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Job opening @ Open Query Pty Ltd (for AU/NZ based sysadmin/db engineer)
by Arjen Lentz 24 Sep '15

24 Sep '15

Hi all Job opportunity! Are you based in AU/NZ, ace at sysadmin & good with MySQL/MariaDB ? We'd like to talk with you! http://openquery.com.au/company/jobs/mariadb-engineer Regards, Arjen. -- Arjen Lentz, Exec.Director @ Open Query (http://openquery.com.au) Your databases and online infrastructure. Managed. Follow us http://openquery.com.au/blog/ & http://twitter.com/openquery

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ALSA auto-muting digital output
by Toby Corkindale 24 Sep '15

24 Sep '15

On my (headless) Linux box at home, I have a soundcard with digital out (optical), going straight to my amp. I can use various music-playing servers to let me select the music to play remotely, with the output emitting from the server. However for reasons that completely elude me, the ALSA system auto-mutes the output at the end of every song. It's infuriating. ALSA does indeed have an "auto-mute" setting, but I have ensured it is set to off. I wondered if the issue was with PulseAudio for a long time, but the problem still occurs after reconfiguring things to go direct to ALSA. As a work-around, I could modify the open-source software I'm using, to get it to run an unmute command after starting to play a track, but that's ridiculous. Surely there's a way to just stop it auto-muting on close? I don't suppose anyone else has ever encountered this, or found a solution? Toby

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btrfs replace with bigger disk
by James Harper 23 Sep '15

23 Sep '15

I am replacing a set of 4 x 3TB disks with 4 x 6TB disks in a server that holds backups. I did btrfs replace on one disk, and that has completed but is still showing the original size: Total devices 4 FS bytes used 5.21TiB devid 1 size 2.73TiB used 2.73TiB path /dev/sda3 devid 2 size 2.73TiB used 2.73TiB path /dev/sdb3 devid 3 size 2.73TiB used 2.73TiB path /dev/sdc3 devid 4 size 2.73TiB used 2.73TiB path /dev/sde3 /dev/sde3 replaced /dev/sdd3, and the partition itself is definitely the correct size: major minor #blocks name 8 19 2929216967 sdb3 8 67 5859472967 sde3 8 51 2929216967 sdd3 8 35 2929216967 sdc3 8 3 2929216967 sda3 I've tried running a btrfs resize but it hasn't changed anything. Google just keeps giving me the same pages telling me about how replace works and why btrfs is awesome, but nothing that will actually fix the problem so far... Does anyone know how I might fix this? Thanks James

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SELinux and dedicated disks
by Peter Ross 23 Sep '15

23 Sep '15

Hi all, one of my "lingering issues" since I am back working in Linuxland (especially CentOS): I have the "habit" to have dedicated virtual disks (or similar) for data, e.g. /var/lib/mysql (so I can snapshot them separately, clone and move between VMs etc.) But that makes SELinux unhappy. I was surprised, actually.. What do I have to add to the SELinux contexts to allow this to happen? Regards Peter

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Network file system for "exclusive use" by one client only
by Peter Ross 22 Sep '15

22 Sep '15

Hi, I am looking for a "slimmer" NFS when I have a file server with a lkot of space - while clients with not much. I would like to export parts of the server file systems but do not need to share them between the clients. So I don't need all the overhead of leases that expire, server-side locking etc. Instead it would be good enough to do locking on the client side and write a journal which can be send to the file server. The file server needs to provide read access to files and be able to write what's given to it from the client. UIDs etc. could be send through, the permission check would happen at the client side. I guess that's all needed and would be faster and less complex than NFS. Does this kind of network file system exist? Any other ideas for very fast access on file system level over the net welcome. Regards Peter

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debian AMD64 and google-earth
by zlinw＠mcmedia.com.au 21 Sep '15

21 Sep '15

High all, does in fact ggogle-earth 64 bit work on Debian AMD64. I downloaded google-earth-stable_current_amd64.deb from there web site, it installed OK with dpkg. On startup it displayed a message box saying something like "the graphics adaptor is unsupported..........". Clicking the OK button caused GE to crash. If you click on the other button "do not display this error message again", next time one tries to run it it starts OK, seems to connect to its server OK but its as slow as a wet week, and I do mean slow. A comment from frustration.............. Why is this sort of thing so hard when changing Linux in any major way (in this case, changing from 32 to 64 bit, ALWAYS there is something that will not work. Now I have been mucking around with Linux now since 1993 and I have spent a lot of time working out why things will not work, so its not as if I have not tried, but these days I like a quite life, I just want the system to do WHAT I WANT. I have had Debian AMD64 installed on this machine for nearly a year and I STILL have not go it working as well as my 32 bit boxes, everything just works on them. Searching on the net did not help, all solutions proposed did not match my error. Installing via the debian package system did not work either, it complaining about lack of 32 bit libraries, what in the hell is a 64 bit exicutable want with 32 bit lbraries. I am very close to nukeing AMD64 here and installing good old 32 bit. A very frustrated, Lindsay

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dhcp server - only supply options, not address
by James Harper 21 Sep '15

21 Sep '15

I have isc-dhcp-server running on my router, and it currently supplies info needed for booting diskless devices (mythtv boxes, etc). The actual booting takes place on my server though, and I want the server to supply the dhcp options rather than the router, but still want the router to supply the address etc. This is so I am only editing this stuff in one place, and can script the configuration depending on how I want to boot (boot direct to iscsi with an iscsi filename, or chain via pxelinux where required, etc). I think this is possible, and I've definitely done it before in a Windows environment with WDM, but I can't find the magic incantation for the secondary dhcp server so it will supply options even though it shouldn't supply the lease. Any suggestions? Thanks James

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Re: Debian AMD64 or i386
by zlinw＠mcmedia.com.au 20 Sep '15

20 Sep '15

On Sat, 19 Sep 2015 19:55:24 Craig said. >you might also want to install some of these: >glx-alternative-fglrx - allows the selection of FGLRX as GLX provider >fglrx-atieventsd - events daemon for the non-free ATI/AMD RadeonHD display driver >fglrx-control - control panel for the non-free ATI/AMD RadeonHD display driver >libfglrx - non-free ATI/AMD RadeonHD display driver (runtime libraries) >libfglrx-amdxvba1 - AMD XvBA (X-Video Bitstream Acceleration) backend for VA API >, - proprietary libGL for the non-free ATI/AMD RadeonHD display driver >libgl1-fglrx-glx-i386 - ATI/AMD binary OpenGL 32-bit libraries Oops, any way many thanks for the advice to try the AMD closed src drivers, these seem to have cured the problem. glx-alternative-fglrx,libfglrx libgl1-fglrx-glx are all installed automagicly, I installed fglrx-atieventsd and fglrx-control by hand. I did not bother with amdxvbal1 as I NEVER do streaming video, data on the internet being way way way to expensive up my way to even consider it. >the gtx 560 is fine at 1449p for most things, but it's noticably >sluggish in some games when there's a lot happening (which is a good way >of getting killed due to video lag) I found both the Radeon 7870 and the GTX 680 over kill for OpenRails, both these cards have so much processing power they require two threads from the main program to keep these GPU's busy and the development kit being used by OpenRails does not have this support. I found the Radeon 5870 would drive the 2560 X 1600 monitors with OR no problems. >problem with in game fonts OpenRails has excatly the same problem, as far as I am concerned a font used in a game should be treated as just another in game texture required. Its not THAT difficult. Using the systems font generator in my opinion never looks right in game EXCEPT for system messages and such things as status lines. Just in case it may help if you happen to be looking for a new speaker set up to go with the 2560 x 1440 take a look at the Microlab Solo 8C High Fidelity Floor Stereo Speakers from PCCasegear, there only $179 but do not let that fool you, The sound of these is _____REALLY______ suppurb VERY clear and smooth, better even than Maudio offerings and at a fraction of the price and I am what one may call a highfi freek. The speakers are big being around 60cm high by around 22 wide, They sit quite nicely either side of my Dell 30" 2560 x 1600 monitor. Lindsay

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Re: Debian AMD64 or i386
by zlinw＠mcmedia.com.au 19 Sep '15

19 Sep '15

On Sat, 19 Sep 2015 16:57:05 Craig said, >before spending money on a new card, try the catalyst driver. it's as >simple as 'apt-get install fglrx-driver' (for sid & testing, fglrx-glx >for stable) and if it works, will save you hundreds of dollars. Was not quite that simple ;-) I am using Debian 8.x, it requires the first command. I installed fglrx using 'apt-get install fglrx-driver' On my own default kernel (3.16.7) kernel locked solid when I tried to start X. System would not boot on Debian's standard installed kernel, would start Ok on my own previous kernel 3.15.9, but there was no fglrx kernel driver present. Installed fglrx-modules-dkms, modules built Ok. Xserver starts Ok, both 3D and 2D performance appears to be excellent. Will need further testing to see if lockups are now gone. >the 560 has been great - they were exceptionally good value for money at >the time, so good that it hasn't been worth upgrading them. but i bought Yes, I had one. >a 2560x1440 monitor a few months ago, and it's struggling in some games >at full resolution. will probably have to get a gtx-970 eventually. I have been using 2560x1600 monitors now for some time, OpenRails an open source (for windows) MSTS compatible train sim is simply awesome at 2560x1600. The Radeon 7870 or an Nvidia GTX 680 both drive the 2560x1600 OK, you will end up with a good setup. Lindsay

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Re: Debian AMD64 or i386
by zlinw＠mcmedia.com.au 19 Sep '15

19 Sep '15

Many thanks for the replies, A major reason for posting for help is it does wonders for ones own reasoning and sugestions arising almost alwasy helps. A couple of points. The hardware is all higher end items, the pSu for instance being a Corsair AX760 and the power consumed is WELL within the limits of this PSU. The reason for the Radeon 7870 is I do a lot of development work on 3D animated graphics (I am developing a train simulator) and good mesa3d performance is mandatory. The problem is almost certainly something to do with the GPU as as stated the sound does keep playing so what is happenning is an xserver display lockup and the kernel is still running (Note it appears the X app concerned vlc is still running.. My own thinking is Craig has hit the nail firmly on the head, although I have run the 7870 extensively on i386 with little trouble (Note I have actaully struck this before, an AMD card giving problems under certain versions of linux). I believe the way forward also is for an Nvidia card. I have tried both AMD and Nvidia offerings and from all this experience the Nvidia's with the closed source driver is superior. I do compile my own kernels, this machine (I am writing this on the AMD64 installed machine) is 3.16.7 compiled last november so its due for an update. Note also I have tried updating the kernel, it did not help. I do like to support AMD as the are at least trying to do something for Linux, but I have found there closed src driver 2D performce to be completely ____PATHETIC____ to say the least, mind you its now two or more years since I tried it last. I give a look at digging up a reasonable Nvidia card, a real high end job is a waste of money though. Lindsay

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