main January 2010

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64 discussions

Re: [ALUG] Weird rendering of website!
by Anthony Anson 09 Jan '10

09 Jan '10

Anthony Anson wrote: > Chris G wrote: >> On Fri, Jan 08, 2010 at 01:28:11PM -0000, Ted Harding wrote: >>> Hi Folks, >>> Still following up one of my current side-interests, I visited the >>> website >>> >>> http://www.denvermill.co.uk >>> >>> using Iceweasel on Debian Etch. Hopeless rendering of text (massive >>> vertical expansion), much of the page simply missing, and hardly >>> any of the links apparently active and none of them working. >>> >>> On the other hand, if I view it in Windows Internet Explorer then >>> it all seems to work perfectly. >>> >>> What might be the explanation for this difference? >>> >> Looking at the source:- >> >> <meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 6.0"> >> >> This, plus a total lack of testing, would explain a lot! :-) >> >> Not to mention how does a fairly simple page require such a *huge* >> amount of junk to generate it? Very good question - and I have to wonder what it sends back to M$... Seems to work (FSVO work) OK in Firefox, though. Site written by a complete bloat-happy numpty: all those graphics on the main page... -- Tony Anson www.girolle.co.uk/

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Weird rendering of website!
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 09 Jan '10

09 Jan '10

Hi Folks, Still following up one of my current side-interests, I visited the website http://www.denvermill.co.uk using Iceweasel on Debian Etch. Hopeless rendering of text (massive vertical expansion), much of the page simply missing, and hardly any of the links apparently active and none of them working. On the other hand, if I view it in Windows Internet Explorer then it all seems to work perfectly. What might be the explanation for this difference? Best wishes, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 08-Jan-10 Time: 13:28:07 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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UPS + LAN Switches that don't blow up after a power cut!
by stevey.eu 07 Jan '10

07 Jan '10

Having only just got back on after 24hours, I have no end of issues, so am thinking a UPS is in order. That and my LAN switch no longer works. Any suggestions for suitable replacements would be handy right now. Cheers, Steve

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Which way of using rsync will be faster?
by Chris G 07 Jan '10

07 Jan '10

I'm using rsync to copy some files across my LAN. There are various ways I can do this and I'd like to know which is likely to be fastest. The (most obvious) ways I can see of doing it are:- 1 - Run rxvt in conventional fashion across the network to the remote system, e.g. with syntax like:- rxvt -a /thisDir/ thatSystem:/thatDir/ 2 - Use the (already mounted) NFS mount of the remote system and, from rxvt's point of view copy locally:- rxvt -a /thisDir/ /mnt/thatDir/ 3 - sshfs? Doesn't really seem a very sensible candidate. My *guess* is that probably option 1 is best but I'm not really sure. The object is more to minimise system load (and network load) than to get the absolute best speed. The copies (backups) will likely run when I'm using the system so I want them not to overload things too much. -- Chris Green

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Ipswich ALUG Christmas Meal
by samwise 05 Jan '10

05 Jan '10

Final reminder for Adam R, Steve F, David D, Peter T, Keith J and Sean M - the Ipswich ALUG Christmas Meal is tonight. Meet in McGinty's at 19:30 or at the restaurant at 20:00 this evening. Mr Wing 7 St. Helens Street Ipswich IP4 1HE Tel: 01473 212885 WWW: http://www.misterwing.co.uk/ Map URL: http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=mr.+wings+ipswich Cheers, Peter.

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Cannot empty trash
by Mark Rogers 05 Jan '10

05 Jan '10

On my Ubuntu 9.10 desktop, I have the trash applet in my Gnome taskbar and it says I have 2 items in trash if I hover my mouse over it. If I open the trash, there's nothing there. If I select the "empty deleted items folder" option it has no effect. There is nothing in ~/.local/share/Trash/(files|info|expunged) I'm guessing that something has been deleted on an external or other mounted drive that has since been removed without emptying the trash properly, but I can't see how to clear the trash so that it appears to be empty. Googling just sends me to endless pointers to ~/.local/share/Trash and/or the trash-cli package, neither of which have helped. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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Online command line info pages?
by Anthony Anson 04 Jan '10

04 Jan '10

I'd be grateful if someone could point me at a page/pages which give the scripts for commands I can type into a 'terminal', so I can make things happen in this awful Kenvironment. Too hurriedly, I bought 'Command Line & Shell Scripting' - at huge expense, only to disover that a) because what the author really meant by the title was 'Shell Scripting in a ommand Line Environment', b) I can't haggle with Borders about exchanging it, -- Tony Anson www.girolle.co.uk/

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Here I Am
by Simon Royal 03 Jan '10

03 Jan '10

Hi. Well I have just joined the ALUG and I thought I would share a little about myself. I've been into computing for over 17 years, firstly on Windows. I have spent the last 10 years as a hardcore Mac fan, until a few weeks ago when I decided to give Linux a proper try. It has always been something I have played with on and off. I have a Samsung A10 laptop, it is a 1.1Ghz Duron with 1GB RAM dual booting Ubuntu 9.10 and Windows XP Home. I use Ubuntu 99% of the time and only use Windows as a backup just incase. Ubuntu runs like a dream on it and this latest version has the best hardware support I have ever found, it was easier to set up some of my hardware under Ubuntu than it was Mac OSX. Well that is me. I'm not too experienced in Linux but I am learning on a daily basis and loving everything I find. Regards Simon Royal --- Catch me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal or Skype: Simon-Royal _________________________________________________________________ Have more than one Hotmail account? Link them together to easily access both http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/186394591/direct/01/

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How to find what this /dev/sdc is - I don't have a third disk
by Chris G 03 Jan '10

03 Jan '10

I have been looking at reducing my system's boot-up time and noticed that it seemed to spend quite a lot of time detecting a device called /dev/sdc. I only have two real hard disks on the system, they're /dev/sda and /dev/sdb. However in dmesg I see:- [ 7.681894] usb-storage: device scan complete [ 7.690995] scsi 6:0:0:0: Direct-Access Generic Ultra HS-SD/MMC 1.82 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0 [ 7.691402] sd 6:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg3 type 0 [ 7.707729] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Attached SCSI removable disk What is this? I don't have any removable disks that I know about and /dev/sdc doesn't seem to be in any way a usable device. The only USB devices (well, external ones anyway) are a mouse and a scanner. I don't think it's the CD drive either as that seems to be a distinct device:- brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 32 2010-01-02 17:39 /dev/sdc brw-rw----+ 1 root cdrom 11, 0 2010-01-02 17:39 /dev/sr0 So who/what/where is /dev/sdc coming from and can I get rid of it somehow so it doesn't wast boot time? -- Chris Green

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VMWare 2.0.2 on Ubuntu 9.10
by Paul Grenyer 02 Jan '10

02 Jan '10

Hi All Thanks for the FTP help. Here's question number 2! I'm trying to install VMWare 2.0.2 on Ubuntu 9.10. I've downloaded and unzipped VMware-server-2.0.2-203138.x86_64.tar.gz and followed the instructions: sudo ./wmware-install.pl I accepted the defaults and the licence and it ran through to the vmware-config.pl bit. Then it fails with: ... /tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c: In function ‘LinuxDriverSyncCallOnEachCPU’: /tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:1423: error: too many arguments to function ‘smp_call_function’ /tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c: In function ‘LinuxDriver_Ioctl’: /tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:1987: error: ‘struct task_struct’ has no member named ‘euid’ /tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:1987: error: ‘struct task_struct’ has no member named ‘uid’ /tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:1988: error: ‘struct task_struct’ has no member named ‘fsuid’ /tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:1988: error: ‘struct task_struct’ has no member named ‘uid’ /tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:1989: error: ‘struct task_struct’ has no member named ‘egid’ /tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:1989: error: ‘struct task_struct’ has no member named ‘gid’ /tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:1990: error: ‘struct task_struct’ has no member named ‘fsgid’ /tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:1990: error: ‘struct task_struct’ has no member named ‘gid’ /tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:2007: error: too many arguments to function ‘smp_call_function’ make[2]: *** [/tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only/linux/driver.o] Error 1 make[1]: *** [_module_/tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only] Error 2 make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.31-16-generic' make: *** [vmmon.ko] Error 2 make: Leaving directory `/tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only' Unable to build the vmmon module. For more information on how to troubleshoot module-related problems, please visit our Web site at "http://www.vmware.com/go/unsup-linux-products" and "http://www.vmware.com/go/unsup-linux-tools". Execution aborted. I've checked the vmware website and googled, but none of the suggested solutions I've tried have worked. I'm hoping someone else on this list is running VMWare and can help me out, please? -- Thanks Paul Paul Grenyer e: paul.grenyer(a)gmail.com b: paulgrenyer.blogspot.com

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iwl3945 Wi-Fi broken in Kubuntu 9.10 ?
by Srdjan Todorovic 02 Jan '10

02 Jan '10

Happy New Year everyone! I've got a strange problem where my dad's laptop will sometimes associate with the wifi AP (but never ever get a DHCP response from it) when the laptop's running Kubuntu 9.04 or 9.10. A temporary install of Slackware 13 on the same machine showed that the laptop will associate with the AP and get an IP address very fast and with no problems. My laptop with a wifi device that uses the same driver works perfectly in Slackware 13... Has anyone come across this problem? I've been on the #kubuntu channel today with not much useful help coming from there (understandable as it's New Years). There might be an issue with NetworkManager - that's now been uninstalled and replaced with wicd which seems to help a bit. I was getting lots of "disassociating by local choice reason=3" in dmesg output which is output from the ieee80211 support layer in the kernel. The Kubuntu kernel that was tried also included 2.6.29.6 - which is the kernel that Slackware had. I suspect some weird ubuntu-ism or PEBKAC is at fault, but I'm running out of time to fix this. The commands to reproduce: ifconfig wlan0 up iwconfig wlan0 essid myssid iwconfig wlan0 key s:mykey (yes the real key was correct but I'm not printing here) iwconfig wlan0 ap aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff dhclient wlan0 Somewhere after iwconfig key or ap, the wiconfig output lost all the ssid and key and ap settings (if they showed any beforehand). dhclient just sat there broadcasting for a response. Wicd actually helped in the sense that once the GUI was told to connect, the iwconfig settings were set for essid/key/ap and the problem was that the interface could not get a DHCP response. The hardware RFKill switch was set to off (RF allowed). Any ideas please? Thanks, Srdjan

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Eee bah gum
by Anthony Anson 01 Jan '10

01 Jan '10

Have an Eee using Xandros, and a Vodafone mobile internet dongle. If I connect to the internet (3G or GPRS) whatever else I plug into a USB port isn't found in the file system. OTOH, if I plug any other devie in, such as memory stick, SD card, external HDD or CD/DVD drive, any of those will be found, however many there are, even filling a (powered hub), but if I then plug in the dongle, this isn't found. Not being able to transfer files etc onto a memory stick is to say the least, inconvenient. Any suggestions welcomed. (Yes, I'd probably load Ubantu, but without the dongle working, I'm not sure that the driver I've downloaded will work - given I can find the command line string to install it. (See other thread!) -- Tony Anson www.girolle.co.uk/

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command line book and a couple other things
by Peter Alcibiades 01 Jan '10

01 Jan '10

Two things, first, Scott Grannenman's book 'Linux Phrasebook' is a really great introduction to command line, a bit less forbidding and shorter than Linux in a Nutshell, and more pedagogically oriented, lots of examples and when and how to use stuff. Second, I would really like to reply in threads, I realize its very irritating when people do not do this, but how do you do it when receiving only the digest? Is there a nabble or similar page for main as there is for one or two other lists? I've not beein able to find it for this one. Or do I simply have to start getting the messages as they come in and segregate them in the client? Which is kmail, by the way. Incidentally, the printer, which people were kind enough to help with earlier, well, it works! Amazing. It prints out the receipts, and then as if by magic, it operates the cutter, and then equally magically, it opens the cash drawer! The last trick I had to overcome was that ghex for some reason didn't seem to want to make a text file with only hex 7 in it, so I used the far superior bless. And there turned out to be a trick to passing an echo string with quotes in it to the shell from my programming language, you have to do some fairly convoluted things to manage to escape the quotes in the string you want to pass. But hey, it works now, and you will all know that nice feeling you get when, bingo, the bell rings and the drawer opens, just as it should. So thanks. Peter

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USB disk drives
by nev young 01 Jan '10

01 Jan '10

Hi all, Hope every one has had a merry xmas. Does any one know if this[1] 1.5Tb USB disk from Maplins will work on an ubuntu 9.10 machine? If not how could I make it work? I bought a similar one last year and it was not recognised by the PC so I ended up removing the HDD and installing it as an internal drive. Now they're about £30 cheaper than last year and I still need a decent size external drive for backup. I've been to the shop to ask - they don't know and they won't let me try it and return if it doesn't work. I've emailed Maplins tech help - no reply. I've emailed Verbaitum's tech help - no reply. So I thought I'd ask here before I lay out my cash on something else that may not work as intended. TIA Nev [1] http://buy.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?moduleno=323559

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