#ubuntu-us-mn 2009-12-04
<h00k> mr_steve: do you happen to be around?
<mr_steve> h00k, I am
<h00k> mr_steve: can you grab the latest branch and give voicecheck a try again?
<mr_steve> sure can
<h00k> I didn't update the .tar.gz yet
<mr_steve> looks like the latest revision works for me too
<h00k> ahha, alright.
<h00k> and the tarball is released
<Takyoji> I love how pathetic the people that administrate our school district are
<Takyoji> Apparently I was talking with with the teacher that helps with the school newspaper, and was talking on the topic of raising awareness of the issue I wrote about, and she said that she's trying to go infront of a School Board over the idea of having the school news also available online and one of the arguments against it is that the website might attract online sexual predators.
<tonyyarusso> wait, what?
<tonyyarusso> sexual predators for a non-interactive read-only news site posted by adults?
<Leaf> with studan names & very likely their pictures too
<Leaf> er, student
<tonyyarusso> Well, he only said news so far.
<tonyyarusso> But it's also very common practice to have policies for things like only using first names and not identifying which person goes with which name, and whatever - the BSA has a web site photo policy like that, and it seems to work fine.
<tonyyarusso> and it would still be easier to go pick kids off at the bus stop randomly than to see them online and then try to track down certain ones later....
#ubuntu-us-mn 2009-12-05
<Takyoji> "<Leaf> with student names & very likely their pictures too" - I'm assuming that may additionally be the case. If that's such an issue, then they could easily just without pictures.
<Takyoji> And even then it would still be a pathetic argument against it
<magpie> Hi folks. Magpie from Scotland here
<magpie> This is the third Ubuntu room I've been in, no one responds - bye
<tonyyarusso> Scotland?  okay...
<h00k> Right...
<Takyoji> Apparently there's updates for libpurple, even though I don't even have Pidgin installed
<tonyyarusso> Takyoji: Empathy still uses libpurple for AIM (and Facebook if you use that), through telepathy-haze.
<Takyoji> ahh
<_diablo> is everyone here switched to empathy now?
<tonyyarusso> I am.
<tonyyarusso> I think of lot of people in this channel are of the opinion of "well, it's not as good as pidgin yet, but I'd rather get used to it and help make it better for Lucid"
<Takyoji> Anyone tried DVD playback on 9.10?
<tonyyarusso> no, but I could.
 * tonyyarusso goes to grab a DVD
<Takyoji> otherwise I'm now able to apparently
 * tonyyarusso wonders if an Atom can play a DVD
<tonyyarusso> Yeah, it works fine.
 * tonyyarusso wonders when the heck he installed libdvdcss
<tonyyarusso> libdvdread4 rather
#ubuntu-us-mn 2009-12-06
<kermit> where do ppl like magpie come from?  (people who expect a response in any forum in under 2 minutes)
<kermit> (when she didnt even ask a question!)
<Obsidian777> Society
<tonyyarusso> So should we actually make an agenda for this meeting on Monday or just wing it?
<sparklehistory> We could probably go off some of your recent e-mails as a starting point.
<tonyyarusso> True.
<tonyyarusso> It needs to be relatively focused though, since I'd like to keep it within one hour so people don't get bored to death.
<Obsidian1723> meeting?
<tonyyarusso> Obsidian1723: IRC meeting
<tonyyarusso> Obsidian1723: See https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-us-mn/2009-December/000359.html
<Obsidian1723> cool.
<Obsidian1723> I'd like to see more activity around the loco. With Free Geek opening up here soon, maybe tie in with them somehow?
<tonyyarusso> Just to kind of touch base with everyone and whatnot.
<tonyyarusso> That may be a good idea - do we have any connections to FG yet?
<Obsidian1723> I've been trying to contact them. I have a NetApp Server and a Blad (RDX) server for them along with some other PCs.
<Obsidian1723> Blade
<Obsidian1723> Did I /kill the channel?
<tonyyarusso> nah
<Obsidian1723> ok
<Obsidian1723> anyway, just an idea.
<mr_steve> So, first official #ubuntu-us-mn meeting tomorrow @ 19:00? I'll be here.
<mr_steve> Is there a template for creating a decent personal page on the Ubuntu wiki, or should I just do it from scratch?
<tonyyarusso> mr_steve: Do it from semi-scratch - you can make a template from mine or someone else.  TonyYarusso
<mr_steve> tonyyarusso, thanks. I was actually looking at yours as a good example to start from
<mr_steve> Random question: Anyone remember the old dial-up BBS scene?
#ubuntu-us-mn 2010-12-06
<mr_steve> howdy folks
<_diablo> mr_steve: hey, just leaving, but good to see you around again
<ColinHarrington> howdy mr_steve
<Takyoji> Woo, got LibreOffice installed
<Takyoji> Never knew of the Printer Administration tool with the OpenOffice/LibreOffice suite.
<Obsidian1723> I had issues with LO, had to go basck to OO... both suffer from the recovery document issue.
<ColinHarrington> Libre office is still beta right?
<Obsidian1723> yes, but that issue is still very very very old.
<Obsidian1723> LO is based on OO 3.2 code.
<Obsidian1723> Right now it's really just a re-0branded OO.
<Takyoji> Actually it's Release Candidate 1
<Takyoji> rather than beta
<tonyyarusso> recovery document issue?
<Obsidian1723> yeah, well known issue. Bassically the program crashes and tries to recover a document.
<MTecknology> First try failed. Second try worked. Only took 26 mintues to download the update for my new bluray player...
<MTecknology> Isn't LibreOffice just a rebranded OpenOffice?
#ubuntu-us-mn 2010-12-07
<tonyyarusso> MTecknology: Rebranded and with the go-OO patches, yes.
<jeremyA> anyone running Lucid on amd64 hardware?  I recently upgraded my headless server, and am experiencing random hangups
<jeremyA> well, not totally random -- I can induce one pretty easily by installing OS on a VM, either through VirtualBox or KVM (obviously, I have to reboot and alter config to switch between those virtualization techs)
<Obsidian1723> Not I. I onloy use Intel/Nvidia, never AMD/ATi - for those reasons (and more)
<jeremyA> Argh.  Dang thing ran for 2 years on 8.04.01 LTS w/o any problems
<jeremyA> nothing gets logged to /var/log/messages /var/log/dmesg or /var/log/kern.log
<Obsidian1723> what doers it do on 10.04LTS?
<jeremyA> hard hangs whenever I try to install OS on a new VM
<jeremyA> I can xfer a kvm guest over from another machine on the network, and it runs fine
<jeremyA> but install, say, sles9 or rhel5.5, or solaris?  *kablooey*
<Obsidian1723> hrm...
<Obsidian1723> So if you install those actual OSes, NOT in a VM, it blows up?
<jeremyA> dunno.
<jeremyA> this is my virtualization server
<jeremyA> I could try installing ubuntu 10.04 in a VM and see if that kills it.
<Obsidian1723> yeah.. what is the actual OS of the machinew?
<Obsidian1723> yeah.. what is the actual OS of the machine?
<jeremyA> ubuntu 10.04 LTS
<Obsidian1723> and....are the video issues ocurring on the actual machine / OS itself? in the VMs? One? (if so, which...) or both the machine OS and the VMs?
<jeremyA> dunno about video.
<Obsidian1723> 10.04LTS or 10.04.1LTS?
<jeremyA> she's accessed through ssh -- headless, you know :)
<jeremyA> 10.04.01 LTS
<Obsidian1723> ah
<Obsidian1723> $ lsb_release -a
<jeremyA> the host locks up hard, taking all guests with it
<Obsidian1723> what does it say?>
<jeremyA> root@valhalla:/proc# lsb_release -a
<jeremyA> No LSB modules are available.
<jeremyA> Distributor ID:	Ubuntu
<jeremyA> Description:	Ubuntu 10.04.1 LTS
<jeremyA> Release:	10.04
<jeremyA> Codename:	lucid
<Obsidian1723> ok, so it is a point release
<Obsidian1723> how about uname -r
<jeremyA> 2.6.32-26-server -- most recent kernel available in the lucid LTS line :/
<jeremyA> going to try rebooting it with noacpi enforced...bbiab
<Obsidian1723> that was my next suggestion heh
<Obsidian1723> Good call.
<jeremyA> noacpi let me install a VM.  one down, eight to go.
<jeremyA> so...anyone comfy with ebtables?  :)
<Obsidian1723> iptables?
<jeremyA> thought I needed ebtables for bridging.
<jeremyA> I had forgotten I needed to use iptables to allow traffic in and out the same interface
<jeremyA> iptables -I FORWARD -i br0 -o br0 -j ACCEPT
<jeremyA> where your bridge is br0
<Obsidian1723> yeah that'd work
<Obsidian1723> but that's just forwarding.... if you are trying to write a router using iptables, you'll need pre-routing as well.
<jeremyA> so this is Ubuntu MN in general, not U of MN, right?
<Takyoji> Yes
#ubuntu-us-mn 2010-12-08
<jeremyA> is anyone still running Lucid?  or has everyone updated to Maverick?
<tonyyarusso> Nope, still Lucid on everything here.
<jeremyA> I've got a 64-bit install.
<jeremyA> AMD Athlon X2 5400+ w/8GB RAM, lots of disk
<jeremyA> ran for two years on 8.04.x stably
<jeremyA> I upgraded to 10.04 so I could try out KVM
<jeremyA> and now the thing is hard hanging a couple of times per day
<tonyyarusso> Weird.
<jeremyA> I've got it loaded with noacpi as a kernel argument now
<jeremyA> but that doesn't seem to help
<jeremyA> nothing gets logged in dmesg or /var/log/messages
<jeremyA> and there is no apparent slowdown before it halts
<tonyyarusso> Try running a command-line-only system for a few hours and see if anything happens.  (To distinguish between a graphics driver problem and something else)
<jeremyA> it _is_ command line only
<jeremyA> headless setup, usually
<tonyyarusso> oh
<jeremyA> I've got a cheapo 15" lcd plugged into it now, to read the text consoles.
<tonyyarusso> Well now that ain't good.
<jeremyA> when it dies, it deactivates the VGA too
<jeremyA> and takes my cheapo usb-based KVM switch with it, too
<tonyyarusso> Anything in /var/crash/
<tonyyarusso> ?
<jeremyA> ooh, I'll check
<jeremyA> nope, dead empty
<tonyyarusso> crud
<jeremyA> /var/log/kern* hasn't a thing either
<tonyyarusso> /var/log/debug?
<tonyyarusso> /var/log/faillog?
<jeremyA> debug drops off after xinetd started after the last crash and starts up again with a kernel entry...
<jeremyA> Dec  7 16:38:11 localhost xinetd[2567]: removing time
<jeremyA> Dec  7 19:48:13 localhost kernel: [    0.000000] e820 update range: 0000000000000000 - 0000000000010000 (usable) ==> (reserved)
<jeremyA> Dec  7 19:48:13 localhost kernel: [    0.000000] MTRR default type: uncachable
<jeremyA> nope, only two failed logins listed in /var/log/faillog -- root on 06/20/10, and me on 06/25/09
<jeremyA> this thing is knocking the tar out of me
<tonyyarusso> Any chance it's actually a hardware problem that coincidentally is happening after the OS upgrade?
<jeremyA> conceivable.
<jeremyA> cpuburn didn't turn up any heating problems
<jeremyA> dang this is my external gateway.
<jeremyA> when I go to bed tonight, I'll bring it down and fire up memtest86+
<jeremyA> I'm worried that it could be a SATA controller going, or mobo failing.
<jeremyA> after burning 3 days on this, I'm thinking I'm getting to the point where I could throw a new machine at the problem.
<tonyyarusso> Does your hard drive support SMART?
<jeremyA> yeah, they're all working AOK
<jeremyA> though I don't trust SMART too far.
<tonyyarusso> 'k
<jeremyA> it's kind of dumb when it comes to predicting errors
<jeremyA> all six satas say they're aok.
<jeremyA> but...it does make me wonder about power...
<jeremyA> I wonder if my PS is acting up.
<tonyyarusso> You could always read through all of the posts on this thread:  http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1478787
<tonyyarusso> ;)
<tonyyarusso> (Although waiting for the next LTS might be faster.)
<jeremyA> I went through the first 25 pages of that, then skipped ahead to the end
<jeremyA> where people say "huh.  no solution found."
<jeremyA> mainly because I think there are a lot of different root causes
<tonyyarusso> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/FaultyHardware might be useful, although it sounds like you already knew these.
<jeremyA> 500watt powersupply for six sata drives...I wonder if I'm pushing my luck here
<tonyyarusso> Care to list off what else you have in there?  (PCI cards, fans, etc.)
<jeremyA> Intel PCI-express NIC
<jeremyA> that's it
<tonyyarusso> Not a single fan eh?  That could be your problem too :P
<jeremyA> a dvd burner that's not even plugged in, because I'm out of sata cables
<jeremyA> hahaha
<jeremyA> =)
<jeremyA> got me.
<jeremyA> okay, fan on the back
<jeremyA> nice big quiet fan on the CPU
<jeremyA> I'd have to look to see if there are others
<jeremyA> I'm seeing posts on forums, telling me that other people consider 6 drives on a single 500w P/S to be pushing the envelope
<tonyyarusso> jeremyA: what socket is that Athlon?
<jeremyA> AM2+ I think
<jeremyA> am2
<jeremyA> sitting in a biostar a740G M2+ motherboard
<jeremyA> with 8gb of ddr2 ram
<jeremyA> 65watt Athlon 64X2 5400 brisbane dual-core
<tonyyarusso> well this calculator doohickey just recommended 312W, so that doesn't seem bad yet.
<jeremyA> wait'll we add in the drives...
<tonyyarusso> that's with the drives, assuming 7200rpm
<jeremyA> oh, okay.
<jeremyA> hrm.
<jeremyA> should be fine then
<jeremyA> unless the P/S is failing
<jeremyA> but it's usually not dying at periods of particularly heavy load
<jeremyA> and I'm almost never over 4gb RAM usage
<jeremyA> Mem:       8128336    4232644    3895692          0      41628    2135184
<jeremyA> two of these drives are ancient 160gb 7200rpm barracudas...but I don't think they'd be taking 100w of power each or anything
<jeremyA> where'd you find the calculator, anyway?  :)
<tonyyarusso> google "PSU calculator", first result
<jeremyA> thx
<jeremyA> newegg has one, too:  http://educations.newegg.com/tool/psucalc/index.html
<jeremyA> they're suggesting a 408w P/S for me.
<jeremyA> tonyyarusso:  are all your machines Intel hardware?
<tonyyarusso> jeremyA: Nope.  I'm typing on an AMD Phenom II X4 905e machine currently.
<jeremyA> okay, good to know
<jeremyA> I've been reading through that thread, and noticed a guy saying "lucid only freezes on my AMD hardware"
<tonyyarusso> The rest are, unless you count the ARM gadget.
<jeremyA> interestingly, I noted that the BIOS had the ACPI set to to v1.  I set it to v2 when it was down last, and deactivated the onboard sound
<tonyyarusso> I have a board here that's on v2 now, but has an option for v3.
<jeremyA> yeah, I have to take the gateway down to refsck a disk once my wife is done checking email
<jeremyA> but since I'm booted with noacpi, I don't think the acpi version that BIOS is using should matter
<jeremyA> bbiab
<jeremyA> so...how the heck do I enabled the --mark-- in rsyslog?
<jeremyA> I put these lines in /etc/rsyslog.conf
<jeremyA> $ModLoad immark  # provides --MARK-- message capability
<jeremyA> $MarkMessagePeriod 60
<jeremyA> but nowhere in any logfile do I find my MARKs
<jeremyA> whoops, my bad
<jeremyA> there they are in kern.log
<jeremyA> not in messages where I expected them
 * jeremyA <-- dummie
<jeremyA> hey, tonyyarusso, you around?
<tonyyarusso> jeremyA: kinda - at work, but yes.
<jeremyA> do any of your amd machines use tsc as a clocksource?
<jeremyA> after upgrading to the 2.6.34 kernel, I got a note about my tsc clocksource being unstable.
<jeremyA> so I've set it to use clocksource=hpet on the next book
<tonyyarusso> um, I have no idea.  I've never touched anything like that.
 * tonyyarusso uses default kernels and such
#ubuntu-us-mn 2010-12-09
<mr_steve> Ever make a copy of everything important from your homedir, and reformat... only to realize you forgot your dotfiles?
<mr_steve> I guess it's a good chance to start over at least
<ColinHarrington> I did that when I upgraded to 10.10.  Not fun!
<ColinHarrington> what do you use for backup?
<mr_steve> ColinHarrington: I didn't have any real backups configured yet, I just sort of cherry-picked the directories I wanted to keep and copied 'em to another server
<ColinHarrington> with nautalis?
<mr_steve> Yep
<ColinHarrington> that'll do it :-/
<ColinHarrington> I had that happen to me with the 'back-in-time' tool
<ColinHarrington> there is a setting deep in there somewhere to include hidden files that I missed.
<ColinHarrington> that really sucked to loose all of that.
<mr_steve> Just last year I put a ton of work into customizing bash, vim, mutt, irssi, and awesome
<mr_steve> Now I got a fresh start ahead of me I guess
<ColinHarrington> doh
<ColinHarrington> that hurts
<mr_steve> Awesome is the worst; it's my favorite window manager for sure, but Lua scripts for config files is just sick
<DaGeek247> anyone here know of an empty chatroom?
<mr_steve> DaGeek247: uh... what do you mean?
<DaGeek247> I need a chatroom with no one in it, and if possible, a small link. could you help?
<DaGeek247> bye,
<mr_steve> That was odd
<jeremyA> very
<jeremyA> doesn't he know he can just create an empty chatroom when he wants?
<mr_steve> jeremyA: well, he came from freenode's webchat, so I'm guess he knows... little
 * jeremyA smirks
<jeremyA> n1ce.a55
<jeremyA> dangit.
 * Obsidian1723 see the computer support company in NZ that is using the Debian logo as their own? http://legendpc.co.nz
 * Obsidian1723 did not mean th blast that out to all channels Im on, sorry
#ubuntu-us-mn 2010-12-10
 * Obsidian1723 gtg all
<mr_steve> I finally almost have a decent Awesome config again, and vim is getting there. Still gotta tweak irssi and zsh before this computer feels like home again...
<Takyoji> I still have yet to use irssi
<tonyyarusso> Heathen.
<Takyoji> Using Pidgin now, rather than standing Empathy..
<Takyoji> At least I can use OTR again
<Takyoji> and a hell lot more
<tonyyarusso> ARE YOU READY FOR SOME SNOW?!?
<ColinHarrington> Ready or not...
<Takyoji> Thar be moar comin'?
<tonyyarusso> Wow, Takyoji hasn't turned on a television/radio/computer today, which is odd, since he appears to be talking to us on one.
<Takyoji> I don't regularly check weather. :P
<tonyyarusso> Takyoji: Likely over a foot in the Metro, two feet possible in Wisconsin.
<Takyoji> And I just auto-joined this channel like a few seconds ago after starting my system. :P
<Takyoji> Ooo
<tonyyarusso> you're in Faribault still, yes?
<Takyoji> Yes
<Takyoji> I usually use wunderground.com as a weather information source
<tonyyarusso> This model says 10" for you.
<Takyoji> Ooo
<ColinHarrington> I'm not used to wunderground
<ColinHarrington> where do you go to see that?
<Takyoji> Check the weather for your area, and click the link about the "Blizzard Warning" at the near top
<tonyyarusso> Right now what I have up is a republishing of it on the Strib's site, http://apps.startribune.com/blogs/user_images/metroaccum.png
<tonyyarusso> I'll get you the links to the real sources in a second
<tonyyarusso> First, go to http://www.rap.ucar.edu/weather/model/index.php?model=eta
<tonyyarusso> Select each of the hour ranges from 18 to 48.  Then click "precipitation".
<ColinHarrington> cool
<ColinHarrington> you know, that png was good enough for me atm
<ColinHarrington> http://apps.startribune.com/blogs/user_images/metroaccum.png
<tonyyarusso> See also http://www.weather.unisys.com/nam/loop/nam_pres_loop.html
<ColinHarrington> cool
<tonyyarusso> Then there's http://www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov/qpf/94qwbg.gif
<tonyyarusso> Those are all giving precipitation amounts in inches of water.  You combine it with the temperature to figure out "fluffiness" and get depth of snow.
<Obsidian1723> radar.weather.cov and www.dot.state.mn.us are good sites to look at, both real time.
<Obsidian1723> radar.weather.gov and www.dot.state.mn.us are good sites to look at, both real time.
<tonyyarusso> Outside of metro map:  http://apps.startribune.com/blogs/user_images/snow1.png
#ubuntu-us-mn 2010-12-11
<tonyyarusso> da snows have moved into southwestern Minnesota - here it comes!
<mr_steve> yay
 * tonyyarusso reads weather applet
<tonyyarusso> Rest of tonight:  New snow accumulation of 7 to 8 inches.
<tonyyarusso> Saturday:  Snow accumulation of 6 to 8 inches.
<tonyyarusso> Works for me!
 * sparklehistory thinks tonyyarusso might be a bit excited 
<mr_steve> I'm not really terribly thrilled about the prospect of 16" of snow, myself...
<tonyyarusso> Then move to Kansas with all the other bores and weaklings!
<mr_steve> haha believe me, I've considered it
<tonyyarusso> Dude, the last NAM/WRF model run upgraded the accumulation totals for the metro into the highest region \o/
<tonyyarusso> This one claims 18-20" for downtown.
 * tonyyarusso hopes it's true
<tonyyarusso> "One model is producing 1.5 to 2.25 inches of precipitation in an area covering the Twin Cities and western Wisconsin. Given the expected snow/water ratios of 13-17 to 1, that model gives snowfall totals of 19.5 to, ug, 38.5 inches, with the highest amounts from Hasting, Red Wing and Lake City, up through Prescott, River Falls and Eau Claire." - this just in from Kenny
<tonyyarusso> 38.5" would be massively LOL.  Highly unlikely as well, but hey.
<sparklehistory> Um, I don't think I'm cool with snow that's more than half my height :P
<tonyyarusso> Me neither.  It should be DOUBLE my height!
<sparklehistory> 11 feet of snow seems a bit excessive....
<tonyyarusso> nah
<mr_steve> got nearly an inch here already, it's gonna be a bastard to shovel out tomorrow
<Takyoji> and it's not a Minnesota winter until you slide into a ditch
<Takyoji> which I just returned from doing. xP
<mr_steve> I almost miss my Lumina van, it was way too much fun in the snow
<mr_steve> The slightest attempt to brake resulted in a 360-degree spin about 1 time out of ten
<mr_steve> it had serious ABS issues
<tonyyarusso> Takyoji: Congrats on being one of the first.
<tonyyarusso> ABS?  We don't need none o' that newfangled technology!
 * tonyyarusso drives a car without airbags, much less ABS
<mr_steve> tonyyarusso: damn right!
<mr_steve> I pulled the ABS fuse from that van when it developed the habit of releasing my brakes while attempting a normal stop downhill
<mr_steve> Now I do it pre-emptively with any GM vehicle
<Takyoji> Yea, the truck I was in had neither ABS nor airbags. :P
<mr_steve> I've never actually experienced braking with ABS under any condition where it was called for, just plenty where it wasn't. I learned from the beginning to control my own braking
<mr_steve> And I mostly hate airbags, the owner's manual for my mom's truck actually recommends holding the wheel at 8 & 4 to prevent injuries from the airbags
<mr_steve> Who the heck is gonna drive with the bottom half of the wheel?
<mr_steve> of course nowdays I just ride the bus, so I let the angry man/woman in the striped shirt worry about the intricacies of winter driving :)
<Takyoji> Also, anyone seen a system with Ubuntu not mounting flash drives at all; nor even powering it?
<mr_steve> Takyoji: I think I have run in to something like that before
<mr_steve> I just can't quite remember what the deal was
<Takyoji> Because I have a friend with that issue
<Takyoji> Running Ubuntu 10.10
<Takyoji> And when you check dmesg, you can tell it notices something being connected via USB
<mr_steve> Is it specific to flash drives, or all USB devices? One flash drive, or all flash drives?
<tonyyarusso> Takyoji: I had that, specific to a particular port on one machine.
<Takyoji> It's with all flash drives.
<Takyoji> When you plug in any flash drive, the flash drive's activity light doesn't even illuminate at all
<mr_steve> And he's tried more than one port?
<mr_steve> oooh and does the device show up in lsusb -v while it's connected?
<Takyoji> There's only 2 ports, neither worked
<Takyoji> I'll have to ask them, next opportunity I get (I checked it in person tonight about an hour ago)
<mr_steve> If they've tried other devices, like a USB mouse, and it works, than I'd be thinking something screwed up with the mass storage driver, but I dunno
<Takyoji> Also, managed to get another laptop with an Ubuntu installation tonight; woo
<mr_steve> Sweet. I'm still trying to get the fresh 10.10 install on this laptop tweaked just right
<Takyoji> only thing I noticed is that the touchpad is unresponsive after returning from a suspend, I believe.
<mr_steve> odd
<Takyoji> Basically it's my friend and their family.
<Takyoji> So far I have her laptop, her sister's, and now her stepfather's. And they all seem to use it by choice
<Takyoji> All dual-boot XP and Ubuntu
<mr_steve> Nice. I put my mom on Ubuntu a couple years ago now after the Nth time her XP install got hosed by a virus
<mr_steve> She's been happily using it ever since
<Takyoji> It would be nice if I could get something for a ink meter for the printer; and I've tried Inkblot to no avail.
<Takyoji> For a Canon i960
<mr_steve> Ah yeah, I only know about HP printers on linux
<Takyoji> And for choosing the driver, I actually have to choose a different printer (same brand) that has similar properties.
<Takyoji> I really need to install a CRM for keeping record of what hardware everyone has
<Takyoji> or write one
<Takyoji> I'd also die to learn things like reverse engineering drivers (which I presume is probably like 5x the difficulty of writing one, xP)
<Takyoji> I wonder when the open source Broadcom drivers will be shipped with Ubuntu.. next release perhaps?
<mr_steve> Well, for something like getting status info from a USB printer, it might not be too terribly difficult... provided you can get your hands on a USB protocol analyzer
<mr_steve> I'm still holding my breath for decent RTL8319 wireless drivers
<Takyoji> and it's so nice having a spare USB wireless adapter
<Takyoji> otherwise I would have had to go into the basement and plug in the laptop via Ethernet to update it, and to get the proprietary drivers
<mr_steve> Yep, I love having a spare USB dongle
<Takyoji> "USB protocol analyzer"; Wireshark has USB support, yus?
<mr_steve> I dunno. I think you need some hardware
<mr_steve> There's a tutorial floating around, from ladyada I think, demonstrating how to reverse enginner the Kinect's USB protocol
<Takyoji> I guess I just had a random idea..
<Takyoji> I could perhaps have a closed-gate XMPP server, or perhaps IRC server, for having a way for clients to easily contact me in realtime rather than email
<Takyoji> Yea, I think I can do USB captures in Wireshark
<Takyoji> usbmon1 and usbmon2 as sources
<mr_steve> oh yeah, I think I was making it more complicated than it needs to be
<Takyoji> Heh, I can tell my mouse is on usbmon2
<mr_steve> if the device is *supposed* to be communicating with the computer, should be no problem to monitor the communication
<mr_steve> The Kinect example needed hardware, because it was communication between the Kinect and an Xbox that needed to be monitored
<Takyoji> ahh; since the Xbox was the only thing that natively supported the hardware
<Takyoji> to be able to see natural communication
<mr_steve> Right
<mr_steve> Though for something like a USB printer, I imagine you'd have to find a way to capture the USB traffic within Windows, while its native driver was querying the ink levels or whatever
<Takyoji> Regardless, I'm curious of what protocol over USB that printers use.
<Takyoji> yea
<mr_steve> heh I'm blabbing away on IRC to avoid getting back to my coding. I'm at a point where I have to use a gtk.TreeView
<mr_steve> I hate gtk.TreeView
<Takyoji> and I still have ever yet to decide between GTK, Qt, wxWidgets, qooxdoo, and so on. :P
<Takyoji> But yes, trees are rather annoying.
<mr_steve> so far all the PyGTK code I've ever written around treeviews and liststores has just been ugly. Treestores have been downright Cthulic
<tonyyarusso> speaking of python......
<tonyyarusso> A/B = 13.0041714961
<tonyyarusso> A//B = 13.0
<tonyyarusso> A%B = 0.123186733333
<tonyyarusso> WHY?
<Takyoji> And I thought PHP had more hatred. :P
<tonyyarusso> I like the language - I don't like when I don't understand what I'm doing.
<tonyyarusso> Shouldn't A%B = 0.0041714961?
<mr_steve> I've got no idea there
<mr_steve> that is pretty odd
<Takyoji> I got a kick out of this when I saw it on the tele http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEQCMPLatwA
<Takyoji> Also, any consideration for also doing a little OpenNIC advocacy as well with our endeavours? :P
 * Takyoji stabs at the dead discussion with a pitchfork
<tonyyarusso> Well, mr_steve will be pleased to hear that the forecast for accumulation in the metro came back down a bit, shifting the maximum a little to the southeast.
<mr_steve> well that's good
<mr_steve> I've been shoveling a path through 3 inches of snow every couple hours, and the smaller cars on my street are beginning to disappear
<mr_steve> ah it got worse
<mr_steve> And I just a dude skiing...
<tonyyarusso> [fill in: verb]
<mr_steve> heh I accidentally a word
<mr_steve> I saw a dude skiing
<Takyoji> So apparently my mother was originally intending on having a get together at our house today with relatives (planned like weeks in advance) and some folks in the country are apparently without power and transit, thus we figured we'd just have folks in-town come instead; but even then, nobody is still able to get out. xP
<Takyoji> Apparently one group tried driving out of their driveway and got stuck right in the middle of the road. xP
<Takyoji> Thus we may even walk over there (perhaps devise some form of snowshoes) and dig them out
#ubuntu-us-mn 2010-12-12
<Obsidian1723> video from inside the Metrodome as the roof fell... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh5iE5FA84g&feature=player_embedded nice.
<MaddogF16> Cool
<Obsidian1723> whatta trip eh?
<MaddogF16> Glad no one was in there
<tonyyarusso> MaddogF16: There is one guy that you can see running off the field actually.
<tonyyarusso> Far side, heads to the right.
<MaddogF16> Have to look again
<MaddogF16> Nephew said 21" in Shakopee
<MaddogF16> I'm down in SE MN and got just 14"
<tonyyarusso> Yes, Shakopee reported 21.5", Oakdale 20".
<MaddogF16> Nuts
<MaddogF16> Global warming I gues
<MaddogF16> guess
<tonyyarusso> Pretty much.  We can expect more extremes of all kinds here in the Twin Cities over the next few years.
<tonyyarusso> 17.1" was the airport official number.
<MaddogF16> Noticing more twisters now
<tonyyarusso> Yeah - 2010 was a record year, and Minnesota pulled off the unusual feat of being the state with the most, beating out the usual kings of Kansas and such.
<MaddogF16> The river is a fault line, suppose that's next
<tonyyarusso> um, no it's not.
<MaddogF16> Down south around TN, was just having fun about around here.  http://www.scchealth.org/docs/ems/docs/prepare/newmadrid.html
<tonyyarusso> oh, I thought you meant here
<MaddogF16> Naw, just thinking of what other things could go nuts with Mother Nature. :-O
#ubuntu-us-mn 2011-12-06
<tonyyarusso> Takyoji: Not at all - I'll take whatever you have.
#ubuntu-us-mn 2011-12-07
<Takyoji> Any recommended Linux-related books at all? (such as for a Christmas gift or something)
<Takyoji> Like of Linux-based software dev, or things relating to sysadmin (or Xen, which I have no background in), or learning deeper internals.
<Takyoji> Too bad GNOME 2 dev books are now relatively irrelevant.
<tonyyarusso> Takyoji: That's way too broad of a question.
<Takyoji> To clarify: I don't intend on any books for how to use graphical applications, if that limits the criteria at all.
<Takyoji> and something that's not introductory/redundant, like with chapters of 'how to use apt-get!', 'how to graphically add a printer!', etc.
<tonyyarusso> Who would this be for?  What do they want to know about?
<tonyyarusso> "Linux" is a huge category of books.
<tonyyarusso> When you say "deeper internals", do you mean on the sysadmin side, programming side, or kernel side?
<tonyyarusso> Also, must it be Linux specifically, or POSIX systems more generally?
<tonyyarusso> OS or Network side?
<tonyyarusso> Takyoji: Narrow things down man!
<tonyyarusso> And then e-mail me sysadmin information like ASAP.
<Takyoji> Programming-side of Linux app dev (GUI toolkits, or frameworks, etc), or anything to know of the structure of a common Linux distro for the sake of troubleshooting things
<Takyoji> also, it's for myself, actually.
<Takyoji> I was thinking of formally writing up all the details as of the school, but I guess 'f-- it' as I'll just write the basic details as a list.
<Takyoji> Any preferred email (you can PM me via IRC, if you prefer privacy over your email address)
<tonyyarusso> What types of applications would you like to develop?  Gnome?  Web?  Daemons?  CLI utilities?
<Takyoji> I'd like to get into GUI app dev; I'm already familiar with web dev, and there isn't much to CLI.
<Takyoji> I barely know how to make a practical GUI with GTK or Qt
<Takyoji> in the context of Python, for the language.
<Takyoji> (but using Glade for the designer)
<tonyyarusso> mmk
<Takyoji> I would have loved to learn about GNOME app dev (as there was something for learning various components of GNOME 2, and working with DBus, and probably CouchDB, and making panel applets, and so on) but now all irrelevant
<tonyyarusso> For Python language stuff you can start with these 4:  http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596158118.do http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596158071.do http://www.apress.com/programming/python/9781430224150 http://www.apress.com/programming/python/9781590599822
<tonyyarusso> For GTK+ you have http://www.apress.com/9781590597934 and this monstrosity:  http://www.amazon.com/GNOME-Programming-Bible-Arthur-Griffith/dp/0764546406
<Takyoji> Oy, the latter is a bit dated.
<Takyoji> Published in 2000; but should still be generally relevant
#ubuntu-us-mn 2011-12-08
<Takyoji> Am I heretic for questioning my faith in Ubuntu? :P
<Takyoji> I'm in limbo of what distro to even recommend to people (aside from Mint); as I feel Unity would completely uncomfortable for convertees.
