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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

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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Re: [ALUG] X Window - Which One?
by Peter 30 Apr '06

30 Apr '06

> Simon Royal wrote: > > Hi > > > > I have installed VectorLinux 4.3 on my ThinkPad 380ED. > > > > It comes with a number of x managers. Which one is the best. I don't recall whether Vector came with it, but for me WindowMaker will be the best combination of speed and usability. It is among the fastest you'll find, and of the fast ones, I think its the most usable. Yes, I agree with Ian that xfce is nice, though it will be a very early version that came with 4.3, and may not be as elegant as the current release, which is very nice. Ice is not bad, a bit crude aesthetically. I prefer Windowmaker. But WM seems to be very much a minority taste, don't know why. Also like enlightenment very much in concept, but have never actually used it day to day. But e is very fast and very different. Worth trying. Turn it on and amaze any neophyte friends you may have. E is the only one where you can log on and show it to someone and have them stare for a few minutes wondering what on earth it is. People's reactions to these things are interesting, so it I at least would be pleased to know which you like and why, if you have time to post. Peter

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Re: [ALUG] Network problem (Update)
by Christopher Dawkins 30 Apr '06

30 Apr '06

> The problem was caused because there were two copies of lpd running. > I've no idea why. Since stopping both and restarting everything works. > > EXCEPT... > > I can't print from either Firefox or OpenOffice using Computer B. I've > used spadmin to set up the new printer but the output does not appear > in the spool directory and Firefox does the same. Strange. Are you using CUPS? Sounds like the problem we have on FreeBSD with CUPS. There are the system copies of lpr, lpd, lpq and lprm in /usr/bin and the CUPS ones in /usr/local/bin. Default paths use the system ones first. The usual effect is that KDE printing works while OpenOffice printing does not. There are several cures, one of which is to delete (or rename) the versions in /usr/bin. -- Christopher Dawkins Garnetts Corner, Braintree Road, Felsted, Dunmow, Essex CM6 3DS cchd(a)pjcd.org 07816 821659 01371 821076

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X Window - Which One?
by Simon Royal 29 Apr '06

29 Apr '06

Hi I have installed VectorLinux 4.3 on my ThinkPad 380ED. It comes with a number of x managers. Which one is the best. Obviously this is no beast of a machine and I have DSL running FluxBox which looked great, but FluxBox on VectorLinux looks rubbish. Any advice. Simon

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Re: [ALUG] Mysterious ethernet problem
by Peter 29 Apr '06

29 Apr '06

I'm not sure what the board is, but probably Intel? Its in a compaq deskpro and the lan chipset is intel 82558. Mandriva assigns an eepro 100 driver to it. The funny thing is, it works well enough to do a Mandriva network install - which is just as well, since no CD in it. And I have three of these I'm trying to get working reliably! The yellow light. Yes, I think it must be related to wake on lan, but evidently the way its working with mandriva, it would not wake. We start from the situation where the machine has been shut down from the keyboard. The light goes out. If power to the machine is turned off at the mains, paused, and then turned back on, then the yellow light comes on again. If the machine is then turned on at the power switch and booted, all is well, and the yellow light stays on. However on keyboard shutdown, the yellow light goes off again, and then does not come back on even on reboot. So wake on lan would not work I suppose. The yellow light seems from the manual to mean 'reception of link pulses' or 'scrambler lock' in 100mbps mode. Something must be happening at software shutdown to cause this not to work any more. Something must be restarted at mains power on to get it up again. But what? I've glanced through the near 300 page manual with no real enlightenment. Perhaps I should try Debian on the second one, and maybe Windows 2K as well, and see if there's any difference. Peter On Saturday 29 Apr 2006 10:47, main-request(a)lists.alug.org.uk wrote: > My experience of Intel motherboards over the past 5 years > is that the ethernet connect light shines when connected to a network > even when the PC appears to be off. I'm guessing this helps with Wake > On Lan. > > Perhaps the Linux driver is telling the ethernet adapter to power > down, and then nothing turns it back on again until you cold boot. > > What make is your motherboard? > > Regards, > Tim.

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Spam, flames, toast et al.
by Bob Dove 29 Apr '06

29 Apr '06

Come on Guys, Some-one asks for help with a reasonable charitable do, some of you immediately clog the ether with complaints! A gentle reminder to the transgressor (of which there is at least one in my inbox) is sufficient. No need to get carried away with a running argument - life's too short! Bob Dove.

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Re: [ALUG] Network problem (Update)
by Barry Samuels 29 Apr '06

29 Apr '06

On 2006.04.28 19:42, Wayne Stallwood wrote: > On Fri, 2006-04-28 at 11:38 +0000, Barry Samuels wrote: > > The traceroute problem mentioned in the previous post was caused by > the firewall which has now been updated. > > > > Traceroute lists computer A as line 1 then the printer as line 2. > > > > Computer B still won't send the print job though. > > Still sounds very much like a firewally thing to me. > > Out of interest are you able to access the Jetdirect web admin page > from Computer B ? > > You could also try opening a telnet session to the printers port > (9100 I > think) > > Try telnet printeraddress 9100 > > It won't do anything useful of course (unless you can speak Jetdirect > IP protocol) but it will either fail to connect if it's a firewall > issue or either print garbage on the screen or just sit there blank > if it's ok. > Compare this to the results you get if you do the same thing on > Computer A Some more progress. The problem was caused because there were two copies of lpd running. I've no idea why. Since stopping both and restarting everything works. EXCEPT... I can't print from either Firefox or OpenOffice using Computer B. I've used spadmin to set up the new printer but the output does not appear in the spool directory and Firefox does the same. Strange. I can print from Gimp though. Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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USB WiFi
by Peter Hunter 29 Apr '06

29 Apr '06

Just a follow up from my last message. I have done a bit of searching and found that I can use something called NDISWrapper (as mentioned in an earlier reply), I'm not too sure how to use it though. Anyway, it seems that this comes pre loaded in Linspire 5. I have looked on the CD, in the drivers folder, for the Belkin F5D7050, for the .inf file. It seems to be listed as rt73???.inf. There is also a .sys file. Before I attempt to use this can someone tell me HOW to do it please? Also, there are two folders, one for Win9x and one for 2kxp. Does it matter which one I use? They seem to have the same .inf / .sys files in them. Regards and thanks Peter

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Re: [ALUG] Mysterious ethernet problem
by Peter 29 Apr '06

29 Apr '06

Adam wrote: >I've had that before with some network hardware, it appears that the >kernel driver either doesn't leave the network hardware in a nice state >at reboot or the hardware doesn't like playing ball after a reboot, >possibly a combination of the 2 things. The way I fixed it was either >upgrade the kernel to a later version or stick a pci card into the >machine and disable the onboard lan. Thanks, I'd thought of trying an add-in card, and turning off the onboard lan, so I'll do that now to confirm. It would be nice however to be able to use the built in. Is there anything one could add to the startup or shutdown procedures? That would have the same effect on the built in ethernet as a mains switch off? Peter

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no dvd playback
by robertj35＠tiscali.co.uk 29 Apr '06

29 Apr '06

Hi it's Robert here, i was just wondering how i could get dvd playback on Kaffeine and whether it's possible to be able to play my Xbox without the need to have a tv card(or tv license).Yours Robert ___________________________________________________________ Tiscali Broadband from 14.99 with free setup! http://www.tiscali.co.uk/products/broadband/

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ThinkPad & Wireless
by Simon Royal 28 Apr '06

28 Apr '06

Hi I have decided to buy a cheap PC laptop and run Linux on it. I was going to buy a Mac laptop - being a Mac fan, but I can get a second hand PC laptop with higher specs cheaper than a Mac one. And as it is going to run Linux it doesn't matter. I have been told IBM Thinkpads are good for Linux can anyone recommend anything in particular? Also I want to buy a wireless PCMCIA card that will work on a laptop and under Linux, any suggestions? 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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Mysterious ethernet problem
by Peter 28 Apr '06

28 Apr '06

Has anyone heard of anything like this, and if so what did you do? The machine is a Compaq deskpro SFF, PIII. It is running Mandriva. The IP address is manually assigned, and its not connected to the Net, this is just for internal printing. You plug the machine in, boot up, and everything is fine. You can reach other addresses, print on a network printer, log into the network printers admin over the web browser (the printer itself, not CUPS on localhost). You can do file transfers from other machines. You then turn off using the gnome power control. System goes down, screen goes blank. Little light on back of network card goes out. Reboot, and network is unavailable. Do ifup eth0, comes up, however ping doesn't work in either direction and the other machines are not there. Connection refused is the message. The little light is still off. After much headscratching, shut down, turn off at mains, wait 20 secs, turn back on at mains. Little light comes back on, boot up, everything works.... What obvious thing am I missing? I would expect that it should go off at shutdown, and go on at bootup. The only other oddity is that Mandriva seems to think there are two network interfaces, one the card which really is in it, and another interface called sit0 or something like this. You can delete this without it affecting the eth0. I don't understand where this is coming from, if it matters, or what to do about it. Any suggestions gratefully received. Peter

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Guinea Pigs required for Linux VPS trial..
by Martyn Drake 28 Apr '06

28 Apr '06

Hello, Long time no post :) Time for another crazy idea of mine. In an effort to help part-fund my shiny new dual core dedicated server (some of it's already funded by a web site I run), I'm contemplating using VMWare Server to "partition" the machine up into several segments and rent out a Linux virtual server for those wishing to experiment, host their own sites, or whatever. Suggested charging for 128Mb VM would be around the £25 per month mark. However, before I do ANY of that, I want to try different distributions with different applications and thus if anybody is interesting in testing such a beastie, I would be very grateful. Initally I'm looking to offer Debian and CentOS (4.x). Each VM would be equal share CPU. If anybody is interested, please can you drop me an email off-list. Regards, Martyn

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[ALUG Announce] Reminder: Syleham Kit Meet Sun 30 Apr 2006 2pm-
by MJ Ray 27 Apr '06

27 Apr '06

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- Just a quick reminder for announce readers that there is a meeting on Sunday. See http://www.alug.org.uk/meetings/2006/04-30Sun.html or http://lists.alug.org.uk/main/2006-March/024264.html Also, I offer some transport to Syleham from places on the A134 Lynn-Thetford or A1066 Thetford-Diss: email me off-list. The next Norwich meeting will be Thu 11 May. See http://www.alug.org.uk/meetings/2006/all-NorThu.html If you'd like a meeting in King's Lynn, email me. While I'm writing, www.5quidhost.co.uk have offered any LUG member 3 months free on 6 months, or 6 months free on 12 months. Mention Anglian LUG when ordering. Thanks for reading! ----- Send discussion replies to main(a)lists.alug.org.uk (Reply-To set) Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce

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ThinkPad Mania
by Simon Royal 27 Apr '06

27 Apr '06

After weeks of trying to find a ThinkPad to use for Linux and having no joy I have won five in the last week - a 770, 755CX, 380ED, 380ED & 760XL. I have decided to keep the two 380EDs and resell the rest. One of them is for my wife so she can wirelessly surf while watching TV, but she is not interested in Linux and will be running Windows 98SE or 2000. Bearing in mind the age of the machine, what's the best distro to use for a Linux newbie? I don't want to dual boot or to run anything too heavy on it. I want it for wireless surfing, emails, light word processing and expanding my knowledge of Linux. I know it is old, but I would like it to run pretty smoothly. I am fairly new to Linux and would prefer a distro with a GUI, but know that Gnome or KDE are resource hungry. I have been running Vector Linux SOHO live on my wifes PC and it seems pretty easy on resources and uses Xfce desktop manager, it also has special ThinkPad tailored settings. I have also dabbled in DSL, Knoppix and Ubuntu - the last requiring a better machine than the 380ED. I have an 802.11b wireless PCMCIA card which apparently works in Linux according to the box. So the ultimate question is, which distro will run relatively smooth, work on a 380ED, work with my wireless PCMCIA card and is pretty user friendly and configurable via GUI and not too much Linux knowledge initially. One final question, does anyone know the max hard drive and RAM you can put into a 380ED. 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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ThinkPad & DSL Help
by Simon Royal 27 Apr '06

27 Apr '06

Hi After weeks of searching I have a ThinkPad 380ED with Damn Small Linux installed. For a Pentium 166 machine with only 32MB RAM it is damn (no pun intended) fast. The 380ED has a built in CDROM drive which is bootable and built in floppy, unfortunately it's PCMCIA slots are 16 bit and not cardbus compliant, so my cardbus wireless card won't work on it. Firstly, Can anyone recommend a 16-bit wireless card that works well under Linux. It can be with a 802.11b or 11g card don't mind. I have heard that the Belkin FSD6020 v2 works straight out of the box in Linux and the LinkSys WCP11 v3 works with a bit of tweaking, but neither of these manufacturers websites mention anything about Linux. Secondly, I have bought a number of RAM chips for the 380ED. After searching Google for the exact spec, I realised it has 16MB on board non-removeable and a 16MB stick removeable, upgradeable to 64MB. The machine has an 80MB maximum support. None of the sticks I have bought work. Although DSL runs fine with 32MB it will run even better with 80MB so would like to upgrade. I noticed the sticks I bought where a lot taller than the one I removed and this is the only difference I can see. Any help here would be appreciated. The sound don't work at the moment but I have found a modprobe work around so will try that later. Any further advice or experience anyone has had with one of these or general ThinkPad problems, all info would be great. 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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USB Wireless
by Peter Hunter 26 Apr '06

26 Apr '06

Hi everyone. I have been away from Linux for far too long. I was having withdrawals when a friend gave me a full unregistered copy of Linspire 5.0. I hastily installed this onto my laptop (which is running a 1.2GHz VIA C3 processor). It installed in super quick time, and everything was recognised and working OK, even my USB card reader. The Ethernet connection was setup without any help from me, and setting up the email account was simple. The one thing I haven't been able to get working yet though is my Belkin USB WiFi stick. I have a Belkin WiFi /Cable router in the ´work room´. The WiFi worked ok when I had winxp on it, so I know it´s all ok. Any ideas as to how to get it working would help please. Many thanks Peter

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