September 2002 - main

Re: [Alug] Hard Drive performance
by Wayne Stallwood 19 Sep '02

19 Sep '02

It's also worth considering that a clock for clock comparasion between a PC and a Laptop will always show the laptop to be slower. The Processor, Video Hardware, Drives etc are all optimised for power consumption and size...not speed. The Mobile P4 operates without a bloody great H/Sink fan and draws less power, how do you think it achieves that ? I'm guessing that you have a 8200, Your Gforce 4 Go graphics chip is compareable to a GF2 on a desktop system, again due to power and size considerations. You could have a tinker with the power management setup, it may be set to "Battery Economy" rather than "Performance" The Processor in question is capable of speedstep after all, it may be possible to use the Bogomips value to determine what speed the clock was actually running at, but this is only measured during boot AFAIK. In short Don't expect your laptop to ever perform as well as a 1.6 Ghz desktop system, although that said slower than a 1Ghz does sound a little off, check those power settings. W > > On Mon, Sep 16, 2002 at 10:44:33PM +0100, Ian Bell wrote: > > > I mentioned in an earlier post my move from a P!! igig PC to a new dell > > > laptop with a P4 1.6 gig and how with rh7.3 it seemed slower than the > > > old system. I have now investigated this a little further. > > > > One other factor here i think you are saying a PIII 1Ghz to a PIV 1.6Ghz? > > in which case the performance would not be 60% greater, in all likelyhood > > a PIV at 1.6ghz will most likely be the same speed as a PIII 1Ghz for > > most of the time, slower for some things and faster on a very few others. > > > > Have you also checked memory timings in the Bios? is the kernel built > > with support for a PIV, are you using a framebuffer driver for X or > > native GFX support? Are there many unused daemons running in the > > background that you don't need? are all other things to check. > > > > About hdparm, PIO modes are usually discovered by the BIOS pretty > > accuratly so I would leave them alone, setting DMA to 16bit or 32bit with > > sync is usually safe and the other options are trial and error. You could > > try looking on the net to find other peoples settings, linux on laptops > > page may be good for this (this machine is a laptop?) as would looking on > > the disk manufacturers webpage for specs too. > > > > Oh and finally hdparm can destroy data on your harddisk if you go for too > > many settings and the disk/computer doesn't like them.... > > > > Adam > > -- > > "Step away from the Cathedral, This Bazaar is loaded" > > jabberid = quinophex(a)jabber.earth.li > > > > _______________________________________________ > > main(a)lists.alug.org.uk > > http://www.alug.org.uk/ > > http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main > > Unsubscribe? See message headers or the web site above! -------------------------------------------------------

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Raid Motherboards
by Christopher Drane 17 Sep '02

17 Sep '02

I am going to get a new Motherboard and I want it to have onboard raid. What I was wondering are there any pitfalls to raid drives and Linux and do you know of any good motherboards that have onboard raid and are supported well in Linux. The good news is that money is not one of my main problems, I am looking to spend up to £200 so that should be plenty. I thought I would post this before I get the board, hopefully I can get the right board that is supported by Linux thus stopping me having the problems after I have brought it. Any help or suggestions will be appreciated Chris Drane

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Hard Drive performance
by Ian Bell 17 Sep '02

17 Sep '02

I mentioned in an earlier post my move from a P!! igig PC to a new dell laptop with a P4 1.6 gig and how with rh7.3 it seemed slower than the old system. I have now investigated this a little further. I installed rh7.2 becuase I suspected KDE3 was slowing things down but although the slimmer KDE2 is a little faster it is still nowhere near as responsive as the old system. So I have played around a bit with hdparm to see if hard drive performance is a factor. hdparm reports a cache speed of over 200MBytes/sec (basically the memeory bus speed) but the cached disk read speed is a mere 3MBytes/sec. dma is not enebaled by default but if i use hdparm to enable it, cached disk read speed jumps to over 20Mbytes/sec. Set like this, applications load about twice as fast. Then I tried all the PIO modes but this mad eno difference. So I started to set dma modes, starting from 0, but this froze the system and forced me to hard reset. So my questions are: 1. How well should a basic install be able to automagically select good disk drive parameters 2. Where are these stored and actioned? 3. How do I find the best settings for my drive other then very tedious trial and arror? Thanks ian

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Weekly IRC reminder
by Neill Newman 16 Sep '02

16 Sep '02

This is the automated ALUG IRC meeting reminder sent to remind you that there is an IRC meeting tonight (Monday) at 8.00pm. The meeting takes place on the irc server irc.alug.org.uk in the #alug channel. Most IRC clients should allow you to get there with the commands "/server irc.alug.org.uk" and "/join #alug". Popular IRC clients include tkirc, bitchx, xchat and EPIC on Unix, and Mirc under windows. Here are some links to help you get started with irc. Unix http://www.xchat.org/ http://freshmeat.net/ http://www.epicsol.org/ Windows http://www.mirc.com (loads of help with irc for newbies!)

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Maybe a dumb question...
by Simon 15 Sep '02

15 Sep '02

Hi... I've got a server that doesn't use shadow password, how do I "convert" it so that it uses shadow passwords... Simon

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Announce digest, Vol 1 #26 - 1 msg
by announce-request＠lists.alug.org.uk 15 Sep '02

15 Sep '02

Send Announce mailing list submissions to announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to announce-request(a)lists.alug.org.uk You can reach the person managing the list at announce-admin(a)lists.alug.org.uk When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Announce digest..." --------------.--------------------------------------------.------------ alug-announce | Newsletter of the Anglian Linux User Group | Weekly(ish) --------------'--------------------------------------------'------------ ** Please send articles for this letter to announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk ** *** Please send replies to main(a)lists.alug.org.uk, not announce... *** ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Today's Topics: 1. Fwd: [Alug] meeting this Sunday @ the Fat Cat pub Norwich 2pm onwards (MJ Ray) --__--__-- Message: 1 To: announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk From: MJ Ray <markj(a)cloaked.freeserve.co.uk> Date: Sat, 14 Sep 2002 10:57:54 +0100 Subject: [Alug Announce] Fwd: [Alug] meeting this Sunday @ the Fat Cat pub Norwich 2pm onwards Meeting this weekend at the Fat Cat pub in Norwich from 2pm onwards. See here for more on the Fat Cat http://www.greatbeer.co.uk/norfaca.htm Not sure who will be there, but there will be some there and MJR will bring a penguin. Someone add this to the wiki, please? --__--__-- _______________________________________________ Announce mailing list Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce End of Announce Digest

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Announce digest, Vol 1 #25 - 4 msgs
by announce-request＠lists.alug.org.uk 13 Sep '02

13 Sep '02

Send Announce mailing list submissions to announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to announce-request(a)lists.alug.org.uk You can reach the person managing the list at announce-admin(a)lists.alug.org.uk When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Announce digest..." --------------.--------------------------------------------.------------ alug-announce | Newsletter of the Anglian Linux User Group | Weekly(ish) --------------'--------------------------------------------'------------ ** Please send articles for this letter to announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk ** *** Please send replies to main(a)lists.alug.org.uk, not announce... *** ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Today's Topics: 1. Wanted: Your Linux software and hardware reviews for cash! (Keith Watson) 2. Fwd: Nominations Request for The 2002 FSF Award for the Advancement of Free Software (MJ Ray) 3. Fwd: [ian(a)fipr.org: FIPR-Bulletin: Conference announcement: A Fair Deal on Copyright?] (MJ Ray) 4. Unix Backups Made Easy (Keith Watson) --__--__-- Message: 1 Reply-To: <keith.watson(a)kewill.com> From: "Keith Watson" <keith.watson(a)kewill.com> To: "ALUG Announce $E-mail$" <announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk> Date: Fri, 6 Sep 2002 11:21:14 +0100 Subject: [Alug Announce] Wanted: Your Linux software and hardware reviews for cash! xpost from newsforge; http://newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=02/09/01/1636239 - By Robin "Roblimo" Miller - Linux.com is eager to publish reader-written reviews of Linux software, new or updated Linux distributions, and hardware you have used with Linux. We will pay a small honorarium for each original review, so when you write a review for Linux.com you will not only be helping fellow Linux users but putting a little money in your pocket. Keith --__--__-- Message: 2 To: uklugs(a)lug.org.uk, fsfe-uk(a)gnu.org, announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk From: MJ Ray <markj(a)cloaked.freeserve.co.uk> Date: Sat, 07 Sep 2002 12:31:26 +0100 Subject: [Alug Announce] Fwd: Nominations Request for The 2002 FSF Award for the Advancement of Free Software From: "Bradley M. Kuhn" <bkuhn(a)fsf.org> Subject: Nominations Request for The 2002 FSF Award for the Advancement of Free Software Date: Fri, 6 Sep 2002 12:13:56 -0400 [ Please redistribute this message widely where appropriate. ] The FSF and the GNU project request nominations for the 2002 FSF Award for the Advancement of Free Software. We want to give this award to a person who has made a great contribution to the progress and development of Free Software (free as in freedom; see http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html for the definition), through activities that accord with the spirit of software freedom. Any kind of activity could be eligible -- writing software, writing documentation, publishing CDs, even journalism -- but whatever the activity, we want to recognize long-term central contributions to the development of the world of software freedom. "Accord with the spirit" means, for example, that software, manuals or collections of them (online or on CD) must be entirely Free. Work done commercially is eligible, but we give this award to individuals, not to companies, organizations, or teams. People such as Miguel de Icaza, Donald Knuth, Brian Paul, Guido van Rossum, Richard Stallman, Linus Torvalds, and Larry Wall who have already received this or other awards for their contributions, are not eligible for the Award for the Advancement of Free Software. Among those who are eligible, the award committee will try to choose whoever has made the greatest contribution. Please send your nominations to <award-nominations(a)gnu.org>, on or before 15 October 2002. Please submit nominations in the following format: * Put the name of the person you are nominating in the email message subject line. * Please include, in the body of your message, an explanation (40 lines or less) of the work the person has done and why you think it is especially important to software freedom. * Please state, in the body of your message, where to find the software which your nomination is based on. Information about the previous awards can be found online at: http://www.gnu.org/award/ -- Bradley M. Kuhn, Executive Director Free Software Foundation | Phone: +1-617-542-5942 59 Temple Place, Suite 330 | Fax: +1-617-542-2652 Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA | Web: http://www.gnu.org --__--__-- Message: 3 To: announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk, fsfe-uk(a)gnu.org From: MJ Ray <markj(a)cloaked.freeserve.co.uk> Date: Sun, 08 Sep 2002 19:18:34 +0100 Subject: [Alug Announce] Fwd: [ian(a)fipr.org: FIPR-Bulletin: Conference announcement: A Fair Deal on Copyright?] Date: Thu, 05 Sep 2002 18:41:42 +0100 From: Ian Brown <ian(a)fipr.org> Subject: FIPR-Bulletin: Conference announcement: A Fair Deal on Copyright? - -------------------------------------------------------------------------- You have received this message from the FIPR Bulletin mailing list run by the Foundation for Information Policy Research http://www.fipr.org/ - -------------------------------------------------------------------------- A Fair Deal on Copyright? http://www.fipr.org/events.html WHAT: A mini-conference organised by The Foundation for Information Policy Research WHEN: 5.30pm-7pm, Wednesday 25 September 2002 WHERE: The Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House, LSE, The Aldwych, London WC2A 2AE. Hosted by the Department of Information Systems, London School of Economics Admission: free. Space is limited, so please RSVP to fairdeal02(a)fipr.org if you would like to attend. PLEASE REDISTRIBUTE THIS FLYER UNTIL 25 SEPTEMBER - -- The Internet has presented a dramatic challenge to the existing copyright regime. Rights holders such as the music and film industry claim that their businesses are losing many millions of dollars each year to file-swapping networks such as Napster and its successors. One of their main responses has been to lobby for changes in copyright legislation to restrict the ability of consumers to extract and exchange content on-line. The UK government is now holding a consultation on legislation to update UK law in this area, based on the European Union's recent Copyright Directive. This would criminalise certain copyright infringements and circumvention of technology that controls access to media such as DVDs. Would the draft legislation properly balance the incentives given to content creators through copyright, with the benefits to society of the free exchange of information? What effect will criminalising "circumvention technologies" have on computer and Internet security? Will authors, musicians and film-makers needing to sample previous works become criminals? At this conference you can debate the issues with speakers from the Patent Office and open source and library communities, and hear how well similar US legislation has worked in practice. Speakers: The Patent Office: Intro and Q&A on the copyright consultation Julian Midgley, FIPR: Problems with the draft legislation Toby Bainton, Society of College, National and University Libraries: The effect on the UK's libraries Barbara Simons, Association for Computing Machinery: Where the United States went wrong on copyright Background: The Copyright Directive (2001/29/EC) - UK Implementation, The Patent Office: http://www.patent.gov.uk/about/consultations/eccopyright/index.htm Critique of the Proposed UK Implementation of the EU Copyright Directive, Julian Midgley: http://uk.eurorights.org/issues/eucd/ukimpl/critique_uk_impl.html ACM briefings on the US Digital Millenium Copyright Act: http://www.acm.org/usacm/IP/#copyright Media contacts: Ian Brown, Director, FIPR: ian(a)fipr.org / 07970 164 526 Ross Anderson, Chair, FIPR: rja(a)fipr.org / 01223 33 47 33 - -- (c) FIPR September 2002. This e-mail may be copied freely in whole or in part. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------- You have received this message from the FIPR Bulletin mailing list run by the Foundation for Information Policy Research http://www.fipr.org/ To unsubscribe, send an email to: <bulletin-unsubscribe(a)admin.fipr.org> If you need to change your subscribed email address, or for any other administrative matters, please write to: <bulletin-request(a)admin.fipr.org> - -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------- End of forwarded message ------- --__--__-- Message: 4 Reply-To: <keith.watson(a)kewill.com> From: "Keith Watson" <keith.watson(a)kewill.com> To: "ALUG Announce $E-mail$" <announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk> Date: Mon, 9 Sep 2002 12:50:15 +0100 Subject: [Alug Announce] Unix Backups Made Easy Remember I posted an item on the Main list on backup strategies a while back? Here's an interesting article from slashdot on the same topic; Linux Backups Made Easy http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/09/07/1630234 mfago writes "A colleague of mine has written a great [0] tutorial on how to use rsync to create automatic [1]"snapshot-style" backups. Nothing is required except for a simple script, although it is thus not necessarily suitable for data-center applications. Please try to be gentle on his server: it is the $80 computer that he mentions in the tutorial. Perhaps try the [2]Google cache." An excellent article answering a frequently asked question. Links 0. http://www.mikerubel.org/computers/rsync_snapshots/ 1. http://www.netapp.com/products/filer/snapmirror.html 2. http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:ysk5qyhZDzcC:www.mikerubel.org/computer s/rsync_snapshots/+%22mike+rubel%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8 Regards, Keith Watson ____________ Whatever thou sayest of God is untrue. Meister Eckhart --__--__-- _______________________________________________ Announce mailing list Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce End of Announce Digest

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Networking Trouble - Any Ideas
by Steve Fosdick 13 Sep '02

13 Sep '02

At home here I have a notebook and desktop PC and I can connect between them via a hub and everything works but when I try a crossover cable instead I get one way transmission, from the desktop to the notebook. Thinking it could be a cable fault I connected the cable the other way found (so the pairs in use were the opposite way round) but still the notebook could see packets coming from the desktop and not the other way round. Does anyone have any tips? The desktop is running kernel 2.4.29 and the following is from 'dmesg' for when the crossover cable is in use: natsemi.c:v1.07 1/9/2001 Written by Donald Becker <becker(a)scyld.com> http://www.scyld.com/network/natsemi.html (unofficial 2.4.x kernel port, version 1.07+LK1.0.14, Nov 27, 2001 Jeff Garzik, Tjeerd Mulder) AMD756: dev 100b:0020, router pirq : 2 get irq : 11 PCI: Found IRQ 11 for device 00:0a.0 eth0: NatSemi DP8381[56] at 0xf0929000, 00:a0:cc:7b:33:e6, IRQ 11. eth0: link up. eth0: Setting full-duplex based on negotiated link capability. eth0: Autonegotiation advertising 0x5e1 partner 0x00. Reverting back to the hub, I get, again from the desktop: eth0: link up. eth0: Link wake-up event 0x40020b eth0: Autonegotiation advertising 0x5e1 partner 0x21. eth0: Setting half-duplex based on negotiated link capability.

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Networking Trouble.. stupid ass of Windows 98.
by Craig 13 Sep '02

13 Sep '02

Since there is a steady increase in networking problems ;) But a bit off here and it is windows trouble ;) At the moment, I have 3 boxes (and a fourth one coming soon) hooked up onto a hub. Router = Linux Workstation = Linux Workstation2 = Windows 98 Now I have set Windows 98 networking to the correct IP, gateway address and DNS. But it doesn't see Workstation + the Router! No ping replies, heck the internet isn't there! I cannot ping it from my workstation/router to workstation2 at all. First thought is the cable connection.. Nothing there. Checked IP etc.. seems fine. Don't suggest 'Linux' on Workstation2 since various people in this household wants to use it ;) Just a thought if anyone actually know a fix to this stupid problem... Or I could start teaching Linux to those people ;) -- (o_ .----------------------------------------. //\ | Craig Butcher | http://www.wizball.co.uk| V_/_ | - Using Gentoo GNU/Linux - | `----------------------------------------'

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Re: [Alug] meeting this Sunday @ the Fat Cat pub Norwich 2pm onwards
by NuTTeR -- Not Entered -- 12 Sep '02

12 Sep '02

I cant sorry im moving to cambrige over the weekend... yes finaly a place i can spell the name of, Weasenham(or somthing like that ;-) isnt fun for me. Cambrige is much simpler. more to the point whats CamLug like? There site isnt as good as ours and theres no wiki! ;) -- _______________________________________________ Get your free email from http://www.graffiti.net Powered by Outblaze

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