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Optimising MySQL and/or Apache for speed
by Mark Rogers 10 Mar '09

10 Mar '09

I have a server which was originally a low spec virtual machine with 128MB RAM, but which is now running on 4-times that RAM (shortly to be doubled again) and a faster "CPU". Available bandwidth has also been doubled. With the increase I'm disappointed not to be seeing much difference in the performance of websites on the server. Many of them are heavily database dependent with lots of queries, so the real fix is to optimise the code itself, but in the short term the CPU and memory hike needs to be showing some kind of benefit. The behaviour of the server is to work fine then suddenly run like a dog for a while, then come back up. How do I go about finding what the bottleneck is? ("top" showed both before the upgrade and since that no swap is being used and CPU usage is never particularly high, with Apache sometimes hitting ~20% but mostly not showing. In case I have some kind of virus/trojan/etc lurking, advice as to what to look for there also appreciated. -- 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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SuSE help!
by Yvonne Everett 09 Mar '09

09 Mar '09

Hi I've just had delivered an HP 2133 with SuSE installed. I have broadband connection at home which is setup with an ADSL router so I normally just have to plug in and the connection to the internet is direct. From the console session I can see the router, I can see that I have an IP address and I can even ping google.co.uk, bbc.co.uk etc. However, I cannot use Firefox, eventually I get the timeout message. Also I cannot get online updates (I've tried apt-get update from the command line) and I cant even seem to find the icon where I register for updates. Can anyone help me please as I'm new to SuSE (I have used Ubuntu previously). Thanks -- Yvonne Everett Email: ye103910(a)googlemail.com

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Library Books
by Keith Watson 09 Mar '09

09 Mar '09

I seem to have acquired a stack of linux related books, some of which I know are from the ALUG library (any any that aren't I'm happy to donate). Who should I return them to? and how? Keith

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[ALUG Announce] 2nd Thurs Pub Meet 8th March 2009
by Ben Bewick 08 Mar '09

08 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 ----- Dear ALUG, The monthly second Thursday social meeting of ALUG will take place on 8th March 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, Ben aka Viperfang ----- 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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OpenOffice and "yrt.doc"
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 08 Mar '09

08 Mar '09

Hi Folks, Dunno if it's just my installation, or if it's a general thing. Whenever I open a ".doc" in OpenOffice oowriter, or even just start up oowriter without nominating a document, the first thing that comes up is a panel which says: Openoffice.org Document Recovery Recovering document: [ blank ] Status of recovered documents: Document Name Status yrt.doc Not recovered yet [Start Recovery] [Cancel] Then, if I click on [Start Recovery], this changes to Status of recovered documents: Document Name Status yrt.doc X Recovery failed [Finish] Then, when I click on [Finish], it proceeds to open the document as if there had been no problem. It doesn't seem to happen, however, with oocalc (the spreadsheet). There does not seem to be a file "yrt.doc" anywhere on my system. Perhaps it was looking for some basic system/template file which it did not find, hence the messages. But I'd like to know what's going on, if anyone knows! With thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 08-Mar-09 Time: 01:10:59 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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similar to mac mini but cheaper?
by Albert Vilella 07 Mar '09

07 Mar '09

Hi, Does anybody know if there are alternatives to the Mac Mini but cheaper and with Linux installed? I've found the Eee Box and the Dell Studio Hybrid, but I still find them expensive and not available with Linux on most models. Anyone? Cheers, Albert.

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Apologies?
by Keith Watson 05 Mar '09

05 Mar '09

Apologies if that last message went out as HTML, I forgot to check before I sent it. Keith

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Finding directories whose contents have changed since yesterday
by Mark Rogers 05 Mar '09

05 Mar '09

What I want to do is write a script to backup some databases, but only if they've changed. I figured that the easiest way to get a list of databases that exist, as well as which have changed, is to look in /var/lib/mysql for directories with recently changed files. I know that find /var/lib/mysql -type d -mtime 1 .. will find directories that have changed inside 24 hours, but it does not pick up directories whose contents have changed. Any suggestions? (The next problem is that the user I want to run the script as does not have access to the /var/lib/mysql directory at the moment so a more elegant solution would be nice.) -- 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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question about spam and email
by Peter Alcibiades 05 Mar '09

05 Mar '09

I get an email apparently sent from my own address. For example, my address is, lets say, george(a)george.net The email as shown in the headers is as follows: (sparing you the men's health html content....) ____________________________________ X-Apparently-To: george(a)george.net via 217.146.188.205; Thu, 05 Mar 2009 03:09:34 +0000 X-YahooFilteredBulk: 89.255.66.166 X-YMailISG: 2SY32MQWLDseQtPq.viRb0HoD8citXfwb5yU.qQraFBDXDSdpqZYN3SwTpk2iqGxKbNzyJRIqyYInXz.PZigNBPBknbacSefTzLimGCItZrnjtmFQaaOfgZNXdcMWqDHKjumsKzHWpo8wDBn0BQrSqXXEBxy41e9PkcAi3StSZXQ5lU87DuIa4i_lxae6ynbT2_mj5nNPclFaR6tpR569bOJeJ7Y1eLll0nhygykKIG6bEfLNpfT9DBFkvrU7eOPmUFf5PGJ2DYy9z9yaX0jQSHomZcRBr3HaPmdJPgShRnlwaq_SzZMzh.RtEraDzH_Lfg2W3oR X-Originating-IP: [89.255.66.166] Authentication-Results: mta129.mail.ukl.yahoo.com from=; domainkeys=neutral (no sig); from=; dkim=neutral (no sig) Received: from 89.255.66.166 (HELO amerblind.outbound.ed10.com) (89.255.66.166) by mta129.mail.ukl.yahoo.com with SMTP; Thu, 05 Mar 2009 03:09:32 +0000 X-Message-Status: n:0 X-SID-PRA:george@george.net X-SID-Result: Pass Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2009 06:09:25 +0300 (EST) From: Allan Carver <george(a)george.net> To: <george(a)george.net> Subject: RE: USA Menshealth(Thu, 5 Mar 2009 06:09:25 +0300) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/html; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Status: R X-Status: NC X-KMail-EncryptionState: X-KMail-SignatureState: X-KMail-MDN-Sent: ________________________________ Is this just innocent spam, or has the account been compromised?

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High CPU usage for sudo?
by Mark Rogers 05 Mar '09

05 Mar '09

According to top on my desktop: PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND 18387 root 20 0 2876 976 952 R 83.3 0.1 3291:33 sudo 31304 mark 20 0 405m 254m 30m S 8.9 16.8 298:14.33 firefox 5964 root 20 0 190m 80m 13m S 3.3 5.3 142:12.89 Xorg 31994 mark 20 0 62364 24m 10m R 1.3 1.6 1:03.30 gnome-terminal 6196 mark 20 0 46292 10m 8256 S 0.7 0.7 3:28.18 gnome-settings- 6303 mark 20 0 90664 50m 7160 S 0.7 3.3 103:36.48 multiload-apple 11225 mark 20 0 111m 26m 17m S 0.7 1.7 13:11.20 deluge 31092 mark 20 0 2416 1172 876 R 0.7 0.1 0:00.08 top 6243 mark 20 0 21392 5032 4328 S 0.3 0.3 5:03.73 gnome-screensav So that's 83% for sudo... I just sat watching it for a while (I only fired up top as the machine was running slow) so although the above is a snapshot it's indicative of a pattern at the moment. Any suggestions? -- 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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Flash Player 9 test?
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 04 Mar '09

04 Mar '09

Hi Folks, To compare notes -- would anyone like to try playing the video linked to from the news article at http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/cn%5Fnews%5Fcambridge/ DisplayArticle.asp?ID=396400 When I clock on the "play" arrow, it crashes my Iceweasel (2.0.0.19 on Debian Etch). If I right-click on the image, I get a pop-up which makes it look as though the video is intended for Flash Player 9. I have Flash Player 9 installed, and have often used it successfully on other sites. With thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 04-Mar-09 Time: 16:56:57 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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[Fwd: [Peterboro] Free .PDF of Linux Format magazine]
by Mark Rogers 04 Mar '09

04 Mar '09

FYI: Posted to the P(eterborough)LUG list. The date this is available is 4th March. Mark Rogers -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [Peterboro] Free .PDF of Linux Format magazine Date: Tue, 03 Mar 2009 16:05:21 +0000 From: stuart lonnen <stuart.lonnen(a)gmail.com> Hi all, Just found out that the latest issue of Linux Format will be offered free for download from here http://www.tuxradar.com/content/linux-format-free-download-24-hours-only As the URL says the offer will expire after 24 hours and it starts at midnight tonight. I have a subscription so I don't have to download it, but I might just in case someone at the LUG wants it and misses it. I'll be able to offer it to anyone coming to the next LUG meeting. Cheers Stuart L. -- 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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Linux Certification...
by James Elsey 04 Mar '09

04 Mar '09

Hi Guys, I’m thinking about taking some kind of Linux certification, and I’m wondering if any of you have done this and what views/advice can you give. I’m interested in taking the Ubuntu certification, primarily because that’s the distro I’m most familiar with, yet I’d still class myself as a “beginner” user ( I can install software, work my around the terminal etc etc) I’ve read that you need to take LPI 101, 102, and 199 for this, but I’ve also read that the UCP is somewhat of a gimmick compared to the Red Hat certifications Are these qualifications recognised well, i.e. did they help you with new jobs in the past? I’d love to hear any advice you can give regarding Linux certifications. I don’t get to use Linux as much as I would like to, so I’m hoping these will provide me with some incentive to “knuckle down” and get on with it :) James Elsey Junior Developer Serengeti Systems Limited Serengeti House Kersey Maltings Kersey, Ipswich IP7 6DP Company registered in England & Wales Registration No: 3578108 T: 01473 825 002 D: 01473 825 013 E: HYPERLINK "mailto:chris.roberts@serengeti-systems.com"james.elsey(a)serengeti-systems.com URL: HYPERLINK "http://www.serengeti-systems.com/"www.serengeti-systems.com No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG. Version: 7.5.557 / Virus Database: 270.11.6/1980 - Release Date: 02/03/2009 23:02

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Alug 10th anniversary!
by Adam Bower 01 Mar '09

01 Mar '09

Hi all, May 2nd this year marks the 10th year of alug! (well, of the kit meetings anyhow, it did exist as a mailing list before that for a while). Anyhow, in recognition of this who wants to have a kit meet? I'd like to arrange something for the weekend of the 2nd/3rd May and the precise day depending on who is available and wants to come along. As yet we have no planned venue either! Anyhow, who is out there who wants to come along? Will a kit meet format be suitable? Is there something else we should do? Should we have some vintage Linux distros? Thanks Adam -- jabberid = quinophex(a)jabber.earth.li

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Watch this space - just got Lenny and There-Will-Be-Questions[TM]
by Anthony Anson 01 Mar '09

01 Mar '09

Just received a 5 DVD set of Lenny, and am building a box to keep him in. In the meantime, I'm going to put it all on a HDD on this box (HD0 in a tray) ATM the HDD (40 GB) is hosting a cut-down version of Sarge - which I've never got on with, preferring to run Knoppix from DVD. However, that's by-the-bye, I'll be able to find old friends (fiends?) like Gnome on the CDs - the entire contents of which I intend decanting into magnetospace. Anyone used VirtualBox for Windows-based programs, especially anything written in VB-net? -- Tony http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/

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Network Browsing via Homeplug
by steveydoteu 01 Mar '09

01 Mar '09

When browsing the home network, specifically on Windows as far as I can recall, there seemingly is no other device on the network in the entire house, which is of course not the case at all. Obviously this causes issues when trying to browse shared folders and so forth. Internet is connected to the system from a LAN switch which in turn is connected to a homeplug device, that obviously, recieves the internet from the router upstairs. I am wondering if there is a simple solution that I am missing here!

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puzzling result from who command
by Peter Alcibiades 27 Feb '09

27 Feb '09

I needed to run the who command, and was surprised to discover that my user was logged in three times. It was something like the following: al@athene:~$ who al pts/1 2009-02-27 07:19 (:0.0) al pts/0 2009-02-27 07:19 (:0.0) al pts/3 2009-02-27 07:19 (:0.0) Though the dates on one of the entries was different. Like an idiot I failed to copy the thing when it was showing. I then shutdown and rebooted, and it now comes up with one login as expected. Why would this happen? Peter

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J2ME / Netbeans
by Stuart Bailey 25 Feb '09

25 Feb '09

Any J2ME experts? I have a small project in development using J2ME to run on mobile phones. It's mostly complete, but probably needs about 3-4 days to finish off. Any one interested in a little extra work? Stuart -- --------------------------------------- Stuart Bailey BSc (hons) CEng CITP MBCS LinuSoft (Managing Director) Linux Specialist & Software Developer ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Phone: (0845) 658 3563 Direct: +44 (0)1953 878162 Fax: +44 (0) 1603 858583 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ http://www.linusoft.co.uk http://www.bluetoothadvertising.org.uk ---------------------------------------- -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.

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Trying to get rid of dollar symbol for pound sterling symbol
by Jenny Hopkins 24 Feb '09

24 Feb '09

Hi All, Happy New Year! I'm trying to replace the $ symbol on a friend's laptop with a £. The laptop is American, with only a $ key (HP Pavilion DV9600), and is running kubuntu 8.04. Running locale shows LANG=en_GB.UTF-8 LANGUAGE=en_GB:en and some other stuff - I'm not sure if that has anything to do with anything. Can anyone offer assistance? Thanks, Jenny

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How to execute something when I log out from X?
by Chris G 24 Feb '09

24 Feb '09

I run xubuntu 8.10 and I want to shut down my VirtualBox guest machine when I log out. That is I want to shut it down automatically, I usually remember to do it before I logout but sometimes I forget and it is then shut down 'ungracefully' with risk to its contents. One would have thought that there would be 'hooks' for running stuff at shutdown but I can't find any at all. Does anyone have any suggestions? -- Chris Green

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lenny and virtual box
by Peter Alcibiades 24 Feb '09

24 Feb '09

I run VB under Lenny, W2K, for a specialist CAD program. Works perfectly. Would probably work better with more memory, the rest of the system does slow down a bit. Only have 1G of which 512 is allocated to the VM. I can't get shared folders to work, which is tiresome, so I email files back and forth - once they are exported in dxf they can be worked on in QCAD. Peter

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Email editing with TB - you can use any editor!
by James Freer 22 Feb '09

22 Feb '09

Recently i had wanted to use a text editor to speed up answering emails and considered Mutt and Emacs. I had used Thunderbird for sometime and liked the app but editing emails takes too long. Setting up Mutt was ok but still involved quite a bit of work. Yesterday i came across a Thunderbird addon Muttador (still beta stage - vi editor) and today came across a non-mozilla TB addon called Exteditor... just what i've wanted and didn't think it existed! http://globs.org/articles.php?lng=en&pg=2 Some v.kind person has developed an external editor addon instead of the TB editor. It allows emacs, vi, joe, gedit or whatever to compose emails. Should be of interest to anyone who wants to increase their productivity and say goodbye to the mouse while editing emails. james

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Symchronization, nearly have what I want now
by Chris G 21 Feb '09

21 Feb '09

I've been niggling away at my Nokia E71 synchrnozation problem ever since I posted here about it. I think I now have a workable solution, it's not perfect but it's good enough for the present. The downside is that it involves a web 'out there' intermediary, I am using ScheduleWorld (http://www.scheduleworld.com) I have my Nokia E71 synchronizing via my local wifi to ScheduleWorld and I have installed the SyncEvolution plugin for Evolution that synchronizes with ScheduleWorld too. It's *slightly* clumsy in that I have to do two separate synchronizes, one each for the E71 and Evolution but it does, I suppose, give me web access to my contacts and calendar. There are plugins/conduits for most devices and software for ScheduleWorld so I could move to Thunderbird/Lightning if I decide to do so. I'd really prefer a lightweight syncMl server for my home machine, the syncEvolution site does mutter about such a thing being on the way so we can but hope. -- Chris Green

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Problems with Monitor in standby
by Alex Scotton 21 Feb '09

21 Feb '09

Hi All, As a result of not being able to define in a google-able way whats wrong with my setup at the moment, I have resorted to mailing you guys... As I have seen hundred of problems solved by you guys.. My problem is a simple, yet annoying one... Whenever my system (Ubuntu 8.10 | Kernel 2.7.11) is IDLE for long enough to turn the monitor "off", the monitor goes into standby fine (green light turns to orange light) but every so often the monitor will boot up again, and flash up on the screen "No Signal" and go back to standby mode... there seems to be no consistency to it, it is very random.. However as I dual boot with windows, I was able to identify that the monitor works fine in windows, and I haven't had these problems before.. Further Specs if required are available but you may have to tell me where to find those stats (as am still learning the basics) However I can tell you that it is a ViewSonic VP191b on a Nvidia geforce 6150SE using the proprietary drivers! Any help will be much appreciated, and to all readers the wishes of a good day! Peace! Alex

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Wireless Access Points
by steveydoteu 20 Feb '09

20 Feb '09

ALUG, I am looking into a purchase, nothing to high end, just as a means of discarding a number of cables in my room. The problem arises when I have no experience or knowledge of using WAPs before. My current setup is as follows: BTHomeHub (2nd gen I believe) is connected into powerline adaptors one of which is used as an outlet in this room. I have then connected a LAN switch to the adaptor, which is then cabled to all machines that require access. With this in mind all current devices can actually be used via Wifi, if it was not for the HomeHub wifi being utter crap. So I am looking for advice or suggestions for a WAP that is around ~£50 that will cope with a main desktop, media server, and various consoles. Cheers, Steve www.stevey.eu

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