system sounds

[H H]

Hi, wonder if anyone can give me a clue to getting the system sounds 
working on my lenny 64bit? All other sounds worked fine so i installed 
esound which got system sounds working but my skype and youtube stopped 
working. I have uninstalled esound to get skype and youtube back 
stopping the system sounds again so is there a way to have system sounds 
 with skype sound and youtube working?


Jeff


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Re: system sounds [ FIXED]

[H H]

H H wrote:
Hi, wonder if anyone can give me a clue to getting the system sounds 
working on my lenny 64bit? All other sounds worked fine so i installed 
esound which got system sounds working but my skype and youtube stopped 
working. I have uninstalled esound to get skype and youtube back 
stopping the system sounds again so is there a way to have system sounds 
 with skype sound and youtube working?


Jeff



Thought i had better reply now its all working. Seems like installing 
libesd-alsa0 as well as esound has done the trick.



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Can't find /usr/src/linux/..

[h]

Hi,

I'm probebly stupid but on my debian 3.0 system
there is no /usr/src/linux

Is there a package I should install


Regards

Hendrik-Jan


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Apache Segmentation Fault

[H.]

Hi,

I have a web server running Testing with apache 2.4.37 and php 7.3. The
purpose of the server is to run owncloud. However, after the nightly
restart the server stops working. The logs show the following:

/var/log/apache2/error.log.1
[Fri Nov 23 00:00:01.526101 2018] [mpm_prefork:notice] [pid 2858]
AH00171: Graceful restart requested, doing restart

/var/log/apache2/error.log
[Fri Nov 23 00:00:01.622137 2018] [mpm_prefork:notice] [pid 2858]
AH00163: Apache/2.4.37 (Debian) OpenSSL/1.1.1 configured -- resuming
normal operations
[Fri Nov 23 00:00:01.622156 2018] [core:notice] [pid 2858] AH00094:
Command line: '/usr/sbin/apache2'
[Fri Nov 23 00:00:01.626193 2018] [core:notice] [pid 2858] AH00052:
child pid 5383 exit signal Segmentation fault (11)
[Fri Nov 23 00:00:01.626217 2018] [core:notice] [pid 2858] AH00052:
child pid 5384 exit signal Segmentation fault (11)
[Fri Nov 23 00:00:01.626222 2018] [core:notice] [pid 2858] AH00052:
child pid 5385 exit signal Segmentation fault (11)
[Fri Nov 23 00:00:01.626227 2018] [core:notice] [pid 2858] AH00052:
child pid 5386 exit signal Segmentation fault (11)

These segmentation faults keep going so that the error.log file grows
to hundreds of MB within a few hours.

When I do "service apache2 restart" the server works properly again
until the next nightly restart.

Any idea what could cause this problem?

Package versions:
libapache2-mod-php7.3/testing,now 7.3.0~rc4-1 amd64
php-apcu/testing,now 5.1.12+4.0.11-2 amd64
php-redis/testing,now 4.2.0~rc2-1 amd64
php7.3-opcache/testing,now 7.3.0~rc4-1 amd64
certbot/testing,now 0.28.0-1 all

First I had the opcache enabled in /etc/php/7.3/apache2/php.ini, but
then I disabled it since many people reported issues with opcache
causing segfaults. However, the problem still persists. I also tried to
switch the memcache setting of owncloud from APCu to Redis, but also no
effect. Owncloud's cron.php is executed via www-data's crontab.

I also ran "certbot renew", but it does nothing because the server's
certificate is still valid and thus the server keeps running.

Best regards,
Dino

Network Performance Degrading over random amount of time

[h]

Hi List,
maybe you have a clue about the issues im having since several months.
My Homeserver is running Debian Jessy right now, the network issues 
where there with wheezy aswell.
after a fresh boot my network behaves like it should archiving near gbit 
speeds which is nice, after a random amount of uptime though my 
throughput degrades below 100mbit network speeds (about ~3.5MB/s)

i measured using iperf.

Current Hardware:

- Asus P8H67-M PRO
- Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-2100 CPU @ 3.10GHz
- 16 GB DDR3 Ram (2*8GB Kingston ram)
- Intel Corporation 82541PI Gigabit Ethernet Controller
- TP-Link 8-Port gbit switches (2 of em between home-server and clients)


Ive tried diffrent things so far:

- Switched from a switched cabling setup to Crosslink.
- Swapped out the cheap asrock motherboard with asus
- Changed from onboard realtek network chip to PCI Intel Gbit card
- Reinstalled OS several times
- Testing from diffrent clients (Win 7, Linux Mint, Debian, Ubuntu)
- Downloading vendor drivers and using them instead of the kernel 
inbuild ones


Nothing so far had worked to get my gbit speeds stable over a few days.

im open to ANY suggestions here even if they involve building a custom 
kernel or other magical hakkery ;D


Greetings
Lukas Wingerberg


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Re: Network Performance Degrading over random amount of time

[h]

Am 2014-04-20 13:33, schrieb Eero Volotinen:

- TP-Link 8-Port gbit switches (2 of em between home-server and
clients)


Try replacing this component with real quality switch like hp.



As i wrote, i already tryed to eliminate the switches as cause by 
crosslinking my client(s) with my server, the performance issues happen 
aswell without any switches between them so this might not be that 
cause.



--
Eero 


Thanks for your input but as stated i am pretty sure the switches ain't 
my problem

- Lukas


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Re: Network Performance Degrading over random amount of time

[h]

Am 2014-04-20 19:15, schrieb Chris Angelico:

On Sun, Apr 20, 2014 at 9:01 PM,   wrote:

Ive tried diffrent things so far:

- Switched from a switched cabling setup to Crosslink.
- Swapped out the cheap asrock motherboard with asus
- Changed from onboard realtek network chip to PCI Intel Gbit card
- Reinstalled OS several times
- Testing from diffrent clients (Win 7, Linux Mint, Debian, Ubuntu)
- Downloading vendor drivers and using them instead of the kernel 
inbuild

ones

Nothing so far had worked to get my gbit speeds stable over a few 
days.


Crazy-stupid idea, but is it possible there's some other traffic
happening? Pull up a monitor (gnome-system-monitor has a nice graph,
or you can just watch the numbers in ifconfig or equivalent) and see
if it's somehow saturated.

ChrisA


Thanks for the idea, sadly thats not the case (checked using iftop since 
its a headless server machine after all)
i event went as far and fired up wireshark on my clients in promiscious 
mode and nothing obviously traffic killing was showing up there aswell



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Re: Network Performance Degrading over random amount of time

[h]

Am 2014-04-20 23:49, schrieb Karl E. Jorgensen:

Hi

On Sun, Apr 20, 2014 at 01:01:53PM +0200, h...@xx0r.eu wrote:

Hi List,
maybe you have a clue about the issues im having since several months.
My Homeserver is running Debian Jessy right now, the network issues
where there with wheezy aswell.
after a fresh boot my network behaves like it should archiving near
gbit speeds which is nice, after a random amount of uptime though my
throughput degrades below 100mbit network speeds (about ~3.5MB/s)
i measured using iperf.


You don't explicitly say... Does a reboot "cure" the problem 
(temporarily?)


Yep thats exactly what a reboot does for me, i tenad to reboot about 
once every 2-3 days because of this issue, not something you would 
expect from a unix OS :D




If so, does a "ifdown eth0"[1] + "ifup eth0" have the same effect?  (if
necessary: Unplug and re-plug the cable between "ifdown" and
"ifup"...)  [A full reboot is a bit like a sledge hammer... very
crude]


I have yet to try this, will report back when i have the performance 
problem again and try it





From the point-of-view of the switch, this should be almost

indistinguishable from a full reboot...

Anything in the kernel message log? (e.g. output of "dmesg" or
/var/log/kern.log) It would be interesting if the kernel spat out some
messages around the time of the degradation...  E.g. link-level
renegotiation or similar.

Also: Anything interesting in the output of "ifconfig eth0" ?  I'm
particularly interested in the counters for errors, dropped, overruns,
frame/carrier counts: These counters may show interesting changes
around the time of the degradation...



I will write this down for next performance degration aswell



Current Hardware:

- Asus P8H67-M PRO
- Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-2100 CPU @ 3.10GHz
- 16 GB DDR3 Ram (2*8GB Kingston ram)
- Intel Corporation 82541PI Gigabit Ethernet Controller
- TP-Link 8-Port gbit switches (2 of em between home-server and 
clients)


*two* switches between server and clients?  Sounds a bit unusual - at
least for a home set-up...


Well im a Console Collector and my Linux Server is right behind my Home 
Entertainment area in the living room. thats where the first switch is 
located to hook all the entertainment stuff up to the lan, then there is 
one uplink line going to the other end of the room where the 2. switch 
is located, connecting my Desk PC, Laptop, printer, wifi ap and internet 
Gateway to the lan aswell.





Ive tried diffrent things so far:

- Switched from a switched cabling setup to Crosslink.


Hm... AFAIK modern network cards tend to adjust themselves to both
"normal" and cross-over cables (which I believe that "crosslink"
means).



Jup i wasnt clear enough here i guess, i connected the client (one at a 
time) with the server directly using a normal off the shelf patch cable, 
i just call it crosslinking because no switch is in between



- Swapped out the cheap asrock motherboard with asus
- Changed from onboard realtek network chip to PCI Intel Gbit card


Hm.. That would likely rule out any network card issues.


- Reinstalled OS several times


.. which would most likely rule out any OS bugs. But not administrator
configuration mistakes...


Jup i guess (wheezy and jessy)




- Testing from diffrent clients (Win 7, Linux Mint, Debian, Ubuntu)


... which would then most likely rule out administrator mistakes: Win7
is sufficient differently from anything else to make it difficult to
make the same mistake across platforms.



And Hardware issues on my client aswell since they all are diffrent 
chipset network hardware



- Downloading vendor drivers and using them instead of the kernel
inbuild ones

Nothing so far had worked to get my gbit speeds stable over a few 
days.


When you measure the speed, between which two points do you measure
the speed?


client -> tp-link -> tp-link -> server

or with direct connection circumventing the switches

client -> server



I'm concerned about the TWO TP-Link switches: The diagnostics you have
done so far does not appear to rule them out Does your traffic
have to pass through both of them?  If so, how are they switches
connected?



imho i ruled them out with directly connecting my client(s) one at a 
time to the server using an patch cable circumventing those switches in 
question. The reported degration in network speed happens there aswell.



Based on what you have written, my main suspects would be the two
switches - with a focus on the "nearest" switch...


im open to ANY suggestions here even if they involve building a
custom kernel or other magical hakkery ;D


Well - it looks like you have put a fair amount of effort into solving
this But until the problem is narrowed down, this would probably
be as likely to resolve the problem as a goat sacrifice ... You
haven't got a spare goat[2], have you? :-)

Re: Network Performance Degrading over random amount of time

[h]

Am 2014-04-22 10:38, schrieb h...@xx0r.eu:

Am 2014-04-20 23:49, schrieb Karl E. Jorgensen:

Hi

On Sun, Apr 20, 2014 at 01:01:53PM +0200, h...@xx0r.eu wrote:

Hi List,
maybe you have a clue about the issues im having since several 
months.

My Homeserver is running Debian Jessy right now, the network issues
where there with wheezy aswell.
after a fresh boot my network behaves like it should archiving near
gbit speeds which is nice, after a random amount of uptime though my
throughput degrades below 100mbit network speeds (about ~3.5MB/s)
i measured using iperf.


You don't explicitly say... Does a reboot "cure" the problem 
(temporarily?)


Yep thats exactly what a reboot does for me, i tenad to reboot about
once every 2-3 days because of this issue, not something you would
expect from a unix OS :D



If so, does a "ifdown eth0"[1] + "ifup eth0" have the same effect?  
(if

necessary: Unplug and re-plug the cable between "ifdown" and
"ifup"...)  [A full reboot is a bit like a sledge hammer... very
crude]


I have yet to try this, will report back when i have the performance
problem again and try it



Just got the chance to try, and yes, an ifdown eth0 -> Cable replug -> 
ifup eth0 also cures this problem





From the point-of-view of the switch, this should be almost

indistinguishable from a full reboot...

Anything in the kernel message log? (e.g. output of "dmesg" or
/var/log/kern.log) It would be interesting if the kernel spat out some
messages around the time of the degradation...  E.g. link-level
renegotiation or similar.

Also: Anything interesting in the output of "ifconfig eth0" ?  I'm
particularly interested in the counters for errors, dropped, overruns,
frame/carrier counts: These counters may show interesting changes
around the time of the degradation...



I will write this down for next performance degration aswell


Output of dmesg looks a bit suspicious:

[40886.039833] irq 16: nobody cared (try booting with the "irqpoll" 
option)
[40886.039963] CPU: 1 PID: 0 Comm: swapper/1 Not tainted 3.13-1-amd64 #1 
Debian 3.13.7-1
[40886.039965] Hardware name: System manufacturer System Product 
Name/P8H67-M PRO, BIOS 3806 08/20/2012
[40886.039967]  88040bdca4bc 814a1327 88040bdca400 
810aa4a8
[40886.039970]  88040bdca400 0010  
810aa93a
[40886.039973]    0010 


[40886.039976] Call Trace:
[40886.039977][] ? dump_stack+0x41/0x51
[40886.039988]  [] ? __report_bad_irq+0x28/0xc0
[40886.039991]  [] ? note_interrupt+0x1ba/0x210
[40886.039994]  [] ? 
handle_irq_event_percpu+0xc1/0x1b0

[40886.039997]  [] ? handle_irq_event+0x33/0x50
[40886.04]  [] ? handle_fasteoi_irq+0x58/0x100
[40886.040004]  [] ? handle_irq+0x18/0x30
[40886.040007]  [] ? do_IRQ+0x40/0xb0
[40886.040011]  [] ? common_interrupt+0x6d/0x6d
[40886.040012][] ? 
__hrtimer_start_range_ns+0x1b7/0x3e0

[40886.040019]  [] ? cpuidle_enter_state+0x4a/0xc0
[40886.040022]  [] ? cpuidle_idle_call+0xa9/0x1d0
[40886.040025]  [] ? arch_cpu_idle+0x5/0x30
[40886.040028]  [] ? cpu_startup_entry+0xbe/0x280
[40886.040032]  [] ? start_secondary+0x1d4/0x230
[40886.040034] handlers:
[40886.040173] [] ata_bmdma_interrupt [libata]
[40886.040336] [] e1000_intr [e1000]
[40886.040506] Disabling IRQ #16


IRQ16 is related to eth0 according to /proc/interrupts:

16:31649923462922  0  0   IO-APIC-fasteoi   
pata_via, eth0



Output of ifconfig looks unsuspicious, a few dropped packets but nothing 
major:


eth0  Link encap:Ethernet  Hardware Adresse 00:0e:0c:b9:5e:1d
  inet Adresse:192.168.1.20  Bcast:192.168.1.255  
Maske:255.255.255.0
  inet6-Adresse: fda3:32bd:abab:0:20e:cff:feb9:5e1d/64 
Gültigkeitsbereich:Global
  inet6-Adresse: fe80::20e:cff:feb9:5e1d/64 
Gültigkeitsbereich:Verbindung

  UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metrik:1
  RX packets:11881446 errors:0 dropped:882 overruns:0 frame:0
  TX packets:29392900 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
  Kollisionen:0 Sendewarteschlangenlänge:1000
  RX bytes:7149517599 (6.6 GiB)  TX bytes:69090488843 (64.3 GiB)



Current Hardware:

- Asus P8H67-M PRO
- Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-2100 CPU @ 3.10GHz
- 16 GB DDR3 Ram (2*8GB Kingston ram)
- Intel Corporation 82541PI Gigabit Ethernet Controller
- TP-Link 8-Port gbit switches (2 of em between home-server and 
clients)


*two* switches between server and clients?  Sounds a bit unusual - at
least for a home set-up...


Well im a Console Collector and my Linux Server is right behind my
Home Entertainment area in the living room. thats where the first
switch is located to hook all the entertainment stuff up to the lan,
then there is one uplink line going to the other end of the room where
the 2. switch is located, connecting my Desk PC, Lapto

Re: Network Performance Degrading over random amount of time

[h]

Am 2014-04-26 12:44, schrieb h...@xx0r.eu:

Am 2014-04-22 10:38, schrieb h...@xx0r.eu:

Am 2014-04-20 23:49, schrieb Karl E. Jorgensen:

Hi

On Sun, Apr 20, 2014 at 01:01:53PM +0200, h...@xx0r.eu wrote:

Hi List,
maybe you have a clue about the issues im having since several 
months.

My Homeserver is running Debian Jessy right now, the network issues
where there with wheezy aswell.
after a fresh boot my network behaves like it should archiving near
gbit speeds which is nice, after a random amount of uptime though my
throughput degrades below 100mbit network speeds (about ~3.5MB/s)
i measured using iperf.


You don't explicitly say... Does a reboot "cure" the problem 
(temporarily?)


Yep thats exactly what a reboot does for me, i tenad to reboot about
once every 2-3 days because of this issue, not something you would
expect from a unix OS :D



If so, does a "ifdown eth0"[1] + "ifup eth0" have the same effect?  
(if

necessary: Unplug and re-plug the cable between "ifdown" and
"ifup"...)  [A full reboot is a bit like a sledge hammer... very
crude]


I have yet to try this, will report back when i have the performance
problem again and try it



Just got the chance to try, and yes, an ifdown eth0 -> Cable replug ->
ifup eth0 also cures this problem




From the point-of-view of the switch, this should be almost

indistinguishable from a full reboot...

Anything in the kernel message log? (e.g. output of "dmesg" or
/var/log/kern.log) It would be interesting if the kernel spat out 
some

messages around the time of the degradation...  E.g. link-level
renegotiation or similar.

Also: Anything interesting in the output of "ifconfig eth0" ?  I'm
particularly interested in the counters for errors, dropped, 
overruns,

frame/carrier counts: These counters may show interesting changes
around the time of the degradation...



I will write this down for next performance degration aswell
Output of dmesg looks a bit suspicious:


[40886.039833] irq 16: nobody cared (try booting with the "irqpoll" 
option)

[40886.039963] CPU: 1 PID: 0 Comm: swapper/1 Not tainted 3.13-1-amd64
#1 Debian 3.13.7-1
[40886.039965] Hardware name: System manufacturer System Product
Name/P8H67-M PRO, BIOS 3806 08/20/2012
[40886.039967]  88040bdca4bc 814a1327 88040bdca400
810aa4a8
[40886.039970]  88040bdca400 0010 
810aa93a
[40886.039973]    0010

[40886.039976] Call Trace:
[40886.039977][] ? dump_stack+0x41/0x51
[40886.039988]  [] ? __report_bad_irq+0x28/0xc0
[40886.039991]  [] ? note_interrupt+0x1ba/0x210
[40886.039994]  [] ? 
handle_irq_event_percpu+0xc1/0x1b0

[40886.039997]  [] ? handle_irq_event+0x33/0x50
[40886.04]  [] ? handle_fasteoi_irq+0x58/0x100
[40886.040004]  [] ? handle_irq+0x18/0x30
[40886.040007]  [] ? do_IRQ+0x40/0xb0
[40886.040011]  [] ? common_interrupt+0x6d/0x6d
[40886.040012][] ?
__hrtimer_start_range_ns+0x1b7/0x3e0
[40886.040019]  [] ? cpuidle_enter_state+0x4a/0xc0
[40886.040022]  [] ? cpuidle_idle_call+0xa9/0x1d0
[40886.040025]  [] ? arch_cpu_idle+0x5/0x30
[40886.040028]  [] ? cpu_startup_entry+0xbe/0x280
[40886.040032]  [] ? start_secondary+0x1d4/0x230
[40886.040034] handlers:
[40886.040173] [] ata_bmdma_interrupt [libata]
[40886.040336] [] e1000_intr [e1000]
[40886.040506] Disabling IRQ #16


IRQ16 is related to eth0 according to /proc/interrupts:

16:31649923462922  0  0   IO-APIC-fasteoi
pata_via, eth0


Output of ifconfig looks unsuspicious, a few dropped packets but 
nothing major:


eth0  Link encap:Ethernet  Hardware Adresse 00:0e:0c:b9:5e:1d
  inet Adresse:192.168.1.20  Bcast:192.168.1.255  
Maske:255.255.255.0

  inet6-Adresse: fda3:32bd:abab:0:20e:cff:feb9:5e1d/64
Gültigkeitsbereich:Global
  inet6-Adresse: fe80::20e:cff:feb9:5e1d/64
Gültigkeitsbereich:Verbindung
  UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metrik:1
  RX packets:11881446 errors:0 dropped:882 overruns:0 frame:0
  TX packets:29392900 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
  Kollisionen:0 Sendewarteschlangenlänge:1000
  RX bytes:7149517599 (6.6 GiB)  TX bytes:69090488843 (64.3 
GiB)




Current Hardware:

- Asus P8H67-M PRO
- Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-2100 CPU @ 3.10GHz
- 16 GB DDR3 Ram (2*8GB Kingston ram)
- Intel Corporation 82541PI Gigabit Ethernet Controller
- TP-Link 8-Port gbit switches (2 of em between home-server and 
clients)


*two* switches between server and clients?  Sounds a bit unusual - at
least for a home set-up...


Well im a Console Collector and my Linux Server is right behind my
Home Entertainment area in the living room. thats where the first
switch is located to hook all the entertainment stuff up to the lan,
then there is one uplink line going to the other end of the room where
the 2. switch is located, conne

Re: X 3.3.3.1

[H H Chau]

> > Where can i get all the debs i need to make the big switch?? like  maybe a
> > server to add to my apt config
>
> deb http://ftp.netgod.net/ x/

After doing so on my slink installation, crashing happens:

  (1) Netscape 4.08 -- Bus error
  (2) Nedit -- segmentation fault

Now I change back to offical slink, seems okay so far. Any similiar
experience?

Hau Hing

Re: Serious install problems - please help urgently

[H H Chau]

> I go to the access method and choose multi-cd.  I have the linux-central
> 2 binary cd set. This seems to be OK until I am asked where to find the
> packages.gz (?) file a number of times. I have tried all permutations of
> /debian /debian/dists, /debian/dists/slink/main/binary-i386 but get some
  ^^^
If my memory serves, with my cheapbyte Debian 2.1 slink, I simply accept
the default [debian] and it works for me. [note: without "/", ie debian
not /debian]

> I have tried adding the second CD in at this point but that doesn't seem

Use your "binary 1" when installing kernal and base system. Insert "binary
2" only when you arrive dselect (after you pick up a profile) and before
selecting [Access] and [Update]. Afterward, dselect will prompt you for
the correct CD if you don't have the right one in you drive (either 1/2 or
2/2).

Good luck.

Hau Hing

Re: Your Thoughts on Printer Replacement

[James H. H. Lampert]

Personally, I wouldn't accept an inkjet as a gift. You use them like 
crazy, and you go through absurdly overpriced cartridges like crazy. You 
*don't* use them like crazy, and those absurdly overpriced cartridges 
clog, and you still go through them like crazy. And the pages come out 
soggy, and are even more vulnerable to water damage than what I write 
with my fountain pens. As far as I'm concerned, the only thing they're 
good for is edible printing, and for what little of that I do (typically 
one page every few months), it's far cheaper to email an image to the 
local cake supply, and have them do it.


(The first rule of edible printing is you don't run anything but edible 
ink in that printer. The second rule of edible printing is you *DO NOT* 
run anything but edible ink in that printer. And you still don't talk 
about Fight Club.)


I have had three monochrome laser printers (an HP 4ML, followed by an HP 
2100M, which I then replaced with a rebuilt 2100M, which I still have. 
And I've had two color laser printers, a Samsung CLP-315, bought new and 
used until it wore out, followed by a rebuilt Samsung CLP-415, which I 
still have.


And I have an ALPS MicroDry, that I bought used, after they'd been 
discontinued.


Before the Samsungs, bought a Xerox color laser. It went back to Staples 
the day after it arrived: It was a lot bulkier in real life than it was 
in the pictures, it made the devil's own noise when it was running, and 
it claimed to be a PostScript machine, but curled up its toes and said 
"helll meee" if I actually fed it a PostScript data stream. 
That's not to say that the Samsungs will do anything if fed PostScript, 
but at least they were relatively inexpensive, as well as being almost 
as compact and quiet as my 2100M.


What I've seen of HP lasers more recent than the 2000-series has not 
impressed me. That's a major reason why I went with a rebuilt 2100M, 
instead of something more recent. That and the fact that being able to 
accept and RIP a PostScript data stream, fed through a Centronics port, 
is a non-negotiable requirement for me: it's either that, or I have to 
dump the data stream to a file, distill it into a PDF, and print that.


--
James H. H. Lampert
Professional Dilettante

Re: Your Thoughts on Printer Replacement

[James H. H. Lampert]

On 9/18/21 2:00 AM, Jonathan Dowland wrote:

The direction of travel for printing is entirely driverless, so this is
less important than it used to be.


Really? If true, that is exceptionally good news. The last time I looked 
at new printers, the "direction of travel" was entirely 
driver-dependent, RIPping the PostScript, PCL, or straight ASCII in the 
driver, rather than in the printer's own processor and firmware, and 
anything that could RIP a PostScript data stream directly would have 
cost a fortune.


--
JHHL

Re: Your Thoughts on Printer Replacement

[James H. H. Lampert]

On 9/18/21 2:19 AM, Jeremy Ardley wrote:
My experience is that toner does degrade over a period of years. To get 
full life you need to use your advertised pages within a year or so.


Agreed. I've seen toner cartridges go bad. Of course, they had been 
sitting on a shelf for *many* years.


--
JHHL

Re: Write *once* storage (was Re: write only storage)

[James H. H. Lampert]

On 9/21/21 10:21 AM, Steve McIntyre wrote:
. . .

   WORM is Write *Once* , not Write *Only*

"Write only" storage is easy and fast - just throw things at /dev/null
and they can never be altered (or read back).


Quite.

Or to paraphrase something I said, that actually got published in some 
magazine dealing with IBM Midrange systems, "A data Roach-Motel: data 
goes in, but it doesn't come out."


--
JHHL

Re: Leibniz' "best of all possible worlds" ...

[James H. H. Lampert]

>>> I also wonder how Leibniz is relevant to this scenario ...

 When I think of Leibniz, I think of calculus (and rejoice in the 
fact that the only calculus I still have to deal with is what the 
dentist has to jackhammer off my teeth [before it turns into partial 
differential equations]).


When I think of "the best of all possible worlds," I think of Candide 
(take your pick: Voltaire, Bernstein, or both), and I think of the old 
chestnut that "an optimist believes we live in the best of all possible 
worlds, while a pessimist fears that the optimist is right."


When I went to Long Beach State, we used CDC Cybers. Which was a major 
culture shock after using an IBM 370/135 (running McGill University 
MUSIC), going from 8-bit EBCDIC to 6-bit CDC Scientific (with no room in 
the character set for any control characters!)


Still, if I were going to a school where WinDoze was compulsory, I'd 
find another school.


--
JHHL

Re: Don't try this at home kids

[James H. H. Lampert]

On 11/29/21 2:41 PM, Jeremy Ardley wrote:
P.S. I am totally unconvinced about the arguments for using sudo rather 
than running as root. You can do exactly the same damage with sudo as 
being root user.
P.P.S The conventional instruction is to use visudo to do the edits. 
Which means using Vi, which is another anachronism that should be 
humanely put down.


That's about the size of it. I've used forty-year-old non-full-screen 
editors that are a hundred times more intuitive than vi is. And the only 
reason ROOT access is more dangerous than, say, QSECOFR access on OS/400 
(or whatever IBM is calling it this week) is because there's nothing 
stopping a Linux ROOT from doing things *nobody* should be allowed to do 
without putting the system into some kind of maintenance mode.


I have access to a number of Amazon Linux virtual boxes, that don't like 
password authentication in general (preferring certificate 
authentication . . . which authenticates the BOX that is ssh-ing in, but 
not the WARM BODY between the chair and the keyboard).


And if you have a system that doesn't allow ROOT to sign on, and doesn't 
allow you to SU, then you can achieve the same result by doing


  sudo bash

--
JHHL

Re: [SOLVED] Re: Firefox: Warning: Potential Security Risk Ahead for the USPS.com

[James H. H. Lampert]

On 1/4/22 10:19 AM, Michael Stone wrote:
And this is why putting stuff into /etc/hosts is basically never the 
right answer. :)


Au contraire!

Among other things, the host table is the best possible place to block 
access to certain unwanted domains. For example, if you add these entries:


> 0.0.0.0 facebook.com
> 0.0.0.0 www.facebook.com
> 0.0.0.0 hi-in.facebook.com
> 0.0.0.0 gl-es.facebook.com
> 0.0.0.0 twitter.com
> 0.0.0.0 www.twitter.com

you can never be tricked into accessing Facebook or Twitter (for me, 
ONCE is far too many times), and if you add


> 0.0.0.0 bing.com

then bing-redirections will fail every time (and alert you to their 
noisome and  all-too-common presence).


And likewise, you might want to access other machines within your LAN by 
name, but your operation is not big enough to warrant bothering with an 
internal DNS, or you might need to access outside systems that, for 
various perfectly legitimate reasons, are kept off the public DNS.


--
JHHL

Re: [SOLVED] Re: Firefox: Warning: Potential Security Risk Ahead for the USPS.com

[James H. H. Lampert]

On 1/4/22 11:33 AM, David Wright wrote:


In fact, I was quite shocked when I just tried
DNS over HTTPS for a couple of minutes. The 10-day weather
profile that I screenshoot every day was plastered in popups.

Anyone know how to combine DoH with resolving 14,000 addresses
to 127.0.0.1? Also, does that mean that DoH attempts to resolve
my local hosts before consulting /etc/hosts? I didn't stick
around DoH long enough to find out.


Yeef!

Thoughts of the Homer Simpson catchphrase, and the boss adversary from 
Arkanoid (and its sequel, Revenge of DOH), come to mind.


--
JHHL

Re: system76

[James H. H. Lampert]

On 1/15/22 7:38 PM, Yamadaえりな wrote:

hello list

I have thought about buying a laptop from system76 with linux pre-installed.
What do you think of this manufacturer? Glad to hear from you.


I've had a Meerkat for several months, and except for an occasional OS 
crash within 2 minutes of power-up (but never once the system was up 
long enough to actually do anything), it has performed well.


--
JHHL

Re: Social-media antipathy (was Re: How i can optimize my operating system?)

[James H. H. Lampert]

On 3/12/21 8:09 AM, Larry Martell wrote:

I did the same thing - I resisted being on FB for a very long time,
but eventually I had to get on because it was how my family was
communicating and I was being left out of the loop. I joined as my dog
only my family knew how to find me. Even to this day I am only
connected to family members.


If they shun or ostracize you for not being on Facebook, they are 
neither your friends nor your family.


The very first thing I do when taking possession of a computer is to add 
host table entries to interdict any attempt to access Facebook or 
Twitter (by mapping them to 0.0.0.0). That way, it becomes impossible 
for me to be tricked into accessing them by disguised links (I have 
received such links a number of times).


I have real friends. And a real web site. And list-servers and boards. 
And a life.


--
JHHL

Re: Social-media antipathy

[James H. H. Lampert]

On 3/13/21 1:17 PM, Andrei POPESCU wrote:

Unfortunately the way Facebook gained it's huge user base was by creepy
stalking of people in any way it could, in order to get them to sign up,
which is exactly why a privacy respecting social network will have a
tough time to compete.


Not even remotely to the extent that LinkedIn did. There was a time when 
hardly a month went by, that I didn't get at least one piece of LinkedIn 
spam, all from new users' email address books being mined for contact info.


And Mr. Gibbs, RIGHT ON! And I, too, carry a clamshell. A fairly new one 
(my old one was falling apart from age, and on my first vacation in 
Canada, it turned into a paperweight from the moment my bus crossed the 
border into British Columbia to the moment my flight out of Toronto 
landed in Boston). Its browser is barely sophisticated enough for 
rudimentary web browsing and checking my email. And I like it that way.


But I tried DDG last week, and it appeared incapable of helping Boy 
Scout find a candy store.


--
James H. H. Lampert
Professional Dilettante

Re: Social-media antipathy (was Re: How i can optimize my operating system?)

[James H. H. Lampert]

Suffice it to say that the only Social Media outfit I trust less than I 
trust Facebook or Twitter (neither of which I trust any further than I 
can throw the U.S.S. Hornet) is LinkedIn. Which I have loathed since 
*before* they became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Microsloth.


--
JHHL
(I'd use a stronger dysphemism for M$, but I don't know this List's 
policy about Yiddish profanity.)

Re: How to capture composite video

[James H. H. Lampert]

On 5/17/21 9:39 AM, Charlie Gibbs wrote:

I have a number of VHS tapes which I'd like to digitize, and I'm
trying to figure out where to start, hardware- and software-wise.


Do you have a DVD-R video recorder? Simplest way I know is to dub the 
VHS to DVD, at which point accessing the video from your computer should 
be absurdly simple.


--
JHHL

Re: 🔥 Sponsored post on https://debian.org

[James H. H. Lampert]

The price is our souls, and we all agree that's too high.


Hmm. Isn't that also the price of anything sold at Wal-Mart?

* * *

At least the OP was polite enough to *ask* about posting ads, rather 
than just *doing* it.


--
JHHL

Slightly off-topic: anybody know of a way to keep one's Debian User List posts from failing DMARC?

[James H. H. Lampert]

Please excuse the off-topic post, but I'm hoping this has come up with 
others here:


I've been tasked with implementing DMARC on our domain. And I'm told 
that the Debian List Server doesn't rewrite "From" headers for 
DMARC-enabled senders, and neither does it do anything else to handle 
DMARC-enabled senders.


--
James H. H. Lampert
Touchtone Corporation

Re: Hi there, test only, please ignore

[James H. H. Lampert]

On 6/17/21 1:25 AM, Grzesiek wrote:

test


I got your test message. As it happens, we just went live with DMARC, 
and have reason to do some testing ourselves.


--
JHHL

Re: Offensive variable names [was: Cool down ...]

[James H. H. Lampert]

I know people who associate the time-honored metasyntactic "foobar" with 
the military slang acronym FUBAR.


--
JHHL

Re: MDs & Dentists

[James H. H. Lampert]

"Immutable backups." Interesting concept. But how? Optical media? 
Enormous decks of Hollerith cards? Enormous reels of punched paper tape?


So far as I'm aware, there is *only one* operating system currently in 
wide use, that has never been successfully infected with malware outside 
of laboratory experiments: the IBM Midrange operating system that goes 
by such names as OS/400 and i5OS (among others, and although I work with 
it on a daily basis, I've long-since given up keeping track of what IBM 
is calling it in any given week).


But Linux comes a lot closer to being malware-secure than WinDoze, or 
even Mac OS, which is one reason why, with my "bionic desk lamp" iMac on 
its last legs, instead of buying another Mac, or a WinDoze box, I bought 
a Meerkat.


As to MDs and Dentists making poor decisions where computers are 
concerned, it's not just healthcare professionals: over a quarter 
century ago, I spent about a year trying to fix the hidden flaws in a 
small business accounting program. It had been written, not by a 
programmer, but by an accountant. In C. It was his first non-trivial 
program in a language other than BASIC. And it ran on the Amiga. 
Aggressively multitasking within itself, on a platform where there was 
no memory protection, and nothing but "good intentions" to keep one task 
from stomping all over another task's memory. It nearly killed me.


--
James H. H. Lampert

Re: Hardware life expectancy

[James H. H. Lampert]

On 7/25/21 6:38 AM, Stefan Monnier wrote:
. . .

Nowadays, I'm still planning to use that same Thinkpad X30 to display
PDFs in the classroom (when I get to meet students physically again),
and more than half of my machine are older than 10 years old.
Better yet, they don't seem significantly slower than my newer machines.

So, yes, 10 year old machines and still very much relevant.


I'm still making productive use of a G4 "bionic desk lamp" iMac, and of 
a DOS/Linux dual-boot that I built from mostly cast-off parts, a few of 
them even older than the iMac. And I will continue to do so even once I 
get my new Meerkat fully deranged to suit my tastes.


But on the other hand, computers are not Linotype machines (I regularly 
operate one from 1954: that's eight years older than I am), and aren't 
built to last forever. (The speaker on the iMac quit some months back, 
and it now has a chronic overheating problem.)


--
JHHL

Re: [SOLVED] Re: One-user system.

[James H. H. Lampert]

On 5/6/22 1:11 PM, Charles Curley wrote:


Maybe, maybe not. I got started with a KIM-I: 6502 running at 1 MHz,
just over 1 kilobyte of RAM. Six seven segment displays and a hex
keyboard for data entry. I still have one.


I remember *reading about* the KIM-I (and the Altair, and a few others) 
in electronics magazines; I started with a TRS-80 Model I myself (and 
with high school programming classes on an IBM 370/135 at the District 
Office, with terminals connected over a pair of multiplexed phone lines 
[and a maximum terminal speed of 300 Baud]).


--
JHHL

Re: OT, Recommendation for low cost laptop

[James H. H. Lampert]

Another place to look is your local laptop store.  My current laptop,
as well as its predecessor, are refurbished ThinkPads I bought there
for about $300.  They run Linux just fine.


"Local laptop store?"

Not quite sure I've heard of such a thing, at least not recently. My 
Chromebook came from BestBuy.


As it happens, my beat-up old DOSbook (an old Compaq Contura 486) 
crapped out on me, a couple months ago, and I'm looking for something of 
about the same physical dimensions (or a bit smaller and lighter) to 
replace it. Something old enough to have a floppy drive and/or a PCMCIA 
slot, and to run DOS and DOSapps without a problem.


--
JHHL

Re: SanDisk USB stick problem

[James H. H. Lampert]

Hmm. When I put a new flash device into service, at the very least, I 
wipe all bundled content from it, and may completely reformat it, 
depending on my needs, just as a matter of course.


--
JHHL
(I vaguely recall that at one time, if you bought a new wallet, the 
card-and-picture section would contain a fill-in-the-blanks ID card and 
a picture of Sandra Dee. I'd put bundled software on a flash drive into 
that same category.)

Re: Serifed, variable-pitch font.

[James H. H. Lampert]

FWIW, "proportional" or "typographic" would be more conventional terms 
than "variable pitch."


--
JHHL
(Feel free to visit me some Saturday at the International Printing 
Museum. After COVID-19 is no longer an existential threat, but merely a 
minor nuisance.)

Re: is it possible to add a secondary disk to an existing debian systems and install programs to the secondary disk

[James H. H. Lampert]

On 2/23/21 8:13 AM, Nicholas Geovanis wrote:

You can always add more filesystem space later. It's easier if you're using
LVM but that isn't required. You just build another filesystem on the new
drive after it's installed and mount it into your filesystems, at the
appropriate mount point.


Indeed, and on my DOS/Linux dual-boot at home, I have the Linux side set 
up to mount all five DOS volumes.


--
JHHL

Re: Debian Programming languages

[James H. H. Lampert]

Just out of morbid curiosity: what about a full ANSI PL/I?

--
JHHL
(And the mere fact that I'm asking ages me.)

Re: Debian Programming languages

[James H. H. Lampert]

On 5/24/19, 11:00 AM, ghe wrote:

I forgot about LISP too. LISP was the first high level language I
learned. Thought I was going to die...


(CLUTTER CLUTTER (CDR CLUTTER)) is probably the only s-expression I 
still remember from over half a lifetime ago. (It's a line of code from 
the "Blocks World" exercise in my old (LISP) textbook).


--
JHHL

Re: 3 phase power (was Re: Wireless home LAN - WiFi vs Bluetooth?

[James H. H. Lampert]

Hmm. And as anybody old enough to have grown up on "Emergency!" (and to 
remember a rescue involving a worker caught in a vinyl record press), if 
you reverse any two of the three hot wires on a 3-phase motor, you 
reverse the direction of rotation.


Which caused a rather amusing malfunction at the International Printing 
Museum, where I spend my Saturdays docenting: our Heidelberg cylinder 
press was not feeding paper, and we eventually realized it was running 
backwards, because somebody working on the wiring had gotten two wires 
switched. Thank God it wasn't the Heidelberg Windmill: you run those 
backwards more than 1 or 2 degrees, and they shred themselves.


--
James H. H. Lampert

Re: waaay offtopic

[James H. H. Lampert]

Personally, I have a clamshell.

It's my second clamshell, an LG VN220. It replaced my previous 
clamshell, after my first vacation to Canada: the previous clamshell was 
a paperweight from the moment my bus from Seattle to Vancouver crossed 
the Canadian border, up to the moment my flight from Toronto landed back 
in the U.S.


It has a camera, a rudimentary web browser, and a totally useless email 
reader that will not connect to my ISP's mail server AT ALL. 
(Fortunately, the web browser works just fine with my ISP's web-mail 
interface.)


And if I need to go online with my tablet, my phone can provide a WiFi 
hotspot for it. (I flatly refuse to accept a home broadband connection 
until such time as Net Neutrality is legislated, court-tested, settled law.)


Before my first clamshell, I had "candy bar" phones. Then, while on 
vacation, I chest-dialed home, and nearly put my mother in the hospital 
with worry.


--
JHHL

Re: technical terms overhaul

[James H. H. Lampert]

Personally, if I were a moderator on this List, I would order this 
thread terminated with extreme prejudice.


--
JHHL

Re: new camera

[James H. H. Lampert]

On 6/26/20 1:20 PM, Gene Heskett wrote:

But this stretch machine can't find it amongst all the other usb stuff.
It doesn't have cheese, and vlc doesn't recognize it.

. . .

Anybody have an idea of what driver this camera needs?


Would transferring images on memory cards be a workable solution?

--
JHHL

Re: Very old hardware...

[James H. H. Lampert]

My DOS/Linux dual-boot at home was constructed from spare parts, 
including a cast-off Dell motherboard from work that is old enough to 
support two physical floppy drives (it has a 360k and a 1.44M).


It runs IBM PC-DOS 2000 (lightning fast), with DOSSHELL, WordPerfect 
5.1, Quattro, and Xerox Ventura Publisher (DOS/GEM Edition).


And it runs Ubuntu Hardy Heron, with a fairly old version of Gnome. 
Perhaps if I were configuring the Linux side of it today, I might have 
used Debian, and consulted this List for guidance.


It does NOT run WinDoze, and neither does my PC-DOS 2000 notebook (a 
486). I don't allow WinDoze in the house.


And as to computer museums, I highly recommend the CHM, in Mountain 
View, CA. The only real fault I've ever found with it is that they did 
not see fit to include an IBM Merlin (neither a drive, nor even a pack) 
in their early removable-pack hard drive exhibit.


--
James H. H. Lampert

Re: Very old hardware...

[James H. H. Lampert]

David Wright wrote:

Why do I keep mine? 1) Sentimentality, as it was the one on my work desk
when I retired. 2) Being a tower, it has room for up to 4 PATA drives.
The loaned Optiplex only holds one—after that, I'm down to an old PATA
caddy. 3) There's no WEEE here, so I'm not sure exactly how one gets
rid of it anyway.


Some years ago, I tried ordering a box from a local custom-builder. The 
fact that the BIOS and/or FDC on it would not accept dual floppy drives 
was an annoyance. The fact that Xerox Ventura Publisher (DOS/GEM 
Edition) would not run on it *at all* was the show-stopper. It went back 
about 24 hours after I took delivery.


I've since learned that there is at least one custom-builder that 
specializes in DOS boxes optimized for legacy apps, but with my "spare 
parts" dual-boot, I haven't had a pressing need to determine whether 
their boxes will run VPGEM (and they are not certain themselves).


--
JHHL

Re: mailing list vs "the futur"

[James H. H. Lampert]

On Thu, Aug 09, 2018 at 05:39:36PM +, tech wrote:


Should'nt be time to move away from an old mail-listing to
something more modern like a bugzilla or else ???


On 8/9/18, 10:47 AM, Greg Wooledge wrote:


No.



What? A list server isn't good enough for you? It's good enough for the 
Tomcat community, and for the IBM Midrange community, not to mention the 
thousand-odd organ geeks subscribed to PIPORG-L.


--
JHHL

Re: Getting rid of Wilber

[James H. H. Lampert]

Hmm. I'm all for customizing UIs (my preferred Open Office icon is a 
manual typewriter, my preferred Firefox icon is one I found with the 
eponymous fox chewing on a Microsloth Imploder logo, and my preferred 
Thunderbird icon has the eponymous bird carrying a bottle of T-Bird), 
but what have you got against Wilber?


--
JHHL

Re: Getting rid of Wilber

[James H. H. Lampert]

On 9/3/18, 5:22 PM, David Niklas wrote:

Quick, where can I find the "eponymous fox chewing on a Microsloth
Imploder logo"?


You ought to know Murphy's Law of the Internet by now: nothing posted to 
the Internet ever goes away . . . . unless you're looking for it.


--
JHHL

Re: that other OS

[James H. H. Lampert]

mick crane wrote:

"Windows is a service..."


Actually, I'd call WinDoze a DISservice.

(I don't allow WinDoze in my house.)

--
JHHL
(Currently using PCDOS-2000, OS/400, MacOS, Debian, Ubuntu, Android, and 
occasionally, at work, CentOS and WinDoze XP.)

Re: Color of the active window title bar in ubuntu-mate?

[James H. H. Lampert]

On 8/22/22 4:07 AM, Nicolas George wrote:

. . . A manifestation of the “we know better than you” mindset of the
GNOME people. . . .
*JUST* the GNOME people? I've found that, in general, the "we know 
better than you" mindset is even worse with Apple and M$. And getting 
worse still, especially with Apple.


My choice for volume icons, for example, has always been a vintage disk 
pack for an old IBM 3330 "Merlin" drive, sitting idle, in a pack-cover. 
And my choice for a desktop background has always been a brick wall 
(ever since I first had a chance to play with ResEdit on a Mac Plus, 
more than half a lifetime ago). Do I shove this down anybody else's 
throat? No. But neither do I care to have somebody else's look-and-feel 
elements shoved down my throat.


--
James H. H. Lampert
(I also like a garbage can icon to look like a garbage can. With a 
WinDoze logo on it.)

Re: running outdated software

[James H. H. Lampert]

On 10/13/22 11:05 AM, DdB wrote:


But i am very used to running outdated software, as i am living the old
recipe to "never change a working system".
I've got you beat: I still have a DOS box. And I'm in the process of 
configuring and loading a replacement for a worn-out DOSbook. And I 
still run Xerox Ventura Publisher, DOS/GEM Edition, WordPerfect 5.1+, 
and Quattro on it.


There's a BBS for this: it's called the Vintage Computer Federation.

--
JHHL

Re: OT: Charities (a rant)

[James H. H. Lampert]

On 1/31/23 11:38 AM, Dan Ritter wrote:
. . .

Because SPI is a US registered charity, it is covered by
charitynavigator.org:

. . .

And its numbers are impressive. Although it appears to have been rather 
lavishly overfunded in 2018.


--
JHHL

Installing Java 8 on a Google Compute Debian (Jessie) instance

[James H. H. Lampert]

I'm endeavoring to get Java 8 onto our development instance, so that the 
Tomcat environment there matches that of our cluster nodes, and apg-get 
is not cooperating.


This particular instance is a Bitnami SVN/Trac server, with Tomcat 8 
added to it, and running independently of the Apache server that came 
with SVN and Trac.


I tried what was given at
https://stackoverflow.com/q/50919305/3654526
and it didn't work. Even after doing the recommended

sudo apt-get install dirmngr
sudo apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 --recv-keys EEA14886
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install openjdk-8-jdk -y --allow-unauthenticated


I still get

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 openjdk-8-jdk : Depends: openjdk-8-jre (= 8u171-b11-1~bpo8+1) but it is not 
going to be installed
 Depends: openjdk-8-jdk-headless (= 8u171-b11-1~bpo8+1) but it 
is not going to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.


which is what I was getting before.

--
James H. H. Lampert

We've got a problem. Debian "Jessie" box won't launch X or Tomcat, and USB drive won't mount

[James H. H. Lampert]

Ladies and Gentlemen:

We've got a Debian 8 box (an old Dell 400SC) that won't launch X (it 
boots to a command line) or Tomcat, nor mount a USB hard drive that we 
use for backups.


It will, however, accept ssh connections.

In the boot sequence, I see "Failed" where it tries to mount the USB 
drive. I also can't seem to get that drive to mount on anything else, 
which suggests that it has been corrupted.


Can somebody suggest where to start looking for the problem?

--
James H. H. Lampert

USB hard drives -- recommendations?

[James H. H. Lampert]

Fellow List members:

Would anybody care to voice an opinion on USB external hard drives in 
the 2 terabyte size range, for automated backup purposes?


We've been looking at the Seagate "Expansion" and the WD "Elements"; 
I've noticed that on Amazon, both have a fair number of negative reviews 
citing reliability issues. (We recently discovered that our current 
Seagate had apparently failed on us.)


Any opinions? Seagate? WD? Toshiba? Something else?

--
JHHL

Re: Disable left-ctrl?

[James H. H. Lampert]

On 1/28/19, 3:16 PM, Boyan Penkov wrote:
> To this end, I’d like to disable the left ctrl key only, and force my
> brain to use the right one.  Better yet, I’d like the screen to flash
> or something then I inadvertently hit left-ctrl.

Just two thoughts occur to me:

1) On a 5250 data stream terminal tied to an IBM Midrange system, 
(AS/400, iSeries, System i, or whatever IBM is calling it this week), 
"Error Reset" is in the left-ctrl position, and "Enter" is in the 
right-ctrl position. I've written most of the user-interface code for a 
Java-based 5250 emulator. It's certainly possible to write code that 
accesses the keyboard at a low enough level to completely remap it. But 
for your purposes, the place for such low-level remapping code is 
probably in a keyboard driver.


2) When I was still using a WinDoze box with any regularity, and had a 
keyboard with "WinDoze keys" connected to it, I stuffed rolled up pieces 
of paper under those keys, in order to physically interdict them.


--
JHHL

Re: USB hard drives -- recommendations?

[James H. H. Lampert]

On 2/3/19, 2:22 AM, Alexander V. Makartsev wrote:

The only problem with external disk drive enclosures from well known
brands like WD or Seagate is they don't offer a way to open them e.g. to
switch the disk drive inside.


That and the fact that, judging by the price tags (and this also seems 
to be the general consensus both hear and on the OCLUG list server) 
those things have the cheapest consumer-grade hard drives the vendor 
has, whereas making your own, you can make it with a server-grade drive, 
or even (and this is built in at least one enclosure I've seen) a 
mirrored pair of them.


--
JHHL

Re: Your Password Reset Link from CorrLinks

[James H. H. Lampert]

On 2/21/19, 12:38 AM, to...@tuxteam.de wrote:

You shouldn't /bounce/ spam anyway: where are you going to bounce it
to? To a most probably spoofed address, i.e. to a totally innocent
victim? Thus generating reflected spam, aka Joe Jobs?


That depends. Some spammers don't see themselves as spammers, and
therefore aren't spoofing other addresses. They just either (1) fail to
honor unsubscribe requests, (2) don't put unsubscribe links in the plain
text, or (3) omit either the unsubscribe link or the plain text (or
both) entirely.

--
JHHL

Re: Your Password Reset Link from CorrLinks

[James H. H. Lampert]

On 2/21/19, 8:27 AM, to...@tuxteam.de wrote:


Never received bounce spam aka backscatter spam? Remember that time
(perhaps 1-2 years ago) where this very list was plagued by an
especially evil form of backscatter involving the useful idiot at
the other end of some smartphone?


No question, I've definitely received it. Just as I've received phone 
calls from victims of phone-spam with same-prefix caller-ID spoofing 
(given that I know for a fact that there is nobody with the same prefix 
as my cell phone who has any business calling me on it, I treat all 
calls with my own prefix as either phone spam or attempts to call a 
spammer who spoofed my number).


But even when I had an ISP whose server-side spam filter allowed 
bouncing as an option, I used that option only when it was obvious the 
sender address was not spoofed.


--
JHHL

Re: Top 7 Programming Languages That Employers Really Want

[James H. H. Lampert]

The OP wanted this treated as a survey, and so . . .

Many dialects and derivatives of BASIC, including (but not limited to) 
IBM VS-BASIC (ran on 370 and compatible mainframes), TRS-80 Level 1, 
Level 2, and Mod I Disk BASIC, GWBASIC, and the various QBASICs 
(QuickBASIC and QBX). (I took one look at VisualBASIC, and swore off any 
further M$ development tools.)


FORTRAN (mainly FORTRAN IV: IBM G1, WATFIV, and TRS-80 FORTRAN).

Pascal (CDC Cyber Pascal).

COBOL (also on a CDC Cyber).

PL/I (CDC Cyber PL/I; CDC ANSI PL/I; IBM AS/400 PL/I).

Assemblers (DEC Macro-11, 8086).

(LISP)   <-- the parentheses are an inside joke.

C (mainly on AS/400s). I must go down to the 'C' again, to the loony 
'C,' and cry.


Modula-2

MI (it's the closest you are allowed to get to a true assembler language 
on an AS/400)


RPG/400 (both OPM and ILE)

CL (on AS/400s; it's like a shell script, only compiled).

Java

I've forgotten just about all the SmallTalk I ever learned.

I can get by in SQL.

The more programming languages you know, the easier it is to pick up 
additional programming languages. And the less likely you are to treat 
your favorite language (or the only one you know) as a panacea. And if 
you have good linkage capabilities, mixed-language work is not difficult 
at all.


Not much that's on the published list. But then again, when I leave my 
present employment, I'm probably never going to write a single line of 
code professionally again.


--
JHHL

This is weird: I can ssh into a box, but I can't access it directly

[James H. H. Lampert]

One of our Linux boxes is behaving oddly. If I ssh into it, I can 
connect easily, and I get:

The programs included with the Debian GNU/Linux system are free software;
the exact distribution terms for each program are described in the
individual files in /usr/share/doc/*/copyright.

Debian GNU/Linux comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent
permitted by applicable law.
Last login: Wed Jan 29 08:32:12 2020 from 192.168.1.15


But if I go into the server cage, and punch it up on the KVM switch, and 
try to sign on as root, I get:

Debian GNU/Linux 8 Titan tty1

Titan login: root
[10371235.533392] end_request: I/O error, dev sda, sector 105228592


and after a few seconds, the screen clears, and goes back to

Debian GNU/Linux 8 Titan tty1

Titan login:


Or, at other times, when I punch it up on the KVM switch, I get a whole 
screen full of hard disk error messages.


It's pretty clear to me that the box is more-or-less shot anyway (even 
from the ssh session, if I try to "cd home," I get an error message), 
but can somebody tell me why I'm getting one behavior through ssh, and 
completely different behavior through a direct connection?


--
JHHL

Re: This is weird: I can ssh into a box, but I can't access it directly

[James H. H. Lampert]

On 2/26/20 8:52 AM, Dan Purgert wrote:

Are you ssh'ing in as root?  If not, is your user's $HOME on the
machine's failing disk, or another (remote?) drive?


and I replied (off-List, and *not* intentionally so):

Yes. As root.

Oh, and one other thing, the thing that brought this to my attention in the 
first place: something in the server cage is emitting a faint beep (or perhaps 
a faint squeak of a dying hard drive), every second or so. I think it's coming 
from that selfsame box.


I signed on again via ssh, intending to just shut the thing down for 
good, and noticed two things:

1. "shutdown" didn't work
2. It was telling me I'd last signed on sometime in January, when in 
fact, I'd signed on yesterday.


Further investigation of #1 led me to find out that it was getting a 
disk error just trying to shut itself down.


It's clearly toast. So I did a hard shutdown (and disconnected the 
power, for good measure.


And it *was* the source of the faint beeping.

--
JHHL

Re: squirrelmail or other webmail?

[James H. H. Lampert]

Speaking strictly as a user, I really liked SquirrelMail, when I was on 
my old ISP (or on the rare occasions when I check my former ISP email), 
but I utterly despise everything about the "SmarterMail" product that my 
present ISP uses. (It seems like they chose to emulate almost everything 
that's wrong with GMail, and nothing that's good about it, and to do 
everything they possibly can to make plain text and "bottom-posting" as 
difficult as possible.


Probably the only bad thing about GMail's web interface that SmarterMail 
doesn't emulate is making it difficult to edit (or even see) quoted 
material in replies before you send them.


I like SquirrelMail.

--
JHHL

Beeping after power irregularities?

[James H. H. Lampert]

Our AC power just blinked several times. More or less concurrently with 
that, something in our server cage (we think it's a Debian box); it 
doesn't appear to be an AS/400, any network gear, or our UPS) began 
emitting one-second beeps, approximately every two seconds (i.e., a 
one-second beep alternating with a one-second silence).


Any insights?

--
James H. H. Lampert

Re: Beeping after power irregularities?

[James H. H. Lampert]

It's the RAID controller card.

Naturally.

--
JHHL

Re: which blend caters to TaL computer programming? . . .

[James H. H. Lampert]

Exposing children to C and/or C++ should be considered abuse.  :)


No need for an emoticon there! C in the hands of an inexperienced 
programmer is a recipe for disaster!



Lego or smalltalk, pharo smalltalk has its own IDE so everything is in 1
place


Unless there's now a "Lego" programming language (news to me), could you 
possibly mean LOGO? Never used it myself, but but I've certainly heard 
good things about it. And if you're going to expose first-time 
programmers to ANY C-derived language, Java would be the one to expose 
them to.


Be that as it may, IBM VS-BASIC, on a 370-135 running the McGill 
University MUSIC operating system was good enough for me (and at home, 
I'm working on a project in M$ QuickBASIC Extended for DOS, that marks 
the first time I've touched a BASIC derivative in decades.)


(I miss PL/I.)

--
JHHL

USB external hard drive -- mounting

[James H. H. Lampert]

Greetings:

I'm in the process of setting up a new server, running Debian Jessie 
8.9, replacing a Windows Server 2003 box (the same physical hardware).


One of the functions of this server is to automatically (via a script 
run from cron) back up data (mostly on other servers, via FTP and SCP) 
from other servers in the network, to a USB external hard drive.


I was pleasantly shocked when the NTFS-formatted USB drive auto-mounted 
as read/write, as soon as I plugged it in, without my having to apt-get 
anything.


So far, I've got one of these auto-backup scripts working, after a 
fashion. But there are problems: because the external drive is currently 
auto-mounted, (1) the location of the drive in the file system is 
dependent on what user was signed on to the Gnome desktop when it 
auto-mounted, and (2) if no user signs on to the Gnome desktop, it 
doesn't get mounted anywhere.


In addition, it mounts as "/media//Seagate Expansion Drive". Not 
only is this a bit of a mouthful when specifying a pathname in a script, 
and dependent on what user is signed on when it auto-mounts; it's also 
dependent on that physical drive (or another self-identifying the same), 
which would make swapping it out for a new drive potentially problematic.


And when it is unmounted, the mountpoint goes away.

I can't even determine *what* is doing the auto-mounting, and the more I 
read, the more confused I get: I see automount; I see usbmount; I see 
pmount; I've barely figured out how to see what packages are installed, 
and nothing jumps out at me as being what's auto-mounting the drive.


Can anybody advise me on how to set this thing up so that if it's 
plugged in, it will mount, to a consistent mountpoint, whether anybody's 
signed on to Gnome or not? And when it's inevitably replaced, its 
replacement will continue to do so?


--
James H. H. Lampert

Re: USB external hard drive -- mounting

[James H. H. Lampert]

On 8/28/17, 4:07 PM, Ben Caradoc-Davies wrote:


I am not sure about the background automounting, but I get consistent
mount points and mount settings with entries like these in /etc/fstab:

LABEL=Backup/media/backup   ext4
noatime,noauto,user,errors=remount-ro   0   0

. . .

The above lines give me fixed mount points based on filesystem labels
(LABEL). . .


That got me started on an idea, even before I undertake anything with 
fstab. Thanks, Mr. Caradoc-Davies.


First, I was able to relabel the drive as a suitably generic 
"ExternalHD," and when I unplugged it and plugged it back in, it mounted 
(albeit still under a user-specific, auto-created mount point) as that 
label.


With the drive automounted, I did a "umount" on it, created a mount 
point for it (directly in /media, and available to everybody, for now, 
at least), and then did a "mount" at the new mount point. It mounted 
successfully in that user-neutral location, and is available to any 
signed-on user.


Of course, if I then unmount it, pull the plug, and plug it back in, 
without an fstab entry, it auto-mounts to a created mount point in the 
user's subdirectory of /media, but at least the mount point I created 
doesn't go bye-bye, so that's a start.


But I still need all the help I can get understanding this.

--
JHHL

Re: USB external hard drive -- mounting

[James H. H. Lampert]

On 8/29/17, 3:58 AM, Frank wrote:

That looks a lot more complicated than the solution I found a couple of
years ago (in a blog posting which - unfortunately - no longer
exists...). I also created a file in /etc/udev/rules.d/, but all it
contains is:

ENV{ID_FS_USAGE}=="filesystem|other|crypto", ENV{UDISKS_FILESYSTEM_SHARED}="1"

(that's one line, in case it gets wrapped).


That seems to have had no effect whatsoever: it still doesn't auto-mount 
until somebody signs on to Gnome, and when it does, it auto-mounts under 
the user's subdirectory of /media, the same as before.

Re: USB external hard drive -- mounting

[James H. H. Lampert]

On 8/29/17, 4:17 AM, Dominique Dumont wrote:

I wrote this blog a while ago for this kind of problem:
https://ddumont.wordpress.com/2016/04/24/automount-usb-devices-with-systemd/


That worked. It mounts on IPL, is available from an ssh session before 
anybody has signed on to Gnome, it mounts (after being unmounted) when 
unplugged and plugged back in, it mounts with a Gnome desktop icon, and 
it mounts as read/write, despite being NTFS. The fstab entries I came up 
with on the first try are:

LABEL=ExternalHD /media/ExternalHD auto defaults,noatime,auto,nofail 0 2
LABEL=ExternalHD /media/ExternalHD auto 
defaults,x-systemd.automount,x-systemd.device-timeout=5,noatime,noauto 0 2


One odd thing, with those two lines in fstab, and a manually-inserted 
mount point of "ExternalHD" in /media, I get this message (I had to 
restart the box about 3 or 4 times in order to write it down verbatim) 
during the IPL process, before the screen blanks and (eventually) the 
Gnome sign-on screen comes up:



Failed to create mount unit file /run/systemd/generator/
media-ExternalHD.mount as it already exists. Duplicate entry in
/etc/fstab?


and also, contrary to the blog post, it doesn't, once unmounted, remount 
when one attempts to access it. None of these issues are of 
earth-shattering importance here, but I'm a bit curious about them.


--
JHHL

Re: USB external hard drive -- mounting

[James H. H. Lampert]

On 8/29/17, 11:59 AM, Dominique Dumont wrote:

Depending on the bahavior you want, you should choose one of the 2 lines, but
not both. I believe the latter triggers the "Duplicate entry" warning .

So if you want your device to be mounted when inserted, choose the line with
defaults,noatime,auto,nofail

If you want the device mounted when the mounted directory is accessed, choose
the line with x-systemd.automount


I see. Ok. That seems reasonable, although even on re-reading the blog 
entry, it still isn't clear (at least to one like me who doesn't often 
dig around in the guts of Linux), that it's an "either/or" situation, 
without your explanation above.


Thanks for getting back to me. In my case, it's the first version.

--
JHHL

Re: USB external hard drive -- mounting

[James H. H. Lampert]

Ok. As it stands now, I have only the "case 1" fstab entry in place, and 
after this line of the backup script:

cd /media/ExternalHD/Backups

I've added these lines:

if [ "$?" = "1" ]; then
  mount /media/ExternalHD
  cd /media/ExternalHD/Backups
fi


which (at least in theory) should mount the external drive if it's 
connected but not mounted.


(And if it doesn't mount, then the backup gets built in the home 
directory instead, which is no big deal, since it's backing up something 
from a separate physical box.)


Tonight, I'll leave ExternalHD connected but unmounted, and tomorrow 
morning, I'll see what will have happened.


Thanks.

On another (but related) note: Zip files

[James H. H. Lampert]

I know that the tradition for Linux is GZipped tarballs, but I also know 
that, at least from the Gnome desktop, I can open a PKZip-compatible Zip 
file, and create a (presumably also) PKZip-compatible Zip file.


I don't, however, see a way to do so from the command line (or within a 
script) without doing an apt-get to install the zip package (and 
presumably also the unzip package).


Can somebody explain this? It seems a bit puzzling.

--
JHHL

Weird shell script behavior in a cron job

[James H. H. Lampert]

Can somebody explain this:

My backup script WILL detect that ExternalHD is not mounted, and attempt 
to mount it, if I run it manually.


But it WON'T do that if it runs in a cron job.

I've isolated the relevant code into its own script, added debugging 
output, and set it up to run every minute. Here's the test script:

#!
date >> ~/test.txt
pwd >> ~/test.txt
cd /media/ExternalHD/Backups
if [ "$?" = "1" ]; then
  echo "mounting" >> ~/test.txt
  mount /media/ExternalHD >> ~/test.txt
  cd /media/ExternalHD/Backups
fi
pwd >> ~/test.txt


Here is what I get when the cron job trips, and ExternalHD is not mounted:

Wed Aug 30 10:49:01 PDT 2017
/root
/root
Wed Aug 30 10:50:01 PDT 2017
/root
/root

. . .

Wed Aug 30 10:55:01 PDT 2017
/root
/root


and here is what I get when I run the script from a command line:

Wed Aug 30 10:55:07 PDT 2017
/root
mounting
/media/ExternalHD/Backups


Why would the behavior be any different? Could it be that cron is 
running it an entirely different shell, that doesn't understand the "if" 
statement? Here's the crontab line:

* * * * *   ~/test.sh


--
JHHL

Re: Weird shell script behavior in a cron job

[James H. H. Lampert]

A few minutes ago, with respect to my backup script attempting to mount 
ExternalHD if run from a command line, but not from cron, I wrote:

Why would the behavior be any different? Could it be that cron is
running it an entirely different shell, that doesn't understand the "if"
statement?


That was it. I added a line to echo $SHELL to my debugging log file, and 
that was it: if I ran it from cron, $SHELL was /bin/sh; if I ran it from 
a command line, $SHELL was /bin/bash.


Changing the shebang from
> #!
to
> #! /bin/bash

did the trick, and when I looked back at the original script, I found a 
shebang of

> #! /bin/sh

which I also changed. High hopes for finding successful test results 
tomorrow morning.


--
JHHL

I just installed "tomcat8" and "tomcat8-admin" on a Debian 8.9 box, via an apt-get

[James H. H. Lampert]

I want to put Tomcat 8.5 on the box I've spent the past week 
configuring. What my apt-get got me was Tomcat 8.0.14.


Can I get Tomcat 8.5 via an apt-get? If so, how?

If not, what's the easiest way to get Tomcat 8.5 up and running as a 
service from an Apache download?


--
JHHL

Re: Weird shell script behavior in a cron job

[James H. H. Lampert]

On 8/31/17, 5:16 AM, Reco wrote:

$ bash -c 'cd foo; echo $?'
bash: line 0: cd: foo: No such file or directory
1

To this:

$ dash -c 'cd foo; echo $?'
dash: 1: cd: can't cd to foo
2


Aha! That's what it was! Thanks!

At any rate, changing the test script's utterly nonspecific shebang 
(that, I gather, essentially just said "this is a script, but you're on 
your own to figure out what interpreter it wants"), and the backup 
script's "#!/bin/sh" shebang both to a "#!/bin/bash" shebang solved the 
problem quite nicely.


And late last night (actually, early this morning), after I'd left the 
box with Gnome signed off and ExternalHD very deliberately unmounted, 
the backup script worked perfectly.


--
JHHL

Re: I just installed "tomcat8" and "tomcat8-admin" on a Debian 8.9 box, via an apt-get

[James H. H. Lampert]

I wrote:

I want to put Tomcat 8.5 on the box I've spent the past week configuring.
What my apt-get got me was Tomcat 8.0.14.
Can I get Tomcat 8.5 via an apt-get? If so, how?


On 8/30/17, 5:04 PM, Nicholas Geovanis wrote:

The apt-cache command says that the backports repository has Tomcat 8.5.14.
My mentally-lazy way to get everything I needed to install it looked as
follows:
apt-get install tomcat8=8.5.14-1~bpo8+1 tomcat8-common=8.5.14-1~bpo8+1
libtomcat8-java=8.5.14-1~bpo8+1 libecj-java=3.11.0-5~bpo8+1


Tried it just now. This is what I got:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
E: Version '8.5.14-1~bpo8+1' for 'tomcat8' was not found
E: Version '8.5.14-1~bpo8+1' for 'tomcat8-common' was not found
E: Version '8.5.14-1~bpo8+1' for 'libtomcat8-java' was not found
E: Version '3.11.0-5~bpo8+1' for 'libecj-java' was not found


Am I doing something wrong?

--
JHHL

How do I get Tomcat 8.5? Re: I just installed "tomcat8" and "tomcat8-admin" on a Debian 8.9 box, via an apt-get

[James H. H. Lampert]

I just now realized that my subject line was not exactly to the point, 
so if you'll pardon a repeat of my post from yesterday:


I wrote:

I want to put Tomcat 8.5 on the box I've spent the past week configuring.
What my apt-get got me was Tomcat 8.0.14.
Can I get Tomcat 8.5 via an apt-get? If so, how?


On 8/30/17, 5:04 PM, Nicholas Geovanis wrote:

The apt-cache command says that the backports repository has Tomcat 8.5.14.
My mentally-lazy way to get everything I needed to install it looked as
follows:
apt-get install tomcat8=8.5.14-1~bpo8+1 tomcat8-common=8.5.14-1~bpo8+1
libtomcat8-java=8.5.14-1~bpo8+1 libecj-java=3.11.0-5~bpo8+1


Tried it just now. This is what I got:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
E: Version '8.5.14-1~bpo8+1' for 'tomcat8' was not found
E: Version '8.5.14-1~bpo8+1' for 'tomcat8-common' was not found
E: Version '8.5.14-1~bpo8+1' for 'libtomcat8-java' was not found
E: Version '3.11.0-5~bpo8+1' for 'libecj-java' was not found


Am I doing something wrong?

--
JHHL

Re: Recommended editor for novice programmers?

[James H. H. Lampert]

On 9/2/17, 7:29 PM, Doug wrote:


There must be something simpler than emacs or vi that will still allow
coding formatting!


Personally, I use nano from a terminal session, or GEdit from a Gnome 
session.


--
JHHL

Re: external USB hard drive mount permissions

[James H. H. Lampert]

On 9/2/17, 6:01 AM, Eduardo M KALINOWSKI wrote:

On 02-09-2017 09:29, Federico Beffa wrote:

I'm using Debian Stretch with Gnome. When I plug-in an external USB
hard drive (ext4) it gets automatically mounted at /media/beffa/label.


but the device is still only writable by root.

How can I tell the system to make it writable for the user owning the
Gnome session


You might also consider adding an FSTAB entry, using a "LABEL=" 
drive-ID, to map it to a mount point of your own choosing.


That's what I ended up doing.

--
JHHL

Strange results with an additional HD -- any idea why?

[James H. H. Lampert]

The box I've been reconfiguring over the past few weeks has a hardware 
RAID controller card, with one mirrored (RAID 1) pair on it at the time 
of installation. Over the weekend, I plugged two more drives into the 
two empty sockets, to create a second mirrored pair, which shows up in 
Linux as "sdb."


Initially, it auto-mounted much the same way the external drive 
auto-mounted. I added this line to fstab, and now it mounts at the 
mountpoint of my own choosing:



/dev/sdb /media/Auxiliary ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 2


Everything seems to work fine, except for two things:

1. Gnome produces a desktop icon for it. Before I added the fstab entry, 
that icon was a picture of a modern hard drive; now, with the fstab 
entry, it is, of all things, a generic *document* icon. (By contrast, my 
USB external drive shows up with the "Merlin disk pack" icon I gave it 
years ago, and I didn't have to do anything new for Linux that I hadn't 
done for WinDoze; I've got both .ico and .png files of that icon on the 
new mirrored pair.)


2. It can be unmounted. I'd rather it not be unmountable.

What can I do about these things?
--
JHHL

Re: I just installed "tomcat8" and "tomcat8-admin" on a Debian 8.9 box, via an apt-get

[James H. H. Lampert]

On 8/31/17, 8:32 PM, david...@freevolt.org wrote:

Have you added the jessie-backports repository to your
/etc/apt/sources.list yet?

There's a how-to for that here, along with other information you might
like to know:

   https://wiki.debian.org/Backports#Using_the_command_line



Thanks, "david...@freevolt.org."

That solved the problem. Both on the local box I'm in the process of 
reconfiguring as a Debian server, and on our Google Cloud server.


And my apologies to the List for my Friday repost of my question after 
it had already been answered: I've got half a dozen lists pouring 
traffic into my work email address, and once in a while, things get 
thrown out by mistake. Just last month, I threw out something from my 
boss (and if I remember right, it was also a direct reply to a question 
I'd asked).


--
JHHL

Re: Strange results with an additional HD -- any idea why?

[James H. H. Lampert]

Oops: Forgot to hit "Reply List" on a reply I'd intended to be public. 
My bad.


Dan Ritter and "deloptes" both advised me to put the "Auxiliary" drive's 
mount point someplace other than /media.


When I finally had a chance to do so late yesterday afternoon, that 
solved the problem.


I never would have imagined that the location of the mount point would 
be the reason.


Thanks to both of you.

--
JHHL

This is weird (cross-posted to Tomcat and Debian Lists): Tomcat 8.5 is going to /var/lib/tomcat7/webapps/ROOT

[James H. H. Lampert]

I've got two separate boxes, both running Debian Jessie, with both 
Tomcat 7.0.56 and Tomcat 8.5.14 installed, all of the installations via 
an apt-get from Debian's repositories.


On one of the boxes (Tomcat 8.5 installed alongside Tomcat 7 with no 
previous Tomcat 8), Tomat 8 is somehow pulling the root context from 
Tomcat 7: the Tomcat 8.5 server is going to 
/var/lib/tomcat7/webapps/ROOT when it should be going to 
/var/lib/tomcat8/webapps/ROOT.


On the other box (Tomcat 8.5 installed on top of Tomcat 8.0, alongside 
Tomcat 7), the Tomcat 8.5 server is correctly finding 
/var/lib/tomcat8/webapps/ROOT.


On both boxes, Tomcat 8.5 is correctly finding its manager context at 
/usr/share/tomcat8-admin/manager, while Tomcat 7 finds its manager 
context at /usr/share/tomcat7-admin/manager.


The only difference is that on the box that's finding the correct root 
context, Tomcat 8.5 was installed on top of Tomcat 8.0, while on the one 
that's finding the wrong root context, it was installed without any 
previous Tomcat 8. In both cases, the installations were alongside 
existing Tomcat 7 installations.


Can anybody point me to the right haystack to find my needle?

--
James H. H. Lampert

Re: This is weird (cross-posted to Tomcat and Debian Lists): Tomcat 8.5 is going to /var/lib/tomcat7/webapps/ROOT

[James H. H. Lampert]

Pete Helgren (on the Tomcat List) wrote:

Longshotsomething in .profile of the user the Tomcat instance is
running under?


Neither the "tomcat7" nor "tomcat8" users have .profile files.

This is interesting. I got rid of the Tomcat 8.5 catalina.out files on 
both boxes (the one where everything works right, and the one where 8.5 
is getting 7's root context) and restarted them, and I got this at the 
tops of both catalina.out files:



WARNING [main] . . . Problem with directory [/var/lib/tomcat8/common/classes], 
exists: [false], isDirectory: [false], canRead: [false]
WARNING [main] . . . Problem with directory [/var/lib/tomcat8/common], exists: 
[false], isDirectory: [false], canRead: [false]
WARNING [main] . . . Problem with directory 
[/usr/share/tomcat8/common/classes], exists: [false], isDirectory: [false], 
canRead: [false]
WARNING [main] . . . Problem with directory [/usr/share/tomcat8/common], 
exists: [false], isDirectory: [false], canRead: [false]
WARNING [main] . . . Problem with directory [/var/lib/tomcat8/server/classes], 
exists: [false], isDirectory: [false], canRead: [false]
WARNING [main] . . . Problem with directory [/var/lib/tomcat8/server], exists: 
[false], isDirectory: [false], canRead: [false]
WARNING [main] . . . Problem with directory 
[/usr/share/tomcat8/server/classes], exists: [false], isDirectory: [false], 
canRead: [false]
WARNING [main] . . . Problem with directory [/usr/share/tomcat8/server], 
exists: [false], isDirectory: [false], canRead: [false]
WARNING [main] . . . Problem with directory [/var/lib/tomcat8/shared/classes], 
exists: [false], isDirectory: [false], canRead: [false]
WARNING [main] . . . Problem with directory [/var/lib/tomcat8/shared], exists: 
[false], isDirectory: [false], canRead: [false]
WARNING [main] . . . Problem with directory 
[/usr/share/tomcat8/shared/classes], exists: [false], isDirectory: [false], 
canRead: [false]
WARNING [main] . . . Problem with directory [/usr/share/tomcat8/shared], 
exists: [false], isDirectory: [false], canRead: [false]


On both boxes, according to catalina.out, CATALINA_BASE is 
/var/lib/tomcat8 and CATALINA_HOME is /usr/share/tomcat8.


Then I get a bunch of stack traces. I'll omit the stack traces 
themselves for the sake of brevity, and give just the error messages:

 java.io.FileNotFoundException: /usr/share/java/el-api-3.0.jar (No such file or 
directory)
 java.io.FileNotFoundException: /usr/share/java/jsp-api-2.3.jar (No such file 
or directory)
 java.io.FileNotFoundException: /usr/share/java/el-api-3.0.jar (No such file or 
directory)
 java.io.FileNotFoundException: /usr/share/java/jsp-api-2.3.jar (No such file 
or directory)
 java.io.FileNotFoundException: /usr/share/java/el-api-3.0.jar (No such file or 
directory)
 java.io.FileNotFoundException: /usr/share/java/jsp-api-2.3.jar (No such file 
or directory)
and so forth, alternating back and forth between those two jar files 
several times.


I'm still stumped. None of the configuration or log files I've looked in 
so far appear to have any references to anything in tomcat7.


--
JHHL

More, Re: This is weird (cross-posted to Tomcat and Debian Lists): Tomcat 8.5 is going to /var/lib/tomcat7/webapps/ROOT

[James H. H. Lampert]

Just for grins, I put a trivial static context (nothing more than a 
directory containing a simple "index.html" file) into 
/var/lib/tomcat8/webapps. Tomcat 8.5 found it. So it's only the root 
context that's somehow getting redirected.


But on the other hand, if I rename var/lib/tomcat7/webapps/ROOT to 
"ROOTx," Tomcat 8.5 STILL finds that one (or at least its index.html).


Curiouser and curiouser.

If I remember right, Linux file systems can have not only symbolic links 
to files, but also multiple hard links to the same file. Is there an 
easy way to look for something like that?


--
James H. H. Lampert

Still more, Re: This is weird (cross-posted to Tomcat and Debian Lists): Tomcat 8.5 is going to /var/lib/tomcat7/webapps/ROOT

[James H. H. Lampert]

I also stuck a similar named trivial static context into 
/var/lib/tomcat7/webapps (with a different directory name: "foobar" in 
Tomcat 8, "bozbar" in Tomcat 7).


In theory, Tomcat 8.5 should be able to see the foobar context, but not 
the bozbar context; this is also true in practice.


So it's something specific to the root context.

--
James H. H. Lampert

Actually, it was STUPID, not weird (cross-posted to Tomcat and Debian Lists): my BROWSER CACHES never got flushed!

[James H. H. Lampert]

I really can't believe I didn't think about the possibility that my 
browsers were both still caching the default root context from Tomcat 7 
when I did the port swap.


I definitely need to always remember to consider the possibility that 
I'm doing something stupid.


--
JHHL

Icons for mount points (Continuing with configuring our "new" Debian server

[James H. H. Lampert]

About a week and a half ago, acting on recommendations from a couple of 
List members, I moved the mount point for the "Auxiliary" mirrored pair 
I added from "Media" to the file system root, and it works quite nicely.


But a question: I'd like that mount point to show up in Gnome as 
something other than a generic folder icon. Specifically, as an icon I 
use generally for disk volumes in both Linux and Mac OS X, a photograph 
of a 1970s-era removable disk pack, stored in its pack cover (not sure 
if the picture I found is of a pack to fit an IBM "Merlin" drive, but 
it's the same general size and shape).


When I plug that icon into the mount-point folder's properties, it shows 
up as a disk pack. Until the system is rebooted. After a reboot, the 
mount point shows up as a generic document icon (the very last thing I 
would want a mount point to look like!)


What am I doing wrong?

--
JHHL
(In no great hurry for an answer, as I'm going to be on vacation for two 
weeks, but I will be checking my email, and even though I'll be unable 
to actually *try* anything anybody suggests, I'll certainly be *looking* 
at any replies, and acknowledging them.)

Re: Icons for mount points (Continuing with configuring our "new" Debian server

[James H. H. Lampert]

About a week and a half before I went on my fall vacation, acting on
recommendations from a couple of List members, I moved the mount point
for the "Auxiliary" mirrored pair I added from "Media" to the file
system root, and it works quite nicely.

Just before my vacation, I asked a question about an issue that 
developed when I did that:



I'd like that mount point to show up in Gnome as
something other than a generic folder icon.

. . .

When I plug [my] icon into the mount-point folder's properties, it
shows up . . . . Until the system is rebooted. After a reboot, the
mount point shows up as a generic document icon (the very last thing
I would want a mount point to look like!)

What am I doing wrong?



--
JHHL

Gnome desktop almost totally unresponsive in Jessie

[James H. H. Lampert]

I've got a small problem. On our local Jessie box, the Tomcat and Apache 
web servers both seem responsive enough, and I likewise have no trouble 
getting and using an SSH session remotely (except that the "find" 
command is extremely slow).


But the Gnome desktop has become almost totally unresponsive.

I'd rather not restart the box. Any advice on how to deal with this 
without restarting the box?


--
JHHL

Re: Gnome desktop almost totally unresponsive in Jessie

[James H. H. Lampert]

On 11/8/17, 10:55 AM, Roberto C. Sánchez wrote:

The output of 'ps aux', 'iostat', and 'free -m' would help identify the

problem.  Also, 'cat /proc/mdstat' if you have a RAID setup.

. . .

After a mostly-off-List discussion with Mr. Sanchez, I gave up and did a 
"shutdown -r" on the system.


After a re-IPL, Gnome was back to gnormal, and everything else was back 
up as well.


It's not like it's an AS/400, or even a state-of-the-art Linux box, 
that's designed to run for years at a time without an IPL -- it's an old 
Dell PowerEdge 400SC.


And I'd forgotten: it DOES have RAID: a hardware RAID controller with 
two mirrored pairs on it.


No sign of damage to the mirrored pairs, but a full cold-start might be 
necessary to be sure of that, if not an actual controller-level diagnostic.


--
JHHL

Re: Embarrassing security bug in systemd

[James H. H. Lampert]

On 12/6/17, 2:53 PM, Michael Lange wrote:

uh, I guess you ought to have used your time to check your machine and
read some docs instead of figuring out how to best insult the debian
developers ;)
(scnr)


Now, now, you walk up to the physical console on an AS/400, you're not 
going to be able to do a PWRDWNSYS from a sign-on screen, nor can do it 
if signed on as a user who doesn't have sufficient authority to do a 
PWRDWNSYS. And you might be physically locked out of the front panel. 
It's even possible that you might be physically interdicted from 
unplugging the box, or shutting it down from the circuit breaker panel.


Not every OS assumes by default that anybody with physical access to the 
hardware also has the authority to shut it down.


;-p

(And likewise, accounts, including QSECOFR [the closest OS/400 
equivalent to root] can be restricted to certain physical terminals.)


--
JHHL

Re: Rust? (and a wordsmithing question)

[James H. H. Lampert]

On 12/11/17, 7:04 AM, Joe wrote:

The rigid platters of IBM cartridges and packs (the things you see in
computer rooms in films) did have brown oxide coatings. The surface of
each 12 inch platter side stored a magnificent 2.5MB, or at least the
version I used did. It was used in a system with an embedded DG Nova,
and a competitive product of the time used the modern 8 inch floppy
discs...


The student timeshare systems my high school used (running the McGill 
University MUSIC operating system) while I was a student there (an IBM 
370/135 at the District Office) and shortly after I graduated (an 
on-site IBM 4341) used Merlin drives.






Artist's conception, with a drive open, at



Typical pack, in pack-cover, at



The only time I saw one open was on the 4341 (I was working a summer job 
at the school), when a power failure caused the emergency retract 
mechanism to jam, and we had to get a technician out (from CDC!) to 
unjam the heads.


The 4341, at least, also had an 8" floppy drive, buried inside the CPU 
cabinet.


--
JHHL

Re: Rust? (and a wordsmithing question)

[James H. H. Lampert]

I wrote:

The student timeshare systems my high school used (running the
McGill University MUSIC operating system) while I was a student
there (an IBM 370/135 at the District Office) and shortly after I
graduated (an on-site IBM 4341) used Merlin drives.


to which Tomas replied:

Those times, high schools and unis built their own OSes. These day
they even outsource "programming" web pages. Way to go :-(


McGill MUSIC still exists, actually.

http://webpages.mcgill.ca/staff/group3/dedwar1/web/msi/musicsp.htm

--
JHHL

Re: Acer Monitors

[James H. H. Lampert]

On 10/18/23 5:09 AM, Stephen P. Molnar wrote:
. . .

I'd be interested in hearing any comments from users of Acer products.


I have a pair of their VL270U monitors hooked up to my work Mac Mini. 
The biggest challenge I had was building a "portrait mode" stand for one 
of them. They've been working quite well over the months they've been in 
service.


--
JHHL

Re: dedicated IP

[James H. H. Lampert]

On 11/27/23 1:59 PM, Maureen L Thomas wrote:
I would like some advice.  I have been offered a dedicated IP through 
NORD.  Is it worth it or is it not needed?  Pros and cons would be very 
helpful.  Thank you.


Assuming you mean a static IP address:

Useful if you need to self-host something (assuming outsiders are even 
able to get in).


Also useful on both ends, if you have customers for whom you need to 
regularly get direct terminal access: having a static IP address at 
their end makes it easy for you to reach their box, and having one at 
your end makes it easy for them to allow you in, while keeping the rest 
of the world out.


--
JHHL

Re: Mouse single click handling?

[James H. H. Lampert]

On 12/20/23 11:30 AM, Jeremy Nicoll wrote:

Until about a year ago my experience with Logitech mice had been
good.  Those that had died normally did so after falling off a desk,
which I don't really see as a manufacturing fault.

But since then several I've bought have all failed with the problem of
LMB sending double-clicks when pressed once.  That includes two
separate "Pebble" mice.


I've also been sticking with Logitech mice for many years. Specifically, 
M100/B100/M110, &c.


But my brand-loyalty has been eroding, because they've been cheapening 
their product. In particular, it wasn't that long ago that, without 
changing the model number, or making any public announcement, they 
pulled support for PS/2 (and therefore for passive PS/2 adapters) from 
what had been, up until then, dual-mode mice. Not a major problem for 
Linux, running on current hardware, but a *very* major problem for me, 
because I also run DOS (IBM PC/DOS 2000, with no WinDoze whatsoever) on 
antique hardware.


Fortunately, I live and work near what can only be described as a 
computer junk shop, where finding antique hardware, some of it still 
new-in-box, is not terribly difficult.


But I can definitely confirm that Logitech is NOT making mice like they 
used to.


If only Unicomp made a mouse as good as their keyboards . . . .

--
James H. H. Lampert

Re: Mouse single click handling?

[James H. H. Lampert]

On 12/20/23 1:06 PM, Cindy Sue Causey wrote:

I finally switched tactics last year and tried gaming mice. I thought
about the way they're used. It's comparable to how much I click for
emails and research related to ongoing Life.. shtuff.


The main reason why I avoid gaming mice is because they tend to be 
loaded down with unnecessary bells and whistles.


Again, if only Unicomp offered mice that were built like their 
keyboards. . . .


--
JHHL

Re: Home UPS recommendations

[James H. H. Lampert]

I, too, have always used APC.

I've heard people swear by APC, and I've heard people swear *at* APC. 
I've had reason to do both, myself (and I won't elaborate on either).


--
James H. H. Lampert