- main - earth.li

'rmdir -p', what a strange command
by Chris G 04 May '07

04 May '07

I've been looking for a quick and easy way to remove empty maildir folders, I was going write a short shell script but while I was thinking about this I came across 'rmdir -p'. Thinking that this was sort of equivalent to 'mkdir -p' I tried to use it and it acts very strangely. If you have an empty maildir folder called (for example) mdf then "rmdir -p mdf" simply gives the error "rmdir: mdf: Directory not empty", it doesn't recurse down into the directory and find that the sub-directories are empty and them remove the lot. If you give the command "rmdir -p mdf/*" then it gives the error "rmdir: mdf: Directory not empty" twice but does actually remove the whole maildir folder. What's happening is that it removes each of the 'cur', 'tmp' and 'new' sub-directories of 'mdf' but only when it removes the last one does it also remove the parent directory. I can think of no practical use for this command! :-) It's no good for my requirement because it might remove some of the maildir sub-directories then find the next one wasn't empty and leave a partial maildir folder. I think I'm back to my script for doing it. -- Chris Green

2 2

Retirement a bit earlier than I expected/intended - so looking for odd jobs
by Chris G 03 May '07

03 May '07

I seem to be about to be made redundant, it's not a disaster as I have been wondering how to wind down to retirement anyway and redundancy means I get paid for leaving. However I don't really want to stop working totally so would be glad of any leads towards either part time work or consultancy/contracts. I'm basically a good C/C++/Java developer with particular skills in the comms/networking area. I'm also fairly capable of most admin. stuff on Solaris/Unix/Linux, shell scripting, setting up mail, all that sort of stuff. Flexible as regards hours, pay, place of work (but basically in East Anglia please). -- Chris Green

1 0

Re: [ALUG] hallo people
by J.R. Seago 02 May '07

02 May '07

On Wednesday 02 May 2007 12:00, "Bev Nicolson" <bnicolson(a)operamail.com> wrote: > ...I'm picking up bits and pieces about it but I'm still at the stage > where most stuff needs spelling out patiently. Which means I hope I > don't drive you all nuts asking lots of questions. > > Bev. Welcome! Why should you drive them "all nuts asking lots of questions", you must have noticed that they are quite happy to put up with me! -- J.R. Seago GNU/Linux Registered User No. #219566 http://counter.li.org/ () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments

1 0

Re: [ALUG] How to
by J.R. Seago 01 May '07

01 May '07

Once again thanks to Ted and Tim, I now have all the information to hand. On past performance, one of the essential bits will be packed in a different box, and it'll take me longer to find it, than to set everything up. -- J.R. Seago GNU/Linux Registered User No. #219566 http://counter.li.org/ () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments

2 1

How to
by J.R. Seago 30 Apr '07

30 Apr '07

I currently have a router supplying Pipex broadband (always on) to my computer. This was set up for me. when I move I am going to have to set it up again, on my own, on a different 'phone number, with a different ISP, at the moment I am using the gateway address XXX.XX.X.XX, (is it wise to publish one's gateway address?) My question is is there a 'how-to' for the slow and technically incompetent, that I can use? -- J.R. Seago GNU/Linux Registered User No. #219566 http://counter.li.org/ () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments

3 4

Re: [ALUG] How to
by J.R. Seago 30 Apr '07

30 Apr '07

On Monday 30 April 2007 12:00, "Tim Green" <timothy.j.green(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Your router won't care about the phone number either. The two > important pieces of information are your ADSL username (looks like an > email address) and password. Things like IP address, gateway and DNS > servers are easiest left on automatic. Most routers are setup through > a webpage like http://192.168.0.1/ - get hold of the manual before you > lose connectivity so you can setup your new ISP details. Wow! I've got all the right bits of paper the username and the password and could get in to the set-up page. So it should'n't take me more than a couple of weeks to get it right, it only took me 2·75 hours to get my printer to re-start when I tested the UPS, loose USB connection round the back in the dust and wires, probably caused by me unplugging everything that would go into the UPS, I should have started there first place! The one annoying part of that is that while my monitor's transformer disconnected and plugged into the UPS when I tried it, the router's transformer, (standard three pin on its front), is one piece with lead to the router, so Ted's solution for that looks problem looks the best way round. -- J.R. Seago GNU/Linux Registered User No. #219566 http://counter.li.org/ () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments

1 0

RE: [ALUG] How to
by J.R. Seago 30 Apr '07

30 Apr '07

Thank you both Tim and Ted. It appears that I have all I need on my machine. -- J.R. Seago GNU/Linux Registered User No. #219566 http://counter.li.org/ () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments

1 0

Unwanted control characters in terminal
by Chris Lamb 29 Apr '07

29 Apr '07

Alug, When I press Ctrl-Left/Right, Shift-Left/Right, or Ctrl-PgUp/PgDn, etc. on the console I get curious control codes like ";5D". Any pointers on how to get sane functionality back? /Lamby -- Chris Lamb, Leamington Spa, UK GPG: 0x634F9A20

1 0

Fw: [wuglug] Upcoming UK events
by Chris Lamb 29 Apr '07

29 Apr '07

Begin forwarded message: Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2007 13:48:03 +0100 From: Chris Lamb <chris(a)chris-lamb.co.uk> To: WUGLUG - Warwick University GNU/Linux User Group <wuglug(a)lists.wuglug.org.uk> Subject: [wuglug] Upcoming UK events [0] Debconf 17-23 June Edinburgh [1] aKademy 2007 30-7 July Glasgow [2] LugRadio Live 2007 7-8 July Wolverhapton [3] Guadec 15-21 July Birmingham [4] LinuxConf Europe 2-4 September Cambridge [5] PyCon UK 8-9 September Birmingham [6] LinuxWorld 2007 23-24 October London [0] http://www.debconf.org/ [1] http://akademy.kde.org/ [2] http://www.lugradio.org/live/ [3] http://www.guadec.org/ [4] http://www.linuxconf.eu/2007/index.shtml [5] http://www.pyconuk.org/ [6] http://www.linuxworldexpo.co.uk/ /Lamby -- Chris Lamb, Leamington Spa, UK GPG: 0x634F9A20 _______________________________________________ WUGLUG mailing list WUGLUG(a)lists.wuglug.org.uk https://www.warwickcompsoc.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/wuglug

1 0

Re: [ALUG] Linux
by Wayne Stallwood 27 Apr '07

27 Apr '07

On Fri, 2007-04-27 at 23:18 +0100, Mark and Jenny Myatt wrote: > Hi Wayne -thanks > (and also to Nick Daniels) > > I could not get into the Bios settings at all. Not by f2,f8;f10. After much trial and error I discovered the problem was caused by my Labtec keyboard, even though the bios had legacy enabled. So I changed it for an old spare one. This enabled me to get into my bios and change the sequence so that I can now boot up from a DVD/CD as necessary. I am now trying out a number of live distros but quit a few stall after being partly loaded but I have tried ones that do work. SimplyMepis and Knoppix. Try playing with some of the boot time options with the others, sometimes it is possible to bring up a help screen on the boot prompt that will guide you with these. Look in particular at options to disable acpi and apic. > Just a thought. I run windows 2000 Prof and the NFTS system. I need to have a dual booting system. Reports in the press seem to indicate this can cause a problem with linux software. Is this correct and if so is it possible for the NFTS to be converted back to fat32? > Writing to NTFS is not considered a stable feature in the kernel, not because it doesn't work but because it was a product of reverse engineering the NTFS filesystem. The latest version of Ubuntu (and I think knoppix) both support writing to NTFS volumes..some other distributions will support read only. Conversion back to fat32 is possible with 3rd party tools but not recommended, mainly because it is possible to have conditions in an NTFS filesystem that are not valid in fat32 (files over fat's file size limit, maximum path length etc etc) With either the conversion or writing to NTFS from Ubuntu I would recommend you take a backup of any important data first.

1 0

Linux
by Mark and Jenny Myatt 27 Apr '07

27 Apr '07

2 1

[Fwd: [IET Anglian Coastal Network] - 3rd May Talk on Linux in Classrooms in Developing Countries]
by Ian bell 27 Apr '07

27 Apr '07

I thought this might be of interest to ALUGers. Ian

1 0

Re: [ALUG] Laptop/UPS
by J.R. Seago 26 Apr '07

26 Apr '07

On Wednesday 25 April 2007 10:49, "Tim Green" <timothy.j.green(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > Have you simulated a power cut yet? Indeed I have, and I've found the snag, my monitor runs from a transformer, that has a standard three pin plug, and even though the computer doesn't go down I cant see what's happening enough to shut it off, (I work with/through the GUI). I'll have to find a way round that, but at the moment I'm happy that it will run the computer long enough that the power will come back before it gets shut down involuntarily. -- J.R. Seago GNU/Linux Registered User No. #219566 http://counter.li.org/ () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments

5 8

Wiki: IRCUsers & Who's Where? pages
by samwise 25 Apr '07

25 Apr '07

Hi, Two wiki pages listing ALUG members have evolved - one is a general list of people, whilst the latter is a small list of IRC nicknames -> real names. I think it makes more sense to just add the latter as a column to the former ... anyone any objections? Relatedly, there's a big dump of people at the bottom of the Who's Where? page which has been cut and pasted from the old site. Do we want to keep this or would it be better to expect active users to re-add themselves? I could re-format the entries to the new table, but some seem pretty old ... Anyone want to put their 2p's worth in? Peter.

4 7

dual booting probs
by elc 25 Apr '07

25 Apr '07

Went into terminal and tried suggestion and as many options I could figure - nothing, just got messages like 'invalid device requested' 'selected disk doesn't exist' 'error while parsing number' Does Terminal = Bash shell? or do I have to be somewhere else for the grub console - if so where please. Eric > tried this and got "bash: syntax error near unexpected token 'hd0,6' " > > > > Did I do something wrong? > > > > > You need to be at the grub console not the bash shell > > Type grub and press return to get to the grub console and then follow > Paul's instructions

1 0

dual booting probs
by elc 25 Apr '07

25 Apr '07

I havn't been able to access this. It was suggested that I get access to the rescue mode from the Ubuntu media, and by typing 'linux rescue'. Trouble is I don't know where this Ubuntu media is. If I run the live cd while in windows I just get options to evaluate various applications, and if I boot up with the live cd it goes straight to install - no prompts to type at. Further help most appreciated. Eric > I must be doing something wrong. > > I booted from the live cd and worked thru "install" to "partition", > > checked "manual" partition, got to desktop, opened terminal, entered > > "grub-install /dev/hda" and got "cannot create directory /boot/grub > > :permission denied". > > > > Do you have any further thoughts/advice please. > > > > > > I think both Paul's suggestion and my one need to be done from the > recovery mode not the installer. How did you get on with the "linux > recovery" thing at the Installation/Live Cd's boot prompt ? > > Regards > Wayne

1 0

Re: [ALUG] Laptop/UPS
by J.R. Seago 25 Apr '07

25 Apr '07

On Wednesday 25 April 2007 16:58, Wayne Stallwood <ALUGlist(a)digimatic.co.uk> wrote: > Plugging a monitor in will just reduce runtime on the UPS (and therefore > it's usefulness) and a UPS that doesn't tell a PC to shut down when the > battery is getting too low is only slightly better than no UPS at all > (IMO) It does all sorts of things including ring me up to tell me that its on stand by, ring an alarm, send me an e-mail, I keep on finding new things it does when I should be doing other stuff, i.e. packing, its just that I need to find time to get round to setting up all the other things while I'm preparing to move, I may just wait until I've got there. -- J.R. Seago GNU/Linux Registered User No. #219566 http://counter.li.org/ () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments

1 0

Software to add information to a map
by Chris G 25 Apr '07

25 Apr '07

I've only just thought of this idea but being able to do such a thing on a computer would be really, really useful (to me anyway!). What sort of software would be good at drawing routes and adding location information to a scanned map? I guess the gimp could do it but are there any applications more specifically for this sort of thing? Ideally the additions would be in their own layers so one could look at only the 'nice bridleways' or the 'good horse accomodation' additions. It would also be nice to be able to add notes to marked locations. -- Chris Green

3 3

Wiki: NextMeeting macro
by Richard Lewis 25 Apr '07

25 Apr '07

Hello ALUG, I'm having a bit of a Poor Work Day today so I've written a macro for the ALUG Wiki which inserts the date of the next social meeting. Use it like this: [[NextMeeting(location[,show_venue])]] where location is either "norwich" or "ipswich" and show_venue is either "yes" or "no" (defaults to "no"). The parameters can be expressed in the keyword style: [[NextMeeting(ipswich,show_venue=yes)]] Right, I really should do some proper work. Cheers, Richard -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Richard Lewis http://www.richard-lewis.me.uk/ JID: ironchicken(a)jabber.earth.li -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

2 1

dual booting probs
by elc 24 Apr '07

24 Apr '07

I must be doing something wrong. I booted from the live cd and worked thru "install" to "partition", checked "manual" partition, got to desktop, opened terminal, entered "grub-install /dev/hda" and got "cannot create directory /boot/grub :permission denied". Do you have any further thoughts/advice please. Eric > Anyway in addition to Paul's suggestion I think the reason the original > grub-install plan didn't work is that if you are running grub-install > from a drive other than the intended boot drive (i.e. you have booted > from a live cd and are running grub-install from there) then I think you > have to give the intended boot drive as an argument. > > So in your case > > grub-install /dev/hda > > There is no need to specify the partition number here, as grub should > then scan the whole drive for bootable partitions and rebuild/reinstall > grub for you. This is still assuming that you only have one physical > hard drive in your machine.

2 1

dual booting probs
by elc 24 Apr '07

24 Apr '07

tried this and got "bash: syntax error near unexpected token 'hd0,6' " Did I do something wrong? Eric > Assuming root is on hda7, the grub command should have been `root (hd0,6)` > followed by `setup (hd0)`. > > Grub uses a numbering system starting at zero for it's drive designations > which isn't quite the same as Linux ;(. > >

2 1

Laptop/UPS
by J.R. Seago 24 Apr '07

24 Apr '07

Thanks to all who gave an opinion or advice on the above matter. I now have an UPS sitting between the mains and my computer. At £110·00, an awful lot cheaper than a laptop, and now I've found the right wires to go in the right sockets, its siting there with its green light on, no installation problems, hardware not liking software, or any other problems that setting up a new computer would have. -- J.R. Seago GNU/Linux Registered User No. #219566 http://counter.li.org/ () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments

2 1

Wiki
by David Reynolds 23 Apr '07

23 Apr '07

Hi, I just looked at the wiki and noticed that it hadn't been updated for a while and thought I'd ask how everyone was finding it? Are people finding it useful? Are people finding it easy to use / easy to add things to it, etc? Cheers, Dave -- David Reynolds david(a)reynoldsfamily.org.uk

2 1

Help! X connections being refused
by ted.harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 23 Apr '07

23 Apr '07

Hi Folks (and sorry for anu cross postings) Following a mysterious mishap when something on a website crashed my Firefox. the machine I was using is now not accepting X connections from either of my other two machines. I can't get to the bottom of it, and would welcome any suggestions. The basic symptom is: >From machine A (compo, the screwed-up one) I log in to either of my other two (say brandy) from an xterm in Gnome. On the remote login, I then issue the command 'xterm' and hope to see an xterm open on compo (as normally happens). Instead, I get the following message from the remote (brandy): ted@brandy:~ > xterm Xlib: connection to "compo.fort.knox.uk:0.0" refused by server Xlib: No protocol specified xterm Xt error: Can't open display: compo.fort.knox.uk:0.0 (Exactly the same message from the other remote machine) This situation arose immediately following the Firefox crash (Firefox running on compo, machine A). Connections which were already open continued to work. By now, though, I've tried (amongst other things) rebooting. and now there's no joy on any front. It makes no difference whether I'm root or an ordinary user eiher locally or remotely, nor whether I 'startx' as root or ordinary user/ (BTW, I can give some details of the remote web site which crashed Firefox if people think it may help, since I suspect it of monkey business. but will hold fire for the moment since it may not be relevant). With thanks (and I'm pretty pressed to get this working again!) Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 22-Apr-07 Time: 18:03:23 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

2 2

Re: gparted
by Peter Alcibiades 23 Apr '07

23 Apr '07

Is there anything else to resize partitions? I use Acronis, have for several years. Its not free (but its cheap), its not open source either, but it will do anything you want with partitions of any sort, and its always worked perfectly. Amazon is the cheapest, or was when I bought the last copy. I wouldn't be without it. Peter

2 1