[sf-lug] sf-lug Digest, Vol 23, Issue 49

Alex Kleider a_kleider at yahoo.com
Wed Oct 24 20:08:35 PDT 2007


Thanks to all of you for your replies:
Christian: I know about the command line/virtual terminals- 
small correction: you need Ctl-Alt-Fn (n=1-5or6) to get out of the gui
but only Alt-F7 to get back in. Whether n=5or6 depends on whether init
starts X or you do (as on some of my machines do I) startx from one of
the virtual terminals: I always use F6 because it's close to F7 and I
always use F5 for root loggins just to be consistent.

I certainly know of vi and having started to dabble a little in sed and
awk have even thought of learning some of the commands but there seem
to be never enough hours in a day, days in a week, and more
frighteningly, probably not enough weeks left in my life. And by the
time I'm rich enough to retire I'll probably be too stupid to learn
anything.

And, yes, I have come to enjoy the humour (notice the "Queen's English
spelling) beginning with the GNU recursive acronym.

Oh, and one other thing: trying to install jpilot- that was successful
but when trying to syc with the device I get  an error because of
inability to find /dev/pilot.    What to do?

--- sf-lug-request at linuxmafia.com wrote:

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> Today's Topics:
> 
>    1. Re: Gutsy again (Christian Einfeldt)
>    2. SF-LUG domain runthrough (part 2 of 2) (Rick Moen)
>    3. (no subject) (jim stockford)
>    4. FWIW and :r! dig -t ns sf-lug.com (Alex Kleider)
>    5. old processors and kernel optimization for them	(continuation
>       of questions re ThinkPad P266 (Alex Kleider)
>    6. Re: old processors and kernel optimization for them
>       (continuation of questions re ThinkPad P266 (Asheesh Laroia)
>    7. Re: FWIW and :r! dig -t ns sf-lug.com (Rick Moen)
>    8. Re: FWIW and :r! dig -t ns sf-lug.com (Christian Einfeldt)
> 
> 
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2007 13:27:44 -0700
> From: "Christian Einfeldt" <einfeldt at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [sf-lug] Gutsy again
> To: "Sameer Verma" <sverma at sfsu.edu>
> Cc: SFLUG Mailing List <sf-lug at linuxmafia.com>
> Message-ID:
> 	<4b5781040710241327v387b8b4an9ca44a0b63c2c18d at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
> 
> hi
> 
> Okay, it turned out to be an absence of leechers after all.  Here is
> my post
> to the forum below:
> 
> Ain't that amazing?  It was actually an absence of leechers!!  I
> would have
> never thought that there could be an absence of leechers for Gutsy
> this
> earyl in its development, but it's true!  When I left the computer
> yesterday
> afternoon at about 5 pm, there simply where no leechers.  At that
> point, the
> amount of uploads equaled 10.3 MB.  When I came back this morning,
> that
> number had increased to 100 MB uploaded!!  So there must have been a
> lot of
> leachers in the European time zone, because they are active when we
> are
> asleep here in San Francisco, California.
> 
> So thanks for your answer.  I guess the lesson that we have learned
> here  is
> that the problem is, in fact, the absence of leechers, and not with
> openSUSE
> 10.2.  So as long as you check the box to allow seeding after
> download is
> complete, you will continue seeding.  And ain't that a hoot!  I
> really think
> that it is great that I am helping to distribute Free Software,
> simply by
> leaving that box running.  Heh.
> 
> On 10/23/07, Christian Einfeldt <einfeldt at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > hi
> >
> > On 10/23/07, Sameer Verma <sverma at sfsu.edu> wrote:
> > >
> > > I have a copy. I'm on campus until 6pm. I can leave you a copy
> taped to
> > > my door if you can come by and pick it up. 415-338-7016
> > >
> >
> > Thanks, Sameer, I was able to get a clean burn through ktorrent,
> although
> > I had an issue with ktorrent shutting off seeding, as I described
> here:
> >
> > http://ktorrent.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t53&highlight=seeding
> >
> > I''m not sure if it is a lack of leechers, which is my current
> theory,
> > albeit a shakey one.  I can't imagine that there is a lack of
> leechers for
> > Gutsy this early in Gutsy's life.  I am leaving openSUSE running to
> see if
> > we get any leechers.
> >
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Christian Einfeldt,
> Producer, The Digital Tipping Point
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> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 2
> Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2007 13:57:54 -0700
> From: Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com>
> Subject: [sf-lug] SF-LUG domain runthrough (part 2 of 2)
> To: sf-lug at linuxmafia.com
> Message-ID: <20071024205753.GE26420 at linuxmafia.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
> 
> [Moving from a parallel thread in private mail.]
> 
> Quoting Lx Rudis (lx_rudis at sbcglobal.net):
> 
> > thank you, rick.  very interesting!
> 
> Yr. very welcome.  Not a complaint, and no _huge_ hurry, but I did
> mean
> it when I said to please increase the zonefile's "60" value in the
> SOA
> header, ASAP -- specifically to reduce the loading of my DSL line, 
> since ns2.sf-lug.com _is_, after all, my nameserver running in my
> garage.
> 
> However, I'm obliged to correct what I said about the name of that
> field:  
> 
> That field _used_ to be where "minimum TTL" (aka "default TTL") was
> specified in zonefiles.  That's not what it's used for, any more.  My
> apologies for confusingly using the old name.   These days (since the
> late 1990s), most DNS includes "negative TTL" caching -- caching of
> the
> fact that a DNS reference record (hostname or whatever) was
> unresolvable.  And the timeout period for "negative time to live" is
> what's now stored in that SOA field.
> 
> My own zonefile for linuxmafia.com has comments on most elements of
> the
> SOA record, just to remind me what they're for:
> 
> $TTL 86400
> $ORIGIN linuxmafia.COM.
> @       IN      SOA     ns1.linuxmafia.COM.  rick.deirdre.NET. (
>                         2006112700              ; serial
>                         7200                    ; refresh 2 hours
>                         3600                    ; retry 1 hour
>                         2419200                 ; expire 28 days
>                         259200                  ; negative TTL 3 days
>                         )               
> 
> Notice the "259200 seconds" = 3 days in the "negative TTL" value
> position:  That's where, by contrast, you have 60 seconds.  You 
> need to fix that -- to something like 1-3 hours.
> 
> 
> RFC2308 comments:
> 
>    Negative caching is useful as it reduces the response time for
>    negative answers.  It also reduces the number of messages that
> have
>    to be sent between resolvers and name servers hence overall
> network
>    traffic.  A large proportion of DNS traffic on the Internet could
> be
>    eliminated if all resolvers implemented negative caching.  With
> this
>    in mind negative caching should no longer be seen as an optional
> part
>    of a DNS resolver.
> 
> Section 4 explains the 1998 repurposing of the old "minimum TTL"
> field:
> 
>    SOA Minimum Field
> 
>    The SOA minimum field has been overloaded in the past to have
> three
>    different meanings, the minimum TTL value of all RRs in a zone,
> the
>    default TTL of RRs which did not contain a TTL value and the TTL
> of
>    negative responses.
> 
>    Despite being the original defined meaning, the first of these,
> the
>    minimum TTL value of all RRs in a zone, has never in practice been
>    used and is hereby deprecated.
> 
>    The second, the default TTL of RRs which contain no explicit TTL
> in
>    the master zone file, is relevant only at the primary server. 
> After
>    a zone transfer all RRs have explicit TTLs and it is impossible to
>    determine whether the TTL for a record was explicitly set or
> derived
>    from the default after a zone transfer.  Where a server does not
>    require RRs to include the TTL value explicitly, it should provide
> a
>    mechanism, not being the value of the MINIMUM field of the SOA
>    record, from which the missing TTL values are obtained.  How this
> is
>    done is implementation dependent.
> 
>    The Master File format [RFC 1035 Section 5] is extended to include
>    the following directive:
> 
>                            $TTL <TTL> [comment]
> 
>    All resource records appearing after the directive, and which do
> not
>    explicitly include a TTL value, have their TTL set to the TTL
> given
>    in the $TTL directive.  SIG records without a explicit TTL get
> their
>    TTL from the "original TTL" of the SIG record [RFC 2065 Section
> 4.5].
> 
>    The remaining of the current meanings, of being the TTL to be used
>    for negative responses, is the new defined meaning of the SOA
> minimum
>    field.
> 
> Section 5 has:
> 
>    As with caching positive responses it is sensible for a resolver
> to
>    limit for how long it will cache a negative response as the
> protocol
>    supports caching for up to 68 years.  Such a limit should not be
>    greater than that applied to positive answers and preferably be
>    tunable.  Values of one to three hours have been found to work
> well
>    and would make sensible a default.  Values exceeding one day have
>    been found to be problematic.
> 
> I have personally _not_ found a value of three days to be
> problematic,
> but will ponder the matter again -- because that might be too high.
> Anyhow, defaulting to the RFC recommendation (1-3 hours) is a good
> place
> to start.
> 
> Note the "$TTL 86400" at the top of my zonefile:  That's the _new_ 
> place that "minimum TTL" gets specified.
> 
> Again, sorry about getting the name and purpose of that field wrong.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 3
> Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2007 15:31:31 -0700
> From: jim stockford <jim at well.com>
> Subject: [sf-lug] (no subject)
> To: "Christian Einfeldt" <einfeldt at gmail.com>
> Cc: SFLUG Mailing List <sf-lug at linuxmafia.com>
> Message-ID: <cf64a4cd5514cab31502c49eb94095c9 at well.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed
> 
> 
> christian,
>     would you describe, briefly, what you need for
> storage for Digital Tipping Point? Mainly, can you
> figure out how to work with a few hundred Gigabytes
> of some storage that's internet accessible? For
> example, maybe upload the stuff you're currently
> working on and/or the positively to-be-used stuff
> and keep not-yet-edited and not-to-be-used stuff
> elsewhere.
>     just out of curiosity, where is your stuff stored now?
> on tapes?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 4
> Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2007 17:48:42 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Alex Kleider <a_kleider at yahoo.com>
> Subject: [sf-lug] FWIW and :r! dig -t ns sf-lug.com
> To: Linux userGroup <sf-lug at linuxmafia.com>
> Message-ID: <607659.80990.qm at web36601.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
> 
> for what does 
> FWIW
> stand
> and 
> what is ment by
> :r!
> ????
> Rick, you used the former in answer to some of my queries and it made
> me curious since the context was such that I would have expected FYI.
> ..................
> as I type this it has suddenly dawned on me that it must be
> for what it's worth....
> 
> The other, ":r!", used in your comments re the DNS data files is
> still
> a mystery that I'm unlikely to solve by just looking at it long
> enough.
> I've read a lot about DNS and don't remember ever seeing anything
> like
> that. I appears to be a prompt but not the usual $ or # or even >
> 
> 
> alex at kleider.net
> 
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
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> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 5
> Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2007 18:03:38 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Alex Kleider <a_kleider at yahoo.com>
> Subject: [sf-lug] old processors and kernel optimization for them
> 	(continuation of questions re ThinkPad P266
> To: Linux userGroup <sf-lug at linuxmafia.com>
> Message-ID: <984453.8331.qm at web36605.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
> 
> Rick:
> You've been great helping me and again I'm very gratefull.
> A few follow up comments and questions if I may.
> I did open the "back door" to the "SODIMM" bays and have had the
> memory
> out for inspection. Trying to count the number of contacts was a
> serious test of my vision! We have new maxed out "sticks" on their
> way
> for $17 each so it is being done as you advised. (savings of ~$150
> compared to the computer shop, I thought the shop would be more
> expensive but never dreamed it would be that much of a ripoff)
> I now understand perfectly about the kernel chick&egg problem.
> You mention that Mandriva as an example of a distro that is
> downloadable in both i586 (what I'd need) as well as i686 versions.
> I'll check out if I can find such a download. If there are others of
> which you know please mention them. (always good to have a backup.)
> I have yet to try what you suggested (locate plugins +/- updatedb)to
> get flashplayer installed: hope to get to it soon. 
> Thanks again, Rick
> 
> 
> alex at kleider.net
> 
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
> http://mail.yahoo.com 
> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 6
> Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2007 18:10:38 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Asheesh Laroia <asheesh at asheesh.org>
> Subject: Re: [sf-lug] old processors and kernel optimization for them
> 	(continuation of questions re ThinkPad P266
> To: Linux userGroup <sf-lug at linuxmafia.com>
> Message-ID:
> 	<alpine.DEB.0.9999.0710241808470.23137 at dell.linuxdev.us.dell.com>
> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed
> 
> On Wed, 24 Oct 2007, Alex Kleider wrote:
> 
> > Rick:
> > You've been great helping me and again I'm very gratefull.
> > A few follow up comments and questions if I may.
> > I did open the "back door" to the "SODIMM" bays and have had the
> memory
> > out for inspection. Trying to count the number of contacts was a
> > serious test of my vision! We have new maxed out "sticks" on their
> way
> > for $17 each so it is being done as you advised.
> 
> Glad you worked that out!
> 
> > I now understand perfectly about the kernel chick&egg problem.
> > You mention that Mandriva as an example of a distro that is
> > downloadable in both i586 (what I'd need) as well as i686 versions.
> > I'll check out if I can find such a download. If there are others
> of
> > which you know please mention them. (always good to have a backup.)
> > I have yet to try what you suggested (locate plugins +/-
> updatedb)to
> > get flashplayer installed: hope to get to it soon.
> 
> I would also suggest Xubuntu or Ubuntu - way more full-featured than
> DSL, 
> and I personally prefer Ubuntu to Mandriva (it's been years since I
> ran 
> Mandrake though)!
> 
> -- Asheesh.
> 
> --
> Life is difficult because it is non-linear.
> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 7
> Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2007 19:00:55 -0700
> From: Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com>
> Subject: Re: [sf-lug] FWIW and :r! dig -t ns sf-lug.com
> To: sf-lug at linuxmafia.com
> Message-ID: <20071025020055.GG4816 at linuxmafia.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
> 
> Quoting Alex Kleider (a_kleider at yahoo.com):
> 
> > for what does 
> > FWIW
> > stand
> 
> "For What[ever] It's Worth".
> 
> > and 
> > what is ment by
> > :r!
> > ????
> 
> Meaningful to anyone who knows the "vi" editor.  ;->  (I was implying
> that I was writing that message in vi, which was indeed the case.)
> 
> The ":" charcter in this context means "I'm telling the copy of vi in
> which I'm composing this message to run a command."
> 
> The "r" character in this context means "The particular command I'm
> telling vi to carry out is to read a file into the current vi edit
> buffer."
> 
> The "!" character in this context means "...and the particular file
> to 
> be read into the current vi edit buffer is a command whose output is 
> to be considered to _be_ that file."
> 
> So, when I include in a message
> 
> :r! dig -t ns sf-lug.com
> 
> ...and follow that with some command output, I mean "here on the
> following line is the parsed-into-my-message output of performing the
> 
> command string "dig -t ns sf-lug.com".
> 
> As an example, here's the result of running the vi command ":r!
> date":
> Wed Oct 24 18:46:52 PDT 2007
> 
> Sometimes, people also insert pseudo-commands (as if they'd not been
> processed) for humourous effect, e.g., the ctrl-W command that in
> many
> editors means "delete preceding word".  Earlier today, in fact, I
> wrote:
> 
>   Article goes on to detail the misleading, labyrinthine, and
> extremely
>   cheeky Terms of Service -- which, author Larry Seltzer points out,
> signs
>   over to Tagged, Inc. the right to harvest e-mail addresses from the
>   victim^Wcustomer's address book and use it for any purpose.
> 
> 
> > Rick, you used the former in answer to some of my queries and it
> made
> > me curious since the context was such that I would have expected
> FYI.
> > ..................
> > as I type this it has suddenly dawned on me that it must be
> > for what it's worth....
> 
> There ya go.
> 
> Can you guess about "IMVAO"?  ;->
> 
> (I'm teasing.  That's not a serious question.)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 8
> Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2007 19:19:21 -0700
> From: "Christian Einfeldt" <einfeldt at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [sf-lug] FWIW and :r! dig -t ns sf-lug.com
> To: "Rick Moen" <rick at linuxmafia.com>
> Cc: sf-lug at linuxmafia.com,	Daniel Gimpelevich
> 	<daniel at gimpelevich.san-francisco.ca.us>,	Alex Kleider
> 	<a_kleider at yahoo.com>
> Message-ID:
> 	<4b5781040710241919o2c10a7efqb74cd8092d047dd5 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
> 
> Hi Alex,
> 
> On 10/24/07, Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > > and
> > > what is ment by
> > > :r!
> > > ????
> >
> > Meaningful to anyone who knows the "vi" editor.  ;->
> >
> 
> Alex, I feel your pain, here, as Clinton said.  I didn't know what
> that
> meant either.  Hanging out on a list like this is good for your
> brain,
> because you will learn stuff through osmosis.  vi is an important
> text
> editor because it is really old and because it can run in a virtual
> shell. A
> virtual shell is important, because sometimes the eye candy that runs
> on top
> of Linux can get goobered up and locked and stalled, but Linux is
> still
> humming away happily underneath.  If your keyboard is responsive,
> sometimes
> you can get rid of the programs that are causing your computer to
> freeze up,
> without having to reboot the computer, which is a really useful tool.
> 
> So try depressing your cntrl and alt keys at the same time, and then
> touch
> the F3 key.  Your screen will go black, and you will get the virtual
> shell.
> You will be asked for a login, which means you can enter the same
> user name
> and password that you used to get into GNOME or KDE.  (I seem to
> recall you
> use GNOME on your desktop).  Don't worry, your GNOME programs are all
> still
> functioning; you just can't see them.  To bet back to your GNOME
> programs,
> you just have to depress your cntrl and alt keys again, and hit the
> F7 key,
> and boom, you are back as if nothing changed.
> 
> When you are in the virtual shell, you can do lots of important and
> useful
> stuff, such as kill runaway processes (locked programs), as well as
> use the
> vi editor.  (To pronounce vi, say "vee eye").  For example, I'm
> pretty sure
> that I say Daniel Gimpelevich, another SF Linux user, use vi to help
> another
> new user, Charles Francis, solve a problem that Charles was having
> with a
> fancy video card.  I *think* that Daniel used vi to edit a config
> file for
> the monitor or for the card or something like that. It was really
> fast and
> snappy, and boom, Daniel solved that problem quickly.
> 
> In other words, the power of vi is that it lets you solve really deep
> problems when all of the GNOME programs are just too locked up to
> solve the
> problems.  The other thing that is powerful about vi is that it is
> useful
> with all or nearly all Linux programs.  Once you learn it, you don't
> have to
> worry about what you are going to do if your X quits or locks.
> 
> Learning vi is really hard, though.  I tried a little bit, and it
> really
> kicked my ass.  heh.
> 
> Thanks for asking that question.  I didn't know what it was either.
> 
> see ya
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> 
> _______________________________________________
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> 
> End of sf-lug Digest, Vol 23, Issue 49
> **************************************
> 


alex at kleider.net

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