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KDE 4.1 problems
by Chris Walker 08 Jul '13

08 Jul '13

As part of my new install I am now using KDE 4.10 as the desktop. But it appears to have a problem retaining settings. If I switch off, when it comes back on, the konsole window for example is now full screen when it should be just a small window and similarly for something like a Solitaire game. But using the same DVD I used to install, I created another install inside VirtualBox and that doesn't exhibit the problem. I've been looking online at the KDE 4 pages but I can't get to the bottom of the issue. Can I copy any of the files over from the virtual machine or is there a preferred way to fix it? I've tried logging in as root and moving my copy of the .kde4 folder in the hope that it would create a new one without these problems but either I didn't do it correctly, or it didn't work, the end result being that there was no change. As the virtual machine works and this one doesn't I assumed it might be graphics related but if I do anything to that, I lose everything and can no longer see the graphic I have for wallpaper and all the icons disappear. That then takes me ages to get it all back again so having done that three times now, I'm getting tired of it and now tend to avoid that. So any ideas on what I can do to remedy the problem please?

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2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 5th July.
by Viperfang 02 Jul '13

02 Jul '13

Quick heads up about this months Norwich 2600 meeting, more info at http://www.norwich2600.co.uk

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Upgrading a legacy Ubuntu Server 10.10 install
by Mark Rogers 28 Jun '13

28 Jun '13

I've just found a production Ubuntu Server 10.10 install that I need to try to upgrade. It's pretty much just Apache, PHP and MySQL so hopefully not too complicated. 10.10 has not been supported for ages - indeed to get to a version which is not EOL I need to skip 11.04 and 11.10 and go straight for 12.04LTS. I've taken an image and restored to an indentical VM. So far I've done: sed -i.bak -e 's/maverick/precise/g' /etc/apt/sources.list apt-get update apt-get install apt apt-get upgrade && apt-get dist-upgrade && apt-get autoremove This initially failed until I added: APT { Immediate-Configure No; }; .. to /etc/apt/apt.conf Rather surprisingly, I now have an apparently working system, So my question is: what should I look out for to check this has really gone OK? So far it feels like it's been too easy... Mark -- 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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Shorewall logs
by Chris Walker 24 Jun '13

24 Jun '13

I've this week changed from Mandriva 2011 to Mageia. I did it because Mandriva no longer seemed to be being developed and also because my installation had a few issues. I also swapped out the 500gig drive that Mandriva was on and installed Mageia to a 1TB drive but I kept the 500 gig jobbie. To save myself time I just moved things like the config for Sylpheed and Claws from the 5400gig to the 1TB and those are working fine. In trying to find out why a USB 3 disc wasn't being seen, I noticed that dmesg was filling up with messages from Shorewall. I'm not sure if Shorewall ran on Mandriva but certainly I didn't see those messages. They all appear to be the same though with the exception of the ID which varies. Here's the last two for example [ 6125.561129] Shorewall:net2fw:DROP:IN=eth0 OUT= MAC=40:61:86:05:f9:31:00:24:a5:bd:b4:dc:08:00 SRC=192.168.1.1 DST=192.168.1.2 LEN=60 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=64 ID=2897 DF PROTO=TCP SPT=3896 DPT=3389 WINDOW=5840 RES=0x00 SYN URGP=0 [ 6128.560425] Shorewall:net2fw:DROP:IN=eth0 OUT= MAC=40:61:86:05:f9:31:00:24:a5:bd:b4:dc:08:00 SRC=192.168.1.1 DST=192.168.1.2 LEN=60 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=64 ID=2898 DF PROTO=TCP SPT=3896 DPT=3389 WINDOW=5840 RES=0x00 SYN URGP=0 On my machine 192.168.1.1 is the router. Should I be concerned about these messages? If so, what should I do as they're just an irritation at the moment.

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Partition mount problem
by Barry Samuels 19 Jun '13

19 Jun '13

First a confession. This is about Android but it is using a Linux kernel so I hope this is not entirely off topic. I have an application on my phone which allows me to clear the 'cache' partition although I had never used that until recently. After using it to clear the cache partition that particular partition will no longer mount. It doesn't appear in the 'mount' list although there are no sign signs of an error. The only noticeable difference is that I can't download or update any applications because the download process uses the 'cache' partition and it's not mounted. Other than that the phone works normally. I can get round that by deleting the '/cache' mount point and creating a soft link to another point in the filing system which is then linked to '/ cache' but it's all reset again every time the phone starts. I've tried manually mounting the 'cache' partition using 'mount -o rw - t ext3 /dev/block/mmcblk0p2 /cache' but that gives me 'Invalid argument'. It can't be a command line argument because there seems to nothing wrong there. I've tried numerous variations of that command with the same error message. e2fsck on the partition says it's clean. I made a nandroid backup many months ago long before this happened and have tried restoring the 'cache' partition only from that but the problem remains. I've deduced from that that it cannot be a problem with the partition itself. So, can anyone suggest reasons why a partition would refuse to mount? -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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Scanner Xerox 2400 - GL646 chip drivers
by James Freer 18 Jun '13

18 Jun '13

In my enthusiasm to ditch windows i thought i'd attempt to get my scanner working as it seems drivers are now available for the GL646 chip. Ubuntu wiki have a 'how-to' https://help.ubuntu.com/community/CompileSaneFromSource https://help.ubuntu.com/community/CheckIfScannerIsClone The first link appears to download more than necessary it seems. I would be grateful if someone more knowledgeable on drivers could read those pages through as something isn't right somewhere. I was just going to buy another scanner but the latest Canoscan (and others) also use the GL646 chip. thanks james

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Re: [ALUG] program for simple graph representation recommendation?
by mark fernandes (IFR) 17 Jun '13

17 Jun '13

Gnuplot is really good for doing quality plots (Good enough for scientific papers). The output terminals include screen, LaTEX, png, SVG, EPS and PDF. The dreaded Wackypedia has a reasonable amount of info (I would especially recommend the IBM tutorial - it really got me started with GNUplot) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnuplot If you need a non-Windows GUI there is a Java GUI for GNUplot (I haven't tried it so YMMV) see http://sourceforge.net/projects/jgp/ Hope that this helps, Mark

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[ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : The Mulberry Tree
by samwise 17 Jun '13

17 Jun '13

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- The monthly "Third Monday" ALUG Ipswich Social Meeting is back today, 17th June, at 20:00: The Mulberry Tree 5 Woodbridge Road IPSWICH IP4 2EA Tel: 01473 225776 Map/Directions URI: http://maps.google.co.uk/?q=IP4+2EA WWW: https://www.facebook.com/MULBERRYHOSPITALITY The Mulberry Tree, previously known as The Milestone Beer House, is a grade 2 listed building in the centre of Ipswich. It is located at the intersection between Woodbridge Road and the A1156, across the road from the old Odeon cinema and not far from the Regent Theatre. It re-opened on Thursday March 29th 2012 after a major refurbishment, under its original name of The Mulberry House and has already begun to regain a good reputation for its selection of beers and ales. It has a sizeable car park to the rear of the building. All are welcome, novices and experienced users. Feel free to ask for further information on the Main ALUG mailing list. Cheers, Peter. ----- 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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program for simple graph representation recommendation?
by Anthony Anson 14 Jun '13

14 Jun '13

I want to make a simple linear graph of blood-pressure readings over a month with a minimum interval of half an hour. (Greater intervals will have to be 'understood' by interpolation.) Ideally the background would be squares (to make it easier for me...) and it doesn't matter whether the plotted lines are vertical or horizontal - just so long as they are scrollable. Exportability to pdf would be an advantage All suggestions appreciated. -- Tony http://www.girolle.co.uk/

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Confused about mdstat output
by Mark Rogers 14 Jun '13

14 Jun '13

cat /proc/mdstat gives me: md1 : active raid5 sdi1[4](S) sdh1[2](F) sdg1[1] sdf1[0] 5860145664 blocks super 1.2 level 5, 512k chunk, algorithm 2 [4/2] [UU__] The history of this array is that it was a functioning RAID5 array, that wasn't really being used. I pulled one of the disks out for other uses temporarily, then wiped it and returned it, the idea being that it was returned to the array as a "new" disk to replace the "failed" (removed) one, albeit that it was actually the same disk. This is the RAID array that's been causing problems via a USB caddy (I now have a cheap SATA card that seems to work reliably). I was able to mount the array (albeit degraded because it was missing a disk) with the disk removed. Now I can't (makes sense, 2-out-of-4 disks in a RAID5 array isn't going to work very well!). My reading of mdstat is that sdi1 is currently "spare" (I think that's the one that came out and went back in), and that sdh1 has failed. Seems like quite a coincidence. As I said, the data on the array wasn't important, I'm using this as an opportunity to learn more about what's going on because next time the data may well matter. Mark -- 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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