KCLUG November 2006

kclug@kclug.org

43 participants
48 discussions

RE: Laptop Shopping
by Kelsay, Brian - Kansas City, MO 01 Dec '06

01 Dec '06

Like any computer purchase, it depends what you want to use it for that matters most. Do you intend to play games, do graphic artwork, sound or video editing, programming, general web surfing and email, play stupid Flash videos, do a lot of things at once or maybe only a couple? Do you intend to run Windows and Linux or Linux only? On Linux, which distro and Window Manager do you intend to run? Is this for you, your wife or your kids or all of the above? I ask because I know a bit about you and know this would all affect the purchasing decision. Some things have already been said about 3D accel, so I'll leave those alone. I personally like nVidia and would load the drivers from the mfgr. If I thought they were better. I've not had much good luck with ATI cards until the Radeon series, so they don't rate too high with me under any OS. I do like the nVidia nForce chipset however. I'd go with the Turion if you definitely want to run a 64-bit system. Say you want to program some 64-bit stuff or you want to run a 64-bit system. But I have some news for you, you won't notice much as a regular desktop user. I have a 64-bit Athlon XP and it runs great, but I've installed both Kubuntu 64-bit and 32-bit and noticed no differences in speed or performance. Two glaring things though, I can't run Flash with out jumping thru hoops and I still haven't got it working and I can't run Wine at all. If you need those two things for your stupid videos or to play games, stop right here. You can still buy and run a 64-bit system, but you might as well run in 32-bit mode and load a 32-bit OS. And don't even think about running Winders XP 64-bit, it sucks and the drivers suck for the most part. Kubuntu 64-bit was a dream compared to XP 64, like I even needed to tell you that. I have a Sempron desktop model at a lower clock speed and it runs fine in Winders and Linux. Winders for copying movies for personal use and Linux as a File and Web server. I know you a bit and last I heard you had an all Linux household, but if you want to dual boot for games or something like special recording programs for you or your son, then make sure you get a laptop with a big enough HDD to support it. I'd suggest at least a 100GB HDD for this situation. For Linux only, you could probably get away with a 60 or 80GB with no problem. I use way less than this on a desktop. Kubuntu 64 and 32 each have 6GB on disk and I have a BIG /home directory. For general computing get the low-end and add RAM. You can never go wrong with more RAM. The low-end models never have enough for current usage patterns. No sense paying 400-700 and having a slow laptop. KDE and Gnome have higher RAM requirements than fluxbox or XFCE. Get at least 512-1GB RAM and you will be happy no matter what WM or distro you get. Don't get super cheap RAM unless you want problems. Get a name brand RAM with a return policy if possible. Crucial, Infineon, OCZ, Corsair, maybe Patriot and Kingston. If you order a Dell or Gateway, you will pay an a**-load for added RAM. You can do it yourself for half the money with a small screwdriver and a separate online order. For your mobile audio recording, make sure your audio chip is supported under Linux well in ALSA, but you knew this and make sure there are no problems under Jack, Audacity and Rosegarden. I assume you will want to use these progs. I don't know about the USB sound device, but is shouldn't matter what CPU you get for that to work. If you run a 64-bit OS, however, check that there is a 64-bit module either in repos or that you can compile before running the 64-bit OS. Used laptops can compete if you are just looking for a general use machine. Especially if the used laptop has been souped up with 512MB or 1GB of RAM already. If it has been lightly used and fully checked out and if the battery still has a good life to it. If you have to replace the battery or if it has a short unplugged run time, what is the point? Replacement batteries are as you know about $100. You might get the nicads or whatever to fix it yourself for way less than that, but is that up your alley? Good luck with your purchasing decision. Brian >-----Original Message----- >From: On Behalf Of Jim Herrmann >So, I'm planning to buy a laptop. I started out by looking at >the low end of new ones today at the big box stores, and I >thought I would run some questions by all you gurus out there. > The lowest end of the laptop market today is so kick ass, >maybe it doesn't matter anymore, but here goes. > >I found several CPU's being used in the lower end. Which >one's do you all like for Linux on laptops: > >AMD Turion 64 >Intel Core Duo T2050 >AMD Sempron 3400 > >Obviously the Sempron just being a simple 32 bit processor was >quite a bit cheaper, but the 64 bit and dual cores have become >pretty price competitive. There was also an AMD Turion Dual >Core, and the Intel Core 2Duo, but those were in a higher >price bracket. I guess the question is, would you take a 32 >bit dual core over a 64 bit single core, and is it even worth >200 bucks to go there over a single core 32 bit processor? > >Then the other question I would have is did any one go out to >the early sales on Friday and get some great deals that they'd >be willing to pass on for some cash above what they paid? I'm >also not above considering a used laptop, but with the >price/performance of the new laptops today, can a used one >really compete? > >Let me just add that I want to do some mobile audio recording, >but I'll probably get a USB2 audio card for that. Do you >think it will matter what CPU I get for that to work well? >>Discuss. >>Thanks, >Jim

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SANS Course At KU
by Dave Hull 30 Nov '06

30 Nov '06

For any security folks or those with an interest in security who can't afford to travel to SANS courses, here's one in your backyard and it's cheap if you're affiliated with education, law enforcement or a Kansas state agency: Please forward the following to your friends and colleagues. ********************************* The University of Kansas and SANS are pleased to offer the extremely popular six-day certification course, "Hacker Techniques, Exploits & Incident Handling." (SANS course description: http://www.sans.org/training/description.php?tid=243). This training is offered to educational employees K-12 and college, members of law enforcement or state employees at a significantly reduced price (over 70% off of the normal price). SECURITY 504: Hacker Techniques, Exploits & Incident Handling April 22 - 28, 2007 9am - 6pm, Mon-Sat. (with a "Capture the Flag" session on Saturday) Holiday Inn Holidome, Lawrence, KS REGISTRATION: Course fees for employees of an accredited educational institution, members of law enforcement or state employees: $895 - Early Registration (by January 19, 2007) $995 - Late Registration (after January 19, 2007) Course fees for non-education/non-law enforcement attendees: $3,250 - Must register by March 1, 2007 The registration fee includes your course registration and manuals, refreshment breaks, daily lunches, and reception dinner (April 22, 2007). During the week of class, you may also register to seek your GCIH Certification for an additional fee of $300 (for more information: http://www.giac.org/certigications/security/gcfw.php) To register or for more information, please go to: http://www.continuinged.ku.edu/programs/security/ Thanks for your eyes. -- Dave Hull

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Problems with video conversion temp files
by Leo Mauler 29 Nov '06

29 Nov '06

I've been looking into doing some video editing in Linux. I have a video a friend of mine in Colorado took of our wedding. He digitized it and sent it to me awhile back (2000), before he had a DVD burner, so its about two hours of video on two CDs. So I thought I'd see if I could do what needed to be done to make a DVD out of it to pass on to the relatives. My best man's wedding toast is on it and he was rather good, so I also wanted to strip off the audio as its own file. I wanted to load the first hour of video into Kino (Kino was on the Debian package repository), so I told Kino to import the video (about 650MB AVI). About an hour later it had filled up the 8GB left in /home and wanted more. What I didn't read in the documentation is that Kino only works with DV files which are uncompressed audio and uncompressed video, and "importing" means it will convert compressed audio/video files into uncompressed DV files. So I stopped Kino, and deleted the temp file it had created. The problem is that the temp file didn't go away. I did "ls -lahR | less" and checked all the filesizes, and nothing was 7.9GB or anywhere near that size. Processes attached to my account were crashing all over the place, since they couldn't save their config files. Eventually I had to reboot and that fixed the problem, but I wanted to know if anyone knew of a solution that didn't require rebooting? Incidentally, what does work for home video editing (and is also on the standard Debian package repository) is: Avidemux (you might see it listed as Avidemux2). If any of you have used VirtualDub in Windows, Avidemux is VirtualDub, except I found Avidemux a little easier to figure out. Avidemux is available for Windows too. Converts, edits, strips out audio as its own file, all the stuff a home user needs. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Cheap talk? Check out Yahoo! Messenger's low PC-to-Phone call rates. http://voice.yahoo.com

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RE: SANS Course At KU
by Kelsay, Brian - Kansas City, MO 29 Nov '06

29 Nov '06

Hell, I'd pay my airfare if someone would pay the course fee. Yikes! >-----Original Message----- >From: On Behalf Of Luke -Jr > >On Wednesday 29 November 2006 11:41, Dave Hull wrote: >> $895 - Early Registration (by January 19, 2007) >> $995 - Late Registration (after January 19, 2007) > >Isn't that expensive or at least non-cheap if someone can't >afford travel to the regular SANS stuff? :p (or has airfare >gone up that much lately?) >

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the latest drama about google earth
by David Nicol 28 Nov '06

28 Nov '06

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=5091 -- perl -le'1while(1x++$_)=~/^(11+)\1+$/||print'

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Linux system rescue distribution
by Kyle Sexton 27 Nov '06

27 Nov '06

Just picked up a 1G USB Flash drive and am trying to decide which system rescue distro to put on it. Anyone have any experience with these or other live rescue systems? Recovery is Possible (RIP) Linux, http://www.tux.org/pub/people/kent-robotti/looplinux/rip/ SystemRescueCD, http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page INSERT, http://www.inside-security.de/insert_en.html Basically looking for an environment with good tools to rescue Linux and Windows (ntfs) systems. -- Kyle Sexton

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KC SUG - November Meeting
by Russ Starr 27 Nov '06

27 Nov '06

I just wanted to let everyone know that tomorrow we will be having our Kansas City Snort User Group meeting for November. We will be hosting this at the KC Public Library's Plaza branch and details are located at: http://www.kcsnort.org/index.php/Meetings We have a special guest speaker tomorrow by the name of Matt Jonkman. He is the founder of Bleeding Edge Threats [http://www.bleedingthreats.net] and he will be discussing how to handle new threats using Intrusion Prevention System technology. As always, everyone is welcome regardless of your experience with Snort, GNU/Linux, security, etc. We just ask that you post a message to our list indicating your potential presence so we can get a basic head count. Thanks, -Russ

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Laptop Shopping
by Jim Herrmann 27 Nov '06

27 Nov '06

So, I'm planning to buy a laptop. I started out by looking at the low end of new ones today at the big box stores, and I thought I would run some questions by all you gurus out there. The lowest end of the laptop market today is so kick ass, maybe it doesn't matter anymore, but here goes. I found several CPU's being used in the lower end. Which one's do you all like for Linux on laptops: AMD Turion 64 Intel Core Duo T2050 AMD Sempron 3400 Obviously the Sempron just being a simple 32 bit processor was quite a bit cheaper, but the 64 bit and dual cores have become pretty price competitive. There was also an AMD Turion Dual Core, and the Intel Core 2Duo, but those were in a higher price bracket. I guess the question is, would you take a 32 bit dual core over a 64 bit single core, and is it even worth 200 bucks to go there over a single core 32 bit processor? Then the other question I would have is did any one go out to the early sales on Friday and get some great deals that they'd be willing to pass on for some cash above what they paid? I'm also not above considering a used laptop, but with the price/performance of the new laptops today, can a used one really compete? Let me just add that I want to do some mobile audio recording, but I'll probably get a USB2 audio card for that. Do you think it will matter what CPU I get for that to work well? Discuss. Thanks, Jim

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Re: Laptop Shopping
by Jared Jennings 27 Nov '06

27 Nov '06

I would disagree with that statement. Specially when it comes to Linux. nVidia I believe is much better supported in the Linux world.\ Jared >>> Luke-Jr <luke(a)dashjr.org> 11/26/06 11:37 PM >>> You'll want to be careful about WiFi and video chipsets. Not sure on the WiFi, but be sure you don't get an nVidia chipset if you need 3D performance. ATis up to the X850 and Intels should be good, though... _______________________________________________ Kclug mailing list Kclug(a)kclug.org http://kclug.org/mailman/listinfo/kclug

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Job Opening - System Engineer
by Kyle Sheumaker 27 Nov '06

27 Nov '06

Hope this isn't too off topic... We're looking to fill a System Engineer position at Advanced Clustering Technologies. We are a local small business that focus on building high performance computer clusters to higher education, government, and large corporations. It's a full-time position with benefits (insurance, vacation, 401K with matching). Job requires a high-level of Linux skills, and interaction with customers, including some travel. You can check out the full details of the job (and company) at: http://www.advancedclustering.com/cms/systems_engineer.html If interested please send me a resume. Thanks! Kyle Sheumaker Advanced Clustering P: 913-643-0305 F: 913-643-0299

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KCLUG November 2006