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Dual Boot On 8GB
by Simon Royal 17 Mar '11

17 Mar '11

Hi Do you think it is possible to Ubuntu and XP, dual booted on an 8GB SSD? Im running Ubuntu on my EeePC, but I would like to run XP for a few apps. Simon -- --- Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - LowEndMac: http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum - Skype: Simon-Royal. --- Asus EeePC 701SD running Ubuntu 10.10. Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro running 2.1

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Kiddy Friendly Browser
by Simon Royal 14 Mar '11

14 Mar '11

Hi I have young children who have computers. They used to have Macs which were running Safari, which had a great built in restricted web access and you could lock down the whole system so it was tamper proof. They moved to PCs as their Macs were getting a bit old and they use a lot of Flash sites and Flash is not well developed for PPC Macs. So at present they are running Windows XP on some good spec P4 Celeron 2.5Ghz machines, but with all the anti-virus and anti-malware software it makes the machines crawl. They are also using a kiddy safe browser called KidZui which I think is a kiddy front end for IE, it too is really bad. Its slow and chokes all the time, but it provides a massive selection of preapproved sites, vids and games. I ran Ubuntu on from a Live CD on one of theirs and it screamed. They both have the same machine and running one with Windows XP minus safety software and the other from a Live CD, the Live CD beat it hands down. KidZui is a Windows only thing and I wondered if there was anything like it for Linux, then I could dual boot Win/Linux for the odd occasion they might need Windows. I found some kiddy friendly distros but I am just after a way of letting them only have access to certain stuff on the web without too much hassle and not a whole new distro for me to learn. There was an excellent Firefox addon called Glubble we used for a while that offered a platform independent safe surfing environment but it no longer works. My kids are only 6 and 8 so it is only sites like CBeebies, NickJnr and Lego that they need access to. Simon -- --- Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - LowEndMac: http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum - Skype: Simon-Royal. --- Asus EeePC 701SD running Ubuntu 10.10. Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro running 2.1

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Find environment variables used by some process
by Richard Lewis 14 Mar '11

14 Mar '11

Hi ALUG, Is it possible to query the environment variables being used by a specific process; from the outside? Specifically, I want to know if a running Apache has a particular environment variable set. 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/ -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Sent from my [insert device/mail clinet here]

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Ubuntu Update Manager Says No Internet
by Simon Royal 13 Mar '11

13 Mar '11

Hi Update Manager told me there were 6 updates, but when I go to download them it says I have no internet. I know I do as I have been on eBay this morning and am writing this in GMail webmail. Anyone else experiencing problems. Most of the updates were for Firefox and Firefox branding, so I thought closing Firefox might help but it didnt. SImon -- --- Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - LowEndMac: http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum - Skype: Simon-Royal. --- Asus EeePC 701SD running Ubuntu 10.10. Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro running 2.1

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"top -bn1p1" shows constant system CPU usage of 4.9%
by Mark Rogers 09 Mar '11

09 Mar '11

top -bn1p1 .. should return the data for (b)atch processing, without any refreshed (n1), for process 1 (p1). (The p1 is there just to save it sending me data for all processes, I'm not interested in anything apart from the header information.) It always[*] on my test system shows 4.9%sy If I run top normally, I notice now that it always shows 4.9% on the first scan, then starts to vary. Any suggestions as to why it never deviates on first scan? [*] "Always" in as much as I have some code that logs the value every 5 mins, and for over a day it hasn't changed; it's a test server that is fairly heavily used during the day and not at all at night, so I'd expect some variation. All the CPU usage figures are almost static, there's max 0.1% variation in some of the others. Also, suggestions as to other ways to get this sort of information would be welcomed. All I want is some sample data to use in another process, so I'm logging CPU, memory and disk usage (etc) as reported by top and df. -- 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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ssh conundrum
by Chris G 08 Mar '11

08 Mar '11

I have a shell login on host cheddar.halon.org.uk, while I was away for a few days recently (that bit's irrelevant really), cheddar.halon.org.uk was (presumably) moved to an new machine and thus its host key changed. So, when I came home, my passwordless login to cheddar.halon.org.uk failed with the usual ssh message about 'host key has changed', maybe a man in the middle attack, etc. I removed the relevant line from ~/.ssh/known_hosts, logged in again, the correct line was added to ~/.ssh/known_hosts and all was well again, or so I thought. However, it doesn't all work again as it did:- While ssh logins to cheddar.halon.org.uk from terminal windows on my GUI desktop are passwordless logins from shell console terminals (i.e. CTRL/ALT/n ones) ask for my password at cheddar.halon.org.uk (N.B. they don't ask for the key to my passphrase, it's the cheddar.halon.org.uk password that is asked for). I'm sure these used to work. More to the point my rsync backup to cheddar.halon.org.uk that runs as a cron job has also stopped working, it's expecting a passwordless login to cheddar.halon.org.uk but like the ssh login from a console it's failing because cheddar.halon.org.uk is asking for a password. So both the above problems point at some sort of screw up with ssh_agent but it's complicated by the following:- The file ~/.ssh/config contains:- Host cheddar.halon.org.uk IdentityFile ~/.ssh/np_id_rsa and ~/.ssh/np_id_rsa and ~/.ssh/np_id_rsa.pub haven't changed so why isn't it being used? Any ideas as to what else might have been affected by the host key change at cheddar.halon.org.uk? It's possible some previous misconfiguration was masking something such that the passwordless login was working for some other reason than the config file above but I still need to sort it out. -- Chris Green

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Re: [ALUG] Best Format For External Drive
by James Bensley 07 Mar '11

07 Mar '11

On 7 March 2011 21:30, Simon Royal <mrsimonroyal(a)gmail.com> wrote: > James > > I thought about NTFS, but it just doesnt play nice with OSX or Linux. > OSX hsa native read capabilities but its a struggle to get it to write > well - even using ntfs-3g. > > Simon Agreed (mostly). I would have mentioned the lack of write support from OS X as I use it every day but you only mentioned Linux and Windows in your original post. However, I'm surprised people still have any mentionable issues with Linux, I haven't in a long time (not to say that isn't just a fluke though!). If Mac wasn't going to be an issue I would have went NTFS simply because you never know what's going to be happening 6 months from now, however it may obviously be the case that you do know this...Evil which doctor :D -- James. http://www.jamesbensley.co.cc/ There are 10 kinds of people in the world; Those who understand Vigesimal, and J others...?

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[ALUG Announce] Norwich 2nd Thursday Pub Meet
by Viperfang 07 Mar '11

07 Mar '11

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 Aluggers, This months second Thursday social meeting of ALUG will take place on 10th March at The Coach and Horses (82 Thorpe Road, Norwich, NR1 1BA). There should be people there from 8pm, although some poeple meet up 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 OFTC (irc.oftc.net) 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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Mobile to PC software
by Bev Nicolson 07 Mar '11

07 Mar '11

I'm not wholly convinced Phone Manger is the one I'm after or if PC Suite will work happily with Ubuntu. (Actually on looking at PC Suite, it's got more features than I want or need.) My phone is a Sony Ericsson W205. All I want to do is save text messages onto my computer when my phone gets too full. Ta. Bev.

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Android mail client
by Richard Lewis 06 Mar '11

06 Mar '11

ALUG, We get a few messages blocked for moderation because (I think) they are base64 encoded; that is, the Content-Transfer-Type header says "base64". (Note that this is distinct from Content-Type; a text/plain message can be base64 encoded.) The pattern seems to be that all such messages are created using the Android mail client. A cursory Web search has turned up no solutions, but I did find an issue report: http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=2630 which I didn't read carefully enough to notice whether it includes a work-around or fix. This message is merely for information. 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/ -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- ------------------------------------ Every time you send an MS Office document, Bill Gates kills a kitten. ------------------------------------

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