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Re: [ALUG] Spectacle file save failing
by Srdjan Todorovic 08 Oct '20

08 Oct '20

On Thu, 8 Oct 2020 at 14:12, Peter Berrie <peter.northerly(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Whatever this is, it survived both upgrade and dist-upgrade. I guess the next thing would be to try it in a VM. You might be able to try it out be creating a new user account - it will have the defaults for all the ~/.config/* files. I'm guessing you can still launch Dolphin fine and browse folder and open files that way? > Its not the end of the world, it is saving the files where they are supposed to go, so just not being able to trigger file opening from that particular menu isn't game over. But it seems very weird. This is very weird indeed. What version of Spectace? I have 19.04.3 Also, check out the 3rd post here: https://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=224&t=143366 You can see the full list of mimetype associations via: K > System Settings -> Applications -> File Associations -> and find inode/director to check that one. > You helped me once before with Sigil, which is working fine for me now, that was very much appreciated by the way. Oh, I have to admit, I don't remember that. I'm not all that active on ALUG these days (but still use Linux 100% at home :D ) Best regards, Srdjan

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Spectacle file save failing
by Peter Berrie 08 Oct '20

08 Oct '20

Does anyone have any idea how to approach this situation? I am using spectacle, the kde screenshot taker. It has an option to go to the folder in which it stores screenshots. When you try this, it ends up trying opening it in deadbeef the music player! I took a look at .config/mimeapps.list, which didn't help much. There was an entry for deadbeef, something to do with inodes. I deleted it, which did not change anything. Then I uninstalled deadbeef with the result it now goes to vlc! I suppose I could go on deleting all the player applications... but then it would probably start trying to open the folder in something else equally useless. I have noticed this behaviour before but forget exactly when. When answering yes to a prompt of 'open in file manager', what I got was an attempt to open the file in a (different) music player. Does anyone know where this stuff is configured? This is Debian stable, up to date. Something has clearly gone wrong, but what? The nice thing about spectacle is that it allows you to repeat the same screen area selection while taking a series of screenshots. So if for instance you are trying to do a tutorial showing how to edit a picture, you can just keep taking snaps of the small changes without having to redraw the whole area each time you take a shot. Same thing with if you are reading a document in an app and want to take a shot of several pages one after the other. Peter

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Local IP addresses in external DNS
by Mark Rogers 03 Oct '20

03 Oct '20

I have the following configuration: - External hosted DNS for *.example.com - Some hosts point to "local" IP addresses, eg test.example.com => 192.168.0.100 If I use dig or nslookup on my laptop, test.example.com resolves correctly to 192.168.0.100. But if I put that into my web browser I cannot access the site (to be clear here: 192.168.0.100 is on my local network and I can access it using its IP.) Chrome reports a DNS lookup error. My home network uses OpenWRT (on a Pi4) and if I use the network diagnostics on that to lookup test.example,com it fails. (It works for hosts configured with routable addresses, but not for any on my local network.) OpenWRT uses dnsmasq. Any suggestions how I can get this to work? Or even just why it doesn't? (Yes I know it's an odd configuration! But I am not aware of a reason why it shouldn't work and I've never had a problem with it before.) -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) 21 Drakes Mews, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ER

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Re: [ALUG] Pinebook Pro
by Chris Green 03 Oct '20

03 Oct '20

On Sat, Oct 03, 2020 at 10:38:48AM +0100, Phil Thane wrote: > On 03/10/2020 09:26, Chris Green wrote: > > On Sat, Oct 03, 2020 at 09:18:29AM +0100, Mark Rogers wrote: > > > On Sat, 3 Oct 2020 at 08:46, Chris Green <cl(a)isbd.net> wrote: > > > > Do you *really* need any/all of those apps? [...] > > > > > > > > Everthing else is on the laptop. > > > Each to their own, obviously, but these days I increasingly ask myself > > > if I need the laptop; there isn't anything I can't do on the phone, > > > and plenty I often can't do on the laptop for the simple reason it's > > > not with me at the time I want to do it. (Much like the best camera is > > > usually the one you have with you, I find the same with laptop > > > functions.) > > > > > Yes, I can understand that. However when I see other members of my > > family (all younger than me) struggling to reply to E-Mail on their > > phones or trying to buy things on line I realise why (for me) the > > laptop is so much faster and easier. > > > > It's the 'unix philosphy' use small dedicated 'things' each good at > > what they do. :-) I have a digital camera which is pocketable but > > is *way* better than even the best smartphone camera and it's a > > fraction of the price (proper viewfinder, 30:1 zoom, etc.). > > > There's also the online banking app which works on the phone to generate a > code to login on the PC. > Works perfectly on a feature phone like mine, it's just an SMS message. -- Chris Green

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Re: [ALUG] Pinebook Pro
by Chris Green 03 Oct '20

03 Oct '20

On Sat, Oct 03, 2020 at 10:57:19AM +0100, Phil Thane wrote: > > On 03/10/2020 08:45, Chris Green wrote: > > Do you*really* need any/all of those apps? > > I don't actually have many, my personal take is that most ought never to > have been developed when you could achieve much the same via the web. But > companies like apps because they have more control and harvest more data so > some things are hard or even impossible unless you cave in and get the app. > And some odd, niche things really do need them. For example I have OSMand > (satnav based on OSM). I have had, but lost when I upgraded, a canal/river > satnav app with useful info for boaters. I'll reinstall when I go away next > year (Covid willing). I have used a phone tracker app to upload details of > my solo trips for friends and family to keep a track of where I am. As per > previous mail there's online banking too. > A phone is too easily lost or stolen IMHO to be safe for personal banking. > Some of the other apps (Nextcloud for example) could be replaced by the > desktop versions on Linux, but I'm not sure how they'd scale to fit the > screen. And the functions are different, Nextcloud on the desktop is chiefly > designed for syncing files. On a phone that'd be mad because the multi-GB > server isn't going to sync with a phone. The phone app is mostly for syncing > contacts, calendar, downloading files when needed rather than syncing > everything. But I don't have contacts or calendar on my phone so there's no point in syncing them. I so rarely have my phone with me or turned on that calendar in particular would be pointless. I have a calendar on my laptop which is on almost all the time, and with me. > It also has an Instant Upload function so (given a data > connection) photos are uploaded to the server within seconds of taking them. > Useful for an oaf who might at any time fall in the water! > As I said I don't use the camera on my phone, I have a much, much, much better camera in my pocket more often than the phone. -- Chris Green

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Pinebook Pro
by Phil Thane 03 Oct '20

03 Oct '20

Hello Lugs, Pinebook Pro still going well. Issues so far: Changed OS to Manjaro with KDE (default on newer releases). Built-in speakers are tiny, therefore tinny. They were stupidly quite too until I discovered you can use KDE settings to crank up volume. Currently run them at 150%. Earphones OK at 100%. Then app vol sliders work OK. Zoom app not available and Zoom web won't work on FF. Does work on Chromium but is a bit flaky. KDE themes don't always work, fail during install. Maybe some rely on dependancies not ported to Arm64. Struggling to find my ideal KDE theme. AFAIK a light, transparent panel also means a transparent app launcher which is unreadable when it pops over a window with text in. Opaque panels look a bit clunky and I don't like dark themes. Will carry on looking. Sleep mode works but battery consumption whilst asleep is too high. I shut down if I expect to leave it more than an hour or two. Still think it was a good buy. I've been following development of PinePhone too. As with Pineboook the prototyping is being done openly with early adopter versions for software devs released a while ago. There are about 6 OS projects being ported but only one is Android (AOSP) based. The others are 'pure' Linux eg UBports. It's tempting but so much these days relies on mobile apps and there aren't going to be many of them for Linux OSs. Any thoughts anyone? -- Phil Thane Tweet @pthane www.pthane.co.uk 01767 449759 07582 750607

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weird website
by Phil Thane 28 Sep '20

28 Sep '20

Here's an odd one, probably not a Linux issue but I am using Mint + Firefox and I guess the site is on LAMP so it's Linux-ish... I'm trying to buy some hardware from https://www.ironmongerydirect.co.uk <https://www.ironmongerydirect.co.uk> There was >£50 of bits in the basket and I went to Checkout. The site asked me to log in or register, so I registered. Firefox gave me a random secure password to use and saved it for me. So far, so normal. Now I'm back at the home page with the total still showing in my basket. But the 'My Basket' button doesn't work. Neither does Contact or 'Hi Phil' (My Account on sensible sites!) I'm sure you all now that on FF hovering over a link shows the real destination. Hovering over these buttons shows the link is to the current page. I can use the main menu to choose other pages in the catalogue but those three buttons always link to the current page. So all they do is refresh the page. This means not only can I not return to the checkout, I can't even logout via 'Hi Phil' I've tried closing all the pages then starting again, but FF helpfully remembers the password and logs me in again, with the same issue. I even deleted the saved login from FF, but I still get logged in automatically. Is there some magic way to log out of a disfunctional site? -- Phil Thane www.pthane.co.uk Tweet @pthane 01767 449759 07582 750607

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NHS Covid app
by Phil Thane 28 Sep '20

28 Sep '20

You may not: ...use the NHS App Native Version on any device or operating system that has been modified outside the mobile device or operating system vendor supported or warranted configurations. This includes devices that have been "jail-broken" or "rooted". That's me an my LineageOS phone out then. -- Phil Thane www.pthane.co.uk Tweet @pthane 01767 449759 07582 750607

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Covid 19 app?
by Phil Thane 27 Sep '20

27 Sep '20

Hello, I've gone to some effort to install LineageOS on my phone and remove all Google accounts. The UK Covid 19 app is unlikely I would think to ever be OSS and available on Fdroid (obvs it should, other countries have make OSS apps). So would anyone with a conventional Android phone who intends to install the app be prepared to make an APK file for me to sideload? -- Phil Thane www.pthane.co.uk Tweet @pthane 01767 449759 07582 750607

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Printer sharing gone wrong(2)
by Phil Thane 19 Sep '20

19 Sep '20

Cancel previous, it works. First on PC connected to printer go to KDE printer settings and enable sharing in menu, not on tick box which is greyed out. Second on client PC (also KDE) ignore 'discovered printer' and go through set up new printer. Which it discovers all over again, but works. Weird! -- Phil Thane www.pthane.co.uk Tweet @pthane 01767 449759 07582 750607

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Printer
by Phil Thane 19 Sep '20

19 Sep '20

Cancel previous, it works. First on PC connected to printer go to KDE printer settings and enable sharing in menu, not on tick box which is greyed out. Second on client PC (also KDE) ignore 'discovered printer' and go through set up new printer. Which it discovers all over again, but works. Weird! -- Phil Thane www.pthane.co.uk Tweet @pthane 01767 449759 07582 750607

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Printer sharing gone wrong
by Phil Thane 19 Sep '20

19 Sep '20

Hello, Can anyone advise on CUPS? Wife and I have two PCs in the study, both Linux. For years we have had the printer plugged into hers via USB and Shared via CUPS setup so I can use it occasionally. It has worked like that through several changes of disro on both machines and one house move. But now it doesn't. It still prints OK from her machine but mine can't 'see' it at all. On CUPS (web interface) on Linda's machine if I go to Administration > Modify Printer there is a checkbox to 'Share this Printer' It's checked (ie blue). If I go to Printers on the menu bar and click the link to the printer in question (we've only got one) the status line says 'Not Shared'. Which probably explains why I can't print. Any suggestions? (KDE printer set up doesn't help either). -- Phil Thane www.pthane.co.uk Tweet @pthane 01767 449759 07582 750607

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Printing speeds, Linux vs Windows
by Mark Rogers 04 Sep '20

04 Sep '20

If I have a large file to print, on Linux it can takes ages spooling - hours even - where on Windows it can be printing in seconds. I've noticed this many times over the years, on all types of printer I've had use of. (Large typically means graphical, eg I tried printing a 2 page A3 PDF as my Windows PC was offline, and I managed to rebuild my Windows PC, transfer the file and be ready to print before I hear a peep from the printer, and on cancelling the Linux print, Windows had the printer clunking away a few seconds later.) Is there a good reason for this? Is it just me? -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) 21 Drakes Mews, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ER

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Dual booting Kubuntu install on EFI / Secure Boot Acer laptop not booting up
by Srdjan Todorovic 24 Aug '20

24 Aug '20

Hi all, I'm getting a bit stuck installing Kubuntu 20.04.1 LTS on my laptop with Secure Boot / dual booting with Win10. I can complete the installation process but Windows always boots. I can see that the ESP partition has the EFI/ubuntu/*.efi files (while I'm live-booted using the linux disk) and efibootmgr shows what appears to be correct entries for the bootup definitions for the ubuntu's .efi files. I've had conflicting advice when searching online as to where to install the bootloader - some say on the start of the disk (where MBR used to be) and some say at the Linux root partition. I've done the latter. I have booted off the CD immediately after the install to enrol using the MOK manager which comes up automaticall. The Acer UEFI "Security" menu doesn't show any files in the ubuntu folder to choose them as trusted components for boot. The Microsoft folder has entries, and also importantly the . and .. directory entries. I have already fsck.vfat the partition, initially showed incorrect free clusters but that was correct before another reinstall. Anyone have some advice please on anything I may have missed? Thanks kindly, Srdjan

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nextcloud move
by Phil Thane 19 Aug '20

19 Aug '20

Hi Lugs I was amazed how easy it is to set up Nextcloud on a Raspberry Pi using the NextcloudPi image (once I'd bought a bigger SD card). It works even on a first generation Pi but some things are slow, login via the web, moving around directories and apps. I've just bought a new Pi4 which I assume will be a lot faster but I already have about 50GB of files on an external HD attached to the original Pi. It took a long time to put them there and I'd rather like to avoid doing it again. Does anyone have experience of attaching an external drive with existing data to a new Pi? During installation of NextcloudPi there's an option to use external (USB) storage but it assumes a new disk and formats it. No good in my case. If I decline that and just set up on SD card how hard is it to mount an HD later without losing the data already on it? -- Phil Thane www.pthane.co.uk Tweet @pthane 01767 449759 07582 750607

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Printer Recommendations
by Steve Mynott 19 Aug '20

19 Aug '20

Can anyone recommend a small, cheap monochrome laser printer which is easy to connect using wifi from linux? I'd rather avoid HP or anyone with bad karma and expensive toner and I'm not too bothered about colour. -- Steve Mynott <steve.mynott(a)gmail.com> cv25519/ECF8B611205B447E091246AF959E3D6197190DD5

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data deduplication / compare
by B D 18 Aug '20

18 Aug '20

Hi, I suppose that this could be an issue that the majority of us have faced at some point in the past. So you might have a simple solution. In last few weeks I had to move my small and old NAS box (adding some drives to make it a tad more resilient). I moved all the data to a portable drive and now I would like to merge all I have on my laptop with what's on the USB HDD. Content.. endless folders with various photos, music and video. The idea is that once files are organized the NAS will become a storage share for Nextcloud running on Pi. Any ideas are greatly appreciated Cheerio! Bart

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2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 7th August.
by Viperfang 04 Aug '20

04 Aug '20

Quick heads up about this months Norwich 2600 meeting, more info at http://www.norwich2600.co.uk

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Re: [ALUG] main Digest, Vol 182, Issue 2
by Peter 03 Aug '20

03 Aug '20

On Mon, 03 Aug 2020 12:00:01 +0100 main-request(a)lists.alug.org.uk wrote: > Send main mailing list submissions to > main(a)lists.alug.org.uk > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > https://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > main-request(a)lists.alug.org.uk > > You can reach the person managing the list at > main-owner(a)lists.alug.org.uk > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of main digest..." I used unison. One or two oddities but a lot better than manually doing it.

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Mailing list software
by Mark Rogers 30 Jul '20

30 Jul '20

I want to set up a mailing list for a local charity, for the purposes of discussion/announcement between members of the club. mailman jumps out simply because it's all I know (and by "know" I mean I've used and administered lists hosted by lug.org.uk but that's it). So I thought I'd see if there are others I should consider. What ideally I want to achieve is: - A single list, with all members emails in it, mapped to something obvious like "everyone@<charity>.org.uk" - Messages sent to the list from members of the list get circulated automatically - Messages sent to the list from non-members get moderated: -- At moderation there are options to reject, accept, or accept and add sender to the list as allowed sender (not receiver), ie for the many of us with multiple email addresses who might email from any but only want to receive to one - Web interface for easy admin by people other than me The normal mailing list subscribe/unsubscribe stuff I don't need as the list will be managed by me and/or others (the GDPR stuff is handled separately). I manage an Ubuntu server which hosts the website but not currently mail for the charity's domain so there's going to be some configuration to do there (and probably some fresh questions when I get there) but for now: is mailman the tool I want? -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) 21 Drakes Mews, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ER

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Non-google phone tracker
by Phil Thane 30 Jul '20

30 Jul '20

Hello, Last year when I went away on my canal boat adventure I set up a tracker on my phone that plotted by position and track on a website, and embedded that page in my blog. Two snags this year, one Google has removed the app from their store and even if they hadn't it wouldn't help much because I've wiped the phone and installed LineageOS with no Google components. I really don't want to have to backtrack and sign up to Google again. Anyone know any alternatives? Yes, I have tried searching (not Googling) but all the apps seem to come from Google Play. I use OSM on the desktop and OSMAnd sat nav app on the phone and I have read it's possible to do what I want using those. However all the advice I can find is aimed at people logging journeys to update OSM (which I have done in the past) not using it to display a real-time (or almost) map showing where I am. Can anyone help? -- Phil Thane www.pthane.co.uk Tweet @pthane 01767 449759 07582 750607

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Horribly off-topc, sorry - uk telecoms groups/mailing lists/forums?
by Mark Rogers 14 Jul '20

14 Jul '20

I know this is off topic but I think there may be people here in the know and I've come up blank everywhere else I've tried. Back in the day there was a thriving community on uk.telecom* newsgroups but unless I'm missing something that has all gone. Does anyone know where such people can be found these days? Public forums, mailing lists, etc? Admin: feel free to delete if you'd rather I didn't ask here, Mark

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[ALUG Announce] ALUG Norwich Pub Meet Thursday 9th July
by Viperfang 06 Jul '20

06 Jul '20

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via https://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- Hello Norwich Aluggers, Our monthly ALUG Norwich social meeting will be held this Thursday, 9th July at The Coach and Horses (82 Thorpe Road, Norwich, NR1 1BA). The meeting officially starts at 8pm, although some people may arrive earlier. More information on those people can be found on the list and the IRC channel. If you are unsure if you will recognise us then make yourself and your intent to attend known by either posting on list or visiting us on IRC so we can look out for you rather than hiding in the corner. Optionally you could ask at the bar if they know where the geeky computer weirdos are and they'll point you in the right direction (seriously!). Another possibility is look for heaps of electronics on a table that may possibly look like movie props that would used for detonating explosives. Feel free to bring electronics/laptops/gadgets to the meet, you will by no means be alone. Ben Bewick aka Viperfang NB: This mail is automated, please refer to the usual sources for more information. ALUG Contact Details: Website : http://www.alug.org.uk/ IRC : #alug on irc.alug.org.uk List : http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo Twitter : http://twitter.com/anglianlug Identica: TBA Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2381613902 ----- Send discussion replies to main(a)lists.alug.org.uk (Reply-To set) Unsub, change settings via https://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce

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Re: [ALUG] Sound problem
by Bev Nicolson 05 Jul '20

05 Jul '20

Sent this in error, just to Chris so re-sending to the list. Have just tried it unplugged and while it isn't perfect, it is better. Bev On 04/07/2020 17:36, Bev Nicolson wrote: > <snip> > > > Also, is there anything else plugged in to the laptop, USB > devices or whatever, if so try disconnecting them as well. > > > > > By the way - by 'hum' you do mean mains hum do you? I.e. a very low > > frequency hum of fixed frequency. > > > > Hopefully this short audio clip will explain the hum. I don't hear it as > I record anything, but only on play back. > > https://sndup.net/72c6 > > I have headphones and a mouse plugged in, to answer your other query, > but if anything it's worse without the headphones. > > > Bev

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Sound problem
by Bev Nicolson 04 Jul '20

04 Jul '20

I'm not sure if this is off topic or not but I could do with some help here. How do I reduce or remove the hum from my laptop? I use Mint and the sound gui doesn't offer much detail. (There's only one plug socket for headphones, btw.) Thanks. Bev.

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