June 2005 - main - earth.li

Broadband in the Black Hole
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 22 Jun '05

22 Jun '05

Hi Folks, Those interested who haven't already heard may like to learn that a notorious broadband black hole in the region is planned to be filled shortly. Details of the announcement can be found at the Nordelph Web site http://www.nordelph.org/BT/ under the tab "Nordelph Future". In summary, the following exchanges areplanned to be bith ADSL and SDSL enabled by the end of October this year: Broadfield, Hertfordshire; Burnt Fen, Suffolk; Higham, Suffolk; Knarr Cross, Cambridgeshire; Brandon Creek, Norfolk; Nordelph, Norfolk; Linstead, Suffolk; and Six Mile Bottom in Cambridgeshire. The exchanges are to get ADSL, and additionally will also be enabled for SDSL thus benefiting businesses in the area. The work on the exchanges is slated to begin in the next few months and completed by the end of October 2005. (Knarr Cross exchange is by Thorney, East of Peterborough; Burnt Fen exchange is situated near Shippea Hill on the A1101 Littleport-Mildenhall road; all other names can be found on most maps). Now I'm expecting to be asking you folks for advice on setting up ADSL/SDSL on Linux! Best wishes to all, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 17-Jun-05 Time: 16:24:07 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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strange keyboard problem
by Wayne Stallwood 22 Jun '05

22 Jun '05

a really odd thing has just happened in that suddenly my keyboard is only partially functional. auto key repeat is broken and i am unable to use the shift key, num lock or caps lock. hence this whole message is in lower case. i am running ubuntu 5.04, my keyboard is a coolermaster aluminium one but essentially is a standard usb keyboard. need to reboot in a while to write a legible letter. i would like to test it in a console but of course i can't use crtl,alt fkey either. before i reboot can anyone think of any diagnostic steps i can take, for example is there something that will return the key presses from the keyboard. the only thing i can think may have caused it is perhaps vmware. that said i haven't run it for a day or so and the fault has only just appeared. the only reason i think it might be vmware is that it takes control of the capslock and numlock status as you mouseover the virtual machine window. any ideas....it's a bit odd to say the least wayne

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Wireless network roaming
by Barry Samuels 20 Jun '05

20 Jun '05

I have a laptop with a wireless PCMCIA card which connects to my home network. This relies on a set of fixed parameters supplied by /etc/network/interfaces. I went away recently to a hotel that provided a wireless internet facility. It was then that I realised that I couldn't use it because I didn't know how to even though they gave me an access code - a single string of numerical digits. I assume that there must be a way of setting up my laptop to scan for wireless access points and connect to any available ones. How would the access code provided by the hotel fit in? What about things like machine hostname, IP address etc? Any pointers please? Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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Weekly IRC reminder
by Brett Parker 20 Jun '05

20 Jun '05

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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Linux 2005 Conference & Tutorials, Swansea, 4-7 August
by Alasdair G Kergon 18 Jun '05

18 Jun '05

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Linux 2005 Conference & Tutorials, Swansea, Wales, Thur 4th - Sun 7th August ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Full details at http://www.ukuug.org/events/linux2005/ * Early-bird discount is available only until Thursday 30th June * The event begins with a choice of tutorials on Thursday. Then the 2-track 3-day conference runs from Friday to Sunday. Tutorials on Thursday 4th August -------------------------------- Full Day: Advanced Networking Configuration - Steve Whitehouse, Dave Miller, Jamal Hadi Salim and Patrick Caulfield Half-Day: Advanced Shell Skills, using Zsh - Sven Guckes and Julius Plenz Half-day: Advanced Editing, using Vim - Sven Guckes and Julius Plenz Provisional Conference Programme: Friday 5th August - Sunday 7th August ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Networking and Security * Keynote - Dave Miller - Red Hat * Network Scheduling - Jamal Hadi Salim * Exploit Mitigation Techniques - Tom Cosgrove Virtualisation * Xen 3.0 & the Art of Virtualization - Ian Pratt - XenSource / Cambridge * Xen: Experiences & performance measurements - Ruediger Berlich - Karlsruhe * openMosix - Kris Buytaert * Linux on the POWER5 processor - Nigel Griffiths - IBM Applications * Music Recording, Production and Dist'n with Free Software - Ole Aamot * Remixing the Open Source radio show with LUGRadio - Jono Bacon * Software Defined Radio and GNU Radio - Bdale Garbee - HP / Debian * Video and Linux - Torsten Spindler - ETH Zurich * The coming geodata revolution - Steve Coast - xrefer.com * A Python Framework for Rapid Application Development - Katherine Goodwin and David Chan - Clockwork Software Systems * Managing Biomedical Images and Knowledge by Flickr Web Services - Siu-wai Leung - University of Edinburgh * A New Deal in Payroll Software using GNU/Linux and Python - John Pinner - Clockwork Software Systems * Mono and ASP.NET - Gonzalo Paniagua Javier - Novell * Exchange for Unix - myth or reality? - Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton Embedded Systems * Skyguard's Skyminder - the Free Software Community's GSM / GPS phone! - Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton Desktop * FreeNX - Virtualization of the Desktop - Fabian Franz - Univ of Karlsruhe * Hacking OpenOffice.org 2.0 - Michael Meeks - Novell * Cutting-edge Desktop-related Development Projects - Michael Meeks, Novell * Introduction to the GNUstep Project - Nicolas Roard Case Studies * A large linux deployment in education - Mike Banahan - Cutter Project * e-Government Internet - Chris Smith - netFluid Technology * Bringing F/L/OSS to the UK Gov't - Mark Taylor - Open Source Consortium Kernel * Linux and ACPI - power management - Matthew Garrett - Univ of Cambridge * The Linux Development Philosophy and Corporate Contributions - Christoph Hellwig - LST e.V. * Diagnosing System Hangs with lkcd & dprobes - Richard J Moore - IBM * Adopting a driver - from fixing typos to breaking thousands of machines worldwide - Matthew Wilcox - Hewlett Packard * UnionFS: Knoppix (Re)writable - Fabian Franz - University of Karlsruhe Productivity * Vim Feature Show - Sven Guckes * Zsh rules! - Sven Guckes Systems Administration * Preseeding Debian GNU/Linux for automated installations - Philip Hands * FAI - the Fully Automatic Installation - Thomas Lange - Univ of Cologne * Jigdo - Spreading the load of CD/DVD downloads - Steve McIntyre - Debian If you book on or before Thursday 30th June you can take advantage of the Early Bird rates e.g. just 40 pounds for the 3-day conference (50% discount) or just 10 pounds for students. (If you're not already a UKUUG member, you'll need to add the membership fee to this - details on website.) There are also still opportunities for sponsors and exhibitors: contact office(a)ukuug.org for details. Web: http://www.ukuug.org/events/linux2005/ Email: office(a)ukuug.org Tel: +44 1763 273 475 Event sponsored by Red Hat, Astaro Internet Security and i.t.wales.

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Norwich Anarchist Bookfair
by MJ Ray 17 Jun '05

17 Jun '05

Norwich 2nd Anarchist Bookfair 11 June Waterloo Park. See http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/cambridge/2005/06/312709.html I'm not able to attend, but I'll send ALUG, AFFS or GNUstep leaflets and/or CDs to anyone who wants to go. Email me, please. -- MJ Ray (slef), K. Lynn, England, email see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/

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pod viewer - any suggestions?
by Chris Green 17 Jun '05

17 Jun '05

I'm after a pod (perl documention) viewer for use on my home system so I can hunt around the documentation for perl modules while I'm writing perl. I'm after something a bit better than 'man' to make it easier to hunt around in the documentation as, now I'm getting a bit more seriously into perl programming, 'man'gets a bit clumsy especially with big chunks of pod. -- Chris Green (chris(a)areti.co.uk) "Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."

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Brewing some free java code?
by MJ Ray 17 Jun '05

17 Jun '05

Spotted on news:rec.crafts.brewing via news:uk.comp.os.linux - it would be interesting to know if this forthcoming GPL'd Java software runs on GCJ, Kaffe or SableVM but I doubt I'll be much help with the detailed brewing side: Drew Avis wrote: > Greetings brewers, I'm getting close to releasing a beta > version of StrangeBrew Java 1.0, and I need some more active > brewers to kick the wheels and report bugs. I'm especially > looking for MacOS and Linux users, as they're the primary > target for this software. If you're interested, please contact > me at 'drew dot avis at gmail dot com' > > Drew > www.strangebrew.ca -- MJ Ray (slef), K. Lynn, England, email see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/

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culture.gov.uk discussion forum
by MJ Ray 16 Jun '05

16 Jun '05

Since about a year ago, the UK government's approach to software development has been part of a "Creative Industries" topic. This effort is shared between the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS). Today (Thursday 16 June), a discussion forum was announced by the minister for creative industries. You can read Rufus Pollock's event report and follow links from http://www.okfn.org/drn/node/58 It is important that free software supporters and developers get involved in the discussion. The "Creative Industries IP Forum" - which is being invited to advise the government - is almost entirely protectionist. Several members campaign for increased copyright and Digital Restriction Management (DRM). Civil society seems only represented by the Consumer Association, which itself makes a lot of money from publishing copyrighted magazines (the "Which?" series), if I remember correctly. The panel at today's event was mainly protectionist (rather than the more permissive approach of free software) but Rufus wrote to the creative-friends list: > The main item is good news: [copyright] term extensions were *not* > mentioned at all and don't seem to be on the agenda for /the present/. Please pass this report on and encourage people to tell the government about the importance of a permissive approach to the UK's culture, whether by encouraging native companies (instead of UK arms of internationals), helping to preserve our native languages, or any of the other benefits. Register for the discussion on the DCMS site as detailed on http://www.culture.gov.uk/creative_industries/discussionforum.htm -- MJ Ray (slef), K. Lynn, England, email see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/

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Webmail that can read local mbox files?
by Chris Green 16 Jun '05

16 Jun '05

Does anyone know of a reasonably up to date (i.e. still maintained) webmail application that can use local mbox files? I have been trying a couple of webmail applications with IMAP servers (both UW Imap and dovecot) but the IMAP implementations are so awful that they make them very awkward to use IMHO. -- Chris Green (chris(a)areti.co.uk) "Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."

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