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Foone's Silverado Linux discovery - "Go away, go away now, go away fast"
by Stewart C. Russell 20 Jun '21

20 Jun '21

Popular hardware hacker Foone Turing has found that the Chevy Silverado they're renting runs a dubious version of Linux in the entertainment console, yet it seems to have some control over some in-car systems and talks via the car's wifi (of course). Ongoing slightly sweary thread starts here: foone (@Foone) : I'm renting a recent Chevy Silverado pickup truck and it has a big screen for connecting navigation and controlling bluetooth music and such, and it's apparently linux based. You know how it I know? It has the license files for EVERY SINGLE PACKAGE included, IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER 10:21 PM · Jun 18, 2021 — https://twitter.com/Foone/status/1406074736803676163 Definite 'Code Red' from Cabin Pressure material for me ... cheers, Stewart

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MySQL high availability video (March 2021)
by Alex Volkov 16 Jun '21

16 Jun '21

Hello Everyone, Here's the video from our March 2021 meeting, MySQL High Availability Stack: Orchstrator, Proxysql, and Consul with Peter Sylvester https://youtu.be/dYlv-YGtkEE Alex.

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ftp helper app, and how to screenshot on Ubuntu 21.04?
by Stewart C. Russell 13 Jun '21

13 Jun '21

Hi - so browsers don't support ftp:// links any more <https://www.somagnews.com/mozilla-firefox-drops-support-for-ftp/>, and I was wondering what people used as a drop-in app? I'd prefer if it weren't Filezilla, as that thing was a bug-ridden mess of spyware last time I looked at it. Most of the very old computer documentation I use lives on FTP sites, and this change came out of nowhere. Also, my go-to screenshot thingy /*scrot*/ no longer works on Ubuntu 21.04: it gives me this: X Error of failed request: BadDrawable (invalid Pixmap or Window parameter) Major opcode of failed request: 14 (X_GetGeometry) Resource id in failed request: 0x0 Serial number of failed request: 8 Current serial number in output stream: 8 My keyboard doesn't have a PrtSc key so I can't use any of the built-in screenshot tools. Is this a Wayland thing? I thought Wayland was supposed to be compatible with X? cheers, Stewart

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Video of our June 2021 meeting -- Intro to NFTs
by Alex Volkov 09 Jun '21

09 Jun '21

Hello Everyone, Here's the video from our yesterday's meeting (June 2021), Nintro to NFTs with Chinmay Patel https://youtu.be/tDVwHfYFI30 Alex.

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Amid a pandemic, a health care algorithm shows promise and peril
by Howard Gibson 09 Jun '21

09 Jun '21

https://www.salon.com/2021/06/09/amid-a-pandemic-a-health-care-algorithm-sh… Here is an interesting article on Salon.com, originally from Undark. This is one hell of a case for Free Software. -- Howard Gibson hgibson(a)eol.ca jhowardgibson(a)gmail.com http://home.eol.ca/~hgibson

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war story: python broken by Fedora update
by D. Hugh Redelmeier 09 Jun '21

09 Jun '21

I update Fedora 32 on my wife's netbook. Just the normal "sudo dnf update". After the update, dnf no longer worked. Nor did many other things written in python. This is politically very bad because my wife is deathly afraid of updates and I'm deathly afraid of software that isn't updated. She was right! With dnf broken, the main tool to fix broken packages was unavailable. How does one recover? 1) diagnose 2) attempt a fix 3) repeat until things work Here's the message I got with any invocation of dnf: ================ Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/bin/register-python-argcomplete", line 26, in <module> import argparse File "/usr/lib64/python3.8/argparse.py", line 89, in <module> import shutil as _shutil File "/usr/lib64/python3.8/shutil.py", line 29, in <module> import lzma File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 991, in _find_and_load File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 975, in _find_and_load_unlocked File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 671, in _load_unlocked File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap_external>", line 844, in exec_module File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap_external>", line 976, in get_code File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap_external>", line 640, in _compile_bytecode ValueError: bad marshal data (unknown type code) ================ I guessed that some compiled python file was corrupt (.pyc). Mostly because of the word "frozen" in the traceback. The .pyc files all seem to be in directories called __pycache__. The name "cache" suggested to me that if I deleted the .pyc file in question it would be recreated. Even safer, hide all the contents of the __pycache__ directory. That way I could restore the contents if my guess was wrong. There are a lot of __pycache__ directories. The diagnostics gave no hint of which was bad. I guessed /usr/lib64/python3.8/importlib/__pycache__ because the diagnostic said "importlib". I hid this cache and ran dnf. This did not fix things. But some contents were regenerated as I had guessed. I decided to run strace on dnf to find out what files were accessed. Oops: the system didn't have strace installed, and dnf was broken. How do I install strace? It turns out that when you type "strace" to Fedora's bash, it notices that the command isn't installed and offers to install it -- without needing python! (The rpm command would have worked, but with a lot more fuss.) strace produces a lot of output -- there are a lot of system calls. I just grepped for '"/' because I only cared about system calls with absolute pathnames. It turned out that the damaged .pyc file was in /usr/lib64/python3.8/__pycache__ The strace output hinted at this but didn't prove it. I renamed it with BAD added to the name. dnf now worked! I have no idea why a .pyc got corrupted. I have no idea how an ordinary user could recover from this problem. Even the diagnostic is unlikely to help an ordinary user.

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UC Berkeley data NFT
by Warren McPherson 09 Jun '21

09 Jun '21

On its own, it's hard to make sense of this. I guess it could be embedded in a limited edition documentary that would walk through the process. It seems the science belongs in the public domain but if these documents could be used to build an entertaining experience I guess that could be worth something. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-27/nft-for-nobel-prize-winn… <http://www.avg.com/email-signature?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_cam…> Virus-free. www.avg.com <http://www.avg.com/email-signature?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_cam…> <#DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2>

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tips on packing computers?
by Karen Lewellen 08 Jun '21

08 Jun '21

Hi folks, One thing about the lockdown ending is that I must hunt a new place..which means proper packing of my computers and monitors. So two questions since I must order on line. First, what is the best sized box for a tower so that there is not too much room? second, I have one older imac that is rather heavy..but important. If this should not be boxed given the weight, how should it be packed, or padded? what about those monitor slip covers, I have flat screen ones now. Thanks for any ideas, Karen

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Today's meeting server is up
by Alex Volkov 08 Jun '21

08 Jun '21

Hey Everyone, I configured meeting server for today so we can test things out it's at -- https://jitsi.flamy.ca/GTALUG I'm going to test quality. If you want to chat in a face to face setting anytime before the meeting, feel free to use this room or create a new room. Alex.

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Ubuntu 20.04.2 is groaning
by Chris Aitken 08 Jun '21

08 Jun '21

Hi, I am hoping to get some help with my Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS system. Takes me 5+ seconds just to enter commands, switch between apps, etc. df reveals I have lots of space except what is dedicated to snap. I don't even know what snap is. Do I need snap. Whenever updates are offered I just accept them all, because I don't know the ramifications of refusing them. So, I may have accepted snap at some point. owner@owner-HP-Compaq-8000-Elite-CMT-PC:~$ df Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on udev 3980908 0 3980908 0% /dev tmpfs 802092 1684 800408 1% /run /dev/sda5 959862832 72588468 838446204 8% / tmpfs 4010452 952 4009500 1% /dev/shm tmpfs 5120 4 5116 1% /run/lock tmpfs 4010452 0 4010452 0% /sys/fs/cgroup /dev/loop0 56832 56832 0 100% /snap/core18/1997 /dev/loop1 56832 56832 0 100% /snap/core18/2066 /dev/loop4 224256 224256 0 100% /snap/gnome-3-34-1804/66 /dev/loop2 166784 166784 0 100% /snap/gnome-3-28-1804/145 /dev/loop3 223232 223232 0 100% /snap/gnome-3-34-1804/60 /dev/loop6 66688 66688 0 100% /snap/gtk-common-themes/1515 /dev/loop5 66432 66432 0 100% /snap/gtk-common-themes/1514 /dev/loop7 52352 52352 0 100% /snap/snap-store/498 /dev/loop8 52352 52352 0 100% /snap/snap-store/518 /dev/loop10 32896 32896 0 100% /snap/snapd/11841 /dev/sda1 523248 4 523244 1% /boot/efi /dev/loop11 32896 32896 0 100% /snap/snapd/12057 tmpfs 802088 88 802000 1% /run/user/1000 Chris Aitken

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