May 2008 - main - earth.li

recommended commercial hosting companies?
by mbm 23 Jan '09

23 Jan '09

The recent discussion about mail access via ssh and ssh tunnels prompts me to ask about list members' experience of commercial hosting services. I have long since ceased to have any direct responsiblity for publicly accessible servers and my only network is now my home system. As I have said in earlier posts, I don't run 24/7 servers on that network and my only public servers are those provided by my (limited, home user) 1and1 contract. However, I have recently been playing with egroupware and a few friends and colleagues have asked if I could make the poc system I have built at home available on a public server. 1and1 provide good, reliable, fast, mail, DNS and web services, but they also offer virtual servers for the home user at around 15 UKP pcm. The other likely looking candidate is fasthosts who are a lot cheaper, have no traffic cap, but have different limitations. What I am looking for is a good quality commercial provider offering the following: root ssh/sftp access to a linux server apache/mysql/php/perl (preferably with no limit on the number of mysql databases, but I'd settle for 5 rather than the typical 1). ssl certificates for the webserver personal DNS management ideally local email server not too many restrictions on the outbound traffic (e.g. I'd like to be able to ssh out as well as in...) Any recommendations? TIA Mick --------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a Microsoft free zone. Please do not send me Microsoft Word Documents. For some reasons, see: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html http://www.goldmark.org/netrants/no-word/attach.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------

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upgrading from 6.06 LTS to 8.04 LTS
by Bev Nicolson 21 Jun '08

21 Jun '08

I've done what the Ubuntu website says and gone to system > admin > update manager and installed the last batch of updates but it doesn't mention anything about the new version when I click on 'upgrade' again. Am I a) being a bit impatient or b) is there another (simple!) way round this? Oh yes, and is there anything important I need to do, that I have forgotten, before upgrading? Thanks. Bev. -- _______________________________________________ Surf the Web in a faster, safer and easier way: Download Opera 9 at http://www.opera.com Powered by Outblaze

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[ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : The Milestone, Woodbridge Road
by samwise 16 Jun '08

16 Jun '08

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 "Third Monday" ALUG Ipswich Social Meeting returns next week (Monday 19th May) at 20:00: The Milestone Beer House 5 Woodbridge Road IPSWICH IP4 2EA Tel: 01473 252425 Map/Directions URI: http://maps.google.co.uk/?q=IP4+2EA The Milestone pub is in the centre of Ipswich, near the now-defunct Odeon cinema and not far from The Regent Theatre. There is more information on the venue, including car parking info, on the ALUG wiki: http://www.alug.org.uk/wiki/moin.cgi/Meetings All are welcome, novices and experienced users. Hopefully, it shouldn't be too hard to find the pack, look for those huddled around a laptop! Feel free to ask for further information on the Main ALUG mailing list. Hope to see you there, Peter. ----- 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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Waves. (And the Eee PC)
by Anthony Anson 03 Jun '08

03 Jun '08

After a very long absence I've a huge number of ALUG items to look through, so now I'm back online (c/o a Vodafone broadbean dongle) I'll be going through the backlog of more than two years and maybe asking questions which have been covered before if they come up before I get to their discussion. The first of these questions is, has anyone written a script to drop into Linux of any flavour to allow it and the aforementioned Vodafone dongle to talk to each other? I have an Asus Eee, and am not overly chuffed with their dumbed-down version of Linux - 'My Network Places', 'My Computer', 'My this, that and the other'. Yeeuch! And MSN? I ask you! And the book of destructions states that 'Removing the pre-installed software is not allowed' Hmmm. We shall see about _THAT_! I shall be investigating the specially developed version of Ubantu, and a script that will mate that with Vodafone would be most useful innit. -- Tony http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/

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Aptitude manual
by James Freer 03 Jun '08

03 Jun '08

Is it possible to print out the aptitude manual [aptitude~>help~>user's manual] in ubuntu or debian. I just find it a pain trying to take in reading .txt just from a screen. I've got aptitude(8) from man aptitude in terminal. I was hoping it might have been transferred to a pdf somewhere. thx james

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backups for the very unsophisticated...?
by Peter Alcibiades 30 May '08

30 May '08

Any thoughts or experience on a backup tool for a very unsophisticated user? Like, one who cannot really be trusted to copy in the right direction from a hard drive to a usb stick? Who is quite capable of thinking that the way to get rid of a file on usb stick is to move it to the desktop. A brilliant and intelligent person but with a tech blind spot who on the previous machine was used to backing up folders to floppies labelled with the same name as the folder, which worked fine for years, but the new machine has no floppy drive... And of course fewer and fewer external people will accept data on floppies now. I'm considering the following: One usb stick labelled backup, with instructions to only use it for backups and keep it in the same reasonably secure place. This would back up the /home/user directory in its entirety. The instruction would be: do this every Friday, or more often if lots of revisions have been done. kde keep for the actual backup tool. It seems simpler than the gnome one, pybackpack, though he is running Gnome. We need as few options as possible! A second usb stick to be used for carrying files around and transferring them to other people (in addition to email). Any other thoughts appreciated. These are mostly text files with some graphics, ie the volume is not huge. The home directory will fit on a 2G usb drive for the forseeable future. Al

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Moving firefox passwords between machines
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 30 May '08

30 May '08

Hi Folks, I've had an oldish firefox running for a few years one one machine, and have accumulatd a few dozen login username/passwords for various websites. I'm now doing most of my browsing using iceweasel on a new machine, and I'd like to "copy" all those passwords over to the new setup. Passwords are stored in encrypted form in a file signons.txt (old machine) or signons2.txt (new machine), and each is in a directory ~/.mozilla/firefox/xxxxxxxx.default, where the "xxxxxxxx" is a random-looking string (different between the two) and presumably serves as an encryption key. So I can't just copy signons.txt to signons2.txt -- it doesnt work! (tried it). One way, of course, is to trek through edit>preferences>passwords in firefox on the old machine, and get them up in the browser, unencrypted, and read them off when I need them. This of course is tedious! Any suggestions for how to port the lot from firefox to iceweasel? (I had no problem simply copying my bookmarks.html from one to the other; but then that's just plain text). With thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 29-May-08 Time: 10:46:45 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Re: [ALUG] Bash commands
by Bev Nicolson 30 May '08

30 May '08

<<While I'm at it, though, if you type the bash command 'help' on the command-line, you'll get a useful summary of what's available. Then typing 'help <keyword>' for any of the keywords that come up will give a detailed breakdown of its usage.>> Thanks Ted. This is the sort of thing I'm after. I don't think I have the appitude to become a real geek! :¬) bev. > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk > To: "Bev Nicolson" <bnicolson(a)operamail.com> > Subject: RE: [ALUG] Bash commands > Date: Thu, 29 May 2008 21:15:54 +0100 (BST) > > > On 29-May-08 19:25:16, Bev Nicolso'll get a usefuon wrote: > > Still on the nursery slopes as far as bash commands I'm afraid > > but have, once again, realised how very useful they can be. How > > do you learn what to type in in any given situation, though? (I'm > > asking > > generally, not for any specific problem I have now.) > > Bev. (Ubuntu user.) > > Bash is quite a complex thing (as indeed are even the simpler > shell languages), though most usage will be fairly basic. > > And 'man bash', while useful for looking up something you know > you're wanting to use, isn't all that helpful for suggesting > what to do to perform a given type of task. > > While I'm at it, though, if you type the bash command 'help' > on the command-line, you'll get a useful summary of what's > available. Then typing 'help <keyword>' for any of the keywords > that come up will give a detailed breakdown of its usage. > > E.g. try > > help > help alias > > However, it looks as though you might need a "bash tutorial" > so enter that into Google (including quotation marks) and > you'll get several helpful-looking results. > > I thought that the one at > > http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Bash-Prog-Intro-HOWTO.html > > looked pretty good for the day-to-day stuff; and it has a > big brother at > > http://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/ > > for more advanced stuff. > > Hoping this helps! > Ted. > > -------------------------------------------------------------------- > E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> > Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 > Date: 29-May-08 Time: 21:15:47 > ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------ > -- _______________________________________________ Surf the Web in a faster, safer and easier way: Download Opera 9 at http://www.opera.com Powered by Outblaze

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Re: [ALUG] main Digest, Vol 35, Issue 34
by James Hayes 30 May '08

30 May '08

I have a Linoscan 1400 scanner(Umax 3400) that works with feisty fawn but refuses to work with Hardy Heron on my Apple G4 ppc any ideas 2008/5/30 <main-request(a)lists.alug.org.uk>: > Send main mailing list submissions to > main(a)lists.alug.org.uk > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > main-request(a)lists.alug.org.uk > > You can reach the person managing the list at > main-owner(a)lists.alug.org.uk > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of main digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Re: Moving firefox passwords between machines (Wayne Stallwood) > 2. Bash commands (Bev Nicolson) > 3. Re: Moving firefox passwords between machines (mbm) > 4. Re: Bash commands ( (Ted Harding)) > 5. Re: Moving firefox passwords between machines ( (Ted Harding)) > 6. Re: Export emails (chestep) > 7. Re: Moving firefox passwords between machines (Simon Elliott) > 8. Re: Moving firefox passwords between machines (Rob Page) > 9. Re: Moving firefox passwords between machines (Simon Elliott) > 10. Re: Moving firefox passwords between machines (James Freer) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Thu, 29 May 2008 12:25:25 +0100 > From: Wayne Stallwood <ALUGlist(a)digimatic.co.uk> > Subject: Re: [ALUG] Moving firefox passwords between machines > To: ALUG <main(a)lists.alug.org.uk> > Message-ID: <1212060325.11243.13.camel@digimatic> > Content-Type: text/plain > > On Thu, 2008-05-29 at 10:46 +0100, Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk wrote: >> >> Passwords are stored in encrypted form in a file signons.txt >> (old machine) or signons2.txt (new machine), and each is in >> a directory ~/.mozilla/firefox/xxxxxxxx.default, where the >> "xxxxxxxx" is a random-looking string (different between the >> two) and presumably serves as an encryption key. >> >> So I can't just copy signons.txt to signons2.txt -- it doesnt >> work! (tried it). >> > > Look at this thread..any help ? > > http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?p=2767968 > > You will also need to move key3.db afaik > > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 2 > Date: Thu, 29 May 2008 20:25:16 +0100 > From: "Bev Nicolson" <bnicolson(a)operamail.com> > Subject: [ALUG] Bash commands > To: main(a)lists.alug.org.uk > Message-ID: <20080529192516.7DBAE233D2(a)ws5-3.us4.outblaze.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-15" > > Still on the nursery slopes as far as bash commands I'm afraid but > have, once again, realised how very useful they can be. How do you > learn what to type in in any given situation, though? (I'm asking generally, not for any specific problem I have now.) > Bev. (Ubuntu user.) > > -- > _______________________________________________ > Surf the Web in a faster, safer and easier way: > Download Opera 9 at http://www.opera.com > > Powered by Outblaze > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 3 > Date: Thu, 29 May 2008 20:40:42 +0100 > From: mbm <mbm(a)rlogin.net> > Subject: Re: [ALUG] Moving firefox passwords between machines > To: ted.harding(a)manchester.ac.uk > Cc: main(a)lists.alug.org.uk > Message-ID: <20080529204042.4a812202(a)door.rlogin.net> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > > On Thu, 29 May 2008 10:46:50 +0100 (BST) > (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> allegedly wrote: >> >> I've had an oldish firefox running for a few years one >> one machine, and have accumulatd a few dozen login >> username/passwords for various websites. >> >> I'm now doing most of my browsing using iceweasel on a >> new machine, and I'd like to "copy" all those passwords >> over to the new setup. >> >> Any suggestions for how to port the lot from firefox to iceweasel? >> > > I've not tried this, but I just stumbled across it when looking for a > replacement for my (now broken under 3.0) trashmail.net addon. > > https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2848 > > Mick > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > > This is a Microsoft free zone. Please do not send me Microsoft Word > Documents. For some reasons, see: > > www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html > www.goldmark.org/netrants/no-word/attach.html > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > >

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Re: [ALUG] Export emails
by chestep 29 May '08

29 May '08

Hi James Thanks for your reply and link re exporting Thunderbird emails, James. Ann

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Bash commands
by Bev Nicolson 29 May '08

29 May '08

Still on the nursery slopes as far as bash commands I'm afraid but have, once again, realised how very useful they can be. How do you learn what to type in in any given situation, though? (I'm asking generally, not for any specific problem I have now.) Bev. (Ubuntu user.) -- _______________________________________________ Surf the Web in a faster, safer and easier way: Download Opera 9 at http://www.opera.com Powered by Outblaze

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Export emails
by chestep 28 May '08

28 May '08

Hello Alug I made enquiries to the list some time ago about exporting emails from Firefox to a folder on a separate drive. I received several replies after which I downloaded an add-on and could export emails successfully. One responder was James (don't know any other details) who said he exported regularly from Firefox; I'm wondering if he (or anyone else) could comment on how well the Folder & Subfolder Structure copies, or the method they use. I find I often have to make separate folder on the target drive, then copy the emails into this, then it works well. Thanks

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Program to do pretty graphs of monthly network transfers
by Srdjan Todorovic 27 May '08

27 May '08

Hi all, I'm looking for suggestions for software that will draw some pretty graphs of the number of bytes transferred over an interface over the past day, week and month. MRTG (for eg.) only seems to do network speed monitoring. I'm looking into RRDTool, but I'm not sure yet if this is what I want. A very very quick look at ntop and iptraf suggests that it's for measuring transfer speeds, and not what I want. Basically I want something that's persistent across reboots and power-offs. Something that will tell me that in the past minute, I transferred 1MB, past 10mins: 10MB, past day: 12MB, past week: 1Gb, past month: 8GB. You get the point. Could be a command line tool, or ncurses interface. Nice pretty graphs would be a bonus (graphical toolkit on X11 or web-based solution). Has to run on Linux, and be at the very least, free as in beer. Anyone got any recommendations? Many thanks, Srdjan

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duff switch?
by mbm 27 May '08

27 May '08

This not strictly a Linux/OSS question (unless the fact that the router in question is running openwrt counts), but I ask because there are bound to be network experts here and I'm going crazy. I have an Asus WL500G wireless router connected to my DSL router. This lets me partition my network into two in a classic screened subnet architecture. Thusly: outside | [DSL]---------DMZ hosts------- | | | [ASUS] | | inside (both wired and wireless) DMZ net is 192.168.1.0, inside net is 192.168.10.0 As I said, the Asus is running x-wrt (a flavour of openwrt with a nice web interface on top). The Asus has 4 lan ports, 1 wan port and the wifi interface. I have the following situation: 1. No problem with wifi. Any and all wifi devices I configure can connect, they can see all relevant hosts (including my dnsmasq DNNS/DHCP server) and can reach the 'net. So all hunkydory. 2. No problem with any /single/ wired lan connection in any of the lan ports (i.e all is good to go as in the wifi connection). So again, all hunkydory (and it doesn't matter which lan port I use.) 3. But - as soon as I connect any second wired device to the Asus, I get connection failures (ICMP errors "Destination Host Unreachable"). Oddly, if I leave a device connected running a ping I get most traffic dropped (of the order of 90%) but intermittently I get connection responses. 4. Now the bit that really confuses me. If I now connect an external switch to any port on the Asus and then connect any new wired device through that switch, it all works fine. So - have I just got a duff switch in the Asus (and if so, why the hell does it work when I connect another switch)? Or should I be looking for something else? Mick --------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a Microsoft free zone. Please do not send me Microsoft Word Documents. For some reasons, see: www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html www.goldmark.org/netrants/no-word/attach.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------

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Any recommendations for a PCI Wifi card?
by Adam Reid 27 May '08

27 May '08

Greetings all. :) I'm currently engaged in building my new PC, but have hit a rather annoying hurdle when it comes to finding a linux-friendly PCI wifi card ... mostly due to the constant and unadvertised chipset changes they love to pull. Can anyone suggest a good current card - bonus points if it's in stock at ebuyer - that will work reliably and with minimal bloodshed? Many pre-emptive thanks, ~Adam

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Re: [ALUG] Kubuntu 7.04 updates make firefox crash
by James Freer 27 May '08

27 May '08

2008/5/24 Tim Green <timothy.j.green(a)gmail.com>: > On Sat, May 24, 2008 at 10:51 PM, James Freer <jessejazza(a)googlemail.com> wrote: >> All updates i follow the recommended System~>Administration~>Update manager >> The update database for apt-get, synaptic and aptitude are separate. >> Update with just apt-get update only does that database - the >> irritating update icon is from Update Manager (and continues to >> display until update manager is used, although could be disabled). >> Kubuntu has had quite a few problems i seem to recall with Adept. If i >> was using kubuntu i'd install synaptic (a different world to suse's >> Yast). > > Weird - one my Gnome Ubuntu system for at least the last 18 months the > Update Manager icon stayed in sync with manual usage of "apt-get > update && apt-get upgrade". While apt-get is running, the icon turns > grey, and when the upgrade is complete, it goes away. > > Tim. I checked with an update this morning - using ubuntu 7.10 [still waiting for my shipit 8.04! but doesn't matter as they still seem to be quite busy sorting out bugs!]. "apt-get update" seems to update apt-get, the update icon went grey and remained grey while i did some other work, i rebooted and the orange icon returns with the same new package to be updated. It seems update manager needs to run with all package managers exited. There may be a preferences somewhere that we have set differently. This was the same on 7.04 and 6.10 that i tried. james

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Hardware Issues (Display / X11 and Mouse)
by Jan T. Kim 26 May '08

26 May '08

Hi All, I've got two issues mainly concerning hardware: (1) I've recently bought an Asus W202S display (1680x1050) and connected that to my laptop (Asus X51, ATI Radeon Xpress 200M graphics, running the closed-source ATI X server). Things basically work, but it takes some sort of "warm-up time" before the picture stably settles in -- initially, areas with a checkerboard raster (e.g. scroll bars of xterm and other Athena GUI applications, also the default meshwork pattern shown by X11 upon startup) are quite blurred. I can fix this by adjusting the "Phase" setting in the display's on-screen menu system, but the phase will drift, resulting in gradual build-up of blur, and it stabilises only after 20 minutes or so. I wonder whether there might be some Modeline hack or similar to generate a video signal that the display can lock on to reliably, regardless of some drift. In text (console) mode the display doesn't work ideally either, the display "sees" 1024 x 768 while the laptop's display shows 1280 x 800 (and presumably also sends that through the external monitor interface), so some amount of stuff is cut away from the margins. I've tried everything with the on-screen menus of the display (there isn't very much), to no avail -- so is there anything on the Linux side of this that I could try? (2) On a completely different topic, I have an optical mouse which seems to have a sensor problem, the mouse pointer is jumping and dancing wildly, with some trend (towards the lower left, I think). Some mice I had used to do something similar when slightly lifted from the surface. Is there any more or less known fix for such malfunctions? Best regards & thanks in advance for any comments, Jan -- +- Jan T. Kim -------------------------------------------------------+ | email: jtk(a)cmp.uea.ac.uk | | WWW: http://www.cmp.uea.ac.uk/people/jtk | *-----=< hierarchical systems are for files, not for humans >=-----*

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Kubuntu 7.04 updates make firefox crash
by Srdjan Todorovic 24 May '08

24 May '08

Hi, Got this annoying issue. If I do any kind of updates on this Kubuntu 7.04 box, using Adept Manager, and then start firefox, it crashes with a segfault. The dump isn't very informative, the only reference seems to be something to do with a syscall AFAIR. I put a bugreport on launchpad ages ago about it but it has been closed [in part due to my stupidness]. Essentially the advice was "reboot computer after an update". This seems silly and very Windows-y. Firefox segfaults even on updates that would have nothing to do with any component firefox uses or depends on. Firefox crashes invariably after any adept update. Have not tried using plain apt-get on command line. This machine ran memtest for 15 hours, no problems. CPU model name : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 4300 @ 1.80GHz RAM: 2GB lspci: 00:00.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. P4M890 Host Bridge 00:00.1 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. P4M890 Host Bridge 00:00.2 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. P4M890 Host Bridge 00:00.3 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. P4M890 Host Bridge 00:00.4 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. P4M890 Host Bridge 00:00.5 PIC: VIA Technologies, Inc. P4M890 I/O APIC Interrupt Controller 00:00.6 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. P4M890 Security Device 00:00.7 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. P4M890 Host Bridge 00:01.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8237 PCI Bridge 00:02.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. P4M890 PCI to PCI Bridge Controller 00:03.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. P4M890 PCI to PCI Bridge Controller 00:0f.0 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8237A SATA 2-Port Controller (rev 80) 00:0f.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT823x/A/C PIPC Bus Master IDE (rev 07) 00:10.0 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev a0) 00:10.1 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev a0) 00:10.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev a0) 00:10.3 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev a0) 00:10.4 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB 2.0 (rev 86) 00:11.0 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8237A PCI to ISA Bridge 00:11.7 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8251 Ultra VLINK Controller 00:13.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8237A Host Bridge 00:13.1 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8237A PCI to PCI Bridge 02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation G70 [GeForce 7600 GT] (rev a1) 04:05.0 Ethernet controller: ADMtek NC100 Network Everywhere Fast Ethernet 10/100 (rev 11) 04:07.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8169SC Gigabit Ethernet (rev 10) 80:01.0 Audio device: VIA Technologies, Inc. VIA High Definition Audio Controller (rev 10) Linux ubuntu 2.6.20-16-generic #2 SMP Tue Feb 12 05:41:34 UTC 2008 i686 GNU/Linux Any suggestions? Thanks, -Srdjan

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Server to server backups
by Mark Rogers 24 May '08

24 May '08

If I have two (virtual) servers online (ie out in the real world, not on my LAN or behind ADSL connections) and I want one to be used to backup the other, what method would anyone suggest? I'm thinking of data backups rather than disk images. I'd like (a) to have rolling backups so I can roll back to before any specific **** up, (b) to have a sensible way to backup MySQL databases I can't think of any other specific requirements. Bandwidth between the two servers isn't a major issue but not something I want to ignore completely. Similarly disk space isn't a problem, but wasting it by having multiple copies of unchanged files would still be a bit silly. On the other hand, both servers will have public IPs and therefore I need to consider the security implications of opening up the live server so that the backup server can access it, and (to a lesser extent) vice versa. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0845 45 89 555 Registered in England (0456 0902) at 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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Cheap server machine spotted
by Chris G 23 May '08

23 May '08

If anyone is looking for a cheap server machine to stick in a cupboard somewhere the HP ProLiant ML115 is being offered at knock down prices at the moment for some reason. The cheapest I could find with a quick search is:- http://www.kikatek.com/product_info.php?products_id=40254&source=froogle £105 for a machine with 1Gb memory, 160Gb hard disk, gigabit ethernet and space for expansion seems pretty good to me. -- Chris Green

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cheap desktops - with ubuntu?
by James Freer 22 May '08

22 May '08

As my desktop video card seems to be 'ill' - i thought i'd take a look at current prices of desktops. Looking on ebuyer i was surprised how cheap they were - #144828. For just a plain desktop i was wondering if they were worth considering? http://www.ebuyer.com/product/144979 http://www.ebuyer.com/product/144828 Alternatively [as i have a couple of cases] what would folk recommend for a ubuntu motherboard & cpu -- after all there are 000's. thanks james

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[Somewhat OT] a Google question
by Chris G 21 May '08

21 May '08

Has anyone else been annoyed/frustrated by Google asking "Did you mean: " and then, whether you like it or not, searching for what it thinks you meant rather than what you actually typed? I'm sure it didn't used to do this, it quite reasonably asked the "Did you mean: " but then actually searched for what you entered. -- Chris Green

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Do I need anti-virus & spyware with Xubuntu desktop?
by paul 21 May '08

21 May '08

Hi all I'm using Xubuntu as a desktop for web surfing and emails etc. I'm connected to the Net with a wired router (with hardware firewall) and using FireStarter software firewall. Should I be using anti-virus & spyware for Linux as well? The comp is dual booting machine with XP Pro with AVG and Zonealarm. It's a P4 2GHz 512mb RAM with onboard graphics so could handle some realtime monitoring without harming performance. Cheers Paul --------------------------------- Sent from Yahoo! Mail. A Smarter Email.

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Re: [ALUG] MythTV - recording TV
by James Elsey 20 May '08

20 May '08

Hi James, 2008/5/20 James Elsey <james.elsey(a)serengeti-systems.com>: > Has anyone setup MythTV to record TV shows? I've been using Myth for the past 4 or 5 years with version of Linux and a few different cards. I've used the Nova-T cards for recording from freeview. They were good because they output into an MPEG2 stream directly (using hardware encoding) and therefore I could use a less powerful PC for my TV box. Myth also pulls the program guide from them directly so you don't even need a 'net connection but if you don't do that it will use XMLTV to pull listings from RadioTimes. Is it possible to not record the advert breaks, or even to record multiple simultaneous channels? I'm currently using a Hauppauge PVR-150 to record from my cable box (s-video) to MPEG2 (using hardware encoding) and I've previously used a normal TV card with the software encoding. I've used Mini-ITX boards with hardware based MPEG2 decoding to get even lower CPU usage but none of that is necessary. How much am I likely to pay for a freeview TV card? If you have good freeview signal I'd recommend getting a Nova-T card (maybe one of the dual encoder versions so you can record two channels at once. The Myth wiki and the dvb linuxtv.org website are the best sources of information on compatible cards. Ah, one slight problem, I don't particulary get a good signal in my area, sometimes its ok, but for it to work I'd need to hook it up to a larger area that my TV uses, is that possible? In general, my PCs seem to suffer most from the database load (although I am using low power machines) and the commercial detection has varied in quality over the years. I suspect it's best at US TV :-) What sort of size would a 1 hour TV show take on disc? I'm guessing this could in turn be run thru a converter to reduce the filesize? Thanks

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Re: [ALUG] MythTV - recording TV
by Mark Ridley 20 May '08

20 May '08

On Tue, 20 May, 2008 11:20 am, James Elsey wrote: > Has anyone setup MythTV to record TV shows? > > I've been experimenting with MythTV for a few weeks with various media > formats, but I'm quite intrigued to see how TV recording works. > > Most of the tutorials I've found are based on US TV, apart from myth, are > there any other apps that are good for recording from TV / Freeview? > > If anyone has this setup, can you let me know what TV card/apps are best? I have a Myth setup, originally I used Fedora and installed by hand, but recently tried MythBuntu, wow! I didn't really have to do anything but wait for it to install, it detected my hardware and configured it automatically. As for channels, I answered all the questions from the installer, and it just worked. I have two cards, I use a Nova-T PCI for terrestrial TV, and a Nova-S for satellite, although I have not set this one up yet. As a side note, the MythGames plugin works a treat with sdlmame, and I have an X-Arcade dual joystick, which makes 42" Defender heavenly! :) Cheers. -Mark ----------------------------------------------------------- This message may contain confidential and/or privileged information. This information is intended to be read only by the individual or entity to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient, you are on notice that any review, disclosure, copying, distribution or use of the contents of this message is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete or destroy any copy of this message.

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