- main - earth.li

EEE Pc competitor?
by Mark Rogers 27 Feb '08

27 Feb '08

http://www.elonexone.co.uk/ £99 Linux based laptop. No mention of specs yet, other than it is solid state disk, wireless, Linux, etc. Launches on 28th Feb at Education Show at NEC, heavily targeted towards educational use. (Imagine that, a whole generation of students who know that "word processor" doesn't have to mean "word"...) -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0845 45 89 555 Registered in England (0456 0902) at 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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Dedicated Server machine share, anybody?
by Martyn Drake 26 Feb '08

26 Feb '08

Hello, I'll probably be flamed for this, but it's rare that I advertise. I'm contemplating taking out a (cheapish) dedicated server for a couple of personal projects. The specification is: - AMD Opteron 1261 - 1Gb RAM (possibly 2Gb) - 250Gb SATA II HD - 1Tb bandwidth - CentOS 5 64-bit The server will be hosted with SoftLayer in their Dallas Datacentre. I'm looking to partition the server into several Xen virtual machines, and to recoup/off-set some of my rental costs I was wondering if anybody would be interested in taking out a machine for around a tenner a month with relatively generous specifications for the VM. Regards, Martyn

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For Sale...
by Richard Bensley 25 Feb '08

25 Feb '08

-External SCSI RAID array + PCIX controller card. Comes with 4x74GB drives, I used it in a RAID0 config, got about 240MB/s-300MB/s depending on capacity. As pictured here: http://teatimebing.shackspace.com/out/raid.jpg If anyone is interested I will release more specs. Looking to get £300 ono I guess the card would work in a Apple G4/G5 system with a PCIX port, would be great for a Final Cut suite! Those 10bit streams need some juice. -I have an SGI octane that I used with said RAID that I would be willing to part with. Dual 300MHz V6Pro 1x18GB system drive + backup (fresh IRIX install) IRIX CD's (no external CD drive) 2GB RAM - £150 21" SGI granite monitor. SGI keyboard and mouse. Or £400 for both of them together, delivery would be pricey for either/both items as they are heavy. Collections welcome. Cheers Rich

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Should Norfolk NHS go private?
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 24 Feb '08

24 Feb '08

Hi Folks, This morning's Eastern Daily Press on-line: http://tinyurl.com/22odzx carries a story: Doctors warn on computers ELAINE MASLIN 21 February 2008 04:35 Health bosses have put thousands of patients' care at risk by failing to upgrade a defunct computer system, GPs claimed yesterday. Doctors at Reepham's GP practice say they have had to use obsolete computers, which stop them accessing patients' records, for months while waiting for a new system and upgrade. The article is silent about what the technical aspects of the necessary upgrade are; but further down it states: The computers were bought in 2003 by the surgery and work on a server more than six years old. That's very young by Linux standards! I wonder what the problem is ... ?? Best wishes to all, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 21-Feb-08 Time: 08:19:56 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Kernel messages
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 23 Feb '08

23 Feb '08

Hi Folks, I've just had a string of messahes from/about the kernel (All at the same time, so I'm omitting the repeated "Message from sysloigd ... " lines): Message from syslogd@localhost at Sat Feb 23 14:48:19 2008 ... localhost kernel: Oops: 0000 [#1] localhost kernel: SMP localhost kernel: CPU: 0 localhost kernel: EIP is at 0x8978b66 localhost kernel: eax: 08ebf068 ebx: 08b91df8 ecx: 09eccc28 edx: 08ebf068 localhost kernel: esi: 0a20e3c8 edi: 09eccc28 ebp: bfc25f98 esp: bfc25f98 localhost kernel: ds: 007b es: 007b ss: 007b localhost kernel: Process firefox-bin (pid: 28766, ti=ce4ae000 task=c53f6000 task.ti=ce4ae000) localhost kernel: EIP: [<08978b66>] 0x8978b66 SS:ESP 007b:bfc25f98 What might these indicate? (Debian 4.0 Etch, regularly updated, running in VirtualBox on a Vista system). With thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 23-Feb-08 Time: 15:54:48 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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python/apache2/viewcvs problem
by Jenny Hopkins 21 Feb '08

21 Feb '08

Hullo List, A few days ago it was noticed that the viewcvs on our server was showing a blank page. The apache logfile muttered something about not being able to find the SAPI module. [Thu Feb 21 18:40:36 2008] [error] [client 74.6.29.42] Traceback (most recent call last): [Thu Feb 21 18:40:36 2008] [error] [client 74.6.29.42] File "/home/aleph1/websites/aleph1.co.uk/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi", line 60, in ? [Thu Feb 21 18:40:36 2008] [error] [client 74.6.29.42] import sapi [Thu Feb 21 18:40:36 2008] [error] [client 74.6.29.42] ImportError: No module named sapi [Thu Feb 21 18:40:36 2008] [error] [client 74.6.29.42] Premature end of script headers: viewcvs.cgi I compared various backup images, and found that overnight every .py file in /usr/share/python-support had been added again but as .pyc (see below). I know nothing about the intricacies of python; it would seem this is the same time as it would have broken though. viewcvs and apache2 have upgraded in this time. Can anyone can give me a hint as to where to start foraging for incompatibilities? Presumably something didn't upgrade that should? Here are the installed python-related packages (sorry to post loads of output) ii libapache2-mod-python 3.2.10-4 ii python 2.4.4-2 ii python-apt 0.6.19 ii python-central 0.5.12 ii python-clearsilver 0.10.3-4.1 ii python-egenix-mxdatetime 2.0.6-4 ii python-egenix-mxtools 2.0.6-4 ii python-gdbm 2.4.4-1 ii python-imaging 1.1.5-11 ii python-libxml2 2.6.27.dfsg-2 ii python-minimal 2.4.4-2 ii python-moinmoin 1.5.3-1.2 ii python-mysqldb 1.2.1-p2-4 ii python-pysqlite2 2.3.2-2 ii python-setuptools 0.6c3-3 ii python-subversion 1.4.2dfsg1-2 ii python-support 0.5.6 ii python-xml 0.8.4-6 ii python2.4 2.4.4-3 ii python2.4-minimal 2.4.4-3 Many thanks, Jenny jenny@xios:/home/dirvish/stoneboat$ sudo diff -r 20080218/tree/usr/share/python-support/viewcvs/ 20080217/tree/usr/share/python-support/viewcvs/ Only in 20080218/tree/usr/share/python-support/viewcvs/: accept.pyc Only in 20080218/tree/usr/share/python-support/viewcvs/: apache_icons.pyc Only in 20080218/tree/usr/share/python-support/viewcvs/: apache.pyc Only in 20080218/tree/usr/share/python-support/viewcvs/: blame.pyc etc etc

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Off topic, scrounger?
by Martin Collins 21 Feb '08

21 Feb '08

Hi everyone, Anyone got a spare micro atx motherboard and processor kicking around they want to donate or sell cheaply please? I've just lugged an IQON TESC03 (Tesco special) base unit all the way home on the train from Hull. I foolishly promised my poor brother in-law that I would get it repaired cheaply after he's just spent about £150 in repair-man bills only to have the processor and motherboard blow-up completely on him. He's agreed to have Linux installed on it so it's all in a good cause! Best regards, Martin

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[ALUG Announce] New lug.org.uk site goes live
by MJ Ray 21 Feb '08

21 Feb '08

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 11:50:57 +0000 From: Hugo Mills <hugo(a)lug.org.uk> Message-ID: <20080221115057.GB640(a)vlad.carfax.org.uk> All - I am pleased to announce that the newly redesigned lug.org.uk website has gone live. After several weeks of concentrated effort from the lug.org.uk admin team, we have a completely redesigned and largely rewritten web presence. The new site, running on Drupal, has a new logo, a fresh look, dynamic content aggregating news from LUGs around the UK, and is standards compliant. The site is available at: http://lug.org.uk/ The lug.org.uk admin team are, in alphabetical order: Phil Clarke, Ciemon Dunville, Mat Grove, Alasdair Kergon, Hugo Mills, Alan Pope, and Andy Smith. We welcome Ciemon and Mat onto the team as website administrators. Most of the team will be attending FOSDEM this weekend, if you want to talk to us in person (or buy us drinks). Finally, we would like to thank the many people who read and commented on the pre-release version of the site. Their feedback was useful, constructive, and much appreciated. Please circulate this announcement as widely as possible. Hugo. -- Hugo Mills <hugo(a)lug.org.uk> lug.org.uk admin team ----- 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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Graphics problem
by Richard Lewis 21 Feb '08

21 Feb '08

Hello ALUG, I have an odd graphics problem on my Debian laptop: I'm getting strange flickery pixels: http://www.richard-lewis.me.uk/flickery-pixels-20080220.jpg I don't get it with the kernel framebuffer but I do get it with X whatever window manager/desktop environment I use. I've tried restarting X, re-installing some X packages and even restarting the computer. One thing I haven't tried which someone suggested was a live CD using a different XOrg version. Any other suggestions or similar experiences? Cheers, Richard -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Richard Lewis http://www.richard-lewis.me.uk/ JID: ironchicken(a)jabber.earth.li -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- +-------------------------------------------------------+ |Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments.| |http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html | +-------------------------------------------------------+

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postcode database
by LB 21 Feb '08

21 Feb '08

Sorry for my asking the question not directly linked to the mainstream of this mailing list but I am desperate to know this. I am looking for a free of charge UK postcode database. It's for the purpose of the website I am programming currently, which is of non-commercial nature. The first part of the post code, the out code, would be enough to serve my purpose. I need to know names of towns corresponding to particular out codes and to be able to calculate the distances between post codes. Can you recommend anything reliable? BTW. which out of chargeable resellers of such database would you be likely to choose considering that you don't want to spend a lot of money. -- LB

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another crazy problem with mandriva and kde
by Peter Alcibiades 20 Feb '08

20 Feb '08

OK, having somehow fixed the other two, now this crazy thing shows up. On one user account (but not the other two) something bizarre and disastrous seems to have happened to the menu. You click the star, and get this awful thing with sliding cascades and half the apps missing and four buttons at the bottom. I can find no way of getting this user account back to the normal menu system. Neither in Mandriva's control centre nor in the KDE one. Any ideas? Al

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libx86
by Dan Hatton 20 Feb '08

20 Feb '08

Dear All, I'm trying to compile a particular package (<http://suspend.sourceforge.net/>), and ./configure fails with the error message checking for LRMI_common_init in -lx86... no configure: error: Required libx86 was not found Does anyone know where I can get this library, please? Is it even possible I already have it under a different name (I'm on Fedora 8)? -- Thanks, Dan

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Planet ALUG onto Planet UKLUGs
by MJ Ray 18 Feb '08

18 Feb '08

I hear that www.lug.org.uk may be replaced this week and it includes a Planet UKLUGs, which will republish all posts from Planet ALUG. If you're on planet ALUG and don't want to be on Planet UKLUGs, let me know and I'll pass it on. If you're not on planet ALUG and you want to be added, post here and hope that the mysterious overlord adds you. You need an Atom, RDF Site Summary (aka RSS 1.0) or Really Silly Syndication (RSS 2) feed, as far as I know. Another thing on the new www.lug.org.uk is a page syndicating LUG news, but the feeds from www.alug.org.uk have vanished. Are there any plans to bring them back? Regards, -- MJ Ray http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html tel:+44-844-4437-237 - Webmaster-developer, statistician, sysadmin, online shop builder, consumer and workers co-operative member http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ - Writing on koha, debian, sat TV, Kewstoke http://mjr.towers.org.uk/

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previous note on recovering from silly mistake
by Peter Alcibiades 18 Feb '08

18 Feb '08

By the way, this is the conclusion of the story. I had, you recall, somehow lost all the icons in kontact during a new install of Mandriva, and asked the list for help. They were putting up with it until I figured out what to do. So having got some wisdom here, or at least useful suggestions, I go in to visit last week, and discover it will not boot the default. Not only that, but there seem to be some extra boot options in grub. Who knows, maybe they did an update? Its hard to get a clear account. So I boot from the latest kernel version of the new options, and it starts fine. So just to check, I boot again from the default, and now that boots fine. Very odd. And guess what, all the icons have come back of their own accord! In another part of the wood, another Mandriva system, after system update it cannot start X. Then, same process as above, it can start X but only in 640 x 480 mode. The solution here turned out to be, use the xorg not the nvidia drivers, and all was fine again. I know, put them on Debian..... But the thing is, the Mandriva control centre is so easy for people to use. When it works. Oh well. Al

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3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : The Milestone, Woodbridge Road
by samwise 18 Feb '08

18 Feb '08

The monthly "Third Monday" ALUG Ipswich Social Meeting is back tonight (Monday 18th February) at 20:00: The Milestone Beer House 5 Woodbridge Road IPSWICH IP4 2EA Tel: 01473 252425 Map/Directions URI: http://maps.google.co.uk/?q=IP4+2EA The Milestone pub is in the centre of Ipswich, near the now-defunct Odeon cinema and not far from The Regent Theatre. There is more information on the venue, including car parking info, on the ALUG wiki: http://www.alug.org.uk/wiki/moin.cgi/Meetings All are welcome, novices and experienced users. Hopefully, it shouldn't be too hard to find the pack, look for those huddled around a laptop! Feel free to ask for further information on the Main ALUG mailing list. Hope to see you there, Peter.

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virtualbox display on win98
by Peter Alcibiades 18 Feb '08

18 Feb '08

Has anyone managed to get better than 640 x 480 out of virtual box display on Win98? I have gone through endless hassle just to get the thing working at all, which it now does, and it will even install the package I wanted. This was a saga incidentally which may be of interest. First you make a CD or ISO from your existing win98 installation, but using DR DOS as the image. Don't ask me why MSDOS doesn't work equally well, but it doesn't. At that point you can boot into DR DOS and unlike if you boot into MS Dos, you can copy the files over from the CD to drive C. The reason you have to do this is that in MSDOS you can run the install program, but not see the files on D. In DRDOS you can see the files but not run the install program! Unless you can figure out how to raise the max program size in DRDOS, but that was too much like archeology for me. So you boot from the CD with DRDOS, copy all the files to C, then switch to MSDOS boot from a different image, and run the install program, and some hours later you have a proper though rather slow Win98 install. However, it is tiny. Perfectly formed but tiny, and you cannot up the resolution. Well, not quite perfectly formed, networking doesn't work and the CD drive is invisible. But that would be OK, if I could only get the display to work acceptably. So next I tried to use Scitech Display Doctor 6.5 as recommended. Does not help in the least. Display Doctor 7 beta is no better, and in addition it doesn't come with a registration code. Getting this stuff onto drive C so you can install it is another saga - the only way I found was to put it onto the DRDOS install CD. Still, it does not actually work, contrary to what other people report. I am now trying to use kqemu, but that won't boot from the image in a way that lets me get to the install files. I can boot from it, then do fdisk, then format C. But then I can't see the install files on the CD or the image to copy them. What next? Is VMWare the only answer? Does that work in better than 640 x 480? All this is on a Mandriva 2008 box. I cannot get VB to run at all on Debian. Al

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ALUG Christmas Meal
by Steve 17 Feb '08

17 Feb '08

Morning list, Here's an email I entirely failed to send from my phone last night: --- I write from the Reindeer, mid pubmeet and also through my phone so do bear with me as the beer is with me. mChicago said: List up people! I am responsible. We've had three pints; we're going too far. Christmas 2006 was too long ago. We have two options: 1. Construct a time portal and travel back to celebrate this event or 2. Have it on the 2nd Thursday of March which is only four weeks' time. We have been offered a set menu - turkey dinner and christmas pudding or a vegetarian option - at the Reindeer by the head chef. Would everybody who's interested please email the list ASAP to say "TRUE" so I may inform the chef of the size of the part. This.Is.Serious. Enf of transmission. Happy Valentine's Day all. x x x With love, Steve --- So there you have it, christmas party plans must be instigated immediately. 13 March at the Reindeer. Set christmas menu. Win. Mildly hungover, Steve

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USB HID functions
by S.Jude＠uea.ac.uk 16 Feb '08

16 Feb '08

Hi, A friend of mine is after some help with coding USB HID functions. Does anybody have any knowledge of experience of Linux USB API functions and data structures? In particular they are after some example C/C++ code that talks to USB HID devices but are finding thorough and complete documentation hard to find. Any info would be much appreciated as they'd like to release some opensource software for their products. Simon

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Proper/Non-perveted social behaviour
by Richard Bensley 16 Feb '08

16 Feb '08

Does anyone else find Paul_C's lack of respect for women, disturbing? Had I noticed earlier he was taking several photos of my girlfriend without her knowledge I would have asked him about his camera sooner. However it is an act that is familiar with every young girl that turns up to an ALUG meeting to be subject to Paul_C's little photo session. This is not acceptable social behaviour, and if a member of staff at the pub or a police office had seen somebody acting in this voyeuristic manner he/she would have been asked to stop what they were doing and leave the premises. I am unsure what the legal premise is on this matter? But it is totally unacceptable in this situation, how can ALUG thrive in helping newer members if they become subject to such abuse? Needless to say my girlfriend is distressed about the matter, but I assured her I would take action in making this threat aware to all ALUG members about Paul_C's actions which I understand he has denied before, and may other members have a problem with. You wont be denying me punk. What's it to be Paul_C? Stand up like a man and explain yourself? Or cower like a typical pervert? Either way I find your presence and contribution to ALUG to be an insult if your porogative is other than that to help people instead of victimising and treating them as objects. Yours Faithfully Richard Bensley

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Network connection at boot
by Barry Samuels 15 Feb '08

15 Feb '08

My MythTV box doesn't have a keyboard or monitor and could be moved between TV aerial points. It has two network cards so can connect via cable or wireless. Is there any way, at boot time, to get it to try the cable interface first and then, perhaps after a given time, to try the wireless interface and to keep trying both interfaces until it does find a connection? -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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FW: Re: [SLL] Linux Roulette:
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 14 Feb '08

14 Feb '08

The following was just posted to the Seattle Linux List. I don't get it (either one). Can someone explain? Ted. -----FW: <20080214183909.GX3016@zen>----- Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 10:39:09 -0800 Sender: linux-list-bounces(a)lists2.linuxjournal.com From: Glenn Stone <technoshaman(a)liawol.org> To: linux-list(a)lists.linuxjournal.com Subject: Re: [SLL] Linux Roulette: On Thu, Feb 14, 2008 at 10:31:29AM -0800, Xeno Campanoli wrote: >!rm Took me a second to get that one. Yeah, that's shooting blind, for sure... Although one could say !rm:p to make sure... -- Glenn "Be sure you are right -- THEN GO AHEAD!" -- Davy Crockett, from his autobiography (1834) (caps his) --------------End of forwarded message------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 14-Feb-08 Time: 19:03:02 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Puppy and DSL
by Peter Alcibiades 14 Feb '08

14 Feb '08

Nothing against DSL, but its a curiousity, its an emergency disk. Its amazing and ingenious, but you'd not install it or use it as your main distro. Puppy is a possible main use everyday distro with an amazing quantity of stuff in it for the space and very fast on old hardware. These are both a lot smaller than DIY, Debian + Fluxbox + xfe.. But having thought long and hard about this for someone with quite a bit old hardware, it seems likely that the flexibility you get from the DIY Debian minimalist solution is worth a lot in terms of maintainability, and probably outweighs the extra disk space. I used to like Windowmaker a lot on old hardware, and it is fast, but its stuck in a bit of a timewarp, no faster than fluxbox, no easier to customize and not as attractive. Ion is quite nice if you are setting up an appliance. Its very fast indeed. Again, wouldn't want it every day, but if you're running only one app in a production environment, it might be worth looking at. Al

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Damn Small Linux v Puppy Linux
by member jessejazza 13 Feb '08

13 Feb '08

I was going to have a look at these two later today. Just wondering has anyone compared them and if so perhaps you'd be kind enough to give some feedback. james

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Re: [ALUG] Linux can't connect to the Internet
by CDW (Linux) 13 Feb '08

13 Feb '08

(Ted Harding) wrote: > On 19-Aug-07 18:17:50, CDW (Linux) wrote: >> (Ted Harding) wrote: >>> There's a lot of possibilities for this! >>> >>> One thing to look at is whether you have a default gateway set up >>> in Linux. If (as root) you enter the command >>> >>> route >>> >>> you should see somthing like >>> >>> Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface >>> 192.168.1.0 * 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 eth0 >>> 127.0.0.0 * 255.0.0.0 U 0 0 0 lo >>> default 192.168.1.1 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 eth0 >>> >>> where the "192.168.1.1" should be replaced by the IP address of >>> your actual router. If you don't get a "default" line in the output >>> from "route" then nothing for outside will get to the router. >> I get the following :- >> Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface >> 192.168.1.0 * 255.255.255.0 U 10 0 0 eth0 >> 169.254.0.0 * 255.255.0.0 U 10 0 0 eth0 >> 127.0.0.0 * 255.0.0.0 U 0 0 0 lo >> default 192.168.1.51 0.0.0.0 UG 10 0 0 eth0 >> >> Ah. I've just noticed that there's a 169.254.0.0 address in my list. >> That would appear to come from a DHCP config but I purposely didn't >> set that so would that be stopping it working? If so, how do I remove >> it? > > I don't think it matters. I get the same too (on a Red Hat 9 system) > without any DHCP going on. It's supposed, I think, to represent some > alternative network numbering, and as far as I know is simply a dummy. Thanks for that info. -- __ __| |_ __ __ .-----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:cdw_alug@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |_______________________________________________|

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Radio interference
by Barry Samuels 12 Feb '08

12 Feb '08

My dedicated MythTV computer has now been removed from its cardboard box and has been put into a proper case. However when it's running it causes interference on medium wave on my wife's radio. Her own computer, which is nearer the same radio, does not cause any interference. What component could it be, in the MythTV box, which is causing this interference? -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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Browser (Firefox) Character Encoding detection
by Chris G 11 Feb '08

11 Feb '08

I'm sure I've been here before but I can't remember the answer (and the mailing list archives don't appear to be searchable). What are the rules that govern how a browser (Firefox in particular) decides on what Character Encoding to use? I'm viewing some pages which are on my home (Fedora 7) machine and thus are sent by apache 2.2 on that machine using Firefox here at work (version 2.0.0.5). The pages have the occasional accented character and pound sign in them so I need to get the Character Encoding right. Although Firefox is set to default to UTF-8 it's actually using ISO-8859-1 for the pages in question which doesn't work, my accented characters and pound signs are garbled. If I manually select UTF-8 in Firefox all is well. The page headers indicate the character set to be UTF-8, Firefox defaults to UTF-8 but obviously something is telling it otherwise, what? Is it some setting of apache that does it, if so can someone tell me what please. -- Chris Green

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Running X software as another user
by Barry Samuels 11 Feb '08

11 Feb '08

If I SSH into a remote machine and then su to another user how can I run programmes, as that user, under X without it complaining that it can't open the display? I want to run an application as the 'mythtv' user which is created when installing MythTV. -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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[ALUG Announce] 2nd Thurs Pub Meet 14th Feb
by Richard Lewis 11 Feb '08

11 Feb '08

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- Dear ALUG, The monthly second Thursday social meeting of ALUG will take place on * Thursday 14th February * at The Reindeer (10 Dereham Road, Norwich, NR2 4AY; tel. 01603 762223). It's very near the junction of Dereham Road and the Norwich inner ring road (Grapes Hill) and serves a selection of real ales, nice pub food (if you fancy going early to eat) and coffee. I intend to be there from about 20:00. Others may be there earlier. We should have a table reserved at the back of the pub just to the left of the bar. We look forward to seeing you there. Cheers, Richard -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Richard Lewis - UEA, MUS PG http://www.richard-lewis.me.uk/ JID: ironchicken(a)jabber.earth.li -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- ----- 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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Grabbing data written to unlinked file
by Dan Hatton 08 Feb '08

08 Feb '08

Dear All, I foolishly rm'd a file that a lengthy process still has open for writing (although it has yet to write any data.) That is, the output of lsof -p 26733 includes gnuplot 26733 dan 4w REG 253,0 0 6802530 /home/dan/Natural_Sciences/mushy/twentyfirstplot.dat (deleted) It would be really valuable to be able to save the data that process 26733 eventually writes to this file. Any ideas, please? -- Thanks, Dan Hatton

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Reverse Telnet connection
by Wayne Stallwood 08 Feb '08

08 Feb '08

I am looking for a way of getting a telnet connection to a device that will be connected to the internet via grps (and as such is not on a known address) The device end needs to be automated to the point that it can just be powered up. ie the "remote end" needs to call the client end Of course you can do the standard thing with netcat but that leaves me with the only security being the ip address the remote end contacts..security isn't a particular concern in this case but it would be nice to have a bit more than that. Also the netcat way doesn't seem to well equipped to handle interactive prompts (for example top fails) Is there a way of doing something similar but getting to a login prompt rather than a shell ? I am sure there would be a way of doing it with an ssh tunnel but I was trying to avoid this as bandwidth may be at a premium, also the remote end is a tiny 100MHZ ETRAX processor with only a tiny bit of flash. So I was worried that the ssh overhead may become a problem. Has anyone done anything similar or do they have any thoughts on a quick and easy way to accomplish this ?

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How to recover from something rather foolish
by Peter Alcibiades 06 Feb '08

06 Feb '08

I upgraded a machine (not alas my own) by doing a clean install of Mandriva 2008, KDE. As you do. All went well. However, I needed to move over the kdepim files, calendar, email, address book. And also the kjots files. So, I cleverly found them in the old /home directory, copied them, and then copied them into the appropriate places in the new /home directory. All went well except for one thing. All the icons in the menu bars of kmail, kjots, and even tellico, have become generic and identical. Not quite what the user had in mind. It is only this user. Other accounts work just fine. Any ideas on how to get them back to normal? Would you for instance copy the .kde folder from another user and try to import mail? Or would you rename the problem user, create another, and then do a more sensible kind of import of the files? And where do kde apps get their little menu icons from anyway? Al

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MythTV
by Barry Samuels 06 Feb '08

06 Feb '08

Has anyone on the list used MythTV particularly with the front-end running on one machine and the back-end on another? I have set up a low-end machine with a TV adapter to run MythTV on the assumption that I wouldn't need X running on the back-end machine but I find that the mythtv-setup programme is graphical! So I need to install a lot of X packages just to run the setup. I find that in selecting to install the Debian Testing MythTV-Backend package it installs other packages such as xterm and QT but NO xorg server packages. Very odd. I would have thought that X packages such as xterm would depend on xorg-xserver packages - but no. Has anyone else been in this situation? -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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[Mostly OT] XForms
by Mark Rogers 06 Feb '08

06 Feb '08

Hopefully someone can give me a quick sanity check on this; I need to put a project together based on stuff I haven't done before and I want to avoid digging myself into a hole. I need a web-form based application (which will be run on a simple Linux server sat in an office accessible remotely via VPN, probably PHP based). Most of the time it will be used from PCs with direct or indirect access to that server, but sometimes (eg from a laptop with no Internet access) they'll need to fill in the form offline then submit it later. Often they'll need to do this many times between "uploads". I plan to use XForms for this, and either submit the form directly on completion or store the form data to an XML file if that is not possible. I need to be able to reload the data to edit it if necessary (eg to correct mistakes) and ideally I also need to be able to retrieve data from the XML files for basic manipulation through JavaScript (ie so I can create a printable version of the data again without access to the server). Aside from the lack of native support for XForms in any major browser (fixable through plugins), have I missed any major gotchas in this logic? I'm not after someone telling me how to do it (no complaints if they do :-), I'm happy to learn it to do it, I just need to pick a direction to go in pretty urgently and I don't want to invest too much time on an option that is plain wrong as there's a very short lead time on this project. There's an existing application comprising messy Excel documents that I want to wave bye-bye to asap, but one thing in its favour is that it works fine without server access and I can't lose that. NB: Most of what I know about XForms comes from here: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-xformsintro1/ -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0845 45 89 555 Registered in England (0456 0902) at 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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Touchpad question
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 06 Feb '08

06 Feb '08

Hi folks, I'm running Debian Etch on a laptop which has a touchpad where the right-hand edge does that "scroll-wheel" thingy. The problem is that, as I type, the ball of my right thumb tends to stroke that edge, often causing chaos in applications where the text-entry point can be moved around using the mouse (i.e. if that happens, suddenly I'm typing at the point where the mouse pointer happens to be lying around on the screen). It seems to be very sensitive. I'd like to turn it off, but don't know how. Any suggestions? And, by the way, as things are at present Debian is running in a VirtualBox which is running on Vista (a situation I intend to put right in due course); so the above problem may require a solution in Vista rather than in Debian. Thanks for any thoughts, 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: 05-Feb-08 Time: 15:01:12 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Debian books
by James Freer 06 Feb '08

06 Feb '08

Knowing that quite a number of you are Debian users i was wondering which of these books you'd recommend [or others!!]... i'm interested in a book that'll give system info rather than a manual on how to use OpenOffice on Debian as it were! http://www.amazon.co.uk/Debian-System-Concepts-Techniques/dp/1593270690/ref… http://www.amazon.co.uk/Learning-Debian-Linux-Bill-McCarty/dp/1565927052/re… thanks james __________________________________________________________ Sent from Yahoo! Mail - a smarter inbox http://uk.mail.yahoo.com

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hosts.allow syntax
by Jenny Hopkins 05 Feb '08

05 Feb '08

Hullo there, I've got ("have taken over") a hosts.allow file as below: ftp: ALL cvspserver: ALL svn: ALL sshd: ALL telnet: ALL ALL: <domain-we-allow>.co.uk ALL: LOCAL I don't understand why if the ALL keyword is called in the first half, aliases are then described in the second. Surely ALL means just that? What I want is for the cvspserver to be ALL and the others to be restricted to LOCAL and <domain-we-allow>.co.uk. No matter what I try with wildcard *, UNKNOWN, etc, the hosts.allow will only allow anonymous cvs log in with adding ALL:ALL at the bottom, which I don't want to do obviously. Sorry to not rtfm; I have done but it sort of went in one ear and out of the other leaving a puffy pink cloud in the middle. Thanks, Jenny

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Debian books
by James Freer 05 Feb '08

05 Feb '08

Knowing that quite a number of you are Debian users i was wondering which of these books you'd recommend [or others!!]... i'm interested in a book that'll give system info rather than a manual on how to use OpenOffice on Debian as it were! http://www.amazon.co.uk/Debian-System-Concepts-Techniques/dp/1593270690/ref… http://www.amazon.co.uk/Learning-Debian-Linux-Bill-McCarty/dp/1565927052/re… james

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Fwd: Anyone a BIOS/EEPROM burner please?
by Mark Rogers 04 Feb '08

04 Feb '08

One of my local LUG members has the following request, anyone here able to help? ------------ Good evening, As I failed to realize that today is "nothing works" day, I upgraded a Tyan Tiger MPX mainboard from BIOS 4.03 to 4.06 At least, that's what it said it did. Instead, it bricked the machine. I've taken the BIOS chip out, it's a 4mbit part by SST, 32pin square (9pin/7pin) 3.8mm PQFP. If anyone has the tools to write to it, please let me know. Regards, Tony V. P.S. Feel free to send this mail on. I realize that the person doing this will want to be compensated for their time. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0845 45 89 555 Registered in England (0456 0902) at 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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su with user ID (not name)
by Mark Rogers 01 Feb '08

01 Feb '08

I'm trying to delete a load of files owned by previously existing users. In other words I then need to "su [username] -c 'rm -r [dirname]' where [username] matches the owner of the files. (I don't have root access to the server but do have the ability to su to any of the users I need to delete files for.) If I use "ls -l" I see the user names truncated to 8 chars, so I'm using "ls -ln" to see the numeric user ID of the files instead. However su doesn't work with numeric UID values. So either I need to find a way to get the fullname of the owner (I know stat will do this but I have a lot these to do and I can't see a good way to just get a list), or find a way to map the UID to a name for su, or some other workaround I haven't thought of. Suggestions? -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0845 45 89 555 Registered in England (0456 0902) at 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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Characters on screen wrong using SSH
by Barry Samuels 01 Feb '08

01 Feb '08

When I use SSH to log in to a remote machine and use something like Aptitude or MC on the remote machine some of the characters on the screen e.g IBM box characters appear as something else which makes the screen difficult to read. Is there a way to cure this? -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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Cambridge and East Anglia Python Users Group
by Richard Lewis 01 Feb '08

01 Feb '08

Dear ALUG, The Cambridge and East Anglian Python Users group will hold its fourth "first Tuesday" social meeting on Tuesday 5th February at the Carlton Arms (Carlton Way, Cambridge, CB4 2BY). People intend to arrive from around 20:00 and I will be going from Norwich by train if anyone would like to join me. Please feel free to contact me on- or off-list regarding this if you like. Cheers, Richard -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Richard Lewis - UEA, MUS PG http://www.richard-lewis.me.uk/ JID: ironchicken(a)jabber.earth.li -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

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Backup servers (r)synchronised between sites
by Mark Rogers 31 Jan '08

31 Jan '08

I have two sites that are Internet connected via standard ADSL, and that want to have a simple backup server in each site that uses the other site to store an off-site redundant copy of the data. I plan a Linux server at each site, each with a small o/s drive and two pairs of large SATA drives using software RAID (one pair for each site). That combination should give a good idea of the budget available for this.... Forget hot-swap SCSI drives on hardware raid cards etc! I can easily see how I could rsync the first raid array on site A ("A:md0") across to B:md0, and B:md1 to A:md1. Where I need advice is picking the best backup approach for the users at each site to use to populate their respective backup storage in the first place. (Most of the users will of-course be using Windows, and should be treated as untrained monkeys for the sake of this project.) Given the bandwidth limited ADSL link between the two sites (but with high off-peak limits) I need a backup method which does not cause rsync to needlessly send unchanged data. If I used something like Cobian Backup to create incremental backups, although the disk space usage would be relatively small the periodic full backups will cause rsync to send full backups across the link even though 90% of the content of those backups will already have been synchronised previously. I've seen solutions that use hardlinks between identical files to provide rolling backups on Linux, but I need to support Windows. Any suggestions? -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0845 45 89 555 Registered in England (0456 0902) at 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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PDA to use with Linux?
by Jan T. Kim 30 Jan '08

30 Jan '08

Dear All, my Palm Tungsten is getting increasingly short of breath (battery life) and so I think of getting a successor. I'd like a handheld of some sort that * uses flash memory (i.e. permanent storage that survives battery outages) * interoperates with Linux (the Palm can be backed up and restored using pilot-xfer, but I've not found anything useful to work with the data in the *.pdb ("Palm Database") files) * is small (the Zaurus SL-C palmtops seem interesting to me in many ways, but I think they're just a bit too bulky for shirt pockets, and also, they're quite expensive) * provides a decent choice of software for contacts, diary keeping, and (ideally) an advanced "To Do" tool that understands dependency graphs and integrates with the diary Any recommendations / experiences / comments? Please let me know. Best regards, Jan -- +- Jan T. Kim -------------------------------------------------------+ | email: jtk(a)cmp.uea.ac.uk | | WWW: http://www.cmp.uea.ac.uk/people/jtk | *-----=< hierarchical systems are for files, not for humans >=-----*

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TV adapter
by Barry Samuels 29 Jan '08

29 Jan '08

I would like to get a Hauppauge WinTV Nova T 500 adapter which I understand works with Linux. That's the easy part. It would be very inconvenient to install it in my desktop because it would require a connection to a TV aerial socket and I don't have one near my desktop. My idea would be to assemble another computer using some spare parts that I have together with some parts that I would have to re-aquire. I say 're-aquire' because I would have had all the necessary parts if I hadn't given away a lot of them (CPUs, hard drives, RAM) to a local computer recycling charity a few months ago. Why is it that one does not have a use for these parts until they've gone? I'm assuming that if I assemble the said computer with the TV adapter in it (putting it near a TV aerial socket) and can connect wirelessly to my desktop then I could access the TV adapter from my desktop using something like MythTV. Would such a thing be possible? I would be looking at a minimal install of Linux on the new box with all the processing done on my desktop. This would assume that I could connect the two boxes using nothing more than a wireless adapter in each i.e. no router. My desktop has an on- board wireless adapter and I have two spare PCI adapters one of which I could use in the new box. Is it possible to get two wireless adapters to communicate in this way? Would that be fast enough to cope with the data from the TV adapter? What sort of specification for the new machine would be required? I have a Gigabyte GA-7ZXE mainboard which takes a Socket A Athlon (which I would have to aquire) and it takes PC-133 SDRam (which I would also have to aquire). What's the minimum RAM I would need? I would also need to aquire an IDE hard drive. What's the minimum size I could get away with? I wouldn't normally want to use a screen or keyboard after the machine has been setup - would that cause problems when booting? What else haven't I thought of? -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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Cube cases ???
by James Freer 26 Jan '08

26 Jan '08

Be grateful if someone could comment from their experience of building PC's. I've been thinking about building one of these. I used to like the slim desktop as they were a convenient size - until i noticed the more recent ones have low profile pci card slots which i'm not so keen on. The cube case takes a standard power supply and standard pci cards - so i've had a look at a few. Looking at ebuyer i noticed this cheaper one and the comments a purchaser has made - a lot of ????? and yet 4 stars. For the price it seems a fair enough case... I couldn't make out what he was getting at... perhaps i'm just thick... if it's bad i've seen far worse!!!! comments please? http://www.ebuyer.com/product/135583 also #135581, 135582 slight variations it would appear in the comments is the following link http://forum.coolaler.com/showthread.php?t=171184 james

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Broken Gnome/Metacity account - how to fix?
by Martyn Drake 25 Jan '08

25 Jan '08

Hello, Having ham-fisted my way through trying to fix a knackered user account on RHEL 5 that is using Gnome/Metacity (i.e. the RedHat desktop), I can't seem to copy a set of healthy files across - the WM still moans about missing files and the what not. Is there a utility that I could run to re-generate a set of default working files so that the user can at least re-do their old settings manually? I confess ignorance to Gnome/Metacity, but then again, I'm not one for using Linux on the desktop these days, so I'm a bit out of practice.. Regards, Martyn

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Extracting from mbox files
by Mark Rogers 25 Jan '08

25 Jan '08

I need to extract some emails from a 600MB .mbox file, which is >99% spam. Its a dspam quarantine box that's gone unpruned and now has some emails I need to remove from the quarantine, and the whole mbox file can be deleted afterwards. Any suggestions? This is on a server to which I have SSH root access, so pretty much any non-GUI tools are open to me. I have tools that will handle it in principle, just not now its that size (eg the dpsam web UI tools would be OK if I could just remove everything older than the last couple of weeks first). So an mbox pruning tool would be fine too. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0845 45 89 555 Registered in England (0456 0902) at 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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Monitoring HTTP redirects from Firefox
by Mark Rogers 24 Jan '08

24 Jan '08

Does anyone know of a way from within Firefox that I can capture a sequence of redirects and work out what's happening? I can use wget and see a sequence of 301/302 redirects that way, but I need to do this within a session so I really need to follow it in Firefox. Or Opera/IE I suppose (all on Ubuntu 8.04). Something obscure is happening on one of my sites when I follow an HTTPS link which is causing it to redirect back to HTTP, which is probably something to do with something in the session that I'm not getting chance to investigate. Therefore the ability not just to capture the sequence but also to step through it would be helpful. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0845 45 89 555 Registered in England (0456 0902) at 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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Scanners - 'manual scan'?
by James Freer 21 Jan '08

21 Jan '08

http://www.ebuyer.com/search/?strSearch=&bolShowAll=true&intStoreID=7&intCa… I'd be very grateful if someone could advise if any of these HP scanners are what i'd call manual scan. I've had an HP PSC500 which allows me to darken or lighten the scan. I wanted to replace this PSC500 as she's large and costs 2 pairs of ink cartridges per year. I bought a Canon Canoscan LIDE 90 last year to find that it only did 'auto scan' and for some things i tested it on it wasn't that good. There was a fault with it so i could return it thankfully. Looking at the specs i can't see if any are a 'manual scan' - be grateful for help. It may be they are all auto scan these days, which is fine for photos but not so good for scanning b/w drawings i've found. james

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Asus EEE PC Stock
by Martin Collins 20 Jan '08

20 Jan '08

Hi, Anyone managed to find stock on-line of the 4GB babies?? Clove tech (www.clove.co.uk) site doesn't say whether they have stock or not and the site is throwing up all sorts of errors. When you finally get to the checkout my little padlock has a red-line through it indicating it's not secure, so I'm staying well clear! Rgds, Martin

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Default sort order for KDE applications
by Chris G 19 Jan '08

19 Jan '08

Is there any way to set the default sort order for files/directories in KDE applications? I don't run KDE but I'm using some KDE programs (digikam in particular) and I'd like to know if it's possible to change the sort order of directories in pearticular. I'm not talking about within digikam, I'm talking about a general configuration parameter for all applications, there may not be such a thing of course but I was just hoping. -- Chris Green

1 0

Web interface to apt-get upgrade
by Mark Rogers 19 Jan '08

19 Jan '08

Are there any web interfaces to "apt-get upgrade", or any other ways I can keep a system up to date simply but not automatically? The target is Linux based servers provided for clients which need to be kept up to date (eg because they'll be web facing) where they need a simple interface to allow them to apply updates which is no more complex that Windows Update. Otherwise I'll be under pressure to install the applications under Windows instead, something I'm keen to avoid! If none exist it doesn't sound too hard to implement other than ensuring it is secure (a minor detail!). I believe I can use the sudoers file to allow the apache user to run 'apt-get upgrade' as root without allowing it to do anything else? -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0845 45 89 555 Registered in England (0456 0902) at 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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Re: [ALUG] Web interface to apt-get upgrade|ubuntu upgrades! testing?
by Bev Nicolson 18 Jan '08

18 Jan '08

Firefox has certainly been upgraded through the updates although we have yet to reach version 2. Bev. > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Wayne Stallwood" <ALUGlist(a)digimatic.co.uk> > To: ALUG <main(a)lists.alug.org.uk> > Subject: Re: [ALUG] Web interface to apt-get upgrade|ubuntu upgrades! testing? > Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2008 14:04:05 +0000 > > > > On Fri, 2008-01-18 at 11:44 +0000, James Freer wrote: > > > The question i would raise is "how much" testing do they do - > > i'd say not enough. They seem to put themselves under a lot of > > pressure to provide a new version every 6 months - why not just > > each year and thoroughly test. From what i have understood the > > upgrade is for security only. But then as i've noticed with 6.04 > > Firefox wasn't upgraded. > > > To be honest most migration problems will be relating to either out of > package meddling (strange configs, hand installed software conflicting > with registered packages, packages from third party resources etc) or > specific to some particular hardware (in itself hard to test against due > to the diversity of the x86 platform) Firefox in 6.06 was upgraded from > 5.10 I am sure. > > 1 yearly upgrades would mean that people would spend a lot of time > running out of date packages due to ubuntu's policy of not incrementing > software versions generally for ongoing updates to an existing > installation. This is I feel important as it provides a degree of > predictability in that if you say you are on Ubuntu 6.06 I can > reasonably safely make the assumption of kernel version x and gnome > version y etc. The LTS versions are an alternative of 6 monthly updates > at the cost of running older software..you takes your choice. > > Also...and this IMO is key. > > If you update yearly then really the software versions you are going to > want to include aren't going to be even released until the last half of > the existing Ubuntu versions lifetime..so what do you do for the first 6 > months given that some of the software versions you plan to include > don't even exist ? You can't test properly unless you are running the > shipping versions of the included packages. > > in answer you your individual points > > a] not something I have ever seen..sorry. Sounds like the Bios on both > machines was reporting 2 floppies as I cannot understand otherwise how > this would happen, did they have zip drives or something else that may > have been miss identified ? > > b] 6.06 surely ? In what way did the update get confused ? tbh a general > problem here would be all over the net considering the number of people > with machines still on LTS (me included) > > c] There always are problems on the forums with a new version I can't > remember if 7.04 was any worse or better than previous or latter > versions, I ran it for 6 months+ so it couldn't have been all bad, in > fact I remember updating to 7.04 a little bit earlier before official > release than I usually do..again hardware diversity and people only > posting when there is a problem and not when it works just fine distort > results. A place used by and large as a support forum isn't a great > place to gauge software quality because how do you know how many people > aren't having problems ? > > d] Never heard of this or experienced any synaptic problems with any of > the 5 or 6 7.10 systems I have used..again it would be interesting to > see linkage or specifics. > > e] This I want to see..a ps2 keyboard that provides a USB interface ? > Sounds hardly standard to me in fact I am not even sure how this would > work. Have you submitted a bug or asked for help in the forums as if > this keyboard is reasonably common I would expect a lot of interest. > > It sounds like I am defending Ubuntu rather aggressively here..it is not > my intention to suggest that Ubuntu is the best option always. If > another distro works out better for you or you prefer a 1 year release > schedule then the beauty of linux is that you are free to try it. Maybe > Debian's release strategy would be a better fit for you as you can make > a choice as to how "bleeding edge" you want your system and then have > rolling upgrades rather than a fixed "new distro" cycle. > > Kind Regards > Wayne > > > > _______________________________________________ > 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! > -- _______________________________________________ Surf the Web in a faster, safer and easier way: Download Opera 9 at http://www.opera.com Powered by Outblaze

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Re: [ALUG] Modem permissions problem
by Dave Cooper 18 Jan '08

18 Jan '08

MJ Ray wrote: > Dave Cooper <dave(a)accuramatic.co.uk> wrote: > >> As su, chmod 777 /dev/ttyS0 fixes it, but only until it happens >> again. ttyS0 appears to be owned by root. It seems to me maybe it >> should be owned something/someone else to fix this permissions >> problem but I don't have a clue who. Can anyone put me right on this >> please? >> > > Look at what group ttyS0 belongs to. Try ls -l /dev/ttyS0 > The group name will probably be just after the "root". Then, add your > user(s) to that group with the command > usermod -a -G whatevergroupnameitsaid username > > Yes! That works! Thanks Paul, thanks MJ (hope your head's still above water in the soggy south-west?). Just one supplementary question? How does that usermod -a -G whatevergroupnameitsaid username work? Why doesn't it need to include any mention of ttyS0?? thanks, Dave > or if that doesn't work, edit /etc/group to add the username to the > end of the line starting with whatevergroupnameitsaid. > > Alternatively, change the permissions on /dev/ttyS0 forever. These > days, that's often done by udev, so grep -r /etc/udev/rules ttyS > to try to find where the MODE is set. > > Hope one of those works for you, >

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[ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : The Milestone, Woodbridge Road
by samwise 17 Jan '08

17 Jan '08

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- The monthly "Third Monday" ALUG Ipswich Social Meeting is back next week (Monday 21st January) at 20:00: The Milestone Beer House 5 Woodbridge Road IPSWICH IP4 2EA Tel: 01473 252425 Map/Directions URI: http://maps.google.co.uk/?q=IP4+2EA The Milestone pub is in the centre of Ipswich, near the now-defunct Odeon cinema and not far from The Regent Theatre. There is more information on the venue, including car parking info, on the ALUG wiki: http://www.alug.org.uk/wiki/moin.cgi/Meetings All are welcome, novices and experienced users. Hopefully, it shouldn't be too hard to find the pack, look for those huddled around a laptop! Feel free to ask for further information on the Main ALUG mailing list. This month's meeting is the 1st anniversary of the Ipswich ALUG meets since we re-started them last year! Well, the first meeting last year, wasn't widely publicised as I tried to gauge some interest, but it was technically a meet with an agenda, notes and everything! Anyway, this month will be a time for reflection and the bringing up of the amusing anecdotes of where it didn't quite go according to plan over the year (PeteT starting his GIMP tutorial without having any pictures to work with, Joe angering both Tracy and the RSPB in one fowl swoop etc.). If anyone has any feedback or suggestions for our group over the coming year, this'll be a good time to bring them up. Oh, and we've added Unreal Tournament and more playable ScummVM games to the list for anyone who wants to be anti-social. Might even get Doom3 or UT2004 up and running by then, too. 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

2 1

Modem permissions problem
by Dave Cooper 17 Jan '08

17 Jan '08

Hi. I'm trying to set up a class 2.0 US Robotics modem to handle faxes. I'm using efax-gtk on Mandriva Free 2008. The modem connects ok, but periodically I get the error: 'efax-0.9a: 19.30.27 Error: can't open serial port /dev/ttyS0: Permission denied efax-0.9a: 19.30.32 finished - unrecoverable error' As su, chmod 777 /dev/ttyS0 fixes it, but only until it happens again. ttyS0 appears to be owned by root. It seems to me maybe it should be owned something/someone else to fix this permissions problem but I don't have a clue who. Can anyone put me right on this please? Dave Cooper

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Synergy & Java
by James Taylor 17 Jan '08

17 Jan '08

Hey all, Has anyone here had any problems with Synergy and Java applications - My "server" is a Vista machine, and the clients are various, including XP and a knoppix box. If I open up a Java program on the "server", and give it focus (i.e. Netbeans or Eclipse) then the roll-over to other screens stops happening - I have to give focus to another app (thunderbird or firefox suffice) that then allows the rollover to occur. Has anyone else had anything like this happen to them? JT

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iPods & Linux
by Greg Thomas 17 Jan '08

17 Jan '08

My birthday present has arrived; an iPod Nano. I've a whole load of Music ripped from CDs over the years in various formats. What I'd like to do is rip them to a lossless codec now that disk space is so cheap. If I stuck to Windows, the choice would be easy; simply use iTunes, rip to ALAC, and sync with my iPod. What would the denizens of ALUG recommend to use with Linux? Ideally, I'd like a tool that would treat my lossless source library (FLAC?) as a master, and then re-encode that more can fit on to my iPod. Lets face it, I'm no audiophile, and probably can't tell the difference between a native CD and whatever the default codec/bitrate is for WIndows Media Player. Thoughts welcome, Greg [With apologies if this came up recently. I'm sure I've seen stuff on this before, but couldn't see anything in the archives]

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rsync & sudo
by Mark Rogers 17 Jan '08

17 Jan '08

Consider: rsync -avz user@host:/var/lib/mysql /var/lib/mysql Assuming the files I want to transfer are owned by mysql (both locally and remotely), and are not world-readable, how do I achieve this? I can use sudo at the local end: sudo rsync -avz user@host:/var/lib/mysql /var/lib/mysql .. to give me the necessary write access to /var/lib/locally, but how do I give rsync read access to the files at the remote host? The mysql user does not have login rights and therefore does not have a password, so I can't just use mysql@host, and there is no root user at the remote host either; if I wanted read access at that end I'd use sudo to get it. Local end is Ubuntu, remote host is FC4, if that's relevant. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0845 45 89 555 Registered in England (0456 0902) at 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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My mind is going .. ethernet rubber hood thingies
by Martyn Drake 16 Jan '08

16 Jan '08

Can somebody please remind me what the official name is for those little rubber hood things that cover the connector of an RJ45 ethernet cable is called? Regards, Martyn -- Phone : +44 (0)7866 450 752 Skype : mbdrake

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Re: [ALUG] Router
by John Seago 15 Jan '08

15 Jan '08

Thank you so much to all who replied to my message 'Router'. I am grateful for all the help freely offered. -- John Seago GNU/Linux Registered User No. #219566 http://counter.li.org/ () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail - against microsoft attachments /\

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Router
by John Seago 15 Jan '08

15 Jan '08

I am connected to the internet via a Netgear DG834 Router, which has four outlets. Up until now I have been the only user. (thus I have never had any need to even consider the matter of more than a single user). My wife's god-daughter is due to vist shortly with her laptop, can I just plug her lap-top into one of the three vacant outlets and assign her the next number in the 192.168.0.X series? Do I need to turn the router off to plug in an extra outlet? As she is using Microsoft I presume there will be some kind of 'Wizard' that will take us through the necessary steps. -- John Seago GNU/Linux Registered User No. #219566 http://counter.li.org/ () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail - against microsoft attachments /\

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Re: [ALUG] Router
by samwise 15 Jan '08

15 Jan '08

On 15/01/2008, John Seago <seago.john(a)googlemail.com> wrote: > I am connected to the internet via a Netgear DG834 Router, which has four > outlets. Up until now I have been the only user. (thus I have never had any > need to even consider the matter of more than a single user). My wife's > god-daughter is due to vist shortly with her laptop, can I just plug her > lap-top into one of the three vacant outlets and assign her the next number > in the 192.168.0.X series? Do I need to turn the router off to plug in an > extra outlet? > > As she is using Microsoft I presume there will be some kind of 'Wizard' that > will take us through the necessary steps. If you're running a DHCP server on the router (most do, out of the box) and the laptop is configured to ask for an IP by DHCP (most Windows installations are, out of the box), you should just be able to plug in the network cable and boot the laptop - it'll auto-configure everything when it notices the network is connected. Of course, if you're network is configured differently, you may need to do more work ... Peter.

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Laptop networking problem
by Barry Samuels 14 Jan '08

14 Jan '08

My brother has been given a Dell Inspiron laptop on which he has installed SUSE 10. He has 2 USB wireless adapters both of which are recognised by SUSE but he cannot get access to either his local network or the Internet. The laptop does gets an IP address from the wireless router via DHCP and he can traceroute to the router and his desktop. He cannot ping either the router or his desktop - there are no replies. He can, however, ping the laptop from his desktop and get replies. He cannot connect to any sites on the network using a browser. The router address is given as the default gateway on the laptop for wlan0 which is the wireless interface. SUSE is also using Network Manager to run things and complains about commands such as ifup or ifdown and ignores them. Configuration files on SUSE are not where I'd expect to see them on Debian so I'm at a bit of a loss and I've run out of ideas. -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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Re: [ALUG] Givernment consultation
by Christopher Dawkins 12 Jan '08

12 Jan '08

The Government would like your views on how children should be provided with IT. The e-consultation questionnaire at http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/consultations/conDetails.cfm?consultationId=1522 has a comment box at the end where you might care to suggest which operating systems might be most suitable for them. -- Christopher Dawkins Garnetts Corner, Braintree Road, Felsted, Dunmow, Essex CM6 3DS cchd(a)pjcd.org 07816 821659 01371 821076

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Re: [ALUG] main Digest, Vol 31, Issue 12
by mbm 11 Jan '08

11 Jan '08

Barry main-request(a)lists.alug.org.uk wrote: > The laptop does gets an IP address from the wireless router via DHCP > and he can traceroute to the router and his desktop. He cannot ping > either the router or his desktop - there are no replies. He can, > however, ping the laptop from his desktop and get replies. He cannot > connect to any sites on the network using a browser. If the laptop gets an address and can then reach locally connected devices, then networking is obviously up and running. The ICMP failure sounds to me like it could be a firewall issue. Try disabling the SUSE default firewall in YAST (SUSE's configuration tool) as a first step. Also fire up ethereal/wireshark and take a look at what is going where. And are you sure that the router and desktop are configured to respond to ICMP echo requests anyway? The ICMP behaviour may be a symptom of configuration elsewhere. Can he ping an external address (google) from 1) the desktop, 2) the laptop? Can the browser connect to a known web server's IP address (DNS issues?) > > The router address is given as the default gateway on the laptop for > wlan0 which is the wireless interface. SUSE is also using Network > Manager to run things and complains about commands such as ifup or > ifdown and ignores them. That confirms that the DHCP server is correctly dishing out the necessary routing details and the laptop is responding appropriately. SUSE offers two ways of handling networking setup: the traditional ifup/ifdown method, or user controlled with network manager. It looks as if you have the latter configured so SUSE /will/ ignore ifup/ifdown directives and will complain with something like "network interface is managed from network manager" if you try otherwise. > > Configuration files on SUSE are not where I'd expect to see them on > Debian so I'm at a bit of a loss and I've run out of ideas. Configuration files can be found in /etc/sysconfig/network. But I'd advise against manual edits because SUSE expects YAST to configure these (and other /etc/sysconfig files). Which version of SUSE 10 are you running? I used to use SUSE regularly up until about 9.3. When 10.0 came out, Novell managed to completely cock up what had been a good configuration tool (YAST) and I stopped using it. I still have copies of 10.0, openSUSE 10.1 10.2 and 10.3 which I can fire up and play with if necessary. and you get back to me with further details. Mick -- This is a Microsoft free zone. Please do not send me Microsoft Word Documents. For some reasons, see: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html http://www.goldmark.org/netrants/no-word/attach.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------

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How to make 'dynamic' web pages update when changed?
by Chris G 07 Jan '08

07 Jan '08

I'm sure there must be a very simple answer to this question but I can't see it at the moment. I have a number of web pages that are generated 'on the fly' by a python script which is basically a wrapper for rst2html.py with a few goodies of my own added in. I have added index.rst to the DirectoryIndex directive in my apache configuration file so that the index.rst file (if present) is automatically converted to HTML and displayed when you give the URL for a directory. However this means (at present anyway) that if I change the index.rst file apache doesn't refresh the display when you click on refresh, it only sees the change if you force update by holding shift down when clicking on refresh. Is there any way around this problem where the displayed file is 'virtual' and the originating file name is not in the URL? -- Chris Green

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Cambridge and East Anglian Python Users Group
by Richard Lewis 07 Jan '08

07 Jan '08

Dear ALUG, The Cambridge and East Anglian Python Users group will hold its third "first Tuesday" social meeting on Tuesday 8th January at the Carlton Arms (Carlton Way, Cambridge, CB4 2BY). Social meetings will be held on first Tuesdays from now on, but we decided to re-schedule January's meeting from New Year's Day to this week! People intend to arrive from around 20:00 and I will be going from Norwich by train if anyone would like to join me. Please feel free to contact me on- or off-list regarding this if you like. Cheers, Richard -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Richard Lewis - UEA, MUS PG http://www.richard-lewis.me.uk/ JID: ironchicken(a)jabber.earth.li -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

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[ALUG Announce] 2nd Thurs Pub Meet 10th Jan
by Richard Lewis 07 Jan '08

07 Jan '08

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- Dear ALUG, The monthly second Thursday social meeting of ALUG will take place on * Thursday 10th January * at The Reindeer (10 Dereham Road, Norwich, NR2 4AY; tel. 01603 762223). It's very near the junction of Dereham Road and the Norwich inner ring road (Grapes Hill) and serves a selection of real ales, nice pub food (if you fancy going early to eat) and coffee. I intend to be there from about 20:00. Others may be there earlier. We should have a table reserved at the back of the pub just to the left of the bar. We look forward to seeing you there. Cheers, Richard -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Richard Lewis - UEA, MUS PG http://www.richard-lewis.me.uk/ JID: ironchicken(a)jabber.earth.li -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- ----- Send discussion replies to main(a)lists.alug.org.uk (Reply-To set) Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce

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Re: [ALUG] Firefox
by Bev Nicolson 06 Jan '08

06 Jan '08

What happens now is that it crashes if I play a Youtube clip. Somewhere else it's suggested that you kill the application (is that the right term?) but how do I do that? (Seems a better idea than waiting for ages till it decides that Firefox is not responding and lets me know... sigh.) Thanks. Bev. > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Bev Nicolson" <bnicolson(a)operamail.com> > To: main(a)lists.alug.org.uk > Subject: Re: [ALUG] Firefox > Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2007 17:54:31 +0100 > > > Well if this is so I'll hang on and upgrade. I do hope so - it will > make it all much easier/less painful! Thanks, Mark. > Bev. > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "Mark Rogers" <mark(a)quarella.co.uk> > > To: ALUG <main(a)lists.alug.org.uk> > > Subject: Re: [ALUG] Firefox > > Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2007 12:21:14 +0000 > > > > > > Wayne Stallwood wrote: > > > The main problem you have now is your upgrade path is pretty complicated > > > because the supported path would be Dapper>Edgy>Feisty>Gutsy which is a > > > lot of effort (in reality it may be possible to skip some of those but > > > the official upgrade instructions are pretty clear in stating that only > > > an upgrade from the previous version is supported). I am hoping that > > > there will be a direct upgrade path between LTS versions so you would be > > > able to do Dapper>Hardy next April..But I wouldn't hold your breath on > > > that being the case. > > > > > > > My understanding is that this is indeed the case - 6.06LTS -> 8.04LTS > > will be supported in a single step. > > > > I couldn't find anything "official" in a quick Google but this is a start: > > http://www.mail-archive.com/ubuntu-server@lists.ubuntu.com/msg00756.html > > > > "Hardy will be a special release in this respect since we'll be > > support upgrading from both 7.10 and 6.06. It is not trivial, but it's a > > high priority for us." > > > > -- > > Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0845 45 89 555 > > Registered in England (0456 0902) at 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > 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! > > > > > > -- > _______________________________________________ > Surf the Web in a faster, safer and easier way: > Download Opera 9 at http://www.opera.com > > Powered by Outblaze > > _______________________________________________ > 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! > -- _______________________________________________ Surf the Web in a faster, safer and easier way: Download Opera 9 at http://www.opera.com Powered by Outblaze

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Installing VYM version 1.10.0 |installing a .deb for the first time
by James Freer 05 Jan '08

05 Jan '08

Running ubuntu 7.04 - wishing to install vym-1.10.0 (came out sept 2007). I can only assume that it wasn't early enough to be included in gutsy... had a look in the archives and was hoping i could install gutsy. As it seems a number of folk have had problems with gutsy i thought i would just stay with feisty [which has been fine with no problems so far]! I'd be grateful if someone could check that i'm doing the correct procedure! http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=127802&package_id=139… downloaded to desktop the file vym-1.10.0-18.i586.rpm [or should i use vym-1.10.0tar.bz2 and not convert to debian?] installed alien in terminal type $alien -c vym-1.10.0-18.i586.rpm # -c tells it to remove any installation or removal scripts [Should then have a .deb package?] $sudo dpkg vym-1.10.0-18.i586.deb [it can't be that easy - i wanted to check before i mess up somehow! What about other dependencies] thanks james

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apache security
by Chris G 04 Jan '08

04 Jan '08

I am trying to tighten up my apache security a bit. Looking at the "Security Tips" page in the apache documentation doesn't help a *lot* because it's mostly talking about a multi-user system where you are trying to make apache secure against the local users. My situation (like a lot of other Linux users I suspect) is that I am the only user of the system so, apart from my stupidity, local users are not a serious risk. The only local user knows the root password anyway! :-) What I'm after is making it so that the outside world (my router allows access for http requests) can only see the web pages that I want them to see. I also want it to be arranged so that I'm unlikely to mess up this security inadvertently. The one thing that the apache Security Tips suggests that does seem relevant to my situation is to do:- <Directory /> Order Deny,Allow Deny from all </Directory> instead of the default:- <Directory /> Options FollowSymLinks AllowOverride None </Directory> Which means that if I point a symlink somewhere stupid by mistake the outside world might access almost anything. Have I understood the above right? It certainly seems to me that what I should do is set things up so that apache can get at nothing and then open up specific directories. One other thing I want is to allow local access only to most of my web pages which is easy enough with something like:- <Directory /var/www/html/maxine> AllowOverride None Order Deny,Allow Deny from all Allow from 192.168.1 193.128.168.194 </Directory> and I'll open up (say) /var/www/html/public to allow 'all' access. Is it worth being this careful/paranoid? Is apache's security good enough for the above to be effective? -- Chris Green

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Gnomad2 is working with the Zen 4Gb
by Chris G 04 Jan '08

04 Jan '08

Well I've got Gnomad2 working with the Zen now. I found that the latest Gnomad2 and the libraries required to support the Zen's MTP were in the Fedora updates-testing repository so all I had to to was add that to yum's repositories temporarily and it all installed without problems. Gnomad2 can now see the Zen and transfer MP3 files to it. It's a bit crude and simple but one huge amount easier to understand than the heap of rubbish that got installed on Windows. -- Chris Green

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Re: [ALUG] nokia n800 etc
by mbm 04 Jan '08

04 Jan '08

MJ Ray <mjr(a)phonecoop.coop> wrote: >Are Asus and Nokia equally bad at supporting software patents? >My impression is that Nokia are worse, but I don't know Asus much. I'm not sure what this means. Surely no Free/OSS advocate would wish to see software patents enforced? And unlike some other large corporations (BT is a good (bad) example) Nokia at least respects the GPL and other Free/OSS licences and refers to that fact in the documentation for the n800. See www.maemo.org. Mick

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Re: [ALUG] Creative Zen
by mbm 03 Jan '08

03 Jan '08

Chris G <cl(a)isbd.net> wrote: >What do the panel recommend to use with a Creative Zen MP3 player. >Main requirement is to be able to download MP3s and put them onto the >Zen, it's not a requirement to be able to play them on the computer. >Podcast synchronisation would be a plus but lets try walking before we >run. Doing this on windows has turned into a disatrous mess. If all you want to do is synchronise then I'd recommend Gnomad2. I have also used Neutrino, but that can be flakey in my experience. However, I've stopped using the Zen because it doesn't support ogg vorbis. Picky, I know. Mick

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Recommendations for software to use with Creative Zen MP3 player
by Chris G 03 Jan '08

03 Jan '08

What do the panel recommend to use with a Creative Zen MP3 player. Main requirement is to be able to download MP3s and put them onto the Zen, it's not a requirement to be able to play them on the computer. Podcast synchronisation would be a plus but lets try walking before we run. Doing this on windows has turned into a disatrous mess. -- Chris Green

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Modems and online backups: recommendations?
by Matthew 03 Jan '08

03 Jan '08

Hi all, Apologies for mixing topics but I have two questions that don't really warrant separate mails. I'm having terrible trouble finding an ADSL ethernet modem. I currently have a regular home-office modem/router forwarding all traffic (with NAT) to the external interface of a Debian box with a soft firewall/router, but there's some SIP testing I need to do that would rather I had only one layer of NAT. Reviews at online suppliers generally seem to consider the Netgear DM111P and the D-Link DSL300-T to be troublesome, while the Draytek Vigor 100 is so expensive that it's something of a last resort. What is everyone else using to connect Linux firewall/routers to ADSL? Can I even rely on a modem to maintain a connection suitable for remote access? I'd prefer a PPPoA-PPPoE bridge to a USB modem, although I do have a Sagem F@st kicking around that I might try. Alternatively, if anyone has had any success getting a UK Speedtouch 530v4 into a bridging mode I could try that. I've found a lot about it on the forums of Australian ISPs but the UK version of the firmware doesn't seem to support it. The second one: Can anyone recommend an online backup/storage provider that supports sensible (non-proprietary) backup protocols (e.g. rsync over ssh)? Thanks, Matthew

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Migrating RH9 legacy system to VM
by Mark Rogers 03 Jan '08

03 Jan '08

I have an old (but still in use) RH9 system I want to migrate to a virtual machine. One of the main reasons for doing this will be performance: a database query on an internal website which is used regularly is taking 15s on the old hardware, where the same query on the same database on a virtual machine takes well under a second... The server is only used internally but all the same I want to minimise downtime. The "normal" method I'd use would be to shut down the hardware, take an image of the drive, restore it into a virtual machine, boot it, fix any problems (eg driver issues) as necessary. Depending how long that last step takes this could mean the system is offline for quite a while. I could create an empty VM, boot it to a live CD, and rsync the whole OS data from the old system to the new one, but I'm not sure which rsync options I'd need to use to make sure the user permissions copied across correctly (I assume that since /etc/passwd will be copied across it doesn't matter that the users don't exist initially), then make the VM's disk bootable, and take it from there; all of that I could do with the other system online and then fix the problems in the VM with the old system still online, ready to re-rsync later to catch up with any changes after shutting down all services like the database etc. But (a) I'm not sure how to make the VM boot and (b) I'm not sure what else would go wrong. Any suggestions? -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0845 45 89 555 Registered in England (0456 0902) at 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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new member statement
by paul 03 Jan '08

03 Jan '08

Hi Linux users I'm fairly new to Linux. Previously I have installed and used Ubuntu on my main P4 computer, dual booting it with XP Pro. That system became unbootable and I ended up reformating and re-installing XP Pro. I'm now looking at other distros to find better ones to use on an old Celeron 3 computer for surfing and multimedia. I like the idea of community based free software and want to get into system tweaking. I live in Norwich Best wishes Paul --------------------------------- Sent from Yahoo! - a smarter inbox.

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Nokia n800
by mbm 02 Jan '08

02 Jan '08

Guys Those of you who were interested in the Asus EEE PC may like to know that Play.com have the linux based nokia n800 internet tablet in stock at 129.99 - an astonishing price. Mick

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Where to put HTML etc.?
by Chris G 31 Dec '07

31 Dec '07

I've been changing my mind and messing about with this for years and *still* haven't really come to a sensible final conclusion. It's not even that it matters all that much but I wish there was an obvious answer. Where do you put all your HTML stuff on a home Linux server? There are two basic alternatives, each with advantages and disadvantages:- 1 - In your home directory Permissions are easy to deal with, no need to become root to edit web pages. But it means that, if the outside world has access, you have to be *very* careful with apache set up if you want to be sure only the right bits are visible to the outside world. You either have to use the ~<user> in the URL or you have to add symbolic links from apache's DocumentRoot. If there's more than one user (not in my case) /home makes more sense. Backing up is easy as the HTML gets backed up with your home directory (though there might be bits in DocumentRoot you want to back up anyway). 2 - In apache's DocumentRoot (/var/www/html in my case) Messier with permissions if you want to edit HTML without becoming root all the time. Also not so convenient for editing even with permissions set up OK as it's not in your home directory. Easier to make sure that any outside access can only see what you want to be seen. Cleaner/easier URLs without the need for symbolic links. Not really practical for multi-user but this doesn't apply for me. Need to back up separately from /home (though I suppose you could make /var/html a link across to the /home partition) I keep a lot of quite dynamic (i.e. frequently changing) files as HTML, or at least their content is web browsable, so the above issues are important for me. Does anyone have any comments, ideas, solutions? -- Chris Green

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Re: [ALUG] In response to Microsoft ...
by Alex Scotton 30 Dec '07

30 Dec '07

Hope this circulates, not quite sure what email address I have to email! For anyone that is interested the letter is at http://www.linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2002-05-06-012-26-OS-SM-LL .. Can't vouch for it's integrity! but it really wouldn't surprise me if MS put a stop to the original location @ http://www.pimientolinux.com/ ... Anyways Alex On 27-Dec-07 22:19:26, Wayne Stallwood wrote: > > > > On Thu, 2007-12-27 at 18:59 +0000, Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk wrote: > >> >> Hi Folks (and apologies to anyone who receives this >> >> via more than one route), >> >> >> >> I have just enjoyed reading a letter, described as >> >> being sent from Peruvian Congressman David Villanueva >> >> NuÃ±ez to Microsoft Peru, in response tgo Microsoft's >> >> objections to a Peruvian Govt Bill mandating open-source >> >> software for all public bureaux. >> >> >> > > Interesting although am I the only person that is slightly alarmed by > > the authenticity of this given that the original sources seem to have > > vanished ? (the link in the story 404's and the frontpage of the same > > domain seems to be a standard cluster of random sponsored links) > > > > Wouldn't be the first time the reg have failed to check their sources > > :) > No, you're not! (Note that I wrote "described as ... "). The Register web page itself said "purportedly from Peruvian Congressman ... ". Nonetheless, if it was not written by a Peruvian Congressman to MicroSoft Peru, then I wish it had been! Just contemplating that possibility gives me a glow! Cheers, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 27-Dec-07 Time: 22:53:16 ------------------------------ 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!

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OSS to Alsa migration for AC'97 soundcard
by Dan Hatton 29 Dec '07

29 Dec '07

Dear All, I have an Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) AC'97 soundcard. In kernel 2.6.20.6, it works just fine, with the OSS sound_ich driver. However, by kernel 2.6.23.9, this has been obsoleted in favour of the ALSA snd_intel8x0 driver, and I can't get a peep out of the soundcard - for example, when I issue the command mplayer -ao alsa <ASF file that makes a sound in the old kernel> I get the sequence of error messages alsa-init: using device default alsa-lib: pcm_hw.c:1099:(snd_pcm_hw_open) open /dev/snd/pcmC0D0p failed: No such file or directory alsa-init: playback open error: No such file or directory Could not open/initialize audio device -> no sound. Audio: no sound If I try and chase the way ALSA has numbered the card with mplayer -ao alsa:device=1.0 <ASF file that makes a sound in the old kernel> I get the subtly different alsa-lib: pcm.c:2145:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM 1,0 alsa-init: playback open error: No such file or directory Could not open/initialize audio device -> no sound. Audio: no sound In both cases, there's just silence. The test facility in system-config-soundcard gives me nothing but silence, and a log that says aplay: main:546: audio open error: No such file or directory cat: /proc/asound/modules: No such file or directory Incidentally, all this is the same regardless of whether snd_intel8x0 is compiled directly into the kernel or as a module. Any ideas how to succeed in this OSS->ALSA migration, please? -- Thanks, Dan

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Re: [ALUG] Firefox
by Bev Nicolson 28 Dec '07

28 Dec '07

Well if this is so I'll hang on and upgrade. I do hope so - it will make it all much easier/less painful! Thanks, Mark. Bev. > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Mark Rogers" <mark(a)quarella.co.uk> > To: ALUG <main(a)lists.alug.org.uk> > Subject: Re: [ALUG] Firefox > Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2007 12:21:14 +0000 > > > Wayne Stallwood wrote: > > The main problem you have now is your upgrade path is pretty complicated > > because the supported path would be Dapper>Edgy>Feisty>Gutsy which is a > > lot of effort (in reality it may be possible to skip some of those but > > the official upgrade instructions are pretty clear in stating that only > > an upgrade from the previous version is supported). I am hoping that > > there will be a direct upgrade path between LTS versions so you would be > > able to do Dapper>Hardy next April..But I wouldn't hold your breath on > > that being the case. > > > > My understanding is that this is indeed the case - 6.06LTS -> 8.04LTS > will be supported in a single step. > > I couldn't find anything "official" in a quick Google but this is a start: > http://www.mail-archive.com/ubuntu-server@lists.ubuntu.com/msg00756.html > > "Hardy will be a special release in this respect since we'll be > support upgrading from both 7.10 and 6.06. It is not trivial, but it's a > high priority for us." > > -- > Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0845 45 89 555 > Registered in England (0456 0902) at 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG > > > _______________________________________________ > 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! > -- _______________________________________________ Surf the Web in a faster, safer and easier way: Download Opera 9 at http://www.opera.com Powered by Outblaze

1 0

Re: [ALUG] Firefox
by Bev Nicolson 28 Dec '07

28 Dec '07

It is just Firefox that freezes/stops responding. (I'm not too sure exactly what X is but nothing else appears to be affected.) As to the version of ubuntu I use, well it is the long term support version and I don't fancy the hassle of changing to something newer just yet. And why not? :¬) Bev. > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Brett Parker" <iDunno(a)sommitrealweird.co.uk> > To: main(a)lists.alug.org.uk > Subject: Re: [ALUG] Firefox > Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2007 00:06:10 +0000 > > > On 22 Dec 12:33, Bev Nicolson wrote: > > I'm opening myself up to many people who will say 'well use this > > browser instead' but hey.:¬) I use Firefox version 1.5.0.13pre (and > > Ubuntu 6.06 LTS) and when I have a webmail application open a bit too > > long (an hour or so say - I've not timed it) it will freeze when I try > > to sign out. I have looked for information that is specific to this > > version but while 2.0 is covered this one isn't it seems. Has anyone > > found a work around that works? > > Well, the obvious immediate question would be "why are you using a > version of Ubuntu that's over a year old". > > The second obviousy question would be: what plugins/extensions have you > got installed in firefox? Have you tried disabling them all? Does that > make a difference? > > And when you say "freeze", is it just firefox that freezes or does it > take out X while it's at it? Glancing around it appears that the issue > might have been fixed in 6.10, but being a debian user (and mostly > unstable on my own machines and etch on the workstations at work), I > haven't got an ubuntu machine to test on (or, infact, a gmail account... > why would I want my e-mail indexed by a large company that already > indexes the things that I want public anyways?). > > Thanks, > -- > Brett Parker > > _______________________________________________ > 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! > -- _______________________________________________ Surf the Web in a faster, safer and easier way: Download Opera 9 at http://www.opera.com Powered by Outblaze

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RealPlayer for Linux
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 27 Dec '07

27 Dec '07

While I'm doing this sort of stuff ... I've tried this evening to download RealPlayer for Linux. You start at http://www.real.com and you find, of course, that the standard version of RealPlayer 11 is for Windows, so you have to click on the link for "Other versions / languages". This then takes you to a page where you can select among various language versions of RealPlayer 10 for Linux. Selecting "English" has always worked in the past for me. But, this time (and repeatedly) after a mere second or so I get a blank page and "Done" in the status bar, with apparently nothing downloaded. I'm wondering what this means for RealPlayer for Linux. I just hope they're upgrading it to RealPlayer 11,and this is just the out-time over Christmas/New Year while the transition takes place! It may just be a server glitch. But I really hope it's not a symptom that RealPlayer for Linux is being discontinued! You get the same blank result for all the other language versions of RealPlayer for Linux. But if you go to any of the Mac OS-X versions, you get a positive result. Ditto Windows. Best wishes to all, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 27-Dec-07 Time: 23:08:16 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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In response to Microsoft ...
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 27 Dec '07

27 Dec '07

Hi Folks (and apologies to anyone who receives this via more than one route), I have just enjoyed reading a letter, described as being sent from Peruvian Congressman David Villanueva Nuñez to Microsoft Peru, in response tgo Microsoft's objections to a Peruvian Govt Bill mandating open-source software for all public bureaux. It is at: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/05/19/ ms_in_peruvian_opensource_nightmare (all one line; also at: http://tinyurl.com/3abgv ) In view of assorted difficulties with proprietary software recently experienced by our own august Lords and Masters,[1] perhaps it may be enjoyable reading for them too. Enjoy. Best wishes to all, Ted. [1] For example, the recent HMRC fiasco in which sensitive personal data of about 27,000,000 people were "lost in the post" owed much of its impact to the fact that HMRC staff were unable to extract only the data they needed from their database, unless they paid thousands (about £5,000 I think) to EDS so that EDS could provide them with a different data-selection template to what they had already. So they decided to use what they already had, which pulled out far more data than they should have pulled out. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 27-Dec-07 Time: 18:59:19 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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apache/CGI sort of ish question
by Chris G 27 Dec '07

27 Dec '07

I'm fishing around for knowledge and ideas about things that I'm not very knowledgeable about here so be gentle! :-) I'm looking for a simple direct way of dynamically converting reStructured text to HTML. I.e. I want to create text files in rst format (so they're reasonably readable "as is") and point my web browser at them and see them in HTML. I can already do this using pyBlosxom and one of its plugins but it's a rather roundabout way of achieving something simple and all the blog type extras are a nuisance. The pyBlosxom plugin uses Docutils' /usr/bin/rst2html to translate the reStructured Text to HTML, what I'm looking for is some way to tell apache that when it sees a file xxxxx.rst it should run it through /usr/bin/rst2html and display the resulting HTML. Is there a standard apache way of doing things like this? Or am I talking CGI? Or what? -- Chris Green

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Re: [ALUG] Firefox
by Bev Nicolson 24 Dec '07

24 Dec '07

I suspect (though I don't know) that it's the RealPlayer issue again. I had trouble getting the thing to install in the offical manner. It seemed that the install file was hampering the process, or at least, to get round it meant including a Debian site in apt. so that the install prog/script/whatever-you-call-those-things was bypassed. (Suggested by someone who knows *way* more than I ever will about Ubuntu.) So, (and I know there will be those who ask 'but why RealPlayer when this (insert name of favoured multi-media program) is way better?' :¬) ) if I tried using the official RP update option, which is on offer now, would that work both as a 'get round' to the above problem (in terms of allowing me to get to 6.10) and as a program? Or is that a 'you'll just have to try it' question? Bev. > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Wayne Stallwood" <ALUGlist(a)digimatic.co.uk> > To: ALUG <main(a)lists.alug.org.uk> > Subject: Re: [ALUG] Firefox > Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 01:49:47 +0000 > > > > On Sun, 2007-12-23 at 19:06 +0100, Bev Nicolson wrote: > > > > Well, I have actually tried what it suggested on the Ubuntu web site > > to upgrade to 6.10 but I get an error message about a Debian multi > > media package website and checking my network connection. Hmm. Still, > > I have got 7.04 so perhaps I should have go... > > Bev. > > It might be that there is a repository in your apt sources list that is > no longer available (or doesn't support 6.10). Have you added any > automated media package installers like automatix that may have messed > with your /etc/apt/sources.list ? are there any uncommented lines in > there that don't point to ubuntu.com or it's mirrors ? > > Upgrading to the 7.04 version via the CD you have may be more difficult > than upgrading to 6.10 first, I'd check the ubuntu forums before doing > that and probably suggest you do it via the repositories rather than > from a CD (if you have broadband) > > > > _______________________________________________ > 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! > -- _______________________________________________ Surf the Web in a faster, safer and easier way: Download Opera 9 at http://www.opera.com Powered by Outblaze

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Re: [ALUG] Firefox
by Bev Nicolson 24 Dec '07

24 Dec '07

Well, I have actually tried what it suggested on the Ubuntu web site to upgrade to 6.10 but I get an error message about a Debian multi media package website and checking my network connection. Hmm. Still, I have got 7.04 so perhaps I should have go... Bev. > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Wayne Stallwood" <ALUGlist(a)digimatic.co.uk> > To: ALUG <main(a)lists.alug.org.uk> > Subject: Re: [ALUG] Firefox > Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2007 16:09:48 +0000 > > > On Sun, 2007-12-23 at 15:54 +0100, Bev Nicolson wrote: > > It is just Firefox that freezes/stops responding. (I'm not too > > sure exactly what X is but nothing else appears to be affected.) > > As to the version of ubuntu I use, well it is the long term > > support version and I don't fancy the hassle of changing to > > something newer just yet. And why not? :¬) > > Bev. > > If you really don't want the (to be fair 95% of the time relatively > minor) hassle of upgrading Ubuntu every 6 months then the LTS version is > a fair choice. I use it on my home media server PC because given the > very limited set of functions that machine performs it wouldn't really > benefit from being on something newer. > > Unfortunately what you don't get on LTS is bug fixes that come as part > of new versions of key packages like firefox. A lot of > compatibility/security/stability fixes have been made to Firefox since > 1.5 and unless you want to manually update your copy or find a more > recent version in a backports repository somewhere then you may be stuck > with some bugs. > > My personal view is that the only time I would consider LTS versions for > desktop computing over more recent versions is if I was supporting a > whole office full of Ubuntu and a 6 month upgrade cycle was impractical. > In that event I would probably be creating my own packages to apply more > recent versions of things like Firefox (if they don't exist already). > That or some business critical system that I daren't touch unless there > is a specific benefit to justify my tampering (but in all fairness I > probably wouldn't be running mission critical business systems on > Ubuntu) > > The main problem you have now is your upgrade path is pretty complicated > because the supported path would be Dapper>Edgy>Feisty>Gutsy which is a > lot of effort (in reality it may be possible to skip some of those but > the official upgrade instructions are pretty clear in stating that only > an upgrade from the previous version is supported). I am hoping that > there will be a direct upgrade path between LTS versions so you would be > able to do Dapper>Hardy next April..But I wouldn't hold your breath on > that being the case. > > Also there have been some significant improvements to not only the > applications but the core systems since Dapper. Gnome has been improved > in places and now feels faster than it ever has done to me, faster boot > times, Some magic foo in Feisty/Gutsy that gives a similar performance > gain to prelinking stuff but without the hassle factor (short version > some apps start much faster), the list of application improvements is > almost endless, not to mention better hardware support etc. > > > > > _______________________________________________ > 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! > -- _______________________________________________ Surf the Web in a faster, safer and easier way: Download Opera 9 at http://www.opera.com Powered by Outblaze

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Firefox
by Bev Nicolson 23 Dec '07

23 Dec '07

I'm opening myself up to many people who will say 'well use this browser instead' but hey.:¬) I use Firefox version 1.5.0.13pre (and Ubuntu 6.06 LTS) and when I have a webmail application open a bit too long (an hour or so say - I've not timed it) it will freeze when I try to sign out. I have looked for information that is specific to this version but while 2.0 is covered this one isn't it seems. Has anyone found a work around that works? Bev. -- _______________________________________________ Surf the Web in a faster, safer and easier way: Download Opera 9 at http://www.opera.com Powered by Outblaze

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Re: [ALUG] Firefox
by Bev Nicolson 22 Dec '07

22 Dec '07

Ted, It's webmail provided by a well known search engine. Bev. > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk > To: main(a)lists.alug.org.uk > Subject: Re: [ALUG] Firefox > Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 11:46:27 -0000 (GMT) > > > On 22-Dec-07 11:33:14, Bev Nicolson wrote: > > I'm opening myself up to many people who will say 'well > > use this browser instead' but hey.:¬) I use Firefox version > > 1.5.0.13pre (and Ubuntu 6.06 LTS) and when I have a webmail > > application open a bit too long (an hour or so say - I've > > not timed it) it will freeze when I try to sign out. I have > > looked for information that is specific to this version but > > while 2.0 is covered this one isn't it seems. Has anyone > > found a work around that works? > > Bev. > > Is it a webmail site hosted by (e.g.) an ISP? It could well > be that they time you out after a certain time (e.g. 1 hour) > of inactivity. > > In that case, it would be nothing to do with your browser. > You would have been silently logged-out, while your browser > would still be displaying the logged-in page. Then, when you > try to log out, there's nothing there to log-out from. > > (Just a guess). > Ted. > > -------------------------------------------------------------------- > E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> > Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 > Date: 22-Dec-07 Time: 11:46:22 > ------------------------------ 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! > -- _______________________________________________ Surf the Web in a faster, safer and easier way: Download Opera 9 at http://www.opera.com Powered by Outblaze

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usb adsl modem with linux driver
by Jenny Hopkins 22 Dec '07

22 Dec '07

Hullo there, Has anyone on list had a successful experience with adsl usb modem and linux? One of my clients is very keen to get a usb adsl modem, for tidiness more than anything. He bought a ZyXEL P-630-S1 and I had a look at it today. lsusb shows: "Bus 001 Device 014: ID 0586:330e ZyXEL Communications Corp" however cxacru module will support 330a and 330b but 330e is not listed. This is on a debian box kernel 2.6.18-5-k7 I'm tempted to advise sending it back and getting either a known supported one, or a traditional adsl modem router, but I'm happy to have a fight with this one if there is chance of a successful outcome. Otherwise can anyone advise a asb adsl modem they do know to work, other than the now unavailable 'speedtouch'? Thanks to all and Noodles for help on irc this morning, and thanks in advance, Polite Jenny

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Wifi again
by Barry Samuels 21 Dec '07

21 Dec '07

I'm baffled by wifi. I see people quoting ranges of over 100 feet or more with wireless access points inside buildings and I can hardly stretch to 12 feet. I've just done some tests using the following: Netgear WG602 v1 Wireless Access Point D-Link AirPlus XtremeG DWL-G520 Wireless PCI card Netgear WPN802 RangeMax Wireless Access Point Netgear WPN311 RangeMax Wireless PCI card With the units only 12 inches apart the results are: Link Quality Signal Strength WG602 + D-Link 70% -29 dbm WPN802 + D-Link 60% -38 dbm WPN802 + WPN311 77% -21 dbm Shouldn't I be getting close to 100% quality at that distance? With the units 12 feet apart (with some obstructions) the results are: Link Quality Signal Strength WG602 + D-Link 34% -61 dbm WG602 + WPN311 36% -61 dbm WPN802 + WPN311 31% -65 dbm Why should there be such a drop in quality/signal at that distance? How do other people get the range that they apparently do? What sort of range/signal do you get? I don't understand those minus figures for signal strength except that -21 is better than -61. What is the strongest signal that one can get using that notation? -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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Re: [ALUG] Wifi again
by Barry Samuels 21 Dec '07

21 Dec '07

On 21/12/07 16:33:54, Paul wrote: > On Friday 21 December 2007 10:49, Barry Samuels wrote: > > But seriously though - the house has wooden internal partition > > walls which include a 3 inch layer of fibreglass insulation. > > If it is a modern house using plasterboard & studwork construction, > you may well find the walls are lined with aluminium foil - Part of > the plasterboard construction & intended to improve the thermal > insulation of "new builds".. > > > Regards, Paul. Walls are lined with MDF not plasterboard and there is definitely no metal foil. I did find that the WAP in it's new room gave noticeably better performance by putting it on a shelf just 18 inches below the ceiling. Still only around 42% quality but better than before. -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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Re: [ALUG] Discuss: Favourite Text / Programmer's Editor
by John Seago 21 Dec '07

21 Dec '07

On Thursday 20 December 2007, Paul Tansom <paul(a)aptanet.com> wrote: > One day I'll try Emacs, because it would be nice to actually be able to > compare it to Vim properly. All I ever do is fire it up and then find I > can't do anything, even get out, so I kill the process. I can never > remember the exit incantation! With Vi I had a short crib sheet for the > basics that got me going in minutes. I should really find one for Emacs > before I next fire it up! This might be what you're looking for. One day I'll try Emacs, because it would be nice to actually be able to compare it to Vim properly. All I ever do is fire it up and then find I can't do anything, even get out, so I kill the process. I can never remember the exit incantation! With Vi I had a short crib sheet for the basics that got me going in minutes. I should really find one for Emacs before I next fire it up! -- John Seago GNU/Linux Registered User No. #219566 http://counter.li.org/ () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail - against microsoft attachments /\

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Ethernet and telephone cables
by Barry Samuels 20 Dec '07

20 Dec '07

Does anyone know if it would be possible to use an existing internal telephone cable as an ethernet cable by changing the faceplates on the sockets? -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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usb adsl modem with linux driver
by Peter Alcibiades 20 Dec '07

20 Dec '07

Jenny, I've not tried this, but it claims to be Linux compatible. Happened to come across it the other day when looking for something else. Might be worth a try? Fairly cheap. http://www.ebuyer.com/product/135659 "Works with any desktop or laptop computer operating system that supports a USB port, including Windows, Macintosh and Linux" Its a sort of dongle like the usb to ethernet dongles. Peter

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Discuss: Favourite Text / Programmer's Editor
by samwise 18 Dec '07

18 Dec '07

Hey, We touched on this briefly last night after the question was asked about the best Linux replacement for UltraEdit, but we didn't really get into it as we were all getting ready to stuff ourselves with Hoi Sin sauce. I thought it'd make an interesting thread. So, suggestions for favourite editors. Without getting into a flame war between vi and emacs ... what editor do you prefer for light-weight editing? i.e. not a full IDE like eclipse or KDevelop, but just for the little jobs of editing small text files. I use nano on my very old gentoo box, which is a nice console based editor that is more user friendly than vi/emacs (tho, naturally, less feature rich). I generally rely on vi for console-based editing on other machines. As for the GUI-based ones, I tried gVim but just found it too much hard work. I have run Crimson Editor under WINE for a while because it has lots more features than Kate or KWrite. I'll accept that Crimson Editor is somewhat stagnant (the replacement Emerald Editor appears to be stuck in development hell) and Notepad++ under WINE might be a better choice, but I haven't taken the time to play with it properly. So, anyone got any other favourites worth trying? Does anyone know of a native Linux GUI app that can compete with UltraEdit et al? Peter.

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IP load balancing
by Yvonne Everett 18 Dec '07

18 Dec '07

Hello Does anyone have any suggestions or recommendations for IP load balancing web services on RHEL 4 systems? -- Yvonne Everett Email: ye103910(a)googlemail.com

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