August 2010 - main

PPC Linux
by Simon Royal 16 Aug '10

16 Aug '10

Hi I am moving back to Mac, its what I know and love, but I don't want to leave Linux altogether. The past 8 months have taught me a lot and I have a small amount of experience of PowerPC Linux. I intend to dual boot OSX and some kind of Linux variant, of which I havent decided on yet. I am looking around for an LXDE based PPC linux. I know resources for PPC linux is limited and just because a piece of software is available for linux it doesnt mean it will work on the ppc architecture. So if anyone has any experience of using Linux on a G3 Mac then I would love to hear about it. I ran Ubuntu 6 a few years ago on an iBook G3 and it was pleasant, but things have moved on and I favour LXDE or Xfce over Gnome. Simon Royal --- Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - LowEndMac: http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum - Skype: Simon-Royal. --- IBM ThinkPad 240X running Linux Mint 9 LXDE & Windows XP Home - Apple iBook G3 running OSX 10.4.

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DHCP/DNS and routers
by Chris G 16 Aug '10

16 Aug '10

I have a Draytek Vigor 2802n ADSL router, a pretty 'normal' router, slightly up-market even. By default its IP address (as most domestic routers) is 192.168.1.1 and it comes up as a DHCP server for that subnet. I've been trying to get it to play nicely (as the DHCP server) on my small network but so far I'm having little luck. Until now I have had DHCP in the router turned off and was using dnsmasq in a 'server' machine instead but that machine now has virtually nothing else to do so it would be nice if I could turn it off and use the Vigor router instead. However, when I try and use the Vigor router as DHCP server I get several problems:- When I boot my desktop machine it complains that it can't resolve its own name (chris). Nothing on the local network is possible to resolve by name. When I do a 'host chris' or anything similar I get a series of messages saying "reply from unexpected source:". DNS queries are being sent to 192.168.1.1 (the router has set itself up as a DNS proxy) but replies appear to be from the real DNS servers at my ISP. It seems that Ubuntu/Linux can't cope with the default setup of the ADSL router but that seems unlikely as surely more people would be complaining about things not working. Am I doing something stupidly wrong (quite likely!) or is it really not possible to set up a pretty standard router so that DNS works for the local network? -- Chris Green

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avi/mpg to video DVD
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 15 Aug '10

15 Aug '10

Hi Folks, I have a .avi video file (copied to HD off my digital camera): approx 30 min approx 2GB file -- video + audio. I have also converted it to MPEG2 with PAL-vieo option (.mpg) using ffmpeg (approx 1.2 GB). I now want to make a video DVD from it. The tool I have seen recommended in the Web is dvdauthor, but my Debian Lenny refuses to install this (says it can't download/can't find some essential files in the repositories). Basically, the desired end result is a DVD that someone can pop into a standard DVD player and watch on their TV. Any suggestions? With thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 14-Aug-10 Time: 22:48:53 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Flash issues
by Bev Nicolson 15 Aug '10

15 Aug '10

The problem is this. I have Firefox 3.6.6. I have Adobe 10.1.53.64-1 but does video content play? Nope. Either Flash crashes or (for example) the Beeb site tells me my version of Flash is not up to date. Except it is. (I checked.) I have enabled it in plug ins, cleared the cache and the cookies but it's still not working. Anyone got any ideas? Bev.

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Wanted - a phone/PDA than can synchronise calendar/contacts with the desktop
by Chris G 14 Aug '10

14 Aug '10

You wouldn't have thought it was that difficult but it seems to be getting *more* difficult rather than less difficult nowadays. Currently my wife has a Palm Treo 6800 which she synchronises with Evolution. This works reasonably well but does have its problems:- Evolution's calendar is somewhat arcane, has anyone really worked out how those menus in the sidebar are meant to work? It's far from perfect at keeping things 'clean', i.e. we have a problem with duplicate appointments appearing and it's a real pig to get them cleared out. It took me half a day yesterday to sort it out (if I have). This is one of the reasons for this posting. The Treo 6800 is getting a bit long in the tooth and needs replacing soon, since there are no new PalmOS devices we need to move to some other OS and none seems as well supported as the now getting obsolescent PalmOS. So are there any good phone/PDAs available which will synchronise easily with a Linux desktop application? We're quite open to change, it doesn't have to be Evolution (and in many ways I'd prefer *not* to use Evolution), Thunderbird/Sunbird is quite OK for example. We don't want to synchronise via anything 'out there' (like Google) but I'm quite happy to install a web/server application which a PDA and a desktop application can both synchronise with or which provides a reasonable interface itself. -- Chris Green

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[ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : McGintys, Northgate Street
by samwise 13 Aug '10

13 Aug '10

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 is back, Monday 16th August, at 20:00: P J McGinty & Sons 15 Northgate Street Ipswich Suffolk IP1 3BY Tel: 01473 251 515 Map/Directions URI: http://maps.google.co.uk/?q=IP1+3BY WWW: http://www.pjmcgintys.co.uk/ McGintys pub is in the centre of Ipswich. It's directly opposite the town's central library and has a reputation for good Irish beer. We're usually to be found in the lowest section of the bar, near the library entrance to the pub. All are welcome, novices and experienced users. Feel free to ask for further information on the Main ALUG mailing list. After last time's absence, I should be back in attendance this month. Hopefully, see some of 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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NetworkManager (Mangler?)
by Mark Rogers 12 Aug '10

12 Aug '10

Now I have my new PC up and running it of-course comes with NetworkManager, which I've always avoided in the past but maybe it's improved? My problem is that it seems inflexible and buggy; I just got into a right old mess by not making sure I had "disconnected" my LAN before making some changes (result: NM reporting that I'm connected using a configuration that no longer exists, and refusing to connect to my new one even though it said it was). On the other hand, having a GUI interface to LAN/WLAN/VPN/etc would be nice and I'd prefer to make it work if it can be done. So, ditch it or keep it? -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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ATA secure erase
by Mark Rogers 12 Aug '10

12 Aug '10

Does anyone have any experience of using the ATA secure erase commands from hdparm? My understanding is that a BIOS can lock the drive from responding to the commands, and that some do and some don't. Mine appears to (hdparm -I /dev/sda shows "frozen" in the "Security" section), but I don't know how common it is to find a BIOS that allows this to work. I have several drives to wipe and I'd certainly consider building a PC for the job but I have no idea how to find out if a BIOS will let me do it before I buy it. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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xcompmgr help
by Simon Royal 11 Aug '10

11 Aug '10

Hi I am still experiencing Linux Mint 9 LXDE graphical problems. ALUG member Martin suggested it was an OpenBox problem and not an LXDE problem. I have kind of sorted the problem, but not permanently. If I run 'xcompmgr' from the terminal the graphical glitches and blips disappear and everything is fine. However, the minute I close the terminal it must stop xcompmgr running as the problems come back. So, firstly how do I run it without having terminal open all the time and how do I automatically run it - I read something about autostart.sh. Regards Simon Royal --- Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - LowEndMac: http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum - Skype: Simon-Royal. --- IBM ThinkPad 240X running Linux Mint 9 LXDE & Windows XP Home - Apple iBook G3 running OSX 10.4.

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Date formatting in OOo writer
by Mark Rogers 11 Aug '10

11 Aug '10

Does anyone have an idea how to insert a date field into an OOo writer document, and format it along the lines of: Wednesday, 11th August, 2010 It's the "th" (or "st", "nd") I'm having the problem with. Seems unlikely it's not there but the examples don't show it and a Google has so far failed me (I can't even find people asking the question!) -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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