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FW: FSF announces release of gNewSense 1.0
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 02 Nov '06

02 Nov '06

Hi Folks, I've just received the following from gnu.org. It looks interesting and worthy! (The only things is, I find the Logo, wel, not restful ... Hopefully the Freedom etends to allowing one to change that!) Best wishes to all, Ted. -----FW: <200611021900.kA2J0Bm19695(a)f7.net>----- Date: Thu, 02 Nov 2006 12:07:01 -0500 Sender: gnu-prog-bounces+ted.harding=nessie.mcc.ac.uk(a)gnu.org From: John Sullivan <johns(a)fsf.org> To: gnu-prog(a)gnu.org Subject: FSF announces release of gNewSense 1.0 BOSTON, November 2, 2006 - Free Software Foundation announces release of gNewSense version 1.0. (Screenshots available at http://www.fsf.org/news/gnewsense) gNewSense (http://www.gnewsense.org) is a free software GNU/Linux distribution created by two Irish free software advocates, Brian Brazil and Paul O'Malley, and is based on the Ubuntu and Debian distributions. The goal of gNewSense is to provide users with a software package that offers the stability of Ubuntu with the addition of freedom. In announcing the release of version 1.0, the gNewSense developers stated, "From a philosophical perspective we wanted to create a GNU/Linux distribution where the user has access to all the sources for all software on the system. This includes everything from the heart of the kernel through to the everyday desktop applications." With the avowed goal of providing a completely free distribution - one without non-free kernel binary "blobs" or any other non-free software, the Free Software Foundation has announced sponsorship of the project. Ted Teah, FSF's free software directory maintainer explained, "With all the kernel firmware and restricted repositories removed, and the reliance on Ubuntu's proprietary distribution management tool gone, this distribution is the most advanced GNU/Linux distribution that has a commitment to be 100% free." gNewSense will provide users with full security updates and is available for immediate download in LiveCD ISO format along with a version of the Ubiquity graphical installer. Furthermore, the gNewSense team has created a set of software called Builder which allows users to create their own gNewSense-based distributions. gNewSense provides detailed instructions on how to use the software and the recipe to roll out a customized distro. The Free Software Foundation is providing the gNewSense team with a high end build machine (running with a free BIOS), with bandwidth and with assistance in developing artwork. The FSF plans to aid widespread adoption of the distribution and, with the release of gNewSense 1.0, is making a call for volunteers who have the skills to act as the following: * Developers; * Website Maintainers; * Graphic Artists; * Freedom verifiers to monitor package additions and mailing lists; * Documentation Writers. To volunteer, please, sign on at irc.freenode.net and /join #gnewsense. You can also join the mailing list via the project website http://www.gnewsense.org/ ----30---- About the Free Software Foundation The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to promoting computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and use of free (as in freedom) software - particularly the GNU operating system and its GNU/Linux variants - and free documentation for free software. The FSF also helps to spread awareness of the ethical and political issues of freedom in the use of software. Their Web site, located at www.fsf.org, is an important source of information about GNU/Linux. Donations to support their work can be made at http://fsf.org/join They are headquartered in Boston, MA, USA. Press contact: To schedule an interview with the developers of gNewSense, please contact Ted Teah at the Free Software Foundation (+1 617-542-5942) or Peter Brown (+1 617-542-5942) or email pr(a)fsf.org ---------- -- John Sullivan Program Administrator | Phone: (617)542-5942 x23 51 Franklin Street, 5th Fl. | Fax: (617)542-2652 Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA | GPG: AE8600B6 -- http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-prog --------------End of forwarded message------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 02-Nov-06 Time: 19:32:38 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Re: Odd behaviour in OO - Java??
by Peter Alcibiades 02 Nov '06

02 Nov '06

>How did you install Sun Java? If you didn't, then I'd suggest you try using >Debian's java-package tool like this: ># apt-get install java-package fakeroot >$ fakeroot make-jpkg name-of-downloaded-java-binary.bin ># dpkg -i name-of-created-package.deb >(note that the middle step has to be done as a non-root user; and that >java-package is in contrib) >This may put the JRE in a location where OOo can find it. OK, tried that - many thanks - it seemed to install sun's amd64 java ok. But still not recognised by 00, and hasn't fixed it. It declined to install the 586 version. I still cannot manage to point OO at a jre that it will acknowledge. It can't be, surely, that the Debian packagers of OO would have let it go out with something as basic as this not working? Peter

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Upgrading kernels - what do others do?
by cl＠isbd.net 01 Nov '06

01 Nov '06

I have just tried to upgrade my kernel from 2.6.18 to 2.6.18.1, this raises a number of problems/issues and I was wondering how other people deal with them. When you run the vmware upgrade to build vmware for the new kernel it complains that the running kernel (2.6.18) is not the same as one you're trying to upgrade to (2.6.18.1) - not surprising really! However it means you have to build the new kernel succesfully before you can upgrade vmware to it, which is a bit sort of messy at least. Building one of my required added modules (the drivers for the RTL8168 network on the MB) it creates the new module in /lib/modules/2.6.18/kernel/drivers/net because it uses 'uname -r' to get the kernel version. This doesn't work very well when you reboot - no network. What's the right/best way to patch the kernel to minimise these problems? I created /usr/src/linux-2.6.18.1 as a copy of /usr/src/linux-2.6.18 and applied the 2.6.18.1 patches to the new directory tree. It would seem (in view of the above problems) that this may not be the ideal way to do it. I've now changed names so that I have /usr/src/linux-2.6.18.base (as the original version) and /usr/src/linux-2.6.18 which is the patched version but then it's a bit more difficult to keep track of which version you patched to. -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

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Odd behaviour in OO - Java??
by Peter Alcibiades 01 Nov '06

01 Nov '06

Just changed to Etch AMD64, and OO behaves oddly, I suspect connected to Java in some way. The approved way of putting buttons and controls into your documents is VIEW>TOOLBARS>FORMCONTROLS. This brings up the little click and paste widget, and it does allow you to paste buttons in. Having done this, the next step would be right click on the button. You are now supposed to be able to choose CONTROL. However, nothing happens. The cross hairs stay in place, and all I can do is create a new button. In Writer, drag and drop doesn't work at all. Select some text and try to drag it, and nothing happens. Base seems to be so unstable as to be unusable. Almost anything you do crashes it. Suspecting this might be something to do with Java, I tried to install both the Sun JRE 64bit and 32 bit versions in addition to the FSF one. They appeared to go in fine, but the only one OO is aware of in the OPTONS>Java menu is the FSF one. How does OO become aware of a JRE? You're invited to supply classes and so on, but I can't figure out how to do that because of not being able to find anything it will agree is a Jre. Where would I look for such a thing? One thing that suggests it may not be Java, its very odd that if it is Java, my Mandriva installation shows no Jre at all, but all this stuff works fine. On the other hand, turning off the FSF Jre in Etch leads to a lot of stuff going missing. Its true that Mandriva 2006 being stuck in a timewarp with OO, I downloaded and installed it direct from OO. The Mandriva is 2.03 and the Debian is 2.04. But its hardly credible that going from 03 to 04 screwed up something as basic as this. Anyone have any ideas? Should I just apt-get uninstall and then download and install directly from OO? Or does anyone know some way of testing that the Sun Javas are installed and working and telling OO they are there? Cheers Peter

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System shutting itself down but I can't see why
by cl＠isbd.net 01 Nov '06

01 Nov '06

My Slackware 11 keeps shutting itself down but I can't see why. In /var/log/syslog and /var/log/messages there are messages from apache and samba saying they're shutting themselves down because they've been told to but I can't see a reason anywhere. It happens fairly randomly anywhere from once every ten minutes to once every several hours. It reboots all by itself and continues running. It's not a temperature problem as the system is way below the BIOS alarm temperatures. Any ideas as to how to diagnose this or places to look? -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

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My random resets solved - I think
by cl＠isbd.net 31 Oct '06

31 Oct '06

I think I have found the cause of my random system resets, nothing at all to do with software, there was a whisker of solder or something similar adjacent to the little PCB which has the reset button on it and it occasionally reset - probably with thermal cylcing or whatever. I found it because the reset button wasn't working and, getting it to work, I found that wiggling the board caused a reset. Humph! There I was thinking it was some wierd option I'd set when building my kernel! :-) -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

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Monitoring mains via serial port
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 31 Oct '06

31 Oct '06

Hi Folks, Your expertise and wisdom may help me clarify thoughts on the following. I'm contemplating buying a couple of UPS units, at the very cheap end, so no comms to the computer which could be used to initiate a programmed shutdown if the mains goes off. So in turn I'm contemplating rigging a little circuit which would supply a signal to a serial port while the mains was on. The germ of the idea is to use one of those very cheap power converters which can deliver a DC voltage chosen from (say) 3V, 4.5V, 6V, 9V, 12V, and set it up so as to put say 12V between 2 pins on a serial port, when plugged directly into the mains. Then it would be easy to have a little script running in the background which would monitor the lines on the serial port, and initiate a shutdown if the voltage dropped to zero for (say) more than a minute. That's the bare bones of the idea, and indeed enough to define a basic soldering-iron job! But I'm not sure I'm being circumspect enough here, so would welcome comment! With thanks, and 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: 31-Oct-06 Time: 20:26:50 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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matrox G450 dual head and two identical monitors problem
by Jenny Hopkins 31 Oct '06

31 Oct '06

Hullo there, I've got a Matrox G450 dual head graphics card. I've then got two identical monitors: Flatron L1715S. In my xorg.conf I've put the vertical and horizontal refresh rates as the same, however the second monitor stays dark. If I tweak the horiz rate for second monitor, the screen appears, but fuzzy. (I've posted what I think ought to work but is out of range below. If I change the HorizSync for Monitor[1] to 30-63 it does the fuzzy thing.) Can anybody see any earthly reason why the same setting is not valid? Thanks, Jenny Section "Monitor" HorizSync 30-83 Identifier "Monitor[0]" ModelName "LG" Option "DPMS" VendorName "Flatron" VertRefresh 56-75 UseModes "Modes[0]" EndSection Section "Monitor" HorizSync 30-83 Identifier "Monitor[1]" ModelName "LG" Option "DPMS" VendorName "Flatron" VertRefresh 56-75 UseModes "Modes[1]" EndSection

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computer fairs
by Nick Atkins 31 Oct '06

31 Oct '06

Does anybody know if there are any computer fairs in East Anglia? I have a workshop that is bulging with hardware. All pointers gratefully received, otherwise it's eBay (groan) or London :0( Thanks, -- Nick Atkins South Norfolk

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Simple apache/hosting question
by cl＠isbd.net 30 Oct '06

30 Oct '06

Well I assume it's simple but I can't quite see how to sort it out. I'm running Slackware 11 on my home machine and, on the home network, its IP address is 192.168.1.1, it's running apache 1.3.37 (the Slackware 11 default). I have set up my router/firewall so that HTTP requests are sent to 192.168.1.1. At just-the-name I have the domain isbd.ltd.uk set up so that HTTP requests are routed to my static IP address at my ISP. So far, so good, if you go to http://www.isbd.ltd.uk/ up pops the default apache index.html page to indicate that it's all working. However, if I go to http://www.isbd.ltd.uk/~chris then instead of bringing up the index.html that I have in the public_html directory in my home directory on the Slackware system I get an error:- Firefox can't find the server at server.isbd.ltd.uk. ... and Firefox is looking for http://server.isbd.ltd.uk/~chris/ which of course doesn't work because server.isbd.ltd.uk doesn't exist in the outside world. How do I get my Slackware machine to look like isbd.ltd.uk when seen from the outside world but give it the name server and/or server.isbd.ltd.uk internally to my home network? -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

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Overlaying things on a video window
by Dan Hatton 27 Oct '06

27 Oct '06

Dear All, Does anyone know of a way to overlay a regular grid and/or some text on a video playing in an X window, please? The players I have available are mplayer, gmplayer, and xine. -- Thanks, Dan Hatton <http://www.bib.hatton.btinternet.co.uk/dan/>

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kernel build options (make menuconfig) for Core 2 Duo processor
by cl＠isbd.net 27 Oct '06

27 Oct '06

Can anyone tell me where I can find (or just tell me) the best 'make menuconfig' options for a Core 2 Duo 6600 processor. I can work out most of what I want but there are some grey areas. These are the settings I have at the moment:- [*] Symmetric multi-processing support Subarchitecture Type (PC-compatible) ---> Processor family (Pentium-4/Celeron(P4-based)/Pentium-4 M/Xeon) [*] Generic 86 support [*] HPET Timer Support (2) Maximum number of CPUs (2-255) [*] SMT (Hyperthreading) scheduler support [*] Multi-core scheduler support Preemption Model (No Forced Preemption (Server)) ---> [*] Preempt The Big Kernel Lock ... (the rest seem pretty straightforward) My main question is whether I have the processor type set correctly? Should it be Opteron/Athlon64/Hammer/K8 rather than what I have selected as the Core 2 Duo, although it's an Intel processor, has some of the AMD-64 optimisations I believe. Or maybe I should select soemthing else completely. A supplementary question is whether to set the "Maximum number of CPUs" to 4 rather than 2 since Hyperthreading is enabled. I will eventually come to the end of all these questions relating to my new system! :-) It's very nearly there now, I have Slackware 11 up and running well on it and vmware installed with a Windows XP guest. Once I get these final bits of tuning done I'll disappear back into the woodwork. -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

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Mouse help still needed - Xorg setup
by cl＠isbd.net 25 Oct '06

25 Oct '06

I can find very little help regarding the "InputDevice" section of xorg.conf. I have tried various "recommended for Logitech" setups but I can't make any sense of how the mouse works after trying them. There seems no logical connection between the options I set and the resulting way the mouse works. I have now got a rally minimal InputDevice section:- Section "InputDevice" Identifier "Mouse1" Driver "mouse" Option "Protocol" "Auto" # Auto detect Option "Device" "/dev/mouse" # Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5 6 7" # Option "Emulate3Buttons" EndSection This results with the left button being button 1, the right button being button 3 and pressing both being button 2 (so in spite of commenting out Emulate3Buttons it still does! Then I have the two mini-buttons which are button 8 and button 9, how can I use those? What I actually want is buttons 1 and 3 as above, one of the little buttons as button 2 (middle/paste) and the other little button ideally as a double click of button 1. Where can I find out what all the options like "CorePointer", "Buttons", "Protocol", "ZAxisMapping" and so on actually do? -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

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East of England FOSS in the VCS
by MJ Ray 25 Oct '06

25 Oct '06

Not sure whether this has featured here before, but a friend from ScunDOG just sent me http://foss.ciac.org.uk/en - Using free and open source software in the UK voluntary and community sector. Anyone here involved? If so, well done. Best wishes, -- MJ Ray - see/vidu http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Somerset, England. Work/Laborejo: http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ IRC/Jabber/SIP: on request/peteble

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Where are xorg.conf devices documented?
by cl＠isbd.net 25 Oct '06

25 Oct '06

Where can I find xorg.conf documentation that tells me what device names etc. one can use? The man page tells me about the format of xorg.conf and what all the sections are etc. but doesn't help in the slightest as regards how to configure actual hardware. I'm specifically after mouse configuration information, like which Driver I should use for a Logitech Marble Mouse and what Option settings are available. I'd really like fairly general information though as I may want to set up another (Kensington) multi-button mouse as well. -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

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RE: [ALUG] Audio problems
by Keith Watson 25 Oct '06

25 Oct '06

> From: Wayne Stallwood Sent: 24 October 2006 22:24 > > Never had this problem with Totem/Xine For DVD playback, Xine has always worked best for me also. Regards, Keith ____________ CLAIRVOYANT, n. Persons who have the power of seeing that which is invisible to their patrons, namely, that they are fools. - Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

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Audio problems
by Martin Collins 24 Oct '06

24 Oct '06

I'm using Ubuntu Dapper on my laptop with kernel 2.6.15-27-k7. There's a problem when playing DVD's or video files with the lip-sync. The audio is 200-400 ms ahead of the video. I've googled for answers but just can't seem to find any. This wasn't a problem before I installed Dapper, but I don't want to uninstall it because of one annoying little problem. I know it's the computer and not the files because I've seem them played on Windows machines with full lip-sync. Has anyone experienced any problem like this, or should it be reported to Ubuntu as a bug? Its an nforce3 audio chip (0000:00:06.0 Multimedia audio controller: nVidia Corporation nForce3 Audio (rev a2)) Thanks all, Martin

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Re: [ALUG] Re: Old 'official' Linux distributions to give away
by Martin Collins 24 Oct '06

24 Oct '06

I live in Gorleston and ideally I could bring them to a second thursday meet, but I work away 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off and am next due to join ship on the Wed 8th November, yep the day before the meet. So I'm open to suggestions. If anyone fairly close to Gorleston will be attending the meet then I could drop them off with them maybe? Regards, Martin On Mon, 2006-10-23 at 23:13 +0100, Wayne Stallwood wrote: > Fantastic, hopefully new material may actually get people using the > library again :-) > > Where are you located > > Regards > Wayne >

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OT, but maybe someone here knows
by cl＠isbd.net 24 Oct '06

24 Oct '06

Are there any OS/2 enthusiasts on this list, or does anyone know of any local (i.e. East Anglian) OS/2 user groups? I have some OS/2 bits and pieces (software and books) that I'd like to clear off my shelves. -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

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Old 'official' Linux distributions to give away
by cl＠isbd.net 23 Oct '06

23 Oct '06

Before I try Freecycle or the bin is anyone here interested in the following:- Redhat 5.1 boxed set Linux Mandrake (6.0 I think, I seem to have two boxes but not sure about CDs at the moment) SuSe Professional 7.3 boxed set. (I probably have some old hardware to go with them too!) -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

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Modules problem - grrrrrr!!!!!!!
by cl＠isbd.net 20 Oct '06

20 Oct '06

Well I thought I had modules sussed but apparently not. A couple of days ago I compiled the module for my RTL8168 Gigabit ethernet interfaces and it worked fine. I did what the README said and it all worked. Now it doesn't work any more and my system denies all knowledge of the r1000.ko module. Why are modules so ?^!$%^"$%&^ recalcitrant? How do I get it to work now? All the 'bits' must be there but none of the module commands give me any help to find them. Hheellpp!! -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

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Re: etch and kde
by Peter Alcibiades 20 Oct '06

20 Oct '06

Well its not the end of the world, but its certainly very curious. You can't install kde because of lack of kdewebdev. You can't install this because of lack of quanta. You can't install quanta because of lack of libkde4. And you can't install this because its been replaced by another package. iwill:~# apt-get install kde Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree... Done Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable distribution that some required packages have not yet been created or been moved out of Incoming. Since you only requested a single operation it is extremely likely that the package is simply not installable and a bug report against that package should be filed. The following information may help to resolve the situation: The following packages have unmet dependencies. kde: Depends: kdewebdev (>= 4:3.4.3) but it is not going to be installed E: Broken packages iwill:~# apt-get install kdewebdev Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree... Done Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable distribution that some required packages have not yet been created or been moved out of Incoming. Since you only requested a single operation it is extremely likely that the package is simply not installable and a bug report against that package should be filed. The following information may help to resolve the situation: The following packages have unmet dependencies. kdewebdev: Depends: quanta (>= 4:3.4.3-2) but it is not installable Depends: kfilereplace (>= 4:3.4.3-2) but it is not installable Depends: kimagemapeditor (>= 4:3.4.3-2) but it is not installable Depends: klinkstatus (>= 4:3.4.3-2) but it is not installable Depends: kommander (>= 4:3.4.3-2) but it is not installable Depends: kxsldbg (>= 4:3.4.3-2) but it is not installable E: Broken packages iwill:~# apt-get install quanta Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree... Done Package quanta is not available, but is referred to by another package. This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or is only available from another source However the following packages replace it: quanta-data kdewebdev-doc-html E: Package quanta has no installation candidate iwill:~# apt-get install kdewebdev quanta-data kdewebev-doc-html Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree... Done quanta-data is already the newest version. E: Couldn't find package kdewebev-doc-html iwill:~#

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Watching Parliament with Linux
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 20 Oct '06

20 Oct '06

Hi Folks, OK, it's maybe a perverse thing to want to do, but ... Browse to http://www.parliamentlive.tv/?Where=Cttees&When=This%20Week&Day=Thursday 10:00am HoC Health Committee - Wilson Room - Meeting Information NHS Deficits I want to watch the video of this session. There is a "Watch from start" link at the right. I'm not getting any joy from this button (Firefox 1.0). It asks me to "Click here to download plugin", but if I do that then I get "No suitable plugins were found". Any suggestings for watching this using Firefox in Linux? With thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 20-Oct-06 Time: 12:10:19 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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etch and kde
by peter 20 Oct '06

20 Oct '06

After numerous disasters with Mandriva 2007 too many and too tedious to mention - just, avoid this if you have any alternative at all - I gave up and installed Etch. You will all smile quietly and ask what took him so long. Etch went in perfectly and with a minumum of fuss and started up Gnome. OK, I thought I will get kde and so on as well, for the sake of variety. So I now started up synaptic and installed fluxbox, fvwm and tried to install kde. However, the other WMs don't work as expected. fluxbox appears to start up with nothing at all. Right clicking does nothing, left clicking only brings up a fluxbox choice. There seems to be no way to start any application, including a configuration application or editor or terminal. Then with kde there is something if possible more baffling. Synaptic declines to get kde on the grounds that it is missing kwebdev. It cannot find kwebdev if you search for it using synaptic. I googled kwebdev and it seems to be part of quanta. So I tried to install quanta, and did not seem to get quanta, but got a couple of libraries, but in any case, still no luck with kde. Windowmaker works fine however. Am I doing, or failing to do, something silly or obvious? Peter

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openoffice for debian on amd
by Jenny Hopkins 20 Oct '06

20 Oct '06

Hullo there, I've been setting up a new computer with debian. I'm using the deb-src http://ftp.nl.debian.org/debian-amd64/debian/ stable main mirror. I can't install openoffice.org, as it depends on openoffice.org-bin. However, openoffice.org-bin doesn't seem to be available for amd architecture in this mirror. I had a go at downloading the openoffice.org deb file (all_arch) from debian, hoping to fool it somehow, but it still asked for the -bin deb. On looking at the info on debian.org, it doesn't seem that there is an openoffice-bin deb made for amd at all. Can anybody help? Thanks, Jenny (pie-eyed)

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