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Dual Head on Nvidia
by Wayne Stallwood 07 Nov '05

07 Nov '05

I am just about to order a second 17" TFT to match my existing one, I noticed where I was doing some DVD Authoring last week that I need more screen estate. I would like to stay with Nvidia cards if at all possible, partly because I need good hardware 3D on at least one screen and partly because I know where I can grab a really good dualhead Nvidia card really cheap. Not having done this before I would like to know how it all works before I commit to the extra screen. How for example do the virtual desktops interact with dual head, Do I used the desktop pager in the normal way and choose which display has which desktop ? How does the framebuffer work, does this only work on the first screen ? Has anyone used VMware on a dual head setup, what happens if you set a VM to fullscreen ? Does it go fullscreen on one of the monitors and do you have any choice about which screen that is ? When I was googling about I saw loads of references to xinerama and twinview and other sites that just said to add the second display to the xconfig file. What method should I use to get the behaviour(s) above ?

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Weekly IRC reminder
by Brett Parker 07 Nov '05

07 Nov '05

This is the automated ALUG IRC meeting reminder sent to remind you that there is an IRC meeting tonight (Monday) at 8.00pm. Historically, these used to be the only time a lot of us would be about, now the channel has some usual faces that are there most of the time (except at silly o'clock, when we might be sleeping, or on the second thursday of the month, where we might be drinking in the Reindeer), so don't feel limited to visit during this time, come visit us when ever you feel like it! The meeting takes place on the irc server irc.alug.org.uk in the #alug channel. Most IRC clients should allow you to get there with the commands "/server irc.alug.org.uk" and "/join #alug". Popular IRC clients include xchat, irssi and EPIC on Unix, and Mirc under windows. Here are some links to help you get started with irc. Unix http://www.xchat.org/ http://www.irssi.org/ http://www.epicsol.org/ Windows http://www.mirc.com (loads of help with irc for newbies!)

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Tiff images on a Sharp SL-C3100
by Barry Samuels 06 Nov '05

06 Nov '05

I have just bought an SL-C3100 and one of the things I'd like to use it for is viewing images, from my camera, in the field. The images are 12MB Tiff files and most of the Zaurus software can't cope with Tiff so I'd like to shrink and convert to Jpeg. I've put an Arm binary of ImageMagick 'convert' onto the Zaurus and have installed the libtiff package but if I try to use 'convert' I get a message 'Libtiff is not available'. Can anyone suggest what might cause this? -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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Re: MFD
by Ten 06 Nov '05

06 Nov '05

Hi there folks. I'm in the process of looking at budget MFDs (the all-in-one printer/scanner/tea-strainer deelies for anyone not familiar with the acronym) for myself and the better half and wondered whether anyone here had positive/negative experiences to share. "Compatibility" with your usual GNU/Linux suspects is a must in terms of both systems and utilities - are there serious gotchas anyone here knows about? Considerations are: 1. Low cost 2. Print/scan/copy at reasonable quality 3. PictBridge and/or Bluetooth for computerless use with digital cameras. Groovy gravy would be: 1. Bluetooth for use with phones etc., but I don't personally need computerless printing, so it's less of a consideration). 2. Ability to handle 35mm film (truly unnecessary) I'd appreciate ideas/gotchas. Cheers, -- Ten

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How to remove empty maildir mailboxes?
by Chris Green 06 Nov '05

06 Nov '05

This is (distantly) related to my previous question, they're both results of my migration from mbox to maildir. I'm doing that so I can rsync my mail folder hierarchy from the system where I actually read my mail to my home system without losing old mails. So, I want to write a utility that can run as a cron job and, maybe, on demand, that will saerch down my mail hierarchy for empty maildir mailboxes and delete them. This involves finding any directory that has empty cur, tmp, and new subdirectories and deleting it. I can see all sorts of horribly clumsy ways of doing it but not any really neat way. Any quick solutions anyone? Amazingly a Google search turned up nothing useful at all, surely there must be a need for a utility like this. -- Chris Green (chris(a)areti.co.uk) "Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."

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RE: [ALUG] Installing Debian
by Keith Watson 06 Nov '05

06 Nov '05

> From: Anthony Anson > > I've just had an attempt at installing Woody, but fell at, if > not the first hurdle, the next one. > I'd strongly advise installing a Ubuntu distro (latest is 5.10 Breezy Badger) if you want to try out Debian. I'm a dedicated Debianite and also a total convert to Ubuntu after setting up a dial-up PC for a non PC literate friend a couple of months back (Quote: "Wow this is as good as Windows!!"** :-> ) I'm sure someone on the list has some of the latest Ubuntu Live+Install CD packs (I've got some of the previous 5.04 Hoary Hedgehog packs). IMO the install is a dream. Regards, Keith ____________ Though the forest is dense, yet water flows through it freely. - Zen Saying ** recent quote after another acquaintance was bemoaning getting assorted viruses and rogue diallers over the past year, "Oh!, I don't get those, I run Linux" (accompanied by a superior grin) [however I did enable their firewall]

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Installing Debian
by Peter 05 Nov '05

05 Nov '05

I would get Mepis. Assuming you don't mind KDE. Installation is very simple indeed, and after 45 minutes, there you have it, a working Debian based installation with most of what you'll need, and Synaptic for the rest. And you get to try it out from the CD first, to make sure you like it, before going to the trouble of installing. I did try Ubuntu, an earlier version, and didn't like it one bit. It may have improved, but the one I tried, last Christmas, was an utter dog. So at least if you try Ubuntu, make sure its the latest version. I also failed, a long time ago, to get Woody in, no longer recall exactly why, but the latest version is pretty straightforward. Though not as simple as Mepis. Peter

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Installing Debian
by Anthony Anson 05 Nov '05

05 Nov '05

I've just had an attempt at installing Woody, but fell at, if not the first hurdle, the next one. With 640 MB of memory I didn't think a swap partition was necessary so I skipped that. (Anyone disagree?) Formatting the drive was not what you would call intuitive, though. I 'deleted' [1] all the existing partitions on hda, couldn't print the 'help' menu [2], found that using the command letters didn't do anything except return me to the formatting page, and I could find no way of implementing the changes I had made. I understand that the latest version is a lot more user-friendly. [1] altered the hda1 FAT32; hda2 FAT16; hda3 Fat16 to a single unformatted partition awaiting the command to format. [2] the line at the bottom which said 'print help' or something similar had a cursor at the end of it, but I couldn't find any way of moving it or highlighting the lot, or getting it to work. So I removed the CD and shut down. I have a feeling that this is going to be a long job... -- Tony http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/

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RE: [ALUG] ACPI on ThinkPad
by Keith Watson 04 Nov '05

04 Nov '05

> From: Dan Hatton Sent: 04 November 2005 00:39 > > I'm trying to set up ACPI power management, but I can't get > my system to resume from suspend-to-RAM; does anyone have any > idea how to proceed, please? > > The details: the system is Fedora core 4, on an IBM ThinkPad, > with a home-compiled 2.6.14 kernel (but the result is much > the same with a Fedora stock 2.6.13 kernel.) > > After I suspend with a (bash) script (cobbled together from > bits of advice and scripts on the WWW,) run in an xterm, > whose functional part > is: > > rmmod uhci_hcd > rmmod ehci_hcd > echo `fgconsole` > /var/cache/acpi/vt > chvt 8 > echo -n "auto_disable" > /proc/acpi/ibm/video echo -n "mem" > > /sys/power/state echo -n "auto_enable" > /proc/acpi/ibm/video > chvt `cat /var/cache/acpi/vt` rm -f /var/cache/acpi/vt > modprobe uhci_hcd modprobe ehci_hcd > > then resume by pressing the power button, the system comes > back, and shows me my xsession, but then hangs when trying to > run any commands. > > When I run the script from the console, then resume by > pressing the power button, the system dies (after a long-ish > pause) with various error messages, in which there are > references to "spinlock recursion," "spinlock lockup," and > repeatedly to "ATA Timeout." > Dan, something of an oblique answer I'm afraid but it might point you in the direction of some useful resources. I've recently been setting up my work HP nx9105 as a dual boot WinXP / Ubuntu system. My main problem was USB not working. This turned out to be ACPI related because of a BIOS bug. (Fix was to turn off ACPI and all my USB devices snapped into use :o) ) My point is that the Ubuntu Wiki and forums have a lot of discussion related to laptops and all things ACPI which may provide some ideas about ways you can figure out a solution. Regards, Keith ____________ COMMERCE, n. - A kind of transaction in which A plunders from B the goods of C, and for compensation B picks the pocket of D of money belonging to E. - Ambrose Bierce - The Devil's Dictionary

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ACPI on ThinkPad
by Dan Hatton 04 Nov '05

04 Nov '05

I'm trying to set up ACPI power management, but I can't get my system to resume from suspend-to-RAM; does anyone have any idea how to proceed, please? The details: the system is Fedora core 4, on an IBM ThinkPad, with a home-compiled 2.6.14 kernel (but the result is much the same with a Fedora stock 2.6.13 kernel.) After I suspend with a (bash) script (cobbled together from bits of advice and scripts on the WWW,) run in an xterm, whose functional part is: rmmod uhci_hcd rmmod ehci_hcd echo `fgconsole` > /var/cache/acpi/vt chvt 8 echo -n "auto_disable" > /proc/acpi/ibm/video echo -n "mem" > /sys/power/state echo -n "auto_enable" > /proc/acpi/ibm/video chvt `cat /var/cache/acpi/vt` rm -f /var/cache/acpi/vt modprobe uhci_hcd modprobe ehci_hcd then resume by pressing the power button, the system comes back, and shows me my xsession, but then hangs when trying to run any commands. When I run the script from the console, then resume by pressing the power button, the system dies (after a long-ish pause) with various error messages, in which there are references to "spinlock recursion," "spinlock lockup," and repeatedly to "ATA Timeout." -- Thanks, Dan Hatton <http://www.bib.hatton.btinternet.co.uk/dan/>

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