February 2010 - main

Of the website, backups and the mailing list...
by Brett Parker 25 Feb '10

25 Feb '10

Hi, I've just plonked a few more scripts about on my vps and added some useful hostnames to it... so, here's what I've got backup wise: * A read only copy of our wiki, updated daily from Noodle's backup: http://wiki.alug.itshall.be/ * A different interface to the mailing list archive (searchable) http://alug.itshall.be/ (Updated rougly hourly) (I've also got the normal pipermail archive sitting on disk, that's what I feed to lurker). So, the only thing that I'm missing, basically, is the users/subscribers for the wiki/mailing list... but this should put us in fairly good stead. Thanks, -- Brett Parker

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New Alug wiki/website
by Adam Bower 24 Feb '10

24 Feb '10

Hi people, Due to the unfortunate disappearance of our old wiki and inability to contact anyone at the old hosting provider Noodles has very kindly changed over the DNS and pointed it at a new wiki hosted on his server. (thanks Noodles!) A side effect of this is that we have lost all the old wiki content so please visit the new wiki, create an account and get rebuilding! You can find the new wiki at http://www.alug.org.uk/ for those that didn't know. Thanks Adam -- New signature required, suggestions on a post card please.

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Nagios
by Mark Rogers 22 Feb '10

22 Feb '10

Does anyone here know if Nagios is something I need to install on every server I wish to monitor? Can I combine the results of multiple sites into single reports or do I just need to have multiple reports? -- 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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Spreadsheet (Gnumeric or other) - how to insert a page break in printout?
by Chris G 21 Feb '10

21 Feb '10

This is a stupidly trivial question but I can't find out how to do it. I have a wide spreadsheet (currently in Gnumeric) and I simply want to tell it where (i.e. at which column) to start printing on a new page. I can't find *anywhere* that even seems to think that's something you'd want to do, let alone how to do it. If I could simply insert a fromfeed character into the first row cell in that column it would do but I can't even do that. Help!!! -- Chris Green

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What 'conversion' changes those = and =E9 in text to the proper characters?
by Chris G 21 Feb '10

21 Feb '10

I have some text which has lots of '= ' and '=E9' strings in it which should be just spaces and è. What would convert this text to properly readable text? Mutt seems to manage it OK (it's a mail message) but I want to do it myself to display it elsewhere and it doesn't seem to be just a simple iconv() conversion as what seems to be in the message are actual '=E9' strings not iso-8859-1 characters with more than 7 bits. Presumably it's encoded to fit in strict 7-bit ASCII but how do I unencode it? -- Chris Green

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Puppy Linux... Wow!
by Simon Royal 20 Feb '10

20 Feb '10

Hi. I tried the Puppy Linux live cd yesterday and I was impressed but I couldn't get wireless to work even though the Puppy forum said my devices should work out of the box. Well, I decided to install it to see how well it ran and whether the wireless would work. I am pleased to say it absolutely screams along even on a P2 300Mhz with 160MB RAM. It is amazing to watch. No other distro I have tried performs anywhere near as well. Also, my wireless devices work and after a bit of configuring - more of a way Puppy configures rather than how difficult it was to sort - I am pleased to say I am writing this email within Puppy running a Buffalo WLI-CB-G54A wireless PCMCIA card. I think I have found the best distro for such a low spec machine. It is amazingly fast and blows Windows 2000/XP out of the water. Simon Royal --- Catch me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal or Skype: Simon-Royal _________________________________________________________________ Do you have a story that started on Hotmail? Tell us now http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/195013117/direct/01/

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Re: [ALUG] latest solar info
by Wayne Stallwood 20 Feb '10

20 Feb '10

Jenny Hopkins wrote: >> Confused about solar. Tony reckons the inox have mirrors on the >> outside that need servicing, but Wayne showed me that the solaressence >> ones trhat he has have a newer version that have them on the inside. >> > > Reflector details vary, but it's all terribly minor details. All you > should care about is overall cost vs. power output. Is tony suggesting > that you need to get up on the roof every 10 years and wipe down the > reflectors? Probably a good idea. Mine are still v.shiny after 2 yrs. > A wipe in another few years might be an idea. > > Internal reflectors must be smaller, by definition, so collect less > sun. Refelectors of any design make no more than 10% difference to > output. At most sun angles they are hidden behind the tubes. > > Is this from wookey ? I agree with everything he is saying there..the reflectors help with severely off axis sunlight and try and bounce some back onto the tubes...this helps me a tiny bit I think in the afternoons during the autum/spring where the sun's angle is such that as of about 3PM it is hitting the tubes more from the side than above. Yes my CPC mirrors are internal to the tubes and therefore smaller and less efficient than the ones that sit under the tubes with the advantage that they can't get dirty...but I can't imagine external CPC mirrors need frequent cleaning as has been claimed..and the tubes themselves will only get mucky at the same rate as a flat panel. The flat panel systems were shown to be the basis of less efficient systems (when a whole years savings were taken into consideration) in a DTI report done in 2001...since then Evacuated Tube panels have only improved (and as far as I am aware there have been no further developments in flat panel tech) As I understand it the issue with panels is two-fold...one there is a big surface area to radiate collected heat before it can be drawn down to the tank..so on cold but sunny days you are losing some potential. Also as soon as the light output is a bit too far off axis you get significant reflection losses from the flat collection area..whereas naturally with a tube, part of the surface is on axis at all time sun is hitting that area of roof. Generally everything I have read says that in a climate that can be cold but sunny or where there is frequent cloud cover you will see better results from a ET setup..which is why most modern installations in this country seem to be using that technology. This becomes even more important if you are considering a dual setup where it is going to be assisting heating as well as hot water as of course you want whatever you can get from the panel on the colder days. The other issue with FP collectors as I mentioned on IRC is that although FP technology is now 30 years old and well proven..if you do get a problem with a panel then the only option is to replace the whole unit which is both expensive and cumbersome..requiring a system drain and re-pressurisation afterwards (and probably lifting tackle/roof platforms if the repair was going to be done with health and safety in mind as they are very heavy). My tubes are indirect and can be replaced cheaply, individually, and without touching the solar circuit. Also a single damaged tube will not compromise the operation of the rest of that panel. The one downside here is that ET panels are relatively new technology and haven't been on anyones roof for more than 10 years or so..so long term life predictions are just that..predictions. Whereas I know there are people around with 25 year old flat panels that are still working. There are two (admittedly looking quite old) FP installations near me and both have a damaged panel now..one is just clouded so I assume a weather seal has gone somewhere and the other has what looks like it might have been some nutcase with a catapult because the FP is visibly cracked. Both have remained like that for at least a year, presumably because repair would be expensive. A single tube for my system costs about the same as a meal out somewhere and I could change it myself. All that said, It's one of those things where there is a lot of information out there..a lot of it is conflicting and each installer will have their own opinions, it's like buying a car or something. So maybe you *are* getting too wrapped up in all these technical details. The end story is as Wookey said cost vs power and remember you are tapping a free energy source so some losses here and there aren't the end of the world. As long as the system overall is making a net saving and the cost vs power ratio means it stands a chance of paying for itself at some point in the future then don't loose too much sleep. Ta Wayne

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Recovering a borked upgrade
by Mark Rogers 20 Feb '10

20 Feb '10

A little story... I decided to upgrade an Ubuntu 8.04 install to 9.10. 8.04 to 8.10 went fine. 8.10 to 9.04 broke horribly: the PC seems to have a failing fan which caused it to overheat and die mid-way through the upgrade. Surprising it booted, sort of, but when I got to the login page that died, and Alt-F1 got me to a terminal with a stream of errors stopping me doing a lot. So I booted from an Ubuntu 9.04 alternative CD, in repair mode, and got myself a command prompt chrooted to the root partition. I manually mounted the boot partition, and ran: apt-get update dpkg --configure -a apt-get update apt-get dist-upgrade .. then exited, rebooted, and got my system back fully upgraded. I didn't mention, by the way, that the system boots from a software RAID array, which "just worked". I don't expect things to work out like this when something goes horribly wrong, so it's nice to tell people when they do! (I used info from here: http://serverfault.com/questions/8540/recover-from-shutdown-during-ubuntu-d… .. to get it working.) I'm now midway through 9.04-9.10, just to prove that I haven't been put off! -- 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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External Storage
by Paul Grenyer 19 Feb '10

19 Feb '10

Hi All I'm after a couple of TBs of external storage. I've found this on eBuyer: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/168235 It doesn't mention if it's Linux compatible, any ideas how I find out? Or any suggestions for alternatives? It would be nice to have internal storage but I all the bays in my Shuttle are full and I don't know if I can run SATA drives from me IDE controller. -- Thanks Paul Paul Grenyer e: paul.grenyer(a)gmail.com b: paulgrenyer.blogspot.com

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machine ID
by Peter Alcibiades 19 Feb '10

19 Feb '10

Question: when you install some kinds of non OSS software, they generate a machine ID. You send this to the maker, they then send you back a registration code which works for that particular machine, and only that machine. Not even that machine, if you make too many changes of hardware. Is it possible to tweak a different machine so it generates the same machine ID? This is stuff that comes free with several thousand pounds worth of hardware, does something very simple, like generate a hash index of some sort on a flash card to make some standard format files accessible to the hardware. But for some crazed reason the suppliers of the hardware want to restrict the use of their stuff to one specific machine. I want to know there is a backup solution, should they go bust, or get acquired and suddenly charge exorbitant prices to move the stuff to a different machine. I am thinking, with considerable sense of humour failure, that one solution might be, install into a VM, then generate the activation for that VM, and then make an archive copy of the VM, so one would always be able to move that VM. I notice that vmware has an option for keeping the machine ID when you move installations. Which is totally ridiculous, but at least you would not have several thousand pounds worth of hardware at the mercy of a whim of some people you have never heard of somewhere in the wilds of Provence. Or their potential purchasers in Kazakhstan! Can you imagine then, you run Linux in a VM, then you run Wine in that VM, all to be able to be sure of having a moveable solution for your Windows package in case one of your machines explodes or gets stolen! Nuts. Is there a simpler way by spoofing the machine ID? Peter

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