November 2006 - main

[ALUG Announce] 2nd Thursday Norwich Meet : Reindeer, Dereham Road
by Jonathan McDowell 05 Nov '06

05 Nov '06

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- The monthly "Second Thursday" ALUG Norwich Pub Meet is this Thursday, 9th November. It's at the Reindeer pub on the Dereham Road, just opposite the City Gate. People will be there from 8pm-ish, though there may be a few people there earlier. I will finally be able to make it again myself. Topics for discussion will no doubt be as varied as ever. The Reindeer has a reasonable selection of beer as well as decent coffee (with biscuits, if you're lucky). Directions to the Reindeer can be found at: http://www.alug.org.uk/venues/reindeer.html Pictures of some of the regulars, and irregulars, and, well, just some pictures of people that might or might not turn up are available from: http://www.earth.li/~noodles/Photos/2006-02-ALUG/ http://the.earth.li/~noodles/stilvoid-alug/mp20050811/ http://www.earth.li/~noodles/Photos/2005-01-ALUG-Xmas/ http://www.earth.li/~noodles/Photos/2004-08-ALUG/ Which should hopefully aid those of you wondering who to look out for. We're /normally/ just to the left of the main entrance, though sometimes we've ended up at the far end of the pub beside the pool table, as there are comfy seats at that end. J. -- "I can see an opening for the four lusers of the Apocalypse... 'I didn't change anything', 'My e-mail doesn't work', 'I can't print' and 'Is the network broken?'." -- Paul Mc Auley, asr ----- 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: [ALUG] Audio problems
by Keith Watson 03 Nov '06

03 Nov '06

> From: Martin Collins Sent: 24 October 2006 20:19 > > I'm using Ubuntu Dapper on my laptop with kernel > 2.6.15-27-k7. There's a problem when playing DVD's or video > files with the lip-sync. The audio is 200-400 ms ahead of the > video. I've googled for answers but just can't seem to find > any. This wasn't a problem before I installed Dapper, but I > don't want to uninstall it because of one annoying little problem. > > I know it's the computer and not the files because I've seem > them played on Windows machines with full lip-sync. Has > anyone experienced any problem like this, or should it be > reported to Ubuntu as a bug? > > Its an nforce3 audio chip (0000:00:06.0 Multimedia audio controller: > nVidia Corporation nForce3 Audio (rev a2)) > > Thanks all, > > Martin Have you tried installing the EasyUbuntu upgrades? (http://easyubuntu.freecontrib.org/) Fixed a similar problem on my desktop system. Regards, Keith ____________ FUNDAMENTALIST, n. One who believes that their cult's scriptures are divinely inspired works admirably suited to the spiritual needs of their neighbours. - after Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

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Re: Any Sane experts out there? (cl@isbd.net)
by Peter Alcibiades 03 Nov '06

03 Nov '06

No kind of expert on anything, but I fixed a similar problem by installing Epson's own package. iscan. Just went in and then sane worked fine. This was Mandriva and also Suse, for a 1640. And another epson at my little charity. Without iscan Xsane wouldn't work, with it it went perfectly. Peter

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Any Sane experts out there?
by cl＠isbd.net 03 Nov '06

03 Nov '06

Sane as in scanners on Linux that is, you don't have to be actually sane! :-) I have an Epson V700 scanner which is listed as supported by the sane-epson backend. However I'm having a hard time getting the thing recognised by anything at all. It is connected and functioning because "sane-find-scanner" successfully finds it and lists the right parameters:- found USB scanner (vendor=0x04b8 [EPSON], product=0x012c [EPSON Scanner]) at libusb:7:2 So it's there and connected to the USB OK. But that's as far as I can get and the Sane documentation isn't very forthcoming on what I have to do next. Should it "just work" now or is there a configuration file that needs editing? Nothing in the Sane documentation seems to tell me what's needed. The above "sane-find-scanner" also says "Try scanimage -L and read the backend's manpage.". I've done that, "scanimage -L" doesn't detect any scanners and the sane.epson man page leaves me none the wiser really. I have tried adding the following line to /etc/sane.d/epson.conf:- usb 0x4b8 0x12c but it hasn't helped. I'm stuck, what do I need to do to actually get some sane front end to see the scanner via the back-end? -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

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digikam (and/or kde) help needed
by cl＠isbd.net 02 Nov '06

02 Nov '06

I have installed digikam on my Slackware system and it appears to have installed OK (now that I've added the required libraries). However there are a couple of issues:- When I run it I get a whole load of warning messages from kbuildsycoca, mostly about undefined mimetypes, should I just ignore these? It seems to run artsd (/opt/kde/bin/artsd) when I start digikam, since that's a sound application it seems a bit unnecessary, can I prevent it from starting? ... and don't tell me to go to the KDE Control Panel to sort things, I'm not running KDE even though I have all the KDE libraries installed. -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

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FW: FSF announces release of gNewSense 1.0
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 02 Nov '06

02 Nov '06

Hi Folks, I've just received the following from gnu.org. It looks interesting and worthy! (The only things is, I find the Logo, wel, not restful ... Hopefully the Freedom etends to allowing one to change that!) Best wishes to all, Ted. -----FW: <200611021900.kA2J0Bm19695(a)f7.net>----- Date: Thu, 02 Nov 2006 12:07:01 -0500 Sender: gnu-prog-bounces+ted.harding=nessie.mcc.ac.uk(a)gnu.org From: John Sullivan <johns(a)fsf.org> To: gnu-prog(a)gnu.org Subject: FSF announces release of gNewSense 1.0 BOSTON, November 2, 2006 - Free Software Foundation announces release of gNewSense version 1.0. (Screenshots available at http://www.fsf.org/news/gnewsense) gNewSense (http://www.gnewsense.org) is a free software GNU/Linux distribution created by two Irish free software advocates, Brian Brazil and Paul O'Malley, and is based on the Ubuntu and Debian distributions. The goal of gNewSense is to provide users with a software package that offers the stability of Ubuntu with the addition of freedom. In announcing the release of version 1.0, the gNewSense developers stated, "From a philosophical perspective we wanted to create a GNU/Linux distribution where the user has access to all the sources for all software on the system. This includes everything from the heart of the kernel through to the everyday desktop applications." With the avowed goal of providing a completely free distribution - one without non-free kernel binary "blobs" or any other non-free software, the Free Software Foundation has announced sponsorship of the project. Ted Teah, FSF's free software directory maintainer explained, "With all the kernel firmware and restricted repositories removed, and the reliance on Ubuntu's proprietary distribution management tool gone, this distribution is the most advanced GNU/Linux distribution that has a commitment to be 100% free." gNewSense will provide users with full security updates and is available for immediate download in LiveCD ISO format along with a version of the Ubiquity graphical installer. Furthermore, the gNewSense team has created a set of software called Builder which allows users to create their own gNewSense-based distributions. gNewSense provides detailed instructions on how to use the software and the recipe to roll out a customized distro. The Free Software Foundation is providing the gNewSense team with a high end build machine (running with a free BIOS), with bandwidth and with assistance in developing artwork. The FSF plans to aid widespread adoption of the distribution and, with the release of gNewSense 1.0, is making a call for volunteers who have the skills to act as the following: * Developers; * Website Maintainers; * Graphic Artists; * Freedom verifiers to monitor package additions and mailing lists; * Documentation Writers. To volunteer, please, sign on at irc.freenode.net and /join #gnewsense. You can also join the mailing list via the project website http://www.gnewsense.org/ ----30---- About the Free Software Foundation The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to promoting computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and use of free (as in freedom) software - particularly the GNU operating system and its GNU/Linux variants - and free documentation for free software. The FSF also helps to spread awareness of the ethical and political issues of freedom in the use of software. Their Web site, located at www.fsf.org, is an important source of information about GNU/Linux. Donations to support their work can be made at http://fsf.org/join They are headquartered in Boston, MA, USA. Press contact: To schedule an interview with the developers of gNewSense, please contact Ted Teah at the Free Software Foundation (+1 617-542-5942) or Peter Brown (+1 617-542-5942) or email pr(a)fsf.org ---------- -- John Sullivan Program Administrator | Phone: (617)542-5942 x23 51 Franklin Street, 5th Fl. | Fax: (617)542-2652 Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA | GPG: AE8600B6 -- http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-prog --------------End of forwarded message------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 02-Nov-06 Time: 19:32:38 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Re: Odd behaviour in OO - Java??
by Peter Alcibiades 02 Nov '06

02 Nov '06

>How did you install Sun Java? If you didn't, then I'd suggest you try using >Debian's java-package tool like this: ># apt-get install java-package fakeroot >$ fakeroot make-jpkg name-of-downloaded-java-binary.bin ># dpkg -i name-of-created-package.deb >(note that the middle step has to be done as a non-root user; and that >java-package is in contrib) >This may put the JRE in a location where OOo can find it. OK, tried that - many thanks - it seemed to install sun's amd64 java ok. But still not recognised by 00, and hasn't fixed it. It declined to install the 586 version. I still cannot manage to point OO at a jre that it will acknowledge. It can't be, surely, that the Debian packagers of OO would have let it go out with something as basic as this not working? Peter

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Upgrading kernels - what do others do?
by cl＠isbd.net 01 Nov '06

01 Nov '06

I have just tried to upgrade my kernel from 2.6.18 to 2.6.18.1, this raises a number of problems/issues and I was wondering how other people deal with them. When you run the vmware upgrade to build vmware for the new kernel it complains that the running kernel (2.6.18) is not the same as one you're trying to upgrade to (2.6.18.1) - not surprising really! However it means you have to build the new kernel succesfully before you can upgrade vmware to it, which is a bit sort of messy at least. Building one of my required added modules (the drivers for the RTL8168 network on the MB) it creates the new module in /lib/modules/2.6.18/kernel/drivers/net because it uses 'uname -r' to get the kernel version. This doesn't work very well when you reboot - no network. What's the right/best way to patch the kernel to minimise these problems? I created /usr/src/linux-2.6.18.1 as a copy of /usr/src/linux-2.6.18 and applied the 2.6.18.1 patches to the new directory tree. It would seem (in view of the above problems) that this may not be the ideal way to do it. I've now changed names so that I have /usr/src/linux-2.6.18.base (as the original version) and /usr/src/linux-2.6.18 which is the patched version but then it's a bit more difficult to keep track of which version you patched to. -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

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Odd behaviour in OO - Java??
by Peter Alcibiades 01 Nov '06

01 Nov '06

Just changed to Etch AMD64, and OO behaves oddly, I suspect connected to Java in some way. The approved way of putting buttons and controls into your documents is VIEW>TOOLBARS>FORMCONTROLS. This brings up the little click and paste widget, and it does allow you to paste buttons in. Having done this, the next step would be right click on the button. You are now supposed to be able to choose CONTROL. However, nothing happens. The cross hairs stay in place, and all I can do is create a new button. In Writer, drag and drop doesn't work at all. Select some text and try to drag it, and nothing happens. Base seems to be so unstable as to be unusable. Almost anything you do crashes it. Suspecting this might be something to do with Java, I tried to install both the Sun JRE 64bit and 32 bit versions in addition to the FSF one. They appeared to go in fine, but the only one OO is aware of in the OPTONS>Java menu is the FSF one. How does OO become aware of a JRE? You're invited to supply classes and so on, but I can't figure out how to do that because of not being able to find anything it will agree is a Jre. Where would I look for such a thing? One thing that suggests it may not be Java, its very odd that if it is Java, my Mandriva installation shows no Jre at all, but all this stuff works fine. On the other hand, turning off the FSF Jre in Etch leads to a lot of stuff going missing. Its true that Mandriva 2006 being stuck in a timewarp with OO, I downloaded and installed it direct from OO. The Mandriva is 2.03 and the Debian is 2.04. But its hardly credible that going from 03 to 04 screwed up something as basic as this. Anyone have any ideas? Should I just apt-get uninstall and then download and install directly from OO? Or does anyone know some way of testing that the Sun Javas are installed and working and telling OO they are there? Cheers Peter

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System shutting itself down but I can't see why
by cl＠isbd.net 01 Nov '06

01 Nov '06

My Slackware 11 keeps shutting itself down but I can't see why. In /var/log/syslog and /var/log/messages there are messages from apache and samba saying they're shutting themselves down because they've been told to but I can't see a reason anywhere. It happens fairly randomly anywhere from once every ten minutes to once every several hours. It reboots all by itself and continues running. It's not a temperature problem as the system is way below the BIOS alarm temperatures. Any ideas as to how to diagnose this or places to look? -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

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