June 2008 - main - earth.li

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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epson picturemate 100
by Barrys linux mail 26 Jun '08

26 Jun '08

Hi Has anyone managed to get a picturemate 100 photo printer to work with Ubuntu,as this is the only one of my printers that i cannot get to work. thanks Barry

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Encouraging applications to open source
by Mark Rogers 26 Jun '08

26 Jun '08

I've just spent several weeks commissioning an electrical system using proprietary software which is (a) old, (b) no longer being developed, (c) free issue (you pay for the hardware not the software) and (d) buggy or at best limited. It is a good example of an application that would be much better open sourced (ok so I can't think of any that wouldn't be better that way, but that's not the point :-) I thought I'd try emailing them and sounding them out, but on the assumption that their starting point will be a long way from where I want them to be are there any good "why you should open source your application" references I can direct to, which focus on the reasons relevant to my points a-d above, not the long list of other reasons we might also use ourselves? -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0845 45 89 555 Registered in England (0456 0902) at 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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Ipswich ALUG meets: change of venue
by samwise 26 Jun '08

26 Jun '08

Guys, For those who have been to the Ipswich meets recently (or have read the wiki meeting notes), you'll be well aware that we've been being squeezed out by the new poker league that's been set up on a Monday night, so I think it's time we did something about it. Changing the night wouldn't really help - it may inconvenience regulars who are happy with Monday, but also the only other mid-week night at The Milestone which didn't have live music on was definitely inconvenient to a few regulars. So, that leaves us with changing the venue. I propose we try out The Punch & Judy in Cardinal Park because it satisfies the main criteria we used when selecting The Milestone originally: - Adequate Car Parking nearby (preferably free) - Free Wi-Fi (preferably not web-authentication) - Cheap (but edible) food for anyone wanting to grab a bite - Reasonable beer - Enough space and quiet to grab a table or two where we won't be overly disturbed Full disclosure: the Punch & Judy is a family-type pub (potentially noisy) and there are a few poor reviews of the food service online. However, kids have to be out by 21:00 and the kids play area closes at 20:00, plus it's a Monday night and the pub is also fairly large so I'm hoping that shouldn't be an issue. Finally, the food may not great but at that time on that day, it should be fairly quiet and it's fairly cheap if two eat, plus there's certainly a bigger selection than there was at The Milestone. There we have it - I think we should try out this new venue on Monday the 21 July 2008. If anyone has any alternative venues they think would be a better choice (taking into account the criteria above), suggest them at the meet and if ppl think it would be an improvement, we can potentially try out further venues over the next few meets until we're happy with one. That is all, Peter.

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dual head monitor setup not working
by Jenny Hopkins 25 Jun '08

25 Jun '08

Hullo there, I've bought a PNY geforce 7600GS graphics card, with VGA and dual link DVI. I then bought a second monitor - an HP w1907v widescreen with recommended res of 1440x900@60. The first monitor is a Samsung SyncMaster 913N. I've had a setup similar working on another computer, also running debian, with a dual head matrox card and two identical monitors. I copied the config over and after much sweat and tears, altered and tweaked according to my Xorg logs warnings and hints. Both monitors refuse to work at the same time though. The only way I can get the widescreen to behave sensibly is using some bizarre xorg.conf. Here is the dual head one which won't drive both monitors, followed by the odd little conf that made the widescreen work, then the conf that works for the other setup, and finally the log file. http://debian.pastebin.com/m53fa4692 The log file is full of warnings about range - it looks as though it is ignoring my conf saying to only use the 1440x900. I'm comnpletely boggled and confused by now though. Any hints welcome, Thanks! Jenny

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Full X from a remote client
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 23 Jun '08

23 Jun '08

Hi Folks, Not sure whether I'm asking the impossible here. CONTEXT: I'm sitting at machine A -- say 192.168.1.1 and I'm logged in to machine B -- say 192.168.1.2 AT A, I'm using X (with gnome and all that). AT this stage, B is not running X yet. I'm seeing B on an Xterm. WHAT I WANT: To start X (XFree86) on machine B, and have its full X, including the window-manager that would come up if U were sitting at B, come up on A. This would seem to imply that I need to use startx on B (via the login on A's Xterm), since the same startup scripts would need to be run on B so as to ensure that my "B experience" on A was the same as on B. It's OK for B's X root window to be encapsulated in a window on A. What I'm really after is the full X functionality, including the task-bar, the panel, and the various buttons I would normally see on B, so that I don't have to work out what commands to type! Am I bonkers? Or is there a way? (I've done this sort of thing in the past using xmx, which basically multiplexes a single X session across several other machines; but xmx is very sticky about the X resources being identical on all machines, which would not be the case here). Best wishes to all, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 23-Jun-08 Time: 21:03:07 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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What do I need to play .MOV (Quicktime) movies?
by Chris G 23 Jun '08

23 Jun '08

Subject says it all really, what's the simplest basic Quicktime player available for Linux (if there is one). All I want to do really is check if some .MOV files are working/OK. -- Chris Green

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FAO those at the last Ipswich meet:
by Adam Reid 22 Jun '08

22 Jun '08

No, I wasn't completely off my rocker: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan%27s_Run_(1976_film) The film does indeed feature a large quantity of cats at one point. :)

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upgrading from 6.06 LTS to 8.04 LTS
by Bev Nicolson 21 Jun '08

21 Jun '08

I've done what the Ubuntu website says and gone to system > admin > update manager and installed the last batch of updates but it doesn't mention anything about the new version when I click on 'upgrade' again. Am I a) being a bit impatient or b) is there another (simple!) way round this? Oh yes, and is there anything important I need to do, that I have forgotten, before upgrading? Thanks. Bev. -- _______________________________________________ Surf the Web in a faster, safer and easier way: Download Opera 9 at http://www.opera.com Powered by Outblaze

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Anyone using Firefox 3.0 yet?
by Chris G 19 Jun '08

19 Jun '08

Has anyone here moved from Firefox 2.0.x to Firefox 3.0 yet? If so are there any big (or small) issues? My main problem is that my favourite add-on (Mozex) isn't available for Firefox 3.0 and looks like it may never be. There is an alternative (ItsAllText) but it's not so flexible and doesn't allow one Mozex facility that I do use (the ability to launch a local program from an arbitrary URL). One simple question occurs to me, can Firefox 3.0 be configured to call a text mode program (e.g. mutt in my case) on mailto: links? -- Chris Green

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