- WLUG - wlug.mailman3.com

USB External DVD RW drive recommendations

by Andrew Robert

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hi Everyone, I am looking at the possibility of getting an external USB DVD-RW drive but want to be sure on its compatibily to Linux, specifically Fedora Core 3. Does anyone have any recommendations as to what might be a good choice? - -- Thank you, Andrew Robert Systems Architect Information Technologies MFS Investment Management Phone: 617-954-5882 Pager: 781-945-1742 E-mail: arobert(a)mfs.com Linux User Number: #201204 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Fedora - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFCpAzG3PP5iSKX574RArBkAJ0Rf1x7rVih4pCMNYcpMFDWGIM8TgCgmfQj KqW2WL0gUGDDqflyUstow54= =JTsT -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

June 6, 2005

HOWTO debug hard lockups

by Andy Stewart

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 HI gang, My dual Opteron machine is not happy. I cannot get more than 7 straight days of uptime without getting a hard lock, requiring a reboot. (My definition of hard lock is: machine responds neither to keyboard input, mouse input, nor network pings). I can stimulate hard locks by running OpenOffice 1.1.3 (I had 3 tonight, and 3-4 on a previous occasion while running OpenOffice). It makes no sense to me that an application run as a normal user could lockup a machine. I've tried setting "nmi_watchdog=1" to see if I could get an "oops" when it hard locks - no dice. Do you know any other tricks I could try to see if it is the kernel which is locking up? I'm running SuSE's version of 2.6.8. It may also be the hardware itself which is locking up. I have suspected that I might have "warm" hardware and have taken steps to better cool the machine. One CPU runs at a high of 63 degrees C, while the other one runs at 58 degrees C both while running Seti@Home (which heats the CPUs a significant 5-10 degrees C versus idle). The cooler CPU has a Zalman 7000 series copper heatsink/fan combo, while the warmer CPU has an undersized block of metal and a small fan (thanks to the MB manufacturer MSI). AMD quotes a max operating temperature of 70 degress C, so although quite hot, I think I'm still within spec, but I'm uncomfortably close. The temperature on the surface of the SCSI hard drive is 95 degrees F. The room temperature is a balmy 85 degrees (hey, its New England in the summer time!). The machine has passed memtest many times. If it is a heat problem, I'm royally screwed when the real summer weather arrives. I want to install a better heat sink on CPU 2 (hence my previous email about a heat sink retaining bracket). Physical tolerances on this MB are really tough to satisfy (MSI K8T Master2 FAR). The heat sink tooling on the MB is for socket 478 even though the MB uses AMD opteron 244s (yes, this is quite bizarre, er, non-standard). If anybody has any ideas which might help, I'm all ears (as it were). Thanks! 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 iD8DBQFCo7ZhHl0iXDssISsRAoGWAJ4ttqZS2SSgdlGwdnSp6LNbzUmLaQCfbktB KWUM+7EQAu3jIIKbmdnDkZk= =aI/l -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

June 6, 2005

Seeking Socket 478 heat sink retaining bracket w/screws

by Andy Stewart

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 HI everybody, If anybody has this little plastic dohickey for holding the heat sink to the motherboard, and would like to get rid of it, I'm can use one of these for a socket 478 CPU. I am willing to buy you pizza/beer or give you bribe money to obtain one. I'll even trade you the last 5 Ubuntu Linux CDs I own if that's what it takes. :-) Since my MB has the screw threads, I don't think the dohickey with the plastic holding things will work for me, but the version with screws will work. Thanks in advance, Andy P.S. "dohickey" really is a word according to dictionary.com (it is synonymous with "thingamajig"). - -- 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 iD8DBQFCo7K/Hl0iXDssISsRAvx9AJ4/oh2XObmcpc2pedFNHGlmrYI4OgCfdgeU 9A0jpx2SVC6f8stSfLFH2nc= =rk+i -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

June 6, 2005

WLUG Website updated

by Andy Stewart

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 HI everybody, I've just updated the WLUG website to include the slides from the May 2005 WLUG talk about "Linux on Appliances" given by Jason Schonberg. I also noticed that the entire slides page was broken (it should be fixed now). Also, I posted many details about the June 2005 WLUG talk, to be given by Tim Keller. Check it out! 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 iD8DBQFCo7DRHl0iXDssISsRAl9WAJ9HwXUaR22lKILHHL8mWyRhfLQD2ACeI8og RzsOQzRd2Ynhb3GWwX9MhxA= =IoeU -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

June 6, 2005

Re: [Wlug] Are any of us using Eclipse?

by Chuck Haines

I have it running on my FC3, gentoo and ubuntu boxes. I'd be happy to help if I can. Chuck On 5/30/05, Ken Jones <kjones(a)ziplink.net> wrote: > > I am having problems getting eclipse SDK working on my Fedora Core 3 > box. Is anyone running such a system? If so, I'd like to ask some > questions. > > Ken Jones > _______________________________________________ > Wlug mailing list > Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org > http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug > -- Chuck Haines chaines(a)gmail.com http://www.maxslack.com ------------------------------------------- Tau Kappa Epsilon Fraternity TKE-ZM Web Coordinator ECE Systems Administrator ------------------------------------------- AIM: CyberGrex YIM: CyberGrex_27 ICQ: 3707881 ------------------------------------------- GPG Fingerprint: 303A AB50 4EA9 70ED 2E30 2368 C9CD CCB5 4BD7 0989 GPG Key: http://www.maxslack.com/gpgkey.txt

June 2, 2005

Are any of us using Eclipse?

by Ken Jones

I am having problems getting eclipse SDK working on my Fedora Core 3 box. Is anyone running such a system? If so, I'd like to ask some questions. Ken Jones

May 30, 2005

Re: [Wlug] DNS question...

by Chuck R. Anderson

On Fri, May 27, 2005 at 03:10:41PM -0400, Keller, Tim wrote: > Quick question I can't seem to find a google answer on. > > I've got a machine that gets it's IP via DHCP. Now on our network, the > DNS name is pulled off the machine and auto registered. However this > machine won't push its domain name. Do you mean Dynamic DNS updates? > Any ideas where a) the setting for this might be b) any manual step you > can use to update the DNS name? > > I looked at the nsupdate command, but I'm not sure that's the right > command. nsupdate will allow you to manually generate DDNS update packets, but generally you allow the DHCP client to do this. Are you using ISC dhclient? I'm not sure if dhcpcd supports DDNS, and pump most likely does not. Check /etc/dhclient.conf and its manual page for DDNS settings. Also, the DHCP server can control who does the update, either the DHCP server or the DHCP client, depending on how it is configured. And, of course, the DNS server may not allow just anyone to do updates, or may require signed updates using TSIG or SIG0. In secure environments, often only the DHCP server is authorized to update the DNS server. > Talking with the network guy, he recalls there being a graphical tool > for Linux that would let you do this. Never heard of this.

May 27, 2005

DNS question...

by Keller, Tim

Quick question I can't seem to find a google answer on. I've got a machine that gets it's IP via DHCP. Now on our network, the DNS name is pulled off the machine and auto registered. However this machine won't push its domain name. Any ideas where a) the setting for this might be b) any manual step you can use to update the DNS name? I looked at the nsupdate command, but I'm not sure that's the right command. Talking with the network guy, he recalls there being a graphical tool for Linux that would let you do this. Thanks, Tim.

May 27, 2005

For Sale: Alpha PWS 600AU

by Phillip G Deneault

600mhz Alpha with 384megs of ram. On board sound and LAN. This is a REAL AU model, with the qlogic SCSI card and the powerstorm video card(in case you wanted to run OpenVMS). I would recommend using a different video card or using the serial console for anything BSD or Linux. I believe it has a 9 gig SCSI disk in it, but I've suplemented it with a 50gig IDE drive on the IDE chain. I've also replaced the IDE CD-ROM with an 68-pin SCSI CD-ROM(yes, thats right, 68-pin). I also have all the original docs with it. I was running FreeBSD 5.3 on it until a week ago when I upgraded the machine. Nice little hobby system. $200 bucks or best offer. If anyone has any questions, or wishes to haggle, please reply to me(and not the list, they hate that). Thanks, Phil

May 24, 2005

swappiness

by Chuck R. Anderson

We had a discussion about swappiness at the last meeting. Here's what my system defaults to: >cat /etc/fedora-release Fedora Core release 3 (Heidelberg) >cat /proc/sys/vm/swappiness 60 I don't see this being changed in any of the init scripts, so the default is most likely changed in the Fedora kernel from 100 to 60. If you want to tune it, you should be able to just stick this in /etc/sysctl.conf: vm.swappiness = <new value> Here is more information on what this is all about: http://kerneltrap.org/node/3000

May 23, 2005