July 2013 - main - earth.li

Planet...
by Brett Parker 22 Jul '13

22 Jul '13

Just to make everyone aware, due to planet planet no longer being maintained, I've actually moved the alug planet to using venus (for now), though I'm happy to take suggestions for other feed aggregators to use, I am considering using feedjack, if only because I'm more comfortable with using django than the current static generation system. Also, we should probably look at actually making a theme for moinmoin (which runs the main website: http://www.alug.org.uk/ and also something for the planet...) Just incase anyone else is looking for the rss/atom feeds of the planet, they are (as they have been for a while): rss 1.0: http://planet.alug.org.uk/rss10.xml rss 2.0: http://planet.alug.org.uk/rss20.xml atom : http://planet.alug.org.uk/atom.xml Cheers, -- Brett Parker

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Job Opportunity
by Alan Greer 18 Jul '13

18 Jul '13

My name is Alan Greer, I'm a director of a company Observatory Sciences Ltd (http://www.observatorysciences.co.uk) We have a job opportunity that I would like to share: Job Opportunity: Graduate Software Engineer Graduate Software Engineer. Salary £22-25K. Observatory Sciences is a UK-based company specialising in developing software for telescopes and instruments used in astronomy, high-energy physics and other "big science" projects. Our client base is global, and includes some of the world's largest telescopes and synchrotron facilities. Due to continuing expansion we seek a software engineer to work with our existing team of specialists to design and implement software for control and data acquisition applications used by astronomical observatories and accelerator facilities. The job mayinvolve international travel to clients' facilities, including Europe, USA and Hawaii. Observatory Sciences currently has offices in Cambridge and Brighton. This post may requiremoving to Oxford at a laterdate. Applicants should have a scientific or engineering degree. You must be self-motivated, analytical and inventive: you should also be excited to be working at the cutting edge of scientific discovery. Excellent communication skills in English, both written and verbal, are essential. You should have experienceor training in developing scientific or technical applications in a UNIX/Linux environment with C, Java or C++ programming. A background in physics/astronomy, experience of control or real-time software, motion/servo control or LabVIEW would be advantageous. Salary will be in the range £22-25K p.a, commensurate with experience and qualifications; specific on the job training will be provided as necessary. This is a rare opportunity to use your scientific and software skills with a talented team of scientists and software engineers in a unique and expanding company. Closing date for applications: 7thAugust 2013 To apply, please send your CV including contact details for two referees, viaemail to jobs(a)observatorysciences.co.uk or post to Dr C.J. Mayer, Observatory Sciences Ltd., William James House, Cowley Road, Cambridge. CB4 0WX.

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"Attempt to access beyond end of device" after dd
by Mark Rogers 16 Jul '13

16 Jul '13

I have a failed SanDisk Extreme III (30 MB/s 4GB) card. I successfully recovered everything that mattered a couple of weeks ago using ddrescue: $sudo ddrescue -f -n /dev/sdd ./from-site-`date +%F`.dd logfile The resulting image is 4110188544 bytes in size. Today used dd to put the recovered image onto a new Sandisk Extreme 40MB/s 4GB card: $ sudo dd bs=1M if=from-site-2013-06-25.dd of=/dev/sdd dd: writing ‘/dev/sdd’: No space left on device 3816+0 records in 3815+0 records out 4000317440 bytes (4.0 GB) copied, 1313.42 s, 3.0 MB/s When I boot from the new card, I get "Attempt to access beyond the end of device" in /var/log/messages, although these attempts only come from access to /dev/sda5 which is the swap partition. So, what do I do? As far as I can tell all I need to do is fix the partition table and reduce the size of the swap partition. I did try firing up fdisk and deleting and recreating the partition but it just created it the same size, presumably because fdisk believes the disk is the wrong size. How do I fix that? Possible solutions while booted into the box preferred but if I need to take the card out and transfer to another PC via USB card reader I can do that. Mark Rogers -- 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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[ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : The Mulberry Tree
by samwise 15 Jul '13

15 Jul '13

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 today, 15th July, at 20:00: The Mulberry Tree 5 Woodbridge Road IPSWICH IP4 2EA Tel: 01473 225776 Map/Directions URI: http://maps.google.co.uk/?q=IP4+2EA WWW: https://www.facebook.com/MULBERRYHOSPITALITY The Mulberry Tree, previously known as The Milestone Beer House, is a grade 2 listed building in the centre of Ipswich. It is located at the intersection between Woodbridge Road and the A1156, across the road from the old Odeon cinema and not far from the Regent Theatre. It re-opened on Thursday March 29th 2012 after a major refurbishment, under its original name of The Mulberry House and has already begun to regain a good reputation for its selection of beers and ales. It has a sizeable car park to the rear of the building. All are welcome, novices and experienced users. Feel free to ask for further information on the Main ALUG mailing list. Cheers, 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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Meeting at Coach and Horses?
by Anthony Anson 11 Jul '13

11 Jul '13

Will there be one on Thursday? -- Tony http://www.girolle.co.uk/

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Network fun: wifi, powerlines and wires
by MJ Ray 10 Jul '13

10 Jul '13

So there's rather a lot of these BT Home Hubs around me. They are hopping all over the 2.4GHz band as they fail to avoid interfering with each other and every other router in the area. In short, it's messing up my wifi and any time I (or any other non-BT neighbour) move to a quieter channel, it starts the madness again as the BT hubs shuffle around - the Android phones cope most of the time, but the Linux laptops (one rtl8723ae, one I forget what) don't like it very much. Is there anything I can do (module options or tool configs) to discourage the laptops from disassociating when there's a burst of noise? The good folk on IRC suggest getting a 5GHz band (802.11n) access point but I fear any relief will be temporary as the BT hubs get upgraded to similarly-misbehaving 5GHz kit. Or is it more resilient? Is powerline networking worth a try? Has anyone got tips or things available locally that they'd recommend? I hope it's just ethernet as far as Linux is concerned. Is there another option short of lead-lining my walls which I'm missing? Failing that, I'll wire up yet another house with ethernet cables... Thanks, -- MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op http://koha-community.org supporter, web and library systems developer. In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Available for hire (including development) at http://www.software.coop/

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Help with Setuid?
by Chris Walker 10 Jul '13

10 Jul '13

Having changed my desktop OS to Magiea, I find that I can no longer gain access to my NAS box. Previously I had 4 lines in /etc/fstab describing the mounts and they worked fine. With the change of OS though has come this message whenever I try to access the NAS - 'This program is not installed setuid root - "user" CIFS mounts not supported'. I've read up online as much as I can but I'm no further forward in resolving the problem. Can somebody point me in the right direction please as I need access to the box? If it helps, the 4 lines in question look like this :- //storage_server/Epox_Share /media/Epox_Share cifs user,credentials=/etc/samba/auth.storage_server.Epox,exec 0 0 //storage_server/Laptop_Share /media/Laptop_Share cifs user,credentials=/etc/samba/auth.storage_server.Laptop,exec 0 0 //storage_server/Linux_Share /media/Linux_Share cifs user,credentials=/etc/samba/auth.storage_server.Mandriva,exec 0 0 //storage_server/Media_Share /media/Media_Share cifs user,credentials=/etc/samba/auth.storage_server.xbox,exec 0 0 In case it helps /etc/hosts looks like this :- # generated by drakconnect 127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost 192.168.1.25 storage_server

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[ALUG Announce] ALUG Norwich Pub Meet Thursday 11th July
by Viperfang 09 Jul '13

09 Jul '13

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- Hello Norwich Aluggers, Our monthly ALUG Norwich social meeting will be held this Thursday, 11th July at The Coach and Horses (82 Thorpe Road, Norwich, NR1 1BA). The meeting officially starts at 8pm, although some people may arrive earlier. More information on those people can be found on the list and the IRC channel. If you are unsure if you will recognise us then make yourself and your intent to attend known by either posting on list or visiting us on IRC so we can look out for you rather than hiding in the corner. Optionally you could ask at the bar if they know where the geeky computer weirdos are and they'll point you in the right direction (seriously!). Another possibility is look for heaps of electronics on a table that may possibly look like movie props that would used for detonating explosives. Feel free to bring electronics/laptops/gadgets to the meet, you will by no means be alone. Ben Bewick aka Viperfang NB: This mail is automated, please refer to the usual sources for more information. ALUG Contact Details: Website : http://www.alug.org.uk/ IRC : #alug on irc.alug.org.uk List : http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo Twitter : http://twitter.com/anglianlug Identica: TBA Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2381613902 ----- 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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Linux Beer Hike 2013 in Castleton
by MJ Ray 09 Jul '13

09 Jul '13

mikeh at csits.net sent a message using the contact form at http://lug.org.uk/contact which I thought might interest some ALUGgers, given the propensity for pub-based meetings here. It's Saturday 17th August until Sunday 25th August and the message said: I'd like to make a general announcement about the 2013 annual Linux Bier Wandering. This year, the event returns to the UK and will be held in the village of Castleton, in the Peak District. Linux Beer Hike 2013 in Castleton ********************************* Hacking, learning, talking, walking and dining - The Linux Bier Wanderung (Linux Beer Hike) is all this and much more. Each summer around 50 Linux enthusiasts meet up for a weeks holiday. This year the 15th annual event takes the penguin-friends to England, specifically to the picturesque village of Castleton in the Peak District. LBWers put their hiking boots on for the first time in 1999 in Pottenstein in Germany. After a great week, it was clear: We'll meet again next year! In the following years the wanderers traveled to countries including Belgium, Ireland, Scotland, Lithuania, Greece, Switzerland, and Austria. 2013 is the third time the event takes place in England. There is much to discover: The Peak District offers many great hikes in and around the village itself and the delights of Speedwell Cavern, and the many other caves in the area. Castleton also has a lot to offer in terms of food and drink: many delicious beers and hearty cuisine will fortify the participants and keep them all happy. Talks about Linux and Free and Open Source Software complete the programme. It is now possible to register to join in with the event [2]. Over the next few weeks the organisers and participants will arrange various hikes and excursions, and participants can also register for workshops and talks. Questions on anything to do with the LBW will be happily answered by the Linux beer hikers on their mailing list [3] or on IRC (channel #lbw at irc.oftc.net) Links: [1] LBW 2013: http://lbw2013.norgie.net/ [2] Registration for LBW 2013: http://lbwreg.draiocht.net/ [3] LBW mailing list: https://mail.x31.com/mailman/listinfo/lbw -- MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op http://koha-community.org supporter, web and library systems developer. In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Available for hire (including development) at http://www.software.coop/

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KDE 4.1 problems
by Chris Walker 08 Jul '13

08 Jul '13

As part of my new install I am now using KDE 4.10 as the desktop. But it appears to have a problem retaining settings. If I switch off, when it comes back on, the konsole window for example is now full screen when it should be just a small window and similarly for something like a Solitaire game. But using the same DVD I used to install, I created another install inside VirtualBox and that doesn't exhibit the problem. I've been looking online at the KDE 4 pages but I can't get to the bottom of the issue. Can I copy any of the files over from the virtual machine or is there a preferred way to fix it? I've tried logging in as root and moving my copy of the .kde4 folder in the hope that it would create a new one without these problems but either I didn't do it correctly, or it didn't work, the end result being that there was no change. As the virtual machine works and this one doesn't I assumed it might be graphics related but if I do anything to that, I lose everything and can no longer see the graphic I have for wallpaper and all the icons disappear. That then takes me ages to get it all back again so having done that three times now, I'm getting tired of it and now tend to avoid that. So any ideas on what I can do to remedy the problem please?

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