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Re: [ALUG] xsession errors
by Peter Alcibiades 30 Mar '09

30 Mar '09

Richard, this is what it says: peter 20910 0.0 0.0 5160 776 pts/0 R+ 12:21 0:00 grep beagle What does it mean? I'm not aware of having installed Beagle, but maybe it went in as part of the Gnome install? Peter

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File permissions for FTP and Apache
by Mark Rogers 30 Mar '09

30 Mar '09

I have a server running PureFTP and Apache. If I create an FTP user, it gets a directory under /home/ftpusers owned by ftpuser.ftpgroup I need to create an FTP user that can upload images that the webserver will use (simple: I symlink the directory into the relevant path in DocumentRoot), however I also need Apache to be able to write to the files (images will be uploaded by the website admin backend as well as via FTP). How do I achieve this? I can add Apache (www-data) to ftpgroup, which should solve this but would also give Apache write access to all files uploaded by any FTP user, which I don't want to do. I can make the files world-writeable, which I don't like in principle, but also is going to cause problems as images get uploaded by FTP or Apache (eg new images are not going to inherit the world-write permissions without some changes to the FTP configuration and the web application). This must be a standard problem with a standard solution? -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0845 45 89 555 Registered in England (0456 0902) at 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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ubuntu - display configuration
by James Freer 29 Mar '09

29 Mar '09

ubuntu 7.04 to 8.04 all had in the menu "Screens & Graphics GUI for setting up. Or via terminal displayconfig-gtk. Useful if you want to use two monitors or have an electronic whiteboard. Just been trying out 8.10 wondering how much has been changed from 8.04 and couldn't find displayconfig-gtk. I thought they might have put it in 'configuration editor' but haven't. Has it been replaced with another app - doesn't seem likely to have left it out expecting you to change xorg instead? thanks james

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xsession errors
by Peter Alcibiades 29 Mar '09

29 Mar '09

Still getting them. For example: Could not read Pidgin buddy list file: Could not find file "/home/peter/.purple/blist.xml". Cannot index Thunderbird contacts because a System.ArgumentNullException was thrown: Argument cannot be null. And yet, I don't have either Pidgin or Thunderbird installed. Any idea what's going on? Lenny, up to date. Peter

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32/64-bit? Intel T2390
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 28 Mar '09

28 Mar '09

Hi Folks, Once upon a time I didn't need to ask this kind of question ... I'm about to install Linux (probably Debian) on a laptop which has an Intel Core Duo T2390 CPU. So I'm wondering whether it I should use i386 or ia64. I *think* (but am not sure) that this chip has 64-bit capability (though that may need to be enabled somehow). Presumably i386 would work anyway, but it would be nice to enjoy the benefits of 64-bit architecture if available! Since this is my first time facing this question, I'm totally naive about the installation implications, and would welcome informed advice and/or comments! With thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 27-Mar-09 Time: 14:51:24 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Evolution woes
by Wayne Stallwood 27 Mar '09

27 Mar '09

Is anyone else here masochist enough to use evolution ? With the standard build on Ubuntu 8.10 (2.24.3) I am getting some strange problems. It seems to get triggered by either closing down my workstation while evolution is running or launching a second instance via x forwarding Either way when this happens it seems to corrupt folders.db resulting in the the following issues When I restart everything I have sent from the last time it was started is back in the outbox and gets resent (you have probably seen this on the list) The unread count for some folders doesn't tally with the number of unread messages in the folder, for example at the moment it says I have 80 unread items in "Deleted items" but if I hide read items in that folder I see I have none unread. If I follow the advice I found online of deleting folders.db and launching evolution in offline mode the db is rebuilt and the problems seem to go away for a bit. But one restart with it accidentally left running or as I think I did the other day where I had it running once locally and once in a forwarded session it reappears. To make matters worse when I delete folders.db I lose message flags which I actually sometimes use. Has anyone else experienced/fixed this ?

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I can see spoofs coming soon on this one
by Albert Vilella 27 Mar '09

27 Mar '09

http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-US&playlist=videoByUuids:uuids:0bb6a07c-c829-4…

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spampd not adding headers
by Richard Lewis 26 Mar '09

26 Mar '09

Hi ALUG, I have spampd running on my laptop $ ps auxw|grep spam [...] /usr/bin/perl -T /usr/sbin/spampd --L --tagall --port=10025 --host=127.0.0.1 --relayport=10026 --relayhost=127.0.0.1 --pid=/var/run/spampd.pid --children=3 --user=spampd --group=spampd --logsock=unix and I pass all my messages to it from procmail using: :0fw: spammassassin.lock | /usr/bin/spamc However, none of my messages (spam or ham) have any spamassassin headers in them. If I direct a message into spamassassin proper (i.e. not spamc) it adds the headers as expected. If I do the same into spamc I get no headers. I found somthing about the -A option to spamd to tell it to allow certain IP addresses to use the spamassassin server (e.g. 127.0.0.1). However, this is an option to spamd, not spampd. Any ideas why it's not working? -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Richard Lewis ISMS, Computing Goldsmiths, University of London Tel: +44 (0)20 7078 5134 Skype: richardjlewis JID: ironchicken(a)jabber.earth.li http://www.richard-lewis.me.uk/ -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- +-------------------------------------------------------+ |Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments.| |http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html | +-------------------------------------------------------+

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WTD: Recommendations for External Tape Drive to backup SUSE server
by samwise 26 Mar '09

26 Mar '09

Hi, As per subject, really. Someone has asked me for any recommendations I can find for external tape drives which could be used to backup the contents of a SUSE Linux Enterprise Server or an openSUSE server. I imagine it just requires something which has usable Linux drivers but as I've never had to do anything in this area, I thought I'd throw it out there and see whether anyone else has ... and could recommend a brand or model. Thanks, Peter.

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Welcome Me... And Wireless Question
by Simon Royal 25 Mar '09

25 Mar '09

Hi I am an experience computer user, who about 8 years ago switched from Windows to Mac and have been a dedicated Mac user ever since - but I have always had an interest in Linux. I have tried a number of distros over the years - Fedora Core, Ubuntu, DSL, DSL-N, Puppy Linux, Vector Linux, Corel Linux - with Ubuntu and DSL being the two I have stuck with the longest. I have an Apple PowerBook at the moment as my main machine, but am now picking up my interest in Linux again, so shall be purchasing an old laptop to develop my knowledge a bit more. Well that is me, I have been a member of ALUG once before, when I was trying out Ubuntu a couple of years ago. I just thought I would introduce myself and will listen in to all your questions. Once I get my second laptop I'm sure I shall be posting questions of my own. Actually, here is my first question. I am probably going to be running DSL or Ubuntu on the laptop - if it all goes well I may well consider quad booting on my PowerBook. I already have Mac OS 9, OSX Tiger and OSX Leopard on it. I would probably run Ubuntu on it. My first question is - which wireless PCMCIA cards work well out-of-the-box, without any driver downloading or ndiswrapper configuring. I have a Buffalo G54 card at the mo which is Broadcom based and Ubuntu isn't too happy with it. Simon --- Visit my Mac site at http://www.simonroyal.co.uk. Or Skype me on 'Simon-Royal'. (Apple PowerBook G4 867Mhz, 768MB RAM, 80GB HD, SuperDrive. Mac OSX 10.5, 10.4 & 9.2.2...)

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How can a user empty their own mail spool safely?
by Chris G 24 Mar '09

24 Mar '09

I'd like to be able to do the following as user cg:- mv /var/mail/cg ~/backup/mail Now I know I can't actually do this because /var/mail is owned by mail and cg doesn't have write permission there. Is there any way that I can set things up so that 'cg' can do it or is there an alternative that produces the same result? I could do something like:- cp /var/mail/cg ~/backup/mail cp emptyFile /var/mail/cg This would have the same effect *except* that it's not atomic so if mail arrives between the cp commands it would get lost. What I'm trying to do is have a crude backup of my incoming mail, I forward all my incoming mail to 'cg' as well as to myself and want to run a cron job to do the above 'move' once a week so that all my mail for the last seven days is in /var/mail/cg and mail for the previous seven days is in /home/cg/backup/mail. I could run the cron job as root I suppose, that would do what I want, but I'm just looking for neater/safer ways of doing it. -- Chris Green

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Hello
by nev young 23 Mar '09

23 Mar '09

Hello, I'm de-lurking to ask what I hope is an easy question. Is there an easy way to tell programatically if the printer connected to the parallel port as /dev/lp0 is physically powered on or not. Thanks Nev

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Playing Roland or Midi files from old game
by Srdjan Todorovic 23 Mar '09

23 Mar '09

Hi everyone, I just installed dosbox and was playing TFX, and remembered how cool the music was from the game. There are some files with .adl, .rld and .scc extensions, but seems xine, mplayer, timidity++ or playmidi won't open the files. These don't seem to be proper MIDI files (header is wrong). Google searches don't really show up anything really useful. I'm guessing the files are Roland sound files, or maybe AdLib, but not sure. Thttp://adplug.sourceforge.net/he game's from 1993, so it would be using technology and file formats from that period. ADL file starts with: 52 41 00 02 (hex) RLD file starts with: 52 41 00 02 (hex) And so does the .SCC file. The main DID.DAT file probably contains more music, if only I can find it (seems to be a whole bunch of game data multiplexed into one file). Each file has instrument names such as "Slow Strings" near the top - http://www.ski.org/Rehab/DBGilden/JWilliams/appxC.html may be relevant. I had a look at: http://adplug.sourceforge.net/ which seemed to find the file format to be ok (but it might be matching only on filename), and then it promptly segfaulted... (ADL file seems to be a Westwood ADL file format) Adplay won't open the .scc nor the .rld files. Any ideas what Linux app can play this? Cheers Srdjan

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Colour Laserjet Printe?
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 20 Mar '09

20 Mar '09

Hi Folks, Some of you seem to know your way well around the hardware jungle, so I'm asking for views on the following. I'd like a reasonably priced colour LaserJet, which performs well and reliably (but would not be getting a heavy load, say some dozens of pages per week), which has builtin PostScript (i.e. will print if it is sent raw PostScript) and which has duplex capability. I'm not fussy about whether the duplex would be under software control (provided that can be done from Linux) or set by hand from a control panel on the printer. Indeed, I think I'd prefer the latter. I've seen an HP CM 1312 MFP at a reasonable price. but online reviews are not all enthusiastic. Also, the best I can find out about the duplex is that it is "manual" -- I can't find out whether that means "manual setting on control panel" or whether it means that you have to manually reverse and turn over the sheets of paper, after printing the odd page numbers, in order to print the evens! (Since that is precisely what I do right now, it would not be an advance). Thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 20-Mar-09 Time: 18:16:42 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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VirtualBox (XP host, Debian client) & shared clipboard
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 19 Mar '09

19 Mar '09

Hi folks (and apologies to any who may be affected by cross-posting). I have VirtualBox installed on a Windows XP machine, and Debian Etch installed as a guest. The Linux Guest Additions have been installed, and generally seem to be doing their job. However, the Shared Clipboard facility apparently does nothing. It is enabled as "Bidirectional" in the virtual machine. If, for instance, I highlight some text in an XP window, and select "copy selection", and then go to a Linux text window in X and middle-click (the usual "paste" manoeuvre) then nothing happens. In the reverse direction, if I highlight text in the X window (the usual "put into clipboard" manoeuvre), and then go to an XP window and "Paste", again nothing happens. If I first highlight text in the Linux X window, then go to the XP window and "copy selection", then when I go back to Linux the Linux text is still there (can be pasted with "right click"), so it has not been changed by the XP operation. I've read some indiciations on the web that this feature has caused such problems, but have not seen a solution. It could also be that I'm not doing the right manoeuvres for copying into the clipboard and pasting out of it, in this context. If anyone has useful comments, I'd bevery grateful to receive them! VirtualBox 1.5.0 (2007-08-31). Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 18-Mar-09 Time: 22:54:56 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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ImageMagick convert
by Mark Rogers 19 Mar '09

19 Mar '09

Any experts in using ImageMagick lurking? I need to resize an image to fit into a 350x350 box. Which means I need to (a) scale the image so no dimension exceeds 350, then (b) centre the image in a 350x350 canvas. Eg for a 700x600 image, (a) creates a 350x300 image which (b) then converts to 350x350 without distorting it (by adding "whitespace". Ideally I want some control over what the canvas colour ("whitespace") will be, in particular transparent would be a good option, but white will do for now. The first bit is easy: convert -resize 350x350 old.png new.png I've tried various ways to do step (b) without success. (A single command which does both would be best, but two separate commands would be a start!) -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0845 45 89 555 Registered in England (0456 0902) at 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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Acer Aspire One Wireless
by Richard Lewis 19 Mar '09

19 Mar '09

Hello ALUG, How's anyone else's experience with wireless on their Acer Aspire One? I'm running Debian unstable on mine and wireless is quite dodgey. It's the stock 2.6.26 kernel from unstable along with the madwifi drivers (0.9.4) installed via m-a. Initially, if I do $ sudo iwlist scanning it says: wifi0 Interface doesn't support scanning. ath0 Interface doesn't support scanning : Network is down it's only after I've done: $ sudo ifup ath0 that it'll actually search for networks. This doesn't seem right. This aside, once I've added a suitable configuration to my /etc/network/interfaces it's very reluctant to connect to it. Normally when I do $ sudo ifup ath0 the little wifi LED doesn't flash, it waits for 20 seconds or so while it does DHCPDISCOVER a few times and then gives up. After this iwlist returns no results: wifi0 Interface doesn't support scanning. ath0 No scan results Then occasionally it connects. The LED flashes as normal, it connects almost immediately and reconnects without problems after suspend to RAM or shutdowns. Usually I go all day Saturday without it working and then it starts working on Sunday. (During the week I use ordinary ethernet.) But this weekend the wifi elves seem to have forgotten to visit my computer. I wondered whether being on AC power vs. battery may make a difference but it doesn't seem to. (Thankfully. It'd pretty useless if it needed to be plugged in to connect to a wifi network.) I also tried installing the 2.6.28 kernel from sidux which has the ath5k drivers in it but that doesn't seem to make any difference either. Is anyone else finding their's bad? Or is it just me? Best, Richard -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Richard Lewis ISMS, Computing Goldsmiths, University of London Tel: +44 (0)20 7078 5134 Skype: richardjlewis JID: ironchicken(a)jabber.earth.li http://www.richard-lewis.me.uk/ -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- +-------------------------------------------------------+ |Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments.| |http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html | +-------------------------------------------------------+

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[ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : McGintys, Northgate Street
by samwise 16 Mar '09

16 Mar '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 tonight (Monday 16th March) 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. Tonight reportedly sees the return of a long-time member, and we might end up chatting about VoIP again, and my experiences replacing Office Communicator with open source software. 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

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Postfix confusion
by Wayne Stallwood 15 Mar '09

15 Mar '09

It doesn't usually give me much trouble but at the moment I am having a bit of strangeness with my media server which uses postfix to send out various alerts etc. My main.cf is below and /etc/mailname is digimatic.co.uk It all seems to work well except it is ignoring .forward files in the user home folders, i.e I have a user 'francis' who has his own email address in the .forward but if I mail 'francis' it gets routed to francis(a)digimatic.co.uk rather than the address in his forward file. Similarly I tried a .forward in my own home dir of info(a)digimatic.co.uk but the mail to me still goes to my username wstallwood(a)digimatic.co.uk myorigin = /etc/mailname smtpd_banner = $myhostname ESMTP $mail_name (Ubuntu) biff = no append_dot_mydomain = no #delay_warning_time = 4h # TLS parameters smtpd_tls_cert_file=/etc/ssl/certs/ssl-cert-snakeoil.pem smtpd_tls_key_file=/etc/ssl/private/ssl-cert-snakeoil.key smtpd_use_tls=yes smtpd_tls_session_cache_database = btree:${queue_directory}/smtpd_scache smtp_tls_session_cache_database = btree:${queue_directory}/smtp_scache smtp_sasl_auth_enable = yes smtp_sasl_password_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/sasl_passwd smtp_sasl_security_options = myhostname = localhost.localdomain alias_maps = hash:/etc/aliases alias_database = hash:/etc/aliases mydestination = localhost.localdomain, localhost relayhost = mail.digimatic.co.uk mynetworks = 127.0.0.0/8 mailbox_size_limit = 0 recipient_delimiter = + inet_interfaces = all message_size_limit = 10240000

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Printing with lpr
by Richard Lewis 14 Mar '09

14 Mar '09

Hello ALUG, I have a PDF I want to print on two sides per sheet. Often I just use the print dialog from evince for this, but evince is refusing to open this one properly. So I'm trying to use lpr. According to the Web lpr takes a -o switch which allows me to send options to my printer, including duplexing options. However, my man lpr suggests otherwise. No -o switch is documented and, indeed, lpr just shows the usage instructions if I try running it with a -o switch set. e.g. $ lpr -P ISMS -o Duplex=DuplexNoTumble Tymoczko08.pdf usage: lpr [-cdfghlmnpqrstv] [-#num] [-1234 font] [-C class] [-i [numcols]] [-J job] [-Pprinter] [-T title] [-U user] [-wnum] [name ...] $ lpr -P ISMS -O Duplex=DuplexNoTumble Tymoczko08.pdf $ lpr -PISMS -oDuplex=DuplexNoTumble Tymoczko08.pdf $ lpr -PISMS -ODuplex=DuplexNoTumble Tymoczko08.pdf $ lpr -P ISMS -o 'sides=two-sided-long-edge' Tymoczko08.pdf $ lpr -P ISMS -O 'sides=two-sided-long-edge' Tymoczko08.pdf So why does everyone on the Web have a -o switch for their lpr and I don't? Mine is version 1:2008.05.17 from Debian unstable. Any suggestions? -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Richard Lewis ISMS, Computing Goldsmiths, University of London Tel: +44 (0)20 7078 5134 Skype: richardjlewis JID: ironchicken(a)jabber.earth.li http://www.richard-lewis.me.uk/ -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- +-------------------------------------------------------+ |Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments.| |http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html | +-------------------------------------------------------+

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How to refer to 'all my files', including hidden ones?
by Chris G 13 Mar '09

13 Mar '09

I often have this problem! :-) How can one refer to all one's own files and directories easily? E.g. I am sitting at /home/chris and, for whatever reason, I want to apply a command to all the files, including hidden files. A command like this for example (where I have moved some files in which belong to someone else), I become root and do:- chown -R chris * Well, that's OK but it doesn't include hidden files, so:- chown -R chris .* That's no good either because it tries to run the command on .. as well as . and the hidden files. There are things like:- chown -R chris .[a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z]* but it feels like there should be an easier way. I know there's better syntax than [a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z]* (using + I think), but it's still hardly elegant. -- Chris Green

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How to truncate a mailbox periodically?
by Chris G 13 Mar '09

13 Mar '09

Can anyone suggest a neat/easy way to keep only (say) the last seven days of messages in an incoming mail spool? I have a couple of mail spools where I want to be able to do this, possibly with different 'number of days' expiry. -- Chris Green

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Free Laptops !
by Wayne Stallwood 10 Mar '09

10 Mar '09

Aha..now I have your attention Just a reminder that nobody has stepped up to become the ALUG librarian yet and the book collection is kinda really starting to get in my way now. This (for the right person) could be the stepping stone to many great things, so I am sure there is someone out there who really really wants to take this on.. Come on now..don't be shy..make yourself known and all the fame and fortune of being the only current ALUG librarian will be yours. On a mostly related note, part of the library is a collection of Linux user magazines from circa 2004/2005. Any objections to me chucking them out ? Anybody out there who actually wants them or has a good reason for us keeping them in the library speak now.

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Names sorting in Linux, is it just me that wants surname first?
by Chris G 10 Mar '09

10 Mar '09

Does anyone else here find that Linux applications' idea of how names should be presented in address lists etc. seems to be wrong, or at least not ideal? Having decided that I don't want to live with Evolution's quirks I took a look at Thunderbird, a well sorted mainstream application if there was one surely. But it *too* decides that the "Screen Name" for entries in the address list is presented as first name followed by surname. Thus, more importantly than the presentation, the names are *sorted* by first name which is decidedly not the way I expect to look names up in an address list. Am I missing some obvious configuration option that sorts names in surname order? This has happened in several different Linux apps when synchronizing data from my PDA whereas when I synchronized with Outlook (spit) I got exactly what I expected, names sorted by surname. It's this sort of thing that puts people of Linux a bit. -- Chris Green

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Bbattery charging "mystery"
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 10 Mar '09

10 Mar '09

Hi Folks, Yesterday I observed something which surprised me (running Debian Etch in VirtualBox in Win XP on an Advent 8117 laptop). WHen I sat down at the desk, I noticed the battery-charging LED flashing. When I check the battery level monitor (in both Debian and XP) it was at 20% and charging. An hour later it was fully charged. I generally leave the laptop running continuously, days on end, and its power supply is permanently connected to the mains. It's possible that something disturbed to connection for a while (perhaps most likely where the mains cable connects to the PS brick), and that something later re-established it (I do tend to swim in a pile of clutter so stuff gets pushed around), but the event prompted me to wonder the following. Might it be that, if a laptop (at any rate for some models) is kept continuously connected to the mains for days on end, then for the sake of battery health a re-charge cycle is initiated, whereby the input from the mains-connected PS brick is internally disconnected for a while, until battery-level drops to a fairly low level, and is then re-connected? It is, of course, known that it's good for battery life to submit it to a discharge/recharge cycle every so often; but I've not heard of this being built-in to laptops' power monitoring. (But then there's a lot of stuff I haven't heard of). Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 22-Feb-09 Time: 09:44:56 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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