June 2003 - main - earth.li

[Alug]Norwich evening meet
by Syd Hancock 28 Aug '03

28 Aug '03

A small but perfectly formed gathering - Keith, Syd, Mark and Paul. Very interesting and enjoyable natter ensued. Because of many and various other monthly events (NPCUG, RUNG, PLUG), I propose that the meets be on the seconfd thursday of each month from now on. Next Norwich evening meet on thursday 10th July. Still some debate about the venue - to be confirmed. Regards Syd

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[Alug]Virgin Radio
by Wayne Stallwood 21 Aug '03

21 Aug '03

Wow, I have just surfed over to http://www.virginradio.co.uk/thestation/listen/index.html To pick up a music stream to listen to and I was greeted with this message "Hello, Linux user! Virgin Radio is available in your favourite MP3 player (and Real) - the other stations are just in Real format. You can download a Linux version of Real Player from Real.com. You can also listen to our Windows streams with Crossover." I think that is the first time I've seen browser/os detection on a website and it hasn't displayed a "Your not using IE6 on Windows XP, GO AWAY" message. What a nice change.

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[Alug]Re: Update on story of Microsoft charging schools too much.
by Ben Norcutt 17 Aug '03

17 Aug '03

The bit that worries me about this story actually working in IT in a School is that it doesn't say that the Government will bulk buy licences it says the Government will bulk buy computer equipment with the licences to save Schools the licence costs. The Government bulk buying IT equipment is a joke. I also fail to see where they get this £70 from ours is £36.63 and even if we added the couple of titles not on our agreement this certainly wouldn't more than double the price. Cheers, Ben Norcutt

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RE: [Alug] Evening Meetings
by Jenny_Hopkins＠toby-churchill.com 17 Jul '03

17 Jul '03

Syd wrote: >How about an informal evening meeting in Norwich on Monday's from about 8pm Syd - I live too far away, but enjoy. Should we change the IRC meeting evening, though? Jen

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[Alug]file permissions and /usr
by Syd Hancock 30 Jun '03

30 Jun '03

I created as root a directory in /usr and used chmod to set permissions. After a reboot the permissions had reverted to what they were before the chmod command. This is probably some basic bit of info that I lack but is this usual? I was very surprised when it happened. Using Mandrake 9.1, mkdir and chmod run from the command line. TIA Syd

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[Alug]Weekly IRC reminder
by Neill Newman 30 Jun '03

30 Jun '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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[Alug]Linux at City College
by Tarquin Mills 29 Jun '03

29 Jun '03

Derek wrote: > Hi Tarquin [snip] > On another issue: > > Can you give me a *very short* explaination as to why City College should > switch to open source IT? We have a funding crisis at work and need to save > money, so I've suggested we do this to the principle, but I really don't > know much about it. > > If you could point me at something not too tecky, I'd appreciate it. [snip] Someone sent the above to me could you supply me something to give them. Thanks in advance. -- Tarquin Mills Reboot Movement (An Anti-Wintel Campaign) http://www.planet14.sonow4u.co.uk/comp/reboot/

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[Alug]New member - Hi all!
by Ian Higgins 29 Jun '03

29 Jun '03

Hi everyone! Just thought, as I am new to this list, that I would introduce myself and say why I am interested in Linux. My name is Ian Higgins, I am 30 years old and I come from East Dereham in Norfolk. I have been using Windows XP for just over a year now. Basically I got sick of the lack of speed that XP "produces." I have a P4 2.5ghz - Radeon 9700 Pro - 512mb ram - 120 gb HD - and XP is so slow on it - I feel that a modern OS should be much faster than this. Especially given the speed of modern hardware. I also got tired of the constant maintenance that Windows requires to keep it running at anything like a "decent" speed - defragging the hard drive, cleaning out the registry, disabling unused services etc. I feel you shouldn`t have to do this anymore - it is so antiquated. I used an Amiga for 9 years previously and I never had to do any maintenance on that. :-) I decided to give Linux a go - RedHat9 to be precise - a little while ago and haven`t looked back. Once I can get Linux online then XP will be ditched for good - had a few problems with my adsl modem. Linux is such a responsive and beautifully written OS - it reminds me alot of Workbench on my old A1200. Unlike Windows it lets you work the way that you want to - plus it looks so much better to boot. Anyway, that`s all for now. Hope to hear from you all soon. Kind regards, Ian Higgins.

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[Alug]Update on story of Microsoft charging schools too much. (Ben Norcutt)
by Ben Norcutt 27 Jun '03

27 Jun '03

Under the MSA agreement you choose the components you wish to licence when you sign a master agreement this master agreement stays in place and then you order upgrades/renewals every 12 or 36 months. Most Schools in Norfolk use Phoenix from Pearsons as their Schools database. Some are using SIMS thne there are other apps like Nova-T and cash accounts for the timetabling and accounting sides respectively as well as all the other software we use so yes all this has to be licensed as well. Under the MSA all machines of pentium class and above have to be licensed you have no choice to stay on the right side of Microsoft and it is this point under which they are currently being investiagted by the OFT about. Every PC has to have a windows licence and on top of that you then have to buy an MSA licence giving you upgrade rights on the OS and any other apps you choose from the list. Cheers, Ben

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Re: [Alug]toshiba CDT440 install problem
by Jenny_Hopkins＠toby-churchill.com 27 Jun '03

27 Jun '03

On Thu, 19 Jun 2003 Jenny_Hopkins(a)toby-churchill.com wrote: > >> I enjoyed my first go at installing woody on laptop with no cdrom drive >> yesterday :-) >> The floor was littered with hurled floppies by the time I went to bed. > Then wbh replied: >Hey - someone else running the same old clunker as me! From what I >remember (last install was August last year) I used TomsRTBT to get as far >as networking, then sucked debootstrap over (I think you need a sane >version of wget, too) Then normal Debian. Seems to be an OK machine but >never got the IRDA going, there's a 2.2 driver for those with serious >amounts of spare time ;-) TomsRTBT has got me out of a few holes before >now... For the record: had another go at this last night, with success this time. Should anyone else wish to try it, my difficulty was coming at the configuring pcmcia stage. After mounting the root filesystem onto the hard drive, I then ran the "configure pcmcia" stage, edited my pcmcia card and driver required into the pcmcia config file using the minimal console on tty2. Then I ran the "configure the network" stage. Although the pcmcia card was configured, it couldn't be activated, so at this stage I went back to tty2 and did a bit of fettling there... I had to create an empty file called "pcmcia-scheme" in /var/lib/misc or some suchplace, as it was grumbling about that. ifconfig showed no eth0 and none of my usual eth0-persuading runes would work, but I eventually found I needed "ifconfig start eth0 192.168.1.111". I could then go back to the installing procedure on the first terminal and install the base system over a network link. :-) I tried downloading TomsRTBT, by the way - thanks for the pointer. Alas, though, when I got to 99% I was told my floppy was full. Now to find out what performance I'll get with a desktop on the machine - it is a present for my dad, he's 73 and has never used a computer, so i thought, well why start with anything other than debian :-) Jenny

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