June 2006 - main - earth.li

Hard Drives
by Bob Dove 06 Jun '06

06 Jun '06

Hi folks, Silly quezzie time - what is the best orientation for a hard drive? My son in law has just had his office and network moved, and the IT specialist (their term/claim) re-installed with all the towers horizontal rather than vertical. Now I know that there are some vertical external HD cases but thought they might have contained 'special' HDs. Presume some gyro force generated so no silly angles - but otherwise? Any wise old owls out there with the definitive??? Cheers, BD.

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[ALUG] [ALUG Announce] Linux 2006 Conference and Tutorials, Brighton, 29 June - 2 July
by Alasdair G Kergon 05 Jun '06

05 Jun '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 ----- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Linux 2006 Conference & Tutorials, Brighton, Thur 29th June - Sun 2nd July ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Full details at http://www.ukuug.org/events/linux2006/ * Early-bird discount is available only until Thursday 8th June * The event begins with a choice of tutorials on Thursday. Then the twin-track 3-day conference runs from Friday to Sunday. Tutorials on Thursday 29th June ------------------------------- Full-day: Building and Maintaining Software Packages with RPM - Jos Vos Morning: Optimising MySQL Databases - Mark Leith (MySQL) Afternoon: Using SystemTap and kdump to diagnose kernel-related problems - Richard Moore (IBM) Introductory talks: Saturday 1st July ------------------------------------- This section of the conference is aimed at people who are relatively new to linux and is free of charge. Lunch is included if you register on the website before Thursday 15th June. Programme so far: * An introduction to Networking - Antony Stone * Getting Started with Apache - Jim Kissel (OSM Ltd.) * Securing Linux - Nils Magnus * What are all these distributions and how should I choose one? - Stuart Yeates (OSS Watch) * Creating DVD videos on Linux and Unix systems - Ben Hutchings Further talks to be confirmed - watch the website. Provisional Conference Programme: Friday 30th June - Sunday 2nd July -------------------------------------------------------------------- Advocacy * Towards an All-Party Parliamentary Open Source Group - Leslie Fletcher * State of Play: Free Software, ready or not? - Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton * Introduction to the politics of Linux - Andrew Nicolson (S'hampton Inst) * Advocating Linux - Jono Bacon (OpenAdvantage/LUGRadio) Case Studies * Apache at The Register: Building a Large Website from mod_rewrite and mod_include - Aaron Crane * 30 million and counting: An insight into a enterprise level open source systems - Neil McGovern (Fotopic.net) * How does OSS stack up? - Mark Taylor & Duncan Gibb (Sirius Corporation) * The State of Open Source in Higher and Further Education - Stuart Yeates * OpenStreetMap: The First Year - Steve Coast * Linux at Home - John Pinner (Clockwork Software Systems) * User Controlled Virtual Curtains - Torsten Spindler (ETH Zurich) Clustering and Virtualisation * Linux HA v2: One CRM to rule them all - Lars Marowsky-Bree (SuSE Labs) * How Hardware Supported Virtualization in Xen works - Mats Petersson (AMD) * A low-cost Linux based graphics cluster for cultural visualisation in virtual environments - Aidan Delaney (University of Brighton) Desktop and Applications * Desktop Linux Innovation at Novell - Ted Haeger (Novell) * SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop: Under the Hood - Ted Haeger (Novell) * (Free)NX - Remote Desktop Access, Present and Future - Fabian Franz * OpenOffice.org beyond 2.0... - Michael Meeks (Novell) * Kubuntu Dapper and KDE 4: The GNU/Linux Desktop - Jonathan Riddell (Canonical) * MySQL Roadmap - Mark Leith (MySQL) * Settling on decent Python Web Technologies - Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton Grid * ROOT and PROOF - Ruediger Berlich (Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe) * The Interactive Europen Grid project (int.eu.grid) - Marcus Hardt Kernel * Porting uCLinux on a Coldfire processor: Writing Frame Buffer Drivers - Craig Duffy & Edwin Langley (Bristol UWE) * Flash memories and MTD Subsystem under Linux Networking and Internet Software Group - C-DAC, Pune University * The Linux Error Detection and Correction subsystem (EDAC) - Tim Small Platforms * Hardware hacking on a budget; the Amstrad E3 - Jonathan McDowell Productivity * Sed: more than just s/foo/bar/ - Tethys The programme is subject to change - check website for up-to-date information. If you book on or before Thursday 8th June you can take advantage of the Early Bird rates e.g. 65 pounds for the 3-day conference instead of 100. or just 25 pounds for students. (If you're not already a UKUUG member, you'll need to add the membership fee to this - details on website.) Conference rates also include a ticket for the Conference Dinner on Friday evening (subject to capacity), sponsored by The Positive Internet Company, and a copy of the conference CD sponsored by Novell. There are also still opportunities for sponsors and exhibitors: contact office(a)ukuug.org for details. Web: http://www.ukuug.org/events/linux2006/ Email: office(a)ukuug.org Tel: +44 1763 273 475 -------------------------------------------------------------------- | Event sponsored by Novell, The Positive Internet Company and IBM | -------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- 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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Fwd: First ALUG competition of 2006
by sfr 05 Jun '06

05 Jun '06

I posted this on alug-social, but it seems unfair to exclude all those who subscribe to main but not to social. ----------- first email - While we're waiting for the announcement of J's next serious and on-topic contest of brains and programming skill, we shall offer you some light entertainment. And the tease is that I'm not telling you what the competition is, yet. Just a little clue: it's a Caption Competition. ------------- and then - First ALUG competition of 2006 - Part II The photo which awaits your inventive and witty caption is at http://sfr.itshall.be/stuff/tuff.jpg ------------- next will come a voting system... when Brett finishes it... -- sfr

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Weekly IRC reminder
by Brett Parker 05 Jun '06

05 Jun '06

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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open database format
by Peter 05 Jun '06

05 Jun '06

I'm working at a charity where we have moved from assorted W9x machines to mandriva. There is a W9x database application which has the peculiarity of allowing the user to create multiple identical field names per record, and thus has variable record lengths. I'm being told that exporting this to csv and consolidating the data in multiple identically named fields will lose data. (1) Is this plausible? I've done it, audited, and there is no doubt that every bit of data in every field has moved across. I cannot find any sort of grouping or sorting that can be done in the W9x app that I cannot do in Tellico. What could I be missing? The thing that is hard to see is, if the field labels are identical, how can you do things with the data split up into two, that you cannot do with them in one? Doesn't having multiple identical field labels limit rather than expand one's ability to manipulate the data? Is this something about xml as opposed to csv in databases? (2) Is it really possible that there are data structures which require multiple identical field labels and variable length records? Like, what and why? And could a collection database be one of them, and why? (3) Is there a good source on open database format? The recent BECTA publication mandates odb or csv export for databases in the education sector. Where would you go to get a good account of odb? With particular reference to the moveability of a database from one platform to another. Peter

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Re: [ALUG] First ALUG competition of 2006
by Steve 04 Jun '06

04 Jun '06

> And the winner is.... > > Stilvoid (Steve Engledow) > > Speech! Das w00t! *ahem* I'd just like to say a big thankyou to all of the people that have supported me along the way and especially to work for allowing me the flexibility to spend a while pondering my entry ;) This is the first competition I've ever won *sob* I'm so proud!

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font conundrum
by Peter 03 Jun '06

03 Jun '06

Many thanks to Wayne for the hint on spadmin. On investigating it, in spadmin, in the printer tab, it turns out that font substitution had been turned on, and it was referrring to fonts that the printer did not have. Consequently what must have been happening is that instead of using the fonts on the computer, the printer tried to use fonts it did not have, and defaulted to this strange spidery computerish font. Why it happened, no idea. I certainly had never enabled any of these substitutions. spadmin may have a mind of its own which gets triggered when you install OO2. At any rate, delete all the font substitutions and the computer fonts are used and work perfectly. In hope this may someday rescue someone else from a couple of days scratching their heads, Peter

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[simon.morris@cmtww.com: [Gllug-announce] GLLUG Summer Expedition]
by Adam Bower 02 Jun '06

02 Jun '06

Hi, I just noticed this from the GLLUG announce list, I know some aluggers were talking of organising a day out to Bletchley, perhaps you want to join up with the GLLUG'ers too. ----- Forwarded message from Simon Morris <simon.morris(a)cmtww.com> ----- From: Simon Morris <simon.morris(a)cmtww.com> To: gllug-announce(a)gllug.org.uk Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2006 13:25:04 +0100 Subject: [Gllug-announce] GLLUG Summer Expedition Hello, I am trying to organise a GLLUG Summer Expedition to Bletchley Park, Cambs. for Sunday 9th July. "Bletchley Park was the centre of the Allied cryptanalysis and code breaking efforts during the Second World War. The most notable achievement was the breaking of the German Enigma cipher which is said to have brought the war to an end 2 years early. It was home to a number of famous mathamaticians and cryptanalysts including Alan Turing - the father of modern computer science." At the park there is a Computer history museum, World War 2 exhibits and a Churchill exhibition. One this particular day there is also a vintage car and motorbike show and a WW2 fly-past as well as the regular attractions. The plan is to arrive at Bletchley, visit the attractions and then have a group picnic later in the afternoon. That Sunday is also the World Cup Final (No, England won't be playing in it *duck*) so those who care could find a local pub or race back to London to watch it. Kickoff is at 1900. I need to track numbers of people who are going to attend. Once I have 20 interested people we can claim a group discount for entry of £8 each. Please discuss the trip on the GLLUG Social list... http://lists.gllug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/social ... to keep the noise off of the main discussion list. Email me if you are interested in going and I am going to maintain a web-page to inform you of train times, more information etc. http://www.gllug.org.uk/index.php?/archives/18-GLLUG-Summer-Expedition.html Families and other hangers-on are more than welcome. Hope to see some of you there.. ~sm -- Gllug-announce mailing list - Gllug-announce(a)gllug.org.uk http://lists.gllug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/gllug-announce ----- End forwarded message ----- -- jabberid = quinophex(a)jabber.earth.li Avoid ID cards, renew your passport: http://www.renewforfreedom.org/

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Some weirdness
by Wayne Stallwood 02 Jun '06

02 Jun '06

Not exactly a Linux question, but the answer may equally apply and it's confusing the living daylights out of me so- I have a client with a SCO box...the application it runs is sometimes made to generate a file that has to magically appear a bit later on another (Windows) box. Due to visionFS (sort of like Samba but not as nice) not being completely happy talking to Windows Server 2003 (or vice versa) the method that was chosen when this was implemented by whoever was FTP. So there is a cron job that looks roughly like this #!/bin/sh userid=foo pword=bar host=windowsbox file=transferfile.csv if [ -e $file ] then ftp -i -n $host <<putfile user $userid $pword cd /location/on/windows/box lcd /file/location put $file putfile echo file transferred mv $file $file.sent else exit The odd thing is that the file is nearly always truncated...I thought at first we were getting unlucky and the script was transferring it before app had finished writing it. So I tried inserting a wait in the script just before the ftp transfer bit...So then it looked for the file and if it existed waited 2 minutes (plenty of time for the app to finish with the file) and only then transferred it...If anything this seemed to make things worse!!! Also interestingly the $file.sent (ie the moved copy of $file) is always complete. But I am guessing because it's a move it would be because the unlinked filename handle would be working until the app let go of it right ? oh and it's not the ftp transfer that's causing the problem because I can do the transfer manually and all is well. Can't help thinking that there is a better way of doing this...but any ideas on how to re-implement or fix the current method are very welcome.

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squashfs and lzma
by Mark Rogers 01 Jun '06

01 Jun '06

I'm trying to play with the firmware of a router, which is basically a squashfs filesystem. If I create a squashfs filesystem and look at it with a hex editor it does look very similar to the one I have for the router, but I have been unable to mount the firmware on my test box. I think this is because it has been compressed with lzma to improve the compression ratio, and this is not compiled into squashfs by default. So: Does that sound plausible? Are there any good distros for this kind of thing (eg a live CD I can experiment with), or should I try and set something up myself? I'm thinking probably a VMWare virtual machine would do what I need. (Basically I want to extract the firmware and hack the HTML, then recompress it and use it to break^H^H^H^H^H tweak my router.) Anyone here done this kind of thing? -- Mark Rogers More Solutions Ltd :: 0845 45 89 555

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