/dev/chat

Faheem Mitha

5:10 PM

@casey Ok. Is that hard to configure?

derobert

There is a non-shell cd? Not on my system...

Ah, I see a comment on the question that Ubuntu and RHEL don't, either.

casey

5:28 PM

@FaheemMitha its a bit of work the first time, but not too bad. I use postfix as my MTA and they all play together nice

amavis interfaces to postfix and handles clamav and spamassasin

strugee

@derobert there is. the process spawns, changes its cwd, and then exits. it's worthless; that's why it's not installed with the system

casey

postgrey interfaces to postfix and just causes non-whitelisted servers to be temporarily denied for 30 minutes

so everyone new gets an error initially and the idea is that legitimate servers will put it in the queue to resend later and that spammers wont

Faheem Mitha

@casey Do you have an order of magnitude estimate for how long it might take to set this up?

casey

couple of hours maybe. I did the initial setup in 2008 for this setup and I don't recall how long it took exactly

Faheem Mitha

@casey That sounds super fast. I was thinking a few days.

casey

5:31 PM

its not sendmail :)

it might take a day, but there are some good resources on getting that combination setup

Faheem Mitha

@casey Ok. I remember Russ Allbery writing to me and he said it was a fair amount of work. He runs his own servers too.

strugee

man I am not looking forward to configuring mail on my server...

derobert

@slm @terdon btw, did you see @strugee's draft? He noted it in the other room

@strugee BTW, that makefile fragment I pasted the other day... is from my Makefile that does something similar to yours...

terdon

@derobert no, what draft? Which room?

derobert

chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/12777/unix-and-linux-blog-planning

strugee

5:37 PM

@derobert link? I don't recall

terdon

@derobert ah, thanks I was not even aware of the room. And I seem to have access to it despite being locked. OK, where's the draft @strugee?

derobert

@terdon unix.blogoverflow.com/?p=21&preview=true should work for you if your blogoverflow account is set up

@strugee let me pastebin the whole makefile

@strugee pastebin.com/XnTHWdUz

And here is that combine-config tool pastebin.com/KdWRwXci

casey

@strugee mail isn't too hard with postfix. The old days with sendmail and those evil M4 macros were a challenge to get setup right, but it has gotten a lot easier

terdon

@derobert apparently it's not. How do I get one? blogoverflow.com redirects to stackexchange.com/blogs where I am logged in as my network-wide user but I can't access unix.blogoverflow.com/?p=21&preview=true

derobert

@strugee pastebin.com/k64CJ6Mv is the install-symlink tool

strugee

5:41 PM

@casey one would hope so with, what, 40 years of this stuff being around?

derobert

@terdon try starting at unix.blogoverflow.com/wp-admin

strugee

@derobert oh. Perl :P

derobert

@terdon if that doesn't work, ping our friendly mod to set you up.

terdon

That might have worked, I'm at the wordpress panel now. Let me see if I can find my way to the linked page

derobert

@strugee Yes, the combine tool is in perl, its fairly trivial though.

terdon

5:43 PM

OK, I now have my blogoverflow account but get a 404 error for unix.blogoverflow.com/?p=21&preview=true

strugee

hah:

> Usage: $0 force-y-or-n point-to symlink-goes-where

derobert

@terdon Ok. I'll use the blog software to share a draft, and post it in the private room

@strugee yep, actual usage messages! :-P

Faheem Mitha

@casey actually, i've only ever used postfix.

strugee

@derobert your Makefile is way more complicated than mine

you've got hostname support and stuff

I just write portable scripts

slm

In today's edition of "where's Waldo" I've spotted him here and here.

derobert

5:50 PM

@strugee Yep. It also lets me write config files as multiple files, and have them concatenated together.

strugee

fancy

slm

I'm imaging there's some drunk guy that works for SE that's gotten commit rights and is having fun with moving those flags around.

3

derobert

And I have, e.g., a ssh#config.d directory in my repository, it knows to concatenate the stuff in that directory together (including handling host-specific stuff), and install that symlink as ~/.ssh/config

Faheem Mitha

@casey sorry, i meant to write, i've only ever used exim.

casey

@FaheemMitha I've never used exim (was always the first thing I turned off in a debian install)

Only sendmail and postfix for me, I know nothing of the other MTAs

Faheem Mitha

5:54 PM

@casey Ok. It's decent. And the Debian default.

slm

sendmail

derobert

@strugee I really need to get my dotfile manager into a distrubutable state, and put it on github. When I looked, nothing else came close to having those features...

Faheem Mitha

Not actively developed now, though

derobert

@FaheemMitha exim or sendmail?

Both are actively developed, AFAIK

Faheem Mitha

@derobert exim. Well, maybe it is being developed, slowly.

slm

5:56 PM

@derobert what dotfile manager, do tell

derobert

@slm The one I just posted pastebin links to...

casey

my dotfile manager is git.

derobert

@slm pastebin.com/XnTHWdUz .... pastebin.com/KdWRwXci .... pastebin.com/k64CJ6Mv

Faheem Mitha

@derobert Some development. Not a lot. git.exim.org/exim.git

derobert

@FaheemMitha Indeed. It appears they went on vacation after getting 4.82 out

@casey do you check $HOME into git? Otherwise, you wind up with something managing symlinks into your git repository.

terdon

6:06 PM

@slm yeah, WTF? How is that helpful?

casey

@derobert I have a directory with a dotfile hierarchy in it that is checked into git. I have some symlinks into that directory as needed, but once they are there they never need updating

strugee

yeah I don't find the symlinks to be that annoying

it's like a one-time thing

the main reason I have a Makefile is for updating git submodules

derobert

You must not go through as many machines (and VMs) as I do...

But the main reason for the complexity is to handle machine-specific parts of the dotfiles

strugee

@derobert I have quite a few machines. I just use wildcards and then fix the remaining problems.

derobert

I don't need per-machine for some config files (bashrc, vimrc, etc.) because there is full programming language, but others (I'm looking at you, mplayer & mpv!) need it

strugee

6:11 PM

@derobert yeah, I don't have anything that isn't a full scripting language. that's why I don't have that stuff yet

or at least not anything complex enough that I'd need changes between machines

casey

@derobert yea, I don't deal with many machines and the stuff that does is pretty agnostic as long as the proper tools are there

my vimrc will run anywhere vim is and my emacs.d will run anywhere emacs24 is (probably would have some issues with 23, but not sure).

derobert

Yeah, with vimrc you have vim scripting available, and with emacs.d I suspect you have lisp available...

(I don't use emacs)

casey

I'm getting into it, mostly for org-mode and auctex

strugee

@derobert GASP

@derobert you mean .emacs, and yes, you have elisp (Emacs Lisp)

casey

my vim habits die hard though

derobert

6:14 PM

I also have both my work machine & my home machines in the same dotfiles repository, so that requires some differences too

Setting up a new machine (or, more often, VM) is a nice, easy make FORCE=y install

Creating symlinks was fine and trivial when all dotfiles went under $HOME/ directly. Got old real fast once it was "yeah, do all the ones under $HOME, then $HOME/.ssh, then $HOME/.mpv, then $HOME/.config/something/, then..."

derobert

6:29 PM

Anyway, I'll get my dotfile tools published on github ASAP. They're actually in an svn repository now (I had dotfiles in version control before git existed....), need to move to git and then I can upload them to github.

terdon

6:41 PM

Huh, what is this exactly?

unix.stackexchange.com/users/tag-future/22222

tag future?

@Braiam that's the kind of thing you usually know about. Any ideas?

derobert

No idea what that is. (Note you have to put your own user ID in there, you can't see other peoples' reports).

@terdon Where'd you see that?

terdon

@derobert I found it on some SO user's profile and modified the URL to get my equivalent

yours would be: unix.stackexchange.com/users/tag-future/977

derobert

12

Q: Tag future report

I came across http://math.stackexchange.com/users/tag-future/current which represents a recent attempt by SE to understand what types of questions each user is likely to answer. (The underlying motivation being to feed more questions of the kind to the user.) Having found that I'm considered a...

17

Q: Prediction about tags on which you are most and least likely to answer

Some time ago there was a blog post about someone analysing what tags SO users answered on and coming up with the five most and least likely tags that this user would answer on in the future. The post included a link (template) where you could view the results for at least yourself, possibly for ...

support tags data-analysis

terdon

Actually, yours does not seem to work.

derobert

@terdon Mine works. You just can only see your own.

terdon

6:47 PM

@derobert cool, how'd you find that? I searched meta.so for "tag-future" and got no hots

@derobert was it the link I pasted above? Cause I saw someone else's on SO

rlemon's : stackoverflow.com/users/tag-future/1081936

derobert

I googled for stack exchange "tag future" .... how else would find something on teh interwebs?

@terdon that gives me a 404, just like trying to visit yours

terdon

@derobert never mind, I'm an idiot, the URL stackoverflow.com/users/tag-future/current takes you to your page which was what I was looking at and thought it was rlemon's since I had clicked the link on his profile

Weird though, I am told I am considered an active user on SO where I have >10 posts!

derobert

well, I'm a 'high activity' user here...

... and on SO.

terdon

that makes sense, so am I. But SO? I only have 22 posts (I counted, OK, more than 10). Perhaps because one of them was today.

derobert

Maybe. I used to be highly active on SO—I have 20k there, and have for a while—but I haven't been active in a while...

casey

6:54 PM

unix.stackexchange.com/users/tag-future/current <--- this link will work for everyone. use 'current' instead of a userid

derobert

It seems to think I hate Fedora. Just because the answer to all Fedora questions is found here or here …

But that's true of CentOS questions too, and it thinks I like them.

slm

You guys do hate Fedora!

I don't think the dislikes predictor is very accurate, I generally seek out gnome3 and freebsd and setuid, this thing seems bunk

Thinks slm prefers, when compared to a typical user, to avoid questions tagged:
emacs dual-boot grub2 kde freebsd
gnome3 embedded xml qt setuid

I only avoid emacs out of that list

derobert

@slm And yet it doesn't think I avoid emacs. A huge program useful only for playing with M-x doctor once in a blue moon.

(Have I started a flame war yet?)

slm

That's your job here isn't it?

You leave for days, come back, start trouble and then leave us again

everyone is a high activity user

casey

It said I was low activity on SO Meta, but "no activity" would have been a better descriptor

terdon

7:08 PM

@casey yes, that's the one we were using, it opens your own page

Faheem Mitha

@derobert Huge is a relative term.

casey

@terdon I copied one of the early links I saw that has someones uid in it, didnt realize

terdon

@FaheemMitha don't feed the troll! :)

casey

@derobert I'm just upset that "M-x shell RET vim" just doesnt really work

derobert

@slm yep, that and sometimes ask a question about cows

Faheem Mitha

7:14 PM

@terdon derobert isn't a troll. He is just being... whimsical. And he loves emacs, really. Don't you, derobert?

terdon

@FaheemMitha I'm not sure, we all know that trolls love cows, they're tasty!

2

derobert

@FaheemMitha Sounds like a question for m-x doctor

@terdon Indeed! And it's lunch time!

Faheem Mitha

@terdon Indeed, cows are yummy.

terdon

@FaheemMitha I can see why you dislike living in India (and yes, I know that is a Hindu and not Muslim thing).

derobert

/me wonders if there is an online version of m-x doctor so he doesn't have to install emacs to ask it @FaheemMitha's question

Faheem Mitha

7:18 PM

@terdon Hmm?

@derobert The method of direct experimentation suggests, that M-x doctor wouldn't be very useful.

does derobert loves emacs?

Does it bother you that derobert loves emacs?

Hmm, that should be "love".

terdon

@FaheemMitha just a silly joke about finding cows yummy and living in a country where a significant part of the population considers them holy.

Faheem Mitha

Like a real psychiatrist, M-x doctor avoids actually answering any questions.

@terdon Ah. Well, one can eat beef here. Nobody cares. Though I might be eating buffalo. I'm not sure.

@terdon Actually, I like pork better.

terdon

@FaheemMitha That's how we know that you're not a troll!

Faheem Mitha

@terdon How so?

terdon

trolls like cows, you like pork, therefore you're not a troll. Duh!

Faheem Mitha

7:26 PM

@terdon Oh, I see. QED.

terdon

Perfect, unassailable logic there. A is B, C is D, therefore A is not C

:)

derobert

Indeed, it must be true, asking Google for an image of a troll eating pigs failed.

terdon

See?

derobert

It didn't do much better on cows. In fact, Google presented me cow-trolls instead...

terdon

Yes, I found some nice pig-trolls

derobert

7:28 PM

ppr

8:07 PM

1

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