October 2013 - luv-main

pros and cons of AMD64 and i386 Linux on a home system
by zlinw＠mcmedia.com.au 18 Oct '13

18 Oct '13

The situation is this I require to be able to run wine on my systems here (Debian AMD64)and I am finding this something of a pain with the current Debian. The version of wine required is 1.6. To install the develpment enviroment for wine ineffect requires an almost complete parrellel install of a 32 bit system. It seems to me it would be easier simply to install i386 and avoid the pain. There it appears only to be a minor issue in that the maximum memory for a single process would 4 gig and I have yet to see any program even gimp editing full size images from my Nikon D700 come even close to that figure. I have checked on the net for benchmarks between i386 and AMD64 and there is no obvious overall install that is faster. It would seem that the simplest path would be to install Debian 7 i386, this would allow the latest wine to be installed without any problems and I cannot myself see any down side. The system would still have access to the all the memory the only limitation being the 4gig process limit. There may be an issue with the speed of memory access on some of the latter video cards with large amounts of memory availible as this memory will need to be bank switched. This does not appear to be a problem at this stage. Hmmmmmmmmmmm, I have two main systems both efectively identical I will install i386 on one of these this will allow wine to be installled easily and the other one can be used to allow a comparison to be done between the two versions (i386 and AMD64) using 3D intensive software (a terrain simulation) to see what if any differences exist. I do have Debian i386 readily availible. Any comments would be apreciated! Lindsay

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Re: pros and cons of AMD64 and i386 Linux on a home system
by zlinw＠mcmedia.com.au 18 Oct '13

18 Oct '13

Brian May said, I don't suppose they have any plans to make a Linux port? No, Firstly Linux does not have a native C# compiler (I believe one exists under mono for use on Wine). Second point is all the developers are long time MSTS and train enthusiasts and no essentially nothing of Linux. A couple of point at random, it appears a good portion of the Windows development world is looking and working on a reliable development and exicuting platform for Windows programs ___particularly__ games on Linux so we will probably need to get used to running such on Linux. To put ones head in the sand will not stop the world going by and will do little to help the siuation. Helping this interface along the way will in the end only enhance Linux's reputation in the world no matter what dyed in the wool, rusted on Linux enthusiats may think (and I am one of those). Second, While MSTS does have its faults, its had a number __VERY__ major advantages over all other train sims. Firstly Microsoft abandond it fairly early in the piece, This had lead to what was in effect a stable API which allowed much development of material over a very long period of time. Some of the items avaible are simply awesome, Routes like the freeware Bernina Bahn and the SOB also the US's Surfliner2 route. In Australia there is a quite a number of excellent routes avaiblible and the soon to be released Epping line is mind blowing in its detail. Next having a long time stable interface has allowed the MSTS train sim community to gain a __great__ deal of knowledge on the sims and tools bugs and how one can work around these issues. The editor and tools are particularly unstable and full of bugs yet all these have had techniques developed to enable ways around them. Openrails whilst its being developed on Windows has a strong development community and the progress of it is excellent. The team and a good quantity of others (including myself) are working towards a very (over?!) accurate (and I do mean very) simulation. OR running on a 2560x1600 monitor is ___really___ first class. PS, I wonder how long it will be before the............. Lindsay

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Re: pros and cons of AMD64 and i386 Linux on a home system
by zlinw＠mcmedia.com.au 17 Oct '13

17 Oct '13

Thanks for the reply, it looks as I if not give enough info on why run wine. I would not under most circumstances even consider cross platform running of any program. Linux unfortunately does not have a native train simulator. Openbve (runnning under wine using mono) is avaible as a package on Debian, but I find it (openbve) to be to restricted at the current stage of development. Now around 3 or so years ago a group started work, using the XNA toolkit under Windows, on an a sort of open source train sim called OpenRails (OR) that could use Microsoft Train Simulator material. Some months ago the licence of OR was changed to GPL. Very recently this was shown to run perfectly OK under Wine 1.6. What this effectively means is that finally Linux has a train sim. Its not my first choice way of getting one but a train sim is a __very __ difficult thing to program from scratch, the programming requiring a great deal of knowledge from also sorts of strange disciplins (Note 1). Now I have found a Doc showing how one can set up a 32 bit development enviroment on an AMD64 machine, but I have the strong impression that the whole thing (running 32 bit windows on a AMD64 machine) is a "kludge". At this stage of the game for my use I have found i386 Debian does all I wish with no problems what so ever. Now I am not saying this situation will last for ever, just that is the situation as I see it at the moment. Now as Trent says its actual quite easy to install a wine run enviroment on Linux, it appears though a development enviroment is another story. A search on the net bringing up little recent information on setting one up. Even then as I said using it seems like a real "kludge". I will consider the issue, no real hurray. Note 1: Porting OR to a native Linux app I believe would not be easy, its writen in C# using the XNA tool kit on top of DirectX 9. Linux does not have a native C# compiler, although I believe someone is working on an XNA toolkit replacement for Linux. It would still mean havine to virtual reprogram the whole thing to convert it to even C++. Lindsay

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Cheap GPL router - $11 from MSY
by Andrew Worsley 15 Oct '13

15 Oct '13

Just got what looks to be a pretty good deal on what appears to have GPL version of the code made available. Got this D-Link Modem - hopes weren't high but it appears pretty reasonable 802.11bgn + 8 LAN ports switch + WAN router. I noticed that it contained a "D-LINK GPL Code Statement" with link http://tsd.dlink.com.tw/GPL.asp which turns out to be their GPL web interface which lists masses of products and a download links to source code which includes my DIR-632 (took a little time to find it amongst the massive number of items). I am downloading it now - 185Mb. See what you actually get in that. The modem itself is rather nice - it has most features you could think of (no CLI though, Web interface) and has a built in manual that explains each feature in detail! I suspect they are letting them go at that price because the new 802.11ac modems have arrived. See http://www.msy.com.au/images/ADbanner/eletter/04042013/online/html.html for the original promotion. Anyway thought others might be interested in this and perhaps an example of GPL compliance that seems pretty good... Andrew

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iptables routing based on destination port
by Marcus Furlong 14 Oct '13

14 Oct '13

Hi, I am trying to route any tcp openvpn connection from localhost via a particular network which is on eth1, and have all other traffic go via the default gateway on eth0. Just wondering if anyone knows if this is possible or why the below is not working for me? I've tried using the technique specified in [1]. The diagram in [2] also seems to support that this should work. The technique is basically: 1) Add a mark to the packet # iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -p tcp --dport 1194 -j MARK --set-mark 0x4aa 2) Verify the PREROUTING table has the mark # iptables t mangle -L PREROUTING -v Chain PREROUTING (policy ACCEPT 126K packets, 87M bytes) pkts bytes target prot opt in out source destination 0 0 MARK tcp - any any anywhere anywhere tcp dpt:openvpn MARK set 0x4aa 3) Add a routing rule that tells a packet with that mark to use a specific routing table. # ip rule add from all fwmark 0x4aa lookup vlan156 4) Verify the rule has higher priority than the other rules # ip rule show 0: from all lookup local 32764: from all fwmark 0x4aa lookup vlan156 32765: from 172.26.10.0/24 lookup vlan156 32766: from all lookup main 32767: from all lookup default 5) Add the above routing table (already added to /etc/iproute2/rt_tables) # ip route add default via 172.26.10.1 dev eth1 table vlan156 6) Verify the routing table exists # ip route show table vlan156 default via 172.26.10.1 dev eth1 So to my mind, any packet with destination port of tcp 1194, should get the 0x4aa mark and then be routed using the routing table vlan156 which tells it to use the default gateway of 172.26.10.1. However this is not happening, all traffic is still being routed using the default gateway in the main routing table (ip route show). Any suggestions as to why it's not working? Regards, Marcus. [1] http://lartc.org/howto/lartc.netfilter.html [2] http://inai.de/images/nf-packet-flow.png -- Marcus Furlong

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Re: mysql CLI - history shared by users?
by Petros 11 Oct '13

11 Oct '13

From: "Daniel Jitnah" <djitnah(a)greenwareit.com.au> > YEP -confirmed!! - even if you use a different linux login user and > a different mysql user. Sure it was a different Linux user? I realized that the Unix user is having a $HOME/.mysql_history which gets updated when you close the mysql CLI. That makes sense and explains why I could see the commands of a different MySQL user. > But then I logged out of MariaDB only and logged in again.... and it > did NOT do it anymore, using same user. Does not seem to be > consistent behaviour?? If you really have a different Linux user - maybe it is shared memory somewhere that gets cleared? But I cannot reproduce it with a different Unix user - so it's just noise from my side. Sorry about that Peter

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Join me at the 2013 Open Source Developers' Conference, Auckland 21-23 Oct
by Arjen Lentz 10 Oct '13

10 Oct '13

Hi all You want to be there, and there are still tickets available! http://osdc.org.nz/ If you haven't been to an OSDC before... it's special. Run by developers, for developers, the low ticket price covers coffee/tea and lunch every day, and the conference dinner. That's right, it's all inclusive! If you're a student, there is an extra low ticket price awaiting you. It's a great community experience, and this year (like every year) has an awesome lineup of speakers and topics around the ever-interesting hallway track and social events. Yep after years in Australia, this year it's in Auckland. Great and friendly place to visit! It's not that expensive to get to, just check on http://wotflight.com to see what's available. Claire and I got return tickets for about $400 each, now since it's a bit later it might be a bit over $500 (last time I checked). Yes you will need a passport, it is another country ;-) Accomodation? Try https://www.yha.co.nz/hostels/north-island-hostels/yha-auckland-city/ which is just around the corner from OSDC's Langham Hotel. Youth Hostel you say? Sure why not, they have private rooms and everything. Anyway it's just one option. Check out http://wotif.com for hotels in the Auckland CBD area. If you know someone at Auckland Uni, it's very nearby. Register now and I'll see you there! http://osdc.org.nz/tickets/ Cheers, Arjen. -- Exec.Director @ Open Query (http://openquery.com) MariaDB/MySQL services Sane business strategy explorations at http://upstarta.com.au Personal blog at http://lentz.com.au/blog/

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Linux is Number 1
by Lev Lafayette 10 Oct '13

10 Oct '13

test.c: #include <stdio.h> int main(void) { int linux = 5; return 0; } Result of $ gcc -E test.c (stop after the preprocessing stage): .... int main(void) { int 1 = 5; return 0; } cf., http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19210935/why-does-the-c-preprocessor-int… -- Lev Lafayette, BA (Hons), GCertPM, MBA mobile: 0432 255 208 RFC 1855 Netiquette Guidelines http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1855.txt

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An unconference in the sticks: StixCampGembrook opens registrations (Nov 1-3)
by Bianca Gibson 09 Oct '13

09 Oct '13

>From Ben Dechrai: > Registrations for StixCampGembrook are open! > > StixCampGembrook is a weekend unconference event running from the 1st - 3rd November 2013. Participants will spend 2 full days networking with like-minded others, sharing their knowledge, and learning from others. The venue is a scout camp in the Dandenong Ranges and accommodation is provided (subject to availability - camping spots are available too) and will provide a change of atmosphere to the typical city-based conferences. > > Participation extends from the usual unconference environment, with the option for communal meals and other social activities available at the camp. > > There are two ticket types: a regular participant ticket that we'll try and refund, subject to surplus sponsorship funds; and a supporting participant ticket, which won't be refunded, allowing, instead, for regular participants to get more of a refund. Both cost $67.50 + GST. > > Register Today > > StixCampGembrook is organised by the BarCampMelbourne team and is a Linux Australia Event. Any surplus funds after the regular participant tickets have been refunded, will go back to Linux Australia to be used for further helping the open source community in Australia. > > Please forward this email to your colleagues. > > Cheers! > Ben > > > -- > Ben Dechrai > Internet Technology Consultant > Mentor, Presenter, and Hard-Core Privacy Nut > > phone > +415 127 120 > im / email > ben(a)dechrai.com > website > https://bendechrai.com/ > twitter > @bendechrai

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mysql CLI - history shared by users?
by Petros 09 Oct '13

09 Oct '13

Hi all, I am just tried to create a new user on the mysql command line: create user 'fire'@'test' identified by 'gyg4u78'; Well, the answer was a "permission denied" because I did not connect as an admin account with appropriate permissions to do that. Well, I reconnected using the right account and was surprised to see the same command when I browsed through the latest commands using the "up arrow". So another user sees the commands recently executed by another user - in this case modifying access and a password. Can you please try to reproduce it? The version I used was 5.5.33 from the FreeBSD ports. I consider it a serious security flaw. Regards Peter

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