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IRC
by Peter Hunter 06 Jul '05

06 Jul '05

Hi, As someone who is new to Linux (even though I have been using PC's since DOS 2.1 on a 'then' modern machine) and I've been building my own machines since about MS/PC DOS 3.3. I've never worked in the IT industry. I used to write about using computers in conjunction with amateur (HAM) radio for Practical Wireless, but again, that was all DOS and Windows. A few years ago I added Apple Mac's to my hobby and all but dumped Microsoft OS. However, I have now found Linux and am loving everything about the whole concept of what it stands for. I have been reading the threads of this latest IRC meeting and feel I could benefit a grat deal from this. I don't think I could make it EVERY monday evening, or stay for the entire meeting. This is because I am the main carer for my severely disabled wife who has MS, so her needs come first. However, I would like to 'join in' even if it's only to listen and learn. So, what is it? And, how do I join? Best regards, Peter

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Re: [ALUG] Taking risks with other peoples machines
by David Reynolds 05 Jul '05

05 Jul '05

Peter, > I do hope that the wrecklessness with which people are treating other > peoples machines on the IRC channel at the moment doesn't result in the > loss of anyones important data. I think you missed the beginning of the conversation (which has been going on for a few days) where wildfire_cs explained that this was a new machine with a clean Ubuntu installation and hence no data to lose. > As far as I'm concerned getting a less than expert user to > edit /etc/fstab via instructions on IRC is asking for trouble. As far as I'm concerned, they were being very careful and telling wildfire_cs how to mount the ntfs partition read-only and hence no data would be lost from that partition only. Just my 2 cents, but people are generally not irresponsible with their advice in IRC and wouldn't tell a 'less than expert user' anything that would endanger their system Dave -- David Reynolds david(a)reynoldsfamily.org.uk

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Digi-SLRs
by Bob Dove 05 Jul '05

05 Jul '05

Hi Adam and others, Firstly, I have no experience with dye-sub other than test prints Kodak mail me from time to time. All the Kodak prints are colourful subjects but none with Caucasian skin tones which is of course for a portrait photographer the test. Canon Digi-SLR 6 mP; this should be giving results akin to a similar spec film SLR with the obvious rider than unless you are using a Canon with the full format CMOS sensor your EOS lenses are not going to give their best. Most digi-slrs are using small sensors equiv to APS film format - as are most current compact digi-cams. Your digi-slr is giving you the interchangeable lens option and of course more control as to exposure via f/stop/shutter speed/ISO value et al. Your camera is highly regarded and is used by many pro's as a back up to the big brother SLR. Zoom lenses are a big expensive compromise! They are unlikely to match the definition/resolution of a good prime lens and many of the current compacts have 'simple' lenses of the 'Cooke triplet' type that are unbeaten for quality at the average 100th sec at f/11. There is then the autofocus of a lens that has an enormous depth of field - you shouldn't be able to go wrong with a good compact! However, a big zoom lens designed for full frame despite the myth that using said lens on 'half frame' gives better results 'cos you are using only the 'sweet' centre area of the image circle will not give the quality of say a Sigma designed for the smaller sensor size. But, a factor almost never taken into consideration is that interchangeable lenses wear their mounts. A fraction of a millimeter wear on flange to flange fit is magnified at flange to film or sensor and can prevent full resolution being achieved. A 'rattling good fit' is not good enough - especially with the smaller sensor formats! There are errors possible at flange to view screen distances too. Then there is always the Friday afternoon tea break model! Take your camera and lens to a good service shop and have them collimated. A good job can make your camera/lens better than new! Just like a service and M.O.T. Cheers, BD.

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JPEGS et al
by Bob Dove 04 Jul '05

04 Jul '05

Hi Guys, I used a 'live cd' version of Suse 9.3, which loaded my Epsom R300 semi OK and printed a nice test sheet. This edition of Suse includes Open Office 2.0 (which I use in win as well) that prints as well in Linux as in win. I couldn't access images from my Windoze system however, Suse shows me the drives but I can't access them or write to them. Is this 'cos the are formatted NTFS? Do I need a Linux formatted drive to write to/load from? Mandrake Move however needed a special printer driver driver which Epson don't have yet. Re quality InkJet Vs. minilab. Minilabs largely use hybrid printers - real continuous tone photographic colour paper ('C-Type') and wet chemistry although Noritsu are now installing a minilabs with an Epson InkJet front end. The photo-colour paper is exposed to a 'virtual neg' via laser or LCD block via relay lens as most labs now dev the film and scan it to digital files which are 'flattened' tonally to an easy to print result. Most no longer print from a neg. This flattening of course removes a lot of the possible subtlety and tonal range that a neg/pos process provides. However, a digital file from your own camera - especially 'raw' or 'native' format that hasn't been JPEG'd already will produce better than InkJet from a hybrid printer. It is a sad fact however that the digital photographic market place is filled with hype rather than reality and many digital photographers just don't know what their equipment is capable of. Picture libraries are now asking for digital files ca. 40 mB in size to ensure that they have images capable of making an A4 mag cover or A3 dps. Of course, a 35mm trannie scanned to 48 bit will provide this! (Image size ca 7 x 10in @ 16 bits per channel is 40.9 mB - 2235 x 3196 pixels. The original trannie does of course contain more info than can be accessed digitally! It boils down to that if you are a pro' or keen amateur photographer you'll be taking your fully Photoshopped or Gimped files to the lab on a CD for real photos while if your 'normal' requirements are family happy snaps an Epson ('cos the clone inks are SO much cheaper) will suffice. But, even Epson and HP genuine inks fade fast (within six months for photo's on display in normal (i.e., mine) lighting whereas the photo-paper doesn't. I and photographer colleagues have been conducting longevity tests on IJ prints since whoever claimed that they were of photographic quality - they ain't! Horses for courses tho'! Cheers, BD.

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a small light at the end of the tunnel
by tom potts 04 Jul '05

04 Jul '05

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4642461.stm ___________________________________________________________ How much free photo storage do you get? Store your holiday snaps for FREE with Yahoo! Photos http://uk.photos.yahoo.com

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Weekly IRC reminder
by Brett Parker 04 Jul '05

04 Jul '05

This is the automated ALUG IRC meeting reminder sent to remind you that there is an IRC meeting tonight (Monday) at 8.00pm. The meeting takes place on the irc server irc.alug.org.uk in the #alug channel. Most IRC clients should allow you to get there with the commands "/server irc.alug.org.uk" and "/join #alug". Popular IRC clients include tkirc, bitchx, xchat and EPIC on Unix, and Mirc under windows. Here are some links to help you get started with irc. Unix http://www.xchat.org/ http://freshmeat.net/ http://www.epicsol.org/ Windows http://www.mirc.com (loads of help with irc for newbies!)

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RE: [ALUG] Re: Re: Printing JPG and GIF files - what's the simplest way?
by Keith Watson 03 Jul '05

03 Jul '05

> From: Chris Green Sent: 01 July 2005 13:33 > On Fri, Jul 01, 2005 at 01:27:44PM +0100, Adam Bower wrote: > > On Fri, Jul 01, 2005 at 01:21:16PM +0100, Chris Green wrote: > > > > > I have my printer drivers installed in CUPS and > everything else uses > > > those by selecting printer Oj for the Officejet and Lj for the > > > Laserjet. Gimp seems to send postscript to the printer > even though > > > I selected one of my CUPS printers, that's a bit brain dead. The > > > Gimp doesn't seem to have drivers for my (pretty > standard) HP printers. > > > > What printers? (model numbers please) and which distro? > Printing can > > be "fun" sometimes so there is an element of stabbing in > the dark with > > the info you gave us so far :) > > > Slackware 10.1 with CUPS. > > Printers are an HP7310 and an HP1060 (I think). I have the > HPLIP drivers installed for the printers and they work well > in general. > I can print with no problems from firefox for example, it's > just that I'm having trouble getting these .GIF and .JPG > files to print so they look sensible on an A4 sheet of paper. Have you installed GimpPrint? I have a completely non-standard (as far as Linux is concerned) Canon S400 and I use CUPS and GimpPrint and its always worked straight out of the box (bet you really wanted to know that :o) ). Do you have OpenOffice installed (or anything with a decent Word Processor)? A technique I've often used is to open a blank document and then imported an image into it, then just printed the page with the image. It's a useful technique that I've used successfully under Windows, Unix and Linux at various times (assuming that you can print ok from the WP software). Regards, Keith ____________ Even before I can say it, it is no more. - Sengai

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"Relay" of FTP?
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 03 Jul '05

03 Jul '05

Hi Folks, Here I go trying to break the rules again .. or am I? When I dial-up, my "gateway" machine gets an IP address which I can find out. So, from outside, I can telnet, ftp etc. to my gateway. If I want to telnet to one of the machines inside my LAN, I could first telnet to the gateway, and then from there to any of the others. A bit cumbersome, but not a problem. However, if I want to FTP to one of my internal machines, it's much more cumbersome: first FTP to the gateway, then telnet to the gateway and from there FTP to the desired machine. I'm wondering if there's some sort of protocol for getting directly to an "internal" machine (whose IP address is not known to the Net) by a kind of "relay" via the gateway (whose external IP address is known to the net). There's an analogy in Internet mail, whereby you can force mail to aa.bb.cc.dd to be routed via AA.BB.CC.DD, by addressing to @AA.BB.CC.DD:user@aa.bb.cc.dd (so-called "routing addresses). So can I, for instance, do something like telnet @213.130.142.61:192.168.0.7 (where 192.168.0.7 is the address of a machine on my private LAN, and 213.130.142.61 is an IP address my gateway waas recently given on dialup)? And, similarly, something like ftp @213.130.142.61:192.168.0.7 ?? Or is there a different way to do it? Or no way at all? When I try the above on my LAN, e.g. telnet @192.168.0.7:192.168.0.1 I get "Aborted", and telnet 192.168.0.7:192.168.0.1 gives me 192.168.0.7:192.168.0.1: Unknown host and similarly "Name or service not known" with FTP, so presumably I've got the details wrong above, if it's possible at all. But you get the idea ... 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: 03-Jul-05 Time: 21:34:12 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Greatings Everyone
by Peter Bassill 03 Jul '05

03 Jul '05

Hey all Just a quick hello. Ive just moved back to Norwich after a few years away and am looking to find my local lug. Hopefully I will see you all at your next meeting. See you all soon. Pete Bassill

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MS settles with IMB
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 02 Jul '05

02 Jul '05

Hi Folks, I read today: http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8209-1677235,00.html that MS have agreed to pay IBM $775 to settle claims going back to the 1990s. In particular they are related to a case against MS by the US Givet that its practices caused the demise of IBM's OS2 operating system. I recall that, in 1990-91 (i.e. before Linux came on the scene), I got seriously interested in OS2 as an OS for the IBM PC that offered functionality similar to the capabilities of Unix (which, already having experience of, I was eagerly looking for on the PC, being frustrated with the limitations of DOS and disgusted with the marshmallow experience of early Windows -- pink, sugary, squodgy, of no nutritional value, nauseating in large quantities, and liable to adhere tackily to whatever you were trying to do). Then, of course, came Linux; and, personally, I've never looked back. But I think the worlds of both serious and consumer computing were deprived, when OS2 sank, of what would probably have become a great OS. Ironically, at that same time (1991) I also learned of the existence of the MS project for Windows NT -- yes, it goes back that far! This, too, seemed as if it might offer Unix-like capabilities, and was another thing I was keeping an eye on in the hope that the PC would be enabled to yield the performance that its hardware was capable of. For some reason, however, it was many years before NT became generally used, and then mainly in "the background" in the corporate and institutional sector. It's satisfying, after all these years, to learn that IBM is (in effect) vindicated; but depressing all the same to be aware that a promising initiative had died so early on. 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: 02-Jul-05 Time: 09:19:26 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Is this for real ?
by Wayne Stallwood 01 Jul '05

01 Jul '05

http://www.merkeylaw.com/article.php?story=20050621145053855&mode=print Check out items 40 downwards for maximum amusement This one is a classic. "60. Perens posted Internet messages on LWN.net stating to Linux and OSS members that “Merkey works for SCO,” and that “Merkey should be placed in a file of people to be killed”. Merkey has not or ever worked for SCO or the Canopy Group." Is the US legal system so broken now that you have to be careful using terms such as killfile. Other classics include "46. The beheading and murder of United States Citizens in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and other countries have been videotaped, converted to MPEG and other images for viewing on the public Internet through the use of OSS and Linux software and computer technology developed and purloined by Linux and OSS members and illegally exported from the United States. 47. Companies which sponsor, endorse, and support OSS and Linux, and those acting in concert as their advocates have been unwitting participants in wholesale technology theft of United States developed technology and sponsors of domestic and international terrorism. "

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RE: [ALUG] Re: Re: Re: Printing JPG and GIF files - what's the simplest way?
by Keith Watson 01 Jul '05

01 Jul '05

> From: Chris Green Sent: 01 July 2005 15:17 > > > > Do you have OpenOffice installed (or anything with a decent Word > > Processor)? A technique I've often used is to open a blank document > > and then imported an image into it, then just printed the page with > > the image. It's a useful technique that I've used > successfully under > > Windows, Unix and Linux at various times (assuming that you > can print > > ok from the WP software). > > > Well I hate to say it but the easiest option was to load the > pictures into Visio in Windows and print from there. Simply > worked 'out of the box' with no hassle. Much in the same way > that printing from Firefox on Linux works, that seems to > manage the handling of getting things the right size by > default so why can't other applications do so well? I take it that Firefox wasn't an option for you in this case (I forget the beginning of this thread :o) )? Regards, Keith ____________ Stand still. - The trees ahead and the bush beside you are not lost. - Albert Einstein

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Printing JPG and GIF files - what's the simplest way?
by Chris Green 01 Jul '05

01 Jul '05

I have some GIF and JPG files (they're maps of wine producing areas in France) that I want to print. What's the easiest application to use to do this? All I want is for the image to be scaled to the best size to fit a sheet of A4 paper, no other manipulation is required. When I just opened the file from the xfce file manager using the default application it opened with ImageMagick, it looked perfect on screen but when I selected print the printout was displaced so that only half of it was printed. The orientation was right, it was just shifted down. I couldn't find any way to set up the printout in ImageMagick. I'm not even sure what sort of ImageMagick is being invoked - almost as bad as Windows! Then I tried opening the file with the Gimp and printing it, even more disastrous, the Gimp did its own thing and simply sent Postscript to the printer and thus produced nothing useful at all except lots of wasted paper. My printers seem to be set up right for everything else on my Linux box, why did the Gimp not get that right? I have many Gnome and KDE applications installed even though I use xfce for my desktop so I probably have most of the usual things people might suggest. -- Chris Green (chris(a)areti.co.uk) "Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."

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Desktops
by Peter Hunter 01 Jul '05

01 Jul '05

Hi everyone, Two questions that I know you can all answere for me! I have just installed Suse 9.2 pro, and for a change I decided to install and run Gnome, but I don't like it too much and want to go back to KDE. I have installed KDE from the suse DVD but how do I now change desktops? Maybe I should download the latest version of KDE first and install and run that? Anyway, that's the first question. The second is, if I download the latest Kernal, how do I install and run that? Oh, just one other, how do I re-boot the GUI without having to re-boot the computer? Many thanks. I await the flood of replies (Pleaseeeeeeee!!) Peter

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CD Audio Autoplay
by Wayne Stallwood 01 Jul '05

01 Jul '05

Not being that used to Gnome I am hoping that someone can help me with this small problem. I am currently ripping my entire CD collection to store on a little Media Server I have built myself. I am using Grip which is fine. However every time I insert an Audio CD Gnome launches a player and starts playing it. I then have to stop this before I can rip the contents. How do I disable this behaviour ?

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Ubuntu
by Andy Trevor 30 Jun '05

30 Jun '05

Guys quick question about kernels in Ubuntu. Can anyone see any major issues with running Ubuntu with a 2.4 kernel ? We are working on a solution that use Suns Sunray terminals and the Sunray server software only runs on a 2.4 kernel so we need to look at this as an option. The only other route open is to go fully Solaris 10 (which throws up a stack of other issues) Thanks in advance -- Regards Andy Trevor Technical Director Cutter Project Limited www.cutterproject.co.uk

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G5 vs X68-64 and OSX vs Linux
by Wayne Stallwood 29 Jun '05

29 Jun '05

A while ago I was complaining on list that I couldn't find a decent comparasion between Apple hardware running Linux and an x86 machine. Another thing I was interested in was the comparative performance of running services such as apache or mysql. Anybody else interested should read this http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2436 (use the "Print this article" at the bottom to get it on one long page)

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[ALUG Announce]Help! iCON - Norfolk CC club directory
by MJ Ray 29 Jun '05

29 Jun '05

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- I asked on the main list and had no reply: would someone else who lives in Norfolk please be the second listed contact for ALUG on Norfolk County Council's iCON listing? Email me or see http://lists.alug.org.uk/main/2005-June/021852.html for more details. Thanks, -- MJ Ray (slef), K. Lynn, England, email see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ ----- 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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Help! Software Freedom Day 2005
by MJ Ray 29 Jun '05

29 Jun '05

Could anyone interested in organising an event for Software Freedom Day on Saturday 10 September 2005 please email me? If >5 are interested, I'll set up a mailing list and we can start to organise things like who does what where and when. I hope that we can accommodate all participants' ambitions for it, but if we split for some reason, so be it. More info: http://softwarefreedomday.org/ -- MJ Ray (slef), K. Lynn, England, email see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/

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Hamachi (P2P VPN) OSS equivalent
by Mark Rogers 29 Jun '05

29 Jun '05

I don't know if anyone here has played with Hamchi: www.hamachi.cc Essentially its a closed source (but free as in beer) VPN system which uses a peer-to-peer infrastructure. Effectively it allows anyone to join a VPN (with the right passwords, etc) without any of the normal "fun" associated with VPN configuration. It has two major downfalls: 1. It's Windows only at present (a Linux client is coming, though) 2. As I said above, its closed source. The second point is the one that concerns me most. Security software which is not open source basically just bothers me. Of-course point 1 is also a side effect of point 2 (it's not the developer's priority, so it's not been done, where with the OSS model I'm pretty sure it would have been by now). Since I'm new to Hamachi, its quite possible that there are similar OSS projects. Does anyone here know of anything like it? [I will say that on Windows platforms Hamachi is very effective at what it does.] Mark Rogers, More Solutions Ltd

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Sharp Zaurus
by Darren 29 Jun '05

29 Jun '05

Im off to Spain in a few weeks and will be taking the laptop + Mobile to stay connected etc.. But I was looking at various Sharp Zaurus's to take and use when I don't want to have the laptop with me. Does anyone have one who can say ya or na to using one? Thanks Darren

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Apple to use Intel chips
by Martyn Drake 29 Jun '05

29 Jun '05

No doubt you've all probably read this by now: http://news.com.com/Apple+to+ditch+IBM%2C+switch+to+Intel+chips/2100-1006_3… If this is really true, it'll be interesting to see how this is going to affect existing Mac users (who will have probably invested lots of money in software already) and existing PC users assuming that Apple opens up and allows anybody to run Mac OX for x86 processors. M.

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Adventures with USB storage!
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 29 Jun '05

29 Jun '05

Greetings! Here be a tale or two. Red Hat 9, by the way, on a Compaq Armada 1750 laptop with USB port. To begin at the beginning. For some time I've had a Disgo 256MB USB memory stick. I have had no trouble using this, able to remove it and re-insert it at any time, mount it, and access the files. I set up an entry in /etc/fstab for it which says: /dev/sda1 /flash auto noauto,suid,dev,exec,user 0 0 so, once I've inserted it and something-or-other goes through a detection process, I can 'mount /flash' and all is well. Or was. Yesterday, I spotted a Fujifilm FinePix F440 digital camera on sale at a very interesting price. After checking out reviews (all pretty favourable for general usage) I went back and bought it. A bit speculatively from the Linux point of view, but I reckoned that a similar approach to the USB stick would work. Since it has been some time since the USB stick was last used, the laptop has been rebooted a time of two since then. Having taken a few test photos, I then connected the camera to the USB port, switched it on, waited for the "detect", and then as usual ran 'mount /flash'. Again, all went well, I could download the picture files (JPG) and they were good. Then ran 'umount /flash' and disconnected the camera. Then I tried its "video" function: you can take up to 60 secs of video (with sound) with this camera, which gives you a 4MB AVI file. Again, no problem re-connecting the camera and down- loading the AVI file. (And, by the way, 'xanim' plays these files well). So far so good, and I repeated the above tests a few time (again, disconnecting and reconnecting the camera to the USB port, with 'mount /flash' and 'umount /flash' each time). It looked as though this arrangement would work just the same as for the USB memory stick. But then, to try to explore the reason for something unexpected (see "FINAL INDEPENDENT QUESTION" at end), I inserted the USB memory stick. Unusual and unpromising messages on "autodetect", and 'mount /flash' gave message "mount: No medium found". FAILURE!! So I then explored with happens if I reboot. It's a long story, but this is the summary: A. Repeated connection disconnection of same device following a reboot. 1. Reboot. Insert USB memory stick. It works fine first time, as above. Remove USB stick, reinsert. FAILURE. And it fails every time I re-try unless I reboot. 2. Reboot. Connect camera. Works fine, as above. Switch off camera, disconnect. Re-connect, switch on, and it works fine. Ad infinitum without reboot. B. Alternating connection of the two devices following a reboot. 3. Reboot. Insert USB memory stick. Works fine as at (1). remove USB stick, connect camera. Camera fails (message "no medium found" on 'mount /flash'). Disconnect camera, insert USB memory stick, stick fails (message "/dev/sda1 is not a valid block device" on 'mount /flash'). Exactly the same failure for Camera as previous camera failure. Exactly the same failure for Stick as previous stick failure. Ditto ad infinitum with Camera/Stick/Camera/... 4. Reboot. Connect camera. Works fine as at (2). Disconnect camera, insert Stick. Stick fails with "no medium found". Remove stick, connect camera. Camera OK as at (2). Disconnect camera, insert stick. Stick fails again in exctaly the same way. Camera OK. Stick fails. Camera OK. And so on. SO: Whichever device is first in following a reboot works fine first time. If Stick is first in, it only works first time, and fails subsequently, and Camera always fails. If Camera is first in, it works first time and every time, whether Stick has been used or not; but Stick always fails. So that's the situation. If I only use the Camera, there would be no problem. But I would have to reboot each time I want to use the Stick, whether I have used the Camera or not! Any ideas? (I suspect I may have tickled Red Hat's "kudzu" in some way it didn't like, but I've never managed to disentangle what goes on with kudzu). FINAL INDEPENDENT QUESTION: This is what got the above saga rolling (though I'd have hit it some time anyway). I wanted to transfer the Camera files directly to a different machine networked to the laptop (since I usually keep stuff like photos on the other). Rather than download from Camera to laptop and then ftp them across, I thought I'd try downloading to Machine 2 direct from the camera via NFS. So, with the Camera connected to the laptop and mounted on /flash, from machine 2, I (as root) NFS-mounted the laptop's root directory machine 2. The directory of the Camera memory chip was visible on the laptop, type VFAT, and 'ls .flash' etc. showed all the files on the Camera. However, while the laptop's file system (including the presence of /flash, and files in other directories) was visible from Machine 2, 'ls laptop/flash' showed an empty directory on machine 2. This was unexpected, so I wondered if it had something to do with the fact that what was mounted on the laptop's /flash directory was a USN storage device, was a peculiarity of the camera, or whatever.. Hence I thought I would experiment by trying to NFS-mount the laptop with the Stick in instead. So I plugged in the stick, did 'mount /flash', and then found myself in the above Saga! Therefore, is anyone can answer this independent question as well (or instead of) the business about Stick/Camera conflict, I'd be interested! 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: 26-Jun-05 Time: 14:50:31 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Samba expert
by Andy Trevor 28 Jun '05

28 Jun '05

Guys, any Samba experts out there interested in earing a days wage ? The reason I ask is that I have been approached by someone who needs an independent report written on a Samba install he has done. The reason for the report is that the customer refuses to pay and this is going to the lawyers. We would do it but we are far to busy at the moment. If anyone is interested please contact me off list -- Regards Andy Trevor Technical Director Cutter Project Limited www.cutterproject.co.uk

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Re: [ALUG Announce]Help! iCON - Norfolk CC club directory
by John Seago 28 Jun '05

28 Jun '05

On Tuesday 28 Jun 2005 06:26, MJ Ray <mjr(a)phonecoop.coop> wrote: > I asked on the main list and had no reply: would someone else who > lives in Norfolk please be the second listed contact for ALUG on > Norfolk County Council's iCON listing? Email me or see > http://lists.alug.org.uk/main/2005-June/021852.html for more details. Can I assume from this that Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Essex have ALUG on their Club/Society/Association lists? -- John Seago GNU/Linux User #219566 http://counter.li.org AFFS http://www.affs.org.uk/

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Cool anti software patent demonstration picture thingy
by Joe Button 28 Jun '05

28 Jun '05

http://www.softwarepatentdemo.org/index.php?lang=GB

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Unixy question
by Wayne Stallwood 28 Jun '05

28 Jun '05

Not strictly a Linux question, but it could be just as relevant on a Linux system. I have a client with a SCO SYSV Unix Box running a legacy Accounting system. It is a korn shell. They have a Windows based Print Workflow system (called StreamServe I believe) that takes print jobs from a spool folder and prints or emails Credit account statements generated by the Accounting package. Unfortunately the way the queue works is that once a job has been processed by streamserve it is deleted from the queue folder on the Unix box by the streamserve application. The problem is that it is very difficult and time consuming to regenerate the reporting run if something fails upstream of the Streamserve box resulting in lost prints. (this is what happened the other day) I can't tell the streamserve application to not delete the processed jobs as it simply prints whatever is in the queue every time it polls. The Streamserve box looks for a particular file extension before processing the file. I can change the file extension that the Streamserve looks for. So my plan is to change this extension and then have a script that looks for jobs (of the original extension) in the queue and copies them to a archive area before renaming them to a pattern that the (modified) streamserve application is looking for. It is important that I don't introduce any delay of more than a minute or so into the workflow but the print files rarely exceed a couple of MB so that shouldn't be a problem. I could just knock together a script that does this from Cron but in order to not introduce too much of a delay it would have to run about once a minute. This box is quite heavily loaded sometimes and it is of limited performance anyway. So my question is- What is the most efficient way to "watch" a folder for a particular file pattern, if I have a looping "if exist" script is this likely to consume lots of resources as surely it would be continuously polling the disk to check for that file. Is it good practise to do this (perhaps with some sort of introduced delay in the loop) or is there a better/cleaner/more efficient way. Regards Wayne

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[ALUG Announce]Bolton, 14/15 July, FLOSS in Education
by MJ Ray 27 Jun '05

27 Jun '05

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- > From: Tony Whitmore <tony(a)tonywhitmore.co.uk> > > This year's FLOSS in Education (FLOSSIE) conference is being > held in Bolton on the 14th and 15th July. Tickets are just £35 > for individuals and it should be an interesting conference > judging by the speakers. Interest in FLOSS in schools has > increased since the Becta TCO report last month. For more > details, please see: > > http://www.schoolforge.org.uk/flossie/conference200507.html ----- 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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Weekly IRC reminder
by Brett Parker 27 Jun '05

27 Jun '05

This is the automated ALUG IRC meeting reminder sent to remind you that there is an IRC meeting tonight (Monday) at 8.00pm. The meeting takes place on the irc server irc.alug.org.uk in the #alug channel. Most IRC clients should allow you to get there with the commands "/server irc.alug.org.uk" and "/join #alug". Popular IRC clients include tkirc, bitchx, xchat and EPIC on Unix, and Mirc under windows. Here are some links to help you get started with irc. Unix http://www.xchat.org/ http://freshmeat.net/ http://www.epicsol.org/ Windows http://www.mirc.com (loads of help with irc for newbies!)

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Removing dev packages in Ubuntu
by beb 26 Jun '05

26 Jun '05

Evening all, Does anyone know how I find which dev packages I have installed on Ubuntu pls? My apt-cache-fu is lacking ;-) Thanks, beb

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locale question
by Chris Green 22 Jun '05

22 Jun '05

First question - why does the default profile (i.e. /etc/profile) set the LC_ALL environment variable? Surely it would be better to set the LANG variable. If you set LC_ALL it *overrides* any individual settings to other LC_ variables so you can't set LC_CTYPE (for example) while leaving others unset. Second question - is there any easy way to get a sensible (i.e. POSIX) collation sequence while at the same time getting accented characters by setting LC_CTYPE to 'en_GB'? At present I need to:- unset LC_ALL export LC_CTYPE=en_GB export LC_COLLATE=POSIX (unless of course I change /etc/profile, but then it's another system customisation that I'll lose and forget about at the next upgrade) It seems broken to me that the en_GB collate sequence mixes up all the hidden files with normal file, why does it do this? Did it always do this, it's only recently that 'ls -a' has produced what looks to me anyway like a very mixed up output. -- Chris Green (chris(a)areti.co.uk) "Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."

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Broadband in the Black Hole
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 22 Jun '05

22 Jun '05

Hi Folks, Those interested who haven't already heard may like to learn that a notorious broadband black hole in the region is planned to be filled shortly. Details of the announcement can be found at the Nordelph Web site http://www.nordelph.org/BT/ under the tab "Nordelph Future". In summary, the following exchanges areplanned to be bith ADSL and SDSL enabled by the end of October this year: Broadfield, Hertfordshire; Burnt Fen, Suffolk; Higham, Suffolk; Knarr Cross, Cambridgeshire; Brandon Creek, Norfolk; Nordelph, Norfolk; Linstead, Suffolk; and Six Mile Bottom in Cambridgeshire. The exchanges are to get ADSL, and additionally will also be enabled for SDSL thus benefiting businesses in the area. The work on the exchanges is slated to begin in the next few months and completed by the end of October 2005. (Knarr Cross exchange is by Thorney, East of Peterborough; Burnt Fen exchange is situated near Shippea Hill on the A1101 Littleport-Mildenhall road; all other names can be found on most maps). Now I'm expecting to be asking you folks for advice on setting up ADSL/SDSL on Linux! 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: 17-Jun-05 Time: 16:24:07 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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strange keyboard problem
by Wayne Stallwood 22 Jun '05

22 Jun '05

a really odd thing has just happened in that suddenly my keyboard is only partially functional. auto key repeat is broken and i am unable to use the shift key, num lock or caps lock. hence this whole message is in lower case. i am running ubuntu 5.04, my keyboard is a coolermaster aluminium one but essentially is a standard usb keyboard. need to reboot in a while to write a legible letter. i would like to test it in a console but of course i can't use crtl,alt fkey either. before i reboot can anyone think of any diagnostic steps i can take, for example is there something that will return the key presses from the keyboard. the only thing i can think may have caused it is perhaps vmware. that said i haven't run it for a day or so and the fault has only just appeared. the only reason i think it might be vmware is that it takes control of the capslock and numlock status as you mouseover the virtual machine window. any ideas....it's a bit odd to say the least wayne

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Wireless network roaming
by Barry Samuels 20 Jun '05

20 Jun '05

I have a laptop with a wireless PCMCIA card which connects to my home network. This relies on a set of fixed parameters supplied by /etc/network/interfaces. I went away recently to a hotel that provided a wireless internet facility. It was then that I realised that I couldn't use it because I didn't know how to even though they gave me an access code - a single string of numerical digits. I assume that there must be a way of setting up my laptop to scan for wireless access points and connect to any available ones. How would the access code provided by the hotel fit in? What about things like machine hostname, IP address etc? Any pointers please? Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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Weekly IRC reminder
by Brett Parker 20 Jun '05

20 Jun '05

This is the automated ALUG IRC meeting reminder sent to remind you that there is an IRC meeting tonight (Monday) at 8.00pm. The meeting takes place on the irc server irc.alug.org.uk in the #alug channel. Most IRC clients should allow you to get there with the commands "/server irc.alug.org.uk" and "/join #alug". Popular IRC clients include tkirc, bitchx, xchat and EPIC on Unix, and Mirc under windows. Here are some links to help you get started with irc. Unix http://www.xchat.org/ http://freshmeat.net/ http://www.epicsol.org/ Windows http://www.mirc.com (loads of help with irc for newbies!)

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Linux 2005 Conference & Tutorials, Swansea, 4-7 August
by Alasdair G Kergon 17 Jun '05

17 Jun '05

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Linux 2005 Conference & Tutorials, Swansea, Wales, Thur 4th - Sun 7th August ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Full details at http://www.ukuug.org/events/linux2005/ * Early-bird discount is available only until Thursday 30th June * The event begins with a choice of tutorials on Thursday. Then the 2-track 3-day conference runs from Friday to Sunday. Tutorials on Thursday 4th August -------------------------------- Full Day: Advanced Networking Configuration - Steve Whitehouse, Dave Miller, Jamal Hadi Salim and Patrick Caulfield Half-Day: Advanced Shell Skills, using Zsh - Sven Guckes and Julius Plenz Half-day: Advanced Editing, using Vim - Sven Guckes and Julius Plenz Provisional Conference Programme: Friday 5th August - Sunday 7th August ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Networking and Security * Keynote - Dave Miller - Red Hat * Network Scheduling - Jamal Hadi Salim * Exploit Mitigation Techniques - Tom Cosgrove Virtualisation * Xen 3.0 & the Art of Virtualization - Ian Pratt - XenSource / Cambridge * Xen: Experiences & performance measurements - Ruediger Berlich - Karlsruhe * openMosix - Kris Buytaert * Linux on the POWER5 processor - Nigel Griffiths - IBM Applications * Music Recording, Production and Dist'n with Free Software - Ole Aamot * Remixing the Open Source radio show with LUGRadio - Jono Bacon * Software Defined Radio and GNU Radio - Bdale Garbee - HP / Debian * Video and Linux - Torsten Spindler - ETH Zurich * The coming geodata revolution - Steve Coast - xrefer.com * A Python Framework for Rapid Application Development - Katherine Goodwin and David Chan - Clockwork Software Systems * Managing Biomedical Images and Knowledge by Flickr Web Services - Siu-wai Leung - University of Edinburgh * A New Deal in Payroll Software using GNU/Linux and Python - John Pinner - Clockwork Software Systems * Mono and ASP.NET - Gonzalo Paniagua Javier - Novell * Exchange for Unix - myth or reality? - Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton Embedded Systems * Skyguard's Skyminder - the Free Software Community's GSM / GPS phone! - Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton Desktop * FreeNX - Virtualization of the Desktop - Fabian Franz - Univ of Karlsruhe * Hacking OpenOffice.org 2.0 - Michael Meeks - Novell * Cutting-edge Desktop-related Development Projects - Michael Meeks, Novell * Introduction to the GNUstep Project - Nicolas Roard Case Studies * A large linux deployment in education - Mike Banahan - Cutter Project * e-Government Internet - Chris Smith - netFluid Technology * Bringing F/L/OSS to the UK Gov't - Mark Taylor - Open Source Consortium Kernel * Linux and ACPI - power management - Matthew Garrett - Univ of Cambridge * The Linux Development Philosophy and Corporate Contributions - Christoph Hellwig - LST e.V. * Diagnosing System Hangs with lkcd & dprobes - Richard J Moore - IBM * Adopting a driver - from fixing typos to breaking thousands of machines worldwide - Matthew Wilcox - Hewlett Packard * UnionFS: Knoppix (Re)writable - Fabian Franz - University of Karlsruhe Productivity * Vim Feature Show - Sven Guckes * Zsh rules! - Sven Guckes Systems Administration * Preseeding Debian GNU/Linux for automated installations - Philip Hands * FAI - the Fully Automatic Installation - Thomas Lange - Univ of Cologne * Jigdo - Spreading the load of CD/DVD downloads - Steve McIntyre - Debian If you book on or before Thursday 30th June you can take advantage of the Early Bird rates e.g. just 40 pounds for the 3-day conference (50% discount) or just 10 pounds for students. (If you're not already a UKUUG member, you'll need to add the membership fee to this - details on website.) There are also still opportunities for sponsors and exhibitors: contact office(a)ukuug.org for details. Web: http://www.ukuug.org/events/linux2005/ Email: office(a)ukuug.org Tel: +44 1763 273 475 Event sponsored by Red Hat, Astaro Internet Security and i.t.wales.

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Norwich Anarchist Bookfair
by MJ Ray 17 Jun '05

17 Jun '05

Norwich 2nd Anarchist Bookfair 11 June Waterloo Park. See http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/cambridge/2005/06/312709.html I'm not able to attend, but I'll send ALUG, AFFS or GNUstep leaflets and/or CDs to anyone who wants to go. Email me, please. -- MJ Ray (slef), K. Lynn, England, email see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/

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pod viewer - any suggestions?
by Chris Green 17 Jun '05

17 Jun '05

I'm after a pod (perl documention) viewer for use on my home system so I can hunt around the documentation for perl modules while I'm writing perl. I'm after something a bit better than 'man' to make it easier to hunt around in the documentation as, now I'm getting a bit more seriously into perl programming, 'man'gets a bit clumsy especially with big chunks of pod. -- Chris Green (chris(a)areti.co.uk) "Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."

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Brewing some free java code?
by MJ Ray 17 Jun '05

17 Jun '05

Spotted on news:rec.crafts.brewing via news:uk.comp.os.linux - it would be interesting to know if this forthcoming GPL'd Java software runs on GCJ, Kaffe or SableVM but I doubt I'll be much help with the detailed brewing side: Drew Avis wrote: > Greetings brewers, I'm getting close to releasing a beta > version of StrangeBrew Java 1.0, and I need some more active > brewers to kick the wheels and report bugs. I'm especially > looking for MacOS and Linux users, as they're the primary > target for this software. If you're interested, please contact > me at 'drew dot avis at gmail dot com' > > Drew > www.strangebrew.ca -- MJ Ray (slef), K. Lynn, England, email see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/

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culture.gov.uk discussion forum
by MJ Ray 16 Jun '05

16 Jun '05

Since about a year ago, the UK government's approach to software development has been part of a "Creative Industries" topic. This effort is shared between the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS). Today (Thursday 16 June), a discussion forum was announced by the minister for creative industries. You can read Rufus Pollock's event report and follow links from http://www.okfn.org/drn/node/58 It is important that free software supporters and developers get involved in the discussion. The "Creative Industries IP Forum" - which is being invited to advise the government - is almost entirely protectionist. Several members campaign for increased copyright and Digital Restriction Management (DRM). Civil society seems only represented by the Consumer Association, which itself makes a lot of money from publishing copyrighted magazines (the "Which?" series), if I remember correctly. The panel at today's event was mainly protectionist (rather than the more permissive approach of free software) but Rufus wrote to the creative-friends list: > The main item is good news: [copyright] term extensions were *not* > mentioned at all and don't seem to be on the agenda for /the present/. Please pass this report on and encourage people to tell the government about the importance of a permissive approach to the UK's culture, whether by encouraging native companies (instead of UK arms of internationals), helping to preserve our native languages, or any of the other benefits. Register for the discussion on the DCMS site as detailed on http://www.culture.gov.uk/creative_industries/discussionforum.htm -- MJ Ray (slef), K. Lynn, England, email see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/

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Webmail that can read local mbox files?
by Chris Green 16 Jun '05

16 Jun '05

Does anyone know of a reasonably up to date (i.e. still maintained) webmail application that can use local mbox files? I have been trying a couple of webmail applications with IMAP servers (both UW Imap and dovecot) but the IMAP implementations are so awful that they make them very awkward to use IMHO. -- Chris Green (chris(a)areti.co.uk) "Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."

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Exciting London Tech event
by Karamoon 16 Jun '05

16 Jun '05

Anyone going to this? It's essentially "NotCon II", run by NTK, UKUUG and Backstage At The BBC. I went to NotCon last year, as did about 300 other people and we all had a wizard time. http://www.ukuug.org/events/opentech2005/ -Matthew __________________________________ Discover Yahoo! Stay in touch with email, IM, photo sharing and more. Check it out! http://discover.yahoo.com/stayintouch.html

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Second contact for Norfolk CC listing
by MJ Ray 14 Jun '05

14 Jun '05

I've finally got the forms to update ALUG's listing on the Norfolk County Council register of interest groups and clubs to correct the small errors. There's a space on the form for a second set of contact details. Who wants to be listed? Please send me your name, address, telephone, fax (if available) and email address, whether you want to be contacted by Norfolk libraries and whether you want to be contacted by NCC about their other services and activities. Then I'll get your sig when I next see you and send the form in (so in the event of many volunteers, it'll be whoever's going to LUGradio.org live or I can get to see soonest, I guess). Thanks! -- MJ Ray (slef), K. Lynn, England, email see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/

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Blackberrying, Calendaring
by MJ Ray 14 Jun '05

14 Jun '05

Does any ALUGger have a Blackberry? What applications do you use with it? Can it be made to work with Mozilla, Thunderbird, Sunbird or other things? Looking around mozilla.org, it doesn't look promising and this may be a "killer lack of feature" for someone I know who's being messed up by Outlook. :-/ What do we do with these calendars? (I still tend to use whiteboards, diaries and agendas myself.) URLs or magazines to hunt down and read for more info would be great. I've been away from this for years: I find the Palm a great ebook reader with plkr and cspotrun, but lousy for my scheduling. Thanks in advance for any help. -- MJ Ray (slef), K. Lynn, England, email see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/

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Weird NFS problem
by Stuart Bailey 13 Jun '05

13 Jun '05

I'm having trouble with NFS on a Fedora 3 server. The client machines are a mixture of HP Unix and Solaris (also samba is used for Windows clients). Most of the time the NFS export point runs perfectly fine, a client have it mounted all the time, and files and directories can be listed as expected. All users have write access. However, occasionally (about once a day) the files in various directories disappear from the client machines. If I go to the server and cd to the troublesome directories, they immediately become available to the clients again. The only error I get in the logs is: Jun 13 07:39:58 kelvin rpc.statd[2248]: Received erroneous SM_UNMON request from kelvin.test for 172.16.44.23 but this indicates a write access problem with /var/lib/nfs/statd/sm and sm.d. But I have checked that the rpc users has r/w access to these. I tried a tcpdump and got the following: 13:27:36.751186 IP (tos 0x0, ttl 64, id 52539, offset 0, flags [DF], proto 6, length: 148) tescat2.680050 > kelvin.test.nfs:108 lookup [|nfs] 13:27:36.751223 IP (tos 0x0, ttl 64, id 14271, offset 0, flags [DF], proto 6, length: 160) kelvin.test.nfs > tescat2.680050:reply ok 120 lookup ERROR: No such file or directory post dattr: 13:27:36.751646 IP (tos 0x0, ttl 64, id 52540, offset 0, flags [DF], proto 6, length: 132) tescat2.680051 > kelvin.test.nfs:92 getattr [|nfs] Based on this I have tried turning off client side attribute caching, to no effect. I have exported the directories as such: /data 172.16.44.0/24 (rw,async,insecure,insecure_locks,no_subtree_check) I have also tried sync instead of async, and removing the no_subtree_check flag, also to no effect. Other things I have tried: reducing the MTU on the network to 1000 from 1500 Any ideas would be appreciated. Many thanks, Stuart. -- --------------------------------------- Stuart Bailey BSc (hons) CEng CITP MBCS LinuSoft (Proprietor) Linux Specialist (01953) 601294 (07778) 383739 http://www.linusoft.co.uk ---------------------------------------- ********************************************************************** This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential. If you are not the intended recipient, please email postmaster(a)linusoft.co.uk immediately. You should not copy or use this email or attachments for any purpose nor disclose their contents to any other person. NO BINDING CONTRACT WILL RESULT FROM THIS E-MAIL UNTIL SUCH TIME AS A WRITTEN DOCUMENT IS SIGNED ON BEHALF OF LinuSoft. LinuSoft cannot accept any responsibility for the completeness or accuracy of this message as it has been transmitted over public networks. *************************************************************************

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Weekly IRC reminder
by Brett Parker 13 Jun '05

13 Jun '05

This is the automated ALUG IRC meeting reminder sent to remind you that there is an IRC meeting tonight (Monday) at 8.00pm. The meeting takes place on the irc server irc.alug.org.uk in the #alug channel. Most IRC clients should allow you to get there with the commands "/server irc.alug.org.uk" and "/join #alug". Popular IRC clients include tkirc, bitchx, xchat and EPIC on Unix, and Mirc under windows. Here are some links to help you get started with irc. Unix http://www.xchat.org/ http://freshmeat.net/ http://www.epicsol.org/ Windows http://www.mirc.com (loads of help with irc for newbies!)

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OpenOffice Printing
by Wayne Stallwood 12 Jun '05

12 Jun '05

If there is one thing I hate about OpenOffice it's the silly printer spadmin thing. I am running OpenOffice 1.1.3, I am not running OpenOffice2 yet because Ubuntu haven't released the AMD64 OOo2 packages yet. On my SuSE install I had it set up (or SuSE had it set up) to print to kprinter so that rather than having to set up my printers with spadmin I could just print through the KDE printer dialogue. Is there a way to achieve the same sort of thing with Gnome...i.e. print in such a way that it launches the Gnome print dialogue ?

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Who will benefit from this, I wonder???
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 11 Jun '05

11 Jun '05

A brief casually-overheard news item in tonight's Radio 4 News Bulletin at 8pm got me looking for more detail. The best I've found is on the "East Kent Mercury" website (linked from BBC News/Kent): ======================================================= http://www.eastkentmercury.co.uk/news/default.asp?article_id=20841 Controversy over heads' term-time trip to States by Political Editor Paul Francis COUNTY education chiefs have defended a decision to take nearly 100 secondary headteachers to America for a study tour and conference that will cost tens of thousands of pounds of public money. More than 90 of Kent's 106 secondary heads have accepted Kent County Council's invitation to travel to four different States in October for a week-long visit. The trip is costing every school that has agreed to go around £1,500 and will take place in term time. The headteachers will be accompanied by a 20-strong group of senior education officials and county councillors and will visit Seattle, New York, Boston and San Francisco. The county council insists the costs of its party will be financed from money made by the education directorate. The study tour will primarily involve headteachers visiting schools and end with a conference in Seattle hosted by Microsoft. KCC says the trip will enable Kent heads to learn from the experience of schools that have developed advanced methods of "personalised learning" to boost classroom standards, often using state-of-the-art computer technology. Teachers will visit so-called "charter schools" in the four different states. These are smaller secondary schools usually run by non-profit making sponsors who have much greater freedom over the curriculum. In a statement, KCC said: "Personalised learning is key to our strategy for secondary education and so it will be invaluable for our headteachers to discuss the way Charter schools have responded to their situation and identify which elements could be modified and implemented in Kent schools." Asked why the trip was taking place during term-time when parents were being urged not to take their children out of school, KCC said it was important headteachers visited schools to "experience the different ways of motivating students to ensure they maximise their potential and thereby create a step change in the provision for Kent students." The education authority stressed schools had "structures in place to allow headteachers to be attend conferences and meetings." However, not all headteachers believe it is necessary. One, who asked not to be identified, said: "I do not feel it is right to be out of school for a week on a trip that will cost the school more than £1,000. It has not properly been explained to me why it is regarded as so important to go." Earlier this year, the Kent Messenger Group revealed how foreign travel trips by education officials and headteachers had cost the taxpayer thousands of pounds. Among them was a visit by 20 headteachers and education officials to Seattle that cost £30,000. ======================================================= There's also a link at the end of the article to "on-line debate", which might be interesting to follow. Bloody hell. Best wishes to all, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 11-Jun-05 Time: 22:16:09 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Goods on offer
by Peter Hunter 11 Jun '05

11 Jun '05

Hi everyone, I have a couple of computers I am parting with if anyone is interested. I have decided to convert my main PC to Linux only and concentrate on using nothing but linux. Equipment offered is as follows: Apple eMac 1.25GHz G4, 512Mb RAM, 80Gb hard drive, 8 speed DVD RW (superdrive). It has 3 x USB 2, 2 x USB 1.1 (on the keyboard), 2 x Firewire, 10/100 ethernet, built in 56k modem, etc. Includes Apple keyboard and mouse. OS X 10.3.9 installed. All discs and books etc. All in original box and just 6 months old. Also included is an Apple iSight camera (boxed) with stands and Firewire cables. Plus (not so new) Lexmark X 85 all-in-one printer (low on ink) with software etc (no box). All together cost over £900, will accept £450. Also. Fujitsu Scenic eD P 3 800MHz desktop. 10 Gb hard drive, 160Mb RAM, floppy, MSI 4 x DVD RW, 17" CRT monitor (nearly new), keyboard and mouse. Has SuSE 9.2 installed from magazine DVD. Open to offers around £100. Buyer(s) must inspect and collect. You can email me direct at: peterslinuxbox(a)ntlworld.com, or telephone me on: Norwich 464999 Regards all, Peter

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Outlook Web Access screen scraping
by Chris Green 10 Jun '05

10 Jun '05

Does anyone know of any more up to date versions of these Outlook Web Access screen scrapers:- msweb outlook-grabber.pl Or for that matter does anyone know of any recent utilities for fetching mail from a MAPI server? -- Chris Green (chris(a)areti.co.uk) "Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."

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Importing mail into Evolution
by Wayne Stallwood 10 Jun '05

10 Jun '05

Right, in a fit of alcohol induced madness I have decided that after about 5 years of computing with SuSE I should give something else a try. I had a Ubuntu Virtual Machine running for a bit and was pretty impressed with it so I thought (again remember here I had been drinking) why not just nuke / (leaving /home intact) and install it. So far most things seem to be working quite well, there is however one slight gotcha. For some reason kmail on SuSE seemed to be saving my messages in two formats. Inbox and a few others are a single large file that Evolution seems quite happy importing. But some other folders (including my ALUG folder and more importantly my "Sent Items" are in a format whereby each message is an individual file in a folder called "Sent-Items" and then within that I have "cur" "new" and "tmp" The Messages are all in "cur" presumably because they are read, the filename is composed of some random looking number like "1032089908.1918.F3H0:2,S" How do I import these messages, Evolution lets me select a single one in the import file dialogue, but I can't select them all. Many Thanks Wayne

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More mutterings about ssh, passwordless login, ssh-agent, etc.
by Chris Green 09 Jun '05

09 Jun '05

I've been thinking about the security of my system(s) a bit more over the past week or so. I use ssh from home to work, from work to home and to connect from both home and work to a couple of remote systems where I have Linux shell login accounts. All the accepted 'rules' about security when using ssh say that one shouldn't use a 'no passphrase' key to get passwordless login, instead one should use a key phrase and ssh-keygen. From where I'm looking a 'key phrase' is exactly the same (from a user point of view) as a password - it's a (supposedly) difficult to guess string that I have to enter in order to log on to a remote system. The *only* advantage that using ssh-keygen gives you is that you (may) only have to type the passphrase in once for several logins. Since I tend to only login to remote systems once per session using ssh-keygen is (for me) no different from using a normal password. So, I've been looking around at other things that relate to this. One possibility is HostBasedAuthentication where it's the machine rather than the user that has the RSA/DSA keys. Doing this allows the keys to be readable by root only which adds a little extra protection but not a great deal (one site even says HostBasedAuthentication is less secure than a 'no passphrase' personal key). It also requires quite a lot more fiddling around with .shosts files and such and, of course, requires root access. So I have decided HostBasedAuthentication doesn't really do much for me. Another utility I have discovered is keychain, this is a sort of super ssh-agent which provides ssh-agent type facilities for a whole system which only needs to be renewed (i.e. the passphrase re-entered) when the system is rebooted. However, on thinking about it, I don't really see how this offers any better security than a 'no passphrase' personal key. Anyone who could steal your 'no passphrase' key could also use the running keychain, I really don't see what use it is at all, it just makes things more complicated. So finally I'm back at staying where I am, using a 'no passphrase' key to provide passwordless logins. One thing that would improve my security is to restrict ssh access without a password to specific IP addresses, I wonder if it's possible to do this as well as allowing password based access from other systems. -- Chris Green (chris(a)areti.co.uk) "Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."

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Re: [ALUG] Norwich Anarchist Bookfair
by Sunflowerinrain 09 Jun '05

09 Jun '05

MJ Ray wrote... > Norwich 2nd Anarchist Bookfair 11 June Waterloo Park. > See http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/cambridge/2005/06/312709.html > > I'm not able to attend, but I'll send ALUG, AFFS or GNUstep > leaflets and/or CDs to anyone who wants to go. I'd be happy to go to the Bookfair, as last year, but only to smile sweetly and hand things out. Somebody else is needed to answer questions! e

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alug library
by Paul 08 Jun '05

08 Jun '05

What's happened to the alug library ? Last I heard, Wayne was in the process of setting up an online catalogue and reservation system, but http://cgi.digimatic.plus.com/opendb/ goes nowhere.. /me was hoping to browse the available titles and reserve a few.. Regards, Paul. -- Pieces of seven, pieces of seven - A parroty error. "To err is human...to really f*** things up requires the root password." From a collection of quotes at http://www.indigo.org/quotes.html

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ALUG Social Meeting Reminder: Thursday 9th June 2005, The Reindeer, Dereham Road, Starting from around 8pm (ish)
by Brett Parker 08 Jun '05

08 Jun '05

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hi guys, Just a quick reminder of the social meeting in The Reindeer on Dereham Road in Norwich tommorow (Thurs 9th June 2005). It should be starting around 8pm ish, I'll probably be there a little bit earlier than that, beware however that I'm less beardy than I have been in the past, at least 2 people failed to recognise me last month, but the beard is coming back so it should be less difficult this month ;) Photos of the usual suspects can be found from the following URLs: http://www.earth.li/~noodles/Photos/2004-08-ALUG/ http://www.earth.li/~noodles/Photos/2004-11-ALUG-Syleham/ http://www.earth.li/~noodles/Photos/2005-01-ALUG-Xmas/ Directions to The Reindeer can be found from the ALUG site at the following URL: http://www.alug.org.uk/venues/reindeer.html (hrm, looks like I need to send a new patch off for that, looks like I just spotted some bugs, but the map is right and the directions are right, so, erm... someone remind me to do that sometime ;) I know that Adam (quinophex) is hoping to get to the meeting, I shall, naturally, it being a pub, be there, I'm also expecting Jonathan (Noodles) to show up, he rarely misses these things, and Eli has already confirmed that she should be attending. Paul seems to be avoiding confirming wether or not he's turning up at the moment, so I expect he'll turn up... Hope you can all make it, if anyone wants a set of Sarge 3.1r0a CDs or DVDs please tell me in advance and I'll try to run some off, though, with the CDs I'd rather just run off CD1 and let you do a net install after that (the full i386 or powerpc CD set is 14 CDs, and that's with no source), the DVD set for i386 or powerpc is 2 DVDs (also no source). The source CD set is 15CDs, or 3 DVDs. Price is negotiable, just enough to cover my costs (i.e. blank CDs/DVDs) is fine, but feel free to buy me beer also :) Thanks, - -- Brett Parker web: http://www.sommitrealweird.co.uk/ email: iDunno(a)sommitrealweird.co.uk -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFCpwPeEh8oWxevnjQRApnFAJ0QSGwiBgpyliKH48/3BP6H+1gUvwCgpAME PEJzJU51yLzFPmxaVONaEr4= =3/bL -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Removing duplicate mail messages
by Chris Green 08 Jun '05

08 Jun '05

I'm shortly aiming to merge a load of mail messages, they stored in various different mbox hierarchies. It should be pretty easy to write a little script to simply merge all the files in the same place in the hierachy together but then I'll need to remove duplicate messages as I know quite large chunks will be the same messages which have been stored in different places. Are there any tools out there which will take a mbox file and remove duplicate messages? Removal on the basis of Message-Id: would be fine. -- Chris Green (chris(a)areti.co.uk) "Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."

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Apple-Intel.
by Bob Dove 07 Jun '05

07 Jun '05

Apple X86? Why??? What's wrong with Motorola? Linux users switching to OSX (Unix) - again why? You guys seem to have a strong grip on Linux with bags of O/S to choose and run, and WINE already available to you for your Win apps why bother with OSX? Cheers, BD. -- Internal Virus Database is out-of-date. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.322 / Virus Database: 267.2.0 - Release Date: 27/05/2005

3 2

Debian Sarge finally released!
by Brett Parker 07 Jun '05

07 Jun '05

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hi all, For those that haven't already seen the announcement, yesterday saw the release of Debian GNU/Linux 3.1r0: Sarge. The official announcement is available from: http://www.debian.org/News/2005/20050606 Yay! Party! Thanks, - -- Brett Parker web: http://www.sommitrealweird.co.uk/ email: iDunno(a)sommitrealweird.co.uk -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFCpVejEh8oWxevnjQRAj1tAJ9L/2I3UuOLhthkFjNX8oqYeM41YQCgr6g6 Chjd8p7e6QaS5xhFPodgSw4= =xywt -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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GnuCash
by Stuart Bailey 07 Jun '05

07 Jun '05

I'm have been using GnuCash 1.8.8 for the last 9 months for my business accounts. My accountant has just ask me for my account in a spreadsheet format - I'd be happy with CSV. I can't find anyway in GnuCash to export to anything other than xml. Is there anyway to export to spreadsheet - even via a third party tool? Many thanks, Stuart. -- --------------------------------------- Stuart Bailey BSc (hons) CEng CITP MBCS LinuSoft (Proprietor) Linux Specialist (01953) 601294 (07778) 383739 http://www.linusoft.co.uk ---------------------------------------- ********************************************************************** This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential. If you are not the intended recipient, please email postmaster(a)linusoft.co.uk immediately. You should not copy or use this email or attachments for any purpose nor disclose their contents to any other person. NO BINDING CONTRACT WILL RESULT FROM THIS E-MAIL UNTIL SUCH TIME AS A WRITTEN DOCUMENT IS SIGNED ON BEHALF OF LinuSoft. LinuSoft cannot accept any responsibility for the completeness or accuracy of this message as it has been transmitted over public networks. *************************************************************************

4 4

Linux Format / Linux Magazine (fwd)
by MJ Ray 07 Jun '05

07 Jun '05

On the edge of the region. Anyone want them? > Name: Derek O'Connell > Email: dmoc02 at yahoo.co.uk > Subject: Mags > Message: Hello! I'm based in Hornchurch, Essex. If you know anyone who > may be interested in the following mags for free (as long as they are > collected) then please pass my email address on to them. Thanks. > > Linux Format, 58 issues: > 2000: 9 issues + cd\'s : 1..9 > 2001: 13 issues + cd\'s : 10..22 > 2002: 13 issues + dvd\'s: 23..35 > 2003: 13 issues + dvd\'s: 36..48 > 2004: 10 issues + dvd\'s: 49..58 > > Linux Magazine, 23 issues: 2..23 (+cd\'s), 42 (dvd)

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irc
by andy 06 Jun '05

06 Jun '05

been trying to join your irc folks,using ksirc,can't seem to join. any tips as i'm new to irc.could you point me in direction of the server you're on,login details,etc thanks andy

2 1

Weekly IRC reminder
by Brett Parker 06 Jun '05

06 Jun '05

This is the automated ALUG IRC meeting reminder sent to remind you that there is an IRC meeting tonight (Monday) at 8.00pm. The meeting takes place on the irc server irc.alug.org.uk in the #alug channel. Most IRC clients should allow you to get there with the commands "/server irc.alug.org.uk" and "/join #alug". Popular IRC clients include tkirc, bitchx, xchat and EPIC on Unix, and Mirc under windows. Here are some links to help you get started with irc. Unix http://www.xchat.org/ http://freshmeat.net/ http://www.epicsol.org/ Windows http://www.mirc.com (loads of help with irc for newbies!)

1 0

Ubuntu opinions
by Jenny Hopkins 05 Jun '05

05 Jun '05

Hi List, A friend of mine is trying out Ubuntu linux. I know there are some ALUG members who have tried Ubuntu and rave about it enthusiastically (you know who you are :-)) Anyway, I said I would ask what is so great about it and what the general opinion is and how it differs from, say, debian. Thanks, Jenny

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Re: [ALUG] Next Social Meeting: The Reindeer, Dereham Road, Norwich: Thurs 9th June from 8pm
by sunflowerinrain＠btinternet.com 04 Jun '05

04 Jun '05

> Brett Parker wrote: > I haven't actually confirmed with those thar people up > thar that they be coming, but I would imagine that at > least Me and Jonathan will be about, the rest of 'em > depends on baby sitting duties, wether or not they're > in the country, and other such fun family commitments In the country, sah! in Norwich, even. -- e

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Next Social Meeting: The Reindeer, Dereham Road, Norwich: Thurs 9th June from 8pm
by Brett Parker 03 Jun '05

03 Jun '05

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hi all, We're nearly at that time of the month again, yes, that's right, the time for the second thursday, Norwich, ALUG social evening meeting. This will be in The Reindeer from ~ 8pm (ish - I'll probably be there before that, depending on how bad the work day has been :)) on Thursday 9 June 2005. Attendees to these meetings usually include (but are most certainly not limited to, we like new people!): Me (iDunno) Jonathan (Noodles) Adam Bower (quinophex) Kirsten Naylor (wildduck) Eli (sunflowerinrain) Paul (paul_c) Martijn (mak) Last month we had a very nice turnout, it was good to see you all, I hope you can make it again this month. For those that don't know where The Reindeer is, the directions can be found at: http://www.alug.org.uk/venues/reindeer.html (OK - so this was more or less cribbed from last months announcement, shhh... don't tell anyone... I haven't actually confirmed with those thar people up thar that they be coming, but I would imagine that at least Me and Jonathan will be about, the rest of 'em depends on baby sitting duties, wether or not they're in the country, and other such fun family commitments ;) Thanks, - -- Brett Parker web: http://www.sommitrealweird.co.uk/ email: iDunno(a)sommitrealweird.co.uk -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFCoCsYEh8oWxevnjQRAiF8AJ45CSKDEoJlpmCtRNEkNBduFbk6tgCeKLYx VB2FlCZhim+XdYrxkfZ7giQ= =oZ0y -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Where do I find colour names?
by Chris Green 02 Jun '05

02 Jun '05

Where can I find the file that lists the X colour names? E.g. where are things like 'grey90', 'magenta4' and 'blue3' defined? I can find it on my Solaris machine at work but not on my Linux box at home. -- Chris Green (chris(a)areti.co.uk) "Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."

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"The World Tonight": Brazil & OSS
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 02 Jun '05

02 Jun '05

Hi Folks, There was a neat item on "The World Tonight" tonight (Radio 4, Tue 31 May) regarding what looks like a very determined effort by Brazil to move to Open Source. You can Listen Again in the usual way to the whole program if you want to, but to get just the OSS item feed the following to RealPlayer: rtsp://rmv8.bbc.net.uk/radio4/worldtonight/ worldtonight_tue.ra?start="00:33:45.0"&end="00:39:15.0" (this is all one line). 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: 01-Jun-05 Time: 01:43:50 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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4.2.2 installation oddities
by Chris Green 01 Jun '05

01 Jun '05

Some further oddities about my xfce-4.2.2 installation on Slackware:- The background doesn't cover all the background if you see what I mean. I have the background set to blue but the top cm. or so of the background is pale grey. Middle mouse button click on the background does bring up a menu, it's a menu of applications to go to, not one I've ever used. When I right click on the funny (not very useful) thing in the bottom right corner and select 'Properties' I get an error saying 'Xfce Settings Manager error: No such plugin "xfibx"'. Similarly when I right click on the task bar and select Properties I get a similar error saying 'Xfce Settings Manager error: No such plugin "xfce"' Why am I getting all these missing plugins? -- Chris Green (chris(a)areti.co.uk) "Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."

1 1

Any students here?
by Joe Button 01 Jun '05

01 Jun '05

"This Summer, don't let your programming skills lie fallow...Use them for the greater good of Open Source Software and computer science! Google will provide a $4500 award to each student who successfully completes an open source project by the end of the Summer." See http://code.google.com/summerofcode.html for more details. The deadline for proposals is less than two weeks away. I'm not a student but if anyone would like help getting a proposal together I'd be very happy to take a look. There's a flyer ( http://code.google.com/summerofcode.pdf ) which maybe someone could put up at the UEA CS labs etc? Joe

2 1

Forcing "Return-Path:" in sendmail
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 01 Jun '05

01 Jun '05

Hi Folks, I want to find a way to *force* sendmail to include a specified "Return-Path:" header in mail it sends to a remote [E]SMTP server. Specifically: Return-Path: Ted.Harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk rather than the header it computes automatically. Thanks for any suggestions! Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 21-May-05 Time: 21:05:22 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

2 2

inetd.conf and what's not in it
by Chris Green 01 Jun '05

01 Jun '05

I know quite a few daemons/servers are no longer started up by inetd, is there any logic to whether they are started this way or not? Further to this (and more importantly) how does one work out how an IP service is started if it's not in inetd.conf? In particular I can't see what starts the IMAP4 services but they most definitely do start. There's an 'imap2' entry in inetd.conf but not an 'imap4' one, is this the one that starts an connection on port 143? -- Chris Green (chris(a)areti.co.uk) "Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."

4 3

Copying multiple files in a range
by Chris Glover 31 May '05

31 May '05

Hi, Here's one for you... If I have a range of files named dcp_1100.jpg - dcp_1189.jpg and I only want to copy 1156-1183, how do I do it. cp dcp_11[56-83].jpg <dest> does not work, but cp dcp_115[6-9].jpg <dest> does. What am I missing? There's got to be an easier way than typing it out serveral times for the range needed? Thanks Chris -- Chris ---------------------------------- E Mail: chris(a)glovercc.plus.com SIP: 84411389(a)voiptalk.org IAXTEL: 17003366726

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Copying IMAP folders, and/or a hierarchy of folders
by Chris Green 31 May '05

31 May '05

I'm still banging away at this problem and haven't yet found a satisfactory solution. There is a lot of mail hosted on my company's web hosting service, it's kept in a Cyrus IMAP server and access is via Horde/Imp webmail. This works pretty well but I'd like to be able to get at it in other ways and to archive some of it. So I asked the sysadmin to open up the IMAP server so I can access it from my home machine, this he has done and I can access it via IMAP/SSL on port 993. Using an stunnel client I can also access it as an 'ordinary' IMAP server for clients that don't do SSL. My two main requirements are:- 1 - To be able to copy (large) IMAP folders containing old sentmail as archived by Horde to our home machines, it can then be backed up there (saved to CD for instance) and removed from the Cyrus server to save space. 2 - To be able to copy a complete hierarchy of a user's messages on the IMAP server to a home machine. This will enable access with a normal (as opposed to webmail) client, I may even move some users from the remote webmail service to a home machine. I can find no utility or mail client that does both of the above satisfactorily. Initially one would think that any MUA that handles IMAP mail should be able to do it but I can't find one that does. Even the simpler requirement 1 can't be handled by most mail clients, e.g.:- Thunderbird - if you drag and drop a folder from the IMAP server to a local folder the folder is copied but none of its contents are copied, they do however appear to be removed from the remote folder - instant loss of mail! OE (yes someone recommended this) - simply can't be made to move/copy folders as far as I can see. I've tried Balsa and Kmail but neither worked, I can't remember the exact details. mutt - does a reasonable job, you can tag all the mail messages in an IMAP folder and then copy them to a local folder. However it's a bit clumsy and isn't really dealing with folders. Moving a whole hierarchy is even more difficult because each MUA and IMAP server seems to have its own way of arranging things, some see INBOX as the root of a user's hierarchy, others see INBOX as just another folder rooted at the same place as the rest of the hierarchy. Some allow both folders and mail in a folder, some don't. Often the view of a remote IMAP server is different from a local hierarchy. There are a number of utilities (imapsync, iisync, imapcopy, offlineimap, etc.) which are supposed to copy IMAP hierarchies but none works for me yet. A while ago I *did* successfully copy some IMAP hiearachies from a UW-Imap server to my home system but the same utility doesn't work satifactorily running from a Cyrus server. One of the main problems is that Cyrus allows both folders and mail within a folder, this needs some workarounds when transferring to a server (or mailbox hierarchy) where this isn't possible. Does anyone have any suggestions (apart from writing my own utility in perl, which is where I seem to be going at the moment). -- Chris Green (chris(a)areti.co.uk) "Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."

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"tracker cookie" ???
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 30 May '05

30 May '05

Hi Folks, This may be a falsely started hare. However, while browsing with Google, I suddenly got a pop-up which informed me that a "scan" had revealed that my machine had a cookie stored which would allow "tracking", i.e. spyware which could transmit information from my machine. It then invited me to download a free scanner to cure the problem. I have more than a suspicion that this cure might turn out to be worse than the alleged disease, but I'd be interested to see other people's comments! 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: 29-May-05 Time: 20:22:56 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Re: main digest, Vol 3 #555 - 2 msgs
by pam.kelly 30 May '05

30 May '05

Have a look at www.asterisk.org. Ott for what you want but it should lead you to the right places. Look for cheap cards - I got an X100P clone on ebay for about £18 a couple of years ago and it worked fine. Probably cheaper now. I don't think it's any different to a soft modem, just more expensive and has a driver that'll do what you want. ----- Original Message ----- From: <main-request(a)lists.alug.org.uk> To: <main(a)lists.alug.org.uk> Sent: Saturday, May 28, 2005 6:26 AM Subject: main digest, Vol 3 #555 - 2 msgs > Send main mailing list submissions to > main(a)lists.alug.org.uk > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > main-request(a)lists.alug.org.uk > > You can reach the person managing the list at > main-admin(a)lists.alug.org.uk > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of main digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Use PC as a traditional phone (Steve Fosdick) > 2. Re: Use PC as a traditional phone (Wayne Stallwood) > > --__--__-- > > Message: 1 > Date: Fri, 27 May 2005 11:19:08 +0000 > From: Steve Fosdick <lists(a)pelvoux.nildram.co.uk> > To: main(a)lists.alug.org.uk > Subject: [ALUG] Use PC as a traditional phone > > I'd like to use the PC as a phone, i.e. transmit sound from the mic-in on t= > he soundcard to the phone line, have the sound received from the phone line= > available for mixing in the sound card's headphone out and be able to dial= > from software. All this, of course, under Linux. > > Does anyone know what hardware I should look for for this. I am assuming s= > ome kind of modem or modem card but these seem a bit of a minefield. Does = > the little link cable that runs from a PCI modem card to the sound card do = > everything I need or do I need to be able to copy data digitally? How can = > I tell which modem chipsets have enough support to be able to do what I wan= > t? > > TiA, > Steve. > > > > > > > > > > > > --__--__-- > > Message: 2 > From: Wayne Stallwood <ALUGlist(a)digimatic.plus.com> > To: main(a)lists.alug.org.uk > Subject: Re: [ALUG] Use PC as a traditional phone > Date: Fri, 27 May 2005 20:07:05 +0100 > > On Friday 27 May 2005 12:19 pm, Steve Fosdick wrote: > > I'd like to use the PC as a phone, i.e. transmit sound from the mic-in on > > the soundcard to the phone line, have the sound received from the phone > > line available for mixing in the sound card's headphone out and be able to > > dial from software. All this, of course, under Linux. > > > Sorry I have to ask why ? Why not just use Skype (or perhaps a more Open VoIP > system) to make and receive calls (Skype even supports incoming and outgoing > calls to/from a regular phone now)...Perhaps you don't have a broadband > connection ? > > > Does anyone know what hardware I should look for for this. I am assuming > > some kind of modem or modem card but these seem a bit of a minefield. Does > > the little link cable that runs from a PCI modem card to the sound card do > > everything I need or do I need to be able to copy data digitally? How can > > I tell which modem chipsets have enough support to be able to do what I > > want? > > No if you have the audio link through to the Modem then that should be > enough,I am not sure quite how the software thing will work, Presumably it > can all be done with a few AT commands to get the modem to dial but not try > and handshake in the same way that the old dialler app on Windows did. I have > not seen or heard of any application similar to the dialler app on Windows > that do what you want, and even if it did I fear that the audio quality will > be behind that of a decent desk phone unless you invest some money in a > decent headset. > > In my experience the mic in on modern soundcards is pretty useles, so you > would be looking towards a USB headset, but then you are going to have to > mess about with your mixer on the system to link the output of the headset to > the input of the modem cards audio device and vice versa. > > Also I think that maybe most of the software winmodem cards (that seem to be > pretty much the only sort you can buy these days) won't have the audio > passthrough facilities you will need. > > There are still some old school voice/fax/data serial modems on the market > that would do what you want, but naturally the software that comes with them > is Windows specific and if anybody else here remembers "Supervoice" often > quite nasty. > > Googling shows that some mad people have actually managed to get supervoice > running under wine....but I wouldn't suggest that as a serious solution. > > > > --__--__-- > > _______________________________________________ > main(a)lists.alug.org.uk > http://www.anglian.lug.org.uk/ > http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main > > > End of main Digest >

1 0

Weekly IRC reminder
by Brett Parker 30 May '05

30 May '05

This is the automated ALUG IRC meeting reminder sent to remind you that there is an IRC meeting tonight (Monday) at 8.00pm. The meeting takes place on the irc server irc.alug.org.uk in the #alug channel. Most IRC clients should allow you to get there with the commands "/server irc.alug.org.uk" and "/join #alug". Popular IRC clients include tkirc, bitchx, xchat and EPIC on Unix, and Mirc under windows. Here are some links to help you get started with irc. Unix http://www.xchat.org/ http://freshmeat.net/ http://www.epicsol.org/ Windows http://www.mirc.com (loads of help with irc for newbies!)

1 0

Use PC as a traditional phone
by Steve Fosdick 27 May '05

27 May '05

I'd like to use the PC as a phone, i.e. transmit sound from the mic-in on the soundcard to the phone line, have the sound received from the phone line available for mixing in the sound card's headphone out and be able to dial from software. All this, of course, under Linux. Does anyone know what hardware I should look for for this. I am assuming some kind of modem or modem card but these seem a bit of a minefield. Does the little link cable that runs from a PCI modem card to the sound card do everything I need or do I need to be able to copy data digitally? How can I tell which modem chipsets have enough support to be able to do what I want? TiA, Steve.

2 1

BBQ on the 28th
by Martijn Koster 25 May '05

25 May '05

You're all invited to a BBQ in Wymondham on the 28th (Saturday after next), from 15:00 onwards. If you're planning on coming, please let me know by the 25th (Wednesday after next). Star attractions: we're hoping to see Bea, and it appears that iDunno may interrupt his UK'05 tour and make a brief appearance. For more details see http://www.greenhills.co.uk/mak/alug/20050528-bbq.html Can someone with privileges add a suitable link from http://www.alug.org.uk/meetings? -- Martijn

2 2

Kit queries
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 25 May '05

25 May '05

Hi Folks, I'd be grateful for comments on possible solutions to the following things I'm thinking of looking for. 1. "Mini-laptop" I'm interested in something hand-held which is very easily carried from point to point, with a keyboard that is easy to use for entering textual information (there will be a lot of this, and accuracy is important). Needs to be connectable to "mainframe" box via ethernet (or USB at a pinch). A standard laptop is rather too cumbersome and awkward (needs to be stood on something and the fold-down screen would tend to flap around; also it would very much be on the heavy side for what I have in mind. I'm envisaging using this while standing, walking around, or even crouching.)[**1] Probably the "PDA" type of thing is too tiny for my spatulate fingertips, but that's the sort of size (or somewhat bigger) which I have in mind. And linux-capable of course! 2. Headless and handless (and legless -- just a tube up the bum) Here I'm interested in a simple small silent box with a full-scale computer inside it that doesn't need a screen or a keyboard, but will simply sit in a small corner of a shelf and be networked to others (either of a similar kind, or standard PC/laptop). And it should stay cool, preferably. Basically, somthing on the lines of "laptop with no screen or keyboard" gives the idea of what I have in mind. (Probably would need to be connectable to extrenal monitor and keyboard for initial installation purposes, but the intention is that this shold be a transitory situation. Must be linux-capable.) The idea here is that they would be "server" boxes (1 or 2 or even 3 of them), to which user access would be via a networked laptop or similar (e.g. the outcome of query #1). All coments and suggestions gratefully welcomed! Best wishes to all, Ted. [**1] No, I'm not setting up as a Traffic Warden/Parking Attendant/ Tesco Stocktaker. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 25-May-05 Time: 10:51:21 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

9 15

MS Hell
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 25 May '05

25 May '05

Folks, maybe you have been there before me. But I was browsing on www.gnu.org (as we all should from time to time) and felt curious about what GNU humour might be like. Here's one which I hadn't come across before. Bill Gates eventually arrives at the seat of judgement. St. Peter greets him, and explains that while he did contribute a lot of money to charities, he also ripped a lot of people off when they were forced to pay for his software if they wanted to buy a piece of hardware from a store. St. Peter says that under the circumstances, he will give Gates the choice of going to heaven or going to hell, and offers a tour. Gates accepts, and first St. Peter takes him to heaven. In heaven, Gates sees a very serene place, with people discussing philosophy and walking together through a wooded landscape. They then move on to hell. Gates sees a big beach party, with everyone fornicating, smoking cigarettes, eating gourmet food, and drinking. When Gates is asked, he chooses to go to hell, and is immediately plunged into a fiery furnace with the screams of tortured souls deafening him. "Hey, St. Pete, what's all this?" screams Gates. "Where's the beach party?". "Oh, I only showed you the demo version." St.Peter replies. 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: 25-May-05 Time: 20:43:37 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Re: [ALUG] Kit queries
by John Seago 25 May '05

25 May '05

On Wednesday 25 May 2005 12:31, "Adrian F. Clark" <alien(a)essex.ac.uk> wrote: > > Here I'm interested in a simple small silent box with a full-scale > > computer inside it that doesn't need a screen or a keyboard... > > ...you could also consider the Mac-mini which is linuxable... But wouldn't that need a keyboard? -- John Seago GNU/Linux User #219566 http://counter.li.org AFFS http://www.affs.org.uk/

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54mps wireless cards (PCMCIA and PCI)
by Martyn Drake 25 May '05

25 May '05

Can anybody recommend a good all rounder 54Mbs PCMCIA and/or PCI desktop card that works with Linux like a comfortable slipper and supports a good range on it? I've had enough of Netgear cr*p to last me a lifetime. M. -- Martyn Drake http://www.drake.org.uk

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HTTP security (or otherwise)
by Chris Green 25 May '05

25 May '05

It's me with still more questions (I'll stop soon I expect). I'm aiming to provide a webmail server on my home Linux machine, probably with SquirrelMail, this is why I've been asking questions about IMAP servers, security, etc. I have SquirrelMail working already, very simple it was too, I was just asking about daemons etc. for information really. After a little thought (and reading) I realise that the IMAP server doesn't have to be visible to the outside world if the only access is to be via SquirrelMail. I know it's possible (and intended even) that IMAP should be used by remote MUAs with IMAP capability but since I won't be doing that and neither will my other users I don't need to worry about the security implications of making IMAP (or POP3 for that matter) visible outside the LAN. It means that making the web server visible to the outside world is where security matters though. Are there any other ways apart from full blown certificate based SSL/TSL to make an apache server a bit more secure? In particular is there a simple ways to encrypt passwords as they pass across the 'net? The sort of level of security that ssh provides would be ideal, however expecting users to set up an ssh tunnel whenever they want to read their mail is probably a non-starter. -- Chris Green (chris(a)areti.co.uk) "Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."

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IMAP subscribe/unsubscribe
by Chris Green 25 May '05

25 May '05

I've posted a similar question on the comp.mail.imap newsgroup but maybe someone here can answer the question. What are the IMAP subscribe and unsubscribe functions for? I don't mean what do they actually do in any particular mail client, I mean what is their intended purpose and use? I can find nowhere that offers a good overall description of IMAP and how it's supposed to work even after spending quite a while Googling. There's the RFC of course but that's hardly user (or even techie) friendly. Apart from that there are lots of descriptions of specific server and client implementations but since they all differ in quite significant ways in the way they handle subscribe/unsubscribe they don't really help a great deal.

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Thunderbird question
by Chris Green 24 May '05

24 May '05

I'm playing with Thunderbird as an 'alternative' GUI mail clinet to mutt. I have it configured OK and reading a remote IMAP server. The one thing I want to do that I can't see how to do at the moment is copy a folder (or even better a folder hierachy) of messages from the IMAP server to a local folder. Dragging and dropping the Inbox copied it and the mail messages in it but dragging and dropping other folders seems only to copy the folder but not its contents. -- Chris Green (chris(a)areti.co.uk) "Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."

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GUI mail client for Linux/Unix mbox delivery (i.e. not POP3)
by Chris Green 24 May '05

24 May '05

Are there any GUI mail clients that read Linux/Unix mailbox file mail delivery? I use mutt for most of my mail reading but now that I can do all my mail reading on my home machine it would occasionally be useful to read my mail with a GUI mail reader (e.g. for the very occasional HTML mail that says something useful with the HTML, and/or to look at attached pictures). All the GUI clients I have tried in days gone by have assumed mail comes from a POP3 server and/or munge the local mail spool with specialised indexes etc. that break it for other (better behaved) clients. It doesn't even have to be a Linux program as my Win2k machine has access to the mail on the Linux box. -- Chris Green (chris(a)areti.co.uk) "Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."

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Fetching with fetchmail versus sending with SMTP
by Chris Green 24 May '05

24 May '05

I currently read (nearly) all my mail on a remote system (this one) where I have a Linux shell login. I log in to the system using ssh and read my mail using mutt, this gives me access to my mail from anywhere with little hassle. Since we now have broadband at home I can transfer this process (remote ssh login and use mutt) to my home Linux machine. This gives me a couple of extra advantages - virtually unlimited storage space and the ability to use a GUI/HTML mail reader when I'm at home if I want to. The question is should I simply move all my fetchmail bits and pieces from the system where I currently read my mail to my home system or should I receive the mail using SMTP? I already run a Postfix SMTP server on the home system for people to send mail to the outside world, I see no need to authenticate local users, if they can get into my house I may as well allow them to send mail! Would it actually be easier/safer to collect all the mail using fetchmail (much of it is collected on the hosting service by using fetchmail to get it from other places) or does SMTP actually confer any advantages? It would actually be pretty easy just to transfer my .fetchmailrc file from where it is now to my home Linux box and not bother with SMTP at all. If I open up the SMTP port to the outside world what issues are there? I want to deliver mail from my hosting service which handles all mail for my isbd.co.uk and isbd.net domains, I have a web configurator which will let me forward all this mail to my home machine (which is a subdomain of isbd.net). I can thus limit connections to just the hosting service so that will probably deal with most of the security issues, I will also obviously check that relaying is not allowed (I'm pretty sure it isn't now). I will still need to run fetchmail to get mail from a few old POP3 hosts where I get the odd message still. -- Chris Green (chris(a)areti.co.uk) "Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."

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[ALUG Announce]BBQ on the 28th
by MJ Ray 24 May '05

24 May '05

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- I have added a link from http://www.alug.org.uk/meetings/2005/ to this. For more details see http://www.greenhills.co.uk/mak/alug/20050528-bbq.html -- MJ Ray (slef), K.Lynn, England, email via http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ ----- 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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How can a user unmount something mounted with smbmount?
by Chris Green 23 May '05

23 May '05

I am using 'smbmount' to mount a Windows file system on a directory in $HOME on my Linux box. This works for a user if smbmount is SUID. However I don't seem to be able to umount the file system except as root, it just says:- umount: /home/chris/win is not in the fstab (and you are not root) The umount executable is alread SUID but this doesn't seem to help. -- Chris Green (chris(a)areti.co.uk) "Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."

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thanx tony
by thedeceiver 23 May '05

23 May '05

thanks for the welcome, i practice my daily rituals i black notley,essex.kneeling to face pluto, leftthumb in right ear,right toe in left ear whilst chanting Suse Suse Suse,thus begins mt linux day (only joking ;) ) andy -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.322 / Virus Database: 266.11.15 - Release Date: 22/05/2005

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Further to ssh security without a passphrase for the key
by Chris Green 23 May '05

23 May '05

I was reading the ssh (and other ssh utilities) manual pages just now and it would appear that hostbased authentication offers an improvement on 'no passphrase' user keys. As I understand it what it does effectively is make a key for the host you are connecting from rather than the user. This key can then be protected from casual access by being owned by root (or even better a special user) and a utulity program ssh-keysign which is suid is used to access the key. If your host machine is reasonably secure and you have root access (or a friendly sysadmin) this does offer a step up in security, though maybe not quite as good as using ssh-keygen - it depends on the way you use ssh. -- Chris Green (chris(a)areti.co.uk) "Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."

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Suse 9.3 changes to xdm login
by Nick Daniels 23 May '05

23 May '05

Hi I am running Suse 9.3 on two machines, and the login, seemingly at random changes to xdm. I have tried editing the etc/sysconfig/displaymanager to kdm but about every 4th boot it changes back I have come across reference to it here http://forums.suselinuxsupport.de/lofiversion/index.php/t14756.html but I do not use Nvidia cards Any ideas would be appreciated Regards Nick Daniels

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/etc/shadow - password field
by Chris Green 23 May '05

23 May '05

I was looking in my /etc/shadow file to see which users had passwords (so I could change them to something more secure, I know some are rubbish at the moment) and now I'm not sure what the password field is signifying. Most of the non-login 'system' accounts like 'bin' have a password field of '*', but there are a couple ('postgres' and another) which have a password field of '!'. Do both '!' and '*' indicate no password? -- Chris Green (chris(a)areti.co.uk) "Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."

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Weekly IRC reminder
by Brett Parker 23 May '05

23 May '05

This is the automated ALUG IRC meeting reminder sent to remind you that there is an IRC meeting tonight (Monday) at 8.00pm. The meeting takes place on the irc server irc.alug.org.uk in the #alug channel. Most IRC clients should allow you to get there with the commands "/server irc.alug.org.uk" and "/join #alug". Popular IRC clients include tkirc, bitchx, xchat and EPIC on Unix, and Mirc under windows. Here are some links to help you get started with irc. Unix http://www.xchat.org/ http://freshmeat.net/ http://www.epicsol.org/ Windows http://www.mirc.com (loads of help with irc for newbies!)

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Backing up IMAP mailbox
by Ben Francis 22 May '05

22 May '05

Eventually I hope to run my own mail server at home, but at the moment I use IMAP with my broadband ISP. I use IMAP because it let's me keep track of what I have and haven't read between work, home and my girlfriends house and a central store for all the emails I've sent. The amount of space on the IMAP server I use is starting to get quite large because of a lot of attachments and I'm paranoid that my ISP is going to notice and delete some of my emails without informing me first. I've been backing up my inbox by downloading the emails via pop3 in Thunderbird to my desktop computer but leaving a copy on the server, but this only backs up my main inbox, not all my subfolders and sent and drafts folder. How can I backup all my IMAP folders remotely? Thanks Ben -- Ben "tola" Francis http://hippygeek.co.uk ---------------------------------------------------- COMPUTER SUPPORT for small businesses and home users http://tolatech.co.uk ----------------------------------------------------

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Restricting ssh logins to certain users (not root)
by Chris Green 22 May '05

22 May '05

Is there any simple way of restricting ssh logins to a system to prevent remote root logins? I'd like to do this to add a little more security so that one has to login as a non-root user and *then* su to root (if you want root privileges for some reason). This would mean that an intruder would need to guess/hack two passwords to get root access. -- Chris Green (chris(a)areti.co.uk) "Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."

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Welcome
by andy 22 May '05

22 May '05

thanks for the welcome folks,nice to see there are other users in my area. felt a bit lonely as most of the people i know use winbloze software. mention linux to them & they go all glassy eyed or stare at you as if you're from another planet. i sometimes feel as if i'm a scientist who has made a great discovery & no one is listening!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! andy

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Moving Mozilla config etc to Firefox
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 22 May '05

22 May '05

Hi Folks, As mentioned in another mail just composed, I run Mozilla on a somewhat puny laptop. I also have Firefox installed, which is a much more compact and nippy program. The main reason I still keep running Mozilla is that I have a massive collection of bookmarks on Mozilla, built up over the years, and also an assortment of auto-login data for certain websites (userids & passwords), and an unknown number of cookies also accumulated over time. Not forgetting sundry plugins. In order to switch cleanly and conprehensively over to Firefox, I would need to transfer this lot from wherever Mozilla looks for it to wherever Firefox would look for it. I have not succeeded in sussing this out. Nor do I wish to re-create it all by hand! Any tips? (Are the two even totally compatible in this respect?) 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: 08-May-05 Time: 13:38:52 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Re: Humongous computing with Windows XP 64bit Edition
by tom potts 22 May '05

22 May '05

Just a comment on linux memory use vs windows. If I remember rightly the file system on linux tends to keep files in memory until it needs the space so the memory usage goes up so when it says your using 700meg of ram this may actually mean your only using 200 meg for the system but there are 500meg of closed files. Windows seems to scrabble every last bit back and still suffer. I have an amd with 256MB ram with w2k it struggles to get started but isnt too bad after that even though I use VS.NET but it does seem to choke a lot. Running RH9.0 it almost seems to get bored. You can run suse9.2 in 16MBytes Ram but you seem to need 64Mbytes to install it using the graphical interface. Same for RH9! Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

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new member
by thedeceiver 22 May '05

22 May '05

hi my names andy, & i thought i'd join your lug mailing list as i have been using linux for about 3 years,mainly suse,mandrake & fedora core.i'm not the greatest user but if i can help in any way i will. i currently run suse 9.3 on my laptop & dual boot on my main p.c.mainly for the kids as they are used to winbloze software. gradually working them to a switch. i also help out in my local school as i am fairly well versed in most i.t. issues. if i don't know the answer i can always find out. thanks for letting me join your lug hope to hear more from other members Andy -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.322 / Virus Database: 266.11.12 - Release Date: 17/05/2005

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