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Problem 1 - Can't get WiFi to connect - always get "Bad Password"
by Chris Green 30 Oct '11

30 Oct '11

This is only one of several problems in a row that I'm having trying to get an Ubuntu 11.04 machine back to life after its CMOS battery died. However this WiFi problem isn't directly related, I wanted to use my laptop next to the dead computer to do some Google'ing for the error messages and I can't get the laptop to connect to my WiFi (I normally just plug it in to the ethernet). The laptop *does* connect successfully to other WiFi networks, it currently has wicd rather than trhe default Network Manager. The symptoms, such as they are, are that it sees the WiFi network with the correct SSID and everything but although I have checked and rechecked the password it fails to connect with a pop-up window saying "Connection Failed: Bad Pasword". Other computers can connect to the WiFi OK and I have checked that they are using the same password, they are. It's a fairly simply password so I'm sure I'm not mis-typing it. So, all I can think is that there is some sort of incompatibility between wicd and the router. In wicd I'm selecting "Use Encryption" and "WPA 1/2 (Preshared Key)", on the router (Draytek Vigor 2820n) I'm setting "WPA Pre-Shared Key(PSK)" Is there anything else anyone can suggest that might be causing the failure? -- Chris Green

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Is it possible to prevent this web redirect?
by Chris Green 29 Oct '11

29 Oct '11

This isn't specifically linux but there are lots of knowledgeable people here, so ..... I'm trying to go to the following web page:- http://auberge.delecluse.free.fr When I load the above in Firefox (or IE for that matter) it pops up the web page momentarily but then, within a second or so, redirects me to http://www.cibleclick.com/. I've seen this sort of thing before but I'm more interested in seeing the 'right' web page this time. If you use lynx or w3m to go to http://auberge.delecluse.free.fr then you don't get redirected, but of course there's not much in the way of pictures to look at. Is there any way I can get Firefox (or something else) to show the wanted web pages? -- Chris Green

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Re: [ALUG] Google Chrome - anyone use it?
by mick 27 Oct '11

27 Oct '11

On Fri, 21 Oct 2011 23:22:03 +0100 James Freer <jessejazza3.uk(a)gmail.com> allegedly wrote: > > I wonder what you'd have written if i said i'd installed Chromium! <tinfoil beanie hat> Much the same. Chromium, or any OS which relies primarily on web (or "cloud") based storage and applications, has the same implications for reductions in privacy. Any use model which stores my data (in the broadest possible sense) on someone else's systems, particularly where those systems may be in a country where UK laws on data privacy do not apply, bothers me. When that system is owned by a company which explicitly makes money by aggregation of personal data and whose CEO has the ludicously cavalier attitude towards personal privacy demonstrated by Eric Schmidt (c.f. wonderful remark: "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place" [1]) I get even more bothered. > Installing Chrome was part of my hunt to find a better browser. I find > Firefox 'hangs' after any lengthy browsing... it always seems to have > done, i recall switching to Netscape back in about 2004/2005 because > it was so bad and hasn't improved much in many ways. Seamonkey seems > to have inherited some of that. I started looking for something better > and wasn't too impressed by Epiphany which is supposed to be Debian's > default browser [i think]. You could try opera. It isn't open source, or truly free in the "freedom" sense, but it is free of cost and it works well under linux. But beware here too of opera's ability to track your usage through its "opera turbo" option. This can be a useful option for speeding web browsing on a slow link, but it does this by pulling the data from opera's own caching proxy service. You pays your money.... > It seems google have taken the OS code and made their own - with it > perhaps some of their "sinful additions". I thought it was easier to > reply by numbering the paragraphs. > > 1] In my mind is do they really collect data about individuals? One > can suspect them of doing such things but why would they do it. They > are a business focussed on developing search on the internet. I see no > reason to believe they actually do anything with that data other than > pursuing that objective. Would they take passwords and look in detail > at what individuals access? The security risk is far too high. Someone > would have got into the google complex and splashed it across the > world by now - google would be dead within a couple of days. I'm sure > the google complex security is ten times that of Fort Knox but even > so. Yes they do. In the name of "personalising your experience" they will do all that they can to get as close to you as an individual as is possible. Consider how you are "encouraged" to sign up to google services "for a richer experience". And it matters not at all whether google itself uses that data, the very fact that it has that much data aggregated makes it an attractive target for those of malign intent (or governments armed with warrants). > 2] I don't find it ok but... i recognise that for them to provide an > excellent service finance has got to come into the picture somehow. > The fact that the advertising means that an organisation for a high > fee gets pole position on page one of a google search compared with > that pays less. BUT if one compares with other search engines it's > surprising how much they vary... but then only some of the time. So > how are Altavista, Ask.com etc getting funds to pay staff. I haven't > done any comparisons for a few years now i admit. I've just used > google as i've felt they were more ahead in research than others. > Google are very smart i must say... the features they provide for free > are excellent - they wouldn't be able to do that without finance > somehow. What have i browsed today; Spaceship Galactica, ebay, solid > fuel stoves - so what. In summary perhaps it's appropriate to say one > should be WARY of google recording visits. But then again one can > search 'death camps'... and all these places spring up across a > certain country - no one knows why/what purpose they are for [gosh > what have i written perhaps i'll get 'neutralised' next week by men in > black... google might be studying this email]. Google are not in business for my benefit, they do it to make money. I have no problem with any company making money (it's what makes the western world work (or not, depending upon your perspective) but I do have a problem when their primary mechanism of funding leads them to a position where taking liberties with personal privacy becomes the norm. > I have not found any evidence that google has blocked information >or in effect provides contrived searches.> Ummm proving a negative is difficult. How exactly would you know with any certainty that search results had not been tampered with? And in fact, "tampering" with search results is exactly what google is offering you in the name of "personalised experiences". (As an aside here, I was intrigued to discover that I cannot now view the onion news article I reference below without "signing in" to youtube. I get the messages: "The video that you have requested has not had a rating provided by the content owner and may not be appropriate for younger audiences." and "To view this video or group, please verify that you are of the appropriate age by signing in or signing up. If you would instead prefer to avoid potentially inappropriate content, consider activating YouTube's Safety Mode." No google, I will /not/ bloody well sign up just to view a video about you. See [4] for the image of the page I get. Maybe they are on to me. :-) ) > 3] You raise an good point here. I had a website that i used to test > out some mindmapping. I was chuffed that google had found it... maybe > it was from google toolbar - but i also tried a search at school and > it found it (no google toolbar used). I merely used google toolbar to > stop me deleting my valuable bookmarks when i did a reinstall [but > that was a while back and i'm rather better now at backups! I'd > remember everything apart from bookmarks]. Google is for finding info > and that's what it did - just because there were no links... doesn't > necessarily mean that google toolbar was reporting pages - it found > them. Since using bookmarks (html stored in home directory) over the > last few weeks i must say it's quicker than using google bookmarks via > the toolbar so i doubt if i'll be using it again. I should try > Chromium... but i've read a load of bugs and yet to see many for > Chrome. With respect, I think you missed a point here. The issue is that google toolbar reports searches to google. Once google has then indexed the pages (if they are not already public) they become available to anyone, regardless of whether that later searcher has the toolbar installed. So your finding the pages from a search at school is not surprising. No search engine can discover truly "orphaned" web pages unless the engine is pointed to those pages in some way. So google cannot just "find" web pages, they have to have an external link. That is one reason that google toolbar is sneaky. > 4] You could well be right. But they want to stop that legislation as > it would limit their scope for a search engine. Stuff shouldn't be on > the web if it's not to be found and read. I've been surprised at what > google's found when i've posted on various forums on topics of > gardening, dogs and classic cars. (Minor correction here. I meant "do not track" not "do not follow", but the issue is the same.) Implying a motive here is difficult I agree. But consider the track record. I tend to agree with the author of an article in wired [2] when he said "it’s about money that Google stands to lose if users of its browser get an easy way to opt out of its advertising tracking." > Perhaps i'm naive but i think google are very smart and deserve their > success. The World watches them but i think they're clean. As for > gmail; there are some things that irritate me but AOL and other's > nothing like as good. The 'conversations' make list replies very easy, > one can set an email client but i find them far too slow for my amount > of mail - only one i've found useable is Alpine but for > 'conversations' far too slow. Star important emails i don't want to > delete and when it comes to 'clearing', search the 'unstarred' and > then delete. Sure, I agree that they are smart. But I don't agree that they are clean. For an amusing, irreverent, and not entirely unbelievable view of google's attitude to privacy, see the onion news opt out video at [3] Mick </tinfoil beanie hat> Notes [1] See http://www.osnews.com/story/22603/You_Have_Zero_Privacy_Anyway_--_Get_Over_… [2] http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/04/chrome-do-not-track/2/ [3] Onion News Network on google opt-out http://www.theonion.com/video/google-opt-out-feature-lets-users-protect-pri… [4] http://rlogin.net/google/google-opt-out.png

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Hello everyone on the mailing list!
by Adam H 25 Oct '11

25 Oct '11

Hi there everyone, I joined the mailing list today and thought I would introduce myself. I'm a software developer, writing mainly smartphone apps but occasionally I kludge together small bespoke tools when my boss decides he wants the workflow to be made easier/faster! I've been interested in GNU/Linux since around 2000 and installed my first distro (Mandrake Linux) around 2002-03. Today I use Puppy on a USB stick, because I have to use a Macbook Pro for work. Aside from things learned along the way as part of my job, I know quite a bit about GNU tools and software, but I'm still learning the guts of Linux, so to speak. I'm a complete geek, so as long as I'm fueled by PG Tips: ask me anything! I look forward to chatting to all of you :) Adam

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Routers (as in ADSL routers and similar) and DHCP and DNS
by Phil Ashby 24 Oct '11

24 Oct '11

On 23/10/11 12:00, Chris G <cl(a)isbd.net> wrote: > Is it just me or are most routers' DHCP servers close to useless? > ... > However *none* of them provide name access to clients on the LAN, so I > have printers, a VOIP server, etc. on the LAN to which the router gives > IP addresses (using DHCP) but the router *doesn't* allow one to > reference anything by name. > ... > Am I just unlucky in the routers I choose or are they really all like > this? I'm running OpenWRT on my old Netgear DG834, this uses dnsmasq to serve DHCP and DNS, which automatically adds/removes local DNS entries when DHCP leases are granted/revoked. This works nicely for the PCs (linux or Windows) and my printer... Phil.

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Routers (as in ADSL routers and similar) and DHCP and DNS
by Chris G 23 Oct '11

23 Oct '11

Is it just me or are most routers' DHCP servers close to useless? I have several, all of which can provide DHCP and most of them also allow you to set them as the DNS server such that they forward (most?) requests to your ISP's DNS server. However *none* of them provide name access to clients on the LAN, so I have printers, a VOIP server, etc. on the LAN to which the router gives IP addresses (using DHCP) but the router *doesn't* allow one to reference anything by name. This makes the DHCP server completely pointless! If I want, for example, to be able to refer to my VOIP server by name (it has a web server for configuration) then I have to give it a fixed/static IP address and put it in /etc/hosts everywhere, by the time I have done that for the printers too I might just as well turn the DHCP server off in the router. Am I just unlucky in the routers I choose or are they really all like this? -- Chris Green

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HP Laserjet P1102
by Bev Nicolson 23 Oct '11

23 Oct '11

People may remember me wrestling with another HP a while ago. This is a new machine but I wondered if the results from CUPS below shed any light on the topic on why it says it may not be connected? E [22/Oct/2011:11:51:56 +0100] [cups-driverd] Unable to write "/var/cache/cups/ppds.dat" - Permission denied E [22/Oct/2011:11:52:19 +0100] CUPS-Add-Modify-Printer: Unauthorized E [22/Oct/2011:11:52:31 +0100] [cups-driverd] Unable to write "/var/cache/cups/ppds.dat" - Permission denied E [22/Oct/2011:11:53:21 +0100] CUPS-Add-Modify-Printer: Unauthorized Bev.

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Open Office failing
by Chris Walker 23 Oct '11

23 Oct '11

I have Open Office running here (Mandriva 2010.2) on my 64bit i7 machine. It also runs on the Windows 7 side as the machine dual boots. The Windows side works and I use it to save some multi page spreadsheets. But whenever I try to open any of the spreadsheets here, OO fails to open them. It says it will try to recover the docs but as it doesn't seem to open them, it never manages to recover. The machine has gone through several updates/upgrades and yet the problem persists. Can anybody suggest what I might do to fix OO here please? -- __ __| |_ __ __ .----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:cdw_alug@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |______________________________________________|

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Google Chrome - anyone use it?
by James Freer 21 Oct '11

21 Oct '11

[running Xubuntu] Just wondering if anyone uses it and what their thoughts are! I decided to have a change from Firefox. I liked Chrome and didn't find any problems - except for the bookmarks. In FF i installed the google toolbar and had all my bookmarks stored in my gmail account. Useful while i was teaching and using lots of different machines...(no longer) but i've got into the habit so i wanted to do that with Chrome. Setting up Sync and logging in to gmail i don't find it syncing at all. Having installed Chrome i then found that FF google toolbar bookmarks didn't work. Assuming there was conflict between the browsers i removed FF and google toolbar - problem remains. I think i've found a glitch somehow and will only know when i install the new Xubuntu release. james

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sshd in single-user mode, resizing root ext3 partition
by Richard Lewis 21 Oct '11

21 Oct '11

Hi ALUG, So we've recently purchased a new server on which we intend to run Xen and hand out some virtual OSs to the students our Digital Sociology and Digital Journalism courses. The server machine has two HDDs and I allowed the Debian installer to set up LVM using just one of the drives, leaving the other un-partitioned. I let it create swap and root logical volumes with the root logical volume taking up all the volume group space not used by swap. Now, however, I realise that what I really wanted was a small root LV and then a large LV for Xen to use to store guest OSs which could use physical extents from both HDDs. In principle this should be a matter of: 1. Reduce the size of the / filesystem 2. Reduce the logical volume on which / is mounted 3. Create a new partition on sdb 4. Add sdb to the volume group 5. Create a new logical volume using all of the remaining space 6. Create a new filesystem on the new logical volume 7. Mount this new filesystem in the place where Xen stores its guest OSs However, I can't resize the root filesystem while it's mounted. And now the server has been moved to the rack. Before I face the ITS staff and ask to be allowed to login locally in single user mode in order to resize the root filesystem, I wondered if there's any way to, either: 1. Resize the root filesystem while it's mounted (it's an ext3 filesystem) or; 2. Log in to the computer remotely in single user mode so that the root filesystem is mounted read-only and is thus resizable? (such as running sshd in single user mode) I know this is total schoolboy stuff and please feel free to point and laugh. But after that, any advice would be very much appreciated. Best, Richard -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Richard Lewis ISMS, Computing Goldsmiths, University of London Tel: +44 (0)20 7078 5134 Skype: richardjlewis JID: ironchicken(a)jabber.earth.li http://www.richardlewis.me.uk/ -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

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