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Re: Gigabit Switch Recommendations
by Matthew 19 Apr '07

19 Apr '07

> I'm thinking about buying a new switch for my home network. I have three > in mind (yes I know they're overkill but I like toys!) > > Netgear GS716T I haven't used the gigabit version, but I'm familiar with the FSxxxT[P] range of 100Mbps ProSafe switches, and they seem quite capable. The interface is quite friendly and I've not had any trouble with the support for VLANs or QOS. Matthew

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Epson Stylus C48 printer won't print
by bnicolson＠ippimail.com 19 Apr '07

19 Apr '07

I've only recently joined so if this has been asked before sorry. To put you in the picture, I'm no geek when it comes to computers but I am keen to learn and I use Ubuntu 6.06LTS. The Epson printer, as I say, won't print. Not even a test page. Ubuntu recognises it, it knows what the print job is etc but absolutely nothing happens when I ask it to print. No noises, no nothing. What can I do? Bev. Email and shopping with the feelgood factor! 55% of income to good causes. http://www.ippimail.com/ -- Email and shopping with the feelgood factor! 55% of income to good causes. http://www.ippimail.com

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"Linux in Classrooms in Delevoping Countries" - A presentation on 3rd May 6.30pm near Ipswich
by Richard Newbould 18 Apr '07

18 Apr '07

Hi All, I have just joined ALUG with a group from Ipswich. It's cool to be here. I have been developing a computer system for teaching in classrooms in developing countries based on Open Source software for the past 2 years. Some friends and I have also set up a charity called Switched On ( www.switchedon.org) and so far we have successfully installed systems in Thailand and India. I'll be giving an IEE talk about our experiences and the technologies we used at BT's research labs outside Ipswich on 3rd May. All are welcome. Hope you can make it! Poster - http://local.iee.org/anglian/meetings/ap03may.pdf *When and where:* Thursday 3rd May 2007 at 6.30pm Refreshments at 6.00pm Sir Alan Rudge Lecture Theatre, Adastral Park, Martlesham Heath, Ipswich IP5 3RE. *Synopsis:* Local charity, Switched On, has a vision to see, "Underprivileged peoples switched-on to the benefits of computing and the Internet." Helping individuals and communities cross the digital divide will be a vital form of empowerment for many, enabling beneficiaries to grow both in self-esteem and earning potential. Switched On is pioneering innovative, low-cost and effective computer systems to meet this gaping need. In technology terms we are using Open Source (Linux) software on a thin client architecture. Come and learn about the technologies we used and human challenges faced in deploying systems for poor communities in New Delhi, India and Bangkok, Thailand. Both IET Members and Non-Members are welcome. PLEASE NOTE A PASS WILL BE REQUIRED FOR ENTRY TO THIS VENUE PLEASE APPLY AT LEAST 48 HOURS IN ADVANCE TO ben.formesyn(a)bt.com For more information please see www.iee.org/anglian or contact ben.formesyn(a)bt.com Other IET talks: http://local.iee.org/anglian/ Cheers, Richard

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Domain Registration & The Law (tm)
by James Taylor 18 Apr '07

18 Apr '07

Ok, can someone tell me the deal with Domain registration and what should be availible - as far as I was aware, you had to give your name and contact details when you register a domain unless its for personal use, and I thought this was a UK rule, but it seems that Scotland allows anonymous registration through privacy companies (who register the domain as being private with a private address). Is this right? I mean I guess its just one person registering the domain as their own, who isnt the person who is actually using it (like ISP's registering it on behalf of the person who wants it, but in the ISP's name not the persons name). Thanks JT

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Re: [ALUG] The Open CD
by J.R. Seago 18 Apr '07

18 Apr '07

On Wednesday 18 April 2007 Adam Bower <adam(a)thebowery.co.uk> wrote: > She might need to install the GTK+ libraries first, tell her to look on > the CD for them. Thanks for that Adam, I'll get in touch and tell her. I've made myself one to see what they do, all I've got to do is find someone who'll let me put it in their computer to try it out. -- J.R. Seago GNU/Linux Registered User No. #219566 http://counter.li.org/ () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments

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no sound
by robert johnson 18 Apr '07

18 Apr '07

I would like to ask the question about the problem i'm having with my tv card.At the moment i can get both dvd and my xbox working through my dvd/vcr combo.The problem is that there's no sound,and i can only use my xbox via my dvd/vcr combo rather than directly as in my Windows application.My tv card registered as saa7135hl on kde tv.My chosen OS of choice is either Mandriva 06 or Suse10.2.Thanks for your help Robert ___________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Mail is the world's favourite email. Don't settle for less, sign up for your free account today http://uk.rd.yahoo.com/evt=44106/*http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/mail/winter07.ht…

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The Open CD
by J.R. Seago 18 Apr '07

18 Apr '07

I made one of these, http://www.theopencd.org/ for my wife's god-daughter she can get it all to work apart from the part she really wanted, the GIMP, she can't get it to open is there something that she needs to do or have I made a bad CD? -- J.R. Seago GNU/Linux Registered User No. #219566 http://counter.li.org/ () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments

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OT: Holt telephone exchange
by Ian bell 17 Apr '07

17 Apr '07

We are moving to Holt soon and would like to get an old style pulse dial telephone. Does anyone know if this type of phone will work with the Holt telephone exchange? Cheers Ian

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Re: [ALUG] Pipex
by J.R. Seago 17 Apr '07

17 Apr '07

Thanks for the information from all who replied. I'm in two minds as to what to do, on the one hand I'm moving shortly, due to go on the first of June, so I could just hang on, and hope they last until then. Or try getting a connection for six weeks before I move, this latter doesn't seem to be a very likely solution as I can't think of anyone who wants to take new customers on a six week broadband contract. -- J.R. 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: main Digest, Vol 22, Issue 19
by J.R. Seago 17 Apr '07

17 Apr '07

On Tuesday 17 April 2007 12:00, main-request(a)lists.alug.org.uk wrote: > So I'd go out on a limb here and say you were safe for six weeks (and > yes this already does smack of "famous last words") Yes but that's the way I'm going as I can't see any other way round it. I've got a Googlemail account that I can use at the library for emails once a day, and I'll sort out new broadband when I get there. -- J.R. Seago GNU/Linux Registered User No. #219566 http://counter.li.org/ () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments

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Fwd: 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : The Milestone, Woodbridge Road
by samwise 16 Apr '07

16 Apr '07

Here's the venue info, for any newbies ... Peter. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: samwise <samwise(a)bagshot-row.org> Date: 16-Apr-2007 12:12 Subject: 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : The Milestone, Woodbridge Road To: announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk The monthly "Third Monday" ALUG Ipswich Social Meeting starts tonight (Monday 16th April) 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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IPLUG Meeting
by Tracy Dickerson 16 Apr '07

16 Apr '07

Hello All, Looking forward to seeing all you guys at the meet tonight. Laters Tracy x

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Re: [ALUG] Pipex
by Paul Tansom 16 Apr '07

16 Apr '07

** Nick Daniels <nick(a)oldhippy068.plus.com> [2007-04-16 09:24]: > On Monday 16 April 2007 07:55, J.R. Seago wrote: > > Has anyone else had problems with Pipex NOT taking payments, so far over > > the past year they have failed to take four payments from my credit card > > and six by direct debit. they have discounted my total bill twice by two > > payments, (four in total), and in the end I had to give them a cheques as > > they just couldn't seem to get their own system to work. I am considering > > moving to another ISP as if this is a widespread occurrence then they are > > going to go belly up soon due to cash flow problems. > Hi > Not with Pipex but it is up for sale: > http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/12/pipex_for_sale/ > Also: Pipex sale 'on the brink of collapse' > http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/04/10/pipex_no_sale/ ** end quote [Nick Daniels] Hmm, looks as though I might be bailing out on Nildram just in time. They've been pretty good, even during the hiccup with the firmware upgrades on Cisco routers that cause major problems with certain chipsets some time ago (Nildram were on the first batch to be upgraded, and Solwise big suppliers of hardware using the problem chipset, so I caught this one head on - Solwise were very helpful, Nildram did better than most ISPs would have). That said, their customer service has dipped slightly since Pipex took them over (although still no major complaints). Their prices haven't dipped at all though, not for the sort of service I need anyway, so I'm moving on to halve my monthly costs :) -- Paul Tansom | Aptanet Ltd. | http://www.aptanet.com/ ==================================================================== Aptanet Ltd. | Registered in England | Company No: 4905028 Registered Office: Crawford House, Hambledon Road, Denmead, Waterlooville, Hants., PO7 6NU

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Re: [ALUG] Pipex
by Martyn Drake 16 Apr '07

16 Apr '07

On 16/04/07, Nick Daniels <nick(a)oldhippy068.plus.com> wrote: > Not with Pipex but it is up for sale: > http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/12/pipex_for_sale/ > Also: Pipex sale 'on the brink of collapse' > http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/04/10/pipex_no_sale/ I've found their 123-reg service to be absolutely diabolical over the past six months or so; it's taken them the best part of four months to answer ONE query about credits and even then it's not properly resolved. They are awful. Hosteurope, when I last tried them, were incredibly slow at dealing with *anything*. Them and Fasthosts are on feckwit list of incompetent companies. M. -- Email : martyn(a)drake.org.uk Phone : +44 (0)7866 450 752 Blog : http://www.drake.org.uk Photos : http://www.flickr.com/photos/mbdrake

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Pipex
by J.R. Seago 16 Apr '07

16 Apr '07

Has anyone else had problems with Pipex NOT taking payments, so far over the past year they have failed to take four payments from my credit card and six by direct debit. they have discounted my total bill twice by two payments, (four in total), and in the end I had to give them a cheques as they just couldn't seem to get their own system to work. I am considering moving to another ISP as if this is a widespread occurrence then they are going to go belly up soon due to cash flow problems. -- J.R. Seago GNU/Linux Registered User No. #219566 http://counter.li.org/ () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments

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OT (but can you help anyway?)
by ted.harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 14 Apr '07

14 Apr '07

Hi Folks, Another query to the best source of general "tech" info I know! I like using rechargeable batteries (to avoid creating nasty junk). The ones you find on sale are 1.2 volts. However, some of the thingies I have work best (or even only) with 1.5-volt batteries. The 1.5v batteries I find on sale are non-rechargeable. So, Question: Can one find rechargeable 1.5-volt batteries? And, if so, where's a good place to look? With thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <ted.harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 14-Apr-07 Time: 13:54:48 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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alug library books
by Paul 14 Apr '07

14 Apr '07

Hi Wayne Just for your alug library records - Ian dropped of a few books at the last pub meet (many thanks Ian).. I couldn't carry all of them, but the two I now have in my possesion are: Hacking Linux Exposed, 2nd ed. ISBN: 0-07-222564-5 Unix Secrets, 2nd ed. Including CD. ISBN: 0-7645-3320-7 Many thanks, Paul.

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Re: Laptop
by Matthew 13 Apr '07

13 Apr '07

I've sort of gone off Novatech over the last couple of years. I had their low-end laptop a few years ago and it had a cheap and nasty case that caused heat issues, as well as a flimsy AC socket that broke and took the motherboard with it within a year. The next MoBo they put in was better though. Their recent laptop range /looks/ better, but it's hard to tell from a picture (illustrative purposes only...) and I'd be interested to hear how anyone is getting on with them. I still recommend them for desktops. > If you're still looking for a laptop /anyway/ because they're always a > good thing to have -- > I *highly* recommend Novatech (http://www.novatech.co.uk) for laptops. > My girlfriend just bought their cheapest model, sans operating system > (what a bonus!). Specs are something like 1.6GHz, 1GB RAM, 80GB HDD, > DVD-RW, Widescreen etc etc. and *everything* works out of the box > (including with the lovely Ubuntu 6.10 Edgy Eft. It was only around > £350...

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Possible Job
by David Reynolds 13 Apr '07

13 Apr '07

Hi, It was brought to my attention earlier today that one of the companies (http://www.fxhome.com) within the building is looking for a PHP developer to work on their websites. I said I'd ask on here and see if anyone was interested. If anyone is interested, either contact the company directly, or email you CV to me and I'll pass it on. Cheers, Dave -- David Reynolds david(a)reynoldsfamily.org.uk

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"Open Source"
by ted.harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 13 Apr '07

13 Apr '07

Hi Folks, I've been listening to a Radio 4 programme this evening called "Open Source": Open Source Wednesday 11 April 2007 21:00-21:30 (Radio 4 FM) Paul Bennun finds out how Free and Open Source software is making its impact felt across the world, fuelling development and saving businesses millions of pounds. Produced by a global network of software enthusiasts and freely given away, community created computer programs can compete with big business. Their creators are driven by an ideology as much as price, challenging traditional intellectual property rights and placing power in the hands of the public rather than private corporations. Linux itself is not prominently mentioned, but overall I think they have got the spirit of the thing about right (though I have quibbles about some details). No mention on the programme's website http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/pip/z9ksy/ about a "Listen Again" possibility, if you missed it, but one may come up later. Best wishes to all, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <ted.harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 11-Apr-07 Time: 21:28:55 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Laptop
by J.R. Seago 10 Apr '07

10 Apr '07

This morning my town had a series of small power cuts between 05·00 and 06·00 hours, these were so short that the incandescent light bulb on my desk light didn't go out, only flicker. My Computer did reboot on the first two occasions but then on the third occasion wouldn't do anything, I 'phoned the local computer repair people at around 09·00, who got back to me later in the day as they had been inundated with calls on the same matter. My computer rebooted at about 12·00, apparently others are still not re-started. Having given the background here's my question, as I needed to stay in email contact with a number of people today, would it be worthwhile buying a laptop, if so which one? Morgans flyer which came this morning has Toshiba's at prices starting at £328·99. Although I seem to remember reading somewhere that Mesh laptop's fitted GNU/Linux better, anyone any suggestions, or ideas of what to avoid? I'd want toput Slackware 11 onto it. -- J.R. 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: main Digest, Vol 22, Issue 13
by J.R. Seago 10 Apr '07

10 Apr '07

On Tuesday 10 April 2007 18:58, Jonathan McDowell <noodles(a)earth.li> wrote: > I'm not clear; did your local computer repair people do something that > meant your computer was functional by 12:00, or did it just magically > come back? > It magically came back, the local repair shop had spent all morning telling everyone who had rung him that that was what would happen, he got to me, In response to my answer-phone message at about 12.30. I'd tried pushing the button once more after coming back from the post office, and whoopee it worked. > > As a cheaper solution, would perhaps a decent surge protector or even > UPS maybe do what you want? I picked up a £25 Belkin UPS from eBuyer > last year and it's kept my machine up through various brownouts and > power outages. Of course it still doesn't protect me from my own > stupidity (like the time I knocked the power button while fiddling with > cables under the desk). Yes that's what he told me, as he'd spent all morning doing himself out of repair fees, I'll go in tomorrow and see what he can provide in the way of UPS, I've got my supply surge protected already. The power out was more of an excuse for something I want but don't need really, I'd rather save money as I'm trying to move at the moment. -- J.R. Seago GNU/Linux Registered User No. #219566 () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments

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Re: Laptop
by J.R. Seago 10 Apr '07

10 Apr '07

I see that I'm still a little woozy and haven't altered the subject line or addressed the posts properly, I'll stop for the night and go to bed, with the nightcap! Apologies to all. -- J.R. Seago GNU/Linux Registered User No. #219566 () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments

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Re: main Digest, Vol 22, Issue 13
by J.R. Seago 10 Apr '07

10 Apr '07

On Tuesday 10 April 2007 18:58, main-request(a)lists.alug.org.uk wrote: > I'm hazarding a guess here (based on your email address)... but, even if > you had a magical laptop and the power went out how would you get online > if your adsl router didn't have power? :) You'd need some kind of ups or > a usb dsl modem (but they eat battery very quickly). Of course a ups on > the dsl gear and a laptop would give the most uptime in the event of a > power failure, but i'd look at a ups for the main machine anyway "just > in case" so it doesn't get the psu busted if it happens in the future. > > Adam Everything else just restarted itself when the power came back, printer router, monitor the lot, it was just on the third power down, (I think rather than out), that the computer wouldn't reboot, it did about 5 > 6 hours later, but apparently it the, internal power supply, (is that the right description/nomenclature), will reset after a while. I'd been having a bad night which was why I was up at five anyway, (unlike you my daughter is all grown up, and dose'n't get me up in the night. Which is why I wasn't thinking straight and leapt to the conclusion I could spend some money and buy shiny new toys. But as I said above I'm going to see the nice man who tried to get everybody working without charging them, to see about surge and UPS thingy's, I might be better tomorrow, and think straight, when today's pills have been topped up with a nightcap! Thanks to every body for the advice, but I'll just stick to the boring sensible stuff at the moment! -- J.R. Seago GNU/Linux Registered User No. #219566 () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments

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Scheduling problem
by Stuart Bailey 10 Apr '07

10 Apr '07

I'm having trouble with a process taking too long, and holding up other processes. Basically, the process produces a bitmap showing a map of the geographical position, with a number of feature plotted. Whilst this is going on, data from a GPS receiver is being displayed on screen. These are separate processes. However, when the map is being produced, the data display freezes. Once the map is finished, the data display continues as if nothing happened. I've tried running the mapping process under nice, with a priority value of 20 (minimum), but this has made no significant improvement. Is there a way to limit the processor time that a process can take - say specifying that the process cannot exceed 20% processor time? Many thanks, Stuart -- --------------------------------------- Stuart Bailey BSc (hons) CEng CITP MBCS LinuSoft (Owner) Linux Specialist (0845) 6583563 http://www.linusoft.co.uk ----------------------------------------

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[ALUG Announce] 2nd Thursday Norwich Meet : Reindeer, Dereham Road
by Jonathan McDowell 10 Apr '07

10 Apr '07

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 "Second Thursday" ALUG Norwich Pub Meet is this Thursday, 12th March. Apologies for the slightly later than usual reminder; I blame Easter confusing me. It's at the Reindeer pub on the Dereham Road, just opposite the City Gate. People will be there from 8pm-ish, though there may be a few people there earlier. Topics for discussion will no doubt be as varied as ever. The Reindeer has a reasonable selection of beer as well as decent coffee (with biscuits, if you're lucky). Directions to the Reindeer can be found at: http://www.alug.org.uk/venues/reindeer.html Pictures of some of the regulars, and irregulars, and, well, just some pictures of people that might or might not turn up are available from: http://www.earth.li/~noodles/Photos/2006-02-ALUG/ http://the.earth.li/~noodles/stilvoid-alug/mp20050811/ http://www.earth.li/~noodles/Photos/2005-01-ALUG-Xmas/ http://www.earth.li/~noodles/Photos/2004-08-ALUG/ Which should hopefully aid those of you wondering who to look out for, even if the images are getting a bit old now. We now have an area reserved for us, so should be easier to find. As you enter through the main door you'll see a small set of steps ahead of you - the area just up those steps and to the left is where we'll be. J. -- [ I'd love to but... I'm having all my plants neutered. ] ----- 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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Debian Testing, USB and Win CE
by Barry Samuels 08 Apr '07

08 Apr '07

I have just bought a navigational GPS unit which serves for use in-car and whilst walking. It has a label on the back which says: Win CE .NET 4.2 Core. I also have a Thinkpad which came with Windows XP. This GPS unit is recognised by XP using active sync but I'd prefer to use RAKI (synce-kde) running under Linux. After plugging the unit into a USB port I get this in the logs: kernel: usb 1-7.1: new full speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 33 kernel: usb 1-7.1: device descriptor read/64, error -32 kernel: usb 1-7.1: device descriptor read/64, error -32 kernel: usb 1-7.1: new full speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 34 kernel: usb 1-7.1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice There is nothing else in the logs relating to that connection and RAKI does nothing - it apparently does not recognise it and I don't know what the error means. Any help would be welcome. -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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Etch...
by mephi 08 Apr '07

08 Apr '07

I don't know how many Debian users there are on this list, but for those of you that are, it's looking like Etch is finally released. I'm apt-get-ing now, I wonder how much this is gonna break my server. www.debian.org Matt

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Redundant web hosting
by Mark Rogers 08 Apr '07

08 Apr '07

Any reason why the following won't work? It sounds too "easy"... Server A is the primary DNS for a domain, and hosts its website, its database, and its email (SMTP in, dropped to POP3 mailboxes via spamassassin). All relevant records are in the DNS: www., pop3., etc, and point to Server A. Server B is the secondary DNS for a domain, but all the records (www./pop3./etc) point to Server B (not A). Server B has an exact copy of the website, the database (synchronised through MySQL replication), and drops any email it receives through its own spamassassin into its local POP3 mailboxes. Server A also uses fetchmail to collect mail from Server B and drop it into its local POP3 boxes, in case any arrives there. TTL on DNS records on both servers is set to a short period (say 15 mins). In normal use, the domain resolves to server A and server B just acts as a redundant backup. If/when server A fails, its DNS vanishes and so clients request from the DNS on server B, which directs them to the website and database on server B and drops email into its local POP3 mailboxes. (The end user, when checking their email, will likewise get Server B when they query pop3.theirdomain and start collecting email from Server B.) When server A recovers, things go back to normal, with any remaining mail in the POP3 mailboxes on Server B pulled over by fetchmail. Server A and B will be in entirely different locations (maybe not even on the same continent!) The only obvious problem which comes to mind is that writes to the database on Server B will get the databases out of sync, therefore I'd make remove write access to the databases from the website and modify the website code to handle that. In case anyone ends up at server B when server A is up and running, it could be told to connect remotely to the database on server A unless it can't, falling back to database B. In this scenario session handling would be messed up unless the session info is stored in the database and sync'd across. NB: From experience a lot of spam follows the lower priority MX in case it bypasses the spam checker, which would put a lot of the spam load onto the redundant server, hopefully allowing legitimate email through more quickly. -- 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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CSS question, probably very naive.
by Chris G 05 Apr '07

05 Apr '07

I'm sure there's something fundamentally silly wrong with this but I can't see what it is at the moment. Here's a snippet of a CSS file:- .header { border-top: thick solid #cccccc; border-bottom: thin solid #cccccc; color: #0E0E0E; background: #EEEEEE; height: 8em; } h1.header, h2.header, h3.header, h4.header, h5.header, h6.header { padding: 0px; background: #EEEEEE; color: #003366; font-weight:normal; line-height:140%; } .crumbs {color: blue; background: white;} a.crumbs {color: red; background: white;} a.crumbs:visited {color: blue; background: white; text-decoration: none} Now the .header bit is doing what I expect for the part of my HTML that has a <div class="header"> ..... </div> around it, I get a nice pale grey background. But none of the h1/h2/h3/h4 'inside' the header seem to work. They still get a default white background. Similarly the .crumbs is working (I tried changing the background to check) but none of the a.crumbs are working. What am I doing wrong? Surely something obvious and silly but I can't see it. I even ran a CSS checker on it and it checks out perfectly, just doesn't actually do anything! -- Chris Green

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Re: Webmin/Usermin & proxies
by Matthew 05 Apr '07

05 Apr '07

Progress! With a <Proxy> block to Allow from all, I get 500 rather than 403 ;-) It looks like an Apache issue still, although I can't be sure. I saw a neat trick somewhere about trapping errors in your proxy (so that you can serve a different page if your backend application server is down); maybe I can find the instructions again and use that to work out where the fault is. Curiously, I have a set of other virtual servers that proxy heavy requests to another instance of Apache and I don't recall having declared a <Proxy> with Allow for them. They use mod_rewrite instead of ProxyPass, but I get the same results either way when passing requests to Usermin. I'll try some more tweaking; thanks for the help. >> I believe you need to add something like >> >> <Proxy *> >> Order deny,allow >> Allow from all >> </Proxy> >> >> To allow access to the proxy. > > I've just been reliably informed (by Brett on IRC) that <Proxy *> is > not a good idea and that you should bind it to a particular ip:port > > So.. > > <Proxy ip:port> > Order deny,allow > Allow from all > </Proxy>

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Use of () in 'test' (or [ ])
by Chris G 05 Apr '07

05 Apr '07

I want to group some logic in a test in a bash script. I.e. I am trying to write something like:- if [ this -a (that -o theOther) ] but bash always complains about 'syntax error'. I have reduced the code to the trivial:- home$ if [ ( true ) ]; then but still get the syntax error. According to the man page for test the format is:- ( EXPRESSION ) EXPRESSION is true I *think* that is trying to tell me that I can use () to group parts of what is inside the []. However, as I said, it refuses to work as I expected. I have tried all combinations of spaces etc. either side of the () but it still just gives a syntax error. Is this just a case where the () are punctuation in the man page rather than real () to use in the expression? Or am I doing something obvious wrong? (probably!). I know I *could* rely on precedence in the tests to get the result I want but it's much easier to write and to understand using () for grouping the logic. -- Chris Green

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Linux 'split' OK; Windows 'join' ???
by ted.harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 04 Apr '07

04 Apr '07

Hi Folks, A bit one foot in each camp this time. I have a large file to transfer from a Linux machine to a Win98 machine, and for practical reasons only able to use floppies. On Linux, split -C 1m nicely produces 1MB size chunks that fit on floppies and can then be read into the win98 machine. Done. So far so good. But -- what's the way to paste the bits together again on Windows? On Linux there's a choice of ways! But Windows?? Thanks -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <ted.harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 04-Apr-07 Time: 01:11:40 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

9 10

bt home hub - how to setup ubuntu to recognise modem
by elc＠freeola.net 04 Apr '07

04 Apr '07

> > Currently I am connected via usb, in due course I'm contemplating > buying a usb wireless dongle for this (my main pc) and also one for my > other pc also running windows. > > As I said, I'm an utter newbie to linux; - what is this gui-wireless > setup stuff? > > Thanks > Eric > > James Taylor wrote: >> Can you please provide more information. Are you using the hub >> wirelessly or is it on an eithernet connection or a usb connection? >> >> If its wireless, does your linux recognise the computers wireless >> card [is the wirless carrd usb? can you see other usb devices?] >> >> What do your default gui-wireless setup things tell you? >> >> Thanks >> JT >> >> ----- Original Message ----- From: <elc(a)freeola.net> >> To: "ALUG" <main(a)lists.alug.org.uk> >> Sent: Saturday, March 31, 2007 11:12 PM >> Subject: [ALUG] bt home hub - how to setup ubuntu to recognise modem >> >> >>> Help please. >>> I have a British Telecom broadband wireless bt home hub, - it works >>> well with windows, but I am dual booting with Ubuntu/Kubuntu and >>> neither is recognising this modem, and thus can't get online. >>> Can anyone tell me in very simple words how to do this - I am an >>> absolute newbie to linux. >>> Many thanks. >>> Eric >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> main(a)lists.alug.org.uk >>> http://www.alug.org.uk/ >>> http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main >>> Unsubscribe? See message headers or the web site above! >>> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> main(a)lists.alug.org.uk >> http://www.alug.org.uk/ >> http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main >> Unsubscribe? See message headers or the web site above! >> >> >

1 0

Webmin/Usermin & proxies
by Matthew 04 Apr '07

04 Apr '07

This may be a bit of a long shot but is anyone familiar with Webmin or Usermin, and has anyone tried serving either from behind a proxy? I'd like to offer minimal Usermin to mail users and the like, but I'd like to proxy it through Apache to keep it in the same namespace (and on the same port) as the rest of my HTTPS applications. The most likely culprits for an Apache config issue are the proxy statements: ProxyPass / https://localhost:20000/ ProxyPassReverse / https://localhost:20000/ Usermin works fine as a direct request on port 20000, but the proxy returns 403: Forbidden. The Apache logs show the 403, but I think it was originated by Usermin and I can't find anything useful in its logs (it's not even producing one of the log files). Turning off Usermin's SSL doesn't make any difference, nor does using IP or FQDN instead of 'localhost' in the proxy directives. Usermin should be accepting connections from any IP, so I think it dislikes something about the proxying. I barely understand what mod_proxy is up to at the best of times. Anyone got any suggestions? Anything else I could look at? Thanks, Matthew

2 2

Re: [ALUG] Linux 'split' OK; Windows 'join' ???
by ted.harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 04 Apr '07

04 Apr '07

On 04-Apr-07 09:48:41, Mark Reid wrote: > Hi > > In MSDOS mode you can join them with the following command - copy /b > file1 + file2 + file3 + file4 + file5 file./XXX/ > > /b is the switch for binary. /a is for ascii > > Syntax at http://www.computerhope.com/copyhlp.htm > > > Another way is to create a spanning archive with Winzip under Wine and > then use Winzip to reconstitute it in Windows > > Regards > > Mark And thanks for that URL or, more generally, http://www.computerhope.com That looks like a good place to poke around in when out of my depth in foreign territory! Best wishes, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <ted.harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 04-Apr-07 Time: 12:24:42 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

1 0

How to put newlines or returns in a shell variable *and* check they're there?
by Chris G 03 Apr '07

03 Apr '07

I want to set a variable in a shell (bash) script with a newline as one of the characters. First question, how do you do it? Second question, how do you prove it's there once you've done it? I *think* there are several fairly obvious ways of doing it, e.g. things like:- export fred="abcde ghijk" However the problem is that using 'echo' to see what you have done is totally useless as echo does so many clever things under the cover that you don't get to see what's actually in the variable at all. If you do the above and then say "echo $fred" you just get:- abcde ghijk Harrumph! *Surely* there's some way of saying "show me what's really in this variable/string" (a bit like 'od' but for variables). -- Chris Green

4 10

bt home hub - how to setup ubuntu to recognise modem
by elc＠freeola.net 02 Apr '07

02 Apr '07

JT I stand advised re your first para. Currently connected to my main machine via usb is an epson 680 printer, a wireless optical mouse, and of course the bt wireless home hub . Also on occasion I plug in and use Integral flash drive memory sticks. All of these are working well in windows and linux, with the exception that is, of the home hub in linux. Eric Eric, As an asside, please post replys to main(a)lists.alug.org.uk because that way other people can step in with advice... Ok, what we need to work out is whether or not your USB is actually working. Now this might be simple as turning it on - but are you aware of any other USB devices working ok in linux (for example, your USB keyboard or USB mouse or USB printer or anything (any one of these working suggests that USB hotplug stuff will be enabled and thats all ok).. If thats all ok, then it might be as simple as configuring it as a USB network card, to which I would have to pass you over to someone else on the list for that... As for wireless network cards (usb ones) not all of them are erm "compatible" with linux or are very hard to configure where some are very much so (due to openness of hardware spec and manufacturers niceness towards open source community) so someone on the list can suggest good ones that will work in Linux and Windows. JT > Currently I am connected via usb, in due course I'm contemplating > buying a usb wireless dongle for this (my main pc) and also one for my > other pc also running windows. > > As I said, I'm an utter newbie to linux; - what is this gui-wireless > setup stuff? > > Thanks > Eric > > James Taylor wrote: >> Can you please provide more information. Are you using the hub >> wirelessly or is it on an eithernet connection or a usb connection? >> >> If its wireless, does your linux recognise the computers wireless >> card [is the wirless carrd usb? can you see other usb devices?] >> >> What do your default gui-wireless setup things tell you? >> >> Thanks >> JT >> >> >>> Help please. >>> I have a British Telecom broadband wireless bt home hub, - it works >>> well with windows, but I am dual booting with Ubuntu/Kubuntu and >>> neither is recognising this modem, and thus can't get online. >>> Can anyone tell me in very simple words how to do this - I am an >>> absolute newbie to linux. >>> Many thanks. >>> Eric

1 0

Syleham Kit meet on Sunday
by samwise 02 Apr '07

02 Apr '07

OK, So the Syleham Kit meet is still on this coming weekend? What time do things kick-off / finish? Peter.

7 13

Any NFS experts out there
by Charles Garcia-Tobin 02 Apr '07

02 Apr '07

Hi there I'm trying to set up my NFS mount options so that if my server goes down, the file access fails as immediately as possible. Instead it seems to hang forever. Currently I have the following: rw,nolock,soft,intr,timeou=1,retrans=1 With these option I can get the mount either fail or succeed instantly which is great. But if the server goes down, and the client tries to access a file, or cd into the mount, it just hangs forever. Ideally it would also fail quickly. I am mounting via autofs files from a server that is not always turned on. Global warming and big electric bill!! Any ideas welcome Cheers Charles

3 3

Printing problems from Firefox
by Chris G 02 Apr '07

02 Apr '07

Is it just me or is Firefox's printing rather broken? When I print a web page from Firefox I rarely get to see ethe whole page printed on the printer. If it's really small (i.e. fits on a single sheet) it's OK but otherwise it's useless. For example I'm currently trying to print out some instructions for loadspeaker repair. They are at:- http://www.audiofriends.nl/refoaming/ When I print this from firefox what I get is a sheet of paper with the headings on it (and nothing else), then a second sheet with the first part of the document and then two blank sheets. Firefox seems incapable of printing one web page on multiple sheets. -- Chris Green

4 4

Re: [ALUG] bt home hub - how to setup ubuntu to recognise modem
by James Taylor 01 Apr '07

01 Apr '07

Eric, As an asside, please post replys to main(a)lists.alug.org.uk because that way other people can step in with advice... Ok, what we need to work out is whether or not your USB is actually working. Now this might be simple as turning it on - but are you aware of any other USB devices working ok in linux (for example, your USB keyboard or USB mouse or USB printer or anything (any one of these working suggests that USB hotplug stuff will be enabled and thats all ok).. If thats all ok, then it might be as simple as configuring it as a USB network card, to which I would have to pass you over to someone else on the list for that... As for wireless network cards (usb ones) not all of them are erm "compatible" with linux or are very hard to configure where some are very much so (due to openness of hardware spec and manufacturers niceness towards open source community) so someone on the list can suggest good ones that will work in Linux and Windows. JT ----- Original Message ----- From: <elc(a)freeola.net> To: "James Taylor" <jt(a)imen.org.uk> Sent: Sunday, April 01, 2007 9:31 AM Subject: Re: [ALUG] bt home hub - how to setup ubuntu to recognise modem > Currently I am connected via usb, in due course I'm contemplating buying a > usb wireless dongle for this (my main pc) and also one for my other pc > also running windows. > > As I said, I'm an utter newbie to linux; - what is this gui-wireless setup > stuff? > > Thanks > Eric > > James Taylor wrote: >> Can you please provide more information. Are you using the hub wirelessly >> or is it on an eithernet connection or a usb connection? >> >> If its wireless, does your linux recognise the computers wireless card >> [is the wirless carrd usb? can you see other usb devices?] >> >> What do your default gui-wireless setup things tell you? >> >> Thanks >> JT >> >> ----- Original Message ----- From: <elc(a)freeola.net> >> To: "ALUG" <main(a)lists.alug.org.uk> >> Sent: Saturday, March 31, 2007 11:12 PM >> Subject: [ALUG] bt home hub - how to setup ubuntu to recognise modem >> >> >>> Help please. >>> I have a British Telecom broadband wireless bt home hub, - it works well >>> with windows, but I am dual booting with Ubuntu/Kubuntu and neither is >>> recognising this modem, and thus can't get online. >>> Can anyone tell me in very simple words how to do this - I am an >>> absolute newbie to linux. >>> Many thanks. >>> Eric >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> main(a)lists.alug.org.uk >>> http://www.alug.org.uk/ >>> http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main >>> Unsubscribe? See message headers or the web site above! >>> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> main(a)lists.alug.org.uk >> http://www.alug.org.uk/ >> http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main >> Unsubscribe? See message headers or the web site above! >> >> >

1 0

bt home hub - how to setup ubuntu to recognise modem
by elc＠freeola.net 31 Mar '07

31 Mar '07

Help please. I have a British Telecom broadband wireless bt home hub, - it works well with windows, but I am dual booting with Ubuntu/Kubuntu and neither is recognising this modem, and thus can't get online. Can anyone tell me in very simple words how to do this - I am an absolute newbie to linux. Many thanks. Eric

2 1

MoBo disposal
by Paul 30 Mar '07

30 Mar '07

In response to a comment made by Noodles @ FC last night, I have some motherboards up for grabs/trade - These are all bare, i.e. no memory, no CPU, and no manuals. Asus P5P800 for Intel skt 775. supports dual SATA drives.. MSI K8N Neo for AMD64 skt 939 - quad SATA drives & RAID.. pcChips M871G for AMD Athlon 64/Sempron skt 754 - dual SATA.. pcChips M863AG for AMD Athlon XP/Sempron..[with manual] ECS KN1 Extreme Lite - for AMD64 skt 939 - dual SATA..[with manual] Regards, Paul. P.S. Got a couple of processors kicking around, so *might* end up using two of the above boards to upgrade my server(s).

1 0

Re: Gnome/GTK file open dialog hangs
by Chris G 30 Mar '07

30 Mar '07

On Thu, Mar 29, 2007 at 09:24:42PM +0100, Chris G wrote: > Yet another reason to hate the Gnome/GTK file open dialog. > > On my system it is now taking more than 30 seconds to open the file > opening window. What's it trying to do for all this time and/or how > can I fix it? > > Presumably it's trying to open something that isn't there or there is > a broken nfs/network link of some sort but it's a broken design that > hangs for such a long time trying to do something and doesn't tell me > what's wrong either. > After a bit of searching around I found what the problem was, an smbmount that had lost what it was mounting. However it wasn't as if it was set up to be visible on the file open dialog, it was just the contents of a sub-directory that had gone AWOL. I now hate that file dialog even more than I did when it first appeared, not only is it a pain to use, it's semi-broken as well. -- Chris Green

7 20

Internet radios
by Jonathan McDowell 30 Mar '07

30 Mar '07

For a while I've been wanting a stand alone, self contained device that can play music over an 802.11b/g wireless link - something in the style of a radio, with built in speaker(s), display and control. Recently I discovered such devices exist - Currys in the centre of Norwich have the Logik IR100 radio and there are also variants by BT and Bush. Does anyone on the list have any experience of any of these? I'm slightly wary of the Logik only having a single speaker, but given my main intended usage location is the kitchen I suspect I'm not going to miss the lack of stereo. J. -- Revd. Jonathan McDowell, ULC | Funny how life imitates LSD.

2 4

Gnome/GTK file open dialog hangs
by Chris G 29 Mar '07

29 Mar '07

Yet another reason to hate the Gnome/GTK file open dialog. On my system it is now taking more than 30 seconds to open the file opening window. What's it trying to do for all this time and/or how can I fix it? Presumably it's trying to open something that isn't there or there is a broken nfs/network link of some sort but it's a broken design that hangs for such a long time trying to do something and doesn't tell me what's wrong either. -- Chris Green

1 0

Strategies for setting DISPLAY variable?
by Chris G 29 Mar '07

29 Mar '07

Does anyone have any neat/elegant/clever ways of setting the DISPLAY variable when working in a situation where I may use X in different places and want to run X applications from different remote machines? Usually I am doing the following:- Logging on to my desktop Linux box called chrisg and starting the X server there. Running local X client applications on chrisg. Running remote X client applications on Solaris and other boxes which I want to display on chrisg OK, so to do the above I can simply hardcode DISPLAY=chrisg:0.0 in my .profile and all will be well. However.... Sometimes I want to use a different desktop machine at work or I want to work from home. This results in two different requirements:- The first case (using a different machine at work) means that my hard-coded DISPLAY=chrisg:0.0 will always be wrong. The second case (working from home) I will be using 'ssh -X' to connect so ssh will be setting the DISPLAY variable and I don't want anything else to change it. So how is one *supposed* to make this all work? I need some way to get DISPLAY set correctly most of the time, I'd go crazy if I had to set it manually every time I rlogin to another machine here at work. I typically have five or six xterms open to Solaris boxes for example. Currently having it hardcoded in my .profile works 'most of the time' but it's then a big pain sorting out the ssh use because the special ssh value for DISPLAY is lost. -- Chris Green

4 5

Is it possible to explitly ask for what mod_autoindex produces?
by Chris G 29 Mar '07

29 Mar '07

I'd like to have a way of viewing the directory that mod_autoindex produces of a directory that has an index.html file. E.g. I go to:- http://www.isbd.net/someDirectory and I get to see the contents of the index.html file that's there. However there's various other files, not linked to from index.html, that I want to be able to see and/or use sometimes. So it would be very useful if I could get to see the directory listing that I would see if the index.html file didn't exist. This is just for my home system's web server and for my own use so security/performance isn't a big issue and I can hack the httpd.conf file as much as I like. -- Chris Green

3 2

Re: [ALUG] Strategies for setting DISPLAY variable?
by Steve 28 Mar '07

28 Mar '07

>So how is one *supposed* to make this all work? I need some way to >get DISPLAY set correctly most of the time, I'd go crazy if I had to >set it manually every time I rlogin to another machine here at work. I >typically have five or six xterms open to Solaris boxes for example. >Currently having it hardcoded in my .profile works 'most of the time' >but it's then a big pain sorting out the ssh use because the special >ssh value for DISPLAY is lost. I'm sure there must be some environment variable or other that gets set if you're logging in to your machine remotely that doesn't get set if you log in directly. Set DISPLAY from .profile depending on the value of that variable? Or... you could grep ps for your /(ba)?sh/ instance and see if it's running on a real vt or not... summat like that. *clutches at straws* Steve

2 1

ALUG Poker
by Simon Elliott 28 Mar '07

28 Mar '07

Hey all, How many people would be interested in an ALUG Poker Night, not a huge buy-in - maybe £5 or something. Not even for money the first time if people want to learn to play the game before playing for monies... It'd probably be at my house, but anyone could host it. I've got a bunch of chips and some cards and an itching to play some poker, so who'd be up for it? --Simon

6 5

test
by David Reynolds 27 Mar '07

27 Mar '07

ignore this, it is a test. -- David Reynolds david(a)reynoldsfamily.org.uk

2 1

Alug Wiki Theme
by Rob Page 27 Mar '07

27 Mar '07

Hi All, I've been having a look into setting up a nicer looking default theme for the alug wiki, at: http://www.alug.org.uk/wiki/moin.cgi/ However instead of writing my own, it might be worth nicking one that someone else has already written, and if required just tweaking that. So, I propose that all who are interested, go have a look at this nice friendly list of stuff we can steal and pick one: http://moinmoin.wikiwikiweb.de/ThemeMarket#head-ff1060dba5fbc752171749e9b34… Bear in mind, this isn't going to be *the* alug wiki theme, merely the one that gets set by default and for non-logged in users. Unless one is vastly more popular, I'll set up a few of the favourites on my website, and then we can have a final vote on which it'll be. Also, as a slight ps, is the alug wiki frontpage supposed to be the alug frontpage, as that is what it's looking like at the moment. If it is going to be the frontpage, shouldn't we make it the frontpage, and iif it's just being the wiki frontpage, then it possibly needs to be less 'welcome to alug' (and have this sort of thing on another page). Cheers, RobRob.

8 12

Hello Again
by Tracy Dickerson 27 Mar '07

27 Mar '07

Hello, It is Tracy again from IPLUG. I have changed account so that I can post in Plain Text format and not the HTML that others dislike so much. Tx

1 0

[ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : The Milestone, Woodbridge Road
by samwise 26 Mar '07

26 Mar '07

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 second of the new monthly "Third Monday" ALUG Ipswich Social Meetings starts at 20:00 on Monday 19th March: 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 As mentioned at the first meet, I'm going to be suspiciously absent thanks to my work forcing me to stay overnight in London. My second in command was due to step-in but has, unfortunately, been unavoidably waylaid by a bargain last-minute skiing trip. Grrr ... Anyway, Venura who has been an attendee since the ... well ... last month ... ;) ... will be along to make sure no Gnome/KDE fistfights break out. I'll leave Venura with my laptop and some conversation-starting material, but otherwise the format will remain fairly loose, like last time. All are welcome, both novices and experienced users, especially those already involved with ALUG. 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. ----- 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

4 7

perl question - can you switch off regular expression matching?
by List Mail 26 Mar '07

26 Mar '07

I want to switch off the significance of special characters when matching an expression in perl, i.e. I have a line that says:- if (@_[0] =~ /$a/i) (isn't perl horrible!) and I want a '.' in the $a to be actually matched. I can't easily escape the '.' with a '\' because the $a is also used as a filename and if I put the '\' I get a filename with a '\' in it as well which I don't want. All I actually want is a case insensitive string comparison with no characters having any special meaning at all. -- Chris Green

3 3

Help required! Orange Live Box
by Paul Coulsey 25 Mar '07

25 Mar '07

Greetings all, Has anybody out there had any joy connecting the Orange Livebox to their Linux system? Regards Paul

3 2

Mac Mini (G4) TV-Out adapter
by Mr. Adam ALLEN 23 Mar '07

23 Mar '07

I seem to recall that others on this list ended up buying Mac-Mini (The G4 PowerPC version). Google hasn't turned up any meanigful results so figure it's worth asking. The Mac Mini is really my firewall/router thingy, but want to hook it up to the TV for accessing Ogg's/MP4's via Myth(Music|Video). Does anyone have successful experience of the DVI-TVout adapter? (http://store.apple.com/Apple/WebObjects/ukstore.woa/wo/StoreReentry.wo?prod…) Would rather not spend £15 if it a complete non-starter. Cheers, Adam

1 0

Firefox renders pound signs incorrectly in text files
by Eur Ing Chris Green 23 Mar '07

23 Mar '07

When I view text files in Firefox any pound signs (as in UK currency, not #) are shown as a ? and quite a few subsequent characters are lost. Pound signs in HTML are fine. Does anyone have any idea why this might be? Is it a browser issue or a web server issue (this is text files being served by apache on my home Linux box)? -- Chris Green

3 5

Accented characters in Firefox - how?
by Eur Ing Chris Green 22 Mar '07

22 Mar '07

I can type accented characters into text OK, e.g.:- áàéèê but I don't know how to do it in Firefox when entering text into a textarea - how does one do it? -- Chris Green

3 4

Partitioned hard drive
by Chris & Barry Chater 22 Mar '07

22 Mar '07

Hi Is it possible to put two different versions of Linux on my laptops new hard drive which is partitioned in two 20 gig halves. Say like Ubuntu and one of the other distributions for instance. Barry

2 2

Why doesn't the OO plugin for Firefox open .doc files?
by Eur Ing Chris Green 21 Mar '07

21 Mar '07

I have the OO plugin for Firfox installed but it only opens its 'native' file types within Firefox. It can open .doc files as a Firefox 'helper' application but it would be much neater to do it as a plugin. Is it really not possible to get it to work as a plugin with .doc files, currently it seems so nearly there that it can't be difficult. -- Chris Green

2 1

How do I make a startup script run a program as a different user in SuSE Enterprise 10?
by Chris Glover 21 Mar '07

21 Mar '07

It's been so long I cant remember how to do it. Thanks Chris -- Chris ---------------------------------- E Mail: chris(a)glovercc.plus.com SIP: 84411389(a)voiptalk.org IAXTEL: 17003366726

5 5

Automounter - need documentation on auto.master options
by Eur Ing Chris Green 20 Mar '07

20 Mar '07

Although I have a sort of working solutionn to my original problem the automounter is still doing things I don't understand. I'm having trouble working out how the automount daemon decides on what remote filesystems it should mount. I have worked out that it's the file /etc/auto.master that controls what automount does but I can't really understand the syntax of that file - the man pages are a little opaque/obtuse. My /etc/auto.master has the following entries:- /misc /etc/auto.misc /net -hosts +auto.master (Plus quite a few unhelpful comments) I can basically understand the first line, that uses the file /etc/auto.misc to automount CD drives and floppy drives. I don't really understand what the "/net -hosts" line does, I think it means that you'll get automounted directories in /net from hosts listed in /etc/hosts. Anyway it isn't mounting the directory I'm interested in. What I really *can't* fathom out is that last line the "+auto,master", it seems to be making automount mount all sorts of things but I can't work out how or why. I *think* it's saying that automount should get an 'auto.master' file from the places defined in the /etc/nsswitch.conf file which has:- automount: files nis nisplus but I can't get to find how this actually works and I can't get to see what auto.master it actually uses. The command line nis utilities refuse to admit to there being any automount information. How can I get to see what 'automount' information is available? -- Chris Green

2 1

Are there any automount gurus out there?
by Eur Ing Chris Green 20 Mar '07

20 Mar '07

I've read the automount and autofs man pages and, while I'm somewhat the wiser, I'm still not sure if it's possible to do what I want. What I want to do is prevent automount from automounting one particular directory. Now from what I (think I) have understood I think it's a /net entry in /etc/auto.master is making the script in /etc/auto.net execute and, essentially, allowing one to automount all file systems which other computers on the network have exported. What I want is to stop just *one* of these exported file systems being mounted on just my Fedora Core 6 system at work so I can have a local file system there instead. So, does anyone know if this is remotely possible? -- Chris Green

3 4

re: awk problem
by Paul 20 Mar '07

20 Mar '07

Can't remember who was fighting with a problem with awk, but... awk 'NR>1 {sub(/$/,"\r");print $4}' Regards, Paul.

1 0

GNOME + system sounds
by Greg Thomas 19 Mar '07

19 Mar '07

I''m running GNOME 2.16.2. Playing sound from the Sound Recorder, or using aplay at the command line works just fine - and all the tests make the right noises in the device tab of Sound Preferences. Yet, for some reason, the System Sounds (in the Sounds tab) remain stubbornly silent. I've got ALSA installed as a kernel module, and ESD as the playback device for sound events. Anyone have any clues as to why (FWIW it's a Gentoo system running in a VMware Player). Ta, Greg

4 4

Firefox, how to start a *different* Firefox?
by Eur Ing Chris Green 19 Mar '07

19 Mar '07

How can I prevent a 'remote' Firefox from using the 'local' Firefox instead of starting a real remote one? I sometimes need to run a specific version of Firefox which I have installed on Solaris here, it has a very specific version of Java which I need for a particular Oracle plugin. Now I have a Linux desktop system I run a Linux Firefox as my everyday browser. What I want to be able to do is run the Solaris Firefox on my Linux display without having to first shut the Linux Firefox down. By default when you try and run the (remote) Solaris Firefox it will look and see that you have a copy of Firefox running on the same display and just sends the URL you have given it to that display rather then running a new copy of Firefox. How do I force it to run? -- Chris Green

2 2

Another Firefox question - keyboard setup
by Eur Ing Chris Green 19 Mar '07

19 Mar '07

I know there's a way to do this but I've forgotten what it is. How do I get "Unix'ish" keyboard shortcuts in Firefox? In particular I want CTRL/U to be "delete line". I suspect it's something in User Preferences but how do I find out what it is? -- Chris Green

4 6

RE: [ALUG] [ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting :The Milestone, Woodbridge Road
by Tracy Dickerson 19 Mar '07

19 Mar '07

I look forward to seeing everyone tonight. Have a good day Laters Tracy x -----Original Message----- From: main-bounces(a)lists.alug.org.uk [mailto:main-bounces@lists.alug.org.uk] On Behalf Of samwise Sent: 17 March 2007 18:15 To: announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Subject: [ALUG] [ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting :The Milestone, Woodbridge Road 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 second of the new monthly "Third Monday" ALUG Ipswich Social Meetings starts at 20:00 on Monday 19th March: 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 As mentioned at the first meet, I'm going to be suspiciously absent thanks to my work forcing me to stay overnight in London. My second in command was due to step-in but has, unfortunately, been unavoidably waylaid by a bargain last-minute skiing trip. Grrr ... Anyway, Venura who has been an attendee since the ... well ... last month ... ;) ... will be along to make sure no Gnome/KDE fistfights break out. I'll leave Venura with my laptop and some conversation-starting material, but otherwise the format will remain fairly loose, like last time. All are welcome, both novices and experienced users, especially those already involved with ALUG. 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. ----- 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 _______________________________________________ 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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Can anyone suggest any neat ways to do this.......
by Eur Ing Chris Green 18 Mar '07

18 Mar '07

It's too long to fit in the subject. How can I have a directory with the same name that is actually a different place according to the architecture I'm running? I need this at work because I'm running on a mixed network of Solaris and Linux. Most executables don't cause a problem:- Shell scripts work the same on both Solaris and Linux (well, nearly) so they just live in ~/bin which is on my path. Most executables which are called in the normal way using the PATH are OK too, they can live in a different directory and the PATH can be changed according to architecture. In my case the Solaris ones are in /proj/chris/bin and the Linux ones are in /user/home/chris/bin. OK, so that leaves the nasties! One example is sendmail, this has to be called with a full path (presumably a security thing). Thus I have in my muttrc file:- sendmail=/proj/chris/bin/msmtp which works for Solaris but not for Linux. So, where can I put the two different versions of msmtp so that I get the riht one? I have root access on the Linux box but not on the Solaris box. Unfortunately /proj/chris/bin is visible on *both* Linux and Solaris so I can't create a Linux /proj/chris/bin. -- Chris Green

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Free to a good home
by Wayne Stallwood 18 Mar '07

18 Mar '07

ATI Raedon 7000 Dual head (32MB I think) AGP. Principally a Dual DVI output but I may be able to lay my hands on some VGA adaptors if required. Dynamode USB ADSL modem, Conexant AccessRunner based so (at least on Ubuntu) just needs the firmware from the windows driver saved into the right place in Linux. Dell Dimension XPS-T500 (PIII 500) complete with 20GB HDD, CD ROM etc. Only Missing RAM but tested with RAM from another machine and it is all fine. ATI RAGE 128Pro (Xpert2000Pro 32MB AGP) Graphics Card Xerox P8EX Mono Laser, almost completely out of toner. but works perfectly via USB or Parallel on Cups, Only used until contents of it's original consumables were depleted. (you can get a cartridge refill kit from consumable cafe for £8.50 + VAT) or a new cartridge is circa £60 Dell 19" (Sony Trinitron, flat faced) CRT display in black. Normally I sell these for a nominal fee but I happen to know this particular one has done a lot of hours. Picture still looks good however the mains switch is intermittent (fine if left on or in standby but takes a couple of presses to get it into the on state if turned off) Not worth my time to fix given what I sell perfect examples for, so free if anyone wants it. Quantum DLT4000i drive, double 5.25" bay, SCA SCSI SE interface up to 20GB native tape capacity (40GB compressed). New/Old stock but untested. I am hoping to be at the next kit meet on the 1st, but if I do make it I probably wont bother dragging all of this kit to Syleham unless anybody going specifically says they want it. Otherwise of course anybody is welcome to come and collect any of these bits from my house in Bury St Edmunds by arrangement.

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FC6 networking problem, a clue at last
by Eur Ing Chris Green 16 Mar '07

16 Mar '07

I'm investigating my FC6 to home problem and it looks as if my router may be blocking some of the traffic, trouble is I don't know what the message means. The router log is saying:- FIREWALL fast tcp seqnr check (1 of 2): Protocol: TCP Src ip: 192.168.1.1 Src port: 22 Dst ip: 193.128.168.194 Dst port: 51097 Does anyone have a clue what that indicates? The destination is certainly the work system (193.128.168.194). -- Chris Green

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Anyone have a web site behind a NAT router I can try?
by Eur Ing Chris Green 15 Mar '07

15 Mar '07

Does anyone here have a web site behind a NAT router that I can try accessing from my problem FC6 box please. Then I would have a bit more evidence that the problem is something to do with the router (and/or NAT). -- Chris Green

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Networking (across the internet) problem
by Eur Ing Chris Green 15 Mar '07

15 Mar '07

My FC6 at work to Slackware 11 at home problem continues. It originally seemed to be just an SSH problem but I think it's more than that, I can't see web pages on the apache sesrver on my home machine either. Since the only two 'holes' in the firewall at home are for ssh and http I can't really try anything else. The symptom seems to be that just about nothing (in the way of data) gets from my home machine to the FC6 machine at work. Working from other machines at work (Solaris and other Linux distributions) everything works fine. Similarly the FC6 machine at work seems to communicate with the rest of the world without problems. There is one set of messages about a similar problem that I have found on Google which suggests it may be an MTU size problem. I have tried setting the MTU at both ends to 576 but I'm not convinced I've done this right. If I just do:- ifconfig eth0 mtu 576 at both ends is that all that's needed? Does the change take effect immediately or what? The *only* thing I can think of that's really different when talking (or not) to my home system is that it's through a NAT router and this is what, maybe, points at the MTU issue. Though I really don't understand why it only happens from the FC6 systems. -- Chris Green

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rlogin hangs soemtimes
by Eur Ing Chris Green 15 Mar '07

15 Mar '07

I have just moved to Fedora Core 6 on my desktop computer at work. We have a mixed environment of Windows PCs a few Linux ones and a number of Solaris target systems. When I rlogin from my new FC6 system to the Solaris systems the login sometimes just hangs, i.e. I type "rlogin crusade" and nothing happens for several minutes then I get a timeout message. This seems to happen only on the FC6 systems, I have tried it from one other FC6 system and it's the same but from a kubuntu installation (on the same sub-net) it doesn't happen. The rlogin hangs maybe one time in four or so, the other times it connects normally and works OK from then on. Does anyone have any ideas what might be causing this problem? -- Chris Green

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Another question re networking and Fedora
by Eur Ing Chris Green 14 Mar '07

14 Mar '07

The sysop here bodged the /etc/hosts file so that 'hostname' worked sort of correctly, now I've removed the bodge 'hostname' doesn't work right any more. At home (Slackware) I get:- home$ hostname -s home home$ hostname home home$ hostname -f home home$ domainname (none) Here on this Fedora box I get:- $ hostname chrisg.localdomain $ hostname -s hostname: Unknown host $ hostname chrisg.localdomain $ hostname -f hostname: Unknown host $ domainname GEMS -- Chris Green

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Really strange networking/DNS/internet problem
by Eur Ing Chris Green 14 Mar '07

14 Mar '07

I seem to have some very odd networking issues from this new Fedora 6 box at work. The symptoms I have dug out so far are:- There's an odd mix of places that it fails to find with 'dig' and/or 'host'. E.g.:- chrisg$ host enta.net ;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached chrisg$ but:- chrisg$ host gradwell.net gradwell.net has address 193.111.200.100 gradwell.net mail is handled by 10 mail-in-2.lb.gradwell.net. gradwell.net mail is handled by 10 mail-in-1.lb.gradwell.net. ("host enta.net" works fine from other places, e.g. from my account om gradwell.net and one at cheddar.halon.org.uk) Similarly "ssh home.isbd.net" just hangs and eventually times out, but ssh to lots of other places works fine. "ssh home.isbd.net" works from other systems here (including another Linux box). Finally although "host enta.net" times out a traceroute to enta.net works OK:- traceroute to enta.net (195.74.96.162), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets 1 193.128.168.254 (193.128.168.254) 25.350 ms 26.522 ms 29.265 ms 2 Loopback0.GW3.CBG3.ALTER.net (158.43.136.5) 5.538 ms 5.945 ms 7.089 ms 3 POS3-2.CR2.CBG3.ALTER.net (158.43.136.57) 7.144 ms 7.198 ms 7.727 ms 4 pos6-0.cr2.lnd6.gbb.uk.uu.net (158.43.253.146) 11.392 ms 11.784 ms 12.172 ms 5 srp1-0.br1.lnd6.gbb.uk.uu.net (158.43.194.238) 12.441 ms 12.851 ms 13.267 ms 6 ge3-0.pr1.lhr1.uk.above.net (195.66.224.76) 20.802 ms 15.856 ms 15.818 ms 7 213.161.78.218 (213.161.78.218) 10.041 ms 10.367 ms 10.698 ms 8 telehouse-web.enta.net (195.74.96.162) 10.443 ms 10.620 ms 10.958 ms I'm really lost and don't kow where to look. I had thought it was a firewall issue or an MTU issue but, as I said, ssh from another Linux box here behind the same firewall works OK. The other box has the same MTU as chrisg and is on the same subnet. -- Chris Green

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How to set runlevel permanently
by Eur Ing Chris Green 14 Mar '07

14 Mar '07

Where/how is the system's runlevel set? I know how to change the 'current' runlevel by running telinit but when you reboot the system restarts in the original default runlevel. I want always to boot into runlevel 3 rather than 6. -- Chris Green

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A Fedora/Firefox question
by Eur Ing Chris Green 14 Mar '07

14 Mar '07

Another Fedora "being too clever" annoyance! When I start Firefox it insists on going to the page:- file:///usr/share/doc/HTML/index.html The 'Home Page' in Firefox preferences doesn't override this, I have it set to about:blank. What were they thinking of to hard code this somewhere in the startup scripts! Anyway, does anyone know how to turn it off? -- Chris Green

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How to get rid of Gnome
by Peter Alcibiades 14 Mar '07

14 Mar '07

OK, then what you have to do is log on as root and do gdmsetup from a terminal. This should bring up all the gdm configuration screens. And I think that in one of these there is a controller for what options are offered at login time. You can't do su -, because then it refuses to open the display for reasons the rest of the group will immediately understand and know how to deal with....but I don't! Its something to do with specifying the screen used at launch. However, the root log on should work. Peter

2 1

How to get rid of Gnome
by Peter Alcibiades 13 Mar '07

13 Mar '07

Sorry, what you do is just su, not invoking the root environment. You don't have to sign on as root. Then gdmsetup runs fine. At least, it does for me. And on the first screen there is a checkbox for including the configure option at logon. The thing I have found about gdm compared to xdm on old machines is that it seems a lot slower, don't know why. Peter

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Character display problem
by Eur Ing Chris Green 13 Mar '07

13 Mar '07

On this new-fangled Fedora 6 system at work I'm getting what I assume are meant to be quotes displaying as a strange sequence, e.g.:- âmainâ Note that the above appears to me as:- â\x80\x98mainâ\x80\x99 I think the above is meant to be `main', or something like that. It's only happening in some places, for example man pages and compiler error messages. I suspect that the original Gnome incarnation was doing something 'clever' and now that I'm using plain X and fvwm2 I need to turn something off - but what? -- Chris Green

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How to get rid of Gnome
by Peter Alcibiades 13 Mar '07

13 Mar '07

Not at all an expert on Fedora (I installed it for a while but replaced it with Debian). However, the problem is how to configure GDM. When I start up GDM, there is a button someplace, it depends exactly how its configured where it is, which lets you pick the session. It should be something like Options > Select Session, and on my version of GDM its down at the bottom left of the screen. This should show you all the different WMs you have. When you pick the session option you want, it should then ask you whether you want to make the new session your default or not. But I'm left feeling that it cannot be this simple a problem or you'd have seen it at once. Is it maybe that when you install the other WMs they are not finding their way into the Sessions menu? That seems very odd. As far as I recall, it worked fine with my short lived Fedora install. Peter

2 1

.profile *never* executes
by Eur Ing Chris Green 13 Mar '07

13 Mar '07

I thought I understood (vaguuly) the reasons for .profile and .kshrc or, for bash, .bash_profile and .bashrc but on this new Fedora system it doesn't work as I expect. The system boots and runs gdm which allows me to log in and, as far as I can see, my .profile (or my .bash_profile) *never* gets executed. Surely it's supposed to get executed at least once when you first log in, but it's not getting executed here for me. If I ssh into the system then the .profile gets executed (as expected by a 'login' shell), but isn't gdm (or kdm, or xdm) meant to do the login shell bit for you before starting your window manager? -- Chris Green

4 6

Opera
by ted.harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 12 Mar '07

12 Mar '07

Hi Folks, I've just been playing a bit with the latest version of the Opera browser (I tried it a few years ago, when it was fairly new on the scene; but it wasn;t really up to sbuff then). It seems to work very smoothly, on the whole, but I have a couple of queries so far. 1. I went to the BBC TV page, andlaunched a video clip: http://www.bbc.co.uk/eastenders/eastenders/episodes/episode_hub.shtml Up it came, and duly played (I have RealPlayer already installed, and Opera seemed to find it easily), but I also got a popup with the warning message from RealPlayer: You are using a browser that does not support scriptable plugins. Many embedded player sites may not work correctly. I've never had this from Firefox (which I've been using for a few years). and I wouldn't have expected it from Opera, if it's as smooth as it claims to be. Comments? 2. I've tried to import my existing Firefox bookmarks, to see what would happen. Procedure was: File --> Import and Export --> Import Netscape/Firefox bookmarks and gave the dialogue window (with "Look in /home/ted/" at the top) the path to the file relative to that directory: .mozilla/firefox/y8f9fahn.default/bookmarks.html after which I got the message "One entry has been imported"; the I clicked "OK". Now, after Bookmarks --> Opera I have a new item "Netscape bookmarks" -- but it seems to be null and void! Any ideas? With thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <ted.harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 12-Mar-07 Time: 21:46:17 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

1 0

How to get rid of gnome?
by Eur Ing Chris Green 12 Mar '07

12 Mar '07

So who is a Fedora expert? How do I get rid of the (vaguely horrible) Gnome desktop on this here Fedora machine and then choose a more acceptable window manager? OK, I can do the choosing and installing of the Window manager I want as I have done that on my home machine. However I can't see how/where to find the hooks that gnome uses to start the gnome desktop. The system is running gdm by the way, which is OK but I can't see where *it* decides which window manager to start. If it's easier I'm quite happy to ditch gdm and use something else (or even nothing, run startx directly). -- Chris Green

2 2

"JPEG Quality"
by ted.harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 12 Mar '07

12 Mar '07

Hi Folks, I have a little query which someone may be able to clarify. Background: I download photos off my digital camera. These are 2304x1728 (4:3) JPEGS, 8pits/pixel, around 2MB in size. As well as storing the originals, I also re-size them to 1024x768 (also 4:3, linear reduction by factor 2.25) because (a) at that geometry they exactly fit my screen, (b) they then come out much smaller in byte-size, convenient for emailing for instance. I do the re-sizing as follows, in ImageMagick: 1. display photo.jpg 2. View --> Resize --> 1024x768 --> Resize 3. File --> Save --> new filename --> Save and here's where my query comes. At this point I get a popup window which asks me the "Choose JPEG quality" with default option 75%. I've wondered how much this "quality" matters, so I've done a bit of experimentation, saving the re-sized file both at 75% (the default) and 100%. Then I put both of them up (on different "workspace" panels) and flip between them. Try as I may, I can't visually perceive any difference between them. Yet, for example, one 75% file has 171064 bytes, and its 100% counterpart has 694833 bytes, 4 times larger. At that difference in byte size, I'm surprised that there's no perceptible difference! Any ideas? With thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <ted.harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 11-Mar-07 Time: 18:00:49 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

3 3

Syleham kit meet
by ted.harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 11 Mar '07

11 Mar '07

Is the Syleham kit meet on 1 April definitely on? A recent posting suggests it is, but the Wiki only says it is "Proposed" [posted 22 Feb 2007]. If it's on, then I'm on! (Thanks, John). Best wishes to all, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <ted.harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 11-Mar-07 Time: 12:35:32 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

3 2

A CSS and HTML question
by Eur Ing Chris Green 09 Mar '07

09 Mar '07

How do you know which CSS properties apply to which selectors? I.e. given that I want to change the spacing around lists how do I find whether it's padding or margin (or border?) that I need to change and/or what the defaults are? Not to mention how to know whether it's the space below the heading above or the space above the list that needs reducing. Personally I think we should throw the whole lot in the bin and start again! After playing with this for quite a while and having looked at lots of templates and stylesheets they're all a total mess of the worst sort of unstructured 'code' - it's the equivalent of the worst excesses of spaghetti code in Basic. I don't think it's the fault of the writers of the code, it's inherent in the way that HTML and CSS work. It's almost invitable that the template and stylesheet will become a horrible interwoven mess of classes, IDs and so on. Not to mention - why is it that the default spacing of HTML headings, lists, etc. is so awful? The defaults are such that paragraphs and lists are spaced equally from the things above them and below them. Surely a heading (for example) should be closer to the text/list below it that it refers to and further from what's above it? I always have to go and play games with the spacing to get what looks to me a reasonable layout that I would expect to get by default. .... end of Friday rant! :-) -- Chris Green

5 8

RF Band for Wireless Routers?
by ted.harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 09 Mar '07

09 Mar '07

Hi Folks, Anyone know what Radio Frequency Band is used by Wireless Routers? Thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <ted.harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 09-Mar-07 Time: 09:53:09 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

2 2

Against the Day
by Richard Lewis 09 Mar '07

09 Mar '07

Hello ALUG, At the pub meet last night one of the bar staff directed our attention to a copy of /Against the Day/ by Thomas Pynchon which was found on the evening of the annual nosh in February in a Waterstones bag near our table. They've kept hold of it. If its yours, they would probably be happy for you to go in there and claim it. Cheers, Richard -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Richard Lewis http://www.richard-lewis.me.uk/ JID: ironchicken(a)jabber.earth.li -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1 0

Question about borders in firefox or elsewhere
by Eur Ing Chris Green 09 Mar '07

09 Mar '07

Is there any way to change the default of tables having no borders in Firefox? I know how to change the HTML of the table to show borders but I wondered if there was a way to give Firefox a set of default table border values. -- Chris Green

4 4

Re: [ALUG] Are there any HTML 'beautifier' programs out there?
by Richard Jordan 08 Mar '07

08 Mar '07

Several years ago I used to use a program called HTML Tidy. I haven't used it for ages, but it would be worth a look. Google tells me that it can now be found at http://tidy.sourceforge.net/ Richard Jordan

3 4

Are there any HTML 'beautifier' programs out there?
by Eur Ing Chris Green 08 Mar '07

08 Mar '07

I'm trying to understand and unpick an HTML template file, an automatic 'beautifier' would help no end, are there any out there? -- Chris Green

7 13

[Fwd: [ALUG] I think the hard drives dead]
by Chris & Barry Chater 08 Mar '07

08 Mar '07

Hi again, Thanks for your tips and offers of help, as i live near King's Lynn it is too far to go to one of your kit meetings (Didn't you use to hold meetings in King's Lynn once?) I am in the proccess of getting quotes on having a new drive fitted as i am not too technical minded and may have attempted to change the drive on a desktop unit but not a laptop. This one is one of those you have to take apart unlike my wifes Toshiba which has a little removable cover. Got to get this sorted as i need a Linux Fix soon ;-) Barry Hi Would you believe it finally got Ubuntu Linux working on an old laptop, got a wireless card and got that working. then the other day computer froze while watching video on BBC site.Could not get it to shut down, so switched off

2 1

Can one invoke mod_autoindex explicitly, or alternatives?
by Eur Ing Chris Green 08 Mar '07

08 Mar '07

I want a way to produce a web page which includes directory contents like those produced by apache's mod_autoindex. Looking at the apache documentation I can't see any obvious way to do this, it either displays the contents of index.html (if that's what you have set with the DirectoryIndex directive) or it will (if allowed) do what mod_autoindex is configured to do and show you the contents of the directory. I want to be able to ask for something like http://my.site.com/dira/index.html and see what's in index.html *plus* clickable links for each of the files in dira. The HEADER.html and README.html files set by the HeaderName and ReadmeName directives don't quite do what I want (though nearly). Has anyone any ideas or pointers to anything useful. Ultimately what I want is a way to have a directory where I can have a reST generated index.html file and then a list of .PDF (for example) files that can be clicked on. I don't particularly want to have to edit the index.html every time I add or delete a .PDF file. Note, it's not *just* for PDF files but it's probably for a fairly short list of file types. -- Chris Green

2 2

Everything I do at the moment seems to end up with python!
by Eur Ing Chris Green 08 Mar '07

08 Mar '07

I seem to arrive at a python solution for everything I do at the moment:- I was looking for a backup solution and, after a bit of looking around (and help from here) I have decided to use rdiff-backup. It's working well. It's written in python. I've been looking at lightweight markup languages, in particular one for creating HTML with tables, so after hunting around for a while I find reStructuredText which is part of Docutils which is, guess what, written in python. Digging a bit further on from my reStructuredText investigations I found pyBlosxam which seems to be my sort of blog, python of course. Another utility I installed recently used Docutils as well. I'm beginning to think that people who use python must think a certain way which matches the way I want things to work. -- Chris Green

5 8

Linux Format DVDs
by Ian bell 07 Mar '07

07 Mar '07

I have just about every Linux Format DVD from LXF20 (sometime in 2001). As I am soon to move house I want to dispose of them. Might be useful if someone wants an old distro. Happy to bring them to the next kit meet or look out any special requirements. Otherwise I'll skip them. Ian

10 19

I think the hard drives dead
by Chris & Barry Chater 07 Mar '07

07 Mar '07

Hi Would you believe it finally got Ubuntu Linux working on an old laptop, got a wireless card and got that working. then the other day computer froze while watching video on BBC site.Could not get it to shut down, so switched off . Now on start up it says no operating system and it will not let me reinstall Ubuntu, it cant find device to partition. Do you think the hard drive has gone? It also whines when switched off. Is it a big job replacing the drive in a Packard Bell laptop, like pull one out and plug another in or is it deeper than that and more technical. Just trying to work out if it is cost effective to replace drive. Any advice ? Barry

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