- luv-main - luv.asn.au

Re: compact usb wifi
by Mike O'Connor 23 May '14

23 May '14

On 23/05/2014 12:31 pm, rdbrown(a)pacific.net.au wrote: >> Hi all, >> I'm looking for a compact USB wifi card for use with a laptop. >> Unfortunately the internal wifi on my work laptop (13" retina macbook pro) >> is pretty flaky under fedora. >> My priorities (in order) are: >> - reliable under fedora >> - compact enough I can leave it in at all times, including while >> transporting the laptop >> - decent range. My temporary borrowed USB wifi is pretty slow in the >> corner >> of the office. >> >> Any recommendations? > I would give the EDIMax products a try, I've been friends with the Australian Rep for a few years and he seems very confident in his products. Mike

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Re: compact usb wifi
by Daniel Jitnah 23 May '14

23 May '14

I have never used one and have resisted the temptation so far... but don't these smallish wifi usb adaptors tend to have poorer performance in weak signal condition, given their small size and hence smaller antenna size? They may be ideal when signal is strong, but as Bianca said, she has slow reception in the corner of her office, so signal might be weak at that spot? Daniel. On 23/05/14 13:01, rdbrown(a)pacific.net.au wrote: >> Hi all, >> I'm looking for a compact USB wifi card for use with a laptop. >> Unfortunately the internal wifi on my work laptop (13" retina macbook pro) >> is pretty flaky under fedora. > >> My priorities (in order) are: >> - reliable under fedora >> - compact enough I can leave it in at all times, including while >> transporting the laptop >> - decent range. My temporary borrowed USB wifi is pretty slow in the >> corner >> of the office. >> >> Any recommendations? > > Not a recommendation, but > https://fsf.org/news/tehnoetic-wireless-usb-adapter-now-fsf-certified-to-re… > Atheros AR9271 based at €25 nano sized > > So Euro conversion times the price of the Officeworks EDIMax EW-7811Un if > that would work reliably > http://www.officeworks.com.au/shop/officeworks/edimax-150mbps-wireless-ieee… > > _______________________________________________ > luv-main mailing list > luv-main(a)luv.asn.au > http://lists.luv.asn.au/listinfo/luv-main >

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Amazon Glacier backup tools for Linux/Unix
by Toby Corkindale 22 May '14

22 May '14

I'm interested in moving my automated off-site backups to Amazon Glacier rather than my current system which is a combination of Dropbox, Box, S3, and a custom Perl app. Glacier is better off working with chunks of files rather than individual ones, so I need a tool that knows to make archives out of folders, and to replace the whole lot in glacier if any files have changed -- but will leave it alone if it hasn't changed. A SHA checksum over all the (ordered) files would be sufficient I think. Software that could perform incremental backups would be better though. I'd also prefer to have these archives encrypted before being uploaded, preferably using public-key crypto so that I don't need to store the passphrase on the server all the time. If I write another script, at least it'll be in Scala instead of Perl, but still.. I feel like I'd just be reinventing the wheel. Surely someone has already created something that does the above? Unfortunately, googling around just brings up GUI software, or else people with very simple one-off scripts. I want something I can stick in cron.nightly and forget about it, unless it emails me to say it's failed. Does the hivemind have any recommendations?

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Re: [luv-main] Slow down problem with SSD boot drives ?
by Russell Coker 21 May '14

21 May '14

On Fri, 16 May 2014 15:51:40 Rohan McLeod wrote: > We started discussing SSD boot drives and it was suggested > that SSD boot drives with both sata 3.0 and PCIe interfaces > suffer from a fairly severe slow-down problem after about > 6 - 12months use. > 1/ Has anyone noticed such a problem ? > 2/ If such problem exists any theories ? > - all I could think was that somehow boot drives were subject to extreme > wear > and the reallocated 'cells' were at the end and somehow the replacement > 'out-of-sequence' cells; > were slowing the drive down in the manner of a fragmented rotating drive ? There is nothing special about boot drives. Drives just respond to read and write requests, booting is no different from other reads. http://etbe.coker.com.au/2014/04/27/swap-breaking-ssd/ There are rumors that swap breaks SSD, I wrote the above post to refute that. While there are probably some usage patterns where swap would cause problems one could say that same about /home, /var/log, or any other filesystem or subtree. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIM The TRIM command can theoretically improve performance in some situations. However it also significantly decreases performance in other situations. So for a typical use with BTRFS it's recommended that you not use it. Note that when the SSD erase list gets fragmented such that TRIM helps will depend on work load. It could happen in a matter of days or not happen in a year. Also it would depend on the quality of the SSD. I've redirected this to luv-main. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/

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Setting default browser (when update-alternatives has failed)
by Toby Corkindale 19 May '14

19 May '14

At some point recently, Thunderbird started opening links in Firefox, rather than Chrome. (However other apps correctly launch Chrome) I've been unable to change the behaviour, and so I wondered if you have any suggestions. Methods I have tried: 1) Ensured that update-alternatives has chrome set for gnome-www-browser and x-www-browser 2) Clicked the "make this browser my default" button in Chrome's settings 3) Checked that the default web browser is set to chrome in the GUI control panel. It is a bit ridiculous that I can't get this fixed! Is there some extra place (probably hidden in Thunderbird) that would have a setting to select an alternative browser to use, rather than the user or system choices?

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Diagnosing System Crashes
by Dave Hellewell 19 May '14

19 May '14

I'm experiencing frequent system crashes at the moment and I've run out of clues for diagnosing the issue. Crash is a full lock up, display is frozen yet coherent, no response from kbd or mouse. The caps lock light does not flash nor can it be toggled, and SysRq combos do not work. Network is also unavailable. Nothing relevant in logs. Crashes are unpredictable, occurring at idle or under load. Uptime can range from 2 seconds to a week at best. Loading video content seems to be the most reliable way to trigger it though. OS is debian testing. System has previously been stable, and first known crash did not correlate to patching. Principal system components are: AMD FX8350, Asus 990fx Sabertooth MB, Samsung 840 Evo SSD for OS, Corsair RM750 PS Investigations so far: Memory ------- - Memstest86: ran for 24 hours, no faults reported - Problem persists when running on either or both of the compatible DIMMs I have for this board Misc. Drivers/HW ------- - Removed non critical HW: problem persists GFX Cards/Drivers ----------------- No integrated GFX with MB or CPU - Run entry level GFX cards with chipsets from AMD and Nvidia using open drivers for each: problem persists Kernel/OS --------- Configured kdump and can analyse dumps resulting from simulating a crash via 'echo c > /proc/sysrq-trigger' or "Alt-SysRq-c". No output results from the crashes I'm complaining about. Problem persists when booting from live CDs from different distributions. Any suggestions would be appreciated, I don't think I've missed any obvious tests. My next step is to take MB and CPU back to the shop (who thankfully are pretty cool for these type of claims). Cheers, Dave

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network card offload (was:: Linux PPPoE bridge mode issues - again)
by Toby Corkindale 19 May '14

19 May '14

On 16 April 2014 21:07, Keith Owens <kaos(a)ocs.com.au> wrote: >> Can anyone think of a reason for this? >> > Wild guess - segmentation offload. I have seen offload do really strange > things with masqueraded packets and it is just possible that the bad > modems support offload but the good modems do not. On the linux box, issue > > for interface in eth0 > do > for option in tso ufo gso gro lro > do > ethtool $interface $option off > done > done > > Replace eth0 with all the physical network interface names (eth0 eth1 etc.). Just thought I should mention.. I was wondering why my network was running slowly, and then remembered I'd turned off all the hardware acceleration in my network card while trying to debug the PPPoE issues. Re-enabling them doubled the throughput.

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Re: Cross Compile Module for armv7
by Robert Brown 18 May '14

18 May '14

After my recent partial success with this : https://github.com/tmair/DVB-Realtek-RTL2832U-2.2.2-10tuner-mod_kernel-3.0.… which I am about to d/l and try. Beats me why all of my previous searches for "rtl2832 and kernel 3.4" have not taken me to this possibly vital link. Rob Ok this compile works without errors. Yay (have you any idea how long I have been at this?) and creates a dvb-usb-rtl2832u.ko but not a rtl2832u.ko despite there being a bunch of files like rtl2832u.c and rtl2832u.o and dmesg complains of no frontend: dvb-usb: found a 'RTL2832U DVB-T USB DEVICE' in warm state. [ 2040.777066] dvb-usb: will pass the complete MPEG2 transport stream to the software demuxer. [ 2040.793621] DVB: registering new adapter (RTL2832U DVB-T USB DEVICE) [ 2040.833115] RTL2832U usb_init_bulk_setting : USB2.0 HIGH SPEED (480Mb/s) [ 2041.153012] RTL2832U check_tuner_type : ERROR Unknown tuner on board... [ 2041.166512] dvb-usb: no frontend was attached by 'RTL2832U DVB-T USB DEVICE' [ 2041.190209] input: IR-receiver inside an USB DVB receiver as /devices/platform/sw-ehci.1/usb2/2-1/input/input3 [ 2041.226625] dvb-usb: schedule remote query interval to 287 msecs. [ 2041.251663] dvb-usb: RTL2832U DVB-T USB DEVICE successfully initialized and connected. [ 2041.267826] usbcore: registered new interface driver dvb_usb_rtl2832u [ 2548.427451] rtl2832: disagrees about version of symbol module_layout so I will attach -v in the Makefile and run it again. Getting there! So the make is running: CC [M] /home/debian/DVB-Realtek-RTL2832U-2.2.2-10tuner-mod_kernel-3.0.0/RTL2832-2.2.2_kernel-3.0.0/rtl2832u.o without errors and similar so should produce a rtl2832u.ko IMHO. I found that the vermagic of the module produced was incorrect - it should be vermagic: 3.4.67-sun4i+ preempt mod_unload modversions ARMv7 p2v8 instead get: vermagic: 3.4.67-sun4i preempt mod_unload modversions ARMv7 p2v8 In trying to track this down I have not found the source of sun4i versus sun4i+. Is it being determined by scripts/setlocalversion by any chance since .config and Makefile look correct. I have attached the .config Makefile and setlocalversion files. Thanks

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postfix+dovecot: smtp - pop3 authentication isssue
by Daniel Jitnah 16 May '14

16 May '14

Hi Luvers, Here is scenario (not for me by the way, but someone else) Using laptop with Outlook/Win 7 for client. Mail server is Linux Ubuntu 10.10 (due for upgrade to 14.04 soon) - using Postfix+Dovecot. 1. Able to authenticate to server for smtp and pop using wifi at home and using 3G anywhere. 2. Unable to authenticate in workplace office (talking office building not Office software!!)- keeps asking for username and password when using mail.example.com.au in settings for outlook. (substitute for real domain name of course) 3. Able to authenticate as above if using ip number instead, which makes sense, since in office wifi and mail server on same subnet (192.168.1.X) Why would authentication not work using domain name instead of IP in workplace? This suddenly started about 1 week ago, and has been working fine for months before. Any idea? (I need a clear thinking mind here! Mine is clogged up with all sorts of possibilities... including NSA conspiracy!!) (Before I can tell the user his Outlook/Win 7 is screwed up, I want to eliminate other possibilities. The only thing he says has change is an antivirus software update) Cheers Daniel

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gpg question
by Brian May 15 May '14

15 May '14

A program (git-remote-gcrypt) calls gpg like follows: --- cut --- $ gpg -se --default-recipient-self You need a passphrase to unlock the secret key for user: "Brian May <brian(a)microcomaustralia.com.au>" 4096-bit RSA key, ID B9D02636, created 2010-01-13 No such user ID. Current recipients: Enter the user ID. End with an empty line: gpg: Interrupt caught ... exiting --- cut --- gpg complains "No such user ID". Why? It has clearly identified my secret key, so it should be able to find the corresponding public key right? The man page says: --default-recipient-self Use the default key as default recipient if option --recipient is not used and don't ask if this is a valid one. The default key is the first one from the secret keyring or the one set with --default-key. --default-key name Use name as the default key to sign with. If this option is not used, the default key is the first key found in the secret keyring. Note that -u or --local-user overrides this option. Which is what I expected. My ~/.gnupg.conf contains: # FILE CREATED BY SEAHORSE use-agent This is gpg in Debian/wheezy. Is there something I am doing wrong? -- Brian May <brian(a)microcomaustralia.com.au>

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