[sf-lug] updates Re: SF-LUG Sunday March 3, 2019 meeting notice

[Bobbie Sellers]

On 3/2/19 9:44 AM, Rick Moen wrote:
> Quoting Bobbie Sellers (bliss-sf4ever at dslextreme.com):
>
>>      I mention a lot of stuff from Distrowatch because it is handy
>> for me but I do not mention a
>> lot of stuff and I do not mention some things that I get for purely
>> investigational reasons.
> Sure, makes sense.  I certainly wasn't trying to get you to justify
> anything.  ;->  I just happened to notice that the distros you recently
> announced being added to your collection happened to be an exact match
> for the latest release-news items on DistroWatch.
>
> I'm fond of DistroWatch, too.  IMO, it's not as vital a resource to the
> Linux communty as LWN.net, but still very worth following.

>
> At the same time, it's important to note that DistroWatch covers quite a
> lot of distros that are rooted in very ill-advised ideas, some that are
> obviously doomed vanity projects, some that are incredibly specialised
> and that most people should stay far away from, and many other weird
> variations (part of its charm, one might say).
>
> I've recently been re-pondering the above matter a bit because of time
> I've spent re-building CABAL's distro collection, as I've mentioend
> before.  (By the way, I'm hoping to drop by Sunday's SF-LUG meeting with
> the collection, which is housed on an external USB hard drive formwatted
> as FAT32 so that any of its contents can be copied off onto _anyone's_
> computer or written to a user's flash drive, etc.).  So, you among
> others are welcome to grab anything you want from the collection.)

     I think I will want the alternative Debian iso files.
> Pondering about the CABAL library refocussed my attention on
> longstanding points of pain such as ISOs omitting non-free firmware
> BLOBs needed to make wireless or ethernet drivers work.  Thus, on
> reflection, I ended up discarding all of the ISOs I'd downloaded of
> Official Debian and replacing them with the corresponding unofficial
> ISOs that are exactly the same thing except with the firmware files
> merged in.
>         
> I mention that example for a reason:  In my opinion, LUGs have very
> often served users poorly by not bothering to provide guidance to
> newcomers in these matters.  I've seen the way it works:  Users
> default to a state of nervous avoidance of the unknown, so they assume
> official must be way better than unofficial, and so walk away from a LUG
> meeting with an Official Debian installer that is going to be
> gratuitously difficult to install on their hardware -- solely because
> nobody at the LUG took a moment to say 'No, really, you should use the
> unofficial ISOs version unless you're very certain you won't have
> hardware driver problems, and here's why....'

     Well... Guilty!
>
> Likewise, we at the LUGs often have failed to help users who have
> absolutely no idea about vital aspects of their hardware (such as, first
> and foremost, total RAM) -- or, worse, think they know but 'know'
> something completely wrong.  When people arrive with a Pentium IV
> with 1GB of RAM, they really ought to be steered away from GNOME, KDE,
> and even XFCE -- but also at the same time told they can do better than
> microdistributions like Tiny Core Linux or antiX.

     AntiX is not exactly a micro-distribution.

     But I got KDE to run on a 700 MegaHertz Coppermine back in the day 
with 384 megabytes of ram
and 8 megabytes of video ram.  Mandriva 2009.1
>
> Basically, I have typical American-mentality problem:  I desperately
> want to believe in progress.  Therefore, when I see LUGs continue to
> fail to help people, and instead following the old hardcore nerd adage
> of 'giving them what they asked for, good and hard', it makes me sad.

     Some of the users I  see make me sad because they think they know 
it all
and will not listen to sensible advice gained by somewhat painful 
experience.
>
>
>> I will not be downloading Linux from Scratch as it is now totally
>> about putting a systemd
>> variation on disk.
> Happily, I'm pretty sure you are misreading that.  My understanding is
> that version 8.4 of both LFS and BLFS are available in either SysVInit
> or systemd flavours.

     I hope you are correct but Distrowatch is only advertising two 
versions both marked as systemd.
     I believe I do have earlier versions where systemd was not so 
prominently mentioned,
>
> But, again, it's my hope that LUGs will step up to the plate in ways
> they should have done for decades and have mostly failed -- in this case
> carefully advising anyone expressing interest in LFS/BLFS that it's a
> very worthwhile learning project that would keep you busy for a month or
> two, where you follow instructions in a long book to build up a Linux
> system the hard way, by compiling each piece, BUT the end-result makes
> absolutely no sense as a production Linux system, e.g., there is no
> sensible way to subsequently maintain it.  Therefore, by all means run
> through the book if you want to learn about Linux distributions piece by
> piece through the computerist equivalent of carpentry, but please do not
> expect to use this as an ongoing computer system.

     The problem is that experienced users tend to shun LUG meetings 
which was not the case when
I joined the LUG meeting at JavaCat cafe back in the mid-2000s. Some 
have died, some have
suffered in the late Recession, some had to move to find work and some 
San Franciscans cashed
out there property and went elsewhere.   Others doubtless find talking 
about the problems
of newer users boring.

>     I don't know about 10.04 as I do not believe I have ever
> written about that.
>      My typo or yours?
> Mine.  I meant 18.04 LTS (which was what you'd discussed people avoiding
> and instead using the prior and increasingly antique LTS).
>
>> 18.04.x on the other hand has plenty of mention in the connected
>> equivalent of the LUG, the online Ubuntu  Users forum and those who
>> could overcome a problem posted a few things to the Usenet newsgroup,
>> alt.os.linux.ubuntu which I follow.  A fresh problem with a provider
>> who is moving to 18.04 is mentioned today by a user.  It is because of
>> updates to the libraries it uses.
> In my experience, the problem with Ubuntu-specific forums, including
> https://ubuntuforums.org/ and alt.os.linux.ubuntu, is that a high
> percentage of what gets said there is pretty much wrong, and they
> produce a great deal of really bad advice.

     There always seems to be a few people who have experienced similar 
problems and have
a solution, sometimes now obsolete.
>
> Just so I don't seem like I'm just totally dumping on the Ubuntu user
> community, this problem isn't unique to its forums, just worse than in
> most places.  For example, on the Devuan Project's main mailing list
> Dng, recently there's been a long thread by someone claiming that the
> newest version of the OpenDKIM package is now non-functional because it
> now depends on systemd.  A fair amount of time got lost until wiser
> heads finally spoke up and pointed out that there was absolutely no
> evidence of a new dependency on system, and that the user had framed his
> problem description inside of a wild and completely incorrect guess
> about root cause.  The actual cause of his problem hasn't been
> completely isolated, yet, although people have furnished good tips about
> how to do so -- but at least more time isn't being wasted pursuing the
> user's completely wrong guess that he simply assumped to be fact.

     To be honest I see better diagnostic advice in other than the 
ubuntu newsgroups.
>
> I cannot comment specifically on the 'plenty of mention' without looking
> at specifics, but long experience has taught me that it's a huge, _huge_
> mistake to accept at face value computer-user problem descriptions
> without investigation and confirmation, _especially_ desktop users, and
> _especially especially_ novice desktop users.  And, to be blunt, a
> typical Ubuntu-specific forum has about it, despite best intentions from
> all concerned, quite an air of the blind leading the blind.

     There was a mistake made recently in a bundle or perhaps bumble of 
updates that
wiped out the ability to use WiFi on my main installation.  I gave up 
and moved that drive from
my computer, put in a new drive and got my WiFi back again.  Easy enough 
to move the
data over.  Eventually I will replace that drive with a larger one which 
I already have on
hand.

>
> And that is why I said (with typo) that it'd be a good idea if people
> having problems with Ubuntu 18.04 LTS contacted, y'know, a Linux user
> group.

     Frequently I mention LUGs or other user groups as solutions to 
problems on Usenet.
and in private correspondence to other users, describing how I found 
SF-LUG and
the assistance it offered to me in my early Linux days.
>
> That person claiming to have a problem 'because of updates to the
> libraries'?  Maybe.  Could be.  But remember the guy who was absolutely
> certain that OpenDKIM broke because of a (imaginary) dependency on
> systemd.
     The user is pretty specific thus the quote that follows:
> Me and a friend had to leave our webhoster due to closing down.
> So we went to a new one, running some ubuntu servers (16.04 LTS) and
> everything was fine.
>
> B.t.w., we are "normal" customers without root privileges, living on a
> "shared hosting system" among several hundreds of other customers.
>
> I was able to install Squirrel Mail (1.4.22) locally and therefore select
> php 5.2 for the relevant directories. Php 5.4 would also fit, but we took
> 5.2. Well, but:
>
> A few days ago we got a message from our hoster, saying they intend to
> switch to a new release soon, I think it's 18.04 LTS.
>
> They say that from now on php will only be available in version 5.6 and
> above, and, since php 5.2 - 5.4 cannot use the new ssl libraries (?) etc.
> anyway, hence it will no longer be selectable.
>
> As an alternative they offer "roundcube" as email / imap client, but its
> functionality, handling and flexibility is far below Squirrel.
> Besides this, the friend I mentioned is "70+" and I don't want to force
> him to "learn" a new email system.
>
> So, please let me ask some questions:
>
> Is there a way, a trick, to get php 5.2 - 5.4 to work in the new ubuntu
> release, also?
>
> Does someone know about a newer version of Squirrel Mail, which is
> compatible to php 5.6 or even better 7.x?
>
> Any idea how to proceed?

     So that is stuff on which my advice would be is to use Thunderbird 
or another
mailer/news reader but I doubt that would make the user happy.


> 'Plenty of mention' of something on Ubuntu-specific forums, plus $2.50,
> will get you a ride on Muni.  (Hurry before they raise the fares. ;-> )

     Well I ride free at my advanced age, so the $2.50 might pay for a 
cup of tea.
     But as you say the prices are moving up as fast as I am getting older.

     bliss


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