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Re: [GTALUG] slightly ot: your prefered place to buy older electronics?
by Howard Gibson 21 Nov '24

21 Nov '24

BODY { font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:12px; } On Mon 04/11/24 6:56 PM , Karen Lewellen via talk talk(a)gtalug.org sent:Given all the nifty side Linux projects, I am wondering what is your favorite place to get such older things. Personally I am rather frantically seeking a pocket am / FM radio, waokperson type or otherwise. got a small one from amazon last year, USB powered, but unlike my older walkperson, it did not like falling from my purse..and do not get me started on the reprehensible accessibility mess the site is now. Would much rather give a local place some love. hunting a record player too, so share your hidden business treasures. Kare Karen, I hope you can read this. I am coping with Primus' webmail, for reasons that might get posted here at some point. I picked up a nice, pocket radio at Radioworld 4335 Steeles Ave. W North York ON M3N 1V7. This is near Highway 400, and accessible through TTC. The website is https://www.radioworld.ca. The radio is by Sangean. You need headphones for it. I use it when I want to listen the radio at work. -- Howard Gibson hgibson(a)eol.ca http://home.eol.ca/~hgibson

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slightly ot: your prefered place to buy older electronics?
by Karen Lewellen 21 Nov '24

21 Nov '24

Given all the nifty side Linux projects, I am wondering what is your favorite place to get such older things. Personally I am rather frantically seeking a pocket am / FM radio, waokperson type or otherwise. got a small one from amazon last year, USB powered, but unlike my older walkperson, it did not like falling from my purse..and do not get me started on the reprehensible accessibility mess the site is now. Would much rather give a local place some love. hunting a record player too, so share your hidden business treasures. Kare

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Debian 11 Live Booted From USB Stick -- Gnome Desktop -- How To Manually Add a Favorites Icon ??
by Steve Petrie 18 Nov '24

18 Nov '24

Greetings To GTALUG Members, I boot debian 11 live from a USB memory stick. The bootable USB stick was created using a command like this: sudo dd if=/.../debian-live-11.5.0-amd64--gnome+nonfree.iso of=/dev/sdb bs=4M conv=fdatasync status=progress * * * * * * When I left-click Activities at the top left-hand corner of the Gnome desktop, the column of favorite app icons appears, including a Firefox icon. When I right-click the Firefox icon, a block with clickable selections appears beside the Firefox icon, including New Window. Currently, the Firefox icon's New Window selection launches Firefox 91.13.0esr (64-bit). I assume that this Firefox version comes from the bootable debian 11 live usb memory stick. Recently on startup, this Firefox 91.13.0esr (64-bit) has been displaying Mozilla notices about the coming obsolescence of this Firefox version. Mozilla provides a Firefox apt repository, so I dutifully installed the current Firefox .deb using instructions on this web page: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/install-firefox-linux?utm_source=www.m… The Mozilla Firefox .deb installation went fine and a second Firefox icon appeared on the Gnome favorites menu. The new Firefox launched OK. Unfortunately, as I have experienced with other .deb installations, when I re-booted debian 11 live from the USB stick, the new Firefox had disappeared. I install so few .deb apps that my workaround for this disappearing-app issue has been simply to re-install the disappeared app as necessary. However, the installation process for the Firefox .deb is quite lengthy, and I am always using Firefox, so I do not wish to have to do a Firefox .deb re-install from the Mozilla apt repository, every time I re-boot debian 11 from the USB stick. * * * * * * Next, I downloaded Mozilla's firefox-128.4.0esr.tar.bz2 and used the Archive Manager to extract the Firefox app. I can start this version of Firefox by right-clicking on the firefox file in the iinstallation's top firefox directory, and selecting Run. The new Firefox starts and when I display the Help > About Firefox window, I see confirmation that Firefox is up to date and 128.4.0esr (64-bit). So, I now have installed a current version of Firefox ESR that runs fine and does not disappear with every debian 11 live re-boot from the USB stick. * * * * * * If I left-click Activities, and type firefox into the search field that appears under the date/time at the top of the desktop, Gnome displays the icon for the old Firefox 91.13.0esr. When I execute a which firefox command and then invoke that firefox at a command prompt, the old Firefox 91.13.0esr starts. ... user@debian:~$ which firefox /usr/bin/firefox user@debian:~$ /usr/bin/firefox ... * * * * * * In directory /usr/share/applications there is a file firefox-esr.desktop In this file is a line: Exec=/usr/lib/firefox-esr/firefox-esr %u My knowledge of how the Gnome applications business works is so sketchy, that paranoia prevents me from messing with this firefox-esr.desktop file to change the Exec= line to point to the new firefox-128.4.0esr firefox file that I can start by a right-click > Run. * * * * * * My question for GTALUG members is: how can I safely manually add a new icon to the Gnome favorites column, for the new Firefox I installed by extracting firefox-128.4.0esr.tar.bz2 into a directory ?? Steve Petrie Etobicoke (Toronto), Ontario, Canada apetrie(a)aspetrie.net 416-233-6116

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Ubuntu upgrade
by D. Hugh Redelmeier 12 Nov '24

12 Nov '24

I rarely use Ubuntu so I'm late to observing some things. I just updated a 20.04 LTS system to a 22.04 LTS system. I did it via a command line (through SSH). There were several warnings about SSH being dangerous because communications could be lost when problems arose. SSH is my normal way of communicating with headless machines so I thought that this was a bit unfortunate. It turned out that I didn't have a problem. The installer informed me that ThunderBird would be provided via SNAP and that there is no other form. I don't like SNAPs but I probably wouldn't even have noticed if the installer didn't tell me. I wonder how many other SNAPs are installed. I think that I can ask the system but I've got other fish to fry at the moment. The upgrade seems to have worked rather painlessly. I'm used to Fedora version updates where only updates of a year are promised to work. This Ubuntu update was a two year update: a nice technical achievement. When I log in now (via SSH) I get this announcement: 9 additional security updates can be applied with ESM Apps. Learn more about enabling ESM Apps service at https://ubuntu.com/esm It seems unethical to withhold security updates. This is one reason why I don't like Ubuntu / Canonical. Long before the update, my system failed to come up in a desktop environment. It just came up in a console. That console is almost unreadable: UltraHD in a 15.6" screen. The console has 135 rows and 480 columns! I never figured out why the system didn't come up in the desktop environment. I spent a little time at that but it didn't really a lot since I only used the Ubuntu installation once a year or so for a program that Fedora didn't have. The system upgrade was an attempt to bypass the bug. No such luck. I guess I'll put a little more effort in analysis.

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Reminder of General Meeting
by Alan Heighway 12 Nov '24

12 Nov '24

As the WordPress Turns <https://new.gtalug.org/?p=115> with Ron Barnes and Evan Leibovitch What’s the line between using open source and exploiting it? WordPress is one of the world’s best-known open source applications, powers more than 40% of the world’s websites. But a recent drama between co-creator Matthew Mullenweg and CMS hosting outfit WP Engine has led to forced forks, strange code changes, acrimony and, of course, lawyers. We’ll be trying to make sense of this story, giving the history, and looking for clues that might prevent this from happening to other major open source projects. Date / Time: November 12th, 2024 19:30 EST Location: In Person: TMU George Vari Engineering and Computing Centre, 245 Church Street (just north of Dundas), Room 201 (See note below) Online using Nextcloud: https://hub.gtalug.org/call/7m45sf9i NOTE: The doors to the building are normally locked. There will be someone from GTALUG at the doors on the southeast corner of Church and Gould to let people in. If you come late or don’t see anyone at the door please SMS at 647 657 6575 for THIS NIGHT ONLY. Do not call. *A*lan *H*eighway <http://heighway.ca/> heighway.ca VA3WAH / VA3YKZ [image: Please consider the environment before printing]

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[GTALUG-Announce] GTALUG Membership Dues
by Warren McPherson 11 Nov '24

11 Nov '24

With the AGM arriving, please remember to send in your dues. It is easy to do. In your bank's online app, select Interac e-Transfer. Send $20 to "membership(a)gtalug.org" Thank you! --- GTALUG Announce mailing list announce(a)gtalug.org https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/announce

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video: Benno Rice on "The Tragedy of systed" (fwd)
by D. Hugh Redelmeier 09 Nov '24

09 Nov '24

I posted this link to the list over five years ago. Look in the archives: there were a number of replies. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk <talk(a)gtalug.org> To: Toronto Linux Users Group <talk(a)gtalug.org> Cc: D. Hugh Redelmeier <hugh(a)mimosa.com> Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2019 18:12:39 -0500 (EST) Subject: [GTALUG] video: Benno Rice on "The Tragedy of systed" Reply-To: D. Hugh Redelmeier <hugh(a)mimosa.com>, GTALUG Talk <talk(a)gtalug.org> I think that this is pretty interesting: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_AIw9bGogo> --- Talk Mailing List talk(a)gtalug.org https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk

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Re: [GTALUG] Manual vs Automatic transmission (was: summary, bottom line, my last word [...])
by Howard Gibson 08 Nov '24

08 Nov '24

BODY { font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:12px; }On Tue 05/11/24 5:20 PM , William Park via talk talk(a)gtalug.org sent: On 2024-11-05 12:52, o1bigtenor via talk wrote: > Think the modern car with its automatic > transmission being driven in 6 to 8" of fresh snow and the temperature > is just under freezing - - - if you have to stop for some reason > - - - good luck getting going again - - - in a manual transmission - > - - piece of cake!!!) Can you explain in more detail? I was thinking about buying manual Kia Rio (cheapest new car on the market, now no longer sold). My automatic has 1, 2, 3, 4, D, N, R, and P. Why is manual different? Manual transmission driver here. I have just had to replace my old Honda Fit with a newer 2019 model with a six speed transmission. I love it. You get stuck in snow either because you are in or on top of a snow drift, or because you are sitting on very slippery ice. Manual transmissions work nicely at getting out unstuck in the snow, but I have extracted automatics. Rocking a car out of a snow drift is easy using the clutch of a manual transmission, and much more difficult with an automatic. I forget how I did it. Maybe I popped back and forth between drive and neutral. Outside of a snow drift, there is no difference between the two transmissions. I don't know how technical people are here. Your transmission is a torque multiplier, in most gears anyway, with first gear giving you maximum torque and minimum speed. Under civilized conditions, torque is good. More torque is better. Under winter conditions, the worst thing you can do is spin tires and generate glare ice. If the road is slippery, you need to use minimum torque. You do this by starting in second gear. Often, I roll my windows down so that I can hear my tires spin. Tires spinning is bad. Always remember that if it is difficult to get started, it will be difficult to stop. What has this to do with GNU/Linux? -- Howard Gibson hgibson(a)eol.ca http://home.eol.ca/~hgibson

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soapbox, what I consider a GParted failure
by CAREY SCHUG 07 Nov '24

07 Nov '24

So winblows allows usb (and probably internal) disks to be formated EXFAT but without any partition table. WHAT POSSIBLE EXCUSE is there for gparted to not recognize this? Obviously wimblows can detect there is data, directories, etc on the device, why not GParted? --Carey

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tip: creating compact PDFs from LibreOffice
by D. Hugh Redelmeier 05 Nov '24

05 Nov '24

I have a document with pictures. I printed it to PDF from LibreOffice. The result was 20MB: too big to mail. I used a program called "shrinkpdf" to shrink the PDF. There are no options. The size was 128k. It was a bit fuzzy. Then I found out that LibreOffice's export to PDF lets you control the resolution and clarity of pictures. The default setting gave me 333k. It looked much better than the output of shrinkpdf. Conclusion: LibreOffice's export to pdf is usefully different from printing to PDF.

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