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10372 discussions

Beginning of the end for SGI
by Wayne Stallwood 12 May '06

12 May '06

I was talking to someone about this at the kit meet (sorry I forget who) Whoever it was, Your prediction was pretty much spot on. http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060508/sfm098.html?.v=45 Tis a sad day even if you didn't like SGI kit, If they weren't so broken as a company then they would be a good example of how a company in the Unix world embraced Open Source rather than being threatened by it. I don't know how much input SGI has on OpenGL and XFS now..I presume these projects will continue without them should they vanish or be bought up ? I wish I still had my Indy so I could give it a hug.

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64 bit Operating Systems
by Nick Daniels 11 May '06

11 May '06

Hi I have been attempting to install Linux on my AMD 3.4 GHz 64, on Ubuntu/Kubuntu 64, the X server fails to start/crashes, likewise on Debian 64, with Fedora 64 screen starts O.K. but mouse pointer disappears at logon. Suse 10.0 installs O.K. in i386 mode, but fails to find sound (Intel ICH with ALC 655) Kubuntu installs O.K. in i386 mode and finds everything. likewise Debian i386 Kororaa (gentoo) i386 installs O.K. and gives correct Nvidia driver and even 1600x screen System has onboard Nvidia 6100, and 1GB ram. Has anybody any suggestions for a 64 bit system, or ideas how to get a working 64 bit system or any other (Linux) operating system to try please. Kind Regards - Nick Daniels

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Given In To Pressure... Sorry
by Simon Royal 10 May '06

10 May '06

Before I start I would like to state I am a devout anti-Microsoft user and this pains me. My main machine is a Mac of which I am very pleased with. In all the years I have owned a Mac they never let me down, they just work and very well. My venture into Linux has come to a halt. My ThinkPad 380ED has been stripped of Damn Small Linux and replaced with Windows 98 Second Edition. There was no speed increase over Windows and the age of the machine limited me to the distro's I could use. With Damn Small Linux being the best option, I was annoyed by the limited amount of software and support for it. I know Microsoft are switching off support for 98 & ME in July but the wealth of knowledge and software and supported hardware under these operating systems was a drawing point for me. My wife also wants to use the laptop and Linux is no place for someone with little computing knowledge. So apologies as I seem to bail out on Linux. When I eventually purchase a new Mac I intend to dual boot with Ubuntu or something similar as I will have a better choice of full blown distros rather than cut down one aimed at low end machines. Kind Regards Simon Royal ---- www.simonroyal.co.uk The box said requires Windows 2000 or better, so I bought an Apple Mac

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Ethernet conundrum
by Peter 10 May '06

10 May '06

Well, it gets more and more baffling. Checked the bios. Identical on both machines. Checked the switch settings. Identical. Checked the WOL header. Nothing on either of them. Swapped hard drives. The condition stays with the hardware, doesn't follow the drive. Reset bios to defaults. Nothing changes. As it shouldn't, since I had previously reset it by removing the battery. Gave up, and furiously put in another card, thinking, this should not be possible, I should be able to figure this out! Works fine on eth1. Peter

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XML & XSL
by jt＠imen.org.uk 09 May '06

09 May '06

Yeah I know this isnt a strict linux question but you guys are leet so... My dad has a slight problem with his coursework. He's been given a peice of XML which is terribly formatted - there is a lot of duplication of data. The XML in question is sitting at http://www.imen.org.uk/pd.php?id=24 The first stage of the problem was to break it down per invoice - instead of having four lines containing shipping data etc, he wants only one set of that per invoice,and the rest of the information to be sub that. Thats relativly easy using a key: http://www.imen.org.uk/pd.php?id=25 Now this leads onto stage two... Each invoice contains information about individual suppliers. This information again contains information which isunique per line (prodCode) but also information which isnt (supplierName). Again, the problem is to only show suppliername once for each line, so that the first output would show three sets of lines, the first one containing two products, the second and third containing one. (as opposed to the output that that gives you which is four lines of one output line each). Now I've tried lots of things - I cant generate a composite key based on the parent id because they all have the same parent - if file was structured better it could be sorted better. Any ideas? (I worked on this for about four hours lastnight, plus whatever my dad did on it and still no closer to a solution... is it indeed possible?) Thanks JT

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Weekly IRC reminder
by Brett Parker 08 May '06

08 May '06

This is the automated ALUG IRC meeting reminder sent to remind you that there is an IRC meeting tonight (Monday) at 8.00pm. Historically, these used to be the only time a lot of us would be about, now the channel has some usual faces that are there most of the time (except at silly o'clock, when we might be sleeping, or on the second thursday of the month, where we might be drinking in the Reindeer), so don't feel limited to visit during this time, come visit us when ever you feel like it! The meeting takes place on the irc server irc.alug.org.uk in the #alug channel. Most IRC clients should allow you to get there with the commands "/server irc.alug.org.uk" and "/join #alug". Popular IRC clients include xchat, irssi and EPIC on Unix, and Mirc under windows. Here are some links to help you get started with irc. Unix http://www.xchat.org/ http://www.irssi.org/ http://www.epicsol.org/ Windows http://www.mirc.com (loads of help with irc for newbies!)

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A Few DSL Questions
by Peter 07 May '06

07 May '06

How to stop Dillo loading at startup? Yes, this drives you crazy if you don't stop it. Go to /home/dsl/.xinitrc. You need to comment out the dillo line by putting a # sign in front of it. I think this was covered in the DSL FAQ. Don't know about radio. Someone said DSL is Debian, and yes it evidently is, but I found that some packages didn't seem to be installable with apt-get, when they were installable with Debian. I never did figure out why. It must be modified in some way so dependencies don't always work quite correctly? Are you using jwm or fluxbox? DSL-not (the slightly bigger one) is worth trying too, but the version I tried didn't have some features that are in the little one. But it did have better applications. Didn't try apt-get. Peter

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A Few DSL Questions
by Simon Royal 07 May '06

07 May '06

Hi Yet another few Damn Small Linux questions from a newbie. Fingers crossed everything is going fine including wireless surfing. 1. I have my wireless network set up via Prism 2, only I have to set it up each time I restart the machine. Is there anyway I can have it auto configured each time I switch it on? 2. Everytime I boot up I am faced with a Dillo 'intro to DSL' screen. How can I stop this appearing? 3. I also have downloaded and installed a small util to show the wireless strength, but that too doesn't load on start up - how do I do this? Regards Simon

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Ethernet conundrum, continued
by Peter 05 May '06

05 May '06

Well, the saga continues. It doesn't have much practical significance, but its an intellectual challenge, and its driving me crazy! I have these three Compaqs. They are just about identical. They are all PIIIs, though two have 128Mb and the other 192. That's the only difference. I installed mandriva 2006 on all three in the same way, using the same boot disk and installing over the net from the same site. Two of them are sitting next to each other on a table, connected to identical monitors. I have removed the battery on both to reset the bios (necessary to remove password to do the install). I've checked all the settings, and they are all set the same in bios. The only change I made to defaults was to set the time. I've checked that the ethernet chipset is the same, and it is. On one, the network goes off at keyboard power off, and comes back on at power up from the base unit power switch. On the other, everything reports fine at startup, but the little light on the built in ethernet port never comes on, and the network is first unavailable, then if you do ifdown eth0 followed by ifup eth0, it shows host unreachable. The light remains off. Then if you do a soft power down, disconnect the power, reconnect the power, the light comes on, boot then causes it to give you the identical messages at startup, but this time it works. Well, today, on the third one, which also does this, I put in a different pci ethernet card. It worked perfectly. Set it up as eth1, removed the other ethernet, eth0. Soft off, it goes off, restart, it comes back on. The only slight oddity was that it seemed very slow indeed in both printing and accessing the printer's web page. It took several minutes to spool a one page document with a couple of screenshots on, and displaying the printers web page was rather slower than I would have expected over a 100mbps LAN connection. But it worked on the problematic power aspect exactly as it should. I had the vain hope that maybe it could be something to do with manual addressing, so took in a router and set one of the ones that doesn't work to DCHP, but of course this didn't help. Its before that stage that the ethernet is failing to come up. Of course, I can just put in a second extra ethernet card in the one that doesn't work, and probably will have to, but its driving me nuts. This should not be possible. Or if it is, there should be some explanation of what is different about the one that works. I guess I can swap the hard drive of the one that works with one that doesn't and see if that makes a difference. I could try installing Debian on another hard drive, and see if that makes any difference. I just do not want to be intellectually defeated by this! Any other ideas? Any ideas about anything else one could do to narrow down the problem? Peter

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more free stuff
by Phil 05 May '06

05 May '06

Hi - I have some stuff to clear from the dining table before I get in anymore trouble, so; One generic beige tower, P2, MMX board, wouldn't guess how old but does have on board USB and an ethernet card, keyboard, Microshaft mouse and a Compaq 17" tube. All free. The tube is good, I just have no space, and need it all to go. The hard drive did have SuSe 9.0 on it last time it was booted, comes up with CMOS error now - I'm a PPC/Mac kinda guy and the wonders of BIOS leave me cold... Mail me if anyone wants it, as the address suggests, it's in Shelfanger

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Damn Small Alternative
by Simon Royal 04 May '06

04 May '06

Hi I know I have posted a lot lately regarding my Linux box, so sorry if this is irritating. I am looking for a possible alternative to Damn Small Linux. I have it running on my ThinkPad 380ED and it is ok. Currently with 48MB RAM it is fine, even have a wireless card running. I have an upgrade to 80MB coming to give it a little boost. Everything is working fine except Dillo keeps quitting and Firefox freezes the whole machine from time to time. As I will basically be using this machine as a wireless web/email machine I need a stable distro. Are there any other distros that are easy to configure, run on a P166 with 80MB RAM at a pleasant speed, can be booted by floppy as my 380ED wont boot from CD and have good wireless capabilities. A light window manager like fluxbox or icewm would be preffered over gnome or KDE. Kind Regards Simon Royal ---- www.simonroyal.co.uk The box said requires Windows 2000 or better, so I bought an Apple Mac

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Just testing if I'm back connected
by chrisisbd＠leary2.csoft.net 04 May '06

04 May '06

Sorry for the 'noise', I lost my main E-Mail machine a week or so ago (not my machine) and I've moved all my E-mail to Csoft in Canada and I'm just checking it out. -- Chris Green (chrisisbd(a)leary.csoft.net)

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Re: [ALUG] Damn Small Alternative
by Richard Lewis 04 May '06

04 May '06

On Thu, 4 May 2006 11:37:37 +0100, "Simon Royal" <s.royal(a)totalise.co.uk> said: > > Are there any other distros that are easy to configure, run on a P166 > with 80MB RAM at a pleasant speed, can be booted by floppy as my 380ED > wont boot from CD and have good wireless capabilities. A light window > manager like fluxbox or icewm would be preffered over gnome or KDE. > > I can't remember whether anyone mentioned this when you were working on this eariler, but have you tried Debian? You can boot the installation from floppies: http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/ch04s03.html.en http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/ch05s01.html.en#floppy-boot and then pick only the packages you want to get your minimal system running. It includes Xfce and various other light-weight window managers and you get a choice of kernels. You can install over the network (from floppies) or from CDs (with floppies). Cheers, Richard -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Richard Lewis Sonic Arts Research Archive http://www.sara.uea.ac.uk/ -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

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Re: [ALUG] Keyboards
by John Seago 04 May '06

04 May '06

On Wednesday 03 May 2006, David Simon Cooper <david.cooper(a)uea.ac.uk> wrote: > > The only downside is that I could not get the software to work well > > with FC3 or FC4. I have had an answer from "Cherry" now who referred me to the downloads on this page: http://www.cherrycorp.com/english/cymotion-line/cymotion-line_master_linux.… scroll down to "Download Software" Click the download Software for Linux gives you Debian 3.1, Fedora 4, Mandrake 10.1, source code of KeyM@n Software, SUSE 10.0and SUSE 9.x. Nothing covers what I want, but it may be useful for you. -- John Seago GNU/Linux Registered User No. #219566 () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments

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DSL Alternatives
by Peter 04 May '06

04 May '06

> Are there any other distros that are easy to configure, run on a P166 > with 80MB RAM at a pleasant speed, can be booted by floppy as my 380ED > wont boot from CD and have good wireless capabilities. A light window > manager like fluxbox or icewm would be preffered over gnome or KDE. Yes, at least one comes to mind. Get the Debian boot floppies, and install Debian over the net. Use Windowmaker as the desktop. Install KOffice as the Office package and Firefox as the web browser. Use Sylpheed for email. Use xfe for a file manager. This was perfectly usable for me on a 200mhz MMX with 64MB memory. It didn't fly, but it ran just fine. The Debian boot floppies may even let you install from CD. Its likely that doing a similarly minimalist install from Slackware would work as well, but I did not try that. If you don't like Windowmaker, try Fluxbox in this scenario. I think WM is a lot better to use, and not much slower, if at all. Also consider fvwm. Peter

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Linux Success Thanks
by Simon Royal 03 May '06

03 May '06

Hi, Thanks for all your help with sorting me out a Linux setup and answering some of my newbie questions. I am writing this on my IBM ThinkPad 380ED, running Damn Small Linux and using a Linksys WPC11 v2.5 wireless card. This machine flys along, much different to the crawling it did with Windows 98. It really has brought this old piece of hardware back to life and is as easily as fast for browsing and emails as my 1Ghz eMac. Once again thanks. Simon @

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RE: [ALUG] Free stuff
by Keith Watson 03 May '06

03 May '06

> From: David Reynolds Sent: 03 May 2006 12:27 ... > > These have been earmarked by Keith and are hence no longer available. "earmarked" = flagrant bribery with promises of free beer :o) Regards, Keith ____________ 'Remain steadfast...and one day you will build something that endures; something worthy of your potential.' - Epictetus

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Re: [ALUG] Keyboards
by John Seago 03 May '06

03 May '06

On Wednesday 03 May 2006, David Simon Cooper <david.cooper(a)uea.ac.uk> wrote: > The only downside is that I could not get the software to work well with > FC3 or FC4. If you use the supplied SUSE distro or another stable distro > then you will probably be OK. I was going to try to hack some fixes as > you get the source code with the keyboard software, but I am only > intermediate C/C++ and the source files contained over 10,000 lines of > C++ code!. I decided that I was not going to spend a month getting the > software working with FC4! Well that's another question answered, looks like the choice is narrowed down to the 88 Key flexible, washable keyboard. -- John Seago GNU/Linux Registered User No. #219566 () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments

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Re: [ALUG] Keyboards
by John Seago 03 May '06

03 May '06

On Wednesday 03 May 2006 Adam Bower <adam(a)thebowery.co.uk> wrote: > You set it up as a 105 key keyboard and just ignore the bit that you > don't have a number pad as far as i know. Thanks for that Adam it solves most of my setup problems. On the matter of the "Linux" keyboard, I'm in the process of checking that one is not stuck with having to use SUSE if one buys it. -- John Seago GNU/Linux Registered User No. #219566 () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments

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Free stuff
by David Reynolds 03 May '06

03 May '06

Hi, I brought a couple of bits and bobs along yesterday to the kit meet, that no-one seemed interested in, so I thought I'd post them on here before junking/freecycling them. All were in good working order, last time they were used. HP Printer: I can't remember the exact model. Prints reasonably in colour and black and white. Unfortunately I couldn't find the power supply for it, but I would imagine a generic power supply would work adequately. (Edit: I think this may be Deskjet 710c: http://www.linuxprinting.org/ show_printer.cgi?recnum=HP-DeskJet_710C ) Old parallel scanner: I can't even remember the manufacturer of this. Good quality results, although a bit on the slow side, it being parallel rather than USB. Email me off-list if you are interested in these. Cheers, Dave -- David Reynolds david(a)reynoldsfamily.org.uk

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Keyboards
by John Seago 02 May '06

02 May '06

Having given up smoking for several years, I no longer melt keys with hot pipe ash. It now therefore, proves worthwhile to spend more than a Fiver on a keyboard. Has anyone had any experience with either of the following; the "Linux" Keyboard: http://www.cherrycorp.com/english/cymotion-line/cymotion-line_master_linux.… or more practically a washable one as shown on the Gadget show the other week: http://www.hela.co.uk/helashop/customer/product.php?productid=14 My only problem is that I learned to type 40 years ago on a Monotype keyboard, from the days when printing was still done with hot metal type, where the keys were balanced against compressed air, and a very light touch was needed not to get repeated letters. Every so often I have trouble logging in as my touch is too light for the keyboard I have. A further point, how does one set up an 88 key keyboard? I can't see one in xorgconfig Any comments would be appreciated. -- John Seago GNU/Linux Registered User No. #219566 () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments

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LCD Status
by Wayne Stallwood 02 May '06

02 May '06

Some people expressed interest in my LCD CPU Load display at the Kit meet. I have a couple of brand new smaller backlit single line 16 character LCD's left over from a project. You'd have to be handy with a soldering iron and provide your own Parallel cable, I'll provide wiring instructions and a sample lcdproc config. 16x1 isn't a whole lot of real-estate but using the sample clients in the lcdproc package it is possible to have things like load average with a simple history display even at this size screen. There are other clients floating around the net to display almost anything (or they are quite easy to roll yourself) On your PC you'll need a spare parallel port and either a source of 5V DC or a spare USB port (Hardly any current is needed so even a port on an un-powered Hub will be fine) £6 each inc P&P, contact me off list if you are interested. Regards Wayne

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[ALUG] Please forward this into all of your friends, and them theirs
by Darren 02 May '06

02 May '06

Hi Guys We don't normally send out messages of a non-business related nature. However this ones important. One of my best friends girlfriend is doing a power walk for charity. Its no ordinary power walk and its no ordinary charity. * The charity is to help in the fight against breast cancer * Its a 26.2 mile walk * Shes doing it little more than a bra * Its the only Power Walking Marathon in the world * And it takes place over night! The Moonwalk in London takes place overnight on 20 May 2006 when 15,000 women and a few brave men will power walk a marathon or half marathon around central London with the united aim of encouraging health awareness and raising £6 million for breast cancer research and cancer care. I'm not capable of doing such an event, but I am willing to pass this onto as many people as possible. Karina is an amazing lady, if you can spare any amount of money to sponsor her we would appreciate it. Pictures of Karina (Right hand picture, middle) and the donation page can be found at the following URL https://www.bmycharity.com/V2/essexpinkladies Thank you for taking the time to read this plea. One last favor, would you please forward this onto everyone you know. The more people that read it, the more we may be able to make for charity. Thank you! Darren Casey http://www.php4hosting.co.uk

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Recent convert wanted!
by Dave Briggs 01 May '06

01 May '06

Hello chaps I do a bit of work now and again for Living Without Microsoft [http://livingwithoutmicrosoft.org], and we have been thinking of some new features to run. One idea that we thought would be very useful would be a piece on an everyday PC user who had recently switched from Windows to Linux, hopefully to show others who might be tempted to make the switch that it really isn't *that* hard. It would be pretty simple, just a few questions emailed back and forth a few times. Our preference would be for someone not overly technically proficient, but that doesn't really matter. Anyhow - if anyone would like to volunteer that would be great. Feel free to do so off list. Cheers Dave

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Weekly IRC reminder
by Brett Parker 01 May '06

01 May '06

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