Houston Linux Users Group

Continuing with my current theme of best practice advocacy, allow me to openly attack a terrible and unintelligent tendency in computer users, from the novice to the expert. It is an appeal to laziness and an invitation to disaster: the resistance to the OPERATING SYSTEM RELOAD. Why is an OS reload a good thing? First, look at the benefits. IF one is prepared for it (with recovery or original system media or both) one gets, at the price of an hour or two, a brand new software load at no cost (which often boosts performance by 10% or more). Or if you wish, hand the media to some tech and pay the fare and have somebody else do it. Second, look at the protection. From hacks to lightning strikes to hardware failure to spilling beer into the tower on New Year's Eve, one is prepared for the worst. And a new copy of your system can fix dozens or even hundreds of problems you may not know were present. Third, consider that in this era of cheapness, manufacturers are not as good at offering reload CDs/DVDs as standard equipment. They can come at extra cost, or often one is expected to get blank media and burn one's own copy with an onboard script, wizard or program; if one forgets to do this and remembers 6 months later, one can only back the system up in its condition at that time and not as brand-new. And a year after buying a computer, recovery media previously available may be discontinued. Why are OS reloads resisted? For many reasons, none good. There's lack of preparation: to do a reload, one must be prepared to rebuild the whole system, from the base OS to additional drivers and applications, to the configuration of all of the above. If one has not documented any of this, one has work to do (that should have been already done). Then, there's the belief that it shouldn't have to be done more than once. This is uninformed; all system files become corrupt over time due to program interaction, electrical surges, disk location errors, lack of file system maintenance, accidental deletion and so forth. There are no doubt more reasons, but the point's been made. The moral of the story is to remember that all file storage is somewhat risky. Online internet backup? Great, but there's some security risk there (better than nothing, though). Burning your user files to disk? Great, but the computer itself must be rebuilt with something. The main thing would be to save, build or burn an OS copy at the start. Buy the rebuild disk if you must - immediately. Have disks or installers for your needed apps as well, and special drivers for wireless capability, camera adapters, etc. burned to the same or other media. All this is more than busy work. It's a free insurance policy. And the preservation of the system (and its value to your work) could be worth far more than the physical computer.

I continually discover how many simple things that we in tech always tell other people to do... are still undone by us. So yet again, I am spurred to do another 'best practices' post. But this time, the inspiration came from within the ranks of the techies. I will mention no name in connection to any such foolishness exept my own. If we have good advice, we should take it ourselves.

BEST PRACTICES, version 34.09?

Change passwords regularly and keep a secure master list offline.

Don't use the same password for everything.

Don't be needlessly repititious in other areas, like calling a host the same thing as a domain name. That can confuse people as well as systems.

Do backups of all unique data regularly either offline or on an additional disk.

Don't do "secure" work from public sources like schools, libraries, restaurants or coffee shops. If you need to do that, use encryption on an additional computer that's cleaned often.

Run rootkit hunters, antivirus, antimalware, etc. regularly.

Update the operating system and all APPLICATIONS regularly.

If your activities are tied to a particular OS that's dependent on a particular set of hardware, keep important spare parts around.

Don't get rid of your laptop and desktop, attempting to do everything on your phone. It only takes one drop to the concrete, loss/theft or accidental dive into a public toilet to ruin your whole week. Particularly when there were no backups for 6 months.

Be discreet on social media; delete unused accounts.

Keep webmail accounts lean and backed up. Use more secure options when possible - like paid as opposed to free.

Turn off communications capability when not in use. This can include computers, routers, modems, terminal units, repeaters, gaming devices, etc. To leave everything on for two weeks is a prescription for trouble.

Don't click on a link if you don't know where it's going. And never respond to bank emails; call the bank.

Check your own history. Do web searches on yourself, and for old sites, see what archive.org has on you.

Hmm. Let's see if I can indicate what I'm working on without violating any agreements... Coming back into an actual, real Unix job after so long, I'm having to review Windows Server 03 and 08... yes, right. And for which there's actually a good rationale. Not only are many customers flying that product (although not as many as CentOS plus RHEL at our shop), but many server problems are conceptually the same. A reboot's a reboot, a password change is a password change, and a brute force annoyance is the same as well in all camps. And another thing's the same: the support surprise. I found out that we were supporting WinServer 2012 when we went into somebody's new build and saw that our build technician had provisioned it. NOBODY TOLD SUPPORT ABOUT IT. We just kinda found out. One or two other products have recently "appeared" on our plate like that. But there's all the things that aren't a surprise, and that the average tech should keep up with anyway: DNS, shell, awk, log locations for server OS's and control panel products, plus networking (and internally constructed "custom" networking). And one surprise is how useful nmap has become. It's almost a whole command family of its own and doesn't any longer have the reputation for instability that it shook during the last decade. It can do much more than find a port; their documentation book is on my buy list.

So I have a new job at a help desk to be named later. It's good to be back in the swing of things and most customers are actually my teachers in a way, since they know far more about their systems than do I (being tech support on rented systems in a physical sense but not being an admin since I have no idea what they're doing, in an applications/productivity sense). And not only can they be teachers. Every so often there's that provider of the unexpected request... "Have you got the log of the file system check?" I'll give you a minute for that one to sink in. Actually, I'll give you three weeks.

I just turned a Windows guy onto Linux Mint and he's having considerable success with it, in spite of being a total novice at Linux. I just came up with a very few things that it might be helpful for a new Linux user to know, regardless of how easy recent distros have made things:

1. Watch the update symbol and do updates every time they're noted in the word balloon notice thingie. Updates are how security holes are controlled in the *nix world, both for the OS and for many applications.

2. Read the manual pages (man command in Terminal) on the commands su and sudo (super user). Some distributions restrict the root account, preferring that you operate as a regular user most of the time. When needed, elevate yourself using su or sudo, then giving the password requested, which will be either the user password or a separate one for 'root'.

3. Use the locate command to do really quick searches in case you lose a file. Remember that it uses a database, which is freshened up (as root) by invoking 'updatedb'.

4. Use apt-get to do fast updates from Terminal. The sequence is

apt-get update
apt-get upgrade
(y for yes to continue or to accept additional required updates)

Of course, the software updater app is there for you as well.

5. If an app, game, utility or other program is present in the distribution's software repository, apt-get is the command to use. It's simply

apt-get install (name of file)

6. Grab an outboard hard drive for backups. Remember that you'll need to reformat it in whatever file system your distro uses; the "format" command is easy to find in the GUI.

7. Speaking of GUI issues, you have choices that outfits like Mac and Windows don't give you. They only have one desktop environment, whereas Linux offers bushels of them. Gnome and KDE are the most common full-featured ones, while there are others like Enlightenment and FluxBox that cater to older and slower systems (requiring less resources to run).


Hope this helps!

So my buddy gets his computer broken into (not hacked - the attacker wasn't that capable) by someone we'll call The Bad Guy. The Bad Guy got a keystroke logger somewhere and sent it to my buddy as an email attachment, which was opened in Outlook (see alternative app/OS suggestions below). Then the Bad Guy spends the next three or four weeks getting info from the logger, collecting passwords, user names, account names and such. Then the Bad Guy hits my buddy all at once (probably during hours when my buddy was known to be off shift and sleeping). My buddy's websites are trashed, his email accounts are hijacked and deleted, and many subscriptions and memberships were cancelled since the attacker could now pose as the membership-holder.

If we leave out online banking fraud (which apparently has not occurred), this situation would be about as bad as it gets. Let's make a list of everything that the victim now has to do to pick up the pieces of his online presence and certain aspects of his personal life.

0. Obtain a different, non-compromised computer.
1. Set up new personal and business email accounts (probably at a paid provider as opposed to at some free service), then inform important contacts via telephone or web forms on their sites.
2. Set up new Facebook, MySpace, LinkdIn, Classmates.com or whatever pages and rebuild all contacts lists.
3. Find account numbers, financial transaction records or bills that prove my buddy's identity to the website hosting company. Re-establish access to the website and rebuild it from scratch (all files deleted and replaced by garbage).
4. Image the hard drive of the compromised computer for later reference and/or legal action if desired and possible. Wipe the compromised computer and rebuild from backups, from OS/driver CDs/DVDs if such exist, or by paying the computer maker or authorized repair place to do it.
5. Bring back all personally created documents and work from backups if such were done. Bring back all application programs from install CDs if possessed.

My readers know me as a Linux guy and will anticipate certain suggestions of mine, but let me think like a Windows guy for a bit. I'm confident that I can do this, and am motivated to do so since many of my colleagues spend most of their time in that world. Now, if I'm a Windows person, I would still need to change my ways somewhat. Let's see how adaptation is possible. My buddy is like most people in that he's only concerned with the work that he needs a computer to do, not with security issues on the machine itself. That's how the problem starts and here's a proposed new strategy:

1. Use the original desktop or laptop as the general use/everyday/casual computer. Get another computer for important stuff. And consider a third one, properly Frankensteined for gaming (let's be realistic here).
2. On the general use computer (and the other ones if they're Windows boxes) load an antivirus product like Norton, McAfee, free AVG or such. Load an anti-crapware product like Malwarebytes, AdAware or such. Load a third party cleanup program like Window Washer or the free CCleaner.
3. Update and manually run on a minimum weekly basis all of the programs I mentioned above. In many senses these programs are not automatic; they have to be operated by the user. Various automatic settings are sometimes included but when viruses are automatically found, they must then be deleted by user action (usually prompted by instructions that pop up - they're easy - follow them!) Windows Update also prompts you. Do all updates - they're free bugfixes and don't take much time.
4. If any of these antivirus or anti-crapware products find anything, get onto the other (Important Stuff) computer and see if you can still get into your accounts. If so, change the passwords, going down a roster of accounts that you've stashed for just such an emergency. You may not be acting in time unless you only log onto important stuff with the Important Stuff computer.
5. OPTIONAL - If you wish to investigate, keep the compromised computer in its compromised condition to be examined or for the hard drive to be copied (imaged) for future reference.
6. Rebuild the compromised computer from operating system and driver CDs/DVDs that you've archived in advance, either from the computer purchase or some backup scheme like Norton Ghost or a competitor of that product, or one of the Windows open source (free) backup products.
7. Consider making the Important Stuff computer an Apple Macintosh, or loading a box up with an easy Linux system like openSuse or Linux Mint, which is now available for free, fast download at

LINUXMINT.COM

You knew that was coming.

I understand that if you require Windows for work files or development, then you might not have the open source option. But just about anything web-based is child's play for a *NIX box. And the two Linux distributions I mentioned above have good, bright update indicators on their desktops (updates are how most security holes are dealt with in Linux) that'll make you pretty safe. Unless you've pissed off the Defense Intelligence Agency or the Russian mafia.

It's the Reagan administration and although your government research job is unrelated to computer desktop and network maintenance, you've had several such duties deposited into your lap, which became several more. Now you're responsible for solving a summation problem in the accounting program that charges other departments for using time on your system (remember the earliest incarnations of 'time sharing'?). The issue is that there's a bit of time that's been used and no one's paid for it. Digging into the relevant sessions, you notice an account that's been used recently, but was set up for someone who departed for another job two years ago. Questioning of that person and others around him or her deletes the original owner from suspicion. You begin attempting to find out how the current user of that account figured out how to use it - and from where...

Clifford Stoll's classic story of involvement in serious espionage messes begins in this massively plausible way. It was recommended to me by an NT-era MCSE; I proceeded to enjoy the book in spite of myself. But although I'd heard from various (inaccurate) sources that it involved "viruses", I was at least a little surprised to read the following lines early in the story:

echo -n "WELCOME TO THE LBL UNIX-4 COMPUTER"
echo -n "PLEASE LOG IN NOW"
echo -n "LOGIN:"
read account_name
echo -n "ENTER YOUR PASSWORD:"
(stty -echo; \
read password; \
stty echo;\
echo "";\
echo $account_name $password >> /tmp/.pub)
echo "SORRY, TRY AGAIN."

This isn't a random vandalism attempt and not a program that's attempting to replicate over adjacent machines. Somewhat obviously, it's a password grabber that appends the grabbed string to a file and then allows the user to proceed to the real logger-inner. It's a purpose-built program to harvest logins for the sneak thief that's arrogated control of an old account to him, her or its self. It was placed there by whoever broke and entered.

Stoll made the commendable decision not to interfere with the sneak, but to observe the sneak's actions over time. Time revealed that although root was attained, backdoors were installed and files were read, not much time was spent actually reading the files. The sneak proceeded over the LAN to other computers and did the same. The sneak wasn't so much interested in the data (which was downloaded by him) but in the network - the connections over which he could travel to other destinations. And they weren't just unclassified science projects like Stoll's astronomy research post; they mostly included sensitive stuff. Stoll began consulting with the three-letter agencies and the plot thickened.

What follows is not only a story of network research in the days before the consumer internet (which is not a terribly large part of the story) but a common litany of woes regarding having to deal not only with spooks that aren't at liberty to say whether you're full of baloney or not, but with layers and layers of middle management that have no power to say 'yes', but plenty to say 'no'. Without giving much away, I'll say that Stoll laboriously traces the sneak out of the building, out of the organization, away from the West coast to New Jersey, over the transatlantic cable and, modem by modem (that's Modulator/DeModulator, junior) into a situation that begins to address diplomatic issues among countries both allied to us and... perhaps not.

There would be many morals here. The first one that occurs to me is not to let responsibility creep get you thrown into prison, let alone rooked out of a fair paycheck. Five stars out of four.

Here's some of my favorite links on a favorite subject...

TRINITY RESCUE KIT -
A distribution specifically geared to repairing Windows installs.

DISTRO WATCH -
Follows new releases and updates of old standards.

LINUX QUESTIONS -
Volunteer organization that answers quandries and categorizes them for others to reference

CLONEZILLA -
a distribution recently noted in Linux Journal for effectiveness in backup and mass rollouts

LINUX JOURNAL -
A most valuable authority with a helpful website as well

BACKTRACK LINUX -
A distribution full of tools for penetration testing and data recovery, etc. etc.

FROZEN BUBBLE -
The only game you'll ever need!

...that may express some of my thoughts on programming and on Linux well:


“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”

- Charles Darwin

And by that, I mean the call from the Windows User to the Computer Person to fix something undetermined. And she was cute, so one will agree and mentally review the steps involved in hopefully saving the day. It's a 2-yr-old-ish Vista laptop and this time, I'm not just doing updates but expecting the worst in the way of poorly written Russian adverts and so on. I'm picking it up on Thursday but forged ahead by downloading a new build of Trinity Rescue Kit.

TRK 3.4 is a Linux distro with a payload of tools aimed at Windows repair. The star of the show is a command-line version of ClamAV. I'm assuming viruses have set up housekeeping, so I'll give it the full treatment (boot from the TRK cd and go online for latest signatures, then run against HDD for three or four hours). But after that's done, the usual list will kick in:

0. Ideally, do backups as soon as one gets to a stable desktop (hope springs eternal)
1. Disk Cleanup and chkdisk (file integrity check)
2. Defrag
3. update and run the anti-junkware (Spyware Blaster, SuperAntiSpyware or whatever)
4. update and run any onboard brand-name Antivirus (or download AVG or something if there's nothing already there)
5. OS updates
6. browser updates
7. Flash update
8. Acrobat reader update
9. any other app updates available

That's the seat-of-the-pants list. Better lists exist; this one's probably all I'll have time for this week. Unless she's really persuasive.

RESULT: The laptop didn't even boot, so she let me have the carcass for parts and the effort (I got an HDD and some memory out of it) and she went with a new netbook. Good to reacquaint myself with TRK, though.

The ability to generate software-only instances of an operating system (virtual systems) promises freedom from hardware concerns and an endless amount of no-cost capability, right? Not exactly, but it holds great promise in certain circumstances. Here's my fence-sitting take on the positives and negatives of this new technology.

POSITIVES:
1. Reduced electrical cost (less power supplies to feed)
2. Reduced equipment inventory and space
3. Reduced spare parts inventory and space
4. Simplified rebuild administration (ability to spawn new instances quickly)

NEGATIVES:
1. Heavier hardware requirements for remaining computers
2. Ability to run more systems = greater demands on the admin's time
3. Related to above: possible management denial that virtual machines need attention
4. Related to above: multiplicity of installs may lead to security holes

Reduced cost and space has been the main attention-getter. The more purely electronic and virtual an organization, the less material maintenance is needed on all fronts (not that one could totally get away from it). On the downside, an operation might need newer computers and networking to handle the throughput and ram demands. And responsibility creep might chase away admins who see more systems assigned to them while a manager might be tempted to overrule objections since the new machines (that require configuration, patching, security analysis, monitoring etc. etc.) are "only virtual". And if many instances of disparate OS's are forgotten about after a few rounds of testing, a break-in artist could find abandoned and unpatched opportunities for setting up shop.

I think the obvious conclusion is that whether or not virtualization works is a function of the skill of the administrator(s). To a lesser degree it's a function of whether or not the hardware STILL present can handle the loads. And we should all remember that if more systems are running on fewer devices, then backups (both software and spare turnkey machines) are rendered even more important than they've traditionally been, which is a lot.

The ability to generate software-only instances of an operating system (virtual systems) promises freedom from hardware concerns and an endless amount of no-cost capability, right? Not exactly, but it holds great promise in certain circumstances. Here's my fence-sitting take on the positives and negatives of this new technology.

POSITIVES:
1. Reduced electrical cost (less power supplies to feed)
2. Reduced equipment inventory and space
3. Reduced spare parts inventory and space
4. Simplified rebuild administration (ability to spawn new instances quickly)

NEGATIVES:
1. Heavier hardware requirements for remaining computers
2. Ability to run more systems = greater demands on the admin's time
3. Related to above: possible management denial that virtual machines need attention
4. Related to above: multiplicity of installs may lead to security holes

Reduced cost and space has been the main attention-getter. The more purely electronic and virtual an organization, the less material maintenance is needed on all fronts (not that one could totally get away from it). On the downside, an operation might need newer computers and networking to handle the throughput and ram demands. And responsibility creep might chase away admins who see more systems assigned to them while a manager might be tempted to overrule objections since the new machines (that require configuration, patching, security analysis, monitoring etc. etc.) are "only virtual". And if many instances of disparate OS's are forgotten about after a few rounds of testing, a break-in artist could find abandoned and unpatched opportunities for setting up shop.

I think the obvious conclusion is that whether or not virtualization works is a function of the skill of the administrator(s). To a lesser degree it's a function of whether or not the hardware STILL present can handle the loads. And we should all remember that if more systems are running on fewer devices, then backups (both software and spare turnkey machines) are rendered even more important than they've traditionally been, which is a lot.

I just got a two-year-old off-lease Dell Optiplex GX520 (one of that boxy-looking line of desktops) and when it arrived I prepared to blow away the included build of WinXP for something else, since I already run that system for purely educational purposes and didn't need another instance of it. I got a surprise as I ran the system before erasing it. The DVD-ROM drive didn't work. So how to load a new system onto the box - not to mention finding the solution to the malfunction (assuming no flash drive load or network install)?

This is an important question for the open source community, inveterate OS reloaders that we are. The Optiplex line is huge and it appears to me that there might be a motherboard issue here that will be an issue in Linux loading - but I'm getting ahead of myself. Here's what happened as I examined XP performance and loaded (full disclosure here) Win7. [Again, for educational purposes! You can't criticize if you're not experienced.]

From an educational source I'd gotten the Win7 upgrade disc and it was to load on top of the XP load present on the 520. Remember, XP either didn't have a driver for the DVD-ROM or there was a plain hardware failure (a Dell driver CD was not provided with the purchase). I proceeded with the Win7 loading by using a USB outboard DVD burner (with proper BIOS setting for boot-from-disc) and then did the updates. The original inboard DVD-ROM still didn't work after a few reboots.

But after a few MORE reboots and the phone ringing in the other room, I returned to see a word balloon in the bottom right corner of the screen announcing a driver update from somewhere (presumably Windows/MS Update). I allowed it and the inboard transport instantly worked.

If a particular piece of software is needed for the box to see and run the ROM drive, this may indicate a need for the open source OS's to be amended accordingly. On the other hand, maybe there exists in the Linux, BSD and/or OSX worlds a generic driver that works just fine. I don't know. What I do know experimentally is that Win7 eventually recognized and updated the issue itself, without my consulting the Dell site for drivers... which I might still need to do for other issues.

I don't recommend staying away from Optiplexes. I'm just putting this your-mileage-may-vary note out there. It's very possible that the problem has already been solved by all concerned parties and there really aren't any reloading problems here. I'm just surprised that Win7 either knew what to do or figured it out. I hereby grudgingly give credit where credit is due.

(Update of 11/8)
So the driver still appears, goes away and then reappears. But the cause is now known. I looked up the Optiplex model on Dell's support site and it turns out that there is no official Windows 7 driver for this model's transport - but that doesn't keep Windows Update from trying. So I'll just continue to use the outboard unit for burning and trust in some programmer in Austin or somewhere to come through for me eventually...

Radio ads are now being heard in my area touting something called "Xfinity Home Security" from Comcast cable. The idea is that it would be really great to be able to control a home security system from your smart phone. I'm afraid this indicates that online convenience will soon prove more popular than security, even within the security products market - truly a new irony. If Comcast saw a potential market for such a thing, consider the possibilities...

Assume that the application security issues are solved (the code is secure). That leaves out any problems with the remote interface and the installed app at home. Let's also assume that the Internet Service Provider's servers are properly maintained and in secure configuration. And since this is an extension of ADT home security, we'll assume that there are no problems on their end (any and all physical and software interfaces). What does that leave? Well, at home, it leaves the thing that the (secure in this example) stuff is installed TO, namely the home computer. This is a computer not maintained by Comcast or by ADT or by the ISP (although their systems are possibly impeachable in other examples). This computer's Administrator Of Record is Joe Sixpack, probably with a few wife/kid computers on a $79 router. The last such computer that I looked at for somebody was as secure as a screen door on a submarine.

[Observe: To get into secure app XYZ on user's computer, obtain access to the base Operating System. Since this machine is running a series of security devices, assume 24/7 online stance. This gives you lots of time to run a... "password recovery program". Or to look for cached login info from OS to app. Bingo. You get into the secure app from the OS that the home user failed to configure correctly or patch regularly. This resembles the MANY examples of an outfit getting invaded through a telecommuter workstation left up and online.]

{Another aside: If you replaced the user machine in the above scheme with an appliance, that would eliminate my main objection. Not that appliances haven't had updating and hardening problems, though...}

The larger point? We from the Unix/open source side would not immediately have these problems since all the linking apps aren't available for Linux, Solaris or such. But the problem that remote access for home security poses is that it's not the systems that pose the biggest chance for failure. It's the judgment of the user. It's what the user has authorized to run locally. It's whether or not one should have remote access to things like history logs that record when a door was opened/closed over the last 60 days. Or streaming video in the garage or kitchen. Linux or OpenWhatever can solve lots of problems when replacing systems less secure, but it can't make the user smarter. This is our Limitation as open source advocates: open source can't fix everything. Not only must we evangelize about some system choice where possible; we must warn against giving out one's email address too much, or clicking on a strange web link, or opening that attachment. Those are problems in any system configuration, use or policy stance.

Briefly, here's how I've spent some of the last two days: on a 2004-vintage 2.7ghz Celeron (HP) with 3/4 gig of ram, I've kicked the tires on openSuse.org's latest offering and there's good news and bad.

On the bad side, around a half dozen reboots were required for all the hardware detection to appear to have completed satisfactorily. Also, in spite of the networking section getting out to the internet after a boot or two, the app that looks for updates still hasn't seemed to have found any. I'll try the many command-line options soon out of impatience.

On the good side, the interface is slick and many included apps perform acceptably well. Audio CD played back with no reconfiguration, startup chimes and confirm tones were present and consistent, reboot time sped up after a few instances (it might be saving last-known-good-state info in many places), and OpenOffice was pretty quick and stable even during first use setup.

Too early to tell, really, but at the moment it looks like I'd rate 11.3 as similar to other recent offerings from the Novell/SUSE camp: a worthy contender but needs polish. I've not had quite this many bumps even from recent Fedoras, let alone Linux Mint or other Ubuntu variants. Another thing: I'm covering the simple desktop stuff for a reason. If one wants to impress the Windows people who are coming over out of curiosity, the simple stuff has to work. I realize that I could use rpm or yum command lines and that it might be better to do so. But if an Updater Applet is right there in the tray waiting to be used, it should work. And in 11.2, it DID.

Next project will probably be to get the newer laptop thrown together and install BackTrack 4 to the HD and frolic through that famous and extensive tool collection. Oh, and the Celeron 2.7? Back to CentOS!

Here's a quote from Chapter 5 of the Eric Raymond book (The Art Of Unix Programming) that I'm reading without actually being a programmer:

"In the following discussion, when we refer to “traditional Unix tools” we are intending the combination of grep(1), sed(1), awk(1), tr(1), and cut(1) for doing text searches and transformations. Perl and other scripting languages tend to have good native support for parsing the line-oriented formats that these tools encourage."

This is from the 'Data File Metaformats' heading in the chapter entitled "Textuality", touting the value of things being done as widely-understood text streams as opposed to the use of relatively more cryptic closed methods.

Simply referring to such a concept of "traditional Unix tools" helps reinforce what newcomers to Unix methodology are seeking to learn. This would also hold up in greater relief the point of contact between the Windows command line and Unix, as tools have been ported from one world to the other, and can be available for use in both.

It's the first Tuesday of the month and THAT means Linux 101! Come to HAL-PC and learn from Charles Olsen, a member of the HLUG SIG and one of the hosts of the Mintcast podcast!


You KNOW you want to...

Dell Vostro V13 laptop (Ubuntu option available):
Click!

System76 desktop, laptop and server models w/Ubuntu:
Click!

Are you a business and want SUSE with support included (BYO hardware)?
Click!

Note: I hold no stock or other financial interest in any of these concerns BUT I WISH I DID.

...But linux IS involved! My past as a users' group president in Linux Land is not at all being denied here; I just digress lots. See what you think:

Our pals at LINUX JOURNAL put out this word about the OpenSolaris issue not long ago. It's not an alarmist article; it raises legit questions about whether Oracle values Unix dreadnought Sun's legacy or not. Well, aside from the decision whether or not to continue making certain code chunks widely available through OpenSolaris, Oracle seems to be trumpeting the virtues of the main event clearly enough.

Now there's this. The Illumos initiative may save the day.

My take on all this is that within the OpenSolaris orbit, projects like Nexenta were valuable to Solaris for general Unix PR, as well as for its own products. Nexenta in particular could get Linux people interested in toying with things like ZFS if only due to the Debian tools included, not the least of which is apt-get (and it works!! at least on SOME of my loads). This appeals to my if-it's-Unix-it's-cool ethic. The problem with continuation of the OpenSolaris project would be that Oracle might not be so forthcoming with the big section of proprietary code that's in OpenSolaris and that Oracle now owns. Illumos would solve that quandary if successful. I usually worry about distro forks, but this might be a good one - if one can even call it a fork.

ON A RARE PERSONAL NOTE: Some of you know that I work for an outfit that has a "boonies" location and a "Central" location and that I've been in the boonies for awhile. I AM NOW at Central! Thank you for your discretion.

That' means Linux Workshop at HAL-PC from 6-9pm. Bring your computer and learn about Linux!

Also, don't forget about Technology Bytes!

Technology Bytes:
8-10p CST 90.1FM on your radio. Or take your web browser or stream catcher to www.kpft.org or http://www.geekradio.com/

I'll be attending both DefCon and DebConf this year, so I'm figuring this is as good a time as any to get my GPG key updated to something stronger than 1024 bit DSA. I've put a transition statement online as seems to be recommended.

If you're reading this, you have SOME interest in Unix and/or Linux. At least, I hope so. So, how could you pass up this title for only $9.99?!? I couldn't. It helps that I also got "Learning Python" for $9.99 not too long ago.


Use discount code: DDPUX

Today only! Sorry I didn't get this up earlier.

It's the first Tuesday of the month and THAT means Linux 101! Come to HAL-PC and learn from Charles Olsen, a member of the HLUG SIG and one of the hosts of the Mintcast podcast!

It's the perfect place to start learning about Linux!

Not a commercial, but I thought this book (and the last one I mentioned, Linux in a Nutshell) would be of interest to people who check out this site or the Houston Linux site.


Here's the book's page:
http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596158071/

Python is a GREAT language, used in lots of places, including Google and NASA in Houston (Johnson Space Center)
Use discount code: DDPYT

TODAY (7/1/10) ONLY!!

Go here:
http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596154486/

Use discount code: DDLN6

Today only!

I've been, in piecemeal fashion, giving a review of Eric Raymond's book "The Art Of Unix Programming" and I must confess that it's tough going for someone who codes as little as I do. I at this point only know some basic shell and basic HTML, and to get the most out of Raymond's work, one must code in something more heavyweight such as one of the C's or Perl or even OO things. Raymond, now, will be critical of object-orientation in places but even that would help since most points the book makes are universal (among programmers).

Here's the two places I've been using to read the book online:

faqs.org
catb.org

See? See? I can at least code that.

As Raymond says in one of the intro sections, the book can benefit people that can at least understand that the Unix tradition might have something to teach them. It's not much help if you want to know about kernel application programming interfaces or C programming specifics. Even if you skim the hard parts and only absorb the culture, it can help one understand the Unix/open source ethos, and would be particularly helpful if you're coming from the object-oriented world to a Unix-based project.

I'll keep reading it but for purposes of this blog will move on to other topics - no doubt returning to this one from time to time, if only to rip off another Ken Thompson quote from Raymond.

In the middle of the other stuff I've promised here, lemme get two things off my chest: my experiences with the Mike Meyers "Passport" series study guide to the CompTIA Security+ certification exam, and a late experience with Fedora 12.

The Meyers series Security+ guide that I picked up used for about 3$ was worth a little more than that, considering that it came with a CD that had two practice exams (Windows-only reader, though). But although it knocked out the cobwebs regarding a few familiarity issues with me, my impression was that the questions (and perhaps the direction of the exam itself, which I've not yet taken) were so obvious that (on a test based solely on the book) one could get 75% without reading the book at all. I've switched to the Greg White book from McGraw-Hill for the current test (201); I'll give an impression of that one when possible.

The other issue I need to note: when downloading Fedora 13, I realized that I'd been doing it on a box with no burner. So I USB2'd an outboard Iomega and chose Brasero and then... stopped in my tracks about 5 minutes later. What's the matter with this picture? No reboot. No requests to install stuff. No error messages. Brasero didn't balk. NOTHING WENT WRONG. I burned the F13 install DVD while doing two other things and not paying attention. PLUS I used the full-install version of the DVD (not the live DVD or CD) to upgrade without disk wipe and there were no problems there, either. Not like a few years back when I trashed at least two installs that way.

People, Fedora is starting to work like a Mac. I'm sure many of you already experienced this or simply wonder what I'm behind about, but my job forces me to use... other stuff from You-Know-Who. So I've never had a lot of time to do testing. Way back when, many OS maintainers on the Linux side were criticized for having an attitude toward users that slammed those who wanted things to work and set up easier. Well, they seem to be getting the point at the Fedora Project, or were never in need of the point in the first place. My compliments to all concerned.

Back to the Eric Raymond book as soon as I get time.

Sorry, I've been away for awhile. But you know what hasn't gone ANYWHERE?

HOUSTON'S WEDNESDAY NIGHT TECH EXTRAVAGANZA!!!!!!!!

HLUG Linux Workshop: 6-9pm at HAL-PC.

Technology Bytes:
8-10p CST 90.1FM on your radio. Or take your web browser or stream catcher to www.kpft.org or http://www.geekradio.com/

Hello all! I've been away for a bit due to illness and some other issues, but I'm BACK! Just in time to tell you about the next Saturday HLUG meeting. The focus on command line wizardry continues, delving further into the mysteries of the Bash shell. For this wizardry, there's no wand required!

2-4pm at HAL-PC. Where's that? It's right HERE!

2-4pm today is the standard 2nd Saturday HLUG meeting. We plan to have some examples of some compound
commands using scripting. Also, how to do a backup of a partition using the command line.

HOWEVER, there's a NEW SIG meeting on Saturdays (2nd/4th) from Noon-2pm that's going to focus primarily on Linux shell scripting/CLI. We are using the Linux Phrasebook by Scott Granneman as the guide for the SIG.

Come and enjoy!

...that Wednesday night is Tech Night in Houston, did you? Linux Workshop at HAL-PC 6-9pm PLUS Technology Bytes on KPFT 90.1 FM or www.kpft.org from 8-10pm.

Consider yourself reminded.

From their web site:

Document Freedom Day (DFD) is a global day for document liberation. It will be a day of grassroots effort to educate the public about the importance of Open Document Formats and Open Standards in general.

Go to http://documentfreedom.org/ to learn more. If you've ever had trouble opening a text document or spreadsheet or anything else because you created it in an older version of software (Word/Excel/WordPerfect/Lotus/Powerpoint etc), you understand the need for document freedom.

So, go to http://www.openoffice.org/ to learn more about a FREE (as in, you don't have to pay for at AND all the freedoms from the LGPL.

If you're STILL not clear on what all this "Document Freedom" stuff is about, there' still time to stop by the HLUG Linux Workshop (6-9pm tonight at HAL-PC) OR to call in to Technology Bytes tonight from 8-10pm on KPFT FM 90.1

You know you want to. :-) Documents want to be FREE!!

Linux Workshop at HAL-PC tonight. 6-9pm. Technology Bytes on KPFT 8-10pm.

This afternoon we'll be continuing the CLI goodness that was started 2 weeks ago. Do you want MORE? Get it? More? It's a CLI command...

*crickets*

Ok, I'll MV on. Gonna end this post now. Keep it short. Sometimes LESS is MORE.
:-)

See you today at HAL-PC from 2-4pm.

Short post.

Tonight you should do two things:
1. Go to HAL-PC for the HLUG Linux Workshop to get all your Linux needs met. It's from 6-9pm, just like every other Wednesday. While you're there, talk to Rick about becoming a HAL-PC member.

2. Tune in to Technology Bytes on KPFT 90.1 FM from 8-10pm to get any other computer questions answered. Feel free to hop into their IRC channel to join the show within the show!

That is all!

You should already know what Wednesday night in Houston means: HLUG's Linux Workshop at HAL-PC! 6-9pm. Get ALL your burning Linux questions answered! (and they DO burn, don't they?!?)

HAL-PC is here. If you have trouble getting into the building, call the main number at 713.993.3300.

ALSO! Don't forget to tune in to Technology Bytes, on KPFT 90.1 FM or over 'teh internets' tonight from 8-10 to get all your OTHER computing questions answered.

Don't drink too much green beer!

Another jewel from Eric Raymond's "The Art Of Unix Programming" ---

"Computer hardware was at that time more primitive than even people who were there to see it can now easily recall."

Preach it, brother.

Today the discussion will focus around the CLI (Command Line Interface) of Linux. It's going to be all about Shell Scripting. For those not aware, the command line (the thing that looks like a DOS prompt? No pictures, just text commands you have to type in) in Linux is called Bash (short for Bourne Again Shell), which is an improvement on the original Unix Shell. I'm not sure how much history Ron will go into today.

In any event, gaining True *nix Wizardry begins with a basic understanding of Shell scripting. There's a tremendous amount of flexibility, power and convenience that can be found at the CLI. Ron will start to unveil those mysteries today! It's like your first year at Hogwarts, or the Jedi Academy. Or something.

Another note, the rumor is the NEXT Saturday HLUG meeting (two weeks from today; 4th Saturday) will be for paid HAL-PC members only and may or may not include DOOR PRIZES. That's something HAL-PC SIGS have been famous for over the years. I've got a copy of Office 2003 Pro floating around, among other things, that I got as a HAL door prize. More details on that as they become available.

Expecto Patronum!!

I was editing/updating some things here and a lot of those posts got reposted en mass to the Houstonlinux.org blog. Sorry about that.

BUT, it does give you a chance to catch up on what you may have missed! :-)
*points at silver lining*

Look, Linux folks ARE social! Stop by HAL-PC Saturday from 2-4pm and learn to network! From your linux box!

The subject is Social Networks the names are
1. FaceBook: Val
2. Meetup: Rick
3. Linked In: Jorid, Joey

What we do not have time for this week, can be continued
on the next meeting.

Ron

Kojo (that's me!) was supposed to discuss Twitter and LinkedIn, but won't be able to make the meeting this week. Next time!

I'm glad you asked! The Wednesday Night Workshop (WNW...not to be confused with Neverwinter Nights...NWN) is where people with questions about, trouble with or interest in Linux get together to work it all out! Bring your computer/keyboard/mouse and we'll supply the monitor/power/network connection (wired and WiFi) and get things taken care of!

Trying to install Linux? We can help! Got Linux installed, but can't get a piece of hardware working? We can help! Need to get a certain piece of software installed or configured on your Linux install? We can help! Want to dump your other OS and replace it with Linux? We can help!

Wednesday nights, 6-9pm at HAL-PC Global HQ!! Followed by dinner...somewhere.

ALSO! Be sure to tune in to Technology Bytes Radio, ALSO Wednesday night from 8-10pm. And don't miss the Geek Gathering, this Friday at The Coffeegroundz!

It's Wednesday night, so you should know the drill by now. Get thee to HAL-PC and partake of the Linux Workshop goodness! Get help with thine own vexing Linux questions! Assist others with issues that, verily, cause them to be vexed.

Basically, we're trying to avoid and eliminate all things "vexing". 6-9pm. Dinner/socializing afterwards, to be announced at the Workshop.

ALSO! Do NOT forget about Technology Bytes. 8-10pm on KPFT or live streamed over the internet(s), if you're not in the Houston area. Speaking of Technology Bytes, if you didn't attend their last Geek Gathering, here's what you missed. The lovely woman in the first picture is Victoria Leigh, model/photographer/makeup artist. The smiling man next to her is her husband. He works for Ubuntu, dealing with OpenOffice.org bugs. See what Linux can do for you? I'm just saying. Don't blame me, it's not like I didn't tell you! The Geek Gathering's are the first Friday of every month at The Coffeegroundz.

That is all.

What'd you miss last Saturday?

Rick Archbald says:

W/o Rob't spotswood (sick), the Samba SIG didn't make much progress on
the mail server project. We did convince ourselves that KirraMail
doesn't install easily & isn't worth fighting w/ for having a 2nd mail
server on the network. We also discovered that the last release of
VMware 2.0 is useless. If we knew that either VBox or VMware would
save the complete state, including RAM, of a VM (this may be a
"stupid" question), then we could run Kirra in a VM, & have it have
some continuity.

Ron Lyle offers this view:

We built a vmware KerraMail mail server just to see if we could set up a mail server. The samba SIG went well and I found thanks to Rick, some Google special searches under UNIX (google/linux, google/gov, and google/bsd) We learned that vmware doesn't do snapshots and virtual box does.

They'll be back at it on the 3rd Saturday of the month. That's the 19th for those scoring at home.

The quest to build an ISP-grade mail server continues! Stop by HAL-PC to join in on the fun and learning! Tech up!!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

(This is from Eric Raymond's The Art Of Unix Programming, which I'm currently reading.)

"The most basic argument for prototyping first is Kernighan & Plauger's:
90% of the functionality delivered now is better than 100% of it delivered never”.

It appears that Oracle is being a good neighbor with respect to open source-ing some things, or rather continuing to (subsequent to the Sun acquisition). This story indicates that the OpenSolaris project will undergo basically no change and that a commitment is being made to its future. Certainly this will benefit Oracle by the encouraging of experimentation with file systems and software features now under its control (like ZFS, the combined file system and LVM) but I see the continuing maintenance and free availability of any decent (-nix-oid) system as a good thing. In the words of the nerd-rock band DEVO, "duty now for the future"!

Since I have two computing-related books to review and have not finished them yet, I'll let you in on the locations thereof. Both have online free versions in various places; here's some that I know about.

THE ART OF UNIX PROGRAMMING by Eric Raymond

Mr. Raymond has been around programming since way the hell back and offers this best-practices book that can do at least three things: document the early computing culture, acclimatize programmers to the Unix world that may have come from other environments and focus the efforts of other programmers who are Unix-native. Here's one of the book's many online homes:

Click HERE

NMAP NETWORK SCANNING
The Official Nmap Project Guide to Network Discovery and Security Scanning
by Gordon “Fyodor” Lyon

Living at the venerable nmap.org, this is a less-than-complete version (buy it to get everything) but this version is merely lacking in all examples and extended discussions. All the basics are here. The tool's free and the bad guys use it, too, so if you're a White Hat Wannabe like me, you have no choice but to get right with Nmap.

Click HERE

So now, let's see if I can finish these before you do - and before you scoop me on your blog.

Here's what you missed last Saturday at the SAMBA SIG (and yes, I DO alternate my capitalization of "Samba". Sue me) We're continuing our goal of building an ISP-Grade mail server.

Today we got the spam script working and spammed our new server. Over a 100 MB
connection, it took about 14.5 minutes to send 10,000 messages. During that
time, CPU usage on the mail server shoot up to around 90%. However, even
during the storm, the webmail interface was still responsive. Nevertheless, it
showed that we need anti-spam measures.

In order to get the spam script running, we used another machine, then booted
with Knoppix 6.0.1 and installed sendmail (what the script requires). Knoppix
5.3.1 would not work with sendmail for some reason.

In the next meeting, we need to try to add some polish to our testing mail
server. The current list of items to address is:

1) Anti-spam measures and anti-virus measures. Current plans are to use
Amavis. It will be interesting to see what the load is on the server if we
repeat the spam storm with the measures in place.

2) Implement quotas. We can't have one user fill up the hard drive.

3) Change the squirrelmail url to something better and more standard, such as
webmail.samba.lan.

4) Install a list manager. Mailman has been suggested.

It is likely it will take more than one meeting to accomplish all this.

Join in in two weeks!

Wednesday night means Linux Workshop at HAL-PC, 6-9pm.

Be there!!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone (which runs a version of OS X, which is a *nix)

Here are the notes from the February first Saturday Samba SIG meeting. Remember, the third Saturday is THIS Saturday! 2-4pm at HAL-PC in SIG Room C.

First, some housekeeping details: you may have noticed that I don't update quite as often as in the past. I am no longer an officeholder at the Houston Area League of PC Users, but that organization continues improvement efforts and reorganization as we speak, or type (check their site for the latest).

Second, I continue to press onward with technological interests such as the open source movement, computer security, backup methodology, unusual internet content, publishing, et cetera.

Thirdly, I'll use this blog to prognosticate and pass on interesting tidbits to whomever reads this blog, as well as for my own use (as an online link repository, for example).

Upcoming topics here may include...

The Nmap book by the Nmap guy
BackTrack 4 final release changes and progress
Recent TRK changes and improvements
Adventures In Learning Perl (hopefully without attacking competing languages much)
Adventures In Deleted File Recovery (or Oops I Did It Again, and in a different oddball file format this time)

So stay tuned and let's see what I come up with.

Although I am mostly ashamed at having been talked into establishing a Facebook account, I have found something about that system that's actually socially redeeming. Somebody established "INTERCAL Enthusiasts" on FB. I'm not even a proper programmer and this is funny to me:

Here is the "Hello, world" program in INTERCAL:

DO ,1 <- #13
PLEASE DO ,1 SUB #1 <- #234
DO ,1 SUB #2 <- #112
DO ,1 SUB #3 <- #112
DO ,1 SUB #4 <- #0
DO ,1 SUB #5 <- #64
DO ,1 SUB #6 <- #194
DO ,1 SUB #7 <- #48
PLEASE DO ,1 SUB #8 <- #22
DO ,1 SUB #9 <- #248
DO ,1 SUB #10 <- #168
DO ,1 SUB #11 <- #24
DO ,1 SUB #12 <- #16
DO ,1 SUB #13 <- #214
PLEASE READ OUT ,1
PLEASE GIVE UP

For more of whatever the above is, go to

The Intercal Place

, which is outside FB and should be given the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Yes, from OUR Congress.

About a half-dozen denizens of Hal were present at the "users groups" table that Tech Fest afforded us, and the one other group that showed, the Houston Java Users Group. As for us, we got over six sheets' worth of email contacts and I'd guess that it totals to over 100 people expressing interest (Chris or Jim Ward may have the sheets and therefore could give an accurate count).

The scene was mostly .net developers but about 20% of the subjects were applicable to other things. It was well attended by head hunters, too; I'll be there next year.

HAL-PC FUNDRAISER POSTPONED
Due to various time constraints, the Sept. 7th BBQ has been put off at least 6-8 weeks. Stay tuned to the Hal-PC site for re-scheduling notices.
LINUX 101 ROCKS YOUR SOCKS
I dropped into the Linux 101 SIG (special interest group) meeting after the executive committee broke up for the night (and John Davis and me had finished talking about the Houston Punk scene) and saw that they are drawing about the healthy half-dozen or so that my SIG used to draw (I think they're doing OK as well). And I'm not just pimping them because they (Linux 101, 1st Tue. of Month, 7pm, Hal-PC) looked at the latest Linux Mint. But that helped.

Hit this link for what's happening on September the 26th. Seminars!
Presentations! Job and app training possibilities! More geekiness! Such a deal.

On Labor Day, the Hal-PC folk would like to see you at the Volunteer Appreciation / Fund Raising Event! It's open (to other than registered volunteers with enough time logged) to all for a $15 donation that will help upgrade computers and such. Hours (for eating) are 1-6pm. Time to geekily parTAY. Check the link for directions to the Galleria-area HQ building.

As I understand it, we have a new leader: Ron Lyle! Congratulations to he who stepped up to the plate. An election was held and Ron won (this would have been last Saturday; I was... let's just say "on call"). So under Ron's direction, meetings continue as the masthead of this blog states: every second and fourth Saturday, 2pm at Hal.

In other news, it's been suggested to me (by Jim Ward) that the Presidency of HLUG, as opposed to the Special Interest Group leadership position for the scheduled time slot, become a separate position (I think he had in mind an emeritus capacity). It seems doable to consider me a publicity figurehead at least in order to continue with this blog and other promotional activities, in spite of my employer's shift changes and their effects, which take me out of the scheduled flow. Also, having a President (in addition to a SIG Leader) maintains a connection with the structure of HLUG that originally merged with Hal about ten years ago; continuity is good.

I agree to such an arrangement if it's amenable to the new leader and the membership. Also, I'll be describing/pimping/reviewing the meetings here into the future (and naturally able to review something when I am not called upon to work Saturday and therefore could show up at the meeting).

See some of you at the Hal Board meeting tomorrow night.

Labor Day BBQ Plans Forming:
Watch the Hal-PC home page for details on the upcoming feedfest. It's a volunteer appreciation event and is being put together as we speak (type).

Saturday HLUG meet:
The 22nd is the second meeting date of the month and so far, there's no new President. I may be able to make it in order to help facilitate an election but if I'm not there, I give my blessing to a quorum present. Here's my suggestion for upcoming topics that I think would make good presentations ---

VMware
Virtual Box
VMware VS Virtual Box
IPv6
current developments in TRK (may have an expert for this)
current developments at insecure.org (I'm looking into this)

More Thoughts On Unconfiguration (if that's a word):
Previously (under the rubric "Off-Topic") I posted on Mac OS 9.1's ability to wipe settings and prefs in a way that distantly suggested sys-unconfig in Solaris. The distant relationship is that one is able to change some things without reinstalling the whole shebang (which can take many, many hours with some of Sun's products as we know). Can someone at a future meeting tell me if this is now possible in some Linux or other? I don't mind admitting that I don't know.

...and on a Linux basis, it is. But I dabble in all kinds of systems and I just discovered something that might be useful to one or two of you.

PROBLEM:
You have a late-1990's-era Mac (that you aren't using to run NetBSD or FreeBSD or some Linux coded to those processors) with OS9 or 9.1 and you forgot the password. Rather than research which file the password's in (which is probably visible using the version of Norton Utilities or the equivalent app for that OS), you elect to reinstall. But this wipes your unsaved files about which you may have forgotten, as well as preferences, settings, drivers, scripts, OS upgrades and apps, all of which will need to be relocated and installed. How to avoid this?

SOLUTION:
Don't worry about it.

It just so happens that the installer for OS 9.1/9.2 (and maybe further down... can't remember) has a curious set of options under the button labeled so. Using the "Options" button and several other checkboxes that come into play, you get three install choices. You could (in the presence of a pre-existing OS) reinstall:

* Without checking the "clean install" box
* With a check in the "clean install" box
* By selecting the "erase disk" choice (thus making a "clean install" check irrelevant)

Apparently these (ordered) options produce the following results:
* preserves settings and preferences
* wipes setting and preferences; leaves everything else
* bare-metal install - all user-added material lost

I tried the first option and still got the login for the password I couldn't remember. I then tried the second option since I wanted to avoid the third. The result of the second - amazingly - was that I was presented with the opportunity to set a new password, and upon getting in, saw all the apps, files and settings that I'd been afraid I'd lose, and in the places I'd originally put them.

[My guess is that the first two options address only the System Folder and that the third option covers the whole disk. Kinda almost reminds me of sys-unconfig in Solaris.]

Love Macs or hate them, there's a rationale to Macs that once learned, you can repair to and count on, since that unchanging rationale makes its own internal sort of sense. And here comes my theory about the relative business models: that's because there's time to write things that way, as long as you're not part of some organization that aims at being the low-cost leader via saving money on allowed programming hours, then pressing users into service as beta testers... but that would be baseless supposition, right?

LOTS OF NEWS ABOUT HLUG

1.Last Saturday's Show: The Recent BSD Activity
2.Last Saturday's Show: Synfig's Capabilities
3.The New President Of HLUG

The show of Saturday the 8th saw me get not only the announced topic out of the way, but two others that I'd been wanting to bring up. BSD's movements of late constituted the two unknowns; the announced subject was (at Russell's suggestion) something about Synfig, a tool that could become almost as big as Open Office – at least for the animation community.

The two big differences to my mind between Linux and BSD (the movement beginning in 1993 (93-FreeBSD, 94-NetBSD, 95-OpenBSD, roughly) would be that the license is different, and secondly that the product orientation is way different. By orientation, I mean that the maintainers of these distributions seem to concentrate upon server use and if one wants a full-feature desktop, one can install it oneself. There might be a change in this orientation of theirs in the wind; the first reason that I believe this is the following offering.

PC-BSD is a distribution that takes FreeBSD and puts KDE on top of it. It's a three-CD load and I can't say too much about it because I tried to load the thing onto four different machines at my house and nothing took it. I didn't even get to command line; the install froze about halfway through. Now, one attendee said that he'd gotten it to load in a VM but I'm about ¼ Luddite, so I'm behind on getting any of those virtual products working at my place. I'll complain that any distro that can't load on my stuff needs work at the installer, but that may be just me...

Next reason I think BSD's low opinion of desktop products may be changing is something that I did get going, namely BSD Anywhere. This is a live-CD-only distro that failed on a few of my machines (notably the dual core) but worked on a Dell P3 550mhz with 512 ram from 2002. It's an OpenBSD product running Enlightenment as a desktop and includes a recent Firefox and Thunderbird load (visible on an CDE/NeXT/OSX-like dock at the bottom center of the screen) and although it was a little slow at surfing on this old of a computer, it was serviceable. The really sneaky thing about this distribution was the fact that the GUI (Enlightenment) didn't even list one tenth of the available applications! And if you went to the .org's website, the easily located list under “software” revealed the presence of such tools as netfwd, hydra, iperf, nmap... the list went on and on. I had no idea that this distro qualified as a Security Distribution like Back Track, but it does. Apparently, command-line only versions of the “stealth” apps are the ones included...

Synfig is a tool on which I am absolutely incompetent, but by loading it onto my Core2duo, I could at least prove that it could be installed on Fedora 11 and could run fairly well. This 2-D cartoon illustration system was best demonstrated by the demo reel at the website, but having the tool installed and running allowed my to show what a great job the .org did in putting together the help Wiki. Never liked those things before but this one's slick. And Synfig shows yet again what the Open Source movement can do. Fifty years ago only big animation houses like Disney could afford to do art like this. Today? The capability is free to all. Don't miss the demo movie: they do a scene that mimics the film "Ice Age" perfectly.

OH YES... one little program note. I'm no longer President of HLUG since my employer will now have me on rotating Saturdays, throwing 50 percent of meeting dates askew, so that puts me out. I'll still be attending meetings when possible, plus attending the Wednesday workshops and doing all the Board of Directors stuff. It's just that the conflict with this particular office can't be solved. So be thinking of who you want as President and I'll help as and when I can.

Also, as HLUG moves into the future, I'll note its activities at this blog as well as whatever interests me personally (which I do anyway). My interest in promoting Linux is the same, and so mandates spreading the word about HLUG and Hal-PC in any event.