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PHP help wanted - arrays and foreach
by Chris G 11 Feb '10

11 Feb '10

I'm trying to understand/debug a bit of PHP, the code is as follows:- if (isset($data['date'])) { if (is_array($data['date'])) { foreach($data['date'] as $key => $date) { $date = $this->_convertDate(trim($date)); if (!$date) unset($data['date'][$key]); else $data['date'][$key] = $date; dbglog($data, "Converted data"); } } else { unset($data['date']); } } What's happening is that it always ends up with nothing in $data (what's reported by that dbglog()). I'm confused by what happens with that foreach as, as far as I can see, $data['date'] is just what I would call a list in python, it's not an array indexed by values it's just a sequential array. So, in the foreach loop $key gets the values from the $date array and $date is empty (confirmed by further dbglog()). Am I understanding this right? If I create an array:- $aa = array('abc', 'def', 'ghi', 'jkl'); Then do:- foreach $aa as $x => $y { // what do I get for $x and $y here? } Sorry this is a bit confused/muddled, I'm definitely not a PHP programmer. -- Chris Green

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IT lessons
by Richard Lewis 10 Feb '10

10 Feb '10

http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/tomorrowsworld/8008.shtml Now *thats* what a proper IT lession should be like. -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Richard Lewis ISMS, Computing Goldsmiths, University of London Tel: +44 (0)20 7078 5134 Skype: richardjlewis JID: ironchicken(a)jabber.earth.li http://www.richard-lewis.me.uk/ -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- +----------------------------------------------+ | Support open access to scholarship | | http://freeculture.org/ http://www.doaj.org/ | +----------------------------------------------+

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Blogs and such...
by James Elsey 10 Feb '10

10 Feb '10

When you come across an interesting article, or figure out how to do something with a new technology your messing around with, do you document it? This is a bit of a generalised question, just trying to find out what you guys do. I've gone for "Blogger", is there anything exciting Wordpress offers that could tempt me over? I'm using the web interface at the moment, its a bit clumsy, are there any good linux desktop applications that make it easier to type up and organise posts? If anyone has a tech blog, feel free to link me up, would be interested to see what others are doing Cheers! James Elsey

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ipv6 (with Virgin Media)
by Jon Dye 10 Feb '10

10 Feb '10

Hi, I would like to try settings up ipv6 at home in preperation for the global meltdown when we run out of ipv4 addresses. I currently have an internet connection with Virgin Media who I don't believe do native ipv6. I therefore would like to set up a tunnel to a provider. I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations for particular providers (brokers?), software or general tips (or specific tips relating to Virgin Media). I have several PCs (Windows and Linux) on a LAN which then goes through a router that doesn't have ipv6 capability. One of the linux machines on the LAN is a server that's on 24/7 so I was thinking of using that to do the tunnelling. I don't have a static IP on the router but it hardly ever changes (I think it's only changed when I've unplugged the router for more than a few hours). Suggestions? JD

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Chrome and Flash
by Bev Nicolson 09 Feb '10

09 Feb '10

I installed Chrome (for Linux) a while ago and am still playing with it but wish to install flash. I've found where it is installed already (and saved the relevant bit of text to copy) but it needs to go into another directory as far as I can tell. Do I do this from Terminal? And how? TIA. Bev.

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Re: [ALUG] curious behavior of audacity and usb mike (Peter Alcibiades)
by phil.ashby＠bt.com 08 Feb '10

08 Feb '10

From: Peter Alcibiades <palcibiades-first(a)yahoo.co.uk> > Disconnect the mike, and try to play back? Error message. > > Restart audacity? Now playback works, but recording does not. What > appears to happen on attempting to record is that the track > seems to be > trying to playback through the mic. Well, this is my > interpretation of > what is visible and audible. Probably correct Peter: I suspect the chipset used in the mic is bi-directional (I have a similar issue with an audio+video grabber that also claims to have audio out but no connectors). You should be able to select the appropriate recording device in the mixer applet (KDE or GNOME versions), and should also be able to see what channels your various audio devices claim to have. It's also worth checking what audio subsystem audacity is trying to use, it's probably Alsa for recording, but may be Jack or Pulseaudio depending on versions and audio arrangements in your distro. If audacity isn't using Alsa directly then you need to configure the appropriate sound server (Jack or Pulseaudio) inputs to use the correct underlying Alsa device for recording. Finally - be aware that USB audio devices can come up in any order, so if you want the external sound card to always be device 0 (Alsa hw:0), with or without the mic plugged in, you will need to edit the udev rules to identify each USB device and fix the numbering (this is tricker if >1 device use the same chipset and thus have the same USB vendor and device IDs, although I have been able to make this work using bus IDs instead). For all this GIYF :) Phil.

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Web picture gallery that has a 'narrative' with it - any ideas?
by Chris G 07 Feb '10

07 Feb '10

Are there any 'gallery' type applications (i.e. those like gallery2) which also allow quite a lot of text with them so that one can create a picture gallery with a narrative? -- Chris Green

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curious behavior of audacity and usb mike
by Peter Alcibiades 07 Feb '10

07 Feb '10

Something very puzzling. Well, lots of things are puzzling, but the latest one is this. I have a c-media usb mike. Start up audacity with it plugged in, and it records just fine. Play back the recording? Nothing. Play back another recorded track? Nothing. Disconnect the mike, and try to play back? Error message. Restart audacity? Now playback works, but recording does not. What appears to happen on attempting to record is that the track seems to be trying to playback through the mic. Well, this is my interpretation of what is visible and audible. What happens is that when you click record, the old track becomes audible through the headphones, and a new track appears to open under it in audacity, but it does not seem possible to record in it. So the bottom line is that if you want to record and then play back, you have to do this: start out with the mike plugged in, do the recording, disconnect the mike, restart audacity, then play back. If you want to play back and record, you have to go the other way, once you've played back, you can no longer record. Or I cannot figure out how to, without restarting audacity. The other puzzling thing is that krec does not seem to be able to record at all - or maybe this is me, I can't make it. Am I doing something stupid here or does this sound like a bug in audacity or a configuration problem? I have an external usb sound card, and the phenomenon seems to be the same whether using the onboard sound card or the external. Peter

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IPv6 - why?
by Mark Rogers 06 Feb '10

06 Feb '10

OK, so I know why it was invented: IPv4 running out of space. But having followed the various conversations about IPv6 capable ISPs, I'm left wondering why anyone wants to actually use IPv6 right now? That isn't to argue that they shouldn't, I genuinely want to know. I switched to 64-bit pretty early (because with Linux I could), and dealt with the occasional issues (flash, etc) in return for a system which was theoretically "better" but which felt no real different to a 32-bit machine. But (sad but true) I enjoyed the smugness of running 64-bit without (major) problems, something I couldn't have done with Windows. So what reasons are there to play with IPv6? Just because we can? Because we want to learn about it for the future? Or is there actually anything practical I could do with IPv6 that I can't with IPv4, or that just works better on IPv6? If you convince me that there is a good reason to play, my next question will be how to get started, so be warned :-) PS: For anyone with 64-bit capable hardware there really isn't any downside to using 64-bit Linux now as far as I can tell. -- 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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HTML embedded scripting, is it really this much of a kludge?
by Chris G 06 Feb '10

06 Feb '10

I've been trying to find out the rules about embedded scripting in HTML, things like PHP and JavaScript. It seems like it doesn't really have any rules! Part of the problem is that Google makes it impossible to search for anything other than alphanumerics so you can't search for things like <SCRIPT> or <?php. So, first question, is there *any* way now that Google rules the world to search for things like this? Moving on, how can one find what *actually* works inside a <SCRIPT> section in HTML? Is it only javascript that really works there in 'most' browsers or are there other possibilities? The other question is how does <?php work at all? I can't find anything that documents how or why it should allow PHP to do things. I'm maybe missing something obvious but given Google's total inability to look for such things doing any sort or searching is a bit difficult. I have O'Reilly books on HTML and PHP but neither of them really addresses how this works. I do realise that <SCRIPT> starts client side scripting so is limited by what's implemented in browsers, however it is at least a 'proper' HTML element. <?xxx seems more of a bodge, is it actually a bodge or is there some smeantic/syntactic logic to it? -- Chris Green

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Re: [ALUG] HTML embedded scripting, is it really this much of a kludge?
by phil.ashby＠bt.com 05 Feb '10

05 Feb '10

Chris asked: > So where is this <?php syntax defined? Is it part of HTML, is it a > bodge added by apache or what is it? That's really what I was asking, > I (sort of) know the difference between server side and client side > stuff (I think I did even say something about <SCRIPT> being client > side) and <SCRIPT> is at least 'proper' HTML. It's defined in the PHP specification, so it must be implemented by any PHP enabled server (be that Apache, IIS, Lighttpd, etc.), and since it never reaches the browser it's not part of the 'proper' HTML or subject to that specification. Here's the manual ref: http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.basic-syntax.phpmode.php Other server-side scripting languages use similar techniques, eg: ASP: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/k33801s3.aspx JSP: http://java.sun.com/products/jsp/syntax/2.0/syntaxref20.html Cold fusion: http://www.opencfml.org/dashboard.action Such syntax abuse all started with server-side includes back in the 90's: http://hoohoo.ncsa.illinois.edu/docs/tutorials/includes.html HTH, Phil.

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Re: [ALUG] lp printers and startup
by Peter Alcibiades 02 Feb '10

02 Feb '10

On Monday 01 February 2010 09:46:18 Wayne Stallwood wrote: > ..... > If the printer is configured as a raw device in cups and raw support is > enabled then you should be doing > lp -dprintername temprint.txt > > Then cups will manage the task of spooling the job until the printer is > online and it should all be managed properly. > > I see this is for a receipt printer because you are sending cutter and > drawer kick commands, you aren't hacking receipt printing support onto > phppointofsale are you ? If so I probably still have the stuff from when > I did that about 4 years ago, no doubt it would need updating and it is > so nasty it never got accepted as a patch to the main project :) > Yes, now I see. Finally! I'll have a go with this. It makes sense. It is a receipt printer, but the POS is my own hack. It works, but I'm painfully aware that it lacks a lot (all?) of the stuff professionally designed POS systems have. The reason why I am using a raw printer is money - the one we bought cost £40, new but discontinued model, and one from the same supplier that would be new and run in CUPS in native mode would have been a couple hundred. The difference was important. Still and all, with a used barcode reader and this package and using kbarcode and a bunch of other OSS things, the total cost of moving to bar codes was really cheap. It ran last season on a £35 reject machine, and was perfectly satisfactory. Peter

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lp printers and startup
by Peter Alcibiades 01 Feb '10

01 Feb '10

This is another question about my raw printer. The following command works perfectly: cat temprint.txt > /dev/usb/lp0 and I've managed to get the hex characters going over to it to operate the cutter and to open the cash drawer. The printer is set up in CUPS as raw, queue raw. Its connected using one of those usb to parallel adaptors - usb at the PC and parallel at the printer. However, there is one remaining flaw. It only seems to work if the printer itself is powered on at startup of the pc. Why? Is there a shell command I can execute that will do whatever it is that is done at startup to get the system to know that the printer is there? And how would you test for whether this has been done? I have in mind, when the system is started, check to see if they have the printer turned on, if not beep at them, tell them to turn it on, then when they click the button saying, OK its on now, execute whatever this shell command is.... Thanks Peter

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BT Broadband linux compatability?
by Mark Wilson 01 Feb '10

01 Feb '10

Hi, I was just wondering does anyone know if it's possible to use BT Broadband on a linux system? I've heard there are problems, something to do with a modem they supply (BT voyager?) and driver issues. Any info would be most appreciated! Mark Wilson

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Getting to know the command line, again
by Peter Alcibiades 01 Feb '10

01 Feb '10

Someone a while back posted a query about what to read on getting to know the command line. I suggested Scott Granneman 'Linux Phrasebook' which is really nice, compact physically and in pages. Since then I've been looking some more on behalf of a colleague who has moved to Linux and is reaching the limits of point and click, and have come on two others which may be useful to someone. The first is: William Shotts 'The Linux Command Line' A long very carefully written book, available in pdf for download and from Lulu in paper form. I've only read the first few pages, and then skimmed here and there, but this seems quite exceptionally patiently and carefully written, anyway, its free to download in pdf form before you buy in the paper version, from http://gd.tuwien.ac.at/linuxcommand.org/tlcl.php The second one is Glen Smith 'An introduction to shell scripting'. There are some excerpts available on the site http://slashetcbooks.co.uk/itss.html and this also looks very carefully written for pedagogical purposes. Its quite a bit cheaper if you buy direct from them. There is supposed to be an awk book coming as well, but it seems that parenthood has got somewhat in the way of getting that one finished. As it does. Both of these guys, and Granneman also, seem to understand the difference between teaching and describing, which is a pretty rare talent in any field. I'm sure there are a lot better books for the experienced, or to use as references, but for someone who wants to be taught from first principles they seem pretty good. See how my friend gets on anyway. Peter

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Why doesn't my IMG float? (trivial HTML question)
by Chris G 30 Jan '10

30 Jan '10

In the following snippet I was expecting the text to appear beside the image but it obstinately stays above it:- <p>Zelma has to be back at work tomorrow so we went down to Chateauneuf and Zelma and Ben left us there to return home. Maxine and I then pottered downstream to Cheffes and back, all very scenic, with supper back at Chateauneuf.</p> <div align="left" class="figure"> <img alt="http://home.isbd.net/boat/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/DSCF2320.jpg" src="http://home.isbd.net/boat/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/DSCF2320.jpg" style="height: 50px;" /> <p class="caption">View of the moorings at Chateaneuf-sur-Sarthe</p> </div> Can anyone suggest what the problem might be? Yes, I know there are possibly other bits around that might affect it but I can't see anything relevant. The code is generated by docutils by the way so don't complain about my style, I didn't do it! I'm viewing in Firefox 3.5.7, has it decided that as div align="left" is deprecated it can ignore it? I've just tried IE as well, same result. -- Chris Green

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Re: [ALUG] BT Broadband linux compatability?
by Anthony Anson 30 Jan '10

30 Jan '10

Ken Hamer wrote: > On 29/01/2010 23:51, Anthony Anson wrote: >> They still haven't mended it. > So are you saying that you don't have a working phone line (including > voice)? Yes, that's what the situation is. I seldom used the phone anyway, and typically, my bill would be around ten quid, which would include (say) tw calls. So, I have a PAYG elderly phobile and this internet dongle. It's only inconvenient on badly-constructed websites, or if I want to access audio or video files. -- Tony Anson www.girolle.co.uk/

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[OOPS!!] Dud keyboard solved! Thanks.
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 30 Jan '10

30 Jan '10

Apologies for the loss of time! I had failed to check the systemn clock after rebooting this morning. As a result the following was sent "two days ago". Now back to real time. -----FW: <XFMail.100128085753.Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk>----- Date: Thu, 28 Jan 2010 08:57:53 -0000 (GMT) Sender: main-bounces(a)lists.alug.org.uk From: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> To: main(a)lists.alug.org.uk Subject: [ALUG] Dud keyboard solved! Thanks. Apologies for not responding earlier -- I was in Cambridge most of yesterday, and did not have time to deal with people's replies until today. Many thanks to all who responded. I do seem to have raised a lot of dust in attics! Since I was in Cambridge, I followed up Ken's suggestion, so popped into Maplin's and bought an L90BT (PS2 female to DIN male adaptor). As Wayne indicated, it wasn't cheap (£7.99), but is nicely made and solid. Since Maplins had a few "on the hook" in the shop, there was no issue about being "lucky to find one in a hurry"! Anyway, back at home, this morning I used the adaptor to connect a PS2 keyboard to the DIN socket on the box. Worked perfectly, and I fscked the filesystem (Statutory Declaration: I have not made a typo). I am now back to emailing normally from that machine! The following may be of interest (and a possible useful warning). I dismantled the old DIN keyboard to try to diagnose the problem. The heart of its mechanism is two plastic sheets with "printed circuitry" on them: on the underside of the upper sheet, and on the upper side of the bottom sheet. These lie below the keys, and when a key is pressed it presses the upper sheet down onto the lower sheet, and makes a contact. I suspect that this may be the source of the problem. Because the computer in question is mainly accessed remotely, its keyboard is hardly ever used (except occasionally when rebooting); so, to keep the keyboard out of the way, I have had it standing upright on its edge (the edge that would be nearest to you when laid flat for use). Undoubtedly, at least when putting it back on its edge after use and probably often when just shifting stuff around, the keyboard has been tapped onto the tabletop when in the upright position. This may have caused the plastic sheets to shift inside the keyboard, either getting it out of alignment with the pegs on the keys (that press down on the sheets) or moving it out of touch with the contacts in the keyboard case that connect the sheets with the little chip that feeds the cable. Whether that is the explanation or not, the end effect has been that pressing a key produced no result (and the effect had been intermittent until yesterday, when it had apparently become permanent). So beware! (Another warning: dismantling a keyboard should not be done lightly. There are lots of loose bits inside. Reassembling and getting everything back in line is not trivial. Indeed, I recall, from years ago, taking the bottom off a keyboard only to discover that it had spring-loaded insides. It took ages to pick all the little bits up from the floor ... ). I shall be in touch privately with the people who have kindly invaded their attics on my behalf, once I have brought that machine properly up-to-date again. Meanwhile, thanks again and best wishes to all, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 28-Jan-10 Time: 08:57:50 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------ _______________________________________________ main(a)lists.alug.org.uk http://www.alug.org.uk/ http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main Unsubscribe? See message headers or the web site above! --------------End of forwarded message------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 30-Jan-10 Time: 10:19:52 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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FOSDEM upcoming
by Sam Tuke 30 Jan '10

30 Jan '10

6-7th Feb, Brussels. See http://www.fosdem.org/2010/ Is anyone thinking of going to FOSDEM? I'm sure that it'll be a fantastic experience to meet amazing people, learn about new technologies and exciting projects. Also it's good to represent Britain with the largest turnout possible (remind Europe that we aren't all backward numbskulls when it comes to technology - it's just our government). Transport and accommodation may be easier/cheaper if people travel as a group. So, any takers?

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Graphics Card Recommendations
by James Bensley 29 Jan '10

29 Jan '10

Hey List, Can anyone recommend a graphics card that can definitely play full 1080p video under Ubuntu. Currently I have a Palit GT 240 which can play 1080i at 20Mbps OK but above that and it struggles. However 1080p at 16Mbps isn't watchable. I get a better result out of mPlayer than VLC when user VDPAU with X11 but its still not watchable. The machine is dual boot with WinXP Pro x64 SP3 and has the same results? Recommendations are welcome. -- Regards, James ;) Samuel Goldwyn - "I'm willing to admit that I may not always be right, but I am never wrong." - http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/s/samuel_goldwyn.html

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URGENT! Ancient keyboard/adaptor needed!
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 29 Jan '10

29 Jan '10

Hi Folks, One for the attic-hoarders amongst you! I need a replacement for one of those old keyboards with the fat (pre-PS2) connector (I forget what their proper name is). Alternatively, if there's an adaptor that would allow a PS2 keyboard to be plugged in to the ancient socket in the back of the case, then that might do the job. Reason: the keyboard on one of my machines (dating back to the 90s) has failed, and I can no longer re-boot it (it needs a manual fsck following a power failure). Any offers/advice/suggestions most welcome! Thanks, Ted. ---------------------------------- E-Mail: Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk Date: 29-Jan-2010 Time: 08:10:00 This message was sent by XFMail ----------------------------------

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Hello!
by Martin A. Brooks 28 Jan '10

28 Jan '10

Hello ALUG, I thought I might try and find a LUG which is a little closer to my home than my usual haunt (GLLUG), and didn't fancy taking on the responsibility of restarting Essex LUG. So, err, hello! Hope you guys are friendly.... :) Mart.

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Dud keyboard solved! Thanks.
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 28 Jan '10

28 Jan '10

Apologies for not responding earlier -- I was in Cambridge most of yesterday, and did not have time to deal with people's replies until today. Many thanks to all who responded. I do seem to have raised a lot of dust in attics! Since I was in Cambridge, I followed up Ken's suggestion, so popped into Maplin's and bought an L90BT (PS2 female to DIN male adaptor). As Wayne indicated, it wasn't cheap (£7.99), but is nicely made and solid. Since Maplins had a few "on the hook" in the shop, there was no issue about being "lucky to find one in a hurry"! Anyway, back at home, this morning I used the adaptor to connect a PS2 keyboard to the DIN socket on the box. Worked perfectly, and I fscked the filesystem (Statutory Declaration: I have not made a typo). I am now back to emailing normally from that machine! The following may be of interest (and a possible useful warning). I dismantled the old DIN keyboard to try to diagnose the problem. The heart of its mechanism is two plastic sheets with "printed circuitry" on them: on the underside of the upper sheet, and on the upper side of the bottom sheet. These lie below the keys, and when a key is pressed it presses the upper sheet down onto the lower sheet, and makes a contact. I suspect that this may be the source of the problem. Because the computer in question is mainly accessed remotely, its keyboard is hardly ever used (except occasionally when rebooting); so, to keep the keyboard out of the way, I have had it standing upright on its edge (the edge that would be nearest to you when laid flat for use). Undoubtedly, at least when putting it back on its edge after use and probably often when just shifting stuff around, the keyboard has been tapped onto the tabletop when in the upright position. This may have caused the plastic sheets to shift inside the keyboard, either getting it out of alignment with the pegs on the keys (that press down on the sheets) or moving it out of touch with the contacts in the keyboard case that connect the sheets with the little chip that feeds the cable. Whether that is the explanation or not, the end effect has been that pressing a key produced no result (and the effect had been intermittent until yesterday, when it had apparently become permanent). So beware! (Another warning: dismantling a keyboard should not be done lightly. There are lots of loose bits inside. Reassembling and getting everything back in line is not trivial. Indeed, I recall, from years ago, taking the bottom off a keyboard only to discover that it had spring-loaded insides. It took ages to pick all the little bits up from the floor ... ). I shall be in touch privately with the people who have kindly invaded their attics on my behalf, once I have brought that machine properly up-to-date again. Meanwhile, thanks again and best wishes to all, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 28-Jan-10 Time: 08:57:50 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Re: [ALUG] ISP issue, some sites I'm completely unable to access..
by Anthony Anson 27 Jan '10

27 Jan '10

Ken Hamer wrote: > On 26/01/2010 22:38, Anthony Anson wrote: >> Not sure where their exchange is - might even be Bunwell... >> </thinks> > Depends what is meant by Tibenham. Some parts of it are on the New > Buckenham exchange - unlucky ones on Tivetshall through cables made of paper. Or wet string? >> If I want a reasonable connection I have to take the little box into >> Norwich, where the dongle will play nicely. >> Afraid you are not alone. But fear not! Mr. Brown is trying to get >> you 2Mbps! This will happen Real Soon Now. Not a lot of good - Mr. Brown will have to explain to BT that their bit of beryllium between their pole and their junction box is broken, and suggest to them that since I've been telling them this for around five years, a bit of (an?) expedition might not go amiss - which is why my connection is via Vogonfone. Mind you, since I don't try to access video streaming, music and the like, the PAYG dongle only costs me - has only cost me up to now £2½ per month. >> Can't get the wi-thingy to work with the Fat Cat's wireless router >> thobut. > That will be thick walls, long reach, incorrect encryption key, broken > adapter or broken router. Maybe all five. All routine. Try HomePlug > devices. Devolo ones work. Of course your router needs to be getting > a connection. Does it? I haven't got a router connected - I take the Eee into the Fat Cat, and so does Neville of this (ALUG) parish. We get the magic screed from the bar, and key it in. Neville's flaptop connects straight away, mine just sits there, claiming that it's connecting. This happens every time. Wireless connection works in my brother's house, at my sister's, in other pubs, friends' houses, but not at the Fat Cat. It doesn't reject the attempt, it just sits there smugly and pretends it's doing something. -- Tony Anson www.girolle.co.uk/

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Re: [ALUG] Is there a calendar/appointments program that will show?me a list of the next n appointments?
by Peter Alcibiades 26 Jan '10

26 Jan '10

On Tuesday 26 January 2010 09:45:15 Chris G wrote: >.... I was rather trying to get away from displaying in a terminal > window. > Must have a look at railender. But my guys don't see a console window, they would have zero tolerance for that. All they see is a desktop icon, which is labelled 'print calendar'. Double click it, and a little dialogue box comes up looking pretty, and asking 'you want to print?' They click the OK button in this window, and the next thing they know, they are looking at an open office word document with a list and the secretary reformats and prints from that. I generate 365 days looking forward. Don't know exactly what you can limit the konsolekalendar output to. But I'm anyway filtering and reformating the raw output, so it would be possible to just get everything using konsolekalendar, and then select in the filtering scripts. They find kontact quite nice to use otherwise, multiple address books, to do lists, the integration of kjots now, stickies. The format of the list was the only thing they didn't like, so it seemed worth going to a bit of trouble to fix it. It would be nice to have a usable todo out of the box. But kontact is so convenient for them with all the parts in the left pane. Peter

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Is there a calendar/appointments program that will show me a list of the next n appointments?
by Chris G 26 Jan '10

26 Jan '10

Well, having just about sorted out my events/appointments *recording* I now want a 'screen friendly' way of displaying them that will alert me to upcoming appointments without taking up too much screen real estate. My appointments/events will be in an iCalendar file (or at an iCal server) so most programs can see them, however I can't find anything to show them to me as a list of events. So far I have looked at:- Sunbird - no list mode at all, only week, month, next n weeks, not to mention that you can't have just the one pane showing. Evolution - does have a list view but you can't close down all the other panes so only the list is showing. Orage - no list view Osmo - no list view I guess it's not all that difficult to DIY, I already have a little python utility for showing upcoming reminders in the xfce panel. I could adapt this to do something similar in a small terminal window but if there's something out there that can do what I want already I might as well use it. I just want a utility to display the next x events (maybe limited to the next y days) in a simple list - date/event/description - so I can run it as a sticky window visible on all my worktops. -- Chris Green

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ISP issue, some sites I'm completely unable to access..
by James Elsey 26 Jan '10

26 Jan '10

Hey Guys, I'm experiencing rather odd behaviour with my internet connection at home recently, and I'm hoping some of the BT / Telecoms guys out there may have some pointers. I have a terrible connection anyway, around 0.2-0.5Mb at the best of times (was I refered to as the "pauper" or "peasent" of the connection ladder?) Over the past few weeks I'm completely unable to access particular websites, most notably Paypal, national-lotter.co.uk, LinkedIn, and pretty much 50% of any search results in google I want to go to. This is happening across all machines on my network, linux and windows alike, wired and wireless, and also my iphone(unless I put it on 3g) I have a netgear DG834T router, about 6-7 years old. There are no blocked sites and as far as I know the configuration hasn't be altered in some time, so no reason for it to suddenly alter. I am on(...dont laugh)..AOL.. Traceroutes below, as you can see google is fine, but paypal and linkedin are no-goes. any suggestions? [james@nevada ~]$ traceroute www.google.com traceroute to www.google.com (209.85.227.99), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets 1 192.168.0.1 (192.168.0.1) 0.701 ms 0.993 ms 1.276 ms 2 host-92-4-32-1.as43234.net (92.4.32.1) 17.593 ms 21.644 ms 26.533 ms 3 92.31.251.12 (92.31.251.12) 88.683 ms 89.057 ms 89.980 ms 4 xe-10-3-0-scr001.loh.as13285.net (78.144.2.7) 47.956 ms 50.310 ms 55.938 ms 5 xe-11-0-0-scr010.sov.as13285.net (78.144.0.226) 59.461 ms 63.296 ms 67.303 ms 6 google-pp-sov.as13285.net (78.144.5.6) 72.963 ms 18.244 ms 19.564 ms 7 209.85.255.175 (209.85.255.175) 24.930 ms 209.85.252.76 (209.85.252.76) 27.816 ms 32.202 ms 8 66.249.95.170 (66.249.95.170) 45.845 ms 72.14.232.134 (72.14.232.134) 47.719 ms 169.276 ms 9 209.85.252.83 (209.85.252.83) 57.386 ms 209.85.251.231 (209.85.251.231) 61.225 ms 65.619 ms 10 209.85.243.97 (209.85.243.97) 72.739 ms 209.85.243.101 (209.85.243.101) 74.667 ms 209.85.243.93 (209.85.243.93) 31.873 ms 11 wy-in-f99.1e100.net (209.85.227.99) 29.866 ms 34.736 ms 38.122 ms [james@nevada ~]$ traceroute www.linkedin.com traceroute to www.linkedin.com (64.74.98.80), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets 1 192.168.0.1 (192.168.0.1) 0.594 ms 0.874 ms 1.527 ms 2 host-92-4-32-1.as43234.net (92.4.32.1) 17.691 ms 22.002 ms 26.405 ms 3 92.31.251.12 (92.31.251.12) 30.564 ms 52.454 ms 52.924 ms 4 xe-10-3-0-scr001.loh.as13285.net (78.144.2.7) 46.274 ms 50.407 ms 54.782 ms 5 host-78-144-0-253.as13285.net (78.144.0.253) 64.163 ms 64.884 ms 67.766 ms 6 xe-10-2-0-scr010.thn.as13285.net (78.144.1.2) 138.286 ms xe-11-0-0-scr010.thn.as13285.net (78.144.1.0) 19.790 ms 19.498 ms 7 limelight-pp-thn.as13285.net (78.144.3.6) 31.326 ms 31.705 ms 33.123 ms 8 tge11-1.fr4.lga.llnw.net (69.28.172.149) 116.711 ms 117.578 ms 118.541 ms 9 tge8-4.fr3.ord.llnw.net (69.28.172.198) 147.721 ms 150.073 ms 154.725 ms 10 linkedin.tge3-4.fr3.ord.llnw.net (208.111.156.70) 160.655 ms 163.514 ms 168.470 ms 11 * * * 12 * * * 13 * * * 14 * * * 15 * * * 16 * * * 17 * * * 18 * * * 19 * * * 20 * * * 21 * *^C [james@nevada ~]$ traceroute www.paypal.co.uk traceroute to www.paypal.co.uk (66.211.168.114), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets 1 192.168.0.1 (192.168.0.1) 0.746 ms 1.037 ms 1.352 ms 2 host-92-4-32-1.as43234.net (92.4.32.1) 18.230 ms 22.547 ms 27.719 ms 3 92.31.250.44 (92.31.250.44) 30.698 ms 35.535 ms 39.924 ms 4 xe-9-3-0-scr001.log.as13285.net (78.144.2.133) 45.724 ms 56.942 ms 57.867 ms 5 Opal-ge-2.2.0.mpr1.lhr2.above.net (213.161.78.209) 60.632 ms 64.985 ms 68.887 ms 6 abv-l3-pni.London1.Level3.net (208.185.188.186) 73.356 ms 29.552 ms 48.372 ms 7 ae-34-52.ebr2.London1.Level3.net (4.69.139.97) 54.120 ms 57.921 ms 62.327 ms 8 ae-41-41.ebr1.NewYork1.Level3.net (4.69.137.66) 136.767 ms ae-43-43.ebr1.NewYork1.Level3.net (4.69.137.74) 140.902 ms ae-42-42.ebr1.NewYork1.Level3.net (4.69.137.70) 144.830 ms 9 ae-3-3.ebr4.Washington1.Level3.net (4.69.132.93) 168.750 ms 169.572 ms 170.063 ms 10 ae-64-64.csw1.Washington1.Level3.net (4.69.134.178) 171.559 ms ae-74-74.csw2.Washington1.Level3.net (4.69.134.182) 194.713 ms ae-64-64.csw1.Washington1.Level3.net (4.69.134.178) 187.984 ms 11 ae-62-62.ebr2.Washington1.Level3.net (4.69.134.145) 182.185 ms ae-92-92.ebr2.Washington1.Level3.net (4.69.134.157) 186.082 ms 190.084 ms 12 ae-2-2.ebr2.Chicago2.Level3.net (4.69.132.69) 172.932 ms 148.265 ms 148.700 ms 13 ae-1-100.ebr1.Chicago2.Level3.net (4.69.132.113) 150.208 ms 115.825 ms 110.926 ms 14 * ae-3.ebr2.Denver1.Level3.net (4.69.132.61) 144.893 ms * 15 ae-21-52.car1.Denver1.Level3.net (4.68.107.38) 164.332 ms 368.666 ms ae-21-54.car1.Denver1.Level3.net (4.68.107.102) 165.221 ms 16 EBAY-INC.car1.Denver1.Level3.net (4.53.1.58) 171.416 ms 175.255 ms 178.668 ms 17 * * * 18 * * * 19 * * * 20 * * * 21 * * * 22 * * * 23 * * * 24 * * * 25 * * * 26 * * *^C James Elsey

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USB Playstation adaptor controllers no longer working
by samwise 26 Jan '10

26 Jan '10

Hi, all. Got a new hardware issue that I'm not really sure where to start debugging. I run Debian AMD64 Testing and, when Lenny was Testing, I had a great setup for playing with emulators. I have four PSX pads which I could use via two USB adaptors - each adaptor supporting two of the pads. However after upgrading to Squeeze (kernel version 2.6.30-2), which involved several kernel upgrades and an upgrade from KDE 3 to 4 plus swapping out the motherboard and graphics card at around the same time (I know, I know - I just didn't test absolutely everything between upgrades), I've come back and discovered the USB adaptors are no longer recognised, though they do have power lights etc. when plugged into the computer. I've tried both in a Windows PC and they work, so it's not a hardware fault. Also, I have a new PC USB joystick which /does/ work with the new KDE 4 setup, and is automatically recognised in the KDE 4 Control Center. I've done some googling but haven't found anything which looks particularly relevant. Does anyone have any suggestions as to where to start debugging this? I think I was spoilt first time round - the adaptor didn't require any special drivers or config tools. Last time, it was one of the few things that "just worked" when I built my Lenny computer. It just showed up as two joypads in the general KDE 3 System Settings - plus the correct joypads devices were automatically built and placed in /dev. :( This is as far as I've got debugging it on my own - I can see it being recognised by lsusb and dmesg, but no idea what the next step is to getting it to auto-populate the right devices in /dev. Something to do with HAL, maybe? I tried ensuring the joydev kernel module was loaded manually, but it made no difference. I can supply more info, as required. Cheers, Peter. # lsusb Bus 002 Device 003: ID 046d:c504 Logitech, Inc. Cordless Mouse+Keyboard Receiver Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 001 Device 010: ID 0b9a:016a Bus 001 Device 005: ID 0424:20fc Standard Microsystems Corp. 6-in-1 Card Reader Bus 001 Device 004: ID 0409:0058 NEC Corp. HighSpeed Hub Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub where the joypad adapter shows up as "Bus 001 Device 010: ID 0b9a:016a". $ dmesg <SNIP> [279764.908007] usb 2-1: new low speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 4 [279765.111875] usb 2-1: New USB device found, idVendor=0b9a, idProduct=016a [279765.111878] usb 2-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=0, Product=0, SerialNumber=0 [279765.111946] usb 2-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice

2 3

Damn pidgeon
by James Freer 24 Jan '10

24 Jan '10

Anyone into animation? The animation on this is superb! http://www..youtube.com:80/watch_popup?v=jEjUAnPc2VA james

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Re: [ALUG] Damn pidgeon
by Ian Porter 24 Jan '10

24 Jan '10

That was well funny :) cheers soz to James and Alex, I have been playing with my iPhone and it was sending from the wrong email address Ian www : www.codingfriends.com On 23 Jan 2010, at 11:57, Alex Scotton <alex.scotton(a)gmail.com> wrote: Absolutely awesome little animation, loving the faces the pigeon pulled... cheers for that, love a little bit of humour in the morning haha On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 8:11 PM, James Freer <jessejazza(a)googlemail.com> wrote: Anyone into animation? The animation on this is superb! http://www..Pigeon: Impossible <http://youtube.com:80/watch_popup?v=jEjUAnPc2VA> james _______________________________________________ main(a)lists.alug.org.uk http://www.alug.org.uk/ http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main Unsubscribe? See message headers or the web site above! _______________________________________________ main(a)lists.alug.org.uk http://www.alug.org.uk/ http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main Unsubscribe? See message headers or the web site above!

1 0

Todo/Task 'links', does any program do this already?
by Chris G 24 Jan '10

24 Jan '10

As you know (probably bored to tears by now) I've been looking for a TaskList/Todo type program for a while. I've just recently realised what would really suit me - a way to add links to a web page which would pop up specific Tasks/Todos or, if it was a new task, would pop up the New Task entry box. This is surely possible, fairly easy even, a PHP link (or even some JavaScript) could easily fire off some code to search for an event in an ICS file or on a Caldav server and pop up the required window. If there's nothing out there that does this it's so "exactly what I want" I'll put my coding hat on and do it myself. Does anyone know of anything that does this or that might provide some of the tools/hooks etc that I'd need to do it myself? -- Chris Green

3 4

extra function keys
by John Woodard 24 Jan '10

24 Jan '10

My laptop has 3 extra function keys, one brings up the default email client, Evolution on this Ubuntu box the other two are marked for the default web browser and default media player, however they do nothing at present. I expect these would launch Outlook, IE and WMP in Windows. What I would like is that they are remapped to volume up/down and mute. What is the best way to do this? Ubuntu 9.10 Gnome with pretty much everything set at defaults, no compiz or any such trickery. Cheers, BJ

2 2

Stream media to xbox
by James Elsey 23 Jan '10

23 Jan '10

Hey guys, Does anyone here stream media across their network to an xbox 360? I've got a load of media on my fedora desktop, mostly AVI / mkvs, I want to watch them via my 360 but I really don't want to have to burn DVDs each time, and then there is the added problem of whether the 360 will read copied DVDs or not. I know there is some application that will act as a media server, to host video to the PS3, but I can't seem to find anything for the 360. I could try MythTV, but last time I tried that (about a year ago) is was effort to configure, and also was a pain having to run to the desktop to turn the video on then run back and forth to change shows/volume etc I've got telnet/vnc on iphone, maybe I could use that as a remote? Any ideas? I've got 3 seasons of stargate atlantis that are begging to be watched... James Elsey

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How to stop KDE4 automounting an external (USB) drive?
by Barry Samuels 22 Jan '10

22 Jan '10

My wife's machine is running KDE4 and when a USB (IDE) drive is plugged into it it tries to automount the partitions which are not user mountable (root only) and pops up 9 windows saying that they couldn't be mounted. I'd like to stop those popups or stop KDE4 from trying to mount that drive. Telling HAL to ignore the drive makes no difference. Help much appreciated. -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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Well I'm slowly homing in on what I think I'm looking for
by Chris G 21 Jan '10

21 Jan '10

Just to keep you all well bored, here is where my search for a Wiki/Blog/CMS is now taking me. (I'm not really trying to be boring, comments, suggestions and such would be very welcome) I *think* what I'm basically after is an easy to use (i.e. easy to enter text) web page creation system which is somewhere between a blog and a wiki. The fly in the ointment is that I want to be able to put 'events' into the text somehow and I can't find any Wiki/Blog/CMS that really seems to be able to do this. Oh, I also want to be able to handle a hierarchy of pages. So, to try and give an example of what I want to do, bring out the old boat buying 'project'. This will have chunks of information (i.e. web pages) laid out as follows:- Boat purchase Searching for boat Types of boat Insurance Engineer survey ... ... Then the page about Insurance would basically be a sort of blog:- 28-Dec-2009 Asked for a quote from DBA insurers 05-Jan-2009 DBA quoted £387, seems reasonable 12-Jan-2010 Asked for quote at the Boat Show ... bla ... bla <EVENT> 01-Apr-2010 - boat insurance required I want that <EVENT> entry to somehow be a link to a calendar application of some sort which will actually have the event set up so I get a reminder or, even better, I want the blog/wiki to know that <EVENT> means it's got to remind me. My existing web info management system (cobbled together by me using reStructuredText and a small python script to automatically run it when .rst pages are browsed) does quite a bit of what I want. It provides a hierarchical set of web pages with 'crumb' links and (very) easy creation and editing using reStructuredText. However it doesn't really have any bloglike time/sequence awareness and neither does it have any ability to embed alarms/events. It may be that I could add what I need to my existing system but it feels like someone somewhere should surely have something like this already. It looks like TextPattern *might* provide quite a bit of what I want, I may install it and have a play. -- Chris Green

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Re: [ALUG] preventing shutdown with remote working going on
by Peter Alcibiades 20 Jan '10

20 Jan '10

Thanks, this is brilliant. I have to make sure it catches XDCMP sessions as well as SSH ones, but it seems bound to. Brilliant! Yes, the answer might well be a server and all remote logins, from a technical point of view. Agreed. They have talked about that. But how they would manage to maintain it themselves, if something happened to me? This is doing our best to keep it as simple as possible, and to make sure that if it falls over, it will be no more than inconvenient. Or if I fall over. Peter > Assuming a debian-like system, what about molly-guard? > > http://www.ubuntugeek.com/molly-guard-protects-machines-from-accidental- > shutdownsreboots.html > http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/molly-guard > > Cheers, > > David >

1 0

DNS queries
by Mark Rogers 19 Jan '10

19 Jan '10

I have a list of addresses I need to perform a DNS lookup for. What I need to know is the authoritative server for the domain, and the result of the lookup (A record with IP or CNAME with host). I tried: dig www.google.co.uk .. and it's not showing me the authoritative servers. So I tried: dig www.google.co.uk +nssearch .. and got a blank response. Suggestions? Background: I have a webserver which will shortly be changing it's IP address. It has a local DNS which will be updated as part of the migration so anything which uses that server for authoritative DNS will be updated automatically. However anything on an external DNS may need updating, depending on whether it references the server by CNAME or A record (and if CNAME I need to check that whatever that is gets updated too). So I need to know which addresses still point at the server, and of those which are not in the local DNS and of those which need updating (and where). -- 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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Which Netbook For Ubuntu?
by Simon Royal 19 Jan '10

19 Jan '10

Hi I have been using Ubuntu solidly for a few weeks now and loving it. A Mac fan prior to that for 10 years, I got given an old Samsung A10 laptop, installed Ubuntu and the rest is history. The Samsung is a little beaten up but works fine. Now I have gotten comfortable with Ubuntu and sold my Apple PowerBook I am on the look out for something a bit better and would really like a small netbook. I don't do anything to intense. I only write, email, surf (including games in FaceBook), the odd image editing in GIMP and a bit of Skype. First of all, does anyone have any recommendations as to which netbook to look at? Does anyone have one for sale? I don't really want anything with a 7" screen. I need one to run Ubuntu 9.10. My current Samsung is a 1.1Ghz Duron, so something with a little more oomph would be nice, although Ubuntu runs very smoothly on it with 1GB RAM. Simon Royal --- Catch me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal or Skype: Simon-Royal _________________________________________________________________ We want to hear all your funny, exciting and crazy Hotmail stories. Tell us now http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/195013117/direct/01/

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Re: [ALUG] Laptop Adapter
by Simon Royal 19 Jan '10

19 Jan '10

James Picture is attached. Sorry for the poor quality but I only have my mobile for communication. Under the laptop it says 19v 4.2a max. On the adapter it says 19v 3.79a. The adapter was a cheap 2-power one not a genuine Samsung one. Simon --- Catch me on Twitter http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal or Skype me: Simon-Royal - original message - Subject: Re: [ALUG] Laptop Adapter From: James Taylor <jt(a)imen.org.uk> Date: 18/01/2010 23:03 Can you read the underside of your laptop and tell us the voltage and power that you require, then if possible take a pic of the socket? Maybe a camera phone pic would suffice? JT On 18 Jan 2010, at 20:25, Simon Royal wrote: > Hi all. > > Can anyone help in my hour of need. I have a Samsung A10 laptop, which I have been running Ubuntu on and loving it. > > The adapter has just blown. The light doesnt come on and I am stuck without a computer or access to my files. > > You dont happen to have a spare one or a generic one? > > Simon > > --- Catch me on Twitter http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal or Skype me: Simon-Royal > > > _______________________________________________ > main(a)lists.alug.org.uk > http://www.alug.org.uk/ > http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main > Unsubscribe? See message headers or the web site above!

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Laptop Adapter
by Simon Royal 19 Jan '10

19 Jan '10

Hi all. Can anyone help in my hour of need. I have a Samsung A10 laptop, which I have been running Ubuntu on and loving it. The adapter has just blown. The light doesnt come on and I am stuck without a computer or access to my files. You dont happen to have a spare one or a generic one? Simon --- Catch me on Twitter http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal or Skype me: Simon-Royal

3 2

Large load average when running dd to a CF card
by Srdjan Todorovic 19 Jan '10

19 Jan '10

Hi all, Any ideas why I get large average loads (8.82, 4.20, 1.80) when running dd that copies 2GB of data to a compact disk flash card using a USB disk reader in Fiesty (or whatever it is called)? If I kill dd, the load drops to more sane levels. It just hit 9.9 :( Thanks, Srdjan

2 1

preventing shutdown with remote working going on
by Peter Alcibiades 18 Jan '10

18 Jan '10

How do you stop users from shutting down the system if there are other people connected, but allow them to shut it down if there are not? Here's the background, I have machines A and B in different locations. Machine A is sometimes going to be used by just anyone, on account X, and sometimes by the main secretary on account Y. Sometimes, to allow the others to work on Machine A, the secretary will decamp to another room, and continue to work on account Y on machine A, but will be phyically located at machine B. Now it occurs to one, life being what it is, that from time to time some other user sitting at machine A, not used to the concept of multiple logins, will just try and turn off the machine while the secretary is working and logged in on it on the different account. How do I stop this? Hopefully by sending a message to the effect, you cannnot shut down this machine because there are other people connected? On the other hand, I don't want to stop all user shutdowns, because often there is not going to be any remote connection. I'm proposing to just use XDCMP by the way, for the remote working, since we are behind a firewall router. This is safe enough in that case, isn't it? Peter

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Re: [ALUG] How to diagnose heavy system load at power up?
by phil.ashby＠bt.com 18 Jan '10

18 Jan '10

Give bootchart a go (usually available in your distro as a standard package). http://www.bootchart.org/ You should get a nice picture of where all your CPU and memory is going at startup. Phil. ________________________________________ Message: 1 Date: Fri, 15 Jan 2010 16:57:44 +0000 From: Chris G <cl(a)isbd.net> Subject: [ALUG] How to diagnose heavy system load at power up? To: main(a)lists.alug.org.uk Message-ID: <20100115165744.GB4223@chris> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii I recently noticed that if I log in to my xfce GUI straight after powering up my computer it takes an inordinately long time. Like it takes four or five minutes from when I enter my name and password to when the desktop appears completely. After suspecting that there was something awry with my X startup (such that it was doing something odd the first time it was run) I realised that it was simply that the system was very heavily loaded by something during/after boot. Watching the load average during the X startup it went over 8 whereas if I login to X after the system has been running for some hours the load average reaches the giddy heights of 0.14. With a load average of 8 things almost grind to a halt, some processes retry starting (I get more than one xfdesktop for example) and update-notifier times out trying to access repositories which it has no problems at all with if I log in later. Another symptom is that some nfs mounts haven't completed before the terminal windows appear on the desktop so when I run mutt (mail program) which uses one of the NFS mounts it fails to see its mail directories. That's seriously wierd. I've tried to analyse what's going on by running top (and 'w' and ps) in a console window while the system starts up but I really can't see anything obvious that's hogging any resource. One noticeable thing apart from the load average being so high is that my 8Gb of memory gets eaten up too, but there seem to be no particular processes using either lots of CPU or lots of memory. Can anyone suggest further ways of trying to diagnose this? -- Chris Green

2 1

For Sale: ATi Radeon 4870 1GB PCIE
by Richard 17 Jan '10

17 Jan '10

Hey all, as title suggest I am selling a graphics card. I don't use it anymore. Needs a new home. ATi Radeon 4870 1GB PCIE - £80 ONO Please email directly or call me. Cheers, Richard -- Richard Bensley - 07540878285

1 0

How to diagnose heavy system load at power up?
by Chris G 16 Jan '10

16 Jan '10

I recently noticed that if I log in to my xfce GUI straight after powering up my computer it takes an inordinately long time. Like it takes four or five minutes from when I enter my name and password to when the desktop appears completely. After suspecting that there was something awry with my X startup (such that it was doing something odd the first time it was run) I realised that it was simply that the system was very heavily loaded by something during/after boot. Watching the load average during the X startup it went over 8 whereas if I login to X after the system has been running for some hours the load average reaches the giddy heights of 0.14. With a load average of 8 things almost grind to a halt, some processes retry starting (I get more than one xfdesktop for example) and update-notifier times out trying to access repositories which it has no problems at all with if I log in later. Another symptom is that some nfs mounts haven't completed before the terminal windows appear on the desktop so when I run mutt (mail program) which uses one of the NFS mounts it fails to see its mail directories. That's seriously wierd. I've tried to analyse what's going on by running top (and 'w' and ps) in a console window while the system starts up but I really can't see anything obvious that's hogging any resource. One noticeable thing apart from the load average being so high is that my 8Gb of memory gets eaten up too, but there seem to be no particular processes using either lots of CPU or lots of memory. Can anyone suggest further ways of trying to diagnose this? -- Chris Green

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Problem with anacron and cron *never* running jobs
by Chris G 15 Jan '10

15 Jan '10

I have a backup job that (should) be run daily. There is a script called 'backup' that is in /etc/cron.daily. If the computer is shutdown regularly then anacron does its job and runs backup a few minutes after the computer is powered up again. If, on the other hand, the computer is on all the time then cron runs the job at 07:30. However, and this is the problem, if the computer is Suspend[ed] and isn't running at 07:30 then the jobs in /etc/cron.daily never get run. Is there any way around this? -- Chris Green

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[ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : McGintys, Northgate Street
by samwise 14 Jan '10

14 Jan '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 this Monday 18th January, 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://pjmcginty.moonfruit.com/ McGintys pub is in the centre of Ipswich, not far from our old haunt - The Milestone. It's directly opposite the town's central library and has a reputation for good Irish beer. All are welcome, novices and experienced users. Feel free to ask for further information on the Main ALUG mailing list. After the successful Christmas meal we had earlier in the month, we resume with our first traditional meet of the new year. We didn't get any volunteers for a tutorial this month (surprise!), so we'll see what can be knocked up last minute. We've been doing well attendance-wise for the last couple of meets, so let's continue with a strong start to the new year. :D Remember to call (mail me in advance for my mobile no.) or email me, if you're arriving later and want to ensure I don't wander off, which might happen if the turn-out hits rock-bottom ... Hope to see 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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[ALUG Announce] Norwich Thursday Pub Meet
by Wayne Stallwood 14 Jan '10

14 Jan '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 ----- This months second Thursday social meeting of ALUG will take place on 14th January 2010 at The Coach and Horses (82 Thorpe Road, Norwich, NR1 1BA http://www.thecoachthorperoad.co.uk/ ) There should be people there from 8pm, If you are unsure you will recognise us then make yourself and your intent to attend known by either posting on list or via IRC so we can look out for you rather than hiding in the corner. ----- 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

2 1

Another Lunx vs Win issue!
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 14 Jan '10

14 Jan '10

Greetings Folks! A friend recently sent me the following URL: http://www.oddcast.com/home/demos/tts/tts_example.php?sitepal What *should* happen (and happens when I open it in Win IE) is that the main box (with the panel of boxes below it) should show a face (female in the first instance) which is animated (e.g. if you move the mouse-pointer over that window the eyes will follow it); and, when you enter some text in the "Enter Text:" box then click "Say It", the mouth-parts move and you will hear that text spoken. (The other boxes below the main window let you choose the regional accent and speaker, etc.). However, on my Debian Linux (Etch or Lenny) with Firefox there is no face in the window, and when I click on "Say It" all I get is a pop-up which says "It is not ready yet". Does any of you succeed in getting this to work as described in Linux? If not, I wonder why not. I wo9nder whether I have sufficient resources of Java or PHP installed, but not having hit such a problem before I'm not sure whdether that is a good direction to be hunting in. Any comments or advice welcome! With thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 13-Jan-10 Time: 20:27:40 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Re: [ALUG] Programs that use dbus appear not to work as remote X clients
by phil.ashby＠bt.com 13 Jan '10

13 Jan '10

> From: Chris G <cl(a)isbd.net> > On Tue, Jan 12, 2010 at 05:08:16PM +0000, Chris G wrote: > [snip tale of woe] >> >> So am I missing something or is the whole dbus thing completely broken >> if you're trying to use X in the classic way with remote applications? >> I've done a few Google searches and didn't find anything very obvious >> about this so *maybe* there is something vital I'm missing, or maybe >> no one now uses remote X (at least not with Gnome). >> > Further Google searching has revealed the answer, simple but decidedly > not obvious. I need to enter 'dbus-launch planner' at the remote > prompt, this apparently tells the remote system that the dbus it needs > to talk to is on my desktop. > > Anyway, it works now. According to 'man dbus-launch' this doesn't connect said program to the dbus session bus on your desktop, but starts a fresh session bus on the remote machine - thus your application config (in the case of Yelp) and other dbus connected services are stored on the remote machine. Said man page also indicates that a dbus session should be started automatically by the libdbus client if there isn't one running however this seems to fail in your case. P

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introduction
by Ian Porter 13 Jan '10

13 Jan '10

Hi all.. My name is Ian Porter and I have been using linux for about 10 years now.. and cannot say that I am resetting that choice :).. I would class myself as a developer (c++/c#/java/php/sql etc ) and also server person. I did join before xmas and think that I posted my introduction then.. but allot has happened since then, Scotland and back in snow etc.. which is always fun sliding around on for 400 miles.. :) Anyway, just thought that I would say hi since I have seen a couple come though. Catch up with you all sometime. Ian Mysite: http://www.codingfriends.com

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Software patents, and a petition
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 12 Jan '10

12 Jan '10

Hi Folks, ComputerWorldUK have an article describing the resurrection of the European Software Patents issue: http://www.computerworlduk.com/toolbox/open- source/blogs/index.cfm?entryid=2721&blogid=14 There is a link therein to a petition, which you may wish to consider signing. Best wishes to all, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 09-Jan-10 Time: 07:19:28 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Programs that use dbus appear not to work as remote X clients
by Chris G 12 Jan '10

12 Jan '10

I have been trying to use Gnome Planner running as an X remote client application running on another computer on the LAN. I.e. I am logging into another computer using ssh from a terminal window on my desktop (using 'ssh -X <remote> so X is allowed and DISPLAY is set) and then entering 'planner' at the command prompt. It's totally broken as far as I can see, planner tries to connect to a local (i.e. on the remote system) dbus which isn't there because the X session it needs to talk to is on my desktop computer. The symptoms in planner are a huge delay starting up, a failure to find saved data and a wierd pop-up error box when it finally appears on the screen. I also tried running yelp as a remote X client and it too failed miserably with a load of similar dbus errors:- (yelp:2860): Yelp-WARNING **: Cannot find dbus bus GConf Error: Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See http://projects.gnome.org/gconf/ for information. (Details - 1: Failed to get connection to session: Failed to connect to socket /tmp/dbus-nrMIzFk9Y7: Connection refused) GConf Error: Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See http://projects.gnome.org/gconf/ for information. (Details - 1: Failed to get connection to session: Failed to connect to socket /tmp/dbus-JTLaNQBBPo: Connection refused) (yelp:2860): Yelp-WARNING **: Failed to load config file: No such file or directory ** (yelp:2860): CRITICAL **: atk_object_set_name: assertion `name != NULL' failed ** (yelp:2860): CRITICAL **: atk_object_set_name: assertion `name != NULL' failed (yelp:2860): Yelp-WARNING **: An error occurred getting the gconf value /apps/yelp/use_system_fonts: Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See http://projects.gnome.org/gconf/ for information. (Details - 1: Failed to get connection to session: Failed to connect to socket /tmp/dbus-4gA9VDJgu5: Connection refused) (yelp:2860): Yelp-WARNING **: An error occurred getting the gconf value '/apps/yelp/variable_font' ... plus loads more in similar vein. Other remote X client applications (which, presumably don't attempt to use dbus) work perfectly OK. I even have synaptic installed on the (headless) remote system and run it on my desktop to do upgrades to the remote system (I usually use apt-get but sometimes synaptic is easier). So am I missing something or is the whole dbus thing completely broken if you're trying to use X in the classic way with remote applications? I've done a few Google searches and didn't find anything very obvious about this so *maybe* there is something vital I'm missing, or maybe no one now uses remote X (at least not with Gnome). -- Chris Green

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New list member
by Mark Wilson 12 Jan '10

12 Jan '10

Hi all, Just thought I'd introduce myself. I've been subscribed to this list quite a while but this is my first post. I'm a Norwich resident who has been using Linux for probably 3-4 years now. I'm into programming (C++, Java) as an amateur hobbyist. Mark Wilson

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Re: [ALUG] MP4 To MP3 Converter Ubuntu
by Srdjan Todorovic 12 Jan '10

12 Jan '10

Hi, 2010/1/12 Simon Royal <simonroyal(a)live.co.uk>: > Hi > Tried the command you said. First I had to sudo apt-get mplayer, which all > went fine. > However when I run the line you gave me (replacing the filename of course), > I get: > Unknown option on the command line: -aoc > Error parsing option on the command line: -aoc > Any ideas? Yes I think my memory is at fault (though I think mplayer devs changed the syntax of the command line options lately). It should have been -ao pcm:file=somefile.wav Srdjan > --- Catch me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal or Skype: Simon-Royal > > > >> Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2010 15:56:41 +0000 >> From: todorovic.s(a)googlemail.com >> To: main(a)lists.alug.org.uk >> Subject: Re: [ALUG] MP4 To MP3 Converter Ubuntu >> >> On 12/01/2010, Simon Royal <simonroyal(a)live.co.uk> wrote: >> >> > Can anyone recommend a program that will extra audio from an MP4 video >> > file >> > and either convert it to MP3 straight or at least extract to AIFF or >> > WAV? >> > Im running 9.10. >> >> Off the top of my head, something like this should work: >> >> mplayer cool_video.mp4 -vo null -vc dummy -aoc pcm:file=myoutput.wav >> >> You could also use -aoc mp3lame or -aoc lavc to encode straight to mp3 >> but I can't remember the syntax for it right now. >> >> Srdjan >> >> _______________________________________________ >> main(a)lists.alug.org.uk >> http://www.alug.org.uk/ >> http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main >> Unsubscribe? See message headers or the web site above! > > ________________________________ > Do you have a story that started on Hotmail? Tell us now

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MP4 To MP3 Converter Ubuntu
by Simon Royal 12 Jan '10

12 Jan '10

Hi. Im fairly new to Ubuntu, been running it for a few weeks now solid and loving it. Can anyone recommend a program that will extra audio from an MP4 video file and either convert it to MP3 straight or at least extract to AIFF or WAV? Im running 9.10. Simon Royal --- Catch me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal or Skype: Simon-Royal _________________________________________________________________ We want to hear all your funny, exciting and crazy Hotmail stories. Tell us now http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/195013117/direct/01/

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Forwarding Desktop Ports
by Paul Grenyer 11 Jan '10

11 Jan '10

Hi all I've VritualBox running a Win 2003 Server on my 64bit Ubuntu 9.10 desktop installation. And that in turn is running Microsoft SQL Server. I can access SQL server from my ubuntu desktop as http://win2003server:1433. But I want to be able to access it is http://localhost:1433, as if it was actually running on ubuntu. So what I want to know is, is there a way to forward all localhost:1433 traffic automatically to win2003server:1433? Is there a better solution? -- Thanks Paul Paul Grenyer e: paul.grenyer(a)gmail.com b: paulgrenyer.blogspot.com

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AVI & WMV from Linux don't play on Windows
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 11 Jan '10

11 Jan '10

Hi Folks, I'd be most grateful for help with the foloowing puzzle. Background: I VHS-taped an item from yesterday evening's BBC1 "Look East", since it is of interest to people I know. I then copied this onto a "scratch" DVD, to have it readable on my Debian laptop (OK, I know it can probably be done with a cable, but I'm not up to that). I wanted to put it up on my Zen web-site so that others can view it from there (and they will mostly be using WIndows). So I first created an AVI file usingmencoder as follows (following an example in 'man mplayer'): mencoder dvd://1 \ -o denvermilllookeast2010.01.05.avi \ -oac copy \ -ovc lavc \ -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4 The resulting .avi file plays fine using totem. I then ftp'd it to my website, and tried playing it from there using IE on Windows Vista. It failed, saying a codec was missing. However, the file on the website still plays fine on Debian with totem. So I then created a WMV file using "wmv2" format with: mencoder dvd://1 \ -o Denver.wmv \ -oac copy \ -ovc lavc \ -lavcopts vcodec=wmv2 Then I uploaded this one as well. Once again, this played fine in totem both from the file on the Debian laptop and from the copy on the web-site. This time, when I try IE from Vista on the web-site copy, I get the video OK, but no sound. So I'm wondering what the problem is, and how to solve it! In the past, I've had no problems with playing AVI files created by my digital camera using IE (video and sound both OK), though I haven't tried WMV before. So presumably there's some mysterious mismatch between the AVI created by mencoder as above, and AVI as Windows MediaPlayer expects to see it; ditto with WMV. The files in question can be found at http://www.zen89632.zen.co.uk/DenverMill AVI: denvermilllookeast2010.01.05.avi WMV: Denver.wmv and an example of a working AVI (both in totem and IE) at http://www.zen89632.zen.co.uk/Earith/Earith_Crab_2009.10.25.avi As well as the video, there is background noise from the water falling over the sluice, and from passing traffic, which comes through quite clearly both in totem and in IE. For anyone interested: this is probably a Mitten Crab which has found its way some 30 miles upstream from the sea, spotted by me when I was strolling over the bridge above the sluice-gate on the Old Bedford River at Earith, in the shallow water above the concrete sill below the sluice-gate. A still photo is at http://www.zen89632.zen.co.uk/Earith/Earith_Crab_2009.10.25cropped.jpg The location of the photo is marked "A" on: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=52.353953,0.038109& daddr=&hl=en&geocode=&mra=mi&mrsp=0&sz=15&sll=52.353901,0.038023& sspn=0.011586,0.034719&ie=UTF8&z=15 [equivalent: http://tinyurl.com/yb57epr ] Any comments on the problem would be most welcome! With thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 06-Jan-10 Time: 21:38:51 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Wanted, sort of Journal/Blog/Calendar/ToDo all in one, probably web based
by Chris G 10 Jan '10

10 Jan '10

Yes, I know that's a bit of a broad requirement! :-) I'm after an application of some sort that will help me keep track of what I suppose is a project (buying a boat in France). I'm open to any sort of idea really as, at the moment, I'm a bit lost as to how to do it. Straightforward calendar applications don't quite cut it as I want it to be a bit more 'textful' than that, I also want easy ways to link to web pages and other information. I might be persuaded that something like Sunbird/Lightning or evolution is the way to go though. Can one put links into sunbird entries? A blog *might* do what I want but I need easy ways to search and/or browse through entries by date and a way to remind myself to do things. I don't think blogs usually allow one to create future entries and or planning sections do they? I suppose a project planning utility might be what I'm after but they often seem a bit too much oriented towards large multi-person projects. I will go and do some looking on this front though as it isn't a way I've thought of going before. -- Chris Green

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Error writing to /sys
by Richard Lewis 09 Jan '10

09 Jan '10

Hi ALUG, I'm just trying to replace acerfand <http://www.electronpusher.org/~rachel/acerfand> with acerhdf <http://www.piie.net/index.php?section=acerhdf> on my Acer Aspire One. The module comes with my kernel (Debian 2.6.31-1-686), is loaded, and reports the current temperature correctly. However, I can't enable the automatic fan control because, when I try and write "enabled" to /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/mode it says "Permission denied": $ sudo echo "enabled" -n >/sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/mode bash: /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/mode: Permission denied Or, # echo "enabled" -n > /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/mode bash: echo: write error: Invalid argument I even tried switching to runlevel 1 and I still get the "Invalid argument" error. Any ideas why I can't write to this file? Or how to make it work? 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.richard-lewis.me.uk/ -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- +----------------------------------------------+ | Support open access to scholarship | | http://freeculture.org/ http://www.doaj.org/ | +----------------------------------------------+

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Re: [ALUG] Weird rendering of website!
by Anthony Anson 09 Jan '10

09 Jan '10

Anthony Anson wrote: > Chris G wrote: >> On Fri, Jan 08, 2010 at 01:28:11PM -0000, Ted Harding wrote: >>> Hi Folks, >>> Still following up one of my current side-interests, I visited the >>> website >>> >>> http://www.denvermill.co.uk >>> >>> using Iceweasel on Debian Etch. Hopeless rendering of text (massive >>> vertical expansion), much of the page simply missing, and hardly >>> any of the links apparently active and none of them working. >>> >>> On the other hand, if I view it in Windows Internet Explorer then >>> it all seems to work perfectly. >>> >>> What might be the explanation for this difference? >>> >> Looking at the source:- >> >> <meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 6.0"> >> >> This, plus a total lack of testing, would explain a lot! :-) >> >> Not to mention how does a fairly simple page require such a *huge* >> amount of junk to generate it? Very good question - and I have to wonder what it sends back to M$... Seems to work (FSVO work) OK in Firefox, though. Site written by a complete bloat-happy numpty: all those graphics on the main page... -- Tony Anson www.girolle.co.uk/

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Weird rendering of website!
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 09 Jan '10

09 Jan '10

Hi Folks, Still following up one of my current side-interests, I visited the website http://www.denvermill.co.uk using Iceweasel on Debian Etch. Hopeless rendering of text (massive vertical expansion), much of the page simply missing, and hardly any of the links apparently active and none of them working. On the other hand, if I view it in Windows Internet Explorer then it all seems to work perfectly. What might be the explanation for this difference? Best wishes, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 08-Jan-10 Time: 13:28:07 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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UPS + LAN Switches that don't blow up after a power cut!
by stevey.eu 07 Jan '10

07 Jan '10

Having only just got back on after 24hours, I have no end of issues, so am thinking a UPS is in order. That and my LAN switch no longer works. Any suggestions for suitable replacements would be handy right now. Cheers, Steve

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Which way of using rsync will be faster?
by Chris G 07 Jan '10

07 Jan '10

I'm using rsync to copy some files across my LAN. There are various ways I can do this and I'd like to know which is likely to be fastest. The (most obvious) ways I can see of doing it are:- 1 - Run rxvt in conventional fashion across the network to the remote system, e.g. with syntax like:- rxvt -a /thisDir/ thatSystem:/thatDir/ 2 - Use the (already mounted) NFS mount of the remote system and, from rxvt's point of view copy locally:- rxvt -a /thisDir/ /mnt/thatDir/ 3 - sshfs? Doesn't really seem a very sensible candidate. My *guess* is that probably option 1 is best but I'm not really sure. The object is more to minimise system load (and network load) than to get the absolute best speed. The copies (backups) will likely run when I'm using the system so I want them not to overload things too much. -- Chris Green

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Ipswich ALUG Christmas Meal
by samwise 05 Jan '10

05 Jan '10

Final reminder for Adam R, Steve F, David D, Peter T, Keith J and Sean M - the Ipswich ALUG Christmas Meal is tonight. Meet in McGinty's at 19:30 or at the restaurant at 20:00 this evening. Mr Wing 7 St. Helens Street Ipswich IP4 1HE Tel: 01473 212885 WWW: http://www.misterwing.co.uk/ Map URL: http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=mr.+wings+ipswich Cheers, Peter.

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Cannot empty trash
by Mark Rogers 05 Jan '10

05 Jan '10

On my Ubuntu 9.10 desktop, I have the trash applet in my Gnome taskbar and it says I have 2 items in trash if I hover my mouse over it. If I open the trash, there's nothing there. If I select the "empty deleted items folder" option it has no effect. There is nothing in ~/.local/share/Trash/(files|info|expunged) I'm guessing that something has been deleted on an external or other mounted drive that has since been removed without emptying the trash properly, but I can't see how to clear the trash so that it appears to be empty. Googling just sends me to endless pointers to ~/.local/share/Trash and/or the trash-cli package, neither of which have helped. -- 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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Online command line info pages?
by Anthony Anson 04 Jan '10

04 Jan '10

I'd be grateful if someone could point me at a page/pages which give the scripts for commands I can type into a 'terminal', so I can make things happen in this awful Kenvironment. Too hurriedly, I bought 'Command Line & Shell Scripting' - at huge expense, only to disover that a) because what the author really meant by the title was 'Shell Scripting in a ommand Line Environment', b) I can't haggle with Borders about exchanging it, -- Tony Anson www.girolle.co.uk/

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Here I Am
by Simon Royal 03 Jan '10

03 Jan '10

Hi. Well I have just joined the ALUG and I thought I would share a little about myself. I've been into computing for over 17 years, firstly on Windows. I have spent the last 10 years as a hardcore Mac fan, until a few weeks ago when I decided to give Linux a proper try. It has always been something I have played with on and off. I have a Samsung A10 laptop, it is a 1.1Ghz Duron with 1GB RAM dual booting Ubuntu 9.10 and Windows XP Home. I use Ubuntu 99% of the time and only use Windows as a backup just incase. Ubuntu runs like a dream on it and this latest version has the best hardware support I have ever found, it was easier to set up some of my hardware under Ubuntu than it was Mac OSX. Well that is me. I'm not too experienced in Linux but I am learning on a daily basis and loving everything I find. Regards Simon Royal --- Catch me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal or Skype: Simon-Royal _________________________________________________________________ Have more than one Hotmail account? Link them together to easily access both http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/186394591/direct/01/

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How to find what this /dev/sdc is - I don't have a third disk
by Chris G 03 Jan '10

03 Jan '10

I have been looking at reducing my system's boot-up time and noticed that it seemed to spend quite a lot of time detecting a device called /dev/sdc. I only have two real hard disks on the system, they're /dev/sda and /dev/sdb. However in dmesg I see:- [ 7.681894] usb-storage: device scan complete [ 7.690995] scsi 6:0:0:0: Direct-Access Generic Ultra HS-SD/MMC 1.82 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0 [ 7.691402] sd 6:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg3 type 0 [ 7.707729] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Attached SCSI removable disk What is this? I don't have any removable disks that I know about and /dev/sdc doesn't seem to be in any way a usable device. The only USB devices (well, external ones anyway) are a mouse and a scanner. I don't think it's the CD drive either as that seems to be a distinct device:- brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 32 2010-01-02 17:39 /dev/sdc brw-rw----+ 1 root cdrom 11, 0 2010-01-02 17:39 /dev/sr0 So who/what/where is /dev/sdc coming from and can I get rid of it somehow so it doesn't wast boot time? -- Chris Green

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VMWare 2.0.2 on Ubuntu 9.10
by Paul Grenyer 02 Jan '10

02 Jan '10

Hi All Thanks for the FTP help. Here's question number 2! I'm trying to install VMWare 2.0.2 on Ubuntu 9.10. I've downloaded and unzipped VMware-server-2.0.2-203138.x86_64.tar.gz and followed the instructions: sudo ./wmware-install.pl I accepted the defaults and the licence and it ran through to the vmware-config.pl bit. Then it fails with: ... /tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c: In function ‘LinuxDriverSyncCallOnEachCPU’: /tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:1423: error: too many arguments to function ‘smp_call_function’ /tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c: In function ‘LinuxDriver_Ioctl’: /tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:1987: error: ‘struct task_struct’ has no member named ‘euid’ /tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:1987: error: ‘struct task_struct’ has no member named ‘uid’ /tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:1988: error: ‘struct task_struct’ has no member named ‘fsuid’ /tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:1988: error: ‘struct task_struct’ has no member named ‘uid’ /tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:1989: error: ‘struct task_struct’ has no member named ‘egid’ /tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:1989: error: ‘struct task_struct’ has no member named ‘gid’ /tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:1990: error: ‘struct task_struct’ has no member named ‘fsgid’ /tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:1990: error: ‘struct task_struct’ has no member named ‘gid’ /tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:2007: error: too many arguments to function ‘smp_call_function’ make[2]: *** [/tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only/linux/driver.o] Error 1 make[1]: *** [_module_/tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only] Error 2 make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.31-16-generic' make: *** [vmmon.ko] Error 2 make: Leaving directory `/tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only' Unable to build the vmmon module. For more information on how to troubleshoot module-related problems, please visit our Web site at "http://www.vmware.com/go/unsup-linux-products" and "http://www.vmware.com/go/unsup-linux-tools". Execution aborted. I've checked the vmware website and googled, but none of the suggested solutions I've tried have worked. I'm hoping someone else on this list is running VMWare and can help me out, please? -- Thanks Paul Paul Grenyer e: paul.grenyer(a)gmail.com b: paulgrenyer.blogspot.com

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iwl3945 Wi-Fi broken in Kubuntu 9.10 ?
by Srdjan Todorovic 02 Jan '10

02 Jan '10

Happy New Year everyone! I've got a strange problem where my dad's laptop will sometimes associate with the wifi AP (but never ever get a DHCP response from it) when the laptop's running Kubuntu 9.04 or 9.10. A temporary install of Slackware 13 on the same machine showed that the laptop will associate with the AP and get an IP address very fast and with no problems. My laptop with a wifi device that uses the same driver works perfectly in Slackware 13... Has anyone come across this problem? I've been on the #kubuntu channel today with not much useful help coming from there (understandable as it's New Years). There might be an issue with NetworkManager - that's now been uninstalled and replaced with wicd which seems to help a bit. I was getting lots of "disassociating by local choice reason=3" in dmesg output which is output from the ieee80211 support layer in the kernel. The Kubuntu kernel that was tried also included 2.6.29.6 - which is the kernel that Slackware had. I suspect some weird ubuntu-ism or PEBKAC is at fault, but I'm running out of time to fix this. The commands to reproduce: ifconfig wlan0 up iwconfig wlan0 essid myssid iwconfig wlan0 key s:mykey (yes the real key was correct but I'm not printing here) iwconfig wlan0 ap aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff dhclient wlan0 Somewhere after iwconfig key or ap, the wiconfig output lost all the ssid and key and ap settings (if they showed any beforehand). dhclient just sat there broadcasting for a response. Wicd actually helped in the sense that once the GUI was told to connect, the iwconfig settings were set for essid/key/ap and the problem was that the interface could not get a DHCP response. The hardware RFKill switch was set to off (RF allowed). Any ideas please? Thanks, Srdjan

6 10

Eee bah gum
by Anthony Anson 01 Jan '10

01 Jan '10

Have an Eee using Xandros, and a Vodafone mobile internet dongle. If I connect to the internet (3G or GPRS) whatever else I plug into a USB port isn't found in the file system. OTOH, if I plug any other devie in, such as memory stick, SD card, external HDD or CD/DVD drive, any of those will be found, however many there are, even filling a (powered hub), but if I then plug in the dongle, this isn't found. Not being able to transfer files etc onto a memory stick is to say the least, inconvenient. Any suggestions welcomed. (Yes, I'd probably load Ubantu, but without the dongle working, I'm not sure that the driver I've downloaded will work - given I can find the command line string to install it. (See other thread!) -- Tony Anson www.girolle.co.uk/

2 1

command line book and a couple other things
by Peter Alcibiades 01 Jan '10

01 Jan '10

Two things, first, Scott Grannenman's book 'Linux Phrasebook' is a really great introduction to command line, a bit less forbidding and shorter than Linux in a Nutshell, and more pedagogically oriented, lots of examples and when and how to use stuff. Second, I would really like to reply in threads, I realize its very irritating when people do not do this, but how do you do it when receiving only the digest? Is there a nabble or similar page for main as there is for one or two other lists? I've not beein able to find it for this one. Or do I simply have to start getting the messages as they come in and segregate them in the client? Which is kmail, by the way. Incidentally, the printer, which people were kind enough to help with earlier, well, it works! Amazing. It prints out the receipts, and then as if by magic, it operates the cutter, and then equally magically, it opens the cash drawer! The last trick I had to overcome was that ghex for some reason didn't seem to want to make a text file with only hex 7 in it, so I used the far superior bless. And there turned out to be a trick to passing an echo string with quotes in it to the shell from my programming language, you have to do some fairly convoluted things to manage to escape the quotes in the string you want to pass. But hey, it works now, and you will all know that nice feeling you get when, bingo, the bell rings and the drawer opens, just as it should. So thanks. Peter

2 1

USB disk drives
by nev young 01 Jan '10

01 Jan '10

Hi all, Hope every one has had a merry xmas. Does any one know if this[1] 1.5Tb USB disk from Maplins will work on an ubuntu 9.10 machine? If not how could I make it work? I bought a similar one last year and it was not recognised by the PC so I ended up removing the HDD and installing it as an internal drive. Now they're about £30 cheaper than last year and I still need a decent size external drive for backup. I've been to the shop to ask - they don't know and they won't let me try it and return if it doesn't work. I've emailed Maplins tech help - no reply. I've emailed Verbaitum's tech help - no reply. So I thought I'd ask here before I lay out my cash on something else that may not work as intended. TIA Nev [1] http://buy.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?moduleno=323559

10 18

Introducing Myself
by Paul Grenyer 31 Dec '09

31 Dec '09

Hi All I am Head of Software Engineering at validus (http://www.validus-ivc.co.uk) in Norwich. I recently switched from Windows Vista to Ubuntu 9.10 desktop as more and more of the applications I am running on Windows will run anywhere and I wanted something faster and more stable and also wanted to add a new string to my bow. I've tried to switch to Linux on a number of occasions over the years, but this is the only time I've stuck with it. In fact going back to Windows, as I will have to when I return to work in a week, feels horrible and slow now. I am also moving my hosted webserver to my own webserver at home running Ubuntu 9.10 server. I joined the LUG primarily to try and get some help with some issues I'm having, but I will put those into separate emails. For those of you interested, you can read my blog here: http://paulgrenyer.blogspot.com. -- Thanks Paul Paul Grenyer e: paul.grenyer(a)gmail.com b: paulgrenyer.blogspot.com

5 7

vsftpd and permissions
by Paul Grenyer 31 Dec '09

31 Dec '09

Hi All I've setup an ubuntu 9.10 server at home that I am planning to use instead of the pay for web server I have at the moment. It's the 32bit version running on an old AMD 2.0GHz with 1GB of RAM, that I'm hoping to upgrade to 2GB once I can find some. It's seems pretty nippy at the moment, but it's only running Apache2 and Subversion. You can get up my PHP test page here if you're interested: http://82.69.121.44/phpinfo.php I've installed vsftpd, obviously so that I can transfer files to it easily and although I can move .php files into the /var/www folder, it is of course owned by the www-data user, so the files transfered, when logged in as me, will not execute. After some googling I read that I can configure vsftpd to give the files the right permissions automatically on transfer, but I can't find out how? Also, I cannot delete files via ftp that I transfered onto the server using my user. Can that be rectified with vsftpd configuration too? -- Thanks Paul Paul Grenyer e: paul.grenyer(a)gmail.com b: paulgrenyer.blogspot.com

7 16

A curious Debian clash
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 31 Dec '09

31 Dec '09

Hi Folks, First, Seasons Greetings to all. Now: Recently, on a Debian system which (from the time-stamps on the earliest user files) seems to have been Debian Etch (April 2009, though I have been following the updates), I installed the xfmail MUA which I have habitually used on a much older system. It was hnot available in the Etch repository, so I searched the web and found and used the deb package xfmail_1.5.5-3_i386.deb 17-Jan-2006 22:35 951K and it all seemed to go in; and also, it seems to work. So far so good. Today, however, I wanted to install ffmpeg. First, synaptic tells me that there is a broken package (which is not identified, but on later evidence it seems that it is xfmail). Then, when I search for ffmpeg and mark it for installation, I am told it xfmail will be removed (and that there are other problems). So I turned to apt-get, with the following results: [1] # apt-get install ffmpeg Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done You might want to run 'apt-get -f install' to correct these: The following packages have unmet dependencies. ffmpeg: Depends: libavdevice52 (>= 3:20080706) but it is not going to be installed Depends: libimlib2 but it is not going to be installed xfmail: Depends: libglib1.2 (>= 1.2.0) but it is not installable Depends: libldap2 (>= 2.1.17-1) but it is not installable E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt-get -f install' with no packages (or specify a solution). Well, despite what it says about xfmail dependencies, xfmail works! Now to see what "Try 'apt-get -f install' with no packages" gives: [2] # apt-get -f install Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done Correcting dependencies...Done The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required: libswscale0 libmcrypt4 Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them. The following packages will be REMOVED xfmail 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 0 not upgraded. 1 not fully installed or removed. After this operation, 2597kB disk space will be freed. Do you want to continue [Y/n]? n Abort. So it still wants to remove xfmail. So what about the library libimlib2, say, that ffmpeg depends on? [3] # apt-get install libimlib2 Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done You might want to run 'apt-get -f install' to correct these: The following packages have unmet dependencies. xfmail: Depends: libglib1.2 (>= 1.2.0) but it is not installable Depends: libldap2 (>= 2.1.17-1) but it is not installable E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt-get -f install' with no packages (or specify a solution). So it still stubs its toes on xfmail, but now without any indication that the installation of libimlib2 (and therefore of ffmpeg) is really interfered with by xfmail. It just seems to want to get xfmail out of the way before it does anything else. I do not want to remove xfmail. So is there a way to persuade apt-get (or any other Debian installation program) to ignore xfmail and get on with what it has been asked to do?!! Or am I misunderstanding the workings? With thanks (and if you solve it you will make my Christmas Happy)! Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 25-Dec-09 Time: 21:39:40 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

2 3

What's the difference (if any) between 'span' and 'JBOD'?
by Chris G 30 Dec '09

30 Dec '09

My Western Digital NAS server offers me (among other RAID formats) both 'span' and 'JBOD'. I thought they were synonyms for the same thing, that is using the disks 'as is' with no RAID processing. If they're different can anyone explain the difference please. -- Chris Green

1 1

sshfs versus just using ssh/rsync
by Chris G 30 Dec '09

30 Dec '09

Is there any difference between the two following strategies for backing up files to a remote system:- 1 Mount the remote destination directory using sshfs/fuser Copy the files to the 'local' directory just mounted using rsync, rdiff-backup or whatever. 2 Copy the files directly to the remote system using rsync or rdiff-backup. Strategy 1 has the significant advantage that the remote system doesn't have to have anything other than ssh available. You don't run into any issues with mismatched versions of rdiff-backup or anything like that. Both strategies require that you set up some form of 'passwordless' login to the remote system or you need to enter the password (or passphrase) when the backup is run. I was thinking that I can run either of these from my .xprofile so that by the time they are run the required passphrase has been entered. I was even thinking that I could run the backup to one remote system from my wife's desktop .xprofile and to the other from my desktop .xprofile so they'd be at different times and to different remote systems, most unlikely to get both damaged at the same time. Only someone breaking into my working X environment would get access to the backups, just breaking into my home systems wouldn't do it. They might of course break into the remote systems I use for backup but then I have my home backups that haven't been compromised. -- Chris Green

4 5

i18n
by Steve 30 Dec '09

30 Dec '09

Seasons Eatings all, I've been playing around with getting my laptop all nice and easy to use in a joint English / Turkish environment. I've got a key combination bound to switching the keyboard layout between GB and TR but when I do so, I lose some (but not all) of the custom keys I had set up with xmodmap. I think what I'm really asking is: has anyone had any experience of working with a dual (or multi) language environment and do you have any nuggets of information or things to look out for? Or even just some cunning xmodmap foo I should be aware of? On an unrelated note, this year marks my 10th anniversary of using linux and I've just been reflecting on how much cooler things seem now. We're a long way from the days of waiting half a day to download the latest kernel, another half a day to compile it, two more days working out how to get the new kernel to support your winmodem and then the fun of hacking X.conf :) More stuff seems to just work these days and it feels a lot more comfortable. Or maybe that's because I've been with it for 10 years. Anyhoo, enough rambling. See some of you for the first pubmeet of 2010 soon :D Steve

2 1

Some success with seahorse and gnome-keyring-daemon at last
by Chris G 30 Dec '09

30 Dec '09

Well, after searching and asking and digging around in the code I have finally got things working as I believe they should work. That is I have a default keyring being automatically opened for me when I log in. It took me a while because firstly there isn't much documentation telling you how you're supposed to use it and secondly because (in xubuntu 9.10 at least) it's broken so it doesn't work even if you do things right. There are two problems:- 1 - By default ssh-agent gets started as well as gnome-keyring-daemon, as they're both trying to do the same thing this isn't a good idea. I've stopped ssh-agent being started automatically by deleting the use-ssh-agent line from /etc/X11/Xsession.options. I'm sure there should be a GUI way of changing this but I don't know what it is. 2 - Although gnome-keyring-daemon is started automatically it isn't set up to listen on the ssh socket. To fix this I have added the following to my .xprofile:- eval $(gnome-keyring-daemon --start) export SSH_AUTH_SOCK export GNOME_KEYRING_SOCKET This second is definitely a bodge but at least it gets things working, there are several bugs reported around this area in more than one linux distribution - in fact that's how I eventually found out how to sort it out. So, now my login password is *also* used to unlock the default keyring and ssh can interrogate that keyring to get my private key to log in to other systems. .... and it really is just about passwordless, or at least I don't have to enter any more passwords after login, but my private keys are kept reasonably safe. I suppose having my login password the same as my key passphrase is a bit less than perfect but this is only for connections going outwards from my home system so isn't very critical really. Now I'm off to those external systems to make them a bit more secure as regards logging into the home system. It's a pity there aren't any 'hooks' in ssh-agent and login that would allow you to do the same for direct ssh logins as happens with Gnome/KDE, then you could do the same sort of thing and enter only one password for connecting onwards. -- Chris Green

4 6

Efficient power supplies - especially at very low powers - suppliers?
by Chris G 30 Dec '09

30 Dec '09

While this isn't particularly Linux related it is PC related and I'd guess some people here may be knowledgeable in this area. I'm trying to cut down my PCs' power consumption, one way has been to offload 'server' functions from my desktop machine to a much lower power server machine. That's now done and I'm looking at other ways to reduce power consumption. I've been looking at the power consumption of my desktop machine and noticed that when in standby it consumes about 20 watts. So I checked how much it consumed when powered down completely (but still conencted) and it *still* consumed 20 watts. I.e. the power supply and motherboard even when completely idle take 20 watts. I suspect that this is mostly power supply losses. When powered up, even though it's quite a fast machine (quad core processor, 8Gb of memory, two big disk drives) it only takes 50 watts so the power supply isn't all that inefficient when it's working. So how can I search for power supplies that don't take much power when completely idle? Typical 'efficient' 300 watt and 400 watt power supplies are better than 80% efficient but that means they may well still consume 20 watts when doing nothing. Efficiency *doesn't* necessarily equate to low 'off' power. -- Chris Green

3 4

Re: [ALUG] Windows software for managing remote Linux SVN server?
by Srdjan Todorovic 21 Dec '09

21 Dec '09

On 18/12/2009, mick <mbm(a)rlogin.net> wrote: > On Thu, 17 Dec 2009 11:32:32 +0000 > Srdjan Todorovic <todorovic.s(a)googlemail.com> allegedly wrote: > >> Hi all, >> >> I'm looking for some simple to use Windows software that can >> administer a remote SVN server that runs on Linux. >> > > Best not ask here about windows software, you'll upset the faithful..... > > :-) Well I've mentioned Linux and SVN, so hopefully that will keep the zealots happy. :) Srdjan

2 1

Windows software for managing remote Linux SVN server?
by Srdjan Todorovic 21 Dec '09

21 Dec '09

Hi all, I'm looking for some simple to use Windows software that can administer a remote SVN server that runs on Linux. Specifically, I'm looking for something that can create a repository, and setup users and change passwords. Normal SVN activities (code browsing/checking in/merging/diffing etc) will be run as normal. I'm currently looking into http://www.sublimesvn.com/ but I'm not sure I like the licensing (why would each developer have to be licensed?). Thanks Srdjan

2 2

Wireless Internet Link Security
by Ian 20 Dec '09

20 Dec '09

Hi Folks, The lady of the house wants a wireless internet connection for her laptop for Christmas as she is fed up with "tripping over cables everywhere!". I have purchased a router and laptop dongle and am experimenting with it so it is ready for The Big Day. One thing which is confusing me is the security modes it offers. It gives me the choice of using any of the following 5 modes: No Security WEP WPA-PSK (TKIP) WPA2-PSK (AES) WPA-PSK (TKIP) + WPA2-PSK (AES) or Mixed Mode I do not expect Security to be a big problem but I may as well set it up the best I can right from the start. Assuming the laptop dongle can also be configured for all five security modes mentioned above which is the best mode to use? (Sorry if the above seems a dumb question to all you experienced network admin bods but this is the first time I have touched a wireless Router and am not sure what I am doing) Ian.

3 3

How best to run a 'pull' backup using passwordless login?
by Chris G 20 Dec '09

20 Dec '09

As part of my sort out and tidy up of security, backups, etc. I've decided that it would be better to run my off site backups as 'pull' backups driven from the remote systems. This way an intruder into my home system won't see any evidence of these backups happening and hence won't be tempted to do anything to them. This requires (unless someone else has some bright ideas) that the remote system has a passwordless login to enable it to do the backup (or I put the password in the script, which comes to the same thing). For this to be (reasonably) secure it needs to be set up so that the *only* thing you can do with that login is a backup. So, finally to my question, what's the tidiest/easiest way of doing this? I can see two possible ways:- A dedicated login with the program to be executed when you login set to do the backup. A 'ForceCommand' in ssh that executes the backup when certain criteria are met. I think I prefer the second as it makes handling permissions etc. easier. E.g. I want to backup files belonging to user xxxx, if I can login as user xxxx then I don't need to worry about the files all being readable by the backup. This requires careful setting up of the sshd_config file though so that remote logins to user xxxx run the backup but one can still login to user xxxx locally. Can anyone see any serious flaws in the above and/or easier ways of doing it that are still reasonably secure? -- Chris Green

4 3

Gnome, seahorse, gnome-keyring-daemon - any good howtos or overviews anywhere?
by Chris G 18 Dec '09

18 Dec '09

I'm considering (though I'm rapidly going off the idea at the moment) using seahorse and gnome-keyring to manage passwords/keys etc. None of the manuals gives a clue as to what they all actually *do*. All you get is information about the mechanics of entering data into seahorse etc. which is pretty straightforward and obvious anyway. I want to know how it actually works to make keeping keys etc. easier and to make logging in to other systems easier. At present I do things manually by editing and copying the various files in $HOME/.ssh directly myself. I don't run ssh-agent, I *assume* that gnome-keyring is a sort of replacement for that but can't find anything that tells me anything actually useful. What concerns me slightly is that it's all a total waste of time if it's only protected by my login password which I think, by default, it is. I.e. if I understand things right (and I'm not at all sure about this) when I log in to the X gui and enter my password then gnome-keyring (and/or seahorse) extracts my key[s] from somewhere and then when I ssh to other systems that key is used and I don't have to type it in. Have I got that anything like right? If this *is* the way that it works how is it even remotely more secure than simply using password login on those systems I ssh into? If not can someone clarify a bit for me, or, as I said, point me at some sort of overview document that explains things. -- Chris Green

4 13

email addresses starting with asterisk?
by Peter Alcibiades 18 Dec '09

18 Dec '09

Helping a friend change computers, we found that the email login did not work, and after a series of conversations with the provider were told to log in to get messages using *(a)mydomain.com This did indeed work, and the effect appears to be that mail sent to any name at mydomain.com is picked up by the login, and also that any name used results in mail being accepted. So for instance you can apparently send to alexander(a)mydomain.com bacchus(a)mydomain.com calypso(a)mydomain.com and so on, and it will all arrive when you log in for messages as *(a)mydomain.com. Why would anyone set up an email system like this? Does it not make a lot more sense to have specific email addresses, both to reduce spam, and to allow you to segregate, for instance, home and business email? This is the same case where there was the incomprehensible networking with two cards and class B addresses for a three machine network. When set up in the usual way with a five port router modem, it all worked perfectly fine with a lot fewer cables. Very strange. Peter

5 4

Questionnaire software - any suggestions?
by Chris G 17 Dec '09

17 Dec '09

I want to build an on-line questionnaire, a very basic one, are there any ready made applications in the Linux/Open Source world for doing this? I can't find anything obvious in the Ubuntu repositories. -- Chris Green

5 8

[ALUG Announce] POSTPONED: December's 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting
by samwise 16 Dec '09

16 Dec '09

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 has been postponed until January. Off-list five us of have agreed on an ALUG Christmas meal on the evening of Tuesday January 5th 2010 (the only day everybody's calendars agreed!). If anyone would like to join us then, please drop me a line. With no other suggestions, I'll probably try making a booking soon at Mr. Wings - the chinese restaurant we went to last time. Thanks, 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

Eee bah gum - feature...
by Anthony Anson 16 Dec '09

16 Dec '09

If there is a memory-stic plugged-in to any USB socket, the Vodafone internet dongle will not work. Click on the icon to start the software, and all you get is an egg-timer, for less time than it takes to boil an egg - if memory serves. So, introduced the Eee to a memory card in the slot provided. Dongle software failed to open. Same failure if I have an external HDD or CD/DVD plugged in. This is *VERY* inconvenient. Not tried it using a hub yet. Any ideas/suggetions, O all ye cognoiscenti? -- Tony Anson www.girolle.co.uk/

1 1

Relative merits/security of Public Key and old-fashioned password with ssh
by Chris G 16 Dec '09

16 Dec '09

I'm probably being totally paranoid but still. Is there any significant difference in security between using password login and Public Key when using ssh to connect to my home server? Just to clarify ssh connections are *only* allowed from two systems 'out there' where I have shell login accounts so an intruder has to get onto one of those systems before having any possibility of connecting to my server. Is it any easier for an intruder to guess my password (remember, no access to the system so I don't think a dictionary attack is possible is it?) or to guess the encryption key for my private key? I can't see any really significant difference between the two but I'm open to any comments. -- Chris Green

3 4

Security thoughts/questions
by Chris G 14 Dec '09

14 Dec '09

I have a small SoHo LAN which is used by the family (mostly just two of us now) for personal use and in running our small Ltd. company. There's no very sensitive (as in confidential) information on any of the systems but I guess there is stuff in E-Mails etc. that we don't really want to escape. More impportant is the *safety* (as in not losing) of a lot of information such as the company accounts, E-Mail trails of work we do and so on. Recently I have set up a small server machine which now handles DNS (using dnsmasq), has the publicly visible web pages (not the company site but bits and pieces that I want to make visible to 'the world') and runs an SMTP server. This means that firstly I can turn my desktop machine off now (it used to be the server) and secondly there's no direct access from the outside world to my desktop machine. The firewall is set up to allow only ssh, http and SMTP connections from the outside and all three of these are routed to the server machine. So far so good. Now I'm wondering whether I have overlooked anything obvious and/or if there's any way I can improve things. The most likely sort of exploit/damage as I see it is someone breaking into the server machine and just making a mess. I keep the server software as up to date as possible with security fixes etc. for apache, ssh and SMTP (postfix) so it should be fairly difficult to break in. I only allow ssh connections from two hosts (where I have shell login accounts) so password guessing needs to get there first and then into the server. All important data from desktop machines is backed up to a NAS in the garage (separate machine from the server) so that should protect against fire damage and even burglars as they're unlikely to break into both the house and the garage as well as notice hardware in both places. I also back up the critical company files 'off site' to my hosting company's site. The final barrier(s) I'm thinking about are the ease (or otherwise) of doing damage if someone breaks into one system in the LAN. For example would I win anything by enabling the root account on the server (currently sudo only) so that if someon breaks in as me they'd still have to guess the root password to be able to do anything nasty. Are there any NFS exploits I should worry about? There are quite a few NFS mounts across the various systems. -- Chris Green

1 0

Forms design for web pages - any ideas?
by Chris G 14 Dec '09

14 Dec '09

I'm looking for a tool a bit like the Forms Design part of Open Office (or MS Access for that matter) that will build web data input forms. I don't want a full-blown CMS or site design package, I just want to be able to build some simple data entry pages to load data into a database from the web (well, actually my intranet). Is there anything out there which can do this? ... and I have looked quite hard, the best I've found so far is phpmyedit. (This is as an alernative to using Open Office Base) -- Chris Green

7 12

How to set up NFS file sharing area for two users to read/write easily?
by Chris G 14 Dec '09

14 Dec '09

I want to set up a 'file sharing' area on my server machine where two users can both easily read and write files. I want this to be an NFS mount on both users' machines so it's just an 'ordinary' directory as they see at and it can also be mounted as a VirtualBox shared drive. Ideally I'd like the shared area to be owned by a third user, i.e. the two users reading and writing files are, say, 'fred' and 'bert' while the shared area is owned by 'shared'. Is there any way to set up NFS so that if fred writes a file to the area owned by 'shared' it automatically becomes owned by shared and similarly for bert? I don't really want to end up with shared's files owned by all sorts of different users. It would be fairly trivial to set up the shared area to have general write permissions for everyone but it would still be only too easy for either fred or bert to write files there that wouldn't then be writeable by the other users. I guess I essentially want both fred and bert to become user shared when they do anything in shared's file system. -- Chris Green

1 1

lp printing and permissions
by Peter Alcibiades 13 Dec '09

13 Dec '09

OK, profiting from the collective wisdom, my gdi printer is set up as raw in CUPS and is now working very nicely with cat myfile>/dev/usb/lp0 At least as far as printing is concerned, there are some issues with sending it control characters, but that's for later after some more wrestling with it myself. Problem is, printing in this way only seems to work with root privileges. Why? And what should be done about it? Printing works just fine as a user via CUPS, what is so special about this process that it needs to be su? I can think of ways of doing it, but would really like to understand what is going on and why before doing any of them. Cheers, Peter

3 3

re lp printing and permissions
by Peter Alcibiades 13 Dec '09

13 Dec '09

Yes, what I seem to have is: $ ls -l /dev/usb/lp0 crw-rw---- 1 root lp 180, 0 2009-12-12 01:59 /dev/usb/lp0 So, is this maybe the consequence of having set up the raw printer as root? But it had to be done as root apparently. Peter

2 1

Ubuntu Live CD puzzle
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 13 Dec '09

13 Dec '09

Hi Folks, First, I hope that those of you who went out for the Christmas meal had a good one! Now: I've just been giving a wee whirl to an Ubuntu 9.10 ("Karmic Koala") live CD (from the Jan 2010 Linux Magazine). I was puzzled to find that the (Gnome) interface does not seem to offer any way of setting the DNS server. I let it use DHCP from my router (which duly gave out an IP address), and I'm able to access other machines on my home LAN. However, if I'm to try it out on the WWW I need to set a DNS server IP. With the Debian Lenny which is already installed on the same machine, I get the Gnome desktop and if I click on System --> Administration --> Network [brings up "Network Settings" window] --> Connections --> Wired Connections I can then set the DNS via the "DNS" tab. However, once the Ubuntu Live CD has finished booting up I again get the Gnome desktop, but this time if I try to click as abve I get System --> Administration [and now no "Network" but only]: --> Network Tools from which it seems I can only see a listing of device properties, and choose from the basic networn tools like ping, traceroute, etc. Nothing that I can see which has to do with settings. If I look under System --> Preferences --> Network Connections [choose "eth0" and "Edit"] --> IPV4 Settings and there is no apparent provision to set the DNS IP. Of course I can work round it "by hand" by simply editing /etc/resolv.conf, but I'm surprised that the allegedly user-friendly Ubuntu doesn't give me an easy interface to do it! Or maybe Ubuntu is trying to make it too easy -- could it have something to do with being on DHCP (and the router not coming up with a DNS IP -- all my other machines being on static setup)? Even so, it should still allow me to over-ride a DNS IP from DHCP (if any) by direct configuration. So I'm puzzled, but maybe others are not and can put me right! Thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 12-Dec-09 Time: 23:47:10 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

2 2

Ian new member
by Ian Porter 12 Dec '09

12 Dec '09

Hi all, I have just joined the Linux mailing list, this is my HI email :) I have been using Linux for a bit, gentoo was one of fav's but because of compile times I have moved to kubuntu because I prefer kde ( do I need to stand back ?) Anyway, I suppose I mainly would class myself as a developer and do admin as well. Regards Ian

4 3

Re: [ALUG] Questionnaire software - any suggestions?
by Sam Tuke 11 Dec '09

11 Dec '09

>I want to build an on-line questionnaire, a very basic one, are there >any ready made applications in the Linux/Open Source world for doing >this? I've read good things about limesurvey (web based). Sam.

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