/dev/chat

derobert

00:12

@Gilles Yeah, it should work in Jessie. Though you'll need to change it to the udev2 ENV entry in the answer. That's from a Jessie box...

@FaheemMitha wiki.debian.org/LTS seems to say Wheezy and Jessie will both be LTS.

... or here debian.org/News/2015/20150424

casey

00:50

@FaheemMitha you might find that on a prepaid plan, but I wouldn't call it common. Most plans are post paid with monthly data allotments. I have 10gb/mo (shared across 4 lines) with 1 month of rollover of unused data.

Braiam

02:19

8

Q: XKCD oneboxing over HTTPS

When posting an xkcd link in chat, it doesn't get oneboxed when using the https version of the URI: http://xkcd.com/660/ vs https://xkcd.com/660/ The first one gets oneboxed, but the latter just displays the link.

slm

03:40

@derobert Sorry I completely misgauged what's on-topic on webmasters. I thought that it was a more appropriate site for that Q but in looking at the on-topic there it's clearly not what I had thought it was.

Faheem Mitha

08:12

@derobert Ok. But that might be contingent on funding.

@casey A shared plan and rollover sound good. So in practice you have more than 10gb any given month?

@Braiam Incorrectly closed as dupe. Two levels of recursion.

The issue has been fixed for SE posts, but not for xkcd at least.

I'm underwhelmed by the battery life on my new phone. I charged it to 100% last night and it was down to 78% the next morning. And I hadn't used it in between. Maybe 10 hours interval.

Faheem Mitha

10:23

@derobert David K. appears on IRC, #debian-apt on OFTC to be precise. I said hello. He wanted to know who I was. :-)

faheem> Hi DonKult. I didn't know you spend time in IRC.
<DonKult> faheem: Hi. Yeah, all the cool kids do, don't they? ……… So, that sounds dumb and I am sorry, but the part in brains responsible for remembering names is basically non-existent in mine… so could you remind me of the connection regarding yours it has forgotten?

That should have been "appears to be...".

Faheem Mitha

11:06

A clear VTC:

0

Q: Which programming language should I learn for making softwares for Linux

I have been learning Shell Scripting. I want to make apps and GUI softwares for Linux. Please suggest me a useful language/s Thank you. :)

linux programming

casey

13:43

@FaheemMitha in practice yes. I only break 3GB/mo when travelling and the other lines on my plan rarely hit 1GB combined so I usually have ~6 GB rollover. Its a lot of excess capacity but the discounts I have make it cheaper than the plans with less data.

Faheem Mitha

15:02

@casey I see. Yes, that does seem like a lot of excess capacity.

derobert

16:38

Hello... Thank you for your reply .... but it is not working (I mean not able to receive data ), is there any other way to make this possible.... — Vishnu Kanth 18 mins ago

... oh dear, it's going to be a long day :-(

Braiam

19:33

@derobert prepare continuous coffee roaster

derobert

Amazingly, no response to my comment.

@VishnuKanth it's been a while since I've used the program, but please confirm all your serial settings are correct (bit rate, flow control, parity, etc.). Have you confirmed the parts work independently? (E.g., with minicom or whatever). — derobert 3 hours ago

Faheem Mitha

@derobert why amazingly?

casey

@FaheemMitha sarcasm

Faheem Mitha

Or was that meant sarcastically?

@casey ah

derobert

No, it wasn't sarcasm. I was expecting a 20-comment chain to find out it isn't plugged in. Or a null modem cable was required but not used. Or whatever.

Faheem Mitha

19:39

@derobert people quite often just give up, in my experience.

That guy is India. They seem to come on the net expecting handholding from strangers. Not sure where that comes from.

Oh, and they are prone to call you "sir". Just a heads up.

derobert

Then there are questions like this... unix.stackexchange.com/questions/199483/…

But at least I found a sane one! unix.stackexchange.com/questions/199482/… is answerable as soon as ack-grep finishes :-)

Faheem Mitha

@derobert you should offer to go over to his place and do it for him. that'll freak him out.

Gilles

@derobert what do you need ack-grep for?

derobert

@Gilles finding the exact bit of kernel code to cite. What else? :-)

Gilles

@derobert LXR

derobert

19:50

@Gilles indeed, but I already have a local copy.

Also LXR is outdated AFAIK

Gilles

ok, so it fails to find VmRSS, probably because it's in a slightly messy string

derobert

@Gilles :-P

Gilles

@derobert lxr.linux.no often has server issues. I use lxr.free-electrons.com when the better one is down

and that one does a plain text search, which sucks when searching for identifiers but works well here

derobert

0

A: Does /proc/[pid]/status always use kB?

Yes, it's always in kB. KiB (1024-bytes, not 1000) to be exact. At least in Linux 4.0 (and this code has been largely unchanged since at least April 2005—that's when Linus switched to git, and I don't care to check back further) that output comes from task_mem in fs/proc/task_mmu.c. Excerpting a...

Yes, this is a NAT, but I don't know how can I configure that. Can you help me? @derobert — Vitor Mazuco 4 mins ago

... and that's why SO had to ban lmgtfy links.

Gilles

@derobert ??

derobert

19:57

That comment. See the question...

Gilles

I dispute that you can easily find guides with Google. I've found it hard to get clear guides for simple network configurations like garden-variety NAT.

writing a NAT-mini-howto Q&A is on my todo list. Pretty deep so don't hold your breath.

Faheem Mitha

There are lots of basic things that are surprisingly poorly documented, that is true.

derobert

@Gilles Really? "linux nat router", "linux nat howto", "linux router howto" get several... including a few on SE sites.

Gilles

@derobert number of hits ≠ number of good hits

Faheem Mitha

There was the Linux Documentation Project once, but we don't hear much about that these days. I can't remember the last time I saw a link to the LDP.

derobert

20:00

@Gilles I just read a few of them...

Faheem Mitha

Reading about networking gives me a headache.

derobert

Given, a few had issues too :-(

Gilles

Why not take the opportunity to write a good one on U&L?

Faheem Mitha

@Gilles ?

Gilles

This sounds like a standard NAT (technically NAPT) firewall setup. Google will turn up plenty of guides; is there some part in particular you'd like help on? — derobert 24 mins ago

Faheem Mitha

20:02

@Gilles you're suggesting Anthony write a book? :-)

Braiam

can someone review the title, I'm not sure I grasped what he wants to do unix.stackexchange.com/q/199489/41104

derobert

@Gilles I guess I could try. But then my most popular question might cease to be about cows. And also I don't currently have time...

Gilles

@FaheemMitha no, just a chapter

Faheem Mitha

Yes, the LDP appears pretty much dead. Which tells you how much people care about documentation.

derobert

Putting a distro name in the obvious 'linux router' search seems to help a fair bit.

Faheem Mitha

20:03

@Gilles Actually, it might not be the worst idea for people on this site to get together to write some documentation. There is certainly plenty of scope.

derobert

At least it did for Debian.

Gilles

@FaheemMitha isn't that what we've been doing the last 5 years?

Braiam

umm... for me creating a nat was fairly simple

Faheem Mitha

@Gilles Sure, but I meant in a slightly more systematic way.

Individual questions are good and all. But there is some scope for larger scale stuff.

Then again, apparently nobody has time to write a blog post...

Does anyone know what happened to the LDP? Apathy? Lack of manpower?

Gilles

@FaheemMitha ubiquitous internet connectivity and Google

nowadays people don't look for documentation in /usr/doc or via a bookmark in their web browser, they type a search in their web browser

Faheem Mitha

20:07

@Gilles hmm. you mean people could get their info without having to read guides?

@Gilles yes, I'm guilty of that as well. And you forgot to mention SE.

Gilles

@FaheemMitha no, I mean that there's no longer much call for a centralized guide

Faheem Mitha

@Gilles I think you still need guides. If only to explain basic concepts.

Not everything can be handled in the bite-sized pieces of a SE question/answer.

Gilles

@FaheemMitha Yes, but not centralized guides

people don't look for all their guides in one place any more

Faheem Mitha

@Gilles Ok. Like LDP you mean?

casey

@FaheemMitha like that or /usr/doc/*

why do I need a local copy of the matplotlib docs or python docs, etc when I can just look at live versions online at their respective sites

Faheem Mitha

20:13

@casey in case you are somewhere without a net connection?

casey

@FaheemMitha that is somewhere this computer never is or will be

Faheem Mitha

@casey are you speaking for planet Earth?

casey

the majority of people living under the blanket of internet ubiquity

if you are building a laptop destined to be shipped to rural africa, perhaps you have a need for local docs.

Faheem Mitha

Well, I think Debian tries to serve the lowest common denominator, at least. Don't know about other OSs/distributions.

casey

debian does, but they break out docs into -doc packages, so they need not be installed unless you specifically want them

likewise on gentoo I can control documentation installed per-package or via a global USE flag

derobert

20:18

you can also use --path-exclude argument to dpkg

casey

to be specific, I do have local man pages, but not local package docs

Faheem Mitha

@casey true.

@derobert true. but I don't think that is commonly done.

I only learned of that option recently myself.

derobert

No, I don't think it is, except maybe on embedded. Or other systems with small amounts of storage.

casey

I do also keep local copies of language standards

Faheem Mitha

21:04

Does anyone know how to replace a piece of text in emacs with xxxxxxx?

Gilles

@FaheemMitha yes, use the command to replace text

Faheem Mitha

@Gilles but you have to tell it what text you want to replace.

how do you say - replace all text with xxxx?

Gilles

@FaheemMitha how else do you identify the text to replace?

Do you want to replace a single piece of text?

Delete it, insert xxxxxxx where it used to be

Faheem Mitha

@Gilles I want to replace all text marked by say point and mark. But leave white space alone.

so, replace all non-white space text with xxx.

Gilles

@FaheemMitha ah, so it's a completely different problem from what you asked originally

Faheem Mitha

21:10

@Gilles Sorry if I wasn't clear.

Gilles

do you want to replace each non-whitespace character by x? Or each sequence of non-whitespace characters by xxxxxx? or something else?

Faheem Mitha

@Gilles the first.

Gilles

@FaheemMitha M-x replace-regexp RET \S- RET x RET

Faheem Mitha

@Gilles Ok, thank you.

I also just asked this on emacs.sx. Though I guess it is a trivial question.

@Gilles that seems to collapse the whitespace.

Gilles

@FaheemMitha it doesn't, but it does replace newlines by x

0

Q: Anonymizing text using emacs

Suppose I select some text in an emacs buffer using point and mark. How do I tell emacs to replace each non-whitespace character with x, say? For concreteness, that I select the text using point and mark. The idea is to keep the structure of the text intact, but remove all information. My curren...

replace

Faheem Mitha

21:20

@Gilles Ok. Let's say whitespace is not changed.

Gilles

Don't you want to preserve LaTeX commands?

Faheem Mitha

Isn't a newline whitespace?

@Gilles Sure, but I am just going to replace the main text.

Using point and mark. It's mostly a text document. A letter. The latex stuff is in the preamble, headers, and footers.

I'm using scrlttr2. Though that probably does not matter for this question.

Gilles

@FaheemMitha yes. But some programming languages, including TeX, newlines are marked as “comment end” rather than “whitespace”, so Emacs doesn't include them in \S-

Faheem Mitha

I assume newline is whitespace. If it isn't, I'll have to rephrase that question.

Gilles

nor in [:space:]

Faheem Mitha

21:22

@Gilles Ok. Let me add.

Done

I've got a feeling I've asked this question somewhere before, but I have no idea where.

Gilles

21:52

117 questions in the last 24 hours. This site is getting too big.

it'll soon get to the point where I don't have time to read every new title

Braiam

to be fair, we closed 17

Faheem Mitha

LWN is getting more like Slashdot. To wit, the moronic arguments in the thread below.

lwn.net/Articles/641875

@Gilles We need some Gilles clones.

They couldn't just congratulate the developers and leave it at that? No, they had to ramble on like idiots.

@Gilles I thought this site averaged 20 or so.

@Gilles Maybe I should use lipsum instead. But using block of latin gibberish seems even more wacky than x's.

Gilles

22:08

@FaheemMitha you are so very far off the mark

Faheem Mitha

Though it seems something of a tradition, at least on tex.sx.

@Gilles apparently.

Gilles

we're around ~80/day on average

weekends are slower, so it's something like 100–110 average on a weekday

Faheem Mitha

I noticed two voted to migrate

0

Q: How to take input from a file using a C program?

I have to take input from a file and convert the number from kelvin to fahrenheit(vice versa), using a "C" program. Requirements: The conversion and numeric outputs must take place in the compiled program. The script will give the user an option to convert either kelvin to fahrenheit or ...

shell

But do we really want to migrate it? It looks like a hw question.

@Gilles I see. Has it got more busy recently?

Gilles

@FaheemMitha it's been steadily getting busier since the beginning

Faheem Mitha

Personally I'd lean towards closing. But is there a close option that says - this question is crap?

@Gilles I guess I should pay more attention.

Gilles

22:10

@FaheemMitha downvote

Faheem Mitha

@Gilles fine, downvoting.

This is called bowing to peer pressure.

At least it's not drugs and alcohol.

And that's me.

lwn.net/Articles/642456

Faheem Mitha

22:33

The Emacs site also seems quite busy.

Gilles

22:44

@FaheemMitha it's visibly drawn traffic away from SO

Faheem Mitha

@Gilles is that bad?

Gilles

9

A: State of the Beta

Here is a count of questions about Emacs posted each month on Stack Exchange sites: month Emacs SO SU Unix Ubuntu Apple TeX 2014-06 201 15 6 5 1 16 2014-07 229 24 7 6 3 10 2014-08 254 22 10 4 1 3 2014-09 170 ...

Faheem Mitha

@Gilles yes, I've read that. And upvoted it.

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