main March 2011

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35 participants
38 discussions

Ubuntu Update Manager Says No Internet
by Simon Royal 13 Mar '11

13 Mar '11

Hi Update Manager told me there were 6 updates, but when I go to download them it says I have no internet. I know I do as I have been on eBay this morning and am writing this in GMail webmail. Anyone else experiencing problems. Most of the updates were for Firefox and Firefox branding, so I thought closing Firefox might help but it didnt. SImon -- --- Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - LowEndMac: http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum - Skype: Simon-Royal. --- Asus EeePC 701SD running Ubuntu 10.10. Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro running 2.1

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"top -bn1p1" shows constant system CPU usage of 4.9%
by Mark Rogers 09 Mar '11

09 Mar '11

top -bn1p1 .. should return the data for (b)atch processing, without any refreshed (n1), for process 1 (p1). (The p1 is there just to save it sending me data for all processes, I'm not interested in anything apart from the header information.) It always[*] on my test system shows 4.9%sy If I run top normally, I notice now that it always shows 4.9% on the first scan, then starts to vary. Any suggestions as to why it never deviates on first scan? [*] "Always" in as much as I have some code that logs the value every 5 mins, and for over a day it hasn't changed; it's a test server that is fairly heavily used during the day and not at all at night, so I'd expect some variation. All the CPU usage figures are almost static, there's max 0.1% variation in some of the others. Also, suggestions as to other ways to get this sort of information would be welcomed. All I want is some sample data to use in another process, so I'm logging CPU, memory and disk usage (etc) as reported by top and df. -- 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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ssh conundrum
by Chris G 08 Mar '11

08 Mar '11

I have a shell login on host cheddar.halon.org.uk, while I was away for a few days recently (that bit's irrelevant really), cheddar.halon.org.uk was (presumably) moved to an new machine and thus its host key changed. So, when I came home, my passwordless login to cheddar.halon.org.uk failed with the usual ssh message about 'host key has changed', maybe a man in the middle attack, etc. I removed the relevant line from ~/.ssh/known_hosts, logged in again, the correct line was added to ~/.ssh/known_hosts and all was well again, or so I thought. However, it doesn't all work again as it did:- While ssh logins to cheddar.halon.org.uk from terminal windows on my GUI desktop are passwordless logins from shell console terminals (i.e. CTRL/ALT/n ones) ask for my password at cheddar.halon.org.uk (N.B. they don't ask for the key to my passphrase, it's the cheddar.halon.org.uk password that is asked for). I'm sure these used to work. More to the point my rsync backup to cheddar.halon.org.uk that runs as a cron job has also stopped working, it's expecting a passwordless login to cheddar.halon.org.uk but like the ssh login from a console it's failing because cheddar.halon.org.uk is asking for a password. So both the above problems point at some sort of screw up with ssh_agent but it's complicated by the following:- The file ~/.ssh/config contains:- Host cheddar.halon.org.uk IdentityFile ~/.ssh/np_id_rsa and ~/.ssh/np_id_rsa and ~/.ssh/np_id_rsa.pub haven't changed so why isn't it being used? Any ideas as to what else might have been affected by the host key change at cheddar.halon.org.uk? It's possible some previous misconfiguration was masking something such that the passwordless login was working for some other reason than the config file above but I still need to sort it out. -- Chris Green

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Re: [ALUG] Best Format For External Drive
by James Bensley 07 Mar '11

07 Mar '11

On 7 March 2011 21:30, Simon Royal <mrsimonroyal(a)gmail.com> wrote: > James > > I thought about NTFS, but it just doesnt play nice with OSX or Linux. > OSX hsa native read capabilities but its a struggle to get it to write > well - even using ntfs-3g. > > Simon Agreed (mostly). I would have mentioned the lack of write support from OS X as I use it every day but you only mentioned Linux and Windows in your original post. However, I'm surprised people still have any mentionable issues with Linux, I haven't in a long time (not to say that isn't just a fluke though!). If Mac wasn't going to be an issue I would have went NTFS simply because you never know what's going to be happening 6 months from now, however it may obviously be the case that you do know this...Evil which doctor :D -- James. http://www.jamesbensley.co.cc/ There are 10 kinds of people in the world; Those who understand Vigesimal, and J others...?

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[ALUG Announce] Norwich 2nd Thursday Pub Meet
by Viperfang 07 Mar '11

07 Mar '11

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- Hello Aluggers, This months second Thursday social meeting of ALUG will take place on 10th March at The Coach and Horses (82 Thorpe Road, Norwich, NR1 1BA). There should be people there from 8pm, although some poeple meet up earlier. More information on those people can be found on the list and the IRC channel. If you are unsure if you will recognise us then make yourself and your intent to attend known by either posting on list or visiting us on IRC so we can look out for you rather than hiding in the corner. Optionally you could ask at the bar if they know where the geeky computer weirdos are and they'll point you in the right direction (seriously!). Another possibility is look for heaps of electronics on a table that may possibly look like movie props that would used for detonating explosives. Feel free to bring electronics/laptops/gadgets to the meet, you will by no means be alone. Ben Bewick aka Viperfang NB: This mail is automated, please refer to the usual sources for more information. ALUG Contact Details: Website : http://www.alug.org.uk/ IRC : #alug on OFTC (irc.oftc.net) List : http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo Twitter : http://twitter.com/anglianlug Identica: TBA Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2381613902 ----- Send discussion replies to main(a)lists.alug.org.uk (Reply-To set) Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce

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Mobile to PC software
by Bev Nicolson 07 Mar '11

07 Mar '11

I'm not wholly convinced Phone Manger is the one I'm after or if PC Suite will work happily with Ubuntu. (Actually on looking at PC Suite, it's got more features than I want or need.) My phone is a Sony Ericsson W205. All I want to do is save text messages onto my computer when my phone gets too full. Ta. Bev.

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Android mail client
by Richard Lewis 06 Mar '11

06 Mar '11

ALUG, We get a few messages blocked for moderation because (I think) they are base64 encoded; that is, the Content-Transfer-Type header says "base64". (Note that this is distinct from Content-Type; a text/plain message can be base64 encoded.) The pattern seems to be that all such messages are created using the Android mail client. A cursory Web search has turned up no solutions, but I did find an issue report: http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=2630 which I didn't read carefully enough to notice whether it includes a work-around or fix. This message is merely for information. Best, Richard -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Richard Lewis ISMS, Computing Goldsmiths, University of London Tel: +44 (0)20 7078 5134 Skype: richardjlewis JID: ironchicken(a)jabber.earth.li http://www.richardlewis.me.uk/ -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- ------------------------------------ Every time you send an MS Office document, Bill Gates kills a kitten. ------------------------------------

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Iceweasel "mail client"?
by ted.harding＠wlandres.net 05 Mar '11

05 Mar '11

Greetings, In order to bypass a possible "spam block" on my normal email client, I brought up the destination on their web page in Iceweasel, and clicked on their "mailto:" link. This opened a mail-composing window, into which I entered my message (with Cc: and Bcc: to my own address). I then clicked "Send". Since then nothing has happened. Seeking to try to track down what may have gone on when I did the above, I have tried to locate anything to do with email in Firefox itself. Complete blank! Can anyone point me to what this Iceweasel/Firefox email client is, what it does with emails composed as above, where it stores any copies, indeed where it stores anything at all to do with emails sent by this route? And what about any incoming mail? With thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <ted.harding(a)wlandres.net> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 03-Mar-11 Time: 20:32:35 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Re: [ALUG] Best Format For External Drive
by Simon Royal 05 Mar '11

05 Mar '11

Simon I plumped for FAT32 in the end. A nice all round compatible format. NTFS is a bit better but still has poor support under Linux and Mac OSX and while ext3/4 is a great one, it is only if you are using Linux only. Im only storing music and pics, none of which are over 100MB each file so FAT32 is good enough. Its only storage and backup and will not be accessed very often, mainly written to with new files. Simon ----- Original Message ----- From:Simon Elliott

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stupidly high load averages when VM is doing nothing
by mick 04 Mar '11

04 Mar '11

Hi Guys I am having a lot of trouble with one of my VPSs - a new one I bought for threepence halfpenny from ThrustVPS. I won't bore you with all the details of the problems I am having (I think the systems are HUGELY oversold) but I have one oddity which I am not sure is the ISPs fault or mine. The server is a XEN VM running Ubuntu 10.04 (server edition). I am seeing ridiculously high loads (regularly 2.5 upwards) when the server is actually supposed to be doing nothing. The only process I can see which may be responsible is a kernel process called events/1 which is chewing silly amounts of cpu - see top display below. PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND 16 root 20 0 0 0 0 R 85 0.0 569:39.41 events/1 3196 root 20 0 19224 1420 1072 R 0 0.3 0:00.16 top 1 root 20 0 23688 1828 1244 S 0 0.4 0:00.90 init 2 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.01 kthreadd 3 root RT 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.06 migration/0 4 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 76:43.23 ksoftirqd/0 5 root RT 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 watchdog/0 I confess I have /no clue/ what this means and I can't find anything useful through searches. Has anyone any idea where I should start looking? (uname -a Linux beam 2.6.32-28-server #55-Ubuntu SMP Mon Jan 10 23:57:16 UTC 2011 x86_64 GNU/Linux) Mick --------------------------------------------------------------------- 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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