November 2005 - main

Weekly IRC reminder
by Brett Parker 28 Nov '05

28 Nov '05

This is the automated ALUG IRC meeting reminder sent to remind you that there is an IRC meeting tonight (Monday) at 8.00pm. Historically, these used to be the only time a lot of us would be about, now the channel has some usual faces that are there most of the time (except at silly o'clock, when we might be sleeping, or on the second thursday of the month, where we might be drinking in the Reindeer), so don't feel limited to visit during this time, come visit us when ever you feel like it! 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 xchat, irssi 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://www.irssi.org/ http://www.epicsol.org/ Windows http://www.mirc.com (loads of help with irc for newbies!)

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pointy clicky
by Peter 27 Nov '05

27 Nov '05

On Sunday 27 Nov 2005 13:12, main-request(a)lists.alug.org.uk wrote: > However, having to type code on a command line to open > OOo leaves me cold. Are you sure all this typing is not just to keep the > Grockles in awe? Use OO every day, and never once started it from the command line. But that's just a naive user talking. On Mandriva. Lot to be said for Mandriva for naive users. Just works. Well, there was a bit of a problem with 10.1 and 10.2 installing on some systems. But 2005 and 2006 are ok Better than Suse. Easier than Debian to manage, though harder to keep up to date. Give it a go, and you can pretend terminal windows don't exist. Except maybe for setting permissions. Get "How Linux Works" by Brian Ward. Very nice how-to book for us naive users. Peter

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USB Mass Storage woes (and ati-driver-installer-8.16.20-i386.run checksum request)
by Ten 27 Nov '05

27 Nov '05

OK, this is doing my head in. On SuSE 9.2, which I support a few end-users on around the place as part of my advocacy antics, there is a fairly well-known problem with some USB mass storage devices. If anybody has personally surmounted this problem - or failing that has some salient ideas about it - or failing that a shoulder to cry on - I'd be hugely interested to hear about it. Now I've had USB dongles working in the past, but due to a bad memory module hosing my file systems I've had to reinstall and don't have one of those to check with, so I've no idea whether this is general or specific to the sony device and suse. Issue is this. When plugging in a usb device that is supposed to have its sony memory stick mounted as a USB mass storage device (specifically a cellphone) the device is not mountable on the system, it is "offlined". See below. The modem device for the phone is detected and configured properly, just no mass storage device. When booting into ubuntu and plugging in the device, everything goes more-or-less swimmingly. I've tried switching to fstab as opposed to subfs, I've tried automatically or manually mounting (as well as sync/not). Any attempt to mount the relevant device results in "not a block device" errors - whereupon referring to messages reveals it's already been removed from the system. Some log-type goodness: Nov 18 23:00:44 amonhen kernel: usb 2-2: new full speed USB device using address 4 Nov 18 23:00:44 amonhen kernel: usb 2-2: Product: Sony Ericsson D750 Nov 18 23:00:44 amonhen kernel: usb 2-2: Manufacturer: Sony Ericsson Nov 18 23:00:44 amonhen kernel: usb 2-2: SerialNumber: 356576003337234_0 Nov 18 23:00:44 amonhen kernel: drivers/usb/class/cdc-acm.c: Ignoring extra header Nov 18 23:00:44 amonhen kernel: cdc_acm 2-2:1.1: ttyACM0: USB ACM device Nov 18 23:00:44 amonhen kernel: drivers/usb/class/cdc-acm.c: Ignoring extra header Nov 18 23:00:44 amonhen kernel: cdc_acm 2-2:1.3: ttyACM1: USB ACM device Nov 18 23:00:44 amonhen kernel: scsi1 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices Nov 18 23:00:44 amonhen kernel: Vendor: Sony Eri Model: Memory Stick Rev: 0000 Nov 18 23:00:44 amonhen kernel: Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02 Nov 18 23:00:45 amonhen kernel: SCSI device sda: 248832 512-byte hdwr sectors (127 MB) Nov 18 23:00:45 amonhen kernel: sda: Write Protect is off Nov 18 23:00:45 amonhen kernel: sda: Mode Sense: 00 6a 00 00 Nov 18 23:00:45 amonhen kernel: sda: assuming drive cache: write through Nov 18 23:00:46 amonhen smpppd[6159]: smpppd version 1.50 started Nov 18 23:00:46 amonhen sshd[6205]: Server listening on :: port 22. Nov 18 23:00:46 amonhen kernel: sda:<6>via82xx: Assuming DXS channels with 48k fixed sample rate. Nov 18 23:00:46 amonhen kernel: Please try dxs_support=1 or dxs_support=4 option Nov 18 23:00:46 amonhen kernel: and report if it works on your machine. Nov 18 23:00:46 amonhen kernel: ACPI: PCI interrupt 0000:00:11.5[C] -> GSI 5 (level, low) -> IRQ 5 Nov 18 23:00:46 amonhen kernel: PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:11.5 to 64 Nov 18 23:00:49 amonhen kernel: parport0: PC-style at 0x378 [PCSPP,TRISTATE,EPP] Nov 18 23:00:49 amonhen kernel: parport0: irq 7 detected Nov 18 23:00:49 amonhen kernel: lp0: using parport0 (polling). Nov 18 23:00:51 amonhen /etc/dev.d/tty/50-visor.dev[6647]: add tty device /class/tty/ttyACM1 Nov 18 23:00:51 amonhen /etc/dev.d/tty/50-visor.dev[6655]: add tty device /class/tty/ttyACM0 Nov 18 23:00:52 amonhen /etc/dev.d/tty/50-visor.dev[6674]: remove tty device /class/tty/ttyACM0 Nov 18 23:00:52 amonhen /etc/dev.d/tty/50-visor.dev[6677]: remove tty device /class/tty/ttyACM1 Nov 18 23:00:52 amonhen /etc/dev.d/block/51-subfs.dev[6705]: umount block device /block/sda Nov 18 23:00:52 amonhen /etc/dev.d/block/51-subfs.dev[6705]: remove /dev/sda from fstab Nov 18 23:00:55 amonhen /etc/dev.d/tty/50-visor.dev[6810]: add tty device /class/tty/ttyACM1 Nov 18 23:00:55 amonhen /etc/dev.d/tty/50-visor.dev[6824]: add tty device /class/tty/ttyACM0 Nov 18 23:00:55 amonhen /etc/dev.d/block/50-hwscan.dev[6869]: new block device /block/sda Nov 18 23:00:55 amonhen kernel: drivers/usb/serial/usb-serial.c: USB Serial support registered for Generic Nov 18 23:00:55 amonhen /etc/dev.d/block/51-subfs.dev[6884]: mount block device /block/sda Nov 18 23:00:58 amonhen kernel: Non-volatile memory driver v1.2 Nov 18 23:01:00 amonhen kdm: :0[6926]: pam_unix2: session started for user bcu1, service xdm-np Nov 18 23:01:01 amonhen /etc/dev.d/block/51-subfs.dev[7128]: umount block device /block/sda/sda1 Nov 18 23:01:01 amonhen /etc/dev.d/block/51-subfs.dev[7128]: remove /dev/sda1 from fstab Nov 18 23:01:06 amonhen modprobe: FATAL: Error inserting sonypi (/lib/modules/2.6.8-24-default/kernel/drivers/char/sonypi.ko): No such device Nov 18 23:01:10 amonhen kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0 Nov 18 23:01:45 amonhen kernel: scsi: Device offlined - not ready after error recovery: host 1 channel 0 id 0 lun 0 Nov 18 23:01:45 amonhen kernel: SCSI error : <1 0 0 0> return code = 0x50000 Nov 18 23:01:45 amonhen kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev sda, sector 248824 Nov 18 23:01:45 amonhen kernel: Buffer I/O error on device sda, logical block 31103 Nov 18 23:01:45 amonhen kernel: scsi1 (0:0): rejecting I/O to offline device Nov 18 23:01:45 amonhen kernel: scsi1 (0:0): rejecting I/O to offline device Nov 18 23:01:45 amonhen kernel: Buffer I/O error on device sda, logical block 31103 Nov 18 23:01:45 amonhen kernel: scsi1 (0:0): rejecting I/O to offline device Nov 18 23:01:45 amonhen kernel: Buffer I/O error on device sda, logical block 0 Nov 18 23:01:45 amonhen kernel: scsi1 (0:0): rejecting I/O to offline device Nov 18 23:01:45 amonhen kernel: Buffer I/O error on device sda, logical block 0 Nov 18 23:01:45 amonhen kernel: ldm_validate_partition_table(): Disk read failed. Nov 18 23:01:45 amonhen kernel: scsi1 (0:0): rejecting I/O to offline device Nov 18 23:01:45 amonhen kernel: Buffer I/O error on device sda, logical block 0 Nov 18 23:01:45 amonhen kernel: unable to read partition table Oh, also, I have an ati driver which I may tentatively install to get some games going - at 50 odd MB it's a heavy old file for a dialup connection, so if anyluggers have copies of ati-driver-installer-8.16.20-i386.run they can provide me with a checksum for, warm fuzzy thanks would abound. :) Cheers, Ten.

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Apologies if...
by Anthony Anson 27 Nov '05

27 Nov '05

Apologies if I don't reply to anything anyone expects me to - a corrupt mail item borked my database right on the crux of Saturday/Sunday (when the database packs), and until I can find the time to get inside it and hack a few things out, I'm running on a week-old backup databse. -- Tony http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/

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Re: [ALUG] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: While I'm moaning about firefox
by Ian bell 26 Nov '05

26 Nov '05

Chris Green wrote: > On Sat, Nov 26, 2005 at 07:14:23PM +0000, Ian bell wrote: > >>Chris Green wrote: >> >>>On Sat, Nov 26, 2005 at 06:07:29PM +0000, Ian bell wrote: >>> >>> >>>>Chris Green wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>>>This is where we differ/misunderstand. What I'm saying is that GUI is >>>>>*not* the same as DeskTop. There are lots of other ways of >>>>>approaching a GUI way of using a computer than the pseudo-office one. >>>>> >>>> >>>>Agreed. But you seemed to be claiming it was forced upon you. >>>> >>> >>>It was, by Firefox, instead of a proper directory selection I got:- >>> >>> Home >>> Desktop >>> Fileysystem >>> >> >>No, you chose to use Firefox. If it does not do what you want, use >>something else. >> > > ... but, apparently, the change is in the underlying graphics library, > not Firefox. Most other browsers are likely to use the same file > selection dialogue. > You are going to have to be a bit more specific - which library? Ian

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While I'm moaning about firefox
by Chris Green 26 Nov '05

26 Nov '05

Does anyone like the new file selection boxes? It had me totally confused when I first came across it, the 'directory/folder' window just has the words Home, Desktop and Filesystem in it - it took me quite a while to realise that Filesystem means /. I'm still not sure if I know what Desktop means. ... and nowhere does it display the full path as you navigate. This is Firefox 1.5 release candidate by the way. -- Chris Green (chris(a)areti.co.uk) "Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."

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Re: While I'm moaning about firefox
by MJ Ray 26 Nov '05

26 Nov '05

Jon Dye wrote: > If you'd said Java I'd have understood the argument as in Java > everything has to be part of an object. I thought Java was another of these silly languages like Python where not everything is an object, but "everything is an object" is still often claimed? I guess "everything is an object except the things that aren't" doesn't make teachers and advocates look as good... -- MJR/slef, personal email, http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html

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Plea for Help
by Wayne Stallwood 26 Nov '05

26 Nov '05

Does anybody have access to a EISA Configuration Utility Floppy for an Alphaserver 1000 (or similar I think the ECU is universal amongst most EISA based Alpha machines) Debian is refusing to see my KFESA-AA DSSI card and I think that's because it's not been configured correctly via the ECU I can see my local drives on the SCSI bus, but I have two 6 disk DSSI shelves full of disks that I want to access (mainly so I can wipe them for disposal) I know the ALUG probably isn't the most obvious place for Alpha/VAXen questions but I am hoping that as the Alpha 1000 was a pretty common mid range server someone may have the utilities for one laying around. Not sure what the license says, but a DD image of the ECU floppy would really help

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Gnome icon preview of photos not always working
by Tim Green 25 Nov '05

25 Nov '05

On 11/25/05, Adam Bower <adam(a)thebowery.co.uk> wrote: > I keep a few files on my desktop, due to the goodness > of Gnome doing icon preview of photos this is quite handy I find it quite odd, and anoying, when Gnome decides not to do a preview of some photos. I'll load a bunch of photos from my camera, and some of them will stay as generic icons and others will show the preview. What gives? Tim.

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[ALUG Announce] Postgrad research survey on Free/Open Source Software
by MJ Ray 24 Nov '05

24 Nov '05

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- There is a questionnaire about software use and development online at http://www.postgrad.isipartnership.net/~aschofield/FOSSsurvey.htm It's being carried out by Andrew Schofield, webmaster of the Linux Society and User Group based at the University of Salford, as part of his PhD studies. It's one page, doesn't seem to need scripts, cookies or CSS and if you provide your email address, you'll be sent a copy of the results when it's completed. -- MJ Ray - personal email, see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Work: http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ irc.oftc.net/slef Jabber/SIP ask ----- Send discussion replies to main(a)lists.alug.org.uk (Reply-To set) Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce

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