main November 2009

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51 participants
64 discussions

Mac To Ubuntu Switcher
by Simon Royal 23 Nov '09

23 Nov '09

Hi. I'm an experienced computer user, repairer, upgrader etc. I switched from Windows to Mac about 10 years ago and am now thinking of switching to Ubuntu. I have used Ubuntu since about version 5 and the newer versions - especially 9.10 have really impressed me, with just how easy to use and how intuitive it has become. Being a Mac user puts you in the minority of computer users anyway and things are never as straight forward as Windows. I preferred older Macs so am used to hacks, mods and tweaks to get the best out of it. Mac OSX is built around a Unix base so has more in common with Ubuntu than Windows, but it is still a very GUI orientated OS, with only a few things needed so do in Terminal or Open Firmware. Is there any advice or stories people would like to share with a Mac to Ubuntu switcher? I've been running the latest Live version on my wifes Windows machine and testing out my peripherals and everything seems to be ok. As I have a mixed OS household I tended to buy hardware that would work on both Mac and Windows and format drives/flash drives to NTFS or FAT32 anyway, so this gives me a bit of a head start in moving over. I have an old 40GB iPod which I have found out I can use in Ubuntu as long as I change it from a Mac formatted one to a Windows formatted one, so that is good news. I have an old Epson Stylus Photo 1200 which I can't find any reference to but suppose it would require CUPS or Gutenprint to work possibly. I've read that RaLink RT2500 chipset based PCMCIA cards and USB wireless dongles tend to work out of the box with Ubuntu so that takes one less thing as I have an Asus WL-117G USB wireless dongle. I'm getting there. It has always been a side passion of mine and now I want it as a main machine, so need to check as much as I can prior to wiping and installing. Simon Royal --- Catch me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal or Skype: Simon-Royal _________________________________________________________________ Use Hotmail to send and receive mail from your different email accounts http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/186394592/direct/01/

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More about monitors
by Chris G 22 Nov '09

22 Nov '09

Well after asking here (and a couple of other places) I decided to buy an LG W2453TX monitor. It seemed a reasonable price with the resolution I wanted and the inputs I wanted. However it isn't as good as I expected and I'm returning it, hopefully under DSR so I won't lose much money. The problem I have with it is the inconsistency of brightness/contrast/colour across the screen. I may be extra critical because I have 'tall' (i.e. 60 line) terminal windows on the screen running mutt etc. but for me the inconsistency is *very* noticeable. E.g. my mutt screen has cyan[ish] status bars at the top and bottom and they are quite different colours on the W2453TX. Playing with the angle of view varies the difference between top and bottom but you can never get it the same. In addition the text at the bottom of the screen is very 'spindly' compared to the top. My old screen (a Dell 2001FP) is *miles* better, the status bars are near enough identical (well I can't see any difference) and the text looks the same everywhere. Since this (minor) debacle I have done a bit more research into LCD monitors and their technology and have discovered that there are two or three fundamentally different types. I've discovered some useful sites with information about this:- http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/ http://www.flatpanelshd.com/ The types are:- TN - most cheap and fast displays are TN, good for gaming but colour rendition and viewing angle poor. PVA and MVA - sort of middle of the road, not as fast as TN but better accuracy. IPS - best for accuracy, but expensive. It turns out that the Dell 2001FP I have is an IPS screen so I have been spoilt as regards accuracy. Current 24" screens using this technology are *expensive*, like £500 and upwards! I'm trying to find a PVA (or maybe MVA) screen which isn't too expensive but at the moment I'm not having much success. I guess much of the problem is that the main pressure nowadays is towards response speed and TN screens win on that front. The trouble is that they are rubbish for viewing angle which is a much maligned figure as far as I can tell. The W2453TX has a figure of 170 degrees for viewing angle which is a total joke, any angle much more than 45 degrees off centre produces all sorts of odd effects. The 2001FP on the other hand one can look at from any angle and the colours are unchanged. -- Chris Green

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Re: [ALUG] Christmas Meal
by Sam Tuke 21 Nov '09

21 Nov '09

I'll have the lot please (three courses). Need we pay in advance? Sam. > I'm in for the full-on, three course jobbie. > > I think it'd be best if everybody emails with what they want. Then, a > few days beforehand, I'll count them up and phone the Coach and > Horses with the numbers. > > katsmeat

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Christmas Meal
by Montmorency 20 Nov '09

20 Nov '09

I'm in for the full-on, three course jobbie. I think it'd be best if everybody emails with what they want. Then, a few days beforehand, I'll count them up and phone the Coach and Horses with the numbers. katsmeat Montmorency montmorency(a)ukfsn.org bellphegore(a)nerdshack.com

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ALUG Christmas Meal 10th December
by Richard 20 Nov '09

20 Nov '09

Evening all, 10th December is the last ALUG meeting for 2009, and of course time for our Christmas Meal! We have a table booked as always under the name of Morton for December 10th. You can find a Christmas menu here: http://imgur.com/bcvVP.jpg They are serving their normal dishes throughout the evening also. If we can finalise numbers, orders and a time as soon as possible that would be great :) Richard

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antec 900 II
by Peter Alcibiades 20 Nov '09

20 Nov '09

Well, just to let you know after my query, this arrived and its amazing. Heavy, very solid construction, fans all over the place, and its quiet. Its not silent, but the sound is unobtrusive enough that you can have it on a desktop and its not at all irritating, just moderate frequency rushing of air. None of that high pitched whirring. There are nice easy racks of bays for the drives, directly cooled by fans. The blue neon lights, well, you have to be 15 to appreciate that stuff, but OK. I was really pleased, and so was the user. The top fan, huge, is as predicted, quite quiet but is moving a lot of air. It was proably overkill for this installation with a moderate graphics card and only one hd, but it is probably the last case you will ever need to buy. We also called Novatech support because a router we had got was defective. Its a wait to get them, but when you do, they are quick, good tempered, and know what they are talking about. And not in Bangalore! Al

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PCMCIA Wireless Card Ubuntu
by Simon Royal 18 Nov '09

18 Nov '09

Hi. I am still getting to grips with Ubuntu. I have just picked up a laptop to further my knowledge and hopefully switch from Mac to Linux completely. Does anyone know which wireless laptop cards (PCMCIA) work with Ubuntu 9.10 out of the box with WPA encryption? Regards Simon Royal --- Catch me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal or Skype: Simon-Royal _________________________________________________________________ View your other email accounts from your Hotmail inbox. Add them now. http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/186394592/direct/01/

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Can one reduce text size in the sidebar in Firefox?
by Chris G 18 Nov '09

18 Nov '09

Further to using the Sidebar Bookmarks in Firefox, is it possible to reduce the text size? I mean of course reduce the text size in the sidebar without changing the default text size for displayed pages. -- Chris Green

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debian problem with usb printer and scanner
by Peter Alcibiades 18 Nov '09

18 Nov '09

Does this sound familiar at all? On a squeeze installation, there is a usb scanner. Works just fine. But for unclear reasons every now and then, it may be because someone plugs in another computer to the usb hub to print, not quite sure, when xsane starts up it gives the usual message about not being able to start the scanner. I fix this by brute force, I start up a demo copy of vuescan, after which all is well again. But I have no idea why this should work. However, on another machine running Lenny, this did not work. Vuescan could now not find the scanner. Also (this is an MFP) I was unable to get the printer to work. I had downloaded the drivers (its a Brother) and installed them using gdebi. So, I tackled the scanner problem first. sane-find-scanner found it, and scanimage -L also found it. Attempting to scan from the command line did not. Running short of time, this was a friends machine, I took the brute force approach again and installed Mandriva 2010. Got the drivers, installed them, and bingo, everything works fine. Must say, this was wonderfully easy, all the bookmarks and the toolbar configuration came up intact. Could not have been easier. Mandriva will be easier for him to run, at least, until we want to upgrade it. But, what on earth could be going on? Peter

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Firefox bookmarks in sidebar annoyance, any way around it?
by Chris G 18 Nov '09

18 Nov '09

I've been using a bookmarks 'server' for a long time (sitebar) but I've just realised it's actually rather pointless now I don't want to access my Firefox bookmarks from anywhere else except my home system. So I'll use the built-in bookmarks, so far so good. I liked the sitebar ability to put bookmarks in the sidebar so, after a bit of mucking around found how to put Firefox's bookmarks in the sidebar (well, not much mucking around, it's in the View menu). BUT there's one big drawback, for me anyway, if you click on a 'bad' (as in no such page) bookmark in the sidebar then the error is displayed in the sidebar rather than in the main Firefox display area and I can't find any way to get the bookmarks back in the sidebar except by pulling the View menu down again. Is there any way to avoid this 'infelicity'? In fact is there any way to force Firefox to *always* show the bookmarks in the sidebar, or at least to default to doing so? -- Chris Green

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