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RE: [wlug] Mailing list etiquette (was Re: Sudo)
by Gund Wehsling 05 Apr '05

05 Apr '05

I will be removing my self from this mailing list today. The amount of junk has now exceeded the amount of value. Regards Gund ________________________________ From: Daniel Lawson [mailto:daniel(a)meta.net.nz] Sent: Tue 5/04/2005 11:58 To: Waikato Linux Users Group Subject: Re: [wlug] Mailing list etiquette (was Re: Sudo) >>Also, many people read mailing lists in digest form. HTML (and other >>formats) tend to break in digest mode. > > > I hope you won't take offense, but this seems like the only good reason > to me. Surely, in the year 2005, when the HTML 4 spec has been around > for eight years and has been commonly used to style emails for not much > less time than that, it is reasonable to assume that any mail reader can > parse it? No, it's not reasonable at all. Especially not for a mailing list which will have a high rate of people using command line only mail clients, or perhaps self-written mail clients. And people using telnet to read mail. It will happen, if only because it's *this* group of people. > From a purist point of view, I agree that emails should be in plain > text. The reason I style them is because I like them to look pretty for So do it? > less computer-savvy types who I regularly email, who don't know how to > style things on their end. Additionally, there are some things that > plain text simply won't do, and which I do occasionally use (lists being > one). I can do lists very easily in plain text: * This is an example of a list * This is a second entry in a list, which has a longer line which I format approrpriately. * And here we have a third entry in a list * Look, I can do sublists too! > I'm not meaning to stir or be a pest; I just don't understand why any > mail client in use today would not support HTML; or why people would > turn it off? Surely, unless you're using OE, security isn't a problem. > People seem to manage browsing the web without issues, and that's a far > less controlled and predictable environment than email. Just because *you* use a mail client that supports HTML emails, does not mean every one *else* does. As I've said, this is mitigated by configuring your client to send an HTML block and a plain text block, however your client was not originally configured to do this, which is *probably* what prompted the "fix your client" thing anyway. > So, as I asked before with my sudo question, what am I missing? Are > people just pig-headed snobs who like to feel wronged and stand out as > martyrs for the Old School? HTML emails are horrible, plain and simple. All it takes is getting mail from someone using Incredimail for you to see the truth in this statement. _______________________________________________ wlug mailing list | wlug(a)list.waikato.ac.nz Unsubscribe: http://list.waikato.ac.nz/mailman/listinfo/wlug

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Re: [wlug] SMB question
by Michael Honeyfield 05 Apr '05

05 Apr '05

> > Have you considered using pscp from > > http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/ > > I have found the putty suite to be very useful under windows and doing > > an scp transfer should get around any possible issues with samba and > > at least narrow down the possible cause of the problem if it still > > fails. > > On a side note, pscp is god awful slow - feels like half the speed of Linux > scp, and of course these are both slower than smb due to the encryption > overhead. Useful, sure, but very slow. WinSCP is no better as it uses > PuTTY's encryption code. > Still FTP (vsftpd is nice) is an option and one I use on my samba server for big transfers... dunno why, but samba is slow to transfer anything over 1GB is a single file or a collection of smaller files. Mike

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SMB question
by Raymond Burgess 05 Apr '05

05 Apr '05

I am running a machine with RH 7.1, samba-2.0.10 I moving some large files from a Windows XP machine to the large amount of diskspace that is available ont he Linux machine. Files that are larger than 4GB fail to copy. Once the progress reaches 4GB windows prompts you if you wish to overright the exisiting file. I am already planning on installing a newer release on the linux box, probably Fedora Code 3 (or 4, as It will probably be out by the time I get around to it). I would like to know if any of you have successfully copied files larger than 4GB from a Windows machine to a recent build on samba. I'm not sure if it's Samba, Windows XP or the SMB protocol that is limited at 4GB. I realy don't care either, but I would like to know if this will work, it might motivate me to upgrade a little faster ;-) Anyone with FC3 able to confirm that this has worked. Raymond

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Parliamentary Questions
by Greig McGill 05 Apr '05

05 Apr '05

Hi all, After Rodney Hide spoke to us last year, he suggested that our most effective tool for advocacy would be to formulate a list of parliamentary questions. A good explanation of the usefulness of these can be found here: http://www.act.org.nz/question.jsp Mr. Hide has offered to put our questions forward, but at the moment they are a tad incoherent. Could we have some keen volunteers to edit http://www.wlug.org.nz/ParliamentaryQuestions? Be brutal. Don't worry about retaining comments - they are retained in the wiki's revision history. I'd really like to submit these in "ready to ask" form to Mr. Hide by the end of this month. Please note: The WLUG has no political affiliation with ACT or any other political party, but we know a useful tool when we see one. :) Please don't submit these questions yourself, as we would like them to all be submitted together from a single point of contact to maximise their efficiency. Thanks, Greig McGill El Presidente.

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Sudo
by Bnonn 05 Apr '05

05 Apr '05

Hi everyone. I'm wondering if someone can explain the rationale behind sudo. Ubuntu uses sudo by default, rather than having normal root access, although you can use root access if you wish. This is supposedly done with security in mind, but I don't see how it makes things more secure. It seems to me that allowing a user to execute commands which require root privileges, without having the root password, is really dangerous. For example, logged in as bnonn I can execute: $ sudo passwd root And change the root password. This doesn't seem secure to me! What am I missing? Regards Bnonn

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Re: [wlug] SMB question
by Michael Honeyfield 05 Apr '05

05 Apr '05

> I am running a machine with RH 7.1, samba-2.0.10 > > I moving some large files from a Windows XP machine to the large amount > of diskspace that is available ont he Linux machine. > > Files that are larger than 4GB fail to copy. Once the progress reaches > 4GB windows prompts you if you wish to overright the exisiting file. > > I am already planning on installing a newer release on the linux box, > probably Fedora Code 3 (or 4, as It will probably be out by the time I > get around to it). > > I would like to know if any of you have successfully copied files larger > than 4GB from a Windows machine to a recent build on samba. I'm not > sure if it's Samba, Windows XP or the SMB protocol that is limited at > 4GB. I realy don't care either, but I would like to know if this will > work, it might motivate me to upgrade a little faster ;-) > > Anyone with FC3 able to confirm that this has worked. > Possible some sort of file size limit.. not sure. Is it possible to setup a ftp server and copy them off? Mike

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RE: [wlug] Mailing list etiquette (was Re: Sudo)
by David Hallett 05 Apr '05

05 Apr '05

At 15:27 5/04/2005, you wrote: >I will be removing my self from this mailing list today. >The amount of junk has now exceeded the amount of value. > >Regards, Gund Hi Gund, I don't appreciate receiving this kind of junk from mailing lists. Please stop sending it to this list. Thanks, David

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Mailing list etiquette (was Re: Sudo)
by Daniel Lawson 05 Apr '05

05 Apr '05

> > >I'm happy to alter my mailer to observe the netiquette you speak of. I'm >afraid I wasn't aware of it. What is the reason behind it, may I ask? > > What is the reason behind not posting an HTML only email to a mailing list? It's often extended to "Don't post in HTML at all", for a variety of reasons, some of which might be weighted more highly in this case due to the nature of this particular list. When you post in HTML or RTF, or to spell it out clearly, in anything that isn't plain ASCII or ISO-8859, you make it significantly harder for people whose mailers don't understand the format you use to read your email. While you can feel free to inconvenience your friends as much as you like, you should not assume that everyone on a mailinglist will have the ability to read whatever non-basic format you post in. Now, you might argue that "all modern email clients support HTML, so why can't I use it?". Quite simply, not everyone runs an email client that supports HTML. Or they've disabled it. I'd also suggest that on a LUG mailing list especially, the proportion of users with email clients that will not parse HTML is considerably higher than on your typical mailing list. If someone does have a client that doesn't have HTML read support, or if they have disabled it, they end up having to read the raw HTML to read your post. Yes, I can parse HTML. No, I don't want to unless I'm developing a webpage. I'll skip an HTML only email sooner than read it, especially with the cluttered HTML most email clients generate. This is mitigated somewhat by sending HTML and plain blocks, but you don't really gain much from HTML emails. Also, many people read mailing lists in digest form. HTML (and other formats) tend to break in digest mode. Basically, when posting to a mailing list, you're taking part in a community of peers. By sending HTML only emails, you're doing something equivalent to interrupting people's conversations in loud Swahili. I have to say here that I use thunderbird, which seems to like sending in HTML and plain by default, and will reply to HTML in HTML and plain by default. This isn't my preferred choice! > > >> Daniel Lawson wrote: >> > > >>>> As humourous as this thread is, HTML mails generally are discouraged >>>> to mailing lists, as a form of netiquette. If you send both HTML and >>>> plain text, then at least a sensible reader will only show plain text >>>> in appropriate circumstances, however it's still not preferred. If you >>>> can't make your mailer send both html and plaintext, then I'd go with >>>> the grandparent's advice of "Fix your mailer" >> >>

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Re: [wlug] Mailing list etiquette (was Re: Sudo)
by Michael Honeyfield 05 Apr '05

05 Apr '05

> > I have to say here that I use thunderbird, which seems to like sending > > in HTML and plain by default, and will reply to HTML in HTML and plain > > by default. This isn't my preferred choice! > > > Ditto. I've even set the plain text option hard in my prefs file, it > just refuses. :( > Any Thunderbird gurus out there that know how to fix this? I've > followed the instructions at: > > http://kb.mozillazine.org/Thunderbird_:_FAQs_:_Using_Plain_Text > Not only is there the plain vs html text emails, there is also the way in which you post. NZOSS tries to use a post at the bottom of each email, making the thread logical to read, snipping where needed if the thread becomes too long. This is probmatic for those that use Outlook, for example, since outlook will post to the top of the email.. I have a link to mailing list etiquette, but cant find it atm. Mike

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Re: wlug Digest, Vol 166, Issue 8
by d_king＠xtra.co.nz 05 Apr '05

05 Apr '05

On 5 Apr 2005 at 11:59, wlug-request(a)list.waikato.ac.nz wrote: > Message: 3 > Date: Tue, 05 Apr 2005 11:41:56 +1200 > From: Bnonn <bnonn(a)orcon.net.nz> > > I'm not meaning to stir or be a pest; I just don't understand why any > mail client in use today would not support HTML; or why people would > turn it off? Surely, unless you're using OE, security isn't a problem. Ummm, you're missing several other security issues. An example would be the exploit that is available via GIF images. My modern eMail reader (copyright 2004) doesn't display images that aren't included in the eMail as an attachment. This is a security feature. But, my eMail program is free, and is written by a NZ'er > People seem to manage browsing the web without issues, and that's a far > less controlled and predictable environment than email. That all depends on which web browser you use......but that's a seperate flame war. --- David G King : d_king(a)xtra.co.nz zl1dgk(a)nzart.org.nz ZL1DGK http://dking.gen.nz http://freet.blogspot.com

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