September 2012 - wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

University Team Builds Lego and Raspberry Pi Cluster
by Peter Reutemann 12 Sep '12

12 Sep '12

"A team of computational engineers over at the University of Southampton led by Professor Simon Cox have built a supercomputer using Raspberry Pi and Lego. The supercomputer is comprised of 64 processors, 1TB of storage (16GB SD cards in each of the Raspberry Pis) and can be powered on using just a single 13-amp mains socket. MPI is used for communications between the nodes through the ethernet port. The team managed to build the core of the supercomputer for under £2500. Named 'Iridis-Pi' after University of Southampton's supercomputer Iridis, the supercomputer runs software that was built using Python and Scratch. Professor Cox used the free plug-in 'Python Tools for Visual Studio' to develop code for the Raspberry Pi." -- source: http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/12/09/12/145256/university-team-builds-l… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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netlink_family=31
by LIBCHABER, JACQUES (JACQUES) 11 Sep '12

11 Sep '12

Hello, I am studying some code involving NETLINK sockets. The code involves a call to socket: sock_fd = socket (AF_NETLINK, SOCK_RAW, 31) looking at NETLINK(7) or '/usr/include/bits/socket.h' I can't find any documentation for netlink_family=31 Could you point me to some answers. Thanks

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Debian Download
by Wolfgang 11 Sep '12

11 Sep '12

Hi Can somebody advise me how to download Debian Wheezy? I want to get away from Ubuntu 12.4, which the developers have locked down hard enough that I am unable to set it up the way I like my Linux to function. Key issue is of course Unity, which I regard as excellent for all those who prefer small screens (i.e. Smartphones and Tablets), but for those of us who have bought large screens, Unity is a regression back towards the ugly side of DOS. (You had to remember each command before you could use it. Menus may be slow to work with, but their use is quick to learn, and for infrequently used commands they are simply superior.) I need the amd64 edition, and I do not want to download just a basic system to try whether my knowledge is good enough to get it running, not reams after reams of iso's that eventually I never use. A further complication is that my wi-fi adaptor, D-link DWA-131 (Realtek RTL 8192SU), is not correctly installed by Suse 12.1 or Mageia-2-x86-64, and perusal of the fora indicated that I will have to wait until kernel 3.4 (3.2 is currently used) becomes standard before I can use any rpm based distribution. I have tried Linux Mint XFCE as well, as another possible way to escape Canonical's lockdown into Unity, but that does not install at all on my machine for reasons apparently not connected to my hardware. What is the most appropriate server here in NZ to download Debian? Thank you Wolfgang Vogelbein

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Fritzing, the Hot New Electronics Designer for Real People
by Peter Reutemann 10 Sep '12

10 Sep '12

"Fritzing is the sophisticated new electronics application with the funny name. It is a powerful tool for making schematics, prototyping circuits, and designing printed circuit boards." -- source: http://www.linux.com/learn/tutorials/631016-fritzing-the-hot-new-electronic… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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First beta of Ubuntu 12.10 released
by Peter Reutemann 10 Sep '12

10 Sep '12

"The first beta version of Ubuntu 12.10, code-named "Quantal Quetzal", has been released for testing ahead of its October final release. The new version brings together a range of enhancements the developers have been working on, from reducing the number of install images, to making 3D accelerated desktops run on non-3D hardware, and switching to Python 3.0." -- source: http://h-online.com/-1702021 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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slight problem with disk publisher
by Bruce Kingsbury 08 Sep '12

08 Sep '12

slight problem with disk publisher, after about the first ten disks, the labels are printing very faint and getting worse with every disk. black and white cartridge not printing at all, and colour one is a bit sketchy. If anyone has a pair of lexmark cartridges I could borrow to test 53335 and 53336 that would be good, otherwise we'll just use the machine for burning the disks (which works well, it's very fast) and have to sort out something else for labelling them.

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Comparing against a repository
by mailinglist 06 Sep '12

06 Sep '12

Hello All, Again, I'm trying to get this vmware server going that has preconfigured wiki set running on it. However, I'm adding some extensions. For that I need to install some additional programs off the debian repositories. I'm finding I cannot install 1) ocaml 2) nscd because of dependency conflicts. Now, I don't know what software the original person who configured this machine did but it there anyway of running a comparison of the installed software to what is on the repositories. And/or similary is there way get around the following error. How do you resolve this one? wikiserver:~# apt-get install nscd Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable distribution that some required packages have not yet been created or been moved out of Incoming. The following information may help to resolve the situation: The following packages have unmet dependencies: default-jre-headless : Depends: openjdk-6-jre-headless (>= 6b14) but it is not going to be installed nscd : Depends: libc6 (> 2.11) but it is not going to be installed Depends: libc6 (< 2.12) but it is not going to be installed E: Broken packages wikiserver:~# dpkg-query -l libc6 Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold | Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend |/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad) ||/ Name Version Description +++-=============================================-=============================================-========================================================================================================== ii libc6 2.13-7 Embedded GNU C Library: Shared libraries wikiserver:~#

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Domain Name Resolution and LDAP
by mailinglist 05 Sep '12

05 Sep '12

Hello all, I've got a query for the networking types. I'm currently trying to get a wiki to LDAP authentication. Despite my best attempts it keeps failing. I can't understand the following. Some commands can resolve the ip address of internal servers when using there FQDN while others cannot. This is all within a Windows network. The server I'm trying to configure is Debian Squeeze. I am wondering if this might be why the LDAP authentication is not working. Any thoughts? Cheers, Chris ############## Find the ip address of thesun.tesla.local ############## wikiserver:~# dig thesun.tesla.local ; <<>> DiG 9.7.3 <<>> thesun.tesla.local ;; global options: +cmd ;; Got answer: ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 45615 ;; flags: qr aa rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0 ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;thesun.tesla.local. IN A ;; ANSWER SECTION: thesun.tesla.local. 3600 IN A 10.0.0.10 ;; Query time: 1 msec ;; SERVER: 10.0.0.10#53(10.0.0.10) ;; WHEN: Wed Sep 5 15:36:29 2012 ;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 52 ############### Then check if port 389 is open. It fails to resolve the IP address. ############### wikiserver:~# nmap -p 389 thesun.tesla.local Starting Nmap 5.00 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2012-09-05 15:37 NZST Failed to resolve given hostname/IP: thesun.tesla.local. Note that you can't use '/mask' AND '1-4,7,100-' style IP ranges WARNING: No targets were specified, so 0 hosts scanned. Nmap done: 0 IP addresses (0 hosts up) scanned in 5.15 seconds wikiserver:~# ############## Try again using the IP address Promptly returns an answer ############## wikiserver:~# nmap -p 389 10.0.0.10 Starting Nmap 5.00 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2012-09-05 15:37 NZST Interesting ports on thesun.tesla.local (10.0.0.10): PORT STATE SERVICE 389/tcp open ldap MAC Address: 00:50:56:93:76:FB (VMWare) Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 0.44 seconds wikiserver:~#

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Hybrid graphics support in NVIDIA's Linux driver
by Peter Reutemann 04 Sep '12

04 Sep '12

"NVIDIA is working on a new version of its proprietary Linux graphics driver that will add support for its Optimus switching technology, which is usually found used in laptops. The company's plans were revealed in an email from NVIDIA's Aaron Plattner, in which he asks open source developers for advice on some implementation details." -- source: http://h-online.com/-1697756 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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No software patents (again)
by Ronnie Collinson 04 Sep '12

04 Sep '12

So if you haven't heard some members of the government have recently met with reps of some big international software giants, such as IBM and Microsoft. Which has resulted is some possible changes to patent law here. The exclusion for software that many members of the NZ software communities (both commercial and open source), a couple years back, which was accepted, is looking to have a new clause 10A, which would exclude embedded systems (which for things like home routers and cellphones, are an absolute mine field of patents) from the software exclusion. The other unusual aspect for a democratic country, is that this clause is being added without going to select committee and therefore is unlikely to receive public submissions. If you haven't all ready, please sign this. http://no.softwarepatents.org.nz Ronnie

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