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Questionnaire software - any suggestions?
by Chris G 17 Dec '09

17 Dec '09

I want to build an on-line questionnaire, a very basic one, are there any ready made applications in the Linux/Open Source world for doing this? I can't find anything obvious in the Ubuntu repositories. -- Chris Green

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[ALUG Announce] POSTPONED: December's 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting
by samwise 16 Dec '09

16 Dec '09

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 has been postponed until January. Off-list five us of have agreed on an ALUG Christmas meal on the evening of Tuesday January 5th 2010 (the only day everybody's calendars agreed!). If anyone would like to join us then, please drop me a line. With no other suggestions, I'll probably try making a booking soon at Mr. Wings - the chinese restaurant we went to last time. Thanks, 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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Eee bah gum - feature...
by Anthony Anson 16 Dec '09

16 Dec '09

If there is a memory-stic plugged-in to any USB socket, the Vodafone internet dongle will not work. Click on the icon to start the software, and all you get is an egg-timer, for less time than it takes to boil an egg - if memory serves. So, introduced the Eee to a memory card in the slot provided. Dongle software failed to open. Same failure if I have an external HDD or CD/DVD plugged in. This is *VERY* inconvenient. Not tried it using a hub yet. Any ideas/suggetions, O all ye cognoiscenti? -- Tony Anson www.girolle.co.uk/

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Relative merits/security of Public Key and old-fashioned password with ssh
by Chris G 16 Dec '09

16 Dec '09

I'm probably being totally paranoid but still. Is there any significant difference in security between using password login and Public Key when using ssh to connect to my home server? Just to clarify ssh connections are *only* allowed from two systems 'out there' where I have shell login accounts so an intruder has to get onto one of those systems before having any possibility of connecting to my server. Is it any easier for an intruder to guess my password (remember, no access to the system so I don't think a dictionary attack is possible is it?) or to guess the encryption key for my private key? I can't see any really significant difference between the two but I'm open to any comments. -- Chris Green

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Security thoughts/questions
by Chris G 14 Dec '09

14 Dec '09

I have a small SoHo LAN which is used by the family (mostly just two of us now) for personal use and in running our small Ltd. company. There's no very sensitive (as in confidential) information on any of the systems but I guess there is stuff in E-Mails etc. that we don't really want to escape. More impportant is the *safety* (as in not losing) of a lot of information such as the company accounts, E-Mail trails of work we do and so on. Recently I have set up a small server machine which now handles DNS (using dnsmasq), has the publicly visible web pages (not the company site but bits and pieces that I want to make visible to 'the world') and runs an SMTP server. This means that firstly I can turn my desktop machine off now (it used to be the server) and secondly there's no direct access from the outside world to my desktop machine. The firewall is set up to allow only ssh, http and SMTP connections from the outside and all three of these are routed to the server machine. So far so good. Now I'm wondering whether I have overlooked anything obvious and/or if there's any way I can improve things. The most likely sort of exploit/damage as I see it is someone breaking into the server machine and just making a mess. I keep the server software as up to date as possible with security fixes etc. for apache, ssh and SMTP (postfix) so it should be fairly difficult to break in. I only allow ssh connections from two hosts (where I have shell login accounts) so password guessing needs to get there first and then into the server. All important data from desktop machines is backed up to a NAS in the garage (separate machine from the server) so that should protect against fire damage and even burglars as they're unlikely to break into both the house and the garage as well as notice hardware in both places. I also back up the critical company files 'off site' to my hosting company's site. The final barrier(s) I'm thinking about are the ease (or otherwise) of doing damage if someone breaks into one system in the LAN. For example would I win anything by enabling the root account on the server (currently sudo only) so that if someon breaks in as me they'd still have to guess the root password to be able to do anything nasty. Are there any NFS exploits I should worry about? There are quite a few NFS mounts across the various systems. -- Chris Green

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Forms design for web pages - any ideas?
by Chris G 14 Dec '09

14 Dec '09

I'm looking for a tool a bit like the Forms Design part of Open Office (or MS Access for that matter) that will build web data input forms. I don't want a full-blown CMS or site design package, I just want to be able to build some simple data entry pages to load data into a database from the web (well, actually my intranet). Is there anything out there which can do this? ... and I have looked quite hard, the best I've found so far is phpmyedit. (This is as an alernative to using Open Office Base) -- Chris Green

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How to set up NFS file sharing area for two users to read/write easily?
by Chris G 14 Dec '09

14 Dec '09

I want to set up a 'file sharing' area on my server machine where two users can both easily read and write files. I want this to be an NFS mount on both users' machines so it's just an 'ordinary' directory as they see at and it can also be mounted as a VirtualBox shared drive. Ideally I'd like the shared area to be owned by a third user, i.e. the two users reading and writing files are, say, 'fred' and 'bert' while the shared area is owned by 'shared'. Is there any way to set up NFS so that if fred writes a file to the area owned by 'shared' it automatically becomes owned by shared and similarly for bert? I don't really want to end up with shared's files owned by all sorts of different users. It would be fairly trivial to set up the shared area to have general write permissions for everyone but it would still be only too easy for either fred or bert to write files there that wouldn't then be writeable by the other users. I guess I essentially want both fred and bert to become user shared when they do anything in shared's file system. -- Chris Green

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lp printing and permissions
by Peter Alcibiades 13 Dec '09

13 Dec '09

OK, profiting from the collective wisdom, my gdi printer is set up as raw in CUPS and is now working very nicely with cat myfile>/dev/usb/lp0 At least as far as printing is concerned, there are some issues with sending it control characters, but that's for later after some more wrestling with it myself. Problem is, printing in this way only seems to work with root privileges. Why? And what should be done about it? Printing works just fine as a user via CUPS, what is so special about this process that it needs to be su? I can think of ways of doing it, but would really like to understand what is going on and why before doing any of them. Cheers, Peter

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re lp printing and permissions
by Peter Alcibiades 13 Dec '09

13 Dec '09

Yes, what I seem to have is: $ ls -l /dev/usb/lp0 crw-rw---- 1 root lp 180, 0 2009-12-12 01:59 /dev/usb/lp0 So, is this maybe the consequence of having set up the raw printer as root? But it had to be done as root apparently. Peter

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Ubuntu Live CD puzzle
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 13 Dec '09

13 Dec '09

Hi Folks, First, I hope that those of you who went out for the Christmas meal had a good one! Now: I've just been giving a wee whirl to an Ubuntu 9.10 ("Karmic Koala") live CD (from the Jan 2010 Linux Magazine). I was puzzled to find that the (Gnome) interface does not seem to offer any way of setting the DNS server. I let it use DHCP from my router (which duly gave out an IP address), and I'm able to access other machines on my home LAN. However, if I'm to try it out on the WWW I need to set a DNS server IP. With the Debian Lenny which is already installed on the same machine, I get the Gnome desktop and if I click on System --> Administration --> Network [brings up "Network Settings" window] --> Connections --> Wired Connections I can then set the DNS via the "DNS" tab. However, once the Ubuntu Live CD has finished booting up I again get the Gnome desktop, but this time if I try to click as abve I get System --> Administration [and now no "Network" but only]: --> Network Tools from which it seems I can only see a listing of device properties, and choose from the basic networn tools like ping, traceroute, etc. Nothing that I can see which has to do with settings. If I look under System --> Preferences --> Network Connections [choose "eth0" and "Edit"] --> IPV4 Settings and there is no apparent provision to set the DNS IP. Of course I can work round it "by hand" by simply editing /etc/resolv.conf, but I'm surprised that the allegedly user-friendly Ubuntu doesn't give me an easy interface to do it! Or maybe Ubuntu is trying to make it too easy -- could it have something to do with being on DHCP (and the router not coming up with a DNS IP -- all my other machines being on static setup)? Even so, it should still allow me to over-ride a DNS IP from DHCP (if any) by direct configuration. So I'm puzzled, but maybe others are not and can put me right! Thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 12-Dec-09 Time: 23:47:10 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Ian new member
by Ian Porter 12 Dec '09

12 Dec '09

Hi all, I have just joined the Linux mailing list, this is my HI email :) I have been using Linux for a bit, gentoo was one of fav's but because of compile times I have moved to kubuntu because I prefer kde ( do I need to stand back ?) Anyway, I suppose I mainly would class myself as a developer and do admin as well. Regards Ian

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Re: [ALUG] Questionnaire software - any suggestions?
by Sam Tuke 11 Dec '09

11 Dec '09

>I want to build an on-line questionnaire, a very basic one, are there >any ready made applications in the Linux/Open Source world for doing >this? I've read good things about limesurvey (web based). Sam.

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christmas dinner tonight
by Sam Tuke 10 Dec '09

10 Dec '09

Are we still on for this evening? Sam.

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Open Office - can one reduce the clutter for data entry on database forms?
by Chris G 09 Dec '09

09 Dec '09

I'm looking into using Open Office Base for creating some simple data entry forms, it's definitely a lot better than it was a few versions ago and is now a much more viable alternative to MS Access. However it would be really nice to have some way of reducing the 'clutter' (of Toolbars, status bars, etc.) around the window once a form has been designed and is being used for data entry. Ideally one would be able to display just the form one has designed, in much the same way as one can print a document without all the stuff around the edge (it would be a bit pointless if one couldn't!). Is there any way of getting just the form visible, or at least of toggling off all the toolbars etc.? I know quite a bit can be turned off using the View menu but how would one start up in this state? -- Chris Green

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Norwich Christmas Meal - 10th Dec
by Montmorency 07 Dec '09

07 Dec '09

I've just been in touch with the Coach and Horses. For the Christmas meal, they need to know the number coming, and the meals options people want, for first thing on Monday morning.. Menu here.... pick what you'd like. http://imgur.com/bcvVP.jpg If you want to come, reply to the mailing list with what you want. Now please! :) katsmeat Montmorency montmorency(a)ukfsn.org bellphegore(a)nerdshack.com

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Eee desktop
by Anthony Anson 07 Dec '09

07 Dec '09

Does anyone know what the internet/work/settings/etc displays are called, and where I can find them? I want to put a link to Thunderbird on the internet one for starters - it's a bit of a pain doing it from File Mangler every time... -- Tony Anson www.girolle.co.uk/

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Christmas Meal selection at the Coach and Horses
by Ian 04 Dec '09

04 Dec '09

Hi, I'll go for the Roast Turkey followed by the Christmas Pudding. Ian PS. Any ideas what might cause KDE to drop a USB keyboard after a successful GUI signon?

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lp/lpr printing with CUPS version 1.4.1 is broken, fine with 1.3.9
by Chris G 04 Dec '09

04 Dec '09

I have one system on my LAN running Ubuntu server 9.10 and three running xubuntu 9.04. I have two printers, one a networked HP7310 and the other an HP1320 which is connected by USB to the Ubuntu server machine and is accessible via that from the other machines. So far so good, both printers work fine from all machines when used 'normally', i.e. for printing from Firefox or Open Office or whatever. The problem I have is that when I use lp or lpr from the command line on the 9.10 system the ouput is in a silly typeface and a silly size and the normal command line options have no effect. So if I do, for example, "ls -al | lpr -P HP7310" on my desktop 9.04 system I get a neat output in Courier 10 on the printer. However if I do exactly the same on the 9.10 system I get a horrible mess in some wierd typeface at about 5 cpi so some of the lines wrap and overprint themselves. Unfortunately, since the HP1320 is connected via the 9.10 system (it doesn't have its own network connection) all lpr output from any system to it goes via the CUPS on the 9.10 server and has the same bug, prints at about 5cpi. Ubuntu 9.10 has CUPS version 1.4.1 whereas the older 9.04 has CUPS 1.3.9 so it would seem that there's a bug in CUPS 1.4.1. However I can't find any reports of such a bug in CUPS, does no one print from the command line any more or is my Googling incompetant? In addition to the incorrect default print size the CUPS 1.4.1 command line appears to ignore any options like "-o cpi=10" which might otherwise be used to work around the problem. Does anyone have any suggestions as to where to look for a fix or a workaround? I'm in the process of submitting a bug at the CUPS web site as I can't find anything relevant there. -- Chris Green

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Ipswich ALUG Christmas Meal? January Tutorial?
by samwise 04 Dec '09

04 Dec '09

Hi, Last month's Ipswich ALUG turnout (13) was huge, so it appears there may be enough potential for a Christmas meal in Ipswich next month. Can anyone who might be interested in such an event, please drop me an email. If there's enough of us, we can work out the best date and book a table. On another note, we're trying to bring back bi-monthly tutorials at the request of some members. Following the one we've just had, the next one is scheduled to be on 18 January, next year. Is there anyone who'd like to volunteer to putting together a little something to show off? It can be on anything you like and doesn't even have to be a subject you know well - just something you're willing to spend an hour or two looking at before the meet (I'm certainly no Android expert!). Cheers, Peter.

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Re: [ALUG] Norwich Christmas Meal on the 10th
by Sam Tuke 04 Dec '09

04 Dec '09

On Thursday 03 Dec 2009 19:55:31 Montmorency wrote: > Menu here.... pick what you'd like. Risotto > Turkey > Christmas Pudding please, assuming that we are having starters. If not, just the last two please. Thanks for organising this event! Sam.

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Hello! Bad penny strikes again
by Anthony Anson 03 Dec '09

03 Dec '09

Since Zetnet has been dying I've been unable sensibly to retrieve any postings since August. Now with a proper ISP again I really *NEED* access to the list as my (Shhh!) Windows box has suddenly refused to take part in anything NT-related. DOS and Win 98, yes, but not 2000 or anything subsequent to that. Box still runs Lenny with no problem, also (unsurprisingly) Knoppix from DVD. This Eee is still running Fisher-Price for now. So, hello again, and if anyone has a reasonably-priced laptop for sale, I'd love to hear about it. Eees are ok - at a pinch innit. -- Tony

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How do you get podcasts/iPod apps etc without itunes?
by James Elsey 01 Dec '09

01 Dec '09

Someone here must have an iPod/iPhone/iTouch, how do you tap in to the apple store directory of podcasts, applications and such, without using itunes? There are some podcasts I'm subscribed to, but after replacing window7 with fedora12, I can't get hold of any updates. They are only hosted via the itunes store and not available as downloads from websites I did mention something on IRC about running iTunes under wine, but lets not go there.. :P I can't see any immediate way of Rhythmbox having access to the podcast listings, at least I haven't found a plugin yet. Any suggestions? Whack XP on virtualbox and get them via itunes? Cheers James Elsey

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Cross-Compiling Debian Kernel - AMD64 and i386
by Steve Fosdick 01 Dec '09

01 Dec '09

It occurred to me that building a kernel for an older Pentium 4 machine would be much faster on a three-core AMD Phenom than on the original P4 as long as I can get it to cross compile. I found that with the following command line: make-kpkg --revision 1 --us --uc --rootcmd fakeroot --cross-compile - --arch=i386 --initrd --append-to-version=-scenic --config gconfig kernel_image make-kpkg appears to run 'make config' with defaults for the target i386 architecture and when it moves on to the build step is invoving gcc with options telling it to generate i386 code. The fly in the ointment is that at the end it then wraps the kernel up into a package whose architecture as declared in the filename and in the control file as AMD64. When looking inside the package though all the modules are ELF32 as I would expect for i386. I have checked the man enty for make-kpkg but didn't find any other clue as to how I get make-kpkg to feed through whatever options are required to get the final package the correct type for the architecture it was actually build for. Any ideas? TiA, Steve.

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FW: Re: Using ImageMagick to overlay text
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 01 Dec '09

01 Dec '09

Apologies -- I just noticed that at the end of the message below which I recently posted, I said "the length of "This is my Text" in inches, when printed in Helvetica-Bold in point-size 15." That was incorrect, since everything preceding was done in terms of Courier-Bold! To see what it comes to in terms of Helvetica-Bold, substitute "HB" for "CB" in the commands. Thus: echo "\f[HB]\w'This is my Text'\s0\fP" | troff -Tps | awk '/^t/{sub(/t/,""); print $0/72000}' results in 0.988889 the length in inches of "This is my Text" in Helvetica-Bold in the default point-size of 10 points, while echo "\f[HB]\w'\s[15]This is my Text'\s0\fP" | troff -Tps | awk '/^t/{sub(/t/,""); print $0/72000}' results in 1.48333 the length in inches of "This is my Text" in Helvetica-Bold in 15-point (1.5 times as long as in 10-point). Also note (which I forgot to mention) that this length takes account of kerning (the slight left-shift of some letters relative to a preceding letter -- e.g. in "Text" the "ext" is moved left so tht the "e" is slightly overlapped by the preceding "T"). Kerning can be suppressed. Also, of course, the length is computed in terms of the font-metrics in the font files referred to by troff, and in other applications different font files may be used; however, the result is unlikely to be greatly different. Sorry for the sloppiness! Ted. -----FW: <XFMail.091201122319.Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk>----- Date: Tue, 01 Dec 2009 12:23:19 -0000 (GMT) Sender: main-bounces(a)lists.alug.org.uk From: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> To: main(a)lists.alug.org.uk Subject: Re: [ALUG] Using ImageMagick to overlay text On 01-Dec-09 09:06:14, Mark Rogers wrote: > MJ Ray wrote: >> I'd either run identify on the image beforehand, or test PHP's libgd >> module to see if it was good enough for this. > > I will try GD today and see what the results are like (the results from > ImageMagick are pretty amazing, to be honest). > > I'm not sure what you mean about using identify though - I can see how > I'd use it to work out the size of the image but I can't see how I'd > use > that information to calculate the pointsize to use with my text? > > -- > Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 Your basic problem here is to find the printed length of a given text string, in a given font, at a given point size! You could incorporate something like the following in a script: echo "\f[CB]\w'This is my Text'\fP" | troff -Tps from which the output (to screen, when I entered the above on the command line) is; x T ps x res 72000 1 1 x init C p1 x font 6 CB f6 s10000 V12000 H72000 md DFd t90000 n12000 0 x trailer V792000 x stop The key line in there is t90000 which is the evaluation of the width ("\w'...'")of the string "This is my Text" in point-size 10 (the default) using font Courier-Bold ("\f[CB]"). The numerical result "90000" is the length of the text in units of (1 point)/1000, i.e. 1/72000 of an inch, so the physical printed length would be 90000/72000 = 1.25 inches You could feed that to 'awk' to do the sums (and this time I'll feed in an explicit point-size 15 ("\s[15]...\s0") as well): echo "\f[CB]\s[15]\w'This is my Text'\s0\fP" | troff -Tps | awk '/^t'/ results in: t135000 while echo "\f[CB]\s[15]\w'This is my Text'\s0\fP" | troff -Tps | awk '/^t/{sub(/t/,""); print $0}' results in 135000 so, finally, echo "\f[CB]\w'\s[15]This is my Text'\s0\fP" | troff -Tps | awk '/^t/{sub(/t/,""); print $0/72000}' results in 1.875 which is (15/10)*1.25, the length of "This is my Text" in inches, when printed in Helvetica-Bold in point-size 15. There may be some discrepancy, depending on how spaces are handled in the output. You can probably exploit the above ideas to get what you want! Hoping this helps, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 01-Dec-09 Time: 12:23:16 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------ _______________________________________________ main(a)lists.alug.org.uk http://www.alug.org.uk/ http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main Unsubscribe? See message headers or the web site above! --------------End of forwarded message------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 01-Dec-09 Time: 14:22:46 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Using ImageMagick to overlay text
by Mark Rogers 01 Dec '09

01 Dec '09

I'm playing with ImageMagick's "convert" program to add text to an image. I have something like this (which works): convert "infile.png" -font "font.ttf" -gravity 'south' \ -stroke '#fffc' -strokewidth '3' -pointsize '300' \ -annotate 0 "Test" "outfile.png" However, the only way I can find to size the text is using the -pointsize option. What I want to do is make the text proportional to the image size, eg have the text work out to 50% of the available width, or similar. I can't find any good way to do this - and nor can I find a suitable query for Google to assist me. The "convert" program is being called as part of a PHP script so I can be quite flexible in what I do if I need to be (eg if I need to create dummy images to see what sizes they come out as, etc). Suggestions for other programs I can use instead welcome. I know ImageMagick and I know I can trust it with high quality images if I need to (and will need to here) which is why I stated there. -- 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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