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RTLinux
by Neill Newman 18 Sep '01

18 Sep '01

I was speaking with somebody on sunday about RTLinux, and they were saying something about the licenseing issues.. well, this has just poped up on slashdot.. I have no idea who I was talking with, or what the implications are, I'm just passing info to the list and hoping it gets to the right person ;) http://slashdot.org/yro/01/09/17/2056231.shtml Sz -- Open Source Specialists http://www.entora.co.uk/ Tel: +44 (0)701 0723686 Fax: +44 (0)870 3214368

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Re problems with Bt
by John Seago 18 Sep '01

18 Sep '01

Having for a week banged my head against a brick wall over BT's insistence that I change from present 0800 number to a 0808 number which does not now nor has at any time since I joined, worked, today I finally got the end of my tether and made a complaint to Oftel. Four hours later I am still getting apologies from BT, arrangements are being made to ensure that I can connect and, most significantly, they have admitted that lots of other users are having the same problem connecting to 0808 numbers. I would advise anyone who is having the same problems to point out that it has been admitted that some users CAN NOT CONNECT TO THE 0808 NUMBERS, and then complain to Oftel! John Seago

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ide's for linux
by tom potts 18 Sep '01

18 Sep '01

I've played with a few like kdevelop and all have there good points but are horrendous to get properly installed. If your up to it try Forte for Java from sun - its free and only needs the JDK installing first. The real bonus of it is if your forced to use W$ at work you can run it almost identically on that too which I have found means you dont have to retrain yourself every time you swap. Tom ps: its quite resource hungry ____________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.co.uk address at http://mail.yahoo.co.uk or your free @yahoo.ie address at http://mail.yahoo.ie

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Re: main unsubscribe notification
by MJ Ray 18 Sep '01

18 Sep '01

mailman-owner(a)ns.drake.org.uk writes: > planet14(a)boyznow.net has been removed from main. Oh well. Bye Tarquin. -- MJR Thesis watch: 27% This is my personal web site =-> http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ http://www.alug.org.uk/ <-- This is the LUG I go to I work for this clever internet developer ==> http://www.luminas.co.uk/

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Any one know a good IDE?
by NuTTeR -- Not Entered -- 17 Sep '01

17 Sep '01

Well ill start by saying thanx to the guy who sent me the deian cd(sorry for the long time this thanx has taken) =) but when i got it it was broken. I guess it happened in the postall system. No real problem coz i just purchased Mandrake 8.0. Its very nice and up 2 date compared with the old slackware and redhat ive been playing with. I do a bit of programing in my spare time and wanted to know about the IDE's avalible for linux(free ones). What IDE's are avalible for Linux console, and X. I hate useing vi and emacs there interfaces are very hard to get used to(i know there gr8 programs). What do you use(if any of you program)? Thanx for the help -- _______________________________________________ Get your free email from http://www.graffiti.net Powered by Outblaze

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Re: [Alug] Intro & Linux CD question
by Edenyard 17 Sep '01

17 Sep '01

MJ Ray wrote: > First up, welcome to the group. Maybe we'll see you at Syleham on > Sunday? I think the Debian talks are postponed until UEA, when we > should be able to sink our claws into a Debian developer too. > Thanks for the welcome! I haven't yet learnt about Syleham, so, no, I wasn't there yesderday! > Well, it sounds like a hardware problem, or at least the boot kernel > being incompatible with your hardware. The debian CDs should each > have different kernels on and I think it might be worth your while > trying the one with the "compact" or "idepci" kernels to see if that > gets you any further. > Yes - I tried idepci, compact and safe. I could get the basic kernel system installed if I copied all the relevant files on to the DOS partition and installed from there. I could boot up, log in and run 'ls', etc., but obviously there wasn't anything much installed to do anything with. I ran dselect and chose what I wanted to install and it started reading from CD. It didn't get terribly far before it just locked up again with the CD and PC's HDD LEDs both permanently lit. Would I be right in thinking that the kernel must be fairly acceptable to my hardware as I could install from HD and then boot? Then again, the CD drive happily installs Slack 3.5 and Redhat 7.1, so it seems as though that works, too! I'm going round in circles, aren't I! It almost seems as though there's a fundamental problem with the actual machine code in the files on the Crazy Penguin disks or something like that. > Good suppliers include cheeplinux and Linux Emporium. Both offer a > speedy service and decent discs. > Thanks for the tip. I've just looked at both these sites and they seem to have the sort of things I want. John Seago saw my message and has offered to lend me some CDs, so I'd like to try his first if possible, just to prove my hardware. All the best, Gerald.

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apologies
by Ricardo Campos 17 Sep '01

17 Sep '01

Sorry I didn't make it yesterday, but I was trying to get as much as poss done on my website (still not finished). Good news is, I'm finally getting things to work in Linux. Unfortunately still no support for my USB cd-writer. :( possibly some support for my USB printer, but I haven't found it yet. Getting to love Linux, Ricardo, "Surely this monstrous hybrid comes not from a mother's womb but from an Ephialtes, an Incubus, or some other horrendous demon, as though spawned in a putrid and venemous fungus, son of Fauns and Nymphs, more Devil than man." -Athanasius Kircher, Mundus Subtarraneus, Amsterdam, 1665, pp.279-280 Coming soon: http://www.rscampos.net _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp

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Weekly IRC reminder
by Neill Newman 17 Sep '01

17 Sep '01

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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Re: [Alug] Announce ALUG 2001.5
by MJ Ray 16 Sep '01

16 Sep '01

Adam Bower <abower(a)thebowery.co.uk> writes: > I did promise to do a talk on the Debian package management systems apt > and dselect, and the differences between stable, testing and unstable of > Debian. I will also try and talk about the Debian policy of free and > Non-free although most of it will be word for word from the Faq. OK, we have a slate of talks suggested: 1. John Woodard -- "Why I can't install Debian" 2. Adam Bower -- "Debian Package Management" 3. MJ Ray -- "Mixing Debian Stable with Latest" How about it?

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BT Internet
by John Seago 16 Sep '01

16 Sep '01

does anyone else on the list use BT Anytime, and in particular the 0800 5879089 dial in number, if so does the new number work when you dial in to it? John Seago

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Meet
by D.I. Redhouse 16 Sep '01

16 Sep '01

Umph. Sorry, due to a minor crisis at home I'm not going to be able to make it to the meet. However, if anybody still wants Debian CDs mail me your snail mail address. Have a nice time. -- David Redhouse, Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge 0787 6372962 dir21(a)cam.ac.uk http://www.arch.cam.ac.uk/

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Surrey & Disks that don't work
by John Seago 15 Sep '01

15 Sep '01

I made an enquiry of the list on the matter of Btinternent, this was due to their telling me that they were going to discontinue the 08005879089 number and wanted me to use the 08089933004 number instead. Unfortunately the 08089933004 number, as with its predecessor 08089933001 have never connected to BT from my location. The lack of connection became so bad that BT gave me the 08005879089 number and one months refund of subscription, there does however seem to little interest expressed by BT as to how they propose to connect from the end of next week. Disks from Crazy Penguin, the first CD's I bought came from Crazy Penguin, (their prices were that little bit lower than every one else's), these would not work in either my or my son-in-laws computers, I cut my losses and bought from the Linux Emporium. If you're going to be at Syleham tomorrow I have Slackware 8, and Progeny, I'm sure someone can copy them for you. John Seago

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RealTime Linux
by Paul 15 Sep '01

15 Sep '01

Hi Folks Is there any expertise within the group on using real time linux - I'm having some spectacular instant cold boots when I try to run one application. Currently trying a 2.4.8 kernel with the RTAI extensions on a RH7.1 platform. Clutching @ straws ! Regards, Paul.

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Re: [Alug] XSL Formatting Objects Question - Setting Document Defaults
by MJ Ray 15 Sep '01

15 Sep '01

Neill Newman <neill(a)entora.co.uk> writes: > > problems, for there are many: Java still doesn't have closures, > > continuations, first-class procedures... > This may be true, but how many of us know what those mean, how many of > us care ;) Now who's the person with the CS degree? What's wrong with this picture? ;-) Alexis Lee <alexis(a)turton.com> writes: > The advantage of a huge standard library is it keeps things standardised. > Instead of a zillion vendors each doing their own thing to look up, you > just need to flip thru the API. You still have the manual open when programming, the same as for extension libraries. Of course, you abstract away the platform-specifics if you can, no matter what language, so I guess that's a little work done for you. Depends how good the abstraction in the standard API is (eg *argh* Polygon and co-ordinate pairs... now what happens when not working in 2d?) > [...] I quoted Scheme instead of Prolog primarily to bait you, and > secondarily because I thought more people might have heard of it. > If Scheme is nothing like either L or P I will go and hide under a rock. Normally a plonking offence, but Scheme is a lot tidier than Lisp in that a lot of the old stuff that's there for compatibility is gone, as well as some Lisp features not being in the core of Scheme. The standards are 50 pages for Scheme and 1500 pages for Common Lisp... guess which is generally faster to run ;-) > Off the list, Mark, are there any instances where a task can only be done > using closures, or using a closure enhances efficiency? [...] It's just a quick one, so I'll put it in here. Closures make caching easy, eg (pseudocode gratis): (define cachedretr ; want more scheme? http://www.schemers.org/ (let ((cache '())) ; oooh, a variable initialised to be an empty list (lambda (id) ; the variable is in-scope in here but nowhere else ; get data and add it to the cache if it's not there and fresh ; return data from cache ))) cache is something more than a per-function private variable, I think. > And what the heck are continuations and first-class procedures? Continuations are the future of a program at a given point. Procedures being first-class means being able to treat them as any other variable. Both features can be used for very neat tricks. No, it's not an everyday thing, but they're useful to have in the toolbox. Anyway, I suspect Scheme is on at least as many Linux boxes as Java... -- MJR Thesis watch: 27% This is my personal web site =-> http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ http://www.alug.org.uk/ <-- This is the LUG I go to I work for this clever internet developer ==> http://www.luminas.co.uk/

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Re: [Alug] CS students vs Engineers
by MJ Ray 15 Sep '01

15 Sep '01

Adam Bower <abower(a)thebowery.co.uk> writes: > I am not an authority on this either and could someone please correct > me if I am wrong but I think people should only be using the > main(a)lists.alug.org.uk address as the uea one is no longer supported? Indeed. I found out yesterday that stu.uea.ac.uk will cease to be before the end of the year. UEA's computing service has changed its position on a number of issues, so removing the need for it. > Anyway on with my reply :) No. Please reply twice. The reply to main should just say that you are replying to social and people should follow the discussion over there. This is now wildly off-topic for main. -- MJR Thesis watch: 27% This is my personal web site =-> http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ http://www.alug.org.uk/ <-- This is the LUG I go to I work for this clever internet developer ==> http://www.luminas.co.uk/

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Re: [Alug] Intro & Linux CD question
by MJ Ray 15 Sep '01

15 Sep '01

First up, welcome to the group. Maybe we'll see you at Syleham on Sunday? I think the Debian talks are postponed until UEA, when we should be able to sink our claws into a Debian developer too. "Edenyard" <mail(a)edenyard.co.uk> writes: > My problem is that I can get neither the new Slack or Debian to > install. Booting from CD, they both get to a stage early on where the PC > locks up solidly with the CD and HDD lights on permanently. I can swithc > consoles (Alt-F2 etc.) and one of the consoles sometimes says 'hdc > interrupt lost'. [...] Well, it sounds like a hardware problem, or at least the boot kernel being incompatible with your hardware. The debian CDs should each have different kernels on and I think it might be worth your while trying the one with the "compact" or "idepci" kernels to see if that gets you any further. I've not seen this error before, I'm afraid. > So my question really is: has anyone else ever had this problem and, > if so, was it fixable? Or should I just stump up for a proper boxed set > of Slack 7.1 from a reliable vendor? Who is a reliable vendor? Is Debian > also available as a boxed set? Debian is available as a boxed set, but the extra money goes as a donation to their holding company, rather than buying support, I believe. You could try a debian derivative such as Progeny (anyone tried this recently?) Good suppliers include cheeplinux and Linux Emporium. Both offer a speedy service and decent discs. -- MJR Thesis watch: 27% This is my personal web site =-> http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ http://www.alug.org.uk/ <-- This is the LUG I go to I work for this clever internet developer ==> http://www.luminas.co.uk/

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Intro & Linux CD question
by Edenyard 15 Sep '01

15 Sep '01

Dear List, "Introduce yourself", the subscription notice said - so here goes: I'm relatively new to Linux, having started dabbling about three months ago with an old Slack 3.5 set that was lying around. I became interested in Linux because I'm a dyed-in-the-wool DOS man. We don't allow windoze stuff on the premises here. Because my work is in semiconductors, I need to be able to read .PDF files (data sheets, etc.) and such support as there is for DOS in that format is woefully behind the times - hence Linux! I'm located in east Suffolk as a one-and-a-half-man band control systems design company. Here's my (first) question: I got on well with the Slack 3.5 that I mentioned earlier but was frustrated that I seemingly couldn't add newer programmes (e.g., acroread) to it. Someone gave me Redhat 7.1 to try and I got on better with adding 'extras', but it seemed so bloated and slow (I'm using a P166, 64Mb RAM & SVGA). Since I liked the feel of Slack 3.5, I decided to get a set of newer Slack CDs and ended up with a 3-CD Slack 7.1 set. I got those, and also a 3-CD Debian 2.2r3 set from an outfit called Crazy Penguin, by following a link from the UK Linux Groups page (where I also found ALUG, incidentally). My problem is that I can get neither the new Slack or Debian to install. Booting from CD, they both get to a stage early on where the PC locks up solidly with the CD and HDD lights on permanently. I can swithc consoles (Alt-F2 etc.) and one of the consoles sometimes says 'hdc interrupt lost'. I've tried copying the relevant files to a DOS HD partition and installing from there. The process gets a bit further than with booting from CD but it seems that when it needs BIG files from the CD, it hangs up. I tried making some floppies with Slack 7.1 using RAWRITE.EXE under DOS, but RAWRITE caused a QEMM exception. I wondered whether the CDs may be perhaps unreadable, so I tried copying everything from the CD to a DOS HD on my work machine using Xtree and it all copied without any errors. Thinking that my Linux PC was dying, I moved to yet another machine but that gave me the same results. I went back and tried re-installing the old Slack 3.5 and that went through like clockwork. So I tried re-installing Redhat 7.1 and that installed properly, too, so I'm fairly sure that all my hardware is up to scratch. The old Slack 3.5 RAWRITE.EXE works properly, too. The only common clue to the new Slack 7 and Debian failures is that they both came from this Crazy Penguin outfit and look like they're home-made CDs (titles written untidily by hand across disk top surface). So my question really is: has anyone else ever had this problem and, if so, was it fixable? Or should I just stump up for a proper boxed set of Slack 7.1 from a reliable vendor? Who is a reliable vendor? Is Debian also available as a boxed set? Any clues/help would be very greatly appreciated. Sorry that my first message has been so LONG!! All the best, Gerald Pye mail(a)edenyard.co.uk

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bt in surrey
by Chris Brown 15 Sep '01

15 Sep '01

I have just relocated to Surrey and have spent the last 4 days scratching my head over the port not connected error under windows ( no problem under Linux ! ) . I even resorted to Fdisk and a clean install....... twice! Lucky I still recieve the ALUG list or the Modem was heading for the skip ! Have just rung BT and they are looking into it ( as if they have not heard of the problem already ). Maybe I shall be brave and go for a clean Suse install and just skip the W2k Cd...... Chris Brown

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Test Please delete
by oms101＠freeuk.com 14 Sep '01

14 Sep '01

This is a test to see if I am still A subscribed to this list B) now only getting one copy of each email not two Soryy for the incovenience Owen Date: 14-Sep-01 Time: 17:40:37

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Re Students vs Engineers
by tom potts 13 Sep '01

13 Sep '01

One of the problems is you're not timed at university. I was one of the 'Oh God Its Easter!' crowd and found it amusing that some people worked 16hrs a day for three years to obtain 3% higher marks (the difference between a 1st and a 2:ii my year). Unfortunately these people get good jobs and never forget to hate us that have fun! However I do remember I could miss more lectures in a week than an English student had in a term. But remember genius may be 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration but that inspiration invariably comes when your not perspiring. Laziness IS the mother of invention Tom ____________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.co.uk address at http://mail.yahoo.co.uk or your free @yahoo.ie address at http://mail.yahoo.ie

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Re: [Alug] Re: CS students vs Engineers
by MJ Ray 12 Sep '01

12 Sep '01

This is another discussion that would be better off moving to social, I guess. -- MJR Thesis watch: 27% This is my personal web site =-> http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ http://www.alug.org.uk/ <-- This is the LUG I go to I work for this clever internet developer ==> http://www.luminas.co.uk/

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Re: [Alug] Re: CS students vs Engineers
by Ricardo Campos 12 Sep '01

12 Sep '01

>I don't agree with that, a friend got a 3rd, and I consider him way >above me in most things (yeah that's you bing ;) >In my opinion, just because someone has a degree dosen't mean they have >more experience/knowledge than somebody else. Some of the most >knowledgeable people I know didn't go to uni. I agree! I did well at university, but it only means that I am smart enough to pretend to be smart- by thinking in a way predefined as 'correct' by my professors, most of which could tell you almost everything about a certain chemical reaction or whatever, but couldn't remember to do up their flies, and let themselves dangle out. As for grades... they don't really matter too much either, you can do absoloutely bugger all work and still do well, you just have to be cunning. Look at all the f*ckwits on graduate schemes for big companies- surely they are reason enough to take academic results with a ton of salt?! Wouldn't it be better to choose employees very specifically on their personal merits and abilities- these things you can't tell by looking on paper. A lazy but smart person can do well, and a hard-working but 'not as a bright' person can do well also. Which would you rather have? They are not simply the same in the workplace, whereas under our normal examination techniques they are. Besides which, you only begin to ACTUALLY learn about real-life AFTER uni, and this includes vocational skills. Of course, this is all coming from an academically brilliant but exceptionally lazy person who can't even tell his *rse from his elbow... Kinda shooting myself in the foot, methinks. ;P Well, I'm not looking for a job... yet... ;D _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp

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Anyone interested in playing Wireless LANs on Sunday ?
by Peter Onion 12 Sep '01

12 Sep '01

I have a few (3) Lucent orinoco IEEE802.11b pcmcia cards and one SMC 2602W (SMC2632W in a PCI-PCMCIA bridge card) which I can bring along if others are interested in playing wireless lans. The SMC card will run as a acess point using the wlan drivers. I have had it working here so I'll make sure I bring any required drivers etc with me. Peter Onion.

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Re: [Alug] Debian CDs and Alien
by Ricardo Campos 12 Sep '01

12 Sep '01

Damn this IE business! Unfortunately, I sometimes cannot read parts of webpages... this includes my hotmails, but it's intermittent. So *NOW* I see you're away on sunday. I can mail you the CD's if you want, but in that case I *would* like something in return. :p -Ricardo _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp

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Re: [Alug] Debian CDs and Alien
by Ricardo Campos 12 Sep '01

12 Sep '01

>Or of course we can run a kind of Sneaker net, in that someone near >Norwich (this includes me) can take the CDs from Ricardo and pass them on >to Alexis when they are in Norwich. I'm in Norwich, although I'm pretty busy at the mo. But I don't really mind dropping it off if you're in central norwich (I live off Dereham rd.) Ricardo _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp

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Re: [Alug] Debian CDs and Alien
by Ricardo Campos 12 Sep '01

12 Sep '01

If you're at the lug meet on sunday, you can have Progeny for free! :) (well, you can cover all 60p of the costs for the two CD's!!) I have a CD burner and an always-on internet conn at work! ;) Ricardo, "Surely this monstrous hybrid comes not from a mother's womb but from an Ephialtes, an Incubus, or some other horrendous demon, as though spawned in a putrid and venemous fungus, son of Fauns and Nymphs, more Devil than man." -Athanasius Kircher, Mundus Subtarraneus, Amsterdam, 1665, pp.279-280 Coming soon: http://www.rscampos.net/blog.html _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp

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Debian CDs and Alien
by Alexis Lee 12 Sep '01

12 Sep '01

Having nuked my Mandrake the other day trying to install Debian from floppy (bah humbug cfdisk), I'm impatient to get _something_ working. I could get Progeny, and hence a nice installer, for £10 plus postage. Or I could get the first official non-US for just postage, or all 6 official non-US for £10. Not being so bothered about source I won't read anyway, I'm cool on the last option, but it does have two extra CDs of 'stuff'. Anyone got opinions of which of these is the best bang for buck? Is the Progeny installer worth the CD it's burnt on? Do the extra 2 CDs have worth while stuff on them? If I can get away with it, it'd be neat to get the single CD and use alien to install lots of packages from my Mandrake CDs. How good is alien? It sounds quite promising actually, but do packages built with it update all the right dbs? Oh and of course, if anyone is willing to post or pop round CDs to Norwich, I'd be grateful. Can't make this meeting 'cause I'm in Holland, and I want something done before the next one so I can start setting up OpenGL again. Alexis -- "You got what everyone gets. A lifetime." - Death (Sandman by Neil Gaiman) "I respect faith, but doubt is what gives you an education" - Wilson Mizner "It doesn't matter who you vote for. The government always gets in."

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Re: [Alug] XSL Formatting Objects Question - Setting Document Defaults
by MJ Ray 12 Sep '01

12 Sep '01

Alexis Lee <alexis(a)turton.com> writes: > But then, it would be much neater to have a Cache object. What is a Cache object? Yes, that's a philosophical question ;-) > Depends whether you count the JRE included in browsers. And whether Guile > is Scheme or not- I think Gnome uses Guile for something, so that would up > numbers a lot. Yep, Guile is Scheme. And how many current browsers include JREs? Isn't that a dying trend? Java is surely a language which has had its day in the sun... now to see how it weathers a winter. > Incidentally Mark, as a reward for getting this far I'll admonish you to > make the URLs on your homepage relative. They're all at cloaked still. Huh? My personal site is entertainingly broken at the moment (try it in moz), but I don't recall there being any non-relative internal URLs on it, as that's a pet hate of mine. -- MJR Thesis watch: 27% This is my personal web site =-> http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ http://www.alug.org.uk/ <-- This is the LUG I go to I work for this clever internet developer ==> http://www.luminas.co.uk/

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Re: The Economics of Reproduction
by John Seago 12 Sep '01

12 Sep '01

The following site may be of some relevance/Interest to the abovementioned article: http://freenet.sourceforge.net/ Or perhaps I miss the point of the article, I apologise if I am preaching to the converted. John

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Re: [Alug] Re: Debian Difficulties
by MJ Ray 12 Sep '01

12 Sep '01

"Earl Brannigan" <earl.brannigan(a)lindenhouse.co.uk> writes: > 2)Still can't get X to work for anyone other than root, despite hours of > info reading (X is very well documented but still not very easy to follow. I > now know that there are a number of files that need setting up in the users > directory, but its a bit of a scary one. I'll post something when I have a > resolution. Shouldn't need any files in the user dir if you set the /etc/X11 files up correctly. Some of them, like Xsession.options, have their own debian man pages. Quite what the problem could be, I can't think. > 4)I had been having some probs with apt-get / dselect and found that having > the update cdrom (Linux Expo 2001) referenced in /etc/apt/sources.list was > causing dselect to 'suggest' upgrading all sorts. I don't like dselect. console-apt/capt works far better for me. > The only weak points with dpkg and dselect though is finding a package that > supplies a file dpkg -S file ? > Observations on a week in debian land : > 1)Debian is not for the beginner nor the faint hearted. Maybe not. People are working on it, though. > 2)Debian does not pretend to be for the beginner or the faint hearted. It desires to be. > 3)Debian likes to scare the faint hearted and make beginners suffer. Nonsense! Beginners are reluctant to report bugs, though. > 5)My back aches, my neck aches, my eyes are tired, I need sleep. Your hands are aching and your knees are raw? -- MJR Thesis watch: 27% This is my personal web site =-> http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ http://www.alug.org.uk/ <-- This is the LUG I go to I work for this clever internet developer ==> http://www.luminas.co.uk/

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Debian talk Sunday
by Adam Bower 12 Sep '01

12 Sep '01

Hi all, I am very sorry but I don't think that the Debian talk I was planning to give will take place this Sunday. The main reason being that I have been rather ill since a few days after coming back from Belgium, some others who were there have also reported the same so it is not just open source software we share :-) I do hope that I recover enough to get the talk together but I find that unlikely at the moment. I will of course make sure that the talk happens at the next meeting after Syleham though. If you still want me to do things to your computer involving Debian though I would be very happy to do so :-) Thanks Adam PS I managed to hack a Bios update for my Vaio so I no longer need a USB floppy drive... -- This message is Copyleft - all rights reversed Adam

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Mandrake 8
by John Seago 11 Sep '01

11 Sep '01

Having managed to thoroughly cock up both the software and hardware on my computer, to the extent that Chris, had to dismantle it put the hard drive into his and then heal its wounds, the reconstructed box is now working with windows on the first disk. Trying to reinstall Mandrake 8, I found that it would go as far as the point where it needs to access the CD and then get stuck, Chris's diagnosis is that Mandrake can only see a CD Drive that is a secondary slave instead of as it is now set up the secondary master. Has anyone any suggestions, or come across this problem before? I do have disks for Red Hat, but on my machine, when trying to install at 'lowres' the screen displays black text on nearly black background, and is thus unreadable. The more exciting disks, Slackware 8, Debian, Progeny, are beyond my capabilities and being saved for the long winter learning process. John Seago

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sundays meeting- lift sought
by Michelle Louise Oelschig 11 Sep '01

11 Sep '01

Hello There Have recently joined this mailing list... am resident in Ipswich near Christchurch Park, and would like to attend sunday's meeting, but lack transport and am totally unfamiliar with the area having recently moved here from South Africa. If anyone reading this lives in the Ipswich area and could offer me a lift, i would be grateful. Many Thanks, Mici Oelschig ____ "Beyond the door Strange cruel beautiful years are waiting for you..." -Johnny Clegg

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Announce digest, Vol 1 #3 - 5 msgs
by announce-request＠lists.alug.org.uk 11 Sep '01

11 Sep '01

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. Apologies for the last newsletter (MJ Ray) 2. Realtime and Embedded Linux shows (MJ Ray) 3. The economics of free reproduction (MJ Ray) 4. [cedric.gauthier(a)soissons-technopole.org] [uklugs] European Free Software Contest (MJ Ray) 5. UK leafletting campaign, Saturday 15th (MJ Ray) --__--__-- Message: 1 To: announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk From: MJ Ray <markj(a)cloaked.freeserve.co.uk> Organization: Cat-killingly bad Date: 02 Sep 2001 19:57:27 +0100 Subject: [Alug Announce] Apologies for the last newsletter Sorry about the slight error in the last edition which saw it go out as two single-article messages. The new list server works in a different way and it tricked me. I now (hopefully) return you to your normal service. --__--__-- Message: 2 To: announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk From: MJ Ray <markj(a)cloaked.freeserve.co.uk> Organization: Cat-killingly bad Date: 08 Sep 2001 10:09:45 +0100 Subject: [Alug Announce] Realtime and Embedded Linux shows Date: Fri, 07 Sep 2001 15:52:12 +0200 From: Astrid Schoofs <astrids(a)aexpo.com> Subject: Realtime and Embedded Linux shows Dear Sir, Please find out our show schedule for our Real Time Computing & Embedded Linux Expo's and Conferences. You are free to registrate as a visitor!! At www.aexpo.com or www.rtcgroup.com under SOLUTIONS you will find all the shows, seminars and conferences. The fist show is in LONDON, October 9th 2001. Thank you for forwarding this to your members, kind regards, Astrid Schoofs Sales & Marketing Manager ACTIVE Exhibitions Europe PO Box 2114 5300 CC Zaltbommel The Netherlands Phone: +31.418.577700 Direct Phone: +31.418.577713 Fax: +31.418.577720 E-mail: astrids(a)aexpo.com Internet: http://www.aexpo.com/ --__--__-- Message: 3 To: announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk From: MJ Ray <markj(a)cloaked.freeserve.co.uk> Organization: Cat-killingly bad Date: 10 Sep 2001 01:32:58 +0100 Subject: [Alug Announce] The economics of free reproduction

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Re: Debian Difficulties
by Earl Brannigan 11 Sep '01

11 Sep '01

Hi all first of all thanks to all who posted replies on this. Thought I'd post a brief overview of my current situ : 1)wvdial/ppp now works well, except for one small problem - my modem driver displays an error when it is loaded to say that it is built for kernel 2.2.18 while I am running 2.2.19pre3. This would be an obvious problem were it not that I compiled it myself the night before last using the kernel-headers package I have installed (perhaps I have mis-installed??? - must check!!!). Anyways, apart from that there are no probs. Getting this to work involved using the dialout group with a little messing with privs to ensure only dialout users and root may access the modem, ppp and wvidial and associated scripts/configfiles. I'm just going to audit this setup a bit - if anyone would like a listing of what I did I'll be glad to send it. 2)Still can't get X to work for anyone other than root, despite hours of info reading (X is very well documented but still not very easy to follow. I now know that there are a number of files that need setting up in the users directory, but its a bit of a scary one. I'll post something when I have a resolution. Meanwhile, if anyone is willing to send me their ~/.X* files of a bog-standard user to use/study as a base I would greatly appreciate it, I'm running XFree86-3.x.(I would rather not use the root ones that I have in case I inadvertantly create an X session ready to yield root privs to any tom/dick/harry who knows how). 3)I now have a full kernel build environment setup. Not realising the existence of make-kpkg I was off on good old make. Have to say that make-kpkg is the biz. - whaddya mean RTFM !!? I *know* how to build a kernel...!!!!..... int BuryHead(TSand _sand, THead _head){ return (_sand += _head); } ;o) 4)I had been having some probs with apt-get / dselect and found that having the update cdrom (Linux Expo 2001) referenced in /etc/apt/sources.list was causing dselect to 'suggest' upgrading all sorts. dselect specifies a keystroke shift-D which never seemed to fix it - any time I went to install there would always be a long list of packages to remove, even though I hadn't specified them. Commenting out the lines referring to the update cdrom then doing apt-get update did fix things however. Now if I want something off the update cdrom I uncomment the relevant line in sources.list, apt-get update, then apt-get install <package> and all is well. The only caveat is that when I run dselect with the lines commented out anything that I have installed from the update cdrom is listed in the obsolete section.... The point is I suppose that when installing the base debian system from the installer its best to keep the update cdrom out of the way until you are happy with the base, then let dpkg see the update cdrom if you want to. The only weak points with dpkg and dselect though is finding a package that supplies a file (a la : rpm -qa --provides <file>). I'm sure that if it can do this its in the docs but I haven't found it yet. Observations on a week in debian land : 1)Debian is not for the beginner nor the faint hearted. 2)Debian does not pretend to be for the beginner or the faint hearted. 3)Debian likes to scare the faint hearted and make beginners suffer. 4)I Have been suffering a little but I am not scared just yet. 5)My back aches, my neck aches, my eyes are tired, I need sleep. 6)Debian Rocks - anything that can keep me away from the TV/Guitar/Pub for 4 Nights in a row - despite annoying the hell out of me and keeping me awake until some ungodly hours drinking coffee and eating dodgy biscuits has got to be good. Cheers all, sorry 'bout the essay. Earl

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Re: [Alug] XSL Formatting Objects Question - Setting Document Defaults
by MJ Ray 11 Sep '01

11 Sep '01

Alexis Lee <alexis(a)turton.com> writes: > And what the heck are continuations and first-class procedures? news:<nm9d74ztbvn.fsf(a)kindness.mit.edu> might be interesting -- MJR Thesis watch: 27% This is my personal web site =-> http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ http://www.alug.org.uk/ <-- This is the LUG I go to I work for this clever internet developer ==> http://www.luminas.co.uk/

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Re: [Alug] XSL Formatting Objects Question - Setting Document Defaults
by MJ Ray 11 Sep '01

11 Sep '01

<pontification> Steve Fosdick <fozzy(a)pelvoux.demon.co.uk> writes: > 2. Including much more useful functionality in the standard > library (such as a GUI toolkit) which means that many more things > are done in a standard way. I actually see this as a *disadvantage*. What I like in a language is a small, compact, memorable, consistent, very standard core -- not the acres of libraries which make up the current standard Java. I'm still plodding through texts... as soon as I think I know roughly what's available, someone seems to invent more ;-) Neill Newman <neill(a)entora.co.uk> writes: > yes, Bill Joy (the main guy who wrote Java, or oak as it was origionally > called) didn't like the way in which OO was bolted on to C to form part > of C++. C++ -- tying legs onto a dog and calling it an octopus. Now where's that quote from? > I believe he also took on board the concept of garbage collection, > memory management, and a clean OO design from smalltalk and other > languages. Is Java really a "clean OO design from smalltalk"? Is there a non-trivial superclass which is an ancestor of everything? int? > I would not entirely agree that the Java API is as extensive as C/C++ or > other languages. There are some things that are very very dificult to > achieve using Java, and what seems like a simple task in one language > /can/ be very dificult in Java if it is not part of the API. An advantage of starting with a ball of mud is that no matter how much mud you add to it, you still have a ball of mud. If you start with a diamond and add mud, you have a muddy diamond. (Paraphrasing from a programming textbook I once read.) Alexis Lee <alexis(a)turton.com> writes: > C++ is a decent language if you know what you're doing. Think of it as a > stallion, compared to Java's compliant mare. Sometimes you need to wrastle, > but it always has the power. Oh, and while it will never refuse a jump, it > might get both your necks broken when you fu. Nice image. Sorry, I just wanted to quote that. > [...] This gives performance near equal to C, and (wild unfounded > guess) probably much better than any loose-typed or > philosophy-designed language like PHP or Scheme. "I think PHP could become the BASIC of the next Years" -- Thies, PHP maintainer. You actually slight Scheme very badly here, you know. Yes, you'd expect me to say that, but even so! Putting it with PHP? I read the report today showing a scheme webserver outperforming a PHP one by 2:1... lies, damn lies and benchmarks perhaps, but PHP is really not in the same ball-park. Also, you can get strictly-typed optimised schemes. Or schemes implemented in Java (Kawa, BRL, Silk). Careful what you say when you don't know ;-) These Java programmers of Scheme are probably trying to counteract the problems, for there are many: Java still doesn't have closures, continuations, first-class procedures... </pontification> -- MJR Thesis watch: 27% This is my personal web site =-> http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ http://www.alug.org.uk/ <-- This is the LUG I go to I work for this clever internet developer ==> http://www.luminas.co.uk/

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Re: [Alug] gunzip/tars
by Ricardo Campos 10 Sep '01

10 Sep '01

Oops! Sorry, a case of RTFM!!!!!! Ricardo, "Surely this monstrous hybrid comes not from a mother's womb but from an Ephialtes, an Incubus, or some other horrendous demon, as though spawned in a putrid and venemous fungus, son of Fauns and Nymphs, more Devil than man." -Athanasius Kircher, Mundus Subtarraneus, Amsterdam, 1665, pp.279-280 _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp

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gunzip/tars
by Ricardo Campos 10 Sep '01

10 Sep '01

When you get a file such as file.tar.gz , do you need to do gunzip file.tar.gz tar -xvf file.tar Or can u go straight to: tar -xvzf file.tar.gz I have been doing the latter, but *all* of my compiles have gone wrong. What's the difference between the two? Ricardo _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp

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Debian Difficulties
by Earl Brannigan 10 Sep '01

10 Sep '01

Hi all, Following a few late nights I fianlly have a nice debian 2.2r3 installation. Quite pleased as it goes. However it is not without a number of difficulties so if anyone can offer any input I'd be very grateful. Sorry that these may be quite simple, no doubt I'll find solutions eventually by the usual methods (read alot of stuff, try a few ideas, undo those ideas, try some more.... rejoice at 4:00am that it finally works!!) 1)pppd is happily installed but doesn't work. I'm using wvdial to connect (from my old config file) which seems to work fine. A connection is established then wvdial goes quiet for a few secs (no activity) then it complains that it cannot get a carrier so messages : 'starting pppd and hoping for the best' before giving up. I imagine that for some reason wvdial is not able to hand over to pppd. I also have to be root to get this to work. I have changed the permissions on /dev/modem to allow users rw access but I don't trust this setting.... any ideas on how to enable wvdial/ppp for all users. In the past /dev/modem has always been crw-rw-r-- root root with no problems so there must be something else (elevating privs or something... quite frankly I'd rather not elevate unless the relevant proggie(s) drop privs after initialising modem... 2)I can only run X as root. If i try to run it as a general user I get error "User is not authorised to Run XServer". I have checked the permissions on all of the binaries I know of and they all have lowest order execute bit set (I haven't changed them - that is how they were installed). Is there an X Setting I'm missing? 3) I have libjpeg installed but I cannot display jpeg images. If i attempt to open one in electric eyes - nothing, gimp - nothing, mozilla - the jpeg info (but not the image...). I dunno. 4) Adding menu items to gnome doesn't work. Programs are shown in the menu editor but don't appear in the menus themselves. Most (but not all) gnome/x apps I install from apt-get do not show up in the menus (hence the menu-editor). 5) How do I change my default window-manager (red hat had a useful thing called switchdesk so I never learned where this was defined.. maybe .xsession/ or something. 6) Sound : I have a Creative Soundblaster 128 which I can't seem to get working, again red-hat always made my life easy here with sndconfig. In the absence of that I need to find and load the correct kernel module. Buggered if I know how. Intended to re-use the lines from my old modules.conf - actually its conf.modules but now I find that that is deprecated - and the format has changed and i need to run some utility to add new lines to it (name escapes me at the moment) which means I need to find the module - which I can't.... grrrr. - so : 7) Kernel Compile : thought it would pay to do a kernel compile instead, specifying the modules I need and get around things that way. So, make xconfig was fine, found a useful sound driver among other things, make bzImage dies when compiling boot.c. Error : as86 command not found, the makefile for the relevant directory specifies AS86=as86. I have no program called as86, changing it to 'as' gives another error : as - unknown option -O (which suggests to me that I am missing a binary called as86, does anyone know anything about this or how do i find which package has this binary. I have had no luck finding anything called as86! Is there something debian that I should know ? (Martyn mentioned in a previous mail Any thoughts - any at all - gladly appreciated Cheers Earl

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Bad News again..
by Martyn Drake 10 Sep '01

10 Sep '01

Hi folks, More doom and gloom. The deal that I thought would happen has fallen through, and to make matters worse, I've been made redundant (thanks Internet Assist - just before my wedding!). Therefore, I will need to start arranging transfer of the domains (anglian.lug.org.uk and alug.org.uk) to whoever can host them. Now, the details for the web site and lists are:- 1) The web site occupies less than 27Mb. It runs a CVS server, but Mark Ray will need to confirm anything else that needs to run. 2) The mailing list is powered by Mailman 2.05 (and the whole thing is less than 8.7Mb). Those are the only requirements I'm aware of, but someone will need to run a DNS server for alug.org.uk as I will no longer have such luxuries at the end of the month. Regards, Martyn

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USB floppy disk drives
by Adam Bower 10 Sep '01

10 Sep '01

Hello all, Does anybody on the list own a USB floppy disk drive? If you do and you either live in North Norfolk or are coming to the Alug meet on Sunday then please let me know. I am currently struggling to update the Bios on my Vaio with not much success as it was designed to be updated from a USB floppy, my current plan of action has been making a bootable CD with a floppy image on which almost worked but when the Bios update utility ran it demands you have to save a backup of the working Bios which is a little difficult when you just booted from CD! I may have another fight with it later but if anyone has a USB floppy it will save me from going totally mad, or if you have any other suggestions then let me know. Many thanks Adam -- This message is Copyleft - all rights reversed Adam

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Re: [Alug] XSL Formatting Objects Question - Setting Document Defaults
by MJ Ray 10 Sep '01

10 Sep '01

Steve Fosdick <fozzy(a)pelvoux.demon.co.uk> writes: > I now have FOP installed though I am little disapointed that > the only Java VM it seems to work with is a non-free one, but > it now seems to be working. Is there any JVM which is both current *and* free? -- MJR Thesis watch: 27% This is my personal web site =-> http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ http://www.alug.org.uk/ <-- This is the LUG I go to I work for this clever internet developer ==> http://www.luminas.co.uk/

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Java Support in Windows XP
by Earl Brannigan 10 Sep '01

10 Sep '01

Hi all, received this this morning, thought it might interest a couple of you. Remember a few discussions recently about MS no-longer shipping a JVM. Well here is a statement (legit) from Sun.... like it! Cheers Earl PS Sorry its a bit long, but I didn't want to snip it down > -----Original Message----- > From: JDJ [mailto:editor@sys-con.com] > Sent: 09 September 2001 03:23 > To: Java Developer's Journal > Subject: Your Feedback to Scott McNealy, CEO, Sun Microsystems > > > THE PLATFORM OF CHOICE > by Scott McNealy, CEO, Sun Microsystems > > http://www.sys-con.com/java/articler.cfm?id=1155 > http://biz.yahoo.com/iw/010831/01031380.html > > It's becoming more obvious to me every day that Java technology is the > platform of choice -- in more ways than one. > > In the traditional sense of the phrase, it's the answer to the questions > all developers ask themselves: Which platform should I develop to? Which > has the biggest market, the most influence? Which provides me with a means > to demonstrate my skills and creativity? There's a second meaning as well > -- another question to answer: Which platform provides developers, > customers, and users with more choice? > > In this new meaning, "platform of choice" indicates a platform that runs > on multiple operating systems, addresses a wide spectrum of hardware, and > can spawn multiple implementations so users are free to select the one > that works best (yours, of course). > > By either definition, Java technology is still the platform of choice, and > this works to your benefit -- big time. The Java platform addresses > opportunities ranging from the biggest servers available to the desktop to > millions of new client devices -- smart cards, mobile phones, pagers, > PDAs, TV set-top boxes, and automotive systems. (Clearly the definition of > "client" is due for an update, too.) > > Java technology is really hitting its stride now. In six months, more than > six million phones enabled with Java technology have been sold in Japan, > where the three largest wireless providers -- NTT DoCoMo, J-Phone, and > KDDI -- have deployed interactive wireless services. One analyst estimates > that between now and 2005, more than 700 million JVMs will be deployed on > these new devices. > > In the server market, we're seeing unprecedented choice. There are 17 > different applications servers available today that are compatible with > the Java platform. Some are the underpinning of IDEs, but even then IT > professionals can choose the implementation that best suits their needs. > > And if the ISV they choose falls behind,they can replace one app server > with another at a dramatically lower cost. > > More than 400 major corporations are working together through the Java > Community Process to innovate, enhance,and expand Java technology. > Offerings from Sun, IBM, HP, BEA, and Oracle,to name a few, are all built > around the platform of choice. > > The lonely exception, of course, is Microsoft. Unless you've been totally > out of touch since mid-July, you're aware that Microsoft is not shipping a > JVM with Windows XP. The reason? Microsoft has used every excuse from "the > lawsuit settlement required us to do this" to my personal favorite, "We > don't want Windows to have too much code." The real reason, I suspect, is > that Microsoft is anti-choice. > > But at the end of the day, you'll want to know whether this move will > lessen the market for your products and impact your livelihood. Rest > assured that we will provide XP support. > > It will be the latest Java technology, not something old. We'll distribute > it via PC manufacturers, Web sites, ISVs -- whatever it takes to ensure > that your Java apps run anywhere. > > So keep on writing to the platform of real choice, the one that's here > today: the Java platform. > > Scott McNealy is the chief executive officer of Sun Microsystems. > > > *** > > > Add Your Feedback: > http://www.sys-con.com/java/articler.cfm?id=1155 > > Read Reader Feedback: > http://www.sys-con.com/java/articler.cfm?id=1155

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Weekly IRC reminder
by Neill Newman 10 Sep '01

10 Sep '01

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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FW: Help us fight the EUCD by leafletting about copy-protected CDs
by Martyn Drake 09 Sep '01

09 Sep '01

Just forwarding this announcement that came in for the group. BTW, potential good news about the list and web hosting, but I can't say anything as yet until early next week until everything has been agreed (if agreed!). To those that are currently offering hosting - my humble thanks to all, and hopefully we should know next week where things are heading. Regards, Martyn (aren't weddings a bugger to organise) Drake -----Original Message----- From: Jim Peters [mailto:cd@uk.eurorights.org] Sent: 09 September 2001 17:26 To: Martyn Drake Subject: Help us fight the EUCD by leafletting about copy-protected CDs CAMPAIGN FOR DIGITAL RIGHTS, UK ACTION DAY, SATURDAY 15th Please help us fight the EUCD and avoid more cases like that of Dmitry Sklyarov by distributing leaflets outside major record stores in your local town centre this Saturday. I'm writing to all the UK Linux user groups to invite them to join us in this action. We are planning a nationwide leafletting campaign to raise public awareness about the new copy-protected CDs that the major record labels have started to sneak into the UK, and to use this issue to raise awareness about the EUCD, the DMCA and the case of Dmitry Sklyarov. Check out our leaflet, which we hope will make the man in the street and his family say "Enough is enough!": http://uazu.net/cd/ Here is some background on all of this, in case any of these issues are unfamiliar to you: Dmitry Sklyarov: --------------- I hope you have already heard about the case of Dmitry Sklyarov, the Russian cryptographer who was arrested in the USA after presenting a paper at DEFCON in which he exposed weaknesses in Adobe's eBook encryption. He faces up to 25 years in jail if found guilty. Check out the campaign in support of him: http://www.freesklyarov.org/ http://www.freedmitry.org/ He was arrested under America's new controversial DMCA laws. The Campaign for Digital Rights: ------------------------------- This is a UK group that formed to handle action in support of Dmitry here in the UK - it is linked off the freesklyarov site. Already two protests have taken place in London. Check out the web-site for details of these, and for mailing lists, flyers and other materials: http://uk.eurorights.org/ Soon after its formation, it became clear that the case of Dmitry Sklyarov was just the tip of the iceberg, and that the CDR could usefully campaign on much broader issues. For one thing, coming soon are the European equivalents of the DMCA laws, known as the EUCD, which have yet to be passed into law (they must be passed in each country individually). There is a chance that we may be able to make a difference here before it is too late. The new copy-protected CDs: -------------------------- These are the record manufacturer's latest ploy to put an end to MP3s and digital copying of CDs. They have developed a format which intentionally corrupts the error correction code on a CD, forcing a normal CD player to error-correct constantly, and even to interpolate and fabricate parts of the sound. They have been releasing these into the shops to see if anyone notices the difference, hoping that by claiming that there was no increase in the rate of return of these CDs, that they can justify putting all CDs into this format. They have released one million of these CDs into the UK alone. When ripping tracks from one of these CDs using a computer, naturally the CD drive complains about all these badly corrupted blocks, so it is impossible to rip the CD in the normal way. It might be possible to extract digital audio from CD drives that have SPDIF outputs, but in any case the audio quality of the CD can never be full CD-quality due to all the intentional corruption. Our campaign: ------------ We believe that the public will be outraged if they learn what the manufacturers are trying to do, and so we hope to give the public this information, and encourage them to act on it. That is the purpose of the leaflet. If there is enough public pressure on the record stores, this will be an extremely embarrassing situation for them, and they will be forced to choose between supporting the public (who keep them in business) or supporting the manufacturer. I'm sure you can see how this could be a potent force to help improve the situation. In addition, the media attention this would generate will allow campaigns against the EUCD to have much more credibility, giving us a chance to make a difference before it is too late. How you can help: ---------------- Even a single person handing out 500 leaflets in their local town centre this Saturday can make an enormous difference. If a group of you can get together, you could cover all the major record stores in your locality. If there are even more volunteers, you could make placards and get even more public attention. It's up to you. Apart from organising action in our own localities, we hope to help you by providing materials and a central point for coordination. We have the leaflet mentioned above ready for you to print out and take to a copy-shop, with another more general flyer coming soon to print on the reverse. On the CDR site there are also further EUCD and DMCA-related materials that might be useful for larger protests: http://uazu.net/cd/ http://uk.eurorights.org/ If you're thinking of leafletting in your area, check out the following page to see if anyone else is planning to do so as well. You could get in contact, and pool resources: http://uazu.net/cd/volunteers.html If there isn't someone already listed there for your locality, and you'd be willing to put up your contact details, please E-mail me this information at the address below. I need: the location you intend to cover, your name or the name of your group, plus some contact details (E-mail address and/or phone number): mailto:cd@uk.eurorights.org If you're not available on that day, but you know someone who might be, or some other group I might not have contacted, please forward this message to them. Particularly, user groups, if you have a mailing list, please let everyone know about this. The more people we can get involved, the better. If you want to keep in touch with further developments after this weekend, please join either the announce list or the discussion list at the CDR site: http://uk.eurorights.org/ Well, thankyou for reading all of this. I really hope that we can make a difference this Saturday and start to turn the tide against these extremely unpleasant plans from the media giants. Jim Peters -- Jim Peters (_)/=\~/_(_) Uazú (_) /=\ ~/_ (_) jim@ (_) /=\ ~/_ (_) www. uazu.net (_) ____ /=\ ____ ~/_ ____ (_) uazu.net

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XSL Formatting Objects Question - Setting Document Defaults
by Steve Fosdick 09 Sep '01

09 Sep '01

After the responses to my question about publishing in both print and HTML format I decided to have a go with XML, XSL and FOP. I now have FOP installed though I am little disapointed that the only Java VM it seems to work with is a non-free one, but it now seems to be working. I now have a mostly complete stylesheet for print which just needs some tuning to make it look prettier but it also seems that I am forever having to repeat font attributes in various different bits of the stylesheet. What I would like to do if I can is to define some defaults for the font attributes to apply to the whole document and then the style template for the each of the various XML elements can just override the ones it needs to. Does anyone know how to do this? Steve Fosdick.

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kernel version 2.4.9 problems
by Adam Bower 08 Sep '01

08 Sep '01

Hi all, maybe this is just me but kernel 2.4.9 seems to be almost as broken as a copy of windows ME!! last night I decided to get all my machines up to 2.4.9 (they were on a mix of 2.4.*) The first machine I have to downgrade was my NFS server, I can't remember the exact details but I was first having trouble getting the NFS to compile as a module but when I built it into the kernel it compiled. I then restart my box and the NFS clients start complaining that they can't get request slots etc. I put this down to some kind of 2.4.9 problems so restored the old 2.4.7 image and the NFS starts working again. The next machine that got 2.4.9 was my Vaio, this time 2.4.9 compiles nicely and there were no problems until I try and use my 3Com network card, the driver loads dmesg says everything is all nice and lovely, even the flashy light on the side of the card lights up! but does it work, the short answer is no. The final machine to get 2.4.9 (well I was compiling on all 3 at once) is my main workstation, and everything appeared to be ok until just now when I noticed lots of apps are segfaulting! Anyway rant over, I will check out the kernel mailing lists etc. to see if it is a problem at my end or Linus has decided to break the vm again. Has anyone else had any similar problems? I am looking at the FreeBSD cds in a very different light just now though, maybe I will be doing an install fest to BSD very soon ;-) Adam -- This message is Copyleft - all rights reversed Adam

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Re: [Alug] kernel version 2.4.9 problems
by MJ Ray 08 Sep '01

08 Sep '01

xsprite(a)bigfoot.com writes: > hmm? > http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/synching.html > http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/makeworld.html "make world" is not a clean entire upgrade, nor does it claim to be. Last I checked, there was no nice way to install security patches to installed software either. The engineering of BSD lags some way behind Debian, sadly. -- MJR Thesis watch: 27% This is my personal web site =-> http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ http://www.alug.org.uk/ <-- This is the LUG I go to I work for this clever internet developer ==> http://www.luminas.co.uk/

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Re: [Alug] kernel version 2.4.9 problems
by MJ Ray 08 Sep '01

08 Sep '01

Adam Bower <abower(a)thebowery.co.uk> writes: > Anyway rant over, I will check out the kernel mailing lists etc. to see if > it is a problem at my end or Linus has decided to break the vm again. Has > anyone else had any similar problems? I doubt it's a conscious decision, but I still can't quite bring myself to trust 2.4 kernels with machines I need until they get development on 2.5 underway. OK, cock-ups do happen in a stable series (2.2.17/18 OOM nuttiness, anyone?), but 2.4.x still hasn't been allowed to stabilise. > I am looking at the FreeBSD cds in a very different light just now though, > maybe I will be doing an install fest to BSD very soon ;-) Oh, any infatuation with FreeBSD will soon wear off when you try to upgrade between versions. No "apt-get dist-upgrade" there. Not even a clean upgrade option. -- MJR Thesis watch: 27% This is my personal web site =-> http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ http://www.alug.org.uk/ <-- This is the LUG I go to I work for this clever internet developer ==> http://www.luminas.co.uk/

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FREE to a good home
by Paul 08 Sep '01

08 Sep '01

One dual Pentium (slot 1) motherboard with onboard graphics (looks like ATI Rage), 10/100 network, SCSI, floppy, along with the usual serial, printer keyboard etc.. But no IDE. This came out of a Dell server, beyond that I have no other details. There is no guarantees or manuals to go with it. Free to the first person that can collect in Norwich. Regards, Paul.

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Dual head displays
by Paul 07 Sep '01

07 Sep '01

Hi Folks I'm back after some months of absence (been else where on other projects). I now have XFree86-4.10 and KDE2.2 installed on a spare 40Gig drive (I know, it's only a baby), and am trying to get a dual head display running. The graphics card has two GD5462 chips on board, but I'll be b***red if I can work out how to get both of them to work. Has anyone succeeded in running a dual display, and if so, do you have any pointers ? Regards, Paul.

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Syleham Meeting
by jh Atkinson 06 Sep '01

06 Sep '01

Greetings! Those of you who were at the last Syleham meeting may recognise me, if I describe myself as 'Ancient John' (whose wife made the biscuits), for I am well past my sell-by date, possibly past my display-until date, but I hope not past my use-by one. I do articles for a technical magazine. That magazine, like others, including Linux ones, uses Apple Macs for publishing. You could save the magazine's type setter from being murdered - and me from life imprisonment for that murder, if you can help me with (at Syleham) conversion of a postcript file to a pdf one. I had this demonstrated to me (but not on my Linux box), using the Linux command, ps2pdf, but I did not succeed in making it work when I got home. I am fed up to the back teeth with having symbols, such as degree signs, proper dashes and greek letters which I have carefully put in, being stripped out and not replaced or not replaced properly. My main reason for trying to use Linux is that I am working on communication for the deafblind. Many of the blind have not a hope of learning Braille. I understand that less than a quarter of the blind in the USA are literate in Braille. Computer technology that can work fast and efficiently is necessary for my project. If Linux is the operating system to go for, and I believe it is, I am hampered by a singular lack of expertise. Apart from configuration of zip drive and card for two additional serial ports I am stumped by configuration of the SCSI card, and so the scanner. It looks as if no appropriate module is being loaded. Scanning is an essential. The idea is for the deaf blind user to secure an opened book to the scanner. The scanner scans, feeds its output to the best OCR software to be had. The output from that is fed to a special shorthand system which I am developing. In turn, this is fed to a chord system reader. This latter (though not in its final form) is up and running, and I am learning to read on it. The time is rapidly approaching when I shall be really hampered by lack of a scanner that I can use. My Linux box's RAM figure is 128. Processor speed 500. Linux kernel 2.0 Linux flavour SuSE 7.0 Hard disk 20G I do hope there may be someone at Syleham who can come to my aid. I may bring the prototype chord reader as well as a couple of strange keyboards, if interest warrants. Ancient John (Atkinson)

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Bad, Bad news..
by Martyn Drake 06 Sep '01

06 Sep '01

Rackspace (who are my current hosting providers) have seriously mucked up in the billing stakes last month. I can no longer afford to run my server on such a (censored) way that's going to cost me more money than I ought to be spending each month. The long and short of it is that I'm terminating my dedicated server with Rackspace. Preferably ASAP (before the end of the month). Therefore, is there any kind people with a spare server out that that would be willing to handle hosting (either permanent or temporary - I'm attempting to see if my bosses would be willing to sponsor Alug by providing some space on their server) The term, "oh bugger!" springs to mind and I sincerely apologise to everybody about this. In particular to Mark Ray and David Freeman who are the current list moderators. I would like nothing better to scream and shout at Rackspace's accounts department for well and truly cocking things up. In July they took the best part of $1,156 dollars instead of $315 due to a muck up with their records. It's been fixed, but this latest incident does not impress me. I'm eyeing up a DSVR account as a potential new home for all my bits and bobs (I'm using Fasthosts for the time being for drake.org.uk - yeah, I know they're crap, but they're okay for a short period while I find something better), but nothing has been decided yet. Regards, Martyn "shafted by Rackspace, Webfusion and Pogolinux" Drake

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crash!
by Ricardo Campos 06 Sep '01

06 Sep '01

I was forced to use a hard reboot last night- grrrrrr! I installed Enlightenment, which went fine until I tried to load a certain theme. Then it came up with "config file missing lines" and asked me to restart or quit E (there was another choice-I don't remember). So I restarted E- it locked my computer up totally, no amount of key-bashing worked. After making a cup of tea, I decided to hard reboot. Unfortunately, now every time I start Gnome, it goes through this process, even though Sawfish is my WM for E!!! (This has locked the computer up too). I reinstalled E, but this didn't help. Has anyone had the same/similar problem? Incidentally, another thing that occurred just after that was that my computer CAN connect to the 'net, but for some reason cannot transfer any data at all, meaning I had to reboot into windoze to get online. grrrrrrrr.... >:| Ricardo _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp

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Re: [Alug] Debian is my friend .... I think
by Jenny_Hopkins＠toby-churchill.com 06 Sep '01

06 Sep '01

David Casal wrote: >wehey! good to hear... there's hope for the linux musician yet! doesn't >Jenny Hopkins get up to this kind of stuff too? I'd love to hear more about >what stuff, and how... What's this I get up to? I deny it all! I'm only a linux musician in the sense that I run linux and make music, I don't use the linuxbox for music. Any music I do have on computer is in cubase, which I think is windows only. Let me know what you find for linux though. There was a discussion on various linux music programmes on the list last year. Want me to send them? I wrote >It's my life's ambition to get so i can do something faster in linux than > windows. Which caused Simon Jude to write: >Lots of things are quicker to do in Linux than Windoze. Just think of how >many times you have to reboot when making small system changes or >installing software. And just think of the free time from not having to >restart a crashed machine. Don't worry - it was only a joke. Takes me so long to get anything insttalled/configured/whatever I could usually have done it several times with a wooden wheel. Thanks to Jonathan for the PGDEBUG hints..I replaced the f*****d graphics card, tweaked my postmaster.init file and all is as good as new. Back to trying to get php working ;) Jenny.

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Bad, Bad news..
by Martyn Drake 05 Sep '01

05 Sep '01

Rackspace (who are my current hosting providers) have seriously mucked up in the billing stakes last month. I can no longer afford to run my server on such a (censored) way that's going to cost me more money than I ought to be spending each month. The long and short of it is that I'm terminating my dedicated server with Rackspace. Preferably ASAP (before the end of the month). Therefore, is there any kind people with a spare server out that that would be willing to handle hosting (either permanent or temporary - I'm attempting to see if my bosses would be willing to sponsor Alug by providing some space on their server) The term, "oh bugger!" springs to mind and I sincerely apologise to everybody about this. In particular to Mark Ray and David Freeman who are the current list moderators. I would like nothing better to scream and shout at Rackspace's accounts department for well and truly cocking things up. In July they took the best part of $1,156 dollars instead of $315 due to a muck up with their records. It's been fixed, but this latest incident does not impress me. I'm eyeing up a DSVR account as a potential new home for all my bits and bobs (I'm using Fasthosts for the time being for drake.org.uk - yeah, I know they're crap, but they're okay for a short period while I find something better), but nothing has been decided yet. Regards, Martyn "shafted by Rackspace, Webfusion and Pogolinux" Drake

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Re: [Alug] Debian is my friend .... I think
by David Casal 05 Sep '01

05 Sep '01

> > Anyone have any experience on win2k/Debian dual-booting? Just how hard > > would it be to get an almost-risk-free system running that? > > Yup, do it all the time. win2k/debian appears to be a far safer option > than win98 (I've lost my hard disk twice to 98 but never to 2k). As long > as things are backed up, it shouldn't be a problem. wehey! good to hear... there's hope for the linux musician yet! doesn't Jenny Hopkins get up to this kind of stuff too? I'd love to hear more about what stuff, and how... > > Sound config on it would be OSS, since I bought the drivers.Yummy. > > Also not a problem... I use OSS on my fileserver (well, with all those > disks it seemed silly not to use it as an mp3 jukebox too!) and that works > fine. How very, very nice. Planning to use an SQL object in PD to query FFT routines, hopefully for a bit of machine listening (Rowe, 2001) stuff. The idea would be to have small, well-defined samples stored in some kind of SQL place (PostgreS?), and have the routines from what I play (on shite keyboard) query them. A kind of AI sampler...Rowe wrote the neural network routines in C++ for MAC (yuk), but I reckon it could be ported to the PD environment (extremely well-commented .h), in C. Planning to learn that at the weekend...;~} Cheers, David

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Re: [Alug] Debian is my friend .... I think
by Ricardo Campos 05 Sep '01

05 Sep '01

I think it shouldn't really matter which distro you use. All you need to do is defrag then partition the HD, and make sure LILO/GRUB is installed on the 2nd partition (probably hda6) rather than the boot partition, with a very short wait before booting the default (unless you like waiting or typing). Then you need to install a bootloader (I use XOSL www.xosl.org) on the first partition (i.e. c:/), and that'll give you the choice. I'd have to say, I'd kill you if you touched one of MY companies laptops (even for Linux!!!) :P Ricardo _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp

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Debian is my friend .... I think
by Earl Brannigan 05 Sep '01

05 Sep '01

Hi all, been a while since I posted something along these lines but here goes... Last night I finally ditched a DeadRat 6.2 installation (needed cleaning up anyway) and moved to a debian potato installation (bargain from Linux Expo..... free beer as well!). Install was nice and easy except : 1)loved the way apt can just plough through your CDs and catalogue all the packages (during the install), but how do you get it to do this in normal running (I thought I had the idea but ended up breaking apt!), ie I want it to now search through the rest of my catalogue of CDs. 2)Having broken apt by replacing the file:/file/binary/for/install/disk1 line with something that doesn't work is there a quick way to get it back. Or can I just tell apt to go search my CDs again (re: 1). 3)dselect is all very well but I would prefer a nice way to group say all X Packages together. Perhaps I'm missing something. 4)Where is XConfigurator ? I tried to be a bit clever last night but think I would have been better to play novice - quiet at the back!! ;o) and let debian do everything. Anyways, any thoughts, experiences or hints and tips to assist in making my transfer to the king of Distros as painless as possible much appreciated. Pllllllease no "RTFM"s, I am reading it but time is a pre-requisite, so if you just write and say "RTFM under apt section on blah" I'll still be grateful for the pointer. Cheers, Earl

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Re: [Alug] Introduction
by MJ Ray 05 Sep '01

05 Sep '01

"Ricardo Campos" <corez23(a)hotmail.com> writes: > My name is Ricardo, I work for local government as a Windoze NT Network > Admin (and a Lotus Notes Admin)(oh, and as a MS SQL Server admin), and I was > attracted to Linux once I saw the license costs for MS products! Heheh... pleased to welcome you to the group! > [...] Unfortunately our beloved government has decided exactly what > OS's and which products to use, and I cannot change that [...] Where is that policy set? I still don't understand why the government is apparently trying to get every company in the land to buy at least one operating system from an American company. > When is the next meet? Both my machines have network cards, and I might be > able to borrow a hub or two. On 16 September at Syleham, near Diss, Suffolk. See the web site (URL below)... I guess we should put more details on there. -- MJR This is my personal web site =-> http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ http://www.alug.org.uk/ <-- This is the LUG I go to I work for this clever internet developer ==> http://www.luminas.co.uk/

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Re: [Alug] Introduction
by Jenny_Hopkins＠toby-churchill.com 05 Sep '01

05 Sep '01

Hullo Ricardo. >(that means working on it after the pub till 3am just to do something that >would have taken me about 4 seconds to do in Windoze) It's my life's ambition to get so i can do something faster in linux than windows. >....we are not allowed to upgrade from Lotus 4.6 to R5 We call that a downgrade here at work. Next meeting is Sun 16 Sept, unless I am as wrong as i usually am. Where are you based? Jenny.

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Introduction
by Ricardo Campos 05 Sep '01

05 Sep '01

Hi, like it says in the "welcome to the list" e-mail, I'm meant to introduce myself... My name is Ricardo, I work for local government as a Windoze NT Network Admin (and a Lotus Notes Admin)(oh, and as a MS SQL Server admin), and I was attracted to Linux once I saw the license costs for MS products! Seriously, though, I have been frustrated at the lack of security and general lack of affordable network resources for this OS, Windows scripting is poor etc. etc. You get the idea. Unfortunately our beloved government has decided exactly what OS's and which products to use, and I cannot change that (for example we are not allowed to upgrade from Lotus 4.6 to R5, senseless!). However, we are soon going to have external access to our WAN so we need a firewall..... I'm much more into the ethos of free software and I've started learning C programming, and would like to contribute once I'm competent enough. (I think maybe making .rpm's for newbies will be one of my main tasks when I'm not one) I'm currently getting to grips with Linux-Mandrake 8 on my desktop computer (that means working on it after the pub till 3am just to do something that would have taken me about 4 seconds to do in Windoze) , and have Zipslack on my knackered laptop- I got it 2nd hand and it didn't come with any CD's at all (not that it has a CD-Rom!): I'm not sure that I'd risk replacing the OS entirely just yet. (My desktop box has lots of USB devices which aren't supported, so I'm currently struggling with a triple-boot system! [Win 98 for games & periphs, Win 2k as my productivity station due to stability, and Mandrake]. Hopefully I can get Linux to replace Windows 2K on my desktop for ever! Currently D/l ISO's for progeny debian, Smoothwall, Slackware, maybe fiddle around with them too. God bless free kilostream connections! When is the next meet? Both my machines have network cards, and I might be able to borrow a hub or two. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp

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graphics tablets & network cards
by Adam Bower 05 Sep '01

05 Sep '01

Hi all, I have decided I need to buy some new hardware :-) I am sick of my slow 10BaseT unswitched network and also want to try and use the gimp with a graphics tablet. Anyway, what is peoples opinions of cheap network cards? I am currently looking at either the Netgear FA311 (15UKP) or an even cheaper Realtek 8139 clone (7UKP), now I know these cards are not as fast as something from 3com or Intel but how much slower are they? Of course I then need to get a switch to make it all work (note I don't want a hub) again I looked on Dabs and saw a Netgear FS108 8 port switch for 67 quid inc Vat, again is it garbage or not?? Normally If I was spending other peoples money then I would buy either Intel or 3Com kit but lots of money is not an option at the moment :-( as my budget is about 100 quid for 2 cards and an 8 port switch. The other thing I have been playing with recently is the gimp and I think a graphics tablet may enhance the experience! basically I have got a choice of two, either the wacom intuos A6 or the wacom graphire A6, has anyone ever used these under Linux? and if so what is your experience with them? Thanks for opinions/advice in advance Adam -- This message is Copyleft - all rights reversed Adam

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Re: [Alug] Debian is my friend .... I think
by MJ Ray 05 Sep '01

05 Sep '01

"Earl Brannigan" <earl.brannigan(a)lindenhouse.co.uk> writes: > From what I understand then tasks are a part of the apt 'thingie' ? > I'll have a little look into tonight. No, tasks are generally there, not just in apt. apt just makes it very easy to install them. > One more thing... now when I do a shutdown it gets to power down but > doesn't. Anyone any idea about this? DeadRat always got this so I never > looked into it b4. It's Debian conservatism again. The APM shutdown code is known to crash some machines, so it's disabled by default. You'll be able to switch it on when you recompile ;-) (Oh, and "make-kpkg" is your new friend for kernel compilation.) > Still got to get X working (nothing fancy in the hardware dept though) and apt-get install task-x-window-system I think. -- MJR This is my personal web site =-> http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ http://www.alug.org.uk/ <-- This is the LUG I go to I work for this clever internet developer ==> http://www.luminas.co.uk/

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Software for next meeting
by Adam Bower 04 Sep '01

04 Sep '01

Hi all, I got back from the LinuxBierWanderung sometime yesterday after having a great time and brought with me some linux software, and as the next meeting is looming on the horizon I thought it best to start sorting this out now. If anyone wants a copy of any of the following software made for the next meeting then let me know and I will get it done now, I will however have to make a (small) charge to cover my costs (basically the price of the CD-Rs) as I am still unemployed :-( I think 50p per disc is about fair? The software I have available is as follows:- Debian 2.2r3 Official (6 CDs, 3 binary 3 source) A single CD titled debian GNU/Linux 2.2 update, UKUUG 2001 which contains the following packages for use on 2.2r3. Ximian Gnome 1.4 KDE 2.1.1 Debian packages needed to run kernel 2.4 Security updates Xfree86 version 4.03 Some miscellaneous updated packages (samba, dpkg, apt and cupsys) The idea of this is that you can have the latest packages running on top of a Debian 2.2r3 system without having to install unstable or testing. Redhat 7.1 (5 CDs, 2 installation, 1 source, 1 power tools and 1 documentation) StarOffice 5.2 (1 CD, can someone confirm I can make copies of this without breaking any license? the CD doesn't make it 100% clear) Mandrake 8.0 Download edition (1 CD, I have 2 "official" copies available for free to the poorest bidders) If you want a copy any of the above (or parts of it) then please let me know off list soon, all CDs will be made using cheap CD-Rs with badly scribled writing on the disc to let you (and me) know what it is. I also am still going to do a talk on how the Debian package management system works (but I have to do loads of reading yet and prepare some handouts. BTW this will be my first ever public talk, yikes! so go easy on me) and possibly an overview of how to install Debian and where to get help if you are a newbie/beginner. Adam -- This message is Copyleft - all rights reversed Adam

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Re: [Alug] Weekly IRC reminder
by MJ Ray 03 Sep '01

03 Sep '01

This is the weekly IRC reminder correction/improvement. Neill Newman <neill(a)entora.co.uk> writes: > Most IRC clients should allow you to get there with the commands > "/server eu.openprojects.net" and "/join #alug". /server uk.openprojects.net:8001 also works most of the time (ie when the UK server isn't dead).

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Weekly IRC reminder
by Neill Newman 03 Sep '01

03 Sep '01

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 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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RE: insmod ide-scsi and cdwriting
by oms101＠freeuk.com 03 Sep '01

03 Sep '01

On 19-Aug-01 oms101(a)freeuk.com wrote: > I only have a small network at the moment a simple system as I am always > about > to leave town and the full system is lacking a bit of a perpose except to > learn > from. > > Anway some of you may have read before (on the alug list) that I have an old > pentium 166 which is dedicated to cd recording ( I know its over kill but it > also rips mp3's) and I have writtern a nice little application which takes > grips audio track listings and generates postscript files for printing out cd > labels via the groff type setting language. > > Well I was installing a 486 with 16MB ram ( Specification is thier so I dont > get flamed ) with windows 3.1 for a friend as she her dad got this computer > some years ago when he went blind and she wanted a simple box to do essays > for the Open University and has no money since she is a single mum. > > Any way along the line I deceded to burn an image of the dos/win 3.1 box I > made for her so I dont have to setup win 3.1 again and ever since I have had > a 70% fail rate on burning CD's now I decided today to figure out what was > wrong and when I found out I was very supprised. I now hava a fail rate that is very low for the first CD burnt but goes up if I burn more CD's, and I dont think its just random I feel that burning 3 CD in a row is more likely to fail than a gap of some hours after the first 2. > I got an error on Suse's boot up pages for insmod ide-scsi ( This A: led me > to > be very impressed with SuSe linux for haveing scripts reporting errors for l > ines that I had added to the start up scripts and B: supprise as I dont > remember > deleting kernal modules since I first "played" (to destuction) with linux) > Anyway I confirmed this by typing > >>insmod ide-scsi > insmod: ide-scsi: no module by that name found > > anyway I reinstalled the default linux kernal and confirmed that all was well > with, > >>insmod ide-scsi > Using /lib/modules/2.2.16/scsi/ide-scsi.o > insmod: a module named ide-scsi already exists > > and then burnt a test CD which worked I cant yet say its solved but it has > yet to fail. What I dont understand is how it even tried to work with > cdrecord > which looked normal and > >>cdrecord -scanbus > > worked and did occasionally work before, I am also curious as to what > caused the problem. Could it be a series of switching off the maschine > with out sending the box through a proper halt. I have done this as it has no > monitor or keyboard and i hate booting my main box just to shutdown another > box. > > I will mail a follow up if I still get problems as this behaviour is so > strange > I am sure I am at falt and maybe misinforming you all. > > > Follow up 1: I am still getting problems but now belive these to be vibration > related. Some definatle where as I moved the CDrecorder and this reduced the errors > Owen Synge > > > > > > > Date: 19-Aug-01 Time: 17:43:55 Date: 02-Sep-01 Time: 23:41:22

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Announce digest, Vol 1 #1 - 1 msg
by announce-request＠lists.alug.org.uk 02 Sep '01

02 Sep '01

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. [Clive Gould <Clive(a)bromley.ac.uk>] [uklugs] Linux training... (MJ Ray) --__--__-- Message: 1 To: announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk From: MJ Ray <markj(a)cloaked.freeserve.co.uk> Organization: Cat-killingly bad Date: 02 Sep 2001 09:24:27 +0100 Subject: [Alug Announce] [Clive Gould <Clive(a)bromley.ac.uk>] [uklugs] Linux training... From: Clive Gould <Clive(a)bromley.ac.uk> Subject: [uklugs] Linux training... Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 07:56:20 +0100 In order to make Linux training more accessible to everyone, Bromley College has substantially reduced the cost of their Linux courses, and all courses have been rescheduled for Saturdays. We offer the following short courses: Introduction to Linux, Linux System Administration, Apache Server, Samba Server, and LPI Certification Training. For more information please visit the website: http://ce.bromley.ac.uk/linux --__--__-- _______________________________________________ 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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Announce digest, Vol 1 #2 - 1 msg
by announce-request＠lists.alug.org.uk 02 Sep '01

02 Sep '01

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. Best of ALUG (end of August) (MJ Ray) --__--__-- Message: 1 To: announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk From: MJ Ray <markj(a)cloaked.freeserve.co.uk> Organization: Cat-killingly bad Date: 02 Sep 2001 10:16:45 +0100 Subject: [Alug Announce] Best of ALUG (end of August) Here's this month's 2nd edition... Topics: [Alug] Syleham poster 4 u Re: [Alug] Announce ALUG 2001.5 [Alug] Announce ALUG 2001.5 [Alug] Linux Expo Birmingham re-scheduled from 12th-13th september 2001 to [Alug] LPI Certification Re: [Alug] SSH/SCP No Password [Alug] Friendly Offer ? Re: [Alug] Security problems (was Lurkers) Re: [Alug] Disk Space for Linux Re: [Alug] Meeting report? [Alug] Getting data out of databases ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 24 Aug 2001 15:47:18 +0100 From: MJ Ray <markj(a)cloaked.freeserve.co.uk> Subject: [Alug] Syleham poster 4 u Initial details of the syleham meeting should be on the website. A poster to be scattered around liberally is at http://mjr.towers.org.uk/alug/syleham20016.pdf ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2001 23:38:56 +0100 (BST) From: "D.I. Redhouse" <dir21(a)cus.cam.ac.uk> Subject: Re: [Alug] Announce ALUG 2001.5 On Thu, 23 Aug 2001, John Woodard wrote: > Announce ALUG 2001.5 > > The next meeting of ALUG (Anglian Linux User Group) will be on Sunday 16th > September 2:00 - 6:00pm at Syleham and Wingfield Village Hall (Mid Suffolk > venue). Venue details at http://www.alug.org.uk/venues/syleham.html If nobody's got any objections I was planning to bimble along to this. So it seems only polite to say that since I have a nice fast connection and more CD burners than you can shake a stick at: if anybody wants CDs of ISOs that they can't get down a modem or whatever, I'll make them up and bring them along if you let me know what exactly you want (within reason, like). Oh, and another thing. On the website at: http://www.alug.org.uk/articles/2001a/alugfaq.html it says: `It can be installed alongside another OS (such as MS Windows or (i think?) Mac OS)' ^^^^^^^^^^ You can definitely dual-boot with MacOS, although I'm not entirely sure how easy it is to install Linux alongside an existing MacOS installation that already uses the whole disk. If you see what I mean. - - David Redhouse, Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge 0787 6372962 dir21(a)cam.ac.uk http://www.arch.cam.ac.uk/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 19:14:15 +0100 From: "John Woodard" <mail(a)johnwoodard.co.uk> Subject: [Alug] Announce ALUG 2001.5 Announce ALUG 2001.5 The next meeting of ALUG (Anglian Linux User Group) will be on Sunday 16th September 2:00 - 6:00pm at Syleham and Wingfield Village Hall (Mid Suffolk venue). Venue details at http://www.alug.org.uk/venues/syleham.html I will of as ever volunteer to organise this meeting and any future Mid Suffolk meets. If enough people want it I might be able to get the bar opened for the afternoon so make your requests now. The promotion of the meeting via Usenet can be left to me I will do it ASAP so if there are any news groups you think would be an appropriate place to advertise let me know in the past I have announced meets to: uk.comp.os.linux alt.local.east-anglia comp.os.linux.announce (local:) and the pcplus.linux news groups are there any I have missed? If you are coming mail me with what kit you are bringing and any requests for help and we will get it put up on the web site as before. Cheers, BJ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 19:39:36 +0100 (BST) From: Adam Bower <abower(a)thebowery.co.uk> Subject: [Alug] Linux Expo Birmingham re-scheduled from 12th-13th september 2001 to 29th 30 th May 2002. (fwd) Hi all, Just got this mail in my inbox, so it is now on for May. I think we will organise an outing a bit nearer the time. Adam - -=20 This message is Copyleft - all rights reversed Adam - --------- Forwarded message ---------- Subject: Linux Expo Birmingham re-scheduled from 12th-13th september 2001 to 29th 30 th May 2002. Dear Visitor, Thank you for registering for LINUX EXPO BIRMINGHAM. Please note that the show has been RE-SCHEDULED from 12th-13th September 2001 to 29TH-30TH MAY 2002. The show will still take place at the NEC and will have exactly the same focus, dedicated to GNU/Linux and Open Source Solutions. There is no need to register again - we will re-register you automatically for the 29TH-30TH MAY 2002. Apologies for any inconvenience caused by re-scheduling the show. We look forward to seeing you in May for a high-quality show! Yours Sacha Dunas CEO Sky Events / Linux Expo T=E9l : 0143456600 Fax : 0143459244 Portable : 0672802604 Email : sacha.dunas(a)sky-events.com Linux Expo 2002 Amsterdam - 19 - 20 February Paris - 30 - 31 & 1 February Madrid - 3 - 4 April Sao Paulo - 15 - 16 May Birmingham - 29 - 30 May Milan - June Sky Events 12 avenue de Corbera 75012 Paris ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 23:01:36 -0400 From: John Seago <john.seago(a)btinternet.com> Subject: [Alug] LPI Certification There was a query raised as to the costs of the Linux Professional=20 Institute Exam. Details can be found at :- http://www.lpi.org/ I understand the costs are $100 US for the Exam and a registration=20 fee. The nearest Exam centres are reported to me as being at Ipswich=20 and Peterborough. John Seago=20 (I've got the time to browse!) ------------------------------ Date: 19 Aug 2001 12:56:06 +0100 From: MJ Ray <markj(a)cloaked.freeserve.co.uk> Subject: Re: [Alug] SSH/SCP No Password "D" <dsc(a)clara.net> writes: > Anyone ever got this to work? Not sat down and tried yet but a guy I was > talking to yesterday said its harder then it looks, surely you just need the > host keys etc.. and your away. I have eval $(ssh-agent) quite early in my .xsession file. This makes sure everything in my X session knows where to find the key manager. Then using ssh-add lets me add keys to it. You generate ssh keys with ssh-keygen and have to copy the right one to the target machine's $HOME/.ssh/authorized_keys file. Other than that, it's fairly simple... ask questions if you want more than the manual pages say. I even have a VPN using slip over ssh, for when I need to appear to be on an internal network somewhere. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 10:37:26 +0100 From: "Martyn Ashworth" <martyn.ashworth(a)eag.uk.com> Subject: [Alug] Friendly Offer ? All, I have got a copy of Kylix (Open Source) that I will gladly burn onto a CD for anyone interested (or who do not have the bandwidth to download 28Mb). All you then have to do is register to play with an awesome RAD tool for Linux. Sys Requirements: RedHat >= 6.2 Mandrake >= 7.2 SuSE >= 7.0 175Mb Free HD Space. Just e-mail me the postal address (mailto:martyn.ashworth@eag.uk.com) and i can get it sent out in the post tonight. Martyn ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 15:33:21 +0100 From: xsprite(a)bigfoot.com Subject: Re: [Alug] Security problems (was Lurkers) on Fri, Aug 24, 2001 at 03:13:15PM +0100, MJ Ray scribbled: > MJ Ray <markj(a)cloaked.freeserve.co.uk> writes: > > > Can someone clue me in on how MITM attack would work here? > > Key stroke analysis even. http://www.openwall.com/advisories/OW-003-ssh-traffic-analysis.txt It's quite fun looking at a certain stream and guessing what the user is doing. One long burst normally indicates a full screen editor/program. Regular short updates tend to imply something like a progress bar (wget, bsd ftp). And as the paper says, single characters, sometimes typed quite quickly, sometimes slowly (because passwords can be complex to type), that are not echoed back, tend to be passwords. Surely the echo control should be on the client side. Anyhow. > > I'm probably just hard-of-thinking this morning. > > Yes, you are, aren't you? hehe, it would seem soo.. :) ------------------------------ Date: 15 Aug 2001 08:42:54 +0100 From: Andrew John Savory <a.savory(a)btinternet.com> Subject: Re: [Alug] Disk Space for Linux On 15 Aug 2001 08:41:44 -0400, John Seago wrote: > We would like to know what is the optimum size for one Linux distribution, as > the Mandrake I have currently installed takes up a little over 2 gigabytes, > (in a 5.5 gigabyte partition), how much more space do they needed over the > the actual programme itself? How long is a bit of string? The amount of space needed depends heavily on what it is you're doing with the machine. I've got a debian firewall using 300mb of a 2gb drive... but a debian desktop machine using every spare byte of 4gb... a debian server that has cheerfully chewed through the best part of 40gb... > There would also seem to a problem with the rest of my rather elderly > computer recognising the whole of the 40 gigabytes, it seems to be able to > `see' only 33 gigabytes of the new disk. I've got a P133 that's able to see the entire partition of a 34gb disk (only one partition on there). It has to be slave though, as it's linux that can see the disk and not the machine itself (I can't boot off it). Good luck with the experiment, anyway, Andrew. - - a.savory(a)btinternet.com All views are my own - who else would want them? ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2001 11:49:50 GMT From: David Freeman <david_freeman(a)alug.org.uk> Subject: Re: [Alug] Meeting report? On Mon, 13 Aug 2001 11:21:16 GMT Martyn Drake wrote: > Okay, spill the beans - how did yesterday's meet go? :) > > Regards, > > Martyn Having managed to give Mark 125MB of email since 7pm yesterday I think its now safe to post a report. Well My worst fears didn't occur as I got a phone call from Mark at 1pm "Where are you" "getting cash out of a cash point which is giving me a DHCP error" replies I. Once I arrive I get a call from Andrew "I'm at tesco's how do I get to you?" which was duely sorted. 8 people turned up including Steve Fosdick Mark Ray Syd Hancock Neill Newman Andrew Glover Peter Holness Peter Clarke and me. We got the cd-writter and sound working on my new debian install and discovered why I couldn't install netscape. Other than that it was a typical meet with lots of chocy biscuits and stilulating conversation on various subjects. Notable by absence BJ Jen Jo Earl Tarquin So who wants to do the next one? Thanks D ------------------------------ Date: 11 Aug 2001 20:05:31 +0100 From: MJ Ray <markj(a)cloaked.freeserve.co.uk> Subject: [Alug] Getting data out of databases I'm the secretary of an association and responsible for keeping their membership lists. As a Linux user, it seemed natural to me to keep the membership records in a database and along the way I discovered two applications which make life very much easier for the non-programmer. PostgreSQL is the database that I use, mainly because I like to have all the features available and I have never had any stability problems with it. For database design and data entry, I discovered the handy pgaccess application which presents an interface not dissimilar to a more famous program with a similar name. The notebook window which is displayed when you start up has tabs for Tables, Views, Forms, Queries and so on, while each one contains a list of available items and some actions on them. Once the command "CREATE DATABASE members;" had been given at the psql command line, it was simply a case of inputting the database details into pgaccess's "Open Database" window to be able to start entering the information. pgaccess was downloaded as part of PostgreSQL, available from ftp.postgresql.org/pub and its home page is at http://flex.ro/pgaccess/ The report generator of pgaccess is not yet finished, so I was left with the problem of how to get the data out. I usually use LaTeX for writing letters and reports, so I was quite happy to discover the GNU Report Generator, gurgle, which was originally designed to work with that. To use it, you write a short gurgle script which includes a few definitions, the database query and the template for outputting the data to another file. Here's my script to print envelopes: %%define PHYSDB "members" %%define NAMCOL %%define TEXEXT .tex %%database "members.sql" select name, institution, mailaddress from memberdetails %%header %%record \envelope{%NAME \\ %INSTITUTIO \\ %MAILADDRES} %%footer %%end The first line sets the database name to connect to, the next tells gurgle to use the names from the query, the third says to save the file with the .tex extension, then we have the query. An empty header and footer surround the record template, which simply puts the database results in a call to my "envelope" macro with some line breaks. The file is then included into my envelope printing file (which also contains the association's logo, etc) and any small changes (replacing commas in the address with line breaks, for example) are done before sending the file to the printer and generating a stack of printed envelopes for a mailshot. Gurgle can be downloaded from http://www.gnu.org/directory/GURGLE.html or http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/timc/gurgle/ and has optional modules for GNUSQL, PostgreSQL, MySQL and CA-Ingres databases as well as text dump files. Comments? Improvements? Your alternatives? --__--__-- _______________________________________________ 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: Crying wolf
by John Seago 01 Sep '01

01 Sep '01

I was up until now more than a little wary of anything that involved the command line or Text editor, as I have no idea what I'm doing. However as I've decided that every thing has to come off the first disk in order to re-install windows on it's own disk where I can ignore it, (and it and all the Email's I collect every so often, and the files I can't do without will be safe from ill informed experiments in linux, which sometimes have a backlash), I'll have a go, after all I'm going to reinstall everything. Thank you so much for your suggestion, I'll try in the morning when my first dose of painkillers lend extra, baseless confidence, (overconfidence really). John

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Re: [Alug] About ntlworld in Norwich area.. coming soonish
by brodders＠cwcom.net 01 Sep '01

01 Sep '01

?? I take it that's via a BT line Owen? How do you access ntl? I'm a C&W customer with a C&W phone line. ntl bought them out late 1999 - I've had an ntlworld acount since um March 2000 but it just does not connect; I try every few months and the old C&W exchange refuses the ntl dialup number saying "the number you have dialled has not been recognised". ntl have said that the old C&W exchange will have to be upgraded before ntlworld is available & the C&W kit does support ntlworld. No, this isn't broadband stuff - plain old V.90! Perhaps it'll be V.92 if the upgrade really is new. Snag is, the way I read it the old C&W email I use is going to die - I hate changing my main email address about. Steve ----- Original Message ----- From: <oms101(a)freeuk.com> To: <brodders(a)cwcom.net> Cc: <main(a)lists.alug.org.uk> Sent: Friday, August 31, 2001 4:38 PM Subject: RE: [Alug] About ntlworld in Norwich area.. coming soonish > I have got ntlworld access already (except it was down all mornig due to a > lightning strike) its just the broad band service thats coming soonish I thought > > Owen > > > On 30-Aug-01 brodders(a)cwcom.net wrote: > > Re a thread weeks ago about Cable & Wireless customers in Norwich finally > > getting > > ntlworld acces... this was in my mailbox today: > > > > Dear Sir, > > > > Some time ago you registered for our internet service ntlworld and we thank > > you for your patience. During this time, we've been working to upgrade our > > network > > to deliver the service in your area and we're delighted to inform you that > > we'll <<big snip >>

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About ntlworld in Norwich area.. coming soonish
by brodders＠cwcom.net 01 Sep '01

01 Sep '01

Re a thread weeks ago about Cable & Wireless customers in Norwich finally getting ntlworld acces... this was in my mailbox today: Dear Sir, Some time ago you registered for our internet service ntlworld and we thank you for your patience. During this time, weve been working to upgrade our network to deliver the service in your area and were delighted to inform you that well soon be able to give you ntlworld. ntlworld will be provided to replace your current internet service (please see below for details). ntlworld the free unmetered internet service from ntl offers you five email addresses, webmail, webdiary, 10MB of web space, ten content channels and the ntl web directory (your easy reference to more than a million websites). On top of that, extensive on-line help will be available to you. Theres also a 24 hour Technical Support Line if you need to call us (calls are charged at £1 per minute). To receive ntlworld you dont need to do a thing. Within the next few weeks we will send you an email telling you when you can expect to receive your installation CD. You dont need to contact us, as we have your details and we have no further information about delivery dates at present. Upon receipt of the CD, you must install it before 31st October 2001. Important changes to your current internet service Following our acquisition of the retail assets of Cable & Wireless Communications Services Ltd, Cable and Wireless agreed to continue to manage your current internet service on our behalf until the 30th November 2001. As this agreement is coming to an end, we regret to inform you that your current internet service will not be available after the 30th November 2001. However by this date, youll be able to access ntlworld, which we hope will minimise any inconvenience this may cause. If you decide not to take up our offer to receive ntlworld, you will need to make alternative arrangements for your internet service from the 30th November 2001. Tariff changes for Connect customers If you are a Connect customer and decide to take up this ntlworld offer, you will automatically be migrated to the standard ntl call plan tariff*. This tariff offers a simple 3-2-1 pricing structure for local and national calls: 3p a minute weekdays, 2p a minute weekday evenings and 1p a minute at weekends wherever you call in the UK. This gives you: National calls at local rates, allowing you to call all around the country for the same price as calling next door. Unlimited Free offpeak Talktime** to other ntl cable telephone customers in your local call area. Access to an International Call Plan*** option with low international rates, such as 5p a minute to Australia, New Zealand, USA, Canada and many more. All calls have a 4.9p connection charge. Once again, thank you for you patience, and we hope you will take full advantage of this opportunity to enjoy the benefits of ntlworld. Yours sincerely, Jane Lockyer Head of Customer Relationship Management Ref: L018 *This migration is as a result of standardising our network following our acquisition of the retail assets of Cable & Wireless Communications Services Ltd. Whether you decide to take up the ntlworld internet offer or not, your telephone tariff will change with effect from 30th November 2001. A further communication to Connect customers will follow prior to this date. The 3-2-1 tariff applies to local, regional and national calls only including all calls from Northern Ireland to the Republic of Ireland. Separate tariffs apply to other calls including non geographic calls. All calls are subject to a 4.9p connection charge. **Free Talktime applies to calls from your ntl residential telephone to friends and family who are also ntl residential telephone customers and live in the local call area, from 6pm to 8am during the week and all weekend. All calls are subject to a 4.9p connection charge. Excludes calls to access Internet service providers. For details of local call areas please call Customer Services. ***International Call Plan subscription charge of £2 per month applies. Terms and conditions apply: http://www.ntlworld.com/legals/user-policy.htm All services are subject to contract and availability in your area. ntlworld is only available to residential customers who are 18 or over. Calls to ntl call centres may be monitored for training purposes. Information is correct at time of going to print 08.01. ntl Group Limited Registered Office: ntl House Bartley Wood Business Park Hook Hampshire RG27 9UP Registered in England and Wales No.2591237

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Slight DNS fu
by markj＠cloaked.freeserve.co.uk 01 Sep '01

01 Sep '01

Hi all, alug.org.uk has had some DNS problems. Martyn assures me that all will be fine soon. Thanks for your patience during this difficult time. ;-) Talk to you soon, MJR

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Re: [Alug] diald
by MJ Ray 30 Aug '01

30 Aug '01

Raphael Mankin <raph(a)panache.demon.co.uk> writes: > I had no trouble with diald. The advantage of using it, over cron, > is that the itnerface appears to be there at all times, even if it > is not active. Using cron to change your filter on ppp0 (which is there all the time pppd is running) has the same effect.

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Crying Wolf
by Earl Brannigan 30 Aug '01

30 Aug '01

Hi John > Subject: [Alug] Crying Wolf > I would be grateful however if > someone can hazard a guess at why the programmes on my first hard > drive seem to be either self destructing or slowly dieing, a bit at a > time? A stab in the dark : I had a similar problem once where I had 64Mb of memory installed and Linux 'thought' I had 128 Mb installed. View /etc/lilo.conf and check for : append = "mem=XXX" where XXX is a value representing how much memory is installed, eg. if you have 128MB of memory the line should read : append = "mem=128M" if it reads more than you have then you have a problem anyway, regardless of whether this is the cause of this particular problem (As Linus Torvalds puts it "Bad things will happen"). The Linux Kernel addresses up to 64Mb of memory by default so up to that amount you should be safe (though I do remember reading somewhere that its always safer to specify exactly how much even if less than 64Mb). If you have >64Mb installed but there is no line in lilo.conf you will only address the 1st 64Mb. So you would need to add a line to address the full memory : Here is a dump from mine : ---------snip----------- boot = /dev/hda timeout = 50 linear prompt default = linux vga = normal read-only map=/boot/map install=/boot/boot.b image = /boot/vmlinuz-2.2.19.0 label = linux append = "mem=128M" root = /dev/hda1 ---------snip----------- The " append = " bit is merely passing the value as a parameter to the kernel at boot time. Hope this helps anyway, will continue to rack brains for other possible causes... Regards Earl

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Re: [Alug] diald
by MJ Ray 30 Aug '01

30 Aug '01

Raphael Mankin <raph(a)panache.demon.co.uk> writes: > diald lets you control *when* connections are made. It also provides som > filtering to prevent the connection from being raised for various classes of > traffic. If you replace 'anyreason' by 'little reason', however, I agree with > you. I think all the filtering and timing can be controlled by cron, connection scripts and ipchains/iptables with pppd. It's not such a one-stop-shop, but it is more widely used and stabler, in my experience. I just remember diald being hell to get working. I'm not sure it ever did work correctly for me. Not used it again since, so maybe they've updated it.

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Crying Wolf
by John Seago 29 Aug '01

29 Aug '01

Please ignore last plea for help, I ran the install disk in rescue mode, and while I have no idea what I was doing I managed to get it to work again. This is either very good luck, or very good work on the part of the original programmers. I would be grateful however if someone can hazard a guess at why the programmes on my first hard drive seem to be either self destructing or slowly dieing, a bit at a time? John

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Further developments/failures
by John Seago 29 Aug '01

29 Aug '01

Matters seem to go from bad to worse, having restarted I find that the linux, (Mandrake 8), on disk one has now lost its < file:/usr/share/applink-mdk/XXXXXXXX > the effect is that all thelaunch icons on the panel are now inactive, while those on the desktop still work. Can I as someone who has yet to be able to work the command line mend it, or would it be easier to re-install? john Seago

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Re: [Alug] diald
by MJ Ray 29 Aug '01

29 Aug '01

Danny Thorp <danny(a)thorp.fsworld.co.uk> writes: > Any ideas? Have you tried pppconfig, like the good book says? You might also find pppd's persist option some use. I don't think there's any reason for diald any more.

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Re Screen resolution problems
by John Seago 29 Aug '01

29 Aug '01

On Turning on my computer I found that the resolution problem had solved itself, (albeit not very satisfactorily ). Both sets of Linux are now displaying perfectly, as are their start-up processes. Windows however has dissapeared, it's partition is still there but it is empty! I would very much like to know what I did, in order to avoid doing it again. In case you're wondering why two lots of the same thing, I knew how to get Mandrake 8 to install, and not being sure how to install on my second disk I started with Mandrake 8, I have Red Hat, Progeny, Debian and Slackware as more interesting/exciting projects to install. (They also appear to be wellbeyond my level of competence!). John Seago

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diald
by Danny Thorp 29 Aug '01

29 Aug '01

hello all: I have finally got round to trying debian on an old p120 for evaluation. Results so far are v.good with the exception of diald, which refuses to connect. Accounts are configured as on my Suse machine so settings should be correct. using other methods is no good either, Gppp will not establish session pppd "dies unexpectedly" Wvdial will not allow me access to the modem, permissions are set to 'no auth' and I believe that anyone should be able to initiate a tcp/ppp connection. but no. Any ideas? Ta Danny

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Re: [Alug] Multi-Media Publishing - Print and HTML
by MJ Ray 28 Aug '01

28 Aug '01

Alexis Lee <alexis(a)turton.com> writes: > Well heck yes, but the Grail is not to tweak less, but not to tweak at > all. What are stylesheets but tweaking on a larger scale. I'm sure you could write tex4ht stylesheets and not have to tweak at all. > 80/20 is well known to me. I would say I did maybe three loops of that, > when I could have done it in one loop with Word (space-greedy tables > were what I needed, and apparently the one area LaTeX lacks). That might be because greedy tables are bad. Anyway, I'm sure that they can be done, as I've seen them done. > And I read manuals _extremely_ well... how else am I gonna learn anything > at uni? I'll maintain a respectful silence on that point, I think. [FOP] > Woops. It sounded new, when I looked at the website, and having never > heard of it... Hrm. I don't think it can be that new, as I'm sure we were creating PDFs from XML some time ago. My memory is suspect, so I wouldn't like to hazard a guess as to when exactly and I'm not going fishing the log book for it. Definitely early this year, though.

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Re: [Alug] Announce ALUG 2001.5
by MJ Ray 28 Aug '01

28 Aug '01

"D.I. Redhouse" <dir21(a)cus.cam.ac.uk> writes: > > Announce ALUG 2001.5 > If nobody's got any objections I was planning to bimble along to > this. [...] !!! Of course we have no objections! The more the merrier, especially if they bring biscuits. We'll let you off in light of the great service you're offering: > [...] So it seems only polite to say that since I have a nice fast > connection and more CD burners than you can shake a stick at: if > anybody wants CDs of ISOs that they can't get down a modem or > whatever, I'll make them up and bring them along if you let me know > what exactly you want (within reason, like). Given the meeting topic, Debian CDs (probably only Binary-1-NONUS) would be great. I guess you want people to pre-order? I'm sure Adam will attack the FAQ as soon as he gets back ;-)

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Re: [Alug] Multi-Media Publishing - Print and HTML
by MJ Ray 28 Aug '01

28 Aug '01

LxS <Alexis.Lee(a)uea.ac.uk> writes: > Which, IMHO, means they're not really going to help you any more than > your existing word processor. You'll probably still need to mess with > the HTML output to get it looking nice. Maybe you will still need to tweak it, but it'll be a lot less than disentangling word processor HTML output. > Besides, it took me a day and a half to get a letter which looked even > half decent using LaTeX, and I missed off a lot of the complicated bits. > It is old, at least, and hence stable. Depends on what you claim as "half-decent" and how well you read manuals. (You're a computing student, aren't you? ;-) ) You have to remember the 80/20 rule and ask whether the 20 is worth it. > MJR or anyone: is the Apache FOP any good? Can't be bothered to learn > all about FOs if there isn't even a working processor yet... I'll let Andrew say about how well it works, as I've not used it for some time. I believe it still works, though. > ps. and the stupid way they write tex/latex REALLY gets on my nerves. Define it as a macro ;-)

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Announce ALUG 2001.5
by John Woodard 27 Aug '01

27 Aug '01

Announce ALUG 2001.5 The next meeting of ALUG (Anglian Linux User Group) will be on Sunday 16th September 2:00 - 6:00pm at Syleham and Wingfield Village Hall (Mid Suffolk venue). Venue details at http://www.alug.org.uk/venues/syleham.html I will of as ever volunteer to organise this meeting and any future Mid Suffolk meets. If enough people want it I might be able to get the bar opened for the afternoon so make your requests now. The promotion of the meeting via Usenet can be left to me I will do it ASAP so if there are any news groups you think would be an appropriate place to advertise let me know in the past I have announced meets to: uk.comp.os.linux alt.local.east-anglia comp.os.linux.announce (local:) and the pcplus.linux news groups are there any I have missed? If you are coming mail me with what kit you are bringing and any requests for help and we will get it put up on the web site as before. Cheers, BJ

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Cooking Trees
by David Freeman 27 Aug '01

27 Aug '01

All, Hello, I am writing this email from Belgium. I am sat in a field typeing this mail via a 802.11 based microwave link 0.95 miles to the nearest ISDN line. I spent a lot of time this weekend climbing a telegraph pole to fix a 14dB antennae to the top. But it works, much to the amazement of those watching. And the irony of wearing a "will work for bandwidth" T-shirt and working for a telecoms company! I will try to get to IRC tonight. Thanks D - From the linux beer wanderung -- "Your house sounds like a fire hazard" Peter Clarke

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Screen resolution problems
by John Seago 27 Aug '01

27 Aug '01

I'm posting this to the main list as I don't have the remotest idea of where to start looking for information. This is what I did, I installed Mandrake 8 on my second, (Primary slave), Hard Disk Drive, I used the expert mode in order to create a partition, I ended up with, on the first disk: Windows/Office & Mandrake 8 on the second disk: Mandrake 8 However, the computer would only boot windows on the first disk, and mandrake on the second disk, after several adventures in to Lilo, (fuelled by over confidence), I managed to get all three to boot. This was not the end of my problems as ALL the programmes Windows, Mandrakes 1 & 2 were displayed at the wrong resolution, while there start ups were in normal (800x600) resolution. Now having recklessly twiddled, I have both mandrakes displaying normally, but windows and the start up scripts for both in a small format. All help gratefully received but please remember that I need to make any corrections and I don't understand the command line, graphical solutions preffered John.

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Weekly IRC reminder
by Neill Newman 27 Aug '01

27 Aug '01

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 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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The list has moved.
by MJ Ray 27 Aug '01

27 Aug '01

This is just a final test to confirm that the list has moved to the new server at lists.alug.org.uk and changed its name to "main". I'll update the web site and add forwarding to take care of it now. You will need to visit the web site (address below) to reset any special options. We have moved between versions of mailman, so I haven't kept option settings. Regular/digest was kept, though. Apologies to digest members for the extra email. ;-)

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Re: [Alug] Multi-Media Publishing - Print and HTML
by MJ Ray 26 Aug '01

26 Aug '01

Steve Fosdick <fozzy(a)pelvoux.demon.co.uk> writes: > What do people currently recommend in order to publish the same > document both in printable form, and as HTML? Two options: LaTeX with dvipdfm and tex4ht's htlatex; XML with XSLT and FOP. Which is better? I still don't know. The LaTeX tools are quite a bit easier to get started with and better tested, but they don't keep content and layout apart.

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Re: [Alug] The list has moved.
by MJ Ray 26 Aug '01

26 Aug '01

Steve Fosdick <fozzy(a)pelvoux.demon.co.uk> writes: > I take it moving the list is so we no longer rely on UEA for > anything now that you are no longer studying there. That is the main reason. I haven't actually controlled the server the lists were running on since last October. Now that Brett has left UEA too, that server will pass into the unknown and it seemed a good idea to move. > On whose generosity do we now depend, both for the mailing lis > and for the web site? Martyn Drake, an ALUG member who has moved to London.

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Multi-Media Publishing - Print and HTML
by Steve Fosdick 26 Aug '01

26 Aug '01

What do people currently recommend in order to publish the same document both in printable form, and as HTML? I need to be able to be able to control the style of the print and HTML versions. The print version should ideally be available as RTF or as PDF and the HTML output should use a stylesheet (CSS). Both formats will need to be able to include images. I am currently using a word processor to do the print version and using paragraphs styles so that HTML conversion is pretty easy, but there is still a little fixing up to do at the end. What I am hoping to be able to do instead is to write in a content language (XML or SGML) and then convert that to the relavent output format with an automatic processor that applies a stylesheet. So, what do you recommend? Steve.

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Re: [Alug] sabcmd
by MJ Ray 25 Aug '01

25 Aug '01

oms101(a)freeuk.com writes: > [...] but in the end I shall have to install sabcmd if I want to > test things, also I am interested in the mechanisms of the make > files. Well, I'm sure you can find and install sablotron then ;-) That's not really meant as a harsh reply, but providing working cross-distribution binaries when at least one major distributor is still sticking two fingers up to the FHS isn't a game I want to play when I don't have to. Hope you understand, MJR.

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Re: [Alug] sabcmd
by MJ Ray 25 Aug '01

25 Aug '01

oms101(a)freeuk.com writes: > could you please put sabcmd in the cvs system as then it will be > simpler to setup and get started with the web site. If this is a bad > idea due to the size of sabcmd why because we have all got to use it > to produce alug web pages. so it might as well come all in one > peace. sabcmd is part of sablotron. It is not necessary to install sablotron to produce alug web pages. This is explained on the page http://www.anglian.lug.org.uk/background/cvs-access.html but I should link to the sablotron site somewhere. Once again: It is not necessary. Indeed, I don't have it installed here.

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ALUG artwork
by MJ Ray 25 Aug '01

25 Aug '01

Just to remind you that there's a poster for the next meeting at http://mjr.towers.org.uk/alug/syleham20016.pdf and to announce that there's a page of ALUG banners, buttons etc at http://www.anglian.lug.org.uk/articles/2001a/promoart.html

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Re: [Alug] Announce ALUG 2001.5
by MJ Ray 25 Aug '01

25 Aug '01

MJ Ray <markj(a)cloaked.freeserve.co.uk> writes: > Oh, OK, we're looking for a new talk, people ;-) I suppose a "What is Debian?" talk would be a good one. There's lots of info available on it. Anyone up to deliver this? Just a short one...

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Re: [Alug] UEA Meetings
by MJ Ray 25 Aug '01

25 Aug '01

Jenny_Hopkins(a)toby-churchill.com writes: > How about: [...] > a November meeting organised by Simon Parkes at Red Lodge Simon, is this a possibility? If so, I'll include it in the poster I'm throwing together. Red Lodge is in Suffolk, isn't it?

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Of cars and lifts
by Steve Kuo 25 Aug '01

25 Aug '01

Um... if lifts are being given, I live at the UEA and could use one too... ===== --------------- Steve Kuo "Windows Multitasking - Crash several programs at once, no waiting" ____________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.co.uk address at http://mail.yahoo.co.uk or your free @yahoo.ie address at http://mail.yahoo.ie

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