November 2003 - WLUG - wlug.mailman3.com

simple debian question

by Gregory Avedissian

Where do I put commands that I want executed immediately after bootup? In suse, I put them in /etc/rc.d/boot.local, but debian has no such directory or file. OK, I lied. Here's the real question. I have two linux installations on the same box (suse 7.2 and debian woody). How do I arrange permissions so that I can access the user's (my) home directory in the other installation without rebooting to that other installation? I notice that when I look at the home directory on the other system, the owner is listed by the user number rather than the name, so what I've done is to create a user in debian whose name is the same as the suse number for the same user, so that user owns the suse user's home directory, then change permissions so all users can read/write that directory. That's pretty ugly, and I have to change permissions when I reboot suse. There's gotta be an easier, cleaner way. Thanks, Greg

Nov. 24, 2003

Re: [Wlug] upgrading suse 7.2 to 8.1

by Gregory Avedissian

Doug, Thanks for the info and the link. As it turns out, the personal version is missing about 120 packages out of what I have installed. I recognized about 30 of them, and the download time is prohibitive. I need to get the pro version on cd. Meanwhile, I really wanted to know if XFree 4.x would work with my card, so I took a spare hard drive and installed debian woody. I installed xfree 4.1 and had to add the 3DLabs driver from xf3.3.6. Apparentlly, there's software to make driver work with the new version, and it works well. I no longer get little squares and dashes instead of letters on some programs. Makes it much easier to figure out which buttons to click when you can read the words. I'd tried debian a couple months ago and was unhappy with the installation process. Someone on this list suggested installing just the base system and then using apt-get to install the other packages I wanted. That seems to work out very well with almost everything (not ALSA). The other reason I wanted to upgrade was to be able to run a newer version of mozilla with junk mail controls. I'm using 1.4, and the junk filters work pretty well. In fact, they work so well that I haven't wanted to boot suse to get my mail. That's part of the reason it's taken me so long to get back to you on this. Thanks again, Greg doug waud wrote: > Hi > > Gregory Avedissian wrote: > >> I'm getting ready to upgrade from SuSE 7.2 to 8.1, and I have a little >> confusion and some questions. >> >> I'm going from 7.2 pro edition to 8.1 personal edition. Any ideas >> what's missing in the personal edition? > > > Up to version 7 SuSE used to list this comparison right on the box. Your > old 7.2 box should give a reasonably good idea of what the general > differnces are. The URL will give the same for 9 > http://www.suse.de/en/private/products/suse_linux/i386/packages.html > I could not find the equivalent for 8.x :-( > >> Attempting to replace what is installed, I get a list of conflicts, >> with advice to delete the old program, even if they don't have a >> replacement. I was surprised to see that balsa and gftp were listed >> as not having newer versions. Is this because they're not on the >> personal edition? I know they exist, because they're available at rpmfind > > > I am running 8.2 on this notebook I am writing on now and locate comes > up with both balsa and gftp (under Yast as uninstalled) so I suspect > they are just not on the personal edition. Also the 9.0 URL above > explicitly lists both in the professional and neither in the personal > edition. > >> The real issue - >> XFree 4.x doesn't seem to want to recognize my ELSA GLoria-L video >> card. Sax2 will run in 640x480 only, and I can't get it to run with >> the glint driver (the one that's supposed to work with this card). I >> tried doing this with the SuSE 8.2 evaluation disk, and I'm running >> into the same problems I had when I tried to upgrade to XFree 4.1 >> about a month ago. >> >> So here's the question - >> Can I upgrade to 8.1 without upgrading XFree? Better yet, if I upgrade >> the XFree, and it doesn't work, is there an easy way to return to the >> older version by using the CD's. Or do I have to manually back up >> /usr/X11R6 and /etc/X11 first, and then recopy them to get back to the >> older version? Will the rest of the SuSE 8.1 be pissed off about >> using XFree 3.3.6? > > > I am "underwhelmed" by Sax2's ability to get XFree right. I have just > been upgrading my desktop to SuSE 8.2 and the screen was all screwed up. > I finally went into /etc/X11/XF86Config and found that it seemed to > think my 1Meg video memory (I'm the last of the big time spenders!} was > 8 Meg. > I just put a VideoRam 1024 in the Device section, dd'd a couple of > 1280x1024 modes, defaulted to 8bit color depth, and X then ran fine. > > I believe you always have the choice of running either 4.x or 3.x but > confess I forget how you tell the beast which one to use. :-). I would > be very suprised if you could not get 4.x to work, but if that really > turns out to be the case, let me know and I'll root around and see if I > can recall the trick for forcing ti to use 3.x. > >> I suppose I could change the vid card, but I'd rather not spend any >> money, > > > That's my sort of guy! > >> and since this one is listed as working, I'd like to be able to get it >> to work. > > > And, as indicated above, you should be able to. > > doug > > PS The WLUG meeting tonight is a good place to get help from real > experts, for example, Andy Whatshisname, and others more knowledgable > than I. > > > _______________________________________________ > Wlug mailing list > Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org > http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug > >

Nov. 24, 2003

Re: [Wlug] Digitally signed e-mails

by Mike Frysinger

On Sunday 23 November 2003 14:00, Andy Stewart wrote: > While I was cleaning out my inbox e-mail folder, I ran across several > e-mails from WLUG members which were digitally signed. I've recently > upgraded to SuSE 9.0 and the 'new' version of KDE's Kmail flags these > e-mails in bright yellow. Kmail is telling me that I don't have the > senders public key available, and thus it isn't sure that the mail actually > camed from the claimed sender. you're probably using one of the latest versions of kmail so pgp integration is a breeze (i think this started around 3.1 with the inclusion of the Ägypten Project) http://kmail.kde.org/ http://www.gnupg.org/aegypten/ a pretty good HOWTO that is generic to any distro: http://kmail.kde.org/kmail-pgpmime-howto.html for you Gentoo wh0res: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gnupg-user.xml > My question is this: how do I get someone's public key ? with kmail/gnupg it *can* be automagic ... otherwise you could just use the web interfaces keyservers (like the mit one) provide or the cmdline interface gnupg provides (it's harsh :D) here's some nice options i use in my ~/.gnupg/gpg.conf file: keyserver x-hkp://pgp.mit.edu keyserver-options auto-key-retrieve keyserver-options verbose keyserver-options verbose keyserver-options verbose > 1) How do I know that the public key I'm given really belongs to the person > giving it ? Short of receiving it in person, and assuming that the person > isn't an imposter, I suppose I eventually have to limit my level of > paranoia to some level of trust. :-) you hit it exactly ... there is NO way of knowing for sure unless you meet the person in real life and swap each others keys right then and there (it's actually what a lot of developers do when they meet at places like Linuxworld ... it sets up the basic web of trust pgp is built on) ... but then again we dont all need that level of paranoia when talking with other random wlug users do we ? ;) -mike

Nov. 24, 2003

Re: [Wlug] Digitally signed e-mails

by Andy Stewart

On Monday 24 November 2003 8:43 am, mlong(a)datalong.com wrote: > I smell a topic for a WLUG meeting... :) > This is clearly not a topic on which I can speak. I'm soliciting volunteers who might like to address WLUG on this topic. Any takers for the January meeting? Later, Andy -- Andy Stewart, Founder Worcester Linux Users' Group Worcester, MA USA http://www.wlug.org

Nov. 24, 2003

Re: [Wlug] Digitally signed e-mails

by mlong＠datalong.com

I smell a topic for a WLUG meeting... :) >> >> My question is this: how do I get someone's public key ? > > There are public key servers that you can grab the keys from, assuming > that the people uploaded the keys. The default config file for gnupg > specifies a few commented out, so just uncomment one of them for use. >>From there, you use "gpg --recv-key keyid" from the commandline to grab > it. > > You can also have the key e-mail to you, find it on a website, or any > other number of ways that you get any time of file from someone. >

Nov. 24, 2003

Re: [Wlug] Digitally signed e-mails

by Gregory Boyce

On Sun, 2003-11-23 at 14:00, Andy Stewart wrote: > HI everybody, > > While I was cleaning out my inbox e-mail folder, I ran across several e-mails > from WLUG members which were digitally signed. I've recently upgraded to > SuSE 9.0 and the 'new' version of KDE's Kmail flags these e-mails in bright > yellow. Kmail is telling me that I don't have the senders public key > available, and thus it isn't sure that the mail actually camed from the > claimed sender. > > My question is this: how do I get someone's public key ? There are public key servers that you can grab the keys from, assuming that the people uploaded the keys. The default config file for gnupg specifies a few commented out, so just uncomment one of them for use. >From there, you use "gpg --recv-key keyid" from the commandline to grab it. You can also have the key e-mail to you, find it on a website, or any other number of ways that you get any time of file from someone. > Further, that brings up another question in this space: > > 1) How do I know that the public key I'm given really belongs to the person > giving it ? Short of receiving it in person, and assuming that the person > isn't an imposter, I suppose I eventually have to limit my level of paranoia > to some level of trust. :-) There are two main methods. Either verify the fingerprint of the key itself with the owner of the key in a situation where you know for a fact that it is the person. The other method is a web of trust. Basically, you verify someone's key and specify that you trust the key. Then, any key that they have verified and signed will be available to you as signed as well. Just be sure that the person you've chosen to trust is trustworthy security-wise. If they sign a key as legit that they did not verify, then you could have a bad key. the website for gpg has more information: http://www.gnupg.org/ -- Gregory Boyce <gboyce(a)badbelly.com>

Nov. 23, 2003

Digitally signed e-mails

by Andy Stewart

HI everybody, While I was cleaning out my inbox e-mail folder, I ran across several e-mails from WLUG members which were digitally signed. I've recently upgraded to SuSE 9.0 and the 'new' version of KDE's Kmail flags these e-mails in bright yellow. Kmail is telling me that I don't have the senders public key available, and thus it isn't sure that the mail actually camed from the claimed sender. My question is this: how do I get someone's public key ? Further, that brings up another question in this space: 1) How do I know that the public key I'm given really belongs to the person giving it ? Short of receiving it in person, and assuming that the person isn't an imposter, I suppose I eventually have to limit my level of paranoia to some level of trust. :-) Thanks, Andy -- Andy Stewart, Founder Worcester Linux Users' Group Worcester, MA USA http://www.wlug.org

Nov. 23, 2003

Re: [Wlug] HMM, no conspiracy after all.

by Steve Freitag

> It seems like it may not be a conspiracy after all. In a search engine my personal preference is for quality of results rather then quantity. If what I am looking for shows up on the first page I'm happy... who wants to wade through a few million results any how. :-) So, try a search of - linux apache - on msn.com and notice that the first six results are about the slapper worm. Hmm...

Nov. 17, 2003

Re: [Wlug] HMM, no conspiracy after all.

by Andy Stewart

On Monday 17 November 2003 12:03 am, Arturo Sedo wrote: > It seems like it may not be a conspiracy after all. Try the advanced search with all words and see how many hits you find. Andy -- Andy Stewart, Founder Worcester Linux Users' Group Worcester, MA USA http://www.wlug.org

Nov. 17, 2003

HMM, no conspiracy after all.

by Arturo Sedo

It seems like it may not be a conspiracy after all. Here are some searches I did followed by the resulting number of hits. Search Result ------ ------- mac OS x 48 windows xp 279 Linux 365 windows f*cking sucks 40464 bill gates genius 43093 Conclusion: The msn search engine may actually suck that badly! From: Arturo Sedo <postgres(a)sedo.net> To: WLUG <wlug(a)mail.wlug.org>, arturo_sedo(a)raytheon.com Subject: Interesting slashdot article. I didn't think it would be true. It was! Date: 16 Nov 2003 22:55:02 -0500 Here's an exercise for all to try. Search Google for Linux Windows. That gets you about 14 million pages, even with the English preference or filter turned on. Now, go to msn.com and search the Microsoft way for the same two words. You get exactly 18 pages. The word censorship doesn't seem to do justice to what Microsoft has done to a msn user who wants to compare Linux with Windows, does it? According to an MSN's Internet search, the word linux only appears 365 documents. In the entire internet! No wonder they wanted to buy google. Arturo -- Arturo Sedo <postgres(a)sedo.net>

Nov. 17, 2003