From moody at mwt.net Thu Jul 2 08:22:26 2009 From: moody at mwt.net (Moody Ahmad) Date: Thu Jul 2 08:22:38 2009 Subject: [Madlug] Networking Question? Message-ID: <92CE7D9D-468B-49E7-8CA5-30B361933F09@mwt.net> I am a tech volunteer for our library system (Southwest Library System). Our library system has various network issues. Part of the problem as I see it is that the network is totally dark. They have no idea of ip traffic characteristics or volume. I was thinking of using a server on the backbone with mrtg, nmap, iptraf(?) to characterize the traffic and the volume. The characterization needs to include from/to volume traffic as each local library comes in on a separate t1 to the backbone. The question: do these tools capture all the packet traffic on an ethernet backbone? Does one need specialilzed network monitor hardware to see all the packets flying about? Analyzing all the packet traffic seems like a pretty cpu intensive task. Would I need a super beefed server to do this? Is anyone familiar with these tools and their applicability to my situation? Thanks, Moody From madlug at kajtek.org Thu Jul 2 09:14:08 2009 From: madlug at kajtek.org (Marcin Antkiewicz) Date: Thu Jul 2 09:14:16 2009 Subject: [Madlug] Networking Question? In-Reply-To: <92CE7D9D-468B-49E7-8CA5-30B361933F09@mwt.net> References: <92CE7D9D-468B-49E7-8CA5-30B361933F09@mwt.net> Message-ID: <7ed5f2120907020714x6782587dr8e1fb0e5d70e88c0@mail.gmail.com> > I was thinking of using a server on the backbone with mrtg, nmap, iptraf(?) > to > characterize the traffic and the volume. The characterization needs to > include > from/to volume traffic as each local library comes in on a separate t1 to > the > backbone. The question: Drop nmap, it's a very good tool, but a poor match for your needs. > do these tools capture all the packet traffic on an ethernet backbone? Does > one need specialilzed network monitor hardware to see all the packets > flying about? Analyzing all the packet traffic seems like a pretty cpu > intensive task. Would I need a super beefed server to do this? I don't think you will need a huge server. If anything, you would want to use a few normal machines, as it's cheaper to scale out the IO load. How many T1s and how are they terminated? If hte goal is to count traffic flow to and from the branches, than I would get counts from the subinterfaces. In general, you will want to count as close to the source of traffic as possible, so get the counters from the branch routers or the access router. Rancid is your friend here [1]. If, in addition to traffic accounting, you want to gather statistics from your data center, than you can get counters from switch ports. Rancid is the tool. Going one level up, it would be nice to account per IP, port, protocol, etc. There are two choices here - use a flow recorder like Argus [2] and some form of port/vlan mirroring (usual caveats apply) or taps (no one got fired for choosing NetOptics). Taps are a bit tricky, as they require downtime to install/remove. Another alternative is to use Snort, with a custom signature library. The goal is to identify interesting patterns (keywords, protocol verbs) and counts the number of hits. Argus or other netflow tools will do a better job on layer 3/4. 1 - http://www.shrubbery.net/rancid/ 2 - http://qosient.com/argus/ Ping me off the list for more information. -- Marcin Antkiewicz From crvallance at gmail.com Thu Jul 2 10:18:00 2009 From: crvallance at gmail.com (Colin Vallance) Date: Thu Jul 2 10:18:06 2009 Subject: [Madlug] Networking Question? In-Reply-To: <7ed5f2120907020714x6782587dr8e1fb0e5d70e88c0@mail.gmail.com> References: <92CE7D9D-468B-49E7-8CA5-30B361933F09@mwt.net> <7ed5f2120907020714x6782587dr8e1fb0e5d70e88c0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: At my last job we were watching a bunch of our servers in a data center over a VPN tunnel as well as traffic to/from the router. The server and routers were all spitting out SNMP messages configured for the specific items we wanted. It was put in to a nice friendly graphing system using Cacti (http://www.cacti.net/). On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 9:14 AM, Marcin Antkiewicz wrote: >> I was thinking of using a server on the backbone with mrtg, nmap, iptraf(?) >> to >> characterize the traffic and the volume. The characterization needs to >> include >> from/to volume traffic as each local library comes in on a separate t1 to >> the >> backbone. The question: > > Drop nmap, it's a very good tool, but a poor match for your needs. > >> do these tools capture all the packet traffic on an ethernet backbone? Does >> one need specialilzed network monitor hardware to see all the packets >> flying about? Analyzing all the packet traffic seems like a pretty cpu >> intensive task. Would I need a super beefed server to do this? > > I don't think you will need a huge server. If anything, you would want to use > a few normal machines, as it's cheaper to scale out the IO load. > > How many T1s and how are they terminated? > > If hte goal is to count traffic flow to and from the branches, than I would get > counts from the subinterfaces. In general, you will ?want to count as close to > the source of traffic as possible, so get the counters from the branch routers > or the access router. ?Rancid is your friend here [1]. > > If, in addition to traffic accounting, you want to gather statistics from your > data center, than you can get counters from switch ports. Rancid is the tool. > > Going one level up, it would be nice to account per IP, port, protocol, etc. > There are two choices here - use a flow recorder like Argus [2] and some form > of port/vlan mirroring (usual caveats apply) or taps (no one got fired > for choosing > NetOptics). Taps are a bit tricky, as they require downtime to install/remove. > > Another alternative is to use Snort, with a custom signature library. The goal > is to identify interesting patterns (keywords, protocol verbs) and > counts the number of > hits. Argus or other netflow tools will do a better job on layer 3/4. > > 1 - http://www.shrubbery.net/rancid/ > 2 - http://qosient.com/argus/ > > Ping me off the list for more information. > > -- > Marcin Antkiewicz > _______________________________________________ > Madlug mailing list ?- ?Madlug@madisonlinux.org > http://madisonlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/madlug > From moody at mwt.net Thu Jul 2 15:18:45 2009 From: moody at mwt.net (Moody Ahmad) Date: Thu Jul 2 15:18:49 2009 Subject: [Madlug] Networking Question? In-Reply-To: <92CE7D9D-468B-49E7-8CA5-30B361933F09@mwt.net> References: <92CE7D9D-468B-49E7-8CA5-30B361933F09@mwt.net> Message-ID: <0098072F-A098-47AE-B874-6B643A882650@mwt.net> Thanks a lot for the input and suggestions !!! Here is our setup: 1. 27 libraries feed into hq via T1 lines. Each library has a cisco router. 2. HQ provides internet connection for all the libraries as well as a library automation server, and MS Exchange server. 3. I don't have details yet on how the network is laid out at HQ - switches, routers, etc. The current plan from all the input: 1. Set up a Linux server on the backbone ethernet. Depending on the network topology, may need multiple ethernet cards on the server to connect to multiple segments. I'll start with picking up the beefiest machine / server from SWAP surplus. 2. On the server, run - rancid to collect data from the branch libraries' routers. http://www.shrubbery.net/rancid/ - mrtg for viewing router data. http://oss.oetiker.ch/mrtg/ I am a bit confused about the overlap between rancid and mrtg. Need to do a bit more digging here. - argus for traffic flow monitoring. http://qosient.com/argus/ - wireshark for packet sniffing, network analysis. http:// www.wireshark.org/ I am a bit confused about the overlap between argus and wireshark. I guess I'll need to look at those in a bit more detail. So, if I understand the setup then I should be able to see 1. Overall traffic volume 2. Traffic volume going to the internet 3. Traffic volumes for the Exchange and Library Automation server 4. Each branch library network segment volume. 5. Network traffic volume characterized by protocol type: http, udp, ftp, ... Can I get more details on the network traffic to see if video traffic is eating up a lot of the bandwidth? Thanks again for your help!! Moody From madlug at kajtek.org Thu Jul 2 15:48:35 2009 From: madlug at kajtek.org (Marcin Antkiewicz) Date: Thu Jul 2 15:48:41 2009 Subject: [Madlug] Networking Question? In-Reply-To: <7ed5f2120907021348n755e49e5m93d46dbb86187a0b@mail.gmail.com> References: <92CE7D9D-468B-49E7-8CA5-30B361933F09@mwt.net> <0098072F-A098-47AE-B874-6B643A882650@mwt.net> <7ed5f2120907021348n755e49e5m93d46dbb86187a0b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7ed5f2120907021348i3aecfbah65360a3adcfa7da1@mail.gmail.com> > 1. Set up a Linux server on the backbone ethernet. Depending on the > ? ?network topology, may need multiple ethernet cards on the server to > ? ?connect to multiple segments. I'll start with picking up the beefiest > machine / > ? server from SWAP surplus. When you do this, pay attention to the interrupt counts, and lost traffic. You will see it at some point, especially when using multiple 4 port cards on busy networks, but you might be just fine > 2. On the server, run > ? ?- rancid to collect data from the branch libraries' routers. > http://www.shrubbery.net/rancid/ > ? ?- mrtg for viewing router data. http://oss.oetiker.ch/mrtg/ > ? ? ?I am a bit confused about the overlap between rancid and mrtg. Need to > do a bit more digging here. Think of rancid as a framework for scripted access to the IOS command line. It allows you to do "clogin -c 'sh interface serial' host.name > host.name.stats.$(date +%s).txt" and have a record of the counters. mrtg will take data, whether from rancid or snmp etc, and plot it. > ? - argus for traffic flow monitoring. http://qosient.com/argus/ > ? - wireshark for packet sniffing, network analysis. > http://www.wireshark.org/ > ? ? I am a bit confused about the overlap between argus and wireshark. I > guess I'll need to look at those in a bit more detail. Wireshark is a GUI protocol analyzer. You can use it to dig into a pcap files (network dumps) and see payloads, or just about anything else, present in network packets or whole flows. Argus is a traffic accounting tool. You can use it to calculate total traffic on some ports, or activity from some IP addresses. Wireshark will not tell you how much data moved on port 80, Argus will. Note that Argus is not the easiest, or most efficient, tool if all you want is to count traffic on layers 3/4. Iptraf, etc, will be a much better choice for just that, but Argus provides you with data that's easy to cut and process, and can be used in the future for other reasons. > So, if I understand the setup then I should be able to see > 1. Overall traffic volume > 2. Traffic volume going to the internet > 3. Traffic volumes for the Exchange and Library Automation server > 4. Each branch library network segment volume. > 5. Network traffic volume characterized by protocol type: http, udp, ftp, IPTraf, Argus and mrtg/cacti will do that. > Can I get more details on the network traffic to see if video traffic is > eating up a lot of the bandwidth? You can, but in order to get this you must figure out a way of identifying the traffic. You can look by port (maybe/possibly), destination (not with CDNs), dns names (that's better). You can count flows that contain specific identifiers (flash/avi/wmv file signatures). Or you can look at the traffic, exclude known bandwidth eaters (backups/DB/??), and see who is pushing 1.5GB per day on 80/tcp. In my experience, problematic users are easy to identify, and much harder to deal with. Additional selling point for what you do is trending for capacity planning, and change control on the network devices (install cvsweb along with Rancid). Be warned, if you choose to run it automatically, Rancid requires you to store passwords on the file system. Guard it. -- Marcin Antkiewicz From douglasawh at gmail.com Thu Jul 2 18:48:03 2009 From: douglasawh at gmail.com (Douglas A. Whitfield) Date: Thu Jul 2 18:48:07 2009 Subject: [Madlug] CANCELLED: Social Meeting tomorrow Message-ID: Due to lack of interest, and the holiday, I'm canceling tomorrow's social meeting. I will also put a notice on the wiki. Next MadLUG event will be July 21st where Todd Nilson will teach us how to get a job! Douglas A. Whitfield Co-President Madison Linux User Group http://madisonlinux.org/ New Project Coordinator - http://openeverything.us If you'd like Open Everything in your city, please let me know! From dld at engr.wisc.edu Tue Jul 7 16:03:09 2009 From: dld at engr.wisc.edu (Donald L. Dietmeyer) Date: Tue Jul 7 16:03:15 2009 Subject: [Madlug] Sound card help needed Message-ID: <4A53B80D.5060300@engr.wisc.edu> I have explored a number of forums and done many Google searches. This is my last resort. I have a Dell XPS410 with Intel HDA using a Sigmatel STAC9227 for sound. I have less than complete sound playback after trying to follow a number of articles on setting up alsa and/or pulse. But nothing that I have done gives me a LINE-IN entry and the ability to capture sound. Up to now, rebooting to XP was a solution for the one application where I wanted to capture sound. Now I have another app. thats built for LInux. Any hints, suggestions, ideas on how to get capture running?? Or, even knowing that a suitable driver does not exist would be helpful. In that case, I would appreciate sound card recommendations. Thanks in advance. Don -- Donald L. Dietmeyer 2211 Waunona Way Madison, WI 53713-1619 (608) 222-3663 dld@engr.wisc.edu From farhan at thebitguru.com Tue Jul 7 18:07:07 2009 From: farhan at thebitguru.com (Farhan Ahmad) Date: Tue Jul 7 18:07:31 2009 Subject: [Madlug] Sound card help needed In-Reply-To: <4A53B80D.5060300@engr.wisc.edu> References: <4A53B80D.5060300@engr.wisc.edu> Message-ID: <90181540907071607q6ab26f25yf467bbece9776916@mail.gmail.com> Hi Don, Which distribution are you using? If it is not Ubuntu then I would suggest trying the Ubuntu live CD and seeing if that finds it. With Ubuntu I have had very good luck in regards to drivers. - Farhan On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 4:03 PM, Donald L. Dietmeyer wrote: > I have explored a number of forums and done many Google searches. > This is my last resort. I have a Dell XPS410 with Intel HDA using a > Sigmatel > STAC9227 for sound. I have less than complete sound playback after > trying to follow a number of articles on setting up alsa and/or pulse. But > nothing that I have done gives me a LINE-IN entry and the ability to > capture > sound. > Up to now, rebooting to XP was a solution for the one application where I > wanted to capture sound. Now I have another app. thats built for LInux. > Any hints, suggestions, ideas on how to get capture running?? Or, even > knowing that a suitable driver does not exist would be helpful. In that > case, I would appreciate sound card recommendations. > Thanks in advance. > Don > > -- > > Donald L. Dietmeyer > 2211 Waunona Way > Madison, WI 53713-1619 > (608) 222-3663 > dld@engr.wisc.edu > > > > _______________________________________________ > Madlug mailing list - Madlug@madisonlinux.org > http://madisonlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/madlug > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://athena.diamondgate.net/pipermail/madlug/attachments/20090707/36db40f6/attachment.html From brad at bizwerks.com Wed Jul 8 20:15:29 2009 From: brad at bizwerks.com (Brad Stone) Date: Wed Jul 8 20:15:36 2009 Subject: [Madlug] Palm Pre vs. iPhone Message-ID: <1247102129.5518.21.camel@brad-desktop> I find myself at the end of my service contract with Sprint and a barely usable Treo. It's time for me to upgrade my phone. The choice has come down to either the Palm Pre or the iPhone. Here are the pros and cons as I see them: iPhone Pros - Everyone has one - Thousands of applications with more on the way. - Camcorder function iPhone Cons - Everyone has one - The App Store censorship - Linux syncing may be difficult - Non-tactile keyboard - ATT - Apple Palm Pre Pros - Linux based - Sync with web instead of apps - Service plans cheaper than the iPhone Palm Pre Cons - About 20 apps available - First generation hardware - Plastic looks like it will damage easily I know there are a few iPhone users out there and I was hoping for some insight. Would you ditch your iPhone for a Pre? If you have a Pre, are you happy with it? Thanks, Brad -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://athena.diamondgate.net/pipermail/madlug/attachments/20090708/5be4938a/attachment.html From chris.niesen at gmail.com Wed Jul 8 20:17:57 2009 From: chris.niesen at gmail.com (Chris) Date: Wed Jul 8 20:23:08 2009 Subject: [Madlug] Palm Pre vs. iPhone In-Reply-To: <1247102129.5518.21.camel@brad-desktop> Message-ID: <21770149.131247102277938.JavaMail.root@server.teamniesen.com> iPhone syncs up pretty well with Zimbra Collaboration Suite. Chris ----- Original Message ----- From: "Brad Stone" To: "Madlug" Sent: Wednesday, July 8, 2009 8:15:29 PM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central Subject: [Madlug] Palm Pre vs. iPhone I find myself at the end of my service contract with Sprint and a barely usable Treo. It's time for me to upgrade my phone. The choice has come down to either the Palm Pre or the iPhone. Here are the pros and cons as I see them: iPhone Pros - Everyone has one - Thousands of applications with more on the way. - Camcorder function iPhone Cons - Everyone has one - The App Store censorship - Linux syncing may be difficult - Non-tactile keyboard - ATT - Apple Palm Pre Pros - Linux based - Sync with web instead of apps - Service plans cheaper than the iPhone Palm Pre Cons - About 20 apps available - First generation hardware - Plastic looks like it will damage easily I know there are a few iPhone users out there and I was hoping for some insight. Would you ditch your iPhone for a Pre? If you have a Pre, are you happy with it? Thanks, Brad _______________________________________________ Madlug mailing list - Madlug@madisonlinux.org http://madisonlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/madlug -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://athena.diamondgate.net/pipermail/madlug/attachments/20090708/149356eb/attachment.html From chris at chrisdolan.net Wed Jul 8 21:20:04 2009 From: chris at chrisdolan.net (Chris Dolan) Date: Wed Jul 8 21:20:13 2009 Subject: [Madlug] Palm Pre vs. iPhone In-Reply-To: <1247102129.5518.21.camel@brad-desktop> References: <1247102129.5518.21.camel@brad-desktop> Message-ID: I own neither, but I liked the 2-part ArsTechnica review of the Pre as it compares to the iPhone and the BlackBerry phones. http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2009/06/ars-reviews-the-palm-pre-part-1-the-blackberry-killer.ars http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/reviews/2009/06/ars-palm-pre- review.ars Chris On Jul 8, 2009, at 8:15 PM, Brad Stone wrote: > I find myself at the end of my service contract with Sprint and a > barely usable Treo. It's time for me to upgrade my phone. > > The choice has come down to either the Palm Pre or the iPhone. Here > are the pros and cons as I see them: > > iPhone Pros > - Everyone has one > - Thousands of applications with more on the way. > - Camcorder function > > iPhone Cons > - Everyone has one > - The App Store censorship > - Linux syncing may be difficult > - Non-tactile keyboard > - ATT > - Apple > > Palm Pre Pros > - Linux based > - Sync with web instead of apps > - Service plans cheaper than the iPhone > > Palm Pre Cons > - About 20 apps available > - First generation hardware > - Plastic looks like it will damage easily > > I know there are a few iPhone users out there and I was hoping for > some insight. Would you ditch your iPhone for a Pre? If you have a > Pre, are you happy with it? > > Thanks, > > Brad > > _______________________________________________ > Madlug mailing list - Madlug@madisonlinux.org > http://madisonlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/madlug -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://athena.diamondgate.net/pipermail/madlug/attachments/20090708/7b8f0ef0/attachment.html From douglasawh at gmail.com Wed Jul 8 21:22:20 2009 From: douglasawh at gmail.com (Douglas A. Whitfield) Date: Wed Jul 8 21:22:25 2009 Subject: [Madlug] Palm Pre vs. iPhone In-Reply-To: References: <1247102129.5518.21.camel@brad-desktop> Message-ID: Well, I know you didn't ask, but I'm very happy with my G1 Android. On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 9:20 PM, Chris Dolan wrote: > I own neither, but I liked the 2-part ArsTechnica review of the Pre as it > compares to the iPhone and the BlackBerry phones. > ??http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2009/06/ars-reviews-the-palm-pre-part-1-the-blackberry-killer.ars > ??http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/reviews/2009/06/ars-palm-pre-review.ars > Chris > On Jul 8, 2009, at 8:15 PM, Brad Stone wrote: > > I find myself at the end of my service contract with Sprint and a barely > usable Treo. It's time for me to upgrade my phone. > > The choice has come down to either the Palm Pre or the iPhone. Here are the > pros and cons as I see them: > > iPhone Pros > - Everyone has one > - Thousands of applications with more on the way. > - Camcorder function > > iPhone Cons > - Everyone has one > - The App Store censorship > - Linux syncing may be difficult > - Non-tactile keyboard > - ATT > - Apple > > Palm Pre Pros > - Linux based > - Sync with web instead of apps > - Service plans cheaper than the iPhone > > Palm Pre Cons > - About 20 apps available > - First generation hardware > - Plastic looks like it will damage easily > > I know there are a few iPhone users out there and I was hoping for some > insight. Would you ditch your iPhone for a Pre? If you have a Pre, are you > happy with it? > > Thanks, > > Brad > > _______________________________________________ > Madlug mailing list ?- ?Madlug@madisonlinux.org > http://madisonlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/madlug > > _______________________________________________ > Madlug mailing list ?- ?Madlug@madisonlinux.org > http://madisonlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/madlug > From superdug at gmail.com Wed Jul 8 22:12:11 2009 From: superdug at gmail.com (Doug "SuperDuG" Smith) Date: Wed Jul 8 22:12:17 2009 Subject: [Madlug] Palm Pre vs. iPhone In-Reply-To: <1247102129.5518.21.camel@brad-desktop> References: <1247102129.5518.21.camel@brad-desktop> Message-ID: <4A55600B.7070903@gmail.com> Ahhh the question of the times, as everyone is bringing out the next generation of "smart phones" or is the new buzzword "mobile internet device" Either way, disclaimer first, I own an iPhone and as anyone from #wilug on freenode will attest to, I am rather fond of it. However I should note that I'm not your average iPhone user. In fact the silly thing is a phone second to me. Also I'm on the 2G so I don't have the joy and bliss of the wonders of AT&T's 3G. I must say that AT&T has been ... okayish ... as a provider. Verizon is known for crippling phones, and after they sent me a $8,000 bill three years ago ... I've stayed as far away from them as possible. So why do I like the iPhone? First, it's got an amazing amount of features that are always expanding thanks to apple's blessing on 3rd party applications (finally). Also, there is the elusive jailbreak for the iPhone which makes it even more delightful to use. I have a full unix-like shell on my phone. I have the full openssh on my phone (scp, tunnels, etc etc) I have nmap, airsnort, etc etc. So anything I know and love from the command line is right there in the terminal (note: you have to jailbreak to get this feature). Next is syncing and pushing. iPhone (finally) included support for microsoft's activesync "protocol". I have no idea if it works with exchange as I've never had to deal with an exchange server. However, the cool cats from zarafa.com did a google summer of code project for z-push ( http://z-push.sourceforge.net ), which is a full implementation of active sync and it only requires apache and php to work. (cool huh?) it can check pop, imap, zarafa, etc etc it's pretty awesome and I've configured it to work with windows mobile 5 & 6, iPhone (all models including the iPod Touch), and the pre. The phone is great, and with jailbreaking also comes the ability to unlock the phone from AT&T's monopoly. I'm currently considering grabbing an unlimited plan from einstein pcs (which the iPhone works wonderfully on, pending you tweak correctly) Also, ubuntu has a helper app for syncing the iPhone over wifi via ssh (you have to jailbreak to make it work) so linux syncing IS an option. I've also thanks to the non-standardized phone format where I work, had the "joy" of working with Windows Mobile devices. Now I know this probably isn't the most receptive list for something like this, but windows mobile is actually a nice system. Don't automatically discount them. I don't have a lot of use with them outside email, calendar, and contact syncing/pushing, but I was very impressed. The reason I was so impressed? I had just spent the last 3 days with blackberry users. If there's one phone you want to stay the hell away from, it's the blackberry. Unless you work for a company with a Blackberry Enterprise Server, there is no benefit to a blackberry over a phone that can just make phone calls. It's a nightmare, run as far away as fast as you can! (note: blackberry evangelists, if they exist here, you're not going to change my mind here) Now comes the Pre. Here's the problem I have with your question, you wanted to know the differences between the Pre and the iPhone. Sad to say, they stack up against each other very very well. We have Pre's now too. They use activesync just as wonderfully as winmo and iphones. They have a slick interface, they'll be as popular as the iPhone soon enough, and people have already jailbroke them. Unless you own a mac, or have DRM'd songs you purchased from iTunes, there is no real advantage to either phone. As far as it being flimsy, the phone is pretty damned solid. It looks like it's not, but hold one, drop it a few times, and you'll see that it's a tough little bugger. Palm's slowly rolling out their SDK, people have already hacked them, and there is a lot of power with that handset. Since you and I both know that Sprint has relatively less stupid pricing, I'd recommend the Pre. While the G1 was an interesting first step for the Android. The HTC hero is the phone that I'd like to get my hands on next. Also Sony/Ericsons Rachel looks very interesting as well. But if you're buying tomorrow, buy a Pre. Plus you're used to a treo ... the pre is like a treo, except for once Palm made a phone that didn't suck. Doug Brad Stone wrote: > I find myself at the end of my service contract with Sprint and a > barely usable Treo. It's time for me to upgrade my phone. > > The choice has come down to either the Palm Pre or the iPhone. Here > are the pros and cons as I see them: > > *iPhone Pros* > - Everyone has one > - Thousands of applications with more on the way. > - Camcorder function > > *iPhone Cons* > - Everyone has one > - The App Store censorship > - Linux syncing may be difficult > - Non-tactile keyboard > - ATT > - Apple > > *Palm Pre Pros* > - Linux based > - Sync with web instead of apps > - Service plans cheaper than the iPhone > > *Palm Pre Cons* > - About 20 apps available > - First generation hardware > - Plastic looks like it will damage easily > > I know there are a few iPhone users out there and I was hoping for > some insight. Would you ditch your iPhone for a Pre? If you have a > Pre, are you happy with it? > > Thanks, > > Brad > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > Madlug mailing list - Madlug@madisonlinux.org > http://madisonlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/madlug From jiml at mail.slh.wisc.edu Fri Jul 10 11:36:20 2009 From: jiml at mail.slh.wisc.edu (Leinweber, James) Date: Fri Jul 10 11:36:48 2009 Subject: [Madlug] FYI - Lockdown 2009 security conference is 7/16 Message-ID: <1298E81544388440ADBE9B0072AABD8104FFD74E@slhmail2003.ad.slh.wisc.edu> Madison's premier annual security day, hosted by the UW-Madison BadgIRT FIRST team, is next Thursday 7/16 on the UW Campus. It's open to everyone; we usually get a heavy educational attendance (K-12 & college) plus folks from state government and local industry. At a mere $125 for the conference (including breakfast, lunch, and a T-shirt) with a speaker list that has been compared favorably to Black-Hat, on a cost-benefit basis it's a security bargain you will have trouble matching. For details see: http://www.cio.wisc.edu/events/lockdown/ -- James E. Leinweber, BadgIRT volunteer State Laboratory of Hygiene, University of Wisconsin - Madison 2810 Walton Commons West; phone +1 608 221 6281 PGP fp: 2E36 47BC DB03 57CE 86AD 19CC 41A1 9179 5C6B C8B9 From douglasawh at gmail.com Fri Jul 10 13:33:49 2009 From: douglasawh at gmail.com (Douglas A. Whitfield) Date: Fri Jul 10 13:33:57 2009 Subject: [Madlug] OFF-TOPIC: i-Class RF-ID readers Message-ID: Question for you ladies and gents, We are looking to purchase 8 USB RF-ID readers. These things are not cheap. We are getting i-Class RF-ID readers which use 64-bit keys (of some sort, I'm not sure of all the details). We have old card readers and we'd like to make them work with the new cards. I think this is going to work like processors (you can't turn a 32-bit processor into a 64-bit processor) but we're thinking it may be firmware based rather than hardware based in this case. Does anyone have any experience with such readers? Got anybody that could point us in the right direction? Know anybody that could sell us some cheaper than $595 a pop? Thanks! Douglas A. Whitfield Co-President Madison Linux User Group http://madisonlinux.org/ New Project Coordinator - http://openeverything.us If you'd like Open Everything in your city, please let me know! From pfleury7316 at charter.net Fri Jul 17 16:23:24 2009 From: pfleury7316 at charter.net (pfleury7316@charter.net) Date: Fri Jul 17 16:23:34 2009 Subject: [Madlug] HP MINI 1120 NR In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20090717172324.7VCBN.1989120.root@mp12> I jut bought an HP MINI 1120 NR Netbook running their version of Ubuntu. I am not fond of the interface and I wonder if anyone has any experience with these and can offer any advice. For example, can I switch out their interface and run ubuntu on it? Just curious. From felderado at gmail.com Fri Jul 17 16:41:57 2009 From: felderado at gmail.com (Mark Felder) Date: Fri Jul 17 16:42:11 2009 Subject: [Madlug] HP MINI 1120 NR In-Reply-To: <20090717172324.7VCBN.1989120.root@mp12> References: <20090717172324.7VCBN.1989120.root@mp12> Message-ID: <31C31B7A-F417-468D-B71C-E1E188EE77D0@gmail.com> I don't see why not. Their version might have a custom kernel with a patch for their wireless or something but I doubt it. Mark On Jul 17, 2009, at 16:23, wrote: > I jut bought an HP MINI 1120 NR Netbook running their version of > Ubuntu. I am not fond of the interface and I wonder if anyone has > any experience with these and can offer any advice. For example, > can I switch out their interface and run ubuntu on it? > > Just curious. > _______________________________________________ > Madlug mailing list - Madlug@madisonlinux.org > http://madisonlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/madlug From estebandido at gmail.com Fri Jul 17 16:54:24 2009 From: estebandido at gmail.com (Steve Herrick) Date: Fri Jul 17 16:54:47 2009 Subject: [Madlug] HP MINI 1120 NR In-Reply-To: <20090717172324.7VCBN.1989120.root@mp12> References: <20090717172324.7VCBN.1989120.root@mp12> Message-ID: <128795d10907171454s4404ac20qb7d9f61ce70a8ef2@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Jul 17, 2009 at 4:23 PM, wrote: > I jut bought an HP MINI 1120 NR Netbook running their version of Ubuntu. ?I am not fond of the interface and I wonder if anyone has any experience with these and can offer any advice. ?For example, can I switch out their interface and run ubuntu on it? Funny you should ask. I'm typing this on my HP Mini 1000, with its brand-spanking-new install of Linux Mint. I put Ubuntu on it within two hours of taking it out of the box, because the HP Linux was total crap. However, the speakers stopped working. So, I put Ubuntu Netbook Remix on, hoping that would fix it... which it didn't. Then, after an upgrade, the wireless also stopped working. With no wireless, no Ethernet, and no CD, the only thing you can do is a USB reinstall. Going with Mint was a lot of work, because you have to get the previous version and then upgrade, and that took me hours, but finally, it's up and running, complete with wireless and sound. It's not GPL-pure, but I can finally watch all those Youtube videos people keep sending me. -- Steve Herrick It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer. -Albert Einstein From eric at ericveenendaal.com Sat Jul 18 13:41:18 2009 From: eric at ericveenendaal.com (Eric Veenendaal) Date: Sat Jul 18 13:41:21 2009 Subject: [Madlug] Re: HP MINI 1120 NR Message-ID: I'm typing this on my dell mini 9 running Ubuntu 9.04 netbook remix. It's been a great experience and have had no problems with the default install. I have installed the regular Ubuntu 8.10 desktop install before, but the netbook remix is definitely better for a netbook. The install process for the remix is a bit odd, but after you get the recommended image burner program it's really straight forward. -- Eric Veenendaal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://athena.diamondgate.net/pipermail/madlug/attachments/20090718/a5ce3a8f/attachment.html From douglasawh at gmail.com Sat Jul 18 17:32:32 2009 From: douglasawh at gmail.com (Douglas A. Whitfield) Date: Sat Jul 18 17:32:37 2009 Subject: [Madlug] Want to help Non-Profits with Linux? Message-ID: Friday, August 21st will be Madison's first (annual?) Non-Profit Day. Alnisa Allgood (CCed) is the head of MadTech (among other things) and is looking for volunteers to help day-of. You can read all about the event at http://www.nonprofit-day.org/ Blake Hall, who did our June presentation, will be giving a Drupal presentation. I think it would be great if someone would step up and do a *basic* Linux demonstration as well. Sadly, I'll be at work day-of, or I'd do it...and working in Verona doesn't make it easy to skip out for a few minutes. On a related note, I was at Madison's InfoShop last night and noticed they had Windows running. It's a pretty sad state of affairs that a anti-corporate group that prides itself on freedom is using an OS from a convicted anti-competitive company. I assume they are just ill-informed. I suspect many of Madison's non-profits are in the same boat. Douglas A. Whitfield Co-President Madison Linux User Group http://madisonlinux.org/ New Project Coordinator - http://openeverything.us If you'd like Open Everything in your city, please let me know! From douglasawh at gmail.com Sun Jul 19 14:11:11 2009 From: douglasawh at gmail.com (Douglas A. Whitfield) Date: Sun Jul 19 14:11:21 2009 Subject: [Madlug] REMINDER: Get a Job in Linux, Tuesday July 21st Message-ID: If you're planning to come on Tuesday, please RSVP at one (or more) of the 3 following locations. http://web608.org/events/2009/06/15/get-job-linux http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=76631793356 http://linuxjob.eventbrite.com/ If there are not enough people signed up, we are going to have to reschedule again. Same time and places as always: UW High Energy Physics (Chamberlin Hall) We often hold presentations in the High Energy Physics conference room in Chamberlin Hall, 1150 University Ave. The conference room is on the fourth floor in room 4274, next to the department office. Enter the building on the north side (near Sterling hall) and simply head up to the fourth floor -- the conference room is the sixth door on the right. University parking is available near Chamberlin Hall, but it might be simpler to park downtown and walk. Wireless access will be provided. As always, I suggest parking in the Lake St lot unless you know the campus parking scene well. Douglas A. Whitfield Co-President Madison Linux User Group http://madisonlinux.org/ New Project Coordinator - http://openeverything.us If you'd like Open Everything in your city, please let me know! From douglasawh at gmail.com Sun Jul 19 14:44:35 2009 From: douglasawh at gmail.com (Douglas A. Whitfield) Date: Sun Jul 19 14:44:40 2009 Subject: [Madlug] Re: REMINDER: Get a Job in Linux, Tuesday July 21st In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: So, I got a question about job opportunities. I do no know what Todd has, but he *is* a recruiter. Last time I spoke with him about a position it was a MySQL systems administrator outside Chicago. His contact information is on the Web608 posting, so if you want more information, I'd suggest contacting him. Todd gave a technical resume session at BarCampMilwaukee3 last year. He is *not* a Linux guy. He is a technical recruiter and obviously Linux falls into that. So, I highly suggest passing this information on to other technical organizations and people, even if they don't know anything about Linux. On Sun, Jul 19, 2009 at 2:11 PM, Douglas A. Whitfield wrote: > If you're planning to come on Tuesday, please RSVP at one (or more) of > the 3 following locations. > > http://web608.org/events/2009/06/15/get-job-linux > http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=76631793356 > http://linuxjob.eventbrite.com/ > > If there are not enough people signed up, we are going to have to > reschedule again. > > Same time and places as always: > > UW High Energy Physics (Chamberlin Hall) > We often hold presentations in the High Energy Physics conference room > in Chamberlin Hall, 1150 University Ave. The conference room is on the > fourth floor in room 4274, next to the department office. Enter the > building on the north side (near Sterling hall) and simply head up to > the fourth floor -- the conference room is the sixth door on the > right. University parking is available near Chamberlin Hall, but it > might be simpler to park downtown and walk. Wireless access will be > provided. > > As always, I suggest parking in the Lake St lot unless you know the > campus parking scene well. > > Douglas A. Whitfield > > Co-President Madison Linux User Group > http://madisonlinux.org/ > New Project Coordinator - http://openeverything.us > If you'd like Open Everything in your city, please let me know! From douglasawh at gmail.com Mon Jul 20 23:19:53 2009 From: douglasawh at gmail.com (Douglas A. Whitfield) Date: Mon Jul 20 23:19:57 2009 Subject: [Madlug] Getting involved // Brain storming session for September meeting? Message-ID: July's meeting is tomorrow and August's meeting is going to be Tom Ray doing audio production on Linux. I've been working on getting a green computing presentation for September, but it might be more worthwhile to do a sort of "State of the Union" sort of meeting in September. It's been very difficult to get suggestions and, more importantly, actual commitments from people via the list. So, I'm thinking taking some time to discuss where we want the LUG to go in physical space could be a productive thing for moving forward. Here are some potential topics of discussion: 1) Open Culture and the Open Everything group 2) Getting involved with BarCampMadison3 3) Software Freedom Day 4) Wisconsin Linux Fest (or some other state-level get-together...I've mentioned this to a few of the other WI LUGs) 5) Advisory Counsel/Steering Committee (in Raleigh we had about 10 times the attendance, so maybe it made more sense to have a steering committee, but I feel like I'm in the dark as to what people want at the moment...certainly I don't think the meetings are providing it since people don't show up...) My thoughts are that at the beginning of the meeting we'd have Abraham (hopefully) discuss BarCampMadison3 and Web608 a bit and how he sees them fitting in with the LUG (I'm totally throwing him under the bus on this one, but if he can't do it, I'd be willing to fit in), as well as the other FOSS and tech groups in Madison. Following what I feel is need background information for many people, we could talk about what the technology ecology in Madison means for us as a LUG and for some plan of action for being a more prominent organization in that ecology. Of course, maybe I am missing the boat completely. Maybe people don't *want* to be a more prominent organization. That's why we need to talk. And, depending on how long Todd's talk tomorrow night and Tom's talk in August go, maybe we'll have some time to talk about these things then too. I made a survey so we can determine what we are going to do in September by the August meeting (hopefully before): http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=o4v1qQud8lb_2bIfS18sxgSQ_3d_3d Thanks! Douglas A. Whitfield Co-President Madison Linux User Group http://madisonlinux.org/ New Project Coordinator - http://openeverything.us If you'd like Open Everything in your city, please let me know! From douglasawh at gmail.com Fri Jul 24 10:53:51 2009 From: douglasawh at gmail.com (Douglas A. Whitfield) Date: Fri Jul 24 10:53:56 2009 Subject: [Madlug] revisor doesn't work Message-ID: a while back, I believe I posted about revisor vs. Ubuntu Customization Kit. Due to some recent organizational issues, we are having to take another serious look at a move from Ubuntu to a rpm based (Fedora or CentOS, probably) distro. The major problem we have with this is being able to build a custom install CD. Revisor looks like it should work, but it doesn't. We've tried a couple different installs (different hardware) and we always get the error shown at http://www.flickr.com/photos/dawhitfield/3752568482/. I'm close to filing a bug, but it seems like other people are using it fine, so maybe I'm just doing it wrong. Can anyone advice on what might be causing this error? Thanks! Douglas A. Whitfield Co-President Madison Linux User Group http://madisonlinux.org/ New Project Coordinator - http://openeverything.us If you'd like Open Everything in your city, please let me know! From madlug at jamponi.net Fri Jul 24 10:59:55 2009 From: madlug at jamponi.net (Jon Nelson) Date: Fri Jul 24 11:00:19 2009 Subject: [Madlug] revisor doesn't work In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 10:53 AM, Douglas A. Whitfield wrote: > a while back, I believe I posted about revisor vs. Ubuntu > Customization Kit. ?Due to some recent organizational issues, we are > having to take another serious look at a move from Ubuntu to a rpm > based (Fedora or CentOS, probably) distro. ?The major problem we have > with this is being able to build a custom install CD. ?Revisor looks > like it should work, but it doesn't. ?We've tried a couple different > installs (different hardware) and we always get the error shown at > http://www.flickr.com/photos/dawhitfield/3752568482/. ?I'm close to > filing a bug, but it seems like other people are using it fine, so > maybe I'm just doing it wrong. ?Can anyone advice on what might be > causing this error? No idea. However, look at openSUSE (an rpm-based distro) and kiwi (for image building). kiwi can build installcds, live cds, vmware images, and so on and so forth. http://en.opensuse.org/Build_Service/KIWI -- Jon From sbrady at bzant.com Fri Jul 24 11:26:23 2009 From: sbrady at bzant.com (Shawn Brady) Date: Fri Jul 24 11:26:29 2009 Subject: [Madlug] revisor doesn't work In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A69E0AF.6060307@bzant.com> Are you using a USB CDROM? I get a similar error sometimes when installing CentOS and/or Fedora from a USB drive. Douglas A. Whitfield wrote: > a while back, I believe I posted about revisor vs. Ubuntu > Customization Kit. Due to some recent organizational issues, we are > having to take another serious look at a move from Ubuntu to a rpm > based (Fedora or CentOS, probably) distro. The major problem we have > with this is being able to build a custom install CD. Revisor looks > like it should work, but it doesn't. We've tried a couple different > installs (different hardware) and we always get the error shown at > http://www.flickr.com/photos/dawhitfield/3752568482/. I'm close to > filing a bug, but it seems like other people are using it fine, so > maybe I'm just doing it wrong. Can anyone advice on what might be > causing this error? > > Thanks! > > Douglas A. Whitfield > > Co-President Madison Linux User Group > http://madisonlinux.org/ > New Project Coordinator - http://openeverything.us > If you'd like Open Everything in your city, please let me know! > _______________________________________________ > Madlug mailing list - Madlug@madisonlinux.org > http://madisonlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/madlug > From douglasawh at gmail.com Fri Jul 24 12:54:19 2009 From: douglasawh at gmail.com (Douglas A. Whitfield) Date: Fri Jul 24 12:54:23 2009 Subject: [Madlug] revisor doesn't work In-Reply-To: <4A69E0AF.6060307@bzant.com> References: <4A69E0AF.6060307@bzant.com> Message-ID: nope, mostly DVDs, but I think we've tried CDs too. Does anyone know if OpenSUSE works with spacewalk? If not, that's not going to work for us. On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 11:26 AM, Shawn Brady wrote: > Are you using a USB CDROM? I get a similar error sometimes when installing > CentOS and/or Fedora from a USB drive. > > Douglas A. Whitfield wrote: >> >> a while back, I believe I posted about revisor vs. Ubuntu >> Customization Kit. ?Due to some recent organizational issues, we are >> having to take another serious look at a move from Ubuntu to a rpm >> based (Fedora or CentOS, probably) distro. ?The major problem we have >> with this is being able to build a custom install CD. ?Revisor looks >> like it should work, but it doesn't. ?We've tried a couple different >> installs (different hardware) and we always get the error shown at >> http://www.flickr.com/photos/dawhitfield/3752568482/. ?I'm close to >> filing a bug, but it seems like other people are using it fine, so >> maybe I'm just doing it wrong. ?Can anyone advice on what might be >> causing this error? >> >> Thanks! From jkington at geology.wisc.edu Fri Jul 24 13:50:20 2009 From: jkington at geology.wisc.edu (Joe Kington) Date: Fri Jul 24 13:50:24 2009 Subject: [Madlug] revisor doesn't work In-Reply-To: References: <4A69E0AF.6060307@bzant.com> Message-ID: I don't know much at all about spacewalk, so someone please correct me if I'm wrong. However, I was under the vauge impression that spacewalk only managed Red Hat-based distros? Autoyast is a somewhat similar toolchain for deploying multiple openSuse/SLES installs. I don't know how it stacks up against spacewalk, though. At any rate, I don't think Autoyast will handle other distributions at all, as it's based around Yast, Suse's set of configuration tools. Hope that helps in some way, anyway! -Joe On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 12:54 PM, Douglas A. Whitfield wrote: > nope, mostly DVDs, but I think we've tried CDs too. > > Does anyone know if OpenSUSE works with spacewalk? If not, that's not > going to work for us. > > > On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 11:26 AM, Shawn Brady wrote: > > Are you using a USB CDROM? I get a similar error sometimes when > installing > > CentOS and/or Fedora from a USB drive. > > > > Douglas A. Whitfield wrote: > >> > >> a while back, I believe I posted about revisor vs. Ubuntu > >> Customization Kit. Due to some recent organizational issues, we are > >> having to take another serious look at a move from Ubuntu to a rpm > >> based (Fedora or CentOS, probably) distro. The major problem we have > >> with this is being able to build a custom install CD. Revisor looks > >> like it should work, but it doesn't. We've tried a couple different > >> installs (different hardware) and we always get the error shown at > >> http://www.flickr.com/photos/dawhitfield/3752568482/. I'm close to > >> filing a bug, but it seems like other people are using it fine, so > >> maybe I'm just doing it wrong. Can anyone advice on what might be > >> causing this error? > >> > >> Thanks! > _______________________________________________ > Madlug mailing list - Madlug@madisonlinux.org > http://madisonlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/madlug > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://athena.diamondgate.net/pipermail/madlug/attachments/20090724/eedee472/attachment.html From moody at mwt.net Fri Jul 24 14:15:52 2009 From: moody at mwt.net (moody) Date: Fri Jul 24 14:15:57 2009 Subject: [Madlug] revisor doesn't work In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A6A0868.7010007@mwt.net> Don't know if this would work in your environment, but have you considered drbl: http://drbl.sourceforge.net/ "DRBL (Diskless Remote Boot in Linux) is a free software, open source solution to managing the deployment of the GNU/Linux operating system across many clients. Imagine the time required to install GNU/Linux on 40, 30, or even 10 client machines individually! DRBL allows for the configuration all of your client computers by installing just one server machine. DRBL provides a diskless or systemless environment for client machines. It works on Debian, Ubuntu, Mandriva, Red Hat, Fedora, CentOS and SuSE. DRBL uses distributed hardware resources and makes it possible for clients to fully access local hardware. It also includes Clonezilla , a partitioning and disk cloning utility similar to Symantec Ghost?." They have a pretty extensive faq on the site for drbl and what it can do. Moody Douglas A. Whitfield wrote: > a while back, I believe I posted about revisor vs. Ubuntu > Customization Kit. Due to some recent organizational issues, we are > having to take another serious look at a move from Ubuntu to a rpm > based (Fedora or CentOS, probably) distro. The major problem we have > with this is being able to build a custom install CD. Revisor looks > like it should work, but it doesn't. We've tried a couple different > installs (different hardware) and we always get the error shown at > http://www.flickr.com/photos/dawhitfield/3752568482/. I'm close to > filing a bug, but it seems like other people are using it fine, so > maybe I'm just doing it wrong. Can anyone advice on what might be > causing this error > From chris.niesen at gmail.com Sun Jul 26 18:40:24 2009 From: chris.niesen at gmail.com (chris.niesen@gmail.com) Date: Sun Jul 26 18:40:52 2009 Subject: [Madlug] for sale In-Reply-To: <29190247.2211248582641410.JavaMail.root@server.teamniesen.com> Message-ID: <29851807.2431248651624439.JavaMail.root@server.teamniesen.com> 1. Avaya 9630 VoIP phone $150/never used 2. Cisco 2950 24 10/100 ports 2 10/100/1000 ports $100/used (rack mount kit not included) I thought I'd offer these up to the lists first before posting on eBay. Chris From douglasawh at gmail.com Mon Jul 27 11:37:33 2009 From: douglasawh at gmail.com (Douglas A. Whitfield) Date: Mon Jul 27 11:37:36 2009 Subject: [Madlug] July GeekDinner In-Reply-To: <4337d5480907270931p2106b8e6n45803f578ac83e7e@mail.gmail.com> References: <4337d5480907150818o7459ec71w7315adb71cf6e70a@mail.gmail.com> <4337d5480907221241x2a58dd83w98afbf006fff9dfa@mail.gmail.com> <4337d5480907221335x1c2412aahe67ebcb5863f56@mail.gmail.com> <545a9943-2149-48eb-aad3-d1b00c38d6b3@m11g2000yqh.googlegroups.com> <4337d5480907221417t7eb85352y5306aeffe337bb86@mail.gmail.com> <1471a5e4-69bd-42a6-8129-9b4bb134b59f@k1g2000yqf.googlegroups.com> <4337d5480907270931p2106b8e6n45803f578ac83e7e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Wednesday instead of Tuesday this month if that helps anybody out... (29th, just for clarification. These are typically the last Tuesday of the month. Backed up one day.) This week is also Restaurant Week, so if people want to get together for something even less formal, this week would be a good week to do it: http://www.madisonmagazine.com/Madison-Magazine/Events/Restaurant-Week/ ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Abraham Williams <4braham@gmail.com> Date: Mon, Jul 27, 2009 at 11:31 AM Subject: [web608] Re: July GeekDinner To: web608@googlegroups.com Yes 7pm Wednesday at Sai-Bai Thong:? http://tr.im/saibai From rpnabar at gmail.com Mon Jul 27 17:48:58 2009 From: rpnabar at gmail.com (Rahul Nabar) Date: Mon Jul 27 17:49:03 2009 Subject: [Madlug] off topic: Mad City Broadband Message-ID: Does anyone have experience with "Mad City Broadband"? I was on CharterDSL till now but since I am moving I was shopping for a new provider. MadCity Broadband seemed a convenient option since I don't have to get tied to a service contract and neither do I have any installation charges etc. But I was wondering how good is the connectivity? I am living near-west in the Vilas neighborhood. The service map shows me on the edge of the "fully deployed and optimized" and "fully deployed" regions so I was optimistic about this. But is this a barebones email and basic surfing alone speed or is the bandwidth ok for better stuff? I am no jitter sensitive gamer but I do like to watch a netflix streaming movie once in a while! :) Just curious if there are any experiences on the group? -- Rahul From jheim at math.wisc.edu Tue Jul 28 10:32:37 2009 From: jheim at math.wisc.edu (John G. Heim) Date: Tue Jul 28 10:32:42 2009 Subject: [Madlug] how does apt know architecture? Message-ID: <673509353E5644899D6791C2FD598777@math.wisc.edu> How does apt know the architecture of the machine you are running it on? I changed the kernel on a debian lenny machine from the 686 version to the amd64 version. Then I did an 'apt-get dist-upgrade' and i expected to see it install a bunch of new programs compiled for 64 bit architecture. But it installed just a few packages. It seems strange to me that you don't specify the architecture anywhere in your sources.list file. But the syntax of the deb statement doesn't really allow it. From douglasawh at gmail.com Tue Jul 28 11:32:38 2009 From: douglasawh at gmail.com (Douglas A. Whitfield) Date: Tue Jul 28 11:32:42 2009 Subject: [Madlug] how does apt know architecture? In-Reply-To: <673509353E5644899D6791C2FD598777@math.wisc.edu> References: <673509353E5644899D6791C2FD598777@math.wisc.edu> Message-ID: This is Ubuntu and not Debian and the thread is a little on the old side (not too bad), but everybody seems to suggest do a clean install: http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-923979.html On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 10:32 AM, John G. Heim wrote: > How does apt know the architecture of the machine you are running it on? I > changed the kernel on a debian lenny machine from the 686 version to the > amd64 version. Then I did an 'apt-get dist-upgrade' and i expected to see it > install a bunch of new programs compiled for 64 bit architecture. But it > installed just a few packages. It seems strange to me that you don't specify > the architecture anywhere in your sources.list file. But the syntax of the > deb statement doesn't really allow it. From jheim at math.wisc.edu Tue Jul 28 11:48:54 2009 From: jheim at math.wisc.edu (John G. Heim) Date: Tue Jul 28 11:49:00 2009 Subject: [Madlug] how does apt know architecture? References: <673509353E5644899D6791C2FD598777@math.wisc.edu> Message-ID: <799009A037FC4909BD1E6619AAF8A6EE@math.wisc.edu> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Douglas A. Whitfield" To: "madlug" Sent: Tuesday, July 28, 2009 11:32 AM Subject: Re: [Madlug] how does apt know architecture? > This is Ubuntu and not Debian and the thread is a little on the old > side (not too bad), but everybody seems to suggest do a clean install: > > http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-923979.html Yeah. Wit the tips some other people sent me I was able to find this: https://alioth.debian.org/docman/view.php/30192/21/debian-amd64-howto.html#id292796 That document says it cannot be done. Actually, I found that page from a link on a howto that explains how it *can* be done. But the howto says it's really hard and very likely to not work anyway. My problem is that I installed debian on these machines via FAI (Fully Automated Install) and it is going to be a pain to make it so it works for both 32 and 64 bit machines. I guess in a way I'm better off because if I fix FAI, I can just re-install on all the machines I have and each one will take maybe 2 minutes of my time. But fixing FAI is going to be a pain. [Sorry, Doug, you are going to get 2 copies of this.] From madlug at jamponi.net Thu Jul 30 13:36:41 2009 From: madlug at jamponi.net (Jon Nelson) Date: Thu Jul 30 13:37:10 2009 Subject: [Madlug] revisor doesn't work In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 10:53 AM, Douglas A. Whitfield wrote: > a while back, I believe I posted about revisor vs. Ubuntu > Customization Kit. ?Due to some recent organizational issues, we are > having to take another serious look at a move from Ubuntu to a rpm > based (Fedora or CentOS, probably) distro. ?The major problem we have > with this is being able to build a custom install CD. ?Revisor looks > like it should work, but it doesn't. ?We've tried a couple different > installs (different hardware) and we always get the error shown at > http://www.flickr.com/photos/dawhitfield/3752568482/. ?I'm close to > filing a bug, but it seems like other people are using it fine, so > maybe I'm just doing it wrong. ?Can anyone advice on what might be > causing this error? Give this a look: http://arstechnica.com/open-source/reviews/2009/07/hands-on-linux-appliances-made-easy-with-suse-studio.ars -- Jon From madlug at jamponi.net Thu Jul 30 14:01:37 2009 From: madlug at jamponi.net (Jon Nelson) Date: Thu Jul 30 14:02:04 2009 Subject: [Madlug] For Sale: Brand New ATI Radeon X 1950 Pro Message-ID: I'm selling (on behalf of a friend) a brand new, in the box with the plastic wrapper still on, ATI Radeon X 1950 Pro. It's a PCI Express and *requires* one X16 PCI Express Slot. It has 256MB of GDDR3 memory. The box contains: (1) ATI Radeon X1950 PRO graphics card (1) Set-up CD (1) DVI to VGA adapter (1) CrossFire Bridge Interconnect (1) Manuals Furthermore, it is RoHS compliant, and has the following text on the side of the box: RADEON X1950 PRO PCIE 256MB RH DDVI-VIVO NTSC Make an offer. -- Jon From douglasawh at gmail.com Thu Jul 30 15:45:39 2009 From: douglasawh at gmail.com (Douglas A. Whitfield) Date: Thu Jul 30 15:45:44 2009 Subject: [Madlug] revisor doesn't work In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 1:36 PM, Jon Nelson wrote: > Give this a look: > > http://arstechnica.com/open-source/reviews/2009/07/hands-on-linux-appliances-made-easy-with-suse-studio.ars Unless SUSE has freeware or FOSS management tools, we cannot use SUSE. I finally got spacewalk running, so we pretty leaning pretty far in the Fedora direction. Not thrilled about security updates for only 13 months, but if we aren't going to spend money on Landscape we don't have a lot of options. So, it looks like rather than using revisor we'll use kickstart files, which is just another frustrating thing to learn, but I suppose it has to be done. If SUSE does have such tools though, then I'd be happy to look at them as spacewalk is not nearly as user friendly as Landscape and I certainly don't know how to use it yet. From madlug at jamponi.net Thu Jul 30 16:39:22 2009 From: madlug at jamponi.net (Jon Nelson) Date: Thu Jul 30 16:39:46 2009 Subject: [Madlug] revisor doesn't work In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 3:45 PM, Douglas A. Whitfield wrote: > On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 1:36 PM, Jon Nelson wrote: >> Give this a look: >> >> http://arstechnica.com/open-source/reviews/2009/07/hands-on-linux-appliances-made-easy-with-suse-studio.ars > > Unless SUSE has freeware or FOSS management tools, we cannot use SUSE. openSUSE is entirely free. SLES and SLED are their commercial products, similar to redhat. kiwi is entirely free as well. > If SUSE does have such tools though, then I'd be happy to look at them > as spacewalk is not nearly as user friendly as Landscape and I > certainly don't know how to use it yet. well, openSUSE has autoyast, which is similar to but more powerful *and* easier to use than kickstart (having used both...) As far as spacewalk-like management tools, though, I'm not aware of anything. kiwi iis for building completely installed images onto bootable CDs, bootable USB, blah blah blah. autoyast is for describing an installation using XML (which packages to install, how to partition, network and user configuration, etc....) and is fairly malleable, similar to kickstart. I *think* there is this zen management thinger. Check novell's website, I suppose. I've used kiwi to make bootable cds and stuff and it works well. I've used autoyast for *years* and I've been pleased, but since installs are getting easier and easier I'm using it less frequently these days. I know that fighting kickstart is not something I'm likely to ever to again, although I get a perverted enjoyment out of watching others fight with it. -- Jon