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Introduction
by Peter Hunter 28 Jan '05

28 Jan '05

Hi everyone, The name's Peter and I am a new'ish Linux user. I have 'tried' Linux a few times but never really seriously. My 'main' computer is an eMac running OS X 10.3.7 but I have some bits of software and hardware that won't run on a Mac, (amateur radio stuff (G0GSZ)) so I had to build a PC with Windows XP. When I was in Roys I picked up a copy of Linux Magazine which had a copy of Mandrake 10.1 on the cover DVD, so I installed this. I am very impressed. I have broadband via NTL through a cable modem and Belkin router. OS X and Linux detected this and set everything up almost automatically. Windows needed software installing!! At the moment I am only using Linux for email and internet browsing, but have tried other parts. I am experimenting as much as I can as time permits. I live in Bowthorpe and am a home user as I am carer to my disabled (MS) wife. I have been 'playing!' with computers since the late 70's, so have had a little practice / experiance. By the way, I am running the Gnome desktop that came with the installation. That's all, glad to meet you all. Regards Peter

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Any openGL / Matrox / SuSE / experts here ?
by Peter Onion 28 Jan '05

28 Jan '05

I've been playing with openGL for a few days and having lots of fun drawing 3d views. Currently I'm just using the mesa (software) openGL library but I would like to get hardware 3d acceleration working. I've got SuSE 9.2 running on a 2.6Ghz HP with a dual headed Matrox G550. Anyone got any experience with setting up the hardware acceleration ? Google searches have not turned up anything simple/useful. Peter

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Newsforge: Running Windows viruses with Wine
by Keith Watson 27 Jan '05

27 Jan '05

<QUOTE> It just isn't fair that Windows users get all the viruses. I mean really, shouldn't Linux users be in on the fun as well? Well... thanks to the folks running the Wine project, Linux users can "catch the virus bug" too -- sort of. Linux just isn't user-friendly when it comes to viruses. You have to work to find and run them. It doesn't happen automatically as it does with Windows. The GNU/Linux folks really should improve this glaring discrepancy. </QUOTE> He's right, it's so damm unfair!! see <http://os.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=05/01/25/1430222&from=rss> Regards, Keith

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Web viewer for encrypted data - any good ones?
by Chris Green 26 Jan '05

26 Jan '05

Does anyone know of any good web applications for viewing the contents of encrypted files? I.e. I want to have an encrypted file on my web site which I can view from anywhere using a web browser. Obviously I'd need to supply a password and it needs to be an https: connection. I probably want something a bit more flexible than a password manager as the sort of data I want to store is a bit more than just passwords, though some of it is passwords. Ideally one would provide a password and a key/name of some sort and data for just that key/name would be displayed. I don't need to be able to edit the data via the web page, just view it. Obviously I need to be able to edit the data somehow, ideally it would be a straight text file that I can edit with any old text editor and then encrypt and store in the right place for the web access. -- Chris Green (chris(a)areti.co.uk) "Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."

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Weekly IRC reminder
by Neill Newman 26 Jan '05

26 Jan '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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Next Open Office question
by Chris Green 25 Jan '05

25 Jan '05

Having got Open Office to run and the database connection working (which was non-trivial) I'm quite impressed. Setting up forms to enter data into a database is quite clever. Essentially you end up using the Open Office word processor as the forms designer which means that layout and so on is very easy and powerful. However I'm left with one question, you can specify actions for data entry fields as in 'Changed', 'Mouse Button Pressed', 'After Updating', etc. but I cant really see how to program these actions. When you click the '...' box beside an action an 'Assign Macro' window pops up with a whole load of what I assume are pre-defined actions which are called 'OpenOffice.org BASIC Macros' and there's also 'Untitled1 BASIC Macros' but I cant see how to actually use them. Firstly what do all the pre-defined macros do? Secondly how can I write something to do something useful to put in the Untitled1 position? Any ideas anyone? If I can get to understand this the OpenOffice database access looks very powerful indeed. -- Chris Green (chris(a)areti.co.uk) "Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."

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More copyright issues - perhaps.
by Anthony Anson 25 Jan '05

25 Jan '05

Apologies for the Shedspeak. ============ Start of forwarded message ============ From: "Dr Ivan D. Reid" <expunged.address> Newsgroup: uk.rec.sheds Subject: Re: B.B.C. wibblefiles... On Tue, 25 Jan 2005 01:58:17 GMT, Jaques d'Alltrades <creaking.gate(a)foobar.zetnet.co.uk> wrote in <313030303230303841F5A7B903(a)foobar.zetnet.co.uk>: > Do any Sheddi xabj whether you can download pogroms (I wanna file of > Hitler in Therapy - or simla title - a play from the Whirled Swervice > wot were boredcast ver recently.) rather than hfr the 'listen again' > thingy wot (I bleeve) jbexeth in reeltime? Or RealAudio even. Saw this yesterday, Look for Streambox VCR: http://www.eff.org/endangered/ -- Ivan Reid, Electronic & Computer Engineering, (rest of sig expunged) ============ End of forwarded message ============ -- Tony http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/ The only way to tell when a Finn is in love with you is that they look at your feet instead of their own.

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Job in Wymondham
by Keith Watson 25 Jan '05

25 Jan '05

Casually browsing round jobserve.co.uk I came across this vacancy, http://www.jobserve.co.uk/W8418B30DC608043B.job , thought it might be of interest to one or more on the list. Regards, Keith ____________ 'I always use the word impossible with the greatest caution.' - - Wernher Von Braun

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Onspeed
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 23 Jan '05

23 Jan '05

Hi Folks, Luggers using dial-up in the Anglian sticks (and these are about as sticky as sticks get) may like to keep an eye on http://www.onspeed.com/ They claim to offer compression-based internet connections which are capable of increasing the throughput by a factor of about 10: 30kb/s->300kb/s. This is nudging broadband rates. And it's portable. At present, it is available for "PC" (= Windows) and Mac, for £24.96 a year. It involves installing some software on the machine that dials up and apparently routing the connection through onspeed. According to their website: http://www.onspeed.com/en/using.php#existing "Next year we expect to bring out software for Linux. Please email us here to let us know which platforms / browsers you are interested in and we will get in touch with you when available." and it looks as though that web page was written in 2004... Maybe if we follow their suggestion, and encourage them a bit, they might accelerate this a bit! If they've done it for Mac OSX they can't be a hundred miles from doing it for Linux. Any comments from people who are already familiar with Onspeed would be welcome. Best wishes to all, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 [NB: New number!] Date: 23-Jan-05 Time: 20:48:01 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Open Office, how to run it?
by Chris Green 23 Jan '05

23 Jan '05

I have just downloaded and installed Open Office 1.1.4, it all went quite smoothly. However there is just one little problem, there's no clue anywhere on how to actually run it now I have installed it! Is some part of the installed Open Office hierarchy supposed to be on my PATH? -- Chris Green (chris(a)areti.co.uk) "Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."

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Hi there!
by Wai 23 Jan '05

23 Jan '05

Hello all, I'm Wai Ngai. There are several reasons I'm interested in Linux. I inherited a tacked together MS network on flaky machines at new work. I'm fed up of MS licencing, random reboots and losing clockcycles to scanning for viruses 24/7! I like the idea that as I get more used to Linux I can add to it, optimise it, contribute to the community. I've recently got a laptop off ebay purely for linux. FYI its a Toshiba 3480CT ultraportable. Its been two weeks of late nights trying to get Linux on there (docking station components, usb floppy emulation, second hand parts?). Finally Suse 9.0 pro is installing without too many problems. With any luck I will be on that machine when next writing. Hope everyone is good. Cheers, Wai __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

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Ubuntu and Powerpc Wireless
by Ben Francis 23 Jan '05

23 Jan '05

Quite a while back someone in the IRC channel expressed interest when I said I'd installed Ubuntu on my iBook and they wanted to know if you could use wireless networking. I can't remember who it was, sorry. The answer (after a very quick Google), is no. I'm very disappointed about that. Apparently the necessary specifications haven't been released. So, unless anyone knows otherwise, I guess the best we can do is pester Apple... -- Ben "tola" Francis http://hippygeek.co.uk ---------------------------------------------------- COMPUTER SUPPORT for small businesses and home users http://tolatech.co.uk ----------------------------------------------------

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Software patents on the march again!
by tom potts 21 Jan '05

21 Jan '05

Help - the EU's tring to rubberstamp software patents again http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20050121034203123 Please protest and spread this far and wide Tom ___________________________________________________________ ALL-NEW Yahoo! Messenger - all new features - even more fun! http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

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RE: [ALUG] scp
by Keith Watson 21 Jan '05

21 Jan '05

Is rsnapshot <http://www.rsnapshot.org/> of any use to you? Regards, Keith ____________ Sushi - its not fresh, its raw!

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scp
by Richard Lewis 21 Jan '05

21 Jan '05

Hello ALUG, I'm trying to write a bash script to mirror some files on my server to another machine (to be run periodically, not a dynamic mirror). First it creates a file which contains the full path of all the files that need to be copied (they are in lots of different directories) separated by newlines (I'd like to keep this aspect of the script as it is also used to create an ISO to backup to DVD sometimes). Next I want to copy all the files in the list to the remote computer. (I've been reading up on scp and have managed to add my key the remote machine so that the script isn't interrupted by password prompts.) The problem I've got is that each item in the list is the name of a regular file including its path and scp won't allow me to copy to the remote machine into a path which doesn't exist: $ROOT=/var/server-mirror ..... for f in `cat FILES` do scp $f $USER@$HOST:$ROOT/$f done [where each $f will be the absolute path of the local file, e.g. '/var/www/index.html' which should copy to '/var/server-mirror/var/www/index.html' on the remote machine] The -r switch, of course, isn't the solution because that only applies to directories at the local end and still doesn't allow you to copy to non-existant directories at the remote end. I suppose what I need is a sort of 'rmkdir' with the -p switch: rmkdir -p $HOST:$ROOT/`dirname $f` Any ideas? Cheers, Richard PS. Theres no need to use scp if a solution exists using something else.... -- Richard Lewis richardlewis(a)fastmail.co.uk

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DVD Video processing software help needed
by Barry Samuels 20 Jan '05

20 Jan '05

I have recently aquired a DVD recorder and I want to record on it, transfer the result to my computer, do some simple editing (chop out adverts) and write the results back to a different DVD. I can transfer the contents of a DVD to my computer using DVD-Rip. I can edit the resultant .VOB files using Avidemux. What I can't find out how to do is to write the results back to a DVD. One of my problems is that I really don't understand much of the terminology. Any advice, as non-technical as possible, will be much appreciated. -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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ALUG Library
by Wayne Stallwood 19 Jan '05

19 Jan '05

As most of you may already know, as of the Christmas meal I have taken over responsibility for the ALUG library. Any future library queries or donations should be directed to myself, Any books due to be returned can be given to me at the next ALUG meeting or if you prefer, posted to the following address. ALUG Library Crimson Technology 4 Hatter Street Bury St Edmunds Suffolk IP33 1LZ I hope I can provide the same level of service and commitment to this task as Kirsten and Adam have done for the past two years. After a few more days of final tweaking I hope to have the ALUG library online, regardless of it's popularity (or lack of) this will be the method by which I will keep track of the books. The tried and tested method of comming to a meeting (I hope to be at quite a few from now on) or emailing me to borrow a book will still work, however the online library will allow you to make a reservation or check the status of a book as well as browse the inventory or look at book reviews posted by other members. Wayne

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Re: KDE/Ubuntu
by John Seago 19 Jan '05

19 Jan '05

There is also this site: http://ubuntuguide.org/ However if you have broadband it may be easier just to make an FTP install of Debian Sarge. -- John Seago GNU/Linux User #219566 http://counter.li.org AFFS http://www.affs.org.uk/

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Re: KDE/Ubuntu
by John Seago 19 Jan '05

19 Jan '05

On Wednesday 19 Jan 2005 06:25, Barry Samuels <bsamuels(a)beenthere-donethat.org.uk> wrote: > I installed Ubuntu a few months ago as a trial, I normally use Debian, > and that install included KDE so Ubuntu must have KDE packages on > their lists somewhere. Sorry can't remember exactly what I did but > it can't have been difficult. See: http://homex.subnet.at/~max/ubuntu/index.php and: http://www.ubuntulinux.org/wiki/ -- John Seago GNU/Linux User #219566 http://counter.li.org AFFS http://www.affs.org.uk/

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Debian video card choice
by Richard Lewis 18 Jan '05

18 Jan '05

Hello ALUG, I'm just installing Debian ("testing") on a Viglen Incepta II to be used a general purpose workstation but I don't know what sort of graphics card I should tell it to use in the X configuration (i.e. when I say # dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86). There seems to be very little information about these machines on the Web except for this page: http://www.viglen.co.uk/devportal/std/storefront/inceptas.asp?guid=19364156… Following the 'Specifications' link tells us that it has 'integrated AGP 4x' graphics but I don't know what that means :-( Any ideas? Cheers, Richard PS. Actually, does anyone know what I should tell it about the mouse? Its USB..... -- Richard Lewis richardlewis(a)fastmail.co.uk

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I'm going to kill that damn frog
by BenEBoy 17 Jan '05

17 Jan '05

OK, that motorcycle sound making frog phone-tone advert that seems to be on every webpage recently is annoying the hell out of me. Does anyone know how to turn off the sound in firefox please? I can't see anything on the prefs page or about:config. I don't care how it's done (short of compiling the source), please help me get rid of that frogs tedious 'brrrmmmmm'ing noises (and all the other beeps and sounds some web developers like to use) ;) (running firefox 0.8 on Sarge) beb -------------------------------- I'm getting pissed for xmas, just like the rest of the year, There's no future in this world of ours, so I might as well have a beer.

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Weekly IRC reminder
by Neill Newman 17 Jan '05

17 Jan '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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Archives / spam (Jonathan?)
by Joe Button 15 Jan '05

15 Jan '05

Hi. I think this is probably mostly for Jonathan - IIRC you do Black Cat Networks? I seem to get a fair amount of spam to the address I subscribe to this list with. Presumably the spammers are that address from the public archives of this list at lists.blackcatnetworks.co.uk / lists.alug.org.uk. Is there any possibility of mungeing the addresses or something in the public archives? Cheers, Joe

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Re: new toy
by phil 14 Jan '05

14 Jan '05

> > > Not strictly Linux related but has anyone seen the new Mac Mini that's > recently been announced ? > > http://www.apple.com/uk/macmini/ > > Looks pretty sweet to me and I also find it quietly amusing that for > less than > twice the price of a boxed copy of Windows XP Pro you can buy an OS > that is > at least twice as good, plus the hardware to run it on. > Well I know a few people locally who are looking at least one of these. Anyone interested in arranging a bulk east anglian order? Or, alternatively a bulk order of cheap monitor, keyboard and mouse bundles... Seriously though, as an alternative to a mini-itx box, which I'd been considering, I could see it as a good home to try a PPC distro. I've been trying out the Apple X11 implimentation the past few days, anyone suggest some must have apps to run on it. I have open office and space invaders so far, but I'm looking for a decent 3D modelling program? Phil

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Networking printers with Linux
by Chris Green 14 Jan '05

14 Jan '05

I'm still trying to decide what all-in-one printer (if any) suits our needs best. I've narrowed down to a shortlist of:- Brother MFC5840CN or MFC3440CN - Linux drivers soon, ethernet and USB Canon MP780 - No Linux drivers, USB HP 7310 or 6110 - No Linux drivers, but PCL3. USB and ethernet. Lexmark X7170 - Win2k and XP only Dell 962 - Dell badged Lexmark X7170 The Dell 962 is unbelievably cheap at the moment (£83 or so) and is basically a Lexmark X7170 with a few cosmetic changes. The Canon also looks good. The HPs are good but not perfect, the Windows drivers use more than 250MB and I've seen reports of problems with them. I *might* thus decide to go for a Windows only printer which raises a question:- Can I connect a printer with a USB interface to my Linux box and share it with Samba so that my Win2k systems can use it even though it doesn't have Linux drivers. If I can do this then the Dell 962 and Canon MP780 are possible but, if not, then I think Brother is the front runner. -- Chris Green (chris(a)areti.co.uk) "Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."

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