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10369 discussions

Upgrading Ubuntu from 7.04 to 7.10
by sagr 18 Dec '07

18 Dec '07

Hi Folks, We are currently running Ubuntu 7.04 without problems on all our PCs. I click on the little "update" icon now and again to keep our PCs up to date with bug fixes but have noticed for a while that an additional button has appeared in the UPDATE MANAGER Update screen saying that a new Distribution Release 7.10 is available. Next to this message appears a tempting little button which is marked UPGRADE. Bearing in mind that I do not currently have any means to back up the data on the PC how safe is it for me to click on the UPGRADE button? Normally when the Update Manager runs and presents me with a list of updates I simply click on the INSTALL UPDATES button and everything gets updated smoothly without problems but will a simple click on the UPGRADE button be sufficient to smoothly and effortlessly upgrade my system to 7.10 or will I be consigning myself to hours of frustration and hundreds of messages to the ALUG List trying to sort out the problems it may cause? Have any other ALUGers plucked up the courage to click on the Ubuntu 7.04 Upgrade Manager UPGRADE button? Was their upgrade as smooth and effortless as a normal update or did it turn into an Upgrade From Hell? To misquote Shakespeare: To upgrade or not to upgrade that is the question... Ny advice would be appreciated! Sagr.

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Wireless networking
by Barry Samuels 18 Dec '07

18 Dec '07

Does anyone have experience of Netgear Rangemax products? I was hoping to move my desktop into another room but that is beginning to seem unlikely. I originally had a Netgear WG602 which is a plain vanilla wireless access point and in my desktop I have an on-board wireless chip with an external aerial and I also have a D-Link AirPlus XtremeG PCI wireless card. Both receivers give similar performance with the WG602. That combination didn't give a good enough signal in the room that I want to use. My next step was to buy a Netgear WPN802 RangeMax wireless access point which is supposed to gve up to 10 times the range of a 'normal' WAP. A trial showed that it gave a signal which was slightly less good than the WG602 in conjuction with either of the two receivers. Someone suggested that I should use a RangeMax card to get the best effect so I bought a WPN311 RangeMax PCI card. That, together with the WPN802 RangeMax WAP gave results that were no different from the original setup. Surely Netgear can't get away with stating that that combination will give up to 10 times 'normal' if it does not improve performance at all? Am I doing something wrong (apart from buying Netgear)? -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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Wireless networking
by Peter Alcibiades 18 Dec '07

18 Dec '07

I've installed three homeplug sets and 5 wirelesses. The three homeplugs were working within a minute of unpacking and plugging in. I got them from Solwise, and basically they stayed tthat way. Two of my own early plugs failed, one outside the guarantee period. This was the first one, and the only one that had any problems, but it was early days for homeplug. Solwise cheerfully replaced them by return mail, and on the second occasion when I told them they were outside guarantee, the answer was 'Oh don't worry about it'. Its super easy to tell what's happening with the Solwise: you either have three lights or you don't. And you just plug in a spare, assuming you have one. If it works, you know. Of the wireless ones, only one has been trouble free either to get working or more worrying, keep working. This one is with a Buffalo wireless router going into a Cable modem. The others had a variety of issues and were from several suppliers, and with Mac and PC both. Two worked perfectly, but later stopped working (and they are remote, so I don't know why). One gave all kinds of mysterious intermittent problems. One worked fine on a Mac, worked with a laptop, and then stopped working first on the laptop and then on the Mac. I asked the owner if he wanted me to come by, but he said he was fed up and bought some Solwise units which he did himself with no problems and wondered why he had not done that sooner. The latest wireless to go poof did so last week, after working fine for a year, and with no change of the connected computers. The problem is, some elderly lady is on the phone from a remote city, and its very hard to either get a coherent description of what's happening, or be sure that what you ask to have done is really happening. This is with wireless. On the other hand, look at the plug and tell me how many lights are on is very easy. So I now tell people: (1) get homeplug (2) get it from Solwise (3) you really want wireless, then -get the Buffalo - that is, get a separate access point not a wireless modem/router -get a man in. I don't do that anymore.... The netgear 5 port wired modem router has been fine. I've put in three or four of those. The great thing is it runs cool, it seems very reliable, and the user interface is easy for people to use. By contrast, the bargain wired router/modem from ebuyer works fine once its in, but heaven help the ordinary user who tries to set it up. Well, just my own experience. Peter

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Re: [ALUG] homeplug versus wireless
by mbm 17 Dec '07

17 Dec '07

One downside to the powerline approach is the fact that it uses a (scarce) mains socket. I've just counted the plugs in sockets in my study - 14 in total - plus three lying unplugged temporarily. Mick

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email bouncing ?
by James Freer 17 Dec '07

17 Dec '07

I've recently adopted a greyhound and joined a forum which for some reason doesn't like emails from a aol.com address. They are not sure why and i would be grateful if someone could explain. Below is a quote from that email. ----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors ----- <sally(a)greyhoundhomer.org.uk> ----- Transcript of session follows ----- ... while talking to greyhoundhomer.org.uk.: >>> >>> RCPT To:<sally(a)greyhoundhomer.org.uk> <<< 550-Callback setup failed while verifying <jessejazza(a)aim.com> <<< 550-Called: 64.12.138.120 <<< 550-Sent: initial connection <<< 550-Response: 554- (RTR:CH) http://postmaster.info.aol.com/errors/554rtrch.html <<< 550-554 Connecting IP: 65.98.59.114 <<< 550-The initial connection, or a HELO or MAIL FROM:<> command was <<< 550-rejected. Refusing MAIL FROM:<> does not help fight spam, disregards <<< 550-RFC requirements, and stops you from receiving standard bounce <<< 550-messages. This host does not accept mail from domains whose servers <<< 550-refuse bounces. <<< 550 Sender verify failed 550 <sally(a)greyhoundhomer.org.uk>... User unknown Final-Recipient: RFC822; sally(a)greyhoundhomer.org.uk Action: failed Status: 5.1.1 Remote-MTA: DNS; greyhoundhomer.org.uk Diagnostic-Code: SMTP; 550-Callback setup failed while verifying <jessejazza(a)aim.com> Last-Attempt-Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2007 04:28:37 -0500 (EST) thanks james

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Printing Pdf files
by Barry Samuels 16 Dec '07

16 Dec '07

Is there any software that would enable me, easily, to print a single pdf page over multiple A4 sheets? For example I have a pdf file which conists of one page but when printed on one A4 sheet makes it very difficult to read because the font is so small. It would be better to be able to print it on perhaps 2 A4 sheets if printed portrait or 3 A4 sheets if printed landscape. I haven't found a way to do this. -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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Ipswich ALUG Christmas Meal
by Tracy Dickerson 14 Dec '07

14 Dec '07

Hello Good People, As promised last night, I have booked a table for 8 at Mr Wing for 20.30 on Monday 17th December 2007. The all you can eat buffet is £15.90 a head and I am having to pay a £5 deposit on each place on Saturday. Please confirm your place with me so I know exact numbers. Thank you in advance. Tracy

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Informal meetup at the Milestone?
by Peter Weller 13 Dec '07

13 Dec '07

Hey, Seems most/some of you are going to be heading to Mr Wings on the 17th... anyone interested in an informal meetup at the Milestone? (Unless there was already going to be one there anyway, but it's not very clear from past messages on this ML/the website..) welp

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Asus eeepc
by Peter Alcibiades 13 Dec '07

13 Dec '07

A friend has one, which he had got for his wife, and brought it over to me as he was having trouble with the wireless settings, so I played with it for a half hour or so. His problem, don't know whether its a usual one, is that he was having to enter the wireless pass phrase every time he started up in the default configuration. I showed him the graphical network tool which he had not found, and we changed the setting. There wasn't much guidance about how to set it. It feels solidly made. Your immediate impression is that its a quality item, not cheap feeling or looking at all. Comes in a small neoprene envelope which looks like it will be adequate protection. Bright very clear screen, though it is small. I would like to see the screen extend to the edges more. Maybe a later version will. Reasonably fast to start up and given the Ars review I was pleasantly surprised by how fast it loads OO. Perfectly usable. Keyboard is acceptable. Its not a thinkpad X series. You would not buy one to write your novel at every morning. But its usable, you can touch type on it, though maybe not very fast. Interface that it comes with, a customised version of Ice, is fine for end users. Its such a different kind of machine that people just accept that this is not really a PC, so they seem unsurprised that the interface is a bit different. It really is compact. I had an old portege. Its a lot smaller and lighter, about the size of and weight of a non-blockbuster hard cover novel. It won't fit in the average handbag, but it will certainly fit in the average slim briefcase or portfolio. Who its perfect for, well maybe someone who does systems admin would find it an alternative to a heavy laptop, but in terms of end users, its a perfect fit for someone who is mobile and wants mail, web, some writing, calendar, that sort of thing as they move around. I wouldn't get it for someone who is going to do any serious writing - the screen size and keyboard will become a strain after a half hour, and an X series or equivalent will be better. But for the kind of use described above, its hard to imagine anything better or more cost effective. It may find all sorts of business uses at this price for field crews. A lot of us will have some friend or family member who needs exactly this. Though be a bit careful if they are real writers. Peter

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rsync fails where cp works
by Chris G 12 Dec '07

12 Dec '07

I am trying to dig into my rsync backup problems. It would appear that for some reason rsync is getting I/O errors when copying maildir files. I have done some tests on one particular directory, "cp -R" succeeds but "rsync -r" fails:- home# cp -R .in /freecom/backup/home/chris/Mail/ home# rsync -r .in /freecom/backup/home/chris/Mail/ rsync: rename "/freecom/backup/home/chris/Mail/.in/audacity/cur/.1172007150.76430_0.newred:2,.PC3iF7" -> ".in/audacity/cur/1172007150.76430_0.newred:2,": Input/output error (5) rsync: rename "/freecom/backup/home/chris/Mail/.in/audacity/cur/.1172012773.6188_0.newred:2,.P11kJR" -> ".in/audacity/cur/1172012773.6188_0.newred:2,": Input/output error (5) rsync: rename "/freecom/backup/home/chris/Mail/.in/audacity/cur/.1172032604.34523_0.newred:2,.e0feQB" -> ".in/audacity/cur/1172032604.34523_0.newred:2,": Input/output error (5) rsync: rename "/freecom/backup/home/chris/Mail/.in/audacity/cur/.1172038263.69147_0.newred:2,.W6m5Zl" -> ".in/audacity/cur/1172038263.69147_0.newred:2,": Input/output error (5) rsync: rename "/freecom/backup/home/chris/Mail/.in/freecycle/cur/.1172005922.70482_0.newred:2,S.aIqsGA" -> ".in/freecycle/cur/1172005922.70482_0.newred:2,S": Input/output error (5) rsync error: some files could not be transferred (code 23) at main.c(977) [sender=2.6.9] If I clear out the destination directory then rsync succeeds once (when it has to copy the files) but then fails as above every time. If I add the --inplace option I get:- home# rsync -r --inplace .in /freecom/backup/home/chris/Mail/ rsync: open "/freecom/backup/home/chris/Mail/.in/audacity/cur/1172007150.76430_0.newred:2," failed: Input/output error (5) rsync: open "/freecom/backup/home/chris/Mail/.in/audacity/cur/1172012773.6188_0.newred:2," failed: Input/output error (5) rsync: open "/freecom/backup/home/chris/Mail/.in/audacity/cur/1172032604.34523_0.newred:2," failed: Input/output error (5) rsync: open "/freecom/backup/home/chris/Mail/.in/audacity/cur/1172038263.69147_0.newred:2," failed: Input/output error (5) rsync: open "/freecom/backup/home/chris/Mail/.in/freecycle/cur/1172005922.70482_0.newred:2,S" failed: Input/output error (5) rsync error: some files could not be transferred (code 23) at main.c(977) [sender=2.6.9] The files in the destination directory seem normal:- home$ ls -l /freecom/backup/home/chris/Mail/.in/audacity/cur total 36 -rw------- 1 root root 8192 2007-12-10 20:40 1172007150.76430_0.newred:2, -rw------- 1 root root 8192 2007-12-10 20:40 1172012773.6188_0.newred:2, -rw------- 1 root root 12288 2007-12-10 20:40 1172032604.34523_0.newred:2, -rw------- 1 root root 8192 2007-12-10 20:40 1172038263.69147_0.newred:2, So why is rsync having problems? -- Chris Green

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Re: [ALUG] Asus Eee pc 4G
by Barrys linux mail 10 Dec '07

10 Dec '07

Hi Thanks for your views, I like the machine and may purchase one when my old laptop dies.Like the fact that it runs linux and no i will not put Windoze on it.Lets have more linux base machines cause i think Vista Sucks! Dell now do linux machines maybe others will follow. Barry

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Re: [ALUG] Cheap Dells
by mbm 10 Dec '07

10 Dec '07

A guy I know at Symantec told me that Dell (in common with other volume box shifters) receive a subsidy from the suppliers of products such as AV, firewalls, etc which they pre-install on the windows boxes. The logic here is that the punter will normally sign up to use the pre-installed "freebie" when the initial licence period expires. Thus the third party company (Symantec or whatever) gains market share while the box shifter gets a subsidy. There is not a mature enough "market" in such products in the Linux world so we end up with the anomalous situtation where a Linux installation actually costs the box shifter money - despite the cost of the MS install. Mick >From: MJ Ray <mjr(a)phonecoop.coop> >Subject: Re: [ALUG] Asus Eee pc 4G >To: main(a)lists.alug.org.uk >Message-ID: <475d4a23.4BrVmz4rdyG4m5/F%mjr(a)phonecoop.coop> >Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii >Barrys linux mail <bazubuntumail(a)tiscali.co.uk> wrote: > > Dell now do linux machines maybe others will follow. >I've read (and I think I checked when a family friend was after a new >laptop) that it's cheaper to buy a Dell Windows machine of the same >spec than to buy one of their Ubuntu machines. Also, you can try for >the Windows tax refund. >So, that makes me wonder if Dell are either:- >a. market-testing the gullibility of Ubuntu users; >b. looking to say "well, demand wasn't as high as predicted" when they >accept the Microsoft shilling to become an exclusively Windows vendor. >Paranoid or experienced?

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Why is rsync forking copies of itself?
by Chris G 10 Dec '07

10 Dec '07

I'm running some backups using rsync, it seems to be spawning multiple copies of itself:- root 4426 4424 1 11:24 ? 00:01:14 rsync -rqt --size-only /home /freecom/backup root 4427 4426 0 11:24 ? 00:00:01 rsync -rqt --size-only /home /freecom/backup root 4429 4427 4 11:24 ? 00:02:53 rsync -rqt --size-only /home /freecom/backup Why is it doing this? .... and *should* it be doing this as all three copies of rsync appear to be doing exactly the same thing. -- Chris Green

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Good NAS boxes for Linux?
by Chris G 10 Dec '07

10 Dec '07

Does anyone hear use a NAS with their Linux system? I.e. some sort of Network Storage on their home/office network to provide backup disk space and other facilities? I have a Freecom NAS box with 500Gb in it which works OK'ish with Linux but I'd be interested in knowing if anyone has anything which works better. The main problem with the Freecom box is that its SMB implementation is rather old/limited and doesn't work particularly well with mount.cifs to mount the Freecom disk drive across the network. What I'd ideally like is a low powered computer on which I can run Linux. The Freecom NAS (and similar boxes) are Linux based systems but the software isn't easily accessible for updates/fixes etc. I could use an old PC but they consume much more power, the NAS boxes are often fanless and consume only 15 to 20 watts. -- Chris Green

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[ALUG Announce] Pub Meeting Thurs 13th December
by Richard Lewis 10 Dec '07

10 Dec '07

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 * Thursday 13th December * 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. I intend to be there from about 20:00. Others may be there earlier. We should have a table reserved at the back of the pub just to the left of the bar. Note that it's late night shopping in Norwich on Thursdays and, with Christmas being close, the traffic could be busy! We look forward to seeing you there. Cheers, Richard -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Richard Lewis - UEA, MUS PG http://www.richard-lewis.me.uk/ JID: ironchicken(a)jabber.earth.li -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- ----- 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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Asus Eee pc 4G
by Barrys linux mail 09 Dec '07

09 Dec '07

Hi This looks a nice little machine , what do ya think? and it runs Linux www.asuslaptop.co.uk Barry

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Recommended DVD player?
by Greg Thomas 09 Dec '07

09 Dec '07

Can any recommend a DVD player for Linux (Ubuntu, specifically)? The default one, Totem Movie Player, will play the DVD, but has no navigation at all other than the slider bar at the bottom, and that's a bit flaky at best. It also only works when a DVD is inserted; when starting from the Applications menu it complains of missing codecs. Or perhaps I've just missed something? TIA, Greg

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[Fwd: Re: Lyx - anyone use it?]
by James Freer 08 Dec '07

08 Dec '07

Is a reply meant to default to individual's private email addresses on this group - or is it yet another problem with gmail [or perhaps my email client setting somewhere]. james

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Linux alternative to Outlook?
by Phil Wade 08 Dec '07

08 Dec '07

I'm wanting to use a Linux machine (just Ubuntu) for my "main" machine to handle my business calls and contacts. The trouble is, there doesn't seem to be a Linux alternative to Outlook - which I use for Calendar and Contacts at the mo. Evolution just seems to be a replacement for Outlook Express, not Outlook. Have I missed something? Regards,Phil Wade

4 5

Wiki spam problem
by samwise 07 Dec '07

07 Dec '07

There's still a spam problem with the wiki - I just cleared out loads of mainly chinese spam pages. At least they don't appear to be editing our own pages (perhaps a fix was put in by someone earlier?) ... If anyone with admin rights wants to look into it, I wonder if we could configure MoinMoin in any of the following ways: a) restrict wiki to English only b) only accept modifications with an explanatory comment (most of the spam ones don't) c) only accept modifications from registered users and require all new accounts to be approved (guess most people who want an account already have one, so that should only be requests from new users. We can always put a note on the wiki asking them to post to the mailing list to get an account.). Just some thoughts ... Peter.

3 3

Broken clipboard
by Mark Rogers 05 Dec '07

05 Dec '07

Dunno how but I've broken my clipboard! Any time I try to paste I get: ŸŸif (empty($job_rec->data['start'])) $job['start'] = date('Y-m-d'); The PHP code is something I did copy to the clipboard (don't know about the two leading chars though), but nothing I've copied since has "taken". Using glipper I can see the clipboard history, and if I copy something that's being added to the history just fine. It's only paste that doesn't work. I have had the problem once before and a reboot fixed it, but now that I'm not using Windows I don't see why I should have to reboot every few days! The two leading chars were the same last time, I think (upper case Y with umlaut). Only clue I can think of: I use Synergy (synergys.sf.net) to allow me to use one keyboard/mouse between two PCs, and amongst the things it does it copies the clipboard between machines. This machine is the Synergy server. (The other (client) machine is Win2k.) I've killed Synergy since the problem started and the clipboard is still broken, though. -- 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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Recovering deleted files that a process still has open
by Mark Rogers 05 Dec '07

05 Dec '07

I have a vmware-server installation running a virtual machine, however I have subsequently (and accidentally) deleted the .vmx configuration file. It appears that VMWare still has the file open, so it won't (as I understand it) be lost until VMWare is closed (eg I reboot the machine). Is there anything I can do to recover the file whilst in this state? (O/S is Ubuntu 7.04 if that helps.) -- 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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How to display result of remote PHP script within a HTML page
by sagr 05 Dec '07

05 Dec '07

Hi folks. A very dumb question from a HTML / PHP beginner... I have written a simple hit counter prog which I can access by running: http://www.suffolk-ancestor-genealogy-research.co.uk/counters/counter.php?w… I now want to integrate this into a HTML website page, so that this remote script "counter.php" is run and the result displayed on the HTML webpage each time the page is viewed. I have created a simple HTML page: http://www.suffolk-ancestor-genealogy-research.co.uk/counters/count_page.ht… which just consists of: <HTML> <BODY> <script src="http://www.suffolk-ancestor-genealogy-research.co.uk/counters/counter.php?w…"></script> </BODY> </HTML> When I go to this count_page.html webpage the hit counter is incremented but the result is not displayed on the webpage (even though it's output is visible when I run the script counter.php directly). How do I get the result from the remote script counter.php to display on my count_page.html page? sagr

5 9

Lyx - anyone use it?
by James Freer 04 Dec '07

04 Dec '07

ubuntu 7.04 I'd be grateful if someone could put me right on the following. I installed lyx through aptitude as i believe it takes more care with the dependencies. When i ran it i got the following - is this a bug? It actually seems to work OK - from what i've tried so far! I read that one is supposed to use lyx-qt in the command line but it doesn't seem to make any difference... from what i can see! thanks james j@j-desktop:~$ lyx X Error: BadDevice, invalid or uninitialized input device 167 Major opcode: 144 Minor opcode: 3 Resource id: 0x0 Failed to open device X Error: BadDevice, invalid or uninitialized input device 167 Major opcode: 144 Minor opcode: 3 Resource id: 0x0 Failed to open device Locale en_GB could not be set

4 3

regex, kate, gedit
by Peter Alcibiades 04 Dec '07

04 Dec '07

Hi, probably a silly question with an utterly obvious answer, but it would be great if someone can enlighten on it! I'm searching and replacing a text file. In gedit, if I search for \n\r I get, as expected, a match at every line end. Same with \n or \r. However, in Kate or Geany, I do not. Tearing hair out. What could be the problem? I've tried \n [\n] I've tried building up the expression in the K regex builder. I've tried selecting the line feed character and doing copy and paste. In Gedit it yields \n\r. In Geany it yields a couple of small square boxes with dots in them, which I then can't search on. Changing the coding doesn't seem to help either. At least, the ones I have tried. Is this likely to be the explanation? It displays fine however, so how do I find out which different coding to use? I would just do it in Gedit, except that as usual in the effort to make their apps unusable for anyone who wants to use them for anything, Gnome decline to support regex..... Peter

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