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UEA Meeting on 27th June.
by Jonathan McDowell 30 Jun '04

30 Jun '04

Not a huge turnout - only 1 person who doesn't normally come to the 2nd Thursday Norwich meets. We wondered if this might be due to it being outside UEA term time, but then there's not usually a large turnout of UEA undergrads at any time, is there? Attendees were: Eli (who kindly organised it), James + Kaz, Ashley, Brett, Adam, Kirsten, me. Discussion topics included MiniITX boards and rackmounts, interrupts on highly pipelined CPUs, change giving algorithms for soft drinks machines, the annoyance factor of people who blindly suggest Cisco for all networking bits, networking problems we have known, Nethack vs Angband, DVB (ie Freeview and the like) and Brett's car. There were a couple of laptops present (that didn't even get turned on), but no other kit - I presume all the people who've been wanting kit meets in Norwich where unable to make it? Those present thought that a nice beer garden would have made a more suitable venue given the lack of kit, at least until it started raining. As UEA term time is over it was thought that we should take the Norwich Internet Cafe up on their very kind offer of a venue for the next Sunday meet. We don't seem to have any more meets organised for the rest of the year though, except the regular social meets? J. -- Game over, boys! This .sig brought to you by the letter O and the number 8 Product of the Republic of HuggieTag

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Linux Laptop
by Wayne Stallwood 30 Jun '04

30 Jun '04

I don't usually post stuff I'm trying to sell to the list, but I remember a few conversations a while ago regarding cheap Linux Laptops I'm selling my dedicated Linux laptop as VMware on my main one does 99.9% of what I need. It's a Dell Latitude C800 currently running SuSE 9.1 with almost everything working, the modem and suspend/resume have issues but only since moving to a 2.6 kernel. Power management, 3D, thermal control and the CPU Throttle (will go down to 700MHZ when under a light load if on batteries) all tested. Feels pretty snappy and comfortable on KDE, the 1400x1024 screen helps, would be even better with a boost to the ram. It's an 850Mhz PIII with 256MB Ram (a slot is free to add more) ATI M4 with 16MB of Dedicated video memory (this is interchangeable with other ATI and Nvidia daughterboards, ones from the Inspiron 8000 also fit) 10GB HDD (cheap to fit a larger one) CDROM and Floppy Fitted with the 1400x1024 display, no dead pixels and nice and bright. Has all the usual ports. USB, Firewire, serial, parallel, VGA, PS2, 100baseT Ethernet, Modem (not working in Linux, but I haven't tried very hard, google says it's possible) and two PCMCIA slots. Comes with the Dell case, Charger and Modem lead, Windows 2000 OEM license (no media) CD-R with the Dell drivers on, CD-R with SuSE 9.1 personal. Good condition overall, couple of small marks here and there. Battery life is quite poor, replacement is available from Dell for £75 plus VAT. £300 As I say I normally don't post thing like this, so sorry if it causes anyone offence.

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Re: Meetings, Talks, Demonstrations and Kit
by Elisabeth 30 Jun '04

30 Jun '04

>From: Kirsten Naylor <wildduck(a)wildduck.org.uk> > >I can just about manage apt-get update and apt-get upgrade but need my >hand held quite a bit. So I want to know how to manage my debian >installation so that if quinophex vanished I would not be stuck. Also >knowing how to build kernels would be fun. AOL (except the bit about quinophex). Plus I'd be interested in audio-editing demos. I might be able to persuade two of the local musogeeks to demo what they've set up. Eli(sabeth)

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Debugging Gnome Problems
by Keith Watson 29 Jun '04

29 Jun '04

After running apt-get update on my Debian install last night (actually I used apt-zip but it's the same thing) I now find that gnome 2.4 won't start (it was working fine before). dmesg (or alt-f9) doesn't seem to show anything untoward except for some gconfd messages saying gnome is shutting down. Does anyone know if/where gnome keeps its own run logs so I can get a clue why it's throwing a wobbler? I tried the www.gnome.org site but it's definitely an information overload situation when looking for clues to this. Google wasn't much help either. Regards, Keith ____________ Live life as life lives itself. Zen Proverb

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RE: [ALUG] Norwich meeting Sunday 27 June
by Keith Watson 29 Jun '04

29 Jun '04

I'm going to try and get along to this one. If it's of interest I have a copy of Knoppix 3.4 (4-May-04 version) that I will bring along if anyone wants a copy. It's the one with the 2.6 kernel (there's also a 17-May-04 version but I haven't got round to downloading that yet). If anyone's bringing along a working CD burner you can run off a copy (I'll bring some blank CDs as well). I'm also in the process of downloading a copy of the Vidalinux Desktop OS beta <http://gentoo.vidalinux.com/?q=node/view/68> as we speak and will bring that along also (I know there's some gentoo fans out there :o) ). Also I still have some Linux PC badges left; 1 x Tux <http://www.linuxemporium.co.uk/products/trivia/#pid4235>, 4 x powered by Linux <http://www.linuxemporium.co.uk/products/trivia/#pid4236> and 8 x Debian <http://www.linuxemporium.co.uk/products/trivia/#pid4238> all at 50p (plus an optional donation to AFFS) See you there? Regards, Keith ____________ CREDITOR, n. One of a tribe of savages dwelling beyond the Financial Straits and dreaded for their desolating incursions. - Ambrose Bierce - The Devil's Dictionary > -----Original Message----- > From: main-admin(a)lists.alug.org.uk > [mailto:main-admin@lists.alug.org.uk]On Behalf Of Elisabeth > Sent: 20 June 2004 11:43 > To: main(a)lists.alug.org.uk > Subject: [ALUG] Norwich meeting Sunday 27 June > > > ALUG meeting on Sunday 27 June 2004, 14:00 > Common Room, Nelson Court, UEA > > Campus map is at http://www.uea.ac.uk/campus_2004.pdf > > There is a carpark charge of £1, or you could park outside > the campus, or get > a lift from me. > > > > _______________________________________________ > main(a)lists.alug.org.uk > http://www.alug.org.uk/ > http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main > Unsubscribe? See message headers or the web site above! >

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Logo idea
by MJ Ray 29 Jun '04

29 Jun '04

As you may know, the original logo artwork went missing a while ago and we've been using a hasty mockup since. Keith has produced some redesigns which have been used on stickers etc. I've just had an idea for a cool logo: Tux, wearing armour, riding an armoured GNU, carrying a pennant that says GNU/Linux. Sort of like http://thetvroom.com/p-itv-1-anglia-past-a.shtml Can anyone produce this? -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know. Please http://remember.to/edit_messages on lists to be sure I read http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ gopher://g.towers.org.uk/ slef(a)jabber.at Creative copyleft computing services via http://www.ttllp.co.uk/

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RE: [ALUG] Meetings, Talks, Demonstrations and Kit
by David Reynolds 29 Jun '04

29 Jun '04

Hi, >Do we want a full from scratch to desktop linux install demonstration? >If so, which distribution? Certainly we have quite a few debian >developers in the group, maybe we should go right through an install >from the beginning to having X running, with KDE/Gnome/XFCE4? Do we >want a demonstration on reuse of old kit for small servers, samba, >LDAP, HTTP, FTP, etc? How about someone talking on how to give talks, >maybe that'd be useful? Maybe demonstrations of what other Free >operating systems can do? One of the more complex distros installed from scratch to desktop would be interesting - Debian, Gentoo even FreeBSD. >Do people want to know about specific topics, like 3d, DVB, graphics, >DTP, Office applications? Without a starting point we'll never get >any talks written. As someone else said somewhere, if someone could give some useful pointers on howto get started on Blender, that would be marvellous! >Do we actually want talks, or a quick guide on the website for how >things work? should we be using the ALUG wiki more? should there be >more technical documentation/recommendations available from the site? All of these sound good. Talks backed up with the salient points on the website would seem like a good way to go - to give people somewhere to go for reference after the talk. Cheers David -- David Reynolds david(a)reynoldsfamily.org.uk

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Syleham Meeting August 22nd 2004
by John Woodard 29 Jun '04

29 Jun '04

After discussions last night on irc and this list I can confirm that the next meeting at Syleham has been booked and confirmed for Sunday 22nd August 2:00pm onwards. Syleham is an ideal venue for bringing kit that needs fixing or for demos to be held. Questions, requests or suggestions to this list and we will see if we can accommodate. There were some suggestions regarding a barbeque if you want that or anything else to happen make comments here. Cheers, BJ

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RE: [ALUG] Meetings, Talks, Demonstrations and Kit
by Jenny Hopkins 29 Jun '04

29 Jun '04

> So, maybe it's time to find out what people want out of the group? > Well, for me, when i joined ALUG I knew absolutely nothing about linux. I was extremely grateful for any help, practical or verbal, at meetings. I enjoyed meeting people. I always took broken kit that needed a kernel upgrade or the modem mending or something. I can imagine other newcomers to the linux world would benefit from the same. It's lack of time that prevents me going to meetings nowadays...weekends fly by soooooo quickly. When i do turn up to them, though, I personally prefer a less organised kind of meeting, where one wanders around and chats or tinkers with a broken thing or whatever. Jen ______________________________________________________________________ This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System. For more information please visit http://www.messagelabs.com/email ______________________________________________________________________

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Suse disappointment...
by Robert Frusher 28 Jun '04

28 Jun '04

Not really a question, but a little insight. I am an avid Slackware Linux user, but on seeing Suse 9.1 available for download I thought I would give it a go. The install is flawless, with its auto-configuration, although I see nothing wrong with Slackwares curses install. A little while later it was installed. I couldnt get grub boot loader to play nicely with XP so it went in the MBR. I reboot and this is the disappointment... it is REALLY slow, granted nice, but nothing really new. I have a pretty good spec machine and Slack flies compared with Suse. DMA was on but it just seemed to take forever to boot, and sluggish when it gets there. Do you reckon it was the new kernel? I tried 2.6 with Slack and it seemed even faster. SO on seeing 10.0 Slackware out I got rid of Suse, and am back at home. Rob

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