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Desktops
by Peter Hunter 01 Jul '05

01 Jul '05

Hi everyone, Two questions that I know you can all answere for me! I have just installed Suse 9.2 pro, and for a change I decided to install and run Gnome, but I don't like it too much and want to go back to KDE. I have installed KDE from the suse DVD but how do I now change desktops? Maybe I should download the latest version of KDE first and install and run that? Anyway, that's the first question. The second is, if I download the latest Kernal, how do I install and run that? Oh, just one other, how do I re-boot the GUI without having to re-boot the computer? Many thanks. I await the flood of replies (Pleaseeeeeeee!!) Peter

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CD Audio Autoplay
by Wayne Stallwood 01 Jul '05

01 Jul '05

Not being that used to Gnome I am hoping that someone can help me with this small problem. I am currently ripping my entire CD collection to store on a little Media Server I have built myself. I am using Grip which is fine. However every time I insert an Audio CD Gnome launches a player and starts playing it. I then have to stop this before I can rip the contents. How do I disable this behaviour ?

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Ubuntu
by Andy Trevor 30 Jun '05

30 Jun '05

Guys quick question about kernels in Ubuntu. Can anyone see any major issues with running Ubuntu with a 2.4 kernel ? We are working on a solution that use Suns Sunray terminals and the Sunray server software only runs on a 2.4 kernel so we need to look at this as an option. The only other route open is to go fully Solaris 10 (which throws up a stack of other issues) Thanks in advance -- Regards Andy Trevor Technical Director Cutter Project Limited www.cutterproject.co.uk

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G5 vs X68-64 and OSX vs Linux
by Wayne Stallwood 29 Jun '05

29 Jun '05

A while ago I was complaining on list that I couldn't find a decent comparasion between Apple hardware running Linux and an x86 machine. Another thing I was interested in was the comparative performance of running services such as apache or mysql. Anybody else interested should read this http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2436 (use the "Print this article" at the bottom to get it on one long page)

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[ALUG Announce]Help! iCON - Norfolk CC club directory
by MJ Ray 29 Jun '05

29 Jun '05

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- I asked on the main list and had no reply: would someone else who lives in Norfolk please be the second listed contact for ALUG on Norfolk County Council's iCON listing? Email me or see http://lists.alug.org.uk/main/2005-June/021852.html for more details. Thanks, -- MJ Ray (slef), K. Lynn, England, email see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ ----- 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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Help! Software Freedom Day 2005
by MJ Ray 29 Jun '05

29 Jun '05

Could anyone interested in organising an event for Software Freedom Day on Saturday 10 September 2005 please email me? If >5 are interested, I'll set up a mailing list and we can start to organise things like who does what where and when. I hope that we can accommodate all participants' ambitions for it, but if we split for some reason, so be it. More info: http://softwarefreedomday.org/ -- MJ Ray (slef), K. Lynn, England, email see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/

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Hamachi (P2P VPN) OSS equivalent
by Mark Rogers 29 Jun '05

29 Jun '05

I don't know if anyone here has played with Hamchi: www.hamachi.cc Essentially its a closed source (but free as in beer) VPN system which uses a peer-to-peer infrastructure. Effectively it allows anyone to join a VPN (with the right passwords, etc) without any of the normal "fun" associated with VPN configuration. It has two major downfalls: 1. It's Windows only at present (a Linux client is coming, though) 2. As I said above, its closed source. The second point is the one that concerns me most. Security software which is not open source basically just bothers me. Of-course point 1 is also a side effect of point 2 (it's not the developer's priority, so it's not been done, where with the OSS model I'm pretty sure it would have been by now). Since I'm new to Hamachi, its quite possible that there are similar OSS projects. Does anyone here know of anything like it? [I will say that on Windows platforms Hamachi is very effective at what it does.] Mark Rogers, More Solutions Ltd

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Sharp Zaurus
by Darren 29 Jun '05

29 Jun '05

Im off to Spain in a few weeks and will be taking the laptop + Mobile to stay connected etc.. But I was looking at various Sharp Zaurus's to take and use when I don't want to have the laptop with me. Does anyone have one who can say ya or na to using one? Thanks Darren

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Apple to use Intel chips
by Martyn Drake 29 Jun '05

29 Jun '05

No doubt you've all probably read this by now: http://news.com.com/Apple+to+ditch+IBM%2C+switch+to+Intel+chips/2100-1006_3… If this is really true, it'll be interesting to see how this is going to affect existing Mac users (who will have probably invested lots of money in software already) and existing PC users assuming that Apple opens up and allows anybody to run Mac OX for x86 processors. M.

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Adventures with USB storage!
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 29 Jun '05

29 Jun '05

Greetings! Here be a tale or two. Red Hat 9, by the way, on a Compaq Armada 1750 laptop with USB port. To begin at the beginning. For some time I've had a Disgo 256MB USB memory stick. I have had no trouble using this, able to remove it and re-insert it at any time, mount it, and access the files. I set up an entry in /etc/fstab for it which says: /dev/sda1 /flash auto noauto,suid,dev,exec,user 0 0 so, once I've inserted it and something-or-other goes through a detection process, I can 'mount /flash' and all is well. Or was. Yesterday, I spotted a Fujifilm FinePix F440 digital camera on sale at a very interesting price. After checking out reviews (all pretty favourable for general usage) I went back and bought it. A bit speculatively from the Linux point of view, but I reckoned that a similar approach to the USB stick would work. Since it has been some time since the USB stick was last used, the laptop has been rebooted a time of two since then. Having taken a few test photos, I then connected the camera to the USB port, switched it on, waited for the "detect", and then as usual ran 'mount /flash'. Again, all went well, I could download the picture files (JPG) and they were good. Then ran 'umount /flash' and disconnected the camera. Then I tried its "video" function: you can take up to 60 secs of video (with sound) with this camera, which gives you a 4MB AVI file. Again, no problem re-connecting the camera and down- loading the AVI file. (And, by the way, 'xanim' plays these files well). So far so good, and I repeated the above tests a few time (again, disconnecting and reconnecting the camera to the USB port, with 'mount /flash' and 'umount /flash' each time). It looked as though this arrangement would work just the same as for the USB memory stick. But then, to try to explore the reason for something unexpected (see "FINAL INDEPENDENT QUESTION" at end), I inserted the USB memory stick. Unusual and unpromising messages on "autodetect", and 'mount /flash' gave message "mount: No medium found". FAILURE!! So I then explored with happens if I reboot. It's a long story, but this is the summary: A. Repeated connection disconnection of same device following a reboot. 1. Reboot. Insert USB memory stick. It works fine first time, as above. Remove USB stick, reinsert. FAILURE. And it fails every time I re-try unless I reboot. 2. Reboot. Connect camera. Works fine, as above. Switch off camera, disconnect. Re-connect, switch on, and it works fine. Ad infinitum without reboot. B. Alternating connection of the two devices following a reboot. 3. Reboot. Insert USB memory stick. Works fine as at (1). remove USB stick, connect camera. Camera fails (message "no medium found" on 'mount /flash'). Disconnect camera, insert USB memory stick, stick fails (message "/dev/sda1 is not a valid block device" on 'mount /flash'). Exactly the same failure for Camera as previous camera failure. Exactly the same failure for Stick as previous stick failure. Ditto ad infinitum with Camera/Stick/Camera/... 4. Reboot. Connect camera. Works fine as at (2). Disconnect camera, insert Stick. Stick fails with "no medium found". Remove stick, connect camera. Camera OK as at (2). Disconnect camera, insert stick. Stick fails again in exctaly the same way. Camera OK. Stick fails. Camera OK. And so on. SO: Whichever device is first in following a reboot works fine first time. If Stick is first in, it only works first time, and fails subsequently, and Camera always fails. If Camera is first in, it works first time and every time, whether Stick has been used or not; but Stick always fails. So that's the situation. If I only use the Camera, there would be no problem. But I would have to reboot each time I want to use the Stick, whether I have used the Camera or not! Any ideas? (I suspect I may have tickled Red Hat's "kudzu" in some way it didn't like, but I've never managed to disentangle what goes on with kudzu). FINAL INDEPENDENT QUESTION: This is what got the above saga rolling (though I'd have hit it some time anyway). I wanted to transfer the Camera files directly to a different machine networked to the laptop (since I usually keep stuff like photos on the other). Rather than download from Camera to laptop and then ftp them across, I thought I'd try downloading to Machine 2 direct from the camera via NFS. So, with the Camera connected to the laptop and mounted on /flash, from machine 2, I (as root) NFS-mounted the laptop's root directory machine 2. The directory of the Camera memory chip was visible on the laptop, type VFAT, and 'ls .flash' etc. showed all the files on the Camera. However, while the laptop's file system (including the presence of /flash, and files in other directories) was visible from Machine 2, 'ls laptop/flash' showed an empty directory on machine 2. This was unexpected, so I wondered if it had something to do with the fact that what was mounted on the laptop's /flash directory was a USN storage device, was a peculiarity of the camera, or whatever.. Hence I thought I would experiment by trying to NFS-mount the laptop with the Stick in instead. So I plugged in the stick, did 'mount /flash', and then found myself in the above Saga! Therefore, is anyone can answer this independent question as well (or instead of) the business about Stick/Camera conflict, I'd be interested! 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: 26-Jun-05 Time: 14:50:31 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Samba expert
by Andy Trevor 28 Jun '05

28 Jun '05

Guys, any Samba experts out there interested in earing a days wage ? The reason I ask is that I have been approached by someone who needs an independent report written on a Samba install he has done. The reason for the report is that the customer refuses to pay and this is going to the lawyers. We would do it but we are far to busy at the moment. If anyone is interested please contact me off list -- Regards Andy Trevor Technical Director Cutter Project Limited www.cutterproject.co.uk

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Re: [ALUG Announce]Help! iCON - Norfolk CC club directory
by John Seago 28 Jun '05

28 Jun '05

On Tuesday 28 Jun 2005 06:26, MJ Ray <mjr(a)phonecoop.coop> wrote: > I asked on the main list and had no reply: would someone else who > lives in Norfolk please be the second listed contact for ALUG on > Norfolk County Council's iCON listing? Email me or see > http://lists.alug.org.uk/main/2005-June/021852.html for more details. Can I assume from this that Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Essex have ALUG on their Club/Society/Association lists? -- John Seago GNU/Linux User #219566 http://counter.li.org AFFS http://www.affs.org.uk/

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Cool anti software patent demonstration picture thingy
by Joe Button 28 Jun '05

28 Jun '05

http://www.softwarepatentdemo.org/index.php?lang=GB

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Unixy question
by Wayne Stallwood 28 Jun '05

28 Jun '05

Not strictly a Linux question, but it could be just as relevant on a Linux system. I have a client with a SCO SYSV Unix Box running a legacy Accounting system. It is a korn shell. They have a Windows based Print Workflow system (called StreamServe I believe) that takes print jobs from a spool folder and prints or emails Credit account statements generated by the Accounting package. Unfortunately the way the queue works is that once a job has been processed by streamserve it is deleted from the queue folder on the Unix box by the streamserve application. The problem is that it is very difficult and time consuming to regenerate the reporting run if something fails upstream of the Streamserve box resulting in lost prints. (this is what happened the other day) I can't tell the streamserve application to not delete the processed jobs as it simply prints whatever is in the queue every time it polls. The Streamserve box looks for a particular file extension before processing the file. I can change the file extension that the Streamserve looks for. So my plan is to change this extension and then have a script that looks for jobs (of the original extension) in the queue and copies them to a archive area before renaming them to a pattern that the (modified) streamserve application is looking for. It is important that I don't introduce any delay of more than a minute or so into the workflow but the print files rarely exceed a couple of MB so that shouldn't be a problem. I could just knock together a script that does this from Cron but in order to not introduce too much of a delay it would have to run about once a minute. This box is quite heavily loaded sometimes and it is of limited performance anyway. So my question is- What is the most efficient way to "watch" a folder for a particular file pattern, if I have a looping "if exist" script is this likely to consume lots of resources as surely it would be continuously polling the disk to check for that file. Is it good practise to do this (perhaps with some sort of introduced delay in the loop) or is there a better/cleaner/more efficient way. Regards Wayne

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[ALUG Announce]Bolton, 14/15 July, FLOSS in Education
by MJ Ray 27 Jun '05

27 Jun '05

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- > From: Tony Whitmore <tony(a)tonywhitmore.co.uk> > > This year's FLOSS in Education (FLOSSIE) conference is being > held in Bolton on the 14th and 15th July. Tickets are just £35 > for individuals and it should be an interesting conference > judging by the speakers. Interest in FLOSS in schools has > increased since the Becta TCO report last month. For more > details, please see: > > http://www.schoolforge.org.uk/flossie/conference200507.html ----- 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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Weekly IRC reminder
by Brett Parker 27 Jun '05

27 Jun '05

This is the automated ALUG IRC meeting reminder sent to remind you that there is an IRC meeting tonight (Monday) at 8.00pm. 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 tkirc, bitchx, xchat 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://freshmeat.net/ http://www.epicsol.org/ Windows http://www.mirc.com (loads of help with irc for newbies!)

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Removing dev packages in Ubuntu
by beb 26 Jun '05

26 Jun '05

Evening all, Does anyone know how I find which dev packages I have installed on Ubuntu pls? My apt-cache-fu is lacking ;-) Thanks, beb

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locale question
by Chris Green 22 Jun '05

22 Jun '05

First question - why does the default profile (i.e. /etc/profile) set the LC_ALL environment variable? Surely it would be better to set the LANG variable. If you set LC_ALL it *overrides* any individual settings to other LC_ variables so you can't set LC_CTYPE (for example) while leaving others unset. Second question - is there any easy way to get a sensible (i.e. POSIX) collation sequence while at the same time getting accented characters by setting LC_CTYPE to 'en_GB'? At present I need to:- unset LC_ALL export LC_CTYPE=en_GB export LC_COLLATE=POSIX (unless of course I change /etc/profile, but then it's another system customisation that I'll lose and forget about at the next upgrade) It seems broken to me that the en_GB collate sequence mixes up all the hidden files with normal file, why does it do this? Did it always do this, it's only recently that 'ls -a' has produced what looks to me anyway like a very mixed up output. -- Chris Green (chris(a)areti.co.uk) "Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."

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Broadband in the Black Hole
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 22 Jun '05

22 Jun '05

Hi Folks, Those interested who haven't already heard may like to learn that a notorious broadband black hole in the region is planned to be filled shortly. Details of the announcement can be found at the Nordelph Web site http://www.nordelph.org/BT/ under the tab "Nordelph Future". In summary, the following exchanges areplanned to be bith ADSL and SDSL enabled by the end of October this year: Broadfield, Hertfordshire; Burnt Fen, Suffolk; Higham, Suffolk; Knarr Cross, Cambridgeshire; Brandon Creek, Norfolk; Nordelph, Norfolk; Linstead, Suffolk; and Six Mile Bottom in Cambridgeshire. The exchanges are to get ADSL, and additionally will also be enabled for SDSL thus benefiting businesses in the area. The work on the exchanges is slated to begin in the next few months and completed by the end of October 2005. (Knarr Cross exchange is by Thorney, East of Peterborough; Burnt Fen exchange is situated near Shippea Hill on the A1101 Littleport-Mildenhall road; all other names can be found on most maps). Now I'm expecting to be asking you folks for advice on setting up ADSL/SDSL on Linux! 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: 17-Jun-05 Time: 16:24:07 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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strange keyboard problem
by Wayne Stallwood 22 Jun '05

22 Jun '05

a really odd thing has just happened in that suddenly my keyboard is only partially functional. auto key repeat is broken and i am unable to use the shift key, num lock or caps lock. hence this whole message is in lower case. i am running ubuntu 5.04, my keyboard is a coolermaster aluminium one but essentially is a standard usb keyboard. need to reboot in a while to write a legible letter. i would like to test it in a console but of course i can't use crtl,alt fkey either. before i reboot can anyone think of any diagnostic steps i can take, for example is there something that will return the key presses from the keyboard. the only thing i can think may have caused it is perhaps vmware. that said i haven't run it for a day or so and the fault has only just appeared. the only reason i think it might be vmware is that it takes control of the capslock and numlock status as you mouseover the virtual machine window. any ideas....it's a bit odd to say the least wayne

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Wireless network roaming
by Barry Samuels 20 Jun '05

20 Jun '05

I have a laptop with a wireless PCMCIA card which connects to my home network. This relies on a set of fixed parameters supplied by /etc/network/interfaces. I went away recently to a hotel that provided a wireless internet facility. It was then that I realised that I couldn't use it because I didn't know how to even though they gave me an access code - a single string of numerical digits. I assume that there must be a way of setting up my laptop to scan for wireless access points and connect to any available ones. How would the access code provided by the hotel fit in? What about things like machine hostname, IP address etc? Any pointers please? Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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Weekly IRC reminder
by Brett Parker 20 Jun '05

20 Jun '05

This is the automated ALUG IRC meeting reminder sent to remind you that there is an IRC meeting tonight (Monday) at 8.00pm. 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 tkirc, bitchx, xchat 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://freshmeat.net/ http://www.epicsol.org/ Windows http://www.mirc.com (loads of help with irc for newbies!)

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Linux 2005 Conference & Tutorials, Swansea, 4-7 August
by Alasdair G Kergon 17 Jun '05

17 Jun '05

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Linux 2005 Conference & Tutorials, Swansea, Wales, Thur 4th - Sun 7th August ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Full details at http://www.ukuug.org/events/linux2005/ * Early-bird discount is available only until Thursday 30th June * The event begins with a choice of tutorials on Thursday. Then the 2-track 3-day conference runs from Friday to Sunday. Tutorials on Thursday 4th August -------------------------------- Full Day: Advanced Networking Configuration - Steve Whitehouse, Dave Miller, Jamal Hadi Salim and Patrick Caulfield Half-Day: Advanced Shell Skills, using Zsh - Sven Guckes and Julius Plenz Half-day: Advanced Editing, using Vim - Sven Guckes and Julius Plenz Provisional Conference Programme: Friday 5th August - Sunday 7th August ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Networking and Security * Keynote - Dave Miller - Red Hat * Network Scheduling - Jamal Hadi Salim * Exploit Mitigation Techniques - Tom Cosgrove Virtualisation * Xen 3.0 & the Art of Virtualization - Ian Pratt - XenSource / Cambridge * Xen: Experiences & performance measurements - Ruediger Berlich - Karlsruhe * openMosix - Kris Buytaert * Linux on the POWER5 processor - Nigel Griffiths - IBM Applications * Music Recording, Production and Dist'n with Free Software - Ole Aamot * Remixing the Open Source radio show with LUGRadio - Jono Bacon * Software Defined Radio and GNU Radio - Bdale Garbee - HP / Debian * Video and Linux - Torsten Spindler - ETH Zurich * The coming geodata revolution - Steve Coast - xrefer.com * A Python Framework for Rapid Application Development - Katherine Goodwin and David Chan - Clockwork Software Systems * Managing Biomedical Images and Knowledge by Flickr Web Services - Siu-wai Leung - University of Edinburgh * A New Deal in Payroll Software using GNU/Linux and Python - John Pinner - Clockwork Software Systems * Mono and ASP.NET - Gonzalo Paniagua Javier - Novell * Exchange for Unix - myth or reality? - Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton Embedded Systems * Skyguard's Skyminder - the Free Software Community's GSM / GPS phone! - Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton Desktop * FreeNX - Virtualization of the Desktop - Fabian Franz - Univ of Karlsruhe * Hacking OpenOffice.org 2.0 - Michael Meeks - Novell * Cutting-edge Desktop-related Development Projects - Michael Meeks, Novell * Introduction to the GNUstep Project - Nicolas Roard Case Studies * A large linux deployment in education - Mike Banahan - Cutter Project * e-Government Internet - Chris Smith - netFluid Technology * Bringing F/L/OSS to the UK Gov't - Mark Taylor - Open Source Consortium Kernel * Linux and ACPI - power management - Matthew Garrett - Univ of Cambridge * The Linux Development Philosophy and Corporate Contributions - Christoph Hellwig - LST e.V. * Diagnosing System Hangs with lkcd & dprobes - Richard J Moore - IBM * Adopting a driver - from fixing typos to breaking thousands of machines worldwide - Matthew Wilcox - Hewlett Packard * UnionFS: Knoppix (Re)writable - Fabian Franz - University of Karlsruhe Productivity * Vim Feature Show - Sven Guckes * Zsh rules! - Sven Guckes Systems Administration * Preseeding Debian GNU/Linux for automated installations - Philip Hands * FAI - the Fully Automatic Installation - Thomas Lange - Univ of Cologne * Jigdo - Spreading the load of CD/DVD downloads - Steve McIntyre - Debian If you book on or before Thursday 30th June you can take advantage of the Early Bird rates e.g. just 40 pounds for the 3-day conference (50% discount) or just 10 pounds for students. (If you're not already a UKUUG member, you'll need to add the membership fee to this - details on website.) There are also still opportunities for sponsors and exhibitors: contact office(a)ukuug.org for details. Web: http://www.ukuug.org/events/linux2005/ Email: office(a)ukuug.org Tel: +44 1763 273 475 Event sponsored by Red Hat, Astaro Internet Security and i.t.wales.

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Norwich Anarchist Bookfair
by MJ Ray 17 Jun '05

17 Jun '05

Norwich 2nd Anarchist Bookfair 11 June Waterloo Park. See http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/cambridge/2005/06/312709.html I'm not able to attend, but I'll send ALUG, AFFS or GNUstep leaflets and/or CDs to anyone who wants to go. Email me, please. -- MJ Ray (slef), K. Lynn, England, email see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/

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pod viewer - any suggestions?
by Chris Green 17 Jun '05

17 Jun '05

I'm after a pod (perl documention) viewer for use on my home system so I can hunt around the documentation for perl modules while I'm writing perl. I'm after something a bit better than 'man' to make it easier to hunt around in the documentation as, now I'm getting a bit more seriously into perl programming, 'man'gets a bit clumsy especially with big chunks of pod. -- Chris Green (chris(a)areti.co.uk) "Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."

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