May 2010 - main - earth.li

Ubuntu Alternative Fails
by Simon Royal 09 Jul '10

09 Jul '10

Hi. I decided to give Ubuntu a whirl on my ThinkPad, that was running Xubuntu. I used the Alternative installer disc as it is quicker and my ThinkPad only has 296MB RAM. However, every version of Ubuntu I have tried fails while installing. I tried 9.04 and now I am trying 10.04. The original CD drive was flakey and nothing would install from it, no versions of Windows or Linux so I put in a new one and XP and Xubuntu 9.10 installed no problem, but Ubuntu still fails. It fails on the 'select and install software' section. It is a brand new burnt CD, burnt at 4x speed. Any ideas. I am now without a Linux installation and dont really want to go back to Xubuntu just yet. Failing that I might try and install Linux Mint. Regards. Simon http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - http://www.tinyurl.com/macspectrum (sent using Sony Ericsson P990i)

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Arduino Help
by James Bensley 21 Jun '10

21 Jun '10

Is my Arduino duffed or me? Started a new project today, hooked up a 16x2 LCD, and a potentiometer. To start with the screen is simply displaying the reading from the pot with analogRead("PotPinNumber") but its fluctuating like mad: Here is a video on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgEm7czlUVg YT has cut eh quality so it isn't very clear!), to start with I have turned the pot to max and you can see the fluctuation in the reading, then I unplug the pot from the analog input so it should be reading nothing but it drops to about 450 and fluctuates around there when surely it should drop to 0 (mystery voltage from somewhere perhaps?), then I plug the pot back in the analog input and you can see it go back up and fluctuate. This is the case irrelevant of which port the pot is plugged into and weather it is plugged in or not it still reads something? Is the Arduino dead or am I dead? -- Regards, James. http://www.jamesbensley.co.cc/ - There are only 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand trinary, those who don't understand trinary and those who don't understand trinary.

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HOWTO: Getting started with OpenVPN
by Martin A. Brooks 20 Jun '10

20 Jun '10

I wanted an OpenVPN server, but didn't want to mess around with client certificates. It took me more googling than I liked to figure it out, so I wrote the procedure down: http://hinterlands.org/wiki/index.php/OpenVPNQuickstart

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Kernel options for Intel 945GME graphics card?
by Dan 07 Jun '10

07 Jun '10

Dear All, Can anyone suggest what kernel options are best for driving the board that appears in lspci as 00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/GME, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03) please? (I think I've got the wrong ones, sice DPMS is flaky and I'm getting quite frequent kernel panics related to intelfb.) -- Regards Dan

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Why are lookups so slow?
by Chris Walker 01 Jun '10

01 Jun '10

My machine is a dual-boot i7 machine running on one side Windows 7 and here, Mandriva 2010 (64 bit). I've complained to my phone provider in the past about things slowing down after a period of a few hours so they changed the router. I now have a Huawei HG520b instead of the D-Link I had previously. I'd done a factory reset on that before swapping it out but then the new router arrived so I stuffed that in its place without testing the reset. With the Huawei, Windows will do lookups fine but Mandriva takes ages for everything, web searches, mail and so on. Sending this message sat there for ages doing a lookup for the smtp address before I cancelled it to add this. I *think* I've got both sides, Windows 7 and Mandriva, setup the same with DHCP for both IP address and DNS servers but is there anything I can try before I rip the Huawei out and put back the D-Link? TIA. -- __ __| |_ __ __ .----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:cdw_alug@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |______________________________________________|

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Re: [ALUG] PowerPC Linux
by Simon Royal 31 May '10

31 May '10

Hi Also, the burning problem with unsupported drives was generally only with iApps and Finder. Third party apps like Toast never had a problem. Simon -- http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - http://www.tinyurl.com/macspectrum (sent using Sony Ericsson P990i)

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Re: [ALUG] PowerPC Linux
by Simon Royal 31 May '10

31 May '10

Hi You dont need a specific firmware or drive to burn in OSX. You used to in early versions of OSX, but havent come across it is Tiger and upwards. You also used to have troubles booting from a non-Apple drive but even that is pretty obsolete these days. Simon -- http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - http://www.tinyurl.com/macspectrum (sent using Sony Ericsson P990i)

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how to do this? networking two interfaces?
by Peter Alcibiades 31 May '10

31 May '10

I have a case with two wired devices with network connections. Downstairs, we have a computer which is connected to an ADSL router via cable. Then, upstairs, there is going to be a networked printer. The problem is, running the network cable to connect this printer from upstairs into the router is not decoratively acceptable. Its an old house. So I have bought one of those little wireless usb adaptors, and we happen to have an old wireless cable router lying around. The idea would be, wire the printer into the wireless router upstairs, then talk to the wireless router over wireless from the usb adaptor in the computer downstairs. This would be two network connections from the same computer, one wired, the other wireless, with the wireless one going only to the printer, and the wired one going to the ADSL router for Internet access. This must be possible, you would think, but how do you set it up? I had intended to use homeplug, ethernet over mains, but the problem is that the two parts of this particular house are on different mains supplies with separate meters. Its an old house. Also, I can't move the ADSL router upstairs, because there are no phone sockets upstairs. They use cordless phones. So assuming its possible, the simplest would be wireless to the printer only. So this would be using eth0 for Internet access, and eth1 for printing only. Can you do this, and if so how? Peter

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PowerPC Linux
by Simon Royal 31 May '10

31 May '10

Hi Does anyone have any experience with Linux on PowerPC Macs. Im a long term Mac user and have an iBook G3 which might not be the fastest machine in the world - a 500Mhz G3 with 640MB RAM, but compared to my ThinkPad which is a 300Mhz P2 with 296MB RAM it is a speed demon. I know officially Ubuntu stopped PPC ports in version 7, but community ports are still going strong. There is a PowerPC version of 10.04 although I havent tried it yet. I did try version 5 a while ago and it was pretty good. I also know there is no official support for Flash - although some claim to have it working and a lot of software that is for Ubuntu will only work with x86 devices and not PPC. PowerPC Linux is very thin on the ground, Ubuntu and Xubuntu seemingly the biggest two. Yellow Dog is another and there might be a Suse or Mandriva if I remember correctly. Is it worth pursuing? Is PPC Linux any good? Or should I ditch my iBook and my ThinkPad and get faster P2 or P3 machine. In the mean time I am going to try Ubuntu 10.04 for PowerPC on my iBook. Any help and advice would be appreciated. Simon Simon Royal --- Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - LowEndMac: http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum - Skype: Simon-Royal. --- IBM ThinkPad 600 running Ubuntu 10.04 & Apple iBook G3 running OSX 10.4. _________________________________________________________________ http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/197222280/direct/01/ We want to hear all your funny, exciting and crazy Hotmail stories. Tell us now

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Mint Linux
by Simon Royal 29 May '10

29 May '10

Hi I am quite liking Xubuntu at the mo, but I do have a habit of flitting from distro to distro. Ive been looking at Mint Linux and it looks great, a streamlined and polished Ubuntu. Is it just a fancy looking Ubuntu? Is it a cut down or lightweight version? Would it run better than Xubuntu? Simon --- http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - http://www.tinyurl.com/macspectrum (sent using Sony Ericsson P990i)

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