Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

Wognath · Joined: 19 Apr 2009 Posts: 108

The Saluki forum
http://www.saluki-linux.com
tech support topicis getting large amounts of spam. edit: It seems to be mostly in the tech support area. Is there someone with the necessary knowledge who would kindly volunteer to put in a filter?
Thanks in advance.
-humble Saluki user

okokoook · Joined: 08 Dec 2011 Posts: 23

hello everyone

i am using saluki 023 currently. is there any way to edit exo-mount to add utf8 support because every time i try to mount my flashdrive in vfat32 from thunar sidebar, my file names in that flashdrive shows like "?????". i did a little research on the exo-mount issue. someone says to edit mount.rc file. i could not find that file. does anyone know how to address this problem?

thank you in advance

michael

starhawk · Posted: Tue 09 Oct 2012, 01:21 Post subject:

This might help.

On most puppies (I don't have saluki open in front of me, sorry) there is a "personalize settings" wizard, also called "firstrun wizard" or "firstboot wizard".

Open that. It will display the "welcome to [insert Puppy name here]" box and then give you a bunch of different useful options. One is a checkbox to enable UTF-8. Check the box and click the OK button. It will make you restart X after a minute or two (restarting X closes your active programs but it will not unmount anything).

After that you should be good to go.

mini-jaguar · Joined: 13 Nov 2008 Posts: 446

O.k., here it is. The first one is the USB stick that has been reformatted, I think a new partition table laid out, works well in any OS doesn't unmount in Saluki. The second has the factory formatting and works properly in Saluki.

The main differences are:
1. The second has the Windows 98 bootloader.
2. The second has a media descriptor.
3. The second shows hidden sectors, but both have hidden files, namely the automatically generated trashes files.
4. The second has no label, but mounts in Saluki as the manufacturer's name. The first mounts as "USB DISK", as stated.

I suspect the problem is that the Saluki 23 disk unmounting only works with USB sticks that have that piece of software that comes factory on the USB sticks and doesn't allow copying of certain bought files (audio, ebooks), so it won't work with reformatted drives. But reformatted drives work fine in other OSes, including proprietary/non-open source.

Not really sure this is the problem though. Maybe someone else can try a reformatted/new partition table USB stick.

mikeslr · Posted: Tue 09 Oct 2012, 11:59 Post subject: spam on Saluki-Forum

Hi Wognath,

Sorry about the spam problem on Saluki-Forum.
If I understand websites correctly, only its Administrator can install anti-spam addons, extensions, plugins. The most anyone else can do is research and recommend. But to do even that, we would have to know what software was used to create the website.
Examination of the forum indicates that it was built with phpBB and uses the sultanTheme style. But there are different versions of phpBB, and may be different versions of sultanTheme for each version.
You didn't mention if the Blog also was also being spammed. It was built with Wordpress. As there is an associated Forum, there really is no reason to allow comments to the Blog. So the easiest way to deal with spam is just to not allow comments.
If I recall correctly, in order to post on the Forum, you have to register. Registered spammers can be banned: i.e., their registration revoked. That won't stop them from seeking to register under a new name. I'm not sure, but there may be a plugin for phpBB which will block a specific IP address. If so, in addition to banning, a spammer's IP address can be blocked. Which, of course, won't stop spammers from posting from a different IP address, or if they can spoof a different IP address. It is my understanding that most spam comes out of Russia, the Ukraine, and China. There may be a plugin to exclude posting from an entire region. But that amounts to "throwing the baby out with the bath-water." The alternative is to require even registered users to complete a Captcha or KeyCaptcha. I particularly like the ones which require the use of a mouse to move pieces of a jigsaw puzzle to solve it, as the solution can't be automated (or at least would be very difficult to automate). Captcha's won't stop a dedicated spammer. But do an excellent job of preventing ROBO-Spamming. And perhaps there's an additional plugin so that before or after completing the Captcha you have to wait 60 seconds and click OK or continue. The more hoops a spammer has to go thru, the more likely he/she will be to direct his/her malevolence elsewhere. But, unfortunately, earnest Forum members would also have to accept those inconveniences.

Just like we put up with check-ins at an airport.

Available plugins can be found by typing "phpBB anti-spam" etc. into a search box. Then you'll want to also search whether a plugin conflicts with the sultanTheme jemimah used.

mikesLr

Wognath · Joined: 19 Apr 2009 Posts: 108

mikeslr,
Thanks for taking the time to post a very informative reply.
The administrators listed are Jemimah and TTW, a company. I have emailed Jemimah, but she is apparently unavailable at present. The blog has been inactive since July and I haven't seen any spam there.
I'll try emailing the company with my plea. I found the Saluki forum to be very helpful when I switched to Saluki, partly because it doesn't have 243 pages!!
Thanks again.
Wognath

greengeek · Joined: 20 Jul 2010 Posts: 1705 Location: New Zealand

elroy · Joined: 02 Feb 2012 Posts: 372

Sorry 'bout the spam on saluki-linux. I was the last moderator standing. I did give adequate warning on that forum that I'd be relinquishing my duties. I've since moved on to developing Carolina (based on Saluki-023). I no longer have the time to moderate the saluki-linux forum due to carolina development. Saluki-linux was extrememly time consuming due to the amount of spam, and the lacking spam controls, and I can't do it any longer while effectively developing a distro at the same time. And some of the previous posts are correct: Jemimah has sole admin-authority at this point, so unless she steps in, filtering at present is impossible. I've banned as many user-names/ip-addressess as I could (and faithfully deleted as much as I could up until the 7th of October - and now you can see what I was up against on an everyday basis), but I fear that the data-base is full, because even banned ip's/user-names are leaking through. And you're correct - most of the spam is coming from Russia/Indonesia. It's relentless. But you can't ban everyone from those locales, as there's dedicated puppy users from those locations. To do so would be counter-productive. I wish I had a better alternative, but unless jemimah becomes involved in the very near future, saluki-linux is for the most part a spammers haven. And unless jemimah picks up with saluki where she left off in the very near future, saluki is a dead end, because jemimah has stopped development on saluki. Geoffrey and I have forked Saluki-023 with Carolina, but Saluki itself, at present, is stagnated. Sad but true...

Just as a reference, not to highlight when they've done anything, but just the last time the people in charge have logged in to saluki-linux, here you have:
jemimah: 8 OCT 2012 (suprising that she hasn't done something...didn't realise this, because this is a very, very recent login).
TTW: 24 JUL 2012
t2linux: 20 SEP 2012
jim3630: 08 JUL 2012

That said, I have a great respect for jemimah, more than any of you (outside of Geoffrey) may know. She showed me more patience than was warranted, and to that I'm eternally grateful. However, things must move forward...

So with all honesty, I don't feel guilty about moving on. I've paid my dues. I'm a firm believer in saluki-linux, as is Geoffrey, but let's be honest...enough is enough. Even though some of these people have logged in recently, they have not contributed in any way-shape-or-form since June/july 2012. And it's now nearing mid October. So no, I don't feel guilty. And you can't make me...

That said, as of 9 OCT 2012, I've mirrored the saluki-linux forum, and will make use of it as it pertains to Carolina Linux. If you have questions concerning Saluki, you can pm me (elroy) or Geoffrey, and we may (no guarantee) be able to help you. We'd suggest you move on to Carolina, but if you can't run PAE, we understand. And we will help you if at all possible.

And with that, because jemimah is non-responsive, we don't have a clue to as long as saluki-linux will even be online! That's why I chose to mirror it. There's some valuable information there.

If you're into self-deprecation, pm me. If we can develop some kind of trust, I may be willing to provide you with my password to the site so that you can delete the spam. But be forewarned...it's a full-time job. They figure out when you sleep. And they employ auto-spam-bots - 7 spams at a time. You won't have much time to do anything else...

Wognath · Joined: 19 Apr 2009 Posts: 108

elroy,
I did not intend my request to reflect in any way on you or Geoffrey. You were both very helpful while moderating the Saluki forum and I clearly understood that you were moving on. mikeslr educated me a little about what is involved in filtering posts. I hoped someone would be interested and able to add a captcha or something, but I now understand that only an administrator can do so. I have emailed both administrators with my request.
In the meantime, I'll check out Carolina. Thanks again for your great work with Saluki.
Wognath

PS I'll be willing to help clean up the forum once a filter is in place, but it seems pointless to try to stay ahead of it until then.

elroy · Joined: 02 Feb 2012 Posts: 372

Hey Wognath, absolutely no offense taken. We're both very big fans of Saluki, and if someone should choose to stay with it, we'll be willing to help out in any way, shape, or form that we can. As far as saluki-linux is concerned, I'd trust someone as yourself, but I wouldn't wish those duties on my worst enemy. The separate forum idea is/was good, but the lack of administrative oversight is the deal-breaker. I hope to see you on the Carolina forum, but if not, I'll help out, and I'm sure Geoffrey will too, to our brethren on the Saluki front. After all, we're all on the 'same page'. Take care...

elroy

elroy · Joined: 02 Feb 2012 Posts: 372

oops...my bad...this can be deleted, Flash.

elroy · Joined: 02 Feb 2012 Posts: 372

okokoook · Joined: 08 Dec 2011 Posts: 23

starhawk · Posted: Tue 09 Oct 2012, 22:42 Post subject:

Glad to hear it! As a note, simply restarting X server would have been enough, you didn't have to reboot Wink

But that's beside the point.

rg66 · Posted: Wed 10 Oct 2012, 05:45 Post subject:

Thanks Elroy but it didn't work. I did find those files yesterday when I was digging through the a_drive to try and find the problem but they seem to only apply to pfind down in the context menu and there was nothing about arrangment order.

If I boot without the a_drive the list is alphabetical, I then loaded the a_drive and the list stayed that way with all my added apps listed. It seems there is another file in the a_drive that is overriding the one from the puppy sfs. I still consider myself to be a linux noob so am just guessing.

Anyway, thanks for still supporting Saluki even though you are very busy with Carolina. I love Saluki but will probably switch to that when it matures a bit.