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USB TV Card Free
by Ansar Mohammed 26 Jul '21

26 Jul '21

Hello All, Apologies if this is too much off topic, but I have some extra hardware lying around that is free to a new home. NIB never used still in box.DVDXpress tv card I have a ton of other hardware including SIP phones and SAS hard drives. If it’s too much off topic I won’t post the list

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long war story: growing the ESP (/boot/efi)
by D. Hugh Redelmeier 15 Jul '21

15 Jul '21

== why you might wish to grow the ESP == In a UEFI system, booting starts with the ESP (EFI System Partition). Apparently Windows creates a 100M ESP during a fresh install. 100M isn't enough sometimes. On my notebook, Linux's firmware update mechanism, when updating the UEFI firmware ("BIOS" is a misnomer), stages gobs of stuff in /boot/efi. My ESP filled up and updates stopped. (The ESP was mostly filled up with Dell / Windows stuff, but the firmware update pushed it over the edge.) == growing ESP partition with gparted == This should be done from a bootable live Linux system. It isn't wise to move partitions while they are in use. gparted can grow a partition by shuffling all the other partitions. It needs free space, either from unallocated disk space or from shrinking other partitions. After it had made my ESP larger, it refused to resize the (FAT) filesystem inside the partition. == growing the ESP FAT filesystem == gparted? no luck (see above). === fatresize == no luck: it claims that the ESP's partition isn't FAT. It is wrong. What was it thinking? I hacked on it to cough up more information in the diagnostic. For some reason, fatresize thinks that the FS is NTFS. See my fork of fatresize, if you care: https://github.com/HughR/fatresize === brute force === [this can actually be done while running off the disk. You do need to unmount the ESP after step 2] 1) copy all of /boot/efi to a different filesystem 1a) see later, but do this now. 2) use gparted to make a new FAT32 filesystem in the partition (it will naturally use the whole space) 3) copy the backup back into /boot/efi OOPS: fedora won't boot properly because the filesystem's UUID has changed. It is used (at least) in /etc/fstab for /boot/efi. A partition has a UUID and a filesystem within a partition has a UUID. It is the filesystem's UUID that matters. FAT filesystems don't have a UUID but they have something that is a bit like one: the "serial number". That's what Linux considers to be the filesystem's UUID. Each FAT filesystem has a likely-unique serial number. It is 8 hex digits, sometimes shown with a "-" between the fourth and fifth characters. It is generated randomly by the file-system formatter. We need to get the new VFAT FS's serial number to be the same as the old ones. 1a) note the old FS's UUID. You can glean it from the UUID field of the /etc/fstab entry for the ESP. Or you can figure it out from the gnome "disks" program (before you blow away the old FS). 4) fix up the serial number using mtools mlabel command. Note the serial must not have "-" in it. From <https://superuser.com/questions/1247972/how-to-change-vfat-partition-uuid> sudo mlabel -i /dev/sda???? -N 12345678 where ???? gets you the correct ESP partition and 12345678 is the desired UUID / serial number. If you use mtools to create the FAT filesystem, you can probably specify the serial number and not have to go back to fix it up.

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My slides: Pages → Searchable PDF (→ archive.org)
by Stewart Russell 13 Jul '21

13 Jul '21

Are here: https://scruss.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Pages_to_Searchable… (LibreOffice) or PDF: https://scruss.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Pages_to_Searchable… cheers, Stewart

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[ Audacity Becomes Spyware (fwd)
by Karen Lewellen 07 Jul '21

07 Jul '21

Speaking personally as someone who has used the program for field production, I am rather disappointed. Audacity open source audio editor has become spyware https://www.slashgear.com/audacity-open-source-audio-editor-has-become-spyw… Ewdison Then - Jul 5, 2021, 12:47am CDT One of open source software’s biggest strengths is, naturally, its openness, which brings other benefits like freedom of use, security through scrutiny, flexibility, and more. That is mostly thanks to the open source-friendly licenses these programs use, but, from time to time, someone comes along and tries to make changes that infuriate the community of users and developers. Sometimes, those changes can even be illegal. Such seems to be the fate that has befallen Audacity, one of the open source world’s most popular pieces of software that now comes under a very invasive privacy policy. The brouhaha started just a few months ago when Audacity was bought by the Muse Group, the company behind equally popular music software like MuseScore, which is also open source, and Ultimate Guitar. So far, Audacity remains open source (and can’t really be changed into proprietary software in its current form), but that doesn’t mean that Muse Group can’t do some pretty damaging changes. Those changes come in the form of the new privacy policy that was just updated a few days ago, a policy that now allows it to collect user data. As a desktop application with no core online functionality, Audacity never had any need to “phone home” in the first place. Now the privacy policy says that the new company does collect data and does so in a way that’s both over-arching and vague, most likely by design. For example, it says that it collects data necessary for law enforcement but doesn’t specify what kind of data is collected. There are also questions regarding the storage of data, which is located in servers in the USA, Russia, and the European Economic Area. IP addresses, for example, are stored in an identifiable way for a day before being hashed and then stored in servers for a year. The new policy also disallows people under the age of 13 from using the software, which, as FOSS Post points out, is a violation of the GPL license that Audacity uses. The open source community was understandably irked by these changes. Fortunately, Audacity is open source software, and it will most likely be taken by the community and forked in a different direction, perhaps with a different name. That will leave Muse Group to develop Audacity on its own instead of being able to leverage (and exploit) the open source community’s hard work.

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searching FireFox tabs
by D. Hugh Redelmeier 05 Jul '21

05 Jul '21

I just learned this (I'm a little slow). I think it will make a big difference to me since I have so very many tabs. <https://www.howtogeek.com/722570/how-to-quickly-search-open-tabs-in-firefox/> Quick partial summary: In address bar type % and space. The rest should be clear. PS: whenever you are typing in the search bar, the sort of drop-down menu of suggestions has a bottom row with "this time, search with"" and a bunch of icons. There are icons for bookmarks, tabs, history and more.

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Re: [GTALUG] ThinkPad P15 -- crap?
by Scott Sullivan 02 Jul '21

02 Jul '21

On 2021-06-26 2:42 a.m., ac via talk wrote: > On Sat, 26 Jun 2021 01:06:23 -0400 > William Park via talk <talk(a)gtalug.org> wrote: >> Hi guys, >> I'm using ThinkPad P15 Gen 1 at work. The keyboard, touchpad, and >> trackpoint are not what I expected. They feel cheap. My old T450 is >> better. >> Is it just me? Or, has anyone notice this also? >> > not just you, I also am of the opinion that it is cheap crap :( > personally I have now started using HP, the quality is just better Over the last three years my employer has issued me both an HP Elitebook G3 (Intel) and a G6 (AMD). Both have run linux well, both have had trackpoints. The build quality was decent on both, plastic on the G3, aluminum on the G6. The G3 machines had a common screen defect were one corner would develop a backlight hotspot, but it was readily ignorable. HP's dedicate dock for them also worked well, and the USB-C dock option has also been working well on the G6. Getting into the cases has always been easy with just a few screws on the back panel and no-nonesense access to RAM and M.2 slots. The BIOSes include a handy option to swap the fn and ctrl keys, which are reversed compare to thinkpad layouts. Handy for me as I'm used to the thinkpad layout. I do miss the dedicated middle click button that the HPs lack, but middle button emulation (holding buttons 1 & 3) works. -- Scott Sullivan

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Kurzweil Reading Edge
by Mike Kallies 01 Jul '21

01 Jul '21

Hey Everyone, These came up recently on the list and coincidentally there's a great Youtuber (Techmoan) who just did a piece on the devices, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0jECuwrn_U It's approached as a gadget guy, so no deep dives, but he demos it and gets into a bit of the history and the warts of the aging machines. Interestingly he adds that he's planning future videos on "more recent takes on the same concept" Cool stuff. Mike

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ThinkPad P15 -- crap?
by William Park 28 Jun '21

28 Jun '21

Hi guys, I'm using ThinkPad P15 Gen 1 at work. The keyboard, touchpad, and trackpoint are not what I expected. They feel cheap. My old T450 is better. Is it just me? Or, has anyone notice this also? --WP

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[GTALUG-Announce] Meeting on Tuesday, July 13 at 07:30 PM
by hi＠gtalug.org 25 Jun '21

25 Jun '21

https://gtalug.org/meeting/2021-07/ # Lightning talks and Round Table This is GTALUG's version of an un-conference, a loosely structured short talks emphasizing the informal exchange of information and ideas between participants, rather than following a conventionally structured GTALUG meetings. If you already have a topic in mind please send an email to speakers(a)gtalug.org to be added to the list of scheduled talks. We're going to use Zoom for this meeting: Join Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83162263149?pwd=NXRkWUlEbVJydUN6V1BRN0JFTEcyZz09 Meeting ID: 831 6226 3149 Passcode: 719772 One tap mobile +16473744685,,83162263149#,,,,*719772# Canada +16475580588,,83162263149#,,,,*719772# Canada` Find your local numberhttps://us02web.zoom.us/u/klYT1laDI ## Schedule * 7:30 pm - Meeting and presentation. # 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: https://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

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Rocky Linux (CentOS's replacement) goes GA
by Scott Sullivan 22 Jun '21

22 Jun '21

Yesterday, Rocky Linux made their rebuild of RHEL 8.4 Generally Available. https://rockylinux.org/news/rocky-linux-8-4-ga-release/ This was following a round of RCs for 8.3 and 8.4. My colleagues and I have been testing it out on both our personal and company work loads. And it's working as expected. For those whom need a quick reminder on the situation. The chain used to look like this. Upstream Sources => Fedora (Cherry picked and Forked ever few years) => CentOS Stream => RHEL => CentOS At the start of the Year, RedHat announced that all effort on CentOS (as a downstream rebuild of RHEL) would cease at the end of 2021. Half a decade earlier then the community was expecting. And that there would be no CentOS to go with RHEL 9 when it eventually comes. This left a huge community of users and developer, whom were never going to become RHEL customers, without their long term stable distro. Moving to CentOS Stream is effectively becoming beta testers for what will become RHEL. Some of original founders of the CentOS project, established Rocky Linux to fill the position CentOS used too, just slightly trailing RHEL. This returns the community to where it was before RedHat stepped in to support the CentOS project. Support that was eventually betrayed, having effectively abandoned the CentOS position in the ecosystem and walked away with the trademarks. This position in the ecosystem is always going to exist, RedHat abdicating it is ultimately unfortunate for RedHat. -- Scott Sullivan

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