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Wireless router recommendations + graphics card.
by Luke Dodd 17 Jan '07

17 Jan '07

Hi, Firstly I was wondering if anyone could recommend a good wireless ADSL router. The problem with my current router (dlink 604+) is that it cant seem to handle more than one person using a substantial amount of bandwidth constantly, even though over all there is bandwidth to spare. For example only one person in the house can listen to Internet radio or stream video at once, with a 2MBit link two Internet radios at 128k should be possible! So are there any routers that would share out the bandwidth more effectively to 2-5 computers at once (cheap ones :D)? Although I don't think there is anything that can be done I may aswell ask about an issue with my graphics card. It is a Xfx Geforce 6600GT 128MB, and the problem is whenever I open up any 3D application X will crash and restart, on windows any 3d applications will cause the screen to display some horizontal odd colored lines, then go blank, then I have to do a hard reboot. I tried taking out the card and putting it back in (PCIe), no difference. I wrote a small program just opening a blank opengl window and that was enough to cause the crash. 2D performance works fine, and the card had been working properly for around 9 months before this; the drivers I am using on Linux are a fairly recent nvidia beta (1.0-9631) - 3D was working fine some time after I last updated them. Because the problem started on both operating systems at once I think it can only be a hardware problem - but I really don't want to buy a new card so any suggestions would be good. (amd x2 3800+, 1024mb ram, asus a8n-e mobo, Xfx Geforce 6600GT 128MB video card) Thanks, Luke

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linux newbie - help requested
by elc＠freeola.net 15 Jan '07

15 Jan '07

Hi I've been dabbling in Windows for a few years now and thought I knew something about what I was doing. Being reluctant to spend my hard earned cash on upgrading from Win 98 SE to another Gates product, I thought I would try Linux. I am now dual booting Win 98 and Kubuntu and working with a dial up internet connection. Now I realise how much I don't know !!! My winmodem is an Intel (R) 536 EP V.92 and Kubuntu doesn't recognise it. Somewhere the internet informs me that of all the winmodems in use the one I have should have a linux driver. I've downloaded 'scanmodem' and run it and I get hundreds of lines of text that means nothing to me. Linux looks good to me, and I feel like sticking with it, if only I can get past first base. Can someone talk me thru in one syllable steps please to overcome this first hurdle.# Many thanks Eric

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a/v box 2
by robert 14 Jan '07

14 Jan '07

Thanks Wayne for your help so i would just like to ask this.What is the best supported a/v box,where can i get it and how can can i make it run my xbox and vcr.Thanks for your help Robert.

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a/v box
by robert johnson 14 Jan '07

14 Jan '07

Please could you tell me how to configure Linux to run my Dazzle a/v box that i got for xmas.The OS's that i'm planning to run it on is one of four:- Suse 10.2,Mandriva 06,Ubuntu 5 and Fedora 5.So if one is the easier than the rest then tell me how to configure that one as it's going to be a duel boot with Windows 98SE(hence the switch to Linux).Thanks for your help Robert ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a PS3 game guru. Get your game face on with the latest PS3 news and previews at Yahoo! Games. http://videogames.yahoo.com/platform?platform=120121

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DaDaBIK, are there no other applications like this?
by cl＠isbd.net 12 Jan '07

12 Jan '07

I'm still at my "how to create a web page for accessing a database" quest. Recently I found DaDaBIK which *seems* to be the fulfil my dreams (see http://www.dadabik.org/). Are there *really* no other applications like this around? It seems to be such an obvious thing to want but I haven't found anything else remotely like it. There are lots of database administration programs like phpmyadmin and there are quite a few database browsers but nothing quite like DaDaBIK. I'm about to install it and see if it really is as good as it seems. I'm only asking if there's anything else like it in case I'm missing something obvious that might be better. -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

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Re: ALUG Annual Nosh
by sfr 11 Jan '07

11 Jan '07

... is booked. Provisional time 7pm Thursday 8 February The Reindeer, Norwich (ie the usual pubmeet date and place, to make it easy) 9 definites, 6 maybes. Any more? I'll send out the menu in a couple of weeks. -- sfr

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[ALUG Announce] 2nd Thursday Norwich Meet : Reindeer, Dereham Road
by Jonathan McDowell 08 Jan '07

08 Jan '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, 11th January. 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. 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. -- What do you mean NO SAVING THROW? ----- 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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Crontab
by Barry Samuels 06 Jan '07

06 Jan '07

I get messages in my logs like this: Jan 4 00:00:04 localhost /usr/bin/crontab[20339]: (root) AUTH (crontab command not allowed) every day at midnight, 3:00 AM and 8:00 AM and I'm damned if I can find out what's generating them. Anyone with any bright ideas? -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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ALUG Annual Nosh - RSVP
by sfr 03 Jan '07

03 Jan '07

Votes from those who replied were for 8 February, so we shall meet for a meal before/during the February monthly pubmeet at the Reindeer, Norwich. Please reply with yes (how many) or no. You can reply just to me if you don't want to clutter the list. Please reply even if it's no, because then there will be an audit trail; some people have said yes or no in person and I'm easily confused. I'll take numbers at the January pubmeet and book the table. -- sfr

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How to manage domain names on an ADSL connection?
by cl＠isbd.net 03 Jan '07

03 Jan '07

I have my Slackware Linux box connected to the outside world via a Speedtouch router. The router firewall is set up to allow incoming ssh and http connections to the Slackware box. Currently my ADSL is UKFSN/ENTANet and I have a static IP address, the domain name is 84-45-228-40.no-dns-yet.enta.net. I have a number of more useful/memorable/long-lived domains registered, some of which are hosted and some are not. Currently I have isbd.ltd.uk registered with justthename.co.uk and HTTP requests are redirected to 84-45-228-40.no-dns-yet.enta.net. This works sort of OK in the main but it's far from perfect because my Slackware box doesn't really know whether it's 84-45-228-40.no-dns-yet.enta.net or [www].isbd.ltd.uk. What's the easiest and/or neatest way of sorting this out? Obviously my basic requirement is to make my slackware box think it's isbd.ltd.uk and to hide 84-45-228-40.no-dns-yet.enta.net completely. I currently have www.isbd.ltd.uk in the following places on my slackware system:- /etc/HOSTNAME /etc/hosts at the appropriate private IP address /etc/apache/httpd.conf as the ServerName value However this causes various minor issues and infelicities, for example TWiki complains about a mismatch in the HTTP_HOST environment variable when run locally. I'd also prefer not to have to put 84-45-228-40.no-dns-yet.enta.net anywhere in HTML etc. So, what's the proper and/or best and/or easiest way to sort this out? It's really only the HTTP issues that I want/need to resolve, can Apache virtual hosting do anything for me - I suspect not as that is only if I have multiple IP addresses *actually* resolving to my machine. I don't really want to go to the extent of making my Slackware machine host isbd.ltd.uk completely as that involves DNS, MX records and all sorts of complicated things like that. I just want 'transparent' forwarding of HTTP requests. -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

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This is the ultimate in "object oriented" programming????
by cl＠isbd.net 02 Jan '07

02 Jan '07

So I have been playing a little with Ruby on Rails. I have it up and running and it works in a way but I'm totally unconvinced that it's the answer to the ultimate question - or even the answer to writing database apps for the web. Here's one little bit of code from a *very simple* tutorial example:- <html> <head> <title>My todo list</title> </head> <body> Not done:<br /> <%= display_items(@not_done) %> <p> <hr size=3> <p> Done:<br /> <%= display_items(@done) %> <hr size=3> <form method="post" action="add_item"> New item: <%= text_field("new_item", "description") %> <input type="submit" value="Add item"> </form> </body> </html> If that's either structured or object oriented then I'm a purple hippopotamus! :-) I think the fundamental problem is that HTML is a mess, until such time as that can be hidden somehow then I think we're stuck with rubbish like the above. I was hoping that Ruby on Rails helped hide some of the above junk but apparently not. Sorry - just felt like a bit of a rant! :-) -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

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I've just realised what I really want re: database/web design
by cl＠isbd.net 02 Jan '07

02 Jan '07

Just a thought really, I don't think any such thing exists. What I'd *really* like is a Wiki (or something like it) which also has database access facilities. By that I don't mean a Wiki which stores its data in a database but a Wiki which allows me to design forms for database access as well as writing 'ordinary' web pages. -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

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weird slowdown....
by Peter Alcibiades 01 Jan '07

01 Jan '07

Have you had or heard of odd behaviour apparently, at least partly, from the combination of Firefox and Gnome? After visiting a site to find out who an apparently well known singer is, I found FF paging through previous pages of its own volition, and the system as a whole hanging and slowing down. The site (devoted to one Lily Allen if it helps) kept reappearing, but the same thing happened also with the Independent site, several pages of which suddenly reappeared in the middle of reading OSNews. I thought it must be something nefarious, but what? The Independent? It seemed to hang on OSN while waiting for bilbo.counted. System Monitor doesn't reveal anything very odd, though there are spikes on the graph of 30% cpu usage, when the process table shows nothing using more than a few percent, and that is mainly system monitor itself. Moving to Konqueror didn't help. Deleting all cookies and turning off Java and Javascript didn't help. Epiphany didn't help. It happened a bit with OO but not to anything like the same extent. I more or less fixed it finally by moving to KDE. But the runaway process indicator occasionally pops up and warns about Firefox, if the threshold is set to 20%. This is on Etch AMD64, a reasonably decent Sempron with 1G memory, which of course has FF 1.5, not 2.0. Fully up to date. This am in fact, it just updated a bunch of stuff, including CUPS. Any ideas what it could be or on what else to check? I am also getting slowdowns while typing this into Kmail, which is also generating one of those warnings.... Crazy. How can it take 20%+ of cpu just to handle a few text entries? Peter

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Re: Web/Sql development environments
by Christopher Dawkins 31 Dec '06

31 Dec '06

>> Are there any mature and easy to use software development environments >> for Web/Database programming? I reckon PHP/MySQL but that may be only because that's as far as I have gone. > If you've not touched rails, and you want something nice, I suggest > django, uses a postgres backend by default, though supports multiple > others IMHO the problem with any of these is "lock in", and when they change their system you have to change with it. All us PHP developers got a nasty shock a few years ago when the "register globals" policy was changed, and we (basically) had to declare our variables in order to keep our code running. Long-term code needs to be able to run on any server under any configuration, and while this is impossible it's a lot more likely if it uses common and basic resources. I looked into Django and Dojo, and they're just - well - "big" (and Dojo seems to need Flash on the client to preserve state, and Flash has now been de-licensed for all BSD platforms except the Mac). Most effects can be created using basic HTML/CSS/Javascript - look, for example, at AHAH instead of Ajax. Of course, for progress we need bleeding-edge programmers to try out all these new things. -- Christopher Dawkins Garnetts Corner, Braintree Road, Felsted, Dunmow, Essex CM6 3DS cchd(a)pjcd.org 07816 821659 01371 821076

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Defective By Design - Petitioning Number 10 on DRM.
by Ten 31 Dec '06

31 Dec '06

Hi all. Please consider the petition for the beloved persons in government to look at banning DRM. http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/bandrm/ I won't go on at great length about the evils of hardware, software and commercial media being "defective by design", of paying consumers being penalised (and presupposed to be dishonest) while the "pirate" suffers no ill effects, or of the threats to innovation and Free software that this technology carries along with it. This sort of nonsense is on the cusp of being an inescapable problem without much fuss, so those who have any issues with it might consider it important to make a noise at the earliest opportunity. I will leave this in the hands of the reader, although if you were apathetic or inclined to living happily with defective systems, you probably wouldn't be reading this here. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if everyone here's already signed it that wants to. Apologies for the sort of spam, but hey, it's important. Cheers. -- There are 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary, and those who don't.

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None
by None 30 Dec '06

30 Dec '06

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Web/Sql development environments
by cl＠isbd.net 30 Dec '06

30 Dec '06

Are there any mature and easy to use software development environments for Web/Database programming? I don't really mind what language mySql/PHP seems the obvious pair but it doesn't necessarily have to be those two. I'm after writing a Web enabled database application and would like to choose a good way to do it. -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

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Removing Ubuntu
by Simon Royal 29 Dec '06

29 Dec '06

Hi I have a PowerBook G3 that dual boots between Mac OSX Tiger and Ubuntu 6. I want to remove the Ubuntu and have a single installation of Mac OSX. Well actually I don't but I cannot work out how to set Mac as the default os. I know it is to do with Yaboot but I cannot fathom it. So if anyone can help me switch Mac OSX as the default OS then it would be appreciated, otherwise any help on removing Ubuntu would also be much appreciated. Regards Simon --- www.simonroyal.co.uk - The box said requires Windows 2000 or better, so I bought an Apple Mac. There are only 10 kinds of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't

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Book
by David Reynolds 29 Dec '06

29 Dec '06

Hi, We're having a bit of a post Christmas clear out and have a bunch of books to get rid of... (I know this isn't strictly on topic, but there is a linux book hiding in there!) Haynes Vauxhall Cavalier F - N * Hacking Linux Exposed - Brian Hatch, et al Five minutes in heaven - Lisa Alther Summer Sisters - Judy Blume * Love is a four letter word - Claire Calman Babyville - Jane Green * Sahara - Michael Palin The worlds greatest UFO mysteries - Roger Bore and Nigel Blundell Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Dave Morris Batman - Craig Shaw Gardner Long Division - Sarah Harvey American Pyscho - Brett Easton Ellis Cat - Freya North The Ivy Chronicles - Karen Quinn Wanderlust - Daniel Still Chloe - Freya North Rounders - Kevin Canty Come again - Josie Lloyd and Emlyn Rees Princess Daisy - Judith Krantz * We are family - Josie Lloyd and Emlyn Rees Lisa and Co - Jilly Cooper Ladies Man - John Ramster Serve Cool - Lauren McCrossen Pip - Freya North Azure like it - Wendy Holden Misbehaving - Sarah Harvey Barry Trotter and the Shameless Parody - Michael Gerber Snap Happy - Fiona Walker Diary of a Manhattan Call girl - Tracey Quan Fame Fatale - Wendy Holden My Legendary Girlfriend / Mr Commitment - Mike Gayle Deep Heat / Flatmates - Chris Manby Sex and the City - Candis Bushnell Fen - Freya North Virtual Love - Susan Oudot Lady Chatterley's Lover - DH Lawrence The Nanny - Melissa Nathan The Waitress - Melissa Nathan Insiders / Badboy - Elizabeth Goldsmith Seven Sunny days - Chris Manby Adrian Mole the cappuccino - Sue Townsend The Beach - Alex Garland The Ex Files - Jane Moore 4 Blones - Candis Bushnell The Trials of Tiffany Trott - Isabel Wolff Revenge of the middleages woman - Elizabeth Buchan His and Hers - Mike Gayle The boy next door - Josie Lloyd and Emlyn Rees * = hardback book Let me know if anyone wants any. Thanks, Dave -- David Reynolds david(a)reynoldsfamily.org.uk

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Re: main Digest, Vol 18, Issue 18
by Peter Alcibiades 24 Dec '06

24 Dec '06

> So what should I do? Slackware isn't exactly you "new to Linux" > distribution (though it's what I use). What else can I try that will > be reasonably easy for a new user? Get PCLinux. All the Mandriva gui admin tools, and synaptic for software installations, and helpful forums. Can't go wrong. Peter

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Re: [ALUG] Installation conundrum
by John Seago 24 Dec '06

24 Dec '06

On Sunday 24 December 2006 12:00, Chris Green,cl(a)isbd.net wrote: > So what should I do? Slackware isn't exactly you "new to Linux" > distribution (though it's what I use). What else can I try that will > be reasonably easy for a new user? Try replacing the ribbon cables, use new ones, that was the answer when I tried installing Mandrake years ago, either that or undo the screws to the access panel of the case. Perhaps a hardware expert can tell you why these solutions worked, but they worked for me, ( I undid the screws and found that I didn't have the right cables, that worked, I then replaced the cables and tried again , that worked too.) Or you could just stick with Slackware, IIRC that was what I did, all the others being rejected within a couple of hours of initial use, its fearsome reputation is undeserved. -- John Seago GNU/Linux Registered User No. #219566 http://counter.li.org/ () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments

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Installation conundrum
by cl＠isbd.net 24 Dec '06

24 Dec '06

I'm having trouble installing *any* Linux on a system here. Well, not quite any Linux but I want something that's "easy to use" for a non-techie user. I have lots of distributions on CD and have tried several. All the various Ubuntu 6.06 distributions simply hang during the package install part. Mandriva 2006 panics while copying packages from CD to disk. Strangely enough Mandrake 8.0 installs OK and so does Slackware 11. So what should I do? Slackware isn't exactly you "new to Linux" distribution (though it's what I use). What else can I try that will be reasonably easy for a new user? -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

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Re: [ALUG] Yaboot Ubuntu
by MJ Ray 23 Dec '06

23 Dec '06

Mark Ridley <mark(a)webb-heath.com> wrote: > Alternatively you can just sudo su - or sudo bash, to get a root > shell to work with. Or on many systems: sudo -s Hope that helps, -- 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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Yaboot Ubuntu
by Simon Royal 23 Dec '06

23 Dec '06

Hi I have a Mac which dual boots between Mac OSX and Ubuntu 6, and Ubuntu boots by default. I know I need to switch something in Yaboot but I can't seem to work it out. Also Ubuntu doesn't have root user and I can't work that out either. Sorry, I'm a bit of a Linux newbie --- www.simonroyal.co.uk - The box said requires Windows 2000 or better, so I bought an Apple Mac. There are only 10 kinds of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't

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RE: [ALUG] Yaboot Ubuntu
by Mark Ridley 23 Dec '06

23 Dec '06

Alternatively you can just sudo su - or sudo bash, to get a root shell to work with. -Mark -----Original Message----- From: "Wayne Stallwood" <ALUGlist(a)digimatic.co.uk> To: "ALUG" <main(a)lists.alug.org.uk> Sent: 23/12/06 16:33 Subject: Re: [ALUG] Yaboot Ubuntu On Sat, 2006-12-23 at 15:15 +0000, Simon Royal wrote: > Hi > > I have a Mac which dual boots between Mac OSX and Ubuntu 6, and Ubuntu > boots by default. I know I need to switch something in Yaboot but I can't > seem to work it out. Sorry never used Yaboot so not really the best person to advise on this (and guesswork on bootloaders is usually a bad thing) Ubuntu Forums will probably be a good start for some advice. > > Also Ubuntu doesn't have root user and I can't work that out either. This is an intentional thing for Ubuntu, it's to discourage using the system of Root logins. What you have instead is users (like the one you generated as you installed the system) who are listed in the /etc/sudoers. These users can execute a command as root by placing sudo in front of it and then typing their password when prompted. This is considered more secure than using the root login. sudo is quite powerful as you can restrict certain users to only being able to sudo certain commands, control whether they are prompted for their password or not, log all sudo commands etc etc. However if this is not for you then login as your regular user, and do a sudo passwd root, type your current password when prompted and then enter and confirm the root password. _______________________________________________ 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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DAT tapes going free - any use to anyone?
by cl＠isbd.net 23 Dec '06

23 Dec '06

I have twenty or more DAT tapes (proper DDS computer data ones) which I no longer have a use for, they're nearly all 90 metre ones as far as I can see. Are they of an use to anyone here? -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

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Really odd bash error - probably configuration
by cl＠isbd.net 22 Dec '06

22 Dec '06

I have a really odd bash error which I can't diagnose at all at the moment. It refuses to run any script in the current directory when running as bash. If I run sh instead it works. E.g. I have a script called 'build' in /home/chris/ikiwiki Whether or not it has #!/bin/bash at the top of it then when I enter 'build' I get the error:- bash: ./build: No such file or directory However if I put #!/bin/sh at the top of the script (or if I run sh) then it runs without problems. Ah, I have a clue, it seems as if bash doesn't want to run scripts which are in the current directory even though . is on my path. Is there some sort of clever security flag in bash that prevents this? If a script is in (for example) /home/chris/bin (which is on my path) it runs OK with a #!/bin/bash at the top, however if the script is in the current directory I get the error even though . is on my path. Wierd! Does anyone have any ideas what might be wrong? I'm sure it didn't used to be like this. -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

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MP3s to AudioCD tracks?
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 21 Dec '06

21 Dec '06

Hi Folks, I have a bunch of MP3s, and would like to convert them to AudioCD files so that I can burn them as succesive tracks on an Audio CD (i.e. in particular, you can pick a track on a CD player, or play the lot through in one go). Any suggestions? And, in case I {don't reply before Christmas | forget}, Happy Christmas and New Year to All! Cheers, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 20-Dec-06 Time: 19:59:21 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Newbie needs advice on wireless networking
by Chris & Barry Chater 20 Dec '06

20 Dec '06

Hi I have just installed ubuntu 6.10 on a 5 year old Packard Bell Laptop and would like to connect to my Netgear router via wireless or RJ45/Usb connector. Not being to technical minded i don't want to get into source codes etc at the moment.So i would like a wireless pci card that works out of the box, or a usb wireless adapter that does the same. Failing this i could plug a usb/Rj45 connector and use a long lan cable. Have trawled through through various Linux sites, only to find that the equipment that works only seems to be sold in the USA or is discontinued. I would really like some guidance of which way to go on this as i I would really like to get on the internet with Linux. Can not really see the point of praising Linux on a Windoze Machine. This is my second installation of Linux, have tried Core 6 but found Ubuntu easier for me to use, love the games. I do hope someone will help a nearly silver surfer get surfing with Linux ( hope the waves are not too high)! Thanks Barry C

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Re: [ALUG] Post-Christmas meal
by David Reynolds 20 Dec '06

20 Dec '06

On 15 Dec 2006, at 1:02 pm, sfr wrote: > Votes for 11 January or 8 February? +1 for 8 February Cheers, Dave -- David Reynolds david(a)reynoldsfamily.org.uk

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How to find what terminal fonts are available?
by cl＠isbd.net 20 Dec '06

20 Dec '06

How does one find out what terminal fonts/typefaces are available on a system? I thought that either xfontsel or xlsfonts would tell me but I can't seem to see any correlation between what they tell me and what is allowed in the "-fn <fontname>" parameter for rxvt or xterm. -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

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Subject: [ALUG] Newbie needs advice on wireless
by Chris & Barry Chater 19 Dec '06

19 Dec '06

> > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Newbie needs advice on wireless networking (Chris & Barry Chater) > 4. Re: Newbie needs advice on wireless networking (Wayne Stallwood) > 7. Re: Post-Christmas meal (Jonathan McDowell) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Sun, 17 Dec 2006 12:47:09 +0000 > From: Chris & Barry Chater <ourpost(a)tiscali.co.uk> > Subject: [ALUG] Newbie needs advice on wireless networking > To: main(a)lists.alug.org.uk > Message-ID: <45853C4D.8010504(a)tiscali.co.uk> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed > > Hi > I have just installed ubuntu 6.10 on a 5 year old Packard Bell Laptop > and would like to connect to my Netgear router via wireless or RJ45/Usb > connector. Not being to technical minded i don't want to get into source > codes etc at the moment.So i would like a wireless pci card that works > out of the box, or a usb wireless adapter that does the same. Failing > this i could plug a usb/Rj45 connector and use a long lan cable.------------------------------ > Hi again Thanks for all the replies, loads of good advice. I now think i need to clear up some of the finer points. The slot on the computer is slightly over 2" wide and when a card is pushed in, two black buttons pop out.so i would suppose this is called a PCMCIA card slot.I don't Know if the laptop supports cardbus but it was purchased in 2001 and the old OP system was Windoze millennium.Looked at the link for solwise cards, thanks for that.What i would really like to do is use an Ethernet cable, the problem is no Ethernet socket on laptop, so can anyone recommend a site for PCMCIA Ethernet cards and do they work out of the box with Ubuntu? Also has anyone used a Ethernet usb adapter as i am thinking of one of those but don't know if they work with Ubuntu and don't want to waste money on something that does not work. Also do not think laptop is wireless aware as no antenna,or switch, the processor is a pentium 3. Thanks again Barry Chater > > > > > >

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RE: Subject: [ALUG] Newbie needs advice on wireless
by Mark Ridley 18 Dec '06

18 Dec '06

Excuse the reply style, I'm mobile. I have one of these lying around at home somewhere, you're welcome to it if you want it. I think it's 56k isdn ethernet. Just drop me your address and I'll post it on. Cheers. -Mark -----Original Message----- From: "Wayne Stallwood" <ALUGlist(a)digimatic.co.uk> To: "ALUG" <main(a)lists.alug.org.uk> Sent: 18/12/06 19:47 Subject: Re: Subject: [ALUG] Newbie needs advice on wireless Xircom/intel Realports are no longer available new but work really well on Linux and have the advantage over others that there is no dongle thing hanging out the side the ethernet cable plugs straight in. They can usually be found for next to no money on ebay. However you need 2 PCMCIA sockets to accommodate the height, if you have two release buttons (one above the other) then you have a dual socket and therefore can accommodate one of these. I have had success with little or no effort with various USB ethernet thingies, but sadly cannot tell you which ones as they were unbranded el-cheapo purchased in an emergency from a local computer shop. _______________________________________________ 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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Post-Christmas meal
by sfr 17 Dec '06

17 Dec '06

At the pubmeet last night (photos at http://sfrsaluganddebianphotos.ukgeeks.co.uk/c1161003.html), it was mooted that we could have the much-delayed ALUG post-Christmas meal in the Reindeer's new restaurant, on a second Thursday. The advantage would be that the Second Thursdays get a good turn-out and all we'd have to do is to eat as well as drink and talk. Votes for 11 January or 8 February? -- Elisabeth/elspeth/sfr

3 2

Kmail Problem-cannot view messages
by Nick Daniels 17 Dec '06

17 Dec '06

Hi My Kmail has just started failing to dislay messages All I see is a "greyed out area". I can only read message by View source, or Forward Inline. I have not changed any settings since installation. System - Kubuntu Edgy Kind Regards - Nick Daniels

2 2

Recommendations for mobile internet access
by Ashley T. Howes, Ph.D. 16 Dec '06

16 Dec '06

Hi all, I'm looking for advice regarding truely mobile internet access. I'm going to be doing a lot of travelling around the UK early next year and want to get onto the internet as and when I want. I can sort out a wireless card for my laptop, so if there is an access port (at the hotel, or via BT) all is OK. My question is about access outside of this. I've had a brief look at services from Vodafone (my current mobile provider) who offer a 3G USB dongle which offers 'broadband' type speed. Not sure if this will work with Linux, but I would use Windows if needed. However, 3G coverage is still limited, and it's unclear what happens if you move out-of-range, e.g. does the dongle just stop working, or does it continue with a slower protocol? The slowest option I expect would be GSM from my phone (bluetooth between Mac and phone), but I expect this would be charged per minute and outside of my inclusive minutes if to a 0845 internet access point. Please can those who currently do this share your experiences, recommendations and strategies for doing this effectively. -- Ashley T. Howes, Ph.D. http://www.ashleyhowes.com/ "I remember the very things I do not wish to; I cannot forget the things I wish to forget." - Cicero

3 2

Kubuntu, Keyboard does not function.
by Nick Daniels 13 Dec '06

13 Dec '06

Hi I had problems installing Kubuntu Edgy with the desktop CD as the PS2 keyboard did not function i.e. no keys worked. I tried the alternate install and was this installed until rebooting, still no keyboard. I have found that if I unplug all usb devices and then reboot, keyboard functions. I also had this problem with earlier versions of Etch. Does anybody know how to cure this, can find nothing on Ubuntu Forums, all other Linux Distros I have tried function O.K. on same system. Kind Regards-Nick Daniels

2 2

Anyone use kbiff with maildir
by Barry Samuels 12 Dec '06

12 Dec '06

All of my mail boxes have been in mbox format but I thought I'd try maildir as it's safer in the event of one email being corrupted. So I set up a mailder box using Balsa and moved the contents of the mbox to it. Fine - I now had 437 emails in the new maildir mail box. I also use kbiff to alert me to new mails and it told me that I had 437 emails in total with 190 being unread which was nonsense 'cause they'd all been read. I tried marking them all unread and then all read - nope it still insisted that 190 hadn't been read. From what I understand of the maildir format the individual files were all marked read. I even, sneakily, altered the value of the unread mails in the kbiffrc file to zero but, no, it still insisted that 190 of them had not been read. In the end I changed back to mbox format and kbiff is now happy and so am I. Anyone come across anything like this before? -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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[ALUG Announce] 2nd Thursday Norwich Meet : Reindeer, Dereham Road
by Jonathan McDowell 11 Dec '06

11 Dec '06

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, 14th December. 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. I will finally be able to make it again myself. 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. 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. -- What do you mean NO SAVING THROW? ----- 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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Require something like a blog, but not on the web
by cl＠isbd.net 08 Dec '06

08 Dec '06

I'm looking for some software that might be described as a blog (or diary) but I don't really want/need it to be web visible. It's more for creating a 'timeline' of events over the years, I want to be able to cross-reference stuff and to have links to external stuff. The requirement for links and cross-references does sort of suggest HTML, that would be alright, but I want ease of creation and simple formatting rather than an elegant web presence. Ideally the format would be plain text or HTML or at least the content should be possible to export in one of these formats to enable content to be preserved when/if the software to generate it has gone. Any ideas, suggestions, places to look? -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

6 8

Blocking MSN
by Mark Rogers 08 Dec '06

08 Dec '06

Has anyone here had any success blocking MSN traffic through a Linux gateway/proxy? [Mine is running SME (www.contribs.org), derived from CentOS4] All net access is going through the box, with a transparent Squid proxy with Dansguardian. -- Mark Rogers More Solutions Ltd :: 0845 45 89 555

1 0

IBM OS/2
by Richard Bensley 04 Dec '06

04 Dec '06

Does anyone want a free original boxed copy of IBM OS/2 on floppy disk? Version 2.11. Only been installed once, and was quickly replaced with windows NT! I can bring it to the next meeting, or I can post it. Cheers Rich

1 0

udev, usb, dhcp server and 2.6.16.2_amd
by Jenny Hopkins 04 Dec '06

04 Dec '06

Hi there, Has anybody had any success with udev on a 2.6.16 kernel, debian sarge, and usb dhcp server? With a 2.6.2 kernel, i386 and hotplug I had this working fine with the addition of a few lines in /etc/network/interfaces: mapping hotplug script grep map usb0 This is no longer working. Thanks, Jenny

1 0

Microsoft Firefox
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 02 Dec '06

02 Dec '06

http://www.msfirefox.com/ -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 02-Dec-06 Time: 09:36:54 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

3 3

Laptop wifi help - need to automate dhclient
by Mark Rogers 01 Dec '06

01 Dec '06

I have a laptop running Kubuntu 6.10, which is recognising its 3Com wireless USB dongle (3CRUSB10075) using ndiswrapper. When I run "dhclient eth1" it even gets itself an IP address and seems to work fine. Where I'm stuck is getting it to run dhclient itself automatically when the WLAN dongle is connected. The laptop is for a customer who is collecting it this afternoon, so I'm hoping for some quick suggestions if anyone has any. [Apologies to any PLUG subscribers who are here also for the duplication, I'm hoping for a wider audience given the limited timescale I have to get this working.] -- Mark Rogers More Solutions Ltd :: 0845 45 89 555

4 7

USB, I'm lost
by cl＠isbd.net 29 Nov '06

29 Nov '06

I'm trying to get my Slackware 11 system to see USB devices but at the moment I'm having no success at all. Plugging either a digital camera or a memory stick into the USB sockets elicits no response at all, nothing in any of the log files, nothing that I can see in the /proc area. If I do 'lsusb' I just get:- Bus 1 Device 1: ID 0000:0000 Bus 2 Device 1: ID 0000:0000 Bus 3 Device 1: ID 0000:0000 I'm running a 2.6.18 kernel. What do I need to do to get something useful to happen?! -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

2 5

executable script gives error "file not found"
by Jenny Hopkins 28 Nov '06

28 Nov '06

Hullo there, I've been setting up a debian box to be a clone of several other like boxen. The new box has amd64 architecture and the old i386. Apart from that they are all still on debian sarge, 2.6 kernels. One thing all the boxen have in common is that they share files over an nfs mount from a server. Some of the files are binary executables. Now, on the new box, they simply won't run: I get the error balloon@capirossi:~$ /home/balloon/bin/balloon-audio-off bash: /home/balloon/bin/balloon-audio-off: No such file or directory The same error appears when running it as root. The file is executable. The selfsame file also runs no problem from the other computers using it. All I know about the file is that it invokes the bash shell and that it is sending data to the parallel port. I put together a test bash script to idiot check bash and that ran ok. I'm baffuffled. Thanks, Jenny

5 9

Network Manager and wpa_supplicant problems
by Barry Samuels 26 Nov '06

26 Nov '06

I saw reference to Network Manager on this list recently and decided to try it on my laptop but cannot get it to work. I find the documentation incomprehensible and I've tried to blunder my way through the setup without luck. My desktop also has a wireless card which can connect to the AP but it's normally connected by cable. I don't particularly want to use Network Manager on this. I can use my laptop wireless with an 'ordinary' setup i.e. no Network Manager. I'm running the latest Debian Etch/Testing. I have a wireless enabled Thinkpad that uses the ipw2200 driver. I'm running kernel 2.6.17. My wireless access point is a Netgear WG602 which is set to use WEP. Can I use Network Manager with this setup? Can anyone point me to a simple step by step guide to setting up Network Manager and wpa_supplicant. I think my stumbling block is wpa_supplicant. You know the sort of guide: 1. Do this 2. Do that 3. Then do this etc. -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

1 0

peculiarities with debian apt and amd64
by Jenny Hopkins 23 Nov '06

23 Nov '06

Hullo there, I've been trying to set up a debian box with an amd64 processor. Just a standard install: stable is fine. I've taken the amd64 iso from here: http://www.kmuto.jp/debian/d-i/ sarge-custom-0801.iso I've edited my own apt sources list by hand and added these lines: deb http://ftp.nl.debian.org/debian-amd64/debian/ stable main deb-src http://ftp.nl.debian.org/debian-amd64/debian/ stable main deb http://security.debian.org/ stable/updates main apt complains that it can't find Packages. /var/lib/apt/lists show Release and Sources but no Packages, and then it shows security i386 Packages (If I comment out the security line I get the same complaint about Packages) cat /proc/cpuinfo knows all about the amd64ness of the box. The odd thing is that this install is identical to the other amd64 box, nutmeg, I have here: same iso, same sources list, and that is happy: nutmeg:/etc/apt# ls /var/lib/apt/lists/ ftp.nl.debian.org_debian-amd64_debian_dists_stable_main_binary-amd64_Packages ftp.nl.debian.org_debian-amd64_debian_dists_stable_main_binary-amd64_Release ftp.nl.debian.org_debian-amd64_debian_dists_stable_main_source_Release ftp.nl.debian.org_debian-amd64_debian_dists_stable_main_source_Sources lock partial security.debian.org_dists_stable_updates_main_binary-amd64_Packages security.debian.org_dists_stable_updates_main_binary-amd64_Release I've been round the install twice now and each time the same thing happens. Puzzled, Jenny

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RE: [ALUG] Recommendations sort on good TFT Displays
by Keith Watson 23 Nov '06

23 Nov '06

Funnily enough a colleague mentioned this to me recently... <http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?rb=23165020402&actio n=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X3Jldmlld3M=&product_uid=117211> Given the low price it gets good reviews, although, as one cynic pointed out, who's going to buy something and then publicly admit the bought crap! :o) Regards, Keith ____________ CREDITOR, n. One of a tribe of savages dwelling beyond the Financial Straits and dreaded for their desolating incursions. - Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary > From: Tim Green Sent: 19 November 2006 16:27 > > On 11/18/06, Ashley T. Howes, Ph.D. <lists(a)ashleyhowes.com> wrote: > > Who would you recommend as good TFT suppliers these days? > > I am very happy with my Sumsung SyncMaster 204b. So happy, in > fact, it became the standard issue for engineers where I work. > > 20", 1600x1200, VGA and DVI. > > It might only be 4:3, but, compared to the extremely popular 1280x1024 > (5:4) monitors (usually 17" to 19"), it looks wide. The price > is good too. > > Hope this helps, > Tim. > _______________________________________________ > 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

Linux & openlink
by Paul 23 Nov '06

23 Nov '06

Having recently spent vast sums on a brand new WiFi card (a netgear WG511T Atheros based card), I've been trying to connect to Norfolk's Openlink network. I appear to get a reasonable signal strength from within the Forum, and can detect three or more access points... However, dhcp refuses to pick up an address, and the hell desk is of little use. Has anyone within the group been able to connect a Linux powered device to Openlink, and if so, what settings did you use ?? I've tried both madwifi and ndiswrapper drivers with a SuSE 10.0 install to no avail. Regards, Paul.

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FW: Re: [linux-users] Software in schools
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 23 Nov '06

23 Nov '06

Hi Folks, Version of the following have been kicking around on the man-lug and linux-users mailing lasts (up in Manchester) for the last day or two. The following version is clear and helpful, so I'm forwarding it to you all for your consideration! It originated from the UKUUG, I understand. Best wishes to all, Ted. -----FW: <45655993.6030904(a)cairnlin.co.uk>----- Date: Thu, 23 Nov 2006 08:19:31 +0000 Sender: linux-users-admin(a)lists.manchester.ac.uk From: Iain <iain(a)cairnlin.co.uk> Subject: Re: [linux-users] Software in schools Cc: linux-users(a)lists.man.ac.uk Dave Love wrote: > Perhaps you could get Fletcher to provide info on where to read what > this motion says -- I assume it's online somewhere. I don't see how > you can ask an MP to sign something when you don't know its contents. > Here's the rest of the email that Leslie sent out (don't know why only the first para made it onto the list). An Early Day Motion is a marker, giving MPs the opportunity to sign it. This one only appeared yesterday and most MPs won't sign unless lobbied to do so, so three sigs is good. If we can get to 30-40 sigs over the next few weeks we'll be very happy. Iain. ================================== Dear LUG member, John Pugh MP has tabled an Early Day Motion in the House of Commons entitled Software in Education, number 179. Please write to, or email, your MP within the next week with a request that (s)he add his/her name to this motion. I would be grateful if you could keep me informed about the letters you send and replies you receive. You can find more information below and at www.openschoolsalliance.org. Yours sincerely Leslie Fletcher +++++++++++++BACKGROUND INFORMATION++++++++++++++++++++ The text of the motion is : That this House congratulates the Open University and other schools, colleges and universities for utilising free and open source software to deliver cost-effective educational benefit not just for their own institutions but also the wider community; and expresses concern that Becta and the Department for Education and Skills, through the use of outdated purchasing frameworks, are effectively denying schools the option of benefiting from both free and open source and the value and experience small and medium ICT companies could bring to the schools market. http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=31752&SESSION=885 CONTACTING YOUR MP An easy way to contact your MP is by email using the step-by-step guide at: http://www.writetothem.com/ The Open Rights Group (ORG) have sensible and practical information on how to write to, or email, MPs: http://www.openrightsgroup.org/orgwiki/index.php/Letter_writing If you decide to follow up your letter with a visit to your MP's constituency surgery, please look at ORG's advice: http://www.openrightsgroup.org/orgwiki/index.php/MP%27s_surgery POINTS TO COVER IN A LETTER You may wish to cover some of the following points * Schools receive questionable advice on IT procurement from BECTA, the government agency responsible for the use of IT in education. * BECTA's framework agreements look only at the long-term financial performance of suppliers, seriously hampering the involvement of SMEs and ignoring the risk that schools could become locked into expensive and restrictive contractual arrangements. * Lists of approved suppliers are very limited both in number and variety - only only fifteen suppliers for non-curriculum software for example, none of which has any commitment to open source software. * BECTA's own case studies found considerable savings in cost for schools using open source software. * Government policy claims to promote a level playing field for open source software. This is not happening in schools because BECTA's advice is partial and inconsistent. If you have some connection with an SME (proprietor, partner, employee, ... ) please make this clear in your letter as the impact on SMEs in their constituency is something MPs can relate to. If you are involved with a school, on the staff, a governor, parent, ... , mention that also. Again the wellbeing of schools in their constituency is something MPs are keen to be seen promoting. MAKE SURE YOU FINISH OFF WITH A SENTENCE LIKE THIS BECAUSE THIS IS WHAT YOU WANT YOUR MP TO DO! : "John Pugh MP has tabled Early Day Motion number 179, entitled Software in Education expressing concern about this and I urge you to add your name to it." SOFTWARE, PARTICULARLY MOODLE, BEING USED BY THE OU AND OTHERS You can read about the OU's innovative use of FLOSS and about the lukewarm support from the DfES here: http://www.ukuug.org/mediawatch/?p=789 There is a Wikipedia entry for Moodle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moodle BECTA AND ITS FRAMEWORKS There is a Wikipedia entry on this topic; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Becta This ZDNet article, referred to in the Wikipedia entry sets out the issues for FLOSS very clearly: http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39256053,00.htm EARLY DAY MOTION An Early Day Motion is a parliamentary device to introduce an issue to MPs and to gauge support; you can find out more from the Wikipedia entry about EDMs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_day_motion HOW WE GOT HERE This EDM is the first parliamentary result of the Open Source Consortium's work to raise the political profile of free and open source software. Several other groups are involved, particularly UKUUG, SchoolForge UK and FFII-UK; you can find more information on the website of the Open Schools Alliance, a newly-formed pressure group: www.openschoolsalliance.org http://lists.manchester.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/linux-users --------------End of forwarded message------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 23-Nov-06 Time: 08:35:27 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Re: [linux-users] Software in schools
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 23 Nov '06

23 Nov '06

Hi Folks, Regarding the origins of the Early Day Motion, there are some interesting exchanges on the UKUUG "Advicacy" mail archives. See: http://lists.ukuug.org/pipermail/advocacy/2006-November/date.html 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: 23-Nov-06 Time: 08:40:29 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

1 0

Recommendations sort on good TFT Displays
by Ashley T. Howes, Ph.D. 20 Nov '06

20 Nov '06

I'm in the process of considering upgrading one or two of my 19" CRTs to flatscreen TFTs in order to get more screen space and a higher resolution. Back when I used to buy CRTs, some monitors were known to be better than others. I went for a Sony Multiscan 400PS CRT many years ago and it is still clear, accurate, has excellent colour definition and strength. Who would you recommend as good TFT suppliers these days? I did look at an Apple 23 inch display a few days ago (1900x1200 approx), having seen some of the originals about 5 years ago. To be blunt, it was crap. I don't know what they had happened to it, but the image was hazy, the text unclear, even when calibrated. I'll be using the TFT for coding, text-work and general programming stuff. Maybe a bit of graphics editing as well. It will be moved between a Mac, PC and Linux box, so multiple inputs would be cool. I look forward to your comments. -- Ashley T. Howes, Ph.D. http://www.ashleyhowes.com/ "What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

6 5

Ubuntu and Linksys
by Dave Briggs 20 Nov '06

20 Nov '06

Hi chaps Finally got round to installing the latest Ubuntu on my desktop machine. It's dual booting with Windows at the moment, but once I'm sure everything is working I'll be removing the Windows partition. All I have to connect with the internet at the moment is the cruddy Sagem modem I got with my Tiscali broadband, so I'm looking for an ethernet one to use instead. I spotted this one [ http://tinyurl.com/yyyb7j ] on ebay (I have some money on paypal to spend...) - is it a good choice? I'm not fussed about wireless at this stage, so this looks a good solution. Any views would be gladly received! -- Dave Briggs

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Re: Recommendations sort on good TFT Displays
by Peter Alcibiades 19 Nov '06

19 Nov '06

I've bought two in the last 18 months. A Xerox 19 inch glass fronted with digital input. Very nice but not super bright, and a bit reflective if there is light behind you. An Acer AL1922, which is very nice tho not glass fronted, bright and good colours. A little before that I bought an AG Neovo for a writer friend, also with digital input, also 19 inch. Very nice indeed. This was very cost effective at the time, and he's been very pleased with it to write on. Very bright indeed - we turned it down quite a bit. Don't know about current Apple models, but my neighbour has a PPC iMac and the screen on that is bigger, but certainly no better in quality than any of these. The only one to have any dead pixels was the Neovo, and its barely noticeable. The first Xerox died after a few months but was promptly replaced under warranty and the replacement is fine. Of the three I would most recommend the Acer. The Xerox looks nicest, with a sort of oval heavy metal foot. I have noticed no difference at all between digital and analogue modes. Don't know whether many people really need 23 inch screens. I usually tell friends considering larger than 19 inch screens to get two and run them side by side and put the savings into the card. Maybe two 17 inch ones would be an option also. Be interested to hear what you end up with. Peter

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RE: Recommendations sort on good TFT displays
by David Noble 19 Nov '06

19 Nov '06

Hi The Eizo FlexScan S2410 looks very nice. The one I saw in real life had impressive colour definition; good contrast, good black levels, a very sharp image and was bright. Regards Dave.

1 0

PowerBook Ubuntu
by Simon Royal 18 Nov '06

18 Nov '06

Hi I have a couple of queries with a Ubuntu 6 installation. System: Apple PowerBook G3 333Mhz (Lombard) 384MB RAM Dell TrueMobile 1300 PCMCIA wireless card. The machine dual boots Mac OSX Tiger and Ubuntu 6 and I choose the Dell TrueMobile 1300 because it works as an Airport card under Mac OSX. I didn't give my Ubuntu installation a second thought when I purchased it. I have read a few 'how-tos' and last time I attempted to remove the broadcom driver and set it up with ndiswrapper I broke my Ubuntu installation. Any ideas how I can get my Dell card to work. Second question, how do I change the boot order as Yaboot works fine, but it defaults to Linux and I would like the default OS to be Mac OSX. Any help would be greatly appreciated, I am not a newbie to Linux but not very experienced either and would like to delve further into Linux. Regards Simon --- www.simonroyal.co.uk The box said requires Windows 2000 or better, so I bought an Apple Mac There are only 10 kinds of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't

1 0

Resuming from suspend2 hibernation
by vi5u0-alug＠yahoo.co.uk 16 Nov '06

16 Nov '06

Is anyone successfully resuming from hibernation with suspend2 2.2.8 on kernel 2.6.18.2? If so, how, please? I guess the solution will have something to do with what's in the "init" file of the initrd. Mine is appended below: as you can see, it contains three attempts at resuming: by putting a file in /sys, by putting a file in /proc, and by using the (undocumented) nash command "resume." None of them work, I just get a fresh boot. The middle one works fine with suspend2 2.2.7 on kernel 2.6.17.2, but with the newer software, it produces an error message about not being able to open the file in /proc for writing, because there's no such file or directory. Thanks very much, Dan Hatton Here's that init file: #!/bin/nash mount -t proc /proc /proc setquiet echo Mounting proc filesystem echo Mounting sysfs filesystem mount -t sysfs /sys /sys echo Creating /dev mount -o mode=0755 -t tmpfs /dev /dev mkdir /dev/pts mount -t devpts -o gid=5,mode=620 /dev/pts /dev/pts mkdir /dev/shm mkdir /dev/mapper echo Creating initial device nodes mknod /dev/null c 1 3 mknod /dev/zero c 1 5 mknod /dev/systty c 4 0 mknod /dev/tty c 5 0 mknod /dev/console c 5 1 mknod /dev/ptmx c 5 2 mknod /dev/rtc c 10 135 mknod /dev/tty0 c 4 0 mknod /dev/tty1 c 4 1 mknod /dev/tty2 c 4 2 mknod /dev/tty3 c 4 3 mknod /dev/tty4 c 4 4 mknod /dev/tty5 c 4 5 mknod /dev/tty6 c 4 6 mknod /dev/tty7 c 4 7 mknod /dev/tty8 c 4 8 mknod /dev/tty9 c 4 9 mknod /dev/tty10 c 4 10 mknod /dev/tty11 c 4 11 mknod /dev/tty12 c 4 12 mknod /dev/ttyS0 c 4 64 mknod /dev/ttyS1 c 4 65 mknod /dev/ttyS2 c 4 66 mknod /dev/ttyS3 c 4 67 echo Setting up hotplug. hotplug echo Creating block device nodes. mkblkdevs echo "Loading libata.ko module" insmod /lib/libata.ko echo "Loading ata_piix.ko module" insmod /lib/ata_piix.ko echo Making device-mapper control node mkdmnod mkblkdevs echo Scanning logical volumes lvm vgscan --ignorelockingfailure echo Activating logical volumes lvm vgchange -ay --ignorelockingfailure VolGroup00 echo > /sys/power/suspend2/do_resume echo > /proc/suspend2/do_resume resume /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol01 echo Creating root device. mkrootdev -t ext3 -o defaults,ro /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 echo Mounting root filesystem. mount /sysroot echo Setting up other filesystems. setuproot echo Switching to new root and running init. switchroot

1 0

Open Standard recognised
by Ian bell 15 Nov '06

15 Nov '06

Thought you might be interested in the following: ==================================================================== [5] Audio cores add Ogg Vorbis support Tensilica has added an Ogg Vorbis decoder for its popular Xtensa HiFi 2 audio engine and Diamond 330HiFi processor core. The Xtensa HiFi 2 audio engine is the most popular audio processor core on the market, designed into devices ranging from cellular phone handsets to prosumer audio. This year, Tensilica's customers will ship tens of millions of products using the Xtensa HiFi audio engine. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ >> Click here to be sent free information on this: http://www.electronicstalk.com/rdx/da/tey/144/5 Ian

3 2

Ubuntu Boot Splash
by Wayne Stallwood 15 Nov '06

15 Nov '06

A quick question to those who have upgraded to Edgy. Should I still be seing the Testcard during boot, it's not clear from the forums if this was replaced as promised before release and I wonder if the disputes/arguments regarding the edgy artwork have delayed this. I only ask because it is blooming ugly and I am hoping that I have just missed an update that replaces it.

1 0

Olympus c-460 with Linux
by cl＠isbd.net 11 Nov '06

11 Nov '06

I have an Olympus C-460 digital camera and, at the moment, I can't get Linux to see it at all. If I run xcam it simply hangs. The camera doesn't appear at all as a USB device when I plug it in. It works fine in Win2k. -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

2 1

How to print one image on multiple pages?
by cl＠isbd.net 10 Nov '06

10 Nov '06

I used to be able to do this by mistake! Now I can't work out how to do it on purpose. I want to print a .PDF diagram on two sheets of A3 rather than a single sheet, it's too small on a single sheet. How can I do this? I can't see any options in gv or, more to the point, in the CUPS printer set up, that allow me to tell the printer interface to do this. -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

2 1

Using Lightscribe with Linux
by Keith Watson 10 Nov '06

10 Nov '06

If there's anyone on the list who, like me, has a lightscribe capable drive and has just accepted that they can't use this feature under GNU/Linux then take a look at this post on the Ubuntu forums; <http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=282313> I hope to give it a try over the w/e. I'll let you know how I get on Regards, Keith ____________ It's easier to go down the mountain than up, but the view is best from the top.

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[ALUG Announce] 2nd Thursday Norwich Meet : Reindeer, Dereham Road
by Jonathan McDowell 05 Nov '06

05 Nov '06

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, 9th November. 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. I will finally be able to make it again myself. 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. 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 can see an opening for the four lusers of the Apocalypse... 'I didn't change anything', 'My e-mail doesn't work', 'I can't print' and 'Is the network broken?'." -- Paul Mc Auley, asr ----- Send discussion replies to main(a)lists.alug.org.uk (Reply-To set) Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce

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RE: [ALUG] Audio problems
by Keith Watson 03 Nov '06

03 Nov '06

> From: Martin Collins Sent: 24 October 2006 20:19 > > I'm using Ubuntu Dapper on my laptop with kernel > 2.6.15-27-k7. There's a problem when playing DVD's or video > files with the lip-sync. The audio is 200-400 ms ahead of the > video. I've googled for answers but just can't seem to find > any. This wasn't a problem before I installed Dapper, but I > don't want to uninstall it because of one annoying little problem. > > I know it's the computer and not the files because I've seem > them played on Windows machines with full lip-sync. Has > anyone experienced any problem like this, or should it be > reported to Ubuntu as a bug? > > Its an nforce3 audio chip (0000:00:06.0 Multimedia audio controller: > nVidia Corporation nForce3 Audio (rev a2)) > > Thanks all, > > Martin Have you tried installing the EasyUbuntu upgrades? (http://easyubuntu.freecontrib.org/) Fixed a similar problem on my desktop system. Regards, Keith ____________ FUNDAMENTALIST, n. One who believes that their cult's scriptures are divinely inspired works admirably suited to the spiritual needs of their neighbours. - after Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

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Re: Any Sane experts out there? (cl@isbd.net)
by Peter Alcibiades 03 Nov '06

03 Nov '06

No kind of expert on anything, but I fixed a similar problem by installing Epson's own package. iscan. Just went in and then sane worked fine. This was Mandriva and also Suse, for a 1640. And another epson at my little charity. Without iscan Xsane wouldn't work, with it it went perfectly. Peter

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Any Sane experts out there?
by cl＠isbd.net 03 Nov '06

03 Nov '06

Sane as in scanners on Linux that is, you don't have to be actually sane! :-) I have an Epson V700 scanner which is listed as supported by the sane-epson backend. However I'm having a hard time getting the thing recognised by anything at all. It is connected and functioning because "sane-find-scanner" successfully finds it and lists the right parameters:- found USB scanner (vendor=0x04b8 [EPSON], product=0x012c [EPSON Scanner]) at libusb:7:2 So it's there and connected to the USB OK. But that's as far as I can get and the Sane documentation isn't very forthcoming on what I have to do next. Should it "just work" now or is there a configuration file that needs editing? Nothing in the Sane documentation seems to tell me what's needed. The above "sane-find-scanner" also says "Try scanimage -L and read the backend's manpage.". I've done that, "scanimage -L" doesn't detect any scanners and the sane.epson man page leaves me none the wiser really. I have tried adding the following line to /etc/sane.d/epson.conf:- usb 0x4b8 0x12c but it hasn't helped. I'm stuck, what do I need to do to actually get some sane front end to see the scanner via the back-end? -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

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digikam (and/or kde) help needed
by cl＠isbd.net 02 Nov '06

02 Nov '06

I have installed digikam on my Slackware system and it appears to have installed OK (now that I've added the required libraries). However there are a couple of issues:- When I run it I get a whole load of warning messages from kbuildsycoca, mostly about undefined mimetypes, should I just ignore these? It seems to run artsd (/opt/kde/bin/artsd) when I start digikam, since that's a sound application it seems a bit unnecessary, can I prevent it from starting? ... and don't tell me to go to the KDE Control Panel to sort things, I'm not running KDE even though I have all the KDE libraries installed. -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

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FW: FSF announces release of gNewSense 1.0
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 02 Nov '06

02 Nov '06

Hi Folks, I've just received the following from gnu.org. It looks interesting and worthy! (The only things is, I find the Logo, wel, not restful ... Hopefully the Freedom etends to allowing one to change that!) Best wishes to all, Ted. -----FW: <200611021900.kA2J0Bm19695(a)f7.net>----- Date: Thu, 02 Nov 2006 12:07:01 -0500 Sender: gnu-prog-bounces+ted.harding=nessie.mcc.ac.uk(a)gnu.org From: John Sullivan <johns(a)fsf.org> To: gnu-prog(a)gnu.org Subject: FSF announces release of gNewSense 1.0 BOSTON, November 2, 2006 - Free Software Foundation announces release of gNewSense version 1.0. (Screenshots available at http://www.fsf.org/news/gnewsense) gNewSense (http://www.gnewsense.org) is a free software GNU/Linux distribution created by two Irish free software advocates, Brian Brazil and Paul O'Malley, and is based on the Ubuntu and Debian distributions. The goal of gNewSense is to provide users with a software package that offers the stability of Ubuntu with the addition of freedom. In announcing the release of version 1.0, the gNewSense developers stated, "From a philosophical perspective we wanted to create a GNU/Linux distribution where the user has access to all the sources for all software on the system. This includes everything from the heart of the kernel through to the everyday desktop applications." With the avowed goal of providing a completely free distribution - one without non-free kernel binary "blobs" or any other non-free software, the Free Software Foundation has announced sponsorship of the project. Ted Teah, FSF's free software directory maintainer explained, "With all the kernel firmware and restricted repositories removed, and the reliance on Ubuntu's proprietary distribution management tool gone, this distribution is the most advanced GNU/Linux distribution that has a commitment to be 100% free." gNewSense will provide users with full security updates and is available for immediate download in LiveCD ISO format along with a version of the Ubiquity graphical installer. Furthermore, the gNewSense team has created a set of software called Builder which allows users to create their own gNewSense-based distributions. gNewSense provides detailed instructions on how to use the software and the recipe to roll out a customized distro. The Free Software Foundation is providing the gNewSense team with a high end build machine (running with a free BIOS), with bandwidth and with assistance in developing artwork. The FSF plans to aid widespread adoption of the distribution and, with the release of gNewSense 1.0, is making a call for volunteers who have the skills to act as the following: * Developers; * Website Maintainers; * Graphic Artists; * Freedom verifiers to monitor package additions and mailing lists; * Documentation Writers. To volunteer, please, sign on at irc.freenode.net and /join #gnewsense. You can also join the mailing list via the project website http://www.gnewsense.org/ ----30---- About the Free Software Foundation The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to promoting computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and use of free (as in freedom) software - particularly the GNU operating system and its GNU/Linux variants - and free documentation for free software. The FSF also helps to spread awareness of the ethical and political issues of freedom in the use of software. Their Web site, located at www.fsf.org, is an important source of information about GNU/Linux. Donations to support their work can be made at http://fsf.org/join They are headquartered in Boston, MA, USA. Press contact: To schedule an interview with the developers of gNewSense, please contact Ted Teah at the Free Software Foundation (+1 617-542-5942) or Peter Brown (+1 617-542-5942) or email pr(a)fsf.org ---------- -- John Sullivan Program Administrator | Phone: (617)542-5942 x23 51 Franklin Street, 5th Fl. | Fax: (617)542-2652 Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA | GPG: AE8600B6 -- http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-prog --------------End of forwarded message------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 02-Nov-06 Time: 19:32:38 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Re: Odd behaviour in OO - Java??
by Peter Alcibiades 02 Nov '06

02 Nov '06

>How did you install Sun Java? If you didn't, then I'd suggest you try using >Debian's java-package tool like this: ># apt-get install java-package fakeroot >$ fakeroot make-jpkg name-of-downloaded-java-binary.bin ># dpkg -i name-of-created-package.deb >(note that the middle step has to be done as a non-root user; and that >java-package is in contrib) >This may put the JRE in a location where OOo can find it. OK, tried that - many thanks - it seemed to install sun's amd64 java ok. But still not recognised by 00, and hasn't fixed it. It declined to install the 586 version. I still cannot manage to point OO at a jre that it will acknowledge. It can't be, surely, that the Debian packagers of OO would have let it go out with something as basic as this not working? Peter

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Upgrading kernels - what do others do?
by cl＠isbd.net 01 Nov '06

01 Nov '06

I have just tried to upgrade my kernel from 2.6.18 to 2.6.18.1, this raises a number of problems/issues and I was wondering how other people deal with them. When you run the vmware upgrade to build vmware for the new kernel it complains that the running kernel (2.6.18) is not the same as one you're trying to upgrade to (2.6.18.1) - not surprising really! However it means you have to build the new kernel succesfully before you can upgrade vmware to it, which is a bit sort of messy at least. Building one of my required added modules (the drivers for the RTL8168 network on the MB) it creates the new module in /lib/modules/2.6.18/kernel/drivers/net because it uses 'uname -r' to get the kernel version. This doesn't work very well when you reboot - no network. What's the right/best way to patch the kernel to minimise these problems? I created /usr/src/linux-2.6.18.1 as a copy of /usr/src/linux-2.6.18 and applied the 2.6.18.1 patches to the new directory tree. It would seem (in view of the above problems) that this may not be the ideal way to do it. I've now changed names so that I have /usr/src/linux-2.6.18.base (as the original version) and /usr/src/linux-2.6.18 which is the patched version but then it's a bit more difficult to keep track of which version you patched to. -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

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Odd behaviour in OO - Java??
by Peter Alcibiades 01 Nov '06

01 Nov '06

Just changed to Etch AMD64, and OO behaves oddly, I suspect connected to Java in some way. The approved way of putting buttons and controls into your documents is VIEW>TOOLBARS>FORMCONTROLS. This brings up the little click and paste widget, and it does allow you to paste buttons in. Having done this, the next step would be right click on the button. You are now supposed to be able to choose CONTROL. However, nothing happens. The cross hairs stay in place, and all I can do is create a new button. In Writer, drag and drop doesn't work at all. Select some text and try to drag it, and nothing happens. Base seems to be so unstable as to be unusable. Almost anything you do crashes it. Suspecting this might be something to do with Java, I tried to install both the Sun JRE 64bit and 32 bit versions in addition to the FSF one. They appeared to go in fine, but the only one OO is aware of in the OPTONS>Java menu is the FSF one. How does OO become aware of a JRE? You're invited to supply classes and so on, but I can't figure out how to do that because of not being able to find anything it will agree is a Jre. Where would I look for such a thing? One thing that suggests it may not be Java, its very odd that if it is Java, my Mandriva installation shows no Jre at all, but all this stuff works fine. On the other hand, turning off the FSF Jre in Etch leads to a lot of stuff going missing. Its true that Mandriva 2006 being stuck in a timewarp with OO, I downloaded and installed it direct from OO. The Mandriva is 2.03 and the Debian is 2.04. But its hardly credible that going from 03 to 04 screwed up something as basic as this. Anyone have any ideas? Should I just apt-get uninstall and then download and install directly from OO? Or does anyone know some way of testing that the Sun Javas are installed and working and telling OO they are there? Cheers Peter

2 1

System shutting itself down but I can't see why
by cl＠isbd.net 01 Nov '06

01 Nov '06

My Slackware 11 keeps shutting itself down but I can't see why. In /var/log/syslog and /var/log/messages there are messages from apache and samba saying they're shutting themselves down because they've been told to but I can't see a reason anywhere. It happens fairly randomly anywhere from once every ten minutes to once every several hours. It reboots all by itself and continues running. It's not a temperature problem as the system is way below the BIOS alarm temperatures. Any ideas as to how to diagnose this or places to look? -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

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My random resets solved - I think
by cl＠isbd.net 31 Oct '06

31 Oct '06

I think I have found the cause of my random system resets, nothing at all to do with software, there was a whisker of solder or something similar adjacent to the little PCB which has the reset button on it and it occasionally reset - probably with thermal cylcing or whatever. I found it because the reset button wasn't working and, getting it to work, I found that wiggling the board caused a reset. Humph! There I was thinking it was some wierd option I'd set when building my kernel! :-) -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

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Monitoring mains via serial port
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 31 Oct '06

31 Oct '06

Hi Folks, Your expertise and wisdom may help me clarify thoughts on the following. I'm contemplating buying a couple of UPS units, at the very cheap end, so no comms to the computer which could be used to initiate a programmed shutdown if the mains goes off. So in turn I'm contemplating rigging a little circuit which would supply a signal to a serial port while the mains was on. The germ of the idea is to use one of those very cheap power converters which can deliver a DC voltage chosen from (say) 3V, 4.5V, 6V, 9V, 12V, and set it up so as to put say 12V between 2 pins on a serial port, when plugged directly into the mains. Then it would be easy to have a little script running in the background which would monitor the lines on the serial port, and initiate a shutdown if the voltage dropped to zero for (say) more than a minute. That's the bare bones of the idea, and indeed enough to define a basic soldering-iron job! But I'm not sure I'm being circumspect enough here, so would welcome comment! 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: 31-Oct-06 Time: 20:26:50 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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matrox G450 dual head and two identical monitors problem
by Jenny Hopkins 31 Oct '06

31 Oct '06

Hullo there, I've got a Matrox G450 dual head graphics card. I've then got two identical monitors: Flatron L1715S. In my xorg.conf I've put the vertical and horizontal refresh rates as the same, however the second monitor stays dark. If I tweak the horiz rate for second monitor, the screen appears, but fuzzy. (I've posted what I think ought to work but is out of range below. If I change the HorizSync for Monitor[1] to 30-63 it does the fuzzy thing.) Can anybody see any earthly reason why the same setting is not valid? Thanks, Jenny Section "Monitor" HorizSync 30-83 Identifier "Monitor[0]" ModelName "LG" Option "DPMS" VendorName "Flatron" VertRefresh 56-75 UseModes "Modes[0]" EndSection Section "Monitor" HorizSync 30-83 Identifier "Monitor[1]" ModelName "LG" Option "DPMS" VendorName "Flatron" VertRefresh 56-75 UseModes "Modes[1]" EndSection

1 1

computer fairs
by Nick Atkins 31 Oct '06

31 Oct '06

Does anybody know if there are any computer fairs in East Anglia? I have a workshop that is bulging with hardware. All pointers gratefully received, otherwise it's eBay (groan) or London :0( Thanks, -- Nick Atkins South Norfolk

3 2

Simple apache/hosting question
by cl＠isbd.net 30 Oct '06

30 Oct '06

Well I assume it's simple but I can't quite see how to sort it out. I'm running Slackware 11 on my home machine and, on the home network, its IP address is 192.168.1.1, it's running apache 1.3.37 (the Slackware 11 default). I have set up my router/firewall so that HTTP requests are sent to 192.168.1.1. At just-the-name I have the domain isbd.ltd.uk set up so that HTTP requests are routed to my static IP address at my ISP. So far, so good, if you go to http://www.isbd.ltd.uk/ up pops the default apache index.html page to indicate that it's all working. However, if I go to http://www.isbd.ltd.uk/~chris then instead of bringing up the index.html that I have in the public_html directory in my home directory on the Slackware system I get an error:- Firefox can't find the server at server.isbd.ltd.uk. ... and Firefox is looking for http://server.isbd.ltd.uk/~chris/ which of course doesn't work because server.isbd.ltd.uk doesn't exist in the outside world. How do I get my Slackware machine to look like isbd.ltd.uk when seen from the outside world but give it the name server and/or server.isbd.ltd.uk internally to my home network? -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

2 2

Overlaying things on a video window
by Dan Hatton 27 Oct '06

27 Oct '06

Dear All, Does anyone know of a way to overlay a regular grid and/or some text on a video playing in an X window, please? The players I have available are mplayer, gmplayer, and xine. -- Thanks, Dan Hatton <http://www.bib.hatton.btinternet.co.uk/dan/>

1 0

kernel build options (make menuconfig) for Core 2 Duo processor
by cl＠isbd.net 27 Oct '06

27 Oct '06

Can anyone tell me where I can find (or just tell me) the best 'make menuconfig' options for a Core 2 Duo 6600 processor. I can work out most of what I want but there are some grey areas. These are the settings I have at the moment:- [*] Symmetric multi-processing support Subarchitecture Type (PC-compatible) ---> Processor family (Pentium-4/Celeron(P4-based)/Pentium-4 M/Xeon) [*] Generic 86 support [*] HPET Timer Support (2) Maximum number of CPUs (2-255) [*] SMT (Hyperthreading) scheduler support [*] Multi-core scheduler support Preemption Model (No Forced Preemption (Server)) ---> [*] Preempt The Big Kernel Lock ... (the rest seem pretty straightforward) My main question is whether I have the processor type set correctly? Should it be Opteron/Athlon64/Hammer/K8 rather than what I have selected as the Core 2 Duo, although it's an Intel processor, has some of the AMD-64 optimisations I believe. Or maybe I should select soemthing else completely. A supplementary question is whether to set the "Maximum number of CPUs" to 4 rather than 2 since Hyperthreading is enabled. I will eventually come to the end of all these questions relating to my new system! :-) It's very nearly there now, I have Slackware 11 up and running well on it and vmware installed with a Windows XP guest. Once I get these final bits of tuning done I'll disappear back into the woodwork. -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

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Mouse help still needed - Xorg setup
by cl＠isbd.net 25 Oct '06

25 Oct '06

I can find very little help regarding the "InputDevice" section of xorg.conf. I have tried various "recommended for Logitech" setups but I can't make any sense of how the mouse works after trying them. There seems no logical connection between the options I set and the resulting way the mouse works. I have now got a rally minimal InputDevice section:- Section "InputDevice" Identifier "Mouse1" Driver "mouse" Option "Protocol" "Auto" # Auto detect Option "Device" "/dev/mouse" # Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5 6 7" # Option "Emulate3Buttons" EndSection This results with the left button being button 1, the right button being button 3 and pressing both being button 2 (so in spite of commenting out Emulate3Buttons it still does! Then I have the two mini-buttons which are button 8 and button 9, how can I use those? What I actually want is buttons 1 and 3 as above, one of the little buttons as button 2 (middle/paste) and the other little button ideally as a double click of button 1. Where can I find out what all the options like "CorePointer", "Buttons", "Protocol", "ZAxisMapping" and so on actually do? -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

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East of England FOSS in the VCS
by MJ Ray 25 Oct '06

25 Oct '06

Not sure whether this has featured here before, but a friend from ScunDOG just sent me http://foss.ciac.org.uk/en - Using free and open source software in the UK voluntary and community sector. Anyone here involved? If so, well done. Best wishes, -- 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

Where are xorg.conf devices documented?
by cl＠isbd.net 25 Oct '06

25 Oct '06

Where can I find xorg.conf documentation that tells me what device names etc. one can use? The man page tells me about the format of xorg.conf and what all the sections are etc. but doesn't help in the slightest as regards how to configure actual hardware. I'm specifically after mouse configuration information, like which Driver I should use for a Logitech Marble Mouse and what Option settings are available. I'd really like fairly general information though as I may want to set up another (Kensington) multi-button mouse as well. -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

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RE: [ALUG] Audio problems
by Keith Watson 25 Oct '06

25 Oct '06

> From: Wayne Stallwood Sent: 24 October 2006 22:24 > > Never had this problem with Totem/Xine For DVD playback, Xine has always worked best for me also. Regards, Keith ____________ CLAIRVOYANT, n. Persons who have the power of seeing that which is invisible to their patrons, namely, that they are fools. - Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

2 1

Audio problems
by Martin Collins 24 Oct '06

24 Oct '06

I'm using Ubuntu Dapper on my laptop with kernel 2.6.15-27-k7. There's a problem when playing DVD's or video files with the lip-sync. The audio is 200-400 ms ahead of the video. I've googled for answers but just can't seem to find any. This wasn't a problem before I installed Dapper, but I don't want to uninstall it because of one annoying little problem. I know it's the computer and not the files because I've seem them played on Windows machines with full lip-sync. Has anyone experienced any problem like this, or should it be reported to Ubuntu as a bug? Its an nforce3 audio chip (0000:00:06.0 Multimedia audio controller: nVidia Corporation nForce3 Audio (rev a2)) Thanks all, Martin

2 1

Re: [ALUG] Re: Old 'official' Linux distributions to give away
by Martin Collins 24 Oct '06

24 Oct '06

I live in Gorleston and ideally I could bring them to a second thursday meet, but I work away 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off and am next due to join ship on the Wed 8th November, yep the day before the meet. So I'm open to suggestions. If anyone fairly close to Gorleston will be attending the meet then I could drop them off with them maybe? Regards, Martin On Mon, 2006-10-23 at 23:13 +0100, Wayne Stallwood wrote: > Fantastic, hopefully new material may actually get people using the > library again :-) > > Where are you located > > Regards > Wayne >

1 0

OT, but maybe someone here knows
by cl＠isbd.net 24 Oct '06

24 Oct '06

Are there any OS/2 enthusiasts on this list, or does anyone know of any local (i.e. East Anglian) OS/2 user groups? I have some OS/2 bits and pieces (software and books) that I'd like to clear off my shelves. -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

5 8

Old 'official' Linux distributions to give away
by cl＠isbd.net 23 Oct '06

23 Oct '06

Before I try Freecycle or the bin is anyone here interested in the following:- Redhat 5.1 boxed set Linux Mandrake (6.0 I think, I seem to have two boxes but not sure about CDs at the moment) SuSe Professional 7.3 boxed set. (I probably have some old hardware to go with them too!) -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

4 5

Modules problem - grrrrrr!!!!!!!
by cl＠isbd.net 20 Oct '06

20 Oct '06

Well I thought I had modules sussed but apparently not. A couple of days ago I compiled the module for my RTL8168 Gigabit ethernet interfaces and it worked fine. I did what the README said and it all worked. Now it doesn't work any more and my system denies all knowledge of the r1000.ko module. Why are modules so ?^!$%^"$%&^ recalcitrant? How do I get it to work now? All the 'bits' must be there but none of the module commands give me any help to find them. Hheellpp!! -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

4 7

Re: etch and kde
by Peter Alcibiades 20 Oct '06

20 Oct '06

Well its not the end of the world, but its certainly very curious. You can't install kde because of lack of kdewebdev. You can't install this because of lack of quanta. You can't install quanta because of lack of libkde4. And you can't install this because its been replaced by another package. iwill:~# apt-get install kde Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree... Done Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable distribution that some required packages have not yet been created or been moved out of Incoming. Since you only requested a single operation it is extremely likely that the package is simply not installable and a bug report against that package should be filed. The following information may help to resolve the situation: The following packages have unmet dependencies. kde: Depends: kdewebdev (>= 4:3.4.3) but it is not going to be installed E: Broken packages iwill:~# apt-get install kdewebdev Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree... Done Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable distribution that some required packages have not yet been created or been moved out of Incoming. Since you only requested a single operation it is extremely likely that the package is simply not installable and a bug report against that package should be filed. The following information may help to resolve the situation: The following packages have unmet dependencies. kdewebdev: Depends: quanta (>= 4:3.4.3-2) but it is not installable Depends: kfilereplace (>= 4:3.4.3-2) but it is not installable Depends: kimagemapeditor (>= 4:3.4.3-2) but it is not installable Depends: klinkstatus (>= 4:3.4.3-2) but it is not installable Depends: kommander (>= 4:3.4.3-2) but it is not installable Depends: kxsldbg (>= 4:3.4.3-2) but it is not installable E: Broken packages iwill:~# apt-get install quanta Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree... Done Package quanta is not available, but is referred to by another package. This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or is only available from another source However the following packages replace it: quanta-data kdewebdev-doc-html E: Package quanta has no installation candidate iwill:~# apt-get install kdewebdev quanta-data kdewebev-doc-html Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree... Done quanta-data is already the newest version. E: Couldn't find package kdewebev-doc-html iwill:~#

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Watching Parliament with Linux
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 20 Oct '06

20 Oct '06

Hi Folks, OK, it's maybe a perverse thing to want to do, but ... Browse to http://www.parliamentlive.tv/?Where=Cttees&When=This%20Week&Day=Thursday 10:00am HoC Health Committee - Wilson Room - Meeting Information NHS Deficits I want to watch the video of this session. There is a "Watch from start" link at the right. I'm not getting any joy from this button (Firefox 1.0). It asks me to "Click here to download plugin", but if I do that then I get "No suitable plugins were found". Any suggestings for watching this using Firefox in Linux? With thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 20-Oct-06 Time: 12:10:19 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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etch and kde
by peter 20 Oct '06

20 Oct '06

After numerous disasters with Mandriva 2007 too many and too tedious to mention - just, avoid this if you have any alternative at all - I gave up and installed Etch. You will all smile quietly and ask what took him so long. Etch went in perfectly and with a minumum of fuss and started up Gnome. OK, I thought I will get kde and so on as well, for the sake of variety. So I now started up synaptic and installed fluxbox, fvwm and tried to install kde. However, the other WMs don't work as expected. fluxbox appears to start up with nothing at all. Right clicking does nothing, left clicking only brings up a fluxbox choice. There seems to be no way to start any application, including a configuration application or editor or terminal. Then with kde there is something if possible more baffling. Synaptic declines to get kde on the grounds that it is missing kwebdev. It cannot find kwebdev if you search for it using synaptic. I googled kwebdev and it seems to be part of quanta. So I tried to install quanta, and did not seem to get quanta, but got a couple of libraries, but in any case, still no luck with kde. Windowmaker works fine however. Am I doing, or failing to do, something silly or obvious? Peter

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openoffice for debian on amd
by Jenny Hopkins 20 Oct '06

20 Oct '06

Hullo there, I've been setting up a new computer with debian. I'm using the deb-src http://ftp.nl.debian.org/debian-amd64/debian/ stable main mirror. I can't install openoffice.org, as it depends on openoffice.org-bin. However, openoffice.org-bin doesn't seem to be available for amd architecture in this mirror. I had a go at downloading the openoffice.org deb file (all_arch) from debian, hoping to fool it somehow, but it still asked for the -bin deb. On looking at the info on debian.org, it doesn't seem that there is an openoffice-bin deb made for amd at all. Can anybody help? Thanks, Jenny (pie-eyed)

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vmware success
by cl＠isbd.net 18 Oct '06

18 Oct '06

Well, after all my trials and tribulations getting Slackware installed on my new whizzy box it turned out to be very easy to get vmware going. I just followed the 'how to make it work on Slackware' detailed at:- http://www.cs.ucr.edu/~jbyrne/vmware.htm and, it just worked! I'm now installing Windows XP professional in a window while I'm typing this - amazing! I've only installed Vmware Player but I think it will satisfy all my needs. I can create virtual machines for it at http://www.easyvmx.com/. ... and installation has completed, a working XP in a window on my screen - wonderful. Now to really push things by installing Microsoft Access on it - that's the one Windows application I really need. -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

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Is there a 'startx' equivalent for displaying a remote desktop?
by cl＠isbd.net 18 Oct '06

18 Oct '06

Are there any 'ready made' equivalents of startx that , instead of displaying the local X desktop, will display a remote system's desktop? I'm a little unclear here on use of 'server' and client BTW so bear with me if I sound a bit confused - I probably am! :-) I want to have a setup on a Linux box that does the same as Cygwin/X does on my Win2K machine. Cygwin/X is an X server and I use it to display the desktop from my Linux box, the Win2k machine effectively acts as an X terminal with all desktop configuration etc. being on the Linux box. This uses XDMCP, which is the XDMCP client and which the server is beyond me! How do I run X on *another* linux box so that it can display the same Linux desktop that I can already display on my Win2k system? Presumably the Linux system whose desktop is to be displayed must already be set up right (with xdm or equivalent, actually gdm in my case) so that remote servers can display its desktop. So all I need to do is get X on the 'new' Linux box to go and find the remote xdm. Is it *just* a matter of saying:- X -query sessionhost Where sessionhost is the system whose desktop I want to display or is there more to it than that? -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

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Is this a FireFox bug or a Twiki template/skin problem?
by cl＠isbd.net 18 Oct '06

18 Oct '06

I've been playing with this bug/infelicity for ages and I'm coming to the conclusion that it's maybe a Firefox bug in its handling of CSS. Could any kind souls out there with nothing better to do take a look at:- http://84-45-228-40.no-dns-yet.enta.net/twiki/bin/view/Main/WebHome and tell me if the Search box at the top right and the text underneath it is 'off window' to the right and makes a horizontal scroll bar appear? In IE it's perfect, everything in the right place and no horizontal scroll bar. In Firefox I get the horizontal scroll bar, the degree of the error varies according to the font size (and minimum font size) you set in preferences. I've discussed it with the author of the Twiki skin but he hasn't really been able to resolve the problem. If anyone can check it in browsers other than IE or Firefox that would be very useful but even other versions of Firefox would be interesting. -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

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Re : Is this a FireFox bug or a Twiki template/skin problem?
by barrie james 18 Oct '06

18 Oct '06

On Wed, 2006-10-18 at 12:33 +0100, cl at isbd.net wrote: >I've been playing with this bug/infelicity for ages and I'm coming to >the conclusion that it's maybe a Firefox bug in its handling of CSS. > >Could any kind souls out there with nothing better to do take a look >at:- > > http://84-45-228-40.no-dns-yet.enta.net/twiki/bin/view/Main/WebHome > >and tell me if the Search box at the top right and the text underneath >it is 'off window' to the right and makes a horizontal scroll bar >appear? For me it's fine - the entire text box is well inside the screen and the text extends halfway across the box - the "t" in "Print" is the midpoint of the box - so no scollbars needed. Using Firefox 1.5.0.7 on Slackware 10.2 at screen res of 1280 x 1024 Barrie _________________________________________________________________ Windows Live Messenger has arrived. Click here to download it for free! http://imagine-msn.com/messenger/launch80/?locale=en-gb

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Copying lots of hidden files and directories - how?
by cl＠isbd.net 18 Oct '06

18 Oct '06

If I want to copy a hierachy of files and directories which include a lot of hidden files (and directories) i.e. ones which start with '.' what is the easiest way to go about it? I know one approach is to use tar but it would be easier if I could simply 'cp -R x y' and copy *everything* in x to y. Is there not a simple way to do this? -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

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Modules - slightly more moderate this time
by cl＠isbd.net 18 Oct '06

18 Oct '06

Well after my rant last night I would like to actually work out how modules are supposed to work as I don't seem to understand them very well at the moment! So, to some rather basic questions:- How do modules get installed (as in attached to the kernel when the system starts up)? In my previous encounters with modules I think it was a totally manual process in that one had to add the required modprobe command to the rc files. Is this still true or is there some sort of automatic process that does this nowadays? What does setting a device to [M] in the kernel configuration actually do? It can't be necessary for a module to work as otherwise one wouldn't be able to add new modules would you? (E.g. I seem to have added my RTL8168 module by just compiling it and installing it, it doesn't appear in the kernel configuration - or does it?) By the way my problems with the RTL8168 module seem to be down to the fact that the rc.modules script was linked to a 2.4.33 version rather than the 2.6.18 version which it should have been linked to. Fixing this seems to have made things work rather better. -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

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