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debian problem with usb printer and scanner
by Peter Alcibiades 18 Nov '09

18 Nov '09

Does this sound familiar at all? On a squeeze installation, there is a usb scanner. Works just fine. But for unclear reasons every now and then, it may be because someone plugs in another computer to the usb hub to print, not quite sure, when xsane starts up it gives the usual message about not being able to start the scanner. I fix this by brute force, I start up a demo copy of vuescan, after which all is well again. But I have no idea why this should work. However, on another machine running Lenny, this did not work. Vuescan could now not find the scanner. Also (this is an MFP) I was unable to get the printer to work. I had downloaded the drivers (its a Brother) and installed them using gdebi. So, I tackled the scanner problem first. sane-find-scanner found it, and scanimage -L also found it. Attempting to scan from the command line did not. Running short of time, this was a friends machine, I took the brute force approach again and installed Mandriva 2010. Got the drivers, installed them, and bingo, everything works fine. Must say, this was wonderfully easy, all the bookmarks and the toolbar configuration came up intact. Could not have been easier. Mandriva will be easier for him to run, at least, until we want to upgrade it. But, what on earth could be going on? Peter

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Firefox bookmarks in sidebar annoyance, any way around it?
by Chris G 18 Nov '09

18 Nov '09

I've been using a bookmarks 'server' for a long time (sitebar) but I've just realised it's actually rather pointless now I don't want to access my Firefox bookmarks from anywhere else except my home system. So I'll use the built-in bookmarks, so far so good. I liked the sitebar ability to put bookmarks in the sidebar so, after a bit of mucking around found how to put Firefox's bookmarks in the sidebar (well, not much mucking around, it's in the View menu). BUT there's one big drawback, for me anyway, if you click on a 'bad' (as in no such page) bookmark in the sidebar then the error is displayed in the sidebar rather than in the main Firefox display area and I can't find any way to get the bookmarks back in the sidebar except by pulling the View menu down again. Is there any way to avoid this 'infelicity'? In fact is there any way to force Firefox to *always* show the bookmarks in the sidebar, or at least to default to doing so? -- Chris Green

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OT: ADSL configuration
by Mark Rogers 18 Nov '09

18 Nov '09

I have just spent the afternoon trying to get my head around this one and failed. A customer has been set up with a new ADSL account with the following IP addresses: 88.x.a.116/30 (routed IP range) 88.x.b.170 (static IP). I need to configure the router to everything to a firewall that'll route traffic accordingly. I can't even work out from this configuration how many usable external IP addresses this will give them? (I can get the router connected with the static IP in a normal configuration without problem.) PS: God bless my Ubuntu Live CD, the tools you have to manage without on Windows! -- 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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Re: [ALUG] a weird network configuration, does this make any sense at all?
by steve-ALUG＠hst.me.uk 17 Nov '09

17 Nov '09

runlevel ten wrote: > > On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 11:22 AM, <steve-ALUG(a)hst.me.uk > <mailto:steve-ALUG@hst.me.uk>> wrote: > > > On the other hand, the adage "If it aint broke, don't fix it" is > often relevant! > :-) > Steve > > > The trouble is, there are many people in this world who use that > phrase to mean "It is broke, but let's not fix it until it stops > working, hopefully it will be someone else's problem by then.". > I don't think I've come across that usage. As far as I'm concerned, if it's working it aint broke, and if it is not working it's broke and required fixing. Simples! Steve

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Re: [ALUG] Burn, mount DVD and then eject fails?
by Srdjan Todorovic 16 Nov '09

16 Nov '09

Augh! Sorry - accidentally sent this to Wayne only. Sending to the list now. Srdjan 2009/11/16 Srdjan Todorovic <todorovic.s(a)googlemail.com>: > 2009/11/16 Wayne Stallwood <ALUGlist(a)digimatic.co.uk>: >> Srdjan Todorovic wrote: >>> >>> Initial searching suggests and issue with HAL. I've found that it >>> seems k3b is still running and can be seen to have /dev/hda still open >>> using lsof. Killing the process causes it to not appear in the lsof >>> output, but still cannot eject. So it may even be a bug with K3b. >>> >> >> Do you have the "verify written data" option checked in k3b's burning window >> ? > > No, I've not had that working for a long time, so I usually resort to > creating an md5 sum file of the files, then burn the disk, then verify > once mounted. > >> For some time now that hasn't worked for me and leaves k3b holding onto the >> burnt disc. Although it visibly errors on the verify which you don't >> mention. > > K3b does not report any errors. > I can burn the disk, and press eject button on the drive itself, and > it will open. I can put the disk in, mount it, read the files, > unmount, but then never eject as my normal user. > > If I just use a disk without having burnt anything that day, then I > can eject as my normal user without problems. > So it suggests it's somehow related to k3b's interaction with the rest > of the machine. > > At some point I'll do a test to see if exiting KDE and logging back in > clears the issue. > > Thanks > Srdjan >

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Burn, mount DVD and then eject fails?
by Srdjan Todorovic 16 Nov '09

16 Nov '09

Hi all, Got this weird problem for a few weeks now where I cannot eject optical disks after buring. (strangely, my old Tiberian Sun game disks can now be read, whereas previously could not on the desktop...). I burn an optical disk using K3b -> burn succeeds and can mount it and read all the files using md5sum to compare against known checksum file. I want to eject the disk, and then KDE pops up a message: "The device was successfully unmounted, but the tray could not be opened". I also cannot eject using /usr/bin/eject Stracing it: open("/dev/hda", O_RDONLY|O_NONBLOCK) = 3 ioctl(3, CDROMEJECT, 0x1) = -1 EIO (Input/output error) ioctl(3, SG_GET_VERSION_NUM, 0x7fffdc13f47c) = 0 ioctl(3, SG_IO, 0x7fffdc13f3d0) = -1 EFAULT (Bad address) ioctl(3, FDEJECT, 0x1) = -1 ENOSYS (Function not implemented) ioctl(3, MGSL_IOCGPARAMS or MTIOCTOP or SNDCTL_MIDI_MPUMODE, 0x7fffdc1440e0) = -1 ENOSYS (Function not implemented) Oddly there's not close(3) but maybe it's not needed. Another run: open("/dev/hda", O_RDONLY|O_NONBLOCK) = 3 ioctl(3, CDROMEJECT, 0x1) = -1 EIO (Input/output error) ioctl(3, SG_GET_VERSION_NUM, 0x7fff97ef8fac) = 0 ioctl(3, SG_IO, 0x7fff97ef8f00) = -1 EFAULT (Bad address) ioctl(3, FDEJECT, 0x1) = -1 ENOSYS (Function not implemented) ioctl(3, MGSL_IOCGPARAMS or MTIOCTOP or SNDCTL_MIDI_MPUMODE, 0x7fff97efdc10) = -1 ENOSYS (Function not implemented) The device is the correct device, and perms are: brw-rw---- 1 root cdrom 3, 0 2009-11-16 08:57 /dev/hda And I'm in the 'cdrom' group. From this moment onwards (until a reboot I guess), I have the same behaviour with optical disks: I can mount them, read them, unmount them, but cannot physically eject the drive, even if pressing (and/or holding) the drive eject button. Running eject as root works perfectly, which seems to suggest a permissions problem. As root: open("/dev/hda", O_RDONLY|O_NONBLOCK) = 3 ioctl(3, CDROMEJECT, 0x1) = -1 EIO (Input/output error) ioctl(3, SG_GET_VERSION_NUM, 0x7fff6f0d36ec) = 0 ioctl(3, SG_IO, 0x7fff6f0d3640) = 0 ioctl(3, SG_IO, 0x7fff6f0d3640) = 0 ioctl(3, SG_IO, 0x7fff6f0d3640) = 0 ioctl(3, BLKRRPART, 0x7fff6f0d3640) = -1 EINVAL (Invalid argument) close(3) = 0 and again as root: open("/dev/hda", O_RDONLY|O_NONBLOCK) = 3 ioctl(3, CDROMEJECT, 0x1) = -1 EIO (Input/output error) ioctl(3, SG_GET_VERSION_NUM, 0x7fff93f2ffac) = 0 ioctl(3, SG_IO, 0x7fff93f2ff00) = 0 ioctl(3, SG_IO, 0x7fff93f2ff00) = 0 ioctl(3, SG_IO, 0x7fff93f2ff00) = 0 ioctl(3, BLKRRPART, 0x7fff93f2ff00) = -1 EINVAL (Invalid argument) close(3) = 0 Initial searching suggests and issue with HAL. I've found that it seems k3b is still running and can be seen to have /dev/hda still open using lsof. Killing the process causes it to not appear in the lsof output, but still cannot eject. So it may even be a bug with K3b. Any ideas, please? Thanks Srdjan

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NAS box mount problems
by Chris Walker 16 Nov '09

16 Nov '09

I have setup my Edimax NAS box with various users and I can see it from this machine when in Windows mode and from my wife's laptop, also in Windows. Although I can see it from this machine in Linux mode using FTP and can send files to it, I can't seem to mount the thing. I've been googling this morning and found the smbclient command. Using that, I can finally connect to it and can see that there are no files present - not entirely unexpected! I get this from smbclient :- [root@Epox chris]# smbclient -L storage_server Enter chris's password: Domain=[STORAGE_SERVER] OS=[Unix] Server=[Samba 3.0.20] Sharename Type Comment --------- ---- ------- FTP_RAID_C Disk Linux Share Epox_Share Disk Windows XP Share Laptop_Share Disk Asus Laptop Share IPC$ IPC IPC Service (NAS SYSTEM) ADMIN$ IPC IPC Service (NAS SYSTEM) Domain=[STORAGE_SERVER] OS=[Unix] Server=[Samba 3.0.20] Server Comment --------- ------- Workgroup Master --------- ------- MY.HOME MY.HOME WORKGROUP STORAGE_SERVER I think I should now be able to mount the thing using the correct user, Mandriva and can do so like this :- [root@Epox chris]# smbclient //storage_server/ftp_raid_c -U Mandriva Enter Mandriva's password: Domain=[STORAGE_SERVER] OS=[Unix] Server=[Samba 3.0.20] smb: \> ls . D 0 Sun Nov 15 11:16:28 2 .. D 0 Sun Nov 15 11:16:28 2 58643 blocks of size 16777216. 47828 blocks available But how do I transfer files from linux to the NAS box? I thought I would need to mount it but if I try smbmount, I'm told that the command doesn't exist. I'm using Mandriva btw. I've also been trying to mount the thing using smbfs but have had no more luck using that. I get this message when I do :- [root@Epox chris]# mount -t smbfs -o password=Mandriva //storage_server/ftp_raid_c /mnt/Edimax/ mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on //storage_server/ftp_raid_c, missing codepage or helper program, or other error (for several filesystems (e.g. nfs, cifs) you might need a /sbin/mount.<type> helper program) In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try dmesg | tail or so Message from syslogd@Epox at Sun Nov 15 11:42:47 2009 ... Epox klogd: smbfs is deprecated and will be removed from the 2.6.27 kernel. Please migrate to cifs So I'm a bit stuck now. Can anybody help please?

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[ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : McGintys, Northgate Street
by samwise 16 Nov '09

16 Nov '09

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- The monthly "Third Monday" ALUG Ipswich Social Meeting is back this Monday 16th November, at 20:00: P J McGinty & Sons 15 Northgate Street Ipswich Suffolk IP1 3BY Tel: 01473 251 515 Map/Directions URI: http://maps.google.co.uk/?q=IP1+3BY WWW: http://pjmcginty.moonfruit.com/ McGintys pub is in the centre of Ipswich, not far from our old haunt - The Milestone. It's directly opposite the town's central library and has a reputation for good Irish beer. All are welcome, novices and experienced users. Feel free to ask for further information on the Main ALUG mailing list. This month will hopefully comprise of the tutorial on Android Application Development which was postponed from last month, due to appalling attendance. It'll cover what the Android platform is, what technologies are behind it, how to get a development environment up and running and the creation of some simple applications. Remember to call or email me, if you're arriving later and want to ensure I don't wander off, which I have a tendency to do if the turn-out hits rock-bottom ... Hope to see you there, Peter. ----- 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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Sony Ericsson Symbian Phones with Linux
by Mark Rogers 16 Nov '09

16 Nov '09

I'm looking at a phone upgrade, and current favourite is the new Sony Ericsson Satio. Given that it's new I can't find a lot of info about connecting it to Linux, but as it's Symbian based I figure a lot will depend on how well other SE Symbian phones work with Linux. I had a look at the Gammu phone database and they fairly well supported (much better than the Nokia's I'm more familiar with). But does anyone have any real experience of using their SE phone with Linux in any way? Ideally I'm looking to archive stuff like text messages onto the PC for storage, syncing contacts and calendar, and transfering photos and video. I'm as much interested in SE's attitude as what works and what doesn't though. (Nokia are very proprietary and almost nothing works without using Nokia's own software on Windows.) -- 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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Video conversion problem -mpeg2, mpeg1, etc.
by Chris G 15 Nov '09

15 Nov '09

My wife wants to play some videos on a projector while she does a talk. Inevitably there will only be Windows machines available to do this (or possibly her laptop which, unlike everything else, is also Windows). She has chosen the files she'd like to run, they're all MPEG2. It turns out that Linux is actually better at doing this than Windows but this doesn't help the current issue. I want to concatenate five or six MPEG videos and play them, by default on Windows this means they have to be MPEG1. I'm trying to convert them using ffmpeg but at present I'm failing miserably. Can anyone tell me, in simple terms, how I can convert some MPEG2 files to MPEG1? I'm currently trying:- ffmpeg -i 'Head In The Clouds.mpg' -target vcd -y /home/chris/tmp/maxine/hitc.mpg but this produces a zero length output file, do I need something more to get it to work? -- Chris Green

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