- main - earth.li

Software for the blind.
by Nev Young 04 Mar '16

04 Mar '16

Our erstwhile companion Mr Anson is currently wired to machines that go ping in the cardio ward of the local hospital and has asked if I could put the following to the knowledgeable folk of ALUG. Could any body comment on the availability of a good Linux speech-operated program to suit a totally unsighted person. Thanks Nev on behalf of Tony.

3 2

How to timeout a process after inactivity?
by Chris Green 04 Mar '16

04 Mar '16

I want to close an editor window (it's vile a vi clone, but something that works for vim would work with vile) after some minutes of inactivity. It's a security thing, I have a nice wrapper script that allows me to 'transparently' open and edit files encrypted using GPG but I want it to automatically close the editor window after a few minutes of inactivity. Currently I use the following in the wrapper script just before starting the editor:- # # # time ourselves out after five minutes by typing ZZ in the window # (sleep 300; xdotool type --window $WINDOWID ZZ >/tmp/log 2>&1) & This works OK but has some problems:- It doesn't work when used via SSH because xdotool is using X and there's no WINDOWID. It will *always* send a ZZ to the window five minutes after being started, even if I've exited from the editor. Can anyone suggest a better way of doing this? Ideally it should detect activity in the editor and only shut it down (or kill it) if there is no activity. -- Chris Green

1 0

List down?
by mick 04 Mar '16

04 Mar '16

Hi Guys This is a simple test email to the list. It appears to be down as there has been no traffic since 14 February - and I at least have sent mail. Unfortunately, my mail to the list was about mail problems my end (!) so I'm not /entirely/ sure the problem is not just mine..... Mick (As promised, this is the other email from an address which is not registered to the list in the hope that it will get bounced to a moderator who may notice a problem. -- Mick Morgan gpg fingerprint: FC23 3338 F664 5E66 876B 72C0 0A1F E60B 5BAD D312 http://baldric.net ---------------------------------------------------------------------

2 1

2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 4th March.
by Viperfang 01 Mar '16

01 Mar '16

Quick heads up about this months Norwich 2600 meeting, more info at http://www.norwich2600.co.uk

1 0

List down?
by mick 24 Feb '16

24 Feb '16

Hi Guys This is a simple test email to the list. It appears to be down as there has been no traffic since 14 February - and I at least have sent mail. Unfortunately, my mail to the list was about mail problems my end (!) so I'm not /entirely/ sure the problem is not just mine..... Mick (I'll send another email from an address which is not registered to the list in the hope that that will get bounced to a moderator who may notice a problem. -- Mick Morgan gpg fingerprint: FC23 3338 F664 5E66 876B 72C0 0A1F E60B 5BAD D312 http://baldric.net ---------------------------------------------------------------------

1 0

How to test a mouse (well, a laptop Trackpoint device)
by Chris Green 20 Feb '16

20 Feb '16

I have a Lenovo T430 and the Trackpoint is playing up. It has both a Trackpoint (nipple plus three buttons) and a Trackpad (pad plus two buttons). It has started producing very odd symptoms when I use the Trackpoint, the pointer can be moved all over the screen but it's functionally stuck in one window. For example if it was in a terminal window the pointer stays as a text cursor and won't do any actions elsewhere on the desktop. This doesn't happen immediately but after not very long, usually just a minute or so, select text and paste seems to be what provokes it most but sometimes it just goes screwy all by itself. When this happens the Trackpad is the same, so I'm stuck unless I switch to a console to reboot or, if I can, restarting the Window Manager sorts things out. The Trackpoint *seems* to be acting oddly in Windows as well (dual boot to Windows 7) so it would be good if I could run some sort of basic diagnostic to see if the Trackpoint is working right but I can't find anything to do this. Can anyone suggest a way to test if the Trackpoint hardware is working right? (There is a good reason for wanting the Trackpoint to work, the middle button is very handy) -- Chris Green

1 0

More impressed by my OKI MC342 now
by Chris Green 19 Feb '16

19 Feb '16

Well having fixed the scanner software installation with my OKI MC342 I like it even more. The scanner utilities are really neat! When you select 'Start scan' in the panel applet you are offered a straightforward scan or save as PDF or save to folder. Each of these can be configured from the applet to specify destination directory, scanner options, etc. In addition you can add new scan types so you can, for example, add a 'Scan to Tiff' if you want. By default the basic scan squirts the scan into the Gimp, scan to PDF saves the PDF and then fires up the default PDF viewer, etc. It's nearly all written in Python too so if one really wanted to change things radically it wouldn't be too difficult. All in all I'm very pleased with it now, I was fairly happy before I got the scanning to work from Linux, now it's well nigh ideal. It is rather big but the price from eBuyer (£171 inc shipping) seems pretty reasonable for an all singing, all dancing, all-in-one printer, copier, scanner, fax machine. It prints duplex (of course) and has an ADF for the scanner and fax which also does duplex. -- Chris Green

1 0

How to diagnose startup script not running?
by Chris Green 19 Feb '16

19 Feb '16

I have worked out why the 'scan from computer' utilities don't work with my new OKI printer. They expect a device /dev/okiscand which should be created when '/etc/init.d/okiscand start' runs. If I run '/etc/init.d/okiscand start' manually as root then everything is fine, I can scan from the computer. However I can't work out why it's not working correctly at startup. There's nothing in the logs at all and it always works fine when run manually. I *suspect* now I look a bit harder that the oki installation is for an old V5 setup using the /etc/rcN.d directories. There is a link from (for example) /etc/rc5.d/S03okiscand to the script in init.d but there's nothing in /etc/init that refers to it. What do I need to do to get upstart to start it? (Don't tell me I should use systemd, a step too far!) -- Chris Green

1 1

claws-mail POP3S failure with Dovecot
by mick 19 Feb '16

19 Feb '16

OK guys this is now driving me crazy. For some yaers now I have run my own mail service using postfix and dovecot on debian. My preferred email client is claws but I use K9 when out and about on my android (cyanogenmod) devices. For purely historic reasons I use IMAPS on all portable devices so that I leave mail on the server until I sit at my desk where claws is configured to use both IMAPS and POP3S. I do this so that mail is actually downloaded from my server over POP3S and stored locally (where it is backed up to two separate external systems. I also use IMAPS on claws so that I have access to the "sent" folders for my email boxes (in case I send from a mobile device). I can then simply move sent mail to tjhe mailbox of my choice locally where it matches the incoming mail. So far so hunky dory for some long time. Yesterday I upgraded my mailserver from Debian 7.9 to 8.3. As expected, everything went fine and all seemed well - until I fired up claws. Claws successfully connects to IMAPS and to my submission port (587) but it fails to connect to POP3S with the error: * Account 'mbm(a)rlogin.net': Connecting to POP3 server: smtp.rlogin.net:995... *** SSL handshake failed Sure enough, the mail.log shows entries like: Feb 19 12:27:59 pipe dovecot: pop3-login: Disconnected (no auth attempts in 0 secs): user=<>, rip=178.238.155.43, lip=213.138.100.26, TLS handshaking: SSL_accept() failed: error:14076102:SSL routines:SSL23_GET_CLIENT_HELLO:unsupported protocol, session=<Bu4YnR4swgCy7psr> No athentication takes place because I insist on TLS (on both client and server ends) before I allow credentials to be passed. Here's the bonkers bit. The X509 certificate I use on the server is self generated and is identical for SMTP, POP3S and IMAPS. Using openssl client ("openssl s_client -connect smtp.rlogin.net:pop3s" and "openssl s_client -connect smtp.rlogin.net:imaps3") to test the connections returns identical (successful) results. I see: New, TLSv1/SSLv3, Cipher is ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 Server public key is 2048 bit Secure Renegotiation IS supported Compression: NONE Expansion: NONE SSL-Session: Protocol : TLSv1.2 Cipher : ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 blah, blah, etc. Nothing has changed client side and the fact that K9 and claws can successfully send/receive indicates server side is OK too. I have been over the dovecot configuration probably a dozen times now and can see nothing wrong (though dovecot's configuration files are a nightmare). Doveconf -n shows a perfectly acceptable setup. So my suspicion is that claws cannot handle the elliptic curve cipher offered by the server in its new configuration for POP3S (but why for IMAPS?????) (Debian 8.3 shows "OpenSSL 1.0.1k 8 Jan 2015" whereas 7.9 shows "OpenSSL 1.0.1e 11 Feb 2013") I really don't want to have to change from claws on the desktop (I'm not a tbird fan) so if anyone has any ideas, please let me know. Meanwhile I'll keep on searching (there's nothing on the claws buglist) Mick (I suppose I could just stick to IMAP - I know POP is an old protocol, but I like the way I work, and this is just bugging me.....) (Or I could try Cyrus...) --------------------------------------------------------------------- Mick Morgan gpg fingerprint: FC23 3338 F664 5E66 876B 72C0 0A1F E60B 5BAD D312 http://baldric.net ---------------------------------------------------------------------

1 0

TV Progs
by Chris Walker 18 Feb '16

18 Feb '16

With the move of BBC3 to online I can plainly use get_iplayer to grab any files from there should I be so desperate. The problem I have is with another stream where the only option is to watch it as it's broadcast as my tv won't record it as "It's not a digital broadcast". The programme is Auto Mundial on Motors TV which is now only receivable on Ch240 on terrestrial or some satellite streams , none of which I have. Has anybody managed to circumvent this restriction? Or does anybody have any suggestions about which forum to frequent to gain further info? -- __ __| |_ __ __ .----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:alug_cdw@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |______________________________________________|

1 0