GRG's Miscellany

This is a record of my experience of setting this up.  It's meant more as a record for my future self than a tutorial, but maybe somebody will find it useful. 1 - Install DCS First step, install DCS World via the Steam client as normal.  2 - Install LinuxTrack Linuxtrack Download here: https://github.com/uglyDwarf/linuxtrack/wiki/Downloads   Instructions here: https://github.com/uglyDwarf/linuxtrack/wiki/universal-Linuxtrack-package   Using the gui (ltr_gui) requires qt4 libraries, which I could not find in my standard Ubuntu repositories, so I had to use the ppa instructions here: https://ubuntuhandbook.org/index.php/2020/07/install-qt4-ubuntu-20-04 Run ltr_gui from linuxtrack's bin directory to check everything works so far before moving on to get it running under Proton.  3 - Install LinuxTrack into the DCS World prefix NOTE: Attempting to install for Wine games WON'T WORK e.g. here https://github-wiki-see.page/m/uglyDwarf/linuxtrack/wiki/Wine-Games   Th...

Today I completed the transition of my NAS machine from RAID 6 to a ZFS pool.  To document the process for my future self and any semi-interested rando who stumbles across this, here is an outline of how I did it. Part 1 - Research I found this 'ZFS for Dummies' post really useful to re-familiarise myself with the core concepts.  Once I'd done that, the Ubuntu examples here were really useful as well as this post with more detailed information than I would ever need. My RAID was nowhere near full, which meant I could manage the process without having to restore everything from backups (although I made damn sure I had working backups before I messed with it). Part 2 - Degrading the RAID and pooling the freed-up drives First, I marked two drives from the RAID as failed so I could use them in the zfs pool.  I changed their partition type with cfdisk but I had trouble making a pool out of them because they kept on being picked up and re-started as a raid device.  In ...

To explain why and how I've done this, I'm going to talk a little about my home-security measures/architecture, which I'm not too comfortable about.  However, security-through-obscurity isn't security at all so here goes... I've used AIDE ( the intrusion detection program , not the Android IDE) for years now to improve my confidence that nobody is poking around on the home machines I have open to the internet. I have my internet-visible machines on their own separate subnet under a dedicated router.  I call it a DMZ , even though I'm not 100% sure that's technically accurate in my case. Anyway, my normal trusted subnet sits under a different router, so I can be fairly confident nothing can get in from the DMZ to my trusted subnet.  However, to run the intruder detection checks, I have a machine on the trusted subnet ssh in to each of the DMZ machines in turn (copying the static-linked binary and database over each time before running the check). Ubu...

Mumble is beautiful.  It is simple and does exactly what it says on the tin. Something new I discovered about it today is that the static linux release works out-of-the-box on TinyCore ! I got an old thin client off ebay a while back (an IGEL D200 ) and it's so crap it wouldn't even boot with a USB plugged in.  Maybe that's some security BS I haven't found the BIOS switch for, but I gave up on trying to find a way round it. So what I did was set up a VM in VirtualBox which had the right RAM/HDD sizes, then install TinyCore and do the setup. Then, I followed the instructions here (but with VirtualBox not VMware) to clone the VM onto the CF card from the thin client (using CloneZilla ).  I had to use the command line instructions from here to create a raw disk vmdk file for the VM.  I also had to change the permissions on the vmdk file and the block device (/dev/sdd in my case) so I didn't have to run VirtualBox as root. ...but then I slotted the CF c...

Windows lets me have sound through my speakers and headphones simultaneously, which is great for not having to plug in/unplug my headphones when I want to switch.  I just have to don the headphones and turn down the volume on my speakers.  No fiddling about with jacks. However!  Ubuntu seemed to have no way of sorting this out. This post, however, describes how to change your line-in into an output jack! http://askubuntu.com/questions/225017/how-do-i-change-which-audio-jacks-are-used-for-input-and-output It uses the HDA Analyser tool from the Alsa Project.  Not a well documented tool, but the post above has all the information you need.

DAMN, this has been a total pain in the backside. I wanted to record a video of my latest game writing developments with commentary.   (Ubuntu 12.0.3 LTS, with KDE desktop) The normal desktop recording applications failed to cope with OpenGL, which is understandable, really.  So then I found glc . glc looked like it would do everything I wanted, and after a couple of frustrating hours, it turns out it actually will.  This is good. The bad is that the documentation is non-existent, and figuring it out has got me VERY CROSS, with quite a tension-headache to boot. Command line which finally worked: glc-capture -o blah.glc -j -a 'sysdefault:CARD=camera,48000,1' java -jar MyGame.jar Gotcha 1: It doesn't tell you how to specify the application part (java -jar MyGame.jar).  It took me ages to realise that it cannot deal with quotes .  Just put the application in as you would type it normally in the command line. Gotcha 2: Finding the ALSA device nam...

OMFG, NFS servers are SUCH a pain in the backside.  But anyway, here are some useful tricks: On server:     netstat -l lists which services are listening on which port.    rpcinfo -p also lists rpc processes, with program numbers and ports     /etc/services The file portmapper uses to see which port the services should run on.  Names of the relevant services are: mountd lockd and status HOWEVER:     sysctl -w fs.nfs.nlm_tcpport=blah    sysctl -w fs.nfs.nlm_udpport=blah might be needed to set the port of nlockmgr.  Why it doesn't listen to portmapper, I've no idea. Debug logs:    - kill the server process (nfsd, mountd, or whichever)    - run the server process with a -F or without the -D to force it to run in the foreground (you also might have to include a debug or verbose mode option.    - try to mount the nfs share from the client.  Now you should get a load of mean...

Why? I've been using OpenVPN for gaming.  I have heard of Hamachi , but open source tastes better. I wanted to have an OpenVPN client running 24/7, so I tried running it on a low-power laptop.  This led to unacceptable latency and disconnects.  The encryption load was just too much. Having a powerful desktop running would solve that, but running costs build up all too fast. What? Via produce processors with low power consumption and hardware acceleration for encryption with their Padlock system. After quite a lot of searching for a cheap Via machine, I found this on eBay .  It's got a Via C7 processor (all of which have Padlock), and it turns out to use less than 30W even on peak load. How? I replaced the 1GB Compact Flash card with an 8GB one, then installed Ubuntu Server 12.4.1 via a USB stick.  (Choosing to install the OpenSSH server). I had found plenty of sources telling me to check which engines were available.  However, when I t...

http://thelinuxexperiment.com/guinea-pigs/tyler-b/how-to-test-hard-drive-for-errors-in-linux/ "badblocks -b 4096 -p 4 -c 16384 -w -s /dev/sda" WARNING: This test wipes all data on the hard drive

Solved an odd problem today. Problem 1: File locking My samba share directory on my ubuntu box has an nfs mounted directory within it. When copying files into it from Linux, everything was fine. However, Windows complained of error number 0x80070021 (something about another process locking a portion of the file).  It turns out Samba was trying to lock the file again once nfs had got its hands on it. Solution: in smb.conf, under [global], add 'strict locking = no' and the problem disappears! Problem 2: File permissions Linux coped perfectly fine already, possibly because of the file_mode=0777 and dir_mode=0777 that I'd added to fstab.  However, Windows failed to create the files with the correct permissions. Solution: under [mediashare], add 'create mask = 0775' and the permissions are right under Windows too!

Recently, my Ubuntu install felt the need to corrupt its own package install database and refuse to start up. Having good backups and little patience, I decided to go for a clean install. I thought I'd try Debian for a change. Ubuntu is Debian-based so I figured they'd be similar, and I use Debian for my server so I thought I'd be able to handle any differences easily. The first warning signs were when I wanted to install the video drivers. Ubuntu makes that so very easy. Debian makes you take a few steps through. Not ideal, but not arduous either. Installing compiz-fusion was more of a pain, but still manageable. Again, this is a piece of cake on Ubuntu. More similar niggles followed, but I figured I was just being soft. Then I tried installing wine and Sketchup and I quickly became enraged. I had managed this task on Ubuntu with only a little hacking, and no undue fuss. Here's the breakdown of the process under Debian: 1: Install wine ...