February 2009 - Roundtable

web-based Network measurement tools
by Adam Thompson 28 Feb '09

28 Feb '09

As part of Google's ongoing fight /for/ net-neutrality in the U.S., they've sponsored some very interesting research, piggybacking on the old "Web100" project (whose goal was to see 100Mbit/sec end-to-end across the entire Internet). Check it out at: http://www.measurementlab.net/measurement-lab-tools (According to these tests, Shaw is not blocking or shaping BitTorrent traffic for me - a bit of a surprise!) -- -Adam Thompson <athompso(a)athompso.net>

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A LAN in the office
by Bill 23 Feb '09

23 Feb '09

My son is at U of Ottawa and would like to put a router in his office to run his laptop and perhaps a NAS box. I can't see that this would be any different from what we do at home, so it should work. Perhaps there are administrative concerns that Gilbert would be familiar with. Does this happen at UofM? I suspect a wi-fi port might be unwelcome. -- Bill ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Bill Newman bill.newman.ca(a)gmail.com Winnipeg Manitoba

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service microsoft-ds
by schwartz 20 Feb '09

20 Feb '09

I've noticed that the University of Manitoba is using the microsoft-ds service ( port 445 ) for their email. Does the UofM have to pay Billy and the gang for using microsoft-ds or is it now free software ? What advantage, if any, does it have over the generic service that would do the job ? To the educated out there, these might seem like dumb questions, but I'd really like to know.

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Linux 101 Hacks - Download Free eBook
by Bill Reid 19 Feb '09

19 Feb '09

http://www.thegeekstuff.com/2009/02/linux-101-hacks-download-free-ebook/

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Fwd: HotPar '09: Attendance Now Open to Everyone
by Gilbert E. Detillieux 18 Feb '09

18 Feb '09

FYI... -------- Original Message -------- Subject: HotPar '09: Attendance Now Open to Everyone Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2009 09:14:46 -0800 From: Lionel Garth Jones <lgj(a)usenix.org> To: info(a)muug.mb.ca, gedetil(a)muug.mb.ca The First USENIX Workshop on Hot Topics in Parallelism will take place March 30-31 in Berkeley, CA. http://www.usenix.org/hotpar09/proga HotPar '09 will bring together researchers and practitioners doing innovative work in the area of parallel computing. HotPar recognizes the broad impact of multicore computing and seeks relevant contributions from all fields, including application design, languages and compilers, systems, and architecture. Attendance to the workshop is now open to the USENIX community. To ensure a productive environment, it will be limited to 75 participants. Register today to ensure your place. This year's outstanding program includes a diverse range of hot research areas including models and paradigms, operating systems and middleware, transactional memory, and more. Please join us at the Claremont Resort & Spa for this new workshop covering the most innovative research in parallel computing. We look forward to seeing you there. Sincerely, Alexandra Fedorova, Simon Fraser University Jim Larus, Microsoft HotPar '09 Program Co-Chairs hotpar09chairs(a)usenix.org ------------------------------------------------------------------------ First USENIX Workshop on Hot Topics in Parallelism (HotPar '09) March 30-31, 2009 Berkeley, CA, USA http://www.usenix.org/hotpar09/proga ------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Ubuntu Pocket Guide and Reference - another free PDF download!
by Gilbert E. Detillieux 18 Feb '09

18 Feb '09

http://www.ubuntupocketguide.com/index2.html I found out about the above, plus another couple free online tutorials, here... http://webworkerdaily.com/2009/01/28/top-notch-tutorials-for-three-great-so… -- Gilbert E. Detillieux E-mail: <gedetil(a)muug.mb.ca> Manitoba UNIX User Group Web: http://www.muug.mb.ca/ PO Box 130 St-Boniface Phone: (204)474-8161 Winnipeg MB CANADA R2H 3B4 Fax: (204)474-7609

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Computer Give Away: six computers with Linux
by Mark Jenkins 16 Feb '09

16 Feb '09

I am offering six old computer towers with Linux pre-installed for pickup in the William Whyte neighbourhood in the North End. Each has a cdrom drive, floppy drive, built in usb, built-in or sound card, network card, video card, power cable, and xubuntu 8.04 installed with installation CD included (http://xubuntu.com/) In all cases a RAM upgrade is recommended for better enjoyment. A mouse, keyboard, or monitor is not included. I also have some old mice and monitors that you could optionally take as well. Tower #1 350MHZ PII 3.2 GB hard disk 128M of RAM Tower #2 400MHZ PII 2 x 1.0 GB hard disks 128M of RAM Tower #3 400MHZ Celeron 4 GB hard disk 128M of RAM AGP slot is damaged, has pci video card Tower #4 AMD K6-333 has battery problems 2 GB hard disk 128M of RAM usb is disabled, when enabled there are errors related to it Tower #5 400MHZ PII, clocked 350MHZ for better stability This one does crash occasionally, but is mostly usable, it could perhaps benefit from a fan. 8 GB hard disk 128M of RAM Tower #6 400MHz PII, clocked at 350 for better stability 2.5 GB hard disk 128M of RAM ------------- 4 serial (RS232) mice. (requires special configuration, I need advance notice to configure a computer for this) 2 PS/2 mice -------------- two 14" monitors - working fine one 14" monitor, is very dim, even with max contrast and brightness one 14" monitor, has a very ugly blotch of scratches in the center, but is generally readable, 85% of the screen is fine. two 15" monitors, with colour problems

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Help! SCO Rescue plan?
by John Lange 13 Feb '09

13 Feb '09

Does anyone have any advice on how to resurrect a SCO box with a full root partition? Apparently the system won't boot even in single user mode and the client has no recovery or boot media. >From what I can find online, Linux isn't able to mount SCO file systems (called HTFS I believe). If it could then it would be possible to mount it and delete some files to make some space. If anyone has any suggestions on where to go from here that would be great. Regards, -- John Lange www.johnlange.ca

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iptables match for creator's id
by Dan Martin 12 Feb '09

12 Feb '09

p 103 of "Linux Firewalls" 2nd Ed by Robert Ziegler discusses the 'owner match extension' that matches the packet's creator. A match can occur on uid, gid, pid, or sid. The extension can be used on the OUTPUT chain only. -- Dan Martin, MD GP Hospital Practitioner Computer Scientist ummar143(a)shaw.ca (204) 831-1746 answering machine always on

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Meeting ideas
by Kelly Leveille 12 Feb '09

12 Feb '09

Hi All, I had a few ideas about for the meetings I thought I'd air for others to comment on. Someone asked about "newbie" friendly topics, so how about a "command of the month"? It might be fun to have a different person each month do a micro presentation (10-15 mins max) on a single command. It should be enough to introduce the command & then provide a couple brief examples of usage scenarios. These presentations should be all demo (terminal) with no slides required. This might be a good way refresh the memories of the more experienced users, enlighten us "newbies" & would provide a not so stressful way to get more of the group members to become "presenters". Finally, the same command could be explored in more detail in the newsletter which might encourage more contribution there. Second, it might be a nice change to have the presentation during the first half of the meeting, then take the break & finish with the round table. For longer presentations, we could take the break after an hour & resume after the break. This would allow "breathing room" for longer presentations as well as a an opportunity for more focussed round-table session following the presentation. As a side benefit, it would also provide the option of getting home earlier (without missing as much of the presentation) to anyone who was not able to stay to the end or not interested in the discussion that followed. I've been a member for a few years now but don't know if this approach was ever tried. Any comments? Kelly

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