September 2006 - main

Weekly IRC reminder
by Brett Parker 11 Sep '06

11 Sep '06

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://xchat.org/windows/ - the UNIX client has a windows port! http://www.mirc.com/ (loads of help with irc for newbies!)

1 0

Re: [ALUG] S.T. -- Doors
by David Noble 10 Sep '06

10 Sep '06

Hi Ted Tried both links with Opera on Debian Sid; empty page. Tried with MSIE on win virtual machine; empty page (http://mrdaven.mine.nu/timesonline.png) dave.

1 0

S.T. -- Doors
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 10 Sep '06

10 Sep '06

Hi Folks, Would anyone oblige by running a crosscheck for me? I wanted to look at the SUnday Times "Doors" section on-line this morning. Not for the first time, although the page which comes up is headed "The Sunday Times - Doors", is has no content. I was using Firefox. I then tried on a different machine with Mozilla and Netscape, with similar results. It may be that the page really has no content this morning, or it may be that it's a "browser compatibility" problem. I'm not in a position to try using I.E., so can't check whether it's a case of the Sunday Times making unwarranted assumptions. The direct URL to "Doors" is, apparently, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/section/0,,2776,00.html and the indirect route from the top level is 1: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/ 2: Scroll down until you find "Newspaper Edition" under "Services"; click on this 3: Pick "The Sunday Times" from the days 4: Click on "Sunday - Doors" As I say, I've experienced this before, though not often. I'd just like to settle whether it's my browser[s], or the fact that I'm not using Internet Explorer [when of course all right-headed people should], or the Sunday Times has not put any content onto the page this weekend. With thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 10-Sep-06 Time: 09:17:43 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

3 4

Anyone using Vmware?
by cl＠isbd.net 08 Sep '06

08 Sep '06

Is anyone here using Vmware? My Win2k machine is getting a bit flaky so I'm looking at buying some new hardware (system unit only probably) and setting it up as a Linux box with Win2k running in Vmware. This would replace my existing two machines running Slackware Linux and Win2k. I know there are some issues with running Vmware on a Slackware Linux box but these seem fairly easy to overcome, they are basically only to do with the startup scrips (BSD versus SysV). Does anyone here have any experience of doing this? In particular how good is the hardware support for Win2k in VMware, I want to be able to use a scanner from Win2k in particular. I suppose I ought to ask about good hardware too but I'll make that another thread. -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

5 22

qemu - a love/hate relationship
by Barry Samuels 08 Sep '06

08 Sep '06

I had not heard of qemu until someone recently mentioned it and as I have one item of Windows software for which there is no Linux equivalent I thought I'd give it a try. I downloaded the Debian package which gave me an installed version of qemu (v0.8.1-1). I installed Windows98 using this and have a working version of Windows98 running on my Debian box - whoopee! I have installed the Windows package I want to use and it appears to work very well but the data I want to use is on the host machine. I would like to access this using networking and that is where I have come severely unstuck. Whatever I do I cannot get the virtual Windows98 machine to connect to my local network. I've searched and read Howtos with no luck. When I start Windows a network interface, tap0, is created on my Debian box with an IP address in the same sub-net as the real eth0 interface but what do I do then? Giving Windows an IP address in the same sub-net doesn't work. If I run Network Neighbourhood (I can't bring myself to spell it incorrectly) and double click on 'Entire network' I get a message: 'The network is not accessible' and that is as far as I've managed to get. So near and yet so far. I've been trying this all day without any success. Is there anyone who has done this before able to offer some tips? Please! -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

1 0

Social aspects of computer misuse - lecture
by sfr 08 Sep '06

08 Sep '06

The BA Joseph Lister Award Lecture - "Computer says no": the social aspects of computer misuse. Today (Friday) 13:00 Webcast on http://www.sciencelive.org/content/view/95/50/ "Zombies, botnets, Trojans, worms, viruses, phishing, spam and just plain hacking. Alongside the benefits to society, the growth in computing power and availability has brought a new and expanding world of computer misuse which is often (wrongly) thought of as computer crime. Why do individuals commit computer misuse? How do they see the virtual world? This lecture will provide an insight into the motivations that underlie computer misuse and explain the difficulties the law faces. Stefan will consider alternative complementary means of cyber-regulation before discussing the ways in which individuals and organisations could become more resilient to cyber-attack." Should be on archive later. -- eli

1 0

New system (hardware) advice wanted
by cl＠isbd.net 08 Sep '06

08 Sep '06

As I've said elsewhere I'm thinking of buying a new system unit to run Linux (probably Slackware) and Win2k as a virtual machine. I think I'll probably go for a dual-core processor as they seem to have reduced to sensible prices now. What's the current thinking as to which is best value for money between the AMD Dual core processors and the Intel Core 2 Duo ones? Is there anything else fundamental that will affect the performance (well obviously there is!) that I may miss? I don't need anything super whizzy in the graphics department as I don't play any games, good 'business' graphics is all I need. So a big fast disk drive and lots of memory seem to be the other obvious requirements. Any/all suggestions welcome. -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

3 3

That KVM issue
by Jenny Hopkins 07 Sep '06

07 Sep '06

And whilst I'm on the subject of posting solved problems: I posted a while ago about a mouse problem with a set of eight debian boxes running from a Belkin KVM, and Wayne pointed me in the direction of the firmware of those particular KVM models. I set our hardwarey bloke on to the task and he was sent a few different firmware changes to make. He did this and reported the changes, none of which solved the problem, and finally Belkin requested we send the switch back to them for tests. They promised to send a reply-addressed box for this. Two weeks later, still no box, and since several weeks had gone by before that with these eight production-essential machines out of action, we had to shrug and order a known-to-work DLink KVM. This was a great shame, as the Belkin was an easier to use design in that you could select the channel required at the press of a button, whereas the DLink you have to tab round. Also because i was pretty pleased that Belkin were being so supportive and helpful and then disappointed they couldn't even post a box. So the solution was that we didn't solve it but bypassed the problem. Jenny

5 10

Tesco Internet Phone?
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 07 Sep '06

07 Sep '06

Hi Folks, Anyone been using a Tesco Internet Phone with Linux? Any comments? Thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 07-Sep-06 Time: 12:53:46 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

2 1

rsync problem
by Jenny Hopkins 07 Sep '06

07 Sep '06

Hullo there, A colleague of mine is having problems using rsync to the server I run that he accesses over an openvpn connection, since he made some changes at his end. I've asked him to type out the problem so I can ask on this list. He says: <startnick> While trying to rsync using openvpn and the Vonage supplied Linksys RT31P2 router, the file transfer stalls. This is true whether rsyncing via ssh, rsync server or nfs mounted volume. Using rsync without openvpn or without that router and all is well. No other app seems to have the same problem though I haven't tried many but ssh seems fine for example. Openvpn (v 1.6 I think) only uses udp packets AFAIK so shouldn't need GRE or any other sneaky protocol passthrough. The rsync stall seems to happen after the initial preamble of authorisation and making file lists. Some directories are created but no files are sent. Any clues most welcome. My problem is that I want the Vonage router to be close to the main feed so that its QoS can optimise its VoIP channel. Nick <endnick> Thanks, Jenny

4 8