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New Member
by John Sherman 03 Nov '02

03 Nov '02

Linux to be installed in due course I like change and have never left my computer the same configuration for very long. I hope to find Linux a challenge and to be able to experiment and enjoy as I will soon have more time available. To this end I shall go in at the deep end and start with Debian but there appears to be plenty of help available for the novice. John

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Announce digest, Vol 1 #29 - 1 msg
by announce-request＠lists.alug.org.uk 03 Nov '02

03 Nov '02

Send Announce mailing list submissions to announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to announce-request(a)lists.alug.org.uk You can reach the person managing the list at announce-admin(a)lists.alug.org.uk When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Announce digest..." --------------.--------------------------------------------.------------ alug-announce | Newsletter of the Anglian Linux User Group | Weekly(ish) --------------'--------------------------------------------'------------ ** Please send articles for this letter to announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk ** *** Please send replies to main(a)lists.alug.org.uk, not announce... *** ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Today's Topics: 1. Meeting on 3rd November 2002 (MJ Ray) --__--__-- Message: 1 From: MJ Ray <markj(a)cloaked.freeserve.co.uk> To: announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Date: Fri, 01 Nov 2002 15:04:17 +0000 Subject: [Alug Announce] Meeting on 3rd November 2002 ALUG 3rd November 2002 This ALUG meeting will be from 2pm until about 6pm in the normal place at http://www.alug.org.uk/venues/syleham.html but I don't know who's bringing the biscuits and whether the bar will be open. It's 9:00pm on Tuesday 29th, the power just came back on, Syleham has been blacked out since 11:00 am on Sunday. So thankfully the meeting is still on. I will get the keys for the bar and get the hall opened up around 12:30 - 1:00pm on Sunday if anybody fancies a pre meeting drink.(BJ) It seems that there's a great demand for another kit-fixing and demonstration day. Please let us know what you want to see, what you want to know and what you want to get help with fixing, and we can try to organise ourselves a little before the day! For more information, see http://www.alug.org.uk/contrib/?3rd%20November%202002 -- MJR| v ---|--[ Something else will appear here eventually, I guess... ]-----| `--[ http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ ]---------[ slef at jabber.at ]-----' --__--__-- _______________________________________________ Announce mailing list Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce End of Announce Digest

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KDE3 Ksplash and Konquerer/lynx
by Glen Tyler 02 Nov '02

02 Nov '02

Hi I have a RH 7.2 machine which I have just updated with KDE3.0 KDE3 is very nice, but I cannot use konquerer for web browsing, as although KPPP connects OK, any URLs typed in are timed out. The KPPP log shows low rates of traffic, inshort pulses (typically between 0.1 and 0.2 Kb/s) with more data flowing out than coming in. Trying to connect using lynx is exactly the same. Does anyone else have any experience of this and what might be causing the problem? Another anoyance is that at starting KDE the splash screen Ksplash always crashes. This is not fatal, just a bit of a pain and spoils my nice new desktop. Is there anyway that this can be tackled? best wishes Glen

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cuddly toys
by jenny 01 Nov '02

01 Nov '02

Ahem, a bit off-topic: For those who were wondering were to get various soft toys, I just noticed a few in the greenpeace catalogue: www.naturalcollection.com There is a lamb, a bear, an "organic pig in dungarees" (as if you were thinking of eating it....), mouse, penguin etc etc, i can't remember what was asked for in the first place.......... Jenny

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New year, new bies
by MJ Ray 01 Nov '02

01 Nov '02

I've just been reading about the series of "Welcome to Linux" sessions run by the Haifa LUG. Some details can be seen on http://linuxclub.il.eu.org/newcomers/timetable.html I'm hoping that a lot of people will show some kindness and give a GNU to someone they care about this christmas, so would it be a good idea of ALUG ran a series of similar talks in the new year? Most of our venues would be a good place to do such things and I think we've enough people with enough knowledge to do the talks, haven't we? -- MJR| v ---|--[ Something else will appear here eventually, I guess... ]-----| `--[ http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ ]---------[ slef at jabber.at ]-----'

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A new arrival :)
by Jamie French 31 Oct '02

31 Oct '02

Hi Guys, Well as some of you know already from Mondays meeting on IRC my wife went into labour, which at that point we were relaxed which I remained in IRC, then all hell broke loose. We rushed to hospital where after six hours hours of trying to birth our child we were advised to have another section as last time :( But all ends well, mother and baby Dylan are well and it is apparent why Dylan didn't come out naturally, he was 9.75lb, ouch. Anyway thought I would let you all know and thank you for your wishes on Monday. Take Care, Jamie

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RE: [Alug] A new arrival :)
by Jenny_Hopkins＠toby-churchill.com 31 Oct '02

31 Oct '02

Well done to all. 9&3/4lb brings tears to my eyes. If I had another baby I'd name it Root. Jenny. PS. Got my electricity back last night, and looked round the house and wished I hadn't. "Aaaargh, turn it off, I can see...." Still no phone, though.

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Re: [Alug] Weekly IRC reminder
by Jenny_Hopkins＠toby-churchill.com 30 Oct '02

30 Oct '02

>Who is going to show up tonight then? been a bit of a lack of people in >recent weeks =( If our lecky is back on I will pop by using the old mirc - I gave up on the winmodem in the linux box and stuffed it in the windows for the time being thinking I'll buy a proper modem (BTW - anyone got one they wish to sell? 3com one I got from paul worked a treat till it blew up). Otherwise I'll be frying a freezerful of quorn sausages over an open fire in the dark ;-) Jenny.

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Syleham meeting on Sunday
by John Woodard 29 Oct '02

29 Oct '02

Its 9:00pm on Tuesday 29th, the power just came back on, Syleham has been blacked out since 11:00 am on Sunday so thankfully the meeting is still on. I will get the keys for the bar and get the hall opened up around 12:30 - 1:00pm so if anybody fancies a pre meeting drink... Cheers, BJ

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Some advice needed
by bsamuels＠beenthere-donethat.org.uk 29 Oct '02

29 Oct '02

I am using a backup application which I wrote myself in Free Pascal which uses Afio to do the dirty work in conjunction with my SCSI tape drive. Very occasionally a problem occurs during a backup (read or write error) which causes error messages to be appended to the logs, kern.log, messages. sys.log, at such a rate that it consumes about 500MB in a couple of hours. Can anyone suggest a method of monitoring the logs for excessive growth or for the occurrence of the same error message occurring say 25 times which would then automatically kill Afio (which stops the messages). I can't monitor this from inside my own application once control is passed to Afio for the Backup or Verify. Many thanks Barry Samuels

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Weekly IRC reminder
by Neill Newman 28 Oct '02

28 Oct '02

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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Gentoo 1.4 install
by Jamie French 28 Oct '02

28 Oct '02

As we are talking about Gentoo, anyone tried the Live 1.4 cd? Tried to install last night, but found the install instructions did not always relate to the installation and some of the noted commands failed to execute i.e. not found. This may be due to the fact I tried it on a Tosh Tecra 8000, so I gave up a installed Debian woody which worked but took an age and generated many errors and no I did not write them down, got to late to care :) Will probably try Gentoo 1.2 when a chance. Not entirely sure which tarballs to use as what does it mean when stage 2 installs some of the system? Probably trying to do to much to late, tired eyes and all that :) Take Care, Jamie

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re: web hosting
by tom potts 26 Oct '02

26 Oct '02

I've been using fasthosts for a year or so now and have found them to be reliable and helpful. Now if only I could get some of my domains back from certain idiots in the US who want to charge $40 to release a name I own... Tom __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Everything you'll ever need on one web page from News and Sport to Email and Music Charts http://uk.my.yahoo.com

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Cuddly toys
by John Seago 25 Oct '02

25 Oct '02

For cuddly toys try here: http://www.linuxemporium.co.uk/trivia.html -- John Seago

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Web hosting
by Jamie French 25 Oct '02

25 Oct '02

Hi Guys, Someone asked about web hosting a few days ago, sorry can't remember who, but I am currently developing a site for a customer and they use www.fasthosts.co.uk . I must admit very impressed so far, they offer hosting on M$ or Redhat, your choice and their technical support line is very good. May help, if not sorry to bother you guys. Take Care, Jamie

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RE: [Alug] Problems with CD-Writing
by Jonathan Dye 25 Oct '02

25 Oct '02

Raphael Mankin wrote: > Are your CD blanks rated for that speed? However good the hardware > you cannot go faster than the media will take. I think so. I bought them to use with this writer and I would have checked that but it was a long time ago and it's not printed on them (they are on a spindle and it's not printed on the case). JD > > > On 23-Oct-2002 Jonathan Dye wrote: >> Hi guys, >> >> I'm having problems writting CD's (It is an IDE cd writer Acer 20 10 >> 40 soemthing) under linux (debian3 kernel 2.4.18). I can't seem to >> write a CD without getting errors on it (i.e. a diff with the >> orginal show differences). What seems to be happening is that I'm >> getting buffer underrun on the drive as it stops writing >> momentarily. I can't see why as I have cdrecord's fifo set to 16Mb >> and it doesn't drop below 90%, the writer is on it's own channel and >> even if I did get under-run the drive is supposed to have BURN-Proof >> which according to cd-record is switched on. I've tried slowing down >> the writing from 20x to 8x and still got a bad write (although I >> didn't notice the drive stop writing but I didn't watch for the >> whole 10 mins). I've also tried turning DMA on and off by using >> hdparm on the /dev/hd* entires (which seems to work even though I'm >> using ide-scsi) and turning it off means I can't spool data quick >> enough for 20x anyway. I was hoping someone would have a suggestion >> as to what I could do to stop this happening (appart from buy >> scsi!). I'm currently compiling the kernel with less crud and the >> preemptive patch to see if that improves the situation. >> >> JD _____________________________________________________________________ This message has been checked for all known viruses by the MessageLabs Virus Scanning Service

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RE: [Alug] Gentoo 1.4 install
by Jamie French 24 Oct '02

24 Oct '02

I am glad that it wasn't my newbism :) Thanks for the advice will give 1.2 ago if I decide to scrap debian on my laptop. Take Care, Jamie -----Original Message----- From: Ricardo Campos [mailto:corez23@linuxmail.org] Sent: 24 October 2002 19:44 To: Jamie French Cc: lug(a)linuxmail.org Subject: Re: [Alug] Gentoo 1.4 install > Will probably try Gentoo 1.2 when a chance. Not entirely sure which tarballs > to use as what does it mean when stage 2 installs some of the system? I had the same problems with Gentoo 1.4, the install process was totally different compared to the install instructions, and it lacked pcmcia modules, and was therefore useless for my laptop. I tried Gentoo 1.2, and assuming you have broadband, you can have it up and running in one whole day (and night). I would say go for stage 2 or 3 tarballs (esp. if on dialup), but I just did it from stage one. Again, YMMV. Ricardo -- Powered by Outblaze

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Speedtouch Modem
by Wayne Stallwood 24 Oct '02

24 Oct '02

I have a rather odd problem using the Alcatel Speedtouch USB Modem with the sourceforge USB speedtouch drivers http://sourceforge.net/projects/speedtouch/ Running SuSE 8.0 with the latest (and all previous versions of the drivers) I have a stable connection, until I try and listen to a shoutcast stream using xmms. In this instance the connection will usually drop within 3 hours and always within 5. Downloading large files (say an ISO) from a fast mirror presents no problems. After the connection fails there are no errors reported in any of the syslogs. I am unable to restart the connection until I reboot the machine (even after killing all relevant processes and unmounting USB etc) I have posted a message on the Speedtouch mailing list, but had no response. Has anyone experienced this, or got any ideas as to what may be the cause. The machine also dual boots XP, under XP I have no such problem so I know my DSL line/Service is ok. Any help you be greatly appreciated Wayne

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Re: [Alug] strange processes
by Jenny_Hopkins＠toby-churchill.com 24 Oct '02

24 Oct '02

Chris Glover wrote: >Hi Jenny, > >have you tried > >umount -f /ducati Chris, thank you: that gives "illegal seek" however. fuser -v /ducati also causes the terminal to hang. Thanks, Jenny.

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Problems with CD-Writing
by Jonathan Dye 24 Oct '02

24 Oct '02

Hi guys, I'm having problems writting CD's (It is an IDE cd writer Acer 20 10 40 soemthing) under linux (debian3 kernel 2.4.18). I can't seem to write a CD without getting errors on it (i.e. a diff with the orginal show differences). What seems to be happening is that I'm getting buffer underrun on the drive as it stops writing momentarily. I can't see why as I have cdrecord's fifo set to 16Mb and it doesn't drop below 90%, the writer is on it's own channel and even if I did get under-run the drive is supposed to have BURN-Proof which according to cd-record is switched on. I've tried slowing down the writing from 20x to 8x and still got a bad write (although I didn't notice the drive stop writing but I didn't watch for the whole 10 mins). I've also tried turning DMA on and off by using hdparm on the /dev/hd* entires (which seems to work even though I'm using ide-scsi) and turning it off means I can't spool data quick enough for 20x anyway. I was hoping someone would have a suggestion as to what I could do to stop this happening (appart from buy scsi!). I'm currently compiling the kernel with less crud and the preemptive patch to see if that improves the situation. JD -- Jonathan Dye, The Automation Partnership(Cambridge) Ltd Registered Office: York Way, Royston, Hertfordshire, SG8 5WY, UK Registered in England, Company No:2823205 http://www.automationpartnership.com Tel: +44 1763 227 403 Fax: +44 1763 227 201 mailto:jonathan.dye@automationpartnership.com _____________________________________________________________________ This message has been checked for all known viruses by the MessageLabs Virus Scanning Service

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strange processes
by Jenny_Hopkins＠toby-churchill.com 24 Oct '02

24 Oct '02

Hullo List, I've just checked the processes running on my server and discovered a huge stream of the following, one per day: root 4643 0.0 0.5 1760 664 ? S Oct20 0:00 /USR/SBIN/CRON root 4644 0.0 0.8 2028 904 ? S Oct20 0:00 /bin/sh -c test -e /usr/sbin/anacron || run-parts --report /etc/cron.daily root 4645 0.0 0.3 1252 348 ? S Oct20 0:00 run-parts --report /etc/cron.daily root 4692 0.0 0.8 2028 924 ? S Oct20 0:00 sh /etc/cron.daily/find root 4693 0.0 0.8 2048 952 ? S Oct20 0:00 sh /usr/bin/updatedb --localuser=nobody root 4707 0.0 0.8 2048 952 ? S Oct20 0:00 sh /usr/bin/updatedb --localuser=nobody root 4708 0.0 1.3 2340 1444 ? S Oct20 0:00 sort -f root 4709 0.0 0.2 1244 316 ? S Oct20 0:00 /usr/lib/locate/frcode nobody 4710 0.0 0.5 1412 656 ? D Oct20 0:04 /usr/bin/find / ( -fstype NFS -o -fstype nfs -o -fstype afs -o -fstype proc -o -fstype smbfs -o -fstype autofs -o -fstype auto -o -fstype iso9660 -o -fstype ncpfs -o -fstype coda -o -fstype devpts -o -fstype ftpfs -o -type d -regex $^/tmp$$\|$^/usr/tmp$$\|$^/var/tmp$$\|$^/afs$$\|$^/amd$$ \|$^/alex$$\|$^/var/spool$$ ) -prune -o -print I checked the message log and realised that I hadn't unmounted the nfs mount to my other linux box when I dismantled it last week, and cron is trying to access a mount point that it can't. However, I can't seem to kill any of the processes or unmount the nfs mount. I've restarted nfs-server and portmap. I can't umount /mntpoint , it says : Cannot MOUNTPROG RPC: RPC: Port mapper failure - RPC: Unable to receive umount: /ducati: device is busy It would be a shame to reboot the box as it has sat there running reliably and happily since last May. Thanks, Jenny.

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browser spoofing
by tom potts 24 Oct '02

24 Oct '02

It looks as if IE.. can be set to spoof by modifying the registry under W$. A lot of the other browsers can be set to spoof by modifying their .cfg or .ini type files - either through the browser or editing the file itself. Opera doesnt as yet appear to have that facility so perhaps if anyone knows of an open source proxy it might be worth seing if that can be modified to spoof. On the downside.. http://www.mozilla.org/docs/web-developer/sniffer/browser_type.html seems to be able to work out you inside leg measurement! Tom __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Everything you'll ever need on one web page from News and Sport to Email and Music Charts http://uk.my.yahoo.com

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*big* gentoo problem
by Adam Bower 24 Oct '02

24 Oct '02

Hi all, was using gentoo last night and did a emerge clean which should not remove any packages critical for operation of the machine and had it remove portage..... This has resulted in one very poorly box, does anyone have any idea how i could fix this? Is rpm included by default on the system? I can't check anything now as I am at work but I just wanted to read the docs to make sure I hadn't done anything stupid and now feel vindicated that I was not at fault. Anyhow if rpm is included in the base system would somebody mind building me an rpm of portage-2.0.38 please? If it isn't has anybody else got any good ideas? Thanks Adam

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RE: [Alug] strange processes
by Jenny_Hopkins＠toby-churchill.com 24 Oct '02

24 Oct '02

Keith Watson wrote: >have you tried: fsck /off & die > >DON' TRY IT!! Joke! Joke! :O) Oh no! I didn't read the second line till I'd executed the first and now the console has lots of funny error messages all over it.....oh, no, it's gone all black......;-) (- you post this to someone who thinks that the word 'gullible' doesn't appear in the dictionary.......) Adam Bower wrote: >Reboot the box.... or you could try a lsof | grep ducati and killing off >any processes that think they still have files open from the other box >and then unmounting the filesystems. > >The easy option is to reboot the box though if it is non-trivial... >although if the box has been up since May then are you sure you havn't >done anything to it that will stop it coming back up again? ;) > >Adam I've managed to kill nearly all the errant processes with kill -s KILL (seems to mean roughly the same as Keith's suggestion) but still can't approach the mountpoint without it all getting its knickers in a twist. (Quick apt-get install lsof) lsof |grep ducati also hangs. Rebooting the box - *cough* *ahem* well the truth is, gawd knows what I've changed in that time....... I'm off till Monday now, perhaps I'll come in and it will have magically mended itself. Thanks! Jenny.

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RE: [Alug] Merchandise
by Michael Sage 24 Oct '02

24 Oct '02

To All, Last post from me on this one! :o) He is here, Tux, all 30cms of him, view him now @ http://michael.theangel.net/ccam.jpg Michael --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com) Version: 6.0.404 / Virus Database: 228 - Release Date: 15/10/2002

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