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Advice request
by o1bigtenor 16 Jul '15

16 Jul '15

Greetings I have a large system with a fair number of resources which has just come home from the hospital (computer) when I had a disk drive fail abruptly. 1.The tech tells me that the hard drive can be accessed. How do I do a low level transfer to another hard drive? (This would mean that I would have empty sectors but there is some information that I would like to get.) 2. The drive was my 'operating system' drive. That meant that here is where I kept my 14 VirtualBox machines. (One was my business record keeping (accounting) and that is the one that I want real bad but its only 16 months of data so it can be redone but its painful!) How do I set up the hard drive so that files can be moved to my RAID array (which should be just fine) - - - or should I? Should I be setting up this drive as it was before but just looking for a way to do backups? As I understand it operating systems on RAID isn't nice - - - or is it? I am looking for something that doesn't crap out so completely. I understand I should have had backups but I wasn't able to get the shared folder stuff working so that I could seamlessly transfer stuff to my main array. That would also be a viable option if someone can tell me how to cudgel VirtualBox into submission. Questions welcomed. TIA Dee

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Problems with Samba After Upgrade to 14.04
by Stephen 16 Jul '15

16 Jul '15

Background I was using 12.04 for a long time and never experienced these problems. I have a separate partition on which I back up my photography files from my Windows machine. I have ownership of the partition and Others have Create and Delete access. On the partition I have a folder "photography". Using a right click in Nautilus I shared the folder, allowed others to create and delete files, and allowed guests access. When I created the share I told Nautilus to apply these settings to files in the folder. Problem 1) I can access the shared photography directory and copy files to it. I cannot navigate to a nested folder. I get access denied. This is new with 14.04. How can I share the entire tree? Problem 2) When I copy files from Windows to Ubuntu, they are created with an owner of "Nobody". WTF??? Worse, when I delete, as root, the files are no longer visible, but they still take up space! /var/lib/samba/usershares/photography has: #VERSION 2 path=/big0/photography comment= usershare_acl=S-1-1-0:F guest_ok=y sharename=photography Any and all help appreciated! -- Stephen

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meeting tomorrow: topic?
by D. Hugh Redelmeier 15 Jul '15

15 Jul '15

According to <http://gtalug.org/> : "GTALUG is currently looking for speakers for the 9th December, 2014 meeting. If you are interested in speaking please contact our talks coordinator." Let's brainstorm on this. Here's a poorly organized dump of some of my thoughts. - I'd love to hear Lennart talk about what he's learned working on routers. - I'd like to learn what each of you has learned using Linux (or perhaps, not able to do using Linux) and what your current Linux-related interests are. - I'd like to hear how people have set up their internet gatways. What's worth doing, what's easy, what's hard. (It's time for me to revisit this after having a pretty static setup for a decade. I'd be willing to talk about what I've done but it is pretty stale.) - I'm interested in setting up my in-house services like a cloud. Perhaps <http://owncloud.org/>. Motivation: I want to keep control of my own data as much as possible. Can anyone speak to this? - Subproblem of above: I run MediaWiki already. Tips and tricks (eg. from Drew) about care, feeding, and use would be welcome. - I'd be willing to share 10 minutes worth of what I've learned about little Windows gadgets as Linux platforms. - I'd love to discuss whether this is interesting and useful <http://www.banana-pi.com/eacp_view.asp?id=64> This is a version of the Banana Pi with an added ethernet switch: 5 x 1G eithernet ports. The Banana Pi is intended to mimic the Raspberry Pi in some ways but with a stronger processor; my impression has been that this is goofy and that the Cubieboard2 and Cubietruck <http://cubieboard.org/> were more transparent uses of the Allwinner chips. But gluing on a switch seems very attractive. - chatting about peoples' workflow always seems useful: it's not just the tools, its how we use them, how we find them useful, and where they don't quite meet expectations. Examples: backup methodology, distro update methodology, favourite editor (leave out tribalism), programming language, etc. - why Go is interesting <https://golang.org/>. Why Rust is interesting <http://www.rust-lang.org/>. Why Python 2.x still has a loyal following. - what are you doing with your _____? Example: Raspberry Pi. - How you make your mobile device work with your desktop? Summary: we've had Question and Answer sessions, how about an Answer and Question session? By that I meen: people give a mini-chat about something they think is interesting and have the rest of us ask questions in response.

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Tlug Soup?
by David Collier-Brown 14 Jul '15

14 Jul '15

Where are we eating this month? --dave -- 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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war story: keyboard failure leads to sustained mayhem
by D. Hugh Redelmeier 10 Jul '15

10 Jul '15

This story could be told in order of discovery. That would be more fun. But I'm going to explain it as plainly as possible to make it more useful. I have a KVM switch (Keyboard Video Mouse) that lets four computers share one keyboard, display, and mouse. Unbeknownst to me, the keyboard started generating a rapid stream of ESC [ D (back arrow) sequences. I'm not sure whether it is all the time or just some of the time. The next time I booted one of the computers, it seemed to fail to find its hard drives. It was more than a decade old, so rather than fixing it, I replaced it. I now think that a continuous stream of backarrow keys confused the BIOS (or the RAID card BIOS) when the machine was booting. But at that time, it seemed to be a simple case of old hardware wearing out. Another computer had different symptoms, but again showed disk problems. When I did disk diagnostics, I was puzzled by the results: no problem. Eventually, I found the keyboard problem and have thrown the keyboard away. I have no idea how long it had been misbehaving. Lessons re-learned: - symptoms don't always point clearly to the disease. - conclusions should remain provisional - it's amazing how long you can overlook a stuck keyboard key - apparently I really only use the KVM for booting; it would be nice if PCs had been designed to be happy headless

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Uh-oh. Command not found
by phiscock＠ee.ryerson.ca 07 Jul '15

07 Jul '15

Because Firefox kept locking up and various other things were out of date, I decided to upgrade to the latest version of Linux Mint. The upgrade seemed to work but resulted in a blank desktop, so I decided a complete re-install was required. So I backed up the /home directory to an external USB hard drive, programmed a USB key with a Mint .iso and booted up into the latest Mint. That went fine. Then I tried to restore the backup of the home directory, the computer announced that it couldn't read the file, something about 'bad superblock', which is enough to bring one's heart to a complete and utter stop. *Fortunately*, bumping against the USB cable got it working, and I think the problem was a bad connector. OK, piece of cake from here on, right? Then in the process of moving files from the backup to my home directory, I forgot that I was in superuser mode and ~ was shorthand for /root. That made a mess, and in the process of sorting out that, I moved the /bin directory. So of course, no commands worked at all. (This reminds me of the scenario where someone executes rm -rf * in superuser mode and only discovers the mistake when the computer announces: rm command not found. I know someone who actually did that. (Not me ;) ). Arrrgh. So I decided that the simplest route was to re-install. Then, for some reason, the USB key wouldn't boot. Fortunately, an old Knoppix CD did boot, establishing that boot from CD was still working. So I prevailed on my friend Gabriel to burn me an .iso on DVD, and that worked. So, to my colleagues in TLUG, I ask: How would you deal with the re-location of /bin, assuming you didn't want to re-install? Peter -- Peter Hiscocks Syscomp Electronic Design Limited, Toronto http://www.syscompdesign.com USB Oscilloscope and Waveform Generator 647-839-0325

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Re: [GTALUG] [UPDATE] GTALUG Meeting on 14th July at 7:30pm
by Myles Braithwaite 06 Jul '15

06 Jul '15

Here is David's talk description: > Puppet is a tool for doing configuration management. This talk will go over > what puppet is, what it can do, and how to do it. There is more than one way > to do it, some lessons have been learned in the field and from the community. > The talk will be based on [Alessandro Franceschi's fine Puppet > Tutorial](http://www.example42.com/tutorials/PuppetTutorial/). Not all slides > will be discussed (developer oriented slides will be skipped), and some > topics not mentioned in the URL will be added (work flow topics). I intend > for this talk to be a dialog and support "engaged" learning, feel free to > interrupt.

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[GTALUG-Announce] GTALUG Meeting on 14th July at 7:30pm
by Myles Braithwaite 06 Jul '15

06 Jul '15

<http://gtalug.org/meeting/2015-07/> # Puppet with David Thornton Puppet is an open-source configuration management utility. ## 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 - Before each meeting a group of GTALUGers dine at Love At First Bite (96 Gerrard Street E). * 7:30 pm - Meeting and presentation. * 9:00 pm - After each meeting a group of GTALUGers move to the The Imperial Pub (54 Dundas St East) for refreshments and more socializing. # 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 jeopardize 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 honored 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 http://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/announce

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random wifi disconnects
by Stewart C. Russell 04 Jul '15

04 Jul '15

Hi, Every few days I've started to get my notebook's network connection giving out. This is what the log tells me: [Sat Jun 27 17:14:38 2015] wlan0: deauthenticated from 00:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx (Reason: 7=CLASS3_FRAME_FROM_NONASSOC_STA) [Sat Jun 27 17:14:38 2015] cfg80211: Calling CRDA to update world regulatory domain [Sat Jun 27 17:14:38 2015] wlan0: authenticate with 00:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx [Sat Jun 27 17:14:38 2015] wlan0: send auth to 00:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx [Sat Jun 27 17:14:38 2015] cfg80211: World regulatory domain updated: [Sat Jun 27 17:14:38 2015] cfg80211: DFS Master region: unset [Sat Jun 27 17:14:38 2015] cfg80211: (start_freq - end_freq @ bandwidth), (max_antenna_gain, max_eirp), (dfs_cac_time) [Sat Jun 27 17:14:38 2015] cfg80211: (2402000 KHz - 2472000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm), (N/A) [Sat Jun 27 17:14:38 2015] cfg80211: (2457000 KHz - … etc. Restarting network-manager often fixes it, but not always. This is on Ubuntu 15.04, x86_64. Network card is Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6235, which may well be part of the problem. I realize that there's more info I should add, but short of dumping all of /etc on you, I don't know what else would be useful. cheers, Stewart

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Fwd: Living in Virtual Machines
by Giles Orr 02 Jul '15

02 Jul '15

Forwarded from Jamon, with a similar idea to Daniel's. I looked at containers and haven't totally ruled it out, but I think I prefer full OS installs. Obviously containers would use a lot less hard drive space, but full virtualization offers more isolation. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Jamon Camisso Date: 2 July 2015 at 15:14 Subject: Re: [GTALUG] Living in Virtual Machines Hey top posting from an email that isn't able to post to tlug ... feel free to forward this link to the list if you like: https://blog.jessfraz.com/post/docker-containers-on-the-desktop/ Using docker's volumes feature to bind mount directories and files into a container allows things like running Xorg, with persistent writes to shared files. No NFS needed even. Jamon On 07/02/2015 12:09 PM, Giles Orr wrote: > I have this idea that's been slowly forming in my head. I wanted to > run it by TLUG for opinions to find out if I'm totally crazy or if it > might work. > > I hope to set up my desktop (and probably my laptop as well) to have a > Debian stable base OS - about as stripped as I can manage, just X with > a lightweight window manager (probably OpenBox). On top of that would > be VirtualBox, the idea being to run all my applications from virtual > machines. > > Since I'd have multiple machines accessing the same /home/, I'd want > NFS. That could be run by the host OS, but I was thinking about using > OpenWRT as the NFS server. But that immediately runs into a > difficulty: it appears that getting the VirtualBox Guest Additions > running in OpenWRT is (very?) difficult, so I'd probably have to use > raw partition access. The problem with that is that if the partition > is accessed simultaneously by any application on the host OS, you can > munge the partition. > > I'm also planning on running another OpenWRT instance: this would be > used for routing, with all the other virtual machines going through it > to access the outside world. Among other things, that would mean I > only have to administer a firewall in one place. One idea I'm still > considering is giving full control of the network card to the OpenWRT > instance and making the host OS go through OpenWRT to get to the > outside world ... > > This could all probably be done with KVM rather than VirtualBox, but I > prefer VB not only because I'm more familiar with it, but also because > .VDI disc images can vary in size (Qemu's .qcow2 image format are > fixed size) and because VirtualBox handles full screen display of OSes > better (at least once Guest Additions is installed). I'm happy to > listen to reasons in favour of KVM. > > Other virtual machines would include TinyCore, SliTaz, and Debian > Stretch. The latter would probably be my primary OS. The thought was > to ssh from the host OS to the guest with X forwarding, and then run a > launcher from the guest on the host so any applications run from the > launcher were from the guest. > > Advantages: > - I get to tinker with multiple OSes (something I enjoy) > - if I'm about to go to a dubious website, I can clone a virtual > machine, use it for the dubious visit, then destroy it > > Disadvantages that I've thought of so far: > - memory usage > - speed reduction > - hard drive usage for disk images > - complexity > - mounting USB sticks on guests is extremely problematic > - playing sound/video from guests through the host is imperfect > - hard to determine where an application is running from > > I'm sure there are many, many other problems with this idea. Go to > town, that's why I'm here. -- Giles http://www.gilesorr.com/ gilesorr(a)gmail.com

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