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Re: [ALUG] Linux friendly external modem, and ISPs
by adam＠thebowery.co.uk 08 Dec '03

08 Dec '03

On Mon, Dec 08, 2003 at 06:08:22PM +0000, Chris Walker wrote: > > There's a company local to Norwich called Grey Electronics that sell modem > protectors. I have one around here somewhere but I've been a bit lax in not > buying one to protect my ADSL router. I think it says something that I had one of these and it didn't work very well, but that was down to me managing to plug the wrong cable in at the wrong point and bypassing the protector entirely :) -- jabberid = quinophex(a)jabber.earth.li AFFS || http://www.affs.org.uk/ || Not a filesystem

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Installing Gentoo
by Graham Trott 08 Dec '03

08 Dec '03

I'm installing Gentoo on a VIA 800MHz mini-ITX, following the excellent instructions on the website. However, at the crucial point of entering the new environment, the following command fails: cdimage gentoo # chroot /mnt/gentoo /bin/bash Illegal instruction Everything seems to be in the right place; any ideas why this might be happening? Have I made an error in assuming the CPU (calls itself an Ezra) is a 686-class? -- GT

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UK NHS trials Sun Linux
by Craig 08 Dec '03

08 Dec '03

UK NHS trials Sun Linux, threatens 800k user defection from MS: http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/34396.html It is a start... -- - Craig - http://www.wizball.co.uk "Simplicity, the best way to approach life"

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Re: [ALUG] Linux friendly external modem, and ISPs
by Dave Briggs 08 Dec '03

08 Dec '03

On Dec 8 2003, Rob Kendrick wrote: > US Robotics. (Or 3com, whoever makes them these days.) Although if you > can get a PCI one still these days, I'd get one of theses. They can be > slightly less latent. Thanks. Had a quick search on Dabs, just to get a gauge on prices, and the US Robotics one is £75 - rather more than I thought I would have to spend. Are the £35 odd quid ones not worth bothering with? > Eclipse. For a fixed fee, they'll give you dial-up with a static IP > (you can even chose rDNS for it). Although it does kick you off every > so often (2 or 4 hours, depending on package) you can just instantly > redial, and there are no limits. And because you've got a static IP, if > you redial quickly enough, it doesn't really matter. All for less than > 30 quid. Had a look at these - they look very reasonable. Thanks for the tip. Dave

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Weekly IRC reminder
by Neill Newman 08 Dec '03

08 Dec '03

This is the automated ALUG IRC meeting reminder sent to remind you that there is an IRC meeting tonight (Monday) at 8.00pm. 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 tkirc, bitchx, xchat 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://freshmeat.net/ http://www.epicsol.org/ Windows http://www.mirc.com (loads of help with irc for newbies!)

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ext3 in windows
by Ben Francis 07 Dec '03

07 Dec '03

Is there a way to view my ext3 Linux root partition in Windows? At the moment all my files are stored on a FAT partition so I can view it as a drive letter in Windows and mount it in Linux. I'd prefer to store my files in /home/tola/ and be able to view them from Windows when I need to. Any suggestions? -- Ben "tola" Francis 00101010 tola ^/. http://hippygeek.co.uk mailto:tola_at_imen.org.uk opinions expressed are of the voices in my head only

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cordless mouse
by Syd Hancock 07 Dec '03

07 Dec '03

I'm thinking of getting a cordless mouse for the laptop. Has anyone here used one? From pictures, they seem to have a receiver at the laptop end, plugged into a usb port. Does this need to be line of site from the mouse? Also, is a purely h/w device or does it need drivers? TIA Syd

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Re: [ALUG] Microsoft and schools
by Ben Francis 07 Dec '03

07 Dec '03

Chris Walker wrote: > Dennis also mentioned that he had used Acorn machines and so there may be a > link to Linux. There is a RISC OS desktop available for most distros of > Linux, SuSe and BSD at http://rox.sourceforge.net/phpwiki/ which might enable > a seemless link between those few Acorn machines that still reside in schools > and to any companies that might want to run it. Acorns? Well there are 200 Computers in my school and there is one Acorn computer left. It sits in the corner of my Linux Lab (8 Linux Boxen - I am trying!!) quietly (actually it's quite noisy) and nobody even knows it's there, apart from the head of Geography who doesn't use it any more. The Acorn runs 24/7 displaying readings from the remains of the weather reading equipment on the roof. There used to be a lot of Acorns running in the technology department about 4 or 5 years ago - they're all PCs running Windows these days. -- Ben "tola" Francis 00101010 tola ^/. http://hippygeek.co.uk mailto:tola_at_imen.org.uk opinions expressed are of the voices in my head only

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Re: [ALUG] Microsoft and schools
by Dennis Dryden 07 Dec '03

07 Dec '03

On Sun, 2003-12-07 at 12:22, Chris Walker wrote: > Dennis also mentioned that he had used Acorn machines and so there may be a > link to Linux. There is a RISC OS desktop available for most distros of > Linux, SuSe and BSD at http://rox.sourceforge.net/phpwiki/ which might enable > a seemless link between those few Acorn machines that still reside in schools > and to any companies that might want to run it. > > I'm about to try it on my Mandrake 9.0 install although I'm typing this on a > genuine RISC OS machine. Well the few Acorns that were left were only used for one application(some old math program), so i don't think they wanted to get rid of the OS(along with the program). Maybe an emulator on a Linux Machine would be good but i don't see a Acorn running Linux + X and then running an emulator of itself. Seems like it would kill the old box'en. - Dennis Dryden

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Re: [ALUG] Microsoft and schools
by Tarquin Mills 07 Dec '03

07 Dec '03

Chris Walker wrote: > On Sun 07 Dec, Tarquin Mills wrote: > > Ben Francis wrote: > > > It's also harder for schools to get cheap support for a Linux system. > > > Technicians who can just about cope with a Windows NT/2000 network and > > > keep the printers topped up with ink are easy to come by and > > > relatively cheap to employ. A Linux system adminstrator is not. > > I disagree, IT people are plentiful in Norwich, and as IT jobs become > > more and more scarce this going to more so. > > I'm with Ben on this one. Sorry Tarquin :-) > > My employer has thousands of Microsoft desktop machines and almost as many > problems seemingly. The 'midrange' team that support Sun boxes amongst > others are quite knowledgeable whereas I wouldn't describe the other > mob in the same way and as a service engineer for twenty years it's easy > for me to compare. That is not bit I disargeeing with, the bit I disargee with is that they cannot find a "cheap" Linux SysAdmin. -- Tarquin Mills RUNG (RISC OS Users, Norfolk Group) http://speccyverse.homedns.org/rung/ (running on RISC OS) New domain name coming soon http://***.***********.**.**/

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