From: adam@address.invalid
Moe Trin wrote:
> On Tue, 27 Nov 2012, in the Usenet newsgroup alt.os.linux.mandriva, in
article
> , Adam wrote:
I think the cold is getting better, but a week of warmer weather is
ahead so I'm not sure. I just got back from "A John Waters Christmas"
(live lecture) and at least I don't have to wonder what I would have
missed. (It was also interesting to see the final cost of a $30
ticket.) Speaking of "inside humor", his stuff has created its own
category and I'm probably the only one in this NG who's seen any.
>> One of my neighbors is using WEP.
But even if I did crack my neighbor's WEP, what could I do that I can't
do already? All I can think of is access his files, or use his
DSL/satellite connection if it was faster than mine or had a bigger quota.
[parents' computer shopping]
> Then there were the "personal firewall" programs
> that used to raise major flame-wars on several firewall newsgroups.
Different brands, or the value of them at all? Seems to me they keep
malware from phoning home if the user's conscientious and doesn't
automatically click "allow" for everything.
> I don't think so - SIMTEL itself was "wsmr-simtel20.army.mil" that
> had the largest archive of MS-DOS material.
I remember ftp-ing it. The web site now using that name has lots of
downloads although most seem to be free demos of products you can buy
through that site.
> They (like uiuc.edu) used to be a significant source. Remember the
> wu-ftpd server? (341520 Jul 1 2000 wu-ftpd-2.6.1.tar.gz). Even
> U-Washington dropped their development of 'pine' and 'pico'.
WU is private Washington University in St. Louis, MO, no connection to
the state or district also named after George.
> The premier sites other than government run like the NASA and SIMTEL
> servers were generally at universities around the world and depended
> on physical transfers of magnetic tapes and UUCP. I think every
> major university had something...
I remember (sort of) getting Kermit from Columbia, mostly by email in
either a hex ASCII or "virtual punch" format.
[MacBook prices]
>>> Wednesday's ads had some
>>> laptops and desktops below $200 (quantities limited, yada, yada).
>
>> I /almost/ bought a laptop yesterday. I could have gotten a
>> refurbished Thinkpad T60 from Staples for a little over $100 (that's
>> with their sales, coupons, and my store credits) but it was out of
>> stock. I knew it wasn't the latest technology but seemed adequate
>> and apparently can run Linux, and also had a full-sized keyboard.
>> If a comparable offer reappears, I might get one.
>
> Wacha gonna use it for? ;-)
So I can bring it to LUG meetings and use it there while ignoring the
presentation, what else? :-) Also to use while waiting for appointments
and such. No urgent need, just thought it might be a nice toy.
> Which one?
T60-2008, or if that was unavailable a T60-0020, not the T60-0019,
although all three were out of stock.
> Apparently, it's been
> out for at least 5 years, but there seems to be no problems getting
> it to run Linux. The CPU and RAM size varied significantly, and even
> the display size.
And for the refurbished ones, even the HD size. I figured it would be
enough for basic Wi-Fi and office apps. "eris" is five years old too,
and still can handle most tasks adequately as long as they don't need
too much RAM (everything except graphics and VMs).
[NetZero/Juno wrapper script]
>> I don't understand what's wrong with using bash for this.
>
> Some shells don't have a built-in 'echo'
> command, but /bin/echo does honor a -n option.
I tried "echo -n something" as unprefixed (just "echo -n whatever"),
"builtin echo", "/bin/echo" and "/usr/bin/echo" with every shell from
'ash' to 'zsh' that Mandriva and Fedora had in their repositories.
"Unprefixed" and "/bin/echo" both handled '-n' as I wanted in all the
shells (including bash and sh) except yash. Fedora has /usr/bin/echo
symlinked to /bin/echo.
>> BTW the current script-in-progress is at
>
> OK Whoa... "/usr/bin/killall -9q pppd" ??? DO NOT try to kill
> pppd with anything other than SIGTERM ("-15"
I remember one instance when "killall pppd" didn't kill it (and
therefore IIRC didn't hang up the phone). Which do you recommend,
"killall -wq pppd" (which in theory could hang), or "killall -q pppd"
with one retry if not successful, or putting another "killall -q pppd"
at the end of the script "just to be sure"?
> Also, the 'basename' command lacks a full PATH, but the location
> is distro dependent (/bin/ on some, /usr/bin/ on others).
I think I'll have a list of several commands that "must either be in
your PATH or edit the script to add the full path". I'd like to keep
all the setup out of the script.
So other than those and replacing "$(...)" with "`...`", everything
looks reasonable? I thought this was going to be version 1.3.1 of the
document, but there will be enough changes to make it v1.4.
>> Conclusion: the problem is not sudo, but either with Java itself
>> or badly written Java in the NZ/J app.
>
> Gack! Or it was written around the Lindows/Linspire implementation.
How can you tell that? (Apart from my statement in my text file.)
> Lindows was yet another Debian clone, but was horrible butchered.
> For one - the ordinary user was... (wait for it) running as root
"Lindows" is still in the path name for the downloads, which is a clue.
The NZ/J packages (.deb) put entries in /root/Desktop.
>> Which reminds me, Mandriva and Mageia repositories have 'sectool' for
>> checking security, ownership, etc. except it seems to be about as
>> useful as 'ckrootkit'.
>
> That's not saying much ;-)
I know. Following all its hints can break things that had been working.
At least it didn't actually change things, but just offered "suggestions".
> There are a number of "best practice"
> type of recommendations that have been around since Hector was a pup
> including things like using find to search for things like unusual
> ownerships and permissions, S[GU]ID files and the like. Programs
> like aide were created to try to automate those types of checks.
But aide doesn't tell me what's good or bad, just what's changed. How
could I find those recommendations you mention?
Adam
--
Registered Linux User #536473
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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