July 2014 - main - earth.li

[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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Problem with sound on new install
by Jenny Hopkins 01 Aug '14

01 Aug '14

Hi folks, I posted the following to the ubuntu alsa forums with the hope of some pointers, but nothing has come back. Can anyone from alug offer anything further on this? <snip> I've newly installed ubuntu 14.04 on to a Gigabyte GA-J1800N-D2H board, and am trying to get sound working with a Samsung S24D590L monitor through the HDMI cable. Pulse audio control detects Port: HDMI / DisplayPort (plugged in), and the volume meter is showing it is responding to the levels, but no actual sound can be heard. Alsamixer shows the card as HDA Intel PCH and the chip as Intel Valleyview2 HDMI, and I've checked nothing is muted. Monitor volume is not muted. There is no output from "beep". </snip> I was asked for the output of wget -O alsa-info.sh http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-info.sh && chmod +x ./alsa-info.sh && ./alsa-info.sh --upload, which is now here: http://www.alsa-project.org/db/?f=1a91c118837f2f6038ddb73c397dae4bf340e0b5 I did wonder if I need to install some dedicated drivers from RealTek, such as LinuxPkg_5.18rc8.tar.bz2? And yes, this is the same board I posted about last week - finally managed to create a dos boot stick it would respond to (had to make it from a virtualbox running windows), upgraded the bios from F2 to F4, and off we went. Thanks, Jenny

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2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 1st August.
by Viperfang 29 Jul '14

29 Jul '14

Quick heads up about this months Norwich 2600 meeting, more info at http://www.norwich2600.co.uk

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[ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : The Mulberry Tree
by samwise 21 Jul '14

21 Jul '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 ----- Gah! Sorry for the late email - I totally forgot! The monthly "Third Monday" ALUG Ipswich Social Meeting is back today, 21stth 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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Date Scheduling
by Michael Goddard 17 Jul '14

17 Jul '14

I'm on a volunteer project and want to use program/app that will give me fixed dates over a given period. For instance, a given start date and dates for each 21 day period thereafter, or what are the dates of the second tuesday each month over a given period. I'm quite prepared to do my own DIY learning etc, but would appreciate a heads up in the right direction rather than stumbling down too many blind alleys in an effort to find, I hope, a simple program/app that would do this task. Tia Michael -- Michael Goddard <emmjee(a)mypostoffice.co.uk>

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Motherboard can't detect debian bootloader
by Jenny Hopkins 17 Jul '14

17 Jul '14

Hullo there, I've been having a bit of a battle with trying to persuade a new motherboard to see a debian bootloader. The machine is a mini-ITX with 1 SATA drive, the new motherboard is a GIGABYTE GA-J1800N-D2H, I have a pxe netboot debian set up which the BIOS doesn't detect, a USB stick set up with the image from here: http://grml.org/, and the already-installed SATA drive running debian wheezy/grub. All I get is either a black screen after the motherboard logo, or the logo keeps reappearing as if it were constantly rebooting. The support at mini-ITX say they have booted ubuntu successfully from a USB stick running Ubuntu (video to support this shown here: http://www17.zippyshare.com/v/84742025/file.html) I found various comments on amazon about this board and linux, saying the BIOS has to be upgraded, but the mini-ITX support reckon the board already is running version 4. Now, they could be wrong and I need to upgrade BIOS to see my humble boot offerings, but I wondered if maybe there was something else about debian that is too out-dated for this board? If so, the board is of no use and I need to return it rather than wasting time piddling about with trying to upgrade the BIOS. I suppose my question is: if anyone can say yes, debian won't work whatever you do at the moment, then I'll know not to waste further time. Unfortunately I have to replace the old board into my client's machine each time I try and fail miserably to make it work, so it isn't currently plugged in and running to inspect the BIOS version... I did try every combination of boot order, CSM settings though. Hardware, *sigh*. Thanks, Jenny

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Looking for a reasonable Linux laptop/netbook
by Chris Green 11 Jul '14

11 Jul '14

My wife recently lost (or maybe had stolen, we're not quite sure) her new[ish] Acer Travelmate laptop. So we're looking for a replacement. The Travelmate was OK but she found the touchpad very difficult to use, it's one where the 'buttons' are not actually separate from the mouse movement touchpad and she found that very difficult. We want something small like the Acer with its 11.6" screen, similar processor power etc. Also obviously needs to be reasonably easy to install Linux (xubuntu). Any recommendations? -- Chris Green

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How is one supposed to work out what's what on a LAN nowadays?
by Chris Green 10 Jul '14

10 Jul '14

I know, I've been here before, but it's bitten me again. With most modern routers/switches not providing local DNS how is one supposed to find out who's who on a small LAN? At home I run dnsmasq but that's overkill for where I am now with just three or four devices on the LAN:- root@acer-aspire:~# arp-scan -l Interface: eth0, datalink type: EN10MB (Ethernet) Starting arp-scan 1.8.1 with 256 hosts (http://www.nta-monitor.com/tools/arp-scan/) 192.168.13.102 d0:ff:50:07:b7:96 (Unknown) 192.168.13.103 00:0c:43:4a:55:66 Ralink Technology, Corp. 192.168.13.100 00:21:04:f5:7c:a0 Gigaset Communications GmbH 192.168.13.254 10:fe:ed:50:8f:fa (Unknown) So, I know that 192.168.13.100 is the Gigaset DECT phone but for the other three I'm stuffed. Surely there's supposed to be a way to know how to talk to these things! (One's a Beaglebone Black, two are TP-Link routers) It can take a while guessing which is which and trying to ssh to them. It's especially frustrating because I only see this for a few days every few months so I *don't* remember what's what and much of it is powered down so gets different IP addresses next time around. It's just not stable (as in the same all the time) enough to get the router to always assign the same IPs and it wouldn't help all that much anyway as I don';t remember after two months absence. -- Chris Green

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How to test for existence of a file matching a pattern?
by Chris Green 09 Jul '14

09 Jul '14

This really sounds simple but I can't think of a neat way of doing it, I want to test (in bash) if there's any file with a specific suffix in a particular directory. This means I can't use "[ -f <filename> ]" because I don't know the filename and I don't see how I can use "[ *.sfx ]" because if there are no *.sfx files the string is still not empty. I suppose I could say something like "[ *.sfx = '*.sfx' ]" but it's a quoting nightmare. Any better ideas? -- Chris Green

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Electromagnetic Field 2014: Call for Participation
by Jonty Wareing 07 Jul '14

07 Jul '14

Hello! Electromagnetic Field (EMF) is a volunteer-run non-profit maker/hacker camping festival in the UK. We held our first event in 2012, and this year we're back and bigger than ever: a camping festival with over 1200 people of all ages, just outside Milton Keynes for a long weekend between the 29th and 31st of August. We run this event to promote people making and learning things across as many disciplines as possible. We'll take over a large field, roll out power and internet to every tent, and put on talks and workshops for three days. If you'd like a better idea of what that looks like, our website might help: https://www.emfcamp.org/about Our Call For Participation is open: we're looking for people to talk or give workshops. At previous events, we've had a huge variety of talks on everything from genetic modification to electronics, blacksmithing to high-energy physics, reverse engineering to lock picking, computer security to crocheting, and quadcopters to brewing. If you'd like to talk, we'll try and fit you in. We're especially keen to receive proposals from people outside the normal tech conference circuit (we welcome imposters!). If you need some inspiration, take a look at the list of talks from 2012: https://www.emfcamp.org/talks/2012 If you'd like to submit a talk, simply fill in this short form: https://www.emfcamp.org/cfp We're also looking for groups to run villages: camps within EMF where like-minded people can camp together and host activities for other members. Previous villages have been anything from retro-gaming to lockpicking, chillout areas, and a full workshop complete with laser cutter! Some groups just camp together so interested people can find them, some organise a village around a topic of interest and allow anyone to join them. If you'd like to register a village there's more information here: https://wiki.emfcamp.org/wiki/Villages We're also looking for people to build installations and art around the site. We have a limited budget available to help fund these projects, and you can find the application form on the call for participation page. Previous years have seen anything from ride-on tanks to floating LED screens and gigantic metal letters spelling out the event name! We'll consider anything interesting, so don't hesitate to get in touch if you would like to contribute. Last but not least: EMF is an entirely volunteer-run event and takes a vast amount of time to organise. We need volunteers to help out in a variety of roles before, during, and after the event. If you'd like to get involved, email volunteer(a)emfcamp.org. If you would like promotional posters, flyers and stickers to display in your hackspace or give out at a meeting, email your address to contact(a)emfcamp.org and we'll post them out as soon as possible! You can find out more about EMF 2014 on our website: https://www.emfcamp.org You may also be interested in the BBC coverage of the event in 2012: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19441861 Tickets are available from http://www.emfcamp.org/tickets, hope to see you in the field! Thanks, Jonty

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