May 2006 - WLUG - wlug.mailman3.com

Re: [Wlug] Water sensor project

by Andy Stewart

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Marc Hughes wrote: > I hate being the practical one, but take the time & money you'd spend > on that project and install a backup sump pump. You'll be far happier > with a dry basement than knowing you have a wet one. > > -Marc One could put a webcam and microphone on the sump pump. I've never seen a "sump pump cam" before - maybe you'll be the first?! ;-) Perhaps you should get a water alarm with the ear piercing alarm, and attach a microphone to the computer. Write some software that detects the loud noise and informs you accordingly. Later, Andy - -- Andy Stewart, Founder Worcester Linux Users' Group Worcester, MA, USA http://www.wlug.org -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.5 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFEaSXCHl0iXDssISsRAtyQAJ9mas4vLct54RMXf6u3hD2EDjjXPQCdE5ao UQlJYc5HTFAMVNv1bXsoN9M= =qG4N -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

May 16, 2006

Re: [Wlug] Water sensor project

by Marc Hughes

I hate being the practical one, but take the time & money you'd spend on that project and install a backup sump pump. You'll be far happier with a dry basement than knowing you have a wet one. -Marc On 5/15/06, Mike Leo <mleo963(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > NOTE: Cut and pasted from a web post of mine...i just didn't want to re-write it... > > > Since my arc isn't built yet, and we have recieved 27 feet of rain here in New England in the past > 7 days, my basement flooded again. > > The pump went out sometime overnight and i had 3-4 inches of water in my basement/computer room > this morning. > > I am smart enough, however, to have everything up off the floor (except my sun workstation!), so > nothing was damaged but the carpet. > > So i was thinking today, why not put an H2O sensor in and have one of the dozen or so computers > page/email me when there is water present? > > But......I am not a programmer, nor do I have any idea how to interface software with a hardware > sensor (that I can't actually find at present on the web). > > So the quetion is, where do I begin? > > A quick google search finds alarm sensors, but no interface to a computer serial port...they just > start screaming if they get wet. > > Even if i did find one, where do I start with such a thing, to interface with an OS to trigger an > action? > > Does someone know of a (cheap) product to do this? > > Not only does is seem like a practical project for the house, I'm sure it will be a good learning > experiance as well. > > Thanks for any advise...I'll be out collecting animals > _______________________________________________ > Wlug mailing list > Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org > http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug >

May 16, 2006

Water sensor project

by Mike Leo

NOTE: Cut and pasted from a web post of mine...i just didn't want to re-write it... Since my arc isn't built yet, and we have recieved 27 feet of rain here in New England in the past 7 days, my basement flooded again. The pump went out sometime overnight and i had 3-4 inches of water in my basement/computer room this morning. I am smart enough, however, to have everything up off the floor (except my sun workstation!), so nothing was damaged but the carpet. So i was thinking today, why not put an H2O sensor in and have one of the dozen or so computers page/email me when there is water present? But......I am not a programmer, nor do I have any idea how to interface software with a hardware sensor (that I can't actually find at present on the web). So the quetion is, where do I begin? A quick google search finds alarm sensors, but no interface to a computer serial port...they just start screaming if they get wet. Even if i did find one, where do I start with such a thing, to interface with an OS to trigger an action? Does someone know of a (cheap) product to do this? Not only does is seem like a practical project for the house, I'm sure it will be a good learning experiance as well. Thanks for any advise...I'll be out collecting animals

May 16, 2006

Re: [Wlug] Network not working on Fedora

by Theo Van Dinter

On Sun, May 14, 2006 at 01:15:24PM -0400, Brian J. Conway wrote: > Most of the Broadcom 10/100/1000 integrated NICs I've used recently are > Intel chipsets and use the E1000 driver. It might be worth a look there. I've found that the Broadcom ones usually use tg3, fwiw. -- Randomly Generated Tagline: "... and we still have yet to create a neural computer with the sophistication of a garden slug ..." - Prof. Michaelson

May 15, 2006

Re: [Wlug] Network not working on Fedora

by Brian J. Conway

On Sun, 14 May 2006 12:21:38 -0400 Walt Sawyer <wsawyer(a)norfolk-county.com> wrote: > Friday night, my wife was using her computer (lenovo/IBM desktop), then > the DSL connection went down (I wasn't here) and then her network card > didn't work. That's about the time I got home and found that the on > motherboard gig/100/10 Broadcom NetXtreme gigabit... stopped being > recognized. OK, sometimes these motherboard NICs go bad. When booting > in the redmond product, the ethernet connection was there. It was time > to upgrade to Fedora Core 5 so I figured this was a good time. Perhaps > the newer kernel would just fix the problem for me. Well, it didn't. > It would detect that the correct card wasn't there. I checked dmesg and > found no entrys for eth0. I tried adding a 3com (one of the most common > drivers!) card and on bootup it didn't see it, but in the network > configuration area I was able to add it as eth1 (the Broadcom was eth0). > Upon rebooting, it looked for eth0 and eth1 and found neither > responding. > > Is there any reason a NIC would just stop responding? This machine was > working just fine until this issue. > Thanks in advance > Walt Most of the Broadcom 10/100/1000 integrated NICs I've used recently are Intel chipsets and use the E1000 driver. It might be worth a look there. Brian J. Conway bconway(at)alum.wpi.edu "LINUX is obsolete" - Andrew S. Tanenbaum, creator of Minix - Jan 29, 1992

May 14, 2006

Network not working on Fedora

by Walt Sawyer

Friday night, my wife was using her computer (lenovo/IBM desktop), then the DSL connection went down (I wasn't here) and then her network card didn't work. That's about the time I got home and found that the on motherboard gig/100/10 Broadcom NetXtreme gigabit... stopped being recognized. OK, sometimes these motherboard NICs go bad. When booting in the redmond product, the ethernet connection was there. It was time to upgrade to Fedora Core 5 so I figured this was a good time. Perhaps the newer kernel would just fix the problem for me. Well, it didn't. It would detect that the correct card wasn't there. I checked dmesg and found no entrys for eth0. I tried adding a 3com (one of the most common drivers!) card and on bootup it didn't see it, but in the network configuration area I was able to add it as eth1 (the Broadcom was eth0). Upon rebooting, it looked for eth0 and eth1 and found neither responding. Is there any reason a NIC would just stop responding? This machine was working just fine until this issue. Thanks in advance Walt

May 14, 2006

Take my free stuff, please! ;)

by Theo Van Dinter

Hey folks, Sorry to blast this out on the list, but I'm in the process of moving and have a bunch of computer-related items that I'm trying to get rid of. Most things on here are free for pickup (I'm in the Natick, MA area) or if you pay s/h I can send it out via USPS/etc. I'd like to receive some money for the handful of things with a "$" marking, make an offer. :) Send me a mail and we'll arrange something. COMPUTER/MONITORS: $ 2U Rackmount computer, 2xPII 450MHz, 512MB RAM 20GB IDE HD (Maxtor 6E020L0) CDROM (CD-540E) 3.5" Floppy Drive Monitors may not be available immediately (ask for details) $ ViewSonic E771 17" monitor $ ViewSonic P815 21" monitor NETWORKING: 2x 2wire DSL Telephone Filter 3Com Etherlink 3C583A AUI/10bT Transceiver 3x SMC Ultra (83C7900F) 10BT/AUI network card Allied Telesis CentreCom 210T AUI/10bT Transceiver Cabletron 10 Base-2 to10 Base-T adapter w/lanview Netgear 4 port dual speed hub #DF104 Netgear 8 port dual speed hub #DS108 Random BNC connectors (right angle, T, terminators, etc) and cable Zyxel Prestige 643 DSL modem MISC POWER-RELATED: Standard grounded 3-pin power cables (2x each black and grey) AT Power Supply 4x APC ProtectNet P10BT in-line ethernet surge protector APC ProtectNet PTEL2 in-line telephone surge protector 3x APC 940-0024C cable APC 940-0095B cable APC SmartUPS 450 w/ 940-0024C cable It's free but dead. It'd be useful if you're planning to do a TradeUPS from APC and want to get some extra capacity. However, it doesn't even respond or power on when plugged in. APC SmartUPS VS650 w/ 940-0024C cable "Works", but may or may not drop the load immediately upon power outage. I believe it just needs a new battery, but I haven't had it checked out too much, etc. I'd actually like to get some cash for it, make me an offer. MISC CABLES AND ADAPTERS: 3x AT Keyboard extension cable Misc DB15 M-M video cables Serial 25M-25M cable 2x Serial 25M-9F cable Serial 25M-25F cable (long) 2x PS2 -> AT Keyboard Adapter 9pin -> ps/2 mouse converter 3x PS2->9pin mouse converter 2x DB15M-M Gender Changer DB15F-F Gender Changer 4x APC 940-0029A 9M-25M adapters 4x APC 940-0017A 9M-25F adapters Serial 25F-25F Gender Changer Serial 25M-25F Jumper Box w/ wires 3x Serial/Mouse 9M-25F Converter Serial/Mouse 9M-25M Converter Serial/Mouse 9F-25M Converter 2x Serial 25M-25M thin Gender Changer 2x Serial 25F-25F thin Gender Changer Serial 9M-9M Gender Changer 2x Serial 9F-9F Gender Changer (1 thin, 1 normal) 3x 5.25"-3.5" floppy data connection converter 3x 9" (?) internal Y power adapter 2x 6" (?) internal Y power adapter 3x 3.5" floppy internal drive power adapters internal power extender w/ extra fan 3-pin connector Serial 25M-25F null modem MULTIMEDIA: 2 Large Speakers Creative speakers ISA Random sound card ISA Sound Blaster AWE 32 sound card ISA Sound Blaster AWE 64 sound card misc cd-rom/sound card cables DRIVES: $ Kingwin KF23IPF Removable (E)IDE mount 5.25" w/ enclosed: IBM Deskstar IC35L060AVER07-0 (60GB) HD 120MB Connor IDE HD 3.5" floppy drive Mitsumi D359T6 HP Tape Drive C1528F SCSI Hitachi CD-ROM Model CDR-7730 IDE Toshiba CD-ROM XM-5701B SCSI SOFTWARE: Alsoft DiskWarrior for Mac OS ApplixWare for Linux version 4.4.1 Art Explosion Greeting Card Factory Premier CD (Windows/Mac) Descent Descent II Educated Investor Financial and Tax Planning Tool Kit (Windows/Mac) Macsyma 2.3 for Windows 3.1, 95, NT Mech Warrior 2 w/ Expansion Pack Print Shop for Mac Pro Venture Resumes Windows 98,98,ME Sendmail Single Switch 2.03 The 11th Hour (the sequel to the 7th guest) CD & strategy guide The 7th Guest CD Ulead PhotoImpact 6 SCSI CABLES/ETC: 1-2" internal 50pin SCSI extender 2x SCSI Centronics Terminator 68 pin M-M external SCSI cable, 2ft Misc internal SCSI cables SCSI 68pin Differential Terminator OTHER RANDOM THINGS: "Go away or I will replace you with a very small shell script" - XL T-Shirt 2 button serial mouse 2x Wintek PC3200 2GB ECC Registered (may or may not work, have seen issues) 3 button serial mouse 3x new AT keyboards 5.25" mounting bracket for 3.5" drive/floppy Belkin 6 port Firewire hub Belkin TuneDok for iPod w/ Sony cassette adapter Cue Cat HP ScanJet 4C SCSI Scanner w/ 3' 68pin to centronics external SCSI cable (no card) ISA I/O board (IDE, floppy, 2x serial, game, par Misc (E)IDE cables Misc floppy drive cables RCA UHF/VHF antenna Radio Shack pillow speaker SUNON KDE1206PTB1 60x60x25mm Fan new Spool of Cat. 5 cable, unknown length left VGA to 5BNC Cable iRock FM transmitter mouse couch (pad w/ wrist bits) mark 3 VGA Box (4x RCA A/V -> VGA DB15 Output, hook up camera, dvd player, video game console, etc, hook up to your VGA monitor)

May 14, 2006

Re: [Wlug] Backing Up/Moving Evolution

by James Gray

Since it sounds like noone else has responded to your question, I'll give it a shot; even though I don't use Evolution. If Evolution stores emails in clear text, and I bet it does then this might work. You could use grep to try and locate one of your past emails some thing like: grep -rlF TEXT ~/* (From the command prompt.) Replace TEXT with an unusual sentance in one of the emails in your folders. This should give you a sense of where the file is located. Once you figure out where the folders are you should be able to simply copy them to your server. I've done this with Thunderbird (from a win machine to a Linux box no less) and it worked well. If all else fails you might be able to find help on the evolution website. > I need to find a way to move this > stuff so I can get a new dual-boot system (windows/linux). I can't even > figure out which directory all this Evolution stuff lives in.

May 11, 2006

Re: [Wlug] Problem with usermod

by Chuck Noyes

That fixed it! I booted a live beta copy of "Dapper" and mounted my / partition and proceeded to follow Chuck's advice. Now all is well. Thanks guys!!! BTW: the "usermod" command does seem a bit awkward. If I'm a member of "n" groups and I want to join another group, I have to specify ALL "n" groups plus the new group. As Jamie mentioned, there is a "groupmod" command, but in Ubuntu, it really doesn't do what I want. From the man page: The groupmod command modifies the system account files to reflect the changes that are specified on the command line. The options which apply to the groupmod command are -g gid The numerical value of the group’s ID. This value must be unique, unless the -o option is used. The value must be non-negative. Values between 0 and 99 are typically reserved for system groups. Any files which the old group ID is the file group ID must have the file group ID changed manually. -n group_name The name of the group will be changed from group to group_name. And "groupadd" just creates a new group. Mike Leo wrote: > sounds like a liveCD would make short work of this. > > Boot liveCD, mount / somewhere, re-edit your /somewhere/etc/group file > > --- Jared Greenwald <greenwaldjared(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > >>sudo :) >> >>On 5/10/06, Chuck Noyes <vze284qe(a)verizon.net> wrote: >> >>>Unfortunately, I don't have write access to /etc and I don't have read >>>access to /etc/gshadow. >>> >>>cp /etc/group /etc/group.SAVE >>>cp: cannot create regular file `/etc/group.SAVE': Permission denied >>> >>>cat /etc/gshadow >>>cat: /etc/gshadow: Permission denied >>> >>> >>>Chuck Anderson wrote: >>> >>>>On Wed, May 10, 2006 at 10:24:22AM -0400, Chuck Noyes wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>>>'sudo usermod -G <new-group> <my-username>'. Now I only belong to >>>>><new-group>. That removed my username from the other groups I belonged >>>>>to, including the admin group. >>>>>Is there a way undo what I did? I do have a copy of /etc/group before >>>>>the change. >>>> >>>> >>>>/etc/group- should be a backup. Also, you need to restore >>>>/etc/gshadow-. I would save a copy of the current files: >>>> >>>>cp /etc/group /etc/group.SAVE >>>>cp /etc/gshadow /etc/gshadow.SAVE >>>> >>>>Then restore the backups: >>>> >>>>cp /etc/group- /etc/group >>>>cp /etc/gshadow- /etc/gshadow >>>> >>>>You can check the files for correctness: >>>> >>>>grpck >>>> >>>>(likewise with passwd, shadow, pwck) >>>>_______________________________________________ >>>>Wlug mailing list >>>>Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org >>>>http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug >>>> >>> >>>_______________________________________________ >>>Wlug mailing list >>>Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org >>>http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug >>> >> >>_______________________________________________ >>Wlug mailing list >>Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org >>http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug >> > > > _______________________________________________ > Wlug mailing list > Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org > http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug >

May 11, 2006

Re: [Wlug] Problem with usermod

by Jamie Guinan

On Wed, 10 May 2006, Chuck Anderson wrote: > On Wed, May 10, 2006 at 02:20:29PM -0400, Jamie Guinan wrote: > > But what really struck me was "Wow, what a horrible interface! You > > actually have to specify the full list of groups the user already > > belongs to, _plus_ the new group?!". > > Not Fedora's usermod: > > usermod(8) > > -G, --groups GROUP1[,GROUP2,...[,GROUPN]]] > A list of supplementary groups which the user is also a member > of. Each group is separated from the next by a comma, with no > intervening whitespace. The groups are subject to the same > restrictions as the group given with the -g option. If the user > is currently a member of a group which is not listed, the user > will be removed from the group. This behaviour can be changed > via -a option, which appends user to the current supplementary > group list. If I understand this correctly, the default behavior is that you're removed from every group _not_ listed, unless you notice the part about "-a". Seems backwards, I'd much rather have append by default, with a "-d" to delete from not-listed groups. I think its much more likely that I'm a member of 10 groups and I wanted to be added to an 11th, rather than add me to a single group and bump me from the 10 I'm already in. I'm sure there's plenty of admin scripts that depend on the current behavior, though. -Jamie

May 10, 2006