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Messages - unsolicited

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16
Developers / Re: Bug: Swap Interfaces button missing.
« on: April 16, 2009, 07:34:33 am »
I'm assuming this is your ticket - http://svn.linuxmce.org/trac.cgi/ticket/169 - in the future, put a name or e-mail so someone can get back in touch with you.

Yes, my ticket. As the ticket says, by the time the button showed up, I no longer needed it. Didn't seem to be any point to anyone getting back to me.

Can you test out that patch and see how it does?

Can't, sorry, that machine has been re-commissioned for other purposes. If I run into this again, I can get back to it. [It's not like I _wanted_ the silly things to come in as anything other than eth0 and eth1!  hmm.]

But - this was on 7.10. Reading the ticket, the patch is for 8.10.

Could you kindly point me to a couple of lmce links:
- the process of applying such patches to 7.10 - if that even makes sense (?).
- a 'start here first' link for sinking into contributing to lmce. Note: I wouldn't expect to be contributing code any time soon. Documentation / help / wiki, more likely, at least initially. I assume a particular 'build environment' is de rigeur.

I'm still trying to sink in to lmce, so I'm hesitant to get in to 'nightly build' / beta software - while in this learning curve I'm able to create enough self-inflicted aggravation as it is. Given the learning curve, it would be hard to distinguish between 'broken' and self-inflicted. [If docs = expected, and unexpected occurring, hard to tell difference between broken and self-inflicted stupidity.]

Is this hesitation 'reasonable caution'? (In the groups opinion?)

17
Feature requests & roadmap / Re: Moving target - "What's a gateway?"
« on: April 15, 2009, 04:58:34 am »
Firstly, Hari was correct - ..

Thank you for this most excellent post.

... On your initial question - I see no reason why everybody would not want the LinuxMCE core to perform many of the services you list, with the level of sophistication that you desire. But the practical fact is, at this point these functions are well down the priority list. There isn't anywhere like the person-power needed to address every point on that list, and so prioritisation is needed, and you will be happy to know that there are movements in progress to make that process more formal, and a "shared vision". True, that doesn't mean your points are any closer to being addressed, however it should at least give you comfort that there will be some structure around the process in future to ensure that they don't get lost indefinitely.

I take your point, but I say again, I have asked for nothing but if someone knows of a useful link (to a checklist sort of network services list) could they please post. And, with or without such links, if people had such a list, what might be on it.

I have not asked for development, or usage, or anything other than "Shall we make a list?"

You do make a good point - if we can come up with a list, ranking them would seem appropriate.

You need to be careful about using terms like "Customer" or discussing things in a way that assumes that the product and its developers are here to address desires, requirements or needs of some notional paying client ...

I hear you. A reasonably common phrase is "Who's your customer?" As you point out, people can read that poorly if they choose.

Please, wherever customer has been used, replace it with 'end user'.

As in, you probably have, in your mind's eye, a sense of whom you might give or suggest lmce to, or who you might like to. Be that person Linux guru or newbie. And I ask, if I remember correctly, because the intended target audience would impact the nature of the list. So, for example, if the target audience were the Linux guru you would expect / require them to deal with any anti-virus issues they might have on their own. If the target audience is a black box rank newbie, they you might reasonably expect to have in place an anti-virus solution. Note - I did not ask if it was, is, or will be, present in lmce. Merely, if we had such a list, what would be on it.

... One sentence can be written with one intent, but by changing the emphasis, can be read in several different ways - sarcastic, helpful, derisory, chiding, etc. Don't always assume that it was intended how you read it...

In some cases, the pointless non-productive sarcasm  spans many posts and are not one-off accidents of typing. More like "Boy, you are some STUPID for asking THAT question."

With that all in mind, my subjective reading of the comments - it was clear to me that Hari was directing Unsolicited appropriately. You are being unnecessarily sensitive, and reacting to "tone" that isn't there. Read the previous paragraph again with this in mind.

I cannot disagree that the direction was appropriate, but the truth of the message became lost in the abrasiveness of the delivery. There are assumptions that I even knew that threads could be moved (never come across that before), that 'feature requests' includes 'roadmap', and that I knew my target audience, developers (which includes more than coders), would be present. Let alone how.

I cannot agree that the sensitivity isn't warranted. The tone is clearly there.



Can we please get back to the original intent of the question posed:

"What's a gateway?" (What all is it composed of?)

I haven't come across any good links as to "What's a gateway?" / "What all a gateway does?"

- a simple checklist would be a good start, e.g. It has this and this and that and that.

Anyone with any good links / references / etc.?

And add ... links or not, shall we make such a checklist?

[It's just a checklist, a discussion, people, nothing more. Full stop.]

18
Feature requests & roadmap / Re: Moving target - "What's a gateway?"
« on: April 15, 2009, 04:14:10 am »
I'll rephrase: For whom are you developing for? What is the nature of your customer?

I am developing for MYSELF. And I hope, other people like what I develop. And if someone has some things they like, I think about these things. And if I can, I implement them, if I feel like it. That's the nature of unpaid open source software. I am spending most of my waking hours for LinuxMCE in one way or another. I do it, because I love doing it. Not because I need to feed a market, or have something for a customer.

DOH! You're right, of course, and well put.

So, first, for you, all I was asking was ... what checklist (?) of 'things' are / were / would be in there or of concern to you?

Second, given that you have posted your code, to share with a like-minded and interested group, re-apply that last paragraph, changing 'you' to 'the group'.

Also, everyone please change the word 'consumer' (or like words) in anything you've read, to 'end user.'

All I asked for was ... anyone have a list, or know of one?

19
Feature requests & roadmap / Re: Moving target - "What's a gateway?"
« on: April 14, 2009, 06:57:59 pm »
... Hey, he does not even know which features the devs _must_ implement for him, just let it be "ubber".

br, Hari


I have not asked for anything other than information, particularly if anyone knows of any good links.

All I have asked is: What all goes in to a gateway / router / central network service machine in a home network. I've suggested such would include, at least, firewall, dhcp, ntp, asterisk, proxy, something for IM, and so on and so forth. I've asked what people might list on their checklist of such items.

I've asked for people's thoughts and opinions. I haven't asked for features. I posted in developers as it seemed reasonable to get the opinions of those who would be able to list "what's already in there", first.

Call it ubber, or whatever you like. I've merely asked, in a perfect world, what might be on such a machine. Let's stop getting hung up on definitions, and move on to intent.

20
Feature requests & roadmap / Re: Moving target - "What's a gateway?"
« on: April 14, 2009, 06:48:23 pm »
Problem 2: Who is your customer?
you are aware that LinuxMCE is free? Which customers are you talking about?

best regards,
Hari

I'll rephrase: For whom are you developing for? What is the nature of your customer?

It includes, at least, black box lmce implementers (DVD?), and others, with presumably various levels of expertise (CD?).

Define your consumer. What levels of expertise. What is expected to be in place beforehand? What other criteria of user are you assuming? (No chicken-and-egg please, where you have to entirely grok lmce before you're allowed to try or use lmce.)

Who and what are your target audience of users?

21
Feature requests & roadmap / Re: Moving target - "What's a gateway?"
« on: April 13, 2009, 09:40:11 pm »
Simple: Do what I need Done. scnr :)

Simple answer: Define 'need.' Or is lmce to not only be an ubergateway, but be able to read your mind as well.

1 step further: Do you know what you need?


Proper answer: All the appropriate things a gateway / network services / home server / home control device needs to run, in a modern (evolving), industry standard / recognized / best practices manner, to satisfy the customer's needs and requirements, whether they understand all those best practices or not (i.e. to know they need something).

Problem 1: What the heck is 'that', then?
Problem 2: Who is your customer?

22
Feature requests & roadmap / Re: Moving target - "What's a gateway?"
« on: April 13, 2009, 08:28:05 pm »
Because this would be the list of functionality lmce must support, co-operate with, and provide  / accommodate.
??

so lmce _must_ be the ubber mega super gatway appliance embedded low power multi function host? Will you code it? Otherwise this thread shall go to feature requests..

br, hari

This is a discussion in a forum. Perhaps out of it will be a checklist of feature requests, but we're not there yet.

lmce must become as ubiquitous as the browser.

If it must be a gateway, be a gateway. What a gateway is, seems to be a moving target.

Nobody has said low power. IIRC, the wiki / docs / links / whatever seem to indicate the core cannot have too much power. I can certainly see how lmce scales up and down - be it the DVD appliance, or the base CD install, and/or with software added.

All I have asked here is if anyone has any links, or ideas, as to what a 'ubber mega super gatway' would be composed of.

23
Feature requests & roadmap / Re: Moving target - "What's a gateway?"
« on: April 13, 2009, 07:27:39 pm »
and this is related to lmce development in which exact manner? br, Hari

Because this would be the list of functionality lmce must support, co-operate with, and provide  / accommodate.

I would like to compile a checklist of services, with the forum membership's help. Since they are all gateway users, they probably have some good ideas and things I haven't thought of.

Even better, as a start, if someone happens to know of a good link.

24
Feature requests & roadmap / Re: Moving target - "What's a gateway?"
« on: April 13, 2009, 07:01:19 pm »
Let's get away from the technical and on to the practical.

Although: Default gateway is perfectly correct. It is the device through which the internal network (ethernet) passes to get on to the outside medium (usually providers modem).

Let's use that sense of gateway, and add the network services one wants in a home / small network, in essence, all the goodness one would want in a 'home server' so that all the other machines are mere clients. Which is also to say, I could sit down at any one of them, or bring in a new one, or remove one without any adverse effects to network functionality.

That's not to say you can't have, or don't want, redundancy (e.g. on-site backups), but let's just get the list of 'things' first.

Even better, if anyone has a link that covers this off. e.g. Checklist of services.

In the meantime, dhcp, ntp, named, proxy, net nanny for those who need it, dns, asterisk, torrent (in the sense of port forwarding), firewall, and ???

And, oh yeah, LinuxMCE core! (-:

What all makes up an ubergateway / home server?

25
Feature requests & roadmap / Moving target - "What's a gateway?"
« on: April 12, 2009, 08:52:54 pm »
[This isn't a LinuxMCE specific question, it's a networking question, but answers would apply to LinuxMCE.]

If one considers a gateway (an aspect of LinuxMCE) as something the rest of the network goes through, and as a logical spot for provisioning of network services ... (e.g. firewall between inside and outside networks, and ntp)

"What's a gateway?" (What all is it composed of?)

It's a moving target. e.g. Not too many years ago asterisk wasn't something that immediately came to mind as something that should be on a gateway. As internet life evolves, so will the gateway.

When I have looked around the web, gateway 'aspects' are strewn all about the 'documentation.' Some aspects are in server provisioning, other aspects are in desktop provisioning (e.g. nfs/samba), other aspects are small topics unto themselves. I can't recall coming across a 'networking' 'category' of documentation / one-stop shopping.

I haven't come across any good links as to "What's a gateway?" / "What all a gateway does?"

- a simple checklist would be a good start, e.g. It has this and this and that and that.

Anyone with any good links / references / etc.?

Thanks.

26
Developers / Re: Bug: Swap Interfaces button missing.
« on: April 12, 2009, 08:13:56 pm »
thanks for the report - please make a trac ticket on svn.linuxmce.org to make sure it isn't missed

Thanks for letting me know (how). Done.

27
Developers / Bug: Swap Interfaces button missing.
« on: April 12, 2009, 12:52:57 am »
Searched forums for 'swap' for no hits.

Referenced http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Single_to_Double_NIC.

Loading 7.10 CDs on a laptop. Internal NIC to be internal network (MUST BE - disconnected gateway, house still works. Other way around ... not.)

On a different disk, used DVDs - problem below didn't occur.

USB NIC to be external.

Internal NIC came in as eth1, usb eth2.

With CDs loaded, no swap interface button on admin web page.

Following link above failed, until I noticed a missed step (the first one) -

Web Admin: Show devices tree/My Devices/CORE > Device data/Network Interfaces

    * Change: eth0,dhcp|eth0:0,192.168.80.1,255.255.255.0 to: eth0,dhcp|eth1,192.168.80.1,255.255.255.0

Until I changed the above entries the swap interfaces button was not present. (But was on DVD.)

Once I changed the entry, my network came back. So did the swap interface button, but then I no longer needed it.

Thought I should post a note.

If there is a condition on when the swap interfaces button should be presented, the condition should be removed.

28
Installation issues / Re: What does lmce use for a firewall?
« on: April 11, 2009, 10:17:25 pm »
Why don't you instead work with us on improving our firewall support? This system is intended to be grand central station...and If you keep breaking it by disabling things, we can't help you.. do you understand?

-Thom

I do understand. That's where I was headed. My initial questions on the nature of the firewall were just that - initial questions on the nature of the firewall.

But my understanding of LinuxMCE is that it's all or nothing.

Which means I have to get it in, with equivalent functionality to my current systems, to be able to put it under the microscope and in a test environment, to figure out what to do, in order to figure out what/where/how to contribute back.

Which is all where this question is focused. If one of the first things in building a replacement gateway is a firewall, and taking things in small sips rather than all or nothing out of the gate, then it seemed reasonable to me to ask some questions about the firewall.

Thus my questions regarding database generated or not, whether it made sense to turn off linuxmce's and turn on kubuntu's, and so on and so forth.

The initial intent was asking about the nature of the beast, providing the opportunity for someone to point me towards a link that indicates how much more than one would intuitively expect the firewall to interact with LinuxMCE, and asking if turning off LMCE's firewall and turning on Kubuntu's, was a reasonable / viable way to proceed until that knowledge is acquired?

One cannot grok LinuxMCE instantly.

29
Installation issues / Re: What does lmce use for a firewall?
« on: April 11, 2009, 10:06:51 pm »
Why are you making this difficult?

You're only going to wind up breaking things in half by not understanding the purpose of the system.

Sorry, I didn't think I was making things difficult. If I break something, then figure out how to fix it and contribute that back to the community, is that not a good thing?

The point of my questions was to gain understanding. If you are able to answer the questions, could you, please?


If I understand correctly, LinuxMCE is a whole home control system integrating converging 'technologies' such as Asterisk and MythTV into itself. For best results, it wants to be the gateway.

It does not appear to be 'current' in various aspects, such as a limited subset of dhcp. That is certainly true of the firewall interface. e.g. Bogon filtering.

LinuxMCE MUST _INTEGRATE WITH CURRENT SYSTEMS_, such as firewalls, routers, gateways, phone systems, media, and so on and so forth. It _CANNOT_ REPLACE them. A homeowner cannot allow a large block of time to elapse between turning off current functionality and complete and equivalent plus more functionality of the full promise of LinuxMCE. Particularly as the components of lmce progress faster than lmce itself. LinuxMCE total domination depends upon it becoming as ubiquitous as the internet browser.

It is in my mind that I could take another workstation (laptop) and begin building a home system (gateway + network services, e.g. ntp). I can build it up as time permits, testing at various points. At some point it will equal my current systems and I can leave it in full time. For the moment, I will not be using home controls, asterisk, or myth, I'm just building the gateway at the moment. Once integrated into my home, I'll move on to Asterisk, get that solid, then move on to the next piece. Some day, I'll move on to home controls. [Being in Canada, one of the problems is no vendor offered LinuxMCE compatible smartphones. To date.]

Given the learning curve of all 'this stuff' (LinuxMCE, asterisk, myth, not 'computers'), nobody is going to gain all this expertise overnight - starting on this learning curve, now, it seems to me, is a good thing to do to be ready for the future when LinuxMCE should be far more ubiquitous.

As far as I can tell, LinuxMCE is the only thing out there for what should become a standard home server box - controls, alerts, nannycams, (TV) scheduling, and the whole deal. A single box that understands the 'blueprints of the home' (rather than bits of data on different computers never integrating into a coherent whole), and the quite reasonable idea that everything in the home should integrate and cooperate with the best of FOSS breed of each element. And, being FOSS, can adapt and integrate new things into this whole as those things emerge.

If I have mis-read LinuxMCE, they may I kindly ask for a pointer to your FOSS competitor?

Otherwise, if you can help me by answering my questions, or even better pointing me to links that I haven't found that do, I'd sure appreciate it.

30
Installation issues / Re: What does lmce use for a firewall?
« on: April 11, 2009, 09:16:42 pm »
<hmm>

OK, under what conditions?

e.g. If I understand (lmce) DHCP correctly, lmce will re-write the dhcpd.conf file at device detection / removal. Thus, adding / removing a device can be a mental trigger to go re-fix dhcpd.conf. Does the firewall have similar change points? e.g. If I never go into the firewall pages of the admin website, is iptables left alone.


Perhaps I misunderstand a basic element of lmce ... it seems dhcp is generated out of pluto database records. Is the same true of the firewall, and everything else? Including Myth, Asterisk, and so on and so forth?

If so, is it reasonable to turn off the firewall and dhcp within lmce, turn them on within Kubuntu, and proceed as usual? [Understanding that devices will have to be manually added/removed to dhcp as a result, if lmce is to understand them.]

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