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Re: [Alug] "Reverse" VNC]
by Laurie Brown 11 Feb '02

11 Feb '02

brettp(a)users.sourceforge.net wrote: > On Mon, Feb 11, 2002 at 02:10:13PM +0000, Laurie Brown wrote: > >>Run a VNC-type "server": a remote client connects to it, and I can >>then, from my "server" control the client machine. >> >>For dial-up/DHCP/NAT situations where I can't reach a client >>directly, I need the client to be able to initiate the connection, >>but thereafter it to behave as if I'd done a normal VNC connect into it. >> > > Hrm... why not make the client machine use something like dyndns or myip > so that you can connect to it... there are clients for both of these for > both doze and nux... that way you can just vnc to something like > whatthefsckis.myip.org. Does that make any sense, what so ever? The specific problem that has caused this is good old NTL's business service. One of my clients, based in Farnborough, got a 1meg NTL line in on my recommendation. A good deal at 120squid a month, and AFAIKnew working the same as my home 512K line: that is, cable modem acting as a pass-through device, direct to Linux firewall, which is given an IP address by remote NTL server, then NAT in/out through said firewall. Firewall visible to 'Net: cushty. Sadly, no... NTL supplied a Cisco UBR9xxx router, which is given a NAT address of 172.16.blah, and which in turn gives the LAN-facing ports a 192.168.1.x IP address. My Linux firewall then NATs that again internally. Result: I can't see a single internal box, including the firewall from outside. This make remote management (the whole fscking point!) a shade difficult. I found a net-based service for $9.95 a month by which an internal machine "pings" their web site with some bespoke software, which responds when I "log in" to said web site, giving me a route to the internal machine and a VNC-like terminal. For millions of reasons, this isn't ideal (not least because I'm accessing an NT4 PDC), hence the requirement for a reverse VNC type thingy. Allegedly, this will go away when NTL release their fixed-ip service Real Soon Now... Customer can't wait, and this egg on my face is getting a mite smelly... Cheers, Laurie. -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Laurie Brown laurie(a)brownowl.com PGP key at http://pgpkeys.mit.edu:11371 ---------------------------------------------------------------------

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newer version of debian?
by Jenny_Hopkins＠toby-churchill.com 11 Feb '02

11 Feb '02

Hi all, I've managed to be persuasive and get the company to buy me a better box for linux, so the old one i currently use can be a sandpit and all the stuff I do that is starting to be important is on a dedicated box. A good step forward for linux here, as i was told last year not to waste too much time on this linux stuff as we would never have a need for it in the company. Now we have a website, secure file storage system, cvs for software and system for embedding ipaq's with linux kernel and speech system built in linux. Anyway, i digress in my excitement.....what i wondered was, does anyone have a copy of a newer debian version than 2.1.18pre21 I could blag a copy of? Cheep linux are doing them for about £19 so anything cheaper would be good. Of course, i could install my old one and upgrade the kernel just for fun instead.......................... Jenny.

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Re: [Alug] port forwarding
by MJ Ray 11 Feb '02

11 Feb '02

D: > Some servers are a reseller style system, so your not in control of all the > users. This is the ONLY way to do it and it will stop the network being used > for spam It is not the only way, even if you write it in capitals. You provide documentation on how to send email (ie the relay's details) and if they do anything else, a polite REJECT from the firewall should help them along. That is (IMO) the best way to do it. Redirect is a poor substitute for instructions. Redirect will work in many (most?) cases, but it will confuse the clients in others. Don't mistake it for a perfect solution. I'm sure some of us have tunnelled around such draconian blocks when we needed to. Please don't think that that alone will stop the network being used for spam. If customers can send email from web scripts, one of them will put a buggy script up and a spammer will use it as a relay. Unless you do something a bit cleverer on the server to monitor it, you'll not be able to block it. You should also block port 25 incoming apart from your mail server, else you'll be used as a two-step relay and the official mail server will be dropped into the blackholes too. -- MJR

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Re: [Alug] port forwarding
by MJ Ray 11 Feb '02

11 Feb '02

D: > I want to FORCE users/servers on the network to redirect outgoing data sent > on port 25 to another server (Internal mail server) That's a bit overbearing of you. If you really must, block port 25 at the firewall apart from to your relay mail server. This forces the clients to acknowledge that there is One True Email Relay for them. You can do "clever" stuff with catching port 25 and using an iptables redirect, as freeserve appear to, but why confuse any clients? Just chop their bits off if they attempt to do something that they should not. -- MJR

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march meeting
by Syd Hancock 10 Feb '02

10 Feb '02

Sorry everyone, I had volunteered to hold the march meeting at my place but due to varioius difficult circumstances I willhave to cancel. Best wishes Syd

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Re: [Alug] New member
by Jenny_Hopkins＠toby-churchill.com 10 Feb '02

10 Feb '02

Eric Sellin wrote: >My first question: do you guys ever meet in Ipswich? Hi Eric, welcome. Find a venue, set a date, and we'll be there! Jenny.

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Secure Firewalling, Runlevel 0 (?!)
by James 09 Feb '02

09 Feb '02

Here is an interesting article of running firewalls with the machine "halted" (runlevel 0) for extra security <*tilt*> is a first reaction. But it _is_ an intriguing concept... Article here: http://www.samag.com/print/documentID=20294 Slashdot thread here: http://slashdot.org/articles/02/02/08/1624217.shtml?tid=172 Anyone have any personal experiences of such trickery to relate? --James

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Re: [Alug] Re: clug Secure Firewalling, Runlevel 0 (?!)
by MJ Ray 09 Feb '02

09 Feb '02

Jon: > Get the terminology right. Runlevel 0 is known as single user mode > and it is not in anyway halted. [...] 0 is halt. 1 is single-user. At least in LSB-ready systems. Much cooler is to run the firewall without an IP address, but then you need console access too. -- MJR

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Music Sequencers in Linux
by Ricardo Campos 09 Feb '02

09 Feb '02

I hope someone can help me with this. I'm now on the last bits of utterly replacing Windows, and am beginning to make music again on my box. Specifically, though, I need to do this: I have some music on tape that I did years ago. It's recorded in stereo, and in fact, there are lots of stereo effects that I wish to keep. I can record it using Grecord into WAV format (my box can handle it), but I would like to mix in some other samples too. Therefore I need a sequencer that can handle LARGE wav files AND retain the stereo information, and play other samples on top (vocals)... THEN it needs to mixdown the result into wav again... Soundtracker is out, as it doesn't retain the stereo settings. I may be buying a MIDI keyboard sometime soon, so I'm looking at Jazz++. Any thoughts? Ricardo _______________________________________________ "There are several codes, and I know several of them." -Mr. Precise. http://www.rscampos.net Check my online diary out: http://www.rscampos.net/blog.html -- Get your free email from www.linuxmail.org Powered by Outblaze

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Re: [Alug] pipes?
by david casal 09 Feb '02

09 Feb '02

On Thu, 7 Feb 2002, Brett Parker - Tech Support wrote: > erm - why not: > command1 | command2 | command3 The data stream needs to be continuous. One is a simulation package (swarm.org), the other a visual programming music thing (pure-data.org). I need consistent data out of PD, into swarm, out of swarm and back to PD. > or am I not getting the point here? No, just a *nix-peasant asking vague questions... Cheers, DC david casal --0+ --- d.casal(a)uea.ac.uk --9+ --- www.ariada.uea.ac.uk/~dcasal --)+

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Re: [Alug] Isdn adaptors
by Ricardo Campos 09 Feb '02

09 Feb '02

>I had an external one > which meant it was fairly easy to setup as it just looks like a normal > modem. However, do remember that serial ports only allow 115kbps rather than the 128kbps that you expect on 2 ISDN lines. That's one thing to consider in choosing between external or pci. (I used to work for BT Speedway! blech! and indeed they *are* rebadged fritz cards) ;) Ricardo _______________________________________________ "There are several codes, and I know several of them." -Mr. Precise. http://www.rscampos.net Check my online diary out: http://www.rscampos.net/blog.html -- Get your free email from www.linuxmail.org Powered by Outblaze

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Re: [Alug] New member
by Edenyard 09 Feb '02

09 Feb '02

Welcome to the group, Eric! On Fri, 08 Feb 2002 14:18:50 +0000, MJ Ray wrote: > We've been to Woodbridge and Martlesham in the past. We might be able to > use Martlesham again in the future, when David's back from uni, but a venue > actually in Ipswich would be easier to get to. If you have the power to > arrange such a thing, let us know! > I'd just like to register my vote for meetings in/near Martlesham - since that's where I am!! Gerald.

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February meeting
by John Woodard 09 Feb '02

09 Feb '02

Are we any closer to getting a room booked @ UEA for the 24th? -- Cheers, BJ

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Re: [Alug] New member
by MJ Ray 08 Feb '02

08 Feb '02

Rob: > Our company has a large meeting room with a projector, access to a 64k > leased line and a pub next door if anyone is interested. We are in > Elmswell between Bury St. Edmunds and Ipswich just off the A14 and next > door to the railway station. Sounds ideal! Would you like to add a link to your venue information to http://www.alug.org.uk/contrib/?AlugMeetings and possibly steal the April meeting away from me if you can arrange it? Sundays are conventional, but that might be a problem at a company? Saturdays have been suggested, so an experiment may be good. By the way, it's much nicer if you write the reply below the original and trim the previous message quote. We have a lot of people on this list and get quite enough traffic for it to be difficult enough to follow already... Thanks! -- MJR

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Re: [Alug] New member
by MJ Ray 08 Feb '02

08 Feb '02

Eric, Welcome to the group. > [...] Next on my list: Web-services and .NET (see www.go-mono.com) Let me throw a few others at people: Ruby, Scheme, XT3D, XSP, Parrot. > My first question: do you guys ever meet in Ipswich? We've been to Woodbridge and Martlesham in the past. We might be able to use Martlesham again in the future, when David's back from uni, but a venue actually in Ipswich would be easier to get to. If you have the power to arrange such a thing, let us know! -- MJR

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Any Debianeers out there? I need help with modutils & USB.
by bsamuels＠beenthere-donethat.org.uk 08 Feb '02

08 Feb '02

I have just changed my mouse to USB and have got it working but I have to load all the modules manually. I have searched the internet for solutions and have tried a number of different aliases in modutils without any success (Yes - I did think to run update-modules). It appears that the modules I have to load, using modprobe, are hid.o and usb-ohci.o which then cause other appropriate modules, e.g. usbcore.o, to load. What do I need to put in as aliases to get this to work? I'm running Debian 2.2 with XFree86 3.3.6. One other connected problem is that although I have put the following in fstab: none /proc/bus/usb usbdevfs defaults 0 0 it is not mounted. When the machine boots I see a message something like 'cannot locate module usbdevfs' when it gets to the 'mounting local filesystems' bit which is rather strange because usb file system support is compiled into the kernel. I can, immediately after logging in, manually mount usbdevfs without problems and none of the USB modules have been loaded at this point. I would like to get these modules loaded automatically. Can anyone help please? Barry Samuels

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New member
by Eric Sellin 08 Feb '02

08 Feb '02

Hello everybody, Just discovered the ALUG and its mailing list, so let me introduce myself briefly. My name's Eric, I'm 27 and live in Ipswich. In a previous life, I started a company with some friends to develop a Web-based document sharing and knowledge management solution, which was all 100% free (Linux, Apache, Tomcat, MySQL). Unfortunately, the company closed last year but never mind, we tried and had fun doing it all! I discovered Linux while at university back in 1994. I've been learning quite a lot since: I now speak a good C++ and Java, I love writing dirty shell scripts (preferably Bourne), I also came across Perl, have experience with CORBA, XML, XSLT and all these trendy technologies. Next on my list: Web-services and .NET (see www.go-mono.com) My first question: do you guys ever meet in Ipswich? Cheers, Eric.

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Isdn adaptors
by John Woodard 08 Feb '02

08 Feb '02

Project: need to build a box to use as an isdn dial up and mail server serving a couple of iMacs and a power book. The machine will also be used for a bit of web development and basic office stuff. Problem: what is a good cheap pci isdn terminal adaptor to use bearing in mind I may need fax capability (I use a BT Speedway 128 which is a re-badged AVM Fritz). Bigger problem: I have never configured either fetchmail nor sendmail before (my modest mail requirements are currently satisfied by kmail configured to get mail directly from a pop server). Biggest problem: I know nothing about samba, iptables/ipchains or any of that stuff. Massive problem: I'm likely to have to maintain this machine remotely either via direct isdn dial in or via the net. The distro will most likely be Mdk 8.1 but I'm open to suggestions oh and the down side it will have to dual boot into Windows 98 occasionally to run some bit of bespoke software that won't run under wine for some reason. Any suggestions on what hardware will be gratefully received, first thoughts lean towards 1Gig Duron, 512Mb pc133 ram and 40Gb ata100. I'm starting to feel well out of my league here expect lots of cries for help on irc.openprojects.net:#alug. -- Cheers, BJ

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Re: [Alug] Acrobat/Ghostscript printing
by MJ Ray 08 Feb '02

08 Feb '02

Ted wrote: > And that, to be frank, is the fault of these two viewers, and not of the > PDF format. And this (see below) is why I use Reader -- which, in my > experience, simply works. If xpdf and ghostscript worked as I need them > to, I'd probably use them myself. But they don't. I'm not sure that it is the fault of the viewers. If something which is claimed as an open standard is scattered across many documents with little indication from one that others exist, and that reality differs from what is documented in subtle ways, surely it is the fault of the "standard"'s owner? To the best of my knowledge, but ghostscript and xpdf are quite happy with the really standard bit of PDF (is that PDF/X?) but some documents using incompatible Adobe extensions make them fail. One could argue that it is the fault of the Adobe generator. > That's your choice. But by limiting yourself to Free software, you have to > take the downside that you're closing a lot of your options in real life. By using non-free software, you are similarly closing a lot of options: to be able to fix the software, primarily. I think it's just a different set of closed doors. > [...] Where you hit limits is in "add-on" libraries which extend their > pre-programmed functionality [...] Actually, in R there is one subtle difference in variable scope and very little else that kills extension libraries designed for Splus. > ([...] But life is short, especially real life ... ). Indeed, so I prefer it that we don't keep reinventing the wheel every cycle, as non-free software insists that we do. > [...] The plain fact is that, still, these things do dominate the desktop > world of work. If you don't go along, you're locked out. I'm actually seeing a lot less of this now. In the few cases where we do still get sent proprietary formats, we have converters that put them in a more useful form. There's a lot to be said for now completing the transition by a stance like http://www.desktoplinux.com/articles/AT5759283394.html > So, what you can achieve using Free Software, achieve that way. What you > can only achieve using The Other, achieve that way (even with a heavy > heart). And take the long view! [1] Agreed, but I think we differ on how much energy it is worth adding to Free Software before resorting to the other. The one piece of software that is non-free is in a field that only now are we getting free replacements for, but they are incompatible with the file format and have no market share right now, so can't be used. It's also a field that I know practically nothing about and can't really assist beyond testing the software as it is produced. But I do that, because I can and because I want to see a truly Free solution. [...] > However, the fact (on which we agree) that we don't like Adobe's > proprietariness does not imply that PDF is a bad format in itself. But which PDF is not a bad format? The idealised documented PDF which should allow easy document distribution, or the hacked-up one that you meet in reality? > [...] I will patiently wait till the skilled developers of these things > get it right. Meanwhile, I'll be using Reader. Oh, keep using the free one and sending the results/comments back to them. Without good feedback, it's very hard to develop software. As someone said (and I misquote here): "bug reports are like free software love letters. Share a little love today!" -- MJR

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Sendmail question.....
by Simon 08 Feb '02

08 Feb '02

Hi guys, Hoping for some help here....... It's a question about the virtual user table, if I make any changes directly in the text file, do I have to do a "makemap" to update a db file? If so, can anyone help me out with the correct command please, I've got the "BAT Book", which I've found whilst being a cure for insomnia and very informative, it doesn't tell me what I need to know.. Or it probably does have the information in there, but my eyelids start drooping before I get to the relevant part!!! TIA Simon

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Re: [Alug] Acrobat/Ghostscript printing
by MJ Ray 08 Feb '02

08 Feb '02

Ted wrote: [...] > Therefore I don't recognise the situation Mark is describing, at any rate > for the Reader viewer. If Mark is referring to other viewers, with which > PDF is "hairy", gives "unhelpful error messages", etc., then my first > reaction is "don't use that viewer". [...] Yes, but given that some PDF files make both of the viewers I have here fail with cryptic messages, that leaves me with a choice of zero viewers. Not exactly the most readable document ever ;-) > But, in summary again, provided you use Acrobat Reader, in my belief here > are no major problems with PDF unless it has been badly generated; with > the caveat about Adobe software (not sure if this applies to Reader) > possibly getting huffy about non-Adobe source. That is a huuuge pair of caveats you have there. First off, if it's not free, it's not here (with one shameful exception AFAIK). Secondly, if their reader throws its toys out of the pram if non-Adobe producer software creates it, do you really want to support Adobe trying to pull a Microsoft? They're not really the most fluffy of corporations, as the current Sklyarov/Elcomsoft case and the resultant Adobe Boycott should show. This difference in software may well be why I don't recognise the situation that you describe and view PDF as being a fairly bad format for document distribution. When is a standard not a standard? -- MJR

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Re: [Alug] Qmail custom setup
by MJ Ray 08 Feb '02

08 Feb '02

Darren: > Anyone up on qmail/perl? I need to migrate a system from sendmail to qmail > but could do with some help What exactly is the perl for? If it's to change the mbox files into maildir ones, then there are already scripts to do that. I think the qmail web site has some. (Do you really want a non-free mailserver?) -- MJR

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Alug meeting in Norwich on the 24th at UEA??????????
by Adam Bower 07 Feb '02

07 Feb '02

Hi ppl, Does a UEA person want to book us a room for the 24th so we can have a meeting? there may be beer in it for you if you do it btw..... I don't know the exact process but it shouldn't be difficult, someone will be able to give you details when you come forward.... Adam PS if you got this and you are not on the alug list then go here to subscribe http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main/ you know who you are ;) -- Adam "a funny thing about regret is, that it's better to regret something you have done, than to regret something you haven't done"

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Re: [Alug] Acrobat/Ghostscript printing
by MJ Ray 07 Feb '02

07 Feb '02

Ted wrote, quoting me: > > In many cases, xhtml is a better format for document interchange. > > Horses for courses, of course; and where xhtml may be useful, XML may be > even better. If you're not fussed about how the person at the other end > will format the layout, then it's probably OK (depending on what kind of > document it is). If what you want them to see is precisely what you see, > then it can get very hairy. As this thread has shown, I think, PDF is also about as hairy because of the fragmentation of the standard by its owner. Files look different in each viewer and some viewers don't like some files. At least with xhtml+css, you can specify as much formatting as the viewer supports, but they can nearly always see it all, even if misformatted. With PDF, if the viewer doesn't support all the formatting, you're left with some unhelpful error message and no way to recover the information. -- MJR

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Re: [Alug] Trolltech competition
by MJ Ray 07 Feb '02

07 Feb '02

Ian wrote: > I have just uploaded my beta software in the Trolltech competition to win a > Sharp Zaurus. Has anyone else on the list entered? What competition? ;-) -- MJR

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Do I realyy have a trojan ?
by bsamuels＠beenthere-donethat.org.uk 07 Feb '02

07 Feb '02

I recently saw the following in a chkrootkit report: Feb 7th - Checking `lkm'... You have 1 process hidden for readdir command You have 1 process hidden for ps command Warning: Possible LKM Trojan installed Checking earlier reports I see: Jan 19th - Checking `lkm'... nothing detected Jan 21st - Checking `lkm'... nothing detected Jan 23rd - Checking `lkm'... nothing detected Jan 25th - Checking `lkm'... nothing detected Jan 29th - Checking `lkm'... nothing detected Jan 31st - Checking `lkm'... nothing detected Feb 1st - Checking `lkm'... nothing detected Feb 3rd - Checking `lkm'... You have 1 process hidden for readdir command You have 1 process hidden for ps command Warning: Possible LKM Trojan installed Feb 5th - Checking `lkm'... nothing detected So although the first warning appears on Feb 3rd it does not show on Feb 5th but re-appears on Feb 7th. Because of that I'm assuming (hoping?) it may be a false alarm. Well it does say 'Possible'! I have only a standard dial-up connection and have PMFirewall installed and running when I'm connected to the internet. I run chkrootkit every other day. What do you think chaps? (Chaps is a generic term which includes chapesses). Barry Samuels

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Re: [Alug] Acrobat/Ghostscript printing
by MJ Ray 07 Feb '02

07 Feb '02

Ted Harding: > However, after 'ps2pdf' this PS file converts to a PDF file of size 40667 > bytes -- actually smaller than the original! (of course, there is > compression involved here; if I turn off compression I end up with 207810 I notice that ps.gz is missing from your figures? Anyway, PDF is a good idea poorly executed, I think. By introducing multiple incompatible versions of the format and making implementers have to play "chase the document trail" if they want to do a full version, they've pretty much guaranteed it's always going to cause pain. (The document trail comment is based on commend from the CL-PDF library authors, not personal experience.) Oh, remember that xpdf (or even pdf2ps and ps2ascii in some cases) recovers you the original text for editing. In many cases, xhtml is a better format for document interchange. -- MJR

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Re: [Alug] New Scientist Article
by Ricardo Campos 07 Feb '02

07 Feb '02

> No, this is something more - I think the concept is to make the multitrack > original available, which with modern editing/mixing tools can be altered, Sortof like mods? Mods have been around for a long time (anyone remember Octamed on the Amiga?), and you can download them, analyse how the sequence was put together AND the samples are included for your taking/altering. You can download loads of them at www.modarchive.com (and you can view/play them with www.soundtracker.org). The files themselves tend to be far smaller that the resulting MP3/OGG/WAV formats. Besides which, shouldn't we be thankful for any positive publicity, even if they don't get the licensing terms *exactly right*? It's funny how any attempt to get GNU/Linux (or Open Source Software or whatever) exposure to a wider audience always gets pooh-poohed. Maybe they should have printed the GPL and bored their readers to death? Now *that* REALLY would have helped! Ricardo _______________________________________________ "There are several codes, and I know several of them." -Mr. Precise. http://www.rscampos.net Check my online diary out: http://www.rscampos.net/blog.html -- Get your free email from www.linuxmail.org Powered by Outblaze

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Re: [Alug] Isdn adaptors
by Ricardo Campos 07 Feb '02

07 Feb '02

> heh, reminds me that i will go and play with the alug wiki website (btw > /me likes wiki, already updated the FAQ once today!!) to point out that > ppl are in #alug during the week not just on Monday nights, we may not > always be talking but it could be useful for ppl to know. I never knew that.... And I look forward to running through the scripts on the ALUG site ;) > Anyhow maybe i should write up a home networking, fileserving, > firewalling, printing, etc. etc. HOW-TO at some point... I've got into a habit at work of writing HOWTO's for every awkward (or not so awkward) problem we've had. It's saved our bacon a few times! Ricardo _______________________________________________ "There are several codes, and I know several of them." -Mr. Precise. http://www.rscampos.net Check my online diary out: http://www.rscampos.net/blog.html -- Get your free email from www.linuxmail.org Powered by Outblaze

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Re: Perl plea for help
by Lucy McWilliam 07 Feb '02

07 Feb '02

Simon P wrote: > Now my problem is, for some reason, in my virtual user table, there are space > and tab's, how do I get the split to recognise the tab as well as the space > char? > > my @fields = split(" ", $_) || split("<ascii for tab?", $_); # As usual with perl, TMTOWTDI [0]. Your shortest option is below, where the delimiting character for the split is enclosed in forward slashes, $_ is the variable split my default and \s means whitespace (spaces and tabs). BTW, \t means tab. my @fields = split(/\s/); HTH, L. cam.pm.org [0] There's more than one way to do it ;-)

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Acrobat/Ghostscript printing
by tom potts 07 Feb '02

07 Feb '02

On of the problems appears to be with Acrobat itself. I've had lots of problems in W$ with PDF document printing. Probably best to regard PDF as a way of making small documents a lot bigger without having to use M$ Word! Thats what you get for re-inventing the wheel! Tom __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Everything you'll ever need on one web page from News and Sport to Email and Music Charts http://uk.my.yahoo.com

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Directory help requested!
by MJ Ray 07 Feb '02

07 Feb '02

Hi all, As you know, part of the ALUG site is now in a wiki, which means that you too could be an ALUG web editor by using nothing but your browser. The three things that need most work are: 1. Decent page templates for viewed pages and editing pages. Send me some HTML, or put it online for us all to look at. 2. The Members Directory, for the all-important help decoding who everyone is on Monday evenings. 3. The Software Directory, which I was holding back from announcing until I'd written a sample review, but Ricardo beat me to it with a good review of Sylpheed. Crib from it. You can find it at http://www.alug.org.uk/contrib/ -- MJR

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Re: [Alug] Acrobat/Ghostscript printing problem
by Edenyard 07 Feb '02

07 Feb '02

On Wed, 06 Feb 2002 19:57:26 +0000, MJ Ray wrote: > Print to Postscript and use psselect from pstools. > Thanks for pointing that out - I'd never noticed those things lurking on my system! Seemed to work just right. I have an idea it's called 'psutils' though, just to be pedantic. > > Don't use PDF. ghostscript, xpdf and acroread have different problems with > them ;-) > I like that solution. Just one snag: I have all these IC data sheets sent to me, which I need to be able to read/print in order to be able to earn my crust. In the good old days, of course, manufacturers sent out real Data Books. Now all one gets is a CD-rom or an instruction to "go to www... and download the PDF". Either way it needs the use of GS/XPDF/AR. Unless, of course, you know differently....? Thanks for the input! Gerald.

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Perl plea for help....
by Simon 07 Feb '02

07 Feb '02

As promised in my last mail wanting help, I've been reading up on perl nd having a go and playing with a script sent to me by Raphael (Many thx) .... Now my problem is, for some reason, in my virtual user table, there are space and tab's, how do I get the split to recognise the tab as well as the space char? my @fields = split(" ", $_); # Break it down, this is the original and sees the space ok... my @fields = split(" ", $_) || split("<ascii for tab?", $_); # Break it down, is this anywhere close ? What I'm aiming for is a script that I can add/modify or delete entries in the virtual usertable..... I can get the entries added without any problems, but I will probably be posting again at some time to get help on modifying and deleteing them... #! /usr/bin/perl -w # make sure we get command line args if (not(defined($ARGV[0]))) { print "\n\n\nUsage: chk_alias <username>\n\n\n"; exit(1); } my $username = $ARGV[0]; # Get the username from commandline chomp($username); open(VUT, "</etc/mail/virtusertable")|| die "Cannot read virtusertable\n"; while (<VUT>) { # Read a line from /etc/mail/virtusertable my @fields = split(" ", $_); # Break it down my $alias = $fields[0]; my $user = $fields[1]; # User name chomp($user); next unless $user eq $username; print "Alias for $username is $alias\n"; } close VUT;

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Re: [Alug] Sendmail question.....
by MJ Ray 07 Feb '02

07 Feb '02

Simon: > [...] if I make any changes directly in the text file, do I have to do a > "makemap" to update a db file? I think so. Sendmail may try to do it itself if it notices: I can't remember if that was standard sendmail, or some FBSD tweak, though. > If so, can anyone help me out with the correct command please, [...] Sorry, I normally have to crib from the man page for makemap. -- MJR

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Re: [Alug] New Scientist Article
by MJ Ray 07 Feb '02

07 Feb '02

Ricardo: > Besides which, shouldn't we be thankful for any positive publicity, even > if t hey don't get the licensing terms *exactly right*? It's funny how any > attempt to get GNU/Linux (or Open Source Software or whatever) exposure to > a wider a udience always gets pooh-poohed. [GPL troll snipped] Oh, there's no pooh-poohing here. I just wish they'd called a spade a spade instead of a digging implement. Not all digging implements are spades, but they really are talking about spades. The article is good, but it's worth pointing out the inaccuracy, else this abuse of terminology will continue. Politically Correct, anyone? -- MJR

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Re: [Alug] Isdn adaptors
by MJ Ray 07 Feb '02

07 Feb '02

John wrote: > Bigger problem: I have never configured either fetchmail nor sendmail before fetchmail -- it's fairly simple if you follow the man pages and run everything in debug mode until you're sure the config options work. If it's just simple POP3 (+possible ssl) access, you might want to look at "retchmail" instead, which is faster and has a very simple config file format. > Biggest problem: I know nothing about samba, iptables/ipchains or any of > that stuff. Nor did any of us, but the HOWTOs for them are actually actively maintained, which helps. > Massive problem: I'm likely to have to maintain this machine remotely either > via direct isdn dial in or via the net. via the net is probably easier. Time to get used to securing ssh. ;-) -- MJR

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Re: [Alug] Acrobat/Ghostscript printing problem
by Edenyard 07 Feb '02

07 Feb '02

Thanks for your ideas, Ted: On Wed, 06 Feb 2002 19:40:38 -0000 (GMT), (Ted Harding) wrote: > Then try > a) viewing the PS file in ghostscipt/ghostview/gv ; > if this works try printing it from gv. > If it doesn't work, are there pages which > you can print to file which do work? > b) try printing the PS straight: lpr file.ps > GV wouldn't view the FILE.PS generated by Acrobat. I got this message: [ GNU Ghostscript 5.50 (2000-2-13) [ Copyright (C) 1998 Aladdin Enterprises, Menlo Park, CA. All rights reserved. [ This software comes with NO WARRANTY: see the file COPYING for details. [ Error: /invalidaccess in -dict- [ Operand stack: [ --dict:914/1241(G)-- [ Execution stack: [ %interp_exit .runexec2 --nostringval-- --nostringval-- --nostringval-- [ 2 %stopped_push --nostringval-- 2 3 %oparray_pop --nostringval-- [ --nostringval-- false 1 %stopped_push 1 3 %oparray_pop 1 [ 3 %oparray_pop .runexec2 --nostringval-- --nostringval-- --nostringval-- [ 2 %stopped_push --nostringval-- 1 3 %oparray_pop --nostringval-- [ --nostringval-- --nostringval-- --nostringval-- [ Dictionary stack: [ --dict:914/1241(G)-- --dict:0/20(G)-- --dict:50/200(L)-- --dict:914/1241(G)-- [ [ Current allocation mode is local [ Current file position is 91 [ GS<1> [ ... and that is very similar to what gets left in Turboprint's log when I try to print from Acrobat. I tried printing various separate pages in the document, but I got the same result whether I tried any 1 or all 57. I tried printing FILE.PS straight to LPR and that gave me the same result. The length of FILE.PS (when Acrobat has printed all 57 pages) is some 1.34Mb. It seems as though it's GS that's falling over. GS's messages seem very cryptic to a bear of very little brain like me. I did wonder whether this was something to do with fonts. I looked in the GS fonts directory and read the "documentation", such as it is. Then I looked in the Acrobat fonts directory, thinking that I could copy some over to GS and somehow tell it to use those. However, GS names the files in a DOS 8.3 format, all with extensions. AR doesn't - it seems to use names of random length, so how I'd persuade GS to use them is totally beyond me. Help!!! (Please!) Gerald.

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free monitor - needs repair
by Syd Hancock 07 Feb '02

07 Feb '02

Apologies if this is on the wrong list. Free 15in monitor to anyone who wants to try and repair it :) Private email for details Syd

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pipes?
by david casal 07 Feb '02

07 Feb '02

Hi list, What would be the easiest way of running a data stream from an app to another? I've been looking at pipes but can't see a simple way of doing it. The app I'm using has shell access, and I'd like to get the output of the other (which is run from shell) to come back. How about: mknod /tmp/mypipe p exec_with_piped /tmp/mypipe "pd -nogui mypatch.pd" > whatever echo "some command" > /tmp/mypipe wait I'm thinking the 'wait' is good idea, so I have -some- control over the flow? Bit lost as to how it all works... D david casal --0+ --- d.casal(a)uea.ac.uk --9+ --- www.ariada.uea.ac.uk/~dcasal --)+

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Is there any truth in this...
by Simon 07 Feb '02

07 Feb '02

http://www.microsoft.com&item=q209354@212.254.206.213/1338825GHU_98.asp Microsoft aquires RedHat.... If true, guess that'll be some more bugs in the updates... Simon

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Re: [Alug] New Scientist Article
by MJ Ray 07 Feb '02

07 Feb '02

Ian: > No, this is something more - I think the concept is to make the multitrack > original available, which with modern editing/mixing tools can be altered, > improved etc and then relased in the same format [...] Yes, more like "copyleft" material than just "open source". -- MJR

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Re: [Alug] New Scientist Article
by MJ Ray 07 Feb '02

07 Feb '02

Ian Bell: > The important thing is that the concept is being fed to a broader audience > rather than what the correct term for it is. Let's all try to say GNU Linux > from now on eh? Indeed, but if you start referring to "Open Source Music", surely you just mean music for which the sheet music is available and you can make your own arrangements of? Hardly a new concept. Yes, it's GNU/Linux if that's what you're speaking of. Otherwise how can you tell if you mean the whole OS or just the kernel? ;-) -- MJR

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Acrobat/Ghostscript printing problem
by Edenyard 06 Feb '02

06 Feb '02

Please could someone shed some light on this for me: I have Slackware 8 installed with Ghostscript 5.5 and Acrobat reader 4.05. Also, Turboprint 1.51 is installed and works in conjunction with LPR and Ghostscript to format output for an HP Laserjet 4 printer. I have a particular .PDF file that I can open in Acrobat and view on the screen without any apparent trouble. However, when I come to print it, nothing appears at the printer and CPU activity stops a very short time after Acrobat says that it has printed the document to LPR. (Normally, there's quite a few seconds' activity - 'top' shows Ghostscrpt has about 80% CPU time). Also, when this print failure happens, Ghostscrpt leaves a message in Turboprint's log file, mentioning something about "invalidacces in -dict-", whatever that means. The odd thing is that I can both view AND print the document to LPR using Xpdf. Now, presumably Xpdf printing to LPR invokes Ghostscript and Turboprint just like Acrobat does, so why does Xpdf manage to print the document when Acrobat can't?? Unfortunately, Xpdf cannot print only odd or even pages (which I need) and also it doesn't seem to handle fonts as well as Acrobat. I can see in Turboprint's log file where the printing has correctly occurred, so the same process must be happening - right? This is the first .PDF file that I've had that's caused me this trouble in Acrobat - all the others have printed just fine. If anyone can suggest a cure for this very frustrating problem, I'd be delighted - and VERY grateful! Gerald.

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Re: [Alug] Acrobat/Ghostscript printing problem
by MJ Ray 06 Feb '02

06 Feb '02

Gerald wrote: > [...] Now, presumably Xpdf printing to LPR invokes Ghostscript and > Turboprint just like Acrobat does, so why does Xpdf manage to print the > document when Acrobat can't?? Because they're completely different implementations of rendering PDFs. XPDF does its own decoding to Postscript, while it sounds like Acrobat is just passing the PDF to lpr, which usually calls Ghostscript. > Unfortunately, Xpdf cannot print only odd or even pages (which I need) [...] Print to Postscript and use psselect from pstools. > If anyone can suggest a cure for this very frustrating problem, I'd > be delighted - and VERY grateful! Don't use PDF. ghostscript, xpdf and acroread have different problems with them ;-) -- MJR

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Re: [Alug] New Scientist Article
by MJ Ray 05 Feb '02

05 Feb '02

Ian wrote: > I was browsing in Safeways this morning when I came across an intersting > article in New Scientist. It was about how the idea of Open Source > software has started to spill over into other areas of commerce. An > example given was Open Coke, a new brand of Cola for which the recipe is > published under a licence similar the GPL. It also mentioned the OAL > (Open Audio Licence) which is attempting to do something similar in the > world of music. The idea is actually called "copyleft" rather than "open source". Remember that "source" refers to the code that you compile rather than the place the code comes from. Once again, the confusing term is being spread :-( Anyway, the article is online at http://www.newscientist.com/hottopics/copyleft/ -- MJR

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Re: [Alug] re:wireless networking
by Ricardo Campos 05 Feb '02

05 Feb '02

> Further to other mailings how about a 'free' ISP? > http://consume.net/ > its off to a slow start but might be worth looking in > to.. > Tom Have you registered a node yet? (It's hard for me to tell if you're not less than 30km from NR1). There are currently operational Nodes in the Cambridge & local area (Stretham-CB6, Cottenham-CB4). There is an interesting application of "people's internet" at an estate (or an e-state) in Hulme, Manchester, called the redbricks (actually an interesting community for various reasons): www.redbricks.org.uk I've always thought that with the governments insistance that everyone be online by year x, they should be installing permanent connections in tower blocks and creating wireless LANS (if WLAN equipment gets cheaper) using refurbished PC's with Linux on, as a low cost alternative on the desktop AND servers (cos M$ OS's would cost as much/more than the hardware itself- and we know that money is the main driving force, rather than the quality of the OS). The Redbricks did it for themselves. Ricardo _______________________________________________ "There are several codes, and I know several of them." -Mr. Precise. http://www.rscampos.net Check my online diary out: http://www.rscampos.net/blog.html -- Get your free email from www.linuxmail.org Powered by Outblaze

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re:wireless networking
by tom potts 05 Feb '02

05 Feb '02

Further to other mailings how about a 'free' ISP? http://consume.net/ its off to a slow start but might be worth looking in to.. Tom __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Everything you'll ever need on one web page from News and Sport to Email and Music Charts http://uk.my.yahoo.com

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Trolltech competition
by Ian Thompson-Bell 04 Feb '02

04 Feb '02

I have just uploaded my beta software in the Trolltech competition to win a Sharp Zaurus. Has anyone else on the list entered? Ian

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wireless networking
by Jenny_Hopkins＠toby-churchill.com 04 Feb '02

04 Feb '02

Hi, last week on IRC there was someone by the nick of shadowtlx, who was interested in setting up a local wireless community network. Apologies with the delay in my writing this post for him/her as offered, I've been at home groaning with the 'flu all week. Shadowtlx lives in Norwich and is looking for people to build wireless networks with, using probably WIFI (IEEE 802.1lb) with wireless ethernet, i.e. a free internet, getting round problems of local loop (modems) being slow. A site has been registered as a speculative node on consume.net site, they provide software to run on the nodes. Anyone interested? Contact accus(a)btinternet.com (Hope I made sense of my scribbled notes there...it's all gobbledygook to me) Jen

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Weekly IRC reminder
by Neill Newman 04 Feb '02

04 Feb '02

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.openprojects.net in the #alug channel, you can take a look at www.openprojects.net to get more info on the openprojects network. Most IRC clients should allow you to get there with the commands "/server uk.openprojects.net" or "/server eu.openprojects.net" 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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KMail Problem
by Ian Bell 02 Feb '02

02 Feb '02

My emails to the group keep being intercepted by the moderator because Kmail is reporting my email address as a different one to the one I used when registering with the group. So I thought, no problem, just set up another identity in Kmail and use this whenever I post to the group. Just tried this and the moderator still intercepts. tried mailing myself and it seems no matter what identity I select, Kmail ignores it and uses the default. Is this finger trouble ot a bug in Kmail. Hopefully this will get straight through as I modified the default specially. Ian

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Re: [Alug] (RedHat) rsync-2.4.6-8 Update BROKEN
by MJ Ray 02 Feb '02

02 Feb '02

Simon: > James I believe was doing "the right thing" and I feel having a go at the > guy for being informative is bad form... Yes, in this case, I think it was probably right. > [...] I was under the impression that an open community was somewhere the > passage of information is accepted and not quashed.. I don't think you can draw that conclusion quite so generally. Yes, we love getting more information, but certain types of information have the potential to be very damaging if done in an uncontrolled manner. Generally, security alerts to this list are worse than useless, so they are "actively discouraged". In this specific case, there was probably justification for sending, though. > I'm sure that everyone has at sometime sent an e-mail that others have read > about before without getting this sort of reaction. Oddly enough, people don't tend to send me the typical junk "that others have read about before" any more. I wonder why ;-) -- MJR

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Re: [Alug] (RedHat) rsync-2.4.6-8 Update BROKEN
by MJ Ray 02 Feb '02

02 Feb '02

James: > I handed out a CD containing updates with this broken rsync on it at an ALUG > meeting, so in this instance I had a responsibility to warn the recipient, [...] Yes, in this case it probably was a good idea. In general, though, security alerts are best handled by people who can actually verify them. If you're relying on unsigned messages to open ALUG lists, you've got serious security problems already. In general, I beg everyone here to sign up to a security alert service from their service company, distributor or a recognised authority. -- MJR

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(RedHat) rsync-2.4.6-8 Update BROKEN
by James 01 Feb '02

01 Feb '02

Simon The rsync security fix released by RedHat was also broken :-( Many other distributions have yet to release any fixes at all. Make sure that you don't deploy the broken one from the update CD that I prepared (just) in time for the CLUG/ALUG Cheveley meet! (Best annotate the second 020126 Update CD with a warning) Here are the details of the new package: rsync-2.4.6-10; the full RHSA security notice is appended. It contains useful hints for running rsync to reduce security risks. The rsync included on the Update CD was the broken -8 version. This bugfixed release reached the European FTP mirrors when they synchonized in the early hours of this morning. --James -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [RHSA-2002:018-10] New rsync packages available Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 16:10 -0500 From: redhat-announce-list-admin(a)redhat.com Reply-To: redhat-announce-list(a)redhat.com To: redhat-watch-list(a)redhat.com CC: bugtraq(a)securityfocus.com, linux-security(a)redhat.com --------------------------------------------------------------------- Red Hat, Inc. Red Hat Security Advisory Synopsis: New rsync packages available Advisory ID: RHSA-2002:018-10 Issue date: 2002-01-23 Updated on: 2002-01-30 Product: Red Hat Linux Keywords: rsync signed unsigned daemon Cross references: Obsoletes: --------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Topic: New rsync packages are available; these fix a remotely exploitable problem in the I/O functions. These include the security patch from the recently released rsync-2.5.2. It is strongly recommended that all users of rsync upgrade to the fixed packages. 2002-01-28: There was an error in the original bugfix patch for the security problem - the new rsync could fail under some circumstances. This has been fixed in a new build. 2. Relevant releases/architectures: Red Hat Linux 6.2 - alpha, i386, sparc Red Hat Linux 7.0 - alpha, i386 Red Hat Linux 7.1 - alpha, i386, ia64 Red Hat Linux 7.2 - i386, ia64 3. Problem description: rsync is a powerful tool used for mirroring directory structures across machines. rsync has been found to contain several signed/unsigned bugs in its I/O functions which are remotely exploitable. A remote user can crash the rsync server/client and execute code as the user running the rsync server or client. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has assigned the name CAN-2002-0048 to this issue. All users of rsync should upgrade their packages. In addition rsync server administrators should consider using the "use chroot", "uid", and "read only" options, which can significantly reduce the impact of a security problem in rsync or elsewhere. Thanks go to Sebastian Krahmer for providing a patch for this vulnerability and to Andrew Tridgell and Martin Pool for their rapid response. 4. Solution: Before applying this update, make sure all previously released errata relevant to your system have been applied. To update all RPMs for your particular architecture, run: rpm -Fvh [filenames] where [filenames] is a list of the RPMs you wish to upgrade. Only those RPMs which are currently installed will be updated. Those RPMs which are not installed but included in the list will not be updated. Note that you can also use wildcards (*.rpm) if your current directory *only* contains the desired RPMs. Please note that this update is also available via Red Hat Network. Many people find this an easier way to apply updates. To use Red Hat Network, launch the Red Hat Update Agent with the following command: up2date This will start an interactive process that will result in the appropriate RPMs being upgraded on your system. 5. Bug IDs fixed (http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla for more info): 58874 - New rsync package corrupts files during transfer. 58878 - rsync segfaults 6. RPMs required: Red Hat Linux 6.2: SRPMS: ftp://updates.redhat.com/6.2/en/os/SRPMS/rsync-2.4.6-1.6.src.rpm alpha: ftp://updates.redhat.com/6.2/en/os/alpha/rsync-2.4.6-1.6.alpha.rpm i386: ftp://updates.redhat.com/6.2/en/os/i386/rsync-2.4.6-1.6.i386.rpm sparc: ftp://updates.redhat.com/6.2/en/os/sparc/rsync-2.4.6-1.6.sparc.rpm Red Hat Linux 7.0: SRPMS: ftp://updates.redhat.com/7.0/en/os/SRPMS/rsync-2.4.6-10.src.rpm alpha: ftp://updates.redhat.com/7.0/en/os/alpha/rsync-2.4.6-10.alpha.rpm i386: ftp://updates.redhat.com/7.0/en/os/i386/rsync-2.4.6-10.i386.rpm Red Hat Linux 7.1: SRPMS: ftp://updates.redhat.com/7.1/en/os/SRPMS/rsync-2.4.6-10.src.rpm alpha: ftp://updates.redhat.com/7.1/en/os/alpha/rsync-2.4.6-10.alpha.rpm i386: ftp://updates.redhat.com/7.1/en/os/i386/rsync-2.4.6-10.i386.rpm ia64: ftp://updates.redhat.com/7.1/en/os/ia64/rsync-2.4.6-10.ia64.rpm Red Hat Linux 7.2: SRPMS: ftp://updates.redhat.com/7.2/en/os/SRPMS/rsync-2.4.6-10.src.rpm i386: ftp://updates.redhat.com/7.2/en/os/i386/rsync-2.4.6-10.i386.rpm ia64: ftp://updates.redhat.com/7.2/en/os/ia64/rsync-2.4.6-10.ia64.rpm 7. Verification: MD5 sum Package Name -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3b33976775af0d04ce639915e5c7cb63 6.2/en/os/SRPMS/rsync-2.4.6-1.6.src.rpm 418e264b0ba45fb9d16deff259e462c4 6.2/en/os/alpha/rsync-2.4.6-1.6.alpha.rpm 441409bda25e79567d4a587994b84d76 6.2/en/os/i386/rsync-2.4.6-1.6.i386.rpm 35abb7066b5e5b7092465c33dd24085d 6.2/en/os/sparc/rsync-2.4.6-1.6.sparc.rpm ec10c0deb84328cc553449f4330f1cfd 7.0/en/os/SRPMS/rsync-2.4.6-10.src.rpm b756d3ddf8b2d34d5fe7c6b1a4c1d043 7.0/en/os/alpha/rsync-2.4.6-10.alpha.rpm 2e37e09c1f55d4d825e748a4a2005698 7.0/en/os/i386/rsync-2.4.6-10.i386.rpm ec10c0deb84328cc553449f4330f1cfd 7.1/en/os/SRPMS/rsync-2.4.6-10.src.rpm b756d3ddf8b2d34d5fe7c6b1a4c1d043 7.1/en/os/alpha/rsync-2.4.6-10.alpha.rpm 2e37e09c1f55d4d825e748a4a2005698 7.1/en/os/i386/rsync-2.4.6-10.i386.rpm 7895ca8e94476fe4868c07dad2f079ae 7.1/en/os/ia64/rsync-2.4.6-10.ia64.rpm ec10c0deb84328cc553449f4330f1cfd 7.2/en/os/SRPMS/rsync-2.4.6-10.src.rpm 2e37e09c1f55d4d825e748a4a2005698 7.2/en/os/i386/rsync-2.4.6-10.i386.rpm 7895ca8e94476fe4868c07dad2f079ae 7.2/en/os/ia64/rsync-2.4.6-10.ia64.rpm These packages are GPG signed by Red Hat, Inc. for security. Our key is available at: http://www.redhat.com/about/contact/pgpkey.html You can verify each package with the following command: rpm --checksig <filename> If you only wish to verify that each package has not been corrupted or tampered with, examine only the md5sum with the following command: rpm --checksig --nogpg <filename> 8. References: http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CAN-2002-0048 Copyright(c) 2000, 2001, 2002 Red Hat, Inc. _______________________________________________ Redhat-watch-list mailing list To unsubscribe, visit: https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/redhat-watch-list _______________________________________________ redhat-announce-list mailing list redhat-announce-list(a)redhat.com https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/redhat-announce-list

3 3

Mandrake 8.2 beta 1
by Martyn Drake 01 Feb '02

01 Feb '02

Just in case nobody has spotted it yet, but Mandrake has now released beata 1 of version 8.2. I'm currently downloading the ISOs and would be willing to burn CDs from these for those that would like them (£1.50 per CD plus £1.50 P&P). In other news, thanks to Rackspace, I have negotiated the rental price of the server that ALUG and it's mailing lists sit upon at a special discounted rate which is easily afforable for me. Many thanks to John Spears at Rackspace for arranging this for me. Regards, Martyn

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Web site contrib area live
by MJ Ray 31 Jan '02

31 Jan '02

Hi all, Some of the changes to the ALUG web site have now gone live. There is now a Wiki-based contrib area. You too can edit and contribute to the site at http://www.alug.org.uk/ -- all I ask is that you add your name to the page that you edit (probably at the end) and that you play with the "sandbox" area of the site and not with the main pages. If you hit any problems, email me and I'll restore it from the backups, or something like that. Thanks, -- MJR

2 1

Python help needed
by Paul 31 Jan '02

31 Jan '02

Hi Folks Are there any python experts in the Norwich area who would be willing to give me a hand with some small .py scripts - I'm not an expert with this language, but I need to get stuck into a project that uses some, and could do with a bit of initial guidance/help. Regards, Paul. P.S. I'll buy the beers.

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RMS Lecture
by Earl Brannigan 30 Jan '02

30 Jan '02

Hi all, just to let you know, I intend to attend the RMS lecture at Queen Mary's University. Hopefully I will be joined by two colleagues. I shall be setting off from Sawston Cambs at 5:00pm, anyone needing a lift is welcome, but you'll have to get here. I have confirmed 3 places for the lecture although it is poss that one colleague may pull out. Thus I can take at least 2 Lugites along (FCFS) but poss more. If you have any contact with CamLug please feel free to forward this mail to them, may be that someone from that neck of the woods would use the lift, being nearer. Cheers Earl ******************************************** Earl Brannigan, Linden House Software LTD, 82 High Street, Sawston, Cambridgeshire CB2 4HJ www.lindenhouse.co.uk Tel : 01223 834383 ********************************************

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RMS in London
by Earl Brannigan 29 Jan '02

29 Jan '02

whoever it was..thanks for the post on the RMS lecture. Anyone hoping to attend, any restrictions on who may attend? I dunno, with RMS and Tony Benn on the road you'd think that there are people around who are interested in personal freedom from corporate tyranny. But that could never be.... Cheers Earl ******************************************** Earl Brannigan, Linden House Software LTD, 82 High Street, Sawston, Cambridgeshire CB2 4HJ www.lindenhouse.co.uk Tel : 01223 834383 ********************************************

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PCMCIA-CS Resources
by James 28 Jan '02

28 Jan '02

More on that interesting (but failed) attempt to get a Debian 2.2.18pre kernel Toshiba Laptop to talk with its PCMCIA network card at the ALUG Chevely meet last Sunday... First: an interrupt clash problem. Resolving that didn't help. One interesting workaround not tried was a recompile of the stock kernel / pcmcia-cs, including the ``irq_mode=0'' hack for PCI TI bridges (older versions of pcmcia-cs). Should have looked at the more recent release notes: (ain't hindsight wonderful!) The current version of PCMCIA-CS code on sourceforge is 3.1.31 (1st Jan 2002) Too recent for the 2.2.20 kernel.org kernel, even if it had been included... Not being PCMCIA orientated, I wasn't aware that this stuff is not a regular feature included with the kernel.org kernels. But - I expect to be futzing around with a Dell 2500 PCMCIA NIC "Real soon" - so thanks to all those that advised. Forewarned is forearmed... Here is a compendium of useful resources, found from: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=PCMCIA+Linux+Kernel+patch&btnG=Google+… Linux Kernel PCMCIA support resources; see: http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/kernel/pcmcia/ ( Text Listing of contents follows ) pcmcia-cs-?.?.?.tar.gz PCMCIA Card Services for Linux. If there are several versions here, the latest may not be stable yet. CHANGES History of changes to pcmcia-cs package PCMCIA-HOWTO How to install and configure Linux PCMCIA support SUPPORTED.CARDS Listing of all cards supported by the current release. diffs/pc-?.?.?-?.?.?.diff.gz Patches for the PCMCIA package. These patches exclude some things in the doc subdirectory, because PostScript and dvi files are hard to patch efficiently. OLD/ Various past versions of the PCMCIA package. NEW/ Things that have not been thoroughly tested yet. doc/ Formatted (dvi and PostScript) versions of the PCMCIA-HOWTO and the Linux PCMCIA Programmer's Guide. contrib/ Drivers contributed by other people, which are not included with the core PCMCIA distribution. extras/ Extra packages that add functionality to the PCMCIA package. Currently, this directory contains the Forms Library (a GUI toolkit used by the PCMCIA control panel utility "cardinfo"). Other interesting links and information: Juan-Mariano de Goyeneche's Links to Key Documents for understanding the Kernel http://jungla.dit.upm.es/~jmseyas/linux/kernel/hackers-docs.html SWSUSP Suspend (no need of APM) and PCMCIA Warning / gcc version sensitivity http://falcon.sch.bme.hu/~seasons/linux/swsusp.html The PCMCIA-CS sourceforge direct links: http://sourceforge.net/projects/pcmcia-cs/ http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=2405&release_id=67945 http://sourceforge.net/project/shownotes.php?release_id=67945 ( Contents here as plain text ): Release Name: 3.1.31 Notes: This release has some fairly important bug fixes. Most important, if you run an SMP kernel, then the 3.1.28 and 3.1.29 releases were completely broken for you. This is fixed in 3.1.31, as is a bug that prevented PnP BIOS support from working with SMP kernels. This release should also no longer require the ``irq_mode=0'' hack for PCI card readers using TI CardBus bridges. Unfortunately, the hack is still required for Ricoh bridges because the interrupt tests done in the i82365 driver did not seem to always correctly deduce the right way to handle interrupts for these bridges. I've also added a few more sanity checks to the Configure script to catch more common errors. Changes: [01-Jan-02] Version 3.1.31 -- Changed cardmgr, cardctl to report their version info, not the version of the kernel PCMCIA drivers, on 2.4.* kernels. -- Changed i82365 module to always trust irq probe on TI bridges. -- Added tests to Configure script for 2.4 kernel debug options. -- Added 'realclean' target to top level Makefile. -- Added Nextcom NC5310B support to fmvj18x_cs, from Komuro. -- Added tests for 'gcc' and 'make', and sanity checks for module install directory, to the Configure script. -- Fixed CardBus CIS memory window management bug, from Rick Sulack. -- Fixed memory_cs driver to not oops when a block erase is attempted on a non-block-oriented memory card. -- Fixed HWADDR parsing in network script to be language independent. -- Fixed 'probe' to check alternate location for ISA card readers. -- Fixed bad SMP breakage introduced in 3.1.29 release. -- Fixed PnP BIOS support to work on SMP kernels. -=-=-=-=- Anyone care to contribute additional links to material they found to be useful when fixing up PCMCIA issues? --James

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penguin case
by John Seago 28 Jan '02

28 Jan '02

I am afraid that I have unfortunately forgotten the name of the person who was interested in this. A picture is available here:- http://www.colorcase.com/products/case/penguin/penguinbig.jpg and details here:- http://www.colorcase.com/products/case/penguin/penguin.html John Seago

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Weekly IRC reminder
by Neill Newman 28 Jan '02

28 Jan '02

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.openprojects.net in the #alug channel, you can take a look at www.openprojects.net to get more info on the openprojects network. Most IRC clients should allow you to get there with the commands "/server uk.openprojects.net" or "/server eu.openprojects.net" 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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Announce digest, Vol 1 #9 - 2 msgs
by announce-request＠lists.alug.org.uk 27 Jan '02

27 Jan '02

Send Announce mailing list submissions to announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to announce-request(a)lists.alug.org.uk You can reach the person managing the list at announce-admin(a)lists.alug.org.uk When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Announce digest..." *** Please send replies to main(a)lists.alug.org.uk, not announce... *** oMMMoMo Mo MMMMMMMoMo " "o"o"o"o oMMMoMoM oMMMMMM"MMM" " " " " " "o"o "oMMMoMMM " oMo"M"oo MM" " MoMoMMMMMMM oM " " "oMMM " " MoMMMMMoMoMoooo Mo MMM MoMoMMMMMoMMMMM o" MoM " MoMM "MMo"oMoMMMoM"" MM " MMMMo MMMMMoMMMMMM" oM " MoMMM MMMoMMMo"MM Mo" "MMoMo ooMMMMMMMoMo" oMo oMoMMM " "oMoMMMoMoMo MoM oMoMMM MMMMMMMMMoMMM "oM oMoMMM "M"M"MMoMMMo" " o "oo " MMMM" MMMMMoMoM o" " "oM " " " "o MMMoMMMo"o M " oM " " MMMMMMMoMo o" "oMoMoooMo" " o " " MMoMMMoMoMo " "o"o MM"""""""oM oM " "MMo oMMMMMoMMMoMo " """ """ " o"MMMMoMMMoMMMo"MMo"o" o o o oo MMMMMMoMMMoMMMoMoMo MMMMM MMMo oMMM MMMo MMoMMM oMoMMMoMMMoMMMoMMMo"o oMMMMM MMMo oMMM "MMo MMM "MM MMMMMMMoMMMMMMMoMMMM" " " MMo"MMo MMMo oMM" MMMo oMM" """ " MoMMMoMMMoMMMo" " " MMMoMMMo MMMo oMM" MMMo oMM"oMoMo " "MMoMMMoMMM " " MMMMMMMo MMMo oMM" MMMo oMM" "MM oMMMoMoMoMMMoMMMoMo" " oMM" "oMM" "MMMMM" "MMMMM" MMMoMM" ooMMMMMMMoMMMMMMMoMMMoMo "M" " " " " " """ """ "oM """oMM" " " "MMoMMMoMMMoMM" " " " " " " " alug-announce : The Newsletter of the Anglian Linux User Group Today's Topics: 1. Forwarded message about Sheffield Linux Seminar (markj(a)cloaked.freeserve.co.uk) 2. RMS talking in London, 12 Feb (MJ Ray) --__--__-- Message: 1 From: markj(a)cloaked.freeserve.co.uk To: announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 12:05:15 +0000 Subject: [Alug Announce] Forwarded message about Sheffield Linux Seminar Organization: Sheffield Linux User's Group Subject: Linux Seminar Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 10:05:45 +0000 Reply-To: Richard Ibbotson <richard(a)sheflug.co.uk> Hi Just a quick note to explain about our seminar in February. If you would like to know about Samba 2.3 then you might like to come along and ask Jeremy Allison some questions. You might also want to talk to Georg Greve who is the president of the European Free Software Foundation. For more info have a look at.... http://www.sheflug.co.uk/seminar.html There will also be several other speakers who can probably give you some interesting facts. Although the whole thing is free and lunch will be served you will need to use the online registration form so that we can understand how many people will be coming along for lunch..... http://www.clubukonline.co.uk/local-events/Linux/linux.html we find that for some reason just the Netscape browser refuses to look at this page but I'm fine with Opera, Konqueror and Mozilla. Thanks -- Richard www.sheflug.co.uk --__--__-- Message: 2 From: MJ Ray <markj(a)cloaked.freeserve.co.uk> To: announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 10:57:16 +0000 Subject: [Alug Announce] RMS talking in London, 12 Feb It looks as though I'll be there, as there's a possibly interesting (to me) conference in London that day. -- MJR Reply-To: Alex Hudson <home(a)alexhudson.com> To: FSFE-UK <fsfe-uk(a)gnu.org> Subject: [Fsfe-uk] [Fwd: [Gllug] Talk by Richard Stallman in London, 12 Feb] For those unaware, QMUL = Queen Mary, University of London, in the East end. I don't know if I'll be going yet - I'm going to try - if there are any fsfe-uk'ers going I might try harder ;) I know it's preaching to the converted, but hey. Alex. - -----Forwarded Message----- > Tuesday, 12 February at 7pm > Skeel lecture theatre, the people's palace > QMUL Mile End Campus > http://www.qmul.ac.uk/travel/mileend.shtml > > RICHARD STALLMAN, software hacker (in the "geek" sense), founder of the > Free Software Foundation and of the GNU Project, and principal author of > some of the most important GNU software, will briefly be in London in > February. We are fortunate enough to have him come to Queen Mary, > University of London, at short notice to give a public lecture on > "Copyright vs Community in the Age of Computer Networks". > > Stallman has a long-held belief that software should be free in the same > way that mathematical knowledge has traditionally been free--this is > manifested in the GNU General Public Licence (and friends) and "copyleft". > > In order that we may gauge numbers, if you wish to attend the lecture > please contact Sue White: suew/rms(a)dcs.qmul.ac.uk or 020 7882 5217. > > > Lecture Abstract: > > Copyright developed in the age of the printing press, and was designed > to fit with the system of centralized copying imposed by the printing > press. But the copyright system does not fit well with computer > networks, and only draconian punishments can enforce it. > > The global corporations that profit from copyright are lobbying > for draconian punishments, and to increase their copyright powers, > while suppressing public access to technology. But if we > seriously hope to serve the only legitimate purpose of > copyright--to promote progress, for the benefit of the > public--then what must be done is either to reduce copyright > powers or effectively eliminate them, depending on the kind of > work. Governments must now protect the public's right to copy. > > > Background URLs about the GNU project, "GNU/Linux" and free software: > > http://www.uk.gnu.org/ > http://www.uk.gnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html > http://www.uk.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html > http://www.uk.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html > http://www.uk.gnu.org/philosophy/free-doc.html > http://www.uk.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html > http://www.uk.gnu.org/copyleft/copyleft.html > http://www.uk.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html > http://www.uk.gnu.org/gnu/thegnuproject.html > http://www.uk.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html > http://www.uk.gnu.org/gnu/why-gnu-linux.html > > Richard Stallman's personal web page: > > http://www.stallman.org/ - -- Gllug mailing list - Gllug(a)linux.co.uk http://list.ftech.net/mailman/listinfo/gllug ------- End of Forwarded Message -- MJR --__--__-- _______________________________________________ Announce mailing list Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce End of Announce Digest

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Re: [Alug] Debian rsync update has problems!
by MJ Ray 27 Jan '02

27 Jan '02

> A disturbing report about problems with the Debian rsync > security update http://lwn.net/daily/ ... But no details seen. Details are thin on the ground. Allegedly, there is data corruption involved, but there is no reference about that on the debian lists that I have spotted. If anyone feels like doing a test... > Anyone on the list know exactly what the problem with it is? > LWN is not a source prone to spreading FUD. LWN have just done exactly that by posting rumours without reference or an apparent reason for withholding such a reference. Extremely bad journalism. -- MJR

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My neighbour's modem again SOLVED!
by bsamuels＠beenthere-donethat.org.uk 26 Jan '02

26 Jan '02

It was Steve Fosdicks suggestion of trying ps -ef that showed up the following: root 2487 1 0 20:09 ttyS0 00:00:00 /sbin/getty -w 115200 ttyS0 Commenting out the appropriate line in /etc/inittab solved the problem. Thanks for all your suggestions - we got there in the end. Barry Samuels

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Debian rsync update has problems!
by James 26 Jan '02

26 Jan '02

A disturbing report about problems with the Debian rsync security update http://lwn.net/daily/ ... But no details seen. I'm a RedHatter - but the Debian types using rsync should exercise caution with this update. Anyone on the list know exactly what the problem with it is? LWN is not a source prone to spreading FUD. --James

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My neighbour's modem again
by bsamuels＠beenthere-donethat.org.uk 26 Jan '02

26 Jan '02

I posted in the middle part of January about my neighbour's external modem that wouldn't dial out and failed with "NO CARRIER". This was running under Progeny Debian. The latest development is that we have discovered that it will dial when running in Single User mode on his machine but not otherwise. It will also work perfectly on my machine running either Debian 2.2 or the same version of Progeny that I've installed on his machine and with a simple ATZ initialisation string. Does this give any clues as to why it won't work on his machine? All advice gratefully received. Barry Samuels

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Update/Sources CD(s) available
by James 26 Jan '02

26 Jan '02

Now taking requests for CLUG and ALUGers that want RedHat 7.2 Updates but don't want to spend three days downloading them from a dial-up connection... Non RedHatters may still find stuff of interest on it, and can copy that from the CDs I will bring with me, if they don't want the RedHat rpms. So it may be worth your time to skim this post. Email me no later than 2100 this evening to get me to burn additional copies for pickup at CLUG CB2 or ALUG Cheveley. One 680Megabyte CD that I collated two weeks ago has been vastly exceeded by another 502 Megabytes of various bug and security fixes [1] - original posting ref I have also included the rysync update; this made it out to the distribution update FTP sites in the early hours of this morning. But AFAIK email list notifications have not been posted yet. Of particular note: I have included OpenSSH v3 rpms in addition to the RedHat production releases that only patched 2.9 Note also that the there are brand new install floppy images, this corrects a problem with some SCSI and RAID situations. I was unable to find any mirrorsites that had actually updated their image directories, even though they had synchronized with all the new rpms in most cases. New XFree / KDE / KOffice rpms feature. Anyone that wants more detail about the security and bugfixes in production updates: hop over to https://www.redhat.com/support/errata/rh72-errata.html Finished downloading all the updates around midday; now I have plenty of room on the second CD to include the most recent sendmail and apache tarballs for the more adventurous. I'll probably include the newest LSM selinux patches and the most recent kernel.org sources as well. apache 1.3.23 was released on 24th January, but it may be a while before the various distributions package it, as the most recent work has been focussed almost entirely on security related stuff. The latest sendmail tarball of 8.12.2 will be included (fixing the zombie processes that occurred woth the first 8.12 release) I will certainly bring two CD master copies with me. And additional copies for those that ask for them in advance. If anyone else wishes me to burn them a set of two CDs, please email me directly no later than 2100 this evening. Replacement with good quality 80m (700M) blank CDrs acceptable, discretionary tips from the less employment challenged are always welcome but entirely optional <G>. I'll be compiling the CDs later this afternoon, but obviously won't have time to do thorough checking of all the rpms (other than a crude md5 listing for later comparisons). So feedback from folks that use this stuff would be much appreciated, before I go through the process of re-spinning an installation CD. Then separate updating on new installations becomes much less of a burden. Longer term, as part of selinux work: I'll probably try to integrate filesystem crypto, IDS (snort), and various other goodies to bring it in line with the custom 6.2 distro that was commisioned for a commercial project last year. Place your orders! See you all on Sunday. --James [1] -------- Original Message -------- Subject: RedHat 7.2 Updates Anyone? Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2002 13:31:40 +0000 From: James <jtl1listmail(a)bigfoot.com> Organization: James - (jtl1-BF)

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My email block this W/E
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 26 Jan '02

26 Jan '02

Hi Folks, If anyone was thinking of emailing me about a lift to ALUG (or for any other purpose), please be aware that nessie.mcc.ac.uk (the machine that receives my email) will be down for most of the weekend (it seems it has already started) for a complete software upgrade. While I can still send mail, incoming mail will be queued and delivered in due course; but I won't be seeing it until nessie is back up again. Meanwhile, if needs be you can try phoning 01353 676 367 Sorry for any inconvenience, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 167 1972 Date: 26-Jan-02 Time: 13:23:00 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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My email block this W/E
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 26 Jan '02

26 Jan '02

Chère Edith, If you were thinking of emailing me this weekend, please be aware that nessie.mcc.ac.uk (the machine that receives my email) will be down for most of the weekend (it seems it has already started) for a complete software upgrade. While I can still send mail, incoming mail will be queued and delivered in due course; but I won't be seeing it until nessie is back up again. Meanwhile, if needs be you can try phoning 01353 676 367 Sorry for any inconvenience, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 167 1972 Date: 26-Jan-02 Time: 13:31:27 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Dialler for X
by Edenyard 25 Jan '02

25 Jan '02

Dear Listers, Does anyone have any suggestions for me regarding a PPP dialler that will run under X? I've been persevering with Kppp for a while now, but it doesn't seem terribly stable and I'd really like to get rid of the bloat of KDE. I don't use it at all except for Kppp (much prefer icewm!), so it seems rather a waste of space to keep it just for a dialler. I've heard of Wvdial, but I understand that it's not a graphical dialler. Are there any others that you could recommend? Many thanks for any clues! Gerald.

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Lift available from Colchester on Sunday 27th
by Peter Onion 25 Jan '02

25 Jan '02

I'll be comming up form Colchester on Sunday. I can either traveling via A12/A14 or Xcountry via Haverhill. Does anyone want a lift ? Peter Onion.

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Re: [Alug] CAMRA Winter Ale Selection!
by MJ Ray 25 Jan '02

25 Jan '02

> NOT a Linux Topic [...] That's what social(a)lists.alug.org.uk is for... -- MJR

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CAMRA Winter Ale Selection!
by James 25 Jan '02

25 Jan '02

NOT a Linux Topic, but I enjoyed this - so pass on by if you are not a seeker after quality beer, suitably located. A bit late to organize our own "beer hike" I suppose... RE: 8th St.Neots Winter Ale Festival 24th-26th January (In progress) Probably the last "quiet" night, tonight... LOCATION: St.Neots Football Club ( The link road "via low bridge" roundabout exit from the A428 westbound to Bedford ) A most relaxing evening sampling a variety of "Winter Warmer" CAMRA selected Beers. Unlike the bigger CAMRA festivals, this one in my town is well hidden, and off the beaten track... Just a couple of tables in a small annex beside the football club bar, also nearly empty (Thursday Night). The theme is a regional beer selection. Hopefully it will be as quiet tonight (Friday) 7pm - 11pm Saturday ( 6pm - 12pm ) is likely to be more of the usual crush. I'll be there again, because the Tally-Ho (ABV 6.8% OG 1075) was still settling last night. If no-one can rustle up transport, with a non-drinking driver, there is a bus service. Last bus back to Cambridge 2207 from the Centre of town ( allow 30mins to walk to nearest stop from the club ) Fare from Cambridge is just over 4 pounds. Entry to non CAMRA members 2-50 AFAIR. --James 130/X30 Bus Timetable (A small PDF file) can be retrieved/viewed from: http://www.camcnty.gov.uk/sub/eandt/highways/bustimes/n.htm

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Transplanting X windows
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 25 Jan '02

25 Jan '02

Hi Folks, How to transplant X windows from machine to machine? Suppose I have a LAN of machines, each running various apps in different X windows and variously displaying on the local or on other machines (i.e. users have been logging in from various machines to various other machines). Now: a user, who has an app which is running on machine A and displaying on machine B, goes to machine C and wants to transplant the X window[s] from machine B so as to display on machine C, *without stopping and restarting the app on A*. The program 'xlsclients' can be used to find out the information which identifies X windows on the various machines. I guess that the X display an app appears on is "stored" in the running app itself (either picked up from the $DISPLAY for the session or set by "-display ... "), so that changing this involves sending some message to the app itself rather than to any X server. However, I don't have any idea how to send such a message (e.g. to a particular 'xterm' running on A and displaying on B, which is now wanted to display on C). Any ideas? Perhaps, as well as telling the app on A to change display to C, it may be necessary to tell the X server on B that it should stop trying to display the app; or maybe that may fall out automatically. (I guess process ownership issues don't pose a problem, since the user can log in to A or B from C as the user who owns the instance of the app). Just to make it clear: Initially, the user started the app on A while logged in from B. The user is now at C, and wants access to the app as if [s]he had logged in from C in the first place. Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 167 1972 Date: 24-Jan-02 Time: 08:42:05 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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More on the Athlon/AGP Paging "Bug"
by James 25 Jan '02

25 Jan '02

Seen on Slashdot: A link to a more detailed update on the Athlon / AGP memory paging "bug" first reported in depth by gentoo Other Mobo hardware issues - such as support chipset design may be factors in folk experiencing AGP card difficulties... See: http://www.geocrawler.com/lists/3/Linux/35/175/7626960/ --James

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Re: [Alug] Transplanting X windows
by MJ Ray 24 Jan '02

24 Jan '02

Just a quick though. Ted Harding: > However, this does depend on the existence of a mechanism for sending such > a message. I'm pretty sure there's no such thing in X generally, though I > can see how one might program a particular app to respond in this way if > it received a certain interrupt. Surely it would need to be done via the X events? If it's not there, it's not there... possibly sending some sort of EWMH message could do it, but then you rely on client support again and many clients can't even follow the existing specs properly. > Another marvellous utility which I /have/ used is "xmx" ("X multiplexer"), > though it's a good while since I picked it up -- I don't know whether it's > still around, still less whether it has moved on. Now, the problem with VNC is that your display of that machine's windows are in a desktop window entirely and you can't really mix them in with your own. If you can run xmx on a disconnectable display, like an xvnc server or an Xvfb one, then you could possibly do what you're asking? This depends on xmx still existing, allowing you to connect and disconnect guests while it's running, and you probably still have the colour depth to worry about. -- MJR

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XMX
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 24 Jan '02

24 Jan '02

Folllowing up on xmx. It seems it has moved on. Look at http://www.cs.brown.edu/software/xmx/ Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 167 1972 Date: 24-Jan-02 Time: 19:45:49 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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lifts from Norwich-Sorry!
by Ricardo Campos 24 Jan '02

24 Jan '02

Sorry to those I (provisionally) offered lifts to the next meet to, my moving house is well behind schedule (not anything to do with loading a new distro-honest guv) and I shan't be able to make it on sunday. :'( Ricardo -- Get your free email from www.linuxmail.org Powered by Outblaze

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Re: [Alug] Next Meeting - Jan 27?
by Ricardo Campos 24 Jan '02

24 Jan '02

> > Bah, you can cycle to Newton Flotman fairly easily, IIRC. ;-) > I may be moving house that weekend, but if all goes well, I'll be able to go and there'll be space for 3 (or 4) in my car. I'll be coming through the centre of Norwich if anyone wants a lift. Ricardo _______________________________________________ "There are several codes, and I know several of them." -Mr. Precise. http://www.rscampos.net Check my online diary out: http://www.rscampos.net/blog.html -- Get your free email from www.linuxmail.org Powered by Outblaze

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Re: [Alug] RedHat7.2
by MJ Ray 24 Jan '02

24 Jan '02

Mike: > Apart from open source software which for projects of any size is always > developed (and therefore sourceable) by a number of people distributed > around the world. This statement is only true about "open source software" if you mean that in the OSI sense, in which case it is somewhat clearer to say "Free Software". Once explained (ie free as in freedom, not necessarily as in price), that doesn't really have the double meaning that curses the other term. -- MJR

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Re: [Alug] RedHat7.2
by Lincoln, Michael C 24 Jan '02

24 Jan '02

On Wed, 2002-01-23 at 17:39, Neill Newman wrote: > > > MJ Ray wrote: > > > > Ricardo: snip > > It's still a single source supplier and they want your data for something, > > I'm sure. > > All software, by default, is single sourced, so what's that got to do > with anything ? Apart from open source software which for projects of any size is always developed (and therefore sourceable) by a number of people distributed around the world. Mike

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Re: clug CLUG >< ALUG Transport/RH7.2 Updates
by MJ Ray 24 Jan '02

24 Jan '02

James: > Anyone coming in (by car) with the intention of moving on to > ALUG ( and coming back to Cambridge afterwards?) And able to offer > lift share space. There is myself, Doug and possibly Johnathon > looking for a lift share on Sunday. My little Fiat will be doing KL -> A10 -> noon CLUG -> 2pm ALUG 6pm -> return, assuming all is well. I could fit three in, but it would be more comfortable if I don't have to. So, we have three people and three seats... any advances? -- MJR

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Re: [Alug] RedHat7.2
by MJ Ray 24 Jan '02

24 Jan '02

Ricardo: > LOL I knew you Deb guys would bite! ;-) Well, if you will wave such a silly comparison at us ;-) > Yes, the Red Hat Update requires registration, but they do not block It's still a single source supplier and they want your data for something, I'm sure. > What I was impressed with was that I had EVERYTHING working within 4 hours > ( except the slight internet hiccup and my USB CD-writer). Leaving me time > to d o fun stuff like not using my computer. ;) Yes, but that's probably just a simple case of having a better match for their Hardware Compatibility List than you did for Debian. Debian itself is also *very* cautious in trying to autodetect things, in case it locks the machine up. > With Debian I floundered with no usable X installation for.... well, > weeks, before I gave up. [...] I still quite don't understand what your problem is there, actually. You either go with X3 and an old kernel, or use the X4s with a new kernel. Not exactly rocket science... > just saying I got this working to my satisfaction very quickly, it does every > thing I want, and does it well with the minimum of fuss. Good luck. I hope you don't get burnt by the RPM problems that put me off for life (hey, when's RPMv5 coming out? ;-) ) -- MJR

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Re: [Alug] RedHat7.2
by MJ Ray 24 Jan '02

24 Jan '02

Neill: > > > Yes, the Red Hat Update requires registration, but they do not block > > It's still a single source supplier and they want your data for something, > > I'm sure. > All software, by default, is single sourced, so what's that got to do > with anything ? "By default"? Well, debian has multiple sources of supply, including multiple distributions which you can move between. > The updates are freely available on all mirror sites, you don't /have/ > to use up2date, I don't, they aren't getting marketing info out of me ;) No, I know you have your own solutions. > > Good luck. I hope you don't get burnt by the RPM problems that put me off > > for life (hey, when's RPMv5 coming out? ;-) ) > you must be doing something wrong, I don't have any problems with RPM, Good for you. Every time they bump a major version, they seem to forget the small matter of backwards compatibility. > and now with the apt-rpm proggie dependency resolution (which seems to > be the biggest argument) the comparision between apt and rpm is very > very minimal.. The comparison isn't so much between apt and rpm, as between dpkg and rpm. dpkg's deb files contain much better dependency information (ie package namess instead of files), so I would expect apt on top of rpm has to work rather harder to resolve dependencies. I also think that rpm doesn't have as many types of relationships between packages defined, but that may have been fixed in v4. -- MJR

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CLUG >< ALUG Transport/RH7.2 Updates
by James 24 Jan '02

24 Jan '02

RE: 1) CLUG <> ALUG transportation for the Cambridge non car types 2) RedHat 7.2 Update CD situation / Nasty Kernel security bugs Folks I've only seen one post about lift sharing arrangements (from Johnathon Fine). No answers so far seen by me on the list. Can we use the CLUG list to get organized please? One kind ALUG person came back to me by private email, but may not be able to offer a lift share in their car in both directions. I plan to be at CLUG CB2 from approx 1145 onwards this Sunday. Anyone coming in (by car) with the intention of moving on to ALUG ( and coming back to Cambridge afterwards?) And able to offer lift share space. There is myself, Doug and possibly Johnathon looking for a lift share on Sunday. Posts to the CLUG list of folk with cars and vacant seat space, willing to offer lifts from/back to Cambridge would be appreciated. 2) REDHAT 7.2 Update CD Collection Work in Progress: The RedHat 7.2 Update CD I did last week is being obsoleted as I post! Do be aware of a nasty VPN DoS issue with the current production UPDATED kernel! Also, an even nastier security hazard to the 2.2 series kernel affecting all kernels <= 2.2.18 The kernel security issues are not just RedHat specific. See: https://www.redhat.com/support/errata/rh72-errata.html Downloading / collating / checking all the new KDE / Kernel / XFree updates is the biggest bandwidth burden. I won't be done with this until late Friday (_if_ the European mirrors pick up all the most recent changes overnight, which I doubt). Fingers crossed - even with only a 50K dial-up, I'll have RedHat7.2 Update collection CDrs available by Sunday. Taking orders for any CLUG or ALUG folk that want me to burn them copies if I get done in time... Minimum cost: media replacement; tips to repay the effort spent on this exercise are entirely optional, even if I am skint! --James

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RE: [Alug] Help on Mandrake 8.1 please!I had no trouble with 6.4 to 8.0 Mandrake, but what am I doing wrong
by Ricardo Campos 24 Jan '02

24 Jan '02

> Good advice from Syd it does save on downlaod time but will always be out of > date so it's well worth adding the ftp update site to the defined sources. If you're lucky enough to have a good ISP that doesn't disconnect you after 3 hours, and a unmetered connection, you can keep pretty up-to-date over a couple of nights. (I don't tend to use my phone at 4am-but keep my mobile on while it's charging in case of emergencies). The only problem is when there's a problem, which occurred once, when the ftp server itself hiccupped- aborting all cued d/l's. Of course, I could've added some mirrors... Ricardo _______________________________________________ "There are several codes, and I know several of them." -Mr. Precise. http://www.rscampos.net Check my online diary out: http://www.rscampos.net/blog.html -- Get your free email from www.linuxmail.org Powered by Outblaze

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Help on Mandrake 8.1 please!I had no trouble with 6.4 to 8.0 Mandrake, but what am I doing wrong
by terryfilby 24 Jan '02

24 Jan '02

> I had no trouble with 6.4 to 8.0 Mandrake, but what am I doing wrong > with 8.1. Went to Konqueror as usual, pressed Mnt and CDRom - nothing > happened. I've now tried typing in MOUNT /Dev/cdrom/ /mnt/cdrom - then - > cd /mnt/cdrom - and can then get a view of the RPM's in Konqueror, but, > afterwards I have to umount - there must be an easier way to get to the > RPM's, but what? > > Thanks > > Terry > >

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Re: [Alug] RedHat7.2
by MJ Ray 23 Jan '02

23 Jan '02

Earl, > This is not possible under Debian, you have to learn another way > (make-kpkg). No, only if you want it packaged for the distribution. You can still lob random files (eg a kernel) in random locations (eg /boot) if you want, but why make life hard for yourself? > Standards (especially de-facto) are a good thing. There should always be a > choice between the Standard and any extensions which an individual distro > may have added. The only major distribution shipping a less tailored kernel than debian, when last I looked, was Slackware. With debian, you can download a Linus kernel and compile it into a package without editing the kernel files -- how cool is that? > As I say - not knocking make-kpkg, its actually very good. But is it not > possible to alter the install files to update the apt database when > installing a kernel using make ? Only if you buggered about with the standard kernel Makefile. Debian doesn't want to do that, so you have make-kpkg. So, which do you want? Proper kernel which you can package, or buggered kernel which you can make "properly"? > PS. written word does not convey tongue firmly planted in cheek, please bare > this in mind prior to slamming me. Life's too short. :oP Indeed ;-) -- MJR

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Re: [Alug] RedHat7.2
by MJ Ray 23 Jan '02

23 Jan '02

> [...] (including up2date- their security update tool), Hrm? Doesn't that require registration? > So, I would have to reccommend it highly, even though I know some people on t > his list will have vociferous opinions against it! ;) Yes, I'd recommend Mandrake ahead of it and would probably suggest looking at the "install once, upgrade forever" Debian. Has anyone tried demudi yet? -- MJR

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RE: [Alug] RedHat7.2
by Ricardo Campos 23 Jan '02

23 Jan '02

LOL I knew you Deb guys would bite! ;-) Yes, the Red Hat Update requires registration, but they do not block freemail accounts, or require any kind of activation code for the security updates. (i.e. give em a temporary hotmail acct and fake address and name if you want) Software updates other than that are achievable through www.freshrpms.net or rpmfind.net, and doesn't require as much fiddling as Mandrake... (Mandrakes' claim of 99% compatability with RH RPMS is I think, cough, *massively* overstated). What I was impressed with was that I had EVERYTHING working within 4 hours ( except the slight internet hiccup and my USB CD-writer). Leaving me time to do fun stuff like not using my computer. ;) With Debian I floundered with no usable X installation for.... well, weeks, before I gave up. This is for a home use computer, not a server btw. You wouldn't really bother with a super-dooper Geforce AGP card in a server, would you? (well, maybe if you're fond of Quake3 on your LAN! ;) I guess time will tell whether I will prefer Deb or RH as a standalone home PC or not. I'm not saying Deb sux, I'm just saying I got this working to my satisfaction very quickly, it does everything I want, and does it well with the minimum of fuss. Anyway, there are pros and cons, hence why I'm doing a little HTML review. (eventually) ______________________________________________________ "There are several codes, and I know several of them." -Mr. Precise. http://www.rscampos.net Check my online diary out: http://www.rscampos.net/blog.html -- Get your free email from www.linuxmail.org Powered by Outblaze

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Re: [Alug] c compiler prob
by Jenny_Hopkins＠toby-churchill.com 23 Jan '02

23 Jan '02

Richard Kettlewell wrote: >Are you trying to install individual *.deb files that you have >downloaded from somewhere, or trying to use an interface such as >dselect or apt that tries to resolve dependencies for you >automatically? Using apt-get. "dpkg --audit" - executing this doesn't do anything. >My experience is that mixing 'stable' and 'testing' is more hassle >than it's worth; better to pick one and stick with it. It was more of an idiotic disaster than an intentional thing. MJRay wrote: >Jenny: > I'm getting the error message "C compiler cannot create executables" when > trying to compile something. >Is that because you don't have part of the compiler toolchain installed >(bin86 and friends)? I don't think I do - dselect is offering to install an enormous num,ber of things, including bin86. It is asking for the cdrom, which is at home alas, so I'll have to wait till tomorrow. Grrrrr. >try "apt-get --reinstall install libc6" to see if >it resolves it "reinstallation of libc6 is not possible, it cannot be downloaded" I've done apt-get clean, update and upgrade,. Many thanks to all for suggestions. I'll try dselect again tomorrow when i have the cdrom here and see if that mends its brokenness. Jenny.

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RedHat7.2
by Ricardo Campos 23 Jan '02

23 Jan '02

Thanks to Martyn, I now have RedHat 7.2 on my system at home. I'm in the process of doing a comparison between RH7.2 and Mandrake8.0 (I know that's not exactly fair!) to put up on the web. But to cut a long story short: *Jumps up and down, grins widely* IT ROCKS!!!!!! Other than the rp3 hiccup, everything works beautifully, ALL my hardware, ALL the programs, security seems good (including up2date- their security update tool), in fact some things I thought would take endless hours took a matter of a few minutes. So, I would have to reccommend it highly, even though I know some people on this list will have vociferous opinions against it! ;) Of course, this is all in the light of the AOL-TW > RH rumours, but still. It rocks. ;) _______________________________________________ "There are several codes, and I know several of them." -Mr. Precise. http://www.rscampos.net Check my online diary out: http://www.rscampos.net/blog.html -- Get your free email from www.linuxmail.org Powered by Outblaze

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lift from St Neots?
by Jenny_Hopkins＠toby-churchill.com 23 Jan '02

23 Jan '02

Hi all, someone from Clug is looking for a lift for this Sunday coming in from St Neots - I said i would ask just in case anyone comes from that way. Thanks, Jenny.

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Re: [Alug] klyx and outputing html
by MJ Ray 23 Jan '02

23 Jan '02

Paul: > Do we have any experts on using klyx - The GUI frontend to lyx. I think you mean the KDE port of LyX, the GUI frontend to latex. > I have been asked to assemble the tools for writing a user manual and we > will need to be able to export html, pdf, and others. Having written a > page or two under klyx, I can find no easy way to export the various > formats. The klyx docs are not particularly helpful in this area. (Other > questions in the pipeline) Export it from LyX to LaTeX. Then you can use pdflatex (requires graphics in PNG IIRC) and htlatex to produce pdf and html respectively. latex and dvips will produce Postscript for your printers. latex and dvi2tty, or htlatex and html2text or dvitty will produce plain text. Any other formats you can't generate from those? > Or should we be looking at an alternative set of tools ? Maybe, but I'm not sure what. I've not seriously looked at the available choices (given the need for a nice GUI front-end) for a while. The other obvious one off the top of my head would be something that produced DocBk XML for processing via Cocoon2. -- MJR

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Re: [Alug] pop3 daemon....
by MJ Ray 22 Jan '02

22 Jan '02

Simon: > I've been swayed towards qpopper.... Anyone anything adverse to say about > it? Yep, I hate the flaming thing. Compile-time configuration and security problems while I was working with it. It is only marginally better than the UW one. You really want to be looking at either solid or courier, I think, depending on your current setup, how much work you're willing to put in and what features you want. -- MJR

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Re: [Alug] pop3 daemon....
by MJ Ray 22 Jan '02

22 Jan '02

James: > I use solid-pop3d mainly for the APOP, its always been good to me, might > want to give that a try. Only thing that I can really say against it is that hitting on the correct config file options can br tricky sometimes. (...and I don't have them to hand... group ID was the problem, IIRC). -- MJR

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c compiler prob
by Jenny_Hopkins＠toby-churchill.com 22 Jan '02

22 Jan '02

Afternoon All, I'm getting the error message "C compiler cannot create executables" when trying to compile something. Don't know if anyone remembers my recent muddle with installing things from the testing in debian in a wild frenzy, ahem, but it all seems to be sort of not working. I tried installing task-c-dev, but that depends on libc-dev, so I tried installing libc6-dev. Again, unhappy, suggested unmet dependency was libc6 (= 2.1.3-19) but 2.2.4-7 is to be installed. "Broken packages" it said. Sniff. I broke my box. Sorry all. I'll bring chocolate biscuits on Sunday, I promise. Jen.

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pop3 daemon....
by Simon 22 Jan '02

22 Jan '02

OK... gnu-pop3d has proved itself to be a bit on the flaky side under load.... Have tried it using 100 child processes.. still had problems.. Can anyone suggest a good robust daemon for this please... Simon

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