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Debian server crashing
by mephi 07 Mar '07

07 Mar '07

I mentioned this at the Ipswich meeting, and I've not yet had a chance to do anything about it, so I thought I'd see if anyone here had any ideas too :-) My server crashes roughly once a month. It's not consistent on the day that it crashes, sometimes it can be weeks apart. But it's usually just after 7am (although today I had my first crash at 13:30). The locking up is a bit odd, as the PC still responds to pings, but I can't log in (I can type the username, but it never requests the password), and Apache stops serving files, but samba doesn't. I've got two scripts that run, an rsync backup script that runs at 7am, and one that gathers system info, which runs every 15 minutes. I thought the problem might be something clashing between the two scripts, so I tried stopping the system info script running between 7am and 8am, this obviously hasn't helped. At the Ipswich meeting it was mentioned that it could be the syslog failing, so I'm going to look into redirecting the syslog to another server. Is there anything else that anyone can think of? System: Debian Stable (Sarge, 3.1), 2.6.8-2-686-smp kernel Dual 1Ghz P3 ASUS CUR-DLS motherboard 1Gb of ECC PC100 RAM 2x Silicon Image 3114 SATA cards 6x 250Gb SATA drives in RAID 5 (mdadm) 2x 40Gb PATA drives HP 7170 Dual Port Gigabit card (64-bit PCI) Cheers, Matt

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re: 2nd Thursday Norwich Meet : Reindeer,, Dereham Road
by Dennis 07 Mar '07

07 Mar '07

Hi all, I was thinking of dropping in on the monthly meet, but I was wondering how I would recognise everyone else. How will I recognise you lot ? Dennis

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re: 2nd Thursday Norwich Meet : Reindeer,, Dereham Road
by Dennis English 06 Mar '07

06 Mar '07

Hi all, I was thinking of dropping in on the monthly meet, but I was wondering how I would recognise everyone else. How will I recognise you lot ? Dennis

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[ALUG Announce] 2nd Thursday Norwich Meet : Reindeer, Dereham Road
by Jonathan McDowell 05 Mar '07

05 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 monthly "Second Thursday" ALUG Norwich Pub Meet is this Thursday, 8th March. 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're /normally/ just to the left of the main entrance, though sometimes we've ended up at the far end of the pub beside the pool table, as there are comfy seats at that end. 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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Planet ALUG
by Dave Briggs 05 Mar '07

05 Mar '07

Would it be possible for whoever is currently looking after the planet to delete my old feed (http://feeds.feedburner.com/davebriggs) and put my new one (http://davebriggs.wordpress.com/feed/) in? Thanks! -- Dave Briggs

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Annoying shell script problem - calling external binary
by samwise 05 Mar '07

05 Mar '07

Hi, Got an annoying shell script bug. I'm using GNU bash, version 3.1.17(1)-release. Here's a testcase.sh shell script: #!/bin/bash -v myfiles="/home/samwise/Desktop/file\ with\ spaces.txt /tmp/otherfile.txt" echo binary --usethese $myfiles binary --usethese $myfiles Relevant output to console: $ ./testcase.sh #!/bin/bash -v myfiles="/home/samwise/Desktop/file\ with\ spaces.txt /tmp/otherfile.txt" echo binary --usethese $myfiles binary --usethese /home/samwise/Desktop/file\ with\ spaces.txt /tmp/otherfile.txt binary --usethese $myfiles $ I want to call an external binary with a parameter made of filenames which may contain spaces. If I run the output of the echo statement above (4th line of output) manually by cutting and pasting into the console, the scanner works fine. However, it always fails if the same command is manually called with quotes around the parameter value: WORKS: binary --usethis /home/samwise/Desktop/file\ with\ spaces.txt /tmp/otherfile.txt DOESN'T WORK: binary --usethis "/home/samwise/Desktop/file\ with\ spaces.txt /tmp/otherfile.txt" Now, despite me *not* putting in quotation marks in the shell script, it appears that the call on the third line is being interpreted as though I have used them ... and so the call fails. Anyone got any suggestions? Peter.

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Kit Meet?
by Mark Ridley 04 Mar '07

04 Mar '07

I delete all my emails (stupid habit) and the mailing list archive doesn't appear to be searchable, from a mobile browser anyway. So, is there a kit meet soon near or in Ipswich? I have a case with mobo and processor (old AMD), and an Atari ST. Someone (samwise/Peter) wanted one of them I'm sure. The meetings page on the webby was going on about 2006, plus this Treo is too fiddley to mention! :) Ta. -Mark (fed up of working in Switzerland) ----------------------------------------------------------- This message may contain confidential and/or privileged information. This information is intended to be read only by the individual or entity to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient, you are on notice that any review, disclosure, copying, distribution or use of the contents of this message is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete or destroy any copy of this message.

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PC Disposal
by Ian bell 03 Mar '07

03 Mar '07

While we are discussing getting rid of old stuff, I saw on Look East a short while ago and article about a company in Norwich that recycles computer hardware inlcuding peripherals. I have Googleg but all I can find is companies that deal with corporate disposals rather than individuals. Is the dump the only alternative for individuals? Ian

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Firefox help - how it displays directories
by Eur Ing Chris Green 03 Mar '07

03 Mar '07

Yesterday or the day before I saw in passing a web page that had a reference to how Firefox displays directories (i.e. when you open a directory with no index.html and you're allowed to). It had something about extra decorations and how to make things appear in the "Description" column. Can anyone give me a pointer to documentation on this? -- Chris Green

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Re: [ALUG] cups server broken after upgrade to etch
by Jenny Hopkins 02 Mar '07

02 Mar '07

Fixed. And the problem was? Cupsys_1.2.7 package hadn't installed properly, which in turn meant cupsys-driver-gimpprint and cupsys-driver-gutenprint hadn't installed properly. I found and fixed this by: 1. removed the cupsys package and moved /etc/cups directory. 2. installed above packages. I tried all this yesterday and it was all a bit twitchy, but today it absolutely refused to install cupsys, as it couldn't read '/etc/cups/cupsd.conf'. I had a look, and this didn't exist, as it was part of the cupsys package itself. 3. I examined the package in /var/cache/apt/archives, and hand-copied the cupsd.conf to /etc/cups. 4. I re-ran the install command, and this time it installed, then gutenprint ran a whole bunch of useful, helpful stuff, which it definitely hadn't yesterday. 5. The printer was detected and a test page printed successfully. Hoorah! I wonder if this is a bug I ought to report. Perhaps the pre-inst and post-inst lines are muddled or something, or more likely it was my bad luck. Thanks for all the help. I can also use the hp-toolbox now as a result of the breakage. Jenny I

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cups server broken after upgrade to etch
by Jenny Hopkins 02 Mar '07

02 Mar '07

Hullo there, I've just upgraded my debian amd64 server to etch. cups print server is now misbehaving. If I use the web interface on ipp 631, clicking on any of the links request I use https:blah, rather than http:blah, and offer the URL, but following that link causes the page to hang and cupsys to be restarted. Previously I would be asked for a login and password. If I try printing a test page from the web interface, I get the error "Printer not connected; will retry in 30 seconds". The error log on the server says: "D [01/Mar/2007:19:34:07 +0000] cupsdAuthorize: No authentication data provided." I have a queue of daughters waiting to print homework, help! These are the packages I've been upgraded to: dpkg -l | grep cupsys ii cupsys 1.2.7-4 Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - server ii cupsys-bsd 1.2.7-4 Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - BSD comman ii cupsys-client 1.2.7-4 Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - client pro ii cupsys-common 1.2.7-4 Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - common fil ii cupsys-driver-gimpprint 5.0.0-3 printer drivers for CUPS ii cupsys-driver-gutenprint 5.0.0-3 printer drivers for CUPS ii libcupsys2 1.2.7-4 Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - libs ii libcupsys2-gnutls10 1.2.7-4 Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - dummy libs Thanks, Jenny

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Re: SLED
by Eur Ing Chris Green 02 Mar '07

02 Mar '07

On Fri, Mar 02, 2007 at 09:58:53AM -0000, Peter Onion wrote: > <AOL> Me Too </AOL> I just don't trust them not to do what ever M$ tells > them to do :( > > I've just removed SuSE 10.0 from the last of my machines, and I've gone all > retro, and put Gentoo on instead ;) It's almost as much fun as Slackware > used to be :) > It still is! :-) -- Chris Green

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SLED
by Greg Thomas 02 Mar '07

02 Mar '07

Yesterday, I received a presentation on SLED - http://www.novell.com/products/desktop/ Essentially, SUSE Linux + OpenOffice + Novell improvements. FWIW, I was dead impressed. OK, so underneath it all it's just another Linux distro, but it is really really nicely packaged. Yes, it's €47 pa (for support updates + support), but it's not aimed at the readers of this list - for the first time I really think there is a genuine enterprise ready alternative to Windows on the general user desktop. Greg

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My search for a CMS - some progress and conclusions
by Eur Ing Chris Green 02 Mar '07

02 Mar '07

You may or may not remember me asking about CMS here several weeks ago. Well I have come to some conclusions:- The 'front runners' like Joomla! and Drupal are not what I want, they are so strongly oriented towards dynamic sites with mostly blogs and news. There are a few CMS which are close to what I want, the best (for me) examples are ezPublish, and websitebaker. In fact I think I may still settle on websitebaker. Some Wikis are close to what I want but they don't quite hack it for a commercial/business site, they simply look too much like a Wiki! I am using TWiki on my home Linux box for personal and family stuff though Wikis do seem to be happier with mostly text. Finally, via the Wikis and thus markup languages I have come across another set of utilities for making web sites. These might be called web site 'compilers'. You maintain the web site in the markup language and then run the markup 'compiler' to create the site. This may range from doing it manually (or with your own script) to things like ikiwiki and webmake which wrap the building up for you. I'm currently playing with AsciiDoc which looks like it's ideal for some of my requirements. -- Chris Green

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Links in text files - how to make them clickable?
by Eur Ing Chris Green 02 Mar '07

02 Mar '07

I have a memory from somewhere that one can make URLs in text files 'clickable' when viewing the text file in a browser. I even have a sample file:- http://home.isbd.net/chris/xxx.txt which I'm sure I remember trying once and being surprised when it worked. (I think I maybe had to double click the link) However I can't make this work now, did I imagine it or can someone point me at what I need - e.g. is it a Firefox extension? -- Chris Green

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Fw: [ALUG] SLED
by Stephen Bell 01 Mar '07

01 Mar '07

----- Forwarded Message ---- From: Greg Thomas <Greg(a)TheThomasHome.co.uk> To: main(a)lists.alug.org.uk Sent: Thursday, 1 March, 2007 2:48:09 PM Subject: [ALUG] SLED Yesterday, I received a presentation on SLED - http://www.novell.com/products/desktop/ Essentially, SUSE Linux + OpenOffice + Novell improvements. FWIW, I was dead impressed. OK, so underneath it all it's just another Linux distro, but it is really really nicely packaged. Yes, it's 47 pa (for support updates + support), but it's not aimed at the readers of this list - for the first time I really think there is a genuine enterprise ready alternative to Windows on the general user desktop. Greg Well, yes, but it is aimed at some readers of this list, namely me, a beginner, who went for the SUSE package for the reasons listed. I wanted a Windows replacement and I believe I've found it. However I've first got to get it to work fully -- the wireless laptop it is on connects to the net via the remaining XP but SUSE can't find the wireless or an Ethernet connection. All ideas welcome. I've then got to learn my way around it from scratch. Steve _______________________________________________ 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! ___________________________________________________________ New Yahoo! Mail is the ultimate force in competitive emailing. Find out more at the Yahoo! Mail Championships. Plus: play games and win prizes. http://uk.rd.yahoo.com/evt=44106/*http://mail.yahoo.net/uk

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A small victory
by Eur Ing Chris Green 01 Mar '07

01 Mar '07

Today my desktop PC will change from a Microsoft Windows XP based one to a Linux (Fedora I think) one. Hurrah! On the windows PC I always ran an X server which displayed my Solaris CDE desktop but now I can run a proper 'unix like' system directly on my work machine (like I used to in the more distant past when we all had Sun workstations). Progress! :-) -- Chris Green

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RE: [ALUG] A small victory
by Tracy Dickerson 01 Mar '07

01 Mar '07

Nice one Chris :-) Wish I could do that here.... Tracy x -----Original Message----- From: main-bounces(a)lists.alug.org.uk [mailto:main-bounces@lists.alug.org.uk] On Behalf Of Eur Ing Chris Green Sent: 01 March 2007 08:56 To: main(a)lists.alug.org.uk Subject: [ALUG] A small victory Today my desktop PC will change from a Microsoft Windows XP based one to a Linux (Fedora I think) one. Hurrah! On the windows PC I always ran an X server which displayed my Solaris CDE desktop but now I can run a proper 'unix like' system directly on my work machine (like I used to in the more distant past when we all had Sun workstations). Progress! :-) -- Chris Green _______________________________________________ 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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Re: beryl?
by Simon 01 Mar '07

01 Mar '07

I'm about this > < close from installing beryl as my default window manager. Some of it is eye candy / bling / whatever you want to call it but some of the newer features are useful and remember, it's still pretty much a proof of concept, to show the kind of stuff that's possible with a compositing window manager... The fact that the cube thing etc runs smoothly on my rubbish old laptop is amazing, seeing as mac hardware which effectively does similar eye candy stuff is so expensive and yeah, I do show mac users I know to impress them. Windows users too now that Vista has a bit of eye candy they think it's the bees knees... And yeah, beryl is a weird name for a project cos it sounds like an old granny name... Heh. --Simon _____________________________________ Anyone using beryl? (http://www.beryl-project.org) I saw a video of it in use on YouTube, looks really nice. I blew away Linux on my "fast" desktop in order to play games, although I managed to get most of my games running with the third-party ATI Radeon drivers, it would hang and stuff, but that's another story. I run DSL on an old P3 so I'll not be installing beryl anytime soon! :) Just wondered what others think of it? Cheers. -Mark

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Update to 'Strange colour effects'
by Barry Samuels 28 Feb '07

28 Feb '07

I changed the video driver to the one supplied by nVidia and I certainly had no X problems during the few days that it was running. However when I switched to a plain text console (50x80) I found that each line of text was displayed one and a half times. Here is a photograph of the screen: http://www.realbritain.f2s.com/xorg/cimg0160.jpg1 I don't know where it gets that text from as it should be displaying a blank screen with a prompt at the top. So I went back to the Debian 'nv' driver which gives me this effect sometimes: http://www.realbritain.f2s.com/xorg/cimg0157.jpg http://www.realbritain.f2s.com/xorg/cimg0159.jpg In the first picture the little green folders down the left-hand side of the top window should be orange, the blue and yellow areas below that window should be all yellow and the xterm bottom right should have a white background and the text is illegible. In the second picture all the lines in the top window should be white and not alternating with black as shown and the black bars in the bottom window should be green. I suspect that the graphics effects are a bug in the 'nv' driver so if anyone can suggest a cure for the one and half lines on text in the console using the nVidia driver that may be the simplest cure. -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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Fw: Testing, testing
by Stephen Bell 27 Feb '07

27 Feb '07

----- Forwarded Message ---- From: Stephen Bell <swbell_tok(a)yahoo.co.uk> To: ALUG <main-request(a)lists.alug.org.uk> Sent: Tuesday, 27 February, 2007 5:34:28 PM Subject: Testing, testing Here are a few words that certainly would have been garbled before. Let's see what happens now. Steve ___________________________________________________________ What kind of emailer are you? Find out today - get a free analysis of your email personality. Take the quiz at the Yahoo! Mail Championship. http://uk.rd.yahoo.com/evt=44106/*http://mail.yahoo.net/uk ___________________________________________________________ New Yahoo! Mail is the ultimate force in competitive emailing. Find out more at the Yahoo! Mail Championships. Plus: play games and win prizes. http://uk.rd.yahoo.com/evt=44106/*http://mail.yahoo.net/uk

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.chm
by Tracy Dickerson 27 Feb '07

27 Feb '07

Hello Fonts of much Wisdom, I run Fedora Core 5 and need to be able to open a .chm internet document. Any ideas? Thanks muchly, Tracy x

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beryl?
by Mark Ridley 26 Feb '07

26 Feb '07

Anyone using beryl? (http://www.beryl-project.org) I saw a video of it in use on YouTube, looks really nice. I blew away Linux on my "fast" desktop in order to play games, although I managed to get most of my games running with the third-party ATI Radeon drivers, it would hang and stuff, but that's another story. I run DSL on an old P3 so I'll not be installing beryl anytime soon! :) Just wondered what others think of it? Cheers. -Mark ----------------------------------------------------------- This message may contain confidential and/or privileged information. This information is intended to be read only by the individual or entity to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient, you are on notice that any review, disclosure, copying, distribution or use of the contents of this message is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete or destroy any copy of this message.

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Wiki things
by Matthew 26 Feb '07

26 Feb '07

I respect the principle of Wiki completely, but I'd still be in favour of getting whatever controls we need in place early. But as was already said, if the sysadmins are happy, so am I :-) One thing though: call me paranoid, but what is the advantage of showing changer IPs to all registered users (in the link titles on the Recent Changes page)? Is there a differentiation of permissions that can keep them from folks who just wandered in off the street? I don't suppose a poster's IP is particularly valuable, but in principle visitors shouldn't get what they don't need. Another equally small issue: are the angle quote marks ('raquo') in the page trail a common feature of wikis? Lots of CMSs and things use them for a hierarchical list of ancestor pages, so there might be some confusion to avoid by sticking 'Your recent page views:' or something on the beginning of that line.

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How to make sendmail deliver mail locally?
by Eur Ing Chris Green 26 Feb '07

26 Feb '07

I have previously used postfix but, since I only want local mail delivery, thought I'd try the default sendmail configuration in Slackware. I can't get sendmail to deliver mail locally, it *always* tries to send it out. For example see the following two entries from /var/log/maillog:- Feb 26 12:31:17 home sendmail[4932]: l1QCVGAZ004932: to=maxine@localhost, ctladdr=chris (1000/100), delay=00:00:01, xdelay=00:00:01, mailer=relay, pri=30312, relay=[127.0.0.1] [127.0.0.1], dsn=2.0.0, stat=Sent (l1QCVGhY004933 Message accepted for delivery) Feb 26 12:34:26 home sm-mta[4935]: l1QCVGhY004933: to=<maxine(a)home.isbd.net>, delay=00:03:09, xdelay=00:03:09, mailer=esmtp, pri=120480, relay=84-45-228-40.no-dns-yet.enta.net. [84.45.228.40], dsn=4.0.0, stat=Deferred: Connection timed out with 84-45-228-40.no-dns-yet.enta.net. The first line says that sendmail accepts the mail, which is a good start, but the second is telling me that it's trying to send it to maxine(a)home.isbd.net which won't work because that tries to go to 84-45-228-40.no-dns-yet.enta.net which is my router which isn't set up to allow incoming connections on port 25. How do I tell sendmail that localhost is 'here'? Even better would be if I could tell sendmail that home.isbd.net is 'here' too but maybe that's expecting too much! Outgoing mail works fine by the way. -- Chris Green

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RE: [ALUG] How to make sendmail deliver mail locally?
by keith.jamieson＠bt.com 26 Feb '07

26 Feb '07

Chris If you are going to edit the files they say you *should* do the sendmail.mc. But from the "old skule" go into the sendmail.cf and change # my official domain name # ... define this only if sendmail cannot automatically determine your domain Djhome.isbd.net HTH Keith -----Original Message----- From: main-bounces(a)lists.alug.org.uk [mailto:main-bounces@lists.alug.org.uk] On Behalf Of Eur Ing Chris Green Sent: 26 February 2007 12:41 To: main(a)lists.alug.org.uk Subject: [ALUG] How to make sendmail deliver mail locally? I have previously used postfix but, since I only want local mail delivery, thought I'd try the default sendmail configuration in Slackware. I can't get sendmail to deliver mail locally, it *always* tries to send it out. For example see the following two entries from /var/log/maillog:- Feb 26 12:31:17 home sendmail[4932]: l1QCVGAZ004932: to=maxine@localhost, ctladdr=chris (1000/100), delay=00:00:01, xdelay=00:00:01, mailer=relay, pri=30312, relay=[127.0.0.1] [127.0.0.1], dsn=2.0.0, stat=Sent (l1QCVGhY004933 Message accepted for delivery) Feb 26 12:34:26 home sm-mta[4935]: l1QCVGhY004933: to=<maxine(a)home.isbd.net>, delay=00:03:09, xdelay=00:03:09, mailer=esmtp, pri=120480, relay=84-45-228-40.no-dns-yet.enta.net. [84.45.228.40], dsn=4.0.0, stat=Deferred: Connection timed out with 84-45-228-40.no-dns-yet.enta.net. The first line says that sendmail accepts the mail, which is a good start, but the second is telling me that it's trying to send it to maxine(a)home.isbd.net which won't work because that tries to go to 84-45-228-40.no-dns-yet.enta.net which is my router which isn't set up to allow incoming connections on port 25. How do I tell sendmail that localhost is 'here'? Even better would be if I could tell sendmail that home.isbd.net is 'here' too but maybe that's expecting too much! Outgoing mail works fine by the way. -- Chris Green _______________________________________________ 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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sudo help please
by Eur Ing Chris Green 25 Feb '07

25 Feb '07

I virtually never use sudo as I simply su to root and do what's needed. However I want to do a mount in a shell script that runs as me rather than root and the safest way to do it would seem to be to all 'me' to sudo a mount command. However I can't get it to work with no password, what I have in the sudoers file is:- chris home = NOPASSWD: /sbin/mount chris home = NOPASSWD: /sbin/umount ... but it's still prompting me for a password when I do 'sudo mount //bla/bla bla'. So, what am I doing wrong? -- Chris Green

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Re: [ALUG] Strange colour effects with graphics card. (Addendum)
by Barry Samuels 25 Feb '07

25 Feb '07

On 25/02/07 14:50:07, Greg Thomas wrote: > On 25/02/07, Barry Samuels <bjsamuels(a)beenthere-donethat.org.uk> > wrote: >> I thought I'd save a screenshot showing the odd effects when they >> next presented themselves which I did. >> >> I found, when viewing the image when the screen display was >> 'normal', that the saved image was, itself, 'normal'. > > Sounds like a device driver problem; have you get the latest, and if > so, can you revert to an earlier version? Yes and probably no in that order. I have, however, installed nVidia's own drivers and I shall see how that works. If the strange effects don't re-appear then I shall assume it was a bug in the driver. > Take a screen shot with a camera next time. I will if it re-appears. -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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Strange colour effects with graphics card.
by Barry Samuels 25 Feb '07

25 Feb '07

I am running Debian Etch/Testing and using the xserver-xorg-video-nv driver for my (relatively new) graphics card - a Gainward Bliss 7300LE. The display is, in general use, perfectly acceptable but when restoring the screen after the screensaver has blanked it or switching back from a text console to the X display I sometimes get a very peculiar effect. It is almost as if parts of the display appear as a negative - white becomes black, yellow becomes blue etc. Any text appears very broken to the point that it is illegible. This only affects parts of some areas of colours i.e. an area of yellow will appear blue in the top half but yellow in the bottom half but another area of white will appear black all over. Have you ever seen a little Tux with green feet? If I then switch to a text console and then back to the X display it nearly always rights itself although sometimes two or more switches are necessary. It cannot be produced on demand. Switching consoles sometimes has no detrimental effect. Can anyone suggest a reason for this and, hopefully, a cure? -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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Fw: [ALUG] PHP/MySQL help please
by Tony 24 Feb '07

24 Feb '07

Big thank you to David Reynolds and MJ Ray for their help. I've got the script working. It was the insert syntax that I had wrong. I also need to add slashes before each field is inserted and the only way I could do it with my limited PHP/MySQL knowledge is by adding slashes to each field: $title = addslashes($result[title]); $description = addslashes($result[description]); $contact = addslashes($result[contact]); $url = addslashes($result[url]); $email = addslashes($result[email]); mysql_query("INSERT INTO $table2 (title,description,contact,url,email) VALUES('$title','$description','$contact','$url','$email')"); } I'm sure there is an easier way to do it but it works! Just need to tidy the syntax up a bit and be more specific about which resource is connected to. It's kept me out of trouble for the past three days :-)

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Re: PHP/MySQL help please
by Matthew 24 Feb '07

24 Feb '07

Tony wrote: > I have set up four websites for local charities but they want the same > events to appear on all websites. The sites have all been set up using > Joomla and are on the same server but different domains. A common > connection to MySQL is not a problem. > > What I am trying to do is collect data from the MySQL database of the main > site and send it to the other sites using PHP (will use a cron job when I > get the script working). There is only one table that needs to be > transfered. > So you have a single table that needs to be read by multiple clients? Who needs to write to it? > I would prefer to drop the old table and create a new one otherwise deleted > events would stay on the client sites. > > Can anyone help or suggest an easier way of doing it? > Regarding the script, briefly: $table2 = "jos_extcal_events"; /[other stuff snipped, but $table2 hasn't been mentioned until:]/ mysql_query("INSERT INTO $table2"); Am I missing something? That INSERT doesn't look like it actually carries the data you want put in. With respect to other possible solutions: Have you got good reason not to give the different sites access to the master copy of the table? That would be a lot simpler. If you've got enough authority over the MySQL server, you could make a separate database and user for that alone. If you have a single user who has the right permissions on all the databases (read the master, write the slaves) you could do the copy within MySQL, which would keep the PHP simpler. If you have sufficient access to the machine, you could Cron the MySQL statements through the command-line client and do away with PHP completely, which makes the project much simpler and should reduce the overhead of running the update task considerably. If you are copying, dropping the table to lose the old data is only necessary if you change the schema of the master table, otherwise TRUNCATE is simpler (and probably quicker). Bear in mind if you decide to DROP that you will need to CREATE it again, so you either need to hard-code the table schema into your update script or make the script smart enough to construct a CREATE statement based on the schema of the master. The MySQL you want to pass (either through PHP or into the MySQL client) probably looks a little like this: TRUNCATE `db2`.`table_name` ; or if you're dropping: DROP TABLE IF EXISTS `db2`.`table_name` ; CREATE TABLE `db2`.`table_name` ( /[insert column and key declarations]/ ) TYPE = MYISAM ; then (assuming you can get access to both from the same user) INSERT INTO `db2`.`table_name` SELECT * FROM `db1`.`table_name` ; Hope some of that helps. Matthew Holland

1 0

Syleham Kitmeet
by Elisabeth Fosbrooke-Brown 24 Feb '07

24 Feb '07

Good offer, BJ! March 17, 18, 24, or 25? -- sfr

7 9

Simple backup solutions
by Eur Ing Chris Green 24 Feb '07

24 Feb '07

What do others here use to backup data on their machines (if anything!)? I'm looking for something a bit more friendly (and clever) than just tar or rsync but nowhere near as big and complex as backupbuddy or backupPC. So is there anything 'in between'? I'd like a GUI that allows me to choose directories that I want backed up and sets up a regular backup of those directories. Ideally it would allow me to have different 'levels' of backup so that, for example, very important stuff like the company accounts database would be copied offsite and frequently and less important stuff (like say /home) would just be copied to a different hard drive, possible less frequently. I don't want total machine backup, if the machine or a disk expires I'll reinstall, that's only time consuming. All I want to backup is actual data which would be near impossible to rebuild. If there's nothing ready made I'll just write a script using rsync, it wouldn't be too difficult. -- Chris Green

8 11

RE: [ALUG] ALUG library new features
by Tracy Dickerson 24 Feb '07

24 Feb '07

Sounds fabulous. Just what I was thinking when I mentioned it in a earlier post. I will add the books from my store at the weekend. The only trouble is that I have no transport so if someone in Norwich wanted to borrow one of my books, they would have to come and get it somehow. Tracy x -----Original Message----- From: main-bounces(a)lists.alug.org.uk [mailto:main-bounces@lists.alug.org.uk] On Behalf Of Wayne Stallwood Sent: 22 February 2007 20:36 To: ALUG Subject: [ALUG] ALUG library new features Taking on board some of the things mentioned by Tracy regarding the Library I have now added the facility for members to offer their own books for loan. (you are not actually donating them to the library, you keep them on your bookshelf until someone wants to borrow them) As was pointed out on the list there are probably people sitting on useful books who certainly don't want to give them away to the library but would be willing to lend them out if there is some tracking in place. All existing member accounts have been upgraded, if you have an account the library should have already emailed you to tell you this. You should see a few new buttons when you log in (some of which only appear when you have added your first book) Use Add new Item to offer books for loan. When somebody reserves one of your books you will receive an email telling you who wants it. Once you have given the book to them you log in and mark it borrowed with the Item Check Out button. Once the item is returned use the Item Check in button to return it to your collection. You can specify a loan duration if you want and the Library will then alert both the lender and the borrower when books are overdue. The Library still welcomes additions to it's own collection. I want to make it clear at this point, The Librarian (me) and ALUG do not accept any responsibility for books lost. The agreement to safely return the books is between you and the borrower. _______________________________________________ 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!

4 3

PHP/MySQL help please
by Tony 24 Feb '07

24 Feb '07

I have set up four websites for local charities but they want the same events to appear on all websites. The sites have all been set up using Joomla and are on the same server but different domains. A common connection to MySQL is not a problem. What I am trying to do is collect data from the MySQL database of the main site and send it to the other sites using PHP (will use a cron job when I get the script working). There is only one table that needs to be transfered. The script I have come up with so far is: <?php $db_host = "localhost"; $table1 = "jos_extcal_events"; $table2 = "jos_extcal_events"; $db_name1 = "midsuffo2"; $db_user1 = "user1"; $db_pw1 = "password1"; $db_name2 = "tbrn1"; $db_user2 = "user2"; $db_pw2 = "password2"; $resource1 = mysql_connect($db_host, $db_user1, $db_pw1)or die ('I cannot connect to the database because: ' . mysql_error());; //select query to get all the data from resource 1 mysql_select_db ($db_name1)or die("Unable to select database $db_name1"); $sql = "SELECT * FROM $table1"; $query = mysql_query($sql, $resource1); for ($i=0;$i<($result = mysql_fetch_assoc($query));$i++) //insert data into $resource2 $resource2 = mysql_connect($db_host, $db_user2, $db_pw2)or die ('I cannot connect to the database because: ' . mysql_error());; mysql_select_db ($db_name2)or die("Unable to select database $db_name2"); { mysql_query("INSERT INTO $table2"); } mysql_close($resource1); mysql_close($resource2); ?> Although it runs without error, it doesn't do anything! I would prefer to drop the old table and create a new one otherwise deleted events would stay on the client sites. Can anyone help or suggest an easier way of doing it? Many thanks Tony

2 1

RE: [ALUG] Syleham Kitmeet - Anyone for a frag?
by keith.jamieson＠bt.com 24 Feb '07

24 Feb '07

Keith Watson wrote: > Continuing the April Fools theme anyone fancy a quick deathmatch via > OpenArena <http://openarena.ws/>? > > We've been playing it at lunchtimes on some old kit here at work and it > runs a treat. Have also loaded it onto my Ubuntu Edgy Eft set-up and it > also runs fine on that. > I have been playing cube and sauerbraten for a while. Just downloaded openarena and cannot get it to run. I get this error message: ...loading libGL.so.1: Calling SDL_Init(SDL_INIT_VIDEO)... SDL_Init(SDL_INIT_VIDEO) passed. QGL_Init: Can't load libGL.so.1 from /etc/ld.so.conf or current dir: failed ----- CL_Shutdown ----- RE_Shutdown( 1 ) ----------------------- Sys_Error: GLimp_Init() - could not load OpenGL subsystem In fact libGL.so.1 is in usr/lib and ld.so.conf has a /usr/lib line in it. Any clues as to what is wrong? ___________________________ Ian Its the path, if the path is not specified in the conf file, you will need to add the lib path to the user who is running the process. Even if its a cronjod then that user needs this. HTH Keith

1 0

looking for webcam
by David Reynolds 23 Feb '07

23 Feb '07

Hi, I'm looking to test a particular model/range of webcam with a piece of software called Delicious Library [1] and wondered if anyone had one that I could borrow / buy for not much cash to see if it works. The type I'm looking for is a Logitech 4000 / Zoom. Basically from what I read it needs to be a Logitech with manual zoom. If anyone can help, it'd be much appreciated. Thanks, Dave [1] http://www.delicious-monster.com/ -- David Reynolds david(a)reynoldsfamily.org.uk

2 1

ALUG library new features
by Wayne Stallwood 23 Feb '07

23 Feb '07

Taking on board some of the things mentioned by Tracy regarding the Library I have now added the facility for members to offer their own books for loan. (you are not actually donating them to the library, you keep them on your bookshelf until someone wants to borrow them) As was pointed out on the list there are probably people sitting on useful books who certainly don't want to give them away to the library but would be willing to lend them out if there is some tracking in place. All existing member accounts have been upgraded, if you have an account the library should have already emailed you to tell you this. You should see a few new buttons when you log in (some of which only appear when you have added your first book) Use Add new Item to offer books for loan. When somebody reserves one of your books you will receive an email telling you who wants it. Once you have given the book to them you log in and mark it borrowed with the Item Check Out button. Once the item is returned use the Item Check in button to return it to your collection. You can specify a loan duration if you want and the Library will then alert both the lender and the borrower when books are overdue. The Library still welcomes additions to it's own collection. I want to make it clear at this point, The Librarian (me) and ALUG do not accept any responsibility for books lost. The agreement to safely return the books is between you and the borrower.

2 1

RE: [ALUG] Wiki
by Tracy Dickerson 22 Feb '07

22 Feb '07

What I meant was that if you edit the HTML rather than use the GUI, the HTML is all bunched up and not spaced out so that it is easy to read for those of us out there that are rookies and will struggle anyway. Sorry that I was not that clear the first time. Tracy x -----Original Message----- From: main-bounces(a)lists.alug.org.uk [mailto:main-bounces@lists.alug.org.uk] On Behalf Of Brett Parker Sent: 22 February 2007 11:00 To: main(a)lists.alug.org.uk Subject: Re: [ALUG] Wiki On Thu, Feb 22, 2007 at 10:46:33AM -0000, Tracy Dickerson wrote: > Hello, > > >From a non technical point of view (i.e. mine) I am finding the Wiki > >a > very difficult place to edit. > > I just had to ask one of the kind fellas here at work to help me add > my name to the 'Whos Who' list as there was not a option in the 'Edit > (GUI)' tab to add a line as it is not active. OK - from the Edit (GUI) type link, to add a row to the table, right click in any cell, hit Insert Row - works very similar to any other editor that does tables :) (Just checked that it worked as I expected, because I'm a "Edit (Text)" person, I like wiki markup and find it quicker and easier than using the GUI). > Please can we make this Wiki user friendly to people who cannot use > HTML. Or can we order the HTML page views so that someone like me has > a hope in hell of understanding it with a book. What do you mean by "order the HTML page views"? I'm not entirely sure that I follow! 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!

7 9

open document petition
by tom potts 22 Feb '07

22 Feb '07

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/OpenDocument/ Tom ___________________________________________________________ The all-new Yahoo! Mail goes wherever you go - free your email address from your Internet provider. http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/nowyoucan.html

1 0

'locate' isn't always helpful, how to do better?
by Eur Ing Chris Green 22 Feb '07

22 Feb '07

While the 'locate' command is very useful at times, especially if you have lost a specific file it's much less useful when looking for, for example, a directory which has a rather common name. E.g. I was just trying to find where I have bits of vmware installed, doing a 'locate vmware' just produces zillions of lines of output. I don't (in this case) want to know all the files which are located somewhere below a 'vmware' directory, I just want to know the location of the directory. I know I can use an RE in locate but it's not all *that* simple to come up with an RE to do it. I could also use 'find' which would get me exactly the result I want with a fairly straightforward command, but it would take ages. What I really want is a 'find' that uses the locate database, I'm surprised no one has written one - or have they? -- Chris Green

4 8

Wiki / Webmaster hours
by Matthew 22 Feb '07

22 Feb '07

Hi all, I introduced myself the other day but foolishly forgot to include a Subject. If you missed that mail and have questions, just ask. MJ Ray wrote: > ... lugmasters have been looking > at merging/co-hosting dynamic sites, to ease maintenance: there just > aren't enough webmaster-hours to go round. If iPlug has spare > webmaster-hours, please share them! I should probably commit them for one-time projects and events rather than for the continuing running of things, but I have some spare webmaster-hours here and there. I can update static and dynamic things, install and administrate CMSs and the like, and various other things that you shouldn't trust people with when you know them as well as you know me. If anyone has a surplus of project and the cause is good, drop me a mail to say what's required and I'll tell you whether I can help. I'll keep and eye on the Wiki and see if I can be useful there. Matthew

1 0

How to check a directory is empty (probably in bash)?
by Eur Ing Chris Green 22 Feb '07

22 Feb '07

What's the simplest (and/or most concise) way to check for an empty directory? I can't just do a rmdir as I need to check three directories are empty before I can do anything drastic (like removing the directory). Not to mention that for one application of this I don't want to remove the empty directory anyway. As you've probably guessed this is to check if a maildir mailbox is empty - to do this you need to check if all three subdirectories of the maildir are empty. I can see various rather clumsy ways of doing it but nothing neat and elegant. A Google search didn't turn up much either, just some rather arcane zsh ways of doing it which were arcane enough to be zsh only I suspect. I might get carried away and write a little 'C' utility do do it if nothing sensible turns up. -- Chris Green

6 15

RE: [ALUG] Wiki
by Tracy Dickerson 22 Feb '07

22 Feb '07

Hello, >From a non technical point of view (i.e. mine) I am finding the Wiki a very difficult place to edit. I just had to ask one of the kind fellas here at work to help me add my name to the 'Whos Who' list as there was not a option in the 'Edit (GUI)' tab to add a line as it is not active. Please can we make this Wiki user friendly to people who cannot use HTML. Or can we order the HTML page views so that someone like me has a hope in hell of understanding it with a book. Thank you in advance Tracy x -----Original Message----- From: main-bounces(a)lists.alug.org.uk [mailto:main-bounces@lists.alug.org.uk] On Behalf Of Brett Parker Sent: 21 February 2007 23:02 To: main(a)lists.alug.org.uk Subject: Re: [ALUG] Wiki On Wed, Feb 21, 2007 at 10:37:19PM +0000, samwise wrote: > Anyway, I'm finding myself struggling a bit with the limitations of > markup inside tables. It appears there's a macro to address this sort > of thing. Is there any chance someone could install this: Markup in tables?! Hnnng?! You're not planning on using tables for layout purposes are you? (as apposed to tabular data...) -- 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!

3 2

Wiki
by Jonathan McDowell 22 Feb '07

22 Feb '07

In the spirit of trying to actually get us to the point where we have new content rather than the ever recurring discussions about the fact no one updates the website, I have created: http://www.alug.org.uk/wiki/ It's a MoinMoin Wiki, because I'm more at home with them and they work with flat files (I'm not entirely sure MediaWiki will do this?). I haven't moved over content from the existing "wiki" (feel free to do this) nor linked it in from the main page yet (if it takes off this is obviously simple). So, get started. Should be perfectly possible for us to have various pages for the Norwich social meets, the Ipswich social meets and whatever else out there. Anyone can create themselves an account and I know there are anti spam measures out there for Moin so they can be looked at eventually if we see issues. J. -- 101 things you can't have too much of : 25 - email.

11 21

"Who's Where?"
by ted.harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 21 Feb '07

21 Feb '07

If you haven't already had a look at recent changes to the Wiki at http://www.alug.org.uk/wiki I've started a page "Who's Where?" the get a ball rolling. The idea is that people can let it be known where they're "near" (in the East Anglian sense of "near") -- i.e. the places they consider it reasonable to make a trip to in oder to meet up with others in the same relation to said places. Then local "clusters" can get in touch with each other for get-togethers. The regular Norwich meets are nice, but distant for many. The occasional meets at Syleham or UEA or Gazeley/Ashley[?] have been excellent, but infrequent. Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <ted.harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 21-Feb-07 Time: 21:28:01 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

4 3

RE: [ALUG] Re: IpLUG - Meeting
by Tracy Dickerson 21 Feb '07

21 Feb '07

That sounds great Chris. What I was thinking was having a page where we make a list of the available to lend books with the following details - Title - Author - Publisher - Who owns the book And then for each book have a attached page where we can do a library checking out thing so we know who has the book on loan, when it was loaned out and when the owner got it back. That way we can keep track of the books and have a history to see which are the most popular etc. Maybe then we could have a talk from someone about the contents of the book so that a discussion has formed. Just a little idea. I would be happy to get that pages going on the Wiki to start with and then people can add books or take them off if they leave us for other things etc. Tracy x -----Original Message----- From: main-bounces(a)lists.alug.org.uk [mailto:main-bounces@lists.alug.org.uk] On Behalf Of Eur Ing Chris Green Sent: 20 February 2007 09:09 To: ALUG Subject: [ALUG] Re: IpLUG - Meeting On Tue, Feb 20, 2007 at 08:33:36AM -0000, Tracy Dickerson wrote: > Hey fellas, > > Thank you for a fab evening. It was good to meet new people (and old > friends.) > Yes, same here. > Would it be a good idea to have a code library kinda thing where we > place useful command line commands etc. Okay, this would help me, but > I think that we could all learn stuff from doing this kinda thing. > That sounds like an ideal wiki sort of thing. > I was also talking to Pete last night and mentioned a library of text > books that we could document and lend out within the group. This could > make a good talking point especially if someone is looking to do > something in particular. I have a few books that I doubt I will ever > understand that might be of use to others along the way (I was given > them). > I have quite a few, some I'd quite happily donate whereas others I'd want to keep but would be very happy to lend. -- Chris Green _______________________________________________ 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!

8 11

RE: [ALUG] Re: IpLUG - Meeting
by Tracy Dickerson 20 Feb '07

20 Feb '07

Please, this is not a get at iPlug or ALUG day. Why is it being treated as one. What is wrong with us at iPlug having a wiki of our own? Do we have to do everything together? If so, why have separate names? Now people, play nice. This was only our first meeting. Do not lets spoil something that was good and fun and interesting with nasty fighting when there is nothing to fight about. Tracy x -----Original Message----- From: main-bounces(a)lists.alug.org.uk [mailto:main-bounces@lists.alug.org.uk] On Behalf Of MJ Ray Sent: 20 February 2007 14:23 To: samwise(a)bagshot-row.org; main(a)lists.alug.org.uk Subject: Re: [ALUG] Re: IpLUG - Meeting samwise <samwise(a)bagshot-row.org> wrote: [...] > That said, the consensus last night seemed to me that a flexible wiki > was a priority for us and, therefore, I'm going to go ahead and set > that up before the next meet under the iPlug name (a branch of ALUG). > I hope this doesn't come across as a an attempt to splinter the ALUG > community, but I truly don't want to pile on pressure and deadlines to > a community which, I'm sure, has been doing perfectly well on its own > so far ... ;) Yes, I feel it comes across as an attempt to splinter the ALUG. Why not use the flexible wiki at http://www.alug.org.uk/contrib/ ? It's only 'not open' because there's been some low-maintenance efforts to block spammers. If you want to replace the WikiEngine, change the anti-spam and revamp the content, I'm sure many people would welcome that. The webmasters could either give you ssh, ftp or a redirect. I tried to replace it in the past, but lack of familiarity with modern wikis and a worker going silent mid-change meant it never happened. > If ALUG moves towards the same open model at any point in the future, Huh? How is ALUG not open? Have the cabal suddenly moved in and locked it down in the few months since I left? I doubt it. All you have to do is pick a job and start doing it yourselves. You don't have to "pile on pressure and deadlines" to anyone. I suggest starting by either editing the pages with the "Edit Page" links or getting website access of a type you like from either: David Reynolds Sionide and if they don't move: Jonathan McDowell Me (maybe) should still also have access and can add access, while: Darren Casey Jonathan McDowell Martyn Drake UKLUGS (Andy Smith?) control the web hosting and domains IIRC. I'm sure one of those will have time to open the door to you. I think iPlug seems to have a bad case of 'Not Invented Here' and is unwilling to cooperate with its neighbours. I feel it's particularly stupid to split an existing web site when lugmasters have been looking at merging/co-hosting dynamic sites, to ease maintenance: there just aren't enough webmaster-hours to go round. If iPlug has spare webmaster-hours, please share them! Regards, -- MJ Ray - see/vidu http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Somerset, England. Work/Laborejo: http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ IRC/Jabber/SIP: on request/peteble. _______________________________________________ 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!

3 2

Re: IpLUG - Meeting
by Syd Hancock 20 Feb '07

20 Feb '07

ALUG operates over a wide geographical area which is one reason why it functions mainly through email. Meetings and new wikis etc do not 'splinter' that but add to it. As I have said several years ago, IMHO more frequent and more local meetings would be good (and was willing to be involved with organising, as some will recall). Good luck to anyone who wants to organise more frequent small meetings in the area where they live. Ignore the people who will shout you down and criticise - later they will say 'no-one ever does anything'. There is this thing called 'freedom' you know, just go ahead and do what you want to do and call it what you want to call it. Incidentally IMNSHO some of the responses from the old guard here go a long way to explain why ALUG is not expanding even though linux use in the region, as everywhere, certainly is. There is certainly room for other alternatives as well as ALUG. But then, some people dare to think that there should be more distros than just d*bi*n or even there should be alternatives to G**me, heh... Syd

3 2

Horrible file browser - how can I change it?
by Eur Ing Chris Green 20 Feb '07

20 Feb '07

The default file browser that appears when, for example, I try to open a file from Firefox is awful. I get the same file selector for most applications now, it's a fairly recent 'imporvement', I've only had since I upgraded to Slackware 11. The whole thing is decidedly counter-intuitive, for me at least. There's no sort of helpful form to it. Across the top the directory hierarchy is a row of buttons, it took me a while before I realised it *was* the directory hierarchy. At the left the window with directory names in it - what's it for? Why is "/" called "File System", "File System" doesn't mean root to me. It's all *HORRIBLE*! :-) Can anyone tell me if it's possible to change this? (I'm running fvwm2 as my Window Manager by the way). -- Chris Green

7 17

Mail archiving tools
by Eur Ing Chris Green 20 Feb '07

20 Feb '07

I'm looking for a mail archiving utility, or some suggestions for how to do it myself, and/or learning what others do. I have quite a lot of incoming mail from lists like this, personal mail, etc. I read it and most of it gets deleted after a few days but some I save in a moderately deep directory hierarchy. E.g. I have Mail/holidays/2005 Mail/holidays/2006 ... ... Mail/shopping/computers Mail/shopping/electrical .... I'd like to move whole directories and/or mailboxes out of my 'current' mail hierarchy into a backup hierachy so that the backup hierarchy has everything in it whereas the current one is a bit more thinned out and up-to-date so it's easier to navigate. I don't want to move mail out just on the basis of its date, last year's shopping is much less useful than last year's personal E-Mail for example. I almost have what I want using rsync. I simply copy the whole of my current hierarchy to a backup (from here, which is remote, to my home system) with the --delete parameter. Then I make a further rsync copy from the backup to an archive area *without* the --delete. This means that if I delete a folder from my working E-Mail it also disappears from the backup but not from the archive. The problem is that I want an easy to use tool to manipulate mail folders, if I'm sitting looking at my mail it's not all that easy to move stuff about from within my MUA. What would be perfect would be a way of marking messages/folders with a flag indicating that at the next overnight backup they should be moved to the archive. Are there any mail archiving tools that can do my rsync trick but with an easier interface and/or can anyone suggest any other ways of getting what I want? (BTW the mail is sitting on a remote BSD box to which I have ssh access, GUI tools for manipulating the mailboxes are probably not appropriate) -- Chris Green

1 0

RE: [ALUG] Re: Re: IpLUG - Meeting
by Tracy Dickerson 20 Feb '07

20 Feb '07

That sounds a great plan. I will add it to my page plan for the Wiki (have been thinking about this seriously you see. This is the great thing about a Wiki, they grow and develop more with each user that has a idea. *big smiles* Tracy x -----Original Message----- From: main-bounces(a)lists.alug.org.uk [mailto:main-bounces@lists.alug.org.uk] On Behalf Of Eur Ing Chris Green Sent: 20 February 2007 09:53 To: main(a)lists.alug.org.uk Subject: [ALUG] Re: Re: IpLUG - Meeting On Tue, Feb 20, 2007 at 09:17:48AM -0000, keith.jamieson(a)bt.com wrote: > > > I was also talking to Pete last night and mentioned a library of > > > text > > > books that we could document and lend out within the group. This could > > > > make a good talking point especially if someone is looking to do > > > something in particular. I have a few books that I doubt I will ever > > > understand that might be of use to others along the way (I was given > > > them). > > > > > I have quite a few, some I'd quite happily donate whereas others I'd > > want to keep but would be very happy to lend. > > I have quite a few books which can be borrowed, but are mainly > application types. Are we going to get a central list on the > forum^H^H^H^H^H Wiki ? :) > This too sounds like a perfect Wiki application doesn't it. Anyone willing to lend/donate books can add them to an appropriate section of the Wiki, maybe with a comment or two as to whether the book is good or not and its audience. People who borrow the book can add further comments. I suggest two 'classes' of books, 'donated' and 'lent'. Donated books could just stay with a borrower until someone else wanted them, it means that the hassle of moving them on to the next reader isn't down to the original donor. Lent books on the other hand would be expected to be returned to the original owner. -- Chris Green _______________________________________________ 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

RE: [ALUG] Re: IpLUG - Meeting
by keith.jamieson＠bt.com 20 Feb '07

20 Feb '07

On Tue, Feb 20, 2007 at 08:33:36AM -0000, Tracy Dickerson wrote: > Hey fellas, > > Thank you for a fab evening. It was good to meet new people (and old > friends.) > Yes, same here. <AOL> Me too </AOL> :) > Would it be a good idea to have a code library kinda thing where we > place useful command line commands etc. Okay, this would help me, but > I think that we could all learn stuff from doing this kinda thing. > That sounds like an ideal wiki sort of thing. > I was also talking to Pete last night and mentioned a library of text > books that we could document and lend out within the group. This could > make a good talking point especially if someone is looking to do > something in particular. I have a few books that I doubt I will ever > understand that might be of use to others along the way (I was given > them). > I have quite a few, some I'd quite happily donate whereas others I'd want to keep but would be very happy to lend. I have quite a few books which can be borrowed, but are mainly application types. Are we going to get a central list on the forum^H^H^H^H^H Wiki ? :) Keith

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IpLUG - Meeting
by Tracy Dickerson 20 Feb '07

20 Feb '07

Hey fellas, Thank you for a fab evening. It was good to meet new people (and old friends.) Would it be a good idea to have a code library kinda thing where we place useful command line commands etc. Okay, this would help me, but I think that we could all learn stuff from doing this kinda thing. I was also talking to Pete last night and mentioned a library of text books that we could document and lend out within the group. This could make a good talking point especially if someone is looking to do something in particular. I have a few books that I doubt I will ever understand that might be of use to others along the way (I was given them). Just a couple of ideas that would not let me sleep last night *yawn*. Tracy x

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Any Evolution users out there ?
by Wayne Stallwood 20 Feb '07

20 Feb '07

I have an annoying problem with the message filters in Evolution. I have a rule that says When the source account is X move message to folder Y It copies the message to folder Y but leaves a copy in the inbox as well (i.e I end up with two copies of the message) This is on evolution 2.8.1 (as packaged with Ubuntu Edgy) Thinking that one of the many other rules that run below that one (to filter spam and so on) was breaking things I just added a "stop processing" after the move operation. This makes no difference. It only seems to be a problem with the source account rule, other rules I have which move based on recipient address or subject line are working fine, but why would the filter criteria change the way the filter action behaves ? Can anybody else with evolution replicate this ?

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Testing Ububtu 6.10
by ted.harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 19 Feb '07

19 Feb '07

Hi Folks, This evening I downloaded the ISO for Ubuntu 6.10 (the latest), burnt it to CD, and gave it a whirl (using the CD as a live CD). Quite a lot of fun really -- this is designed to appeal! But I had a weird experience with printing. I used the GUI to add a printer. It autodetected my HP Laserjet 1300 and proposed (which I accepted) the PostScript driver for it. Then I opened one of its Examples files (an Open Office "doc") in OpenOffice Writer ("Word" to you ...), and tried printing it. Nothing happened. 'lpq' showed that the job was queued and printing, but nothing happened at the printer. Eventually, I killed the job with 'lprm', went back to the document, and printed it to file "test.ps". I checked (using "less") that this was PostScript. Then, at the console (Ctrl-Alt-F1, user = "ubuntu"), I tried lpr test.ps and nothing happened. I then tried cat test.ps > /dev/lp0 and got "Permission denied". So I tried (being aware of the issue) sudo cat test.ps >/dev/lp0 with the same result. Permissions on /dev/lp0 were something like (should have written it down ... ) rw- rw- --- root root So I bit the bullet, executed sudo passwd root thus creating a "normal" root account. The I logged in as root, cd'd to /home/ubuntu, and again did cat test.ps > /dev/lp0 and this time it worked. This suggests that "ordinary" users ("ubuntu" in this case) don't have permission to print -- no doubt there's a work-round, but it was not offered up in the printer installation dialogue. But when (still as root) I did lpr test.ps I got the message that no printer was available! So it looks as though resources like a printer are set up on a per-user basis! This all strikes me as a weird and bewildering tangle. I find Ubuntu's marginalising of root irritating anyway, but the rest of it seems just crazy. And this is supposed to be "Linux for the masses" ... Maybe I've misunderstood something, or missed some obvious trick, so I'd welcome comments. In case it may be relevant: when I booted off the CD, I chose the "Safe Graphics Mode" option. With thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <ted.harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 18-Feb-07 Time: 22:00:45 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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RE: FW: [ALUG] Hello
by Tracy Dickerson 19 Feb '07

19 Feb '07

*smile* I darn hope so............ Tracy -----Original Message----- From: main-bounces(a)lists.alug.org.uk [mailto:main-bounces@lists.alug.org.uk] On Behalf Of Ian bell Sent: 19 February 2007 16:30 To: main(a)lists.alug.org.uk Subject: Re: FW: [ALUG] Hello Tracy Dickerson wrote: > I am attending > the gym first and coming straight from there I trust this includes a pit stop at the showers ;-) Ian _______________________________________________ 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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FW: [ALUG] Hello
by Tracy Dickerson 19 Feb '07

19 Feb '07

Hey, Really excited about the meeting this evening, where abouts will you guys be sitting or will it be really obvious to me when I walk in? Also, does anyone know what time they serve food until? I am attending the gym first and coming straight from there so will be a tad famished, (I will try get eating done before the beginning of the meeting.) Laters Tracy -----Original Message----- From: main-bounces(a)lists.alug.org.uk [mailto:main-bounces@lists.alug.org.uk] On Behalf Of Tracy Dickerson Sent: 14 February 2007 16:15 To: samwise; main(a)lists.alug.org.uk Subject: RE: [ALUG] Hello Sounds just grand Peter. I will look forward to the talks, should be very interesting and informative. I can see I might be more in tune with my 'puter before long which will be very nice. We do not really get on to be fair. lol Will be good to meet other people who use or have used Fedora because when I get in a muddle, my 'sysadmin' lives in Worcester! Looking forward very much to Monday. Tracy. -----Original Message----- From: main-bounces(a)lists.alug.org.uk [mailto:main-bounces@lists.alug.org.uk] On Behalf Of samwise Sent: 14 February 2007 16:07 To: main(a)lists.alug.org.uk Subject: Re: [ALUG] Hello > Is there any kind of agenda, or will this one be a meet and greet? Well, there has been one small meeting so far, before I started publicising the LUG more widely and the five members who attended that one expressed an interesting in having a half-hour or so interactive presentation by a member on whatever topic interested them - how to compile software, build your own kernel, run virtual machines, use an iPod, archive a CD collection etc. However, as there may be lots of new people (hopefully), I think we'll keep it fairly flexible again for this one and just get an idea of what everyone else wants to get out of our LUG too. So, I've said I'll bring along a laptop with some information about using a virtual server under Kubuntu, but we may not get into that. There are also a few other things we need to finalise, but it will be mostly meet & greet. > Although I have been using differing flavours of Red Hat and Fedora > over a fair few years, I would not say I have much experience with the > innards of them. I would like to learn more about using the command > prompt as I get lost very very easily. So if some of my questions > could get answered along the way I would be very happy indeed. No problem, Tracy! We have at least one other regular Fedora user and I've used a number of variants of it myself as well ... I'm sure you'll get some new things to try before the meet's over. :) Ooh ... I've just had an idea - maybe we should have a regular Agony Aunt slot in the meeting, for people to tell everyone else what they're stuck with! :) If we get a wiki up and running, I can see that coming in handy with that! Peter. _______________________________________________ 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!

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(no subject)
by Matthew 19 Feb '07

19 Feb '07

Hello all, The welcome mail suggests that new users say a few words about why they're here, so here goes: I've run a Debian web server since mid 2004, supporting a handful of data-driven websites and providing mail, ftp and so on for me and the odd friend. On occasion I've played with Linux machines at home: I currently use an old PC as a firewall/router and have another acting as a VMWare host so that I can easily deploy & destroy whatever toy project catches my eye that week. I only briefly used it as a desktop OS: I put it on a dying laptop once the heat issues became too much for it to run WinXP, but only coaxed a few more weeks out of it before the inevitable catastrophic hardware failure. In terms of helpful knowledge, experience and so on, I know next to nothing about X-servers, window managers and the like. Mainly I know about internet services, and the odd bit of local networking. Matthew

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RE: [ALUG] Re: FW: Hello
by Tracy Dickerson 19 Feb '07

19 Feb '07

It is at the Milestone Beerhouse, behind the old Odeon. Meeting starts at 20.00 I believe; ending at 22.00. Laters Tracy -----Original Message----- From: main-bounces(a)lists.alug.org.uk [mailto:main-bounces@lists.alug.org.uk] On Behalf Of Eur Ing Chris Green Sent: 19 February 2007 10:20 To: main(a)lists.alug.org.uk Subject: [ALUG] Re: FW: Hello On Mon, Feb 19, 2007 at 10:09:09AM -0000, Tracy Dickerson wrote: > Hey, > > Really excited about the meeting this evening, where abouts will you > guys be sitting or will it be really obvious to me when I walk in? > > Also, does anyone know what time they serve food until? I am attending > the gym first and coming straight from there so will be a tad > famished, (I will try get eating done before the beginning of the > meeting.) > Can you folks remind me where this meeting is (and the approximate time) as I'm footloose and fancy free this evening (my wife is working late in London) so I may be able to come along. -- Chris Green _______________________________________________ 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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"Hidden partitions"
by ted.harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 19 Feb '07

19 Feb '07

Hi Folks, I understand that many laptops have BIOS-admin and diagnostic programs stored in a "hidden partition" on the hard drive -- usually accessed by pressing a function key during the first stage of booting. Any suggestions about a) How to find out where this partition is (e.g. starting and ending cylinders) -- indeed to find out whether it is there in the first place? b) How to (e.g.) wipe that other OS off the drive and install Linux without affecting this hidden partition? With thanks, and 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: 18-Feb-07 Time: 09:47:49 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Compile errors
by Barry Samuels 18 Feb '07

18 Feb '07

I'm still fiddling with this new Asus P5W DH mainboard of mine. I've given up with trying to get the IDE DVD drive working and the people that sold me my current DVD drive last November, and the P5W mainboard, have offered to swap that drive for a SATA version so I shall try that. However - on to the reason for this post. I'd like to try and get the on-board Realtek 8187 wireless working so I downloaded the latest drivers from the Realtek site only to have the compile fail. So before I make a fool of myself by emailing Realtek could there be any other reason for the failure apart from faulty code? This is what I get: ieee80211_softmac.c:2168:78: error: macro "INIT_WORK" passed 3 arguments, but takes just 2 ieee80211_softmac.c: In function 'ieee80211_softmac_init': ieee80211_softmac.c:2168: error: 'INIT_WORK' undeclared (first use in this function) ieee80211_softmac.c:2168: error: (Each undeclared identifier is reported only once ieee80211_softmac.c:2168: error: for each function it appears in.) ieee80211_softmac.c:2169:88: error: macro "INIT_WORK" passed 3 arguments, but takes just 2 ieee80211_softmac.c:2170:94: error: macro "INIT_WORK" passed 3 arguments, but takes just 2 ieee80211_softmac.c:2171:96: error: macro "INIT_WORK" passed 3 arguments, but takes just 2 ieee80211_softmac.c:2172:82: error: macro "INIT_WORK" passed 3 arguments, but takes just 2 ieee80211_softmac.c:2173:82: error: macro "INIT_WORK" passed 3 arguments, but takes just 2 I'm using gcc-4.1. The only 'c' I understand has tides. :-)) -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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HTML Mail
by Mark Ridley 17 Feb '07

17 Feb '07

I'm not trying to stir up an argument here, but why do people hate HTML mail so much? Most modern mail tools display HTML just fine, and the overhead needed to send a bulkier mail message is negligible. I'm one of these people that use multiple mail clients, depending on which box I'm using, and it really doesn't matter to me. Although I send mail mails plain text, it never bothers me when I receive HTML mail. Just curious as to how people feel about it. -Mark ----------------------------------------------------------- This message may contain confidential and/or privileged information. This information is intended to be read only by the individual or entity to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient, you are on notice that any review, disclosure, copying, distribution or use of the contents of this message is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete or destroy any copy of this message.

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Re: Asus P5W DH Deluxe mainboard and IDE interfaces
by Barry Samuels 17 Feb '07

17 Feb '07

I've had to have a two day break from this thread because I decided to try my two hard drives on the JMicron interface and the DVD drive on the Intel interface. The mainboard manual says the JMicron interface supports up to 2 devices. The short version of the story is that I ended up with the file systems on both drives comprehensively trashed! Linux is normally very good at recovering from file system errors but it couldn't do anything with these. The long story: After swapping interfaces I booted the machine using a Knoppix v5.1 CD, because I'd need to change device names in a couple of files, but went into the BIOS first. The DVD registered as the first primary drive in the first main menu screen as expected but it seems very odd that once in the BIOS any devices connected to the JMicron interface are not listed anywhere. Drives are set as Master and Slave. They are shown, briefly for about 5 seconds, just before entering the BIOS and it was here that I noticed that only one hard drive was shown after the heading 'HDD:' but the name that followed was just a random collection of letters and numbers, the font was also broken up (characters had gaps in them), and that line of text was flashing. I left the BIOS and continued with the boot into Linux and tried mounting one of the partitions. On seeing the message that 'the filesystem has errors' I didn't go any further but closed down the system. I then swapped the cables back to their original positions and tried to boot but it hung a short way into the process. I decided to swap the primary drive and DVD drive back into my old machine and boot from the same Live CD to examine the hard drive. The contents were basically rubbish! I spent quite a lot of yesterday restoring from tape which, as there is a fair amount of data, was a rather slow business. The tape was up to date as far as early yesterday morning so I lost a couple of unimportant emails but that was it. So I'm not over impressed with the JMicron interface so far. -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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Re: [ALUG] Re: Asus P5W DH Deluxe mainboard and IDE interfaces
by Barry Samuels 16 Feb '07

16 Feb '07

On 16/02/07 10:15:17, Eur Ing Chris Green wrote: > On Fri, Feb 16, 2007 at 09:42:57AM +0000, Barry Samuels wrote: > > > > On 16/02/07 08:37:00, Eur Ing Chris Green wrote: > > BTW I took a look at the Asus 5W HD manual and there are a couple of > interesting little snippets:- > > Under the JMicron IDE interface description it says "This > connector does not support ATAPI devices", so you can't put CD > (or DVD) drives on it I guess. Yes I've seen that but it will boot and run from a Live CD on that interface and I have seen comments from other Linux users about trying to get CD/DVD drives working on that interface. So I'm not sure quite what it means. > Under the Intel IDE interface description it says "Install > devices on this connector (PRI_IDE) first, then install on the > JMicron IDE connector, ...". The Intel interface had the DVD drive on it and the two hard drives on the JMicron so that should satisfy that requirement. It would be useful if I could trace the problem to something that I had done. Then, at least, I would have a satisfactory explanation. -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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Samba / Machintosh issue
by Stuart Bailey 15 Feb '07

15 Feb '07

Hi , I have a customer with a small office network They are running debian on their server, and have a mixture of macs and windows workstations. The server is using samba to shared a number of network drives via SMB. the Windows machines can see and browse all of the workgroup, and all machines / shares within the workgroup. The Macs show nothing when browsing the network, but can mount the shares if the path is entered manually. Also, if I go to the Mac console, smbstatus, smbtree, smbclient and nmblookup all seem to produce the correct results. The macs are not listed in the workgroup. The Macs are running OSX 10.4.8. Is this just a Mac issue, or do I need to configure something special in Samba for this to work? Apparently, it did work before all the machines were switched off for Christmas. I've now exhausted my knowledge of Macs - any help, direction etc would be appreciated. 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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RE: [ALUG] Hello
by Tracy Dickerson 14 Feb '07

14 Feb '07

Sounds just grand Peter. I will look forward to the talks, should be very interesting and informative. I can see I might be more in tune with my 'puter before long which will be very nice. We do not really get on to be fair. lol Will be good to meet other people who use or have used Fedora because when I get in a muddle, my 'sysadmin' lives in Worcester! Looking forward very much to Monday. Tracy. -----Original Message----- From: main-bounces(a)lists.alug.org.uk [mailto:main-bounces@lists.alug.org.uk] On Behalf Of samwise Sent: 14 February 2007 16:07 To: main(a)lists.alug.org.uk Subject: Re: [ALUG] Hello > Is there any kind of agenda, or will this one be a meet and greet? Well, there has been one small meeting so far, before I started publicising the LUG more widely and the five members who attended that one expressed an interesting in having a half-hour or so interactive presentation by a member on whatever topic interested them - how to compile software, build your own kernel, run virtual machines, use an iPod, archive a CD collection etc. However, as there may be lots of new people (hopefully), I think we'll keep it fairly flexible again for this one and just get an idea of what everyone else wants to get out of our LUG too. So, I've said I'll bring along a laptop with some information about using a virtual server under Kubuntu, but we may not get into that. There are also a few other things we need to finalise, but it will be mostly meet & greet. > Although I have been using differing flavours of Red Hat and Fedora > over a fair few years, I would not say I have much experience with the > innards of them. I would like to learn more about using the command > prompt as I get lost very very easily. So if some of my questions > could get answered along the way I would be very happy indeed. No problem, Tracy! We have at least one other regular Fedora user and I've used a number of variants of it myself as well ... I'm sure you'll get some new things to try before the meet's over. :) Ooh ... I've just had an idea - maybe we should have a regular Agony Aunt slot in the meeting, for people to tell everyone else what they're stuck with! :) If we get a wiki up and running, I can see that coming in handy with that! Peter. _______________________________________________ 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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RE: [ALUG] Hello
by Tracy Dickerson 14 Feb '07

14 Feb '07

Hey Peter, I am sure no disappointment will occur. I hope that the interest is significant enough for the meetings to continue. Is there any kind of agenda, or will this one be a meet and greet? Although I have been using differing flavours of Red Hat and Fedora over a fair few years, I would not say I have much experience with the innards of them. I would like to learn more about using the command prompt as I get lost very very easily. So if some of my questions could get answered along the way I would be very happy indeed. T -----Original Message----- From: main-bounces(a)lists.alug.org.uk [mailto:main-bounces@lists.alug.org.uk] On Behalf Of samwise Sent: 13 February 2007 17:14 To: main(a)lists.alug.org.uk Subject: Re: [ALUG] Hello Hi, Tracy. I hope we won't disappoint! I think there's been quite a bit of interest so far, so I'm hoping we shouldn't struggle for numbers. Next week should be an interesting meet-up ... ! Peter. _______________________________________________ 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!

2 1

Hello
by Tracy Dickerson 13 Feb '07

13 Feb '07

Hello All, I am interested in the potential for a Ipswich LUG. I find it impossible to be able to make the Norwich meets, and am a silent member of the Malvern LUG mailing list where a friend is a member. They have very interesting chats and I hoping that the Ipswich meets will be just as interesting. Laters, Tracy Dickerson QA LudoLogic This electronic message contains information from Ludologic Ltd which may be privileged and confidential. The information is intended to be for the use of the individual(s) or entity named above. If you are not the intended recipient, be aware that any disclosure, copying, distribution or use of the contents of this information is prohibited. If you have received this electronic message in error, please notify us by telephone or email (to the number or address above) immediately.

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Asus P5W DH Deluxe mainboard and IDE interfaces
by Barry Samuels 13 Feb '07

13 Feb '07

I have recently changed my mainboard to an Asus P5W DH Deluxe which includes both SATA and IDE interfaces. There are 2 IDE connectors of which one is controlled by an Intel chip and the other by a JMicron chip. I have two IDE hard drives (hda and hdb) both on the same cable and connected to the Intel interface. I also have an IDE DVD Writer connected to the JMicron interface. When Linux (kernel 2.6.20) boots it does not recognise the DVD Writer although I can get Knoppix 5.1 to boot from the DVD drive if I append irqpoll at the boot prompt after which everything seems to work. If I append irqpoll at the normal Linux boot prompt I get 'lost interrupt' messages when the system is starting and it seems to hang. It also lists, in the logs, a device sda which does not exist. There is a SCSI card installed which drives a DAT tape drive but nothing else. There are no SATA devices connected. Is there a way around this JMicron problem (DVD not recognised) or do I have to wait for the JMicron drivers in the kernel to be improved? What is this spurious sda device? Kernel settings: # # ATA/ATAPI/MFM/RLL support # CONFIG_IDE=y CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDE=y # # Serial ATA (prod) and Parallel ATA (experimental) drivers # CONFIG_ATA=y CONFIG_SATA_AHCI=y CONFIG_ATA_PIIX=y CONFIG_SATA_INTEL_COMBINED=y CONFIG_ATA_GENERIC=y CONFIG_PATA_JMICRON=y CONFIG_PATA_MPIIX=y Log extract: kernel: ahci 0000:02:00.0: version 2.0 kernel: ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:02:00.0[A] -> GSI 17 (level, low) -> IRQ 18 kernel: PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:02:00.0 to 64 kernel: ahci 0000:02:00.0: AHCI 0001.0000 32 slots 2 ports 3 Gbps 0x3 impl SATA mode kernel: ahci 0000:02:00.0: flags: 64bit ncq pm led clo pmp pio slum part kernel: ata1: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xF8824100 ctl 0x0 bmdma 0x0 irq 18 kernel: ata2: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xF8824180 ctl 0x0 bmdma 0x0 irq 18 kernel: scsi2 : ahci kernel: ata1: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300) kernel: scsi3 : ahci kernel: ata2: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300) kernel: ata_piix 0000:00:1f.1: version 2.00ac7 kernel: ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:1f.1[A] -> GSI 22 (level, low) -> IRQ 19 kernel: ata: 0x1F0 IDE port busy kernel: ata: conflict with ide0 kernel: PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:1f.1 to 64 kernel: ata3: DUMMY kernel: ata4: PATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0x170 ctl 0x376 bmdma 0xFFA8 irq 15 kernel: scsi4 : ata_piix kernel: scsi5 : ata_piix kernel: ATA: abnormal status 0x7F on port 0x177 kernel: ata_piix 0000:00:1f.2: MAP [ P0 P2 P1 P3 ] kernel: ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:1f.2[B] -> GSI 23 (level, low) -> IRQ 20 kernel: PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:1f.2 to 64 kernel: ata5: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xE400 ctl 0xE082 bmdma 0xD880 irq 20 kernel: ata6: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xE000 ctl 0xDC02 bmdma 0xD888 irq 20 kernel: scsi6 : ata_piix kernel: ATA: abnormal status 0x7F on port 0xE407 kernel: scsi7 : ata_piix kernel: ata6.00: ATA-6, max UDMA/133, 640 sectors: LBA kernel: ata6.00: ata6: dev 0 multi count 1 kernel: ata6.00: Drive reports diagnostics failure. This may indicate a drive kernel: ata6.00: fault or invalid emulation. Contact drive vendor for information. kernel: ata6.00: configured for UDMA/133 kernel: scsi 7:0:0:0: Direct-Access ATA Config Disk RGL1 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5 kernel: ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:02:00.1[B] -> GSI 16 (level, low) -> IRQ 16 kernel: PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:02:00.1 to 64 kernel: ata7: PATA max UDMA/100 cmd 0xAC00 ctl 0xA882 bmdma 0xA400 irq 16 kernel: ata8: PATA max UDMA/100 cmd 0xA800 ctl 0xA482 bmdma 0xA408 irq 16 kernel: scsi8 : pata_jmicron kernel: ata7.00: ATAPI, max UDMA/33 kernel: ata7.00: qc timeout (cmd 0xef) kernel: ata7.00: failed to set xfermode (err_mask=0x4) kernel: ata7.00: limiting speed to UDMA/25 kernel: ata7: failed to recover some devices, retrying in 5 secs kernel: ata7.00: qc timeout (cmd 0xef) kernel: ata7.00: failed to set xfermode (err_mask=0x4) kernel: ata7.00: limiting speed to PIO0 kernel: ata7: failed to recover some devices, retrying in 5 secs kernel: ata7.00: qc timeout (cmd 0xef) kernel: ata7.00: failed to set xfermode (err_mask=0x4) kernel: ata7.00: disabled kernel: scsi9 : pata_jmicron kernel: ATA: abnormal status 0x7F on port 0xA807 kernel: serio: i8042 KBD port at 0x60,0x64 irq 1 kernel: serio: i8042 AUX port at 0x60,0x64 irq 12 kernel: mice: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice kernel: input: AT Translated Set 2 keyboard as /class/input/input0 kernel: TCP cubic registered kernel: Starting balanced_irq kernel: Using IPI Shortcut mode kernel: Time: tsc clocksource has been installed. kernel: kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds kernel: EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode. kernel: VFS: Mounted root (ext3 filesystem) readonly. kernel: Freeing unused kernel memory: 188k freed kernel: NET: Registered protocol family 1 kernel: SCSI device sda: 640 512-byte hdwr sectors (0 MB) kernel: sda: Write Protect is off kernel: sda: Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00 kernel: SCSI device sda: write cache: disabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA kernel: SCSI device sda: 640 512-byte hdwr sectors (0 MB) kernel: sda: Write Protect is off kernel: sda: Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00 kernel: SCSI device sda: write cache: disabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA kernel: sda: unknown partition table kernel: sd 7:0:0:0: Attached scsi disk sda kernel: st: Version 20061107, fixed bufsize 32768, s/g segs 256 kernel: st 1:0:6:0: Attached scsi tape st0 kernel: st 1:0:6:0: st0: try direct i/o: yes (alignment 512 B) After reading a lot on the Internet and seeing other people with similar problems with JMicron and no solutions I'm not expecting much but there's no harm in asking. Suggestions will be very much appreciated. -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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Re: [ALUG] Asus P5W DH Deluxe mainboard and IDE interfaces
by Barry Samuels 13 Feb '07

13 Feb '07

Thanks for your reply Richard. On 13/02/07 14:10:53, Richard wrote: > Hey Barry, I am in the same boat, with a P5B at work, and a P5B > deluxe at home. A few people have already stupidly admitted to > "skipping" proper JMICRON support in the 2.6 kernel. I wonder if that means that things will eventually improve? > Apparently Fedora Core 6 works but I don't know if that is with the > following command: > > linux all-generic-ide irqpoll I've tried that and it does work BUT (there had to be a but didn't there?) I get these messages in the logs: kernel: hdi: status error: status=0x58 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest } kernel: ide: failed opcode was: unknown kernel: hdi: drive not ready for command kernel: hdi: status error: status=0x58 { Dri veReady SeekComplete DataRequest } kernel: ide: failed opcode was: unknown kernel: hdi: drive not ready for command kernel: hdi: status error: status=0x58 { Dri veReady SeekComplete DataRequest } kernel: ide: failed opcode was: unknown kernel: hdi: drive not ready for command kernel: hdi: cdrom_pc_intr: The drive appear s confused (ireason = 0x01). Trying to recover by ending request. kernel: cdrom: hdi: mrw address space DMA se lected kernel: ISO 9660 Extensions: Microsoft Jolie t Level 3 kernel: ISO 9660 Extensions: RRIP_1991A kernel: hdi: cdrom_pc_intr: The drive appears confused (ireason = 0x01). Trying to recover by ending request. The 'drive appears confused' keeps repeating at intervals which I find a little worrying especially when it comes to writing a DVD. I imagine that this stems from the 'irqpoll' and the drive doesn't know what to do about interrupts not meant for it. > Most people suggest messing around with the AHCI settings, I have > tried every possible combination and I can't get ubuntu 6.06, 6.10, > or 7.04 (herd 3) to boot and install. > > I am pondering replacing the board for an Nvidia chipset or using a > separate SATA controller, as ALL my drives are sata! But with you > (all IDE drives) you should get somewhere by messing around with the > AHCI settings in the BIOS. As this problem is related to the JMicron controller I have changed the settings for that i.e Basic or AHCI and it has no effect. -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain > Richard/Teatime > > > On Tue, 2007-02-13 at 13:53 +0000, Barry Samuels wrote: > > I have recently changed my mainboard to an Asus P5W DH Deluxe which > > includes both SATA and IDE interfaces. There are 2 IDE connectors > of > > > which one is controlled by an Intel chip and the other by a JMicron > > chip. > > > > I have two IDE hard drives (hda and hdb) both on the same cable and > > connected to the Intel interface. I also have an IDE DVD Writer > > connected to the JMicron interface. > > > > When Linux (kernel 2.6.20) boots it does not recognise the DVD > Writer although I can get Knoppix 5.1 to boot from the DVD drive if I > append irqpoll at the boot prompt after which everything seems to > work. If I append irqpoll at the normal Linux boot prompt I get 'lost > interrupt' messages when the system is starting and it seems to hang. > > > > It also lists, in the logs, a device sda which does not exist. > There is a SCSI card installed which drives a DAT tape drive but > nothing else. > > > > There are no SATA devices connected. > > > > Is there a way around this JMicron problem (DVD not recognised) or > do I have to wait for the JMicron drivers in the kernel to be > improved? > > > > What is this spurious sda device? > > > > Kernel settings: > > > > # > > # ATA/ATAPI/MFM/RLL support > > # > > CONFIG_IDE=y > > CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDE=y > > > > # > > # Serial ATA (prod) and Parallel ATA (experimental) drivers > > # > > CONFIG_ATA=y > > CONFIG_SATA_AHCI=y > > CONFIG_ATA_PIIX=y > > CONFIG_SATA_INTEL_COMBINED=y > > CONFIG_ATA_GENERIC=y > > CONFIG_PATA_JMICRON=y > > CONFIG_PATA_MPIIX=y > > > > > > Log extract: > > > > kernel: ahci 0000:02:00.0: version 2.0 > > kernel: ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:02:00.0[A] -> GSI 17 (level, low) > -> > > IRQ 18 > > kernel: PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:02:00.0 to 64 > > kernel: ahci 0000:02:00.0: AHCI 0001.0000 32 slots 2 ports 3 Gbps > 0x3 > > impl SATA mode > > kernel: ahci 0000:02:00.0: flags: 64bit ncq pm led clo pmp pio slum > > part > > kernel: ata1: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xF8824100 ctl 0x0 bmdma 0x0 > irq > 18 > > kernel: ata2: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xF8824180 ctl 0x0 bmdma 0x0 > irq > 18 > > kernel: scsi2 : ahci > > kernel: ata1: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300) > > kernel: scsi3 : ahci > > kernel: ata2: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300) > > kernel: ata_piix 0000:00:1f.1: version 2.00ac7 > > kernel: ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:1f.1[A] -> GSI 22 (level, low) > -> > > IRQ 19 > > kernel: ata: 0x1F0 IDE port busy > > kernel: ata: conflict with ide0 > > kernel: PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:1f.1 to 64 > > kernel: ata3: DUMMY > > kernel: ata4: PATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0x170 ctl 0x376 bmdma 0xFFA8 > irq > 15 > > kernel: scsi4 : ata_piix > > kernel: scsi5 : ata_piix > > kernel: ATA: abnormal status 0x7F on port 0x177 > > kernel: ata_piix 0000:00:1f.2: MAP [ P0 P2 P1 P3 ] > > kernel: ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:1f.2[B] -> GSI 23 (level, low) > -> > > IRQ 20 > > kernel: PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:1f.2 to 64 > > kernel: ata5: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xE400 ctl 0xE082 bmdma 0xD880 > irq > > 20 > > kernel: ata6: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xE000 ctl 0xDC02 bmdma 0xD888 > irq > > 20 > > kernel: scsi6 : ata_piix > > kernel: ATA: abnormal status 0x7F on port 0xE407 > > kernel: scsi7 : ata_piix > > kernel: ata6.00: ATA-6, max UDMA/133, 640 sectors: LBA > > kernel: ata6.00: ata6: dev 0 multi count 1 > > kernel: ata6.00: Drive reports diagnostics failure. This may > indicate a > > drive > > kernel: ata6.00: fault or invalid emulation. Contact drive vendor > for > > information. > > kernel: ata6.00: configured for UDMA/133 > > kernel: scsi 7:0:0:0: Direct-Access ATA Config Disk > RGL1 > > PQ: 0 ANSI: 5 > > kernel: ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:02:00.1[B] -> GSI 16 (level, low) > -> > > IRQ 16 > > kernel: PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:02:00.1 to 64 > > kernel: ata7: PATA max UDMA/100 cmd 0xAC00 ctl 0xA882 bmdma 0xA400 > irq > > 16 > > kernel: ata8: PATA max UDMA/100 cmd 0xA800 ctl 0xA482 bmdma 0xA408 > irq > > 16 > > kernel: scsi8 : pata_jmicron > > kernel: ata7.00: ATAPI, max UDMA/33 > > kernel: ata7.00: qc timeout (cmd 0xef) > > kernel: ata7.00: failed to set xfermode (err_mask=0x4) > > kernel: ata7.00: limiting speed to UDMA/25 > > kernel: ata7: failed to recover some devices, retrying in 5 secs > > kernel: ata7.00: qc timeout (cmd 0xef) > > kernel: ata7.00: failed to set xfermode (err_mask=0x4) > > kernel: ata7.00: limiting speed to PIO0 > > kernel: ata7: failed to recover some devices, retrying in 5 secs > > kernel: ata7.00: qc timeout (cmd 0xef) > > kernel: ata7.00: failed to set xfermode (err_mask=0x4) > > kernel: ata7.00: disabled > > kernel: scsi9 : pata_jmicron > > kernel: ATA: abnormal status 0x7F on port 0xA807 > > kernel: serio: i8042 KBD port at 0x60,0x64 irq 1 > > kernel: serio: i8042 AUX port at 0x60,0x64 irq 12 > > kernel: mice: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice > > kernel: input: AT Translated Set 2 keyboard as /class/input/input0 > > kernel: TCP cubic registered > > kernel: Starting balanced_irq > > kernel: Using IPI Shortcut mode > > kernel: Time: tsc clocksource has been installed. > > kernel: kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds > > kernel: EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode. > > kernel: VFS: Mounted root (ext3 filesystem) readonly. > > kernel: Freeing unused kernel memory: 188k freed > > kernel: NET: Registered protocol family 1 > > kernel: SCSI device sda: 640 512-byte hdwr sectors (0 MB) > > kernel: sda: Write Protect is off > > kernel: sda: Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00 > > kernel: SCSI device sda: write cache: disabled, read cache: > enabled, > > > doesn't support DPO or FUA > > kernel: SCSI device sda: 640 512-byte hdwr sectors (0 MB) > > kernel: sda: Write Protect is off > > kernel: sda: Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00 > > kernel: SCSI device sda: write cache: disabled, read cache: > enabled, > > > doesn't support DPO or FUA > > kernel: sda: unknown partition table > > kernel: sd 7:0:0:0: Attached scsi disk sda > > kernel: st: Version 20061107, fixed bufsize 32768, s/g segs 256 > > kernel: st 1:0:6:0: Attached scsi tape st0 > > kernel: st 1:0:6:0: st0: try direct i/o: yes (alignment 512 B) > > > > After reading a lot on the Internet and seeing other people with > > similar problems with JMicron and no solutions I'm not expecting > much > > but > > there's no harm in asking. > > > > Suggestions will be very much appreciated.

1 0

Resonance with Norfolk wavelength
by ted.harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 13 Feb '07

13 Feb '07

Hi Folks, An interesting out-of-region experience for you ... On Sunday I was driving down to London along the A10. As I got further South, the pre-set stations on my car radio (Radio4/Norwich, Radio4/Peterborough, Classic FM, Radio3, even Radio Cambridgeshire, and Radio Norfolk) all got worse and worse. South of the Stevenage-Stansted line they were useless, and I had switched off. Then, stuck in traffic around Wood Green, I thought I'd switch it on again and see if those frequencies would pick up anything in the London area. All failed -- with the exception of the Radio Norfolk frequency (104.4 FM). I picked up, loud and clear, "Resonance104.4FM": http://www.resonancefm.com/index1.htm "Resonance 104.4fm is London's first radio art station, brought to you by London Musicians' Collective." It was intriguing listening, so I switched it on again on the way back, and even sat through an hour of music mixed with talk in a language I didn't recognise, which turned out to be "Rasaa: Iranian program with music, discussion and chat" devised by the "Iranian Community Group". So I tracked the station down when I got home (google on "104.4 FM"). The listings (accessible from the above web site) show the variety of the transmissions. Pity I can't listen on the radio from here -- Radio Norfolk wins, of course -- but I'll be trying their "listen live" resources (Ogg/Real/MP3) when they start transmitting later today. 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: 13-Feb-07 Time: 09:58:01 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

2 1

A question about encryption/security
by Eur Ing Chris Green 12 Feb '07

12 Feb '07

If I use the encrypt/decrypt functions in vi (or a vi clone) how secure is the resulting encrypted data likely to be? I know that this encryption is not inherently very secure as it's just a "one-rotor machine designed along the lines of the German Enigma, but with a 256-element rotor". However given that the encrypted file has no clue to indicate that it's encrypted or the algorithm used to encrypt it I think it would actually be rather difficult to decrypt. The potential code breaker has to:- Identify the file as being the one with the required data. Guess the algorithm used to encrypt it. Know the contents (or part of the contents). Am I right in my thinking or does a file encrypted in this way show any clues to how it was created? -- Chris Green

1 0

Re: Ipswich LUG
by John Seago 11 Feb '07

11 Feb '07

To reiterate my point on message traffic on this mailing list. On Monday I received ONE message from SLUG, this follows the SINGLE message I received on Friday. Although there are other LUG's in SLUG, nominally, covers the whole country, over 5 million potential members, two messages in four days. -- John Seago GNU/Linux Registered User No. #219566 http://counter.li.org/ () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments

2 2

easyubuntu / totem movie player
by Barry Chater 10 Feb '07

10 Feb '07

Hi Installed Easyubuntu it downloaded lots of stuff did not fix it, still says plug ins missing. gzine engine fails to start. do you think worth removing movie player and starting again. also did not add medibuntu GPG key as instructed as did not want to interfere with package software programs and repositories. have not tried the MP3 converter in sound juicer yet Barry

1 0

your help on antivirus software and file removal
by Barry Chater 08 Feb '07

08 Feb '07

Hi Just a quick thank you to all that helped me with my problems with removing files and installing Avast antivirus software. Thanks Richard for your detailed help on directories this helped me install avast antivirus and get it running.Not bad for a newbie. A big thank you to all of you even if i have not mentioned your names i am truly grateful. my next things to sort out are to get movie player to play DVDs, downloaded several plug ins but up till now no success. still plenty of time to play with it though. also can get sound juicer to convert to MP3 but it will not play back, must be wrong plug in,rhythm box plays other Mp3 file OK Barry

6 5

Keypad codes and xev
by Peter Alcibiades 07 Feb '07

07 Feb '07

Can anyone explain the following puzzling behaviour? I bought a USB keypad for some computer phobic people to use. Its a wonderful little thing, but it has one potentially confusing thing: a 000 key, right in the middle at the bottom. This records 000 in either a terminal or in an application. They have no use for 000. OK, lets just disable it. First thing was to run xev and find out what the keycode is. It is 90. Great, now lets find out what 0 is, and remap. Guess what, 0 is 90 as well! So, how on earth, if they are sending the same keycode, does one send 000 and the other just 0? And how do I map it so that they both send the same thing? The results from xev, both depression and release, seem to be absolutely identical for both keys, to the letter. Sure someone will understand what is happening, but it baffles me. Peter

2 1

Minority Interests
by Ian bell 06 Feb '07

06 Feb '07

While we are on the subject of minority interests (Ipswich LUG et al) are there any fellow Tcl/Tk coders out there? Ian

4 3

ALUG Yulemas dinner 2005^W2006^Wlate
by sfr 06 Feb '07

06 Feb '07

And finally, two years after the last (late) dinner, we have a table for 18 at the Reindeer. And a menu... Homemade Chicken Liver and Brandy Pate served with toast and Cranberry and Red Onion Chutney £3.95 Creamy Stilton Mushrooms served with toasted Bread £3.95 Warm Goats Cheese Salad Rocket, Baby Spinach, Cherry Tomatoes and warm Goats Cheese, drizzled with a Balsamic Dressing £4.50 Homemade Cauliflower Soup served with French Bread £3.75 ******** 8oz Sirloin Steak Served with Tomatoes, Mushrooms and Chunky Chips £9.95 Wild Mushroom Risotto Topped with fresh Parmesan Shavings £7.95 Pan Fried Chicken Fillet, Stuffed with Pate and wrapped in Smoked Bacon Served with roasted New Potatoes and a selection of Vegetables £7.50 Cod and Prawn Mornay Presented with Roasted New Potatoes and a selection of Vegetables £7.50 Homemade Venison Pie Topped with a Puff Pastry Lid and served with creamy Mash and a selection of Vegetables £7.95 A Rack of Baby Back Ribs coated in a Smoky Barbecue Sauce Served with Coleslaw, Chunky Chips and Onion Rings £9.95 Venison Liver and Bacon With a rich Red Wine Gravy, Mash and a selection of Vegetables £7.95 ******** Toffee and Pecan Cheesecake, served with a Fruit Coulis and fresh Cream £3.95 Vanilla Crème Brule, served with Amaretto Biscuits £3.95 Homemade Strawberry Trifles, finished with fresh Cream £4.25 Continental Cheese Platter, served with Biscuits and Grapes £4.25 -- sfr

1 0

Ipswich LUG
by samwise 05 Feb '07

05 Feb '07

Hi, With 2007 now upon us - a new year, new start etc., I've been thinking about starting up an Ipswich Linux User Group. I found ALUG in my web research, and attempted to email Tony Dietrich who is listed as a contact for Ipswich, but the email bounced. Soo ... does anyone have thoughts they'd like to share? I'm particularly interested in what the benefits are of piggy-backing on the ALUG, in terms of mailing list and website hosting are ... I've had an initial planning meet-up with some of the people I hope to get involved, and the general consensus was that we may well prefer to take advantage of our own site/mailing list, like a number of the other Anglian LUGs. Anyone I should get in contact with to chat about this? Peter.

12 19

Removing unwanted files
by Barry Chater 05 Feb '07

05 Feb '07

Hi I have got a problem that i cannot seem to solve. i copied a folder to the root directory using the terminal in gnome. I then could not get the file to extract using the gzip_d pavcl_linux.tgz command only to get the file or directory not found. so i got fed up and decided to remove the file pavcl_linux.tgz using the rm pavcl_linux.tgz command only to get the same reply.tried all these with sudo in front, no success. also typed the i command to get to root access but still no success. then i thought i would use the file browser to delete the file but it tells me that i do not have permission to move or copy the file. this is really spoilling my enjoyment with linux as i cannot seem to be able to copy or remove files with the terminal even though i copy the text exactly from the documentation, and ubuntu book. what am i doing wrong. here is some of what i am doing barry2006@barry2006-laptop:~$ sudo rm pavcl_linux.tgz Password: rm: cannot remove `pavcl_linux.tgz': No such file or directory barry2006@barry2006-laptop:~$ and this is the file i am trying to remove barry/pavcl_linux.tgz barry

4 5

[ALUG] [ALUG Announce] 2nd Thursday Norwich Meet + Meal : Reindeer, Dereham Road
by Jonathan McDowell 05 Feb '07

05 Feb '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, 8th February. In addition we will also be having a somewhat belated Christmas meal - if you want to come to this and have not registered interest please email Eli <sunflowerinrain(a)gmail.com>. It's at the Reindeer pub on the Dereham Road, just opposite the City Gate. People who are eating will be turning up from about 6:30pm, planning to eat at about 7pm. If you're not planning to eat then you can either turn up at this time and and watch the rest of us eat, or turn up later - we'll be there until closing. 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. J. -- Another bad idea: Vorpal Boomerang of Sharpness. This .sig brought to you by the letter W and the number 9 Product of the Republic of HuggieTag ----- Send discussion replies to main(a)lists.alug.org.uk (Reply-To set) Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce

1 0

Re: [ALUG] Removing unwanted files
by Barry Chater 05 Feb '07

05 Feb '07

On Mon, 2007-02-05 at 08:43 +0000, Jenny Hopkins wrote: > On 04/02/07, Barry Chater <ourpost(a)tiscali.co.uk> wrote: > > > barry2006@barry2006-laptop:~$ sudo rm pavcl_linux.tgz > > Password: > > rm: cannot remove `pavcl_linux.tgz': No such file or directory > > barry2006@barry2006-laptop:~$ > > > > sorry dropped a boo boo should have been barry2006@barry2006-laptop:~$ ls-l bash: ls-l: command not found barry2006@barry2006-laptop:~$ 'ls-l' bash: ls-l: command not found barry2006@barry2006-laptop:~$ ls -l total 64 drwxr-xr-x 2 barry2006 barry2006 4096 2007-01-28 19:11 Barry's Favourites drwxr-xr-x 2 barry2006 barry2006 4096 2007-02-04 18:17 Desktop lrwxrwxrwx 1 barry2006 barry2006 26 2006-12-13 17:05 Examples -> /usr/share/example-content drwxr-xr-x 6 barry2006 barry2006 4096 2007-01-28 19:26 mp3 -rw-r--r-- 1 barry2006 barry2006 11500 2007-02-04 16:35 PandaAntivirus drwxr-xr-x 2 barry2006 barry2006 4096 2007-02-04 16:35 PandaAntivirus_files -rw-r--r-- 1 barry2006 barry2006 14154 2007-01-28 21:01 pdf doc.odt drwxr-xr-x 3 barry2006 barry2006 4096 2006-12-18 18:05 Photos drwxr-xr-x 3 barry2006 barry2006 4096 2007-01-17 14:53 Unknown Artist drwxr-xr-x 3 barry2006 barry2006 4096 2007-01-17 18:39 various Artist drwxr-xr-x 3 barry2006 barry2006 4096 2007-01-17 19:09 Various Artist drwxr-xr-x 3 barry2006 barry2006 4096 2007-01-29 20:51 Various mp3 barry2006@barry2006-laptop:~$ Barry

1 0

Re: [ALUG] Removing unwanted files
by Barry Chater 05 Feb '07

05 Feb '07

On Mon, 2007-02-05 at 08:43 +0000, Jenny Hopkins wrote: > On 04/02/07, Barry Chater <ourpost(a)tiscali.co.uk> wrote: > > > barry2006@barry2006-laptop:~$ sudo rm pavcl_linux.tgz > > Password: > > rm: cannot remove `pavcl_linux.tgz': No such file or directory > > barry2006@barry2006-laptop:~$ > > > > and this is the file i am trying to remove > > > > barry/pavcl_linux.tgz > > > > What does it show if you do 'ls -l' from your command prompt in barry? > > Jen barry2006@barry2006-laptop:~$ ls-l bash: ls-l: command not found barry2006@barry2006-laptop:~$ 'ls-l' bash: ls-l: command not found barry2006@barry2006-laptop:~$ thats what happens been given tip to allow removal of file in nautilus gksudo nautilus this worked file deleted but cannot understand why nothing worked in terminal thanks barry

1 0

Am I wierd or are CMS systems wierd?
by cl＠isbd.net 03 Feb '07

03 Feb '07

I'm beginning to think that my mind works in a different way to everyone else's! I've been trying to find a CMS that suits me and have tried several so far including the (apparently) most popular two Drupal and Joomla. Now it would seem to me that one of the most fundamental requirements of a CMS is a way to see the structure of your web site, they are surely aimed at the situation where you have a web site comprising more than two or three pages. But, at least as far as I can see, neither Drupal nor Joomla offers any sort of attempt at showing a tree view or a map of the web site you're creating. I'm currently playing with Drupal and can't really see how to create a simple home page with some 'subsidiary' pages. OK, I have wonderful ways of adding all sorts of different content but I can't see any simple way to manage the site as a whole. Aaaarrrrgggghhhh!!!! :-) -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

1 0

Re: [ALUG] Ipswich LUG
by John Seago 03 Feb '07

03 Feb '07

On Saturday 03 February 2007 12:00, Wayne Stallwood <ALUGlist(a)digimatic.co.uk>wrote: > I feel that the main list could do with being busier, I can't see the > extra traffic from Ipswich members being anything other than a good > thing. > > I mean perhaps later if the traffic got so high that it was impossible > to follow a particular discussion thread then it could be revisited and > a split considered. As I am anticipating moving to Scotland with my family, I have taken up membership of a variety of Scottish LUG's. At first I thought I had made a cock-up of subscribing, as I didn't get any digests from three of them for January. I made enquiries, the lack of Digests was due to the lack of posts, one list having had three including my introduction since Christmas! So I'd go for the one list, if a member who may be moving has any influence! -- John Seago GNU/Linux Registered User No. #219566 http://counter.li.org/ () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments

1 0

RE: [ALUG] Avast anti virus software
by samwise 02 Feb '07

02 Feb '07

> Hi > Thanks Richard tried all of your suggestions, no success so filed in > waste bin.I assume file must be corrupt in some way. Can anybody > recommend a virus checker that works with Ubuntu, Looked at AVG but no > Ubuntu version. > Barry How fortuitous that I just joined after this question. I recently put in some effort to get the open-source KlamAV up and running from packages under Kubuntu. I detailed the procedure at the FAQ here: http://klamav.sourceforge.net/klamavwiki/index.php/FAQ#How_do_I_install_fro… Check the other FAQs for how to configure an email client for use with it. I have to say, that I have noticed some instability with it .. but, apart from the occasional crash, it generally works as expected. Hope that helps, Peter.

1 0

Avast anti virus software
by Chris & Barry Chater 02 Feb '07

02 Feb '07

Hi First of all i would like to thank all of you that helped with my previous problem of how to connect to the web on my 5 year old Packard bell laptop, Mark kindly sent me a Pcmcia, realport type ethernet card and i am now on the net and having fun with linux. I found the linux emporium very helpful if you wanted advice on wireless cards etc,and they sell them. Now here is my latest problem !!! ( trying not to be a pain) I am using ubuntu 6.10 linux and downloaded the i386. deb version of avast antivirus, double clicked file to install, the package installer ran and then stated installing package. It then told me that the package was already installed and gave me the chance to reinstall.When i checked it was not on system, even used file search so i know its not there. Have i tried to install the wrong version? It has done this before but also has successfully installed other packages with no problem. Could be a case of a newbie not doing the correct thing. I know some of you will say that there is no need for virus software on linux, but just experimenting, really need to scan emails. Thanks again Barry

2 2

Re: [ALUG] Handover requests: ICON
by MJ Ray 31 Jan '07

31 Jan '07

Just for the record: ICON contacts are now Peter Berry and Wayne Stallwood. I'll post the paperwork today. Thanks to both of them for stepping into the breach, and to Dave Noble for a third offer of help. Thanks, -- MJ Ray - see/vidu http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Somerset, England. Work/Laborejo: http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ IRC/Jabber/SIP: on request/peteble.

1 0

Apache 2.2 mod_authn_pam
by Chris Glover 30 Jan '07

30 Jan '07

Hi, After having to upgrade to Apache 2.2 to allow download of > 2GB sized files, I've found that mod_auth_pam doesn't work with this version. It's replacement mod_authn_pam is available from sourceforge cvsweb, however the cvsweb site seems to be broken at the moment. Does anybody have a copy of this that they could send or put somewhere for me? Many Thanks Chris -- Chris ---------------------------------- E Mail: chris(a)glovercc.plus.com SIP: 84411389(a)voiptalk.org IAXTEL: 17003366726

2 2

Re: [ALUG] Handover requests: announce, ICON, www
by MJ Ray 29 Jan '07

29 Jan '07

announce has been handed over to BJ and Jonathan McDowell. Thanks both! ICON - still need two people to act as ALUG contact people for listing on the Norfolk CC database. Please can some people email me? You don't need to do anything except tell people about ALUG if they call you. I can set up a redirecting telephone number if you want. www - please can a webmaster email me or make the changes to the site editor? Thanks, -- MJ Ray - see/vidu http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Somerset, England. Work/Laborejo: http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ IRC/Jabber/SIP: on request/peteble.

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Content Management Systems - or not!
by cl＠isbd.net 28 Jan '07

28 Jan '07

Well I'm still chasing round in ever decreasing circles looking for some sort of Content Management System for creating a web site for my wife's business. Thus I want a CMS (or, it seems increasingly likely, something else) with the following sorts of functions and abilities:- Easy entry of text *and* formatting such as headings, tables, lists, etc., preferably WYSIWYG or nearly so. This needs to be accessible to a non-techie but computer aware user. Consistent professional look for the whole site, it would be nice if a lot of templates/styles were available but just a few nice ready-made ones which are easy to tune (this can be a bit more 'techie') would be OK. Simple 'ready made' menu structure and navigation. What we *don't* need is the ability to have forums, news feeds, blogs and all that sort of paraphernalia, they might be nice to add on at some time but are unnecessary at the moment. Installation doesn't have to be particularly easy (I've already installed Drupal, CMSMadeSimple, Exponent and TWiki!) and I'm quite prepared to put some 'techie' input into it but the content creation *must* be straightforward and more than just text. >From what I have seen so far playing with Drupal and Exponent the current CMS systems are really of little use for what we want to do. They make it easy to add different sorts of content and also make it easy (some of them) to manage the structure of a web site but they help very little in making it easy to add the actual content. We don't even really need a web based system as there will only be two of us involved in creating the site, so although a wiki-like system might be somewhat more like what we're after the whole co-operative input thing would be lost on us. So, has anyone any comments or ideas? I suspect that I may need to look for something other than 'Content Management' but I wish I knew what it was! -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

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MX/Zone/DNS question
by cl＠isbd.net 27 Jan '07

27 Jan '07

I have a domain isbd.net which is hosted for me at BSNet where I have access to the zone file. I have added a CNAME record home[.isbd.net] which points at my home system (which has a static IP with a very long name). This works perfectly for me so far, I can access Web pages on the home machine's apache server at home.isbd.net and any port I open up is accessible as home.isbd.net. I have Postfix on my home system (for sending mail). If I want it to receive mail as well what do I need to do to the zone file[s]? At BSNet (where isbd.net has its zone file) will the CNAME entry I already have mean that mail for xxx(a)home.isbd.net will get sent on or do the MX records for isbd.net catch home.isbd.net mail as well? If home.isbd.net mail *is* sent on to my home machine do I need to do anything to the zone file there for it to accept the mail or will having Postfix listening on port 25 be all that's needed? (I suspect that *strictly* I should have a zone file with MX records on my home machine but that it may well work without) -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

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Handover requests: announce, ICON, www
by MJ Ray 26 Jan '07

26 Jan '07

As you may know, I left a while ago, but I still seem to have a few bits of ALUG in my hands. Who wants these? Email me directly, please. announce mailing list - I think someone offered to take this over a while ago, but I don't know whether that offer is still good. Workload is checking a Mailman admindb web page after 8am each day. Mostly spam. So, who wants it? ICON - ALUG's listing on the Norfolk County Council index of community groups needs two new contact people. I thought we'd added someone else in the past, but it's not listed. Workload is answering any enquiries. Please can two people email me: Name, address, telephone (day/eve/fax), email and whether to hide your details from the web. Current entry may be viewed at http://norlink.norfolk.gov.uk/cgi-bin/vps2-civ.web.sh?enqtype=SECOND&enqpar… www - I thought I handed this over to David Reynolds and Sionide (maybe I forget), but the site is still emailing me patches. Mostly spam now. Can someone please update the web site and change the editor or at least the address it sends to? If you want to keep the editor, it needs updating to discourage spamming. If you want a hand with that, let me know and I'll add it to my to-do list. If these aren't taken over, I'll ask for them to be deleted. Thanks in advance for any help for ALUG! -- MJ Ray - see/vidu http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Somerset, England. Work/Laborejo: http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ IRC/Jabber/SIP: on request/peteble.

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Re: OT: Content Management Recommendations please
by cl＠isbd.net 26 Jan '07

26 Jan '07

On Thu, Jan 25, 2007 at 02:06:38PM +0000, cl(a)isbd.net wrote: > Joomla > Drupal > MySource Classic > WebGUI > TikiWiki > > Does anyone here have any experience of any of these and/or are there any > good comparison/review sites? (I've found http://www.opensourcecms.com/ > which is useful). > Well I think I've found what I need, none of the above but:- http://www.exponentcms.org/ It's fairly new but seems to be going somewhere. It was certainly as easy as falling over to install it and I found it trivially easy to get started and actually produce some pages etc. -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

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Simple CMS and/or WYSIWYG HTML editor - any suggestions?
by cl＠isbd.net 25 Jan '07

25 Jan '07

What simple CMS and/or HTML editors would people recommend for a non-techie user (my wife)? She's most certainly not computer hostile but wants a simple way to create and maintain a small business web site. There's no requirement for selling or an associated database, it will just be a site comprising a few tens of pages outlining what she does with appropriate internal and external links. It doesn't have to have very sophisticated (or any) FTP management either as I can make the web site appear as a local file system if necessary. It would be nice if it made it easy to create sidebars, menus, etc. The ones I have looked at are things like:- nvu - OK, but seems to have gone to sleep as a project since version 1.0 bluefish - too techie seamonkey - Too simple, just edits an HTML page and that's about it. -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

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Silly Hardware Qs
by ted.harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 25 Jan '07

25 Jan '07

Hi Folks, OT Linux-wise, but a lot of you are wise, hardware-wise, as-it-were-wise ... 1. I have an old desktop, whose on/off is mechanical (mechanical link from power button to switch in PSU). This link is now dodgy, and I often have to press it on/off several times before the power finally kicks in. A possible solution, after running shutdown, is simply to switch off at the mains, leaving the power switch in the "on" state; and then, when starting up again, simply switch on at the mains. I.e. simply never switch the machine itself on or off. However, I'm a bit concerned that the surge from switching on at the mains might not be good for the machine if it goes straight through to the PSU, rather than the PSU's own switch allowing it in from an already live mains cable. Any comments? 2. If a TFT/LCD screen simply goes all white (every pixel bright white) when it's switched on, regardless of whether there's any input signel, does this indicate any particular type of internal problem which it might be worth probing for (by taking the back off and looking for, e.g., a loose chip/connection)? Best wishes to all from the Scrapyard in the Fen Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <ted.harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 24-Jan-07 Time: 11:04:06 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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ALUG Annual Nosh
by sfr 23 Jan '07

23 Jan '07

Twelve people confirmed, and three more possibly. The Reindeer has a different menu every week, so we can't get an exact one until Monday 5 February. Here's a sample menu for a rough idea. -- sfr ======================================== Reindeer Menu Homemade Cream of Vegetable Soup with Rustic Bread £3.75 Smoked Mackerel Pate with toasted Bread £3.95 Creamy Stilton Mushrooms with toasted Bread £3.95 Loaded Potato Skins filled with Cheese and Bacon, with a Sweet Chilli Sauce £3.95 ******** Venison Steak, with Tomatoes, Mushrooms and Chunky Chips £9.95 Homemade Quorn Lasagne with Garlic Bread and Salad £6.95 Pan fried Chicken Fillet, with a Smoked Cheese Sauce, Roasted New Potatoes and a selection of Vegetables £7.50 Homemade Sausage Casserole on a bed of creamy Mashed Potato £6.95 Grilled Plaice Fillets with a Dill and Butter Sauce with Roasted New Potatoes and a selection of Vegetables £7.50 A Whole Rack of Baby Back Ribs, coated in a Barbecue Sauce with spicy Potato Wedges, Coleslaw and Onion Rings £9.95 Gammon Steak with Pineapple, with Chips and Salad £7.95 ******** Desserts Banoffi Cheesecake served with fresh Cream £3.95 Vanilla Crème Brulle served with Amaretto Biscuits £3.95 Chocolate Sponge served with a warm Chocolate Sauce £3.95 Meringue Nests filled with Fresh Fruit and Chantilly Cream £4.25

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The 'nobody' user in HTML and CGI, how to best use it?
by cl＠isbd.net 19 Jan '07

19 Jan '07

I mostly understand why there is a user 'nobody' who owns all the HTML and CGI stuff in the /var/www hierarchy. However it's a bit of a pain maintaining the 'nobody' file ownership permissions there, how do other people manage this? At present I tend to do things as root and then 'chown -R nobody' which is a bit clumsy really. This is on a home system with me being the only direct user (and a few other samba file sharing users). I edit and move files around in /var/www directly as I'm really the only user most of the time and the occasional 'outside' user can just put up with anything I break for a while. The problem is that one has to be root to manipulate the files owned by nobody as one can't actually become nobody. Ooh, just tried and one *can* become nobody via root, I suppose that's one way to deal with it. So, is that what others do when doing things to files in the /var/www area, su to root and then to nobody? -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

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nspluginwrapper
by Peter Alcibiades 18 Jan '07

18 Jan '07

Has anyone successfully used this to install Flash 9 on AMD64 Debian? If so how? Wishing I had just installed 32 bit in the first place but dreading what it will take to move to it... Peter

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