April 2005 - main

LISP questions
by Richard Lewis 29 Apr '05

29 Apr '05

Hello ALUG, I thought I'd try and learn LISP for fun! I've found some good tutorials on the web but I can't seem to find a mailing list. I found common-lisp(a)ai.sri.com but I can't find archives for it and the description I read makes it sound like they may not like newbie questions. Does anyone know of any LISP lists that would be good for newbies? And if anyone on ALUG has any experience with LISP: I've been writing a 'hello world' program which consists of a function that returns T if the given parameter is prime or else it returns NIL; the only thing is, it doesn't work. It always returns NIL which I think its getting from the <then> clause of the second (if ) function. I think I may have misunderstood the way that LISP functions return their results: if the number is prime then it should return the (not ()) from the first (if ) function but it doesn't. Heres the code in case anyone knows about LISP: ======================================== ; the recursive function: (defun prime-rfunc (x iterator) (print x) ; for debugging (print (1+ iterator)) ; for debugging (if (= x iterator) (not ()) (if (= 0 (mod x (1+ iterator))) () (prime-rfunc x (1+ iterator))) ) ) ; because the recursive function takes a second, ; non-variable argument, prime is a wrapper function ; which just takes the intuitive first argument: (defun prime (x) (prime-func x 1)) ; test it: (print (prime 7)) ======================================== Cheers, Richard

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Re: Usable distro for crappy old 'pooter?
by tom potts 29 Apr '05

29 Apr '05

To take things to extreeemes I had SuSe 5.3 running on a 16 Mhz 386 with a 50Meg HD and 4MB ram. If I remember rightly it ran X albeit a bit slowly. I ran it as a print server for a while but then left it running some self-tests on system and MySql (3..) for about a year until one day I found a mains cable leading into the darkest reaches of my attic and it was still running cleanly. I can burn you a copy if you're really sad like me and cant throw things away even though you risk divorce and the floor caving in! RH6.1 on a 486 with 32MB makes a perfectly usable internet cafe though it will choke on some sites with dire JS and Movies are only 'watchable' after eleventeen pints. 96Meg- Luxuery. When I was a kid...... Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

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Re: main digest, Vol 3 #524 - 17 msgs
by John Seago 29 Apr '05

29 Apr '05

On Friday 29 Apr 2005 06:26, main-request(a)lists.alug.org.uk wrote: > The conventional answer to this is normally Slackware. I think because > of ZipSlack and also because they make available *all* of their releases > - ever - every single one. So the idea is that you can pick up an older > version which was built when your machine was the cutting edge. Try running Slackware 8 and working your way up to 9·1. All the Slackware versions are available here: ftp://ftp.mirror.ac.uk/sites/ftp.slackware.com/ -- John Seago GNU/Linux User #219566 http://counter.li.org AFFS http://www.affs.org.uk/

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Somewhat urgent - dvd data recovery
by Joe Button 28 Apr '05

28 Apr '05

Hi. I've got some people coming round tonight to watch a film I've got in mpg format on a data DVD. Unfortunately I've just discovered I can't read beyond about three quarters of the file. Does anyone have any idea how I could recover the rest of this file, or at least most of the rest of it? Thanks in advance. Sorry to be so demanding today.

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Re: [ALUG] Usable distro for crappy old 'pooter?
by Richard Lewis 28 Apr '05

28 Apr '05

On 28 Apr 2005, at 13:25, Joe Button wrote: > We have a P233 machine in our office with 96Mb ram. It's been running > Windows > 98 for the last few years and it would be good to move it to something > less > moribund. I installed Mandriva on it but it runs like a dog, compared > to > Win98. Can anyone suggest a distro that will turn our dinosaur into a > usable > office machine? I was thinking maybe Gentoo + distcc. Any > recommendations? The conventional answer to this is normally Slackware. I think because of ZipSlack and also because they make available *all* of their releases - ever - every single one. So the idea is that you can pick up an older version which was built when your machine was the cutting edge. Cheers, Richard

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Amstrad PCW
by Bob Dove 26 Apr '05

26 Apr '05

Hi Folks, re Ashley/PCW. I have the original PCW disks CP/M Plus on Amstrad 3 inch disk backed with Locoscript, plus another disk with Dr. Logo, help and programming utilities which came with my PCW 256, plus many other 3 in disks with MicroDesign, Literatus, Locoscript 2, fonts &c plus many 3 in 'work' disks. I don't have a working PCW. I would be prepared to loan these disks out if they would be of use, and perhaps sell some of the very rare 3 in disks. From memory, the PCW was started with the CP/M disk in the 'A' drive so it would load the program into memory, then once that was loaded you would load Locoscript or whatever else you wanted to run. I think you made a start-up disk so as not to spoil the original program master disk. It was a wonderful machine that would run a word processor, spread sheet and graphics program in 256 Kb of RAM! I have a working Amstrad PC 1512 DD as well if anybody is interested in PC pre-history! Cheers, BD. -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.308 / Virus Database: 266.9.13 - Release Date: 16/04/2005

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Re: [linux-users] URGENT: SMTP Authenitcation in Linux
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 25 Apr '05

25 Apr '05

Hi Folks, While I'm still able to do so, I'd like to thank all who rushed so promptly to my rescue, with a lot of useful-looking advice. There's a lot to follow up there (should keep me busy for what remains of my time ... !). Meanwhile, for your entertainment [?], you may like to hear of what happened when I followed Simon Hobson's advice (via linux-users & man-lug): On 25-Apr-05 Simon Hobson wrote: > Bummer ! > > Though my experience with BT is that I'm surprised they > know what authenticated SMTP is ! > > Whilst I doubt if you'll get anywhere, I would be inclined > to approach BT and explain that at the moment you can't/don't > know how to turn on authentication for your mail setup (but > are looking into it). > [...] Well, I did call their "SMTP Authentication Team" number, and was connected to a very nice Indian gentleman, who listened to me carefully. He even seemed to be more than a little aware of Linux (to the point of paying tribute to its security compared with you-know-what). The upshot was: "We are not trained in these mail clients and we are not authorised to give advice about them. I suggest you contact the Linux help desk." Well, I guess I already did that! Thanks, hot-liners, I'll be looking into your suggestions! All best wishes, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 25-Apr-05 Time: 17:42:52 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Weekly IRC reminder
by Brett Parker 25 Apr '05

25 Apr '05

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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HTML editor - recommendations?
by Anthony Anson 24 Apr '05

24 Apr '05

I'm used to using Arachnophilia for writing pages (though most of what goes on the page is hand-crafted, not point-and-click.). What editor would people recommend for running under Debian? (I dislike Mozilla's offering.) Requirements: *NOT* a (so-called) WYSIWYG thing. CSS-capable Easily understood by a beer of very little brian. And: Does anyone know of a file which lists all the available HTML tags, and where it can be got? (I might have missed it, but I did look on W3C.com) And: could someone please explain (in worms of one syllabub) what  does? (I've been playing with Pagemill, which came with the scanner.) -- Tony http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/ The only way to tell when a Finn is in love with you is that they look at your feet instead of their own.

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Re: Re: [ALUG] OOo
by John Seago 24 Apr '05

24 Apr '05

On Sunday 24 Apr 2005 06:26, Graham <gt(a)pobox.com> wrote: > Any distribution of that size is bound to be selective, leaving out > anything not essential to its perceived target market. So I wouldn't > expect to see - for example - a full development environment or lots of > multimedia. Of course, not everyone wants these things, and that's > fine, but if you have more eclectic needs you'll be doing a lot of > downloading anyway, so it makes more sense to do a full FTP install and > get just what you want. > > -- GT I share your opinion, if one wants, or needs to have an install of Debian then the obvious chioce is to use Debian, using the new installer it is no more difficult to use than the installer in Ubuntu. The subjest has been discussed here: http://ianmurdock.com/archives/000244.html and here: http://ianmurdock.com/archives/000258.html -- John Seago GNU/Linux User #219566 http://counter.li.org AFFS http://www.affs.org.uk/

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