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More Speed Please
by Stan Fraser 07 May '04

07 May '04

Have put together a computer MB Aopen AX6LC, PII 300, 96mb Ram, ATI Radeon 8500 Graphics Card, SuSE 9.0 and it seems to run as if its in mega slow mode. Can't run any arcade type games as its so slow, any hints on how to speed it up a bit. Also how do you disable the system sounds when a dialog etc opens. Regards Stan ------ This mail box is protected by SpamWeed. http://www.spamweed.com

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More Speed
by Stan Fraser 07 May '04

07 May '04

Thanks for all the help. It was just an experiment so may relegate it to windows 3.1 or try using it as a firewall with "smoothwall" or as a doorstop. ------ This mail box is protected by SpamWeed. http://www.spamweed.com

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New news and a Tux too!
by Steve Purkiss 07 May '04

07 May '04

Hiya, There's new news and a Tux too on www.open4.org so be sure to visit soon. The site is as everything in this industry, entirely what you decide to make of it. I sell sites based on XOOPS and OSCommerce with hosting and support, plus some official distros and some not-so-official steve compilations... The 'other' site is launching next week which will be providing coach loads of tourists, so feel free to come have a look around and I will be providing more in the way of 'furniture' over the next few years. Anyone see value in a member homepage editor? Would provide a "shopfront" for anyone FOC. Thanks -- Steve Purkiss Open for Organisations supporting open source software www.open4.org

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Webcam help
by Wayne Stallwood 06 May '04

06 May '04

I have found my 3Com Home Connect camera under a pile of other rubbish. When I plug it in all looks good, I get..... May 6 20:17:41 linux kernel: hub.c: new USB device 00:07.3-2, assigned address 2 May 6 20:17:41 linux kernel: usb.c: USB device 2 (vend/prod 0x4c1/0x9d) is not claimed by any active driver. May 6 20:17:45 linux kernel: usb.c: registered new driver vicam May 6 20:17:45 linux kernel: ViCam based webcam connected May 6 20:17:45 linux kernel: ViCam webcam driver now controlling video device 0 May 6 20:17:45 linux insmod: Using /lib/modules/2.4.21-215-athlon/kernel/ drivers/usb/usbvideo.o May 6 20:17:45 linux insmod: Symbol version prefix '' May 6 20:17:45 linux insmod: Using /lib/modules/2.4.21-215-athlon/kernel/ drivers/usb/vicam.o So far so good, now if I cat /dev/video0 the little led on the front of the camera lights up and loads of data'ish garbage appears in the console window. Here is where it starts to go wrong The application I want to use the camera with (gnomemeeting) starting that gives me a "Error while setting the frame size." message when I select /dev/ video0 as the video device. So now I want to hook up some sort of viewer to see if there is actually a picture comming out of the camera. So I tried xawtv and that just gives me a blue screen (not of death), I figured that it needs v4l to function. So I ran v4l-conf v4l-conf: using X11 display :0.0 dga: version 2.0 mode: 1280x1024, depth=24, bpp=32, bpl=5120, base=0xd0000000 /dev/video0 [v4l2]: ioctl VIDIOC_QUERYCAP: Invalid argument /dev/video0 [v4l]: no overlay support Here is where I start getting lost. Is there some step to process the stream from the camera I am missing, I thought that was the job of the Vicam driver. How do I set up v4l if it is incorrectly configured ? and do I need v4l to use the camera in gnomemeeting or does it access it directly....Or is there a better way to control/view the camera.

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sshd and PAM
by Tim Green 06 May '04

06 May '04

I appear to be suffering the riddle of sshd and PAM on one of my Debian Stable boxes. Both boxes have ssh_1%3a3.4p1-1.woody.3 (i386) installed, but only one of them has the stuff in /etc/ssh/sshd_conf about "UsePrivilegeSeparation" (yes), it has decided today to nolonger allow ssh connections with interactive keyboard password entry. Also in sshd_conf the "PAMAuthenticationViaKbdInt" is set to "off" to be compatible with the privilage separation. If I invert these two settings I still can't loggin after it asks about 6 different ways. The maddening thing is even "ssh 127.0.0.1" doesn't work on the bad box - returns "Permission denied, please try again." What should I change to restore normal connectivity? Ta. Tim.

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Suse kernel updates
by Wayne Stallwood 05 May '04

05 May '04

Is it me or does SuSE seem to release lots and lots of Kernel updates to 2.4.21 YOU is inviting me to download 2.4.21-215 to replace the -202 that I updated to only about a month ago, this one apparently fixes "Various security related bugs have been fixed inside the Linux kernel which could allow local attackers to either elevate their privileges or to cause a DoS attack. The fixes consist of - a fix for the memleak in do_fork() - a fix for the MCAST/setsockopt() buffer overflow (CAN-2004-0424) - a fix for the permission problem on /proc/scsi/qla2300/HbaApiNode - a fix for the buffer overflow in panic() (CAN-2004-0394)" I am sure I am getting offered at least one kernel update a month (it certainly feels like that sort of frequency) I cannot remember applying any kernel updates to my previous installation of SuSE 8.0, is it that SuSE are just very good at offering updates to relatively minor flaws or is it that 2.4.21 is ridden with security flaws. I wouldn't mind too much but currently my kernel is a little tainted by both the Nvidia drivers and VMware modules, both of which I assume may need to be compiled against the new kernel, also it just ruins my uptime score :o) What do other users who are less fortunate and on 56k dial up do, persevere the lengthy download or simply ignore most of which seem to be local vulnerabilities ? Do other distros have such an aggressive kernel update schedule ?

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Next Syleham meeting
by John Woodard 05 May '04

05 May '04

I have booked Syleham Village Hall for a Sunday meeting on 30th May. As per usual kit welcome; installs, trouble shooting and general prodding of bits that do not work will be available. More details to follow and I will try and find time to update the wiki real soon. Cheers, BJ

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Warning: Spam Blockers
by MJ Ray 04 May '04

04 May '04

If you install a challenge-response spam block and do not exempt the ALUG lists, I will unsubscribe you. You need to exempt the list and the address that sends subscription pings. So, if you send an email telling the list admins they must reply for you to get a service that you chose to subscribe to, I will verify your address and then reply by removing you. The list admins have enough to do already, without that. Challenge-response spam blocks are broken and a pain in the back side. Look up "C-R considered harmful" for some of the reasons. -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know. http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing

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Odd Kmail behaviour
by Wayne Stallwood 04 May '04

04 May '04

I am getting a funny behaviour in the fancy headers of kmail. If I look at any post from MJ Ray with fancy headers enabled I get the text (Very poor) appended to the end of the from address So I looked at the full headers, and I see Organization: Very poor Very funny, but it had me baffled for a bit

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Travel share to AFFSAC
by MJ Ray 04 May '04

04 May '04

Hi all, The AFFS Annual Conference takes place in Birmingham on Saturday 15 May. Once again, it should be a collection of talks on free software applications and practical promotion. Some details are online at http://www.affs.org.uk/affsac.html and so is the sign-up form (hint hint, only 10 quid membership fee required, which should also include a year of newsletters). Someone would like to travel share from mid-Essex. If you can do that, please email me and I will put you in touch. -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know. http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing

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Re: [ALUG] Hello! LUG in Chelmsford...
by Steve Purkiss 04 May '04

04 May '04

:0) Thanks for cheering me up while I figure out VMWare! Steve On Mon, 2004-05-03 at 12:49, Chris Walker wrote: > On Mon 03 May, Steve Purkiss wrote: > > > > Hi, > > > > Firstly a big "Hello"! I joined up recently after conversations with > > MJR. I investigated the old Essex LUG but that seems to be dead and > > buried, so I was thinking of setting up a Chelmsford LUG (comedy name > > yet to be thought up) > > Has to be LUGE with TUX sliding through the snow on one :-) > > Sorry. I'll get my coat.

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Accented characters
by Syd Hancock 03 May '04

03 May '04

What is the easiest way to get accented characters, specifically French, in apps running under KDE? In Open Office I can access them from Insert->Special Character but it is a bit long-winded. No idea how to get them in things like Kmail. Is there an equivalent of ALT+NumericKeypad codes, for example? Thanks Syd

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Hello! LUG in Chelmsford...
by Steve Purkiss 03 May '04

03 May '04

Hi, Firstly a big "Hello"! I joined up recently after conversations with MJR. I investigate the old Essex LUG but that seems to be dead and buried, so I was thinking of setting up a Chelmsford LUG (comedy name yet to be thought up) as I live near there (Gt. Waltham, grew up in Ford End, country boy really;) and am buying there soon. I'm having a meeting on Thursday at D-Place in Chelmsford from 6pm for the A12 business networking club which I run on Ecademy - feel free to join the online discussions/come along to the meeting at: http://www.open4.org/joinA12club (it's free) One of the other members has just started up a local mag "Parklife" being delivered to 10,000 residents of the new, mainly commuter estates of Chelmsford. We're having a feature on the club next month and organising a charity event for the summer, so I posted to the Linux Solution Providers list asking about installfests, and now I'm here. So, pointers please to setting a LUG up, offers of advice or help for the summer event - prob more of a demonstration of different systems (have MDK10 on my Tosh M30-604 laptop working /nearly/ fully now which looks good and impresses people), any other advice welcome. Thinking about handing out CDs of things like Knoppix, OpenCD, SUSE Live, etc. Hope you are all enjoying the long weekend hehe ;) Steve Purkiss Open for Organisations supporting open source software www.open4.org

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file size limits?
by Syd Hancock 03 May '04

03 May '04

What is the maximum size of an individual file on an ext3 formatted drive? Syd

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Thursday evening meeting in Norwich next week
by Syd Hancock 03 May '04

03 May '04

(I'm going to re-write and re-send from scratch and see what happens). The next 'second thursday' evening meeting in Norwich will be next week on Thursday the 13th of May at the City Gate, Derham Road, from about 8pm. Full details are on the ALUG website. The Norwich meetings and venues pages will be updated very soon. Syd

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test
by Syd Hancock 03 May '04

03 May '04

apologies. splodgeness abounds.

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Meeting in Norwich on 2nd May - brief report
by Syd Hancock 03 May '04

03 May '04

Excellent turn-out - AFAIR 14 people turned up, some for the first time, some from the first meeting five years ago. Lovely weather so we sat in the garden and made lots of noise. Many books were given away (thanks Steve aka 'brodders'), loads of old but useful kit was given away or sold very cheaply (thanks Laurie). Everyone seemed to have a great time and when I left at about half six it was still going. Adam, Bear, BJ, Brett, brodders, Doug (who needs some help with samba, slackware and XP), Eli (pronounced 'Ellie') James and Kaz (sp?) Jonathan 'noodles', Kirsten, Laurie, Mark, Syd. I think that's everyone accounted for. Syd

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Weekly IRC reminder
by Neill Newman 03 May '04

03 May '04

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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Who is coming on sunday?
by Syd Hancock 02 May '04

02 May '04

(I sent this on friday and only just noticed that it was not posted so I'm sending it again even though it is almost redundant now). So who is planning to come to the 5-year bash today? Also there was talk a few weeks ago of contacting original members to see if they could come, did anyone do that? Syd

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URI for today's meeting in Norwich
by Syd Hancock 02 May '04

02 May '04

http://www.alug.org.uk/meetings/2004/05-02Sun.html Syd

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irc.alug.org.uk DNS mapping
by Brett Parker 30 Apr '04

30 Apr '04

It appears that someone has changed the DNS mapping for irc.alug.org.uk to point at alug.org.uk rather than an OFTC server... Anyone know who, or why? I wouldn't have noticed but I use that to connect to oftc usually ;) Cheers, -- Brett Parker

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RE : USb web camera
by Robert Frusher 29 Apr '04

29 Apr '04

With regards to the webcam.... I have a Labtec USB webcam that costs 20 quid from PC world etc. After a little googling I managed to download a driver for a Logitech webcam which is basically the same. I can get a stream from the camera now using gmplayer, and camorama. But apart from that it is pretty useless in Linux. I want a plugin for Gaim to play with MSN video messenging.... Rob

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Listing?
by John Seago 29 Apr '04

29 Apr '04

I looked here, http://lugww.counter.li.org/addgroup.cms to see if we, (ALUG) were listed, under the heading East of England, only Bedfordshire appears. Perhaps someone with the necessary authority should consider listing us? -- John Seago

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Fwd: Re: Join ALUG
by Syd Hancock 29 Apr '04

29 Apr '04

I've received the following email from "brodders" <brodders(a)mcmail.com> >> I'm trying to dispose of about 60 Computer Science books from the 80's to 90's. These are engineering related rather then C++ etc, so we're into the world of Systems Analysis, Z, complete systems engineering, databases, networking, all sorts. Pretty old stuff nowadays but much relevant if you're into doing things professionally. Can I give them away?? Well, libraries & the uni don't want them so it's skipping time. ALUG people can take their pick, if they want... << Please reply directly to brodders for more info. He is intending to be at the meeting on sunday afternoon at The City Gate. Syd

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Linux Audio Developers Conference
by MJ Ray 29 Apr '04

29 Apr '04

This conference starts today and is available online as audio+webcam+IRC if you can't travel to Karlsruhe in time. There's an interesting-looking session at 12 noon tomorrow (assuming those are CET times) about debugging ALSA and Bob Ham talks at 15h. Maybe see you on IRC, if freenode doesn't free its nodes. -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know. http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing

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