main November 2004

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99 discussions

lastlog puzzle
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 07 Nov '04

07 Nov '04

Hi Folks, On one (A) of my 3 running machines, I noticed that 'ls -ls' on /var/log shows: A: 44 -r-------- 1 root root 19136220 Oct 30 10:52 lastlog which is inconsistent: 44K according to $1, but 19136220 bytes (19MB) according to $6. The latter is enormous! However, it seems that it has some validity, since # cat lastlog | wc -c 19136220 gives the same result, here obtained by byte-counting the output of 'cat'. This first got me wondering if the lastlog file or its inode contents were corrupted. (For reference below: I don't have a file /var/log/faillog on this particular machine, A). Interestingly, however, when I look at 'ls -ls' for my two other machines (B & C), I get B: 3 -rw------- 1 root root 12216 Nov 6 15:32 faillog 3 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 16128 Nov 6 15:32 lastlog C: 8 -rw------- 1 root root 12072 Nov 4 13:17 faillog 16 -rw-r--r-- 1 root tty 146876 Nov 4 13:17 lastlog and for both machines, and also for both 'faillog' and 'lastlog', I see the same sort of discrepancy between $1 (size in KB) and $6 (size in bytes), the latter being distinctly too big compared with the former. I do not see this discrepancy for any other files in /var/log, on any of the three machines. This suggests that there's something a bit weird about 'lastlog' and 'faillog' as files, and that this is deliberate! And I'm wondering how on earth a 19MB lastlog file could arise (this machine, A, has been in use for a shorter time (about 1 year) than C (about 3.5 years) and much shorter than B (about 7 years); yet the sizes of 'lastlog' are in the reverse order!) The output of the 'lastlog' *command* in all cases is just a few dozen lines; but, again interestingly, doing it on machine (A) (the one with the 19MB lastlog) induces semi-paralysis and much swapping for a while. I'm puzzled! Comments welcome. Best wishes to all, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 [NB: New number!] Date: 07-Nov-04 Time: 11:15:56 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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linux laptops
by Syd Hancock 07 Nov '04

07 Nov '04

(Sorry it's not threaded but only reading via online archives at present). The HP offering was disappointing. Very half-hearted effort especially not having the wi-fi configured. One suggestion: get an IBM Thinkpad from ebay and install a mainstream distro. The T series is good (I use a T23) and I have heard good things about the more recent X series as well. Good build quality. Thinkpads are sturdy. Three year warranty so it is easy to get one with a long warranty period remaining - mine came with 2.5 years remaining. Good support under linux with all mainstream distros - I use Mandrake 10.0 Official (although there is a gotcha with the X-windows config that you need to know about before installing). A linux-thinkpads mailing list and plenty of support and advice can be found via google etc. Lots of support for on IBM websites including linux-specific info. Did I say good build quality? :-) I added a wi-fi card and a second battery which swaps with the DVD/CD-R. It is an excellent general-purpose machine. ACPI is apparently problematic with recent 2.6.x kernels. I use APM instead and it works well. HTH Syd

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Trying to install apache2 and PHP5 on slackware9.1
by Chris Green 07 Nov '04

07 Nov '04

I'm trying (as per the subject line) to install apache2 and PHP5 on slackware 9.1. I've uninstalled PHP4 and apache1.3. I've installed the apache2 and PHP5 .tgz packages. I've installed the extra library dependencies that apache2 needs. Now I get the following error when I try and start apache:- Syntax error on line 8 of /etc/apache2/mod_php.conf: Invalid command 'AddType', perhaps mis-spelled or defined by a module not included in the server configuration All seems in order to me. There is a line above the line 8 of mod_php.conf which loads the PHP5 library, i.e.:- LoadModule php5_module lib/apache2/libphp5.so No errors are reported for this line. All the lines were produced by script so typos are unlikely. Are there any old libraries in slackware 9.1 that may need updating to get apache2 to work? (I.e. libraries that aren't missing but are too old). Any other ideas? -- Chris Green (chris(a)areti.co.uk) "Never ascribe to malice, that which can be explained by incompetence."

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Mozilla vs Firefox + Thunderbird
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 06 Nov '04

06 Nov '04

Hi Folks, Some questions about Mozilla vs Firefox & Thunderbird. Mozilla is an integrated web software suite: browser, mail client, Web page (HTML) editor. Firefox is a web browser (supposed to have HTML editor as well but I couldn't find one in the firefox I recently downloaded). Thunderbird is an email client. Details of all three at http://www.mozilla.org/products For Firefox and Thunderbird, the above website emphasizes enhanced security available in each. Security is not mentioned in the description of Mozilla. It also recommends that, rather than go for Mozilla, one should go for Firefox + Thunderbird. It is stated that Mozilla is not a combination of Firefox + Thunderbird. This leaves me somewhat pondering what the pros and cons may be. There's some advantage, in princple, in having it all rolled into one (as in Mozilla). On the other hand, if there's a distinct security advantage in FF + TB, then that's very tempting. But I have some concern that I couldn't find a Web Page editor in Firefox: as a browser, it seems to have less in it than Mozilla does. It also seems that the download size of Mozilla (12MB) is much less than Firefox (8MB) + Thunderbird (10MB). So if space were an issue, then Moz might be prefereable to FF + TB. On the other hand, the extra space may represent extra and valuable functionality. Any comments? Thanks, and best wishes to all, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 [NB: New number!] Date: 06-Nov-04 Time: 20:43:06 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Wireless network problem
by bjsamuels＠beenthere-donethat.org.uk 06 Nov '04

06 Nov '04

I am having some problems with my very small wireless network. I have ADSL via a 4-port Netgear DG834 router to which is connected my floor-standing machine running Debian Sarge (up to date). Connected to the router is a Netgear WG602 wireless access point. I also have a Dell Latitude (fairly old at 400 MHz) and a Netgear WG511 PCMCIA wireless network card. I bought the WG511 because I'd seen on the web that it worked well with Linux using the Prism54 drivers. I discovered shortly after the purchase that there were two versions of the card - one made in Taiwan and one made in China. The Chinese one didn't have the Prism chipset and would not work with the current Linux drivers. I, of course, ended up with the Chinese version. I then discovered 'ndiswrappers'. This Linux software acts as a translation layer between the Windows XP drivers, on the CD that came with the card, and Linux. I installed that and have a working card. That's where the problems start. I can connect to the Internet and get data transfer speeds which are the same as I'd expect with the eth0 PCMCIA network card in the laptop connected to the router by cable - about 60kb download. If I try to mount a directory on the floor-standing machine everything slows down. It takes around 7 seconds to mount the directory compared with instantaneous over the cable network, the 'ls' command takes 2 secs and 'ls -l' takes 50 seconds. During that 50 seconds the data transfer light on the WG511 flickers slowly and intermittently - the time when there is no data transfer is much greater overall than the time when data is being transferred. There is no great CPU activity either. Connecting from the floor-standing machine to the laptop is just as slow. Trying the same with X running makes it even slower. Screen repaints are also very slow under X. I just tried copying a small file from one machine to the other and typing and screen painting was very slow but the actual copy was almost instantaneous. It appears that just mounting something on the remote machine slows the laptop down and, once disconnected, every thing goes back to normal. This all makes communication between the two computers via wireless virtually unusable. Any suggestions would be gratefully received. I'm out of ideas (I never had many in the first place). Output of iwconfig: wlan0 IEEE 802.11g ESSID:"mynet" Mode:Managed Frequency:2.462 GHz Access Point: 00:08:5B:67:03:8D Bit Rate:54 Mb/s Tx-Power:32 dBm RTS thr:2347 B Fragment thr:2346 B Encryption key:off Power Management:off Link Quality:100/100 Signal level:-38 dBm Noise level:-256 dBm Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0 Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0 Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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Anyone want Mandrake 10.1 CDs?
by Joe Button 06 Nov '04

06 Nov '04

Hi. I downloaded Mandrake 10.1 a few days ago - I'm posting this from it. Would anyone like a copy? It's four CDs, and so far it all seems to work pretty well. I'm in Norwich if you'd like to collect them, or I could probably make it to the next meeting (Thursday at the City Gate?) if people would like me to bring them. Joe x

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Mandrake 10.1
by Syd Hancock 06 Nov '04

06 Nov '04

> Later, and as a Mandrakeclub standard member, I downloaded and > installed the 4 x CD 10.1 Official, and was a bit cheesed off. > There's no NVIDIA driver supplied as default, no flash player, no > acrobat reader, no Sun Java runtime or SDK - in fact none of the > "commercial" apps. That is probably because (AFAIK) it is the free download version, 100% Free and free software, available to anyone. "Standard" membership gives access to some extra support forums, ftp servers and early access to new versions a few weeks before they go public but not to licenced non-freebeer software. AFAIK you have to pay a little more for the so-called "Silver" level or above to get access to the "Powerpack" edition which includes the fifth CD containing the commercial apps and via mandrake Club. They are then installed automatically during normal install - 10.0 Official worked fine for me and included all the apps you mention (apart from nvidi which I didn't need). An alternative way to get the non-free stuff is to purchase a boxed edition. HTH Syd

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Very basic mysql problem
by Chris Green 06 Nov '04

06 Nov '04

I'm having trouble getting started with mysql. I had a bit of a problem getting it installed but I've got through that now, I downloaded the latest Slackware package file and replaced my existing (screwed up) installation and the basics seem to be working. I have installed mysql version 4.0.22 and the mysqld daemon is up and running OK. The root mysql user works OK and I can create databases etc. etc. However I seem quite unable to create any more users that actually work, whatever I do I get permission errors. E.g. I have created a user 'chris' with 'GRANT ALL ON *.* TO chris' and if I run mysql as chris and try and create a database I get:- ERROR 1044: Access denied for user: '@localhost' to database 'chrisdb' Similarly if chris tries to use an already existing database:- ERROR 1044: Access denied for user: '@localhost' to database 'fred' The entries in the mysql database look OK:- +-----------+-------+------------------+-------------+ | host | user | password | create_priv | +-----------+-------+------------------+-------------+ | localhost | root | 035974c000be6930 | Y | | server | root | | Y | | localhost | | | N | | server | | | N | | % | chris | | Y | | % | lucy | | Y | +-----------+-------+------------------+-------------+ So what's wrong? I'm stuck. -- Chris Green (chris(a)areti.co.uk) "Never ascribe to malice, that which can be explained by incompetence."

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RE: [ALUG] Christmas meal?
by Elisabeth 06 Nov '04

06 Nov '04

>===== Original Message From adam(a)thebowery.co.uk ===== > adam(a)thebowery.co.uk wrote: [snip] >> Do we want to have the Christmas meal in November or >> January to avoid the big Christmas rush? Anyone able to suggest good >> places to eat and have a few drinks? also anyone able to give a good >> price range for what we poor Aluggers can afford? > >No more Aluggers interested? I'm interested, as long as it is not in the first 2 weeks of December (the time of the 4-deadline panic), nor on a Monday. If it's Tuesday - Thursday I prefer in Norwich because then I don't have to take a day off work. Will drive, and offer lifts. I don't know many places in the north of the area; I've mainly been to the extremes of very expensive or studenty cheapo, neither of which are likely to be suitable. Very cheap would be ok for me. Eli/sunflowerinrain

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2 free computers and other hardware and bits
by adam＠thebowery.co.uk 05 Nov '04

05 Nov '04

Hi all, As I said the other week I have a couple of machines kicking around that have been gathering dust. What follows is a list of all the things I have to get rid of, checkout this page to see what is still available before bombarding me with email ta http://www.thebowery.co.uk/hardware All replies (if you want anything) offlist please, I'm currently in Aylsham (North Norfolk) and can deliver things locally if you pay me petrol costs, if not I will be at Syleham at the end of the month or at the City Gate meeting in Norwich next Thursday evening. Beer or beer tokens would be appreciated if you want any of this lot, but isn't essential. * 2 copies of LinuxUser & Developer magazine, the most recent issue with Mandrake 10.1 on the coverdisc. * AMD K6-2 300Mhz, 16MB Nvidia AGP TNT GFX card, 4GB harddisk (the disk is possibly/probably faulty), 32Megs Ram, Realtek Network card, CD-rom drive, ATX case 300W PSU. * Celeron 433Mhz, 64Megs RAM, 6GB harddisk, ATI AGP gfx card, Realtek Network card, CD-rom, ATX Case/psu. Both of the machines have given sterling service, but they probably have non-working parallel and serial ports due to them both being involved in a lightning strike which killed a couple of modems! (both machines should work perfectly, and have been used for some time since they were struck by lightning but have been gathering dust for the past 2 years, I have booted them in the past week and played with them a bit and they seem ok, with the exception of the harddisk in the AMD system) (I would prefer to give these to people who will use them and run Linux (or other Free Software) on them, you can have them for free if you have no money, would like to be given beer for them if you can afford it, also would rather not give them both away to the same person, unless you are passing them onto others or going to use them for some community group etc.) * Amiga 4000/030, 8 meg fast ram, 2meg chip, 120 Meg (ish) hard disk. Rev 11 Buster. Needs new realtime clock battery (so a bit of soldering involved), 14" Microvitec multisync monitor. Mouse, Joysticks, Games software, Blitz Basic, AMOS pro. Magazines etc. and Amiga 1200 in the deal. It can run Linux but would need an accelerator card with some kind of MMU included and you would probably want some kind of network card bigger hard disk etc. The machine boots and runs workbench and I have played games on it so I think it is ok, but it is more than 10 years old now and hasn't been used much for at least the past 6 years, also free Amiga 1200 included! I want £100 for this lot as it seems to be a more than fair rate compared with what they go for on ebay (or haggle, just let me know if you are interested) Free bits. (again when I say free, all beer gladly accepted) If nobody wants them they will probably go in the bin in the next couple of weeks. * Conexant PCI Winmodem, no cables, perhaps works with Linux perhaps not. Free. * Realtek 10 Meg pci ethernet card with 10base2 connector and RJ45 connector. Free. * 2 port USB header for MSI motherboard, fits into pci backplace slot. Free. * handful of 10base2 T piece adaptors. Free. * Heatsink fan combo, most likely suitable for socket A cpus (but don't quote me on that) probably noisy and not very good. Free. * 4 Floppy disk drive cables * 5 (noisy) 80mm case fans. Free. * AT to PS2 keyboard convertor Thanks Adam -- jabberid = quinophex(a)jabber.earth.li AFFS || http://www.affs.org.uk/ || Not a filesystem

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