March 2004 - main

What is Opne Source
by Vasko Tomanov 02 Mar '04

02 Mar '04

What is Open Source: http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20040226003735733 video vresion: http://jolt.law.harvard.edu./p.cgi/speakers.html

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Alternatives to hash and binary chop search - are there any others?
by Chris Green 02 Mar '04

02 Mar '04

This isn't really a Linux question but members of this list might have some ideas/answers. I have a little 68000 assembler project I'm doing for someone (paid!) and basically it consists of replacing a 'built on the fly' look-up table with a ready made one which is uploaded with the code. The existing code uses a rather messy hash look-up and one of the reasons for the re-write is to make it simpler and more reliable. A linear search of the table probably isn't a good idea as it would mean that there would be significant differences in look-up time for entries at the beginning and end of the table. I'm leaning towards a binary-chop search but wondered if anyone had any other ideas. Binary-chop is easy in principle but it's often quite difficult to implement in practice because one has to deal with messy boundary conditions. It's also a bit more difficult to create the sorted table necessary automatically and relying on the creator of the table to sort it might be a bit dodgy. The table looks up ATM addresses (16 bit values) given an IP address (32 bit values), maximum size is of the order of 400 entries. -- Chris Green (chris(a)areti.co.uk)

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RE: [ALUG] Linux Newbie Book
by Jenny Hopkins 02 Mar '04

02 Mar '04

Stan Fraser wrote: > only if you have a brain as big as a planet Jenny > > Hey, that's me! ;-) jen ______________________________________________________________________ This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System. For more information please visit http://www.messagelabs.com/email ______________________________________________________________________

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Syleham Meeting Sunday 29th
by Peter Onion 02 Mar '04

02 Mar '04

I'm a bit of a "sleeping member" but I'm intending to come up to Syleham on Sunday. I'll bring my Mini-ITX SuSE 9.0 machine along. It's got images of the the SuSE 9.0 CDs on it for network (nfs) installs if anyone wants to do that. It'll run as a wireless access point as well if needs be. Peter Onion

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TV cards and DVD writers in Linux
by Chris Green 01 Mar '04

01 Mar '04

Does anyone here have any experience of running TV cards and/or DVD writers under Linux? I have a Kworld V-Stream Xpert 883 card (Conexant CX2388x based) and wonder if there might be any Linux software to drive it, the windows software for it is generally pretty awful. Lots of "lets try and make it look like a TV/Video" and very little actual usability. In addition I'd quite like to record the captured video (presumably MPG2) to a DVD (in 'playable on a DVD player; format). I currently have a Liteon LDW811-S DVD writer in my Win2k system, I sort of can write captured MPG2 files to the DVD writer as DVDs but the whole process is distinctly flakey. Will I have all the same problems in Linux because the software is still in its infancy or are things more 'together' unde Linux? -- Chris Green (chris(a)areti.co.uk)

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Patitioning
by IanBell 01 Mar '04

01 Mar '04

I often try new distros or upgrade the one I am using. Currently I have four partitions on my hard drive. Two are for two different linux distros, one for swap and another for M$. I have just moved from mainly working on one linux distro to the other which has meant copying lots of files from one /home/myuser directory to the other and changing lots of permissions. basically a pain. I am thinking of re-partitioning to include a permanent /home partition which can be used by either linux distro. This way I can install or upgrade distros to my hearts content without having to worry about transferring user files. So the question, does this work, is it practical, are ther any pitfalls? Cheers Ian

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RE: [ALUG] Syleham Meeting Sunday 29th
by Jenny Hopkins 01 Mar '04

01 Mar '04

MJRay wrote: >I thought the meeting was quite fun, with old machine emulators, >Revolution OS, and talking about all of you in your absence. :) Did >your ears burn? Well, you know what they say...."If there's one thing worse than being talked about, it's not being talked about" Jen ______________________________________________________________________ This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System. For more information please visit http://www.messagelabs.com/email ______________________________________________________________________

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RE: [ALUG] Syleham Meeting Sunday 29th
by Jenny Hopkins 01 Mar '04

01 Mar '04

Chris Green wrote: > I live down down one of "those tiny lanes" and rode my > motorbike to work this morning. I have to admit I did wonder > if I was being stupid but I made it without any disasters. > Ditto :-) Cold hands, eh? John - sorry not to be there, it's my Favourite Venue. Jen ______________________________________________________________________ This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System. For more information please visit http://www.messagelabs.com/email ______________________________________________________________________

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Weekly IRC reminder
by Neill Newman 01 Mar '04

01 Mar '04

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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