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Spark: The first free-software, Linux tablet is on its way

The Spark, which will be based on MeeGo and use KDE Plasma for its interface, will be the first free software tablet.                                                                  

Say hi to Spark, the first free software, Linux tablet.                                

Open-source software and Linux, thanks to Android, is well represented on tablets. But, if you didn’t want to deal with proprietary firmware and software, you were out of luck… until now. Aaron Seigo, one of the KDE’s lead developers, and his team are just about ready to roll-out the first tablet based entirely on Linux and free software: The Spark.

 

More  at - http://aseigo.blogspot.com/2012/01/reveal.html

Time Synchronisation with NTP

NTP is a TCP/IP protocol for synchronising time over a network. Basically a client requests the current time from a server, and uses it to set its own clock.

Behind this simple description, there is a lot of complexity - there are tiers of NTP servers, with the tier one NTP servers connected to atomic clocks (often via GPS), and tier two and three servers spreading the load of actually handling requests across the Internet. Also the client software is a lot more complex than you might think - it has to factor out communication delays, and adjust the time in a way that does not upset all the other processes that run on the server. But luckily all that complexity is hidden from you!

Linux Distros has two ways of automatically setting your time: ntpdate and ntpd.

ntpdate as standard, and will run it once at boot time.

The ntp daemon ntpd is far more subtle. It calculates the drift of your system clock and continuously adjusts it, so there are no large corrections that could lead to inconsistent logs for instance.

The Sysstat Suite of Resource Monitoring Tools

Sysstat is a sophisticated tool.

Sysstat contains the following tools related to collecting I/O and CPU statistics:

iostat
Displays an overview of CPU utilization, along with I/O statistics for one or more disk drives.

mpstat
Displays more in-depth CPU statistics.

Sysstat also contains tools that collect system resource utilization data and create daily
reports based on that data. These tools are:

sadc
Known as the system activity data collector, sadc collects system resource utilization
information and writes it to a file.

sar
Producing reports from the files created by sadc, sar reports can be generated interactively
or written to a file for more intensive analysis.

LCP: timeout sending Config-Requests

This is a general error condition that is common to a number of causes. It means that pppd did not receive any LCP configuration requests from the peer, or was unable to agree on LCP parameters. Enable debug logging, try the connection again, and look at messages just prior to this message.

There are many causes for the timeout error:

MSCHAP negotiation failed,

no GRE packets were received by the client,

no GRE packets were transmitted by the server,

invalid GRE packets were transmitted by the server,

no GRE packets were transmitted by the client.

invalid GRE packets were transmitted by the client,

Use tcpdump to check the flow of GRE packets.

Reference

http://pptpclient.sourceforge.net/howto-diagnosis.phtml#lcp_timeout

BSNL 3G wvdial.conf

Example configuration:

 

[Dialer bsnl3g]
Init1 = ATZ
Init2 = ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
Init3 = AT+CGDCONT=1,"IP","bsnlnet","",0,0
Modem Type = USB Modem
Baud = 460800
New PPPD = yes
Modem = /dev/ttyACM0
ISDN = 0
Phone = *99***1#
Password = 948*
Username = 948*
New PPPD = yes
Stupid Mode = yes

Troubleshooting Domain DNS issues.

Example troubleshooting steps in resolving your network/DNS connection.

vector:/~
vector:$ traceroute -n -w 2 -q 2 -m 30 4.2.2.2
traceroute to 4.2.2.2 (4.2.2.2), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
1 218.248.84.10 100.556 ms 319.220 ms
2 10.42.43.97 290.287 ms 291.111 ms
3 10.42.43.28 339.076 ms 340.995 ms
4 172.24.7.214 339.961 ms *
5 209.58.33.133 590.822 ms 589.914 ms
6 64.86.252.45 658.764 ms 660.691 ms
7 4.68.62.117 661.651 ms 662.608 ms
8 4.69.144.3 664.563 ms 4.69.144.67 663.506 ms
9 4.2.2.2 564.279 ms 548.440 ms
vector:/~
vector:$

If you are on a windows box, try tracert -d 4.2.2.2

vector:/~
vector:$ nslookup -debug mit.edu 4.2.2.2
Server: 4.2.2.2
Address: 4.2.2.2#53

------------
QUESTIONS:
mit.edu, type = A, class = IN
ANSWERS:
-> mit.edu
internet address = 18.9.22.69
ttl = 60
AUTHORITY RECORDS:
ADDITIONAL RECORDS:
------------
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: mit.edu
Address: 18.9.22.69

vector:/~
vector:$ dig @4.2.2.2 mit.edu

; <<>> DiG 9.7.3-P1 <<>> @4.2.2.2 mit.edu
; (1 server found)
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 343
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;mit.edu. IN A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
mit.edu. 26 IN A 18.9.22.69

;; Query time: 388 msec
;; SERVER: 4.2.2.2#53(4.2.2.2)
;; WHEN: Mon Jan 9 14:41:43 2012
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 41

vector:/~
vector:$

Open public dns server list

Changing DNS server settings on a Debian server to Google Public DNS

#http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/
nameserver 8.8.8.8
nameserver 8.8.4.4

Other DNS serves.

#http://www.opendns.com/
nameserver 208.67.222.222
nameserver 208.67.220.220

Edit /etc/resolv.conf:
sudo vi /etc/resolv.conf

If any nameserver lines appear, write down the IP addresses for future reference.
Replace the nameserver lines with, or add, the following lines:

For IPv4:
nameserver 8.8.8.8
nameserver 8.8.4.4

Support of nginx web-server - Nginx , open-source, high-performance HTTP server

NGINX provides a unique combination of web server, caching proxy and load balancing solution to any web site that just wants to be consistently efficient. Because of its design and architecture NGINX has already enabled more performance, scalability, reliability and security to many organizations across the world. Today NGINX is the 2nd most popular open source web server on the Internet.

In fact, if the open source developer continues to grow at its current rate, it could eventually take over Microsoft to have the second largest number of active sites.

Today, NGINX powers over 40 million domains on the Internet, and over 20 percent of the top 1,000 busiest websites.

NGINX (from “engine x”) is a web server, caching proxy and accelerated load distribution solution. Millions of web sites on the Internet benefit from using NGINX because of its extreme performance, scalability, reliability and security.

Features

HTTP and HTTPS (TLS/SSL/SNI)

Ultra-fast web server for static content

FastCGI, WSGI, SCGI for dynamic content

Accelerated web proxy with load balancing and caching

Non-stop live binary upgrades and configuration

Compression and content filters

Virtual hosts

Media streaming for FLV and MP4

Bandwidth and connection policing

Comprehensive access control

Custom logging

Embedded scripting

Mail proxying for SMTP/IMAP/POP3 with TLS

Logical, flexible, scalable configuration

Runs on Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X, Solaris and Windows.

General questions?  Need support?

Email us at admin@serversignature.com, we make a serious effort to respond to emails.

Linux 3.2

Summary:

This release includes support for Ext4 block sizes bigger than 4KB and up to 1MB, which improve performance with big files; btrfs has been updated with faster scrubbing, automatic backup of critical filesystem metadata and tools for manual inspection of the filesystems; the process scheduler has added support to set upper limits of CPU time; the desktop reponsiveness in presence of heavy writes has been improved, TCP has been updated to include an algorithm which speeds up the recovery of the connection after lost packets; the profiling tool "perf top" has added support for live inspection of tasks and libraries and see the annotated assembly code; the Device Mapper has added support for 'thin provisioning' of storage, and a new architeture has been added: the Hexagon DSP processor from Qualcomm. Other drivers and small improvements and fixes are also available in this release.

 

Reference:  http://kernelnewbies.org/

slapt-get Debian APT system to Slackware

An implementation of the Debian APT system to Slackware

Usage:

slapt-get [option(s)] [target]

Targets:

-u, --update retrieve pkg data from MIRROR
--upgrade upgrade installed pkgs
--dist-upgrade upgrade to newer release

-i, --install [pkg name(s)] - install specified pkg(s)
--install-set [disk set(s)] - install specified disk set(s)
--remove [pkg name(s)] - remove specified pkg(s)

--show [pkg name(s)] - show pkg(s) description
--filelist [pkg name(s)] - show pkg(s) installed files
--search [expression] - search available pkgs

--list list pkgs
--available list available pkgs
--installed list installed pkgs

--clean purge cached pkgs
--autoclean only purge cache of older, unreacheable pkgs
--add-keys retrieve GPG keys for sources

-h, --help display this help and exit
--version print version and license info

Options:

-d, --download-only only download pkg on install/upgrade
-s, --simulate show pkgs to be installed/upgraded
-y, --no-prompt do not prompt during install/upgrade

-p, --prompt always prompt during install/upgrade
--reinstall reinstall the pkg
--ignore-excludes install/upgrade excludes
--no-md5 do not perform md5 check sum

--no-dep skip dependency check
--ignore-dep ignore dependency failures
--print-uris print URIs only, do not download
-S, --show-stats show download statistics

-c, --config [] specify alternate slapt-getrc location
--remove-obsolete remove obsolete packages
--retry [] specify number of download retry attempts
--no-upgrade install package, do not attempt to upgrade