- wlug - University of Waikato Mail Lists

Adafruit launches educational distro for Raspberry PI
by Peter Reutemann 06 Aug '12

06 Aug '12

Regarding Raspberry PI and schools... "Adafruit Industries has published a new Linux distribution called "Occidentalis" for hardware hacking and teaching electronics using the ARM-based Raspberry Pi mini-computer. Its developers say that they decided to create Occidentalis because Raspbian – a Debian-based distribution released by the Raspberry Pi Foundation last month – didn't include many of the tools and software components that most hardware hackers would need. " --source: http://h-online.com/-1660567 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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BerryTerminal
by Peter Reutemann 05 Aug '12

05 Aug '12

Hi there It looks like "BerryTerminal" is exactly what Ian was after at the Saturday workshop, a Linux distro for LTSP/Raspberry Pi: "BerryTerminal is a minimal Linux distribution designed to turn the Raspberry Pi mini computer into a low-cost thin client. It allows users to login to a central Edubuntu or other LTSP server, and run applications on the central server. " http://www.berryterminal.com/doku.php/start NB: It's still labeled "alpha". Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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Upcoming Event: Next-generation Networks
by David Hallett 04 Aug '12

04 Aug '12

Institute of IT Professionals National Series: Next-generation Networks 23 August 2012: 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm Wintec City Campus Events Room 2 Gallagher Hub Gate 3, Tristram Street Hamilton National Series: Next-generation Networks Research networks have long been at the forefront of the technological revolution changing our society. Their role in bridging the gap between the high-end requirements of the science community and services available commercially led to inventions such as the Internet and World Wide Web. Often a leading indicator for emerging trends in the commercial sector, research networks have led the way in virtualization, security, and performance management. Today, research networks are facing a deluge of data that is forcing them to rethink how people, sensors, and machines are connected. In this topical presentation, REANNZ CEO Steve Cotter will talk about the challenges research networks are facing and why they are exploring new paradigms like software defined networking and energy efficiency. If you are interested in hearing about the latest cutting-edge trends in networking and how they could have an impact on New Zealand businesses and consumers, this is the talk for you. About The Speaker Steve Cotter has an extensive background in developing highly engineered, cutting-edge networking systems that require a deep understanding of advanced technologies and business drivers. He joined REANNZ from the U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Sciences Network (ESnet) in 2011. As the head of ESnet, he was responsible for providing high-performance networking to thousands of researchers and scientists at more than 40 national laboratories and research institutions. Prior to ESnet, he served as Google's network deployment manager for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Before being hired by Google, Steve worked for Internet2 as Deputy Operations Officer and was CEO & President of their wholly owned subsidiary, FiberCo. Note: Light lunch provided. Free for IITP members, inexpensive for others. Registration required at the following URL: http://www.iitp.org.nz/events/waikato_bop/621-Next-generation_Networks Regards, David Hallett, BSc, MIITP ITCP P.O. Box 15-516 Hamilton, New Zealand Mobile: +64-21-802 256

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New wine, old wineskins
by Michael McDonald 03 Aug '12

03 Aug '12

New wine, old wineskins Thought I might have had a problem to bring along to tomorrow's work but alas, I managed to find a workaround. Read on ... Had a long day Saturday trying to get Ubuntu 12.04 on to an old computer (or two). Live CD ran perfectly OK, but install seemed to crash at the same spot each time. The last machine I tried had an AMD 2000+ CPU, so after the failure with the 32 bit live CD, downloaded and tried the AMD/64 bit version. No go for that ... CPU was 32 bit - AMD wasn't relevant in this case! Did a little bit of Googling and it looked like PAE (pyhsical address extension) might be the problem. Recommended action was try Xubuntu or Lubuntu. Downloaded Xubuntu. Live CD ran up normally but install crashed, apparently at the same spot. Oh well, may have to live with an older version, so installed 11.10. Live CD was fine, Install went fine. Reboot ... and YUCK ... 640x480 (or worse) screen display. Also promptly appearing was the screen offering an upgrade to 12.04. Do I decide to chase the nVidia driver problem or try the online upgrade? Chose the latter (can always reinstall 11.10). Some windows were a bit of a problem ... had to use Alt/F7 to move them around so I could see the buttons at the bottom of the window. I was reminded why I always do fresh installs when changing sytems. It took at least two hours, and downloaded at least 700MB of files from the Internet. And guess what... Success! Video fine, 12.04 runs fine. Total Internet usage for the day was over 3.5GB. Would have been quicker for me to to pop down to PBTech, buy a "clean" computer, and install U12.04! Michael

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Nokia reportedly planning to sell Qt as more developers are laid off
by Peter Reutemann 01 Aug '12

01 Aug '12

"Nokia is shutting down its Qt offices in Australia, laying off the team that was responsible for developing key parts of the open source development toolkit, including the QML user interface layout system." -- source: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/08/nokia-reportedly-plan… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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Bogus leap second disrupts Linux systems
by Peter Reutemann 01 Aug '12

01 Aug '12

"Last night, various time servers wrongly announced that a leap second would be applied; it is as yet unclear whether this was caused by a simple bug or whether it could have been a DoS attack that targeted Linux systems." --source: http://h-online.com/-1657965 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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MATE 1.4 desktop improves Caja file manager
by Peter Reutemann 01 Aug '12

01 Aug '12

Funny... Ever since GNOME 2.x got forked and the MATE project was born, the progress of the desktop seems much faster than it used to be... "Version 1.4 of the fork of the older 2.x branch of GNOME adds support for sharing files via bluetooth and features further improvements to the Caja file manager." -- source: http://h-online.com/-1655846 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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Meeting topics for 23 Jul 2012
by Rene Bartosh 23 Jul '12

23 Jul '12

Hi all, Does anyone have any subjects they would be willing to present at the next Monday meeting (in a weeks time)? Or for any upcoming meetings for that matter? I have a Raspberry PI on order (as I suspect a few others do too) which I am happy to bring along for a look and a tinker once it arrives - should be in the next month or two. Also I've signed up for the Beginners and Friends Python Programming Workshop (see http://www.meetup.com/nz-python-user-group/events/71029952/) so I'm happy to give a quick recap of that if anyone is interested. Another topic I could talk on is the XBMC home theater package - xbmc.org if anyone is interested. Regards, Rene -- >From Rene Bartosh (Gmail account) <kirjava(a)gmail.com> Personal: http://kirjava.net.nz/

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Measuring / limiting internet use
by Bruce Kingsbury 20 Jul '12

20 Jul '12

At community centre I have a debian server that routes / filters all network traffic. Is there any easy way to produce graphs of daily internet use by machine, by site visited, etc? I've tried to set up a few different packages but I can't figure any of them out, what's the easiest option? Also at home I have one computer that uses between 2GB and 3GB every day. Is there any easy way to limit this to 200M a day and then just cut off the internet for the next 24 hours?

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Sublime Text Editor
by mailinglist 19 Jul '12

19 Jul '12

Hi all, For anyone writing code, this was a new one for me yesterday http://www.sublimetext.com There is a ppa for it which is simpler than the website's download option. https://launchpad.net/~webupd8team/+archive/sublime-text-2/ Dependencies include Mono and you are obliged to pay for it if you decide to use it. I've had a quick play with it. Looks pretty whizzy but I've yet to decide if I'll buy it. If anything, it's an insight into what is possible. Cheers, Chris

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