March 2022 - Lug-nuts

Poking at Mailman3: some glitches
by Rick Moen 28 Mar '22

28 Mar '22

So, as a longtime Mailman2 site-admin, I've been poking around Brian's Mailman3 installation, getting to know it better. Mailman3 was a from-scratch rewrite. Among other things, the familiar "pipermail" archiver (in Python 2.7.x) has been replaced with "hyperkitty" in Python 3, and the familiar "listinfo" Web interface for subscribers and site-admins has been replaced by "postorius". Those of us still running Mailman2 (see for comparsion http://linuxmafia.com/mailman/listinfo/conspire ) have a near-term problem, because Python 2.7.x is now dead, dead, dead, and therefore so is pre 3.x Mailman. OTOH, Mailman3 has been controversial for reasons I don't want to get deep into, to the point that some site admins are looking at ways to move sideways to other MLMs (mailing list managers). The postorius page for lug-nuts is here: https://bigbrie.com/mailman3/postorius/lists/lug-nuts.bigbrie.com/ The archives ("hyperkitty") page is here: https://bigbrie.com/mailman3/hyperkitty/list/lug-nuts@bigbrie.com/ (As with Mailman2, those two pages cross-link to each other.) Point 1: Brian, maybe you should add one of those URLs (maybe the postorius one) to the standard footer applied to postings by Mailman. IMO, that was a very useful default feature of Mailman2. Anticipating the objection: Yes, that information is provided in a MLM-added header in all postings, which anyone who shows full headers can see. That's in fact how I found those two pages. However, IMO, it's really handy to have one in the footer, where _non_-technical people might notice it. (Like, I'll bet that maybe two other people reading this comment were aware of those normally-hidden headers.) Point 2: On the postorius page, I notice there's no link for subscribers to view the membership roster, as there was on the corresponding Mailman2 listinfo page. Brian, is that public-facing feature just totally gone? Is there a way to switch it back on? IMO, there are multiple good reasons why, for most mailing lists, the subscribers should have access to view the subscriber roster. Among them is continuity: It makes a mailing list easier to re-host if any of a variety of bad things happen. (Like, sadly, we're all mortal.) Point 3: On a hunch that the "Subscription/Unsubscription" link on the postorius page gives access to subscription options, as it did on the Mailman2 listinfo page, I tried that "Log in" button, taking me to https://bigbrie.com/mailman3/accounts/login/?next=/mailman3/postorius/lists… . That page has "Username or e-maiL" and "Password" fields, and also a "Forgot Password?" link. Attempting my subscriber e-mail address and what I _historically_ used as my subscription password, I got "The e-mail address and/or password you specified are not correct." OK, fair enough. Quite probably, Brian let Mailman3 generate random subscriber passwords when he re-hosted the mailing list. So, I go back to https://bigbrie.com/mailman3/accounts/login/?next=/mailman3/postorius/lists… , and attempt "forgot Password?", which goes to https://bigbrie.com/mailman3/accounts/password/reset/ , where you can re-enter your e-mail address and hit the "Reset My Password" button. When I do that, I see "The e-mail address is not assigned to any user account" -- and cannot do subscriber-password reset. So, Brian, although I'm self-evidently subscribed, Mailman3 claims I'm not when I ask to reset my password. Stalemate. Something is broken. Point 4: On the https://bigbrie.com/mailman3/hyperkitty/list/lug-nuts@bigbrie.com/ archives page, _yesterday_ when I tried to drill down to individual archived threads and postings, I got HTTP errors. I was just now rechecking, in order to cite specifics, and _now_ all those links appear to work. So, I guess there's no reproducible bug to investigate, but I swear I wasn't hallucinating. ;-> If I had to guess, I think there were glitches in hyperkitty's back-end database at the time. Be advised. Point 5: Any chance you can get the pre-Feb. 28, 2022 mailing list archive from Roberto Leibman, and import it into the Mailman3 history? I'm sure hyperkitty has the facility to read in the mbox file from a Mailman2 mailing list, as part of the migration/upgrade facilities.

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Replying to the list.
by Gary 25 Mar '22

25 Mar '22

I've noticed that if I don't do a reply-all, my replies don't go to the list, only to the other party. That usually isn't what I want. FYI -Gary

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Re: Fedora 35
by Gary 24 Mar '22

24 Mar '22

I can't really look now, its all updated :) But although the OS was old, the browser,firefox-dev, was pretty current. The process of upgrading to 35/XFCE was pretty smooth, except I had misused my /var partition. There were some interesting gotchas. Using the "Custom" partition manager in the installer, I couldn't define a root, '/', partition. I would revert to whatever was there earlier. I had to use "Custom Advanced". And the progress meters were a little wonky, which made me wonder if I was hung a couple of times. I went through all this because I was trying to build Matter, home automation, and it didn't like my python version. It still doesn't like my python version LOL. I installed GIMP and it installed python2, so I might have to see was is going on there. Also, just as previously, ImageMagick display images are all very translucent. It makes me think there is a setting that is off in my home directory, but I haven't been able to find anything. -Gary On Thu, Mar 24, 2022 at 01:19:24PM -0700, Linus Sphinx wrote: > Could it be a TLS error in your browser being so ancient? 1,0 and 1.1 have > both been deprecated. I quit fighting it and went with gnome. > > On Wed, Mar 23, 2022 at 7:59 AM Gary <saclug(a)garymcglinn.com> wrote: > > > I was trying to do an install/build on my Fedora 23 development system, > > which, admittedly, is old. My python version was too old. I decided to > > get the latest Fedora and upgrade things. When I tried to initiate the > > download I received an invalid certificate error. Really. Considering > > what I'm downloading, I decided not to override. > > > > Anyone else seen this? I consider this a sign of rapidly approaching > > death, most of the time. Also, I couldn't find the usual "spins" option > > for the download. I like to use XFCE. > > > > For now, I'm going to python.org and taking my chances there. > > > > -Gary > > _______________________________________________ > > Lug-nuts mailing list -- lug-nuts(a)bigbrie.com > > To unsubscribe send an email to lug-nuts-leave(a)bigbrie.com > >

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Fedora 35
by Gary 24 Mar '22

24 Mar '22

I was trying to do an install/build on my Fedora 23 development system, which, admittedly, is old. My python version was too old. I decided to get the latest Fedora and upgrade things. When I tried to initiate the download I received an invalid certificate error. Really. Considering what I'm downloading, I decided not to override. Anyone else seen this? I consider this a sign of rapidly approaching death, most of the time. Also, I couldn't find the usual "spins" option for the download. I like to use XFCE. For now, I'm going to python.org and taking my chances there. -Gary

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demand for python programmers and Java
by Brian E. Lavender 16 Mar '22

16 Mar '22

This article is a little "old", yet I thought it was interesting how things progressed during pandemic. https://www.zdnet.com/article/developer-jobs-demand-for-programming-languag… I really like the way I can use Java 8, 11, and recent on Fedora! https://adoptium.net/ Plus, I really like being able to use Maven and just throw in a few dependencies and it just works! Brian -- Brian Lavender http://www.brie.com/brian/ "There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies. And the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies." Professor C. A. R. Hoare The 1980 Turing award lecture

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anybody check the Lenovo X1 Carbon?
by Brian E. Lavender 11 Mar '22

11 Mar '22

It comes with Fedora or Ubuntu pre-installed. https://9to5linux.com/lenovos-thinkpad-x1-carbon-gen-9-laptop-now-comes-wit… Brian -- Brian Lavender http://www.brie.com/brian/ "There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies. And the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies." Professor C. A. R. Hoare The 1980 Turing award lecture

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Re: Matter
by Gary 07 Mar '22

07 Mar '22

The project was interesting too because the processor used apparently had a lot of "bugs" that the author needed to work around. I got the impression there was a misuse of the board, since I can't really believe that a commercial product would have such fundamental bugs. Regardless, it looks like Matter runs over WiFi. It seems like LoRa, is another physical layer that is an alternative to WiFi and is used extensively by IoT devices. The chips I have use WiFi radios. But they were cheap. It seems like I sould go back and compare LoRa and WiFi and see what gives. I found this article, which looks like a good start: https://predictabledesigns.com/wireless_technologies_bluetooth_wifi_zigbee_… On another note, perhaps I should consider having more than one google/gmail account and use one for phones and one for desktop/servers. Or something similar. I use old phones for all kinds of dedicated things or for apps that I just don't want on my primary phone. But I don't think there is a limit to the number of google accounts I can have. -Gary On Sun, Mar 06, 2022 at 10:03:41PM -0800, Brian E. Lavender wrote: > Try privacy badger! It will block a lot of those cross site cookies > > I have some old X10 stuff too! I had an X10 alarm, but then another > company took it over and the base station wasn't actually programmed to > call them! > > Did you check out the Lorada? That project looks very cool. > > On Sun, Mar 06, 2022 at 09:51:42AM -0800, Gary wrote: > > I bought some ESP8266's a while back and was going to look into programing them to be part of a WiFi home automation network. I never really got started. Then I saw an article on Matter and was wondering if I could piggy back on it to build the devices. > > > > Thanks for all the info. I'm not sure when I'll get to pick this project back up. > > > > I'm using X-10. Really old stuff, I know. But, when I started, it was pretty new :). It still works pretty well for lights and heating/cooling. Which is really all I need. But I do get "ghost" signals that turn on my front porch light at random times. > > > > I also have an rPi I'm working on to do speach recognition/sphinx3 and espeak/festival. I had it basically working, but without performing any actions, just translating to text and then I got busy with other things and its backslided. > > > > I basically don't buy into the IoT model and am not comfortable with google et. al. listening to me and my girlfriend in front of the fire place in the evening. When we visit interesting sites, we alway use my phone so she doesn't get hammered with the resulting ads and I don't need more of that in my life. My phone already feeds me videos based on things I've viewed on my desktop. It really sucks IMHO, but what are you going to do. > > > > -Gary > > > > On Fri, Mar 04, 2022 at 05:43:39PM -0800, Shu-Wai Chow wrote: > > > Matter is a Zigbee evolution, and Zigbee is basically because Apple, Google, et. al were late to the home automation game, saw that Z-Wave was already there, but didn’t want to pay licenses for Z-Wave. So in typical big tech fashion, Apple did their own thing in Homekit, Amazon and Google implemented a mix of Zigbee and Z-wave poorly and without the slickness of Apple. Matter is them saying, “ok, we can’t topple Z-Wave, so let’s finally work together.” > > > > > > Matter will probably matter and reign supreme in a few years, but I for now, Z-Wave is still the safest bet in a mess of an environment. > > > > > > I currently run a Z-Wave automated home using a Hubitat controller. It mostly works, but the main problem with Z-Wave is that most devices are either junk or poorly implement the interface. Your mileage will vary. > > > > > > > > > > On Mar 4, 2022, at 9:06 AM, Gary <saclug(a)garymcglinn.com> wrote: > > > > > > > > I play around with home automation a little. Not that I have that much to automate. > > > > > > > > Recently I've come across some kind of new standard that a bunch of the big boys are supporting called Matter. The documentation is a little sparse, and it looks like I'll have to download the source and build it to find anything out. I'm wondering about the hardware side. It seems like it is just anything with a WiFi radio that can run the right code, but I'm still exploring. > > > > > > > > Has anyone played with this? > > > > > > > > -Gary > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > > Lug-nuts mailing list -- lug-nuts(a)bigbrie.com > > > > To unsubscribe send an email to lug-nuts-leave(a)bigbrie.com > > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > Lug-nuts mailing list -- lug-nuts(a)bigbrie.com > > > To unsubscribe send an email to lug-nuts-leave(a)bigbrie.com > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Lug-nuts mailing list -- lug-nuts(a)bigbrie.com > > To unsubscribe send an email to lug-nuts-leave(a)bigbrie.com > > -- > Brian Lavender > http://www.brie.com/brian/ > > "There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to > make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies. And the other > way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies." > > Professor C. A. R. Hoare > The 1980 Turing award lecture

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Matter
by Gary 06 Mar '22

06 Mar '22

I play around with home automation a little. Not that I have that much to automate. Recently I've come across some kind of new standard that a bunch of the big boys are supporting called Matter. The documentation is a little sparse, and it looks like I'll have to download the source and build it to find anything out. I'm wondering about the hardware side. It seems like it is just anything with a WiFi radio that can run the right code, but I'm still exploring. Has anyone played with this? -Gary

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svlug
by Brian E. Lavender 05 Mar '22

05 Mar '22

I tried checking the svlug site and it looks like not out there. Anybody know what happened to them? Brian -- Brian Lavender http://www.brie.com/brian/ "There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies. And the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies." Professor C. A. R. Hoare The 1980 Turing award lecture

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Mail server
by Brian E. Lavender 04 Mar '22

04 Mar '22

How many are still running their own mail server? It seems that exim combined with sa-exim, and spam assassin nightly rule updates works pretty well. I have to say that this experience installing mailman was enlightening especially when it comes to lmtp. Brian -- Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

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Lug-nuts March 2022