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System battery low
by Bev Nicolson 01 Sep '16

01 Sep '16

That's the alert I just got on my Dell. I have googled but to be honest, I'm not confident about fixing this. The advice 'dhg' got here from Dell seems the one to go for but how do I do that? http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/desktop/f/3514/t/1915445 Bev.

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2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 2nd September.
by Viperfang 30 Aug '16

30 Aug '16

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

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Tablet that runs Linux - are there any?
by Chris Green 27 Aug '16

27 Aug '16

I'm getting totally fed up with trying to use Android tablets to do anything remotely useful, they're full of junk software you can't get rid of and you can't access the parts you want. So, can one get a tablet (7" or maybe up to 9") that runs some vaguely normal version of Linux? -- Chris Green

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Re: [ALUG] main Digest, Vol 134, Issue 8 - linux tablets
by PB 25 Aug '16

25 Aug '16

I have tried to install Linux on a Linx 8. One of the problems is that you have 32bit EFI and a 64bit processor. The processor is an Atom. So you can't get it to boot a normal 64bit distro. This means either using bootia32.efi, which defeated me, or finding an EFI based 32 bit distribution. The only one I've heard of is Sparky Linux. That did at least start booting, but the display just went blank when it tried to load X. Maybe the bigger Linx will work better. I have given up on the 8 inch one. I also tried to install Debian on the Nook, and the package seemed to go in fine, but I have not managed to get Debian to boot and work normally.... P

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Is there any easy way to view mounted 'real' disk drives?
by Chris Green 24 Aug '16

24 Aug '16

Once upon a time you could use the command 'mount' to see what filesystems were mounted but it has now got so cluttered with 'virtual' filesystems that it's pretty useless. What's an easy way of seeing what actual, data containing, useful filesystems are mounted? I.e. the physical disks and the NFS ones. -- Chris Green

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Slow 8TB drive
by Mark Rogers 14 Aug '16

14 Aug '16

I have a new 8TB Seagate drive, extracted from a USB3 "Backup Plus" drive and installed on a SATA3 connector. It has a single partition on it. The actual disk is a "ST8000AS0002-1NA17Z" which is an archive drive so I'm not expecting stellar performance, but even so it feels very slow. For example, running up a Windows VirtualBox VM from that disk feels like it's being dragged through treacle (the host PC is an i7-6700k with 32GB RAM so it should run comfortably). I'd speculate I may have poor disk alignment but I don't know how to check; the results of Googling got me to sudo parted /dev/sda "align-check optimal 1" which reports "1 aligned". Am I just pushing the drive in a direction it doesn't want to go? Would it actually perform better if returned to the USB3 case? It seems unlikely but then maybe Seagate hobble the drives for direct SATA to discourage them being taken out? I book from SSD and the purpose of the drive is actually archiving anyway (the VM on it was only there temporarily) so if it's just how it's supposed to be then I'll live with it. -- 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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OT MP3 files problem
by Bev Nicolson 02 Aug '16

02 Aug '16

This might be a bit off topic but I can’t think who else to ask. (If you can, let me know.) The problem is that my MP3 player (a Philips GoGear with 4GB memory if that makes any odds) has two mp3's files on it with the wrong name. Fine, rename them, you cry. But there's the rub. They show with the right name if I mount it. What can I do? It isn't full, by the way. Bev

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2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 5th August.
by Viperfang 02 Aug '16

02 Aug '16

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

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Re: [ALUG] Debian audio problem
by Phil Ashby 27 Jul '16

27 Jul '16

https://wiki.debian.org/SoundConfiguration On 27/07/16 11:48 Barry Samuels <bjsamuels@...org.uk> wrote > > I'm running Debian Testing, up to date as of today, and for a few months > now have had no audio. I used to have sound both on the desktop and in the > browser then I lost sound in the browser and finally in the desktop. > > I suspect that an upgrade somewhere along the way has caused this but I > don't know what and I haven't been able to cure it. > > [ALSA works on known hardware if used directly] > > So that means I have exhausted my knowledge of Linux and audio and I still > don't have any sound. Any suggestions would be gratefully received. > Hi Barry, Are you running PulseAudio as part of your desktop installation? I had a similar failure (HDMI ports not showing up in audio output options) that turned out to be the wrong audio device detection module in use. Specifically, in /etc/pulse/default.pa the following was commented out: ### Automatically load driver modules depending on the hardware available #.ifexists module-udev-detect.so #load-module module-udev-detect #.else ### Use the static hardware detection module (for systems that lack udev support) load-module module-detect #.endif so pulse was using module-detect which is obsolete and broken. Uncommenting the udev module sorted me out: ### Automatically load driver modules depending on the hardware available .ifexists module-udev-detect.so load-module module-udev-detect .else ### Use the static hardware detection module (for systems that lack udev support) load-module module-detect .endif Cheers, Phil.

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Debian audio problem
by Barry Samuels 27 Jul '16

27 Jul '16

I'm running Debian Testing, up to date as of today, and for a few months now have had no audio. I used to have sound both on the desktop and in the browser then I lost sound in the browser and finally in the desktop. I suspect that an upgrade somewhere along the way has caused this but I don't know what and I haven't been able to cure it. aplay -l gives me: **** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices **** card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: ALC1150 Analog [ALC1150 Analog] Subdevices: 1/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0 card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 1: ALC1150 Digital [ALC1150 Digital] Subdevices: 1/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0 card 3: HDMI [HDA Intel HDMI], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0] Subdevices: 1/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0 card 3: HDMI [HDA Intel HDMI], device 7: HDMI 1 [HDMI 1] Subdevices: 1/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0 card 3: HDMI [HDA Intel HDMI], device 8: HDMI 2 [HDMI 2] Subdevices: 1/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0 My monitor has built-in speakers and uses an HDMI connection so card 3 should be the one to use. This actually produces the intended sound: aplay -D plughw:3,3 /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav Putting those results into /etc/asound.conf as under: pcm.!default { type plug slave { pcm "hw:3,3" } } ctl.!default { type hw card 3 } produces no sound. If I boot from a live Kubuntu distro I get sound on the desktop but not in a browser. So that means I have exhausted my knowledge of Linux and audio and I still don't have any sound. Any suggestions would be gratefully received. -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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