December 2008 - main

recommended commercial hosting companies?
by mbm 23 Jan '09

23 Jan '09

The recent discussion about mail access via ssh and ssh tunnels prompts me to ask about list members' experience of commercial hosting services. I have long since ceased to have any direct responsiblity for publicly accessible servers and my only network is now my home system. As I have said in earlier posts, I don't run 24/7 servers on that network and my only public servers are those provided by my (limited, home user) 1and1 contract. However, I have recently been playing with egroupware and a few friends and colleagues have asked if I could make the poc system I have built at home available on a public server. 1and1 provide good, reliable, fast, mail, DNS and web services, but they also offer virtual servers for the home user at around 15 UKP pcm. The other likely looking candidate is fasthosts who are a lot cheaper, have no traffic cap, but have different limitations. What I am looking for is a good quality commercial provider offering the following: root ssh/sftp access to a linux server apache/mysql/php/perl (preferably with no limit on the number of mysql databases, but I'd settle for 5 rather than the typical 1). ssl certificates for the webserver personal DNS management ideally local email server not too many restrictions on the outbound traffic (e.g. I'd like to be able to ssh out as well as in...) Any recommendations? TIA Mick --------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a Microsoft free zone. Please do not send me Microsoft Word Documents. For some reasons, see: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html http://www.goldmark.org/netrants/no-word/attach.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------

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Why is it so hard? (Making Ubuntu Work)
by Mephi 23 Jan '09

23 Jan '09

Ok, I've been using Debian on my server for years and Knoppmyth (Debian based) on my media centre for slightly longer. But I've not really done much on the desktop. Since I do a fair amount of gaming, I've stuck with windows for my desktop. Recently though I've only been playing one game a lot (Guildwars) which is supposed to work fine under wine. Also I play GW with friends and we use skype. Which has a linux client, so I thought I'd give it a go... I downloaded and installed the 64-bit version of ubuntu, setup the ATI graphics card, setup the medibuntu repository and apt-getted skype and wine. So now I have 3 problems. 1. Now they're using something new in Ubuntu called Pulse Audio, which puts another layer between your devices and your applications, and apparently it's why I can't get my microphone working in skype. So, I've been working through everything on the Ubuntu forums (it appears I'm not the only one) documented by someone else here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1006163 But nope, none of that works... 2. I'm trying to setup my screens to work at their native resolution. I've got one that runs at 1680x1050 and another at 1280x1024. I managed to get them to run correctly, but the settings don't stick. It boots with both screens set at 1280x1024. To get them to work I do the following steps through the ATi Catalyst Control Centre: 1. Disable the second screen (1280x1024) 2. Reboot 3. Set the first screen to its correct resolution (1680x1050) which wasn't available before the reboot. 4. add the second screen in. Then it works, until I reboot. The third problem is that Guildwars doesn't want to run under Wine. I've not yet looked into this in great detail yet, as I've usually given up by this point and booted back into windows. Matt

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media players for bbc downloads Was: finally BBC iplayer linux
by Albert Vilella 09 Jan '09

09 Jan '09

Just to check with people in the list: what is the video quality that you get when downloading with get_iplayer and playing it with you favourite media player? I've tested the stock mplayer and vlc that come with ubuntu, and my feeling is that vlc gives me a better quality image than mplayer. Here are the configure options for vlc: [00000001] main libvlc debug: libvlc was configured with ./configure '--build=i486-linux-gnu' '--enable-maintaner-mode' '--enable-release' '--prefix=/usr' '--enable-libtool' '--enable-fast-install' '--with-binary-version=1ubuntu3' '--disable-update-check' '--disable-gnome' '--disable-gtk' '--disable-familiar' '--disable-fb' '--enable-ggi' '--enable-sdl' '--enable-esd' '--enable-mad' '--enable-arts' '--enable-jack' '--enable-pulse' '--enable-lirc' '--enable-a52' '--enable-aa' '--enable-dvbpsi' '--enable-mozilla' '--with-mozilla-pkg=libxul-plugin' '--disable-kde' '--enable-mp4' '--enable-dvb' '--disable-satellite' '--enable-ogg' '--enable-vorbis' '--enable-shout' '--enable-qt4' '--disable-slp' '--enable-flac' '--disable-skins' '--disable-basic-skins' '--enable-skins2' '--enable-freetype' '--enable-mkv' '--enable-speex' '--enable-caca' '--enable-live555' '--enable-libmpeg2' '--enable-fribidi' '--enable-cdio' '--enable-mod' '--enable-theora' '--enable-modplug' '--enable-dvdnav' '--enable-gnutls' '--enable-ffmpeg' '--enable-ncurses' '--enable-smb' '--disable-gnomevfs' '--enable-bonjour' '--enable-mpc' '--enable-vcd' '--enable-vcdx' '--enable-notify' '--enable-twolame' '--enable-x264' '--enable-faad' '--disable-zvbi' '--enable-telx' '--enable-mediacontrol-bindings' '--disable-atmo' '--enable-taglib' '--enable-libass' '--enable-libdca' '--enable-alsa' '--enable-dv' '--enable-v4l' '--enable-v4l2' '--enable-pvr' '--enable-svgalib' '--enable-dvd' '--without-dvdcss' 'build_alias=i486-linux-gnu' 'CFLAGS=-g -O2' 'LDFLAGS=-Wl,--as-needed' 'CPPFLAGS=' 'CXXFLAGS=-g -O2' Cheers, Albert. On Tue, Dec 23, 2008 at 8:54 AM, Jon Dye <jon(a)pecorous.co.uk> wrote: > 2008/12/22 Albert Vilella <avilella(a)gmail.com> > > >> http://iplayerhelp.external.bbc.co.uk/help/download_programmes/desktop_linux >> >> >> On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 10:25 AM, Jon Dye <jon(a)pecorous.co.uk> wrote: >> >>> >>> >>> 2008/12/21 Albert Vilella <avilella(a)gmail.com> >>> >>>> Hi everybody, >>>> >>>> As you may all know by now, we finally have a BBC iPlayer for Linux! >>>> >>> >>> Where? >>> >> > Thanks. > > I just tried installing it on my eeepc and the interface is too big to fit > on the screen. I've ended up installing get_iplayer instead, it's interface > fits on one line :-) > > JD >

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having a fie out...
by mbm 29 Dec '08

29 Dec '08

All My wife has chuntered at me to clear out some of what she likes to call "junk" from my study - so I have gathered together sundry bits and pieces which may (or may not) be of use to someone else. The list is below. I can't be bothered with umpteen ebay bids and I'd really like it all to go as one job lot. I'm offering the lot here first because I guess some of you may actually have a use it. Sixty quid for the lot seems reasonable to me. If someone takes it all and then decides to offload some bits elsewhere, that's fine by me. But I really don't want to get into bids for individual bits. The idea is to get shot of it all. Cheers - and a happy new year to all Mick ------------------- <list> 1. Compaq Armada 4160T laptop (80Mb RAM, 6 Gig hard disk) - this dates from around 96 or 97 but still works. I have used it as an IPCOP firewall (and it comes with two PCMCIA ethernet cards if anyone wants to do this again). It currently has a clean new install of Debian Lenny. Oh, and a "laptop bag" to go with it. 2. Two of 2Gig 2.5" laptop hard drives. 3. 5.1 PCI sound card 4. AGP Video card - I think it is a 128Mb Radeon Sapphire. 5. BT Voyager 200 ADSL router 6. Maxtor 60 Gig 3.5" ATA hard disk 7. Dell latitude external floppy drive 8. Freecom Classic 80 Gig external USB disk 9. Two port Newlink PS2 KVM switch 10. Two port Sitecom USB KVM switch 11. Four port Aten PS2 KVM switch 12. Zoom X5V VOIP ADSL router (this is actually quite a good router - particularly if you want to use VOIP) 13. Two (yes, 2) BT Home Hubs - both reflashed to run Thomson 7G images - because BT pissed me off and I didn't like what they had done to the routers. I have the original images though if you want to flash them back to the crippled version. 14. Belkin PCI wireless card - 802.11g 15. One Microsoft USB fingerprint reader (it was freebie from MS - honest!) ------------- </list> --------------------------------------------------------------------- The text file for RFC 854 contains exactly 854 lines. Do you think there is any cosmic significance in this? Douglas E Comer - Internetworking with TCP/IP Volume 1 http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc854.txt ---------------------------------------------------------------------

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A good brand of USB stick?
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 29 Dec '08

29 Dec '08

Hi Folks, Sorry for possibly irritating cross-posting! Fairly recently, on one of the Linux lists I read, someone (or more than one) made suggestions about good brands of USB sticks, with particular reference to lifetime under repeated cycles of writing, and general reliability. Unfortunately, I can't now find that discussion in my archives, and I've forgotten where I read it! Hence my shouting from the rooftops. Any suggestions and comments welcome. With thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 27-Dec-08 Time: 23:59:24 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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[FTAGH]Server Case
by Mephi 27 Dec '08

27 Dec '08

Free Server case, taker collects (its heavy) It has a redundant 300W PSU, fans and a caddy for SCSI drives. It was an impulse buy a while back but it never got used and now we need the space. I'm based near the middle of Ipswich. Anyone want it? Matt

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ubuntu and windows Master Boot Record
by Barry Chater 24 Dec '08

24 Dec '08

HI I wonder if you could give me some advice. I am adding a hard drive to my desktop, but since both master and slave connectors are used on the first ide socket on the motherboard. I intend to use the second socket on the motherboard for the new drive, to which i want to install Ubuntu 8.04. windows xp is installed on the hard drive on the other socket, with DVD writer on the slave. I take it that Ubuntu on the second socket will also be a master. I am wondering if Ubuntu will try and overwrite the XP master boot files when i install it. Has anybody had any problems like this. also will tha computer recognise the dualboot or do i have to alter the Bios settings. All the problems i have read about ubuntu overwriting the masterboot files seems to be when two operating systems are on the same hard drive. Am i correct in this? thanks in advance Barry Merry　Ｃｈｒｉｓｔｍａｓ　ｔｏ　ｙｏｕ　ａｌｌ

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"thumbnail"-type application
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 23 Dec '08

23 Dec '08

Hi Folks, I'm looking for an application (preferably light-weight) which sould do the following kind of thing. I have a good number of images (*.jpg) stored in sub-directories of sundry directories. The main directory names are rather generic (e.g. a regional location, or names of friends or family). The subdirectories are fairly specific and can descend to very spcific (e.g. a sub-sub-sub-directory with just a date, like "2007.03.05"). I'd like to be able to whistle up screenfuls of thumbnails, possible grouped thematically, with a property like being able to "hover" the mouse over a thumbnail and get a little pop-up with the date of the photo and a brief description. There's an implication, therefore, that there's a kind of basic database engine behind it, together with the "pop-up on hover" capacility. There's no shortage of applications capable of making a bunch of thumbnails (especially from a single directory), but I'm not aware of a light-weight application with the above capability. Gthumb does (clumsily) the sort of thing I'm after, so I could think of using it on machines with Gnome, but not, e.g. on KDE machines. Ideally, in a main directory I would do something like find . -name '*.jpg' -print > image.list edit the file image.list to remove uwanted stuff, and then submit this file to the thumbnail viewer. As an example of scale, one major directory has 4 principal subdirectories hanging off it, with sundry sub-dirs of these, and a total of 170 images. Another is similar, with 150 images. On could probably write something suitable in Tcl/Tk, butit would be nice to find one ready-made! Suggestions welcome. With thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 09-Nov-08 Time: 09:07:15 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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finally BBC iplayer linux
by Albert Vilella 23 Dec '08

23 Dec '08

Hi everybody, As you may all know by now, we finally have a BBC iPlayer for Linux! I've tried it this afternoon, and started downloading stuff into my Ubuntu for my Christmas journey. Word of caution, the player will complain that you have reached the download limit very soon, unless you go to Settings and define a bigger "Hard disk space allocated". I haven't found any glitches or problems so far, apart from the fact that one cannot download stuff that is older than a given date. I wanted to get the full collection of "Stephen Fry in America" but I can only download the latest one. There is a "reporting participation" in the Settings that I am sure all the Linux users will leave ticked as to show how grateful are we of having a Linux version :-p Cheers, Albert.

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Wierd problem when creating new users, .profile and .bashrc not executing
by Chris G 22 Dec '08

22 Dec '08

I have something not right on my xubuntu 8.10 system. When I create new users using 'useradd <username> they are created OK but don't get a home directory. I'm sure the default used to be to create a home directory and to copy its contents from /etc/skel but it's not doing that. If I do 'useradd -m <username>' then I get the files copied from /etc/skel but they don't get executed on logging in to the new account. Even if I log in to the newly created user and try and execute the files I get a really odd error message:- $ . .profile .: 13: .profile: not found $ The file .profile does exist:- $ ls -al total 32 drwxr-xr-x 5 isbd isbd 4096 2008-12-21 20:23 . drwxr-xr-x 10 root root 4096 2008-12-21 20:24 .. -rwxr-xr-x 1 isbd isbd 220 2008-05-12 19:49 .bash_logout -rwxr-xr-x 1 isbd isbd 3115 2008-05-12 19:49 .bashrc drwx------ 5 isbd isbd 4096 2008-12-19 20:13 Mail drwxr-xr-x 2 isbd isbd 4096 2008-12-19 20:11 .mutt drwxr-xr-x 25 isbd users 4096 2008-10-07 19:20 oldIsbd -rwxr-xr-x 1 isbd isbd 675 2008-05-12 19:49 .profile Erk! What have I done? :-) Existing users work fine. -- Chris Green

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