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A cry for help
by nev young 14 Jan '13

14 Jan '13

well for hardware. Does any one have a graphics card, with a PCIE connector and SVGA D-connector on the output, going spare that Vickie could have? If so could they bring it to the ALUG meet tomorrow. I've taken one out of my (spit)windows PC to get hers going and would like to avoid having to part with cash for a new one. Thankx Nev

2 3

Leetkey
by Anthony Anson 13 Jan '13

13 Jan '13

ISTR a workround for adding Leetkey to Thunderbird 17 was sent to the list. Am I dreaming? If my memory is correct I can rootle through everything I have saved from ALUG on the old Eee. If I am wrong, what is the last version in which Leetkey works? If I go onto the Mozilla website and install it, will it replace Mozilla 17, or install another one beside it? -- Tony

4 8

Backup Disk Freeze - Any cause clue from syslog?
by steve-alug＠hst.me.uk 13 Jan '13

13 Jan '13

Hi! My backup system has recently started causing me some grief. I'm running backuppc backing up to an IDE drive in a Netgear SC101 SAN storage box. There are two drives in this device, and the second one is being talked to by Simple Backup, and is working fine. The main/bigger drive is /dev/nbd1 and backuppc has started hanging whilst using it. It doesn't happen straight away - it's several hours after the backup has been started. If I power everything down, wait and switch it back on again, all the drives spin up and seem to work ok again. The SC101 is attached via the SC101-nbd project driver. http://code.google.com/p/sc101-nbd/ It has all been working fine until recently. Nothing's changed, apart from installing routine security updates (inc kernel updates) I'm running ubuntu 10.04. I'm currently doing a deep check on the disk using a tool from Ultimate boot Cd appropriate for the drive manufacturer, but a quick check said the disk's OK. Any ideas why it's hanging like this? Once hung, I can't even ls the disk - it's completely blocked. I tried reformatting it yesterday, and erasing and reinstalling backuppc, but it crashed again. Some of Syslog output below - there's many more after this one, but this is the first. Possible candidates: Disk SAN controller Main PC faulty Disk sleeping and failing to wake again. Any ideas guys? Cheers Steve Jan 11 07:00:28 myserver ntpd[1950]: kernel time sync status change 6001 Jan 11 07:02:01 myserver CRON[11758]: (logcheck) CMD ( if [ -x /usr/sbin/logcheck ]; then nice -n10 /usr/sbin/logcheck; fi) Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212092] INFO: task jbd2/nbd1-8:12704 blocked for more than 120 seconds. Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212100] "echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/hung_task_timeout_secs" disables this message. Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212104] jbd2/nbd1-8 D 00005645 0 12704 2 0x00000000 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212113] c6ce9de4 00000046 f7490000 00005645 00000000 c08964e0 c47b9c24 c08964e0 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212123] 3c1ac4f3 0000299c c08964e0 c08964e0 c47b9c24 c08964e0 c08964e0 d7e7d800 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212131] 00000000 0000299c c47b9980 c47b9980 c30094e0 c6ce9e2c c6ce9df4 c05b71a1 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212140] Call Trace: Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212157] [<c05b71a1>] io_schedule+0x61/0xa0 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212165] [<c01d4b9d>] sync_page+0x3d/0x50 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212171] [<c05b795d>] __wait_on_bit+0x4d/0x70 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212176] [<c01d4b60>] ? sync_page+0x0/0x50 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212181] [<c01d4dc1>] wait_on_page_bit+0x91/0xa0 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212187] [<c0170e90>] ? wake_bit_function+0x0/0x50 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212193] [<c01d5051>] wait_on_page_writeback_range+0xa1/0x110 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212201] [<c023ca2e>] ? bio_alloc_bioset+0x2e/0xf0 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212209] [<c02da977>] ? jbd2_journal_write_metadata_buffer+0x277/0x370 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212215] [<c01d511a>] filemap_fdatawait+0x5a/0x70 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212221] [<c02d2bae>] jbd2_journal_commit_transaction+0x51e/0x1030 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212230] [<c01311b8>] ? default_spin_lock_flags+0x8/0x10 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212236] [<c0164c78>] ? try_to_del_timer_sync+0x68/0xb0 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212241] [<c02d93d5>] kjournald2+0x95/0x1c0 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212247] [<c0170e40>] ? autoremove_wake_function+0x0/0x50 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212252] [<c02d9340>] ? kjournald2+0x0/0x1c0 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212256] [<c0170bb4>] kthread+0x74/0x80 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212261] [<c0170b40>] ? kthread+0x0/0x80 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212267] [<c010a467>] kernel_thread_helper+0x7/0x10 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212278] INFO: task flush-43:16:11670 blocked for more than 120 seconds. Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212281] "echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/hung_task_timeout_secs" disables this message. Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212285] flush-43:16 D 00000484 0 11670 2 0x00000000 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212291] c46d3b34 00000046 c07eaa20 00000484 00000000 c08964e0 ef5735a4 c08964e0 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212300] f5f3884b 0000299a c08964e0 c08964e0 ef5735a4 c08964e0 c08964e0 e8566a00 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212308] f5f2b230 0000299a ef573300 c2e0afe0 eb6accc0 c46d3b74 c46d3b94 c02d1ec5 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212316] Call Trace: Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212324] [<c02d1ec5>] do_get_write_access+0x245/0x440 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212330] [<c0170e90>] ? wake_bit_function+0x0/0x50 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212336] [<c02d2238>] jbd2_journal_get_write_access+0x28/0x40 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212343] [<c02bb3fe>] __ext4_journal_get_write_access+0x2e/0x60 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212349] [<c02bd611>] ext4_mb_mark_diskspace_used+0x61/0x2f0 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212354] [<c02c38a6>] ext4_mb_new_blocks+0x306/0x590 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212360] [<c02b8613>] ? ext4_ext_find_extent+0x253/0x280 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212365] [<c02baf12>] ext4_ext_get_blocks+0x472/0x700 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212373] [<c0298f98>] ext4_get_blocks+0xf8/0x2c0 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212379] [<c02997c9>] mpage_da_map_blocks+0x99/0x410 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212385] [<c02b0d90>] ? ext4_journal_start_sb+0xc0/0xf0 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212390] [<c0296917>] ? ext4_meta_trans_blocks+0xb7/0xd0 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212396] [<c0299dc9>] ext4_da_writepages+0x289/0x580 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212403] [<c01489d9>] ? update_curr+0x169/0x2a0 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212410] [<c01dc66c>] do_writepages+0x1c/0x40 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212417] [<c0232a15>] writeback_single_inode+0xd5/0x380 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212422] [<c02331f9>] writeback_sb_inodes+0x149/0x230 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212427] [<c023364a>] writeback_inodes_wb+0x8a/0x160 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212432] [<c0233903>] wb_writeback+0x1e3/0x230 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212438] [<c0233a81>] wb_do_writeback+0x131/0x140 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212443] [<c0233acb>] bdi_writeback_task+0x3b/0xb0 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212448] [<c01eb9e0>] ? bdi_start_fn+0x0/0xc0 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212453] [<c01eba3d>] bdi_start_fn+0x5d/0xc0 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212457] [<c01eb9e0>] ? bdi_start_fn+0x0/0xc0 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212461] [<c0170bb4>] kthread+0x74/0x80 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212466] [<c0170b40>] ? kthread+0x0/0x80 Jan 11 07:04:11 myserver kernel: [45960.212471] [<c010a467>] kernel_thread_helper+0x7/0x10 Jan 11 07:05:01 myserver CRON[11897]: (root) CMD (if [ -x /usr/bin/vnstat ] && [ `ls /var/lib/vnstat/ | wc -l` -ge 1 ]; then /usr/bin/vnstat -u; fi) Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212093] INFO: task jbd2/nbd1-8:12704 blocked for more than 120 seconds. Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212101] "echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/hung_task_timeout_secs" disables this message. Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212106] jbd2/nbd1-8 D 00005645 0 12704 2 0x00000000 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212114] c6ce9de4 00000046 f7490000 00005645 00000000 c08964e0 c47b9c24 c08964e0 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212124] 3c1ac4f3 0000299c c08964e0 c08964e0 c47b9c24 c08964e0 c08964e0 d7e7d800 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212132] 00000000 0000299c c47b9980 c47b9980 c30094e0 c6ce9e2c c6ce9df4 c05b71a1 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212140] Call Trace: Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212156] [<c05b71a1>] io_schedule+0x61/0xa0 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212165] [<c01d4b9d>] sync_page+0x3d/0x50 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212171] [<c05b795d>] __wait_on_bit+0x4d/0x70 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212175] [<c01d4b60>] ? sync_page+0x0/0x50 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212180] [<c01d4dc1>] wait_on_page_bit+0x91/0xa0 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212187] [<c0170e90>] ? wake_bit_function+0x0/0x50 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212192] [<c01d5051>] wait_on_page_writeback_range+0xa1/0x110 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212200] [<c023ca2e>] ? bio_alloc_bioset+0x2e/0xf0 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212207] [<c02da977>] ? jbd2_journal_write_metadata_buffer+0x277/0x370 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212213] [<c01d511a>] filemap_fdatawait+0x5a/0x70 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212219] [<c02d2bae>] jbd2_journal_commit_transaction+0x51e/0x1030 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212228] [<c01311b8>] ? default_spin_lock_flags+0x8/0x10 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212234] [<c0164c78>] ? try_to_del_timer_sync+0x68/0xb0 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212239] [<c02d93d5>] kjournald2+0x95/0x1c0 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212245] [<c0170e40>] ? autoremove_wake_function+0x0/0x50 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212250] [<c02d9340>] ? kjournald2+0x0/0x1c0 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212254] [<c0170bb4>] kthread+0x74/0x80 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212259] [<c0170b40>] ? kthread+0x0/0x80 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212265] [<c010a467>] kernel_thread_helper+0x7/0x10 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212277] INFO: task flush-43:16:11670 blocked for more than 120 seconds. Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212282] "echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/hung_task_timeout_secs" disables this message. Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212285] flush-43:16 D 00000484 0 11670 2 0x00000000 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212292] c46d3b34 00000046 c07eaa20 00000484 00000000 c08964e0 ef5735a4 c08964e0 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212300] f5f3884b 0000299a c08964e0 c08964e0 ef5735a4 c08964e0 c08964e0 e8566a00 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212309] f5f2b230 0000299a ef573300 c2e0afe0 eb6accc0 c46d3b74 c46d3b94 c02d1ec5 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212317] Call Trace: Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212325] [<c02d1ec5>] do_get_write_access+0x245/0x440 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212331] [<c0170e90>] ? wake_bit_function+0x0/0x50 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212337] [<c02d2238>] jbd2_journal_get_write_access+0x28/0x40 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212344] [<c02bb3fe>] __ext4_journal_get_write_access+0x2e/0x60 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212349] [<c02bd611>] ext4_mb_mark_diskspace_used+0x61/0x2f0 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212354] [<c02c38a6>] ext4_mb_new_blocks+0x306/0x590 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212359] [<c02b8613>] ? ext4_ext_find_extent+0x253/0x280 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212364] [<c02baf12>] ext4_ext_get_blocks+0x472/0x700 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212372] [<c0298f98>] ext4_get_blocks+0xf8/0x2c0 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212377] [<c02997c9>] mpage_da_map_blocks+0x99/0x410 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212383] [<c02b0d90>] ? ext4_journal_start_sb+0xc0/0xf0 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212388] [<c0296917>] ? ext4_meta_trans_blocks+0xb7/0xd0 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212393] [<c0299dc9>] ext4_da_writepages+0x289/0x580 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212400] [<c01489d9>] ? update_curr+0x169/0x2a0 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212407] [<c01dc66c>] do_writepages+0x1c/0x40 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212413] [<c0232a15>] writeback_single_inode+0xd5/0x380 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212418] [<c02331f9>] writeback_sb_inodes+0x149/0x230 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212422] [<c023364a>] writeback_inodes_wb+0x8a/0x160 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212427] [<c0233903>] wb_writeback+0x1e3/0x230 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212433] [<c0233a81>] wb_do_writeback+0x131/0x140 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212438] [<c0233acb>] bdi_writeback_task+0x3b/0xb0 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212443] [<c01eb9e0>] ? bdi_start_fn+0x0/0xc0 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212447] [<c01eba3d>] bdi_start_fn+0x5d/0xc0 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212451] [<c01eb9e0>] ? bdi_start_fn+0x0/0xc0 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212455] [<c0170bb4>] kthread+0x74/0x80 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212459] [<c0170b40>] ? kthread+0x0/0x80 Jan 11 07:06:11 myserver kernel: [46080.212464] [<c010a467>] kernel_thread_helper+0x7/0x10 Jan 11 07:08:11 myserver kernel: [46200.212124] INFO: task jbd2/nbd1-8:12704 blocked for more than 120 seconds.

3 3

Have I bought the wrong kit?
by Chris Walker 11 Jan '13

11 Jan '13

I am fed up with the cheap Huawei router that Talktalk supply so decided I would go for something that will run ddwrt. Having looked at the ddwrt site, I then started looking at Amazon. I decided I would buy a Buffalo Air Station and went for a WZR-HP-AG300H. But it tells me I should connect it to my modem. <Thinks> Hmm. Thought that was built-in. Look again at spec. B*gger. So should I buy a cheap ADSL modem or ask Amazon if they'll take it back and buy another Air Station but this time, one with the correct specs?

2 1

Barebones
by Laurie Brown 11 Jan '13

11 Jan '13

Over the last few years, we have been building small servers using Asus barebones systems. They've been great, and we can install whatever CPU we like, disks, memory, flavour of Linux and so on. They have proven to be relatively cheap and highly reliable machines. However, I just can't seem to find them any more! Our requirement is room for at least 3 SATA disks, preferably 4 plus DVD, multi-core CPU, preferably AMD, good PSU, and capable of taking at least 8Gb of memory. I can find loads of tiny machines great for firewalls and so on, but nothing any larger. Even the Shuttles, still easily found, can't hold enough disks. Does anyone know of a reliable supplier of Asus barebones, or something similar? The last thing I want to do is spend 4 figures on an HP and throw away a licence for Winblow$. Yes, I know I can buy a case, mobo and so on, but that's a laborious exercise if regular, and kit becomes obsolete so fast, it has to be repeated almost every time we build a machine. We've looked at Zoostorm, which is the closest I can find, but they aren't barebones, and we don't need a 2tb disk, just because we want 8Gb of memory. With Zoostorm, it seems that the higher the CPU/memory spec, the bigger the disks, and so on, and it's very hard to find out what the mobo is, and whether it's Linux-friendly. Just too many unknowns and potentially expensive pitfalls. Help/guidance greatly appreciated! Cheers, Laurie. -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Laurie Brown laurie(a)brownowl.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------

4 7

Going spare...
by Mark Rogers 11 Jan '13

11 Jan '13

I have this motherboard, with CPU (couldn't tell you what CPU from memory): http://reviews.cnet.com/motherboards/abit-nf7-s2g-motherboard/4505-3049_7-3… Could likely find some RAM to go with it. Socket A so not high spec, but might be a good replacement for a failed board. I also have at least one Fujitsu Siemens Econel server with dead motherboard (PSU and CPU fine, I believe). Good solid metal cases with loads of drive bays etc, but not worth repairing. Should take standard motherboards if you can find one that the CPU fits relative to where the PSU is. Free for collection from Peterborough. Mark -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

1 0

Nice confirmation of mail not getting lost when SMTP server isn't available
by Chris Green 11 Jan '13

11 Jan '13

Over the past few days I have been playing about with the DNS on my LAN (changing which server runs dnsmasq, etc.). Last night around 22:00 I left everything, as I thought, running OK. This morning though no E-Mails had arrived on my desktop (which is also the SMTP server). It turned out that I hadn't restarted things enough and my dekstop had got a randomly assigned IP address rather than the fixed one it should have got (by telling dnsmasq its MAC address). So TsoHost's mail system hadn't been able to deliver mail to zbmc.eu for something like 12 hours. It was a good test for two things:- My offsite mail backup to which I deliver all my mail in parallel to delivery to my dekstop worked perfectly, so I could see all the undelivered mail there. When I fixed the IP address of my desktop all the undelivered mail arrived on my desktop after an hour or two. Isn't it nice when things work as they should! :-) -- Chris Green

1 0

Anyone use x2go or similar software?
by Chris Green 11 Jan '13

11 Jan '13

I was considering using VNC to access another box on my LAN but as the remote system (which would run a VNC server) doesn't currently have X running on it (though there's a Lubuntu desktop available) it makes VNC rather awkward. I've seen x2go recommended for this sort of situation as it seems as if it's more oriented towards the sort of thing I want to do - fire up an X session and use it remotely. While it would be nice if one could use 'old fashioned' X as it was originally designed it tends not to work so well with very many programs now using dBus to communicate. E.g. if I try and run nm-connection-editor on the remote system via an "ssh -x remote-system" connection it pops up a window on my system but there's an error:- ** (nm-connection-editor:3088): WARNING **: Couldn't connect to accessibility bus: Failed to connect to socket /tmp/dbus-9FFbE3UfRz: Connection refused ... and it doesn't actually work. Or can anyone suggest how to get around the dBus communication issue? -- Chris Green

3 4

Full size but low power PCs - does nobody sell them? (maybe related to Laurie's recent question)
by Chris Green 10 Jan '13

10 Jan '13

Why is it that no one seems to sell 'ordinary' PCs, in ordinary sized boxes, but with reasonably power efficient components. It's next to impossible to even find out what the power consumption is of most desktop PCs and very few of them have efficient power supplies (often the worst offender). It's all very well advocating little Intel Atom based boxes but they almost never have any space for extra disk drives. The same applies to Raspberry Pi etc., very low power but no easy way to assemble in a box with a couple of disk drives. I guess I'm after much the same as Laurie but with maybe more emphasis on power consumption. A basic case with low power mother board, low end processor, etc. and space for several disks. -- Chris Green

2 3

Are there any linux based NAS systems out there with reasonable audio output?
by Chris Green 10 Jan '13

10 Jan '13

I want a compact, low power Linux box to use as a NAS and audio streamer (probably running mpd). This is a slightly odd mix of requirements, does anyone have any suggestions of what to look at? Alternatively maybe a 'media streamer' would provide what I want, but I need it to have audio outputs and be able to run something like mpd so that it can run headless and be driven remotely. A custom built Linux box is a valid possibility too but getting a small, low-power one isn't trivial. (Raspberry Pi is out because its audio is notoriously bad and there seem to be few workarounds to avoid its sound problems) -- Chris Green

3 7

Re: [ALUG] Full size but low power PCs - does nobody sell them? (maybe related to Laurie's recent question)
by Chris Green 10 Jan '13

10 Jan '13

On Thu, Jan 10, 2013 at 04:47:47PM +0000, Anthony Anson wrote: > On 10/01/13 16:19, Chris Green wrote: > >Why is it that no one seems to sell 'ordinary' PCs, in ordinary sized > >boxes, but with reasonably power efficient components. > > If you don't feel competent to build one from scratch, go to a > proper computer shop (where are you? I can recommend some in the > Norwich area.) and they will put one together for you - probably > cheaper than you could. > I've been building my PCs since quite a long time ago (like since they were 386 processors, and NextGen processors - remember them?). However nowadays it doesn't really make economic sense. > >It's next to impossible to even find out what the power consumption is > >of most desktop PCs and very few of them have efficient power supplies > >(often the worst offender). > > > >It's all very well advocating little Intel Atom based boxes but they > >almost never have any space for extra disk drives. The same applies to > >Raspberry Pi etc., very low power but no easy way to assemble in a box > >with a couple of disk drives. > > Not a tremendous challenge though. > It's not a challenge putting a Raspberry Pi in a box and adding some USB disks, no. However it won't be a particularly good server. The difficulty is finding out which motherboards are low power and then finding a suitably efficient power supply. My desktop machine (Intel I3, 8Gb memory, two 1Tb disks) consumes only about 40 watts because I chose a reasonably low power board (after much searching to find information) and an efficient power supply. It's still a *bit* of a bodge though because the power supply isn't designed to fit in a standard box. Since my system only uses 40 watts it needs a much smaller power supply than most full-sized PC ones. Even a very efficient 300 watt power supply isn't going to be particularly good at 40 watts. I'm using an 80 watt supply. > >I guess I'm after much the same as Laurie but with maybe more emphasis > >on power consumption. A basic case with low power mother board, low end > >processor, etc. and space for several disks. > > Then you can run Tom's RTBT and have a low-end OS too? > > This is where your competent small trader scores. Try Anglian Internet. > I'd be *really* surprised if they know power consumption figures for assembled PCs (before they assemble them that is, I can measure the consumption of something I've built). I will send them an enquiry though. -- Chris Green

1 0

Reassembling RAID array
by Mark Rogers 10 Jan '13

10 Jan '13

I had a RAID5 array set up as /dev/md1 using 4 external USB3 drives. Following a reboot (I assume, although to be honest I'm not sure what caused it) the array hasn't come back up correctly: $ cat /proc/mdstat Personalities : [linear] [multipath] [raid0] [raid1] [raid6] [raid5] [raid4] [raid10] md1 : active raid5 super 1.2 level 5, 512k chunk, algorithm 2 [4/0] [____] md0 : active raid5 sda1[0] sdb1[1] sdd1[3] sdc1[2] 5860535808 blocks level 5, 64k chunk, algorithm 2 [4/4] [UUUU] unused devices: <none> Note: /dev/md0 is a separate array and is working fine; md1 should comprise sd[fghi]1 All the "missing" partitions are present, eg: $sudo fdisk -l /dev/sdf Disk /dev/sdf: 2000.4 GB, 2000398934016 bytes 81 heads, 63 sectors/track, 765633 cylinders, total 3907029168 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x2c2d5341 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sdf1 2048 3907029167 1953513560 fd Linux RAID autodetect (same applies for the other three disks). How do I get mdadm to add my disks into the array, both now and after a reboot? -- 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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Best way to code a linux comms daemon
by Mark Rogers 09 Jan '13

09 Jan '13

Occasionally I have the need to write some communications software, typically something that connects to a serial or TCP port, writes requests and reads responses, writing the results into a database. Usually the basics are simple enough to achieve, but the challenge is in making a robust solution that will cope with lost connections and any other variety of reasons why things might go wrong (including bugs in the script itself). What is the "best" way to approach something like this? Are some programming languages better than others for this? What's the best way to ensure a script restarts if it fails for some reason? I'm looking for something Debian/Ubuntu based if relevant. [Aside: One reason for asking is that I have been playing with an app I downloaded that talks to CurrentCost power meters, with a PHP-based web interface and a Python-based daemon, and I'm not sure why Python was chosen for it; also I note that the daemon regularly crashes on my system leaving me without any data.] -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) 21 Drakes Mews, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ER

3 6

Re: [ALUG] Best way to code a linux comms daemon
by Barry Samuels 09 Jan '13

09 Jan '13

On 09/01/13 09:30:13, Mark Rogers wrote: > On 8 January 2013 09:43, Barry Samuels > <bjsamuels(a)beenthere-donethat.org.uk>wrote: > > > I also use the Python-based interface written by Dale Lane. I have > > to run that 3 times every 24 hours to store data for the bar graphs > > and don't understand Python enough to be able to modify it to run > > unattended. Yes I know that there is an option to 'stay connected' > > but I don't want it running all the time just long enough to > > collect 24 hours worth of data. > > > > Cheers, I'll take a look at Dale's code, I've been using "measureit": > http://code.google.com/p/measureit/ > > I thought that I would, at least, express an interest. > > > > Thanks, it was awful quiet out there! Measureit looks interesting but appears to be for the Envi and Envir models only and mine is older than that. Pity. Some of my posts haven't appeared on the list and I haven't had a copy back but I've just realised why. I think I've been clicking 'Reply' instead of 'Reply to group' so some posts went directly to the poster instead of to the group. Apologies to those affected and old age means it can only get worse. :(( -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

2 1

Debian CDs
by James Freer 08 Jan '13

08 Jan '13

Knowing some of you use debian i just wanted to check before i download the wrong thing. If one wants a bootable (but not live CD) one just downloads the first CD of the (gulp) 53 available. I want to install xfce... so is the first one still ok? Since the last time i tried debian they seem to have liveCD iso and stick isos. Further down the list there is debian-6.0.6-i386-xfce+lxde-CD-1.iso I assume this is xfce and lxde desktops on one iso - but i can't find any info referring to it on the website. Would this be the better choice? thanks james

4 10

HDD error
by Richard Lewis 07 Jan '13

07 Jan '13

Hello ALUG, A few weeks ago I got this error when booting my Debian box: ata1.00: exception Emask 0x50 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x280900 action 0x6 ata1.00: BMDMA stat 0x66 ata1.00: SError: { UnrecovData HostInt 10B8B BadCRC } ata1.00: failed command: READ DMA EXT ata1.00: cmd 25/00:08:00:a8:d6/00:00:3d:00:00/e0 tag 0 dma 4096 in res 51/84:00:00:a8:d6/84:00:3d:00:00/e0 Emask 0x70 (host bus error) ata1.00: status: { DRDY ERR } ata1.00: error: { ICRC ABRT } ata1.00: hard resetting link ata1.01: hard resetting link ata1.00: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl 310) ata1.01: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl 300) ata1.00: configured for UDMA/33 ata1.01: configured for UDMA/133 ata1: EH complete It was repeating every second or so from very early on in the boot. It did eventually boot with the root filesystem mounted read-only and the partition on which I mount /home mounted normally. In a panic, I did a backup and bought a replacement disk. Shortly afterwards I did a full SMART test and it came up clean. Since then, I haven't encountered any problems and in fact never got round to replacing the disk. (The new one is still in the packaing on the shelf.) However, this evening the same thing has happened. I did a bit more research this time and it seems this could be a SATA cable issue. The box is a Shuttle XPC which I bought as a complete system (not self-build). Does this sound like it is a problem with the SATA cable? And if so, does anyone have any recommendations or advice regarding replacing it and helping to prevent this problem in future? Thanks and best, Richard -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Richard Lewis j: ironchicken(a)jabber.earth.li @: lewisrichard http://www.richardlewis.me.uk/ -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1 0

[ALUG Announce] ALUG Norwich Pub Meet Thursday 10th January
by Viperfang 07 Jan '13

07 Jan '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, 10th January 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

1 0

USB Memory Sticks
by Michael Goddard 06 Jan '13

06 Jan '13

An odd request, but what is reasonable brand of USB M S for use with Linux? My reason for asking is that I've found of late some of these items, after a period of use, give a misleading response eg, describe item to be "full, no space", when user knows this to be untrue! tia Michael

5 4

[OT] Google search without cookies
by Dan 06 Jan '13

06 Jan '13

Dear All, Since yesterday, Google web searches all come up blank unless I allow Google to set cookies (Firefox 10.0.7 on Gentoo). Google's privacy FAQ still says that Google search will work without cookies, and I find that Google Image, Books, and Scholar searches work just fine without cookies, so it doesn't appear to be a deliberate change of policy on Google's part. Anyone else experiencing similar symptoms? -- Thanks, Dan

4 6

Selective 'repose' in Mint/Banshee/Brasero
by tony.anson＠girolle.co.uk 06 Jan '13

06 Jan '13

After a few minutes the (newish) netbook goes to sleep as it ought. However, when watching a video or listening to a CD (or, I presume, installing something?) the system snoozes, which is a pain. The system I'm using is the latest stable Mint put on last meeting at the Waggon and Horses. I have looked in various (IMO) likely places, but I can't find any way of disabling sleep for specific applications. Any ideas, gang? Pretty please? -- Tony

2 2

Fwd: Re: USB Memory Sticks
by tony.anson＠girolle.co.uk 03 Jan '13

03 Jan '13

Date: Thu, 03 Jan 2013 20:35:01 +0000 [20:35:01 UTC] From: tony.anson(a)girolle.co.uk United Kingdom To: nev(a)nevilley.org.uk Subject: Re: [ALUG] USB Memory Sticks Quoting nev young <nev(a)nevilley.org.uk>: [Hide Quoted Text] On 01/01/13 10:15, Chris Green wrote: On Mon, Dec 31, 2012 at 06:50:05PM +0000, Michael Goddard wrote: An odd request, but what is reasonable brand of USB M S for use with Linux? My reason for asking is that I've found of late some of these items, after a period of use, give a misleading response eg, describe item to be "full, no space", when user knows this to be untrue! I can't reaally see why the *brand* of memory stick would affect why this might happen. Have you simply got a lot of hidden files on the stick using all the space? Chris could be right. I had a problem with losing space on the memory card in my camera which I eventually found to be all the old photos filed under .Trash I've never had that problem, and my oldest stick is 64 MB... Most of mine are now SanDisk, Peak and Kingston. Be aware that decent sticks write to the memory in a pattern, so that it is used and re-used in rotation as it doesn't last for ever. As well as Nev's good suggestion, you can delete the partition which makes the thing usable - I have a small one to which this has happened - somehow. -- Tony

1 0

Ubuntu for smartphones
by Bev Nicolson 03 Jan '13

03 Jan '13

Eventually. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20891868 Bev.

2 1

Sound - how to get 'Output devices' to appear in PulseAudio?
by Chris Green 01 Jan '13

01 Jan '13

I am slowly getting to understand what's going on with sound on my little Acer Revo. However I still *don't* understand why sometimes PulseAudio can see some output devices and sometimes it can't. When it has no output devices not surprisingly I can't get any sound out of it, I then curse it for a while, run various things to see if I can understand what's going on, and at some point it works - but I can never understand why! So, how does one get output devices to appear? Then, further, how does one do this from the command line, because I want to run this headless and will only have ssh access. (Running X remotely doesn't work with modern applications as they use DBUS which breaks X) -- Chris Green

1 1

2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 4th January.
by Viperfang 01 Jan '13

01 Jan '13

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

1 0

3Com 8 port hub
by Chris Walker 29 Dec '12

29 Dec '12

Does anybody want one of these? http://www.amazon.co.uk/3Com-3C16750-US-OfficeConnect-Speed-8-Port/dp/B0000… One of my sons gave me one of these things over Christmas as he has never used it and he's in a 'tidying' mood! I think he's had it for some time and never used it. All I've done is find a power lead for it and switch it on. It lights up as expected but I haven't hooked up any LAN connections. It's free for the first person that shows an interest.

2 1

Sound problem (no sound) Ubuntu 12.10 - command line
by Chris Green 29 Dec '12

29 Dec '12

I'm trying to get sound working on an Acer Revo R3600 which has Ubuntu Server (i.e. no GUI) installed on it. When I run something like mplayer I see (among other things):- AO: [pulse] Init failed: Connection refused Failed to initialize audio driver 'pulse' This happens even when mplayer is run as root (and anyway I have added the relevant users to the audio group). It's the only significant difference I can see between this system and other systems where mplayer works OK. Google hasn't helped much. Does anyone have any idea what may be wrong? -- Chris Green

1 0

xilence psu
by Peter Alcibiades 27 Dec '12

27 Dec '12

Thanks for the advice on this. The 250 watt came, it went in and works just fine, and it can be recommended. Very quiet. The first one, evo by brand, had a high pitched whine. This one is just about audible and not annoying at all. However, the lesson I learned is that when putting together an sff machine, its better to go one bigger than min-itx form factor, and matx is the way to go. Reason being, the bigger case is quieter in itself, and it will take standard atx power supplies - at least the Sliverstone one does. And this means more choice, and fanless is available too. Yes the bigger Sugo is less portable. But its still compact enough for a desktop, its a medium shoebox rather than a very small one, and its quieter even with similar levels of fan throttling. The other thing about the mini is that it has one large front fan. That's fine. But it collects dust like crazy in the filter. So it has to be vacuumed out every so often. The psu blowup was a blessing in disguise, I'd never have known. They are both running Debian, and its getting to be time to move to wheezy one of these days. Backup first! Al

1 0

Anyone know what this message from logwatch means?
by Chris Green 22 Dec '12

22 Dec '12

I am getting this in logwatch every day:- --------------------- httpd Begin ------------------------ A total of 1 sites probed the server 178.63.53.21 A total of 1 possible successful probes were detected (the following URLs contain strings that match one or more of a listing of strings that indicate a possible exploit): null HTTP Response 200 Requests with error response codes 404 Not Found /robots.txt: 7 Time(s) /urchin.js: 4 Time(s) /appConf.htm: 1 Time(s) ---------------------- httpd End ------------------------- Any ideas as to what that "... probed the server" bit means? (I know the "Requests with error response codes" bit is unimportant). 178.63.53.21 is io.iwmnetwork.com which doesn't seem to be anything/anyone particularly nasty though of course it could be spoofed or used maliciously. -- Chris Green

2 4

Some net site access problems?
by Ted.Harding＠wlandres.net 20 Dec '12

20 Dec '12

Greetings all! I'd like to cross-check to see if others encounter similar problems. [A] Trying to access the Argos website: http://www.argos.co.uk simply hangs: "Waiting for argos.co.uk..." [B] Similarly, trying to access the National Rail website: http://www.nationalrail.co.uk simply hangs: "Waiting for www.nationalrail.co.uk..." Trying traceroute: traceroute www.argos.co.uk gives: traceroute to e624.b.akamaiedge.net (2.18.178.168),... [...] 6 xe-7-0-0.lon10.ip4.tinet.net (89.149.187.101) 43.012 ms xe-5-2-0.tinet.net (89.149.185.74) 45.272 ms xe-2-3-0.lon10.ip4.tinet.net (89.8) 47.953 ms 7 * * * and there it hangs. traceroute www.nationalrail.co.uk gives: traceroute to www.s603697.gslb.savvis.net (206.150.181.244),... [...] 12 dcs2-v3002.lo6.savvis.net (205.138.33.38) 46.148 ms 45.220 ms 47.738 ms 13 * * * and there it hangs. It has been like this since yesterday at least (could have also been earlier, but yesterday was the first time recently that I have tried to access these sites). Any comments? And, while I have the opportunity: Happy Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone! Ted. ------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)wlandres.net> Date: 20-Dec-2012 Time: 10:47:08 This message was sent by XFMail -------------------------------------------------

4 4

[ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : The Mulberry Tree
by samwise 17 Dec '12

17 Dec '12

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 tonight, 17th December, 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. I think I mentioned to the regulars last month - I'm now 200 miles away, so won't be in attendance. But hopefully a few of you will turn up to celebrate a Suffolk ALUG Christmas! :D 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

1 0

Re: [ALUG] Android app development
by Phil Ashby 17 Dec '12

17 Dec '12

On Thu, 13 Dec 2012, Mark Rogers wrote: >> Anyone here played with Android app development? >> ... >> "All" it needs to do is create a secure connection (SSH) to an existing >> server using a pre-shared key, then tunnel a connection through it to >> a web server, displaying the web content in the app. > > [Dan questioned the need to write an app..] > > In this case yes: it needs to be something that a "normal person" can > install > (albeit side-loaded). > > It's certainly possible in an app; there are several apps that act as proxys > to send all web traffic through a secure tunnel (to defeat the Great > Firewall > of China etc) which do something pretty close to what I need. The problem is > any time I search for keywords like "Android ssh tunnel" I get pages of hits > for that, not examples on what I actually need. > > I think I just need to re-install the tools and give it a go, and see > where I get stuck. > > Mark A brief search for 'Android ssh VPN app' turns up this how-to guide, which describes the setup of SSHTunnel - you can get all the source for that as a starting point from Google code: http://www.howtogeek.com/121698/how-to-route-all-your-android-traffic-throu… https://code.google.com/p/sshtunnel/ Shouldn't be far from there to a pre-configured app for your client(s).. Phil.

2 1

Renaming of files failing
by Chris Walker 17 Dec '12

17 Dec '12

I have a directory full of files and sub-directories which I've pulled from an emulator. But it has extra filename extensions on it. I would like to traverse this directory, stripping off the extensions and so I've been trying to write a script to do it but it's failing. An example of a file is this :- lamborghini miura_1024.jpg,c85 and so there, I'd like to remove the ,c85. But a bigger problem is where I have the odd file which has a numeric extensions such as .;1 and that's where I struggle. How do I do a substitution in my script to cope with things like that? I've been reading things like this - http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/renaming-multiple-files-at-a-shell-prompt.html and http://www.unix.com/answers-frequently-asked-questions/13774-unix-tutorials… but I'm still struggling. Can somebody point me in the right direction please, even if it's towards the door ;-) -- __ __| |_ __ __ .----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:cdw_alug@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |______________________________________________|

4 15

Re: [ALUG] Will a 200 Watt Supply do this rig?
by Peter Alcibiades 16 Dec '12

16 Dec '12

On Saturday 15 December 2012 22:48:26 Wayne Stallwood wrote: > It's not really all about the overall wattage, mostly you need to look > at the current capacity of the +12V rails and compare to what one of the > online PSU calculators say for your hardware. > > Modern supplies will be more generous as to what portion of the 200W is > available on the 12v rails as modern hardware hits this rail harder in > proportion to the others. In the old days the CPU supplies were derived > directly from the lower voltage rails. > > Thanks - didn't even know there were online power calculators, but having now used one, it suggests 164 Watts as the proper level including a safety margin. Meanwhile, the xilence seems to come in a 250 W version, so I've ordered that which should give plenty of headroom. Good to hear that people have had good results from xilence. Thanks everyone! Al

1 0

Will a 200 Watt Supply do this rig?
by Peter Alcibiades 15 Dec '12

15 Dec '12

My machine died the other night, reasonably gracefully, and having decided it must be the PSU I went and bought the only matx one locally in stock. Its 300 Watt, which is what the old one was, and it works but is unbearably noisy. So I am thinking of replacing with a 200 Watt Xilence, which is reviewed in some german mag as being exceptionally quiet. Question: will 200W be enough? Its an i3, one hard drive, no optical, no graphics card and a gigabyte main board in a mini-itx case. My intuition is that it will be just fine because this is such a minimalist setup, but I know nothing about power or how to measure what the draw is. The other choices seem to be silverstone, but they only make them 400W +, and that is certainly over the top. There do not seem to be any fanless ones in this form factor. Al

4 3

Android app development
by Mark Rogers 14 Dec '12

14 Dec '12

I posted this initially on the Peterborough LUG list but I wonder if there are more Android experts here? --- Anyone here played with Android app development? It's something I've wanted to try my hand at, and just needed an app to work on. I now have one (a specific development for a customer, it's not going to be App of the Year 2013 on Google Play or anything :-) "All" it needs to do is create a secure connection (SSH) to an existing server using a pre-shared key, then tunnel a connection through it to a web server, displaying the web content in the app. Most of the infrastructure is already set up, although the web pages will want some tweaking to suit the Android device (although not too much as it'll probably be a tablet not a phone). Some time ago I did install the development tools and get as far as a simple "hello world" app, although I can't claim to remember much of the experience, so I'm starting very much from the position of a novice. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) 21 Drakes Mews, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ER

2 2

Using a laptop/pc to bridge a 3G dongle connection - easy?
by Chris Green 12 Dec '12

12 Dec '12

If I have a laptop with a 3G internet connection provided by a USB dongle is it fairly easy to allow other systems to use the internet connection via the laptop's ethernet port? E.g. if I run something like dnsmasq on the laptop it can be a DHCP and DNS server so that anything connected (directly or via a switch) should work shouldn't it? -- Chris Green

3 3

[ALUG Announce] ALUG Norwich Pub Meet Thursday 13th December
by Viperfang 11 Dec '12

11 Dec '12

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 December 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

1 0

LCD screen for Raspberry Pi
by Chris Walker 09 Dec '12

09 Dec '12

Ages ago, I think it was Anthony Anson asked here about hooking up a Pi to a small screen. I've just come across this - http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/desktops/25-fun-things-to-do-with-a-raspberry-pi-… (article number 22) which might help. Can I make a public thank you to Nev Young and all the other people that helped me yesterday to recover the SD cards for my Pi. One problem, identified by Nev, was that the cards aren't 8 gigs, they're 4. That's brain fade on my part! Second is that even though they boot fine on the Pi, my machine still won't see them. That's despite using a brand new USB 2 device reader. Finally, once I had the Pi up and running here, the keyboard wouldn't work on it. So that can go back to the shop in Wymondham where I bought it. I had to use an old Cherry keyboard which weighs a ton but works on the Pi. Lessons learned all round but thanks once again to Nev and the other people yesterday.

2 1

How to use either wired or WiFi network, quickly/automatically?
by Chris Green 09 Dec '12

09 Dec '12

I have an Acer Aspire laptop running lubuntu 12.10, when I'm at home I just plug in an ethernet cable but when I'm elsewhere I'm more likely to use WiFi. When there's no hard-wired connection the boot sequence wastes 2 minutes or so trying to get the connection up before continuing. What's the proper way to handle this (it's easy enough to remove the delay from /etc/init/falsafe.conf but that's a hack)? -- Chris Green

1 0

RasPi SD cards
by Chris Walker 08 Dec '12

08 Dec '12

Can anybody help please? My RaspberryPi turned up this week. I ordered it along with 2 8GB SD cards and some other bits and pieces. I downloaded a couple of disc images but I have been unable to write them to the cards. I have a multi-way adapter and when I plug that into the USB port either on the front or rear of my machine I can check the hardware config. That shows USB SD Reader as sdc. But when I try to write the downloaded image to /dev/sdc I get an error message :- sd 4:0:0:0: Device offlined - not ready after error recovery That's followed by this :- gs[26282]: segfault at 0 ip 00007effdb5dc470 sp 00007fff76b3c3c0 error 4 in libgs.so.9.02[7effdb3c9000+5f2000] I was curious about the SD cards. I thought at first that they might be faulty so I bunged them into my digital camera. I can format them there and the camera can quite easily write picture images to them both. I then thought I would take the 16GB card out of the camera and use that. But I get the same error messages so I don't think the cards themselves are faulty but perhaps it's the card reader. So I've now ordered a 16GB card with a pre-installed Debian OS on it and another card reader so I should be able to get the Pi up and running. Is there anybody in the Norwich/Wymondham area that would be prepared to have a go at writing a couple of images to these cards as a test? Or, once I get the Pi up and running, will I be able to write the images on that?

6 14

SD card recovery
by Chris Walker 07 Dec '12

07 Dec '12

I'm still waiting for delivery of a pre-installed SD card and card reader from The PiHut for my Raspberry Pi so, fed up waiting, I bought another card reader from Anglian Internet in Norwich. I can now see a 16GB card from my digital camera, but the machine still won't see the other two 8GB cards which I used for a previous attempt at writing images. Are they toast or can I recover them in order to write images to them?

3 5

2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 7th December.
by Viperfang 04 Dec '12

04 Dec '12

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

1 0

git - if I "git rm" something can I get it back (as an old revision) later?
by Chris Green 01 Dec '12

01 Dec '12

As per the subject - if I am maintaining a set of files in a directory and one of them is no longer used then I would do "git rm <name of file>" and then when I commit the file is no longer in the current version of the repository. I assume however that it would be possible to get back the last (and previous) committed version of the file if I needed ot at some time in the future? -- Chris Green

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[ALUG Announce] Announcing Norwich Raspberry Pi User and Developer Group's Second Meeting!
by Steve Pearce 01 Dec '12

01 Dec '12

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 second Norwich Raspberry Pi User and Developer Group meeting next Saturday, 8th December 2012. We'll be meeting at House Cafe on St. Benedicts Street again between 12:00-17:00. See the website norwichrpi.org for more details. There will be much going on in terms of discussion, sharing ideas, hacking on projects and so on, but I also learned this morning that we'll be visited by Quick2Wire who will be demonstrating their Python library and beta GPIO addon boards. I hope to see you there, and please help in spreading the word. 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

1 0

Wisdom (or otherwise) of using software RAID5 across 4 USB drives
by Mark Rogers 30 Nov '12

30 Nov '12

I have a USB caddy that takes 4 drives, on USB3. I have four 2TB SATA disks in it and have just set up a RAID5 array across the four disks, formatted to ext4. cat /proc/mdstat currently reports: md1 : active raid5 sdi1[4] sdh1[2] sdg1[1] sdf1[0] 5860145664 blocks super 1.2 level 5, 512k chunk, algorithm 2 [4/3] [UUU_] [>....................] recovery = 1.2% (24142492/1953381888) finish=1134.2min speed=28348K/sec That's about 20hrs to complete the build, running at max speed (/proc/sys/dev/raid/speed_limit_max is 500000 so I'm not hitting the upper limit there). To be honest, rebuilding an array comprising 4x2TB disks over USB in 20hrs seems pretty good to me, so I'm not overly concerned. But should I be? Is running this configuration likely to cause me grief in future? The purpose of the array is to store backups, so read/write speed is relatively unimportant. At this point the array is empty so wiping and starting again isn't a big deal if someone has better ideas. (As an aside, does the above look right for USB3 speeds? It's my first experience of USB3 and I'm using a cheap PCI-E USB3 card so I have no idea how well it's performing.) 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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XtreemFS
by Mark Rogers 29 Nov '12

29 Nov '12

Anyone here have any experience of Xtreemfs? http://www.xtreemfs.org/ Distributed replicated file system for Linux (and Mac/Win). Looks like an interesting package to experiment with but as it's not in my distro repositories (Ubuntu) I figured it can't be all that well established yet? Mark -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) 21 Drakes Mews, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ER`

1 0

"Signal out of range" when booting from Ubuntu 12.10 LiveCD
by Mark Rogers 29 Nov '12

29 Nov '12

I'm trying to reinstall an old server with Ubuntu 12.10 (it was previously on 12.04 I think, but had accumulated a lot of rubbish and a fresh install was the way to go). When I boot the LiveCD, at the point that (I believe) lightdm starts, I get "Signal out of range" on my monitor and can't get any further. I have tried various boot options (nomodeset, fb=false) without luck. I've also tried creating an xorg.conf file manually from the terminal and restarting lightdm - that has got me closer but I don't know my way around xorg.conf well enough to get this to work. (I copied xorg.conf.fallback to xorg.conf and added VertRefresh and HorizSync parameters, which got me a low resolution (800x600?) display but the mouse was all over the place and I managed to break it in the end so had to (hard) reset, losing my changes). What is the "correct" way to fix this? Is there a way to tell Xorg to dump its current settings to an xorg.conf file so that I can tweak it? What's a good "default" xorg.conf file that should work? Or a minimal one that might get me 1280x1024@75Hz (fglrx as the driver from memory). -- 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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Reassembling a RAID array
by Mark Rogers 28 Nov '12

28 Nov '12

I have four drives containing mdadm RAID partitions: /dev/sda1 through /dev/sdd1 I believe they were previously set up as RAID5, although it might have been two separate RAID1 arrays or one RAID10 array. How do I work out what they were, which drive is which, and configure the array on a new PC to access the data? (Obviously I need to do that without losing the data on them!) Mark Rogers -- 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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Why am I seeing "Waiting for Network Configuration" when I have configured a static address?
by Chris Green 24 Nov '12

24 Nov '12

I used to use another (small) machine as my LAN DHCP/DNS server (using dnsmasq) but that machine's other uses disappeared so I decided to move the dnsmasq configuration to my desktop machine. My desktop machine is on all the time because it's also a web server and I access it to read my E-Mail when I'm away from home. So, I have configured my desktop to have a static IP on the LAN with /etc/network/interfaces containing:- auto lo iface lo inet loopback iface eth0 inet static address 192.168.1.4 netmask 255.255.255.0 gateway 192.168.1.1 dns-domain zbmc.eu dns-search zbmc.eu dns-nameservers 127.0.0.1 195.74.113.58 194.72.0.114 auto eth0 That 127.0.0.1 in the dns-nameservers is (I believe) correct, it makes dnsmasq act as a local caching nameserver. Everything seems to work OK once booted but I'm getting a message on the xubuntu boot screen saying "Waiting for network configuration", that seems odd to me as it indicates that Network Manager is waiting for a DHCP response from somewhere and it doesn't need it. I have removed the "dns=dnsmasq" line from NetworkManager.conf so that Network Manager isn't trying to run its own copy of dnsmasq. -- Chris Green

4 11

Console editor with 'linebreak'
by James Freer 21 Nov '12

21 Nov '12

Who know's the editors! Is there an editor apart from Emacs and Vim that does 'softwrap' or 'linebreak' (as vim calls it). I want to use a console editor for editing text words (as opposed to programmer's code). Despite hundreds available it seems that emacs and vim are the only two that offer this. My preference would be for wordstar bindings (yes i'm that old! and i still think they are the most efficient keybindings like a lot of writers). Joe does all i want other than coping with long lines. [I seem to recall a discussion about editors a few years ago and someone on here uses Joe]. Point is i want to save in long line form but view and edit in wrapped form - just like one does in gedit or leafpad. Using nano/pico ^W^J justifies the entire file and saves it in that form... like Joe's ^B - which isn't what i want. I don't really want to have to learn either vim or emacs as they are too complex for my more basic uses but it seems i don't have much choice. So who's experimented and can advise on the many editors available. Nano has an option --softwrap or $ - it truncates but doesn't wrap like vim's linebreak. It seems surprising that no one's done a console editor with CUA bindings. thanks james

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Re: [ALUG] Uninstalling Ubuntu and installing another Linux OS
by Bev Nicolson 17 Nov '12

17 Nov '12

By the way, I've just had a shufti through Synaptic and xorg is still included, so, given that, would configuring the graphics card be a sensible option? (Choosing i915 as the driver, since it is.) The instructions I've got are for Breezy Badger so I guess some things have changed a bit since then. Bev.

4 5

"singing" generation software?
by Ted.Harding＠wlandres.net 17 Nov '12

17 Nov '12

Greetings all! Some of you probably know the versatile specch-generation program "espeak", which from textual input can generate audio speech, with variations in pitch and duration (and with an impressive choice of dialect accents too ... ). Whaty I'm looking for is a program which can generate a audio song along similar lines, i.e. from suitable input the output will sound like someone singing the words (tune, tempo, voice, timbre, etc., under the control of the user's input). Any suggestions? (For Linux, of course). Motivation: Following a very humorous conversation, in the polling booth on Thursday, with the six electoral registrars at the desks, where I was the only other person present, and we discussed how to liven up the proceedings, we concluded that we needed music, song, and dance. So I would like to create a song, which sets to the tune of "We're all going on a Summer holiday", the words "We're all voting for our Police and Crime Commissioner ..... ". With thanks, Ted. ------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)wlandres.net> Date: 17-Nov-2012 Time: 19:05:34 This message was sent by XFMail -------------------------------------------------

1 0

Determining what memory I have
by Mark Rogers 17 Nov '12

17 Nov '12

Is it possible from a Linux command line to find out what memory I have? By which I mean how many slots I have, how many are filled, and what by? I've used tools like Crucial's memory scanner (on Windows) in the past to determine what is in a system and from there to decide what best to upgrade with, and I'm looking to do something similar on Linux. The fact that Crucial can do it suggests the info is there somewhere. If not at the commandline, then GUI-based would suffice for now (but would limit usefulness). Initially I'm looking for something that works on Ubuntu 12.10 (64-bit). -- 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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[ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : The Mulberry Tree
by samwise 16 Nov '12

16 Nov '12

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 on Monday, 19th 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. No idea what we'll be discussing this month. Will be hard to top last month's gathering with our surprise Norwich brethren! We can almost certainly ask the question about whether we want an Ipswich ALUG Christmas Meal, I guess. :) If anyone's going to stop by later, do drop me a message so I know to stick around if it's quiet. 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

1 0

Uninstalling Ubuntu and installing another Linux OS
by Bev Nicolson 15 Nov '12

15 Nov '12

I think the time has come. Yesterday 11.10 'uninstalled' Libre Office off its own bat. Nul points and a bit worrying. So, without wishing to turn this thread into a discussion over which distro to go for, and without installing it over Ubuntu which I'd rather not do, how do I swap? I've used Ubuntu for ages now so I've no idea who to go about this. Bev.

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Re: [ALUG] Uninstalling Ubuntu and installing another Linux OS
by Bev Nicolson 14 Nov '12

14 Nov '12

On 14 November 2012 09:19, Bev Nicolson <lumos60(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> >> On 13/11/12 20:50, Bev Nicolson wrote: >>> >>> What I decided to do was upgrade to 12.04 LTS following Steve's >>> advice. I thought for a while that it had gone horribly wrong (screen >>> went awol) but lots of switching off and on again have calmed and >>> sorted it. Hoping it stays that way... >> >> >> Hope it goes OK :-) >> >> >>> Suspect if I upgrade in 5 years (or less?) I will definitely need a >>> new monitor. (New new not just new to me.) >>> >> I would think people are practically giving away traditional-style monitors >> as everyone wants flat screen, that said, I love flat screen! You might >> find someone giving one away on Freegle, or Freecycle. >> >> Good luck! :-) >> Steve My current one, a fine (imo) LCD monitor, was £20. (Hansol 700Fs - we have a great second hand computer here!) Thing is, I worry that 5 years down the line, the latest Ubuntu won't recognise it. Bev.

4 7

Looking for a javascript guru
by Steve Engledow 12 Nov '12

12 Nov '12

Hi all, Sorry for the advertising tone of this post but ALUG is too good a source of technically adept people to not ask... My company (http://proxama.com) are looking for a javascript guru. We've got a /lot/ of javascript both front- and back-end. Node.js at the back and plenty of ember, jQuery etc on the front. If you are one or know of one, please get in touch! I'm finding it very hard to get agencies to understand what I mean as they keep sending me CVs for 10-a-penny web developers when what I'm really looking for is A PROGRAMMER :) Cheers, Steve

3 2

I want Gnome back
by Bev Nicolson 12 Nov '12

12 Nov '12

About this time last year, nev was aghast at Unity being foisted on him because of his upgrade to 11.10. I'm on 11.10 having just done the same thing and Unity is still utterly hideous but I seem to have a problem. Apart from not being able to choose what I get when I log in, Gnome fallback session appears to have been deleted (though googling still refers to it) so whenever I try to find it in Ubuntu's software manager, I can't. Help. Bev.

14 19

Ubuntu 12.04 - toolbar and evolution two-in-one question
by Jenny Hopkins 08 Nov '12

08 Nov '12

Hi ALUG, I'm running ubuntu 12.04 in a virtualbox, with gnome-shell, to help a client who has just upgraded and am stuck on a few things: Evolution mail client (re-installed after uphgrade removed it): I'm trying to see if font size in the evolution composer window can be increased - the option to alter font-size is greyed out unless html mail is selected. Have googled to no avail. Also - the toolbar at the top seems to be able to have things added, eg a terminal launcher icon, by way of dragging a launcher icon up there, but I can't find a way of then removing them or the default icons that ubuntu supplies. It used to be a simple RH click and 'remove' but now is it all done by removing and installing app-indicator thingies? Thanks, Jenny

2 2

How do people arrange code management with git for bash, python, etc.?
by Chris Green 08 Nov '12

08 Nov '12

I've been using git for a while to manage various bits of code, it's a mixture of C/C++, Python, Bash and other bits and pieces. For the C/C++ (and PHP now I think of it) it's fairly straightforward as the code is in a 'programming' sub-directory of my home directory and I just do a 'git init' in the root directory of the code hierarchy and off you go. Do a build, install, test and (if happy) commit the code to git. However it gets decidedly messier for scripts where there isn't any intermediate step between writing the code and testing it or making it 'live'. Until now I had simply done a 'git init' in ~/bin and committed the code after testing. This is OK[ish] for bash scripts and some simple Python stuff but doesn't really work too well for more complex Python stuff with imported code and/or which is run by cron or other indirect means. So, what do others here do with this sort of stuff? Do you move all the 'source' (i.e. not yet installed) code off to the 'programming' sub-directory and edit it there plus add some sort of installation script which copies all the bits to the right places for testing, or what? .... or am I making life too complicated for myself? :-) -- Chris Green

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Is there something like "arp-scan -l" which returns names rather than IP addresses?
by Chris Green 06 Nov '12

06 Nov '12

I know I *could* write a script to call "arp-scan -l" and process the output to show me the names of hosts on my LAN but it feels as if there should be an easier way. So, is there a command that scans for and lists hosts by *name* on a LAN? -- Chris Green

4 6

Plugins
by Michael Goddard 05 Nov '12

05 Nov '12

Hi: Using Centos 6.3 I'm having difficulty in getting its movie player - Totem - to play DVDs. I've installed all Gnome plugins from base, good, bad and ugly etc, but still get error msg that I "need plugin for DVD source". Any pointers in the correct direction would be welcome - tia. Michael

2 1

[ALUG Announce] ALUG Norwich Pub Meet Thursday 8th November
by Viperfang 05 Nov '12

05 Nov '12

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, 8th 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

1 0

Understanding ping delays
by Mark Rogers 03 Nov '12

03 Nov '12

Consider: ... 64 bytes from 192.168.251.7: icmp_req=458 ttl=64 time=0.189 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.251.7: icmp_req=459 ttl=64 time=0.123 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.251.7: icmp_req=460 ttl=64 time=0.120 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.251.7: icmp_req=461 ttl=64 time=0.126 ms ... The blank line indicates where there was a delay of a couple of seconds between ping responses. However there were no missed responses (icmp_req goes from 459 to 460) and the time is shown as only 0.120ms. So why was there a delay of a couple of seconds at this point? Mark -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) 21 Drakes Mews, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ER

3 2

bookmark editors
by mick 02 Nov '12

02 Nov '12

Advice please chaps. I have a really large bookmark collection and I really need to sort it out but have been putting it off because I can't find a decent editor. What I am looking for is something akin to a GUI filemanager which allows me to have two panes open so that I can cut and paste beween them. I'm sure that a very early version of FF used to have this capability, but maybe my memory is faulty. The mozilla addons site doesn't seem to have anything useful. Any suggestions anyone? Cheers Mick --------------------------------------------------------------------- blog: baldric.net gpg fingerprint: FC23 3338 F664 5E66 876B 72C0 0A1F E60B 5BAD D312 ---------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: [ALUG] bookmark editors
by mick 01 Nov '12

01 Nov '12

On Wed, 31 Oct 2012 13:54:57 +0000 Ricky Bruce <rickybruce(a)gmail.com> allegedly wrote: > > In Opera using the bookmark side panel(F4 and hit the star icon), > along with the 'manage bookmark' option in the bookmark tool bar > gives you two views of your bookmarks, these can be cut and paste > between them and into different folders to allow easyish > reorganisation. It works well enough for my needs > > Opera also offers the option to import bookmarks in from other > browsers. Ricky Thanks for this. It's close, but not quite what I had in mind, and having tried it, it looks to be /very/ time consuming. The problem here is that the left hand pane is linked to the right. So when I click on the left to open a folder, the right pane shpws the contents of that folder and will not show another open folder. This makes comparisons difficult. Mick --------------------------------------------------------------------- blog: baldric.net gpg fingerprint: FC23 3338 F664 5E66 876B 72C0 0A1F E60B 5BAD D312 ---------------------------------------------------------------------

1 0

IMAP (GMail) "cache"
by Mark Rogers 01 Nov '12

01 Nov '12

I have several GMail accounts. Currently I run Thunderbird (IMAP) on my (Ubuntu 12.10) desktop to make sure I have a copy of all of them locally (for local searching, archiving, etc), as well as accessing the IMAP accounts from other devices (phones etc) and via the Gmail web interface. The problem I have is that TB seems to have "issues" that cause it to repeatedly download the same email. This means that on a few occasions recently I have exceeded the Gmail bandwidth allowances (I didn't even know they existed!), and my ADSL usage is sky high - something around 1-2GB per day is being used to synchronise a mailbox that only has about 4GB in it. Therefore I'd like to look at other ways to achieve the same goal. One thought is to use "something else" to create a local copy, which then makes it available to Thunderbird via IMAP (so if TB wants to download the same email hundreds of times at least it's just traffic on localhost). Albeit I'd end up with two copies of the mailstore but that's not a huge issue. So I'm after suggestions as to what the "something else" should be. It's important to me that delays are kept to a minimum, ie incoming email should appear pretty quickly through the cache. That shouldn't be a problem as long as IDLE is supported at each point. Alternatively, suggestions as to "better" methods would be fine too! (I don't really want to change mail client if I can avoid it, old habits and all that.) As an aside, I also have a Windows desktop, which also has TB installed, monitoring some of the same accounts but without having the same bandwidth problem. But even so it would make sense that the Windows TB should also be able to collect from the IMAP store on my Linux desktop and thus save more bandwidth. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) 21 Drakes Mews, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ER

2 1

how to decode this?
by Peter Alcibiades 01 Nov '12

01 Nov '12

I have an email with an attachment which will not open in OO. When the email is opened in a text editor I get this after the body of the message. Is there any way to open and read this? Trying to open the attachment in OO just gives an error. Al ------=_NextPart_001_0041_01CC115D.F6E27A10-- ------=_NextPart_000_0040_01CC115D.F6E27A10 Content-Type: application/msword; name="xxxx.doc" Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64 Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="xxxx.doc" 0M8R4KGxGuEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPgADAP7/CQAGAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABAAAAPgAAAAAAAAAA EAAAQAAAAAEAAAD+////AAAAAD0AAAD///////////////////////////////////////////// //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////????//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////s pcEAA4AJBAAA8BK/AAAAAAAAEAAAAAAACAAAFg0AAA4AYmpiarRWtFYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAJBBYANSoAANY8AQDWPAEAFgUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD//w8AAAAA AAAAAAD//w8AAAAAAAAAAAD//w8AAAAAAAAAAAAA????AAAAALcAAAAAAIAFAAAAAAAAgAUAAMMS AAAAAAAAwxIAAAAAAADDEgAAAAAAAMMSAAAAAAAAwxIAABQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP////8AAAAA1xIA AAAAAADXEgAAAAAAANcSAAAAAAAA1xIAAAwAAADjEgAAbAAAANcSAAAAAAAAYBgAAHQBAABPEwAA AAAAAE8TAAAAAAAATxMAAAAAAABPEwAAAAAAAE8TAAAAAAAAKhQAAAAAAAAqFAAAAAAAACoUAAAA

3 3

Linux Repositories
by Michael Goddard 31 Oct '12

31 Oct '12

New to Linux, my distro while excellent for my requirements is somewhat thin on choice of apps to d/l. Are there any non-commercial Linux repositories where such apps are available? Tia.

5 5

Would some people please try this URL?
by Ted.Harding＠wlandres.net 31 Oct '12

31 Oct '12

Greetings all! I would be grateful if some people would try the following link: http://www.uvm.edu/~ngotelli/EcoSim/EcoSim.html I get the response: Forbidden You don't have permission to access /~ngotelli/EcoSim/EcoSim.html on this server. Apache/2.2.3 (Red Hat) Server at www.uvm.edu Port 80 On the other hand, a collaborator of mine (who is accessing it from a Bristol University computer) gets straight through. I'm wondering if it's due to academic institute versus private domain, or just due to some peculiarity of my Firefox (Iceweasel 2.0.0.19). One test, therefore, is whether other people, not on academic networks, can get through. So reports of tests would be very welcome! With thanks, Ted. ------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)wlandres.net> Date: 31-Oct-2012 Time: 11:22:50 This message was sent by XFMail -------------------------------------------------

5 7

Voltage logging with a PC, ideas wanted for cheap ways to do it
by Chris Green 30 Oct '12

30 Oct '12

I'm looking for reasonably priced and reasonably easy to implement ways to measure voltages with a computer. To be more specific:- The computer will either be the existing eeePc running Ubuntu (but no GUI) or a raspberry pi. I need to monitor at least four and preferably eight or so voltages, some of these are 12 volts (i.e. lead acid batteries) and others are current transducers giving an output around 2.5 volts with a +-0.5 volts swing. I don't need *incredible* accuracy but something around 2% or better is necessary for it to be useful in monitoring battery charge state. I want it to be cheap! Sample rate can be slow, once an hour would be fine. I have a 1-wire interface implemented which currently measures temperatures but I can't find any quick/easy way to add voltage measurement to 1-wire. It can be done but gets 'messy' and 1-wire seems to be a disappearing technology. I've looked for volts->USB interfaces but can't find much, if someone knows of anything I'd be pleased to hear about it. Any ideas for cheap hardware to do this (I am happy to solder things etc.) would be very welcome. -- Chris Green

4 10

2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 2nd November.
by Viperfang 30 Oct '12

30 Oct '12

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

1 0

Re: [ALUG] Solved [was How to limit passwordless ssh login to allow only outgoing tunnel? Possible?]
by mick 29 Oct '12

29 Oct '12

On Mon, 29 Oct 2012 12:57:23 +0000 Mark Rogers <mark(a)quarella.co.uk> allegedly wrote: > On 27 October 2012 18:02, mick <mbm(a)rlogin.net> wrote: > > > I had a think about this and then set up a test system to enable > > someone "on the internet" to connect to another system "on the > > internet" behind two (or more) NAT routers. > > > > That all looks great, thanks for the effort. I need to find the time > to play with it but it looks like a good starting point for me. > > I wasn't sure looking through it (I haven't read it in detail yet) > whether it dealt with Chris' specific problem of ensuring that anyone > who got onto the boat did not thus gain access to his home network? Yes it does. Because the VPN end point is on a VPS "somewhere out there" and not on his home network (where it could easily be placed). The only connection between the VPS and the home network is an SSH session out to the VPS from the home network. Of course someone on the boat could get out to the VPS if they could compromise the boat system and knew the client VPN passwords (though I didn't use passwords in my example). > For my needs, what I really want is a single server (VPS) with the > ability to control which connections can connect to which (and in > which direction). Ie I might have 10 "devices" and 10 "users" (ie 20 > connections to the VPN/VPS). In general (but I'm sure I'd find an > exception!) no two "users" should be able to connect to each other. > The "devices" should not be able to connect to anything (again I'm > sure I'd find an exception). I'd then be able to control which > "users" could connect to which "devices", ideally though something I > can easily manage (eg a database). Beyond that basic level I don't > really need the ability to control which ports are accessed by which > users but again I'm sure I'd quickly find exceptions to that rule. > So, is this something I can manage completely at the VPS end? Is it > "just" an iptables configuration issue? (I don't have much experience > with iptables but really should change that.) No, it is not just iptables configuration. Take a look at the main openvpn.net "howto" - specifically the section marked: "Configuring client-specific rules and access policies" Essentially what you do is specify individual client configurations in a specific directory on the server and then refer to those configurations in a server side directive (e.g. "client-config-dir /etc/openvpn/clients/client-1"). Each client is then given a specific (and separate) ip address and route to the VPN end point. The VPN server "pushes" those addresses and routes out to the clients when they connect. You then use iptables rules to forward the appropriate traffic over the tun interface. This has the advantage that (as you want) no two clients can see each other's networks (unless you want them to and configure the VPN server appropriately) > > (For the record, I think I have already come up with exceptions for > all of the cases listed above, so think of the above as "defaults" > not "fixed in stone" :-) There are /always/ exceptions... Cheers Mick --------------------------------------------------------------------- blog: baldric.net gpg fingerprint: FC23 3338 F664 5E66 876B 72C0 0A1F E60B 5BAD D312 ---------------------------------------------------------------------

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How to limit passwordless ssh login to allow only outgoing tunnel? Possible?
by Chris Green 28 Oct '12

28 Oct '12

If I want to do something like:- ssh -R 12345:localhost:80 -N chris(a)mycomputer.com from a remote machine with a passwordless login is there any way I can make it so that the *only* thing allowed from the remote machine is the ssh tunnel? I want to be able to see the apache web server running on the remote computer from my home machine. The remote computer may have occasional reboots/upgrades etc. so it needs a passwordless login to be able to reconnect the ssh tunnel. At present I don't allow passwordless (i.e. public key with no passphrase) logins and I don't want to allow them unless I can, as stated above, somehow allow ssh to only be used to create a tunnel. -- Chris Green

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Re: [ALUG] Norwich Based MongoDB Users Group
by Anthony Anson 26 Oct '12

26 Oct '12

Paul Grenyer wrote: > Hi Anthony > >> You'll have to expand on that for this Bear of Very Little Brain[TM] >> >> Wosser MongoDB? > > It's a NoSQL database: http://www.mongodb.org/ Oh, ta. Sorry, forgot this pogrom sends back to author unless told otherwise. -- Tony Anson www.girolle.co.uk/

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Norwich Based MongoDB Users Group
by Paul Grenyer 26 Oct '12

26 Oct '12

Hi All I'm hoping some of you might be interested in the local MongoDB users group I've started: http://www.meetup.com/EastAnglia-MongoDB/ I'm hoping to get someone from 10gen to speak at the first meeting in January. -- Thanks Paul Paul Grenyer e: paul.grenyer(a)gmail.com b: paulgrenyer.blogspot.com t: pjgrenyer SyncNorwich: http://www.syncnorwich.com East Anglia MongoDB User Group: http://www.meetup.com/EastAnglia-MongoDB/ ACCU Member: License to code: http://www.accu.org

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Interrupt to emulate key-press?
by Ted.Harding＠wlandres.net 26 Oct '12

26 Oct '12

Greetings All! Background: I have my screen set to blank out after 5 minutes of user inactivity. Fine for its purpose, since if I'm working at the computer I shall be generating key-presses, mouse actions, etc., far more frequently than that! On the other hand, if I'm not doing anything, then there is not excessively long screen on-time. However, it can be irritating if I'm watching a video or similar, since if I forget to (e.g.) tap on the Ctrl key (which resets the timeout) then the screen will go blank on me just when I don't want it to! So what I'm looking to do is set up a script which would send an interrupt, say every minute, which would be interpreted by the OS as a key-press or similar. Then I could forget about it until I've done watching. Is there some signal that can be sent using kill <signal> ... which would do that? I've not been able to suss out anything suitable. With thanks, Ted. ------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)wlandres.net> Date: 25-Oct-2012 Time: 17:46:57 This message was sent by XFMail -------------------------------------------------

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I post without comment
by mick 25 Oct '12

25 Oct '12

http://digital.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/govuk-launch-colophon/ What do you think? --------------------------------------------------------------------- blog: baldric.net fingerprint: FC23 3338 F664 5E66 876B 72C0 0A1F E60B 5BAD D312 Note that I have recently upgraded my GPG key see: http://baldric.net/2012/07/20/gpg-key-upgrade/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: [ALUG] Voltage logging with a PC, ideas wanted for cheap ways to do it
by Phil Ashby 25 Oct '12

25 Oct '12

On 25/10/12 12:00 Chris Green wrote: > I'm looking for reasonably priced and reasonably easy to implement ways > to measure voltages with a computer. To be more specific:- > > The computer will either be the existing eeePc running Ubuntu (but > no GUI) or a raspberry pi. > > I need to monitor at least four and preferably eight or so voltages, > some of these are 12 volts (i.e. lead acid batteries) and others are > current transducers giving an output around 2.5 volts with a +-0.5 > volts swing. > > I don't need *incredible* accuracy but something around 2% or better > is necessary for it to be useful in monitoring battery charge state. > > I want it to be cheap! > > Sample rate can be slow, once an hour would be fine. I built myself a home power monitor using a Freescale 8-bit HCS08 series micro-controller and an FTDI USB/serial interface chip, both powered from USB. I'm running two ADC channels @1kHz sample rate to take differential samples from either side of a biased current detector clamp. I'm sure something similar would be ideal for battery monitoring. Total cost - micro-controller free - obtained as a 'sample', FTDI chip you might get a 'sample' for free, but more likely to pay ~ £5, PCB ~ £0.50 if you use 0.1" DIP pinout devices and stripboard. The fun bit is writing the code :) P

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Re: [ALUG] sda1 missing in action
by Phil Ashby 19 Oct '12

19 Oct '12

On 19/10/12 12:00, John Woodard <mail(a)johnwoodard.co.uk> wrote: > I got this returned > > xubuntu@xubuntu:~$ sudo dd if=/dev/sda count=1 bs=512 | hexdump -s 446 > 0+0 records in > 0+0 records out > 0 bytes (0 B) copied, 0.000170134 s, 0.0 kB/s > > Does this mean I'm screwed? Possibly - you might like to try using ddrescue (standard Ubuntu package) which is a much enhanced version of dd designed to get as much data as possible off a disk. You will need another disk to hold the image file (external USB is probably easiest). From your recovered image file you should then be able to use testdisk to locate the partitions and recover the contents. Good luck (I got all but 12k of my head-crashed disk back a couple of weeks ago). Phil.

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sda1 missing in action
by John Woodard 19 Oct '12

19 Oct '12

I'd really appreciate some help with this but I do fear the worst. Yesterday I had a broken super block on my boot drive sda1 which I fixed by finding the backup superblocks with: mke2fs -n /dev/sda1 Then by replacing the corrupted superblock with: e2fsck -b <backup_superblock_number>/dev/sda1 This I thought had fixed the problem, Linux booted up went through a fschk on all disks which passed and gave me a desktop that seemed okay. I left it over night and thought I'd grab the home partition and replace the physical disk in the morning to be on the safe side. Today I can't see sda? lsscsi returns: [0:0:0:0] cd/dvd SONY DVD RW AW-G170A 1.71 /dev/sr0 [2:0:0:0] disk ATA WDC WD5000KS-00M 07.0 /dev/sda [3:0:0:0] disk ATA ST31500341AS CC1H /dev/sdb [4:0:0:0] disk ATA ST31500341AS CC1H /dev/sdc [6:0:0:0] disk Generic USB SD Reader 1.00 /dev/sdd [6:0:0:1] disk Generic USB CF Reader 1.01 /dev/sde [6:0:0:2] disk Generic USB SM Reader 1.02 /dev/sdf [6:0:0:3] disk Generic USB MS Reader 1.03 /dev/sdg [7:0:0:0] disk SanDisk Cruzer Micro 8.01 /dev/sdh So the node sda is there and the physical disk is being reported correctly. sda1 is not seen in gparted and fdisk -l doesn't show it up either. mke2fs -n /dev/sda1 returns: mke2fs 1.42 (29-Nov-2011) Could not stat /dev/sda1 --- No such file or directory The device apparently does not exist; did you specify it correctly? There is obviously something wrong with the disk which I'm going to replace but I would like to get the data from /home if at all possible. This isn't a raid disk or anything fancy just standard ext3 with 1 primary partition / and an extended partition containing a swap partition. Any help from the ALUG Community in getting me to my data would be greatly appreciated. Cheers, BJ

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Vector graphics tools
by Mark Rogers 17 Oct '12

17 Oct '12

I want to mock up something similar to the design here: http://www.reallygood.uk.com/bright-side-wedding-guest-book-guests-p-2941.h… Specifically, lots of individual characters (in various fonts, sizes and colours) jumbled around a bit. I had a quick play in gimp (because it was installed) but that got me nowhere, which could well be down to me. Before I start installing lots of different tools does anyone have any suggestions? Assume little or no graphics competency. -- 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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Last night's Ipswich ALUG meet
by samwise 16 Oct '12

16 Oct '12

Hi, all. Just wanted to say a thank you to Richard and Viperfang for making the effort to head down south to join our monthly gathering last night. It was a nice surprise and great to meet you both, plus it was a reminder that I promised ages ago to make an effort to get to a Norwich meet eventually, so we'll have to see about organising a reciprocal trip. :) In an effort to stay slightly on-topic, there was some interest shown in the Android beta of VLC I had installed on my phone. It's available from the Play Store, if anyone's interested: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.videolan.vlc.betav7neon Thanks again to Adam for entertaining us with fireballs and Viperfang for sorting me out with a new Rockbox app to play with, once I've got my music files transferred over to my new device. :) Cheers, Peter.

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IP forwarding
by Mark Rogers 16 Oct '12

16 Oct '12

I have a Linux (Debian on ARM) box on a remote network (IP 192.168.150.100, subnet 255.255.255.0). The Linux box is also running Hamachi VPN software, which has given it an address (5.50.60.177) that I can reach from desktop (via a local Hamachi install). I can therefore ping 5.50.60.177 and SSH to it. I would like to route to the 192.168.150.x network via the working Hamachi connection. To that end I have enabled IP forwarding: $ cat /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward 1 .. and at the desktop end route -p add 192.168.150.0 mask 255.255.255.0 5.60.70.177 (desktop is Windows because the Hamachi VPN client was already running on it, but I don't think that's relevant to the problem). I am unable to reach either my box via its local address (192.168.150.100) or the rest of the remote LAN. What am I missing? [IP addresses changed to protect the innocent.] 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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[ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : The Mulberry Tree
by samwise 15 Oct '12

15 Oct '12

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 tonight, 15th October, 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. I'll be along this month, showing off some of my recent holiday snaps on my gigantically huge new Note II phablet. I can probably also bring along a recent presentation I made on Martin Edmondson of Ubisoft Reflections Studio fame (Shadow of the Beast, Demolition Derby, Driver, Stuntman etc.) if anyone's interested, who I was scheduled to be interviewing this past weekend at the Play Expo show in Manchester (which was cancelled at the last minute when the audio-visual suppliers failed to show). If anyone's going to be late, do drop me a message so I know to stick around if it's quiet. 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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jQuery UI problem - anyone here use jQuery?
by Chris Green 11 Oct '12

11 Oct '12

I am trying to get the jQuery UI datepicker to submit a form when I click on one of the days in the datepicker. I can get the datepicker to appear as expected and, if I click on the explicit submit button I have added the post method gets called. However I can't get onSelect to submit the form. I seem to be doing what is described in examples I can find on Google. Can anyone here see the (probably obvious) error? The javascript code in the headers is:- jQuery(function() { jQuery( "#xvpicker" ).datepicker({ onSelect: function (dateText, inst) { jQuery(this).parent('form').submit(); alert("onSelect()");}, dateFormat: "dd/mm/yy"}); }); ... and the HTML form is:- <FORM METHOD=post ACTION="form.php" ID="xyzform" accept-charset="utf-8" enctype="multipart/form-data" > <p>Date: <input type="text" name="xvdate" id="xvpicker"><input type="submit" name="xvsubm"></p> </FORM> Oh, and the alert message *does* pop up when I click on a day in the date picker. So the onSelect: code is executing, it's just that the submit() call doesn't seem to be submitting the form. I have tried using the form ID instead, i.e. jQuery('#xyzform').submit() but this doesn't work either. -- Chris Green

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source code management
by Chris Walker 09 Oct '12

09 Oct '12

I'm still trying to write a program for my phone but I've already got lots of versions of it spread over various filesystems. My son has suggested that I use git and I see that there's an installable version for Mandriva. But before I go ahead and install it, is there anything I should know? I'm not particularly interested in storing the my source code online so I would like to have everything local, either on this 'ere machine or perhaps on a NAS drive. Is this the best approach though?

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[ALUG Announce] ALUG Norwich Pub Meet Thursday 11th October
by Viperfang 08 Oct '12

08 Oct '12

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 October 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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Sound Problem
by Michael Goddard 06 Oct '12

06 Oct '12

My ASUS mb P8H6-M LE requires driver/codec for a Realtek ALC887 8-channel HD audio setup - Any help much appreciated.

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I nearly have a VPN working, but I can't get any data through it
by Chris Green 06 Oct '12

06 Oct '12

Well I'm having a wonderful time playing with ideas to access the web server on my eeePc on the boat. My home router is a Draytek Vigor 2820n which has VPN capability itself. So I decided to try it. I can connect using pptp from the eeePc on the boat to the 2820n's VPN service:- root@eeepc:~# pptpsetup --create home --server zbmc.eu --username chris --start Password: Using interface ppp0 Connect: ppp0 <--> /dev/pts/1 CHAP authentication succeeded Cannot determine ethernet address for proxy ARP local IP address 192.168.1.202 remote IP address 192.168.1.1 root@eeepc:~# ... and I can then ping the router from the eeePc OK. However I can't get anything else to work, i.e. I can't seem to get any data across the VPN connection at all. I have tried adding a route at the eeePc end:- root@eeepc:~# route add -net 192.168.1.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 dev ppp0 root@eeepc:~# route Kernel IP routing table Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface 192.168.1.1 * 255.255.255.255 UH 0 0 0 ppp0 84-45-228-40.st 192.168.13.1 255.255.255.255 UGH 0 0 0 eth0 192.168.1.0 * 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 ppp0 192.168.13.0 * 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 eth0 default 192.168.13.1 0.0.0.0 UG 100 0 0 eth0 root@eeepc:~# but still no joy. root@eeepc:~# ping 192.168.1.1 PING 192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1) 56(84) bytes of data. 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=255 time=82.0 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=255 time=76.7 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=255 time=79.6 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=4 ttl=255 time=77.8 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=5 ttl=255 time=76.6 ms 64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=6 ttl=255 time=74.9 ms ^C --- 192.168.1.1 ping statistics --- 6 packets transmitted, 6 received, 0% packet loss, time 5007ms rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 74.905/77.992/82.087/2.345 ms root@eeepc:~# ping 192.168.1.4 PING 192.168.1.4 (192.168.1.4) 56(84) bytes of data. From 192.168.1.34 icmp_seq=1 Destination Host Unreachable From 192.168.1.34 icmp_seq=2 Destination Host Unreachable From 192.168.1.34 icmp_seq=3 Destination Host Unreachable From 192.168.1.34 icmp_seq=4 Destination Host Unreachable From 192.168.1.34 icmp_seq=5 Destination Host Unreachable From 192.168.1.34 icmp_seq=6 Destination Host Unreachable ^C --- 192.168.1.4 ping statistics --- 7 packets transmitted, 0 received, +6 errors, 100% packet loss, time 6031ms , pipe 3 (the eeePc is on a 192.168.13.0 LAN so the IP addresses shouldn't conflict) Similarly at the other end (my desktop machine) I can see the VPN but I can't push any data through it:- root@chris:~# 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/) 192.168.1.1 00:50:7f:8b:35:40 DrayTek Corp. 192.168.1.2 00:01:6c:6c:c7:9b FOXCONN 192.168.1.6 00:04:4b:07:13:30 NVIDIA 192.168.1.84 70:f1:a1:2d:da:86 Liteon Technology Corporation 192.168.1.90 00:90:a9:70:06:ff WESTERN DIGITAL 192.168.1.122 78:ac:c0:63:90:d4 Hewlett Packard 192.168.1.150 00:04:20:26:55:19 Slim Devices, Inc. 192.168.1.202 00:50:7f:8b:35:40 DrayTek Corp. 192.168.1.81 00:01:e3:9d:8b:b5 Siemens AG 9 packets received by filter, 0 packets dropped by kernel Ending arp-scan 1.8.1: 256 hosts scanned in 1.360 seconds (188.24 hosts/sec). 9 responded That 192.168.1.202 is the VPN network IP address on the router, but I can't ping it or anything:- root@chris:~# ping 192.168.1.202 PING 192.168.1.202 (192.168.1.202) 56(84) bytes of data. ^C --- 192.168.1.202 ping statistics --- 4 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 3023ms Am I missing something obvious somewhere and/or any ideas how to diagnose what's wrong? -- Chris Green

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Do most/all 'real' SMTP servers follow reasonably retry strategies?
by Chris Green 05 Oct '12

05 Oct '12

As per the subject line, do most SMTP servers (as in systems 'out there' which send me mail) behave reasonably sensibly when my SMTP server is temporarily not functioning? I currently have both a desktop machine *and* a small server machine which are on all the time. It's the server machine that receives my E-Mail. The only reason I have it configured this way is because I'm more likely to rebuild/reconfigure my desktop machine than the server machine and I felt that keeping my SMTP server online consistently was important. However I'm wondering if the effort (and cost) of running two systems all the time is worth it. The other functions of the server system (DNS and CUPS) can easily be run on my desktop machine, occasinal downtime of those services is easily explained to other family members! :-) If real world SMTP servers 'out there' will cope quite happily with my domain's MX machine being AWOL for several hours then I may as well put everything on the one server machine. (Note it's only *my* E-Mail that is delivered by SMTP, all other family members do their own thing as in use Webmail, or IMAP, or whatever) -- Chris Green

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2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 5th October.
by Viperfang 02 Oct '12

02 Oct '12

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

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WiFi range, what am I likely to get outdoors line-of-sight, without special equipment?
by Chris Green 26 Sep '12

26 Sep '12

The subject says it all really, what sort of range is one likely to get outdoors with WiFi? It's basically line of sight, base station is in a shop, my WiFi router will be sitting in a window maybe 200 meters away. Do I have any chance of it working? -- Chris Green

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Catch 22 situation when disk gets full - how to solve?
by Chris Green 23 Sep '12

23 Sep '12

I have a sort of Catch 22 situation on my little eeePc. It has tried to update kernels automatically and, after a few months (it's on our boat doing monitoring) it has run out of disk space. It still runs OK and I can ssh into it. It has quite a long list of old kernels installed but I can't delete them to make space because it has half an update of the latest kernel:- So when I try and do anything with apt-get I see:- root@eeepc:/var/lib# apt-get remove linux-headers-2.6.32-39 linux-headers-2.6.32-39-generic-pae linux-image-2.6.32-39-generic-pae Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done You might want to run 'apt-get -f install' to correct these: The following packages have unmet dependencies. linux-headers-generic-pae: Depends: linux-headers-2.6.32-43-generic-pae but it is not going to be installed E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt-get -f install' with no packages (or specify a solution). So how do I uninstall all the old headers etc. so that there *is* space to do things? -- Chris Green

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New member to ALUG
by Tarek Amr 23 Sep '12

23 Sep '12

Hello, My name is Tarek, I've just joined ALUG mailing list, and would like to give a brief introduction about myself. I am an Egyptian Linux user since 10 years ago, I have been member of EGLUG (Egyptian Linux User Group), and I just arrived to Norwich to do my masters degree in Computer Science in UEA. I've also worked in the field of computer networks and had good knowledge of C/Python/RoR programming. I'd love to be member of ALUG mailing list and join the groups upcoming meetups and events -- Best Regards Tarek Amr http://www.tarekamr.com/ http://globalvoicesonline.org/author/tarek-amr/

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OT: Maths Jam tomorrow
by Steve Engledow 17 Sep '12

17 Sep '12

Hi folks, Excuse the flagrant abuse of this mailing but I feel the crossover of interest is worth it. The first Norwich Maths Jam (see http://mathsjam.com) begins tomorrow evening (Tuesday 18th) at 7pm in The Reindeer pub on Dereham road; coincidentally a previous haunt of the ALUG pub meet :) If you fancy coming to a pub and being geeky in a mathsy way, come down! Remember kids, beer + geekery -> fun. Steve

1 0

apt-get problems
by Greg Thomas 16 Sep '12

16 Sep '12

I just tried upgrading from Ubuntu 10.04 to 12.04.1 (i.e. from LTS to LTS). It failed. The error message I'm getting is: An unresolvable problem occurred while calculating the upgrade: The package 'update-manager-kde' is marked for removal but it is in the removal blacklist. Google suggests that "apt-get remove update-manager-kde" should fix it [1], but that's giving me the following; Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable distribution that some required packages have not yet been created or been moved out of Incoming. The following information may help to resolve the situation: The following packages have unmet dependencies. libasound2: Breaks: libasound2-plugins (< 1.0.24) but 1.0.22-0ubuntu6 is to be installed libglib2.0-0: Breaks: gnome-control-center (< 1:3) but 1:2.30.1-0ubuntu2 is to be installed Breaks: gvfs (< 1.8) but 1.6.1-0ubuntu1build1 is to be installed libgnome-keyring0: Breaks: gnome-keyring (< 3.0) but 2.92.92.is.2.30.3-0ubuntu1.1 is to be installed libpango1.0-0: Breaks: plymouth (< 0.8.2-2ubuntu19) but 0.8.2-2ubuntu2.2 is to be installed ppp: Breaks: network-manager (<= 0.8.0.999-1) but 0.8-0ubuntu3.3 is to be installed Breaks: network-manager-pptp (<= 0.8.0.999-1) but 0.8-0ubuntu3 is to be installed E: Broken packages Have I completely hosed my setup, and is a fresh re-install due? Or is there a way around this? Thanks, Greg [1] http://www.hoaglun.com/blog/2011/5/8/ubuntu-1010-1104-upgrade.html

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[ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : The Mulberry Tree
by samwise 14 Sep '12

14 Sep '12

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 this coming Monday, 17th September, 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. I'm not going to be able to make this meet as I'm off to Croatia for some sea kayaking off the Dalmation Coast for the next week, so do please post to the list to encourage a bit of interest amongst the regulars. :) I'm eager to hear the report for next time! 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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Re: [ALUG] hi, see it!
by RICHARD FLETCHER 14 Sep '12

14 Sep '12

.. http://nastrani.ic.cz/urworkcap.php?mopage=f9y9

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Default browser chooser script
by Mark Rogers 13 Sep '12

13 Sep '12

For day to day use I tend to use Firefox, and that's my default browser. That's more through "habit" than anything else and I frequently get frustrated by the amount of RAM its using etc. Occasionally I'll fire up Chrome or Opera, and one day I'll probably switch allegiances. In the meantime, what annoys me is that if I have (say) Chrome open and click on a link elsewhere (eg in an email) it'll open Firefox because that's my default browser. I'm sure it would be possible to write a script that checks to see if any browser is open, and sends the request there, only actually starting the default (Firefox) if no browsers are open. [Actually I think this ought to be the default behaviour for a range of apps; if I have a media player open don't open a different one if I double-click a media file, etc.] Any suggestions for where I should start? -- 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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