- luv-talk - luv.asn.au

meeting in May?
by Anthony Shipman 28 Apr '12

28 Apr '12

Is there a LUV meeting in May? -- Anthony Shipman Mamas don't let your babies als(a)iinet.net.au grow up to be outsourced.

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vap.net.au spammers
by Russell Coker 27 Apr '12

27 Apr '12

My recent post to the luv-jobs list received two spam messages from vap.net.au. One was a "thank you for your application" message (obvious spam as I wasn't applying for anything) and the other was an out of office message. The LUV committee suggest that I contact the "relevant authorities" about this because they are in breach of the "Spam Act". Is that a viable option? Note that vap.net.au are not advertising jobs or acting on behalf of anyone. They are just subscribed to the luv-jobs list and spamming people. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/

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interesting thread on zfs-discuss
by Craig Sanders 25 Apr '12

25 Apr '12

FYI: thread titled "What is the current status of native ZFS on Linux?" http://groups.google.com/a/zfsonlinux.org/group/zfs-discuss/browse_thread/t… includes this paragraph from http://groups.google.com/a/zfsonlinux.org/group/zfs-discuss/msg/9bd84a5e8d9… by Richard Yao: "As far as performance goes, ZFSOnLinux raidz2 outperforms a combination of MD RAID 6, LVM and ext4 on 6 Samsung HD204UI drives that I own. ZFS raidz2 has 220 MB/sec write performance in writing a 4GB file while the combination of MD RAID 6, LVM and ext4 only managed 20MB/sec." somebody in the thread mentioned that they get abysmal performance with zvols (chunks of a zpool allocated to be a "disk" - similar to an LVM logical volume). That really surprises me, I've had fantastic performance from them. All of my VMs are now on zvols....and i've done a lot of testing of zfs in a VM with zpools made up of lots of 100-200MB zvols. Same person also mentioned stability problems until they changed from onboard drive controller to an LSI controller...unfortunately, he doesn't mention what motherboard or kind of ports, or what kind of LSI controller (I'd guess one of the cheap HBAs like the 9211-8i or the IBM M1015 as they are very popular for running ZFS on linux, open solaris, and freebsd) craig ps: speaking of cheap HBAs, I bought a few of the IBM M1015s from ebay. they took only a few days to arrive. I reflashed one of them to IT mode on a spare machine and then replaced my supermicro card with it (which I then also reflashed to IT mode in the spare machine...didn't want to risk it until now in case i bricked the card. this will go into my myth box to replace the 4-port adaptec 1430sa) Haven't noticed any difference at all, but that's good. I wasn't expecting any performance difference, just more relaxed timeouts for the consumer-grade WD Green drives i'm using. When prices comes down enough I'll replace them with 3TB drives, probably Hitachi or Seagate. -- craig sanders <cas(a)taz.net.au> BOFH excuse #126: it has Intel Inside

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Fwd: WARNING: Geomagnetic K-index of 7 or greater (G3 or Greater)
by Carl Turney 24 Apr '12

24 Apr '12

Hello, As IT tech types, working with some very expensive and sensitive equipment, thought you may be interested in this solar storm warning I just got (below). I've been on that US Gov subscription list for a few months now, and this is the FIRST warning I've ever received. Please let me know if I shouldn't do this sort of thing on the list. Regards, Carl Turney Melbourne -------- Original Message -------- Subject: WARNING: Geomagnetic K-index of 7 or greater (G3 or Greater) Date: 24 Apr 2012 02:16:23 +0000 From: SWPC Product Subscription Service <SWPC.Products(a)noaa.gov> To: carl Space Weather Message Code: WARK07 Serial Number: 37 Issue Time: 2012 Apr 24 0204 UTC WARNING: Geomagnetic K-index of 7 or greater expected Valid From: 2012 Apr 24 0205 UTC Valid To: 2012 Apr 24 0600 UTC Warning Condition: Onset NOAA Scale: G3 or greater - Strong to Extreme NOAA Space Weather Scale descriptions can be found at www.swpc.noaa.gov/NOAAscales Potential Impacts: Area of impact primarily poleward of 50 degrees Geomagnetic Latitude. Induced Currents - Power system voltage irregularities possible, false alarms may be triggered on some protection devices. Spacecraft - Systems may experience surface charging; increased drag on low Earth-orbit satellites and orientation problems may occur. Navigation - Intermittent satellite navigation (GPS) problems, including loss-of-lock and increased range error may occur. Radio - HF (high frequency) radio may be intermittent. Aurora - Aurora may be seen as low as Pennsylvania to Iowa to Oregon. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Thank you for using the Product Subscription Service. If you would like to remove a product subscription or update the personal information in your account, go to the Product Subscription Site. <https://pss.swpc.noaa.gov> Please do not use the from address for correspondence, as it is not monitored. For comments or help, please contact SWPC Help. <mailto:pss.help@noaa.gov>

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Buying a new server
by Dave Oxley 18 Apr '12

18 Apr '12

Hi all, I have an 7 year old dell server that is in need of replacement. It's uses among others are MythTV backend, Asterisk, Web server, email, IP routing, various Java web apps. I had spec'ed and almost bought a new Dell server but got really disenchanted with their crappy sales guys. They wouldn't remove the 500Gb hard disk that added $300 to the price and suggested I go to ebay for additional hard disk caddies which apparently don't come with it. The plan was to add 4 Seagate SV35.5 3Tb drives which are about $300 ea and mdraid them. I've since been looking into building my own server but I'm not sure what to do for a case. I'm after a case with 6+ hot-plug backplane, preferably redundant PSU and tool-less. I found the Chenbro SR11269 which is mostly what I need but various places sell different PSU's for it. There's the C2W-3820V-R and C2W-5820V which differ in price by about $200 but I can't find any information about what's differences between them. Also they state '*For Tylersburg' so I'm not sure if they'll work with the motherboard I've chosen (S2600COE). I've also looked at Intel cases for this motherboard but they come at a premium. So does anyone have any suggestions of where I go from here? I'm happy to buy a pre-built server but not happy about buying Dell anymore. I'm also happy to build my own. The budget is about $3000 and the specs I'm after are roughly are: 1x 6 core Intel Xeon processor Motherboard with 2 processor sockets, 2+ Gigabit LAN, 6+ SATA 12+ GB or ram upgradable 6+ hot plug case with SATA backplane redundant PSU 9+ TB raid 5 Disk space Cheers, Dave.

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Re: [luv-talk] Bigpond Ultimate modem (sierra) ... what can you do with it?
by Jason White 17 Apr '12

17 Apr '12

[Moved to luv-talk] Jobst Schmalenbach <jobst(a)barrett.com.au> wrote: > I used to have a telstra plan with a Bigpond Ultimate modem (sierra) > What can you do with it afterwards? What kind of modem is it? Cable modem? ADSL modem? 3G modem? If you're using the same type of connectivity, you might be able to reuse it with another ISP, otherwise give it or sell it to someone who wants one, unless it's owned by Telstra in which case I'd suggest giving it back to them. I understand that some modems can't be reconfigured by the customer, though, for example some cable modems.

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power requirements anyone?
by Tim Connors 16 Apr '12

16 Apr '12

Anyone got some spare power? ;) http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120896792573 -- Tim Connors

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free DVD drives
by Russell Coker 11 Apr '12

11 Apr '12

I'm just packing up some old systems to send to e-waste recycling and I've got a pile of DVD drives. Does anyone need some DVD drives? They were all working last time they were tested and most of them would still be working although with moving parts and dust I can't be certain. I can deliver them to the next LUV meeting. If you want some then try to let me know before 9AM tomorrow, otherwise some of them will be recycled. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/

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Hardware to give way
by Sebastian 08 Apr '12

08 Apr '12

Hi, I have some hardware to give away. 1. ASUS A7V8X-X mainboard with a AMD Athlon processor. 256 MB RAM. Zalman fan on the CPU. Gigabyte GeForce2 MX 400 video card (dual display support). Sound Blaster sound card. DVD drive. Floppy drive. No power supply. All in a black Antec case. I haven't power this up for a while and don't have a ready way to test it; however, I believe it to be in working order. 2. Pentium 4 Socket 478 with Pentium 4 processor. 256 MB RAM. 3. Belkin Wireless G Desktop Network Card Hardware can be picked up from Northcote or maybe the city. E-mail me if you're interested in any or all of the above. Cheers, Sebastian

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Re: [luv-talk] Any practical way to improve glacial page downloads?
by Tim Connors 06 Apr '12

06 Apr '12

On Fri, 23 Mar 2012, Toby Corkindale wrote: > On 23/03/12 11:19, Tim Connors wrote: > > (I was just looking at smart phone prepaid plans. None are suitable for > > me. I want to pay less than $20 per month, which I can do with a non > > smartphone by virtue of having some credit that can last 365 days, as long > > as I don't use it. Which I don't. Very few providers seem to realise > > that not everyone wants to talk and text on their phone all day every day. > > Sometimes we only want something for emergencies because we're unsociable > > bastards). > > I pay $10 a month (post-paid) and get 1500 MB of data (excluding social > media, which is free) and more calls and SMS than I use if I try! (I > think around 2000 SMS?) > > The options are out there. Back to Luv-talk. Who's that with? I haven't found/deciphered any such plans like that. -- Tim Connors

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