October 2005 - main

Re: [ALUG] 2nd Thursday Norwich Meet : Reindeer, Dereham Road
by sfr 18 Oct '05

18 Oct '05

David Reynolds wrote: > Those?! I think you'll find it was me who fixed it (sure I was told > what to do, but I was still the one who did all the work :P ) And beautifully done, too. The light has stayed on even when landing after roadhumps. and then James Taylor wrote: >Pah! You would have been useless without my superb back-seat directions... heh :) -- sfr

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[ALUG Announce] Conference: Open Source Choices and Resources for Schools
by MJ Ray 18 Oct '05

18 Oct '05

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- Small reminder: ALUG meet at UEA on Sunday. See www.alug.org.uk Now a message that MK LUG asked us to pass on: Note that "services need to be clearly relevant to education." -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Open Source in Schools Event From: David Willington <david.willington(a)ntlworld.com> Dear All I've been asked by Hemel Hempstead School to help organise a conference putting together schools with an interest in Open Source software with businesses and individuals that can offer support and advice. I'm based in Sheffield where I've just organised one for schools up here. I called the event OSCARS (Open Source Choices and Resources for Schools) and it came about as a result of this year's FLOSSIE (Free, Libre and Open Source Software in Education) conference in Bolton where the view was that everyone there already know about FLOSS and what was needed was a conference to inform people who don't know about FLOSS. The reason for Hemel Hempstead is that I know the new Head there and she said that Sheffield was too far to come. This is the second OSCARS. I learned a few lessons from the first one. Firstly I'm going to try to keep a clear focus on education - the school's getting the schools together, and I'm approaching the Linux community. I'm keen to avoid a room full of Open Source converts, which is what happened at FLOSSIE. I'm planning to get about 10 businesses offering a range of solutions that are directly relevant to education and which are open source based, and ask the school to guarantee at least 25 schools. One of the companies that came to the first one was (as far as I can tell) offering Open Source on the back of a proprietary package. There's nothing wrong with this, but I'm eager to point out to schools that Open Source can come without ties. In other words, an exclusively Open Source event, although companies and businesses working with proprietary software are welcome along so long as they're demonstrating their open source options. From the businesses' point of view, experience in schools is good, but I don't think it's essential. However services need to be clearly relevant to education. If anyone would be interested in being involved I'd be delighted to hear from you. The proposed date is Fri 27 Jan 2006 and the venue is Hemel Hempstead School, Heath Lane, Hemel Hempstead. Thanks David Willington ----- Send discussion replies to main(a)lists.alug.org.uk (Reply-To set) Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce

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Re: 2nd Thursday Norwich Meet : Reindeer, Dereham Road
by sfr 18 Oct '05

18 Oct '05

Steve Engledow wrote... >Attendees (in alphabetical order because I'm nice like that): >Adam, Becca, Dan (I think), Dave, Eli, Francis, James, Jan, Kaz, Mike, >Noodles, Simon, Steve and a couple of late entries - Matthew and Suzi. It was a very lively meet :) Thanks to those who fixed up the trikelight - I took the Chariot onto the road on the way home, and going downhill we achieved >22mph! Could have been even faster, but a roundabout got in the way. sfr

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Framebuffer on Nvidia cards
by Wayne Stallwood 18 Oct '05

18 Oct '05

Is there anyway to get a framebuffer running on nvidia cards when using the Nvidia closed drivers ? I am sure my SuSE box used to run rivafb as this used to generate loads of warnings about the world ending whenever I tried to build new Nvidia drivers. Ubuntu however seems really reluctant to let me have a framebuffer device..presumably for the same reason as the Matrox equipped machine at work is running one by default.

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RE: [ALUG] Framebuffer on Nvidia cards
by Keith Watson 18 Oct '05

18 Oct '05

> From: Wayne Stallwood Sent: 18 October 2005 00:00 > > Is there anyway to get a framebuffer running on nvidia cards > when using the Nvidia closed drivers ? > > I am sure my SuSE box used to run rivafb as this used to > generate loads of warnings about the world ending whenever I > tried to build new Nvidia drivers. > Ubuntu however seems really reluctant to let me have a > framebuffer device..presumably for the same reason as the > Matrox equipped machine at work is running one by default. As you're running Ubuntu, any clues in the xorg log file (/var/log/Xorg.0.log)? I know SFA about frambuffers but have been struggling with a dual head set up for the Ubuntu install on my work laptop (which has an Nvidia video chipset) over the past couple of weeks. The Xorg log file has been very useful in finding out what was going on. Regards, Keith ____________ COMMERCE, n. - A kind of transaction in which A plunders from B the goods of C, and for compensation B picks the pocket of D of money belonging to E. - Ambrose Bierce - The Devil's Dictionary

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Samba passwords
by Stuart Bailey 17 Oct '05

17 Oct '05

I have a client who is using FC3 on a server to share up network drives to Win XP Pro computers in their office. I have given each user their own username and password for mapping these drives, but now they want the ability to change the passwords themselves. Are the any good tools for doing this - or do I need to write something. I'm thinking on the lines of a PHP or CGI script (they have Apache running on the server). Many thanks, Stuart. -- --------------------------------------- Stuart Bailey BSc (hons) CEng CITP MBCS LinuSoft (Proprietor) Linux Specialist (01953) 601294 (07778) 383739 http://www.linusoft.co.uk ----------------------------------------

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Cry for help - negotiating dialup link with vodafone GPRS via GSM modem
by Guy Eastwood 17 Oct '05

17 Oct '05

Trying to connect to vodafone GPRS with Siemens MC35 GSM Modem. The SIM and Modem both work with nowsms under windows and they do get handshaking things under Linux but the connection never completes establishment. It seems that the Vodafone server never sends any kind of ack to the IPCP request, log pasted below. Anyone have any wisdom on this? In UK, voda APN is set to wap.vodafone.co.uk (which works in nowsms), everything SEEMS sane in the settings but only stupidity happens. BTW, NowSMS is a bit of windoze s/ware for doing this kind of thing but by doing a bit of RTFM I expected to be able to achieve this and more n Linux without paying for some proprietary stuff, plus we run Debian machines at work and don't want to have to bung a 'doze box into the rack with all the associated 'concerns' that creates! uname is: Linux guy 2.6.12 #1 SMP Thu Oct 13 16:45:51 BST 2005 i686 GNU/Linux log said: SYSLOG PPPD connect output: Oct 14 14:11:36 guy pppd[12794]: Serial connection established. Oct 14 14:11:36 guy pppd[12794]: using channel 40 Oct 14 14:11:36 guy pppd[12794]: Using interface ppp0 Oct 14 14:11:36 guy pppd[12794]: Connect: ppp0 <--> /dev/ttyS0 Oct 14 14:11:37 guy pppd[12794]: sent [LCP ConfReq id=0x1 <asyncmap 0x0> <magic 0x32a24cf1> <pcomp> <accomp>] Oct 14 14:11:37 guy pppd[12794]: rcvd [LCP ConfNak id=0x1 <asyncmap 0xa0000>] Oct 14 14:11:37 guy pppd[12794]: sent [LCP ConfReq id=0x2 <asyncmap 0xa0000> <magic 0x32a24cf1> <pcomp> <accomp>] Oct 14 14:11:37 guy pppd[12794]: rcvd [LCP ConfAck id=0x2 <asyncmap 0xa0000> <magic 0x32a24cf1> <pcomp> <accomp>] Oct 14 14:11:37 guy pppd[12794]: rcvd [LCP ConfReq id=0x3 <asyncmap 0xa0000> <pcomp> <accomp> <magic 0x9b2bf908> <auth chap MD5>] Oct 14 14:11:37 guy pppd[12794]: sent [LCP ConfAck id=0x3 <asyncmap 0xa0000> <pcomp> <accomp> <magic 0x9b2bf908> <auth chap MD5>] Oct 14 14:11:37 guy pppd[12794]: rcvd [CHAP Challenge id=0x1 <02868b09f850081a7d28153a9010b0693306daa7>, name = ""] Oct 14 14:11:37 guy pppd[12794]: sent [CHAP Response id=0x1 <4c7362d517196aac19c2c9cc9a26428c>, name = "wap"] Oct 14 14:11:37 guy pppd[12794]: rcvd [CHAP Success id=0x1 ""] Oct 14 14:11:37 guy pppd[12794]: CHAP authentication succeeded Oct 14 14:11:37 guy pppd[12794]: sent [IPCP ConfReq id=0x1 <addr 0.0.0.0>] Oct 14 14:11:38 guy pppd[12794]: rcvd [LCP TermReq id=0x3] Oct 14 14:11:38 guy pppd[12794]: LCP terminated by peer Oct 14 14:11:38 guy pppd[12794]: sent [LCP TermAck id=0x3] Oct 14 14:11:41 guy pppd[12794]: rcvd [LCP TermReq id=0x3] Oct 14 14:11:41 guy pppd[12794]: sent [LCP TermAck id=0x3] Oct 14 14:11:41 guy pppd[12794]: Connection terminated.

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Re: [ALUG] Quoted-Printable and MIME (Was: [ALUG] Sorry about the swearing...)
by Ten 17 Oct '05

17 Oct '05

On Monday 17 October 2005 11:16, MJ Ray wrote: > Ten <runlevelten(a)gmail.com> > > > > On Friday 14 October 2005 20:09, MJ Ray wrote: > > > Ten's mail client (KMail) is using quoted-printable for > > > plain text emails, which seems broken. > > What, just the idea of using quoted-printable? > Using Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions for non-extended parts > of emails does seem a broken idea to me. I realise that some people > advocate using MIME for everything, because it's there, > but the amount of MIMEd email nasties means that my bulk email client runs > plain-text-only until I tell it otherwise. Not so much because it's there with me, but since beginning to use kmail (ie since it became acceptable) I've become much more guilty of this. That said, the indignant revulsion I reserve for HTML mails leads me to understand this viewpoint perfectly. > > If so, KMail has been using qp in signed messages, and IIRC the PGP/MIME > > spec has the use of quoted-printable or base64 in such signed messages as > > a required/must. > Ah, yes, that rules out 8-bit. However, RFC 3156 says: "all data > signed according to this protocol MUST be constrained to 7 bits" > ...which means, if you're not sending 8-bit, you don't need to qp it. > KMail seems to be qp-ing everything regardless. It's not as bad as > gmail, which base64s everything regardless for some users! Eugh! > Hope that explains it, Yes, thanks. As probably mentioned, on examining the mail to work out the cause for this behaviour (and to give ground to my evangelical faith in the One True Desktop Suite, of course :-) ), I'm pretty much certain that the 'thinking' behind kmail doing that was that there were trailing spaces and stuff in the email. Now, whilst I'm not really au fait with the minutiae of pgp/mime, it seems that when sending the data via 7bit which had those trailing spaces _when it was signed_, encoding it as quoted-printable is a fair thing to do if you don't want your signature borken at the other end. So teh issues would seem to be (1) me not cleaning up my spaces post-edit, and (2) trailing spaces getting signed. Like I said, I don't pretend to be an expert on this, but that's my inference of what's going on there.. CMIIW :) Also as a matter of interest, thank you for drawing my attention to rfc 3156, as the last one I read on the matter was 2015! Probably before the turn of the century, literally ( which should give you a rough idea of how au fait I aren't! ). -- Ten PS: Those who know about a certain proprietary software I worked on in late 2001 will pour scorn on my standards-compliancy naffness, but I should point out that I worked on the horrid flash-based update UI, not any of the manly stuff.

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Weekly IRC reminder
by Brett Parker 17 Oct '05

17 Oct '05

This is the automated ALUG IRC meeting reminder sent to remind you that there is an IRC meeting tonight (Monday) at 8.00pm. Historically, these used to be the only time a lot of us would be about, now the channel has some usual faces that are there most of the time (except at silly o'clock, when we might be sleeping, or on the second thursday of the month, where we might be drinking in the Reindeer), so don't feel limited to visit during this time, come visit us when ever you feel like it! 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 xchat, irssi 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://www.irssi.org/ http://www.epicsol.org/ Windows http://www.mirc.com (loads of help with irc for newbies!)

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KDM Display Manager
by David Noble 16 Oct '05

16 Oct '05

Hi I have somehow managed to disable my KDM display manager. Would any of you know the best way to go about getting it back to working order. I can't remember how I managed to disable it, but for the moment, I am forced to use the XDM manager. I run SuSE 9.3, which was working well up until yesterday. Thank you very much- any support would be much appreciated, David Noble, Norwich

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