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tail and awk
by Barry Samuels 17 Nov '10

17 Nov '10

I'm running Debian Squeeze/Testing and have this in my /etc/rc.local: tail -f /var/log/syslog | awk '/kernel: sdb: sdb1/ {system("/bin/sleep 10; /sbin/hdparm -Y /dev/sdb")}' & Whenever I insert a hard drive caddy I want the disc to be put into sleep mode until it's required. The drive is used only once every 24 hours to backup and the drive is changed each day. However it doesn't work. If I remove a drive caddy and then replace it the relevant lines appear in syslog but the drive keeps spinning. If I stop the current tail/awk processes, remove and replace the caddy then run /etc/rc.local from the command line it does work and the drive stops spinning. I have now run out of expertise. Any suggestions please? -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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Re: [ALUG] Mostly OT: Kindle 3G
by mark fernandes (IFR) 17 Nov '10

17 Nov '10

Mark, I've made some comments about the Kindle browser on my blog (http://www.codingscience.blogspot.com/) I have successfully used it to access my work e-mail (Outlook Web Access) whilst on my travels. It is a bit like going back to Black and White TV (God that ages me!) but still quite usable (but roll on colour e-paper). My biggest problem is viewing scientific papers (usually only avail as PDFs) in 3 columns which is e-reader unfriendly. If anybody knows of a tool to reformat these to single column reliably, 'I'll be over the moon' as it is a bit of a deal-breaker for some of my colleagues. I say reliable - I tried tools like calibre and stanza (and a google code project whose name escapes me - I said I'm getting old) and get weird effects (Which I'm beginning to believe is down to quirks of PDF format when having multiple columns with diagrams and images (:-() rather than the programs). Anyway, back to original question - Browser is usable but I wouldn't use it as the 'weapon of choice'. Or put it another way don't try and use a hammer to put in a screw... :-) Hope that this helps, Mark

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

13 Nov '10

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- The monthly "Third Monday" ALUG Ipswich Social Meeting is back next week, Monday 15th November, at 20:00: P J McGinty & Sons 15 Northgate Street Ipswich Suffolk IP1 3BY Tel: 01473 251 515 Map/Directions URI: http://maps.google.co.uk/?q=IP1+3BY WWW: http://www.pjmcgintys.co.uk/ McGintys pub is in the centre of Ipswich. It's directly opposite the town's central library and has a reputation for good Irish beer. We're usually to be found in the lowest section of the bar, near the library entrance to the pub. All are welcome, novices and experienced users. Feel free to ask for further information on the Main ALUG mailing list. Hopefully, see some of you there! Peter. ----- Send discussion replies to main(a)lists.alug.org.uk (Reply-To set) Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce

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Reliable friendly hosting companies
by Mark Rogers 09 Nov '10

09 Nov '10

We currently use MemSet for most of our hosting requirements. We run Ubuntu virtual servers and have very few problems caused either by us or Memset. However, Memset don't provide out-of-hours emergency support except with fully managed servers (£40/month overhead, on a virtual server which might only be costing £10/month itself). This has occasionally caused problems in the past, with an upgrade taking place late on a Friday evening leaving the server inaccessible until after 9am Monday. It means we can't risk a major update out-of-hours in case of problems, but equally don't want to schedule downtime in office hours either. We prefer to run multiple virtual servers rather than having one "big" one - spreading the load but more importantly meaning that one outage it less likely to hit all customers or all services at the same time (much easier to manage!). At £40/mo for multiple servers this means paying around £3-4k just to be able to contact emergency support typically once per year when we have a problem that requires it. So, what are the current suggestions for hosts that other people can recommend with 24/7 support availability for those rare disasters? I know this type of thread crops up fairly often but recommendations change and I haven't seen the specific issue of out-of-hours support cropping up. Other than this I have no reason to wish to move away from Memset, but we have reached the stage of migrating several sites to new virtual servers and that can either be at Memset or elsewhere, so I need to consider the alternatives. -- 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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Tools for laying out images and text on web pages - suggestions wanted
by Chris G 06 Nov '10

06 Nov '10

Are there any good tools/utilities for easily laying out pictures and text on a web page? I want an easy way to put some images and text on a page with text beside pictures and/or more than one picture across the page. I know that HTML is fundamentally not really designed to do such a thing (because it creates content rather than layout) but in the real world it's a rather fundamental thing to want to do. While CSS is 'the right answer' it doesn't really fill the bill because I want to layout 'this particular bit of text I have written' in a specific position relative to 'this particular image'. I'm not after a generic two column or three column layout into which I can drop my text and images, I'm after saying "put this text top left next to this image top right then this text across the page, then this image on the left with this text to the right of it ....." etc. I guess the WYSIWYG way of doing it would be draggable boxes with configurable constraints such that you could say "this one must be next to this one". (... and yes I know WYSIWYG doesn't really fit the web because of different sized screens etc. but this is mostly for me to use so it doesn't have to work for everyone's screen and browser) Any suggestions? -- Chris Green

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Does anyone else's Alt key do this - multiplier entry - can it be turned off?
by Chris G 05 Nov '10

05 Nov '10

While recently playing around with my keyboard and looking at ways to enter special characters I discovered that the Alt key (that's the one on the left, i.e. *not* the AltGr key) doesn't act as a modifier like the AltGr key but, in some cases, acts as a multiplier for the next character. I.e. if I enter Alt+<digit> the prompt changes to (arg: <digit>) and entering further Alt+<digit> keys adds to the value after arg:. Then on entering the next character it is repeated arg times. This is (for me anyway) a totally useless facility, I'd much rather the Alt key acts as a shift key (like the AltGr key) and gives special characters. I have some documentation that gives the standard/default characters generated by Alt and AltGr as follows (intermediate mail systems willing):- Unshifted Shifted Unshifted Shifted Key Alt AltGr Alt AltGr Key Alt AltGr Alt AltGr ` à | ¬ 1 ± ¹ ¡ ¡ A á æ Á Æ 2 ² ² ¢ S ó ß Ó § 3 ³ ³ £ £ D ä ð Ä Ð 4 ´ ¤ ¼ F æ Æ ª 5 µ ½ ¥ G ç Ç 6 ¶ ¾ Þ H è È 7 · ¦ J ê Ê 8 ¸ ª K ë Ë 9 ¹ ¨ ± L ì Ì 0 ° © ° ; » º - ß ¿ ' § À = ½ « # £ þ Q ñ Ñ \ Ü ü ¦ W ÷ × Z ú « Ú < E å Å X ø » Ø > R ò ¶ Ò ® C ã ¢ Ã © T ô Ô V ö Ö Y ù Ù ¥ B â Â U õ Õ N î n Î N I é É M í µ Í º O ï ø Ï Ø , ¬ ¼ × P ð þ Ð Þ . ® · ¾ ÷ [ Û û / ¯ ¿ ] Ý ý In all my terminal windows the above AltGr combinations work but none of the Alt ones do, I'd like the Alt ones as well. I could then type things like ¢ (cents) and ® (registered) without too much hassle. (The above ways of typing accented characters aren't so much use as they're not easy to remember and I use a Compose key to do them) -- Chris Green

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Why are these disks subtly different? Does it matter?
by Chris G 05 Nov '10

05 Nov '10

I have just added a second WD 1Tb disk to my desktop system for backups and such. It *looks* like the one that the system started with but it has some subtle differences and I wonder whether these are significant in any way. Firstly fdisk reports slightly different geometry:- Disk /dev/sdb: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0xf24a2de7 Disk /dev/sdc: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes 81 heads, 63 sectors/track, 382818 cylinders Units = cylinders of 5103 * 512 = 2612736 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x4e451e03 Secondly (and the one I have *slightly* more concern about) blkid reports as follows:- /dev/sdc1: UUID="c4ae6fbe-18b3-4af9-aed8-a442e0fb6893" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3" /dev/sdb1: UUID="6976542f-0471-411e-8c0d-97492c3f49b5" TYPE="ext3" What does that SEC_TYPE="ext2" mean? I used mkfs.ext3 to create the file system on the disk with no explicit option. Presumably the other disk (/dev/sdb1) was partitioned and formatted when I installed xubuntu. -- Chris Green

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Where is this pseudo-wifi network coming from?
by Chris G 05 Nov '10

05 Nov '10

Our Dell Vostro V13 laptop keeps telling us that there's a WiFi network called dcuc160 which it successfully connects to, unfortunately it doesn't actually work. This network appears wherever we are, even in Belgium on our boat and at home where there aren't any neighbours in wireless range so I don't think it's any sort of real network. How can we get rid of it as it's a right pain. I've searched for dcuc160 on Google and got just one hit for "Duelund Coherent Audio CAST inductors homepage", not relevant! -- Chris Green

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eSata disk on Linux, are they normally hot-pluggable?
by Chris G 05 Nov '10

05 Nov '10

I have an external eSata disk drive that I want to use on my desktop machine occasionally. I have powered it up and connected it and absolutely nothing seems to happen. I've done a bit of Google'ing and there doesn't seem to be a very consistent result, I've found everyting from "doesn't work at all" to "works perfectly, just pops up when plugged in". I've searched for it specifically with Ubuntu 10.04 as that's what I'm using. Has anyone here had success (or otherwise) with hot-plugging eSata disks? I have had the disk working on another system but I can't remember whether that was hot-plugged or present at power up. I will try rebooting the dekstop with the eSata powered and connected to see if it works then but I really want to be able to hot-plug it. -- Chris Green

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Re: [ALUG] weird problems
by Peter Alcibiades 05 Nov '10

05 Nov '10

Ha! Weird problem, undid the machine to take a look at the innards, and noticed a slight rattling sound. Odd, but get distracted and take a look a the hard drive. This has a yellow sticker on it bearing the legend Drive 1, and someone has written in marker across it Windows 7. Interesting. Think about this for a while. This is after all a new custom built machine. Then move the machine around to see where the rattle might be coming from. It seems to come from the fan, which is a stock Intel fan and heat sink. Odder and odder. Waggle it a bit, and it comes up easily on one side! In short, three of the four securing pins are not secured into the main board, so presumably the fit of the heat sink is, well, dodgy. Oh dear. This might be the solution. In the meantime my friend lost his sense of humour and trashed all the previous partitions, well, hard to blame him. So here we go again.... Peter

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weird problems
by Peter Alcibiades 04 Nov '10

04 Nov '10

How about this? Friend with a windows 7 installation. He tells me he was using skype and suddenly the system crashed after which Norton had vanished and several pictures went missing. System restore done by his current helper tried twice and failed to work. I told him to buy a new oem copy of windows (his last being of dubious provenance), have his helper partition the machine into two NTFS partitions and some free space for Linux, and reinstall. He did this, but was unable to reinstall, not sure why, so brought the machine over. I reinstalled Windows with no problem, and then proceeded to Debian. Well, there was a message about the fstab not being right because of an error involving the partition id. I didn't understand this, but proceeded. All goes well, we install grub, we reboot, and the windows install is nowhere to be found in the bootloader. After a long story, I put in PCLinux instead, and this goes in and works fine, grub picks up the windows install, we can boot from either linux or from windows, no problem. He goes home, sends me a couple emails showing windows at least works. I get this message: Email from Windows, printer driver, sound, flash player, microsoft security, Admin account for Windows, and it's all still working! This morning, sad message from another computer, he is down again. It will boot neither Linux nor Windows. Do you think this might be hardware? I wonder about trying memory diagnostics or hard drive verification program? I can restore the boot sector in windows, I can also take him to lilo, but will it last any better than the others? Or if not that, any other suggestions? Peter

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Search and replace(insert) - can anyone help?
by Govind Chandra 03 Nov '10

03 Nov '10

Hi Barry, I made a slightly bigger test file from your input for testing. ===================================================================== <table class="socialheader" width="100%" border="0"> <tr> <td width="85%" align="left" nowrap>The Three Sisters, Glen Coe</td> </tr> </table> <table class="sociheader" width="100%" border="0"> <tr> <td width="85%" align="left" nowrap>This cannot be used</td> </tr> </table> <table class="socialheader" width="100%" border="0"> <tr> <td width="85%" align="left" nowrap>This is different each time</td> </tr> </table> <table class="socialhear" width="100%" border="0"> <tr> <td width="85%" align="left" nowrap>This is not usable</td> </tr> </table> ========================================================================= I think the perl script below (or some modification thereof) will do what you want. ===================================================== #! /usr/bin/perl use strict; open(INFILE, "<$ARGV[0]"); my $social_flag = 0; while(<INFILE>) { my $line=$_; chomp($line); if($line=~m/\<table class\=\"socialheader\"/) { $social_flag = 1; print("$line\n"); next; } if($line=~m/align\=\"left\"/ and $line=~m/width\=\"85\%\"/ and $line=~m/nowrap/ ) { if($social_flag) { print("$line\n"); print("One new line here\n"); print("Another new line here\n"); $social_flag = 0; } else { print("$line\n"); } } else { print("$line\n"); } } close(INFILE); ============================================================== Hope this helps. Govind > Subject: [ALUG] Search and replace(insert) - can anyone help? > To: Alug <main(a)lists.alug.org.uk> > Message-ID: <1288625418.1815.0@dataman1> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > > <table class="socialheader" width="100%" border="0"> > > <tr> > <td width="85%" align="left" nowrap>The Three Sisters, Glen Coe</td> > </tr> > > </table> > > I have over 2500 pages with the above HTML in ( the "Three Sisters, Glen > Coe" bit is different in every file) and I want to add two lines so: > > <table class="socialheader" width="100%" border="0"> > > <tr> > <td width="85%" align="left" nowrap>The Three Sisters, Glen Coe</td> > <One new line here> > <Another new line here> > </tr> > > </table> > > The pair of lines to be inserted is identical in each case but the only > unique identifier is the "class=socialheader". > > Is there any way I can do it with a script? > > -- > Barry Samuels > http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk > The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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Kerberos
by Richard Lewis 02 Nov '10

02 Nov '10

Hi ALUG, I've just tried to add a new user to a Debian unstable system I manage on a virtual server but have run up against some sort of authentication problem. As normal, I used adduser: $ sudo adduser interface Adding user `interface' ... Adding new group `interface' (1002) ... Adding new user `interface' (1002) with group `interface' ... Creating home directory `/home/interface' ... Copying files from `/etc/skel' ... But then it said this: Current Kerberos password: passwd: User not known to the underlying authentication module passwd: password unchanged Try again? [y/N] n Hitting n continued like this: Changing the user information for interface Enter the new value, or press ENTER for the default Full Name []: Interface2011 Room Number []: Work Phone []: Home Phone []: Other []: Is the information correct? [Y/n] y It seems I can't set a password for this user now: $ sudo su interface $ passwd Current Kerberos password: passwd: User not known to the underlying authentication module passwd: password unchanged I've heard of Kerberos and it all sounds great, but as far as I know, I don't "use it" (if that's the right expression) on this system. And I'd prefer just to use an ordinary UNIX password, because I just want it to work. I tried commenting out a line in /etc/pam.d/common-password: #password requisite pam_krb5.so minimum_uid=1000 password [success=1 default=ignore] pam_unix.so obscure use_authtok try_first_pass sha512 But I'm not whether: a) this has been effective; or b) would solve the problem anyway. Any ideas how to make it not try and use Kerberos? Best, Richard -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Richard Lewis ISMS, Computing Goldsmiths, University of London Tel: +44 (0)20 7078 5134 Skype: richardjlewis JID: ironchicken(a)jabber.earth.li http://www.richardlewis.me.uk/ -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

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Is there any way to 'ssh and cd'?
by Chris G 01 Nov '10

01 Nov '10

I'd like to set up some logins to various places around my LAN which not only ssh to the relevant place but also do a cd to a specific directory. Can anyone suggest a way to do this? By default if you give a command to ssh at the end of the line then it executes that command and then closes the connection - it only keeps the connection open if there is no command at the end. In addition doing a cd is even a bit more difficult because it's no use at all to execute it in a sub-shell. -- Chris Green

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Search and replace(insert) - can anyone help?
by Barry Samuels 01 Nov '10

01 Nov '10

<table class="socialheader" width="100%" border="0"> <tr> <td width="85%" align="left" nowrap>The Three Sisters, Glen Coe</td> </tr> </table> I have over 2500 pages with the above HTML in ( the "Three Sisters, Glen Coe" bit is different in every file) and I want to add two lines so: <table class="socialheader" width="100%" border="0"> <tr> <td width="85%" align="left" nowrap>The Three Sisters, Glen Coe</td> <One new line here> <Another new line here> </tr> </table> The pair of lines to be inserted is identical in each case but the only unique identifier is the "class=socialheader". Is there any way I can do it with a script? -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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Re: [ALUG] Thunderguts 2.# in Usenet mode
by Anthony Anson 31 Oct '10

31 Oct '10

nev young wrote: > On 30/10/10 22:55, Anthony Anson wrote: >> >> <MI5> Is deleting Mike Corley an option? </MI5> >> > When I used TB2 I trained my hand to press "k" on any thread started by > Mr C or anything cross-posted to more than 2 gropes. I'll play - that's a keystroke which I missed somewhere along the line (along with Alt+F9...) for which I also have you to thank innit. -- Tony Anson www.girolle.co.uk/

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Thunderguts 2.# in Usenet mode
by Anthony Anson 30 Oct '10

30 Oct '10

Can anyone explain why, when I download headers there will be (say) 5 unread in a group, but on accessing it, a couple will disappear without trace? It happens most times the server is accessed. They haven't been eaten by the killfile - indeed, on most gruppen I don't have any filters. -- Tony Anson www.girolle.co.uk/

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TV & Computer display screen
by ted.harding＠wlandres.net 29 Oct '10

29 Oct '10

Hi Folks, Once again picking the brains of the hardware-savvy amongst you! A friend of mine has asked me about what to get for a flat-screen which can double as TV and computer display screen. The size would need to be big enough to serve as a comfortable YV (so, I guess, at least 19/21 inch, probably larger). The intention is to plug the TV aerial into the back and use it as the TV, or plug the computer in and use it as the display. One computer is a not-too-recent laptop (no details held), but not very old. Dunno whether it has an S-video socket. Two other computers are rather old desktops dating back some 10 years (and with a Win of the vintage of Win 98 as OS, though I'm not certain of the exact version). Almost certainly no S-video, probably only standard monitor socket on video card. I'm clueless[*] about this sort of hardware question, so I'm asking for advice/comments! I guess the real question is whether a standard monitor socket can be connnectied to a TV (for suitable choice of TV); with associated question of whether large screen size may not work well with the computer. With thanks, Ted. [*] Not completely -- I have succeeded in connecting a recentish laptop to a TV using an adaptor cable from Maplin's, with S-video (1 connector) plus audio (2 connectors plus adptor to stero plug-in for computer's line-out socket) at the computer end, and a SCART plug at the other end for the TV. But this may be irrelevant for the present question! -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <ted.harding(a)wlandres.net> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 28-Oct-10 Time: 19:22:59 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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postgresql client question
by Jenny Hopkins 28 Oct '10

28 Oct '10

Hullo all, I've written a shell script that sends a line of insert sql to a postgresql database - or it's supposed to. If the script is run on the same host as the database, there is no problem. However, I want the sql to be sent and inserted from a client running ubuntu, to a debian server, without having to install the entire postgres package on the former. I read about postgresql-client-common being the tool for the job, duly installed it, but when it ran the sql "psql -h hostname -U username dbname < filename" it grumbled "Error: You must install at least one postgresql-client-<version> package". After googling some, I then tried sticking a default cluster in /etc/postgresql-common/user_clusters on the ubuntu client: "jenny jenny 8.3 CWMain dbname" but it seems to be looking at itself, rather than the host specified on the sql line: "Error: /etc/postgresql-common/user_clusters line 24: version 8.3 does not exist" The postgres version on the server is 8.3. Is there a different approach I can take - I feel I'm missing something incredibly obvious? I've always had postgresql installed on clients in the past and haven't come across this. Many thanks, Jenny

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ALUG library
by Wayne Stallwood 25 Oct '10

25 Oct '10

I am still looking to rid myself of having to store the ALUG library. The fact is that since being librarian (2003ish) we have lent exactly no books. Most of it is now horribly out of date...a long time ago I abandoned the magazines. There are a few newish titles I have added and a recent donation of "linux in a nutshell" from O'Reily. The online catalogue is offline due to the hosting it was on being broken. I have backups but it was pretty crufty anyway. More donations can be sought..but to get more out of O'Reily they were wanting us to do online and open access reviews and comments about the donated titles. I no longer have the time or the enthusiasm to do this. I see two potential futures. Somebody takes it over and tries to resurrect it by getting a book review section up on the wiki and therefore hopefully attracts more relevant donations..clears out the crud and tries to resolve the logistical issues of free book lending to remote members. or we disband it.... If this was decided then I would post a catalogue and members could claim anything they wanted to keep for themselves. After a time I would take whatever is left and donate to a charity shop or similar. Please can you respond and let me know your ideas...I don't want to go giving it away without approval from those that helped build the collection or if anyone sees a potential future for it. At the same time however it has long been a burden for me to store and I need the space in my study back...currently it consists of about 3 stackable boxes full of books. Many Thanks Wayne

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Re: [ALUG] free or cheap web hosting
by Peter Alcibiades 24 Oct '10

24 Oct '10

Thanks, guys. Turns out on investigation that 1and1 has a much cheaper basic package than I realized, at around 2.50 a month for the entry level one, but he seems most impressed with the daily.co.uk package. The year in advance is a pretty decent deal. Thanks. Peter

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free or cheap web hosting
by Peter Alcibiades 23 Oct '10

23 Oct '10

A penniless artist asked me to suggest free or cheap web hosting. Obviously he will not have a lot of traffic, and what he wants to do is put up his pictures for view, but not particularly high res. So it does not have to have a lot of space. I don't know whether own domain is important or not. Might be nice. Any suggestions? I had thought of 1and1, which seems to do a basic package for around £120 a year including domain. But if there is anything anyone would recommend thats cheaper and still decent, the pennies would help. Peter

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Netbook Dual Boot Distro-Hopping Grub/MBR Recovery Solution
by S 21 Oct '10

21 Oct '10

Hi I have a non-standard Netbook HP 2133 which for now anyway I want to be able to Dual Boot XP MCE and a Linux Distro. The Mini has a VIA Chip and none of the distros have yet fully got to grips with maximising the Graphics though I read that Ubuntu is getting closer to seamlessly building in a new open-source driver from Via (don't drivers end up in the kernel though?). Bottom line is I hop distros to try to find one that has mastered the trick of all forms of video and flash so that I can finally dump the Windows. In doing so I recently installed Jolicloud in place of Linux Mint. I made a mistake in thinking I could just delete the mint & related swap partition and get "Error 15". I know I can sort it by hooking up an external DVD and doing full reinstalls of Windows and Jolicloud or whatever and maybe next time I'll do the Express install of Jolicloud which I think uses Wubi making uninstallation easy (it says) Whilst I'd like to learn to avoid these messes in the first place, I'd like to know how to fix them much more quickly too. I read on Lifehacker of Wintoflash and thought that would speed re-installations of Windows (maybe it doesn't like MCE version of XP) or maybe the cross disk installation process caught out the software (as it didn't ask me to swap disks) but it doesn't get to an installation/repair type screen, though it will start windows from a grub like menu but doesn't fix boot on restart. I've also tried super grub disk on systemrescuecd-x86-1.6.2 and can access and fully use either of the OSs on the hard disk fine. Having the usb stick in to do this each time is of course daft. GRUB/MBR and Xorg seem to be two that really I need to get to grips with but i've yet to build confidence or even familiarity in digging around much in Linux - kinda just want it to work. Lots (& lots!) of info online but are there some golden rules / infallible-simple-quick sources to go to prevent & sort my problems. Is there a master tool kit on a usb stick. I'll try and get along to one of the meetings sometime. Er, I think that's quite enough Steve >

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multi function photo printer advice please
by mick 21 Oct '10

21 Oct '10

My HP Photosmart (C5280) has finally irritated me enough to want to get rid of it. It currently refuses to print at all using "recycled" cartridges (always tricky with HP printers in my experience) and is now also flaky with HP branded cartridges. I am also thoroughly pissed off with the cost of Vivera ink and the fact that I have to replace the entire colour (or photo) cartridge when just one colour is depleted. So I have been researching Epson MFPs which have 6 seperate ink cartidges. My needs are classic home user: - scanning 1200/2400 - photocopying - monochrome and colour printing up to A4 - photo printing up to A4 - ideally printing direct from assorted flash memory sticks (I have both sony and SD cards). The Epson photo PX 650 looks as if it would fit the bill, but it does not appear in the linux openprinting database. There is a driver quoted for it which appears to require the installation of the lsb packages but I'm not sure how well supported this might be. Does anyone here have any experience of this printer? And if not, what other epson (or non HP printer which meets the above requirements) can people recommend? The main reason for using HP in the past is the fact that they are pretty good at supporting linux through HPLIP. Shame about the extortionate running costs. Mick (Anyone want a C5280 which /might/ be fixable) --------------------------------------------------------------------- The text file for RFC 854 contains exactly 854 lines. Do you think there is any cosmic significance in this? Douglas E Comer - Internetworking with TCP/IP Volume 1 http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc854.txt ---------------------------------------------------------------------

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Android Readers
by Martin Collins 21 Oct '10

21 Oct '10

Hi, has anyone any experience of some of these new Android E-Readers? I was looking for something to read pdfs, things like Full Circle Magazine (http://fullcirclemagazine.org/downloads/), Linux Format pdfs and some programming manuals I've got - all Linuxy Languages of course. However, these are mostly 7" in size and although probably ok for text, I'm a bit unsure whether they would be big enough for fixed format pdfs? Anyone used one yet. Next do a 10" one but it's a bit pricey (£180) - http://www.next.co.uk/shopping/electric/carryover/10/13 I'd feel better with that one but for that price I could buy a cheap Netbook - maybe that would be the best option. Any opinions greatly received before I splash my cash. Rgds, Martin

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Android phones and Linux, any experience?
by Chris G 20 Oct '10

20 Oct '10

Does anyone hare have an Android based phone and use it with Linux on their desktop? -- Chris Green

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scanners part the second
by Bev Nicolson 18 Oct '10

18 Oct '10

Hmph. Not because Adam was right but because I have been trying to change permissions for this scanner (I need root permish) and it isn't playing ball. Nautilus claims I already have it. Terminal won't let me. (I've tried chmod) The scanner itself does work, btw but only when I fire up VueScan. Help, please. TIA. Bev.

7 37

[ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : McGintys, Northgate Street
by samwise 18 Oct '10

18 Oct '10

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- The monthly "Third Monday" ALUG Ipswich Social Meeting is back tonight, Monday 18th October, at 20:00: P J McGinty & Sons 15 Northgate Street Ipswich Suffolk IP1 3BY Tel: 01473 251 515 Map/Directions URI: http://maps.google.co.uk/?q=IP1+3BY WWW: http://www.pjmcgintys.co.uk/ McGintys pub is in the centre of Ipswich. It's directly opposite the town's central library and has a reputation for good Irish beer. We're usually to be found in the lowest section of the bar, near the library entrance to the pub. All are welcome, novices and experienced users. Feel free to ask for further information on the Main ALUG mailing list. Hopefully, see some of you there! Peter. ----- Send discussion replies to main(a)lists.alug.org.uk (Reply-To set) Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce

1 0

Re: [ALUG] Intel 2200BG wireless
by Richard McLellan 15 Oct '10

15 Oct '10

I got it all sorted now. I was using Mint Isadora on my laptop but changed over to Xubuntu and it works no problems in there.Thanks for the help on this.

1 0

Kindles - Was Android Readers
by mark fernandes (IFR) 13 Oct '10

13 Oct '10

I can confirm that Kindles are good bit of kit. I've got cheaper version (without 3G) for work. Wifi and browser works well with limitations of e-paper (no flash - not necessarily a bad thing :-)) I go to lots of meetings for my sins and get issued with lots of docs (=76 pages of dead tree) and our group travel a lot (so baggage limits)- so am trying out Kindle as a solution to these probs. So far, so good - screen is really good, readable in bright sunlight (sadly less of a problem at the moment...). Used also to read my OU Maths course books (formulae etc quite clear). Only time so far I've had to charge battery was when it arrived - it's seems to get by with my USB transfers of books to feed itself. Also, can back it up that way as it is a 'standard' USB storage device on PC. Since you invited it Mick - You're a luddite :-) Seriously, I've always loved books but e-readers enable me to cart my library about when travelling, are searchable and so are v. useful. Both have their place. I've got problems browsing local HTML files and need a program to reformat 3 column scientific paper PDFs into e-reader friendly single column form but despite that am content with the device. See http://codingscience.blogspot.com/2010/10/kindle.html for the ups and downs so far Like so many things, e-readers are horses for courses - if it does what you need then that's the sweet spot. Been quite interested in the debate so far (Will especially try out the debug mode...) All the best, Mark Sign hanging in Einstein's office at Princeton: Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.

1 0

Audio input for laptops?
by ted.harding＠wlandres.net 13 Oct '10

13 Oct '10

Hi Folks, Unlike desktop sound cards, which usually have a "Line In" socket for headphone/speaker output (aka "Line Out") from audio devices, most laptops seem to have only microphone input (though they do have "Line Out"). Now one can of course simply plug a mike into the laptop, play the audio device through speakers with the mike near the speakers, and record to the laptop that way. But it's not fully satisfactory, and one may need to experiment a bit before it's acceptable. (And you will need to move around silently, avoid slurping coffee or saying "b****r" when you spill it, and above all don't flush the loo ... ). So it would be nice to have a means of putting a cable between the "Line Out" and the mike input on the laptop, but I've not managed to work out a way of doing this! Does anyone have a good solution? With thanks, Ted. PS: I have just heard that the Good Lord has finally finished marking your exam papers (He has been having a lot of intray crashes, which tend to happen at times of high prayer input -- He shouldn't leave His admin to Archangel Gabriel, who seems to spend a lot of time just flapping around). Anyway, the result is that you have all got 10/10/10, on this date. Congratulations! -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <ted.harding(a)wlandres.net> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 10-Oct-10 Time: 19:02:51 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

14 28

[ALUG Announce] Alug Norwich 2nd Thursday Pub Meet 14th October @ The Coach & Horses
by Srdjan Todorovic 12 Oct '10

12 Oct '10

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- Dear ALUG, This months second Thursday social meeting of ALUG will take place on 14th October 2010 at The Coach and Horses (82 Thorpe Road, Norwich, NR1 1BA http://www.thecoachthorperoad.co.uk/ ). The Coach and Horses offers food (really great burgers!), a good selection of real beer (including takeouts!) and reasonably good connections for travel and parking. There should be people there from 8pm (I'm hoping to be there from 6:30pm), hopefully I'll remember to bring my small foam Tux to aid people in recognising us. We are usually at the back of the pub. I look forward to seeing you on Thursday. Regards, Srdjan ----- 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

IRC channel configuration change
by MJ Ray 12 Oct '10

12 Oct '10

I've had a request to give quinophex on #alug more admin power. I've not been there much, so I don't know the context/motive, so I'm emailing the list. Is everyone OK with that? On- or off-list replies OK. Thanks, -- MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op. Webmaster, Debian Developer, Past Koha RM, statistician, former lecturer. In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Available for hire for various work http://www.software.coop/products/

6 7

Just a quick shout out...
by Brett Parker 11 Oct '10

11 Oct '10

Has anyone heard from/seen Ruth Bygrave recently... I was recently hitting the archives and noted that we don't appear to have seen anything on list from her since Feb 2009. She was never a very active poster, but we did usually see a message from here at least once every 4 months, just want to check that she's doing alright. Thanks, -- Brett Parker http://www.sommitrealweird.co.uk/ PGP Fingerprint 1A9E C066 EDEE 6746 36CB BD7F 479E C24F 95C7 1D61

7 7

Intel 2200B/G wireless
by Richard McLellan 11 Oct '10

11 Oct '10

Hi folks, I have a Dell Inspiron with the Intel 2200B/G wireless card. After reading the destructions that came with the linux drivers, it goes on about building it with the kernel or something close to that. I have no idea what/how to do this. Would this have to be done regardless of linux version or might there be a linux version with these drivers already in the distro? ThanksRich

2 1

Can one get rid of Desktop?
by Chris G 07 Oct '10

07 Oct '10

Is it possible to get rid of the (IMHO) stupid Desktop directory and the concept that goes with it? If my screen is anywhere I want it to be my home directory, not ~/Desktop. I can delete ~/Desktop but it just gets recreated whenever I do anything like open a terminal 'here'. Why can't I just get a terminal to open at /home/chris when I right click on my screen? (Not to mention the silliness of all those directories like Pictures, Videos, etc. starting with an uppercase letter) -- Chris Green

2 2

Co-lo and VM hosting
by Laurie Brown 06 Oct '10

06 Oct '10

We find ourselves in need to some tertiary DNS and other services, and am looking at either using a VM, or some co-lo. In the case of the former, can anyone on-list recommend a Linux-supporting VM company, either Ubuntu or Gentoo (the latter fairly important)? In the case of the latter, does anyone know and can recommend a local (to Ipswich) co-lo company with reasonable rates? Bandwidth is an issue in each case, as we need to keep the servers current, and there's a fair amount of traffic flowing through. Cheers, Laurie. -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Laurie Brown laurie(a)brownowl.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------

3 5

'ssh -X' doesn't seem to work, any alternative ways to do the same?
by Chris G 06 Oct '10

06 Oct '10

I'm currently away from home and I'm trying to get a GUI application running on a machine at home with the display here in N. Wales. Normally I would connect from the remote location using 'ssh -X' so that the DISPLAY environment variable would be set up to work through the ssh 'pipe' and a GUI app run on the remote machine (at my house) would use the display on the machine where I'm sitting currently (in North Wales). For some reason (possibly security on intermediate machines, this isn't a single hop ssh connection) the -X parameter in ssh isn't working for me in this case so I'm looking for alternatives. Can anyone suggest alternative ways of achieving my goal? The *real* aim is to allow me to get at my router configuration from here in Wales so I can change it to allow direct ssh access from this IP address. The router's web configuration uses so much bad/arcane javascript that you can't access it using lynx/links/w3m and the telnet access to its configuration is far too difficult to attempt to use remotely, the chances of screwing it up so that access is completely denied are very high. I have full root access to the server machine at home if necessary so can install/configure stuff as necessary, similarly at this end I'm running Linux on the laptop I'm using and can do whatever's needed. Thanks for any help and suggestions. -- Chris Green

4 6

fetchmail and MS Exchange 2010
by Mark Rogers 05 Oct '10

05 Oct '10

I can't persuade fetchmail to collect mail from an Exchange server on our LAN (fetchmail and Exchange are both on the LAN). The errors I am getting are: fetchmail: Server CommonName mismatch: myoffice.mydomain.co.uk != 192.168.11.10 fetchmail: Server certificate verification error: unable to get local issuer certificate fetchmail: Server certificate verification error: certificate not trusted fetchmail: Server certificate verification error: unable to verify the first certificate fetchmail: Error exchanging credentials fetchmail: Authorisation failure on user(a)192.168.11.10 fetchmail: Query status=3 (AUTHFAIL) myoffice.mydomain.co.uk resolves to the office's external IP address, although I think (from Googling) that the first line is a warning not the reason for the failure. My fetchmailrc is fairly simple: set daemon 60 set invisible set no bouncemail set no syslog set logfile /var/log/fetchmail.log poll 192.168.11.10 protocol pop3 username "user" password "password" mda "/usr/bin/rt-mailgate --queue general --action correspond --url http://localhost/rt/" no keep You'll see from the last line that I'm trying to set up Request Tracker (RT), and it needs to be able to collect mail from our office mailserver. This guy seems to have the fix: http://berqnet.blogspot.com/2009/11/exchange-2007-fetchmail.html .. but I don't know what he means by "the fingerprint of the Exchange 2007". [We've had nothing but problems like this since moving to Exchange, but it does a reasonable job of keeping Windows users in check so we're stuck with it.] -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

3 3

Numbered Lists
by Richard Parsons 04 Oct '10

04 Oct '10

Hi folks, I'm trying to choose a good text markup language (e.g. markdown, restructured text etc). I want it to be able to deal with nested numbered lists. So something like this: # Dog # Kitten # Fish # Goldfish # Haddock # Elephant would produce something like this: 1. Dog 2. Kitten 3. Fish 3.1. Goldfish 3.2. Haddock 4. Elephant Anyone know a text format that would fit the bill? Many thanks, Richard

3 3

Analogue bonanza
by Anthony Anson 04 Oct '10

04 Oct '10

The PDSA charity shop near the Norwich Bus Station has a table full of pooterbooks, new, but some of them admittedly have whiskers. At first glance there's not a lot which is obviously for Linuxoi, (I've had those innit), but there are piles and piles of useful-looking books on the multitude of programming tools. They've all been reduced from their oiginal prices to three squids, and from there to a pound, nicker, quid or oncer. -- Tony Anson www.girolle.co.uk/

1 0

Scanner woe
by Bev Nicolson 04 Oct '10

04 Oct '10

I've taken charge of my first scanner (a freebie from a friend) but I'm having trouble getting it installed. If I go to XSane it says "failed to open device snapscan :libusb:001:002 " . I have since installed every XSane extra there was via synaptic but it's still won't play ball. I'm very reluctant to give in though so how do I investigate what's up? And even more to the point, how do I fix it? It knows it's there I'm sure. [Ubuntu 8.04] Bev.

9 17

Computery/Linuxy stuff for sale/free
by Adam Bower 03 Oct '10

03 Oct '10

Hi people, I'm having a bit of a clear out at the moment and have the following for sale/free, all stuff has to be collected from Little Plumstead which is about 5 miles East of Norwich. If you do want something email me offlist. Prices are rough guides to what I want, if you can convince me something is worth less than my guide price then I will quite happily accept it. Classic XBOX softmodded with XBMC = Free. Ok, there's a reason this is free, the dvd drive is sort of broken, it won't open unless you give the xbox a good thump on the top. Of course if you just want to use it as a network media player then this won't be a problem. I CBA to try and fix it, it comes with a controller and a couple of component video leads and the power lead. I no longer have the scart lead for it. This will also run linux if running on a 700Mhz pentium 3 with 64Mb of RAM is your thing. If it isn't claimed by 10th October it's going to the recycling centre. IBM Thinkpad X32 Laptop = £100 My trusty X32, replaced by a newer and faster (but much heavier!) model. This is a 1.8Ghz Pentium-M powered machine with 1GB RAM and a 160GB hard disk. It also has built in wireless lan and bluetooth. Comes complete with 2 power supplies (1 might be a bit temperamental and not always like giving power). 1 Car power kit so you can plug this into the 12V cigar lighter on your car and do your thang. 1 External CD-Rom drive and 1 Tom Bihn "Buzz" sling bag. It also has a Windows XP license key on the bottom and the Windows recovery disks if that's your bucket of biscuits but isn't something I'd recommend! The battery on this is roughly half good, last time I tried I got 2 hours of usage out of it but I won't guarantee that you will get that much out of it, also, it appears that either a thunderfly or bit of dust/dirt has got under part of the screen about 3cm up from the bottom in the middle of the screen and is a couple of mm long which is annoying but cosmetic. Currently this is running Ubuntu 10.04 (or will be when the install finishes). Was my main laptop for some years so almost exclusively ran Linux. Old AMD Athlon XP 2800+ Desktop computer = £70 This is a 2Ghz Barton core AMD Athlon, with 1.5GB RAM and 2 (yes count them 2!) 300GB IDE hard disks. It has a Ge-Force 6600GT 128MB AGP GFX card with extra zalman cooler on it, ASUS A7V8X motheboard, HP Lightscribe DVD Burner all wrapped up in an Antec Sonata 2 case which if you are of the alternate persuasion has a Windows XP license key attached to it so you can use software from the dark side. It also has a rather bling case fan with green leds on it (don't ask how it got there) and a Zalman quiet cpu cooler. At the moment it's not running any OS at all as I ran DBAN over both the disks. I reckon by having a quick look on ebay that if you parted it out and sold all the bits on ebay you could make a profit! Was my main desktop for some years so almost exclusively ran Linux but on retirement was used as my Windows test box. Thanks for reading. Adam -- New signature required, suggestions on a post card please.

1 0

Re: [ALUG] Scanner woe SOLVED
by Bev Nicolson 02 Oct '10

02 Oct '10

Ignore this question now. It was as Peter suggested. Bev. (Who did check the manual before posting, honest. Sorry if I irritated anyone.) On 2 October 2010 09:34, Bev Nicolson <lumos60(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Another question. How do I unzip VueScan so that it is installed as a > program rather than a folder? (I have the bash command, btw.) > > Bev. >

1 0

Problem playing AVI files, they don't play, just stick at first frame
by Chris G 02 Oct '10

02 Oct '10

I seem to have broken something on my system, I'm sure AVI files *used* to play OK. When I try opening them with either mplayer or with totem they just show me the first frame and that's it. With totem I can drag the time slider across and the movie plays so decoding would seem to be OK, it's just that it doesn't play automatically. Any ideas what might be wrong anyone? -- Chris Green

3 6

Apache and chrome query oddity
by James Bensley 01 Oct '10

01 Oct '10

Luggers', I hope you are all well. I'm hoping someone out there will know what is wrong with an apache server I have. SSL is up an running, a .htaccess in the web root redirects all incoming http request over https. When someone browses in chrome to http://apache_server the index document (in this case index.php) is parsed to the browser as a download? If I browse to http://index.php I am redirected to https://index.php and it works fine, if I browse to just https://apache_server its fine, but http://apache_server isn't working, chrome just downloads the index page? What could this be, I'm no apache master, could it be a MIME miss-match between browser and server? -- Regards, James. http://www.jamesbensley.co.cc/ There are 10 kinds of people in the world; Those who understand Vigesimal, and J others...?

2 1

Unsetting bits using sed or similar?
by Mark Rogers 01 Oct '10

01 Oct '10

Help! I need to go through a text file, and for all lines similar to this: X-Mozilla-Status: 0009 .. I need to unset the 4th bit (so the above becomes 0001). Not all X-Mozilla-Status: lines which have the bit set have status 0009, however. I have 0008, 000b, 0018, and so on. Suggestions? Background: Somehow I managed to delete a load of email in Thunderbird which I need. It ended up in Trash so I moved it back to my Inbox, but for some reason it didn't appear in my Inbox, but did get deleted out of Trash. However by "deleted" I mean it set the 4th bit of the status word, so until I compact the folder I can recover it by unsetting that bit. I still need to work out why it didn't go back into my Inbox, I think I may have discovered a bug there. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

3 6

Change of email address
by ted.harding＠wlandres.net 30 Sep '10

30 Sep '10

Sending this for the benefit of any you who may have my existing email address (ted.harding(a)manchester.ac.uk) in their address-books. Apologies to all others to whom this may be irrelevant! Since Manchester University seem to have decided that retired persons no longer contributing to research in a Department shall no longer keep their email accounts, my existing email address will cease to function shortly. I have set up a new email address which is: ted.harding(a)wlandres.net (Ted Harding) The existing one (ted.harding(a)manchester.ac.uk) will still work for a week or two (possibly longer). If you have my existing email address in your addressbook, please update it to the new one. This message is being sent from the new address, so you may simply be able to derive the new entry directly from that (using some "add to address book" function). Thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <ted.harding(a)wlandres.net> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 30-Sep-10 Time: 19:14:49 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

1 0

Re: [ALUG] Nvidia driver custom refresh rate
by Tim Green 28 Sep '10

28 Sep '10

On 28 September 2010 13:51, John Woodard <mail(a)johnwoodard.co.uk> wrote: > root@Trigger:/home/bj# apt-get install read-edid > Reading package lists... Done > Building dependency tree > Reading state information... Done > read-edid is already the newest version. > 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 540 not upgraded. > root@Trigger:/home/bj# read-edid > read-edid: command not found > root@Trigger:/home/bj# According to http://packages.ubuntu.com/lucid/read-edid, the command line tools are get-edid and parse-edid. Tim.

1 0

Nvidia driver custom refresh rate
by John Woodard 28 Sep '10

28 Sep '10

Hi All, I'm normally pretty adept at figuring things out but this one has me stumped. Googling has sent me down many alleys most of them blind. I have 2 identical machines one with Ubuntu 10.04 the other with Windows 7 Ultimate. The run through a KVM switch to the same monitor using their on-board Nvidia Geforce 6100 graphics adapters. The monitor is a cheapo AOC 24" TFT panel which is adequate for my purposes, mainly general office stuff, accounting, surfing, email etc. This monitor is weird in that it requires a refresh rate of 61Hz rather than a standard 60Hz to give a steady display at its native resolution 1920x1200. In the Nvidia control panel in Windows it is easy to set a custom refresh rate, so no problem and a nice display. Ubuntu 10.04 however using the current proprietary driver from the Ubuntu repositories does not have the same facility, unusable display so dropping back to a non native resolution for the monitor is the only way to use the GUI. Back in the day you used to be able to hack your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file and insert a new modeline to facilitate this but as far as I can tell this has no effect with the current incarnation of the Xorg server. I suspect the monitor is not outputting its configuration, data or something. I have removed the KVM switch and the problem still remains so it isn't that blocking the data from the monitor reaching the driver. Can anybody enlighten me on how to manualy do this and get the proper 1920x1200 resolution working @ 61Hz rather than the sole 60Hz option allowed by the Nvidia control panel? Cheers, BJ

2 1

Xmodmap Help
by Krishna Birth 24 Sep '10

24 Sep '10

Firstly please note that all k / K letters on this posting are altered to क / क (spiritual reasons.) I am sorry to thrust this project to you (mailing list). I am looकing for advice or if you have the time to construct a कeyboard mapping. There seems to be some problem regarding "if you assign Mode_switch and ISO_Level3_Shift to different keys, you can assign up to six characters to one key!" see http://tr.opensuse.org/SDB:Using_the_Extra_Keys_on_the_Keyboard The diacritics are usually typed with non-diacritic letter. It would be nice to have facility to use both in convenient way e.g. toggling with a Fonts / Scripts कey by permanently turning the Caps Locक to a Fonts / Scripts कey. Could this be done - When this Fonts / Scripts कey is pressed with a letter कey it toggles to diacritic letter 1 or 2 or 3 (depending on how many diacritics are there connected with a 'target' letter) - this toggling will need to factor in a 'remain at same spot' and toggle these diacritics feature. When the Fonts / Scripts कey is released then the cursor would move to the next base. Here are the target letters, the diacritics connected with them and the URL with more info about them: A Ā = http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/0100/index.htm a ā = http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/101/index.htm D Ḍ = http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/1e0c/index.htm d ḍ = http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/1e0d/index.htm H Ḥ = http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/1e24/index.htm h ḥ = http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/1e25/index.htm I Ī = http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/12a/index.htm i ī = http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/12b/index.htm L Ḷ = http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/1e36/index.htm l ḷ = http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/1e37/index.htm L L̐ = http://pastehtml.com/view/1az9crq.html - http://bit.ly/doq30H l l̐ = http://pastehtml.com/view/1az92sb.html - http://bit.ly/chipOw M Ṁ ̇= http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/1e40/index.htm m ṁ = http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/1e41/index.htm N Ñ = http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/d1/index.htm n ñ = http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/f1/index.htm N Ṇ = http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/1e46/index.htm n ṇ = http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/1e47/index.htm N Ṅ = http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/1e44/index.htm n ṅ = http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/1e45/index.htm R Ṛ = http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/1e5a/index.htm r ṛ = http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/1e5b/index.htm R Ṝ = http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/1e5c/index.htm r ṝ = http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/1e5d/index.htm S Ṣ = http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/1e62/index.htm s ṣ = http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/1e63/index.htm S Ś = http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/15a/index.htm s ś = http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/15b/index.htm T Ṭ = http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/1e6c/index.htm t ṭ = http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/1e6d/index.htm U Ū = http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/016a/index.htm u ū = http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/16b/index.htm Referring to the above 32 diacritics, in theory a diacritic letter could have up to 7 diacritics 'sign' variations per letter: 1. Macron 2. Dot Below 3. Candrabindu 4. Dot Above 5. Tilde 6. Dot Below & Macron 7. Acute and 2 diacritics 'case' (lower/upper sizes) variations per letter - in 'total' up to 14 diacritics variations altogether per letter In actuality, the maximum letter n/N has 6 diacritics sign/case variations and a/A only has 2 diacritics sign/case variations. Thus if you can turn the Caps Locक into a Fonts / Scripts कey that can allow up to 7 diacritics variations using this toggle approach: Fonts / Scripts कey press + letter कey tap once = diacritic letter 1st variation (sign/case) Fonts / Scripts कey press + letter कey tap twice = diacritic letter 2nd variation (sign/case) Fonts / Scripts कey press + letter कey tap thrice = diacritic letter 3rd variation (sign/case) Fonts / Scripts कey press + letter कey tap four times = diacritic letter 4th variation (sign/case) Fonts / Scripts कey press + letter कey tap five times = diacritic letter 5th variation (sign/case) Fonts / Scripts कey press + letter कey tap six times = diacritic letter 6th variation (sign/case) Fonts / Scripts कey press + letter कey tap seven times = diacritic letter 7th variation (sign/case) The above does not require the case कey (arrow upwards) to be used because the above has both lower and upper letters. If you feel that 'case कey' producing upper case letters should be used just as it is with non-diacritic letters, then fine. Thus this would mean: - 50 percent variations of the above toggle with Fonts / Scripts कey press + letter कey tap for lower case letters, and - other 50 percent variation of the above toggle Fonts / Scripts कey press + letter कey tap + caps कey for upper case letters. "if you assign Mode_switch and ISO_Level3_Shift to different keys, you can assign up to six characters to one key!" see http://tr.opensuse.org/SDB:Using_the_Extra_Keys_on_the_Keyboard Does this mean it is possible? Could 7 characters to one कey be possible? Features to consider for the Fonts / Scripts कey development: 1. Toggle other कeyboard mapped layouts for example, languages and diacritics. 2. Access other fonts through toggling (Fonts / Scripts कey + another कey) without needing going every time to the particular application's micro layer. 3. Design more styles per letter and/or partner with other fonts and thus more styles on a font and accessing them through toggling (Fonts / Scripts कey + another कey) without needing to go to application's micro layer. It would be nice to have some person/s on board and get these things done. Best, Meeकu

5 11

Internet issue, exchange server - Ipswich
by Dalibor Zeman 22 Sep '10

22 Sep '10

Hi guys, I hope you will be able to help me, at least to explain what's going on. A few months ago I lost land line connection (currently in investigation whether it's internal/external problem with Orange as my provider - cannot make/receive calls). Probably in the same time my internet speed for download dropped from 6 MBits to 1MBits I have now. When I check other providers, all of them show the same speed for my location during testing procedure. Do you have any knowledge, info what's happening? Does anybody from my location have the same experience? I haven't used Google to search for this problem yet :-) My post code - IP4 2JL. Thanks in advance for your input. Dali.

3 4

Duplicity vs rdiff-backup
by Jon Dye 21 Sep '10

21 Sep '10

Hi all, I've used rdiff-backup in the past for backing up my home directories to a friend's server over ADSL. This works pretty well because rdiff-backup only ever sends the changes. I can delete all but the last 30 (or whatever) days of backups and it still always only sends increments. I've recently started trying to use duplicity as I wanted my backups to be encrypted so that users on the remote server can't see my data. I thought duplicity "builds on rdiff-backup and adds encryption" but I don't think it works the same. As far as I can see, if I want to delete backups older than say 30 days in duplicity I need to have a full backup newer than 30 days. This means at least once every 30 days I need to transmit all the data to the remote end. This takes me over 24 hours on ADSL. Does anyone know if I've got this wrong? Any other suggestions for backups that are *always* bandwidth efficient after the first full and are encrypted? JD P.S. I'm also going to ask on the duplicity list but I thought someone here might know.

1 1

Cli Case Management
by Richard Parsons 20 Sep '10

20 Sep '10

Hi, I'm a solicitor <ducks>, and would like to organise my work at the linux commandline, rather than using MS Office. I like cli apps; I like python; I like bash; I like concise; I like the unix philosophy; I like vim; I like Mutt. However, I don't get chance to use the software that I love at work. Instead, I'm expected to use Word, Outlook and some horrible case management software to manage my documents, and create them from templates. All day long I write letters and other documents on each of my legal cases. I would be exceedingly happy if I could replace this functionality with some nice scripts, so that I could spend my days in front of a nice bash shell. To do that I'd need a script that: 1. Stores data about a case: I need to be able to store some data (could be a simple key/value store for each case). 2. Store documents for each case: I'd like to store each document I produce along with some information on that document (such as how long it took to prepare). If I use a wordprocessor (such as openoffice) is it possible to quickly extract some 'properties' via a script? Would a better solution be to keep the documents in a text format, such as latex code...? 2. Enable templating: I could have a template document (e.g. a letter) and some of the information could be pulled out from the case data to populate it. I would then amend it for the particular circumstances of my case to then print, save etc. 3. Produce reports: I'd like to be able to scan all my cases to produce reports, such as: which case hasn't received any attention for the longest time, or how much work have I done on all my active cases this week etc. I recognise that these are probably separate problems that should be solved separately. However, I'd be grateful for any suggestions on how I might solve some of these parts. Thank you for any thoughts. Thanks in advance, Richard

4 5

Struggling to get my head around git
by Mark Rogers 20 Sep '10

20 Sep '10

I haven't quite got my head into the git mindset, and I've not really found a good overview which has "clicked". The situation I'm playing with is merging what are two seperate developments (branches?) of the same web application. One is a third party web application that progresses over time without my involvement, and the other is the version of the codebase which contains my own customisations. The application in this case is ZenCart (PHP based). Can someone guide me quickly through the points in the sequence below where I should brange, commit, merge, etc? 1. Install ZenCart-1.3.8a 2. Customise to create MyApp. (This customisation takes place over several months/years) 3. ZenCart 1.3.9f is released so I need to upgrade MyApp. 4. After merging, I have a 1.3.9f version of MyApp for testing. 5, Meanwhile, some development continues on the live 1.3.8a version of MyApp. 6. The 1.3.9f version of MySite passes testing, I now need to merge in the changes that took place in 5. 7. Test again, and if testing doesn't complete before more changes take place, go back to 5. 8. Testing complete, migrate to 1.3.9f version of my site as working copy. 9. Some time later, 1.3.10b is released and I want to upgrade again. 10. ... and so on.... I think where I am getting stuck is working out what should be the "master" branch and how to keep switching between branches as necessary. Indeed, I'm not even really sure how many branches I should have here? For anyone who saw my previous posts on this: I have successfully used git to achieve steps 1-4, which in itself is fantastic for me. However, I'm now in the situation that development on the live site has continued before the new version has been accepted, so now I have new changes to apply, and at the moment the only way I can work out to do it is to start from scratch which (a) I don't want to do as the merge was not straightforward, and (b) is clearly the wrong way to be doing it. When I started looking at it again, git status tells me that my test code is on branch "MyApp-1.3.8a", although it is the merged 1.3.9f version of the site code. Either I have done something wrong or I've chosen a bad name for the branch (it should probably just be "MyApp"?) but either way I'm in a muddle! -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

1 0

Flash part the second
by Bev Nicolson 19 Sep '10

19 Sep '10

It's that problem again. I now have Firefox 3.6.10 and flash still doesn't work but now it seems to be wobbling in Chrome too. I tried uninstalling it and installing again (using Synaptic) but now I suspect it must be broken. Anyone got any ideas? Bev.

1 0

[ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : McGintys, Northgate Street
by samwise 17 Sep '10

17 Sep '10

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- The monthly "Third Monday" ALUG Ipswich Social Meeting is back, Monday 20th September, at 20:00: P J McGinty & Sons 15 Northgate Street Ipswich Suffolk IP1 3BY Tel: 01473 251 515 Map/Directions URI: http://maps.google.co.uk/?q=IP1+3BY WWW: http://www.pjmcgintys.co.uk/ McGintys pub is in the centre of Ipswich. It's directly opposite the town's central library and has a reputation for good Irish beer. We're usually to be found in the lowest section of the bar, near the library entrance to the pub. All are welcome, novices and experienced users. Feel free to ask for further information on the Main ALUG mailing list. Hopefully, see some of you there! Peter. ----- Send discussion replies to main(a)lists.alug.org.uk (Reply-To set) Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce

1 0

How to find characters in character map - or otherwise?
by Chris G 15 Sep '10

15 Sep '10

I recently wanted to put a degree symbol (as in ˚ hopefully) into some text and it took me ages (as in several minutes) to find the character in the Character Map application. Is there any quick/clever/easy way to find a character like this? In the Character Map you get swamped by Chinese/Cyrillic/Arabic script characters which you *know* are not what you want. Is there a way to see just 'roman' text characters plus special symbols etc.? Or can anyone suggest another way to find this sort of thing more easily? -- Chris Green

3 2

Bash script error; too many arguments
by James Bensley 15 Sep '10

15 Sep '10

Why does; if [ "$1" -ge 128 -a -lt 192 ] Error out with 'too many arguments', where have I gone wrong here? Also I have in the mean time settled with; if [ "$1" -ge 128 ] && [ $1 -lt 192 ] Is either one of these preferred over the other? -- Regards, James. http://www.jamesbensley.co.cc/ There are 10 kinds of people in the world; Those who understand Vigesimal, and J others...?

3 3

Laptop pointing devices, only those horrible pads nowadays?
by Chris G 15 Sep '10

15 Sep '10

I'm considering a new laptop/netbook and, having a selection around belonging to other members of the family, I'm still convinced that the standard traackpad is a truly awful pointing device. Are there really *no* laptops/netbooks available with other pointing devices? I have a very nice little wireless keyboard that we use with one of our computers that has a trackball in the keyboard and that works beautifully, can't manufacturers put one in a laptop? I guess I'll have to buy a laptop and add a trackbll of some sort but even then there seem very few which are aimed at the portable market. This isn't *just* a rant, any pointers to useful devices would be very welcome. (Linux friendly of course) -- Chris Green

9 12

Monitoring network traffic
by Mark Rogers 15 Sep '10

15 Sep '10

Our office LAN is getting painfully slow. It's likely that something is hogging the bandwidth. If I were to put a network hub between the ADSL router and the main office switch, presumably I could run something on a PC also connected to that switch which would point me in the direction of the problem? I'm looking for something fairly simple, that would tell me (eg) which IP address was generating most of the traffic, and perhaps on which ports. Wireshark would probably do what I need but it's not (from what I remember) particularly simple to get simple results from. Or, is there a better option? -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

4 5

ftp server recommendation?
by Peter Alcibiades 10 Sep '10

10 Sep '10

Quick question - we have just bought an all in one printer that does scan to ftp. What is the smallest and lightest ftp server I could install on one of our desktops for it to scan to? Its behind a router of course, so (maybe wrongly) I'm not expecting security to be a worry. But maybe this is too hopeful? Thanks for the feedback on proxy servers by the way. Its was not for anything that needs to withstand official investigation, just for privacy from the prying. Peter

4 4

git merge tools over SSH
by Mark Rogers 09 Sep '10

09 Sep '10

I'm slowly getting my head around git. I am trying it out on a large project, which is on a server (in my office) to which I have only SSH access, or access to the files via Samba. I ran a merge (which took quite while) and now need handle the conflicts. Looking for a decent tool to assist with the merge, I find that most are GUI based, and that suits me fine (and will help me get others in the office to buy-in to using it). However, if I access the files over the samba share and run "git status" it takes a while (10 mins?), presumably because my local git is having to deal with a lot of traffic over the network. Is there a better way to use a local merge tool on a remote repo? -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

5 7

anonymous proxy servers
by Peter Alcibiades 08 Sep '10

08 Sep '10

What does anyone use and or reccommend for an anonymous proxy server? I have come on anonymizer.com and also anonymouse.com. Are these decent? Are there any others to think about? Any that are better? Peter

3 2

IMAP Mail Hosting
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 08 Sep '10

08 Sep '10

Hi Folks, Since it appears that Manchester University has taken a decision that its retired folk shall now be obsolete, email-wise, it is very likely that my current email account will be de-activated soon (I'm already using it on borrowed time). So I shall be looking for a new email address. I'm very happy (in terms of general quality of service) with my ISP (Zen) and would not want to change. However, Zen's email only offers POP3 download and does not offer IMAP access. The webmail interface is clunky and slow, so preliminary sampling and deletion of delivered emails would be very tedious. On the other hand, previewing using IMAP (when it works properly) is very fast. I'm therefore asking if poeple can recommend a provider of email hosting on which I could have an account with IMAP access. I would want this to be of high quality and reliability and capable of handling high levels of incoming traffic (for various reasons, I can get up to 500 emails a day -- most of which I delete on the basis of the Subject alone, some others after a quick look at content, leaving typically some 5-10% to download; so I need to be able to do this quickly). Recommendations? With thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 04-Sep-10 Time: 18:41:52 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

19 58

Merging the changes between directories
by Mark Rogers 07 Sep '10

07 Sep '10

Suppose I have: DirectoryA - contains a PHP web application, unchanged, exactly as downloaded DirectoryA2 - contains a customised version of DirectoryA DirectoryB - contains a new version of the PHP web application I want to merge the changes that represent DirectoryA -> DirectoryA2, into DirectoryB to create DirectoryB2. This seems to me the sort of thing that diff can do in its sleep but my past attempts have failed. It also probably points at some kind of version control solution, although there is no version control in place at the moment (if this is a good time to implement it then I'm all ears!) I don't expect this to be completely automated, but I believe and expect that using the right tools I can substantially improve the job from the starting point of comparing individual files manually. I have so far got as far as diff --brief -r DirectoryA DirectoryA2 [If specifics help, DirectoryA is version 1.3.8a of ZenCart, DirectoryB is version 1.3.9f of ZenCart, and DirectoryA1 is a site built on version 1.3.8a of ZenCart, but with obvious changes (changes to stylesheets, new images, new plugins, etc). From a practical point of view, DirectoryA2 is mostly a superset of DirectoryA (new product images, plugins, templates, etc) but there are customisations (usually fairly trivial ones) to core files, and there will be a number of files from DirectoryA that were deleted (installation files, docs, etc). There would also be some file and directory permission changes.] -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

2 4

Remote access challenge
by Mark Rogers 07 Sep '10

07 Sep '10

I have a file open on my desktop PC at home, which I want to read now I'm at work. It's just some notes I started writing in a new document in gedit, it's not been saved (I don't think, anyway). I have SSH and NX access to my home desktop. If I connect with NX I get access to my home desktop GUI but not to the session I have currently open with the document in it. Suggestions? -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

5 6

Re: [ALUG] Remote access challenge
by Steve Engledow 07 Sep '10

07 Sep '10

On 7 September 2010 10:17, Ted Harding <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> wrote: > On 07-Sep-10 08:53:26, Simon Ransome wrote: >> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >> Hash: SHA1 >> >> On 07/09/2010 09:22, Mark Rogers wrote: >>> I have a file open on my desktop PC at home, which I want to read >>> now I'm at work. >>> >>> It's just some notes I started writing in a new document in gedit, >>> it's not been saved (I don't think, anyway). >>> >>> I have SSH and NX access to my home desktop. If I connect with NX >>> I get access to my home desktop GUI but not to the session I have >>> currently open with the document in it. Possibly overkill but you could ssh in, install x11vnc (which is a vnc server that provides vnc access to a running X session), run it and then vnc into your machine - tunnelling through ssh for security of course :) Cheers, Steve

1 0

Malicious Javascript
by Dan 07 Sep '10

07 Sep '10

Dear All, Browsing with Namoroka 3.6.8 on Gentoo, I just stumbled across a webpage containing Javascript that was probably trying to install malicious code on my system. The script - claimed (implausibly) to be a malware scanner, and (even more implausibly, because the places it claimed to have looked were Windows-specific directory names that don't exist on my system) that it had found half a dozen items of malware on my system; - generally made a nuisance of itself by grabbing focus with dialogue boxes (this seemed odd - my browser settings forbid Javascript to raise or lower windows, yet my main browser window was, to all intents and purposes, irreversibly lowered by the presence of the dialogue boxes, and the only browser actions possible were to click on dialogue box buttons or do a window-manager close on the dialogue box) - did a passable impersonation of Windows Update (or at least, it would have been passable if the system I was looking at it with had been running Windows ;-)); and - finished up by offering me a download of an executable Windows binary, which I rejected. I took a look at the Javascript source code, but it was _very_ obfuscated. My question is - could the script have got any sort of access to my local filesystems or otherwise done any damage? -- Thanks, Dan

3 3

Copy files and change case - any ready made utliities around?
by Chris G 06 Sep '10

06 Sep '10

I want to keep two directories in sync but with a slight difference, I want the 'destination' directory to have lower case names only. I.e. any file in the source directory that has an upper case name (or any upper case characters in its name) I want copied to the destination directory with a lower case name. I guess I can come up with solutions that need me to write a wrapper script of some sort for rsync but I was wondering if anyone has any ideas for a ready made solution. This needs to be run as a cron job by the way. -- Chris Green

5 7

NAS Drive mounting help
by steve-ALUG＠hst.me.uk 05 Sep '10

05 Sep '10

Hi Gurus! I've been given a Netgear SC101 which I'm intending to use for backups. I found a post somewhere about how to mount it, and I have mounted it, or at least I thought I had until I rebooted and it was no-longer mounted. The steps I have to take are: sudo modprobe nbd sudo ut listall sudo ut attach {DRIVE_ID_FROM_LISTALL} /dev/nbd0 sudo mount -t ext4 /mnt/sc101 /dev/nbd0 Line 1 adds a device driver to the kernel line 2 finds the drive's "id". You only need to run this once - the ID doesn't change line 3 "attaches" the drive to the system. line 4 mounts the block device at my chosen mount point. I've added a line to FSTab to take care of line 4, but the problem is, I seem to need to do line 1 and line 3 after a reboot before I can mount it. Q1: How can I make a modprobe "stick" to survive a reboot? Q2: Where should I execute line 3? Q3: Should I should manually mount there too, rather than using FSTab? I'm attempting to use BackupPC to backup my files. This runs as a service, and requires that drive to be running to start. Q4: Is there a way to conditionally start a service, dependant on whether the drive is present or not, or should I just let it attempt to auto-start and live with it failing if the drive's not there? Any help much appreciated! BTW, the reason I'm attempting to use BackupPC is because it "folds" identical files from multiple PCs into 1, i.e. it doesn't store multiple copies - i.e. it de-duplicates the backup, hopefully allowing me to backup multiple machines without buying loads of disks! Cheers Steve

4 14

What keeps creating files called '%1'?
by Chris G 04 Sep '10

04 Sep '10

Something keeps creating a file called %1 on my system, has anyone else had this happening and, if so, do they know what's doing it? -- Chris Green

2 3

BMJ and Firefox
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 03 Sep '10

03 Sep '10

Hi Folks, I've just had an interesting experience with the BMJ website: http://www.bmj.com With Firefox (Iceweasel) 2.0.0.19 all I see is the banner logo at the top of the page. The rest is pure blank, though this blank page is long. With an old IE, all is fine. I next tried Firefox (Iceweasel) 3.0.6 on another machine again all is fine. I've never had trouble with the BMJ before. On their front page they do state that "bmj.com has moved to a new technical platform" and that there are some problems; but that seems a bit unlikely as explanation for complete failure to display content on one browser version, yet display properly on another. Any comments? With thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 03-Sep-10 Time: 14:13:02 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

1 0

program focus
by nev young 02 Sep '10

02 Sep '10

Hi all, One of the major annoyances I had with MS Windoze was the habit of programs to force themselves into the foreground. I would have some long running task running in the background, or will have started a "slow to fire up" program, meanwhile I continue working on "the task in hand" with the program in the foreground. When I looked at the screen I see the background task has popped up and forced itself into the foreground and the last half dozen sentences I had typed had been lost to it. I have noticed that this is also becoming more common with linux (unbutu 10.04) and was wondering if this behaviour is a part of the programs themselves or if there is a system wide setting that will stop it. That is, I want to be able to specify that the foreground task I am using does not lose focus unless I tell it to. Anybody out there have more in depth knowledge of this sort of thing? Nev

11 19

Wanted - workaround for broken date entry on a web site - any ideas?
by Chris G 02 Sep '10

02 Sep '10

I'm trying to register my Mobistar internet dongle. Their web programmers are obviously a bunch of total idiots, especially on the usability front. Not to mention that they make the site ridiculously secure for no good reason, the only way you could lose information or money there is if you, by mistake, charged someone else's SIM. However that's all by the by, it would be really good if I could actually get our dongle registered to allow us to view our usage and to recharge it. When we tried a few weeks ago it was impossible because the Mobistar website wanted to send an SMS message to our browser and couldn't because we're not running IE on Windows. So we gave up. I just retried and now it allows me to say "I can't receive SMS" at which point it allows entry of the PUK instead. Whoopee I thought, now I can register. No such luck, I get past the first few entries of phone number and PUK but then in the personal information bit it wants to know my date of birth and the pull down boxes for the day, month and year don't work. No problem I thought, I'll do it in IE in Windows, just the same (well slightly different symptoms), can't enter date of birth. I've also tried Konqueror, still no good. Can anyone suggest any workarounds that might allow me to get a date into the right place? The symptom in Firefox is that the drop-down box is the size for just one number and is blank, the symptom in IE (and Konqueror if I remember right) is that the drop-down is quite tall but is still completely blank. I have tried entering numbers even though they don't appear and tabbing through the entries but it still refuses to think I've entered a valid date. -- Chris Green

2 1

Windows domain interoperability
by Mark Rogers 31 Aug '10

31 Aug '10

My work desktop (Ubuntu 10.04) is in an office managed by an SBS 2008 install (as much as I hate it, I kinda like it being something that I can wash my hands of when there's a problem!) I'm looking at the extent to which I can "benefit" from the domain, as much as a learning exercise as anything else. At present I have a couple of CIFS shares mounted, and I get my IP via DHCP and my email from the server via POP3. I discovered www.likewise.com at the weekend. Does anyone have any experience of (the free open source version of) LikeWise? Are there better/different options? To be honest I'm not really sure what I would like to achieve that I don't already have, but like I said this is a learning exercise more than anything. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

3 3

cheap laptop broken screen
by Richard 30 Aug '10

30 Aug '10

Please somebody put this to good use, a replacement LCD panel is about 50 quid. I think around 50 quid is enough to ask for it (or nearest offer). I wont be posting it though, I can bring it to meeting or you can come and get it. http://i.imgur.com/wDNej.jpg It's an Acer Aspire One A150 netbook. Atom 1.6GHz (N270), 1GB RAM, 150GB HDD. Charger and battery work perfectly. Cheers Richard -- Richard Bensley - 07540878285

1 0

WiFi - what's the panel applet *supposed* to do?
by Chris G 27 Aug '10

27 Aug '10

Yet again I am totally confused trying to get a WiFi connection to work. The real problem is that I don't really understand what the Network panel applet is supposed to do for me. Is there any good HowTo or similar for this applet? The first question is what's it called? In order to try and find out anything about it by a Google search for example I need to know what I'm looking for. Ah, it does have an "About" entry, it's the NetworkManager applet, version 0.8. (Running on Xubuntu 10.04) Firstly what's *supposed* to happen when/if there's a wireless network available? Do I need to do anything or should something appear in the applet? If nothing appears and I know (hope?) there's a network about can I do anything to make things happen? I am sitting here at the moment (using a mobile phone dongle to send this) in a place where I know there's a wireless network available and I know what the key/password to us it is. My mobile phone quite happily tells me "WiFi network found" One computer here is totally silent about the presence of any Wifi, the other can see something but gives me little clue about how to connect to it. Am I supposed to Add a wireless connection, if so how do I find all the right values for:- SSID Mode BSSID (presume leave empty) MAC address (presume leave empty) MTU (presume 'automatic') Security (i.e. what sort is the 'norm', no one providing me with WiFi seems to be able to tell me) As I said there's very little help I can find for this, there are bit's and pieces of specific information for particular cases but I can't really find anything that tells me 'all about NetworkManager' (or at least the panel applet). A search for NetworkManager applet howto produces several little tutorials on bits and pieces but no proper overall help. -- Chris Green

5 12

Mystery "su" by root
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 26 Aug '10

26 Aug '10

Good morning! I just (and I hardly ever do this ... ) had a look at /var/log/auth.log on a Debian Etch running in a VirtualBox VM. Almost all the entries are simply references to CRON, e.g. Aug 26 03:17:01 localhost CRON[26804]: (pam_unix) session opened for user root by (uid=0) Aug 26 03:17:01 localhost CRON[26804]: (pam_unix) session closed for user root However, there is a short sequence of root su-ing to "nobody": Aug 26 07:35:05 localhost su[30229]: Successful su for nobody by root Aug 26 07:35:05 localhost su[30229]: + ??? root:nobody Aug 26 07:35:05 localhost su[30229]: (pam_unix) session opened for user nobody by (uid=0) Aug 26 07:35:05 localhost su[30229]: (pam_unix) session closed for user nobody Aug 26 07:35:05 localhost su[30232]: Successful su for nobody by root Aug 26 07:35:05 localhost su[30232]: + ??? root:nobody Aug 26 07:35:05 localhost su[30232]: (pam_unix) session opened for user nobody by (uid=0) Aug 26 07:35:05 localhost su[30232]: (pam_unix) session closed for user nobody Aug 26 07:35:05 localhost su[30234]: Successful su for nobody by root Aug 26 07:35:05 localhost su[30234]: + ??? root:nobody Aug 26 07:35:05 localhost su[30234]: (pam_unix) session opened for user nobody by (uid=0) Aug 26 07:37:52 localhost su[30234]: (pam_unix) session closed for user nobody These are the only occurrences of such things in about 80 oepn.close entries over 24 hours (the others being like the CRON one above). Anyone know what "nobody" has to do with anything? With thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 26-Aug-10 Time: 08:13:26 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

2 1

keystroke?
by Anthony Anson 26 Aug '10

26 Aug '10

I've been experimenting with the function keys and the odd letter, to no avail. Is there a keystroke for minimising a pane on the page of a GUI - in Gnome and in KDE? -- Tony Anson www.girolle.co.uk/

2 2

Upgrade Ubuntu 8.10 -> 10.04 broke RAID config
by Mark Rogers 24 Aug '10

24 Aug '10

I have just upgraded an Ubuntu desktop 8.10 to 10.04 The drive configuration is a single drive with the O/S, and two pairs of disks on software RAID1. When I reboot the server, I get error messages on startup telling me that /dev/md0 and /dev/md1 are inaccessible; I have to skip mounting them in order to proceed. However, if I use Syetem -> Administration -> Disk Utility once I have logged in, I can see the drives and if I tear down the two RAID devices and bring them back up again they both come back healthy. The problem only seems to be bringing them online on startup. Any suggestions? -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

2 2

Newbie Meeting & Repo Question
by Steve 23 Aug '10

23 Aug '10

Thanks for the feedback and the invite to the meetings. I guess that much of the content of these emails is soo far above my head I assumed the meets would be the same. To clarify my question about repos, my understanding was that "mostly" linux is a core kernel that at some particular point is basically the same, some distros use the cutting edge version others stay back a bit. If there's broadly a common basis and one overcomes the packaging differences (why can't they all be the same?), and the dependencies work themselves out shouldn't the bits basically all work. Anyways I don't really need a further response re repos as I have got the message from you guys that its best not to mix it up, and I suppose that the mainstream packages will appear in all the main repositories. It comes from not wanting to miss out on stuff it's the same thing that leads me to try different distros, Peppermint currently. Anyways, I didn't really get what the stuff about SFD was, but as I live near Syleham that location would get my vote for a meeting. Cheers Steve Card

6 5

Where (and how) are the default mouse actions set?
by Chris G 23 Aug '10

23 Aug '10

I'm trying to find out where the default mouse actions are defined. By that I mean what is it that says that when (for example) I double click the left button the word under the mouse pointer is selected. I know that the mapping of button physical numbers to logical numbers is done deep down in X by the function XSetPointerMapping and can be retrieved with XGetPointerMapping but this just sets up the mapping from the physical buttons such that, if one wants, one can make physical button 3 the 'Left' button and physical button 1 the 'Right' button (thus making the mouse 'left handed'). However the above mapping doesn't affect what actions occur when the (logical) buttons are clicked. So Left (logical 1) button always grabs things or selects text, Right (logical 3) tends to open menus and such. Is it really down to every individual application to map the button events to actions or is there a common library (gtk maybe) which defines default actions for button events? If it's gtk what/where should I look to find the relevant code? What I'm after doing is to change the mapping so that I can use a different button (button 9 in my case) to select text with a single click rather than a double-click of button 1. The normally recommended way of doing this (getting button 9 to emulate two clicks of button 1) has stopped working for me since an upgrade from ubuntu 9.10 to 10.04 and anyway it strikes me as a clumsy way of doing things. There should surely be a mapping somewhere that links all the possible types of button click to actions:- click left - select click middle - paste text click right - .... CTRL + click left - soemthing else etc. ... or, as I said, is it really down to each individual program? -- Chris Green

1 0

Any git users here - need beginner help
by Chris G 23 Aug '10

23 Aug '10

I want to use git to download a development version of some software. I have downloaded and installed git onto my system, so far so good! :-) However all the man pages tell me that I should read the "Git User's Manual" to see how to download something. However nowhere is there a clue as to what/where the "Git User's Manual" is. Can someone point me in the right direction please. -- Chris Green

4 7

Easeus Partition Manager Home Edition
by Simon Royal 23 Aug '10

23 Aug '10

Hi IF you need a free non-destructive partition tool, check out Easeus Partition Manager Home Edition. http://www.partition-tool.com/personal.htm I have used it a number of time to resize Windows before installing Linux. I also just used it to remove Linux and resize Windows larger. Brilliant. Simon Royal --- Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - LowEndMac: http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum - Skype: Simon-Royal. --- IBM ThinkPad 240X running Linux Mint 9 LXDE & Windows XP Home - Apple iBook G3 running OSX 10.4.

1 0

Moving from Xubuntu 9.10 to 10.04, sharpness seems to be worse
by Chris G 21 Aug '10

21 Aug '10

I have just upgraded my system from Xubuntu 9.10 to Xubuntu 10.04, it seems to me that the sharpness seems to have subtly deteriorated. I have checked some of the obvious things (like the screen resolution hasn't been changed). It was most immediately noticeable in my terminal windows but, on looking carefully, I think the effect is general, it's just that I use smaller font sizes in my terminals than elsewhere. Has anyone any ideas what I should maybe be checking to see what might have caused this? It could of course be that I'm getting older and my eyesight is failing! :-) -- Chris Green

2 2

How do you set X resources for a remote client application?
by Chris G 20 Aug '10

20 Aug '10

I'm running a GUI editor (xvile) on a 'remote' (i.e. not my desktop) machine and I need to be able to set its X resources. For xvile run on the local machine it's easy, I just put them in .Xresources and when X starts up it automatically loads any resources it finds in .Xresources (and/or .Xdefaults). So how do I do the equivalent when xvile is running on a remote client? Do I have to install xrdb on the remote client and run it before running xvile? It somehow seems wrong as its the display machine (X server) which actually needs to set the resources, can't I somehow tell the local (server) machine to set resources for a remote client app.? -- Chris Green

1 0

PHP tools
by Peter Alcibiades 19 Aug '10

19 Aug '10

A friend asked me what he should use to write PHP in. Never having done any of this stuff, I had no idea, except that maybe Geany or Kate would work. What do you guys use? Also, he is setting up Linux for the first time. I recommended Mandriva to him, as being more familiar than some of the alternatives. But if he wants to run his PHP, once he has written it, what does he need to install? I am guessing that Apache would work, but is there something simpler and lighter for him to get started on? Peter

8 7

Free ADSL filters?
by James Bensley 19 Aug '10

19 Aug '10

Anyone want an ADSL microfilter? I seem to have a draw with 7 bog standard BT ADSL filters in it? Free to anyone thats wants one/them? -- Regards, James. http://www.jamesbensley.co.cc/ There are 10 kinds of people in the world; Those who understand Vigesimal, and J others...?

1 0

Can one get a proper root environment with sudo?
by Chris G 19 Aug '10

19 Aug '10

I tend to use 'sudo -s' when I want to do a series of things as root, it generally works fine but I have just noticed a minor issue. It doesn't set a proper root environment so that you still have the environment of the user who sudo'ed to root - in particular there is the PATH which may have all sorts of oddities on it and HOME is still set to your home directory. -- Chris Green

8 15

Odd cookie behaviour of particular www site
by Dan 18 Aug '10

18 Aug '10

Dear All, I've been trying to visit the website <http://www.cosis.net/> with Firefox 3.6.4 on Gentoo. Even though I have an exception set in my preferences, to allow cookies from cosis.net, the site complains bitterly that `Cookies are currently disabled in your browser', and therefore refuses to let me see any of its content. This is particularly odd because, by this time, cosis.net actually has successfully set a cookie. When I access the same site with Lynx, www.cosis.net sets a single cookie, and lets me in just fine. Any ideas, please? -- Thanks, Dan

4 4

was there a pub meet this month ?
by Ian Porter 17 Aug '10

17 Aug '10

has there been a pub meet this month ? would be cool to say hi :). did not see any emails about it. -- King regards Ian Porter www: www.codingfriends.com

7 9

Multiple gateways
by Mark Rogers 16 Aug '10

16 Aug '10

At work, we have two ADSL lines, one of which is faster than the other and tends to be used as the "main" route out of the office, but it has a dynamic IP address. The slower line has a static IP and has ports mapped for services I want to access remotely (eg SSH). However, with the default gateway being set to the IP of the router on the faster line (say 192.169.10.1), this means that connections through the second router (say 192.168.11.1) don't work. My PC obviously has addresses on both subnets, and out to be able to respond to a connection coming in on the 192.168.11.x address replying via a default gateway on that subnet, but as I understand it I only have one default gateway. So, how should I set this up? -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

5 13

Linux on dead trees
by Mark Rogers 16 Aug '10

16 Aug '10

I subscribe to most of the various Linux rags, and get varying degrees of knowledge out of them. I frequently read something interesting, get to work (where I could use it) and forget what the software was I discovered, and even which mag I discovered it in, and can't find it. Hopefully any avid dead tree readers can help me on two particular subjects: 1. In this month's issue of one of the mags, I started reading an article about remote access, where several options were compared, including NoMachine's NX (which I use), and something else (which got the best review) which I can't remember, but would like to play with. It was GTK based. 2. A couple of months ago, one of the mags reviewed an SSH tool (might have been a terminal tool) which would allow me to better manage multiple sessions, including running the same command across multiple sessions ("apt-get upgrade" etc), and various commands to make the windows easier to work with. It integrates with screen as well, as I recall. Anyone able to tell me what either of these packages were? -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

1 1

PPC Linux
by Simon Royal 16 Aug '10

16 Aug '10

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

1 0

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

16 Aug '10

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

8 18

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

15 Aug '10

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

3 3

Flash issues
by Bev Nicolson 15 Aug '10

15 Aug '10

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

15 43

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

14 Aug '10

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

1 0

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

13 Aug '10

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- The monthly "Third Monday" ALUG Ipswich Social Meeting is back, Monday 16th August, at 20:00: P J McGinty & Sons 15 Northgate Street Ipswich Suffolk IP1 3BY Tel: 01473 251 515 Map/Directions URI: http://maps.google.co.uk/?q=IP1+3BY WWW: http://www.pjmcgintys.co.uk/ McGintys pub is in the centre of Ipswich. It's directly opposite the town's central library and has a reputation for good Irish beer. We're usually to be found in the lowest section of the bar, near the library entrance to the pub. All are welcome, novices and experienced users. Feel free to ask for further information on the Main ALUG mailing list. After last time's absence, I should be back in attendance this month. Hopefully, see some of you there! Peter. ----- Send discussion replies to main(a)lists.alug.org.uk (Reply-To set) Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce

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