- luv-main - example.com

Dinner Tue 5th Feb 5:30
by Russell Coker 05 Feb '13

05 Feb '13

We need to have dinner near a station so that Alex can quickly get to the hackerspace. Let's meet for dinner at the Melbourne Central food court. There's a wide range of food to suit all tastes. I'll probably be there from 5PM for anyone who arrives early. From there it's a quick and easy journey to the LUV meeting by tram. Anyone who has trouble finding us can email me. If you don't have email access on a portable device then contact me off-list and I'll give you a mobile number. See you tomorrow! Sorry for the late arrangement. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/

5 7

Re: Data recovery
by Joel W Shea 04 Feb '13

04 Feb '13

I've recently procured a WD Passport 1TB USB3.0 disk that needs some data recovery. I'm fairly certain it's a hardware related issue, either the PCB, or the read/write heads. TL;DR – Can anyone recommend a reputable, reliable, and trustworthy Australian data recovery service, that has been successful for you or someone you know? (Please, no lectures on backing up data, which has already been given to the owner of said data, incidentally not me) Background information follows; * The end-user reported that the drive started making some "unusual" sounds, and the filesystem wasn't readable. * Advised the owner to safely eject the device and not power it up again. * Connected it to my linux machine with the intent of creating a 'ddrescue' image to work with. * It detected the USB device, and I could hear it spinning up, with a (somewhat louder than usual) head seeking sound. * But wouldn't mount, as it could only intermittently read block data, a few I/O errors, and/or not detect a block device. * Though I was eventually able to recover the partition table with 'dd' * When I next powered up the device to perform a ddrescue, the drive started with the "clicking of death" along with some beeping from the PCB, then eventually goes offline. * Since then, haven't been game enough to power it on, or try any of the more drastic measures such as freezing or "accoustic maintenance", in fear of making professional recovery more difficult. * So short of replacing the PCB myself, or performing surgical recovery/transplant, I've done all I can. I'm hoping someone could recommend a reliable and trustworthy recovery professional, that I can engage to perform the work on my behalf. -- Joel Shea <jwshea(a)gmail.com>

3 2

Alex Bradbury meeting
by Russell Coker 04 Feb '13

04 Feb '13

Alex Bradbury (who is known for his work on Raspberri Pi and who just gave a lecture on the topic at LCA) is going to be briefly in Melbourne. He would like to attend the pre-meeting dinner before the next LUV meeting. He has other plans for the evening and can't attend the actual meeting so this will be your only chance to meet him. Is the pre-meeting dinner still at the same place? What time are you planning to arrive? I suggested 5:30 to Alex, if not everyone arrives that early then that's OK, I'm sure that Alex will be happy to hang out with the early people until the others arrive. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/

3 4

browser behavior to a partcular web site
by zlinw＠mcmedia.com.au 03 Feb '13

03 Feb '13

Now this is not a major issue but on connecting to the site http://forums.vicsig.net the behaviour depends on which version of web browesr one is using. If using and older version of firefox (from debian 6.0.x everything works OK. If using the version of firefox from current testing or the chromium browser from debian 6 one gets a cpanel web page with an error message............ "If you can see this page, then the people who manage this server have installed cPanel and WebHost Manager (WHM) which use the Apache Web server software" There is nothing real obvious I can see wrong, it only started happenning recently and no upgrades have been done on any of my systems in recent times and a number of systems do the same thing. Lindsay

3 2

P2V: Linux RAID1 -> Virtual disk or similar... how would you go about it?
by Anthony Hogan 29 Jan '13

29 Jan '13

Hi all, A friend has an aging linux server on which he runs a web app that he custom built. The web app's written in Perl and has grown organically with libraries and other dependencies added over the years. The server's getting a bit long in the tooth and my concern is a proper backup is needed. My first instinct is that given he doesn't have an exact handle on dependencies etc. he needs to ensure that he has a backed up copy of the entire system "as is"... and that for backup purposes as well as having something to properly dev on, a virtual machine is the way to go. With a virtual machine, one then has some breathing space to do proper dependency analysis etc. in preparation for a clean OS install and should current hardware die, provided that file and db changes have been backed up in interim, wouldn't be too hard to switch over to VM. The server uses Linux software RAID1 # mdadm --detail /dev/md1 /dev/md1: Version : 00.90.03 Creation Time : Sun Mar 26 17:57:19 2006 Raid Level : raid1 Array Size : 76196224 (72.67 GiB 78.02 GB) Used Dev Size : 76196224 (72.67 GiB 78.02 GB) Raid Devices : 2 Total Devices : 2 Preferred Minor : 1 Persistence : Superblock is persistent Update Time : Mon Jan 28 17:35:20 2013 State : active Active Devices : 2 Working Devices : 2 Failed Devices : 0 Spare Devices : 0 How would you image the system, to P2V it? In theory I think one could: * Image a single drive to a virtual disk.. boot into degraded state, recover or drop raid. * Image both drives to virtual disks.. boot into normal state * Build a VM using same underlying OS then using a live environment on both systems, rsync files from source over destination, overwriting destination entirely.. Fix fstab/raid config.. Not entirely sure on which tools to use tho to do this, pitfalls and such.. Also friend wants to minimise downtime as the webapp powers a relative's web store.

3 4

Re: dpkg -l and apt
by zlinw＠mcmedia.com.au 25 Jan '13

25 Jan '13

Quoting Rick Moen <rick(a)linuxmafia.com> > Quoting James Harper (james.harper(a)bendigoit.com.au) > >> When I do 'apt-get update', 'dpkg -l' doesn't know about the new >> packages and so isn't useful for searching. > > > Wrong tool. I think you're looking for 'apt-cache'. just for the record........ Its likely dpkg -l uses the file /var/lib/dpkg/available as its source this is updated by dselect. One can update this file by running dselect and selecting the menu item "1. [U]pdate". I use apt-get, dselect and dpkg, each has its own strengths and weakness's. I find dselect particularly good at telling one what is being drag into satisfy dependecies, in many cases (for me any way) telling you its pulling something you ____really____ do not want. I do not want a system with a lot of stuff on it I will never use, apt being real good at installing masses of stuff although..... Install-Recommends "false"; Install-Suggests "false"; in /etc/apt/apt.conf helps a lot. Lindsay

2 1

dpkg -l and apt
by James Harper 25 Jan '13

25 Jan '13

When I do 'apt-get update', 'dpkg -l' doesn't know about the new packages and so isn't useful for searching. How do I update dpkg's database these days? Or how can I do a similar search in apt's database? I know I used to be able to do it with dselect but I much prefer the command line when searching. Thanks James

2 2

Wifi connection issues.
by stripes theotoky 25 Jan '13

25 Jan '13

Dear Group, I have two Linux laptops with the latest updates to the most recent LTS Ubuntu distribution. 1). Samsung netbook. This uses the Broadcom wl wifi driver and works fine all the time everywhere. 2). Lenovo W520. This uses the iwlwifi driver and works on every network I have tried it on except Latrobe University. I have tried both LTUwireless2 or Eduroam. It is impossible to keep a connection to either of these (in La Trobe) for longer than about 2 minutes. Outside La Trobe Eduroam works just fine. The configuration settings are the same on both boxen. Up until a few months ago the W520 worked fine on the La Trobe network. IT support claim that no Linux box can connect to their wifi or ever could. As I was using it with the Samsung half an hour ago I know this is false. Obviously something has changed but where to start looking, is it my driver, my hardware or has something changed on the network and if so what. Ideas most welcome Stripes

2 2

Web site with problems (with Linux browsers only)
by Peter Ross 25 Jan '13

25 Jan '13

Hi, a friend of mine is running a Joomla based website http://www.DeutscheInMelbourne.net . The first page renders fine on Windows and Apple devices but has a full page of spam gibberish <a href>'s to the most wanted items if I believe in spam) before the header menu starts (so I have to scroll down to see any useful content) I tried on two Ubuntu machines running Ubuntu 12.04, and tried Chrome and Firefox, always with the rubbish in it. Stranger, it does not even appear in the page source if I look at it using Windows or Apple machines. I did not look at the server yet (and my friend isn't an IT expert) but I find it that weired that I don't have a slightest idea what the cause might be. Any ideas? Thanks for answers Peter

9 25

Re: remote list of changed files
by Brian May 24 Jan '13

24 Jan '13

On 24/01/2013 12:16 PM, "Russell Coker" <russell(a)coker.com.au> wrote: > Unison sounds interesting, it's something to consider for future uses, thanks > John Mann. While unison is good (I use it all the time), it is no longer actively developed. See http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/status.html

3 2