On Thu, 2005-04-07 at 15:32 +1200, James Clark wrote:

What's the distro of choice, or is it up to the user?

See the "Recommened Distribution" paragraph of http://www.wlug.org.nz/InstallFest.2005-05-07 Regards -- Matt Brown matt(a)mattb.net.nz Mob +64 275 611 544 www.mattb.net.nz

Ubuntu, good - it's Debian based. Don't forget to take some Kubuntu CD's for those that aren't spatially adept.

Wow, it only took 20 mins for KDE to be mentioned. If people request Kubuntu on the installation form we will try and support it. It is probably easier to use it as our "KDE distro" than Mandrake etc due to shared packages. However, unless people specifically ask, due to the overwhelming experience and support with GNOME that most of the "senior" WLUG members have, plain Ubuntu it will be. It's great. You should try it. Craig

On Thu, Apr 07, 2005 at 03:53:20PM +1200, Daniel Lawson wrote:

...

It's great. You should try it.

Each to their own. I'll stick with Debian+WindowMaker, I dabble with others but keep coming back to this.

It's worth mentioning how much of a bother having to support n distros is.

If it's Ubuntu and Kubuntu n is less than 2. Same distro, different desktop environments.

significantly increases load on the people doing the work, it increases loading on the Internet uplink (hard to precache things when you have no idea what people might be getting), and ends up meaning people get a worse deal from it.

As above, most of what needs upgrading at the time will be shared, only the desktop stuff being different. You're bound to have at least one KDE fan their that knows his stuff. Cheers, James.

What sort of specs, what sort of price, and most importantly, what sort of backgrounds would these second hand PCs (should they exist) have? My parents are justifiably dubious about getting a second-hand machine in the event that it fails three months after purchase, so I'd like to know its pedigree, as it were.

The current plan is to approach a second hand PC vendor and have them on site on the day. The only way to have any idea of how long a PC will last is to get good quality gear (probably ex-lease) and let the law of averages carry you through. I've contacted Recycled Technology but so far have had no response. I know there was at least one WLUG member affiliated with them; if that's still they case, can they get someone from RT to contact me please? Thanks Craig

Well, for everyone with a story like this, there is someone with a story like mine. I hate KDE. It's cluttered, and it tries too hard to be like Windows (could we not spell it in infantile ways, by the way? It's Windows. Let's just call it what it is instead of using hack puns or dollar signs eh). Might I ask: if I am someone who has just decided that Windows is bung, and I want to try something else, what am I going to prefer? 1. Something that pretends to be what I'm trying to get rid of. 2. Something that is okay with being what it is. Personally, I find option 2 more compelling. Similarly, if you're a newbie who has been put on Linux by someone else (say at work), which are you going to find less confusing? 1. A gui that tries to emulate Windows, but fails, and presents you instead with a lot of options that you don't understand. 2. A gui that makes it clear that it's not Windows, and presents you with the options you're most likely to need. Once again, I personally find option 2 more compelling. I don't think that the default setup of Gnome with Ubuntu is perfect; but I think it's pretty good. I will, myself, modify it to a single, bottom-oriented taskbar, since I find this most comfortable. To address your concerns: 1. What did you find hard to configure about Ubuntu? I have found it the easiest distro to use. It's extremely user-friendly. What exactly do you want to *do* with Linux, and is it what the average newbie will want to do? I can think of no distro I would recommend above Ubuntu for a newbie. I have tried Fedora, Mandrake, Debian, Gentoo, and SuSE (that I recall). 2. What is WVdial? I gather it is a utility for making dialup connections? Since most people these days (I think it's fair to say) are on DSL, I wouldn't consider this a major issue, but if WVdial is indeed what I think it is, and is terrible, what is stopping a dialup user from simply downloading something better using Synaptic? They will have access to a fast connection at the InstallFest. 3. What about Gnome do you find hideous? I personally think that Ubuntu's Clearlooks theme is very attractive <http://bnonn.orcon.net.nz/clearlooks.png>. I don't want this to turn into a Gnome vs KDE flamefest. Each DE has its advantages and disadvantages, and will appeal to different people. If you don't like Gnome, I'm sure that Kubuntu will be available. I'd just like to address concerns about installing Ubuntu, because if you do have genuine concerns, they should be put forward for consideration so we're aware of them beforehand. Sorry if this seems overly authoritative too. Don't mean to tread on anyone's toes :) Bnonn On Thu, 2005-04-07 at 20:29 +0000, Denise Bates wrote:

Craig Box wrote:

...

Wow, it only took 20 mins for KDE to be mentioned.

If people request Kubuntu on the installation form we will try and support it. It is probably easier to use it as our "KDE distro" than Mandrake etc due to shared packages. However, unless people specifically ask, due to the overwhelming experience and support with GNOME that most of the "senior" WLUG members have, plain Ubuntu it will be. It's great. You should try it.

I was sent a heap of Ubuntu CDs, which I started to give away and I installed the distro on one of my machines. It was unacceptable to me: hard to configure, no KDE, and WVdial is hopeless.I only had one response from the CDs that I gave away. My friend thought that Gnome was hideous, and she too,found WVdial useless. When I called, she was about to re-install Windoze, but fortunately, I had a mini-CD with SLAX on it in my purse. I gave it a spin, and she loved it! I called back next day and installed Slackware 10.1 and that impressed her even more. There have been no problems since the install!

I would like to help at the installfest, but I would be reluctant to foist Ubuntu on anyone. I would be happy to install a range of distros, if requested: Slackware (preferably), or Yoper or Mandrake, but I couldn't force a distro on a newbie which I do not feel comfortable with. I would also be prepared to install a mini-distro on any machines with low specifications. How/when would I find out whether my services might be required?

I am not surprised that Slackware has recently dropped Gnome entirely its current version. I can't see how Gnome would be an attractive enticement for many Windoze users. It doesn't look or work like Windoze - KDE comes much closer. If we _had_ to convince a newcomer to change desktop appearance and function from what they were used to in Windoze, there are far better desktops than Gnome (XFCE, IceWM, etc).

I still have a heap of Ubuntu CDs. I might as well drop them off at next meeting or at the installfest. I couldn't recommend this distro, and I wouldn't want to have to sort out any muck-ups resulting from me passing on the CDs to friends.

Regards, ********************************************* Dr Denise J. Bates, School of Geography & Environmental Science University of Auckland Private Bag 92019, Auckland New Zealand E-mail: d.bates(a)auckland.ac.nz Telephone 09-3737599 ext 86592 *********************************************

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...

no KDE, I guess this is personal preference, but as has already been mentioned, Kubuntu for people that ask for it will probably be provided

Please note people will need to ask for it -beforehand-. Canonical have just contacted me and will be express shipping me Hoary CDs. They don't appear to do Kubuntu, so we will have to prepare those ourselves. We have no objection to people turning up and being the Slackware/Mandrake/whatever gurus. I'm just saying that most of us aren't in that position, so we have picked a default that suits us. If there is a need identified for lots of Slackware help, we'll definitely be asking for people to come and help in that specific role.

...

and WVdial is hopeless. I have heard stories about dialup in warty being very hard to configure, in most cases it was easier to manually set up ppp from a terminal. However, one would hope that that it has received some attention in hoary and is just as easy to use as the rest of the system

Check out http://www.wlug.org.nz/archive/images/gnomeppp-screenshot.png - I hope this meets all of Denise's requirements of easy to use. Craig

don't consider myself a "power user" in Linux in the way that I think many of you are: I can't write my own code, and my ability to fix problems is limited, often, by how well I can use google. However, I

Not answering your question, but "power user" doesn't translate to "can code for a living". It might seem that way, but I have to say that most of the problems I encounter and solve do not involve any coding at all. Most of them are entirely about how well you can google for a problem, and read obscure mailing list posts. Confidence is also important - the ability to say "if I screw this up, that's ok. I can just start again" is crucial. Most of the time, you won't screw something up so badly you have to reinstall your distribution, you might just have to remove your config file(s) and start again. Oh, and TAKE NOTES. Very important :)

Bnonn wrote:

Yah, I know that coding ability isn't mandatory. It's just tricky gauging my own knowledge and ability against others when I don't really personally know any other Linux users :) I admin Windows at work, and feel pretty confident in that, but computers are such that the more you know, the more you know that you know damn all.

Still, I have no problem with taking risks. And I'm learning to take notes :D

Isomer's power user test: If you can answer all of these questions you truely have guru status. If you can answer more than about 5 or so, you are definately a power user. If you can answer any, you're doing well. Google, manpages and any other reference source is encouraged. * Why has the writing been worn off my tab key? what am I using it for? * What's a netmask? What is the netmask for a /23? What happens if you have the wrong netmask? * A service has died, you've fixed it and need to restart it, how would you go about doing so? * What does it mean if my computer boots up and says "L" then stops? What's wrong? How would you fix it? * Can you compile your own kernel? Does anyone really know what MTRR is? does anyone care? * What is ldconfig, and when would you use it? what happens if you forget to run it? * lost+found directories are scattered around the filesystem, what is their purpose? Can they just be removed? Are there any side effects to doing so? * emacs or vi? * What process has pid 1, why is this process important? Where would you configure this process? What happens if this process goes away? * Do you know what these tools are used for? ** apropos ** awk ** cvs ** dmesg ** find ** fsck ** grep ** locate ** screen ** sed ** ssh ** strace ** sudo ** svn ** umount ** watch ** wall ** wget * do you know how to use /sbin/fdisk? do you use cfdisk anyway? * How do killall and killall5 differ? Have you ever got them confused? Is this bad? Were you fired? * Do you run screaming at the word PCMCIA? How would you configure a PCMCIA wireless card? a PCMCIA GPS? a PCMCIA flux capacitor? * Running most programs elicits the error "Read only filesystem", what may have caused this? How would you resolve it? * how would you tell if a machine is running debian, redhat, gentoo, or windows xp? * what would you do to get a program run on stup? * What kind of files would you expect to find in /usr/share/zoneinfo, are these files important? what would happen if they were removed? * I'm installing a package the depends on portmap, what is it that I'm likely to be installing? is portmap important? how would I diagnose issues with portmap? * How do I determine what ports are open on my machine? How can I tell what ports to close? Name at least two ways to "close" ports from the Internet. * How do I list all the hidden files in a directory? * What does "#!/bin/sh" mean, why is it important? * If I had permissions "rwxr-xr-x perry fooers" who could do what? What type of file is this likely to be? What about if the permissions are 550? * Whats the difference between bash and xterm? * How do I determine if swap is enabled? How would I disable it? * How many primary partitions can you have on a normal x86 box? How would you get around this? * I have a /boot partition, how big should this be? Is there anything special about how this partition is layed out on disk? * fsck says "Deleted inode has zero dtime" what has happened to my disk? am I going to have to reinstall? * I've forgotten my root password, what can I do about this? * depmod complains about unresolved symbols? How would you resolve this issue? * what is important about "."'s at the beginning of a filename? What sort of files would be named like this? * I have a file with a charactor I can't type in it, how would I delete it from the cli? * Linux boots and then says it can't start my X server, what does this mean? how would I fix this? * I want to have a program run every day at 3am, how would I do this? * What are the best ways of determining what hardware is in my machine? * Have you written any wiki pages? * ls segfaults when run, how can I tell what files are in the current directory without using X? * What is a window manager? What happens if I don't have one? * What's this lpd thing running? Why would I want it? Where is it's configuration usually stored? How would I submit files to it? * Every time I type an "s" in X I get a "z" on the screen, whats wrong? how would I fix this? * X needs a driver on a CD I have to run, how would I get that driver onto the machine? * How do I list all the rpm's installed on a machine? How do I list all the .debs installed on a machine? * click to focus? sloppy focus? or focus follows the mouse? Discuss. * I have a .tar.gz file that contains the source to a program I want to install, how would I compile and install it? * The above program fails while installing saying "checking for zlib.h... failed" what do I do now? * Should I install it in ~, /usr, /var/tmp, /opt, "/Program files/Perry's cool program" or /usr/local, discuss. * I have a daemon that isn't working, what would the first thing I do be? * I have a program running on port 23/tcp open, is this a problem? * what's /dev/ttyS0 likely to be? I sent "AT\n" to it, and it said something back that made me happy, what did it say? * How would I set up IP masquerading? * what's /etc/issue used for? why is it different to /etc/motd? Can I arbitarily edit either file? * eth0 has an IP address of 127.255.255.255, name two problems with this address being used on eth0. * Explain the difference between an oops and a panic. * I have an internal network, what IP address(es) can I use for my machines? what addresses shouldn't I use? * I use ihug for dialup internet, how would I set this up? * Whenever I try and use the internet it says "Unknown host", I can ping machines by IP address, whats probably wrong? what config file(s) would I check? How would I fix this? * I have no default route, how do I add a new one without rebooting? If I know my IP and netmask, at a guess what should I set the default gateway to? * What is 0x20 in decimal? binary? octal? does anyone care? * /proc/interrupts is showing a lot of interrupts on IRQ 0, is this something I should be worried about? * inetd is a cool program, what does it do? What happens if it's not running? * I'm at an Installfest, and I have a problem I can't solve, what should I do? * What's NAT? Why is it evil? * I installed a new kernel and now my computer panics during boot, what should I do? * If you had a computer that had all the problems outlined above, would you switch to macos? If you want to discuss your answers to questions please reply to me *OFF LIST* so that other people have a chance to think about them without the answers being given away.

Heh, you want me to answer all of them? :) Many of them I can answer, many of them I can guess at, and some of them I have no idea. I am confident that with a few days to study, and google, I could get up to speed on them all, although some of them I would forget again due to lack of use. I guess that counts for something... Perry Lorier wrote:

Bnonn wrote:

...

Yah, I know that coding ability isn't mandatory. It's just tricky gauging my own knowledge and ability against others when I don't really personally know any other Linux users :) I admin Windows at work, and feel pretty confident in that, but computers are such that the more you know, the more you know that you know damn all.

Still, I have no problem with taking risks. And I'm learning to take notes :D

Isomer's power user test:

If you can answer all of these questions you truely have guru status. If you can answer more than about 5 or so, you are definately a power user. If you can answer any, you're doing well.

Google, manpages and any other reference source is encouraged.

* Why has the writing been worn off my tab key? what am I using it for?

* What's a netmask? What is the netmask for a /23? What happens if you have the wrong netmask?

* A service has died, you've fixed it and need to restart it, how would you go about doing so?

* What does it mean if my computer boots up and says "L" then stops? What's wrong? How would you fix it?

* Can you compile your own kernel? Does anyone really know what MTRR is? does anyone care?

* What is ldconfig, and when would you use it? what happens if you forget to run it?

* lost+found directories are scattered around the filesystem, what is their purpose? Can they just be removed? Are there any side effects to doing so?

* emacs or vi?

* What process has pid 1, why is this process important? Where would you configure this process? What happens if this process goes away?

* Do you know what these tools are used for? ** apropos ** awk ** cvs ** dmesg ** find ** fsck ** grep ** locate ** screen ** sed ** ssh ** strace ** sudo ** svn ** umount ** watch ** wall ** wget

* do you know how to use /sbin/fdisk? do you use cfdisk anyway?

* How do killall and killall5 differ? Have you ever got them confused? Is this bad? Were you fired?

* Do you run screaming at the word PCMCIA? How would you configure a PCMCIA wireless card? a PCMCIA GPS? a PCMCIA flux capacitor?

* Running most programs elicits the error "Read only filesystem", what may have caused this? How would you resolve it?

* how would you tell if a machine is running debian, redhat, gentoo, or windows xp?

* what would you do to get a program run on stup?

* What kind of files would you expect to find in /usr/share/zoneinfo, are these files important? what would happen if they were removed?

* I'm installing a package the depends on portmap, what is it that I'm likely to be installing? is portmap important? how would I diagnose issues with portmap?

* How do I determine what ports are open on my machine? How can I tell what ports to close? Name at least two ways to "close" ports from the Internet.

* How do I list all the hidden files in a directory?

* What does "#!/bin/sh" mean, why is it important?

* If I had permissions "rwxr-xr-x perry fooers" who could do what? What type of file is this likely to be? What about if the permissions are 550?

* Whats the difference between bash and xterm?

* How do I determine if swap is enabled? How would I disable it?

* How many primary partitions can you have on a normal x86 box? How would you get around this?

* I have a /boot partition, how big should this be? Is there anything special about how this partition is layed out on disk?

* fsck says "Deleted inode has zero dtime" what has happened to my disk? am I going to have to reinstall?

* I've forgotten my root password, what can I do about this?

* depmod complains about unresolved symbols? How would you resolve this issue?

* what is important about "."'s at the beginning of a filename? What sort of files would be named like this?

* I have a file with a charactor I can't type in it, how would I delete it from the cli?

* Linux boots and then says it can't start my X server, what does this mean? how would I fix this?

* I want to have a program run every day at 3am, how would I do this?

* What are the best ways of determining what hardware is in my machine?

* Have you written any wiki pages?

* ls segfaults when run, how can I tell what files are in the current directory without using X?

* What is a window manager? What happens if I don't have one?

* What's this lpd thing running? Why would I want it? Where is it's configuration usually stored? How would I submit files to it?

* Every time I type an "s" in X I get a "z" on the screen, whats wrong? how would I fix this?

* X needs a driver on a CD I have to run, how would I get that driver onto the machine?

* How do I list all the rpm's installed on a machine? How do I list all the .debs installed on a machine?

* click to focus? sloppy focus? or focus follows the mouse? Discuss.

* I have a .tar.gz file that contains the source to a program I want to install, how would I compile and install it?

* The above program fails while installing saying "checking for zlib.h... failed" what do I do now?

* Should I install it in ~, /usr, /var/tmp, /opt, "/Program files/Perry's cool program" or /usr/local, discuss.

* I have a daemon that isn't working, what would the first thing I do be?

* I have a program running on port 23/tcp open, is this a problem?

* what's /dev/ttyS0 likely to be? I sent "AT\n" to it, and it said something back that made me happy, what did it say?

* How would I set up IP masquerading?

* what's /etc/issue used for? why is it different to /etc/motd? Can I arbitarily edit either file?

* eth0 has an IP address of 127.255.255.255, name two problems with this address being used on eth0.

* Explain the difference between an oops and a panic.

* I have an internal network, what IP address(es) can I use for my machines? what addresses shouldn't I use?

* I use ihug for dialup internet, how would I set this up?

* Whenever I try and use the internet it says "Unknown host", I can ping machines by IP address, whats probably wrong? what config file(s) would I check? How would I fix this?

* I have no default route, how do I add a new one without rebooting? If I know my IP and netmask, at a guess what should I set the default gateway to?

* What is 0x20 in decimal? binary? octal? does anyone care?

* /proc/interrupts is showing a lot of interrupts on IRQ 0, is this something I should be worried about?

* inetd is a cool program, what does it do? What happens if it's not running?

* I'm at an Installfest, and I have a problem I can't solve, what should I do?

* What's NAT? Why is it evil?

* I installed a new kernel and now my computer panics during boot, what should I do?

* If you had a computer that had all the problems outlined above, would you switch to macos?

If you want to discuss your answers to questions please reply to me *OFF LIST* so that other people have a chance to think about them without the answers being given away.

_______________________________________________ wlug mailing list | wlug(a)list.waikato.ac.nz Unsubscribe: http://list.waikato.ac.nz/mailman/listinfo/wlug

Without descending into a flame war why no top post? I myself prefer it to read. I agree about trimming totally - only quote relevant parts. On Apr 8, 2005 11:45 AM, Daniel Lawson <daniel(a)meta.net.nz> wrote:

1) Don't top-post. This means, dont reply to a post by typing your response at the top.

Ian McDonald wrote:

Without descending into a flame war why no top post? I myself prefer it to read.

There have been too meta-discussions on the list in the last few days. Please, if you want to talk about this kind of thing, do it off list or on IRC. Keep the discussion on the list relevant. Craig (with List Maintainer hat on)

...

So who's turn is it to throw the toys out of the cot ? :)

I don't know why but I find that particular comment particularly funny. Perhaps Gdot will come storming in, arms waving, and wack everyone on the knuckles with his El Presidente scepter. Regards -- Oliver Jones » Roving Code Warrior oliver(a)deeperdesign.com » +64 (21) 41 2238 » www.deeperdesign.com

Oh you will so pay! ;)

Bring it on motherphunker!

G to the D to the O to the motherphunkin T.

O to the R to the funkdaddy J. -- Oliver Jones » Roving Code Warrior oliver(a)deeperdesign.com » +64 (21) 41 2238 » www.deeperdesign.com

My sincerest apologies for not trimming. It slipped my mind. Could someone explain why top-posting is bad? I've been doing it all along and only now had anyone comment. Perhaps you should have some kind of article called "READ THIS BEFORE POSTING TO THE LIST LEST DANIEL RIP YOUR BALLS OFF". If I'd bottom-posted on that last message I sent, no would probably probably have noticed I wrote anything. What's wrong with having a descending chronological order? Does it bung up someone's fifteen year old mail reader again? Is it a problem for the digest? Blazes people, clarify the rules or something. Craig Box wrote:

...

I guess that counts for something...

...

Isomer's power user test:

Requoting an ENTIRE TEN PAGE MESSAGE with your reply counts for 5 points off, I'm afraid.

(So does not changing your topic ;)

Could someone explain why top-posting is bad? I've been doing it all along and only now had anyone comment. Perhaps you should have some kind of article called "READ THIS BEFORE POSTING TO THE LIST LEST DANIEL RIP YOUR BALLS OFF".

Ol' Danny is getting grouchy in his old age. ;)

If I'd bottom-posted on that last message I sent, no would probably probably have noticed I wrote anything. What's wrong with having a descending chronological order? Does it bung up someone's fifteen year old mail reader again? Is it a problem for the digest?

I too have gotten used to top posting. I do it all the time in email. Just laziness really. Also editing HTML mail to intersperse quotes can be annoying. Top posting and interspersed quoting is really just a personal style thing. The only time I think interspersed quote is better than top posting is if you want to really draw attention to which points you are responding to. Other than that you should be smart enough and have a good enough memory to remember what a discussion is about and not have to intersperse your quotes. Regards -- Oliver Jones » Roving Code Warrior oliver(a)deeperdesign.com » +64 (21) 41 2238 » www.deeperdesign.com

* Bnonn <bnonn(a)orcon.net.nz> [2005-04-08 02:00]:

Could someone explain why top-posting is bad?

A late note, since I didn’t see this argument after catching up with the list fully: A: Because it reverses the natural flow of text. Q: Why is top-posting bad? The only purpose of quotation is to let a reader follow a message when they didn’t read the preceding message, or did so a long time ago (as is the case with this mail). Reconstructing the context by reading a message quotation-wise bottom-up (while reading top-to-bottom inside the quotations, of course) is annoying. Note that top-posting is tolerable, even if suboptimal, as long as it is consistent. What is a complete faux-pas is mixing styles. The result is an unreadable spaghetti mess[1]. Don’t top-post in reply to a message with interleaved quotes. Don’t interleave your reply into top-posted quotation. Stick with the existing style or lose the quotation. The bottom line is courtesy and respect towards your readers. [1] Incidentally, it very much resembles reading GOTO-heavy code. This is no coincidence: human brains are miserable at dealing with temporal as opposed to spatial arrangements. Regards, -- Aristotle “If you can’t laugh at yourself, you don’t take life seriously enough.”

* James Clark <jamesc(a)bofh.co.nz> [2005-04-25 00:45]:

On Sat, Apr 23, 2005 at 06:02:56PM +0200, A. Pagaltzis wrote:

...

This is no coincidence: human brains are miserable at dealing with temporal as opposed to spatial arrangements.

Explain why I hate the "spatial" nautilus?

Different issue altogether. Don't conflate unrelated issues because they happen to be using the same words. Regards, -- Aristotle

On Fri, 2005-04-08 at 11:41 +1200, Bnonn wrote:

Heh, you want me to answer all of them? :)

Many of them I can answer, many of them I can guess at, and some of them I have no idea. I am confident that with a few days to study, and google, I could get up to speed on them all, although some of them I would forget again due to lack of use.

I guess that counts for something...

I can happily answer all the questions with only google to refresh my memory on a couple of specifics. Do I get a Linux Guru medal? ;) Regards -- Oliver Jones » Roving Code Warrior oliver(a)deeperdesign.com » +64 (21) 41 2238 » www.deeperdesign.com

Since no one else seems to have bothered with this I thought I'd post my answers. Of course this is just a shameless attempt to show off how fat my head is... ;)

Google, manpages and any other reference source is encouraged.

* Why has the writing been worn off my tab key? what am I using it for?

Tab completion & code indentation.

* What's a netmask? What is the netmask for a /23? What happens if you have the wrong netmask?

A netmask defines your IP subnet. Ie, what computers your computer will broardcast IP packets to (and expect answers from without routing packets via a router). A CIDR style netmask of /23 will give you subnet that extends from 192.168.0.1 to 192.168.1.254 with a broadcast address of 192.168.1.255. There are 510 hosts in this network. (Yeah for ipcalc). ;)

* A service has died, you've fixed it and need to restart it, how would you go about doing so?

On RedHat "service <insert service_name> restart". Or if you were paranoid: "service <insert service_name> stop; service <insert service name> stop". I'm not sure if Debian has the service command so I might instead do this: cd /etc/rc.d/init.d && ./service_name restart

* What does it mean if my computer boots up and says "L" then stops? What's wrong? How would you fix it?

A) It means you're till using lilo. B) It means lilo failed to correctly find your kernel and start it. Probably because your Master Boot Record is corrupt. I take it that L is more fatal the LI which is what I've seen the most of. I imagine each character signifies a completed stage of the LILO boot process?

* Can you compile your own kernel? Does anyone really know what MTRR is? does anyone care?

Yes, though I have not done so in years. MTRR is the Memory Type Range Register. It controls how your x86 box lays out memory for processes. I've never really had to worry about it. I specifically remember it being more important when I had an SMP machine. (Had to Google for the Acronym dfinition).

* What is ldconfig, and when would you use it? what happens if you forget to run it?

ldconfig generally gets run automatically by your package manager when you update or install a shared library. If you install a lib from source you might have to run it manually. ldconfig keeps ld.so.cache up to date with the locations of all your shared libraries (as controlled by ld.so.conf). If you don't run it your may find that ld and ld-linux can't find shared libraries when linking at compile type or dynamically at runtime.

* lost+found directories are scattered around the filesystem, what is their purpose? Can they just be removed? Are there any side effects to doing so?

When running fsck on a filesystem and it finds orphan directory entries of inodes it will create files in lost+found that contain these orphaned files. It has been a long long time since I ever had that problem. Journaling file systems seem to not suffer from this problem.

* emacs or vi?

Emacs. But I'm using vi more often these days when editing config files.

* What process has pid 1, why is this process important? Where would you configure this process? What happens if this process goes away?

init has pid 1 because it is the first process to be spawned by the kernel. It is the parent of all other processes. MostLinux systems run SysVinit which configured via /etc/inittab. If it was to die? The kernel would probably halt or reboot the system.

* Do you know what these tools are used for? ** apropos

Searching man pages.

** awk

Processing text with awk scripts (because you're crazy and don't know perl).

** cvs

Concurrent Versions System. Source code control system.

** dmesg

Prints the kernel's message ring buffer to screen.

** find

Find files using a variety of tests/criteia.

** fsck

File system check. Checks your file systems for integrity.

** grep

Search text files for substrings using regular expressions.

** locate

Query the locate database which contains all files and directories on your system. This command is only useful if the updatedb command has been run to completion. This usually occurs every night at about 4am via cron.

** screen

A command that allows you to have multiple "screens" attached to a single tty. You can think of it as a tabbed console app for text terms. ;) Also allows you to detach from a tty & logout and have your interactive processes remain running.

** sed

The venerable stream editor. Allows you to edit streams of text using regular expressions.

** ssh

Secure Shell. A much safer encrypted alternative to telnet. Also encrypted provides TCP/IP tunneling features.

** strace

Stack trace. A program that will print the call stack of a process as it runs.

** sudo

Super User Do. Allows you to delegate authority to run processes that require root access in a controlled fashion. Trendy distros like ubunto and MacOS X favour sudo over a separate root account.

** svn

Subversion. A better alternative to cvs. Does the same job only with more tricks. Supports file metadata (file modes, sym links) much better (ie, at all) than cvs. Also allows for much nicer management of directories. Many other cool features. Use it, not cvs, you wont regret it. :)

** umount

Umounts devices.

** watch

A command that allows you to repeatedly execute a command at specific intervals and watch the output. It redraws the screen so it doesn't scroll.

** wall

Write to all. Allows you to write messages to all connected ttys. Useful if you want to broadcast that the system will be going down/rebooting in X minutes etc.

** wget

Web get. Venerable console util for downloading files from the web or ftp sites. Also allows you to mirror websites.

* do you know how to use /sbin/fdisk? do you use cfdisk anyway?

Yes. When partitioning disks fdisk is a handy tool. Only other disk partioner I've used is sfdisk. Mainly because you can pipe the output of sfdisk into the input of sfdisk and have it mirror the partition table to another disk. Very handy for setting up RAID arrays.

* How do killall and killall5 differ? Have you ever got them confused? Is this bad? Were you fired?

Killall kills all processes with a particular name. Killall5 does the same but will not kill the processes in its own session. Very useful for shutdown scripts.

* Do you run screaming at the word PCMCIA? How would you configure a PCMCIA wireless card? a PCMCIA GPS? a PCMCIA flux capacitor?

I've not done this in a long time so I can't remember exactly how you go about it. But if it wasn't detected by kudzu (or similar tool) and configured for me I'd probably be able to wade my way through the /etc/pcmcia config files to get it working (if there was driver support).

* Running most programs elicits the error "Read only filesystem", what may have caused this? How would you resolve it?

You're trying to run stuff from a CDROM or a readonly mounted filesystem. You should probably add the noatime option to the fs mount options so that it doesn't attempt to update the access time of each file it executes/reads.

* how would you tell if a machine is running debian, redhat, gentoo, or windows xp?

If I couldn't look at the screen? nmap could guess the OS between Windows and Linux. To remotely tell Linux's apart? That I've never had to attempt. If they were running telnet daemons I could have a look at the issue file that might be displayed. But no one (or at least very few) is stupid enough to run an exposed telnet so if I was logged in I could check the /etc/issue file. If Apache was configured to emit the Stock status line for most distros I could look at that to guess the OS remotely too.

* what would you do to get a program run on stup?

If it has a init script in /etc/rc.d/init.d then I would use chkconfig to add the script to the right run level. If it didn't have an init script I'd have to write one first.

* What kind of files would you expect to find in /usr/share/zoneinfo, are these files important? what would happen if they were removed?

They provide time zone information to glibc. If they were removed then the only timezone I could run in successfully would probably be gmt/utc.

* I'm installing a package the depends on portmap, what is it that I'm likely to be installing? is portmap important? how would I diagnose issues with portmap?

You installing a package that uses SUN RPC. Portmap is the SUN RPC port mapper. It provides a common well known service for SUN RPC processes to contact to request the port of the daemon process the RPC client is trying to contact. Diagnosing problems with portmap I've never had to do. I imagine there are some utilities I can run to inspect process data. Usually you don't have to do anything to get portmap or NFS to work other than ensuring the right processes are enabled and the ports arn't filewalled off.

* How do I determine what ports are open on my machine? How can I tell what ports to close? Name at least two ways to "close" ports from the Internet.

netstat -l. You can close ports of processes you are not using by shutting down the process in question and configuring it not to start again at system startup and you can also firewall the ports with ipchains/iptables.

* How do I list all the hidden files in a directory?

ls -la will list all files in a directory (in long form). If you just want the "dot" files then ls -ld .* will just list all the "hidden" files.

* What does "#!/bin/sh" mean, why is it important?

#! is used by the kernel as the "magic number" for shell processes. The kernel reads the rest of the first line of the file and uses it as the executable to run and give the executable the named of the file as its first argument (after any arguments on the #! line of the shell script).

* If I had permissions "rwxr-xr-x perry fooers" who could do what? What type of file is this likely to be? What about if the permissions are 550?

The file is probably an executable or directory and everyone can run it or change directory into it. User perry could also read and write to the file/directory, everyone else can only read or execute/change directory on it.

* Whats the difference between bash and xterm?

Bash is a shell, xterm is a process that provides an X11 hosted tty to which a process like bash can attach its input/output to.

* How do I determine if swap is enabled? How would I disable it?

The command free will tell you how much swap you have. You can turn swap off with swapoff -a.

* How many primary partitions can you have on a normal x86 box? How would you get around this?

4. You can create an extended partition which will enable you to create more "logical" partitions within it. I forget how many logicals you have. I've never been in a position to run out of them though.

* I have a /boot partition, how big should this be? Is there anything special about how this partition is layed out on disk?

It should be big enough to hold as many kernels as you think a rational to have installed on your PC. I've rarely filled up a 128MB boot partition. It is generally considered to be good practice to make the /boot partition the first partition on the drive. This helps ensure buggy BIOSes can read files on it. It should also be a ext2 file system because GRUB & LILO don't generally support fancier file system types.

* fsck says "Deleted inode has zero dtime" what has happened to my disk? am I going to have to reinstall?

Your filesystem has some slight corruption. A deleted file/inode never had its deletion time set. The file was probably still open (yet had been unlinked) when your system shutdown. Fsck can repair this easily and no you shouldn't have to reinstall.

* I've forgotten my root password, what can I do about this?

You do have a boot/rescue disk yes? You can use it to boot up the machine and edit /etc/shadow to replace the password with either nothing or another password hash (say from a user you know the password of). Or if your distro doesn't prompt for the root password when you boot into single user mode you can add the argument "single" to your lilo/grub boot manager. If it does ask for the root password you can over ride this by specifying an alternative init to the kernel with the init=/bin/sh argument. Once you are in you just use passwd to reset the password.

* depmod complains about unresolved symbols? How would you resolve this issue?

Either you have old binary kernel modules in your /lib/modules/ tree for the running kernel or your kenerl lacks a static feature that a kernel module requires.

* what is important about "."'s at the beginning of a filename? What sort of files would be named like this?

It hides files from ls by default. It is the naming convention used by Unix operating systems to signify that the file is "hidden". There is nothing special about this other than it is a convention. They are generally called "dot files". They usually contain configuration data.

* I have a file with a charactor I can't type in it, how would I delete it from the cli?

You mean a filename with something strange in it. Just use a wildcard. Eg: rm ./start*end Or if it is a single character use: rm ./start?end

* Linux boots and then says it can't start my X server, what does this mean? how would I fix this?

Probably you have a misconfigured video driver, or your mouse is not plugged in or your font server is turned off. Configure, plug in or start as necessary.

* I want to have a program run every day at 3am, how would I do this?

As root? Put a link or script that runs your program in /etc/cron.daily. If the time that those are run is not 3am then use the command crontab -e to edit your crontab file. Read the crontab man page (man 5 crontab) for the file format.

* What are the best ways of determining what hardware is in my machine?

lspci, hwbrowser, lsusb.

* Have you written any wiki pages?

Yes.

* ls segfaults when run, how can I tell what files are in the current directory without using X?

for i in *;do echo $i; done

* What is a window manager? What happens if I don't have one?

A window manager manages windows in an X11 session. Ie, it allows you to move, resize, minimise, restore windows. If you don't have one the X server will put windows where ever it likes an you can't do sqwat about it.

* What's this lpd thing running? Why would I want it? Where is it's configuration usually stored? How would I submit files to it?

It is the line printer daemon. It manages printer cues. You should really install cups. ;) lpd speaks the LPD protocol and you can print a file with lpr. eg, cat /etc/passwd | lpr. You can view the queue with lpq and remove files with lprm. The config is probably in /etc/printtab. But like I said you should be running cups. ;)

* Every time I type an "s" in X I get a "z" on the screen, whats wrong? how would I fix this?

Your keyboard map is wrong. Use system-config-keyboard (on RedHat) to select the correct keyboard language. Or you can use loadkeys and kbd_mode to correct the keyboard maping. Or in X you can use xmodmap too alter the keyboard mappings.

* X needs a driver on a CD I have to run, how would I get that driver onto the machine?

mkdir -p /mnt/cdrom && mount -t iso9660 /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom && cp /mnt/cdrom/file ~/ && umount /mnt/cdrom

* How do I list all the rpm's installed on a machine? How do I list all the .debs installed on a machine?

rpm -qa |sort |less Dunno. Don't run debian... ;) Probably something to do with dpkg.

* click to focus? sloppy focus? or focus follows the mouse? Discuss.

Used to use sloppy focus. Have gotten used to click to focus now in Gnome.

* I have a .tar.gz file that contains the source to a program I want to install, how would I compile and install it?

tar zxfv file.tar.gz && cd dir && ./configure && make && make install

* The above program fails while installing saying "checking for zlib.h... failed" what do I do now?

yum install zlib-devel || apt-get install zlib-devel

* Should I install it in ~, /usr, /var/tmp, /opt, "/Program files/Perry's cool program" or /usr/local, discuss.

/usr/local (if you're root), some sub directory of ~ if not.

* I have a daemon that isn't working, what would the first thing I do be?

Ensure it is running.

* I have a program running on port 23/tcp open, is this a problem?

Running telnet is a problem yes. :) Unless you don't care about packet sniffers.

* what's /dev/ttyS0 likely to be? I sent "AT\n" to it, and it said something back that made me happy, what did it say?

A modem. It should say OK back and you would be happy.

* How would I set up IP masquerading?

Depends on the kernel and whether you used ipchains or iptables (for 2.4 and 2.6 kernels). With 2.6 and iptables you might do this: iptables -A FORWARD -i $INTERNAL_IF -j ACCEPT iptables -A FORWARD -i $EXTERNAL_IF -j ACCEPT iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o $EXTERNAL_IF -j MASQUERADE You would also have to enable ip packet forwarding with: sysctl -w net.ipv4.ip_forward=1

* what's /etc/issue used for? why is it different to /etc/motd? Can I arbitarily edit either file?

The issue file is displayed by telnetd and getty's to identify hosts when you connect. The motd file (message of the day) is displayed after you login before your shell prompt appears. You can edit motd as much as you like. /etc/issue might be over written when you boot up.

* eth0 has an IP address of 127.255.255.255, name two problems with this address being used on eth0.

It appears to be a board cast address. It is also on the 127.0.0.0 network which is designed for use as loopback and will be dropped by routers and not understood correctly by machines on your subnet.

* Explain the difference between an oops and a panic.

An kernel opps is when the kernel generates a page fault that wasn't expected but can be recovered from. A panic is generally a kernel bug in the kernel interrupt handlers/scheduler that can not be recovered from. A panic halts the machine. And opps does not.

* I have an internal network, what IP address(es) can I use for my machines? what addresses shouldn't I use?

Use a subnet in 192.168.0.0/16, 172.16.0.0/12 or 10.0.0.0/8. You should not use pretty much anything else.

* I use ihug for dialup internet, how would I set this up?

Use whatever your distro uses to support PPP dialup. If this requires special "ihug" stuff I don't know what it is. With RedHat/Fedora I would configure a PPP modem link with system-config-network.

* Whenever I try and use the internet it says "Unknown host", I can ping machines by IP address, whats probably wrong? what config file(s) would I check? How would I fix this?

Your DNS resolver is not configured. Check /etc/resolv.conf has the correct nameserver lines for your uplink.

* I have no default route, how do I add a new one without rebooting? If I know my IP and netmask, at a guess what should I set the default gateway to?

If you're on a 192.168.0/24 subnet then, as root: route add default gw 192.168.0.254

* What is 0x20 in decimal? binary? octal? does anyone care?

32 dec, 40 octal, 100000 binary. No. ;)

* /proc/interrupts is showing a lot of interrupts on IRQ 0, is this something I should be worried about?

IRQ 0 is the system timer and no you should not be worried.

* inetd is a cool program, what does it do? What happens if it's not running?

inetd is a "super daemon" it manages other daemons like telnet, rlogin, pop3d, imapd etc. Most distros now use xinetd which is more secure and much easier to configure. If it isn't running then you wont be able to access any services it manages.

* I'm at an Installfest, and I have a problem I can't solve, what should I do?

Google. ;) Ask someone else for help.

* What's NAT? Why is it evil?

Network address translation. It isn't that evil. Though it does make it hard for outside machines to contact machines in your local lan if the protocol (particularly udp protocols) hasn't been written very well.

* I installed a new kernel and now my computer panics during boot, what should I do?

Tell LILO/GRUB to use your old kernel. You did leave your old kernel in place didn't you?!

* If you had a computer that had all the problems outlined above, would you switch to macos?

No. But I'd buy a Mac Mini for my iPod. ;)

If you want to discuss your answers to questions please reply to me *OFF LIST* so that other people have a chance to think about them without the answers being given away.

Do I get a prize? Regards -- Oliver Jones » Roving Code Warrior oliver(a)deeperdesign.com » +64 (21) 41 2238 » www.deeperdesign.com

We once spent an entertaining amount of time discussing the safest way to remove a file owned by root, in the / directory, named " -rf"

I'd love to see what the list suggests for this :)

how about unlink -rf or simply rm /-rf either should work but the first would be safer from a typos perspective

cd / && rm -- -rf ?

What's wrong with plain old root(a)saffron:/ # rm "-rf"

...

root(a)saffron:/ # rm "-rf"

Give it a go. Find out... I dare you. Well actually it wont work because you've not specified a dir/file to delete. It just returns without doing any work. Even though you quoted the -rf it is interpreted by rm as an option not a filename.

Stink. I wasn't game enough to give it a go. What's the point of demarcating things if the command doesn't recognize the demarcation though...?

On Sat, 2005-04-09 at 11:38 +1200, Bnonn wrote:

Stink. I wasn't game enough to give it a go. What's the point of demarcating things if the command doesn't recognize the demarcation though...?

For one, it is bash that you're telling special things to when you quote strings, not the command you're passing arguments too. In the previous case rm would just have received the string -rf (without quotes) as argv [1]. The only reason to quote arguments is to ensure special characters are not misinterpreted by your shell. eg: rm "file with spaces.txt" or rm 'file with $sign and spaces.txt' or rm 'file with bang!.txt' An alternative to quoting is escaping. Eg: rm file\ with\ bang\!.txt You will find that bash does this by default if you tab complete a file with a funny name like the above. The difference between " (double) and ' (single) quotes is that with double quotes your shell will interpolate environment $vars and other shell special characters. Eg: $ echo "There's no place like $HOME." There's no place like /home/oliver. Where as with single quotes this doesn't happen. $ echo 'There is no place like $HOME.' There is no place like $HOME. Of course all of this is only guaranteed to apply to bash, my shell of choice. Regards -- Oliver Jones » Roving Code Warrior oliver(a)deeperdesign.com » +64 (21) 41 2238 » www.deeperdesign.com

On Fri, 2005-04-08 at 23:22 +1200, Craig Box wrote:

...

...

We once spent an entertaining amount of time discussing the safest way to remove a file owned by root, in the / directory, named " -rf"

I'd love to see what the list suggests for this :)

cd / && rm -- -rf ?

That will probably only work on a system with GNU Core Utils. BSD's will probably wonder what you're on about. Regards -- Oliver Jones » Roving Code Warrior oliver(a)deeperdesign.com » +64 (21) 41 2238 » www.deeperdesign.com

On Fri, 2005-04-08 at 22:31 +1200, zcat wrote:

...

Since no one else seems to have bothered with this I thought I'd post my answers. Of course this is just a shameless attempt to show off how fat my head is... ;)

No. Noone else posted it to the list because Perry specifically asked people not to post their answers to the list :)

I sent it to him a few hours prior. I was waiting for the "discussion". It didn't seem to happen.

...

Probably? It generates a quite impressive kernel panic!

Indeed. Regards -- Oliver Jones » Roving Code Warrior oliver(a)deeperdesign.com » +64 (21) 41 2238 » www.deeperdesign.com

Craig Box wrote:

If you think you're ready, you're ready. Most of what's required to get an install up will be procedurised, ie we will be working on a checklist that says "To get X in Ubuntu, you run synaptic and Y". (Last year we had to keep getting the one person who knew something really well to come and do it; this year we'll just get them to brain dump beforehand!) The general questions that people will ask are probably "you've used Linux for a while, what do you think?", and it sounds like you'd be fine at answering them. If you need someone else, you can always ask them to come over and help.

Right, happy to be of service then.

...

I admin Windows at work, and feel pretty confident in that

Excellent. Why do I have an 'aspnet' directory under a user profile with an entire other user profile in it, and why can't I synch that profile because the aspnet\ntuser.dat is still open when the user logs off? ;)

Craig

Before I answer that (and that's much higher level than the stuff I generally do: I work on the helpdesk at HTG; don't get ideas), my time is charged at $105, so I'll need to run a credit check. Please provide a number that I can fax the credit application form to :)

James Clark wrote:

What's the distro of choice, or is it up to the user?

As per the Wiki page: Recommended Distribution ------------------------ The distribution that we will be recommending and helping to install is Ubuntu v5.04 (Hoary Hedgehog). We have selected this as it is the distribution that most of the Linux experts in the LUG are familiar with and recommend. If you don't know what you want, please accept our recommendation and try this one. You can use the registration form to notify us if you are planning on installing a distribution other than Ubuntu, and we will try and have the appropriate resources / skills available. If you have not notified us that you would like to install a different distribution we cannot guarantee that we will be able to get anything to work. Craig