February 2005 - Roundtable

Re: [RndTbl] dual video cards for Linux
by Shawn Wallbridge 22 Feb '05

22 Feb '05

I would expect them to be much slower, but I can't really say since I don't run them. I had heard that the 8500 drivers were pretty good, but I haven't heard anything regarding the nVidia open source driver. I can't see how the open source driver (nv) could be anywhere near as good as the binary (nvidia) since they don't have the access to documentation that nVidia does. I know nVidia is a really big supporter of Linux and does development internally using Linux (their Gelato 3D renderer was released for Linux first (at least the Beta was) and Windows later). The reason they can't release an open source driver is because of 3rd party intellectual property (or code) that is in the driver. At least that is my guess. shawn On 22-Feb-05, at 2:40 PM, Spencer Kuziw wrote: > Just curious -- how much worse (slower, buggier, etc..) are the open > source driver for nVidia or ATI on Linux? > > > Shawn Wallbridge said: >> If you can get over the nVidia binary license, you could get a dual >> head GeForce. >> >> If not, you could look into the Radeon 8500, I believe their is an >> open >> source driver for it. >> >> shawn >> >> >> On 21-Feb-05, at 8:09 PM, millward wrote: >> >>> What would be a good dual video card for Linux? >>> I'm not interested much in games, but it should >>> be OK for movies. I'd prefer open source drivers, >>> but I don't suppose there's much chance of that. >>> It would be great to read a program's documentation >>> on one screen while running it on the other. I'd >>> get things done a lot faster that way. >>> Any information would be most welcome. >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Roundtable mailing list >>> Roundtable(a)muug.mb.ca >>> http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Roundtable mailing list >> Roundtable(a)muug.mb.ca >> http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable >> > > > -- > The Seed Organization > >

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dual video cards for Linux
by millward 22 Feb '05

22 Feb '05

What would be a good dual video card for Linux? I'm not interested much in games, but it should be OK for movies. I'd prefer open source drivers, but I don't suppose there's much chance of that. It would be great to read a program's documentation on one screen while running it on the other. I'd get things done a lot faster that way. Any information would be most welcome.

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Solaris 10 Presentation in Winnipeg (fwd)
by gedetil＠cs.umanitoba.ca 22 Feb '05

22 Feb '05

Hi folks. Those of you who were at the February 8th MUUG meeting might recall my making a preliminary announcement about an upcoming presentation in Winnipeg on Solaris 10. Further details have since been forwarded to me, so I now pass it along to you. (This will be only two days after our next monthly meeting, so I thought I should give you all a "heads up" in case you want to register early.) What was sent to me was a PDF attachment, but rather than forward that to all of you, I thought I'd just extract the relevant text and include it below... (You can get the pretty pictures from their web site, if you like.) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- It's Here. Solaris 10. Demanding businesses demand innovation that pays. Demanding businesses demand Sun. There's never been an operating system like the new Solaris(TM) 10 Operating System. It doesn't just promise lower operating costs and better performance. It actually delivers them - and more. YOU ARE INVITED! Please join Sun Microsystems of Canada for a Solaris 10 Lunch & Learn, as we bring one of our key Corporate Senior Engineers from the Sun Kernel Development Group across the Canadian Prairies. By attending this seminar you will learn about the benefits of the new Solaris 10 OS and how it can help you improve performance and make your operating environment more efficient and secure, while reducing complexity. Regina, Saskatchewan Wednesday, March 9th Ramada Hotel Winnipeg, Manitoba Thursday, March 10th Fairmont Winnipeg Edmonton, Alberta Wednesday, March 23rd The Westin Edmonton Calgary, Alberta Thursday, March 24th The Westin Calgary On a scale of 1 5, with 5 being the most technical, this session is rated a 4! Join us from 11:30am 2:30pm in a city close to you as Bryan Cantrill, Senior Staff Engineer, does an overview of Solaris 10 and then a deep-dive and demonstration of two of the most visible and meaningful features in Solaris 10: Dynamic Tracing (DTrace) and Containers. Register NOW at http://sun.ca/events/solaris10-seminar SPEAKER BIO: Bryan Cantrill is a Senior Staff Engineer in the Solaris Kernel Development Group at Sun Microsystems. His interests include dynamic software instrumentation, postmortem diagnosability, real-time kernel implementation and microprocessor architecture. Over his career, Bryan has done work in many kernel subsystems; most recently, he (with two colleagues) designed, implemented, and shipped DTrace, a facility for systemic dynamic instrumentation of Solaris that won the Sun 2004 Chairman's Award for Innovation and was hailed as a "brilliant piece of work" by SysAdmin magazine. Bryan received the ScB magna cum laude with honors in Computer Science from Brown University. Register NOW at http://sun.ca/events/solaris10-seminar ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Gilbert E. Detillieux E-mail: <gedetil(a)cs.umanitoba.ca> Dept. of Computer Science Web: http://www.cs.umanitoba.ca/~gedetil/ University of Manitoba Phone: (204)474-8161 Winnipeg, MB, CANADA R3T 2N2 Fax: (204)474-7609

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Re: [RndTbl] Tips for isolating causes of system load
by John Lange 13 Feb '05

13 Feb '05

Thanks Sean. Based on that tip (I hadn't realized that "apachectl fullstatus" outputs to stdout) I have come up with just about the ugliest bash script every written! But it works... This takes the top 5 most CPU intensive processes and looks for the ones owned by the "www" user. It then re-greps for that process id so it can spit out the entire line from "ps". Then it also greps "apachectrl fullstatus" for the same PID so we can see what that process is actually doing. If this doesn't make you bash scripters out there cringe I don't think anything will... ;) --- for PID in `ps -weo pid,%cpu,user,args --sort %cpu |tail -n5|grep www|cut -f1 -d " "`; do ps -weo pid,%cpu,user,args --sort %cpu |grep -v grep|grep $PID ; apachectl fullstatus |grep -A1 $PID; done --- The obvious problems with this are: - It invokes way to many processes (some of them more than once) - loops through "fullstatus" every time. The only other problem is that lynx truncates the longer request lines at 80 columns so you are missing part of what the client is requesting that is causing the load. If anyone has some suggestions for how to clean that up please feel free to suggest them. I'm actually a bit dismayed that Apache doesn't have better command line tools for querying the status of the server. John On Sat, 2005-02-12 at 13:47, Sean Cody wrote: > > Anyone have any suggestions for a little bash script that could do this > > auto-magically? > > 'apachectl fullstatus' seems to work alright for me. Not immediately > as intuitive but it does work.

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Tips for isolating causes of system load
by John Lange 12 Feb '05

12 Feb '05

Does anyone know of a way from the command line to find out what specific apache process is doing? This needs to be something that could work in an automated way. Background: We sometimes have certain apache processes go out of control and consume too much CPU. The reason for this varies. Sometimes its users trying to write their PHP or Perl scripts or run some other process and some times its outside "attacks". For example, today we had to block a japanese robot that was written by a comp-sci class because it was attempting to index every day, of every month of every year of a users entire events calender. It was at the year 2015 and climbing before we stopped it. At the moment I can use top or ps to find out which process ID is causing the load and then view apache's /server-status/ to see which page requests are causing the issue. This is great except its a manual process and I can't always get to the console in time to identify the culprit. Anyone have any suggestions for a little bash script that could do this auto-magically? -- John Lange

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How does umask really work?
by John Lange 10 Feb '05

10 Feb '05

The documentation and examples on umask state that you provide a mask that is subtracted from rwx (777) access to generate a default access for newly created files. It clearly doesn't work this way. If you have a umask of 022, newly created files are rw-r--r-- (644). It should be rwxr-xr-x (755). The umask is acting like its 033 and indeed changing it to 033 has no effect on newly created files. However, umask effects directories differently. umask 022 will create directories as expected (as 755), and umask 033 will create them as 644. So how do you set a umask that will create files as 755? -- John Lange

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internet security appliances
by Brock Wolfe 09 Feb '05

09 Feb '05

I have been looking at a router/firewall upgrade to an "internet security appliance" (ISA) for a small business to expand capavility for remote VPN access, VoIP, NAT/PAT, multi host DMZ, support for desktop videoconferencing configurations, etc. Net search points to Sonicwall, ZyXEL/Zywall and on high end Cisco.. . So far Zywall 70 seems closest fit to functions/features allowing some room for user growth. Any comments/suggestions on experiences with ISAs? Thanks iun advance for any comments. Brock Brock Wolfe ______________________________________ Expect problems and eat them for breakfast. -- Alfred A. Montapert (American Author) ______________________________________

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MUUG Meeting web page updated...
by gedetil＠cs.umanitoba.ca 09 Feb '05

09 Feb '05

Howdy folks! As some of you requested, I've updated the MUUG meetings web page to include a link to my "phantogram" web page. You can view the updated meeting description here... http://www.muug.mb.ca/meetings/04-05.html#feb Thanks again, Steve, for providing the equipment and the popcorn for our "movie night". See you all at next month's meeting! -- Gilbert E. Detillieux E-mail: <gedetil(a)cs.umanitoba.ca> Dept. of Computer Science Web: http://www.cs.umanitoba.ca/~gedetil/ University of Manitoba Phone: (204)474-8161 Winnipeg, MB, CANADA R3T 2N2 Fax: (204)474-7609

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Re: Roundtable Digest, Vol 2, Issue 4
by Michael Boyd 07 Feb '05

07 Feb '05

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Offtopic plea for help
by Kevin McGregor 06 Feb '05

06 Feb '05

This is not at all a Unix question, but I don't have any better ideas. I have a Pioneer DV-343 DVD player, and it works fine with CDs, but when I pop in a movie DVD, I get no sound. The picture plays fine. It *used* to play the sound, but I want to be really sure this player is defective before I buy another one. I have another DVD player which plays just fine through the exact same connection to my Yamaha 5.1 Dolby Digital receiver. So, does anyone have a home theatre system and want to try plugging in my DVD player to it and see if they can wrestle some sound out of it? The DVD player has stereo, S/PDIF coax and S/PDIF fibre outputs. It should be easy to pop it in place of your current player. I can bring it to the meeting on Tuesday if there are any takers. Thanks, Kevin -- Kevin McGregor 9-1120 Dorchester Ave. Winnipeg MB R3M 0S4 kmcgregor(a)shaw.ca

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