Why GNU/Linux Rocks

[sgreger1]

Thanks all, I was able to get it working with nano. It took me all night but I finally got a VNC connection going to my raspberry Pi, so now on my main computer I can just do my regular stuff and then run the Pi headless without a keyboard or monitor plugged in to it.

The one issue I am having with the Pi is that there is packet loss with the USB ports. It results in a bug where when you type, the key stays depressed and goes like thisssssssssssssssss. Verry annoying, it took me like 30 minutes to log in because I couldn't see if the keys were repeating at the password prompt (since the characters are hidden), so it rejected my password a hundred times since keys kept getting stuck. It's especially bad with a USB hub (powered) attached to it, for some reason the packet loss is even worse. I guess it's something the community will have to patch, but for right now the best way to access it is to just SHH into it or run a VNC session.

Step 2: Figure out how to get my wifi dongle working on it. I'm halfway there, I think by today I will finally have it working.

[lxskllr]

If you don't have vim, substitute that with nano, or vi. Both of those should be installed.

[shikitohno]

sudo vim /etc/apt/sources.list

or, if you either haven't configured sudo, or it still says permission denied

su -c 'vim /etc/apt/sources.list'

The second one will require your root password.

[sgreger1]

QUICk, I NEED HELP!I need to know how to add the following text to a text file via the CLI

deb http://backports.debian.org/debian-backports squeeze-backports main

I have to add this to a file in /etc/apt/ called source.list, the problem is that it says I don't have permission to edit it. I don't know anything about permisions, how do I give myself permission to edit this file, and how to I add the above text to the text file?

[devilock76]

I'd use quarters to activate the video. People could use that to recover funeral costs :^D

Truly I think a touch screen is the way to go. Less moving parts exposed to the outside means easier weatherizing.

Ken

[lxskllr]

I'd use quarters to activate the video. People could use that to recover funeral costs :^D

[devilock76]

This was the obvious solution, but in that scenario I am not adding anything and I think I would run into patent issues wouldn't I? By just taking their unit and installing it into something and calling it something else? I figured that by using a rpi and linux etc nothing would be proprietary and I wouldn't run into so man issues. A photo frame would be the easiest, except again it depends on the LCD. The main issue is that a regular photo frame isn't hardened to the weather or energy efficient. To get a weatherproof LCD and have it not be power hungry I would have to use a type of panel that I don't believe they currently make photo frames for.

@ Shiki: It would be a niche market, the idea came up at a funeral recently, with about 30% of the people thinking it was a good idea. I realize most people wouldn't like the idea but some people (like the funeral I was at) are super sentimental about things like that.

Your value added is the installation and if for a tombstone you have things to figure out like powering it (a solar cell should work) and weatherizing it. The fact is to prototype the idea you need to eliminate as many hurtles as possible. Start there, already a light OS install and the simplest one piece solution to that part of the problem. Ideally if you can get a patent app in the works for it you can maybe do an NDA with a manufacturer of the objects to workout a wholesale deal for your materials.

Ken

[shikitohno]

This was the obvious solution, but in that scenario I am not adding anything and I think I would run into patent issues wouldn't I? By just taking their unit and installing it into something and calling it something else? I figured that by using a rpi and linux etc nothing would be proprietary and I wouldn't run into so man issues. A photo frame would be the easiest, except again it depends on the LCD. The main issue is that a regular photo frame isn't hardened to the weather or energy efficient. To get a weatherproof LCD and have it not be power hungry I would have to use a type of panel that I don't believe they currently make photo frames for.

@ Shiki: It would be a niche market, the idea came up at a funeral recently, with about 30% of the people thinking it was a good idea. I realize most people wouldn't like the idea but some people (like the funeral I was at) are super sentimental about things like that.

You still wouldn't necessarily being able to get away with patent issues just by using open source software and non-proprietary hardware. Even if you could, the Raspberry Pi does contain some proprietary hardware, hence the custom spins of various distros being made specially for it. If you made a custom Fedora iso using stock packages will the sole aim of making everything small and light in order to run best on the Raspberry Pi, certain bits of hardware still wouldn't work because they use proprietary drivers. I imagine it's a matter of time before someone grabs the binary blobs tosses them in a repo somewhere or somebody comes up with open source drivers à la nouveau, but that's beside the point.

Software patents are also notoriously unwieldy beasts. They are often granted simply for the concept, rather than the implementation, and companies write their applications in a vague manner intentionally because of this. It's entirely possible that someone has patented the idea of "displaying a slide show or movie upon a display embedded within a tombstone/memorial/mausoleum/whatever other relevant cemetary terms" and that you will be infringing their patent no matter how you go about doing this. You could create your own script that achieves this in an entirely novel fashion, which bears no similarity to how they have achieved it, and does the task far superior, and you'd still be in violation of such a patent if it exists. Don't mean to piss in your cheerios like this, but that's the way it is. That's also a large part of why you see people arguing that software patents should either be extremely restricted, or else done away with entirely. They stifle creativity and hinder advances in how we do things, so there is a large part of the open source community who would like to see them either changed significantly or just scrapped entirely, precisely because of situations like this. This is not at all uncommon. It's damn near impossible to write any software and be 100% sure that you're not infringing someone's patent somewhere. In most cases, you probably are, and unless you've got an army of patent lawyers specializing in software patents that you can pay to look over every software patent issued and tell you if you're in the clear, there's no practical way of knowing for sure. Basically, you've got to wait to be sued, and be prepared to settle and sign a licensing agreement, unless you feel you've got an exceptional case where you can either prove that you absolutely are not infringing, or that the original patent was improperly issued, and thus void.

[sgreger1]

I'll put it another way: very large files are moved to the web server root and i use the browser on my pc to download them. Both the server and my pc are on the same internal lan. The web server has no access restrictions and the files are removed once downloaded.

Placing files in a folder accessible by a web browser is exactly the same as placing them in a folder accessible by an ftp client. A web browser is just an http client.

Oh okay i'm an idiot. I can't do that since my server is remote and not on my network but that makes much more sense if I had it in my house or something.

[sgreger1]

I will go for an even simpler solution for the tombstone video. since you have to install an lcd screen anyway just install a digital photo frame. most ones today can play a video from an sd card.

Ken

This was the obvious solution, but in that scenario I am not adding anything and I think I would run into patent issues wouldn't I? By just taking their unit and installing it into something and calling it something else? I figured that by using a rpi and linux etc nothing would be proprietary and I wouldn't run into so man issues. A photo frame would be the easiest, except again it depends on the LCD. The main issue is that a regular photo frame isn't hardened to the weather or energy efficient. To get a weatherproof LCD and have it not be power hungry I would have to use a type of panel that I don't believe they currently make photo frames for.

@ Shiki: It would be a niche market, the idea came up at a funeral recently, with about 30% of the people thinking it was a good idea. I realize most people wouldn't like the idea but some people (like the funeral I was at) are super sentimental about things like that.

[heppycat]

I have not tried http yet, I always just sftp things, is the other route faster? I am not familiar with using apache anything, is this something that can be accomplished via placing it in a specific folder on in the server or by using an FTP client?

I'll put it another way: very large files are moved to the web server root and i use the browser on my pc to download them. Both the server and my pc are on the same internal lan. The web server has no access restrictions and the files are removed once downloaded.

Placing files in a folder accessible by a web browser is exactly the same as placing them in a folder accessible by an ftp client. A web browser is just an http client.

[shikitohno]

I will go for an even simpler solution for the tombstone video. since you have to install an lcd screen anyway just install a digital photo frame. most ones today can play a video from an sd card.

Ken

This was my first thought, though I was holding back on mentioning it. Afraid Hallmark stores already beat you to it on the technology front. Also, I can't really imagine wanting one of these in my tombstone, personally. If my family wanted such a thing, I'd give them one and tell them to toss it on their desk or coffee table.

[devilock76]

I will go for an even simpler solution for the tombstone video. since you have to install an lcd screen anyway just install a digital photo frame. most ones today can play a video from an sd card.

Ken

[sgreger1]

The url format is protocol://username@hostort. Username is not required, port is default for the protocol unless specified.
scp://server:4422 will (should) connect with scp to server on port 4422

I use winscp to transfer files between servers and my windows workstation. For large files such as a 20gb packet capture, i throw it in a public apache folder and use http.

For server to server transfers, command line scp. For large files or scheduled transfers, rsync.

Thanks for all your help Heppycat and nice to see you posting again.

In regards to this:

For large files such as a 20gb packet capture, i throw it in a public apache folder and use http.

I have not tried http yet, I always just sftp things, is the other route faster? I am not familiar with using apache anything, is this something that can be accomplished via placing it in a specific folder on in the server or by using an FTP client?

[heppycat]

So in the ftp client, use scp://server when logging in? Or just connect via whichever port I have SSH opened to?

The url format is protocol://username@hostort. Username is not required, port is default for the protocol unless specified.
scp://server:4422 will (should) connect with scp to server on port 4422

I use winscp to transfer files between servers and my windows workstation. For large files such as a 20gb packet capture, i throw it in a public apache folder and use http.

For server to server transfers, command line scp. For large files or scheduled transfers, rsync.