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Looking for a reasonable Linux laptop/netbook
by Chris Green 11 Jul '14

11 Jul '14

My wife recently lost (or maybe had stolen, we're not quite sure) her new[ish] Acer Travelmate laptop. So we're looking for a replacement. The Travelmate was OK but she found the touchpad very difficult to use, it's one where the 'buttons' are not actually separate from the mouse movement touchpad and she found that very difficult. We want something small like the Acer with its 11.6" screen, similar processor power etc. Also obviously needs to be reasonably easy to install Linux (xubuntu). Any recommendations? -- Chris Green

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How is one supposed to work out what's what on a LAN nowadays?
by Chris Green 10 Jul '14

10 Jul '14

I know, I've been here before, but it's bitten me again. With most modern routers/switches not providing local DNS how is one supposed to find out who's who on a small LAN? At home I run dnsmasq but that's overkill for where I am now with just three or four devices on the LAN:- root@acer-aspire:~# arp-scan -l Interface: eth0, datalink type: EN10MB (Ethernet) Starting arp-scan 1.8.1 with 256 hosts (http://www.nta-monitor.com/tools/arp-scan/) 192.168.13.102 d0:ff:50:07:b7:96 (Unknown) 192.168.13.103 00:0c:43:4a:55:66 Ralink Technology, Corp. 192.168.13.100 00:21:04:f5:7c:a0 Gigaset Communications GmbH 192.168.13.254 10:fe:ed:50:8f:fa (Unknown) So, I know that 192.168.13.100 is the Gigaset DECT phone but for the other three I'm stuffed. Surely there's supposed to be a way to know how to talk to these things! (One's a Beaglebone Black, two are TP-Link routers) It can take a while guessing which is which and trying to ssh to them. It's especially frustrating because I only see this for a few days every few months so I *don't* remember what's what and much of it is powered down so gets different IP addresses next time around. It's just not stable (as in the same all the time) enough to get the router to always assign the same IPs and it wouldn't help all that much anyway as I don';t remember after two months absence. -- Chris Green

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How to test for existence of a file matching a pattern?
by Chris Green 09 Jul '14

09 Jul '14

This really sounds simple but I can't think of a neat way of doing it, I want to test (in bash) if there's any file with a specific suffix in a particular directory. This means I can't use "[ -f <filename> ]" because I don't know the filename and I don't see how I can use "[ *.sfx ]" because if there are no *.sfx files the string is still not empty. I suppose I could say something like "[ *.sfx = '*.sfx' ]" but it's a quoting nightmare. Any better ideas? -- Chris Green

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Electromagnetic Field 2014: Call for Participation
by Jonty Wareing 07 Jul '14

07 Jul '14

Hello! Electromagnetic Field (EMF) is a volunteer-run non-profit maker/hacker camping festival in the UK. We held our first event in 2012, and this year we're back and bigger than ever: a camping festival with over 1200 people of all ages, just outside Milton Keynes for a long weekend between the 29th and 31st of August. We run this event to promote people making and learning things across as many disciplines as possible. We'll take over a large field, roll out power and internet to every tent, and put on talks and workshops for three days. If you'd like a better idea of what that looks like, our website might help: https://www.emfcamp.org/about Our Call For Participation is open: we're looking for people to talk or give workshops. At previous events, we've had a huge variety of talks on everything from genetic modification to electronics, blacksmithing to high-energy physics, reverse engineering to lock picking, computer security to crocheting, and quadcopters to brewing. If you'd like to talk, we'll try and fit you in. We're especially keen to receive proposals from people outside the normal tech conference circuit (we welcome imposters!). If you need some inspiration, take a look at the list of talks from 2012: https://www.emfcamp.org/talks/2012 If you'd like to submit a talk, simply fill in this short form: https://www.emfcamp.org/cfp We're also looking for groups to run villages: camps within EMF where like-minded people can camp together and host activities for other members. Previous villages have been anything from retro-gaming to lockpicking, chillout areas, and a full workshop complete with laser cutter! Some groups just camp together so interested people can find them, some organise a village around a topic of interest and allow anyone to join them. If you'd like to register a village there's more information here: https://wiki.emfcamp.org/wiki/Villages We're also looking for people to build installations and art around the site. We have a limited budget available to help fund these projects, and you can find the application form on the call for participation page. Previous years have seen anything from ride-on tanks to floating LED screens and gigantic metal letters spelling out the event name! We'll consider anything interesting, so don't hesitate to get in touch if you would like to contribute. Last but not least: EMF is an entirely volunteer-run event and takes a vast amount of time to organise. We need volunteers to help out in a variety of roles before, during, and after the event. If you'd like to get involved, email volunteer(a)emfcamp.org. If you would like promotional posters, flyers and stickers to display in your hackspace or give out at a meeting, email your address to contact(a)emfcamp.org and we'll post them out as soon as possible! You can find out more about EMF 2014 on our website: https://www.emfcamp.org You may also be interested in the BBC coverage of the event in 2012: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19441861 Tickets are available from http://www.emfcamp.org/tickets, hope to see you in the field! Thanks, Jonty

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[ALUG Announce] ALUG Norwich Pub Meet Thursday 10th July
by Viperfang 07 Jul '14

07 Jul '14

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- Hello Norwich Aluggers, Our monthly ALUG Norwich social meeting will be held this Thursday, 10th July at The Coach and Horses (82 Thorpe Road, Norwich, NR1 1BA). The meeting officially starts at 8pm, although some people may arrive earlier. More information on those people can be found on the list and the IRC channel. If you are unsure if you will recognise us then make yourself and your intent to attend known by either posting on list or visiting us on IRC so we can look out for you rather than hiding in the corner. Optionally you could ask at the bar if they know where the geeky computer weirdos are and they'll point you in the right direction (seriously!). Another possibility is look for heaps of electronics on a table that may possibly look like movie props that would used for detonating explosives. Feel free to bring electronics/laptops/gadgets to the meet, you will by no means be alone. Ben Bewick aka Viperfang NB: This mail is automated, please refer to the usual sources for more information. ALUG Contact Details: Website : http://www.alug.org.uk/ IRC : #alug on irc.alug.org.uk List : http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo Twitter : http://twitter.com/anglianlug Identica: TBA Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2381613902 ----- Send discussion replies to main(a)lists.alug.org.uk (Reply-To set) Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce

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SSHFS
by Chris Walker 05 Jul '14

05 Jul '14

Hello, I have a 1TB disc attached to a Raspberry Pi which is attached to my tv. I'd like to able to copy/move stuff to and from that drive so I've been trying to mount it from my main machine. I did this :- sudo sshfs pi@192.168.1.27:/media/New_Volume /media/win_c3 I also entered sudo usermod -a -G fuse chris sudo chown chris:chris /media/win_c3 Having done all I wanted for the day, I then issued a fusermount -u /media/win_c3 But I felt the win_c3 (a leftover from previous experiments) was not right, so I renamed it to RaspberryPi. That's when it all stopped working. I can still issue the sudo sshfs pi@192..... command but the RaspberryPi folder disappears from the Dolphin window at that point and doesn't re-appear until it's dismounted. I see that /media/RaspbeeryPi now shows this sort of thing :- drwx------ 1 1000 1000 36864 Jul 5 10:09 Humax_TS_Files So how can I fix the 1000 problem? I've tried doing another chown as sudo but it tells me Permission denied. Any help appreciated. -- __ __| |_ __ __ .----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:alug_cdw@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |______________________________________________|

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Fonts and Firefox
by Bev Nicolson 04 Jul '14

04 Jul '14

Not a huge technical challenge for you but something I find a tiny bit tedious. In Firefox, I can see some special characters or graphics but others are just squares with numbers or diamonds with a question mark inside. I've tried using a font with a bigger file (so more characters to pick from) but that hasn't solved it. Is it a unicode problem? Or something else entirely? (Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, Firefox 26.0) Is there something in Synaptic I need to install? etc etc. Bev.

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Good energy usage/performance CPU/mobo combo
by Mark Rogers 01 Jul '14

01 Jul '14

Sparked by Laurie's thread, but different so I don't want to hijack it. My desktop PC (Intel G630 w/ 8GB RAM) is a bit slow these days. It is used for those wonderfully high memory applications we call web browsers, and for running VMs, and runs 24/7. Ubuntu 14.04 as the O/S. I'd like to upgrade the motherboard and processor (and the RAM if necessary) whilst retaining the rest of the box. What would be a good motherboard and CPU combo for the above on a budget of say £150-£200? (I'd want the motherboard to support at least 16GB RAM, 4x SATA and have USB3 but other than that I'm not too fussy. I currently have onboard graphics and continuing that way makes sense for my usage, but happy to look at alternatives.) Energy usage is something I would like to keep an eye on when the system is idle, but I don't want it to be held back when I actually want it to do something. Mark -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 4th July.
by Viperfang 01 Jul '14

01 Jul '14

Quick heads up about this months Norwich 2600 meeting, more info at http://www.norwich2600.co.uk

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LXLE Menu problem
by Chris Walker 26 Jun '14

26 Jun '14

Here's hoping somebody can help me with this. I was having problems making VirtualBox work on a 64bit LXLE machine so I uninstalled the old version, grabbed the latest from Oracle and installed it. But although the old version did, the latest version is not showing up in the menu system. I've tried running the Menu Editor and although I can add it, and save it, it never appears in the menu. So can somebody give me a clue as to where I'm going wrong with this please? -- __ __| |_ __ __ .----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:alug_cdw@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |______________________________________________|

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