November 2014 - main

[ALUG Announce] Norwich Raspberry Pi User and Developer Group's third meetup
by Steve Pearce 27 Jan '15

27 Jan '15

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- Greetings ALUG. I'm writing to let you know that we'll be holding the third Norwich Raspberry Pi User and Developer Group meeting next Saturday, 9th March 2013. We'll be meeting at a new venue: The Soup Lab, 5 St. Benedict’s View, Grapes Hill, Norwich, NR2 4HH. See the website norwichrpi.org for more details about the group, and see thesouplab.co.uk for venue info. Hope to see you there. stevepdp ----- 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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Cannot log in with (or su to) new user
by Ewan Slater 30 Nov '14

30 Nov '14

Hi All, I have a situation is driving me round the twist. I can't log in with (or su to) any new user I create. Background: I have had to take over a box built by someone else (who is no longer available to speak with). The easy answer would be to rebuild said box, but we currently have a customer on it, and so that is not an option at the moment. Problem: I need to create a couple of new users. I ssh'd into the box with an existing account, su'd to root and created the new users with useradd, and set passwords for them. If I attempt to log in as one of these users, or from the existing account (not root) I attempt to su - <username> then I get incorrect password (and I have checked what I am typing very carefully). I have checked /etc/passwd and the users have a valid shell (/bin/bash) and a valid home directory. >From root I have used passwd -u to make sure that they are not locked. I had a look at bashrc, bash_profile, /etc/profile and can’t see anything that would cause the user to be locked out. Any ideas gratefully received. Cheers, Ewan

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VoIP/SIP servers
by Mark Rogers 26 Nov '14

26 Nov '14

Has anyone here got any experience of setting up a VoIP server? I have a couple of sip trunks from various places (Sipgate, Enta) which I hardly ever use but would like to start making use of. I have an account at pbxes.org which allows me to aggregate them but I'd rather run something of my own that I can learn something from. I'm therefore thinking about setting up a server running Asterisk (or similar) and some kind of web interface. Preference for Ubuntu server, Debian or CentOS in that order; most of the instructions I've found have been for CentOS (which I haven't yet tried), but the ones I have found for Debian/Ubuntu haven't worked one way or another. I'll try one of the CentOS how-to's next unless anyone here has some pointers? Mark -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) 21 Drakes Mews, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ER

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Re: [ALUG] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : The Mulberry Tree
by samwise 17 Nov '14

17 Nov '14

Hi, all. I know of at least one attendee to tonight's Ipswich meet that will be there early, from 19:30. I can't get there before 20:00 at the earliest, so if anyone is free to wander down before the traditional start time to rescue them from their own company, then go right ahead ... :) Peter. -- I am aiming to run the London Marathon 2015 in aid of the PSP Association. All sponsorship gratefully received. :) http://www.bagshot-row.org/marathonformum

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[ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : The Mulberry Tree
by samwise 17 Nov '14

17 Nov '14

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, 17th November, 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. -- I am aiming to run the London Marathon 2015 in aid of the PSP Association. All sponsorship gratefully received. :) http://www.bagshot-row.org/marathonformum ----- 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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Amazon Music
by Chris Walker 15 Nov '14

15 Nov '14

Hello, Has anybody here tried to use Amazon Music? My wife wanted to buy the latest Children in Need single but when she bought it, the store insisted she install their software on her machine, a Windows 8.1 laptop. I baulked at that as I hate companies that foist their software on you for no gain. I emailed them and told them that we weren't going to be installing their software and that they should email the file to us. But I did it from my wife's email account! Within a couple of minutes the phone rang. It was Amazon wanting to talk to my wife. I explained that I'd written the email and a couple of security questions - which I answered. So much for security - the guy tried to talk me through the process of downloading the file without installing their software. I said 'What if I run linux?'. 'Not a problem' he replied. 'I run Ubuntu and I can do it'. So I thought I'd have a go on my machine which runs Mageia 4 64 bit. With the support guy still on the phone, I tried. It didn't download the file even though I'd clicked the option. It did work though if I selected the option to play it using VLC. I could then retrieve the file from /tmp so I could at least reassure my wife that she hadn't wasted her money, albeit only 99p. I then rebooted the box into Windows 7 mode and that did offer the boxes to decline the software. After another reboot back into Mageia, I fired up VirtualBox where I have a copy of Xubuntu. That just worked and allowed the download straightaway. So does anybody have any ideas why the download on my base machine doesn't work whereas on Xubuntu it does? -- __ __| |_ __ __ .----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:alug_cdw@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |______________________________________________|

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Why won't it boot?
by Chris Walker 15 Nov '14

15 Nov '14

My machine has recently upgraded itself to a new kernel and now it won't boot. It fails after several seconds telling me that various UUIDs don't exist. But they're the same devices that another kernel does run from. The new kernel which doesn't work is 3.14.18-3 and the one that does work - I'm using it now - is 3.12.25-3. I would have said that if the various partitions do exist, then it *should* work so where do I start trying to fault-find this? -- __ __| |_ __ __ .----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:alug_cdw@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |______________________________________________|

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[ALUG Announce] ALUG Norwich Pub Meet Thursday 13th November
by Viperfang 10 Nov '14

10 Nov '14

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, 13th November 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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Weird character swapping during typing
by Mark Rogers 09 Nov '14

09 Nov '14

Either I have lost the ability to type or something else is going on. I'm finding characters swapped around in tetx that I ytpe (that's been happening all the way through this email but I left those in to demonstrate). Seems to be mostly in Chrome (I'm using Gmail to send this). Seems a particular issue on my Ubuntu laptop, but also happens on my Kubuntu desktop. Don't see it elsewhere. Thoughts? It seems very bad today. Chrome is also running like a dog despite CPU and memory looking OK in htop. I tend to assume that characters go into a keyboard buffer and out in the same order no matter busy the PC is? Seems particularly bad around spaces, eg lik ethis. -- 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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Getting started with NoSQL
by Mark Rogers 04 Nov '14

04 Nov '14

Everything I am doing here is on Linux but as it has the potential to be cross platform feel free to tell me its off topic and I'll go elsewhere with my tail between my legs. Until last week I had zero understanding of NoSQL. I spent some time going through tutorials (using OrientDB - I have no idea how much of this is generic and how much is DB specific) and now have a broad understanding of a graph database, and the concepts of vertices and edges. I'm hoping for some advice on a sensible schema to get started on a specific application. All I want to do is log data coming from sensors. I haven't decided exactly what yet but assume environmental stuff like temperatures, and other stuff like counters (eg energy usage), speeds, etc. They'll be polled periodically from various devices and stored in the database. In most cases there will be a logical grouping to a set of values (eg they all relate to a single room) but others might be more generic. Once I have the data, there are two things I want to do with it. First: display current data on a web page which is constantly updating and always being displayed. Second, I want to be able to run reports over the historical data. With MySQL I would probably have a script which polled all the sensors and stored everything into one record indexed by time, because it's trivial to dump even large amounts of data into a table that way. Whether or not that was the right way in MySQL I'm sure it would be wrong in Orientdb. My first thought was to create a generic Sample class (type, timestamp, value), and extend that to create new classes for specific types of data (Temperature, etc). Create a new vertex for each sample and (having already created a vertex for each room) link them with edges. However I have no idea how efficient that would be when it comes to extracting all the latest data, or historic data ordered by time. So any guidance would be very gratefully received, Also, I have no idea how well it would perform. A handful of samples every minute would be fine I am sure, but what it if were more like 50-100? And what it they were stored every second? That might not be relevant here but this is a learning exercise and I want to understand this stuff. (50-100 samples per second into a MySQL DB would be no problem even on a Pi, after all, assuming they were stored in a single record as described above.) -- 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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