main April 2016

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11 participants
10 discussions

Ubuntu updates
by Bev Nicolson 06 May '16

06 May '16

On 12.04LTS but get security updates almost every day and I guess on the one hand that could be encouraging, on the other, I do start to wonder why they don't all arrive at once. (I know now. It's how it connects to the internet.) Is there any way of asking Update Manager to show them every fortnight instead? I can’t see that option. Ta. I'm on a limited broadband band deal during peak hours so saving them up would be useful if possible. Bev.

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Wanted: Non-realtime but automatic file synchronisation
by Chris Green 06 May '16

06 May '16

I have a number of large[ish] directory trees that I would like to keep synchronised across various systems. There are basically three systems involved: desktop, laptop and a remote server. They all run Linux (xubuntu and ubuntu). I don't need real-time synchronisation like that provided by btsync, syncthing or pulse. The directory trees are really too big for this sort of thing anyway. On the other hand I don't want a manual system like Unison which anyway seems beset by problems with different versions at each end. All I want (all?) is a way to keep the directories in sync when changes occur at either end. Since the changes will be mostly generated by me it will be very rare for changes to occur in two places at the same time. If they do then I'm quite happy for the system to require manual intervention. I just want the general case to be automatic. Updating once an hour or so would be quite satisfactory. I can do much of it using rsync with the --update option run first one way and then the other, this does nearly everything I want but there is one gotcha - files deleted will re-appear. File deletions will not be frequent but they will occur occasionally. Adding a --delete option to rsync doesn't necessarily help, it could also mean that new files added get deleted. It all depends on the relative timing of additions and deletions and the copying each way. Nearly all the 'directory synchronisation' tools I can find are one-way and do very little more than one can do easily oneself using rsync. Has anyone come across anything that might do something like I want? -- Chris Green

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Starting a web server on demand - sensible, easy?
by Chris Green 06 May '16

06 May '16

I want to run a Javascript/PHP application on my laptop which will at times be unable to get to the internet. Thus I need to run a web server of some sort on it to serve the PHP side of things. If the laptop is at home on the home LAN I want to be able to run the same Javascript/PHP application on my desktop machine so I can use the bigger screen etc. This will work fine of course with the web server on the laptop, as long as the web server is running. What's the neatest/easiest way to fire up the web server on demand? I don't really want to run it all the time. Ideally also I'd prefer not to run Apache as it's total overkill for what I'm doing. I tried PHP's built-in web server ("php -S localhost:80") and it works fine for me, the home LAN can't be accessed from outside so security should be OK. I suppose the modern equivalent of inetd would do what I want but I'm a bit worried about how easy it might be (or not). -- Chris Green

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Desktop PC spec for virtualisation and transcoding
by Mark Rogers 14 Apr '16

14 Apr '16

I'm looking to replace my home desktop PC (Ubuntu) with something a bit better. Budget around £4-500. It mainly runs a couple of virtual machines (VirtualBox) and acts as a media PC with Plex (which means video files get transcoded on the fly, which includes some 3D HD titles). Both of these are areas that the current PC struggles with sometimes (A8-6410 CPU with 12GB RAM and SSD). To be fair it copes with everything now as long as I don't try to do both at once but if I watch a 3D title I have to shut down all the VMs, and any more than a couple of VMs at the same time will push it. I got a good deal on a 500GB Crucial SSD so that's prompted me into building a new box around it and the forthcoming Ubuntu LTS. I found some desktops based around an i7 and 16GB which is the direction I'm heading in at the moment but I'm open to suggestion. I assume the graphics capability is of some importance for transcoding, is Intel on-board enough? (I won't be playing games.) I'm happy to build for myself although for a modest premium would buy pre-built (no need for Windows though!). -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) 21 Drakes Mews, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ER

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Ghostery and Adf.ly
by Chris Walker 13 Apr '16

13 Apr '16

I keep getting tabs opening up in Chrome with a URL of Adf.ly but can't find it in the list of extensions. So I thought that if I search my machine for that string I might be able to find it and delete as I am irritated by the constant appearance. A search revealed that a Ghostery database file contained that string. So if I want to stop Adf.ly being presented to me every time I run Chrome, should I simply delete appropriate section from the Ghostery database? Or is there a better way? -- __ __| |_ __ __ .----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:alug_cdw@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |______________________________________________|

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[ALUG Announce] ALUG Norwich Pub Meet Thursday 14th April
by Viperfang 11 Apr '16

11 Apr '16

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 Norwich Aluggers, Our monthly ALUG Norwich social meeting will be held this Thursday, 14th April at The Coach and Horses (82 Thorpe Road, Norwich, NR1 1BA). The meeting officially starts at 8pm, although some people may arrive 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 irc.alug.org.uk 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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Free disk array
by Huge 05 Apr '16

05 Apr '16

I have a Sun StorEdge Multipack disk array which I neither want nor need and cannot be arsed to eBay. It's like this one; http://everythingsolaris.org/reviews/hardware/ssm/frameset.html Mine is the 6 disk one. It has some disks in it but (i) they're likely very small (under 500Gb) & (ii) I don't know what's on them and CBA to find out, so I'll likely remove those. If anyone wants this, they're welcome, otherwise it's going in the skip. No, I will not ship it. It's very heavy. I can deliver it near Diss at more-or-less any time, or near Norwich the next time I'm there. Regards, Hugh. -- Today is Setting Orange, the 22nd day of Discord in the YOLD 3182 I don't have an attitude problem. If you have a problem with my attitude, that's your problem.

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Re: [ALUG] 2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 1st April.
by Chris Walker 02 Apr '16

02 Apr '16

On Tue, 29 Mar 2016 03:00:42 +0100 Viperfang <viperfang(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Quick heads up about this months Norwich 2600 meeting, > more info at http://www.norwich2600.co.uk Notice that this domain name has expired! -- __ __| |_ __ __ .----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:alug_cdw@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |______________________________________________|

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Re: [ALUG] Ubuntu update screen woes
by Christopher Dawkins 01 Apr '16

01 Apr '16

Nvidia! That's the problem. Not that it's a lot better with other graphics chips, except when you are lucky. You only need the correct graphics driver, which you can download from the Nvidia site. Much easier said than done - it has taken me days of googling in the past. But twice recently I have been gobsmacked by KDE. Install KDE5, and a pop-up box recognises the situation and offers to find and install for you the correct driver. And that works perfectly. You can probably then deinstall KDE and go back to Xubuntu. -- Christopher Dawkins Archivist, Felsted School http://archives.felsted.org Garnetts Corner, Jollyboys Lane North, Felsted, Dunmow, Essex CM6 3DU cchd(a)pjcd.org 07816 821659 01371 821076

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Ubuntu update screen woes
by steve-ALUG＠hst.me.uk 01 Apr '16

01 Apr '16

I've just updated a machine to XUbuntu 14.04 (LTS) from the last LTS release. I've had numerous problems, but something I'm making no progress with is a problem with the display. Text and window borders etc seem to display OK, but standard file manager icons don't. Some graphics look a bit odd - e.g. Tweakubuntu splash screen which I recall as green and dark grey, comes out washed out, very faint grey and barely readable. Some lines of text that should be highlighted, seem to be almost anti-highlighted - thin faint green foreground text with no highlight line (whereas on another machine, there should be background highlight). In synaptic and log file viewer, the text in the top right pane of the display, that is the pane that displays packages that you are choosing to install or uninstall, is cunningly displayed in white on white, i.e. completely invisible. Sometimes by scrolling the mouse wheel or resizing the window, I can get the text to appear. I know that synaptic is working because if I use ssh -X to connect to this machine from another, and run synaptec remotely using x windows forwarding, then synaptic appears and works correctly. This confirms to me that it's a display issue, but I'm at a bit of a loss on how to tackle it. File managers: they show the file names, but some of the file or folder icons appear, some don't. Moving the mouse around makes some appear, and some disappear. The machine has an old nvidea card, and uses the nouveau display driver. I've tried reinstalling this. There's no obvious (to me) display problems shown in dmesg. I will be trawling through the log files to have a look, (but log-file-viewer doesn't show log text either). Any ideas how to go about fixing this? Where are display config settings to tweak. How can I reinstall/fix? There is an xorg.conf file but removing this makes no difference. Any help/advice gratefully received! Steve

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