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Weekly IRC reminder
by Brett Parker 19 Sep '05

19 Sep '05

This is the automated ALUG IRC meeting reminder sent to remind you that there is an IRC meeting tonight (Monday) at 8.00pm. Historically, these used to be the only time a lot of us would be about, now the channel has some usual faces that are there most of the time (except at silly o'clock, when we might be sleeping, or on the second thursday of the month, where we might be drinking in the Reindeer), so don't feel limited to visit during this time, come visit us when ever you feel like it! The meeting takes place on the irc server irc.alug.org.uk in the #alug channel. Most IRC clients should allow you to get there with the commands "/server irc.alug.org.uk" and "/join #alug". Popular IRC clients include xchat, irssi and EPIC on Unix, and Mirc under windows. Here are some links to help you get started with irc. Unix http://www.xchat.org/ http://www.irssi.org/ http://www.epicsol.org/ Windows http://www.mirc.com (loads of help with irc for newbies!)

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TV Card
by Wayne Stallwood 18 Sep '05

18 Sep '05

Can anyone recommend a DVB (freeview) card that works in Linux ? Does such a thing exist ? Also what is the state of Top up TV support on PC based Freeview receivers, is it possible or is Top up TV restricted to set top boxes.

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[ALUG Announce]USERLAND : OPENMUTE FLOSS WORKSHOPS & ARTIST TALK 22-23 SEPTEMBER 2005
by Anthony Iles 17 Sep '05

17 Sep '05

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- Hi there, I found your group online and thought you might be interested in this event happening in Norwich next week. Regards Anthony --- OPENMUTE TOUR ANNOUNCE USERLAND : FREE LIBRE OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE WORKING FOR YOU! OpenMute is an online collaborative software tool initiative, and the latest in a cadre of projects by Mute Magazine. OpenMute provides 'free as in beer' web space, tools and services to the non-profit and creative sectors. The OpenMute tour is a varied set of two-day workshops with an aim to familiarise audiences, practitioners and interested parties with the current concepts and practices of Free Open Source Software (or FOSS) as well as practical hands-on help building a website or creating a community project using the OpenMute toolset. The workshops are geared towards teaching people 'you' how to use the OpenMute FOSS software for your cultural or community needs, and these workshops are geared towards a novice to intermediate user of these systems Price : £20 / £10 concessions Date : September 22rd-23rd September Duration : Two Days Times : 10-4pm artist's talk after first day of workshop 4.30pm. Venue : Norwich Arts Centre, St. Benedict's Street, Norwich, NR2 4PG Booking : 01603 660352 All workshop participants please register for your free floss web site http://openmute.org ***22nd SEPTEMBER 4.30PM ARTIST TALK BY HEATH BUNTING OF IRRATIONAL.ORG AND THE CUBE CINEMA*** ALL WELCOME / NO ADMISSION CHARGE Biography. Heath Bunting emerged from the 80's committed to building open/ democratic communication systems and social contexts. He came from the street up, passing through and often revisiting graphity, performance, intervention, pirate radio, fax/ mail art and BBS systems to become an active participant in the explosion of the internet. He has produced many internet projects, some highly recognised and has helped form a strong context for the practice of net.art. Recently, he has moved into the field of genetics proclaiming it to be the next "new media", and is also developing work in the area of physical network performance. 22/09/05 4.30-5.30pm Norwich Arts Centre, St. Benedict's Street, Norwich, NR2 4PG --- END ----- 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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Diversity is a killer
by Wayne Stallwood 17 Sep '05

17 Sep '05

Does anybody else remember MS advertising campaigns of old that suggested that the diversity in the Unix and Linux operating systems from different vendors caused interoperability woes and increased the chances of you deploying the wrong solution. I've been googling away but I can't find any linkage. Anyway if this report is to believed http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050910-5298.html It looks like there is going to be no less than 7 different flavours of Windows Vista (longhorn to those that haven't been keeping up) with not only different versions for home and business but different levels within those versions. As someone who provides support to both business and private customers I can see this being a nightmare. To be honest it is hard enough remembering and explaining the differences between XP Pro and XP Home. But in the future I'll have to remember the differences between Professional Edition, Small Business Edition and Enterprise edition for my business customers and Starter, Home basic and Home Premium Edition for my private clients. God forbid that anybody try to use the Business versions in the home or vice versa because it looks like unless they fork out for the Ultimate edition not one of the above has a full feature set. Why can't it be the Apple way where there is a Server version and a Workstation version. Or better still Linux where any version can potentially be Server,Workstation Home or Business depending on what packages you have installed. There must be a way of MS getting their licensing model to work without resorting to so many versions of what essentially is the same product.

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Re: main digest, Vol 3 #668 - 11 msgs
by Jenny Hopkins 15 Sep '05

15 Sep '05

Jan: <snip> > The main reason I suggest Black Cat Networks is that I am very happy > with their service (more so than any other ISP I have used) and so are > other Aluggers who use them and Jonathan (who owns/works for/runs Black > Cat) is in the pub every month for the 2nd Thursday Norwich Alug pub > meet. > > [1] http://www.blackcatnetworks.co.uk/ This sounds attractive to me, I would be quite inclined to go locally with a company that is known to be "Linux aware". It seems to me that the ADSL service they offer might be a bit more than what I was looking for -- e.g. I don't think I need a static IP; my main use of the connection would be shuttling files back and forth between home and work (via scp / rsync etc.), installing Debian packages, and occasional general surfing / email checking etc. But then again, a nicely working connection to the rest of the Internet may well be worth the additional costs (mainly the setup fee)... </snip> Hi Jan, I've got a bt line here, and when exchange was upgraded to adsl I splashed out and got firstly my dsl from blackcatnetworks and secondly a Netgear DG834G router. Any extra money I spent has been worth it time and time again as I have had a reliable broadband connection for a year now, and have had to make no support phone calls. Jenny

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General advice on broadband / WLAN wanted
by Jan T. Kim 14 Sep '05

14 Sep '05

Dear ALUG folks, I have moved from Germany to Norwich a couple of months ago and now I consider getting a broadband Internet connection for use with Linux (evidently on this list, I guess...). Looking at the offers by BT and NTL, I have not been quite able to determine what hardware is provided with the packages offered. For example, the most basic package from BT is advertised as "Not Mac compatible", but I've not been able to figure out what causes this incompatibility. Certainly, some of you on this list have a broadband connection? I'd be interested if you could share your experience and tell me how you managed (or failed) to use a broadband package. I'm most interested in the basic ones -- having Internet access at work (UEA), I don't need huge download capacity, web space or other add-on features. The computer(s) to be connected are laptops (running Debian), if that makes any difference. As a next step, I'd also look into getting wireless, so I'd be interested in comments on that too. Thanks in advance and best regards, Jan -- +- Jan T. Kim -------------------------------------------------------+ | *NEW* email: jtk(a)cmp.uea.ac.uk | | *NEW* WWW: http://www.cmp.uea.ac.uk/people/jtk | *-----=< hierarchical systems are for files, not for humans >=-----*

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Simply setting serial port parameters
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 14 Sep '05

14 Sep '05

Hi Folks, Advice on an ancient ritual please ... Suppose I want to set the serial port parameters of /dev/ttyS0, e.g. Speed = 4800 baud, 7 data bits, Space parity, 1 stop bit aka "4800 7S1". I don't seem to find a Linux utility wich will do this simply. I've been doing it by starting up minicom, going into its "config" mode via "^A-Z", doing each of these bitty things separately, and then quitting. However, this is manifestly overkill! (Not to say clumsy, time-consuming, and not suited for incorporation in a script). Of course, once done once, one can save the resulting config to a minirc.* file and then run 'minicom minirc.whatever', which does the business but still leaves minicom running so it has to be killed (since it's stealing data from the serial port), and there's no option I can see to minicom which tells it to "run setup and quit". What I'm really after is a simple utility on the lines of serialpars -s 4800 -b 7 -p S -s 1 /dev/ttyS0 to set up "4800 7S1", but I can't find such a thing. (setserial doesn't seem to do this -- while it's in principle possible to set the baud rate in a roundabout way, I don't see any provision for data bits, parity, stop bits.) Any ideas? Thanks, best wishes, and good morning! Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 14-Sep-05 Time: 10:26:27 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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USB -> Serial adapter
by Barry Samuels 12 Sep '05

12 Sep '05

I have just discovered that my shiny new Thinkpad R51 doesn't have a serial port !!!!! I want to be able to connect my GPS which requires a 9-pin serial connector. I see that there are USB to Serial cable adapters available including an IBM one for £50.00 (No thank you). There are many available on ebay for £3 upwards (including postage) so can anyone tell me if these things are likely to require any special software to make them work. The reason I ask is that they all specify Windows or Mac compatibility - no mention of Linux of course. Any information gratefully recieved. -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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Weekly IRC reminder
by Brett Parker 12 Sep '05

12 Sep '05

This is the automated ALUG IRC meeting reminder sent to remind you that there is an IRC meeting tonight (Monday) at 8.00pm. Historically, these used to be the only time a lot of us would be about, now the channel has some usual faces that are there most of the time (except at silly o'clock, when we might be sleeping, or on the second thursday of the month, where we might be drinking in the Reindeer), so don't feel limited to visit during this time, come visit us when ever you feel like it! The meeting takes place on the irc server irc.alug.org.uk in the #alug channel. Most IRC clients should allow you to get there with the commands "/server irc.alug.org.uk" and "/join #alug". Popular IRC clients include xchat, irssi and EPIC on Unix, and Mirc under windows. Here are some links to help you get started with irc. Unix http://www.xchat.org/ http://www.irssi.org/ http://www.epicsol.org/ Windows http://www.mirc.com (loads of help with irc for newbies!)

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Switch Mode
by Bob Dove 11 Sep '05

11 Sep '05

Hi Folks, Switch Mode - mmmm? In days gone by I worked on a switch mode device for studio flash. The idea was to run studio flash equipment from car battery - 12v DC to 230v AC at a fairly high amperage. The switch mode converter cost more than the studio flash which in itself was expensive! It was almost as large too! I have no recollection of anyone doing this in reverse - far too expensive. However, in the flash market I have specified many an external power supply (transformer pack) to run DC 6v, 9v and 12v devices from 230/240v AC. Currently most of these come from China and cost (according to quantity of course) pence! You can now buy relatively inexpensive switch mode devices - I presume largely to obviate miles of extended cable when you want to strim the back end of your garden (you should be so lucky)! Cheers, BD.

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