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10369 discussions

Ted Harding
by Jonathan McDowell 29 Apr '25

29 Apr '25

I was delighted to see our very own Ted Harding mentioned in LWN's interview with Owen Le Blanc (creator of the first Linux distribution, MCC Interim Linux): https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/1017846/738cd9cf2defd37f/ That caused me to go and see when we'd last seen him on-list - looks like it was back in 2019. Further digging revealed that he passed away in October 2020: https://edwardharding.muchloved.com/ A great loss. J. -- Web [ Know Thy User. ] site: https:// [ ] Made by www.earth.li/~noodles/ [ ] HuggieTag 0.0.24

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Recurring error message after updates to Linux Mint
by Phil Wade 27 Feb '25

27 Feb '25

Second attempt - hopefully in plain text :-( wonder whether anyone else has ever had this? The following text is displayed as an error message after downloading and installing updates to Linux Mint XFCE - every time. "W: Target Packages (main/binary-amd64/Packages) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/additional-repositories.list:1 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/winehq-focal.sources:1 W: Target Packages (main/binary-i386/Packages) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/additional-repositories.list:1 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/winehq-focal.sources:1 W: Target Packages (main/binary-all/Packages) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/additional-repositories.list:1 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/winehq-focal.sources:1 W: Target Translations (main/i18n/Translation-en_GB) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/additional-repositories.list:1 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/winehq-focal.sources:1 W: Target Translations (main/i18n/Translation-en) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/additional-repositories.list:1 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/winehq-focal.sources:1 W: Target DEP-11 (main/dep11/Components-amd64.yml) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/additional-repositories.list:1 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/winehq-focal.sources:1 W: Target DEP-11 (main/dep11/Components-all.yml) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/additional-repositories.list:1 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/winehq-focal.sources:1 W: Target CNF (main/cnf/Commands-amd64) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/additional-repositories.list:1 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/winehq-focal.sources:1 W: Target CNF (main/cnf/Commands-all) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/additional-repositories.list:1 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/winehq-focal.sources:1" If OK is clicked it just goes away, but I'm at an age where any perceived error on my part is worrying 🙁 Thanks, Phil Wade

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imap login slow
by Bev Nicolson 05 Feb '25

05 Feb '25

Hallo? Is this thing still on? Let's see. I use Betterbird and recently it's started to be slower at logging into my email accounts with imap. Not glacially slow, but not as nippy as it was. I have googled but I'd quite like some plain English advice about what I could try to speed it up a notch. Bev. P.S. And while I'm here, I have two Alug accounts. How do I ditch one of them?

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Re: imap loogin slow
by Peter 31 Jan '25

31 Jan '25

>Just wondering something. On Windows* (at least this was the case >decades ago) if you uninstalled then reinstalled a misbehaving program >all the settings stayed in place. Does the same work with an email >client on Linux? And is that even worth trying, more to the point? I think it does retain all settings. At least on Debian and claws mail. I seem to remember having to do a complete system reinstall, and just kept my home folder untouched, and everything worked fine on restart. I don't recall any more whether I had to point claws to the files again, don't think so. You can make completely safe by backing up the settings and mail files, and I would. Then if they do get overwritten during the resinstall you just copy them back. I have done this on Debian with claws when making a laptop in sync with a desktop. Just installed claws, then overwrote the new files it had created with the corresponding desktop ones, and all the files and settings were there just as on the desktop. Safest to back up first, why risk it. Is it worth doing? Don't know. I would be inclined first to try with another email client and see if it happens with that. I really like claws, its light and fast and it will handle many thousands of emails locally with no problem. At least that would tell you whether its the client or something common to both of them. Though I can't really imagine what that would be! Peter

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Re: imap login slow
by Phil Ashby 26 Jan '25

26 Jan '25

On 26/01/2025 12:00, Bev Nicolson <lumos(a)gmx.co.uk> wrote > > Hallo? Is this thing still on? Let's see. I use Betterbird and recently > it's started to be slower at logging into my email accounts with imap. > Not glacially slow, but not as nippy as it was. I have googled but I'd > quite like some plain English advice about what I could try to speed it > up a notch. > In addition to Chris' suggestion of a huge mail folder, it might be network connection time - sometimes my Thunderbird takes a while to resolve the server address (particularly if I've just opened the laptop and WiFi needs to connect first), once connected it's snappy to operate. > Bev. > > P.S. And while I'm here, I have two Alug accounts. How do I ditch one > of them? You can manage your membership here: https://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman3/postorius/lists/ Pick a list (eg main), use the Subscription / Unsubscription bit :) Phil.

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Extracting a zip file
by Bev Nicolson 08 Sep '24

08 Sep '24

I may have asked this before but can someone patiently explain how to extract a zip file? It's a font I've downloaded and it's just stuck there on the desktop and neither use not ornamant at the moment. Terminal or GUI options. TIA. Bev

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Problems with epubs
by Peter 10 Jul '24

10 Jul '24

Since upgrading to Debian Bookworm epub reading doesn't work. Well, the only reader that works is fbreader, and that insists on putting a hyphen after every word! I have tried everything recommended on the net to fix this hyphenation addition, and they none of them have worked. But at least fbreader loads and opens the files. Otherwise, I have tried foliate, which fails with this: KMS: DRM_IOCTL_MODE_CREATE_DUMB failed: Permission denied Failed to create GBM buffer of size 960x593: Permission denied I don't understand either what this means or what to do about it. Bookworm, seems like its opening the epub file but displays nothing. Tried going to dark mode, doesn't help. Tried changing fonts, also doesn't help. Calibre, which imports, but its reader will not open the file. I have tried converting, epub to epub, but it doesn't help. Sigil opens the files and displays them properly (with no added hyphens!). But its not a reader, of course. I installed epub-tools, makes no difference. I know the files are OK, partly because both fbreader and sigil display them (though fbreader with added hyphens!), partly because they have opened in the past with no problems, partly because they open with no problems in a kobo e-reader. They may be old version epubs since many of them are classics from gutenberg. But a lot are from the kobo store, and none of them display either. Another funny thing is that bookworm can be selected from 'open with', and loads but fails to display, but I can't find it anywhere by searching for it, and when entered as a command from the terminal it says no such command. I installed it using gdebi, ass I did foliate, and in both cases all dependencies were met. There was also a strange thing, pcmanfm, which I usually use, would open the kobo e-reader, and then start to not recognise it as a usb drive and crash. Don't know if this is connected, don't really see how it could be, since the files that are failing to open are on the desktop machine and are failing when the kobo is not plugged in. I fixed this by using a different file manager, xfe, which works fine. Actually xfe is a very nice file manager at least as good as pcmanfm. I have an nvidia graphics card and am uising the nvidia driver, could that possibly have anything to do with it? Can't see how. Pdfs are displaying fine, graphics don't seem to have any problems. Its just epubs as far as I can tell. Any ideas? Peter

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Re: VPN options
by Mark Rogers 09 Jul '24

09 Jul '24

On Thu, 13 Jun 2024 at 11:08, BD <dzidek23(a)gmail.com> wrote: > An example that I have seen working was a ZTNA configuration with Fortinet hardware and SDN for network separation. That sort of thing will be out of my budget! > I suspect the same thing could be achieved using pfSense and network management (with > a nice GUI to control it). Quick search on the Internet for "pfSense zero trust" returned a > few interesting sites. Additionally pfSense can serve as a VPN concentrator too. I spent a bit of time looking into this. The biggest issue for me is that it's FreeBSD and most of our stuff is hosted at DigitalOcean, and they no longer offer FreeBSD as an option. I can of-course look elsewhere, but DO combine the bandwidth of all your services and we're nowhere close to using it all, so putting a VPN which could potentially be fairly heavy traffic somewhere it can use that bandwidth makes sense if I can. I spent ages playing with Wireguard - there are some useful tools for building the config ([1], [2]) but I never got a configuration which worked properly with my phone over mobile data (or my laptop using mobile data over a hotspot) and as that's one of the main things I needed to achieve I ended up walking away from my attempts (in part because I managed to get the old SSL-based VPN working over those connections by turning off "FastSSL". I'd like to get this working at some point but a day and half of experimenting and getting nowhere useful was as much (more if I'm honest) as I could afford to allocate to it. [1] https://www.wireguardconfig.com/ - Configuration builder [2] https://github.com/mvpsnet/wireguard4vps - PHP-based manager -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0344 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) 21 Drakes Mews, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ER

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OT Firefox 125 won't show me btl comments
by Bev Nicolson 17 Jun '24

17 Jun '24

Or at least, Firefox 125 and onward on Linux Mint won't show much content under a Guardian article, nor can I sign in. All I see is a kind of swirly whiteness like it might be trying to load but can't. It's fine on my tablet. I have tried it in safe mode and tried clearing the cache. I have no idea what else to do. Bev

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Re: LSI megaraid recovery
by Phil Ashby 17 Jun '24

17 Jun '24

On 15/06/2024 12:00, Laurie Brown <laurie(a)brownowl.com> wrote: > ... > Disk /dev/mapper/ddf1_RAID10: 931 GiB, 999653638144 bytes, > 1952448512 sectors > > Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): > 512 bytes / 512 bytes > ... > Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type > /dev/mapper/ddf1_RAID10-part1 1 4294967295 4294967295 2T ee GPT > ... > So it has a partition - but I can't find a way to mount it.> > mount /dev/mapper/ddf1_RAID10-part1 /mnt/test mount: /mnt/test: > special device /dev/mapper/ddf1_RAID10-part1 does not exist. Hi Laurie, I'd guess that whatever distro you are running doesn't like the GPT partition format, so hasn't created the device file(s) for each partition. I'd go for the simple option of creating a loopback device using the sector size & offsets in the partition table: # losetup -o 512 -b 512 -f /dev/mapper/ddf1_RAID0 This should make you a new /dev/loop<n> that avoids existing ones (probably your USB boot stick), which you can mount as NTFS or whatever. If losetup doesn't like having a block device underneath, then more messing with dmsetup should be able to achieve the same (but I've never done that...) Good luck, Phil. PS: Did you check in /dev/disk/... for those partitions?

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LSI megaraid recovery
by Laurie Brown 14 Jun '24

14 Jun '24

I'm at my wits' end on this one, folks, and I could do with some help please. This is all for a customer who is desperate to get this data back... I have an LSI RAID card (Broadcom MegaRAID SAS 9341-4) which has suddenly stopped working. I've been to hell and back trying to get a couple of newer machines to recognise the card and let me near the BIOS. In fact, this card has been working as a 4-disc RAID10 array for more than a year in a 'Doze 11 machine but just stopped a couple of weeks ago. I bought a new card, a different mobo, new cables, the lot. Nothing. The customer shipped me the original machine so I have access to all that was there before. I eventually found an older (Ubuntu) machine in my junk pile in which the PCIe slot let me into the BIOS so I recovered the RAID array, but the megaraid_sas driver in Ubuntu refused to work, so I couldn't access the data. I won't go into the pain involved in getting to this point, but it was extreme and lengthy! I have finally given up on the card, and dropped the 4 drives straight into an Ubuntu box, where I'm trying to get to the data. What I have now is the four disks all seen by the system, and a /dev/mapper device which is the RAID array. ---- cut here ---- # blkid /dev/sda: UUID="LSI ^P" TYPE="ddf_raid_member" /dev/sdb: UUID="LSI ^P" TYPE="ddf_raid_member" /dev/sdc: UUID="LSI ^P" TYPE="ddf_raid_member" /dev/sdd: UUID="LSI ^P" TYPE="ddf_raid_member" /dev/sde1: LABEL_FATBOOT="Windows USB" LABEL="Windows USB" UUID="8B53-C0AB" BLOCK_SIZE="512" TYPE="vfat" PARTUUID="a85d43c9-01" /dev/loop0: TYPE="squashfs" /dev/mapper/ddf1_RAID10: PTTYPE="PMBR" ---- cut here ---- /sde1 is the USB stick I booted from. fdisk -l gives me 2 mapper devices: ---- cut here ---- Disk /dev/mapper/ddf1_RAID10: 931 GiB, 999653638144 bytes, 1952448512 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disklabel type: dos Disk identifier: 0x00000000 Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type /dev/mapper/ddf1_RAID10-part1 1 4294967295 4294967295 2T ee GPT ---- cut here ---- fdisk on the mapper devices says this: ---- cut here ---- Disk /dev/mapper/ddf1_RAID10: 931 GiB, 999653638144 bytes, 1952448512 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disklabel type: dos Disk identifier: 0x00000000 Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type /dev/mapper/ddf1_RAID10-part1 1 4294967295 4294967295 2T ee GPT ---- cut here ---- So it has a partition - but I can't find a way to mount it. mount /dev/mapper/ddf1_RAID10-part1 /mnt/test mount: /mnt/test: special device /dev/mapper/ddf1_RAID10-part1 does not exist. ---- cut here ---- ---- cut here ---- mdadm --examine /dev/mapper/ddf1_RAID10 /dev/mapper/ddf1_RAID10: MBR Magic : aa55 Partition[0] : 4294967295 sectors at 1 (type ee) ---- cut here ---- Any help appreciated! Cheers, Laurie. -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Laurie Brown laurie(a)brownowl.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------

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VPN options
by Mark Rogers 13 Jun '24

13 Jun '24

The scenario: Two individuals both with fast home Internet connections, plus an office on a pretty basic VDSL connection. All three have distinct subnets. Routers in all three locations have VPN support. The home ones support OpenVPN and Wireguard, the office OpenVPN only, but I'd consider replacing the router if it gave us what we needed. Objective: I want to link all three locations so that IPs on each network can be reached from the others, but in a configurable way. Ie neither individuals home devices should be accessible to the other individual (albeit they may use the VPN themselves to access them personally). Some office-based resources may not be shared. Etc. How can I do this? I'm assuming I'll get a cheap VPS somewhere to act as VPN server and have all three routers connect to that, and after that it's "just" a question of managing access and routing. But I need the result to be maintainable and ideally not just by me, which would mean either some kind of GUI or some really simple commandline tools. When I started looking at this I figured there'd be some simple appliance-type applications I could install on the VPS that would do this but I've come up short so far. I don't have any real budget for this - I'm OK with a few quid a month on a VPS and likewise on a subscription service if I have to go down that route (I'd rather not). (We do already have an office dial-in VPN option which could be used on the routers but I don't think putting all our domestic devices into one bit VPN is a good idea for all sorts of security reasons.) -- Mark Rogers

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Re: KVM shared folders (Mark Rogers)
by peter.northerly＠gmail.com 03 Jun '24

03 Jun '24

I am finding this a very useful point of research for these kinds of question. Not always right, but it mostly gets you there if you persist. https://www.perplexity.ai/search/how-to-set-rxsxMNWDRjeuwX3WssHVRQ

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KVM shared folders
by Mark Rogers 30 May '24

30 May '24

I'm trying to migrate away from VirtualBox. One feature I use a lot in VBox is shared folders, ie making a directory on the host (Ubuntu) appear as a mapped drive on the VM (Windows). This is close enough to trivial in VBox but I've never quite made sense of how to do it in KVM, so I'm hoping someone here can advise? -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0344 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) 21 Drakes Mews, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ER

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Re: NAS
by Srdjan Todorovic 14 May '24

14 May '24

On Mon, 13 May 2024 at 16:42, <steve-ALUG(a)hst.me.uk> wrote: > On 09/05/2024 22:01, Srdjan Todorovic wrote: > And also this particular evening, I am battling a dead NVME drive > (with lots and lots of important files I've not yet had a chance to > backup to my NAS) which means I also cannot boot my desktop, even with > a Kubuntu Live DVD. So it's a poignant reminder to have a backup and > have something that is redundant as well in case of hardware failure > or bit-rot. :( > Ouch. Hope you made progress with this. I pulled the NVME out of the desktop and put it in my laptop, thinking I can just mount it and get the files. However my desktop OS booted up on my laptop - looks like NVME is fine, and the motherboard has something wrong with it. Ended up replacing the motherboard, which was a world of pain (long story, wifi, kubuntu upgrades, display, dnsmasq). I do need to organise my files and make sure they are on my NAS. Best, Srdj

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NAS
by steve-ALUG＠hst.me.uk 13 May '24

13 May '24

OK, so in my quest to simplify things, I'm going to eventually do-away with my server. Can anyone recommend a NAS? Old me would probably have rolled-my-own with FreeNas or similar, but perhaps I need to go "of-the-shelf". Should I get RAID, or not bother? My fileserver is RAIDed (mirrored). Any thoughts? Cheers Steve

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Mail Woes - new provider needed.
by steve-ALUG＠hst.me.uk 24 Apr '24

24 Apr '24

Posted Midday Friday 12/4/24 I'm not sure if my previous post yesterday about mail problems will get posted on the group or not. This supersedes it. Yesterday I became aware that I couldn't send outgoing email. I run my own mailserver, and it seems that due to my email addresses being harvested and used in spam, my mailserver's IP address had been blacklisted, so I couldn't send email. After emailing my ISP and one of the websites that had me listed, I find I can send email again. This is good. But being able to send email is quite important to me (!), so being unable to do has increased the need to migrate away from my own mail server soon. So - where to go? What do I do/need? I have taken advantage of my mailserver's forwarding, so that I can have email addresses like user-suffix@mydomain will all route to user@mydomain, no matter what suffix. I have no idea of what suffixes I have used over the years. :-( I'd like to be able to continue that, but if not, it shouldn't reject user-randomsuffix@mydomain and instead route it to a default recipient. Hopefully! 3 main users. For 2 I'd probably like to do a blanket redirect to other email addresses that they mainly use now. e.g. user2@mydomain, and user2-anysuffix@mydomain redirect to user2@gmail I can probably move the whole domain to a new provider. I don't have a website or FTP. I use VPN to remote in to it, to access machines, but I can probably hack that with a dynamic DNS. So it's mainly email. Any thoughts please? Steve

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Pruning online inbox to store on laptop
by Bev Nicolson 16 Apr '24

16 Apr '24

I finally decided to start using Betterbird a while ago. Given the way two of my accounts are set up (storage on my ISP's servers is limited) I need to prune them. I'd like to store the emails on my laptop but none of Betterbird's menu options make it clear how to do that. Are the local folder folders just for offline storage or what? (I have googled. It didn't help.) I'm sure this is a very basic question but all help gratefully received. Bev

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Kubuntu hard lockups since December
by Srdjan Todorovic 21 Feb '24

21 Feb '24

Hi all Anyone else experiencing hard lockups since approx December 2023 on Ubuntu / Kubuntu? I've got the same hardware, there's no hardware changes. I suspect it might have been a kernel / driver upgrade, I did pull some info from dpkg logs that said 12th December > 2023-12-12 09:47:49 upgrade linux-image-generic:amd64 5.15.0.89.86 5.15.0.91.88 Does this mean that I went from version 5.15.0.89.86 to version 5.15.0.91.88? How does one revert back to test for stability? When the lockup occurs, it seems that all graphics processes freeze, mouse freezes. No blinking lights on the keyboard. I vaguely remember that sometimes I can switch to one of the other terminals (what used to be tty2-6) but nothing seems to respond. When I tried to do this a couple of weeks ago, it seemed to be wanting to remove lots of things, and I never proceeded. > sudo apt-get purge linux-image-5.15.0-91-generic I had journal logging to Konsole back then and saw some messages (I have a phone on my phone) about PCIe Bus Error, BadTLP and BadDLLP and timeouts, Uncorrected fatal errors with AER, and nvme0: frozen state and PCIe bus error. How does one even know if their NVME drive is failing? AFAIK, smartctl doesnt work on them in the same way it does on spinning drives. Or is this a kernel bug? Thanks, Srdjan

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Choosing a distro
by Mark Rogers 02 Feb '24

02 Feb '24

I've been using Linux for a long time. I started out playing with RedHat around 25y ago but having been burnt by some RPM dependency issues that horribly broke a server (and not just once) I have been on Ubuntu since around 2005 and therefore far more comfortable with .deb/Apt. Recent Ubuntu versions have gone off in some odd directions. I actually didn't mind Unity (didn't love it either) but have never got on with Gnome 3. I'm currently running Kubuntu on my desktop (my first attempt to use KDE as my daily driver) and I'm getting on OK with it. Where I seem to get stuck frequently now is with Ubuntu's move towards Snaps, mostly due to the arguable reasonable sandboxing design just getting in my way all the time. So I'm wondering whether it's time to take a step back and reconsider my options. I assume that RedHat derived distros should no longer scare me because of packaging issues, but maybe the whole CentOS saga should be enough to keep me away? I use Debian quite a lot on things like headless Raspberry Pis but I like that Ubuntu tends to be more up to date. Should I grow a pair and look at Gentoo/Arch or their derivatives? Should I pick something like Mint? I quite like the idea of a rolling distro but maybe experience would change that. I guess my priority is "low hassle" - I'm not looking to spend my time playing with Linux just to get a job done. If there's software I need to install I want a decent chance of being able to do that without lots of extra work because I picked a niche distro that the developer/packager never considered. But I'm far more likely to be installing stuff from a terminal than a GUI, I'm not particularly looking for "user friendly". I guess "power user", with equal emphasis on both those words (I want something to use, not tinker with). Really that's why I keep defaulting to Ubuntu, but even that's getting in my way more often than it used to. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0344 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) 21 Drakes Mews, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ER

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Re: Choosing a Distro (Mark Rogers)
by peter.northerly＠gmail.com 31 Jan '24

31 Jan '24

I've been using Debian for years now. Decades in fact! If Stable is not up to date enough you can move to Testing, which I did for a while without any problems, but for now am just sticking with Stable. Its always worked perfectly. Debian is where people end up. I use Fluxbox myself, as WM, which I find perfect, and Lightdm as DM. Its fast, keeps out of the way, handles workspaces very well, i have lots of keyboard shortcuts which makes it very convenient. It has a really neat feature, you can combine different apps into tabs in the same window. So for instance, you are writing something and need to refer to a web site and a spreadsheet as you write. You have all three apps open in tabs in the same window and can just click back and forwards between them. I have put in MATE on Debian for someone else, and that has worked out very well. MATE is also very simple and keeps out of the way, and the team have the rare ability to refrain from fixing what works. Its about like Gnome 2 used to be, before they went crazy and ruined it. Debian is Systemd now, which I don't much like. If you want Debian without Systemd, then probably MX Linux. I might go for this if changing distros, but am not bothered enough to move from Debian for it. Or there is Devuan. Mint with MATE for someone I put it in for was also fine. It depends what you want, Mint strikes me as full-on consumer grade. Whereas if you install plain Debian, Fluxbox with Lightdm, tweak the right click menu, startup and keyboard shortcuts to suit you, you have something which will probably suit you better and keep out of the way, but it would not be fair to install that for a naive user. I have tried tiling WMs, but they are not for me. i3 is said to be the best. So I think this is a vote for Debian with Fluxbox. Or, if you want to keep away from Systemd, MX Linux. One reason for going with Debian is that its going to be around for ever. Not sure about some of the less used distros, and that is a real factor for me. And if you decide you want a full-fat consumer experience, Mint. There is not going to be a huge difference between Mint with MATE and Debian with MATE. You could also put Fluxbox on Mint. I think Mint, like Debian, will be around. I have tried Arch in a VM, and didn't care for it, but it has a great user community and excellent documentation. Matter of taste, really. I use Foxclone for backups by the way. Really recommended. Peter

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Re: GIMP - book recommendations?
by Bev Nicolson 21 Jan '24

21 Jan '24

Thank you both. I shall have a look at those. Bev On Sun, 2024-01-21 at 11:06 +0000, BD wrote: > Hi, > > I never used gimp for anything more than simple image manipulation as > it is quite advanced. Similarly never had the need to look at other > options. > > In the past I had to learn how to use Inkscape and tutorial from "TJ > free" was more than enough. Have a look at this playlist as it might > be what you are looking for: > https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqazFFzUAPc4vITMJaF3Fnqh3pccSMnC4 > > Cheerio, > Bart > 21 Jan 2024 08:51:08 Bev Nicolson <lumos(a)gmx.co.uk>: > > > I confess I find GIMP baffling, for the most part. I've tried > > figuring > > it out, I got a book on it a while back but it didn't help that > > much to > > be honest. All I can do is simple stuff like re-sizing phots or > > (if I > > can find the widget again) resythnesizing. > > > > Does anyone know if there's anything like a Dummies Guide to GIMP > > out > > there? Something that explains it clearly and simply (like you've > > never > > used photo editing software before) *and* gives a glossary of > > terms > > too? > > > > Bev > > _______________________________________________ > > To unsubscribe send an email to main-leave(a)lists.alug.org.uk > > http://www.alug.org.uk/ > > Unsubscribe? See message headers or the web site above! >

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GIMP - book recommendations?
by Bev Nicolson 21 Jan '24

21 Jan '24

I confess I find GIMP baffling, for the most part. I've tried figuring it out, I got a book on it a while back but it didn't help that much to be honest. All I can do is simple stuff like re-sizing phots or (if I can find the widget again) resythnesizing. Does anyone know if there's anything like a Dummies Guide to GIMP out there? Something that explains it clearly and simply (like you've never used photo editing software before) *and* gives a glossary of terms too? Bev

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Transferring sms to computer
by Bev Nicolson 04 Jan '24

04 Jan '24

Are there any Linux apps for transferring sms messages to a computer? I'm getting new phone and am keen to keep the texts (or some at least) I have on the old one. The only caveat is that it is quite an old phone. (Android 7.1. Old.) TIA. Bev

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Editing SVG files at commandline
by Mark Rogers 04 Jan '24

04 Jan '24

I have some large svg files I need to edit that crash programs like Inkscape when I try to do much with them, but the changes I want to make are essentially removing bits from them that I don't want which are easily found within the svg if viewed as text, What I'm looking for is a way to do things like: - completely remove group B which is nested inside group B - remove all "path" elements residing inside group C, unless they match a regex pattern - move all elements from group D into group E (or ungroup them) I imagine that with the rightXML skillset, which I don't have, this is probably fairly simple? -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0344 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) 21 Drakes Mews, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ER

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