November 2013 - Roundtable

IBM "clicky" keyboards
by Adam Thompson 13 Oct '16

13 Oct '16

Enough people have wondered/asked/complained to me about this that I'm posting this now as a public service. IBM Model "M" keyboards are still available, *NEW*, today. They are expensive, but they are the original design that you can use as a melee weapon. The catch is that they don't say "IBM" or even "Lexmark" on them. They are available for purchase from the manufacturer, Unicomp, who can be found online at http://www.pckeyboard.com/. You can also find some vintage NIB units from time to time at http://www.clickykeyboards.com/. There are also a number of other manufacturers now making similar, but not quite as good, keyboards. - CVT Inc., the maker of the Avant Stellar (I own two of them), which is the direct descendant of the Northgate Omnikey, seems to have restructured and no trace of their keyboard manufacturing operation can be found online. However, Northgate keyboards are still available new-in-box from (this is a horrible site, beware) http://www.northgate-keyboard-repair.com/. - The Happy Hacking keyboard (now owned by Fujitsu, apparently) is equally comforting to some people despite having a totally different feel. They, and many others, can be had from http://www.elitekeyboards.com/ - Das Keyboard - Anything using Cherry MX Green, Blue, or White keyswitches. The "green" switches apparently are the closest anyone's come yet to emulating the IBM/Lexmark/Unicomp switches... and they can be had in MUCH cheaper keyboards, like the Rosewill RK-9000 (http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16823201040 and http://techreport.com/review/23405/rosewill-rk-9000-series-mechanical-ke yboards-reviewed). - And there are an increasing number (yes, again, after the big die-off ca. 2009) of speciality manufacturers of "ergonomic" keyboards that are making clicky keyswitches available as an option. One of the better ones is a tiny shop in Ontario, but I can't find the name right now. References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_M_keyboard http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicomp http://deskthority.net/wiki/Cherry_MX -Adam Thompson athompso(a)athompso.net

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SpamAssassin false positives on DATE_IN_FUTURE_96_Q?
by Gilbert E. Detillieux 23 Feb '16

23 Feb '16

I mentioned this problem at the last round-table session, but didn't get a solution, so I thought I'd post it here, just in case anyone has any suggestions to offer. I'm still seeing a whole bunch of false positives in SpamAssassin, since an update was installed in mid-September on a CentOS 5.7 system, for a rule called DATE_IN_FUTURE_96_Q, which is only supposed to be triggered when the "Date:" header has a date that is 4 days to 4 month ahead of the date in the "Received" header that has the _smallest_ difference in date. Here are the headers from the latest e-mail I've received with this false-positive. (I've stripped out irrelevant headers, for the sake of clarity and simplicity.) From topfivestories(a)messagent.itworldcanada.com Mon Nov 14 07:50:13 2011 Received: from mail.messagent.itworldcanada.com (mail.messagent.itworldcanada.com [207.112.10.80]) by palladium.cs.umanitoba.ca (8.13.8/8.13.8) with SMTP id pAEDoAxV028594 for <gedetil(a)cs.umanitoba.ca>; Mon, 14 Nov 2011 07:50:12 -0600 Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2011 08:50:13 -0500 X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,DATE_IN_FUTURE_96_Q, HTML_MESSAGE,RP_MATCHES_RCVD autolearn=no version=3.3.1 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.3.1 (2010-03-16) on palladium.cs.umanitoba.ca Note that I'm calling spamd via the spamass-milter on a system running sendmail. Note also, that in the above example, the only "Received" header was the one generated by my own server. (I've had other false positives, however, with multiple "Received" headers, all of which were within seconds of the time in the "Date" header.) Any ideas? -- 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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big scanner
by Trevor Cordes 27 May '15

27 May '15

Does anyone have big (like tabloid or bigger) scanner they want to sell? Even an ancient SCSI or parallel one might be ok. I just want *big*. Do they even make scanners bigger than legal or tabloid?

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Linux distro for Pentium III
by Robert Dyck 01 Jun '14

01 Jun '14

I have a customer who wants a laptop with Linux. My impression is he wants to learn Linux. I have refurbished laptops: IBM ThinkPad A21m, with Pentium III processor @ 750 MHz, 512MB RAM, and I can upgrade the hard drive to 40GB. Which distro of Linux would you recommend? I would ask Mike Pfaiffer, but he passed away earlier this year. Thanks, Rob Dyck

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Off-topic: cables
by Kevin McGregor 30 Nov '13

30 Nov '13

Does anyone know a local, reasonably-priced source of a N Male to RP TNC Male cable? Or should I just order it online somewhere? I know of one online source where I can get one for $10-$15+shipping, but a local source would be preferable. Kevin

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Find the CWD and environment variables for a running process...
by Sean Cody 30 Nov '13

30 Nov '13

Someone asked on #openbsd (freenode) how to get a running process' current working directory as well as it's environment variables... Interesting problem. Environment variables are easy but the current working directory of a running process requires a bit more thought. Solution (w's are for column width truncation) for PID's environment: ps -p `pgrep tmux` -wwwwwe eg: sean@_:~$sudo ps -p `pgrep irssi` -wwwwwe PID TT STAT TIME COMMAND 14485 p0 S+ 4:41.35 _=/usr/local/bin/irssi LOGNAME=sean HOME=/home/sean MAIL=/var/mail/sean TMUX=/tmp/tmux-1000/default,4913,0 PATH=/home/sean/bin:/bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/games:. TMUX_PANE=%0 TERM=screen SHELL=/bin/ksh USER=sean (irssi) For the working directory of the process: sudo lsof -p `pgrep irssi` awk '/cwd/{print "find "$9" -inum "$8" | head -n 1"}' | sudo sh eg. sean@_:~$sudo lsof -p `pgrep irssi` | awk '/cwd/{print "find "$9" -inum "$8" | head -n 1"}' | sudo sh /home/sean Anyways it was an interesting problem so I figured worthy to share. Unfortunately I couldn't think of a way to doing it without lsof and sticking with base install and I didn't want to mount /proc... In Linux you can get a tool called 'pwdx' but that isn't portable, also linux's procfs also includes a cwd file in each process directory. -- Sean

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New notebook from Ottawa-based Eurocom
by Adam Thompson 29 Nov '13

29 Nov '13

Ottawa-based Eurocom has announced a new model in their Panther notebook series. According to Computer Dealer News (http://www.computerdealernews.com/news/canadian-hardware-vendor-claims-worl…) >>> The Panther computer can also be classified as a workstation and server class notebook with E5-2600 v2 processors, 6 Terabytes of storage, RAID 0/1/5/10 and a one hour battery life. <<< Am I the only one that - at first - thought that was a typo on the battery life??? >>> Mark Bialic, Eurocom president, said incorporating a 12 core, 24 thread processor into a notebook form factor will bring massive performance for on the go. <<< ...as long as you don't "go" more than an hour between AC outlets, I guess! (Don't get me wrong - I'd still like to have one.) -- -Adam Thompson athompso(a)athompso.net

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Fwd: [Board] Linux Format has forked - introducing Linux Voice!
by Adam Thompson 29 Nov '13

29 Nov '13

FYI. We (i.e. the board) received this recently. I don't know of any Linux Format readers among us, but they used to be a half-decent (albeit expensive) magazine. In case it isn't obvious from the message below, they're looking for money to start publication of their new magazine. -Adam -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [Board] Linux Format has forked - introducing Linux Voice! Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 22:20:50 +0000 From: Andrew Gregory <andrewjamesgregory83(a)googlemail.com> To: info(a)muug.mb.ca Hello Manitoban Unix users, I'm writing to let you know that the editorial team behind Linux Format has quit, and is in the process of launching a rival Linux magazine called Linux Voice. http://www.linuxvoice.com/hello-linux-format-and-tuxradar-readers/ Linux Voice will cover most of the same content as Linux Format, with many of the same writers, but it will be different in three key areas: 1/ We'll give 50% of our profits back to community groups and organisations supporting free software. Admittedly our profits won't be massive at first, but if we achieve even half the success that Linux Format did (and maybe we will after a couple of years) we'll be able to contribute quite a bit of cash. 2/ After no longer than 9 months, we'll relicense old content under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA licence, so teachers, LUGs, students and anybody else can take, copy and improve upon our work for their own ends. 3/ We won't be owned by a bunch of hedge funds, like Linux Format is (http://www.futureplc.com/investors/major-shareholders/) so we'll be free from corporate interference. Free to do the best job we possibly can. If you could let your members know what we're doing, we'd be most grateful. And if anyone there is a Linux Format reader, please direct them to www.indiegogo.com/projects/linux-voice <http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/linux-voice> so they can see what we're up to. Thanks, Andrew Gregory, Linux Voice -- -Adam Thompson athompso(a)athompso.net Cell: +1 204 291-7950 Fax: +1 204 489-6515

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Some people have way too much time on their hands
by Bradford Vokey 29 Nov '13

29 Nov '13

Apparently it has been around for over 10 years but still... telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl -- ======================================= Bradford C. Vokey ======================================= Treasurer Manitoba Unix User Group =======================================

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Skullspace Cisco routers - last call
by Colin Stanners 27 Nov '13

27 Nov '13

Of the big pile of Cisco routers donated to Skullspace, there's still a pile of 851s left for anyone who wants to learn IOS. All have been wiped of settings and updated to the latest (or almost) IOS.

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