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Orb Grafitti is sometimes a conversation, sometimes a soapbox. I use Linux most often, and I write about that and related software frequently. I also have a day job working as a dogsbody for a small manufacturing firm here in the SF Bay Area. Tom Syroid and I have co-authored a Linux Book. It was cancelled by $LARGE_PUBLISHER, so we're posting it online, here and here. Have a looksee! I'm glad you've come to visit, and always happy to hear from you.
EMAIL - I publish email sometimes. If you send me an email and you want privacy or anonymity, please say so, I'll pay attention to your wishes.
Good morning. Along with a pair of new chapters from Tom and Brian's Linux Book (The culprits are 26, on Apache, and 11, on Linux Office Suites) I thought I'd inflict upon you just a couple of recent snaps. First, right and left are some macro-shots of bits from the Patio Farm ©. At left, the peas are starting to come in, and at right, we have prolific flowering on all of the tomato plants now.
Then, last night, I grilled... Steak, zuchinni, and bell peppers, all appropriately mariniated, cooked to perfection, and consumed with great gusto. Very deeee-licious. Finally, I thought I'd share with you one of the after-effects of the downstairs party from last Friday - One-o-them young jerks decided to get creative with the antenna on the Mercedes. No way to prove it, of course, but I know someone among that group was responsible. Kids. Feh!
Last day of April, and a week in which Cinco de Mayo falls on a Saturday. It's gonna be a zoo around here this weekend upcoming, folks. Downtown San Jose is always ... exciting ... on Cinco de Mayo. Parades and street parties, occasionally mini-riots and looting. Never a dull moment. This week there's an SVLUG meeting, and much more to do at work... speaking of which, I'd better get on my way. Have a great day!
17:45 - Evenin'... Welcome back. Progress is being made - I think we've got a winner in this new design for a Category 5 Enhanced patch module - a little more tuning and testing to ensure that I'm not just seeing spots, and we can do a final prototyping round for our customers...
On the Linux side of the fence, two items of note. First, yet another set of updated software for the Agenda is now ready for download, upload, flash and testing. That's in progress now. I simply hook Galileo up to Gryphon, rsync my data down for safekeeping, then rewrite the whole thing. It takes about half an hour, all told, mostly because of the slow rate of serial transfer, though the flash speed ain't too hot either. This is supposed to improve responsiveness and a couple of other recent bugaboos.
Then John Doucette wrote today, pleading to see the Security chapters next, out of the book that Tom and I wrote. I said I was sure that something could be arranged, say, what about that guy that just got to visit the ISS. Is there any way...??? John mentioned something about winning a lottery, and calling the ISS trip a "late birthday present" (whatever that means!!!)... So if the two chapters out of the security section are next, it has absolutely nothing to do with bribery, oh no, far from it!
Aha, Galileo's updated. Now I have some work to do there, so I'll leave you in peace for now. Take care, see you later, p'raps.
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Howdy. It's late already, and I have lots yet to do, so I'll be short with you for the moment. The big news: A big, big thank you, for turning up here in droves. As usual, I am flattered and honored by your presence here. Isn't this a nice growth curve?
Over 130K hits (up better than 40K), 22K plus page reads (an increase of 5,000), nearly a Gig of data transferred in total, this site alone. You can find all of April's stats on this page. Honestly, this blows me away! <Grin> Again, thanks for dropping by - I'm glad that you find this material either useful, entertaining, or both. I'll do my best to keep it up!
Now I have a couple of chores yet to do before I leave the house, so I'll get to those, and be back here with you later today. Y'all have a good'un, alright?
18:00 - Hello. Good day so far, other than 4 hours of blackout on the site, email and more due to the housecleaners knocking the DSL router's powerbrick out of it's socket... ::sigh:: Sorry! Now for a little email, then I have work to do, including yet another update for Galileo, the Agenda VR3d.
Subject: OpenSSH vs. SSH From: "Steve Swickard" <[email protected]> To: "Brian Bilbrey" <[email protected]> Date: Tue, 1 May 2001 11:14:17 -0600 Hi and good day Brian, Congratulations on your latest web stat's. You deserved every hit you received.....Also thanks for a great web site and all of the hard work you have put in not just the site but making the decision to put up the book. Now for my question. Having downloaded the latest version of Mandrake Linux 8.0 I noticed that it includes OpenSSH. I have been using the old SSH from SSH Communications in Finland I believe. I started using Secure Shell last year due in large part because of what I had read on your site as well as Tom's. I downloaded and compiled it (first thing I compiled that really worked!!!) I have the server running on my Linux box and I use SecureCRT on my windows machines now. So when I upgrade to Mandrake 8.0 which in your opinion would be better the old SSH or the OpenSSH? I would appreciate any comments you might have when you get the chance of course. Thank you Brian. Oh I quit doing the apartment thing back on March 8th, 1987 at 1AM due to a neighbor leaving an iron on all day. I'd just as soon live in a cardboard box under a bridge then in an apartment. Too many bad experiences while living in San Diego... Take care and have a great week Steve in Colorado (God's country)
Hey, Steve... Mmmmm. Thanks. Yeah, it's kinda fun. A bit of work, but kinda fun. I've gone completely over to OpenSSH, have for better than a year now. It's uncertain how SSH is likely to be licensed, or behave, from day to day. There are ways that are currently "legal" to use SSH, but OpenSSH is just that, open. Free. Gratis. If you like it and use it commercially, feel free to contribute to the development effort, but you can put it on as many boxes as you like, and it is currently compatible with most Windows clients (I think, you'd have to do research on that aspect). There may be differences between the two implementations of SCP, so I'd definitely look hard at that if necessary - I am really happy, meself, works like a champ! regards, .brian
The links for the two implementations are SSH (commercial, from SSH Communications), and OpenSSH. Additionally, the original author of SSH, now CTO and Chairman of SSH Communications, Tatu Yl?nen, has been a bit ... tact challenged recently when it came to all of a sudden (heh heh heh) realizing that his original code base, which was licensed in a free manner, was used as the basis of OpenSSH. Yup, OpenSSH, which became a significant threat to his company, is based on the original code which he can't call back, so 3 years after the fact, he decides to take note of OpenSSH, and start a stink battle over the use of the letters SSH (as a trademark infringement).
While this might have been legitimate in any number of circumstances, it seems suspect given that the OpenSSH project has been around for several years, and certainly not been in hiding. Additionally, SSH is the terminology used in the "draft standard", to which Tatu contributed mightily... and makes no reference to the name being trademarked in that document. Hmmm...
OK, to work with me. Have a nice evening.
22:05 - Hi, again. Just dropped in to post Chapter 21, on System Security. It really goes hand-in-glove with the next chapter, on various tools of the security trade, but I shan't be able to get to that until Thursday at the earliest, since tomorrow night is the monthly SVLUG meeting. I missed last month's, due to working on the recent Tcl/Tk tutorial, which might make an appearance on developer works in the next few weeks, eh?
And just for fun, in my copious spare time, I've found that the open Beta of Caldera Workstation is now available. You can get it by following the links, and going through the Caldera registration process ... or you can just go to ftp://ftp.caldera.com/pub/beta/workstation/ and download the durn thing directly. Wow. A single CD distro. Whatever is the world coming to, Will Robinson??? (Not counting source discs, of course!). One of these days soon, I'll have a first impression up for you.
Meantime, I'd best hare off to sleep pretty soon, it's never too soon to catch up on sleep... <g> G'night!
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Good morning! First order of business - two updates last night. The big news from the first was a brief apology for the site outage yesterday afternoon. Apparently it was a random vacuum cleaner strike on the wall wart for the DSL router, when the cleaners were in, sometime around 13:00. I suppose I could reorganize the cabling nightmare again, but I probably won't, at least until I really need to.
The second was two-fold: Chapter 21, on System Security is online from Tom and Brian's Linux Book. We need to get Chapter 22 up to complement this one with some tools for staying secure, but this is a good start. I'll work Chapter 22 in tomorrow, probably. Next, I saw recently that the latest from Caldera, called Workstation is now in "Open Beta". Compared to most other distributions, Caldera is cautious in their release schedules. Check last night's post for some links...
I did pitch the Workstation Beta into Gryphon (the Acer Travelmate) last night, after all - some initial observations are in order. The installer hasn't changed much, if at all. However, ReiserFS is now in the shortlist of acceptable file systems. The install went really smoothly, although at the end, a dialog box popped up saying "INSTALLATION FAILED - ONE OR MORE PACKAGES WERE NOT INSTALLED!" Oooooh. Trembling in me boots, I was.
It's running reasonably fine, this AM. Feels like a beta, which is interesting. Usually, once I get past the installer, Linux feels like Linux. However, there are bits of the default KDE UI which appear to be broken, perhaps related to the package install failure from last night.
A feature or two to whet your appetite: Kernel 2.4.2-7 (the dash number is Caldera revisioning for their custom patch sets, as do most distro vendors), but oddly, they've installed an SMP kernel by default, instead of doing a detection and installing the correct kernel. At the moment, I don't know if they provide a non-SMP kernel on the ISO. Glibc is 2.2.1, gcc is 2.95.2, KDE is version 2.2.1, QT is 2.2.4 (no anti-aliasing just yet for this desktop), and OpenSSH is 2.5.1p1.
However, I can't right-click the desktop or the panel. Something feels broken about the KDE implementation. Ah, well... it's time to get to work, anyway. Have a lovely day.
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Good morning. Hang on a sec while I flip the mini-blinds from down to up - down lets a lot of just over the horizon light from the BFF (Big Fusion Furnace) straight into my eyeballs, not a good thing at this hour...
Well - last night's meeting was interesting. The guys presenting are doing Midori Linux (formerly Mobile Linux), a build-it-yourself mini-distro designed to be run on embedded machines off of flash memory. A full build out, including Kernel, X, lots of apps *and* Netscape (browsing appliances, don't you know) caps out at 58 Meg. Not too shabby. The target architecture is x86, with an eye towards low-power x86, given that this is being run by Transmeta employees. We got some interesting sideline stories of Crusoe development, and some of the horror stories of developing the Code Morphing Software when they introduced it to the products from Redmond - most initial chip validation was apparently done using .... no big surprise, Linux.
Context shift -while we've been encouraging you to keep track of Kaycee with these little banners, Randy, the BWG, reminded us the other day to spare a kind thought or prayer for Kaycee's mom, Debbie, who's travelling with her in Florida, and working hard at helping Kaycee accomplish what she wants/needs before she leaves this plane... all the while holding it together, trying not to come apart at the seams. Another brave woman - no big surprise, but a little wrenching when you read what she shares.
And back again - Linux, specifically Caldera. It's gone from Gryphon already, but there's a little tale behind that. The problem that made the menus, screen and anything under X unusable was a installation configuration problem in /etc/XF86Config. Pay attention to that location, because most distro's set things up to make use of XF86Config inside of the /etc/X11 tree. In fact, there's an XF86Config-4 file there, the only config file there, so I was mightily confused when I went in, fixed the problem I found, restarted X, and ... thud, the problem was still present. Then I started looking around and found the other copy of the config file in /etc. Feh.
So anyway, the actual problem was that the mouse was entered as an input device, TWICE, in the configuration file. So every event came in doubled, and double clicks behave substantially different from single clicks, especially on a single click interface like the KDE desktop, which is the only desktop available from Caldera's Workstation Beta.
Having solved that problem, I was casting about for another little challenge when I read of Dan Bowman's recent foray into Red Hat 7.1. Hmmm. A quick ISO or two downloaded and burnt - I was ready to roll 7.1 onto Gryphon. Why? First, I don't want to do an eval of the Caldera Beta. I want to wait for a released product for two reasons - Update data for the book Tom and I are posting is best based upon a released version, rather than a beta. Second, I am looking for a stable replacement for Gryphon.
I've run into stability problems on both Grinch and Gryphon in the last several days, and I'd like not to lay that at Mandrake's doorstep, but right now I can't determine what the problem is - the symptoms continue, including system and GUI lockups, random and occasional only, but clearly not related to running XMMS, which was the suspicion a couple of weeks ago. I haven't installed Red Hat in quite a while, several months now, and I thought it was time. We'll see how it goes. The install? Oh it went fine - Gryphon's up and running, and I've pitched in a couple of updates and other such, but will report on those at a different time.
Of course, that's because I need to head into work. I had a half-successful day yesterday, and I need to expand on the good bits, so wish me luck! Take care and I'll see you later.
21:09 - Howdy. Been busy formatting Chapter 22 for y'all. This one covers PortSentry, Tripwire, Aide, GPG, PGP, SSH and OpenSSH. We hope you find it useful. As is true with most software packages in the Open Source field, and especially those that are security and privacy related, there have been several major releases and revisions since we wrote this material. However, most of the usage and build instructions remain on the mark. Of course, please read the documentation that comes with any important software package that you plan on using - pay close attention to files like CHANGES, INSTALL, and README, as well as the manpages, once you've installed your software.
I suppose I'd better get a bite to eat, however... all I've had so far is potato chips and a soda. So G'night, see you on Friday!
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Mornin', this merry TGIF. Busy, busy day ahead, beginning with a trip to tank up the Benz. Only need to do that about every 2 weeks or so, since I get better than 500 miles out of a fill-up, but it eats 15 minutes in the morning that I don't really have, unless I cut things short here.
As noted last night, we've now got Chapter 22, on PortSentry, Tripwire, Aide, GPG, PGP, SSH and OpenSSH posted from Tom and Brian's Linux Book. Also, I spent a while last night doing image research for a new logo or two that I am under contract to do. Mmmmm. I've gotta slow down one of these days, eh?
I think I'd better get into my day's work. I'll drop by later, and give you the latest buzz... about things like the Craig Mundie speech, the response from Linus Torvalds, the response from Alan Cox, and much more. Read this stuff, folks, and think about what Microsoft wants, and where we fit in their food chain (think plankton). Meantime, have a lovely day!
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Good morning! How's your day going? As I write, it's 09:30, a shade under 70 degrees, Clear and sunny. Gorgeous day! Mmmm. I was up at the crack of 2 hours after dawn, and out to get a haircut already (the bi-annual, after about three months I start talking about needing a cut, but it usually takes me another 2 or 3 to actually get there ::sigh::). That's done, I've cleaned up a few niggles and twiddles in assorted chapter headers from Brian and Tom's Linux Book, and now it's time to go back to mucking about with systems for a bit.
Why, you ask? Well, for one thing, I think that I was experiencing the effects of filesystem corruption on the Mandrake 8 install on Gryphon... The reason being that during the installation, the ReiserFS utility programs RPM (reiserfsprogs-3.x.0i-3mdk) didn't get installed for some reason or another. When I noticed during the boot messages that there was something about fsck.reiserfs being not found, my eyebrows went sub-orbital, as both of my workstation systems (Grinch and Gryphon) were full-on Reiser.
Anyway, after spending less than 24 hours with Caldera Workstation beta on Gryphon, I've been running with Red Hat 7.1. Seems fairly stable. Installation went smoothly, but oddly the partitioning portion of the installer simply doesn't offer Reiser. Mmmm. That's OK, at least for the moment.
Additionally, I am experimenting with a minimalist desktop again. Much as I am enamoured of KDE 2.x, there are definite negative performance considerations when using an integrated Desktop/Applications environment. In the past I've worked with IceWM and Blackbox. Now, after watching some recent message traffic on the SVLUG mailing list, I am diving into fvwm2. I've got some more tuning to do, then I'll post some screenshots from Gryphon.
After I work that out, I am likely to take Grinch over to Debian, run 2.2.19 kernel, fvwm and and do any Windows work I must do under either VMware or Win4Lin. Both of those, BTW, are due out with 2.4 kernel capable versions, later this month.
Marcia's out shopping now, I have a couple of chores to take care of, and a phone call to make. I'll see you later.
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Howdee-doo. Quiet day yesterday, with lots of time spent trying to organize these computers to work better to my taste. Not quite there yet, either. At the moment, I am writing this in emacs, as I haven't yet brought Bluefish online here. I may not, just to get my chops back in emacs. We'll see. Right now I've got to hop in the shower and get ready to make the Costco run. A little later today, I'll be back with some screenshots, from Ximian Gnome (which I am passing through on my way to Fvwm2, just to have a gander at all the slow-loading pretty bits) to where ever I get to. Hmmmmmm. So I'll see you later. TTFN.
14:11 - OK, back again. I've made some progress, so here goes... All these screenshots are not extra huge - I've cut them down from 1280x1024 to 800x640. That means as a 75% JPG, they're only around 100K each ... hehehehhe. First off is Ximian Gnome. Wait... Huh? OK, the really first things first - I've gone over to RH 7.1 for both Grinch and Gryphon for the time being. I've learned a thing or two about Progeny, which I dabbled with for a bit yesterday. Mostly I learned that I would have a bear of a time crossing over to Ximian, which I really wanted to play with, just for a moment, before I dropped out of the fat desktop arena, and into lightweight WM land. Besides, I need bits of the recent Gnome, for reasons to be revealed shortly.
So, back to Ximian. The snaps above, left and right, are of fundamentally the same desktop. On the right you see the main application window open is of the new Gnome file manager, Nautilus. It's very, very pretty, with hooks deep into the desktop and the WM. Lots of mime-types, and such. You can see thumbnails, right there in Nautilus, of the Wallpapers directory... and it (Ximian) comes with some wallpaper of its own, including that nice background you can hardly see. On the right is the same screen, with Emacs up, as I worked on this morning's minimalist post.
Then it was time to start mucking about with FVWM2 further. I've been working on it with Gryphon for the last couple of days, so it was easy to transport my current progress over to Grinch, and keep moving forward. Why do this? Well, honestly, I've been experiencing less than stellar performance on both boxen, and really, um, problematic behaviour. Like system lockups. Not just WM lockups - I can always SSH into a box and reset that. Nope - system go buh-bye, press the little red button marked reset, please. Feh! My current FVWM window is shown to the left.
Open in this window are several applications. First, in the upper left, the menu system. It's not tied to a button in a bar - left click anywhere in the root window and up pops the menu. The FVWM menu is fully user configurable, able as well to use system and user resource files. Heading counter-clockwise, I've got the Gimp open (but no image windows or dialogs at the moment). Bottom left is a terminal window (rxvt). Very simple in comparison to Konsole, for instance, but meets my needs. Therein I am editing .fvwm2rc, which defines the behaviour, look, feel and menus for my desktop. All one file. Sweet, once you figure things out.... and that's just a bit tricky, until I read several manpages worth.
In the lower right corner is the FVWM button bar. Inside that is the pager (my desktop is smallish, 6 screens in a 3x2 layout. Also swallowed into the buttonbar are instances of Xclock and Xload. I don't have any application starters there - the menu is always right where I need it. Finally, above the button bar, I've got another rxvt instance - this one autostarts an SSH session to Grendel (when I select Orb from the main menu) - right now Mutt (text mode mail client) is running. The desktop background is a sized image from our trip to Yosemite.
I really don't need the "advantages" of the Desktop Environment setups. With their libraries present on-system, I can make selective use of the applications, or use apps that depend on them, like Galeon, which is dependent on both Mozilla and Gnome. Seems silly, but there it is, and I really like Galeon, because it's way fast, and renders well (making use of the embedded Gecko rendering engine from Mozilla). Plus, it's just a browser, and works really well. I have several Galeon windows open in the picture to the right.
Now I have to finish my conversation with John Vogt, as we walk through a 7.2 Mandrake install... Apparently successful, but we'll see. See you next week!
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Visit the rest of the DAYNOTES GANG, a collection of bright minds and sharp wits. Really, I don't know why they tolerate me <grin>. My personal inspiration for these pages is Dr. Jerry Pournelle. I am also indebted to Bob Thompson and Tom Syroid for their patience, guidance and feedback. Of course, I am sustained by and beholden to my lovely wife, Marcia. You can find her online too, at http://www.dutchgirl.net/. Thanks for dropping by.
All Content Copyright © 1999-2001 Brian P. Bilbrey.