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Seedbox vs VPS for linux VPS usage.
by John Cohen 08 Oct '19

08 Oct '19

I have a home server that's now a few years old, used for a mix of large file backups (16tb raid10), file serving and sharing (nextcloud/sftp) and a few other less important applications for personal use like rss reader, music streaming etc. I'm thinking of decommissioning it soon and moving most of its use to the cloud. Unfortunately cloud storage is still very expensive when handling audio/video files so I'm planning on creating backups locally and leaving the cloud storage (around 1-2tb) for mainly file sharing as well as my other various applications. I've already got 2 vps with digitalocean and am pretty happy with them, except for the storage price (astronomical if I wanted to add 1000GB storage to the droplets), so I've been hunting around for reliable and affordable servers that are also secure. This got me to looking at 'dedicated' seedboxes as an alternative to regular VPS. The prices for storage are staggeringly smaller. When including full root access, these start to sound very much like a traditional VPS, so I'm now wondering: 1) What's the real difference if most VPS machines out there are not truly dedicated machines- (really virtualised) but have everything you'd expect from root-access to dedicated ip address, ram and cpu usage, the same as a good seedbox? (example here of a seedbox with root access and 'machine' specs: https://www.rapidseedbox.com/#pricing) 2) Are there any inherent security downsides with a seedbox vs a traditional vps? My initial feelings are it's the same, as long as you personally secure the server thoroughly and the level of control (say root access, firewall, other typical linux security tweaks, file encryption done by myself on the server etc) 3) Seedboxes are mainly meant for fast torrenting (something I'm not interested in). So long-term reliability probably isn't their main concern when running the business, comparing it to a company offering VPS renting. Is this a fair assessment? Do seedboxes tend to be available in the long term, or is it more likely to cause me problems a couple of years along the line? (I'd obviously look for a company that's been out there for a while, but is it likely the servers reliability is not as good?) 4) Any thoughts of what else I could look into? Ideally in the 1-5tb storage range, but possibly less than £20 p/m. John

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[ALUG Announce] ALUG Norwich Pub Meet Thursday 10th October
by Viperfang 07 Oct '19

07 Oct '19

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, 10th October 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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Securing a laptop
by peter.northerly＠gmail.com 01 Oct '19

01 Oct '19

Be grateful for any ideas about this. I'm responsible for the laptop of a not very technical person. The laptop has all kinds of sensitive personal information on it, and the owner travels around the UK, it gets left in a suitcase in the luggage shelves at the entrance to train carriages, gets carried around in a luggage trolley on the underground and buses. So I have tried to find some way of securing it that is not too onerous. What I came up with is to have an encrypted partition, and to have the really critical files on an encrypted usb stick that is carried separately. Its running Linux Mint. There are shortcuts to the usb files on the desktop, but of course they only work when the usb stick is inserted and mounted. This works, and I think its pretty secure, but it does involve the user in keying in long secure passwords several times. So recently I came on instructions in anonguide. These are meant for installing whonix. But the first part of them seems to be adaptable to my case. What you basically do is install Debian on an encrypted hard drive, putting the /boot folder on a USB stick. You set it up with a passphrase, and then after the installation is complete, you make an encrypted keyfile, move it to the stick, and delete the passphrase. The idea is that the machine will only boot using the stick (I suppose you clone it, to be safe) and will use the very long and secure keyfile to decrypt. I am not clear why you need to create a passphrase at all if its going to be deleted. And another oddity is that there seems to be only a root and swap partition. I am of course used to having a separate /home partition like everyone. But I can find my way through these things. The rest of the long anonguide manual goes on to talk about installing whonix and tor which isn't part of my problem. My user is not bothered about anonymity, just wants not to have to worry about having a machine stolen which is fairly readily accessible with all kinds of personal info on it. The potentially nice thing about this method is that you just insert the stick and boot and log in. No more messing with repeatedly typing in long and hard to remember passphrases. What do you all think about it? Have you tried this? And how do you secure laptops? Al

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2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 4th October.
by Viperfang 01 Oct '19

01 Oct '19

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

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Any ideas how to provide a WiFi connection that goes via a proxy?
by Chris Green 30 Sep '19

30 Sep '19

I'll try and explain what I need. I want to connect a WiFi device (a Kobo eReader) via a proxy server so that it will appear to be in the UK even when I'm on my boat in France. This is because downloads of books from the library will only work when the Kobo eReader is in the UK. I'm not trying to cheat or anything, I just want to be able to check out new library books to read when I'm away from home. The Kobo only has WiFi, no wired connection, so it needs some sort of WiFi source to connect to which will (presumably) in turn be connected to a UK based proxy server. I can provide the proxy server myself, I often do this for browser connections to order my repeat prescriptions (for some reason my doctor's web site won't allow connections from outside the UK). So, I guess, I need something like a wireless router which can be set up to route *all* WiFi clients via my UK proxy. Or am I barking up the wrong tree? (I don't really know what ports/protocols the Kobo uses though I suppose I could find out) Any/all ideas welcome. -- Chris Green

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JOB | Front End Developer (London)
by James Tobin 17 Sep '19

17 Sep '19

Hello, I'm working with an employer that is looking to hire a permanent front end architect for their London office. Consequently, I had hoped that some members of this group may like to discuss further. I can be reached using "JamesBTobin (at) Gmail (dot) Com". Kind regards, James

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Laptops for Linux
by Mark Rogers 13 Sep '19

13 Sep '19

Before Christmas I bought myself a new Lenovo laptop thinking I'd get Ubuntu running on it fine, but no; graphics issues, touchpad issues, etc and it's been running Windows 10 ever since. So as not to make the same mistake again, on a budget of about £450 what is a good laptop for Linux? Happy to look at 2nd-hand or refurbs, Must haves: It's for my wife so it needs a numeric keypad (she's a bookkeeper). A side effect of that means 15"+. Needs to run virtual machines (Sage only runs on Windows...). Weight is a factor, I think certainly <2kg. It'll end up with SSD either because it came with one or I installed it (happy either way, probably prefer to install it myself). Decent RAM - I'd have thought 16GB (or at least the scope to increase it later). Can claim the VAT back so budget is higher with a VAT invoice than without. Mark -- 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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Basic image manipulation
by Mark Rogers 09 Sep '19

09 Sep '19

Probably 90% of my image work is taking an image (maybe a screenshot or photo), making some very basic changes like rotate, crop, scale (usually to reduce filesize), and saving it. I seem to have a collection of tools which view only (like EoG) but load instantly on minimal resources, and sophisticated apps like GIMP which will do anything I might ever need but more slowly. What's a good app for every-day image stuff like this? I'd accept - and even quite like - a few extra bells, like highlighting/blurring/annotating, as long as it doesn't become cumbersome to use or slow to load. <rant>Bonus for something which doesn't give me a single "rotate 90deg" option; why does eveyone expect me to do three rotates instead of one?</rant> -- 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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[ALUG Announce] ALUG Norwich Pub Meet Thursday 12th September
by Viperfang 09 Sep '19

09 Sep '19

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, 12th September 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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Hardware upgrade?
by Phil Thane 05 Sep '19

05 Sep '19

Hello folks, Looking for hardware advice. My desktop PC hasn't had a hardware upgrade for about 5 years when I bought a MoBo bundle and a secondhand graphics card. It's an AMD Quad core CPU running at 3200MHz with 2G of RAM and Nvidea GE Force 8400. For the most part it's OK, I don't do video editing or gaming so it doesn't work too hard. The graphics card has always been an issue though, it refuses to run 64bit Linux distros. I've tried several in the past, Debian-based and others, and always get the same result, installs OK but on boot just gives a black screen. Annoyingly it will run 64bit distros from DVD so you think it's going to be OK after an install, but it isn't. It hasn't been too much of an issue running 32bit versions until recently but it seems they are being phased out. I'd like to try KDE Neon for example, but there is no 32bit version. So: Any recommendations for a cheapish graphics card that will work? Is it worth getting 4GB or more RAM? -- Phil

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Simple multi-line string manipulation from bash
by Mark Rogers 04 Aug '19

04 Aug '19

I have a simple bash script for locating Raspberry Pis on the network: #!/bin/bash PIMAC=B8:27:EB sudo nmap -sP 192.168.251.0/24 | grep -i " $PIMAC" -A0 -B2 Whilst the output gives me the answer I want I'd like to tidy up the formatting. The current result is: Nmap scan report for 192.168.10.20 Host is up (-0.10s latency). MAC Address: B8:27:EB:22:1C:05 (Raspberry Pi Foundation) -- Nmap scan report for 192.168.10.24 Host is up (-0.10s latency). MAC Address: B8:27:EB:22:1C:05 (Raspberry Pi Foundation) What I want out of it is something more like: MAC Address: B8:27:EB:22:1C:05 (Raspberry Pi Foundation) IP Address: 192.168.10.20 IP Address: 192.168.10.24 What is the best way to do this? Or should I just ditch the bash script for a Python script? -- 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] Getting package name from file path, offline
by Mark Rogers 09 Jul '19

09 Jul '19

On Sun, 7 Jul 2019 at 00:43, <steve-ALUG(a)hst.me.uk> wrote: > > I don't think it helps the current situation, but I think most people doing something like this > would host a git repository to store their scripts & track changes to them. The same idea > can be used to cope with changes to configurations for files in /etc/. I'd think it would be > easier to keep a manual list of top level packages added/removed using apt-get, than to > try and work it out backwards from a file list. I've never found a good way to treat an entire OS as a repository (or just the customisations, given that they can be anywhere in the system). I do maintain a list of changed files which I use to create tar based backups (different files from the subject of this thread), as well as an init script listing all the packages I need installing, but inevitably I sometimes forget to add something to my list. (It would be nice to think that a development workflow is "I need this, so add it to my list and install it". But reality is more like "I wonder if this will work, I'll install it and try" or "Let's install several options and see which works out best". With the best will in the world, being at least able to validate the list afterwards is useful.) > [...] > "apt doesn't remember which reverse dependency caused it to install rsync, but it does log all its actions in /var/log/apt, so you might find the dependency there: > [...] > That may help a bit, but it depends on what period the log-rotated apt log files you have. /var/log/apt/history.log is useful but isn't exhaustive because of the reason you elude to. I have certainly made us of it in the past though. A bigger problem for me here though is that /var/log is excluded from my tarball backups... Regarding dependencies: I would be nice to know why I installed a package, but for now just merging 400+ file differences into one package install is a big step forward. The example I gave some way back was netpbm - I never installed it directly, it turns out that it was because I installed a screenshot package, but given that any report will also list the screenshot package I can likely work that out later. > It seems to me it would be easier to work out using apt/aptitude etc on a live system - (see the search I mentioned earlier - lots and lots of lovely links, methods etc) > It seems to me it would also be easier to keep a manual list of top-level changes. Easier, sure, but where's the fun in that! But actually: By "easier", what this means is restoring a multi-GB backup to an SD card, booting a Pi from it, running some commands to get the package list etc, copying the result back to my desktop, then repeating the entire process with the second backup, before I can diff anything. So easier, but not quicker :-) PS: Perhaps inevitably most of my reply is "yes, but that won't work because..." which obscures the genuinely useful information you gave me, a lot of it new to me. Thank you very much for that, it helps more than the above reply might suggest. -- 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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Getting package name from file path, offline
by Mark Rogers 08 Jul '19

08 Jul '19

If I have a list of filenames (with paths), what's the best way to work out what package most likely provided them? This will be offline, so I can't use dpkg -S etc. The original O/S is Raspbian if that helps. (Background: I'm trying to look at SD card backups and work out what packages were installed without booting them.) -- 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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UPS
by steve-ALUG＠hst.me.uk 06 Jul '19

06 Jul '19

Can anyone recomend a linux friendly UPS for a home server. Pref not too expensive working with apcupsd. Same sort of load as a desktop pc, monitor & printer. Currently have a smartups 700 running at 13% load. Ta Steve

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Linux Laptop
by steve-ALUG＠hst.me.uk 06 Jul '19

06 Jul '19

My laptop is vexing me muchly. I think it's time for a new one, possibly brand-spanking new. It doesn't have to have a large screen. I'm currently using only about 50GB disk space of a 500GB disk, so any disk size probably, but probably would want at least 256GB. Ram, I'm struggling with 2GB ( a lot of paging to disk). I'm guessing about 8? I have lots of browser windows open. Running some flavour of xubuntu or lubutu, or perhaps mint. No idea what sort of processor I'd need. Like some sort of optical drive & fair battery life. Extra bonus feature: I hate touchpads, so if it had a mouse "nipple" I'd be made up!! So folks.... What's good? ISTR that Thinkpads were good. Are Dells good with preinstalled ubuntu at the moment? Any recommended suppliers or hardware or any other comments? Thanks in anticipation! Steve

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firewall hardware recommendations
by mick 03 Jul '19

03 Jul '19

This is (slightly) off topic because I am after advice for hardware to run pfsense/opnsense router/firewall software (which is BSD based, not linux) but I hope you will forgive me. I have been running openvpn on a SOHO router for a while now (so that all my internet traffic goes over a VPN tunnel to one of several VMs I have dotted about). That has worked fine and I saw little in the way of speed degradation over my ADSL line (I got around 8-10 Megabits/s over the tunnel when my ADSL speed was around 11-12), But I have recently upgraded my broadband to FTTC and get around 30 Megabits/s over the WAN. However, my openvpn tunnel speed has stayed at the 8-10 mark. Not good. At first I thought that the problem lay with openvpn itself, but of course I then twigged that my router was probably the culprit because it can't hanndle the encryption load. Sure enough, testing connections to my VPN endpoints whilst running openvpn directly from my i7 desktop showed that I could get the full 30 Meg. So I now need to ditch the router and get something a bit beefier. I would also like to run another firewall between my two internal Lans - hence the interest in opnsense or pfsense (though additionally I am open to recommendations for alternative F/W software so long as it includes openvpn capability). I could simply re-purpose an old desktop (I have a couple lying around, including an old i5 with 8 gig of RAM) but that strikes ma as too much of a power hog when something much smalller would probably do. So - does anyone out there have any recommendations? The CPU must have AES-NI to help with the crypto load (that is probably what is killing my current router setup), but I don't need much in the way of storage so some small fanless device would probably do fine. Cheers Mick --------------------------------------------------------------------- Mick Morgan gpg fingerprint: FC23 3338 F664 5E66 876B 72C0 0A1F E60B 5BAD D312 https://baldric.net/about-trivia ---------------------------------------------------------------------

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T-O-T!
by Ted Harding 19 Jun '19

19 Jun '19

Totally-Off-Topic! But you are the one bunch I know likely to be amply knowledgeable regarding what I want to find out. This is to do with wgat happens when the time comes (if it comes) to replace the battery of a mobile phone. The discharge/recharge cycle with rechargeable batteries leads in the end (but slowly) to loss of rechargeability, at which pointhe battery needs to be replad. I basically have a couple of questions: 1: If say 40-80% of the capacity is used each day, with full rechaging at the end of each day (phonr switched off at nght), how long is the battery likely to last until it needs replacenent? 2: During replacement, the phone is presumably totally without power for a short prtiod of time. Can this lead to information stored on the phone being lost? Specifically, my phone is a fairly basic mobile, a DORO 6520. (And it has so far been running happily for about 2 years). With thanks in advance for any info (and apologies for ny B-O-T), Best wishes to all, Ted.

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Webmail Server
by steve-ALUG＠hst.me.uk 17 Jun '19

17 Jun '19

I was happily using Squirrelmail as a webserver inside my network, firewalled so it couldn't be accessed by the big-bad internet. This seems to have been removed from the *Buntu distros because it had security issues that weren't fixed. I've looked at various alternatives but each time I look at the requirements, they all seem a bit heavy for my extremely occasional use requirements. I don't need spell checking & fancy graphics. I don't need all the mail to be loaded into a database for fast response and searching. I just need: To be able to login as any valid email user to access those emails. To access via a web browser Simple configuration Minimal processor load when not in use sending/reading emails Is there a leightweight equivalent to squirrelmail that anyone uses? Advice gratefully accepted. Cheers Steve

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T-o-T - phone battery
by Christopher Dawkins 16 Jun '19

16 Jun '19

> Message: 2 > Date: Sat, 15 Jun 2019 16:17:36 +0100 > From: Ted Harding <ted.harding(a)wlandres.net> > Subject: [ALUG] T-O-T! > > This is to do with what happens when the time comes (if it comes) to > replace the battery of a mobile phone. > > The discharge/recharge cycle with rechargeable batteries leads in the end > (but slowly) to loss of rechargeability, > at which point the battery needs to be replaced. > > I basically have a couple of questions: > > 1: If say 40-80% of the capacity is used each day, with full recharging at > the end of each day (phone switched off at night), > how long is the battery likely to last until it needs replacement? > Varies widely. I find most modern batteries last a lot longer than they used to, and I can keep phones for four years or more. Though since I have been buying Chinese ones from geekbuying.com I can afford a new one every three years. My Elephone 8000 had the problem of compulsory diagnostics in Chinese, where I had to guess by bitter experience which symbol meant 'OK' and which meant 'try again', the worst problem being the 'make emergency call' function on which I had to give a fast apology. But then I got a Xiaomi A1 M1 with 'World' ROM, which is all in English and doing very well indeed. I did get a new second battery for my Samsung 3 many years ago, and within a few years found both old and new batteries equally good (both Samsung 3 and Elephone are still in action). The nice thing about Chinese phones is that they all take two SIM cards, very useful when travelling and inded also in the UK when in bad reception areas, so long as they are completely different. > 2: During replacement, the phone is presumably totally without power for a short period of time. Can this lead > to information stored on the phone being lost? > Never been a problem for me. > Specifically, my phone is a fairly basic mobile, a DORO 6520. (And it has > so far > been running happily for about 2 years). > Goole it. New batteries seem to be available for under £20. (Though googling DORO 6520 battery returns at first hit an amazingly useless official 7-item help page) -- Christopher Dawkins, Archivist, Felsted school Garnetts Corner, Jollyboys Lane North, Felsted, Dynmow, Essex CM6 3DU 07816 821659

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Reformatting a PDF
by Mark Rogers 03 Jun '19

03 Jun '19

On the Royal Mail website is a "handy" price guide available as a PDF: http://www.royalmail.com/sites/default/files/Royal-Mail-Our-Prices-March-20… It's only actually "handy" if you have a weird printer (or at least very unusual sized paper). I'm not sure what size/shape you'd call it but it would go into a DL envelope without folding... What I'd like to do is split the individual pages out and merge them to get three (maybe four) "pages" per A4 sheet so that I can print it on my very normal A4 printer. Suggestions? This is an annual headache and I'm fed up with a different manual solution every year. -- 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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applets for mint
by Bev Nicolson 23 May '19

23 May '19

Ubuntu had a bunch of applets too of course but amongst them was one that enabled you to copy and paste fractions, copyright symbols, accents (French, Spanish, etc). Very useful. There doesn't appear to be anything similar for Mint, though. Ideas? Bev.

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Archiving photos/media from Android phone to Linux PC
by Mark Rogers 20 May '19

20 May '19

I have a Linux desktop (Ubuntu) which already gets backed up and has a decent amount of disk space on it. And I have several Android phones (mine, my wife's, etc) all of which accumulate photos and videos taken on the phone eating into storage and never getting archived off the device or properly backed up. What I want to achieve is that when at home on Wifi the phone will automatically sync all photos and video to my desktop and delete older (configurable) ones of the devices to free up space. (What I really want is to know with 100% confidence whether something is backed up so I can decide to delete it if it's taking up a lot of space; usually paranoia kicks in and I hang onto things on the device, and of-course then I run out of space...) Whilst I will happily manage the desktop end, the phone end needs to be "wife friendly", ie there needs to be an app that will do it for her. The Internet isn't short of suggestions but really I'm looking for advice from others who have done this. -- 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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[ALUG Announce] ALUG Norwich Pub Meet Thursday 9th May
by Viperfang 06 May '19

06 May '19

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 May 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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Sync to USB before unmount
by Mark Rogers 02 May '19

02 May '19

I have a script which writes data to an SD card connected via USB, then umounts it. The data is several GB in size so it hangs at the umount stage while the writes complete, and I want to give user feedback. (Note: I have had no luck whatsoever using sync to force the data to sync first, it always returns immediately.) At the moment I send umount into the background and grep /proc/meminfo for a "Dirty" value which I display, repeating until the umount command closes. This is reliable and fairly meaningful, but because it takes a few minutes is throwing a kernel INFO message into syslog: INFO: task umount:17976 blocked for more than 120 seconds Ideally I would just wait for writes to complete before even trying to umount, but I can't see a way to do that. Is there a way to determine if (say) /dev/sdc is still busy, and if so how much data is pending? Or any other suggestions? Current code (modified a bit for clarity in posting): echo -e "\n\nWaiting for writes to complete" sudo umount /dev/sdc[1-9] & while jobs -r | grep 'Running' > /dev/null ; do pending=$(grep -Po 'Dirty: *\K.*' /proc/meminfo) echo -ne "\rBuffer remaining: ~$pending " sleep 1 done echo -e "\rUnmounted - you can now remove the disk. " -- 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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Local mirrors
by Bev Nicolson 30 Apr '19

30 Apr '19

I've swapped to Cinnamon Mint on a laptop (much better) and it's asking me whether I want to use a local mirror for updates. I've goggled so I now know what they are. What I'd like to know is, are there any downsides to using them? Bev.

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