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[Alug]Adding "shutdown" to xdm
by dan.hatton＠btinternet.com 17 Jun '03

17 Jun '03

I haven't tried any of this, just found the instructions with a Google. An obvious difference between the command you tried directly, which worked, and the command in the script, which didn't, is the "2" in kill -9 $pid 2>/dev/null. I don't know what purpose, if any, it serves, and maybe you'd be better off without it. -- Dan

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[Alug]Adding "Shutdown" to xdm
by Ian Douglas 17 Jun '03

17 Jun '03

Hi Folks! I seem to remembmer someone on the list mentioning recently that it was possible to add a "Shutdown" button to the xdm login manager. Could someone remind me how to do this? Thanks, Ian.

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[Alug]Free conference places, LinuxUser & Developer, Birmingham, 24-26 June
by Alasdair G Kergon 17 Jun '03

17 Jun '03

Each UK LUG is offered 2 free places each day at next week's conference! http://www.linuxuserexpo.com/ But responses are needed TODAY, Tuesday 17th June. Please would someone from your LUG who reads this in time, co-ordinate a response, providing the LUG name, and for each person who wants to attend, their name, email address, and which days (Tues/Weds/Thurs). Max. 2 people per LUG per day. Alasdair -- agk(a)lug.org.uk *************************************************** * Response Form: Reply to amyscott(a)sedulous.co.uk * *************************************************** LUG Name: Name: Email: Days: Tues/Weds/Thurs [Repeat those 3 lines for each person attending] ******************************* The LinuxUser and Developer Conference, taking place next week (24-26 June) at the NEC in Birmingham, would like to offer each UK LUG two free tickets. These normally cost ?90+VAT each for the three days. Time is short, so please contact amyscott(a)sedulous.co.uk with the names of the individuals you would like to nominate for each day of the conference by the end of today, Tuesday. The full conference programme is available at http://www.linuxuserexpo.com Cheers Daniel James News + Web Editor LinuxUser & Developer http://www.linuxuser.co.uk

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[Alug]My Interests
by Sandy Hunter 16 Jun '03

16 Jun '03

Many people describe themselves as 'newbies', my status goes beyond that. I have just acquired a very large book on linux, together with a rad hat distro and am currently wrestling with getting it to work ! I have successfully installed the operating system as a dual boot on my AMD 500mhz maching and am currently battling with making the machine communicate with the outside world. This ic complicated by the fact that my internet connection is Via a cable modem connected to a USB port - Help ! best regrds

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Re: [Alug]Moving a directory up one level
by Neil Marjoram 16 Jun '03

16 Jun '03

Isn't it best to use a tar ? cd /olddirectory tar cvf - . | (cd /newdirectory ; tar xvf - ) Will put everything across and keep perms / times etc Neil. -- Neil Marjoram <n.marjoram(a)vam.ac.uk> Victoria & Albert Museum

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[Alug]Adding sources to /etc/apt/sources.list
by Ian Douglas 16 Jun '03

16 Jun '03

Hi Folks, I have recently installed Debian 3.0 but the only sources currently listed in my /etc/apt/sources.list are my installation CDs. I would like to add some sources from the internet so I can download security and program updates. Are there any particular sites ALUGers would recommend that I add to this source list? Thanks, Ian.

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[Alug]Moving a directory up one level
by Ian Douglas 16 Jun '03

16 Jun '03

Hi folks, My hard disk has been getting rather full recently so I added a second disk yesterday to take some of the strain. Originally everything (apart from swap) was on /dev/hda5. I have installed the small new disk as /dev/hda and created a "/" and "/home" partitions on it and moved everything from hda5 onto these two partitions apart from /usr which remains on /dev/hda5 and now has room to expand a bit more as I install additional programs. Problem: I was going to mount /dev/hda5 on the new "/" as "/usr" but it has just occurred to me that the "usr" tree is actually still on /dev/hda5 as "/usr" rather than being in the top directory. I do not have enough free space on any of my petitions to use as a temporary holding area to copy the contents of the "/usr" while I move it up one level so I have temporarily got round this problem by mounting /dev/hda5 as "/old" on the new "/" and making the new "/usr" a symbolic link to "/old/usr" but was wondering if there was a simple way to shift the contents of "/usr" up one level on /dev/hda5? The PC boots and runs ok after tweaking fstab and lilo.conf; I am just interested in shifting usr to keep admin simple. Any suggestions welcome. Ian.

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[Alug]Weekly IRC reminder
by Neill Newman 16 Jun '03

16 Jun '03

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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[Alug]Norwich evening meet this thursday confirmed.
by Syd Hancock 16 Jun '03

16 Jun '03

Just a note to confirm that I have booked a room in the Royal British Legion Hall, Aylsham Road, Norwich for thursday evening 19th June from 8pm. There will be a formal announcement from MJR shortly but here is the basic info: It is called 'the TV room' and is immediately to your left as you enter the bar. The RBLH is on Aylsham road, on the right as you go out of Norwich, just over the brow of the hill after Drayton road. Parking available (may be limited though). If bringing kit that needs power, bring an extension lead as there seem to be very few power sockets. So, who's coming? And what kit do we intend to bring along? (Will investigate other possible venues in the next week or two). Syd

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[Alug]Linux 2003 Conference & Tutorials, Edinburgh, 31 July - 3 Aug
by Alasdair G Kergon 15 Jun '03

15 Jun '03

See below for details of this summer's linux conference in Edinburgh. Also, don't forget to register for the Linux User & Developer Exhibition at the Birmingham NEC, Tues 24 - Thurs 26 June: http://www.linuxuserexpo.com/ http://www.linuxexpo.org.uk/ .org Village with representatives of UK LUGs and Tim O'Reilly's free talk in London on Mon 23rd June celebrating 25 years of O'Reilly books: http://www.ukuug.org/events/TimOReilly/ Alasdair ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Linux 2003 Conference & Tutorials, Edinburgh, 31 July - 3 Aug ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The UK Unix User Group's linux technical conference visits Edinburgh this year. It's a great way to broaden your knowledge and keep up-to-date with what's happening in the world of linux. Speakers include Jon 'maddog' Hall of Linux International and the new Debian Project Leader, Martin Michlmayr. The Edinburgh Linux User Group is helping with the preparations for the event, including the evening social programme. For further details please see http://www.ukuug.org/events/linux2003/ Full-day Tutorials on Thursday 31st July ---------------------------------------- Inside the Linux Kernel - Stephen Tweedie (Red Hat) Python for Programmers - John Pinner & David Chan (Clockwork S/ware Syst.) Provisional Conference Programme: Friday 1st August - Sunday 3rd August ----------------------------------------------------------------------- * Business and Applications Core Business Applications for GNU/Linux The Government Gateway and Linux New Breakthroughs in Linux Supercomputing How to Get an Open Source-related Business Funded in a Down Economy Not Fired for Buying Linux? Quirks of Open Source Adopters' worldviews Free and Open Source Software in the Health Service * Embedded Systems Debian on Handheld Computers Real Time/Embedded C on Linux: An Introduction PIC Programming with Open Source Tools Linux on the eLAP Mini-ITX * GUI Development and Applications KDE Development Kroupware Cross-Platform GUI Development with WxWindows * Kernel and Device Drivers Ugly Ducklings: Resurrecting unmaintained code RelayFS: Transmitting data from kernel to userspace Simple, Robust Software RAID for Linux 2.6 XFS IrCOMM2k: Porting Linux IrDA to the Windows Kernel * Networks and Security Layer 2 Networking Vulnerabilities Forensics Linux Packet Filtering: The Future CONESYS: The COntent NEtwork SYstem * Productivity Power Shell Usage: Bash Tips & Tricks * Project Management Managing Debian Portability from a Debian perspective Software for Open Communities * Software Development Extreme Linux Programming - A Continuum N things every programmer should know about signal handling Using buildfarms to improve code * Sound Sound Systems on Linux: The Past and the Future Sweep: Real-world audio editing on Linux * Systems Administration Mass Unattended Linux Installations Using GNU/Linux to Deliver Windows XP to the Desktop * Web Automated Website Synthesis Efficiency in the XML Era Including speakers from IBM, Novell, Red Hat, SuSE, HP, SGI, GBdirect If you book before 30th June you can take advantage of the Early Bird rates e.g. UKP 30 for the conference (50% discount) or UKP 12.50 for students. (If you're not already a UKUUG member, you'll need to add the membership fee to this.) Sponsors: Positive Internet, Perforce, SGI, Astaro Web: http://www.ukuug.org/events/linux2003/ Email: office(a)ukuug.org Tel: +44 1763 273 475

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[Alug]Re: TFT Panel
by Dan Beimborn 15 Jun '03

15 Jun '03

>> It strikes me that your VertRefresh should be 60.. unless your flat >> panel can really do 50-75? Manufacturers spec says: VIDEO INPUT Analog RGB Analog (75 ohms, 0.7/1.0 Vp-p) Digital DVI-D (TMDS, 100 ohms) Frequency f h : 30~82kHz, f v : 50~75Hz Hmm, just for grins try it at 60hz fixed, and see if that stabilizes it. To really fiddle about with it and optimize it, I'd still recommend xvidtune or advancemame's setup program to generate modelines. Once you have those set & working (and only those in your config) the variability should go away. So it sounds like your panel has a DVI but the video card doesn't? Maybe I need to sell you my Geforce 4 ti4200 and buy a radeon :) DB

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Re: [Alug]Trackball Problem (fwd)
by BenE 15 Jun '03

15 Jun '03

(whoops, sent this to just MJ and not alug) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2003 22:51:36 +0100 (BST) From: BenE <mail(a)psychoferret.freeserve.co.uk> To: MJ Ray <markj(a)cloaked.freeserve.co.uk> Subject: Re: [Alug]Trackball Problem On Fri, 13 Jun 2003, MJ Ray wrote: > BenE <mail(a)psychoferret.freeserve.co.uk> wrote: > > as a 5 button mouse (I tried 4 button but it didn't like that *at all*) > > with buttons 4 & 5 set up as the Y axis. Also, to confuse matters I'm > > ZAxisMapping? Tried putting the numbers the other way around? What > xmodmap settings are you using? > Sorry, yes ZAxisMapping, not Y as I said. Swapping the numbers around has no effect. They still both behave as the 3rd mouse button. I'm using xmodmap -e "pointer = 3 2 1 4 5". I'm going to give xbindkeys a try tmrw to see if that helps (I've been meaning to try it for a while. I'm using fluxboxs keymapping functionality and I plan to move away from fluxbox soon, so its a good idea). Thanks, BenE

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[Alug]Norwich meetings
by Tarquin Mills 14 Jun '03

14 Jun '03

Could we please change the dates of Norwich meetings from the third Thursday of the month as this the day RUNG meets. Also could another venue be picked. -- Tarquin Mills Reboot Movement (An Anti-Wintel Campaign) http://www.planet14.sonow4u.co.uk/comp/reboot/

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[Alug]TFT Panel
by Dan Beimborn 14 Jun '03

14 Jun '03

> Section "Monitor" > Identifier "Viewsonic VG191" > HorizSync 30.0-82.0 > VertRefresh 50-75 It strikes me that your VertRefresh should be 60.. unless your flat panel can really do 50-75? I have a whizzy hitachi DVI one that can do 60 or 70, but nothing in-between! DB

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[Alug]directory for backups
by Syd Hancock 14 Jun '03

14 Jun '03

I'm playing with our little home network, migrating some more functionality from windows to linux. I want to backup files from a couple of machines onto an area on my main linux box and I'm interested in opinions on best custom and practice. 1. Is it advisable to have a separate partition for the file-store area or is a separate partition sufficient? 2. Where should it be in the directory tree on the 'server' - as a subdirectory of /home or as a separate directory under / or elsewhere? 3. Are there any standard conventions for this? TIA Syd

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Re: [Alug]Linux and TFT panels
by Barry Samuels 13 Jun '03

13 Jun '03

Thanks to the various people who responded. Wayne Stallwood said: > Have you set the HorizSync and VertRefresh rates in your config file > to those specified by the monitor manufacturer ? Yes I have Adam Bower said: > Thats along my lines of thought, most of the panels I have played > with have an > auto-adjust button that resizes the screen. Does yours have one, and > does it > work? Yes it does have one but I haven't tried it when the display is squashed. > Also if you turn the screen off and on again does that make it work? Yes. I hadn't though to try that but it does correct the problem. > Of course one other option is that can you get DVI output from your > graphics > card and into your screen also? I have a Matrox G400 which appears not to have a DVI output although the TFT panel does have a digital input. Dan Beimborn said: > Running xvidtune will help you create your exact modeline, and > strangely enough so will AdvanceMame video setup program. Once you > have that modeline in for your desktop resolution, it should always > work. I tried that but it made no difference. It could be that the line I added to XF86Config-4 wasn't correct. I reproduce the relevant sections below: Section "Monitor" Identifier "Viewsonic VG191" HorizSync 30.0-82.0 VertRefresh 50-75 #ModeLine "1280x1024" 135.00 1280 1296 1440 1688 1024 1025 1028 1066 +hsync +vsync Option "DPMS" EndSection Section "Screen" Identifier "Default Screen" Device "Matrox G400" Monitor "Viewsonic VG191" DefaultDepth 24 SubSection "Display" Depth 1 Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" EndSubSection SubSection "Display" Depth 4 Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" EndSubSection SubSection "Display" Depth 8 Modes "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" EndSubSection SubSection "Display" Depth 15 Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" EndSubSection SubSection "Display" Depth 16 Modes "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" EndSubSection SubSection "Display" Depth 24 Modes "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" EndSubSection EndSection The modeline, now commented out, was the one xvidtune gave me. Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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[Alug]Macs
by Craig 13 Jun '03

13 Jun '03

At the moment, I am thinking about ditching my 3 months old laptop to get a ibook. Why? My housemate bought one last friday and it is _gorgeous_. Okay, that would be a bit of a understatement but I am using a imac at work on and off. But dang, I'm still impress with the ibook. Is it a smart move to ditch this laptop to switch over? Many people I have spoken to are doing this! If anyone on this mailing list is using OS X. Please convince me if I really want to make the switch. So far, I am really appealed by the o/s, battery life and most of all, it's unixy feel! ;) I'm interested to hear your thoughts! -- (o_ - Craig Butcher //\ - IT Technician / Unix Support MTH/ENV @ UEA V_/_ - http://www.wizball.co.uk

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[Alug]Trackball Problem
by BenE 13 Jun '03

13 Jun '03

I bought myself a Logitech Trackball yesterday (the confusingly called marble mouse), but am having a bit of trouble setting it up. Instead of a scroll wheel it has 2 buttons which are meant to act in the same way (one button scrolls up, the other down). As it stands currently the two scroll buttons act as middle mouse buttons but the scrolling doesn't work. My XF86 config file has the mouse set up as a 5 button mouse (I tried 4 button but it didn't like that *at all*) with buttons 4 & 5 set up as the Y axis. Also, to confuse matters I'm left handed, but I've solved that problem through judicious use of xmapmod (and my early attempts at playing with xmapmod (accidently) proved that I can get scrolling working, just not on the right buttons <g>) Can anyone offer any help please? (I'm using XFree86 4.1.2 (I think)) cheers, BenE

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Re: [Alug]Norwich meetings
by gt＠pobox.com 13 Jun '03

13 Jun '03

Ian Bell <ian(a)redtommo.com> wrote : > On Wednesday 11 Jun 2003 7:36 am, Syd Hancock wrote: > > snip > > > > In the meantime: the next Norwich evening meeting will take place at > > the British legion Hall, Aylsham road, thursday 19th June from 8-11 > > pm. > > Unfortunately I won't be able to make this one. The dog goes in for major > surgery nest week so life is on hold. > > Ian > Neither will I, owing to being in Zhenzhou (central China) currently and for the next couple of weeks. But at least my hotel room has free 128k broadband. Reckon I ate the dog tonight for dinner. -- GT

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[Alug]Samba LDAP
by Andy Trevor 13 Jun '03

13 Jun '03

Hi, I am looking for some help with setting up a Samba PDC using LDAP to authenticate I have a working LDAP server that can authenticate unix users Samba users can authenticate using smbclient ok I am having real problems getting the Windows 2000 clients to join the samba domain Any help will be much appreciated Thanks Andy

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Re: [Alug]Linux and TFT panels
by Dan Beimborn 13 Jun '03

13 Jun '03

I run on a flat panel with a DVI and it's always rock-solid, but I recall at my last job a number of the workstations we had needed to have the refresh rate set in XF86Config so that there was only one choice, 60hz. From messing around with running Linux on arcade monitors (no, really!) I can tell you that the image not being centered like that is quite likely a timing issue. Running xvidtune will help you create your exact modeline, and strangely enough so will AdvanceMame video setup program. Once you have that modeline in for your desktop resolution, it should always work. A second complication I had that was similar was with my laptop- it supports a key combination to use the external display, which is somewhat confusion to X. Basically, you had to start it either on the local, on the secondary, or on both displays. Setting it to external only would result in it sometimes "Remembering" the higher refresh rate, causing my display to go off to the right of the screen just like you describe! SO my advice is to try to make sure your XF86Config *only* allows the correct refresh rate, and make it be one that you have centered as best you can using xvidtune or AdvanceMame's video mode generator. DB

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[Alug]Re: Linux and TFT
by richard 13 Jun '03

13 Jun '03

I'm running a laptop system and once had problems with a text based installer (for Debian 3.0). I found an option in my BIOS to 'stretch output to fit screen' (or something along those lines. I don't know whether a similar BIOS option might be available but it fixed my problem. Rich. > I have just replaced my monitor with a TFT panel. > When X is started (I have changed XF86Config-4 appropriately) the > image > will sometimes appear perfectly positioned but at other times the > right-hand edge of the image appears in the centre of the screen with > the rest disappearing off the left edge and the image looks a little > distorted. If I then switch to a text console and back to the > graphics console the image is displayed correctly. > I have never seen this with my old monitor neither does it happend on > my laptop (TFT screen). Can anyone suggest why it should happen? > Barry Samuels > http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk > The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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[Alug]Linux and TFT panels
by Edenyard 13 Jun '03

13 Jun '03

Barry Samuels wrote: > > I have just replaced my monitor with a TFT panel. > ...then Adam Bower wrote: > > Thats along my lines of thought, most of the panels I have played with have an > auto-adjust button that resizes the screen. Does yours have one, and does it > work? Also if you turn the screen off and on again does that make it work also? > For what it's worth, my experience with Linux and TFTs got off to a very frustrating start. My Linux box runs SLackware 8.1 and has an ATI AGP video card identified as 'ATI 3D Pro Turbo' which I'd managed to set up quite nicely with my Dell 15" CRT monitor and everything seemed to work well - even the screen blanking after about 15 minutes. When I received an LG Flatron 1510S LCD to try on extended loan, I read its book, set the vertical rate to 60Hz for all modes as suggested and was met with a blank screen on starting X. I tried every combination of settings I could think of, but it wouldn't have it. Eventually, I swapped my XF86 config file for one provided by Slackware called XF86config-fbdev, which I think uses a plain VESA driver. At last pictures, but that's about all. Now the screen blanking doesn't work in X at all and there's a curious effect when the screen tries to blank in non-X working: the normal white text blanks, but any highlighted text (e.g., in 'man' pages) remains displayed - very odd. I also had problems when I tried to use the Flatron LCD to install Suse 8.1 on a friend's PC. No matter what settings I tried, the image on the screen would flash on and off every 1 or 2 seconds while X was running. Eventually I gave up and used a CRT monitor for the rest of that installation job. I know that that particular PC installation has been used since with a Philips LCD without any apparent problems, so maybe Flat Ron hasn't quite got the hang of something! Maybe not all LCDs are equal? The LG Flatron 1510S has one of those autoselect buttons mentioned by Adam, but I find that it generally manages to hit a setting that's far from optimal, especially when working at less than its maximum 1024x768 resolution. That applies equally in Linux and also in DOS, which is where I spend most of my working hours. I've found that the best way to set the clock and phase settings on the LCD is to display a screen full of very small dots (the 'grid' on a CAD programme works very wellfor this) and then adjust 'clock' and 'phase' to remove any visible interference patterns visible between the grid structure and the LCD's dot structure. If you get these settings wrong, some vertical lines (depending on where on the screen they fall) get smeared horribly across several of the LCD's pixels - useless for CAD! Interestingly, when I tried the Knoppix CD (kindly provided by Adam) on my box, it ran up, detected my video card and LCD and managed to set the correct parameters first time using an ATI driver. And it managed to pick a good-looking smaller than normal font for the text display whilst booting up - something I've never succeeded in doing with Slackware. All I told Knoppix was that the vertical rate should be 60Hz at the boot prompt. Cheers, Gerald.

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[Alug]Linux and TFT panels
by Barry Samuels 12 Jun '03

12 Jun '03

I have just replaced my monitor with a TFT panel. When X is started (I have changed XF86Config-4 appropriately) the image will sometimes appear perfectly positioned but at other times the right-hand edge of the image appears in the centre of the screen with the rest disappearing off the left edge and the image looks a little distorted. If I then switch to a text console and back to the graphics console the image is displayed correctly. I have never seen this with my old monitor neither does it happend on my laptop (TFT screen). Can anyone suggest why it should happen? Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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[Alug]Compiling kernel and modules
by Barry Samuels 11 Jun '03

11 Jun '03

I have compiled kernels many times but it has just occurred to me that after compiling and installing the new modules they are now running under the current (old) kernel until the new kernel is booted. How long could this situation go on without causing problems? Would it cause problems at all? Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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[Alug]Bourne shell script for APM: help request
by Dan Hatton 10 Jun '03

10 Jun '03

I'm trying to run the command sleepd --sleep-command "/usr/bin/apm -S" -u 900 to conserve some energy, by putting my computer in standby after 15 minute of idling. This command works fine when I type it at a tcsh or sh prompt, but now I want to run it at boot time. The Debian booting structure is guiding me to do this via a distro-provided script, /etc/rc5.d/S20sleepd (a symlink to somewhere else, IIRC.) I've appended the full text of this script below, but I think the crucial bits are #! /bin/sh DAEMON=/usr/sbin/sleepd NAME=sleepd PARAMS="" if [ -e /etc/default/sleepd ]; then . /etc/default/sleepd fi case "$1" in start) start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile /var/run/$NAME.pid \ --exec $DAEMON -- $PARAMS ;; esac exit 0 I'm supposed to set things up the way I like them by editing a line in /etc/default/sleepd that says PARAMS=something-or-other. I've tried various permutations, all of which give error messages, e.g. PARAMS=--sleep-command "apm -S" -u 900 -> /etc/rc5.d/S20sleepd: apm -S: command not found PARAMS='--sleep-command "apm -S" -u 900' -> /usr/sbin/sleepd: invalid option -- S /usr/sbin/sleepd: invalid option -- " PARAMS=--sleep-command apm -S -u 900 -> usage: apm [-VvmMsSd] [--verbose] [--minutes] [--monitor] [--suspend] [--standby] I suspect the problems result from my poor understanding of how the Bourne shell handles quotes. Any ideas, please? Here's the full script: #! /bin/sh DAEMON=/usr/sbin/sleepd NAME=sleepd DESC="APM sleep daemon" test -f $DAEMON || exit 0 set -e # Source defaults file; edit that file to configure this script. PARAMS="" if [ -e /etc/default/sleepd ]; then . /etc/default/sleepd fi case "$1" in start) # Ensure apm module is loaded. test -e /dev/apm_bios && touch /dev/apm_bios echo -n "Starting $DESC: " start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile /var/run/$NAME.pid \ --exec $DAEMON -- $PARAMS echo "$NAME." ;; stop) echo -n "Stopping $DESC: " start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --pidfile /var/run/$NAME.pid \ --exec $DAEMON -- $PARAMS echo "$NAME." ;; restart|force-reload) echo -n "Restarting $DESC: " start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --pidfile \ /var/run/$NAME.pid --exec $DAEMON -- $PARAMS sleep 1 start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile \ /var/run/$NAME.pid --exec $DAEMON -- $PARAMS echo "$NAME." ;; *) echo "Usage: /etc/init.d/$NAME {start|stop|restart|force-reload}" >&2 exit 1 ;; esac exit 0 -- Ta Dan Hatton

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[Alug]RE: Bourne shell script for APM: help request
by Andrew Wallis 10 Jun '03

10 Jun '03

Unless I missed something, only one person mentioned "eval" and then seemed to dismiss it almost immediately. I think that's a pity because it's just these sorts of problems that "eval" is designed for. The following two scriptettes demonstrate: --------- script -------------- #!/bin/sh PARMS='p1 p2 --command "this is a command" p5' eval ./daemon $PARMS ------- end script ------------ --------- daemon -------------- #!/bin/sh declare -i PN=1 for PARM in "$@" do echo "parameter $PN = \"$PARM\"" PN=PN+1 done ------- end daemon ------------ Gives: parameter 1 = "p1" parameter 2 = "p2" parameter 3 = "--command" parameter 4 = "this is a command" parameter 5 = "p5" which is what was wanted wasn't it? I probably missed something as I'm seriously advanced in the senility stakes. Regards Andrew Wallis

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[Alug]IPMasq file structure
by Paul Tansom 10 Jun '03

10 Jun '03

Does anyone know of a good website to help me get my head around the file structure for the configuration files of IPMasq? I've just installed it on a server I've setup and I'd like to make a few changes to the IPChain configurations, but although I can see the idea behind splitting up the config into a collection of files I can't get my head around which files to alter or how to add any - probably largely due to the fact that they are coded as fairly generic solutions and read info from the system configuration. Of course the other reason could be that I'm practically dead on my feet and my brain isn't on top form! :-) -- Paul Tansom: - contact paul(a)aptanet.com for more information Internet and Intranet Solutions -- http://www.aptanet.com/

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[Alug]Knoppix boot problem
by Ben Francis 09 Jun '03

09 Jun '03

I'm getting a bit frustrated. Firstly, I'm not talking about booting off the CD-ROM, I can do that fine. I've installed Knoppix to the hard disk of a computer, with great ease I might add, so it's now meant to be a Debian system (see other thread somewhere or other...) Every time I boot the system from cold it freezes half way through booting X at a sickly grey screen and an immobile X cursor in the centre. If the computer has been turned on a while and I shut it down, it boots up again fine. I don't quite know what to do, I suspect it could be a hardware problem? The hardware is all quite a few years old and from various dubious second hand locations. (A poor geek has to get his kit from somewhere, can't afford to buy it new!) Thanks in advance Ben "tola" Francis

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[Alug]Weekly IRC reminder
by Neill Newman 09 Jun '03

09 Jun '03

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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[Alug]/etc/rc.d/init.d/functions and the right way
by Wayne Stallwood 08 Jun '03

08 Jun '03

Could somebody please mail me a copy of this file. SuSE seems to follow a different convention whereby the file is in /etc/init.d/ and defines a different set of functions. For example in my version there is no gprintf function Most of my system scripts work as such (using rc.status) case "$1" in start) echo -n "Starting snmpd:" startproc $SNMPD -c /etc/ucdsnmpd.conf -r -A -l /var/log/ucd-snmpd.log -P /var/run/snmpd.pid rc_status -v ;; stop) echo -n "Shutting down snmpd:" killproc -TERM $SNMPD rc_status -v ;; etc...etc The one I want to add is like the following case "$1" in start) # Start daemon. gprintf "Starting spamd: " daemon spamd -d -c -a RETVAL=$? touch /var/lock/spamd echo ;; stop) # Stop daemons. gprintf "Shutting down spamd: " killproc spamd RETVAL=$? rm -f /var/lock/spamd echo ;; Which way is the "right" way and why oh why are their two seemingly incompatible ways. Gahhhh For now I have converted the bottom script to work like the top one. Wayne

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[Alug]Knoppix
by Jenny_Hopkins＠toby-churchill.com 07 Jun '03

07 Jun '03

Hi, I know we did knoppix onlist a few weeks back, but a pal of mine discovered knoppix the other day and was very impressed. He did ask me: >I want to know what you can't do with Knoppix that I could by doing a >full install. I presume a proper install would give better performance. And of course, I don't know. I'm going to be grilled on this as he'll presume I'm some sort of linux expert, and I need to have some answers ready so I don't tumble from my pedestal :-) Thanks, Jen

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[Alug]POP3 Mail and Spam Questions
by Keith Watson 06 Jun '03

06 Jun '03

I was having a tidy-up of my Debian install last night and trying to sort out some sort of spam filtering. To access mail I simply use Sylpheed as a straight dial-up POP3 client. I don't use procmail, sendmail or any sort of MTA (or at least I don't think I do :o) ). So I did a apropos search on 'mail' and came up with a long list of things that had been installed as part of the base install. Given they way I access my email can I uninstall things like procmail, sendmail, and various MTAs? or is this likely to break something else? I'm thinking of using 'mailfilter' (mainly because it can act as a POP3 client) to scan the mail headers on the ISP server and delete any spam before I download it. Given my setup, are there any alternatives I should also look at? As part of setting up mailfilter I need to set up a set of regex entries to identify possible spam. I'm reasonably happy with regex itself but if anyone has some anti-spam regexs I can crib I would be most grateful :o) What would be nice would be to use some of the DNS blacklist servers e.g. spamcop, ordb, etc., in some way, can I do this with this sort of configuration without actually downloading the headers 1st? Keith

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[Alug]Gentoo/MacOSX Announced
by Craig 06 Jun '03

06 Jun '03

Check out gentoo.org small news on this. Looks like fink may have some competition? ;) -- (o_ - Craig Butcher //\ - IT Technician / Unix Support MTH/ENV @ UEA V_/_ - http://www.wizball.co.uk

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[Alug]MSNBC Article
by Wayne Stallwood 05 Jun '03

05 Jun '03

http://www.msnbc.com/news/922215.asp?cp1=1 Just been reading this, short version is that MS are facing a bit of a Technology gap in the event that .NET, XBOX and Smartphone don't take off in the near future (and lets face it based on current adoption that is a reality) Some interesting gems from Balmer here in a supposed memo to the staff (mind you this is msnbc so who knows ? ) "Some way off in the future lies a generation of technology that Microsoft promises will change the lives of every computer user. Codenamed Longhorn, it involves a complete revamp of the company's two core product lines - the Windows operating system and Office productivity suite " Ahhh So now I see what Longhorn might be about. Office is the driving force behind the sales of Windows Desktop (and arguably server if you think about it) A lot of people don't buy Office because they bought Windows, They bought Windows because you need it to run Office So what if they did an "IE" with Office, What if Office plugged into Windows in such a way that the interoperability could not be easily rivalled by a third party Office suite application (like the link ups with the fancy new database filesystem) What if you bought the two as one package ? What if then MS claim in the following anti-trust suit that the two are so intertwined that they cannot be separated ? "Add in the weak economy, and "there is less passion and enthusiasm for technology, and greater focus on doing more for less." " The focus always was on doing more for less, you could argue that was the driving force behind computing in the first place. Why would you want to do less with more ? The only time that culture existed was during the DotCom boom when skills were at a shortage and everyone was in a high adrelanin race. Then you went for the solution that required the shortest time and the least skill to get up and running. It's funny how quickly we have forgotten the DotCom days and state that the IT trade is in some sort of depression. It's not, it has just turned back to normality after a massive peak. Was anybody really riding up that peak expecting it to just carry on forever or even to flatten out at the top ? "In that environment, companies have turned to Linux and other open-source software programs, seeing them as cheap but adequate alternatives." So MS do view Open-Source as a cheap but truly inferior product STILL. Do they feel that the only reason Open-Source projects like say Apache are anywhere in the marketplace is because they are free ? If so what happened to all of the TCO fud they were spouting last year. Answer me this ? If I approached a say large hosting provider, running lets say 100 machines serving websites for third party customers. I go to them with an Apache replacement that can do the same job and handle the same traffic on half the machines, and it is somehow more secure and requires less constant administration, yet at the same time is more scaleable. If I took them this product and said but the bad news is that unlike Apache which is free this is going to cost you £1000 per machine. Do you not think they would do the sums and go for it ? "Around half of the 1 million corporate computers in the United States that run the Unix operating system are candidates for migration to Linux, according to Ballmer - a significant challenge to Microsoft" and it always will be. Linux is a Unix work alike, Windows is a Proprietary Operating system adhering to non uniform standards. Which one is going to be the easiest for all of those migrating Unix companies to move to ? Notwithstanding the fact that one of the things MS is always claiming in the "Linux is more expensive than MS" FUD is that it's a major cost to retrain your MS staff. Well the same is true for Unix staff to be trained for MS (actually they will just probably leave) "the company's overhaul of its software licensing terms antagonized many of its customers. " Exactly. How about also looking at upgrades, if I install Microsoft Small Business Server and then my company grows beyond the limit of clients on that product (I can't remember the limit but there is one) I have no easy upgrade path, no single upgrade I can buy and I will have to throw my investment of SBS CAL's and Server software away. and start again with several different products. "It must also get better at segmenting the markets its serves and turning out the products that different customers want." How about segmenting Servers and Workstations. Servers do not need Web Browsers, Media Players, Mail Clients or Games yet these are installed by default by every MS server platform I can think of. There are even Server platforms that have DirectX (stand up Windows 2000 Advanced Server). Wayne

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[Alug]Tim O'Reilly talks and O'Reilly books
by Adam Bower 05 Jun '03

05 Jun '03

Hi all, I was just speaking with Josette from O'Reilly (she is the O'Reilly UK PR manager who arranges review copies for lugs etc.) and she asked if I could forward the info on Tim O'Reilly giving talks in the UK on to the list. The other news is that she is arranging for the Alug Library to get some new/more books. I will let you know what we have when it arrives. I also am going to look at setting up some kind of review section on the website so that if you borrow books you others know what you think of them, and of course let Josette know also. Anyhow details of Tim O'Reillys talks are: Tim O'Reilly will visit the UK in June. He will be giving several talks - ****London Date: June 23rd Time: 6.30 pm for 7.00 pm Where: City University Pre-registration is mandatory see - http://www.ukuug.org/events/TimOReilly/ ****Birmingham, NEC Date: June 25th Key Note Speaker - LinuxUser & Developer Expo 2003 see - http://www.linuxuserexpo.com/ Thanks Adam -- jabberid = quinophex(a)jabber.earth.li AFFS || http://www.affs.org.uk/ || Not a filesystem

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[Alug]Automount problem with Nautilus
by Keith Watson 05 Jun '03

05 Jun '03

I'm running a Debian Woody (r3 stable) based system with Gnome 1.4 + Sawfish window manager + Nautilus. I use Nautilus to manage the desktop. Have just implemented autofs/automount which works great. Small problem is that when automount unmounts a cdrom (i.e. after then timeout period when I'm not accessing any files on the drive) Nautilus traps this and issues an eject command for the drive. Which is not always what I want. Anyone else come across this behaviour? Any ideas on how I could fix this or good places to look for a fix? Keith ____________ Mistakes are the portals of discovery. James Joyce

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RE: Laptops, was RE: [Alug]animation software and C++ training
by Adam Bower 04 Jun '03

04 Jun '03

> The downside is that the batteries are now dead, after only 2 years > usage. According to Dell that is good going, about 500 recharges I > estimate, but Dell reckon 300 is average. I was expecting > closer to 1000 > based on ordinary rechargeable batteries! That doesn't work out cheap > at 77ukp +P&P +VAT. Did you have the batteries plugged in while you ran the laptop on mains power? that tends to kill them fairly quickly. Of course that is not as bad as the original sony laptop battery on my Vaio I had, which died after about 35 charge cycles. Adam

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[Alug]animation software and C++ training
by Simon Jude 04 Jun '03

04 Jun '03

Hi, Does anybody know of any good animation software for linux which can take a sequence of images and create animations from them? I have used Quicktime in the past but as I'm hoping to get my hands on an old PC in our lab to run linux on in the near future I was wondering whether there was an alternative! Also, slightly off topic, we are about to buy a number of software packages that come with APIs and SDKs so that we can customise them if we wish (and require a training course in Arizona!). Can anybody suggest any good books or training courses for learning C/C++? Thanks Simon

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[Alug]how to mount a removable SCSI disk?
by Keith Watson 04 Jun '03

04 Jun '03

Yes, OK, I know the answer is "very carefully" :o) By a fortuitous chain of events I have become the owner of a Castlewood ORB2 2.2Gb removable SCSI drive (plus a couple of removable disks to go with it). Which is nice because now I've got something to hang of that old SCSI adapter card I had lying around (Diamond Multimedia Fireport40). I've tried it out with Windows 2K and it works a treat (media is currently formatted as FAT2). GNU/Linux (Debian) picks up the SCSI card and the device OK (i.e. everything shows up in /proc/scsi as it should) with the adapter being scsi0 and the drive is on LUN 5. I've installed the scsitools package <http://packages.debian.org/stable/utils/scsitools.html> and run scsidev. And now I'm stuck, I presume I need to mount the drive with something like; mount -t vfat /dev/??? /mnt/orb2 but what device name should use (or how do I find out)? Regards, Keith ____________ Say nothing and saw wood. Vermont Saying

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[Alug]Re: Redhat, Mandrake, and Gentoo Disks
by Dan Beimborn 04 Jun '03

04 Jun '03

Thanks so much for the huge response to my query. I've been well looked after by Graham, but thanks to everyone who responded. Very nice group of people you have here! The hitch I seem to run into is that Gentoo is a small kick-off disk followed by downloading source off the net. Does anyone have a trick to do that with a local mirror to make it bearable for a modem guy to set it up? I've got a couple machines, some crossover cables, and plan to install it to a VMWare image on a windows box to start with (the missus gets the faster CPU for her photoshop!). DB

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RE: [Alug]animation software and C++ training
by Adam Bower 04 Jun '03

04 Jun '03

> Martyn Drake writes: > > > CinePaint? I'm trying to persuade the texture artists at > work to try and > > move over to it rather than use Photoshop under Windows - > we're seeing more > > Windows boxen creep in because of ruddy Photoshop. > > You could take a look at the Mac under MacOS X. Not Linux but a rock > solid Unix with: Oh don't worry, people working in the effects industry are already looking at Mac OS X, (not necessarily through choice) most of the high end effects software is in some way owned by apple....

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[Alug]GPL, freedom and bread
by Ben Francis 04 Jun '03

04 Jun '03

I've just been reading several documents at gnu.org explaining the benefits of free software over proprietary software (indexed here http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html) After reading these articles/essays I very much feel that following the guidelines of the GNU Public License is the single best way to develop software in most if not all cases and holds benefits both for developers, end users and society as a whole. However, I still feel that if I were asked to justify this view to someone I would have trouble doing so, because my understanding of the underlying concepts is still a little sketchy. In particular, I can quite readily accept that writing software under the GPL is the best way and I'm the kind of person that would still program even if I was not being paid to do it. However, the harsh reality is that programmers need money to put bread on the table and apparently some geeks even have families to support! Just say someone were to program full time and released all of their code under the GPL, where does their bread actually come from? Short of selling their body on the streets (which may be frowned upon by aforementioned family) or starting up a farm and becoming self sufficient, where does the doe come in? I believe that job satisfaction comes over money every time, but there are still sources of money in free (as in speech not beer) software and the documents make it quite clear that you can quite legitimately sell such software for whatever price the market will pay, providing you follow the guidelines so that the freedom of the software is maintained. If a baker buys his own flour, he owns the bread he bakes and can sell it. If I write software but I don't own it, I can still sell it, but people can get it for free from elsewhere and can get it from a friend, which as an alternative to paying 9.9 times out of 10 they will. At the moment this may not be such a problem as people may prefer to buy the software in a package with an instruction manual and bundled support for the program. However, I would argue that the ideal program would be intuitive to the point where it required no documentation or training and support is mainly for when things go wrong, which an ideal program wouldn't. In instances where a form of support or source of information IS required, which will always happen, the online community can often offer support that is equal to that of paid support for free, and this is actively encouraged within online forums and instant messaging. With the spread of broadband internet connections swapping information or programs between people is becoming even easier and cheaper than copying a CD to the point where the cost per byte is negligible, which is the way it should be. The only source of income that therefore remains is writing bespoke solutions for a particular customer where that customer would pay you to port your program to fit their own business practises rather than work on the features you would normally put as a high priority. However, if this is also released under the GPL will the number of cases not be very small and no basis for a decent sized income? I don't like the fact that my only concerns stem from the need for cash, but it is, unfortunately, a necessity. I'm posting this rather long message here because I know there are veterans on the subject lurking in the corner (or not) who may be able to enlighten me. I believe the answer to my questions lie on well trodden ground and hopefully those answers will help me in my active support for free software. If there is an easy answer, then forgive my ignorance but I make no apologies for asking silly questions, someone has to ask them :) Thanks for your time, Ben "tola" Francis --- there is no spoon... damn, now I have to eat my yoghurt with a fork.

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RE: [Alug]Redhat, Mandrake, and Gentoo Disks
by Jonathan Dye 04 Jun '03

04 Jun '03

MJ Ray wrote: > Jonathan Dye <jonathan.dye(a)automationpartnership.com> wrote: >> think) and call it something else (I think they've called it Pink >> Tie) because of copyright issues. > > I thought that was because of trademark law being used to deny the Red > Hat name to others, not copyright? That is probably correct, I should have checked the correct terminology/reason before just automatically typing 'copyright'. JD _____________________________________________________________________ This message has been checked for all known viruses by the MessageLabs Virus Scanning Service

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RE: [Alug]Redhat, Mandrake, and Gentoo Disks
by Jonathan Dye 03 Jun '03

03 Jun '03

Martyn Drake wrote: > On Tue, 3 Jun 2003 11:27:35 +0100 Jonathan Dye wrote: > > > www.linuxemporium.co.uk have several distribtions (both download and > > retail versions) as well of lots of other stuff and they'll > mail them > > to you. I'm not sure how nominal the fee is though. > > It should be noted that they won't sell the downloadable copies of Red > Hat, but everything else can be picked up there for reasonable cost. Yes they do. Thay have had to remove a couple of rpms (all pictures I think) and call it something else (I think they've called it Pink Tie) because of copyright issues. JD _____________________________________________________________________ This message has been checked for all known viruses by the MessageLabs Virus Scanning Service

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Re: [Alug]Wine
by jamie.french＠talk21.com 03 Jun '03

03 Jun '03

This is funny, I tried to get Wine working last night as I want to run KazaaLite. I dont have much time in the evenings and all I got to work was progman! Need to do some reading. Aside, does anyone know of any P2P clients like Kazaa which run under Linux? Take Care, Jamie Best Regards, Jamie French -------------------- talk21 your FREE portable and private address on the net at http://www.talk21.com

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RE: [Alug]Redhat, Mandrake, and Gentoo Disks
by Jonathan Dye 03 Jun '03

03 Jun '03

Dan Beimborn wrote: > Hello folks, > > I'm new to the area here (as I may have inadverently > announced twice!), > and I'm sitting on the end of a modem (you'd think I'd use a chair..). > > Anyway, I'm used to schlurping down godawfully huge ISO > images over my > lunch hour, so not sure exactly how one acquires sets of redhat, > mandrake, and Gentoo in modem land. Could anyone either recommend a > source that burns them for a nominal fee, or someone who'd > burn them for > me in the area? www.linuxemporium.co.uk have several distribtions (both download and retail versions) as well of lots of other stuff and they'll mail them to you. I'm not sure how nominal the fee is though. JD _____________________________________________________________________ This message has been checked for all known viruses by the MessageLabs Virus Scanning Service

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RE: [Alug]animation software and C++ training
by Jonathan Dye 03 Jun '03

03 Jun '03

Simon Jude wrote: > Also, slightly off topic, we are about to buy a number of software > packages that come with APIs and SDKs so that we can > customise them if we > wish (and require a training course in Arizona!). Can > anybody suggest any > good books or training courses for learning C/C++? Have a look at the book reviews at www.accu.org. JD _____________________________________________________________________ This message has been checked for all known viruses by the MessageLabs Virus Scanning Service

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[Alug]Redhat, Mandrake, and Gentoo Disks
by Dan Beimborn 03 Jun '03

03 Jun '03

Hello folks, I'm new to the area here (as I may have inadverently announced twice!), and I'm sitting on the end of a modem (you'd think I'd use a chair..). Anyway, I'm used to schlurping down godawfully huge ISO images over my lunch hour, so not sure exactly how one acquires sets of redhat, mandrake, and Gentoo in modem land. Could anyone either recommend a source that burns them for a nominal fee, or someone who'd burn them for me in the area? I'd be most appreciative, I might even have a spare penguin plushie I could trade :) DB

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[Alug]DVD Burning & Bootable DVDs
by Dan Beimborn 03 Jun '03

03 Jun '03

It's been about 6 months since I last tried DVD burning under linux, and there was a way to do it with a Pioneer DVD-R that I had using non-gpl software that had short built-in expiration dates. Has anyone here had any luck with it? I did some hunting and haven't turned up any new GPL ways to do it yet & I'm hoping someone has since written free tools to do this with. The next step I'm looking into is to make a bootable DVD, which I assume would follow the same steps as a bootable CD with the el torito image etc. Has anyone here had luck making bootable CDs that could help beyond what the howtos out there say to do? DB

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[Alug]Fwd: [Debian-uk] Software patents pubmeet in Cambridge
by markj＠cloaked.freeserve.co.uk 02 Jun '03

02 Jun '03

I think I'll be there... From: Wookey <wookey(a)aleph1.co.uk> Subject: [Debian-uk] Software patents pubmeet in Cambridge Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2003 17:16:21 +0100 (BST) A few of us in Cambridge are trying to increase public/geek/programmer awareness of EU software Patent legislation which is pending, and things are currently balanced between very bad, and quite reasonable, legislation. The issues are complicated. Any of you who are local and would like to be better informed, especially in order to make intelligent points to your representatives, would benefit from coming along. Here's the blurb: ----- Hi there, Join other software developers and Intellectual Property practioners at a pubmeet to in Cambridge discuss the proposals. As you may know, the EU is working on a directive covering software patenting. The next vote is scheduled for the 16th or 17th of June in the JURI subcommittee, which deals with legal affairs and the internal market. The final vote on the proposed directive by the European Parliament is currently scheduled for the end of June. The outcome of the process could affect individual software developers as well as small and larger companies but there isn't general awareness about the issues. Meet at the Free Press, Prospect Row, 8pm Thursday 5th June. The Free Press is a non-smoking pub. Look for a notice saying Patents or ask at the bar. Admission free. Let me, Jeff Veit, know that you are coming - email patents(a)tanasity.com because if the numbers are too large we will switch venue. Final notification by email on the afternoon of the 5th. Your email details won't be shared with anyone. Check http://www.tangledtime.com/patents.htm for latest news on the meeting. If you aren't interested or are interested but are unable to attend but a colleague or friend might be interested please let them know - this meeting has been organised quickly and hasn't been widely publicised and I am only sending one mail to each company/group that I think may be interested. Best wishes, Jeff Veit Wookey -- Aleph One Ltd, Bottisham, CAMBRIDGE, CB5 9BA, UK Tel +44 (0) 1223 811679 work: http://www.aleph1.co.uk/ play: http://www.chaos.org.uk/~wookey/ _______________________________________________ Debian-uk maillist - Debian-uk(a)chiark.greenend.org.uk http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/debian-uk

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[Alug]XP install
by Paul Tansom 02 Jun '03

02 Jun '03

OK, not a good title for a Linux list, but I couldn't resist commenting on my first attempt at installing Windows XP (Professional) given that people often say Linux is hard to install. First off, there seemed very few questions to answer - Windows assumed it knew best for just about everything, and boy was it wrong?! The end result goes something like this: A: - my 3.5" floppy B: - my 5.25" floppy C: - my ZIP drive D: - my DVD ROM E: - my CD RW F: - same CD RW as above G: - same CD RW as above H: - same CD RW as above I: - same CD RW as above J: - same CD RW as above K: - same CD RW as above L: - same CD RW as above M: - my hard disk with Windows XP installed on it Next comes the networking side of things: IE - fine, can browse the Internet and is pretty fast, can also browse my local Intranet Explorer - cannot see any other machines on the network, when it should be able to see two other Windows 2000 boxes

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[Alug]Moz Firebird
by Wayne Stallwood 02 Jun '03

02 Jun '03

Ok this is really buggin me now. Ever since I first tried Phoenix it has insisted on going to http://www.barnesandnoble.com/ whenever I start it up. If I then press the "home" button it takes me to my homepage of choice. If I watch the status bar at the bottom on startup I can see it going to Google (my preferred homepage) and then suddenly changing it's mind and going over to Barnes. I have recently re-installed Phoenix (to upgrade to Moz) by nuking the whole installation dir. I have grep'ed both my moz profile (in home) and the chrome dir. On at least a few occasions I have deleted my profile and created a new one. No-one else seems to be able to replicate this on their system. and I have only one machine (my main one) that does it. It is now really tainting my experience of what is a lovely, lovely browser. I am sure it is not a problem with Moz itself, otherwise others would be reporting it as a bug, but apart from the profile what could it be ?

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[Alug]RE: [Peterboro] GPL, freedom and bread
by John.Airey＠rnib.org.uk 02 Jun '03

02 Jun '03

You make some interesting points and I'd like to try and address some of them. Suppose your baker discovers that the flour he uses to make his bread comes from a genetically modified strain of wheat and only produces one harvest (this is actually the kind of "technology" that organisations like Monsanto are trying to sneak in). The cost of his bread has shot up as wheat has become more expensive, and because of patent restrictions he can only get his flour from one supplier. This is not unlike the situation with software. Ideally software should be "free" (free beer), but open source (free speech) is obviously a compromise. There is money to be made in both models from software support (and in the latter case from selling the packaged software). But there is an open market, just as there is in buying and selling wheat. Ultimately software is only a series of ones and zeroes (if only I'd patented it...) and these days is very very ubiquitous. You don't have to be in IT for very long to realise that the biggest software issue is support. I have the source code to some programs that I'm legally not allowed to change (it's written in Turbo Pascal, so I might not want to anyway). So the code has been abandoned, and this is happening all the time. I'd recommend writing the code for free (as is done with most Linux software) and making money from hardware or software support. Strangely enough, even Microsoft is leaning this way. - John Airey, BSc (Jt Hons), CNA, RHCE Internet systems support officer, ITCSD, Royal National Institute of the Blind, Bakewell Road, Peterborough PE2 6XU, Tel.: +44 (0) 1733 375299 Fax: +44 (0) 1733 370848 John.Airey(a)rnib.org.uk What is "real"? How do you define "real"? If you're talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then "real" is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain... (Morpheus, The Matrix, 1999) - NOTICE: The information contained in this email and any attachments is confidential and may be legally privileged. If you are not the intended recipient you are hereby notified that you must not use, disclose, distribute, copy, print or rely on this email's content. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender immediately and then delete the email and any attachments from your system. RNIB has made strenuous efforts to ensure that emails and any attachments generated by its staff are free from viruses. However, it cannot accept any responsibility for any viruses which are transmitted. We therefore recommend you scan all attachments. Please note that the statements and views expressed in this email and any attachments are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RNIB. RNIB Registered Charity Number: 226227 Website: http://www.rnib.org.uk

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Fwd: Re: List-* headers, was [Alug]GNU/Linux Partition Utilities
by Ian Bell 02 Jun '03

02 Jun '03

On Thursday 29 May 2003 2:08 pm, MJ Ray wrote: > Andrew Savory <lists(a)andrewsavory.com> wrote: > > How about a little bit of politeness and respect? > > Sorry. The message I replied to was a little terse too, not the first time > that person had raised this, added nothing new to the topic, and is > definitely a FAQ. Is this a better summary for the FAQ maintainer: You want something new, here is something new. As an experiment I have subscribed at random to three mailing lists hosted by UK Linux User Groups. They host the mailing lists something in the region of 50 UK Linux User Groups. All three of the groups I subscribed to behaved the way I would expect. Messages appear as From: 'Author' To: mailgroup. Pressing reply sends a message to the group as expected. If I want to reply just to the author I just click on his/her email address. I strongly suspect that all the mail groups hosted by the UK Linux User Groups site behave this way, It is clearly good enough and problem free enough for many other LUGs to have it set up this way. It is clearly the way users expect it to be. I see no compelling reason why our mailing list should be different. Ian -------------------------------------------------------

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[Alug]Weekly IRC reminder
by Neill Newman 02 Jun '03

02 Jun '03

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]Wine
by jamie.french＠talk21.com 01 Jun '03

01 Jun '03

This is funny, I tried to get Wine working last night as I want to run KazaaLite. I dont have much time in the evenings and all I got to work was progman! Need to do some reading. Aside, does anyone know of any P2P clients like Kazaa which run under Linux? Take Care, Jamie Best Regards, Jamie French -------------------- talk21 your FREE portable and private address on the net at http://www.talk21.com

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[Alug]EU software patent threat
by Chris Lale 31 May '03

31 May '03

There is still time to lobby your MEPs. Please spare 5 minutes to send an email registering your concerns. The proposed directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions comes before the European Parliament later this month. Patenting of software is a threat to all business models, but especially Open Source (including Free) software. It also penalises software developers and users of all types of software. Dan Bricklin (who invented the electronic spreadsheet in 1979 but did not patent it) explains why at http://www.bricklin.com/patentsandsoftware.htm You can find MEP's email and letter post addresses at http://www.europarl.org.uk/uk_meps/MembersMain.htm Other sources you may wish to draw on are Alex Hudson's useful site: http://www.softwarepatents.co.uk/ Analogy with music for non-techie people: http://www.coolscience.co.uk/free-software/software-patent-music.html Illustration of the infamous "technical effect" criterion: http://coolscience.co.uk/free-software/software-patent-techeffect.html European Parliament written question E3927/02 and answer. MEPs will be reassured but you might not be: http://www2.europarl.eu.int/omk/OM-Europarl?PROG=WQ&L=EN&PUBREF=-//EP//TEXT… If you are keen, the proposed directive COM (2002) 091:http://europa.eu.int/cgi-bin/eur-lex/udl.pl?REQUEST=Seek-Deliver&COLLEC… Paper on Open Source and software patents http://eu.conecta.it/paper/Open_source_software_patent.html Cheers, Chris -- +-----------------------------------------------------------------+ | ___ Chris Lale <ctlale(a)netscape.net> | | / \ | | | <_/ My PC runs Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 (http://www.debian.org). | | \ Robust, secure and free operating system + applications. | | `- | +-----------------------------------------------------------------+

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RE: [Alug]GNU/Linux Partition Utilities
by Keith Watson 30 May '03

30 May '03

> From: Paul Tansom > > ** Keith Watson <keith.watson(a)kewill.com> [2003-05-28 09:53]: > > > From: Paul Tansom > > > > > > Not actually booted my CD and tried it, but apparently yes parted is on > > > Knoppix apparently (can't find the link I found the quote on, but it was > > > from Knoppix 3.2 onwards). Some other useful links you may be interested > > > in: > > [snip] > > > > Thanks for the excellent links Paul, especially the one for PartImage. > > > ** end quote [Keith Watson] > > No problem. It happens to be something I'm looking into myself, partly > for speeding up the install process for machine (Windows 98 primarily > unfortunately), and partly to recover some data on a couple of drives > I'm having problems with. > > One seems to have a duff sector which is preventing access to a > partition (Fujitsu 20G, newest drive I had until I bought a replacement, > but not one of the notorious ones), and the other (again a Fujitsu, but > 13G this time) which seems to have lost partition information on the > transfer to another machine. > > I'm trying to work out whether Parted will recover things for me, or > whether I'm better off to go with one of two commercial solutions I've > found: > > Acronis RecoverExpert - looks good because it supports Linux Ext2, Ext3, > ReiserFS, and Linux Swap as well as the traditional Windows formats, but > the demo is only the Windows GUI version (not the boot disk). This has > a few issues booting with the drive 13G drive connected (so I can't get > any idea of whether it will recover it) and with the 20G it just shows > the partition as duff (it seems as though it simply recovers lost > partitions rather than fixing corrupt ones). > > Active Partition Recovery - only supports FAT and NTFS partitions, but > the boot disk can see and read all the partitions in question and show > me the data, so it has a distinct attraction in that respect! > > Both about 30usd - if anyone has used either of these, or Parted or > another utility to recover a partition problem I'd be interested to > hear. > > Oh, my tape backup is giving me hassle too - I'm not a happy penguin at > the moment. Having said that, my Linux machines are going strong and it > is only my Windows 2000 that is givin me hassle (duff hardware and the > tape backups which verified fine are not allowing me to access them now > that I've lost the boot drive that they were created from - classic > backup!). > > -- > Paul Tansom: - contact paul(a)aptanet.com for more information > Internet and Intranet Solutions -- http://www.aptanet.com/ > I think you meant this to go to the list Paul :o) I've always used PartitionMagic (I've got Version 6.0 but they're up to 8.0 at present) which has served me very well. but it's not GPL or GNU/Linux though credit where it's due. Amazon has the latest release of PM for 40UKP and also the back release 7.0 at 25UKP <http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/search-handle-form/202-8112773-2091046> Never been unlucky enough to have to recover from the sort of problems you describe but I've no doubt someone on the list will have some war stories to tell :o) Regards, Keith ____________ The shortest answer is doing. George Herbert

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RE: [Alug]New Member Intro RE: [Alug]New Member Intro
by Dan Beimborn 30 May '03

30 May '03

Hmm, I sent it once and it was rejected due to my "From" not being subscribed, then I subscribed properly and resent it. I guess this first one also got approved. Sorry for the dupe DB Hmm, I sent it once and it was rejected due to my "From" not being subscribed, then I subscribed properly and resent it. I guess this first one also got approved. Sorry for the dupe DB ps- :) From: "Keith Watson" <Keith.Watson(a)Kewill.com> To: <main(a)lists.alug.org.uk> Subject: RE: [Alug]New Member Intro Date: Fri, 30 May 2003 11:47:29 +0100 >> From: Dan Beimborn >> >> Hi Folks, ...snip... Anyone else get a strange feeling of deja vu? :o) Keith

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[Alug]New Member Intro
by Dan Beimborn 30 May '03

30 May '03

Hi Folks, I'm a recently-relocated Sysadmin/Network Guy/Web Guy/Bottle Washer from California (San Jose) where I worked for a software company that did firewall/HA & Linux appliances in the storage space. I have a lot of background in TCP/IP/network/security/exotic routing on Linux systems, and also had a great time getting linux running inside old arcade cabinets. I also used to beta test Linux games for id software, but sadly I discontinued that relationship before I could get any copies of Doom 3 for Linux! My wife is a Norfolk girl, and after years of thinking about it, we finally decided to move here (Holt) to take advantage of the sun & heat we missed out on living in cold, dark California. I'm in the hunt for work doing just about anything with Linux, though my specialties are perl/apache/mysql and firewall/security/networking. Looking forward to pelting the natives with penguin dolls whenever the chance arrives (you do that here, right? right?) DB

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[Alug]Wine
by Edenyard 30 May '03

30 May '03

Has anyone here ever had any experience of using Wine to run anything useful? I've tried installing it twice now on my Slackware 8.1 system. Sure enough, it runs solitaire (from an old Win3.11 disk I have) as claimed in teh documentation, but it chokes completely on anything and everything else that I've tried, specifically catalogue-CDs from the likes of Farnell, RS, Texas, etc., including one old one that I KNOW has been run on W3.1. I have wine-20030408 and kernel 2.4.18 on an Athlon 1000 with 256Mb RAM. I installed it using ./tools/wineinstall as instructed and running ./tools/winecheck gives a score of 85%+, so I think I've got at least most of the config right. Most of the error messages start 'fixme: ', which suggests to me that perhaps it isn't even intended to work. I don't have a Windoze partition on either of my PCs, but my understanding of the Wine documentation is that I don't need one. A 500+ Mb package just to run solitaire (and, to be fair, winmine....) seems pretty useless to me. Is it really intended for running 'real- world' applications or I being really dumb here? If it really is as bad as it seems, is there any alternative emulator (or whatever they're called) for running these catalogue-CDs? Any help appreciated, thanks! Gerald.

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Re: [Alug]Wine
by Edenyard 30 May '03

30 May '03

Dan Hatton wrote: > > If they're anything like the catalogue CDs I've used, they rely on the > presence of Internet Explorer. I've just checked, and although IE6 > will run under wine (in the sense of a window appearing, with menus > that will drop down,) it doesn't seem keen to do much. Also, as you > don't have a Windows partition, I guess you'd need to install it. I > have two nasty feelings about this. > I remember back in the dark old days when I existed on a mixture of DOS mainly with a little Doze 3.1, these exact same catalogue CDs ran then. That certainly didn't have this Explorer thing on it, so I suppose that I have to hunt for another reason for its failure. In any case, wouldn't Explorer be just for looking at .html pages? (Excuse ignorance on this - I've never used it!) Cheers, Gerald.

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Re: [Alug]Wine
by Edenyard 30 May '03

30 May '03

Adam Bower wrote: > > 500Mb?! that sounds a bit wrong to me. Unless you have all the source kicking > around and have built it from scratch. > I had source code and the .tar.gz was about 8Mb I think. Looking in the source directory after compiling, MC makes it 429Mb, of which the largest chunk seems to be the /dll subdirectory at around 305Mb. Also, there's around 107Mb in /usr/local/lib/wine and some other executables, etc., dotted around. Do you think I've done something silly? Why would it generate so much in the source directory that doesn't seemingly make it into /usr/something-or-the-other? > > There are packages that are around 35Mb > (compressed tgz for slackware so admittedly it will be bigger when installed) > maybe try one of them? > I don't relish the thought of downloading 35Mb on a modem that seems to connect at 44000 at fastest! I only had the source because Ian Douglas was kind enough to copy it onto a CD for me. Maybe when I get around to looking at Slackware 9.0 I may find the TGZ package on there. > > Anyhow I have used Wine to run Microsoft Office in Linux before, and I use it > to run Digiguide for windows also, I think a couple of years back I also made > Half-life work so it does indeed work with a fairly broad selection of > applications. > To be fair, I have now actually found 1 CD that runs on it and that's a car workshop manual CD. However, I'd already extracted the set of PDFs from this CD and copied them to my HDD so that I could read them with acroread, so it's a bit pointless using wine for that. What I really desperately need is for the RS and Farnell cats to run. No luck there, though.... Gerald.

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[Alug]SCO Unix IP Claim : Well that's the end of that then!
by Keith Watson 29 May '03

29 May '03

Press Release: Novell Challenges SCO Position, Reiterates Support for Linux <http://www.novell.com/news/press/archive/2003/05/pr03033.html> Keith ____________ AIR, n. A nutritious substance supplied by a bountiful Providence for the fattening of the poor. Ambrose Bierce - The Devil's Dictionary

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Re: [Alug]New Member Introduction
by Dan Beimborn 29 May '03

29 May '03

> Which part of california? I thought it was always sunny there ;) San Jose. Yes, actually it is sunny there all the time. Sunny enough to burn your skin in 15 minutes, year round. Hooray for that. I find myself not missing that (yet). > Pelting natives with penguins? How about the weather right now? ;) > And have some cold beer! Hmm, though culturally I should be a cold fizzy lager swiller, I tend to like nice pints of bitter served at about 55/60 degrees. My company ordered about 450 1u servers from a company called "Penguin Computing". Each one had a little 4" plush penguin doll in it. At one point, we put at least 400 of them in a large cardboard box and tipped them onto the head of a microsoft partisan in the office. Photos exist, but I can't find mine now! DB

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[Alug]Worth trying locally?
by tom potts 29 May '03

29 May '03

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=9746 __________________________________________________ Yahoo! Plus - For a better Internet experience http://uk.promotions.yahoo.com/yplus/yoffer.html

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[Alug]New Member Introduction
by Dan Beimborn 29 May '03

29 May '03

Hi Folks, I'm a recently-relocated Sysadmin/Network Guy/Web Guy/Bottle Washer from California (San Jose) where I worked for a software company that did firewall/HA & Linux appliances in the storage space. I have a lot of background in TCP/IP/network/security/exotic routing on Linux systems, and also had a great time getting linux running inside old arcade cabinets (why not?). I also used to beta test Linux games for id software, but sadly I discontinued that relationship before I could get any copies of Doom 3 for Linux! My wife is a Norfolk girl, and after years of thinking about it, we finally decided to move here (Holt) to take advantage of the sun & heat we missed out on living in cold, dark California. I'm in the hunt for a permanent job (or the right contract position) doing just about anything with Linux, though my specialties are perl/apache/mysql and firewall/security/networking. Sexy CV available to anyone looking! Looking forward to pelting the natives with penguin dolls whenever the chance arrives (you do that here, right? right?) DB

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Re: [Alug]Wine
by jamie.french＠talk21.com 29 May '03

29 May '03

This is funny, I tried to get Wine working last night as I want to run KazaaLite. I dont have much time in the evenings and all I got to work was progman! Need to do some reading. Aside, does anyone know of any P2P clients like Kazaa which run under Linux? Take Care, Jamie Best Regards, Jamie French -------------------- talk21 your FREE portable and private address on the net at http://www.talk21.com

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[Alug]to hdparm or not to hdparm?
by Keith Watson 29 May '03

29 May '03

Has anyone experimented with this command? Did it speed up your system much? Anyone had any bad experiences? Anyone got any recommendations for parameter settings? Keith ____________ >From the first not a thing is. Hui-neng

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Re: [Alug]Wine
by jamie.french＠talk21.com 29 May '03

29 May '03

This is funny, I tried to get Wine working last night as I want to run KazaaLite. I dont have much time in the evenings and all I got to work was progman! Need to do some reading. Aside, does anyone know of any P2P clients like Kazaa which run under Linux? Take Care, Jamie Best Regards, Jamie French -------------------- talk21 your FREE portable and private address on the net at http://www.talk21.com

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Fw: Re: [Alug]to hdparm or not to hdparm?
by Steve Fosdick 29 May '03

29 May '03

On Thu, 29 May 2003 09:16:39 +0100 "Keith Watson" <keith.watson(a)kewill.com> wrote: > Had a play with hdparm last night and my experience was the same as > Ian. In fact the settings seemed to be at optimum by default, > everything I tried just slowed things down. I didn't find anything that speeded up the transfer rate as reported by hdparm -t - there was as much variation between any two tests with the same settings as between different settings.

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Re: [Alug]Serial port permissions?
by Edenyard 29 May '03

29 May '03

MJ Ray wrote: > > Did you start a new login after doing that? Changes to /etc/group only > take effect then. Running the id command shows what groups you are in > for any given login. > > Basically, adding yourself to the proper group is the right way to do it. > Thanks for that! I didn't realise that I needed to start a new login. I tried restarting Efax and also X, but obviously didn't go far enough back. Anyway, I've set the port group back as it was and have added myself to its group, as you recommend, and now it's all fine. Cheers, Gerald.

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Re: [Alug]The Mystery of the Stubborn Kernel
by Jenny_Hopkins＠toby-churchill.com 28 May '03

28 May '03

Dan Hatton wrote: >I wasn't in the IRC discussion, so apologies if I'm going over old ground. >Are you trying to mount your root filesystem from an IDE drive? If so, >please note that kernel-image-2.4.18-686 doesn't have IDE support compiled >in. I've decided to blame that for my inability to run this kernel, and >it could also be to blame for yours. > >kernel-image-2.4.18-bf does have IDE support compiled in, but I can't run >that either, because it's too big for Loadlin. If you're using a >boot-loader other than Loadlin, you might have more luck. Dan - thanks, this was the problem. LILO had no problem with this image. To think i've been building kernel after kernel without having a clue I would need IDE support; time to get a book on basic hardware out of the library perhaps. :-) Ta Jen

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[Alug]GNU/Linux Partition Utilities
by Keith Watson 28 May '03

28 May '03

I'm getting to the point where I seriously need to re-organise my disks in terms of the number, layout and size of the partitions (i.e. reducing the Windows ones [FAT32] and expanding the GNU/Linux ones [ext3]). In the past I've always used PartitionMagic for this but I'd like to stop using Windows based utilities entirely at some point. What's the general opinion on parted as a tool for this? Does anyone use a different GPL utility that they think is better? Keith ____________ There is nothing infinite apart from finite things D.T. Suzuki

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Re: [Alug]Debian 3.0 r0
by Jenny_Hopkins＠toby-churchill.com 27 May '03

27 May '03

John Seago wrote: >It also seems to want to log me on with a GUI and does'nt give me time to log on >to the command line and then startx. To solve this, type update-rc.d -f xdm remove >it does'nt seem to >like what I have said about my mouse, Sometimes your xf86config can be looking for /dev/mouse, which is normally a link to /dev/psaux for a ps2 mouse. ls -l /dev/mouse will show you. >Typing aptget or apt get seems to have the result of confusing the >poor thing, both sides of the keyboard! Did you do apt-get install mc ? Jen

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Re: [Alug]The Mystery of the Stubborn Kernel
by Jenny_Hopkins＠toby-churchill.com 27 May '03

27 May '03

Dan Hatton wrote: >I wasn't in the IRC discussion, so apologies if I'm going over old ground. >Are you trying to mount your root filesystem from an IDE drive? If so, >please note that kernel-image-2.4.18-686 doesn't have IDE support compiled >in. I've decided to blame that for my inability to run this kernel, and >it could also be to blame for yours. > >kernel-image-2.4.18-bf does have IDE support compiled in, but I can't run >that either, because it's too big for Loadlin. If you're using a >boot-loader other than Loadlin, you might have more luck. This sounds excitingly likely....I'll give this a go as soon as I get home (well, after I've fed the kids and dogs and cats and gone to karate to kick people). I think it is IDE. This will explain something that has been puzzling me for weeks if it works. I'm using LILO. Will let you know the outcome. Ta Jenny

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[Alug]The Mystery of the Stubborn Kernel
by Jenny_Hopkins＠toby-churchill.com 27 May '03

27 May '03

Sorry about my abrupt departure from irc last night - I rebooted convinced it was going to work, but it didn't. :-) Then when I booted back into the old kernel I couldn't get any dns stuff working any more. :-( This is the box which first had a 2.2.18-pre21 kernel which refused stubbornly to upgrade by me building a kernel from a 2.4.19 or 2.4.20 image, however many times I rebuilt it with different tweaks. It wouldn't get past "loading linux" and a bunch of dots. I reinstalled on this box yesterday from the woody 3.0 disks, using the stock 2.2.20 kernel, then I tried to upgrade last night, this time using the debian apt insta;ll kernel-image-2.4.18-686 thing, - when I rebooted it displayed exactly the same behaviour as above. Is it possible that you can get some hardware that will never run certain kernels? Jen

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Re: [Alug]The Mystery of the Stubborn Kernel
by Jenny_Hopkins＠toby-churchill.com 27 May '03

27 May '03

Craig wrote: >On Tue, May 27, 2003 at 10:27:24AM +0100, Jenny_Hopkins(a)toby-churchill.com wrote: >> Is it possible that you can get some hardware that will never run certain >> kernels? > >Erm not really. I don't know which hardwares you are using at the moment >(if it is the machine I've sold you then everything should really >work!). > >Try rolling your own kernel instead of debian's ones. Craig - your box is stupendously brilliant. This is my old linux box which your one has replaced, I want to run it as a mail and print server. I've done both my own kernel, and the debian way. Both display the same problems. Ta, Jen

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[Alug]Debian 3.0 r0
by Edenyard 27 May '03

27 May '03

John Seago wrote: > > seems to want to log me on with a GUI and does'nt give me time to log on > to the command line and then startx. > Hello, John - glad to see you're still hanging in there! I've never used Debian but I expect it's like all the others in this respect: look for a file in the /etc directory called 'inittab'. In that file, you should find a line that reads thus: id:5:initdefault: If you change the 5 to a 3, save the file and then re-boot, you should find that it runs up with the standard login, rather than the graphical one. Of course, to edit this, you'd best have MC working, so maybe you need to get that installed first. Hopefully someone else can put you out of your misery with that problem - as I say, I've never used Debian. Hope this helps? Gerald.

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[Alug]Serial port permissions?
by Edenyard 27 May '03

27 May '03

Over the weekend, I installed Efax and Efax-gtk to get Linux to behave as a fax machine. It looks good but I ran into a problem with accessing /dev/ttyS1 (where my modem is), which I'd appreciate some help with. Running Efax-gtk as an ordinary user, I got an error message when it tried to access the modem, saying that permission was denied. I checked the ownership of /dev/ttyS1 and it is root:uucp. I then edited /etc/groups and added myself to the 'uucp' group, but this didn't fix the problem. So I put that back as it was and chowned /dev/ttyS1 to root:users, since I know I'm in in the group 'users'. That worked, but it's left me feeling slightly guilty: should I have altered the ownership of /dev/ttyS1? I suspect not! So how do I make it all work without chowning /dev/ttyS1, please? It works without any of these tweaks if I run Efax-gtk as 'root', as bad as that sounds! Thanks for any clues! Gerald.

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[Alug]New Company, help!
by Tony Dietrich 26 May '03

26 May '03

Sorry if this is considered off-topic guys. I've been working part-time, combined with a day job, for the last couple of years. Just lately, the biz has got to the stage where I can't afford the time for the day job, so I've had to go full time, and start up a one-man company (I took it Limited so I can get cheaper liabilities insurance :p) But the problem is that at the current size, I'm going to really struggle to survive, even though everyone says I've got a good chance. So if any of you guys have any contacts, potential sales queries etc., that you can pass my way without harming yourselves, I'd really appreciate it. It won't take much to reach the 'safe point'. We can supply most hardware, cabling, software etc, do in-house systems audits/analysis and training, but our core biz is the costing of publicly-funded criminal cases on a bureau basis for solicitors and lawyers. So if any of you are friendly with a solicitor, perhaps you could mention us :p Thanks in advance -- Tony Dietrich Transoft Computer Consultancy Ltd. Felixstowe Suffolk 07769710115 -- Tony Dietrich Transoft Computer Consultancy Ltd. 07769710115

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[Alug]Debian 3.0 r0
by John Seago 26 May '03

26 May '03

I had a go at putting the above in as an additional OS to Slackware, now I know the Xserver with this works because I did try this once before, and despite putting in what makes X work with Slackware it does'nt seem to like what I have said about my mouse, so the X server won't start. It also seems to want to log me on with a GUI and does'nt give me time to log on to the command line and then startx. the third problem I'm having is I don't know what the default file manager is called. I'd like Midnight Commander so I know my way around, but what is the command to add it to the installation, please? (MC must be there somewhare on one of seven CD's). Typing aptget or apt get seems to have the result of confusing the poor thing, both sides of the keyboard! -- John Seago

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[Alug]anouncement from sco
by Jenny_Hopkins＠toby-churchill.com 26 May '03

26 May '03

All, Has anyone seen this? http://www.sco.com/scosource/letter_to_linux_customers.html Jen

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[Alug]Goodbye
by Alexis Lee 26 May '03

26 May '03

Hi, It's been a pleasure, but I moved pretty permanently to Southampton about a month ago so I'm going to transfer LUG. Thanks for the help, hopefully I gave as good as I got! Cheers, Alexis -- Prunes give you a good run for your money. "Think about the good things, that I did to you, And think about the bad things, that I didn't do" - Crystal Method

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[Alug]PS tothe Debian Post
by John Seago 26 May '03

26 May '03

I'm subscribed to the Digest, so you may not a quick thank you unless you copy the reply to me and the list. Thank you all for your forebearance. -- John Seago

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[Alug]Weekly IRC reminder
by Neill Newman 26 May '03

26 May '03

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]Lilo - Fatal: register_bios: volume ID serial no. duplicated: 0000000A
by Wayne Stallwood 25 May '03

25 May '03

ALUG <main(a)lists.alug.org.uk> >I don't have two the same. They are both IBM but the product and >revision numbers are quite different for each drive. >The scsiinfo command gives me the drives' serial numbers which are both >different and nothing like the number quoted in the error message. Ok I am looking at the Lilo source now, it all seems to happen in device.c at about line 425 Can you set the verbosity to level 4 "lilo -v 4", run lilo and send the output. Wayne

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[Alug]hexdump
by richard 24 May '03

24 May '03

Hello ALUG list, Does anyone know to use the hexdump program? I've been trying all night (and am at serious risk of fatal caffeine poisoning!) All I want it to do is print every byte of a file in hex notation without any other rubbish (no indexes, no ASCII, no spaces, no line feeds, no nothing). It claims that you can pass it a format string in the same format as fprintf() so I tried this: $ hexdump -e "%x" {filename} >{outputfile} but it just said that my format string was a "bad format {%x}". Any help would be very much appreciated! Richard.

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[Alug]Lilo - Fatal: register_bios: volume ID serial no. duplicated: 0000000A
by Barry Samuels 23 May '03

23 May '03

The current version of Lilo that I am running with Debian Testing is 22.4.1-1 which is fine. If I upgrade to the latest version 22.5.2-2 I get the message in the subject line when I run lilo. Nothing on the machine has changed and if I revert to 22.4.1-1 every thing is fine again. I've put the new package on hold to prevent upgrading until I know what's going on. Can anyone tell me what the message means, why this should happen suddenly and can I do anything about it? Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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[Alug]Wireless Rural Broadband
by Ben Francis 23 May '03

23 May '03

After I mentioned on either PLUG or ALUG that a local company was looking into providing a wireless internet service based on 802.11g, I had a couple of people asking who this company was. I can now confirm that the project will be run by Stamford based company 2xp (http://2xp.co.uk) and the webpage of the project is here http://www.wrbb.net Worringly there have been several messages recently claiming that there are no 802.11g cards yet that run on Linux. I'd love to know if anyone knows any different as I'm very interested in the proposed service. There was recently a lot of activity on Slashdot regarding this article http://www.computerworld.com/mobiletopics/mobile/story/0,10801,81450,00.html ?nas=PM-81450 which claims that the latest (and possibly final) draft specification released for 802.11g by the IEE will drop the original 54 meg speed to around 20 meg, quite a significant difference. 2xp, the Stamford company got in touch with the IEE and the following text is from here http://www.sourcewire.com/sub_releases/search_results.php?id=16844&hilite "WRBB technical staff visiting the WiFi Exhibition in Olympia have been in contact with Dennis Eaton (Chair of the WiFi Alliance) and Nicholas Sargologos (Prism Product Marketing) who are both voting members of the IEEE 802.11g Committee and have been assured that this is not the case. The standards are to be ratified at the end of June and the voting members assured WRBB that "there is a less than 2% chance of the standard being downgraded". Sorry if this seems a little off topic, but my main concern is that I won't be able to use the proposed wireless internet in Linux. Perhaps there are some 802.11b products that run on Linux and will be compatible with the service? Regards Ben "tola" Francis

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[Alug]USB HC TakeOver Failed! message
by Jenny_Hopkins＠toby-churchill.com 22 May '03

22 May '03

Hi all, I'm getting this message on startup with kernel 2.4.20 usb.c: registered new driver hub usb-ohci.c: USB OHCI at membase 0xce915000, IRQ 10 usb-ohci.c: usb-00:02.0, PCI device 10de:01c2 (nVidia Corporation) usb-ohci.c: USB HC TakeOver failed! Trying to free vfree() nonexistent vm area (ce915000) usb-ohci.c: USB OHCI at membase 0xce915000, IRQ 10 usb-ohci.c: usb-00:03.0, PCI device 10de:01c2 (nVidia Corporation) usb.c: new bus registered, assigned bus number 1 The machine then hangs. I did a google search and found a thread where someone said that meant the bios and kernel were having a punch up over usb controller, and to turn USB controller to disabled. I did this, and sure enough it booted, but then I had no usb. This is on the motherboard A7N266-VM I was droning on about in an earlier thread. Am I missing some point or other where I should have installed an nvidia driver for usb control as well as audio, net and graphics? Any help appreciated. Jen

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[Alug]In praise of Mandrake 9.1
by Ian Bell 22 May '03

22 May '03

I have recently been trying a number of distros including debian and knoppix in an attempt to find something better than my current rh7.3 (rh9.0 being abysmal). On this month's Linux Format DVD was Mandrake 9.1 so I gave it a whirl. Installs OK on my Dell laptop, X works fine, has a recent kde desktop, a good selection of apps and best of all my USB camera plugs in and pops up as a desktop icon. Like rh9 they have omitted kpackage but at least the Mandrake installer allows you to install non Mandrake rpms. This could be it. Ian

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[Alug]Norwich evening meeting status
by Syd Hancock 22 May '03

22 May '03

Overall concensus seems to be for the British Legion Hall on Aylsham road. Just a brief update - I have contacted the BL Hall but the person who deals with bookings is not there for a few days. I will also be away from friday but I'll try and remember to phone up again early next week to make a booking or bookings. Syd

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[Alug]Kernel Assertion Failure (TCP)
by Steve Fosdick 22 May '03

22 May '03

I am getting a interesting kernel assertion failure message relating to TCP. KERNEL: assertion (newsk->state != TCP_SYN_RECV) failed at tcp.c(2229) KERNEL: assertion ((1<<sk2->state)&(TCPF_ESTABLISHED|TCPF_CLOSE_WAIT|TCPF_CLOSE)) failed at af_inet.c(689) Does anyone know if this indicates a kernel bug, or could it just be the result of someone sending me IP packets that don't conform to the standard? Steve.

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[Alug]pci wireless card
by Jenny_Hopkins＠toby-churchill.com 21 May '03

21 May '03

Hi, Can anyone recommend a PCI wireless card that they have found to work well under linux? I've been looking at these: http://www.broadbandbuyer.co.uk/Shop/ShopSearch.asp?CategoryID=59&ShopGroup… Other recommendations welcome! Thanks, Jenny

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Re: [Alug]pci wireless card
by Jenny_Hopkins＠toby-churchill.com 21 May '03

21 May '03

Adam Bower wrote: >prism2 cased cards work quite well I have a dlink dwl-520 (not an dwl 520+ they >don't work) but I think they have now been discontinued, if you do get a prism >based card you can run it as an access point (saving money, but this does >involve more tearing out of hair :)) http://hostap.epitest.fi/ is a good place >to look for supported kit, they have good mailing lists. Adam, thanks....tearing out of hair definitely not on the cards, much as BJ thinks I like to do things the hard way :-) Some most useful links there. Jen

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[Alug]John Atkinson's Sensory Keyboard Project
by John Seago 20 May '03

20 May '03

John, could you get in touch with Ian Bell <ian(a)redtommo.com> as he may be able to put you in touch with others who may be able to further your above mentioned project. I would have put in direct contact with Ian, but I am afraid that your Email address has disappeared in past re-installations. -- John Seago

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[Alug]SCO stuff
by Adam Bower 20 May '03

20 May '03

Oh how they have changed... http://www.caldera-benelux.com/ou8_os_news.html Adam -- jabberid = quinophex(a)jabber.earth.li AFFS || http://www.affs.org.uk/ || Not a filesystem

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[Alug]RE Microsoft and SCO
by tom potts 20 May '03

20 May '03

Dont panic - its a scare tactic by M$ + SCO - they've already released the code under GPL so they must be hoping it would put ignorant people off. re the 4004 - a mate built an 8080 out of TTL - 3' square and 4Mhz when the first 8080 were <1mhz (it think)! __________________________________________________ It's Samaritans' Week. Help Samaritans help others. Call 08709 000032 to give or donate online now at http://www.samaritans.org/support/donations.shtm

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