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2555 discussions

Public access machine results
by Mike Pfaiffer 09 Dec '09

09 Dec '09

I have a VM up for testing. Looks like I'm working in reverse order here... Going from what I thought was hardest to what I thought was easiest. So far I've managed to get the shut down routine working reasonably well. I have the command stored in /etc/rc.local. I did not know about this... As a file owned by root the user needs to be in the a sudoers list in order to edit it. It looks like the timer begins as soon as the computer enters mode 5. Thanks go to Steve for pointing out I can cancel the shutdown command with a "-c" option. Again, this only works if the account is in the sudoers list. The cool thing is by using the "at" command the shutdown program isn't running through the whole session. I like the halt option because we don't have to be there for it to work. I can get notification of sorts if there is a terminal/shell open. It isn't likely the people using the machine will use the terminal so I'm going to look at my samples for zenity scripts and try one of those to generate a pop-up. Since zenity is still part of Gnome this should take about 10 minutes if I can find where I left my samples. ;-) After that I'll follow through with Sean W.s suggestion about tar-ing the user directory, wiping it out, then doing a restore. Things should go really well. I'll be setting it up this Friday (I have an XP repair to do first - the user took off the AV software and replaced it with a trojan claiming to be AV software). If all goes well it should be running by the end of the day. Thanks everybody for your help. If the people in charge see it working better than the XP machine sitting next to it, we will probably have TWO Linux machines as public access machines. ;-) Later Mike

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Parts?
by Kevin McGregor 09 Dec '09

09 Dec '09

Hi there, I'm going to mod my WRT54GL to use power over Ethernet, and I need some good quality wire. I was going to use some from the wiring harness of an old power supply (e.g. AT, ATX), but I don't have any around I can cannibalize. Does anyone else have something I can use? Or a suggestion? Kevin

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power supplies
by Trevor Cordes 09 Dec '09

09 Dec '09

Someone was asking tonight about power supplies. As I mentioned at the time, I think Enermax is the most reliable. I've sold over 2000 Enermax PS's over 10 years and it is by far the one that dies the least often. I've done at most 2-3 repairs/replacements of Enermax PS's. The rest are still running. Everytime I give another brand a try, I regret it. The only other brand I consider is if I need to "cheap out" I'll use an Antec case with a builtin Antec PS. They seem pretty good too and are more affordable (when bought in the case). In either case, I recommend the APFC models, as they save electricity (lower TCO) and are generally built better. My favorite model for Enermax is the Liberty series and I use the 400 and 500W's successfully in nearly all computers. A good 500W will give you more and cleaner power than a cheapo 600W. My company sells them if you have trouble getting them elsewhere or want to buy local. Email me for details/pricing. I can bring orders to the meetings. Good luck!

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Public access machine
by Mike Pfaiffer 09 Dec '09

09 Dec '09

The CLL is setting up a public access machine in the next couple of weeks. It is installed with Mint 8 (a multimedia Ubuntu fork). I would like to set up a couple of init scripts. The first will delete the public account home directory and copy a "clean" version in its place each time the computer starts. The second will shut down the computer after half an hour of use. I haven't touched on cron since university 20 years ago and I've never written an init script. Having written a few shell scripts I know the copy script should be very simple. I'm not sure how to set up the timer script or make them run on start up. Would anybody be able to fire off some quick directions? This may be a "foot in the door" situation. Later Mike

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Re: [RndTbl] Public access machine
by Adam Thompson 08 Dec '09

08 Dec '09

Mike, you already guessed how to make it impervious to user modification, make it owned by root. That's not 100% foolproof either, but close. The files can just be created, they're never there by default (and on the two distros in particular that *did* provide them default, they still *should* not have been there). Bigger problem I realized with my own solution: the user *can't* logout before 30 min are up! Or, more precisely the sleep(1) will keep running after the X session has apparently ended - they'll probably get the blank grey X background with no clients, until the 30min is up. No, there's an elegant solution to this problem I just don't know what it is yet. -Adam

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Re: [RndTbl] Public access machine
by Adam Thompson 08 Dec '09

08 Dec '09

Actually... That's an excellent suggestion. Except: the last command in a .xinitrc or .xsession file must stay runningfor the duration of the X session. Normally, that command is "kdeinit" or "gnome-session", or historically, the window manager executable i.e. "mwm" or "twm" or whatever. If you start GNOME, say, by including "gnome-session &" as the second-last line, the *last* line can then be "sleep 1800". When it exits, so does the X session. (It might be nice to provide a countdown timer for the user.) -Adam

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FON spots
by Dan Keizer 06 Dec '09

06 Dec '09

Hi there -- I know some of you (you know who you are :-) use the FON router ... with the mapview that's on their site, its always appeared that in order to locate the locations, you have to zoom in and then pan-around ... if you zoom out just a little bit, it disables the location display of the fon spots ... anyone know if this is adjustable or not? btw: the new fon 2.0 router -- anyone buy one yet and have any feedback? Dan.

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Fwd: USENIX TaPP '10 Submissions Deadline Approaching
by Gilbert E. Detillieux 02 Dec '09

02 Dec '09

FYI... -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [Board] USENIX TaPP '10 Submissions Deadline Approaching Date: Wed, 2 Dec 2009 10:29:26 -0800 From: Lionel Garth Jones <lgj(a)usenix.org> We're writing to remind you that the submissions deadline for the 2nd USENIX Workshop on the Theory and Practice of Provenance (TaPP '10) is approaching. Please submit all work by December 14, 2009, 11:59 p.m. PST. More information and submission guidelines are available at http://www.usenix.org/tapp10/cfpb TaPP '10 will bring together researchers and practitioners doing innovative work in the area of provenance. Provenance, or meta-information about computations, computer systems, database queries, scientific workflows, and so on, is emerging as a central issue in a number of disciplines. The TaPP workshop series builds upon a set of Workshops on Principles of Provenance organized in 2007-2009, which helped raise the profile of this area within diverse research communities, such as databases, security, and programming languages. We hope to attract serious cross-disciplinary, foundational, and highly speculative research and to facilitate needed interaction with the broader systems community and with industry. The Program Committee invites you to submit either full papers describing relatively mature work or short papers on ongoing work. We welcome submissions addressing research problems involving provenance in any area of computer science, including but not limited to: - Databases - Programming languages and software engineering - Systems and security - Workflows/scientific computation We look forward to receiving your submissions! Sincerely, Margo Seltzer, Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences Wang-Chiew Tan, University of California, Santa Cruz TaPP '10 Program Chairs tapp10chairs(a)usenix.org ------------------------------------------------------------------ TaPP '10 Call for Papers 2nd USENIX Workshop on the Theory and Practice of Provenance (TaPP '10) February 22, 2010, San Jose, CA http://www.usenix.org/tapp10/cfpb Submissions deadline: December 14, 2009 Sponsored by USENIX in cooperation with ACM SIGOPS and ACM SIGPLAN ------------------------------------------------------------------

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MUUG Meeting, Dec 8, 7:30pm -- SuseStudio
by gedetil＠cs.umanitoba.ca 01 Dec '09

01 Dec '09

The Manitoba UNIX User Group (MUUG) will be holding its next monthly meeting on Tuesday, December 8. The meeting topic for this month is as follows: SuseStudio SuseStudio is an online virtual appliance builder based on OpenSUSE. "Build an appliance or your own custom Linux distro with a few mouse clicks. Customize it to your heart's content, and share it with the world!" It is quite astonishing what this site/tool can do with a few mouse clicks. John Lange will demo, from start to finish, the creation of a completely custom Linux distribution. As a bonus, OpenSUSE 11.2 was just released and John will be using it for the demo just to give you a little taste of what it's like. Before the break, as this month's RTFM topic, Gilbert Detillieux will cover the find(1) and xargs(1) commands. The group holds its general meetings at 7:30pm on the second Tuesday of every month from September to June. (There are no meetings in July and August.) Meetings are open to the general public; you don't have to be a MUUG member to attend. ********************************************************************** Please note our meeting location: The IBM offices, at 400 Ellice Ave. (between Edmonton and Kennedy). When you arrive, you will have to sign in at the reception desk, and then wait for someone to take you (in groups) to the meeting room. Please try to arrive by about 7:15pm, so the meeting can start promptly at 7:30pm. Don't be late, or you may not get in. (But don't come too early either, since security may not be there to let you in before 7:15 or so.) Non-members may be required to show photo ID at the security desk. Limited parking is available for free on the street, either on Ellice Ave. or on some of the intersecting streets. Indoor parking is also available nearby, at Portage Place, for $5.00 for the evening. Bicycle parking is available in a bike rack under video surveillance located behind the building on Webb Place. ********************************************************************** For more information about MUUG, and its monthly meetings, check out their Web server: http://www.muug.mb.ca/ Help us promote this month's meeting, by putting this poster up on your workplace bulletin board or other suitable public message board: http://www.muug.mb.ca/meetings/MUUGmeeting.pdf -- 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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Soekris or ALiX/WRAP boards?
by Adam Thompson 24 Nov '09

24 Nov '09

Does anyone have (or know of) any (possibly used) Soekris or PCEngines' WRAP or ALIX systems they'd like to get rid of? I need a small, fanless system to provide a single function, and definitely would prefer to run OpenBSD on it, and it needs to run headless... so I'd prefer one of the above-mentioned systems, if anyone wants to sell. It's not a demanding application, even the old net4801 boards should be good enough. -- -Adam Thompson <athompso(a)athompso.net>

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