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Linux Laptop
by Simon Royal 02 Dec '10

02 Dec '10

Hi I am looking at switching - once again to Linux on a more permanent state. Ive been a Mac user for 11 years with an interest in Linux. Last year I switched to Linux on a low end laptop but moved back to Mac. Now I am triple booting on an old Mac (OS9, OSX and Ubuntu), but it is a bit old an PowerPC Linux is very unsupported. Id love a new Mac but cant afford it. I cant even afford a half decent one. The only funds I have will be from the sale of mine, which luckily should be about £100 and will buy a failry decent PC laptop. So I am looking for suggestions. It will run Ubuntu or Mint alongside Windows (for those times when you have to use Windows). It needs to be fairly small, with a built in CD drive, USB, PCMCIA slot and built in sound. I know that all sounds fairly standard but Ive had machines in the past few years without some of these. It really needs to be at least a 1Ghz machine capable of 1GB RAM - DDR preferably but PC133 would be ok. It needs to be good with Linux, no odd hardware that needs major tweaking to work. So suggestions please. Simon

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And another can't...
by Anthony Anson 02 Dec '10

02 Dec '10

While Gargle finds a few hits and Ixquick a lot more, typing "Offbyone Linux download" brings up a lot of Offbyone downloads, but no Linux ones. I am (fairly) reliably informed that therre is a Linux version, but the only reference I can find (but no download) is to Red Hat. I use Xandros on the Eee and Debian on the Acer and the whoppingbigbox. -- Tony Anson www.girolle.co.uk/

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How can I find what this apache "file does not exist" error is referring to?
by Chris G 01 Dec '10

01 Dec '10

I'm getting errors like the following in my apache2 error log:- [Wed Dec 01 17:57:58 2010] [error] [client 84.45.228.40] File does not exist: /var/www/dte-test/httpdocs/images, referer: http://dte-test/ The directory /var/www/dte-test/httpdocs/images doesn't exist but I can't work out any way to find out what's referring to it. Any ideas? -- Chris Green

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A git question now I have the basics mostly fathomed out
by Chris G 29 Nov '10

29 Nov '10

So, we have a git repository set up on a web server machine 'out there' somewhere. I make my local copy of the repository on my computer and do some editing etc. Then 'git commit' commits the changes to my local repository and a 'git push' sends the changes back to the remote repository. However I don't see how the files get to 'go live' on the remote web server, my 'git push' has simply put them back into the repository on that system. Presumably someone/somewhere has to extract the files from the git repository on the remote into the working directories from which the web server displays them. Is there a specific git command for doing this or would one use the standard 'git clone' to do it, or what? -- Chris Green

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Very strange "No such file or directory" messages - help!!!
by Chris G 29 Nov '10

29 Nov '10

I have a symbolic link from my home directory to another home directory:- chris$ cd chris$ ls -l total 988 ... ... drwxr-xr-x 3 chris chris 4096 2010-11-20 14:33 dte lrwxrwxrwx 1 chris chris 10 2010-11-22 18:58 isbd -> /home/isbd ... ... and, as expected, if I "cd isbd" I arrive at /home/isbd and can see its contents with an ls. However referring to "/home/chris/isbd" sometimes produces a "No such file or directory" error (but not always, as I have just discovered). I'm stumped. What started the problem was running rsync to backup the contents of /home/chris/isbd:- chris$ rsync /home/chris/isdb cheddar.halon.org.uk:backups/isbd rsync: link_stat "/home/chris/isdb" failed: No such file or directory (2) rsync error: some files/attrs were not transferred (see previous errors) (code 23) at main.c(1060) [sender=3.0.7] chris$ ls /home/chris/isdb ls: cannot access /home/chris/isdb: No such file or directory chris$ cd /home/chris/isdb bash: cd: /home/chris/isdb: No such file or directory It appears to be something to do with whether I have been in /home/chris/isbd but also seems to be time dependent. It's as if bash 'remembers' where /home/chris/isdb is for a while but then forgets unless I do a "cd isbd" from my home directory. The target (/home/isbd) is simply another part of the same disk that /home/chris is on, nothing special. Another example sequence:- chris$ cd /home/chris/isdb bash: cd: /home/chris/isdb: No such file or directory chris$ cd chris$ cd isbd /home/chris/isbd chris$ cd / chris$ cd /home/chris/isdb bash: cd: /home/chris/isdb: No such file or directory chris$ cd chris$ cd isbd /home/chris/isbd I've never had this problem before with a symbolic link to a directory, what on earth is going on? -- Chris Green

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Mobile phone software
by Bev Nicolson 27 Nov '10

27 Nov '10

I have a fairly basic Alcatel OT S319 phone. There is no hope of expanding the memory so I would like to find some software to help me transfer the text to my PC. What should I look for? I have found a list of possibilities but I've no idea which would be the most Linux compatible. Thanks. Bev.

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A question about git
by Chris G 25 Nov '10

25 Nov '10

I'm just starting to get down to the details of using git to co-operatively manage the contents of a web site remotely. I've managed all the basic set-up etc. such that I can connect to the site and get files etc. but I'm a little unclear about how things are supposed to go back to the remote/live site. So, I have used 'git clone' to get the files from the remote system and I have done some changes to the files. I then 'git commit -a' to commit my changes in my local repository, so far so good and it's what I'm (sort of) used to from previous experience of source code control. However what do I do next to actually get the changes back to the remote site? Or, what does the 'manager' who controls the code, do to get my changes integrated into the code on the remote site? Does 'git push' send my changes back to the site - it's not totally clear from the man page if this is what it does. The man page says "git-push - Update remote refs along with associated objects" which is a bit opaque. I *think* the following does copy the committed changes to the remote but I'd like to be sure:- chris$ git push --all --dry-run To chrisgreen@donttravelempty.com:/var/www/vhosts/donttravelempty.co.uk/subdomains/test/httpdocs 0474601..d6eb8a0 master -> master -- Chris Green

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Launch xterm with smaller font than specified in .Xresources
by Dan 24 Nov '10

24 Nov '10

Dear All, On my system, fonts are served up by XFS. The font I usually use in xterms is set in my .Xresources file as follows XTerm*VT100.Font: -Misc-Fixed-Medium-R-Normal--20-200-75-75-C-100-ISO10646-1 XTerm.Font: -Misc-Fixed-Medium-R-Normal--20-200-75-75-C-100-ISO10646-1 XTerm*Font: -Misc-Fixed-Medium-R-Normal--20-200-75-75-C-100-ISO10646-1 However, for one particular task, I want to launch an xterm with a much smaller font. The command xterm -fn fixed Gets me part way there, but I want an even smaller font than that. Any ideas, please? -- Thanks, Dan

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Back With Linux
by TheMactivist 24 Nov '10

24 Nov '10

Hi I flit in and out of this group when I pick up Linux again. Ive been a Mac user for the past ten years, Windows user before that and the last few years developed an interest in Linux. About a year ago I left Mac and went full on Linux with older ThinkPads. I then went back to Mac and am now triple booting between OS9, OSX and Ubuntu on an old Mac laptop. It was a struggle getting them all to work nicely together but I am back with Linux and writing this in it now. TM -- --- Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - LowEndMac: http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum - Skype: Simon-Royal. --- Apple PowerBook G3 'Pismo' running OS9/OSX 10.4/Ubuntu 10.10 - iBook G3 running OSX 10.4 - Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro.

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What would cause this lack of decision about a host on the LAN?
by Chris G 23 Nov '10

23 Nov '10

What might cause this somewhat confusing response to a 'host' command? root@mws:~# host oldchris oldchris.zbmc.eu has address 192.168.1.140 Host oldchris.zbmc.eu not found: 3(NXDOMAIN) -- Chris Green

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