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Where to buy basic system unit for Linux? (Chris G)
by Peter Alcibiades 03 Oct '08

03 Oct '08

I used to use Komplett, who were brilliant, but how about Novatech as an alternative? Peter

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Where to buy basic system unit for Linux?
by Chris G 03 Oct '08

03 Oct '08

Does anyone have recommendations for buying a reasonable base unit (i.e. no screen/keyboard/mouse/etc.) I think I'd prefer an 'all Intel' system as that's any easy way to be (fairly) sure it will all work in Linux (though I'm willing to listen to alternatives). I want something like - desktop/tower system, intel core two quad processor, 4Gb RAM (with space for more), 500Gb or thereabouts hard disk. My last system was a 'select the bits yourself' custom build from Komplett but they no longer exist. A company like them would be good. -- Chris Green

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Linux PVR boxes
by Mark Rogers 01 Oct '08

01 Oct '08

Does anyone have any knowledge/experience of commercially available Linux PVRs, such as http://www.darkbox.co.uk http://www.dreambox.org.uk A customer asked me about them as his "Linux guru" (a title I really don't live up to!) and I'd not heard of either of them. -- 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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Installing NX on a headless remote server
by Mark Rogers 30 Sep '08

30 Sep '08

Is there any reason why I should not be able to install NX (www.nomachine.com) on a remote server (to which I have root access)? If I try to install using dpkg and "apt-get -f install" to resolve dependencies I'm getting connection errors which I am pretty sure relate to there being no X server installed. What would be the minimum I need to do to get X installed so that this would work (assuming my guess is correct)? What I am trying to do is reach the point where I can connect to a box in a remote office and use (eg) Firefox on the box to view locally hosted web pages, although once I have remote access to a "desktop" there are other ways I could (ab)use that. -- 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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non-empty DVD shows up empty.
by Torben Stones 29 Sep '08

29 Sep '08

I've got some pictures that I backed up to a DVD earlier this year. But now when I put it my computer to recover some of them it shows up as an empty DVD+R. I can see from the surface that it has been written to, but the computer just isn't seeing it. Is there any programs that I can use to try and recover what is on the disk? Any help would be greatfully recived. Thanks Torben -- You've got a lot of choices in your life. If getting out of bed in the morning is a chore and you're not smiling on a regular basis, try another choice.

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books on perl
by robert johnson 28 Sep '08

28 Sep '08

I was wondering whether there was any books on Perl programming, more importantly making games using Perl.Thanks Robert

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How-To: Dual-Boot Ubuntu Linux Desktop Along Side Windows XP
by Barrys linux mail 27 Sep '08

27 Sep '08

Hi Below is a link to a step by step guide of how to boot two hard drives Ubuntu/XP it may help somebody as it helped me Barry http://www.ehomeupgrade.com/2006/06/02/how-to-dual-boot-ubuntu-606-dapper-l…

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National Archives: Open Doc Format Petition
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 26 Sep '08

26 Sep '08

Hi Folks (and sorry for any cross-posting you may experience), It looks as though the result of the e-petition may have been positive! (Or maybe it was already OK). See: http://www.number10.gov.uk/Page16957 Best wishes to all, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 26-Sep-08 Time: 17:30:46 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Twiceler is making me paranoid
by Sagr 24 Sep '08

24 Sep '08

I have noticed an increasing number of visits from a web bot called Twiceler (ID String: Mozilla/5.0 Twiceler-0.9 http://www.cuil.com/twiceler/robot.html) It's initial visits seem to come from IP:208.36.144.6 but I have also noticed it appearing from IP:38.99.44.101 et al. I initialy thought it was a Hacker Bot as it seems to occasionaly cloak it's identity and claim to be the Google Bot. However the multiple IP address hopping and ID cloaking kind of became insignificant when my inbox started to become flooded with Hacker Alert emails from some of my PHP scripts who were reporting they were being probed with an assortment of invalid input parameters by this Bot. In short this Twiceler Bot appears to behave like a Hacker Bot deliberately designed to probe websites and scripts for vunerabbilities. However looking at it's website it gives the impression of complete innocence... What on earth is going on??? Have any other ALUGers found their website being checked for vunerabilities by Twiceler? Time for me to baracade the door and hide under the bed with tins of corned beef and bottled water??? Sagr.

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Flash/Gnash!
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 24 Sep '08

24 Sep '08

Hi Folks, I want to install a standalone FlashPlayer on a Debian Etch 4.0 system (regularly updated), just as I once did in the increasingly distant past on a RedHat-9 system! I have the FlashPlayer plugin working nicely in Iceweasel, but I also want the standalone version. Adobe's FlashPlayer web-pages do not seem to have the standalone version for Linux available (the one page where it is alleged that it is available as part of a "developer" package has no content). Question 1: Can anyone point me to a site where it IS available? A possible alternative might be Gnash, the OSS development of a flash player. Having entered deb http://www.backports.org/debian etch-backports main (as recommended on a forum that came up on Google) into /etc/apt/sources.list, I can search for 'gnash' in the synaptic package manager and find a selection [A] of gnash and related packages. However, If I attempt to mark gnash for installation, I get [B] To be installed libcurl3-gnutls and is I then mark that for installation I get gnash: Depends: gnash-common but it is not going to be installed even though gnash-common was listed at [A] above. So I go back to the [A] listing, and mark gnash-common. I then get To be installed libcurl3-gnutls just as at [B]. And when I try to mark this again, I get: gnash-common: Depends: gnash-common but it is not going to be installed Depends: libboost-date-time1.33.1 but it is not installable Depends: libboost-thread1.33.1 but it is not installable Depends: base-files (>=4.0.1~) but 4 is to be installed So I'm right royally going round in circles. GNASH GNASH GNASH!!! Question 2: Can anyone suggest a way out of all this? Either a pukka Adobe standalone for Linux, or an escape from the Gnash labyrinth? With thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 24-Sep-08 Time: 17:14:51 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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[FTAGH] Atari 800XL + Mac IIsi
by Mark Ridley 23 Sep '08

23 Sep '08

Apologies for the non-Linux related mail, but I'm moving abroad and I just can't bring myself to throw these away. Mac IIsi, monitor, keyboard etc. Fully working. [ex-BT kit, give to me when I left] Atari 800XL, 1050 floppy drive, PC/SIO connector, a bit tatty but works. [my first computer, what a beauty!] Free! But you'll need to come get them from Norwich Road, Ipswich. Reply to me if interested, and we can a rrange a time. -Mark

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[Fwd: Drive image advice required]
by Barrys linux mail 20 Sep '08

20 Sep '08

-------- Original Message -------- Subject: [ALUG] Drive image advice required Date: Thu, 18 Sep 2008 21:25:10 +0100 From: Barrys linux mail <bazubuntumail(a)tiscali.co.uk> To: Anglia Linux group <main(a)lists.alug.org.uk> Hi. I need some guidance on copying a windows xp drive,copying the hole drive including the operating system to another hard drive(the original drive is on its last legs). Wow Thanks for the advice,what i think i will do is look at the drive copy software mentioned and also look at the one on www.easus.com/disk-copy and see if i can back it up to DVD. Then install Ubuntu on a new hard drive and see how i get on with it. It has worked fine on my laptop for over a year, but that has no cd/dvd burning facilities and the new desktop has. It is possible to connect two desktop boxes to one lcd monitor isn't it (by a double connector)? Would really like to move completely to Linux as Don't want Vista and fed up with Microsoft money grabbing new operating system launches to get us to buy more powerful systems.What next minimum Ram 50GB? Well i ain't a buyin Mr Gates (oops sorry you don't work there anymore!) Thanks again chaps (and ladies) Barry

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Asterisk installers
by Mark Rogers 19 Sep '08

19 Sep '08

I'm interested in installing an Asterisk phone system, but it'll be in an environment that'll want someone who knows what they're doing to install and support it. Does anyone here have any knowledge of (and preferably recommendations) for companies who install Asterisk-based phone systems? -- 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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Drive image advice required
by Barrys linux mail 19 Sep '08

19 Sep '08

Hi. I need some guidance on copying a windows xp drive,copying the hole drive including the operating system to another hard drive(the original drive is on its last legs). (1) does drive image software work ? as i thought for copyright reasons it was not possible to copy all of windows. (2) If it works does the receiving drive have to be the same size as the original drive. (3) what would happen if i put this new drive into another computer with a different processor and video card,will windows throw a wobbly? The reason for all these questions is i have the chance of a cheap second hand desktop computer with a hard drive that is getting very noisy, so i want to fit a new drive.I do not have the xp disks so i need to if possible copy windows onto the new drive.Then install ubuntu on the same drive as a dual boot(if i am right ubuntu will partition the drive as i require and do the dual boot settings.My own computer has a better version of xp (professional)on it but the processor and video card are different.Would like to put that on the new if possible. I really want to change fully to ubuntu but not sure if it will be happy with a games type video card which the previous owner had put in the computer. OR should i say what the heck and just put ubuntu on the new drive after running checks with the live disk? Barry

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How to get around missing gstreamer.pc (pkg-config) file?
by Chris G 19 Sep '08

19 Sep '08

I'm trying to build gnome-alarm, when I run ./configure I get:- ... ... checking for GTK... yes checking for GNOME_VFS... yes checking for GCONF... yes checking for LIBGLADE... yes checking for GST... configure: error: Package requirements (gstreamer-0.10 >= 0.10.2) were not met: No package 'gstreamer-0.10' found Consider adjusting the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable if you installed software in a non-standard prefix. Alternatively, you may set the environment variables GST_CFLAGS and GST_LIBS to avoid the need to call pkg-config. See the pkg-config man page for more details. I *do* have gstreamer installed:- home# yum list gstreamer Installed Packages gstreamer.x86_64 0.10.15-1.fc8 installed gstreamer.i386 0.10.15-1.fc8 installed but it doesn't seem to come with a gstreamer.pc file. I have checked on another system which also has gstreamer installed (a different version) and that doesn't have gstreamer.pc either. So "adjusting the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable" isn't going to help me because there's no gstreamer.pc to be found. I don't really follow the other suggestion "you may set the environment variables GST_CFLAGS and GST_LIBS to avoid the need to call pkg-config". I can't see any reference to GST_CFLAGS and GST_LIBS in the pkg-config manual page. Can anyone help? -- Chris Green

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Zone file help wanted
by Chris G 18 Sep '08

18 Sep '08

Zone files always seem a bit of a black art to me so before I screw things up I thought I'd ask here. My domain isbd.net is hosted at gradwell.net and I can customise the zone file. The only change I have made is that I have added a CNAME entry for 'home' with a data value of 84-45-228-40.no-dns-yet.enta.net (note that this is a web form with columns for these values, it's not the actual raw zone file). This has been working fine for the past couple of years so I can access my home machine as home.isbd.net. The 84-45-228-40.no-dns-yet.enta.net is my EntaNet (via ukfsn) domain with a static IP. However 84-45-228-40.no-dns-yet.enta.net seems to have gone AWOL, the DNS name that is, not the actual connectivity to 84.45.228.40. I've contacted them and they don't really know why but the names are about to be changed so maybe something has happened ahead of time. Anyway I'd like to change things so that I can give the raw IP address for home.isbd.net rather than relying on Entanet's name for it, so my question is how do I do this? Do I need to add an A record instead of a CNAME, or do I need both, or what? I suspect that all I need to do is to delete the CNAME I have added and then add an A record for 'home' with data 84.45.228.40, is that right? -- Chris Green

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Re: [ALUG] FoxGM carrier
by Wayne Stallwood 18 Sep '08

18 Sep '08

On Wed, 2008-09-17 at 14:59 +0200, Granville Paulse wrote: > Hi Wayne > > I've basically re-soldered the whole of J6 and J7. These are the files that > I am using: > > gprs-options: > /dev/ttyS2 > 9600 > defaultroute > user "" > connect "/usr/sbin/chat -v -f /etc/ppp/gprs-connect" > disconnect "/usr/sbin/chat -v -f /etc/ppp/gprs-disconnect" > > gprs-disconnect: > ABORT 'BUSY' > ABORT 'ERROR' > ABORT 'NO DIALTONE' > TIMEOUT 30 > '' '+++\c' > SAY " + sending break" > 'NO CARRIER' 'ATH' > SAY "\n + dropping data connection" > OK 'AT+CGATT=0' > SAY "\n + disconnecting from GPRS" > OK '\c' > SAY "\n + disconnected." > > gprs-connect: > TIMEOUT 60 > ABORT 'BUSY' > ABORT 'ERROR' > ABORT 'NO CARRIER' > '' 'AT' > OK AT+CGDCONT=1,"IP","Unrestricted","0.0.0.0",0,0 > OK ATD*99***1# > CONNECT '' > > ppp-start: > /usr/sbin/pppd file /etc/ppp/gprs-options > > pap-secrets: > '' * '' * > > In gprs-options, it mentions ttyS2 but there is no mention of ttyS3. Is this > ok. I am using pppd 2.4.2b3. Is this ok? Are you using a different version? > What does your connection script look like? That looks pretty ok to me from a quick glance, ttyS3 is only used if you have the gps/gprs module for the GPS bit..I actually have ttyS3 tagged off board as I need the serial port for something else. My fox is currently not with me but I will take a look at my backup of my scripts later and tell you if there is any obvious difference. The only other test I can think of is to compile some sort of teminal emulation command line app for the fox and then try and talk to ttyS2 direct and see if the modem is responding..I suspect not as I can't think of any other reason ppp would fail like that. The only other thing I can think of is that the telit module isn't connecting properly via that multiway connector on the bottom (but obviously well enough that the power, status and start pins are connecting) either that or you have a faulty foxGM board but as I say the traces are pretty much straight though so I can't see what would be wrong. What sdk/firmware image are you using..I am on the phrozen one

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Scripting a crontab re-read
by Mark Rogers 18 Sep '08

18 Sep '08

Does anyone have any idea how to force cron to reload its user-based crontabs? I have a setup script for a system which does a lot of things, amongst them copying a crontab into /var/spool/cron/crontabs and settings its permissions, however cron ignores it until I crontab -e and make a change (eg add and delete something) and save it. Restarting cron or even the box is not sufficient to make it reload. I discovered that the mtime of the crontabs folder is relevant, but "touch"ing it hasn't solved the problem. (System is Ubuntu 8.04 server.) -- 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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Help with gnome desktop icon please!
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 17 Sep '08

17 Sep '08

Hi Folks, On my (debian Etch) Gnome desktop there are some icons, one of which is named "ted's Home". When I double-click on this, up comes a window which displays the contents of /home/ted So far so good ... One of the directories in /home/ted is Downloads, i.e. /home/ted/Downloads I want to put an icon on the desktop such that double clicking on this will open /home/ted/Downloads and display its contents (rather than having to double click on "ted's Home" and then double click on "Downloads"). I can NOT suss out how to do this!!! Help please! With thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 17-Sep-08 Time: 20:00:41 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Free Text Terminal
by Steve Fosdick 17 Sep '08

17 Sep '08

Further to my last message, an HP 700/92 text terminal availbale to anyone who will collect. This is one of the models that understands both the HP proprietry escape codes and the DEC/ANSI codes. Uses a non- PS2 keyboard (supplied, not pictured). Has 25 pin D connection for connection to host and a printer port. More details: http://pelvoux.gotadsl.co.uk/freecycle/index.html Steve.

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Free Stuff (computer desk, Monitor, PC)
by Steve Fosdick 17 Sep '08

17 Sep '08

Free to anyone prepared to collect: A PC desk, Width 762mm, Depth 755mm, Height 710mm A 17" monitor (1280x1024@60Hz or 1024x768@85Hz) An AMD K6 PC More details here: http://pelvoux.gotadsl.co.uk/freecycle/index.html

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Self-hosted DDNS
by Mark Rogers 17 Sep '08

17 Sep '08

Are there any free (preferably as in speech) dynamic DNS packages, to provide services similar to those offered by DynDNS? Just to be clear, I'm not looking for something like ddclient (which connects to services like DynDNS), I want to set up my own DNS server which can be updated by those types of clients. (The application is industrial hardware we're supplying as part of other solutions which will often be set up with Internet access, often with dynamic IP, and we want to keep track of them.) -- 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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Looking for an alarm/reminder program for Gnome (or X)
by Chris G 17 Sep '08

17 Sep '08

Having decided that there's no application out there that can manage both my calendar/time management *and* my reminder/alarm requirements I've decided to look for a dedicated alarm program. My requirements are:- Must run in the background or be driven by cron so that alarms will appear regardless of what I'm doing (I will be running an X desktop but that's the only guaranteed thing, actually not quite, Firefox is always running too). When an event is due I want to be able to pop up daily reminders from a specified number of days before the event and to be able to stop them when I have 'done' what is required. I'd like the pop-up (flag, whatever) to be permanent until I acknowledge it, something like an icon in the Gnome Panel would be OK. Events need to be specified by date, time of day is unlikely to be significant. For most things a yearly repeat would be fine (e.g. a 'birthday' type reminder), I also have several which are quaterly but I'm prepared to deal with them by setting up four annual reminders if necessary. Kalarm seems to fulfil most of my criteria - any other ideas? Is there something more 'Gnome friendly' or generic maybe? A PIM or groupware application which can do this might be of interest but I will *not* be running it all the time so note the first criterion above. -- Chris Green

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Text munging tool...
by Ruth Bygrave 16 Sep '08

16 Sep '08

The Mac, and other Unix systems, have fairly good text-munging things for mapping typos to corrected words etc. I use TypeIt4Me for on-the- fly corrections of mistakes I make all the time. I'm having a go at OCRing a book that fell apart: what's the best 'black box' for regex text munging (i.e. pour file in, get corrected file out?) for patterns that turn up again and again? Obvious examples from the book include: digits in whitespace between lower-case alpha characters (meaning page numbers); the string 'ddThe' (goodness knows how this happens, but it seems to be a scanning error for ". The"); lower-case letters with a spurious line- break between them; and so on. These are obvious simple regexes without false positives. Do I: 1) Try to use sed? 2) use something someone has already written in perl or python? or 3) try to write something in applescript? (posted to Alug because it's much more of a Unix question than a Mac- specific question) Regards, Ruth

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Debian 3.1
by CDW (Linux) 15 Sep '08

15 Sep '08

My son has picked up a Sun Sparc workstation which has Debian 3.1 on it. It was from a freecycle mail list but the preson donating it was a bit clueless - he said he worked for an Apple Store but the iMac he was also trying to make work, didn't. That was due to a blank boot CD and a dead hard drive. The Sun works and gets to a login prompt but that's the problem, no userids or passwords as you might expect. As my son doesn't have broadband and so can't easily download a full CD, is there an easy way to recover the machine, perhaps by blowing away a file containing the afore-mentioned userids? If so, what can I do to help him? -- __ __| |_ __ __ .-----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:cdw_alug@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |_______________________________________________|

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