From Michael.Paoli at cal.berkeley.edu Mon May 16 09:01:28 2016 From: Michael.Paoli at cal.berkeley.edu (Michael Paoli) Date: Mon, 16 May 2016 09:01:28 -0700 Subject: [buug] BALUG: Tomorrow Tu 2016-05-17 Meeting: ZFS, mailing lists, ...; & other BALUG News Message-ID: <20160516090128.18006qftigxuy1kw@webmail.rawbw.com> BALUG: Tomorrow Tu 2016-05-17 Meeting: ZFS, mailing lists, ...; & other BALUG News ------------------------------ items, details further below: BALUG meeting Tu 2016-05-17: ZFS, mailing lists, ... giveaways (Books & other titles, CDs/DVDs, ...) Upcoming BALUG list changes?! help BALUG! :-) - volunteering, venue, ... Twitter https://twitter.com/#!/BALUG_org ------------------------------ For our 2016-05-17 BALUG meeting: Discussion Topics: We do have some suggested discussion topics for this meeting: o ZFS[1] (In Debian[2], in Ubuntu[3], license issues[4] ...) and storage, etc.) o mailing lists and email and upcoming list infrastructure changes for BALUG 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZFS 2. https://bits.debian.org/2016/05/what-does-it-mean-that-zfs-is-in-debian.html 3. http://blog.dustinkirkland.com/2016/02/zfs-is-fs-for-containers-in-ubuntu-1604.html 4. https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2016/feb/25/zfs-and-linux/ "Of course" that doesn't mean we're limited to the above, but expect we'll probably be at least touching upon those. Feel free also to bring your own topics/suggestions to meeting, and/or suggest for upcoming meetings. So, come meet with us and enjoy interesting Linux, etc. discussion. Bring questions, answers, interesting stuff to share, learn stuff, hear and share cool interesting stories and meet cool and interesting people! So, if you'd like to join us please RSVP to: rsvp at balug.org **Why RSVP??** Well, don't worry we won't turn you away, but the RSVPs really help BALUG and our venue plan for the meeting and accommodations, so please let us know. 6:30pm Tuesday, May 17th, 2016 2016-05-17 Henry's Hunan Restaurant 110 Natoma St. (between 2nd & New Montgomery) San Francisco, CA 94105-3704 1-415-546-4999 http://www.henryshunanrestaurant.com/ Easy Transit/Parking Access: short walk from BART, MUNI, parking Trip planning: http://www.511.org/ Delicious Hunan cuisine and reasonably priced. Meeting Details... Cost/Dining: The meetings are always free, but dinner is not (unless you are our guest speaker, in which case we also treat you to dinner). For Henry's Hunan Restaurant, if folks are agreeable, we'll share and dine "family" style, and split up the costs, and typical cost per person including tax and tip (but not including beverages beyond complementary tea) would be in the $13.00 to $17.50 range, and commonly around $15.00 to $16.50. Cash may be preferred to ease splitting up the check. One can also specifically order the dish(es) one needs/prefers (e.g. for dietary considerations) - and we also commonly order some dish(es) that may meet various dietary considerations) (e.g. vegetarian, non-pork, ...). Please arrive by 7:00 P.M., we expect to order entrees at that time, and may order appetizer(s) and/or soup(s) anytime after 6:30 P.M. ------------------------------ We typically have various giveaway items at BALUG meetings. We'll likely have at least the below plus additional items. Books and other titles! have a look/read here: https://www.wiki.balug.org/wiki/doku.php?id=balug:books_and_publications http://lists.balug.org/pipermail/balug-talk-balug.org/2016-March/000035.html CDs/DVDs/ISOs, etc. - have a peek here: http://www.wiki.balug.org/wiki/doku.php?id=balug:cds_and_images_etc We may also be able to "burn" images per request or copy to USB flash, etc. Donations of blank or +-RW media, USB flash, or funding thereof, also appreciated. See the above URL for details (and the inventory (qty.) of what we specifically have "burned" and available on-hand does also frequently change). ------------------------------ Upcoming BALUG list changes?! Yes, for the past many years, much of BALUG, including our lists, has been and is still presently hosted on DreamHost.com. We expect to be changing that in the fairly near-term future. We'll update on status when that's about to change and when it does change. We'll provide more details as we approach and go through that transition, and we'll make it as painless as feasible. ------------------------------ help BALUG! :-) - volunteering, venue ... You can do useful and cool stuff volunteering to help BALUG, e.g. following up on many leads for possible venue, among many other possibilities. Quite a variety of opportunities to help BALUG. Come talk to us at a meeting and/or drop us a note at: balug-contact at balug.org These opportunities may include, among other possibilities: o venue arrangement (e.g. followup on potential leads on-site coordination/preparations), see also: http://lists.balug.org/pipermail/balug-admin-balug.org/2014-July/001504.html o chief/assistant cat herder o assist on speaker coordination/procurement, etc. o assist on publicity o Linux Systems Administration (e.g. do/assist/learn, with/under some quite experienced and skilled Linux systems administrator(s)). o webmaster, assistant webmaster, designer, graphic artist o archivist/history/retrieval/etc. o and other various/miscellaneous tasks BALUG would like to be doing (also feel free to suggest ideas!) ------------------------------ Twitter - you can also follow BALUG on Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/BALUG_org ------------------------------ Feedback on our publicity/announcements (e.g. contacts or lists where we should get our information out that we're not presently reaching, or things we should do differently): publicity-feedback at balug.org ------------------------------ From itz at buug.org Tue May 31 21:07:57 2016 From: itz at buug.org (Ian Zimmerman) Date: Tue, 31 May 2016 21:07:57 -0700 Subject: [buug] ZeroShell adventure Message-ID: <20160601022716.12230.2CA812A2@matica.foolinux.mooo.com> I have just replaced debian wheezy with ZeroShell [1] on the Eeebox that I use to connect to the wifi in my apartment. This was part of a broader project of mine to reduce my dependence on our favorite distribution, because I am worried about its future. This project occupies a major chunk of my time these days [2]. In my opinion ZeroShell does an excellent job of making an old x86 based computer look like a Linksys product. No irony intended, I mean that's a good thing. In fact the web interface is much better than Linksys / Cisco ever managed; almost all the information is there and easy to find (with one exception, see below), and the Back button works :) I have 3 critical notes, 2 minor ones and 1 major. Starting with the minor ones. There are dynamic DNS update clients for NoIP and DynDNS; in a system which is plainly meant for hackers first, I miss a client for the great marketing-free and free-as-in-beer FreeDNS service [3]. It cannot be because it's hard to write - I have one in about 10 lines of shell script code. The other minor nit: you can ssh into the box, but you don't get a Unix shell, at least not directly; you get a console-based menu system that is mostly a subset of the web interface, and one of the items in this menu is an escape to a real shell. I'd have preferred it the other way, for ssh to give me a general shell as usual, and the menu just a normal command. But I understand that it would clash with the ZeroShell name :) Now to the one real problem I found. It was far from obvious how to set it up as a wifi station, as opposed to an access point. I knew it was possible because it was mentioned offhand somewhere on the website, but I couldn't find anything related in the web interface, and the clear candidate among the menu items, WiFi Manager, led to dialog screens with wording still suggestive of an access point. It did occur to me early on that these subsidiary screens might be dual purpose, so to speak, i.e. identical for the AP and station setups. But there was no authoritative document to assure me such was the case, and without one I was really afraid to go there, because had I set up an AP with the same SSID as the existing network by mistake or accident, I'd have disrupted service for everyone else in the apartment. In the end I gave in to desperation and tried it, and it worked. But it cost me a couple of very stressful hours. Now my Eeebox has been stripped of its hard disk and runs with the ZeroShell SD card as the only storage. I was even tempted to unscrew it from its pedestal and set it on its side, which would make it resemble a router even visually :P But I didn't because supposedly that would obstruct the air flow and lead to thermal trouble. [1] http://www.zeroshell.org/ [2] I have already replaced wheezy with gentoo on my laptop. When I am finished with that, including transfering all the data to the laptop, I plan to similarly convert the desktop. The mail server will be last; upgrading it to jessie proved to be quite painless, with systemd invasion fenced off easily, and before jessie is out of support I'm sure to have more substantial problems to solve :P [3] http://freedns.afraid.org/ -- Please *no* private copies of mailing list or newsgroup messages. Rule 420: All persons more than eight miles high to leave the court. From rick at linuxmafia.com Tue May 31 22:04:40 2016 From: rick at linuxmafia.com (Rick Moen) Date: Tue, 31 May 2016 22:04:40 -0700 Subject: [buug] ZeroShell adventure In-Reply-To: <20160601022716.12230.2CA812A2@matica.foolinux.mooo.com> References: <20160601022716.12230.2CA812A2@matica.foolinux.mooo.com> Message-ID: <20160601050440.GI27552@linuxmafia.com> Quoting Ian Zimmerman (itz at buug.org): > I have already replaced wheezy with gentoo on my laptop. When I am > finished with that, including transfering all the data to the laptop, > I plan to similarly convert the desktop. The mail server will be last; > upgrading it to jessie proved to be quite painless, with systemd > invasion fenced off easily, and before jessie is out of support I'm sure > to have more substantial problems to solve :P In case it's useful: http://linuxmafia.com/kb/Debian/openrc-conversion.html I expect the same situation will apply with Debian 9 "Stretch", Debian 10 "Buster", and later. I.e., no need to abandon Debian merely to avoid the systemd / udev / Freedesktop.org plague unless you're seriously addicted to GNOME (/MATE/Cinnamon), Xfce4, KDE, Razor-qt, or NetworkManager and refuse to go cold-turkey. > http://freedns.afraid.org/ Why outsource? Given a static IP, it's not at all difficult to run NSD on it. http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Network_Other/dns-servers.html#nsd (Having only dynamic IP is indeed a difficulty, but that same difficulty makes it be of questionable practicality to run any public Internet service worth pointing DNS at.)