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[ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : The Milestone, Woodbridge Road
by samwise 23 May '07

23 May '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 ----- The monthly "Third Monday" ALUG Ipswich Social Meeting is back again next Monday (21st April) at 20:00: The Milestone Beer House 5 Woodbridge Road IPSWICH IP4 2EA Tel: 01473 252425 Map/Directions URI: http://maps.google.co.uk/?q=IP4+2EA The Milestone pub is in the centre of Ipswich, near the now-defunct Odeon cinema and not far from The Regent Theatre. There is more information on the venue, including car parking info, on the ALUG wiki: http://www.alug.org.uk/wiki/moin.cgi/Meetings All are welcome, novices and experienced users. Hopefully, it shouldn't be too hard to find the pack, look for those huddled around a laptop! Feel free to ask for further information on the Main ALUG mailing list. 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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Journal/diary program for 'local' use
by Chris G 22 May '07

22 May '07

I'm sure I found something like this a while ago but now all I can find is blogs. I'm after something that's half way between an appointments calendar (or even a PIM) and a diary/journal. I.e. I want a program that allows me to remind myself about things but also allows me to wax lyrical about my doings for the day. Ideally it will allow me to write using my choice of text editor but that's not absolutely essential, it certainly doesn't *have* to have a GUI interface but on the other hand I don't mind if it does. Being able to view the calendar/diary from the web would be a plus but isn't really important. Any suggestions anyone? -- Chris Green

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FAO Mark Ray
by J.R. Seago 22 May '07

22 May '07

Mark, if I remember correctly you use the phone co-op as your ISP. It looks to me to be the one to go for, if I can get it outside Inverness, they do already have broadband at the new house having been on the receiving end of numerous ISP's who have gone bad. Is it a good deal in terms of quality the £24·99 is a £1·00 more than I'm paying now but as any profit goes to a good cause I'd rather pay that and get a reasonable service than pay less and end up with all the hassle I've had in the past, any thoughts please? -- John Seago GNU/Linux Registered User No. #219566 http://counter.li.org/ () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments

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Next Monday's Ipswich meet
by samwise 21 May '07

21 May '07

Hi, I've posted a reminder to Announce with details of next week's Ipswich meet which should come through when it's authorised. Wayne, were you thinking of trying to attend? Just wondering, as I have some books I could donate to the library, if you're going to be there? Cheers, Peter.

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OT, but ...
by ted.harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 19 May '07

19 May '07

Hi Folks, I'm writing to ask for reactions to an item in today's Daily Telegraph "Digital Life" (in the "Review" section). This week, they're testing "Mini-PCs", and I quote their review of the Apple Mac Mini ("From £399"): "Apple's Mac Mini is the tiniest 'small form factor' computer in this group. It is 6.5in square, 2in high, and has a gorgeous brushed-metal finish below the iconic Apple-white lid. Unfortunately, it's also the perfect case of style over substance. The 1.66GHz version is certainly cheap, but it's also very slow. Even the faster model uses only a 1.83GHz Core Duo processor (not the nippier Core 2 Duo) and has just 512 MB of RAM. You will also have to supply the keyboard, mouse and monitor. We'd recommend the Mac for undemanding word processing, surfing the web, or impressing your friends. For amything more intensive, steer clear." Ehh?? "very slow"?? What *do* people use computers for these days. then? For years I've been doing word-processing (including "demanding") and web-surfing on A: 75MHz CPU + 64MB RAM B: 366MHz CPU + 128MB RAM C: 733MHz CPU + 512MB RAM (which at the same time happily runs Win98 in VMWare) (etc). and I've done a lot of quite intensive computational work too (dunno about impressing my friends, though ... ); and I've never had a machine more beefy than (C). I can see that the Apple Mac Mini could be inadequate for computing predictions of climate change, or similar; but what the hell can it be that enough of Joe Public want to do with a computer that it wouldn't be up to? (OK I can see a case for more RAM; but that should be upgradeable). Any comments? Ted. PS For comparison, the complete set of today's "Mini PC" reviews can be found at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/digitallife/index.jhtml and click on "on trial" -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 19-May-07 Time: 17:09:17 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Blogs and Wikis and things like that
by Chris G 18 May '07

18 May '07

I am trying to work out what a blog might do for me. I have a wiki running on my home Linux box alread (TWiki) and I find it useful for some things, I tend to use it as a CM tool rather than a wiki really as I am about the only contributor! :-) Still it allows me to give other members of the family some space to play in and it allows me to add to and create web pages when I'm away from home. Now I have a need for a diary type tool of some sort and, fairly obviously, blogs come to mind. However having played with a couple I'm still a bit confused as to what they actually offer. Apart from the ability to edit a web page and add stuff on a sequential basis is there anything special that a blog does that a wiki doesn't? Or, more particularly, are there any things that a blog makes easy that are more difficult with other tools? -- Chris Green

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UPS again
by J.R. Seago 18 May '07

18 May '07

Having a wife and daughter resident at home who are both becoming increasingly 'Green', today they presented me with an 'intelligent' six gang surge protected distribution thingy from 'Lakeland' to plug in to my UPS. This switches everything else plugged into the five subordinate sockets once the computer, (plugged into the first socket) has been powered down. At the moment I have my Netgear ADSL router plugged into this thingy, is that OK? Will my router survive being turned on and off when the computer and monitor is? Will it retain its settings, as I can cheat and just not power down my computer, although I might get caught if they spot all the pretty lights on at night! or I can plug the router directly into the UPS. -- J.R. Seago GNU/Linux Registered User No. #219566 http://counter.li.org/ () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments

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Re: UPS again
by J.R. Seago 18 May '07

18 May '07

Tthank you to all those who replied to my query. The router is plugged into the mains again, although I can use a surge protected four gang out of the UPS to the router transformer, and then plug the six gang intelligent thingy into that. -- J.R. Seago GNU/Linux Registered User No. #219566 http://counter.li.org/ () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments

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Re: main Digest, Vol 23, Issue 21
by Matthew 18 May '07

18 May '07

> "Hub_2" is a 5-port > which (IIRC) claims that each port can independently negotiate > its rate with whetever its connected to. There is no such > claim for "Hub_1". > ... C ... only has a 10BaseT Switch_1 might have auto-negotiation for speed even if it's not claimed: it is very common on switches. If it doesn't, your problem is likely to be because Switch_1 and Machine_C are expecting different speeds. I don't know exactly what that would do, but I would expect collisions and hence delays. Try swapping the switches over. >> and are they all indicating that everything is >> plugged in at 100 meg? > > I don't know -- how can one tell? Most switches either have an additional light on each port when the link is at 100Mbps, or one of the lights is a different colour based on data rate. Hope that helps, Matthew

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journal/diary tool for local use
by Chris G 18 May '07

18 May '07

Going on from my question about blogs what I'm really after is a diary/journal tool for local use. I.e. I don't want (or need anyway) to publish the result on the web. I'm sure I found one a while ago but I can't find it again, does anyone have any ideas? -- Chris Green

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Comments on Network Lag?
by ted.harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 17 May '07

17 May '07

Hi Folks, I'd welcome comment on the following situation, which has arisen since I've (temporarily) changed my home network topology. Previously (machines designated as A, B, C): ADSL---Modem | Hub_1----------------A [at which I sit] | 5 metres | 10 metres| | | 1 metre Hub_2----------B | +------------C 1 metre The above has worked very smoothly. Now, in order to have machine to hand while investigating a hardware (power switch) issue, I have brought it near to machine A, with the resulting topology: ADSL---Modem | Hub_1----------------A [at which I sit] | | 5 metres | +-----------------C | 10 metres| | | | 1 metre Hub_2----------B Now, when I am sitting at A and running certain X apps on C (which have relatively heavy throughput such as raster re-drawing of sections of screen), there is clearly congestion: output from C on A's screen can hangs for a few seconds at quite frequent intervals. But it can also happen from time to time when I'm simmply typing text into C (as now). Not much has changed: the cable to C has been plugged into a different hub, with a different cable (5m instead of 1m). Comments would be welcome! I don't think such a change should have much effect. Best wishes to all, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <ted.harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 16-May-07 Time: 23:14:22 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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sensors modules problems
by Barry Samuels 17 May '07

17 May '07

I changed my machine's innards some months ago which included an Asus P5W DH DeLuxe mainboard (64-bit board running 32-bit Debian Testing with kernel 2.6.20.1). Searching on the internet revealed that, apparently, the sensors driver to use for that board was w83627ehf but when trying to load I got the message "No such device". Next step was to run sensors-detect which gave me a list of modules: i2c-i801 i2c-isa eeprom lm78 That worked but gave me only one temperature and one fan. The temperature reading was 33 C which corresponed with the CPU temperature in the BIOS and the fan reading matched the BIOS reading. These readings were stable for some months. There was no reading available for the mainboard for which the BIOS gave a temperature of 38 C. I normally don't reboot or turn this machine off but just recently I did reboot and noticed that the temperature reading displayed was now the same as the mainboard temperature i.e. 38 C. Rebooting and going back into the BIOS showed that the two temperature readings were much the same as they had been for months so the temperature now displayed appeared to be that of the mainboard and not the CPU as it was before. So I'm baffled. Why the sudden change? Is there a module available that will give me both temperatures? I have also found recently that removing i2c-i801 appears to have no effect. I use gkrellm to display temperatures and trying 'sensors' produces the message: Can't access procfs/sysfs file Unable to find i2c bus information; For 2.6 kernels, make sure you have mounted sysfs and libsensors was compiled with sysfs support! For older kernels, make sure you have done 'modprobe i2c-proc'! sysfs is mounted but I don't know if Debian's libsensors2 is compiled with sysfs support. Any suggestions please? -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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Line speed problem
by Nick Daniels 15 May '07

15 May '07

Hi Bit off topic for lists but, this morning I noticed my line was slow, according to Plusnet speed check I am getting 125kbs, and for the last year I have been getting 990kbs. Yet they insist there is nothing wrong. Can anybody suggest anything (else) to check my end before I loose my temper with them? Running Kubuntu, Netgear DG834, tried another computer same results Kind Regards - Nick Daniels

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Re: [ALUG] Epson C48 printer
by Bev Nicolson 15 May '07

15 May '07

I've also checked less /var/log/cups/error_log and ls and have not come up with anything especially useful. It just says there's a back channel and input output error (can't find much in google) and that ls is not a pipe. Help. Bev. -- _______________________________________________ Surf the Web in a faster, safer and easier way: Download Opera 9 at http://www.opera.com Powered by Outblaze

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gdm, xdm, kdm, wdm
by Peter Alcibiades 14 May '07

14 May '07

Is it my imagination, or do older slower machines with little memory run a lot faster when using wdm or xdm than when running gdm or kdm? Its irritating, because what is really nice about gdm is the ease of remote terminal setup and auto start of apps....

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Re: gdm, xdm etc
by Peter Alcibiades 14 May '07

14 May '07

"I don't really see what the display manager has to do with "remote terminal setup" or "auto start of apps", are you sure you're not comparing Window Managers?" Yes, I am comparing display managers. or trying to, but wrote carelessly. When I went from gdm to wdm, it wasn't auto start that vanished, that stayed and I miswrote, but what went was the ability to shutdown as a user from the control panel icon. I was very surprised too. When I tried to put the shutdown control back into the panel, all it offered was logout. Whereas with gdm, it offers you that screen where you choose between logout and shutdown. Then when I logged out and got to the wdm login screen, shutdown turned out not to work unless you first logged on as root. So I was stuck with putting in sudo and a new custom little panel thing. I couldn't see why changing the display manager should have done this, but what do I know? Then what I meant by remote terminal is that in gdm you have those very convenient screens for setting up xdmcp. Well probably you guys never use this, but over a home network its very easy and simple, and gdm lets you set it up very easily. Sorry, autostart is of course in the window manager. But, anyway is there a reason why wdm should seem faster? It seems without measuring anything and to an admittedly untrained eye, as if its a lot faster. Is this generally accepted, or am I imagining things? Peter

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Re: [ALUG] Line speed problem
by J.R. Seago 14 May '07

14 May '07

On Monday 14 May 2007 17:02, Ian bell <ianbell(a)ukfsn.org> wrote: > You might think about changing to ukfsn.org. My 8 Mbps max package > gives me 30G peak and 300G off peak bandwidth and it is totally Linux > friendly. > > Ian That may be jumping from the boiling pot into the fire, see the thread on uk.comp.os.linux "ISP gone AWOL" -- J.R. Seago GNU/Linux Registered User No. #219566 http://counter.li.org/ () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments

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MIDI
by Steve Engledow 14 May '07

14 May '07

I've decided it's about time I got back into playing with MIDI so I've been trying to work out the best way to get things working and I've come up with two options: 1) Does anyone have a spare PCI sound card with joystick port that they'd be willing to part with? I have coin. ;) 2) Does anyone have a better suggestion? Are there, for example, any USB midi devices that work well with linux? TVM and all that. S

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Re: netgear
by Peter Alcibiades 14 May '07

14 May '07

I've put in three of the sliver 4 port router+modem boxes. They've been perfect, run cool, work fine for a year or two, easy to manage, very simple interface. On another account I put in a half price lookalike from ebuyer to save a few pennies. It works fine but I had to set up DNS manually on each computer, and never could figure out why. I'd be very confident about netgear again. Peter

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Netgear LAN/WAN Switch/Router
by ted.harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 14 May '07

14 May '07

Hi Folks, I'd welcome comment from experienced folk on the following. I'm helping a friend sort out various computer-related problems. One aspect concerns their (NTL/Virgin) cable-DSL Internet connection. What I'm thinking of is getting one of those WAN/LAN boxes that combines a router port (to be cabled to their DSL cable modem) with a 4-port LAN switch. Browsing round the local (to me) dealers, the best option I've found readily available is the Netgear RP614 Broadband Router + 4 port 10/100 Switch. Platinum Range. RP614 (£25 from WoC). In theory this should do the job. But I have some reservations in that my one & only experience with a Netgear switch ended with it burning out rather soon. So I'm a bit wary of Netgear kit! But others may know different. The only non-Netgear alternative seems to be a "BELKIN F5D5231UK4 10/100 4-PORT CABLE/DSL GATEWAY ROUTER" which looks as though it does the same job, at £34 (web price) from PC World (£50 in-store price), so the above Netgear would be much cheaper. Other options available at PC World are upwards of £50, and are all Netgear. Comments welcome! With thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <ted.harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 13-May-07 Time: 20:27:06 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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apache upgrade has broken server
by Jenny Hopkins 14 May '07

14 May '07

Hello there, I've just upgraded our debian server from sarge to etch. Apache is now running at version 1.3.34-4.1. It keeps crashing. When sent a sighup it won't restart. The error log shows [crit] (98)Address already in use: make_sock: could not bind to port 80 netstat -t -l -n -p | grep 80 then shows only xinetd is listening on port 80. The only way I can persuade apache to start is to comment out the 'Include hosts.conf' line in httpd.conf, start the server, allow the hosts.conf to be included once again, and restart. It then runs fine until the next time. I'm very much feeling my way with this upgrade, as the server is unfamiliar to me, and I'm not much cop at ports and virtual hosts and whatnot, but my new job means I'm supposed to keep apache running on this server running at all times. Any pointers as to what the problem could be would be very welcome. Thanks, Jenny

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Wierd DNS (sort of) error only in browsers
by Chris G 12 May '07

12 May '07

I have a wierd problem when running browsers on my Slackware machine at home, well it's more of a nuisance than a serious problem. If I go to a non-existent 'root' address, whether using Firefox or Lynx (or presumably other browsers) I always get the gradwell.net hosting message as follows:- gaa.goo.no hosted by gradwell dot com Ltd Sorry! The site you were looking for has not yet been configured by the owner of this site. If you are the site owner, please use our control panel to configure your site's virtual host. Please see this www.gradwell.com/support/virtual-hosts support article for information on how to configure your virtual host. Please remember to input all entries into the control panel in lower case. If you find that http://www.gaa.goo.no/ works, but http://gaa.goo.no/ does not, then please remember that you must create an additional website rule to enable the other virtual host. If you have any queries, please contact support(a)gradwell.net If I do a 'host gaa.goo.no' on the command line I get the expected "Host gaa.goo.no not found: 3(NXDOMAIN)". I have my company hosting set up at gradwell.net and my home machine has a CNAME entry in the isbd.net zone file so that home.isbd.net points at my home machine. Is this what's causing the oddity? Why does it only happen in browsers though? -- Chris Green

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Keyboard not working after 'successful' installation
by Chris G 12 May '07

12 May '07

I just installed Slackware 11 on an old[ish] PC and it all went totally smoothly with no problems at all. However when I boot the installation it does all the right things and presents me with a login: prompt but at that point the keyboard doesn't work so I'm a bit stumped. The keyboard works at the boot: prompt but it would seem that I've somehow got the wrong drivers in the installed system. Any ideas on how to fix this? One thing that it *might* be is that it's an old style keyboard with the large DIN plug, maybe this needs a different driver from the default, can I get somewhere from the boot: prompt to fix this? -- Chris Green

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RE: [ALUG] Hp laser printer
by Bev Nicolson 11 May '07

11 May '07

Thank you!!! :¬) Bev. -- _______________________________________________ Surf the Web in a faster, safer and easier way: Download Opera 9 at http://www.opera.com Powered by Outblaze

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15 years ago ...
by ted.harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 11 May '07

11 May '07

Wel,, I'm a month late, but ... Manchester Computing Centre MCC Newsletter, Number 35, April 1992. Page 8: PC Software News Free PC Unixes available Owen Leblanc There are now two free Unix operating systems available for PC's: Linux and 386BSD. Linux is the more mature system, now available in its fifth public test version, 0.95a. The system requires a 386 or above, with or without a co- processor, with a minimum of 2 Mbytes of memory, and with at least 4 Mbytes recommended. The source for the operating system requires about 0.5 Mbytes, and binaries currently available (about 250 commands) require 8 to 10 additional Mbyutes, although, of course, you may delete unwanted bits, or add further programs. With swap space, this means a minimum of about 20 Mbytes of hard disk space. [...] You must have a 1.2 or 1.3 Mbyte floppy drive for installation. [...] Both are unspupported software, though we expect some interest in these and other free Unix systems which should be available in the near future. Well, I was round at MCC shortly after that, and returned with a bundle of floppies (thanks to Owen's help with the downloading). I then re-structured the 40MB hard drive on my 4MB-RAM PC, giving 20MB to Linux, 5MB to swap, and conceding the remaining 15MB to DOS. Then I was flying! Been airborne ever since (though have to take avoiding action from time to time when those Flying Windows loom into my flightpath). Best wishes to all, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <ted.harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 11-May-07 Time: 19:06:54 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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