog devices (0 .. 4 kHz). However, in order for DSL and analog devices to share the same wire pair hard line without interference, the DSL modem must be electrically isolated from the analog devices (and vice-versa), to prevent mutual interference caused by secondary effects of signals generated by the various devices on the line. The necessary isolation between the DSL modem and the analog devices on the same wire pair line, is achieved by adding a DSL filter between each analog device (e.g. telephone, dial up modem) and the line. For convenience, a variation on the DSL filter, called a DSL filter / splitter, provides two jacks on the same filter device, one (unfiltered) jack for connecting the DSL modem and one (filtered) jack for connecting an analog device (e.g. telphone, dial up modem). Adding decision complexity to a DSL service acquisition, are availability of more modern DSL standards that offer significantly higher speeds: ADSL2, VDSL and VDSL2. Given that, with DSL service installed on the hard line, it will still be feasible to continue to use on the same hard line, the dial up modem on the existing Windows XP PC, why not go straight to using DSL for the new Linux PC, and skip entirely any use of a dial up modem (e.g. USR5637 56K V.92 USB modem) on the new PC? Here are my reasons for first using a dial up modem on the new Linux PC: a.. #1 Postpone the non-trivial task of: specifying and provisioning DSL service (service type decision, modem selection, service implementation). DSL will be a too large distraction from the main project, which is to get a Linux PC working. b.. #2. Simplify the task of setting up the new Linux PC, by minimizing: 1. any changes to setup and operation of existing Windows XP PC (dial up modem), and by minimizing: 2. any changes to existing Internet ISP connection facility (dial up). c.. #3. Save money ($25 / mo.): postpone upgrade, from 56Kbps dial up (ISP $15 / mo), to 5Mbps DSL (ISP $40 / mo); d.. #4. Curiosity: Web browsing with dial up modem on the existing Windows XP PC has grown to be painfully slow with advent of larger and larger web page sizes. But pages always used to load reliably, albeit slowly. However, over the past few years, web page load performance has steadily degraded, to the point where too many pages either quietly fail to completely load on the first attempt, or fail to load with some browser error message. So I plan to find out, if the Linux PC can deliver a better web browsing experience over a dial up Internet connection, than the very poor browsing experience on the existing Windows XP PC. e.. #5 Even after I have upgraded the Linux PC to use DSL for its regular Internet connectivity, I want to be able occasionally to use a dial up modem Internet connection on the Linux PC. Mainly for testing the responsiveness over dial up, of a new website I am building. I have set a target maximum of 10 seconds response time for a page load, for a website visitor using a browser over a dial up modem connection. There are still plenty of people using dial up, whether out of frugality or poverty. And I intend that the new website will treat these dial up users, with respect for the value of their time. * * * * * * VIDEO DISPLAY MONITOR AND CABLE Consider increasing the size of the video display monitor, to allow for comfortable viewing with user's advancing age. The present display monitor on the Windows XP PC is 17" diagonal. Therefore the 21.5" diagonal video monitor (LG 22MB35DM-I) specified for the new Linux PC, already provides a large increase (4.5") viewing area diagonal over the Win XP PC monitor -- at a price of $167.92. However, a 23.8" (LG 24MB35DM-B) monitor can be had on amazon.ca for a price of only $195.00, so the decision is to upgrade the monitor specified, to the 23.8" LG model from the 21.5" LG model. Video monitors of yet higher diagonal sizes are too expensive for the budget. Therefore upgrade the specification to an LG 24MB35DM-B 23.8" video monitor. * * * Can the CPU's built-in Intel HD Graphics 4600 video display controller, on the Intel 4-Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Processor, on the ASRock Expreme6 motherboard, drive the 24MB35DM-B 23.8" IPS LED Back-lit Full HD 1080p 1920x1080 Monitor, through its DVI-D D-Sub connector? Here is a paste from the Intel CPU product web page: http://ark.intel.com/products/80817/Intel-Core-i5-4460-Processor-6M-Cache-u… ... Graphics Specifications Processor Graphics ++ Intel(c) HD Graphics 4600 Graphics Base Frequency 350 MHz Graphics Max Dynamic Frequency 1.1 GHz Graphics Video Max Memory 2 GB Graphics Output eDP/DP/HDMI/VGA Max Resolution (HDMI 1.4)++ 4096x2304@24Hz Max Resolution (DP)++ 3840x2160@60Hz Max Resolution (eDP - Integrated Flat Panel)++ 3840x2160@60Hz Max Resolution (VGA)++ 1920x1200@60Hz DirectX* Support 11.2/12 OpenGL+ Support 4.3 Intel(R) Quick Sync Video Yes Intel(R) InTru(tm) 3D Technology Yes Intel(R) Insider(tm) Yes Intel(R) Wireless Display Yes Intel(R) Flexible Display Interface (Intel® FDI) Yes Intel(R) Clear Video HD Technology Yes # of Displays Supported ++ 3 Device ID 0x412 ... And here is a paste from the ASRock Z97 Extreme6 motherboard specfication: ... Graphics Three graphics output options: DVI-I, HDMI and DisplayPort 1.2 Supports HDMI with max. resolution up to 4K x 2K (4096x2160) @ 24Hz Supports DVI-I with max. resolution up to 1920x1200 @ 60Hz Supports DisplayPort 1.2 with max. resolution up to 4K x 2K (4096x2160) @ 24Hz or 4K x 2K (3840x2160) @ 60Hz ... Here is a paste from the LG 24MB35DM-B 23.8" video monitor owner's manual : Resolution Max D-SUB(Analog) : 1280 x 1024 @ 60 Hz DVI (Digital) : 1280 x 1024 @ 60 Hz Since: 1. the DVI-I video output signals on the ASRock Extreme6 motherboard's DVI-I connector, can directly drive the DVI-D input on the LG 24MB35DM-B monitor, and 2. a DVI-D cable is compatible with the DVI-I connector on the ASRock motherboard, and 3. the DVI standard maximum length of a DVI cable is 5 meters (16 feet), a simple 12 foot (or 15 foot) DVI-D cable will suffice to connect the monitor to the motherboard. * * * * * * WESTERN DIGITAL HARD DISK DRIVE Upgrade the HDD to Western Digital Black Series 1 TB 3.5" from Western Digital Blue Series 750 GB. The WD Black Series are designed for heavy professional PC use. The Blue series are not so thoroughly tested by WD and are not recommended for heavy professional use. The WD Blue Series also have a power-down feature (after 2 to 3 minutes idle) that makes them inconvenient for intermittent use, because of the long spin-up delay after power-down. The WD Black Series model chosen is WD1003FZEX SATA 6 Gb/s 3.5 Inch 7200 1 TB with 64 MB cache. * * * * * * CASE: FRACTAL DESIGN VS SILVERSTONE The case originally specified: Fractal Design Define R5 (Black) has a door that covers the entire front of the case. There is exposure to damage to an optical drive, if the optical drive ejects a disc while the front door of the case is in the way. The SilverStone TJ04-E was suggested as an alternative case. However, this venerable popular model is no longer available. The successor SilverStone model: SST-TJ04B-E does not seem to be nearly as well made as the original TJ04-E. Numerous reviews on Anazon.com mention flimsy material and construction. There are other SilverStone case models of interest, but none as compelling in features as the Fractal Design Define R5. The decision is to use a Fractal Design Define R5 (Black) case with the front foor, as originally specified, and be very careful always to keep the front door of this case wide open, so long as there is a disc in the optical drive. (Good luck, Steve :) * * * * * * HDD BACKUP: PORTABLE USB DRIVE VERSUS MAGNETIC TAPE Magnetic tape has fallen out of favour for PC backup, being replaced by portable USB drives. Tape is subject to heavy wear by helical-scan technology, and inexpensive helical-scan drive models are no longer manufactured. Abandon the idea of using a SCSI (helical-scan) tape drive for HDD backup, and use portable USB drives for backup instead. The drive selected is: Western Digital My Passport Ultra 1 TB Portable External Hard Drive, Black (WDBGPU0010BBK-NESN). This device is being acquired separately from the PC build. The DDS-3 DAT drive on the existing Windows XP PC has just died. The plan is to switch to using a portable USB drive to backup the Windows XP PC HDD, until the new Linux PC is fully operational. * * * * * * BOOT SETUP, HDD PARTITIONING AND OS INSTALLATION GTALUG advice is that I should undertake personally, installation of debian Linux on the new PC. This will ensure a satisfactory Linux setup and also develop vital knowledge to assist recovery in case of future problems. The plan is to do the Linux installation after the PC is received from the builder. This will include not only installing debian Linux from ISO DVD, but also making changes to the boot firmware setup on the ASRock Z97 Extreme6 motherboard. The PC builder will be required to install the Windows 7 into a dedicated GPT partition of e.g. 80 GB. So hopefully, the work done to install debian Linux, will not disturb the partition containing the original Windows 7 installation done by the builder. * * * * * * Plan is still to try to find a commercial builder, without conceding any variations in components as specified. Otherwise will consider building myself, with kind help from GTALUG. Will report back on responses from commercial builders. Best Regards and Thanks !! Steve

2 1