- main - earth.li

Help with Openwrt
by S.Jude＠uea.ac.uk 09 Aug '09

09 Aug '09

Hello, Are there possibly any openwrt users out there who can help me? I bought a cheapy Linksys WRT54GS for a networking/electronics project I've got in mind. I flashed it with openwrt with no problems, until I tried setting it up as a bridge. It has lost the network config file and is running the IP address of 0.0.0.0 (a bit of a problem) I can get it into failsafe mode but can't seem to get tftp to upload a new image to it in failsafe mode. I did try to write a new network file but it wouldn't let me write the file (this may be my failing with permissions rather than openwrt!). Does anybody have any experience of openwrt who can suggest a solution other than opening the box and resetting the flash? Thanks Simon

1 0

Straightforward hardware for Linux box - suggestions?
by Chris G 06 Aug '09

06 Aug '09

I'm considering a new Linux box for my wife to use so I can more easily tidy up and upgrade here existing one. I'll go for 'bare bones', i.e. no mouse, keyboard or display as she'll carry on using the existing ones. I'll almost certainly go for integrated graphics on motherboard as it's mostly business use so no real need for a whizzy graphics card. So, what's a good motherboard to go for at the moment that will 'just work' with a (say) Ubuntu 9.04 installation? -- Chris Green

5 16

Charity sack collection organiser
by Mark Rogers 06 Aug '09

06 Aug '09

Sorry for the terrible subject line, I can't think of a better one! I've been asked by someone who organises charity bag collections for some software to help them organise themselves. Ie they send people out to drop empty sacks (or leaflets) through people's doors, then go back to collect them, and they want a way to basically manage that process to make sure areas get covered properly but not more than once, to record how many bags they get back out of each 100 empty bags they send out, etc. Any suggestions? I figure there are similar potential uses for such an application out there (eg Kleeneezeeee or whatever they're called), but half the problem is working out what to search for. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0845 45 89 555 Registered in England (0456 0902) at 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

5 9

Opensourc3 magazine...
by Brett Parker 04 Aug '09

04 Aug '09

Just got told about this on the blug mailing list, so thought I'd pass it on: http://www.opensourc3.org/ Is fairly advert heavy in the pdf, but nothing that can't be easily skipped past, looks like issue one is a brief introduction, I'm hoping issue two gets a little more indepth. Anyways - not a completely bad read - worth having a quick squint at. Cheers, -- Brett Parker

2 3

DPMS on LG monitor
by Dan Hatton 01 Aug '09

01 Aug '09

Dear All, I usually operate my Gentoo netbook with one of two external monitors plugged into its VGA output: - an LG Flatron W2234S; or - a Samsung SyncMaster 710N. I'm also usually running xscreensaver with the following options (among others) timeout: 0:02:00 cycle: 0:01:00 lock: True lockTimeout: 0:00:00 passwdTimeout: 0:01:00 dpmsEnabled: True dpmsStandby: 0:05:00 dpmsSuspend: 0:05:00 dpmsOff: 0:05:00 The netbook's built-in screen and the Samsung monitor switch off after five minutes like these options tell them to. But the LG monitor stays on, advising me to "check signal cable". Any ideas how I can get the LG monitor to obey the DPMS commands, please? -- Thanks, Dan

2 2

Anonymous FXP
by lists＠glover.uk.net 29 Jul '09

29 Jul '09

Hi, Here's a question for you all (because I'm sure I'm not the only person whose attempted this!) We have a piece of software at work (Omnibus Transomneon), which initiates FXP transfers of files between video servers. Because this software is pretty dumb, and it normally only talks to Omneon Video servers, it will only log into FTP as anonymous. The problem I have is I have a Linux (Unbuntu 9.04) that I need this to transfer files onto. I have tried vsftp, which will accept anonymous FTP, but won't do anonymous FXP, authenticated FXP works. I tried proftpd, which will allow anonymous FXP, but bitches about the "Size command in ascii mode". Transomneon uses this to check the progress of transfers. Although the transfer is in binary mode. I tried pureftpd, which would not allow anonymous user to delete files. I gave up with wu-ftpd because I couldn't get ls to work. This has been driving me insane all day. I know what I'm trying to do is very insecure, but I'm on a private well firewalled network. Anybody got any ideas of an FTP server that will support anonymous FXP, and the size command, and allow anonymous deletes? Many Thanks Chris

1 0

BB: Comparing notes
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 27 Jul '09

27 Jul '09

Greetings Folks, Probably not a Linux issue (though it could be). Anyone else having trouble logging in to their Barclays Bank online banking using their new interface (which went live this morning)? On the machine which I've usually used for this (somewhat slow, smallish RAM), which has always worked OK in the past, with the new interface my browser (Firefox) is completely choked and goes bananas. I then used another machine (faster, more RAM) and didn't get that trouble (Browser = Iceweasel); but even so had to try a few times before their system would recognise my details ("didn't match our records"). When I phoned up their helpline, I was finally "talked through" a login. What I was told to enter for URL was A: www.ibank.barclays.co.uk and this led to a successful login. What I usually use is B: https://ibank.barclays.co.uk Both lead to the same apparent page: https://ibank.barclays.co.uk/olb/m/LoginMember.do but it was B which gave the problems. I was told by the Indian lady not to use entries stored in "Favourites" (yuk) or in Bookmarks "for security reasons", but to type it in explicitly. There are some other details I could give, if it was of interest; but I'm mainly interested at the moment in whether other people have been having similar problems. Best wishes to all, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 24-Jul-09 Time: 09:45:54 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

4 4

Dual Booting OSX & Ubuntu
by Simon Royal 25 Jul '09

25 Jul '09

Hi I am a Mac user who currently has a PowerBook G4 which I want to dual boot OSX and Ubuntu on. Is there any on the group that has done this? I really don't want to mess my current Mac OSX Leopard installation up, but luckily I do triple boot at the mo between OSX Leopard, OSX Tiger and OS9 all on separate partitions. So if I could I would lose or use the Tiger and OS9 partitions for use in this project. I have dual booted OSX and Ubuntu a few years ago and it worked, but I can't for the life of me remember how. Simon Royal --- Visit my Mac site at http://www.simonroyal.co.uk. Or Skype me on 'Simon-Royal'. (Apple PowerBook G4 867Mhz, 1GB RAM, 80GB HD, SuperDrive. Mac OSX 10.5, 10.4 & 9.2.2...)

2 1

DVD-RW drive refuses to read CD-R disks
by Srdjan Todorovic 25 Jul '09

25 Jul '09

Hi everyone, I'm perplexed - I've got a DVD+RW drive that refuses to read CD-Rs and other CDs, but these disks can be read in my laptop's DVD+RW drive. Manually mounting such CDs gives me: mount: No medium found I know I can read some factory-pressed CD such as the EF2000 CD (lovely game). My drive is: LG HL-DT-STDVD-RAM GSA-H55N and was purchased in very early 2008 I believe. Laptop drive is: HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-T40N (Which I believe is also an LG) Is this likely to be a hardware fault and I have to buy a new drive? Thanks Srdjan

2 2

Re: [ALUG] appalling service from 1and1
by James Elsey 23 Jul '09

23 Jul '09

I've been using 1and1 for about 3 years now and must admit I haven't had any issues with their service. They had an outage with their servers but after a quick and friendly phone call my sites were back up within the hour But then again, I haven't tried moving any domains/packages etc J -----Original Message----- From: main-bounces(a)lists.alug.org.uk [mailto:main-bounces@lists.alug.org.uk] On Behalf Of mick Sent: 22 July 2009 19:48 To: Steve Fosdick Cc: main(a)lists.alug.org.uk Subject: Re: [ALUG] appalling service from 1and1 On Wed, 22 Jul 2009 15:45:59 +0100 Steve Fosdick <lists(a)pelvoux.nildram.co.uk> allegedly wrote: > On 21/07/2009 22:16:40, mick wrote: > > > I also had some feedback from MJ Ray that 1and1 (my main provider of > > DNS management, mail and blog) could be difficult. I'd never had > > much problem with them, except for their habit of "forgetting" to > > tell me that they had improved their packages when prices changed, > > so thought no more. > > Do I take it you mean they have reduced the price of the package to > new customers but forget to tell you and continue to charge the > higher price? Yes - but slightly more subtle than that. They introduced a "new" package which offered better services (more mailboxes, more webspace, more traffic) at a slightly lower charge. I was not offered the new service. When I noticed the new services (from a magazine ad as I recall) I contacted them and was the told that I had to cancel my existing package and move to the new one. Mick --------------------------------------------------------------------- The text file for RFC 854 contains exactly 854 lines. Do you think there is any cosmic significance in this? Douglas E Comer - Internetworking with TCP/IP Volume 1 http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc854.txt --------------------------------------------------------------------- __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 4267 (20090722) __________ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.com __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 4267 (20090722) __________ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.com

1 0

appalling service from 1and1
by mick 22 Jul '09

22 Jul '09

Some while ago I sought the list's advice on good commercial hosting services (full root access, with as few restrictions as possible). I had a few recommendations and eventually settled on a VPS from bytemark as offering just what I needed. (As an aside, I also now have a VPS from rapidswitch which is also excellent value - and gives a bigger monthly bandwidth allowance that bytemark). I also had some feedback from MJ Ray that 1and1 (my main provider of DNS management, mail and blog) could be difficult. I'd never had much problem with them, except for their habit of "forgetting" to tell me that they had improved their packages when prices changed, so thought no more. But, I have recently had cause to complain, and loudly. I have tried to move one of my domains (I have several with them) to bytemark so that I can have greater control. The process is unnecessarily complex (and for a naive customer would probably be impossible) but the worst part is that having unlocked the domain at their end and posted it as "pending transfer", they now refuse to answer any DNS queries despite still being authoritative for that domain. That domain has fallen off the edge of a cliff and may as well not exist. Their reponse to my complaint so far is "thank you for your patience". Guess who loses my business. Mick --------------------------------------------------------------------- The text file for RFC 854 contains exactly 854 lines. Do you think there is any cosmic significance in this? Douglas E Comer - Internetworking with TCP/IP Volume 1 http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc854.txt ---------------------------------------------------------------------

4 4

[ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : McGintys, Northgate Street
by samwise 20 Jul '09

20 Jul '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 is back this coming Monday (20th July) at 20:00: P J McGinty & Sons 15 Northgate Street Ipswich Suffolk IP1 3BY Tel: 01473 251 515 Map/Directions URI: http://maps.google.co.uk/?q=IP1+3BY WWW: http://pjmcginty.moonfruit.com/ McGintys pub is in the centre of Ipswich, not far from our old haunt - The Milestone. It's directly opposite the town's central library and has a reputation for good Irish beer. All are welcome, novices and experienced users. Feel free to ask for further information on the Main ALUG mailing list. I've been playing with FreeBSD a little this month, so happy to chat a bit about that. Firefox 3.5 has some cool new features too. Plus I've been playing around with an ePub creator which might be of interest. Remember to call or email me, if you're arriving later and want to ensure I don't wander off, which I have a tendency to do if the turn-out hits rock-bottom ... Hope to see you there, 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

2 1

kmail
by Peter Alcibiades 18 Jul '09

18 Jul '09

It really seems that the kde team have taken leave of their senses. I just upgraded to squeeze in the continuing effort to deal with xsession errors - they have changed now in kind, but there are still a bunch of them - one side effect of which was to update kmail. The thing now comes with two 'features' which seem designed to destroy usability, and no guide on how to get rid of the things. One is that messages are separated by day and week, with drop down tabs. Why anyone would want this is a mystery. It makes scrolling through your old messages just about impossible. The other is that wherever you move the mouse these crazed popups appear, to obscure whatever you were looking at. This was probably put in in case you should persist in trying to scroll through, and make it doubly impossible! A bit of google searching revealed an obscure button and a setting deep in the bowels of the thing which let you turn them both off and get back to something that looks like a normal email client. But really, what on earth has happened to these guys? Kmail used to be, out of the box, a nice simple email client packaged with a quite decent calendar. You can still get back to that, but you have to make an effort. Al

7 6

Re: [ALUG] kmail
by Peter Alcibiades 16 Jul '09

16 Jul '09

It is kmail Version 1.11.2. Not running KDE as a DTE - though I have in the past. I seem to have got rid of the most brain dead features now, except that for some crazed reason when you pass the mouse over the folder pane, it insists on delivering you a popup that tells you what each folder is, in case you had suffered from memory loss since the last time you did it. But of course, preventing you from seeing half the pane. This is maddening but just about manageable as long as its limited to that pane. The developers of this thing should be forced to use it as shipped for a few months, it would be enormously educational for them. This was a true Victor Meldrew moment. Another one happened in the ongoing process of this upgrade to sqeeze. Imagine this. You are running Gnome perfectly happily but notice some oddities here and there. Like for instance the screensave appears to be disconnected, and you get xsession errors about themes not being installed. So you try dpkg-reconfigure, and are told that Gnome is not installed! "I don't believe it!" you cry, before you can stop yourself. Peter

1 0

"YouTube Medley"
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 14 Jul '09

14 Jul '09

Greetings all! What I want to do: 1. Download a certain series of YouTube videos and store them locally in a suitable format (MP3?) such that each can be viewed from the local file. 2. Merge these into a single video DVD to make a "medley" which can be played straight through from the DVD. Advice on how to do #1, and (if that is possible) how to proceed to #2, would be most welcome! Platform: Debian Etch or Lenny (both available). With thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 13-Jul-09 Time: 11:40:56 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

4 5

Re: [ALUG] [Fwd: Re: From Ipswich Freecycle Mods: : Offer two pay as you go mobile sim and top up cards felixstowe]
by Chris G 13 Jul '09

13 Jul '09

On Mon, Jul 13, 2009 at 03:23:30PM +0000, Martin Pike wrote: > i have a couple of observations on this. > > first, if he didn't post a taken to the previous one, then that post is > still 'active'. > It's surely not a requirement to post a taken message is it? > we could also consider adding sim cards to the same category as vouchers, > i.e. they don't save anything (much) from landfill. > > cheers > > --- On Mon, 13/7/09, Angelika <freecycle2(a)angelika.co.uk> wrote: > > From: Angelika <freecycle2(a)angelika.co.uk> > Subject: [Fwd: Re: From Ipswich Freecycle Mods: : Offer two pay as you > go mobile sim and top up cards felixstowe] > To: "Ipswich Mods" <Ipswich_Freecycle-owner(a)yahoogroups.com> > Date: Monday, 13 July, 2009, 4:16 PM > > What's the policy when someone claims that "it's a different one from > the one I offered yesterday"? > -- Chris Green

1 0

Putting a SATA drive in standby
by Barry Samuels 12 Jul '09

12 Jul '09

I have, in the last few days, changed my 2 x 250 GB IDE drives for 2 x 1 TB SATA drives. One drive is used once a day to mirror the other. Previously I used hdparm to spin down the mirror drive after a short period of inactivity and I've tried to do the same with one of the new drives but I suspect it isn't working. If I issue the command 'sg_start --stop /dev/sdb' I hear a click from the computer as if the drive is being switched off but can't detect any difference in noise. That could be because the drive is ultra quiet but if I then try to mount a partition on the drive it mounts instantly. With the previous drives if I did that there would be a significant pause whilst the drive was spinning up to running speed. Does the fact that there is no pause of any sort when mounting the drive mean that it hasn't stopped? I've also tried 'sdparm --command=stop /dev/sdb' with the same results. If I issue the command sdparm --command=ready /dev/sdb then it comes back with 'ready'. -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

1 0

How things have changed
by Steve Fosdick 10 Jul '09

10 Jul '09

I've just bought a couple of new bits of hardware and was very pleasantly surprised how things have changed for the better. I got a wireless trackerball and a UPS both with USB connections. I plugged the trackerball receiver in, pressed the connect button and it started working. That wasn't a great surprise but obviously nice. I plugged the UPS in and, before I had a chance to check that it had been detected and then look for software for it an icon appeared telling me the UPS was fully charged and also reporting on the batteries in the wireless trackerball. For simplicity this beats having to install software from an accompanying CD in order to get the same features. It seems when manufacturers adopt standard protocols or are more open about the protocols and interfaces they do use the pace of development increases dramatically. Steve.

2 2

Deleting from a Google Groups archive
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 09 Jul '09

09 Jul '09

Hi FOlks, If anyone out there is running a Google Groups mailing list, I'd be grateful for advice about the following question, which I can't seem to find the answer to myself! I have just set up a Google Group for use as a mailing list by a small group of volunteers working on a local-history project. I have not gone "live" with it yet All seems to be working, in my tests. However, this means that my test messages have gone into the archive. I would like to delete these before going "live". But I have not managed to locate any means of doing this, despite being the owner and manager! Any advice? With thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 09-Jul-09 Time: 09:57:17 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

2 1

Linux-based information screens
by Mark Rogers 09 Jul '09

09 Jul '09

This is one of those things that Google would probably give me the answer if I could think of the right question. I want to create an information screen, similar to the kind of things you see in railway stations etc, maybe showing a live TV feed in one area, some headlines coming from an RSS feed, a slideshow of images in another area, etc. Ideally I'd like something that runs from live-CD, with configuration on a USB stick, so that restarting the PC just restarts the system without risking any corruption. Any suggestions, whether to what I should use or at least what I should search for? -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0845 45 89 555 Registered in England (0456 0902) at 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

2 2

using scponly shell
by samwise 06 Jul '09

06 Jul '09

Hi, Hopefully, not too off-topic but I'm having trouble setting up a user account on a FreeBSD server (an OS I'm not greatly comfortably with yet), to use the scponly [http://www.sublimation.org/scponly/wiki/] shell. I basically want to allow the account SFTP access, but not have an interactive login shell - so scponly looks like what I'm after. I've set the user's login shell to be /usr/ports/shells/scponly and also added the shell to /etc/shells. When I try to SFTP into the server with the user, though, I'm getting the "Received message too long 1416128883" error. Googling hasn't really helped much. Anyone got any suggestions? TIA, Peter.

3 5

[ALUG Announce] 2nd Thurs Pub Meet 9th July 2009
by David Reynolds 06 Jul '09

06 Jul '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 ----- Dear ALUG, The monthly second Thursday social meeting of ALUG will take place on 9th July 2009 at The Reindeer (10 Dereham Road, Norwich, NR2 4AY; tel. 01603 762223). It's very near the junction of Dereham Road and the Norwich inner ring road (Grapes Hill) and serves a selection of real ales, nice pub food (if you fancy going early to eat) and coffee. There are generally people there from 20:00 onwards and we tend to sit to the left of the main entrance. We look forward to seeing you there. Cheers, David -- David Reynolds david(a)reynoldsfamily.org.uk ----- 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

1 0

HTML code for YoTRube sequence
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 04 Jul '09

04 Jul '09

Hi Folks, I am no expert whatever on HTML (at best I can do the basic basics), so if there's a solution to the following query please spell it out! I'm trying to concoct a web-page which would play, in sequence and without user intervention, a series of movies from YouTube. As an example to work on, take the following three: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8_-McoAriI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g247CEZ9p70 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJQM5xBaRXI The idea is to give a URL where there is a top-level page, in which there is a link such that, if the user clicks on it, the above are automatically played in sequence and, when they are completed, it returns to the top level. I don't know if this is even possible without some embedding of durations, since once a YouTube link is opened there is (as far as I can tell) no indication of completion, so it stays there until the user does something else. With durations, it may be possible for the HTML to step to the next YouTube URL after that time has elapsed (though I've no idea how to program that). Any suggestions very gratefully received! With thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 04-Jul-09 Time: 23:11:53 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

2 1

Re: [ALUG] xsession-errors again...help
by Peter Alcibiades 04 Jul '09

04 Jul '09

OK, now mono is gone. Thanks for that suggestion. Also we are no longer endlessly looking for pidgin and beagle bits. Restarted, and those particular errors seem to have gone, but are now succeeded by the following...! I googled them, and some of them seem to be associated with kmail. Then I have some nphelix errors, that is another thing that you have to go to endless lengths to kill but it won't stay dead. Is it normal to have xsession errors? Or if your system is set up right, should there basically be none? Peter ** Message: GetValue variable 1 (1) ** Message: GetValue variable 2 (2) Removing DOMNodeRemoved listener ** Message: GetValue variable 1 (1) ** Message: GetValue variable 2 (2) ** Message: GetValue variable 1 (1) ** Message: GetValue variable 2 (2) ** Message: GetValue variable 1 (1) ** Message: GetValue variable 2 (2) ** Message: GetValue variable 1 (1) ** Message: GetValue variable 2 (2) ** Message: GetValue variable 1 (1) ** Message: GetValue variable 2 (2) Window manager warning: Buggy client sent a _NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW message with a timestamp of 0 for 0x3c00003 (Evince Doc) Window manager warning: meta_window_activate called by a pager with a 0 timestamp; the pager needs to be fixed. ** Message: GetValue variable 1 (1) ** Message: GetValue variable 2 (2) ** Message: GetValue variable 1 (1) ** Message: GetValue variable 2 (2) ** Message: GetValue variable 1 (1) ** Message: GetValue variable 2 (2) ** Message: GetValue variable 1 (1) ** Message: GetValue variable 2 (2) ** Message: GetValue variable 1 (1) ** Message: GetValue variable 2 (2) kbuildsycoca running... Launched ok, pid = 3954 ALSA lib pcm_dmix.c:996:(snd_pcm_dmix_open) unable to open slave QLayout::addChildLayout: layout already has a parent WeaverThreadLogger: thread (ID: 1) suspended.

1 0

Re: [ALUG] xsession-errors again...help
by Peter Alcibiades 03 Jul '09

03 Jul '09

Wayne, yes, I do turn out to have gnome do. Or had, since now it is completely removed. So I'll try this for a couple days. Thanks, this is the easiest first step. Then if this doesn't work, or doesn't fully work, I will follow up with Phil's suggestions first on removing mono, and then on monitoring file access, which should get to the bottom of it. Many thanks for that too. I do have mono installed, so that could be the next thing to go... Peter

1 0